The question will naturally here arise, What at any time were the chances of success? To a purely speculative question, involving so many elements and into which the conditions of sea war then introduced so many varying quantities, it would be folly to reply with a positive assertion. Certain determining factors may, however, be profitably noted. It is, for instance, evident that, if Villeneuve on leaving the West Indies had had with him the Ferrol squadron, and still more if he had been joined by Ganteaume, he could have steered at once for the Channel; and, by attending to well-known weather conditions, could have entered it with a favoring wind sure to last him to Boulogne. The difficulty of effecting such a combination in the West Indies, which was Napoleon's favorite project, was owing to the presence of British divisions before the hostile ports; and step by step this circumstance drove the emperor back on what he pronounced the worst alternative,—a concentration in front of Brest. As has been noticed, at the critical moment when this final concentration was to be attempted, the British, by a series of movements which resulted naturally from their strategic policy, were before that port in force superior to either of the French detachments seeking there to make their junction. Cornwallis's blunder in dividing that force cannot obscure the military lesson involved.
Nor can Calder's error, in suffering Villeneuve to escape him in July, detract from the equally significant and precisely similar lesson then illustrated. There also the British fleet was on hand to check an important junction—at a point so far from Ferrol as to be out of supporting distance by the division in the port—by virtue of an intelligent use of interior positions and interior lines.
To the strategic advantage conferred by these interior positions, for clinging to which credit is due above all to St. Vincent, is to be added the very superior character of the British personnel,—particularly of the officers; for the immense demand for seamen made it hard to maintain the quality of the crews. Continually cruising, not singly but in squadrons more or less numerous, the ships were ever on the drill ground,—nay, on the battle-field,—experiencing all the varying phases impressed upon it by the changes of the ocean. Thus practised and hardened into perfect machines, though inferior in numbers, they were continually superior in force and in mobility to their opponents.
Possessing, therefore, strategic advantage and superior force, the probabilities favored Great Britain. Nevertheless, there remained to Napoleon enough chances of success to forbid saying that his enterprise was hopeless. A seaman can scarcely deny that, despite the genius of Nelson and the tenacity of the British officers, it was possible that some favorable concurrence of circumstances might have brought forty or more French ships into the Channel, and given Napoleon the mastery of the Straits for the few days he asked. The very removal of the squadrons of observation from before Rochefort and Ferrol, in order to constitute the fleet with which Calder fought Villeneuve, though admirable as a display of generalship, shows that the British navy, so far as numbers were concerned, was not adequate to perfect security, and might, by some conceivable combination of circumstances, have been outwitted and overwhelmed at the decisive point.
The importance attached by the emperor to his project was not exaggerated. He might, or he might not, succeed; but, if he failed against Great Britain, he failed everywhere. This he, with the intuition of genius, felt; and to this the record of his after history now bears witness. To the strife of arms with the great Sea Power succeeded the strife of endurance. Amid all the pomp and circumstance of the war which for ten years to come desolated the Continent, amid all the tramping to and fro over Europe of the French armies and their auxiliary legions, there went on unceasingly that noiseless pressure upon the vitals of France, that compulsion, whose silence, when once noted, becomes to the observer the most striking and awful mark of the working of Sea Power. Under it the resources of the Continent wasted more and more with each succeeding year; and Napoleon, amid all the splendor of his imperial position, was ever needy. To this, and to the immense expenditures required to enforce the Continental System, are to be attributed most of those arbitrary acts which made him the hated of the peoples, for whose enfranchisement he did so much. Lack of revenue and lack of credit, such was the price paid by Napoleon for the Continental System, through which alone, after Trafalgar, he hoped to crush the Power of the Sea. It may be doubted whether, amid all his glory, he ever felt secure after the failure of the invasion of England. To borrow his own vigorous words, in the address to the nation issued before he joined the army, "To live without commerce, without shipping, without colonies, subjected to the unjust will of our enemies, is to live as Frenchmen should not." Yet so had France to live throughout his reign, by the will of the one enemy never conquered.
On the 14th of September, before quitting Paris, Napoleon sent Villeneuve orders to take the first favorable opportunity to leave Cadiz, to enter the Mediterranean, join the ships at Cartagena, and with this combined force move upon southern Italy. There, at any suitable point, he was to land the troops embarked in the fleet to re-enforce General St. Cyr, who already had instructions to be ready to attack Naples at a moment's notice. [242] The next day these orders were reiterated to Decrès, enforcing the importance to the general campaign of so powerful a diversion as the presence of this great fleet in the Mediterranean; but, as "Villeneuve's excessive pusillanimity will prevent him from undertaking this, you will send to replace him Admiral Rosily, who will bear letters directing Villeneuve to return to France and give an account of his conduct." [243] The emperor had already formulated his complaints against the admiral under seven distinct heads. [244] On the 15th of September, the same day the orders to relieve Villeneuve were issued, Nelson, having spent at home only twenty-five days, left England for the last time. On the 28th, when he joined the fleet off Cadiz, he found under his command twenty-nine ships-of-the-line, which successive arrivals raised to thirty-three by the day of the battle; but, water running short, it became necessary to send the ships, by divisions of six, to fill up at Gibraltar. To this cause was due that only twenty-seven British vessels were present in the action,—an unfortunate circumstance; for, as Nelson said, what the country wanted was not merely a splendid victory, but annihilation; "numbers only can annihilate." [245] The force under his command was thus disposed: the main body about fifty miles west-south-west of Cadiz, seven lookout frigates close in with the port, and between these extremes, two small detachments of ships-of-the-line,—the one twenty miles from the harbor, the other about thirty-five. "By this chain," he wrote, "I hope to have constant communication with the frigates."
Napoleon's commands to enter the Mediterranean reached Villeneuve on September 27. The following day, when Nelson was joining his fleet, the admiral acknowledged their receipt, and submissively reported his intention to obey as soon as the wind served. Before he could do so, accurate intelligence was received of the strength of Nelson's force, which the emperor had not known. Villeneuve assembled a council of war to consider the situation, and the general opinion was adverse to sailing; but the commander-in-chief, alleging the orders of Napoleon, announced his determination to follow them. To this all submitted. An event, then unforeseen by Villeneuve, precipitated his action.
Admiral Rosily's approach was known in Cadiz some time before he could arrive. It at first made little impression upon Villeneuve, who was not expecting to be superseded. On the 11th of October, however, along with the news that his successor had reached Madrid, there came to him a rumor of the truth. His honor took alarm. If not allowed to remain afloat, how remove the undeserved imputation of cowardice which he knew had by some been attached to his name. He at once wrote to Decrès that he would have been well content if permitted to continue with the fleet in a subordinate capacity; and closed with the words, "I will sail to-morrow, if circumstances favor."
The wind next day was fair, and the combined fleets began to weigh. On the 19th eight ships got clear of the harbor, and by ten A. M. Nelson, far at sea, knew by signal that the long-expected movement had begun. He at once made sail toward the Straits of Gibraltar to bar the entrance of the Mediterranean to the allies. On the 20th, all the latter, thirty-three ships-of-the-line accompanied by five frigates and two brigs, were at sea, steering with a south-west wind to the northward and westward to gain the offing needed before heading direct for the Straits. That morning Nelson, for whom the wind had been fair, was lying to off Cape Spartel to intercept the enemy; and learning from his frigates that they were north of him, he stood in that direction to meet them.