The Napoleon Options

Alternate Decisions of the Napoleonic Wars

Jonathan North

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781473897847
• eBook ISBN: 9781473897861
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Napoleonic Wars
• Index: History

Compelling fictional scenarios exploring how the Napoleonic Wars could have gone very differently.
 
This compelling alternate history, brilliantly written by fourteen leading international authors, presents the great maybes of the Napoleonic Wars. It focuses on some of the pivotal episodes of these catastrophic wars, giving them a resounding twist, and explores in detail an alternative sequence of historical events.
 
Rooted firmly in reality, and projected from entirely factual events, these dramatic and plausible possibilities are played out as though they actually happened in vivid and dramatic narratives. The Napoleon Options presents ten scenarios spanning the years between 1796 and 1815. These include a full-blown French invasion of Ireland, a very real danger in the 1790s; Napoleon's successful conquest of Egypt and the Middle East; Junot's victory at Vimerio; the Austrian invasion of Bavaria in 1809; the Russian success at Borodino; and what might have happened at Waterloo.
 
Among the additional contributions in this new extended edition are alternative outcomes to the battles of Essling, Austerlitz, Fuentes d Ooro, and New Orleans. These captivating scenarios colorfully illustrate how alternate results might have radically reshaped events, and demonstrate the far-reaching consequences minor changes could have had upon the future course of history.

Chapter 1

‘That Most Vulnerable, and, at the Same Time, Most Mortal Part’1

Paddy Griffith

Lisbon

Today’s date is 16th December 1796. It is a solemn morning in Lisbon, where the officers of the newly-arrived British Mediterranean fleet are burying their leader, Admiral Sir John Jervis, whose fragile health has finally given way to the rigours and disappointments of the service. It is a solemn morning: but not entirely a sad one, since many of his captains have had cause to resent his harsh and often idiosyncratic disciplinary methods. Several had even contemplated challenging him to a duel, and now, as they file stiffly along the narrow streets past the shrine of São Vincente to the British cemetery, they are heartily looking forward to a more relaxed and benign regime under his successor, whoever he may be.

They are aware that there is a strong desire for reforms throughout the navy. Indeed, a greater consideration for the lot of the common sailor is almost a necessity, if outbreaks of sedition and mutiny are to be averted. Such reforms would never have been tolerated by Jervis, and some of the better-read among his officers now find it particularly ironic that the crusty old martinet should be laid to rest only a few plots away from a diametrically opposite type of personality, the satirical and scandalous novelist and playwright, Henry Fielding, who had been buried there in 1754.

Paris

Meanwhile, in Paris the date of this same morning is ‘25 Frimaire Year V’. The weather is frostier and foggier than in Portugal; but the five men at the head of the government, the ‘Directory’, are gathered in the Luxembourg Palace to review the state of national strategy. They note that this year’s campaigning season began with great promise, even though it now seems to have fallen into the doldrums. It is excellent that the final pacification of Brittany and the Vendée has at last been completed by the young, gifted, yet unusually humane, General Louis-Lazare Hoche. The navy has also at last shaken free from its Revolutionary travails, and has successfully taken to the deep Atlantic Ocean once again, with Admiral Richery raiding enemy commerce as far afield as Newfoundland. Then again, Bonaparte has won some dazzling successes in Italy, as has Moreau in Germany – while Spain’s long-awaited military alliance with France has finally forced the British out of the Mediterranean. Prussia has also ended her opposition, and on 5th August she has signed a secret agreement with France which amounts to rather more than benign neutrality. Best of all, the worthless ‘Assignats’ had at last been abolished, and the end of all other forms of paper money now seems to be a realistic hope for the near future. The harvest has been the best for a decade, and the price of bread is falling to a gratifyingly low level.

Only Austria and Britain still remain as blocks to a generalised French victory; but unfortunately their resistance has recently been stiffening. The war in Germany was set back badly by Jourdan’s defeat at Würzbourg on 3rd September, with the French now closely besieged in Kehl, the Rhine bridgehead opposite Strasbourg. Equally, Bonaparte has been bogged down in front of Mantua ever since early June, and his hopes of ultimate success seem to be fading away. Yet still more ominous to the Directors is his obvious presumption that French foreign policy in Italy is his own personal preserve, rather than theirs. He has just established a ‘Cispadene Republic’2 on his own authority and against their wishes, which has rudely reawakened old fears of a military coup in Paris. The Directors are therefore not entirely heartbroken that the supply of conscripts raised by Carnot’s law of August 1793 is now running out, so that the army has fallen to its lowest total strength in four years.

With the army blighted both numerically and politically, it may now perhaps be the turn of the navy to take centre stage. There is a widespread view that the next big French effort should be aimed against Britain rather than Austria, and this has recently been reinforced by the extension of peace feelers from London. A British diplomatic mission under Lord Malmesbury has been conducting talks in Paris since late October, which suggests that John Bull’s resolution is weakening. Now must surely be the moment to make a desperate all-out effort, to secure the last extra cards needed to finish off the diplomatic game. The British themselves appear to be doing this, since they have seized upon Spain’s new alliance with France as a wonderful excuse to purloin Spanish colonies in Buenos Aires, Trinidad, Puerto Rico and elsewhere. General Abercromby has already sailed with orders to capture Trinidad. However, this in turn has advised the Directory that Britain’s defences nearer to home may be correspondingly weakened. The French are experiencing a uniquely strong temptation to strike directly against the British Isles.

Official French policy during the late autumn of 1796 has therefore been to hold fast and hope for the best on the Mincio and the Rhine, but to invade England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales in whatever ways might be practicable, conceivable or even remotely imaginable. Clearly such invasions will have to be conducted as quickly as possible, even though that will limit them to many fewer soldiers than might normally be deemed desirable. For example, one of the ‘remotely imaginable’ diversionary attacks that has already been attempted, from Dunkirk to Newcastle upon Tyne, had to sweep the gaols and POW camps to find the 5,000 men required, and they got no further than Flushing, in Belgium. But at least the main effort from Brest has been entrusted to the finest, purest and most successful general of the Republic: Hoche. He has been commander of the ‘Army of Ireland’ since 1st November and, after many irksome delays, and some last-minute second thoughts in Paris, his energy has now readied the fleet to set sail.

Berehaven

Hoche’s force left Brest on 16th December. He took a strong squadron of seventeen battleships, thirteen frigates, eight other warships, and eight large transports plus some smaller ones for subsidiary stores; 14,750 of his best troops were embarked, together with thousands of muskets to be distributed to Irish rebels upon arrival. The chief of these rebels was also embarked, travelling under the pseudonym of ‘Adjutant General Smith’, supposedly a staff officer to General Chérin. In reality he was Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Ulster Protestant leader of the Society of United Irishmen, who believed in total independence for the whole of Ireland. His organisation was expected to raise up to half a million ‘sworn Defenders’ determined to expel the hated British from Irish soil. The true figure may well have been nearer 50,000, or even less; but against a government field force of around 4,000 cavalry, 2,000 regular infantry, 9,000 fencibles and 19,000 militia – many of whom were themselves believed to be sympathetic to the cause of liberty – the prospects for success still appeared to be excellent.

The departure of the fleet from Brest was fraught with night-time alarms; confusions of orders and navigation; several serious collisions, and the horrific wreck of the 74-gun Séduisant, with the loss of 1,265 men, on hidden rocks in the treacherous Raz de Sein narrows. The admiral had chosen this route as a calculated gamble since, although it was certainly more dangerous than the main Iroise channel, it was thought to be unwatched by the British blockading squadron. The chaos was exacerbated by fog, and an impudent gunnery and firework display provided by the one British frigate captain (Sir Edward Pellew) who was in fact at hand to witness the escape. Nevertheless, it was a gamble which largely paid off, and the main mass of the fleet was able to proceed safely on its way. Only nine ships were eventually found to be missing, apart from the Séduisant, although it was highly embarrassing that one of them, the frigate Fraternité, carried not only the army’s war chest, but also its commander – Hoche himself – as well as the naval commander, Admiral Morard de Galles.

This left the main fleet deprived of its leader. However, his second-incommand, Rear Admiral Bouvet, together with the army’s second-incommand, General Grouchy, soon succeeded in gathering most of the invasion force together and directing it forward on the planned bearing. The Fraternité and three escorts were still out of touch in thick fog on 18th December, and it is now known that her captain, Fustel, had actually accepted the promise of a large bribe from a British secret agent to ensure that it stayed that way.3 He did everything he could to lose Bouvet and Grouchy; and was encouraged by the fact that Admiral Morard was half blind and pessimistic, while Hoche was a total landlubber. But alas for treachery! The fog lifted miraculously on the 19th, at the very moment when the Fraternité chanced to be closest to the main fleet. They could not avoid recognising each other, and so a junction was necessarily made. Captain Fustel promptly ceased his games, for fear of detection, and could never claim his reward.

Thereafter the weather was not at all pleasant during the 250-mile passage to Bantry, and many of the previously brave Republican troops wished that they had been born in some land-locked country that had never heard of either the sea or the wind, let alone such wild ideas as trying to liberate contented green islands from their lawfully-appointed governments. Nevertheless, the fleet arrived at the mouth of Bantry Bay relatively concentrated and unscathed on the 22nd, and General Hoche was incisive in his orders to disembark at the first possible opportunity. If it had been left to Grouchy, who was essentially a staff officer and a waverer, it is probable that nothing would have been done; but the fiery presence of Hoche ensured that the troops evacuated their hated floating penitentiaries as quickly as they could, and regained the solid reassurance of dry, immobile land. There was still, nevertheless, the small problem of an exceptionally fierce easterly gale, mixed with snow, which caused further collisions, loss of spars, and naval trepidation. The fleet could not possibly beat up the length of Bantry Bay itself, but was forced to make landfall near its mouth, in the sheltered water of Berehaven in the lee of Bere Island. The ships were able to start discharging their men and stores on the afternoon of the 23rd, although worsening conditions would extend the operation over three days.

General Humbert, commander of the vanguard Légion des Francs, made the first landing at the head of a small battalion of combined grenadiers. They scrambled ashore over the rocky beach just south-west of the village of Berehaven. Their powder was spoiled by the surf, and eight of their men were drowned. But their invasion was not noticed by coast watchers until after they had reached land and organised themselves into their proper companies. They shook out into a marching column on the main road, complete with unfurled flags for both the French and Hibernian republics. Then, as they advanced, they were met by a dozen yeomanry under the command of Mr O’Sullivan of Cooliah, a Catholic landowner of considerable local importance. He cursed his ill luck that he had been unable to contest the landing itself, when the French would surely have been vulnerable to a determined charge; but now he believed (mistakenly, in the event) that he should play for time. On the previous day, as soon as he had identified the newly-arrived shipping as French, he had already ordered the escape of his own family, and the evacuation of all livestock from the coastal areas. Mr Richard White at Bantry had been alerted – and through him the authorities in Cork4 – but now a second messenger had to be sent to confirm the fact of a landing, and a third to warn his neighbours to the north-east: Lord Kenmare and Maurice O’Connell (uncle of Daniel O’Connell, then only twenty-three years of age, who would later become a famous patriotic politician). Snapping out instructions for his two most trusted servants to ride off on these missions, O’Sullivan waved a white handkerchief over his head and rode cautiously forward to meet the French. General Humbert halted his grenadiers and accepted the deputation with courtesy, although the essence of his message was uncompromising, and little softened by a well-meaning but nervous interpreter. The whole of County Cork was hereby put under military requisition, and would henceforth owe its loyalty to the newly-founded Hibernian Republic, which was recognised and supported by the full power and majesty of France. O’Sullivan was dryly congratulated upon his good fortune at becoming the very first citizen of the new state; but it was regretted that he would have to be detained, as a guarantee for the good behaviour of his locality. Thus did Berehaven and its diminutive harbour become available for the unloading of the remainder of Hoche’s armament.

From the military point of view this was the worst of all possible landing places – some sixty kilometres by execrable roads from Bantry town, which was itself ninety more kilometres short of Cork. It was almost the furthest spot in the whole of Ireland from anywhere of importance, and a landing in the sheltered estuary by Glengarriff and Snave Bridge, at the head of the bay, had been greatly preferred in the original orders. Yet from the naval point of view the almost indecent haste of this disembarkation was embraced with gratitude. The captains were anxious to remove their ships from the dangerously rocky coastline as quickly as possible, not to mention from the expected early arrival of the British fleet.5 In the event naval opinion seemed to be vindicated by the weather. When the winds had abated on the 23rd there was admittedly a short period during which a landing might otherwise have been attempted a little further to the east – but within twenty-four hours the gales recommenced with even greater ferocity than ever, sometimes reaching hurricane force; and they kept blowing for over a week. If Hoche had not insisted on landing where and when he did, he would either have been swamped in his landing craft, or would have been forced to call off any attempt at a landing at all.

As a strategist he could certainly congratulate himself on getting some 12,000 men and four field-guns ashore as expeditiously as he did; but as a local commander his situation was considerably less happy. His army had to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day disentangling itself from the ships and re-acquainting itself with dry land. It could draw few supplies from the fleet, which had been under-victualled from the very start. Its billets in Berehaven were far from ideal and the inhabitants were sullen, incomprehensible and, worst of all, poor. They had little by way of specie, shoes or grain that could be put to the army’s use, and the promised ‘half million enthusiastic Defenders’ were remarkable only by their entire and total failure to materialise. Precisely six could be raised from the village, and even they expressed sorrow that their new comrades in arms were the same atheistic barbarians who had recently pillaged Rome and humiliated the Pope. Very few cattle, sheep or horses could be procured, as a result of the general British contingency plan to evacuate them to the interior as soon as any French ships were sighted. All the horses Hoche had brought with him were required for transport, although the only path inland proved to be a ‘butter road’, too rough and narrow for any but pack animals and the smallest farm carts. The field-guns and the spare muskets for Irish volunteers had to be left behind by the harbour-side under the guard of an artillery lieutenant and a few soldiers, in the somewhat precarious hope of eventual shipment up the bay in fishing smacks once the weather should improve. Nor could Hoche mount more than a small troop of his cavalry, which was barely enough for the most vital scouting and liaison tasks, leaving no ability to forage widely around the country. He was thus committed to keeping his little army concentrated and mobile, since to stay in one place would surely have led to starvation.

Nevertheless, early on the morning of Boxing Day Hoche and ‘Mr Smith’ briskly reviewed and harangued the troops, then set them marching out along the awkward little butter road to Bantry, with the mountains rising steeply to their left and the easterly gale flailing sleet into their faces from the front. On the afternoon of the 27th they found some relief in the charming and sheltered vale of Glengarriff,6 although they also there encountered the first military resistance. Lieutenant Gibbons and Mr White from Bantry had brought forward half a squadron of cavalry and two companies of militia. These boldly opened fire, their optimism unmixed with accuracy, from a collection of stone farm buildings on the outskirts of the town. Humbert, still in the van, took one quick look and sent forward the same grenadier battalion that had arrested Mr O’Sullivan in Berehaven. It now repeated the procedure for Mr White, for a loss of three men killed on each side, and perhaps three dozen injured. Over fifty invaluable horses fell into French hands, and the total number of citizens of the nascent Hibernian Republic was more than doubled from the population of the town. The army enjoyed its first truly comfortable night since it had left Brest, spiced up by its first truly significant pillaging, when it found Mr White’s fine castle and summer residence on the far side of the town. To be sure, his renowned wine cellar in Seafield House, Bantry, would remain safe and unscathed throughout the campaign; but the bitterest loss he suffered through his defeat was the cancellation of the peerage that had long been exciting his hopes.

Hoche sternly resisted the pleas of his subordinates for a day’s repose in Glengarriff, and by the next evening his army had pressed on past Snave Bridge and Ballylickey crossroads, and inland up the back road heading towards Inchigeelagh, Macroom and, ultimately, Cork. By their third hard day on the road the troops were starting to remember all the little routines, habits and mental attitudes – with their compensations as well as their hardships – which the veteran adopts on campaign. This was their period of retraining and acclimatisation, from which sound morale would quickly be built. They all knew that more testing times lay ahead in the field of military conflict, but it was at least a comfort to know that the v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Preface to the Extended Edition
• The Contributors
• Chapter 1 ‘That Most Vulnerable, and at the same time, Most Mortal Part’ : Paddy Griffith
• Chapter 2 Bonaparte’s Campaign in Egypt : Charles S. Grant
• Chapter 3 Holding the High Ground: The Battle of Austerlitz, 1805 : Martin Mace
• Chapter 4 Junot’s Victory in Portugal, 1808 : Philip Haythornthwaite
• Chapter 5 Decision on the Danube: The First French Crossing of the River in 1809 : Kevin F. Kiley
• Chapter 6 Decision in Bavaria: The Austrian Invasion of 1809 : John H. Gill
• Chapter 7 If ‘Boney’ Had Been There: The Battle of Fuentes d’Oñoro, 3-5 May 1811 : John Grehan
• Chapter 8 The Russians at Borodino : Digby Smith
• Chapter 9 The Race for the Borisov Bridge : Jonathan North
• Chapter 10 Victory at Kulm, The 1813 Campaign : John G. Gallaher
• Chapter 11 The Death of a Dream: The Battle of New Orleans, 1815 : Gareth Glover
• Chapter 12 What if Constant Rebecque Had Obeyed Wellington’s Order : Peter Hofschröer
• Chapter 13 Napoleon and Waterloo : Andrew Uffindell
• Chapter 14 Ambush at Quatre Bras : Colonel John R. Elting
• Appendix Order of Battle of the French Forces for the Invasion of Ireland, 1796-1797
• Plate section