As we await the new blockbuster movie “Napoleon”, a reminder of who he was and how he met his Waterloo
The end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century witnessed nearly a quarter of a century of almost continuous war in Europe. The French Revolutionary Wars of 1793-1802 and the Napoleonic Wars of 1803 -1815 embroiled all the great European states and caused the death of between five and six million combatants and civilians. No one did more to perpetuate these wars than the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and no one did more to oppose and defeat Napoleon’s forces than the British Duke of Wellington.These two commanders never met, never corresponded, and only faced each other in battle once, but were frequently in the other’s thoughts and communications.
Napoleone Buonoparte and Arthur Wellesley – as they were called at the time – were born in the same year of 1769, although controversy exists in both cases as to the exact day. Both were born on islands – Napoleon on Corsica and Wellington on Ireland – although neither was keen to emphasise the association. If ever they had met or even corresponded, no doubt they would have used French which was the second language of each. In both cases, they lost their father while young and were brought up with four brothers and three sisters in straitened circumstances by formidable mothers.
Napoleon’s rise to power could hardly have been more meteoric and, by the age of 35, he was Emperor of France. Yet some suggest that such speed of promotion left Napoleon with an Achilles heel because he never handled infantry in combat at regimental level, a lack of experience which was to cost him dear at Waterloo. By contrast, Wellington spent seven years learning his military craft in India, before he joined the British expeditionary force opposing Napoleon’s armies in Portugal and Spain. For Napoleon, Waterloo was the end of his career and he died on St Helena, aged 51, whereas Wellington went on to become British Prime Minister (twice) and lived to the ripe old age of 83.
Napoleon won 60 of his 70 battles; Wellington fought far fewer (14 in the Iberian peninsular), but won them all. For both men, Waterloo – fought on Sunday 18 June 1815 – was their last. Napoleon had 71,947 men to Wellington’s 67,660, but the French had 246 cannon to the Allies’ 156. Wellington was aged 46, Napoleon 45, yet Wellington acted as energetically as a man in his 20s, Napoleon as lethargically as someone in his 60s (possibly because of piles).
In a fiercely-fought battle, Wellington held out long enough to be joined by the Prussian forces led by Blücher, so that the French collapsed. Interestingly Blücher wanted to call the battle La Belle Alliance after the farmhouse where he met Wellington; the French called the conflict the battle of Mont St Jean after the place where it was in fact fought; but it was Wellington who decided to name it after his own headquarters some two and a quarter miles away.
Napoleon was hoping to retire to the United States. The Prussians wanted to execute him, but Wellington refused to allow this and a British civil servant came up with the idea of exile on St Helena. Here the former emperor had plenty of time to come up with a host of different reasons why he failed to defeat Wellington.
Napoleon and Wellington tended to be small-minded about each other: the Frenchman referred to Wellington as “the sepoy general” (a reference to his role in India), while Wellington insisted on spelling the Emperor’s name the Italian way (Buonoparte). Following Napoleon’s first exile to Elba, Wellington contrived to sleep with two of the former emperor’s mistresses.
Napoleon had a growing regard for Wellington’s abilities as events led them to the battlefield at Waterloo, but afterwards came to loathe the British general, in part because he believed that Wellington was responsible for the execution of Marshal Ney and for his exile to St Helena (neither of which was true). For his part, before Waterloo, Wellington was publicly contemptuous but privately admiring of Napoleon, several times averring that the presence of the French Emperor on a battlefield was worth 40,000 men, but later he came to despise the man, not least because Napoleon left a gift in his will to a man who had attempted to assassinate the British leader.
Let’s see how British director Ridley Scott tells the story in his epic film. Of one thing we can be sure: the French won’t like it. But I’ll be viewing it in IMAX on the day of release.