for the duke of Brunswick. The Emperor angrily refuses: not because the
duke is supposed to have incited Prussia to make war against France; but
because, long before this, during the first campaign against France in
1792, he had issued the famous manifesto of Coblenz, in which he had
said that in Paris he would not leave one stone standing on another.
“What harm had this city done to him?” fiercely enquires the Emperor two
decades later, the man who in those days had been Lieutenant Bonaparte.
“This affront must be avenged!”
V
Napoleon’s energy is most conspicuous in his role of conqueror. But in
this case it finds a more spiritual expression than one would be led
to anticipate from a soldier. “I have seldom drawn my sword; I won my
battles with my eyes, not with my weapons.” To gain a knowledge of his
soul, it is not important to understand the new forms of his art of war;
of importance is to understand the way in which his whole being vibrated
before, during, and after a fight. In this, too, he is wholly original.
Even courage, that fundamental virtue of the soldier, assumes in Napoleon
a form peculiar to himself. During his youthful days, and again during
the last campaigns he displayed so much personal courage that he can
venture to say, “no soldier is proof against cowardice”; but such moments
of panic fear must be utilised against the foe. What he believes himself
almost alone to possess is “two-o’clock-in-the-morning courage”: courage
in face of the unforeseen, the sudden; courage which demands presence of
mind and power of determination. But he despises the “chivalrous” courage
of the duel, which he crushingly describes as “cannibal courage.”—“Since
you have both fought at Marengo and Austerlitz you do not need to give
any further proofs of your courage. Women are fickle, and so is good
luck. Go back to your regiments and become comrades again.”
The commander of armies clearly recognises the line of demarcation
between humaneness and coldness. The same man who, in his study, could
exclaim to Metternich: “Such a man as I does not care a snap of the
fingers for the lives of a million men”; will say on the field of battle:
“If the kings of the world could contemplate such a sight as this, they
would hanker less after wars and conquests.” Another time he writes
to Josephine: “The earth is strewn with dead and bleeding men; this
is the obverse of war; the heart is tortured at the sight of so many
victims.” Calculation and feeling are at cross purposes in this case,
and he excuses himself for the duties imposed by his own craft: “He who
cannot look upon a battle-ground dry-eyed, allows many men to be killed
purposelessly.” This is what he wants above all to avoid. For the great
aim, Europe entrusts him with a million men: his lesser aim, the taking
of this trench or that bridge, must be thriftily achieved, for “he who
heedlessly allows ten men to be killed where at most two need have died,
is answerable for the lives of eight men.”
Since most of his wars are fought from political necessity, and are
always conducted without hate, as soon as the fight is finished the foe
ceases to exist. He writes from Schönbrunn: “I am appalled to learn that
the eighteen thousand prisoners on the island of Lobau are suffering from
hunger; this is inhuman and unpardonable. Have twenty thousand rations
of bread sent there immediately; a similar amount of flour for the
bake-houses.” But when, after the truce, soldiers are still being killed
by the embittered Tyrolese, he is furious, and orders that “at least
six of the larger villages are to be plundered and burned, so that the
mountain folk may not soon forget the vengeance that has been exacted.”
War is for him an art, “the most noteworthy art, one which contains
within itself all the other arts.” Like a true artist, he declares that,
in the long run, this art cannot be taught: “You fancy that because
you have read Jomini you are fitted to be a leader in war?... I have
fought in sixty fights, and I can assure you that I have learned nothing
from any of them. Cæsar used the same tactics in his last battle as
he had used in his first.” In typical artist fashion, he contradicts
himself in the definitions of those things in which he is a master.
After the Spanish campaigns, he delivers the following lecture to one
of his generals: “War is decided far more by the power of strategical
calculation than by material forces.” At another time he will maintain
that it is the superior numbers or the moral courage of the troops which
constitutes the deciding factor. Sometimes he even goes so far as to say
that inspiration decides an issue: “The result of a battle hangs on a
thread and is mostly the outcome of a sudden thought. One approaches the
enemy according to a prearranged plan, one comes to blows, one fights for
a while, the critical moment draws near, a spark of inspiration flames
up—and a small reserve division does the rest!”
More logically, but not less as the artist, he speaks of the decisive
moment which, after a couple of engagements, one can find out for oneself
without any difficulty. “Such moments are not more than quarter hours....
In every battle a moment comes when the bravest of soldiers would like
to turn tail: it needs but a trifle, but a plea, to put heart into him
again.” This power of suggestion has won him many a victory, for soldiers
constitute the only mass to which he can speak with effect. The soldier
understands him, because Napoleon is simple. The Emperor even describes
war as “a simple art like everything that is beautiful.” By this
contention he seems to uphold the idea that war is the highest of all
arts. “The military profession is a freemasonry ... and I am the grand
master of its lodge.”
He draws this personal influence from the history of his own rise, which
is known to every soldier. As a young general, he had learned to put
up with his dependence on the civil authority; and as emperor he still
commiserates his royal adversaries because their generals’ activities
are frustrated by civilian control. On the other hand, he knows the
dangers of amateurishness, and writes to Joseph: “When the king himself
commands, the soldier does not feel commanded. The army applauds him as
when a queen is riding by. If one is not oneself a general, one must give
the generals full power of command.”
Because he is the only ruler in Europe who has risen from the ranks, from
youth upwards he remains familiar with details, and always understands
how things look to an officer on the fighting front. “There is nothing
connected with the art of war which I cannot do with my own hand: power,
siege engines, artillery.” But he does not concern himself with these
details unless it is necessary, and laughs at the romantic anecdote in
a book where he is said, one night, to have taken over the duties of a
sentry who had gone to sleep at his post: “That is a civilian’s idea, the
sort of thing a lawyer would think of, and was certainly not written by a
soldier.”
But he is a stickler for equality in the army, and in this matter
remains true to the revolution until the very end of his career. No one
is promoted unless his record in the service justifies the advancement.
If Napoleon makes an exception in the case of his brothers, we must
remember that after he has made them kings he continues to scold them
as if they were subalterns. He writes to Jerome, commenting on a report
from Silesia: “Besides, your letter is too clever for my taste.... What a
man needs in war is precision, firmness, simplicity.” When Joseph plays
the prince in Boulogne, and vies with Marshal Soult in the splendour of
his receptions, Napoleon scolds him. “In the army, no one must put the
commander in the shade. On review days, it is the general and not the
prince who must give a dinner. At a review, a royal colonel is a colonel
and nothing more. Discipline can tolerate no exceptions. The army is a
whole. Its commander is everything. Keep to your own regiment.”
[Illustration: Napoleon as Emperor in 1815. Woodcut, after a medal.]
Nevertheless, a wounded commander-in-chief has become a private soldier.
At Eylau, where there have been heavy losses, the Emperor forbids a
famous surgeon to go out of his way in order to care for a wounded
general: “Your business is to attend to all the wounded, and not to any
one in particular.” A German officer reports that after a fight Napoleon
would often stand by the wounded and see that they were carefully lifted
into the stretchers: “If this good fellow pulls through, there will be
one victim the less.”
In all the memoirs, we read how in camp the Emperor would foregather
with his men at the bivouac fire, ask whether their food was being
properly cooked, and laugh at their replies. When they confided all their
troubles to him, and often said “thou” to him, this was not the assumed
good fellowship of a condescending monarch, but a genuinely paternal
relationship. If he calls them “my children,” to them he is their “little
corporal,” meaning the comrade who takes the responsibility. “I have
received your letter, dear comrade,” he writes to a veteran grenadier
who wishes to re-enter the service. “You need not speak to me of your
deeds, for I know you to be the bravest grenadier in the army. It will be
a pleasure to see you once more. The Minister for War will send you your
orders.”
He never confides his plans to any one; but when it is a question of
rewarding merit, he calls in Everyman as adviser. After a fight, he often
forms a circle, speaks to the officers, the non-commissioned officers,
and the rankers individually, asking who were the most valiant, rewarding
then and there, allotting eagles with his own hand. “The officers pointed
out, the soldiers confirmed, the Emperor approved,” relates Ségur as
eyewitness.
It is true that Napoleon loves war, but as a fine art, just as he loves
power. It is true that he laughs incredulously at a traveller who tells
him a tale of a Chinese island where there are no weapons.
“What do you mean? But they must have weapons!”
“No, Sire.”
“Pikes, anyhow; or bows and arrows?”
“Neither the one nor the other.”
“Daggers!”
“Not even daggers.”
“But how the devil do they fight there?”
“There has never been a war on the island.”
“What, no war?”
It sounds to the traveller as if the very existence of such people under
the sun outrages the Emperor. The thought stirs a soldier’s bile!
All the same, he looked forward to the coming of peaceful days, not with
an ardent desire for them perhaps, but with the seer’s vision. He showed
his superiority to all the modern commanders against whom he fought, in
that he, the greatest soldier of the new times, declared the primacy of
the spirit over the sword. When Canova made a statue of him in which he
was shown with a threatening mien, he said contemptuously: “Does the man
think I achieved my conquests with blows of my fist?” But, more than
this, he himself defined a commander as something above and beyond a
soldier. When First Consul, he said in the Council of State:
“In what does the commander’s superiority consist? ‘In his mental
qualities: insight, calculation, decision, eloquence, knowledge of men.’
But all these qualities are what make a man shine in civil life.... If
bodily vigour and courage sufficed the commander, any brave private could
be a leader of armies. Everywhere, crude force now yields ground to moral
qualities. The man with the bayonet bows before the man who possesses
exceptional knowledge and understanding.... I knew perfectly well what I
was about when, as the head of the army, I bore the title of Member of
the Institute; and the youngest drummer understood what I meant.”
At a later date, he spoke more decisively.
“_War is an anachronism. Some day, victories will be won without cannon
and without bayonets.... Whoever troubles the peace of Europe, wants
civil war._”
Remember that these are the words of Napoleon, the military commander.
VI
His energy is concentrated on human beings. Very rarely does he come into
conflict with natural forces; and whenever he does so, he is beaten.
But, in general, all he has to do is to compel men to conquer, for him,
the mountains and the miles. Human beings are the material in working
with which the energy and the imagination of this artist are destined
to become weary; them he must overcome if he is to do his work at all.
No mortal ever conquered more men than did Napoleon. He subjugated, not
only armies and peoples, but something more: individuals, and the best of
these.
To achieve his goal, he followed the road of contempt; and used as his
means, glory and money. Self-confidence and experience had convinced him
that every one acts only from self-interest; that some are driven to
grasp at money through love of pleasure, or avarice, or clannishness;
that others seek public recognition in order to gratify their vanity,
their jealousy, or their ambition. Denying the force of ideal motives,
Napoleon relied exclusively upon material means; and if the spur of
ambition occasionally assumed the aspect of a desire for eternal glory,
this occurred against his will, but the magic of his personality
sometimes exercised a more puissant lure than the well-calculated
material attractions offered by others. To quote Goethe: “Napoleon, who
lived wholly for ideas, was nevertheless unable to grasp the nature of
ideal motives; he repudiated the ideal, denied that there was any such
thing, at the very time when he himself was eagerly trying to realise the
ideal.”
Yet to Napoleon the Mephistophelian conception of men was as alien as it
was to Goethe. He said: “Most people bear within themselves the seeds
of good and of evil, of courage and of cowardice. Thus is human nature
created: upbringing and circumstance do the rest.” Since, for twenty
years, he needed this human nature, daily and in quantities of a hundred
at a time, the subtlest knowledge of it was a primary condition of his
success. Among all the materials which Napoleon bent to his uses, the
human heart was the most familiar.
“I am a great friend of analysis.... ‘Why’ and ‘How,’ are such useful
questions, that they cannot be uttered too often.” Coldly and clearly as
a nerve specialist, he controls all psychical symptoms, utilises every
method for the attainment of such control, and trusts especially to
physiognomy—for he knows his Lavater. He is fond of reproving people.
“According as they react, I discover the pitch of their souls. If I
strike brass with a glove, it gives back no tone: but if I strike with a
hammer, it rings out.” A person meeting Napoleon for the first time, is
gripped by the magnetism of his glance.
By talking and questioning, he makes himself acquainted with the atlas of
human types, an atlas he is ever enlarging. He questions so long that a
stranger grows embarrassed, confused, and alarmed; he questions until his
questions become ridiculous; but he must at all costs get the information
he needs, even if he is not negotiating. In what way can the twenty
minutes that a doctor sits at Napoleon’s table in St. Helena be put to
the best use by the ex-Emperor?
“How many patients suffering from ailments affecting the liver had you on
board? How many cases of dysentery? What is the fee for a consultation
in England? What is the pension awarded to an army surgeon?... What is
death, or how would you define it? When does the soul quit the body? When
does a body first receive a soul?”
Another means is monologue. One of his intimates declares that the right
of the Emperor to hold forth in monologue was the only real pleasure his
high estate awarded him! We have testimonies concerning other men of
action: but who ever talked so much as Napoleon! Since he always faces
the world alone, he must continually hold forth that he may convey his
suggestions to the world. His conversations often lasted from five to
eight hours, some of them ten or eleven hours; and during the greater
part of them Napoleon took the floor. We must admit that this was more in
accordance with the Italian manner than the Roman; Italian, too, were the
rapidity of his utterance, and his foreign accent: but he gesticulated
little; and only when much moved did he unclasp his hands—generally they
were clasped behind his back, as if he wished to throw out his chest
against the world.
Upon all who serve him, he lavishes money with oriental profusion. But
as far as his personal expenditure is concerned, he is thrifty. During
the Consulate he says: “A man who has been through so many wars will have
acquired a little property whether he will or no. I have a private income
of from frs. 80,000 to frs. 100,000, with a house in town and a country
mansion. What more do I need? If I should get out of humour with France,
or France with me, I should retire from public life without a qualm....
But every one round me is stealing; the ministers are weak. Some people
must be laying by vast sums.... What is to be done about it? France is
corrupt through and through. It has always been like that; as soon as a
man becomes a minister, he builds himself a palace.... Do you know what
they are trying to make me pay for my installation in the Tuileries?
Two millions!... It must be cut down to eight hundred thousand. I am
surrounded by a pack of scoundrels.”
“Your great operations,” answers Roederer, “must cost you much more than
these domestic defalcations.”
“All the more reason why I should watch over my personal expenditure.”
This conversation tells us how the head of the State, a man of thirty,
regards money. He needs nothing for himself, and complains of the
venality and profusion of those by whom he is surrounded; acknowledges
that he has himself made money out of the wars; rails at the tradesmen
who want to charge two millions for the equipment of a palace, when,
as far as his own taste is concerned, he sees no reason for spending
anything at all. Amid the frightful corruption which is a heritage of the
revolution, he fights with the army contractors and war profiteers; but
as soon as, by drastic punishments, he has succeeded in putting an end to
this scandal, he assigns preposterous incomes to his marshals, some of
whom receive more than a million francs a year. As Consul, he rids the
State of the thieves who are making away with the national property; and
then, as Emperor, he burdens this same State with extortionate salaries.
Still, there are a few persons who make money thanks to their
relationship with him, though without his aid. “When I have nothing
left,” he says to Talleyrand, “I shall turn to you. Tell me honestly, how
much have you made out of me?”
“I am not a rich man, Sire, but all that I have is at your service.”
Napoleon’s way of dealing with men is modified by a hundred and one
considerations. If we wish to study the variations of his technique, we
must class his instruments in groups.
Generals and marshals are the easiest to keep dependent, for they have
unceasing opportunities of winning military renown; and, since he pays
them so liberally for their services, they grow more and more wealthy.
By loading them with money, he gains two ends, spreading effulgence
around himself, and keeping his most powerful officers in a state of
dependence. It delights him to see these soldiers unused to money
spending extravagantly, running into debt, and then turning to him for
help in their difficulties. He leads them from profusion to want, and
then back to profusion again. At the same time, he gives them little
scope for originality, reserving important decisions for himself, so that
even the commanders of armies rarely have a chance of proving themselves
men of genius. He shrewdly regulates his public mention of them in his
bulletins, both in respect of time and form, so that, through their
vanity and jealousy, he can get his way with his generals.
The result is that their sentiments towards him are a mingling of hatred
and love, whereby they are chained to his service more firmly than if
the feeling had been one of pure affection. Perhaps only two of them are
wholly devoted to him, Berthier and Duroc, whose love for him he compares
with that of a child and a dog. Ney speaks of himself as a loaded musket
which is fired when and where the Emperor orders. Napoleon, for his part,
has a personal affection for those only who have risen with him, and
in his memoirs he pays his tribute to them. He extols Desaix’s mental
balance. Moreau has “more instinct than genius”; whereas Lannes has “more
courage than sense,” though as time goes on he makes good in the latter
respect. Kléber seeks glory only as a means of enjoyment. Masséna is
not really courageous until he is under fire. Murat “has not a spark of
intelligence, but what dash! He is a duffer and a hero.” Napoleon cannot
break away from these witnesses of his rise, although almost all of them
have learned the weight of his anger. In his tent, after Wagram, Napoleon
thunders at Marmont for having made a mess of things, and a quarter of an
hour later appoints him marshal.
Sometimes the Emperor’s misanthropy got the better of him. “In those
moods, I begin to distrust even my companions-in-arms; that causes me
intense suffering, and I do everything I can to rid myself of such
horrible suspicions.” Yet he really knew. Lannes’ death touched him to
the quick, but he never really uttered the moving farewell words which
he publishes. Indeed, he confided to Metternich: “Lannes hated me. When
I heard that, on being wounded, he had called out my name, I knew it was
all up with him. He called on me as a dying atheist calls on God.”
The remembrance of friendships formed in youth does not prevent him
from scolding the most exalted of his marshals like schoolboys when he
considers they have behaved foolishly or have been wanting in courage.
He says to Junot: “Your conduct was unprecedented, extraordinarily
indiscreet.... You have a strange notion of your military duties. I don’t
recognise you!” To a general in Lombardy: “Under your command, there has
been very little honesty and a great deal of avarice; but I never knew
until to-day that you were a coward. Leave the army, and never let me see
your face again!” In Spain, one of his generals capitulated in the open
field. Six months later, this man ventured to appear before Napoleon at a
review. The Emperor stormed at him in full hearing of the troops; would
not be appeased. The witnesses say that the scene lasted a whole hour. “A
man may have to surrender a fortress. The fortune of war is uncertain,
and defeat is always possible. Any one can be taken prisoner. The thing
may happen to me to-morrow. But honour, before all! On the battle-field,
a commander’s business is to fight: and if he capitulates instead, he
deserves to be shot.... A soldier must know how to die. Have we not all
to face death?... As a subject, you committed a crime in capitulating; as
a general, a stupid blunder; as a soldier, your action was cowardly; but
as a Frenchman, your surrender was dishonourable!”
He alarmed the diplomats of his day by a frankness which none of them
trusted. “Tact, and putting all the cards on the table, will do better
service in diplomacy than cunning. The tricks of the diplomats of the
old school are out of date; all their rogueries have been exposed long
since.... Nothing betrays weakness more than the attempt to deceive.”
Just before the renewal of the war with England, he tells the British
envoy how many years it will take before France can face England at sea,
but he explains how quickly he can increase his army to four hundred
thousand. In Schönbrunn, he says to the Austrian negotiator: “That is my
last word. If you defeat me, I shall propose more favourable terms; but
if I gain the victory, I shall make them harder. What I want is peace.”