A History of Sea Power Part 18

About a half hour later the _Bellerophon_ and the _Majestic_ attacked respectively the big flagship _Orient_ (110) in the center and the _Tonnant_ (80) next astern, and against these superior antagonists suffered severely, losing in killed and wounded 390 men divided about equally between them, which was nearly half the total loss of 896 and greater than the total at Cape St. Vincent.

Both later drifted almost helpless down the line. The _Culloden_ under Troubridge, a favorite of both Jervis and Nelson, had unfortunately grounded and stuck fast on Aboukir shoal; but the _Swiftsure_ and the _Alexander_ came up two hours after the battle had begun as a support to the ships in the centre, the _Swiftsure_ engaging the _Orient_, and the _Alexander_ the _Franklin_ next ahead, while the smaller _Leander_ skillfully chose a position where she could rake the two. By this time all five of the French van had surrendered; the _Orient_ was in flames and blew up about 10 o'clock with the loss of all but 70 men. Admiral Brueys, thrice wounded, died before the explosion. Of the four ships in the rear, only two, the _Guillaume Tell_ under Admiral Villeneuve and the _Genereux_, were able to cut their cables next morning and get away. Nelson a.s.serted that, had he not been incapacitated by a severe scalp wound in the action, even these would not have escaped.

Of the rest, two were burned and nine captured. Among important naval victories, aside from such one-sided slaughters as those of our own Spanish war, it remains the most overwhelming in history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF THE NILE]

The effect was immediate throughout Europe, attesting dearly the contemporary importance attached to sea control. "It was this battle,"

writes Admiral de la Graviere, "which for two years delivered over the Mediterranean to the British and called thither the squadrons of Russia, which shut up our army in the midst of a hostile people and led the Porte to declare against us, which put India beyond our reach and thrust France to the brink of ruin, for it rekindled the hardly extinct war with Austria and brought Suvaroff and the Austro-Russians to our very frontiers."[1]

[Footnote 1: GUERRES MARITIMES, II, 129.]

The whole campaign affords an instance of an overseas expedition daringly undertaken in the face of a hostile fleet (though it should be remembered that the British were not in the Mediterranean when it was planned), reaching its destination by extraordinary good luck, and its possibilities then completely negatived by the reestablishment of enemy naval control. The efforts of the French army to extricate itself northward through Palestine were later thwarted partly by the squadron under Commodore Sidney Smith, which captured the siege guns sent to Acre by sea and aided the Turks in the defense of the fortress. In October of 1799 Bonaparte escaped to France in a frigate. French fleets afterwards made various futile efforts to succor the forces left in Egypt, which finally surrendered to an army under Abercromby, just too late to strengthen the British in the peace negotiations of October, 1801.

Nelson's subsequent activities in command of naval forces in Italian waters need not detain us. Physically and nervously weakened from the effects of his wound and arduous campaign, he fell under the influence of Lady Hamilton and the wretched court of Naples, lent naval a.s.sistance to schemes of doubtful advantage to his country, and in June of 1800 incurred the displeasure of the Admiralty by direct disobedience of orders to send support to Minorca. He returned to England at the close of 1800 with the glory of his victory somewhat tarnished, and with blemishes on his private character which unfortunately, as will be seen, affected also his professional reputation.

_The Copenhagen Campaign_

Under the rapid scene-shifting of Napoleon, the political stage had by this time undergone another complete change from that which followed the battle of the Nile. Partly at least as a consequence of that battle, the so-called Second Coalition had been formed by Great Britain, Russia, and Austria, the armies of the two latter powers, as already stated, carrying the war again to the French frontiers. It required only the presence of Bonaparte, in supreme control after the _coup d'etat_ of the Eighteenth _Brumaire_ (9 Nov., 1799), to turn the tide, rehabilitate the internal administration of France, and by the victories of Marengo in June and Hohenlinden in December of 1800 to force Austria once more to a separate peace. Paul I of Russia had already fallen out with his allies and withdrawn his armies and his great general, Suvaroff, a year before. Now, taken with a romantic admiration for Napoleon, and angry when the British, after retaking Malta, refused to turn it over to him as Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, he was easily manipulated by Napoleon into active support of the latter's next move against England.

This was the Armed Neutrality of 1800, the object of which, from the French standpoint, was to close to England the markets of the North, and combine against her the naval forces of the Baltic.

Under French and Russian pressure, and in spite of the fact that all these northern nations stood to suffer in one way or another from rupture of trade relations with England, the coalition was accomplished in December, 1800; Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark pledging themselves to resist infringements of neutral rights, whether by extension of contraband lists, seizure of enemy goods under neutral flag, search of vessels guaranteed innocent by their naval escort, or by other methods familiar then as in later times.

These were measures which England, aiming both to ruin the trade of France and to cut off her naval supplies, felt bound to insist upon as the belligerent privileges of sea power.

To overcome this new danger called for a mixture of force and diplomacy, which England supplied by sending to Denmark an envoy with a 48-hour ultimatum, and along with him 20 ships-of-the-line, which according to Nelson were "the best negotiators in Europe." The commander in chief of this squadron was Sir Hyde Parker, a hesitant and mediocre leader who could be trusted to do nothing (if that were necessary), and Nelson was made second in command. Influence, seniority, a clean record, and what-not, often lead to such choices, bad enough at any time but indefensible in time of war. Fortunately for England, when the reply of the Danish court showed that force was required, the two admirals virtually changed places with less friction than might have been expected, and Nelson "Lifted and carried on his shoulders the dead weight of his superior,"[1] throughout the ensuing campaign.

[Footnote 1: Mahan, INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE, II, 52.]

When the envoy on March 23 returned to the fleet, then anch.o.r.ed in the Cattegat, he brought an alarming tale of Danish preparations, and an air of gloom pervaded the flagship when Nelson came aboard for a council of war. Copenhagen, it will be recalled, is situated on the eastern coast of Zealand, on the waterway called the Sound leading southward from the Cattegat to the Baltic. Directly in front of the city, a long shoal named the Middle Ground separates the Sound into two navigable channels, the one nearer Copenhagen known as the King's Deep (_Kongedyb_). The defenses of the Danish capital, so the envoy reported, were planned against attack from the northward. At this end of the line the formidable Trekroner Battery (68 guns), together with two ships-of-the-line and some smaller vessels, defended the narrow entrance to the harbor; while protecting the city to the southward, along the flats at the edge of the King's Deep, was drawn up an array of about 37 craft ranging from ships-of-the-line to mere scows, mounting a total of 628 guns, and supported at some distance by batteries on land. Filled with patriotic ardor, half the male population of the city had volunteered to support the forces manning these batteries afloat and ash.o.r.e.

Nelson's plan for meeting these obstacles, as well as his view of the whole situation, as presented at the council, was embodied in a memorandum dated the following day, which well ill.u.s.trates his grasp of a general strategic problem. The Government's instructions, as well as Parker's preference, were apparently to wait in the Cattegat until the combined enemy forces should choose to come out and fight. Instead, the second in command advocated immediate action. "Not a moment," he wrote, "should be lost in attacking the enemy; they will every day and hour be stronger." The best course, in his opinion, would be to take the whole fleet at once into the Baltic against Russia, as a "home stroke," which if successful would bring down the coalition like a house of cards. If the Danes must first be dealt with, he proposed, instead of a direct attack, which would be "taking the bull by the horns," an attack from the rear. In order to do so, the fleet could get beyond the city either by pa.s.sing through the Great Belt south of Zealand, or directly through the Sound. Another resultant advantage, in case the five Swedish sail of the line or the 14 Russian ships at Revel should take the offensive, would be that of central position, between the enemy divisions.

"Supposing us through the Belt," the letter concludes, "with the wind northwesterly, would it not be possible to either go with the fleet or detach ten Ships of three and two decks, with one Bomb and two Fireships, to Revel, to destroy the Russian squadron at that place? I do not see the great risk of such a detachment, and with the remainder to attempt the business at Copenhagen. The measure may be thought bold, but I am of the opinion that the boldest measures are the safest; and our Country demands a most vigorous a.s.sertion of her force, directed with judgment."

Here was a striking plan of aggressive warfare, aimed at the heart of the coalition. The proposal to leave part of the fleet at Copenhagen was indeed a dangerous compromise, involving divided forces and threatened communications, but was perhaps justified by the known inefficiency of the Russians and the fact that the Danes were actually fought and defeated with a force no greater than the plan provided.

In the end the more conservative course was adopted of settling with Denmark first. Keeping well to the eastern sh.o.r.e, the fleet on March 30 pa.s.sed into the Sound without injury from the fire of the Kronenburg forts at its entrance, and anch.o.r.ed that evening near Copenhagen.

Three days later, on April 2, 1801, the attack was made as planned, from the southward end of the Middle Ground. Nelson in the _Elephant_ commanded the fighting squadron, which consisted of seven 74's, three 64's and two of 50 guns, with 18 bomb vessels, sloops, and fireships. The rest of the ships, under Parker, were anch.o.r.ed at the other end of the shoal and 5 miles north of the city; it seems they were to have cooperated, but the south wind which Nelson needed made attack impossible for them. Against the Danish total of 696 guns on the ships and Trekroner fortification, Nelson's squadron had 1014, but three of his main units grounded during the approach and were of little service. There was no effort at concentration, the British when in position engaging the whole southern part of the Danish line. "Here," in the words of Nelson's later description, "was no maneuvering; it was downright fighting"--a hotly contested action against ships and sh.o.r.e batteries lasting from 10 a. m., when the _Elephant_ led into position on the bow of Commodore Fischer's flagship _Dannebroge_, until about one.

In the midst of the engagement, as Nelson restlessly paced the quarterdeck, he caught sight of the signal "Leave off action" flown from Sir Hyde's flagship. Instead of transmitting the signal to the vessels under him, Nelson kept his own for "Close action" hoisted.

Colonel Stewart, who was on board at the time, continues the story as follows: "He also observed, I believe to Captain Foley, 'You know, Foley, I have only one eye--I have a right to be blind sometimes'; and then with an archness peculiar to his character, putting the gla.s.s to his blind eye, he exclaimed, 'I really do not see the signal.'" It was obeyed, however, by the light vessels under Captain Riou attacking the Trekroner battery, which were suffering severely, and which could also more easily effect a retreat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN, APRIL 2, 1801]

Shortly afterward the Danish fire began to slacken and several of the floating batteries surrendered, though before they could be taken they were frequently remanned by fresh forces from the sh.o.r.e. Enough had been accomplished; and to end a difficult situation--if not to extricate himself from it--Nelson sent the following summons addressed "To the brothers of Englishmen, the Danes": "Lord Nelson has orders to spare Denmark when no longer resisting; if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set fire to the floating batteries he has taken, without having the power of saving the brave Danes who have defended them."

A truce followed, during which Nelson removed his ships. Next day he went ash.o.r.e to open negotiations, while at the same time he brought bomb vessels into position to bombard the city. The cessation of hostilities was the more readily agreed to by the Danes owing to the fact that on the night before the battle they had received news, which they still kept concealed from the British, of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Czar Paul. His successor, they knew, would be forced to adopt a policy more favorable to the true interests of Russian trade. The league in fact was on the verge of collapse. A fourteen weeks' armistice was signed with Denmark. On April 12 the fleet moved into the Baltic, and on May 5, Nelson having succeeded Parker in command, it went on to Revel, whence the Russian squadron had escaped through the ice to Kronstadt ten days before. On June 17 a convention was signed with Russia and later accepted by the other northern states, by which Great Britain conceded that neutrals might engage in trade from one enemy port to another, with the important exception of _colonial_ ports, and that naval stores should not be contraband; whereas Russia agreed that enemy goods under certain conditions might be seized in neutral ships, and that vessels under naval escort might be searched by ships-of-war.

In the meantime, Nelson, realizing that active operations were over with, resigned his command.

In the opinion of the French naval critic Graviere, the campaign thus ended const.i.tutes in the eyes of seamen Nelson's best t.i.tle to fame--"_son plus beau t.i.tre gloire._"[1] Certainly it called forth the most varied talents--grasp of the political and strategical situation; tact and force of personality in dealing with an inert commander in chief; energy in overcoming not only military obstacles but the doubts and scruples of fellow officers; aggressiveness in battle; and skill in negotiations. In view of the Czar's murder--of which the British Government would seem to have had an inkling beforehand--it may be thought that less strenuous methods would have served. On the contrary, however, hundreds of British merchant vessels had been seized in northern ports, trade had been stopped, and the nation was threatened with a dangerous increment to her foes. Furthermore, after a brief interval of peace, Great Britain had to face ten years more of desperate warfare, during which nothing served her better than that at Copenhagen the northern neutrals had had a sharp taste of British naval power. Force was needed.

That it was employed economically is shown by the fact that, when a renewal of peace between France and Russia in 1807 again threatened a northern confederation, Nelson's accomplishment with 12 ships was duplicated, but this time with 25 of the line, 40 frigates, 27,000 troops, the bombardment of Copenhagen, and a regular land campaign.

[Footnote 1: GUERRES MARITIMES, Vol. II, p. 43.]

Upon Nelson's return to England, popular clamor practically forced his appointment to command the Channel defense flotilla against the French armies which were now once more concentrated on the northern coast. This service lasted for only a brief period until the signing of peace preliminaries in October, 1801.

During the eight years of hostilities thus ended Great Britain, it is true, had been fighting largely on the defensive, but on a line of defense carried to the enemy's sea frontiers and comparable to siege lines about a city or fortress, which, when once established, thrust upon the enemy the problem of breaking through. The efforts of France to pierce this barrier, exerted in various directions and by various means, were, as we have seen, defeated by naval engagements, which insured to England the control of the sea. During this period, France lost altogether 55 ships-of-the-line, Holland 18, Spain 10, and Denmark 2, a total of 85, of which at least 50 were captured by the enemy. Great Britain lost 20, but only 5 by capture. The British battle fleet at the close of hostilities had increased to 189 capital ships; that of France had shrunk to 45.

For purposes of commerce warfare the French navy had suffered the withdrawal of many of its smaller fighting vessels and large numbers of its best seamen, attracted into privateering by the better promise of profit and adventure. As a result of this warfare, about 3500 British merchantmen were destroyed, an average of 500 a year, representing an annual loss of 2-1/2 per cent of all the ships of British register. But in the meantime the French merchant marine and commerce had been literally swept off the seas. In 1799 the Directory admitted there was "not a single merchant ship on the seas carrying the French flag." French imports from Asia, Africa, and America in 1800 amounted to only $300,000, and exports to $56,000, whereas England's total export and import trade had nearly doubled, from 44-1/2 million pounds sterling in 1792 to nearly 78 million in 1800. It is true that, owing to the exigencies of war, the amount of British shipping employed in this trade actually fell off slightly, and that of neutrals increased from 13 to 34%. But the profits went chiefly to British merchants. England had become the great storehouse and carrier for the Continent, "Commerce," in the phrase engraved on the elder Pitt's monument, "being united with and made to flourish by war."[1]

[Footnote 1: Figures on naval losses from Graviere, GUERRES MARITIMES, Vol. II, ch. VII, and on commerce, from Mahan, FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE, Vol. II, ch. XVII.]

REFERENCES

See end of Chapter XIII, page 285.

CHAPTER XIII

THE NAPOLEONIC WAR [_Concluded_]: TRAFALGAR AND AFTER

The peace finally ratified at Amiens in March, 1802, failed to accomplish any of the purposes for which England had entered the war. France not only maintained her frontiers on the Scheldt and the Rhine, but still exercised a predominant influence in Holland and western Italy, and excluded British trade from territories under her control. Until French troops were withdrawn from Holland, as called for by the treaty, England refused to evacuate Malta.

Bonaparte, who wished further breathing s.p.a.ce to build up the French navy, tried vainly to postpone hostilities by threatening to invade England and exclude her from all continental markets. "It will be England," he declared, "that forces us to conquer Europe." The war reopened in May of 1803.

With no immediate danger on the Continent and with all the resources of a regenerated France at his command, Bonaparte now undertook the project of a descent upon England on such a scale as never before. Hazardous as he always realized the operation to be--it was a thousand to one chance, he told the British envoys, that he and his army would end at the bottom of the sea--he was definitely committed to it by his own threats and by the expectation of France that he would now annihilate her hereditary foe.

_Napoleon's Plan of Invasion_

An army of 130,000 men, with 400 guns and 20 days' supplies, was to embark from four ports close to Boulogne as a center, and cross the 36 miles of Channel to a favorable stretch of coast between Dover and Hastings, distant from London some 70 miles. The transport flotilla, as finally planned, was to consist of 2000 or more small flat-bottomed sailing vessels with auxiliary oar propulsion-_chaloupes_ and _bateaux canonnieres_, from 60 to 80 feet over all, not over 8 feet in draft, with from two to four guns and a capacity for 100 to 150 men. Large open boats (_peniches_) were also to be used, and all available coast craft for transport of horses and supplies.

Shipyards from the Scheldt to the Gironde were soon busy building the special flotilla, and as fast as they were finished they skirted the sh.o.r.es to the points of concentration under protection of coast batteries. Extensive harbor and defense works were undertaken at Boulogne and neighboring ports, and the 120 miles from the Scheldt to the Somme was soon bristling with artillery, in General Marmont's phrase, "a coast of iron and bronze."

The impression was spread abroad that the crossing was to be effected by stealth, in calm, fog, or the darkness of a long winter night, without the protection of a fleet. Almost from the first, however, Bonaparte seems to have had no such intention. The armament of the flotilla itself proved of slight value, and he was resolved to take no uncalled-for risks, on an unfamiliar element, with 100,000 men. An essential condition, which greatly complicated the whole undertaking, became the concentration of naval forces in the Channel sufficient to secure temporary control. "Let us be masters of the Strait for 6 hours," Napoleon wrote to Latouche-Treville in command of the Toulon fleet, "and we shall be masters of the world." In less rhetorical moments he extended the necessary period to from two to fifteen days.

Up to the spring of 1804 neither army nor flotilla was fully ready, and thereafter the crossing was always definitely conditioned upon a naval concentration. But the whole plan called for swift execution.

As time lapsed, difficulties multiplied. Harbors silted up, transports were wrecked by storms, British defense measures on land and sea grew more formidable, the Continental situation became more threatening.

The Boulogne army thus became more and more--what Napoleon perhaps falsely declared later it had always been--an army concentrated against Austria. To get a fleet into the Channel without a battle was almost impossible, and once in, its position would be dangerous in the extreme. Towards the end, in the opinion of the French student Colonel Desbriere, Napoleon's chief motive in pressing for fleet cooperation was the belief that it would lead to a decisive naval action which, though a defeat, would shift from his own head the odium of failure.

Whether this theory is fully accepted or not, the fact remains that the only sure way of conquering England was by a naval contest.

Her first and main defense was the British fleet, which, spread out to the limits of safety to watch French ships wherever harbored, guarded not only against a concentration in the Channel, but against incursions into other fields. The immediate defense of the coasts was intrusted to flotillas of armed boats, over 700 in all, distributed along the coast from Leith south-about to Glasgow, with 100 on the coast of Ireland. Naval men looked upon these as of slight value, a concession, according to Earl St. Vincent, to "the old women in and out" (of both s.e.xes) at home. The distribution of the main battle squadrons varied, but in March, 1805, at the opening of the Trafalgar campaign they were stationed as follows: Boulogne and the Dutch forces were watched by Admiral Keith with 11 of the line and 150 smaller units scattered from the Texel to the Channel Islands.

The 21 French ships under Ganteaume at Brest, the strategic center, were closely blockaded by Cornwallis, whose force, by Admiralty orders, was not to fall below 18 of the line. A small squadron had been watching Missiessy's 5 ships at Rochefort and upon his escape in January had followed him to the West Indies. The 5 French and 10 Spanish at Ferrol and the 6 or more ready for sea at Cadiz were held in check by forces barely adequate. In the Gulf of Lyons Nelson with 13 ships had since May, 1803, stood outside the distant but dangerous station of Toulon. Owing to the remoteness from bases, a close and constant blockade was here impossible; moreover, it was the policy to let the enemy get out in the hope of bringing him to action at sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: POSITIONS OF BRITISH AND ENEMY SHIPS, MARCH, 1805]

To effect a concentration in the Channel in the face of these obstacles was the final aim of all Napoleon's varied naval combinations of 1804 and 1805--combinations which impress one with the truth of Graviere's criticism that the Emperor lacked "_le sentiment exact des difficultes de la marine_," and especially, one should perhaps add, _de la marine francaise_. The first plan, the simplest and, therefore, most promising, was that Latouche Treville with the Toulon fleet should evade Nelson and, after releasing ships on the way, enter the Channel with 16 of the line, while Cornwallis was kept occupied by Ganteaume. This was upset by the death of Latouche, France's ablest and most energetic admiral, in August of 1804, and by the accession, two months later, of Spain and the Spanish navy to the French cause. After many misgivings Napoleon chose Villeneuve to succeed at Toulon. Skilled in his profession, honest, and devoted, he was fatally lacking in self-confidence and energy to conquer difficulties. "It is sad," wrote an officer in the fleet, "to see that force which under Latouche was full of activity, now without faith in either their leader or themselves."

The final plan, though still subject to modifications, was for a concentration on a larger scale in the West Indies. Villeneuve was to go thither, picking up the Cadiz ships on the way, join the Rochefort squadron if it were still there, and wait 40 days for the Brest fleet. Upon its arrival the entire force of 40 ships was to move swiftly back to the Channel. It was a.s.sumed that the British squadrons, in alarm for the colonies, would in the meantime be scattered in pursuit.

_The Pursuit of Villeneuve_