After reviewing the career of an historical person, we desire to form an estimate of his character and abilities. But to find a measure for great men, that is, men whose energy of action and whose sphere of action have been exceptional, is much more difficult than is usually supposed; and how extremely difficult it is in the case of Napoleon may be judged from the wide divergence in the estimates, whether of historians, such as Thiers on the one side and Lanfrey on the other, or of intelligent and impartial contemporaries, such as Goethe or Hazlitt on the one hand and Jefferson or Southey on the other; it may be judged, too, from the fact that no clear verdict of posterity has yet been, or seems about to be, pronounced upon him. He lends himself readily to unmeasured panegyric or invective, but scarcely any historical person is so difficult to measure. It would not be in accordance with the modest plan of this volume to offer a formal estimate, or in other words some suggestions as to the way in which such an estimate should be formed, may be acceptable.
    The series of Napoleon's successes is absolutely the most marvellous in history. No one can question that he leaves far behind him the Turennes, Marlboroughs, and Fredericks; but when we bring up for comparison an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Caesar, a Charles, we find in the single point of marvellousness Napoleon surpassing them all. Every one of those heroes was born to a position of exceptional advantage. Two of them inherited thrones; Hannibal inherited a position royal in all but name; Caesar inherited an eminent position in a great empire. But Napoleon, who rose as high as any of them, began life as an obscure provincial, almost as a man without a country. It is this marvellousness which paralyses our judgement. We seem to see at once a genius beyond all estimate, a unique character, and a fortune utterly unaccountable.
    There can indeed, be no question that the personality and the fortune were both alike surprising. But it is only the combination of both which is altogether overwhelming. The first step towards a calm judgement is to separate the factors. I propose then to inquire how much and in what manner Napoleon was favoured and shaped by circumstances, and afterwards to consider hoe much remains to be explained by personal idiosyncrasy.
 
 

There are times and these are the most usual, when the most wonderful abilities would not have availed to raise any man from such a station as that in which Napoleon was born to the head of affairs. But the last years of the eighteenth century formed an exceptional period, in which such an ascent was not only possible in France, but—and this is carefully to be marked—was quite possible without very extraordinary abilities. The particular part of Napoleon's career to which the Alexanders and Hannibals can show nothing parallel is, in fact just the part which, in that exceptional time, was within the reach of an ordinary man.
    The Revolution had broken the fixed mould in which European history had run for a thousand years, and had introduced a different sort of government, strange in the feudal world, but well-known both to antiquity and to mediaeval Italy, and not difficult to comprehend—Imperialism. It is a form which appears almost invariably when the growth of a great army coincides with the downfall of an ancient government. For this reason it had appeared in England, when a standing army had for the first time sprung up at the moment of the humiliation of the Stuart monarchy. For this reason it appeared now in France, when at the moment of the fall of the Bourbons the nation found itself plunged into an unprecedented war. Nothing short of a firmly established government can hold a great army in check; where that is wanting, the army assumes the place of government at once and without resistance, and this is Imperialism. Its first form is usually republican, a clique of officers exerting a secret control over the Supreme Assembly. Such was the system between 1648 and 1653 in the Long Parliament, such at Rome in the ten years of the Triumvirate, and such in France under the Directory, especially in the years between Fructidor and Brumaire. But in all these cases alike, the system speedily became monarchical. Caesar pushed on one side alike the Senate and Pompey, Cromwell the Long Parliament and Fairfax, and finally Bonaparte dismissed first the Directory, and then Moreau. When this change takes place the monarch created is always a successful general, and it is under this system that the fortunate adventurer is most frequently seen. The rise of Bonaparte was not very much more surprising than that of Cromwell, and in the classical age of Imperialism under the Roman Emperors it repeatedly happened that a rude soldier found himself master of the world, as in fact the real founder of Imperialism, Marius, had done.
    Thus the miracle of Bonaparte's rise to power lies not so much in his personality as in the time. The tradition of a thousand years had been deserted, and what during that time had been unheard of was now possible and natural. We have seen that before Bonaparte returned from Egypt, other generals had been sounded with a view to a change in the Constitution. Had he been detained a little longer on the other side of the Mediterranean or had he been captured by an English cruiser we can scarcely conceive but that a revolution like that of Brumaire would nevertheless have taken place, and that it would have elevated some other adventurer to supreme power. Some officer of considerable military ability, but otherwise not extraordinary, would then have stood forth as the most powerful man in Europe. Even if he failed, he too would have appeared to have a marvellous fortune. Perhaps a series of such adventurers would have arisen, like that of the American Presidents. Assuredly none would have taken a position like that of Napoleon, but a Moreau or a Bernadotte might have reigned with success and have won great victories. It is even most probable that not one would have failed so disastrously as Napoleon did in the end, and that Belgium and Savoy and the left bank of the Rhine would not have been lost to France.

When it is said that Bonaparte by his genius gave France an ascendancy in Europe, the chronological succession of events is neglected, and far too much is attributed to Bonaparte, far too little to those who came before him. The war had raged for four years when Bonaparte began to command armies. Without the help of Bonaparte France had defeated and dissolved the Coalition, without his help she had become an ascendant Power, had conquered and parcelled out in departments Belgium, Savoy, and nice, had occupied the whole left bank of the Rhine, and had reduced Holland to complete dependence. It was in this time also, and without the help of Bonaparte, that an unparalleled military power had grown up in France, that a new military system had been devised, and a new period of military glory introduced. This wonderful revolution had been made before he appeared; the military power was already becoming supreme, the age of conquest was already begun when he first became prominent. Jourdan, Pichegru, Moreau, Carnot, not Bonaparte, directed the change. During the next four years the process continued without interruption; Fructidor (1797) may be said to have definitively established the military government; Lombardy, Central Italy, Switzerland, and the left bank of the Rhine were added to the practical conquests of France, and the Germanic system received a fatal blow. This, too, happened before Bonaparte rose to the head of affairs; he had indeed a share, and the greatest share, in these changes; but much was still done without him; he did not give the impetus, but followed an impulse which had been given by others; had he never appeared, the character of government in France, and the position of France in Europe, would have been substantially the same. Even after Brumaire, it is to be remarked that the victory which decided the war and gave peace to the Continent was not won by Bonaparte but by Moreau.
    In his first years, then, Bonaparte is borne on a mighty tide. During this period we can see plainly that his career is only unprecedented, because an unprecedented convulsion had introduced it. Revolutionary times afford the occasion of exceptional careers, and if Napoleon's career was not only exceptional but absolutely unique, it was because the French Revolution also was unique.

 A similar remark is to be made upon the unparalleled series of triumphant campaigns which followed his assumption of supreme power. The Revolution had created a vast machinery both of military and political power, which now fell ready-made into his hands. In his position, the same amount of energy would produce vastly greater results than it could produce in the hands of Frederick or Marlborough. The genius of a leader is to be measured not so much by the actual results achieved as by the difficulties overcome. When we follow William III. in his contest with Louis XIV., Frederick in the Seven Years' War, Washington in the American War, and Wellington in the Peninsula, we remark how they were overmatched, how insufficient were the means at their disposal, and then how they supplied all deficiencies from the resources of their own genius. The case of Bonaparte after Brumaire is opposite to these. Never have means so vast, nor such absolute control over those means, been granted to any modern ruler.
    Look first at the means. France had in seven years of war gained a position of prodigious military advantage, and controlled the Continent as no Power had done before. Moreover, in these years she had formed the habit and the taste for war on a large scale. The nation had adapted itself through necessity to the practice of putting vast armies into the field; the soldiers were inspired with heroism through the belief, which at the outset had been well grounded, that they were devoting themselves to their country, and through the belief, which was not entirely groundless, that they were the champions of great principles. By seven years of effort and hardship their valour had been tempered, they had acquired discipline. We may search history in vain for another military instrument of such efficiency and potency as this French army.
    Remark next how unreservedly this instrument was now put at the service of Bonaparte. In most states war is felt as a burden, and borne with pain and reluctance; it involves taxation, which oppresses the population; it meets with opposition in assemblies and parliaments. In most states the skilled general is in the position of a servant, and has to render account either to a jealous sovereign or to a suffering and impatient community. Remember only how William was thwarted, how Marlborough was watched, calumniated, and at last overthrown, by the Opposition. As much as Napoleon's armies exceeded in number and efficiency those of Marlborough, so much was his authority greater, more easily and safely wielded.
    A number of causes had worked together for a long time to create in France an unlimited military authority. It was a country in which for a century and a half government had been despotic, and for a century great military enterprises had been undertaken, and had been unboundedly popular so long as they were successful. In the Revolution despotism had only taken a new shape, and it had become more energetic than under the Bourbons. It had been since 1793 the despotism of a military dictatorship, justified at the outset by the pressing military needs of a country invaded by a coalition, and pressing especially upon the army; where Houchard, Custine, and Beauharnais, had fallen by the guillotine. Just before Brumaire, the urgent need of 1793 had reappeared, for after a long course of victory the Republic had suffered reverses, and in 1799 France had been a second time threatened with invasion. The iron sceptre thus forged in the revolutionary fire now fell into the hand of Bonaparte, and for a long time all Frenchmen were glad to see it in such hands, for they could believe him to be more capable than Carnot, while he abjured, at the moment that he took it into his hands, all the excesses of Jacobinism. Meanwhile, parliaments had been discredited in France by ten years of failure. After they had been decimated and purged in as many revolutions as there were months in the revolutionary calendar, the time was come when Frenchmen desired to hear no more of them. Their debates were now no longer reported, and hence it was that at the moment when the mightiest and most disciplined army was put absolutely into the hands of the greatest military specialist, who was at the same time head of the State, the constitutional assemblies, which might have criticised his plans of war or checked his war budgets, were practically silenced.
    The result is that, whereas other great generals have exhibited what great things can be done by small means, the career of Bonaparte after the beginning of his reign shows, on the other hand, the utmost extent of the performance possible to genius provided with unlimited means and facilities. This remark does not fully apply to his earlier campaigns, including that of Marengo; nor, again, does it apply to the defensive campaign of 1814; but it applies to the whole unparalleled series of triumphs that began with Ulm and ended with Dresden.

It has been frequently repeated that only in four of such a long and crowded series of battles was he defeated – that is, at Eylau, Aspern, Leipzig, and Waterloo; and it is added that of these defeats the first two were doubtful, that at Leipzig he was but ‘pressed to the ground by thronging millions,' and that at Waterloo the fault lay with Grouchy, who mistook his orders. By representations such as these (not strictly correct; see page 207) an impression is produced that in war at least his genius was unerring and unlimited, that it could even control fortune and that it could but just barely be frustrated by the mistake of a subaltern, or by sheer impossibility of the undertaking.
    This is an illusion produced by the popular habit of regarding a war as consisting simply of a series of pitched battles and each battle as a sort of duel between two commanders. The best military judges do indeed regard Napoleon as one of the greatest of tacticians, and as possessing in the highest degree the coup d'oeil, promptitude, presence of mind, by which battles are won. But when in a very long series of battles a commander meets with scarcely any defeats, the most obvious inference surely is that he had very good and highly disciplined troops. In many of his campaigns, especially those of Marengo and of Austerlitz, the admirable efficiency of the army formed in the Revolution can be clearly discerned. Bonaparte reaped the benefit of the period of war which preceded his advent, and this benefit he enjoyed till he threw away in Russia that incomparable army. But a war consists of much more than battles, and indeed we should very much underrate Napoleon's own military genius if we regarded him as a winner of battles. Compared with other generals, he shows his superiority less in tactics than in strategy and in the comprehensive war-statesmanship by which a campaign on a large scale is planned. But if the highest genius may be displayed in strategy, the greatest mistakes may also be made in this department. It follows that a commander may suffer defeat, and that on the greatest scale, without personally losing battles; nay, that he may win all the battles of a campaign and yet lose the campaign itself.
    We have only to apply this principle to Napoleon, and the illusion of his invincibility will disappear. We see in him a great strategist than any that had appeared before him, but a strategist capable of great errors and failures. He achieves the most striking successes, but he also suffers the most complete and disastrous defeats, and his defeats are not less numerous than his successes. The most unfortunate general that ever lived, a Xerxes, a Darius, or Napoleon's own nephew, never underwent such a succession of crushing disasters as Napoleon in the years 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815. And if we look more closely we shall see that these were not his only failures, but that he suffered others scarcely less complete in earlier life, which, however, are little remarked, because he succeeded in covering the memory of them in a blaze of glory. The glory of Austerlitz, for example, covers the total failure of his plans for the invasion of England, plans devised by himself, and the failure of which ought to lower our opinion of his good fortune as much as the success of them would have heightened it – plans which ended in the absolute ruin of the French naval power. In like manner the successful coup d'etat of Brumaire and the splendid opening of the Consulate conceal from our view the failure of the Egyptian expedition. Yet what failure could be more unrelieved and disastrous? It ended simply in the re-establishment of English supremacy in the Mediterranean, from which sea the English fleets had been withdrawn, and in the acquisition of Malta by England. Yet this was Napoleon's favourite enterprise, impressed more than most others with the mark of his peculiar genius. Moreover, when we inquire into the cause of the failure we discover not some impediment that could not reasonably be anticipated, but an ordinary miscalculation vitiating the whole design – namely, an extravagant under-estimate of the naval power of England.
    All these considerations taken together show that Napoleon's career, though the most extraordinary on record, does not differ in kind from other great careers, but only in degree; that we need not regard it superstitiously, as though either fate were specially interested in it, or something more than mere genius, some supernatural valour and wisdom, were displayed in it. The explanation of the enormous scale of magnitude which prevails in this career is to be found in the French Revolution and in the turn which it had taken. An unprecedented convulsion made the waves run high, and it so happened that all the wild forces and passions let loose in the Revolution had converted themselves into military force. An unparalleled army was created, and was then handed over, along with the government of a great European state, into the hands of a consummate military specialist and a most energetic character. He wielded this weapon with absolute control, and the result was a series of gigantic military enterprises, conducted always ably, but for the most part also recklessly, and resulting in some prodigious triumphs, and then in a series of still more prodigious disasters.