The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

While the victorious corps of Ney thus secured his right—Murat, on his left, watched the Austrians who had made their way into Bohemia; and Augereau, who had now advanced at the head of a large reserve from France, remained behind him in Swabia, to guard the passes from the Voralberg, in case of any hostile movement from that mountainous province, and, at the same time, to be ready for action against the Prussians, should that army at length receive orders to take part in the war, and cross the Danube. Thus guarded, as he judged, against any chance of having his communications intercepted in the rear or flanks, Napoleon himself, with the main body, now moved on the capital of the German Emperor. Austrian and Russian troops, to the number of 45,000, had been thrown together with the view of relieving Ulm, and advanced considerably for that purpose ere they heard of the treacherous capitulation of Mack. They now retired again before the movement of Napoleon, halting, indeed, occasionally, and assuming the aspect of determination; but, whenever the outposts met, losing heart, and continuing their progress towards Moravia:—for there, at length, the Czar, with his principal army, had made his appearance; and there, around that standard, every disposable force was now to be rallied. The Emperor Francis himself, perceiving that Vienna was incapable of defence, quitted his capital on the 7th of November, and proceeded to Brunn, in Moravia, the headquarters of Alexander.

On the same evening Count Giulay reached Napoleon's headquarters at Lintz, with proposals for an immediate armistice and negotiation. Buonaparte refused to pause unless the Tyrol and Venice were instantly ceded to him. These were terms to which the Austrian envoy had no authority to submit. On the 13th of November, accordingly, the French entered Vienna, and Napoleon took up his residence in the castle of Schoenbrunn, the proud palace of the Austrian Cæsars. General Clarke was appointed governor of the city; and the Elector of Bavaria was gratified with a large share of the military stores and equipments found in its arsenals.

But the intoxication of this success was to be sobered by a cup of bitterness—and from a hand which had already dashed more than one of Napoleon's proudest triumphs.

When Buonaparte took up arms again, and devoted every energy of his mind to the descent upon England, Spain, the next maritime power after France, professed, indeed, neutrality,—but by some of her proceedings raised the suspicion that her fleet was really destined to act along with that of the invader. The English government resolved to bring this matter to the test: and a squadron of four ships demanded a similar force of the Spaniards to yield themselves into their keeping as a pledge of neutrality. The British squadron sent on such an errand ought, on every principle of policy and humanity, to have been much stronger than that which Commodore Moore commanded on this occasion. The Castilian pride took fire at the idea of striking to an equal foe; and, unhappily, an action took place, in which three of the Spanish ships were captured, and one blown up. This catastrophe determined, as might have been expected, the wavering counsels of Madrid. Spain declared war against England, and placed her fleets at the command of the French Emperor.

Two of his own squadrons, meantime, had, in pursuance of the great scheme traced for the ruin of England, escaped early in this year out of Rochefort and Toulon. The former, passing into the West Indies, effected some trivial services, and returned in safety to their original port. The latter, under Villeneuve, had like fortune; and, venturing on a second sortie, joined the great Spanish fleet under Gravina at Cadiz. The combined fleets then crossed the Atlantic, where they captured an insignificant island, and once more returned towards Europe. Nelson had spent the summer in chasing these squadrons across the seas—and on this occasion they once more eluded his grasp: but on approaching Cape Finisterre (22nd July), another English squadron of fifteen sail of the line and two frigates, under Sir Robert Calder, came in view: and the allied admirals, having twenty sail of the line, three fifty-gun ships, and four frigates, did not avoid the encounter. They were worsted, notwithstanding their superiority of strength, and Calder captured two of their best ships. But that they escaped from an English fleet, howsoever inferior in numbers, without sustaining severer loss than this, was considered as a disgrace by the British public.—Calder, being tried by a court-martial, was actually censured for not having improved his success more signally; a striking example of the height to which confidence in the naval superiority of the English had been raised, at the very time when no arm appeared capable of thwarting the career of French victory by land.

Villeneuve and Gravina now made their way to Vigo, and thence finally to Cadiz: while Nelson, having at length received accurate intelligence of their motions, took the command in the Mediterranean, and lay watching for the moment in which they should be tempted to hazard another egress. The coasts of Spain being strictly blockaded, some difficulty began to be felt about providing necessaries for the numerous crews of the allied fleets; but the circumstance which had most influence in leading them to quit, once more, their place of safety, was, according to general admission, the impatience of Villeneuve under some unmerited reproaches with which Napoleon visited the results of the battle off Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve, a man of dauntless gallantry and the highest spirit, smarting under this injury, was anxious to take the noble revenge of victory. And, in truth, had numbers been to decide the adventure, he ran little risk: for Nelson commanded only twenty-seven sail of the line, and three frigates, manned in the ordinary manner; whereas the fleet in Cadiz mustered thirty-three ships of the line, and seven frigates; and, besides the usual crews, carried 4000 troops, chiefly rifle-men. The result was the most glorious day in the proud annals of the English Marine. The combined fleets sailed from Cadiz on the 19th of October, and on the morning of the 21st—the very day after Mack surrendered at Ulm—they came in sight of the English Admiral, off Cape Trafalgar.

The reader is referred to the historian of Lord Nelson for the particulars of this great action. The French and Spaniards awaited the attack in a double line. Nelson hoisted the famous signal—"England expects every man to do his duty"; charged in two columns, and broke their array at the first onset. The battle, nevertheless, was sternly contested. In the end nineteen ships of the line were taken; and of those Spanish vessels which escaped into Cadiz, seven had been rendered wholly unserviceable. Four French ships of the line, under Commodore Dumanoir, made way for the Straits, and were captured a few days after by Sir Richard Strachan, commander of the English squadron off Rochefort. The fleets of France and Spain were annihilated: yet, great as was the triumph, glorious and unrivalled, it was dearly purchased—for Nelson fell, mortally wounded, early in the action. The hero lived just long enough to hear the cheer of consummated victory; and then breathed out his noble spirit, in words worthy of his life, "Thank God! I have done my duty."[51]

The French and Spaniards had fought together against Nelson; but not in the same spirit. The former were determined and malignant enemies; the latter generous friends, hurried, by the excitement of temporary and pardonable passion, into hostilities against the only power which could afford their country any chance of avoiding that political slavery, under which it was now the settled purpose of Napoleon's ambition to crush every nation of Europe. But the unprincipled conduct of Dumanoir, who escaped from Nelson to be captured shortly after, as has been mentioned, by Strachan, at once brought out the different feelings under which the two allied fleets had been acting. This French officer, retreating with his four ships, which had had no part in the battle, discharged his broadsides, as he passed, into English vessels no longer capable of pursuit,—conduct which, as the victory was complete, could have no object but that of carnage. Nay, such was the ruffian nature of this man's soul, he fired into the Spanish ships which had yielded to the English, thus, for the sake of trivially injuring his enemy, sacrificing without scruple the blood of his own unfortunate friends. The Spanish prisoners, in their indignation at this brutality, asked their English captors to permit them to man their guns against the retreating French; and such was the earnestness of their entreaty, and the confidence of Englishmen in the honour of Spaniards, that these men actually were permitted to do as they had requested. A mutual interchange of good offices ensued. In the evening after the battle a gale sprung up, and some of the captured vessels drifting on shore, a number of British seamen fell into the hands of the garrison of Cadiz. They were received as friends: for the accommodation of their wounded the Spanish soldiers gave up their own beds. Collingwood, who succeeded to Nelson's command, sent all the wounded Spaniards on shore to be cured in their own country, merely taking their parole that they would not serve again during the war: and the governor of Cadiz, with still more romantic generosity, offered his hospitals for the use of Collingwood's wounded seamen, pledging the honour of the Spanish name that they should be cared for like his own men, and sent back to their admiral whenever they had recovered. It will appear, hereafter, what illustrious consequences the kindly feelings thus manifested were destined to produce.

Buonaparte, when he heard of this mighty discomfiture, which for ever put an end to all his visions of invading England, is said to have lost that possession of himself, which he certainly maintained when the catastrophe of Aboukir was announced to him at Cairo. Yet arrogance mingled strangely in his expressions of sorrow.—"I cannot be everywhere," said he to the messenger of the evil tidings—as if Napoleon could have had any more chance of producing victory by his presence at Trafalgar, than Nelson would have dreamed of having by appearing on horseback at Marengo. In his newspapers, and even in his formal messages to the senate at Paris, Buonaparte always persisted in denying that there had been a great defeat at Trafalgar, or even a great battle. But how well he appreciated the facts of the case was well known to the unfortunate Admiral Villeneuve. That brave officer, after spending a short time in England, was permitted to return to France on his parole. He died almost immediately afterwards at Rennes: whether by his own hand, in the agony of despair, as the French Gazette asserted, or assassinated, as was commonly believed at the time, by some of the blood-hardened minions of Fouché's police, is a mystery not yet cleared up; and, perhaps, never destined to be so until the day comes in which nothing shall be hid.

The tidings of Trafalgar, after the first moment, served but as a new stimulus to the fire of Napoleon's energy. He quitted Vienna, and put himself at the head of his columns, which, passing the Danube into Moravia, soon found themselves within reach of the forces of Russia and Austria, at length combined, and prepared for action, under the eyes of their respective emperors. These princes, on the approach of the French, drew back as far as Olmutz, in order that a reserve of Russians, under Bexhowden, might join them before the decisive struggle took place. Napoleon fixed his headquarters at Brunn, and, riding over the plain between Brunn and Austerlitz (a village about two miles from that town), said to his generals, "study this field—we shall, ere long, have to contest it."