These ill-timed changes affected most injuriously that very station—the Mediterranean—upon which hinged Bonaparte's projected combination. Out of the insufficient numbers, the heaviest squadrons and most seaworthy ships were naturally and properly massed upon the Channel and Biscay coasts. "I know," said Sir Edward Pellew, speaking of his personal experience in command of a squadron of six of the line off Ferrol, "I know and can assert with confidence that our navy was never better found, that it was never better supplied and that our men were never better fed or better clothed;" [110] and the condition of the ships was proved not only by the tenacity with which Pellew and his chief, Cornwallis, kept their stations, but by the fact that in the furious winter gales little damage was received. But at the same time Nelson was complaining bitterly that his ships were not seaworthy, that they were shamefully equipped, and destitute of the most necessary stores; while St. Vincent was writing to him, "We can send you neither ships nor men, and with the resources of your mind, you will do without them very well." [111] "Bravo, my lord!" said Nelson, ironically; "but," he wrote a month later, "I do not believe Lord St. Vincent would have kept the sea with such ships;" [112] and again, naming seven out of the ten under his command, "These are certainly among the very finest ships in our service, the best commanded and the very best manned, yet I wish them safe in England and that I had ships not half so well manned in their room; for it is not a store-ship a week that would keep them in repair." [113]
Such weakness interfered seriously with the close watch of Toulon, in face of the furious weather for which the Gulf of Lyon is noted; yet, from the strategic conditions of the Mediterranean, in no station was it more important to get the earliest news of an enemy's sailing and to keep constant touch with him. With the Straits of Gibraltar at one end, involving in case of escape several different possibilities, and with Egypt fifteen hundred miles away at the other, the most sagacious admiral might be misled as to the destination of a French squadron, if once lost to sight. Upon this difficulty Bonaparte framed his combination. In his first purpose the Toulon fleet was to be raised to ten sail-of-the-line, and at the fitting moment was to sail with a north-west wind, steering a course which, if seen by any British lookout, would indicate an intention of going eastward. To strengthen this presumption, General St. Cyr at Taranto was ordered to raise batteries to shelter a fleet of ten sail, and to prepare half a million rations; while the Minister of War was instructed that an extraordinary operation in that direction was contemplated about the 20th of November. [114] Simultaneously, twenty ships-of-the-line carrying twenty thousand troops were to be ready in Brest for a descent upon Ireland, and to be maintained in a state of readiness for instant sailing. This would conduce to keep Cornwallis close to Brest and away from the approaches to the Channel. The Toulon fleet, after losing sight of the British, was to haul up for the Straits, be joined off Cadiz or Lisbon by a squadron from Rochefort, raising its force to fifteen or sixteen sail-of-the-line, and thence, passing midway between Ushant and the Scilly islands, come about the middle of February off Boulogne; were the first consul expected then to be ready for crossing with his one hundred and thirty thousand men.
For the Toulon fleet, as the pivot on which all turned, Bonaparte selected his boldest admiral, Latouche Tréville, and fixed the middle of January, 1804, as the time of sailing. All the French authorities were scrupulously deceived, except the admiral himself, the Minister of Marine, and the maritime prefect at Toulon, Ganteaume, who had divined the secret. [115] The orders to the latter, ostentatiously confidential to deceive the office clerks, announced Martinique as the real destination, but enjoined him to tell the general commanding the troops that the squadron was going to the Morea, touching at Taranto. At the same time staff-officers were sent to notify St. Cyr that re-enforcements, which would raise his force to thirty thousand men, were coming not only from Toulon but from other ports; and troops throughout northern Italy began to move toward the sea-board.
It is not wonderful that Nelson was misled by such an elaborate scheme of deception. To this day men doubt whether Bonaparte seriously meant to invade England, and naval men then realized too keenly the dangers of the undertaking not to suspect a feint in it. Under all the conditions of the problem, Egypt and the Straits were equally probable solutions, and Egypt was not the only possible objective east of Toulon. Sicily and Sardinia, the Ionian Islands and the Morea, were coveted by Bonaparte; both as forwarding his control of the Mediterranean and as measurable advances towards Egypt and the Levant, traditional objects of French ambition. Nelson also suspected a secret understanding between France and Russia to divide the Turkish Empire; [116] a suspicion justified in the past by Bonaparte's actions and to be vindicated in the future by the agreements of Tilsit. The perplexities of the British admiral were therefore simply the inevitable uncertainties of the defence, the part assumed perforce by the British Empire at large in this war. He had to provide against widely divergent contingencies; and the question is not how far he guessed [117] the inscrutable purposes of Bonaparte, but how well he took measures for meeting either fortune.
Let it, however, be remarked in passing, that the great merit of St. Vincent's strategy was that it minimized the evil resulting from a single admiral's mis-step. To the success of the French scheme it was necessary that, not only one but, all their detached efforts should succeed. The strength of the British strategy lay not in hermetically sealing any one port, but in effectually preventing a great combination from all the ports. It was essential to Bonaparte not merely that his scattered squadrons should, one at one time and another at another, escape to sea, but that they should do so at periods so ordered, and by routes so determined, as to insure a rapid concentration at a particular point. Against this the British provided by the old and sound usage of interior positions and lines. This advantage Bonaparte recognized, and sought to overthrow by inducing them to diverging operations—toward the Levant on one flank, toward Ireland on the other. Both diverted from Boulogne.
To return to Nelson. During the first six months of his command he believed that the Toulon fleet was bound out of the Mediterranean; [118] and indeed, despite Bonaparte's wiles and the opinions of most of his own friends, he continually reverted to that conviction up to the final escape of Villeneuve. He could not, however, on the ground of his own intuitions resist the facts reported to him. On December 12, 1803, he writes: "Who shall say where they are bound? My opinion is, certainly, out of the Mediterranean." [119] Again, January 16, 1804: "It is difficult to say what may be the destination of the Toulon fleet, Egypt or Ireland. I rather lean to the latter." [120] A week later, January 23, the effect of Bonaparte's feints begins to show: "Information just received leads me to believe the French fleet is about to put to sea bound to the eastward toward Naples and Sicily." [121] February 10: "The French have thirty thousand men ready to embark from Marseilles and Nice, and I am led to believe the Ferrol ships will push for the Mediterranean. Egypt is Bonaparte's object." [122]
Against either contingency his course is perfectly clear,—never to lose touch of the Toulon fleet. "My eyes are constantly fixed on Toulon," [123] he says. "I will not lose sight of the Toulon fleet." [124] "It is of the utmost importance," he writes to his lookout frigates, "that the enemy's squadron in Toulon should be most strictly watched, and that I should be made acquainted with their sailing and route with all dispatch." [125] But here the inadequacy of St. Vincent's navy told heavily; and to that, not to Nelson, must be attributed the mis-steps of the later campaign. "My crazy fleet," he writes. "If I am to watch the French I must be at sea, and if at sea must have bad weather; and if the ships are not fit to stand bad weather they are useless." [126] "I know no way of watching the enemy but to be at sea," he tells St. Vincent himself, "and therefore good ships are necessary." Under such conditions, with "terrible weather," in winter, not four fine days in six weeks, and even in summer having a hard gale every week, [127] it was impossible to keep his rickety ships close up against Toulon, as Cornwallis kept against Brest. "I make it a rule not to contend with the north-westers," he said. "Going off large or furling all sail we escape damage by the constant care of the captains;" and he not unjustly claimed equal credit with Cornwallis, in that with such a fleet, to which nothing was sent, he kept the sea ten consecutive months, "not a ship refitted in any way, except what was done at sea." [128]
Though desirable for the battle-ships themselves to be near Toulon, it would have been possible, in so narrow a sea, to dispense with that by taking a central position, and keeping touch with the enemy by numerous frigates; but here also the deficiencies of the navy interfered. Among the Maddalena Islands, at the north end of Sardinia, was found an admirable central anchorage, well sheltered, and having eastern and western exits by which it could be left at a moment's notice in all winds. Here the fleet could safely lie, ready for instant action, within striking distance of any route taken by the enemy, and sure to be found by lookout ships bringing tidings. Thither, therefore, as the direction most favorable for intercepting the French, [129] Nelson went in January, 1804, when informed they were about to sail; but he wrote: "I am kept in great distress for frigates and smaller vessels at this critical moment. I want ten more than I have, in order to watch that the French should not escape me." [130] This but summed up the constant worry of those anxious two years, [131] as it does also the results of recent experience in the annual manœuvres of European navies. Under such circumstances all depends upon the position taken by the main body and the number of scouts it can throw out. Properly, these should move in couples; one of which can carry information, while its consort keeps touch of the enemy till it meets another of the lookouts scattered on their different radii of action.
The situation of Nelson in the Mediterranean, the character of his anxieties, and the condition of his ships have been given in some detail, because upon the opposing Mediterranean fleets turns the chief strategic interest of the intended invasion of England and of the campaign which issued in Trafalgar. Lord St. Vincent left office with the Addington Ministry in May, 1804, and under the energetic rule of his successor, who threw his administrative system to the winds, the condition of Nelson's fleet was somewhat bettered; but the change came too late to remedy it altogether.