AUSTRIA CONCLUDES A PEACE-THE TYROLESE SUBDUED.

517

1809.] degrading to Austria than the loss of territory. One was that she should give no succour to the Tyrolese who had so nobly fought for her independence. The other was, that she should unite with all the rest of the enslaved continent in the exclusion of the commerce of England-of England, her ally, that was affording the most effectual co-operation by exertions in Spain; and had attempted by a small expedition to Naples, and a vast expedition to the Scheldt, to divert the levies of France from going to the aid of the French armies that were fighting against Austria on the Danube and in Italy. England was ill-timed in her assistance; she was unlucky; but her good-will was not the less sincere. Napoleon returned to Paris; and left his marshals to put down the spirit in Germany which a humiliating peace could not compromise, and which the system of terror could not wholly extinguish. Fifty thousand French and Bavarians marched into the Tyrol; hunted the peasantry from hill to hill; set a price upon the head of Andrew Hofer; and procured his arrest by treachery. He was tried by court-martial at Mantua, and condemned to death. The majority of French officers were averse to the sentence being executed. There was a respite; but an order from Paris left no choice. He was shot on the 20th of February.

The history of the fatal expedition to Walcheren might be sufficiently traced in the Papers presented to Parliament, and in the Minutes of Evidence. taken before a Committee of the whole House of Commons.* But time has opened other sources of information. The materials are ample for a narrative, interesting in itself, and instructive for warning against official neglect, ignorance, and presumption. We are enabled to add a few details from an unpublished journal.†

Sir David Dundas succeeded the duke of York as Commander-in-chief, on the 18th of March. On the 24th he was called to a Cabinet meeting. He was informed that an immediate attack on the island of Walcheren was contemplated; that there were nine or ten sail of the line in the harbour of Flushing, not in a state to proceed to sea; that our navy had a large disposable force; and that fifteen thousand land forces would be necessary for the operation. Could such a force be at once assembled ? Sir David Dundas said that such a force could not at once be provided; that the corps which had returned from Spain were in very indifferent health, and their military equipment was in a very defective state. Preparations went on to complete the remains of sir John Moore's army for service; and volunteers from militia regiments were gradually drafted into regiments of the line. But the scheme had assumed a more formidable character, when lord Castlereagh, on the 29th of May, stated to sir David Dundas that his majesty's government felt it their duty to investigate, having formidable means at their disposal, how far it was possible to strike a blow against the enemy's naval resources in the Scheldt," including the destruction of their arsenal at Antwerp, and the ships of war stationed in different parts of the Scheldt between Antwerp and Flushing." The answer of the Commander-in-chief, on the 3rd of June, was not encouraging. He thought that an attack upon Antwerp was a

* See Hansard, vol. xv. Appendix, col. 1 to 639, and vol. xvi. Appendix, col. 1105 to 1130. "Narrative of the Expedition," by an Officer employed-MS. of 200 pages, in the possession of the Author of the "Popular History."

518

EXPEDITION TO THE SCHELDT.

[1809.

service of very great risk. On the 18th of June, lord Castlereagh directed that 35,000 infantry and 1800 cavalry should be held in readiness for immediate embarkation. Sir David Dundas was not consulted as to the appointment of the commander of the expedition, although he knew that it was meant to appoint lord Chatham. There were equally important persons with whom no consultation was held. Sir Lucas Pepys, the Physician General to the forces, was acquainted with the nature of the disorder to which soldiers were subject in the island of Walcheren. The medical officers of the army were not informed where the expedition was going, and therefore could not make any particular preparation. With Mr. Thomas Keate, Surgeon General of the army, there was no consultation. He knew perfectly well the nature of the complaint prevalent in Walcheren at the season when the expedition was about to sail; and had confidence been reposed in him he should have recommended precautions that might have lessened the malady. On the 16th of July, "our trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor, John, earl of Chatham," received his instructions, as the commander of a large division of his majesty's forces, to attack and destroy the naval force and establishments in the Scheldt, acting in conjunction with the commander of the naval portion of the armament, sir Richard Strachan. The whole amount of the land-force, according to the list transmitted to lord Chatham, was 39,143 infantry, cavalry, and artillery. The naval force comprised 35 sail of the line, 5 ships of 50 and 44 guns, 18 frigates, and 160 sloops, gun-brigs, bomb-vessels, gun-boats, &c. The army was encamped on Southsea common and on the hills around Portsmouth. The ships of war were assembled at Spithead, ready to take a portion of the troops on board, whilst others were received by transports. The weather was the finest of a fine summer. Gazers from all parts came to look upon the most magnificent expedition that ever left the British ports. The ostentatious preparation was out of harmony with the affected secret of its destination. The French and Dutch knew thoroughly well what was intended. The English army and navy were to be kept in the dark, so that the mystery should not be divulged and find its way to Flushing and Antwerp. Yet the first order issued, whilst the troops were embarking, was one against taking quarters "unsanctioned by the Burgomaster."

On the 25th of July this great armament sailed from Portsmouth to the Downs. During the three days on which it ran down the English shore, every height was crowded with people. "Of all the displays that I have ever seen,' says the writer of the MS. Journal, "the finest was that which opened on us as we rounded the South Foreland. The sea was literally covered for miles with shipping, and all was animation. Upwards of a thousand sail were rolling at anchor off Deal, and among them six enormous three-deckers that looked like castles. All England seemed to have collected on the coast. Boats were sweeping in all directions among the fleet. Hundreds of parties from the shore were rowing about among us. The bands of the regiments were playing, bugles sounding, and in the heavy swell of a north-east gale flag and cannon signals were perpetually busy. The whole had an incomparable look of spirit and triumph, and was an actual display of power that we proudly felt the world beside could not equal."

On the 28th of July, at daybreak, the first division of the fleet, with sir

1

1809.]

THE BRITISH LAND IN WALCHEREN.

519

Richard Strachan, and the earl of Chatham on board, sailed from the Downs. A larger division followed on the 29th. On the 30th twenty thousand men landed on the isle of Walcheren. Middleburgh, the chief town, was immediately surrendered. The French troops were driven into Flushing. Other operations were attended with complete success. Every obstacle was quickly removed that would have prevented Antwerp being taken by a sudden and wellcombined movement of the naval and military forces. The French ships at Flushing had withdrawn and had gone up the Scheldt. No English squadron pursued. The garrison of Antwerp had only 3000 men. Napoleon said to O'Meara that if a few thousand men had been landed at Wilhemstadt and marched direct to Antwerp, it might have been taken by a coup-de-main. After the fleet had got up, that was impossible. Bahtz, the key to both channels of the Scheldt, was taken by sir John Hope on the morning of the 3rd, and the whole of South Beveland was in his possession. All the energy of the first operations had no other ulterior object, in the eye of the Commander-in-chief, than the taking of Flushing, and the occupation of Walcheren. It would seem as if the earl of Chatham had known that Napoleon held that Flushing was impregnable; and that it had become a point of honour with him to prove that the great emperor could be sometimes mistaken. From the palace of Schönbrunn, whilst negotiating a peace with Austria, Napoleon wrote on the 6th of October to his minister of war at Paris,-who had apprised him of the appearance off Walcheren of the English armament, "They will not take Flushing, since the dykes can be cut; they will not take the squadron, for it can ascend to Antwerp."* Ten days later, this provident administrator, who never suffered any circumstances in his vast empire to be indifferent to him, showed how much better he understood what our army would experience than the war minister who directed the expedition. Napoleon then wrote, "Before six weeks, of the fifteen thousand English who are on the isle of Walcheren not fifteen hundred will be left. The rest will be in the hospitals. . The expedition has been undertaken.

under false information, and has been ignorantly calculated." +

The enemy that was gathering around our troops,-far more dangerous than the batteries of Flushing,—was soon perceptible. The investment of the place was completed, before a bombardment commenced on the 13th of August. The troops slept, for the most part, in the open air. In his MS. Journal the officer writes: "Towards morning we found ourselves wrapped in that chill, blue, marshy mist rising from the ground, that no clothing can keep out, and that actually seems to penetrate to the inmost frame. And this we always found the morning atmosphere of Walcheren, the island covered with a sheet of exhalation, blue, dense, and fetid." The positive orders which Napoleon had sent from Schönbrunn, that general Monnet, the commander of Flushing, should cut the dykes, were now carried into effect. On the 11th, the sea-dyke extending from the right flank of Flushing on the land side to the canal of St. Joostland, was cut. The water spread over the fields, filled the ditches, and forced the besiegers to abandon some parts of the trenches. There was no time to lose. The bombardment commenced upon a scale that was perhaps unequalled in any previous siege. Batteries of + Ibid., p. 460.

*Thiers, tome xi. p. 452-"Lettres relatives à Walcheren."

520

FLUSHING BOMBARDED-ITS SURRENDER.

[1809. heavy ordnance fired incessantly night and day upon the devoted town. The Congreve rocket was employed with fearful effect. Ten line of battle ships, on the morning of the 14th, ranged along the sea line of defences, and kept up a cannonade for several hours. Flushing was on fire in every quarter. At last after three days the governor agreed to surrender, on the condition of the garrison becoming prisoners of war. The occupation of the Dutch fishing town was the prize that cost twenty millions of money. The siege operations were conducted by sir Eyre Coote, lord Chatham" having hoped, had circumstances permitted, to have proceeded up the river."* His lordship, whose vocation, according to an epigram not far from the truth, was to eat, and to sleep, contrived to console himself for his disappointment in not going up the river, to encounter Bernadotte, who had arrived at Antwerp with a great army. He rested happily at Bahtz; where his existence was proclaimed by two turtles sprawling upon their backs in his garden, ready for the art of the commander-in-chief of the kitchen who accompanied him.†

And now came the dread event which Napoleon had predicted. Lord Chatham wrote home on the 29th that he was obliged to close his operations with the capture of Flushing. He adds, "I am concerned to say, that the effect of the climate at this unhealthy period of the year is felt most seriously, and that the number of the sick already is little short of three thousand." The morning fogs began to be heavier and more penetrating. The soldiers, who had been kept up by the animation of the siege, now sank, exhausted and despairing. They were carried into close barracks at Middleburgh, where the fever raged more and more, and the barracks all became hospitals. The surgeons were unsupplied with bark and other necessary medicines. The medical officers themselves were seized, and either died or were disqualified for attendance. Proper supplies of medicine and of wine from England were coming as soon as routine could bestir itself. The main army was ordered home, and with them went lord Chatham. But fifteen thousand men were left in Walcheren "for the protection of the island." The despatches of sir Eyre Coote, from the 31st of August to the 23rd of October, contain the most distressing accounts of the progress of the fever. Thousands had died. Four thousand sick had been sent to England. Sixteen hundred more were about to be sent; and then the hospitals would still contain four thousand sick, who must have been abandoned to the French in the event of their landing. Every one who had thought or read knew what would be the consequence of sending forty thousand men to Zealand in August, and of their continuing there for two or three months. Every one suspected what might happen, except the ministry, and especially the Secretary-at-War. Sir John Pringle's book on the "Diseases of the Army " was known to common readers; but it was unknown, or unheeded, in Cabinet Councils, where some members were assiduously engaged in the laudable endeavour to circumvent a colleague, yet leaving him to the consequences of his own incapacity; and others thought that whatever he did was right, as long as he did not go before his party in any large or liberal views. Mr. John Webb, the Inspector of Hospitals, reported to lord Castlereagh, on the 11th of September,-when the ravages

1809.] THE MARSH-FEVER-FATAL TERMINATION OF THE EXPEDITION. 521

had begun, and statesmanship at last had taken counsel of science,—that, independent of the existing records of the unhealthiness of Zealand, every feature of the country exhibited it in the most forcible manner;-the canals communicating with the sea, covered with the most noisome ooze; every ditch loaded with matter in a state of putrefaction; the whole island little better than a swamp; scarcely a place where water of a tolerable quality could be procured; the children sickly, and many of the adults deformed. The endemic diseases of the country, remittent and intermittent fevers, says the Inspector, begin to appear about the middle of August, and continue to prevail until the commencement of frosty weather. He adds one important fact, after describing how the disease had spread in the army with a rapidity almost unexampled in the history of any military operation, that "those men who may be attacked with fever, and recover from it, will have their constitutions so affected by the shock, that their physical powers, when called into action hereafter, will be very materially diminished." * The "Journal of an Officer" describes what was endured by thousands of the sick. After a month's suffering he was carried to Flushing; shipped on board of a frigate; when in the Downs, the ship was telegraphed that the hospitals were full; went on to Spithead; and was borne ashore fainting. "My recovery was long doubtful, and when it at last commenced, it was long imperfect. The venom of the marsh-fever had a singular power of permeating the whole human frame. It unstrung every muscle, penetrated every bone, and seemed to search and enfeeble all the sources of mental and bodily life. I dragged it about with me for years." Such was the end of the great Armada that sailed from the Downs on the 28th of July, with a pomp and power that had never been equalled since another Armada came to a like fatal termination of vain hopes and blind confidence. The calamity which England had sustained had a most serious effect upon the progress of the war in Spain and Portugal. In the summer of 1810, the operations of lord Wellington were fatally crippled by the want of men to supply his losses. His earnest request for more aid from home was thus answered by lord Liverpool on the 2nd of August: "Now, with respect to reinforcements to your army, I am under the painful necessity of informing you that the effects of the fever contracted by our army last year in Walcheren are still of that nature that, by a late inspection, we have not at this time a single battalion of infantry, in Great Britain and Ireland, reported fit for service in the field, with the exception of the infantry of the duke of Brunswick's corps." + Walcheren was evacuated on the 23rd of December. Then came inquiries in Parliament. The ministry made every effort to screen lord Chatham from a vote of censure, which was prevented only by very small majorities. The character of the army and navy was not injured. The disgrace rested with the commander; with the Secretaryat-War; and with the members of the Cabinet, who believed him incapable, and had not the courage to enforce their belief.

After the retreat of Soult from Oporto, sir Arthur Wellesley, at the beginning of July, entered Spain. On the 20th, he made a junction with the Spanish army under Cuesta, at Oropesa. Marshal Victor was in position at

* Hansard, vol. xv. Appendix, col. xii.

+ "Supplementary Despatches," vol. vi. p. 568.

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