Napoleon and Wellington Read online

  ‘Andrew Roberts’s magisterial study… Roberts sets out to explore each man’s contrasting qualities and their opinion of each other. In the process he has uncovered a number of corporeal connections: some enchanting, some mysterious, and others unsavoury’

  Roger Hutchinson, Scotsman

  ‘Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon and Wellington is lively and controversial, like all his writing, as well as being extremely readable’

  Antonia Fraser, Irish Times

  ‘The sheer energy of Andrew Roberts is enough to make lesser historians weep… this sparkling, elegant study of Wellington and Napoleon… This book explores the relationship between two military heroes, two of the most famous opponents of history… It’s part comparative biography, part study of a rivalry. The thesis is that in spite of all their differences, Napoleon and Wellington were more alike than either they or their partisans cared to admit… Roberts has a good eye for detail and anecdote, and he gives some fascinating glimpses of the two men… This is narrative history, readable, well-researched and lively as dry champagne’

  Jane Ridley, Spectator

  ‘Thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully written and meticulously researched. Roberts reveals both men as appalling human beings. Wellington is a viciously snobbish anti-intellectual, Napoleon a brutal megalomaniac who thought nothing of marching thousands of men to their deaths. Comparing their ideas and careers is illuminating and Roberts does it well’

  Jason Burke, Observer

  ‘Andrew Roberts, the political biographer whose life of Lord Salisbury won him the Wolfson Prize for 1999, now brings the same qualities of insight and judgement to the field of military history’

  Correlli Barnett, Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Andrew Roberts has entered the lists of Napoleonic historians, tilted at champions and sent many away with bruised and broken bones. Some of them may never recover’

  Allan Mallinson, The Times

  ‘Beautifully written, stuffed full with a fabulous cast, and proceeding by a series of excellent anecdotes … Roberts is so skilled at his craft that he is able to provide much that might be expected of a biographer… without being distracted from his task. Instead, he has shown how his approach can be used to throw much light on both men. This is not simply a war of quotations. Roberts also focuses on other aspects of their relationship, including sexual competition and provides his own judicious commentary… truly a brilliant work’

  Jeremy Black, History Today

  ‘Roberts shows that the war between the United Kingdom and the French Empire was not only a war between two armies, two political systems and two views of Europe, but also a personal clash between two men. He compares not only their careers and their generalship at Waterloo but also, in his most fascinating chapters, their subsequent comments on each other to friends and historians… Roberts brings a fresh eye to the battlefields of Napoleonic Europe’

  Philip Mansel, Mail on Sunday

  ‘Roberts’s book does have a new focus on the subject. This work is, in the author’s words, “not a joint biography, but rather a study in beliefs and rivalry, propaganda and rancour”. It dispels several myths, such as that of Napoleon’s invincible genius, which supposedly led to his alleged overconfidence on the morning of Waterloo, and – conversely – the myth of Wellington’s modesty and gentlemanliness… There are many fascinating scenes and quotations describing both the great generals in their retirement, polishing their own reputations, and, as Roberts eloquently puts it, adding “barnacles to a well-sailed tale”. Andrew Roberts is both diligent in his research and scholarly. In spite of the limited focus he has imposed on his book, he helps the reader with an excellent and detailed comparative chronology of the Emperor’s and the Duke’s careers. His twelve-page bibliography shows how intelligently he has selected from this potentially huge subject’

  Claus von Bulow, Literary Review

  ‘Andrew Roberts… has found a new means of relating the generals who never met, except, vicariously, at Waterloo. He has told the story of what they thought of each other… what he gives his reader is a wonderful account of a relationship that occurred in two men’s heads’

  Timothy Wilson-Smith, The Tablet

  ‘Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon and Wellington draws us right into the minds of two of the world’s greatest generals. Roberts is an excellent non-academic historian’

  Melvyn Bragg, BBC History Magazine

  ‘Roberts’s research into every detail of his protagonists’ oblique relationship… is impressive and his bibliography long… As between Napoleon and Wellington, the book is commendably impartial’

  John Spurling, TLS

  Chosen as BOOK OF THE YEAR by:

  John Crossland, Sunday Times

  Sarah Bradford, Independent

  Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

  Eric Jacobs, The Times

  Nicholas Fearn, Independent on Sunday

  Melvyn Bragg, BBC History Magazine

  Antonia Fraser, Irish Times

  Iain Duncan Smith, Sunday Telegraph

  Paul Johnson, Sunday Telegraph

  Peter Lewis, Daily Mail

  Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

  Andrew Roberts took a first in Modern History at Cambridge. He has been a professional historian since the publication of his life of Lord Halifax, The Holy Fox, in 1991, followed by Eminent Churchillians in 1994. He contributes regularly to the Sunday Telegraph, lives in Knightsbridge, London, and has two children. His Salisbury won the Wolfson History Prize in 2000. His books include Napoleon and Wellington in 2001, Hitler and Churchill (based on BBC 2 series) in 2003 and What Might Have Been (editor) in 2004. His History of the English Speaking Peoples Since 1900 was published in 2006 and won the Walter Bagehot Prize.

  www.andrew-roberts.net

  By Andrew Roberts

  The Holy Fox: A Biography of Lord Halifax

  Eminent Churchillians

  The Aachen Memorandum

  Salisbury: Victorian Titan

  Napoleon & Wellington

  Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership

  ANDREW ROBERTS

  PHOENIX

  For Henry

  Vive l’Empereur!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Dedication

  Praise

  About the Author

  By Andrew Roberts

  List of illustrations

  Acknowledgments

  Comparative Chronology

  Napoleon

  Wellington

  Introduction

  PART I: THE ROAD TO WATERLOO

  ONE: ‘A Fine Time for an Enterprising Young Man’: 1769–1799

  TWO: Apprenticeship at Arms: 1799–1805

  THREE: A Near Miss: 1805–1808

  FOUR: To Lie Like a Bulletin: 1808–1809

  FIVE: First Recognition: 1809–1810

  SIX: Will He? Won’t He?: 1810–1811

  SEVEN: Two Retreats, One Tragedy: 1812–1813

  EIGHT: ‘Napoleon Has Abdicated’: 1813–1814

  NINE: Evenings on Elba, Nights in Paris: 1814–1815

  TEN: A Hundred-Day Dash for La Gloire: March—June 1815

  PART II: WATERLOO AND ITS AFTERMATH

  ELEVEN: ‘Thank God, I Have Met Him!’: 18 June 1815

  TWELVE: Wellington Protects Napoleon (and His Own Reputation): June–July 1815

  THIRTEEN: Shepherding the Scapegoats: 1815–1816

  FOURTEEN: A Shrinking Colossus: 1817–1821

  FIFTEEN: Remembering with Advantages: 1822–1835

  SIXTEEN: The War for Clio’s Ear: 1836–1852

  Conclusion

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Books


  Article

  Index (compiled by Douglas Matthews)

  Plates

  Copyright

  Illustrations

  Canova’s statue of Napoleon that stands in Apsley House (Victoria & Albert Museum)

  The Duke of Wellington by Sir Thomas Lawrence (The Marquess of Londonderry)

  The Emperor Napoleon by Delaroche (Bridgeman Art Library)

  The six French marshals whom Wellington defeated: André Masséna, Auguste Marmont, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, Michel Ney, Nicolas Soult, Claude Victor (Hulton Getty)

  Wellington’s political allies: Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (Hulton Getty)

  Two mistresses shared by Napoleon and Wellington: Giuseppina Grassini and Josephine Weimer (‘Mademoiselle George’)

  Le Caillou farmhouse, where Napoleon held the pre-battle conference on the morning of Waterloo

  Longwood House, where Napoleon eked out his exile on St Helena (Hulton Getty)

  Field Marshal Prince Leberecht von Blücher (Hulton Getty)

  Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d’Erlon (Bridgeman Art Library)

  Europe’s political weathervanes: Prince Clemens von Metternich, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Prince de Benavente (Hulton Getty)

  King Louis XVIII of France (Hulton Getty)

  Tsar Alexander I of Russia (Hulton Getty)

  Queen Hortense of Holland, the daughter of Josephine and wife of Louis Napoleon (AKG)

  Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese (Bridgeman Art Library)

  The brothers: Richard Colley, Marquess Wellesley, Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain (Hulton Getty)

  The clause in Napoleon’s will which left ten thousand francs to M. Cantillon, Wellington’s would-be assassin

  Wellington’s funeral car (Hulton Getty)

  The Vendôme column in Paris, shortly after being pulled down by the Communards in 1871 (Hulton Getty)

  Acknowledgments

  ‘It has become customary’, wrote an author forty years ago in his introduction to a book about Napoleon’s literary culture, ‘for each new book or article on Napoleon to be prefaced by the author’s apologies for adding yet more to the already enormous bibliography of this apparently overworked subject.’ Pieter Geyl, in his great work Napoleon: For and Against, said that to qualify as a Napoleonic expert ‘one must have devoted a lifetime to the study of the man and his period’. Even the Oxford historian J. Holland Rose, who did actually devote a lifetime to them, and produced perhaps the best single-volume biography ever written on the emperor, also prefaced his work with an apology for ‘giving to the world a new life of Napoleon I’.

  This book does not pretend to be a biography of either Napoleon or Wellington, but is instead a study of the personal relationship between the two men, and of the way that it evolved through their careers. It is therefore not a history of the Peninsular or Napoleonic Wars, nor a ‘joint’ biography, but I believe that it does have the merit of being an original idea. Others have written about the two men’s military interaction, but this book concentrates on what each man thought, wrote and said about the other. Of course it is true that they never met, yet neither did Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, but that did not preclude Schiller from writing a play about them.

  To find a new angle on Napoleon has not been easy. On the shelves of the London Library alone there are books on his boyhood, his military education, his racial background (Arabian, according to one work), his libraries, his parents, his exiles and his religious beliefs. There are works covering his activities as a journalist, lover, revolutionary, gaoler, ruler of Elba, diplomat, family man, ‘bisexual emperor’, martyr, Corsican, patron of the arts, legend, tyrant and murder victim. There is a whole book devoted to his Coronation, and another to a single bequest in his will.

  Then there are the books about Napoleon’s relations with Louis XVIII, Marshal Bernadotte, the Jews, the Vendée, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Empress Marie Louise, Poland, Persia, Palestine, Pope Pius VII, Talleyrand, the Archduke Charles, Egypt, the Spanish Court, Germany, the Bourbons, Queen Hortense, Europe, his parliaments and America.

  There are books about the books about Napoleon, books likening him to Adolf Hitler, so-called ‘autobiographies’ of him, books about his iconography and many collections of his military maxims and bons mots. Archbishop Whately and J. B. Pérès even devoted clever little volumes to the proposition that Napoleon never existed. One day a book will be written about the books written about the books written about him. As a consequence, I feel little trepidation in adding this snowball to the avalanche of published Napoleana.

  I should like to thank the Duke of Wellington for his gracious permission in allowing me full access to his private libraries at Apsley House and Stratfield Saye. Alicia Robinson, director of the Wellington Museum at Apsley House, was tremendously kind with her time and expertise, as were Hon. Georgina Stonor and Victoria Crake at both Apsley House and Stratfield Saye.

  I should also like to thank Professor Jeremy Black, Brooks’s Club for allowing me to quote from its Betting Book, Dr David Chandler, Stephen Duffy of the Wallace Collection, the late Col. John Elting, Roman Golicz, Paddy Griffith, John Gross for explaining literary allusions, Robin Harcourt Williams, Peter Hofschröer, Alistair Horne, Martin Howe QC for advice on the Code Napoléon, Dr James Le Fanu for his views on Napoleon’s real and supposed illnesses, Lionel Leventhal of Greenhill Books, the unfailingly courteous and efficient staff at the London Library, the Marquess of Londonderry, Lady Longford, Grania Lyster, Philip Mansel, David Marks of Napoleonic Wargamers, Frank and Pauline McLynn, Rodney Melville, Gilbert Menne for showing me around Le Caillou, Dr Rory Muir, the staff of the National Army Museum, especially Julian Humphrys, Lord Powell of Bayswater, Dr Frank Prochaska, Dr Stuart Semmel, the staff at Southampton University Archives, Jonathan Terris of the Napoleonic Wars Re-enactment Society for explaining the complexities of musketry, Jean Tulard and Andrew Uffindell.

  Several friends and specialists have done me the honour of reading my manuscript, and I should like to thank Claus von Bulow, Ian Fletcher, Leo Groth, C. W. Haigh, Col. John Hughes-Wilson, Julian Humphrys, David McAlpine, John Ogden, Richard Old, Stephen Parker and my father Simon Roberts for their enormously helpful advice.

  I would like in particular to thank Ian Fletcher of the incomparable Ian Fletcher Battlefield Tours for showing me around the battlefields of Talavera, Albuera, Badajoz, Campo Mayor, El Bodon, Fuenteguinaldo, Almeida, the Coa, Fuentes d’Ooro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, Garcia Hernandez and Waterloo, which has been one of the greatest pleasures in writing this book. Philip Haythornthwaite’s encyclopædic knowledge of the Napoleonic period and generosity with his time has also been invaluable.

  For their great help in translating documents, I should like to thank the lovely Leonie Frieda, Julietta Dexter and Santa Montefiore. For their tremendously professional work, as well as their personal help and encouragement, I would like to thank my editor at Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Ion Trewin, my agent Georgina Capel of Capel & Land, and my copy-editor Peter James.

  Camilla Gray Muir typed up the first eight chapters, for which I am, as for so much else, hugely in her debt. This book is dedicated to our five-year-old son Henry, in the hope that he will gain as much pleasure from the study of history in his life as I have in mine.

  Andrew Roberts

  www.andrew-roberts.net

  January 2003

  Comparative Chronology

  Napoleon

  (compiled with grateful acknowledgments to Felix Markham)

  1769 AUG 15 Born

  1779 JAN 1 Attends religious school at Autun

  MAY 15 Attends cadet school at Brienne

  1784 OCT 30 Enters École Militaire, Paris, as cadet-gentilhomme

  1785 FEB 24 Father dies of stomach cancer

  SEP 1 Leaves École Militaire as sous-lieutenant of artillery

  1786 SEP 1 Goes to Corsica on leave (until June 1788)

&nbsp
; 1789 JUL 14 The storming of the Bastille

  SEP 15 Returns to Corsica

  1790 JUL 14 On Paoli’s return to Corsica, N. initially adhered to him

  1791 FEB 10 Returns to regimental duty at Auxonne

  APR 1 Promoted premier lieutenant

  JUL 6 Takes oath of allegiance to National Assembly

  1792 APR 1 Elected lieutenant-colonel, 2nd Battalion of Corsican Volunteers

  AUG 10 Witness to massacre of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries

  AUG 19 Prussians invade France (defeated at Valmy on Sep 20)

  Wellington

  (compiled with grateful acknowledgments to Elizabeth Longford)