To distract English attention during these crucial days from the Western Approaches, Napoleon instructed Marmont to make a demonstration at Helvoetysluys. "Every moment presses," he told Berthier, "there is no longer an instant to lose." On the 20th he ordered the Grand Army to embark. Boats were available at Boulogne for more than 150,000 troops, of whom 90,000 were already at the water side.
The English were fully aware of these preparations. Flotillas of barges moving under cover of shore batteries from Dunkirk to Boulogne .were under constant observation and attack by their coastal craft. "The whole of the enemy's forces is now concentrated at Boulogne, Wimereux and Ambleteuse," Keith reported on July 20th.2 Three days later Cornwallis was ordered to reinforce the North Sea Fleet with three of his smaller battleships. Yet there was
1 Mahan, n, 169 ; Corbett, 195-207; Blockade of Brest, II, 312.
2 Barham, III, 393.
no weakening of the Western Approaches. On July 15th Cornwallis, in obedience to Barham's instructions, had temporarily abandoned the close blockade of Brest for a week's cruise across the Bay. But he was back on the 24th, when Napoleon was still bombarding Ganteaume with angry orders to get to sea while the coast was clear. For the latter had refused to entrust his twenty battleships to the treacherous waters of the Channel with an undefeated British fleet in his rear. He had no wish to suffer the fate of the Duke of Medina Sidonia.
Indeed, Ganteaume's only reaction on finding that Brest was no longer blockaded was to suspect a trap. He had fought against the British too long not to know that in crisis they concentrated at the mouth of the Channel. Somewhere beyond the horizon, he guessed, superior strength was assembling. Though he may have anticipated his enemy's movements by a few days, he was right. Any attempt to rush the Straits of Dover in the opening days of August would almost certainly have involved Napoleon in a terrible disaster. He would have found his Moscow seven years earlier on the Kentish beaches and in the Channel waters.
For, as always in the hour of danger, the British Admirals were closing on the heart of their defensive system. Even before Calder had failed in his attempt to destroy the Combined Fleet, the movement towards Ushant had begun. On July 17th Nelson made his landfall at Cape St. Vincent, having crossed the Atlantic in thirty-four days or a fortnight quicker than the less experienced Villeneuve. Next day he passed his old friend Collingwood blockading Cadiz and on the 19th anchored in Gibraltar Bay. "No French fleet," he wrote in his diary, "nor any information about them; how sorrowful this makes me!" Still cursing General Brereton, he went ashore for the first time in two years. He still had hopes that Villeneuve, labouring in the Atlantic behind him, might attempt to re-enter the Mediterranean. But he was coming to share Colling-wood's belief that his enemy had gone to the northward. "I have always had an idea," the latter wrote on the 21st, " that Ireland was their ultimate destination. They will now liberate the Ferrol squadron from Calder, make the round of the Bay and, taking the Rochefort people with them, appear off Ushant, perhaps with thirty-four sail, there to be joined by twenty more. . . . Unless it be to bring their powerful fleets and armies to some great point of service—some rash attempt at conquest—they have only been subjecting them to chance of loss, which I do not believe the Corsican would do without the hope of an adequate reward.
The French Government never aim at little things while great objects are in view."1
While the English Admirals were so accurately gauging his intentions Napoleon continued to attribute to them an almost superhuman stupidity. Even as late as July 27th, when he learnt that the blockading squadron had disappeared on the 15th from its beat off Ferrol, he refused to believe that this could have any connection with Villeneuve's approach, though he had learnt from his spies of the tidings brought to London by the Curieux's captain. "The Admiralty," he wrote, "could not decide the movements of its squadrons in twenty-four hours." He never suspected that it had resolved them in four.
On July 23rd, having revictualled his fleet at Tetuan, Nelson weighed for the Atlantic. Two days later, while waiting for an easterly breeze off Tarifa, he received a copy of a Lisbon paper with an account of Captain Bettesworth's intelligence. The wind at that moment freshening, he sailed in such haste that he left his washing behind. He did not even pause to exchange a word with Collingwood as he passed Cadiz. All the way north, delayed by headwinds on the Portuguese coast, he fretted lest the enemy should do his country some injury before he could arrive. "I feel every moment of this foul wind," he wrote in his diary on August 3rd, while , Barham at the Admiralty was directing orders to him at Gibraltar to return to England, "I am dreadfully uneasy."
On the same day Napoleon reached Boulogne. "They little guess what is in store for them," he wrote to Decres. "If we are masters of the Straits for twelve hours England is no more." Only one thing was missing—Villeneuve's fleet. "I can't make out why we have no news from Ferrol," he added. "I can't believe Magon never reached him. I am telling Ganteaume by telegraph to keep out in the Bertheaume Road."
There was not a moment to lose. The intelligence from Suabia and Italy was too grave to be disregarded. Austria plainly meant business; the Russian hordes were marching south; England's sinister intrigues were coming to a head. Before leaving Paris Napoleon had dictated ultimatums to the Courts of Vienna and Naples threatening them with invasion unless all troop movements ceased immediately. They had still to be sent off, and on August 7th he ordered them to be held up a few days longer. At the same time he summoned the Imperial Guard to Boulogne.
1 Collingwood, 107; Corbett, 208; Mahan, Nelson, II, 309-10; Nicolas, VI, 472-3, 475, 478.
Next day he countermanded the order. Nelson was reported from Cadiz to be back in Europe and to have been seen sailing north on July 25th. For once Napoleon was in two minds. Talleyrand, convinced that he would have to face a superior British concentration in the Channel, was urging him not to risk a crossing. Yet the chance of destroying England, if not promptly taken, might pass for ever.
Then on the same day, August 8th, the Emperor learnt that Villeneuve had entered Vigo, claiming to have defeated Calder. He at once proclaimed a victory and sent him peremptory instructions to hurry north. Until the 13th his mind seemed set on invasion. Then news arrived that Villeneuve, having reached Ferrol, had disregarded orders and entered the harbour.1 Beside himself with rage, Napoleon ordered a military concentration against Austria. Yet, still hoping against hope, he dashed off letter after letter to Decres and his errant Admiral, exhorting the latter at all costs to put to sea, brush aside the British naval forces in his way and enter the Channel. "The English," he wrote, "are not so numerous as you suppose. They are everywhere in a state of uncertainty and alarm. . . . Never did a fleet face danger for a grander object; never soldiers and seamen risk their lives for a nobler end. To destroy the Power which for six centuries had oppressed France we can all die without regret." Allemand, he added, was cruising off Ferrol, Ganteaume was waiting at Brest, the British had only four ships of the line in the Downs, and these were being harassed by French prames and gunboats. As for their main fleets, they were far away: Nelson and Collingwood were in the Straits, Cochrane in the West Indies, and others in the Indian Ocean. The plans to disperse them had succeeded: the army of invasion was waiting: only the Combined Fleet had still to fulfil its duty.
And on that very day, unknown to Napoleon, Villeneuve put to sea. No Admiral ever sailed with a stronger sense of fear and doom. His ships were short of stores and water, their crews decimated by scurvy and dysentery, and the ill-trained Spaniards in a state of almost open mutiny. "I will not venture to describe our condition," he told the French Minister of Marine, "it is frightful."
For neither Villeneuve nor Gravina had the slightest belief in Napoleon's theory that the British Navy was in the Antipodes. "The plan of operations could not seem better," the Spanish Admiral wrote to Decres, "it was divine. But to-day it is sixty days since we
1 Half the Combined Meet under Gravina had entered the port b
efore Villeneuve, receiving Napoleon's prohibition, anchored with the remainder in Corunna Bay.—Corbett, 220.
left Martinique, and the English have had plenty of time to send warning to Europe and to reinforce their Ferrol squadron. ... It seems certain that on our leaving here they will give us battle and, by using scouts to warn their Ushant squadron, force a second fight on us before we can reach Brest." For Gravina saw the false assumption in Napoleon's calculations: that a fleet could pass through the Western Approaches without being so mauled in the process as to be useless for further operations. Being a Spaniard, he felt free to point it out.1
Before leaving Corunna Bay Villeneuve sent out a frigate to find Allemand, whose squadron had left Rochefort in mid-July for a secret rendezvous with him off Finisterre. By a series of almost miraculous chances Allemand, though moving in waters swarming with British ships, had hitherto evaded detection and was at that moment cruising between Ushant and Finisterre in search of Villeneuve. But the latter's frigate never reached him. On August 10th she fell in with a slightly smaller English- cruiser, provocatively disguised as a sloop, and, on attacking, was captured with all hands. By the time the Combined Fleet reached the open sea, Allemand, having no word of it and finding the enemy everywhere, had left his station and run for Vigo.
For what Allemand found all round him and Villeneuve was sailing into the midst of, was the instinctive reaction of centuries. The British squadrons were assembling automatically in the very path that Napoleon had ordered the hapless Villeneuve to tread. On August 9th, discovering that the Combined Fleet had contacted the French and Spanish ships in Ferrol, Calder had raised the blockade and hastened northwards. On the 14th he joined Cornwallis off Ushant, a few hours after Rear-Admiral Stirling had also come in with his division. And at six o'clock next evening the Channel Fleet, already twenty-seven sail of the line including ten three-deckers, was joined by Nelson with twelve more. For learning on the 13th, while bound for his Scillies rendezvous, that Ireland was safe, that ardent officer had at once altered course to bring his fleet to Cornwallis.
It was what Villeneuve most feared. " Your Lordship each night forms a part of his dreams," Captain Bayntun wrote to Nelson.2 It was an obsession that transcended ordinary reason. For as he hurried from sea to sea and port to port on his pitiful five months' mission, the French Admiral felt he was struggling against more than ordinary mortal strength and ingenuity. In Nelson this
1Desbriere, V, 775.
2Add. MSS. 34930, 21st June, 1805.
honourable, brave but mediocre man had encountered one of the great, elemental forces of nature. Being a Frenchman, he had the imagination to see it.
In such a mood he left the shelter of Corunna Bay on August 13th with twenty-nine sail of the line and ten cruisers. Of the former fourteen were Spanish, and more than a third had not been to sea for several years. Only one, the Principe de Asturias, was a three-decker. The crews were largely made up of landsmen and soldiers. "Our naval tactics," Villeneuve wrote to Decres, "are antiquated, we know nothing but how to place ourselves in line, and that is just what the enemy wants." The latter, he reported, was watching his every movement from the horizon; evasion was impossible. Forgetting his master's objurgations, he had already all but made up his mind to take his final option and seek refuge in Cadiz. For anything was better than to face the certain destruction lurking in the north.
Though he sailed on a north-easterly course, the French Admiral never made any attempt to penetrate the British defences. At the first sight of a sail the entire fleet went about and continued on the opposite tack until the horizon was clear. Its only progress into the bay was by night. Every hour, as it edged away from the dreaded north, it got farther into the west. There was no sign of Allemand, Brest was utterly unattainable without a battle, at any moment Calder and perhaps Nelson might appear over the horizon. Far from dispersing the British, the Grand Design, as Villeneuve had foreseen from the first, had concentrated them at the point where there was no avoiding them. A gale was blowing up from the north-east, his ships were ill-found, the soldiers and landsmen were seasick. As darkness fell on August 15th, he abandoned his enterprise and fled to Cadiz.
CHAPTER SIX
Trafalgar
"To regard Trafalgar as having been fought purely for the security of these British Islands is to misjudge the men who designed it, and, above all, the men who fought it with such sure and lucid comprehension. For them, from first to last, the great idea was not how to avoid defeat, but how to inflict it. England had found herself again."
Sir Julian Corbett, The Campaign of Trafalgar.
O
N August 18th, 1805, Nelson anchored off Portsmouth in the Victory. Having chased Villeneuve for 14,000 miles and failed to find him, he was depressed and anxious about his reception. But the waiting crowds on the ramparts were cheering, and all the way to the capital the enthusiasm continued. Without knowing it the tired, ailing Admiral had become a legend. Forgotten during his long Mediterranean vigil and all but reviled when the French fleet escaped from Toulon, his dash to save the West Indies had caught the country's imagination. Once more, as in the old days before his passion for Lady Hamilton and his parting from his wife had sullied his fame, he was "our hero of the Nile"—the wonderful Admiral whose name had swept England's foes from the seas. The unexpected popularity was like sunshine to him. As he walked down Piccadilly the people flocked about him: it was affecting, wrote an eye-witness, to see the wonder, admiration and love of every one, gentle and simple; "it was beyond anything represented in a play or a poem of fame." The West India merchants voted him thanks for having saved their possessions; but for his modesty, thought the Naval Chronicle, he was in danger of being turned into a demi-god.
The popular enthusiasm was partly the outcome of strain. Towards the end of July the fear of invasion had again become a reality: the enemy was known to be preparing feverishly on the opposite coast. Boulogne was reported packed with waiting barges: the Combined Fleet was at large and bound for the Channel. On August 10th the Admiralty warned Cornwallis that an attempt at a crossing was to be expected during the spring tides. The Volunteers were . called out, all leave was stopped, and at Shorncliffe Sir John Moore's men practised repelling invaders breast-high in the water. Once again the beacons were lit in the North; Walter Scott, holiday-making in Cumberland, galloped a hundred miles in a day to attend the muster at Dalkeith.1
Villeneuve threatened not only England's shores but the merchant fleets by which in the last resort she lived. The outgoing East India trade was detained in Plymouth: the Lisbon-Oporto, long overdue, could not leave the Portuguese ports. Out in the Atlantic two other homecoming convoys were in danger: the sugar fleet from the West Indies which Nelson had saved in June, and, somewhere between St. Helena and the Soundings, a fabulously rich fleet from China and India. Sailing in its solitary escort was the retiring Governor-General's brother, the young "Sepoy" general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had done such wonderful tilings against the Mahrattas. The threat to the trades hamstrung the Navy as well as the City, for until the press-gangs could seize their crews the Admiralty could not man the new battleships which Barham had been fitting out in such haste.
The strain showed itself in a venomous outcry against Calder, whose failure to destroy the Combined Fleet was denounced as the cause of all this anxiety and danger. Instead of the peerage to which he had looked forward, he was threatened with a Court Martial and a halter. "We are all raving mad at Sir Robert Calder," wrote one lady from the comfortable security of a Midland country house, "I could have done better myself. Charles says he ought to have been hanged." 2
To Pitt and Barham the news of Nelson's return was something more than a popular hero's homecoming. It was the chance to resume the offensive. Believing that the country's best hope of salvation lay in attack, they had sent out Calder, like Drake, to destroy the Combined Fleet off the Spanish coast. He had failed, and they and their Admirals had fallen back on the defensive. Now, b
y so swiftly bringing the Mediterranean Fleet to the Channel Fleet, Nelson had given them the strength not only to defend the Western Approaches but to counter-attack.
Everything depended on their doing so. For the enemy had effected a concentration at the most decisive point on England's lifeline. Whether Villeneuve was still in Ferrol or at large in the Bay, he lay athwart the sea route to the Mediterranean and the Indies.
1 Festing, 125; Minto, 356-7; Corbett, 249-50; Granville, II, 99, 102; H. M. C, Various Collections, VI, 410; J. W. Fortescue, The County Lieutenancies and the Army, 1803-1814; John Buchan, Scott, 87.
2 Paget Brothers, 39; Lord Coleridge, III; Barham, III, 259; Minto, III, 366; Granville, II, 99, 106. Captain Codrington thought these strictures on a brave officer with forty-five years' unblemished service monstrous.—Codrington, 54.
From this central position he could strike northwards to the Channel or southwards to the Mediterranean.
Till he could be removed England's sea communications were paralysed. And on these depended not only her trade but the fortunes of Europe. At that moment transports were waiting to sail for Odessa to bring a Russian army into the Mediterranean to co-operate with Craig's expedition in the liberation of Italy. At Cork 5000 British troops, formerly destined for India, were waiting to sail under Sir David Baird on a still more momentous mission. During the summer they had been hastily allocated to the West Indies until Nelson's dramatic voyage had saved those islands. They were now embarked under secret orders to re-capture the Cape of Good Hope, the half-way house to India. Ever since its restoration to the puppet Batavian Republic the Government and City had been haunted by the fear of its occupation by the French. During the past year Napoleon's renewed intrigues in the Levant and the presence of his cruisers in the South Atlantic, combined with bad news from India, had intensified the fears of Leadenhall Street; all the summer Castlereagh had been urging Pitt to safeguard his communications with the East by repeating his coup of 1795 before it was too late. And events were now so critical that even a few days' delay might prove fatal.1
Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 Page 21
