The modern travel industry has brought tourists to just
about every part of the world, however seemingly inaccessible. I suspect
however that, though the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic is widely
known as the place of detention of the ex-Emperor Napoleon, very few tourists
ever get there. I’m all the more glad therefore to welcome back my guest
blogger, Lally Brown, has not only lived on the island, but has also put it to
very good account in writing a very authoritative book about Napoleon’s exile
there. You can find out more about Lally and her books at the end of her
article, but first let’s hear here tell about one of the great “What Ifs...” of
history.
“Napoleon’s submarine and the escape that wasn’t”
by Lally
Brown
First of all a big "thank you" to Antoine for inviting me back
to write another article for the Dawlish Chronicles blog, it’s both an honour
and a real pleasure.
Like many other readers I
was intrigued by Antoine’s excellent and informative post of 24th
March 2016 concerning the Farfadet
Submarine Disaster of 1905, and I was reminded of an extraordinary plot to
rescue ex-Emperor Napoleon from his exile on remote St. Helena by submarine.
Over the five and a half
years of Napoleon’s imprisonment on the island of St. Helena several escape
plans were hatched. Apparently Napoleon studied all of them but declined to
risk any. Some were quite bizarre and some sound positively dangerous. Would
Napoleon really have allowed himself to be dressed as a woman and smuggled on
board a ship in Jamestown harbour? Or been lowered down a steep cliff in a
basket in the dead of night? I think not! However the submarine plot, if true,
must be the most hazardous of all the proposals.
|
Robert Fulton |
The submarine story is
fascinating. It starts late in 1797 when an American inventor living in Paris,
Robert Fulton (1765-1815) took an original submarine drawing designed by a
gentleman called Bushnell to the French government. By towing an underwater
bomb, called a torpedo, Fulton was convinced his submarine (called Nautilus) could successfully ‘annihilate England’s Navy’. The idea
was initially well received, but before construction could start, for some
reason the project was cancelled. Possibly because Napoleon was busy elsewhere
in Switzerland, Italy and Egypt.
Fulton did not give up. In
1801 he managed to meet Napoleon who agreed to give him 10,000 francs to test
his invention. Fulton moved to Brest where he
conducted several successful experiments. He wrote: “I conceived every experiment of importance to be proved in the most
satisfactory manner’
He submitted
his report but in 1802
the Treaty of Amiens was signed and hostilities between France and Great
Britain were halted and Napoleon lost interest in the submarine. Disappointed
Fulton moved to England and approached the authorities there. At first all
seemed to be going well and Fulton began his experiments, but when the promised
funds were not forthcoming Fulton left England for New York in 1806 in disgust.
|
Fulton’s Submarine drawings in the World
Digital Library (wdl.org)
Listed as having ‘no
known restrictions on publication’
|
It was while
he was in England that Fulton apparently met the notorious Captain Thomas
Johnstone (1772-1839). A very shady character who was to become central to the
St. Helena submarine escape plot. Sir Walter Scott in his ‘Life of Napoleon’ described Johnstone as: ‘A
smuggler of an uncommonly resolute character, and whose life had been a tissue
of desperate risks.’
After Fulton’s
departure for America, Johnstone stepped in and quickly took over the submarine
plans and in 1812 at the outset of war with the U.S.
the British Government commissioned Johnstone to build a torpedo system and a
submarine and by 1814 Johnstone’s submarine was almost
complete: ‘The hull was formed of sheet iron; her
figure, that of a salmon swimming; her length, about twenty feet; and her space
in the inner chamber, about six feet square. This was formed in an inside boat,
formed of cork and wood.’
Unfortunately for the
hapless Johnstone war with the U.S. ended in February 1815 and the submarine no
longer held any interest for the British, funds were withdrawn and the project
shelved. However, when Napoleon was banished into exile to the remote island
of St. Helena after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, it seems that Johnstone
became convinced his submarine design could be used ‘in the meritorious
and humane service of rescuing the immortal emperor Napoleon’ from
his South Atlantic rock.
Johnstone searched out
people he felt might be willing to fund his ‘adventure’ to rescue Napoleon. In
1818 he managed to ingratiate himself with Barry O’Meara, the doctor who had
attended Napoleon on St. Helena before being removed by Governor Sir Hudson
Lowe. Barry O’Meara was a keen supporter of the ex-Emperor, lobbying in London
on Napoleon’s behalf. Johnstone’s approaches proved successful and in 1819 he
received £15,000 to start building a submarine. Where all the money came from is
unclear but Count Montholon (Napoleon’s General and friend on St. Helena) says
in his memoirs that ‘five or six thousand
louis d’or was given to the funding of a submarine’. Johnstone immediately
set up operations at Blackwall Reach on the Thames, telling the workers the
submarine would be used for smuggling. It is possible the submarine was
actually completed by late 1820, Sir Walter Scott says
Johnstone’s vessel: ‘was actually
begun in one of the building-yards upon the Thames; but the peculiarity of her
construction having occasioned suspicion, she was seized by the British
government.’
Personally I think it highly
unlikely that Napoleon would have considered escaping from St. Helena inside a
submarine, but let Johnstone himself have the last word. Below is an account
Johnstone apparently gave to Frederick William Naylor Bayley, who included it
in his own memoirs published in 1835. Whether it is fact or fantasy still remains
a mystery.
‘I constructed two submarine ships,
which I intended should be engaged in the meritorious and humane service of
rescuing the immortal emperor Napoleon – the greatest man of his age – from the
fangs of his jailor, Sir Hudson Lowe.
The Eagle was of the burthen of a hundred
and fourteen tons, eighty-four feet in length, and eighteen feet beam;
propelled by two steam engines of forty horse power. The Etna – the smaller ship – was forty
feet long, and ten feet beam; burthen, twenty-three tons. These two vessels
would be propelled – the large one with two engines of twenty horse power
each , the small one with one engine of ten horse power, high pressure, well
arranged, equipped with warlike stores, and thirty well-chosen seamen, with
four engineers. They were also to take twenty torpedoes, a number equal to the
destruction of twenty ships, ready for action in case of my meeting with any
opposition from the ships of war on the station.
These
two ships were to be stationed at a convenient distance from the rock (at St.
Helena), abreast of Longwood House, the highest point of the island, being two
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and because deemed inaccessible, of
course unsuspected. All the accessible points were well fortified and guarded.
In this position the two vessels were to lay at anchor at a cable’s length from
each other, the smaller one close to the rock, well-fortified with cork
fenders, in order to guard against any injury which might be apprehended from
the friction or beating against the rock, which could at all times be prevented
by hauling off or on, as occasion required. This smaller ship would be provided
with a mechanical chair, capable of containing one person on the seat, and a
standing foot-board at the back, so that the person at the back could regulate
the ascent or descent at pleasure. Attached to this chair would be a patent
whale-line, two thousand and fifty feet long, with all the necessary apparatus
ready when called for.
Thus
far arranged, the vessels were to remain submerged during the day, and at night
approach the surface. Everything being then perfectly in order, I should then
go on shore, provided with some other small articles, such as a ball of strong
twine, an iron bolt, with a block, which I would sink into the ground at the
top of the rock, opposite Longwood House, and abreast of the submarine ships. I
should then obtain my introduction to his Imperial Majesty, and communicate my
plan.
The
residence of the emperor being surrounded by a chevaux-de-frise, and the stables being outside, the servants
only had access to the house. I proposed that the coachman should go into the
house at a certain hour which should be fixed, and that His Majesty should be
provided with a similar livery, as well as myself, the one in the character of
coachman, the other as groom; and that thus disguised we should pass into the
coach house, and there remain unnoticed and unperceived.
|
Longwood House (by Lally Brown) - Napoleon's St. Helena residence |
We
should then watch our opportunity to avoid the eye of the frigate guard, who
seldom looked out in the direction of the highest point in the Island, and on
our arriving at the spot where our blocks, &c. were deposited, I should
make fast one end of my ball of twine to the ring, and heave the ball down to
my confidential men, then on the lookout below, who would make the other end
fast to the fall belonging to the mechanical chair, by which means I should be
able to haul up the end of the fall, which I should run through the block, and
then haul up the mechanical chair to the top. I should then place His Majesty
in the chair, while I took my station at the back, and lowered away with a
corresponding weight on the other side, until we arrived safe at the bottom.
Embarked
on board the Etna, into which
we should have lowered, as it lay close under the rock, I should then cast off
our moorings, and haul alongside the Eagle,
and remain there during the day; in the evening, prepare our steam, and get
underweigh as soon as it became dark. In this position I should propel by steam
until I had given the island a good berth, and then ship our masts and make
sail, steering for the United States.
I
calculated that no hostile ship or ships could impede our progress, so as to
offer any very serious obstruction, as in the event of an attack I should haul
our sails, and strike yards and masts (which would only occupy about forty
minutes), and then submerge. Under water we should wait the approach of the
enemy, and then, by the aid of the little Etna, attaching the torpedo to her bottom, effect her
destruction in fifteen minutes.
|
Death of Napoleon - by Paul Léon
Jazet (after Steuben)
|
Napoleon died on St. Helena on 5th May 1821 but
if he had succeeded in escaping from the island, by submarine or any other
means, our history today might be very different.
Those of you interested in learning more about Napoleon’s
years on St. Helena might enjoy my book The
Countess, Napoleon and St. Helena and anyone interested in the ‘what if Napoleon had escaped’
alternative history scenario will surely appreciate Shannon Selin’s book Napoleon in America.
About Lally Brown
Born and bred in Yorkshire, England, Lally embraced the
Swinging Sixties with naïve enthusiasm. As a teenager in search of adventure
she trekked overland to war-torn Israel, working on a small kibbutz driving a
tractor and picking oranges to earn her keep. She managed to hitch-hike around
the country staying in Haifa, Jerusalem and Acre. This amazing, and
occasionally dangerous experience, was the spark that ignited her lifelong love
of adventure and travel.
Lally has lost count of the number of homes she has had over
the years but says her most memorable are those on remote St. Helena Island
where ex-Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was imprisoned and where he died;
Montserrat in the Caribbean when the volcano erupted, Turks and Caicos Islands
and the British Virgin Islands.
As she looks back, Lally is writing about her adventurous
life using the journals she kept at the time. Her books prove that truth can
indeed be far stranger than fiction, with erupting volcanoes, hurricanes,
earthquakes, evacuations, abduction, drug smugglers, people smugglers, armed
robbery, hangings, stowaways, bribery, corruption, political intrigues, riots,
and much, much, more.
To get more information on Lally Brown’s books click on the
image above
And to learn more about Shannon Selin’s alternative history of Napoleon's career in
America click on image on right:
The year is 1821. Former French Emperor Napoleon has been imprisoned on a dark wart in the Atlantic since his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Rescued in a state of near-death by Gulf pirate Jean Laffite, Napoleon lands in New Orleans, where he struggles to regain his health aided by voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. Opponents of the Bourbon regime expect him to reconquer France. French Canadians beg him to seize Canada from Britain. American adventurers urge him to steal Texas from Mexico. His brother Joseph pleads with him to settle peacefully in New Jersey...