The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

Nelson, of course, was outraged. Here was intruded into his command, where he had achieved such brilliant success, and to the administration of which he felt fully equal, a man of indifferent reputation as an officer, though of unquestioned courage, authorized to act independently of his control, and, as it seemed, even to take his ships. He was hurt not only for himself, but for Troubridge, who was senior to Smith, and would, so Nelson thought, have done the duty better than this choice of the Government. The situation when understood in England was rectified. It was explained that diplomatic rank was considered necessary for the senior naval officer, in order to keep in the hands of Great Britain the direction of combined operations, essentially naval in character; and that Smith had been chosen to the exclusion of seniors because of his relationship to the minister at Constantinople, who might have felt the association with him of a stranger to be an imputation upon his past conduct. Meanwhile St. Vincent, indignant at what seemed to him Smith's airs, had sent him peremptory instructions to put himself under Nelson's orders. Thus, in the double character of naval captain and minister plenipotentiary to Turkey, Smith went up the Mediterranean; where he did first-rate service in the former capacity, and in the latter took some action of very doubtful discretion, in which he certainly did not trouble himself about the guidance or views of his naval superiors.

In compliance with orders from Lord St. Vincent, Nelson in January sent Troubridge with some bomb-vessels to Alexandria, to bombard the shipping in the port; after performing which service he was to turn over to Sir Sidney Smith the blockade of Alexandria and the defence of the Ottoman Empire by sea, of which Nelson thenceforth washed his hands. 245 The bombardment was maintained during several days in February, doing but little harm; and on the 3d of March Sir Sidney, having made his round to Constantinople, arrived and took over the command. Troubridge left with him the "Theseus," seventy-four, whose captain was junior to Smith, with three smaller vessels; and on the 7th sailed to rejoin Nelson. This was the day that the French stormed Jaffa, and the same evening an express with the news reached the "Tigre." Smith at once sent the "Theseus" to Acre, with Phélippeaux, the French officer who had aided him to escape from Paris and had accompanied him to the East.

Of the same age as Bonaparte, Phélippeaux had been his fellow-pupil at the military school of Brienne, had left France with the royalists in 1792, and returned to it after the fall of Robespierre. He had naturally, from his antecedents, joined the party of reaction; and, after its overthrow in September, 1797, was easily moved to aid in Sir Sidney's escape from Paris. Accompanying him to England, he received from the Crown a colonel's commission. To the guidance of this able engineer the wisdom and skill of the defence was mainly due. Never did great issues turn on a nicer balance than at Acre. The technical skill of Phélippeaux, the hearty support he received from Smith, his officers and crews, the untiring activity and brilliant courage of the latter, the British command of the sea, all contributed; and so narrow was the margin of success, that it may safely be said the failure of one factor would have caused total failure and the loss of the place. Its fall was essential to Bonaparte, and his active, far-seeing mind had long before determined its seizure by his squadron, if the British left the Levant. "If any event drives us from the coast of Egypt," wrote Nelson on the 17th of December, 1798, "St. Jean d'Acre will be attacked by sea. I have Bonaparte's letter before me." 246 As the best port and the best fortress on the coast, Acre was the bridgehead into Palestine. To Syria it bore the relation that Lisbon did to the Spanish Peninsular War. If Bonaparte advanced, leaving it unsubdued, his flank and rear would through it be open to attack from the sea. If it fell, he had good reason to believe the country would rise in his favor. "If I succeed," said he at a late period of the siege, when hope had not yet abandoned him, "I shall find in the city the treasures of the Pasha, and arms for three hundred thousand men. I raise and arm all Syria, so outraged by the ferocity of Djezzar, for whose fall you see the population praying to God at each assault. I march upon Damascus and Aleppo. I swell my army, as I advance, by all malcontents. I reach Constantinople with armed masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire. I found in the East a new and great empire which shall fix my place in posterity." 247 Dreams? Ibrahim Pasha advanced from Egypt in 1831, took Acre in 1832, and marched into the heart of Asia Minor, which the battle of Konieh soon after laid at his feet; why not Bonaparte? Damascus had already offered him its keys, and the people were eager for the overthrow of the pashas.

On the 10th of March Sir Sidney Smith himself left the blockade of Alexandria, and on the 15th anchored with the "Tigre" off Acre. He found that much had already been done, by Phélippeaux and the "Theseus," to make the obsolete fortifications more fit to withstand the approaching siege. Sending the "Theseus" now to cruise down the coast towards Jaffa, it fell to himself to deal the heaviest and most opportune blow to Bonaparte's projects. Some light coasters had sailed with a siege train from the Damietta (eastern) mouth of the Nile, which the British never had ships enough to blockade. On the morning of the 18th they were seen approaching Acre, under convoy of a small corvette. The "Tigre" at once gave chase, and captured all but the corvette and two of the coasters. The cannon that should have been turned against the walls were landed and served to defend them; while the prizes, receiving British crews, thenceforth harassed the siege works, flanking the two walls against which the attacks were addressed, and enfilading the trenches. The French, having by this mishap lost all their siege guns proper, had to depend upon field-pieces to breach the walls until the 25th of April, when half a dozen heavy cannon were received from Jaffa. 248 This time was simply salvation to the besieged and ruin to the assailants; for, in the interval, the skill of Phélippeaux and the diligence of the men under him prepared the place to withstand attacks which at an early period would have caused its fall.

Into the details of this siege, petty in itself but momentous in its bearing upon events, it will not be expected that this work shall enter. The crucial incident was the capture of the siege train and the precious respite thus obtained. Orders were indeed sent to Rear-Admiral Perrée to come as speedily as possible, with his small squadron of three frigates and two corvettes, to Jaffa and land guns; but Alexandria was already blockaded, and, from the narrowness of the entrance, very difficult to leave in face of a foe. On the 5th of April, however, the blockading force had to go to Cyprus for water, 249 and on the 8th Perrée got away. On the 15th he landed at Jaffa six ship's guns, and so much ammunition as left his little squadron with only fifteen rounds. He then received orders to cruise to the westward of Acre and intercept the communications of the Turks with Candia and Rhodes. Returning from this duty on the 14th of May, he was seen and chased by the "Theseus." An accidental explosion on board the latter forced her to give over pursuit; but Perrée, recognizing the danger of capture, and being short of water and supplies, determined to go to France, as his instructions allowed in case of necessity. On the 17th of June, when only sixty miles from Toulon, he met a British fleet, by which all five vessels were taken.

On the 4th of May, when the besieged and besiegers had been mining, countermining, and daily fighting, for over six weeks—separated by but a stone's throw one from the other—a breach thought practicable by the French general was made, the mine for blowing in the counterscarp was finished, and a general assault was ordered for the 5th; but the engineers of the besieged countermined so industriously that by daybreak they had ruined the mine before being discovered. This caused the assault to be postponed to the 9th. On the 7th, towards evening, some thirty or forty sail were seen on the western horizon. They bore the long expected Turkish succors from Rhodes; whose commander even now had only been induced to approach by a peremptory exercise of Sir Sidney Smith's powers as British minister. Bonaparte saw that no more time could be lost, and ordered the assault at once; the weather being calm, twenty-four hours might still elapse before the re-enforcements could enter the place. Under a heavy fire from one side and the other, the attack was made; and in the morning the British seamen saw the French flag flying on the outer angle of one of the towers. It marked the high water of Bonaparte's Syrian expedition.

On the 8th the assault was renewed. As the French columns advanced, the Turkish ships were still detained in the offing by calms, and the soldiers were being brought ashore in boats, but still far from the landing. Then it was that Sir Sidney Smith, seeing that a few critical moments might determine the success or failure of his weary struggle, manned the boats of his ships, and pulling rapidly ashore led the British seamen, armed with pikes, to help hold the breach till the troops could arrive. The French carried the first line, the old fortifications of the town; but that done, they found themselves confronted with a second, which Phélippeaux, now dead, had formed by connecting together the houses and garden walls of the seraglio within. The strife raged throughout the day, with varied success in different quarters; but at nightfall, after a struggle of twenty-four hours, the assailants withdrew and Acre was saved. On the 20th the siege was raised, the French retreating during the night. Upon the 25th they reached Jaffa, and on the 29th Gaza. Both places were evacuated; and the army, resuming its march, next day entered the desert. On the 2d of June it encamped in the oasis of El Arish. The garrison of the fort there was re-enforced, the works strengthened with more artillery, and the place provisioned for six months. It was the one substantial result of the Syrian expedition,—an outpost which, like Acre, an invader must subdue before advancing. On the 7th, after nine days' march through the desert under the scorching heat of the June sun, the army re-entered Egypt. It had lost since its departure fifteen hundred killed or dead of disease, and more than two thousand wounded.

The reputation of Sir Sidney Smith with posterity rests upon the defence of Acre, in which he made proof of solid as well as brilliant qualities. Bonaparte, who never forgave the check administered to his ambition, nor overcame the irritation caused by sixty days fretting against an unexpected and seemingly trivial obstacle, tried hard to decry the character of the man who thwarted him. "Smith is a lunatic," he said, "who wishes to make his fortune and keep himself always before the eyes of the world. He is a man capable of any folly, to whom no profound or rational project is ever to be attributed." 250 "Sir Sidney Smith occupied himself too much with the detail of affairs on shore, which he did not understand, and where he was of little use; he neglected the maritime business, which he did understand, and where he had everything in his power." This accusation was supported by the circumstantial mis-statement that six big guns, with a large quantity of ammunition and provisions, were landed by Perrée, undetected, seven miles from Smith's ships. 251

That there was a strong fantastic and vainglorious strain in Smith's character seems certain, and to it largely he owed the dislike of his own service; but so far as appears, he showed at Acre discretion and sound judgment, as well as energy and courage. It must be remembered, in justice, that all power and all responsibility were in his hands, and that the result was an eminent success. Under the circumstances he had to be much on shore as well as afloat; but he seems to have shown Phélippeaux, and after the latter's death, Colonel Douglas, the confidence and deference which their professional skill demanded, as he certainly was most generous in recognizing their services and those of others. When the equinoctial gales came on he remained with his ship, which had to put to sea; an act which Bonaparte maliciously attributed to a wish to escape the odium of the fall of the place. Whether ashore or afloat, Smith could not please Bonaparte. The good sense which defers to superior experience, the lofty spirit which bears the weight of responsibility and sustains the courage of waverers, ungrudging expenditure of means and effort, unshaken determination to endure to the end, and heroic inspiration at the critical moment of the last assault,—all these fine qualities must in candor be allowed to Sir Sidney Smith at the siege of Acre. He received and deserved the applause, not only of the multitude and the government, but of Nelson himself. The deeds of Acre blotted out of memory the exaggerated reports of the almost total destruction of the French fleet at his hands when Toulon was evacuated; reports which had left upon his name the imputation of untrustworthiness. But, whatever the personal merits of Sir Sidney Smith in this memorable siege, there can be no doubt that to the presence of the British ships, and the skilled support of the British officers, seamen, and marines—manning the works—is to be attributed the successful resistance made by the brave, but undisciplined Turks.

During the last days of the siege of Acre and while Bonaparte was leading his baffled army through the sands of the desert back into Egypt, the western Mediterranean was thrown into a ferment by the escape of the French fleet from Brest. This very remarkable episode, having led to no tangible results, has been little noticed by general historians; but to the student of naval war its incidents are most instructive. It is scarcely too much to say that never was there a greater opportunity than that offered to the French fleet, had it been a valid force, by the scattered condition of its enemies on this occasion; nor can failure deprive the incident of its durable significance, as illustrating the advantage, to the inferior navy, of a large force concentrated in a single port, when the enemy, though superior, is by the nature of the contest compelled to disseminate his squadrons. The advantage is greatest when the port of concentration is central with reference to the enemy's positions; but is by no means lost when, as was then the case with Brest, it is at one extremity of the theatre of war. It was a steady principle in the policy of Napoleon, when consul and emperor, to provoke dissemination of the British navy by threatening preparations at widely separated points of his vast dominions; just as it was a purpose of the British government, though not consistently followed, to provoke France to ex-centric efforts by naval demonstrations, menacing many parts of the shore line. The Emperor, however, a master of the art of war and an adept at making the greatest possible smoke with the least expenditure of fuel, was much more than a match in the game of deception for the unmilitary and many-headed body that directed the affairs of Great Britain.

Although in 1799 the Channel fleet had attached to it as many as fifty-one ships-of-the-line, 252 of which forty-two upon the alarm that ensued very soon got to sea, 253 Lord Bridport had with him but sixteen when he took command off Brest, on the 17th of April, relieving the junior admiral who, with eight or nine ships, had done the winter cruising. On the 25th Bridport looked into the port and saw there eighteen ships-of-the-line ready for sea. The wind being fresh at north-east, the British admiral stood out until he reached a position twelve miles west-south-west of Ushant Island. The entrance being thus clear and the wind fair, the French fleet, numbering twenty-five of the line and ten smaller vessels, slipped out that night under command of Admiral Bruix, then minister of marine, who, by his close official relations to the government, was indicated as a proper person to fulfil an apparently confidential mission, for which his professional ability and activity eminently fitted him.

Being bound south and the wind favoring, Bruix passed through the southern passage, known as the Passage du Raz, 254 distant thirty miles or more from the spot where Bridport had stationed his fleet, which consequently saw nothing, though it had great reason to suspect a movement by the French. At 9 A. M. on the 26th, however, a British inshore frigate caught sight of the enemy just as the last ships were passing through the Raz, and hastened toward her fleet. At noon she lost sight of the French, and an hour later, the signal being repeated from vessel to vessel, Bridport learned that the enemy were out. He at once made sail for Brest, assured himself on the 27th that the news was true, and then steered for Ireland to cover it from a possible invasion, sending at the same time warning to Keith off Cadiz and to St. Vincent at Gibraltar, as well as orders into the Channel ports for all ships to join him off Cape Clear. The whole south coast of England was at once in an uproar; but the government, knowing how scattered were the vessels in the Mediterranean, had a double anxiety. On the 6th of May, five ships-of-the-line sailed from Plymouth to join St. Vincent. 255 The rest of the Channel fleet got off as fast as they could to Bridport, who, in spite of the reports from merchant vessels that had seen the French to the southward, and steering south, refused to believe that Ireland was safe. In this delusion he was confirmed by a barefaced and much-worn ruse, a small French vessel being purposely allowed to fall into his hands with dispatches for Ireland. On the 12th of May there remained in Plymouth but a single ship-of-the-line, and that detained by sickness among the crew,—"a circumstance scarcely ever remembered before." 256 Despite this accumulation of force, it was not till June 1 that Bridport detached to the southward sixteen sail-of-the-line, 257 of which twelve went on to the Mediterranean.

On the morning of the 3d of May Admiral Keith, off Cadiz, was joined by a British frigate chased the day before by Bruix's fleet, of which she had lost sight only at 4 P. M. The next morning the French appeared, twenty-four ships to the British fifteen, which were to leeward of their enemy. The wind, that had been blowing fresh from north-west since the day before, rapidly increased to a whole gale, so that though there were nineteen Spanish ships in Cadiz and twenty-four French outside, the British remained safe; and not only so, but by making it impossible for the French to enter without an engagement, prevented this first attempt at a junction. "Lord Keith," wrote St. Vincent, "has shown great manhood and ability, his position having been very critical, exposed to a hard gale of wind, blowing directly on shore, with an enemy of superior force to windward, and twenty-two ships-of-the-line in Cadiz ready to profit by any disaster that might have befallen him." 258 Bruix, who knew that his captains, long confined to port by the policy of their government, were not able to perform fleet manœuvres in ordinary weather, dared not attack on a lee shore with a wind that would tax all the abilities of experienced seamen. 259 He therefore kept away again to the south-east, determining to lose no time, but at once to enter the Mediterranean; and the following day Lord St. Vincent, gazing from the rock of Gibraltar through the thick haze that spread over the Straits, saw, running before the gale, a number of heavy ships which, from dispatches received the day before, he knew must be French.

The situations of the vessels in his extensive command, as present that morning to the mind of the aged earl, must be realized by the reader if he would enter into the embarrassment and anxiety of the British commander-in-chief, or appreciate the military significance of Bruix's appearance, with a large concentrated force, in the midst of dispositions taken without reference to such a contingency. The fifteen ships off Cadiz, with one then lying at Tetuan, on the Morocco side of the Straits, where the Cadiz ships went for water, were the only force upon which St. Vincent could at once depend, and if they were called off the Spanish fleet was released. At Minorca, as yet imperfectly garrisoned, 260 was an isolated body of four ships under Commodore Duckworth. Lord Nelson's command in the central Mediterranean was disseminated, and the detachments, though not far out of supporting distance, were liable to be separately surprised. Troubridge with four vessels was blockading Naples, now in possession of the French, and at the same time co-operating with the resistance made to the foreign intruders by the peasantry under Cardinal Ruffo. Nelson himself, with one ship, was at Palermo, and the faint-hearted court and people were crying that if he left them the island was lost. Captain Ball, with three of the line, blockaded Malta, the only hope of subduing which seemed to be by rigorous isolation. Far to the eastward, up the Mediterranean, without a friendly port in which to shelter, Sidney Smith with two ships, unsuspicious of danger from the sea, was then drawing to an end the defence of Acre.

Each of these British divisions lay open to the immensely superior force which Bruix brought. Not only so, but the duties of an important nature to which each of them was assigned were threatened with frustration. So large a fleet as that of Bruix might, and according to the usual French practice probably would, have numerous troops embarked. 261 No amount of skill could rescue Troubridge's division from such a disproportion of force, and with it would fall the resistance of Naples. Only flight could save the ships off Malta, and St. Vincent saw the blockade raised, the garrison re-enforced and re-victualled; as within his own memory had so often been done for Gibraltar, in its famous siege not twenty years before. Duckworth's little squadron could not prevent the landing of an army which would sweep Minorca again into the hands of Spain, and the British commodore might consider himself fortunate if, in so difficult a dilemma, he extricated his ships from a harbor always hard to leave. 262 Spain also had in Cartagena and Majorca a number of soldiers that could be rapidly thrown into Minorca under cover of such a fleet.

The British admiral instantly decided to sacrifice all other objects to the concentration of his fleet in such a position as should prevent the junction of the French and Spaniards; against which the presence off Cadiz of Keith's squadron, though inferior in numbers to either, had so far effectually interposed. He at once sent off dispatches to all his lieutenants; but the westerly gales that were driving Bruix to his goal made it impossible to get ship or boat to Keith. This admiral was only reached by an indulgence from the Spanish officials, between whom and the British an intercourse of courtesy was steadily maintained. These granted to Admiral Coffin, who had been appointed to a post in Halifax, passports to proceed to Lisbon through Spain; and Coffin on the way contrived to get a boat sent off to Keith, with orders which brought him to Gibraltar on the 10th. To Nelson the earl wrote that he believed the enemy were bound to Malta and Alexandria; and that the Spaniards, whom he was forced to release from Cadiz, would descend upon Minorca. Nelson received this message on the 13th of May. The day before, a brig coming direct from the Atlantic without stopping at Gibraltar had notified him of the escape from Brest, and that the French had been seen steering south. On the strength of this he drew from Naples and Malta all the ships-of-the-line except one before each, directing a rendezvous off Port Mahon, where he would join Duckworth; but when St. Vincent's letter came, he called them all in, leaving only frigates on each station, and ordered the heavy vessels to meet him off the island of Maritimo, to intercept the French between Sicily and Africa. He also sent to Duckworth to ask his help; but the commodore declined until he could communicate with the commander-in-chief, from whom he had received orders to keep his division in readiness to join the main fleet when it appeared.

St. Vincent's position, in truth, was one of utter and dire perplexity. If the French and Spaniards got together, he would have forty-four enemy's vessels on his hands; against which, by sacrificing every other object, he could only gather thirty until re-enforced by the Channel fleet, upon whose remissness he could hardly fail to charge his false position. To lose Minorca and Sicily, to see Malta snatched from his fingers when ready to close upon it, the French position in Naples established, and that in Egypt so strengthened as to become impregnable to either attack or reduction by want, such were the obvious probable consequences of Bruix's coming. Besides these evident dangers, he very well knew from secret official information that the Spanish court were in constant dread of a popular insurrection, which would give the French a pretext for entering the peninsula,—not, as in 1808, to impose a foreign king upon an unwilling nation, but to promote a change in the government which the distress of the people, though usually loyal, would probably welcome. In March he had received a communication from the Spanish prime minister, asking that a British frigate might be detailed to bring remittances from the Spanish colonies to Gibraltar, to be afterwards conveyed into Spain. The reason given for making this request of an enemy was that the want of specie, and consequent delay in public payments, especially to the soldiery, made revolution imminent. St. Vincent recommended his government to comply, because of the danger, in case of disturbances, that both Spain and Portugal might fall under subjection to France. 263