TableofContents

PENGUINBOOKSTitlePageCopyrightPageDedicationListofIllustrationsPrefaceandAcknowledgements

IntroductionChapter1-TheOriginsoftheNapoleonicWarsChapter2-FromBrumairetoAmiensChapter3-ThePeaceofAmiensChapter4-TowardstheThirdCoalitionChapter5-AusterlitzChapter6-ZenithofEmpireChapter7-Acrossthe

PyreneesChapter8-FromMadridtoViennaChapter9-TheAlliancethatFailedChapter10-DownfallChapter11-TheCongressofViennaNotesGlossaryofPlaceNamesBibliographyIndex

PENGUINBOOKS

NAPOLEON’SWARS

Charles Esdaile is one ofBritain’s foremostNapoleonic historians. He is

professor in history at theUniversity of Liverpool andthe author ofThe PeninsularWar: A New History andSpain in the Liberal Age,among other books.He livesnearFormby,England.

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FirstpublishedinGreatBritainbyAllenLane,PenguinBooksLtd2007FirstpublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyVikingPenguin,amemberofPenguinGroup(USA)Inc.2008

PublishedinPenguinBooks(UK)2008PublishedinPenguinBooks(USA)

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ListofIllustrations

Napoleon Bonaparte as 1stConsul, copy after a lostportrait by Robert Lefevre,1803, in the Musée duChâteaudeVersailles(photo:TheArtArchive/DagliOrti).Napoleon Giving OrdersbeforetheBattleofAusterlitz,2nd December 1805, 1808,

by Antoine Charles HoraceVernet in the Musée duChâteaudeVersailles(photo:Lauros/Giraudon/TheBridgemanArtLibrary).The Result of theDay of theThree Emperors, caricaturedrawn after the battle ofAusterlitz by French school(nineteenth century) in theBibliothèqueNationale, Paris(photo:Lauros/Giraudon/TheBridgemanArtLibrary).The Fall of Nelson by Denis

Dighton, early nineteenthcentury©NationalMaritimeMuseum,London.Duckworth’s Action off SanDomingo,6thFebruary1806,byNicholasPocock,1808.©National Maritime Museum,London. The French ArmyPulling Down the RossbachColumn, 18th October 1806(detail) by Pierre Vafflard,1810, in the Musée duChâteaudeVersailles(photo:Lauros / Giraudon / The

BridgemanArtLibrary).Entry of Napoleon I intoBerlin,27thOctober1806,by1810CharlesMeynier, ,1810in the Musée du Château deVersailles (photo:Lauros/Giraudon/TheBridgemanArtLibrary).Le Jeu des Quatre Coins ouLes Cinq Frères, 1808,French school, in a privatecollection (photo: TheBridgemanArtLibrary).Napoleon receives Tsar

Alexander I, Queen Louiseand King Frederick WilliamIIIofPrussiaatTilsit,July6,1807 (detail) by NicholasGosse in the Musée duChâteaudeVersailles(photo:TheArtArchive/DagliOrti).Boney and Talley, or TheCorsicanCarcass-Butcher’sReckoning Day, by JamesGillray,1803,courtesyoftheWardenandScholarsofNewCollege, Oxford (photo: TheBridgemanArtLibrary).

The Second ofMay,Madrid,1808, copy by A. Alvarezafter an original by ManuelCastellano in the MunicipalMuseum of Madrid (photo:AISA,Barcelona).The Rage of Napoleon,cartoon by early nineteenthcentury Spanish school(photo:AISA,Barcelona).TheSurrenderofBailen,23rdJuly 1808 (detail) by JoséCasado del Alisal in thePrado, Madrid (photo: The

BridgemanArtLibrary).Napoleon and Marie-Louiseat the Launch of ‘TheFriedland’ at Antwerp, 2ndMay1810(detail)byMathieuIgnacevanBreeintheMuséedu Château de Versailles(photo:Lauros/Giraudon/TheBridgemanArtLibrary).British Sailors Boarding aMan-of-War, Hermione, 25October1799 (detail) by Fryand Sutherland after JohnAtkinson, . © National

MaritimeMuseum,London.Ski-born troops at the BattleofTrangen, 1808, (detail) byAndreas Bloch, from Syv-aars-krigenfor17Mai1807-1814 (pub. 1914) by HenrikAngell (photo: courtesyForsvarsmuseet,Oslo).Portrait of PetrovicKaradjordje, 1816, byVladimirBorovikovskyintheNationalMuseum,Belgrade.A Reception at the court ofSelim III, in theDivanCourt

of the Topkapi Palace,Istanbul, Ottoman School,late eighteenth century(photo: The ArtArchive/Topkapi MuseumIstanbul/DagliOrti).Archduke Charles with hisstaff at the battle of Aspern-Essling, May 1809, , byJohann Peter Krafft in thePrincipality Collection,Vaduz, Liechtenstein (photo:akg-images).BattleofFuentesd’Oñoroon

5thMay1811,from‘ASeriesof Views of the PrincipalOccurrences of theCampaigns in Spain andPortugal’, 1812, by C.Turner, after Thomas StClair, courtesy of theCouncil, National ArmyMuseum,London(photo:TheBridgemanArtLibrary).Episode from the War inSpain of 1812: Castalla,1837, Jean-Charles Langloisin theMusée du Château du

Versailles (photo: © PhotoRMN-©GérardBlot).The Battle for Smolensk 17August 1812 by AlbrechtAdam©TheStateHermitageMuseum, St Petersburg (InvOR-26980).The Attack of Uvarov’scavalry at Borodino, 1812(detail) by August Dezarno,© The State HermitageMuseum, St Petersburg (InvERI-).TheCrossingoftheBeresina,

1812,c.1859,byJanuarySucholdolski in the NationalMuseum, Poznan (photo:akg-images).CossackSportsorthePlatoffHuntinFullCryafterFrenchGame,,byWilliamElmes,ina private collection (photo:TheBridgemanArtLibrary).The Battle of Hanau, 1813,1824 (detail) by Emile JeanHoraceVernetintheNationalGallery, London (photo: The

BridgemanArtLibrary).The Field of Waterloo as itappeared the Morning afterthe Memorable Battle of the18th June 1815, 1817,engraved by M. Dubourg,after John Heaviside Clark,courtesy of the Council,National Army Museum,London (photo: TheBridgemanArtLibrary).Everyefforthasbeenmadetocontact all copyright holders.

Thepublisherswillbegladtomake good in future editionsany errors or omissionsbroughttotheirattention.

PrefaceandAcknowledgements

Conqueror or liberator?Aggressor or victim? Sinneror saint? Man of blood ormartyr? For two hundredyears the argument withregard to Napoleon and hisforeignpolicyhasrumbledon

unabated:itshowsnosignofcoming to an end, let alonebeing resolved. The reasonsare perfectly clear.Throughout his careerNapoleon had an eye onposterity, whilst his exile tothe tiny island of St Helenaprovided him with ampleopportunity literally to makehistory. Through his editedtable-talk, through theinterviews that he concededto passing guests and

travellers, and through thememoirs that he encouragedhis companions to write, hereached out beyond theconfines of grave and exile,and established a version ofevents which historians havefoundimpossibletoignore.Morethananyotherfigure

in history, meanwhile,Napoleon has had thecapacity to inspire a loyalband of followers to spendtheir lives in a crusade to

defend his historicalreputation. Armed with the‘holyscripture’handeddownon the mount of St Helena,and aided by a variety ofpolitical andhistorical fellowtravellers, these latterdaysoldiers of the grande arméehave for generation aftergeneration variously soughtto persuade the world thattheir hero desired only todefend thehonour ofFrance,to preserve the French

Revolution, to liberate therest of Europe from thechains of the ancien régimeand even to create a unitedEurope thatwouldhavebeena precursor of the currentEuropean Union. Byconstantly returning to thecharge, they have kept thedebate alive and, amongstother things, made this bookpossible. Indeed, not justpossible but essential: theirarguments are so powerful

and attractive that they havein effect won the battle forthe publicmind. Peoplewhohave never heard ofBrumaire, Marengo,Austerlitz or Wagram,nevertheless ‘know’ thatNapoleon somehow standsfor liberty, progress and theadvancement of the ‘littleman’. Hence the triumph ofNapoleonasbrandname,andtheprominencehisfigurehasachieved in the world of

advertising (and perhaps thecinema: Napoleon is not justoneofthemostwrittenaboutpersonalitiesinhistory,butisalso reputed to be the onethat, after Jesus Christ, hasbeen the most portrayed onfilm).Theideathatanyonebook

could possibly reverse thissituation is laughable,but forall that the attempt must bemade. Thus the Napoleonwho stands so tall in the

public mind, the Napoleonwho to this day exerts sogreat a pull on the publicimagination, is the Napoleonthat the emperor himselfwished us to see, theNapoleon who first emergedin the propaganda of ahundred imperial bulletinsand a thousand copies of LeMoniteur and was thenenshrined for all time in thelegend of St Helena. By thesametoken,allthearguments

thathavebeenused-andarestillused-tocreateapositiveimage of the emperor are ineffect the arguments ofNapoleon himself. Each andeveryoneofthosearguments,however, is open at the veryleast to serious question, andthere are now few academichistorianswhoacceptthematanything like face value.Yetacademic historians rarelyattract the audience that theydeserve,andthefirstpurpose

of this book is therefore tosynthesize their work andinsert it into a debate fromwhich it is all too oftenabsent.But Napoleon’s Wars is

not just one morecontribution to the Napoleoncontroversy. It is also anattempt to approach thesubject from a very differentperspective. Hitherto thesubject of the NapoleonicWarshasalmostalwaysbeen

handled throughoneorotherof two prisms: either as abiography of Napoleon or asa studyofhis campaigns.Ashistorical genres there isnothingwrongwith either oftheseapproaches,buttheydohave certain limitations inthat they concentrate on astory that is distinctlyunidimensional and, worse,retell a story that has beentold over and over again. Inconsequence, a survey of the

historiography of theNapoleonic Wars cannot butleave the observer with asenseofdissatisfaction.WhatwehaveisinvariablyalitanyofNapoleon’sbattles,buttheNapoleonic Wars did notsolely consist of Napoleon’sbattles, but were also wagedin a series of theatres - theIberian Peninsula, Italy, theBalkans,Scandinavia-whichthe emperor either nevergracedwithhispresenceatall

or only visited very briefly.Of these other theatres ofwar, all of them situated onthe peripheries of theContinent, only the first hasreceived detailed treatment(and even then in a fashionthathasbeenjustasskewed).We therefore come to thesecond purpose ofNapoleon’s Wars: to write ahistory of the NapoleonicWars that reflects their pan-European dimension and is

not just francocentric. Indoing so Ihavehad to fill inmany gaps, and the result issometimessomewhatcurious;Ihavehadtoexpendfarmoreink on the Serbian revolt ofthan on the battle ofAusterlitz,forexample.Butifthis is the case I make noapologies; there would beneither merit nor point inwasting words on narrativesthatarealreadytwoapenny.Connected with this issue

isthethirdaimofNapoleon’sWars. Although this isanything but clear from theconventional historiography,Napoleondidnotjustexistina vacuum. Like the FrenchRevolution before him, herather emerged in a Europewhose international historywasdominatedbyevents,notin theWest,but rather in theEast.Thefocusofattentionatthe time was above all onPoland and the Ottoman

Empire,andthemanoeuvringthat centred on these twostates - the one defunct by1800 and the other alreadythe proverbial ‘sick man’ ofEurope,albeitasickmanthatwas currently making realeffortstofightoffhisdisease.Thesefocididnotaltereitherfor the events of 1789 or forthoseof1789.Whatthisbookalsoattemptstodo,then,istoplacetheNapoleonicWarsintheir true context. The idea,

admittedly, is not an originalone: in 1995, PaulSchroeder’s magisterialTransformation of EuropeanPolitics attempted much thesame task. But this presentwork represents the firstattempt to look at theNapoleonic Wars alone.Whilst Schroeder does thesame thing, and doubtlessmuchmoreelegantly,hedoesso in the context of a studythat ranges all the way from

1763 to 1848, almostconcealing the fact that it isone of the most importanttwentieth-centurycontributionstotheNapoleoncontroversy.So much, then, for

rationaleandjustification.Asever,my debts aremany. Atthe topof the listmust standmy agent, Bill Hamilton,whose suggestion that Ishould write ‘a big book onNapoleon’ sparked off the

process of thought thateventually ledme towhere Iam today.Next in line comemy editor at Penguin Books,SimonWinder,whohasbeenthesouloffaith,patienceandencouragement alike, and hisassistant, Chloe Campbell,whoistrulyoneofthejewelsin Penguin’s crown. Thiswork being inmany respectsasynthesis,Ishouldnextaddthe staff of the BritishLibrary, the Biblioteca

Nacional in Madrid, andfinally the Sydney JonesLibrary at the University ofLiverpool, much technicalassistance also having beenreceived from CeciliaMackay, who carried out allthepictureresearch,andJaneRobertson whose carefulcopy-editing has greatlyenhanced the text.Then, too,there aremy colleagues, andespecially my many co-workers in the field of

Napoleonic history. Gracedas I am by a particularlydistinguished peer group, Ishouldhereespecially like tomention Marianne Elliot,Alan Forrest, Tim Blanning,Michael Broers, Rory Muir,Christopher Hall, MichaelRowe, Janet Hartley, JeremyBlack, Paul Schroeder, EnnoKraehe, Clive Emsley,Malcolm Crook, DesmondGregory, Michael Duffy,John Lynn, Stuart Woolf,

David Gates, AlexanderGrab,Geoffrey Ellis, DonaldHorward, Owen Connelly,Harold Parker, Jean Tulard,Phillip Dwyer, BrendanSimms, Rick Schneid and,last but not least, GuntherRothenburg and DavidChandler, both of whomsadly passed away shortlybefore the manuscript ofNapoleon’s Wars wascompleted. For reasons ofspace, I am unable to

acknowledge my manyborrowings from them (and,indeed, many other scholars)inproperform,butIamnonethe less grateful to them all,and am well aware thatwithouttheireffortsthisbookcould probably never havebeen written; from many ofthem,too,Ihavereceivedthewarmest friendship, the bestof company and the kindestof support andencouragement.Finally,there

ismyfamily.Camp-followersas heroic and long sufferingin their way as any of thepoorsoulswhotrudgedalongin the wake of Napoleon’sarmies, Alison, Andrew,Helen, Maribel andBernadette havewalkedwithme every step of the longroad that has led fromAmienstoWaterlooand,liketheir predecessors, deservemuch in the way ofrecognition.

Lastly, a word ontechnicalities. All quotationshave been put into modernEnglish in terms ofpunctuation and spelling,whilst outdated anglicismshave in general also beeneschewed (so that Saragossa,for example, is rendered‘Zaragoza’, Leghorn‘Livorno’ and Gothenburg‘Göteborg’). By contrast, inthe many instances inScandinavia, Eastern Europe

and the Balkans whereforeign names have changedin the wake of twentieth-century shifts in frontiers,ethnicities and politicalallegiances, foreign nameshave for the most part beenleftintheformmostlikelytobe familiar to readers ofNapoleonic history: for themodern form, please see theglossary at the end of thebook. There are, however, afew exceptions. To refer to

Alexandria, Prague, Warsawand Moscow by any othernameswouldbebothaffectedand unhelpful, whilst one ortwo very small places havecompletely defeated alleffortstodiscoverthemodernversion.OnesuchisPläswitz,the Silesian villagewhere anarmisticewasagreedbetweenNapoleon and his Russianand Prussian opponents inJune1813:indeed,thereisnoagreement even on the

German name for this place:‘Pläswitz’ is only the mostcommon element in a listwhich includes Parchwitz,Plaeswitz, Pleiswitz,PlasswitzandPleschwitz.Forall such inadequacies andinconsistencies, not tomention the factual errors -allmyown-thatthetextmaycontain, I can only offer myapologies.

CharlesEsdaile

Liverpool2July2006

Europe,January1799

Napoleon’sReorganizationofGermany,1803

Europe,July1803

Europe,September1806

Central Europe, September1809

Europe,March1810

Europe,May1812

Europe after theCongress ofVienna

IntroductionTheNapoleonicWarsinHistoricalPerspective

WritingoftheoutbreakoftheNapoleonic Wars in 1803,John Holland Rose onceremarked, ‘The history ofNapoleon now becomes, fortwelvemomentous years, the

historyofmankind.’1 Such aremark today seems like arelic of a bygone era.At thetime that Britain and Francewerecomingtoblows,RobertFulton was inventing thesteamship,RichardTrevithickbuilding the first steamlocomotive, and WilliamJessop engineering the firstpublic railway in the world.InNorthAmerica,LewisandClark were on the brink of

becomingthefirstwhitemento make it all the way fromthe eastern seaboard to thePacific Ocean; in Africa theSokoto caliphate was in theprocess of islamicizing theHausapeopleofwhatistodaynorthern Nigeria; and inChina the so-called ‘WhiteLotus’ sect was leading aseries of anti-Manchu revoltsthat discredited the rulingQing dynasty and helpedpave the way for its

subsequent disintegration.Asfor the world of ideas, newcurrents were starting toemerge that would havehorrifiedmost of themen of1789 (let alone Napoleon):while Saint-Simon was atwork on the ideas of proto-socialism, Madame de Staël,Mary Wollstonecroft and anumberofotherwriterswereexplicitly raising the bannerof female emancipation. Thehistory of Napoleon, then,

was never the history of theworld. Was it, though, thehistory of Europe? It is thisquestion that this book seeksto answer, at least from theperspective of internationalrelations. Was the Frenchruler a prime mover inevents? Was NapoleonicEurope, inshort,proofof the‘great-man’theoryofhistory?Orwasherathercaughtupinprocessesthathadbeensetintrainwithoutanyintervention

on his part? The emperorhimselfseemstohavebeenintwo minds. At one time heremarked, ‘I have alwayscommanded; from themoment thatmy life began Iwas filled with power, andsuch were my circumstancesand my strength alike thatfromthemomentthatIcameto prominence I recognizedneither masters nor laws.’2Yetat anotherwhatoccurred

in Europe between 1803 and1815 he put down tosomething very different: ‘Ihave never really been myown master; I have alwaysbeen governed bycircumstances.’3 Whateverthe truth, one thing is clear:the France of Napoleon wasnotactinginavacuum.Evenif the course of internationalrelations does prove to havebeen bent to his will, the

other powers in Europe hadstrategicanddiplomaticgoalsthat long predatedNapoleon,anddidnotceasetoplaytheirowngames justbecause theysuccessivelycameunderevergreater threat from Paris.Hencetheneedforaworkonthe international aspects ofNapoleonic Europe that issomethingotherthanjustonemore life of NapoleonBonaparte, or one morerecitationofhiscampaigns.

Letusbeginbydiscussingwhat we mean when we saythe Napoleonic Wars.Hostilities broke out on 18May 1803 when Britain,pushed beyond endurance byrepeated acts of aggressionandhostility,declaredwaronFranceandhernewruler,theso-called First Consul,NapoleonBonaparte. For thenexttwoyearstherewaslittlein the way of land conflict,but amidst much naval

manoeuvringonthehighseaswhich led, amongst otherthings,toSpainjoiningforceswith France in 1804, a largeFrench army massed on theFrench coast and menacedBritain with invasion. Nofleet of landing craft set sail,however,andinAugust1805thedangerrecededaltogether:whereas in 1803 Britain hadstood alone, the summer of1805 had seen a powerfulanti-French coalition come

together. Alongside Britainthere now stood Austria,Russia, Sweden and Naples,and so the French armieswere soon marching east todeal with the new threat. AFranco-Spanish fleet wasdestroyedatTrafalgar,buttheAustrians were defeated atUlm and the Russians atAusterlitz. Badly beaten,AustriamadepeaceandforabriefmomentitappearedthatBritain and Russia might

followherexample.Evenhadthis happened, it is unlikelyEuropewouldhavebeenableto keep the peace: followingthe outbreak of a revolt inSerbia in 1804, the OttomanEmpire was rapidly slidingtowards war with Russia,such a conflict eventuallybreakingoutintheautumnof1806. But all chances ofpeacewithFrancewere soonatanend:neitherBritainnorRussiawasabletoobtainthe

compromise peace that theysought, or at least not in anacceptable form, and then inSeptember an increasinglydesperate Prussia attackedNapoleon. There followedfurther great battles: thePrussians were crushed atJena and Auerstädt, whilst aFrenchinvasionofPolandledin February 1807 to theterrible slaughter on theblizzard-sweptfieldofEylau.For amomentNapoleonwas

checked, but the coming ofsummer sawanewoffensivethat led to another Frenchtriumph at Friedland,whereupon the Tsar ofRussia, Alexander I, decidedtomakepeace.This settlement was a

turning point. Following thevictories of the past twoyears, Napoleon was at theheightofhispower.Crownedemperor of France inDecember 1804, he now

presided over a vast empire.Over the past few years thesatellite republics inheritedfrom the 1790s had beenjoinedbynewterritories,andthe whole now constituted aseriesofmonarchiesruledbyone or other of Napoleon’smany brothers and sisters.These principalities includedHolland,theGermanstatesofWestphalia and Berg, theKingdom of Italy (roughlyspeaking, the valley of the

river Po) and Naples. Manyother areas, meanwhile -Belgium, the Rhineland,Piedmont-hadbeenannexedtoFranceandvaryingdegreesof control were also enjoyedin Germany, where the oldHoly Roman Empire hadbeen replaced by a newConfederation of the Rhine,andPoland,partofwhichhadbeen organized into yetanother satellite state knownas the Grand Duchy of

Warsaw. With Spain a loyalally and Russia in effectpersuadedtojoinNapoleoninhis war against Britain, theway was open for finalvictory, to achievewhich theemperor instigated acontinent-wide embargo onBritish trade that isgenerallyreferred toas theContinentalSystem.4Napoleon completely

failed to exploit this

opportunity and it is oftensaidthatin1808hemadethegreatestmistakeofhiscareerby turning on his Spanishallies and overthrowing theBourbonmonarchy in favourof his brother, JosephBonaparte. Such anassessment, however, isshort-sighted. The Spanishadventure may have plungedFrance into a long anddevastatingwarwhichwastosee-sawbackandforthinthe

IberianPeninsulaforthenextfive years, but in itself thiswasnotadisaster.Exertingagreater degree of control inSpainmadesenseintermsofboth Napoleon’s war againstBritain and the partition ofthe Ottoman Empire, whichhe was certainly consideringby1808,whilstthewartherewasbynomeansunwinnable.The real error wasNapoleon’s treatment of therest of the Continent. Such

was the loathing and distrustwith which Britain wasregarded in Germany, Italy,Scandinavia, Austria andRussia that a policy ofconciliationandrespectmightwell have won the emperorthe active support of thewholeofEurope,andmadeitvery difficult for Britain tocontinue the war. From thebeginning, however, theNapoleonicimperiumshoweditself to be bent on nothing

more than exploitation; eventhe reforms that itbrought inamounted to little more thanattempts to produce moremenandmoney.And for theotherpowersitwasclearthatwhatfacedthemwasineffectcomplete subjugation toParis.Realizing this,Austria,likePrussiabeforeher,madea last-ditch attempt to asserther independence in 1809,only to be defeated atWagram. This victory, the

last of Napoleon’s greattriumphs, was not enough torestore France’s authority,however.Increasinglyrestive,Russia broke with Napoleonat the end of 1810 andmobilized her army. To thevery end, conflict in theEastcouldhavebeenavoided,butthe French ruler would notcompromise with Alexanderover any of the matters atissue, and in June 1812 agiganticFrencharmyinvaded

Russia. This proveddisastrous for Napoleon. Hishold on the rest of Europewas jeopardized by the needto mass as large a force aspossible against Russia,whilst thearmythatmarchedinto Lithuania and ultimatelyended up in Moscow wascompletely destroyed by acombination of stubbornRussian resistance and therigours of the Russianclimate.

There followed a terribleendgame. In a decision ofcrucial importance,Alexander resolved not tostop at the Russian frontier,but to invade Germany andtheGrandDuchy ofWarsawsoastodealNapoleonsuchablowthathisdreamsofglorywould finally be brought toan end. This led Prussia torise up against the French,whilst further posturing ontheemperor’spartbroughtin

theAustriansandmanyoftheGerman states. After monthsof bitter fighting the newarmy that Napoleon hadmanaged to improvise in thewake of the Russian disasterwas destroyed at Leipzig,leaving the French ruler nooption but to evacuateGermany and retreat to theriver Rhine. Offered severalpeace deals that would haveleft him on the throne ofFrance,Napoleonresolved to

fight on in the hope that thealliance against him mightfall apart, but his situationwasnowdesperate.Not onlywas France in revolt at theendless demands for moreconscripts, but, havingoverthrown the BonaparteKingdom of Spain at thebattleofVitoriainJune1813,the Anglo-Portuguese armyhadcrossedthePyrenees.Inacampaign of great brilliance,Napoleon held out for a few

more weeks, but by earlyApril it was quite clear thatthe situation was hopeless,and the emperor was in theend forced toabdicatebyhisowngenerals.With the exception of a

further episode of violencethe following year, whenNapoleon escaped from thepetty kingdom he had beenawarded on the Italian islandofElba,seizedpowerinParisand once more went to war,

only to be defeated at thebattle of Waterloo, theNapoleonic Wars were over.What,though,arewetomakeof them as a historicalepisode? The first thing tonote is that the conflict of1803-15 has often beenregardedasacontinuationofthenineyearsofwarthathadfollowed the outbreak ofhostilities betweenRevolutionary France andvarying combinations of the

other states of Europe inApril 1972. At first Francehad only been faced byAustria and Prussia, but then1973 the increasingly radicaltenor of events inFrance ledmany other countries to jointhestruggleagainsther.Forayearormoreitwasaquestionof theFrenchversus the rest,but very soon a variety offactors led state after state tofall away and even to makealliances with France against

Britain.By1797all thatwasleftwereBritainandAustria,and in thatyearevenAustriawasbroughtdownbyastringof victories gained byNapoleon - then plainGeneral Bonaparte - in Italy.As was to be the case tenyears later, Britain stood allbut alone, but on thisoccasion too Frenchaggression played into herhands. Led by Napoleon, aFrench army invaded Egypt

and this prompted Austria,Russia, Naples and theOttomanEmpiretogotowar.However, from this struggleNapoleon - from November1799 ruler of France -emerged victorious. AustriaandNaplesweredefeatedandforcedtomakepeace;Russiawas persuaded in effect tochangesides;andBritainwasleft with no option but tosecure such terms as shecould in the Treaty of

Amiens.It is often argued that this

long sequence of wars wasthe fruit of an ideologicalclashbetweenFranceandtheancien régime, that theprinciples of the FrenchRevolutionwere so shockingtotherulersandstatesmenofthe rest of Europe that theyembarked on a crusadeagainst them that could haveno end until they had beencrushed and the Bourbons

restored to the throne ofFrance. Equally, convincedthat there was no otheroption, and that it was,indeed, theirduty, successiverulers of France strove toexport the principles of theRevolution to theendsof theearth. This idea has beenmuchexaggerated.Therewascertainly much loathing of‘Jacobinism’ in Europe’ssalons, courts andchancellories, while the

conflictwas accompanied bysustained propagandacampaigns of a like neverbeen seen before. But in theend few governments orrulers were genuinelycommitted to the cause ofwhatwouldlaterbeknownasregimechangeandstillfewerenthusiasticat theideaof therestoration of the Bourbonmonarchyasithadexistedin1789.Eveninthe1790stherehad been plenty of states

willing to essay a policy ofdétente with France, andotherswhohad joined her inpursuit of long-standingforeignpolicyinterestsofonesort or another, while by thetime of Austerlitz, Jena andFriedland there was inpractice no state that couldnothavelivedwithNapoleonprovided that he acceptedcertain limits to France’spower. Indeed, to imaginethat the French Revolution

and its successors somehowset aside the main issues ininternational relations wouldbemostshort-sighted:oneofthe reasons why Franceachieved asmuch as she didwas because most of thepowers that faced hercontinued until 1812 or laterto pursue other concerns.Russia is agoodexample. In1791 and again in 1794Russia’s troopswere fightingnot theFrench but thePoles,

while during the NapoleonicWars Alexander I did nothesitate to get involved inconflicts not just in theBalkansbutalsointheBalticand central Asia. Equally, in1814Sweden’sforcesweretobe found not battlingNapoleon, but ratherconcentratingontheconquestofNorway.If Europe was not divided

along ideological lines, whatdidthelongperiodofconflict

that gripped her between1792and1815stemfrom?Inthe end, as we shall see, theprimemoverwasNapoleon’sown aggression, egomaniaand lust for power, but onecannot ignore other factorsthat are essentially structuralor systemic. The mostimportantofthesewere,first,the issueofwhat todoaboutEastern Europe and, inparticular, how to fill thevacuumleftbythedeclineof

Sweden, Poland and theOttoman Empire, and thesecond, the endemic colonialand commercial conflict thathad for most of the pastcentury characterized therelationship between Britainand France. Indeed, withrespect to the first issue, it iseven possible to argue thatthe French RevolutionaryWars were precipitated by,and part of, a much widercrisis that began in Eastern

Europe in 1787. Rather thanimaginingtheFrenchWarsasa new type of conflict thatforeshadowed the total warsof the twentieth century, it ismore sensible to think ofthemintermsof thedynasticwars of the eighteenthcentury. As far as Napoleonis concerned, the mostobvious parallel is LouisXIV.KingofFrancebetween1643and1715,in1667Louisembarkedonaprogrammeof

conquest that,on thesurface,foreshadowed that ofNapoleon.Firstofall,aseriesofconflictswithHollandandother powers brought Francean important slice of theSpanish Netherlands and theregionofAlsace,and then in1700 the death without issueof King Charles II of Spainopened up the possibility ofacquiring for France - or atleastasuitable‘cat’s-paw’inthe person of Louis’s

grandson, Philippe - thewhole of the inheritance ofthe Spanish Habsburgs. Hadthis ploy succeeded, Louiswould have ended up with asphere of influenceencompassing Spain, Naples,Sicily, Sardinia, Lombardyand theSpanishNetherlands,not to mention a colonialempire that would haveincorporated much of NorthandSouthAmerica.With France effectively

propelled to superpowerstatus, her domination ofWestern Europe would havebeen total, and thus it wasthat a broad coalition ofpowers arose to challengeLouis in the War of theSpanish Succession. On theone side were France, Spain(where Philippe had quicklyestablished himself as FelipeV) and a fewminor GermanstatesthathadfallenoutwithAustria; and on the other,

Britain, Holland, Denmark,Austriaandmostofthestatesof the Holy Roman Empire.The following struggle wasfor its time at least asdemandingastheNapoleonicWars. The armies raised bythe combatants were verysubstantial. In 1710 LouisXIV’s army amounted to255,000 men and that ofQueen Anne of Britain toabout 58,000; indeed, oneestimateplaces the figure for

the French army as high as360,000. At first sight thesefigures appear quite small,and certainly much smallerthan the armies that werefielded in the Napoleonicperiod, but then, thepopulation base was muchlower. In 1700 France hadabout 20 million inhabitants,whereas by 1800 the figurehadrisentosome33million,the equivalent figures forBritainbeing5millionand16

million. With generalprosperity and especiallylevels of agriculturalprosperity at a lower level,warfarewasalsoafargreaterburden on society. And forFrance in particular the Warof the Spanish Successionrepresented a veritablecalvary.AsLouiswasunableto maintain a presence ineither Germany or Italy, theentire weight of the strugglefell on his unfortunate

subjects. Conscription wasvery heavy–between 1701and1713455,000 men were called

up-andstillmoremenwereperiodically pressed to digfortifications, with the resultthat agricultural productionexperiencedasignificantfall,thereby forcing up breadprices. Larger armies, anobsessionwiththeattackanddefence of fortresses and theever greater prominence of

cannon all made the cost ofthe fighting enormous.Between 1700 and 1706government expenditureamounted to 1,100 millionfrancs, while between 1708and 1715 it rose to 1,900million. Then in 1709 therecame natural catastrophe.France had already beenravaged by epidemics ofdysenteryandotherscourges,but in that year she wasstruck by one of the worst

winters ever recorded. Withthe harvest completelydestroyed, the populacesuccumbedtofamine.Nooneknowshowmanydied,butsoapocalyptic are thedescriptions that have comedown to us that the figurecertainly ran to manyhundreds of thousands, andpossiblyseveralmillions.Elsewhere things were not

quite so desperate (thoughsome of the German states

almostcertainlyputagreaterproportionoftheirmenunderarmsthantheyeverhadtointheNapoleonicperiod),anditmight,too,bepointedoutthatbattles were by no means asfrequent as they were ahundredyearslater.Thiswasan important distinction, butwhen the rival armies didmeet the results were stillspectacular.Inthefirstplace,thefieldarmiesof theperiodwere not that much smaller

than their Napoleoniccounterparts. At Blenheim,for example, 60,000 Frenchand Bavarian troops faced56,000 Allies; at MalplaquetMarlborough had 110,000troopsandVillars,80,000;atOudenarde 80,000 Alliesfought 85,000French; and atRamillies the two sides had50,000 men apiece. Thisgives an average of 142,000combatants in each battle,which does not compare

unfavourablywiththefiguresfor the Napoleonic epochquoted below. In the secondplace, the slaughter was justas bad as anything seen onthe battlefields of Napoleon,WellingtonandtheArchdukeCharles. At Almansa, forexample, the Allies lost17,000 casualties out of the22,000 men they hadengaged, while at Blenheimthe losses of the French andBavarians came to 38,000.

Bloodiest of all thesecombats, however, wasMalplaquet where the lossesof the two sides combinedreached42,000.Onanumberofoccasions,then,theWarofthe Spanish Succession sawbattle reach a pitch ofintensitythatwastheequalofanything seen in theNapoleonicWars.Nor could the Napoleonic

Wars lay claim to beingunique in their geographical

reach. Whilst they werefoughtoutonastagethatwastruly worldwide - notcounting the serious conflictsthatwere sparkedoff inbothNorth and South America,minor forces of thecombatants directly clashedwithoneanotherasfarafieldas Java, the Cape of GoodHope, Buenos Aires and theWestIndies-theSevenYearsWar of 1756-63 witnessedcolonialcampaignsofascope

that the struggle of 1803-15hadnothingtomatch.Indeed,it might even be said that iftherewasagreatleapforwardin warfare at this time, itcamenotin1803norevenin1792, but rather in 1756:whereas the major conflictsofthereignofLouisXIVandthe forty years that followedhadallbeenlargelyEuropeanaffairs, it was the SevenYears War that turnedEurope’s colonies in Asia,

Africa and the New Worldintoabattlefield - indeed,onoccasion,themainbattlefield.What, then, marks out the

Napoleonic Wars from whathadgonebefore?Headofthelist must come the idea that,just as the Seven YearsWarmade conflict in Europe aglobal affair, so the strugglethat began in 1803 was thefirstonewagedbynations-in-arms. This concept had beeninvented by the French in

1793, but it now took itsplaceontheothersideof thelines as well: universalconscription was introducedin Spain in 1808, Sweden in1812 and Prussia in 1813,whileinBritainthecontinualabsenceofconscriptiontothearmy was countered by anumberofActsofParliamentlaying down that all menshould tender some form ofmilitaryserviceevenifitwasonly in part-time reserve

forces designed to meet theneeds of home defence. Andeven in stateswhose systemsof recruitment remainedunreformed-agood examplehere is Russia - the demandformenwasattimessogreatthat it is difficult to believethatmanymore troops couldhavebeencalledupevenhada French-style system beenintroduced. Hence, in part atleast, the new stress on theroleofpropaganda,andhence

too the fact that field armiessuddenlygotmuchbigger.Intestimony to the War of theSpanish Succession’ssomewhat exceptionalcharacter, the number ofcombatants in the twelvebattles of the Seven YearsWar fought by Frederick theGreatamountedtoanaverageof 92,000 men, while,somewhat surprisingly, thesame figure for the sixgreatest battles of the French

RevolutionaryWarscomestoonly87,000.YetputtogetherthebattlesofAusterlitz,Jena,Eylau, Friedland, Tudela,Aspern-Essling and Wagram-thecombatsthatestablishedNapoleon’s hegemony in theperiod 1805-1809 - and thesame totalcomes to162,000.And looking at the battles ofthe years of Napoleon’sdecline in 1812-1813 -Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen,Dresden and Leipzig -

produces another leapforwardto309,400.The military consequences

of this development wereimmense. Whereas in theeighteenth century theconsiderable investmentrepresented by the individualsoldier ensured that thegenerals of Europe soughtwherever possible to avoidbattle and to win theircampaigns by manoeuvre, itwasnowpossible to fight far

more battles. In the War ofthe Spanish Succession, it ispossible to come up withperhaps a dozen majorbattles,butintheNapoleonicWars the number is at leastforty.Meanwhile, the armieshadbecomesolargethattheycould no longer function assingle units but had to bebroken down into permanentsub-units. Known asdivisions, these had firstappeared in the French

Revolutionary Wars, but ithad soon become apparentthat there were serious flawswiththeinitialstepsthatweretaken in this direction. Thedivisions created in theArmies of the North, theSambre and Meuse, theEastern Pyrenees, Italy andthe restwere often too smalltosustainthemselvesforverylong, while the decision thatthey should be self-supporting led to the cavalry

and artillery being split upinto ‘penny-packets’ thatwere of little use to anyone.What was needed wassomething rather different,andin1804thiswasfoundinthe form of Napoleon’s newcorps system. Henceforwardthe basic formation in theemperor’s forces was thecorps, each of which wasusually made up of three orfourdivisionsofinfantryanda division of cavalry, each

division being made up oftwo brigades of infantry orcavalry and a battery ofartillery. In addition, a corpscommander might enjoy theservices of a couple of extrabatteries of artillery, but thebulk of the guns, andespecially the heavy twelve-pounders that delivered themain punch, were held backat army level as a specialreserve that could bedeployed wherever the

general in command of thearmy-inthecaseofthemainFrench forces Napoleonhimself - saw fit. Also heldback at army level might beoneormorecorpsmadeupofnothing but heavy cavalryandhorseartillery,theroleofthese troops generally beingto exploit a breakthrough inthe enemy line and turndefeat into complete rout.With various differences indetail and nomenclature, by

1812 this model oforganization had becomestandard in all the armies ofEurope,andwithitbattlehadbeentransformed.Althoughitstill happened - Waterloo isthe obvious example–adecisive victory was nolongerlikelytobeobtainedina single day. Instead, battleswere now fought out overseveral days by commandersattempting to controloperations from some

farmstead a mile or more totherear(againWaterlooisanexception here). In short, weseethepassingofanera,andthe first dim stirrings of anewageofwar.Onemighthere, too, touch

on the participation of thecivilian populace in thestruggle. As is well known,theNapoleonicWarsgavetheworld the word ‘guerrilla’,and the fact is that in Italy,the Tyrol, the Iberian

Peninsula and Russia thecivilian populations weredrawn into the struggle inconsiderable numbers asirregular combatants. Thisdevelopment should not beexaggerated: the famousSpanish guerrillas, forexample,haveinrecentyearsbeen shown to have hadstrong links with the regularforces,justastherealbasisofirregular resistance in Russiawasnot thepeasantrybut the

Cossacks.Furthermoreitwasnot entirely new: in theWaroftheSpanishSuccession,forexample, bands of desperatepeasants had regularly takenarms in an attempt to savetheir homes and crops fromdestructionorrequisition.Yetsufficientwas the reality thatit is possible to argue that itwastheNapoleonicWarsthatformalized the concept ofasymmetricalwarfare.At thesame time, such was the

effort that they were callingforth from their unfortunateinhabitants that none of thepowers of Europe foundthemselves able to avoid atleast a measure ofengagement with publicopinion.Forthefirsttime,weenter an era in whichpropaganda and newsmanagement became anintegralpartofthewareffort,as well as one in which thepopulace on all sides was

urged to hate the enemy. Inaddition, if the people wereexpected to fight, then theyhad tobegivensomething tofightfor,theresultbeingthatin various parts of theContinent, most notablyPrussia and Spain, theexample set by France inSeptember 1793 was copiedvia the introduction ofvarious measures of politicaland social reform. And, lastbutnotleast,thedevelopment

ofthemodernstatewasgivena sharp boost: with the hugedemands now involved inmaking war, manyadministrations foundthemselves introducing newmethods of administration,fostering the emergence ofmodern bureaucracies, andexploiting new sources ofrevenue,allofwhichdroveafurthernail into the coffinoftheancienrégime.The Napoleonic Wars,

then, marked a watershed inthe history of warfare andEuropealike.Letusconcludethisintroduction,however,byreturning to the rulers of theeighteenth century and, inparticular,LouisXIV.Evenifhe did not go towar himselfafter 1673, the ‘Sun King’always remained a militarymonarch. The court atVersailleswasverymuchtheheadquarters of successiveFrench war efforts, and

Louis’s leading malecourtierswereinvariablyalsoprominent militarycommanders.Therewas, too,astrongfixationwithmartialglory: even as an old manLouishadhimselfdepictedinfull armour in his paintings,while Versailles was full ofreminders of the glories ofFrench arms. If Louisembarkedonaseriesofwarsas soon as he had assumedeffective control of his

dominions in 1661, itwas inpart because he saw war-making as a central part ofthe business of kingship, asthe chief means, perhaps, bywhicharulercouldaugumenthis status. There was, as weshallsee,muchherethatwasto be repeated a hundredyears later, but there werealso a number of crucialdifferences. Never entirelyinsensible to the horrors ofwar, Louis was capable of

recognizing that there weremomentswhendiscretionwasthe better part of valour.Driven from Germany andItalyand forced tomakewarsolely on the basis ofFrance’s own resources and,forthemostpart,onherverysoil, from 1706 Louis wasdesperate to end the War ofthe Spanish Succession. Tohis ever more generousproposals, however, theAllied response was to offer

peace terms thatwere utterlyunreasonable:Francewasnotonly to be stripped of manyimportant border cities andforced to destroy manyfortresses,buttosendFrenchtroops toejectFelipeVfromSpain should he refuse toabdicate voluntarily. Inconsequence,Louisdeemeditwas better to fight on; as heobserved, if he must wagewar, he would prefer not todo so against his own

grandson. Indeed, it is quiteclear that the‘SunKing’hadneverwantedwar in the firstplace: the earlier Nine YearsWar of 1688-97 havingalreadyplacedaseriousstrainon France’s resources, Louiswould have been prepared tosplit the Spanish inheritancebetween Philippe and hisAustrian rival even thoughtheBourbon dynasty had thestronger claim. And even inearlier years Louis’s

ambitions were strictlylimited: what he wanted wasnot an empire but simplysecureborders.LouisXIVmay stand as a

model for almost all themonarchs of eighteenth-century Europe. All werequitepreparedtomakeuseofwar as an instrument ofpolicyandtoemploymilitarysuccessasthefoundationandmeasureoftheirprestige,but,withthepossibleexceptionof

CharlesXIIofSweden,allsetreasonable limits to theircampaignsofconquest.IfwetakethecaseofFredericktheGreatofPrussia,forexample,the object of his wars withAustria was first to take andthen to retain control of theprovince of Silesia, it beingnone of his business toconquer Bohemia orHungary, nor still less topplethe Habsburgs from theirthrone. Except for a very

briefperiodin1792whentheBrissotin leaders of theFrench Revolution were ledbyarushofbloodtotheheadtopromiseliberationtoallthepeoples of Europe, thisprinciple of limited warfarewas followed even in theFrench Revolutionary Warsof 1799: the Directory nomore aspired to ‘jacobinize’the whole of the Continentthan the powers they werefighting were interested in

turning the clock back to1789. But Napoleon wasdifferent. At the end of hislifeLouisXIVissupposedtohave lamented that he hadlovedwartoowell.Thismayor may not be true, but nosuchremarkmaybefoundinthe annals of Napoleon’sexile on St Helena, and it ishard to imagine the emperorever giving voice to such asentiment. NapoleonBonaparte was not just the

ultimate warlord-a man whowould have been nothingwithout war and conquest -but he was never capable ofsetting the same limits onhimself as the rulers andstatesmenwhohadwagedtheconflicts of the eighteenthcentury.Thereare thosewhowouldarguethatthiswasnotof his doing - that hewas ineffect impelled to embark ontheroadofuniversalconquestbecause of the refusal of

Great Britain, especially, toallowFranceher justdeserts.This is another debate, but itseems most unlikely that the‘Sun King’ would ever havegone down such a path. Inany case, the matter isirrelevant: however theNapoleonic Wars areexplained, it was theemperor’s determination toeschew compromise, to flexhismusclesoneverypossibleoccasion and to pushmatters

to extremes that made themwhattheywere.Whateverthecausesofthe

NapoleonicWars,theyleftintheir wake both a verydifferent Europe and a verydifferentworld.Priorto1789France had beenunquestionably the strongestof the great powers. Thoughtemporarily in eclipse thanksto defeat in the Seven YearsWar and the financialdifficulties that stemmed

from her support of thethirteen colonies in the Warof American Independence,she was still wealthier thanany of her continentalcompetitors and possessed ofthe best army in Europe.Meanwhile, in alliance withSpain,shewasabletoexertatleastapartialcurbonBritishdomination of the widerworldandatthesametimetoparticipate in the benefits ofthe colonial trade. By 1815,

however, all this had beenswept aside. France’sdomestic resources remainedvery great, but theestablishment of a newGerman confederation - thecreation, itmaybe said, of aGermannation -hadensuredthat the capacity to dominatethe ‘third Germany’ that hadbeen central to theNapoleonic imperium (andhadinfactbeenLouisXIV’sonlyhopeofwinningtheWar

of the Spanish Succession)wasnomore.Acrosstheseas,meanwhile,muchofFrance’scolonial empire had beenswept away, together withSpanish control of themainland of Central andSouth America. Ironically,then, the greatest hero inFrench history had presidedovernothing less thana totalcollapse in France’sinternationalposition,leavingBritannia to rule the waves

and the rest of Europe tocontend with the emergenceof what would ultimatelybecomeanevengreaterthreattoitssecuritythanFrancehadbeen. In short, the year 1815was both an end and abeginning.

1

TheOriginsoftheNapoleonicWars

It has already been madeclear that this work is not abiography of Napoleon

Bonaparte. For this there area number of very goodreasons. As was hinted at inthe preface, the story of thelife of this most famous ofFrench rulers has generallynot been told in a helpfulway. A sense of chronologyis established, certainly, butmost of the authors are soconcerned to rush from onebattle or love interest to thenext that they leavethemselveswithlittlespaceto

place the battle of Austerlitzor Napoleon’s marriage toMarie Louise in their fullpolitical and diplomaticcontext. Still worse, asbiography of Napoleonsucceeds biography ofNapoleon, very few advanceunderstanding or even thehistorical record. With suchworksoftenhighlyderivative,weare leftwiththesameoldstory, and what is more, astoryinwhichasinglehighly

coloured figure stands outagainst a background ofmurkymonochromists.Thereare,itistrue,rivalworksthattake the opposite view anddemonize Napoleon, butthese too do little to explorethe complexities of thesituationinwhichheoperatedandtendrathertoconcentrateon the flaws of his characterand the iniquities of hisbehaviour. This is not,however,thewaytoexpound

the story of Napoleon. Evenifitisthecasethatthehistoryof Europe between 1803 and1815 could be reduced tosuch personal dimensions(which it cannot), the otheractorsandperspectivesinthedrama must needs beexplored in their own rightratherthansimplyexistingasfoils for the hero or villain.Biography still has its place,but it is noticeable that thosebiographies which are most

useful as works of history -good examples are those ofLefebvreandTulard-aretheoneswhicharethethinnestintermsoftheirtreatmentofthedetails ofNapoleon’s battles,lovesandpersonallife.Yet,forallthat,wecannot

entirely dispense withbiographical detail. As is thecase with many ‘great men’,the details that we have ofNapoleon’s early life are notentirely reliable. Let us start,

however,withwhatweknow.Baptized as NapoleoneBuonaparte, the futureemperor of France was bornin the Corsican capital ofAjaccio to a family of thepetty nobility on 15 August1769. Tales of the family’spoverty have probably beenexaggerated:thehousewhereNapoleon spent his earlyyears was a substantial oneand his mother, LetiziaRemolino,broughthis father,

Carlo, a prominent legalofficial, a reasonable dowry.Money was notsuperabundant, but therewasproperty and status: for twocenturiestheBuonaparteshadbeen substantial members ofthe local oligarchy and inrecent years they hadacquired further weight bytaking a leading role in theregimeofPasqualePaoli(seebelow).OnStHelena,indeed,Napoleon was quite specific

that his was not exactly arags-to-richesstory:In my family . . . we spentpractically nothing on food,except of course suchgroceriesascoffee,sugarandrice, which did not comefrom Corsica. We greweverything else. The familyowneda...milltowhichallthe villagers brought theirflour to be milled, and theypaid for this with a certainpercentage of flour.We also

had a communal bakehouse,theuseofwhichwaspaid infish...Thereweretwoolivegroves in Ajaccio . . . Onebelonged to the Bonapartefamily and the other to theJesuits . . . The family alsomadeitsownwine.1Evenforeignconquestdidnotshake this prosperity. CarloBuonaparte had no difficultyin ingratiating himself withthe French when they

annexed the island in 1768,notonlyretaininghisvariouslegal offices but alsoestablishing himself assomething of an interlocutorbetween his countrymen andtheirnewmasters.Thoughhischildren were numerous -Napoleon was the second ofeightbrothersandsisters,notto mention five more whodied as infants or at a veryearly age - there wastherefore no difficulty in

procuring an adequateeducationforat least thefiveboys and, beyond that, thepromise of service with theBourbon state (indeed, evenElise, the eldest daughter,was found a place at anexclusive college outsideParis).Somuchforthebarefacts,

but what of the young boyhimself? Inevitably, nosoonerhadNapoleonrisentopower,thanallsortsofstories

were going the rounds abouthis childhood, and from thisdistanceitisquiteimpossibleto separate fact from fiction.But from all the tales of theboy-tyrant who bulliedeveryone and vandalizedevery object that came tohand, the boy-general wholed his playmates in mock-battle, the boy-womanizerwho walked to school hand-in-handwithprettygirls, andtheboy-patriotwhocriticized

his father for not havingfollowed Paoli into exile -tales,wearetold,atwhichhe‘used to laugh heartily’2 -various things do stand out.First of all, Napoleon seemsto have been starved of loveby his parents (thoughaffectionate enough, hisfather was often absent onofficial business, while hismother was a singularlyaustere woman, who treated

her children withconsiderable harshness).Secondly, desperate for theapproval and attention forwhichhehadtocompetewithhis numerous siblings,Napoleon expressed hisfrustration by turning toviolence in an attempt tosecure first place amongstthem, thechiefvictimof thiscampaign being hisunfortunate elder brother,Joseph. Thirdly, this same

desire for recognition led toan ambition and hunger forsuccessthatwasremarkedonbyallwhomethim.Fourthly,frequent beatings reinforcedthisobsessionwithpowerandat the same time encouragedhimtobecomeahabitualliar.Andlastly,dissatisfactionandinsecurity produced adreamer: from an early agefascinated by history, thereseems little doubt thatNapoleon was a ‘loner’ who

often retired for long periodsto his room to indulge hislove of reading and at thesame time indulge himselfwith dreams of escape andheroism.ToquoteChaptal:Hismotheroftentoldmethat...Napoleonnevertookpartin thegamesplayedbyotherchildren of his age, and thatheonthecontrarytookpainsto avoid them. Given a littleroom of his own whilst stillveryyoungon the thirdfloor

of the house, hewould oftenshut himself up on his own.Notevencomingdowntoeatwith the family, he wouldread constantly, andespeciallyworksofhistory.3Wasanythingaddedtothis

volatile mixture byNapoleon’s Corsicanbackground? According tosome accounts the answer isvery clearly ‘yes’.Napoleon,we learn, grew up imbued

with a deep sense of honourand a prodigious love ofdisplay that owed theirorigins to an obsession withstatus typical of Corsicansociety. To this was added afierce clan loyalty thatinspired him constantly toseek the advancement of hisfamily and, in addition, tofeel a responsibility for thewelfare of each of itsindividual members, not tomention a deep-seated spirit

of adventure that had ledmanyCorsicans to seek theirfortunesbyturningcorsairorsoldieroffortune.Andfinallythere were the linked issuesof egalitarianism and justiceforall:inCorsica,evennoblefamilies such as theBuonapartes were not set sovery far apart from themassof the populace, while poorand not so poor alike couldjustifiably feel deepresentment at the island’s

long history of conquest,exploitation and neglect.However, there is little herethat fills the observer withmuchconfidence.Muchmoreimportant is the issue of thePaoliregimeof1755-69 . As a possession

of the Republic of Genoa,Corsica had by the earlyeighteenth century becomeaffected by a variety ofgrievances, and in 1729 theisland rose in revolt. Long

years of stalemate followedand by the middle years ofthe century it appeared thattheCorsicancausewasspent.Early in 1755, however,Pasquale Paoli, a juniorofficer in the Neapolitanarmy who was the youngerbrother of one of the chiefleaders of the insurrection,returned to the island.By allaccountsaremarkablefigure,Paoli quickly placed himselfat the head of the revolt and

managed to rekindle hisfeuding and disunitedcountrymen’s enthusiasm forthe struggle. Military victorywas not obtained - theGenoese could never beeradicated from the maincoastal fortresses - but Paolidid succeed in creating afunctioningstateand,whatismore, a state that for a shorttime secured the admirationofmanyoftheleadingfiguresof the age. Inspired by the

writings of Montesquieu, theCorsican leader promulgateda written constitution thatproclaimedthesovereigntyofthe people, established aparliament that was in partelectedbyuniversalmanhoodsuffrage, in part elected bytheclergy,andinpartchosenbyPaoli himself; and greatlyrestricted his authority as defacto president. But if hecouldinthisfashionestablishCorsica’spoliticalcredentials

as the home of liberty, andtherebywintheadmirationofsuch figures as Jean-JacquesRousseauandJamesBoswell,he could not save Corsicafrom conquest: in 1768Genoa ceded control of theislandtoFrance,andwithinayear Bourbon troops hadcrushedallresistance.What, if anything, did all

this giveNapoleon? In termsof youthful inspiration, atleast, a great deal. The

involvement of his fatherwithPaoli-hehadrisentobehis secretary andaccompanied him in hisdesperate defence of theisland against the French -was a source of pride to theyoungCorsican,aswellasanobject lessoninhowtomakepersonal capital from an ageof political turmoil. At thesame time, too, it bothsharpenedhisowndreamsofglory and provided himwith

a focus for his ambition.Yetmoreimportantthananythingelse was the figure ofPasquale Paoli himself, whoNapoleon undoubtedlyviewed as an important rolemodel: according to LasCases, the Corsican leader‘for a long time inspiredsomethingof a cult inhim’.4Asthefutureemperortoldhisschoolfriend, Bourrienne,‘Paoli was a great man; he

loved his country.’5 Manyyears later, he was to usealmost the same words,telling one of his visitors onStHelena thathewas‘a finecharacter’ who was ‘alwaysfor his country’.6 But Paoliwas not just a patriot. Anintenselycharismaticfigure,agallant soldier and a wiselegislator, he won thedevotionofhisfollowers, therespectofhisenemiesandthe

plaudits of the philosophes.At the same time Paoli wasthe archetypal saviour-figure:thegreatmanwhohadcomefrom nowhere to save theCorsican rebellion, lead it toglory and finally go down todefeat in the face ofoverwhelming odds. But,aboveall,theCorsicanleaderwas also a man whomanipulated his status asnational hero for his ownends,stealthily increasinghis

own power while appearingat all times to be operatingwithin thepseudo-democratictraditions of the insurrectionwhich he headed. Even ifmuchofthiswasnotapparentto the young Napoleon untillater years, it was, beyonddoubt, a heady mix. Askedwhether Paoli was a goodgeneralbyoneofhismasters,the then schoolboy issupposedtohavereplied,‘Heis,sir,andIwanttogrowup

likehim.’7Thus far, it has been

difficult to write of theFrench ruler with muchcertainty. As his secretarylaterobserved,‘Eachofus... without ceasing to behonest, can show a differentNapoleon.’8Beyondtheearlyyears, however, the storybecomes clearer. InDecember 1778 he left hisnativeislandforthefirsttime

and sailed to France, where,after four months spentlearning French at a clericalschool at Autun, he enteredthe military academy atBrienne. Albeit largely inretrospect, at this point hislife begins to be observed inmore detail. His firstchronicler was his fellowstudent,LouisdeBourrienne,who was to go on to serveNapoleon as his militarysecretary between 1798 and

1802.Likemanymemoirsofthe period, Bourrienne’srecollections are notoriouslyunreliable, being not onlyghostwritten but marred bypersonal enmity (dismissedfrom his position forembezzlement, Bourriennedeveloped a deep sense ofresentment towards hisformer master). Publishedunder the Bourbons, thememoirswerealsomarkedbya desire to secure the favour

of the Restoration andexpunge the stain of servicewith Napoleon. Yet thepicture that Napoleon’sschoolfellow paints of theboywhoarrivedatBrienneinMay 1779 has a certain ringoftruthtoit,andallthemoreso as it is in large partconfirmed by several lesswell-known memoirs.Relativelypoor-hewasonlyat theacademyatallbecausehis father had used his

contacts with the occupyingauthorities to obtain agovernmentbursary-intense,physically unprepossessing,desperately home-sick andbarely able to speak French,NapoleoneBuonapartewas aclassic outsider. Nor did hehelphisowncase,adoptingapricklymanner and flying tothe defence of the Corsicancause at the slightestprovocation. ‘Hisconversation,’ wrote

Bourrienne, ‘almost alwaysbore the appearance of illhumour,andhewascertainlynot very sociable.’9 Hardlysurprisingly, the result wasthathewasatfirstthebuttofa great deal of insensitivityand bullying. Few of histeacherstookmuchinterestinhim as a scholar and hewasforeverbeingteased.Norwasthere any escape: not onlywere the students all

boarders, but the six-yearcourse was devoid ofholidays.Whether the youngCorsicanreallyledhisfellowstudents in a great snowballfight conducted on the linesof a mock-battle, or took onsingle-handed a group ofolder cadets who hadtrampled a vegetable gardenhe had cultivated, or threw aviolent tantrum rather thansubmittoaparticularlybrutalpunishment, or was sacked

from the command of acompany in the college’scadet corps for his haughtydemeanour, is beside thepoint. All that really mattersis that once again we see aNapoleon for whom strugglewas a psychologicalnecessity, a Napoleon whowas completely cut off fromboth his family and theoutside world, and aNapoleon who sought solacein books which assuaged his

bitterness and frustration. Toquote Bourrienne again,‘Bonaparte was not liked byhis companions . . . Heassociated but little withthem, and rarely took part intheiramusements . . .Duringplay-hourshewithdrewtothelibrary, where he read withgreat eagerness works ofhistory, particularly PolybiusandPlutarch.’10All this made the Brienne

years an important period inNapoleon’searlylife.Onlyatmathematics did he reallyshine as a scholar, but hisvoracious reading gave himsufficient general knowledgeto acquire a certain sense ofsuperiority over hisclassmates.Added to this, ofcourse, was the fact that hewasaCorsican,andthereforein his eyes a cut above therestofhumanity.For thiswemust thank Rousseau and

Boswell, both of whom hedevouredenthusiastically,butthese were not the onlyauthors who shaped hisadolescent thinking.Fascinatedbytheancients,hereadall theworksonGreeceandRome that he could findand, thanks in part to theworks of Plutarch, becamemoreandmore impressedbythe caesars. Dazzled by theconcept of absolute power -significantly, he is recorded

as having regarded themurderers of Julius Caesarnotasheroesbutas traitors -he also became obsessed bythe concept of patriotism, asexpounded by the Frenchdramatist Corneille. It wasvery much the stuff ofdreams, and the result was ayouthfulmessiahcomplex:incompany with Paoli, whomhe still idolized, Napoleonwould return to Corsica andfreeitfromthehatedFrench.

Butifhedidso,itwouldnotbe as a believing Catholic:though taught by priests, thefuture emperor increasinglycame to challenge theirdoctrines. What sense, forexample, couldbemadeof acreed that automaticallycondemned the great men ofGreece and Rome to eternaldamnation?Wastheresultofthis loss of faith, as somehave argued, a void thatNapoleon needed to fill with

some other deity? If so, thenthefatherlandwasanobviouscandidate,andallthemoresogiven his exposure toRousseau’s notions of the‘general will’. But to arguethat the young Corsicanneeded an ideal seemsfoolhardy: already aconfirmedmisanthropebythetime that he graduated fromBrienne in 1784, he had allthestimulusheneeded inhisown ambition and sense of

self-worth.Brienne was followed by

justunderayearattheÉcoleRoyale Militaire in Paris.This academy was the verypinnacle of ancien régimemilitary education and at thesame time an institutionwhich gave very strongpreference to the sons ofarmy officers and deniedentry to anyone who couldnotprove that their forebearshad been noble for at least

fourgenerations.Theissueofnobility was not a problem -theBuonaparteshadexcellentcredentials - but that ofservice in the officer corpswas quite another, and assuch it seems likely thathereat least the legend is true: asBuonaparte senior had neverbeen an officer, his son canbe assumed to have obtainedhis position at the ÉcoleMilitaire by means of hisintellectualprowessalone.As

with his years at Brienne,Napoleon’s experiences inParis are shrouded in legend.All that is known for certainis that the young Corsican’sfatherdiedofstomachcancera few months after he wasadmitted to the ÉcoleMilitaire, and that, with hisfamilynowinsomefinancialdifficulty, he decided toattempt to cram the normaltwo full years of study intojust one (a fact that may

explain why he eventuallygraduatedas theforty-secondinhis class).But, ifmanyofthe anecdotes told about thisperiod are again distinctlydubious, there seems littledoubt that the impact ofNapoleon’s early years wentunredeemed. If his fatherdied, for example, it merelyheightened his ambition:distrusting the easy-goingJoseph - the ‘gentleBuonaparte’-hesawtheloss

asanopportunitytotakeoverthe role of head of thehousehold and restore thefortunes of his family. Asobsessed with the cause ofCorsican independence asever - apart from anythingelse,supportforhishomelandwas a useful means ofexpressing the instinctivedesireofanysixteen-year-oldto revolt against his father -he also remained the butt ofboth official disapproval and

muchcoarsehumour.Nordidit help that there was littleimprovement in either hislooks or his stature: if thehighly unreliable LaurePermon is to be believed, helooked so ridiculous that shenicknamed him ‘Puss-in-Boots’.As for theproductofall this, it was a mixture offrustration, arrogance, pride,hauteur and ambition. Andthere was still the samebrooding introversion: a

young woman who met himon a felucca sailing betweenAjaccio and Toulon in 1788remembered ‘an ungraciouslittle fellow’ with ‘anunpleasant face’whohadhisnose stuck in a book thewhole time and was so rudethat a fellow passengerremarked that he should bethrown into the sea.11 Alsopresent was a barelysuppressed violence:

apparently fancying himselfasamanofletters,Napoleonwrote a series of stories inwhich gruesome murdersalternated with wholesalebloodbaths. Lust after fameon the battlefield though hemight, he was not just, toparaphrase Wilfred Owen, ayoung man eager for somedesperate glory, but also ayoungman filledwithhatredandresentment.Whatevertheimpactofhis

years as a cadet may havebeen on his psychology, bythe time that Napoleon wascommissioned in the artilleryas a sub-lieutenant in theautumnof1785,hehadfallenunder the sway of the vaguepolitical radicalism that wasbeginning to grip much ofeducated opinion in France.After all, as a junior officerand a scion of the pettynobility,hewasamemberofnot one but two groups that

had serious concernsregarding their prospects andstatus in the France of theancienrégime, while, if onlybecause of the Genevanwriter’s eulogization ofPaoli’s Corsica, he was alsoan avid reader of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Yet, stillpossessed of the closest tieswith his homeland - in thethree and a half years thatpassed before the coming ofthe Revolution, he had spent

almost twoon leavewithhisfamily-NapoleonremainedaCorsican revolutionary ratherthan a French one, and wasinclinedtointerpretreforminawaythatreflectedtheneedsof his homeland. For France,then, he cared not a whitexcept to the extent thatrevolution in Paris wouldspellfreedominAjaccio.Norwere the so-called principlesof 1789 of much concern tohim. What mattered was

rather the power of the state.In brief, to be free, Corsicawouldhave tobestrong,andif she wished to be strong,then she would also have tohave a reformedadministration in the style ofthat of Paoli, for only thuscould she be guaranteed themen and resources necessaryto defend herself. So muchfor Corsica, but what ofNapoleon? In the short termhewouldfulfiltheroleofthe

ageing leader’s right-handman,butPaoliwouldnotliveforever-hehadbeenbornin1725-anditisnotdifficulttoseethedirectioninwhichtheyoungartilleryman’sthoughtswere heading. Napoleonwould not just restore ilbabbo-‘thegrandfather’-ashe was called, but supplanthimandevenbecomehim.Inshort, what really attractedhimtothecauseofrevolutionwas the linked figures of the

saviour and the enlightenedabsolutist: as the one, hewould return in triumph toCorsicaandliberateherfromthe rule of Paris, and as theotherhewouldpresideoveranewregimethatwouldputallto rights, in which guise hewould rule as a benevolentdictator. Power, of course,was not to be abused - thenew messiah would rule inaccordance with aconstitution and never

exercise hismight other thanintheserviceofthepeopleasa whole. But thesedisclaimers do not carrymuch weight: for all hisdenunciations of despotism,hisheroes-asidefromPaoli-remainedFrederick theGreatof Prussia, Julius Caesar andthe Athenian soldier-statesman,Alcibiades.And,ifhe had indeed read andadmiredRousseau,itisworthpointingoutthattheGenevan

writer could be read as anapostle of darker creeds thandemocracy: implicit in thenotionofthegeneralwillisavisionofabsolutepower thatcould not but appeal to awould-besaviour.When revolution came in

1789, then, Napoleon saw itprimarily as amoment whenhistory might be rolled backand Corsica freed. Obtainingyet another leave of absencefrom his regiment’s

headquarters at Auxonne,where he had been on dutyfor the last ten months, inSeptemberhe therefore againset off for Ajaccio. Onreaching home, he found theisland’spolitics inconfusion.Forsomeofhiscompatriots-for the most part men whocame from clans that hadfound themselves excludedfromfavourintheyearsofdefactoindependence- thewayforward lay in the extension

toCorsicaof the same rightsobtainedbythemetropolis inJuly1789,and they thereforerallied to the Revolution,beingeventuallyrewardedbyadecree thatmade the islandone with the rest of France.But for others, the answerrather lay in thereturnof theexiled Paoli and, byextension, a fresh revolt. Ontop of all this, theintroductioninCorsicaofthesame system of local

government as that whichnow made its appearance onthe mainland provoked afurious outburst of intrigueandfactionfighting.Throughall this Napoleon negotiatedhis way with considerableopportunism, but rather lesssuccess. While his aimremained nationalindependence,simplytoraisethe standard of revolt wasunthinkable,andsoNapoleonchose a more pragmatic

course. Under his leadershipthe Bonapartes would seizecontroloftheleversofpowerin Corsica while at the sametime playing the part ofParis’s chief agents inCorsica and using thispositionoftrusttopetitionforthe return of Paoli. This lastwassoonobtained,andon14July il babbo landed nearBastia, andwas then quicklyelectedbothtothecommand-in-chief of the Corsican

national guard and to thepresidency of the council ofthe department of Francewhich the island nowconstituted. At this point,however, thingswentwrong.Already alienated byNapoleon’s commission inthe army, the old leader wasdeeply offended whenNapoleon made sometrenchant public criticisms ofhisdefenceofCorsicaagainsttheFrench in1769.Far from

becoming Paoli’s right-handman,Napoleonfoundhimselfout in the cold, the resultbeing that in February 1791hehadnooptionbuttoreturntohisregimentatAuxonne.Back in France Napoleon

played thepartof the tribuneof the people, and soexasperated his royalistcommanding officer that hehad him transferred toanotherunitatValence.Herehe continued his

revolutionary activities,becoming secretary of thelocal Jacobin club, taking aprominentpartinavarietyofpublic ceremonies, andencouraging the purchase ofthe biens nationaux. But allthiswas at best amanoeuvredesigned to keep his optionsopen: beneath the surfaceNapoleon had not abandonedhis hopes of securing thepatronage of Paoli. Hiserstwhile hero spurned his

advances, however, and thusit was that in the autumn of1791Napoleonagainappliedfor leave and returned home,wherehesetaboutsecuringacommission in the famous‘volunteersof1791’. In April 1792

success was achieved in theshape of alieutenantcolonelcy in thesecond battalion raised inCorsica (albeit not withoutthe assistance of a certain

degree of bribery and ballot-rigging). Meanwhile, Josephhad become mayor ofAjaccio’s town council. ButacceptancebyPaoliremainedas far off as ever andNapoleon knew that hiscontinued absence inCorsicawas jeopardizing hiscommission in the regulararmy. When the localJacobins decided to stage ashowdownwiththeirpoliticalopponents, he therefore had

little option but to lend themthe support of his troops.However,theplanfailedand,with the radicals forced toback down,Napoleon had torestore his position in themetropolis. As he had nowbeen suspended from thearmy list, thismeant headingfor Paris, especially as hispoliticalopponentsinCorsicawere busily engaged inpretending that he wassomehow a counter-

revolutionary. In the endeverything was resolved:pardoned for his actions andreinstatedasaregularofficer,Napoleon was promoted tocaptain and given permissiontoreturntoCorsicayetagain,this time on the pretext thathe had to escort his sisterElise back to her homelandaftertheclosureoftheladies’academy she had beenattendinginthecapital.Napoleon had clearly

played his cards sufficientlywell to keep in with Paris.Butthatdidnotmeanthathewas happy. On the contrary,his visit to the capital hadcoincided with the violentrisingsof20Juneand10August1792,and these

understandably left him notonly with a deep fear ofpopular violence, but alsoconvinced him that theJacobins were playing withfire. As he wrote to Joseph,

‘The Jacobins are fools whohavenocommonsense.’12 Inshort, the future ostensiblylay with Corsica, butNapoleon was more out offavour there than ever, forPaoli was increasinglyalarmed by the directionevents were taking. Toadvance the interests of hisfamily, his erstwhile admirerthereforehadnooptionbuttotake the side of the Jacobin

partyintheisland,andallthemoresoas theJacobinswerenow in control in Paris. Indoing so, however, he doesnot appear to have deceivedhis own family. ‘I havealways descried inNapoleon,’ wrote his brotherLucien, ‘an ambition that,whilst not wholly egotistic,surpasses his love of thepublic good . . . Given a[fresh] revolution, Napoleonwould strain every nerve to

maintainhisposition,whilstIeven believe him capable ofturninghiscoatifthatiswhatis required to make hisfortune.’13 As the futureemperor later reminisced, itwas ‘a fine time for anenterprisingyoungman’.14Whatever the truth may

have been, from here it wasbut a short step to a breachwith Paoli. According toNapoleon’s own account, the

Corsican leader was nowscheming with the British todeliver the island into theirhands.Nosuchplotwasafoot-thereseemstohavebeennocontactbetweenPaoliandtheBritish until April 1793 andeven then theapproachcamenotfromPaolibuttheBritish.As for the idea that Paolisuggested the future emperorshould seek a career in theBritish army, this is pureinvention. If relations

between the two were veryfrosty, it was rather becausePaoli had increasingly fallenunder the influence oftraditional rivals of theBonapartes, of which themost notable was the Pozzodi Borgo clan. Following anunsuccessful expeditionagainstSardinia,aterritoryofthehostile stateofPiedmont,the resentment on both sidesfinally exploded. On the onehand, Napoleon hinted that

Paoli had deliberatelysabotaged the expedition,while on the other Paoliaccused the Jacobins offorcing him into ordering ahopeless attack in order toprovideapretextforhisarrestand execution. Whatever thereality of the situation, theaffair plunged Corsica intoopenconflict.Inthissituationthe Bonapartes and theirallies had no chance.Increasingly the weaker

faction in Corsican politics,the Jacobins were routed,leaving Napoleon and hisentirefamilynooptionbuttofleetotheFrenchmainland.ThebreachwithPaoli,and

with it the loss of his familyestates, ended Napoleon’sCorsican dreams for good.Henceforward he would beFrench and, for the momentat least, a Jacobin: onlyweeks after his arrival inFrance he was penning Le

Souper de Beaucaire, animagined conversationbetween himself and anumber of local civilians inwhich he expatiated on theevils of the so-calledfederalistrevoltthatwasthengrippingmuchofFrance,anddefended the actions of thegovernment forces that hadjuststormedAvignon.AsforCorsica and its ruler, allloyalty to them wasexpunged: Napoleon never

returned tohishomelandandrarelyspokeofitexceptwithdisdain, while Le Souper deBeaucaire and a previouspamphlet published virtuallysimultaneouslywithhisflightinto exile heaped scorn uponhis sometime idol andaccused him of treason,thereby exonerating theBonaparte clan of the chargeofbetrayal.This vehemence, however,

isall too transparent.Onone

level,itwasaclassicinstanceof how love can turnovernight to hatred: there isno reason to doubt thatNapoleon’s failure inCorsicacameasaverysevereblowtohis ego, while at the sametime causing him realsadness.At the same time, ifNapoleon was now aFrenchman and a Jacobin, itwas simply because he hadnowhere else to go, and noother way of advancing his

career-acareer,incidentally,that seemed likely to begreatly boosted by the largenumbers of army officerswho had fled France since1789.Setagainstthisisthefactthathehadbeenespousingradicalpoliticalviewssincehisdaysasanofficercadet.Yet,aswehave seen, those closest tohim never trusted hissincerity in this respect,whilst to the very end he

seems to have believed thathecouldwinoverPaolitohisway of thinking. One is leftthen with a picture of themostcynicalcalculation:loveof Corsica was replaced notbyloveofFrancebutloveofNapoleon. For the momentthat meant there must bemuch play-acting. Like mostotherworks of their sort, thememoirs of Paul de Barrasare not wholly to be trusted.Even so the picture that he

paints of his first meetingwith Napoleon is certainlyplausible:Bonaparte offered me a fewcopiesofapamphletrecentlywrittenbyhim,whichhehadhadprintedatAvignon,atthesame time begging mypermission to distribute itamong the officers andprivates of the Republicanarmy.Carryingahugebundleof them, he remarked whilehanding them round, ‘This

willshowyouwhetherornotI am a patriot!Can anymanbe too much of arevolutionist? Marat andRobespierrearemysaints!’15Whatever the truth of this

story, there is no doubt thatNapoleon’s tactics worked.Fortunately for him, one ofthe three représentants enmission whom theConvention had elected tosendtotheMarseillesareain

the summer of 1793 wasAntoine-Christophe Saliceti.Anold friend of Josephwhohad represented Corsica inthe National Assembly, hehad become the de factoleader of the island’sJacobins. Operating verymuchinthespiritofCorsicanclan loyalty, he nowbefriendedtheBonapartes.Athis urging the Conventionvoted the family substantialfinancialcompensation,while

Josephwasfoundapostasanassistant commissary on thestaff of the army that hadbeensent to subdue theMidiunder General Carteaux. AsforNapoleon,hiseffortsasapropagandist were lauded tothe skies in Saliceti’sdispatchestoParisandon16September he was givencommand of the gunssupporting the armybesieging Toulon. Of thefamousepisodethatfollowed,

it is necessary to say verylittle in so far as the actualfighting is concerned, thoughNapoleon undoubtedly notonly showed both courageand decision, but alsoconsiderablyhastenedthefallof the city. What doesdeserve comment is theegocentrismthathedisplayedin the course of the affair.Napoleon, it seems, knewbest, and lost no time inlettinghisopinionsbeknown.

Thankstohiscomplaints, thefirst commander of thebesieging army, GeneralCarteaux, was replaced andimprisoned, while hissuccessor, GeneralDugommier, eventuallybecame so irritated by hisconstant interventions thathehad toorderhim tomindhisownbusinessandconfinehisattention to the artillery.Coupled with all this wereclearsignsofadesiretoplay

to the gallery. Napoleonappeared amidst his gunnersto direct their fire in person,slept on the ground wrappedup in a cloak, made aparticularly gallant sergeantan officer on the spot (theman in question was thefuture General Junot),cultivated the friendship of asmall ‘band of brothers’ thatincludedsuchmenasVictor,Marmont and Duroc, andfinally proved his physical

courageby takingpart in thefinal assault on horseback,whenhisplaceascommanderof the artillery was rather intherear.Whetherhedeservedtherenownthathewoninthecourse of the fighting isdebatable,butthetruthhardlymattered.Heroornot,hehadmadehisname.It was at Toulon that myreputation began. All thegenerals, representatives andsoldiers who had heard me

give my opinions in thedifferent councils threemonths before the taking ofthe town, anticipated myfuturemilitary career . . . Inthe Army of the Pyrenees,Dugommier was alwaystalking about his commanderofartilleryatToulon,andhishigh opinion was impressedon the minds of all thegenerals and officers whoafterwards went . . . to the

ArmyofItaly.16Well, perhaps. According

to Bourrienne, ‘The news ofthetakingofTouloncausedasensation . . . throughoutFrance, the more lively assuch successwas unexpectedand almost unhoped for.’17But Napoleon’s newcomrade-in-arms, Marmont,thought very differently. Ashe later wrote, ‘[Napoleon]had made his name through

his actions, but the latter didnot possess sufficient éclatfor his reputation to becarried beyond the ranks ofthe army in which he wasserving; if his name wasspoken of with esteem andrespect, it was unknown inParis and even Lyon.’18 Andthe aftermath was not asflattering to Napoleon as hewould have liked. He waspromoted to the rank of

brigadier, but the Frenchpropaganda machine heapedpraisenotuponhimbutratheron Saliceti, while ifDugommier, Saliceti andRobespierre’s brotherAugustin (like Saliceti areprésentantenmissionintheMidi) all lauded him to theskies in their dispatches, hewas not accorded theprominenceinoperationsthathefelthedeserved.Norwerehisplansforfutureoperations

adopted. Though still onlyformally second-in-commandof artillery of the Army ofItaly, the new general waseagertoobtainamajorroleinthe formation to which hewas attached and bombardedParis with schemes for anoffensive against thePiedmontese. At the sametime he did everything hecould to secure the favourofAugustinRobespierreandhiscolleague, Ricord. To quote

Barras:From the time BonapartejoinedthefirstArmyofItaly.. . he desired andsystematically sought to gettothetopoftheladderbyallpossible means. Fullyconvinced that womenconstitutedapowerfulaid,heassiduously paid court to thewife ofRicord, knowing thatshe exercised great influenceoverRobespierretheYounger. . . He pursued Madame

Ricord with all kinds ofattentions, picking up hergloves, holding her fan,holdingwithprofoundrespecther bridle and stirrup whenshe mounted her horse,accompanying her in herwalks hat in hand, andseeming to tremblecontinuallylestsomeaccidentbefallher.19To return to the military

situation,suchpolitickingdid

Napoleonnogood.Inthefirstmonths of 1794 the mostpressing danger was not thePiedmontese, but the largeSpanish army that hadcrossed the eastern Pyreneesand was occupying southernRoussillon. To move againstthis force,Napoleonclaimed,would be a mistake, but hisreasons for taking this line -the supposed danger of anational insurrection and thelogistical and geographic

difficulties posed byoperations in Spain - aredifficult to accept at facevalue inviewofwhatwas tooccur in 1808. To quoteBarras again, ‘Bonaparte . . .whileengrossedentirelywithhisowninterests,believedhewas merely anxious for thepublicweal.’20 As it becameclear that all Napoleon caredabout was glory, no accountwas taken of his arguments;

on the contrary, theArmyofthe eastern Pyrenees wasreinforced and ordered toexpel the Spaniards fromFrench soil and march onBarcelona. With the aid ofplans worked out byNapoleon, some success wasachieved on the Italianfrontier in a series of minorcampaigns that culminated ina victory over thePiedmontese at Dego, buttherewasneitherthewillnor

the men to sustain theadvance, and at the end ofSeptember the invaders fellbacktotheirstartline.For Napoleon, then,

success at Toulon wasfollowed by frustration. Hisopportunistic schemes toadvance his career had beenblocked and, worse, he hadfallen from favour in Paris.At the time of the battle ofDego, he had not even beenwith the French forces. The

reasonforthistransformationinhisfortuneswasthefall