A notable fact is that there were very few of his common soldiers and common people who did not stand by him to the last, and who would not have continued the struggle under his trusted and revered generalship, had he elected to fight on. He implored the Provisional Government to give their sanction to this, and had they done so, he has stated that he could have kept the Allies at bay and would have ultimately made them sue for peace. Most authorities declare that this would have been impossible, but his genius as a tactician was so prodigious and unrivalled, his art of enthusing his soldiers so vastly superior to that of any general that could be brought against him, his knowledge of the country on which he might select to give battle so matchless that one has substantial grounds for believing that his assertion was more than a mere flash of imagination, and that even with the shattered, loyal portion of his army, he might have succeeded in changing defeat into a victory which would have changed the whole political position of Europe. He frequently reverted to his last campaign and his last battle at Waterloo, when he was in captivity at St. Helena, and declared he should never have lost it, as his plan of battle at every point was never better devised, and that by all the arts of war he ought to have defeated the Allies; then he would lapse into sadness and soliloquize, "It must have been fate."
In the effort to crush a cause and a nation which had been brought out of the depths of anarchy and raised to the zenith of power by the advent of a great spirit, the British Government of that period made their country parties to the slaughter of thousands of our fellow-creatures, which, in the light of subsequent events, has left a stain upon our diplomacy that can never be effaced, no matter what form of excuse may be set forth to justify it. Never, in the whole history of blurred diplomatic vision, has there evolved so great a calamity to the higher development of civilization.
By taking so prominent a part in preventing Napoleon from fulfilling the eternal purpose for which all nature foreshadowed he was intended, we made it possible for Germany to develop systematically a diabolical policy of treason which has involved the world in war, drenching it with human blood. The Allies pursued Napoleon to his downfall. Their attitude during the whole course of his rule was senselessly vindictive. They gloated over his misfortune when he became their victim, and they consummated their vengeance by making him a martyr. The exile of St. Helena acted differently. When he conquered, instead of viciously overrunning the enemy's country and spreading misery and devastation, he made what he wished to be lasting peace, and allowed the sovereigns to retain their thrones. How often did he carry out this act of generosity towards Prussia and Austria, and who can deny that he did not act benevolently towards Alexander of Russia, when at Austerlitz and Tilsit, he formed what he regarded as lasting personal friendship with the Czar! It is all moonshine to say that he broke the friendship. The power of Russia, Prussia, and Austria were hopelessly wrecked more than once, and on each occasion they intrigued him into war again, and then threw themselves at his feet, grovelling supplicants for mercy, which he never withheld.
Well might he exclaim to Caulaincourt, his ambassador in 1814, when the congress was sitting at Chatillon: "These people will not treat; the position is reversed; they have forgotten my conduct to them at Tilsit. Then I could have crushed them; my clemency was simple folly."
The nations who treated him with such unreasonable severity would do well to reflect over the unfathomable folly of the past, and try to realize, at the present stage of their critical existence, that it may be possible that human life is reaping the agonies of a terrible retribution for a crime an important public in every civilized country believed, and still continues to believe, to have been committed. It is a natural law of life that no mysterious physical force ever dies, but only changes its form and direction. Individuals and vast communities may dare to mock at the great mystery that we do not understand. But it is a perilous experiment to defy its visitations. What incalculable results may arise through taking the wrong attitude towards the great laws that govern our being!
The autocratic rulers at the beginning of the last century were never right in their views as to how the vastly greater image than their own should be treated. They measured Napoleon and his loftier qualities by their own tumultuous limitations, which prevented them from seeing how wide the gulf was between him and the ordinary man. He was a magical personality, and they failed to comprehend it.
Heinrich Heine, the great German writer, who was pro-Napoleon, has told a vivid story of how he visited the East India Docks, while he was in London, and there saw a large sailing vessel with a great number of coloured people on board, Mohammedans for the most part. He wished to speak to them but did not know their language. He was particularly anxious to show them some courtesy if even, as he says, in a single word, so he reverently called out the name "Mohammed." In an instant the countenance of these strange people beamed with pleasure, and with characteristic Eastern devotion bowed themselves and shouted back to him "Bonaparte."
I have no thought, in writing of Napoleon, to draw a comparison between him and the ex-Kaiser and his guilty coadjutors in crime, who forced a peaceful world into unspeakable war. They have been guilty of the foulest of murders, which will outmatch in ferocity every phase of human barbarity. There can be no pardon or pity for them. They must pay the penalty of their crimes, as other criminals have to do. The following letter, addressed by William II to his late colleague in guilt, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, is enough in itself to set the whole world into a blaze of vengeance:—
"My soul is torn," says this canting outcast, "but everything must be put to fire and sword, men, women, children, and old men must be slaughtered, and not a tree or house be left standing. With these methods of terrorism, which are alone capable of affecting a people so degenerate as the French, the war will be over in two months, whereas if I admit humanitarian considerations, it will last years. In spite of my repugnance, I have, therefore, been obliged to choose the former system."
It is hard to believe that a document of this kind could be written by any one that was not far gone in lunacy, but in any case, I repeat it is to be hoped that St. Helena will not be desecrated by sending him to that hallowed abode.