HERRENHAUSEN CASTLE, HANOVER.

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On the day after the surrender of Ulm, Buonaparte announced by proclamation to the army that he was going to annihilate the Russians, as he had done the Austrians; that Austria, in fact, had no generals with whom it was any glory to compete; and that Russia was only brought by the gold of England from the ends of the earth, for them to chastise them. At the end of October, accordingly, he commenced his march on Vienna.

The Emperor Francis did not attempt to defend his capital—that capital which had twice repelled all the efforts of the Turks—but fled into Moravia, to join his Russian ally, the Czar Alexander, who was there at the head of his army. On the 7th of November Francis took his departure, and on the 13th of November Napoleon entered Vienna without any opposition. Whilst Napoleon remained there he continued to receive the most cheering accounts of the success of his arms in Italy against the Austrians. There, Massena, on hearing of the capitulation of Ulm, made a general attack on the army of the Archduke Charles, near Caldiero. The French were victorious, and were soon joined by General St. Cyr, from Naples, with twenty-five thousand men. At the moment of this defeat, the Archduke received the news of the fall of Ulm, and the march of the French on Vienna. He determined, therefore, to leave Italy to its fate. He commenced his retreat in the night of November 1st, and resolved to make for Hungary.

Napoleon had so far executed his plans with wonderful success. He had rescued Bavaria, reduced the enemy's army and prestige at once by the capture of Ulm and Vienna, and had driven the Austrians simultaneously from Upper Italy and the Tyrol. But still his situation, for any general but himself, was very critical. The defeated army of the Emperor Francis had united itself to that of the young Emperor of Russia, in Moravia; the two archdukes were mustering great bodies of troops on the confines of Hungary, ready to rush forward and swell the Austro-Russian army; and the King of Prussia was watching the movements of the two parties, ready to strike, if France met with a reverse. Napoleon saw that his only security lay in a bold and decisive blow. He therefore crossed the Danube on the 23rd of November, and began a brisk march into the heart of Moravia, to attack the main body of the Allies under their two Emperors. He was soon before Brünn, its little capital, and the Allies retreated, at his approach, as far as Olmütz. This movement was, however, made to form a junction with the twenty-four thousand men under Benningsen. This being effected, they amounted to about eighty thousand men, but of these, many of the Austrians were troops already discouraged by defeat, and many more were raw recruits. The French were in number about equal, but consisting of veteran soldiers flushed with victory. On the 2nd of December Napoleon brought on the battle of Austerlitz, and before the close of the day the forces of the Coalition were completely beaten, losing upon the field some 27,000 killed and wounded, 20,000 prisoners, and 133 pieces of cannon.

Even now, had the Russians and Austrians possessed the spirit which the circumstances of the time demanded of them, they were far from being in a hopeless condition. Buonaparte was at an immense distance from his country. Besides the army still remaining with the two Emperors—at least sixty thousand in number—there were the strong forces of the Archdukes Charles and John in Hungary, and of Prince Ferdinand in Bohemia. By bold and skilful manœuvres they might have cut off his communications with France and Italy, and have harassed him, without committing themselves to a decided battle, till he must have found himself in a most perilous position. But Francis of Austria gave up the struggle in despair; he sent Prince John of Lichtenstein to propose a suspension of arms. Buonaparte insisted that they should first break with the Russians, and Lichtenstein said that Francis was quite willing, and to treat with Napoleon for a separate peace, but that he must claim for the Emperor Alexander the privilege of retreating into his own country without molestation. Buonaparte granted this as a favour, and added words so complimentary to Alexander, that they betrayed a wish to complete an agreement also with him. He returned to Vienna, and again occupied the palace of Schönbrunn. There he and Talleyrand concerted the demands which should be made; and an armistice was signed, on these terms, with Prince John of Lichtenstein, on the 6th of December. The final treaty was signed by the Emperor Francis, at Pressburg, on the 26th of December, a fortnight after Austerlitz. By this treaty Austria surrendered to Buonaparte all her territories in Italy, as well as her Venetian provinces of Dalmatia and on the coast of Albania. She surrendered her only seaport on the Adriatic, Trieste, and thus reduced herself to a mere inland power. She was compelled to cede to her rival, Bavaria, the Tyrol—a country most faithfully attached to the House of Hapsburg,—the bishopric of Passau, and other regions. Bavaria and Würtemberg, for their hostility to their own German race, were elevated into kingdoms, and Baden, for the same unpatriotic services, into a grand duchy. Thus France and her allies, or rather subjects, were now in possession of Switzerland, Italy, and the Tyrol on one side, and of Holland and Belgium on the other, so that she had everywhere an open high road into Germany, and nations of tributary princes, which were to aid in further enslaving it. Prussia had made up her mind on hearing of the victory of Austerlitz, and Haugwitz appeared at Schönbrunn, not to declare war on Buonaparte, but to compliment him on his victory. Buonaparte could not conceal his contempt for this despicable conduct. He said, "Ah! this compliment was intended for others, but fortune has transferred it to me;" but as he still intended to make use of Prussia, and could humiliate George III. by her means, he concluded a treaty with Haugwitz, by which he handed over Hanover to our late ally, and claimed Anspach in lieu of it. He then strengthened the Confederation of the Rhine, of which he was Protector, and so completely broke up the old federation of Germany, that Francis of Austria soon abandoned the title of Elective Emperor of Germany, and assumed that of Hereditary Emperor of Austria.

Pitt's expeditions were not particularly well arranged. Instead of sending an army of thirty or forty thousand to the Baltic, and calling on Russia to do the same, which she could have done, notwithstanding the army under the Emperor Alexander, he sent only about six thousand, and sent another eight thousand from Malta, to co-operate with twelve thousand Russians in a descent on the kingdom of Naples. This expedition might have been left till the success in the North was secured; in truth, it had better have been left altogether. When General Don and Lord Cathcart landed in Swedish Pomerania, and were joined by the king's German legion and some other German hired troops, our army amounted only to sixteen thousand men, the Swedes to twelve thousand, and the Russians to ten thousand—altogether, not forty thousand men. But what was worse than the paucity of numbers was the disunion amongst the commanders. Lord Harrowby was sent to Berlin, to endeavour to induce Prussia to join this coalition, but Prussia was well aware of the want of unity in the Allied Army, and, weighing probabilities, she could not be moved. The King of Sweden was so incensed at the cold, shuffling conduct of the King of Prussia, that he wrote him some very indignant and undiplomatic letters, which only furnished him with a further excuse for holding aloof. Gustavus, seeing no good likely to be done, resigned his command of the Allied Army, where, indeed, he had enjoyed no real command at all, and retired with his forces to Stralsund. This was a fatal exposition of want of unity, and it was not till three weeks were gone that the breach was healed. By this time it was the middle of November. Ulm had surrendered, Napoleon was master of Vienna, and Prussia was still watching what would be the fate of the coming battle between Napoleon and the Emperors of Austria and Russia. The union of the Allies came too late; the force was altogether too small to turn the scale of the campaign. Had Gustavus marched into Hanover a month earlier, with sixty thousand men, he might have rendered Austerlitz a nonentity; as it was, he had only time to invest Hameln, where Bernadotte had left a strong garrison, when the news of Austerlitz arrived, and caused the Allies to break up the campaign, and each to hurry off to his own country.

The consequence of the ill-advised despatch of a miserable force of British and Russians to Naples was equally as abortive and as mischievous to the King of Naples as the Northern expedition had proved to the King of Sweden. On the 27th of September of this year, only, a convention had been entered into in Paris between Napoleon and Ferdinand IV., King of Naples, which was ratified by Ferdinand on the 8th of October. By this the French engaged to withdraw their forces from the kingdom of Naples, and Ferdinand to preserve a strict neutrality. The French did, indeed, withdraw, under St. Cyr, to assist Massena in the north of Italy against Austria; and no sooner was this the case than Ferdinand raised his army to the war strength, and the British and Russians came to his support with their united army of twenty thousand men. But the news of the decisive victory of Buonaparte at Austerlitz, which had squandered the Northern coalition, had the same effect here. The Russians and British withdrew, and St. Cyr was ordered by Napoleon to march back into Naples, and punish severely the perfidy of the Court of Naples. He was particularly bitter against the Queen of Naples, to whom he attributed the movement and the total guidance of the king. He declared that she should be precipitated from the throne, should it cost another Thirty Years' War. He sent his brother, Joseph Buonaparte, to take the command of the army, and to assume the government of the country. The king and queen fled, abdicating in favour of their son, the prince royal; but this did not stop the march of the French, who were only too glad of such a plea for possessing themselves of the kingdom of Naples. Pescara, Naples itself, rapidly surrendered to the French. Gaëta alone, which the governor, the Prince of Hesse Philippsthal, refused to surrender, stood out till the following July. When summoned by the French to yield the fortress, he replied that Gaëta was not Ulm, nor was he General Mack. But the defence of Gaëta had no influence on the general fate of Naples, and only precipitated that of its brave defender, who died suddenly, as was asserted, of poison.

We have now to turn from the feeble and ill-directed efforts of Britain to counteract the plans of Napoleon on land to the successful ones on her really protecting element—the sea. All Napoleon's endeavours to cross the Channel with his Grand Army he had seen to be impossible. Nelson was riding there in his glory, and the French fleets were only safe while they were in port. The impatience of this restraint caused Napoleon to urge on his admirals a greater daring; and these incitements to a rash hazard brought, eventually, that which must have occurred sooner, had the admirals listened to his suggestions rather than their own knowledge of the truth—the utter destruction of the French navy. Under such stimulants from the Emperor, Villeneuve seized the opportunity, when the weather had driven back the blockading British fleet, to steal out of Toulon on the 18th of January, 1805, and another fleet of ten vessels escaped out of Rochefort on the 11th of the same month. These squadrons stood away for the West Indies, and managed to get home again without meeting with a British fleet. Thus encouraged, Villeneuve made another venture. Nelson, who was watching Villeneuve off Toulon, in order to tempt him out, bore away along the Spanish coast as far as Barcelona. Villeneuve put out to sea on the 31st of March, with ten ships of the line, seven frigates, and two brigs. Nelson had gone a little too far, and it was not till the 7th of April that he heard of their issue from port. Before he could prevent it, they had passed the Strait of Gibraltar, and struck once more across the Atlantic. He was joined by the Spanish admiral, Gravina, from Cadiz, with six Spanish ships of the line, and two other French ships of the line. This combined fleet now amounted to eighteen sail of the line, six forty-four gun ships, and a number of smaller craft. Nelson did not hesitate to pursue them with his ten ships of the line and three frigates; but contrary winds withheld him, and it was the 7th of May before he could get out of the Strait of Gibraltar. His ships were, most of them, in very bad condition, one of them, the Superb, not having been in a home port for four years. Villeneuve had upwards of a month's start of Nelson, and his orders were to bear away to Martinique with five thousand one hundred troops, which he had on board, to capture St. Lucia, and strengthen the garrisons of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Dominica. He was afterwards to wait and see if Gautheaume could get out of Brest and join him with twenty-one more sail of the line, when they were to do all possible mischief amongst our islands and merchantmen. But the chief scheme was, by this means, to draw the British fleet after them, and then, hurrying back, enable Buonaparte to cross the Channel for England. Villeneuve did nothing but take the Diamond Rock, a fortification of the British, lying opposite to Fort Royal Bay, into which he had entered. He then sailed to Guadeloupe, where he was joined by two seventy-four gun ships; and an American having apprised him of a homeward-bound British convoy, he went after it, and succeeded, off Antigua, in capturing fifteen merchantmen. His success was, however, spoiled in the possession of it, for one of the prisoners informed him that Nelson was already in the West Indies in quest of him. Terrified at this news, he burnt all his prizes, and made all sail homewards. Nelson, in the meantime, was misled by some of the Yankee skippers abounding in those seas, and sent on a false scent after Villeneuve towards Venezuela and the mouth of the Orinoco. Not finding him, he was satisfied that he had sailed for Europe, and he made after him. Nelson sighted Cape St. Vincent on the 17th of July, after a run of more than three thousand two hundred miles. The next day he fell in with Admiral Collingwood, who was watching Cadiz, but who had no news of Villeneuve, but informed him that Sir Robert Calder was blockading Ferrol. On the 19th he anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar, and went on shore for the first time for two years, short only of two days. Hearing that Villeneuve was still out in the Atlantic, he bore away westward again to intercept him, but in vain; and, on returning to Ushant, where Collingwood was cruising, he learned that Sir Robert Calder had met with and attacked him at the very time Nelson was off Gibraltar, namely, on the 22nd of July.