Having escaped from exile once already, could Napoleon have done it again from the unforgiving island of St Helena?
Napoleon Bonaparte
b.1769-d.1821 Reigned 1804-1814, 1815
Born in Corsica, Napoleon soared through the ranks of the French army during the French Revolution and soon dominated Europe by building an empire. After defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, exile on Elba and then escape, Napoleon returned to his empire. In 1815 he was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to St Helena, where he died.
Napoleon Bonaparte spent the last six years of his life as a British prisoner on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena. Though the island’s sheer isolation and forbidding terrain posed daunting challenges to anyone hoping to rescue the former French Emperor, rumours of escape plots abounded. The British government took these seriously and went to enormous lengths to prevent Napoleon’s liberation. But did he even want to escape?
Following his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Napoleon abdicated the French throne and gave himself up to Britain, hoping that the Prince Regent (future King George IV) would grant him asylum. Instead, Britain – acting on behalf of the European powers allied against Napoleon – transported him to St Helena. A rock 1,900 kilometres west of Africa and 3,200 kilometres east of Brazil seemed an ideal place to stash a public menace, especially one who had escaped from the considerably less remote island of Elba a few months earlier.
Jailbreak would not be easy. St Helena is essentially the top of an extinct volcano. There are few accessible landing places among its steep cliffs and the interior is crisscrossed with peaks and ravines. A British surgeon who arrived with one of the regiments to guard Napoleon described the island as “the ugliest and most dismal rock conceivable, of rugged and abrupt surface, rising like an enormous black wart from the face of the deep.”
In addition to the natural barriers, there were plenty of man-made ones. St Helena had been in the possession of the East India Company since the mid-17th century. It was already defended as an important port of call for vessels plying the route between Europe and Asia. The landing places were well-fortified and protected by powerful gun batteries. Forts overlooked Jamestown, the island’s main settlement and port.
When the ship carrying Napoleon to St Helena dropped anchor off Jamestown in October 1815, “every platform, every aperture, the brow of every hill, was planted with a cannon.” Napoleon came on deck and observed through his spyglass the rocky heights bristling with guns. He returned to his cabin without comment.
Security was beefed up considerably during Napoleon’s captivity. More cannons were added, resulting in some 500 pieces of artillery, manned day and night. Additional regiments were sent
