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It was 200 years ago today
Thursday, June 18th, 2015 01:09 pmHere we are, 18 June 2015 and the fact that today is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo means that there are re-enactments and other celebrations going on here and there. To be honest, I think there’s less of it than the media might have us believe, but these events are happening and some sections of the media are rolling out ancient triumphalism and taking the opportunity to poke fun at the French, who are only sending their ambassador to Waterloo, rather than anyone higher ranking.
I’m all for poking fun at the French, but we should remember that they have had the chance over the past 20 years to crow about a long succession of Bonapartist triumphs and haven’t. Of course, that is largely because two centuries on, Napoleon I is still a divisive figure in France, a slightly schizophrenic country that is officially a republic, but one that pretends and often acts as though it’s a monarchy. So apart from occasional grumbles (such as vetoing the Belgian attempt to issue a €2 coin, which was splendidly trumped by the Belgians invoking an odd EU rule allowing them to mint a €2.5 coin), the French have kept quiet.
Makes you wonder why there is such comparative fuss then, in the UK. I mean I know the UK was on the winning side and that the C-in-C of the decisive battle was British (neither the first, nor the last Tory of Anglo-Irish stock to have strong views on a potential European super state) and I know that the UK (or whatever it was called when the wars started) bankrolled most of the 20 year war, but when you look at what was actually achieved…
At the time it was seen as the final defeat of the French Revolution. The Bourbon monarchy was restored (for the second time in as many years), and the clock set back to 1788. It didn’t last in France of course, further revolutions in 1830 and 1848 (and arguably, 1870-71) saw the return to republic, but essentially, the forces of reaction won and the consequences of that are still with us. The Enlightenment – socially and governmentally at least – ground to a halt and didn’t start reclaiming ground until the later Victorian Age, if then. Evolution towards equality, democracy, enfranchisement of the people, stalled for at least two, possibly three generations.
( Boney on the Bellerophon )
William Cobbett, a radical (if hardly left wing) reformer/pamphleteer/journalist of the day wrote: “The war is over. Social Order is restored; the French are again in the power of the Bourbons; the Revolution is at an end; no change has been effected in England; our Boroughs, and our Church, and Nobility and all have been preserved; our government tells us that we have covered ourselves with glory.”
Such is history. I doubt in many ways that a decisive Napoleonic victory (which would have had to have happened well before 1815) would have been a good thing in the short to medium term, but was a Napoleonic defeat necessarily a good thing in the long term?
I suppose the answer to that is largely bound up in how you regard modern France as a political entity.
I’m all for poking fun at the French, but we should remember that they have had the chance over the past 20 years to crow about a long succession of Bonapartist triumphs and haven’t. Of course, that is largely because two centuries on, Napoleon I is still a divisive figure in France, a slightly schizophrenic country that is officially a republic, but one that pretends and often acts as though it’s a monarchy. So apart from occasional grumbles (such as vetoing the Belgian attempt to issue a €2 coin, which was splendidly trumped by the Belgians invoking an odd EU rule allowing them to mint a €2.5 coin), the French have kept quiet.
Makes you wonder why there is such comparative fuss then, in the UK. I mean I know the UK was on the winning side and that the C-in-C of the decisive battle was British (neither the first, nor the last Tory of Anglo-Irish stock to have strong views on a potential European super state) and I know that the UK (or whatever it was called when the wars started) bankrolled most of the 20 year war, but when you look at what was actually achieved…
At the time it was seen as the final defeat of the French Revolution. The Bourbon monarchy was restored (for the second time in as many years), and the clock set back to 1788. It didn’t last in France of course, further revolutions in 1830 and 1848 (and arguably, 1870-71) saw the return to republic, but essentially, the forces of reaction won and the consequences of that are still with us. The Enlightenment – socially and governmentally at least – ground to a halt and didn’t start reclaiming ground until the later Victorian Age, if then. Evolution towards equality, democracy, enfranchisement of the people, stalled for at least two, possibly three generations.
( Boney on the Bellerophon )
William Cobbett, a radical (if hardly left wing) reformer/pamphleteer/journalist of the day wrote: “The war is over. Social Order is restored; the French are again in the power of the Bourbons; the Revolution is at an end; no change has been effected in England; our Boroughs, and our Church, and Nobility and all have been preserved; our government tells us that we have covered ourselves with glory.”
Such is history. I doubt in many ways that a decisive Napoleonic victory (which would have had to have happened well before 1815) would have been a good thing in the short to medium term, but was a Napoleonic defeat necessarily a good thing in the long term?
I suppose the answer to that is largely bound up in how you regard modern France as a political entity.