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CONQUESTS OF NAPOLEON IN BAVARIA.

Certified of the nature and extent of the coalition formed against him, Napoleon hastened to secure Bavaria to himself, by the promise of a large aggrandizement of territory. In consequence of this, Austria advanced her troops, peremptorily requiring the elector to join the imperial standard. This he refused to do, and then the Austrian army was ordered to occupy Munich. On his return from Italy, Napoleon had spoken of the invasion of England as an enterprise fully determined upon; but on the 28th of August he announced that “the army of England” was to become “the army of Germany.” Forthwith, the 150,000 men collected at Boulogne, and along that coast, struck their tents, and forming into five separate corps, marched for the Rhine. He affected great disappointment in abandoning his scheme of invasion; but it is doubtful whether he ever really intended to take such a step. The readiness, indeed, with which he dictated his masterly plan for a continental campaign, proves that it had been the subject of a long and mature reflection, and would indicate that this was in reality his grand design. At the same time, such was his mortal hatred to England, that, if he had discerned the remotest chance of success, there is little doubt but that he would have engaged in the desperate enterprise. But England was freed from all fears, and the armies destined to act against her took another route. The five great columns which marched from Boulogne were led by Marshals Soult, Davoust, Ney, Lannes, and Murat; but in the month of September Napoleon took the command of the whole in person. He prefaced his departure for the “Grand Army” by going in state to the senate, and there delivering a speech on the causes of the present war. He remarked: “The wishes of the eternal enemies of the continent are at-last fulfilled; war is begun in the middle of Germany. Austria and Russia have joined England; and our generation is again plunged into the calamities of war. The Austrian army has crossed the Inn; the elector of Bavaria has been driven away from his capital: all my hopes of the preservation of peace have vanished. In this instance, the wickedness of the enemies of the continent has fully revealed itself. They feared the manifestations of my deep love for peace—they feared that Austria, at the sight of the abyss they have dug under her feet, might return to sentiments of justice and moderation, and they have hurried her into war. I sigh in thinking of the blood that this will cost Europe; but the French name shall derive a lustre from it. Senators, when, at your request, at the voice of the whole French people, I assumed the imperial crown, I received of you, and of all citizens, a solemn engagement to preserve it pure and without stain. My people will rush to the standard of their emperor and of his army, which in a few days will have crossed the frontiers. Magistrates, soldiers, citizens, are all determined to keep our country free from the influence of England, who, if she should prevail, would grant us none but an ignominious peace, the principal conditions of which would be, the burning of our fleets, the filling up of our harbours, and the annihilation of our industry.” At the time Napoleon joined his “Grand Army” at Mayence, and when the Austrians commenced operations, the Russians had scarcely arrived in Gallicia. The Austrian army was commanded by Field-marshal Mack, who, notwithstanding his shameful discomfiture in the south of Italy, in the year 1799, still passed with the Aulic Council as a great military genius. Under him were 80,000 men, with which army he took post at Ulm, thinking that Napoleon must of necessity take the same route which Moreau had formerly taken. The French emperor, however, finally divided his immense army into seven corps; and before Mack was aware, an overwhelming force was in his rear. Retreat was impossible; Mack was defeated on every hand, and he shut himself up in Ulm, where he was soon compelled to capitulate. An imperial bulletin announced the capture of 60,000 prisoners, two hundred pieces of cannon, and eighty stand of colours, in a campaign of fifteen days. Nothing now arrested the onward march of the French. Although the Russians, commanded by Kutosow, had finally arrived on the banks of the Ister, they were unable to arrest the enemy’s progress. The French, attended by continual victory, arrived at Vienna on the 13th of November; and on the same day they crossed the Danube, on the left bank of which the Russians were marching to Moravia. Napoleon concentrated his forces at Bruma; and on the 27th of November the forces of Austria and Russia, under the command of their respective emperors, who had united at Olmutz, marched against him. The battle of Austerlitz was now fought and lost. On the 1st of December Francis and Alexander saw the destruction of thirty thousand of their soldiers, the capture of fifteen thousand more, and the wild flight of those who escaped the slaughter; one hundred cannon and a rich booty fell likewise into the hands of the French. In the meantime the Austrian army in Italy, under Archduke Charles, and another in the Tyrol, under the Archduke John, had been compelled by the French to retreat; and having united, they marched towards Vienna. But the Emperor of Austria had now lost all heart. Prussia had recently made peace with France; and two days after the battle of Austerlitz Francis repaired in person to the camp of Napoleon, near Saroschuez, and entered into a preliminary convention relative to an armistice and peace. Finally, a treaty was signed at Presburg, on December the 26th, which broke the power of Austria, and gave the continent into the hands of France. By this treaty, all the countries usurped by Napoleon before the war were ratified to him, and Austria likewise ceded the Venetian territory on both sides of the sea to his “Kingdom of Italy;” to Bavaria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Eichstaedt, and a part of Passau; and to Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, the Suabian territories, and the Breisgau. In return, Austria received Salzburg, and Berchtesgaden; and the dignity of Grand Master of the Teutonic order was to be assigned, hereditarily, to an Austrian prince. By this treaty, likewise, the electors of Bavaria and Wurtemburg were acknowledged as kings, and the elector of Baden as independent. The Emperor of Russia was invited to become a party in this treaty, but he disdained it, and led his forces into his own dominions. It was not merely the loss of territory that made the peace of Presburg, humiliating to Austria: the moral effects of a fall of such unexampled rapidity, and the complete change of all relations in Germany, made it still more depressing. South Germany, hitherto the vassal realm of Austria, now acknowledged the rule of France. The German imperial dignity no longer possessed importance; and the whole system of the European states was overthrown. The smaller German States of the Rhine, were formed by the conqueror into what was called “the Confederation of the Rhine;” the old Germanic empire was therefore dissolved, and the influence of the French fully established over a great part of Germany. Very soon after this treaty, indeed, the Emperor Francis formally renounced his title of Elective Emperor of Germany, and assumed that of Hereditary Emperor of Austria. The conquests of Napoleon were followed by the aggrandizement of his house. Less than three weeks after signing the treaty of Presburg, Eugene Beauharnois married the daughter of the King of Bavaria, and shortly after, Princess Stephanie Beauharnois, Eugene’s cousin, was given in marriage to the son and heir of the Grand Duke of Baden. Another matrimonial alliance was also contemplated with the family of the King of Wurtemburg.

GEORGE III. 1804—1807

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THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, ETC.

Though successful on the Continent, the power of Napoleon by sea was this year broken. Nelson had been appointed to the command of the Mediterranean fleet in the autumn of the year 1803. In the first month of the present year, while at anchor off Sardinia, he received intelligence that the Toulon fleet had put to sea. Nelson instantly weighed, and after beating about the Sicilian seas for ten days, he ran for Egypt, under the impression that they were bound for that country. Subsequently he discovered that the enemy had put back to Toulon; and, in the hope of tempting it out to sea, he bore away for the coast of Spain, and ran down as far as Barcelona. This stratagem failed of effect; but on the last day of March he received intelligence that Villeneuve had put to sea, with eleven ships of the line and seven frigates, and when last seen was steering towards the coast of Africa. Under the impression that the enemy was bound for Egypt, Nelson covered the channel between Sardinia and Barbary, and when he found that he was mistaken, he bore up for Palermo, and despatched cruizers in all directions, lest it should pass to the north of Corsica. At length, feeling that Villeneuve was not gone toward the Levant, he despatched frigates to Gibraltar, to Lisbon, and to Admiral Cornwallis, off Brest, beat up against contrary winds, and arrived in sight of Gibraltar, on the 30th or April; but being unable to pass through the Straits, by reason of a strong westerly gale, he anchored off the coast of Barbary. In the mean time the French admiral had hastened on to Cadiz, and Sir John Orde, who commanded the blockading squadron, retired at his approach. Villeneuve was joined at Cadiz by six Spanish, and two French ships of the line; making his whole force, eighteen line-of-battle ships, six frigates of forty guns each, and four smaller vessels. The united squadrons now sailed for the West Indies, and Nelson having discovered their place of destination, set sail with ten ships of the line, and three frigates, in pursuit of them. It has been supposed that Nelson would not have engaged his enemy, had he met with them, his force being so disproportionate: but it is clear from his own words that he would have fought had he come up with them. “Take you each a Frenchman,” he observed to his officers, “and leave the Spaniards to me: when I haul down my colours, I expect you to do the same.” But Nelson was again doomed to be disappointed in his search. He sought the enemy at Tobago, Trinidad, and Grenada, but not being able to discover or to gain any certain intelligence of them, he came to Gibraltar, where he went on shore for the first time since June, 1803. While at Gibraltar, he communicated with Admiral Collingwood, who, with a detached squadron, had taken his station off Cadiz, to prevent any progress of the Spaniards, and who had divined that the enemy’s intention, or at least a part of it, was to invade Ireland. Subsequently Nelson sought the enemy off Cape St. Vincent, at Cadiz, in the Bay of Biscay, and on the north-west coast of Ireland. Frustrated in all his hopes, after a pursuit which exhibited the most indomitable ardour, and which scarcely has its parallel in history, he judged it best to re-enforce the Channel-fleet, and accordingly, on the 15th of August, he joined Admiral Cornwallis, off Ushant. While off Ushant, Nelson received orders to proceed with the “Victory,” his own ship, and the “Superb,” to Portsmouth. It was at Portsmouth that he first received certain intelligence of the enemy’s movements. Sir Robert Calder, who had been sent out to intercept their return, fell in with them on the 22d of July, sixty leagues west of Cape Finisterre; and though his force consisted only of fifteen ships of the line, and two frigates, he boldly attacked the enemy, who now numbered twenty-seven of the line, three of fifty guns, and two frigates; and after a combat of four hours succeeded in capturing two ships of the line, and defeated the greatest and best combined project ever formed by the genius of Napoleon. The French admiral sought refuge in Ferrol, and then threw himself into Cadiz. Nelson was now once more appointed to the command of the fleet, and once more he went in search of the enemy. He considered the enemy’s fleet, which he had so long pursued, his own proper game, the price and reward of his long and anxious search. In this feeling, also, his country joined.

Describing his departure from Portsmouth, his biographer remarks:—“Many were in tears, and many knelt down before him, to bless him as he passed. All men knew that his heart was as humane as it was fearless; that there was not in his nature an alloy of selfishness or cupidity, but that he served his country with a perfect and entire devotion; therefore they loved him as truly and fervently as he loved England.” Nelson arrived off Cadiz on the 29th of September, the very day on which the French admiral received orders to put to sea the first opportunity. That it might not be known to the enemy that the hero of the Nile was watching them, Nelson did not suffer his flag to be saluted, and took every precaution of keeping his arrival secret, as well as the numerical force of his fleet. He took his station fifty miles westward of Cadiz, near Cape St. Mary, where he prepared his plan of attack, which he sent to Admiral Collingwood, who was blockading all the small ports between Cadiz and Algesiras, in order that Villeneuve might finally be compelled for want of provision to set sail. Nelson’s plan was to be nearly that of sailing, which was in two lines, with an advanced squadron of eight fast-sailing two-deckers: the second in command, having the direction of his line, was to break through the enemy about twelve ships from their rear, and Nelson himself was to lead through the centre, while the advanced squadron was to cut off three or four ahead of it. This plan received Collingwood’s cordial approbation; and Nelson then called his admirals and captains together, and thus addressed them:—“The enemy’s fleet is supposed to consist of forty-six sail of the line, the British forty; if either is less only a proportionate number of the ships are to be cut off. British to be one fourth superior to the enemy they cut off. Something must be left to chance. Nothing is sure in a sea-fight; shot will carry away the masts and yards of friends as well as of foes; but I look with confidence to a victory before the van of the enemy could succour their rear; and then that the British fleet would most of them be ready to receive their twenty sail of the line, or to pursue them should they endeavour to make off. If the van of the enemy tack, the captured ships must run to leeward of the British fleet; if the enemy wear, the British place themselves between the enemy and the captured and disabled British ships; and should the enemy close I have no fear for the result. The second in command will, in all possible things, direct the movements of his line by keeping them as compact as the nature of the circumstances will admit. Captains are to look to their particular line as their rallying point; but in case signals cannot be seen clearly or understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.”

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