The Emperor's Last Campaign: A Napoleonic Empire in America (Atlantic Crossings) [Hardcover]

Emilio Ocampo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2009 | Series: Atlantic Crossings

Winner of the 2009 Literary Award, sponsored by the International Napoleonic Society/La Societe Napoleonienne Internationale of Montreal, Quebec's Literary Committee

 

Napoleon’s last campaign didn’t end at Waterloo. After that fateful day on June 1815, hundreds if not thousands of veterans of Napoleon’s army emigrated to America. Many went farther south and joined the rebels fighting for independence in the Spanish colonies, from Mexico to Buenos Aires. The Bonapartists roiled the Western World as they sought fortune, fame, and glory in the expanding United States and in the tumultuous Spanish Americas suffering from repression and civil disorder, and even in the states of Europe. They were joined by adventurers from other nations who shared their admiration for the fallen emperor.

 

This is the first full-length examination of the Bonapartists who emigrated from France after Napoleon’s defeat and exile, who formed a loose confederation with adventurers and romantics, and who contemplated a new empire in the Western Hemisphere. The scheme had the support and encouragement of the fallen emperor himself and his brother Joseph, former King of Spain, who lived in exile in the United States.

 

Emilio Ocampo has examined archives on three continents and sources in several languages to ferret out the evidence—a monumental task considering that conspirators tried to leave no evidence of their plans, and that a failed plot, like failure in general, leaves few claimants. Ocampo reinterprets Latin American independence as an international event that drew in all the major powers. By illuminating the complex connections between the shattered France of the Bourbon restoration; an England threatened by radical politician inspired by the French Revolution; Napoleon in exile at St. Helena; the United States, where home-grown adventurers and French émigrés alike saw opportunity; and the collapsing Spanish colonial empire, where revolutionaries were allying themselves with the veterans of Napoleon’s Grande Armée, Ocampo brings together two bodies of scholarship: Napoleonic history and Latin American independence. He does so by tracing the steps of four of the most fascinating characters of the era: two Britons disaffected with their own government—Lord Thomas Cochrane and Sir Robert Wilson—and two former generals of Napolean’s army named Charles Lallemand and Michel Brayer.

 

The Emperor’s Last Campaign is a fascinating story, well told, and peopled with all sorts of improbable characters and schemes that perhaps just missed coming to full fruition but that in the process contributed to one of the most important events of the nineteenth century: the breakdown of the Spanish empire in America and the rise of the United States as a world power.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"For revealing this last campaign of the legendary French emperor, his universal perspective, his rigorous research and his courage...  Ocampo joins the ranks of this continent's great intellectuals," Jose I. Garcia Hamilton

"This is an excellent and polished work of original, provocative scholarship... " --Rafe Blaufarb, Ben Weider Eminent Scholar and Director of the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University.

"A truly magnificent study... sheds light on a topic has not been explored to such a detail before."--Alexander Mikaberidze, Assistant Professor of European History, LSU Shreveport

"Ocampo has provided all students of the period with an invaluable reference tool." David Bushnell, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Florida

“[Ocampo] traces the conspiracies, political enthusiasms, and political consequences that animated the Atlantic world following the abdication of Napoleon and his confinement in St. Helena. He convincingly argues that Napoleonic veterans and the Bonaparte family acted in ways that roiled the political environments of both Europe and the Americas until Napoleon’s death.”—Lyman L. Johnson, coauthor of Colonial Latin America

“This work is original and makes a contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the last years of Napoleon. . . . [It] focuses on the efforts and plans to rescue him from St. Helena during the years 1815-1821 . . . and provides many interesting biographies of the people who played an important role in trying to free Napoleon.”—Alexander Grab, author of Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe

From the Author

The Emperor's Last Campaign received the first prize for 2009 from the International Napoleonic Society.  The selection committee praised the book for its research, originality, style and analysis and having made a significant contribution to Napoleonic studies.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: University Alabama Press; 1 edition (March 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0817316469
• ISBN-13: 978-0817316464
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,371,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Buenos Aires, Emilio Ocampo lived most of his adult life in England and the United States. He belongs to an Argentine family with a long literary tradition. A great aunt, Victoria Ocampo, was the editor of Sur, the most influential intellectual magazine in Latin America in the 1930s and 40s. Her sister Silvina was an accomplished novelist.

Although fascinated with history all his life, Ocampo's professional career strayed far from the field. After graduating in economics from the University of Buenos Aires, he got an MBA at the University of Chicago. For the following twelve years he worked as an investment banker in New York and London.

In 2002 he took a sabbatical to write a book about General Carlos de Alvear, one of the leaders of South American independence. This decision took him on an unexpected path. While doing research about Alvear in the British archives by chance he came across on a document revealing a plan to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and take him to South America. The excitement of discovering an unknown aspect of Napoleon's life and an irrepressible curiosity led him to a detective search in the archives of Austria, France, Spain, the United States and several South American countries for the other pieces of a gigantic puzzle. The result was "The Emperor's Last Campaign: A Napoleonic Empire in America" which was awarded the first prize for 2009 by the International Napoleonic Society. Since then he has written two other books and more than a dozen articles about early nineteenth century European and American history.

He currently lives in Buenos Aires where he continues to write while he works as an independent consultant and teaches at the Univesidad del CEMA.

www.emilioocampo.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpice that has to be read, April 6, 2009

By 

Marcelo Etchebarne - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Emperor's Last Campaign: A Napoleonic Empire in America (Atlantic Crossings) (Hardcover)

At this point one would imagine that it would be hard to write something new on Napoleon. This book goes beyond introducing new elements on Napoleon. Is a masterpiece that has to read by anyone interested on Napoleon. Most importantly, by those who have an interest in the independence process that took place in America in the first decades of the 19th century.

It has an impressive research, which may seem to be large but certainly necessary to endorse the view point of the author which presents new information not been researched before. With a background as a senior investment banker in London and New York the author certainly knows to do diligence and support every relevant fact with a quote.

Among other things, the book shows how the domestic independence process of Latin American countries was driven by external elements. The interests and disputes of the old continent, as well as America, in the Atlantic basin were being settled around the Latin American independence process. Being most puppeteers in based in London, Paris, and the US, the most feared one was a prisoner of the British Empire in Santa Elena: Napoleon Bonaparte.

This book has change my view of many events and drivers behind the Latin American independence. I hope every reader will enjoy it as much as I did.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New theories - Latin American Independence, April 18, 2009

By 

Augusto Repetto "Augusto Repetto" (washington, d.c.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Emperor's Last Campaign: A Napoleonic Empire in America (Atlantic Crossings) (Hardcover)

The book achieves a notable effect - although everyone knows that Napoleon does not make it alive out of St. Helena, it is difficult for the reader not to root for Napoleon and his followers as they try to spring him free from the British. Ocampo takes the reader from St. Helena, to Paris, London, to Latin America and back to continental Europe with seamless ease while his depictions of politics and intrigue, of the role of spies and middlemen, and of the grandiose plans fashioned in a military world that seems primitive by today's standards, are engrossing and make the last 60 years of world politics feel like a piece of wet toast. Ocampo backs his arguments with a bucket chock-full of carefully researched data and by the sheer force of his writing makes the reader abandon pre-conceived notions on several subjects -- specially when it comes to Latin America's independence movements. In this latter topic, Ocampo is a breath of fresh air. He has researched his subjects in a painstaking way and poured over piles of documents in three continents. Most iconoclastic (and entertaining) are his observations on Jose de San Martin whom Ocampo falls short of calling a British agent in the British Spanish proxy war fought in Latin America. The result is a tightly knit weave of historical and high political intrigue mixed with newly researched facts and a few nuggets of priceless observations by Ocampo who seems to have absorbed a dry sense of humor during his days as an investment banker in New York and London.