No More Napoleons

Footnotes to myself

I’ve kept reading notes for years - quotes, ideas, etc. Some make it into my writing, but most don’t. This series is a way to use the leftovers; not quite reviews, not quite summaries - just what I underlined, and why. Enjoy.

No More Napoleons, by Andrew Lambert

A new release, which I gratefully received a review copy of from the publishers.

I asked because I had been thinking, inspired in part by the long series on an English First foreign policy by Owen Edwards, what our modern foreign policy should look like. It needs radically reshaping, not only to represent our actual interests, rather than those of our allies, but so that we can match our ends to our means. Without proper thought and careful management we are in for another long century of humiliation on the world stage; though of course we must, first, put our own house in order.

This book examines the underlying continuities of British policy and strategy in the century between the end of the Napoleonic conflicts and the outbreak of the First World War. Although essentially a historical case study, using political, strategic, technological and cultural arguments to analyse policy decisions, the approach has been influenced by concepts drawn from political science, ‘Ordering’ and ‘Offshore Balancing. Although their origins lie in contemporary American debates, they frequently reference British experience as a great power between the early eighteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries.’ While attempts to read across from a British past to the American present and future rarely survive serious historical analysis, these political science models make a significant contribution to the analysis of British choices, suitably recalibrated for a relatively weak insular seapower state with a global maritime empire.

One of the reasons I like doing book reviews in this format is… how could I possibly have provided a better summary of this books

After 1815, Britain used a combination of ‘Ordering’ and ‘Offshore Balancing to secure critical but largely negative interests in Europe, without creating a permanent military commitment, while attempting to address the immense debt burden incurred in unlimited ‘total’ wars between 1793 and 1815 through domestic economic growth and expanding global trade. This was a conscious choice, driven by longtime colleagues Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh and Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington - all protégés of Pitt the Younger. Their primary aim was the permanent removal of France from Antwerp, Vlissingen and the Scheldt estuary, the only location from which a full-scale invasion of England might be attempted. Having no desire for continental territory Britain was able to coordinate pan-European responses to French aggression and shape the security architecture of a post-War settlement.

See above… this is the main contention of the book, a solid an interesting idea that Lambert argues well - although the early stages of it are a little repetitive around establishing, re-establishing and re-re-establishing the central themes he lists here.

This approach was developed by economist MP David Ricardo, who urged reliance on rapid economic growth, unleashed by repealing taxes on consumption and manufacture, to reduce the debt burden in the medium term. These arguments were developed and linked to retrenchment in Irish MP Sir Henry Parnells On Financial Reform of 1828, with revised editions in 1830 and 1831”’ Parnell argued for retrenchment: cutting government expenditure would limit the need to tax economic growth, for example import duties on industrial raw materials, thus stimulating growth, and consumption.

Furthermore, there was a strategic imperative;

Retrenchment is also necessary as a preparation, in order to protect the finances of the country from the destructive effects of the funding system, whenever a new War shall take place; for in proportion as our peace establishment is low, the difficulty of procuring the additional funds which a War will require by War taxes will be less.

Parnell believed that inadequate retrenchment left the Treasury ill-equipped to meet the economic shock of War, when extensive borrowing became necessary. Cutting peacetime defence spending would enhance the credibility of government bonds and was, therefore, an essential preparation for War.

One can argue that retrenchment following World War One merely allowed for part Two, and that retrenchment following World War Two might have been a good idea - had what remained of the finances been protected, instead of rolling the war socialism into the peace socialism of Attlee.

Britain survived almost two decades of unlimited or ‘total’ War by creating a powerful warfare state to mobilise and maintain unprecedented levels of naval and military power, funded by immense loans and extraordinary taxation. Britain also funded and equipped allied powers. It could endure these burdens because it did not create a mass conscript army, the standard instrument of European War, exploiting insularity, limited War and a maritime strategy of sea control, economic warfare and power projection to counter Napoleonic armies and ‘decisive’ land battles. Liverpool recognised that Napoleon’s Russian gamble might create opportunities to re-establish European order, restore balance and restrain potential hegemonic powers. Wellington advised him the invasion would fail.

Was there ever a time when Old Nosey didn’t’ have the best of Boney? I have never understood Brits who find Napoleon a greater figure than Wellington. Perhaps he didn’t have much of the whirlwind about him, but he is the model of Santayana’s steady and sane oracle, who ‘carries his English weather in his heart wherever he goes’.

Liverpool favoured a European settlement based on a continental balance of power, without a standing British military presence, cooperating with the other great’ powers, Russia, Prussia and Austria, before admitting a rehabilitated French nation state, purged of republican and Bonapartist aggression, to the Concert of Europe. British diplomacy and economic leverage prevented any discussion of the contentious subject of maritime economic warfare at the Vienna Congress, and the Anglo-American negotiations at Ghent. The British economic blockade broke the economy of Napoleon’s empire, and crushed that of Russia, prompting Napoleon’s ill-fated campaign to force Russia back into the ‘Continental System’ - a counter-blockade of Britain.

Although historians have noted Liverpool’s ability to harmonise the elements of conservatism and conciliate the bedrock of pre-1832 politics - the independent gentlemen who normally voted with the King’s ministers - few recognise the deeper import of his politics.

William Hay’s sophisticated biography stresses Liverpool’s search for security alongside Europe, without binding commitments, or reactionary intervention. He shaped the grand strategy and diplomacy of the post-Napoleonic era, making the Wellington system of 1814-15 durable. Liverpool began the transition from a high-tax warfare state to a low-tax, free trade economy to sustain national credit, reduce the national debt, fund major security upgrades and manage political change. The men he appointed to key defence posts: Wellington, Thomas Byam Martin and George Cockburn, sustained the strategic bases of his system for almost four decades, decades in which British economic development would not be troubled by a continental War. Belgium remained outside France, while France, Russia and the United States never allied against Britain. The system’ endured.

Another biography to add to the ever-expanding list of historical figures I don’t know enough about. If only the world would stop turning, I would have enough time to catch up.