Berthier took the despatch with a nod and slid the window up as the hussar wheeled his horse round in the mud with some difficulty and rode off. Berthier broke the seal and held the paper out to Napoleon, who shook his head wearily.
‘You read it.’
‘Yes, sire.’ Berthier unfolded the message and scanned it hurriedly, then read it again more slowly as he took in the details with a growing sense of shock and anxiety over the Emperor’s reaction to the news.
‘Well?’ Napoleon asked softly as he leaned his head back on the cushioned seat and closed his eyes. ‘What do those fools back in Paris want with me now?’
Berthier cleared his throat nervously. ‘There has been a naval battle, sire. Admiral Villeneuve and his fleet encountered the British navy off the coast of Spain.’
Napoleon’s eyes snapped open and he sat up straight.‘Ah! At last he’s got off his arse and done something! What happened?’
‘Sire, it appears that he was defeated.’
‘Defeated?’ Napoleon sneered.‘I can imagine. He ordered his men to turn tail the moment the first ship lost a mast. The man is as cowardly as he is incompetent.’
‘No, sire. Not on this occasion, it appears. He stood his ground and fought the British.’
‘And?’
‘He was beaten, sire.’
‘Beaten? How badly?’
Berthier glanced at the message from Paris, then replied,‘It seems we have lost upwards of twenty sail of the line, sunk or taken.The rest were dispersed as they broke off the engagement.’
Napoleon took a deep breath and glared at his boots resting on the seat opposite.When he spoke it was with a bitter intensity that Berthier had never heard before. ‘God damn that coward Villeneuve to the most fiery pits of hell. We will never beat the British at sea now.’ He paused, and then continued in a low voice, ‘My plans for the invasion are finished. We must find another way to beat Britain. If we can’t defeat them on the battlefield, we must strangle their economy.’ His eyes glittered cruelly. ‘We must ruin them, and when their money has drained away and their people are starving they will beg us for peace, rather than face a revolution of their own.’
There was a brief silence as the carriage rumbled and slid along the muddy track, and then Berthier asked, ‘What do we do now, sire?’
‘Now?’ Napoleon nodded in the direction the carriage was heading. ‘Now we fix every thought on crushing our Austrian and Russian friends as ruthlessly and completely as possible.’
That night, as word of Villeneuve’s defeat spread through the army, there was a subdued atmosphere in the camp. Napoleon could not help being aware of it as he strode through the tent lines and attempted to raise the men’s morale by stopping to talk to them as they crowded round their fires.The temperature had dropped still further and every so often a light flurry of snowflakes swirled out of the dark heavens. The usual greetings were more muted, and Napoleon was conscious of conversation stopping as soon as men were aware of his approach. His dark mood over the defeat was made worse by the latest report from Murat.
His cavalry commander had barely been able to contain his excitement as he wrote to tell Napoleon that the road to Vienna was open. Murat had given orders for his corps to advance on the Austrian capital. As a result Kutusov was no longer being pursued, and according to further reports the Russians had crossed the Danube and were making good their escape along the northern bank. Now they would have time to gather their strength, and manoeuvre closer to their Austrian allies to combine their forces and face Napoleon on more equal terms.
There was nothing left but to retrieve whatever political advantage there might be in taking the enemy capital. That at least would humiliate Austria in the eyes of the other nations of Europe, and make them think hard about defying Napoleon.The Emperor frowned as he reflected on the coming confrontation with Murat, who had been summoned to headquarters to report to him in person. Like any good cavalry commander, Murat was fearless in attack and resolute in defence, but his kind tended to suffer from far too much pride, arrogance and impetuosity. In Murat these qualities, both good and bad, had been refined to an unusual degree. It was time to rein Murat in, Napoleon mused humourlessly.
When he returned to the large farm commandeered by the headquarters staff, Napoleon heard a loud roar of laughter coming from within. He nodded at the sentry, who saluted, and then opened the door of the farmhouse. He paused on the threshold as he heard Murat’s voice carrying across the merriment of his staff officers and members of the imperial headquarters. Napoleon removed his hat and quietly made his way inside, to stand at the side of the hall in the shadows as he watched Murat holding court. The glow of the fire and the candles flickering around the room picked out the elaborate gold braid and bejewelled decorations that covered the cavalry commander’s tunic.
‘You should have seen it!’ Murat continued. ‘The bastards were on the far side of the bridge, with guns covering it and a brigade of infantry formed in line across the end on the far bank.The Austrians had mined it as well, just to make sure. Any attempt to cross would have ended in a bloodbath. So, there’s Marshal Lannes and myself looking across the Danube and Lannes calls up the grenadiers and tells ’em to keep out of sight on our side of the river and wait for his signal.Then Lannes and I start walking across the bridge to the Austrian side. Just him and me. Alone.’ Murat paused, milking the suspense and relishing every moment of it, before he continued. ‘Well, soon as they see us the Austrians raise their muskets, and the gunners bring up their linstocks, and wait for the order to open fire.Then Lannes and I raise our arms and wave ’em, and start shouting “Armistice! Armistice!” for all we’re worth.’ Murat accompanied his words with great sweeps of his arm to dramatise the point.‘You should have seen their faces! The colonel in command of the defences just stood there as we walked up.’ Murat assumed an aristocratic falsetto. ‘ “Armistice?” he says. “What armistice? No one’s told me.” ’
This provoked another roar of laughter from his audience, and he held his hands up to quieten them down. ‘So I stroll right in and give the uppity bastard a bollocking for not having his superiors there to negotiate. Meanwhile Lannes has marched up to the fuses on the mine and ripped them out and thrown them in the river. And while I’m bawling at the colonel, Lannes tips his hat to the grenadiers and they come on at the double. Soon as the Austrian gunners see ’em they make ready to fire.“Not so bloody fast!” I shout at ’em.“What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is an armistice!” And I shove them away from the guns. By the time they’d recovered their wits the grenadiers were already across and disarming them.’ Murat puffed out his chest and concluded, ‘And that, my friends, is how just two men of the Grand Army took a bridge across the Danube from a whole brigade of Austrians.’
At once the officers burst into wild applause and Murat made a few stage bows to them in return. Napoleon
