The return of Villeneuve and the delay necessary to repair his ships, concurring with the expected re-enforcements from Spain, wholly changed the details of Napoleon's plan. In essence it remained the same from first to last; but the large number of ships now soon to be at his command appealed powerfully to his love for great masses and wide combinations. Now, also, Villeneuve could not reach the West Indies before the sickly season.
The contemplated conquests in America, which had formed so important a part of the first plan, were therefore laid aside, and so was also the Irish expedition by Ganteaume's fleet. The concentration of naval forces in the West Indies or at some point exterior to France became now the great aim; and the sally of the various detachments, before intended to favor the crossing of the flotilla by a diversion, was now to be the direct means of covering it, by bringing them to the English Channel and before Boulogne. The operations were to begin in March; and urgent orders were sent to Spain to have the contingents in her several ports ready to move at a moment's notice.
The situations of the squadrons in March, when the great Trafalgar campaign opened, need to be stated. On the extreme right, in the Texel, were nine ships-of-the-line with a due proportion of lighter vessels; and some eighty transports lay ready to embark Marmont's army corps of twenty-five thousand men. [169] The Boulogne flotilla was assembled; the few detachments still absent being so near at hand that their junction could be confidently expected before the appearance of the covering fleet. The army, one hundred and thirty thousand strong, was by frequent practice able to embark in two hours. [170] Two tides were needed for all the boats to clear the ports; but as word of the fleet's approach would precede its arrival, they could haul out betimes and lie in the open sea, under the batteries, ready to start. In Brest, Ganteaume had twenty-one ships-of-the-line. The Rochefort squadron was now in the West Indies with Missiessy; but two more ships were ready in that port and one in Lorient. In Ferrol were five French and ten Spanish; of the latter it was expected that six or eight could sail in March. In Cadiz the treaty called for twelve or fifteen to be ready at the same time, but only six were then actually able to move. There was also in Cadiz one French ship. In Cartagena were six Spaniards, which, however, took no part in the campaign. At Toulon Villeneuve would have eleven ships. All these were ships-of-the-line. The total available at the opening of the campaign was therefore sixty-seven; but it will be observed that they were disseminated in detachments, and that the strategic problem was, first, to unite them in the face of an enemy that controlled the communications, and, next, to bring them to the strategic centre.
As in 1796, the declaration of Spain in 1805 added immensely to the anxieties of Great Britain. Lord Melville, who succeeded St. Vincent as First Lord in May, 1804, had at once contracted for several ships-of-the-line to be built in private yards; [171] but these were not yet ready. A somewhat singular expedient was then adopted to utilize worn-out vessels, twelve of which were in February, 1805, cased with two-inch oak plank, and with some additional bracing sent to sea. It is said some of these bore a part in the battle of Trafalgar. [172]
The disposition and strength of the British detachments varied with the movements of the enemy and with the increasing strength of their own navy. Lord Keith, in the Downs with eleven small ships-of-the-line, watched the Texel and the Straits of Dover. The Channel fleet under Cornwallis held Brest under lock and key, with a force varying from eleven, when the year began, to twenty or twenty-four in the following April. This was the centre of the great British naval line. Off Rochefort no squadron was kept after Missiessy's escape. In March that event had simply transferred to the West Indies five French and six British ships. Off Ferrol eight ships were watching the combined fifteen in the port. In October, when the Spanish war was threatening, a division of six was sent to blockade Cadiz. Nelson's command, which had before extended to Cape Finisterre, was now confined to Gibraltar as its western limit, and the Cadiz portion assigned to Sir John Orde,—a step particularly invidious to Nelson, depriving him of the most lucrative part of his station, in favor of one who was not only his senior, with power to annoy him, but reputed to be his personal enemy. Nelson had within the Straits twelve of the line, several of which, however, were in bad condition; and one, kept permanently at Naples for political reasons, was useless to him. Two others were on their way to join, but did not arrive before the campaign opened. It may be added that there were in India from eight to ten ships-of-the-line, and in the West Indies four, which Cochrane's arrival would raise to ten. [173]
On the 2d of March Napoleon issued specific orders for the campaign to Villeneuve and Ganteaume. The latter, who was to command-in-chief after the junction, was directed to sail at the first moment possible with his twenty-one ships, carrying besides their crews thirty-six hundred troops. He was to go first to Ferrol, destroy or drive off the blockading squadron, and be joined by the French and Spanish ships there ready; thence by the shortest route to Martinique, where he was to be met by Villeneuve and, it was hoped, by Missiessy also. If Villeneuve did not at once appear, he was to be awaited at least thirty days. When united, the whole force, amounting to over forty of the line, would, to avoid detection, steer for the Channel by an unusual route and proceed direct to Boulogne, where the emperor expected it between June 10 and July 10. If by Villeneuve's not coming, or other cause, Ganteaume found himself with less than twenty-five ships, he was to go to Ferrol; where it would be the emperor's care to assemble a re-enforcement. He might, however, even with so small a number, move straight on Boulogne if he thought advisable. [174]
Villeneuve's orders were to sail at the earliest date for Cadiz, where he was not to enter but be joined outside by the ships then ready. From Cadiz he was to go to Martinique, and there wait forty days for Ganteaume. If the latter did not then appear he was to call at San Domingo, land some troops and thence go to the Bay of Santiago in the Canary Islands, [175] where he would cruise twenty days. This provided a second rendezvous where Ganteaume could join, if unexpectedly delayed in Brest. The emperor, like all French rulers, did not wish to risk his fleet in battle with nearly equal forces. Whatever the result, his combinations would suffer. "I prefer," said he, "the rendezvous at Martinique to any other; but I also prefer Santiago to a junction before Brest, by raising the blockade, in order to avoid fighting of any kind." [176] When Ganteaume, at a most critical instant, only six days before Villeneuve got away, reported that he was ready,—that there were but fifteen British ships in the offing and success was sure,—Napoleon replied: "A naval victory now would lead to nothing. Have but one aim,—to fulfil your mission. Sail without fighting." [177] So to the old delusion of ulterior objects was sacrificed the one chance for compassing the junction essential to success. By April 1 the British fleet off Brest was increased to twenty-one sail.
Meanwhile Nelson had returned from his fruitless search at Alexandria, and on the 13th of March again appeared off Toulon. Thence he went to Cape San Sebastian, showing his ships off Barcelona to convince the enemy he was fixed on the coast of Spain; reasoning that if they thought him to the westward they would more readily start for Egypt, which he still believed to be their aim. He had by his communications with Alexandria learned the distracted state of that country since the destruction of the Mameluke power and its restoration to the Turks, and reported that the French could easily hold it, if they once effected a lodgment. [178] From Cape San Sebastian the fleet next went to the Gulf of Palmas, a convenient roadstead in the south of Sardinia, to fill with provisions from transports lately arrived. It anchored there on the 26th of March, but was again at sea when, at 8 A. M. of April 4, being then twenty miles west of the Gulf, a frigate brought word of the second sailing of the Toulon fleet. When last seen, in the evening of March 31, it was sixty miles south of Toulon, steering south with a north-west wind. One of the pair of lookouts was then sent to Nelson; and the other, losing sight of the enemy during the night, joined him a few hours after the first. The only clue she could give was that, having herself steered south-west with a wind from west-north-west, the enemy had probably kept on south or borne away to the eastward. Nelson, therefore, took the fleet midway between Sardinia and the African coast, scattering lookout ships along the line between these two points. [179] He was thus centrally placed to cover everything east of Sardinia, and with means of speedy information if the French attempted to pass, at any point, the line occupied by him.
Villeneuve had indeed headed as reported by the British frigates, swayed by Nelson's ruse in appearing off Barcelona. [180] Believing the enemy off Cape San Sebastian, he meant to go east of the Balearic Islands. The next day, April 1; a neutral ship informed him that it had seen the British fleet south of Sardinia. The wind fortunately hauling to the eastward, Villeneuve changed his course to pass north of the Balearics; and on the 6th of April, when Nelson was watching for him between Sardinia and Africa, he appeared off Cartagena. The Spanish division there declined to join him, having no instructions from its government; and the French fleet, continuing at once with a fresh easterly wind, passed Gibraltar on the 8th. On the 9th it reached Cadiz, driving away Orde's squadron. Following his orders strictly, Villeneuve anchored outside the port; and was there at once joined by the French seventy-four "l'Aigle," and six Spanish ships. During the night the combined force of eighteen of the line sailed for Martinique, where it anchored May 14, after a passage of thirty-four days. Some Spanish ships separated the day after sailing; but, having sealed instructions giving the rendezvous, they arrived only two days later than the main body.
This sortie of Villeneuve had so far been exceptionally happy. By a mere accident he had learned Nelson's position, while that admiral was misled by what seems to have been bad management on the part of his carefully placed lookouts. Nelson was not prone to blame subordinates, but he apparently felt he had not been well served in this case. Not till April 16, when Villeneuve was already six days on his way from Cadiz, did he learn from a passing ship that nine days before the French were seen off Cape de Gata, on the coast of Spain, steering westward with an east wind, evidently bound to the Atlantic. To this piece of great good luck Villeneuve's fortune added another. While he carried an east wind with him till clear of the Straits, Nelson, from the 4th of April to the 19th, had a succession of strong westerly gales. "We have been nine days coming two hundred miles," he wrote. "For a whole month we have had nothing like a Levanter except for the French fleet." [181] Not till May 6, after a resolute struggle of over three weeks against contrary fortune, did he anchor his fleet in Gibraltar Bay. Five days later he was on his way to the West Indies. But while the escape from Toulon showed the impossibility of securing every naval detachment of the enemy, the events elsewhere happening proved the extreme difficulty of so timing the evasions as to effect a great combination. While Villeneuve with eighteen ships was hastening to the West Indies, Missiessy, [182] with five others, having very imperfectly fulfilled his mission to annoy the enemy's islands, was speeding back to Rochefort, where orders at once to retrace his steps were waiting. At the same time Ganteaume with his twenty-one was hopelessly locked in Brest. Amid all the difficulties of their task, the British fleets, sticking close to the French arsenals, not only tempered their efficiency for war to the utmost toughness, but reaped also the advantages inseparable from interior positions.