(AA) Canto 50: Napoleon
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The most persistent sound which reverberates through man’s history is the beating of war drums
Arthur Koestler
Invasion’s Verge
I have lived in the ecstasy of battle.
The throbbing of guns, growing yearly,
Had been drum music to my ears
Herbert Read
A conqueror chokes up the Channel coast
His Grand Armee’s grand camp, & grander still,
The ambition to sail this eager host
Across the tide to execute the kill;
Two thousand boats,
Two hundred thousand sons,
& thirty thousand goats, with countless swords & guns.
Ambition turns to thwarted dreams
For fishes out of water,
Who’d thought naught could avert their schemes,
Britannia saves from slaughter,
Whose Nelson steers hervicious beams
Soon, afraid to fight her,
Villeneuve diverted from the myrtle seas
Back to Cadiz, via the Antilles.
As dispatch reach’d the Emperor,
“This is gross betrayal!”
With, “Sacre Bleu!” with “Merde! Mon dieu!”
He curs’d his admiral,
“Then let us march to Austria, I must have my battle.”
Boulogne
1805
Trafalgar
Sailors, drag your anchors out
from their harbour hideaways
& coil the dripping hawsers in
Antipater of Sidon
A fleet departs Portsmouth in stately flow,
Nelson’s sword-heart-beat pulsing for the game,
Transglobal oars his name all slowly know,
Setting so many foreign flags aflame;
Up in the van
Signals the Victory,
“England expects each man enact his own duty!”
Athwart all current theory
Devlish line has cross’d the ‘T,’
Divvying up the enemy,
Private conflicts in the sea
Conducted with cool energy,
One-sided killing spree,
“Nous surrendons!” as French, half drench’d in gore,
Kneel ‘neath the Spartan Sea-Lion of war!
“Kiss me Hardy!” Lord Nelson croaks,
“Kiss me my dear old friend!”
Amid the smokeswept, creaking oaks
England’s angels descend,
For death & heroism are companions to the end.
Atlantic Ocean
21st October
1805
Glorious Winter
A deadly silence step by step increas’d,
Until it seem’d a horrid presence there,
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair
John Keats
How many miles had Stefan Stiltski march’d,
Step-after-step, harsh-blister’d, ankle-sore,
Flea-bitten, sunbaked, freezing, flogg’d & parch’d,
Then rises random slaughters of real war;
Frozen musket,
Caked head to toe in snow,
Fixing his bayonet, his unit next to go.
He left the crucial Pratzen heights
With lads long time befriended,
The French look weaker on their right,
By them this was intended
Behind him marching Gallic might
Claims heights undefended,
Whose cannon murder thunderous wide spread,
The Russians soon outnumber’d by their dead.
As rounds are pounding thro’ the ranks,
Gouging a trench of pain,
France crowding flanks, old comrade yanks
Stefan’s arm in disdain,
“The battle’s lost, come brother, let us fly back to Ukraine!”
Austerlitz
December 12th
1805
Tilsit
We dream of being a ship,
Anyone didn’t think what wood we’d raise,
We intended to build it with vine branch
Dritëro Agolli
Like some black hole in Europe’s heart aswirl
The love of conquest draws the best men in,
Two years of battle prattle with a whirl,
Tsar Alexander knows he cannot win;
Facing defeat
Since Eylau & Friesland,
Two patriarchs shall meet across the Niemen strand.
Upon a little river raft
All Europa torn in two,
Where godlike signatories craft
Warsaw’s freedom, won anew!
They, after, dined & drank & laugh’d
Til evening’s twilight drew,
& parted they the firmest of firm friends –
Of course this is not how their story ends;
But that is for another time
For now let us suffice
With this sublimely fashion’d crime,
Daring to roll the dice –
The World was stolen by one man, a tiger midst the mice!
Poland
1807
House of Bonaparte
As up he mounts, and each with wonder sees
His speed and godlike grace. He seems to them
No more an Angel but a flying fire
Joost van den Vonde
As Josephine the Childless weeps for life,
Tempestuous storm-slash Vallombrosan
Erupts, her husband took another wife,
Some chubby, buck-faced, princess Austrian;
For seven years
Her table reign’d supreme;
Drying her noble tears she toasts the dying dream.
From Holland to Etruria
Via stately Germany,
The zenith of an emperor,
March’d in brazen majesty,
Valencia, Westphalia,
Frankfurt & Tuscany
Pray for his new-born heir, the King of Rome,
But… looking at these hairs upon his comb,
He knew that he might conquer kings
But never conquer time,
The flutterings of eagles’ wings
Drown out the churchy chime –
Bells welcoming the evening like a Languedoccan rhyme.
Paris
1811
A New Frontier
After them came the soldiers
With rifle & bomb & gun,
Looking for the enemies of the state
Charles Causley
Scarlet redcoats rampage thro’ Portugal,
Safeguarding Lusitania’s treasures,
Alas, events unfolded typical,
The sorry state of Britain’s half-measures;
‘Send Wellington,’
Rising reputation
Blows into old Lisbon… without hesitation
He wedges French forces between
The hammer & an anvil,
The first, fighting for King & Queen
Galway, Glasgow, Leeds & Rhyl,
The second patter forth unseen
Darting from kill to kill;
Blend Portugal’s intrepid militias.
With daring, dashing, Spanish guerrillas
From storming Badojozan walls
To wild Vimeiro,
The Duke controls the hapless Gauls,
Iberia’s hero
Secures the Salamancan ridge, then bridg’d the wide Ebro.
Spain
1811
A New War
When I remember with what buoyant heart,
Midst war’s alarms and woes of civil strife,
In youthful eagerness, thou didst depart
Amos Bronson Alcott
Napoleon’s embargo at full strain,
Belittled by those Peninsular ports,
While England gains good victories in Spain,
The Bourgeoisie crave tea & petticoats;
Alexander
Opens the door to trade,
His fellow emperor launches a hot tirade.
“How dare this peasant Muscovite
Deny my sacred orders,
The time has come for France to fight,
Men move up to the borders!
We must avenge this selfish sleight,
Satisfaction owed us!”
Two purple brothers, friendly once, with wine,
Hurtle to war like Guelf & Ghibelline.
“To arms!” six hundred thousand sons
March up thro’ the Empire,
The vista stuns, so many guns,
Some vasty field of fire,
Arrives an aide-de-camp, “Thy Grand Armee awaits thee, sire.”
Poland
June
1812
Turning Tide
But her children are in a marsh
Bogged, they have gone wild.
Yet, no one should worry
Susan Griffin
The path to Russia’s heart hack’d Cossack clear,
It’s conqueror trots thro’ the old city,
No Roman triumph shall await him here
Just ghostly streets salute his ‘victory;’
“What is that smell?”
Flames flicker candlesque,
Soon burning, fright’ning Hell surrounds his writing desk.
A score of letters reach the Tsar,
None in reply forthcoming,
His wily foeman’s rising star
Is from the ring retreating,
“This is no way to conduct war!
What will this madness bring?”
On every side his ‘far-from-grand’ Army
Live days like dying men – desperately!
Rapine & riot ransack wild,
Short autumn swiftly spann’d,
One meek & mild abandon’d child
Holds out her little hand;
A pretty snowflake melted there (as Alexander plann’d).
Moscow
October
1812
Retreat from Moscow
Their shoulders held the sky suspended ;
They stood & earth’s foundations stay ;
What God abandoned, these defended
AE Housman
At rumours of gross treachery at home,
By dog-drawn sledge the Emperor winds west,
His soldiers wilting in the wintry gloam,
New Bonnie Ruthven Prince; “Men, do your best!”
Namore the French
Dictate, shall, Europe’s show –
Thro’ thick unburied stench back, by Borodino,
The remnants of the legions track
The ruts of that royal sleigh,
Assaulted by vengant Cossack,
When only brave Marshall Ney
With one thousand fends off attacks,
Full fighting night & day,
Winning the Grand Armee a single chance –
To save themselves before the fall of France.
Ordeals only ten thousand last,
As silent in the street,
Crowds look aghast on phantoms pass’d,
Frost-bitten black the feet,
Those kings that conquer’d Moscow humbl’d cripples in defeat.
Paris
December
1812
Mumble Words 