But the means which he adopted were just those that were destined to defeat this aim. Where he sought to intimidate, he only aroused a more stubborn resistance: where he should have allayed national fears, he redoubled them. He did not understand our people: he saw not that, behind our official sluggishness and muddling, there was a quenchless national vitality, which, if directed by a genius, could defy a world-wide combination. If, instead of making secret compacts with the Czar and trampling on Prussia; if, instead of intriguing with the Sultan and the Shah, and thus reawakening our fears respecting Egypt and India, he had called a Congress and submitted all the present disputes to general discussion, there is reason to think that Great Britain would have received his overtures. George III.'s Ministers had favoured the proposal of a Congress when put forward by Austria in the spring;[159] and they would doubtless have welcomed it from Napoleon after Friedland, had they not known of far-reaching plans which rendered peace more risky than open war. This great genius had, in fact, one fatal defect; he had little faith except in outward compulsion; and his superabundant energy of menace against England blighted the hopes of peace which he undoubtedly cherished.
Long before Alexander's offer of mediation was forwarded to London, our Ministers had taken a sudden and desperate resolution. They determined to compel Denmark to join England and Sweden, and to hold the fleet at Copenhagen as a gauge of Danish fidelity.
That momentous resolve was formed on or just before July the 16th, in consequence of news that had arrived from Memel and Tilsit. The exact purport of that news, and the manner of its acquisition, have been one of the puzzles of modern history. But the following facts seem to furnish a solution. Our Foreign Office Records show that our agent at Tilsit, Mr. Mackenzie, who was on confidential terms with General Bennigsen, left post haste for England immediately after the first imperial interview; and the news which he brought, together with reports of the threatening moves of the French on Holstein, clinched the determination of our Government to checkmate the Franco-Russian aims by bringing strong pressure to bear on Denmark. To keep open the mouth of the Baltic was an urgent necessity, otherwise we should lose touch with the Anglo-Swedish forces campaigning against the French near Stralsund.[160] Furthermore, it should be noted that Denmark held the balance in naval affairs. France and her allies now had fifty-nine sail of the line ready for sea: the compact with the Czar would give her twenty-four more; and if Napoleon seized the eighteen Danish and nine Portuguese battleships, his fighting strength would be nearly equal to our own.[161] Canning therefore determined, on July 16th, to compel Denmark to side with us, or at least to observe a neutrality favourable to the British cause; and, to save her honour, he proposed to send an irresistible naval force.
"Denmark's safety," he wrote on July 16th, "is to be found, under the present circumstances of the world, only in a balance of opposite dangers. For it is not to be disguised that the influence which France has acquired from recent events over the North of Europe, might, unless balanced by the naval power of Great Britain, leave to Denmark no other option than that of compliance with the demands of Bonaparte."[162]
A balance of opposite dangers! In this phrase Canning summed up his policy towards Denmark. Threatened by Napoleon on the land, she was to be threatened by us from the sea; and Canning hoped that these opposite forces would, at least, secure Danish neutrality, without which Sweden must succumb in her struggle against France. That some compulsion would be needed had long been clear. In fact, the use of compulsion had first been recommended by the Russian and Prussian Governments, which had gone so far as to include in the Treaty of Bartenstein a proposal of common action, along with England, Austria and Sweden, to compel Denmark to side with the allies against Napoleon.[163] To this resolve England still clung, despite the defection of the Czar. In truth, his present conduct made the case for the coercion of Denmark infinitely more urgent.
As to the reality of Napoleon's designs on Denmark, there can be no doubt. After his return to France, he wrote from St. Cloud, directing Talleyrand to express his displeasure that Denmark had not fulfilled her promises: "Whatever my desire to treat Denmark well, I cannot hinder her suffering from having allowed the Baltic to be violated [by the English expedition to Stralsund]; and, if England refuses Russia's mediation, Denmark must choose either to make war against England, or against me."[164] Whence it is clear that Denmark had given Napoleon grounds for hoping that she would declare the Baltic a mare clausum.
The British Government had so far fathomed these designs as to see the urgency of the danger. Accordingly it proposed to Denmark a secret defensive alliance, the chief terms of which were the handing over of the Danish fleet, to be kept as a "sacred pledge" by us till the peace, a subsidy of £100,000 paid to Denmark for that fleet, and the offer of armed assistance in case she should be attacked by France. This offer of defensive alliance was repulsed, and the Danish Prince Royal determined to resist even the mighty armada which was now nearing his shores. Towards the close of August, eighty-eight British ships were in the Sound and the Belt; and when the transports from Rügen and Stralsund joined those from Yarmouth, as many as 15,400 troops were at hand, under the command of Lord Cathcart. A landing was effected near Copenhagen, and offers of alliance were again made, including the deposit of the Danish fleet; "but if this offer is rejected now, it cannot be repeated. The captured property, public and private, must then belong to the captors: and the city, when taken, must share the fate of conquered places." The Danes stoutly repelled offers and threats alike: the English batteries thereupon bombarded the city until the gallant defenders capitulated (September 7th). The conditions hastily concluded by our commanders were that the British forces should occupy the citadel and dockyard for six weeks, should take possession of the ships and naval stores, and thereupon evacuate Zealand.
These terms were scrupulously carried out; and at the close of six weeks our forces sailed away with the Danish fleet, including fifteen sail of the line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one small vessels. This end to the expedition was keenly regretted by Canning. In a lengthy Memorandum he left it on record that he desired, not merely Denmark's fleet, but her alliance. In his view nothing could save Europe but a firm Anglo-Scandinavian league, which would keep open the Baltic and set bounds to the designs of the two Emperors. Only by such an alliance could Sweden be saved from Russia and France. Indeed, foreseeing the danger to Sweden from a French army acting from Zealand as a base, Canning proposed to Gustavus that he should occupy that island, or, failing that, receive succour from a British force on his own shore of the Sound. But both offers were declined. The final efforts made to draw Denmark into our alliance were equally futile, and she kept up hostilities against us for nearly seven years. Thus Canning's scheme of alliance with the Scandinavian States failed. Britain gained, it is true, a further safeguard against invasion; but our statesman, while blaming the precipitate action of our commanders in insisting solely upon the surrender of the fleet, declared that that action, apart from an Anglo-Danish alliance, was "an act of great injustice."[165]
And as such it has been generally regarded, that is, by those who did not, and could not, know the real state of the case. 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. And the prevalent opinion found expression in the protests uttered in Parliament that it would have been better to face the whole might of the French, Russian, and Danish navies than to emulate the conduct of those who had overrun and despoiled Switzerland.
Moreover, our action did not benefit Sweden, but just the reverse. Cathcart's force, that had been helping the Swedes in the defence of their Pomeranian province, was withdrawn in order to strengthen our hands against Copenhagen. Thereupon the gallant Gustavus, overborne by the weight of Marshal Brune's corps, sued for an armistice. It was granted only on the condition that Stralsund should pass into Brune's hands (August 20th); and the Swedes, unable even to hold Rügen, were forced to give up that island also. Sick in health and weary of a world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his forces into Sweden. Even there he was menaced. The hostilities which Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own subjects rather than on the broken reed of British assistance, and awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on his province of Finland.