Agent or victim of destiny?

HOW FAR FOM AUSTERLITZ? NAPOLEON 1805-1815 by Alistair Horne Macmillan, 20, pp. 350

Napoleon .. . There is probably no other historical figure whose personality and deeds hold such constant fascination for poets and historians, writers and researchers. But why Napoleon? Above all, no doubt, because he is the one person who has managed to embody both the 18th and 19th centuries, who was at once both unifier and destroyer. Indeed his entire fate gave expression to the historical crisis undergone by Europe as a result of the French Revolution and the events that followed.

The fate of Napoleon was allencompassing - it reconciled the irreconcilable and became a riddle to contemporaries and descendants. He was a legend in his lifetime: the incredible military victories, the rise to the heights of power, the unprecedented defeat, the effort to reconcile himself to exile on a far-away, lonely island, the excruciating agony.

The parable that was the life of Napoleon Bonaparte was capable of evincing both rapture and damnation, emulation and denial. Each could find in him what he wished: an agent of destiny, or its creator and victim. He was heir to the Revolution, but rejected its principles. A cleansing whirlwind, he swept away the old order and was a ruthless tyrant. He was both soldier of the Revolution and omnipotent emperor, all-powerful potentate of Europe and unhappy exile. How far is St Helena from the field of Austerlitz?

Alistair Horne portrays his rise to power and glory and his subsequent decline. However, the author focuses mainly on the highest points of his career: Austerlitz and Tilsit - the great field commander, shielded by the wings of divine Victory, and the master of Europe, redrawing its map, and deciding the fate of nations and peoples.

One can agree with the claim that `Austerlitz was the brightest gem in Napoleon's martial diadem' (p. 19), `the Austerlitz campaign was the classic Napoleonic victory, with ingredients that would be repeated time and again' (p. 186), but the victory was not merely the triumph of Napoleon's military talent, of his courageous and innovative tactics over the conservative tactics of the pedantic Austrian general, Weyrother. This was not simply a decisive battle, determining the subsequent course of the war, but something greater - the collision of two different worlds, a test of the supremacy and strength of each of them on the battlefield.

Austerlitz has often been called `the battle of the three emperors', but it entered the pages of history not only because the forces of the three most powerful nations of continental Europe had clashed together. The tricolour of the Revolution led the French army into battle against the banner of the Habsburg monarchy and the doubleheaded eagle of the Russian empire. The French officer, having hacked his way through to the imperial throne with his sword, now issued a challenge to future sovereigns, to monarchs anointed by God. The Napoleonic marshals, products of the third estate, now confirmed their supremacy over the hereditary aristocrats. Austerlitz seemed to proclaim the victory of a new world, of a new way of life.

Tilsit was one of the culminating points of Napoleonic hegemony in Europe peace and alliance with the Russian emperor Alexander I. Tilsit shook Russian society. Here was this villain, this tyrant, practically the Antichrist, and now the Emperor Alexander embraces him and showers him with tokens of friendship! Russian publicists had been denouncing Napoleon's policy of conquest in Europe, and suddenly Russia was allied with the French against England! No one could really believe it, and rumours and gossip abounded.

The story related by Prince P.A. Viazemsk is an interesting one: In Russia, when people heard about the meeting of the two emperors, a story began to circulate about two peasants. What's this then [says one], Our Little Father, the Orthodox Tsar, has decided to get together with that damned Napoleon, that Antichrist? You know, that's a terrible sin! - Yes, but don't you understand, brother [answers the other], don't you get it ? Do you mean to say you don't know that they met by the river? Our Little Father had it all worked out so that first of all Bonaparte would be baptised in the river, and then he would be allowed to appear before Alexander's radiant, imperial eyes. Nevertheless Russia had to come to terms with the fact that the ruler of France had turned himself from `Mr Bonaparte' into Emperor Napoleon; in his letters the Tsar wrote: `Your Majesty, my brother,' testifying to a deep respect and a true feeling of friendship.

However, the bulk of Russian society disapproved of the government's proFrench policy, and suspicion and hostility towards Napoleon remained. These attitudes grew stronger. Napoleon's despotic actions in Europe and his disregard for Alexander's protests provoked growing anger and dissatisfaction. From the end of 1810 the talk in the salons of St Petersburg was of one thing only - a clash with Napoleon. War was on the horizon.

It was as if some evil destiny were forcing Napoleon again to tempt fate on the battlefield. But it was not that the great commander lacked diplomatic and political flair. `Unfortunately for France Napoleon's unbounded military genius was in no way matched by his political and diplomatic sensitivity' (p. 18) - it is hard to agree with this sentence. The logic of the despotic Napoleonic regime, the urge to strengthen his personal power, pushed the Emperor into risky campaigns and new battles. Alistair Horne rightly points out:

As is the way of military dictators, a new foreign campaign presented itself as the only way of distracting domestic discontent.

Moreover Napoleon had unconditional faith in his own success, in his lucky star, in his ability to destroy any opponent and resolve all political problems by resorting to arms.

On 24 June 1812 Napoleon's Grande Armee crossed the river Nemin and triumphed on Russian territory. For Russia the war would very soon become a war in defence of the fatherland - it is not without reason that L. N. Tolstoy wrote of the `cudgel of a people's war' falling upon the foreign invaders.

It is a pity that Alistair Horne was unable to find the right words to describe the retreat from Moscow in autumn 1812. A frozen, starving and demoralised army headed west, leaving behind it abandoned cannon, dead horses, and the corpses of soldiers who had been pushed beyond endurance. The retreat of the Grande Armee had become its flight and culminated in its annihilation. There is a story of how on 15 December 1812, in a restaurant in the Prussian town of Gumbinnen, where some senior French officers were having a meal, a dirty, ragged vagrant came in whom they tried to have thrown out. However, the vagrant raised his hand and declared loudly:

Not so hasty! Do you not recognise me gentlemen? I am the rearguard of the Grande Armne - I am Michel Ney! [Ney was made Duke of Elchingen and Prince of Moscow by Napoleon].

It was not far to go from here to St Helena.

As for 19th-century Russia, she developed her own special relationship with Napoleon and the Napoleonic legend. Of course he was and still is a foreigner, a man whose very name is associated with revolution, an opponent and overthrower of lawful sovereigns, a warmonger. Yet many in Russia saw him as one of their own: crushed by the Russian army, he unwittingly assisted in Russia's unprecedented rise to global influence.

In Russia the growth of national consciousness, the formation of some of the most important schools of social thought, and the acquisition of a leading role on the European political stage are closely bound up with the Napoleonic era. The figure of Napoleon and the Napoleonic legend formed part of the process through which Russian society achieved self-knowledge.

Mikhail Narinski is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and teaches at the Institute of Universal History in Moscow.

Copyright Spectator Dec 7, 1996
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