Napoleon Bonaparte died two centuries ago today on the island of St Helena. His final defeat, six years previously, had ended two decades of war between France and Britain. But things might have turned out very differently.
Napoleon’s Grand Armée marching down Whitehall was an eventuality that was planned for. “When an enemy lands, all the difficulties of civil government and the restraint of forms cease; every thing must give way to supplying and strengthening the army, repelling the enemy…” wrote Sir David Dundas in a government memo of October 1796. “The great object must be constantly to harass, alarm, and fire on an enemy, and to impede his progress.”
During the war with revolutionary France, the threat of invasion was a reality for the British — not simply a counterfactual dreamed up by an historian having a bath. What if Napoleon had invaded? What then might have been the consequences, both in the short and in the longer terms?
Napoleon’s conquests of other countries provide a clue — notably so if there was strong resistance — most obviously Spain after it was seized in 1808. Such resistance was certainly planned in Britain. Documents from figures such as Thomas, Lord Pelham, Home Secretary from 1801 to 1803, as well as Dundas’s 1796 memo, indicate plans to contest bitterly any French advance from the landing sites, including using scorched earth policies. (Major-General Sir David Dundas would serve as Commander-in-Chief from 1809 to 1811.)
To this end, and in the face of repeated invasion fears, there was a large-scale mobilisation of males into militia and volunteer units, and these were extensively trained. Numerous barracks and Martello towers were built along the south coast. So Britain would have fought, and would have fought hard.
French troops landed in Wales in 1797 and, on a greater scale, in Ireland in 1798. These incursions were swiftly suppressed by locally-available forces, which suggests that far more French troops would have been required for any invasion to succeed. That, indeed, had been the invasion plan in 1759 and 1779, during earlier conflicts. Any French advance from the South Coast would have been contested in the Weald and then again at the Thames. There was also a reserve centre of government in Northamptonshire, to carry on the fight if London fell.
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SubscribeInvaded by France, we would have become French. So, we would have sued for peace with Germany in WW2.
After taking over the whole of Europe, Germany would have secured the future by forming an economic union called the Union of Europe, the UE. The UE would have the appearance of being democratic but would be controlled by Germany. Britain, part of France but more awkward even than the French would have had a referendum called Frexit and would have been the first to secede from the UE, led by a Monsieur Johnson. Later, Monsieur Johnson would have become very unpopular when he tried to imprison everyone in their homes ‘for safety reasons’.
The people in Britain would then have formed a hobby of pulling down statues of Napoleon and H*t*er in a movement called ‘Cancel Culture’. Previously, trains would have run on time under the French administration but Cancel Culture would ensure that they became always late.
Use of the H word was acceptable yesterday but NOT today.
“And Christ wept”.
This article was a day early , since then we are now at war with France. A country that was unable to secure its own borders three times against German invasion , they certainly have a lot of ‘gaul’
“IF” is not an interesting historical question, to my mind, because “WHAT”, “WHY” and “HOW” are so much more truly of interest and value.
Agreed, this seems to be a very pointless article, which essentiall says “If Napolean had conquered Britain, then he would most likely have treated the place pretty much like he treated other places he conquered”.
if britain had become france, there would be no railways, no industry no global warming and nothing for ikea thunderbox to moan about instead of doing her homework and getting a boyfriend.
But we could have all retired at fifty and spent at least another year on strike!
…and probably have drunk a lot more good wine.
However as Napolean was basically Italian we do like their food ( ice cream etc) & their music ( Halle orchestra ) so he did sort of come here.He also (sort of ) went to Britain as he died at St Helena.Of this country’s various enemies we don’t seem to mind ‘Boney’.
To show my respect, I have sent M. Micron a copy of a book titled “The Bellorophon”
salut
Bellerophon surely?
Although didn’t ‘Jack Tar’ amend it to “Billy Ruffian”?
I believe that we respect him for his astonishing achievements and for his courage, a quality we admire in GB above all others. Roberts’ biography, which was the first one (of hundreds) to factor in NB’s 33,000 private letters (they were at last published in Paris in 2003) was a masterly restatement of the man, warts and all.
Surely Professor Emeritus Black MBE, could have given us something more exciting than this retro essay on the machinations of the Corsican pygmy?
Perhaps another contemporary event that has far more relevance to today’s World? For example an essay on what would have happened if the British had continued the War of 1812, capitalised on the American dissent shown at the Hertford Convention, and ultimately conquered the place.
A renewed attack on New Orleans followed by a campaign up the Mississippi and across to Georgia would have seen the end of slavery, fifty years earlier than its actual demise.
The Peace could have seen a new Kingdom of America, with its own House of Commons and House of Lords. In fact a system very similar to that of Ireland pre 1801. One monarch, Two Kingdoms.
Sadly as we know it was an opportunity missed and our ‘prodigal son’ still proves a well meaning embarrassment.
There’d have been nil appetite for reinstating American colonial status. It was simply too difficult to hold down from 3,000 miles away. Probably some bits would have been added to Canada, but the side with the territorial ambitions was the USA, not Britain.
Yes I agree, even Wellington did think much of the idea.
However there was perhaps a chance with the dissension of the Hertford Convention to regain New England as part of Canada, as you suggest.(by mutual consent off course).
I am always surprised that Wilberforce &Co weren’t more active on this subject.
Sadly by 1831 when de Tocqueville got there it was obvious what an opportunity we had missed.
Still we ‘mustn’t grumble’ there was always India for plunder & profit.
,
Historical what ifs are horrible. Napoleon would have had to have militarised Britain building forts and castles to garrison troops; curtailed the Royal Navy, which would have lost India; swapped other colonies to French dominion; probably squelched the developing industrial revolution in Britain; and ripped apart UK Common Law. Thus creating an impoverished, but most likely very rebellious, land – a country which already knew it didn’t like kings telling it what to do.
I don’t think it would have lasted – much too expensive to govern. Instead, take the plunder and ships, and leave an isolated and blockaded UK to itself. In general, a centralised Napoleonic empire was always going to fall apart – local and national interests always re-assert themselves, and it is too expensive to maintain military control against an antagonistic population.
Napoleonic invasions always failed when he had to occupy, eg Spain, Russia. Instead of supplying his troops properly his armies usually simply pillaged the local countryside.
He’d have won a few battles, not least because in 1805 or so most of the British home forces were militia and none of Britain’s really skilful later commanders was in place – Abercrombie, Moore, Wellington and so on. Probably the most tactically adept ranking officer would have been Banastre Tarleton, of War of American Independence fame, who was a lieutenant general commanding forces in the south-west. Napoleon would have had to hold down every part of Britain, except perhaps north London, by force. It would never have worked, so he’d have had to partition it and go for a multi-year campaign, and look how well that went.
Then as now the quisling left would have supported him but he’d have lost in the end.
Well indeed, but in 1688 a Dutch homosexual, at the head of a mere 12,000 odd Dutch, German and Danish thugs managed to take the place quite easily, with only a very minor punch-up in Reading (Berks) as I recall.
Yes, but he’d been invited.
Not by any legitimate authority.
William & Mary were both cousins. After James 11 had been put on the Eurostar ( for various reason) we then had his two Protestant daughters Anne then Mary.
Usurpation is never legal.
You’re not a Jacobite are you?Jane Austen called the cavaliers ‘wrong but romantic’ and I think that applies to all the Stuarts starting with Mary, Queen of Scots.
Certainly not!
However what is always forgotten is Jame’s earlier career in the Royal Navy was exemplary and this is all too often ignored in the haste to vilify him, as some form of Catholic ogre .
He was brought up in the court of his uncle Louis X1V and admired his absolutism which he wanted to replicate in England-standing army etc and he would have sided with France in any dispute ( like his brother Charles , who however was a bit more discreet) England didn’t want another martyr so just sent him packing.
His brother by the so-called ‘Secret Treaty of Dover’ proved himself to be an outright Traitor, but has escaped censor because he was an enthusiastic, not to say prodigious fornicator.
Frankly I would have thought all Monarchs and wannabe monarchs of the 17th century admired and wished to emulate Louis XIV. Who wouldn’t?
The English Civil War was fought to stop our monarchs having that as an aspiration.When Charles was invited to come back as king the idea wasn’t to go back 40 years.We’ve tried one sort of new tyranny, lets return to the old one.?
It didn’t save the 13 (was it?) Regicides, and left us with all the clap trap, and obsequiousness of Monarchy.
The only alternative to Louis XIV was the Dutch Republic, which we should have aped had we not been so damned biddable.
‘Nobody’s perfect’ Some Like It Hot
Yes indeed, and even the feeble Dutch ‘sold out’ in 1815, to their eternal shame.
So we’ve only good old little Switzerland left!
Was his sexuality the reason he was successful?
Probably not, although the ‘peach like bottom’ of Arnold van Keppel may have been a distraction.
But wasn’t that because the political nation invited him in and because John Churchill and part of the army deserted the Scottish Papist James VI &II?
James certainly had an attack of ‘funk’ as we used to say, which precipitated John Churchill’s desertion.
Otherwise a group of traitors, but hardly the ‘political nation’, pulled off a very successful coup, or regime change as we now wont to say.
He would indeed – the left was vehemently anti-British, then as now, and spent the wars rooting for the enemy and cheering British setbacks. A few years ago a book called “Witnessing Waterloo” was published in which the writer, a leftist Remainer, made plain his utter bewilderment at the British public’s delight in Wellington’s victory. As he sees it, they should have been cheering on Napoleon, the idiots. One is reminded immediately of Mary Louisa Toynbee’s column the other day in which she scolds the electorate for wickedly and stupidly not voting Labour.
To begin with, yes. However, every country annexed to the the French empire rapidly regretted it even if initially enthusiastic. There’s no reason Ireland would have been any exception. Once it had some no-mark Bonaparte sibling on its throne, and was being thoroughly mulcted of food, manpower and materiel to feed the next imperial invasion, a Bonapartist Ireland would have turned into a second “Spanish ulcer” within a matter of months.
Thanks for the book recommendation. I have ordered it, now down to £4.99, which might be a good indication of its value.
When the left doesn’t like something they are “anti British” or “unpatriotic “. When the right doesnt like something they fighting “for the common man” or to restore “ancient rights”. All cant and hypocrisy. The left is entitled to change as much as the right which disguises it under the name }conservatism.
The Right are always pro-British for better or worse. Unlike the Left
Not all the Left it must be said.
Ernest Bevin couldn’t stand the likes of Laski, Miliband, Hobsbawm, Crossman etc.
He ensured we got the Atomic Bomb and that it had
a b***dy Union Jack on it, as he so prosaically put it.
I would have to say I do not really see the point of this type of stuff, especially not when accompanied by such a projection into the future in so many ways.
Did Hitler make a mistake in attacking the Soviet Union before finishing off or coming to an arrangement with Britain (Yes / no / discuss with a little speculation of what might have happened soon afterwards.) Fair enough.
But the last few lines in this article – as fictional entertainment fine, as a serious article, nah.
I think that Professor black’s article is a useful corrective to that of Martin Kettle, which appeared in the Guardian in 2015.
Leftwing intellectual Kettle, former editor of Marxism today, sighed wistfully, when remembering Waterloo, regretting that Napoleon had not conquered Britain in 1815.
kettle argued that Britain would have been transformed into a democratic-republic by the dynastic, dictatorial imperialist Bonaparte, who pillaged the nations that he conquered,whilst also saddling them with monarchs in the form of members of his clan.
Perhaps Kettle’s article was not serious analysis but rather ‘clickbait’
Wilfred Aspinall
Napoleon would have introduced the Napoleonic Code (French legal system) and abolished our British“Common Law” process of law. He did so in all countries taken over. Remember this difference in the legal process has fortunately been the big issue between the UK and the EU with most member states operating under the Napoleonic Code ideology.
That was the fundamental hidden reason why the UK voted in 2016 against EU rules and regulations because they are administered under that process whereas the UK has always vested its sovereignty under our common law system.
Financial Services throughout its main hubs in the world operate under a common law practice.
if Napoleon had invaded and been successful our way of life, doing business and everything else would have materially changed.
Well here we are and better to attract inward investment and be truly GLOBAL BRITAIN
How would this French invasion army have arrived?
“I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea.” – John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent (1801)
Napoleon angered his allies in Europe because of the Continental Blockade, preventing trade between them and Britain. Had he conquered Britain, trade could have resumed and everybody would have been happy.
Napoleon didn’t Care much for British cuisine, he would be halted by Martello Towers manned by Dad’s Army,LDV …