Napoleon would not have brought a republic to Britain

A James Gillray cartoon of 1805 depicts Napoleon and William Pitt the Younger dividing up the world
A James Gillray cartoon of 1805 depicts Napoleon and William Pitt the Younger dividing up the world. Photograph: Alamy

Martin Kettle (Napoleon’s dream died at Waterloo, 18 June) seems to believe that a Napoleonic conquest of England would have led to the establishment of a democratic republic in this country. If so, he needs to read more history. In 1797, Napoleon did establish a democratic republic in northern Italy, the Cisalpine Republic. By 1800, power in the Cisalpine Republic had been centralised in the hands of a council of ministers appointed by Napoleon; in 1802 he ordered that he himself be elected president of the republic; and in 1805 he abolished the republic entirely and created a hereditary monarchy with himself as king. The Italians became the first of many peoples to learn that conquest by Napoleon meant exchanging one form of tyranny for another.

Napoleon did not just re-introduce slavery. As Tom Reiss describes in The Black Count, he also ethnically cleansed the French army of black officers, and issued decrees forbidding people of colour to emigrate into France.
Morgen Witzel
Northlew, Devon

The idea that Britain might have become a republic through an invasion by 200,000 French soldiers led by a dictator is not a welcome one. Napoleon as republican? Democrat? He dissolved the French Republican government to become first consul, and later emperor. He invaded Venice, which was already free and a republic. Waterloo was not so much a victory as an avoidance of defeat; and it gave rise to two national myths. One was that the British could stand all day and take whatever was thrown at them by foreign powers; the French myth was that a strong man would appear to get them out of trouble. Both of these have had interesting afterlives.

Incidentally, Byron made most of Martin Kettle’s points in Canto the Ninth of Don Juan. There was a good deal of Whig opposition to Wellington.
Eileen Cottis

The Battle of Waterloo is rightly commemorated; the scale of the bloodshed was indeed very great but by remembering only the battle itself, we forget to commend the triumph of diplomacy that occurred subsequently. After peace on the battlefield was established, it became the role of Europe’s politicians to ensure that peace lasted. Primarily the work of Britain’s foreign secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, and Austria’s leading statesman, Klemens von Metternich, the Concert of Europe set out European borders and created a balance of power between the continent’s large nations, which wasn’t disrupted on a large scale until almost 100 years later with the outbreak of the first world war.

The Concert of Europe is a towering example of how civilised communication between nations can reduce the likelihood of conflict and improve international relations. Europe was secure after years of heavy instability. Now, Europe is becoming more precarious with economic disputes, a feared Brexit and tensions over Russia.

The problems that face modern day Europe make the knowledge of successful negotiation even more necessary. So, remember the casualties of war, of course, but do not forget to commend and encourage the use of diplomacy for the benefit of all.
Gabriel Osborne

Martin Kettle claims that Waterloo was “a huge setback for the cause of democracy”. Yet it was followed in Britain in 1832 by the first Great Reform Act and by a tide of reform across France and some other European countries in 1848. Without the defeat of Napoleon, none of this could have happened.
Richard Jameson
Guildford, Surrey

On reading of the dismay and disappointment of the common people of Britain at Napoleon’s defeat, I was reminded of how movingly these feelings are expressed in the wonderful folk song The Bonny Bunch of Roses, an elegy for what might have been if Napoleon had won: “Ah, but when he came to Moscow / He was o’power’d by drifting snow / And Moscow was a-blazin’, / So he lost the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O’”.

The bunch of roses was England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
Susan Castles
Wem, Shropshire

Martin Kettle is right that it would probably have been better if Napoleon had won at Waterloo. Wellington’s victory boosted reactionary Britain and led, for example, to Peterloo (the name was a deliberate echo) in central Manchester on 16 August 1819. Here, protesters for the right to vote, including some who had fought at Waterloo, were attacked by the yeomanry, quite possibly on the orders of the same government that had celebrated the events of 18 June 1815.
Keith Flett

My great-great-great-grandfather, Lt Col George Home Murray, 16th Lancers, commanded the regiment at Waterloo from 18 June. In his will he bequeathed his Waterloo medal to “my dear nephew Rev Samuel Kennedy”. He died in 1833. I wonder where that medal is now.
Doreen Shilling