Life must be filled up

Yesterday evening, I watched the start of a new series, Julius Caesar: the Making of a Dictator. Like most documentaries of this type, it took an hour to tell you what you could read in ten minutes. And oh dear, it was done in the same style as the Shakespeare series I disparaged recently. The three main protagonists, Julius Caesar, Cato and Pompey were speechless and spent a lot of time looking enigmatic or glaring at nothing (the baleful influence of Mark Rylance again?) These scenes, plus many shots of menacing-looking flocks of birds, were intercut with a lot of chat from talking heads including St Rory Stewart, who is to my mind behaving oddly these days. All praise then to Mary Beard, who can carry an hour’s programme entirely alone and tell you a lot about Julius Caesar without a crowd of people looking ridiculous in togas. It takes a lot of skill to wear a toga, a wig or indeed a top hat as if you’ve been wearing one all your life and few actors possess it.

I always watch Between the Covers in the hope of hearing about a book I might like to read and sometimes, I do. Yesterday’s episode must have been the worst of the series so far. What on earth is the point of having on a book programme a man who confesses to never reading a book? The star was absolutely Ahir Shah. I enjoyed his intelligent comments but I doubt if he persuaded anyone to read his BYOB, which was Hobbes’ Leviathan. It doesn’t do to be too clever on television.

I’m pretty up to speed on the events of 1945 and the Russian advance into Berlin. Two years ago, I read the brilliant Berlin: The Downfall by Antony Beevor. Then, more recently, Giles Milton’s Checkmate in Berlin, which is very good on how the allied powers divided Berlin, the Russian attempt to blockade it completely and the remarkable organisation of the Berlin Air Lift. It’s a great account of how the Cold War began. Probably most chilling was Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which deals with Stalin’s actual family and the ‘family’ of ministers he gathered round him. Plenty of suspicion and fear, then The Terror of 1937 and again after the war. The slaughter of the innocent.

So, I was interested to read Katastrophe, a work of historical fiction about this same period. Sadly, I found nothing new in it and it failed to grip. Anyone who’s read Solzhenitsyn knows about life in the Gulag, so nothing there to shock. It was a fluid time, with people changing sides rapidly, some Germans wanting peace and plotting for it, others fanatically fighting a battle already lost. The Russians keen to nab German nuclear secrets. With spies and informers everywhere, who do you trust? What to make of one of the main characters, a Georgian who worked for Goebbels until he upset him and was sent East? Now he’s on his way back to Berlin but who knows what awaits him. Most characters expect to die at any moment.

London is suffering from the V2s and the weary Londoners want nothing but peace. The clever chaps at MI5 and MI6 already know that the peace will be one which Russia will dominate. Our man Moncrieff is sent to Switzerland on a very secret mission which is sabotaged in a way that suggests a tip-off. His colleague, Ursula, is convinced that the traitor is one whom we now know as one of the most successful British spies and traitors ever, but no one will listen to her. That is the most interesting thing in this muddled book. Not a page turner, nor a book to increase the heart rate. As my header says, it’s a thriller which doesn’t thrill. A good example of how truth can be stranger than fiction and that a non-fiction book, well written, can be more exciting than a novel.

I read this thanks to NetGalley. It’s published by Head of Zeus and is out on 7th July.

Back in 2009, reviewing Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, I wrote this:

'Speaking of long historical novels, there’s one which gives a completely contrasting view of the Reformation. It’s The Man on a Donkey by H F M Prescott, about that doomed rebellion the Pilgrimage of Grace. It centred on York and interestingly Mantel has Cromwell regard Yorkshire as a place of savagery. I won’t actually recommend the book as I read it when I was at school and don’t know what I’d make of it now.'

Now it's being hailed as a forgotten historical masterpiece and is 99p today (and it's a long book).

Chatting to a friend on the phone last week and having our usual rant about the state of the world, she raved about the above film, one of two. I watched the first one yesterday on
the iPlayer and she was right. This is the most lucid account I have ever read or watched about the history of Afghanistan and its wars with great powers. The next one is about the doomed Russian invasion. The films were made in 2012. One point of interest is that public opinion in the nineteenth century was against the Afghan invasion (the Duke of Wellington opposed it) but the hawks, as Stewart calls them, had their way, with disastrous results. Five stars and I want to read Kim again.

When you look at Rory Stewart’s CV, you wonder how one man can have done so much before he’s fifty. Then you try to think of a single useful thing Boris Johnson has ever achieved.

I’ve just started Simon Heffer’s mammoth work, a new edition of the diaries of ‘Chips’ Channon. A collection was published in 1967 but was heavily redacted, partly for fear of libel suits. Now, Channon’s grandchildren have given permission for a complete edition. Chips Channon is a name you often come across in biographies of his contemporaries but I knew nothing about the man except that he wrote scandalous diaries. I can see that it will take me a very long time to get through this first volume (which was 99p for the Kindle a few days ago) and that I’ll be reading quite a few other books at the same time.
( How to be a social climber )

I can just imagine some people sneering at the very idea of reading a book by a romantic novelist as a painless way of learning about Waterloo. Let me tell you that Georgette Heyer’s research for An Infamous Army was impeccable. The story begins in Brussels where not just troops but fashionable English people fill the town. Naturally there is an apparently ill-starred romance but Waterloo is central. While all is still quiet, a group of the main characters set off on a day’s pleasure excursion in the nearby countryside. While there, they have pointed out to them Quatre Bras, the hollow road and the houses of Hougoumont and La Haie Sainte. For them, it’s a charming view. For anyone knowing anything about the coming battle, the names suggest impending doom.

Whether it’s ladies’ fashions or troops’ uniforms, you can bet that every detail will be correct. This is also true of Heyer’s description of the battle, which tallies with everything I’ve ever read about it. This is not pretty reading, as she doesn’t spare the reader the gore, while giving a vivid account of the fog and chaos of war. As Andrew Roberts said, Wellington was ‘here, there and everywhere’, rallying his men. At the end of the book, the love story is resolved but, fittingly, Heyer ends with Wellington writing his reports.

I’d also strongly recommend a social history of the period, Jenny Uglow’s In These Times, which I reviewed here in 2014. It’s about what it was like to live in Britain during years of fighting. Some people may be surprised to learn how much support there was in England for Napoleon.

Astonishingly, the day after Waterloo, Napoleon writes to his brother Joseph that all is not lost and begins working out how many troops he could muster for a counter-attack. Many soldiers remain loyal to him and there are skirmishes in various parts of the country. But the political elite are against him and, led by Lafayette, organise what is virtually a coup. Napoleon abdicates again. He didn’t want to be in the hands of the Bourbons or the Prussians and puts his trust in Britain. He had an idea of going to live in America but any voyage out was blocked by HMS Bellerophon, anchored off Rochefort. In July, he surrenders to its captain, Maitland.

Napoleon gets on well with Maitland and with the sailors. When the ship is anchored off Torbay, people travel hundreds of miles just to get a glimpse of him. Napoleon is happy to stroll on deck, showing himself and doffing his hat to ladies. Far more people want to accompany him than there is room for but eventually the party is ready and the voyage of over 4,000 miles to St Helena begins. When he reaches the island, Napoleon says it is his tomb. He is given a house which is permanently damp and infested with rats and other vermin. He copes reasonably well at first; reading, writing and riding around the island. Things get worse when the unsympathetic Sir Hudson Lowe is appointed governor. Wellington said he should never have been sent because he was ‘a stupid man’. He is certainly petty-minded and makes life more difficult for Napoleon, who had previously enjoyed the company of British officers and visiting dignitaries. Napoleon feels confined and dull but, more importantly he is often very unwell (this is dismissed by Lowe as hypochondria). It’s not surprising that he relives his triumphs, makes little of his failures and condemns his enemies and those who betrayed him. After several years of suffering, he dies on 5th May 1821 aged fifty-one, of stomach cancer (forget the wallpaper and the conspiracy theories). He’s buried on St Helena with full military honours. His remains are later removed to France. If you’ve been to Paris, you’ve no doubt seen the splendid tomb at Les Invalides. I admit to feeling sorry for him at the end.

On Elba, rather than have a rest, Napoleon shows his usual energy and begins a programme of reforms such as paving roads and building a hospital. Campbell and visiting British dignitaries are impressed by his conversation but Campbell is suspicious when he asks searching questions about allied troops in France. In truth, Napoleon is convinced that the Bourbons will be unpopular, outrage France and pave the way for his own return. He’s not wrong. He starts to feel confined and bored on Elba and he’s not being paid the pension he was promised. Campbell warns Castlereagh that this is dangerous. The Bourbons are trying to turn back the clock too quickly and, dangerously, offend the regular army by changing its flags and downgrading Napoleon’s Légion d’Honneur which the soldiers were so proud of. Many in the army celebrated Napoleon’s birthday, which had become a tradition.

Campbell leaves the island for a trip to Europe and Napoleon seizes his chance of escape. With just a few ships and a small force of men, he plans to invade France. What confidence! Once landed in France, he decides to take the Alpine route to Grenoble, to avoid royalist areas. Since 1934, the Route Napoléon has been a tourist attraction and is said to be great for cyclists and motorcyclists. It sounds absolutely terrifying. Napoleon met little resistance, cleverly playing on people’s fears that the Bourbons would reintroduce feudalism. On one occasion, near Laffrey, his party met a battalion of the regular army. Accounts vary as to what really happened but no soldier fired on Napoleon and the men joined him. News of his return had reached Vienna, where it was said that Napoleon had ‘delivered himself up to public vengeance’.

Marshall Ney, having promised Louis that he would deliver Napoleon to him, defects to the other side. Louis flees to Ghent. Napoleon continues his swift advance and enters Paris as virtual emperor again. As someone said, ‘without spilling a drop of French blood’. What next?

Napoleon knows very well that the Russian campaign has been a failure but doesn’t admit it. The heavy losses mean that boys as young as fifteen are recruited into the army. One is reminded of Hitler’s fourteen-year-olds supposed to fight the Russians in Berlin. At least Napoleon is on the battlefield with them, not holed up in a bunker. The ‘equinocide’ makes it difficult to rebuild French cavalry forces. Yet Napoleon is determined on ‘an honourable peace’, by which he means that France will not give up any territory she has gained and certainly won’t return to pre-war frontiers. Bad luck for him that the European powers, especially Prussia, have taken note of the reasons for his success and introduced their own reforms, so they are in better shape to take him on. Napoleon worries about his own legacy and declares that in the event of his death, Marie Louise would be regent until their son, the ‘King of Rome’ was of age.

Napoleon had arrived back in Paris in December 1812 and by the following April he’s at war again because the Russians are advancing south to Prussia. Incredibly, he admits Talleyrand, who had betrayed him, back into his counsels. He also begins talks with Metternich. They are two of the most brilliant and least trustworthy men in Europe and neither is his friend. The allies, now better organised and more determined to defeat Napoleon, begin grouping around Leipzig. By what is now called the Trachenberg strategy, the allies would divide their armies into three; if one were attacked, another would be free to go for Napoleon’s flank.

The three-day battle of Leipzig, known as ‘The Battle of the Nations’ ends in defeat for Napoleon. He makes mistakes; yet again his men are short of supplies. Surely now is the time to end these wretched wars? By what would have been the agreement of Frankfurt, France would lose Italy, Germany, Spain and Holland. Similar terms could have been agreed before and saved many lives. Napoleon does not want to give up Italy and Holland and we’ve already seen that his idea of ‘an honourable peace’ is one where France retains all conquered territory. What really stymies hopes of peace is the British refusal to allow Napoleon to keep Belgium, which they see as a possible base from which to attack Britain.

In France there is increased opposition to yet more conscription and to even higher taxes. How much longer will the French support their self-appointed Emperor and be willing to die for him?

British troops withdraw from Spain after the Battle of Corunna, at which the commander, Sir John Moore was killed. I hope you are now all thinking,
‘SIR THE BURIAL SIR OF SIR JOHN MOORE SIR AT CORUNNA SIR
Notadrumwasheardnotafuneralnote
Shut up peason larffing’

After Corunna, Napoleon returns to France but is soon back in the field because Austria, under Archduke Charles, has declared war again. Battle rages around the Danube in very difficult conditions. Napoleon’s men are defeated at Aspern-Essling but losses are equal on both sides. He had expected help from the Russians, which was not forthcoming. Why he put so much faith in Alexander is a mystery. The battle of Wagram is a victory for Napoleon but at terrible cost. This battle shows that the future of warfare is with artillery, rather than cavalry. It is followed by the treaty of Schönbrunn, harsh on Austria, which loses more land.

Napoleon is fighting on two fronts (there are still troops tied down in the Peninsula) and Wellington defeats the French at Talavera. While some parts of the continent welcomed Napoleonic reforms he still has more enemies than friends. He makes things worse for himself when he is excommunicated by the Pope, which upsets French Catholics. Just to make his life more complicated, he decides to divorce Josephine in hopes of marrying again and having a son. Foolishly, he woos both the Russians and the Austrians in hopes of a dynastically useful marriage, marries the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise and offends Alexander again. Things still go badly in the south, where he sends the unfortunate General Masséna. He is woefully underequipped and is repulsed by Wellington at the Lines of Torres Vedras (forts and defences built by Wellington to defend Lisbon), which Napoleon had underestimated.

By 1810, Napoleon rules an empire larger than any since Charlemagne’s but he is far from secure. Russia and Austria are still obsessed with territory and The Continental System is widely defied. He had previously introduced a system of licences for importing goods but since most of these went to the French, they only increased resentment. From now on, it was a case of ‘Never glad confident morning again.’