A Train Of Thought From St. Helena

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 235, 5 October 1942, Page 2

A Train Of Thought From St. Helena

By Cyrano

There are memories that place one's age with perhaps uncomfortable accuracy; if. for example, you can recall when "The Holy City" and "The Star of Bethlehem" were the rage, or when, if you went to a concert (smoke or otherwise), there was quite a good chance that someone would recite "At the Tomb of Napoleon."

ITow do Ingersoll's reflections go? I remember them only in snatches, and those perhaps inaccurately. The commentator is standing by Napoleon's tomb in Paris, which, so it is reported, every German soldier of the garrison is expected to visit. He reviews Napoleon's career. He sees him in various moments of success and failure, and he concludes by saying that he would rather have been a French peasant and gone down to "the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust" than been "that Imperial impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great."

An Empty Tomb

It was a good recitation as recitations go (I well remember being thrilled by it the first time), and to adopt the immortal remark of "Saki," as recitations go, it w£nt. To-day. like "Lasca" and "The Green Eye of the Yellow God." it waits shivering in the wings for calls at long intervals. Among the social changes for the better in my time I count the decline of the recitation as a form of entertainment, public or private.

Why do I recall this piece to-day? Because Napoleon's tomb came into the news this week in a curious way. Not his final tomb, it is true but his first resting place, at St. Helena! It seems there are French guardians of the empty grave on the island and of "Longwood," where the Emperor lived in exile. Queen Victoria made a gift of these parts of St. Helena to Napoleon's heirs, and they have remained French ever since. The caretakers cannot bear to be in direct contact with the traitors" of Vichy, so they have gone over to Fighting France. The company of a Fighting French ship recently hoisted the Tricolour and the Cross of Lorraine over the grave and planted a willo*/ nearby This transfer of allegiance brings into the news an island we hardly ever hear of nowadays. Before steam and the Suez Canal, St. Helena was a place of some importance. The planting of another willow there is a reminder to New Zealanders of those far-off days of sail, for ships bound to New Zealand sometimes touched at St. Helena, and it is said that many of our Canterbury willows sprang from cuttings taken from trees by Napoleon's grave. The island will always be associated with Napoleon, and it is one of the countless signs of the persistence of his fame that the empty tomb and house of exile in this distant spot should still be venerated. The Napoleonic Legend We British have little reason to remember with satisfaction the island's connection with Napoleon. We were quite justified in putting him there, but our treatment of him as a prisoner was tactless and ungenerous. It is to the British Govment's credit that in 1840 it agreed at once to the proposal that the body should be removed to France, but it allowed "Longwood" to fall into disrepair and become a farm storehouse.

Our treatment of Napoleon helped to create the Napoleonic legend that was built up so carefully in this period—the conception of Napoleon not as an ambitious conqueror and despot, but as a child of the Revolution (which, of course, he was in the first place), a would-be liberator of Europe devoted to the ideals of justice and freedom. The legend became very potent. It helped to produce the revolution of 1848 in France, and, combined with the memory of Napoleon's glories, to put Louis Napoleon on the throne and lead France to the disasters of 1870-71. In defeat and victory the impress of Napoleon's genius on the nation remained. He was not only the conqueror of Europe, but the author of the Code Napoleon.

What is Napoleon's standing in Europe to-day? What profit can the Allies derive from his record? In France, I should say, his influence has markedly declined. It is significant that even before the last war a pabular vote on the greatest of Frenchmen placed Pasteur first. To meet the German attack in 1914 the French General Staff put into operation what they thought were Napoleonic principles, but their calculations were so wrong and their methods so rash that they came to grief. Before the catastrophe of 1940, French soldiers went to the other extreme and adopted a defensive policy, based on fortresses. The Magipot Line mentality was diametrically opposed to Napoleon's ideas. He was all for open warfare and attack. But the truth is the French people were tired of war. It is sometimes asked what Napoleon would do if he were a soldier to-day, and the wish is expressed that another Napoleon would arise. Professional soldiers have to study his campaigns, but the history of war is strewn with the failure of soldiers who have studied but have been unable to put precept into practice. It is extremely difficult to copy genius, and sometimes highly dangerous. With Napoleon one is apt to be led away by romantic externals and to rush in where even he might have feared to tread. As I remarked a week or two ago this was one of the troubles in the North in the American civil war. The public wanted a Napoleon, and generals were inclined to ape his style. They put on his hat, but they hadn't got his head. But a civilian statesman, trying to be Napoleon, may be very much more dangerous than a soldier. All the ordinary civilian should do is to remember the main lessons of his career, such as the advantage of individual command, and the merits of boldness, swiftness, and originality; also the mistakes that brought him to grief. Hitler and Napoleon Hitler has been compared to Napoleon. He has military genius, but our confidence in victory is based upon our conviction that he will fail as Napoleon failed. As to general character and aims. I have seen an authoritative English estimate of Napoleon which fits Hitler closely, but it seems to me that, bad as Napoleon was, Hitler is almost infinitely worse. Napoleon strengthened civilisation at several points; Hitler corrupts it everywhere. If civilisation is to survive there can be no room for Napoleons and Hitlers, and thought Napoleon's career will always have interest for men (already he has been written about probably more than any man who ever lived), their judgment, guided more and more by moral factors, will be less and less blinded by his dazzling genius. As an example to mankind in leadership, Lincoln s star will wax. and Napoleon's will wane.