1812: How Napoleon and Paul I were about to conquer British India

[Joe Shearer]

@Oscar, more on Napoleon's appraisal of his situation:

Exhibit 2: Excerpt from Emil Ludwig:

"....No doubt Barras is cursing Bonaparte this evening (he had interrupted an intimate supper between Josephine and Barras by suddenly returning to Paria - JS) but next day, the general writes to him and the other Directors a long report, which begins as follows: "Even with our best efforts, it will take us several years to get the upper hand at sea. The invasion of England would be a desperate venture; it will only be possible if we take the islanders by surprise...We shall need long nights, so it must be in winter. Consequently we cannot make the attempt till next year. Before then, it is likely enough that hindrances will have arisen on the Continent. Perhaps the great moment has been lost forever."

After this amazingly perspicacious renunciation of his scheme for the invasion of England, he goes on to formulate a yet more amazing plan for achieving the same end by other means. Substantially, he proposes eight naval campaigns, ranging from Spain to Holland, all the political conditions and consequences being carefully considered. If, however, ships and money are not forthcoming, the next best expedient will be to attack English commerce, beginning in Egypt, whence Bonaparte could get back to direct further operations against England.

Enough for the Directors to hear the word Egypt, and they are ready to agree to this last plan. He shall have the command there, and all the help they can give. So dangerous a man as this - the further away he is, the better! Best of all would be, to make an end of him.

The Egyptian plan is not new; it has been mooted at intervals for years. Talleyrand had brought it forward in connection with Bonaparte's letter, though his comment had been: "The leader of this campaign would not need to be a man of exceptional military talent." Was this remark prompted by a wish to keep Bonaparte in France, or was it nothing more than a spiteful innuendo? However that may be, the talented commander, when he read the words at a much later date, wrote in the margin:"Crazy!"

But we anticipate. He drafted the terms of his own nomination as chief of the Army in the East: plenipotentiary powers; a commission to take Malta and Egypt, to drive the English from the Red Sea, to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Suez in order that France may be secure in the possession of the Red Sea.

• Not his plan alone, but one of some long standing.
• It was at this point about England, felt to be invulnerable across the Channel, but an England who could be hurt by sitting astride a base able to threaten its very long lines of communication with India.
• It was solely his project. The Directors were indifferent, Talleyrand displayed his cynicism to the hilt.
• It was to be practically an open-ended project, although care was taken to conceal its further expansion and growth.

I've got an eery feeling nobody's listening....;-D

 

[doremon]

The French in India would have been a lot more benevolent to Indians than the British.

Look at all the areas which were former French Colonies. They have much higher Education and Prosperity.

The British just wanted to teach average Indians up to 10th Grade so they could work in the Administrative Bureaucracy and communicate with the British.

yes u are right like most parts,but at the same time i dont think islam and hinduism would have flourished in india if french was in power mostly because of forcefull conversion as compared to british who had not much interest in religion.

 

[INDIC]

yes u are right like most parts,but at the same time i dont think islam and hinduism would have flourished in india if french was in power mostly because of forcefull conversion as compared to british who had not much interest in religion.

I thought only Portuguese and Spaniards were into persecution of other religions and forced conversion.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@INDIC

Correctly stated.

The French were secular, especially after the Revolution.

@ Oscar , he was vulnerable, as always, to mood swings. For instance, the following from correspondence with his brother Joseph:

Exhibit 3:

"I am going to the East," he writes to his brother,"with all the means to ensure success. Should France need me, should war break out and take an unfavourable turn, I shall come home, and public opinion will be more solidly on my side than it is now. But if the fortune of war should favour the republic, if another commander like myself should appear upon the scene, I shall, perhaps, by staying in the East, do the world more service than he can." When Bourrienne asks how long they are to be away, Bonaparte answers, "Six months or six years."

• What a mixture of melancholy self-pity and egocentric anticipation! It was exactly in the circumstances that he described that he returned to France from Egypt.

 

[INDIC]

@INDIC

Correctly stated.

The French were secular, especially after the Revolution.

I too heard the same. Unlike Goa, there were no religious persecution in Pondicherry even both of them shared same Christian sect. What I heard the Portuguese and Spaniards learned intolerance due to Moorish rule in Iberia.

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

@INDIC

Correctly stated.

The French were secular, especially after the Revolution.

@ Oscar , he was vulnerable, as always, to mood swings. For instance, the following from correspondence with his brother Joseph:

Exhibit 3:

"I am going to the East," he writes to his brother,"with all the means to ensure success. Should France need me, should war break out and take an unfavourable turn, I shall come home, and public opinion will be more solidly on my side than it is now. But if the fortune of war should favour the republic, if another commander like myself should appear upon the scene, I shall, perhaps, by staying in the East, do the world more service than he can." When Bourrienne asks how long they are to be away, Bonaparte answers, "Six months or six years."

• What a mixture of melancholy self-pity and egocentric anticipation! It was exactly in the circumstances that he described that he returned to France from Egypt.

I see u have read the one on emil ludwig..i have that book and have read it too.Its biased towards him..but very enjoyable read.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Oscar the plot thickens. Also, the sea threatens, Napoleon turns as seasick as Hornblower in Spithead Harbour.and Blind Man's Buff in the Mediterranean.

Exhibit 4: At the same hour, Nelson and three other British admirals, standing on the decks of their ships, are searching the seas (...) for a sign of the hated enemy, who is, it is supposed, about to sail for Sicily. Where is he to be found? Yesterday, Nelson's fleet was scattered by a storm. Days pass before the ships can get together again, and the very storm which had detained Bonaparte for twenty-four hours in Toulon, saves the French. They reach Malta before the English fleet, and seize the important island by a coup de main. By the time the cat arrives, the mouse is gone. Under all sail, Nelson presses onto Egypt, but finds no one there, for he has outstripped the enemy. He tries the Syrian coast. Nothing! Back to Sicily. No one! "The Devil has the devil's own luck," says Nelson, cursing himself and the foe.

• This happened to Nelson on another famous occasion, shortly afterwards. He out-sailed his opponents, twice, and was unable to find them in the Atlantic.
• On this occasion, he kept chuntering on in the south-east corner.

I see u have read the one on emil ludwig..i have that book and have read it too.Its biased towards him..but very enjoyable read.

I'm deliberately using Emil Ludwig instead of the others in my collection - Napoleon as Military Commander by James Marshall-Cornwall, Russia against Napoleon by Dominic Lieven (highly recommended) and The Peninsular War by Charles Esdaile. Ludwig's slightly gushy account gives a better insight into the Emperor's possible mental state, as revealed by his recorded conversations and his correspondence, than the others. For Oscar, that is what I needed.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I too heard the same. Unlike Goa, there were no religious persecution in Pondicherry even both of them shared same Christian sect. What I heard the Portuguese and Spaniards learned intolerance due to Moorish rule in Iberia.

Why the Iberians, and, to a lesser extent, the Italians were so fierce against other religions, and even other sects of Christianity, is a field of study by itself, in whose alleys and byways numerous PhDs have been defended, more or less successfully. We would need an entire forum, like PDF itself, with innumerable threads and a multitude of experts, to bring in some kind of reasonable knowledge and learning to bear on the subject.

In other words, I am chickening out of this one - thanks, but no, thanks.

 

[SQ8]

@Joe Shearer
What is interesting is that throughout his discourses Napoleon seems to have developed a paranoia of all other powers, which perhaps is the reason why certain decision that(we may speculate) may not have been made that would have allowed better passage to India. India was the crown jewel of the British Empire and taking a foothold there may have had high priority with him(in my view) to essentially get the soft underbelly of the Empire.

But then I am still not convinced whether there was a proper plan or rather just an afterthought after the development of the plans to go east.

 

[scorpionx]

yes u are right like most parts,but at the same time i dont think islam and hinduism would have flourished in india if french was in power mostly because of forcefull conversion as compared to british who had not much interest in religion.

I beg to differ. It would not have made any difference. India, if were colonized by the French, the socio-religious fabric would have remained practically unaltered just as it was under the British with some minor exceptions. The reason is quite simple. Two political revolutions that that secularized West European and American liberal bourgeoisie and industrial revolution that let the new proletariat class more opened towards secular faiths of labour movements.

Post revolution French society made all attempts to create a non-religious morality equivalent to traditional Christian one. By implementation of Condorcet’s law in 1792 the influence of old religious cults was diminished. Free liberal thinkers like Karl Lachmann and David Strauss repeatedly found themselves in contradiction with sacred scriptures. When the West European society went through such a cataclysmic transformation since the end of eighteenth century their colonies would not have remained unaffected by such revolutionary concepts.

 

[Joe Shearer]

@Joe Shearer
What is interesting is that throughout his discourses Napoleon seems to have developed a paranoia of all other powers, which perhaps is the reason why certain decision that(we may speculate) may not have been made that would have allowed better passage to India. India was the crown jewel of the British Empire and taking a foothold there may have had high priority with him(in my view) to essentially get the soft underbelly of the Empire.

But then I am still not convinced whether there was a proper plan or rather just an afterthought after the development of the plans to go east.

Incredibly shrewd insight!

However, he thought of Russia as an adjunct power, not as an independent, or as a possible rival, until it was too late.

Do give me the pleasure of revealing the whole gummy thought process, so incredibly comp lex as to be self-defeating, in these excerpts.

 

[SQ8]

Incredibly shrewd insight!

However, he thought of Russia as an adjunct power, not as an independent, or as a possible rival, until it was too late.

Do give me the pleasure of revealing the whole gummy thought process, so incredibly comp lex as to be self-defeating, in these excerpts.

All it took was a Chewing gum. But then again we have a Masters in cunning from the University of Cunning in Cunningham.