Cameron & Nicholas

Cameron & NIcholas

Originally uploaded by cameronreilly

On 13 July 2008, I met with Cameron Reilly and J. David Markham in Paris, and we spent the next day on the town. Here is a photo of Cameron and me at the Louvre at one of the outdoor second-story cafes.

Legal Justification of the Enghien Affair

The duc d’Enghien was sentenced to death after a military trial found him guilty of treason. To this day it is not definitively known whether he was actually the “young prince” revealed by the British-paid terrorist Georges Cadoudal to be involved in what is dubbed the Cadoudal Plot, although all available information and my own intuition point towards his innocence in that matter; however, the fact remains that he was a traitor. He had made a public oath to overthrow the Republic, had taken up arms against France and personally fought against the Republic’s armies, and was in the midst of working on what appears to be another plot when he was arrested, the suggestive evidence being that he and his companions were in the process of burning several sets of papers when the soldiers came for him and the remaining papers detailed secret meetings in Paris, which not only would be illegal for the duc as he was exiled but also had the implication that he could have been in contact with Cadoudal. It is now supposed that he was in fact traveling to Paris to meet with his fiancée, but he made no declaration of this during his trial, nor would it be of much importance. The fact remains that the merciful pardon of émigrés excluded those who had, as it explicitly described, “not taken up against the Republic,” and so his return for any reason was warrant enough for death. Whether or not he was part of the Cadoudal Plot in particular, he was still a traitor, and the price for such treason was death. The argument presented is not on whether or not the proscribed penalty of death for treason is just, but rather that the sentence given him was in fact legal, despite the claims of a sect of naysayers.

 

By the end of the trial, the duc d’Enghien refused to offer a defense, contenting himself instead with writing to Napoleon for pardon as was permitted by the law, and accepted the final judgment of guilty of the charges:

1 – of having borne arms against the French Republic .2 – of having offered his services to the British Government, the enemy of France.

3 – of having received and harboured in his household agents of the British government, of having provided them with the means to carry out espionage in France and of having conspired with them against the internal and external security of the State.

4 – of placing himself at the head of a group of émigrés and others, funded by England, on the frontiers of France, in the states of Fribourg and Baden.

5 – of having carried out espionage in Strasbourg, of a kind liable to encourage unrest in the neighbouring departments, in order to create a diversion favourable to England.

6 – of being one of the supporters and accomplices of the conspiracy devised by the English against the life of the First Consul which, in the event of its success, would have led to the invasion of France

 

 

 

Of those charges, the only one which he could possibly have been innocent of would have been the 6th, which would have left more than enough warrant for his arrest and execution. As for the issue of his residence in Ettenheim, that must be put into context. At the time, the issue of “national borders” was not as it is today, and there would have been very little problem with officials seizing criminals from the fringes of their territory, as the duc was only on the very edge of France and Ettenheim [which was an independent state, noting that the unified political body of Germany would not exist until 1871 and it was neither part of Prussia nor Austria]. In addition, the duc had violated the terms of his stay in Ettenheim, which was on the conditions that he “did not conspire against the French government, its friends and allies ” and maintained “peaceful and discreet conduct.” Conspiring to reinstate the Bourbon monarchy and plotting with England violate the first condition, and publically swearing to overthrow the Republic and taking up arms against it both violate the second condition.

 

Ultimately, it was a conspiracy two of Napoleon’s ministers, Savery and Talleyrand, that sealed the duc’s fate. Savery was responsible for, of his own initiative, hassling the trial into moving quicker and of brutally executing the duc in despicable conditions, shooting him in the back of the head in front of a pre-dug grave in the middle of a rainy night, without even pretending to wait for Napoleon’s reply to the request for pardon, and Talleyrand withheld the request from Napoleon until he knew it would be too late. Whether or not he would have been pardoned is a subject for debate, but had it not been for those two self-absorbed and malicious ministers the duc would have met a dignified death at the guillotine during the day and in a better environment. The manner of the duc’s death was disgraceful, but his arrest and sentence were both entirely right and justifiable.

Speech by Napoleon III on France’s Foreign Policy

Although I am hardly a fan of Emperor Napoleon III, this is nevertheless an interesting historical account, given by the US’s Confederate newspaper Harper’s Weekly on 2 March  1861:

FRANCE.
THE EMPEROR’S SPEECH.

The French Emperor opened the Chambers on 4th with a speech, in which he said :

“I have endeavored to prove, in my relations with foreign Powers, that France sincerely desires peace, and that, without renouncing a legitimate influence, she does not pretend to interfere in any place where her interests are not concerned; and, finally, that, if she sympathizes with all that is great and noble, she does not hesitate to condemn every thing which violates international right and justice. It is sufficient for the greatness of the country that its rights be maintained in the quarters in which they are incontestible, to defend its honor wherever it may be attacked, and to afford her support where it is supplicated by a just cause. It is thus that we have maintained our rights in causing the recognition of the cession of Savoy and Nice. These provinces are now irrevocably united to France. It is thus that, to avenge our honor in the extreme East, our flag, united with that of Great Britain, floats victoriously over the walls of Pekin, and that the Cross, emblem of Christian civilization, again surmounts in the capital of China the temples of our religion which have been closed for more than a century. It is thus that, in the name of humanity, our troops have gone to Syria, in virtue of a European convention, in order to protect the Christian against a blind fanaticism. At Rome I have considered it necessary to increase the garrison when the security of the Holy Father appeared to be threatened. I have sent my fleet to Gaeta at the moment when it seemed that it must be the last refuge of the Ring of Naples. After having allowed it to remain there four months, I withdrew it. However worthy of sympathy might be a royal misfortune is nobly defended, the presence of our war vessels obliged us to depart every day from the system of neutrality which I had proclaimed, and gave rise to erroneous interpretations; but you know that in policy one hardly believes in the possibility of a pure, disinterested step. Such is a rapid exposition of the general situation. Let any apprehension, therefore, be dissipated, and let confidence be reestablished. Why should not commercial and industrial affairs assume a new development? My firm resolution is not to enter into any conflict in which the cause of France should not be based on right and justice. What, then, have we to fear ? Can a united and compact nation, numbering forty millions of souls, fear to be drawn into struggles the aim of which she could not approve, or be provoked by any menace whatever? The first virtue of a people is to have confidence in itself, and not allow itself to be disturbed by imaginary alarms. Let us, then, calmly regard the future in the full consciousness of our strength as well as in our honorable intentions. Let us engage, without exaggerated preoccupations, in the development of the germs of the prosperity that Providence places in our hands.”

 

 

Reasoning behind the War of the First Coalition

 

“Their said majesties the emperor [of the Holy Roman Empire] and the king of Prussia are resolved to act promptly and in common accord with the forces necessary to obtain the desired common end [the reestablishment of Louis XVI’s absolute monarchy],” declared Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II of the Holy Roman Empire and King Frederick William of Prussia in their Treaty of Pillnitz, continuing to promise to “give such orders to their troops as are necessary in order that they may be ready to be called into active service.”  Although they later deny it, this treaty was virtually a declaration of war on the French Republic; it clearly revealed the fact that Austria and Prussia were prepared to employ military force against the free French nation that had taken its fate into its own hands.  Reasonably enough, the despots of Europe, drunk with blood and pride, feared for their thrones in light of the liberal and egalitarian ideals flowing from France; however, rather than accepting their existence and instituting new reforms and freedoms as the Assembly in France was, the despots chose instead to attempt to extinguish the light of liberty and crush the Republic underfoot.  They stated that they were ready to use force, and all that remained was a trigger to “justify” a war.

 

            Rather than play the victim, France, recognizing war to be inevitable, chose to take the reigns and declare war for themselves, which they did on 20 April 1792.   There were, in fact, further reasons for declaring war than just subduing the despots of Europe.  Jacques Pierre Brissot, the Legislative Assembly’s greatest proponent of war, argued that war would spread the Revolutionary ideals to neighboring countries as the armies of the Republic ventured out on their campaigns, and that the war would serve as a goal that the whole country could rally behind, consolidating the Revolution.

 

            Peace was not a possibility; the absolutism of the despots would not allow it.  The Republic must, as Joseph Chénier wrote in his masterpiece song Chant du Départ, “prevail or perish,” for the enemies of France would never yield otherwise.   The tyrants thirsted for French blood, but it would be their own “impure blood” that would “water the furrows of France,” as  Claude-Joseph Rouget so brilliantly wrote in his song La Marseillaise.  Searching for evidence of the cruel and barbarous absolutism of the despots, especially of Austria and Prussia, one needs look no further than the Brunswick Manifesto, issued by the Duke of Brunswick, commander of Prussian and Austrian invasion forces, on 25 July 1792 as he neared Paris.  He warns that “any towns and villages who may dare to defend themselves” shall be “punished immediately according to the most stringent laws of war, and their houses shall be burned or destroyed.”  Furthermore, in his insane blood frenzy, he admonished the French populous, “if the least violence be offered to their Majesties the king, queen, and royal family, and if their safety and their liberty be not immediately assured, they [Prussia and Austria] will inflict an ever memorable vengeance by delivering over the city of Paris to military execution and complete destruction.”  In other words, should the Parisians offer any defense at all, they’ll all be slaughtered mercilessly and the city leveled to the ground.  No one other than the most tyrannical despot would make such an offer.

 

            After the War of the First Coalition, which Spain and Britain would later join as allies of Austria, the French Republic stood victoriously above the rest, shining as a beacon of hope to the world.  With General Bonaparte’s victories in Italy he was able to seal peace with the fair and benevolent Treaty of Campo Formio.  In effect, France had begun liberating Western Europe.  Italy, which was splintered and dominated by an oppressive Austria, had been reorganized by Gen. Bonaparte into a set of republics, most notably the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics.  In accordance with the ideal of equality, Gen. Bonaparte went so far as to liberate Italian Jews from the ghettoes they had been subjected to, even demolishing the walls of the infamous Roman ghettoes, after which the manacles of the Star of David on their clothing were removed as they were finally allowed to join society as free men, equal in rights.  There were initially problems with fighting a war while the state was still embroiled in revolution, especially with internal enemies such as the Royal Family, who gave away troop movements to the enemy and begged for them to continue the war with France, and traitorous members of the Assembly such as Mirabeau, who earlier had conspired with the Royal Family, but thanks to Robespierre’s insistence, a Revolutionary Tribunal was established, followed by the Committee of Public Safety, which weeded out many traitors, which in turn inspired the soldiers on campaign.

 

In light of all of this, there can be no doubt that the war was a good decision, not only because France won the war, but because of what would ultimately result from the war.  War consolidated the people, and in that state the government was able to all but annihilate the internal enemies of France.  Outside of France, people were shown a new style of life, namely one where they could be free to live life as they wished.  They saw first-hand the benefits of choice of profession, of freedom of religion, of freedom of speech and of the press, and many more that they could hardly dream of.  After the War of the First Coalition, England would bribe the tyrants of Europe into forming coalition after coalition, creating a state of perpetual warfare on the continent which, while defending la patrie, Napoleon Bonaparte could further expand the glorious ideals of the revolution to not only his own country but also to all of Europe and the United States of America through his Code Civil, otherwise known as the Code Napoleon, which would eventually influence countries worldwide.  Although France would in the long-run lose the Wars of the Coalitions, it sacrificed itself for the modernization and liberation of Europe and the whole world.  Without the war, all of that would most likely not have happened, or at least not at the expedient rate at which it had.

Modern Presence of Napoleon

Within France traces of Emperor Napoleon I are ever eminent, evident to people of virtually every walk of life.  The law system of France is still the Napoleonic Code of the First French Empire, although modifications have been made to it with the shifting times.  Paris’ paved roads, even-odd numbering system for houses, and fire brigades are all testament to his reign, as are the trees along main roads, originally planted to provide shade for travelers. 

            Thanks to Napoleon, France has one of the world’s best water-bound transportation and trading lines in the world.  The préfecture system was initiated under Napoleon, creating a highly efficient and centralized police administration, in addition to La Sûreté Nationale, now the French National Police, which inspired the creation of organizations such as Scotland Yard and the F.B.I.  In terms of finances, taxes are still being collected by professional tax collectors, a change Napoleon made from using part-time people who were paid a percentage of what they collected, and France still maintains its central National Bank.  The fact that France is financially stable, considering the horrible deprivation and poverty under many years of the despotic ancien régime and even the French Revolutionary governments, is directly due to Napoleon

            Religion-wise, France still is religiously tolerant as Napoleon had decreed, accepting not on the Catholicism of the large percentage of the population, but Protestantism, Judaism, Islam, and others.  For landmarks, he built the Colonne Vendôme and initiated construction of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most famous monuments in the world.  For French students, there is a centralized curriculum and higher education available, especially with Napoleon’s lycées; in addition, to ensure that effective teachers were heading the schools, he instated the École Normale Supérieure for the express purpose of training teachers.

 

            If Napoleon had never existed, France would probably be much worse off.  Without his leadership, the country would have been completely decimated by starvation, poverty, and crime.  Without his military guidance, the despots of Europe would have defeated the French Revolutionary armies in the War of the Third coalition, the punitive measures taken on France would have been even more devastating then they were with the nefarious Congress of Vienna, and a more lasting monarchy would have been imposed.  Revolutionary fervor in la patrie would have been all but extinguished, the feudal laws of the Bourbons would have continued to oppress the people, and the county might well have wound up at war with Jeffersonian United States of America over the lower ports of New Orleans.  Therefore, in light of the miraculous reforms he brought to France and the abhorred plight he ended, Napoleon Bonaparte I would be rated as the foremost European military leader and statesmen in history, setting the scene for the modernization of France, Europe and the world.

Argument Against the Fallacious Image of Napoleon as a Warmonger

Echoing in the domed roofed cathedral of Notre Dame on the wintry evening of 2 December 1804 was the glorious music of a choir singing a mighty Vivat in Aeternum as Consul Bonaparte approached the alter, sending tingles of astonishment and admiration down the spines of the congregation. Victoriously, he held aloft the crown and gently brought it to rest on his brow, completing the transformation from First Consul to Emperor of the French. The First French Empire was born amongst the smoldering ashes of the oppressive Bourbon monarchy, and the glorious liberties won by the Revolution were incarnate in the Emperor of the French, the “Son of the Revolution;” however, the ancient enemies of France, along with the deposed vainglorious nobles allied to the abhorred Bourbons and the bloody despots opposed to the Revolution, thought it inconceivable that the French managed find a leader who not only defended la patrie successfully but also molded it into the foremost power of Europe. Such a situation was anathema to them, and so they concluded, “For the sake of our thrones and wealth, we must crush the free nation of France;” with that resolution, the newly-crowned Emperor Napoleon was condemned to spend the rest of his reign defending la patrie from the restless hordes of the Coalitions, as he had defended it throughout the Directory and Consulate.

Before the Empire, Napoleon had taken part in the Coup of 18 Brumaire that established the French Consulate, of which Napoleon would become First Consul. Napoleon realized that peace was required in order to solve the internal mayhem in France, and in the most sincere fashion he wrote to the monarchs of Europe in the spirit of friendship and cooperation. To King George III of England, he wrote:

“Is there no end to the war which…has desolated every quarter of the globe? How is it that the two most enlightened nations in Europe, both stronger and more powerful than their safety and independence require, consent to sacrifice their commercial success, their internal prosperity, and the happiness of their homes, to dreams of imaginary greatness? How is it that they do not envisage peace as their greatest glory as well as their greatest need? …The fate of every civilized nation depends on the ending of a war which is embroiling the whole world.”

In reply, England insultingly demanded that France not only surrender all the gains of the War of the First Coalition but also return to the tyranny it had been subjugated to for the past several centuries under the barbaric Bourbons. Peace overtures were also made to Austrian Emperor Francis I, but they were rebuffed just the same. Napoleon was left with no choice; with the allied powers refusing to accept peace, he himself would have to step forward and bring the War of the Second Coalition to an end, as quickly as possible.

Consequently, on 15 May 1800 First Consul Bonaparte directed his troops under General Berthier across the Great Saint Bernard Pass into Italy, where he took the enemy by storm and vanquished their forces, culminating with the famous Battle of Marengo that sent the remaining Austrians flying out of Italy; these were the same Austrians who during the previous war had invaded Italy and imposed their tyranny upon the native peoples, and who during this new invasion had dismantled the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics that Napoleon had helped the native peoples create to ensure their own liberties. In his victory, Napoleon did not choose to continue the war with Austria or Europe; instead, he wrote to Emperor Francis:

“Thousands of Frenchmen and Austrians are no more…Thousands of bereaved families are praying that fathers, husbands, and sons may return! …The evil is irremediable: may it teach us to avoid anything that might prolong hostilities! The prospect so affects my heart that I refuse to accept the failure of my previous advances, and take it upon myself to write again to Your Majesty, to entreat you to put an end to the misfortunes of Europe…I implore Your Majesty to hear the cry of humanity, and not to allow the offspring of two brave and powerful nations to slaughter one another for the sake of interests of which they know nothing…I contented myself with an arm armistice, in the hope that this would be a first step towards a world-peace,”

Unfortunately, the Austrians wouldn’t accept defeat just yet, and so peace would have to wait until December, after the French won a decisive victory on the Western front at the Battle of Hohenlinden. In February 1801, the Treaty of Lunéville was signed, requiring the Austrians only to conform to Treaty of Campo Formio that they had violated by entering into the War of the Second Coalition and invading Italy again; the treaty allowed the Austrians to keep neighboring Italian territories and provided for the creation (or this time the re-creation) of the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics, making it a more-than-fair treaty for the defeated Austrians who could have lost much more it were not for Napoleon’s desire for peace.

Before long, First Consul Bonaparte was able even to convince France’s erstwhile enemy England of the necessity of peace, resulting in the Peace of Amiens in 1802. Before long, however, England grew weary of peace. The English government began endorsing assassination plots against Napoleon, funding the infamous terrorist Georges Cadoudal who tried to blow Napoleon to smithereens using an explosive device whose name has gone down in history as the Infernal Machine. More importantly, the English government refused to conform to Treaty of Amiens that they willingly signed, which stipulated that the English were to leave the important Mediterranean island of Malta. The tenth article of the treaty clearly stated, “Malta…shall be restored to the order of St. John of Jerusalem to be held on the same conditions, on which it possessed them [several other little islands as well] before the war.” To be more precise, paragraph 4 of that article stated, “The forces of his Britannic majesty shall evacuate the island, and its dependencies, within three months from the exchange of the ratifications, or sooner if possible,” but neither within the three months nor afterwards was the island of Malta. Napoleon attempted to bargain with them in turn, even offering to have Russian mediation in the issue, but it was to no avail; England wanted war, and they would have it, starting on 18 May 1803 with the Royal Navy seizing any and all French ships.

And so it was that after 2 December 1804, the newly crowned Emperor of the French reviewed his newly created Grande Armée of 200,000 soldiers assembled at Boulogne on the coast of the English Channel, preparing for a possible invasion. Unfortunately, following the same strategy as the past twelve years, England wouldn’t enter the war alone; instead, it would bribe the other European powers into forming yet another alliance, tuning the situation from a Franco-English war into the War of the Third Coalition. With Austrian and Russian forces arming to the East, Napoleon needed to act quickly.
Weighing the prospects of an invasion of England, Emperor Napoleon quickly abandoned the idea and instead shifted his attention on his mainland enemies, whose forces were trickling across Germany and others down into Italy. Closely censoring local presses, Napoleon managed to quickly move his force into Germany where he caught the Austrians completely by surprise, defeating the Unfortunate General Mack at Ulm and occupying the capital of Vienna. Finally, on 2 December 1805, the anniversary of his coronation, Napoleon won his greatest victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, defeating a conjoined Russian and Austrian force of at least 85,000 soldiers that outnumbered his no more than 73,000 man force. Resulting from the humiliating defeat, Emperor Francis signed the Treaty of Pressburg that again reinforced the Treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville, as well as liberating the various Germanic states and unifying them into the Confederation of the Rhine. Again, he managed to defend France from another unified threat from surrounding despots seeking to destroy freedom and liberties that threaten their own thrones.

Surely being gripped by either insanity or incompetence, the Prussians decide to renew the war that had consumed Europe for the past 14 years. Under the leadership of King Frederick William III, Prussia joined Britain and Russia in declaring war on France and initiating the War of the Fourth Coalition; the foolishness of this move was that the Russian forces weren’t anywhere near close enough to reinforce the Prussians, and so King Frederick was essentially challenging Napoleonic France to one-on-one combat. Although Prussia was once the home of Frederick the Great, a military genius who transformed Prussia’s army into a near-unstable machine twenty years earlier, its army was no longer in the same fighting condition, nor as tactically advanced as Napoleon’s Grande Armée. Bribed by England and unsettled by the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, Prussia marched ahead of the Coalition forces in 6 October 1806. Expectedly, the French army under Emperor Napoleon marched out to take the war to Prussia; it was still a defensive war for the French, but they would take the fight to the enemy’s frontier. By 14 October the Grande Armée met the enemy, and the twin battles of Jena and Auerstädt saw the destruction of a Prussian army that was but a mockery of its former, glorious self; on 25 October Napoleon led his forces into the capital of Berlin.

Still not able to be left in peace, Emperor Napoleon continued the good fight against Russia, defeating them finally at the Battle of Friedland on 14 June 1807. With the Russian army defeated, Russian Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Tilsit, sealing a peace that would be further ratified at the Congress of Erfurt. Emperor Napoleon had yet again brought an end to the war in Europe and successfully defended la patrie from the despotic tyrants surrounding him. France, the cradle of freedom and liberty in Europe, was safe again, and had survived another warmongering coalition formed against it.

About Myself

Greetings to all citizens of the world. My name is Nicholas Stark, and I am a Napoleonic Historian. Simply put, this blog was established to promote the research, both my own and others, of Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleonic History. A Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society, I work diligently on my research, and any help that others could offer me would be highly apreciated, not only in the form on new publications which could avail me with useful information but also funds, as I need to purchase books on the subject and attend Congresses. Thank you for your thoughts and generosity.

To Contact Me: monsieurstark@yahoo.com or 267-226-2593