Did Napoleon plan to invade India? What his letters say.

The short answer

Yes, on paper, more than once, but never on the ground. He wrote one short letter to Tipu Sultan, had officers study the routes to India through Persia, and proposed a joint march to the Russian emperor.

We found no order for a French army to march to India, and no French force ever got there. The nearest thing, in April 1801, named 4,000 troops for a squadron bound for the East Indies; we found no record that it sailed.

The timeline

We read his letters and orders in the printed Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, the 32-volume edition of his papers. Napoleon Bonaparte (नेपोलियन बोनापार्ट) turned to India in at least five plans and orders, then again in captivity:

Egypt, 1798: India as the stated reason

The Directory's decree of 12 April 1798 names India in its preamble, but Article 1 sends him to take Egypt. Article 2: "Il chassera les Anglais de toutes les possessions de l'Orient où il pourra arriver" (he will drive the English from every possession in the East he can reach) (Corr. IV, pp. 52–53).

From Cairo, on 8 September 1798, he wrote: "Maîtresse de l'Egypte, la France sera à la longue maîtresse des Indes" (mistress of Egypt, France will in the long run be mistress of the Indies) (Corr. IV no. 3259, p. 476). In the long run: no date, no army.

The letter to Tipu Sultan

In late January 1799 he wrote a few lines from Cairo to Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore:

"Vous avez déjà été instruit de mon arrivée sur les bords de la mer Rouge, avec une armée innombrable et invincible, remplie du désir de vous délivrer du joug de fer de l'Angleterre."

In plain English: you have already been told that I have reached the Red Sea shore with an innumerable and invincible army, eager to free you from the iron yoke of England. The rest asks for news by way of Muscat and Mocha, and for a trusted man to be sent to Suez or Cairo to confer (Corr. V no. 3901, p. 278). It promises no troops and names no date.

The date. His Correspondance gives 6 pluviôse, year VII (25 January 1799). Both British prints give 7 pluviôse (26 January). So we say late January.

How it travelled. The same day he asked the Imam of Muscat to forward it by the first opportunity for India (no. 3900). The East India Company printed an English translation at Calcutta in 1799. Its contents page lists an "Intercepted letter from General Buonaparte to Tippoo Sultaun, dated in January 1799", and says the letters reached Captain Wilson at Mocha, who sent them to Bombay (p. 140). The same text is in the despatches of the Marquess Wellesley (vol. 1, pp. 686–687).

"Intercepted" is the Company's own word. We found no reply and no sign that Tipu received the letter. Tipu Sultan died when Seringapatam was stormed on 4 May 1799 (the standard date), a little over three months later.

1801: the Tsar's march, not his

In January 1801 the Russian emperor, Paul I, ordered about 20,000 Don Cossacks towards the Indus (Ilari dates the order 12/25 January: 2020, pp. 3–21). They were called back after Paul was killed in March 1801 (summary).

A detailed joint plan is often attached to it: 35,000 French under General Masséna. Its origin is disputed. The historian Virgilio Ilari argues it is likely a forgery or an invention: it first appeared in a London émigré paper in April 1801, and he found no trace of it in the French archives (2020, pp. 3–21).

Napoleon's own letter to Paul of 27 February 1801 talks of gunboats, Hanover and a canal at Suez. It does not mention a march to India (Corr. VII no. 5417, pp. 49–51).

His nearest order that spring went by sea. On 28 April he told the Navy Minister to send Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse from Brest with eleven ships and 4,000 French troops to the Canaries "et de là faire voile pour les Indes orientales" (and from there sail for the East Indies) (no. 5555, p. 140). We found no record that it sailed.

Persia, 1807: a study of the routes

On 10 May 1807, at Finkenstein, he gave instructions to General Gardane, his envoy to Persia. Officers were to study the routes from Aleppo or the Persian Gulf, and then: "Dans le cas d'une expédition de 20,000 Français aux Indes, il conviendrait de savoir..." (in the case of an expedition of 20,000 French to India, one would need to know...) (Corr. XV no. 12563, pp. 210–214).

"In the case of": a study, not an order. Iranica estimates 29 people at the start and calls larger figures (up to seventy) exaggerated. Gardane reached Tehran in December 1807; Persia turned to Britain, and he left in February 1809 (Encyclopaedia Iranica).

What he proposed to Alexander

On 2 February 1808 he wrote to Alexander I of Russia that an army of 50,000, Russian and French, going by Constantinople into Asia would make England tremble before it reached the Euphrates. Then: "Le coup en retentirait aux Indes, et l'Angleterre serait soumise" (the blow would be felt in India, and England would give way) (Corr. XVI, pp. 498–499).

In March 1808, as Vandal prints Caulaincourt's reports, Alexander said Russia's gain for an army to India had to include Constantinople; his written reply offered one on his own terms (Vandal, vol. 1, pp. 297, 303–304). The talks stalled there, and we found no record that an army set out.

What he said on St Helena

General Gourgaud wrote down on 23 January 1816: "Si j'avais pris Acre... je serais allé aux Indes" (if I had taken Acre, I would have gone to India) (tome 1, pp. 164–165).

Las Cases, who shared his exile, recorded him on 12 May 1816: "Longtemps j'ai rêvé une expédition décisive sur l'Inde, mais j'ai été constamment déjoué" (for a long time I dreamed of a decisive expedition to India, but I was always thwarted), with 16,000 soldiers in ships of the line (Mémorial, tome 1, ch. 9).

In September 1817 Barry O'Meara, his doctor there, recorded another reason. Had he known in 1806 or 1808 that a 74-gun ship could carry more water in tanks, he "would have sent an army of thirty thousand men to invade India" (vol. 2, pp. 112–113). The numbers change with each telling.

What never happened

Across every document above, we found no order to march an army to India or land one there, and no French unit that reached it.

What is documented, and what is still open

Documented: the first five rows of the table, all printed in his Correspondance, and the 1799 British print of the Tipu letter. Alexander's answer as Vandal printed it (1891).

Disputed: the date of the Tipu letter (25 or 26 January), and the joint Franco-Russian plan of 1801.

Told later: everything from St Helena.

Still open:

• The original of the Tipu letter. We found no scan of the French original and no record from Mysore of its arrival.
• The 1801 squadron. We found no dated order cancelling it.
• The 1801 plan. Where it came from is still argued; we could not read the Russian studies Ilari cites.
• Alexander's reply. We did not see the Russian copy.
• The size of the Gardane mission. Estimates run from 29 to about seventy.