Meanwhile Napoleon had arrived on August 3rd at Boulogne, where he reviewed a line of soldiery nine miles long. The sight might well arouse his hopes of assured victory. He had ground for hoping that Villeneuve would soon be in the Channel. Not until August 8th did he receive news of the fight with Calder, and he took pains to parade it as an English defeat. He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line:
"I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the small Powers: 150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape Grisnez. Your voyage, and it alone, makes us without any doubt masters of England."
Austria and Russia were already marshalling their forces for the war of the Third Coalition. Yet, though menaced by those Powers, to whom he had recently offered the most flagrant provocations, this astonishing man was intent only on the ruin of England, and secretly[pg.501] derided their preparations. "You need not" (so he wrote to Eugène, Viceroy of Italy) "contradict the newspaper rumours of war, but make fun of them.... Austria's actions are probably the result of fear."—Thus, even when the eastern horizon lowered threateningly with clouds, he continued to pace the cliffs of Boulogne, or gallop restlessly along the strand, straining his gaze westward to catch the first glimpse of his armada. That horizon was never to be flecked with Villeneuve's sails: they were at this time furled in the harbour of Cadiz.
Unmeasured abuse has been showered upon Villeneuve for his retreat to that harbour. But it must be remembered that in both of Napoleon's last orders to him, those of July 16th and 26th, he was required to sail to Cadiz under certain conditions. In the first order prescribing alternative ways of gaining the mastery of the Channel, that step was recommended solely as a last alternative in case of misfortune: he was directed not to enter the long and difficult inlet of Ferrol, but, after collecting the squadron there, to cast anchor at Cadiz. In the order of July 26th he was charged positively to repair to Cadiz: "My intention is that you rally at Cadiz the Spanish ships there, disembark your sick, and, without stopping there more than four days at most, again set sail, return to Ferrol, etc." Villeneuve seems not to have received these last orders, but he alludes to those of July 16th.[[334]]
These, then, were probably the last instructions he received from Napoleon before setting sail from the roads of Corunna on August 13th. The censures passed on his retreat to Cadiz are therefore based on the supposition that he received instructions which he did not receive.[[335]] He expressly based his move to Cadiz on Napoleon's orders of July 16th. The mishaps which the Emperor then contemplated as necessitating such a step had, in Villeneuve's eyes, actually happened. The[pg.502] admiral considered the fight of July 22nd la malheureuse affaire; his ships were encumbered with sick; they worked badly; on August 15th a north-east gale carried away the top-mast of a Spanish ship; and having heard from a Danish merchantman the news—false news, as it afterwards appeared—that Cornwallis with twenty-five ships was to the north, he turned and scudded before the wind. He could not divine the disastrous influence of his conduct on the plan of invasion. He did not know that his master was even then beginning to hesitate between a dash on London or a campaign on the Danube, and that the events of the next few days were destined to tilt the fortunes of the world. Doubtless he ought to have disregarded the Emperor's words about Cadiz and to have struggled on to Brest, as his earlier and wider orders enjoined. But the Emperor's instructions pointed to Cadiz as the rendezvous in case of misfortune or great difficulty. As a matter of fact, Napoleon on July 26th ordered the Rochefort squadron to meet Villeneuve at Cadiz; and it is clear that by that date Napoleon had decided on that rendezvous, apparently because it could be more easily entered and cleared than Ferrol, and was safer from attack. But, as it happened, the Rochefort squadron had already set sail and failed to sight an enemy or friend for several weeks.
Such are the risks of naval warfare, in which even the greatest geniuses at times groped but blindly. Nelson was not afraid to confess the truth. The French Emperor, however, seems never to have made an admission which would mar his claim to strategic infallibility. Even now, when the Spanish ships were proved to clog the enterprise, he persisted in merely counting numbers, and in asserting that Villeneuve might still neutralize the force of Calder and Cornwallis. These hopes he cherished up to August 23rd, when, as the next chapter will show, he faced right about to confront Austria. His Minister of Marine, who had more truly gauged the difficulties of all parts of the naval enterprise, continued earnestly to warn him of the terrible risk of burdening Villeneuve's [pg.503] ships with the unseaworthy craft of Spain and of trusting to this ill-assorted armada to cover the invasion now that their foes had divined its secret. The Emperor bitterly upbraided his Minister for his timidity, and in the presence of Daru, Intendant General of the army, indulged in a dramatic soliloquy against Villeneuve for his violation of orders: "What a navy! What an admiral! What sacrifices for nothing! My hopes are frustrated—- Daru, sit down and write"—whereupon it is said that he traced out the plans of the campaign which was to culminate at Ulm and Austerlitz.[[336]]
The question has often been asked whether Napoleon seriously intended the invasion of England. Certainly the experienced seamen of England, France, and Holland, with few exceptions, declared that the flat-bottomed boats were unseaworthy, and that a frightful disaster must ensue if they were met out at sea by our ships. When it is further remembered that our coasts were defended by batteries and martello towers, that several hundreds of pinnaces and row-boats were ready to attack the flotilla before it could attempt the disembarkation of horses, artillery, and stores, and that 180,000 regulars and militia, aided by 400,000 volunteers, were ready to defend our land, the difficulties even of capturing London will be obvious. And the capture of the capital would not have decided the contest. Napoleon seems to have thought it would. In his voyage to St. Helena he said: "I put all to the hazard; I entered into no calculations as to the manner in which I was to return; I trusted all to the impression the occupation of the capital would have occasioned."[[337]]—But, as has been shown above (p. 441),[pg.504] plans had been secretly drawn up for the removal of the Court and the national treasure to Worcester; the cannon of Woolwich were to be despatched into the Midlands by canal; and our military authorities reckoned that the systematic removal of provisions and stores from all the districts threatened by the enemy would exhaust him long before he overran the home counties. Besides, the invasion was planned when Britain's naval power had been merely evaded, not conquered. Nelson and Cornwallis and Calder would not for ever be chasing phantom fleets; they would certainly return, and cut Napoleon from his base, the sea.
Again, if Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic? He must have known that this act would hurry them into war. Thiers considers the annexation of Genoa a "grave fault" in the Emperor's policy—but many have doubted whether Napoleon did not intend Genoa to be the gate leading to a new avenue of glory, now that the success of his naval dispositions was doubtful. Marbot gives the general opinion of military circles when he says that the Emperor wanted to provoke a continental war in order to escape the ridicule which the failure of his Boulogne plans would otherwise have aroused. "The new coalition came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying situation." The compiler of the Fouché "Memoirs," which, though not genuine, may be accepted as generally correct, took the same view. He attributes to Napoleon the noteworthy words: "I may fail by sea, but not by land; besides, I shall be able to strike the blow before the old coalition machines are ready: the kings have neither activity nor decision of character: I do not fear old Europe." The Emperor also remarked to the Council of State that the expense of all the[pg.505] preparations at Boulogne was fully justified by the fact that they gave him "fully twenty days' start over all enemies.... A pretext had to be found for raising the troops and bringing them together without alarming the Continental Powers: and that pretext was afforded me by the projected descent upon England."[[338]]
It is also quite possible that his aim was Ireland as much as England. It certainly was in the plan of September, 1804: and doubtless it still held a prominent place in his mind, except during the few days when he pictured Calder vanquished and Nelson scouring the West Indies. Then he doubtless fixed his gaze solely upon London. But there is much indirect evidence which points to Ireland as forming at least a very important part of his scheme. Both Nelson and Collingwood believed him to be aiming at Ireland.[[339]]
But indeed Napoleon is often unfathomable. Herein lies much of the charm of Napoleonic studies. He is at once the Achilles, the Mercury, and the Proteus of the modern world. The ease with which his mind grasped all problems and suddenly concentrated its force on some new plan may well perplex posterity as it dazed his contemporaries. If we were dealing with any other man than Napoleon, we might safely say that an invasion of England, before the command of the sea had been secured, was infinitely less likely than a descent on Ireland. The landing of a corps d'armée there would have provoked a revolution; and British ascendancy would have vanished in a week. Even had Nelson returned and swept the seas, Ireland would have been lost to the United Kingdom; and Britain, exhausted also by the expenses which the Boulogne preparations had compelled her to make for the defence of London, must have succumbed.