|
Why
I Wrote 'Napoleon & Wellington'
As
a schoolboy I was captivated by the romance of history. I'd
imagine myself as great historical characters, Alfred the
Great one week, Admiral Nelson the next. Once when the teacher
asked my classmates what they wanted to do when they grew
up - and they said they'd like to be firemen, doctors or policemen
- I answered; 'Lord High Protector of England, please sir.'
Of
all the periods of history that I fantasised about, the Napoleonic
Wars came top. The beautiful uniforms, the great causes, the
extraordinary personalities, above all of course the long
litany of bloody battles. By the age of ten I could recite
the names of all the captains and the ships they commanded
at the battle of Trafalgar, complete with the number of guns
on each vessel. History was story-telling, romance, fun.
Then, when A Levels and eventually Cambridge history dawned,
I had to do the unromantic slog through 'real' history - those
social, economic and issue-related topics upon which the world
really turned, far removed from the wonderful battles, assassinations
and inspirational speeches of the history of my youth.
After having spent six years working on the biography of Lord
Salisbury, which was published in 1999 and which won the Wolfson
Prize, I decided to award myself a jeu d'esprit. I'd long
wondered why, since the Emperor Napoleon was clearly a genius,
he had so badly underestimated the Duke of Wellington on the
morning of the battle of Waterloo, writing him off as 'a mere
sepoy general' (i.e. one fit for nothing better than fighting
in India), and boasting that he'd win the battle by lunchtime.
A man of Napoleon's obvious and multifarious abilities must
have known that Wellington was far more formidable than that,
for had he not defeated six of the emperor's own marshals
during the Peninsular War? From that question the premise
of my next book arose. It led to other questions, most importantly:
What did Wellington think of Napoleon? How did their views
about one another change over the years? Did the battle of
Waterloo mark a watershed in their respective viewpoints?
Did Napoleon ever admit his error?
There are of course literally thousands of books, papers,
pamphlets and articles that have been written about Napoleon
in the two centuries since he seized power in France in the
Brumaire coup of 1799, and it is completely impossible even
in one lifetime to read them all, let alone the two years
I had given myself to write this book. Fortunately the glorious
London Library in St James's Square in London had most of
them, so I settled down to explore the subject as deeply as
I could in the time, consulting several hundred before I picked
up my pen.
There, working alone at a desk among the shelves, I rediscovered
the passion that had led me to love history a quarter of a
century ago. Personalities such as Talleyrand, Metternich
and Marshal Soult came back to me, with their schemes and
plots and jokes - this book has plenty of jokes. Everyone
asks writers whether they enjoy their work, and they often
get rather pretentious replies about the 'pain' inherent in
the creative process. I can honestly say that I adored writing
this book and would love to do it all over again.
|
