indeed was probably his first idea. On the 1st of January, 1805, he took the occasion of the day to address to the emperors of Russia and of Austria letters in which he declared his purpose of confining his ambition to France, and of transferring Italy to the sovereignty of his brother Joseph. At the same time (January 2) he addressed an epistle to the King of England. In that the new Emperor said truly, that the world was wide enough for the two powers of France and England, without their quarrelling. The answer of the British government was by no means in so conciliatory a spirit, and hinted, that being united with Russia and other powers in a more confidential manner, England must consult them, ere it hearkened even to words of peace.†

This announcement that Europe was once more leagued against him threw the Emperor out of all the paths of moderation. Instead of transferring Italy to his brother Joseph, he proceeded to Milan, and caused himself to be there crowned with the iron crown as King of that country, and appointed his stepson Eugène Beauharnais, soon after adopted by him, to be his viceroy beyond the Alps. The King of Piedmont got none of his promised indemnities. Two Italian duchies, Piombino and Lucca, were given to Napoleon's sisters, and created fiefs of the empire. These acts bespoke so strongly the policy and pretensions of Charlemagne, as to increase the fears and irritation of the still independent sovereigns. And these fears were raised to the highest pitch, when Napoleon declared Genoa as well as Pavia and Piacenza united to France. Subsequently he proclaimed that the Adige and the Rhine were the natural boundaries of that country. On the 11th of April, 1805, a treaty was formally signed between England and Russia, for the liberation of the Continent. Pitt was justly of opinion that it would require half a *Napoleon Correspondence.

† Sanhope, Life of Pitt, Napoleon Correspondence.

CHAP.

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CHAP. million of soldiers to match those of France with any success, and offered that England should pay a million and a quarter sterling for each 100,000. Austria could chiefly be depended on to furnish the greater part of them. And on such terms she did join the alliance some three months later. The efforts of Russia to win over Prussia to the alliance failed. The French, who at first offered to give Hanover as the price of adhesion, gave it at last as the price of neutrality; and so Prussia, as it afterwards proved, became neutralized indeed.

Whilst the plans and forces of the third coalition were thus forming and mustering, Napoleon was employing all his ingenuity to pass his flotilla of boats with their freight of 100,000 men over the Straits of Dover. The attempt might have been made, it was thought, under the cover of a dark night, or a foggy day. But Napoleon required a preliminary more difficult, the command of the channel. He had hoped to obtain this in August, 1804, by the sudden junction of the Mediterranean and Ocean fleets. When this was given up, through the death of the admiral chosen to execute it, the Emperor thrust forward Spain from its position of occult enmity to England, to that of open hostility, which would enable him to make use of the Spanish fleet (December, 1804). It became then possible to outnumber that of England, even in the channel.

To do so with effect it was imagined to decoy Nelson into a wild-goose chase to the West Indies. Either France or Spain had vessels at Cadiz, at the Ferrol, at Rochefort, and at Brest, as well as the Dutch vessels in the Texel. A French naval force, by sailing to the West Indies, and apparently threatening them, might draw Nelson thither, and, leaving him there, might escape and hasten back to liberate, one after another, from blockade the fleets at Ferrol, Rochefort, and Brest, and with them appear in the channel. If they were thus masters of the straits for three days, "England," added Napoleon, "would have ceased to exist."

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Admiral Villeneuve escaping from Toulon with some CHAP. thirty sail, fully succeeded in that portion of his task which was to decoy Nelson to the West Indies. But even whilst overreached, the English commander was able to foresee what might be the French tactics, and he warned his government of their probable purpose. A British fleet under Calder therefore awaited Villeneuve on his return to the coast of Spain, and though inferior in number fought an action with him in which two Spanish men of war were captured, and by which the French admiral was deterred from directly following his instructions. Instead of rallying the squadrons at Ferrol and Brest and proceeding with them to the channel, Villeneuve first delayed in the Spanish ports to refit. Nelson, he felt, must have returned from the West Indies, and joined by Calder, would meet him in the channel. In lieu of seeking an encounter with them, Villeneuve in consequence merely quitted Ferrol to proceed to Cadiz. No one indeed was sanguine of the success of his great naval scheme, save Napoleon himself. His admirals and even his marine minister doubted the possibility of executing on sea those successful combinations and manœuvres, which the genius of their ruler had accomplished upon land.

The recently published correspondence of Napoleon contains the full record of his plans and instructions to his admirals, as well as of his own fluctuating views. Aware that Russia and Austria were preparing to attack him, he addressed a deprecatory letter to Vienna on the 3rd of August. But on the 16th he concluded a treaty with Bavaria, offered Hanover to Prussia as the price no longer of active alliance but neutrality, and challenged Austria to declare her intentions, threatening that if the reply was not satisfactory he would be in Bavaria in three weeks at the head of 200,000 men. On August the 22nd orders were sent to Gantheaume to rally Villeneuve off Brest. But on the next morning arrived

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CHAP. tidings that the latter was at Cadiz. On the instant Napoleon abandoned his idea of invasion, and issued multiplied orders for the transport of the entire Boulogne camp to the Rhine.

The Austrian army under general Mack crossed the Inn into Bavaria on the 10th of September. The Archduke Charles had recommended the principal concentration of forces to be upon the Danube. But his court despatched 100,000 men to Lombardy, and Mack with about an equal number advanced to the Black Forest, unsupported by the Russians, who to the number of 80,000 were only then passing into Moravia. Napoleon, who crossed the Rhine with nearly double Mack's forces, took advantage of this division of his enemies, and sent half his army round by Franconia to the rear of Mack, whilst other French corps advanced against him through the Black Forest. The Austrian general was ill-supplied with information. His outlying divisions and his communications with Vienna were soon cut off. Obliged to fall back upon Ulm, the cavalry with one of the Archdukes made their escape from being besieged. In a short time after which the Austrian general was obliged to surrender in Ulm to the French (October 20). He had but 20,000 men when he capitulated. But this, added to the loss in partial actions, made up 50,000. And in fact the Austrians, so lately 100,000 strong upon the Danube, could bring but 20,000 into the field of Austerlitz, so completely and so fatuitously had their forces been frittered away.

South of the Alps the army commanded by the Archduke Charles waged a far more difficult kind of warfare with the French under Massena, driving them back from Verona, and but for the disaster of Ulm, the Archduke might have advanced into Lombardy. But this event compelled him to proceed to the succour of Vienna, to which Napoleon marched with all expedition. The Austrians made ineffectual resistance, allowing the

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forces they had left in the Tyrol to be cut off either in СНАР. Carinthia or the Tyrol itself. The only spot, indeed, in which the French met with resistance was at Thierstein or Durrenstein, the seat of Cœur de Lion's captivity. Marshal Mortier was there pressing on with a division to the left of the Danube, when a large body of Russian troops abandoning the right bank and the defence of Vienna passed over the bridge of Krems, fell upon Mortier, inflicting upon him severe loss, and would have destroyed his division, had it not been seasonably succoured. The French entered Vienna on the 13th of November. This would have been of little purpose, since they had been driven from the left bank, had they not contrived by rapidity and cajolery to deceive the simple Austrians and seize the great bridge over the Danube north of Vienna. Master of this they were at liberty to pour into the high plain of Moravia.

The appearance of the French in the Marchfeld was nearly accomplishing for the Russians a similar defeat to that inflicted upon Mack, one half of them being upon the Danube, the other only advancing into Moravia. Kutusoff, however, was a more active as well as a more tough adversary than Mack, and by sacrificing one of his divisions in a severe engagement, as well as by amusing the French with an armistice, he succeeded in concentrating his forces in the vicinity of Olmutz. They were 80,000 strong, supported by 20,000 Austrians full of ardour.* The Emperor Alexander, surrounded by young aides-de-camps of his own age, entertained no doubt of being victorious, and thought far more of cutting off the retreat of the French upon Vienna than of compelling them to it by defeat. This confidence of the Russians in victory was augmented by Napoleon's sending to them Savary to treat of peace.

Thiers calculates 75,000 Russians, with 15,000 Austrians.