by Roy Adkins
Ruffo was powerless, and without consulting him Chevalier Micheroux, a Neapolitan envoy, granted the refugees in the forts an armistice. Ruffo rebuked him, as neither had the authority to negotiate, but they continued to engineer a treaty without consulting King Ferdinand. When rumours of what was happening reached Palermo, the King urged Nelson to return to Naples to sort out the mess, but he was reluctant to do so since he still had no definite news of the French fleet that had escaped from Brest. By late June the situation was worsening in Naples, so having heard that reinforcements had entered the Mediterranean to locate the missing fleet, Nelson agreed to risk a mission limited to eight days. He was authorised to restore order, secure the unconditional surrender of the forts and hand over the rebels to the King. Arriving on 24 June, Nelson issued the men in the forts an ultimatum: surrender unconditionally or they would be taken by force.
After several days’ wrangling caused by the armistice and Ruffo’s political manoeuvrings, the rebels bowed to the inevitable and surrendered. With detachments of seamen and marines Nelson moved quickly to restore some semblance of law and order in the city. The French troops were repatriated, while some eight thousand rebels were arrested and handed over to the Neapolitan authorities, who were more lenient than Ruffo’s desperadoes would have been. Over seven thousand escaped punishment, 105 were condemned to death (but six were subsequently reprieved) and the rest were fined, imprisoned or deported. As representative of King Ferdinand, Nelson provided a British ship, the Foudroyant, which became nominally a Neapolitan ship for the court martial of Commodore Francesco Caracciolo of the Sicilian Navy. Having joined the rebels and commanded their gunboats, Caracciolo was tried by a board of Neapolitan naval officers for desertion and for firing on a Sicilian frigate. He was condemned to death. Nelson was later criticised for this, but his actions were entirely correct, as Cornelia Knight pointed out: ‘It is only right to say that Caraccioli [Caracciolo] was taken in arms against the forces of his sovereign, that he was tried by a court-martial of Neapolitan officers, and executed on board of a Neapolitan ship.’3
Admiral Lord Keith, Nelson’s superior, was still concerned about the French fleet from Brest and so ordered Nelson to take his ships to defend Minorca, but Nelson considered that Minorca was in no danger, whereas the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was still not secure. Eventually Keith left the Mediterranean in pursuit of the French fleet, leaving Nelson the senior commander, but his decisions about Naples and his failure to obey Keith’s orders led him into conflict with the Admiralty over the succeeding months. It only took a few weeks to secure Naples and the surrounding countryside, and as saviour of the kingdom, King Ferdinand awarded Nelson the Dukedom of Bronte and a diamond-hilted sword. The dukedom had an estate in Sicily and was valued by Nelson as a mark of his achievement that contrasted with the niggardly recognition he received from authorities in Britain. For the rest of 1799 he remained in command, using Palermo as his base and dealing mainly with the western Mediterranean, where the main problem was the ongoing siege of the French garrison at Malta.
In the East, Sir Sidney Smith was still pursuing his war against Napoleon. The French retreat from Acre in late May 1799 was a miserable affair, as Napoleon’s secretary, Bourrienne, acknowledged:
A raging thirst, the total lack of water, an excessive heat, and a fatiguing march over burning dunes demoralised the men, and made every generous thought give way to the most cruel selfishness and distressing indifference. I saw officers with limbs amputated thrown off stretchers, whose transport had been ordered and who had themselves paid money as a reward for the work. I saw abandoned . . . the amputated, the wounded, those with plague or only suspected of it. The march was lit by torches that were burning in order to set fire to the little towns, villages, hamlets and rich crops which covered the land. The whole country was on fire.4
The French were attacked and raided all the way back to Egypt by the Turks under the leadership of Major John Bromley - the alias of Jean de Tromelin, one of Smith’s Royalist French agents. Bourrienne recorded that the surviving troops ‘arrived in Cairo on 14 June, after the most awful march of twenty-five days, with the greatest hardships. The heat during the crossing of the desert between El Arish and Belbeis exceeded 33 degrees . . . Two days running my cloak was covered with salt that the evaporation of water that held it in solution left behind. The brackish waters of the deserts, which the horses greedily drank, made a great number of them die, falling a quarter of a league from the spring.’5
Napoleon needed all his charisma and skill to prevent the disaster at Acre sparking a mutiny among the troops in Egypt, and to that end Bourrienne recalled that ‘Bonaparte had his entry into the capital of Egypt preceded by one of those lying bulletins that only took in fools. “I will bring with me,” he said, “many prisoners and flags. I have razed the palace of Djezzar and the ramparts of Acre. Not a single stone remains. All the inhabitants have left the city by sea. Djezzar is severely wounded.”’6 Bourrienne claimed to disapprove of this: ‘I confess that I experienced a painful feeling when writing these official words dictated by him, as each one was a deception. Aroused by everything I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me not to risk some observation; but his response was always, “My dear fellow, you are a simpleton; you don’t understand anything.” And he said this while signing his bulletin, which was going to satisfy the people and inspire historians and poets.’7 Ultimately Napoleon was right, and there was no mutiny.
While Napoleon and his men straggled back to Egypt, Sir Sidney Smith was busy assembling a Turkish fleet of seven battleships, five frigates and fifty-eight smaller vessels to carry an army of twenty thousand troops of Turkish and various other nationalities in an attack on the French in Egypt. They landed at Aboukir Bay in early July before they could be opposed, but instead of marching inland, they dug in on the coast. As soon as he heard, Napoleon led a force of ten thousand men against them, arriving on the 24th. The battle the next day ended in a rout of the Turkish army, which left hundreds of Turks besieged in the fort at Aboukir while the rest retreated to the ships. In all about two thousand Turkish troops were killed in the battle, and the fort surrendered when it ran out of supplies.
Smith sent Major Bromley to negotiate an exchange of prisoners, but having learned his true identity, Napoleon refused to deal with him, and Smith’s secretary, John Keith, had to take over. During the negotiations a French officer was allowed on board Smith’s ship, the Tigre, and there Smith ensured that he obtained news of what was happening in Europe, as Bourrienne related:After the battle . . . Bonaparte sent a negotiator on board the English Admiral’s ship. Our relations were full of politeness, such as might be expected between two civilised nations. The English Admiral gave the negotiator some presents, in exchange for what we sent, and also the French Gazette of Frankfurt of 10 June 1799. For ten months we had been without news from France. Bonaparte glanced through this newspaper with an eagerness easy to imagine. ‘Good grief!’ he said to me, ‘my foreboding hasn’t tricked me; Italy is lost!!! The scoundrels! All the fruits of our victories have disappeared! It’s essential that I leave.’8
Napoleon made secret preparations to fit out two frigates and two smaller ships with a few weeks’ provisions for about five hundred men. On 23 August he set sail for France. The British ships blockading Egypt had not been seen for several days, because the Tigre had gone to Cyprus for supplies and the Theseus, on a similar journey to Rhodes, had been delayed getting back. Only Turkish ships were left off the coast. With extraordinary luck Napoleon avoided not only the blockade, but all the British ships patrolling the Mediterranean. General Kléber was not told anything beforehand and was furious to find he had been left a letter giving him command of the troops in Egypt and a variety of instructions and promises. There was also a short proclamation to the soldiers from Napoleon, saying that ‘In consequence of the news from Europe, I have determined to return immediately to France. I leave the command of the army to General Kléber: they shall h
ear from me speedily: this is all I can say to them at present. It grieves me to the heart to part from the brave men to whom I am so tenderly attached, but it will be only for an instant, and the General I leave at their head is in full possession of the confidence of the Government and of mine.’9
Napoleon deliberately left Kléber behind because he was a serious rival. He also ordered him not to negotiate with the enemy until the following May in an attempt to keep him out of the way. Both men respected each other’s talents, but there was no love lost between them, and Bourrienne reported that several times Kléber made comments like: ‘Your little bastard Bonaparte, who is as high as my boot, will enslave France. See what a damnable expedition he made us do.’10 Kléber was left in an untenable position, yet the French soldiers were probably more loyal to him than to Napoleon. Sidney Smith realised that even the much larger Turkish army that was massing for another attempt to take back Egypt would find the task very difficult, so he approached Kléber with an offer to negotiate a French withdrawal. Kléber did not react immediately, but although another attack by the Turks was repulsed, the French soldiers mutinied, demanding their overdue pay and threatening to claim the Sultan’s free passage home. Smith’s propaganda was beginning to take effect, and at the end of October Kléber opened negotiations.
After forty-seven days at sea, on 9 October Napoleon landed at Fréjus, on the south-east coast of France. The news of his arrival reached the Directory in Paris three days later, and three weeks of political manoeuvring took place as different factions gained and lost power. On 9 November the fluid politics came to a crisis point when Napoleon was about to be outlawed for his illegal actions by the National Assembly - the body of delegates representing the third estate, those who were not aristocrats or clergy. Napoleon’s brother Lucien saved the situation with a brilliant speech in his defence, and in the days that followed Napoleon and his supporters engineered a coup, replacing the Directory with a Consulate. This consisted of three consuls, but the main consul was Napoleon, who eventually dispensed with the other two and ruled alone - he effectively established a military dictatorship.
Before seizing power, Napoleon and some of his supporters were negotiating with the Royalists, who needed a strong general to control the military and deliver power to the exiled King Louis XVIII. The British Secret Service knew about these negotiations through its involvement with the network of Royalist agents in France, and Smith also probably knew about them. It has even been suggested that he deliberately provoked Napoleon to escape, relaxing the blockade of Egypt. Certainly the Royalists in France and in exile initially welcomed Napoleon’s rise to power, since the two other consuls favoured the restoration of the monarchy, but they waited in vain for power to be handed over to Louis.
By early 1800 Napoleon was showing no sign of co-operating with the Royalists, and Louis wrote him a letter reminding him of his supposed commitment to the monarchy: ‘Whatever may be their apparent conduct, men like you, Sir, never inspire anxiety. You have accepted an eminent position, and I am grateful to you. You know better than anyone how much strength and power is needed to secure the good fortune of a great nation. Save France from her own violence, and you will have fulfilled the first wish of my heart. Restore her King, and future generations will bless your memory.’11 According to Bourrienne, Napoleon was rattled by this letter and ignored it, but when Louis wrote again, Napoleon eventually answered: ‘Sir, I have received your letter, and I thank you for the decent things you say to me. You must not desire for a return to France; it would be necessary to march over a hundred thousand corpses. Sacrifice your interest to the peace and well-being of France. History will take account of this . . . I am not insensible to the misfortunes of your family, and I will learn with pleasure that you are surrounded by everything that can contribute to the tranquillity of your retirement.’12 Napoleon now felt himself in full control of France, with ambitious plans to dominate Europe, if not the world. There would be fifteen years of almost continuous bloodshed before he could be stopped.
In Egypt, negotiations continued between Smith and Kléber, until on 24 January 1800 an agreement for a French withdrawal was signed. The difficulties of long-distance communications now became apparent. Having taken charge of the British Embassy at Constantinople, Lord Elgin authorised Smith to conclude this treaty with the French, but by the time it reached London for ratification the government was influenced by intercepted letters betraying the desperate state of the French in Egypt. The government therefore instructed Elgin and Smith to cancel the treaty, believing that the Turks could easily oust the French. Smith did not hear about this until late February, in a letter from Lord Keith, who took the same view as Nelson that the French must surrender. Keith had already written to Kléber with this demand, but Smith could see the wider picture and lamented the chance that was being lost. He pointed out to Keith that ‘if the business is allowed to go on in the way it is now settled [ratifying the treaty with the French], the gigantic and favourite projects of Buonaparte are rendered abortive, and surely it is no bad general mode of reasoning, and particularly applicable in this case, to say that whatever the wishes of the enemy may be, we ought to cross them; he wishes this army to remain in this country, far from himself . . . And I have most positive ground for saying that Kléber is Buonaparte’s most determined and most dreaded opponent.’13
As so often happened, while his superiors were concerned to win the battle, Smith was more concerned to win the overall war. The damage was already done, however, as Keith’s letter infuriated Kléber, who immediately set about inspiring his men to a dogged defence of Egypt. On 20 March he successfully countered a Turkish attack and a week later had driven the Turks from Egypt. The process of removing the French from Egypt was set to drag on another year, even though Kléber was tragically assassinated by an Arab fanatic on 14 June.
While Napoleon in Paris was successfully manipulating French politics and Smith and Kléber were negotiating a withdrawal, Nelson at Palermo was struggling with his superiors. He was out of favour with some sections of the Admiralty and did not like or respect his immediate superior, Lord Keith, a frequent critic of Nelson. In early February 1800 both Keith and Nelson sailed from Palermo with a fleet that was taking reinforcements to Malta, where the French remained under siege. Nelson then sailed westwards in the hope of intercepting any French vessels sent to relieve the siege, and on 18 February captured the Généreux, one of the ships that had escaped from the Battle of the Nile. Soon afterwards Nelson met up with Keith, who tactlessly put in charge a lieutenant from his own ship, with orders to take the Généreux to Minorca, rather than leaving Nelson to delegate one of his own junior officers to command this prize.
The lieutenant Keith chose was a young fellow Scotsman, Lord Thomas Cochrane. He was heir to the Earldom of Dundonald, and just one year later would make his reputation by capturing the frigate Gamo with his tiny sloop Speedy. Cochrane took with him a few men from Keith’s flagship, including his brother Archibald, and later he reflected on this stroke of luck: ‘Lord Keith permitted my brother to accompany me in the Généreux. By this unexpected incident both he and myself were, in all probability, saved from a fate which soon afterwards befell most of our gallant shipmates. On our quitting the Queen Charlotte, Lord Keith steered for Leghorn, where he landed, and ordered Captain Todd to reconnoitre the island of Cabrera, then in possession of the French. Whilst on his way, some hay, hastily embarked and placed under the half-deck, became ignited, and the flame communicating with the mainsail set the ship on fire.’14
One of the survivors from the Queen Charlotte, the carpenter John Baird, described what happened: ‘I heard throughout the ship a general cry of fire! I immediately ran up the fore-ladder to get upon deck, and found the whole half-deck, the front bulk-head of the admiral’s cabin, the coat of the mainmast, and the boats’ covering on the booms, all in flames . . . The mainsail at this time was set, and almost instantly caught fire.’15 All the crew were desperately trying
to put out the flames, and Lieutenant Dundas was trying to soak the lower decks by pumping water through the gunports and close the hatches to prevent the fire spreading downwards. Baird recalled that ‘the pumps [were] kept going by the people who came down, as long as they could stand at them. Owing to these exertions . . . the lower deck was kept free from fire, and the magazines preserved from danger for a long time: nor did Lieutenant Dundas or myself quit this station until several of the middledeck guns came through the deck.’16
With the deck above them burning so badly that cannons were beginning to fall through, there was no possibility of saving the ship. Baird and Dundas returned to the forecastle, where a group of men were still throwing buckets of water over the flames. ‘I continued about an hour on the forecastle,’ Baird reported, ‘till finding all efforts to extinguish the flames unavailing, I jumped from the jib-boom, and swam to an American boat.’17 Soon after, the Queen Charlotte blew up, and of a crew of 830 men, there were only 156 survivors. If Cochrane had been aboard, the accidental loss of the Queen Charlotte would not just have been a terrible tragedy - it would probably have cut short the life and career of one of the British Navy’s most remarkable officers.
By this time stress and exhaustion were making Rear-Admiral Nelson ill, and he returned to Palermo on leave while his flagship, the Foudroyant, underwent a refit. Because he was still unwell, the ship returned to the blockade of Malta without him, under orders to return to Palermo. Just as the Foudroyant reached Malta, the vessels of the British blockade there received news that the Guillaume Tell was about to break out from the harbour and head for Toulon for supplies. Along with the Généreux, the Guillaume Tell was the other battleship that had escaped from the Battle of the Nile, and the British were especially keen to take it. The Nile had been an unusual battle, marking a revolution in naval warfare. In previous battles hailed as British victories, relatively few enemy battleships had been taken - at the ‘Glorious First of June’ in 1794, six out of twenty-six were captured; at Cape St Vincent in February 1797, four out of twenty-seven; and at Camperdown the following October, eight out of fifteen. Nelson realised that the nature of warfare had changed and that it was ‘annihilation that the country wants, and not merely a splendid victory . . . Numbers only can annihilate.’18 It now only needed the capture of the Guillaume Tell to complete the annihilation of the French battleships of the Egyptian expedition.