The War of Wars Read online

  THE

  WAR

  OF

  WARS

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  Birth of a Democracy

  Blueprint 2000 (ed)

  Fire Down Below

  The Return of the Strong

  Clive

  Liberators

  Cochrane: The Life and Exploits of a Fighting Captain

  A Few Bloody Noses

  Global Disorder

  Comrades

  American Shogun

  THE

  WAR

  OF

  WARS

  THE EPIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN

  BRITAIN AND FRANCE 1789 – 1815

  ROBERT HARVEY

  CONSTABLE • LONDON

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in hardback by Constable,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2006

  Copyright © Robert Harvey, 2006

  The cover painting, Scotland for Ever! 1881, Butler, Lady (Elizabeth Southerden Thompson) shows the charge of the Scots Greys at Waterloo, © Leeds Museums and Galleries (City Art Gallery) UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Robert Harvey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-84529-635-3

  eISBN: 978-1-84901-260-7

  Printed and bound in the EU

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  For my beloved Jane and Oliver

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  List of Illustrations

  Maps

  Introduction

  PART ONE: FRANCE IN TUMULT 1789–93

  1 The Collapse of the Ancien Regime

  2 The Tennis Court Revolution

  3 To Kill a King

  4 The Republic Goes to War

  5 The Latin Adventurer

  6 The Terror

  7 The Boy from Ajaccio

  8 Angry Young Officer

  9 The Corsican

  10 Toulon

  PART TWO: BRITAIN ASLEEP 1789–95

  11 The Appeasers

  12 The Boy-Statesman

  13 Progress and Repression

  14 The Russian Ogre

  15 The Approach of War

  16 The Phoney War

  17 Dunkirk

  18 The Grand Old Duke of York

  19 The Spice Islands

  PART THREE: CONQUEROR OF ITALY

  20 The Outsider

  21 Italian Whirlwind

  22 King of North Italy

  23 The Coming Man

  PART FOUR: HEARTS OF OAK

  24 ‘Tis To Glory We Steer’

  25 The Floating World

  26 The Glorious First of June

  27 The Irish Flank

  28 Cape St Vincent

  29 Mutiny

  30 The Battle of Camperdown

  PART FIVE: THE INVASION OF EGYPT

  31 The Lure of the Sphinx

  32 Strange Young Man

  33 The Action Hero

  34 Battle of the Pyramids

  35 Battle of the Nile

  36 The Upper Nile

  37 Into the Holy Land

  38 The Siege of Acre

  PART SIX: THE SHORT PEACE

  39 Coup d’état

  40 Marengo

  41 Copenhagen

  42 Peace in Our Time

  43 The Consul’s Peace

  44 The Emperor’s War

  PART SEVEN: SAILOR SUPERSTAR

  45 Britain Under Siege

  46 To the West Indies

  47 Trafalgar

  48 Death of a Statesman

  PART EIGHT: KING OF KINGS

  49 The War Machine

  50 Austerlitz

  51 The Grenville Interlude

  52 The Prussian Campaign

  53 The Treaty of Tilsit

  54 Economic War

  55 The Sea Wolf

  56 The Intelligence War

  57 Peninsular Uprising

  58 Moore’s Army

  PART NINE: BRITAIN ALONE

  59 Arthur Wellesley

  60 Corunna

  61 Aix Roads

  62 The Austrians Strike Back

  63 Duel of the Titans

  64 Ruler of All He Surveyed

  PART TEN: THE PENINSULAR WAR

  65 Oporto

  66 Talavera

  67 The Lines of Torres Vedras

  68 Coimbra

  69 Into Spain

  70 Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz

  71 Salamanca

  72 Nemesis in Madrid

  73 The Kill: Vitoria

  74 Into France

  PART ELEVEN: THE INVASION OF RUSSIA

  75 The Grande Armée

  76 Vitebsk

  77 Smolensk and Borodino

  78 Moscow Burns

  79 General Winter

  80 Ney’s Escape

  81 Napoleon’s Flight to Paris

  82 The Fightback

  PART TWELVE: FIGHT TO THE DEATH

  83 On the Offensive

  84 The Battle of the Nations

  85 The Invasion of France

  86 The Great Chase

  87 Louis XVIII

  88 Return of the Bogeyman

  89 While the Duke Danced

  90 Ligny and Quatre Bras

  91 Waterloo: the British Buckle

  92 The British Attack

  93 Aftermath

  94 Napoleon’s Legacy

  Select Bibliography

  Index

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were the first of the modern great conflicts dressed in the trappings of the old. On land they bore all the romance of a dying era: gaudy and colourful uniforms, cavalry charges, lances, swords and muskets; and at sea the billowing sails and magnificent, creaking, flexible structures of wooden ships. Many of the commanders on both sides were still romantic, dashing, often eccentric, gallant and chivalrous.

  But they were also the first wars of mass mobilization – the French levee en masse – of rapid transportation of huge armies from one front to another – witness Napoleon’s army marching in weeks from Boulogne to Ulm and Austerlitz; of colossal set piece battles involving hundreds of thousands of men and huge casualties, such as Borodino, Leipzig and Waterloo; and of the laying waste of vast territories with terrible suffering inflicted on the civilian populations of the time. Proportionately more people probably died in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars than in the First or Second World Wars; and they lasted more than four times as long as either. This greatest of all wars at the time was understandably dubbed the Great War – a century before the 1914–18 war.

  One of the book’s central themes is that the war was a clash of national interests, not merely the whim of one man, Napoleon, much as he tried to claim the full credit. Moreover, like a Wagnerian opera, it is a story that builds up steadily to a pinnacle or climax. However dramatic the early and middle stages of the war, particularly the sea battles, they are dwarfed by the immensity of the Peninsular War, Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the Battle of the Nations, the fall of France and then Waterloo at the end. So far as I know no one since Sir Arthur Bryant (supre
mely successfully, but with an understandable patriotic slant given that he was writing during the Second World War) has attempted this.

  This book seeks above all to portray the intensity of the struggle between Britain and France during this period – the first between a constitutional and a modern totalitarian power – while also covering the immense continental conflict, which determined the fate of Europe and indeed of much of the world for the next century. The book also tries to evaluate the extent to which the French Revolution’s and Napoleon’s ideals transformed Europe, in spite of his eventual defeat. I make no apology for the length of the work: there are innumerable short histories of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars: but very few which seek to do justice to the whole colossal experience – perhaps the greatest conflict of all time.

  I owe huge debts to the many who have helped on this venture. The bibliography contains most of the sources and books I have drawn upon. I particularly want to highlight by far the best recent biography of Napoleon by Frank McClynn, which is comprehensive, well-written and always thought-provoking – although I disagree with many of its refreshingly trenchant judgments; John Ehrman’s beautifully written and exhaustive biography of William Pitt, which is surely the definitive work for decades, and is not so much a biography as a hugely comprehensive portrait of a whole age; Sir Arthur Bryant’s masterly history of the war; Christopher Herrold’s vivid and exciting study of Napoleon in Egypt; Charles Esdaile’s brilliant account of the Peninsular War, which uniquely and importantly shows a complete appreciation of the Spanish and Portuguese points of view; and General Segur’s eyewitness account and Adam Zamoyski’s superb book about the Napoleonic invasion of Russia. The many other books that are as deserving are listed in the bibliography.

  In more personal terms, I am immensely grateful to my teachers Michael Phillips, Peter Lawrence, John Peake and David Evans for instilling a lasting appreciation of history; to Jonathan Wright and Alan Ryan at Oxford for showing me its relevance to modern political decision-making; to Brian Beedham and Gordon Lee of the Economist for sharpening my writing skills; to my father and Raleigh Trevelyan for encouraging me to write; to Marchesa Serlupi Crescenzi for information on Napoleon’s Italian background; to Andrew Williams and his family, to Lawrence James and Grant MacIntyre for their encouragement; to my editors Nick Robinson, Leo Hollis, David Blomfield, Sarah Moore; to my brilliantly perceptive agent and friend Gillon Aitken; to my indefatigable and immensely painstaking and efficient assistant Jenny Thomas and to her historian husband Geoffrey for his helpful suggestions throughout; to my sister Antonella and her family; to my mother for her ideas and huge moral support; to many other good friends for distracting me; and above all as always to Jane and Oliver for supporting me and keeping me human during this immense enterprise.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  Louis XVI, King of France, taken by the people from the Tuileries Palace on 20 June 1792. Engraving English School, nineteenth century. Private Collection/© Ken Welsh/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Chateau des Tuileries, 10 August 1792, colour engraving by Jourdan after G. Texier (1750–1824). Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France. © Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Napoleon, in 1785, at age 16. Sketch by unnamed comrade, in Sloane, Life of Napoleon, Volume 1, page 20. © Mary Evans Picture Library.

  Portrait of Napoleon as a general on horseback in Italy, 1796/97. Copper engraving by Jean Joseph Francois Tassaert (1765–1835) after a drawing by Philippe Auguste Hennequin (1762-1833). © akg-images.

  The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797, by Richard Bridges Beechey (1808–95). Private Collection/© Bonhams, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  ‘L’Oedipe’ – Napoleon face to face with the Sphinx during his Egyptian Campaign, 1798. J. I. Gerome in Sloane, Life of Napoleon, Volume 2, page 5. © Mary Evans Picture Library.

  The Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, oil on canvas by William Anderson, 1801. © Sotheby’s/akg-images.

  Napoleon leaving his hotel on the Rue de la Victoire and heading for the Council of the Five Hundred to enthusiastic cries from his generals. French School, nineteenth century. Private Collection/ © Roger-Viollet, Paris/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Destruction of the Danish Fleet before Copenhagen, 2 April 1801, colour engraving by Thomas Sutherland after Thomas Whitcombe (c. 1752–1824) from J. Jenkins’s Naval Achievements. Private Collection/© The Stapleton Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Bonaparte planning an invasion of England at Boulogne, September 1803. Representation of the landing of French troops in England as planned by Napoleon but never actually carried out. Contemporary copy of an engraving, c.1804. © akg-images.

  Portrait of William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806), oil on canvas by Gainsborough Dupont (1754–97). Private Collection/© Philip Mould, Historical Portraits Ltd, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  The Death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, after being fatally wounded by a musket ball on board the Victory. Colour aquatint, London (I. Hinton) 21 November 1805. © akg-images/Nimatallah.

  The Battle of Austerlitz, 2 December 1805, engraving by English School, nineteenth century. Private Collection/© The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Treaty of Tilsit 1807. Napoleon and Tsar Alexander agree on a Franco-Russian truce isolating Prussia. The encounter took place on the river Memel at Tilsit, 1807. Colour chalk lithograph by R. Weibezahl. © akg-images.

  Charles, Archduke of Austria (1771–1847) at the Battle of Aspern-Essling, 21–22 May 1809. Napoleon was defeated by the Austrians. Steel engraving from: Bilder-Gallerie zur allgem.Weltgesch. von C.v.Rotteck, Karlsruhe and Freiburg (B.Herder) 1842. © akg-images.

  Capture of Oporto (Portugal) by the French under General Nicolas Jean Soult, 29 March 1809 during the Peninsular War. Wood engraving, 1875, after drawing by Felix Philippoteaux (1815–84). © akg-images.

  Death of Sir John Moore, 17 January 1809, aquatint by Thomas Sutherland after William Heath from J. Jenkins’s The Martial Achievements of Great Britain and her Allies from 1799–1815. © Courtesy of the Council, National Army Museum, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  The Battle of Salamanca, 22 July 1812. The British army under Wellington and the Spanish army defeat the French under Marmont. Colour aquatint by William Heath (1795–1840) and Joseph C.Stadler (1756–1827). © akg-images/British Library.

  Carretadas al cementerio (Cart with corpses for the cemetery) c.1812/15 by Francisco de Goya (1746–1828). Etching and aquatint. © akg-images.

  View of the Kremlin during the Moscow Fire of September 1812, colour engraving by Schmidt after Christian Johann Oldendorp (b.1772). Bibliothéque Marmottan, Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France. © Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Retreat of La Grande Armée, November–December 1812. Colour lithograph, unsigned, c. 1890. Westfaelisches Schulmuseum, Dortmund © akg-images.

  Napoleon exiled to Elba. Anonymous French artist, 1815. © Mary Evans Picture Library.

  Field Marshal Prince von Blucher (1742–1819), c.1816, oil on canvas by George Dawe (1781-1829). Apsley House, The Wellington Museum, London, UK. © The Bridgeman Art Library.

  Equestrian portrait of the Duke of Wellington with British Hussars on a battlefield, 1814 by Nicolas Louis Albert Delerive (1775-1818). Private Collection/ © Bonhams, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  The Battle of Waterloo, illustration for a narrative poem by Dr Syntax, published 1818, coloured aquatint after William Heath, (1795–1840). © Courtesy of the Council, National Army Museum, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library.

  INTRODUCTION

  Biographies of Napoleon can be weighed by the hundredweight. Yet there are curiously few recent attempts at an entire history of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the colossal and protracted global struggle that convulsed all of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century. This book is an attempt to address that void: it is an unashamedly ‘general’ rather tha
n scholastic work, written for a wide audience. A broad brush inevitably obscures detail, but no scholastic work could possibly do justice to that great struggle without running into a dozen volumes. My aim has been to provide a giant and vivid canvas on which to depict these globe-bestriding, world-changing events for the general reader, providing new insights and drawing on many widely neglected accounts. It is for the reader to judge whether I have succeeded.

  According to Napoleon, history is a myth that men agree to believe. The revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are usually divided into two rich mythologies: the first is that of Napoleon the monster who inflicted years of suffering and slaughter across Europe, precursor to the worst tyrannies in the twentieth century; the second that of Napoleon the genius and modernizer who liberated Europe from decrepit feudal absolutism and endowed the continent with modern laws, national self-respect, and bourgeois progress. Both of these are predicated on the ultimate Napoleonic myth: his omnipotence, as powerful through the ages as the identification of Julius Caesar’s power with that of ancient Rome. Both owe as much to historical propaganda as to Napoleon’s vanity and his determination to write history solely in terms of his own extraordinary personality.

  Napoleon’s is the dominant personality in the events of this book, primarily from 1799 to 1815. But the mythology is, to say the least, extravagant with the truth. The revolutionary wars from 1792 to 1802 were as significant and dangerous to Britain and Europe as the Napoleonic phase, from 1803 to 1815. Men like Dumouriez and Carnot, now largely forgotten, first created the military machine which Napoleon later piloted. Napoleon’s command over his generals, his ministers and France as a whole was more circumscribed than many people today believe. His military successes were often close-run and short-lived, and his hubris brought about defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

  This book attempts to outline what really happened during the frenzied quarter of a century when Britain, having carved out a global empire and dazzled the world with its inventiveness and industrial revolution, seemed on the verge of being invaded and devastated, as so much of continental Europe had been already.