British Anti-Napoleon Propaganda

Really. This thread needs to be put out of it's misery.

As an addendum, you really should read the books especially if you're going to refer to them in postings:

books.google.com

https://www.amazon.com/General-Bonaparte-Revivals-Military-History/dp/0751200395/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=9780751200393&linkCode=qs&qid=1599673489&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Swords-Around-Throne-Napoleons-Grand/dp/0029095018/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=swords+around+a+throne&qid=1599673528&s=books&sr=1-2

If you wish to discuss them further, I have all three on my desk ready to refer to any section you might care to read.

But why is Elting above criticism, when every book is critiqued on publication and many years later. Often, the comments will revolve around the approach taken and the material used (viz. the thread on HW and Bowden), with addiction all remarks on how the world has changed in later critiques.

I am sure Elting would have taken the same view as Chandler in that he didn’t mind being proven 100% wrong, because the later researcher must have started with his book. As I said, pretty much everyone starts with these old survey books, but then might do specialist work of their own. There is no appetite to rewrite these surveys, but to focus on subjects they only cover in outline. Surely that is how historical method works - not by setting one author’s work in stone.

@Kevin F. Kiley that’s exactly what I mean. A more modern style would be to reference your sources directly, not direct you to go on a fishing expedition. When you couple this with “you can’t prove a negative” this is merely an exercise in confirmation bias. Perfectly acceptable at the time, but not rigorous enough today.

@Kevin F. Kiley At the risk of repeating myself for the third or fourth time, it’s not about quality or disagreeing, it’s about style. A modern work would generally have considerably higher proportion of footnotes. When this book was written, the internet as we know it did not exist. The iron curtain was still in place. The digitisation revolution had not yet happened. There will come a point (and it already has, for me) when the lack of transparency makes it less useful than it used to be. I think there is a gap in the market for an expanded and modernised study. A Swords 2.0 if you will. Twice a century seems a reasonable cycle time, and in the basis it’s going to take at least a decade to pull together, shouldn’t somebody be starting now?

For me it is not primary sources or secondary, but one cannot follow him from where he got his information, for example about the Régiment de Prusse - so was their clothing and equipment really up to 1810 mostly Prussian?

@Kevin F. Kiley as I’ve said, for me it’s a case of style. Over 700 footnotes (actually 865 in my edition of Swords), but the majority not to citations, but often to more unreferenced assertions. Where there are citations they are mostly to secondary works by other historians Eg Chapter 1, 11 cited out of 33 only 3 or 4 primary sources . Chapter 2 12 cited out of 30, only 3 primary sources. Chapter 3, 5 cited out of 18 only one not another historian. Chapter 4, 4 citations, 1 primary out of 19 footnotes. I won’t bore people with the entire book, but it roughly works out that only 34% of footnotes had citations (and only 16% references to memoirs, souvenirs, correspondence etc, the remainder to secondary works or studies). That works out at 294 citations of all types in a work with a main body of over 670 odd pages. An average citation rate of not quite 1 in 4.8 pages to a primary source, in a work that some claim is the definitive, is not what I’d call copious. I’m sure it was a style that was prevalent and acceptable at the time, but contrast that with a modern work by Dawson or Field where 80-90% of footnotes in most chapters would be to primary sources. I stress, it’s not a question of quality of conclusion, but the style of presentation. In many passages I’d love to agree with him, but he doesn’t give me the data for me to do so in good conscience.

@Kevin F. Kiley As I said, it’s a matter of style rather than quality. I’m also more of a skeptic than an admirer, and it sometimes come shining through. Some of that might be me, but some of it could be generational too, I’m on the cusp but I’m more Generation X than Babyboomer. I’m perhaps more of the HTML literary style, and I wonder how accessible he will be to the hashtag crowd.

@Kevin F. Kiley Apologies for citing him incorrectly, people who have surnames for given names also seem to confuse me. But yes, I precisely mean that whilst using works that are decades old we should do so taking newer research into account. If we don’t, then what incentive is there to carry out research? If that were true, we’d all have our copy of Siborne and tell the last 150 years of authors to go hang? In historical enquiry, you could argue that the pace of change means that large works can have quite a long life. But psychology and behavioural study. Driven by our need to understand marketing and economics change is being driven at prodigious rates with new research being published all the time, using technology like fMR that would have been science fiction in 1970. On a personal level, I find Elting very old fashioned in style, and frankly I use him sparingly because of it. I prefer to have my evidence, analysis and conclusion laid out in a more modern format. I also prefer the author to have had the use of a computer, the internet and archives inaccessible during the Cold War. But that’s just me, I wouldn’t push my views on anyone else.

@Kevin F. Kiley That work by Hackett is now half a century old. In the intervening 5 decades there has been considerable numbers of cognitive behavioral studies into biases and heuristics. In 1970 much ground-breaking research had yet to be done, some of which seriously undermines the confidence that we may feel in our abilities or conclusions. You might want to consider that if you continue to cite it as definitive.

Meanwhile, in answer to the identical OP posed at the Armchair General site, this short essay was shared some time ago. It casts some light on the question. https://forums.armchairgeneral.com/forum/historical-events-eras/napoleonic-era/5213890-british-anti-napoleon-propaganda/page2 21 Aug 20, 10:59 "The question I have regarding this 'information' is how much it has influenced the study of Napoleon himself and how much is still be used by present day authors and historians (the two are not necessarily synonymous)?"

So, the period propaganda is not the issue, the use of it presently as 'history' is. And that use is ahistorical at best.

ENGLISH HISTORIOGRAPHY AND NAPOLEON I

W.H.C. Smith

Goldsmiths' College

University of London

Strange as it may sound, Napoleon himself was the first "English" historian who dealt with the Napoleonic question after the fall of the Empire. His Appeal to the English Nation, written by him and translated into English by Santini and Lord Holland, was the first historical work published on this subject in English. It was moreover a work of propaganda, for the only thing Napoleon wanted was to generate an audience that was favorable to him.

To judge the growing interest which manifested itself in Napoleon in England, it is necessary to understand the situation of this country, and more particularly the state of public opinion during the Napoleonic wars. At the start of the Revolution, France had found in England many supporters among the nobility, the bourgeoisie, and the people. It took the bloody days and the fall of the monarchy to change the opinion of his supporters, then the execution of the King and the beginning of the war for their attitude to harden. But despite strong propaganda directed by the English government against the Revolution, a part of the population - those which one called the "old Jac" -, remained faithful to him. It was a mixture of nobles who displayed their ideas more out of eccentricity than out of conviction, more or less "intellectual" bourgeois and common people. This last fraction doubted the authenticity of the description of the conditions in which France found itself, as presented by the English government, because it knew very well its own conditions of existence in England. Of course, the "old Jacobins" were extremely disappointed by the establishment of the Empire, with its nobility and its anti-Republican tastes. But despite this, many of them claimed that if Napoleon had become a despot, Pitt had always been.

Until 1815, the situation did not change. With the continuation of the war, the patriotic attitude tended more and more to triumph. But there remained a current of sympathy which F. M. L. Thomson revealed in his book published in 1959, The Making of the English Workink Class. This work destroyed the myth of class unanimity in England vis-à-vis war. Note that if Thomson's book is neither a study of Napoleon nor of the war between France and England, it nonetheless sheds light on many aspects that had been ignored or had remained hidden until then.

After Waterloo, the Napoleonic legend was almost as good maintained in England than in France. Complaints about Napoleon's fate resounded in London as well as in Paris, and it was in this climate that O'Meara's stories were published.1

1. R. B. O'MEARA, Napoleon in Exile of a voice from St. Helena, London, 1822.

It is appropriate to point out here a curious fact, and in our opinion important, which the French writers ignore: it is that O'Meara was Irish, and not English, and that he had certainly spent his youth in a middle of Dublin where France and the Revolution were seen from a different perspective than in London. Indeed, Napoleon had his supporters in Ireland, where the Act of Union of 1800 suppressing the Irish Parliament was very unpopular. The bloody repression of the uprising of 1798 had aroused a strong grudge against the English government among a large part of the population. At that time, the French almost arrived in sufficient numbers to support the rebels, and once Napoleon became First Consul, then Emperor, the Irish kept the hope of French intervention.

It is quite possible that all this influenced O'Meara, to whom Napoleon said, "I suppose when you go to England you will publish your book. You can say that you have heard me say a lot of things, and that you have had many conversations with me. You will earn a lot of money, and everyone will believe you. ”2 It turned out that for the unfortunate O'Meara things did not turn out exactly like this, for he was a Bonapartist before his time. However, his work had a much greater impact than Napoleon had hoped. It was with O'Meara that the debate was opened in England itself, and it is not yet closed.

2. Cf. also the Memorial and the preface by Jean Tulard in the Integral edition (1968).

Although the most important of Napoleon's supporters, O'Meara was not the first. In 1816, six years before his Napoleon in Exile, the surgeon Warden, who was treating Gourgaud at Saint Helena, had published his Letters 3, so favorable to Napoleon that the Emperor himself could not dispense with declaring that they still contained "a hundred absurdities and lies".

3. W. WARDEN, Letters written on Board the Northumberland and at S. Helena, London, 1816.

Thanks to the romantic spirit that flourished in literary salons and political, the cult of Napoleon flourished in England. Soon it became fashionable to accept "the great man", the hero and, thanks to Saint Helena, almost the martyr. The Life of Napoleon, by Sir Walter Scott, which appeared in 1827 4, was written in this spirit and it reinforced the attitude of the public. But if it had become possible for the literary and political world to accept man, historians were far from adopting his principles and praising his work. For them, Napoleon remained the tyrant who wanted to submit Europe to his arbitrary power as Philip II of Spain and Louis XIV, they thought, had wanted to do. For if Napoleon was right, the war had been unjust and the famous "principles of liberty" in England were very doubtful.

4. W. SCOTT, Life of Napoleon, Londres, 1827.

Perhaps it is because of this that the two main books published in England on Napoleon before the end of the nineteenth century were more studies of a type of great man than of the politician he really was. We want to speak here of the lives of Napoleon respectively written by Scott and Lockhart 5.

5. J. LOCKHART, Life of Napoleon, London, 1829.

Of course, Napoleonic English historiography was seriously flawed during the nineteenth century, when the field of foreign affairs was then almost ignored. Almost all great historians were interested in the problem of the foundations of government and the development of Parliament as the supreme power of the state. This attitude reflects the superiority attributed to English governmental institutions over all those of Europe. Convinced that their country held the secret of freedom and political stability, English historians imagined that they did not need to look elsewhere. If we accept the thesis that every historian is the historian of his own time, we have good proof of this.

As far as France was concerned, there was never any question of examining the principles of its government, and it should be noted that for most of the 19th century Franco-English relations were quite poor - even during the rapprochement. which took place, by an irony of fate, under the Second Empire.

The fall of the latter in 1870 confirmed all the suspicions that the English intellectual class harbored with regard to the French, judging that they were frivolous, not very serious, and that their defeat was the result of their political mores and their institutions. . The predominance of German thought in the field of history and philosophy provoked an attitude of continual contempt for what happened in France under the Third Republic. Colonial disputes exacerbated relations between the two countries, and the generation of historians who sang the praises of British imperialism wanted to hear nothing of the grandeur of France.

It was with the publication, in 1900, of Lord Roseberry's book, Napoleon, the last phase 6, that the interest of English historians in the problem of Napoleon began to appear. Lord Roseberry wanted to devote himself especially to the last years of the Emperor's life on St. Helena, but he was compelled, by the nature of things, to broaden his study. He examined the sources of the various "Voices of St. Helena", and, engaging in a critical and comparative analysis of the works, he tried to judge their value as documentary sources. After having examined Las Cases, Montholon, O'Meara, etc., he arrives at Gourgaud's Journal, and he considers that it is with him that we begin to arrive at the truth about the Emperor and that we perceive the legend to achieve reality. Roseberry himself makes it truly clear that his object is to dispel the misconceptions that had accumulated for almost a century. It was not simply a question of unmasking O'Meara, Las Cases, and their ilk: Lord Roseberry also attacks Sir Hudson Lowe, whose most serious fault he considers was not to be a gentleman. And he goes even further, by attacking the bases of the anti-Napoleonism of English historians.

6. ROSEBERRY (Earl of), Napoleon, the last phase, London, 1900.

For the first time, then, someone was trying to critically analyze the situation and judge Napoleon as a liberal and a democrat. Roseberry's conclusion is that Napoleon was neither because his overarching ideas were order, justice, strength, and symmetry. But Roseberry admits that given the circumstances in France, Napoleon had no choice. And he adds that it is easy to understand that the Emperor was considered a liberal, since he was an enemy of the Holy Alliance which, after its fall, was to weigh on Europe.

In 1902 appeared The Life of Napoleon, by J. H. Rose, an important two-volume work7. Rose made use not only of Napoleon's correspondence published during the Second Empire, but also of the archives of the Foreign Office, mainly diplomatic documents, ambassadors' reports, etc., and he searched the archives of the Ministry of War and Admiralty.

7. J. H. ROSE, The Life of Napoleon, London, 1902

The portrait of the Emperor, his activities, as well as the picture of France painted by Rose were quite benevolent, but the historian remained steadfastly attached to the idea that England had done Europe a great service by overthrowing Napoleon. In a noble and calm tone, Rose speaks of "us", "our intentions", etc., but he does not wonder if "we" have always been right.

Given the limitations of a political history written at this time, this well-done and well-written book still retains a certain value and, considered as the “classic” life of Napoleon in English, it was reissued several times between 1902 and 1920.

Four years later, in 1906, the Cambridge Modern History appeared, the ninth volume of which was called simply Napoleon 8. In this work, there was no longer any question of treating Napoleon as a tyrant or a despot. The phenomenon of the Revolution and its forces captured and directed by it was now treated from an almost European point of view. It should also be noted that two years before the publication of this History, the Entente Cordiale between France and Great Britain had been sealed and that it was exceedingly difficult for the authors of the work to make severe judgments. on the institutions of an ally, this France of the Third Republic still marked by so many Napoleonic vestiges. Anyway, the chapter called "France under the Empire" was written by a Frenchman, Georges Pariset - which was a good example of Entente Cordiale ...

8. Cambridge Modern History. Vol. IX. 'Napoleon'. Cambridge, 1906.

The war of 1914-1918 changed everything, in the historical field as elsewhere. In Britain, modern historians were interested, like many others, in the origins of war, at the same time as the school dedicated to the study of the Middle Ages flourished. And if one could notice a certain interest in economic and social history, these beginnings were hesitant and rather badly directed.

Regarding Napoleon, it is curious that between 1906 and 1952 no major study was published in England. Of course, there have been translations: Bainville in 1932, Tarlé in 1937. But until J. M. Thompson's book in 1951, no new study on Napoleon appeared in English.

In fifty years, much has changed, although during the war of 1939-1945 English newspapers often drew parallels between Hitler, William II, Napoleon, Louis XIV and Philip II of Spain - the traditional litany of enemies of the Britain. But at the end of the war, a real intellectual crisis accompanied the political and social upheaval that began in 1945. There was no longer any question of the British Empire, whose creaking was heard, but of Europe and the position of England vis-à-vis the rest of the Continent.

The weaknesses of English society itself prompted criticism of the nineteenth-century system and, feeling less confidence in their own institutions and their own destiny, historians saw the time come to take stock of their own country. It seemed unnecessary and sassy to say that Hitler looked like Napoleon. From then on, history became a study, not only of political events, but also of economic, social, and even moral problems.

It was in such a climate that Napoleon Bonaparte de Thompson9 appeared, and although the author does not show himself to be a staunch supporter of Napoleon, criticizing his tendencies towards dictatorship, it should be noted that he expresses his judgments in a good tone. less condescending than the one we had used until then.

9. J. M. Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte. His Rise and Fall, Oxford, 1951.

In 1963, Felix Markham in turn published a Napoleon 10. In ten years, important new sources on the life of the Emperor had been found. For example, the deciphering of the text of the memoirs of General Bertrand, written in Saint Helena, the discovery of two series of letters from Marie-Louise, one in the Royal Archives of Stockholm addressed to Napoleon, and the others in Montenuovo addressed to the Duke of Reichstadt. In addition, among the latest publications, Markham cited as particularly important the work of Professor Godechot, The Institutions of the Revolution and the Empire 11 and that of Professor Crouzet, The British Economy and the Continental Blockade 12.

10. F. MARKHAM, Napoleon, London, 1963. Markham had already published a small study, Napoleon and the awakennig of Europe, which announced the thesis he was going to develop in his book.

11. J. GODECHOT, Les Institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l'Empire, Paris, 1951.

12. F. CROUZET, L'Économie Britannique et le Blocus Continental 1806-13, Paris, 1958.

Obviously, there was no longer any question of justifying England and its policy towards Napoleon, and it was not only because 150 years had passed since Waterloo. There was much more than that: the certainty that its fate no longer counted for a nation which, for twenty years, had suffered many failures. In particular, the experience of the Suez War in 1958 had caused genuine trauma, especially in intellectual circles. Slowly, almost painfully, the march towards Europe had begun and, with it, the interest in the history of this same Europe.

Markham therefore studied Napoleon without any prejudice and he endeavored, with great success, to place him in his time and to portray him, not only as Emperor of the French, but also as the inspiration for many movements of modern Europe. After having accepted Waterloo for a hundred and fifty years as a victory, we finally began to wonder what were the ideas that had won.

Markham, finally, considered that it would have taken a Shakespeare as well as a Sophocles to do justice to the complexity of Napoleon's personality. To use a word from Aristotle, applying it to Napoleon, "it is a beast or a god".

Napoleon himself said to Saint Helena: "I die before my age, assassinated by the English oligarchy and its executioner [Sir Hudson Lowe]. Soon the English people will avenge me”. In the vocabulary of historians, "soon" is a rather elastic word, but we can say that 150 years later, the revenge has started anyway. {I wonder if that should read "I die before my time."? JF.}

@Kevin F. Kiley In Britain the constitution is not a subject or topic, it’s a career!

@Kevin F. Kiley You misjudge me, my target was most assuredly NOT on your side of the Atlantic!

@Zack White What I find interesting about Dawson’s work is how he takes a forensic approach to things like casualty data. Over at the D’Erlon’s thread, for example, if we presume that the front of the column should take more gunshot casualties it can help give an indication of unit and sub-unit deployment. It also puts paid to some of the more romantic vignettes of La Garde dying heroically rather than surrendering when the data suggests casualties were relatively light in some units and a large number went ‘into the bag’ unscathed. Like you, I don’t necessarily agree with all his conclusions, but I applaud how he has uncovered the data

@Kevin F. Kiley I don’t think he did (and beyond failing to acknowledge we are human, neither did anyone else). You rightly deplore people who write with agendas, but they also read with them too. Like it or not, that includes you and I and indeed everyone else. Because of that the propagandising didn’t stop, but continues to this day. People are complex characters and tend not to be pure heroes or out and out villains. However, we enjoy a good pantomime, but all the cheering and booing does little for advancing real understanding. To illustrate what I mean, let’s take the quote at face value. Some will believe that Wellington is ordering the wholesale slaughter of recalcitrant innocent civilians. Others will take a more nuanced view in light of the known Portuguese government proclamation and that it only refers to persons in authority. Likewise some will seize on the 12-14k starving figure (nowhere near the 40 or 100k quoted elsewhere) as evidence of Wellington’s heartlessness and dishonourable conduct. Others will make the rather obvious point that starving and starved to death are two different things. More still will take the very fact that he is complaining about it as evidence of Wellington’s concern and compassion for their suffering. Because humans are complex, and perfectly capable of holding and expressing dissonant views, no one said that they had to be internally consistent, much less to any construct we make. They are both valid and could be verified to some extent or another. Although sharing the same source neither are ‘correct’, just differing. That is why @Zack White was so wise in establishing our forum rules. Recognising and respecting diversity opinion are, to me, central to advancing understanding.

Somewhere among the mass of posts on this topic there was a question about Wellington ordering populace who didn't evacuate to be hung. In Donald Horward's article "Wellington and the Defence of Portugal" (International History Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Feb., 1989), pp. 39-54), he writes, "Those who refused to obey were to be hanged." p. 45 (Wellington to Cotton, 4 Aug. 1810, WD, vi, 324)

He also mentions Wellington complaining to the the gov't that 12,000 to 14,000 Portuguese were "literally starving." p. 50

Returning to the OP question here is an article that might cast useful light on British attitudes. 1) BRITISH SOLDIERS AND THE LEGEND OF NAPOLEON

Gavin Daly

Historical Journal, Volume 61, Issue 1, March 2018 , pp. 131-153

Investigating the letters, diaries, and memoirs of British officers and enlisted men from the Napoleonic Wars, this article explores the hitherto neglected subject of British soldiers’ perceptions of Napoleon. Soldiers often formed mixed and ambivalent views on Napoleon. At one level, this corresponds with a range of attitudes within Britain, highlighting the important connections between soldiers and domestic culture. Yet these views also reveal what soldiers as a distinct cohort prioritized about Napoleon, and how these perceptions evolved over time. They also reveal tensions and divisions within the army itself, and shed light on British soldiers and patriotism. And finally, they add to our understanding of soldiers’ writing practices, especially their cultural context and the differences between wartime writing and memoirs. A diverse and shifting set of cultural frameworks and lived experiences shaped soldiers’ writings on Napoleon – from the Black Legend and Napoleonic Legend, to the Enlightenment and Romanticism; and from Spain and its battlefields to Restoration Paris and post-Waterloo Britain. Tracing the evolution of British soldiers’ perceptions of Napoleon from the outbreak of the Peninsular War in 1808 to the mid-nineteenth century reveals a growing admiration of Napoleon and the increasing hold of the Napoleonic Legend.

And while we're about it, perhaps a glimpse of the other side of the coin. Mediating Anglophobia: Political and Cultural Conflict in the French Periodical Reception of British Travel Writing (1792-1814)

Haugen, Marius Warholm

Journal of European Periodical Studies, 2017, 2 (2), 25-43

Abstract

This article analyses a set of French periodical articles on British travel writing, exploring the complex and ambivalent relationship that the French press entertained with translations of British travelogues. As travel writing was a highly popular genre in this period, but also politically charged, its periodical reception in revolutionary and Napoleonic France offers a rich object of study for understanding the entanglement of political and cultural conflict. In a political climate heavily influenced by the military conflicts between France and Great Britain, and dealing with a travel book market dominated by translations from English, the French periodical travel review partakes in the overall mediation of national stereotypes. Relatively restrained in literary journals of the Directoire such as the Magasin encyclopédique and La Décade philosophique, the mediation of stereotypes turns into outright Anglophobic propaganda in the Napoleonic Journal de l’Empire.

https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/2475563

Sorry @Kevin F. Kiley I’m confused. Isn’t all historical enquiry about finding some thing ‘new’, if not what is research actually for? I understand that we all want to do the best work we can. Nobody but a monster though would want to write something considered so definitive that it stymies research and original thought for the next 4 decades or more, would they? New sources are coming to light all the time. History books are written by fallible human beings, so even if there is no new material, it is open to re-examination and interpretation. History authors still need publishers, and publishers cannot survive make bricks without clay. Without that new input, we are left with rehashing precisely the propaganda you posted about, and the two centuries of tribalist, cult-like and apologist behaviour since.

@Kevin F. Kiley Well, both William of Orange and George I were offered their thrones by the duly elected government. Britain was/is a parliamentary democracy and in our period was on a journey of increasing suffrage and reform though. There was a way to go, but then so were other countries, the UK gained women’s suffrage in the same decade. There were examples of thrones being offered (Bernadottte for example) and we have had them since (Norway being the notable example). However, I can’t see where you are going with this. Napoleon came to power in a coup, he didn’t go round knocking on doors with his election leaflet. Did the Spaniards invite Joseph? Did any Hessians get consulted about Jerome? In some respects Napoleon was more dynastic than some of the established royal families. Younger brothers wouldn’t normally expect a throne for example.

@Kevin F. Kiley Here we can agree, the responsibility lies with the aggressor. However, we should be careful to not merely place that title on those who declare war. The British Empire declared war on Germany in 1939 in support of it’s international obligations. The Coalition declared a state of war with Iraq in 1991. In neither case would we characterise either Hitler or Saddam as anything other than the aggressors.

@Kevin F. Kiley “Good commanders generally speaking hit first when a war starts”. Well, there is a debate to be had around the doctrines of interventionism and pre-emptive strike. The difference between that and warmongering was really just a matter of perspective, ie if you were on the giving or receiving end.

That is one interpretation. However context is all. Godoy thought he had made a deal with Napoleon to carve up Portugal, but felt Napoleon had reneged on the deal. By October, Napoleon was winning the war in Prussia, giving rise to feelings of “who’s next”, so a fiery proclamation calling on people to rise up is quite similar to what happened in Austria a few years later. It was perhaps the only opportunity to defeat Napoleon, who would otherwise grow stronger (actually German thinking with regard to Russia prior to both World Wars). It would not have contemplated an invasion of France, just damaging French interests and throwing off French control, which had already led to the loss of the Spanish fleet at Trafalgar.

@Zack White "What's the basis for this claim about Spain planning to invade France in 1806? It strikes me as conceptually ludicrous that anyone would take such a threat seriously @Kevin F. Kiley What's the basis for this claim about Spain planning to invade France in 1806? It strikes me as conceptually ludicrous that anyone would take such a threat seriously"

This is fairly well-known. Godoy issued “a manifesto in October 1806 calling on Spaniards to rise up and arm themselves. Godoy did not name the foe but everyone assumed it to be France.” See, Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics. P. 338.

Re-reading that quote, I don’t think that it supports the assertion that civilian lives were specifically being targeted. Siege bombardments always were primarily anti-material rather than anti-personnel. I think that the point being made that they would have to take their chances whilst they targeted the town, and that would be a bargaining factor. Whilst area bombing and shock and awe lay in the future, we see the beginnings, in a very limited way, of what would later be called total war. Collateral damage had always been a reality in the sieges of towns, and the suffering of any civilians, particularly hunger, had always been a factor. At Copenhagen, because of ranges, topography and the relative inprecision of weapons it is just being made explicit rather than implicit. An interesting point in the the rise of nationalism and the nascent roots of total war. A point for moral outrage? Not as much as the killing of unarmed prisoners and plenty of apologists have seemed happy to rehabilitate that act.

Civilians Under Siege from Sarajevo to Troy pp 83-105 | Cite as

Siege Warfare in Comparative Early Modern Contexts: Norms, Nuances, Myth and Massacre During the Revolutionary Wars

link.springer.com

By the late eighteenth century, civilians across Europe were aware that, during sieges, unsuccessful resistance to a besieging army was liable to result in widespread death, destruction and loss for...

Fergus Robson

By the late eighteenth century, civilians across Europe were aware that, during sieges, unsuccessful resistance to a besieging army was liable to result in widespread death, destruction and loss for the inhabitants of the town or city. Soldiers were familiar with the formal system which had evolved to manage the tense and potentially ruinous situations all sides could find themselves exposed to during a siege. Practices existed which allowed for towns to be taken peaceably, while mitigating the damage caused by continued bombardment or assault and street fighting. However, if a negotiated capitulation was not reached and a town was taken by storm, the attacking army was understood to have acquired the right to pillage. It was in these circumstances that the worst happened. This system of managing sieges, its nuances, the ways it operated in different cases and the effectiveness or otherwise of its norms of behaviour are the subject of this chapter. This chapter focuses on the sieges of Mantua and Naples, where the notionally secular armies of revolutionary France encountered Catholic Austrian and Italian enemies, as well as Jaffa and Cairo, where they encountered Arab and Turkish Muslim armies. This array of religious and racial differences affords us valuable insights into the shifting collective and individual identities of soldiers and civilians in siege warfare. Furthermore, the rich comparative potential of the sieges in question permits us to study variations in the practice of siege warfare and to enrich our understanding of dynamics of violence in European and colonial contexts.

Gray, Anthony, “The French Invasions of Portugal 1807-1811: rebellion, reaction and resistance”, unpublished MA, University of York, 2011, pp. 174-177

http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2569//MA_Thesis_The_French_Invasions_of_Portugal_1807-1811_Online_Version.pdf

Torres Vedras. Portuguese Civilian Deaths.

http://nsfarchives.altervista.org/napoleon/forum/archive2017_config.pl@md=read%3Bid=182900.html

(minus date lines and posters' names)

Substance of Anthony Gray’s contribution effectively starts here:

http://nsfarchives.altervista.org/napoleon/forum/archive2017_config.pl@md=read%3Bid=182918.html Grehan's Source for the estimate ...

In Response To: Re: Torres Vedras. Portuguese Civilian Deaths. ()

Kevin, Grehan reports "Around 40,000 people are reported to have died in the Lisbon area during that terrible winter [1810-1811]. Unless you can point to one or other sources he cites and that you have provided, I believe Grehan is citing Gates, p. 225 for this estimate of civilian deaths. Gates writes, "Wellington's 'scorched earth' stratagem - whilst inflicting dreadful losses on the French - also claimed the lives of perhaps 50,000 Portuguese peasants in 1810'. Gates, The Spanish Ulcer, p. 225 cited by Grehan, The Lines of Torres Vedras, p. 160, note 11 (my emphasis in both quotes) NB Infuriatingly, Gates provides no source for his estimate. So, whilst we await further revelations, I will post now in response to Digby's original post, an almost contemporaneous estimate for deaths resulting directly from the French invasion of Portugal, north of Lisbon amounting to 38,000 in total - 3,000 of which perpetrated by the French army and c. 35,000 due to other causes such as: dislocation, starvation, malnutrition, lack of shelter, disease etc (see above). Best wishes A

Re: Torres Vedras. Portuguese Civilian Deaths. In Response To: Re: Torres Vedras. Portuguese Civilian Deaths. () Where do you find documentation of terror or execution by allied forces? I have read well documented accounts of those who did not evacuate being killed and tortured by the French in their effort to find food. If you read George Sims book, 95th rifles he gives quite eloquent descriptions of the horrors that were perpetrated on the civilians by French soldiers during Massena's invasion. on those who did not Evacuate.. The Portuguese had two previous invasions by the French, suffered widespread torture and murder. There was no indication that this third invasion would be any different. Moving people out of the path of the French might be considered protective. Many deaths have been documented due to starvation and infection. As many of the ruling class had evacuated to Brazil they were few citizens in Lisbon who might have instituted relief measures . However, it is unlikely in that era that such a relief measures would've been common. It's important to look at the entire social structure of the period, not apply current day values. You also don't take into account the high death rate from disease particularly related to poor sanitation. At that time the streets of Lisbon were open sewers. It is also well documented tha Portugeset line soldiers and the militia were near to starvation due to poor management by the Portuguese government. The practice of scorched earth to fight invasions in Portugal goes back to medieval period and to the mid 1700s in their efforts to fight invasion by the Spanish, these were effective.

Later a key exchange of three posts reads:

Kevin,

Can you please point us to the historical fact / facts relating to

1) the number of Portuguese civilians that were forced to evacuate their homes a) as a result of the "scorched earth" policy and b) resulting from the French invasion of 1810-11

2) the number of Portuguese civilians who a) were forced into "The Lines" and b) stayed for the duration of Massena's occupation of territory n front of " The Lines" (Sobral / Torres Vedras)

3) the number of Portuguese civilians who died within the Lines of Torres Vedras

And, if these facts are in books by authors such as Fletcher, Gates or Grehan, or indeed Kiley, what are the sources these authors cite to substantiate the assertions made?

Best wishes

A

In Response To: Historical Facts ()

I already gave the source as John Grehan's The Lines of Torres Vedras and listed his sources for the number of civilians that fled to Lisbon and the number that died of starvation and disease.

Historical Facts and Unfounded Assertion

In Response To: Re: Historical Facts ()

Kevin,

Thank you.

I read the posts - but none of the references you have provided relate to historical facts.

The assertions are as follows:

1 Grehan reports that not all the rural population did in fact make the journey preferring to remain in or near their homes (and some went to Peniche) and asserts that “It has been estimated that approximately 300,000 evacuees crowded into the capital during the winter of 1810-11 (including 87,000 in one day) and some refugees crossed the Tagus and moved in the Alentejo.” p. 159 n.10 citing R Bremner “The Building and Manning of the Lines of Torres Vedras” in [Berkley, A (ed)] New Lights on the Peninsular War, pp. 116-8

2 After reporting on the substantial efforts to feed the population, and here we need to remember that Lisbon was a very large maritime city with around 200,000 residents - dependent upon its rural hinterland AND imported foodstuffs. If the estimates are correct, some 500,000 people were crammed in the area behind the lines and in Lisbon [plus 80,000 to 100,000 troops]. Grehan then asserts “Around 40,000 people are reported to have died in the Lisbon area during that terrible winter and there was a real fear that when the warmer weather arrived disease would increase to epidemic proportions right across Portugal.” p. 160 n.11 D Gates The Spanish Ulcer.

40-50,000 is approximately 10% if we accept that 400-500, 000 people were actually crammed into that space.

3 We know that Grehan’s reference regarding civilian deaths at n. 11 is to Gates, and not the other works cited at this note, as Grehan reports later in his book “Wellington never imagined that Massséna would keep the refugees trapped inside the Lines for nearly five months, despite Da Sousa’s warnings that the Portuguese would attempt to hide to hide their food rather than destroy it. Nor did Wellington anticipate the extent of the damage the French committed during their stays at Sobral and Santarém and throughout the retreat. He miscalculated, and 40-50,000 Portuguese – approximately 2% of the entire population of Portugal – lost their lives.” n. 181 n. 20 “D. Gates the Spanish Ulcer p. 225 states that Wellington’s “scorched earth” policy “claimed the lives of perhaps 50,000 Portuguese peasants in 1810”. “

4 “Wellington’s ‘scorched earth’ stratagem – whilst inflicting dreadful losses on the French – also claimed the lives perhaps of 50,000 Portuguese peasants in 1810.” However, Gates provides no source for this estimate or assertion. So we are left wondering from where he has obtained it. Gates, D, The Spanish Ulcer: A History of the Peninsular War, (2002) p. 225

5 “Despite the hardships of life in Lisbon the people stuck with it, although at a terrible cost to themselves – Lisbon is not the largest of European capital cities today, never mind in 1810, and it is worth considering that no fewer than 300,000 people were herded into the areas behind the lines, the majority in Lisbon itself. Sanitation was at best poor, and coupled with the lack of food, it is not difficult to understand why as many as 40,000 people perished in Lisbon in the winter of 1810/11.” Fletcher, I, The Lines of Torres Vedras 1809-11, Osprey (2003),

6 “The cold-blooded decision by the Portuguese government and Viscount Wellington, as he then was, to devastate the area over which Masséna’s Army of Portugal would advance towards Lisbon was carried out efficiently, but it would cause the eventual deaths of some 40,000 refugees within the Lines of Torres Vedras. The civilian evacuees in the winter of 1810-11 numbered around 300,000. The Portuguese government could not feed them, and Wellington was mainly concerned about feeding his army. There was no way the Royal Navy could supply the Portuguese civilians.” Kiley, K F, Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars: Artillery in Siege, Fortress and Navy, 1792-1815 (Frontline, 2015) citing Ian Fletcher, The Lines of Torres Vedras, 1809-1811, 12-23 and John Grehan, The Lines of Torres Vedras: The Cornerstone of Wellington’s Strategy 1809-1812, 159-60

So, starting from the premise that a historical fact tells us about something that occurred in the past, we have to consider is it a fact if there’s nothing to substantiate it as a fact? Do the sources that have been referenced go beyond merely asserting 40,000 or 50,000 civilians died? Do any of the sources seek to correctly establish the circumstances that contributed to these civilian deaths?

What material evidence are the estimates based upon? And, for me, just as importantly, what are the subsequent effects of this amount of dislocation and morbidity on the Portuguese population and Portugal?

It appears to me that the number of 40,000 or 50,000 comes from Gates – but he provides no material evidence for the estimates. The number of 300,000 evacuees asserted by Grehan I assume comes from Bremner (but I cannot check this volume, at the moment unfortunately, for the evidence the number is based upon).

The population of Portugal in 1801 was just under 3 million and by 1807 perhaps 3,200,000 (Ferro, João Pedro, A População Portuguesa no Final do Antigo Regime (1750-1815) Editorial Presença, 1995, p. 32 citing a number of sources, those for the most recent numbers 1801 A população portuguesa nos inícios do século XIX, Fernando de Sousa, 1979, 1805, Fontes de demografia portuguesa, 1800-1862, Joel Serrão, Livros Horizonte, 1973 , 1807 from Variétés politico-statistiques sur la monarchie portugaise. Adriano Balbi,1822. Rey et Gravier.

The population (rounded to nearest 50) north of the Lines of Torres Vedras and in Lisbon 1801:

Coimbra 161,300

Alcobaça 22,250

Alenquer 42,200

Torres Vedras 48,750

Ribatejo 13,000

Lisboa 207,000

Ferro, p 38 citing Taboas Topográficas e Estatísticas, Lisboa 1948

This would mean that every single inhabitant from the region in front of the lines 287,500 would have had to move within the Lines. And, we know from various French sources relating to the stay in fron the the lines and the allied sources that list the French atrocities in the period October 1810 to March 1811 that a substantial proportion of the population did not retire behind the Lines, rather they avoided the retreat of the allies and march of the French only to return to their homes once the French had occupied the territory immediately in front of the lines. Finally, a good proportion of the population of Ribatejo and of Torres Vedras (and alesser proportion of Alenquer) would reside within the extremities of the Lines.

Best wishes

A

ENDS

In re: British supplies: Vichness gives a good example of how this worked. In July 1810 Forjaz reported to Beresford that the contractors in Coimbra complained that it they provided all the rations to the army Beresford and Wellington were demanding the civilian population would starve. Despite this, a large shipment of food in Aug. was sent nevertheless to the army. Vichness. Marshal of Portugal. P. 330

Não encontrara ninguém, incluindo os habitantes das terras, pois os camponeses (segundo o oficial francês) tinham fugido depois de serem ameaçados pelos ingleses com a pena de morte.. There seems to be a lot riding on one French ADC's journal entry, not least when cited second-hand in Portuguese. Who was his source (s), and how reliable? How objective was Pelet's analysis; did it, for instance, comfort him to believe the British had driven Portuguese out of the defended zone at bayonet point (while according to the historian Fernando Dores Costa an estimated 35,000 were dying in the French occupied zone) ?

It is worth noting that Wellington, as a soldier and an ally had no authority over the civilian population of another sovereign country. He held no civil post in Lisbon and he had no fiscal authority to disburse British funds for purposes other than that which they were voted for. To do otherwise would be to risk being cashiered. It is clear that he did all within his power to urge relief and encourage preparations. There was another who as a head of state and in accordance with all the usages of war is responsible for the privations of the occupants of an invaded country. As both military commander and the authority from whom all diplomatic authority flowed, Napoleon was the one man responsible, for it is upon his authority the invasion was made. Displaced persons, regardless if they were doing so on the orders of the Portuguese government, were so as a direct result of a necessity of acting in self defence from the actions of an aggressor.

very hard worker, genius in propaganda, creating a cult, extremely brave, knew well how to manipulate people.

Okay, here's a genuine question for Napoleon FANS, which I ask in an entirely neutral way. What would you acknowledge as being Napoleon's failings?

Equally, and in the interests of fairness. If you dislike Napoleon, what would you acknowledge as being his gifts and strengths

We have often seen the things that people who admire/despise Bonaparate refer to. What happens if the positions are reversed?

I'll offer this: I'm no fan of Napoleon, but my position has mellowed slightly with time. I would always have acknowledged that he was a phenomenally gifted commander - that much is obvious. He also had remarkable energy, had limitless vision, and showed incredible skill as a propagandist. He was also, significantly, probably the man that France needed in 1799, and in as much as he saw himself, the glory of France and the good of the French nation to be the same thing, he always acted in what he considered to be in the best interests of that trinity.

Meanwhile welcome back to No 1 Court, where the rain has finally stopped, but the shortlist of authors, other than the usual suspects, recycling contemporary 'anti Napoleon propaganda' from the 'Great French War' remains, not wishing to touch any sore points- how can I put this?- diminutive.

Strawman? Please refrain from personalising. I’m done with this thread as I have no ambition to descend to where it is going

Well, when you describe reforms as far-sighted, you are. And the point made is that we construct such notions in hindsight only. Please remember which forum you are on, and not throw insults.

Since the coup succeeded without bloodshed, which was the object, speculation on what might have happened is somewhat without merit, historically-another 'what if' which cannot be answered.

So, how far would Napoleon have gone? Are you saying that if the coup had become bloody he would have pulled out? Does it sound like Napoleon to flinch at the thought of a few casualties? If so, I would strongly suspect that the man of peace propaganda is at work.

The artillery Napoleon used against the rebels was light, or field, artillery-specifically 8-pounders. That isn't heavy artillery. Heavy artillery is siege, garrison, and fortress artillery. Field artillery tops out at the 12-pounder.

And artillery is the big leveler when outnumbered as the government forces were. 30,000 to 8,000 isn't exactly an even or fair fight, now is it?

As to overthrowing a government, Napoleon was recruited by Sieyes, who was one of the Directors, and the Directory was corrupt, France was in a state of fiscal and moral chaos, and Barras, another of the Directors, was plotting to bring back the Bourbons.

Napoleon conducted a coup that was bloodless and he clearly demonstrated that he was more-than-qualified to rule. He brought order out of chaos, greatly improved conditions in France, brought the Revolution to a successful conclusion, and with his far-sighted reforms he completely remade France and maintained the social gains of the Revolution.

Perhaps you should research the armed rebellion in Paris during which Napoleon used artillery to stop the attacks of the rebels.

Or is the issue actually one of Napoleon being involved and firing on the rebels in order to defeat the rebellion? Perhaps you believe that Napoleon should have let them overthrow the government?

My experience is that one faction’s peaceful protester is another’s mob. And as the victims of IHAT can testify, following orders is absolutely no defence. As you quite rightly point out, history is written by the victors. I very much doubt though that the royalists had access to 30,000 arms, so there must have been times that artillery was firing on largely unarmed crowds. Of such terrorist/insurgent vs freedom fighter/martyr discussions things like Easter uprisings are made. It is unsurprising that royalist propaganda does not match republican propaganda on this. I suspect the actuality sits somewhere in between.

A bit like those who go looking for Dan Brown ‘history’ I suppose. A novel written based on an acknowledged hoax, driving hordes of visitors to Rosslyn Chapel looking for ‘evidence’. Makes British and Napoleonic Propaganda seem a little tame in comparison.

She was a writer of historical fiction. However, to do so, like Thomas Hardy and Bernard Cornwell she had to study history, ie be an historian. Bernard Cornwell crossed that divide formally for his work on Waterloo. To be fair though, I’ve seen people who call themselves historians advance fantastical theories that even she wouldn’t have used. Some of them make Pierre Plantard’s Priory of Sion sound plausible. That’s why I refer to them as historical authors, not liking to confer on them the mantle of historian. It’s a personal thing, but I think that a ‘true’ historian has to sign up to a few more ethics around their duty to history. When I asked my first history teacher who his hero was, I was expecting WSC or Bomber Harris (his education was interrupted by a certain Bohemian Corporal, and he spent what should have been his second year at university as a Lancaster tail gunner). His reply seemed rather strange to my 15 year old self: “My heroine is history herself. A beguiling seductress but a harsh and demanding mistress.” It’s only 4 decades and a couple of thousand volumes later that I see what he really meant. Ultimately, our duty to her should supersede our attachment to any historical figure. A ‘true’ historian values history more than their ego. Anyone who doesn’t is merely someone who writes about history, in my book.