tation of a Habsburg monarch. He forgot his spiritual
Mother, the Political Club of the Jacobins. He ceased to be the defender
of the oppressed. He became the chief of all the oppressors and kept his
shooting squads ready to execute those who dared to oppose his imperial
will. No one had shed a tear when in the year 1806 the sad remains of
the Holy Roman Empire were carted to the historical dustbin and when the
last relic of ancient Roman glory was destroyed by the grandson of an
Italian peasant. But when the Napoleonic armies had invaded Spain,
had forced the Spaniards to recognise a king whom they detested, had
massacred the poor Madrilenes who remained faithful to their old rulers,
then public opinion turned against the former hero of Marengo and
Austerlitz and a hundred other revolutionary battles. Then and only
then, when Napoleon was no longer the hero of the revolution but the
personification of all the bad traits of the Old Regime, was it possible
for England to give direction to the fast-spreading sentiment of hatred
which was turning all honest men into enemies of the French Emperor.

The English people from the very beginning had felt deeply disgusted
when their newspapers told them the gruesome details of the Terror. They
had staged their own great revolution (during the reign of Charles I)
a century before. It had been a very simple affair compared to the
upheaval of Paris. In the eyes of the average Englishman a Jacobin was
a monster to be shot at sight and Napoleon was the Chief Devil. The
British fleet had blockaded France ever since the year 1798. It had
spoiled Napoleon's plan to invade India by way of Egypt and had forced
him to beat an ignominious retreat, after his victories along the banks
of the Nile. And finally, in the year 1805, England got the chance it
had waited for so long.

Near Cape Trafalgar on the southwestern coast of Spain, Nelson
annihilated the Napoleonic fleet, beyond a possible chance of recovery.
From that moment on, the Emperor was landlocked. Even so, he would have
been able to maintain himself as the recognised ruler of the continent
had he understood the signs of the times and accepted the honourable
peace which the powers offered him. But Napoleon had been blinded by the
blaze of his own glory. He would recognise no equals. He could tolerate
no rivals. And his hatred turned against Russia, the mysterious land of
the endless plains with its inexhaustible supply of cannon-fodd