Now that the jubilation aroused by the centenary of Nelson‘s great triumph has subsisted, it may be well to inquire what results accrued from the battle of Trafalgar.
Perhaps in the case of few victories has the outcome been so different from that which has been assigned to it in the popular belief. The reason for this confusion of thought is not hard to discover. The years 1803-1805 had been to our countrymen years of the great fear. Their thought turned, with tense expectation, towards the coasts of Kent and Picardy. On the cliffs at and near Boulogne, an army of well-nigh 120,000 veterans was encamped, led by the greatest warrior of the age, and by captains of almost equal prowess. A huge flotilla rode in the harbours of Etaples, Boulogne, Ambleteuse, Calais, and thence as far as Flushing, in readiness to transport this formidable host to the coasts of Kent or Essex, as soon as a convoying fleet should appear. On the British coasts, numbers and enthusiasm were by no means lacking. But where was the organisation, where were the leaders, that could victoriously oppose the Grand Army led by Napoleon and his Marshals? Few persons shared the confidence that possessed Wordsworth during his unusually bellicose mood in the autumn of 1803.
Nor discipline nor valour can withstand
The shock, nor quell the inevitable rout,
When in some great extremity breaks out
A people, on their own beloved land
Risen, like one man, to combat in the sight
Of a just God for liberty and right.
The dearth of organizing power and military talent at home (Sir Arthur Wellesley did not return from India until the summer of 1805) caused grave searchings of heart; and most patriots sympathized secretly with Wordsworth when, in a more subdued mood, he gazed from the Dover valley back on France, and saw-
– the coast of France how near!
Drawn almost into frightful neighbourhood.
At last, in the autumn of 1805, these fears died down; and then came the news of Trafalgar. What more natural than to connect the new sense of security that supervened, after the first painful shock at the news of the death of Nelson had passed away, with his last exploit? The impression that England’s safety from invasion resulted from the Battle of Trafalgar, was strengthened when men came to read the last despatches and letters of the hero. Everything bore eloquent witness to his determination to force on a battle as decisively as possible. The evidence which Mr Newbolt has brought together in his work, “The year of Trafalgar”, serves to illustrate anew the eagerness evinced by Nelson to close with the enemy in the shortest possible time, wholly regardless of the terrible risks in which his tactics must involve the leading ships of both his attacking columns. Everything impelled him to strike with the utmost vigour. The weary months of waiting off Toulon, the consciousness failing strength, the many irritations of that long baffling chase after Villeneuve to the West Indies and back, would alone have led him to seek to annihilate his elusive antagonists.
But there was another consideration, which has never received due notice. Nelson, so far as we can judge from his despatches, believed, up to the very end, that England was still in danger of invasion from the Grand Army and its flotilla at Boulogne, provided that a convoying fleet could reach that all-important point. The evidence on this topic is not conclusive; but it is fairly strong. First, it must be remembered that Napoleon remained at Boulogne until 2nd September 1805, and that, while superintending the movements of the mass of his troops away from that town towards the Rhine in order to confront the legions of Austria, he took all possible precautions to prevent the new plan from becoming known to the British cruisers in the offing. His decree of 30th August ordered that the flat-bottomed boats which were at Etaples, Wimereux, and Ambleteuse, should sail to Boulogne as soon as possible, and that Admiral Lacrosse at Boulogne should seize every opportunity to attack the British and keep them far off. This concentration of the flotilla and these harrying tactics must have led our seamen for several days to suppose that the great move against the coast of Kent was about to be made. They knew not the whereabouts of Villeneuve, and therefore kept up all the old precautions. The results was, that the departure of the bulk of the Grand Army from Boulogne, which actually began before 31st August, was not known in England for many days; and (this is the important point) Nelson and his captains seem to have had no knowledge of it when they went into battle of Trafalgar. In these days of telegraphs, this may seem incredible. But the marvel disappears if we remember that Nelson hoisted his flag on the victory at Portsmouth on 14th September, and sailed from St Helen’s Roads on the next day. It is certain that, at that time, no news of the departure of the Emperor and of most of his army for the interior of France could have reached Portsmouth. There is not a word in Nelson’s letters, or in the account of his interviews with Ministers in London, that reveals any perception of the real facts of the case. All that was known with certainty was, that Villeneuve had arrived at Cadiz, on 18th August. That piece of news was brought very quickly to London by Captain Blackwood of H.M.S. “Euryalus”, on 2nd September; and it led to the request of Nelson’s services once more.
Thus, while affairs on land were as deceptive as mirage, the naval situation was fairly clear. The great fleet which, with that of Ganteaume at Brest, menaced the safety of Britain, was for the present unable to get through to Boulogne. Its objective might be that port, or it might be the Mediterranean. Ministers had to face the possibility of the latter alternative, with the prospect of a long and complicated pursuit, in case Villeneuve evaded Collingwood’s blockading squadron and reached that sea.
But there was also the possibility that the retreat to Cadiz was a feint, and that, at the first opportunity, the great fleet would seek to resume its original mission and convoy the flotilla across. Nelson kept an open mind on the subject. On the one hand, there was the chance that the Emperor would adhere to his plans with his wonted tenacity, and would not leave Boulogne without doing something to justify his conduct in spending vast sums of money on the ships, boats, and harbours along that coast. As far as Nelson knew, there was nothing to tempt Napoleon away from Boulogne. On 30th September, when off Cadiz, he wrote a letter to Sir John Acton, expressing the hope that “Both Austria and Russia have begun” the war against Napoleon. But this was mere conjecture; and, short of that event, scarcely anything would be likely to divert Napoleon from his plan of invading England. In another letter of the same date, Nelson wrote sarcastically about a small British force destined for Naples “doing good to the common cause”; but he also stated that he had scarcely discussed anything but naval matters with Ministers in London. He evidently hoped that the Anglo-Russian expedition, then at or near Naples, would protect that coast, but was concerned to hear of three French sail-of-the-line, with as many cruisers, being ready for sea at Toulon. This portended trouble for the allied expedition at Naples; and he begged that Admiralty for more ships, above all more frigates, which he might use in the Mediterranean.
Once again, however, his thoughts swung round to the safety of England. “Some day or other”, he wrote, on 8th October, “that Buonaparte, if he lives, will attempt the invasion and conquest of Great Britain”. But obviously he believed that the safety of his native land rested with the fleet then watching Cadiz, and that a crushing blow dealt to Villeneuve might compel the Emperor to make peace. “We can, my dear Coll[ingwood] have no little jealousies” he wrote on the 9th. “We have only one great object in view, that of annihilating our Enemies, and getting a glorious Peace for our Country.”
The secret orders from the British Admiralty, dated 21st September, which reached him on 8th October, threw little light on the perplexities of the general situation. The Admiralty enjoined on Nelson the need of covering the operations of the British expedition at Naples, when the blockade of Cadiz was provided for. In his reply of 10th October, Nelson pointed out the virtual impossibility of complying with the new instructions, until Villeneuve should be disposed of. Amidst the distracting gloom that surrounded him, one thing alone was clear, that the allied fleets then in Cadiz must be not merely conquered, but annihilated. So far as we can judge from his letters and conversations, this was all that Nelson knew of the actual state of European affairs when he went into battle, determined to “give them such a shaking as they (the enemy) never yet experienced. At least I will lay down my life in the attempt”.
It is pathetic to turn from the twilight of Nelson’s beliefs and surmises, to events as they then unfolded themselves. They were such as to vitiate every hope that peace would be the speedy outcome of his triumph. Judging from the very imperfect information at his command, he was justified in indulging that hope. But even before he left “dear dear Merton”, on 13th September, events had occurred which altered the whole trend of history. A few days previously, the Austrian army under General Mack entered Bavaria, with the aim of compelling the Elector to join the Austro-Russian alliance and declare against Napoleon. The French Emperor, long aware of the storm gathering in the east, left Boulogne on 2nd September, to be ready to profit by any imprudence that the Hapsburgs might commit; and when Nelson journeying across the Surrey hills to Portsmouth, Napoleon was drawing up the first draft of plans at St. Cloud which led up to the brilliant triumph at Ulm on 19-20th October.
A comparison of Napoleon’s despatches with those of Nelson at the same time is of high interest. While the admiral believed that the solution of the European problem lay in his hands, Napoleon, having the advantage of a far wider and more accurate survey of events, saw that the whole interest had suddenly shifted from the sea to the land. Sea-power, for the present, he held in small account. Everything depended on his ability to defeat the new Coalition. Whereas, before the days (24-30th August) of his momentous decision to turn against Austria and Russia, nine out of ten of his despatches turned on matters connected with the hoped-for invasion of England; thenceforth, on the contrary, naval affairs fell away into the background. True, in his letter of 28th August to General Déjean he stated that after a few battle there may be peace, whereupon he will return to Boulogne. Further, in his Note of 13th September to Decrès, Minister of marine, he ordered the maintenance of a large naval and military force at Boulogne neighbouring ports; but, obviously, he valued the presence of 60,000 troops there, mainly because it would help to keep up the state of alarm in England, prevent her from effectively aiding her allies on land, and furnish an excuse for maintaining an army in the utmost efficiency within easy stages of the Rhine. He admitted that Villeneuve’s retreat to Cadiz had unmasked his supposed secret (which the British Admiralty had already divined) that the flotilla was not meant to cross the channel without a powerful convoy; and thenceforth it was to do little more than threaten Albion until he could resume his naval plans. As for Villeneuve, he was to use every effort to get out from Cadiz with the allied fleets and set sail for Carthagena, there to pick up eight Spanish sail-of-the-line. It is worth noting that, in these instructions of 14th September to an admittedly unlucky admiral, the Emperor did not once face the contingency that British ships might be in the way. The optimism, which pervaded all his geometrical calculations for the most uncertain of elements, here again appears in most instructive guise.
But what was to be Villeneuve’s objective? The Emperor directs him to make at once for Naples, there to help a French army under General St. Cyr to capture, or drive away, the Anglo-Russian expedition. That is now the Emperor’s aim. The coast of Kent has faded from his thoughts; and he turn to a smaller but still very desirable object, the capture of a hostile force in Naples, and the complete subjection of that kingdom. On 17th September, he decides to replace Villeneuve by Rosily, but always with the same objective, Naples, not London. As for the others French squadrons, they are to adopt privateering tactics. In along despatch of that same date he directs the Minister of Marine to organize four cruising squadrons. One powerful squadron is to scour the seas between St. Helena and the Cape of Good Hope, in order to sweep up British East Indiamen, and thereafter re-fit at Martinique for a similar purpose around Barbadoes. Another is to proceed to San Domigo and Jamaica with the same aim. A third and far smaller squadron will “ravage all the coast of Africa”. Finally, two frigates will act in the same way around Ireland, and then pick up prizes between Cape clear and San Domingo. The Emperor concludes with the suggestive remark: “English commerce is everywhere. We must try to be at as many points as possible, in order to harm it”.
Now, what do these details imply? They imply that, between 24th August and 17th September, Napoleon had entirely changed his plans. Formerly, his aim had been concentration on the all-important points, Boulogne and the Straits of Dover. After Villeneuve’s “treason” in retiring to Cadiz, the Emperor’s aim is entirely the opposite. Now it is dispersion, with a view to a war against British commerce. What brought about this volte-face? Undoubtedly the outbreak of war on the Continent. Nelson, as we have seen, had discerned the importance of the diversion which such an event might produce. But, even up to the time of his death, he knew nothing as to its actual occurrence, and the consequent change in the French plans. Happily for him, he believed that his victory might “bring Buonaparte on to his marrow-bones”; (1) and no news came to trouble his mind in his last hours with doubts as to the crowning efficacy of his last great stroke.
What significance, then, are we to assign to Trafalgar? Clearly it was very different from that which British officers and the British public assigned to it. They could not assess its importance accurately, because they were ignorant of the intentions of Napoleon, and of many of the facts of the situation. We have now seen, from the Emperor’s own despatches, that it was the outbreak of war with Austria and Russia, along with Villeneuve’s tame retreat to Cadiz, which gave England a time of respite, while her great foe betook himself to guerrilla tactics on sea. The Austrian army at Ulm acted, so to speak, as the lightning conductor of England, diverting the stroke which was to have fallen on her. At present, she really had to fear nothing more than a succession of pin-pricks at many points of her Empire; and we may here to observe that such a guerre de course would have been very effective, had Napoleon been content with letting Villeneuve remain at Cadiz and hold Nelson to that port during the winter storms of 1805-1806. Nelson would certainly have clung to his task with the same indomitable resolve that marked his twenty months’ blockade of Toulon in 1803-1805; and, with another British force held to Brest, the French naval guerrilla might have been most galling. Napoleon, in fact, had the game in his own hands on sea and on land, had he been content to wait until the winter had done its work on the blockaders. But he marred his chances by his impatience. His bitter reproaches to Villeneuve, and his appointment of Rosily as his successor, drove the doomed fleets out of Cadiz. The consequences are well known. Out of thirty-three French and Spanish that left that harbour, only eleven returned after the battle. Four escaped to the north, only to be captured off cape Ortegal by a British squadron of the same strength (4th November). Rosily took over the five French ships that remained in Cadiz, but had to surrender to the Spanish patriots in June 1808, when Spain rose against Napoleon.
The brilliance of the triumph must not, however, blind us to the fact that, at the time, it made very little difference to Napoleon’s plans, and to the course of the war in Europe. Far from being “beaten to his narrow-bones”, the Emperor made light of “ce combat de Cadiz”, when he heard of it at Znaim in Moravia (18th November). There was some reason for this haughty attitude. After capturing some 60,000 Austrians at and near Ulm (18th to 20th October), he could treat any disaster at sea as of secondary importance. Until Russia and Austria were overthrown, he could not in any case resume the Boulogne enterprise; and, meanwhile, the duties which he assigned to his navy were to chastise the Neapolitan Bourbons and harry British commerce on the high seas. Having these merely secondary objects in view, he might well regard Villeneuve’s defeat as a regrettable but by no means serious incident. At that time he heard only the first details of the affair; and, with characteristic tenacity, he directed his Minister of Marine to push on all the cruising operations, just as if the battle had not occurred. Of course, the French demonstration against Naples fell trough; but that was the sole immediate change which the battle made in Napoleon’s naval plans.
Probably the battle also enabled the British Admiralty to push on with greater vigour the pursuit of the French squadrons designed for the destruction of our commerce. It is doubtful whether Sir John Duckworth could otherwise have procured a force sufficient to free the West Indies from the depredations of the force commanded by Leissègues. As it was, Duckworth was able to annihilate Leissègues’ squadron in a brilliant engagement off San Domingo (6th February 1806). The other French squadron, detailed for service between St. Helena and the Cape ought to have fallen in with the British force which effected the conquest of Cape Town early in the year 1806. It did not, however, sight that convoy, either on the outward or the homeward voyage. Finally it sailed away to the West Indies and North America, where its strength was shattered by a terrible storm. The two smaller French squadrons also effected nothing of note. Apart, then, from Duckworth’s brilliant triumph at San Domingo, the failure of the French naval guerilla seems to be traceable to chance rather than to the results of Trafalgar. This consideration, however, must not blind us to the immense advantages conferred by the command of the sea, in the reduction successively of the French and Dutch colonies and after 1806.
It is also important to note the slow but irresistible pressure exerted by the Sea-Power upon the Land-power after Trafalgar. Though the French Emperor rated its consequences but lightly at the time, he was, nevertheless, compelled henceforth to systematize his warfare against British commerce. So far back as the month of February 1798, he gave it as his judgement that France has only three ways of beating down the might of England; (1) by a direct attack to London; (2) by depriving her to the outlets of her trade with the Continent on the north-west of Germany; or (3) by an Eastern expedition, which would ruin her trade with India. To the last of these alternatives he bent all his energies during his Egyptian expedition of 1798-99. The first plan engaged most of his energies, from the renewal of war with England in May 1803 up to the close of August 1805. Baffled in his efforts to strike at our heart, he then, as we have seen by his instructions of the middle of September 1805 (as also in those of 27-29th September 1804), proposed to make war on British commerce by sea. The result of the battles of Ulm, Trafalgar, and Austerlitz, now revived his earlier plan of warring against it by the land. Already he had designed what he called his “coast system” for the exclusion of British goods from Hanover and the North-Sea ports of Germany. Henceforth he used all the resources of war and diplomacy, hermetically to seal up the Continent against the islanders.
There is a very suggestive passage in Napoleon’s letter of 14th December 1805, to Talleyrand, instructing him protract negotiations with the Hapsburgs, cast down as they were by the disaster of Austerlitz twelve days previously, until he had arranged matters with Prussia: “When I am sure of Prussia, Austria will do exactly what I want for her. Likewise I will make Prussia declare against England”. On Prussia, then, he concentrated all the resources of his diplomacy (Austria being almost une quantité négligeable), obviously because Prussia controlled the north-west and north coasts of Germany. To her he offered fatally alluring terms, but only on condition that she entirely excluded British goods from her new acquisition, Hanover. Struggle as it might, the Court of Berlin could not evade this stringent obligation, which entailed war with Great Britain, the blockade of North-sea coast by our cruisers, and the Berlin Decree of November 1806. Usually we date the definite commencement of Napoleon’s Continental System from that coup de théâtre dealt from Berlin, excluding British commerce from the continent. In reality, we ought to date it from the time of Napoleon’s interviews with Prussia’s envoy at Schönbrunn, soon after the staggering blow dealt to the third Coalition at Austerlitz. The fatal gift of Hanover, which that envoy and, later on, his master, accepted, implied the extension of Napoleon’s anti-British system to the whole of North Germany. Are we not justified in believing that this momentous decision on the part of the French Emperor was due to later and fuller news of Trafalgar?
Therefore, while that victory had singularly little influence on the situation at Boulogne, Dover, and other French and British ports; while its immediate effects may be limited to Mediterranean affairs and to the energetic pursuit of the French squadrons told off for the harrying of British commerce; nevertheless, its ultimate results in the sphere of European policy were incalculably great. The Emperor was brought by stress of circumstances, rather than by mere ambition, as we islanders usually assert, to seek to conquer Britain on the Conttinent; and his eager activity led him to adopt measure after measure─ Berlin Decree, Milan Decree, Treaty of Tilsit, occupation of Portugal, Fontainebleau Decree and other measures of the year 1810, Russian expedition of 1812─ which promised in turn to over-whelm England under the mass of Europe, but really buried Napoleon himself under the ruins of his Continental System. In this sense, then, Nelson’s prophecy was finally fulfilled. By slow degrees, and in ways that the great seaman could not have foreseen, England’s mighty enemy was brought to his knees; but only after nine years of fruitless toil, which Trafalgar imposed on him as the sole remaining method of attacking his elusive foe.