Side Lines of History
Vanished Supremacies: Essays on European History, 1812-1918. By Sir Lewis Namier. (Hamish Hamilton, 18s.)
THIS collection of essays is described by Sir Lewis Namier as the nearest substitute he has been able to offer for the continuous narrative of a history of Europe, 1812-1918, which he has wanted to write for over forty years. As a substitute for what might have been the Namier contribution to nineteenth-century history, it is surprisingly dis- appointing. The quality of the essays is uneven; the subject matter chosen is divided between trivia on Napoleon's love letters and Princess Lieven, for example, and two major and superbly able surveys on 'The Downfall of the Hapsburg Monarchy' and 'Basic Factors in Nineteenth- century European History.' The selection of titles sometimes indicates a certain frivolity of attitude which has little relevance to other chapters : as for example, the `Amitie amoureuse between Franz Joseph and Catherine Schratt' or `The First Mountebank Dictator,' namely Napoleon III. Several of these-essays were printed in other books of collected essays, as recently as 1952 and 1955.
The earliest written essay in this book is the longest, `The Downfall of the Hapsburg Mon- archy,' and is described by the author as the `fruit of war work in the Intelligence Departments, first under, and next in, the Foreign Office' during the First World War. Sir Lewis frankly avows the existence of a practical purpose in writing this essay; and he recommends that it be read by all those who regret the destruction of the Hapsburg Monarchy. The essay in question is perhaps the most interesting of those now published; its value is somewhat diminished by the obvious practical motives which underlay its construction. It is, in fact, polemical history skilfully written by an extremely able man of widespread knowledge. Here Sir Lewis is a politician writing history rather than a historian writing on politics. And it would be interesting to know how far, in fact, Sir Lewis's views were considered by the British delegation at Versailles in 1919. This essay there- fore is of interest as a historical document in itself, rather than as a professional contribution to the history of the fall of Austria-Hungary.
Sir Lewis's judgments are usually piercing; he has a keen insight into the foibles of human nature. Where 'dictators' or Germans are con- cerned, he has little regard for the virtues which were not entirely lacking in such people. Napoleon HI was not entirely a mountebank; Sir Lewis's interpretation is nevertheless so constructed as to emphasise this aspect of his politics. Sir Lewis is always far more clever and far-seeing than the generations which he is examining. But he seems to forget that he has the advantage of hindsight.
A major weakness in his historical approach lies in determinist treatment of German and Austro-Hungarian developments. He seeks—to quote his own words—`for the logic of situation and the rhythm of events which invest them at least with a determinist meaning' (p. 165). He has found the answer before, in fact, he has put all the relevant questions, and he has read the present back into the past. He writes (p. 115), again in relation to Austria-Hungary, of develop- ments being predetermined as the movement of the stars, and subject to iron laws. Futhermore he refers frequently to German Nationalists in Austria as if they did not include among them a wide variety of attitudes and behaviour (cf. pp. 118-120). What about Otto Steinwender, Karl Lueger, Heinrich Friedjung and Ernest Plener? Or his statement that 1848 started the German bid for world domination (p. 28)? Whatever else this is, it is not historical approach.
His chapter on the end of Napoleon I belongs to the category of trivia. Sir Lewis may have felt that so much had already been written about `the first of the modern dictators' that nothing serious remained to be added. He therefore concentrates on Napoleon's relations with Marie-Louise, the collapse in 1814, and on the episode in St. Helena. Marie-Louise, according to him, was nothing more to Napoleon than a `big doll' (sic); and even when we come to the last tragic years, the level of Sir Lewis's treatment never alters. He implies that the letters to the Empress were Impersonal, empty letters from a self-centred man, absorbed in his work.' In fact, Napoleon wrote nearly fifteen let- ters in each of the six months of his Russian cam- paign. This was not a bad performance for a man in his position. Namier mentions that Napoleon used the formula—`My health is good' —over forty times. What is more natural for any husband than that he should seek to reassure a distant wife on such a point?
Few historians can be expected to produce work of consistently equal quality; and these essays— at least some of them—would hardly have ever been published if Sir Lewis had not acquired a deservedly distinguished reputation in some of the other fields with which he has busied himself. The essays are agreeable, if light, reading (with two exceptions). It is a pity that Sir Lewis did not devote himself to the continuous narrative `which was originally intended.'
DESMOND WILLIAMS
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