The solid core of a mass of mere words was the design to concentrate a strong fleet in the Channel. A squadron, or squadrons, of the ships at Napoleon’s command was, or were, to cross the Atlantic in order to distract the attention of the English Government and induce it to send ships in pursuit. Napoleon’s intention was that his vessels should come back and unite in the Channel, where they would have a superiority over the English who, he calculated, would be weakened by detachments. The English Government had early warning that this was in fact his plan, and prepared to defeat it by a counter policy of concentration. The penury of the French dockyards and the time required to build the flat-bottomed boats compelled Napoleon to delay the application of his plan. Seven of his ships were blockaded in Spanish ports, and his relations to Spain were peculiar. She was bound by treaty to join him in the war, but was allowed to compound for armed help by the payment of a subvention. England might fairly have considered this contribution to the funds of its enemy, and have declared war on Spain at once. But it refrained until 6th October 1804, when it seized the home-coming Spanish treasure ships in the Straits of Gibraltar. Spain declared war in December. Napoleon’s plans may be divided into those laid before and those laid after October 1804. It is enough to say of the first, which were never put to the test, that after a variety of hypothetic suggestions had been made and rejected, Napoleon decided in favour of the comparatively simple scheme that Latouche-Tréville, who commanded at Toulon, should elude Nelson and head for Rochefort, drive off the English blockading squadron, and be then ready to co-operate with the fleet at Brest. There was nothing impossible, or even very hazardous, in this plan. Nelson made it his boast that he did not blockade Toulon. He only watched the port by frigates, remaining on the coast of Sardinia with his liners, hoping that the French would come out, and that he would be able to bring them to battle. He had every right to rely on victory if a battle could be secured; but, as the future was to show, he was not entitled to calculate on meeting the Toulon fleet. Success would depend on the receipt of prompt information from his frigates, but Nelson remained far from Toulon, he allowed his squadron to drive in the north-easterly winds, and was seldom at his rendezvous, and so days often passed before the frigates could find his flag. It was, too, a fixed idea of his, that if the French left Toulon, it would be for the purpose of renewing their disastrous adventure in Egypt. Napoleon, who read his mind with remarkable sagacity, and who ranked his judgment low, had calculated on this very fixed idea of the English admiral’s as an element in his own favour. It is by no means improbable that the concentration at Rochefort might have been effected if the resources of the Toulon yard had been greater. But the squadron was fitted for sea with difficulty. Latouche-Tréville died on the 20th August 1804. His successor had to be selected, and then came the war between Spain and England, which brought a new element into the problem. At that moment, too, there was a strong probability that war would break out with Prussia and Austria. The invasion schemes were hung up, and in September Napoleon was intent on organising attacks on England’s colonies. Even these were designed to draw off English forces from home waters and leave the road free for a push from Brest and Boulogne. Their real purpose was known to the English Government, which was warned by its secret agents, and showed itself well aware of its enemy’s purpose.
Villeneuve was chosen to succeed Latouche-Tréville, mainly because the emperor looked upon him as a lucky man, and because that was a valuable quality in the prevailing dearth of capable admirals. On the 12th December 1804 orders were sent to Villeneuve to prepare for a great expedition to the West Indies, where he was to be joined by Missiessy with the squadron from Rochefort. They were to capture colonies, and after a stay of sixty days to come back to Rochefort. Nothing was said of ulterior movements in the instructions to them. But orders of nearly the same date were sent to Ganteaume at Brest to get to sea, make a commerce-destroying cruise on the coast of Ireland, go to Ferrol, pick up the French and Spanish ships there, and join Villeneuve and Missiessy on their return from the West Indies. If the concentration was effected, Napoleon would have, so he thought, that command of the Channel which, as he told Latouche in July, would make him master of the world. But he was trying to overreach his taskmaster, “the nature of things.” Such a scheme could succeed only by a truly wonderful combination of capacity on the part of his officers, of incapacity on the part of the English officers, and of good fortune. Two parts out of three of the scheme failed. Missiessy did indeed get away from Rochefort on the 11th January 1805, reached the West Indies, did considerable damage to our trade, and got safe back by the 20th May. Ganteaume was unable to get to sea without a battle with the blockading fleet, and he was forbidden to fight. Villeneuve got to sea on the 17th January, when a north-easterly gale had forced the English look-out frigates off the coast. The result did to some extent justify Napoleon’s foresight. Nelson, who heard on the 19th that Villeneuve was at sea, acted on his fixed idea that Egypt was the object of the French, went to look for them in the Levant, and was not back to his rendezvous in Sardinia till the 27th February. But Villeneuve had been driven back on the 20th January by bad weather. On the 22nd he wrote a letter to his friend the Minister of Marine, Decrès, which if Napoleon had seen it and had known where to look for a more resolute officer would have caused his instant dismissal. It can be compared only with the piteous letter in which the Duke of Medina Sidonia implored Philip II. not to give him the command of the Armada. Villeneuve declared that he had always longed for a useful but not for a glorious career; that this enterprise he was sent on could end in nothing but disgrace; that his ships looked very well in harbour, but were helpless at sea; that the troops given him to attack the English islands were a pest; and that he wished the emperor would name his successor. Napoleon was exasperated with the admiral’s “lack of decision.” Yet he had to accept Villeneuve also as part of “the nature of things.” At first the proposed combination was given up. Orders were sent to Missiessy to consider himself independent, and they reached him. In a short time Napoleon received assurance from Austria which convinced him that he was for a time safe from molestation. In March the great combination scheme was taken up again. Counter orders to wait for Villeneuve were sent to Missiessy, but failed to reach him. On the 2nd March orders were sent to Ganteaume to sail for Ferrol, pick up the French and Spanish ships, go to Martinique to join Villeneuve, and then head back for the Channel. On the same day orders went to Villeneuve to sail to the West Indies, and wait for Ganteaume at Martinique for forty days. If he failed to appear, Villeneuve was to return by San Domingo and the Canaries, waiting for him there once more, and on his failure to appear, was to go to Cadiz. All was to depend on the success of Ganteaume in getting away. “The nature of things” was to be overreached. But it is not so easy to overreach “the nature of things.” The concentration broke down first because Missiessy did not receive his counter orders, and therefore did not wait for Villeneuve, and then because Ganteaume failed to leave Brest. He was too closely watched by Cornwallis.
On the 30th March, Villeneuve got away from Toulon with eleven sail of the line. Nelson’s policy of no-blockade produced the effect which some naval officers at least had foreseen. The French fleet was sighted on the 31st March, thirty-five miles south of Toulon, by the Phœbe and Active frigates. The Phœbe went in search of Nelson, who was at the Gulf of Palmas, in Sardinia, on that day; but she did not report to him till the 4th April, for he had left Palmas on the 3rd to water at Pula. Villeneuve, who had heard that Nelson was at Palmas, steered to the west of the Balearic Islands, and was missed by him. It is strange that the British Government knowing what it knew of Napoleon’s intentions, and having adopted the proper counter-policy of concentration in the Channel, had not ordered its admiral in the Mediterranean to disregard the imaginary danger to Egypt. Once more Nelson manœuvred to protect what the French were not attacking. He stretched his look-out ships from the south of Sardinia to the coast of Africa, and went to Palermo. On the 16th April he was at the south end of Sardinia, and on that date he learned that Villeneuve had passed the Straits of Gibraltar eight days before. The French admiral had stopped outside the Spanish harbour of Carthagena on the 7th, and had called on Admiral Salcedo to join him. The Spaniard excused himself, and Villeneuve went on to Cadiz that night. He drove off the blockading squadron of Sir John Orde—six sail of the line and frigates. Orde retired to a safe distance, and then sailed to join Cornwallis in the Channel. On the 9th, Villeneuve reached Cadiz, where he was at once joined by the Aigle and the Spanish admiral, Gravina. Most of the Spanish vessels, six in number, were unable to be in time to sail with the French. The allies straggled across the Atlantic, and had the good fortune to unite their eighteen sail at Fort de France in Martinique by the 16th May.
When the French admiral reached the Antilles, he had no other orders than those dated the 2nd March, which directed him to wait for Ganteaume at Martinique for forty days, and then to cruise among the Canary Islands. He therefore waited, and undertook no other operation than the recapture of the Diamond Rock, then held by an English naval detachment which was a thorn in the side of the French island. The Rock was retaken on the 31st May, but on the previous day Villeneuve had been joined by the Didon from Rochefort. She brought orders which were well calculated to disturb him. They were dated the 14th April, and after informing him that he was to be joined by Rear-Admiral Magon from Rochefort with two sail of the line, instructed him to wait in the islands for another month, to distinguish himself by taking English islands, to come to Ferrol, join the French and Spanish ships there, and head for Brest and Boulogne. These orders implied that Villeneuve must be prepared to fight a battle in the Channel. The admiral, who well knew the defects of the ships with him, and who could judge that the raw ships at Ferrol would be still less capable of meeting the English, was sorely disturbed at the prospect of having to undertake such a venture at the head of such a force. He knew, too, that lack of provisions would make it impossible for him to remain for a month in the West Indies, while he had every reason to fear that his enemy, who must by this time have learned his whereabouts, would attack him. He was aware that Admiral Cochrane, who had been sent from before Ferrol in March, was in the West Indies with six sail. It was a simple enough business to attack the English islands. When, therefore, Magon joined him on the 4th June, Villeneuve embarked more soldiers from the garrisons of the islands, and sailed to assail Antigua. On the 10th he captured an English convoy near the island, and learned from his prisoners that Nelson had reached Barbadoes in pursuit of him on the 4th.
The English admiral had paid dearly in anxiety for the looseness of the watch he kept on Toulon. When he was informed that the French squadron had left the Mediterranean, he hurried in pursuit. But the wind was against him. He reached Tetuan on the 4th April, and left next day, but it was not till the 10th that he anchored in Lagos Bay. He had had every cause for anxiety. The French had escaped from the Mediterranean, and he had no indication whither they had gone. He was almost equally disposed to sail to the West Indies lest they should be bound to Jamaica, or to steer for the Scilly Islands in order to be at hand in case their destination was the Channel or the coast of Ireland. His troubles were aggravated by the fact that a convoy of transports carrying General Craig and a body of troops bound to Sicily and Naples had left England on the 17th April, under protection of Admiral Knight, with two line-of-battle ships, the Queen and the Dragon. It might have fallen in with Villeneuve. On the 10th his doubts were removed. Rear-Admiral Campbell, the officer in the Portuguese service who had warned Jervis of the neighbourhood of the Spaniards on the day before the battle of Cape St. Vincent, now gave Nelson information which convinced him that Villeneuve had sailed for the West Indies. The convoy with General Craig’s expedition came in, and was sent on its way to Sicily. Nelson left Bickerton in command in the Mediterranean, and with ten ships pursued Villeneuve on the 11th.
Orde had sent home information of Villeneuve’s escape, and had also given warning to the West Indies. The Admiralty was taking measures to send Collingwood, then serving in the Channel, in pursuit of the French, when it was informed that Nelson had gone on his own responsibility. Collingwood was ordered to Cadiz to replace Orde, who had shown a lack of precision, and a counter concentration of naval forces was prepared in the Channel and the approaches to it. The anxiety in the country was keen. It was said in the press that nobody in England slept quietly, for there was a very general appreciation of the real significance of Villeneuve’s cruise. There was so little doubt on the subject that on the 9th May a London paper, the Morning Chronicle, stated that many were of opinion that the French admiral would join the ships at Cadiz and Ferrol and then enter the Channel. The public was relieved when it learned that Jamaica was in more danger than the mother country.
When Nelson reached Barbadoes, he was misled by circumstantial but unfounded reports given him by Major-General Brereton into the belief that the French had gone south to attack Trinidad and Tobago. He went immediately in pursuit to the Gulf of Paria, only to learn that he had been misinformed. He at once returned, and was off Martinique on the 10th, the very day on which Villeneuve, after hastily sending the troops he had drawn from the garrison of Martinique and Guadaloupe back in frigates, had sailed for Ferrol. Nelson heard of the departure of Villeneuve at Antigua, and on the 13th he also sailed for Europe. The Frenchman was undoubtedly right in leaving the West Indies at once. Even a successful battle (and he did not look upon success as possible) would have destroyed his power to carry out what Napoleon in a letter to him dated the 29th April called the “essential operation,” the union of the French squadrons in the Channel. But he took too northerly a course, and therefore lengthened his voyage unduly. His mistake had disastrous consequences for him. Nelson, when starting to return to his proper station in the Mediterranean, despatched the Curieux brig, Captain Bettesworth, with information for the Admiralty. On the 19th June, Bettesworth sighted the allies 900 miles N.E. of Antigua. He pressed on, and in the early hours of the 8th July gave Lord Barham, the old naval officer who was then First Lord, the news that Villeneuve was on his way back. The Government was well aware of the real purpose of the French fleet. Lord Barham had only to carry out a settled policy when he at once ordered Calder, who had succeeded Cochrane in command of the Ferrol blockade, to call in Rear-Admiral Stirling, who was watching Rochefort, and to bar Villeneuve’s road to Ferrol. Calder received his orders on the 15th, called Stirling to his flag, and stationed himself 90 miles west of Finisterre. On the 22nd he sighted the allies to the south of him. Nelson, sailing on a more southerly route, had reached Cape St. Vincent on the 17th. He had good professional cause for returning to his proper station. Yet it is strange that even at that hour he remained firm in the faith that the ultimate aim of the French was Egypt. If he had read the mind of Napoleon as Napoleon read his, he would surely have steered for Ferrol. In that case, he would have headed Villeneuve, and would have united his ten ships to the fifteen then with Calder. The twenty-five would have made an end of the twenty French and Spanish ships and of the great invasion scheme at a blow.
The mountain fell in labour, and produced a ridiculous mouse. When Calder saw the allies to the south of him on the 22nd July, he rightly decided to attack their twenty sail with his fifteen. His intention was to cut through their line and destroy their rear. Calder cannot be blamed for failing to carry out his plan, for a dense fog settled down on the two fleets. It was so thick that the combatants could not see where the vessels nearest to them were save by the flash of their gun-fire. After preliminary movements of no significance, the fleets engaged in line ahead, standing to the south. The English to leeward engaged the van, composed of the Spaniards, and the centre of the allies. The fire of the Spaniards was so wild that when the English frigate Egyptienne reconnoitred them before the battle, they failed to hit her, though by the testimony of her first lieutenant, she went close enough “to see the moustachios of the Dons.” Two of the Spanish ships, the San Rafael and the Firme, leewardly tubs, sagged through Calder’s line, and were taken. The fleets separated in the dark after a cannonade which did some damage to masts and spars. The charge of weakness brought against Admiral Calder is based on his conduct in the days following the battle. He showed no desire to renew the action, and was very unduly nervous about the part which might be taken against him by the French and Spanish ships in Ferrol. Yet an officer of a daring spirit (and at such a crisis it was the duty of every officer to show the utmost daring) would have calculated that his fifteen vessels were quite able to ruin the eighteen enemies in front of them long before help could come out of the land-locked harbour of Ferrol. Even if his own fleet was to be shattered in the act of destroying the enemy, it would still have put a stop to any further movements of theirs in the direction of the Channel. Calder was unduly cautious, and it is to be feared that he was also unduly over anxious for the safety of his prizes, the reward of toil and danger. He went off to put them in the way of safety, very complacently calculating that Villeneuve would go south to Cadiz where Nelson would be waiting for him.
Villeneuve was well disposed to go to Cadiz, and had Napoleon’s leave to go if his fleet suffered such injury in battle as should render it incapable of carrying out the essential operation—which, said the Emperor sanctimoniously, may God forbid. He had no confidence in his command. On the 6th August, when the impression made on him by the action of the 22nd July was fresh, he told his friend Decrès that the French and Spanish Navies were incapable of producing large squadrons fit to meet the English. And such as his force was it was sickly and had been weakened by desertion in the West Indies. The decision to go to Cadiz was to be taken later. When Villeneuve was assured by Gravina that their fleets could enter Vigo in the then prevailing wind he decided to go thither, and he anchored in the spacious Spanish harbour on the 26th July.
When Napoleon heard that the English squadron blockading Rochefort had disappeared from before the port, he concluded that Villeneuve must be already on his way back, and that the English knew it. The squadron brought home in May by Missiessy, and now commanded by Allemand, was then in Rochefort. It had orders to escape to sea, to go on a commerce destroying voyage on the coast of Ireland, and to meet Villeneuve if he came back at the time first fixed. The Emperor now proposed to send Allemand to meet Villeneuve at once. But he had sailed before the counter order reached Rochefort. To Villeneuve orders were sent almost in profusion. Following a practice which grew on him, and was the despair of his generals during the Peninsular War, Napoleon wanted to regulate everything from a distance, and would keep suggesting alternative courses. Yet the general drift of his orders was plain enough. Villeneuve was not to be enticed into Ferrol, which is difficult to leave except in certain states of the wind, was to call out the French and Spanish ships there, join Allemand, and come on to Boulogne. If he had been resolute enough to leave the Emperor to answer for the consequences in this world and the next, Villeneuve might have made a bold stroke, and might at least have failed with honour. On the 28th July, six days after the battle off Ferrol, this was the position. Keith’s fleet was in the Downs and the North Sea, where, during the westerly winds, it could do little to help the ships in the Channel. Cornwallis, with twenty sail of the line, was watching the twenty-two ships of Ganteaume at Brest. There were fourteen French and Spaniards in Ferrol. Calder, who had not yet divided his force, was not far from that port. Allemand, who had sailed later than had been intended, had wisely not gone to cruise on the coast of Ireland, but had placed himself 120 miles to the west of Ferrol, to meet Villeneuve, who was at Vigo with eighteen sail, of which, however, three, two Spaniards and one French, were unfit for further service. Nelson, who had been persuaded at last that the French were not aiming at Egypt (apparently by the arguments of Collingwood), was off Cape St. Vincent on his way home with eleven sail, carrying out spontaneously, though tardily, the Government’s policy of concentration. Collingwood, with four sail, remained off Cadiz to blockade six Spaniards. Sir R. Bickerton, with another four of the line, was watching another six Spaniards at Carthagena. On the 1st August Villeneuve left Vigo and went to the outer Bay of Ferrol, leaving his three lame ducks behind. Calder had been forced north by south-westerly winds. Then it was that he detached the ships originally taken from before Rochefort. He returned with nine sail, and, finding the enemy in force, fell back on the 9th on Cornwallis. Nelson was on his way north, well out at sea tacking against head winds. On the 11th he was off Ushant, and on the 13th he joined Cornwallis. The allies, who were in great need of stores, did not sail till the 11th. Villeneuve distrusted his fleet more profoundly than ever, for, when anchoring in Arosa Bay, his ships had all come into collision with one another. He had been told that Allemand was cruising in search of him, but the Didon, which he sent to meet the Rochefort squadron, was taken by an English frigate. He could hear nothing. The wind was against him. Success appeared to him impossible, and he was not stern enough to sail to destruction since his master would have it so. The weak man, heavily laden, grasped at the qualified leave given him to go south, and on the 15th August, being then 200 miles W.N.W. of Finisterre in a N.E. wind, he bore up for Cadiz.