by Roy Adkins
When the first French ships reached Malta, Nelson’s fleet was still off Toulon, awaiting the last of the ships that were being sent as reinforcements and still ignorant about the route taken by the French. Impatient to start the search, Nelson left behind the Leander to meet the remaining ships that were expected. He himself took the rest of his fleet south-eastwards towards Naples on 7 June, deducing that the various components of the French fleet were likely to rendezvous off the west coast of Italy. Three days later the Leander and the reinforcements caught up with Nelson, making his fleet complete except for his missing frigates: it was the same day that Napoleon began an assault on Malta.
For the French, the passage of nearly three weeks from Toulon toMalta had been relatively uneventful. At sea Napoleon ‘passed the greatest part of his time in his cabin, lying on a bed, provided with four little castors, which alleviated the seasickness from which he almost constantly suffered’21 - being liable to seasickness was one of the few things Napoleon and Nelson had in common. Many of the soldiers were seasick too, and conditions aboard the transports became more wretched day by day. Many were glad to reach Malta, a strictly neutral country ruled by the Knights of Malta, an organisation originating in the medieval crusades that had been in decline for some time and had come to rely heavily on recruitment from France. There was no legitimate reason for Napoleon to attack the island, but he needed the wealth accumulated by the Knights to help finance his expedition, and Malta would make a useful addition to Corsica and Corfu, two other islands invaded by the French, to increase their domination of the Mediterranean.
During the winter, in order to assess the likely level of resistance, Napoleon had sent a treasury official, Émile Poussielgue, on a spying mission to Malta. As well as gathering military intelligence, Poussielgue managed to bribe two key members of the Knights and returned to Napoleon with a completely favourable report: Malta could be taken with ease. According to Bourrienne, Napoleon was irritated that he had to put up even a token attack:There was some misunderstanding, and consequently some cannon shots were exchanged . . . For those in the know, that was only for form’s sake, and these hostile demonstrations were not followed up. We wished to preserve the honour of the knights, and that was all . . .The impregnable fortress of Malta is so sheltered from a raid that General Caffarelli, after examining the fortifications with the greatest care, said to the General-in-Chief, in my presence, ‘Well, General, we are very lucky there was someone in the town to open the gates for us.’22
On 13 June Napoleon issued a notification that Malta had surrendered and was under French control. He then organised systematic looting, carrying cartloads of treasure to his ships. His official report to the Directory would say that just over a million francs in gold and silver were taken from Malta, but the real figure was around seven million - the ‘missing’ five to six million was pocketed by Napoleon and his generals. Always conscious that a British fleet was hard on his heels, and anxious to prevent his invasion fleet being blockaded in harbour or caught at sea, Napoleon was impatient to leave. Once the treasure had been loaded and a garrison of nearly four thousand French troops established in control, his fleet set sail again on 19 June, hoping to be in Egypt in under two weeks.
The same day that Napoleon declared Malta was taken, Nelson received his first piece of useful information from a passing ship: the French fleet had been seen off Sicily. With a chance to send letters home two days later, Nelson wrote to Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty: ‘The last account I had of the French Fleet, was from a Tunisian Cruizer, who saw them on the 4th, off Trapani, in Sicily, steering to the eastward. If they pass Sicily, I shall believe they are going on their scheme of possessing Alexandria, and getting troops to India - a plan concerted with Tippoo Saib [the anti-British Sultan of Mysore], by no means so difficult as might at first view be imagined; but be they bound to the Antipodes, your Lordship may rely that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to Action.’23 Clutching at this single straw of information, Nelson decided the likely destination of the French was Egypt: after so many setbacks, the chase was finally beginning.
Later Nelson was to write of this time that ‘I had the happiness to command a Band of Brothers’24, referring to the line ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers’25 in the king’s famous speech before the battle in Shakespeare’s Henry V. It was as they sailed in pursuit of the French that Nelson began to forge his captains into this band by inviting them to the Vanguard in small groups, often for dinner, in order to get to know them and discuss tactics. At a time when mobile phones have become essential possessions, it is difficult to appreciate the problems of communication at sea, even within a tightly packed fleet. Hailing could be used from ship to ship, but they had to be very close together, and even then the noise of the weather and the working of the ship could make shouted instructions incomprehensible. Generally, signal flags were used to pass messages from ship to ship, but these took time to hoist and be read, and the messages were limited in scope and open to misinterpretation, even when every flag was clearly visible. The only sure way of transmitting anything other than the most straightforward messages from one ship to another was to send someone with it in a boat, but frequently weather conditions intervened. There was simply no means of rapid and reliable communication, and so central control of a fleet from a flagship was often difficult - it was this obstacle that Nelson sought to overcome. By meeting with his captains and allowing them to become acquainted, he provided the conditions for them to understand and have confidence in one another. It was his genius for leadership, later known as the ‘Nelson Touch’26, that enabled him to rely on the simplest of strategies, instead of complicated battle plans and detailed instructions, confident that his subordinates had the ability to carry out his wishes, act independently, improvise where necessary and support one another as a team.
On the morning of 22 June Nelson’s fleet had just passed the southern tip of Sicily when four ships were spotted to the south-east, and the Leander was sent to investigate. They were now moving into what were almost unknown waters, because the British Navy was used to operating in the western Mediterranean and seldom ventured east of Sicily. Between them, the British ships had very few charts of the area into which they were sailing. Lack of reliable charts was a minor inconvenience compared with the problem that Nelson was wrestling with - was he leading his ships in the right direction? In order to obtain their opinions, he summoned on board the Vanguard Sir James Saumarez of the Orion, Thomas Troubridge of the Culloden, Henry Darby of the Bellerophon and Alexander Ball of the Alexander. These captains discussed the information that had been collected and agreed that it was best to assume the French were heading for Egypt. Referring to this informal discussion, Nelson later wrote: ‘I therefore determined, with the opinion of those Captains in whom I place great confidence, to go to Alexandria; and if that place, or any other part of Egypt is their destination, I hope to arrive [in] time enough to frustrate their plans. The only objection I can fancy to be started is, “you should not have gone such a long voyage without more certain information of the Enemy’s destination”: my answer is ready - who was I to get it from?’27
Just before the captains arrived on board the flagship, the Leander signalled that the four ships that had been spotted were frigates. Nelson recalled the Leander and let them go, not wanting to lose time chasing and capturing enemy frigates, even though he desperately needed such ships for reconnaissance. It was a mistake, as the frigates were outlying scout ships of the French fleet. While Nelson consulted his captains, the two fleets unknowingly passed within a few miles of each other - an opportunity to catch Napoleon at sea and change the course of history was lost.
On board Napoleon’s flagship, the Orient, Bourrienne noted that ‘while we were at sea he [Napoleon] seldom rose before ten o’clock in the morning. The Orient had almost the appearance of a town, from which women had been excluded, and this floating town had two thousand inhabitants, amongst whom were
a great number of distinguished men.’28 Napoleon was taking to Egypt an extraordinary party of civilian scholars. Despite his inviting them on a tropical voyage without revealing the destination, over 150 members of the French National Institute were willing to join the expedition. If Nelson had sunk the French fleet on its way to Egypt, the cream of France’s intellectual and artistic talent would have been lost, including astronomers, civil engineers, draughtsmen, linguists, mathematicians, orientalists, artists, poets and musicians. For this very reason, the scholars were dispersed around at least seventeen ships.
It was an extraordinary idea of Napoleon’s to take a large group of talented civilians on such a perilous military adventure - no other commander-in-chief would have even considered it, yet his exact motives are unknown. Their presence did allow Napoleon to claim that the expedition was a civilising mission, not one of imperial conquest. Perhaps more significantly, Alexander the Great had also taken a group of scholars and scientists on his Persian campaign, and Napoleon saw himself as following in the footsteps of Alexander.
With the wind in their favour, the British fleet was making a fast passage to Egypt, and on 24 June Sir James Saumarez on board the Orion wrote in his diary, ‘The last two days we have not gone less than a hundred leagues9; and, as the wind continues favourable, we hope to arrive at Alexandria before the French, should their destination be for that place, which continues very doubtful. At the same time, if it should prove that our possessions in India is the object of their armament [military expedition] , our having followed them so immediately appears the only means of saving that country from falling into their hands.’29 Two days later Nelson sent Hardy ahead in the brig Mutine to forewarn the British consul at Alexandria and discover if there was any news of the French. By sunset on the 28th the British fleet was within sight of the port, but no French ships were to be seen. Nelson, with no hard evidence that the French were actually on course for Egypt, was suffering immense stress from apparently having made the wrong decision. Impatient to take action, he decided to search the eastern Mediterranean - again it was a mistake. The British fleet set sail north-eastwards on the morning of the 30th, and just twenty-five hours later the French fleet was anchored off Alexandria. Bourrienne recounted how they discovered their good fortune at being missed by Nelson:The expedition arrived off the coast of Africa on the morning of 1 July, and the [Roman] column of Septimus Severus indicated to us the city of Alexandria . . . Admiral Brueys [naval commander of the French fleet] had sent on beforehand the frigate Juno to fetch . . . the French Consul. It was nearly four o’clock when he arrived, and the sea was very rough. He informed the general-in-chief that Nelson had been off Alexandria on 28 June and that he had straightaway sent a brig to obtain news from the English agent. On the return of the brig Nelson had immediately led his squadron towards the north-east. Without the delay that our convoy from Civita Vecchia has caused, we would have been in these waters at the same time as Nelson . . . It appeared that Nelson believed us to be already at Alexandria when he arrived there. He had reason for this, seeing that we had left Malta on 19 June, while he only left Messina on the 21st. Not finding us, and convinced that we should be there if that was our destination, he left these shores and sailed for Alexandretta in Syria, where he thought we might have landed in order to travel into Asia. This error saved the expedition a second time.30
Bourrienne next described Napoleon’s actions - as impatient as those of Nelson:Bonaparte, struck and convinced, as you might think, by the details which the French Consul gave him, resolved to disembark immediately. Admiral Brueys put to him the difficulties and dangers of disembarkation, the violence of the waves, the distance from the coast - a coast lined with reefs - the approaching night, and the complete ignorance of places suitable for landing. The Admiral urged him to wait for the following morning; that is nearly twelve hours, and that Nelson could not return from his move to Syria for several days. Bonaparte listened to these representations with impatience and ill-humour. He replied abruptly, ‘Admiral, we don’t have time to lose, fortune only gives me three days; if I do not make use of it, we are lost.’ Fortune counted a lot with him. This chimerical idea constantly influenced his resolve. With General Bonaparte having command of the navy and army, the Admiral [Brueys] had to give in to his wishes.31
If Nelson’s impatience had been unfortunate, leading him to miss the French fleet on two occasions, Napoleon’s impatience was to prove equally unlucky. Preparations for landing began immediately. The fleet anchored as close inshore as they could, but Marabout beach was shallow and the nearest ships were 1½ miles offshore. With the rough weather it was several hours before all the boats were lowered and the first wave of troops had scrambled down into them. Fortunately for the French the landing was unopposed, because by the time they reached land the troops were seasick and exhausted, many were drenched, and some were injured where boats capsized or ran aground. In Napoleon’s official report, he estimated that about twenty men lost their lives during the landing, but the real figure was probably higher.
Disembarkation of the army was not completed until 3 July, but only a couple of hours after the first soldiers landed, at dawn on the 2nd, Napoleon led a column of around five thousand troops in a march on Alexandria. No artillery, horses or even drinking water had been unloaded from the ships, and the tired and hungry soldiers carried nothing but their weapons and the clothes they marched in - many, suffering from seasickness, had left their food rations and water on board the ships. From the landing place at Marabout to Alexandria no road existed, and the few wells and water cisterns were sabotaged by nomadic Bedouin Arabs, who also continually harassed the French and captured and raped any stragglers.
The French reached the outskirts of Alexandria at eight in the morning, and although the troops were exhausted and suffering from extreme heat and thirst, Napoleon ordered an immediate attack. The inhabitants were poorly armed, terrified of the approaching army and had spent the night sending messages to Cairo begging for reinforcements. The French, desperate for water and facing only feeble resistance, had control of the city in under three hours. One French officer later wrote to his family, ‘Confidentially, I can assure you that the thirst of our soldiers was the prime motive in capturing Alexandria. At the point the army had reached, it was a question of finding water or perishing.’32
If anything, there was less reason for an attack on Egypt than for taking Malta: it was unprovoked aggression against a neutral country that was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Napoleon’s excuse for the invasion was that the French were there to rescue the people of Egypt from the tyrannical rule of the Mamelukes, who were, in effect, the aristocrats of Egypt and ruled the country on behalf of the sultan of Turkey. Napoleon knew that it was only a matter of time before the Turks sent an army against him, and although such an army was unlikely to be as difficult to tackle as the Mamelukes, he could not defeat them both at once - he must press on and subdue the Mamelukes and take control of Egypt before the Turks arrived.
Five days after arriving in Alexandria, the troops were divided into three groups: Napoleon left on 7 July, leading a force to capture Cairo, the next day General Menou took his men to Rosetta by sea and the remainder stayed in Alexandria. From Napoleon’s point of view, the invasion of Egypt was going well, but the soldiers saw the situation differently. One wrote to his parents:We marched seventeen days without bread, wine, or brandy and five without water, over burning sands, with the enemy close at our heels! . . . We had to combat barbarians, wholly unacquainted with the rights of war, who exercised every species of cruelty upon the unhappy men who fell into their hands: cutting off the ears of one, the nose of another, the head of a third, and many other things . . . Which I tremble whenever I think of . . . Discontent was painted on every face, and the whole army was on the point of refusing to advance. A great number of soldiers blew out their brains, and many flung themselves into the Nile.33
Having been plunged from the cramped ships and unend
ing seasickness into the fierce and waterless desert, without suitable clothing or equipment, the troops were rapidly becoming demoralised and were dying even before they fought any battles. Lieutenant Desvernois wrote that ‘the soldiers accuse the generals for the unbelievable sufferings that they have endured since they left the ships; they cry, they ask what they have done wrong that the generals lead them in this way to die in a desert’.34
As Napoleon led his forces inland in search of the Mamelukes, Nelson continued to lead his fleet round the Mediterranean in search of the French. Having sailed northwards towards Turkey, the British fleet turned west on 2 July to head back towards Sicily and Naples, arriving at Syracuse in Sicily on the 20th. Here the ships loaded fresh supplies, and many took the opportunity to send letters home. Nelson wrote to his wife Frances, ‘I have not been able to find the French Fleet, to my great mortification, or the event [British victory] I can scarcely doubt. We have been off Malta, to Alexandria in Egypt, Syria, into Asia, and are returned here without success: however, no person will say that it has been for want of activity. I yet live in hopes of meeting these fellows: but it would have been my delight to have tried Buonaparte on a wind [caught Napoleon at sea], for he commands the Fleet, as well as the Army.’35 Nelson also wrote to Sir William Hamilton at Naples, giving him the latest news, or rather the lack of it: ‘It is an old saying, “the Devil’s children have the Devil’s luck.” I cannot find, or to this moment learn, beyond vague conjecture where the French Fleet are gone to. All my ill fortune, hitherto, has proceeded from want of Frigates.’36 Without these fast scouting ships to gather information and search for the enemy, Nelson was severely handicapped, reliant on deducing the whereabouts of the French from random snippets of information that came his way. Napoleon had escaped him.