In Our Time - Napoleon's Hundred Days

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte's temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba . He arrived with fewer than a thousand men, yet three weeks later he had displaced Louis XVIII and taken charge of an army as large as any that the Allied Powers could muster individually. He saw that his best chance was to pick the Allies off one by one, starting with the Prussian and then the British/Allied armies in what is now Belgium. He appeared to be on the point of victory at Waterloo yet somehow it eluded him, and his plans were soon in tatters. His escape to America thwarted, he surrendered on 15th July and was exiled again but this time to Saint Helena. There he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy, while back in Europe there were still fears of his return.With Michael Rowe Reader in European History at Kings College LondonKatherine Astbury Professor of French Studies at the University of WarwickAndZack White Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of PortsmouthProducer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio production.Reading list:Katherine Astbury and Mark Philp (ed.), Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Politics of Legitimacy (Palgrave, 2018)Jeremy Black, The Battle of Waterloo: A New History (Icon Books, 2010)Michael Broers, Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821 (Pegasus Books, 2022)Philip Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in power 1799-1815 (Bloomsbury, 2014)Charles J. Esdaile, Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle Rejected (Pen & Sword Military, 2016)Gareth Glover, Waterloo: Myth and Reality (Pen & Sword Military, 2014)Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (Granta, 2014)John Hussey, Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 1, From Elba to Ligny and Quatre Bras (Greenhill Books, 2017)Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great (Penguin Books, 2015)Brian Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press, 2014) Zack White (ed.), The Sword and the Spirit: Proceedings of the first ‘War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon’ Conference (Helion and Company, 2021)

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. This is in our time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find on BBC Sounds and on our website. If you scroll down the page for this edition, you can find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoyed the programme. Hello, on the 26th of February 1815,

Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on Elba, arriving in France with fewer than a thousand men. Three weeks later he was in Paris and a raise an army of about 200,000 men as large as any that the Allied powers could muster individually and his best chance was to pick them off one by one. Somehow, victory escaped him at Waterloo and his escape to America was sworted too.

He surrendered on the 15th of July and so was exiled again but on St Helena where he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy. With me to discuss Napoleon's hundred days are Catherine Astorbury, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick, Zach White, Lieberhum Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth, and Michael Rowe, reader in European history at King's College, London. Michael Rowe, why was Napoleon on Alba?

Well, the 100 days, the subject of today's programme, of course, is in the spring of 1815. We need to go back a year. We need to go back to March and April 1840. the once great Napoleonic Empire's crumbling, it's being invaded from all sides. It is in deep trouble. Napoleon's put up a good fight in France in early 1814, but the end is now drawing to a close.

And the Allies need to get him to abdicate, and indeed his marshals around him who see that the empire is essentially finished, they need to get him to abdicate. He's still in a position to negotiate the terms of his abdication, He strikes a deal with the Russian Tsar, and he signs a treaty called the Treaty of Fontainebleau in early April 1814. And as part of that treaty, are the packages that he will be exiled to Elba. But remember, he's not a prisoner. He's not going to be a prisoner on Elba.

He is given sovereignty over that small island. In many ways, it's a problematic settlement. It'll throw up issues which will obviously explode in 1815. Elba was in the Mediterranean, just quite near Corsica, where he was born and brought up. The British fleet then wasn't there to keep him in Elba. How did he escape and why did he escape? The Royal Navy, the British Navy, is by far the largest in the world, according to some estimates.

It's bigger than all the other fleets added together. But it's also engaged on the other side of the Atlantic. You've got the War of 1812, which is a misnomer. stretches into late 1814, early 1815. And the British are sort of then demobilising. So the Royal Navy is maybe less impressive in the Mediterranean than it might have been. And there's also an issue that the British are not quite sure whether they are Napoleon's jailers or not. They hadn't really been part of this settlement about sending Napoleon to Elba. It'd been very much the Russian Tsar, Alexander I, Alexander I, who had come up with that idea. So the British are a little bit

unsure how to police this. How did you get through that? How did get away? There isn't much of a naval cordon to get through. As sovereign of Elba of course, Napoleon has his own little army and his own little navy. So he has actually a warship at hand, a brig. And he

chooses his moment when the British agent is not present in Elba. So he's not really held in sort of protective custody. So the escaping bit is not that difficult. They're rumours. that on his voyage to France that he's spotted by at least a

French frigate which somehow mysteriously turns a blind eye. So there is a suspicion that already on the French side there are those who are willing to see Napoleon succeed and willing him on. So he gets across and gets to France

then he marches up to Paris and as we heard he's got five or six hundred men and he arrives in in palace with an army we're told around the 200,000 mark. Can you tell us how I manage that? When Napoleon lands on the south coast of France, he has just a very small number of men to hand to support him.

He's faced immediately with a choice of which way to go to Paris. On his way down into exile the previous spring, he'd almost been lynched outside Avignon. So he decides to avoid province entirely and takes the mountainous route through Gap, Grenoble and on to Lyon. on the basis that that's a safer route for him. As he goes, he gathers support. Men come over to him.

The most famous example of that is on the 7th of March at Lafrey. He's faced with a royalist army, which obviously 12 months earlier had been his army. And he says, go on then shoot me, so the legend goes. And all the soldiers then instantly say, long live the emperor, vive l'Enperre. One of the things that Louis the 18th had done when he took over in 1814 was to put a lot of the officers on half pay.

reduce the size of the army. So you have a really very substantial number of people with nothing to do at the start of the restoration. So they're actually quite enthusiastic at Napoleon coming back because he's going to give them purpose. So he makes his way in every town he goes through, the enthusiasm for his arrival grows. And a bit like the Pied Piper of Hamlin,

he sort of gains supporters on the way. He's going through royalist territory, though. There must be some people who say, we don't want him here. The whole of France, remains a little bit divided. It's not that instantly everybody is enthusiastically Bonapartist when he arrives. There are still opponents to him. And when he lands, I think he doesn't know for certain whether the army or the people of France are actually going to back the final throw of the dice that he's made. But he starts to gain confidence. And by the time he reaches Grenoble and then Leon, there's a real sense that he's got enough support and enough soldiers are prepared to back him.

that he can legitimately claim to be the people's choice as sovereign and march to Paris with confidence. He's got this immense number of people called up at almost a moment's notice. How does they feed them? With difficulty, the big question with all armies is how do you feed people? The route he's taking, though, he's sending an advanced guard each time through to try and secure the provisions.

And actually, initially, that advanced guard is asking, asking for three or four times the amount of food they actually need to give the impression that Napoleon is better supported than he is. So there's a little bit of spin going on right from the beginning about how much support he's got and he's actually almost creating the myth as he goes. It doesn't seem almost creating the myth. He's definitely creating the myth.

Yes, it's a most ridiculous, astonishing achievement. Chateaubriand, the writer, said, how is it possible for one man to invade a country? and it's part of the legend. One of the big things that makes Napoleon such a powerful figure even to this day is how someone in a completely hopeless position in March 1814 can come back

and reach Paris without a drop of blood being spilt. Is this his charisma or his tactics? I think it's a combination of things. So I think charisma plays an important part. Is there really any tactic? He's trying to get to Paris as quickly as he can to scare the living daylights out of the royalists but I think it's also that he's tapping into a fear that the gains of the revolution

from the previous 25 years are being lost under Louis the 18th. So he's tapping into an inherent anti-clerical, anti-monarchical, anti-an regime feeling and is playing the revolutionary card everywhere he goes. So when he lands, he issues proclamation saying, I'm the saviour, grab your trickle or flags, put your cockades back on. I'm going to free France of enemy involvement. The gains of the revolution are safe with me. So he's trying to rewind the clock back to 1799

when he declared first time around that he was saving the revolution. There was the old Napoleon and the new Napoleon, was it? When he arrives in France in 1815, he's very much trying to present himself as the heir to the French Revolution, that he is the people's choice to be sovereign, that the nation should choose who is on the throne,

that he is a more legitimate ruler than Louis XIII, who's been placed there by the Allies, simply because of his bloodline. So in part he's playing with this revolutionary tradition that the nation and the people should choose who's in charge of the country. But he also recognises that things have moved on a little bit since he was forced into abdication in 1814. So what he's also trying to do is suggest that he's going to be more liberal than he was first time around.

So he tries to get more liberal politically minded in people. The press and other politicians, people like Benjamin Constant, and offers a number of liberal concessions. So he re-ablishes the slave trade, for instance. He brings back the Marseillaise, the ultimate revolutionary symbol. He brings back the singing of the Marseillaise. He tries to suggest that he's the best of both worlds. He can give people some of the benefits of the revolution

and the ability for the people to choose whilst giving them the glory and the stability that they enjoyed under the empire. Thank you. The Allies, meanwhile, are sitting docks at the Congress of Vienna, deciding that peace will break out. When the news comes, Napoleon's at large again. What did they make of that? In many respects, Napoleon's return come.

at the worst possible moment for him, because the allies, as you say, are convening as part of the Congress of Vienna. And by this point, the squabbling, which is part of the opportunity that he saw, the fractious nature of the relationship between those allies is starting to be resolved. So these guys are literally sat around a table at the moment that news arrives that Napoleon has returned from Elbe. How many countries do we have that, the Congress of Vienna? I would say seven or eight. Britain, most obviously, Prussia, Russia, Austria, but you've also got other nations that have been involved in this wider coalition warfare against Napoleon.

So, for example, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands also have representatives. And very quickly, within a mere five days, these nations have come together, and they make a very clear, steadfast commitment that each of them will field 150,000 men in the fight to topple Napoleon for a second time. One of the quite peculiar aspects of Napoleon's return is the extent to which he doesn't seem to have anticipated the strength of reaction by the ally powers to his return. The Allies have spent huge numbers of lives and also a vast amount of money, and I suspect amongst many quarters actually the money that had been expended was more of a factor than the number of lives.

But let's not forget that around 4 million people die over the course of the Napoleonic Wars. the Allies have invested a huge amount in trying to topple him for a first time and for him to return in the manner that he does is not something that they were prepared to take lying down. And it was Napoleon they were against, not the idea of a new France. Napoleon is absolutely seen as part of the problem because as far as the Allies are concerned, there is a legitimate ruler of France. Now Louis has fled to the Netherlands at this point in time. So to declare war on France is deeply problematic because as far as they're concerned,

they have a friendly ruler who has just been ousted by what they would have described as a usurper. So the Allies are very particularly to declare war on Napoleon the man, as opposed to France the nation. What sort of information is he being fed or is he getting hold of? Napoleon actually tries to position himself as a man of peace when he comes back in 1815. And there's a very simple reason for that. He knows that the tactical situation hasn't changed that profoundly from when he was beaten in 1840. team. So he's acutely aware that if the allies are prepared to come together, they can overwhelm him by force of numbers. So he plays...

Three to one or more than that? More than that. Because as I say, the allies are looking at fielding in the regional of 700,000 men against him. And so he effectively proclaims that he doesn't want war. And this is part of what Kate is referring to about this debate about whether or not he is truly a changed man. Now personally I regard Napoleon as a hugely Machiavellian figure and so my interpretation is that Napoleon doesn't want war in 1815 for a very simple reason he's not ready for it he needs the time to build up that force to much more than the 200,000 men Where's his money coming from?

From the French people, from taxation but he's playing a very difficult game here because part of the unpopularity of the Bourbon monarchy came from the need to raise taxes in the aftermath of war so he has to find a way to balance that whilst also appearing to be different Michael, Michael Rowe, can you give the listener some idea of the way in which he addressed the French people to get him where he wants to get to? Well, the fact that the Allies have declared Napoleon to be an outlaw makes it actually very easy for Napoleon to argue that he is not the aggressor, that he is defending France. Being an outlaw means that he can be legally killed at any time. Yes, it's something which outrages him. But they declare him. to have put himself outside the framework of law,

which means he can be murdered on a highway. So in a way, that is a propaganda win for Napoleon. During the earlier part of his regime before 1814, he'd often used the phrase that he was fighting for peace. That hadn't really been plausible then. It is more so in the 100 days campaign. How does it persuade people to come from it? What are they going to get from it?

Well, there are a lot of veteran soldiers. So he inherits this royal army on paper at least of about 200,000 when he returns to France. He doesn't reintroduce conscription. That would have been, I think, very unpopular. But he appeals to those veterans who had left the army to come back to the colours. So he gets back about another 65, 70,000 troops. And these are people who, many of them, are veterans of many campaigns. They haven't been serving the French army for a few years

and a yearning to get back to civilian life. They've known only military service for perhaps a better part of a decade. They want to get back to the kind of glory of serving, arguably the best commander of all time. But I think where he does score is that he is not Louis V. 18th. As Catherine mentioned, he sort of positions himself as this great kind of defender of a revolution. He is now the people's emperor.

he is defending the legacy of 1789 against, you know, regimes, Louis VIII's, but also continental European regimes, which are actually very reactionary. Sheaves have thought himself as being tremendously welcome when he went to France. Was he deluded? He is welcome in many areas of France. And Louis XIV, I think he does receive a bad press. I think he's done his best. He reintroduces a kind of constitutional regime.

But there are a lot of people around him, the so-called ultra-royalists who make many enemies, both amongst ordinary French people, and amongst, for example, Napoleon's former marshals, people like Marshall Ney, who see themselves or their wives having been humiliated by these royalists who come back from exile and from having been marginalised. And so there are a great deal many French people who are not pro-Louis V 18th. Kate, what risks was he taking and were those who followed him taking? Both the Napoleon and anyone following him, the risks are quite substantial.

It's a win or lose situation. This is a final attempt by Napoleon to get control of the country once more. A number of those following him, though, do hedge their bets, because it is not entirely certain that this gamble is going to pay off. So most notably, advisers like Talleyrand and Foucher are remaining in correspondence with the exiled court in Ghent. to try and hedge their bets a little bit, because if it doesn't go well for Napoleon,

they don't want to suddenly find themselves cast out again once the monarchy is restored. So to a certain extent, you've got a number of people for whom this is the last chance, and Napoleon is their only chance, and they're going to fall wholeheartedly in with the enterprise. But others are a little bit more calculating. Those who wanted him to get power and stay in power,

what were they hoping for? I think the people who support Napoleon in 1850, want one of two things. One is a strong, glorious France again. There's a sense that they'd been humiliated by the Allies invading Paris in 1814, imposing a king on them again, not so very long after his brother had been guillotined.

So there's on one hand has that real desire for a better system, a better way for France to choose its own path. The other hand, I think people are wanting something that Napoleon can give that no one else can, which is a sense of purpose to where the country might be going next. Zach White, the Allies wanted to bring Napoleon to battle. They were pasty superior in numbers,

and they'd ever reason to think you'd be a bit of a walkover. What's your view of that? I'd agree with that, but part of the reason for this is that they've learnt the formula for defeating Napoleon in 1814. They've done this once already, but it's taken them a long time to reach that realization of how to win. The formula. The formula is twofold. One is, if at all possible, don't fight Napoleon. Fight his subordinates. So it's very much sort of fight where the enemy isn't. Because there is this acute awareness that Napoleon has consistently defeated all of the leading commanders in Europe, bar perhaps Wellington. And as a result of that, there's an appreciation that if they fight Napoleon himself, there is a very good chance that he will work his magic again as a hugely gifted military commander and defeat them. The other solution to this problem is if you do have to fight Napoleon,

fight him with overwhelming advantages in numbers, so that that negates the advantage that the man himself can bring. And as a result of that, the grand strategy in 1815 is to wait until all of these armies are in position. The armies are from the Vienna Congress. Precisely. Yeah. And then invade as a unified force. So in many respects, the plan is to fight combined.

and as one veteran put it to me a couple of years ago, the strategy at Waterloo and across the planned campaign for 1815 is very much a 19th century equivalent of NATO. What do you actually mean by that? The idea that this is a coalition warfare as opposed to any individual nation holding the bulk of the responsibility for Napoleon's defeat. Quite often you will see this spun as a British victory or a German victory

and in reality it is that combined national effort that is responsible for Napoleon's defeat. He'd won 50 battles, hadn't he? And before this, so there were every right to be rather wary. They've learnt this the hard way. It's not until 1813 at the Battle of Leipzig, which is the largest battle to be fought before the advent of the First World War, that the back of Napoleon's power is truly broken.

For sure, he loses a vast number of men, half a million, in his disastrous invasion of Russia. But it's only at 1813 that the realisation comes that Napoleon's son is. setting. Michael, Michael Rowe, what was Napoleon's best strategy? What did he say, this is the way I'll do it? Well, if you want to defeat NATO, I suppose the easiest way is to break bits off it and play on divisions. Now, plan A had been, you know, essentially political that the coalition partners in 1815 would not come together. That's failed. You know, politically, they say they're committed to defeat Napoleon. So plan B is to defeat their armies in detail, you know,

so one after another. And that means taking on the British and the Prussians first, because they are closest, they are there, they are in what is today, Belgium, geographically closest. They're not walking back from Russia and they're not working. Yes, the Russians are coming back from Russia, you know, so they've got a long way to go. And the Russians don't tend to move very fast anyway, and nor do the Austrians. But they are the largest armies for Russians and the Austrians,

but they've got the furthest to come. So the plan is to strike north, to strike towards Belgium. to deal with the British and the Prussians first, and within that campaign to actually divide the British and the Prussians from each other. So to drive a wedge physically, position yourself in the sort of theatre of operations between them and make sure that they don't unite against you. These are the two smaller armies, but they're well organised. They're well organised to an extent.

Wellington does have a challenge we refer to his army as being the British army, that it contains a mixture of nationalities. and they are not the best of troops, not even the British contingents, but the best bit of British armies in North America, fighting the United States, and it's on its way back. So these are not the peninsula veterans. They're not the veterans of Wellington's famous Spanish campaign. And the Prussians are their own problem.

You know, they've tried to integrate soldiers from new territories which they've acquired at the Congress of Vienna, Saxony, the Rhineland. Now, many of those soldiers have actually fought for Napoleon rather than against it. So well-organised, maybe in terms of their command structure, but a lot of troops who are either green or are a little bit demoralised. There is a similar problem amongst Wellington's army as well, in that there is a large Dutch-Belgian contingent,

and until very recently, Belgium has been part of a larger France. And even during the battles of the Waterloo campaign itself, you have soldiers fighting one another who have served alongside each other in earlier conflicts. To the point that we can pinpoint episodes where soldiers on board, both sides are urging the other to desert to the other's side. So it's a huge source of concern for the Allies that actually this coalition force might splinter apart. And they're shifting around in that part of Europe to line up for what they know will be a battle? Yes, I think...

Well, they want to be a battle. I think the Prussians and the British, what they do have going for them is determination. I mean, out of all the coalition partners, I think the Prussians in particular are sort of fiercely... I think not only anti-Nopolian, but actually anti-France, you know, they've suffered greatly during the Napoleonic Wars. If there is a weak link, I think, in the coalition, I would say it would have been Austria. They really want a balance of power between France and Russia, whereas the Prussians, I think, are out for revenge. And the British have also been very determined. So Napoleon, in a way, is unfortunate.

One level he's fortunate. He's dealing with the two smaller star, the British and the Prussians. But in many ways, they're also the most determined opponents. Kate, with the lining up in Belgium, getting ready for what will be a big battle? Is that in the air? Is that inevitable? It's inevitable the minute Napoleon has been declared an outlaw by the Congress of Vienna. War is the only possible outcome from that, because Napoleon has to strike first. He has to try and get his forces ready before the others can line up in coalition against him. He's forced to move faster than perhaps he would have wanted to, go to war earlier than he would have wanted to,

He doesn't have the money. The French borders have shrunk as a result of the first abdication and the restoration of the monarchy. He doesn't have as many men to call on. He doesn't have the finances to call on. But still, his only option, really, is to hit hard and fast before the Allies can actually outnumber him and outmaneuver him. Let's dig into that. Would you agree with that? Yes, I would.

I think what he really wants to do is to push the Prashans eastwards, so they'll retreat towards the Rhine and towards their hard. And the British will do a sort of a 1940, as it were, it wouldn't be Duncirk. It would probably be Antwerp. And, you know, we forced to the sea and then across the sea back to Britain. And then, of course, you'd immediately have to turn south to confront the Austrians and the Russians. So you can envisage that campaign, having gone all the way through 1815. And it's, I think the only way that Napoleon would have won is had the Allies fallen apart. One of them would have broken ranks. and it's not unrealistic.

That had happened earlier. It had happened in 1805, it had happened in 1806, he could pick them off one at a time. It doesn't happen in 1813, 1814. I suspect it won't happen in 1815. So, Zach, Zach, let's engage. What happened when the battle started? How did the battle start?

Whose were? So the Waterloo campaign is actually a series of four battles. The first two engagements are the twin battles of Catrebra and Lini. On the... Catrabra, the forearms crossroads. Precisely. And then Linyi. Kachabra is effectively Wellington's story

and Linyi is Bluca's story, the commander of the Prussian army. And this is about Napoleon trying to achieve what Mike has just described, this notion that these two allied armies can be treated like swinging doors with the French army being the boot forcing the two of them apart.

And he tries to hold Wellington's force at Kachabr Bras whilst attempting to destroy Bluke at Lini. He might be able to. manages to defeat Bluca, but it's not an overwhelming victory. There is some mismanagement of one of the French core that means that that core marches from Catra Bratelini and back again without being engaged at either. And that's one of the critical moments at which I would argue Napoleon loses the Waterloo campaign before the guns even open fire at Waterloo. The other point

at which he actually loses this campaign for me is the following day on the 17th of June, when Wellington hasn't heard the news that Beluka has been defeated. The messenger carrying that dispatch actually gets caught by the French and shot en route. So Wellington is effectively a sitting duck at Catrebra, having managed to hold the line, but doesn't know it. And it's only much later in the morning that the news arrives, but Napoleon doesn't capitalize on that opportunity. That then enables both the Anglo-Dutch force and the Prussian force to move north, parallel to one another, and over the course of the 17th, there's a constant communication back and forth between British and Prussian headquarters about whether or not they can stand up fight on the 18th. In the early hours of the 18th, and we're talking about 3am, Wellington receives a cast iron commitment from Bluca that he will march, come what may, with at least a quarter of his army, if not more.

That basically leaves March to support the British. And that leaves Wellington with the opportunity to use his army like bait. Stand at fight at Waterloo and by the time for the Prussians to literally come marching over the hill, and then they will be able to enact that strategy of fighting combined and crush Lapalian. Michael? Yes, I think Zach's right. A lot of the most important parts of his campaign happen on the 16th of June and the 17th of June, so a day or two before Waterloo.

And Wellington later on says that the most important decision made in the 19th century is the decision made by the Prussians to retreat from Linney northwards so they remain in touch with the British army as opposed to retreating eastwards which would have meant that they were moving away from Wellington's force. So the most important decision of the 19th century according to Wellington.

What you've glossed over, not glossed over but Rush Passed is it seems from my reading is that Napoleon's making quite a few mistakes here and he's not supposed to, is he? I mean we think he's a magical myth man. What do you say to that? He does make important mistakes. Well, for example, one of the villains, if you like, of the Waterloo campaign, at least on the French side, is somebody called Marshall Grushy.

And he gets all the blame. And one of Napoleon's of less appealing characteristics is that he's very good at blaming everyone else for his mistakes. And Grushy is sent in pursuit of the Prussians after Linyu. But Napoleon wastes about 10, 12 hours before actually telling Grushy to get a move on and to follow the Prussians, and those are very valuable hours. Had Grouchy moved earlier and had Napoleon made his instructions clearer, chances are that the Prussians would have been sort of pushed out and away from the British. And a classic example of that is to just take a moment to look at the timings of when the Prussians are engaged at Waterloo versus when Grushy does in fact

catch up with them. And it's not until 4pm on the 18th of June at Wav that Grushy finally manages to make contact with the Prussian force and begin to engage them. Now, by that time, a quarter of Bluqazami is already at Waterloo and is advancing on Napoleon's right flank. So for all that, as you say, Grushy gets a huge amount of blame. The only way that he could have resolved this situation is if he developed the ability to fly. I think what we see in the course of the spring of 1815 and into the summer

is Napoleon increasingly being unclear, delaying. nervous, both politically and in military terms. I think it's not just about the military situation on the battlefield at Waterloo. It's also before that politically, he's hesitant, he changes his mind, he's not quite sure who to listen to. Why is all that going on?

It's a really good question. Why is Napoleon not the Napoleon we think he is? He's had this astonishing return to Paris and then dithes. He's not got the sense of purpose. he's somehow doubting himself and his advisers. Michael. I mean, he's also an ill man.

I think we do have to look at his health and he's got issues, haemorrhoids, which make it difficult for him to sort of sit on a horse for a prolonged period of time. So he's actually part of... It turns out of... It turns out of... Yes, I mean, he's partly out of action,

you know, during the Battle of Waterloo itself. But he's not as sharp and not as... You know, you would have loved to have seen the Napoleon of a 1790's campaign, you know, in 1815. And I think there the outcome would have been different. I genuinely do. He's not well. He's not well. The other thing to bear in mind from a military standpoint is that he is only able to take into battle with him what is very much his B team. A number of his key supporters and advisors aren't either willing or able to join him for the Waterloo campaign. The foremost example

of those is Marshall Bertier, who had served as Napoleon. Chief of Staff and was very much his right-hand man. Napoleon was a man of vision when it came to campaign strategy, but it was Bertier who dealt with the practicalities of making that happen. Now, Bertier chooses not to join Napoleon, and then, depending on your perspective, either conveniently or very tragically falls from a balcony and fairly obviously dies, and it's not clear whether that's a suicide or whether that was an assassination attempt. And as a result of that, Napoleon is taking into battle with him commanders who are not always his best. There are exceptions to that, of course, Marshall Ney, who we've talked about

already, being an obvious example there, but it means that he doesn't have the right people in the right place at the right time to be able to interpret his vision and turn it into reality. Is there a period where the heart of the battle takes place and he loses? Can you describe them? Or is it too many actions going on in too many different locations? Which is that, Michael? I mean, armies are larger in this period than they had been in the 18th century, and you have what is known as this system of core. So you have armies which are spread out over a theatre of operations. It really requires more than a great genius. You do need to have a system, a machine, a command structure, what we today call a general staff system, to coordinate. And that isn't really fully

developed in this period. It will be the Prussians, i.e. the Germans, who will come up with that structure later on in the 19th century. So I think we're an interesting period in the history of war in the early 19th century, where in many ways armies have outgrown the structures which make them efficient. It's also worth bearing in mind that Waterloo is an incredibly short campaign, even by Napoleonic standards. Napoleon invades on the 15th of June, and by the 19th of June, his forces are streaming broken back across the French border. So it is very much in a very frenetic campaign over the 16th, 17th and 18th that Napoleon loses this. Whilst you were asking the question made me think about one of the most famous

depictions of the Battle of Waterloo, a literary depiction by the author Stondal who in the Charterhouse of Palmer describes the Battle of Waterloo and the young hero goes from bit of the battlefield to bit of the battlefield looking desperately to see Napoleon.

He just wants to see Napoleon and he can't find him anywhere it's just chaos. There's mud, there's smoke, he has no idea what's happening and the whole of the battle passes him by and I think in some ways that encapsulate some of what Michael

and Zach are talking about that it's not a clear-cut space. It's not here's one line, here's another line opposing it, and somewhere in the middle you're going to work out who's lost the most men and that's the end of the decision. It is messy. There's bits happening all over the place. The crucial point is that Napoleon ultimately leaves the field of battle. Why does he do that?

He sees that the game is up and thinks that if he goes back to Paris and strengthens the political field of power around him, He can regroup and try again. Can we talk a little bit about the British Army, not be too shy about it? How are they doing? Well, the first thing to say about Wellington's army is that it's only about a third to maybe 40% British.

And this is one of the misconceptions of Waterloo, that this is Wellington, a British commander, leading an all-British force that is then able to defeat Napoleon, and that's simply not the case. About a third of it is Dutch, about 25% is Hanoverian troops. So this is a multinational. National Force in its own right. It is very fragile. We see this over the course of the Battle of Catabra, but also particularly at Waterloo. The Dutch Belgian troops are quite raw in many respects.

They are propped up in many places by militia and landver. These are not sort of your seasoned, ultra-professional units that the British tend to field. And even amongst the British troops, as we've talked about already, there is a variation in terms of the quality. He has about a division and a half of Peninsular War veteran units, but those are not entirely hardened soldiers who have seen combat before. There is a spine of Peninsular War veterans that has then been supplemented by fresh recruits. And it is remarkable just how hard it is for Wellington's force to hold the line in the face of the French assault. The first attack that Napoleon launches very nearly breaks through. So he sends 11.5,000 men straight up his right flank and very nearly breaks

the Anglo-Dutch line, despite Wellington actually having one of his Peninsula War divisions in place. So even the best troops that Wellington has to offer aren't quite enough. And it's ultimately a British cavalry charge that is able to shatter that first assault. We've talked a lot about the Prussians here. The fact that the Prussians arrive late, which is something that we haven't touched on, but they do arrive later than intended, but arrive when they do, is really quite key in saving this very fragile force, because Napoleon is preparing for a second assault in exactly the same place, but is then forced to take those trips and use them to fend off the Prussians. If you will look at the Imperial Guard attack as well, again, a multinational affair.

It's beaten back by a mixture of, most famously, the British Guards, this is where the Grenadier guards get their name by defeating Napoleon's Imperial Guard. They don't actually face Napoleon's grenadiers. They face the Chasseurses, but it's a misunderstanding and a misnomer. And nobody really wants to tell the British Army that they should rename the Grenadier Guards, the Chasseurs Guards. That would be quite unpopular. So one wave of the Imperial Guards attack hits the Maitland's Guards Brigade, but another wave ends up striking a mixture of Hanoverian troops and Dutch Belgian troops, including militia forces. So this is a situation where the line is tested severely the very fabric of this Anglo-Allied coalition risks falling apart, because when some of those

Hanoverian troops break and pull back, they run straight into the British-like cavalry who have drawn their horses up behind them, have drawn their sabres, and are using their horses as a physical barrier, and are threatening these troops trying to force them to stand and fight in the face of the French assault. So the coalition very nearly crumbles before Wellington's own eyes. This is not, by any means, an all-conquering British army that is able to sweep Napoleon from the field. Do you want to develop that? Well, Wellington himself admits, of course, that is a near-run thing. You know, that they come very close to being defeated.

I suppose what I would add is that the British have an additional ally. They've got the Prussians, but they've also got the weather. In many ways, the British need to hold a position. They need to block Napoleon from advancing north of Brussels. And it's Napoleon's task to sort of break through. and in a way the British have to hold a line. And the fact that it's kind of rained, you know, overnight, the night 17th to the 18th means that the battle can only start later

than Napoleon would have ideally liked. And that's because artillery can't be manoeuvred across quagmires and also the cannonboards tend not to ricochet. Casualties through artillery fire in this period are caused chiefly by ricocheting cannonboards. And if the ground is sod and they just bury themselves into it. So in many ways, the weather, again, one thinks, What if it had been dry for the previous days? Would that have made a difference?

But what did come from it? Was that the British reputation was enhanced by this, wasn't it? The British role, I think, is made easier by the fact that the ground is sodden. It's easier to sort of hold a line. And Wellington does have a reputation for being a good defensive general. He's good at reading the lie of the land. He knows actually the terrain of Waterloo very well. He's surveyed it the previous year when he was working on the sort of

fortification systems between Belgium and France. That is actually a great advantage, and he picks this sort of reverse slope, which means that he obscures, as far as the French are concerned, they can't actually see the British lines fully. And they're also shielded by the topography from artillery fire. So Wellington makes some very good decisions, it has to be said, on the eve of the battle. Napoleon's mindset also fluctuates over the course of just the 18th of June, actually. He starts the day incredibly bullish.

she has a breakfast with his commanders, it's known as the breakfast of the marshals, and he sits down and he's adamant that he's going to beat Wellington. Now, he is sitting with a whole series of commanders who have been beaten systematically by Wellington in the course of the penituary war of 1808 to 14, where Wellington has this incredible string of victories over all of his major opponents.

And yet Napoleon sits down and says Wellington is a bad general, and the British are bad soldiers, and this whole affair will be no more difficult than eating breakfast. Now, inevitably, he ends up being served a heavy doser of humble pie over the course of that. But there is also a moment when he rides forward right at the end of the battle. In the last sort of do-or-dye moments, he makes this last ditch attempt to break the Allied line, having tried multiple times over the course of the day. But he rides forward with his imperial guard, his sort of glorified bodyguard.

These are troops who have never been defeated. And it is questioned whether or not Napoleon actually intended to die. at Waterloo by placing himself at the head of his men. Now his staff ultimately turn around him and say, you need to stop and he is forced to pull up his horse. And then as Kate says, ultimately cuts and runs for the French border. Can we just say a bit more about that? Of course, Napoleon is always somebody who knew the power of leading from the front.

He was somebody who was a genius of propaganda and a genius of inspiring his soldiers. We've talked already about that personal touch, that ability to reach over to somebody, tug their earlobe, remember somebody by name from a previous campaign and have those interpersonal relations. And he understands the benefit of that. So it is thought that by riding forward with his Imperial Guard, he would have been inspiring his men in the process. But there is also this question that Napoleon knows the danger. And by this point in the afternoon, it is very clear that the Prussians are bearing down on his right flank. And this is an all-or-nothing attempt.

So if he dies in the moment of defeat as somebody who was always hugely aware of his own legend, the death in the moment of defeat enables him to do sort of the inverse of a Nelson and ultimately perhaps bolster his own legend. Yes, I mean the appearance of the Prussians coming back to the Battle of Waterloo is devastating in terms of morale. And it sort of comes at the point also when the Imperial Guard makes that final advance that is then beaten back by the British Army, by Wellington's army. And of course you have to remember that the Imperial Guard

has this sort of legendary status within the French army. So that is absolutely catastrophic for morale throughout the French army. Kate, how did Napoleon's reign end then? What happened to his support in Paris? So when Napoleon flees from Waterloo, he heads back to Paris. At this point, he's not thinking that it's all over. It's one battle lost, not necessarily the campaign. What he wants to do is go back to Paris to try and shore up the political support so that he can regroup and start again.

What he finds when he gets back to Paris is that the two chambers that he's created as part of an additional constitutional attempt to show he's more liberal than he was before, the two chambers, the Chamber of Representatives and the Chamber of Peers have turned against him. The Chamber of Representatives have decided they're going to meet in permanence, as if they were a revolutionary assembly. And they are not going to give him his way. In fact, they end up forcing him to abdicate. He says, well, okay, I'll abdicate, but I name my son as my heir. And they go back and say, you've not really quite got this, have you? You're not actually in a position to decide who's going to follow you.

But we'll take note of your wishes. So he's, he's maneuvered, outmaneuvered politically by the Chamber of Representatives into abdicating for a second time. He then goes to Malmaison, which was Joseph. She'd died the year before, but he spends some time there with his stepdaughter, Octance, who's also his sister-in-law because she'd married Louis Napoleon. It spends time there remembering his time with Josephine and then heads to the west coast of France with a view to escaping to America. That's the first plan, is get to America, regroup, perhaps wait for another opportunity to come

back in once Louis makes a mess of things again. Maybe there'll be another chance for him to return to France. He's not able to get on a ship to America and will end up surrendering to the British and taken to Plymouth on board the Belerophon, the Billy Ruffian. But then, importantly, he sent to Santalina. Yes, Santalina isn't the South Atlantic, so it's hundreds of miles from...

It's a rock in the South Atlantic. It's a bit more than a rock, but yes, yes, it was run by the East India companies as part of their sort of route to India around the Cape. But escape from there is really impossible. You know, it's surrounded by ocean. There's no way you'd get at Napoleon there. And he's not as sovereign on his own island as he was on Elba.

He is quite clearly a prisoner, you know, guarded by Hudson Lowe, who's again gone down in history as a bit of a sort of villain. And he's guarded by a British garrison, and there's a permanent naval presence in the South Atlantic. So the Allies and Britain, chiefly amongst them, isn't going to make the same mistake twice. Now, I suppose at one level, it means that Napoleon can't escape, but it does mean that he can portray himself as a victim,

which I don't think he could have done had he lived out his years and sort of comfy Mediterranean retirement on Elba. He is this Prometheus, you know, chained to the rock by vindictive enemies. So I think when it comes to the Napoleonic legend, that exile in St. Lena does Napoleon in the very long term, i.e. after he's dead, a great deal of good. Because you're right, she's memoirs, which is all about how famous he was. But he's a great liberator, that he's been persecuted by a visa of reactionary conservative monarchs.

And that looks plausible. The loser getting the last word. Yes, yes. Losers do sometimes, you know, write their own history and it's not just for winners. It enables him to reinforce that sense of the charismatic, legendary, remarkable, by emphasising precisely the arrival in Paris in 1815 as part of a broader legend of him as the savior figure. How much of a setback was this for France? I think that's an interesting question. In many ways, Napoleon's administrative legacy survives. Is it really a setback?

He's already created an education system. He's created a legal system. He's created an administrative system for the organisation of the country that survived more or less to this day. So whether he'd survived or not, His legacy is already intact by 1814. What happens as a result of his defeat is that the political situation is left hanging. 100 days is as much about a political discussion around constitutionalism as it is about the military campaign. The supporters of a more liberal vision for France that's in the, as a result of the French Revolution, are still there. They'll come out in the 1830 revolution, they'll come out in the 1848 revolution. by which point Napoleon's nephew is elected with 74 and a half percent of the vote as president of the Second Republic.

There's a latent vein of Bonapartism that goes right the way through the first half of the 19th century. Michael. France is dealt with more harshly after the 100 days than it had been in 1814. So in that sense, France is damaged by Napoleon's return. You have a second treaty of Paris. They lose some territory, not very much. But they do have to pay a very large reparations bill in 1815. They hadn't in 1814.

They need to return looted artworks, artworks which had looted as early as the 7090s from places like Italy. They have to be returned in 1815. And France is also occupied in 1815 by a vast Allied army of occupation, the Russians, the Austrians, the British and the Prussians, all under the Supreme Command of Wellington. and that occupation will last until 1818. So in that sense, France is humiliated.

It's really very much in the naughty corner in 1815. We're coming to the end now, but who do you think gained most from these 100 days, starting with you, Kate? I think in many ways the person who gains most from the 100 days is actually Napoleon, because it allows him to rephrase, ironically, he's lost the battle, but it allows him to reframe himself as victim, as persecuted by the evil allies who won't leave him. alone as the people's choice of sovereign in France. So that allows him a platform that will influence the shape of 19th century French politics. I see things slightly differently. So on a personal level, I think Wellington is the great winner out of the Waterloo story for the fact that he has

been integral to the defeat of Napoleon. Up to this point, there has been no question that Wellington is the second most capable commander of the age. And the fact that he has been successful in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, enables him to just leave that question dangling. Wellington was not a particularly modest man, demonstrated some, I would argue, pretty false modesty when people said, you know, are you the greatest captain in the age? And he says, well, no, Napoleon's surely the greatest. I think it's also important to look at this at a national and continental level. Nationally written benefits in terms of an enhanced reputation as a result of being a key player in the Waterloo story. British forces have.

have now had to face Napoleon directly in the field, and having been a key part of that, I think, is something that certainly strengthens the British hand when it comes to negotiations for the Congress of Vienna. But there's also a European level to look at. And when we consider the Congress of Vienna, it is very striking that Napoleon's return in 1815 has focused minds. That squabbling that you see in 1814 is much less prominent. And there is a realisation that going forwards there needs to be a Congress system where the different nations of Europe settle their differences by just sitting down and talking.

Now it doesn't last by any stretch of the imagination. But I think a case can be made that notwithstanding the upheaval that we see in the 1830s and 1840s in terms of revolution and repression, that inclination to find a better, more sensible diplomatic solution makes Europe just a little bit more stable in the wake of Waterloo. Finally, Michael. Well, I'd agree in the sense of both my fellow sort of guests,

that both Napoleon and Wellington emerge with their reputations enhanced as a consequence of a hundred days. But basing my judgment, if I had to make a choice, I'd base my judgment on the Battle of Waterloo visitor centre gift shop. Napoleon is everywhere. Figures of Napoleon and Dolls of Napoleon, and Wellington is nowhere to be seen. and Blucher isn't anywhere to be seen either.

So I think I would choose Napoleon. Well, thank you all very much indeed. Michael Rowe, Kate Astoray and Zach White, and to our studio engineer, Leibemyssyrian. Next week, it's the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, one of the giants of European theatre. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now

with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What would you like to have said you didn't have time to say? Kate. Okay. I'd like to talk about theatre of war. It's often new, the 100 days is often used as a metaphor. War is used as a metaphor, or theatre is used as a metaphor during the 100 days.

And I think it's an interesting phenomenon to think more broadly about the way in which theatre and song and prints are used as part of a propaganda war, that Napoleon is trying to reinforce his regime and his supporters are trying to reinforce his regime by influencing the hearts and minds of the people, particularly in Paris. So we see the theatres of Paris

reverting to some of the hits of the empire. They go back to operas like the triumph of Trajan, which the idea was that they would show Napoleon as a benevolent ruler. They bring back revolutionary plays where the audiences see the connections between the plays and the present day. they started to write an opera about Alexander the Great,

which was obviously a direct reference to the Napoleon that they knew of the return of Napoleon. So the real attempt to try and influence people through what they're watching on the stage. It doesn't always work. A town like Bordeaux where Louis XVI's daughter, the Duchess of Angoulogne, Marie Tourez, is trying to lead royalist opponents to Napoleon. Their theatres will carry on showing things that we might understand as royalists or the audiences would see as royalists. But in Paris there's very much an attempt to reframe Napoleon as the revolutionary hero

to reinforce the propaganda that's going on in the press and song and in print. And the British play that game equally well, it has to be said. Both before Napoleon's return and after, James Gilray is the most obvious proponent of this through the form of caricatures. In fact, that perception of Napoleon being short is in part influenced by the works of Gilray. It's also a misunderstanding in terms of French measurements versus British measurements. But Napoleon was not short. He was just a fraction above average height for the time.

But the British very much play that game again after Waterloo. And they position Napoleon almost like a naughty schoolboy, who has his backside thrashed in one print by Wellington and Bluca. Anything from you? What I find particularly interesting is the fractious nature of French politics and something we didn't discuss and the programme was the White Terror. So this is the second restoration.

This is when Louis the 18th comes back for the second time in the baggage train of the Allied armies. And whereas in 1814 there had been a certain recognition that France had to be governed from the centre. You needed to appeal to an extent to left and right. The regime which comes back in 1815 after Waterloo is much more vindictive.

And you get a purge of Bonaparties. and you get the execution of Marshall Ney. And you get massacres, especially in the south of France, of people who had been deemed to be Republican. You have a massacre of Arabs in Marseille because they had been associated with the Napoleonic regime, the sort of Mamluks who had been brought back from Egypt. So in many ways, I think that's really quite devastating

for bringing France together after 1815. And of course, France throughout the 19th century, is going to have these, violent swings and regime changes. I think the 100 days contributes to that. Is there anything importantly symbolic about the fact that there's almost a century where, I'm trading on Glacier, where there are no, doesn't seem to be any major, major wars between 1814 and 1914?

I mean, I think the Congress of Vienna does a good job. And, you know, Talleyrand is France as representative there. And he says that everyone was moderately dissatisfied, but everyone. So no one is an outright winner at the Congress of Vienna. No one is utterly humiliated. So, you know, one can compare that with the peace treaty of Versailles, you know, in many ways it's catastrophe. So I think it doesn't leave a large set of revisionist powers, i.e. powers that can't live with that settlement. So, yes, you have a hundred years of no world war. You know, you have smaller wars, but nothing on the scale of the first.

World War until 1914. I think what's also quite remarkable is the way in which Waterloo becomes embedded in popular culture. Somehow we got through this entire recording without mentioning Abba, who open that famous song, Waterloo with My My, at Waterloo, Napoleon did surrender, which of course he didn't, as we've discussed. And in fact, the one thing that people think they know about Waterloo is exactly that. So there is a strong kind of place for Waterloo that is, written across the landscape, not just a popular culture, but physically across the landscape

of the world, whether it's buildings, bridges, railway stations, or whether it's towns and cities around the world. The name Waterloo means something to people. Of course, it should be called the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean, which is what Napoleon called it. You know, Waterloo is actually some distance from the battlefield. And it's, in a way, it's a British appropriation, or Wellington's appropriation of that battle. And of course, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the passions call it Belle Aliance. So, is that? Absolutely, that was Bluca's preference.

And it's a very nice metaphor. So La Belle Aliance works in two ways, because French Command H.C. During the Battle of Waterloo was actually based at La Belle Aliance. It's a small inn in the southern portion of the battlefield. But it very much speaks to that coalition nature of warfare, which I think is why Bluca liked the poetic nature of it, emphasizing the fact that Waterloo was the result of,

a fight combined coalition mentality coming to fruition. And as you say, the Germans to this day refer to this battle, not as Waterloo, but as the battle of La Belle Alliance. Well, our producer, Simon Tillotson, is about to enter. Who would like tea or coffee? I'm good. Melvin tea, please, yes. Coffee.

Black tea for me, please. If I could have some more water, that'd be great. Thank you very much. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson, and it's a BBC Studios audio production. From BBC Radio 4. I just remember shouting and screaming, get off my sister.

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