1903); Sir D. Haig, Cavalry Studies (London, 1907); G. A. Furse, Ulm,
Trafalgar and Austerlitz (London, 1905). For 1806–1807, Pr. Kraft
zu Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen, Letters on Strategy (Eng. trans., vol. i.);
Freiherr v. d. Goltz, Rossbach und Jena; the new edition of the same
work, Von Rossbach bis Jena und Auerstzädt (Berlin, 1906) and Von
Jena bis Preussisch-Eylau (Berlin, 1908); Studies in French
Gen. Staff Revue d’Histoire (1909); P. Foucart, Campagne de Prusse;
H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre d’Iéna (Paris, 1904); Memoirs of Bennigsen
(trans. by E. Cazalas, French Gen. Staff, 1909); F. N.
Maude, The Jena Campaign (London, 1909); F. L. Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland
(London, 1902). For 1809, H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre de Landshut
(Paris, 1905); Saski, Campagne de 1809
(Paris, 1899–1902); Ritter v. Angeli, Erzherzog Karl (Vienna,
1895–1897); Lieut. Field Marshal von Woinovich (ed.), Das Kriegsjahr 1809;
Buat, De Ratisbonne à Znaim (Paris, 1910).
For 1812, G. Fabry (French Gen. Staff), Campagne de 1812 (Paris,
1904); La Guerre nationale de 1812 (French translation from the
Russian general staff work, Paris, 1904); H. Bonnal, La Manœuvre de Vilna
(Paris, 1905); Freiherr v. d. Osten-Sacken, Feldzug 1812
(Berlin, 1899); H. B. George, Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia (London,
1900). For 1813, F. N. Maude, The Leipzig Campaign (London,
1908); Lanrezac, La Manœuvre de Lützen; B. v. Quistorp, Gesch. der Nordarmee 1813
(1894); v. Holleben, Gesch. des Frühjahrsfeldzug 1813
(Berlin, 1904); Friedrich, Der Herbstfeldzug 1813
(Berlin, 1905–1906). For 1814, German Gen. Staff, Kriegsgesch. Einzelschriften,
No. 13; v. Janson, Der Feldzug 1814 in Frankreich
(Berlin, 1903–1905). See also works mentioned under French Revolutionary Wars
and under biographical headings, as well as
the general histories of the time.
Naval Operations
The French navy came under the direct and exclusive control of Napoleon after the 18th Brumaire. At the close of 1799 (see French Revolutionary Wars) he had three purposes to serve by the help of his fleet the relief of the French garrison besieged by the British forces in Malta; the reinforcement of the army he had left in Egypt; and the distraction of Great Britain by the threat of invasion of England across the Channel, or of Ireland. The deficiencies both in number and in quality of his naval resources doomed him to fail in all three. Though he had control of what remained of the navies of Holland and Spain, as well as of the French, he was outnumbered at every point, while the efficiency of the British fleet gave it a mobility which doubled its material superiority. All Napoleon’s efforts to support his troops in Malta and Egypt were necessarily made under the hampering obligation to evade the British forces barring the road. The inevitable result was that only an occasional blockade-runner could succeed in escaping detection and attack. The relief thus brought to Malta and Egypt was not sufficient. In February 1800, the “Généreux” (74), one of the few ships which escaped from the Nile, sailed from Toulon with three corvettes, under Rear-admiral Perrée, to relieve Malta. On the 18th she was sighted by the blockading squadron, surrounded and captured. Three other survivors of the Nile were at anchor in Malta—the “Guillaume Tell” (80), and two frigates, the “Diane” and the “Justice.” On the 29th of July the “Guillaume Tell” endeavoured to slip out in the night. She was sighted, pursued and overpowered, after a singularly gallant resistance. The frigates made an attempt to get off on the 24th of August, but only the “justice,” a solitary survivor of the squadron which fought at the Nile, reached Toulon. Malta, starved out by the British fleet, surrendered on the 5th of September 1800. Very similar was the fate of the efforts to reach and reinforce the army of Egypt. The British squadrons either stopped the relieving forces at their point of departure, or baffled, when they did not take them, at their landfall. A squadron of seven sail of the line, under Admiral Ganteaume, succeeded in slipping out of Brest, when a gale had driven the British blockading force off the coast. Ganteaume met with some measure of success in capturing isolated British men-of-war, one of them being a 74, the “Swiftsure.” But he failed to give effectual help to the Egyptian army. He sailed on the 23rd of January 1801, entered the Mediterranean and, his squadron being in a bad condition, steered for Toulon, which he reached on the 18th of February. On the 19th of March he sailed again for Egypt, but was again driven back by the same causes on the 5th of April. On the 25th he was ordered out once more. Three of his ships had to be sent back as unfit to keep the sea. With the other four he reached the coast of Egypt, on the 7th of May, only to sight a powerful British force, and to be compelled to escape to Toulon, which he did not reach till the 22nd of July. The French in Egypt were in fact beaten before he reached the coast. At the beginning of 1801, a British naval force, commanded by Lord Keith, had sailed from Gibraltar, escorting an army of 18,000 men under General Abercromby. It reached Marmorice Bay, in Asia Minor, on the 31st of January, to arrange a co-operation with the Turks, and after some delay the army was transported and landed in Egypt, on the 7th and 8th of March. Before the end of September the French army was reduced to capitulate. In the interval another effort to carry help to it was made from Toulon. On the 13th of June 1801 Rear-admiral Linois left Toulon with three sail of the line, to join a Spanish squadron at Cadiz and go on to Egypt. In the straits he was sighted by the British squadron under Sir J. Saumarez, and driven to seek the protection of the Spanish batteries in Algeciras. On the 6th of July he beat off a British attack, capturing the “Hannibal,” 74. On the 9th a Spanish squadron came to his assistance, and the combined force steered for Cadiz. During the night of the 12th/13th of July they were attacked by Sir J. Saumarez. Two Spanish three-deckers blew up, and a 74-gun ship was taken. The others were blockaded in Cadiz. The invasion scheme was vigorously pushed after the 3rd of March 1801. Flat-bottomed boats were gradually collected at Boulogne. Two attempts to destroy them at anchor, though directed by Nelson himself, were repulsed on the 4th and 16th of August. But the invasion was so far little more than a threat made for diplomatic purposes. On the 1st of October 1801 an armistice was signed in London, and the Peace of Amiens followed, on the 27th of March 1802. (For the operations in the Baltic in 1801, see Copenhagen, Battle of.)
The Peace of Amiens proved to be only an uneasy truce, and it was succeeded by open war, on the 18th of May 1803. From that date till about the middle of August 1805, a space of some two years and two months, the war took the form of a most determined attempt on the part of Napoleon to carry out an invasion of Great Britain, met by the counter measures of the British government. The scheme of invasion was based on the Boulogne flotilla, a device inherited from the old French royal government, through the Republic. Its object was to throw a great army ashore on the coast between Dover and Hastings. The preparations were made on an unprecedented scale. The Republic had collected some two hundred and forty vessels. Under the direction of Napoleon ten times as many were equipped. They were divided into: prames, ship-rigged, of 35 metres long and 8 wide, carrying 12 guns; chaloupes cannonières of 24 metres long and 5 wide, carrying 5 guns and brig-rigged; bateaux cannoniers, of 19 metres long by 1·56 wide, carrying 2 guns and mere boats. All were built to be rowed, were flat-bottomed, and of shallow draft so as to be able to navigate close to the shore, and to take the ground without hurt. They were built in France and the Low Countries, in the coast towns and the rivers—even in Paris—and were collected gradually, shore batteries both fixed and mobile being largely employed to cover the passage. A vast sum of money and the labour of thousands of men were employed to clear harbours for them, at and near Boulogne. The shallow water on the coast made it impossible for the British line-of-battle ships, or even large frigates, to press the attack on them home. Smaller vessels they were able to beat off and so, in spite of the activity of the British cruisers and of many sharp encounters, the concentration was effected at Boulogne, where an army of 130,000 was encamped and was incessantly practised in embarking and disembarking. Before the invasion was taken in hand as a serious policy, there had been at least a profession of a belief that the flotilla could push across the Channel during a calm. Experience soon showed that when the needful allowance was made for the time required to bring them out of harbour (two tides) and for the influence which the Channel currents must have upon their speed, it would be extremely rash to rely on a calm of sufficient length. Napoleon therefore came
