Pride of Place at Chartwell - Kent Bylines

The full article can be found on Kent Bylines

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Churchill and Napoleon: The Desk at Chartwell

Winston Churchill's Desk at Chartwell with a bust of Napoleon in centre

I first started posting on Churchill and Napoleon in 2009, and it should be of no surprise to anyone who has read any of these posts to find a Sevres bust of Napoleon in pride of place on Winston Churchill's desk at Chartwell. Beside Napoleon is a small bust of Nelson, almost completely hidden, and to the right a statuette of Jan Smuts. See also Byline Times Article

Since I wrote my first post a number of pieces have appeared elsewhere. The Director of the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge, wrote an article in 2012 which placed Churchill's admiration of Napoleon firmly in the Whig tradition, and also attached some weight to Churchill's lifelong francophilia.(1)

More recently Andrew Roberts, a biographer of Napoleon, and more recently of Churchill also, gave a comprehensive presentation on Churchill and Napoleon to a conference on Winston Churchill at which Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, was the unfortunate choice of keynote speaker. To the delight of his audience, Roberts alluded to this at the beginning of his talk :

We have had a series of substantial scholars telling you genuine quotations and true facts about Winston Churchill and we have also had Boris Johnson.(2)

Johnson of course had just written a biography of Churchill on whom he appears to model his own career. He has since become Prime Minister. I am tempted to conclude with one of Karl Marx's oft repeated quotes, from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,

Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

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1. Allen Packwood: France and the French, A Tale of Two Statesmen, Churchill and Napoleon"
2. Andrew Roberts, address to the 32nd Annual Churchill Conference, Oxfordshire England, May 2015. The section on Johnson concluded: "I think Boris's attitude towards facts is very much what one would call a la carte. His speech reminded me very much of a friend of mine on Radio Four who said the trouble with Winston Churchill is he thinks he's Boris Johnson."

Napoleon and Churchill: Thoughts on Two Unrelated Images

Napoleon St Helena 1816, by Michel Dancoisne Martineau

The above portrait has just been completed by Michel Dancoisne Martineau. Aside from his incredible work with the French Properties on St. Helena, Michel has been extraordinarily productive as a writer and an artist.

This painting is based on Sir Pulteney Malcolm's description of Napoleon in the early stages of his captivity, before ill health and bitterness set in.

His hair of a brown-black, thin on the forehead, cropped, but not thin in the neck, and rather a dirty look ; light blue or grey eyes ; a capacious forehead ; high nose ; short upper lip ; good white even teeth, but small (he rarely showed them) ; round chin ; the lower part of his face very full ; pale complexion ; particularly short neck. Otherwise his figure appeared well proportioned, but had become too fat ; a thick, short hand with taper fingers and beautiful nails, and a well-shaped leg and foot. He was dressed in an old threadbare green coat, with green velvet collar and cuffs ; silver buttons with a beast engraven upon them, his habit de chasse (it was buttoned close at the neck) ; a silver star of the Legion of Honour ; white waistcoat and breeches ; white silk stockings ; and shoes with oval gold buckles . She was struck with the kindness of his expression, so contrary to the fierceness she had expected. No trace of great ability ; his countenance seemed rather to indicate goodness (1)

The portrait is surely also unconsciously influenced by what the artist has absorbed from other paintings and from numerous written accounts read over the years. The resultant figure that we see, shorn of contemporary conventions of portraiture, seems so realistic and human. Michel has spoken of the possibility of doing a study for each year of Napoleon's captivity, based on descriptions left by those who witnessed his decline. That would form the basis of a great exhibition for the bicentenary in 1821 and a fitting legacy of Michel's long service on St. Helena.

The second image is a photograph of Chamberlain's short lived wartime cabinet in September 1939, with Winston Churchill installed as First Lord of the Admiralty. I was intrigued by what each of the cabinet did with their hands. Some had their hands in their knees, some had their arms folded, some had their hands behind their back and one had a hand in his pocket. In the centre though sat Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, nearing the end of his Prime Ministership and of his life, his hands clasped in almost prayer like pose.(2) Behind Chamberlain stood Winston Churchill, his right hand thrust in his jacket, in a pose most commonly associated with Napoleon.(3)

Chamberlain's War Cabinet, September 1939

Churchill has appeared a number of times in this blog. A flawed genius, aren't they all, his admiration of Napoleon was well known to contemporaries, and like Napoleon he saw himself as a man of destiny.

I often reflect that like Napoleon, Churchill ultimately failed in his main aim. Napoleon failed to establish his Empire and the primacy of France on the continent. By the end of the second world war it was apparent that Churchill too would fail to safeguard the future of the British Empire and preserve its status as a great power. Although he did not preside over the Empire's dissolution, Churchill lived long enough to see others do it. How ironic that St. Helena, the scene of Napoleon's final years, remains one of the last outposts of that Empire that once bestrode the world.
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1. A diary of St.Helena - The Journal of Lady Malcolm (1816, 1817) containing yje conversations of Napoleon with sir Pulteney Malcolm edited by Sir Arthur Wilson, K.C.I.E. with an introduction by Muriel Kent - Ed. by George Allen & Unwin Ltd - 1929 pages 26-27
2. Within 9 months Churchill was to succeed Chamberlain as Prime Minister, and a few months later, in November 1940, Chamberlain died of cancer.
3. The hand in jacket pose most often associated with Napoleon was apparently introduced around 1750 and signified calm and firm leadership.

Byron, Churchill, Harrow & Napoleon

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, Jacques-Louis David, 1812

Wellington, himself an old Etonian, is often misquoted as saying that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.(1) It is strange that Harrow, Eton's strongest rival, has produced three of the biggest admirers of Wellington's opponent at Waterloo!

The David picture above, some seven feet high, was commissioned in 1811 by the first of our old Harrovians, Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton (1767-1852). Hamilton, a Scottish Whig politician, apparently had a tendency to emphasise the importance of ancient birth, but this curiously did not prevent him from supporting Napoleon, an upstart whose career and credo symbolised equality of opportunity. In 1882 the painting that Hamilton had commissioned was acquired by Lord Rosebery, like Hamilton a Scottish politician of Whig ancestry.

A Liberal Imperialist who briefly served as Foreign Secretary twice, and then Prime Minister(1894-1895), Rosebery's marriage to Hannah Rothschild (1878) enabled him to buy a priceless collection of art, including a number of valuable Napoleon memorabilia, to fill his twelve houses. (2) Rosebery was the author of an excellent study of Napoleon's exile which is still worth reading, and also commissioned the famous portrait of Napoleon by James Sant.

Rosebery was an old Etonian, but whilst the David painting was in his possession it caught the admiring gaze of the second of our old Harrovians, the young Conservative politician, Winston Churchill, a passionate devotee of Napoleon.

This was the first time that Churchill had been confronted by a large life-size picture of his hero. It made such an impression on him that the very next day he wrote to Rosebery about it:

I carried away quite a queer sensation from the Napoleon picture yesterday. It seems pervaded with his personality; and I felt as if I had looked furtively into the very room where he was working, and only just got out of the way to avoid being seen. (3)

I have written a number of posts about Winston Churchill's intense admiration for Napoleon, and a recent reading of Michael Sheldon's Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, the only biography which has focused on his early political career, has shed further light on this:

In 1912, now a Liberal and First Lord of the Admiralty, travelling by train across the Alps to Naples to try to persuade the retired Lord Fisher to help the Government with its naval plans, Churchill waxed so eloquently about Napoleon's crossing the Alps that his wife in the next compartment thought he was reading aloud. (4)

Photograph Churchill sent to Gilbert Martineau in May 1961, now exhibited at Longwood House

In April 1915, critical of the performance of the Navy in the early stages of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign he quoted Napoleon to Admiral Fisher,

'We are defeated at sea because our Admirals have learned--where I know not--that war can be made without running risks' [Napoleon] (5)

Contemporaries were of course well aware of his passion for Napoleon. "He thinks himself Napoleon " said Lord Esher, his superior at the Colonial Office. His friend John Morley, Gladstone's biographer, when told that Churchill was reading another book on Napoleon commented,

He would do better to study the drab heroes of life. Framing oneself upon Napoleon has proved a danger to many a man before him. (6)

Letter from Winston Churchill to Gilbert Martineau May 1961, exhibited at Longwood House

Perhaps the strongest criticism came from a political opponent, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford who described him in a Unionist rally in Hyde Park in 1914 as an enemy of Ulster and a danger to the State, a "Lilliput Napoleon. A man with an unbalanced mind. An egomaniac ..!" (7)

The third of our old Harrovian aristocratic admirers of Napoleon was of course Lord Byron, from whom Churchill drew great inspiration. Both Byron and Churchill kept busts of Napoleon on their desks. Byron seemed in Churchill's mind to resemble his own father whose career had been tragically cut short, and to possess that combination of energy, action, vision and free thinking which he so admired.

Shelden's study suggests that as a young man Churchill very much saw himself as a Byronic romantic hero, a protagonist of domestic reform, determined to change the world for the better, and one whose political career looked to have come to an end with the failure of the Gallipoli Campaign. Churchill though did not perhaps quite look the part, and the book throws new light on his passionate if unsuccessful pursuit of three of the most beautiful women of his time. (8)

Churchill was a great lover of Byron's poetry and could recite long passages from it, and often drew on it as in his famous promise in 1940 of only "Blood Sweat and Tears" which echoed Byron's reference in his Age of Bronze to the war profiteering of the landed gentry who enriched themselves with their "blood, sweat and tear-rung millions". (9)

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1. Others have claimed that what he actually said decades later when observing an Eton cricket match was "There grows the stuff that won Waterloo".

2. The David painting was bought by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation in 1954 and now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

3. Churchill to Rosebery, 4th Sept 1901 p. 45 Michael Shelden, Young Titan, The Making of Winston Churchill, Great Britain, 2014.

4. Shelden pp. 278-9.

5. Winston, Churchill to Admiral Lord Fisher, April 8th 1815. Churchill Archives.

6. Shelden p. 92

7. Shelden pp. 195, 270.

8. Shelden pp 7-10.

9. Apparently when in 1941 Franklin Roosevelt suggested that the allies should call themselves the United Nations Churchill immediately quoted a verse from Byron, "Here, where the sword united nations drew .." Shelden pp 6-7.

In the Footsteps of Napoleon: Madeira, Henry Veitch and Winston Churchill

The 1792 "Napoleon Madeira"

A recent visit to Madeira made me look up the story of Napoleon's brief stay off shore on board HMS Northumberland in August 1815. I first heard of this from a friend who writes a wine blog.

The only person allowed to go on board the Northumberland and meet Napoleon was the then British Consul, Henry Veitch. A Scotsman, born in Selkirk, who spent most of his life on Madeira, Veitch played a very important part in Madeira's somewhat complex history in the first half of the nineteenth century. A man of liberal sympathies, who was also a strong supporter of Madeiran autonomy, Veitch served as Consul from 1809 until 1834.

Henry Veitch (1782-1857), British Consul-General on Madeira

He was suspended from duties in 1828, at the commencement of the Portuguese Civil War, but still retained some influence and was restored by Palmerston in 1831. At least one of the guide books eerroneously says that he was dismissed for calling Napoleon "your Majesty".

Veitch's visit on board was recorded at the time by Admiral Cockburn's Secretary, John Glover

Mr. Veitch, His Majesty's consul, visited the ship, of whom Bonaparte asked numerous questions with respect to the island, its produce, the height above the level of the sea, its population, &c. Mr. Veitch dined on board, and after dinner Bonaparte walked with him and the admiral a considerable time, conversing on general topics, when he retired at once to his bedroom without joining the card-table. (1)

As the story goes Veitch gave Napoleon some fruits and other gifts, and persuaded him to take a pipe of Madeira, a barrel containing around 600 bottles.

Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Funchal

Veitch always claimed that he was never paid for the Madeira, but he was given some gold coins by Napoleon. According to the accepted story, these were buried beneath the foundation stone of the Anglican church in Funchal, the building of which was supervised by Veitch.

Napoleon's own reaction to Madeira was recorded by another Englishman on board the Northumberland, William Warden:

On our approach to Madeira, the hazy state of the atmosphere precluded the possibility of seeing the Island, until we got close between Puerto Santo and the Deserts. The latter rocky island is almost perpendicular; and has some slight resemblance to St. Helena. This circumstance I mentioned to De las Cases, and he instantly communicated it to Napoleon, who had quitted the dinner-table sooner than usual, and joined a few of us on the poop: but the comparison of what he now saw, with his gloomy notions of the place where he was shortly to abide, produced not a single word. He gave an energetic shrug, and a kind of contemptuous smile; and that was all. The sloping front and luxuriant aspect of the island of Madeira could not but excite an unpleasant sensation, when contrasted with the idea he had entertained of the huge black rock of St. Helena. (2)

The barrel of Madeira was never opened by Napoleon, and after his death was returned to the island where it remained with Blandy’s until 1840. Most of it was used to make the famous solera of 1792, but some 200 bottles were filled solely from Napoleon’s barrel. Such bottles are now very rare, and very valuable. One of these was given to that great admirer of Napoleon, Winston Churchill, when he holidayed at Reid's Palace on Madeira in 1950.

Winston Churchill painting at Câmara de Lobos, the small fishing village above which Henry Veitch built a fine house, now the Quinta Jardim Da Serra Hotel

Sir Winston insisted on pouring a glass for each guest, commenting "Do you realise that when this wine was vintaged Marie Antoinette was still alive?".

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1. Napoleon's last voyages : being the diaries of Sir Thomas Ussher, (on board the "Undaunted"), and John R. Glover, secretary to Rear Admiral Cockburn (on board the "Northumberland") p 165

2. Letters written on board His Majesty's Ship the Northumberland and at St. Helena’ (1816), William Warden pp 73-4

Churchill and Napoleon -a postscript

Since my last blog I have had another look at Roy Jenkins's excellent biography of Churchill. Not a single mention of Napoleon - but an interesting comment about Churchill's famous ancestor John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough : as famous for ruthless self-advancement as he was for martial prowess (1).

Not surprising perhaps that the young Winston also had a great interest in Napoleon as well as in his famous ancestor. By all accounts, including his own, Churchill was a young man in a hurry - and there was no better example of what a young man could achieve in the worlds of war and politics than that of Napoleon.

Churchill's many contemporary critics, particularly after the costly failure of the Dardanelles Campaign and his support for intervention in the Russian Revolution certainly made the connection with Napoleon.

The cartoonist Low began caricaturing Churchill in a cast-off Napoleonic uniform, embodying his image as an adventurer with an obsession, like that of Napoleon himself, to conquer Russia. This image of a Napoleonic Churchill was also popular amongst contemporary opinion, as most people viewed him at the time as an emblem of concealed reaction. H.G. Wells also had little sympathy for Churchill's view of the new Communist State, and parodied him as Napoleon in his play Men Like Gods(2)

Take also this mocking article from the New York Times in 1922:

At Harrow, the lad, moody as Napoleon, was alone. ...

others lived within the regulations; he looked - sometimes leaped - beyond them. .. He thus became a soldier of fortune - a buccaneer - using the pen while he wore the sword. And his only real comrade was Bonaparte. True they did not see much of each other in the flesh, but in his library Winston collected hundreds of volumes on the Corsican, and these he has bound sumptuously in the leather with which every book is honored when it enters the archives of the British aristocracy. 'Chatting thus with Napoleon's memory, Churchill unbends; you see him in velvet, even climbing a ladder - only a short one is needed - to reach his companion's loftier pages. To say this is no reflection on Churchill, for Napoleon himself would have had to do it if he had collected so many books about Winston.

What Rosebery has admired in Napoleon is "the last phase." That is because Rosebery is our greatest living expert on abdication, and to him, St. Helena is the holy place, in fact his Mecca. But Churchill values Napoleon chiefly because in his youth he reduced the pretensions of older men. He was one who met experience with explosions. Indeed, there is only one point of strategy on which Churchill differs from his associate and that is but a passing incident - the Battle of Waterloo. This is where Churchill would have been prepared to offer Bonaparte a friendly hint. He would have warned the Emperor that while Wellington was, of course, no Marlborough, he had, like Haig, qualities which we generals of genius must not despise.

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The final verdict on Churchill will be probably that he is interesting but expensive. He works. He thinks. He knows. He acts. He even gambles. If only his ventures had all succeeded, they would have been admirable. In some countries not far from England he would have been by now an Emperor, reigning not - it may be - in Paris, but certainly over Elba. Of England it has to be said reluctantly that she is too stupid to appreciate dictators.(3)

Churchill was of course not alone on the Liberal benches in Parliament in the Edwardian era in his interest in Napoleon. There also for a time sat two who have appeared already on these blogs, Sir Walter Runciman and William Hesketh Lever, who unlike Churchill were not soldiers but creators of very successful business empires. So also has Churchill's friend, Lord Rosebery, the former Liberal Prime Minister and author of the famous book on Napoleon's captivity. (4)

Perhaps though rather than his Liberal affiliations at that time, a far better explanation of Churchill's own interest in Napoleon lay in his military background. A recent study by Gerald D. Swick makes a good point:

Churchill was one of the rare leaders of history, men such as Frederick the Great, Oliver Cromwell, and his own famous ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, who were “born for war,” as Napoleon once described himself. These were war leaders who “instinctively understood it in all of its aspects: strategic, political, diplomatic, moral and psychological.” Moreover, as one of Churchill’s most astute biographers, Sebastian Haffner, has observed: “No one will ever understand the phenomenon that was Churchill by regarding him simply as a politician and statesman who was ultimately destined like Asquith or Lloyd George, Wilson or Roosevelt, to conduct a war; he was a warrior who realized that politics forms a part of the conduct of war. (5)

Churchill and St. Helena

Churchill never set foot on St. Helena. I doubt whether it would have interested him. By the time he appeared on the scene its importance to the British Empire had gone. It was not a place where cavalry could charge or where an officer could play a few chukkas of polo. In later life it could not compete with the attractions of Madeira and the South of France. More than that, the island was associated with the ultimate failure of Napoleon. It was a road to nowhere. Churchill was interested only in adventure, ambition and destiny.

Churchill's friend, the Prince of Wales, later for a short time to be Edward VIII, did make a brief official visit in 1925. In a speech on his arrival in Jamestown he paid his respects to Napoleon's memory in terms of which I would imagine that Churchill, as a life long francophile, would not have disapproved.

I need not assure you of the deep interest with which I set foot on an Island whose name is so well known to all students of History, not only because it was here that were written the closing pages of a great and romantic life story – the story of the Emperor whose mortal remains now lie on the banks of the Seine, where many soldiers of France have found a resting place ... (6)

Like Napoleon though, St. Helena has honoured Churchill in its stamps.

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1. Roy Jenkins, Churchill (Macmillan 2001)
2. Timothy S. Benson Low on Churchill
3. The mocking tone of the article is set from the beginning: When one discusses unseen things with Winston Churchill, one finds that he believes firmly in an all-wise and an all-powerful Being because, despite Darwin, none other could have devised the family of the Duke of Marlborough, which after centuries of uphill effort has culminated at last in himself. P.W. Wilson, Winston Churchill, His Interrogation Mark
4. See blogs on Lord Lever Art Gallery and the blog of 11 February 2008 which among others discusses Walter Runciman and his book,The Tragedy of St Helena and Lord Rosebery's Napoleon: The Last Phase .
5. WARLORD: A Life of Winston Churchill at War Debuts by Carlo D'Este
6. Churchill's friendship and support for Edward VIII during the abdication crisis did little for his reputation in the years leading up to the second world war. Churchill's francophilia is described by Jenkins as a never to be underestimated feature of Churchill's long life. The full text of the Prince of Wales's speech is displayed in the Council Room in the Castle on St Helena. The speech also celebrated St Helena's loyalty to the Empire, and acknowledged the importance of the flax industry on which much of your material prosperity depends.

Churchill and Napoleon

Amidst his many reminiscences about the battle of El Alemain in which he appeared to have played a major part, I recall my history master recommending Churchill's My Early Life. Now, more years later than I care to admit, I have finally read it, and can confirm his judgement.

What an excellent read it is: beautifully written, at times funny, and a fascinating window into the world of late Victorian British Imperialism. I also like my Folio Society edition - in the digital age there are few pleasures greater than handling a finely bound book.

I was aware that Churchill was a francophile and vaguely thought that he was, like a number of his class and generation, an admirer of Napoleon. It was with interest therefore that I read his account of his capture in the Boer War.

Churchill, who had lost his pistol, was confronted by a lone Boer horseman whose rifle was pointed at him.

I thought there was absolutely no chance of escape, if he fired he would surely hit me, so I held up my hands and surrendered myself a prisoner of war.

"When one is alone and unarmed", said the great Napoleon, in words which flowed into my mind in the poignant minutes that followed,"a surrender may be pardoned".

I admit I had to read this more than once. Here is Churchill recording, some 30 years later, that at the moment when he was faced with likely death if he sought to escape, he had thought about what Napoleon would have done, and decided that in his circumstances the great man would have thought that a surrender was pardonable. I wondered whether this was simply another example of the ironic and self deprecatory humour which is a feature of the book, so I decided to fish around a little, and came across this extract from a recent article:

In September 1897, Churchill wrote to his mother from the North-West Frontier of India explaining the force of his ambition: "I have faith in my star--that is, that I am intended to do something in the world." As this allusion and innumerable others to Napoleon make clear, the 22-year-old soldier already imagined himself as the young emperor. During this period, he seems to have been consumed with Napoleon--he planned to write a biography of the French military genius, and the eponymous hero of his 1899 novel Savrola is nothing if not Napoleonic in his ambitions: "Ambition was the motive force, and he was powerless to resist it.... 'Vehement, high, and daring' was his cast of mind. The life he lived was the only one he could ever live; he must go on to the end." Right up to the devastating failure of the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, Churchill was routinely criticized by his colleagues for his ebullient, Napoleonic sense of himself. In September 1913, Lloyd George noted that all politicians are keen on success but most lacked what Churchill possessed in abundance, that is "the Napoleonic idea." After the Dardanelles fiasco, he concluded in a similar vein that Churchill "had spoiled himself by reading [too much] about Napoleon." (1)

Hard to believe that Churchill has become the hero of American neo-conservatives, and that the US President who renamed French Fries "Liberty Fries" had a bust of him on his desk!

Size is Important

One of the things that the British have always held against Napoleon was his height, or rather his lack of it. A recent article in the left wing tabloid Daily Mirror described both Napoleon and President Zarkozy as French pipsqueaks . Napoleon has even been rewarded with his own syndrome, although modern scholars seem to think that he was actually of fairly average height for his time, 5' 6" - 5' 7". So the big question is, how tall was Sir Winston Churchill?
The answer seems to be 5' 7"!

Churchill on Captivity

Finally I was struck by Churchill's comments about captivity. When reading this it is worth recalling that he escaped after less than a month:

Prisoner of war! That is the least unfortunate kind of prisoner to be, but it is nevertheless a melancholy state. You are in the power of your enemy. You owe your life to his humanity, and your daily bread to his compassion. You must obey his orders, go where he tells you, stay where you are bid, await his pleasure, possess your soul in patience. Meanwhile the war is going on, great events are in progress, fine opportunities for action and adventure are slipping away. Also the days are very long. Hours crawl like paralytic centipedes. Nothing amuses you. Reading is difficult; writing impossible. Life is one long boredom from dawn till slumber
Moreover, the whole atmosphere of prison, is odious. Companions in this kind of misfortune quarrel about trifles and get the least possible pleasure from each other's society. If you have never been under restraint before and never known what it was to be a captive, you feel a sense of constant humiliation in being confined to a narrow space, fenced in by railings and wire, watched by armed men, and webbed about with a tangle of regulations and restrictions. I certainly hated every minute of my captivity more than I ever hated any other period in my whole life.

Although there are striking differences between Churchill's brief captivity and the captivity of Napoleon, this passage surely gives some indication of how Napoleon and his companions at Longwood must have felt.

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(1) Paul Stevens, "Churchill's military romanticism"Queen's Quarterly , 2006.