NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 8, 21 January 1905, Page 6 (Supplement)

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

THE BLACKEST DEED OF HIS CAREER. By George A. Douglas. In the years 1797 and 1798 the great Port of Toulon was in one long stir and turffibil of strenuous activity. Gangs, almost armies, of men toiled away like the proverbial niggers at enormous piles of goods on the quays, which never seemed to grow less, and up scores of wooden gangways leading to a hundred ships, trolleys were continually on the move. The town of Toulon was full of armed men, and spies penetrated every corner of it, well knowing that they took their lives in their hands by doing so, out with an eagerness to gain information which laughed at death. Evidently something very momentuous was impending. Judging by the affecting scenes, the tearful women and children, these soldiers were bound on no trifling mission. Many, if not most of them had journeyed from the north of France, where the English ocean flowed swift between their homeland and the country which, alone of all others in Europe, had regarded the predominance of France with calm resolution and unfaltering courage. These men had formed the right wing of the “Army of England” —a powerful section of Napoleon’s proposed Army of Invasion, which was to make England, that proud and defiant nation, secure behind its great bulwarks of rock, fall into line with the other nations of Europe. But the invasion was postponed. Pride would not allow the fiery Corsican to use the word “abandoned,” though in his heart he knew it was but a dream that would intflt into thin ,air with the coming of the day. British warships, their high sides bristling with heavy guns, . ready for action, ruled the waves, and .promised annihilation to any transports daring to attempt the passage across, and even Napoleon, loth as he ever was to reconsider any scheme he had set his mind on, turned his eyes south for a possible outlet of his hate and rampant ambition. Why strike detested England in the north when she can be struck at almost every point of the compass? He would indirectly inflict a crushing blow at her by seizing Egypt, capturing the fabulously rich marts of the wealthy East, and—he was looking many months ahead, as he ever did—might he not even penetrate to India, and add it to the already corpulent French Empire? What a sumptuous feast to spread out before his fellowcountrymen I The heaps of merchandise on the quays grow and grow; they come not all from France, for included amongst them are the spoils of the rich arsenals of Venice, and generous tributes from Genoa, and even from little Corsica, a hundred miles away in the blue Mediterranean. At last, on an eventful summer’s day, the military tap is turned off; there are no more soldiers to come, no more stores—all are on board. Amid a harsh straining of ropes and chains and a thousand strident commands, the stately ships glide away from picturesque Toulon, with its mighty quays and wharves crowded with cheering civilians, their eyes riveted on the proud, high-rid-ing L’Orient, whose 120 guns peep ominously from portholes, for on her lofty upper deck stands the undefeated general, who is fast gaining a reputation for invulnerability, Napoleon Bonaparte. Out in the ocean the flagship and her consorts are joined by more men of war and an immense flotilla of transports. In all there are over 400 ships, with 70,000 men aboard, brave hearts most of them; but a h anting fear steals into the senses of the more thoughtful amongst them. Where is the holy terror of the seas who has learned to hate a Frenchman for his own sake? Where is Nelson, with his invincible fleet? A very little luck and that redoubtable person would have completely changed the course of events for the next few years to come, and Napoleon would probably have gone down to posterity as an ordinary enough general. As it was, Nelson missed this extremely vulnerable array of ships by an appreciable number of hours, and when he did get into touch with it and cruched it up in the masterly way he was wont to deal with French opposition, the soldiers had all been landed, and the campaign had been entered upon, i

Vi ould that the horrors of it had been spared the world. It was more full of fiendish malignity and gruesomeness than even the awful Russian campaign, which a dozen years were destined to bring forth, and it showed Napoleon in a new light—this same Napoleon who had evinced and continued to evince the most gratifying solicitude for the sick and wounded and the utmost regard for the feelings and welfare of the rank and file, whose idol he was. It must be confessed that at times in this awfjil campaign he might well be pictured as the very personification of a fiend. Perhaps he sickened of the wretched samlpes of human nature presented by the lustful, Flood thirsty tribes who then bore arms against the French in Egypt, and regarded them as something lower in the social scale than even animals. We will take the reader with us into a few of the sights and scenes that indelibly blacken Napoleon’s fame, and which have caused men in countries where his iron hand had least grip, to gnash their teeth and heap maledictions upon his name.

Insurrection against the French had broken out in Cairo. The narrow dirty streets were filled with armed men of a dozen nationalities, pitiless as death itself, and spurning in their intense desire for vengeance the sound of the French alarm guns and their dread portent.

A message is borne post haste to Napoleon. He glances at it, and not a muscle of the thin pale face relaxes, yet the massage conveys the intelligence that one of his Generals has been struck down in the streets. The victim might have been himself. Napoleon sends his aide de camp and 15 guides on a tour of discovery, but only one returns, and he is covered with blood the rest have been foully butchered.

’These 15 men have been sent on a task which virtually condemned them to death, and away in sunny France the news will strike a hundred persons to the heart. But it is the merest episode of the war. Napoleon’s brow harbours only a passing cloud when the gasping and maimed survivor tells him the story. Never shall the breath of suspicion suggest that lie would not go where he had sent those whose duty it was to obey him. Saddle a horse! Hastily mounting, he spurs the steed, there clatter at his heels through the hot, sand-laden air 30 of an escort. They are going to visit all the threatened parts of the city, and many a saddle must inevitably be emptied in the process* But at last the flame of insurrection* is extinguished, though it still smokes suspiciously, and now the frightful aftermath is to take a horrible shape. We see a motley gang of wretched peoplej some dressed in flowing robes, many more in gaily-coloured tatters, several of them women, all with set despair frozen on their swarthy faces, being jogged along between the French soldiers into the citadel, from which they will never emanate in life. Every night during their grim tenure in its dungeons an armed picket comes round with an officer at its head, and thirty of the miserable but not trembling wretches—for with the grim stoicism of JSastern races, they calmly accept the inevitable—are escorted up the slimy steps to where n<w and again a patch of the wonderfully blue and starry sky peculiar to these climes peeps out at them. Swish, swish! something glitters steelily in the uncertain light, and there comes a dull thud. Again and again it flashes through the air, and there are more of these thuds, preceded sometimes by a half-suppressed groan, and many minutes elapse before they cease to punctuate the ominous stillness. Now we find ourselves in an apartment overlooking the blue and peaceful Nile. Men are actively engaged under spluttering candles, which, until the eyes become accustomed to their feeble light, show' not the unspeakable horrors of the place. It is a veritable shambles. Not a word is spoken except now and again a muttered oath. These men are busy tying up in sacks newly-beheaded corpses, and here and there among them’ the long hair and smooth features of some derelict head proclaim it to be feminine. At last the fiendish work is finished—but. v only for a night, for the same performance will be repeated on the morrow—and, with curses for a funeral prayer when some sack proves unexpectedly heavy, each of the ghastly burdens are consigned to the Nile with a splash which tells stealthy watchers on eitbe” bank that dire vengeance has been exacted.

But the awful horrors of this campaign are just beginning. A courier rides in hot haste to Napoleon. He has journeyed afar and is the bearer of evil 'tidings but even the terrible presence of the little Corsican can extract no news from him till his parched throat has been slaked with a draught of. wine. A tribe of Arabs in a little village some miles out of Cairo has risen in rebellion and massacred to a man an entire French detachment. Soon the tidings will ring throughout Cairo, and fan into flame the smoking ashes of insurrection in the city. A correction must be instantly applied, and it takes a shape as unique as it is gruesome. A powerful French force sweeps down on the village, and every man in its is relentlessly shot or bayonetted. With the glare of their burning homesteads in their eyes, the women and children, strong and weak, young and active, old and palsied, are herded together like cattle, and driven along in hot haste to Cairo, dotting the road as they go with dead and dying, over which the hovering vultures add a last touch to the scene. Behind this miserable throng follows a. cortege of carts, which are full to overflowing with sacks, each so heavy that three strong men twist and strive with it. Their contents must surely be booty, the spoils of the expedition. In truth, they are of a kind, and huge is the crowd that congregates in the great market square, where, it is given forth, these sacks will be opened. A eack is suspended mouth undermost over a cart, and the. cord is severed with a knife. Even the dark visagod crowd sicken and gasp with the horror of the discovery, just laid bare before their eyes. Fifty human heads, bloody and distorted in their last agony, roll out among thfir very feet. Napoleons policy is to inspire a fear that will overbear hate itself, and he fi’.s succeeded—or sufficiently so at least for his immediate purpose. Horror succeeds horror, and each new one shows some devilish malignity more horrible than that preceding. Turkish soldiers come on ‘hi scene, and their officers, in some cases of British nationality, would fain bridle their cruel and licentious conduct if they could, but they might as well attempt to lay a staying hand on the mighty Nile itself. Frenchmen in every states and form were the objects of their bitterest execration. Bearers of flags of truce from the camp of Napoleon were returned only piecemeal —their gory heads adorning spiked poles. What was a Christian dog to a frenzied Turk? Faugh, his life was a fitting sacrifice to the Prophet. As well might the French soldier seek mercy from the alligator of the swamp, whoso cruel jaws are already snapping at his throat. We mention these things, for it may prepare one somewhat for the awful events that are to follow.

As has already been narrated, Nelson came up with the weak French fleet, which had escorted the transports, and utterly defeated it after a valorous struggle. Napoleon, with his usual prescience, had perceived this contingency, and had urged the French admiral to hasten north; but with a fatal procrastination the latter tarried, reluctant to leave the coast without first gaining some news of the struggle on land. But for this blunder on his part history would probably have been relieved of one of its most ghastly horrors. Inspired by this calamity to the French fleet, Turkey proclaimed war against

France, and this was the fateful news uthich reached Napoleon when his army was wasted with sickness, hardships, and hunger. To any ordinary commander this intelligence would have struck home with the force of a catastrophe, but Napoleon met it with all the wonderful resource of his vigorous nature. The Turks must be confounded at the outset, and their troops destroyed whilst they were yet assembling. With amazing rapidity the indefatigable general wheeled his entire army across the uninviting desert into Syria. We will pass lightly over this march of misery, the awful discomforts which Napoleon shared in common with the humblest private, all the time encouraging the weary, and comforting the sick in his own inimitable way. Yet the end of this march was to see enacted a tragedy whose stain has sunk indelibly deep into this great soldier’s fame. At. last the weary, tattered army is in the Holy Land, and with the shimmer of the same blue Mediterranean which had sparkled up at them from Toulon in their eyes. Striking inland they might take Jerusalem itself, but Napoleon had no ambition that way. Jaffa is full of fresh and well-fed Turkish troops, and the invincible French legions, worn almost to skintand bone, surround the walls and demand instant surrender. The Turks answer back defiantly, but they arc no match for the hardened Frenchmen. In two days’ time the place is stormed and won and given over to a lust of pillage and massacre. Napoleon’s quarters are still outside the doomed town. “Go,” commanded he of his two aides de camp, “and appease the fury of my soldiers as far as lies in your power, and report to me what is passing.” These officers find that though Jaffa is in the hands of the victorious French, >he fighting is not all over yet. A large body of Albanians have retreated in their last extremity to a huge building of great strength. If they had to die, they desired to die fighting, but the love of life was still strong within them, and they are willing to surrender if their lives me spared. This is agreed to, and so it happens that down the dusty, uneven pa*h leading to Napoleon’s tent there tramps a body of their late enemy, numbering quite. 3000 souls.

Napoleon’s countenance darkened as he' saw them. Here was an emerge .icy he was quite unprepared for. Up and dcv.’u the earthen floor he strode, the p.cf're of irresolution; then he found his voice, and his words came fast and furious.

“Why in the devil’s name do you serve me thus? What am I to do with these men—have I food for them; have I ships to send them away?” In vain the aides de camp sought to check his wrath with the reminder that they had been sent to restrain the carnage. Their chief turned on them as keen as a whip: “Yes, as to women, children, and old men, but not armed soldiefs. It was your duty to die rather than bring them to me.” What was to be done with these men—that was the burning and distressing topic which overshadowed all others during the next three days? If they were sent to Egypt it would be necessary to send a large . escort with ..them, thus perilously weakening the already wasted army. If they were set at liberty, they would probably seek an early opportunity to deal out death as a recompense, while incorporation with the French army promised no better.

Then at last, on the 10th March the prolonged conference came to an end. The sun shines down as brilliantly as ever on this never to be forgotten day, and the shimmering Mediterranean is the same peaceful stretch of blue; but on this bright morning is to be enacted a veritable carnival of fiendish horror—an unspeakable crime if you will—on a prodigious scale, and its hideousness arises mainly from the fact that it is all to be done in cold blood. These victims of a contingency almost too awful to be recognised, arc taken down to the sea shore, marching in a long sinuous melancholy procession, four abreast, with their hands tied behind them—marching for the most part with a firm deportment which seems to deride the death they know is looming near. Were one near enough to them it would be tor see men’s lips trembling, not, however, with fear, but with muttered curses. They are execrating the vile enemy whose spurious promises snatched from them the right to die fighting in hot blood, and relegated them to a death, which, if it will en the end come rapidly enough, has miserably upon them during the long hours of three weary days. Some of the hapless creatures accept their doom with grim fortitude, and face the great crescent of muskets and get it over as soon as possible. Many of them, maddened by wounds that are not immediately fatal, make a desperate struggle for existence, and throw tliemselves into the sea manacled as they are, and a few succeed in reaching outlying rocks barely within range of the deadly pieces, but they are relentlessly shot down. Away on a reef, well beyond fire, three fellows, in the prime of their manhood, have attained an insecure perch. The soldiers on the beach beckon to them. Can it be possible? Yes, for they beckon again I It is surely a sign that they are to be spared, for they ate the only survivors of 10,000 fighting men. In any event they are but juggling with death to remain where they are, and with powerful strokes they strike inland, for in their previous frenzy they had parted with their shackles. * Nearer and nearer they come, but they are never destined to arrive. Spurts of blue flames flash from a score of muskets, and the swimmers throw their arms into the air, and disappear for ever. All the captives have gone to their long rest, and Napoleon’s name is clouded with a foul stigma. .Would, for the honour of himself and Frenchmen, if it were really imperative that these men should die, that he had put them back into the building from whence they had been taken and allowed them to die fighting.