His plan was to send his fleet to sea, decoy Nelson into pursuit, and then, while his own ships doubled and came back to the Channel, to cross his army over to England, under its protection, in his flat-bottomed boats. “Masters of the Channel for six hours, we are masters of the world.”
It was not to be. Wind and waves fought against him. The incapacity of his navy fought against him. Into soldiers on land he could infuse courage, confidence, sympathetic coöperation. But the navy baffled him: all his efforts were vain. His admirals could not, or would not, have faith; could not, or would not, obey orders; could not, or would not, coöperate. Utterly wasted were all his labors, all his expenditures. Austrian armies were marching against Bavaria, Napoleon’s ally; Russian hordes were moving down from the north; Prussia’s magnificent army of fifty thousand men was in the balance, wavering ominously, and threatening to unite with the coalition.
Such was the situation on the Continent when the despatches reached Napoleon that all his great plans for the invasion of England had gone to wreck and ruin; that his admiral had misconceived or had disobeyed positive orders; that the French fleet would not only be unable to give him aid, but was so scattered and so placed that it must inevitably fall a prey to the English.
“It was about four o’clock in the morning of August 13, that the news was brought to the Emperor,” says Ségur. “Daru was summoned, and on entering gazed on his chief in utter astonishment.” The Emperor “looked perfectly wild”; his hat jammed down over his eyes, “his whole aspect terrible.” As soon as he saw Daru, he rushed up, and poured out a torrent of pent-up wrath. He railed at his admiral, his imbecile admiral, “that damned fool of a Villeneuve!” He paced “up and down the room, with great strides for about an hour,” venting his rage, his disappointment, his reproaches. Then stopping suddenly and pointing to a desk, he exclaimed: “Sit down there, Daru, and write!” And with marvellous self-control, wresting his thoughts away from Villeneuve, the fleet, the blasted plans of invasion, he dictated to the secretary, hour after hour, as fast as pen could catch the rushing words, the whole campaign of Ulm in its largest outline, in its smallest detail, embracing, as it did, the movement of his own vast legions lying along the coast for two hundred leagues, the movement of Masséna from Italy, of Marmont from Holland, and of Bernadotte from Hanover. Four hundred thousand soldiers were moving against the French; less than half that number of French rushed to repel the attack. The vast camps on the Boulogne coast vanished, the eagles set Rhineward, other legions marched as they had never marched before—thousands speeding along the roads in coaches. The Austrians had not waited for the Russians; Bavaria had been overrun; and Mack, the Austrian general, was now dawdling about Ulm. Before he suspected what was happening, Napoleon’s combination had been made, a circle of steel drawn about his adversary; and the French armies, closing in upon front, rear, and flanks, held the Austrians as in a mighty trap. With the exception of a few squadrons which broke through the gaps in the French lines as they advanced, the whole Austrian army laid down its arms (October 20, 1805). In the Memoirs of de Ségur we are given a personal glimpse of the Emperor which is perhaps more interesting to the average reader than the dreary narrative of march, counter-march, manœuvre, and battle.
During the combats around Elchingen, Napoleon, soaked with rain, went to a farmhouse at Hasslach to wait for Lannes and the Guard to come up. There was a stove which threw out its comfortable heat, and before it sat a drummer boy, wet, cold, and wounded. Napoleon’s staff officers told the boy to get out, and go somewhere else. The drummer would not hear of it. The room was big enough for both the Emperor and himself, he said, and he meant to stay. Napoleon laughed, and told them to let the boy alone, “since he made such a point of it.” In a few moments the Emperor was dozing on one side of the stove and the drummer lad on the other. Around the two sleepers were grouped the staff officers, standing, and awaiting orders.
Louder roared the cannon, and every few minutes Napoleon would rouse himself and send off messengers to hasten Lannes. While the Emperor was thus napping, Lannes came up, entered the room abruptly, and exclaimed: “Sire! What are you thinking about? You are sleeping while Ney, single-handed, is fighting against the whole Austrian army!”—“That’s just like Ney, I told him to wait,” said Napoleon, and springing on his horse, he galloped off so fast that Lannes, afraid now that the Emperor would rush into danger, roughly seized the bridle rein and forced him back in a less dangerous position. Ney was reënforced, and the Austrians routed.
* * * * *
In the midst of his own successes, Napoleon received the tidings from Trafalgar. Nelson had fought the combined fleets of France and Spain, had lost his own life, but had won so complete a triumph that England’s supremacy at sea was not disputed again throughout the Napoleonic wars. The shock to Napoleon must have been stunning, but he only said, “I cannot be everywhere.”
Continuing his advance, he entered Vienna, November 13, 1805, and lost no time in throwing his army across the Danube, in hot pursuit of the retreating enemy.
By a trick and a falsehood, Murat and Lannes secured the great bridge, and much precious time was saved. By a similar trick, the Russians deceived Murat a few days later, and escaped the net Napoleon had thrown around them, and thus “the fruits of a campaign were lost.” Murat gained the bridge by pretending that an armistice had been agreed on; the Russians made good their escape by duping Murat with the same falsehood. Napoleon’s anger was extreme, the more so as a blunder of Murat’s had come within a hair’s-breadth of spoiling the campaign of Ulm.