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you can find a reading list to go with it. I hope you enjoyed the programme. Hello, on the 26th of February 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from exile on Elba arriving in France with fewer than a thousand men. Three weeks later he was in Paris and he raised an army of about 200,000 men as large as any that the Allied powers could muster individually and his best chance was to pick them off one by one. Somehow victory escaped
him at Waterloo and his escape to America was sorted too. He surrendered on the 15th of July and so it was exiled again but on St Helena where he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy. With me to discuss Napoleon's 100 days are Catherine Astembury, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick, Zach White, Leibhume Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portemouth and Michael Row, read it in European history
at King's College London. Michael Row, why was Napoleon on Elba? Of 100 days, the subject of today's programme of course is in the spring of 1815. We need to go back a year. We need to go back to March and April 1814. The once great, the Polonic
Empire's crumbling, it's being invaded from all sides. It is in deep trouble. Napoleon's put up a good fight in France in early 1814 but the end is now drawing to a close and the Allies need to get him to abdicate and indeed his marshals around him who see that the empires essentially finished, they need to get him to abdicate. He's still in a position
to negotiate the terms of his abdication. He strikes a deal with the Russians and he signs a treaty called the Treaty of Fontambler in early April 1814 and as part of that treaty are the packages that he will be exiled to Elba. But remember he's not a prisoner. He's not going to be a prisoner on Elba. He is given sovereignty over that small island. In many ways it's a problematic settlement. It will throw up issues which will obviously
explode in 1815. Elba was in the Mediterranean just quite near Corsica where he was born and brought up. The British fleet then wasn't there to keep him in Elba. How did you escape and why did you escape? The Royal Navy, the British Navy, is by far the largest in the world according to some Esther but it's bigger than all the other fleets added together. It's also engaged on the other side of the Atlantic. You've got the War of 1812 which is a misnomer. It stretches
into late 1814, early 1815. The British are as the Vendee mobilising. The Royal Navy is maybe less impressive in the Mediterranean than it might have been. There's also an issue that the British are not quite sure whether they are Napoleon's jailers or not. They hadn't really been part of this settlement about sending Napoleon to Elba. It had been very much for Russians I, Alexander I, who had come up with that idea. A little bit unsure how to police this. How did you get through that?
How did you get away? There isn't much of a naval cordon to get through. As sovereign of Elba, of course, Napoleon has his own little army and his own little navy. He has actually a warship at hand, a brig. He chooses his moment when the British agent is not present in Elba. He's not really held in protective custody. The escaping bit is not that difficult. Their rumours that on his voyage to France, that he's spotted by at least a French frigate
which somehow mysteriously turns a blind eye. There is a suspicion that already on the French side, there are those who are willing to see Napoleon succeed and willing him on. So it gets across and gets to France. Then he marches up to Paris as we heard. He's got five or six hundred men and it arrives in Paris with an army which hold around the 200,000 mark. Can you tell us how I manage that? Napoleon lands on the south coast of France. He has just a very small number of men to
hand to support him. He's faced immediately with a choice of which way to go to Paris. On his way down into exile, the previous spring, he'd almost been lynched outside Avignon. So he decides to avoid province entirely and takes the mountainous route through Gap, Grenoble and Ontoleon. On the basis that that's a safer route for him. As he goes, he gathers support. Men come over to him, the most famous example of that is on the 7th
of March at Laffrey. He's faced with a royalist army which obviously 12 months earlier had been his army and he says go and then shoot me so the legend goes and all the all the soldiers then instantly say, long live the Emperor, Viva L'Ompéra. One of the things that Louis XVIII had done when he took over in 1814 was to put a lot of the officers on half pay, reduce the size of the army. So you have a really very substantial
number of people with nothing to do at the start of the restoration. So they're actually quite enthusiastic at Napoleon coming back because he's going to give them purpose. So he makes his way in every town he goes through the enthusiasm for his arrival grows and a bit like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, he sort of gains supporters on the way. He's going through a royalist territory though. There must be some people who say we don't want him here.
The whole of France remains a little bit divided. It's not that instantly everybody is enthusiastically bonapartist when he arrives. There are still opponents to him and when he lands I think he doesn't know for certain whether the army or the people of France are actually going to
back the final throw of the dice that he's made. But he starts to gain confidence and by the time he reaches Grenoble and then Lyon, there's a real sense that he's got enough support and enough soldiers are prepared to back him that he can legitimately claim to be the people's choice as sovereign and march to Paris with confidence. He's got this immense number of people called up at almost a moment's notice. How does he feed them?
With difficulties. The big question with all armies is how do you feed people? The route he's taking though, he's sending an advanced guard each time through to try and secure the provisions. And actually initially that advanced guard is asking for three or four times the amount of food they actually need to give the impression that Napoleon is better supported
than he is. So there's a little bit of spin going on right from the beginning about how much support he's got and he's actually almost creating the myth as he goes. It doesn't seem almost creating the myth, he's definitely creating the myth. It's a most ridiculous astonishing achievement. Chateau Péon, the writer, said, how is it
possible for one man to invade a country? And it's part of the legend. It's one of the big things that makes Napoleon such a powerful figure even to this day is how someone in a completely hopeless position in March 1814 can come back and reach Paris without a drop of blood being spilled. Is this his charisma or his tactics? I think it's a combination of things. So I think charisma plays an important part. Is there really any tactic? He's trying to get it to Paris as quickly as he can to scare
the living daylights out of the royalists. But I think it's also that he's tapping into a fear that the gains of the revolution from the previous 25 years are being lost under Louis XIII. So he's tapping into an inherent anti-Clarical, anti-monarchical anti-Altier regime feeling and is playing the revolutionary card everywhere he goes. So when he lands, he issues proclamations, saying, I'm the savior, grab your trickle or flags, put your cockades
back on, I'm going to free France of enemy involvement. The gains of the revolution are safe with me. It's right trying to rewind the clock back to 1799 when he declared first time around that he was saving the revolution.
He was the elder Napoleon and the new Napoleon, was it? When he arrived in France in 1815, he's very much trying to present himself as the heir to the French Revolution, that he is the people's choice to be sovereign, that the nation should choose who is on the throne, that he is a more legitimate ruler than Louis XIII who's been placed there by the Allies simply because of his bloodline. So in part, he's playing with this revolutionary tradition
that the nation and the people should choose who's in charge of the country. But he also recognizes that things have moved on a little bit since he was forced into abdication in 1814. So what he's also trying to do is suggest that he's going to be more liberal than he was first time around. So he tries to get more liberal politically minded people and press for instance, and other politicians, people like Bashe-Main Constan, and offers
a number of liberal concessions. So he re-abolishes the slave trade for instance. He brings back the Marseille's, the ultimate revolutionary symbol, he brings back the singing of the Marseille's. He tries to suggest that he's the best of both worlds. He can give people some of the benefits of the revolution and the ability for the people to choose whilst giving them the glory and the stability that they enjoyed under the Empire.
Thank you. Exactly. The Allies meanwhile are sitting ducks at the Congress of Vienna, deciding that peace will break out, and the news comes at Napoleon's at large again.
How did they make of that? In many respects, Napoleon's return comes at the worst possible moment for him because the Allies, as you say, are convening as part of the Congress of Vienna, and by this point the squabbling, which is part of the opportunity that he saw, the fractured nature of the relationship between those Allies, is starting to be resolved. So these guys are literally sat around a table at the moment that news arrives that Napoleon
has returned. How many countries do we have there at the Congress of Vienna? I would say seven or eight. Britain, most obviously, Prussia, Russia, Austria, but you've also got other nations that have been involved in this wider coalition warfare against Napoleon.
So for example, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands also have representatives, and very quickly, within a mere five days, these nations have come together and they make a very clear, steadfast commitment that each of them will field 150,000 men in the fight to top on the Napoleon for a second time. One of the quite peculiar aspects of Napoleon's return is the extent to which he doesn't seem to have anticipated the strength of reaction by the Allied powers
to his return. The Allies have spent huge numbers of lives, and also a vast amount of money, and I suspect amongst many quarters actually the money that had been expended was more of a factor than number of lives. But let's not forget that around formerly and people die over the course of the Napoleonic Wars. The Allies have invested a huge amount in trying to topple him for a first time, and for him to return in the manner that he does is not
something that they were prepared to take lying down. And it was Napoleon, though, against not the idea of a new France. Napoleon is absolutely seen as part of the problem because as far as the Allies are concerned, there is a legitimate ruler of France. Now, Louis has fled to the Netherlands at this point in time, so to declare war on France is deeply problematic because as far as they're concerned, they have a friendly ruler who has just been
ousted by what they would have described as a usurper. So the Allies are very particular to declare war on Napoleon the man as opposed to France the nation. What sort of information is he being fed? Or is he going hold on? Napoleon actually tries to position himself as a man of peace when he comes back in 1815, and there's a very simple reason for that. He knows that the tactical situation hasn't changed that profoundly
from when he was beaten in 1814. So he's acutely aware that if the Allies are prepared to come together, they can overwhelm him by force of numbers. So he plays more than that, because as I say, the Allies are looking at a building in the regional of 700,000 men against him. And so he effectively proclaims that he doesn't want war, and this is part of what Kate
is referring to about this debate about whether or not he is truly a changed man. Now, personally, I regard Napoleon as a hugely Machiavellian figure, and so my interpretation is that Napoleon doesn't want war in 1815 for a very simple reason. He's not ready for it. He needs the time to build up that force too much more than the 200,000 men.
Where's his money coming from? From the French people, from taxation, but he's playing a very difficult game here because part of the unpopularity of the Bourbon monarchy came from the need to raise taxes in the aftermath of war. So he has to find a way to balance that whilst also appearing to be different. Michael, Michael, can you give a little some idea of the way in which he addressed the French people to get him where he wants
to get to? Well, the fact that the Allies have declared Napoleon to be an outlaw makes it actually very easy for Napoleon to argue that he is not the aggressor, that he is defending France. Being an outlaw means that he can be legally guilty. Yes, it's something which outrageous him, but they declare him to have put himself outside the framework of law, which means he can be murdered on a highway. So in a way that is a propaganda win for Napoleon during the earlier part of his regime before 1814
he'd often use the phrase that he was fighting for peace. That hadn't really been plausible then. It is more so in the 100 days campaign. How do you persuade people to come? What are they going to get for it? Well, there are a lot of veteran soldiers. So he inherits this royal army on people at least of about 200,000 when he returns to France. He doesn't reintroduce conscription. That would have been I think very unpopular, but he appeals
to those veterans who had left the army to come back to the colours. So he gets back about another 65, 70,000 troops. These are people who, many of them, have veterans of many campaigns. They haven't been serving the French army for a few years and are yearning to get back to civilian life. They have known only military service for perhaps a better part of a decade. They want to get back to the glory of serving, arguably the best commander
of all time. But I think where he does score is that he is not Louis VIII. As Catherine mentioned, he's the positions himself as this great kind of defender of a revolution. He is now the people's emperor. He is defending the legacy of 1789 against regimes. Louis VIII would also continental European regimes, which are actually very reactionary. I assume so thought himself as being tremendously welcome when he went to France. What has he
alluded? He is welcome in many areas of France. Louis VIII, for I think he does receive a bad press. I think he done his best. He reintroduces a kind of constitutional regime. There are a lot of people around him, there's so-called ultra-royalists who make many enemies, both amongst ordinary French people. And amongst, for example, Napoleon's former marshals, people like Marshall Nay, who see themselves or their wives as having been humiliated
by these royalists who come back from exile and from having been marginalized. And so there are a great deal of many French people who are a not pro Louis VIII. OK, what risks was he taking? And with those who followed him taking? Both the Napoleon and anyone following him, the risks are quite substantial. It's a win or lose situation. This is a final attempt by Napoleon to get control of the country once
more. A number of those following him though do hedge their bets, because it is not entirely certain that this gamble is going to pay off. So most notably, advisors like Tally-Hont and Fouchey are remaining in correspondence with the exiled court in Gent to try and hedge their bets a little bit, because if it doesn't go well from Napoleon, they don't want to
suddenly find themselves cast out again once the monarchy is restored. So a certain extent, you've got a number of people for whom this is the last chance, and Napoleon is their only chance, and they're going to fall wholeheartedly in with the enterprise. But others are a little bit more calculating. Those who wanted him to get power and stay in power, what were they hoping for? I think the people who support Napoleon in 1815 want one of two things. One
is a strong glorious France again. There's a sense that they've been humiliated by the Allies invading Paris in 1814, imposing a king on them again, not so very long after his brother had been guillotined. So on one hand, does that real desire for a better system, a better way for France to choose its own path? The other hand, I think, people are wanting something that Napoleon can give that no one else can, which is a sense of purpose to where the country
might be going next. So, quite, the Allies wanted to bring Napoleon to battle. They were past his superior numbers, and they'd ever reason to think it would be a bit of a walkover. What's your view of that? I'd agree with that, but part of the reason for this is that they've learnt the formula for defeating Napoleon in 1814. They've done this once already, but it's taken them a long time to reach that realization of how to win. The formula is twofold. One is,
if at all possible, don't fight Napoleon. Fight his subordinates. So it's very much sort of fight where the enemy isn't, because there is this acute awareness that Napoleon has consistently defeated all of the leading commanders in Europe, perhaps Wellington. And as a result of that, there's an appreciation that if they fight Napoleon himself, there is a very good chance that
he will work his magic again as a hugely gifted military commander and defeat them. The other solution to this problem is if you do have to fight Napoleon, fight him with overwhelming advantages in numbers so that that negates the advantage that the man himself can bring. And as a result of that, the grand strategy in 1815 is to wait until all of these armies are in position. The arm is a problem of the inner Congress. Precisely. And then invade as a
unified force. So in many respects, the plan is to fight combined. And as one veteran put it to me a couple of years ago, the strategy at Waterloo and across the planned campaign for 1815 is very much a 19th century equivalent of NATO. What do you actually mean by that? The idea that this is a coalition warfare as opposed to any individual nation holding the bulk of the responsibility
for Napoleon's defeat. Quite often you will see this spun as a British victory or a German victory and in reality it is that combined national effort that is responsible for Napoleon's defeat. He had 150 battles, hadn't he? And before this so though, there were every right to be rather wary. They've learnt this the hard way. It's not until 1813 at the Battle of Leipzig, which is the largest battle to be fought before the advent of the First World War, but the back of Napoleon's
power is truly broken. For sure, he loses a vast number of men, half a million, in his disastrous invasion of Russia. But it's only at 1813 that the realisation comes that Napoleon's son is setting. Michael, Michael Row, what was Napoleon's best strategy? What did he say? This is the way I'll do it. Well, if you wanted to defeat NATO, I suppose the easiest way is to break bits off it and play on divisions. Now, Plan A had been essentially political that the coalition partners
in 1815 would not come together. That's failed, you know, politically they say they're committed to defeat Napoleon. So Plan B is to defeat their armies in detail, you know, so one after another. And that means taking on the British and the Prussians first, because they are closest, they are there, they are in what is today, they're all close to the EU. They're not walking back from Russia
and they're not working. Yes, the Russians are coming back from Russia, you know, so they've got a long way to go and the Russians don't tend to move very fast anyway in order to the Austrians, but they are the largest armies for Russians and the Austrians, but they've got the furthest to come. So the plan is to strike north, to strike towards Belgium, to deal with the British and the Prussians first. And within that campaign to actually divide the British and the Prussians from each other.
So to drive a wedge physically, position yourself in the sort of theatre of operations between them and make sure they don't unite against you. These are the two smaller armors, but they're well organized. They're well organized to an extent. Wellington does have a challenge. We refer to his army as being the British army, but it contains a mixture of nationalities and they are not the best of troops, not even the British contingents, but the best bit of British armies in North America,
fighting the United States and it's on its way back. So these are not the peninsula veterans, they're not the veterans of Wellington's famous Spanish campaign. And the Prussians have their own problem. They've tried to integrate soldiers from new territories which they've acquired at the Congress of Yellow, Saxony, the Rhineland. Now many of those soldiers have actually fought
for Napoleon rather than against it. So well organized, maybe in terms of their command structure, but a lot of troops who either green or are a little bit demoralised. There is a similar problem amongst Wellington's army as well in that there is a large Dutch Belgian contingent and until very recently Belgian has been part of a larger France. And even during the battles of the Waterloo campaign itself, you have soldiers fighting on another who have served
alongside each other in earlier conflicts. To the point that we can pinpoint episodes where soldiers on both sides are urging the other to desert to the other side. So it's a huge source of concern for the Allies that actually this coalition force might splinter apart. And they're shifting around in that part of Europe to line up for what they know will be about. Yes, I think, well they want to be about it. I think the Prussians and the British, what they do have going for them
is determination. I mean out of all the coalition partners, I think the Prussians in particular as fiercely, I think not only anti-Napoleon but actually anti-France, you know they've suffered greatly during the Napoleonic Wars. If there is a weak link, I think in the coalition, I would say it would be Austria. They really want a balance of power between France and Russia, whereas Prussians, I think, go out for revenge. And a British have also been very determined.
So Napoleon in a ways unfortunate, one of these fortunate, he's dealing with the two smaller starbars of the British and the Prussians. But in many ways they also have a most determined opponent. This is an ad by BetterHelp. How often do you compare yourself to others? It's easy to envy friends' lives on social media, but comparison is the thief of joy and in reality nobody has it altogether. Online therapy can help you focus on what you want, not what others have, because your
best life is better than the idea of someone else's. Stop comparing and start living with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more and save 10% off your first month. That's BetterHELP.com. Okay, to the lining up in Belgium, getting ready for what will be a big battle. He's not in the air, he's not inevitable. It's inevitable the minute Napoleon has been declared an outlaw by the Congress of the inner war is the only possible outcome from that, because Napoleon has to strike
first. He has to try and get his forces ready before the others can line up in coalition against him. He's forced to move faster than perhaps he would have wanted to, go to war earlier than he would have wanted to. He doesn't have the money. The French borders have shrunk as a result of the first abdication and the restoration of the monarchy. He doesn't have as many men to call on, he doesn't have the finances to call on, but still his only option really is to hit hard and fast before
the Allies can actually outnumber him and outmaneuver him. Let's dig into that. Were you agree with that? Yes, I would. I think what he really wants to do is to push the Prashans' eastwards, so they'll retreat towards the Rhine and towards their heartland. The British will do us a 1940, as it would be done cook. It would probably be Antwerp and we forced them to see and then across the sea back to Britain. Then he would immediately have to turn south to confront the Austrians and
the Russians. You can envisage that campaign having gone all the way through 1815. The only way that Napoleon would have won is had the Allies fall in a part. One of them would have broken ranks. It's not unrealistic that had happened earlier. It had happened in 1805. It had happened in 1806. It could pick them off one at a time. It doesn't happen in 1813, 1814. I suspect it won't happen in 1815. So, exactly. Let's engage. What happened when the battle started? How did the
battle started? Who was where? So the Waterloo campaign is actually a series of four battles. The first two engagements are the twin battles of Kachobra and Linii on the… Kachobra, the four arms, crossroads precisely, and then Linii. Kachobra is effectively Wellington's story and Linii's Bluka's story, the commander of the Prussian army. This is about Napoleon trying to achieve what Mike has just described. This notion that these two Allied armies can be treated like swinging
doors with the French army being the boot forcing the two of them apart. He tried to hold Wellington's force at Kachobra whilst attempting to destroy Bluka at Linii. He manages to defeat Bluka, but it's not an overwhelming victory. There is some mismanagement of one of the French core that means that that core marches from Kachobra to Linii and back again without being engaged at either. And that's one of the critical moments at which I would argue Napoleon loses the Waterloo
campaign before the guns even open fire at Waterloo. The other point at which he actually loses this campaign for me is the following day on 17th June when Wellington hasn't heard the news that Bluka has been defeated, the messenger carrying that dispatch actually gets caught by the French in shot on route. So Wellington is effectively a sitting duck at Kachobra having managed to hold the line but doesn't know it. And it's only much later in the morning that the news arrives, but
Napoleon doesn't capitalize on that opportunity. That then enables both the Anglo-Dutch force and the Prussian force to move north parallel to one another. And over the course of the 17th there's a constant communication back and forth between British and Prussian headquarters about whether or not they can stand up fight on the 18th. And the early hours of the 18th and we're talking about 3am, Wellington receives a cast iron commitment from Bluka that he will march come what may with at
least a quarter of his army if not more. That basically leaves much to support the British. And that leaves Wellington with the opportunity to use his army like bait, stand at fight at Waterloo and buy the time for the Prussians to literally come marching over the hill and then they will be able to enact that strategy of fighting combined and crush Napoleon. Michael? Yes, I think Zack's right, you know, a lot of the most important parts of his campaign happen on the 16th of June and
the 17th of June so a day or two before Waterloo. And Wellington, Leitron says that the most important decision made in the 19th centuries was decision made by the Prussians to retreat from Lini Northwoods so they remain in touch with the British army as opposed to retreating east woods which would have meant that they were moving away from Wellington's force. So the most
important decision of the 19th century according to Wellington. What you've glossed over, nothing glossed over, but rush past, it seems from my reading is that Napoleon's making quite a few mistakes here and he's not supposed to, is it? I mean, we think it's a magical myth, man,
would you say to that? He does make important mistakes. So for example, one of the villains if you like of a Waterloo campaign, at least on the front side is somebody called Marshall Grushy and he gets all the blame and one of Napoleon's of less appealing characteristics is that he's very good at blaming everyone else for his mistakes and Grushy is sent in pursuit of the Prussians after Lini. Then Napoleon wastes about 10, 12 hours before actually telling Grushy to get a move
on and to follow the Prussians and those are very valuable hours. Had Grushy moved earlier and had Napoleon made his instructions clearer, chances are the Prussians would have been pushed out and away from the British. And a classic example of that is to just take a moment to look at the timings of when the Prussians are engaged at Waterloo versus when Grushy does in fact catch up with them and it's not until 4pm on the 18th of June at Wav that Grushy finally manages to make
contact with the Prussian force and begin to engage them. Now by that time a quarter of Blucus army is already at Waterloo and is advancing on Napoleon's right flank. So for all that as you say Grushy gets a huge amount of blame, the only way that he could have resolved this situation is if he develops the ability to fly. I think what we see in the course of the spring of 1815 and into the summer is Napoleon increasingly being unclear, delaying, nervous, both politically and in
military terms. I think it's not just about the military situation on the battlefield at Waterloo. It's also before that politically he's hesitant, he changes his mind, he's not quite sure who to listen to. Why is all that going on? It's a really good question. Why is Napoleon not the Napoleon we think he has had this astonishing return to Paris and then Dithers, he's not got the sense of
purpose, he's somehow doubting himself and his advisors. Michael. I mean he's also an ill man, I think we do have to look at his health and he's got issues, hemorrhoids which make it difficult for him to sit on a horse for a prolonged period of time. So he's actually part of the barcance as well. Yes, I mean he's partly out of action during the Battle of Waterloo itself, but he's not as sharp and not as you would have loved to see the Napoleon of the 1790s campaign
in 1815 and I think there the outcome would have been different. I genuinely do. He's not well. The other thing to bear in mind from a military standpoint is that he is only able to take into battle with him what is very much his beating. A number of his key supporters and advisors aren't either willing or able to join him for the Waterloo campaign. The foremost example of those is Marshall Birchay who had served as Napoleon's chief of staff and was very much his right hand man.
Napoleon was a man of vision when it came to campaign strategy but it was Birchay who dealt with the practicalities of making that happen. Now Birchay chooses not to join Napoleon and then depending on your perspective either conveniently or very tragically falls from a balcony and fairly obviously dies and it's not clear whether that's a suicidal whether that was an assassination attempt. And as a result of that Napoleon is taking into battle with him commanders who are
not always his best. There are exceptions to that of course Marshall Nay who we've talked about already being an obvious example there but it means that he doesn't have the right people in the right place at the right time to be able to interpret his vision and turn it into reality. Is it a period of where the heart of the battle takes place and he loses? Can you describe that? I'm a or is it too many actions going on in too many different locations? Which is that Michael?
I mean armies are larger in this period than they had been in the 18th century and you have what is known as this system of core. So you have armies which are spread out over a theatre of operations. It really requires more than a great genius. You do need to have a system a machine, a command structure, what we today call a general staff system to coordinate and that isn't really fully developed in this period. It will be the Prussians, IE the Germans who will come up with that structure
later on in the 19th century. So I think we're in an interesting period in the history of war in the early 19th century where in many ways armies have outgrown the structures which make them efficient. It's also worth bearing in mind that Waterloo is an incredibly short campaign even by Napoleon's standards. Napoleon invades on 15th June and by the 19th June his forces are streaming broken back across the French border. So it is very much in a very frenetic campaign
over the 16th, 17th and 18th that Napoleon loses this. Good. Whilst you were asking the question made me think about one of the most famous depictions of the Battle of Waterloo, a literary depiction by the author, Stondahl, who in the Charter House of Palmer describes the Battle of Waterloo and the young hero goes from bit of the battlefield to bit of the battlefield looking
desperately to see Napoleon. He just wants to see Napoleon and he can't find him anywhere, it's just chaos, there's mards, there's smoke, he has no idea what's happening and the whole of the battle passes him by. And I think in some ways that encapsulates some of what Michael and Zach are talking about that it's not a clear cut space, it's not here's one line, here's another line opposing it and somewhere in the middle you're going to work out who's lost the most men
and that's the end of the decision. It is messy, there's bits happening all over the place. The crucial point is that Napoleon ultimately leaves the field of battle. Why did he do that? He sees that the game is up and thinks that if he goes back to Paris and strengthen the political field of power around him he can regroup and try again. Can we talk a little bit about the
British? I might not be too shy about it, how are they doing? Well the first thing to say about Wellington's army is that it's only about a third to maybe 40% British and this is one of the the misconceptions of Waterloo that this is Wellington and a British commander leading an all British force that is then able to defeat Napoleon and that's simply not the case. About a third of it is Dutch, about 25% is Hannah Varian troops, so this is a multinational force
in its own right. It is very fragile. We see this over the course of the Battle of Catrabrab, but also particularly at Waterloo. The Dutch Belgian troops are quite raw in many respects. They are propped up in many places by militia and land there. These are not sort of your seasoned ultra professional units that the British tend to field and even amongst the British troops as we've talked about
already there is a variation in terms of the quality. He has about a division and a half of penicid wall veteran units, but those are not entirely hardened soldiers who have seen combat before. There is a spine of penicid wall veterans that has then been supplemented by fresh recruits and it is remarkable just how hard it is for Wellington's force to hold the line in the face of
the French assault. The first attack that Napoleon launches very nearly breaks through, so he sends 11,500 men straight up his right flank and very nearly breaks the Anglo-Dutch line despite Wellington actually having one of his penicid wall divisions in place. So even the best troops that Wellington has to offer aren't quite enough and it's ultimately a British cavalry charge that is able to shatter that first assault. We've talked a lot about the Prussians here.
The fact that the Prussians arrive late, which is something that we haven't touched on, but they do arrive later than intended, but to arrive when they do is really quite key in saving this very fragile force because Napoleon is preparing for a second assault in exactly the same place, but is then forced to take those troops and use them to fend off the Prussians. If you would look at the Imperial Guard attack as well, again a multinational affair, it's beaten back by a mixture of most famously
the British guards. This is where the Grenadier guards get their name by defeating Napoleon's Imperial Guard. They don't actually face Napoleon's Grenadiers. They face the Shassers, but it's a misunderstanding and a misnomer and nobody really wants to tell the British Army that they should rename the Grenadier guards the Shassers guards. That would be quite unpopular. So the one wave of the Imperial Guard's attack hits the McLens Guards Brigade, but another wave ends up striking a
mixture of Hanoverian troops and Dutch Belgian troops, including militia forces. So this is a situation where the line is tested severely. The very fabric of this Anglo-allied coalition risk falling apart because when some of those Hanoverian troops break and pull back, they run straight into the British like cavalry who have drawn their horses up behind them, have drawn their sabers and are using their horses a physical barrier and are threatening these troops trying
to force them to stand and fight in the face of the French assault. So the coalition very nearly crumbles before Wellington's own eyes. This is not by any means an all conquering British army that is able to sweep Napoleon from the field. Do you want to develop that? Well, Wellington himself admits, of course, it is a near-run thing, you know, that they come very close to being defeated. I suppose what I would add is that the British have an additional ally,
they've got the Prussians, but they've also got the Wever. In many ways for the British need to hold a position. They need to block Napoleon from advancing north of Brussels and it's Napoleon's task to break through and in a way that the British have to hold a line. And the fact that it's kind of reigned, you know, overnight, the night 17th to the 18th means that the battle can only start later than Napoleon would have ideally liked. And that's because artillery can't be maneuvered
across Quagmire's and also the cannonballs tend not to ricochet. Casualties through artillery fire in this period are caused chiefly by ricocheting cannonballs and if the ground is sodened, they just bury themselves into it. So in many ways, the Wever, again, one thinks what if it had been dry for the previous days would have made a difference. But what did come from it? Was the British reputation was enhanced by this, wasn't it? The British role, as things made easier by the fact
that the ground is sodened, it's easier to hold a line. And Wellington does have a reputation for being a good defensive general. He's good at reading the lie of the land. He knows actually the terrain of Waterloo very well. You know, he's surveyed it the previous year when he was working on the fortification systems between Belgium and France. That is actually a great advantage and he picks this sort of reverse slope, which means that he obscures as far as the French concern,
they can't actually see the British lines fully. And they're also shielded by the topography from artillery fire. So Wellington makes some very good decisions, it has to be said, on the eve of the battle. Napoleon's mindset also fluctuates over the course of just the 18th of June. Actually, he starts the day incredibly bullish. He has a breakfast with his commanders, as known as the breakfast of the marshals, and he sits down and he's adamant that he's going to beat Wellington.
Now he is sitting with a whole series of commanders who have been beaten systematically by Wellington in the course of the Pinnitia War of 1808 to 14, where Wellington has this incredible string of victories over all of his major opponents. And yet Napoleon sits down and says Wellington is a bad general, and the British are bad soldiers, and this whole affair will be no more difficult than eating breakfast. Now inevitably he ends up being served a heavy dose of humble pie over the
course of that. But there is also a moment when he rides forward right at the end of the battle in the last sort of do-our-dying moments. He makes this last ditch attempt to break the Allied line having tried multiple times over the course of the day, but he rides forward with his imperial guard, his sort of glorified bodyguard. These are troops who have never been defeated. And it is questioned whether or not Napoleon actually intended to die at Waterloo by placing himself at the
head of his men. Now his staff ultimately turn around him and say you need to stop and he is forced to pull up his horse, and then as Kate says ultimately cuts and runs for the French border. Can we just leave it more about that? Of course Napoleon is always somebody who knew the power of leading from the front. He was somebody who was a genius of propaganda and a genius of inspiring
his soldiers. We've talked already about that personal touch, that ability to reach over to somebody, tug their realogue, remember somebody by name from a previous campaign and have those into personal relations. And he understands the benefit of that. So it is thought that by riding forward with his imperial guard he would have been inspiring his men in the process. But there is
also this question that Napoleon knows the danger. And by this point in the afternoon it is very clear that the Prussians are bearing down on his right flank and this is an all on nothing attempt. So if he dies in the moment of defeat as somebody who was always hugely aware of his own legend, the death in the moment of defeat enables him to do sort of the inverse of a Nelson and ultimately perhaps bolster his own legend. Yes, I mean the appearance of Prussians on coming back
to the Battle of Waterloo is devastating in terms of Morale. And it comes at the point also when the imperial guard makes that final advance that is then beaten back by the British army, by Wellington's army. And of course you have to remember the imperial guard has this sort of legendary status within the French army. So that is absolutely catastrophic for Morale throughout the French army. How did Napoleon's reign end and then what happened to a support in Paris?
So when Napoleon flees from Waterloo he heads back to Paris. At this point he's not thinking that it's all over. It's one battle lost not necessarily the campaign. What he wants to do is go back to Paris to try and shore up the political support so that he can regroup and start again. What he finds when he gets back to Paris is that the two chambers that he's created as part of an additional constitutional attempt to show he's more liberal than he was before, the two chambers, the chamber
of representatives and the chamber of peers have turned against him. The chamber of representatives have decided they're going to meet in permanence as if they were a revolutionary assembly. And they are not going to give him his way. In fact they end up forcing him to abdicate. He says, well okay I'll abdicate but I name my son as my heir and they go back and say you've not really quite got this have you. You're not actually in a position to decide who's going to follow you
but we'll take note of your wishes. So he's he's manoeuvred, out manoeuvred politically by the chamber of representatives into abdicating for a second time. He then goes to Malmaison which was Josephine's property. She died the year before but he spent some time there with his stepdaughter Ortonce who's also his sister-in-law because she'd married Louis Napoleon. I spent time there remembering his time with Josephine and then head to the west coast of France with a view to
escaping to America. That's the first plan is get to America regroup, perhaps wait for another opportunity to come back in. Once Louis makes a mess of things again maybe there'll be another chance for him to return to France. He's not able to get on a ship to America and will end up surrendering to the British and taken to Plymouth on board the Beleriphan, the Billy Ruffian. But then importantly he sent to Centellina. Yes Centellina isn't the South Atlantic so it's
hundreds of miles from... It's a rock in the South Atlantic. It's a bit more than a rock but yes it's it was run by the East India companies as part of Estor route to India around the Cape but escape from there is really impossible. It's surrounded by ocean. There's no way you'd get at the polling there and he's not a sovereign on his own island as he was on Elba. He is a quite clearly a prisoner you know guarded by Hudson Low who's again gone down in history as a bit of a villain and he's
guarded by British garrison and there's a permanent naval presence in the South Atlantic. So the Allies and Britain chiefly amongst them isn't going to make the same mistake twice. Now I suppose at one level it means an appolian can't escape but it does mean that he can portray himself as a victor which I don't think he could have done had he lived out his his years and sort of comfy Mediterranean
retirement on Elba. He is a promifius you know chained to the rock by vindictive enemies. So I think when it comes to an appolian legend that exile in Centellina doesn't appolian in the very long term I after he's dead a great deal of good because you're right his memoirs which is all about how famous he was. But he's a great liberator that he's been persecuted by a piece of reactionary
conservative monarchs and that looks plausible for losing getting the last word. Yes yes losers do sometimes you know write their own history and it's not just for winners. It enables him to reinforce that sense of the charismatic legendary remarkable by emphasizing precisely the arrival in Paris in 1815 as part of a broader legend of him as the savior figure. How much of a setback was this for France? I think that's an interesting question.
In many ways Napoleon's administrative legacy survives. Is it really a setback? He's already created an education system. He's created a legal system. He's created an administrative system for the organization of the country that survived more or less to this day. So whether he'd survived or not his legacy is already intact by 1814. What happens as a result of his defeat is that the political situation is left hanging. 100 days is as much about a political discussion
around constitutionalism as it is about a military campaign. The supporters of a more liberal vision for France that's in the as a result of the French Revolution are still there. They'll come out in the 1830 revolution. They'll come out in the 1848 revolution. By which point Napoleon's nephew is elected with 74 and a half percent of the voters president of the second republic. There's a latent vein of Bonaparteism that goes right the way through the first half of the 19th
century. France is dealt with more harshly after the 100 days than it had been in 1814. So in that sense France is damaged by Napoleon's return. You have a second treaty of Paris. They lose some territory not very much but they do have to pay a very large reparations bill in 1815. They hadn't in 1814. They need to return looted artworks, artworks which had looted as early as
the 1790s from places like Italy. They have to be returned in 1815. France is also occupied in 1815 by a vast Allied army of occupation of the Russians, the Austrians, the British and the Prussians all under the supreme command of Wellington. That occupation will last until 1818. So in that sense France is humiliated. It's really very much in the naughty corner in 1815. We're coming to the end now but who do you think gained most from these 100 days starting with
UK? I think in many ways the person who gains most from the 100 days is actually Napoleon because it allows him to rephrase, ironically he's lost the battle but it allows him to reframe himself as victim, as persecuted by the evil allies who won't leave him alone as the people's choice of sovereign in France. So that allows him a platform that will influence the shape of 19th
century French politics. I see things slightly differently. So on a personal level I think Wellington is the great winner out of the Waterloo story for the fact that he has been integral to the defeat of Napoleon. Up to this point there has been no question that Wellington is the second most capable commander of the age and the fact that he has been successful in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo. It enables him to just leave that question dangling. Wellington was not
a particularly modest man. I would argue pretty false modesty when people said, you know, are you the greatest captain of the age? He says, well known Napoleon's surely the greatest. I think it's also important to look at this at a national and continental level. Nationally written benefits in terms of an enhanced reputation as a result of being a key player in the Waterloo
story. British forces have now had to face Napoleon directly in the field and having been a key part that I think is something that certainly strengthens the British hand when it comes to negotiations for the Congress of Vienna. But there's also a European level to look at and when we consider the Congress of Vienna it is very striking that Napoleon's return in 1815 has focused minds.
That squabbling that you see in 1814 is much less prominent and there is a realisation that going forwards there needs to be a Congress system where the different nations of Europe settle
their differences by just sitting down and talking. Now it doesn't last by any stretch of the imagination but I think a case can be made that notwithstanding the upheaval that we see in the 1830s and 1840s in terms of revolution and repression that inclination to find a better, more sensible diplomatic solution makes Europe just a little bit more stable in the wake of Waterloo.
Finally Michael. Well I'd agree in a sense with both my fellowists of guests that both Napoleon and Wellington emerge with their reputations enhanced as a consequence of a hundred days. But basically my judgment if I had to make a choice I'd base my judgment on the Battle of Waterloo visit a center gift shop. Napoleon is everywhere. Figures of Napoleon and dolls of Napoleon and Wellington is nowhere to be seen and and and blusher isn't anywhere to be seen either.
So I think I would choose Napoleon. Well thank you very much indeed Michael Row, Kate Astbury and Zach White and to our studio engineer Levin Missyrian. Next week is the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, one of the giants of European theatre. Thank you for listening. And the in our time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Well would you like to have said you didn't have time to say Kate?
Okay I'd like to talk about theatre of war. It's often used, the hundred days is often used as a metaphor. War is used as a metal theatre is used as a metaphor during the hundred days. And I think it's an interesting phenomenon to think more broadly about the way in which theatre and song and prints are used as part of a propaganda war. That Napoleon is trying to reinforce his regime and his supporters are trying to reinforce his regime by influencing the hearts and
minds of the people, particularly in Paris. So we see the theatres of Paris reverting to some of the hits of the empire. They go back to opera's like the triumph of Trajan, which was the idea was that they would show Napoleon as an ebenevolent ruler. They bring back revolutionary plays where the audiences see the connections between the plays and the present day. They started to write an opera about Alexander the Great, which was obviously a direct reference to the Napoleon that
they knew of the return of Napoleon. So the real attempt to try and influence people through what they're watching on the stage doesn't always work. A town like Bordeaux, where Louis XVI's daughter, the Duchess of Angolaire, Marie-Tourais is trying to lead royalist opponents to Napoleon. Their theatres will carry on showing things that we might understand as royalist or the audiences would
see as royalists. But in Paris is very much an attempt to reframe Napoleon as the revolution hero to reinforce the propaganda that's going on in the press and song and in print. And the British play that game equally well, it has to be said. Both before Napoleon's return and after James Gilray is the most obvious proponent of this through the form of caricatures. In fact that perception of Napoleon being short is in part influenced by the works of Gilray.
It's also a misunderstanding in terms of French measurements versus British measurements. But Napoleon was not short. He was just a fraction above average height for the time. But the British very much play that game again after Waterloo. And the possession of Napoleon almost like a naughty schoolboy who has his backside thrashed in one print by Wellington and Bluca. Well I find particularly interesting is the fractures nature of French politics and something we didn't discuss and the
programme was for white terror. So this is the second restoration. This is when Louis XVIII comes back for the second time in the baggage train of the Allied armors. And whereas in 1814 there had been a certain recognition that France had to be governed from a centre. You needed to appeal to an extent to left and right. The regime which comes back in 1815 after Waterloo is much more vindictive.
And you get a purge of bonapartists and you get the execution of martial nay. And you get massacres especially in the south of France of people had been deemed to be republican. You have a massacre of Arabs in Marseille because they had been associated with the the Napoleonic regime, the soban-luks who had been brought back from Egypt. So in many ways I
think that's really quite devastating for bringing France together after 1815. And of course France you know throughout the 19th century is going to have these violent swings and regime changes. I think 100 days contributes to that. Is there anything important to listen to about the fact that there's almost a century where I'm trading on glass here? Well there are no, don't seem to be any major major wars between 1814 and 1914. I think the Congress of Vienna does
a good job. And you know Tanya Roy is France's representative there and he says that everyone was moderately dissatisfied but everyone. So no one is an outright winner at the Congress of Vienna. No one is utterly humiliated. So you know one can compare that with the peace treaty of Ersseier, you know, many ways of catastrophe. So I think it doesn't leave a large set of revisionist powers. I powers that can't live with that settlement. So yes you have a hundred years
of no world war. You know you have smaller wars but nothing on the scale of the first world war to 1914. I think what's also quite remarkable is the way in which Waterloo becomes embedded in popular culture. Somehow we got through this entire recording without mentioning Aber who opened that famous song Waterloo with my my Waterloo Napoleon did surrender which of course he didn't as we've discussed. And in fact the one thing that people think they know about Waterloo
is exactly that. So there is a strong kind of place for Waterloo that is written across the landscape not just a popular culture but physically across the landscape of the world, whether it's buildings, bridges, railway stations, all whether it's towns and cities around the world. The name Waterloo means something to people. Of course it shouldn't be called the Battle of
More Saint-Jean which is what Napoleon called it. You know Waterloo is actually some distance from the battlefield and it's in a way it's a British appropriation or Wellington's appropriation of that battle. And of course the the the Prashans call it Belalios. So that was Bluca's preference and it's a very nice metaphor so that the Belalios works in two ways because French command HQ during the Battle of Waterloo was actually based at La Belalios.
So it's a small inn in the southern portion of the battlefield but it very much speaks to that coalition nature of warfare which I think is why Bluca liked the poetic nature of it emphasizing the fact that Waterloo was the result of a fight combined coalition mentality coming to fruition. And as you say the Germans to this day refer to this battle not as Waterloo but as the battle of La Belalios. Well I'll produce a Simon Tillerson's about your enter. Who'd like to your coffee?
I'm good. Thank you. I'll have tea please. Yes. Coffee. Black tea for you. Black tea. If I could have some more water that'd be great. Thank you very much. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillerson and it's a BBC Studios audio production. From BBC Radio 4. I just remember shouting and screaming get off my sister. Life as we know it can change in an instant. I was just punching frantically. I wasn't going to let it take away my sister if I could help it.
A single transformative moment. I heard this engine sort of go past and I was like what is that? And Mum had looked up into the rear view mirror and she went oh my god he's here. I'm Dr. Sean Williams and this is the programme that explores the most dramatic, personal and poignant stories from the very people who've experienced them. I always pass it there and said hi John. Hi John. You've got to find some joy in the sorrow you know. You've got to find some joy.
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