Encountering the Sacred: British and French Soldiers in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Mediterranean

Clarke, Joseph

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-78229-4_3

Joseph Clarke⁶

Part of the book series: War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850 ((WCS))

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Abstract

Clarke explores the attitudes British and French soldiers expressed when they came face to face with unfamiliar religious cultures around the Mediterranean world. Focusing on their encounters with Islam in Egypt and the Catholicism they confronted in Italy in the 1790s and Spain during the Peninsular War, this chapter examines how these soldiers drew on a range of preconceptions and personal experiences to make sense of the religious diversity they experienced abroad and how that diversity in turn influenced their conduct during these campaigns. It also examines how these soldiers used the idea of religious difference to define and refine what they understood modernity to be.

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Notes

1.
M. Bonnart, Histoire de Médard Bonnart, 2 vols. (Epernay, 1828), i, p. 163.
2.
Ibid., pp. 164 and 344.
3.
Ibid., i, p. 344.
4.
Ibid., i, p. 165.
5.
Ibid., i, p. 384 and ii, pp. 235, 272–4.
6.
J.E. Cookson, The British Armed Nation, 1793–1815 (Oxford, 1997), p. 16.
7.
L. Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven, 1992), D.A. Bell, The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 1680–1800 (New Haven, 2001).
8.
On that propaganda, see J.-P. Bertaud, A. Forrest and A. Jourdan, Napoléon, le monde et les anglais: Guerre des mots et des images (Paris, 2004), and S. Semmel, Napoleon and the British (New Haven, 2004).
9.
P. Goubert, The Ancien Régime: French Society (London, 1973), p. 42.
10.
C. Esdaile, The Wars of Napoleon (London, 1995), p. 144; J. Lowry, Fiddlers and Whores: The Candid Memoirs of a Surgeon in Nelson’s Fleet (London, 2006).
11.
A. Young, Travels in France during the Years 1787, 1788, 1789 (London, 1913 ed.), p. 12.
12.
C. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 1803–1815 (London, 2007), p. 561.
13.
For example, R. Porter, Letters from Portugal and Spain… by an officer (London, 1809), p. 157; F. Bernoyer, Avec Bonaparte en Egypte et en Syrie, 1798–1800, 19 lettres inédites (Paris, 1981), p. 126.
14.
W. Bragge, Peninsular Portrait, 1811–1814, the Letters of Captain William Bragge, Third (King’s Own) Dragoons, S. Cassels, ed. (Oxford, 1963), pp. 21, 56; M. de Tascher, Notes de campagne (1806–1813) sous-lieutenant au 8e régiment de hussards… (Châteauroux, 1932), pp. 74, 90.
15.
On mummery, see W. Brown, The Autobiography or Narrative of a Soldier (Kilmarnock, 1829), p. 56; Porter, Letters, p. 179, W. Graham, Travels through Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War (London, 1820), p. 20. A. Colbert, Traditions et souvenirs, ou mémoires touchant le temps et la vie du général Auguste Colbert, 2 vols. (Paris, 1863), ii, p. 323.
16.
J.M. Sherer, Recollections of the Peninsula (London, 1824); S. Woolf, ‘French Civilization and Ethnicity in the Napoleonic Empire’, Past & Present, 124 (1989), pp. 96–120.
17.
Graham, Travels, p. 1.
18.
J. Green, The Vicissitudes of a Soldier’s Life… by John Green late of the 68th Durham Light infantry (London, 1827), pp. 63, 142; Porter, Letters, p. 185; Sherer, Recollections, p. 170. R. Sweet, Cities and the Grand Tour: The British in Italy, c. 1690–1820 (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 41–2.
19.
J. Leach, Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier… (London, 1831), p. 73.
20.
Sherer, Recollections, p. 21.
21.
Porter, Letters, p. 120; Tascher, Notes, p. 94. T. Browne, The Napoleon War Journal of Captain Thomas Henry Browne, R. Buckley, ed. (London, 1987), p. 137.
22.
For example, Bernoyer, Avec Bonaparte, p. 88; L.-J. Bricard, Journal du canonnier Bricard 1792–1802 (Paris, 1891), p. 363; P. Millet, Souvenirs de la campagne d’Égypte, 1798–1801 (Paris, 1903), p. 149; M. Vertray, L’armée française en Égypte, 1798–1801, H. Galli, ed. (Paris, 1883), p. 62.
23.
L.-F. Fantin des Odoards, Journal du général Fantin des Odoards… (Paris, 1895), p. 253.
24.
N. Marcel, Campagnes du capitaine Marcel du 69e de ligne (1804–1814) (Paris, 1913), p. 70; J. Ormsby, An Account of the Operations of the British Army and of the State and Sentiments of the People of Portugal and Spain…, 2 vols. (London, 1809), ii, p. 30; Bragge, Peninsular Portrait, p. 56.
25.
For example, Chalbrand, Les Français en Égypte, ou Souvenirs des campagnes d’Égypte et de Syrie (Tours, 1856), p. 99; J. Miot, Mémoires pour server à l’histoire des expéditions en Égypte et en Syrie (Paris, 1804), p. 85; C. de Pelleport, Souvenirs militaires et intimes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1857), i, p. 131.
26.
M. Duviquet, Souvenirs de Maurice Duviquet… 1773–1814, F. Masson, ed. (Paris, 1905), p. 136. See also J.-F. Boulart, Mémoires militaires du général Bon Boulart (Paris, 1892), p. 11.
27.
Napoléon, Correspondance de Napoléon Ier: publiée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III, 32 vols. (Paris, 1858–1869), ii, p. 441. For his generals, P. Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power, 1799–1815 (London, 2013), p. 297.
28.
E.-G. Saint-Hilaire, Lettres écrites d’Égypte (Paris, 1901), p. 113.
29.
C. Esdaile, The Peninsular War: A New History (London, 2002), p. 242.
30.
A.-F. Miot de Mélito, Mémoires du comte Miot de Mélito, 3 vols. (Paris, 1858), iii, p. 22.
31.
A.F.L. Schaumann, On the Road with Wellington: Diary of a War Commissary in the Peninsular Campaign, A. Ludovici, ed. (London, 1924), p. 155.
32.
G. Daly, ‘Plunder on the Peninsula: British Soldiers and Local Civilians during the Peninsular War, 1808–1813’, in E. Charters and E. Rosenhaft, eds., Civilians and War in Europe, 1618–1815 (Liverpool, 2014), pp. 209–24.
33.
A. Hamilton, Hamilton’s Campaigns with Moore and Wellington during the Peninsular War (Staplehurst, 1998), p. 115.
34.
N. Aston, Religion and Revolution in France, 1780–1804 (Basingstoke, 2000), p. 61; P. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1998), p. 551.
35.
On fears of minorities, see J. McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1998), i, p. 611, and C. Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-Century England (Manchester 1993), p. 179.
36.
M. Snape, The Redcoat and Religion: The Forgotten History of the British Soldier from the Age of Marlborough to the Eve of the First World War (London, 2005), pp. 123 and 165; Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, pp. 55 and 233.
37.
J.C.D. Clark, English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 2000), p. 508.
38.
On French anticlericalism abroad, T.C.W. Blanning, The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance in the Rhineland, 1792–1802 (Oxford, 1983), p. 324.
39.
M.-A. Jullien, Segretario Generale della Repubblica Napoletana, Lettere e documenti, M. Battaglini, ed., (Naples, 1997), p. 253.
40.
Napoléon, Correspondance, i, p. 298.
41.
Napoléon, Correspondance, iv, p. 257.
42.
Ibid., p. 281.
43.
For Kléber, Bricard, Journal, p. 317.
44.
Colbert, Traditions et souvenirs, i, p. 74.
45.
A. Wellesley, The Dispatches of Field Marshall the Duke of Wellington during his Various Campaigns, J. Gurwood, ed., 8 vols. (London, 1844), iii, p. 43; see also v, pp. 134–5.
46.
Porter, Letters, p. 47; Sherer, Recollections, p. 8; W. Wheeler, The Letters of Private William Wheeler, 1809–1828, B. Liddell Hart, ed. (Bath, 1971), p. 50.
47.
Porter, Letters, p. 178; J. Cooper, Rough Notes of Seven Campaigns… (Staplehurst, 1996), p. 6; G. Bell, Rough Notes of an Old Soldier (London, 1867), pp. 10 and 53.
48.
Ormsby, An Account, i, p. 133.
49.
E. Villiers du Terrage, Journal et souvenirs sur l’expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1801 (Paris, 1899), p. 72.
50.
Leach, Rough Sketches, p. 121.
51.
Duviquet, Souvenirs, p. 168; Graham, Travels, p. 54.
52.
Graham, Travels, pp. 54 and 70; Green, Vicissitudes, p. 63; Boulart, Mémoires, pp. 52, 88 and 106.
53.
G. Simmons, A British Rifleman: The Journal and Correspondence of Major George Simmons, W. Verne ed. (London, 1899), pp. 236 and 49.
54.
C. Haydon, ‘I love my King and Country but a Roman Catholic I hate’: Anti-Catholicism, Xenophobia and National Identity in Eighteenth-Century England’, in T. Claydon and I. McBride, eds., Protestantism and National Identity, c.1650–1850 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 33–53.
55.
J.-M. Chevalier, Souvenirs des guerres napoléoniennes (Paris, 1970), p. 77.
56.
Boulart, Mémoires, p. 203; Green, Vicissitudes, p. 201.
57.
Bernoyer, Avec Bonaparte, p. 126; E.-L. Malus, Souvenirs de l’expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1802 (Paris, 1892), p. 89.
58.
Vertray, Journal, p. 81; C. Norry, An Account of the French Expedition to Egypt… (London, 1800 ed.), p. 15.
59.
C.-F. Volney, Voyages en Égypte et en Syrie, 2 vols. (Paris, 1807 ed.), ii, p. 260; Bernoyer, Avec Bonaparte, p. 126. On Volney’s influence in the army, see Pelleport, Souvenirs, i, p. 175, Miot, Mémoires, p. 91.
60.
Bonnart, Histoire, ii, p. 235.
61.
Duviquet, Souvenirs, p. 130; G. Grieg, The Subaltern: The Diaries of George Greig During the Peninsular War (Edinburgh, 1825), p. 224.
62.
Cooper, Rough Notes, p. 6; de Tascher, Notes, pp. 76, 90.
63.
Lowry, Fiddlers, p. 86.
64.
C. François, Journal du capitaine François, dit le dromadaire d’Égypte 1792–1830 (Paris, 2003 ed.), p. 211; L. Thurman, Bonaparte en Égypte: souvenirs publiés (Paris, 1902), p. 134. T. Walsh, Journal of the Late Campaign in Egypt (London, 1803), p. 224.
65.
Chevalier, Souvenirs, p. 60.
66.
Kincaid, Adventures, p. 199.
67.
Graham, Travels, p. 86.
68.
For example, Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 267; Boulart, Mémoires, p. 210; M. de Tascher, Notes, p. 74; Marcel, Campagnes, p. 17; Porter, Letters, p. 70; Kincaid, Adventures, p. 174; Graham, Travels, p. 43; Schaumann, On the Road, p. 321.
69.
Ormsby, An Account, ii, p. 47.
70.
Boulart, Mémoires, p. 203.
71.
Fantin des Odoards, Journal, p. 291.
72.
Ibid., pp. 222, 255, 257, 270, 187.
73.
O. Levavasseur, Souvenirs militaires d’Octave Levavasseur, officier d’artillerie (Paris, 1914), p. 122.
74.
A. Thirion, Souvenirs Militaires (Paris, 1998 ed.), p. 30.
75.
Marcel, Campagnes, pp. 26, 86; J.-J. de Naylies, Mémoires sur la guerre d’Espagne (Paris, 1817), p. 43; François, Journal, p. 570; F. Lavaux, Mémoires de François Lavaux, sergent au 103e de Ligne (Paris, 1895), p. 252.
76.
Reprinted in the Mercure de France, 10 December 1808, pp. 524 and 526.
77.
Daly, The British soldier, p. 58.
78.
Ibid., Wheeler, Letters, p. 50; Leach, Rough Sketches, p. 230.
79.
Ormsby, An Account, ii, p. 25–26; Porter, Letters, p. 186.
80.
Fantin, Journal, p. 253.
81.
Napoléon, Correspondance, i, p. 419. See also François, Journal, p. 239; Fantin, Journal, p. 221; Marcel, Campagnes, p. 31.
82.
E. Fairon and H. Heuse, eds., Lettres de Grognards (Liège, 1936), p.170.
83.
Boulart, Mémoires, p. 49. W. Tomkinson, The Diary of a Cavalry Officer 1809–15 in the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns (Staplehurst, 1999 ed.) p. 7. For one particularly graphic depiction of anticlerical violence, see Francisco de Goya, ‘Esto es malo’, Los Desastres de la Guerra, no. 46, (c. 1810–13).
84.
Leach, Rough Sketches, p. 126; Simmons, A British Rifleman, p. 243.
85.
J. Kincaid, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade (London, 1847 ed.), p. 163; Browne, Journal, p. 137.
86.
Sherer, Recollections, p. 31; Browne, Journal, p. 138.
87.
Browne, Journal, p. 185; Graham, Travels, p. 10; Ormsby, An Account, ii, p. 26; Porter, Letters, pp. 31, 232; Sherer, Recollections, p. 81; Wheeler, Letters, p. 94.
88.
Wheeler, Letters, p. 94.
89.
Sherer, Recollections, p. 22.
90.
A. Pagden, ed., The Idea of Europe: From Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge, 2002), p. 45.
91.
L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, 1994).
92.
Simmons, A British Rifleman, pp. 321, 329.
93.
Ibid. pp. 347–50.
94.
Ibid. p. 343.
95.
Ibid., p. 347.
96.
Simmons, A British Rifleman., p. 342.
97.
E. Wheatley, The Wheatley Diary: A Journal and Sketch-Book kept during the Peninsular War and the Waterloo Campaign, C. Hibbert, ed. (London, 1964), p. 54. See also W. Brown, The Autobiography or Narrative of a Soldier (Kilmarnock, 1829), p. 295–6; Kincaid, Adventures, p. 293, Schaumann, On the Road, p. 406; Cooper, Rough Notes, p. 119.
98.
Fantin, Journal, p. 203; F. Vigo-Roussillon, Journal de Campagne (1793–1837) (Paris, 1981), p. 279; François, Journal, p. 211; Fairon and H. Heuse, eds., Lettres de Grognards, p. 126; Marcel, Campagnes, p. 55; D. Parquin, Souvenirs et campagnes d’un vieux soldat de l’Empire (Paris, 1903 ed.) pp. 264–66; Malus, Souvenirs, p. 218; A. Pion des Loches, Mes Campagnes, 1792–1815 (Paris, 1889), p. 477.
99.
D. Bell, The First Total War: Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare As We Know It (New York, 2007), p. 14.
100.
Clausewitz, ‘Bekenntnisschrift, Februar 1812’, cited in K. Haggemann, Revisiting Prussia’s Wars Against Napoleon: History, Culture and Memory (Cambridge, 2015), p. 132.
101.
J. Donaldson, Recollections of the Eventful Life of a Soldier (Glasgow, 1825), p. 168.
102.
Ibid., p. 89, and Wheatley, The Wheatley Diary, pp. 12 and 24.
103.
Lowry, Fiddlers, pp. 88, 128.
104.
Simmons, A British Rifleman, pp. 137 and 236.
105.
J.G.A. Pocock, ‘Enthusiasm: the Antiself of Enlightenment’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 60 (1997), pp. 7–28.
106.
Simmons, A British Rifleman, p. 236.

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Joseph Clarke

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Clarke, J. (2018). Encountering the Sacred: British and French Soldiers in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Mediterranean. In: Clarke, J., Horne, J. (eds) Militarized Cultural Encounters in the Long Nineteenth Century. War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78229-4_3

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Published: 23 August 2018
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