What was Napoleon doing on St. Helena?

[removeduser_7456288]

Did he just suffer the pain of his gastric cancer for 6 years?

[napoleon boneaparte]

He did have the occasional English lesson, though he never managed to master it. If I recall correctly, he spent most of his last days reading, catching up on news from France and entertaining guests at Longwood.

[Cyclops]

He chatted and charmed as many of the locals as he was allowed to fraternise with ( typically he loved to tease and talk with some of the locals children, he could be a very nice chap when he wanted to), IIRC he had a sorry little affair with one of his loyal attendants wives, and penned some self serving, probably propagandist, occasionally definitely innacurate but eminently quotable memoirs.

That twit Hudson tried to make his life hell, he wasn't put there to torture the Corsican Ogre, he was just a dimwit colonial functionary without the imagination to be anything other than a .

Napoleon on would squabble with Hudson, probably to pass the time more than anything else.

[Diocle]

Who knows? What it's sure it's that he spent most of the time in St. Helena sleeping with the wives of the British personnel around him, all in all, this was not the best of the choices, because sleeping with the wife of your doctor it's not the best thing you can do for your physical health, anyway, if you don't care about your life, but you refuse the idea of killing yourself, it could be a good and funny way to get the target, even though, after your death, the doctor, doing something which may find some motivation only in a form of infinite personal hate typical of the poor cuckold, decides to remove your penis from your corpse, the penis of the Emperor is in fact today still preserved in a private collection in the USA (yes the Emperor's penis was really a pretty big one).



For a more official version of the last part of the Emperor's life you can read the day by day of the Emperor in his prison at St. Helena in the following interesting site:

INSIDE LONGWOOD: http://www.inside-longwood.com/insid...logy-1816.html

[Roma_Victrix]

Who knows? What it's sure it's that he spent most of the time in St. Helena sleeping with the wives of the British personnel around him, all in all, this was not the best of the choices, because sleeping with the wife of your doctor it's not the best thing you can do for your physical health, anyway, if you don't care about your life, but you refuse the idea of killing yourself, it could be a good and funny way to get the target, even though, after your death, the doctor, doing something which may find some motivation only in a form of infinite personal hate typical of the poor cuckold, decides to remove your penis from your corpse, the penis of the Emperor is in fact today still preserved in a private collection in the USA (yes the Emperor's penis was really a pretty big one).



For a more official version of the last part of the Emperor's life you can read the day by day of the Emperor in his prison at St. Helena in the following interesting site:

INSIDE LONGWOOD: http://www.inside-longwood.com/insid...logy-1816.html

Apparently the penis was bought at an auction in 1977, and not for an astronomical price either:

"The 1.5in (3.8cm) organ now belongs to Evan Lattimer, who inherited it from her father, a renowned urologist who bought it at a Paris auction in 1977 for $3,000 (£1,800)."

Well. It was 1.5 in (3.8 cm) when flaccid (might have also shrunk these past couple hundred of years too, like a mummy corpose). I'm sure it was bigger and better when erect. At least that's what any good honest patriotic Frenchman (and French lady) would say if you asked him or her about it. Alternatively, the good doctor could have chosen not to cut the whole thing off, making it appear smaller than it actually was. I mean, if he was jealous and malicious enough to cut it off in the first place...

[Cyclops]

Pretty sure it's a bogus dong. I've been to the tomb of Napoleon and there was no indication he'd been subject to post mortem sausage snatching. The lid of the sarcophagus was firmly on and all the French people I saw on Paris had the serene expression of a nation whose hero is genitally intact.

[IrishBlood]

I did not expect this thread to make me lol as much as it has

I recall reading somewhere that he mainly spent his time working on his memoirs and figuring out where exactly he went wrong and what he would have done differently if he could have turned back time.

A side from the obvious 'invading Russia was a bad idea', he also came to the conclusion that he should have invaded Ireland instead of Egypt in 1798.

In 1798 the french sent a very limited force of just over 1000 men to aid the the large scale rebellion against English rule, but this was no where near enough men and the rebellion failed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798

They had previously tried to send a force of over 22,000 men in 1796, but they were defeated by bad weather and the fleet was badly mauled and had to turn back. So because of the previous failure and the fact that Napoleon had taken 40,000 men and a large chunk of the French fleet to Egypt, they had very little to spare to aid the Irish rebels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exp%C3%A9dition_d'Irlande

The failure of the 1796 invasion also doomed the 1798 rebellion to failure as the British had not been expecting it and went on a massive campaign of repression throughout Ireland and confiscated thousands of guns, swords, horses, etc that the United Irishmen (the nationalist Republican movement in Ireland) had been stockpiling for use when the French arrived. Because of this when the Rebellion eventually broke out the rebels were woefully equipped, where as they would have been relatively well armed if the French had successfully landed in 1796.

ANYWAY, my point is that Napoleon believed if he had landed in Ireland with 44,000 men and joined up with the 50,000 Irishmen who rebelled then they could easily have overran the British forces on the island which numbered about 70,000 (including all kinds of militias). Bear in mind that it has been estimated by Irish historians that many tens of thousands more would have joined the rebellion if a French force as large as Napoleons had landed.

Had the French been able to wrest control of Ireland from the UK, then the UK would have been in pretty dire straits. A great deal of food imported into the UK came from Ireland and upwards of a hundred thousand Irishmen fought in the British army and navy during the Napoleonic wars. Taking Ireland would have crippled the British war effort and gained the French military tens of thousands of Irish recruits for their war effort.

[Mattias Tannhäuser]

What was Napoleon doing on Saint Helena?

He built his legend by dictating memories

[Carach]

a lot of what ifs there, irishblood.

the trouble of making it all the way to Ireland with such a large force intact, the reliance on "maybe" a load of people will join the rebellion when history shows that irish nationalism was massively controversial and just as many irishmen sided with the crown over the 'united' irishmen, the assumption that a bunch of Irish militia would seriously trouble the government despite the later uprising proving they were of little hindrance, an assumption that the British wouldn't reinforce the Island.. so on so forth

[IrishBlood]

a lot of what ifs there, irishblood.

the trouble of making it all the way to Ireland with such a large force intact, the reliance on "maybe" a load of people will join the rebellion when history shows that irish nationalism was massively controversial and just as many irishmen sided with the crown over the 'united' irishmen, the assumption that a bunch of Irish militia would seriously trouble the government despite the later uprising proving they were of little hindrance, an assumption that the British wouldn't reinforce the Island.. so on so forth

Well a successful invasion of Ireland would have been a serious blow to the British empire, whereas Napoleons vague plan of getting to India through Egypt was utter madness in my opinion.

The weather in the Atlantic might be rough, but the distance was a hell of a lot shorter than to Egypt. It wasn't impossible to successfully land French troops in Ireland as can be seen by General Humberts successful landing on the islands north west coast.

The reason the Irish rebels performed so dismally was the sheer lack of musket and cannons available to them after the massive military crack down by the British army in the aftermath of the failed invasion of 1796. A large french force bringing munitions with them would have greatly improved the rebels effectiveness.

I have no doubt what so ever that the 50,000 who rebelled would have been joined by a lot more if a large scale French invasion took place. For example, county Mayo was a restive area, but not particularly rebellious, but once General Humbert arrived with 1000 men, 5000 locals joined them, and others joined as he passed through the country.

As for those who sided with the English, the vast majority of those were protestant. The vast majority of the population of Ireland were disenfranchised Catholics and Presbyterian protestants and it was from them that the United Irishmen movement came from.

The pro-English militias were also very poorly trained and stood virtually no chance against trained French troops as is evident at the Battle of Castlebar;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Castlebar

I'm not trying to claim that it would have been a certain victory for the French, only that it would have been a hell of a lot more beneficial to them than trying to invade Egypt and that they would have stood a pretty reasonable chance of success, particularly with a military mastermind like Napoleon leading the invasion.

This is even more evident when you consider that the French lost at least 30,000 men (15,000 from enemy action, 15,000 from disease) in their failed middle eastern en-devour, where the vast majority of the population was anti-French, compared to Ireland where the majority of the population was pro-french and the climate was far less likely to strike down 15,000 men with disease.

[Napoleonic Bonapartism]

This is even more evident when you consider that the French lost at least 30,000 men (15,000 from enemy action, 15,000 from disease) in their failed middle eastern en-devour, where the vast majority of the population was anti-French, compared to Ireland where the majority of the population was pro-french and the climate was far less likely to strike down 15,000 men with disease.

Bit of a side-note but I'm intrigued, what was the relationship between the Irish and the French? I see them being pro-French in so far as liberating Ireland is concerned, and I know there were some Thomas Painian radicals in the Irish movement. I'm not too clued up on Irish history, but I'm sure there was a fair bit of peasant anti-clericalism, as with all of Europe. But surely many rank and file Catholics would have issues siding with the Revolution, or at least the Priests would. If I recall correctly France officially atheistic at this point. Would the clergy side with the French as a necessary evil to free Ireland?

[IrishBlood]

Bit of a side-note but I'm intrigued, what was the relationship between the Irish and the French? I see them being pro-French in so far as liberating Ireland is concerned, and I know there were some Thomas Painian radicals in the Irish movement. I'm not too clued up on Irish history, but I'm sure there was a fair bit of peasant anti-clericalism, as with all of Europe. But surely many rank and file Catholics would have issues siding with the Revolution, or at least the Priests would. If I recall correctly France officially atheistic at this point. Would the clergy side with the French as a necessary evil to free Ireland?

I'm glad you brought that up actually! The United Irishmen wanted a a secular republic (well as secular as you were likely to get in the 18th century) in that your religious affiliation would have no effect on you outside of your private life. At the time Catholics and Presbyterians were discriminated against in all things, from land ownership to business dealings, meaning the only way you could be remotely successful in virtually any walk of life was to convert to the Church of England branch of Protestantism.

That was the belief of the United Irishmen, but you are correct in assuming that the majority of Irish peasants were indeed loyal Catholics that would have been appalled if they knew the full extent of what the French Revolution did to Catholic clergy in France. HOWEVER, they were very badly informed and generally didn't know much aside from English + Protestant = bad. Whereas, French + Catholic = Good.

France and Spain have a long history of intervening on the side of Catholics when they rebelled against England and such memories would be relatively fresh. The main reason for a positive outlook towards the French was that they couldn't possibly have been any worse than the English, who kept the majority Catholic population as disenfranchised and poor as they possibly could as a (admittedly effective) means of control.

The United Irishmen had very strong links with the French Revolutionaries and were regularly in Paris trying to gain support for a French invasion/liberation of Ireland.

The Catholic church also condemned the rebellion (aside from some notable rebel leaders who were actually radical priests) and the English government rewarded them for their stance by giving them significant privileges which benefited the Church, but did very little to make life any easier for ordinary Catholics in Ireland. It has been argued that the Catholic clergy in Ireland essentially sold out their flock, fearing French Revolutionary influence they opted to side with England instead.

Despite Presbyterians making up a significant number of the Rebel/United Irishmen leadership, there was still a great deal of sectarian violence, where Catholics attacked their protestant neighbors and landlords and essentially killed and displaced as many as they could. Such attacks were obviously against the ideology of the United Irishmen who believed that all religions in Ireland should be united in a Republic free of English influence. So basically, despite the Catholic clergy condemning the rebellion, there was a surprising amount of men willing to side with the French if it gave them a chance of ridding themselves of the English (or more importantly their Anglo-Norman landlords).

[Cyclops]

A point about the Egyptian expedition: the east had a certain glamorous allure, the Ottoman Empire was just starting to be seen as the Sick Man of Europe and its domains were ripe fruit for the hungry eye of a would be conqueror. Napoleon's idea was a bit speculative but Egypt was a wealthy province, and it was definitely on the way to India where British interests were becoming increasingly profitable. Even if the French did not take India for themselves they had seen how some military aid to the right rebels could hurt Great Britain with spectacular results in North America.

Egypt was taken with a modest force (an excellent return on investment), but recent British naval problems (mutinies left right and centre) had been rectified and a fighting admiral found (no sailor, but deadly in a battle was Nelson), so the vital sea link was disrupted, and the massively outnumbered French were worn down until they surrendered.

The expedition also suited the Directory who, having been saved by Bonaparte and somewhat outshone by his Italian campaign had become suspicious of his future designs, and were only too happy to see him sail of into the sunrise. Sadly for them he made it home: with his usual dash and verve he managed to slip back to France as safely as he slipped out to Egypt.

I think recent French interventions in Ireland had been flat failures, perhaps that fact as well as the desire to see bony gone and the $$$$ on offer by the Nile made the choice a clear one. Napoleon's plan in 1805 was a straight dash across the Sleeve into Kent, and it took Nelson's finest victory to prevent that: mopping up operations in Ireland were envisaged (and an Irish legion of exiles formed) but the thrust was toward the heart of Britain, not the flanks.