"Napoleon on Looting and Pillaging" Topic

‘Military discipline admits of no modifications.'-Napoleon to Jerome, 3 April 1807.

The army must understand that discipline, wisdom, and the respect for property support its victories, that pillage and theft belong only to the cowardly, who are unworthy of remaining in the ranks…that they plot the loss of honor and that they have no goal other than to stain the laurels acquired by so much bravery and perserverence.'-Order of the Day, 11 June 1796.

‘Without discipline there is no victory.'-Napoleon to the Directory, 6 April 1796.

‘The success of an army and its well-being depend essentially upon order and discipline, which will make us loved by the people who come to greet us and with whom we share enemies.'-Order of the Day, 20 March 1799.
‘Pillaging destroys everything, even the army that practices it. The inhabitants leave, which has the dual drawback of turning them into irreconcilable enemies who take revenge upon the isolated soldier, and of swelling the enemy ranks in proportion to the damage that we do. This deprives us of all intelligence, so necessary for waging war, and of every means of subsistence. Peasants who come to peddle provisions are put off by the troops who stop them, pillage their wares, and beat them.'-Order of the Army, 12 December 1808.

‘When I arrived [in Italy in 1796] the army was injured by the bad influence of the troublemakers: it lacked bread, discipline, and subordination. I made some examples, devoted all of our means to reviving the administrative services of the army, and victory did the rest…Without bread the soldier tends to an excess of violence that makes one blush for being a man.'-Napoleon to the Directory, 24 April 1796.

‘We will never forget to make a disciplinary example of these soldiers who deviate from the rule of severe discipline.'-Napoleon to AM Battaglia, 10 December 1796.
Army Order, 22 June 1812

‘Each marshal or corps commander will name a provost commission composed of five officers, which will try every soldier who, following the army, is absent from his regiment without a legitimate reason and every marauder and individual caught pillaging or molesting the local inhabitants. The commission will condemn the guilty to death and will have them executed in twenty-four hours.'

The contents of the Louvre suggests that anything Napoleon has to say on the subject should be taken with a pinch of salt.

G'Day Gents

Napoleon on looting

Wellington when he was commander of the army of occupation in France, when he left…he took his share of the spoils that should have been returned back to their rightful owners ;-)

Ergo…anything that Wellington has to say on the subject should be taken with a pinch of salt as well…

Wait…I'm sorry I thought I was on the NapSeries…

"Might want to avoid the British Museum, then, if you're offended by art and artifacts seized by conquerors".

Best Regards
Art

"Each marshal or corps commander will be exempt from these strictures."

G'Day Art,

I don't remember suggesting that Wellington was a model of rectitude but maybe I did without realising it?

"Might want to avoid the British Museum, then, if you're offended by art and artifacts seized by conquerors".

Why did you put that in inverted commas? Are you quoting someone?

Best Regards
SJD

French pre Directoire and Premier Consul led Armies in Italy acted as vultures as concern everything..from art to goods

The contents of the Louvre suggests that anything Napoleon has to say on the subject should be taken with a pinch of salt.

'The idea persists that the satellite kingdoms were 'robbed' for the benefit of France. One envisions wagons rolling toward Paris with coin for the imperial treasury and revered works of art for the Louvre. To dismiss the latter quickly, many of the paintings and objects were legitimately purchased, and still belong to the French government.'

'Admittedly, so do many 'stolen' works, however. Louis XVIII did not want to offend the French public by returning them all, and the allies were sympathetic. The conquerors, moreover, could not agree on which works had been 'legally' seized. The czar set a precedent by ignoring the whole problem and buying hundreds of confiscated paintings and objects, most of which are now in the Hermitage, at Leningrad.'
-Owen Connelly, Napoleon's Satellite Kingdoms, 341.

It should also be noted that the looting that went on in Northern Italy in 1796-1797 was done by the order of the Directory and not by Napoleon's order. In point of fact, he did his best to curb the 'work' of the Directory's agents.
Most actions in history are not purely 'black and white.'

The Louvre museum was established in 1793. Vivant Denon was appointed by Napoleon in 1804 as its director and he made it the finest museum in the world.

As to other European governments that 'appropriated' art work, JC Herold in the Age of Napoleon states:

'The French were not alone in appropriating the art treasures of less powerful nations. The age that witnessed their plundering of Italy also saw the shipment to England of the Elgin marbles, and Sir William Hamilton's collection of the antiquities from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The Austrians transferred paintings from scores of Flemish churches and monasteries to the royal galleries at Vienna [and more recently the return, by legal action, of private art looted by the Nazis from Austrian Jewish victims in Vienna-see 'The Woman in Gold'-I guess old habits die hard].'-66

The Directors in France 'solemnly announced' that 'The sovereignty of all the arts should pass to France in order to affirm and embellish the reign of liberty.'-65

In that 'spirit', 'French art commissioners followed the revolutionary armies, systematically looting the art treasures of Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries.'-65.

So, it seems that it was the policy of the French government during the Revolution…Interestingly, the four horses that were taken from St Mark's in Venice and sent back to France had originally been looted from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade by the Venetians. It appears that the looting of art objects was a grand old European tradition dating back centuries before the French Revolution.-66-67.

And it should be remembered that a good portion of the art objects in the Louvre obtained during the period had been purchased by the French.

Massena was known to be looter. Napoleon looked the other way.

'The idea persists that the satellite kingdoms were 'robbed' for the benefit of France. One envisions wagons rolling toward Paris with coin for the imperial treasury and revered works of art for the Louvre. To dismiss the latter quickly, many of the paintings and objects were legitimately purchased, and still belong to the French government.'

I did a Google search and I'm pleased to see that my memory wasn't failing me. You've been reproducing that quote for years. Look what else I found:

TMP link

On this thread you claimed it was a "myth" that any treasure was taken from the Confederation states. You were then shown actual figures and citations from French sources, of the confiscations, forced contributions, and so on, in the millions of francs, including confiscated property.

You vanished from that thread thereafter.

There was an exhibition of Spanish paintings that influenced French artists at the Metropolitan Museum some years back. I walked in and was astounded to see that Soult's looted art had a whole huge sub-exhibit to itself.

Had he not been a Marshal he would have made a fine curator, though I'm sure with less chance to acquire as many paintings.

Art collecting is not as posh as people think.

Taking paintings is not the type of looting Napoleon was talking about. Not many partisans have been motivated by artwork being shuffled from one aristocrat's palace to another.

If you have to keep making declarations against looting over a span of years, it indicates that there is a need to keep issuing them.
On a case of short rations, I think that Napoleonic era soldiers would do what they are prone to do.

I'm in the British Museum several times a month, and I'm unaware of anything in there with a Wellington connection. Not to say that Britain did not take war booty: the Rosetta Stone and the nearby head of Rameses II were trophies of the Egyptian campaign, taken from Boney's French who were in the process of carting them off. But Wellington? Do enlighten me …

Apsley House, it is true, is bung-full of artworks which were formerly in the Spanish royal collection. They were in Joseph's baggage-train as he made his inglorious getaway from Madrid and were captured by British cavalry. My understanding is Ferdinand told Wellington to keep the collection, all things considered. But perhaps Basileus or someone else can correct me on this.

The conduct of the Austrians in relation to their possessions in Flanders was lamentable on many levels, but perhaps, as they abandoned the 'Austrian Netherlands' in 1794 they saw themselves as saving Flemish art treasures from the atheist Republican hordes and the French art commissioners in their wake, who followed the revolutionary armies, "systematically looting the art treasures of Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries."

Just a thought.

From Journal of the Waterloo Campaign by Cavalie Mercer, 90-91:

'Another misery I endured was the constant apprehension of falling under the Duke's displeasure for systematic plundering of the farmers by our people, which I could not well check without risk of incurring the same on another score-ie for not doing it! This is enigmatical; let me explain. Our allowance of forage, though sufficient to keep our horses in pretty good condition when idle, was not sufficient when they were hard worked; nor was it sufficient at any time to put on them that load of flesh, and give them that rotundity of form which Peninsular practice had established as the beau ideal of a horse entering a campaign, the maxim being-'The more flesh a horse carries, the more he has to lose, and the longer he will be able to bear privations' to keep up this, therefore, it was necessary to borrow from the farmers; and at this time of the year the superb crops of the trefe offered themselves most opportunely. The practice was general amongst cavalry and artillery, so that all the horses were equally in good case; and it would have been a most dangerous proceeding, by abstaining from it, to let your horses appear thinner than those of your neighbor. The quick eyes of the Duke would have seen the difference, asked no questions, attended no justification, but condemned the unfortunate victim of samples as unworthy of the command he held, and perhaps sent him from the army. We therefore, like others, plundered the farmers' fields; with this difference, however, that we did it in a regular manner, and without waste-whereas many of the cavalry regiments destroyed nearly as much as they carried away, by trampling about the fields. This dread of being reported kept me continually in hot water, for my farmers (who, under the reign of the Prussians, would never have dared utter a complaint), hearing how strictly plundering was forbidden by the Duke, soon became exceedingly troublesome with their threats of reporting me. How we escaped it is difficult to say, but certainly we continued helping ourselves; and latterly, St Cyr, and some other farmers, getting more docile, would themselves mark out where we were to cut…'

"If you have to keep making declarations against looting over a span of years, it indicates that there is a need to keep issuing them. "

Or it just indicates that your government is aware that saying it disapproves of the behavior is a PR gesture. That indicates that (a) it is aware that it is happening, and that it is seen as bad; and (b) it wants people to think otherwise.

Your country passed a civil rights law in 1964, I believe, in which it was made illegal to discriminate based on race? Should we assume that since then, no racial discrimination has occurred? Or should we assume that politicians want to be seen as on the right side of an issue that could otherwise make them unpopular?

Unsanctioned looting was frowned upon by Napoleon and by practically every military leader of the era (see Wellington's outburst after his victory at Vittoria was squandered by the greed of his troops).

Sanctioned looting, also known as "foraging", was, on the other hand, part and parcel of the logistic system of most armies in Napoleonic Europe. Of course, the locals didn't understand the nuances between "unsanctioned" and "sanctioned" and thought that the receipts given by the military were worth nothing (when they bothered to give any receipts, that is). Many times they, -the locals I mean- took exception and expressed their displeasure in ways that were harmful for the continued health of the French soldiers charged with the task of making requisitions from nearby villages. That is, for example, how the notorious partisan leader "Francisquete" started his career as anti-French fighter: by helping his brother hide the bodies of 12 French soldiers that had tried to confiscate their harvest at bayonet point… and found their prey a bit tougher than expected.

Garth, read up on what that Bill actually outlawed. Everything that smacked of racial discrimination in all forms?
No. It was quite specific.

basileus66

I think we can take it for granted that the soldiers of all armies 'foraged', even though a more realistic term would be plundered. And it wasn't just artwork and the most expensive items looted, foraged, plundered-take your pick on which term you prefer. And it wasn't just the French either:

'Redcoats plundered as they marched; they plundered from civilians they met on the roads; they plundered from their billets, from occupied and unoccupied homes, and from local churches and monasteries; they stole wine, fruit, pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, mules, carts and, famously, honey from roadside beehives; they stole money, personal valuables, clothing, crucifixes, church silver and candles; to build fires they stripped wood from houses, barns, doors and even coffins; they plundered from the rich and the poor, and from the living and the dead. Writing to his brother from northern Spain in late 1813, the officer George Hennell lamented: 'We are like locusts'. And this was at the expense of allies and civilians whom the British had come to liberate.'
(from Chapter 14 by Gavin Daly, in Civilians and War in Europe 1618-1815, edited by Erica Charters, Eve Rosenhaft and Hannah Smith. Some parts can be read online but, for some reason, it did not show the page numbers on the one I viewed)

I think there is tendency to condemn 'liberating, foraging, looting, pillaging, plundering' or however else people want to term such activities, be it some expensive artwork or a pig, from a modern viewpoint. During the Napoleonic period and during earlier conflicts, I think it was just expected as part and parcel of war and I expect it was not always the enemy people had to hide their valuables from.

Very good thread Antonio!… (smile)

Amicalement
Armand