Elba -Napoleons Consolation Prize
The ten month history of the Imperial Elban Army and Navy 1814-1815
Oct 21, 2006
When the great Emperor of France and General of Europe negotiated his surrender after Napoleon's Abdication in April of 1814, he was the islands of Elba between Italy and Corsica as a place of exile, which would be his in full sovereignty, with the title "Emperor." He arrived at Porto Ferraio, the capital of the island, aboard the British frigate H.M.S. Undaunted on May 3, 1814, accompanied by a small personal staff and several representatives of the various Allied powers. Napoleon's new domain was quite small, little more than 90 square miles with about 11,000 inhabitants, strewn over a number of nearby tiny islets, (among them the later fictionally famous Monte Cristo). The country’s finances were barley enough to break even but luckily the new emperor carried with him his personal fortune of some five million gold francs. Being a soldier's soldier, Napoleon spent a large amount of his free time attending to the state of his tiny empire's defenses. The main island contained a number of ancient fortifications and Napoleon, originally an officer of the artillery both improved these existing works and added several more with interlocking fields of fire. To prevent landings on the coasts Napoleon built a small navy of eight vessels including an 18 gun Brig named The Inconstant and a six gunned sloop named the Etoile.
The Imperial Elban Army was constructed on the model of his Grand Armee in miniature. The allies that established Napoleon as Emperor in exile had agreed to a personal guard of 300 men, however the little Corsican soon had a force of an estimated 2000 soldiers under arms. In May 1814 more than 800 veterans of the former Imperial Guard (soon to be of 'Merde' fame at the Battle of Waterloo) many complete with their tall bearskin helmets. These men had seen as many as twenty years of solid combat on three continents and could be counted on to give their lives if asked. These men were formed into the Battalion Napoleon made up of three companies of Chasseurs, and three companies of Grenadiers. No emperor, especially Napoleon, could go without his cavalry and he therefore had nearly a full regiment of horse solders raised. These were made up of five squadrons of Chasseurs a Cheval and his personal bodyguard of a squadron of Polish lancers that had followed his around Europe for a dozen years. Local men were recruited into a battalion of Elban militia to serve their new King. Artillery and Engineer units rounded up the balance of the small army. Arguably the Imperial Elban armed forces were (per capita) the largest, best trained and best equipped in history.
It would appear that such a small country would hardly need such an armed force at its disposal, however on closer look nothing could be further from the truth. The islands had often been raided by their next-door neighbors, the bloodthirsty Barbary Pirates (of the 'to the shores of Tripoli' fame). Besides pirates, the tiny country's number one citizen was incredibly hated throughout Europe with several members of the Romanov family on the throne of Russian and the Bourbon family on the throne of France loudly calling for his death. These facts guaranteed uncertain stability for the Elban Empire and if history's timeline would have gone on long enough it was almost certainly assured to be invaded at some point.
Napoleon himself, never one to sit back and wait for a fight to come to him, loaded his little army on his tiny fleet and sailed for France on February 26, 1815, mounting one of the smallest scale invasions in the history of the European continent. The French newspaper Moniteur in March of 1815 screamed the following banner "the Monster has escaped from his place of banishment- The Corsican Ogre has landed at Cape Juan”
Elba would never see its Imperial Emperor, Field Marshal of its Armies, and Grand Admiral of its Navies again. He had traded his consolation prize for what was behind door number 2.
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