#walcheren

By Ralph Bruce

The British government had tried to keep their expedition to Walcheren a secret, but French spies and escaped prisoners of war kept Napoleon well informed about it.

During the French occupation of the Netherlands in 1809, a British army was sent to seize the island of Walcheren. It failed, and the reason for its failure makes a sad chapter in British history.

Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco at the Campveersche Tower, in Veeere (Walcheren), The Netherlands, on June 30, 1958. They stayed in Brussels for a few days to visit the Expo there. They made an incognito excursion to Walcheren, where they spent three hours in the Campveersche Tower for lunch. Because they had already been recognized on the ferry on the outward journey, they decided - annoyed by the presence of film and press photographers - to drive back immediately afterwards.

By now, we’ve reached the island of Walcheren - one of the main reasons Napoleon probably wanted to undertake this journey, so he could inspect the island’s fortifications after the British expedition there during the last war.

The Emperor went on horseback to see the town of Flushing, while the Queen of Westphalia and I continued our journey to Middelburg. The Island of Walcheren is just as fine as Zuid-Beveland; one might be tempted to settle there but one would soon pay very dearly. The air is so pestilential that every year during the months of September and October there are the most frightful epidemics of malarial fever, consequently the inhabitants seldom live to the age of fifty. Their complexions are yellow and livid. The Emperor is obliged to relieve the large garrison every three months, and yet two-thirds of the soldiers are always ill when they return. As long as they stay on the island, they have to be given wine to drink.

… for which reason there are still, despite the unhealthy conditions, plenty of soldiers volunteering for the island of Walcheren every year. - No, she didn’t write that. However, two thirds of the French soldiers being sick with malaria while the third was completely plastered might explain how the British managed to get a hold on the island, before being driven out again by the disease themselves. Marie Louise apparently was quite aware of what had happened to »the English«.

We continued our road on a very high dyke as far as Middelburg, which we reached at five o'clock, and were lodged in a house belonging to the Emperor, which had formerly been a convent. It had been furnished for our reception, hence the wallpapers were still quite fresh.

She does not state if they happened to be green and exuded arsenic, though.

I felt some repugnance, however, at sleeping in the bed in which some English had died about two years previously. I am so timid about illness that I imagined I could still scent the odour of death in the town. […]

My apartment looked upon a courtyard that was filled with fine trees. We were entertained with some delightful military music that I would have listened to with pleasure if it had not kept me from sleeping.

It’s truely a pity that, as a rule, music comes with some noise, yes.

Wednesday, May 9

My attendants ultimately arrived at three o'clock, so that I could finally go to bed […]

[…] because, being a Habsburg princess, I had never been taught how to undress or pull back a duvet with my own hands. This is just not done.

[…], but they brought me no change of clothing, consequently the Emperor will be obliged to see us in the same dress and chemise until his departure from here.

But if we start smelling he might at least decide not to stay too long on this unhealthy island.

I resigned myself to the situation quite happily. Not so the Queen of Westphalia; her women only arrived twenty-four hours after us, so she made that poor Comtesse de Liverstein […]

That’s the lady who hurt her elbow when a carriage broke in the last installment.

[…] stay up all night in the antechamber to make tea for her, and when she brought it to her she scolded her, did not want it anymore and cried with rage. You really need to be an angel to put up with her. I know very well what I should have done if I had been a lady-in-waiting.