A NOVEL MOTIVE IN THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 172, 17 April 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

A NOVEL MOTIVE IN THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON

Dr. McNair Wilson Presents a New Portrait

“Napoleon: The Portrait of a King,” by R. McNair Wilson (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode).

Tbe familiar verdict of history upon Napoleon portrays him as a military genius whose rise to

supreme power so intoxicated him that he allowed ambition and disregard of the rights of his fellow men to obsess him to an extent sufficient to undermine the success of a statesmanship based largely on military ideas and to bring about his downfall as a matter of course. But Dr. McNair Wilson takes a different view and has much evidence to support it.

• The difficulty about accepting this verdict lies chiefly in his mastery of his own profession. Almost every kind of doubt has been raised about him, but none has doubted his capacity as a soldier, least or all soldiers themselves. Did he really believe that his Frenchmen could permanently inflict defeat upon all the armies ot Europe? Did be really wish to wage unceasing war and to fight every year,, a series of great battles against armies numerically superior to bis own? The barest record of his campaigns suggests that these questions cannot safely be answered in the positive manner in which hitherto it has been the habit to gnswer them.

Napoleon was a man of overwhelming ambition, but, Dr. Wilson points out, though ambitious men may dream of conquest, they do not court disasters which can be more clearly foreseen by themselves than by their fellows. “If this great soldier,” he says, “was the cunning and crafty statesman which he is reputed to have been, then either he was forced to fight or bad taken permanent leave of his senses.”

Historians have taken many pains to show that Napoleon could, with less nnreasonable demands, have made peace at any time. As he did not, they have presented him as “genius in process of transmutation to madness,” a view much in opposition to the “Golden Legend” of "a Liberal fighting for tbe ideals of the French Revolution against the kings and priests of a dying feudalism whose sole object it was to destroy these ideals.”

In these circumstances, the possibility that the truth may not yet be fully known cannot be dismissed. Was there an element, a motive, in this man’s life ot which, so far, history has failed to take account? The question is answered in the affirmative in the pages which follow, not as a piece of theorizing on the part of the writer, but as a statement of fact which any may verify for himself. It is answered, further, out of Napoleon’s own mouth.

Thus, in his introduction, Dr. Wilson presents the thesis of his study. He draws freely upon the recentlypublished “Memoirs’- ’of Caulaincourt, and sets out to represent Napoleon not essentially as a leader of armies, but as a lone figure fighting single-handed tbe financial interests of Europe as centred in Lombard Street. He alone was the sole protagonist of tbe Debt System.

By trying to achieve economic independence for France, retrieving her from bankruptcy by making her selfsupporting as to primary products and industries, Napoleon was aiming a formidable blow at the financial interests which had spread an all-enveloping net over the countries of Europe, and of which England, by virtue of her monopoly of the world’s supply of gold, was the fountain head. Had France settled down to a period of peace she could have attained selfsufficiency. Her ports would .-have been closed to English manufacturers and colonial raw products, of which England also .had the monopoly, and she would have acquired the means of absolving her debt to the various banking houses in Europe, which were all financed from Lombard Street Thus it was in the Interests of the bankers to keep France at war, for France at war was crippled without raw products from colonies which she did not possess.

This is the dominant theme as the life story of the “Little Corporal’’ is unfolded from Corsica to St. Helena. While the history of his military campaigns is related adequately, much more stress has ben laid upon the statesmanship of Napoleon than is usually to be found in books upon his life. It is a pity that Dr. Wilson has allowed himself to fall so completely at the feet of his idol. He has mighty arguments with which to support his contentions in favour of Napoleon, but any figure so guiltless of mistakes, so surrounded by treacherous enemies, immediately becomes an object of suspicion. This, however, does not for a moment detract from the interest of I’r. Wilson’s painstaking and erudite work. Of particular value are his telling portraits of Napoleon’s contemporaries. Whether their appearances on the stage of the great man’s career ore short or long, they become flesh and blood. Dr. Wilson has appended copious notes at the end of the book. As well as giving sources of information, they provide in many eases valuable additions to the main text. A COLLECTION OF RARE POEMS “Rare Poems of the Seventeenth Century,” chosen and edited by L. Birkett Marshall (Cambridge: University Press). This collection of rare seventeenth century verse, apart from the intrinsic merit of its poetry, provides a detailed point of view of the period which is not obtainable when attention is confined to the work of a famous few. Mr. Marshall has selected altogether about two hundred poems from the many he has encountered in his seventeenth century researches. Very few of them have previously appeared in modern anthologies ; most have come from rare, neglected volumes of poetry, issued, many of them by their authors and never reprinted. There is hardly one among these forgotten poets whose name will be familiar to the unspecialised reader, yet the selection Mr. Marshall has made from their work is well worth reproducing. There is much in it that is distinctive, much that is full of charm and beauty and capable of adding, however, minutely, fresh lustre to a great poetic period.

A READING LIST

“Napoleon,” by R. McNair Wilson (Eyre and Spottiswoode). “Anarchy or Hierarchy,” by S. de Madariaga (Allen and Unwin). , . “Russia, Farewell,” by Marina Furlova (Joseph). FICTION.

“The Happy Return,” by C. S. Forester (Joseph). “These Foolish Things,” by Michael Sadler (Constable).