The Life of Napoleon I Part 26

Napoleon, indeed, amply discounted the chances of failure of his ultimate design, the command of the Channel. The ostensible aims of the expedition were colonial. The French fleets were to take on board 11,908 soldiers, of whom three-fourths were destined for the West Indies; and, in case Gantheaume did not join Villeneuve at Martinique, the latter was ordered, after waiting forty days, to set sail for the Canaries, there to intercept the English convoys bound for Brazil and the East Indies.

In the spring and summer of 1805 Napoleon's correspondence supplies copious proof of the ideas and plans that pa.s.sed through his brain.

After firmly founding the new Empire, he journeyed into Piedmont, thence to Milan for his coronation as King of Italy, and finally to Genoa. In this absence of three months from Paris (April-July) many lengthy letters to Decres attest the alternations of his hopes and fears. He now keeps the possibility of failure always before him: his letters no longer breathe the crude confidence of 1803: and while facing the chances of failure in the West Indies, his thoughts swing back to the Orient:

"According to all the news that I receive, five or six thousand men in the [East] Indies would ruin the English Company. Supposing that our [West] Indian expedition is not fully successful, and I cannot reach the grand end which will demolish all the rest, I think we must arrange the [East] Indian expedition for September. We have now greater resources for it than some time ago."[332]

How tenacious is his will! He here recurs to the plan laid down before Decaen sailed to the East Indies in March, 1803. Even the prospects of a continental coalition fail to dispel that gorgeous dream. But amid much that is visionary we may discern this element of practicality: in case the blow against England misses the mark, Napoleon has provided himself with a splendid alternative that will banish all thought of failure.

It is needless to recount here the well-known details of Villeneuve's voyage and Nelson's pursuit. The Toulon and Cadiz fleets got clear away to the West Indies, and after a last glance towards the Orient, Nelson set out in pursuit. On the 4th of June the hostile fleets were separated by only a hundred miles of sea; and Villeneuve, when off Antigua, hearing that Nelson was so close, decided forthwith to return to Europe. After disembarking most of his troops and capturing a fleet of fourteen British merchantmen, he sailed for Ferrol, in pursuance of orders just received from Napoleon, which bade him rally fifteen allied ships at that port, and push on to Brest, where he must release Gantheaume.

In this gigantic war game, where the Atlantic was the chess-board, and the prize a world-empire, the chances were at this time curiously even. Fortune had favoured Villeneuve but checked Gantheaume.

Villeneuve successfully dodged Nelson in the West Indies, but ultimately the pursuer divined the enemy's scheme of returning to Europe, and sent a swift brig to warn the Admiralty, which was thereby informed of the exact position of affairs on July 8th, that is, twelve days before Napoleon himself knew of the state of affairs. On July 20th, the French Emperor heard, _through English newspapers_, that his fleet was on its return voyage: and his heart beat high with hope that Villeneuve would now gather up his squadrons in the Bay of Biscay and appear before Boulogne in overwhelming force; for he argued that, even if Villeneuve should keep right away from Brest, and leave blockaders and blockaded face to face, he would still be at least sixteen ships stronger than any force that could be brought against him.

But Napoleon was now committing the blunder which he so often censured in his inferiors. He was "making pictures" to himself, pictures in which the gleams of fortune were reserved for the tricolour flag, and gloom and disaster shrouded the Union Jack; he conceived that Nelson had made for Jamaica, and that the British squadrons were engaged in chasing phantom French fleets around Ireland or to the East Indies.

"We have not to do," he said, "with a far-seeing, but with a very proud, Government."

In reality, Nelson was nearing the coast of Portugal, Cornwallis had been so speedily reinforced as to marshal twenty-eight ships of the line off Brest, while Calder was waiting for Villeneuve off Cape Finisterre with a fleet of fifteen battleships. Thus, when Villeneuve neared the north-west of Spain, his twenty ships of the line were confronted by a force which he could neither overwhelm nor shake off.

The combat of July 22nd, fought amidst a dense haze, was unfavourable to the allies, two Spanish ships of the line striking their colours to Calder before the gathering fog and gloom of night separated the combatants: on the next two days Villeneuve strove to come to close quarters, but Calder sheered off; thereupon the French, unable then to make Ferrol, put into Vigo, while Calder, ignorant of their position, joined Cornwallis off Brest. This retreat of the British admiral subjected him to a court-martial, and consternation reigned in London when Villeneuve was known to be on the Spanish coast unguarded; but the fear was needless; though the French admiral succeeded in rallying the Ferrol squadron, yet, as he was ordered to avoid Ferrol, he put into Corunna, and on August 15th he decided to sail for Cadiz.

To realize the immense importance of this decision we must picture to ourselves the state of affairs just before this time.

Nelson, delayed by contrary winds and dogged by temporary ill-luck, had made for Gibraltar, whence, finding that no French ships had pa.s.sed the straits, he doubled back in hot haste northwards, and there is clear proof that his speedy return to the coast of Spain spread dismay in official circles at Paris. "This unexpected union of forces undoubtedly renders every scheme of invasion impracticable for the present," wrote Talleyrand to Napoleon on August 2nd, 1805.[333]

Missing Villeneuve off Ferrol, Nelson joined Cornwallis off Ushant on the very day when the French admiral decided to make for Cadiz.

Pa.s.sing on to Portsmouth, the hero now enjoyed a few days of well-earned repose, until the nation called on him for his final effort.

Meanwhile Napoleon had arrived on August 3rd at Boulogne, where he reviewed a line of soldiery nine miles long. The sight might well arouse his hopes of a.s.sured victory. He had ground for hoping that Villeneuve would soon be in the Channel. Not until August 8th did he receive news of the fight with Calder, and he took pains to parade it as an English defeat. He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line:

"I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the small Powers: 150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape Grisnez. Your voyage, and it alone, makes us without any doubt masters of England."

Austria and Russia were already marshalling their forces for the war of the Third Coalition. Yet, though menaced by those Powers, to whom he had recently offered the most flagrant provocations, this astonishing man was intent only on the ruin of England, and secretly derided their preparations. "You need not" (so he wrote to Eugene, Viceroy of Italy) "contradict the newspaper rumours of war, but make fun of them.... Austria's actions are probably the result of fear."--Thus, even when the eastern horizon lowered threateningly with clouds, he continued to pace the cliffs of Boulogne, or gallop restlessly along the strand, straining his gaze westward to catch the first glimpse of his armada. That horizon was never to be flecked with Villeneuve's sails: they were at this time furled in the harbour of Cadiz.

Unmeasured abuse has been showered upon Villeneuve for his retreat to that harbour. But it must be remembered that in both of Napoleon's last orders to him, those of July 16th and 26th, he was required to sail to Cadiz under certain conditions. In the first order prescribing alternative ways of gaining the mastery of the Channel, that step was recommended solely as a last alternative in case of misfortune: he was directed not to enter the long and difficult inlet of Ferrol, but, after collecting the squadron there, to cast anchor at Cadiz. In the order of July 26th he was charged positively to repair to Cadiz: "My intention is that you rally at Cadiz the Spanish ships there, disembark your sick, and, without stopping there more than four days at most, again set sail, return to Ferrol, etc." Villeneuve seems not to have received these last orders, but he alludes to those of July 16th.[334]

These, then, were probably the last instructions he received from Napoleon before setting sail from the roads of Corunna on August 13th.

The censures pa.s.sed on his retreat to Cadiz are therefore based on the supposition that he received instructions which he did not receive.[335] He expressly based his move to Cadiz on Napoleon's orders of July 16th. The mishaps which the Emperor then contemplated as necessitating such a step had, in Villeneuve's eyes, actually happened. The admiral considered the fight of July 22nd _la malheureuse affaire;_ his ships were enc.u.mbered with sick; they worked badly; on August 15th a north-east gale carried away the top-mast of a Spanish ship; and having heard from a Danish merchantman the news--false news, as it afterwards appeared--that Cornwallis with twenty-five ships was to the north, he turned and scudded before the wind. He could not divine the disastrous influence of his conduct on the plan of invasion. He did not know that his master was even then beginning to hesitate between a dash on London or a campaign on the Danube, and that the events of the next few days were destined to tilt the fortunes of the world. Doubtless he ought to have disregarded the Emperor's words about Cadiz and to have struggled on to Brest, as his earlier and wider orders enjoined. But the Emperor's instructions pointed to Cadiz as the rendezvous in case of misfortune or great difficulty. As a matter of fact, Napoleon on July 26th ordered the Rochefort squadron to _meet Villeneuve at Cadiz;_ and it is clear that by that date Napoleon had decided on that rendezvous, apparently because it could be more easily entered and cleared than Ferrol, and was safer from attack. But, as it happened, the Rochefort squadron had already set sail and failed to sight an enemy or friend for several weeks.

Such are the risks of naval warfare, in which even the greatest geniuses at times groped but blindly. Nelson was not afraid to confess the truth. The French Emperor, however, seems never to have made an admission which would mar his claim to strategic infallibility. Even now, when the Spanish ships were proved to clog the enterprise, he persisted in merely counting numbers, and in a.s.serting that Villeneuve might still neutralize the force of Calder and Cornwallis. These hopes he cherished up to August 23rd, when, as the next chapter will show, he faced right about to confront Austria. His Minister of Marine, who had more truly gauged the difficulties of all parts of the naval enterprise, continued earnestly to warn him of the terrible risk of burdening Villeneuve's ships with the unseaworthy craft of Spain and of trusting to this ill-a.s.sorted armada to cover the invasion now that their foes had divined its secret. The Emperor bitterly upbraided his Minister for his timidity, and in the presence of Daru, Intendant General of the army, indulged in a dramatic soliloquy against Villeneuve for his violation of orders: "What a navy! What an admiral!

What sacrifices for nothing! My hopes are frustrated--- Daru, sit down and write"--whereupon it is said that he traced out the plans of the campaign which was to culminate at Ulm and Austerlitz.[336]

The question has often been asked whether Napoleon seriously intended the invasion of England. Certainly the experienced seamen of England, France, and Holland, with few exceptions, declared that the flat-bottomed boats were unseaworthy, and that a frightful disaster must ensue if they were met out at sea by our ships. When it is further remembered that our coasts were defended by batteries and martello towers, that several hundreds of pinnaces and row-boats were ready to attack the flotilla before it could attempt the disembarkation of horses, artillery, and stores, and that 180,000 regulars and militia, aided by 400,000 volunteers, were ready to defend our land, the difficulties even of capturing London will be obvious. And the capture of the capital would not have decided the contest. Napoleon seems to have thought it would. In his voyage to St.

Helena he said: "I put all to the hazard; I entered into no calculations as to the manner in which I was to return; I trusted all to the impression the occupation of the capital would have occasioned."[337]--But, as has been shown above (p. 441), plans had been secretly drawn up for the removal of the Court and the national treasure to Worcester; the cannon of Woolwich were to be despatched into the Midlands by ca.n.a.l; and our military authorities reckoned that the systematic removal of provisions and stores from all the districts threatened by the enemy would exhaust him long before he overran the home counties. Besides, the invasion was planned when Britain's naval power had been merely evaded, not conquered. Nelson and Cornwallis and Calder would not for ever be chasing phantom fleets; they would certainly return, and cut Napoleon from his base, the sea.

Again, if Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic? He must have known that this act would hurry them into war. Thiers considers the annexation of Genoa a "grave fault" in the Emperor's policy--but many have doubted whether Napoleon did not intend Genoa to be the gate leading to a new avenue of glory, now that the success of his naval dispositions was doubtful. Marbot gives the general opinion of military circles when he says that the Emperor wanted to provoke a continental war in order to escape the ridicule which the failure of his Boulogne plans would otherwise have aroused. "The new coalition came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying situation." The compiler of the Fouche "Memoirs," which, though not genuine, may be accepted as generally correct, took the same view. He attributes to Napoleon the noteworthy words: "I may fail by sea, but not by land; besides, I shall be able to strike the blow before the old coalition machines are ready: the kings have neither activity nor decision of character: I do not fear old Europe." The Emperor also remarked to the Council of State that the expense of all the preparations at Boulogne was fully justified by the fact that they gave him "fully twenty days' start over all enemies.... A pretext had to be found for raising the troops and bringing them together without alarming the Continental Powers: and that pretext was afforded me by the projected descent upon England."[338]

It is also quite possible that his aim was Ireland as much as England.

It certainly was in the plan of September, 1804: and doubtless it still held a prominent place in his mind, except during the few days when he pictured Calder vanquished and Nelson scouring the West Indies. Then he doubtless fixed his gaze solely upon London. But there is much indirect evidence which points to Ireland as forming at least a very important part of his scheme. Both Nelson and Collingwood believed him to be aiming at Ireland.[339]

But indeed Napoleon is often unfathomable. Herein lies much of the charm of Napoleonic studies. He is at once the Achilles, the Mercury, and the Proteus of the modern world. The ease with which his mind grasped all problems and suddenly concentrated its force on some new plan may well perplex posterity as it dazed his contemporaries. If we were dealing with any other man than Napoleon, we might safely say that an invasion of England, before the command of the sea had been secured, was infinitely less likely than a descent on Ireland. The landing of a _corps d'armee_ there would have provoked a revolution; and British ascendancy would have vanished in a week. Even had Nelson returned and swept the seas, Ireland would have been lost to the United Kingdom; and Britain, exhausted also by the expenses which the Boulogne preparations had compelled her to make for the defence of London, must have succ.u.mbed.

If ever Napoleon intended risking all his fortunes on the conquest of England, it can be proved that his mind was gradually cleared of illusions. He trusted that a popular rising would overthrow the British Government: people and rulers showed an accord that had never been known since the reign of Queen Anne. He believed, for a short s.p.a.ce, that the flotilla could fight sea-going ships out at sea: the converse was proved up to the hilt. Finally, he trusted that Villeneuve, when burdened with Spanish ships, would outwit and outmanoeuvre Nelson!

What then remained after these and many other disappointments? Surely that scheme alone was practicable, in which the command of the sea formed only an unimportant factor. For the conquest of England it was an essential factor. In Ireland alone could Napoleon find the conditions on which he counted for success--a discontented populace that would throng to the French eagles, and a field of warfare where the mere landing of 20,000 veterans would decide the campaign.[340]

And yet it is, on the whole, certain that his expedition for Ireland was meant merely to distract and paralyze the defenders of Great Britain, while he dealt the chief blow at London. Instinct and conviction alike prompted him to make imposing feints that should lead his enemy to lay bare his heart, and that heart was our great capital.

His indomitable will scorned the word _impossible_--"a word found only in the dictionary of fools"; he felt England to be the sole barrier to his ambitions; and to crush her power he was ready to brave, not only her stoutest seamen, but also her guardian angels, the winds and storms. Both the man and the occasion were unique in the world's history and must not be judged according to tame probabilities. For his honour was at stake. He was so deeply pledged to make use of the vast preparations at his northern ports that, had all his complex dispositions worked smoothly, he would certainly have attempted a dash at London; and only after some adequate excuse could he consent to give up that adventure.

The excuse was now furnished by Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz; and public opinion, ignorant of Napoleon's latest instructions on that subject, and knowing only the salient facts of the case, laid on that luckless admiral the whole burden of blame for the failure of the scheme of invasion. With front unabashed and a mind presaging certain triumphs, Napoleon accordingly wheeled his legions eastward to prosecute that alluring alternative, the conquest of England through the Continent.

APPENDIX

[_The two following State Papers have never before been published_]

No. I. is a despatch from Mr. Thornton, our _charge d'affaires_ at Washington, relative to the expected transfer of the vast region of Louisiana from Spain to France (see ch. xv. of this vol.).

[In "F O.," America, No. 35.]

"WASHINGTON, "26 _Jany._, 1802.

"MY LORD,

"... About four years ago, when the rumour of the transfer of Louisiana to France was first circulated, I put into Mr.

Pickering's hands for his perusal a despatch written by Mr. Fauchet about the year 1794, which with many others was intercepted by one of H.M. ships. In that paper the French Minister urged to his Government the absolute necessity of acquiring Louisiana or some territory in the vicinity of the United States in order to obtain a permanent influence in the country, and he alluded to a memorial written some years before by the Count du Moutier to the same effect, when he was employed as His Most Christian Majesty's Minister to the United States. The project seems therefore to have been long in the contemplation of the French Government, and perhaps no period is more favourable than the present for carrying it into execution.

"When I paid my respects to the Vice-President, Mr. Burr, on his arrival at this place, he, of his own accord, directed conversation to this topic. He owned that he had made some exertion indirectly to discover the truth of the report, and thought he had reason to believe it. He appeared to think that the great armament destined by France to St. Domingo, had this ulterior object in view, and expressed much apprehension that the transfer and colonization of Louisiana were meditated by her with the concurrence or acquiescence of His Maj'^{s} Gov^{t}. It was impossible for me to give any opinion on this part of the measure, which, whatever may be its ultimate tendency, presents at first view nothing but danger to His Maj'^{s} Trans-Atlantic possessions.

"Regarding alone the aim of France to acquire a preponderating influence in the councils of the United States, it may be very well doubted whether the possession of Louisiana, and the means which she would chose to employ are calculated to secure that end.

Experience seems now to have sanctioned the opinion that if the provinces of Canada had been restored to France at the Peace of Paris, and if from that quarter she had been left to press upon the American frontier, to hara.s.s the exterior settlements and to mingle in the feuds of the Indian Tribes, the colonies might still have preserved their allegiance to the parent country and have retained their just jealousy of that system of encroachment adopted by France from the beginning of the last century. The present project is but a continuance of the same system; and neither her power nor her present temper leave room for expectation that she will pursue it with less eagerness or greater moderation than before. Whether, therefore, she attempt to restrain the navigation of the Mississippi or limit the freedom of the port of New Orleans; whether she press upon the Western States with any view to conquest, or seduce them by her principles of fraternity (for which indeed they are well prepared) she must infallibly alienate the Atlantic States and force them into a straiter connection with Great Britain.

"I have scarcely met with a person under whatever party he may rank himself, who does not dread this event, and who would not prefer almost any neighbours to the French: and it seems perfect infatuation in the Administration of this country that they chuse the present moment for leaving that frontier almost defenceless by the reduction of its military establishment.

"I have, etc.,

"[Signed] EDW'D THORNTON."

No. II. is a report in "F.O.," France, No. 71, by one of our spies in Paris on the doings of the Irish exiles there, especially O'Connor, whom Napoleon had appointed General of Division in Marshal Augereau's army, then a.s.sembling at Brest for the expedition to Ireland. After stating O'Connor's appointment, the report continues:

"About eighty Irishmen were sent to Morlaix to be formed into a company of officers and taught how they were to discipline and instruct their countrymen when they landed in Ireland. McShee, General de Brigade, commands them. He and Blackwell are, I believe, the only persons among them of any consequence, who have seen actual service. Emmett's brother and McDonald, who were jealous of the attention paid to O'Connor, would not go to Morlaix. They were prevailed on to go to Brest towards the end of May, and there to join General Humbert. Commandant Dalton, a young man of Irish extraction, and lately appointed to a situation in the Army at Boulogne, translated everything between O'Connor and the War Department at Paris. There is no Irish Committee at Paris as is reported. O'Connor and General Hartry, an old Irishman who has been long in the French service, are the only persons applied to by the French Government, O'Connor for the expedition, and Hartry for the Police, etc., of the Irish in France.

"O'Connor, though he had long tried to have an audience of Bonaparte, never saw him till the 20th of May [1805], when he was presented to him at the levee by Marshal Augereau. The Emperor and the Empress complimented him on his dress and military appearance, and Bonaparte said to him _Venez me voir en particulier demain matin._ O'Connor went and was alone with him near two hours. On that day Bonaparte did not say a word to him respecting his intention on England; all their conversation regarded Ireland.

O'Connor was with him again on the Thursday and Friday following.

Those three audiences are all that O'Connor ever had in private with Bonaparte.

"He told me on the Sat.u.r.day evening that he should go to Court the next morning to take public leave of the Emperor and leave Paris as soon as he had received 10,000 livres which Maret was to give him for his travelling expenses, etc., and which he was to have in a day or two. His horses and all his servants but one had set off for Brest some time before.