The Vampire of the Continent

by Graf E. Reventlow

Gourgaud and others tell us that Napoleon, at St. Helena, said that his greatest mistake had been to believe it possible to unite permanently all the nations of the Continent within a single empire. And here we have certainly the nucleus of the whole question. It was this mistake which caused Napoleon’s downfall. The forces inherent in every nation would certainly have asserted themselves, at one time or another, with elementary and irresistible violence, even without Trafalgar or the Peninsular War. It was the consequences of the same mistake which gave England her lasting victory. She would not have gained it, if Napoleon had not endeavored to permanently crush and join together all the peoples of Europe. Let us try and represent to ourselves France within the boundaries traced for her by the Congress of Vienna, and governed by Napoleon; after ten years of peace and systematic preparation, she would have been in a position to fight England on the seas with every prospect of success. A country possessing the coast and the natural wealth of France would undoubtedly, if left in peace, have developed strength enough to make her equal, if not superior, to Great Britain. This truth is not often grasped at the present day; but Frederic the Great had recognised it when he said how foolish it was of Louis XIV to make of the Continent the center-point of his wars, instead of devoting all his resources to fighting England. The great Prussian King admitted that the methods of warfare adopted by the English were, from the standpoint of the latter justifiable; the English concentrated their entire force on the sea, and entrusted the European nations with the task of weakening France on land. Napoleon would not have committed this error of Louis XIV, for he knew England too well. His own mistake was that of believing in the permanence of his conquests. Thanks to these conquests was England able to find States ever ready to fight for English trading interests.—What we have just said represents, of course, only the point of view of France a century ago.

According to English writers and orators, Trafalgar is supposed to have “saved Europe”! To-day, after more than a hundred years have passed, it is possible to ask the question as to whether the consequences of Trafalgar for Europe have in reality been so salutary. If we take the view that Napoleon’s World-Empire would, for the reasons indicated by Napoleon himself, have collapsed in any case one day or another; we can, in truth, not discover a single consequence of Trafalgar which has been favorable for the Continent. Trafalgar it was which ensured for England the absolute supremacy on the seas.

When Napoleon had been compelled to give up his plan of invading England, and to turn his attention to Austria, he knew that for the immediate future he had no means wherewith to fight the Islanders directly. English historians, and also Mahan, have rightly recognised that everything henceforth undertaken by the Emperor against his chief enemy was in the nature of enterprises embarked on faute de mieux. This remark holds good of the Continental Blockade instituted by the Berlin Decrees. The famous blockade is extremely interesting to consider, for it shows us clearly the war between Napoleon and England in its true light—namely, as a war between England and the Continent. The fundamental idea on which the blockade was based, was derived from the measures taken by the French Republic at the end of the preceding century—measures, the object of which was to prevent the French market from being overflooded by English goods. These measures were destined as a counterblast to those taken (long before the French Revolution) by England against enemies and neutrals alike. Such English blockades had been organised in every single maritime war waged by England; their object was, in part, to damage the trade of the adversary, but chiefly to benefit her own trade and shipping. The weapon had been found so useful, that the leaders of the Chosen People decided that they could not apply it often enough. With a view to extending its application still further, recourse was had to the “paper” blockades, wherever an effective blockade could not be maintained.

The measures taken by the French Republic towards the close of the eighteenth century, and which had been confined to France alone, furnished Napoleon with the idea of the colossal European blockade against English goods. A conditio sine qua non of the success of that blockade was that it should be applied quod ubique et quod omnibus—that not a link should be missing in the vast chain of prohibition. The English were cunning enough to understand this at once; and they therefore directed all their efforts towards breaking as many links as possible. The whole of the European coasts, from the Baltic to Gibraltar and the Eastern Mediterranean, were declared to be closed; they were to form a single impenetrable wall against all English products. Napoleon employed also the Northern States for this purpose—especially Denmark, who possessed the key to the Belt and the Sound. Thereupon an English squadron suddenly appeared before Copenhagen in 1807, and demanded of the absolutely neutral Danish State that it should surrender its fleet! England pretended that she wished to take the latter under her protection, and that she would give it back again later on. Denmark refused; the English promptly bombarded Copenhagen from the sea, and despatched also an army against the city. Denmark was forced to capitulate; and the whole of her fleet, consisting of 33 ships, was taken over by the English Admiral, and brought to England. The ships were all of them without crews; this proves beyond a doubt that Denmark was attacked in the midst of peace, and had no intention of abandoning her neutrality. As to whether Napoleon would have induced Denmark to abandon her neutrality later on, is another question. He had just come to an agreement with Czar Alexander I at Tilsit, and had drawn up with him the outlines of a sort of general partition of Europe. According to this scheme, Denmark was to be granted a considerable increase of territory at the expense of Northern Germany, in the event of her allying herself with France. Thus it was intended to make an offer to Denmark; but there was not the slightest evidence of any intention on the part of the latter to give up her neutrality, much less of any hostile preparations. Denmark was wholly defenceless when attacked by England, and this attack was nothing but a vile and dastardly act of brigandage. England, at the same time, stole Heligoland from the Danes, and the island became a basis of operations for the English smugglers on the North Sea-coast.

The crime of Copenhagen was in so far profitable to Napoleon, that it obliged Russia to declare war on England. After the seizure of the Danish fleet, the Baltic was at the mercy of the English; whereas up till now Russia and Denmark had been united by the bonds of a natural solidarity, resulting from their respective geographical positions. But Russia’s efforts to repair the breach made in the wall erected against English importations, were vain. A second breach was made in the wall in the South. Napoleon’s unskilful and psychologically false treatment of the Spanish nation caused a guerilla war to break out in the Peninsula. This war has become celebrated; but what is less well known, is that Spanish blood was shed in order to further English interests. Spain was ruined, her soil devastated; and when Napoleon’s power in the country was definitely broken, the latter found itself tied hand and foot to England, dependent on English industry and English financial assistance. At the very moment when England hypocritically pretended to be fighting in Spain “for Spain and Europe”—at that very moment she achieved the last, decisive victory over the land of Cervantes, and trampled the erstwhile greatest nation of the West under foot. The same fate had previously overtaken England’s vassal Portugal.

Napoleon’s intentions were evident: Spain was for him but a means wherewith to fight England on the Continent. The Spanish and Portuguese coasts were to be closed to English products, as much as the Northern ones were. Napoleon likewise intended taking Gibraltar by means of a land attack. Viewed as a whole, the plan was at once a bold and a simple one: England was to be completely ostracised, and all possibility of selling anything to the Continent was to be withdrawn from her. Napoleon thought that the English would not be able to hold out for long under such circumstances—riots would break out, money would be scarce, etc. The immediate “preventive” measures taken by England against Denmark, Spain, and Portugal, showed that the British Government by no means underestimated the possible consequences of the European blockade. The Continental nations, for Napoleon, were so many instruments to be used in fighting England; the latter, on the other hand, used them as weapons against the French Emperor. But amidst all political changes, the Continent remained, for England, the territory to be exploited in the interests of her trade. The more the Continent was devastated and impoverished, the better it was for Albion; for thereby was the market assured for British producers. And when British warships captured or sunk the vessels of those States which were compelled reluctantly to obey Napoleon’s orders—this was, of course, done in the interests of “European freedom.”

The Franco-Russian friendship did not last long, after having reached its culminating point at the Congress of Erfurt in 1807. The two Emperors had progressed further with their scheme for the partition of Europe; but they had not, apparently, come to an agreement regarding Constantinople. Then came Talleyrand’s betrayal of both Russia and England. When the separation of Russia and France finally took place, the Continental Blockade was at an end. None the less did England continue her old system; and, in 1809, she managed to drive Austria-Hungary into a war which ended disastrously, seeing that Austria was not ready, and had to stand up alone against France and Russia. It is possible that England may have feared a rapprochement between Austria and the two last-mentioned Powers; but it was in any case not creditable for the Austrian diplomatists, that they should have allowed themselves, after so many experiences, to be once more made the puppets of England. However, with the exception of Russia, no Continental Power had reason to be proud of its diplomatists!

In view of the war raging at the present day, it is not without interest to examine briefly the organisation of the struggle between Napoleon and England, from the technical and military standpoint.

Napoleon thought it possible to bring about the economic downfall of Great Britain; he therefore forbade all the countries under his sway or influence to do any trade with the latter. An army of French officials was placed all along the coasts—in fact, a main characteristic of the Continental Blockade was, that it existed solely on land, and not on the seas, which would have been the normal way of doing things. But England ruled the seas in the fullest sense of the word, and herein lay ab initio an important source of weakness for the whole undertaking; for it was impossible to close up effectively so long and irregular a coast. Napoleon himself admitted that not the smallest fishing-boat could go out to sea, without the English capturing it. The British Government, by way of reprisals, blockaded every port in which the Berlin Decrees were enforced. It further prohibited all neutral ships from trading with such ports; at least neutral ships could only obtain permission to do so, if they had beforehand visited a British port, where they had to pay a heavy duty and to take a cargo of English goods on board. Consequently did every neutral ship which entered a Continental harbor “break” the French blockade. Napoleon replied by ordering the confiscation of all neutral vessels which thus complied with the English regulations. Later on another step in the same direction was taken, and all English goods found on the continent were seized. We need not dwell upon the consequences of all these measures for the sea trade. The French shipping trade, which had re-flourished in spite of all wars, disappeared completely with the exception of an insignificant coasting trade. France was cut off from her colonies, and the latter were compelled to purchase all the goods and foodstuffs they needed from the United States. Owing to the interruption of all communications with her colonies, France lost the lucrative colonial produce trade, which had been hers down to the time of the English blockade.

The Continental blockade was not without creating difficulties for England; in the first place, enormous quantities of unsaleable goods were accumulated in the country; on the other hand, the raw material, which Great Britain imported from Europe, arrived only in extremely small quantities. Trade and industry suffered naturally, but the groans that could be heard were much louder than the sufferings in question were great. The English seized every opportunity to let themselves appear as the martyrs to the cause of Europe; whereas, in reality, the Continent was enduring martyrdom for the sake of England’s greed. England was in the position of a rich and dishonest partner, who willingly risks a large sum in an enterprise, because his experience tells him that the business to be done, and which will ruin his associates, will bring him in colossal profits. The harvest is some little time in coming, and in the meantime matters do not always go smoothly; so he groans and whines, in order to make believe that he is undergoing agony, and that he is honest.