Jackson’s prophecy came true, but against his statement that the army disembarked at Veldbeck “in grand style,” we must set that of Captain Napier: “I never saw any fair in Ireland so confused as the landing; had the enemy opposed us, the remains of the army would have been on their way to England.”[30] Wellesley’s first affray—it can scarcely be termed a battle—took place at Roskilde. Like almost everything connected with the expedition, Jackson has something to say about it, and that “something” in this particular instance is anything but complimentary. “Sir Arthur Wellesley,” he tells his wife, “has had an affair which you will probably see blazoned forth in an extraordinary Gazette. With about four thousand men he attacked a Danish corps of armed peasantry, and killed and wounded about nine hundred men, besides taking upwards of fifteen hundred prisoners, amongst whom were sixty officers. One was a General officer. I spoke to him this morning, for he and his officers are let off on their parole. The men are on board prison ships, and miserable wretches they are, fit for nothing but following the plough. They wear red and green striped woollen jackets, and wooden sabots. Their long lank hair hangs over their shoulders, and gives to their rugged features a wild expression. The knowing ones say that after the first fire they threw away their arms, hoping, without them, to escape the pursuit of our troops. In fact, the battle was not a very glorious one, but this you will keep for yourself.”[31]
Wellesley himself afterwards referred to the event as “the little battle at Kiöge,” and mentioned that “the Danes had made but a poor resistance; indeed, I believe they were only new raised men—militia.”[32]
The bombardment of Copenhagen began on the 2nd September 1807, and concluded three days later, when an armistice was granted in order that terms might be discussed. On the 7th, Copenhagen capitulated. The conditions imposed by Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Home Popham, and Lieutenant-Colonel Murray were that the British should occupy the citadel and dockyards for six weeks, and take possession of the ships and naval stores. Their troops would then evacuate Zealand. “I might have carried our terms higher ... had not our troops been needed at home,” Wellesley writes to Canning. The various clauses were carried out, and fifteen sail-of-the-line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one smaller vessels of the Danish fleet, as well as 20,000 tons of naval stores, were escorted to England. “That the attack was necessary,” says a recent historian, “no one will now deny. England was fighting for her existence; and, however disagreeable was the task of striking a weak neutral, she risked her own safety if she left in Napoleon’s hand a fleet of such proportions. In Count Vandal’s words, she ‘merely broke, before he had seized it, the weapon which Napoleon had determined to make his own.’”[33] Dr J. Holland Rose disapproves, and points out that “In one respect our action was unpardonable: it was not the last desperate effort of a long period of struggle: it came after a time of selfish torpor fatal alike to our reputation and the interests of our allies. After protesting their inability to help them, Ministers belied their own words by the energy with which they acted against a small State.”[34]
Canning’s hope for an alliance with Sweden, in order to keep open the Baltic, was destined never to be fulfilled. Sir John Moore was sent to assist Gustavus in his efforts to resist the attacks of Russia, but the nation deserted the King, deposed him, and joined Napoleon. War speedily broke out between Sweden and Denmark, and also between the latter and Great Britain. The Czar’s overtures to England on behalf of France, as arranged at Tilsit, came to nothing. He was not anxious for them to have any other ending, so enraptured was he with Napoleon’s grandiloquent schemes. Enraptured? Yes, but only for a few short years.
CHAPTER VII
The First Battles of the Peninsular War (1808)
“In war men are nothing: it is a man who is everything.”
Napoleon.
On his return from Copenhagen, Wellesley, never happy unless his mind was fully occupied, resumed his duties as Chief Secretary for Ireland. Special mention of the services he had rendered to his country was made in the House of Commons, and there was some talk of a second period in India, where affairs were far from settled. Before long, however, it became increasingly evident that his knowledge and ability would be required nearer home.