Hence the French idea of invasion was abandoned, and the military camp on the Channel coast was broken up. Napoleon shivered the European alliance against him at Ulm and Austerlitz, and contented himself with abusing England in manifestoes. A British contingent, built up of the Guards, and the 4th, 14th, 23rd, 28th, and 95th Foot, etc., went to Bremen and came back again; but in 1806 a small British army did good work on the coast of Calabria, and met the French at Maida, where the 20th, 27th, 58th, 78th, and 81st Regiments defeated Regnier, and where, if tradition speaks truly, the 20th, who were bathing when the bugle sounded, went into action with only their accoutrements and weapons on. This battle is one of the recorded instances in which the French and English actually crossed bayonets.
Almost the last event of interest before the Peninsular War is that of the seizure of the Danish navy, and the military operations that accompanied that probably necessary, but certainly violent, act. When the population and the wealth of Great Britain were infinitely less than they are now, and when, as regards the former, most European nations surpassed us, there is no doubt of the determination of the men of that time. There was no fear of anybody, and that very boldness saved us. It may be well in some cases to be pacific; but Drake’s method of singeing “the King of Spain’s beard,” on the broad principle that there “are two ways of facing an enemy: the one to stand off and cry, ‘Try that again and I will strike thee,’ the other to strike him first and then, ‘Try that at all and I’ll strike thee again,’” has its merits in time of grave peril, and is likely to bear more useful fruit than the method adopted by Mr. Snodgrass at Ipswich, when he, “in a truly Christian spirit, and in order that he might take no one unawares, announced in a very loud tone that he was going to begin.”
For right or wrong it was done, and at Kioge Sir Arthur Wellesley met the Danes with the 92nd and 95th, and drove them back on the capital. Soon after the struggle terminated, the Danish fleet was taken away. England for the second time had made an enemy of a State too weak to do other than accept the conditions enforced by a stronger power. The only excuse was the instinct of self-preservation. The only other resource would have been to get Denmark to ally with us. But Denmark inclined to what seemed the strongest, though not the most determined, power, and so doing lost her fleet.
* * * * *
About this time was formed a foreign force that co-operated fully and entirely with the British army in the stormy days that were to come—“The King’s German Legion.” It was to be raised in Hanover and to be trained in England, and eventually it was decided that it was to be placed under the command of the Duke of Cambridge. When fully formed, it was to consist of a cavalry brigade, a light infantry and two ordinary infantry brigades, two horse and two foot batteries, with a proportion of engineers; and when paraded at Weymouth, it gave promise of the discipline that led to the bravery it displayed from Talavera to Waterloo.
But the political condition of Europe had been changing in these days. Foreigners were either allies of Napoleon, cowed by him, or worshippers of his genius and success. Only two were weak, and either neutral or indifferent, and these were Spain and Portugal. So thither was the restless ambition of the great soldier directed. A doubtful State was one to be suppressed, and Spain was Bourbon and necessarily doubtful. Therefore the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was determined on. How little did Napoleon foresee, when his magnificent genius failed and induced him to think only as a soldier and not as a world-wide politician! A country—two countries—with a wide coast-line, with a population deadly hostile to the French, was not a wise base of operations for the conquest of two capitals and two peoples. It was the Spanish war that led as much as anything to the exhaustion of France, and to Napoleon’s retirement to Elba. It was the unhealed sore that sapped the military strength of the emperor, and which, neglected, was one, if not the chief, cause of his political death.
With the first serious and connected invasion of the Spanish Peninsula begins the story of the downfall of the conqueror of Austerlitz.
Outline Map of SPAIN & PORTUGAL