by Philip Dwyer
The Army of England
The threat of invasion provoked nightmares among the people of England.37 The French camp at Boulogne could be seen ‘quite distinctly’ from some parts of the English coast. In France, however, Napoleon used the war with England to unify the nation around his person, possibly to greater effect than the coronation. There was no real enthusiasm for the war despite the long-held hatred of the French for the English; the French people needed convincing both that it was the right thing to do and that an invasion of England was in the realms of the possible.38 That is why the planned invasion was the object of a propaganda campaign. Several songs for the invasion were ordered, as were several comic plays.39 A series of medallions representing those who had successfully invaded England – Caesar, Septimius Severus, William the Conqueror, Henry VII – was struck.40 A statue of William the Conqueror and a square named after him were considered for Saint-Germain near Paris.41 At the camp at Boulogne, a number of ancient Roman arms were coincidentally uncovered, as well as coins of William the Conqueror, precisely where Bonaparte’s tent was pitched.42 It was an omen of things to come. Just as Charlemagne had been disinterred and used by the regime, so too was William the Conqueror, not to justify the impending invasion of England but to demonstrate that there was a historical precedent and that therefore an invasion was possible. At one stage, Vivant Denon even came up with the hare-brained idea of burying a statue of William the Conqueror in the Seine and then uncovering it as if by chance; the statue was then to be hauled upriver to Paris in a barge, once again as an omen of the impending invasion of England.43 Fortunately, Bonaparte did not buy into the scheme. On the other hand, the Bayeux tapestry was brought from Calvados to Paris and exhibited at the Louvre at the beginning of 1803, announcing the French victory that was about to take place;44 hundreds of copies of the exhibition catalogue were distributed to the army. Whether any of this had an impact on public opinion is doubtful. On 23 September 1805, Napoleon appeared before the Senate and gave a speech explaining that he was about to leave the capital and rejoin the army at Boulogne.45 As he left the Senate, driving through Paris to Saint-Cloud, he noticed that the mood of the crowds had ‘cooled, and he was greeted with less alacrity than usual’.46 Their reaction hurt him, but then crowds rarely, if ever, cheer the outbreak of war.
One determining factor would have allowed Napoleon to invade England: he had to control the Channel for several days while the French flotilla sailed across in convoys of 200 boats.47 His plan was somehow to convince the British that he was going to cross the Channel without the protection of the French fleet. He succeeded to such an extent that many diplomats of the time, some military figures such as the Archduke Charles and even members of the British government and senior officers in the Royal Navy were persuaded that the whole idea of an invasion was a confidence trick. In the meantime, Napoleon was trying to combine the scattered French navy and manoeuvre them away from Europe, in the hope that the British fleet would give chase. The French could then turn around and unite in the Channel long enough to give them naval superiority.48
Given the size of the fleet that was assembled (more than forty ships of the line, twenty frigates, fourteen corvettes and twenty-five brigs, more if the Spanish fleet is taken into account), as well as the thousands of landing craft that were purpose built, and the millions of francs that were spent in preparations, it is clear that Napoleon was serious about an invasion of England. Any suggestion that he was not, that he was putting on a show of force in the hope of obliging London to negotiate, or indeed that the camp at Boulogne was a front to ‘facilitate the assembling of troops for a Continental war’, can be discounted.49 Speculation about Napoleon’s intentions existed at the time. The Prussian ambassador reported back to Berlin in May 1804 that Bonaparte’s ‘secret wish’ was for war on the Continent.50 Doubts about Napoleon’s real plans were further inflamed by an alleged admission to Metternich in 1810 that he never meant to invade England and that the army gathered at Boulogne was ‘always an army against Austria’.51 This is, however, little more than an indication of Napoleon’s inability to admit defeat – in this case, the aborted invasion – and his tendency to rewrite the past to conform to his idealized views of it. At the time, he was so confident that the invasion would be successful that dies were prepared for a commemorative medal to celebrate the victory. On one side is a profile of Napoleon crowned with laurels, and on the other an image of Hercules strangling Antaeus.52 Beneath is the optimistic inscription ‘Struck in London, 1804’. All the evidence suggests, therefore, that Napoleon planned to invade England, but that he also realized there was a possibility of war with the Eastern powers, rumours of which abounded in the summer of 1804.53
John Fairburn, A View of the French raft, as seen afloat at St. Maloes in February 1798, 13 February 1798. Rumours of an impending invasion inspired English caricaturists to imagine the most outlandish plans to cross the Channel. This print shows a raft, 180 metres long, bristling with 500 cannon, capable of transporting 15,000 troops. Others showed floating fortresses that would transport men and materiel by balloon, and even a cross-Channel tunnel. There was talk of steamboats, submarines, torpedoes and blockading British ports with mines, all aspects of modern naval warfare which, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were far from practical.54
Bonaparte’s initial orders were for landing craft to be ready by December 1803, only six months after the formation of the army, but the timeframe was unrealistic and over the coming months the number and type of craft ordered were to change dramatically.55
The projected invasion of England, ambitious in its breadth and scope, was certainly much better planned and prepared than the expedition to Egypt.56 Nevertheless, despite the enormous effort put into its organization, any chance of success depended on luck. In one exercise conducted in July 1805, Marshal Ney’s entire corps, including horses and equipment, were embarked on barges at Etaples (twenty-five kilometres south of Boulogne) in forty-nine minutes.57 However, an exercise held in bad weather on 20 July 1804 at Napoleon’s insistence demonstrated just how unsuitable the flat-bottomed boats were for the rough Channel seas. To his credit, Admiral Bruix, in command of the flotilla at Boulogne, refused to obey the order to put to sea; it was clear to all that a storm was brewing. Bruix and Napoleon almost came to blows over the matter, Napoleon threatening to strike the admiral with his riding crop, Bruix placing his hand on the hilt of his sword as those in the Emperor’s entourage stood around dumbfounded. Napoleon got his way, as a result of which twelve boats and barges sank with the loss of between 200 and 400 men.58 At one stage, Napoleon got into a boat and ordered the crew to row him out to help others, but to little effect. In a letter to Josephine the following day, he referred to the incident in romantic terms. ‘The soul was between eternity, the ocean and the night.’ He went to bed at five in the morning with the impression that he had lived through some sort of ‘romantic or epic dream’.59
The Royal Navy did not stand idly by and watch the French amass an invasion fleet. They attacked and harassed whenever and wherever they could, in spite of the coastal defences erected to protect the fleet. In 1804, the Royal Navy lost twenty-one ships blockading the French ports.60 Every now and then they would bombard one of the ports in lightning raids that could sometimes have devastating effects. On other occasions, these attacks were easily beaten off. Many believed as a result of the British efforts that an invasion was impossible, but Napoleon insisted preparations go ahead.
The Battle of Cadiz
The minister of the navy, Rear-Admiral Denis Decrès, was an experienced sailor who had engaged the British in a number of different theatres, but he was no match for Napoleon, who attempted to control the everyday workings of the navy during this period. Besides, Decrès was far from convinced of the potential success of an invasion. His lack of faith in the ability of his own fleet was a continual drawback.61 Letter after letter addressed to Napoleon rated as negligible the chances of gaining the necessary naval superiority
in the Channel.62
There was a momentary setback when Vice-Admiral Latouche-Tréville, in command of the Mediterranean fleet at Toulon and whom many considered to be the best naval officer in France, died suddenly in August 1804, after an illness he had contracted while at Saint-Domingue.63 As a consequence, plans for the invasion were more or less put on hold; Napoleon even temporarily gave up the idea, at least for the immediate future.64 However, alternative plans had been developed by the spring of 1805.65 A replacement was found in the person of Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, but he was not Latouche-Tréville. On the contrary, Villeneuve appears to have been traumatized by his experience during the battle of the Nile, which saw Nelson obliterate the French fleet off Aboukir. Villeneuve escaped that battle with his life, but developed as a consequence a morbid dread of Nelson. He was not, therefore, the kind of commander who could lead by daring example.66 He at first refused the command, but was persuaded against his better judgement to accept. At the end of September 1804, he was briefed on a new strategy in which the invasion of England was only one part of a much larger plan to attack Britain in the rest of the world, including Africa, South America, the Caribbean and Ireland.67 In the event, the strategy was never put into effect, but it provides us with an insight into Napoleon’s mind-set, the extent of his ambition and his determination to strike at England wherever he could. A definitive invasion plan was not decided on until the middle of April 1805. It was the seventh and probably least nonsensical in a line of impracticable plans. Before that, Napoleon had constantly changed his mind about what he wanted and what he expected from his subordinates. Even once the definitive plan had been adopted, he had no realistic conception of the limits and possibilities of naval warfare, and did not take into account the fact that the French vessels were manned by inexperienced sailors.
The plan was reasonable enough. It required Vice-Admiral Honoré-Joseph Ganteaume, the man who had brought Bonaparte back from Egypt and who was now blockaded in Brest, to break out and head for Martinique. At the same time, Villeneuve was to break out of Toulon, meet up with the Spanish fleet at Cadiz and then rendezvous with Ganteaume in the Caribbean. Once there, they were to conquer some English islands and reinforce the garrisons on Saint-Domingue, Guadaloupe and Martinique. They were then to return to Europe and help free the Spanish and French vessels in the port of El Ferrol, thus giving them a combined strength of thirty-four or thirty-five ships. This is more or less what Villeneuve did (but not Ganteaume, who refused to move from Brest). Villeneuve broke out of Toulon at the end of March and sailed for the Caribbean; favourable winds and the absence of British frigates allowed him to do so. His squadron of nineteen ships reached Martinique on 16 May. For almost two weeks, after dropping anchor in the harbour of Fort de France, Villeneuve did nothing until, on 30 May, new orders from Napoleon arrived instructing him to capture nearby British possessions. This he set out to do in a rather lacklustre manner,68 but soon learnt that Nelson had arrived in Barbados. Rather than confront him, he decided to return to Europe.
As Villeneuve approached the European mainland on 22 July, he encountered a British squadron off the coast of Cape Finisterre (Cabo Fisterra) in Galicia.69 There was a brief encounter in fog in which the English, under Admiral Sir Robert Calder, seem to have got the better of the French, but neither Calder nor Villeneuve, ‘timid and irresolute’, persisted and the engagement was broken off. According to one story, when one of the captains of a French vessel, Rear-Admiral Magon de Médine, saw the signal to break off, he went into such a rage that he stormed up and down his ship shouting abuse, and threw his spyglass and wig at Villeneuve as he passed by.70 Napoleon at first accepted Villeneuve’s self-serving reports of the encounter, which portrayed himself in a glowing and the Spanish in a poor light, even though they, and not the French, had borne the brunt of the fighting.71 Part of the problem with the French navy’s lacklustre performance was that Villeneuve appears to have been depressed, and may even have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown.72 He eventually took refuge in the Bay of Biscay in the north-west of Spain (2 August). Eight days later, he weighed anchor, but rather than head north to Boulogne where the army was waiting, he headed south for Cadiz.73 By that stage, an invasion was out of the question (about which more below) and new orders were sent to Villeneuve to head for the Mediterranean and to disembark the troops at Naples.74
Villeneuve did not receive those instructions until 28 September, and it was not until 18 and 19 October that he finally set sail from Cadiz.75 He was intercepted by Nelson off Cape Trafalgar in what has been described as the ‘greatest sea-fight of the century’.76 The losses were catastrophic for the French naval effort against Britain. Of the thirty-three ships of the line in the combined Franco-Spanish fleet, twenty-two were destroyed or captured. Admiral Villeneuve, no match for the genius of a Nelson, was taken prisoner and escorted to England. He was released in April 1806, but without a command and in disgrace; a few days after his release he committed suicide in a hotel in Rennes, aptly named the Hôtel de la Patrie. His body was found naked from the waist up; he is supposed to have plunged a knife into his breast, near his heart, six times.77 The sixth struck home. Even in death, he was hesitant and inept. The note he left behind gives an indication of the man’s state of mind: ‘Alone, reviled by the Emperor, rejected by a minister who was my friend, having an immense responsibility for a disaster I am blamed for and for which inevitably I am brought here, I must be the object of horror for everyone, and must die.’78
At the time, Trafalgar was referred to as the battle of Cadiz. When Napoleon received news of the defeat he went into a rage against Villeneuve, although he may very well have been relieved to have someone to blame for the failed invasion.79 There is some evidence that he was beginning to doubt whether the scheme would succeed, and that he was getting ready to call off the invasion even before he moved against Austria.80 This is possibly why he never attempted an invasion again, even after gaining a hold over the Continent. For the English, on the other hand, Trafalgar, in spite of the death of Nelson, represented the triumph of the chosen Protestant nation against a country that had ‘offended God’, the instrument of His avenging hand.81
Seven Torrents Descend on Germany
Let us go back a little to before the battle of Trafalgar. It was not until July 1805 that Napoleon suspected that a newly formed coalition was moving against him. He then realized that two Russian armies were massing on the Polish border, while Austrian troops were concentrating on the Bavarian border, in Venetia and in the Tyrol.
This is why Napoleon dictated a letter to his arch-chancellor in August which states his position in blunt terms: ‘The fact is that this power [Austria] is arming itself; I wish to disarm it; if it does not, I will go there with 200,000 men to pay it a good visit that it will remember for a long time.’82 From that time on, Napoleon instructed the French ambassador in Vienna, Alexandre-François de La Rochefoucauld, to demand explanations about Austrian troop movements. By the middle of August, the French, through Talleyrand, had virtually delivered an ultimatum.83 If Vienna were intimidated by these threats and backed down, then Napoleon would have assured his rear while going ahead with plans to invade England. If the threats came to naught, then he had at least laid the diplomatic groundwork for an attack against Austria at a later stage.
On 22 August, Napoleon urged Villeneuve to leave Brest – Villeneuve had said that he might be sailing for Brest or Cadiz, but between 10 and 21 August no one knew where he was – without losing a moment: ‘England is ours. We are all ready, everything is embarked. Appear within twenty-four hours and it’s all over.’84 The very next day, however, he decided that if Villeneuve were not able to make the rendezvous, he would postpone the invasion for a year.85 It is from that moment that one can date the decision to abandon the Channel crossing, even if Napoleon had been thinking about the possibility of a Continental war for some months. The idea of turning around the Army of England, rebaptized the Grand Army (Grande
Armée) on 13 August, and launching an attack on Austria, as well as possibly Prussia and Russia, had been considered as early as the end of 1804, and into the summer of 1805.86 There is some indication, however, that Napoleon remained convinced there was no threat to him from either Russia or Austria, at least until about July 1805, months after those two countries had started planning for war.87 There was an evident reluctance on Napoleon’s part to believe that the eastern European monarchs had hostile intentions towards him. Thus when news of an increase in Austrian garrison strengths on the Italian border reached him, he issued a strongly worded letter to Francis and moved troops to the region, but seemed easily appeased by the explanation he received from the Austrian Emperor that they were not aimed at France.88 Napoleon’s willingness to accept Francis’s word at face value was not simply a matter of good faith. He believed, wrongly, that Austria, and for that matter Russia, would not be swayed by British offers of a new coalition.89
The Austrians and Russians, on the other hand, had been planning an offensive against France since February, although they did not start to mobilize troops, for fear of arousing Napoleon’s suspicions, until September–October.90 Napoleon’s spies, in that respect, had let him down; he was blithely unaware of just how advanced their plans were or indeed of the true intentions of Francis and Alexander. When Murat attempted to warn Napoleon that a treaty had been concluded – he appears to have got wind of it from his own intelligence sources – Napoleon reprimanded him, insisting that the rumours were false and fabricated.91 Napoleon even attempted to bend reality to his own will by instructing Fouché to fabricate letters from Petersburg to show just how well the French and Russians got on.92 He finally acted in August by sending a letter to Francis through their respective foreign ministers.93 It was a belated attempt to argue Austria out of an alliance with Russia but it was also warning of what would happen if a Continental war obliged him to turn his forces from the Channel coast to Italy and Germany. A few days later, however, he received a letter from the court of Vienna – a response to his demands to disarm – that was hardly likely to reassure him.94 A power that breaks a treaty, and refuses all claims concerning it, the letter declared, was just as guilty of committing an aggression as if it had attacked another unjustly. It was in part a pointed lesson on how to behave as a great power and as head of state, and in part justification for Austria’s mobilizing of its troops. It had been obliged to do so, gradually, in response to the French mobilization, and because of a lack of conciliatory approaches. Napoleon, not surprisingly, did not see things the same way. In his mind, France was being forced into a war by Austrian aggression; at least that was the official line.95