Britain at Bay

Defence Against Bonaparte, 1803-14

Richard Glover

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781032037462
• eBook ISBN: 9781000408676
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

In the years 1803-5 Napoleon Bonaparte built 4 new harbours on his channel coast and assembled enough landing craft to put an army of over 165, 000 men ashore on English beaches. Was this threat to Britain really serious and should we dismiss it as pure Bluff? Why was it never revived after Bonaparte's continental wars against the Russians, Austrians and Prussians? What did the English do about defending themselves? This book, originally published in 1973 tackles these questions. It shows why Bonaparte's flotilla was no Bluff but something the British were right to take seriously and also how their preparations to defend the beaches within reach of its bases made a revival of the flotilla after 1807 pointless. Though recognising the importance of Trafalgar the book rejects the fallacy that this victory ended Britain's danger. The book covers the background of the war, Britain's defence organisation, the Royal Navy's tasks, Bonaparte's preparations and how the British made ready to meet him.

INTRODUCTION

1
Background

How Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul (and after 1804 Emperor)¹ of the French, planned to invade and conquer Britain in 1803–5 is one of the abiding folk memories of the English people. As children, in our school days, we heard about his great ‘Army of England’ drilling on the cliffs of France, all ready and waiting to cross the Channel. We heard, too, of the vast flotilla of invasion barges which ‘Boney’ assembled in his Channel ports to ferry this army over to England. The climax of the story was how Nelson met a hero’s death in his victory at Trafalgar; and from then on, it was inferred, everybody in England lived happily ever after, because the danger of invasion was over.

¹ The British never recognised this latter title which Bonaparte assumed after England went to war with France in 1803 and had lost before peace was made in 1814. To them he remained, officially, General Bonaparte throughout the war.

Those well-known episodes in British history are part of the subject of this book. The present chapter will examine, first, the nature of the dangers confronting Britain throughout the Napoleonic War. Secondly, it will review the changing stages of that war, from its start when Britain fought alone to its end in which Britain contributed much to the final victory that freed Europe from French domination.

DANGERS CONFRONTING BRITAIN

The first thing to be said about the danger of invasion is that it was real; and the second is that we were misinformed when we were led to suppose that the victory of Trafalgar put an end to it.

It is necessary to insist that England’s danger was real, because today some make light of it. Among them are certain British naval historians who are perhaps over-impressed by Admiral Lord St Vincent’s remark to his fellow peers, ‘I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I only say they will not come by sea’; and a more positive remark than that could hardly be made. But before one accepts it at face value, it is proper to ask whether, in the circumstances, St Vincent could have said anything less positive. For St Vincent was not only a distinguished seaman; he was also First Lord of the Admiralty in Addington’s cabinet; his preparations for defence were under bitter attack; this much quoted statement was part of his reply; and on such an occasion no politician can be expected to confess any doubts he may privately feel about his own handiwork. But St Vincent’s fellow admirals did not all share his publicly expressed confidence. Among those who differed was Admiral Lord Keith, whose command of the squadron charged with guarding the invasion coasts compelled him to examine carefully all possibilities open to the enemy; and in October 1803 he was at pains to give the Commander-in-Chief of the Army a confidential warning that the French fleet might ‘get out of Brest unperceiveď and run up to ‘the Downs or Margate Roads, in which case it might be superior to our squadron long enough to cover the landing of any extent of Force’ on the English coast (Doc. 2). And in this statement Lord Keith endorses the practicality of something very like Bonaparte’s actual plan for 1805.

Across the Channel the question of how seriously Bonaparte really intended to invade England was raised by no less a man than Col. Edouard Desbrière, who made so exhaustive study of French projects for attacking Britain. Desbrière noted that in July 1805, Bonaparte had landing craft enough to carry over 151,940 men across the Chanáel (a total of which had grown to 167,000 by 8 August), but no more than 93,000 at his Channel ports ready to sail nor any reinforcements nearer than Paris; and Paris was four days’ march away. These facts led Desbrière to suggest that the Boulogne flotilla was a mere bluff, designed partly to scare the British, and partly to enable Bonaparte to keep a great army ready for service at any moment against Austria; and Sir Julian Corbett was emphatically of the same opinion.²

² Edouard Desbrière, Projets et Tentatives de Débarąuement aux Isles Brìtanmques (Paris, 1902) IV, 830. Corbett was even more downright, declaring, ‘Nothing, not even the army itself, was ever ready’. The Campaign of Trafalgar (new edition, London, 1919) 1, 17.

But these authors had evidently not made some rather particular calculations which must be made before Bonaparte’s situation can be properly assessed; and when they are made it appears that he should have had ample time to complete his concentration.

The data are as follows. First, the fleet, with which Bonaparte intended to protect his voyage, was to reach the Channel from the East, after going north-about round Ireland and Scotland and stopping off the Texel to pick up the Dutch battle squadron (Doc. 14c). Second, the distance from the Texel to Boulogne is nearly 300 miles; and 100 miles a day was a good average for ships under sail³; also the Dutch might have to wait at least half a day for a tide to get them out of Texel. Hence a space of three days must be reckoned to elapse between the fleet’s arrival at the Texel and the start of the invasion. But, third, Texel was linked with Paris by the semaphore telegraph, and the fleet’s arrival there should be known to Bonaparte within an hour, and his marching orders to the army should be promptly issued. This means that additional troops should begin reaching Boulogne only some twenty-four hours after the fleet. Then, fourth, the Boulogne flotilla was so large that it needed six tides, or three days, to get to sea. So reinforcements ordered to march after the fleet’s arrival at the Texel was signalled should reach Boulogne in time probably for the third, certainly for the fourth, tide after the operation began. The only troops needed at the coast earlier than that were those who would go off on the first two or three tides; and for that some 93,000, or well over half the force the boats could carry, would seem ample.

³ So I was first informed by my friend Mr B. Sivertz, recently Commissioner for the North West Territories and a former officer in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Hitler War, who in his youth twice crossed the Pacific under sail. I find his recollections supported by the record of Captain William Bligh, who averaged 108 miles per day on his voyage from Britain to Tahiti in the Bounty. It is proper to stress that we are here dealing in averages, taking good days with bad; and that on good days ships might do more than 100; but it is also proper to recall that the prevailing winds in the Channel are from the West, i.e. head winds for a fleet proceeding from the Texel to Boulogne.

The fact, then, that Bonaparte never concentrated on the coast more than two thirds of the men his invasion craft could carry is not evidence that he never seriously intended to invade England. It is nothing more than another example of how he applied his own maxim ‘Disperse to feed, concentrate to fight’ - and in these days, when trains, lorries and aircraft enable us so speedily to deliver any amount of tinned foods at a given point, it is important to remember how hard it then was to feed great masses of men in an age when our modern means of transport, and even the art of preserving tinned foods, were still undreamt of.

There should, then, be no doubts about the reality of the danger England faced in 1803–5. The British admiral commanding in the Straits of Dover believed it possible that the French might gain command of the narrow seas for long enough to land ‘any extent of Force’ on the English coast; and a study of the time factor leaves no grounds for the supposition that Bonaparte was only bluffing. Then add that Bonaparte devoted two years to building and assembling his vast flotilla of specially designed landing craft; that he created four new harbours to shelter it; also that on 14 March 1805 - the very year in which it is suggested his proposed invasion of England was a mere front to conceal preparations against Austria - he ordered an additional 20,000,000 francs to be spent on improving his roads from Paris to his naval bases, Brest, Cherbourg and Boulogne, but not a cent for the roads leading from Calais and Boulogne to Austrian territory;⁴ and it becomes impossible not to believe that in 1803–5 Bonaparte had every intention of landing in England and crushing his enemies there on their own soil.

⁴ J. Holland Rose, Pitt and Napoleon: Essays and Letters (London, 1912) 137.

But when the reality of the menace in 1803–5 is accepted, curious doubts remain about the years after 1805; and some serious historians, who do not belittle the threat from Boulogne, allege that Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar made ‘any revival of the [invasion] threat impossible’ - an allegation which poses as ba£Sing a riddle as any in historiography today. How can that assertion be made by authors who also describe the Copenhagen campaign of 1807 and the Walcheren Expedition of 1809? For it is made by such authors; and yet the British attacks on both Copenhagen and the Scheldt were essentially defensive. Neither had a chance of weakening Bonaparte’s landpower, but each was a blow against the seapower with which he threatened England; and, with their kindred operations, Sir Sidney Smith’s threat to bombard Lisbon in November 1807 and Admiral Gambler’s very effective night attack on the Aix Roads in April 1809,⁵ they betoken a change in the nature of the war.

⁵ I say ‘Gambier’s … night attack’ because the attack with fire ships was his idea, proposed before the Admiralty inflicted Captain Lord Cochrane on him as its executant. I say ‘Very effective’ because it resulted in the complete destruction of one 50-gun ship and 3 ships of the line and put the other 7 French line of battle ships out of action by damaging them so severely that it took years, rather than months, to repair them. After carefully reading the evidence given at Gambier’s court martial I am left, first, with a conviction that nothing more could have been done in the action and, second, with a total contempt for Cochrane as a man of honour. His Autobiography of a Seaman is not only highly selective in the evidence it chooses to present; it also contains falsehoods which the age of its author at the time of writing cannot excuse. Errors of memory one may pardon; deliberate lies one may not; and Cochrane is just a plain and shameless liar who, in describing Gambier’s trial, presents, with all the paraphernalia of quotation marks and page references, texts that purport to be the actual words of the witnesses, but are in fact Cochrane’s own rewriting of their evidence with substantial modifications - all duly quoted and italicised beside the original by Lady Chatterton in her Memorials… of Admiral Lord Gambier, vol. 11. Before one complains that after the Aix Roads Cochrane ‘was slighted in every possible way [by the Admiralty] and never employed again’ one should ask what commander would consent to accept him as a subordinate after seeing how he had treated Gambier. See also E. Chevalier, Histoire de la marine française OParis, 1886), 341.

That change in the nature of the war came in 1806. Until 1806 was well advanced, there were no regular fortifications to protect the beaches of Kent and Sussex; instead the enemy’s handiest landing places were guarded by nothing better than guns in earthen entrenchments. Against such defences an assault landing had unpleasantly good prospects of success; and, while this was the case, Bonaparte could continue to plan an invasion of England with only a local and temporary command of the sea and with a flotilla designed for no more than a ten or twelve hour voyage in good weather. But this favourable situation ended in the autumn of 1806 when those new coast defences, the Martello Towers and the Royal Military Canal, were finished and ready for use. As we shall see, these formidable new fortifications made it fruitless to attempt an assault on those beaches which could be reached with a short voyage and only a local command of the sea. Henceforth, if Bonaparte was to subdue Britain, he must first defeat the Royal Navy on the seas.

To this task he now turned, and there was nothing in the results of Trafalgar to make it impossible for him to succeed. That great batde was indeed a crowning mercy for England. One way or another, none òf the eighteen French line of batde ships which took part in it ever fought for France again; and this loss, followed, as it was, by Sir John Duckworth’s destruction of all five ships in Leissegue’s squadron off St Domingo in February 1806, and the losses suffered by Willaumez, dealt a heavy blow to Bonaparte’s seapower.⁶ But it could not destroy his seàpower. Fran...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Documents
• Index