Food Policy of Napoleon and His Opponent

It is on this point that the accepted views have been determined by the conclusions of Dr. Rose in the article referred to above. They come to this, that Napoleon not only did nothing to hinder British imports of foodstuffs, but actually sought to encourage the exports of corn to that country with the object of ruining the enemy through the unfavourable trade balance which would be the consequence thereof. But this account gives a misleading impression both of the measures and of the motives of Napoleon, and it is not borne out by the letters cited by Dr. Rose in its support.

It is true that the notion of ruining the enemy by imports fitted in very well with the economic conceptions of Napoleon and of many of his contemporaries, as has been sufficiently shown in the foregoing pages. But the matter of food supplies here took an exceptional position, inasmuch as it was regulated in the continental states, and especially in France, along the lines of the mediaeval 'policy of plenty' rather than in accordance with the principles of mercantilism, in that it was desired, primarily, to provide for an abundant supply and not for profitable production and sale. Napoleon did not swerve from the economic traditions of France any more in this department of economic policy than in others; and it would have been highly peculiar if he had allowed himself to be led by one set of ideas where his own country was concerned and by another set when the enemy was concerned. Nor was that the case, but, on the contrary, his opinion is quite consistent and not at all difficult to explain.

The fundamental object of Napoleon's food policy was, as has just been mentioned, to secure supplies within the country; and this not only from the same motives that actuated his Bourbon predecessors, but also because of his desire to prevent labour disturbances. Consequently, he is always reminding his French helpers of the danger of being insufficiently provided with foodstuffs, urging them to remember what it had cost him in the Year X (1801-2) to procure a few thousand quintaux of corn, and insisting that it would involve the greatest danger if they had not a 'double supply'. 'You have not sufficient experience in this matter,' he wrote in 1810 to Eugene, the viceroy of Italy. 'The corn question is for sovereigns the most important and the most delicate of all.... The first duty of the prince in this question is to hold to the people, without listening to the sophisms of the landowners.' During the difficulties of the winter of 1812 he strove, by the distribution of bread and soup, 'to make the most needy part of the multitude independent' of food difficulties. Just as before, therefore, he forbade the export of corn when scarcity was apprehended, or even, as in 1810, while awaiting the results of the harvest. And although on August 6, 1810, he had authorized Eugene to permit the exportation of corn from Italy, he wrote to him three weeks later (August 31): 'It is said that the Italian harvest is bad. Take care that not too much corn is exported and that we do not get into difficulties.' For this reason, too, he authorized his Italian minister of finance in 1813 to permit the export of French and Italian products with the exception of corn and rice, regarding which he wished to have a report first—a policy that marks the special position of food exports—and, in full analogy with this, Napoleon, in January 1812, expressed the opinion that licences for the importation of foodstuffs should be granted without conditions; that is to say, he waived the customary obligation of exporting goods to the corresponding value.

The same point of view determined the whole series of measures that the Emperor took in the winter and spring of 1811-12, when, according to his own declaration, there was a real scarcity of corn in Paris. At the same time he deemed it necessary to take more pains than usual to secure quiet in Paris during his absence on the Russian campaign. His feverish zeal to intervene and regulate drove his helpers, especially Pasquier, the eminent prefect of police in Paris, to despair, and afterwards led Chaptal to make the biting remark that Napoleon took every measure that was calculated to further the rise in prices and the shortage of foodstuffs. These measures included the buying up and seizure of corn in the departments adjoining Paris, the taking over of the mills, secret sales by the agents of the government in order to force down prices when they rose in consequence of the previous measures—the only consequence of which was to raise them still farther, and the final result, as the culmination of the abortive 'policy of plenty', was the establishment of maximum prices. It should be obvious, on the face of it, that the whole of this series of measures was totally incompatible with the notion that it would injure an enemy to provide him with food.

On the other hand, it certainly did not follow from such a point of view that the export of foodstuffs would be considered inexpedient or even looked at askance, under all circumstances. As soon as the supply of food within the country was considered safeguarded, the general interest for exports showed itself at once; and the ruler of such countries as North Germany, Italy, and France, which were distinctively countries that exported foods and stimulants, could hardly be imagined as adopting any other standpoint, when in other respects he favoured the mercantilist or 'bullionist' policy. It was only natural, therefore, that Napoleon, in a letter of 1810 to Gaudin, his minister of finance, which has already been cited once or twice, spoke of his object of favouring, by means of smuggling, the export of French foodstuffs and the import of precious metals; and that in the same year he caused Champagny to inform the French ambassador at St. Petersburg—evidently with reference to complaints on the part of Russia—that he granted licences for the exportation of wine and corn as beneficial to his territories, without inquiring too closely as to how the English afterwards treated the vessels provided with licences. Similarly, in a letter of July 28, 1809 (cited by Dr. Rose), to the acting home secretary, Fouché, he bitterly denounced the allegation that he discountenanced export in itself, which he, on the contrary, regarded as being hindered by the British and not by him. 'Exports occur,' he said, 'as soon as there is a possibility of sale.' Not one of these letters, or any other letter known to the writer, contains even a hint of an intention to injure England by the exports of foodstuffs, but, on the other hand, an evident intention to benefit France thereby. The real motive stands out distinctly in the most celebrated cases when extensive exports of corn from France, Holland, and Flanders to Great Britain took place in the years 1809 and 1810. During 1809 it is stated that about 90,000 tons of wheat, besides other grain, came from those countries; and of the unprecedented imports in the following year—which, without deducting exports, amounted to 353,500 tons of wheat and 135,400 tons of other grain and represented a total value of more than £7,000,000—one-third of the wheat (evidently unground) and half of the flour were said to have come from Napoleon's empire, all by means of mutual licences. The remarkable thing in this connexion is that not only Napoleon but also many Englishmen considered these large imports from France, under the existing conditions, to be extremely advantageous for the French, and consequently open to grave objection from a British point of view. This was partly because it provided means of disposing of surplus products, and partly because it was an important source of income to Napoleon owing to the huge licensing fees, which, together with freight and insurance, were alleged to raise the price by 30-50s. per quarter, or from £6 15s. to £11 per ton. This mode of thought, which is just as much French as British, was given characteristic expression in a speech in the House of Commons (February 13, 1810) by the politician Marryat, the father of the famous novelist, from which we cite the following:

The benefit which the enemy derived from the present system of licensing the importation of his grain was much more than many gentlemen imagined. It was a fact that in July last the farmers of France were so distressed by the low price of grain, that they could not pay their taxes. The price was then so low as 27s. the sack, whilst it was known that the French farmer calculated upon a price of 36s. as a fair return for his expences. Buonaparté, being apprized of these circumstances, had no hesitation, of course [sic], in granting licences for the exportation of that grain, which our government readily granted licences to import; the consequence of which was the raising of the price of that article in France, by the last accounts, above 50 per cent. beyond the rate in July last. Thus were the French corn growers benefited, while Buonoparté's treasury derived at the rate of 18s. a quarter from the same means. He would then submit it to the serious consideration of the House whether some measures ought not to be immediately taken to put an end to a practice which so materially served the resources of the enemy.

This leads us to the third motive determining Napoleon's corn policy, the motive that had decisive weight for more and more of his economic measures the longer the war went on—the need of money. This, and nothing else, dictated the whole of the motley multitude of export licences for corn to French, Italian, and Neapolitan ports, the Hanse Towns, Mecklenburg, Danzig, &c., in combination with special export fees, especially in the last-named place, which was the most important exporting port of all. This fact alone shows that there was no thought of flooding Great Britain with corn, for in that case there would have been no question of export dues, least of all to such amounts as now occurred, which, according to General Rapp, the French commander in Danzig, were 60 francs per ton in 1810, and were so high that they were quite expected to smother the trade of Danzig.

So far was Napoleon from believing that he was injuring England by the mere fact of supplying her with corn, that he evidently perceived the profit of that supply to his adversary, as indeed is obvious beforehand. In the above-mentioned instructions to Champagny, meant to be forwarded to Caulain-court, the ambassador in St. Petersburg, he expressly says: 'The English, having need of corn, will naturally let them (the vessels) enter and leave, because the corn is a prime necessity for them.'

Since that was the case, however, the question arises whether the Emperor had no thought of giving a new turn to his policy and making a direct effort to starve out England. Thus far we have had no knowledge of this matter; but some contributions toward an answer to the question have become available through the publication, in 1913, of the first part of the work of the Russian historian, Tarle, entitled Kontinental'naja blokada. Thus in a report dated July 17, 1810, Montalivet, the home secretary, wrote to Napoleon as follows: 'If our rival is eventually threatened with famine, it would seem to be quite natural to close all ports to him. It would be beneficial to the common cause if all the peoples of the North Sea and the Baltic united to deprive Great Britain of her means of existence.' But Tarle's supposition that Napoleon really entertained any serious plans in that direction at the time seems to be refuted by the fact that his licences for the export of corn were being issued in torrents just then; and in any case he adhered to exactly the opposite view in the following year, as appears from a particularly illuminative imperial dictated utterance of June 24, 1811, which Tarle has also brought to light. The situation then was stated to be such that there was a scarcity of corn in Great Britain at the same time as there was a surplus thereof in Germany and Poland, which naturally caused the British to import the commodity by sea. The question, therefore, was whether this should be prevented. Napoleon's answer to this question was in the negative, for three reasons: In the first place, he regarded it as useless because the English would procure the corn from America if they could not get it from the Baltic. Thus it was the limitations to his power over the supplies that here blocked the way. In the second place, it was, according to Napoleon's declaration, impossible, even with all watchfulness, to prevent Prussia and Poland from exporting. This is undeniably a surprising utterance on the part of a man who was not wont to acknowledge economic impossibilities; but an explanation of it may possibly be found in his conception that exports are always more natural, and consequently more difficult to prevent, than imports. Finally, in the third place, fiscalism stuck up its head as usual, in that the Emperor debated the question of moving the exports to the Hanse Towns, which were at that time incorporated in his empire, in order thereby to give the French treasury the benefit of the export dues. It is obvious that these reasons do not bear witness to any special zeal to prevent the importation of foodstuffs into Great Britain; but, like everything else, they show that Napoleon did not overlook the utility to England of those imports, but rejected measures against them owing to their futility. The remarkable thing is that he recognized the unfeasibility of the thing only in this case, while the argument might seem to apply with at least equally great strength to that kind of blockade which he tried to enforce.