Book Review - Napoleon the Great

Book Review - Napoleon the Great

By Andrew Roberts

”He is the Napoleon of crime”, was how Sherlock Holmes described his nemesis Moriarty, head of the London underworld, in the popular crime novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This short description sufficed to inform the reader that Moriarty must be a truly formidable character indeed, someone who has risen to the absolute pinnacle of his chosen profession, and who is not to be trifled with. That the mere mention of Napoleon’s name roughly half a century after his death was still so pregnant with meaning and subtle menace to a Victorian audience suggests that during his short but intense life, Napoleon Bonaparte managed to leave his mark on the world. Even though he was ultimately defeated and brought low by his enemies, his name remains synonymous with military genius. In Napoleon the Great, British historian Andrew Roberts has written a superb biography of history’s consummate adventurer, a man who rose from relatively humble beginnings and exploited the tumultuous events of the French revolution to become Emperor of France and the undisputed master of Europe.

Napoleon Bonaparte (at this stage Buonaparte) was born in Ajaccio, Corsica in 1769. Since he was of the island’s nobility his future prospects were relatively bright, as long as his family could stay in the good graces of the French, who were reviled by many Corsican nationalists. Indeed, as a young man Napoleon sympathized with the nationalists, and viewed their leader, Pasquale Paoli, as something of a role model. His sympathies notwithstanding, the young Napoleon travelled to France to learn a soldier’s trade, and was soon commissioned as an artillery officer thanks to his gift for mathematics. Along the way his Corsican nationalist sympathies wavered, as he was forced to navigate the tumultuous political climate in the wake of the French revolution. Napoleon agreed with demands for equality before the law and the concept of promoting soldiers and civil servants based on merit, but he was never a hardcore Jacobin.

During the siege of Toulon in 1794, Napoleon commanded the victorious French forces, leading from the front, he was injured by the thrust of a British bayonet, but survived, and earned the respect of his men as a corporal in gold braid. Victory at the Siege of Toulon helped launch Napoleon’s career and catapulted him ahead of other ambitious peers. It also showed his capacity for hard work, ingenuity and disregard for his own physical safety on the battlefield, all of which would later help him seize power in France and humble the armies of his enemies.  

Even after this victory, Napoleon’s rise was by no means ensured, his career was nearly undone by his association with the bloodthirsty Robespierre brothers, when they were toppled later that same year, but after he returned to Paris and protected the Directory from a royalist uprising, his star was once more in the ascendant. Shortly after marrying the widow Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon became a general at the age of twenty-seven. Fearful of the ideals of the French revolution, the old monarchies of Europe had forged a coalition against France, intending to restore the old order. The main theatre of war was in Germany, and the Italian theater was regarded as a sideshow. Napoleon thought otherwise. Arriving in Nice he took command of the Army of Italy, and proceeded to lead it to victory against superior Austrian forces. During this campaign, Roberts notes, Napoleon was able to use his great energy and speed of maneuver to best his opponents, who were often older than he was, and led armies that were more poorly organized.

After the Italian campaign Napoleon went to Egypt, to lead a military expedition with a contingent of scientists, with the aim of challenging Britain’s overseas empire. The Egyptian campaign was a failure from a military standpoint, but thanks to Napoleon’s soldiers bringing home the Rosetta stone, modern Egyptologists are able to read hieroglyphics.

With the political situation in turmoil and France beset by external enemies as well as internal troubles, Napoleon seized power along with a group of political allies and became first consul in 1799, his position further cemented by the results of an election that was rigged in his favor.

Even though peace was soon signed with France’s principal enemies, Austria, Great Britain and Russia (Prussia joined them later), these nations would over the coming years form new coalitions against France, and would in time ground Napoleon and his empire down.

A vigorous domestic reformer as well as a soldier, Napoleon’s reign saw France being modernized in a many fundamental ways. His legal system, the Codé Napoleon, remains in use in France and in many countries around the word today. Napoleon reorganized the French civil administration to be one based on merit. He also founded the Banque de France, as well as reforming the French education system and implementing a new tax code. Always a tireless micro-manager who was interested in controlling the minutest aspect of his realms, he wrote a staggering number of letters and dictates throughout his life. Once, when he had left France to embark on one of his many military campaigns, he wrote a letter back home demanding that a provincial priest who had given a bad sermon would be severely admonished. This restless energy and capacity for overwork was one of Napoleon’s greatest strengths, even though he was unable to remain fully as vigorous later in life as his health deteriorated.      

Over the coming sixteen years after becoming consul in 1799, Napoleon waged war almost continually against France’s enemies. Having soundly defeated the Austrians, Prussians and Russians in battle many times, he reached the zenith of his power in 1807, when he met Tsar Alexander of Russia on a barge floating in the Neman river to sign the treaty of Tilsit, in effect dividing Europe between these two absolute monarchs. Relations between the two men were initially cordial, but Napoleon, who effused about Alexander that “Were he a woman, I would have taken him as my mistress”, never got the measure about the cool-headed and cunning tsar.

One of Napoleon’s most severe weakness, besides his total ineptitude when it came to naval warfare, was his inability to modernize French trade and finance. In The Ascent of Money, previously reviewed on this blog, Niall Ferguson asserts that British trade and finance remained superior to France throughout this era, which, together with the power of the Royal Navy, enabled the island nation to stay in the fight and bankroll France’s enemies. In effect, Napoleon’s empire was funded by victories on the battlefield that brought riches through plunder, a modus operandi that was inefficient and unsustainable in the long run. The bonds of the Banque de France were never equal to those issued by the British, and naval dominance meant that overseas trade could deliver prosperity much more reliably than plundering Vienna for a third time.     

An effect of the trade imbalance was that Napoleon tried to browbeat his defeated enemies into agreeing to an embargo of British goods, called the continental system. This hurt the economies of the German states, as well as Russia. Napoleon’s anger over Tsar Alexander’s transgression against the continental system were one of the factors that led to the greatest military blunder of his career. In 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia with an army more than 600 000 strong. Even though he captured Moscow, the Russians retreated from his armies and burned everything that could be of use by the French, and the brutal winter soon started to take its toll. In November 1812, the shattered remnants of Napoleon’s armies crossed the Berezina river and retreated into Poland. This fatal defeat, which robbed the Grande Armée of most of its veterans as well as most of its cavalry, led Napoleon’s rivals to declare war against France once again. Even though Napoleon fought bravely and with great ability to defend his empire, his efforts were in vain. Roberts points out that critics who dismissed Napoleon as a spend force by this point are wrong, he remained a battlefield commander of great ability, but ultimately France’s enemies were too numerous, its armies too depleted and its population too tired of war.

After a short Exile to the Mediterranean Island of Elba, Napoleon briefly returned to power in 1815, but was defeated by a combined force of British and Prussian soldiers at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon’s defeat was not inevitable, but a series of bad decisions led to him being defeated by Blücher and the Duke of Wellington, who had previously shown great ability while fighting against the French armies in the Peninsular war. Exiled for a second time, this time to the remote pacific Island of Saint Helena, Napoleon died in 1821, most likely of stomach cancer, the illness that had claimed the life his father and several other family members.  

The Napoleonic epic gives any biographer a treasure trove of material, and Roberts has used all of this to great effect. Napoleon the Great is a thoroughly enjoyable read that is sure to delight anyone with even a remote interested in history, and tells the tale of one of the most fascinating men who ever lived. It is true that the ears waged by Napoleon led to the deaths of many, both soldiers of civilians. It is also true, Roberts is careful to mention, that not all wars fought by Napoleon were his fault. Yes, his invasions of Spain and Russia were naked acts of imperialist aggression, but he also tried to make peace with Great Britain and her allies repeatedly, but was most often rebuffed and had to go to war only once diplomacy had failed.

In answering the question of whether Napoleon managed to achieve his dreams and ambitions, Roberts points to his childhood heroes, Alexander the great and Julius Caesar. Before Napoleon any ambitious young man wanted to be like Alexander the great and Julius Caesar. After Napoleon, any ambitious young man wanted to be like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte.         

Book Review - Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet

Book Review - Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet
By Lyndal Roper

As one of the most famous and consequential characters in European history, Martin Luther is an obligatory part of any high school’s history curriculum. We all know that Luther’s famous 95 theses, nailed to the Wittenberg church’s door in in 1517, challenged the authority of the Catholic Church, especially on the issue of granting indulgences.  Luther’s ideas led to a schism in European Christianity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, culminating in the Thirty Years War of 1618 to 1648. In Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet, Oxford historian Lyndal Roper gives contemporary readers a close personal look at the father of protestant Christianity, a complex character whose religious and philosophical belief continually evolved, both before and after the moment he nailed his theses to the church door. Over the course of reading the book one constantly has to remind oneself that Mrs. Roper wasn’t actually there to witness the events and talk to Luther first hand, his life and actions are so comprehensibly laid bare that you could be forgiven for thinking that was the case.

Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony in 1483, but his family soon moved to the prosperous mining town of Mansfeld. His father, Hans, was a man of great stature and authority, who worked tirelessly to rise through the ranks and eventually became a mining inspector, a post which afforded his family a comfortable life. His hard work and toil were no doubt helped by the fact that Luther’s mother, Margarethe, came from a relatively prosperous mining family. It was Hans Luther’s wish that his eldest son should study law, since lawyers were much in demand in the busy mining town, and a trained lawyer would be of much help to the family. For Martin, however, his brief stint at law school proved to be an unhappy one, instead, Martin entered St Augustine’s monastery at Erfurt in 1505 to study theology and become a man of the cloth. This decision enraged Hans, who thought it a monumental waste of time, and showed little understanding for his son’s choice of career. Naturally this must have stung Luther, but he soon found other mentors to look up to for guidance within his religious order, the first and most importance of these being the noted preacher and theologian Johann von Staupitz. An anxious Luther confessed all his sins, real or imagined, at great lengths to Staupitz, who counselled Luther to pursue an academic career as a tonic for his theological self-flagellation.   

Even though he had chosen his own path in life, Luther was unhappy with the austere monastic life of a Dominican friar. He later attributed the lack of sleep, poor rations and freezing winter days spent preaching outside wearing nothing but a thin woolen robe for his poor health later in life. In 1507 Luther was ordained in Erfurt Cathedral and the following year, having earned his bachelor’s degree in bible studies, Staupitz invited him to come and teach at the newly formed University of Wittenberg, where he served as dean. Luther accepted his invitation, and his life took a turn for the better. He got on with his  work and enjoyed life in Wittenberg among his university students and colleagues. In 1512 he became a doctor of theology, reaching an important academic milestone.

At this point, the rest of Luther’s life could have been that of a rather anonymous provincial theology professor, content with his lot in life. However, it was not to be. Although criticism of the papacy was nothing new, the advent of the printing press meant that ideas could now travel far faster and further than what had been previously possible. Luther’s 95 theses were an attack on the authority of the papacy and its bloated administration, published in a form common for theological debates at the time. The theses spread all over Germany in a matter of months and became a source of debate and controversy. The core of Luther’s ideas, which he later expanded upon as he redoubled his attacks on the papacy, was that salvation lay in faith alone, and so could not be gained through alms or good works, and that all doctrines not found in scripture were to be discarded.  Essentially every man was to be his own scholar and interpreter of the bible, and did not need to look to a priest for answers. Luther was excommunicated and declared a heretic for opposing the Catholic Church, and at the Edict of Worms in 1521 he stuck to his beliefs when confronted by the Holy Roman Emperor himself, Charles V.  

Luther also attacked clerical celibacy, and married Katharina von Bora, a former nun. According to Luther the need for clergy to stay above the desires of the flesh was utter nonsense, since man was born into sin and led sinful lives no matter how devout they were, sex and procreation within the bonds of matrimony was as natural as passing water after drinking too much ale.    

Being an atheist myself, much of Luther’s criticism of the Catholic Church seems entirely reasonable, such as the abuse of the sale of indulgences, yet as Roper points out Luther’s motivations are hard to sympathize with for a modern reader. When German peasants, inspired by Luther’s writings, rebelled against their feudal lords, Luther sympathies lay firmly with the lords. He saw temporal matters as being entirely the domain of the aristocracy and the ruling classes, Roper writes, and so did not care much for the demands of the peasants. This led to Luther losing much of his popular support, and over time he became more of a symbolic character as the founder of a new branch of Christianity, himself less and less able to personally influence events.

Roper’s genius lies in being able to both place Luther’s actions in a historical context which is easy to understand, while also shining a light on all aspects of his character, good and bad. Luther was certainly an entertaining host and a good friend to many, imbued with a simple and rustic sense of humor. But he was also somewhat of a zealot, who turned potential allies into enemies because he refused to compromise on even the most trivial aspects of his beliefs. Perhaps it was that very stubbornness that enabled him to publish his theses in the first place. Luther was also an anti-Semite, and a virulent one at that, even by the standards of his time.

For all his many flaws, it is undeniable that Martin Luther irrevocably changed Christianity and the history of Europe. Lyndal Roper’s Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet succeeds in explaining Luther’s life and legacy to the modern reader. At times Roper delves perhaps a little too deeply into the finer points of scripture and theology, but overall, she manages to keep up a coherent and interesting narrative throughout the book.    

 

                                                                

Book Review - The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin

Book Review - The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin

By Roger Moorhouse

The Second World War is easily the most well-known conflict in human history. It was also the deadliest, with estimations of the total number of casualties running as high as eighty-five million people, including civilians. Most aspects of the war have been widely studied, yet historian Roger Moorhouse found to his chagrin that the non-aggression pact signed in August 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union has largely been relegated to a footnote in history. It is often explained as merely a temporary convenience, as both sides were intent on going to war with one another, yet the pact lasted for nearly two years, during which Soviet raw materials fueled the Nazi war effort and German technological expertise enabled the Soviets to expand their industrial capacity. In The Devils’ Alliance, Mr. Moorhouse delves deeply into every aspect of the nonaggression-pact that shook the world, and tries to answer whether the pact was a temporary necessity born out of realpolitik or if, had the Germans not invaded the USSR during the spring of 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, the outcome of the war could have been radically different.

Germany, as Henry Kissinger helpfully pointed out in World Order (previously reviewed on this blog) has always suffered from being nestled smack bang in the middle of Europe, with potentially hostile nations to the east and west. In the eyes of the Western democracies, Adolf Hitler’s strategic position looked shaky during the build up to the war. Having agitated against the evils of communism for most of his political life, a détente between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union seemed very unlikely. In the event of a conflict against Britain and France, Germany’s eastern flank would be terribly vulnerable against an opportunistic Soviet attack. The Nazi high command had also grasped this fact, however, and during the summer of 1939 a tentative dialogue was initiated between the two regimes. At the same time, Britain and France made an attempt to eke out a diplomatic agreement with the Soviets that was almost comical for its ineptness. Weeks before the pact with Nazi Germany was signed, a joint delegation led by a British admiral and a French general arrived in Moscow. They had crossed the Baltic on a decrepit old steamship, a journey that took the better part of six days, and upon their arrival in Moscow the soviets were annoyed that neither half of the Anglo-French duo had the authority to negotiate a robust deal. Moreover, Mr. Moorehouse notes drily that the British admiral, an aristocrat by the name of Sir Reginald Ranfurly Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, was perhaps not ideally suited to rubbing shoulders and making small talk with the sons and daughters of a proletarian revolution.

In contrast to the allies quaint doddering, the Germans looked a much safer bet. Stalin had never held the Western democracies in very high regard. His suspicion is understandable given the fact that they had sent troops to fight against the Bolsheviks in the immediate aftermath of the 1917 revolution. Merely a couple of days after talks with the British and French had broken down, the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, visited Moscow to much fanfare. A pact of non-aggression that included economic exchanged was signed between Ribbentrop and his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, on August the 23^rd. The pact became known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and when it was signed Stalin declared a toast to the continued good health of the Führer. When news of the pact reached the West on the following day, it struck like a bombshell. At a stroke, this worsened the prospects for the English and the French. They could no longer hope for Soviet assistance in the event of a war breaking out, and the Americans were still firmly against being drawn into another European war.

The pact also included a secret clause that divided Poland between the two regimes. This secret clause came into effect a month later, when the Nazis invaded Poland and the Soviets followed suit a couple of weeks later. As Hitler’s panzers struck west to attack France the following year, Stalin was busy gobbling up the Baltic states to add their territory to the Soviet Union. When German soldiers marched into Paris during the summer of 1940, Britain had to come to terms with the lonely prospect of being the only major European country still standing against the Nazis. For Hitler, the war had so far gone spectacularly well, and Stalin was also mightily pleased with what the pact had helped him achieve.

Yet for all this superfluous bonhomie between the scum of the earth and the bloody assassin of the workers, the pact came with some obvious complications. For adherents to Communism or Nazism, a great deal of ideological acrobatics was now necessary to explain the new geopolitical circumstances. Communists all over Europe, who had for years been vehemently opposed to Nazi Germany, suddenly had to justify the necessity of a pact with their worst enemy. Harry Pollitt, general secretary of the British communist party, refused to tow the Comintern’s line, and welcomed the British declaration of war against Germany. He was forced to resign shortly thereafter, but following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 he regained his lost standing in the party. After the war the USSR saw fit to commemorate him with a postage stamp for leaning against the wind. For the Nazis, the pact was equally uncomfortable, not least because Hitler in his work, Mein Kampf, had railed against communism and declared that it needed to be exterminated from the face of the earth.

Such ideological conundrums could at first be brushed under the rug, both sides benefited from the mutual economic exchange, but it wasn’t long until tensions flared. Soviet delegations to German factories clutched long lists detailing the different schematics for various components they were interested in obtaining. The German’s soon got into the habit of keeping their more sensitive projects classified and tried to make sure that the Soviets only got to inspect older fighter planes and tanks that were scheduled for decommission. The shipments of raw materials they had been promised in return had a curious habit of almost drying up when Stalin didn’t think he needed the German’s goodwill. When the Germans were becoming seriously annoyed by this practice, Stalin decided it was time to turn on the taps. Russian cargo trains started rattling westwards laden with oil and wheat with startling alacrity. At a summit in Berlin in December 1940, when Molotov visited the capital to negotiate plans for a new phase of deeper cooperation, the talks did not go well. The rival delegations talked past each other, the Germans giving lofty declarations that they would carve up the world between them, while the Soviets were interested in more urgent matters such as the precis demarcation of territory in eastern Europe. Molotov left without anything of import having been decided, and the future of the pact did not look promising.

Yet for all this mutual mistrust Stalin had no wish to go to war in 1941, and he trusted that Hitler would honor his commitments. Even when German forces were massing on the Polish border during the months before Operation Barbarossa, Stalin ordered that the raw materials should keep flowing and that everything should be done to appease Hitler. In the end, Hitler’s invasion ended the pact, which was pretty much the outcome that had been predicted in the West, but the short-lived treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union remains an interesting topic of academic study. As Mr. Moorehouse notes, Hitler and Stalin had a lot of similarities, and both seemed to mistrust the Western allies more than each other. Not the best foundation for building lasting cooperation perhaps, but that probably wasn’t what either side had in mind to begin with. For a more in depth look at the ambiguous relationship between Hitler and Stalin, and the events immediately preceding the invasion, I would recommend John Lukacs’s excellent June 1941: Hitler and Stalin.          

The Devils’ Alliance is a very interesting read and one that I would recommend for anyone with an interest in history and the Second World War. It delves into the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact from several angles, geo-political, economical and ideological, as Mr. Moorehouse walks the reader through the implications of perhaps the most shocking and unexpected diplomatic treaty signed during the Second World War.