The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

The death of Pitt was followed by the formation of a ministry of somewhat composite character, centring round his relative and former colleague, Lord Grenville, and his life-long rival, Fox. This held office but for fourteen months; a period long enough for it to afford Napoleon the pretext for his Berlin decree, but not sufficient to impress any radical change upon the main lines of policy laid down by Pitt. Upon its fall in March, 1807, his devoted personal friends and political followers succeeded to power. Confronted almost immediately by the threatening union between the empires of the East and West, of which the known, if concealed, purpose was to divide between France and Russia the control of the Continent, and to subdue Great Britain also by commercial exhaustion, the ministry, both necessarily and by tradition, opposed to this combination the policy transmitted to them by their great leader. Colonial enterprises were multiplied, until it could be said of colonies, as the French Directory had before sorrowfully confessed concerning shipping, that not one was left under a flag hostile to Great Britain. The navy, expanding to its greatest numerical force in 1808, was maintained in equal strength, if in somewhat diminished numbers, up to the termination of the struggle. While unable to prevent the material growth of the French navy by ship-building carried on in its ports, Great Britain continued to impede its progress and cut off its supplies by the close watch maintained over the French coast, by confining its fleets to their harbors,—and so shutting them off from the one drill ground, the sea,—and finally by frustrating Napoleon's project of increasing his own power by violently seizing the vessels of smaller continental states.

The secure tenure of the great common and highway of commerce—the sea—was thus provided for. The enemy's navy was neutralized, his bases abroad cut off, his possessions became the markets as well as the sources of British trade. It was not enough, however, for commerce, that its transit should be comparatively safe. Its operations of exchange needed both materials and markets, both producers and consumers. From these, as is known, Napoleon sought to exclude it by the Continental System, which through the co-operation of Russia he thought could be rendered effective. To this again the ministry of Perceval and Canning opposed the Orders in Council, tempered by the license system, with the double object of prolonging the resistance of Great Britain and sapping that of her enemy; measures which but reproduced, on a vaster scale, the Rule of 1756, with the modifications introduced by Pitt, in 1798, for the same ends.

The question thus resolved itself, as has before been perhaps too often said, into a conflict of endurance,—which nation could live the longest in this deadly grapple. This brings us back again face to face with the great consideration: Was the struggle which began in 1793 one to be solved by a brilliant display of generalship, shattering the organized forces of an ordinary enemy, and with it crushing the powers of resistance in the state? Or had it not rather its origin in the fury of a nation, against which all coercion except that of exhaustion is fruitless? The aims, the tendencies, the excitement of the French people had risen to a pitch, and had made demands, which defied repression by any mere machinery or organization, however skilfully framed or directed. When the movement of a nation depends upon—nay, is the simple evidence of—a profound emotion permeating each individual of the mass, the mighty impulse, from its very diffusion, has not those vital centres of power, the destruction of which paralyzes the whole. Not till the period of passion—necessarily brief, but for the time resistless—has given place to the organization to which all social movement tends, is a people found to have, as the tyrant of antiquity wished, a single neck to be severed by a blow.

The frenzy of the French nation had spent itself, the period of organization had set in, when Bonaparte appeared upon the scene; but, as the tension of popular emotion slackened, there had not been found, in the imperfect organization which sought to replace it, the power to bear the burden of the state. No longer able to depend upon a homogeneous movement of the millions, but only upon the efficient working of the ordinary machinery of civil government and armies, in her case most imperfectly developed, France now offered to the attacks of her enemies those vital points, with which, when crushed, resistance ceases. Military reverses and exhaustion by bad government brought her in 1795, and again in 1799, to her last gasp. At both epochs Bonaparte saved her.

The great captain and organizer not only brought victory with him and restored the machinery of government; he supplied also a centre around which popular enthusiasm and confidence might once more rally. He became not only the exponent of national unity, but in a very real sense the embodiment of those aspirations and aggressive tendencies, which in the first days of the Revolution had bound Frenchmen together as one man, but had afterwards evaporated and frittered away for want of that definiteness of aim and sagacious direction which only a great leader can impart. Under his skilful manipulation the lofty sentiments of the early revolutionists became catchwords, which assured his hold upon the imaginations and enthusiasm of the people, again swayed as one man to follow him in his career of aggression. Metternich well said that Bonaparte was to him simply the incarnation of the Revolution. 490

It was with these two phases of one and the same condition that Europe had to deal between 1793 and 1814. In the one instance a people unified by a common passion and common aims, in the other the same people concentrated into a common action by submission to the will of a sovereign, apparently resistless in the council as in the field. It is true that the affections of his subjects soon ceased to follow him, except in the armies by whose power he ruled, but the result is the same. All the energies of the nation are summed up in a single overpowering impulse,—at first spontaneous, afterwards artificial,—to which during the first half of Napoleon's career was given a guidance of matchless energy and wisdom.

Such a combination is for the time irresistible, as the continent of Europe proved during long and weary years. Absolute power, concentrated force, central position, extraordinary sagacity and energy, all united to assure to Napoleon the dazzling successes which are matters of history. The duration and the permanent results of this startling career depended, however, upon the staying power of the French nation and upon the steadfastness of the resistance. Upon the Continent, the latter in its actuality ceased. Potentially it remained,—men's hearts swelled to bursting under the tyranny they endured; but before the power and the genius of the great conqueror outward rebellion shrank away. States dared not trust each other,—they could not act together; and so men went silently in the bitterness of their spirits.

There remained one small group of islands, close on the flank of the would-be ruler of the world, with a population numbering little more than half that of his immediate dominions, whose inhabitants deeply sympathized with sufferings and oppression they were powerless directly to relieve. The resistance they had offered to the aggressive fury of the Revolution they continued to oppose to its successor and representative; but it was not by direct action in the field, but only by operations aimed to abridge the resources and endurance of France, that they could look forward to a possibility of success. For seven years went on this final silent strife, whose outlines have been traced in the preceding chapter of this work. During its continuance Great Britain herself, while escaping the political oppression and national humiliation undergone by the continental peoples, drank deep of the cup of suffering. Her strength wasted visibly; but the mere fact of her endurance and persistence compelled her enemy to efforts more exhausting, to measures more fatal, than those forced upon herself. And, while thus subjected to a greater strain, Napoleon was by Great Britain cut off from that greatest of all sources of renewing vitality—the Sea.

The true function of Great Britain in this long struggle can scarcely be recognized unless there be a clear appreciation of the fact that a really great national movement, like the French Revolution, or a really great military power under an incomparable general, like the French empire under Napoleon, is not to be brought to terms by ordinary military successes, which simply destroy the organized force opposed.

Of the latter, the protracted and not wholly hopeless resistance, which in 1813 and 1814 succeeded even the great Russian catastrophe, is a signal instance; while to subvert such a power, wielded by such a man, by any reverse less tremendous than it then underwent, is hopeless. Two Napoleons do not co-exist. In the former case, on the other hand, the tangible something, the decisive point against which military effort can be directed, is wanting. Of this the struggle between the North and South in the American Civil War affords a conspicuous example. Few, probably, would now maintain that the capture of Richmond in the first year of the war, when the enthusiasm of the Southern people was at its height, their fighting force undiminished, their hopes undimmed by the bitter disappointments of a four years' struggle, would have had any decisive effect upon the high-spirited race. Positions far more important fell without a sign of such result. No man could then have put his finger here, or there, and said, "This is the key-stone of resistance;" for in the high and stern feeling of the moment resistance was not here nor there, but everywhere.

So was it in the early flush of the French Revolution. The "On to Paris" of 1793 would probably have had no more decisive results than the "On to Richmond" of 1861, had it been successful. Not till enthusiasm has waned before sorrow, and strength failed under exhaustion, does popular impulse, when deep and universal, acquiesce in the logic of war. To such exhaustion France was brought when Bonaparte took the helm. By his organizing genius he restored her military strength, the material of which still remained, economized such resources as the wastefulness of preceding governments had left, and above all secured for her a further power of endurance by drawing upon the life-blood of surrounding nations. So exhaustion was for the time postponed; but, if the course of aggression which Bonaparte had inherited from the Revolution was to continue, there were needed, not the resources of the Continent only, but of the world. There was needed also a diminution of ultimate resistance below the stored-up aggressive strength of France; otherwise, however procrastinated, the time must come when the latter should fail.

On both these points Great Britain withstood Napoleon. She shut him off from the world, and by the same act prolonged her own powers of endurance beyond his power of aggression. This in the retrospect of history was the function of Great Britain in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period; and that the successive ministries of Pitt and his followers pursued the course best fitted, upon the whole, to discharge that function, is their justification to posterity. It is the glory of Pitt's genius that as he discovered the object, "Security," so likewise he foresaw the means, Exhaustion, by which alone the French propaganda of aggression would be brought to pause. The eloquent derision poured upon his predictions of failure from financial exhaustion, from expenditure of resources, from slackening of enthusiasm, recoils from the apprehension of the truth. He saw clearly the line of Great Britain's action, he foresaw the direction of events, he foretold the issue. How long the line would be, how the course of events would be retarded, how protracted the issue, he could not foretell, because no man could foresee the supreme genius of Napoleon Bonaparte.

1

See, for instance, his letter to Lady Hamilton, Oct. 3, 1798 (Disp., vol. iii. p. 140), which is but one of many similar expressions in his correspondence.

2

Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 177.

3

In an entirely open country, without natural obstacles, there are few or none of those strategic points, by occupying which in a central position an inferior force is able to multiply its action against the divided masses of the enemy. On the other hand, in a very broken country, such as Switzerland, the number of important strategic points, passes, heads of valleys, bridges, etc., are so multiplied, that either some must be left unoccupied, or the defenders lose, by dissemination, the advantage which concentration upon one or two controlling centres usually confers.

4

See ante, vol. i. p. 313.

5

It is said that the old marshal on receiving these orders cried: "This is the way armies are ruined."

6

Jomini, Guerres de la Rév. Fran., livre xv. p. 124. Martin, Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. iii. p. 50. It was just at this moment that Nelson sent a division to the Gulf of Genoa to co-operate with Suwarrow. (Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 431.)

7

The phrase is that of Thiers. Hist. de la Rév., vol. x. p. 353.

8

A curious evidence of the insecurity of the highways is afforded by an ordinance issued by Bonaparte a year after he became First Consul (Jan. 7, 1801), that no regular diligence should travel without carrying a corporal and four privates, with muskets and twenty rounds, and in addition, at night, two mounted gendarmes. If specie to the value of over 50,000 francs were carried, there must be four gendarmes by day and night. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 697.)

9

See post, Chapter XVII.

10

Speech of February 18, 1801.

11

Thiers, Cons. et Empire, vol. i., p. 332.

12

See ante, p, 251.

13

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 410.

14

Ibid., vol. vi. p. 497.

15

"Voyant bien," says M. Thiers, Bonaparte's panegyrist, "que Malta ne pouvait pas tenir longtemps." (Cons. et Emp., vol. ii. p. 92.)

16

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 498.

17

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 520.

18

See vol. i. pp. 249, 256.

19

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 738, Jan. 21, 1801.

20

Contrast Bonaparte's reliance upon the aggregate numbers of Baltic navies with Nelson's professional opinion when about to fight them. "During the Council of War (March 31, 1801) certain difficulties were started by some of the members relative to each of the three Powers we should have to engage, either in succession or united, in those seas. The number of the Russians was in particular represented as formidable. Lord Nelson kept pacing the cabin, mortified at everything which savored either of alarm or irresolution. When the above remark was applied to the Swedes, he sharply observed, 'The more numerous the better;' and when to the Russians, he repeatedly said, 'So much the better; I wish they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it.' He alluded, as he afterwards explained in private, to the total want of tactique among the Northern fleets." (Col. Stewart's Narrative; Nelson's Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 301.)

James, who was a careful investigator, estimates the allied Russian, Swedish, and Danish navies in the Baltic at fifty-two sail, of which not over forty-one were in condition for service, instead of eighty-eight as represented by some writers. "It must have been a very happy combination of circumstances," he adds, "that could have assembled in one spot twenty-five of those forty-one; and against that twenty-five of three different nations, all mere novices in naval tactics, eighteen, or, with Nelson to command, fifteen British sail were more than a match." (Nav. Hist., vol. iii. p. 43; ed. 1878.)

21

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 747. To Talleyrand, Jan. 27, 1801.

22

Nelson's Letters and Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 295.

23

While this work was going through the press, the author was gratified to find in the life of the late distinguished admiral Sir William Parker an anecdote of Nelson, which, as showing the military ideas of that great sea-officer, is worth a dozen of the "go straight at them" stories which pass current as embodying his precepts. "Throughout the month of October, 1804, Toulon was frequently reconnoitred, and the frigates 'Phoebe' and 'Amazon' were ordered to cruise together. Previous to their going away Lord Nelson gave to Captains Capel and Parker several injunctions, in case they should get an opportunity of attacking two of the French frigates, which now got under weigh more frequently. The principal one was that they should not each single out and attack an opponent, but 'that both should endeavor together to take one frigate; if successful, chase the other; but, if you do not take the second, still you have won a victory and your country will gain a frigate.' Then half laughing, and half snappishly, he said kindly to them as he wished them good-by, 'I daresay you consider yourselves a couple of fine fellows, and when you get away from me will do nothing of the sort, but think yourselves wiser than I am!'" ("The Last of Nelson's Captains," by Admiral Sir Augustus Phillimore, K. C. B., London, 1891, p. 122.)

24

Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 355. See also a very emphatic statement of his views on the campaign, in a letter to Mr. Vansittart, p. 367.

25

Nelson's Disp., April 9, 1801, vol. iv. pp. 339 and 341.

26

The Danes were moored with their heads to the southward.

27

If Nelson had an arrière pensée in sending the flag, he never admitted it, before or after, to friend or foe. "Many of my friends," he wrote a month after the battle, "thought it a ruse de guerre and not quite justifiable. Very few attribute it to the cause that I felt, and which I trust in God I shall retain to the last moment,—humanity." He then enlarges upon the situation, and says that the wounded Danes in the prizes were receiving half the shot fired by the shore batteries. (Nels. Disp., vol. iv., p. 360.)

28

April 20, 1801. Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 355, note.

29

Jurien de la Gravière, Guerres Maritimes, vol. ii. p. 43, 1st edition.

30

Having destroyed Copenhagen, we had done our worst, and not much nearer being friends.—Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 361.

31

The second embargo was laid on Nov. 7, 1800, for the sole purpose of enforcing the surrender of Malta to Russia. (Annual Register, 1800; State Papers, p. 253.) It antedated by six weeks the declaration of Armed Neutrality, by which the other powers, on the plea of neutral rights, agreed to arm. (Ibid., p. 260.) In fact, the other powers urged upon Great Britain that the Russian sequestration being on account of Malta, they had no share in it, and so were not subjects for retaliation; ignoring that they had chosen that moment to come to Russia's support.

32

Annual Register, 1801; State Papers, p. 246.

33

Nels. Disp., vol. iv., pp. 349, 352.

34

Ibid., p. 349; also see p. 379.

35

Ibid., vol. iv. p. 416.

36

Nels. Disp., vol. iv. p. 373.

37

For the important bearings of this stipulation, which was made as an additional and explanatory declaration to the main convention (Annual Register, 1801; State Papers, p. 217), see post, Chapter XVI. It was a matter in which Russia, not being a carrier, had no interest.

38

For instance, Thiers, H. Martin, and Lanfrey.

39

Corr. de Nap. vol. vii. p. 25.

40

Corr. de Nap. vol. vii. p. 47.

41

For full particulars of Bonaparte's views for the ships in Brest, which then contained the large body of Spaniards brought back by Bruix the previous August, see Corr. de Nap. vol. vi. pp. 181, 186. It must be remembered that there was then practically no French line-of-battle force in the Mediterranean.

42

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. pp. 262, 263.

43

The advantage of the close watch is also shown by the perplexity arising when an enemy's squadron did escape. In this case, seven ships-of-the-line were detached from the Channel fleet in chase of Ganteaume, but "owing to lack of information" they were sent to the West Indies instead of the Mediterranean. (James, vol. iii. p. 73.) The latter was sufficiently controlled by Keith with seven sail-of-the-line in the Levant, and Warren with five before Cadiz, to which he joined two more at Minorca.

44

See ante, vol. i. p. 68, for particulars.

45

In the above the attempt has been merely to summarize the rapid succession of events, and the orders issuing from Bonaparte's intensely active mind to meet the varying situations. Reference may be made by the student to his correspondence, vol. vi. pp. 719, 729, 745; vol. vii. pp. 4, 24-26, 69-73, 125, 144, 164, 197, 198.

46

This ship, the "St. Antoine," was one of those ceded to France by Spain.

47

Ross's Life of Saumarez, vol. ii. p. 21.

48

March 2, 1801. Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 72.

49

The treaty was signed June 6, and ratified June 16. (Ann. Reg. 1801; State Papers, p. 351.) Bonaparte received his copy June 15. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 215.)

50

Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 256.

51

Ibid., p. 266.

52

See ante, p. 60.

53

Ann. Reg. 1801; State Papers, p. 257.

54

Paul I. had particularly held to the preservation of Naples and the restitution of Piedmont to the king of Sardinia. On April 12 the first consul heard of Paul's death, and the same day issued an order making Piedmont a military division of France. This was purposely antedated to April 2. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 147.) Talleyrand was notified that this was a first, though tentative, step to incorporation. If the Prussian minister remonstrated, he was to reply that France had not discussed the affairs of Italy with the king of Prussia. (Ibid., p. 153.) Alexander was civilly told that Paul's interest in the Italian princes was considered to be personal, not political. (Ibid., p. 169.) The Russian ambassador, however, a month later haughtily reminded Talleyrand that his mission depended upon the "kings of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies being again put in possession of the states which they possessed before the irruption of the French troops into Italy." (Ann. Reg., 1801; State Papers, pp. 340-342) Liguria (Genoa) was also made a military division of France by order dated April 18. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 162.)

55

While refusing this in his instructions to the French negotiator, the latter was informed he might yield it, if necessary. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii., pp. 255-258.)

56

Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 323.