During the months after the Treaty of Amiens, Napoleon moved
aggressively to cement France’s control over the states along its borders.
Although this did not violate the Peace of Amiens, the British grew alarmed.
They also were alarmed by France’s protectionist trade policies, its actions in
St. Domingue, and perhaps most of all by its hints that it might again invade
Egypt. What precipitated war, however, was the strategically vital island of
Malta, which the British had promised to return to the Knights of Malta. The
British regretted their promise, and fearing the French would capture the
island again, they refused to comply with the terms of the Treaty of Amiens.
Napoleon considered this a provocation that he could not accept without showing
weakness. In May 1803, barely a year after the signing of the formal peace, a
new war began. Napoleon had not expected a lengthy peace, but he did not wish
war to begin before he was ready. Unfortunately he and the British government
each had attempted the dangerous tactic of using threats to force the other to
back down, such as French bluster about a new attack on Egypt. Given the mutual
suspicions of the two countries, this virtually guaranteed war.
This premature war caught both the French navy and the
British navy unready. The French had inadequate time to rebuild their navy,
particularly given the wear and tear caused by the St. Domingue operation.
Although the French navy still had a dozen ships in construction from the
previous war and had begun half a dozen more since its end, it had launched
only one ship of the line since war’s end and acquired two from Spain as the
final installment of their 1800 agreement. Moreover, its existing ships still
needed repair. The worst were the Terrible, 110, and ten 74’s, which were
judged beyond repair; only twenty-three ships of the line were at sea or in
condition to serve, including thirteen still in the West Indies. Furthermore
the dockyards had not yet been replenished.
Napoleon admitted in 1802 that the
French navy needed more than ten years to match the British.
Fortunately for France, the Addington government initially
had taken the Peace of Amiens seriously and had demobilized the British fleet.
Worse still, its new first lord of the admiralty, Earl St. Vincent, promptly
began an ill-timed economy campaign that disrupted the work of the shipyards.
During the period between hostilities, the British navy launched only two 74’s
and two 50’s, while only ten ships were on the building slips when war resumed.
Not surprisingly, it took the British even more time than usual to mobilize
their fleet. Only seventy-six ships of the line and ten ships of 50–56 guns
were in service on 1 January 1804, and only about a dozen ships of the line and
50’s were added over the course of the year.
Napoleon and his naval minister, the naval architect
Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait, immediately began planning to invade England.
In March 1801 the Consulate had ordered the construction of a flotilla of
landing craft and of shallow draft prames to escort them, although little work
was completed before the end of the war; only one of the 110-foot prames
(carrying 12 cannon) was launched in 1801, for example. Similar delays had
plagued the attempts of Choiseul to build 22-gun 130-foot-long prames for his
invasion attempt of 1759; twelve were launched, but not until after the
invasion attempt had been abandoned.
Napoleon now began a new and much more massive effort to
build a flotilla of landing craft; between September 1803 and September 1804,
more than 25 percent of the French budget was spent on the navy, including some
15 million francs donated by various municipalities for shipbuilding as had
been done following the defeats of Quiberon and the Saintes. By mid-1805 the
navy had launched nineteen prames, more than 300 chaloupe cannonières
(approximately 80 feet long and carrying 4 or 5 cannon), and numerous other
vessels. An army of more than 100,000 men was assembled along the Straits of
Dover and trained to board its landing ships quickly. Without an escorting
fleet of numerous ships of the line, however, the invasion flotilla could not
sail. The British navy blockaded the twenty ships of the line available in
Brest, five at Ferrol returning from the Caribbean, and half a dozen or so at
Rochefort. For this duty the British made use of forty-five to fifty ships of
the line, of which at least thirty were always at sea.
The French lacked the strength to break the blockade unless
the British were lured off station or the dozen ships of the Toulon fleet could
elude the British and reach Brest. Both were slim possibilities, particularly
since command of the British fleet off Brest was given to Admiral William
Cornwallis, an experienced commander respected by both St. Vincent and Nelson.
The squadrons of Toulon and Rochefort were not able to sail until the beginning
of 1805. By then Napoleon had placed the navy under an experienced naval
officer, Rear Admiral Denis Decrès, who served as naval minister until the end
of 1814. Napoleon continued to direct naval strategy, but without appreciating
its inherent difficulties. Unlike Napoleon’s armies, the French navy could not
disregard wind and weather, and it was never able to train the crews of its
ships adequately.
The British political situation had changed. On 10 May 1804
Pitt, who had become disillusioned with the Addington government, returned to
office. His political position was far weaker than during his previous
administration; even his cousin Grenville had become a political opponent. His
friend Dundas, now Viscount Melville, however, was willing to serve in his
cabinet. Pitt named him to replace the misguided St. Vincent as first lord of
the admiralty. Melville, a fine administrator, served for only eleven months
before resigning because of his involvement in a financial scandal. He was
replaced by his friend and relation, the exceptionally experienced and able
Charles Middleton, who was raised to the peerage as Baron Barham.
Upon resuming office Pitt quickly turned his attention to creating
a new coalition to oppose Napoleon on the European continent, eventually
enlisting Russia and Austria but not Prussia. It was not until 1805, however,
that war on the continent resumed. In the interim Britain added to its own
enemies. Although Spain was trying to remain neutral, Pitt assumed she was
preparing to join France. In a similar circumstance in 1761, Pitt’s father had
argued unsuccessfully for seizing a Spanish treasure fleet expected from the
Western Hemisphere. The younger Pitt met no opposition within his cabinet when
he proposed doing the same thing. On 5 October 1804 a squadron of British
frigates intercepted four Spanish frigates carrying treasure. It captured
three, while the fourth exploded with heavy loss of life. The court of Charles
IV of Spain was outraged. Spain joined the war as a French ally.
Such ruthlessness was a mark of the times. In one way the
British were even more ruthless than the French; even under the Terror, the
Convention rejected the idea of assassinating William Pitt, whereas the British
government was involved in attempts to assassinate Napoleon. The Britain of
Pitt and the France of Napoleon were heirs to the brutal legacy of Cromwell’s
England, Louis XIV’s France, Frederick the Great’s Prussia, and Catherine the
Great’s Russia. Napoleon’s subsequent savage repression of Spain did not differ
greatly except in scale from the Russian treatment of Poland or the British
treatment of Ireland. None could really compare with the horrors of the
twentieth century, the closest approximation being the unrestrained cruelty and
racism of the war in St. Domingue.
Although Napoleon was arrogant and
duplicitous, some of his policies were progressive, like his support of
religious toleration. For all his faults, he was more similar to Louis XIV than
to madmen like Robespierre or Hitler.
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