THE
INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER
UPON THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE
1793-1812
BY
CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN, U.S.N.
PRESIDENT UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE
AUTHOR OF "THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783"
OF "THE GULF AND INLAND WATERS," AND OF A
"LIFE OF ADMIRAL FARRAGUT"
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
FOURTH EDITION.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON.
(LIMITED.)
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS ON THE CONTINENT, 1798-1800.
DISORDERS OF FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY.—DISASTROUS WAR OF THE SECOND
COALITION.—ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULATE.—BONAPARTE OVERTHROWS
AUSTRIA AND FRAMES AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN THE ARMED NEUTRALITY OF
1800.—PEACE OF LUNÉVILLE WITH AUSTRIA.
PAGE
Hostilities of Naples against the French 1
Disastrous defeat of the Neapolitans 2
The French enter Naples 2
Piedmont annexed to France 2
Beginning of the war of the Second Coalition 3
Reverses of the French in Germany and Italy 3
Masséna falls back in Switzerland 4
Further French disasters in Italy 5
The French evacuate southern Italy 6
Battle of the Trebia won by Suwarrow 6
Loss of northern Italy by the French 7
The French defeated at the battle of Novi by Suwarrow 8
Change in the plans of the Coalition 8
Masséna defeats the allies at the battle of Zurich 9
Disastrous march of Suwarrow into Switzerland 9
Failure of the Anglo-Russian expedition against Holland 10
Loss of Bonaparte's conquests in Italy and of the Ionian Islands 10
Internal disorders of France 11
Bonaparte's return, and the revolution of Brumaire 18 15
Bonaparte's measures to restore order 15
His advances toward Great Britain and Austria to obtain peace 16
Reasons of the two governments for refusing 17
Prosperity of Great Britain 17
Russia abandons the coalition 19
Forces of France and Austria in 1800 19
Bonaparte's plan of campaign 20
Opening of the campaign in Italy 21
Masséna shut up in Genoa 21
Moreau's advance into Germany 21
Bonaparte crosses the Saint Bernard 22
Battle of Marengo, and armistice following it 23
Armistice in Germany 24
Diplomatic negotiations 25
Bonaparte's colonial and maritime anxieties 25
The Czar Paul I.'s hostility to Great Britain 26
Dispute between England and Denmark concerning neutral rights 26
Effect of this upon Bonaparte's plans 27
Policy of Russia and Prussia 28
Bonaparte undertakes to form a coalition against Great Britain 29
Factors in the question 29
Vacillations of Prussia 31
Bonaparte's advances to Russia 32
Hostile action of Paul I. toward Great Britain 33
His pretensions to Malta 33
Negotiations for a maritime truce 34
Their failure 35
Action of Prussia against Great Britain 35
Armed Neutrality of 1800 36
Its claims 37
Renewal of hostilities between Austria and France 38
Defeat of Austria at the battle of Hohenlinden 38
Peace of Lunéville 39
Terms of the treaty 40
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, ON THE COURSE OF THE
REVOLUTION.
Isolation of Great Britain in Europe, in 1801 41
Expedition to the Baltic planned 41
Instructions to Sir Hyde Parker, commander-in-chief 42
Nelson second in command 42
The fleet sails 42
Nelson's plan of operations 43
The military situation, strategic and tactical 44
Characteristics of Nelson's military genius 45
Denmark's relation to the league of the northern States 46
Half measures of Sir Hyde Parker 47
Nelson advances against Copenhagen 47
Battle of Copenhagen 48
Results of the battle 51
Nelson's negotiations with the Danish government 51
Armistice concluded with Denmark 51
Assassination of the Czar Paul I. 51
Merits of Nelson's conduct in the Baltic 52
British embargo upon merchant ships of the Baltic powers 53
Resulting retaliatory action of Prussia 54
Inherent weakness of the Northern League 55
Conciliatory action of the new Czar 55
Sir Hyde Parker relieved from command 56
Nelson takes the British fleet to Revel 56
His action rebuked by the Czar 57
Convention between Great Britain and Russia 57
Dissolution of the Armed Neutrality 57
Nature of the claims maintained by it 58
Bonaparte's proceedings in the Italian and Spanish peninsulas 59
Failure of his maritime projects for the relief of Malta and Egypt 60
His attempt to collect a naval force in Cadiz 63
Naval battle of Algesiras, and its consequences 64
Strategic significance of these events 65
Cession of Louisiana by Spain to France 67
Bonaparte's intended occupation of Portugal frustrated 67
His diplomatic dilemma in the summer of 1801 68
Coolness towards him of Russia and Prussia 69
Triumphant influence of the British Sea Power 69
Preliminaries of Peace between Great Britain and France 70
Terms of the preliminaries signed at London, October, 1801 71
Cessation of hostilities 72
Criticism of the terms by the British Opposition 72
Influence of Sea Power upon the course of the Revolution 74
Pitt's opinions 75
CHAPTER XIV.
OUTLINE OF EVENTS FROM THE SIGNATURE OF THE PRELIMINARIES
TO THE RUPTURE OF THE PEACE OF AMIENS.
Unstable character of the settlement of 1801 76
Treaties with Turkey and Portugal contracted secretly by France 77
Impression produced in Great Britain by these and by the cession
of Louisiana 78
Expedition sent to Haïti by Bonaparte 78
Delays in negotiating the definitive treaty 79
Bonaparte accepts the presidency of the Cisalpine Republic 80
Effect produced in Great Britain by this step 80
Signature of the Peace of Amiens, March 25, 1802 81
Provisions concerning Malta 81
Illusive effects caused by Bonaparte's system of secret treaties 82
Annihilation of the Sea Power of France 83
Bonaparte proclaimed First Consul for life 83
Action of Bonaparte in the German indemnities 84
Injury to Austria and annoyance of Great Britain 85
Bonaparte's reclamations against the British press 85
Piedmont and Elba formally incorporated with France 85
The Valais wrested from Switzerland for military reasons 86
Bonaparte's armed intervention in Switzerland, 1802 87
Emotion of Europe and remonstrance of Great Britain 88
The British ministry countermands restitution of captured
colonies 89
Bonaparte's wrath at the British remonstrance 89
Strained relations between the two States 90
Bonaparte demands the evacuation of Egypt and Malta 91
Attitude of the British ministry concerning Malta 91
Causes of the delay in evacuating it 92
Importance of Malta 92
Broad ground now taken by the ministry 93
Publication of Sébastiani's report, January, 1803 93
Its effect in Great Britain 94
Disasters of the French in Haïti 94
Bonaparte's preponderant interest in Malta and the East 95
High tone now assumed by the British ministry 96
Additional provocation given by Bonaparte 96
Ominous proceedings of the ministry 97
The British ultimatum 98
Great Britain declares war, May 16, 1803 98
Universal character of the strife thus renewed 98
Unanimity of feeling in Great Britain 99
Pitt's forecast of the nature of the struggle 100
CHAPTER XV.
THE TRAFALGAR CAMPAIGN TO THE SPANISH DECLARATION OF WAR.
MAY, 1803—DECEMBER, 1804.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE INVASION OF ENGLAND.—THE GREAT
FLOTILLA.—NAPOLEON'S MILITARY AND NAVAL COMBINATIONS,
AND BRITISH NAVAL STRATEGY.—ESSENTIAL UNITY OF NAPOLEON'S
PURPOSE.—CAUSES OF SPANISH WAR.
Preparations of the two States 101
Cession of Louisiana to the United States 104
Effect of the British Sea Power upon this measure 105
Resources of Great Britain and France as affected by their social
systems 105
Offensive and defensive gain to Great Britain by forcing the war 106
Inconvenience to Bonaparte from the premature outbreak 107
Exhaustion of France under the pressure of Sea Power 108
Bonaparte's resolution to invade Great Britain 109
Seizure by him of Hanover and of the Heel of Italy 109
Object of these measures 110
Offence and injury to Prussia by occupation of Hanover 110
French troops quartered on Holland, Hanover, and Naples 111
Bonaparte's plans for the invasion of England 111
His naval combinations to that end 112
Building of the great flotilla 113
Its points of concentration described 114
Difficulties of the undertaking 115
Certainty of Napoleon's purpose 116
Interesting character of this historical crisis 117
Strategic effect of the British blockading squadrons 118
Strategic dispositions in the British Channel 119
Security felt by British naval officers 120
St. Vincent's opposition to small gun-vessels 121
The Sea Fencibles 121
Deterioration of naval material under St. Vincent's
administration 122
Effects upon the Channel and Mediterranean ships 123
Embarrassment caused to Nelson 124
Bonaparte's naval combination hinges upon Nelson's perplexities 124
Details of his first plan 125
Merits of St. Vincent's general strategic dispositions 126
Nelson's uncertainties as to the French purposes 127
His certainty as to his own course 127
Embarrassment caused by the condition of his ships 128
Delays encountered by Napoleon 129
Death of the commander of the Toulon fleet 130
Villeneuve appointed to succeed him 130
Change of detail in Napoleon's naval combination 131
Significance of this new combination 132
War begins between Great Britain and Spain 133
Train of causes which led to this outbreak 133
Detention of the Spanish treasure-ships 137
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TRAFALGAR CAMPAIGN—CONCLUDED.
JANUARY—OCTOBER, 1805.
SUCCESSIVE MODIFICATIONS OF NAPOLEON'S PLAN.—NARRATIVE OF NAVAL
MOVEMENTS.—FINAL FAILURE OF NAPOLEON'S NAVAL COMBINATIONS.—WAR
WITH AUSTRIA, AND BATTLE OF AUSTERLITZ.—BATTLE OF
TRAFALGAR.—VITAL CHANGE IMPOSED UPON NAPOLEON'S POLICY BY THE
RESULT OF THE NAVAL CAMPAIGN.
Napoleon has direction of both Spanish and French fleets 140
His lack of familiarity with maritime difficulties 141
Instructions to the Rochefort and Toulon admirals 142
The Rochefort squadron puts to sea 142
Delay, and final departure, of the Toulon fleet 143
Nelson's movements 143
He takes his fleet to Alexandria 144
The Toulon ships being crippled in a gale, Villeneuve returns to
Toulon 144
Napoleon's plans again modified by this delay 146
Stations of the British and Allied fleets in March, 1805 147
Napoleon's new instructions to his admirals 149
Return of Nelson to Toulon, and his subsequent movements 150
Second Sailing of Villeneuve 151
Joined by a Spanish division at Cadiz, and reaches Martinique 151
Nelson's uncertainties and head winds 152
He reaches Gibraltar, and follows Villeneuve to West Indies 152
Napoleon goes to Italy 153
His naval measures and surmises 154
Nelson's sound strategy and sagacity 156
Miscalculations of Napoleon 157
The measures of the British Admiralty 159
Nelson in the West Indies 161
Divergent directions taken by the hostile fleets 161
Villeneuve returns to Europe 162
Nelson penetrates his intention and sails in pursuit 163
Napoleon sends to Ferrol instructions for Villeneuve 164
Napoleon's efforts to distract the British navy 165
The British resist the diversions raised for them 166
Villeneuve sighted at sea by a dispatch ship from Nelson 167
The news brought to London 168
Energetic and skilful measures of the Admiralty 168
Villeneuve intercepted by Calder off Cape Finisterre 169
Nelson reaches Gibraltar 169
Napoleon misled by the rapidity of the British action 170
Napoleon goes to Boulogne to await Villeneuve 171
The engagement between Calder and Villeneuve 171
Subsequent mistakes of the British admiral 172
Villeneuve puts into Vigo, and reaches Coruña 173
Calder joins Cornwallis off Brest 174
Nelson also joins Cornwallis from Gibraltar 174
Strategic advantage now in the hands of the British 175
Cornwallis divides his fleet and destroys his advantage 176
Imminent hostilities on the Continent 176
The Third Coalition formed 177
Urgent orders from Napoleon to Villeneuve 178
Napoleon's decision as to his own movements 179
Villeneuve sails from Coruña for Brest 179
He abandons his purpose and enters Cadiz 180
The allied fleets blockaded in Cadiz by Collingwood 181
Napoleon's campaign of 1805 in Germany 181
Battle of Austerlitz and peace of Presburg 182
Fate of the great flotilla 182
Discussion of the chances of Napoleon's project of invasion 182
Necessity of making the attempt 184
Napoleon's orders to Villeneuve in Cadiz 185
Nelson takes command off Cadiz 186
The combined fleets put to sea 187
Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar discussed 188
Battle of Trafalgar 190
Death of Nelson 192
Nautical disasters succeeding the battle 194
Immediate results of the battle 195
Subsequent fate of the French ships in Cadiz 195
Momentous consequences flowing from the battle of Trafalgar 196
Commerce-destroying henceforth the sole resource of Napoleon 197
CHAPTER XVII.
THE WARFARE AGAINST COMMERCE DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
AND EMPIRE, TO THE BERLIN DECREE. 1793-1806.
Characteristics of the Warfare against Commerce 199
Measures of France and of Great Britain 200
Conduct of Napoleon and of the ministry contrasted 201
Identity of the methods of the Republic and of the Emperor 202
Primary measures of the belligerents 203
Twofold system of Great Britain for the protection of trade 204
Seamen a part of the military strength of a nation 205
The British Convoy Act 205
Results to France of her dependence upon commerce-destroying 206
Activity of French cruisers 207
Amount and distribution of British trade 207
Character of French Channel privateers 208
Indifferent efficiency of many British cruisers 210
French privateering in the Atlantic 210
French privateering in the West Indies 211
Its piratical character, arising from remoteness from Europe 213
Size and force of British East India ships 214
Consequent character of French privateering in Indian seas 215
Efficient protection of British trade in India 216
Advantages of the convoy system 217
Destruction of French commerce by British control of the sea 218
Numbers of British captures 219
The French flag swept from the sea 219
Annihilation of French commerce except the coasting trade 220
Discussion of the number and value of British vessels captured 221
Deductions as to the losses of Great Britain 226
Swelling prosperity of the country 227
Support to British trade contributed by neutral shipping 228
Conclusions thence drawn by the French government 230
Effect of the appearance of the United States as neutral carriers 231
Rapid increase of American merchant shipping 232
Other neutral carriers 233
Attitude taken by Russia in 1793 233
Severe restrictions on neutrals imposed by Great Britain 234
Rule of 1756 234
Seizures of American ships in West Indies, 1793 236
Jay's Mission to Great Britain, 1794 237
Terms of treaty concluded by him 238
Indignation of French government 239
Effect of Jay's treaty upon American relations with Great
Britain 240
Gradual shaping of British commercial war policy 242
Vacillating action of French government towards neutrals 242
France breaks off relations with the United States 244
French aggressions upon neutrals after 1796 244
Embargo upon American vessels in 1793 246
Growing exasperation between France and the United States 246
Effect of Bonaparte's successes upon French foreign policy 247
Early attempts to stifle British trade 248
Determination to arrest neutral trade with Great Britain 249
Law of January 18, 1798 250
Modification of channels of British trade caused by the war 250
Policy of Pitt in seeking to dominate the Caribbean Sea 252
Carriage of tropical produce by neutrals 253
Course of trade in Europe, 1793-1798 254
Effects of the law of January 18, 1798 254
Discussion in the Conseil des Anciens, January, 1799 255
Measures of the United States caused by the law of January 18 258
_Quasi_ war of 1798 with France 258
French reverses in 1799 259
French successes in 1800 260
Questions involved in the Armed Neutrality of 1800 260
Opinions of Pitt and of Fox on the disputed points 261
British conventions with the neutral Baltic States, 1801 261
Concession of the Rule of 1756 by Russia 262
Lessons as to belligerent interest in neutral trade, afforded by
the war between Great Britain and France, 1793-1801 262
Further lesson afforded by the short peace of Amiens, 1801-1803 265
Renewal of war, May, 1803 265
Bonaparte's measures against British trade, 1803-1805 265
Threatened injury to British commerce by neutral carriers 266
Extent of American trade with colonies of enemies to Great
Britain 267
Pitt's commercial measures upon resuming power in 1804 267
Methods of American trade between belligerent countries and
their colonies 268
Condemnation of American ships in British prize courts, 1804 269
Death of Pitt. Fox becomes Foreign Minister, 1806 269
Fox's desire to conciliate the United States 269
Order in Council of May 16, 1806, substituted for Rule of 1756 269
Character of the blockade of French coast thus imposed 270
Intention of the new measure, and its consequences 270
Death of Fox, September, 1806 270
War between France and Prussia 270
Napoleon enters Berlin and issues the Berlin Decree 271
Object of the decree 271
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE WARFARE AGAINST COMMERCE, 1806-1812.
THE BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES OF NAPOLEON, 1806 AND 1807.—THE
BRITISH ORDERS IN COUNCIL, 1807-1809.—ANALYSIS OF THE POLICY
OF THESE MEASURES OF THE TWO BELLIGERENTS.—OUTLINE OF
CONTEMPORARY LEADING EVENTS.
Object of, and pretext for, the Berlin Decree 272
Terms of the Decree 272
Napoleon's winter campaign against Russia, 1806-1807 273
The Decree remains inoperative 274
Battle of Friedland and conventions of Tilsit, June-July, 1807 274
British retaliatory Order in Council, January, 1807 275
Its terms and object 275
Effect upon American traders 276
Napoleon's designs upon Denmark and Portugal 276
Prompt action of the British ministry 277
Portuguese court withdraws to Brazil 277
General exclusion of British goods from the Continent 278
Attitude of Napoleon towards the United States 279
Nature of the questions confronting Napoleon 280
Jealousy of Great Britain towards neutral trade 281
Momentous decision of Napoleon as to the scope of the Berlin
Decree 281
Effect of this decision in Great Britain 282
Embargo Act of the United States, 1807 282
Succeeded by Non-Intercourse Act, 1809 283
British Orders in Council of November, 1807 283
Object of these orders 285
Summary of their requirements 286
Their effect upon neutrals 287
The effect upon the continental nations 288
Essential features of the opposing British and French policies 289
Napoleon's Milan Decree 290
Duration of the two policies 291
Napoleon's usurpation in Spain 291
The Bayonne and Rambouillet Decrees 292
The Spanish revolt and French disasters 292
Battle of Vimiero and French evacuation of Portugal 292
Conventions of Erfurt and war between Russia and Sweden 293
The British navy in the Baltic 294
Letter of Napoleon and the Czar to the King of Great Britain 294
Napoleon in the Spanish Peninsula 295
Diversion made by Sir John Moore 296
Opening of the year 1809 296
Austria's preparations for war 297
State of the commercial warfare in 1809 298
Evasion of Napoleon's decrees by the Dutch 299
Consequent measures of Napoleon 300
Passive resistance of the Continent to the decrees 301
British seizure of Heligoland 302
Conditions in the Baltic 303
General conditions of British trade, 1806-1809 304
The License System 307
Origin of "neutralization" 309
Its effect upon the action of British cruisers 310
Workings of the License System 311
British Order in Council of April, 1809 313
War between Austria and France 314
Wellesley's operations in the Peninsula 315
Battles of Essling and Wagram 316
Sweden forced to join in the Continental System 316
Napoleon's urgent attempts to enforce the System 317
Conditions in the Peninsula 318
Northern Germany occupied by French troops 319
Holland united to the Empire 321
Napoleon's demands upon Prussia and Sweden 322
Extensive seizure of ships with British goods 323
Napoleon's Customs Decree of August 5, 1810 324
Universal application of this decree 325
Napoleon's fiscal measures and license system 326
Decree of October 19, 1810, to burn British manufactured goods 327
Uneasiness of Russia 329
Napoleon's annexation of Oldenburg and the Hanse towns 330
Commercial distress in Great Britain 331
Embarrassment and suffering in France 333
Napoleon's financial expedients 337
Credit of France and of Great Britain 338
Internal condition of France and of England 340
The conscription in France 342
Exhaustion of the two nations 343
Difficulties between France and Russia 344
Admiral Saumarez in the Baltic 346
Understanding between Sweden, Russia, and Great Britain 347
Affairs in the Spanish Peninsula 348
Fall of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz 349
Discontent and misery in France 350
Russian treaties with Sweden and Turkey 350
Napoleon invades Russia 351
Revocation of the British Orders in Council 351
The United States declare war against Great Britain 351
Analysis of the British and French measures 351
CHAPTER XIX.
SUMMARY.—THE FUNCTION OF SEA POWER AND THE POLICY OF GREAT
BRITAIN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY AND NAPOLEONIC WARS.
Great Britain's unpreparedness for war in 1792 358
Spirit and aims of the French leaders 359
Decree of the National Convention, November 19, 1792 361
Significance of this step 362
Annexation of Belgium, and opening of the Scheldt 362
Interest of Great Britain in the Netherlands 363
British preparations for war 363
Consistency of Pitt's course 364
Convention's decree of December 15, 1792 367
Aggressive spirit of the French Revolution 368
Misconception of its strength by European statesmen 370
Conservative temper of the British nation 371
Irrepressible conflict between the two forces 372
Twofold aspect of Sea Power 372
Origin and character of the British Sea Power 373
Annihilation of French, Dutch, and Spanish navigation 375
Consequent opportunities for neutral carriers 376
Restrictions imposed upon these by Great Britain 377
Rise of prices on the continent of Europe 377
Great Britain becomes the depot for supplying the Continent 378
Direct and indirect effects upon British prosperity 380
Strength of Great Britain dependent upon Sea Power 381
Use of Sea Power made by the ministry 382
"Security" the avowed object of the war 383
The war, therefore, avowedly defensive 384
British treaty obligations to Holland 384
Relation of Great Britain to the general struggle 385
Two resources arising from Sea Power 386
Great land operations inexpedient for Great Britain 386
Characteristics of the Seven Years' War 387
Contrasts between the elder and the younger Pitt 387
Pitt's war policy not simply a military question 391
General direction given by him to the national effort 392
Justification of his colonial enterprises 393
Unprecedented naval development and commercial prosperity
secured by him 394
Importance of these results 394
Exhaustion of France caused by Pitt's measures 395
Bonaparte's opinion as to the influence of Sea Power 396
Ruinous results to France of the measures to destroy British
commerce 396
Napoleon forced to these steps by Pitt's policy 397
Identity of spirit in the Republic and in Napoleon 398
France forced into the battle-field of Great Britain's choosing 400
Strain of the Continental System upon Europe 401
Revolt from it of Spain and Russia 401
Effect of these movements 402
Napoleon submits to divide his forces 402
General correctness of Pitt's war policy 402
The criticisms on the campaign of 1793 considered 403
Peculiar character of the Revolutionary War 403
Dependence of statesmen upon military advice 404
Peculiar merit of Pitt 404
His death 405
His policy pursued by his successors 405
Exhaustion the only check upon a great national movement 406
France revived by Bonaparte in 1796 and 1799 407
He unites the nation in a renewed forward movement 407
Bonaparte the incarnation of the Revolution 408
Combination of powers in Napoleon's hands 408
His career dependent upon the staying power of France 408
Effect of Great Britain upon French endurance 409
Function of Great Britain in the Napoleonic wars 411
Accuracy of Pitt's forecast 411
Result postponed only by Bonaparte's genius 411
INDEX 413
NOTE.—The references to the "Correspondance de Napoléon" are to the
quarto edition, in thirty-two volumes, published in Paris between 1858
and 1869.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME II.
MAP AND BATTLE PLANS.
PAGE
I. Battle of Copenhagen 44
II. Map of North Atlantic 117
III. The Attack at Trafalgar 190
THE
INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER
UPON THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE.
CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS ON THE CONTINENT, 1798-1800.
DISORDERS OF FRANCE UNDER THE DIRECTORY.—DISASTROUS WAR OF THE SECOND
COALITION.—ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CONSULATE.—BONAPARTE OVERTHROWS AUSTRIA
AND FRAMES AGAINST GREAT BRITAIN THE ARMED NEUTRALITY OF 1800.—PEACE OF
LUNÉVILLE WITH AUSTRIA.
While Bonaparte was crossing the Syrian desert and chafing over the
siege of Acre, the long gathering storm of war known as the Second
Coalition had broken upon France. It had been preceded by a premature
outburst of hostility on the part of the Two Sicilies, induced by the
excitement consequent upon the battle of the Nile and fostered by
Nelson;[1] who, however influenced, was largely responsible for the
action of the court. Despite the advice of Austria to wait, a summons
was sent to the French on the 22d of November, 1798, to evacuate
the Papal States and Malta. A Neapolitan army of fifty thousand men
marched upon Rome; and five thousand were carried by Nelson's ships to
Leghorn with the idea of harassing the confidently-expected retreat
of the enemy.[2] Leghorn was at once surrendered; but in the south
the campaign ended in utter disaster. The French general Championnet,
having but fifteen thousand men, evacuated Rome, which the Neapolitans
consequently entered without opposition; but their field operations met
with a series of humiliating reverses, due partly to bad generalship
and partly to inexperience and the lack of mutual confidence often
found among untried troops. The French re-entered Rome seventeen days
after the campaign opened; and the king of Naples, who had made a
triumphal entry into the city, hurried back to his capital, called upon
the people to rise in defence of their homes against the invaders, and
then fled with the royal family to Palermo, Nelson giving them and
the Hamiltons passage on board his flag-ship. The peasantry and the
populace flew to arms, in obedience to the king's proclamation and to
their own feelings of hatred to the republicans. Under the guidance
of the priests and monks, with hardy but undisciplined fury, they in
the field harassed the advance of the French, and in the capital rose
against the upper classes, who were suspected of secret intelligence
with the enemy. Championnet, however, continued to advance; and on
the 23d of January, 1799, Naples was stormed by his troops. After the
occupation, a series of judicious concessions to the prejudices of the
people induced their cheerful submission. The conquest was followed
by the birth to the Batavian, Helvetian, Ligurian, Cisalpine, and
Roman republics, of a little sister, named the Parthenopeian Republic,
destined to a troubled existence as short as its name was long.
The Neapolitan declaration of war caused the ruin of the Piedmontese
monarchy. The Directory, seeing that war with Austria was probable,
decided to occupy all Piedmont. The king abdicated on the 9th of
December, 1798; retiring to the island of Sardinia, which was left in
his possession. Piedmont was soon after annexed to the French Republic.
On the 20th of February, 1799, having failed to receive from the
emperor the explanations demanded concerning the entrance of the
Russian troops into his dominions, the Directory ordered its generals
to advance. Jourdan was to command in Germany, Masséna in Switzerland,
and Schérer in Italy. The armies of the republic, enfeebled by two
years of peace and by the economies of a government always embarrassed
for money and deficient in executive vigor, were everywhere inferior
to those of the enemy; and the plan of campaign, providing for several
operations out of reach of mutual support, has been regarded by
military critics as essentially vicious.
Jourdan crossed the Rhine at Strasburg on the first of March, advancing
through the Black Forest upon the head waters of the Danube. On the 6th
Masséna crossed the river above Lake Constance, and moved through the
Alps toward the Tyrol, driving the Austrians before him on his right
and centre; but on the left he entirely failed to carry the important
position of Feldkirch, upon which would depend the communication
between his left and the right of Jourdan, if the latter succeeded in
pushing on as ordered. This, however, he was unable to do. After some
severe partial encounters there was fought on March 25th, at Stokach,
near the north-west extremity of Lake Constance, a pitched battle in
which the French were defeated. Jourdan then saw that he had to do
with largely superior forces and retreated upon the Rhine, which he
recrossed above Strasburg on the 6th of April.
On the 26th of March, the day after the defeat of Jourdan at Stokach,
Schérer in Italy attacked the Austrians, who were occupying the line of
the Adige, rendered famous by Bonaparte in his great campaign of 1796.
The events of that day were upon the whole favorable to the French;
but Schérer showed irresolution and consequent delay in improving such
advantages as he had obtained. After a week of manœuvring the two
armies met in battle on the 5th of April near Magnano, and after a long
and bloody struggle the French were forced to give way. On the 6th,
the day that Jourdan retreated across the Rhine, Schérer also fell back
behind the Mincio. Not feeling secure there, although the Austrians did
not pursue, he threw garrisons into the posts on that line, and on the
12th retired behind the Adda; sending word to Macdonald, Championnet's
successor at Naples, to prepare to evacuate that kingdom and bring to
northern Italy the thirty thousand men now so sorely needed.
Jourdan having offered his resignation after the battle of Stokach,
the armies in Germany and in Switzerland were united under the command
of Masséna; whose long front, extending from the Engadine, around the
sources of the Inn, along the Rhine as low as Dusseldorf, was held by
but one hundred thousand men, of whom two-thirds were in Switzerland.
In the position which Switzerland occupies, thrust out to the eastward
from the frontiers of France, having on the one flank the fields of
Germany, on the other those of Italy, and approachable from both sides
by many passes, the difficulties of defence are great;[3] and Masséna
found himself menaced from both quarters, as well as in front, by
enemies whose aggregate force was far superior to his own. Pressed
along the line of the Rhine both above and below Lake Constance, he was
compelled to retire upon works constructed by him around Zurich; being
unable to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces, which approached
from both directions. On the 4th of June the Austrians assaulted his
lines; and, though the attack was repulsed, Masséna thought necessary
to evacuate the place forty-eight hours later, falling back upon a
position on the Albis mountains a few miles in his rear.
During the two months over which these contests between Masséna and his
enemies were spread, the affairs of the French in Italy were growing
daily more desperate. After the victory of Magnano the Austrians were
joined, on the 24th of April, by twenty thousand Russians under Marshal
Suwarrow, who became general-in-chief of the allied armies. On the 26th
Schérer turned over his command to Moreau; but, although the latter was
an officer of very great capacity, the change was too late to avoid
all the impending disasters. On the 27th the passage of the Adda was
forced by the allies, and on the 29th they entered Milan; the French
retiring upon the Ticino, breaking down the bridges over the Po, and
taking steps to secure their communications with Genoa. Pausing but a
moment, they again retreated in two columns upon Turin and Alessandria;
Moreau drawing together near the latter place the bulk of his force,
about twenty thousand men, and sending pressing invitations to
Macdonald to hasten the northward march of the army of Naples. The new
positions were taken the 7th of May, and it was not till the 5th that
the Austro-Russians, delayed by the destruction of the bridges, could
cross the Po. But the insurrection of the country in all directions was
showing how little the submission of the people and the establishment
of new republics were accompanied by any hearty fidelity to the French
cause; and on the 18th, leaving a garrison in Alessandria, Moreau
retreated upon the Apennines. On the 6th of June his troops were
distributed among the more important points on the crest of the range,
from Pontremoli, above Spezia, to Loano, and all his convoys had safely
crossed the mountains to the latter point. It was at this moment that
he had an interview with Admiral Bruix, whose fleet had anchored in
Vado Bay two days before.[4]
While events were thus passing in Upper Italy, Macdonald, in obedience
to his orders, evacuated Naples on the 7th of May, at the moment
when Moreau was taking his position on the Apennines and Bonaparte
making his last fruitless assault upon Acre. Leaving garrisons at the
principal strong places of the kingdom, he hurried north, and on the
25th entered Florence, where, though his junction with Moreau was far
from being effected, he was for the first time in sure communication
with him by courier. There were two routes that Macdonald might
take,—either by the sea-shore, which was impracticable for artillery,
or else, crossing the Apennines, he would find a better road in the
plain south of the Po, through Modena and Parma, and by it might join
the army of Italy under the walls of Tortona. The latter course was
chosen, and after a delay too much prolonged the army of Naples set
out on the 9th of June. All went well with it until the 17th, when,
having passed Modena and Parma, routing the allied detachments which he
encountered, Macdonald reached the Trebia. Here, however, he was met
by Suwarrow, and after three days' desperate fighting was forced to
retreat by the road he came, to his old positions on the other side of
the mountains. On the same day the citadel of Turin capitulated to the
allies. After pursuing Macdonald some distance, Suwarrow turned back
to meet Moreau, and compelled him also to retire to his former posts.
This disastrous attempt at a junction within the enemies' lines cost
the French fifteen thousand men. It now became necessary for the army
of Naples to get to Genoa at all costs by the Corniche road, and this
it was able to do through the inactivity of the enemy,—due, so Jomini
says, not to Suwarrow, but to the orders from Vienna. By the middle of
July both armies were united under Moreau. As a result of the necessary
abandonment of Naples by the French troops, the country fell at once
into the power of the armed peasantry, except the garrisons left in a
few strong places; and these, by the help of the British navy, were
also reduced by the 1st of August.
This striking practical illustration of the justness of Bonaparte's
views, concerning the danger incurred by the French in Upper Italy
through attempting to occupy Naples, was followed by further disasters.
On the 21st of July the citadel of Alessandria capitulated; and this
loss was followed on the 30th by that of Mantua, which had caused
Bonaparte so much delay and trouble in 1796. The latter success
was somewhat dearly bought, inasmuch as the emperor of Germany had
positively forbidden Suwarrow to make any further advance before
Mantua fell.[5] Opportunity was thus given for the junction of Moreau
and Macdonald, and for the reorganization of the latter's army, which
the affairs of the Trebia and the subsequent precipitate retreat had
left in a state of prostration and incoherence, from which it did not
recover for a month. The delay would have been still more favorable to
the French had Mantua resisted to the last moment; but it capitulated
at a time when it could still have held out for several days, and
Suwarrow was thus enabled to bring up the besieging corps to his
support, unknown to the enemy.
Meanwhile Moreau had been relieved by Joubert, one of the most
brilliant of the young generals who had fought under Bonaparte in
Italy. The newcomer, reaching his headquarters on the 2d of August,
at once determined upon the offensive, moved thereto by the wish to
relieve Mantua, and also by the difficulty of feeding his army in the
sterile mountains now that ruin had befallen the coastwise traffic of
Genoa, by which supplies had before been maintained.[6] On the 10th
of August the French advanced. On the 14th they were in position at
Novi; and there Joubert saw, but too late, that Suwarrow's army was
far larger than he had expected, and that the rumor of Mantua's fall,
which he had refused to credit, must be true. He intended to retreat;
but the Russian marshal attacked the next morning, and after a fierce
struggle, which the strength of their position enabled the French to
prolong till night, they were driven from the field with heavy loss,
four general officers and thirty-seven guns being captured. Joubert
was killed early in the day; and Moreau, who had remained to aid him
until familiar with all the details of his command, again took the
temporary direction of the army by the agreement of the other generals.
Immediately after the battle Suwarrow sent into the late Papal States
a division which, co-operating with the Neapolitan royalists and the
British navy, forced the French to evacuate the new Roman republic on
the 27th of September, 1799.
At this moment of success new dispositions were taken by the allied
governments, apparently through the initiative of Austria; which
wished, by removing Suwarrow, to keep entire control of Italy in her
own hands. This change of plan, made at so critical a moment, stopped
the hitherto triumphant progress; and, by allowing time for Bonaparte
to arrive and to act, turned victory into defeat. By it Suwarrow was to
march across the Alps into Switzerland, and there take charge of the
campaign against Masséna, having under him an army composed mainly of
Russians. The Archduke Charles, now commanding in Switzerland, was to
depart with the greater part of the Austrian contingent to the lower
Rhine, where he would by his operations support the invasion of Holland
then about to begin.
On the 13th of August,—the same day that Bruix entered Brest, carrying
with him the Spanish fleet, and two days before the battle of Novi,—the
expedition against Holland, composed of seventeen thousand Russians
and thirty thousand British troops, sailed from England. Delayed first
by light winds and then by heavy weather, the landing was not made
till the 27th of the month. On the 31st the Archduke, taking with him
thirty-six thousand Austrians, started for the lower Rhine, leaving
General Hotze and the Russian Korsakoff to make head against Masséna
until the arrival of Suwarrow. The latter, on the 11th of September,
immediately after the surrender of Tortona, began his northward march.
At the moment the Archduke assumed his new command, the French on the
lower Rhine, crossing at Mannheim, invested and bombarded Philipsburg;
and their operations seemed so far serious as to draw him and a large
part of his force in the same direction. This greatly diminished one
of the difficulties confronting Masséna in the offensive movement he
then had in contemplation. Hearing at the same time that Suwarrow had
started from Italy, he made his principal attack from his left upon
the Russians before Zurich on the 25th of September, the right wing of
his long line advancing in concert against the Austrian position east
of Lake Zurich upon its inlet, the Linth. Each effort was completely
successful, and decisive; the enemy being in both directions driven
back, and forced to recross the streams above and below the lake.
Suwarrow, after a very painful march and hard fighting, reached his
first appointed rendezvous at Mutten two days after the battle of
Zurich had been lost; and the corps that were to have met him there,
fearing their retreat would be cut off, had not awaited his arrival.
The old marshal with great difficulty fought his way through the
mountains to Ilanz, where at length he assembled his exhausted and
shattered forces on the 9th of October, the day on which Bonaparte
landed at Fréjus on his return from Egypt. By that time Switzerland
was entirely cleared of Russians and Austrians. The river Rhine, both
above and below Lake Constance, marked the dividing line between the
belligerents.
The Anglo-Russian attack upon Holland had no better fate. Landing upon
the peninsula between the Zuyder Zee and the North Sea, the allies were
for awhile successful; but their movements were cautious and slow,
giving time for the local resistance to grow and for re-enforcements to
come up. The remnants of the Dutch navy were surrendered and taken back
to England; but the Duke of York, who had chief command of the allied
troops, was compelled on the 18th of October to sign a convention, by
which the invading force was permitted to retire unmolested by the
first of December.
During the three remaining months of 1799 some further encounters took
place in Germany and Italy. In the latter the result was a succession
of disasters to the French, ending with the capitulation, on the 4th
of December, of Coni, their last remaining stronghold in Piedmont,
and the retreat of the army into the Riviera of Genoa. Corfu and the
Ionian Islands having been reduced by the combined Russian and Turkish
fleets in the previous March, and Ancona surrendered on the 10th of
November, all Bonaparte's conquests in Italy and the Adriatic had been
lost to France when the Directory fell. The brave soldiers of the army
of Italy, destitute and starving, without food, without pay, without
clothing or shoes, without even wood for camp-fires in the bitter
winter nights on the slopes of the Apennines, deserted in crowds and
made their way to the interior. In some regiments none but officers
and non-commissioned officers were left. An epidemic born of want and
exposure carried off men by hundreds. Championnet, overwhelmed by his
misfortunes and by the sight of the misery surrounding him, fell ill
and died. Bonaparte, now First Consul, sent Masséna to replace him.
In Germany nothing decisive occurred in the field; but in consequence
of some disagreements of opinion between himself and the Archduke,
Suwarrow declined further co-operation, and, alleging the absolute
need of rest for his soldiers after their frightful exposure in
Switzerland, marched them at the end of October into winter quarters
in Bavaria. This closed the share of the Russians in the second
coalition. The Czar, who had embarked in the war with the idea of
restoring the rights of monarchs and the thrones that had been
overturned, was dissatisfied both with the policy of Austria, which
looked to her own predominance in Italy, and with Great Britain.
A twelvemonth more was to see him at the head of a league of the
northern states against the maritime claims of the great Sea Power,
and completely won over to the friendship of Bonaparte by the military
genius and wily flattery of the renowned captain.
During this disastrous year, in which France lost all Italy except the
narrow strip of sea-coast about Genoa, and after months of desperate
struggle had barely held her own in Switzerland, Germany, and Holland,
the internal state of the country was deplorable. The Revolutionary
government by the Committee of Public Safety had contrived, by the
use of the extraordinary powers granted to it, to meet with greater
or less success the demands of the passing hour; although in so doing
it was continually accumulating embarrassments against a future day
of reckoning. The Directory, deprived of the extraordinary powers of
its predecessor, had succeeded to these embarrassments, and the day of
reckoning had arrived. It has been seen how the reactionary spirit,
which followed the rule of blood, had prevailed more and more until,
in 1797, the political composition of the two Councils was so affected
by it as to produce a strong conflict between them and the executive.
This dead-lock had been overcome and harmony restored by the violent
measures of September, 1797, by which two Directors and a number of
members of the legislature had been forcibly expelled from their
office. The parties, of two very different shades of opinion, to which
the ejected members belonged, had not, however, ceased to exist. In
1798, in the yearly elections to replace one-third of the legislature,
they again returned a body of representatives sufficient to put the
Councils in opposition to the Directory; but this year the choice of
the electors was baffled by a system of double returns. The sitting
Councils, of the same political party as the Directory, pronounced upon
these, taking care in so doing to insure that the majority in the new
bodies should be the same as in the old. In May, 1799, however, the
same circumstance again recurred. The fact is particularly interesting,
as showing the opposition which was felt toward the government
throughout the country.
This opposition was due to a cause which rarely fails to make
governments unpopular. The Directory had been unsuccessful. It was
called upon to pay the bills due to the public expectation of better
things when once the war was over. This it was not able to do. Though
peace had been made with the continent, there remained so many matters
of doubt and contention that large armies had to be maintained. The
expenses of the state went on, but the impoverished nation cried
out against the heavy taxation laid to meet them; the revenues
continually fell short of the expenditures, and the measures proposed
by the ministers to remedy this evil excited vehement criticisms.
The unpopularity of the government, arising from inefficient action,
reacted upon and increased the weakness which was inherent in its
cumbrous, many-headed form. Hence there resulted, from the debility of
the head, an impotence which permeated all the links of the executive
administration down to the lowest members.
In France itself the disorder and anarchy prevailing in the interior
touched the verge of social dissolution.[7] Throughout the country,
but especially in the south and west, prevailed brigandage on a large
scale—partly political, partly of the ordinary highway type. There
were constant reports of diligences and mail-wagons stopped,[8] of
public treasure plundered, of republican magistrates assassinated.
Disorganization and robbery spread throughout the army, a natural
result of small pay, irregularly received, and of the system of
contributions, administered with little responsibility by the
commanders of armies in the field. The attempt of the government to
check and control this abuse was violently resented by generals, both
of the better and the worse class; by the one as reflecting upon their
character and injuring their position, by the other as depriving them
of accustomed though unlawful gains. Two men of unblemished repute,
Joubert and Championnet, came to a direct issue with the Directory
upon this point. Joubert resigned the command of the army of Italy, in
which Bernadotte from the same motive refused to replace him; while
Championnet, in Naples, compelled the commissioner of the Directory to
leave the kingdom. For this act, however, he was deprived and brought
to a court-martial.
From the weakness pervading the administration and from the inadequate
returns of the revenue, the government was driven to extraordinary
measures and to the anticipation of its income. Greater and more
onerous taxes were laid; and, as the product of these was not
immediate, purchases had to be made at long and uncertain credit, and
consequently were exorbitant in price while deficient in quantity and
quality. From this arose much suffering among all government employés,
but especially among the soldiers, who needed the first attention, and
whose distress led them easily to side with their officers against
the administration. Contracts so made only staved off the evil day,
at the price of increasing indebtedness for the state and of growing
corruption among the contractor class and the officials dealing with
them. Embarrassment and disorder consequently increased apace without
any proportionate vigor in the external action of the government, and
the effects were distributed among and keenly felt by all individuals,
except the small number whose ability or whose corruptness enables
them to grow rich when, and as, society becomes most distressed. The
creditors of the nation, and especially the holders of bonds, could
with difficulty obtain even partial payment. In the general distrust
and perplexity individuals and communities took to hoarding both money
and food, moved by the dangers of transit and by fear of the scarcity
which they saw to be impending. This stagnation of internal circulation
was accompanied by the entire destruction of maritime commerce, due to
the pressure of the British navy and to the insane decree of Nivôse 29
(January 19, 1798).[9] Both concurred to paralyze the energies of the
people, to foster indolence and penury, and by sheer want to induce a
state of violence with which the executive was unable to cope.
When to this internal distress were added the military disasters just
related, the outcry became loud and universal. All parties united
against the Directors, who did not dare in 1799 to repeat the methods
by which in the two previous years a majority had been obtained in the
legislature. On the 18th of June the new Councils were able to force
a change in the composition of the Directory, further enfeebling it
through the personal weakness of the new members. These hastened to
reverse many of the measures of their predecessors, but no change of
policy could restore the lost prestige. The effect of these steps was
only further to depress that branch of the government which, in so
critical a moment and in so disordered a society, should overbear all
others and save the state—not by discussion, but by action.
Such was the condition of affairs found by Bonaparte when he returned
from Egypt. The revolution of Brumaire 18 (November 9, 1799) threw
into his hands uncontrolled power. This he proceeded at once to use
with the sagacity and vigor that rarely failed him in his early
prime. The administration of the country was reconstituted on lines
which sacrificed local independence, but invigorated the grasp of
the central executive, and made its will felt in every corner of the
land. Vexatious measures of the preceding government were repealed,
and for them was substituted a policy of liberal conciliation,
intended to rally all classes of Frenchmen to the support of the new
rule. In the West and North, in La Vendée, Brittany, and Normandy,
the insurrection once suppressed by Hoche had again raised its head
against the Directory. To the insurgents Bonaparte offered reasonable
inducements to submission, while asserting his firm determination
to restore authority at any cost; and the rapid gathering of sixty
thousand troops in the rebellious districts proved his resolution to
use for that purpose a force so overwhelming, that the completion of
its task would release it by the return of spring, to take the field
against external foes. Before the end of February the risings were
suppressed, and this time forever. Immediate steps were taken to put
the finances on a sounder basis, and to repair the military disasters
of the last twelvemonth. To the two principal armies, of the Rhine and
of Italy, were sent respectively Moreau and Masséna, the two greatest
generals of the republic after Bonaparte himself; and money advanced by
Parisian bankers was forwarded to relieve the more pressing wants of
the destitute soldiery.
At the same time that these means were used to recover France herself
from the condition of debility into which she had fallen, the first
consul made a move calculated either to gain for her the time she yet
needed, or, in case it failed, to rally to his support all classes in
the state. Departing from the usual diplomatic routine, he addressed
a personal letter to the king of Great Britain and to the emperor
of Germany, deploring the existing war, and expressing a wish that
negotiations for peace might be opened. The reply from both sovereigns
came through the ordinary channels of their respective ministries.
Austria said civilly that she could not negotiate apart from her
allies; and furthermore, that the war being only to preserve Europe
from universal disorder, due to the unstable and aggressive character
of the French governments since the Revolution, no stable peace could
be made until there was some guarantee for a change of policy. This
she could not yet recognize in the new administration, which owed its
existence only to the violent overthrow of its predecessor. Great
Britain took substantially the same ground. Peace was worse than
worthless, if insecure; and experience had shown that no defence except
that of steady and open hostility was availing, while the system which
had prevailed in France remained the same. She could not recognize a
change of system in the mere violent substitution of one set of rulers
for another. Disavowing any claim to prescribe to France what should
be her form of government, the British ministry nevertheless said
distinctly that the best guarantee for a permanent change of policy
would be the restoration of the Bourbons. This seemingly impolitic
suggestion insured—what was very possibly its object—the continuance of
the war until were realized the advantages that seemed about to accrue.
Not only were the conditions at that time overwhelmingly in favor of
the allies, but there was also every probability of the reduction of
Egypt and Malta, and of further decisive successes in Italy. These,
if obtained, would be so many cards strengthening their hands in the
diplomatic game to be played in the negotiations for peace. Believing,
as the British ministry of that day assuredly did, that a secure peace
could only be based on the exhaustion, and not upon the moderation or
good faith, of their enemy, it would have been the height of folly to
concede time, or submit to that vacillation of purpose and relaxation
of tension which their own people would certainly feel, if negotiations
were opened.
Nor were these military and moral considerations the only ones
affecting the decision of the government. Despite the immense burdens
imposed by the war to support her own military expenditures and
furnish the profuse subsidies paid to her allies, the power of the
country to bear them was greatly increased. Thanks to the watery
rampart which secured peace within her borders, Great Britain had now
become the manufactory and warehouse of Europe. The commercial and
maritime prostration of Holland and France, her two great rivals in
trade and manufactures, had thrown into her hands these sources of
their prosperity; and she, through the prodigious advances of the ten
years' peace, was fully ready to profit by them. By the capture of
their foreign possessions and the ruin of the splendid French colony
in Haïti, she now controlled the chief regions whence were drawn the
tropical products indispensable to Europeans. She monopolized their
markets as well as the distribution of their produce. Jealously
reserving to British merchant shipping the trade of her own and
conquered colonies, she yet met the immense drain made by the navy
upon her merchant seamen by relaxing the famous Navigation Laws;
permitting her ships to be manned by foreigners, and foreign ships to
engage in branches of her commerce closed to them in time of peace.
But while thus encouraging neutrals to carry the surplus trade, whose
rapid growth was outstripping the capacity of her own shipping, she
rigorously denied their right to do as much for her enemies. These
severe restrictions, which her uncontrolled sea-power enabled her
to maintain, were re-enforced by suicidal edicts of the French
government, retaliating upon the same unhappy neutrals the injury their
weakness compelled them to accept from the mistress of the seas,—thus
driving them from French shores, and losing a concurrence essential
to French export and import. In this time of open war no flag was so
safe from annoyance as the British, for none other was protected by a
powerful navy. Neutrals sought its convoy against French depredations,
and the navigation of the world was now swayed by this one great power,
whom its necessities had not yet provoked to lay a yoke heavier than
the oppressed could bear.
To this control of the carrying trade, and of so much of the
agricultural production of the globe, was added a growing absorption
of the manufactures of Europe, due to the long war paralyzing the
peaceful energies of the continental peoples. In the great system of
circulation and exchange, everything thus tended more and more to Great
Britain; which was indicated as the natural centre for accumulation
and distribution by its security, its accessibility, and its nearness
to the continent on which were massed the largest body of consumers
open to maritime commerce. Becoming thus the chief medium through
which the business of the civilized world was carried on and its wants
supplied, her capital grew apace; and was steadily applied, by the able
hands in which it accumulated, to develop, by increased production and
increased facilities of carriage, the powers of the country to supply
demands that were continually increasing on both sides of the Atlantic.
The foreign trade, export and import, which in 1792, the last year of
peace, had amounted to £44,500,000, rose in 1797 to £50,000,000, and
in 1800 to £73,700,000. Encouraged by these evident proofs of growing
wealth, the ministry was able so to increase the revenue that its
receipts, independent of extraordinary war taxes, far exceeded anything
it had ever been before, "or," to use Pitt's words, "anything which
the most sanguine hopes could have anticipated. If," he continued,
"we compare this year of war with former years of peace, we shall in
the produce of our revenue and in the extent of our commerce behold a
spectacle at once paradoxical, inexplicable, and astonishing. We have
increased our external and internal commerce to a greater pitch than
ever it was before; and we may look to the present as the proudest year
that has ever occurred for this country."[10]
With such resources to sustain the armies of their allies, and certain
of keeping a control of the sea unparalleled even in the history of
Great Britain, the ministry looked hopefully forward to a year which
should renew and complete the successes of 1799. They reckoned without
Bonaparte, as Bonaparte in his turn reckoned again and again without
Nelson.
Russia took no more part in the coalition; but the forces of Germany,
under the control of Austria and subsidized by Great Britain, either
actually in the field or holding the fortified posts on which the
operations depended, amounted to something over two hundred and fifty
thousand men. Of these, one hundred and twenty-five thousand under
Mélas were in Italy. The remainder under General Kray were in Germany,
occupying the angle formed by the Rhine at Bâle, where, after flowing
west from Lake Constance, it turns abruptly north for the remainder
of its course. The plan of campaign was to stand on the defensive in
Germany, holding in check the enemies there opposed to them, and in
Italy to assume a vigorous offensive, so as to drive the French finally
out of the country. That achieved, the idea was entertained of entering
France at the extreme south, and possibly investing Toulon, supported
by the British navy.
When Bonaparte first took charge, there remained to France only two
hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, of whom at the opening of the
campaign of 1800 there were in the field, opposed to the Austrians, but
one hundred and sixty-five thousand. One hundred thousand conscripts
were called for; but time would be needed to turn these into soldiers,
even with the advantage of the nucleus of veterans around whom they
would be gathered. The equipment and provisioning both of the old and
new levies also required time and effort. Bonaparte's project was to
assume the offensive in Germany, turning there the position of the
Austrians, and driving them northward from the Rhine towards the head
waters of the Danube. For this great operation the army under Moreau
was raised to an equality with the enemy opposed to him. Masséna in
Italy was directed to stand solely on the defensive, concentrating
around Genoa the bulk of the thirty-five or forty thousand men which
alone he had. While he held this position in such force, the Austrians
could scarcely advance into France along the narrow coast road, leaving
him in the rear. When the expected success in Germany was won, there
was to be detached from that army, which should then assume an attitude
of observation, a corps twenty thousand strong. This should cross
Switzerland, entering Italy by the St. Gothard Pass, and there joining
a force of forty thousand to be led by the First Consul in person
through the Pass of St. Bernard. This mass of sixty thousand men was to
throw itself in rear of the Austrians, forcing them to fight for their
communications through Lombardy, and hoping under the first general of
the age to win, over a less skilful opponent, such victories as had
illustrated the famous campaigns of 1796 and 1797.
Bonaparte's plan thus hinged upon the French occupation of Switzerland,
which, intervening as a great rampart between the Austrians in Germany
and Italy, permitted him to cover the movements against the former by
the curtain of the Rhine between Lake Constance and Bâle, and to use
safely and secretly the passes leading into the plains of Lombardy
and Piedmont. To this advantage of position he conjoined, with
inconceivable wiliness, an absolute secrecy as to the very existence
of the forty thousand, known as the Army of Reserve, which he himself
was to lead. The orders constituting this force were given the utmost
publicity. Its headquarters were established at Dijon, and one of
Bonaparte's most trusted subordinates was sent to command it. An appeal
was made to discharged soldiers to join its ranks; some material of
war and some conscripts, with a corps of officers, were assembled.
There preparations stopped—or went on so feebly in comparison with the
glowing boasts of the French journals, that hostile spies were entirely
deceived. The Army of Reserve became the joke of Europe, while the
scattered detachments that were to compose it were assembling at points
separated, yet chosen with Bonaparte's consummate skill to permit
rapid concentration when the hour came. To insure perfect secrecy,
the correspondence of these different bodies was with him alone, not
through the Ministry of War.
The campaign was opened by the Austrians in Italy. Mélas, with seventy
thousand men, attacked Masséna along the chain of the Apennines.
Difficulties of subsistence had forced the latter to disseminate his
troops between Genoa and Nice. Through this necessarily thin line
the Austrians broke on the 5th of April, and after several days of
strenuous resistance, furthered by the facilities for defence offered
by that mountainous region, Masséna was driven into Genoa. The left
wing of his army under Suchet was forced back toward Nice, where it
took position on the Var. On the 18th of April Masséna was definitively
shut up in Genoa with eighteen thousand men, and so short of provisions
that it became a matter of the utmost urgency to relieve him.
On April 25 Moreau began his movements, of a somewhat complicated
character, but resulting in his whole army being safely across the
Rhine on the first of May. Eighty thousand French troops were then
drawn up between Bâle and Lake Constance in an east and west direction,
threatening the left flank of the enemy, whose front was north and
south, and in position to attack both their line of retreat and the
immense depots whose protection embarrassed all the movements of
the Austrians. On the 3d of May the latter were defeated at Engen,
and their depot at Stokach was captured. On the 5th they were again
beaten at Moesskirch, and on the 9th at Biberach, losing other
large deposits of stores. General Kray then retired upon Ulm on the
Danube, and the first act of Bonaparte's design was accomplished.
It had not corresponded with the lines laid down by him, which were
too adventurous to suit Moreau, nor was the result equal to his
expectations; but the general strategic outcome was to check for the
time any movements of the enemy in Germany, and enable Moreau to send
the force needed to co-operate with Bonaparte in Italy. This started
on the 13th of May, and was joined on the way by some detachments in
Switzerland; the whole amounting to between fifteen and twenty thousand
men.[11]
On the 6th of May the first consul left Paris, having delayed to
the last moment in order to keep up the illusions of the Austrian
commander-in-chief in Italy. The crossing of the St. Bernard began
on the 15th, and on the 20th the whole army had passed. On the 26th
it issued in the plains of Piedmont; whence Bonaparte turned to the
eastward, to insure his great object of throwing his force across the
enemy's communications and taking from him all hope of regaining them
without a battle. On the first of June he entered Milan.
Meanwhile Masséna's army, a prey to horrible famine, prolonged in Genoa
a resistance which greatly contributed to the false position of the
Austrians. Of these, twenty-five thousand were before Nice, thirty
thousand before Genoa. Twenty thousand more had been lost by casualties
since the campaign opened. Unwilling to relinquish his gains, Mélas
waited too long to concentrate his scattered troops; and when at
last he sent the necessary orders, Masséna was treating to evacuate
Genoa. The Austrian officer on the spot, unwilling to lose the prize,
postponed compliance until it was secured,—a delay fraught with serious
results. On the 5th Genoa was given up, and the besiegers, leaving a
garrison in the place, marched to join the commander-in-chief, who
was gathering his forces around Alessandria. Meanwhile Bonaparte had
crossed to the south side of the Po with half his army. On the 14th
of June was fought the battle of Marengo. Anxious lest the foe might
give him the slip, the first consul had spread his troops too widely;
and the first events of the day were so far in favor of the Austrians
that Mélas, who was seventy-six years old, left the field at two in
the afternoon, certain of victory, to seek repose. An hour later the
opportune arrival of General Desaix turned the scales, and Bonaparte
remained conqueror on the ground, standing across the enemy's line
of retreat. The following day Mélas signed a convention abandoning
all northern Italy, as far as the Mincio, behind which the Austrians
were to withdraw. All the fortified places were given up to France,
including the hardly won Genoa. While awaiting the Emperor's answer
to propositions of peace, sent by the First Consul, there was to be
in Italy a suspension of arms, during which neither army should send
detachments to Germany. On the 2d of July Bonaparte re-entered Paris in
triumph, after an absence of less than two months.
Meantime Moreau, after learning the successful crossing of the St.
Bernard, had resumed the offensive. Moving to the eastward, he crossed
the Danube below Ulm with part of his force on the 19th of June,
threatening Kray's communications with Bohemia. A partial encounter on
that day left five thousand prisoners in the hands of the French, who
maintained the position they had gained. The same night Kray evacuated
Ulm, moving rapidly off by a road to the northward and so effecting
his escape. Moreau, unable to intercept, followed for some distance
and then stopped a pursuit which promised small results. He was still
ignorant of the battle of Marengo, of which the Austrians now had news;
and the latter, while concealing the victory, announced to him the
suspension of arms, and suggested a similar arrangement in Germany.
Convinced that events favorable to France lay behind this proposition,
Moreau would come to no agreement; but on the contrary decided at once
to secure for his victorious army the most advantageous conditions
with which to enter upon negotiations. Closely investing the important
fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt on the Danube, with part of his force,
he recrossed the river with the remainder and advanced into Bavaria. On
the 28th of June he entered Munich; and near there was signed on the
15th of July an armistice, closely corresponding with that concluded
by Bonaparte in Italy just one month before. The two belligerents
retired behind appointed lines, not again to engage in hostilities
without twelve days' notice. During this suspension of arms the
blockaded Austrian fortresses should receive every fortnight provisions
proportioned to their consumption, so that in case of renewed
operations they would be in the same condition as when the truce began.
The two great French armies were now encamped in the fertile plains of
Italy and Germany, living in quiet off districts external to France,
which was thus relieved of the larger part of their expense.
The effect of this short and brilliant campaign of unbroken French
successes was to dispose to peace both members of the coalition.
Neither, however, was yet reduced to negotiate apart from its ally. On
the very day the news of Marengo was received at Vienna, but before
the last reverses in Germany, Austria had renewed her engagements with
Great Britain, both powers stipulating not to treat singly. The first
consul, on the other hand, was distinctly opposed to joint discussions,
his constant policy in the cabinet as in the field being to separate
his opponents. As Austria's great need was to gain time, she sent to
Paris an envoy empowered to exchange views with the French government
but to conclude nothing. The emperor also intimated his wish for a
general pacification, and on the 9th of August the British minister at
Vienna notified to that court the willingness of his own to enter into
negotiations for a general peace.
With this began an encounter of wits, in which Bonaparte showed himself
as astute at a bargain as he was wily in the field. Austria, if not
given too much time, was at his mercy; but Great Britain held over him
a like advantage in her control of the sea, which was strangling the
colonial empire he passionately wished to restore. Haïti had escaped
from all but nominal control; Martinique, the gem of the Antilles, was
in British hands; Malta and Egypt, the trophies of his own enterprise,
were slowly but surely expiring. For these he too needed time; for
with it there was good prospect of soon playing a card which should
reverse, or at least seriously modify, the state of the game, by
bringing Russia and the Baltic navies into the combination against
Great Britain. In this support, and in the extremity to which he might
reduce Austria, lay his only chances to check the great opponent of
France; for, while almost supreme on the Continent, he could not from
the coast project his power beyond the range of a cannon's ball. His
correspondence throughout this period abounds with instructions and
exhortations to fit out the fleets, to take the sea, to relieve Malta
and Egypt, to seize Sardinia by an expedition from Corsica, and Mahon
by a squadron from Brest. All fell fruitless before the exhaustion of
French sea power, as did also his plan for an extensive cruise on a
grand scale against British commerce in many quarters of the world.
"I see with regret," wrote he to the minister of Marine, "that the
armament of the fleet has been sacrificed to that of a great number of
small vessels;" but in truth there was nothing else to do. His ablest
admirals failed to equip ships from which every resource was cut off by
the omnipresent cruisers of the enemy. "We can never take Mahon," he
writes to the court of Spain, in the full swing of his triumphs after
Marengo; "therefore make war on Portugal and take her provinces, so as
to enter negotiations for peace with your hands as full as possible of
equivalents."
The Czar Paul had joined the second coalition full of ardor against the
French revolution and determined to restore the princes who had lost
their thrones. He had been bitterly mortified by the reverses to his
troops in 1799, and especially by the disaster to Suwarrow, for which
he not unjustly blamed Austria. He was also dissatisfied to find in his
allies less of zeal for unfortunate sovereigns than of desire to reduce
the power of France, to whose system they attributed the misfortunes of
Europe. Disappointment in his unbalanced mind turned soon to coolness
and was rapidly passing to hostility. The transition was assisted, and
a pretext for a breach with Great Britain afforded, by a fresh outbreak
of the old dispute between her and the Baltic powers concerning the
rights of neutrals. Denmark in 1799 adopted the policy of convoying her
merchant vessels by ships of war, and claimed that a statement from the
senior naval officer, that the cargoes contained nothing forbidden by
the law of nations, exempted the convoy from the belligerent right of
search. British statesmen denied that this conceded belligerent right
could be nullified by any rule adopted by a neutral; to which they were
the more impelled as the Danes and themselves differed radically in the
definition of contraband. Danish naval officers being instructed to
resist the search of their convoys, two hostile encounters took place;
one in December, 1799, and the other in July, 1800. In the latter
several were killed on both sides, and the Danish frigate was carried
into the Downs. Seeing the threatening character of affairs, the
British ministry took immediate steps to bring them to an issue. An
ambassador was sent to Copenhagen supported by nine ships-of-the-line
and several bomb-vessels; and on the 29th of August, barely a month
after the affray, a convention was signed by which the general subject
of searching ships under convoy was referred to future discussion, but
Denmark consented to suspend her convoys until a definitive treaty was
made. The Danish frigate was at once released.
It will be observed that this collision occurred in the very midst of
the negotiations between Austria and France, to which Great Britain
claimed the right to be a party. The whole vexed question of neutral
and belligerent rights was thus violently raised, at a moment most
inauspicious to the allies and most favorable to Bonaparte. The latter,
crowned with victory upon the Continent, found every neutral commercial
state disposed to side with him in contesting positions considered by
Great Britain to be vital to her safety. It was for him to foster this
disposition and combine the separate powers into one great effort,
before which the Mistress of the Seas should be compelled to recede
and submit. The occasion here arose, as it were spontaneously, to
realize what became the great dream of his life and ultimately led him
to his ruin,—to unite the Continent against the British Islands and,
as he phrased it, "to conquer the sea by the land." Circumstances,
partly anterior to his rise to power, and partly contrived by his
sagacious policy during the previous few months, particularly favored
at this moment such a league, for which the affair of the Danish
convoy supplied an impulse, and the prostration of Great Britain's
ally, Austria, an opportunity. Bonaparte underestimated the vitality
and influence of a state upon which centred a far-reaching commercial
system, and in valuing naval power he did not appreciate that a mere
mass of ships had not the weight he himself was able to impart to a
mass of men. He never fully understood the maritime problems with
which from time to time he had to deal; but he showed wonderful skill
at this critical period in combining against his principal enemy an
opposition, for which Prussia afforded the body and the hot temper of
the Czar the animating soul.
Since 1795 Prussia had shut herself up to a rigorous neutrality, in
which were embraced the North German states. Under this system, during
the maritime war, the commerce of the larger part of the Continent
poured in through these states—by the great German rivers, the Ems, the
Weser, and the Elbe—and through the cities of Hamburg and Bremen. The
tonnage clearing from Great Britain alone to North Germany increased
from 120,000 in 1792 to 389,000 in 1800; a traffic of which Prussia
took the lion's share. To these advantages of neutral territory it
was desirable to join the utmost freedom for neutral navigation. Upon
this Great Britain bore heavily; but so large a proportion of the
trade was done through her, and the sea was so entirely under the
power of her navy, that prudence had so far dictated acquiescence in
her claims, even when not admitted. This was particularly the case
while Russia, under Catherine II., and in the first years of her son,
tacitly or openly supported Great Britain; and while Austria, though
badly beaten in the field, remained unshaken in power. The weaker
maritime countries, Sweden, Denmark, and the United States of America,
were determined by similar motives. They groaned under the British
exactions; but the expansion of their commerce outweighed the injuries
received, and submission was less hurtful than resistance in arms.
Russia herself, though not strictly a maritime state, was a large
producer of articles which were mainly carried by British ships and
for which England was the chief customer. The material interests of
Russia, and especially of the powerful nobles, were therefore bound up
with peace with Great Britain; but an absolute monarch could disregard
this fact, at least for a time. The furious, impulsive temper of
Paul I., if aroused, was quite capable of overleaping all prudential
considerations, of using the colossal power of his empire to support
the other states, and even of compelling them to act in concert with
him.
Such were the discordant elements which Bonaparte had to reconcile
into a common effort: on the one hand, the strong though short-sighted
mercantile interests, which to retain great present advantages would
favor submission rather than resistance to the exactions of Great
Britain. These were represented by the development of carrying trade
in the neutral Baltic states, by the enlarged commerce of Prussia and
North Germany,—which through their neutrality in a maritime war had
become the highway of intercourse between the Continent and the outer
world,—and by the productions of Russia, which formed the revenue of
her great proprietors, and found their way to market wholly by sea.
Bound together by the close relations which commerce breeds between
states, and by the dependence of each upon the capital and mercantile
system of Great Britain, these interests constituted the prosperity
of nations, and could by no rulers be lightly disregarded. On the
other hand stood the dignity of neutral flags and their permanent
interests,—always contrary to those of belligerents,—the ambition
of Prussia and her jealousy of Austria, and finally the chivalrous,
reckless, half insane Paul I., seeking now with all the bitterness of
personal feeling to gratify his resentment against his late allies.
Bonaparte had already begun to work upon the Czar as well as upon the
neutral powers. Closely observing the political horizon from his first
accession to office, he had noted every condition capable of raising
embarrassments to Great Britain, whom his unerring military insight
had long before recognized[12] as the key to a military situation, in
which his own object was the predominance of France, not only on the
Continent but throughout the world. Sagacious a statesman as he was,
and clearly as he recognized the power of moral and political motives,
his ideal of control was essentially forcible, based upon superior
armies and superior fleets; and consequently every political problem
was by him viewed much as a campaign, in which forces were to be moved,
combined, and finally massed upon the vital points of an enemy's
position. The power of Great Britain was sea power in its widest sense,
commercial and naval; against it, therefore, he aimed to effect such a
combination as would both destroy her commerce and cripple her navy.
The impotence of France and Spain, united, to injure the one or the
other had been clearly shown by repeated defeats, and by the failure
of the commerce-destroying so industriously carried on during seven
years of war. Far from decaying or languishing, the commerce of Great
Britain throve everywhere with redoubled vigor, and her fleets rode
triumphant in all seas. There was, however, one quarter in which she
had not hitherto been disturbed, except by the quickly extinguished
efforts of the Dutch navy; and just there, in the Baltic and North Sea,
was the point where, next to the British islands and seas themselves,
she was most vulnerable. There was concentrated a great part of her
shipping; there was the market for the colonial produce stored in her
overflowing warehouses; there also were gathered three navies, whose
united masses—manned by hardy seamen trained in a boisterous navigation
and sheltered in an enclosed sea of perilous access—might overweight a
force already strained to control the Mediterranean, to blockade the
hostile arsenals, and to protect the merchant shipping which thronged
over every ocean highway.
To close the north of Europe to British trade, and to combine the
Baltic navies against that of Great Britain, became thenceforth the
fixed ideas of Bonaparte's life. To conciliate Denmark he released a
number of Danish ships, which had been arrested by the Directory for
submitting to search by British cruisers. The extent of the czar's
alienation from his former allies not being at first apparent, he next
courted Prussia, the head of the North German neutrality, in whose
power it was to arrest British trade both through her own territory
and through Hamburg. Prussia was ambitious to play a leading part in
Europe. The five years spent by Austria, France, and Great Britain in
exhausting warfare, she had used to consolidate her power and husband
her resources. She wished now to pose as a mediator, and looked for
the time when the prostration of the combatants and her own restored
strength would cause them to bend to her influence, and yield her
points, through the simple exhibition of her force. The advances and
flatteries of the first consul were graciously received, but the path
Prussia had traced for herself was to involve no risks—only gains;
she wished much, but would venture naught. It was a dangerous part to
play, this waiting on opportunity, against such a man as swayed the
destinies of the Continent during the next twelve years. From it arose
a hesitating, selfish, and timid policy, fluctuating with every breath
of danger or hope of advantage, dishonoring the national name, until it
ended in Jena and the agonies of humiliation through which the country
passed between that disaster and the overthrow of Napoleon. Such a
spirit is prone to side with a strong combination and to yield to a
masterful external impulse.
Under this Bonaparte next sought to bring her. "We shall make nothing
out of Prussia," he writes to Talleyrand on the first of June, 1800, on
his way to Marengo; and he adds, "If the news from Egypt [apparently
the defeat of the Turks by Kleber] is confirmed, it will become
important to have some one in Russia. The Ottoman Empire cannot exist
much longer, and if Paul I. turns his looks in that direction our
interests become common."[13] Bonaparte was at no pains to reconcile
this view with an assurance made a month later to Turkey that "no
anxiety need be felt about Egypt, which will be restored as soon as the
Porte shall resume its former relations with France."[14] On the 4th
of June he recommends general and flattering overtures to the czar,
accompanied by special marks of consideration. The latter was fully
prepared to be won by compliments from the man for whose military
glory he had come to feel a profound enthusiasm. On the 4th of July
Bonaparte's general advances took form in a definite proposal to
surrender to Russian troops Malta, whose speedy loss by himself he saw
to be inevitable; an offer calculated not only to charm the Czar, who
delighted to fancy himself the head and protector of an ancient order
of knights, but also to sow discord between him and Great Britain, if,
as was probable, the latter declined to yield her prey to a friend
who at a critical moment had forsaken her. The letter sketched by the
first consul was carefully worded to quicken the ready vanity of its
recipient. "Desiring to give a proof of personal consideration to the
emperor of Russia and to distinguish him from the other enemies of
the republic, who fight from a vile love of gain, the first consul
wishes, if the garrison of Malta is constrained by famine to evacuate
the place, to restore it to the hands of the czar as grand master of
the order; and although the first consul is certain that Malta has
provisions for several months,[15] he wishes his Majesty to inform him
what conventions he would wish to make, and what measures to take, so
that, if the case arise, his troops may enter that place."[16] This was
shortly followed by the release of the Russian prisoners in France,
in number between seven and eight thousand, whom Bonaparte clad and
dismissed with their colors and their officers to return into Russia;
suggesting that, if the czar thought proper, he "might demand of the
English to release an equal number of French prisoners; but if not, the
first consul hoped he would accept his troops as an especial mark of
the esteem felt for the brave Russian armies."[17]
Immediately after these transactions occurred the collision between
British and Danish cruisers in the Channel, and the entrance of
the Baltic by the British fleet, to support its ambassador in his
negotiation with Denmark. Paul I. made of the latter a pretext for
sequestrating all British property in Russia, to be held as a guarantee
against the future action of Great Britain. This order, dated August
29, 1800, was followed by another of September 10, announcing that
"several political circumstances induced the emperor to think that
a rupture of friendship with England may ensue," and directing a
concentration of Russian troops. The cloud blew over for a moment,
the sequestration being removed on the 22d of September; but the fall
of Malta, which had surrendered on the 5th of the same month, brought
matters to an issue. The czar had gladly accepted Bonaparte's adroit
advances and designated a general to go to Paris, take command of the
released prisoners and with them repair to Malta. The capitulation
became known to him early in November; before which he had formally
published his intention to revive the Armed Neutrality of 1780 against
the maritime claims of Great Britain. It being very doubtful whether
the latter would deliver the island after his unfriendly measures,
a sequestration of British property was again decreed. Some three
hundred ships were seized, their crews marched into the interior,
and seals placed on all warehouses containing British property; the
czar declaring that the embargo should not be removed until the
acknowledgment of his rights to Malta, as grand master of the Order.
The sequestrated property was to be held by an imperial commission and
applied to pay debts due to Russian subjects by private Englishmen.
Affairs had now reached a stage where Prussia felt encouraged to move.
The breach between Great Britain and Russia had opened wide, while the
relations of the czar and first consul had become so friendly as to
assure their concert. The armistice between Austria and France still
continued, pending the decision whether the latter would negotiate with
the emperor and Great Britain conjointly; but Bonaparte was a close as
well as a hard bargainer. He would not admit the joint negotiation,
nor postpone the renewal of hostilities beyond the 11th of September,
except on condition of a maritime truce as favorable to France as he
considered the land armistice to be to Austria. He proposed entire
freedom of navigation to merchant vessels, the raising of the blockades
of Brest, Cadiz, Toulon, and Flushing, and that Malta and Alexandria
should be freely open to receive provisions by French or neutral
vessels. The effect would be to allow the French dockyards to obtain
naval stores, of which they were utterly destitute, and Malta and
Egypt to receive undefined quantities of supplies and so prolong their
resistance indefinitely. Great Britain was only willing to adopt for
Egypt and Malta the literal terms of the armistice applied to the three
Austrian fortresses blockaded by French troops. These were to receive
every fortnight provisions proportioned to their consumption, and the
British ministry offered to allow the same to Malta and Egypt. They
also conceded free navigation, except in the articles of military and
naval stores. Bonaparte refused. Austria's advantage in the armistice,
he said, was not the mere retention of the fortresses, but the use
she was making of her respite. Between these two extreme views no
middle term could be found. In fact, great as were the results of
Marengo, and of Moreau's more methodical advance into Germany, the
material advantage of Great Britain over France still far exceeded
that of France over Austria. The French had gained great successes,
but they were now forcing the enemy back upon the centre of his power
and they had not possession of his communications; whereas Great
Britain had shut off, not merely Egypt and Malta, but France herself
from all fruitful intercourse with the outer world. The negotiation
for a maritime truce was broken off on the 9th of October. Meanwhile
Bonaparte, declining to await its issue, had given notice that
hostilities would be resumed between the 5th and 10th of September;
and Austria, not yet ready, was fain to purchase a further delay by
surrendering the blockaded places, Ulm, Ingolstadt, and Philipsburg.
A convention to this effect was concluded, and the renewal of the war
postponed for forty-five days dating from September 21st.
In such conditions Prussia saw one of those opportunities which, under
Bonaparte's manipulation, so often misled her. The prostration of her
German rival would be hastened, and the support of the first consul in
the approaching apportionment of indemnities to German states secured,
by joining the concert of the Baltic powers against Great Britain.
Without this accession to the northern league the quarrel would be
mainly naval, and its issue, before the disciplined valor of British
seamen, scarcely doubtful. Prussia alone was so situated as to deal the
direct and heavy blow at British commerce of closing its accustomed
access to the Continent; and the injury thus inflicted so far exceeded
any she herself could incidentally receive, as to make this course less
hazardous than that of offending the czar and the French government.
The political connection of Hanover with Great Britain was a further
motive, giving Prussia the hope, so often dangled before her eyes by
Bonaparte, of permanently annexing the German dominions of the British
king. An occasion soon arose for showing her bias. In the latter part
of October a British cruiser seized a Prussian merchantman trying to
enter the Texel with a cargo of naval stores. The captor, through
stress of weather, took his prize into Cuxhaven, a port at the mouth
of the Elbe belonging to Hamburg, through which passed much of the
British commerce with the Continent. Prussia demanded its release of
the Hamburg senate, and upon refusal ordered two thousand troops to
take possession of the port. The senate then bought the prize and
delivered it to Prussia, and the British government also directed its
restoration; a step of pure policy with which Fox taunted the ministry.
It was, as he truly remarked, a concession of principle, dictated
by the fact that Prussia, while capable of doing much harm to Great
Britain, could not be reached by the British navy.
Whether it was wise to waive a point, in order to withhold an important
member from the formidable combination of the North, may be argued; but
the attempt met the usual fate of concessions attributed to weakness.
The remonstrances of the British ambassador received the reply that
the occupation, having been ordered, must be carried out; that the
neutrality of Cuxhaven "being thus placed under the guarantee of the
king will be more effectually out of the reach of all violation." Such
reasoning indicated beyond doubt the stand Prussia was about to take;
and her influence fixed the course of Denmark, which is said to have
been averse from a step that threatened to stop her trade and would
probably make her the first victim of Great Britain's resentment. On
the 16th of December a treaty renewing the Armed Neutrality of 1780
was signed at St. Petersburg by Russia and Sweden, and received the
prompt adherence of Denmark and Prussia. Its leading affirmations were
that neutral ships were free to carry on the coasting and colonial
trade of states at war, that enemy's goods under the neutral flag
were not subject to seizure, and that blockades, to be respected, must
be supported by such a force of ships before the port as to make the
attempt to enter hazardous. A definition of contraband was adopted
excluding naval stores from that title; and the claim was affirmed
that vessels under convoy of a ship of war were not liable to the
belligerent right of search. Each of these assertions contested one
of the maritime claims upon which Great Britain conceived her naval
power, and consequently her place among the nations, to depend; but
the consenting states bound themselves to maintain their positions by
force, if necessary.
Thus was successfully formed the combination of the Northern powers
against Great Britain, the first and most willing of those effected by
Bonaparte. By a singular coincidence, which recalls the opportuneness
of his departure from England in 1798 to check the yet undivined
expedition against Egypt,[18] Nelson, the man destined also to
strike this coalition to the ground, was during its formation slowly
journeying from the Mediterranean, with which his name and his glory
both before and after are most closely associated, to the North Sea;
as though again drawn by some mysterious influence, to be at hand for
unknown services which he alone could render. On the 11th of July,
a week after Bonaparte made his first offer of Malta to the czar,
Nelson left Leghorn for Trieste and Vienna. He passed through Hamburg
at the very time that the affair of the Prussian prize was under
discussion, and landed in England on the 6th of November. Finding his
health entirely restored by the land journey, he applied for immediate
service, and was assigned to command a division of the Channel fleet
under Lord St. Vincent; but he did not go afloat until the 17th of
January, 1801, when his flag was hoisted on board the "San Josef,"
the three-decker he had captured at the battle of Cape St. Vincent.
Meanwhile, however, it had been settled between the Admiralty and
himself that if a fleet were sent into the Baltic, he should go as
second in command to Sir Hyde Parker; and when in the very act of
reporting to St. Vincent, the day before he joined the San Josef, a
letter arrived from Parker announcing his appointment.
By this time Austria had received a final blow, which forced her to
treat alone, and postponed for nearly five years her reappearance in
the field. The emperor had sent an envoy to Lunéville, who was met
by Joseph Bonaparte as the representative of France; but refusing
to make peace apart from Great Britain, hostilities were resumed on
the 28th of November. On the 3d of December Moreau won the great
battle of Hohenlinden, and then advanced upon Vienna. On the 25th an
armistice was signed at Steyer, within a hundred miles of the Austrian
capital. Successes, less brilliant but decided, were obtained in Italy,
resulting on the 16th of January, 1801, in an armistice between the
armies there. At nearly the same moment with this last news the first
consul received a letter from the czar, manifesting extremely friendly
feelings towards France, while full of hatred towards England, and
signifying his intention to send an ambassador to Paris. This filled
Bonaparte with sanguine hopes, the expression of which shows how
heavily sea power weighed in his estimation. "Peace with the emperor,"
he wrote to his brother at Lunéville, "is _nothing_ in comparison with
the alliance of the czar, which will _dominate England_ and preserve
Egypt for us;"[19] and he ordered him to prolong the negotiations until
the arrival of the expected ambassador, that the engagements contracted
with Germany might be made in concert with Russia. Upon a similar
combined action he based extravagant expectations of naval results,
dependent upon the impression, with which he so hardly parted, that one
set of ships was equal to another.[20] A courier was at once dispatched
to Spain to arrange expeditions against Ireland, against Brazil and the
East Indies, to the Caribbean Sea for the recovery of the French and
Spanish islands, and to the Mediterranean to regain Minorca. "In the
embarrassment about to come upon England, threatened in the Archipelago
by the Russians and in the northern seas by the combined Powers, it
will be impossible for her long to keep a strong squadron in the
Mediterranean."[21]
The Russian envoy not arriving, however, Joseph Bonaparte was
instructed to bring matters to a conclusion; and on the 9th of February
the Austrian minister at Lunéville, after a stubborn fight over the
terms, signed a treaty of peace. The principal conditions were: 1.
The definitive surrender of all German possessions west of the Rhine,
so that the river became the frontier of France from Switzerland to
Holland. 2. The cession of Belgium made at Campo Formio was confirmed.
3. In Italy, Austria herself was confined to the east bank of the
Adige, and the princes of that house having principalities west of
the river were dispossessed; their territories going to the Cisalpine
Republic and to an infante of Spain, who was established in Tuscany
with the title of King of Etruria. The Cisalpine and Etruria being
dependent for their political existence upon France, the latter,
through its control of their territory, interposed between Austria and
Naples and shut off the British from access to Leghorn. 4. The eleventh
article of the treaty guaranteed the independence of the Dutch, Swiss,
Cisalpine and Ligurian republics. In its influence upon the future
course of events this was the most important of all the stipulations.
It gave to the political status of the Continent a definition, upon
which Great Britain reckoned in her own treaty with France a few months
later; and its virtual violation by Bonaparte became ultimately both
the reason and the excuse for her refusal to fulfil the engagements
about Malta, which led to the renewal of the war and so finally to
the downfall of Napoleon. 5. The German Empire was pledged to give to
the princes dispossessed on the west of the Rhine, and in Italy, an
indemnity within the empire itself. By this Prussia, which was among
the losers, reaped through Bonaparte's influence an abundant recompense
for the support already given to his policy in the North. This success
induced her to continue the same time-serving opportunism, until, when
no longer necessary to France, she was thrown over with a rudeness that
roused her to an isolated, and therefore speedily crushed resistance.