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

CHAPTER XIII

Events of 1801

British Expedition to the Baltic—Battle of Copenhagen—Bonaparte's futile attempts to contest control of the Sea—His Continental Policy—Preliminaries of Peace with Great Britain, October, 1801—Influence of Sea Power so far upon the Course of the Revolution.

BY the peace of Lunéville Great Britain was left alone, and for the moment against all Europe. The ministry met the emergency with vigor and firmness, though possibly with too much reliance upon diplomacy and too little upon the military genius of the great seaman whose services were at their disposal. Upon the Continent nothing could be effected, all resistance to France had been crushed by the genius of Bonaparte; but time had to be gained for the expedition then under way against Egypt and destined to compel its evacuation by the French. The combination in the North also must be quickly dissolved, if the country were to treat on anything like equal terms.

An armed negotiation with the Baltic powers, similar to that employed with Denmark the preceding August, was therefore determined; and a fleet of eighteen sail-of-the-line with thirty-five smaller vessels was assembled at Yarmouth, on the east coast of England. Rapidity of movement was essential to secure the advantage from the ice, which, breaking up in the harbors less rapidly than in the open water, would delay the concentration of the hostile navies; and also to allow the Baltic powers the least possible time to prepare for hostilities which they had scarcely anticipated. Everything pointed to Nelson, the most energetic and daring of British admirals, for the chief command of an expedition in which so much depended upon the squadron, numerically inferior to the aggregate of forces arrayed against it, attacking separately each of the component parts before their junction; but Nelson was still among the junior flag-officers, and the rather erratic manner in which, while in the central Mediterranean and under the influence of Lady Hamilton, he had allowed his views of the political situation to affect his actions even in questions of military subordination, had probably excited in Earl Spencer, the First Lord, by whom the officers were selected, a distrust of his fitness for a charge requiring a certain delicacy of discretion as well as vigor of action. Whatever the reason, withholding the chief command from him was unquestionably a mistake,—which would not have been made by St. Vincent, who succeeded Spencer a few weeks later upon the fall of the Pitt ministry. The conditions did not promise a pacific solution when the expedition was planned, and the prospect was even worse when it sailed. The instructions given to Sir Hyde Parker allowed Denmark forty-eight hours to accept Great Britain's terms and withdraw from her engagements with the other Powers. Whether she complied peaceably or not, after she was reduced to submission the division of the Russian fleet at Revel was to be attacked, before the melting ice allowed it to join the main body in Cronstadt; and Sweden was to be similarly dealt with. Under such orders diplomacy had a minor part to play, while in their directness and simplicity they were admirably suited to the fiery temper and prompt military action which distinguished Nelson; and, but for the opportune death of Paul I., Great Britain might have had reason to regret that the opportunity to give Russia a severe reminder of her sea power was allowed to slip through the lax grasp of a sluggish admiral.

The fleet sailed from Yarmouth on the 12th of March, 1801; and on the 19th, although there had been some scattering in a heavy gale, nearly all were collected off the Skaw, the northern point of Jutland at the entrance of the Kattegat. The wind being north-west was fair for going to Copenhagen, and Nelson, if in command, would have advanced at once with the ambassador on board. "While the negotiation is going on," he said, "the Dane should see our flag waving every moment he lifted his head." As it was, the envoy went forward with a frigate alone and the fleet waited. On the 12th it was off Elsineur, where the envoy rejoined, Denmark having rejected the British terms.

This amounted to an acceptance of hostilities, and it only remained to the commander-in-chief to act at once; for the wind was favorable, an advantage which at any moment might be lost. On this day Nelson addressed Parker a letter, summing up in a luminous manner the features of the situation and the different methods of action. "Not a moment should be lost in attacking," he said; "we shall never be so good a match for them as at this moment." He next hinted, what he had probably already said, that the fleet ought to have been off Copenhagen, and not at Elsineur, when the negotiation failed. "Then you might instantly attack and there would be scarcely a doubt but the Danish fleet would be destroyed, and the capital made so hot that Denmark would listen to reason and its true interest." Since, however, the mistake of losing so much time had been made, he seeks to stir his superior to lose no more. "Almost the safety, certainly the honor, of England is more entrusted to you than ever yet fell to the lot of any British officer; … never did our country depend so much on the success of any fleet as of this."

Having thus shown the necessity for celerity, Nelson next discussed the plan of operations. Copenhagen is on the east side of the island of Zealand, fronting the coast of Sweden, from which it is separated by the passage called the Sound. On the west the island is divided from the other parts of Denmark by the Great Belt. The navigation of the latter being much the more difficult, the preparations of the Danes had been made on the side of the Sound, and chiefly about Copenhagen itself. For half a mile from the shore in front of the city, flats extend, and in the Sound itself at a distance of little over a mile, is a long shoal called the Middle Ground. Between these two bodies of shallow water is a channel, called the King's, through which a fleet of heavy ships could sail, and from whose northern end a deep pocket stretches toward Copenhagen, forming the harbor proper. The natural point of attack therefore appears to be at the north; and there the Danes had erected powerful works, rising on piles out of the shoal water off the harbor's mouth and known as the Three-Crown Batteries. Nelson, however, pointed out that not only was this head of the line exceedingly strong, but that the wind that was fair to attack would be foul to return; therefore a disabled ship would have no escape but by passing through the King's Channel. Doing so she would have to run the gantlet of a line of armed hulks, which the Danes had established as floating batteries along the inner edge of the channel—covering the front of Copenhagen—and would also be separated from her fleet. Nor was this difficulty, which may be called tactical, the only objection to a plan that he disparaged as "taking the bull by the horns." He remarked that so long as the British fleet remained in the Sound, without entering the Baltic, the way was left open for both the Swedes and the Russians, if released by the ice, to make a junction with the Danes. Consequently, he advised that a sufficiently strong force of the lighter ships-of-the-line should pass outside the Middle Ground, despite the difficulties of navigation, which were not insuperable, and come up in rear of the city. There they would interpose between the Danes and their allies, and be in position to assail the weaker part of the hostile order. He offered himself to lead this detachment.

Battle of Copenhagen.

This whole letter of March 24, 1801, 22 possesses peculiar interest; for it shows with a rare particularity, elicited by the need he felt of arousing and convincing his superior, Nelson's clear discernment of the decisive features of a military situation. The fame of this great admiral has depended less upon his conduct of campaigns than upon the renowned victories he won in the actual collision of fleet with fleet; and even then has been mutilated by the obstinacy with which, despite the perfectly evident facts, men have persisted in seeing in them nothing but dash,—heart, not head. 23 Throughout his correspondence, it is true, there are frequent traces of the activity of his mental faculties and of the general accuracy of his military conclusions; but ordinarily it is from his actions that his reasonings and principles must be deduced. In the present case we have the views he held and the course he evidently would have pursued clearly formulated by himself; and it cannot but be a subject of regret that the naval world should have lost so fine an illustration as he would there have given of the principles and conduct of naval warfare. He concluded his letter with a suggestion worthy of Napoleon himself, and which, if adopted, would have brought down the Baltic Confederacy with a crash that would have resounded throughout Europe. "Supposing us through the Belt with the wind first westerly, would it not be possible to go with the fleet, or detach ten ships of three and two decks, with one bomb and two fire-ships, to Revel, to destroy the Russian squadron at that place? I do not see the great risk of such a detachment, and with the remainder to attempt the business at Copenhagen. The measure may be thought bold, but I am of opinion the boldest are the safest; and our country demands a most vigorous exertion of her force, directed with judgment."

Committed as the Danes were to a stationary defence, this recommendation to strike at the soul of the confederacy evinced the clearest perception of the key to the situation, which Nelson himself summed up in the following words: "I look upon the Northern League to be like a tree, of which Paul was the trunk and Sweden and Denmark the branches. If I can get at the trunk and hew it down, the branches fall of course; but I may lop the branches and yet not be able to fell the tree, and my power must be weaker when its greatest strength is required" 24—that is, the Russians should have been attacked before the fleet was weakened, as it inevitably must be, by the battle with the Danes. "If we could have cut up the Russian fleet," he said again, "that was my object." Whatever Denmark's wishes about fighting, she was by her continental possessions tied to the policy of Russia and Prussia, either of whom could overwhelm her by land. She dared not disregard them. The course of both depended upon the czar; for the temporizing policy of Prussia would at once embrace his withdrawal from the league as an excuse for doing the same. At Revel were twelve Russian ships-of-the-line, fully half their Baltic fleet, whose destruction would have paralyzed the remainder and the naval power of the empire. To persuade Parker to such a step was, however, hopeless. "Our fleet would never have acted against Russia and Sweden," wrote Nelson afterwards, "although Copenhagen would have been burned; for Sir Hyde Parker was determined not to leave Denmark hostile in his rear;" 25 a reason whose technical accuracy under all the circumstances was nothing short of pedantic, and illustrates the immense distance between a good and accomplished officer, which Parker was, and a genius whose comprehension of rules serves only to guide, not to fetter, his judgment.

Although unable to rise equal to the great opportunity indicated by Nelson, Sir Hyde Parker adopted his suggestion as to the method and direction of the principal attack upon the defences of Copenhagen. For this, Nelson asked ten ships-of-the-line and a number of smaller vessels, with which he undertook to destroy the floating batteries covering the front of the city. These being reduced, the bomb vessels could be placed so as to play with effect upon the dockyard, arsenals, and the town, in case further resistance was made.

The nights of the 30th and 31st of March were employed sounding the channel. On the first of April the fleet moved up to the north end of the Middle Ground, about four miles from the city; and that afternoon Nelson's division, to which Parker had assigned two ships-of-the-line more than had been asked—or twelve altogether—got under way, passed through the outer channel and anchored towards sundown off the south-east end of the shoal, two miles from the head 26 of the Danish line. Nelson announced his purpose to attack as soon as the wind served; and the night was passed by him in arranging the order of battle. The enterprise was perilous, not on account of the force to be engaged, but because of the great difficulties of navigation. The pilots were mostly mates of merchantmen trading with the Baltic; and their experience in vessels of three or four hundred tons did not fit them for the charge of heavy battle-ships. They betrayed throughout great indecision, and their imperfect knowledge contributed to the principal mishaps of the day, as well as to a comparative incompleteness in the results of victory.

The next morning the wind came fair at south-south-east, and at eight A. M. the British captains were summoned to the flag-ship for their final instructions. The Danish line to be attacked extended in a north-west and south-east direction for somewhat over a mile. It was composed of hulks and floating batteries, eighteen to twenty in number and mounting 628 guns, of which about 375 would—fighting thus at anchor—be on the engaged side. The southern flank now to be assailed was partly supported by works on shore; but from the intervening shoal water these were too distant for thoroughly efficient fire. Being thus distinctly weaker than the northern extremity, which was covered by the Three-Crown Battery and a second line of heavy ships, this southern end was most properly chosen by the British as the point of their chief assault for tactical reasons, independently of the strategic advantage urged by Nelson in thus interposing between the enemy and his allies. At half-past nine signal was made to weigh. The ships were soon under sail; but the difficulties of pilotage, despite careful soundings made during the night by an experienced naval captain, were soon apparent. The "Agamemnon," of sixty-four guns, was unable to weather the point of the Middle Ground, and had to anchor out of range. She had no share in the battle. The "Bellona" and "Russell," seventy-fours, the fourth and fifth in the order, entered the Channel; but keeping too far to the eastward they ran ashore on its farther side—upon the Middle Ground. They were not out of action, but beyond the range of the most efficient gunnery under the conditions of that period. Nelson's flag-ship following them passed clear, as did the rest of the heavy ships; but the loss of these three out of the line prevented by so much its extension to the northward. The result was to expose that part of the British order to a weight of fire quite disproportioned to its strength. A body of frigates very gallantly undertook to fill the gap, which they could do but inadequately, and suffered heavy loss in attempting.

The battle was at its height at half-past eleven. There was then no more manœuvring, but the simple question of efficient gunnery and endurance. At about two P. M. a great part of the Danish line had ceased to fire, and the flag-ship "Dannebrog" was in flames. During the action the Danish crews were frequently re-enforced from the shore; and the new-comers in several cases, reaching the ships after they had struck, renewed the fight, either through ignorance or indifference to the fact. The land batteries also fired on boats trying to take possession. Nelson seized on this circumstance to bring the affair to a conclusion. He wrote a letter addressed "To the brothers of Englishmen, the Danes," and sent it under flag of truce to the Crown Prince, who was in the city. "Lord Nelson has directions to spare Denmark when no longer resisting; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire all the floating batteries he has taken, without having the power of saving the brave Danes who have defended them." The letter was sent on shore by a British officer who had served in the Russian navy and spoke Danish. The engagement continued until about three P. M., when the whole line of floating defences south-east of the Crown Batteries had either struck or been destroyed.

The fortifications were still unharmed, as were the ships west of them covering the harbor proper; but their fire was stopped by the bearer of a flag of truce who was bringing to Nelson the reply of the Crown Prince. The latter demanded the precise purport of the first message. Nelson took a high hand. He had destroyed the part of the enemy's line which he had attacked; but it was important now to withdraw his crippled ships, and with the existing wind that could only be done by passing the Crown Batteries. Had the three that ran aground been in the line, it is permissible to believe that that work would have been so far injured as to be practically harmless; but this was far from the case. The admiral in his second letter politicly ignored this feature of the situation. He wrote, "Lord Nelson's object in sending on shore a flag of truce is humanity; 27 he therefore consents that hostilities shall cease till Lord Nelson can take his prisoners out of the prizes, and he consents to land all the wounded Danes and to burn or remove his prizes. Lord Nelson, with humble duty to His Royal Highness, begs leave to say that he will ever esteem it the greatest victory he ever gained, if this flag of truce may be the happy forerunner of a lasting and happy union between my most gracious Sovereign and His Majesty the King of Denmark." Having written the letter, he referred the bearer for definite action to Sir Hyde Parker, who lay some four miles off in the "London;" foreseeing that the long pull there and back would give time for the leading ships, which were much crippled, to clear the shoals, though their course for so doing lay close under the Crown Batteries. Thus the exposed part of the British fleet was successfully removed from a dangerous position and rejoined Parker north of the Middle Ground. The advantage obtained by Nelson's presence of mind and promptness in gaining this respite was shown by the difficulties attending the withdrawal. Three out of five ships-of-the-line grounded, two of which remained fast for several hours a mile from the batteries, but protected by the truce.

The result of the battle of Copenhagen was to uncover the front of the city and lay it, with its dockyards and arsenals, open to bombardment. It was now safe to place the bomb vessels in the King's Channel. It became a question for Denmark to decide, whether fear of her powerful allies and zeal for the claims of neutrals should lead her to undergo further punishment, or whether the suffering already endured and the danger still threatening were excuse sufficient for abandoning the coalition. On the other hand, Nelson, who was the brains as well as the backbone of the British power in the North, cared little, either now or before the battle, about the attitude of Denmark, except as it deterred Parker from advancing. Now, as before, his one idea was to get at the Russian division still locked in Revel by the ice. The negotiations were carried on by him and resulted in an armistice for fourteen weeks, after which hostilities could be resumed upon fourteen days' notice. Thus was assured to Parker for four months the entire immunity he desired for his communications. Fear of Russia long deterred the Danes from this concession, which Nelson frankly told them he must have, so as to be at liberty to act against the Russian fleet and return to them; and he made it the indispensable requisite to sparing the city. During the discussions, however, the Crown Prince received news of the czar's death. Paul I. had been murdered by a body of conspirators on the night of March 24. The Danish government concealed the tidings; but the departure of the soul of the confederacy relieved their worst fears and encouraged them to yield to Nelson's demands.

Denmark's part in the Armed Neutrality was suspended during the continuance of the armistice; but the British ministers showed as little appreciation of the military situation as did their commander-in-chief in the Baltic. "Upon a consideration of all the circumstances," they wrote to Nelson, 28 "His Majesty has thought fit to approve the armistice." Nelson was naturally and justly indignant at this absurdly inadequate understanding of the true nature of services, concerning whose military character a French naval critic has truly said that "they will always be in the eyes of seamen his fairest title to glory. He alone was capable of displaying such boldness and perseverance; he alone could confront the immense difficulties of that enterprise and overcome them." 29 But his conduct at Copenhagen, brilliant as was the display of energy, of daring and of endurance, was far from exhausting the merits of his Baltic campaign. He had lifted and carried on his shoulders the dead weight of his superior, he had clearly read the political as well as the military situation, and he never for one moment lost sight of the key to both. To bombard Copenhagen was to his mind a useless piece of vandalism, which would embitter a nation that ought to be conciliated, and destroy the only hold Great Britain still had over Denmark. 30 Except for the necessity of managing his lethargic and cautious commander-in-chief, we may believe he would never have contemplated it; but under the circumstances he used the threat as the one means by which he could extort truce from Denmark and induce Parker to move. With the latter to handle, the armistice slipped the knot of the military difficulty; it was the one important point, alongside which every other fell into insignificance. "My object," he said, "was to get at Revel before the frost broke up at Cronstadt, that the twelve sail-of-the-line might be destroyed." Well might St. Vincent write, "Your Lordship's whole conduct, from your first appointment to this hour, is the subject of our constant admiration. It does not become me to make comparisons; all agree there is but one Nelson."

Meantime, while the British fleet had been dallying in the approaches to the Baltic, important events had occurred, furthering the projects of Bonaparte in the North and seriously complicating the position of Great Britain. No formal declaration of war was at any time issued by the latter country; but its government had not unjustly regarded as an act of direct hostility the combination of Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia, to support the czar in a course first undertaken to assure his claim upon Malta, and in furtherance of which he had seized as pledges three hundred British merchant vessels with their crews. 31 As an offset to the British interests thus foreclosed upon by Russia, and to negotiate upon somewhat equal terms, the government, on the 14th of January, 1801, ordered an embargo laid upon Russian, Danish, and Swedish vessels in British ports, and the seizure of merchant ships of these powers at sea. Of four hundred and fifty Swedish vessels then abroad, two hundred were detained or brought into British harbors. They were not, however, condemned as prizes, but held inviolable to await the issue of the existing difficulties. To the remonstrances of Sweden and Denmark, supported by Prussia, the British ministry replied definitely, on the 7th of March, that the embargo would not be revoked so long as the Powers affected "continued to form part of a confederacy which had for its object to impose by force on his Majesty a new system of maritime law, inconsistent with the dignity and independence of his crown, and the rights and interests of his people." 32 In consequence of this and of the entrance of the Sound by Parker's fleet, Prussia, on the 30th of March, and as a measure of retaliation, closed the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Ems—in other words, the ports of North Germany—against British commerce, and took possession of the German states belonging to the king of Great Britain. On the same day a corps of Danish troops occupied Hamburg, more certainly to stop British trade therewith.

Thus Bonaparte's conception was completely realized. There was not only a naval combination against Great Britain, but also an exclusion of her trade from one of its chief markets. The danger, however, was much less than it seemed. On the one hand, while the annoyances to neutral navigation were indisputable, the advantages it drew from the war were far greater; its interests really demanded peace, even at the price set by Great Britain. On the other hand, the more important claims of the great Sea Power, however judged by standards of natural right, had prescription on their side; and in the case of contraband, whatever may be thought of classifying naval stores as such, there was for it a colorable pretext in the fact that France then had no merchant shipping, except coasters; that naval stores entering her ports were almost certainly for ships of war; and that it was in part to the exclusion of such articles that Great Britain owed the maritime supremacy, which alone among armed forces had successfully defied Bonaparte. In short, the interest of the Northern states was to yield the points in dispute, while that of Great Britain was not to yield; a truth not only asserted by the ministry but conceded in the main by the opposition. There needed therefore only to throw a little weight into one scale, or to take a little from the other, to turn the balance; while the coalition would dissolve entirely either upon decisive naval operations by Great Britain, or upon the death of Paul I. The czar was the only person embarked heart and soul in the Northern quarrel, because the only one deaf to the call of clear interest. Herein is apparent the crying mistake of intrusting the conduct of the naval campaign to another than Nelson. The time placidly consumed by Parker in deliberations and talking would have sufficed his lieutenant to scour the Baltic, to destroy the Russians at Revel as he did the Danish line at Copenhagen, and to convince the neutral states of the hopelessness of the struggle. Fortunately for Great Britain, the interests of Russian proprietors, which were bound up with British commerce, and hardly yielded eight years later to restrictions imposed by the popular Alexander I., rebelled against the measures of a ruler whose insanity was no longer doubtful. The murder of Paul opened the way for peace.