The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II. Alfred Thayer Mahan
peace might be opened. The reply from both sovereigns came through the ordinary channels of their respective ministries. Austria said civilly that she could not negotiate apart from her allies; and furthermore, that the war being only to preserve Europe from universal disorder, due to the unstable and aggressive character of the French governments since the Revolution, no stable peace could be made until there was some guarantee for a change of policy. This she could not yet recognize in the new administration, which owed its existence only to the violent overthrow of its predecessor. Great Britain took substantially the same ground. Peace was worse than worthless, if insecure; and experience had shown that no defence except that of steady and open hostility was availing, while the system which had prevailed in France remained the same. She could not recognize a change of system in the mere violent substitution of one set of rulers for another. Disavowing any claim to prescribe to France what should be her form of government, the British ministry nevertheless said distinctly that the best guarantee for a permanent change of policy would be the restoration of the Bourbons. This seemingly impolitic suggestion insured—what was very possibly its object—the continuance of the war until were realized the advantages that seemed about to accrue. Not only were the conditions at that time overwhelmingly in favor of the allies, but there was also every probability of the reduction of Egypt and Malta, and of further decisive successes in Italy. These, if obtained, would be so many cards strengthening their hands in the diplomatic game to be played in the negotiations for peace. Believing, as the British ministry of that day assuredly did, that a secure peace could only be based on the exhaustion, and not upon the moderation or good faith, of their enemy, it would have been the height of folly to concede time, or submit to that vacillation of purpose and relaxation of tension which their own people would certainly feel, if negotiations were opened.
Nor were these military and moral considerations the only ones affecting the decision of the government. Despite the immense burdens imposed by the war to support her own military expenditures and furnish the profuse subsidies paid to her allies, the power of the country to bear them was greatly increased. Thanks to the watery rampart which secured peace within her borders, Great Britain had now become the manufactory and warehouse of Europe. The commercial and maritime prostration of Holland and France, her two great rivals in trade and manufactures, had thrown into her hands these sources of their prosperity; and she, through the prodigious advances of the ten years' peace, was fully ready to profit by them. By the capture of their foreign possessions and the ruin of the splendid French colony in Haïti, she now controlled the chief regions whence were drawn the tropical products indispensable to Europeans. She monopolized their markets as well as the distribution of their produce. Jealously reserving to British merchant shipping the trade of her own and conquered colonies, she yet met the immense drain made by the navy upon her merchant seamen by relaxing the famous Navigation Laws; permitting her ships to be manned by foreigners, and foreign ships to engage in branches of her commerce closed to them in time of peace. But while thus encouraging neutrals to carry the surplus trade, whose rapid growth was outstripping the capacity of her own shipping, she rigorously denied their right to do as much for her enemies. These severe restrictions, which her uncontrolled sea-power enabled her to maintain, were re-enforced by suicidal edicts of the French government, retaliating upon the same unhappy neutrals the injury their weakness compelled them to accept from the mistress of the seas,—thus driving them from French shores, and losing a concurrence essential to French export and import. In this time of open war no flag was so safe from annoyance as the British, for none other was protected by a powerful navy. Neutrals sought its convoy against French depredations, and the navigation of the world was now swayed by this one great power, whom its necessities had not yet provoked to lay a yoke heavier than the oppressed could bear.
To this control of the carrying trade, and of so much of the agricultural production of the globe, was added a growing absorption of the manufactures of Europe, due to the long war paralyzing the peaceful energies of the continental peoples. In the great system of circulation and exchange, everything thus tended more and more to Great Britain; which was indicated as the natural centre for accumulation and distribution by its security, its accessibility, and its nearness to the continent on which were massed the largest body of consumers open to maritime commerce. Becoming thus the chief medium through which the business of the civilized world was carried on and its wants supplied, her capital grew apace; and was steadily applied, by the able hands in which it accumulated, to develop, by increased production and increased facilities of carriage, the powers of the country to supply demands that were continually increasing on both sides of the Atlantic. The foreign trade, export and import, which in 1792, the last year of peace, had amounted to £44,500,000, rose in 1797 to £50,000,000, and in 1800 to £73,700,000. Encouraged by these evident proofs of growing wealth, the ministry was able so to increase the revenue that its receipts, independent of extraordinary war taxes, far exceeded anything it had ever been before, "or," to use Pitt's words, "anything which the most sanguine hopes could have anticipated. If," he continued, "we compare this year of war with former years of peace, we shall in the produce of our revenue and in the extent of our commerce behold a spectacle at once paradoxical, inexplicable, and astonishing. We have increased our external and internal commerce to a greater pitch than ever it was before; and we may look to the present as the proudest year that has ever occurred for this country." 10
With such resources to sustain the armies of their allies, and certain of keeping a control of the sea unparalleled even in the history of Great Britain, the ministry looked hopefully forward to a year which should renew and complete the successes of 1799. They reckoned without Bonaparte, as Bonaparte in his turn reckoned again and again without Nelson.
Russia took no more part in the coalition; but the forces of Germany, under the control of Austria and subsidized by Great Britain, either actually in the field or holding the fortified posts on which the operations depended, amounted to something over two hundred and fifty thousand men. Of these, one hundred and twenty-five thousand under Mélas were in Italy. The remainder under General Kray were in Germany, occupying the angle formed by the Rhine at Bâle, where, after flowing west from Lake Constance, it turns abruptly north for the remainder of its course. The plan of campaign was to stand on the defensive in Germany, holding in check the enemies there opposed to them, and in Italy to assume a vigorous offensive, so as to drive the French finally out of the country. That achieved, the idea was entertained of entering France at the extreme south, and possibly investing Toulon, supported by the British navy.
When Bonaparte first took charge, there remained to France only two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, of whom at the opening of the campaign of 1800 there were in the field, opposed to the Austrians, but one hundred and sixty-five thousand. One hundred thousand conscripts were called for; but time would be needed to turn these into soldiers, even with the advantage of the nucleus of veterans around whom they would be gathered. The equipment and provisioning both of the old and new levies also required time and effort. Bonaparte's project was to assume the offensive in Germany, turning there the position of the Austrians, and driving them northward from the Rhine towards the head waters of the Danube. For this great operation the army under Moreau was raised to an equality with the enemy opposed to him. Masséna in Italy was directed to stand solely on the defensive, concentrating around Genoa the bulk of the thirty-five or forty thousand men which alone he had. While he held this position in such force, the Austrians could scarcely advance into France along the narrow coast road, leaving him in the rear. When the expected success in Germany was won, there was to be detached from that army, which should then assume an attitude of observation, a corps twenty thousand strong. This should cross Switzerland, entering Italy by the St. Gothard Pass, and there joining a force of forty thousand to be led by the First Consul in person through the Pass of St. Bernard. This mass of sixty thousand men was to throw itself in rear of the Austrians, forcing them to fight for their communications through Lombardy, and hoping under the first general of the age to win, over a less skilful opponent, such victories as had illustrated the famous campaigns of 1796 and 1797.
Bonaparte's plan thus hinged upon the French occupation of Switzerland, which, intervening as a great rampart between the Austrians in Germany and Italy, permitted him to cover the movements against the former by the curtain of the Rhine between Lake Constance and Bâle, and to use safely and secretly the passes leading into the plains of Lombardy and Piedmont. To this advantage of position he conjoined, with
Speech of February 18, 1801.