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English-Speaking Peoples (9): Napoleon, Nelson and Human Freedom
History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume 3, Book 9
On most Fridays starting September 30th, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and radio host Hugh Hewitt discussed Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples in the Hillsdale Dialogues segment of the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Following each segment, the Churchill Project offers companion pieces highlighting important episodes and themes in the book covered. Readers will note that our writers focus on aspects of the books which our discussants may not. Such is the depth of Churchill’s History. Every reader may take what they prize most from this vast mine of political wisdom and understanding.
Page references (parentheses) are to Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, vol. 3, The Age of Revolution (New York: Dodd Mead, 1957).
“Aux Armes!”
Churchill assesses the French Revolution as “totally different from the revolutions that the world had seen before” (267). The English and American Revolutions remained mostly domestic in their aims. The French Revolution, Churchill writes, “was to spread out from Paris across the whole Continent” (267). Napoleon, whom Churchill terms “the greatest man of action born in Europe since Julius Cæsar,” was one of its products (274).
Whether inspired by Les Philosophes de L’Encyclopédie, such as Diderot, Rousseau, or Voltaire, or the economic malfeasance highlighted by Necker, the Third Estate (the bulk of the French people) promised a new government under the National Assembly. Their rejection by Louis XVI ignited the cause of liberty, equality and popular sovereignty. Churchill describes the revolutionaries as mostly “landed proprietors, men of business, numerous lawyers, doctors, administrators”—the middle class (274).
A small spark found its oxygen source on 14 July 1789, when Parisians responded to Louis XVI’s weak attempts to rein in the new National Assembly with the cry “Aux Armes!” A revolutionary mob descended upon the Bastille to supply themselves with ammunition and gunpowder. Churchill illustrates the gruesome scene: The “citizen militia fought with reckless valour,” sacking the fortress, and killing Governor de Launey. By the end of the siege, de Launey’s “bleeding head [was] raised aloft on a pike.” This, writes Churchill, was “a portent of atrocities to come” (277).
The coming of Napoleon
The import of this bloody revolution for Napoleon Bonaparte manifested in the economic and societal transformations it inspired. The French coup d’état produced “a solid new class of peasant proprietors who owed their all to the Revolution. They were to form the backbone of its armies and of those of Napoleon’s Empire.” (279) A new warrior-peasantry, indebted to the Revolution for its newfound liberty, would serve Napoleon’s hegemonic aspirations well.
Indeed Napoleon arose in the heat of battle, inspired by the Revolution. In 1793, the French Convention annexed the Austrian Netherlands and declared war on Great Britain and Holland. Britain responded with a war of tariffs and trade, but soon escalated to an outright assault on French soil.
In this assault, the British captured the French port town of Toulon. The strategic importance of this stronghold, Churchill writes, was as “a vital base for future invasion” (289). However, the British military had already centralized most of their available soldiers in the West Indies. Napoleon—a young lieutenant at the time—saw his opportunity.
Among others, Napoleon noticed the ill-positioned French forces at Toulon. Churchill describes how he “walked along the line of batteries, and pointed out that their shot would not reach half-way” (289). Once “this error was adjusted,” French artillery enjoyed more accurate strikes, “and the expert lieutenant began to have a say at that incompetent headquarters” (289).
“Go and take Toulon”
The Jacobin besiegers planned to follow a “method of siege according to customary forms,” as prescribed by the terror-reigning Committee of Public Safety in Paris (289). Although many suspected this to be a faulty plan of attack, only one person spoke up. Napoleon declared the orders “foolish.” To truly reclaim Toulon, he said, required an offensive at Fort l’Aiguillette (289). Churchill writes that “after a hot fight it fell” (289).
Napoleon won the day, and the French elite of the Revolution took notice of this ambitious soldier. Churchill highlights the implications of Napoleon’s victory as well, detailing how the young lieutenant
…had understood not only the military significance of the captured fort, but the whole set of moral and political forces upon which the Royalist defence of Toulon hung. Once the British Fleet had departed all resisting power perished. There was a stampede to escape upon such vessels as remained. The city surrendered, and horrible vengeance was wreaked upon thousands of helpless captives, who might have been the vanguard of Counter-Revolution (290).
In 1928, when Churchill was himself thinking of writing a Napoleon biography, he asked the age of a rising young politician, Alan Lennox-Boyd. “Nearly 25,” Lennox-Boyd replied. “Napoleon took Toulon before he was 25,” declared Churchill, whipping out his watch. “You have just got time—go and take Toulon.”1 The quip indicated how much store Churchill set by the immense political and martial capital Napoleon amassed with this victory.
The rise to command
Churchill attributes two further conflicts to Napoleon’s rise. The first came after the fall of Robespierre, who succumbed to the political machine he created. This machine—whose law was the will of a small revolutionary elite and whose justice was the guillotine—lacked leadership. Members of the remaining bourgeoisie led an armed revolt to fill the void by establishing a legitimate government. Napoleon, Churchill writes, “planted his cannon around the legislature,” which “scattered the citizens who declared they were seeking a free and fair election in accordance with the public will” (291). To Churchill this event, on the 13th Vendémiaire (4 October 1795), represented Napoleon’s second “leap upward” (291).
Shortly thereafter, Napoleon “claimed command of the French army against the Austrians in Northern Italy” (291). Churchill beautifully relates this third step in Napoleon’s rise to power:
[Napoleon] animated his ragged and famishing troops by the hopes of glory and of booty. He led them in 1796 through the passes of the Alps into a smiling, fertile, and as yet unravaged land. In a series of most hazardous minor battles, gained at heavy odds, he routed the Austrian commanders and conquered the broad base of the Italian peninsula. By these victories he outstripped all rivals in the military field and became the sword of the Revolution, which he was determined to exploit and to destroy. This was the third phase. Corsican, Jacobin, General, were milestones he had left behind him. He now saw as his next step nothing less than a conquest of the Orient after the fashion of Alexander the Great. He planned the invasion of Egypt as a preliminary to the capture of Constantinople, and all that lay in Asia (291).
The focus of Nelson’s attention
As Churchill recounts, Napoleon’s martial and political success elevated him to the primary protector of the French principate. With his hegemonic aspirations, he sought to establish his own new modes and orders through expansion and subjugation. Just as he subjugated the will of the people at the 13th Vendémiaire, so too would he attempt to imposed his rule across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.
It became the chief objective of the British navy to deny Napoleon his Eastern expansion. Bonaparte quickly shifted his rampage from Northern Italy to Austria, from which he secured the French annexation of Belgium. Churchill surveys Bonaparte’s growing power across Europe in 1797: “France, dominant in Western Europe, firmly planted in the Mediterranean, safeguarded against attack from Germany by a secret understanding with Austria, had only to consider what she would conquer next” (292-93).
Next came Egypt. There Napoleon envisioned a new Alexandrian empire—an opportunity too seductive to forgo. Great Britain, and particularly Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, pursued Napoleon to deny him this eastern foothold. Through his immense knowledge of strategy and naval warfare, Nelson defeated Napoleon’s fleet at the Nile, forcing the French Emperor to abandon his army.
Churchill praises Nelson for his brave leadership. His arduous defense of Egypt “cut Napoleon’s communications with France and ended his hopes of vast Eastern conquests” (294). Thanks to Nelson, “the British Fleet was once again supreme in the Mediterranean Sea.” This Churchill explains, was a “turning-point” in the struggle to beat back Napoleonic despotism (294).
Interregnum and regrouping
Was [Nelson] right in believing that the French were making for Europe? As [Nelson] wrote in a dispatch, “So far from being infallible, like the Pope, I believe my opinions to be very fallible, and therefore I may be mistaken that the enemy’s fleet has gone to Europe; but I cannot think myself otherwise, notwithstanding the variety of opinions which a number of good people have formed” (304).
Nelson chose correctly. He cut Napoleon’s forces off at Cadiz, and a large battle ensued off Cape Trafalgar. It was Nelson’s first face-off with his French adversaries since 1803.
Nelson, “Britannia’s god of War,” had not heard the last of Napoleon’s navy. Upon defeat on the Nile, Napoleon returned to Italy to reaffirm French supremacy in Europe. In London domestic politics saw the replacement of the younger William Pitt with Henry Addington, “an amiable former Speaker of the House of Commons whom no one regarded as a statesman” (297). In 1802, Addington concluded peace with France, and fighting ceased—briefly. Napoleon used the respite to regroup his resources and to focus his efforts on the Mediterranean. This would require him to break the British naval blockade of Toulon.
Glorious Trafalgar
As the opposing navies prepared for battle, Nelson displayed his duty to God and country. Churchill masterfully recounts Nelson’s courageous declaration:
I intend to pass through the van of the enemy’s line, to prevent him getting into Cadiz.” Nelson went down to his cabin to compose a prayer. “May the Great God whom I worship grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory…. For myself, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my country faithfully” (307).
Nelson surely rendered this service to his nation. He sailed his outnumbered ships in two columns directly at the French-Spanish line, splitting it in three. The French and Spanish lost two-thirds of their fleet, and Nelson lost his life. “The victory,” Churchill writes, “was complete and final. The British Fleet, under her most superb commander, like him had done its duty.” (308).
Yet, for Napoleon, the war was not over. By July 1810, he had secured a Franco-Russian alliance; he now dominated almost all of Europe. He turned his attention to his next target of subjugation: the Spanish Peninsula.
“Locked in their deadliest grip”
Napoleon saw Spain as “the weakest link in the immense barrier of French troops and customs officers.” He sought to secure “not only Spain, but also Portugal, the traditional ally of Britain, whose capital, Lisbon, was an important potential base for the British Fleet” (315-16). In defense of Spain and Portugal, the fatigued British rose to meet Napoleon once more. Churchill posits that at this point: “France and Britain were now locked in their deadliest grip” (316).
Napoleon’s first move was to depose King Charles IV of Spain. He accomplished this at Bayonne, where under the threat of execution, Charles signed documents of abdication. Bonaparte placed his brother Joseph as his vassal on the Spanish throne. Churchill cites one of Napoleon’s letters written shortly after deposing Charles: “Spanish opinion bends to my will. Tranquility is everywhere reestablished” (316).
Drunk on power, Napoleon overestimated the polity he offered, and underestimated the resolve of the Spanish people. Churchill recounts the great patriotism stirred in Spain by Napoleon’s rapacious annexation:
As soon as the Spaniards realised what had happened and that their country was practically annexed to France they rose everywhere in spontaneous revolt. Between May 24 and 30 in every hamlet and village throughout the Peninsula they took up what arms they could find…. Nothing like this universal uprising of a numerous, ancient race and nation, all animated by one thought, had been seen before (317).
The Churchillian perspective
Clement Attlee once joked that Churchill’s History should have been entitled, “Things in History Which Interest Me.” Unconsciously Attlee identified the value of history evaluated by one who made it. Churchill, who writes from his own experience, understood defending human freedom. He understood fighting with one’s back to the wall. Thus, he writes, “the tiny province of Asturias, on the Biscayan shore, separated by the mountains from the rest of Spain, knowing nothing of what the rest were doing, drove out the French governor” (317).
The Spanish rebels “declared war upon Napoleon at the height of his greatness, and sent their envoys to England to appeal for alliance and aid” (317). They “landed at Falmouth on the night of June 6 [1808], and were conveyed by the Admiralty to [Foreign Secretary George] Canning. Canning welcomed them. From that moment the Peninsular War began” (317).
Although Churchill himself was a product of a romanticized empire, he understood the distinct line between just rule and subjugation. In the Peninsular War, Napoleon opted for the latter. For this reason, Churchill champions the Spanish race for its ardent and virulent defense of home and country from its foreign invaders. He understood that. In 1940, it would be Churchill who rallied the defense of the same “human freedom.”
Napoleon’s long wake
In Churchill’s estimation, the Spaniards presented Napoleon and France with the first true check upon their hegemonic motivations:
For the first time the forces unchained by the French Revolution, which Napoleon had disciplined and directed, met, not kings or Old World hierarchies, but a whole population inspired by the religion and patriotism which Joan of Arc had tried in vain to teach to France, and now Spain was to teach to Europe (317).
Churchill, the champion of self-rule over despotism, remembers the Peninsular War favorably. The Spanish—aided by the British—denied the French from occupying Spain. By the end of the Peninsular War, Napoleon’s forces were depleted, and Napoleon fled to Elba. Although he would rise again for one final confrontation at Waterloo, his reign of imposed rule ended. The Spanish example reaffirmed for Churchill the power of self-government, and the worthy cause of liberty.
Endnote
1 Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 5, The Prophet of Truth 1922-1939 (Hillsdale College Press, 2009), 302.
The author
Mr. Foley is a Winston Churchill Fellow at Hillsdale College and a member of the Class of 2024. He is pursuing a B.A. in Politics and French, and is Vice President of the Pi Delta Phi French honor society. He was recently a Fellow of the Hudson Institute Political Studies Summer Program in Washington, D.C.
Is there a companion article for “English-Speaking Peoples (8)”?
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It’s being written, sorry for the delay.