CHAPTER XIV
INVASION TILL THE CLOSE OF 1801
Authorities.—As before.
The retreat of Bruix from the Mediterranean and the return of Napoleon were followed by a pause in the naval war. The French fleet was exhausted by the effort it had made, and its return to Brest was followed by an outbreak of discontent, mutiny, and desertion among the crews. The Spaniards they had brought with them, sixteen sail, were politically useful to France as hostages, but were of no military value. The Spanish Ferrol squadron, which was to have joined Bruix when on his way to the Mediterranean in April, had missed him, perhaps deliberately, had then gone on to Aix roads, where they were attacked to no purpose by the frigates and bomb-vessels of an English squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Pole on the 2nd July. They returned home in the course of September, after an attempt to enter Brest. While the French naval forces were thus exhausted, Napoleon was absorbed in the discharge of obligations which were preliminary to the renewal of an attack on England. He had first to make himself master of France by the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire VIII (9th November 1799). Then he had to beat the Austrians who were pressing on the south-eastern frontier of France, and to bring about a separation between them and the Russians, with whom they were on very bad terms. In the interval the French could do nothing to help the army Napoleon had left behind him in Egypt, except endeavour to send blockade runners with news and stores. It became continually more difficult for them to do even this. They were excluded from Italy, and Corfu had surrendered on the 3rd March 1799 to the Turks and Russians.
When Keith left the Mediterranean in pursuit of Bruix, Nelson remained in temporary command, but in the absence of an enemy he had nothing to do save to tighten the blockade of Malta and keep an eye on Minorca, which continued to be a burden and a cause of division of forces. He did not cease to be absorbed in schemes for the promotion of the interests of Their Sicilian Majesties—schemes which were superfluous if the French were beaten in Northern Italy, and were certain to be blown into space so soon as they were victorious. The English Government being well aware by this time that Nelson had “Sicilified” his conscience, decided to send Lord Keith back to his post as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. It was his due, for he had been sent out to be second in command to St. Vincent, and the duty had been handed over to him by his chief. Keith was not a genius, but he had common sense, he had not forgotten that he was the servant of King George III., and he was impervious to the fascinations of the court of Naples.
Keith sailed on the 20th November 1799 to resume the command, and reached Gibraltar on the 6th December. In the absence of a French fleet he had no duty to discharge except to superintend the blockade of Malta and help our Austrian allies as far as he could. Malta had long been cut off from communication with home. An attempt was made to relieve the garrison on the 18th February. A small convoy was sent under the protection of the Généreux, which had escaped from Corfu. The convoy was commanded by the Rear-Admiral, Perrée, who had been taken by Lord Keith in the previous year. The convoy was scattered, Perrée was killed, and the Généreux was taken by a number of vessels immediately commanded by Nelson in his flagship the Foudroyant. On the 30th February the Guillaume Tell, the last survivor of the French fleet of the battle of the Nile, which was lying in Malta, made an attempt to escape. She was sighted, pursued, surrounded by a swarm of enemies, and was surrendered, after a most magnificent defence, by Admiral Decrès, who held the superior command in her, and who was to be Napoleon’s Minister of Marine. The fate of the garrison was now certain, but General Vaubois held out till English troops had been landed to reinforce the islanders, and till hunger compelled him to surrender on the 5th September 1800.
The occupation of Malta was timely, for it coincided with the collapse of the allies in Italy, and made us independent of ports on the mainland. In spring the Austrians seemed to be making themselves masters of Northern Italy, and the English Government appeared to be about to support them with decision. Troops were sent to Minorca under command of General Fox. Others followed, and were ordered to follow, under the commandership-in-chief of Sir Ralph Abercromby, an old officer who at least knew his business in the field, and had done promising service in the West Indies and the Low Countries. But Austria and England were preparing victory for France under a vain show of energy. The Austrians had got rid of their Russian ally, the great Suvarof, a real captain, whose habit of concentrating his men, striking at the heart of his enemy, and wringing the last drop of gain out of every success, shocked their pedantry. Moreover, it was their intention to deliver Italy from French oppression and revolutionary principles for the purpose of putting it into their own pockets. Therefore they had no wish for the help of an associate who would cry halves. They were going to work by the book of arithmetic, sagaciously besieging and taking post after post, and thereby they allowed Napoleon ample time to organise the army which was to wrench all their conquests from them in one day of battle. The English Government was disposed to help by sending soldiers to fight a little and then come away. Sir Charles Pasley, author of a treatise on The Military Policy of the British Empire, which appeared in 1808 and produced a great impression, said epigrammatically that we worked with our navy and played with our army. The operations before 1800, and on too many occasions afterwards, till Spain gave us a safe footing in 1808, justify his scoff. It was too much the custom of the English Government to overcrowd soldiers into leaky transports where they were plagued by scurvy, and to keep them hanging round the outskirts of the European conflict. Like an immortal personage in a great English classic, our army was always making the gesture of taking its coat off. When it was allowed to land, the generals were carefully instructed to go no farther than they could go back easily. They were to advance with their eyes over their shoulders. In the autumn of 1799 we had made an inroad of this half-hearted kind into Holland in co-operation with the Russians. It was badly led, for the Duke of York, an excellent commander-in-chief at the Horse Guards but a deplorable general in the field, was the leader. But the forces employed were insufficient. We gained a naval advantage. The remains of the Dutch fleet fell into our hands at the Nieuwe Diep, partly through the bad management of their admiral, Storij, but mainly because the Dutch sailors would not fight. They had an hereditary loyalty to the house of Orange, and they were discontented with a life of unpaid idleness under the Batavian Republic. And here it is not irrelevant to record that the Dutch sailors were already swarming into our navy and merchant ships. It was calculated that in 1800 as many as 20,000 Dutchmen were sailing under our flag. As the predominance of France grew more and more oppressive, as she dragged one country after another into her struggle with England, ever increasing numbers of foreign sailors sought a refuge from ruin at home in our ports. They were invited by the English law, which gave naturalisation and with it the right to command a merchant ship to any foreigner who had served for two years in our navy. Northern seamen were preferred, both because they were hardier men, and because coming from kindred races Jansen easily became Johnson, and Pieterzoon Peterson. Therefore it was that we were able to man both our navy and our merchant service, which doubled during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Our share in the resistance to France in Northern Italy during the command of Lord Keith was quite on the then prevailing model. It was efficient in so far as it was naval, and in so far as it was military it was pitiful. Abercromby came to Minorca in May, and we made the gesture of taking off our coat to help the Austrians at the siege of Genoa, where Massena was tenaciously holding out with the last French army in Italy. But the coat was not taken off. The navy blockaded vigilantly, helped to capture small French posts, and did some gallant cutting out. The cutting out of the Prima galley from the mole of Genoa by Captain Beaver was as dashing a piece of work of that kind as was done in the war. The galley slaves, of whom some were criminals, but some were prisoners of war, rowed the galley out with alacrity when Beaver had loosened the chains which bound her to the mole. The story had a sickening sequel. It seems incredible that Keith, a man of honour and humanity, should have sent the greater part of these poor wretches back to Genoa, where they were butchered by Massena. But “such things were,” to use a favourite phrase of Nelson’s. The incident was typical, for at that time we were much in the habit of landing against the French, inviting the help of the people, and then leaving them in the lurch. “Such things” went far to put a meaning into Napoleon’s abuse of Perfidious Albion, which used all men for her own advantage, and left them to suffer for trusting to her word.
Massena was starved out by the 4th June, and next day the town was occupied by the allies—Austrian soldiers and English ships. English soldiers were going to come from Minorca, but did not. It was perhaps fortunate they did not, for nine days after our vessels anchored at the mole, Napoleon’s army smashed the Austrians at Marengo. A beating usually extorted an armistice and large surrenders from Austria. So it did now. An armistice was signed at Alessandria two days after the defeat. The Austrians surrendered their conquests in Piedmont wholesale, and on the 23rd Massena reoccupied Genoa with such promptitude that the Minotaur was hardly able to warp out of the port in time to escape capture.
Political necessities made it incumbent on Napoleon to return to Paris, and the full harvest of Marengo was not gathered till the close of 1800. But a great wind of terror began to blow all along the Italian Peninsula. The Queen of Naples went off to implore the Czar Paul to save her dominions. Nelson went with her, and the English Minister at Naples, Sir William Hamilton, who had been superseded after many and flagrant proofs of dotage. Naples may be dismissed for the present with a brief notice that the king continued to attempt to play a part, and gain an increase of territory in Central Italy—at least to enrich his collections of pictures and statues by the plunder of Rome. He had an army, and it was handsomely tailored. But as King Ferdinand’s cynical son and successor remarked when he was asked to approve of a new uniform for his army, “You may dress them as you please, they will always run away.” When war was resumed in the autumn, the Neapolitan army bolted at the mere sight of a small French force, the cavalry riding in panic over the panic-stricken foot at a slashing pace—and King Ferdinand went down on all fours. It was a relief to be rid of Naples, but the occupation of Malta in September had been timely.