Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (32 page)

¹
Bertrand,
30th
May,
1805.

²
Third Coalition,
182,
186-7,
189-92.

European situation for years. The only hope—a faint one—was of Napoleon's demise; "depend upon it," wrote Arthur Paget to his mother, " that during Bonaparte's life no family in England will be able to boast of the enjoyment of true domestic happiness." Then on August 22rd came Gower's dispatch of July 31st announcing that the Czar had ratified the treaty and that a Russian army was about to cross the Austrian frontier in accordance with a secret agreement with Vienna. This was followed on September ist by news that Vienna had committed itself to armed. mediation and that an ultimatum was on its way to Paris. Immediately the wildest hopes arose: among the pacifically-minded, like Wilberforce, of "some fair, open and honourable proposition for regulating the affairs of Europe," and among the pugnacious of seeing "Bonaparte's scoundrels most infernally licked!"

The aims of the Anglo-Russian treaty, to which Austria's adhesion was now confidently expected, were the expulsion of the French from Germany, Holland, Switzerland and Italy, the re-establishment of Dutch and Swiss independence and the reinstatement of the King of Sardinia in his Italian dominions.
¹
By Christmas, with Austria and Russia contributing 250,000 and 180,000 men respectively, and Sweden, Saxony, Hesse and Brunswick, Mecklenburg, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, Sardinia and Naples all adding their quotas, Pitt hoped to put more than half a million troops into the field. There was good hope, too, of bribing or browbeating the weak, vacillating King of Prussia into the alliance. A Russian army was assembled on his Silesian frontier, and the British Treasury was dangling subsidies under his nose. On paper things had never looked so bright, especially after September 17th, when official confirmation arrived from Vienna that Napoleon had rejected Austria's mediation and that the Austrian army was about to strike.

The same mail brought the long-awaited news that Craig had reached Malta and that plans for an Anglo-Russian landing in southern Italy were far advanced. " Our prospects from abroad are improving every day," wrote the Prime Minister. Only Nelson seemed to view them with reserve and strongly advised against putting the slightest confidence in the proposals of General Mack, the great panjandrum of the Austrian General Staff. For he had collaborated with Mack in Naples in '98 and had formed the lowest opinion of his capacity. "I know him," he wrote, "to be a rascal, a scoundrel and a coward!"

The Austrian plan of campaign bore, indeed, an ominously

¹
To these mundame aims had been added, at the Czar's request, a European Congress to draw up a Law of Nations and a scheme of international federation.

familiar stamp. It was concerned far less with military than with political objectives. Its primary purpose was to recover Lombardy, preferably before the Russians could arrive to dictate events. For this reason the bulk of the Austrian army was concentrated on the Venetian frontier under the young and able Archduke Charles. The protection of the Imperial territories to the north of the Alps was left to General Mack and 70,000 men. As an army of 50,000 Russians had crossed the Galician frontier and was expected on the Inn by mid-October, Vienna seemed safe enough. Instead of waiting for them, however, Mack preferred to advance westwards into Bavaria to take up a position on the Iller. Here, he argued, he could bar any French advance into Austrian territory from Alsace, intimidate the Bavarians and secure several other important objectives.

Napoleon—though little considered by Austrian strategists—had not been idle during the making of these plans. As early as August 13th, while still intent on crossing the Channel, he had told Talleyrand that he would be in Vienna by November to deal with the Russians if they dared to show themselves. Ten days later his last hopes of crushing England were dashed. From Decres came a long, heart-broken letter, assuring him that Villeneuve had gone to Cadiz and beseeching him, in that event, not to order him back to the Channel but to regard it as a decree of Fate. "It is a misery for me," he added, "to know the trade of the sea, for this knowledge wins no confidence nor produces any effect on Your Majesty's plans." At the same time news reached Boulogne of Craig's arrival at Malta and of a Silician request for the withdrawal of French troops from Naples. The link between Pitt's plans and Russian and Austrian preparations was complete:
'99
had come again. The Emperor saw it all. Austria would temporise till the winter rains and mud, and then by the spring he would have to face 100,000 Russians in Germany armed by Pitt, and 40,000 English and Russians in southern Italy.

He had been tricked. "Once I raise my camp on the ocean," he had written, "I shall not be able to stop myself; my plans of maritime war will have failed." Yet if Pitt had momentarily filched the initiative, it could be regained. Speed, secrecy, surprise and ruthless resolution should do what they had done before. " My mind is made up," Napoleon told Talleyrand, "I shall invade Germany with 200,000 men and shall not halt till I have reached Vienna, taken Venice and everything Austria has in Italy and driven the Bourbons from Naples. I shall stop the Austrians and Russians from uniting. I shall beat them before they can meet. Then, the Continent pacified,

I shall come back to the camp on the ocean and start to work all over again for peace at sea."

His orders were quickly given. Five great armies, three from Boulogne and two from Holland and Hanover, were to march at once for the Upper Danube. His Foreign Minister, by holding up the declaration of war on Vienna, was to play for time: by hook or crook he must gain fifteen days. To heighten the deception he himself would remain a little longer at Boulogne making ostentatious preparations for invasion.

By August 29th, the army had begun its march: a fortnight later it was half-way to the Danube. Napoleon left Boulogne on September 2nd—the day Blackwood brought his momentous tidings to London. Nine days later at St. Cloud, while drafting an indictment of Villeneuve to explain away and justify two wasted years, he learnt that the Austrians had entered Bavaria. The news from Naples was by now so threatening that he cancelled an earlier instruction—issued when he heard of his Admiral's flight to Cadiz—for splitting the Combined Fleet into small squadrons for commerce-raiding. Instead he ordered it to sail with the first favourable wind for the Mediterranean where, joining the Spanish ships from Cartagena, it was to transport troops to the Two Sicilies and join with St. Cyr's army in defeating the British and Russian invasion. To make sure of obedience he next day appointed Admiral Rosily to succeed Villeneuve.

· ·······

While Napoleon was planning
under the chestnuts of St. Cloud, Nelson was bidding farewell to England. Much of his brief respite while the
Victory
was being made ready for sea he spent at the Admiralty, drawing up plans for his mission. Barham, who by now had completely surrendered to his fascination, had offered him forty ships of the line and
carte blanche
to choose his officers. "Choose yourself, my Lord," the Admiral replied, "the same spirit actuates the whole profession. You cannot choose wrong."

Many saw him during those last days on his native soil. Haydon watched him going into Dollond's near Northumberland House to buy a night glass—a diminutive figure with a green shade over one eye, a shabby, well-worn, cocked hat and a buttoned-up undress coat. Charles Lamb, who had formed a prejudice against him and thought him a mountebank, passed him in Pall Mall "looking just as a hero should look." The little Admiral "with no dignity and a shock head" had captured the hearts of his countrymen at last: the challenging eye, the curving lip, the quick moods, the marks of exposure and battle struck deep into the popular imagination that autumn. Among those who met him was a soldier waiting for an interview in the Secretary of State's ante-room: the famous Admiral, conspicuous by his empty
sleeve
and patch-eye, at first tried to impress him by his histrionic address. But after a few minutes, sensing something in his expression, Nelson
left
the room and, ascertaining
from
the porter that he had been talking to the young victor of Assaye, returned and spoke of public affairs
with such
good sense and knowledge that that most unimpressionable of men confessed that he had never had a more interesting conversation.
¹

Yet the real Nelson lay deeper
than
either the charlatan or the statesman or than that
half
-hero,
half
-baby whom Lord Minto saw on his last day at Merton attending on the heart-broken Lady Hamilton as she swooned before her astonished guests.
²
The real
core
of-the man was his absolute self-surrender. "I have much to
lose
and
little
to
gain,
"
he
wro
te
to his friend Davison, "and I go because it's right, and I will serve the country faithfully." The shy, austere Prime Minister, who shared the same unselfish love, showed his recognition of it when, on the Admiral's farewell visit to Downing Street, he waited on him to his carriage—an honour he would not
have paid
a Prince of the Blood.

At
half-past
ten on the night of Friday, September 13th, after praying by the bedside of his child, Nelson took his leave of Merton. " May the great God
whom
I adore," he wrote in his diary, " enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country." Then he drove through the night over the Surrey heaths and Hampshire
hills
to Portsmouth. He spent the morning at the George Inn transacting business, and at two o'clock, accompanied by Canning and George Rose, who were to
dine with
him,
went
off to the
Victory.
Near the bathing machines,
which
he had chosen in preference to the usual landing stage, a vast crowd was waiting to see him go. "Many were in tears," wrote Southey, "and many knelt down before him and blessed him as he passed. . . . They pressed upon the parapet to
gaze
after him when his barge pushed off, and he returned their cheers by waving his hat. The sentinels, who endeavoured to prevent
them
from trespassing
upon this
ground, were wedged among the crowd; and an officer, who had not
very
prudently
upon such
an occasion
ordered
them to drive the people down with their bayonets, was compelled speedily to
retreat
.
For the
people
would not be debarred
from
gazing till the last moment upon the hero—the darling hero of England!"

On the following morning, Sunday the 15th, the
Victory
weighed,

¹
Haydon,
40-1;
Lucas VI,
3x4;
Croker II,
233.

²
The poor woman told a friend that if she could be Nelson's wife for an hour she wouid die contented.—Granville, II,
113.

with the faithful Blackwood in attendance in the
Euryalus
frigate. It was from "a herbless, weather-worn promontory" on the Dorset coast that a day later Anne Garland in Hardy's tale saw through an old coastguard's perspective glass a great ship with three rows of guns and all sails set passing the meridian of the Bill like a phantom. All the way to the Scillies adverse weather continued; it was not till the 21st that the
Victory
cleared the Soundings. Then with a northerly wind she ran swiftly across the Bay and down the Potuguese coast. By September 25th Nelson was off Lisbon, sending an urgent warning to the British Consul to conceal his coming from the public, and another to Collingwood to refrain from hoisting colours on his arrival. "For I hope," he wrote, "to see the enemy at sea."

In the Fleet they were waiting for him a little wearily. After the excitements and disappointments of the summer the prospect of another winter of close blockade was having a depressing effect. "These French rascals," Captain Fremantle wrote, "will never come out and fight but will continue to annoy and wear out both our spirits and constitutions. . . . Here I conclude we shall remain until Doomesday or until we are blown off the coast, when the Frenchmen will again escape us." Some pinned their hopes on a peace through Russian mediation: few saw any prospect of ever seizing the elusive shadow, victory. To make matters worse, the acting Commander-in-Chief shunned society and seldom communicated with any one. He himself confessed in his letters home, that he was worn to a lath with this perpetual cruising: his sole comfort his dog Bounce
¹
and the thought of his home in Northumberland—" the oaks, the woodlands and the verdant meads." For it was only when the guns began to sound that Collingwood grew inspired. "Is Lord Nelson coming out to us again?" asked Captain Codrington. "I anxiously hope he may be that I may once more see a Commander-in-Chief endeavouring to make a hard and disagreeable service as palatable to those serving under him as circumstances will admit of and keeping up by his example that animation so necessary for such an occasion. . . . For charity's sake send us Lord Nelson, oh ye men of power!"
²