Part 57

The character of Alexander gave indeed to Napoleon an opportunity which he ought to have seized. He was full of high-flown notions for the regeneration of Europe, for the more equitable division of states, and some generally established system of public law. With some such scheme his minister Nowosiltzoff came to England in 1805. Pitt speedily modified his views, and proved to him that before so grand a scheme could be realized the practical work to be done was to insist upon the establishment of the terms of the treaties of Lunéville and Amiens. Accordingly, on the 11th of April, the Treaty of St. Petersburg was signed. The two countries pledged themselves to support a general European league, for the purpose of demanding the evacuation of Hanover, Italy, and Elba, the real independence of Holland and Switzerland, and the complete establishment of the kingdom of Naples: they especially pledged themselves not to interfere with the internal government of France, and to close all questions by a general European congress. As England refused to evacuate Malta, the Czar declined to ratify the treaty, and determined to make one more effort singlehanded to avoid war. For this purpose he despatched an ambassador with much more favourable terms than those implied in the late treaty. But Napoleon declined to see him for two months, and in those two months he had had himself declared King of Italy (May 26), had accepted the offer of the Doge of Genoa to comprise the Ligurian Republic in his Italian kingdom (June 3), had created Lucca into a principality for the husband of his sister Eliza (July 21), and had received an ambassador from the Court of Naples with the most stinging threats and insults. The Russian ambassador was therefore recalled, and, though without declaration of war, the coalition was in fact in existence, and arrangements for a general attack upon France began. The coalition was thus the fruit rather of Napoleon's conduct than of Pitt's diplomacy; the occupation of Hanover, the violation of the neutral territory of Baden, the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the establishment of the kingdom of Italy, the annexation of Genoa and Lucca, and virtually of Holland and of Switzerland, supplied ample reasons to excite the alarm of Europe and to drive the powers into coalition.

[Sidenote: Napoleon prepares to invade England.]

But while the coalition was forming, and Napoleon seemed wantonly to be insulting Europe and ignoring the danger of exciting fresh enemies, he was in fact urging on with all rapidity his schemes for the invasion of England, which he probably hoped might be so successful as to paralyse all action on the part of the European powers. The constantly repeated representations of his naval officers had forced him, much against his will, to believe that his descent upon England would be impracticable unless secured by the presence of his fleet. In spite of the general voice of those who knew the condition of the French navy, he determined to act with his fleet on the same principles as he would have acted with his army; a gigantic combination of various squadrons was to be effected, and a fleet great enough to destroy all hope of opposition to sweep the Channel. For this purpose the eighteen ships of the line at Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, the squadron at Rochefort under Villeneuve, and the Toulon fleet under Latouche-Tréville, were to unite. The last mentioned admiral was intrusted with the chief command. Sailing up the coast of France, he was to liberate from their blockade the squadrons of Rochefort and Brest, and with their combined fleets appear before Boulogne. But Latouche-Tréville died, and Napoleon intrusted his plans to Villeneuve. Those plans, all of them arranged without regard to the bad condition of the French ships, or to the uncertainty of the weather, were frequently changed; at one time Villeneuve from Toulon, and Missiessy, his successor, at Rochefort, were to proceed to the West Indies, drawing the English fleet thither; then Gantheaume was to appear from Brest, throw troops into Ireland, and thus cover the flotilla. At another time, all the fleets were to assemble at the West Indies, and, joining with the Spanish fleet at Ferrol, appear in the Straits of Calais.

[Sidenote: Nelson's pursuit of Villeneuve. May 1805.]

To complete this last measure Villeneuve set sail from Toulon on the 30th of March 1805, joined Gravina at Cadiz, and reached Martinique on the 13th of May with twenty-eight ships and seven frigates. His voyage was so slow that Missiessy had returned from the West Indies to France, and the junction failed. In hot pursuit of Villeneuve, Nelson, who had at length found out his destination, had hurried. At Martinique Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, should have joined Villeneuve; unfortunately for him Admiral Cornwallis blockaded his fleet. Villeneuve therefore had to return to Europe alone, sailing for Ferrol to pick up a squadron of fifteen ships. He was then, at the head of thirty-five ships, ordered to appear before Brest, liberate Gantheaume, and appear in the Channel. Back again in pursuit of him Nelson sailed, but supposed that he would return to the Mediterranean and not to Ferrol; he therefore again missed him; but as he had found means to inform the English Government that Villeneuve was returning to Europe, Calder, with a fleet of fifteen ships, was sent to intercept him. The fleets encountered off Cape Finisterre. The French had twenty-seven vessels, Calder but fifteen, and after an indecisive battle, in which two Spanish ships were taken, he was afraid to renew the engagement, and Villeneuve was thus enabled to reach Ferrol in safety. However, all the operations towards concentration had led to absolutely nothing, and the English fleets, which the movements towards the West Indies were to have decoyed from the Channel, were either still off the coast of France or in immediate pursuit of the fleet of Villeneuve. Nelson returned to Gibraltar, and as soon as he found out where Villeneuve was, he joined his fleet to that of Cornwallis before Brest, and himself returned to England.

[Sidenote: Failure of Napoleon's schemes. Aug.]

The day before Calder had also left nine ships with Cornwallis, who had thus a fleet of thirty-five vessels. He divided them into two equal parts, sending one to Ferrol, and keeping the other to guard Gantheaume in Brest. Meanwhile Villeneuve had not been able to get ready for sea till the 11th of August. Had he then sailed he would probably have encountered with his own nineteen ships Cornwallis' fleet of thirty-five vessels off Brest. Had he indeed postponed his sailing for a few days he would have found Cornwallis' fleet separated, but even then it was improbable that he would have escaped one or other of its divisions. But in fact he did not know of its division, and therefore, acting in the belief of the union of the great fleet off Brest, he was afraid to venture northwards, and with the full approbation of his Spanish colleague Gravina, determined to avail himself of a last alternative which Napoleon had suggested, and sailed to Cadiz. This was a fatal blow to the gigantic schemes of Napoleon. Up till the 22nd of August he still believed that Villeneuve would make his appearance, and in fact wrote to him that day at Brest, closing his letter with the words, "England is ours." As the time for his great stroke drew near he grew nervously anxious, constantly watching the Channel for the approach of the fleet, and at last, when his Minister of Marine, Decrès, told him that the fleet had gone to Cadiz, he broke forth in bitter wrath against both his minister and Villeneuve, whom he accused of the most shameful weakness.

[Sidenote: He changes his plan and marches against Austria.]

But Napoleon was not a man who let his success be staked upon one plan alone. Though studiously hiding from his people the existence of the coalition, and not scrupling to have recourse to forged letters and fabricated news for the purpose, he was fully aware of its existence. He knew too of the movements of the armies of Austria and Russia, and had already taken some steps to meet them. Without much difficulty, therefore, he at once resigned his great plans upon England, and directed his army towards the eastern frontier, determined to wipe out by a great campaign, in which the chances were all in his favour, the disgrace and ridicule of his long-threatened but abortive attack upon England. The largest and best part of the Austrian army was in Italy under the Archduke Charles. On the Inn there were barely 80,000 men, commanded by General Mack. The Russians had yet far to go before they could form a junction with the Austrian troops, and Napoleon, when he first changed his plan on the 25th of August, intended to march by the most direct route to meet the Austrians, and if possible prevent them from crossing the Inn. For this purpose he could bring, counting the army of occupation of Hanover, nearly 200,000 men into the field. The passage of the Rhine was open to him; it was no longer necessary as of old to fight his way through the Black Forest. By pursuing a direct course he would be able to pick up the troops who were in Hanover on his way, and bring his whole army to bear at once upon the Inn. The Austrians, however, little calculating on the rapidity of his movements, believing that the army was engaged on the northern coast, and desirous of securing the assistance of the Bavarian army of 25,000 men, rashly crossed the Inn on the 7th of September, and advanced to Ulm. Their movements were accurately known to Napoleon, who had sent Murat in disguise into Bavaria to watch them; and when he heard that they had taken up their position so far in advance of their base of operations, he formed his great plan for surrounding and capturing the whole army at Ulm.

[Sidenote: Capitulation of the Austrian army at Ulm. Oct 19.]

While Napoleon was thus hurrying off to destroy the Austrian troops, Nelson, having heard of the destination of Villeneuve, and feeling that the fleet he had so long pursued was his fair prey, offered his services to Government. They were gladly accepted, and on the 13th of September he left his home for the last time to take command of the fleet off Cadiz. Thus, each on its own element, the two great nations of Europe, commanded by the two great leaders of the day, were engaged almost simultaneously in undertakings of the last importance, and almost simultaneously the results of those undertakings became known. On the 19th of October, Mack, finding himself surrounded and cut off from Vienna, with all hope of relief gone, capitulated at Ulm, and his whole army of 30,000 men laid down their arms before the enemy. On the 21st of the same month the English and French fleets encountered just within sight of Cape Trafalgar, outside the Straits of Gibraltar.

[Sidenote: Battle of Trafalgar. Oct. 21.]

The fleet of the English numbered twenty-seven vessels, Villeneuve had the command of thirty-three, without reckoning five frigates and two smaller ships. In other respects, in ability of seamanship, and in knowledge of the management of guns, the English were undoubtedly superior. Some days before the battle Nelson had conceived and made known his plan of action. The assault was to be made in two lines; at the head of one Nelson was himself to break the line in the centre, while Collingwood led the second to the attack of the rear squadron. The French were formed in one line, and were sailing in a south-easterly direction. Nelson's plan was therefore calculated not only to destroy the enemy, but also to cut off his retreat from Cadiz and the north. This part of his plan Villeneuve saw through and avoided. He changed the direction of his line, so that the rear squadron became the leading squadron, and the road to Cadiz was kept open. In this order, in full sail, with the wind in their favour, the English attacked and broke the French line. All the advantages of this well-known manœuvre were gained, and by half-past five in the evening, of the thirty-three vessels of the enemy eighteen were in the hands of the English, eleven with difficulty retreated towards Cadiz, and four others, which had formed the leading squadron of the French, were standing out to sea, only to be captured a few days afterwards by another fleet. But the victory was dearly won. Nelson, who had appeared as usual with his orders on his coat, had formed a mark for the riflemen with whom the rigging of the French ships was filled. He fell early in the action, but lived long enough to hear of his complete victory. He died thanking God he had done his duty, and even to the last, mindful of the safety of his fleet, giving orders that it should at once anchor to await a gale whose approach he had foreseen. The storm came as he had expected; a considerable part of our prizes was lost, and three of the French fugitives were wrecked before they reached the port of Cadiz. Of the whole fleet eight vessels alone escaped, which remained blockaded in Cadiz till they fell a prey to the Spanish insurgents.

[Sidenote: Battle of Austerlitz. Dec. 2, 1805.]

But though the sea thus passed entirely under the command of the English, though all chance of invasion had disappeared, a crushing blow upon the Continent shattered for the time all hope of permanent opposition to the advance of Napoleon. The catastrophe at Ulm was followed by a rapid advance upon Vienna. The wisdom Napoleon had shown in concentrating his troops for one great and decisive blow at once bore fruit. The army of Italy was obliged to retreat before the advance of Massena, in time to defend if possible Austria itself. It was too late even for that, and it was compelled to withdraw into Hungary, for the Emperor, desirous of saving the Viennese from the horrors of a siege, had withdrawn with his troops into Moravia, in the hopes of there meeting the main body of the Russians whom Alexander was bringing to his succour. Thither Napoleon pursued him, and there, with his back to the citadel of Brünn, not far from Olmutz, he brought on the great battle of Austerlitz, and before the close of the day the forces of the coalition were completely beaten, losing upon the field 27,000 killed and wounded, 20,000 prisoners, and 133 pieces of cannon.

[Sidenote: Death of Pitt. Jan. 23, 1806.]

While these stirring events had been happening, the health of the English minister had been sensibly declining. Cheered for a moment by the news of Trafalgar, clouded though they were by the death of Nelson, the rapidly-occurring disasters of Ulm and Austerlitz, and the dissolution, by the Treaty of Presburg, of the coalition he had so laboriously established, went far to render fatal the disease which was already threatening him. He returned from Bath, still hoping against hope that he might be present at the opening of Parliament, withdrew for quiet to his villa at Putney, and there died on the 23rd of January 1806.

[Sidenote: New ministry.]

The death of Pitt was followed by the break-up of his Cabinet, which was not so constituted as to be able to stand without him. The King did indeed attempt to continue it under the leadership of Lord Hawkesbury; but upon his refusal to accept the responsibilities of the Premiership, the King was obliged to have recourse to the Opposition, and to summon Lord Grenville to his Councils. The admission of Grenville to the ministry implied the admission of Fox; the close political alliance they had formed, the determination they had already expressed, when rejecting Pitt's offers, never to join in any separate arrangements, rendered it quite impossible for either to accept office without the other. In spite, therefore, of the King's anger and dislike, he was compelled to admit his old enemy Fox to the ministry. The basis on which Grenville and Fox had been united in opposition was the strong belief which both felt that in the present crisis a ministry of a broad and national character was required. On this principle they formed their new administration, which was known by the name of "the Ministry of all the talents." Lord Grenville became First Lord of the Treasury; Earl Spencer and Mr. Windham, members of Pitt's first administration, Secretaries for the Home and War departments; Fox became Foreign Secretary, and his friends Earl Fitzwilliam and Grey (now Lord Howick), the one Lord President of the Council, and the other First Lord of the Admiralty. Lord Moira, Master-General of the Ordnance, represented the friends of the Prince of Wales; while Lord Sidmouth became Lord Privy Seal, and as he insisted on bringing one friend with him into the Cabinet, introduced with questionable wisdom Lord Ellenborough, the Lord Chief Justice. It has since this time been generally held that such a position is incompatible with high judicial duties. Lord Henry Petty, afterwards Lord Lansdowne, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before the ministry went out all due honour had been paid to the late minister; a public funeral and monument had been voted, together with the sum of £40,000 for the payment of his debts.

[Sidenote: Character of Fox.]

The character of Fox as a statesman was now upon its trial. After thirty years of exclusion from office, in perpetual opposition to the King and the general feeling of the upper classes, Fox had at length an opportunity of proving the justice of the reliance which men of liberal opinions had always placed in him. Large-hearted, with great warmth of personal affection, and general love of the human race, he had uniformly opposed war, had constantly declared that either the mismanagement or ill-will of the ministers had been the main obstacle to peace: he had believed devoutly in the excellence of the Revolution, traced its excesses to the wanton opposition of the crowned heads of Europe, and still persisted in believing that straightforward and friendly negotiations would bring about a right understanding with Napoleon. The brief period which elapsed between his acceptance of office in January and his death on the 13th of September, sufficed to prove to him the futility of his hopes; and the ministry found itself obliged to take up identically the same position as that of their predecessors. Like his great rival, he closed his life in the midst of the unutterable sadness caused by the complete frustration of those plans on which, according to his view, the welfare of his country rested, with this additional bitterness in his cup that upon him was forced the conviction, not only that circumstances were too strong for him, but that the optimism which had been the very breath of his political life rested upon no solid ground, and that the work to which he had devoted himself, and the maintenance of which had perpetually debarred him from a share in the government of the country, had been wholly misdirected. That destruction of illusions which comes to most men in their youth fell upon him when he was already breaking with age and disease, and when he must have been conscious that no time was left him to correct the errors into which he had been led. It is difficult to conceive a sadder close to a noble political career than that which fell upon the minister as he discovered too late that the practical logic of facts contradicted all those high aspirations which had throughout guided his conduct. So complete, however, was the proof afforded him by his short ministry of the futility of his hopes, that his friend Lord Howick, after just a year of office, was compelled to declare of the late negotiations that "there never was any opportunity of procuring any such terms as would have been adequate to the just pretensions and consistent with the honour and interests of this country; 'one thing is clear, the progress of Bonaparte has never yet been stopped by submission, and our only hope therefore is in resistance, as far as we can resist his ambitious projects.'"

[Sidenote: Negotiations for peace. March.]

The negotiations of which Lord Howick thus confessed the disastrous conclusion were opened by Fox almost immediately after his accession to office. A few days after his appointment an unknown person called upon him, and disclosed a plan for the assassination of the Emperor. With natural indignation, Fox caused the man to be apprehended, and while warning Bonaparte that the law of England prevented his lengthened detention, he promised that it should be long enough to enable the Emperor to provide against the nefarious plan. It is not improbable that the whole conspiracy was devised by Napoleon himself for the purpose of opening a negotiation with Fox, in whom he believed he had a sincere well-wisher, and on whose simple-hearted optimism he believed he could play. He caused a copy of a speech to reach Fox in which he expressed his willingness to make peace with England on the stipulations of the Treaty of Amiens. This led to a direct negotiation between Fox and Talleyrand, in which the English minister, in accordance with his views, attempted, as he said, to act upon the assumption that the countries would treat as two great powers, despising any idea of chicane. But this was not at all Napoleon's view of negotiation. His diplomacy constantly assumed the same form--separate treaties with different members of the coalition, and the hurried continuance of aggression during the time that negotiations were pending, so as to compel the treating power either to accept the aggressions or to break off the treaty. This had been his plan before the Treaty of Amiens, and this he had just repeated after the battle of Austerlitz.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Schönbrunn, Dec 15, and Presburg, Dec. 26, 1805.]

Prussia was already so far pledged to join the coalition that it was on the point of receiving the first payment of a subsidy from England. But Bonaparte succeeded in inducing the vacillating court to break with both its allies. Two separate treaties were made, one at Schönbrunn, by which Prussia withdrew from the coalition, and entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with France, receiving Hanover in exchange for Anspach, which was to be restored to Bavaria, and the Principality of Neuchatel, which was to be annexed to France, and the other at Presburg, in which Austria, having lost all hope of any assistance Prussia might have rendered, was induced to accept the most disastrous terms. The kingdom of Italy was to receive Venice and the Adriatic provinces; the three German powers which were consistently friends of France--Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Baden--obtained portions of the German dominions of Austria; the royal title was secured to Bavaria and Wurtemberg; the rights of the Empire over the immediate nobility were renounced; the reorganization of Italy was admitted; and Austria even agreed not to interfere in the affairs of Naples. On these terms the constitution of the Germanic Confederation was guaranteed. It is needless to point out what a seed of hatred was sown by these treaties, in which one of the German powers was humiliated by its ignominious bargain, the other driven almost to despair by the ruthless manner in which it was pillaged.

[Sidenote: Napoleon erects dependent kingdoms. 1806.]