1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Napoleonic Campaigns
NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS.—1. The era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars falls into two main divisions, the first of which (1792–1802) is dealt with under the heading French Revolutionary Wars. In the present article are described the campaigns in central and eastern Europe, directed by Napoleon no longer one amongst many French generals, nor even a simple primus inter pares, but “Emperor” in the fullest sense between the years 1804 and 1814. Napoleon’s short Spanish Campaign of 1809 is dealt with under Peninsular War (this article covering the campaigns in Spain, Portugal and southern France 1808–1814), and for the final drama of Waterloo the reader is referred to Waterloo Campaign.
The campaigns described below are therefore—
(a) The Austrian War of 1805 (Ulm and Austerlitz).
(b) The Conquest of Prussia and the Polish Campaign (Jena, Auerstädt, Eylau, and Friedland).
(c) The Austrian War of 1809 (Eckmühl, Aspern, and Wagram),
(d) The Russian War of 1812 (Borodino and the retreat from Moscow).
(e) The German “War of Liberation,” culminating in the Battle of the Nations around Leipzig 1813.
(f) The last campaign in France, 1814.
The naval history of 1803–1815 includes the culmination and the sequel of the struggle for command of the sea which began in 1793 and reached its maximum intensity on the day of Trafalgar.
2. The Campaign of 1805 may be regarded as a measure of self-defence forced upon Napoleon by the alliance of Russia (April 11th), Austria (August 9th) and other powers with Great Britain. The possibility had long been before the emperor, and his intention in that event to march straight on Vienna by the valley of the Danube is clearly indicated in his reply (November 27th, 1803) to a Prussian proposal for the neutralization of the South German states. In this he says, “It is on the road from Strassburg to Vienna that the French must force peace on Austria, and it is this road which you wish us to renounce.” When, therefore, on the 25th of August 1805, he learnt definitely that Villeneuve (see Naval operations below) had failed in his purpose of securing the command of the Channel, which was the necessary preliminary to the invasion of England, it was but the affair of a few hours to dictate the dispositions necessary to transfer his whole army to the Rhine frontier as the first step in its march to the Danube. On this date the army actually lay in the following positions:—
| IIVI. | Corps | Bernadotte | Hanover (Göttingen) | |
| IVII. | Corps„ | Marmont | Holland | |
| VIII. | Corps„ | Davout | Camp of Boulogne and other points on the English Channel | |
| IIIV. | Corps„ | Soult | ||
| IIIV. | Corps„ | Lannes | ||
| IIVI. | Corps„ | Ney | ||
| IVII. | Corps„ | Augereau | ||
| Guard | Bessères | Paris. | ||
The corps were, however, by no means fit for immediate service. Bernadotte’s corps in Hanover was almost in the position of a beleaguered garrison, and the marshal could only obtain his transport by giving out that he was ordered to withdraw to France. Marmont and Davout were deficient in horses for cavalry and artillery, and the troops in Boulogne, having been drawn together for the invasion of England, had hardly any transport at all, as it was considered this want could be readily supplied on landing. The composition of the army, however, was excellent. The generals were in the prime of life, had not yet learnt to distrust one another, and were accustomed to work under the emperor and with one another. The regimental officers had all acquired their rank before the enemy and knew how to manage their men, and of the men themselves nearly two-thirds had seen active service. The strength of the army lay in its infantry, for both cavalry and artillery were short of horses, and the latter had not yet acquired mobility and skill in manœuvring. Napoleon’s determination to undertake the invasion of England has often been disputed, but it is hard to imagine what other operation he contemplated, for the outbreak of hostilities with his continental enemies found him ill-supplied with intelligence as to the resources of the country he had then to traverse. To remedy this, Murat and other general officers as well as minor agents were sent ahead and instructed to travel through South Germany in plain clothes with a view to collecting information and mastering the topography. The emperor was, moreover, imperfectly acquainted with the degree of preparation of his adversaries’ designs, and when he dictated his preliminary orders he was still unaware of the direction that the allies’ advance would assume. That he foresaw the march of events which ultimately drew Mack to Ulm is inconceivable. On the 26th of August, however, he learnt that 100,000 Russians were about to enter Bohemia thence to unite with an Austrian army of 80,000 near the junction of the Inn and Danube, and this information compelled him to alter the general direction of his advance so as to traverse the defiles of the Black Forest north of the Neckar, cavalry only observing the passes to the south.
3. Austrian Army.—The Austrians after the defeats of 1800 had endeavoured to reorganize their forces on the French model, but they were soon to learn that in matters of organization the spirit is everything, the letter very little. They had copied the organization of the French corps, but could find no corps commanders fit to assume the responsibility for these commands. As always in such conditions, the actual control of the smallest movements was still centralized in the hands of the army commanders, and thus the rate of marching was incredibly slow. They had decided that in future their troops in the field should live by requisition, and had handed over to the artillery, which needed them badly, a large number of horses thus set free from the transport service, but they had not realized that men accustomed to a regular distribution of rations cannot be transformed into successful marauders and pillagers by a stroke of the pen; and they had sent away the bulk of their army, 120,000 under their best general, the archduke Charles, into Italy, leaving Lieut. Field Marshal Mack von Leiberich in Germany, nominally as chief of the staff to the young Prince Ferdinand, but virtually in command, to meet the onset of Napoleon at the head of his veterans. Mack was a man of unusual attainments. He had risen from the ranks in the most caste-ridden army in Europe, and against untold opposition had carried through army reforms which were correct in principle, and needed only time to develop. It was his fate to be made the scapegoat for the disasters which followed, though they need no further explanation than that, at the head of 80,000 men and exercising only restricted powers of command, he was pitted against the greatest strategist of all ages who was responsible to no overlord and commanded, in the fullest sense of the term, an army considerably more than twice as strong.
4. The March on Ulm.—The outbreak of the campaign was hastened by the desire of the Austrian government to feed their own army and leave a bare country for Napoleon by securing the resources of Bavaria. It was also hoped that the Bavarians with their army of 25,000 men would join the allies. In the latter hope they were deceived, and the Bavarians under General Wrede slipped away to Bamberg in time. In the former, however, they were successful, and the destitution they left in their wake almost wrecked Napoleon’s subsequent combinations. Mack’s march to Ulm was therefore a necessity of the situation, and his continuance in this exposed position, if foolhardy against such an adversary, was at any rate the outcome of the high resolve that even if beaten he would inflict crippling losses upon the enemy. Mack knew that the Russians would be late at the rendezvous on the Inn. By constructing an entrenched camp at Ulm and concentrating all the available food within it, he expected to compel Napoleon to invest and besiege him, and he anticipated that in the devastated country his adversary would be compelled to separate and thus fall an easy prey to the Russians. For that blow he had determined to make his own army the anvil. But these views obviously could not be published in army orders, hence the discontent and opposition he was destined to encounter.
5. Movements of the French.—It was on the 21st that Napoleon learnt of Mack’s presence in Ulm. On that date his army had crossed the Rhine and was entering the defiles of the Black Forest. It was already beginning to suffer. Boots were worn out, greatcoats deficient, transport almost unattainable and, according to modern ideas, the army would have been considered incapable of action.
| Sept. 28. | Oct. 6. | Oct. 9. | Oct. 16. | |
| Bernadotte | Würzburg | Anspach | Nürnberg | Regensburg |
| Marmont | Würzburg | Anspach | Nürnberg | Regensburg |
| Davout | Mannheim | Mergentheim | Anspach | Dietfurt |
| Ney | Selz | Crailsheim | Weissenburg | Ingolstadt |
| Lannes | Strassburg | Gmünd | Nördlingen | Neuburg |
| Soult | Landau | Aalen | Donauwörth |
On the 26th of September, its deployment beyond the mountains was complete, and as Napoleon did not know of Mack’s intention to stay at Ulm and had learned that the Russian advance had been delayed, he directed his columns by the following roads on the Danube, between Donauwörth and Ingolstadt, so as to be in a position to intervene between the Austrians and the Russians and beat both in detail. On the 7th of October this movement was completed—the Austrians abandoned the Danube bridges after a show of resistance, retreating westward—and Napoleon, leaving Murat in command of the V. and VI. corps and cavalry to observe the Austrians, pressed on to Augsburg with the others so as to be ready to deal with the Russians. Learning, however, that these were still beyond striking radius, he determined to deal with Mack’s army first, having formed the fixed conviction that a threat at the latter’s communications would compel him to endeavour to retreat southwards towards Tirol. Bernadotte in his turn became an army of observation, and Napoleon joining Murat with the main body marched rapidly westward from the Lech towards the Iller.
6. Austrian Plans.—Mack’s intentions were not what Napoleon supposed. He had meanwhile received (false) information of a British landing at Boulogne, and he was seriously deceived as to the numbers of Napoleon’s forces. He was also aware that the exactions of the French had produced deep indignation throughout Germany and especially in Prussia (whose neutrality had been violated, see § 14, below). All this, and the almost mutinous discontent of his generals and his enemies of the court circle, shook his resolution of acting as anvil for the Russians, of whose delay also he was aware, and about the 8th of October he determined to march out north-eastward across the French lines of communication and save his sovereign’s army by taking refuge if necessary in Saxony. Believing implicitly in the rumours of a descent on Boulogne and of risings in France which also reached him, and knowing the destitution he had left behind him in his movement to Ulm, when he heard of the westward march of French columns from the Lech he told his army, apparently in all good faith, that the French were in full march for their own country.
Actually the French at this moment were suffering the most terrible distress—up to the Danube they had still found sufficient food for existence, but south of it, in the track of the Austrians, they found nothing. All march discipline disappeared, the men dissolved into hordes of marauders and even the sternest of the marshals wrote piteous appeals to the emperor for supplies, and for permission to shoot some of their stragglers. But to all these Berthier in the emperor’s name sent the stereotyped reply—“The emperor has ordered you to carry four days provisions, therefore you can expect nothing further—you know the emperor’s method of conducting war.”
7. Action of Albeck or Haslach.—Meanwhile Murat, before the emperor joined him, had given Mack the desired opening. The VI. corps (Ney) should have remained on the left bank of the Danube to close the Austrian exit on that side, but by mistake only Dupont’s division had been left at Albeck, the rest being
} to march to Paris (then an open city), and let Napoleon do his worst to their communications. Actually this was exactly what he was preparing to do. He had determined to move eastward to St Dizier, rally what garrisons he could find, and raise the whole country against the invaders, and had actually started on the execution of this plan when his instructions fell into the enemy's hands and his projects were exposed. Regardless of the threat, the allies marched straight for the capital. Marmont and Mortier with what troops they could rally took up a position on Montmartre heights to oppose them, but seeing further resistance to be hopeless they gave way on the 31St of March, just as Napoleon, with the wreck of the Guards and a mere handful of other detachments, was hurrying across the rear of the Austrians towards Fontainebleau to join them.
This was the end of the First Empire. The story of the Waterloo Campaign is told under its own heading.
No military career has been examined more often and more freely than that of Napoleon. Yet even so the want of complete documentary evidence upon which to base conclusions has vitiated all but the most recent of the countless monographs and histories that have appeared on the subject. Fortunately the industry and ability of the military history section of the French General Staff have rendered available, by the publication of the original orders issued during the course of his campaigns, a mass of information which, taken in conjunction with his own voluminous correspondence, renders it possible to trace the growth of his military genius with a reasonable approach to accuracy~ Formerly we could only watch the evolution of his powers of organization and the purely psychic gifts of resolution and command. The actual working of his mind towards that strategic and tactical ascendancy that rendered his presence on the battlefield, according to the testimonjr of his opponents, equal to a reinforcement of 40,000 men, was entirely undiscernible.
The history of his youth reveals no special predilection for the military service—the bent of his mind was political far more than military, but unlike the politicians of his epoch he consistently applied scientific and mathematical methods to his theories, and desired above all things a knowledge of facts in. their true relation to one another. His early military education was the best and most practical then attainable, primarily because he had the good fortune to come under the influence of men of exceptional ability—Baron du Keile, Bois Roger and others. From them he derived a sound knowledge of artillery and fortification, and particularly of mountain warfare, which latter was destined to prove of inestimable service to him in his first campaigns of I79495 and 1796. In these, as well as in his most dramatic success of Marengo in 1800, we can discern no trace of strategical innovation. He was simply a master of the methods of his time. Ceaseless industry, energy and conspicuous personal gallantry were the principal factors of his brilliant victories, and even in 1805 at Ulm and Austerlitz it was still the excellence of the tactical instrument, the army, which the Revolution had bequeathed to him that essentially produced the results.
Meanwhile the mathematical mind, with its craving for accurate data on which to found its plans (the most difficult of all to obtain under the conditions of warfare), had been searching for cxpedients which might serve him to better purpose, and in 1805 he had recourse to the cavalry screen in the hope of such results, This proved a palliation of his difficulty, but not a solution. Cavalry can only observe, it cannot hold. The facts as to th position of an opponent accurately observed and correctly reported at a given moment, afford no reliable guarantee of his position 48 hours later, when the orders based on this informatioii enter upon execution. This can only be calculated on the ground of reasonable probability as to what it may be to the best interest of the adversary to attempt. But what may seem to a Napoleor the best course is not necessarily the one that suggests itsef to a mediocre mind, and the greater the gulf which separate the two minds the greater the uncertainty which must prevail on the side of the abler commander.
It was in 1806 that an improved solution was first devised. The “general advanced guard” of all arms now followed immediately behind the cavalry screen and held the enemy in position, while the remainder of the army followed at a days march in a bataillon carre ready to manœuvre in any required direction. The full reach of this discovery seems as yet scarcely to have impressed itself upon the emperor with complete conviction, for in the s~cceeding campaign in Poland we find that he twice departed from this format Pultusk and Heilsberg and each time his enemy succeeded in escaping him. At Friedland, however, his success was complete, and henceforth the method recurs on practically every battlefield. When it fails it is because its inventor himself hesitates to push his own conception to its full development (Eckmuhl 1809, Borodino 1812). Yet it would seem that this invention of Napoleon's was intuitive rather than reasoned; he never communicated it in its entirety to his marshals, and seems to have been only capable of exercising it either when in full possession of his health or under the excitement of action. Thus we find him after the battle of Dresden itself a splendid example of its efficacysuddenly reverting to the terminology of the school in which he had been brought up, which he himself had d,estroyed, only to revive again in the next few days and handle his forces strategically with all his accustomed brilliancy.
In 1814 and in 1815 in the presence of the enemy he again rises supremely to each occasion, only to lapse in the intervals even below the level of his old opponents; and that this was not the consequence of temporary depression naturally resulting from the accumulated load of his misfortunes, is sufficiently shown by the downright puerility of the arguments by which he seeks to justify his own successes in the St Helena memoirs, which one may search in vain for any indication that Napoleon was himself aware of the magnitude of his own discovery. One is forced to the conclusion that there existed in Napoleon's brain. a dual capacityone the normal and reasoning one, developing only the ideas and conceptions of his contemporaries, the other intuitive, and capable only of work under abnormal pressure. At such moments of crisis it almost excelled human comprehension; the mind seems to have gathered to itself and summed up the balance of all human passions arranged for and against him, anti to have calculated with unerring exactitude the consequences of each decision.
A partial explanation of this phenomenon may perhaps be found in the ecoromy of nervous energy his strategical method ensured to him. Marching always ready to fight wherever his enemy might stand or move to meet him, his mind was relieved from all the hesitations which necessarily arise in men less confident in the security of their designs. Hence, when on the battlefield the changing course of events left his antagonists mentally exhausted, he was able to face them with will power neither bound nor broken. But this only explains a portion of the mystery that surrounds him, and which will make the study of his career the most fascinating to the military student of all times.
Amongst all the great captains of history Cromwell alone can be compared to him. Both, in their powers of organization and the mastery of the tactical potentialities of the weapons of their day, were immeasurably ahead of their times, and both also understood to the full the strategic art of binding and restraining the independent will power of their opponents, an art of which Marlborough and Frederick, Wellington, Lee and Moltke do not seem ever even to have grasped the fringe. (F. N. M.)
Bibliography.—Among the principal modern works on Napoleon's campaigns 1805–14 are the following: Yorck von Wartenber Napoleon als Feldherr (1866, English and French translations H. Camon, La Guerre napolonienne (Paris, 1903); H. Bonnal Esprit de la guerre moderne (a series of works, of which those dealinl with 1805-1812 are separately mentioned below). For 1805 see Alombert and Cohn (French Gen. Staff), Campagne de 1805 en Allemagne (Paris, 1898–1910); H. Bonnal, De Rosbach à Ulm (Paris 1903); Sir D. Haig, Cavalry Studies (London, 1907); G.A. Furse, Ulm, Trafalgar and Ausierlitz (London, 1905). For 1806-1807, Pr. Kraft zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Letters on Strategy (Eng. trans., vol. i.); Freiherr v. d. Goltz, Rossbach und Jena; the new edition of the same work, Von Rossbach bis Jena und Auerstadt (Berlin, 1906) and Von Jena bis Preussisch-Eylau (Berlin, 1908); Studies in French Gen. Staff Revue d'Histoire (1909); P. Foucart, Campagne de Prusse; H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre d'Iéna (Paris, 1904); Memoirs of Bennigsen (trans. by E. Cazalas, French Gen. Staff, 1909); F. N. Maude, The Jena Campaign (London, 1909); F. L. Petre, Napoleon's Campaign in Poland (London, 1902). For 1809, H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre de Landshut (Paris, 1905); Saski, Campagne de 1809 (Paris, 1899-1902); Ritter v. Angeli, Erzherzog Karl (Vienna, 1895-1897); Lieut. Field Marshal von Woinovich (ed), Des Kriegsjahr 1809; Buat, De Ratisbonne à Znaim (Paris, 1910). For 1812, G. Fabry (French Gen. Staff), Campagne de 1812 (Paris, 1904); La Guerre nationale de 1812 (French translation from the Russian general staff work, Paris, 1904); H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre de Vilna (Paris, 1905); Freiherr v. d. Osten-Sacken, Feldzug 1812 (Berlin, 1899); H. B. George, Napoleon's Invasion of Russia (London, 1900). For 1813, F. N. Macdc, The Leipzig Campaign (London, 1908); Lanrezac, La Manœuvre de Lützen; B. v. Quistorp, Gesch. der Nordarmee 1813 (1894); v. Holleben, Gesch. des Frdhjahrsfeldzug 1813 (Berlin, 1904); Friedrich, Der Herbstfeldzug 1813 (Berlin, 1903-1906). For 1814, German Gen. Staff, Kriegsgcsch. Einzelschriften, No. 13; v. Janson, Der Feldzug 1814 in Frankreich (Berlin, 1903-1905). See also works mentioned under French Revolutionary Wars and under biographical headings, as well as the general histories of the time.
The French navy came under the direct and exclusive control of Napoleon after the 18th Brumaire. At the close of 1799 (see French Revolutionary Wars) he had three purposes to serve by the help of his fleet the relief of the French garrison besieged by the British forces in Malta; the reinforcement of the army he had left in Egypt; and the distraction of Great Britain by the threat of invasion of England across the Channel, or of Ireland. The deficiencies both in number and in quality of his naval resources doomed him to fail in all three. Though he had control of what remained of the navies of Holland and Spain, as well as of the French, he was outnumbered at every point, while the efficiency of the British fleet gave it a mobility which doubled its material superiority. All Napoleon's efforts to support his troops in Malta and Egypt were necessarily made under the hampering obligation to evade the British forces barring the road. The inevitable result was that only an occasional blockaderunner could succeed in escaping detection and attack. The relief thus brought to Malta and Egypt was not sufficient. In February 1800, the Gnreux (14), one of the few ships which escaped from the Nile, sailed from Toulon with three corvettes, under Rear-admiral Perre, to relieve Malta. On the 18th she was sighted by the blockading squadron, surrounded and captured. Three other survivors of the Nile were at anchor in Maltathe Guillaume Tell (80), and two frigates, the Diane and the Justice. On the 29th of July the Guillaume Tell endeavoured to slip out in the night. She was sighted, pursued and overpowered, after a singularly gallant resistance. The frigates made an attempt to get off on the 24th of August, but only the Justice, a solitary survivor of the squadron which fought at the Nile, reached Toulon. Malta, starved out by the British fleet, surrendered on the 5th of September 1800. Very similar was the fate of the efforts to reach and reinforce the army of Egypt. The British squadrons either stopped the relieving forces at their point of departure, or baffled, when they did not take them, at their landfall. A squadron of seven sail of the line, under Admiral Ganteaume, succeeded in slipping out of B rest, when a gale had driven the British blockading force off the coast. Ganteaume met with some measure of success in capturing isolated British men-of-war, one of them being a 74, the SWiftsure. But be failed to give effectual help to the Egyptian army. He sailed oz the 23rd of January 1801, entered the Mediterranean and, his squadron being in -a bad condition, steered for Toulon, which he reached on the 18th of February. On the 19th of March he sailed again for Egypt, but was again driven back by the same causes on the 5th of April. On the 25th he was ordered out once more. Three of his ships had to be sent back as unfit to keep the sea. With the other four he reached the coast of Egypt, on the 7th of May, only to sight a powerful British force, and to be compelled to escape to Toulon, which he did not reach till the 22nd of July. The French in Egypt were in fact beaten before he reached the coast. At the beginning of 1801, a British naval force, commanded by Lord Keith, had sailed from Gibraltar, escorting an army of 18,000 men under General Abercromby. It reached Marmorice Bay, in Asia Minor, on the 31st of January, to arrange a co-operation with the Turks, and after some delay the army was transported and landed in Egypt, on the 7th and 8th of March. Before the end of Septembel the French army was reduced to capitulate. In the interval another effort to carry help to it was made from Toulon. On the 13th of June 1801 Rear-admiral Linois left Toulon with three sail of the line, to join a Spanish squadron at Cadiz and go on to Egypt. In the straits he was sighted by the British squadron under Sir J. Saumarez, and driven to seek the protection of the Spanish batteries in Algeciras. On the 6th of July he beat off a British attack, capturing the Hannibal, 74. On the 9th a Spanish squadron came to his assistance, and the combined force steered for Cadiz. During the night of the 12th/13th of July they were attacked by Sir J. Saumarez. Two Spanish three-deckers blew up, and a 74-gun ship was taken. The others were blockaded in Cadiz. The invasion scheme was vigorously pushed after the 3rd of March 1801. Flat-bottomed boats were gradually collected at Boulogne. Two attempts to destroy them at anchor, though directed by Nelson himself, were repulsed on the 4th and 16th of August. But the invasion was so far little more than a threat made for diplomatic purposes. On the 1st of October 1801 an armistice was signed in London, and the Peace of Amiens followed, on the 27th of March 1802. (For the operations in the Baltic in 1801, see Copenhagen, Battle of.)
The Peace of Amiens proved to be only an uneasy truce, and it was succeeded by open war, on the 18th of May 1803. From that date till about the middle of August 1805, a space of some two years and two months, the war took the form of a most determined attempt on the part of Napoleon to carry out an invasion of Great Britain, met by the counter measures of the British government. The scheme of invasion was based on the Boulogne flotilla, a device inherited from the old French royal government, through the Republic. Its object was to throw a great army ashore on the coast between Dover and Hastings. The preparations were made on an unprecedented scale. The Republic had collected some two hundred and forty vessels. Under the direction of Napoleon ten times as many were equipped. They were divided into: prames, ship-rigged, of 35 metres long and 8 wide, carrying 12 guns; chaloupes cannonires, of 24 metres long and 5 wide, carrying 5 guns and brig-rigged; bateaux cannoniers, of 19 metres long by 1.56 wide, carrying 2 guns and mere boats. All were built to be rowed, were flat-bottomed, and of shallow draft so as to be able to navigate close to the shore, and to take the ground without hurt. They were built in France and the Low Countries, in the coast towns and the rivers—even in Paris—and were collected gradually, shore batteries both fixed and mobile being largely, employed to cover the passage. A vast sum of money and the labour of thousands of men were employed to clear harbours for them, at and near Boulogne. The shallow water on the coast made it impossible for the British line-of-battle ships, or even large frigates, to press the attack on them home. Smaller vessels they were able to beat off and so, in spite of the activity of the British cruisers and of many sharp encounters, the concentration was effected at Boulogne, where an army of 130,000 was encamped and was incessantly practised in embarking and disembarking. Before the invasion was taken in hand as a serious policy, there had been at least a profession of a belief that the flotilla could push across the Channel during a calm. Experience soon showed that when the needful allowance was made for the time required to bring them out of harbour (two tides) and for the influence which the Channel currents must have upon their speed, it would be extremely rash to rely on a calm of sufficient length. Napoleon therefore came early to the conclusion that he must bring about a concentration of his seagoing fleet in the Channel, which would give him a temporary command of its waters.
He had a squadron at Brest, ships at LOrient and Rochefort, some of his vessels had taken refuge at Ferrol on their way back from San Domingo when war broke out, one was at Cadiz, and he had a squadron at Toulon. All these forces were watched by British blockading squadrons. The problem was to bring them together before the British fleet could be concentrated to meet them. Napoleon's solution grew, as time went on and circumstances changed, in scope and complexity. In July 1804 he ordered his admiral commanding at Toulon, Latouche Trville, to seize an opportunity when Nelson, who was in command of the blockade, was driven off by a northerly gale, to put to sea, with 10 sail of the line, pick up the French ship in Cadiz, join Villeneuve who was in the Aix roads, and then effect a junction with Ganteaume and the 21 sail of the line at Brest. He hoped that if the British ships in the North Sea concentrated with the squadron in the Chan~nel, he would be able to make use of Dutch vessels from the Texel. The death of Latouche Trville, 20th of August 1804, supplied an excuse for delay. He was succeeded by Villeneuve. Napoleon now modified the simple plan prepared for Latouche Trville, and began laying elaborate plans by which French vessels were to slip out and sail for distant seas, to draw the British fleet after them, and then return to concentrate in the Channel. A further modification was introduced by the end of 1804. Spain, which was bound by treaty to join Napoleon, was allowed to preserve a show of neutrality by paying a monthly subvention. The British government, treating this as a hostile actionas it wasseized the Spanish treasure ships on their way from America, near Cape Santa Maria, on the 5th of October 1804, and Spain declared war on the 12th of December. New plans were now made including the co-operation of the Spanish fleet. Amid all the variation in their details, and the apparent confusion introduced by Napoleon's habit of suggesting alternatives and discussing probabilities, and in spite of the preparations ostensibly made for an expedition to Ireland, which was to have sailed from Brest and to have carried 30,000 troops commanded by Augereau, the real purpose of Napoleon was neither altered nor concealed. He worked to produce doubt and confusion in the mind of the British government by threats and attacks on its distant possessions, which should lead it to scatter its forces. One of these ~entures was actually carried out, without, however, securing the co-operation, or effecting the purpose he had in view. On the 11th of January 1805 Admiral Missiessy left Rochefort with 5 sail of the line, undetected by the British forces on the coast. Missiessy carried out a successful voyage of commerce-destroying, and returned safely to Rochefort on the 20th of May, from the West Indies. But the force sent in pursuit of him was small, and the British government was not deceived into weakening its hold on the Channel. It was in fact well supplied with information by means of the spy service directed by an exiled French royalist, the count dAntraigues, who was established at Dresden as a Russian diplomatic agent. Through his correspondents in Paris, some of whom had access to Napoleon's papers, the British government wa~ able to learn the emperor's real intentions. The blockade of B rest was so strictly maintained that Ganteaume was allowed no opportunity to get to sea. Villeneuve, who was to have co-operated with Missiessy, did indeed leave Toulon, at a moment when Nelson, whose policy it was to encourage him to come out by not staying too near the port, was absent, on the 17th of January 1805. The British admiral, when informed that the French were at sea, justified Napoleon's estimate of his probable course in such a contingency, by making a useless cruise to Egypt. But Villeneuves ill-appointed ships, manned by raw crews, suffered loss of spars in a gale, and he returned to Toulon on the 21st. His last start came when he sailed, unseen by Nelson, on the 30th of March. Aided by lucky changes of wind, he reached Cadiz, was joined by 1 French and 6 Spanish ships under Admiral Gravina, which, added to the 11 he had with him, gave him a force of 18 sail. He left Cadiz on the night of the 9th/10th of April, and reached Fort de France in Martinique on the 14th of May. Here he was to have remained till joined by Ganteaume from Brest. On the 1st of June he was joined by a frigate and two line-of-battle ships sent with orders from Rochefort, and was told to remain in the West Indies till the 5th of July, and if not joined by Ganteaume to steer for Ferrol, pick up the French and Spanish ships in the port, and come on to the Channel. Villeneuve learnt on the 8th of June that Nelson had reached Barbadoes in pursuit of him on the 4th. The British admiral, delayed by contrary winds, had not been able to start from the entry to the Straits of Gibraltar till the 11th of May. An action in the West Indies would have ruined the emperor's plan of concentration, and Villeneuve decided to sail at once for Ferrol. Nelson, misled by false information, ranged the West Indies as far south as the Gulf of Paria, in search of his opponent whom he supposed to be engaged in attacks on British possessions. By the 13th of June he had learnt the truth, and sailed for Gibraltar under the erroneous impression that the French admiral would return to Toulon. He sent a brig home with despatches; on the 19th of June, in lat. 33 12 N. and long. 58 W., the French were seen by this vessel heading for the Bay of Biscay. Captain Bettesworth who commanded the brig hurried home, and the information he brought was at once acted on by Lord Barham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who took measures to station a force to intercept Villeneuve outside Ferrol. On the 22nd of July, 35 leagues NW. of Finisterre, Villeneuve was met by the British admiral sent to intercept him, Sir Robert Calder. A confused action in a fog ended in the capture of 2 Spanish line-of-battle ships. But Sir R. Calder, who had only 15 ships to his opponents 20 and was nervous lest he should be overpowered, did not act with energy. He retreated to join the blockading fleet off Brest. Villeneuve was now able to join the vessels at Ferrol. Nelson, who reached Gibraltar on the very day the action off Ferrol was fought, was too far away to interfere with him. But Villeneuve, who, was deeply impressed by the inefficiency of the ships of his fleet and especially of the Spaniards, and who was convinced that an overwhelming British force would be united against him in the Channel, lost heart, and on the 15th of August sailed south to Cadiz. By this movement he ruined the emperor's elaborate scheme. Napoleon at once broke up the camp at Boulogne and marched to Germany. The further movements of Villeneuves fleet are told under Trafalgar, Battle of.
With the collapse of the invasion scheme, the naval war between Napoleon and Great Britain entered on a new phase. It lost at once the unity given to it by the efforts of the emperor to effect, and of the British government to baffle the passage of the Channel by an army. In place of the movements of great fleets to a single end, we have a nine years story (1805-1814) of cruising for the orotection of commerce, of convoy, of colonial expeditions to capture French, Dutch or Spanish possessions and of combined naval and military operations in which the British navy was engaged in carrying troops to various countries, and in supporting them on shore. Napoleon continued to build line-of-battle ships in numbers from Venice to Hamburg, but only in order to force the British government to maintain costly and wearing blockades. He never allowed his fleets to go to sea to seek battle. The operations of the British fleet were therefore divided between the work of patrolling the ocean roads and ancillary services to diplomacy, or to the armies serving in Italy, Denmark and, after 1808, in Spain. The remaining colonial possessions of France, and of Holland, then wholly dependent on her, were conquered by degrees, and the ports in which privateers were fitted out to cruise against British commerce in distant seas were gradually rendered harmless. Though privateering was carried on by the French with daring and a considerab]e measure of success, it did not put an appreciable check on the growth of British merchant shipping. The function of the British navy in the long conflict with Napoleon was of the first importance, and its services were rendered in every sea, but their very number, extent and complexity render it impossible here to record them in detail.
Bibliography Captain Mahan, Influence of Sear Power upon the French Revolution and the Emire (London, 1892); Chevalier, Histoire de la Marine française sous le consulat et l'empire (Paris, 1886). All the operations connected with the successive invasion schemes are recorded, with exhaustive quotations of documentary evidence in Projects et tentatives de débarquement aux Iles Britanniques, by Captain Desbrière (Paris, 1901). Captain Desbrière's exhaustive work was done for the historical section of the French general staff, and is a fine example of the scholarly and conscientious modern French historical School. (D.H.)