ENGLAND AND BONAPARTE.
1802-1815.
When the treaty of Amiens had been signed, the English people firmly
believed that the great war was ended, that the period of stress and
anxiety, of heavy taxation and huge armaments, of threatened invasions
and domestic strife, was finally closed. Bonaparte, who needed an
interval of peace for the working out of his domestic policy, had
affected a frank, liberal, and conciliatory spirit in dealing with our
diplomatists, and had produced on them the impression that a reasonable
as well as strong man was now at the helm at Paris. The France with
which we had come to terms was no longer the wild and militant republic
of the old Jacobin days, but a well-ordered and strongly centralized
monarchy, though its ruler did not yet bear the title of king. If
Bonaparte had really intended to accept the situation, and dwell in
peace beside us as a loyal neighbour, the treaty of Amiens would have
needed no defence. But Addington and his fellows had not gauged the
First Consul's true character or the peculiarities of his position.
He had risen to power by war; his power depended on his military
prestige, and a permanent peace would have ruined his control over his
army, which he had gorged with plunder and glory, and turned into a
greedy and arrogant military caste. But it was hard to expect English
statesmen to see through the character and designs of a man whom the
French themselves had not yet learnt to know. And when an honourable
peace was proffered, it would have been wrong to refuse it: the
internal condition of England called for rest and retrenchment.
[Sidenote: =Schemes of Bonaparte.=]
But the First Consul's real objects in concluding the peace of Amiens
were purely personal and selfish. He wished to recover the lost French
colonies, and to rebuild the ruined French navy. He needed peace to
reorganize the control of France over her vassal states in Holland,
Italy, and Switzerland, which she had bound to her chariot-wheels
during the late wars. Most of all he required a space of leisure to
prepare for that assumption of monarchical power which he had been
plotting ever since his return from Egypt.
[Sidenote: =His conduct towards England.=]
While England was thinking only of peace, and while thousands of
English were embarking on the continental travel which had been denied
them for nine years, Bonaparte was already beginning to show the cloven
hoof. In the autumn of 1802 he annexed to France the continental half
of the dominions of our old ally the King of Sardinia, and the Duchy
of Parma. He sent 30,000 men into Switzerland to occupy the chief
passes of the Alps. He ordered the vassal republics in Holland and
North Italy to place prohibitive duties on English merchandise. These
actions, though irritating, were not actual breaches of the peace, but
things grew more serious when he made the impudent request that we
should expel from our shores the exiled princes of the old royal house
of France, and that our government should suppress certain newspapers
which criticized his rule in France too sharply. These demands were of
course refused; the First Consul then began to harp on the question of
the evacuation of Malta. That island was still garrisoned by English
troops, as its old masters, the Knights of St. John, were not yet
in a position to resume their dominion there. When England refused
to evacuate Malta at once, and ventured to remonstrate about the
annexation of Piedmont and Parma, Bonaparte assumed a most offensive
attitude. He summoned Lord Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, into
his presence, and in the midst of a large assembly at the Tuileries
delivered an angry harangue to him, declaring that the English cabinet
had no respect for honour or treaties, and was wishing to drive him to
a new war. He did not wish to fight, he said, but if he once drew the
sword, it should never be sheathed till England was crushed.
[Sidenote: =War declared.--Seizure of English subjects in France.=]
This insulting message roused even the feeble Addington to anger. With
extreme reluctance and dismay, the cabinet began to contemplate the
possibility of a renewed war with France. A royal message was laid
before Parliament asking for increased votes for the army and navy,
which had just been cut down on account of the peace. Bonaparte, on
the other hand, began to move masses of troops towards the shores of
the English Channel, and to order the building of many ships of war.
Addington attempted further negotiations for staving off a collision,
but met no response from the First Consul, who refused to listen to
any offers till we should have evacuated Malta, and recognized the
legality of his annexations in Italy and Switzerland. Nothing could be
done to bring him to reason, and on May 12, 1803, our ambassador left
Paris, and war was declared, only thirteen months after the signing of
the peace of Amiens. Bonaparte had, perhaps, been intent on bullying
the English cabinet, and had fancied that they would yield to his
hectoring. He showed intense irritation when war was declared, and
committed a flagrant breach of international law by seizing all the
English tourists and travellers who were passing through France on
business or pleasure, and imprisoning them as if they were prisoners of
war. They were about 10,000 in number, and Bonaparte had the cruelty
to keep them confined during the whole of the war. Another sign of his
malice was that he kept accusing the English government of instigating
assassins to murder him--there was, indeed, hardly a crime which he did
not lay to the account of his enemies.
The second act of the great drama of the French war had now begun: the
first had lasted nine years, this was to endure for eleven--from May,
1803, to March, 1814. The whole war is indeed one, if we regard it as
the last struggle for commercial and maritime supremacy between England
and her old rival, and compare it with the Seven Years' War and the war
of American Independence.
[Sidenote: =Nature of the contest between England and France.=]
But, on the other hand, the aspect of the strife was greatly changed by
the fact that England had no longer the principles of the Revolution
to fight, but was engaged in a struggle against an ambitious despot, a
world-conqueror who had no parallel save Cæsar or Alexander the Great.
The France of Bonaparte only resembled the France of Robespierre in the
unscrupulous vigour of her assaults on her enemies. She was no longer
professing to fight for a principle--the deliverance of oppressed
peoples from the yoke of monarchy and the proclamation of Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity for all men. Though Bonaparte still made a
parade of being a beneficent liberator, yet France was now fighting to
make herself the tyrant-state of Europe, to win power and plunder, not
to carry out the principles of the Revolution. In the long struggles
that followed the declaration of war in 1803, Bonaparte at one time
and another struck down every government in Europe that dared to
stand against him, but England he could never subdue. From the moment
when Sidney Smith turned him back from the walls of Acre, down to the
moment when Wellington drove him a broken and defeated adventurer from
the hillside of Waterloo, it was always England that stood between
him and complete success. Hence it came that he honoured her with a
venomous hatred such as he never bestowed on any other foe. It may be
said with much truth that his whole career after 1803 was a crusade
against England, and that all his actions were directed to secure her
ruin, whether that ruin was to be brought about in the open strife of
contending fleets, or in the slow but deadly working of laws aimed
against English commerce and industries. When Bonaparte was meeting
and beating the Austrian, the Prussian, or the Russian, he felt that
he was fighting the hired soldiers of England; for every confederacy
against him was cemented with English gold. The final object of all his
continental wars was to crush us; his victories were all means to that
end.
In a contest between a single despot and a free state, the former has
in many ways the advantage. He has no Parliament to criticize his
actions, no public opinion before which he is bound to justify his
every deed. He can work out his schemes in his own brain, and give
them the unity that a single master-mind inspires. He can secure the
implicit obedience of his lieutenants, because he alone can make or
mar their career. On the other hand, the policy dictated by an English
cabinet of a dozen men was prone to lack consistency and singleness
of aim, and their plans and projects were divulged to Parliament,
criticized by opponents, and trumpeted out to all Europe by the Press,
before they were well set in hand. It was no light responsibility that
the Addington ministry took upon themselves when they declared war on
the unscrupulous First Consul.
The long struggle which followed may be divided into four epochs.
In the first--1803-1805--Bonaparte strove to settle the national
duel by an actual invasion of England, and lamentably failed. In the
second--1805-1808--England fought by subsidizing foreign allies, while
Bonaparte struck at his enemy by the "Continental System," a plan for
starving English trade. In the third period--1808-1814--a new aspect
was given to the struggle by the interference of England on land.
Instead of relying on subsidies, we poured troops into Spain, and met
the French face to face. At the same time the intolerable oppression
which Bonaparte exercised over all the states of the continent, led
to national risings against him, which finally, in 1814, wrought his
downfall. The fourth period comprises only the "Hundred Days" of
March-June, 1815, in which the tyrant tried to seize once more his old
place and power, and suffered his final defeat at Waterloo.
[Sidenote: =Bonaparte resolves to invade England.=]
In the first opening months of the war, Bonaparte set his mind on
bringing the struggle to a rapid conclusion, by crossing the Channel
and invading England. He despatched 120,000 veteran troops to the coast
between Dunkirk and St. Valery, and fixed his own head-quarters at
Boulogne, where the cliffs of Folkestone and Dover were actually in
sight. "The Channel is but a ditch," he said, "and any one can cross it
who has but the courage to try." A fog might enable his whole army to
slip across unseen, or a fortunate gale might drive away the English
fleet for the short twenty-four hours that he required. Hundreds, and
afterwards thousands, of flat-bottomed boats were collected at Boulogne
and the neighbouring ports, and fitted up, some as armed gunboats, some
as transports. The troops were trained to embark with extraordinary
speed, so that they might not lose a minute when the signal for
sailing should be given. But from June, 1803, to September, 1805, they
waited--and yet the signal was never given.
[Sidenote: =Defensive measures.--The Volunteer Movement.--Recall of
Pitt.=]
England faced the trial with wonderful courage. The nation was so
wrathful at the wanton renewal of the war by Bonaparte, and at his
arrogant threat of invasion, that it made efforts such as had never
been dreamed of before. While the Addington ministry were doubting
how best to meet the projected attack, the nation itself solved the
problem by the great _Volunteer Movement_. Almost every able-bodied man
in England and Scotland offered himself for service. By the autumn of
1803 there were 347,000 volunteers under arms, besides 120,000 regular
troops and 78,000 militia. This was a marvellous effort for a kingdom
which then only counted 15,000,000 souls.[54] The volunteers, it is
true, were imperfectly trained, often insufficiently officered, and
unprovided with a proper proportion of cavalry and artillery. But when
we consider their numbers and enthusiasm, it is only fair to conclude
that even if Bonaparte had thrown across his 120,000 or 150,000 men
into Kent or Sussex, he would have been able to do little against such
a vast superiority of numbers. Not contented with enrolling men for
land service, the government displayed great energy in strengthening
our first line of defence, the fleet. The dockyards were worked with
such zeal and speed that 166 new vessels were added to the navy before
the year was over. Blockading squadrons were hastily sent out to face
all the French and Dutch naval ports, as they had done in the old
war. Not the least of the signs of national enthusiasm was that, in
obedience to the public voice, Pitt--whose name was now bound up with a
vigorous war-policy--was recalled to the helm of state with the king's
consent, while the weak Addington retired into the background.
[Sidenote: =Attempted Irish rebellion.--English success in India.=]
While Bonaparte was drilling his army for rapid embarkation, and
multiplying his gunboats, he utilized the time to stir up trouble for
England in all parts of the world. He gave his approval to a wild
scheme for an Irish rebellion, headed by the rash young revolutionary,
Robert Emmet, whose only achievement was to cause a riot in Dublin,
murder Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice of Ireland, and get himself
promptly hung. A more dangerous blow was aimed at our empire in India.
French military adventurers had been many and prosperous in the native
courts of that country ever since the days of Dupleix, and the First
Consul hoped by their aid to stir up the Nizam and the Mahratta powers
against England. But he had to deal with the able and vigorous Lord
Wellesley, the greatest Governor-General that India has known since
Warren Hastings. Wellesley forced the Nizam to dismiss his French
officers, and allied himself with the Peishwah, the nominal head of the
Mahratta confederacy, against the other chiefs of that nation. In 1803
Lord Lake conquered Delhi and the Doab from the French mercenaries of
Scindiah, the most powerful of these rulers, while Arthur Wellesley,
the Governor-General's brother, was fighting further to the south
against Scindiah himself and the Rajah of Berar. In the brilliant
battles of Assaye and Argaum this young general beat the Mahratta
hosts, though they were nine to one against him. The two hostile
princes were forced to make peace, and cede to the East India Company
their outlying dominions, Scindiah's fortresses in the north, which
became the nucleus of our "North-Western Provinces," and the Rajah of
Berar's province of Orissa, which was added to Bengal (1804).
[Sidenote: =Bonaparte assumes the title of Emperor.=]
In the winter of 1803-4, Bonaparte began to doubt the wisdom of
attacking England with his flotilla of gunboats and transports only,
and resolved to wait till he could concentrate in the Straits a fleet
of line-of-battle ships, capable of beating off the English Channel
squadron. While this plan was being worked out, he brought the internal
affairs of France to a crisis. In the spring of 1804, an abortive
royalist conspiracy against him was detected, and he took advantage
of it to assume a higher and firmer position in the state than that
of First Consul. Accordingly, his servile senate requested him to
accept the title of Emperor. In May, 1804, he forced the Pope, who
stood in mortal dread of annexation, to come up to Paris and preside
at his coronation, a great and costly pageant, which marked the end of
even the shadow of liberty in France. Bonaparte assumed the title of
Napoleon I., thus making his own strange Christian name notable for the
first time since history begins.
[Sidenote: =He determines to employ the Spanish fleet.=]
When his coronation festivities were over, Napoleon set his mind
seriously to the task of concentrating a great fleet in the Channel,
to cover the crossing of his army. In the autumn of 1804, the days of
the old naval leagues against England in 1782 and 1797 were renewed,
when the Emperor forced Spain to join him, demanding either a money
contribution or an auxiliary fleet. The feeble Charles IV. chose to
give the money, but the vessels which bore the treasure were seized
by an English squadron, and Pitt promptly declared war on Spain. By
utilizing the large Spanish fleet, Napoleon thought that he could
gather together an armament strong enough to keep the Channel open for
the crossing of the legions which lay at Boulogne. But, meanwhile,
English blockading vessels were already watching Cartagena, Cadiz, and
Ferrol, as well as Toulon and Brest, and a hard task lay before the
Emperor, when he determined to concentrate the scattered naval forces
of France and Spain.
While Napoleon was busy with this scheme, Pitt had been returning to
his old policy of finding continental allies for England, and stirring
them up against France. Austria and Russia had been greatly displeased
by the same reckless annexations in 1803 which had driven England
into war; but their grudges might not have grown into an anti-French
coalition, if it had not been for the energy of Pitt's diplomacy and
the large subsidies which he offered.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon's naval scheme.=]
In the spring of 1805, things came to a head. On the one hand, the
French Emperor's scheme for the invasion of England was ready; on the
other, Pitt's continental allies were secretly arming. Napoleon's plan
was complicated but ingenious; its strength lay in the fact that it was
not easy for the English to judge what exactly would be his method,
or to provide against it. He ordered the French Mediterranean fleet
at Toulon to take advantage of the first rough weather, and to escape
from its harbour, whenever the English blockading squadron, now headed
by the ever-active and vigilant Nelson, should be blown out to sea.
Then his chief admiral, Villeneuve, was to slip past Gibraltar, and to
join the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, driving off the English ships which
were watching that port. The united Franco-Spanish armament was then to
sail right across the Atlantic, to the West Indies, as if to attack our
colonies there. But the real object of this demonstration was to entice
Nelson, who was certain to chase them when he found their route, far
away from Europe. For when they had reached the West Indies, the allied
fleet were to turn sharply back again, and steer across the Atlantic
for Brest, where they would find another large French fleet, blockaded
by Admiral Cornwallis and the English Channel squadron. Villeneuve, as
the Emperor calculated, would be able to deliver the Brest fleet some
weeks before Nelson could appear in Europe. He would then have seventy
ships to oppose the thirty-five with which England guarded the Channel,
and with such overwhelming superiority would be able to clear the Dover
Straits, and convoy across the army which had been waiting so long at
Boulogne.
[Sidenote: =Villeneuve escapes to the West Indies.=]
In the first part of this great naval campaign, the Emperor's elaborate
scheme worked well. Villeneuve slipped out of Toulon while Nelson's
fleet was blown away by rough weather. He hurried away to Cadiz,
liberated the Spaniards there, and was off to the West Indies before
Nelson could find out what had become of him. Very tardily the great
English admiral discovered his route, and hurried across the Atlantic
in pursuit. In due pursuance of the scheme of Napoleon, Villeneuve
turned back and steered for Brest, while his pursuer was seeking him
off Barbados.
[Sidenote: =Battle off Cape Finisterre.=]
But here the good fortune of the French ended, and a combination of
chance and skill saved England. So slow was the Franco-Spanish fleet,
and so bad its seamanship, that Nelson gained many days upon them.
He luckily chanced upon a ship that had seen them turn back, hastily
shifted his own course to follow, and sent to England to warn the Lords
of the Admiralty that Villeneuve might be expected off Brest. With most
commendable haste, a squadron under Admiral Calder was organized, to
encounter Villeneuve before he could reach Europe. It sailed out just
in time to meet him as he got into the Bay of Biscay, and fought him
off Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve was not a man of nerve, and though
Calder's squadron was far inferior to his own, he turned aside after an
indecisive battle. So Napoleon heard in August, 1805, to his disgust
and wild anger, that the fleet which was to enable him to cross the
Channel, had not appeared off Brest, but had dropped into Ferrol to
refit after the fight with Calder.
[Sidenote: =Villeneuve retires to Cadiz.--Return of Nelson.=]
Then to make things yet worse, Villeneuve sailed from Ferrol not
for Brest, but for Cadiz, to strengthen himself yet further, with
Spanish reinforcements. This delay enabled the eager Nelson to
arrive in European waters, and at the critical moment he and Calder,
with twenty-eight ships, lay outside Cadiz, while the thirty-five
Franco-Spanish vessels were within its harbour. The Emperor's plan
was therefore wrecked, and no chance remained of the longed-for fleet
sailing up the Channel to meet the 150,000 men who sat idly waiting for
it at Boulogne.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon abandons the plan of invasion.=]
Seeing his scheme shattered, while at the same time rumours of the
Austro-Russian coalition had reached him, Napoleon dropped his
long-cherished invasion scheme. He suddenly turned his back on the sea,
and, declaring war on his continental enemies before they were ready
for him, came rushing across France toward Germany with incredible
speed. But before he started he sent his unfortunate admiral at Cadiz a
bitter letter, in which he taunted him with cowardice for having turned
away from Brest, and ruined the plan for invading England. Stung to
the heart by the imputation of want of courage, Villeneuve came out of
Cadiz to fight Nelson, in order to show that he was not afraid, not in
order to secure any useful end, for the time for that was over.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Trafalgar.=]
Off Cape Trafalgar twenty-seven English ships met the thirty-three
allied vessels, and at the great battle of that name completely
destroyed Villeneuve's fleet. Nelson's splendid naval tactics easily
compensated for the disparity of numbers. Seeing the enemy lying before
him in a long line, he formed his own ships into two columns and
swooped down on the centre of the Franco-Spanish Armada. He cut the
enemy in two, and destroyed their midmost ships ere the wings could
come up. Of the thirty-three hostile vessels nineteen were taken and
one burnt, but in the moment of success, the great admiral fell; he had
led the attacking column in his own ship, the _Victory_, and, pushing
into the thickest of the enemy, was laid low by a musket-ball ere the
fight was half over. But he lived long enough to hear that the day was
won, and died contented (October 21, 1805). In her grief for Nelson,
England half forgot her joy at the most decisive naval triumph that
we had ever gained, for Napoleon was driven to own himself impotent
at sea, and the spirits of the French seamen were so broken that they
never dared again to put out to sea, save in small numbers for secret
and hurried cruises. For the future the Emperor determined to strike at
English commerce by decrees and embargos, not to attack England herself
by armed force.
[Sidenote: =Ulm and Austerlitz.--End of the "Holy Roman Empire."=]
But, for the moment, to put down Austria and Russia was his task.
Already, before Trafalgar had been fought, he had crushed the vanguard
of the Austrians at Ulm, where the imbecile General Mack laid down his
arms with nearly 40,000 men, while the Russians were still miles away,
toiling up from Poland. Vienna fell into his hands before the allies
were able to join their forces. A month later they met the French on
the snow-covered hillside of Austerlitz, a village some eighty miles
north-east of the Austrian capital. Here Napoleon beat them with awful
slaughter. Left with only the wreck of an army, the Emperor Francis
II. asked for peace, and got it on humiliating terms. He had to cede
his Italian dominions, as well as the Tyrol, the very cradle of the
Hapsburg dynasty. Moreover, he gave up his old title of head of the
"Holy Roman Empire"--the imperial style which had lasted since the
days of Charlemagne, and had remained in the Austrian line for 350
years--and was constrained to take the new and humbler name of Emperor
of Austria.
[Sidenote: =Death of Pitt.--The Ministry of "All the Talents."=]
The news of this disaster to the coalition which had cost him so much
trouble to knit together, and from which he had expected so much, broke
Pitt's heart. He had been in ill-health ever since he took office in
1804, the constant stress of responsibility, while the invasion was
impending, having shattered his nerves. He died on January 23, 1806,
aged no more than forty-six. He had been prime minister for nearly half
this short span of life, and had certainly done more for England in his
tenure of office than any man who has ever occupied that position. The
death of Pitt, and the public dismay at the break up of the coalition
of 1805, led to a demand for a strong and united ministry that should
combine all parties for the national defence. There was no man among
the Tories great enough to take up Pitt's mantle, and Addington, the
late prime minister, Lord Grenville and several other leaders of that
party were ready to admit the long-exiled Whigs to a share in the
administration. The king was discontented at having to receive his old
foe, Charles James Fox, as a minister, but bowed to the force of public
opinion. Thus came into being the short Fox-Grenville cabinet, which
contemporary wits called the ministry of "All the Talents," on account
of its broad and comprehensive character, for it included all shades
of opinion, from Addington at the one end to Fox at the other.
[Sidenote: =Failure of negotiations with Napoleon.--Death of Fox.=]
Fox had always opposed war with France, and had maintained that if the
late ministry had met Napoleon in an open and liberal spirit they might
have secured an honourable peace. But when he himself was given the
opportunity of testing the Corsican's real temper, he met with a bitter
disappointment. Napoleon was too angry with England to think of any
accommodation. He offered Fox terms which were absolutely insulting,
considering that England had held her own and successfully kept off
invasion. Fox died soon after, worn out by the hard work of office, to
which he had been a stranger for twenty years (September, 1806).
[Sidenote: =End of the Grenville Ministry.--Abolition of the Slave
Trade.=]
After his decease and the failure of the peace negotiations, the
Grenville Ministry had no great reason for existence; it was forced to
continue the war-policy of Pitt, but met with no success in several
small expeditions that it sent out to vex the French and Spaniards. In
March, 1807, the ministers resigned, after a quarrel with the king on
the same point which had wrecked Pitt in 1802--the question of Catholic
Emancipation. The only good work which this short administration had
done in its thirteen months of office was to abolish the slave-trade.
On the resignation of the Whigs the Tories came back into power. Their
nominal chief was now William Bentinck, Duke of Portland, an aged man,
one of the Whigs who had been made Tories by the French Revolution. But
the shrewd and ambitious Spencer Perceval, the new Chancellor of the
Exchequer, was the real leader of the Tories. He was a narrow-minded
man of moderate ability, whose only merit was that he clung to the
policy of Pitt, and continued to hammer away at the French in spite of
all checks and failures.
[Sidenote: =The Confederation of the Rhine.=]
After Austerlitz, Napoleon assumed the position of tyrant of all
Central Europe. He created his younger brother Lewis king of Holland,
and drove out the Spanish Bourbons from Naples, in order to make his
eldest brother Joseph king of the Two Sicilies. He formed the smaller
German states into the "Confederation of the Rhine," of which he
declared himself protector.
[Sidenote: =Prussia declares war on France.=]
These high-handed doings were certain to provoke further fighting, for
Russia, though defeated at Austerlitz, did not consider herself beaten,
and the strong military state of Prussia was bound to resent the
ascendency of the French in Germany. Frederic William III., the rather
irresolute monarch who swayed that country, had been half inclined to
help Austria in 1805. But he delayed till the campaign of Austerlitz
was over, and then found that he must fight Napoleon alone. Relying on
the strength of his army and the old traditions of Frederic the Great,
he declared war on France in 1806, hastily patching up treaties of
alliance with Russia and England.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Jena.=]
Of all the disasters which befell the powers of the continent at
Napoleon's hands, none was so sudden and crushing as that which Prussia
suffered in 1806. Only a few weeks after the declaration of war, the
Prussian monarchy was ruined. The Emperor's swiftness and power of
concentration were never shown more brilliantly. After defeating the
Prussians at Jena (October, 1806), he pursued them so furiously that
he captured their whole army--more than 100,000 men--at Magdeburg,
Lubeck, and Prenzlow. Nearly all the Prussian fortresses surrendered,
and Frederic William escaped beyond the Vistula, with only 12,000 men,
to join his Russian allies. After entering Berlin, Napoleon pushed on
into Poland to meet the advancing forces of Czar Alexander. In the
bitter cold of a Polish February, he fought the battle of Eylau with
the Russians, and, for the first time in his life, failed to gain
a decisive victory over these stubborn foes. But, in the following
May, he finally settled the campaign by winning the bloody fight of
Friedland, after which the Czar asked for peace.
[Sidenote: =The Treaty of Tilsit.--Dismemberment of Prussia.=]
At the treaty of Tilsit Napoleon dictated his terms to Russia and
Prussia. Alexander was left comparatively unmolested; he was not
stripped of territory, but only compelled to promise aid to Napoleon's
schemes against England. But Prussia was absolutely crushed; half
her territory was taken from her--the eastern districts to form a
new Polish state called the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the western to
make, along with Hanover and Hesse, a new "kingdom of Westphalia" for
Napoleon's youngest brother Jerome. In addition, all the Prussian
fortresses received French garrisons, and a fine of £26,000,000 was
imposed on the mutilated kingdom (June, 1807).
[Sidenote: =The Berlin Decrees.=]
Since Trafalgar the Emperor had been pondering over new schemes for
ruining England. In a leisure moment during the Prussian campaign he
devised the celebrated "Berlin Decrees." The English, as he thought,
mainly lived upon the revenues that they earned by being the middlemen
between Europe and the distant lands of Asia and America. Their
carrying trade was the staple of their prosperity, and if he could
destroy it England must go bankrupt. Accordingly, the Berlin Decrees
declared a blockade against goods made or brought over by the English,
in every country that France could influence. Now the idea of a naval
blockade is familiar enough, but Napoleon's scheme contemplated its
exact converse. He had resolved to station soldiers and custom-house
officers round every mile of coast in Europe, to prevent English
vessels from approaching the shore, and to see that not a pound's
worth of English manufactures or colonial produce should be imported.
The decrees declared the British Isles under blockade as regards the
rest of Europe; no subject of France or of any vassal power was to
trade with them. All Napoleon's unfortunate subject-allies, Prussia,
Holland, Spain, and the powers of Italy were forced to assent to this
strange edict, and the Czar of Russia was cajoled into accepting it.
Napoleon thought that he had thereby struck a deadly blow at England,
for every European state, save Sweden, Turkey, and Portugal, and the
islands of Sicily and Sardinia, was at his beck and call. But he had
not calculated on the greatness of the sacrifice which he was asking
his allies to make. They were to give up, in order to please him, many
of the comforts, even the necessities of life--West Indian sugar and
coffee, the tea, pepper, and spices of the East, the cloth and linen of
England, the muslin of Hindustan.
[Sidenote: =The "Orders in Council" of 1807.=]
The English government boldly accepted the Emperor's challenge, and
replied that if there was to be no English trade with the continent,
there should not be any trade at all. By the "Orders in Council" of
November, 1807, the whole coast-line of France and her allies was
declared in a state of blockade, and the war-vessels of England were
directed to seize as prizes all ships entering them, whether neutral
or not, unless before sailing for the continent such vessels should
have touched at an English port. Napoleon replied by the Milan Decrees
(Dec. 17, 1807), which declared that any vessel belonging to a neutral
power which had touched at any British port should be considered
a lawful prize, and ordered all British merchandise found on the
continent to be confiscated and burnt. Thus, between the Berlin Decrees
and the Orders in Council, all the ports of Europe were formally
closed. The one great neutral power, the United States of America, felt
this blow bitterly, and bore a deep grudge against both parties in the
strife.
[Sidenote: =Results of the "Continental System."=]
From the very first the result of the "Continental System," as the
Emperor's plan was named, was very different from what he had expected.
The English manufactures and colonial wares, which he intended to
exclude, contrived to creep, nevertheless, within the bounds of his
empire. All along the coasts of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain,
there sprang up an extraordinary development of smuggling. From
Heligoland, the Channel Isles, Gibraltar, and Sicily, hundreds of
vessels sailed by night to land their cargoes in secret. But if the
merchandize arrived, it came by such hazardous and circuitous ways that
its price was vastly increased. Napoleon did not succeed in ruining the
commerce of England, but he succeeded in making Germans and Russians
and Italians pay monstrous prices for their coffee or their sugar, and
got their well-earned curses for it.
[Sidenote: =The French invade Portugal.=]
Napoleon's restless energy in carrying out his scheme for the isolation
and financial ruin of England, led him into new troubles in another
part of Europe, less than three months after he had ended his Polish
campaign by the peace of Tilsit. The little kingdom of Portugal was,
with Turkey, almost the last state in Europe which had not accepted the
Continental System. Loth to lose their valuable commerce with England,
the Portuguese tried evasion, and returned shifty answers when Napoleon
bade their prince-regent accept the Berlin Decrees. Without waiting
for further provocation the tyrant, who had now grown impatient of the
slightest remonstrance against his fiat, declared that "the house of
Braganza had ceased to reign," and sent an army under General Junot
across Spain to occupy Lisbon. The prince-regent was forced to fly by
sea, and the French overran the whole of his kingdom.
[Sidenote: =Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed King of Spain.=]
But from the first moment of his interference in the Peninsula, it is
probable that Napoleon had wider schemes than the mere conquest of
Portugal. The crown of Spain was now worn by the imbecile and worthless
old king Charles IV., who lived in constant strife with his cowardly
and intriguing son and heir, the Infant Ferdinand. There was nothing
to choose between them in the way of incompetence and effeteness. In
1807 this wretched pair were at the height of their domestic quarrels,
and each was trying to curry favour with Napoleon. They were always
carrying complaints about each other to him, and asking for his
support. Then Napoleon, as if he were the recognized arbiter of kings,
summoned the quarrelsome father and son to meet him at Bayonne on the
French frontier, that he might settle their disputes. They came, each
full of charges against his relative; but Napoleon, when he had them
both safely under his hand, suddenly adopted a new tone, pronounced
them both unfit to rule a great nation, and then declared that his own
brother, Joseph Bonaparte (whom he had made ruler of Naples two years
before), would be the best king for Spain. Accordingly, he forced
the two Bourbons, half by threats, half by cajolery, to abdicate,
and sent them into the interior of France. A few Spanish nobles who
had accompanied them to Bayonne were induced to accept Joseph, and
then Napoleon pretended that his brother was legally constituted King
of Spain. There were many French troops in the Peninsula, who had
been sent there under the pretence that they were to help Junot in
conquering Portugal. At the concerted signal these regiments seized the
neighbouring Spanish fortresses, and proclaimed Joseph king. After a
rising of the populace of Madrid had been put down with much bloodshed
by the French troops in the capital, it seemed as if Napoleon's piracy
and kidnapping were to be crowned with success (June 15, 1808).
[Sidenote: =Resistance of the Spaniards.=]
This, however, was in reality far from being the case. As a matter of
fact he had now succeeded in involving himself in the most protracted
and exhausting war in which he was ever engaged. He had roused by his
treachery the most revengeful and fanatical people in Europe, and had
now to conquer a barren and arid country, "where large armies starve
and small armies get beaten." Spain sprang to arms on the news of the
crime of Bayonne. The great towns everywhere proclaimed Ferdinand VII.
king, and though the central government was destroyed, "juntas" or
revolutionary committees were formed in every province and began to
raise troops to resist King Joseph.
[Sidenote: =England determines to aid the Spaniards.=]
The news of the Spanish insurrection was received with joy in England,
more especially because it was the first really national rising
against the Emperor that had yet been seen. Even the Whigs were
enthusiastic for aiding Spain. "Hitherto," said Sheridan, "Bonaparte
has contended with princes without dignity, numbers without ardour,
and peoples without patriotism; he has yet to learn what it is to
combat a nation animated by one spirit against him." Misled by their
sympathy into over-estimating the strength of Spain and the valour of
her raw provincial levies, the English government, influenced mainly
by Canning, a disciple of Pitt, who was now the most prominent among
the younger Tory statesmen, determined to strike a bold blow by land
against Napoleon. For the last three years the very considerable body
of regular troops in England, set free from the task of watching the
Boulogne army, had been frittered away on small expeditions against
outlying parts of the French and Spanish dominions, and had suffered
nothing but checks. Now the cabinet determined to send a really
formidable army to the Peninsula. It was resolved to throw 20,000 men
ashore in Portugal to assail Junot, who was cut off from the rest of
the French armies by the revolt in Spain. To the Spaniards were sent
subsidies of arms and money, but no troops.
[Sidenote: =The Capitulation at Baylen.=]
Bonaparte's notion that Spain could be annexed by a proclamation, and
held down by 80,000 men, was destined to receive a rude shock. Almost
simultaneously, two disasters fell upon his armies. A corps had been
sent southwards to conquer Andalusia, where the insurrection was at its
strongest. Its leader, General Dupont, allowed himself to be surrounded
by superior numbers of Spanish levies at Baylen, and after some grossly
mismanaged fighting, laid down his arms with his whole force of 15,000
men (July 20, 1808).
[Sidenote: =Battle of Vimiero.--The Convention of Cintra.=]
Junot, in Portugal, suffered almost the same fate. The English began
to land in Portugal a few days after the capitulation of Baylen. When
their leading divisions were ashore, headed by Sir Arthur Wellesley,
the victor of Assaye and Argaum, Junot marched against them to drive
them into the sea. Finding Wellesley on the hillside of Vimiero, he
attacked him recklessly (Aug. 21), for the French had not yet learnt to
appreciate the worth of the British infantry. He received a crushing
defeat, and his army would have been destroyed if Wellesley had been
allowed to pursue him. But on the night of the battle, more troops
arrived from England, and with them Sir Hew Dalrymple, who was in
command of the whole expedition. The cautious veteran refused Wellesley
permission to follow up the flying enemy, and Junot escaped to Lisbon.
But the Frenchman had been so badly beaten, that by an agreement called
the "Convention of Cintra" he gave up Lisbon and all Portugal in
return for being granted a safe passage back to France. English public
opinion was disappointed that Junot's whole army had not been captured,
and Dalrymple and Wellesley were put on trial for not taking Lisbon
by force. The former, the responsible person, was deprived of his
command; the latter was acquitted and sent back to Portugal to repeat
his triumph of Vimiero on larger fields of battle. Meanwhile, while he
was being tried in England, Sir John Moore, an able and experienced
general, received the command of the English army in the Peninsula.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon in Spain.--Sir John Moore's campaign.=]
The news of Baylen and Vimiero had roused Napoleon to fury, which grew
still greater when he heard that his brother Joseph had evacuated
Madrid and fallen back behind the Ebro. He determined to march in
person against Spain with the "Grande Armée," nearly 250,000 veterans,
the victors of Austerlitz and Jena. Proclaiming that he was "about to
carry his victorious eagles to the Pillars of Hercules, and drive the
British leopard into the sea," he hurried over the Pyrenees, and fell
upon the raw Spanish levies who had now advanced to the line of the
Ebro. With a few crushing blows, he scattered them to right and left,
and entered Madrid (Dec. 4, 1808). All northern and central Spain
were overrun, and Napoleon might have accomplished his boast, and
advanced to Cadiz and Lisbon, but for the daring diversion made by Sir
John Moore and his 25,000 English. When that able officer heard that
the Emperor had passed southward and taken Madrid, he fell upon his
line of communication, and threatened to cut off his connection with
France. He knew that this act would bring overwhelming numbers against
him, but he also knew that it would save Southern Spain for a space.
When Napoleon learnt that Moore was in his rear, he hurriedly left
Madrid and directed 100,000 men to chase the much-daring general. But
Moore, satisfied to have drawn off the French, continually retreated
before them in the most skilful manner, always offering battle to the
French van, and retreating when their main body appeared. He thus drew
Napoleon up into the extreme north-western corner of Spain, among the
rugged hills of Galicia. While engaged in this pursuit the Emperor
received unwelcome news which drew him hastily back to Paris.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon leaves Spain.--Battle of Corunna.=]
The English government had not been idle during the autumn of 1808,
and had formed a new coalition with Austria, who in three years had
begun to recover the disaster of Austerlitz, and to chafe against
Napoleon's dictatorial ways and the inconveniences of the Continental
System. Seeing the Emperor entangled in the Spanish war, Austria
thought the opportunity of attacking him too good to be missed, and
was preparing to send her armies into South Germany while Napoleon
was chasing Moore into Galicia. The Emperor was forced to leave the
greater part of his army in Spain, and to hurry off to the Danube with
his guards and picked troops. Marshal Soult, whom he sent in pursuit
of Moore, followed him as far as the sea, where an English fleet was
waiting at Corunna to pick up the way-worn and jaded troops. To secure
a safe embarkation, Moore turned sharply on the head of Soult's army,
and drove it back at the battle of Corunna (Jan. 16, 1809). He fell
in the moment of victory, but his efforts had not been in vain: his
troops sailed away in safety, and the French invasion of Spain had been
checked for four months by his bold stroke.
[Illustration: SPAIN & PORTUGAL
1803-1814.]
The English cabinet had resolved not to abandon Spain and Portugal;
when Moore's regiments returned to England many of them were sent back
to Lisbon, and placed under Wellesley, the victor of Vimiero, whose
trial had ended in a triumphant acquittal. In April, 1809, began that
wonderful series of campaigns which was to last till March, 1814, and
to bear the English standard in triumph from the Tagus to the Garonne.
Fettered by timid instructions from the home government, linked to
rash and jealous allies, and starting with no more than 20,000 British
troops, Wellesley was bidden to hold his own in the Peninsula, where
more than 200,000 French troops were still encamped. He showed the
rarest combination of prudence and daring, and brought his almost
impossible task to a successful end, in spite of the tiresome stupidity
of his Spanish confederates, and the inefficient support which the home
government gave him. At any moment, during the first three years of
his command, a single defeat would have caused the cabinet to recall
him and withdraw his army from the Peninsula, but the defeat never
came, and Wellesley at last won the confidence he merited, and was
given adequate means to carry out his mighty schemes. The story of the
war is the best proof of his abilities. A calm, stern, silent man,
with an aquiline nose, clear grey eyes, and a slight, erect figure, he
inspired implicit confidence, if his taciturnity and hatred of display
or emotion prevented him from winning the love and enthusiasm of his
troops as many lesser generals have done. "The sight of his long nose
among us on a battle morning," wrote one of his veterans, "was worth
10,000 men of reinforcements any day."
[Sidenote: =Soult driven from Portugal.--Battle of Talavera.=]
While Napoleon was engaged in his Austrian war of 1809, Wellesley
easily held his own in the Peninsula. He defeated Marshal Soult
at Oporto, and drove him out of Portugal with the loss of all his
artillery and baggage. Then, turning southward, he marched against
Madrid in the company of the Spanish general Cuesta. But he found
his allies almost useless. Cuesta was perverse and imbecile to an
incredible degree, and his wretched provincial levies fled at the
mere sound of the cannon, unless they were ensconced behind walls and
trenches. At Talavera the allied armies beat Marshal Victor and King
Joseph, but all the fighting fell on the English. Cuesta's troops,
sheltered in the town of Talavera, refused to come out of their
defences and left Wellesley's 20,000 men to repel the assaults of
40,000 French. After this experience of Spanish co-operation the victor
vowed that he would never again share a campaign with a Spanish army
(July 28, 1809).
[Sidenote: =Wellington retires to Portugal.--The Walcheren expedition.=]
The news of Talavera brought the French armies from all sides to aid
the defeated marshal, and, beset by 100,000 men, Wellesley was obliged
to retreat on Portugal. He got back in perfect safety, but his imbecile
colleague Cuesta was caught and crushed by the pursuers. The result of
the fighting at Talavera had given the English troops confidence, and
the king conferred on the victor the title of Viscount Wellington. He
would have preferred to receive reinforcements rather than honorary
distinctions, but the cabinet had decreed otherwise. They had sent all
the available troops in England, some 40,000 men, on an ill-judged
expedition against Antwerp, which was too strongly fortified and lay
too far inland to be readily taken by an army of such a size. The
general placed in command was Lord Chatham, Pitt's elder brother, a
dilatory commander who moved slowly and allowed himself to be detained
in the siege of the minor fortresses which guarded the way to Antwerp.
The army landed on the swampy isle of Walcheren and beleaguered
Flushing for three weeks, but in the trenches the troops were smitten
with marsh fever, and succumbed so rapidly that the expedition had to
be given up, when 11,000 men were simultaneously in hospital. Flushing
was destroyed, but the troops had to return to England, and had
exercised no influence whatever on the fate of the war (July to August,
1809). If sent to Wellesley, they would have enabled him to crush King
Joseph and take Madrid.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Wagram.--Marriage of Napoleon.=]
Meanwhile the Austrian war had ended in the triumph of Napoleon at the
battle of Wagram (August, 1809), though the gallant efforts of the
Archduke Charles, and the insurrection of the patriots of the Tyrol
and Northern Germany, had seemed at first to shake his power. The
Emperor of Austria was forced to cede all his Illyrian coast-line, that
Napoleon might make his blockade of English goods the stricter, to
surrender half his share of Poland, and to give--the bitterest drop in
his cup--the hand of his daughter Maria Louisa to the conqueror. This
unhallowed union was only made possible by the divorce of Josephine
Beauharnais, the wife with whom Napoleon had lived for the last
fourteen years (October, 1809).
[Sidenote: =The "Lines of Torres Vedras."--Masséna's retreat.=]
Freed from the Austrian war, and with his "Grande Armée" once
more unoccupied, Napoleon resolved to make an end of the Spanish
insurrection. He gave 70,000 fresh troops to Masséna, the ablest of
his marshals, and bade him drive Wellington into the sea and conquer
all Spain and Portugal. The English general had foreseen some such
assault from the moment that he heard the news of the defeat of
Austria. He spent the winter of 1809-1810 in constructing a triple
series of fortifications across the peninsula on which Lisbon stands,
the famous "Lines of Torres Vedras." When Masséna advanced against
Portugal Wellington retired slowly before him, wasting the country
and compelling all the people to take refuge in Lisbon. He turned at
Busaco (September 29, 1810) to inflict a sharp check on the heads of
Masséna's columns, but finally withdrew into his formidable lines. The
French were brought to a stand before the unexpected obstacle, for
they had no knowledge that Wellington had so strengthened his place of
refuge. The position, armed with 600 pieces of artillery, and defended
by 30,000 English, and the whole of the militia of Portugal, seemed too
strong to be meddled with. Masséna lay in front of the lines for four
months, sending in vain for reinforcements to Spain. But his colleague
Soult, occupied in the conquest of Andalusia, and the sieges of Cadiz
and Badajos, would not come to his aid. Masséna's army suffered
bitter privations in the wasted and depopulated country, and at last,
in March, 1811, he was fain to draw back and retreat from Portugal,
after having lost more than 20,000 men by sword and famine. Wellington
followed him, perpetually harassing his retreat, and took post again
on the borders of Spain, from which he had been forced back six months
before.
[Sidenote: =Battles of Fuentes d'Onoro and Albuera.=]
The triumphant defence of the lines of Torres Vedras was the turning
point of the whole Peninsular War. The French were never again able
to invade Portugal, and Wellington, strongly reinforced from England
after his success was known, was for the future able to undertake
bolder strokes and no longer forced to keep to the defensive. The last
offensive movements of the French were stopped by two bloody actions
fought in May, 1811, within a few days of each other. In the north
Masséna attacked Wellington in order to try to save the beleaguered
fortress of Almeida; but he was repulsed at Fuentes d'Onoro (May 5),
and was shortly afterwards recalled in disgrace by his master. In
the south Marshal Soult marched to relieve Badajos, which was being
besieged by Lord Beresford, Wellington's second-in-command, aided by
the Spanish general Blake. Beresford met the French at Albuera, and
almost lost the battle, partly by his own unskilful generalship, partly
by the sudden flight of his Spanish auxiliaries. But the day was saved
by the celebrated charge of the "Fusilier Brigade," in which the 7th
and 23rd Fusiliers, only 1500 strong, stormed a precipitous hill held
by 7000 French, and forced Soult to retreat. This was the bloodiest
fight which an English army ever gained. Beresford lost 4300 men out of
7500, yet his indomitable troops won the day for him (May 16).
[Illustration: EUROPE
IN 1811-12.]
[Sidenote: =Further Annexations by Napoleon.=]
The years 1810-1811 were the last years of Napoleon's ascendency in
Europe. They are marked by his final attempt to make the Continental
System effective, by the annexation of almost the whole coast-line of
Central Europe. He had already taken Rome and Central Italy from the
Pope in 1809. Now he expelled his own brother Lewis from Holland, and
appropriated that country. He next added to his dominions the whole
north coast of Germany as far as the Baltic, including the Hanseatic
towns and the realms of four or five of his vassals, the princes of the
Confederation of the Rhine. These wild and arbitrary seizures, which
made the coast of France extend from Rome to Lubeck, were to Napoleon
mere episodes in the struggle with England. The Dutch and Germans would
not enforce the blockade against English goods as stringently as he
wished, and so he annexed them to make their secret trade with England
impossible. The Continental System was now in full swing; it was
working in all Napoleon's own dominions, in France, Italy, and Illyria,
in the lands of all his vassals--the German states, Poland, Denmark,
Naples, Prussia--in Sweden, where one of his marshals, Bernadotte, had
lately been made heir to the throne, and even in the territories of his
reluctant allies the emperors of Austria and Russia. Yet, in spite of
Napoleon's many assertions to the contrary, England was neither ruined
nor likely to sue for peace.
[Sidenote: =Perceval and Lord Liverpool.--War policy of the Tories.=]
There had of late been many changes in the persons who ruled England,
but the policy of Pitt was still maintained by his successors. The
old king, George III., had gone mad in 1810, and the nominal control
of the country was now in the hands of his worthless, vicious son
George, Prince of Wales, the old ally of the Whigs. But the regency
was given him guarded with so many checks and limitations, that he was
completely in the hands of the ministry, and could not do much harm.
First Perceval, and after he had been shot by a lunatic in 1812, Robert
Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, swayed the policy of England as prime
minister. Both were men of moderate abilities and narrow minds, but
they had the saving virtue of obstinacy, and stuck to the old policy
of war with France through thick and thin. Their task was no easy one:
debt was accumulating in appalling loads from the expenses of the war;
the taxes were increased year by year; trade was much hampered by the
Continental System; a series of bad harvests raised the cost of corn
to famine-price, and led to endless discontent and rioting both in
town and country; our allies were beaten one by one on the continent.
There was no compensating gain save Wellington's successes in Spain,
and the fact that we had now full control of the seas and had absorbed
the colonial trade of the whole world. Yet the Tories hardened their
hearts, and hammered away at "the Corsican Ogre" with untiring zeal.
Nor can it be doubted for a moment that they were right; Napoleon had
to be put down, or England must perish. All honour therefore to the
men, narrow-minded and prejudiced though they were, who carried out the
struggle to the bitter end.
[Sidenote: =Russia and the Continental System.=]
They were at last about to be rewarded for their perseverance. Towards
the end of 1811 Napoleon became involved in a third struggle with
Russia, more deadly than those of 1805 and 1806-7. The cause of the
quarrel was the inevitable Continental System. Hitherto England had
been the largest buyer of Russian goods, and Russia had been wont
to get her luxuries and colonial wares from England. The enforced
prohibition of trade with her best customer did Russia untold harm,
and the Czar Alexander found that every class of his subjects was
groaning under the yoke of the Berlin Decrees. Discontent was rife,
and Alexander knew well enough that Russia is "a despotism tempered by
assassination," and remembered the fate of his own father. He saw at
last that his empire was losing more from alliance with Napoleon than
she could lose by open war against him. Finally the Russian government
began to provoke the Emperor by an almost overt neglect of his wishes,
and practically abandoned the Continental System.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon's Russian campaign.=]
Napoleon was at the height of his arrogance and autocratic insolence.
Instead of making an end to the war in Spain--"the running sore" as he
called it, from the drain which it caused on his resources--he resolved
to impose his will on Russia by force, and declared war upon the Czar.
A vast army of 600,000 men was concentrated in eastern Germany, and
crossed the Niemen in June, 1812. But the Russians had taken example by
the policy by which Wellington had foiled Masséna in 1810: instead of
fighting on their frontier, they withdrew into the heart of their vast
plains, wasting the country behind them, and leaving no food for the
invader. The French army had lost half its horses and a third of its
men, before it approached Moscow or fought a serious engagement. The
Russians turned to bay at Borodino, in front of their ancient capital;
but Napoleon stormed their entrenchments at the cost of 25,000 men,
and entered Moscow. But he found it deserted by its inhabitants, and
a few days after his arrival the whole city was burnt, whether by the
deliberate resolve of the Russians, or by the carelessness of the
French soldiery. Winter was now at hand, and for want of food and
shelter the Emperor resolved to retire on Poland. But the season was
too late, and he was surprised on his way by the snow. His harassed and
half-starved soldiers died by thousands on the roadside: the Russians
cut off every straggler, and less than a tenth of the magnificent army
that had crossed the Niemen struggled back to Germany (Nov. 1812-Jan.
1813).
[Sidenote: =Storming of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos.=]
The fortune of war had at last turned, and Napoleon's first disaster
was soon to be followed by his fall. Prussia and all his other
unwilling subjects in northern Germany took arms when the fate of the
"Grande Armée" became known, and to meet them the Emperor had to call
up his last reserves of men, and especially to draw on the large force
in the Spanish peninsula. But he found that little help could come from
Spain, for 1812 had been as fatal to his marshals in the south as to
himself in the far north. Early in the year Wellington had swooped down
on Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, the two fortresses in French hands which
covered the Spanish frontier. He stormed each of them after a siege of
a few days, making the desperate courage of his soldiery serve instead
of a long bombardment, and paying for his rapid success by a heavy
loss of men. Badajos was actually escaladed with ladders, the breaches
having proved inaccessible. The French marshals came hurrying up to
save their strongholds, but found them already fallen into English
hands.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Salamanca.=]
There followed the decisive battle of Salamanca, in which Wellington
defeated Marshal Marmont, and crushed the main army of the enemy.
This fight was a splendid exhibition of his skill: his able adversary
had for a moment put his left wing in a hazardous position. Before
half an hour had elapsed, Wellington had pounced upon the isolated
divisions, routed them, and attacked and scattered the main body. Thus,
as was happily said, he "beat forty thousand men in forty minutes." In
consequence of this victory Wellington was able to retake Madrid, after
it had been four years in hostile hands. To check his further success
the French marshals had to evacuate all southern and central Spain,
and mass their forces against the victor. When they beset him with
100,000 men he was forced to retreat towards the Portuguese frontier
for a space. But the net result of the campaign had been to deliver
Andalusia and most of Castile from the enemy, and more was to follow.
Napoleon had to withdraw so many of his veterans from Spain, to replace
his losses in the Russian war, that in the next spring Wellington was
no longer in his wonted inferiority of numbers. He used his opportunity
with his usual skill and promptness.
[Sidenote: =Battle of Vittoria.--Last efforts of the French in Spain.=]
Attacking the French before they had concentrated from their scattered
winter-quarters, he chased them before him in disorder all across
northern Spain. It was only at Vittoria, close under the Pyrenees, that
they could collect in numbers strong enough to face him. But there he
fell upon them, routed Marshal Jourdan, cut off his retreat on France,
and drove him into the mountains with the loss of every single cannon
and waggon that the French army possessed (June 21, 1813). The autumn
of the year was occupied in subduing St. Sebastian and Pampeluna, the
two fortresses that guarded the French frontier, and in repulsing, at
the "Battles of the Pyrenees," two gallant attempts made by Marshal
Soult to relieve the beleaguered fortresses. At last they fell, and
Wellington prepared to invade France in the next spring.
[Sidenote: =Fall of Napoleon.--Restoration of Louis XVIII.=]
Meanwhile, Napoleon, with a horde of conscripts and the few veteran
troops that he could collect, had been fighting hard in Germany.
Against the Russians and Prussians he held his ground for some time,
but when his own father-in-law, Francis of Austria, joined the enemy,
he was overwhelmed by numbers. The three-days' strife at Leipzig, which
the Germans call the "battle of nations," sealed his fate. It was only
with the wrecks of an army that he escaped across the Rhine in the
autumn of 1813. The allies followed him without giving him a moment's
respite, a wise strategy that they had learnt from his own earlier
doings. The Emperor made a desperate fight in France, but the odds were
too many against him. After some ephemeral successes he was defeated at
Laon by one body of the allies, and their main army slipped past him
and took Paris (April 4, 1814). On the news of the fall of the capital
the French marshals compelled Napoleon to abdicate, and laid down their
arms. The humbled despot vainly attempted to commit suicide, fearing
death at the victors' hands. But they spared his life, gave him the
little Tuscan island of Elba as an appanage, and bade the man who had
been the ruler of all Europe to spend the rest of his life in governing
a rock and 10,000 Italian peasants. The crown of France was given--with
questionable wisdom--to the representative of the Bourbons, the eldest
surviving grandson of Lewis XV. This shrewd and selfish old invalid,
who was known as the Count of Provence, now took the title of Lewis
XVIII. and mounted his martyred brother's long-lost throne.
[Sidenote: =Wellington in France.--Battle of Toulouse.=]
While the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians had been conquering
Napoleon and capturing Paris, Wellington had not been idle. He had
invaded France from the south, taken the great city of Bordeaux, and
beaten Marshal Soult at the battle of Toulouse, when the news of
Napoleon's abdication brought his brilliant campaign to a conclusion
(April 14, 1814).
[Sidenote: =The American War.--Naval successes of the United States.=]
All Europe now began to disarm, dreaming that the deadly struggles of
the last twenty-two years were over at last. Diplomatists from all
nations were summoned to meet at Vienna, to rearrange the map of Europe
and parcel out Napoleon's ill-gotten spoils. England alone was unable
to disband her armies, for she had still got a war on hand. In 1812
Napoleon had succeeded in stirring up against us the United States
of America. Their grievance was the Orders in Council, by which we
had prohibited neutral ships from trading with France, in retaliation
for the Emperor's Berlin Decrees against our own commerce. After five
years of bickering and recrimination the Americans declared war on
us--though they might with equally good logic have attacked Napoleon,
whose conduct to them had been even more harsh and provoking than
that of the Perceval cabinet. With all her attention concentrated on
the Peninsula in 1812-13, England had little attention to spare for
this minor war, and Canada was left much undermanned. But the small
garrison and the Canadian militia fought splendidly, and three separate
attempts to overrun the colony were beaten back, and two American
armies forced to capitulate. But while so successful on land, the
English were much vexed and surprised to suffer several small defeats
at sea in duels between single vessels. The few frigates which the
United States owned were very fine vessels, heavily armed and well
manned; on three successive occasions an American frigate captured an
English one of slightly inferior force in single combat, a feat which
no French ship had ever been able to accomplish in the whole war.[55]
In course of time the American vessels were hunted down and destroyed
by our squadrons, but it was a great blow to English naval pride that
the enemy had to be crushed by superiority of numbers instead of being
beaten in equal fight. But the fact was that individually the American
ships were larger and carried heavier guns than our own, so that the
first defeats were no matter of shame to our navy.
[Sidenote: =Battles of Bladensburg and New Orleans.--End of the war.=]
When Napoleon had been crushed, England was able to turn serious
attention to America, and to send many of the old Peninsular veterans
over the Atlantic. But their arrival did not crush the enemy so easily
as had been expected. One expedition under General Ross, landing in
Maryland, beat the Americans at Bladensburg, and burnt Washington,
the capital of the United States (1814). But two others failed: the
imbecile Sir George Prevost invaded the State of New York, but turned
back without having done any serious fighting. On the other hand,
the overbold Sir Edward Pakenham, one of the bravest of Wellington's
officers, was slain at New Orleans with 2000 of his followers because
he endeavoured to storm from the front impregnable earthworks held
by a steady foe (January 8, 1815). The war, however, had ceased just
before Pakenham fell. Napoleon having abdicated, and the English having
withdrawn the Orders in Council, the causes of our strife with America
had been removed, and the two powers had signed the peace of Ghent
on December 24, 1814. This agreement restored the old condition of
affairs, each party surrendering its conquests, and agreeing to let
bygones be bygones. But the struggle had bred much ill blood, not to be
forgotten for many a year.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon escapes from Elba.=]
By the new year of 1815, when the treaty of Ghent had been signed,
England was at peace with all men, and the Liverpool ministry began to
take in hand the reduction of our army and navy, the restoration of
finance, and the protection of English interests in the resettlement of
Europe at the congress at Vienna, which had met in the previous autumn.
All the diplomatists of the great powers were hard at work settling
the new boundaries of their states, when suddenly the alarming news
was heard that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France.
The rule of the selfish old Lewis XVIII. and the elderly companions
who had returned with him from a twenty years' exile, had irritated
and disgusted the French, and most of all the army. When, therefore,
Napoleon landed in Provence with seven hundred men, and called on
his countrymen to rise in behalf of liberty and expel the imbecile
Bourbons, his appeal met with a success such as he himself had hardly
hoped for. Not a shot was fired against him; regiment after regiment
went over to his side, and Lewis XVIII. had at last to fly from Paris
and take refuge in Flanders (March, 1815). Napoleon proclaimed himself
Emperor once more, but promised the French a liberal constitution
in place of his old autocratic rule. He also made overtures to the
allied powers, saying that he was tired of war, and would accept any
honourable terms. But they knew his lying tongue of old, and wisely
refused to listen to his smooth speeches. One after another, all the
monarchs of Europe declared war on him.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon enters Belgium.--Battles of Ligny and Quatre
Bras.=]
Napoleon's second tenure of power was only to last from March 13 till
June 22, 1815, the "Hundred Days," as they are generally called.
Forced to fight, he displayed his old energy, and resolved to strike
at the allies before they could concentrate their scattered forces
from the remotest ends of Europe. He called his old veterans to arms,
and hastily organized an army of 130,000 men for an immediate attack
on the nearest foe. By waiting longer he could have collected an army
thrice as great, but, on the other hand, his enemies would have been
able to mass their whole force against him. The only troops ready to
oppose him by June, 1815, were two armies in Belgium, one of Prussians
under the old Marshal Blücher, which lay about Namur, Liège, and
Charleroi, the other a combined force of British, Germans, and Dutch
under Wellington, now a duke, stationed round Brussels and Ghent. The
Prussians were 120,000 strong, and Wellington had 30,000 English and
65,000 Hanoverians, Germans, and Dutch. Napoleon was therefore bound to
be outnumbered, but he thought that he could crush one army before the
other came to its aid, if he could only strike hard and fast enough.
His advance into Belgium was rapid and skilful. He made for the point
where the English left touched the Prussian right, near Charleroi, and
thrust himself between them. On June 16 he engaged and beat Blücher's
Prussians at Ligny, while his lieutenant, Marshal Ney, held back at
Quatre Bras the front divisions of Wellington's army as they came
marching up to try to join the Prussians.
The Prussians were severely beaten, but the indomitable old Blücher
gathered together his defeated forces, and marched north to rejoin the
English, while Napoleon vainly dreamed that he was flying eastward
towards Germany. Thus it came to pass that the Emperor sent Marshal
Grouchy and 33,000 men to pursue the Prussians on the wrong road, a
mistake which allowed Blücher to execute an undisturbed retreat on
Wavre, where he was again in touch with the duke.
Meanwhile, Napoleon, on the 17th, marched to join his lieutenant Ney,
who had been forced back from Quatre Bras by the English, and needed
his aid. The Emperor, believing that the Prussians were disposed of,
thought he could now deal a crushing blow at Wellington's motley army,
and was overjoyed when he found the duke offering him battle on the
hillside of Mont St. Jean, twelve miles north of Quatre Bras, in a
good position which covered the road to Brussels. On this hillside was
fought next day (June 18, 1815) the decisive battle which the English
call Waterloo, from the name of the village where Wellington wrote his
despatch that same night.
[Illustration: WATERLOO
June 18, 1815.]
[Sidenote: =The Battle of Waterloo.=]
The armies were not very different in numbers. Napoleon's 72,000 French
were opposed to 67,000 troops in the allied army. But Wellington
could only count on his 23,000 English and 22,000 Hanoverians and
Brunswickers, for good and zealous service. He was hindered rather than
helped by the presence of 20,000 raw Dutch and Belgian conscripts, who
had no heart in the war, and would as soon have fought for Napoleon.
His army was stretched along the gentle slope which is crossed by the
Brussels road, with the infantry in the front line, and the cavalry
partly in reserve, partly on the wings. In front of his position were
the two farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, the former held by
the English guards, the latter by a picked battalion of Hanoverians.
Napoleon ranged his men on the opposite ridge, and launched them
against the English in successive attacks. His first attempt to storm
the farm of Hougoumont was manfully beaten back. He then sent four
heavy columns against the English left, but they were utterly routed by
the charge of Picton's infantry and Ponsonby's famous "Union Brigade"
of dragoons, the Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillens. His third effort
was to break the English centre by the furious charges of 15,000
gallant horsemen, supported by a tremendous fire of artillery. But the
English squares held fast, though assailed for five hours by constant
onsets of cavalry and pounded in the intervals by an overwhelming force
of cannon. Most of the Dutch and Belgians and some of the Germans
retired from the field, and many fled to Brussels: but the indomitable
squares held their own, even after the farm of La Haye Sainte had been
stormed, and a gap opened in the English centre. In the thick of the
fighting, Napoleon was surprised to see new troops coming up on his
right: these were Blücher's Prussians, marching from Wavre to aid the
English, according to a promise which the old marshal had made to the
Duke on the previous day. To hold them back, Napoleon had to detach
nearly all his reserves; but for a final stroke against Wellington he
sent out 5000 men of the "Old Guard" to break through the long-tried
English line. But this last effort was foiled by the steady fire of
Maitland's English guards, and when the attacking columns were seen
recoiling down the hillside and Wellington's last cavalry reserves came
charging after them, the whole French army broke and fled.
[Sidenote: =Napoleon confined at St. Helena.=]
Never was a more complete rout seen. The defeated army disbanded
itself: Napoleon could not rally a man, and fled to Paris, where he
abdicated for a second time. Wellington and Blücher rapidly followed
him and entered Paris (July 6). The ex-Emperor, fearing death at the
hands of the infuriated Prussians, fled across France to Rochefort,
and surrendered himself to the English man-of-war which blockaded that
port. After much discussion the ministers resolved to send him as a
prisoner to the desolate island of St. Helena, where he lived for six
years, spending his time in dictating mendacious accounts of his life
and campaigns, and in petty quarrels with the governor of the island.
[Sidenote: =Supremacy of the English mercantile marine.=]
Napoleon was now really disposed of, and the pacification of Europe
was complete. The congress of Vienna had completed its work, and all
the territorial changes which it dictated were carried out at leisure.
England's share of the plunder in Europe was the islands of Malta and
Heligoland and the Ionian Isles; beyond seas she got the French isle of
Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and the valuable Dutch colony of the Cape
of Good Hope. But her real gain was the fact that she had absorbed,
during the course of the war, nearly the whole of the carrying trade
of the world. Twenty years of her ascendency at sea had destroyed the
mercantile marines of France, Holland, Spain, and Italy, and it was
many years before those countries could recover from their losses. The
naval and commercial supremacy which we enjoy to-day is the direct
result of the great wars of 1793-1815.
[Sidenote: =The resettlement of Europe.=]
This being so, the changes on the continent were of comparatively
little moment to us. France was confined within her old boundaries
of 1789. Russia took the greater part of Poland, Austria was given
Lombardy and Venetia, Prussia annexed half Saxony and most of the small
states along the Rhine. Belgium and Holland were joined in an unnatural
union as the "Kingdom of the Netherlands," while the old despots of
Central and Southern Italy returned to their long-lost thrones. These
boundaries were to last, with little alteration, for half a century.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] And this including Ireland, where only the Protestants could be
trusted with arms.
[55] In sixty-seven duels of single English frigates with French,
Dutch, or Spanish vessels of the same rating, the adversary succumbed;
in no single case was an English vessel taken by an enemy of equal
force.