1805.] NAPOLEON'S ANXIETY-BREAKS UP THE CAMP. 443 had been preparing for two years and a half. Let France be mistress of the passage for twelve hours, and England has lived.* All along the coast signals had been prepared to announce when the French and Spanish fleets should have appeared on the horizon. No signal was given. On the 22nd of August Napoleon received a despatch, by a courier from Lauriston at Ferrol, "We are going to Brest." He dictated instantly a letter to Ganteaume— "Set out and come here. Let us avenge six centuries of insult and shame." He dictated a letter to Villeneuve-" I hope you are at Brest. Set out; lose not a moment; and to be united with my squadrons come into the Channel. England is ours. We are all ready. All is embarked. Appear within twenty-four hours and all is finished." By the courier which brought Napoleon the despatch of Lauriston, admiral Decrès, the minister of marine, who was also at Boulogne, received a despatch from Villeneuve, which truly described the difficulties of his position. The emperor went into a tremendous passion; denouncing Villeneuve as a fool and a traitor. He was violent with Decrès, who offered him sound advice; but Decrès was a man of firmness, and he persuaded the emperor to give up his project for a season. The tempests of the equinox were at hand; the English were prepared to encounter the combined fleet. After several days of irresolution, which to men of dominant will is misery, he determined to relinquish for a season the invasion of England, and to march the army of the camp of Boulogne into Germany. He left Boulogne on the 2nd of September. On the 26th of September, Mr. Pitt gave to lord Malmesbury a "most minute and clear account" of the proceedings which he had taken in negotiating his great Alliances with Russia and Austria. "Never was any measure, as far as human foresight could go, better combined or better negotiated."† Its failure, Malmesbury adds, "was solely in the execution." Neither Mr. Pitt nor the Allies had sufficiently taken into account the extraordinary rapidity of the operations of Napoleon, or the prodigious faculty of combination with which he had organized the movements of his various armies. The emperor called upon the Senate to raise eighty thousand conscripts. He told them, on the 23rd of September, that the wishes of the eternal enemies of the continent are at last fulfilled. Austria and Russia have joined England. The Austrian army has crossed the Inn; the elector of Bavaria has been driven away from his capital; all my hopes of the preservation of peace have vanished. The elector of Bavaria was the ally of France. Bonaparte left Paris on the 24th. The army at Boulogne had broken up its camp. Napoleon had formed the plan of a campaign which should unite this army with two other great divisions of his forces-that of Hanover, under Bernadotte; and that of Holland, under Marmont. The army of Boulogne marched to the Rhine, which river Napoleon crossed at Strasbourg on the 1st of October. In Franconia he would join the other two armies; cross the Danube below Ulm, in the neighbourhood of Donauwerth; and cut off the Austrians before the junction of the Russians. By the end of October, the rapidity of his * "Si nous sommes maîtres douze heures de la traversée, l'Angleterre a vécu" (an idiom which has the meaning of "has ceased to live").-Letter of Napoleon to Decrès, in Thiers. Malmesbury, "Diaries," &c. vol. iv. p. 347. 444 MARCH OF NAPOLEON INTO GERMANY. [1805. movements, and their evident design, had caused alarm in London. "The newspapers," writes Wilberforce," will have excited in your mind the same fears they have called forth in mine, that Bonaparte has been too rapid for the Austrians. . . . I cannot help fearing, from the accounts the papers give us, that the French have penetrated so far as to get between the Russians, who were coming forward, and the Austrians." * This was not an idle fear. Ney's division had defeated the Austrians at Elchingen, and at Guntzburg. Large detached masses had capitulated at other places without fighting. Napoleon's marshals had very speedily reduced the Austrians in Bavaria to a force of about thirty thousand men at Ulm. The wall and bastions and ditch of this city offered no adequate protection; for Napoleon had *Wilberforce, "Correspondence," vol. ii. p. 48. 1805.] SURRENDER OF AUSTRIANS AT ULM-NELSON. 445 obtained possession of the adjacent heights from which he could bombard a place from which escape was impossible. He summoned general Mack, the commander of the imperialists, to surrender. Mack returned an indignant answer; but finally agreed to surrender in eight days if he were not relieved. He considered that the Russians were close at hand. Napoleon knew otherwise. But time was of the greatest value to him; and in an interview with Mack, he persuaded him to surrender at once. On the 20th of October, thirty thousand men, with sixty pieces of cannon, marched out of the fortress, and laid down their arms. The conqueror made an address to some of the officers, telling them that he wanted nothing on the Continenthe wanted ships, colonies, and commerce. "O'er England's seas his new dominions plann'd, Rumours of this inauspicious beginning of the operations of the Alliance that was to have saved Europe, had reached London very quickly. On the 2nd of November, Pitt said to Malmesbury, "Don't believe it-it is all a fiction." On Sunday, the 3rd, a Dutch newspaper had reached Downing-street, with the terms of the capitulation of Mack given at full length. Mr. Pitt and lord Mulgrave came to lord Malmesbury to translate the account, for the clerks of the Foreign-office who were able to translate Dutch were absent. "I observed but too clearly the effect it had on Pitt, though he did his utmost to conceal it. . . . . This visit has left an indelible impression on my mind, as his manner and look were not his own, and gave me, in spite of myself, a foreboding of the loss with which we were threatened." + On the 7th of November, the news arrived of the crowning glory of Trafalgar. Nelson was enjoying a little quiet at his house in the pretty village of Merton, in Surrey, when he learnt that the French and Spanish fleet, joined by the Ferrol squadron, had succeeded in entering Cadiz. His resolution was quickly taken. He went to the Admiralty and offered his services, which were joyfully accepted. Nelson was full of hope. "Depend on it," he said to captain Blackwood, "I shall yet give M. Villeneuve a drubbing." He formed his plans of attack during the short time of preparation, when the Victory had to be refitted, and other ships were to be got ready to accompany him. Lord Sidmouth told Mr. Rush, the American ambassador, that in the course of a visit he had received from Nelson, three weeks before the battle of Trafalgar, he described the plan of it, with bits of paper on a table, as it was afterwards fought. Yet he had a presentiment of his own fate. The coffin which was made out of the mast of l'Orient was deposited at an upholsterer's. He desired its history to be engraved on its lid, saying that he should probably want it on his return. When he arrived at Portsmouth on the 14th of September, the enthusiasm of the people reached that height which sometimes gives a character of sublimity to the movements of multitudes acting with one heart. They wept; they blessed him; they even knelt as he passed along. The cheer which went up from thousands of voices as his * "Ulm and Trafalgar," by J. W. Croker. +"Malmesbury," vol. iv. p. 347. Rush. "Residence at the Court of London," p. 459. 446 VICTORY OF TRAFALGAR. [1805. barge pushed off to his flag-ship, was the Godspeed of his country. He waved his hat-a last farewell to England. The 29th of September was Nelson's birth-day. On that day he arrived off Cadiz. He had sent forward the Euryalus frigate to inform Collingwood of his approach, and to direct that no salute should be fired, to apprize the enemy that the British fleet had been reinforced. When he took the command, he had twenty-seven sail of the line, with which he retired to a station more than sixteen leagues from Cadiz, leaving two frigates to watch the harbour. He established also a line of communication between his main body and the frigates. On the day that Nelson joined the fleet, Villeneuve had received the positive orders of Napoleon, that the French squadron should enter the Mediterranean, and, sweeping away the British cruisers and merchant vessels, should proceed to Toulon. The ships that had been damaged in the action with Calder were repaired, with the exception of one that was nearly destroyed. When Villeneuve determined to go out from Cadiz, he could not risk the attempt without the support of the Spanish squadron.. The combined fleet, therefore, moved to the entrance of the harbour, all ready for a start with a fair wind. Eight days elapsed before the wind was favourable. On the 19th and 20th of October, thirty-three sail of the line, five frigates, and two brigs, weighed anchor and put to sea. Nelson had despatched six sail of the line to Gibraltar for stores and water. Sir Robert Calder desired to return home, and Nelson insisted that he should go in his own ninety-gun ship. There remained to him twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates. On the 9th, Nelson sent to Collingwood his plan of attack. It was conceived upon the general principle of breaking the line,— a principle, says Thiers, by which the English had effected at sea a revolution similar to that which Napoleon had effected on land. But Nelson's plan of attack, in this his greatest adventure, was a more scientific application of the plan which had on many previous occasions been successful. The fleet was to move towards the enemy in two lines, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest two-deckers. Collingwood, having the command of one line, was to break through the enemy about the twelfth ship from their rear; Nelson would lead through the centre; the advanced squadron was to cut off three or four ships a-head of the centre. The plan would necessarily vary according to the strength of the enemy; but its general object was, that the British should always be one-fourth superior to the ships which they cut off. Few signals would be made. One direction was worth many embarrassing orders: "No captain could do wrong who placed his ship close alongside that of an enemy." When Nelson learned on the 19th that the combined fleet had put to sea, he concluded that their destination was the Mediterranean, and he immediately made all sail for the entrance of the Straits of Gibraltar. At daylight on Monday, the 21st, when about seven leagues from Cape Trafalgar, the enemy was discovered six or seven miles to the eastward. Nelson was upon deck, and the signal was given to bear down in two lines, as arranged. Collingwood led one line in the Royal Sovereign; Nelson led the other line in the Victory. He retired to his cabin, and wrote down a prayer, that God would grant to his country a great and glorious victory; that no misconduct should be allowed to tarnish it; and that humanity after victory might be 1805.] VICTORY OF TRAFALGAR. 447 the fundamental feature in the British fleet: "For myself, individually, I commit my life to him that made me." He then wrote a Memorandum reciting the public services of lady Hamilton, and leaving her, as well as his adopted daughter, to the beneficence of his country. He was calm, but without that exhilaration of spirit which he exhibited in his other great battles. Of captain Blackwood he asked, what he should consider as a victory? The enemy had showed a bold front of battle; and Blackwood answered, that the capture of fourteen sail of the line would be a glorious result. "I shall not be satisfied with less than twenty," said Nelson. He then inquired, whether a signal was not wanting? When Blackwood answered, that he thought the whole fleet knew what they were about, up went the signal which conveyed the immortal words, "ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY." Three cheers from every ship was the response.* In the Painted Hall of Greenwich, under a glass cover, is the admiral's coat which Nelson wore on the 21st of October. On its left side are four embroidered stars, the emblems of the Orders with which he was invested. He was implored to put on a plainer dress, for there were riflemen amongst the four thousand troops which were on board the French and Spanish ships. No. What he had won he would wear. On the deck he stood, a mark for the enemy-one whose life was worth a legion. There was a carelessness about his own safety that day which was chivalrous, however unwise. He was persuaded to allow some other vessel to take the lead in his line. He gave a reluctant order, but he made every effort to counteract it, for he would not shorten sail himself. Collingwood, at the head of his line, made all sail, steering right through the enemy's centre: "See how that noble fellow carries his ship into action," said Nelson. "What would Nelson give to be here," said Collingwood. Collingwood was spared to write the despatch which told our country of its gain and of its loss. "The action began at twelve o'clock, by the leading ships of the columns breaking through the enemy's line; the commander-in-chief about the tenth ship from the van, the second in command, about the twelfth from the rear, leaving the van of the enemy unoccupied, the succeeding ships breaking through, in all parts, astern of their leaders, and engaging the enemy at the muzzles of their guns: the conflict was severe; the enemy's ships were fought with a gallantry highly honourable to their officers; but the attack on them was irresistible, and it pleased the Almighty Disposer of events to grant his majesty's arms a complete and glorious victory Such a battle could not be fought without sustaining a great loss of men. I have not only to lament, in common with the British navy, and the British nation, in the fall of the commander-in-chief the loss of a hero whose name will be immortal and his memory ever dear to his country, but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend, to whom, by many years' intimacy, and a perfect knowledge of the virtues of his mind, * The telegraph which communicated the noble exhortation was in numbers, thus: See James's "Naval History," vol. iii. p. 289. |