To free the seas Pitt and Barham ordered their Admiral to attack. As soon as the news of Nelson's arrival reached London Cornwallis was instructed to detach part of his force to the southward either to seal the Combined Fleet in Ferrol or, if it had already sailed, to cripple it so that it could do no further harm. "The Western Squadron," he was reminded, "is the mainspring from which all offensive operations must spring."
But Cornwallis needed no reminding. On August 16th, three days before Barham's orders were written and the morning after Nelson's fleet came into Ushant, he had already detached eighteen sail of the line, including five three-deckers, under his senior flag-officer, Calder, to blockade Villeneuve in Ferrol. With his remaining eighteen battleships, including ten three-deckers, he remained off Brest to pin down Ganteaume and protect the entrance to the Channel.
The British concentration in the Western Approaches was thus held for less than twenty-four hours. With the Grand Army at Boulogne, and Villeneuve and Allemand at large with thirty-four sail of the line and Ganteaume with another twenty-one in Brest, Cornwallis did not err on the side of caution in dividing his fleet.
1 Corbett, 246-7, 251-3, 259-60; Pitt and the Great War, 532; Barham, III, 278.
For this he was subsequently censured by Napoleon, who built up an elaborate case against Villeneuve for his failure to take advantage of it. But old Billy-go-tight, like the Admiralty whose orders he anticipated, knew his business. He was aware from Calder's accounts of the unseaworthiness of Villeneuve's ships and crews and of the superb fighting trim of his own. Above all he understood the issues for which his country was fighting. Pitted against the swiftest mind in Europe, this seaman of sixty-one acted with a speed worthy of Napoleon. Like skilled footballers he and his brother Admirals had gathered the initiative from the enemy at the end of his run and were now racing with it towards his touchline.
While Calder, eager to wipe out the stigma of his earlier caution, pressed southwards across the Bay, Cornwallis showed his colours off Brest. On the morning of August 21st his frigates in the Goulet signalled that Ganteaume, in obedience to Napoleon's orders, was coming out of port. At once the British Admiral stood in with his entire force. That night the two fleets faced one another, the French in Bertheaume roads, the British anchored off the Black Rocks. Next morning Ganteaume withdrew under the eyes of watching thousands to the cover of his shore batteries, while Cornwallis fiercely endeavoured to cut off his rear. During the engagement the tough old Commander-in-Chief was struck by a shell splinter from the shore batteries—a circumstance, however, which he did not think worth mentioning in his laconic report.1
Encouraged by the strength of Cornwallis's blockade, the Government pressed on its offensive measures. Barham's efforts to reinforce the Fleet were at last bearing fruit: sixty-three battleships including fifteen three-deckers were either at sea or ready for sea between Cadiz and the Texel. To secure men for them Cornwallis was instructed to detach a division to meet the homecoming convoys three hundred miles to the west of the Scillies. On the last day of the month Rear-Admiral Stirling sailed with five battleships from Ushant, while at the same time the Cape expedition, braving Villeneuve and Allemand, left Cork under a light escort commanded by Captain Sir Home Popham.
Risks were being taken which only the greatness of the stakes could justify. During the last week of August it became known in London that Villeneuve had left Ferrol with thirty sail of the line. No one could say for certain where he had gone or what was happening to Calder. But Nelson, whose advice was sought by Ministers—as though, he told Captain Keats, he were a conjurer—hazarded the
1" Damme," he was said to have remarked, " but I will have some of you out for this "—Lord Coleridge, 113. See Corbett, 260-1; Cornwallis-West, 485-6.
opinion that, if Calder once got fairly alongside the enemy, they would do no harm for months even though they beat him. His confidence, strengthened by the knowledge that eight of his own Mediterranean ships had sailed under Calder's flag, was infectious. England had become herself again.
But for all his eagerness to engage, Calder never saw the Combined Fleet. The honour was all Collingwood's. Since Nelson had left him he had been blockading Cadiz and its half-dozen Spanish three-deckers with three seventy-fours. He fully expected to have "a rattling day of it" soon. "A dull superiority," he told a friend, "creates languor; it is a state like this that rouses the spirits and makes us feel as if the welfare of all England depended on us alone." Yet even Collingwood, whose officers would have been astonished to hear such sentiments from their taciturn, prosy-looking commander, had scarcely bargained for the ordeal before him. For on August 20th—the day that Nelson reached London—there appeared out of the north twenty-nine French and Spanish battleships. It was the great Fleet on whose movements all the world was speculating, from Napoleon pacing his watchtower at Boulogne to Pitt in his map-lined room and Cornwallis in his cabin off Ushant.
Since leaving the Bay on the 15th Villeneuve had never paused. Hurrying down the coasts of Galicia and Portugal, glimpsed momentarily by excited British frigates, he stopped only to capture and burn a solitary merchantman. Collingwood's "three poor things with a frigate and a bomb" off Cadiz seemed utterly at his mercy. But, though sixteen capital ships were detached to destroy him, Collingwood evaded them. Resolved not to be driven through the Straits without dragging his pursuers after him and keeping just out of gunshot, he tacked whenever they tacked and finally, when their patience tired, followed them back to Cadiz. There, with French and Spanish masts clustering in the harbour " as thick as a wood," he calmly resumed the blockade, signalling like Duncan before him to an imaginary fleet over the horizon. It was an uncomfortable position—"a squeeze," as he called it in a letter to his wife:—but it failed to perturb this formidable Northumbrian. "I hope I shall have somebody come to me soon," he wrote, "and in the meantime I must take the best care of myself I can."1 .
He did not have long to wait. Bickerton, watching Cartagena three hundred miles to the east with four of the line, abandoned the blockade on hearing the news and hurried to his aid. Calder, learning from a frigate that Villeneuve had left Ferrol with thirty battleships, gave chase to the southward. "It is a noble and most animating
1 Collingwood,
scene," wrote Captain Codrington of the Orion to his wife, " which I wish you could witness: eighteen sail of the line and but two frigates under every sail they can possibly set." By the 29th they, too, were off Cadiz.
After seven months Napoleon's Grand Design had ended in humiliation and frustration. Only the prudence or timidity of his Admiral had saved his Fleet from a fate as awful as that of the Spanish Armada. His Army, like Parma's before it, was marooned on the shores of the Channel with all hope of a crossing gone. The blockade had been resumed. The Cadiz squadron was back in its port and the Toulon and Ferrol squadrons blockaded with it. Only Allemand's squadron was left at large—its original purpose defeated. The initiative was again beyond all dispute in British hands.
On the evening of September 2nd the Euryalus frigate brought the news from Cadiz. As she heaved to off the Needles Captain Blackwood went ashore to hire a chase and four in Lymington. At five in the morning he stopped for a few minutes at Merton to see the most famous man in England. He found him already up and dressed. Like all the rest of the world Nelson had been eagerly awaiting the tidings he brought. "Depend on it, Blackwood," he said, " I shall yet give Mr. Villeneuve a drubbing." A few hours later he was receiving his charge at the Admiralty. At his first return Barham, who, scarcely knowing him, had distrusted his brightly-coloured reputation, had sent for his journals. But a few hours' perusal had resolved the old man's doubts. Nelson might be a junior Admiral and unorthodox, but he was complete master of his calling. His right to return to his command—now of such supreme significance—was indisputable.
Nelson received the summons with quiet gladness. " I hold myself ready to go forth whenever I am desired," he wrote to George Rose, " although God knows Iwan
t rest. But self is entirely out of the question." His friends had never seen him so cheerful. In those last quiet days at Merton and in London, taking farewell of all he loved, he radiated hope and inspiration.
The sun had come out that autumn after the long cold winds of the summer; there was a sense almost of holiday relaxation in the air. Minto, staying at Gregories in the Chiltern beechwoods with Edmund Burke's widow, took out Spenser's Faerie Queen and lay reading it all day on the grass; at Stowe, where the Marquis of Buckingham entertained the Prince of Wales, the gardens were
1 Nicolas, VII, 22-3, 26; Corbett, 278, 281, 288; "Clarke and M'Arthur, n, 116; Mahan, Nelson, n, 328; Minto, 268-9.
bright with illuminations, and groups of morris dancers and maskers lined the banks of the grotto. And the news that poured into England with that mellow September sunshine matched its splendour. "Thank God! thank God a thousand times!" wrote old Admiral Lord Radstock, " that these Jack O'Lanterns are once more safely housed without having done the mischief which was most justly dreaded." Not only was the Combined Fleet held in Cadiz, but the home-coming convoys, and with them the City's wealth and credit, were saved. And on the 5th came still more glorious tidings. For six days before, it was learnt from a captured schooner, Napoleon's troops at Boulogne had broken camp and marched off in haste "because of a new war with Russia." After more than two years of suspense England was no longer in danger. Pitt's plans for raising the siege of his country had triumphed.
All that Napoleon had thought impossible had come to pass. Pitt had forced him from the Channel by setting Europe at his back. "Have caricatures made," he angrily ordered Fouche, "-of an Englishman purse in hand entreating the various Powers to take his money. This is the real direction to give to the whole business."1 Yet it had been his own ambition and arrogance, not Pitt's gold, that had roused the Continent against him. The news of his seizure of the Italian crown and annexation of Genoa. had come at the very moment when a Russian plenipotentiary was starting for Paris to offer him a mediated peace that, by vesting Malta in the Czar, would have removed the chief barrier to a French drive to the East. Cobenzl, the Austrian Chancellor, whose fear of war with France had paralysed his .country's policy since the Peace of Luneville, was being driven into war by a still more compelling fear. Even the greedy Prussians, the Russian envoy reported from Berlin on July 18th, were waking up to reality. "They see more clearly," he wrote, "Bonaparte is no more a guardian angel but an out-and-out devil, and they are persuaded that this devil will gobble Germany if they persist any longer in their inaction."2
To the British public the change on the Continent came as a complete surprise. At midsummer Lady Bessborough had written to her lover" that Russian affairs were scarcely mentioned in London. As late as the third week in August nothing had been heard in Downing Street of the Czar's ratification of the Anglo-Russian treaty. At that time the war between Britain and France seemed likely to drag on for ever; Minto thought no change could be expected in the
1Bertrand, 30th May, 1805.
2 Third Coalition, 182, 186-7, 189-92.
European situation for years. The only hope—a faint one—was of Napoleon's demise; "depend upon it," wrote Arthur Paget to his mother, " that during Bonaparte's life no family in England will be able to boast of the enjoyment of true domestic happiness." Then on August 22rd came Gower's dispatch of July 31st announcing that the Czar had ratified the treaty and that a Russian army was about to cross the Austrian frontier in accordance with a secret agreement with Vienna. This was followed on September ist by news that Vienna had committed itself to armed. mediation and that an ultimatum was on its way to Paris. Immediately the wildest hopes arose: among the pacifically-minded, like Wilberforce, of "some fair, open and honourable proposition for regulating the affairs of Europe," and among the pugnacious of seeing "Bonaparte's scoundrels most infernally licked!"
The aims of the Anglo-Russian treaty, to which Austria's adhesion was now confidently expected, were the expulsion of the French from Germany, Holland, Switzerland and Italy, the re-establishment of Dutch and Swiss independence and the reinstatement of the King of Sardinia in his Italian dominions.1 By Christmas, with Austria and Russia contributing 250,000 and 180,000 men respectively, and Sweden, Saxony, Hesse and Brunswick, Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, Sardinia and Naples all adding their quotas, Pitt hoped to put more than half a million troops into the field. There was good hope, too, of bribing or browbeating the weak, vacillating King of Prussia into the alliance. A Russian army was assembled on his Silesian frontier, and the British Treasury was dangling subsidies under his nose. On paper things had never looked so bright, especially after September 17th, when official confirmation arrived from Vienna that Napoleon had rejected Austria's mediation and that the Austrian army was about to strike.
The same mail brought the long-awaited news that Craig had reached Malta and that plans for an Anglo-Russian landing in southern Italy were far advanced. " Our prospects from abroad are improving every day," wrote the Prime Minister. Only Nelson seemed to view them with reserve and strongly advised against putting the slightest confidence in the proposals of General Mack, the great panjandrum of the Austrian General Staff. For he had collaborated with Mack in Naples in '98 and had formed the lowest opinion of his capacity. "I know him," he wrote, "to be a rascal, a scoundrel and a coward!"
The Austrian plan of campaign bore, indeed, an ominously
1 To these mundame aims had been added, at the Czar's request, a European Congress to draw up a Law of Nations and a scheme of international federation.
familiar stamp. It was concerned far less with military than with political objectives. Its primary purpose was to recover Lombardy, preferably before the Russians could arrive to dictate events. For this reason the bulk of the Austrian army was concentrated on the Venetian frontier under the young and able Archduke Charles. The protection of the Imperial territories to the north of the Alps was left to General Mack and 70,000 men. As an army of 50,000 Russians had crossed the Galician frontier and was expected on the Inn by mid-October, Vienna seemed safe enough. Instead of waiting for them, however, Mack preferred to advance westwards into Bavaria to take up a position on the Iller. Here, he argued, he could bar any French advance into Austrian territory from Alsace, intimidate the Bavarians and secure several other important objectives.
Napoleon—though little considered by Austrian strategists—had not been idle during the making of these plans. As early as August 13th, while still intent on crossing the Channel, he had told Talleyrand that he would be in Vienna by November to deal with the Russians if they dared to show themselves. Ten days later his last hopes of crushing England were dashed. From Decres came a long, heart-broken letter, assuring him that Villeneuve had gone to Cadiz and beseeching him, in that event, not to order him back to the Channel but to regard it as a decree of Fate. "It is a misery for me," he added, "to know the trade of the sea, for this knowledge wins no confidence nor produces any effect on Your Majesty's plans." At the same time news reached Boulogne of Craig's arrival at Malta and of a Silician request for the withdrawal of French troops from Naples. The link between Pitt's plans and Russian and Austrian preparations was complete: '99 had come again. The Emperor saw it all. Austria would temporise till the winter rains and mud, and then by the spring he would have to face 100,000 Russians in Germany armed by Pitt, and 40,000 English and Russians in southern Italy.
He had been tricked. "Once I raise my camp on the ocean," he had written, "I shall not be able to stop myself; my plans of maritime war will have failed." Yet if Pitt had momentarily filched the initiative, it could be regained. Speed, secrecy, surprise and ruthless resolution should do what they had done before. " My mind is made up," Napoleon told Talleyrand, "I shall invade Germany with 200,000 men and shall not halt till I have reached Vienna, taken Venice and everything Austria has in Italy and driven the Bourbons from Naples. I shall stop the Austrians and Russians from uniting. I shall beat them before they can meet. Then,
the Continent pacified,
I shall come back to the camp on the ocean and start to work all over again for peace at sea."
His orders were quickly given. Five great armies, three from Boulogne and two from Holland and Hanover, were to march at once for the Upper Danube. His Foreign Minister, by holding up the declaration of war on Vienna, was to play for time: by hook or crook he must gain fifteen days. To heighten the deception he himself would remain a little longer at Boulogne making ostentatious preparations for invasion.
By August 29th, the army had begun its march: a fortnight later it was half-way to the Danube. Napoleon left Boulogne on September 2nd—the day Blackwood brought his momentous tidings to London. Nine days later at St. Cloud, while drafting an indictment of Villeneuve to explain away and justify two wasted years, he learnt that the Austrians had entered Bavaria. The news from Naples was by now so threatening that he cancelled an earlier instruction—issued when he heard of his Admiral's flight to Cadiz—for splitting the Combined Fleet into small squadrons for commerce-raiding. Instead he ordered it to sail with the first favourable wind for the Mediterranean where, joining the Spanish ships from Cartagena, it was to transport troops to the Two Sicilies and join with St. Cyr's army in defeating the British and Russian invasion. To make sure of obedience he next day appointed Admiral Rosily to succeed Villeneuve.
Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 Page 22
