Book Review: Napoleon Victorious, Peter Tsouras

I'm so completely consumed by my new blog, and DIY and home improvement projects, that I'm not getting the time to post here at present, never mind to make models or paint figures. Also, having ground to a halt in volume two of Rory Muir's huge Wellington biog, I feel a little burnt out on my military history reading.

So I've set aside numerous other books I'm part way through reading, from the Wellington volume to such slim paperbacks as Nigel Cawthorne's Turning The Tide (about, as the subtitle says, decisive battles of WWII). The only exception to this is Napoleon Victorious, by Peter Tsouras. It's just so compelling!

Coutelle aloft in L'Entrepenant, during the battle of Fleurus. [1]

This alternative history retells the Campaign of Waterloo with great verve, staying close to many of the real events in many respects, and tweaking things in a (mostly) very believable manner, working its way - I'm about a third through at the time of starting this post - towards the conclusion signalled by the title.

Thus far the major divergences from history as it happened are as follows: Bourmont and his pro-Bourbon subordinates are nabbed before defecting, Berthier doesn't fall out of a Swiss window, but instead resumes his old role, and several key commands are given to different men: Davout will fight, instead of doing admin' in Paris, and Ney is left out in the cold, for example.

A segment of the famous Ferraris map. [2]

This is certainly a fun read. Presented in small dated reports, e.g. '13th June - South of Charleroi', it has a feel that is half history book, half novel. The latter element comes out most in the dramatised tableaux, where we feel more strongly that this is an imagined tale, as opposed to documentary fact. But it's done extremely well, the author clearly knowing his subject intimately.

It's funny, 'cause reading Muir's Wellington books, one is struck by a very traditional English view of events, in which Britain casts herself as the well-judged arbiter of European affairs, helping maintain a 'balance of power', etc, etc. The left/liberal view that Waterloo was an event to be mourned, and that the triumph of the ancien regime factions, backed by Britain as banker more than military power, was a bad/retrograde thing, is openly mocked.

Tsouras. [3]

I've yet to see how the battle itself - referred to here, since the victors get to write the 'official history', not as a Waterloo, but as Mont St Jean - plays out, and what consequences follow. But I have to confess to thoroughly enjoying seeing Napoleon in the ascendant, and some of us, myself included, might feel more than a little frisson of excitement as 'the Enlightenment on horseback' [4] gallops to victory.

So, although I'm a considerable way off finishing this, I would unhesitatingly recommend it.

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NOTES:

[1] Coutelle's Corps d'Aerostatiers were deployed at Fleurus and the siege of Mainz, after which the unit fell into neglect, and was later disbanded. Tsouras resurrects them, allowing Napoleon to see 'the other side of the hill', undermining Wellington's formerly effective secretive and protective method of defensive battle.

[2] There are maps, gathered at the front of the book. But they're modern computer-drawn ones, lacking the charm, beauty and evocativeness of the older contemporaneous maps.

[3] It's interesting that it should be an American who should write this story. Many Brits affect a puzzled air over why so many Americans have supported the IRA in the past. But of course many Americans will feel sympathy for those seeking to throw off the yoke of British colonial rule. It's what made America the country, indeed, world super-power, it has become. This was explored in, of all places, Columbo (I recently bought the complete Columbo on DVD!), in an episode stalled The Conspirators.

And that's not to say that simply because Tsouras writes of Napoleon Victorious he himself wanted this as the real historical outcome. He's also written books in which the confederacy wins the ACW, and Germany wins WWII. He may wish these things to have happened, and then again, he may not. It's like Tom Waits has often said, you don't have to be a murderer to enjoy telling murder stories.

[4] I think I first came across this term in Andrew Roberts' Napoleon The Great. Can anyone tell me who originated the expression: was it Roberts? Or was he quoting someone else?

Film Review: It Happened Here, 1964

What a great film! In literature the 'alternative history' genre is quite a sizeable industry. But it would appear to be somewhat less so in film. That's a pity in my view, and particularly so in the light of a really good example of the genre, such as this is.

This film is not only interesting for what it is - the imagining of a successful German invasion of England during WWII - but also for how it came to be. I came to know of one half of the duo responsible, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo, via the former's role in the restoration of Abel Gance's film Napoleon. I have subsequently found out that Mollo went on to specialise in military history, authoring books on uniforms and equipment, and advising on many films. 

There are several film within a film moments, such as this exposition of the German invasion.

But, way back, around 1956, this indomitable duo started working on this film, whilst both were still very young; 18 and 16 respectively, if memory serves! It took them eight years to complete [1], and was made on a budget that modern films would burn through in seconds. Brownlow has also written a book about the making of the film, pictured below. I'll be reading that as soon as I can!

Brownlow's book about making the film.

The film itself doesn't, obviously, have the kind of production values of either a modern film, or even of a mainstream or major studio production of its own time. My biggest criticism is that the audio is at times lacking in punch. But the production as a whole doesn't suffer unduly because of such strictures. Indeed, in an era (our own) dominated by the triumph of medium over message, this is a welcome and refreshing role-reversal in that respect. Considering how it was made, It Happened Here is surprisingly professional and cohesive, which reflects very well on its makers on so many levels.

Brownlow filming. What a precocious youth!

Essentially the scenario takes as it's premise a successful invasion of England by Hitler's armed forces. Although there are numerous combat scenes, it's more about the occupation and its aftermath, rather than being a straight ahead war film, exploring how life might be in both conflict zones and pacified areas. To my eyes it's a wholly plausible and appropriately chilling depiction of what might very well have happened here, in England, had operation 'Sea Lion' actually taken place and met with success.

Pauline, second from left, is the character we follow throughout the film.

 

Pauline joins the fascist paramilitary Immediate Action Organisation.

Unlike your typical war film of the postwar period, we follow a woman's fate; Pauline is the 'every(wo)man' caught up in a maelstrom of events out of her control and beyond her ken. Fairly early on in the film, after getting caught up in a British partisan attack, in which innocent bystanders are amongst the victims, Pauline's desire for order and stability lead her to join IAO, a fascist paramilitary.

Firearm training with the IAO.

As we follow Pauline's humdrum life, it becomes clear both to her and to us, the kind of order she's helping to maintain. She meets old friends, Dr. Fletcher and his wife, and disvovers they're sheltering a wounded partisan. Not much later her friends are whisked off by sinister Gestapo types. Pauline requests nursing work, having grown to dislike the political side of her IAO role, work for which her pre-war life qualifies her. But once again she comes up against moral issues that are going to force her to question her loyalties.

I'll leave plot synopsis there, for those who haven't seen this superbly thought-provoking film. What I will add is that Brownlow and Mollo go to far greater lengths than most big-budget studio productions to create an air of authenticity, from the selection of locations, to the small contextual details (like the posters in the waiting room image above). Along with the balanced realism of the plot, and the several pseudo documentary type scenes within the film, it all adds up to a sort of cinema verite feel.

Sebastian Shaw as Dr Fletcher, a friend of Pauline's. [2]

Military buff types, of which I guess I'm one, will also appreciate the attention to detail and authenticity as evinced by the use of genuine German equipment and vehicles. Seeing a bobby cycling past a JagdPanther in the English countryside is quite something! And the cover image of stormtroopers goose-stepping through Westminster, with Big Ben et al in the background, is iconic.

When I watch an unusual movie such as this, as well as enjoying it in its own right, I'm often left wondering why there aren't more such films. And I'm now very keen to see the Brownlow and Mollo film Winstanley, which looks at 'the Diggers' movement during the English Civil War. I salute the passion and perseverance, the intelligence and creativity, of two greatly underacknowledged British filmmakers.

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NOTES:

[1] Thereby earning the film a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the film with the longest production known.

[2] Shaw - who played the unmasked Darth Vader in Return of The Jedi - is the only famous actor I recognised in this excellent and unusual film.