The South American Napoleon
BEFORE Bolivar had won a battle against the Spaniards he had a,ccurately foretold the shape and characteristics of the nations that he was about to create. Before he had conquered Colombia he had drawn up its constitution. Before the Spaniards had been driven from the continent he was planning a continental congress at Panama. Yet Bolivar was no prefabricated Liberator. His in- numerable letters, essays and speeches reveal the gradual and painful process by which he made himself the outstanding figure in Latin American history. No man of action was ever more self-critical than he, nor more conscious finally of his own aim, achievement and failure. He began as a dilettante, became a military strategist of the first rank and the wiliest of politicians, and at the end of his life was one of the most far-seeing of statesmen.
In the early years error and defeat periodically drove him to meditation and study, and in such moments he would devise and publicise the most ambitious and seemingly impossible schemes, which he would then put into operation. His " ideology " came from Rousseau. The traveller Humboldt convinced him that the ideas of Rousseau could not prevail in South America until the Spaniards had been expelled. Napoleon was his model. Bolivar's work was alternately aided and retarded by events in Europe, and was finally cut short by the new Latin Americans whom he had enabled to become independent, but among whom, as a Creole, he was, in- spite of his acute insight into their needs, a stranger. He
did not, belong to the new nations that he had created. His parents were Spanish and therefore of the past ; his vision was of the future which had not yet materialised.
Bolivar was a romantic and spectacular figure ; his biographer should be economical and precise. Mr. Ludwig, though on this occasion he is sparing in the use of "reconstructed" scenes and imaginary reveries, expresses himself in lush and over-loaded language. Yet he follows the development of his hero accurately through its various stages, and Bolivar does emerge from his biography whole and unmutilated. The author exploits to the full the central, dramatic theme, which Bolivar had detected as being a vital feature in the career of Napoleon : "At what point should the man of action set a limit to his ambition for the sake of the happiness of the many ? At what point does the ruler -of the masses become their tyrant ? At what point do freedom and dictatorship clash ? " As he rose to power Bolivar found it increasingly necessary, against his wishes, to behave ruthlessly. Finally he became the dictator that he had always sworn never to be ; but at the summit of his career he constantly expressed in writing the reasons for his assumption of this role, protesting the purity of his motives, fashioning the Bolivar that he desired to be accepted by posterity. Bolivar could not control the new world that he had brought into being. He resigned magnificently and decided to leave the mainland.
This last year of his life contains splendid material for Mr. Ludwig. "Bolivar constantly sought pretexts for not carrying out his decision to leave. Once he was waiting for his passport, another time for money ; or again, the next ship was full of women and he could not crowd them out. The slowness of his approach to the coast was a concession to his ailing body, but still more a consequence of the fevered state of his mind. As the distance between him and his capital grew, he listened eagerly for the voice which would recall him." As he travelled, insurgents at distant Bogota proclaimed him President, and he was invited to. return. But, says Mr. Ludwig, "in his last struggle Don Quixote cannot betray the ideals for the sake of which he rode forth." So Bolivar at this time sent the message: "Between me and the presidency there stands a wall of brass—the law ! The source of law is the free will of the people, not the violence of mutiny, nor even the votes of friends. Before I come, both sides must call me." At the coast he waited, partly for his ship, partly for the call of his people, while he despatched countless letters, stating that they were "from a deathbed, that is, a place of prophecy." He was preoccupied with his political situation, his glory and his health. He died in his forties, still on the edge of his continent Few books on the subject of Bolivar exist in English. For the general reader Mr. Ludwig's biography is the best available.
GEORGE PENDLE.
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