A British Napoleon
Sir: Never mind Napoleon’s piles at Waterloo, which Matthew Parris wrote about the other week (Another Voice, 6 December); as a very young man Napoleon — who even then had a thrusting military ambition — sought service with the greatest fighting force of the age and wrote accordingly to the Admiralty in London. His approach was ignored.
But what if it had been accepted? There would be no ‘Trafalgar’ Square or ‘Waterloo’ Station; Arthur Wellesley wouldn’t have been more than a sepoy general, never mind prime minister, and Horatio Nelson would have retired as a captain having served much of his career on half-pay. But Europe would have been spared much death and destruction, and its 19th-century history would have been a lot different. The then Lords of the Admiralty have a lot to answer for.
C.E. Johnson
Bath
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