Beware of Heroes: Admiral Sir Sidney Smith's War against Napoleon

by Peter Shankland

  He was not mistaken [she wrote in her memoirs] with regard to the real cause of the disasters consequent upon the long resistance at St. Jean d’Acre. In his mind Sir Sidney Smith and those disasters were inseparable.

  And he continued to complain to his brothers, Joseph and Lucien, that Europe was not the terrain for him, that he needed Asia, and that he had missed his destiny at St. Jean d’Acre.

  After the Battle of Austerlitz, the Czar had withdrawn his troops from Austria. Prussia, though on the point of receiving a great subsidy from Britain, was changing sides and trying to conciliate Napoleon. The way was open for him to complete the conquest of Italy, his main objective being Sicily, which he needed both to deny bases to the British fleet and to use himself as a base for further expansion to the East. He sent two army corps under Field Marshal Masséna and generals Saint-Cyr and Reynier to Naples to drive out the Bourbon King Ferdinand, and he appointed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, to be king in his place.

  Chapter Eighteen – Leader of the Massi

  Nelson, on his last leave in England before Trafalgar, had been working on a plan of operations with the object not only of protecting the harbours of Sicily, that were of such great importance to the British fleet, but of driving the French from the mainland of Italy. Pitt approved the plan, and he was given carte blanche to choose any officer he wished from the Navy List to command the inshore squadron that would be principally responsible for carrying it out. He chose Sir Sidney who joyfully accepted, and the Pompée, eighty guns, was selected to bear his flag. During those last few weeks they met several times — at Greenwich, at Merton where Nelson lived with Lady Hamilton, and at Lord Castlereagh’s offices in Downing Street where Pitt joined in their discussions.

  The essence of the plan was to keep up unrelenting offensive operations against the French in Italy. Sir Sidney was to have full powers to act as circumstances might render practicable in attacking the enemy’s harbours and coastal communications by sea and by land. From the Victory, three weeks before Trafalgar, Nelson wrote to Sir John Acton, Minister of State to King Ferdinand of Sicily:

  I have proposed such a co-operation on the part of England, that I am confident three months may, if all parties are agreed, free Italy and Piedmont.

  For Nelson’s change of heart Sir William Hamilton, who had died in 1803, seems to have been partly responsible — he at least thought so. He had written, in December 1800, to Sir Sidney’s uncle, General Edward Smith:

  Be assured that Lord Nelson now understands Sir Sidney well, and really loves and esteems him; and I will venture to say, will give him every proof of it, if ever they should meet on service together, as I hope. They are certainly the two greatest heroes of the age; and one of the glories of my life is the having so united them, that it will not be an easy matter for the evil-disposed to part them asunder again. And I beg you, when you write, that you will answer him that this is my firm opinion.

  It is probable also that Nelson, who had set up such high standards of obedience, and of disobedience, had come to realise that if their positions had been reversed he would have acted precisely as Sir Sidney acted.

  To take full advantage of their command of the sea, Sir Sidney had worked out some ideas for amphibious warfare. Ten landing craft were built to his designs. They were sailing galleys of catamaran construction that could also be propelled by oars or paddles; each could carry fifty soldiers and a 3-pounder gun besides her crew of sixteen or twenty seamen. They drew only 18 inches. When tested at Dover they outsailed the fastest ships there, and when they were run on to the beach ‘the guns were landed in a moment, with the greatest of ease, and several shots being fired by way of experiment, they were again, in the shortest space of time, shipped with the greatest facility’. With Lord Castlereagh’s support he planned an attack with these catamarans on the French invasion fleet in Boulogne Harbour, but before they could get within range a sudden storm forced them to run for shelter: they were armed on this occasion with Mr. Congreve’s rockets and with Mr. Francis’s ‘exploding submarine carcasses’. Lord Keith, Commander-in-Chief of all H.M. ships employed in the North Sea and in the English Channel, complained that these experiments were without any object, and that they took away ships and men from routine duties. Sir Sidney, however, hoped for better results when they reached the summer waters of the Mediterranean. The Atalanta, cutter, was bought to accompany the catamarans as laboratory store vessel.

  When Nelson had fallen and the Battle of Austerlitz had been lost by the Allies, Pitt sent for Sir Sidney and impressed upon him that it was doubly urgent to proceed with the original plan in order to prevent more fatal consequences. The capture of Naples and Sicily would now be Napoleon’s immediate objects, and Italy would be the next theatre of war. Then, on 23rd January, 1806, Pitt died. Castlereagh was in opposition to the succeeding Grenville Ministry, and no written record of the Italian project could be found. Sir Sidney was directed to put himself under the orders of Admiral Lord Collingwood, who had won great renown by his gallant leading of the van at Trafalgar, and who had succeeded Nelson as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean.

  Sir Sidney, therefore, sailed in the Pompée, and joined Collingwood off Cadiz which was still being blockaded although the Spanish fleet had been inert since Trafalgar.

  Collingwood had some misgivings about the Italian plan, but nevertheless he put Sir Sidney in command of the inshore squadron as Nelson had desired, and ordered him to combine operations with the forces of King Ferdinand, ‘and do the utmost, by every means in his power, to defend the dominions of that allied sovereign’. He objected, however, to his experimental warfare by means of ‘explosion vessels and sky-rockets’.

  I know of no instance [he wrote] of a favourable result from them. They serve merely to exasperate, to harass our own people, and, by reducing the companies of the ships, to render them unfit for real service when it is wanted. As a general mode of warfare they are unworthy of the English...

  He thought also that if these things came into general use, Gibraltar would be more vulnerable to their attacks than the harbours of the enemy. The rockets and catamarans had, therefore, to be left behind. They were used with great effect in the bombardment of Copenhagen in September of the following year when the Danish fleet was seized just in time to prevent Napoleon from getting it.

  When Sir Sidney arrived at Palermo, on 20th April, 1806, he found a general air of depression and defeatism. Napoleon’s repeated victories had convinced the court that the Imperial troops were irresistible. Naples had already been lost and King Ferdinand had been obliged for the second time to take refuge in Sicily. Only one fortress on the mainland, Gaeta, still held out, commanded by the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal, and a letter had just been received from him, saying that he must surrender in four days unless he received immediate succour. The king, with members of his council and the British Minister, Mr. Hugh Elliot, was absent on a tour of the island, and there was no one in Palermo who had authority to issue ordnance stores. The queen and the prince royal were entreating Sir Sidney to save the beleaguered fortress, so he took it upon himself to commandeer everything that was necessary. He sailed at once for Gaeta, thirty miles north of Naples, landed the stores and some reinforcements under heavy fire from the enemy’s guns which commanded the mole; then, in conjunction with the prince, he directed a sortie which relieved the pressure on the fortress. When Napoleon was told what had happened he wrote to his brother Joseph:

  From all I hear about Gaeta, it appears that the Neapolitans have spiked four of your guns, that they succeeded in their sortie, and killed many of your French troops...I desire that you will not demoralise my troops by allowing them to be beaten by Neapolitans. The sally from Gaeta is a real defeat, encouraging to the Neapolitans and discouraging to my soldiers.

  When Gaeta was secure, Sir Sidney appeared off Naples with his fleet of five ships of the line. He found the city illuminated because Joseph Bonaparte was having himself proclaimed king. He resisted the temp
tation to interrupt the ceremony by a bombardment because ‘the unfortunate inhabitants had evil enough upon them’. Instead, he attacked the rocky island of Capri, three miles off the southern point of the Bay of Naples and thirteen miles from the city itself, and forced the garrison to surrender. Then, to impede the French invasion of Sicily, he went on round the coast, capturing strong points and disarming all the batteries under which an enemy flotilla could be equipped or take shelter.

  As a result of this naval demonstration, King Joseph withdrew many of his troops from South Italy, and part of his siege train from before Gaeta, for the defence of Naples which he believed to be threatened by the British occupation of Capri.

  In letter after letter Napoleon urged Joseph to press on with the invasion of Sicily, for which he had given him a complete plan of campaign and put him at the head of an army of 50,000 men, but it was becoming more and more difficult. Joseph had the same problem in miniature that Napoleon had when he wanted to invade England — British sea power stood in his way.

  On Sir Sidney’s return to Palermo he called upon Mr. Hugh Elliot, who had the post of British Representative at the court of Naples, now in exile, that had been held for many years by Sir William Hamilton. Mr. Elliot approved of Sir Sidney’s action in commandeering supplies to succour Gaeta, and of his capture of Capri. He approved also of his domination of the Italian Coast which he agreed would check the progress of the enemy’s operations against Sicily. He gave him 4,000 piastres to assist his operations.

  Mr. Elliot’s policy was to support the First Minister of the Kingdom of Naples, Sir John Acton, whose position was being threatened by a group of French emigrés and Italian noblemen, to one of whom, the Marquis Circello, Sir Sidney had brought a letter of introduction from Lord Grenville. It carried great weight because, since writing it, Grenville had become Prime Minister of Great Britain. Acton favoured a cautious defensive policy. The court, particularly the queen, the sister of Marie Antoinette, wanted to take active measures to regain Naples; but the news of Ulm and Austerlitz had thrown them into a state of depression and alarm. Sir Sidney’s arrival, followed quickly by his successes at Gaeta and Capri, put new heart into them.

  Their cause was favoured by the common people and especially by the mountaineers of Calabria, the southernmost province of the Italian mainland, who bitterly resented the intrusion of the French into their country. They had formed bands of partisans, called the massi, which carried on merciless war against them. These had the merits and the defects usual with untrained guerrillas; there were sudden panics, unexpected heroisms, uncoordinated actions, mutual jealousies between the leaders and much looting and banditry. King Ferdinand appointed Sir Sidney his viceroy in Calabria with full powers, military and civil, ‘to reduce the lawless banditry to order and obedience under the authority of their lawful sovereign’.

  Because this appointment would help him to achieve the objects of his mission, he accepted it with alacrity and made the most of it. He established correspondence with all the Calabrian leaders who could produce certificates of capacity and good conduct in the former war from Nelson’s captains, Troubridge, Samuel Hood and Hallowell: he supplied them with arms and money, and he had proclamations printed and distributed through the villages in which he signed himself ‘Commander-in-Chief on behalf of King Ferdinand’. Insurrection flamed through Lower and Upper Calabria and the neighbouring province of Basilicata.

  It was clear to him, however, that the partisans would require a stiffening of regular troops to co-operate with them. He discussed the situation with Major-General Sir John Stuart who had recently taken command of the British troops in Sicily. He told the general that he was collecting a flotilla of small craft to patrol the narrow Straits of Messina between Sicily and the mainland, but it would take time to equip them, and he could not be certain that with his large ships he would be able to prevent the enemy’s numerous small rowing vessels from getting across with their invasion troops during the summer season. He explained Pitt and Nelson’s plan to defend the island by keeping the war as far away from it as possible. If British troops were to land in Calabria, he said, the French would be forced to concentrate instead of sending isolated detachments all over the country to hold it in subjection. This would relieve the pressure on the partisans and enable them to operate more effectively. Stuart, thinking that he might at least be able to destroy some of the depots of stores and ammunition that the enemy had formed for the invasion of Sicily, reluctantly agreed, stipulating only that their plans should not be communicated to the councils of Palermo.

  During the night of 30th June, 1806, Sir Sidney landed Stuart at a bay in the Gulf of St. Euphemia on the west coast of Calabria with an army of 4,800 men — nearly half of the British garrison of Sicily. At the same time, to confuse the enemy, he sent another squadron to threaten the strong castle of Scilla and the town of Reggio within the Straits of Messina. He had instructed his partisans to obey the British General. Immediately upon landing, Stuart issued a proclamation ordering them to rise against the enemy, with the result that every town and village declared for him as soon as a British patrol approached it.

  The French general, Reynier, whose force had been weakened by Joseph’s demands, and by the need to send out mobile columns into the mountains to pursue Sir Sidney’s agents, could collect only 5,150 men to oppose him. Still, he was very confident of success: he was sure that his veterans would defeat the British if they left the protection of their ships’ guns. He watched for three days while Stuart moved his men along the coast towards the Lamato River with the Pompée, the Apollo, frigate, and several gunboats protecting his flank. Sir Sidney had shifted his flag to the Apollo to get closer inshore.

  On 4th July, Stuart, who had received information that the French camp was near the village of Maida, turned inland and advanced towards it. Reynier was in a good defensive position on the slope of a hill from which it would have been difficult to dislodge him, but because of the partisans infiltrating through the woods behind him he felt it was untenable, and he could not withdraw from it because they would have construed it as a defeat. After some preliminary skirmishing he decided to attack. He ordered the 1st and the 42nd regiments, 2,400 strong, to charge the British line. They were repelled with heavy loss, and the whole of the left wing of his army retreated in confusion.

  He tried to retrieve the situation by sending his cavalry to outflank the British left, but they were caught and thrown into disorder by the unexpected fire of Colonel Ross’s regiment, the 20th, which Sir Sidney had landed during the battle. Reynier precipitately withdrew, abandoning his camp and leaving 700 dead and 1,000 wounded on the field. Stuart pursued him only as far as the head of the Lamato Valley, a distance of about three miles.

  It was the first decisive defeat of the French by the British army, except for General Abercromby’s night action in Egypt, since the war began. Napoleon, still unaware of this sudden reverse to the French arms, was writing from St. Cloud on 19th July:

  Nothing could be more fortunate than the landing of the English. General Reynier will be joined by the brigades which are posted in echelon along the coast, and he will beat the English...it is difficult to conceive the fatality that has urged them on.

  Stuart had no intention of attempting the re-conquest of Italy with his small army of less than 5,000 men. He went on board the Pompée to write his dispatches, and then withdrew with the main body of his army towards Sicily, leaving only a few detachments to co-operate with Sir Sidney. One of these, under General Acland, was to proceed in two transports to the Bay of Naples as if to make a landing there, but it was not in fact to land or to incur any danger unless an exceptionally favourable opportunity presented itself. It was merely to alarm the enemy and to discourage him from sending reinforcements to Calabria.

  A second detachment was landed by Sir Sidney on the shores of the Straits of Messina, under Brigadier Oswald, where it easily captured Scilla and Reggio whose garrisons had been weakened to reinforce R
eynier. He embarked a third detachment, under Colonel McLeod, in the frigate Amphion (Captain Hoste), and sent them round Cape Spartimento and up the east coast of Italy to co-operate with the partisans there, because Reynier had withdrawn right across the peninsula to Cantanzaro on the Adriatic. The town had already declared against him, but he forcibly re-occupied it and camped beneath its walls with about 4,500 men — still almost equal in numbers to the British, but thoroughly demoralised.

  Colonel McLeod and Captain Hoste were so successful that with the help of the partisans they drove Reynier not only from Cantanzaro, where they took 600 prisoners, but also from Cotrone, his last base in Calabria, where they captured all his reserves of food and ammunition, and forty guns of various calibres.

  Meanwhile Sir Sidney was moving up the west coast of Italy. Within four days of the Battle of Maida he captured Pizzo and Amantea, and his armed bands had advanced twenty miles beyond them. He sent the Apollo, frigate (Captain Fellowes) to summon Tropea, with the result that the garrison surrendered on 7th July. He anchored the Pompée in Policastro Bay, halfway to Naples, and sent seven columns to occupy the mountain passes by which the wreck of Reynier’s army might escape, or through which reinforcements might be sent to him.

  Once the partisans had left their homes they had nothing to live on, and had to resort to plundering their neighbours. To put a stop to this he had them paid at the rate of three carlines a day through their responsible leaders. He paid all those who had co-operated with Stuart and who had joined in the pursuit of the French, or who had helped in the capture of Amantea. All the inhabitants looked to the ships whenever they appeared on the coast for the means to carry on the war, and they brought their disputes to be settled by Sir Sidney as their viceroy and leader. He wrote exuberantly to the Queen that he now had the freedom of movement and a unified command that were the secrets of Bonaparte’s success: