NAPOLEON’S PLAN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21184, 6 August 1940, Page 2

NAPOLEON’S PLAN

ARTIST’S CONCEPTION INVASION OF BRITAIN (By Tele?rapH.—Special to Times) HASTINGS, Monday Napoleon’s plans for invading England, in the conception of a contemporary artist, did not differ a great deal in fundamentals from what we are being led to expect from Nazi Germany. A French engraving, dated 1804, “Various Projects for the Attack on England,” is in the possession of the Hastings High School authorities, and it gives an interesting—if imaginative—version of what might have been afoot in those days had the destinies of Napoleon been shaped otherwise. The coast of France, on which troops are massing, is seen on the left of the engraving, and on the other side Dover is protected by a row of tall ships. Through a submarine tunnel French troops, horses and waggons are passing, and the surface of the Channel is covered with large barges being rowed toward England. Even the air is not forgotten, for troop-carrying balloons drift toward England in the breeze. As a defence against these balloons England has large kites with men armed with muskets suspended in the tails. An extraordinary feature of the artist’s work is that while the breeze bears the French balloons toward England it also seems to blow the kites in the opposite direction to meet the would-be invaders. The balloons have their weapons, too, for from one of them a man is seen dropping a large bomb on a ship below, while from another a man with a long hook in his hand endeavours to cut off the tail of one of the kites to precipitate the man there into the sea.