The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

This most gallant, but most unfortunate, man had passed suddenly from a condition of indolent security face to face with an appalling emergency. When Nelson's fleet was first reported, numbers of men were ashore, three miles or more away, getting water for the ships. They were recalled, but most of them did not return. Brueys still cherished the belief, with which indeed he could not have parted without despair, that the enemy would not brave the unknown perils of the ground with night falling; nor could he tell their purpose until they had passed Aboukir Island and opened the bay. A hurried council of senior officers renewed the decision previously reached, to fight, if fight they must, at anchor; but Brueys betrayed the vacillations of an unsteady purpose by crossing the light yards, a step which could have no other significance than that of getting under way. Still, he hoped for the respite of a night to make the preparations so long neglected. Little did he know the man whom England herself still hardly knew. Without a moment's pause, without a tremor of uncertainty, yet with all the precautions of a seaman, Nelson came straight onward, facing with mind long prepared the difficulties of navigation, the doubts and obscurity of a night action. Hurriedly the French prepare for battle; and, secure that the enemy will not dare go within the line, the batteries on that side are choked with the numerous encumbrances of ship economy, the proper disposal of which is termed "clearing for action."

For half an hour Brueys was a helpless and hopeless, though undaunted, spectator of an overwhelming attack, which he had never expected at all, delivered in a manner he had deemed impossible upon the part of his order he thought most secure. Soon he was freed from the agony of mere passive waiting by the opportunity to act. The "Bellerophon" and "Majestic," both seventy-fours, anchored outside and abreast, respectively, of the flag-ship "Orient," of one hundred and twenty guns, and of the "Tonnant," eighty, next astern. Darkness had just settled down upon the water as the arrival of these two ships completed the first scene of the tragedy; and the British vessels, which were fighting under their white ensign, 195 as more easily seen at night, now hoisted also four lanterns, horizontally arranged, whereby to recognize each other.

Meanwhile a woeful mishap had befallen Nelson's chosen brother-in-arms, Troubridge. His ship, the "Culloden," had been some distance from the main body of the fleet when the latter rounded the shoal, and, doing her own piloting, ran upon its outer extremity at a quarter before seven. There she stuck, despite all the efforts of her most able commander, until two o'clock the next morning, when the battle was over. There also, however, she served as a beacon to the two remaining ships, "Alexander" and "Swiftsure," who had to make the perilous passage in the dark. These vessels, with the "Leander," fifty, arriving after eight o'clock, at a critical moment of the battle, played the part of a reserve in a quarter where the British were meeting with disaster.

Neither the "Bellerophon" nor the "Majestic" was equally matched with the French ship opposed to it; but the "Bellerophon" especially, having to do with a vessel double her own force and having brought up fairly abreast, where she got her full fire, was soon nearly a wreck. In three quarters of an hour her main and mizzen masts were shot away, and in thirty minutes more, unable longer to endure her punishment, the cable was cut and she wore out of action. As she did so, the foremast also fell, and, with forty-nine killed and one hundred and forty-eight wounded, out of a ship's company of six hundred and fifty men, the "Bellerophon" drifted down the line, receiving the successive broadsides of the French rear. As she thus passed, without flag or light, the "Swiftsure" came up. Withholding his fire, Captain Hallowell hailed, and finding her to be a British ship, let go at once his anchor, bringing up on the starboard bow of the "Orient." Immediately afterwards the "Alexander" arrived and anchored on the port quarter of the three-decker, while the "Leander," with the discretion becoming her size, placed herself on the port bow of the "Franklin," the next ahead to the "Orient," in a position of comparative impunity, and thus raked both the French ships. The French centre was thus in its turn the victim of a concentration, similar to that with which the action began in the van, and destined to result in a frightful catastrophe.

At about nine in the evening the French flag-ship was observed to be on fire, from what cause has never been certainly known. The British guns, trained on the part in flames, helped to paralyze all efforts to extinguish them, and they gained rapidly. The brave and unfortunate Brueys was spared the sight of this last calamity. Already twice wounded, at half-past eight a cannon-ball carried away his left leg at the thigh. He refused to be taken below, and passed away calmly and nobly a few moments before the fire broke out. At ten the "Orient" blew up. Five ships ahead of her had already surrendered, and the eighty-gun ship "Franklin" also hauled down her flag before midnight.

Six of the French still had their colors flying; but either from their cables being cut by shot, or from the necessity of slipping to avoid the explosion of the "Orient," they had drifted far astern. The three in the extreme rear had been but slightly engaged; of the others, the "Tonnant" was totally dismasted, while the "Heureux" and "Mercure" had received considerable injury. 196 The following morning these vessels were attacked by some of the least injured of the British, with the result that the "Tonnant," "Mercure," "Heureux" and "Timoléon," the last of which had been the extreme rear, or flank, ship of the original order, ran ashore. There the three first named afterwards hauled down their flags, and the fourth was burned by her officers. The two other French ships, "Guillaume Tell" and "Généreux," escaped. The former bore the flag of Rear-Admiral Villeneuve, who had commanded the rear in this battle, and was hereafter to be commander-in-chief of the allied fleet at the memorable disaster of Trafalgar. His inaction on this occasion has been sharply criticised, both in his own time and since. Upon the whole, the feeling of later French professional writers appears to be that his courage, though unquestionable, was rather of the passive than the active type; and that in Aboukir Bay there was afforded him a real opportunity and sufficient time to bring the rear ships into action, which he culpably failed to improve. 197 Bonaparte, on the contrary, wrote to Villeneuve, soon after the battle, that "if any error could be imputed to him, it was that he had not got under way as soon as the 'Orient' blew up; seeing that, three hours before, the position Brueys had taken had been forced and surrounded." 198

Such was, in its main outlines, the celebrated Battle of the Nile, the most complete of naval victories, and among the most decisive, at least of the immediate course of events. In it the French lost eleven out of thirteen ships-of-the-line 199 and thirty-five hundred men, killed, wounded, or drowned; 200 among them being the commander-in-chief and three captains killed, a rear-admiral and six captains wounded. The British loss was two hundred and eighteen killed–of which one captain—and six hundred and seventy-eight wounded, among whom was the admiral himself, struck in the head by a heavy splinter. The hurt, which he at first thought fatal, disabled him for the moment and seriously affected his efficiency for some days. "I think," wrote he, four weeks later, "that if it had pleased God I had not been wounded, not a boat would have escaped." 201

The particular circumstances under which the British attack was undertaken, the admirable skill as well as conduct shown by all the captains, and the thoroughly scientific character of the tactical combination adopted, as seen in its execution, unite with the decisiveness of the issue to cast a peculiar lustre upon this victory of Nelson's. Lord Howe, inferior to none as a judge of merit, said to Captain Berry that the Battle of the Nile "stood unparalleled and singular in this instance, that every captain distinguished himself." 202 It has been disputed how far belongs to the admiral the credit of the bold manœuvre, whereby the leading ship, passing ahead of the French line, showed to her successors the open path through which the operation of doubling on the enemy could be most effectually carried out. Into this discussion the author has no intention of entering, beyond noting an omission in the full treatment of the question made by the careful and laborious editor of Nelson's correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas, who was not able to reach a decision. 203 In Ross's "Life of Admiral Saumarez" it is stated that, while discussing the various modes by which the enemy might be attacked, Saumarez offended Nelson by saying that he "had seen the evil consequences of doubling upon an enemy, especially in a night action;" and had differed with the admiral in the plan of attack, because "it never required two English ships to capture one French, and that the damage which they must necessarily do each other might render them both unable to fight an enemy's ship which had not been engaged." 204 Saumarez's objection, though not without some foundation, was justly over-ruled; but it could scarcely have been raised had Nelson never contemplated the precise method of doubling employed,—a British ship on each side of a single enemy,—for in no other position could the risk of mutual injury have been serious.

It is in entire keeping with Nelson's well-known character, that, after discussing all likely positions and ascertaining that his captains understood his views, he should with perfect and generous confidence have left all the details of immediate action with them. In the actual case he could not, without folly, have rigorously prescribed to Captain Foley what path to follow. Only the man on the "Goliath's" deck, watching the soundings, could rightly judge what must each instant be done; and it was no less a transcendent merit in Nelson that he could thus trust another, than that, with falling night and unknown waters, he could reach the instant decision to attack an enemy of superior force, in an order which he must have supposed to be carefully and rationally assumed. In fact, however, the operation of doubling on the enemy,—in contradistinction to doubling the head of the line,—was really begun by Nelson himself; for his ship was the first to anchor on the side opposite to that taken by her five predecessors. It was open to him to have followed them, for the same reasons that prompted Foley's action. 205 Instead of that, he deliberately anchored outside the third French ship, already engaged on the inside by the "Theseus;" thus indicating, as clearly as example can, what he would have those succeeding him to do. The first two French ships were already so engaged or crippled as to be properly passed. The fullest credit therefore can be allowed to Captain Foley for a military decision of a very high order, without stripping a leaf from Nelson's laurels. 206

"The boldness and skill of Admiral Nelson," says Captain Chevalier, "rose to a height which it would have been difficult to surpass." 207 "The action of Nelson," said Napoleon, "was a desperate action which cannot be proposed as a model, but in which he displayed, as well as the English crews, all the skill and vigor possible." 208 This sentence is susceptible of a double construction. The condemnation, if the words be meant as such, comes ill from the man who pushed on his desperate advance to Leoben in 1797, who at Marengo stretched his line till it broke, and who in 1798 ventured the Mediterranean fleet and the Army of Italy on the Egyptian expedition, with scarce a chance in his favor, except a superstitious reliance upon a fortune which did not betray him. The arrangements of Brueys being what they were, the odds were with the British admiral.

It has been said that, with better gunnery on the part of the French, disaster must have resulted to the attacking force; and precisely the same criticism has been applied to Trafalgar. 209 Now, putting out of consideration that Great Britain had at this date been for five years at war with France, and that British seamen had thus gained an experience of French gunnery upon which Nelson could reckon, the justice of this criticism further depends upon the circumstances of the wind and the character of the approach. An attack made with a very light wind, leaving the assailant long under the enemy's fire, or with a fresh breeze on a course that lies close to the wind, thereby bringing the greatest strain upon the spars, is a very different thing from one made with a good working breeze well abaft the beam, which was the case at the Nile. One cannot dogmatize on probabilities when, from the nature of the case, there are few precedents on which to rest an opinion. In bearing down against a fleet under way, of which there are many instances, the experience in scarcely any case was that so many spars were lost as to prevent the assailant reaching the hostile line; and at the Nile, once the anchor was down, the loss of a spar or two was of little consequence. It seems altogether probable that, had the French gunnery been much better than it was, the British ships would yet have reached their station; and once there, the tactical combination adopted would still have given them the victory, though more dearly bought. If, however, Brueys's arrangements had been more skilfully made, resembling those of Hood at St. Kitt's, and if the French gunnery had been very good, it may safely be conceded that the British admiral would have needed more circumspection in making his attack. To say that under totally different circumstances different results will obtain, is a species of prophecy with which no one need quarrel. If, in the shock of war, all things on both sides are exactly equal,—if the two admirals, their captains and crews, the ships of the fleets, the tactical arrangements, are equal, each to each,—there can be no result. When inequality, whether original or induced by circumstance, enters in any one of these factors, a result will follow proportional to the disparity. When this is great, the result will be great; when small, small. At the Battle of the Nile, the difference in admirals, in captains, in crews, in gunnery, and in tactical combination, were all greatly against the French, and the result was a disaster more than usually complete.

During the month passed by Brueys in indolent security, Bonaparte had advanced steadily in his projected conquest of Egypt. On the 21st of July the battle of the Pyramids was fought, the next day Cairo submitted, and on the 25th the general-in-chief entered the city. Remaining there a few days to repose his troops and secure his position, he departed again on the 7th of August to complete the conquest of lower Egypt; leaving Desaix to take care of Cairo and prepare the corps destined for the subjugation of the upper Nile. By the 12th of August the Mamelukes, still under arms in the Delta, had been driven into the Isthmus of Suez, whence they retired to Syria; and there, on the borders of the desert, Bonaparte received from Kleber the news of the disaster in Aboukir Bay. Under this tremendous reverse he showed the self-control of which he was always capable at need. The troops gave way to despair. "Here we are," said they, "abandoned in this barbarous country, without communication with home, without hope of return." "Well," replied their general, "we have then laid on us the obligation to do great things. Seas which we do not command separate us from home; but no seas divide us from Africa and Asia. We will found here an empire."

The magical influence he exerted over the soldiers, most of whom had followed him to victory in Italy, restored their courage, and French lightheartedness again prevailed over despondency. The blow, nevertheless, had struck home, and resounded through the four quarters of the world. The Mamelukes, Ibrahim Bey in Syria, and Mourad Bey in upper Egypt, cast down by their reverses, were preparing to treat; upon the news of Nelson's victory they resumed their arms. The Porte, incensed by the invasion of Egypt, but still hesitating, notwithstanding the pressure exerted by the ministers of Great Britain and Russia, took heart as soon as it knew that the French fleet was no more. Bonaparte had rightly warned Brueys that the preservation of his ships was necessary to hold Turkey in check. The Sultan and his Pashas of Egypt and Syria rejected the French advances. On the 2d of September a memorial was sent to all the foreign ministers in Constantinople, expressing the surprise of the Porte at Bonaparte's landing, and stating that a considerable force had been despatched for Egypt to stop his progress. On the 11th of the month war was formally declared against the French Republic. 210

Throughout the year 1798 the state of affairs on the continent of Europe had grown continually more threatening. The politico-military propagandism of the Revolution had given birth to, and was now being replaced by, an aggressive external policy, to which the victories of Bonaparte gave increased vigor and extension. It became the recognized, if not the avowed, aim of French diplomacy to surround France with small dependent republics, having institutions modelled upon the same type as her own, with all local powers merged in those of a central government. 211 The United Provinces, in becoming a republic, had retained their federal constitution; but in January, 1798, they underwent a revolution, promoted by the French Directory, which did away with the provincial independence inherited from past ages. The Cisalpine Republic and Genoa had received a similar organization at the hands of Bonaparte. In many of the cantons of Switzerland there were discontent and disturbance, due to the unequal political conditions of the inhabitants. The Directory made of this a pretext for interference, on the plea of France being interested both in the internal quiet of a neighboring country and also in the particular persons whose discontent was construed as evidence of oppression. French troops entered Switzerland in January, 1798. The canton of Berne fought for its privileges, but was easily subdued; and a packed convention, assembled at Aarau, adopted for Switzerland a centralized constitution in place of the old cantonal independence. This was followed some months later, in August, 1798, by an offensive and defensive alliance between the Helvetian and French republics.

The invasion of Berne had had another motive than the political preponderance of France in the councils of her neighbors. The revenue of the Directory still fell far short of the expenditure, and money was particularly wanted for Bonaparte's approaching expedition. Seventeen million francs were found in the Bernese treasury and appropriated. Eighteen million more were raised by requisitions, and other cantons were drained in proportion. 212 The same motive contributed, 213 at the same instant, to the occupation of Rome, for which a more plausible pretext was found. In the papal states, as elsewhere throughout Europe, French agents had secretly stirred up a revolutionary movement. On the 28th of December, 1797, this party had risen in Rome, and a collision between it and the papal troops had occurred in the neighborhood of the French embassy. General Duphot, who was then residing there, was killed while attempting to interpose between the combatants. The French ambassador at once left the city; and the Directory, refusing all explanations, ordered Berthier, Bonaparte's successor in Italy, to advance. On the 10th of February he entered Rome, recognized the Roman Republic, which was proclaimed under his auspices, and forced the Pope to retire to Tuscany. It was owing to this occupation that a contingent of the Egyptian expedition embarked at Civita Vecchia, as the most convenient point.

Neither Naples nor Austria ventured on overt action in behalf of the Pope; but the dissatisfaction of both was extreme. Never under Bonaparte himself had French troops come so near to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose importance to the common cause of the Continent, from its geographical position, was perfectly understood. But while the situation of Naples at the far end of the peninsula made it a serious danger to the flank and rear of the French, when engaged with an enemy in upper Italy, its remoteness from support, except by way of the sea, was a source of weakness to a state necessarily dependent upon allies. This was especially felt in February, 1798, when the British fleet, after a year's absence, had as yet given no sign of returning to the Mediterranean, and the ships which accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt were still in Toulon. The latter would doubtless have been directed upon Naples, had Naples moved against Rome. The Bourbon kingdom therefore swallowed its vexation, but drew closer to Austria; which, in addition to the affront offered to the Pope, had its own motives for discontent in the occupation of Switzerland by the French, and in the changes introduced into the political complexion of the Continent by these aggressive actions of the republican government. The course of the Directory during the continental peace of 1797 and 1798 was closely parallel to that of Bonaparte four years later, which made impossible the continuance of the Peace of Amiens. With less ability and less vigor, there was the same plausible, insidious, steady aggression, under color of self-protection or of yielding to popular demand, which forced on the power of France at the expense of other states. An occurrence in Vienna at this moment came near to produce war and stop the Egyptian expedition. When Bonaparte entered Germany in April, 1797, the youth of Vienna had offered themselves in mass to defend the country. In April, 1798, the anniversary of the day was celebrated with a popular demonstration, which the French ambassador resented by hoisting the tricolor. The crowds in a rage broke into and sacked the embassy. 214 So great was the excitement over this affair that the troops in Toulon and other ports were ordered not to embark, and Bonaparte himself was directed to go as plenipotentiary to Rastadt; but the emperor made explanations, and the incident passed. Still, as a French historian says, "things were getting spoiled between Austria and France." 215

Russia at the same time was fairly forced from her attitude of reserve, maintained since the death of Catherine II., by the same policy which drove the United States into the quasi war of 1798 with France. 216 A decree of the French legislature had made lawful prize any neutral ship which had on board, not merely British property, but any goods of British origin, even though the property of a neutral. This was given a special application to the Baltic by a notification, issued January 12, 1798, that "if any ship be suffered to pass through the Sound with English commodities, of whatever nation it may be, it shall be considered as a formal declaration of war against the French nation." 217 Although immediately directed against Sweden and Denmark, as the two countries bordering the Sound, this was resented by the Czar, in common with all neutral governments; and on the 15th of May, he "ordered twenty-two ships-of-the-line and two hundred and fifty galleys to proceed to the Sound, to protect trade in general against the oppression of the Directory." 218

Once enkindled, the violent and erratic temper of Paul I. soon rushed into extremes; and he received further provocation from the capture of Malta. When Bonaparte took possession of that island, he found there a treaty, just signed, by which the Czar stipulated a payment of four hundred thousand rubles to the Order, in which to the end of his days he preserved a fantastic interest. As a measure of precaution, the French general decreed that any Greeks in Malta or the Ionian Islands maintaining relations with Russia should be shot, and Greek vessels under Russian colors sunk. 219 Hence the members of the Order in Russia made, in August, a violent protest against the seizure, throwing themselves upon the Czar for a support which he eagerly promised. 220 He then drew near to Great Britain, and offered to aid Austria with troops. The emperor at first answered that nothing could be done without Prussia; and the three governments then applied themselves to obtain the accession of this kingdom to a new coalition. On the 19th of May—the very day, it may be observed, that Bonaparte sailed from Toulon—Austria and Naples signed a defensive alliance. 221 The conferences at Rastadt, so far as the emperor was concerned, were broken off on the 6th of July, although those with the empire dragged on longer. The imperial envoy, Cobentzel, at once went to Berlin, where he entered into cordial relations with the British and Russian plenipotentiaries. On the 10th of August a convention was signed between the two emperors, by which the Czar undertook to send thirty thousand troops into Galicia to support the Austrian army. Great Britain, as ever, was ready to help the cause with ships and money. Prussia refusing to join, the Russian envoy took his leave, saying: "We will make war on France with you, without you, or against you." 222