Beneath the Aurora (35 page)

In 1813 Norway was a possession of King Frederick of Denmark, and occasional raids on its coast were made by British cruisers operating in northern waters.

As a result of the second expedition against Copenhagen in 1807, the Danish navy had been very largely destroyed by the British, though a fleet of gun-vessels and one or two men-of-war remained in commission, along with a large and effective fleet of Danish privateers. Subsequent actions between the British and the Danes became notorious for their ferocity.

The Danes also lost the island of Helgoland which, at the entrance of the Elbe, became a forward observation post for the British, and an entrepôt for British goods destined for the Continent to break the embargo imposed by Napoleon (a fact I have used as the basis for
Under False Colours
). The island remained in British hands for a century.

After the French Emperor's disastrous Russian campaign, the loyalty of his marshalate was severely shaken. Several of these men, who owed their fortunes to Napoleon, made overtures to the Allies. One, Marshal Bernadotte, became heir presumptive to the Swedish crown and, as a result of his joining the Allied camp, was later ceded Norway, afterwards becoming king of the entire Scandinavian peninsula.

Less successfully, Joachim Murat, King of Naples and Marshal of France, ‘the most complete vulgarian and poseur', according to Carola Oman, but an inspired if vainglorious leader of cavalry, opened a secret communication with the
British government in the autumn of 1813 with a view to retaining his throne in the event of the fall of his brother-in-law, Napoleon. His rival, the Bourbon King Ferdinand of the ‘Two Sicilies', retained the insular portion of his dual kingdom under British protection. Murat's overtures resulted in a treaty with London signed on 11 January 1814. It availed him little; he was shot by his ‘subjects' in the following year, and the odious Ferdinand returned to his palace in Naples.

The ambivalent posture of the Americans in their brief war with Great Britain was at odds with their singleminded ambitions towards Canada. Thirty thousand Loyalists had settled in New Brunswick after the War of Independence, a living reproach to the claims of the patriot party, and it was the avowed aim of the war-hawks in Congress to assimilate these and simultaneously liberate the French Canadians from the yoke of British tyranny, to the considerable advantage of the United States.

Between the new and the old worlds lay the Atlantic Ocean, dominated by the Royal Navy which, despite receiving a bloody nose from the young United States' Navy, was by 1813 reasserting its paramountcy. Nevertheless, American privateers continued to operate with impunity and the British were equally equivocal in their attitude to American trade, particularly when it affected the supply of Wellington's army in the Iberian peninsula.

Napoleon, moreover, took an interest in American affairs (his youngest brother Jerome married an American and their grandson was later Secretary of the US Navy, though the lady herself was later repudiated in favour of a Württemburg princess). Napoleon had sold Louisiana and the Mississippi valley as far west as the Rockies to the United States in 1803 with the prescient remark that the Americans would ‘fight the English again'. His secret diplomacy thereafter applied pressure to bring about this highly desirable state of affairs.

With Britain contributing 124,000 muskets, 18.5 million cartridges, 34,500 swords, 218 cannon, 176,600 pairs of boots, 150,000 uniforms and an additional 187,000 yards of uniform cloth to the Allied armies for the Leipzig campaign, a similar arrangement between the French and the Americans in exchange for wheat does not seem improbable.

That knowledge of such a deal should form the ‘guarantee' of Joachim Murat's good faith and a pledge of his suitability for a throne forms the basis of this story.

Both the British and the American governments were quite indifferent to the fate of merchant seamen, and those Americans lodged in Dartmoor remained incarcerated until long after the signing of the Peace of Ghent ended the war. On 6 April 1815 a riot broke out which left seven American prisoners dead and fifty-four wounded. It is believed that among the dead were a handful that had earlier escaped and been recaptured.