The battle began at precisely 11 o’clock on a misty June morning. No one was sure what year it was—both 1809 and 1813 had been suggested—or where exactly they were fighting, though everyone could agree it was somewhere in Prussia, or maybe Bulgaria. And also that the British army was severely outnumbered: a dozen men to the French army’s 24, and therefore headed for certain defeat.
“We have to stop that mad dog Napoleon from taking over Europe!” declared Terrence Walsh, a British soldier in a faded red coat. In French camp—where, it must be said, the tents were more neatly arranged and the food smelled better—the rationale for the battle was a bit different. “Napoleon wasn’t interested in conquering the world,” said Victor Eiser, a grenadier in Napoleon’s imperial guard, which gave him the privilege of wearing a very tall, very heavy, very intimidating bearskin hat. “He wanted a united Europe. He hated Britain, and Britain and Prussia controlled world trade.”
It might be possible to get another short man in a bicorne hat to ride a horse across the parade grounds with his hand tucked into his uniform jacket, barking orders, but Brigade Napoleon takes its reenactments seriously. Not only does Schneider bear a strong resemblance to the emperor, he is also the same height (5’7″, not 5’4″, as is widely believed; the animosity between the French and the British in those days was such that they couldn’t even agree on measurements), and speaks French with a Corsican accent. He once distracted a crowd at a rock concert in Weimar, Germany, simply by walking by in full uniform; the Germans shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” and asked for his autograph, which he gave in character.
The Napoleonic Historical Society was founded in 1981 and has had a somewhat tangled and litigious history, rife with schisms and reconciliations, sort of like France’s. It’s currently in a period of peace and has between 500 and 600 members, though only about 100 are active and attend the annual conferences. (This year’s will be in Alexandria, Virginia, in September.) Even fewer go on Fisher’s annual tours, which visit places Napoleon happened to be exactly 200 years before, but this is by design: if he takes more than 14 people, he has trouble getting reservations at decent restaurants.
“France was just coming off of 12 years of revolution and constant wars [when Napoleon came to power in 1799],” adds Brewster. “At the time, he looked like God’s gift.”
By the time Napoleon was 26, he was in charge of the French army’s campaign against Italy. In 1799, when he was 30, he staged a coup d’etat and became the leader of the French government, though he modestly called himself the First Consul. In 1804, in the wake of an assassination attempt, he upgraded himself to emperor in order to assure the succession of his line, which technically made him not much different from the monarchs he was fighting. Die-hard fans, though, will tell you that more-conservative Europeans, including the emperors of Austria and Prussia and the czar of Russia, all hated that Napoleon had come from common origins, not ordained by divine right like they were. Thus, Napoleon spent most of his 15-year reign fighting them.
