BATTLE OF THE BUNNIES- And Napoleon Loses

 

I believe the legend that the first time French Major-General Louis Berthier met Napoleon Bonaparte, in March of 1786, he confided to a fireside comrade, "I don't know why, but that little bastard scares me."   

He was called "Berthier the Ugly" because his head seemed three times too large for his short squat body.  It also featured a large hook nose that thrust from between his cheeks like a prehistoric parrot's beak.  In addition he was clumsy and given to chewing his fingernails.  Add in a dose of social ineptness, and you had Berthier, the man. But he was also a genius of detail.  He spent his entire adult life in the military, rising through the ranks under the “Old Regime”.   He had fought with distinction under Rochambeau at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781 helping America win their revolution. And then he met his doppelganger - Napoleon Bonaparte.

The young Napoleon was  handsome,. almost pretty. He was of average height, and a firebrand of energy.  At 26 years of age he was already a blazing comet on the French political scene, the fresh faced new man of action.

Meanwhile  42 year old “ugly, little” Berthier,  had survived the revolution by keeping his huge head so low it could not be conveniently guillotined.  But perhaps Berthier sensed impending disaster on that blistery March morning when they first met.  Perhaps on some level he understood that the “Little Corsican” who stood before him would use him over the next 20 years to slaughter a million Frenchmen and three million who would die opposing Napoleon.  I wonder if he also sensed the sacrifice of all those bunnies, as well?  It is a legendary tale, and thus worthy of doubt. But if it ain't true, it ought to be.

Napoleon’s amazing string of victories  began at Montenotte, in Piedmont on 12 April and continued at the bridge at Lodi on 10 May 1796.  Berthier was there beside Napoleon,  sharing the hardships and basking in the reflected glory as Napoleon’s Chief of Staff and then a Marshal of France, organizing the now Emperor Napoleon’s complete victory, at "Austerlitz" in 1805.

By July of 1807 Napoleon was the master of the continent, referred to by his implacable English foes as "The Beast of Europe".  And "Bonney" would not have been half so accomplished if it were not for the efforts of ugly, efficient little Berthier.

And so it was obvious that when the Emperor sought an afternoon’s diversion, a summer picnic and a hunt to celebrate his victory over the Russians and Prussians, it would be short little, ugly little Berthier who would organize the entire event.  Surely the man who had planned  the conquest of nations could arrange a simple afternoon’s hunt.

The humans arrived en mass, like an attack column swarming a defensive position. The Emperor went nowhere alone anymore. A regiment of cavalry stood guard. Messengers arrived and were dispatched forth all day long -  for an Empire run by one man cannot survive long without assurance that the master is always watching, and always watching every thing.There were ambassadors and royalty and a dozen Marshals covered in glittering gold braid. There were Generals to carry the Marshals' eyeglasses and purses and fans. There were servants to serve the lunch and keep the Champagne glasses bubbling over. There were chiefs to cook the lamb and fish and chicken Marengo. There were dozens of carriages and wagons to carry them all from their palaces and mansions and back home again. And there were 3,000 caged rabbits hidden in the high grass, wondering when lunch was going to be served.

Once the open air repast was digested the Emperor and his guests put away their knives and Champagne glasses and took up their weapons. Berthier had prepared this too, down to the smallest detail.  Marshal Berthier had attempted to obtain wild rabbits captured locally, but the peasant farmers had been taxed so heavily to pay for all that gold braid, all those cannon and horses and muskets  that they had stripped the local woods and fields of wild rabbits and deer and boar to feed their families.

So the ever resourceful Berthier (That's him in an 'official' painting above, with the reality edited out of him), had ordered every domesticated rabbit in the Paris market bought and transported to be slaughtered.  The fuzzy furry harmless beasts had been fattened in pens and cages all their lives. They were released the afternoon before the hunt, in the chosen field.  And there they waited. There were beaters, to drive the bunnies to the guns, for an Emperor does not have all day to spend stalking his prey. So as the Emperor Napoleon advanced into the field with his musket held at the ready, Berthier gave the signal, and the beaters advanced.  And such was the sight then seen, the likes of which had never been seen before in all of history. And never would be seen again, either.  As one writer described it, the rabbits "...swarmed the emperor’s legs and started climbing up his jacket. Napoleon tried shooing them with his riding crop, as his men grabbed sticks and tried chasing them. The coachmen cracked their bullwhips to scare the siege. But it kept coming. Napoleon retreated...to his carriage." There, according to historian David Chandler, “with a finer understanding of Napoleonic strategy than most of his generals, the rabbit horde divided into two wings and poured around the flanks of the party and headed for the imperial coach.” The flood of bunnies continued—some reportedly leapt into the carriage."
Three thousand Leporidae Oryctolagus cuniculus (European bunny rabbits) charged desperately toward the first human they had seen in 24 hours - humans being the source of all food and warmth in their entire sheltered lives.  The man in the cocked hat must have seemed the answer to a domesticated rabbit’s hopes and prayers after a cold night in the strange, forbidding emptiness of a field. And the mother figure out front was the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.It was a harebrained stampede! If they could have spoken they would have cried out in unison in their little bunny voices, “Take me home, take me home, get me out of here!” But they could not cry out. They could not speak. Bunnies don't talk.

And so what Napoleon saw as he entered the field with “rodenticide” in his heart, were three  thousand bunnies stampeding remorselessly toward him, perhaps with regicide in their hearts.

Where they afflicted with a pestilence? Where they part of a devilish English plot to murder him?  Napoleon had no way of knowing, and little time to decide. But even if the Emperor had suspected the actual cause behind the stamped of cottontails, hunting is not much of a sport when the prey rush you and demand to be butchered en mass.

The servants thrashed at the rabbits with whips.  The ambassadors and royalty snickered behind their lace cuffs. And the loyal Generals and Marshals of France threw their gold braid between the homesick bunnies and their Emperor.  All sacrifice was futile. For the first time in his life (but not the last) the Emperor of Europe, Napoleon I, was forced to retreat to his royal coach, and then to withdraw back within the walls of his palace, tossing stray bunnies out the windows of his carriage as he escaped, his afternoon sport spoiled.It was prescience of the the snowy road home from Moscow, of the night after Waterloo, of the voyage to exile on Elba and then St. Helena. At a time when no human force could stand up to the 'Beast of Europe', Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated by an army of bunny rabbits.  Vive la Peter Cottontail!  Or so goes the legend.

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The Great Napoleon Rescue

 

I have a mission for you.  Succeed and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. Fail and you will spend the rest of your life in the deepest darkest prison on earth. Assuming you live.  The object of this mission is a 48 year old white male, being held prisoner on a remote volcanic island (above).  It has no port and only one small beach. 

The nearest land is 800 miles to the northwest. The nearest major port is 1,200 miles to the east. Your mission must be accomplished without using aircraft or balloons, motorboats, radio, high explosives or electricity. You see, it is 1817, before all of those tools were invented.

Your mission is to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on the island of St. Helena.

It is hard to imagine today the terror Napoleon Bonaparte inspired in the British ruling class. He had not a drop of royal blood in his veins, and no privileged education. Yet, in 1796,  as a lowly general the "Corsican Ogre" humiliated and defeated an entire Austrian Army in northern Italy. 

Then in 1798, like a new Pharaoh, he conquered Egypt. 

He was elected Emperor of France in 1804, and six months later crowned King of Italy. For almost two years his Grand Army threatened an invasion of England. 

Then suddenly "Le petit Corporal"  spun about and almost without firing a shot, captured Vienna and an Austrian army of 30,000 men. 

A month later his Grande Armee' of 65,000 men was cornered in Czechoslovakia by a combined Russian and Austrian army of 85,000 men. In a matter of hours he forced them to surrender. After surrendering, Czar Alexander was forced to admit, “We are babies in the hands of a giant.”

The famous quatrains of Nostradamus were quoted as predicting Napoleon's rise: “An Emperor will be born near Italy”. Everywhere he went Kings were overthrown, kingdom's collapsed, and fortunes evaporated. Napoleon closed Europe to all English trade, and cost English bankers vast treasure, not even counting the wealth they had to spend on ships and men of their own. To the English Napoleon was the “bogeyman of Europe.” 

In 1814, after fifteen years and five million dead, Napoleon was finally cornered and forced to abdicate.

He was  exiled to the tiny island of Elba, 12 miles off the coast of Italy.  

A year later he escaped, and in the famous "One Hundred Days" reconquered France, recruited a new army of 72,000 men, invaded Belgium and defeated a Prussian army of 84,000 men. 

Finally, at the “very close” battle of Waterloo, on Sunday, 18 June, 1815, Napoleon was stopped only by the sacrifice of another 45,000 lives. This time the British were determined to lock “Boney” away where he could never escape.

The prison they picked in 1816 was St Helena (above), a wind swept tropical volcanic island rising 2,000 feet out of the south Atlantic, a third of the way between Africa and South America. 

Its arid coastal cliffs were cleaved by a half dozen V shaped canyons where rivers fell from the humid forested interior. Lord Liverpool, the British Prime Minister,  assured his cabinet, “At such a distance and in such a place, all intrigue would be impossible.” But they were still taking no chances.

Napoleon and his small retinue were watched round the clock by 2,800 soldiers and 500 cannon headquartered in a fort overlooking his single story mansion called Longwood near the Island's center (above). A British officer was required to set eyes upon Napoleon twice a day. 

He was not allowed out side after sunset, nor if there was an unidentified sail on the horizon. He was never allowed near the shore, even the high cliffs. . Eleven British warships patrolled the seas around the island.  

Residents of the island's only village, Jamestown (above), were allowed out after 9 pm only with a signed pass.  At sunset every boat on the tiny island was secured under guard and every bridge and gate was locked. 

But, of course, from the moment of his imprisonment there were those who wanted to set “The Thief of Europe” free again. As the small fleet carrying Napoleon sailed for St. Helena, they were forced to evade "The True Blooded Yankee", a privateer sailing under revolutionaries out of Buenos Aires. It was likely the ship had been financed by Napoleon's brother Joseph, one time King of Spain, who had escaped to America with 20 million francs.  A group of retired French officers, who had emigrated to Texas were also raising funds and plotting further escape attempts. 

And there were others, more surprising, such as the legendary British Admiral Thomas Cochrane (above), AKA “the Sea Wolf”.   Two years after this brilliant officer commanded the naval squadron that burned Washington D.C.  in 1814,  Cochrane was convicted of stock fraud, and forced to resign from the British Navy. 

Bitter, he sold his skills to Chile, where he founded their navy and helped win their independence from Spain.  And word was that the now aging Cochrane (above) was willing to assemble a fleet to free Napoleon so he could lead the revolutionaries in South America to establish a new empire.

But the man all the would-be rescuers sought out was a common smuggler named Tom Johnson (above). He'd been born to Irish parents living in southern England, and had become a successful smuggler by the age of 12. The revenue agents caught him twice, but after his second escape he somehow managed to reach France. 

Using his knowledge of the English coast Tom Johnson quickly again became such a successful smuggler that while Napoleon was planning his invasion of England, he met with Tom and offered him a command in the French navy.  Tom said no, so Napoleon threw the smuggler into prison. 

After nine months Tom escaped yet again, and was later caught by a British warship almost within sight of America. But this time the Admiralty was desperate enough to grant Tom a pardon and put him on the payroll. And one of the first jobs they gave him was to review a new invention being offered to save England from Napoleon's invasion fleet - a submarine.

In 1800 American Robert Fulton (above) built a working prototype for the French revolutionaries. The four man crew of the Nautilus were supplied with air up to 25 feet under the surface via a snorkel. Underwater she was faster than a row boat on the surface, and while on the surface the Nautilus was powered by a sail which ingeniously popped up from a deck hanger. But Napoleon took one look at the leaky thing and decided Fulton was a fraud. He ordered the prototype destroyed. That was when the British offered Fulton the modern equivalent of $10 million if he could build one for England.

Maybe the Admiralty never thought it would work, and they hired Fulton just to keep him occupied. But the inventor still brought to the task his experience and plans for an even bigger submarine. The Nautilus II (above) would be 35 feet long, with a crew of six, two snorkels, a bigger sail and could remain at sea for up to 20 days. At Dover, the master smuggler Tom Johnson went over the plans with Fulton, and they discussed them in detail. 

But after the British Navy destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at the battle of Trafalgar (above), they had no need of Fulton's submarine. Discouraged, Fulton took the offer to build a commercial surface steam boat in New York. But the smuggler Tom Johnson was still interested in the idea. That, plus Johnson's reputation for audacity,  convinced some body that the old smuggler should be offered the equivalent of $3 million to rescue Napoleon.

The plan conceived by Johnson involved two submarines. The larger one, ala the Nautilus II, would approach St. Helena at night from the leeward side (above), and then submerge at dawn. 

The next evening, the first submarine would resurface and launch the smaller sub (above), which would land Johnson and another man at the foot of the cliffs on the north side of the island . 

Johnson would ascend the cliff, where he would install a bosun's chair. Then he would make his way to Longwood, where he would slip past the British guards. The next evening, Johnson and Napoleon would sneak out for the cliff. Napoleon would be lowered in the chair, and be spirited away before dawn.

In 1818 the Times of London reported on rumors of a plot to rescue Napoleon, and ex-Admiral Cochrane's wife assured several people that such a plan existed.  It might all have been a fantasy, except we know from British Admiralty records that early in 1820 a commission of senior officers reviewed expense accounts for a submarine, built by Johnson. 

And leading that commission was General Sir George Cockburn (above), the soldier who had burned down the White House in 1814, while under orders from his brother Admiral Thomas Cochrane. The records show Johnson was asking for 100,000 pounds, and the sailors gave him just 4,735 pounds. But clearly there was at least one submarine in existence in 1820, and Johnson had control of it.

It seems unlikely that Johnson’s submarine could have accomplished the rescue mission.   More than likely, Johnson's plot was a scam to obtain money from Napoleon's supporters, or the British, or both. But if Johnson had not intended upon trying, why, late one night in November of 1820, did Tom Johnson try to steal the sub he had built for the British Navy?  

He got as far as London Bridge (above), when the navy caught up with him. And according to a Thames boatman who witnessed the scene, “Captain Johnson...(was) threatening to shoot them. But they paid no attention to his threats, seized her (the submarine) and taking her to Blackwall, burned her.” Thus ended the impossible mission.

And  remember Ascension Island,  800 miles to the northwest of St. Helena?  Well, in 1815 British marines were sent ashore to occupy it, in the unlikely event that some one might wish to use it as a base to rescue Napoleon. And as they splashed ashore they reported some one had left a written a message in the beach sand; “Le mai l'Empereur Napoleon vit pour toujours”  It translated as, “May the Emperor Napoleon live forever!”

He did not. Napoleon Bonaparte died on St. Helena in May of 1821, possibly of stomach cancer, or possibly from arsenic poisoning: by whom is any one's guess. Tom Johnson was sent to debtors prison, and while there seems to have contributed to a fanciful retelling of his plan to rescue Napoleon. Perhaps, just to shut him up, upon his release ,Johnson was granted a pension of 20 pounds a month, and retired to Southern England.  In 1832 Admiral Thomas Cochrane was restored to his full rank in the British Navy, and was later even promoted to Real Admiral. He died in 1860.

Considering the entire tale from beginning to end, I have to say, had it not involved Napoleon, I would have called it impossible. But with Napoleon, nothing was ever impossible.

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