The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1570: Chapter 11: The Double-Edged Words of London’s Officialdom (Part 2)

Arthur was momentarily stunned, feeling a bit at a loss.

Palmerston continued to explain: ”Most people might think an army is similar to a parade, where the leader gives a signal and everyone else naturally follows. But unfortunately, the Prussians are not like us Britons, the so-called ’punctual nation’. Your Excellency the Duke’s troops, marching from Bordeaux all the way north, faced supply shortages but still maintained strict discipline and orderly personnel. Everyone knew which company they belonged to, how much ration they were entitled to, and who was on guard at night, all clearly defined. Now look at the Prussians. Every few days during the march, someone would disappear, and I heard that there was even a cavalry unit that spontaneously disbanded, allegedly to ’rescue villagers being plundered’. In the end, someone found them by the Loire River, each person with a fat chicken stolen from some village, drunkenly singing and roasting at a fire.”

Palmerston continued: ”The Duke of Wellington believed at that time that personal plunder was a significant corrosive factor in the French Army and would eventually undermine the Prussian Army, a view he holds to this day. Of course, plundering is not limited to ordinary soldiers; the plundering by mid and high-level officers, though less violent in form, is more destructive. Because when officers can recruit soldiers on their own, they transform the army into their private force. Those demanding provisions today will push for money tomorrow, and thus, the nature of war is altered.

Warfare became a profiteering venture, focusing the officers’ attention not on winning honor but on amassing wealth. The Duke of Wellington ruled his army strictly, not allowing officers to recruit soldiers on their own; they were required to submit their needs to the military supply office, which would then apply to the War Department for what was needed, and the provisions had to be distributed through transparent channels acknowledged by the public and operated by legitimately recognized authorities. Therefore, to the people, this burden felt less oppressive than the direct pressure from the French or Prussian governments or the arbitrary changes made by individual officers.

The result? Although both the Prussian Army and our own consumed national resources, the public despised the former and adored the latter. And what about in France? Collecting war taxes in France was extremely difficult without large sums of money, as every fortune was divided. The French nobility were, of course, ruined, and the newly affluent were ordered by Napoleon to ruin themselves for the war effort, providing gear. Napoleon would assign one person to handle rations, another for shoes, and another for trousers, treating them like leeches, allowing them to gorge on blood, and then forcing them to cough it back up.”

At this point, Palmerston turned back: ”Speaking of which, Arthur, which management style do you think is better?”

Arthur, unperturbed, replied, ”Naturally, the former. While at Scotland Yard, I managed in the same way as the Duke of Wellington.”

”Alright.” Palmerston gently moved on from this discussion: ”When the Duke of Wellington was busy with maneuvers outside Paris, do you know what I was doing?”

”The life in Paris is not hard to guess. When I stayed there two years ago, I saw endless social dances and various salons.”

”You’re right, Paris is indeed an intoxicating place.” He paused, as if dredging something from deep memory: ”But my visit to Paris then had nothing to do with dancing. The main character of that evening’s dinner was not a beautiful Parisian Countess, but Mr. Bresson. Have you heard of him?”

Arthur slightly furrowed his brows in thought. While drafting the police management ordinance of the Hanover Constitution in Paris, he had applied to the embassy for numerous materials from the Napoleonic Era, and Bresson was not an unfamiliar name in those documents.

”The Paris Police Chief during the Napoleonic Era?”

”That’s right.” Palmerston nodded: ”That evening, Bresson invited a few of our friends in Paris, including me, two Dutchmen, and a Swiss banker. We sat in a restaurant-tavern in Saint-Germain, and he, like a retired storytelling priest, talked about the scandals of the Bonaparte Family while cutting his steak.”

Palmerston continued: ”He said that Napoleon was easily influenced by his family, especially his sisters, who knew better than any minister how to sway his will. And his brothers? Pathetically foolish. The Empire of the Bonaparte family was upheld by a genius but pulled down by a group of shortsighted individuals. He said most of Napoleon’s brothers were weak and foolish, and when they were appointed to govern conquered countries, they fancied themselves as independent monarchs, making it extremely difficult to correct their errors.

Take Jerome, for instance. When he wore the crown of the King of Westphalia, it was said this little man strutted about Kassel, issuing orders as if he would hold his position indefinitely, and when Napoleon’s envoy Nelvins hinted at the Emperor’s matters, Jerome admirably replied: ’I wish to remind you that I am family to the Emperor.’ However, Nelvins’s special task was to watch over him, preventing him from acting recklessly. This poor man had to brace himself to persistently persuade and warn him that if he grew too arrogant, the Emperor might dispatch a general to occupy his country. It seemed Jerome took quite some time to grasp the persuasive power of this disagreeable advice.”