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What if Napoleon had conquered Britain? We avoided the extreme, continental ideologies of the 20th century

Napoleon was not very fond of Britain by the end. Photo: Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images

Napoleon was not very fond of Britain by the end. Photo: Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images


May 5, 2021   6 mins

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.

The French advance would not have had the support of air power, airborne troops or mechanised forces, as was the prospect Britain faced in 1940.

If the country had still been conquered, then the hypotheticals open up further. Napoleon’s hostile attitude to Britain, which he regarded as crucial to the opposition throughout Europe, would scarcely have eased as opposition grew there. There were three options used by Napoleon for the lands he conquered, and none was attractive for those defeated. Incorporation in France was one option. This might seem implausible in the case of Britain, but given that Napoleon adopted this method very widely, including for example for the Hanseatic Towns, Dalmatia and, eventually, the Netherlands, it could well have been adopted here. It would have meant military government.

Secondly, there was the option of installing a member of his family, or a close ally, as ruler, as with Naples, Spain, Westphalia, Sweden (with the Frenchman Bernadotte as Regent) and, for a while, the Netherlands. There was no-one available, however, who would have been acceptable in Britain, and no member of the British Royal Family who could have been brought forward.

Thirdly, as with Austria in 1805 and 1809, and Prussia in 1806, they could leave the existing ruler in power but drastically curtail their position, notably by greatly annexing territory, but also by other constraints. This would scarcely have been easy and in Prussia provoked the anger that encouraged an anti-French reaction in 1812-13. It is difficult to see either George III or the Prince Regent as being willing to accept this role. Moreover, unlike in Spain, where the rift in the royal family had provided the French with options, in Britain the divide between George III and the Prince of Wales had greatly eased by this time.

Napoleon would have needed a quiescent Britain if he was to turn against Continental rivals, but, as in Spain from 1808, a significant occupation army in Britain would have compromised that outcome. Yet Napoleon was not a ruler able to secure quiescence, in large part because, despite the rhetoric of Enlightenment, his rule was oppressive and extortionate. The choice, whether annexed or “allied”, was a poor one. As with Hitler, the inevitable consequences of rule by France was manpower being conscripted and resources seized.

This avarice encouraged opposition which, in turn, was treated harshly. In Lombardy in 1796, Napoleon used summary executions and the burning of villages. Such insurgencies were not new, but they became more important from 1792-1815, in part because the French Revolutionaries and Napoleon transformed, destroyed or took over existing power structures, and also because they accelerated processes of change that much of the population already found inimical.

In particular, French attacks on the Church and Christian practices, let alone full-scale atheistical de-Christianisation, were far from popular, challenging both established beliefs, interests and senses of order, continuity, identity and legality. This helped to contextualise the pressure of meeting onerous French demands for supplies and conscripts for their army, and their seizures of goods and money.

The net effect was a widespread opposition and lawlessness, with, in addition, insurgencies of various types seen across larger areas of Europe as French forces advanced, for example in Calabria in 1806. The French responded with troops, which were referred to as flying columns, by the use of the gendarmerie (mobile armed police), and by recruiting local allies. In 1798, despite what Napoleon saw as the introduction of Enlightenment policies into Malta after he seized it, the island rapidly rebelled in large part due to an insensitive treatment of the Church, which was always a poor strategy, as well as higher taxation. Because of its history of opposition to France, Britain would probably have been far worse-treated.

In the British Isles it is very likely that, had Napoleon invaded, he would have found local allies, with more in Ireland than anywhere else. They would not have relied on these rebels to fight for them in England — that was a job for the Grand Armée — but once established, the French would very much have sought assistance in order to get government to work. Moreover, they would have sought to withdraw most of the invading army in order to operate elsewhere.

What French control would have meant would have varied greatly depending on the particular French government in question, and this would have affected the likely supporters in Britain. The radicals of the London Corresponding Society and other such bodies would have worked with the republican regimes of the 1790s but have found an imperial Napoleon far less conducive.

Nevertheless, convenience, self-interest and ideology would have won him some support, as was also the case with the Kingdom of Italy established in 1805. The longer the new order was entrenched, the more likely that there would have been collaborators, although it would have varied. Some of the poets and painters would doubtless have helped decorate the new regime, but they would have been of scant consequence, as anyone with a suitably neo-classical palette would have qualified. Christian Tories, such as Jane Austen, would probably have remained unpublished.

In the ideological sphere, Napoleon’s support for the reintroduction of slavery and the suppression of Haiti would have caused problems for some of the fellow-travellers, but their consciences would doubtless have been flexible, prefiguring those of the historians who have praised Napoleon. Charles James Fox might have justified co-operation on a needs-must basis, and would have certainly been a convenient figurehead for a ministry. The latter would have probably contained “men of business” but the subordination of mercantile Britain to French interests would have exposed their political weakness as quislings able only to implement dictates determined in Paris.

Ultimately, most of the Whigs would probably have found the reality of Napoleonic rule highly unwelcome. The position of his British supporters would have been greatly weakened by the burdens arising from his expectations of support for his imperialism elsewhere.

The net effect would have been to make British politics far more divisive, both then and subsequently. Conservatism and nationalism would have been closely linked, and the radical tradition associated with harsh foreign rule. In Europe in 1816-48, and to a degree thereafter, there was a divisive political tension that owed much to the legacy of Napoleonic rule. Britain was spared that legacy, and there was only a comparable dissension in Ireland. However much it owed to the silver sea and the Royal Navy, and the security these offered, this difference contributed to British political exceptionalism.

The divisions between liberalism and conservatism that were so bitter in much of Continental Europe in the 19th century — literally then a matter of life and death — played a role in their 20th-century counterparts of Left and Right, as did the legacy of past practices of co-operation or resistance with conquerors. In Britain, things turned out differently, with the centre holding firm for a patriotic affirmation of national sovereignty against extremism of Left and Right. And this owed much to the fact that Britain was able to avoid the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte.


Jeremy Black is a historian and the author of over 100 books.


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Chris Wheatley
Chris Wheatley
3 years ago

Invaded 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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

Use of the H word was acceptable yesterday but NOT today.
“And Christ wept”.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris Wheatley

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’

Giles Chance
Giles Chance
3 years ago

“IF” is not an interesting historical question, to my mind, because “WHAT”, “WHY” and “HOW” are so much more truly of interest and value.

Last edited 3 years ago by Giles Chance
Bertie B
Bertie B
3 years ago
Reply to  Giles Chance

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”.

eugene power
eugene power
3 years ago

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.

William meadows
William meadows
3 years ago
Reply to  eugene power

But we could have all retired at fifty and spent at least another year on strike!

Giles Chance
Giles Chance
3 years ago

…and probably have drunk a lot more good wine.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  eugene power

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’.

Jean Fothers
Jean Fothers
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

To show my respect, I have sent M. Micron a copy of a book titled “The Bellorophon”

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Jean Fothers

salut

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Jean Fothers

Bellerophon surely?
Although didn’t ‘Jack Tar’ amend it to “Billy Ruffian”?

Giles Chance
Giles Chance
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

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.

,

Saul D
Saul D
3 years ago

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.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Saul D

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

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.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

Yes, but he’d been invited.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Not by any legitimate authority.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Usurpation is never legal.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

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 .

Last edited 3 years ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

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.

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

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?

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

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.?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

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.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

‘Nobody’s perfect’ Some Like It Hot

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Yes indeed, and even the feeble Dutch ‘sold out’ in 1815, to their eternal shame.

So we’ve only good old little Switzerland left!

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
3 years ago

Was his sexuality the reason he was successful?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  JR Stoker

Probably not, although the ‘peach like bottom’ of Arnold van Keppel may have been a distraction.

Tom Callaghan
Tom Callaghan
3 years ago

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?

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  Tom Callaghan

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by CHARLES STANHOPE
Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

In the British Isles it is very likely that, had Napoleon invaded, he would have found local allies

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.

with more in Ireland than anywhere else.

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.

Neil Heywood
Neil Heywood
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

Thanks for the book recommendation. I have ordered it, now down to £4.99, which might be a good indication of its value.

crawfordwright
crawfordwright
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

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.

David Boulding
David Boulding
3 years ago
Reply to  crawfordwright

The Right are always pro-British for better or worse. Unlike the Left

CHARLES STANHOPE
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Reply to  David Boulding

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.

George Bruce
George Bruce
3 years ago

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.

Tom Callaghan
Tom Callaghan
3 years ago

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
Wilfred Aspinall
3 years ago

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

Last edited 3 years ago by Wilfred Aspinall
Quentin Vole
Quentin Vole
3 years ago

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)

Pierre Henri
Pierre Henri
3 years ago

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.

Last edited 3 years ago by Pierre Henri
Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago

Napoleon didn’t Care much for British cuisine, he would be halted by Martello Towers manned by Dad’s Army,LDV …