LX. 1809. CHAP. possession of the conqueror, and her government had suffered so severely from their recent ill-advised effort, that there was every reason to fear that they would now adhere to their old system of selfish indecision. A powerful army, if landed at San Sebastian, might, indeed, paralyse all the imperial forces in Spain, and occasion the evacuation of the whole Peninsula by the troops of Napoleon. But the effect of such remote success would be ning's Speech, Parl. Deb. xvi. 333, 1 Mr Can- inconsiderable on the vital line of operations in the valley of the Danube; and if the French Emperor were there successful, he would soon regain his lost footing beyond the Pyrenees, and securely complete, with undiminished. strength, from Gibraltar to Hamburg, his vast naval preparations for our subjugation.1 336. Lord Castle reagh's, ib. 99, 103. 8. selecting the Scheldt as the point of attack. On the other hand, a variety of considerations equally Reasons for powerful concurred to recommend Antwerp as the grand point of attack. Its formidable strength and increasing importance as a great naval station and arsenal, its close proximity to the British shores, the anxiety which Napoleon had evinced for its extension-pointed it out as the quarter from which, more than any other, serious danger was to be apprehended. Its fortifications, though extensive and formidable, if in good condition, were in a state hardly susceptible of defence; there was scarcely any water in the ditches; the rampart, unarmed with cannon, was in many places dilapidated and tottering; and the garrison, consisting of little more than two thousand invalids and coast-guards, was altogether unequal to the defence of its extensive works. The regular army of France was so completely absorbed by the war on the Danube and that in the Peninsula, that no considerable force could be assembled for its relief: and although, if operations in form were to be attempted, an immense body of national guards would doubtless converge to the threatened point, yet there was a fair prospect of carrying the town at once by escalade, almost before the intelligence of its danger could reach the government at Paris. LX. 1809. Immense would be the effect, moral as well as material, CHAP. of such a victory. It would demonstrate that even the territory of the great nation, and its strongest fortresses, were not beyond the reach of attack; roll back on France the terrors of invasion; destroy at once the principal naval resources and fleets of the enemy; animate all the north of Germany by the sight of a powerful army having gained a firm footing on their own shores; and intercept, by pressing dangers at home, a large portion of the reinforcements destined for the Grand Army. Even if Austria were finally to succumb, still the results gained would be immense. The most cherished naval establishment of the enemy would be destroyed; the centre of his maritime operations ruined; and his projected naval crusade against Great Britain thrown back for several years, if not rendered altogether abortive. Sound policy, therefore, recommended such a direction of our hostility as, while it powerfully aided our allies, was conducive also to our own safety; and which, increasing the chance of a successful combination against France on the Danube, provided at ning's the same time for the case of the imperial eagles returning, Parl. Deb. as heretofore, laden with the spoils of Germany, to their menacing position on the heights of Boulogne.1 1 Mr Can Speech, xvi. 338, 347. But, though the cabinet of St James's thus judged 9. rightly in selecting Antwerp as the point of attack, and Unhappy delay in the magnanimously in resolving to put forth the whole strength expedition. of the British empire, without sharing in the general panic produced by the calamitous termination of Sir John Moore's expedition; yet, in one vital point, they still proved themselves novices in combination, uninstructed by the military experience even of sixteen years. Although the resolution of the cabinet of Vienna to declare war had been known since the November preceding, though the Austrians crossed the Inn on the 9th April, though the battle of Echmühl was fought on the 21st April, and that of Aspern on the 22d May, it was not till the end of the latter month that any serious preparations began to be LX. 1809. CHAP. made by ministers for an expedition to lighten the load which had for two months been pressing on the Austrian forces. They were deterred by a communication received from the commander-in-chief, Sir D. Dundas, on the 22d of March preceding, shortly after the broken bands of Sir John Moore's army had returned from Spain, stating that fifteen thousand men could not be spared from the home service for any foreign expedition. That veteran officer in making, and government in acting on such a statement, alike proved themselves unequal to the station which they occupied in the grand struggle. To accomplish the vital object of beginning the campaign simultaneously with the Austrians, and distracting the enemy by a descent on the Scheldt, at the same time that the Archduke Charles entered Bavaria, no sacrifices could have been too great. Even if not a bayonet could have been got from the regular army, every man of the Guards should have been sent, and half of the militia invited to volunteer; and in this way fifty thousand admirable soldiers might with ease. have been collected. It was not by never diminishing the usual domestic garrisons, and reckoning none disposable Parl. Deb. but those who had no home service to perform, that Napoleon carried the French standards to Vienna and the Kremlin.1 1 See Sir D. Dundas's Evidence, xv. 85, 86. App. 10. tion is re on a very great scale. No serious steps were taken, after this abortive inquiry The expedi- as to the disposable British force, to resume the expedisolved on in tion till the 8th of June, when the muster-rolls of all the June, and regiments in the British islands having been obtained, and shown a disposable force of forty thousand men, preparations in good earnest were commenced. It was still possible to bring them to bear with great effect on the vital operations on the Danube: for the news of the battle of Aspern had just reached this country, and at the same time it was ascertained, by authentic evidence, that Antwerp was in the most defenceless state; that the garrison consisted only of two thousand four hundred men, of whom only fifteen hundred were soldiers, the CHAP. LX. 1809. remainder being invalids or artificers; that there were two small breaches on the ramparts, and that the bastions in general were not armed; that the wet ditch was fordable in some places, and only ten thousand soldiers remained in Holland, and hardly any in Flanders. But the inherent vice of procrastination still paralysed the British councils. Though every day and hour was precious, when the Scheldt was defenceless and Napoleon defeated on the Danube, no orders were given to the ordnance department to prepare battering trains till the 19th June; and though their preparations were complete, and the navy in readiness by the end of that month, the expedition did not sail till the 28th July, upwards of a week after the result of the battle of Wagram had been known in the British islands. When it is considered that the sea voyage from the Downs to the Scheldt does not occupy above thirty hours; that the British had thirty-five sail of the line, and transports innumerable at hand for the embarkation; that Marshal Ney embarked twenty-five thousand men, with all their artillery, in ten minutes; that Napoleon, who gave his orders to the Grand Army to break up from Boulogne on the 1st Sep-1 Sir T. Triggis's tember 1805, beheld them on the Rhine on the 23d of Evid. Parl. the same month, and saw Mack defile before him as a 138, and xvi. prisoner, with all his army, on the 20th October; it must 111, 119. be admitted that, notwithstanding all they had suffered tlereagh's from this defect, the British government were still charac- Gen. Craufurd's, Ibid. terised rather by the slowness of the Anglo-Saxon, than 222. the fire of the Norman character.1 Deb. xv. Lord Cas Speech, and immense When the expedition, however, even at the eleventh 11. hour, did sail from the British islands, it was on a scale Sailing and worthy both of the mistress of the seas, and of one of the magnitude greatest military powers in Europe. The armament, dition. consisting of thirty-seven ships of the line, twenty-three frigates, thirty-three sloops, eighty-two gun-boats, besides transports innumerable; and having on board thirty-nine thousand sabres and bayonets, equivalent to above forty of the expe CHAP. LX. 1809. one thousand of all arms, with two battering trains and all their stores complete, contained above a hundred thousand combatants, and was the largest and best equipped that ever put to sea in modern times. What might it not have accomplished, if conducted with vigour and Parl. Pap. directed by skill! With a British force of little greater amount, Wellington struck down the empire of France on the field of Waterloo.1 * 1 See the Details in Deb. xv. 5 and 6. 12. Holland, and great early success dition. July 30. Atlas, This stupendous armament, which whitened the ocean Landing in with its sails, arrived on the coast of Holland on the 29th of July. On the following day, twenty thousand men of the expe- were disembarked in the isle of Walcheren, and speedily took possession of Middleburg, its chief town, besides driving the French troops into the walls of Flushing. Plate 4. At the same time another division landed in Cadsand, and, expelling the enemy from that island, opened the way for the passage of the fleet up the western or principal branch of the Scheldt. Some days afterwards, Sir Richard Strachan, who commanded the naval force, disregarding the distant and ineffectual fire of the Flushing batteries, passed the straits with eighteen ships of the line, and soon both branches of the Scheldt were crowded with the British pendants. Nor was the progress of the land forces less rapid. Ter Veere, a fortress commanding the Veeregat, a narrow entrance leading into the channel which separated South Beveland, was taken, with its garrison of a thousand men; Goes, the capital of the latter island, opened its gates; and SIR JOHN HOPE, an officer destined to future celebrity in the Peninsular war, with seven thousand men, pushing rapidly on, appeared July 30. Aug. 1. * The exact British force, with the King's German Legion, at Waterloo sabres and bayonets, or about 45,000, including officers and non-commissioned officers. See Adjutant-General's Returns, 6th Nov. 1816, quoted in Jones's Waterloo, 138; Near Observer, vol. ii. |