Been restored to the French throne at the invitation of the French Senate a month later the first Treaty of Paris was signed France was to be contained within the borders of 1792. all the lands conquered by Napoleon were lost France found herself isolated in Europe
It was all over on the 6th of April 1814 Napoleon abdicated his armies have been defeated in eastern France by overwhelming Invasion forces particularly austrians and prussians and with Russian support British troops had invaded southern France Napoleon’s Marshals were no longer reliable and indeed it was in fact a
Collapse among his his governing group and his military High commands that helped force him to abdicate that was it the Allies they didn’t execute him but he was sent into what was by any standards a humiliating Exile the man who had been emperor of the French who’d been crowned with the crown of
Charlemagne who’d been king of Italy was now left as a principality a small island Elba off the coast of Italy he was in a pretty terrible mental condition he had never himself really truly lost in the 1814 campaign but yet he was in a position where everything he had fought for was about
To be denied him the Allies were refusing to allow him to reunite with his wife Marie Louise they were refusing to allow him to unite with his son the king of Rome marmal who was one of his trusted Marshals and friends had allowed himself to be talked into giving up huge
Numbers of men to the allies the Revolt of the marshals Marshall nay and the others coming to him and saying listen fella it’s over it’s all done with we’re no longer going to to campaign for you and give it up although he had accepted Exile as inevitable Napoleon had no intention
That it should be permanent for the time being though he settled down in his new home the town of Porto ferio where he was greeted enthusiastically by the local population his first impressions of the island were not promising there were signs of deprivation and poverty everywhere Napoleon resolved to improve the lot of
His new hosts Napoleon had a resiliency to him he was able to pick up his spirits and after he was exiled to Elba he undertook being the Emperor of Elba with a passion he built roads and fortifications and he went around the town talking with people he received delegations of visitors he
Did everything he could to make it work but there were problems uh he was certainly a very busy man and kept himself very busy he didn’t dwell on his Misfortune his misfortunes of his past I think at the same time he was very much harboring an intent to leave the island
At some stage and he was certainly keeping a watchful eye out for what was going on in France he becomes aware of the growing unpopularity well in fact he’d never been particularly popular of Louis the 18th in France and he also as his psychological strength you know recovers and physical strength recovers
Becomes more and more feels curtailed in Elba more and more determined to regain his position Napoleon’s Health began to improve as the spring water at poggio helped to relieve his dazuria he began supervising improvements to his house in portofario which he had decorated to look like an Egyptian temple
He set aside rooms for his wife and son confident that they would soon be joining him he also continued to remain in contact with Josephine who still kept Napoleon’s apartments at Mao Maison just as he had left them but they were never to meet again on 29th May the former Empress died of
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Napoleon did however have two female companions on Elba his 64 year old mother Leticia and his sister Pauline but still Napoleon longed to see his wife and son but Marie Louise remained in Austria Napoleon constantly wrote to her she didn’t reply in January 1815 she sent Napoleon a
Formal New Year greeting and then disappeared from his life forever Napoleon blamed his father-in-law for turning Marie Louise against him a keen supporter of the marriage when Napoleon was at the height of his power Emperor Francis repudiated it now that his fortunes were at a low ebb money was becoming a problem for
Napoleon and his family the Treaty of fontemble had given Napoleon a fairly sizable pension which to be was to be paid by the French Louis the 18th Louis the 18th refused to pay anything to Napoleon now the British among others urged Louis please pay the pension don’t
Give this Corsican ogre a chance an excuse to cause more trouble Let Him Live peacefully in Alba and leave us alone but again for reasons that don’t make any sense at all the French refused to do that Louis had refused to pay Napoleon he agreed pension of 2 million
France so what was Napoleon to do sit on Elber and starve or have a last throw of the day he chose the throw Louis the 18th gout-ridden and sexual impotent was proving to be an unpopular monarch the return of Louis the 18th Cent hoist all kinds of warning signals for
Revolutionaries old and new in France um it was I forget who it was he said that the trouble with the bull bombers they’d forgotten nothing and learned nothing and that did seem to be the case in the immediate aftermath of Louis the 18th’s return he does make a a number of
Concessions to revolutionary political culture he does acknowledge that something has happened between 1789 and 1815 we can’t just put the clock right back to 1789 but he’s a desperately undistinguished man seriously obese although an intelligent man lazy self-indulgment as lacking in Charisma as Napoleon was brimful of it
He makes a number of serious errors gratuitously offending a number of old Soldiers especially those who are still serving and close to him uh all kinds of alarm Bells clang that may maybe despite promises which have been made that the bienacional the the lands which were confiscated from the church and the Emmy
Grove back in the 1790s would be re-expropriated from their new owners Louis himself was a pretty well-meaning fellow actually but the immigrades were not well-meaning they were coming back these former Nobles and clergymen and they were starting to demand their land back they wanted all of their old
Privileges back and Louis to his credit tried to Stave that off but to a lot of the Frenchmen it was like wait a minute we fought a revolution and we had Napoleon and now they wanted to go back as if 20 years of History didn’t exist then Napoleon began to believe that
Going back to France was the best thing for him and the best thing for France faithful to my motto everything for the French people I resolved to return to France not for the ambitious purpose of regaining my throne but to place myself between the factions I have always
Thought that France wished only for equality and I had given her perfect quality I had now learned from events that she was likewise desirous of Liberty and I resolved to make France the freest nation in the world on 15 February 1815 Napoleon’s former foreign minister Hugh Bernard Marais
Sent a secret ambassador to Elba begging him to return Napoleon was cautious as a keen student of History he knew that few Exiles had staged successful comebacks but if Marae thought he could succeed he resolved to take the chance his mother agreed you’re doing the right thing better to
Die sword in hand than in an unworthy retirement a dusk on 26 February Napoleon set sail on the inconstant on March the 1st Napoleon’s little Entourage and three ships and maybe a thousand then sets foot on French soil for the first time in almost a year now Napoleon
Has to be concerned about how he is going to return he needs at all costs to avoid any fighting as soon as there’s any kind of a pitch battle he’s probably done for he needs to develop the sense among the French and among those people
In the rest of Europe that he is coming back because the people want him and so he takes a fairly out of the way route through the mountains up toward Grenoble the Army set off at midnight eager to reach his goal as soon as possible unsurprised Louis Napoleon headed
Straight across the Alps with only brief stops for food and sleep they marched on through snow and ice climbing to 3500 feet by 4th March they had reached Dane where they were warmly welcomed in another two days they would be in Grenoble Napoleon issued a proclamation calling on the
French army to join him if the people and army don’t want me at the first encounter 30 or 40 of my men will be killed the rest will throw down their muskets I shall be finished and France will be quiet if the people and the Army do want me
And I hope they will the first Battalion I meet will throw itself into my arms the rest will follow Louis the 18th found out very quickly that Napoleon had landed on at on tib as the new semaphore system instituted what began in 1794 had spread the news to Paris very quickly
And up he gets and moves as fast as his corpulent bulk would allow and I can’t say I blame him after all his brother had been executed in January 1793 as indeed had several other members of his family including his sister-in-law the Queen Mary Antoinette and his cousin
The Duke of orleon and many other friends and family so I don’t blame Louis XVI for cutting and running after all there was still a lot of radicals a lot of old Jacobins in Paris who would have welcomed the opportunity to finish the job and to suffer the head
Of another member of the bourbon family Louis was pragmatist he was aware of the increasing popular support which Napoleon was receiving he also did not wish to plunge his country his newly adopted country into Civil War these factors weighed heavily with him and he decided to lay down the throne
Lay down the crown and leave the country martial suit now minister of War planned to intercept Napoleon at Leong he sent a message by semaphore Telegraph to Grenoble ordering guns to be dispatched to Lyon surprisingly the Press thought the whole business scarcely worth a mention an act of Madness which can be dealt
With by a few rural policemen he goes along the Mountain Road and quite honestly his reception at first is rather mixed people who see him as he goes through their towns or along the roads are rather curious at all this hula Napoleon is back what’s that all
About uh and and they’re not exactly wildly enthusiastic because I don’t really know what to make of it all but the further he goes he begins to pick up more and more people he has interviews with people along the way and he begins to talk about how he no longer wants to
To conquer territories he simply Wants to Rule France he wants to bring back the revolution he wants to bring back Enlightenment to the people of France he says I’m old and I’m fat I really don’t need to conquer any more territory and I happen to think that that’s true I think
He realized that his only real chance number one to gain the the support of the French people and number two to have the people of the rest of Europe allow him to return without contesting it was to convince them that he only wanted to rule France itself
Two mornings later in the village of cop Napoleon was awakened with urgent news Pierre Cambron in command of the advanced guard reported that a battalion of the Fifth Line regiment was only a few miles north under major de la Sr despite having 1100 men to delasar’s 700
Napoleon was in no mood to fight his own countrymen he had a deep abhorrence of Civil War he ordered Canberra not to open fire instead he ordered his polish Lancers to advance slowly withdrew his men and Napoleon ordered the Lancers to wheel and return unfurling his trickler Napoleon
Commanded the guards band to strike up the Marseilles as the men of the fifth stood entranced Napoleon rode forward and dismounted someone recognized the former Emperor and gave the order to fire Napoleon opened his familiar gray overcoat and exposed his white waistcoat as a Target to the soldiers and he says
You know soldiers of the fifth regiment uh if you wish to kill your Emperor here I am and there’s a moment of silence somebody Cries Out vivlam prayer or long lived the emperor and all chaos Breaks Loose they all mob him the officer that had been trying to get them to fire of
Course it’s totally out of it at that point and all of the soldiers go to him waving the shaco’s on the tips of their Bandits the soldiers rushed to embrace him they tore the white cockades from their hats and replaced them with the trickular ribbons banned by King Louis
Which they still carried in their knapsacks they were hankering all these old Soldiers after the Glory Days from 79 96 to 1809 when they had rampaged all over Europe raping murdering looting pillaging and getting patted on the back for it they weren’t terribly interested in peace and poverty so when Napoleon
Appeared all the Old Glory immediately was received by them they were hungry for him to come back they they thought no further than let’s have another glorious battle and win it so one by one ten by ten regiment by regiment they fell under his spell and flopped his banners
The reaction of many of the French people was one of uh Here Comes an adventurer a gambler and very little attention was paid to it particularly within Paris itself but as his Advance towards Paris continued and so the numbers that went across to him increased then I think he
Was looked towards as a potential um not savior but certainly a restorer at seven o’clock that evening Napoleon learned that a dense column of troops had been cited marching South in battle formation although clearly outnumbered Napoleon prepared to resist them and ordered his men into defensive positions he was in luck
He recognized their Commander as Charles de la bedoyer Colonel of the seventh Regiment of the line the young officer had once surrendered and embraced Napoleon together they combined forces and handed over the regimental colors marched onto Grenoble where they found the town starkly defended by two thousand men a
Band of local peasants some 2000 strong marched up and down under the walls he walks in Triumph through the gates of Grenoble the the officials of Grenoble refused to open the gates for him and so the citizens tear them down and later present Napoleon with the the shattered
Pieces of wood that made up the gates and said since they would not open the gates for you we have destroyed them and here they are Napoleon said that that he was once he got to Grenoble he was once again a reigning Prince before he had been an
Adventurer now he was a reigning Prince the game’s up when the police advancing the the population realized that they don’t have to put up with this this bourbon monarchy anymore there is an alternative and that alternative is in Napoleon Napoleon entered to a tumultuous reception at an inn he was hoisted onto the
Shoulders of the cheering citizens and carried upstairs in Triumph and his return to the throne now seemed assured but an obstacle lay in his way in the shape of his old comrade Marshall nay there were several of his old Marshals who decided not to throw their hands in
With him for various reasons and bethier for one accompanied the king to against other leading figures had had enough of Napoleon’s incessant War making they had become rich they’d become fat cats but they never were able to enjoy it you can’t enjoy being a fat cat when you’re
Being frozen to death on the steps of Russia so no they had their Estates they wanted to enjoy them The Lure of Napoleon had faded for them and they decided that they wanted no more of him Marshall nay who had been his trusted martial the bravest of the Brave and in
Russia and so on had become rather comfortable with his lifestyle with Louis the 18th and swore to Louis the 18th that he would go and bring Napoleon back in an iron cage and he proceeded to try to do that but he soon discovered that his soldiers were about to have
None of it and if he tried to bring Napoleon back in an iron cage there would be he’d have a little revolt on his hands so he switched his position gave a proclamation to his soldiers soldiers we were about to join the great Phalanx that is marching toward Paris
Will you join me and regain the glory of the Empire etc etc and of course Napoleon was real glad to have nay because that was the last real obstacle between him and Paris Napoleon had promised to be in Paris by 20th of March and at nine o’clock that evening twenty thousand wildly cheering
Citizens greeted his entry into the city he had covered the route from Capitan tib in half the normal time what we have just achieved is the people’s doing and yours all I did was to understand and appreciate you once more he was emperor of France he sails to France lands on the provence
Coast and goes north by March 20th he is in Paris not a shot has been fired to stop him Louis XV had sent Marshall nay but marked to capture him as Marshall they had promised to do but Marshall May turned back to support Napoleon and
Louis the 18th is forced to flee when he gets there you’re very much aware of the fact that if he’s going to operate once again as head of state he’s going to have to operate in a constitutional monarchy environment and to that end he makes a number of overtures to the
Liberals to see if he can get their support the Liberals certainly would be difficult to win over one of the most articulate of their number was Benjamin constant he has reappeared this man died in our blood he is another Attila another Genghis Khan but more terrible and hateful
Because he has at his disposal the resources of civilization instead of ordering Constance imprisonment Napoleon invited him to the tweelery to reassure him and to explain his intentions the new constitution the act at the cianal was drawn up and on 12th April a plebiscite was held the result was
Overwhelming over 1.3 million voted in favor a mere 4206 against even Benjamin Costa was satisfied Napoleon went to Great Lengths after his reinstatement in Paris to put the clock back to 18 13 18 early 1814. he um obliterated all the reforms in the Army which Louis had put through he gave
The regiments back their sacred old numbers which had been rubbed out by the uh by the king he gave them back their trickular concave under which they’d fought so bravely he called them to Arms to defend France not defend him to defend France against the allies and their call was
Pretty much irresistible for all Frenchman they flocked to his banners what he seeks to do is to re-establish his old regime the bonapartist O regime suitably modified he erects all kinds of concessions to contemporary public opinion he um indicates that he will not be running such a tight ship but it
Won’t be so much of a police state there will be more freedom of opinion and all the other civil liberties there will be more a constitutional representation and consultation and so on there will be less of the military militaristic Ambitions of the past all this rhetoric pours from him in a constant stream
Whether anybody believed or not is a is a different matter but this is a very short period remember it is only 100 days and his major uh of course is the thing he had to spend most time on was getting some kind of army together to prevent retribution from the Duke of
Wellington and during Napoleon’s Exile Francis signed an alliance with England and Austria and many in England were reluctant to break it now that Napoleon was once more emperor one English Member of Parliament was typical of the general consensus Bonaparte has been welcomed back to France as a liberator
It would be monstrous to declare war on a people in order to impose a government they do not want however wished to turn the Allies against Napoleon he was at a ball with Wellington metanath and Tsar Alexander when news of Napoleon’s return reached Vienna Tyrone persuaded England Austria Russia
And Prussia each to put 150 000 men in the field to crush the emperor forever the emperor sent his special Envoy monk Trump to metanik to sue for peace he also wrote a letter in his own hand to the prince Regent in England methenic refused to see the envoy the
Prince Regent’s letter was returned unopened war was now inevitable there was one real flaw in his strategy and it was something he really couldn’t avoid because he needed to act fast when it came to the timing for leaving Elba but the Congress of Vienna was still
Going on so all of these leaders of the various coalitions against him were still where they could quickly make decisions he sent letters pleading for peace he sent letters you know to to his father-in-law the Emperor of Austria saying my my father-in-law please send
My wife to me please send my son to me I want to have peace I want nothing else sent the same thing to the Emperor of Russia and so forth and so on but they were having none of it they declared him an international Outlaw whatever that is
And said we are not just going to fight France we are not just fighting Napoleon we’re going to crush him we’re going to send armies against him so Napoleon couldn’t avoid having to fight in order to maintain his position it’s not clear that there was ever really any
Alternative to the resumption of War certainly the Allied powers in Vienna had no intention of you know responding to any peace tentative peace tentatives from Napoleon and they began planning uh a war to put Louis XIII back on the throw Napoleon in turn tries to rebuild the
Army an army that has been devastated by years of fighting an army that for example the horses lots of the horses had been eaten or died on the invasion of uh of Russia and the French Cavalry was Never As Good again attempts to build an army but he also knows that he
Has to strike fast after all against him there will definitely be the British the austrians the Russians the prussians as well as a host of other lesser allied powers from King Louis Napoleon inherited an army of a hundred thousand soon it had expanded to 300 000 loyal Frenchmen who
Had flocked to the colors of their own volition in early June English and Prussian forces began to assemble in Belgium ready to launch an invasion on France receiving word that the austrians and Russians were not yet fully mobilized Napoleon decided to attack first what he decides to do is to try and
Defeat the opposing armies in what is then Belgium he decides to try and defeat those in order to provide such a convincing account of his own military success that will rally support to him within France and encourage other powers in Europe to accept his return to power and to deal with him
The austrians and the Russians are the European powers that are slowest to deploy their troops have the longest to get furthest to go and also their arm is just slow to deploy and in Belgium there are two forces that he has to engage there’s a Prussian Army under Marshall Bucca
And there is a force a mixture of British Dutch and some Allied German units under Arthur Wellesley now Duke of Wellington neither of them are brilliant forces the key units in the British army included many of the units that fought under uh Wellesley and the peninsula are
In fact at that time still in North America just after the end of the 1812 war with the Americans so there is an opportunity and what Napoleon determines to do is to try and defeat the forces opposed to him separately and he has to do that in a
Sense because they outnumber him two to one on 11th June he left Paris two days later he arrived at our Vang where an army of 125 000 was waiting for him at dawn on 15th June he took the Russians by surprise and captured Charles the prussians were surprised by Napoleon’s rapid Advance shalwa
Partially the fall to the commander on the spot partially the full of depression High command who exposed him in that position and failed to support him in report in response to his reports of increased activity they were thrust back towards lingi the following day the prussians took up
Their position at Liney with Wellington a Katra bra seven miles to the northwest Napoleon planned that nay who commanded the left should attack katrobra before pressing onto Brussels the French invade Belgium on the 15th of June the next day contact battle the the prussians are at ligni Napoleon attacks them
He wants an attack on front flank and rear to destroy the prussians Marshall May is supposed to move via Catra bra to push back the British there or any British that might be there and to attack the um the prussians in the flank and rear he doesn’t do so nay hesitated
And at one o’clock Napoleon sent a second order I’m surprised at your long delay in carrying out my commands there is no time to lose attack with greatest impetuosity everything in front of you nay was only initially fighting against a very small force and he could have
Easily swept them aside and taken the campaign North to Wellington himself but for some reason they was quite timid he seemed convinced that he was facing the major part of Napoleon excuse me of Wellington’s army and as a result he was reluctant to move forward
It was a little unlike the the Brash uh bravest of the Brave Marshall nay but the fact is he stalled and delayed and was very timid and in the meantime Wellington in fact was sending more and more soldiers into the area so that by the time Marshall May finally decided to
Do anything about it he was facing a pretty formidable force of British and other soldiers Wellington was coming up with increasing forces and by five o’clock that evening Wellington had a superiority of about three to two over nay and the opportunity was gone Napoleon on the other hand was fighting
The prussians at linear and he was having a great deal more success the the prussians retreated Napoleon though outnumbered came within an ace of capturing blucher nay’s vacillation though meant that he had to abandon his plan to take Brussels the next day he visited the wounded prussians in lini he gave them Brandy
And directed that their wounds should be dressed he then detached thirty thousand men under Emmanuel de grushi to pursue the remaining prussians I would submit that he could have sent grushi Marshall grushi with his soldiers in immediate attack and nothing else it would have shown them exactly where the prussians
Were going and they could have you know done in a few more of them but he waited and he waited and he waited till the next morning finally he gets around to telling rushi to pursue Marshall blucher of the prussians now it takes rushi hours to
Get his soldiers up and going it’s early afternoon anyway before the pursuit continues and they don’t know for sure exactly where the prussians went this is important because it’s this delay that really allows the prussians under Marshall blucher to move into position where they ultimately can support the forces of Wellington at
Waterloo Napoleon then decides that he will turn on the British in pouring rain Napoleon and nay pursued the English as they retreated towards Brussels six miles further on Wellington took up a position on marsaja a piece of High Ground near the village of Waterloo Napoleon made his headquarters to the
South at a nearby farm called the cairon next morning as Napoleon breakfasted with his generals his brother Jerome brought fresh intelligence planned to march from wavra to join Wellington stupidity after a battle like Lenny it is impossible for them to join forces we have 90 chances in our favor and not 10
Against us the British and the austrians are especially in this sense that they had been fighting more or less continuously since 1792 in the case of the austrians 1793 in the case of the British had expended gigantic sums of treasure and oceans of blood over the previous
Quarter of a century the austrians had gone bankrupt in 1811. the British were suffering serious financial difficulties as indeed all the powers were so there’s a there’s a general determination to put a stop to this Menace once and for all uh the good old war horse
Had decided to go much against his chief of staff’s advice his chief of staff was who harbored some resistance Who acting together with the British blusher ordered them to make for plants Noir for Waterloo as fast as they could and to join the battle the final battle against Napoleon
At 11 o’clock after an hour’s sleep Napoleon woke refreshed and took up position on Higher Ground near the farm of rossom mounted on his white mayor Desiree he surveyed the field he must have been extremely confident the rain had stopped and his army was numerically Superior having 72 000 men
Against 68 000. he also boasted 90 more guns At 11 25 Napoleon gave the signal for his guns to open fire whilst Jerome attacked the enemy’s right in order to draw off troops from Wellington Center the bombardment continued for an hour and a half then Napoleon ordered the compdell’s first car to attack Napoleon
In the end is to be castigated for the French tactics at Waterloo in particular it’s to be argued that successive frontal attacks played to the strength of the defensive Firepower of the British and Allied Forces and that he didn’t outmaneuver his opponents there’s some some truth in that I mean it could
Have been a battle that could have been he could have tried to make much more of an attempt to outflank his opponents or to attack them hard in the flank he doesn’t why well in part time he wants a quick battle he wants to engage them before they can retreat in part his
Actual physical and mental state he’s ill he’s tired he’s run down and I think it’s fair to say that there are also specific problems with the French army um it’s it’s a new one they are it is underpowered in terms of artillery the artillery itself the deployment is
Delayed by overnight rainfall which has ensured that the soil the clay soil has become a bit waterlogged so that delays the battle but having said that it is still a battle that has to be fought [Applause] the artillery pounding had caused surprisingly little damage in the English ranks knowing the power of the
French artillery Wellington had drawn his men back on the reverse slopes he then moved them to the top of the ridge where they fired down on their Long’s troops inflicting substantial losses the guard were confronted by some opponents who were not exactly slouchers themselves and the British Army’s reputation for musketry was beautifully
Upheld at Waterloo they shot the guard to pieces and the guard couldn’t take it and they crumbled and fled as the French retreated the Scots Graves pursued them Napoleon sent in the 6th and Ninth courage against them the Scots were wiped out but at a price the French had lost 5 000 men
At 1 30 in the afternoon Napoleon moved his headquarters to La Bal alios there a surprise awaited him Jerome’s intelligence had been correct Lucas Advanced guard had arrived suddenly Napoleon was forced to fight on two fronts the appearance of Bleacher on the scene at Waterloo in 1815 in a way is of
Symbolic importance was a very elderly gent by the standards of Napoleonic Warfare and yet he possessed the necessary Reserves of physical stamina and moral courage to get his army which man for man was probably the best Army in any of the Allied combat units or indeed and certainly Superior to
Napoleon’s troops to get them going and to get them there in time blucher was a very interesting extremely aggressive and bloodthirsty person who hated Napoleon and the French and was seeking to avenge as he saw it a deep sense of humiliation inflicted on Prussia by Napoleon after 1806.
So in a way blucher personifies a major change which has taken place in the way in which the old regime Powers waged War now they have learned all the lessons of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Warfare and are applying them with deadly effect against those that created them in the first place [Applause]
Nay launched the main assault against Wellington even though horse after horse was shot from beneath him at 6 30 his efforts were awarded when he captured the farm of salt Napoleon needed to act swiftly before bluca’s main Force arrived his plan was to send five battalions of guards up the
Slopes of morsaja under the command of Marshall nay despite quick and accurate fire from the English the guards pressed on at this point a second Prussian core under the graph Von zetan arrived and attacked the guards from the right at the same time Wellington sent three regiments of hussars charging down the
Hill where they broke one of the guard’s squares news rapidly spread the guards once thought Invincible had been scattered in confusion Napoleon now knew all was lost he tried to retreat in good order one could always ask the hypothetical question what would have happened had the prussians not arrived I think what I
Would say is that late in the day a final breakthrough even if it had occurred as a result of the French commitment of the guard against the British would not have been the enormous blow that it would have been earlier in the day because it would not have been
Possible to exploit the victory as one would have been able to do if one had had you know many hours of daylight left Napoleon’s first instinct was to Rally his troops at shalwa and continue fighting but there were already fears that back in Paris the assembly might surrender in his absence
He hastily returned to the capital arriving at seven o’clock on the morning of 21st June the strain of battle and three sleepless nights had taken their toll Napoleon was a very sick man Louis Davao his faithful minister of War urged Napoleon to dissolve the assembly instead he demanded they Grant him full powers
They refused the Allies would never make peace whilst Napoleon remained Emperor he was given an ultimatum abdicate or be deposed seeing no alternative Napoleon agreed to abdicate Napoleon retreated to Mao Maison on 3rd July he arrived at Rochford to find it blockaded by the English warship the bellerophon
He does try to make a run for it an elaborate plan was devised by which he would be whisk away in a frigate to the United States of America and take refuge there but when he gets to the coast um instead he’s he’s recognized and he surrenders to the British on the bellerophon
I come like the mysticles to throw myself on the hospitality of the British people I place myself under the protection of their laws Napoleon was taken by the British to Saint Helena six thousand miles from nowhere with no Prospect of ever returning the British to their credit
Didn’t put him in a prison or have him executed but to their enormous discredit they put him on an unhealthy Island and they treated him as though he were a common prisoner instead of a former Emperor they didn’t do that with other kings and monarchs who sought Asylum
Napoleon had sought Asylum with the British and the British government had refused it I wonder whether he remembered something he’d said earlier contemptuously about the austrians whom he had just defeated for the nth time he said trouble with the austrians is that they’re always one Army and one idea
Behind the rest of Europe but the French historian Albert Sorrell added the austrians always had an army and they always had an idea it was Napoleon who ran out of both his last years were spent in Exile on Saint Helena where he had leisured to brood upon his mistakes and Pen his memoirs
Where had it all gone so wrong I have fought 60 battles and I assure you that I have learned nothing from all of them that I did not know in the first on 5th May 1821 after a long and painful illness Napoleon died some authorities say it was through
Inhaling arsenic fumes from the wallpaper in his room over a long period others claim he was deliberately poisoned the common belief for many many years was that he died of stomach cancer the belief now is increasingly among Scholars of this period that he was poisoned by arsenic which weakened his
Condition and then at the very end he was given a series of relatively common substances which finally did him in and caused him to die when four days later his coffin was lowered into the Earth the root was lined with English soldiers their heads bowed in respectful silence a great man had died
A legend was about to be born we often position Napoleon in terms of a grand trajectory of military history you move from Frederick the Great and the prussians in the mid-18th century to the revolutionaries the French revolutionaries in the 1790s and the start of popular Warfare then moved to
Napoleon and then we move on eventually in the 19th century to the prussians as they become the Germans and multca and the wars of German unification and the idea is it’s quite clear Napoleon is The Cutting Edge for his period of modernity military modernity he is going to
Succeed and in the end he has only stopped when other powers have um sort of developed their forces to match what the french can do Napoleon was a a spirit of Enlightenment Napoleon was trying to reform to improve the lives of people he fought Wars because in many cases those wars were foisted
Upon Him by these various coalitions that didn’t want Improvement in the lives of people the austrians and the Russians and the prussians were afraid that their own people would get the idea of freedom and equality and and and the Liberty given under the civil code and so on
Napoleon is seen by people throughout the world even today as the father of modern Europe maybe he’s the father of the European Union as someone who stood for moving out of the old order and into the New Order was it an imperfect move of course was Napoleon imperfect of course
He was he did overextend he did good a little greedy maybe he shouldn’t have done this or done that but if you take him as a whole if you look at Napoleon as a whole you see someone who added a great deal of positive impetus to the
History of the world and there’s not very many people in world history that you can truly say that about Napoleon is one of them the world is in the final analysis better off for his having existed
