The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II. Alfred Thayer Mahan
encounter, however brilliant, results due to an extensive, well-conceived general system. Sir James Saumarez's operations were but an epitome of an action going on everywhere from the Baltic to Egypt. By this command of the sea the British fleets, after they had adopted the plan of close-watching the enemy's ports, held everywhere interior positions, which, by interposing between the hostile detachments, facilitated beating them in detail. For the most part this advantage of position resulted in quietly detaining the enemy in port, and so frustrating his combinations. It was Saumarez's good fortune to illustrate how it could also enable a compact body of highly disciplined ships to meet in rapid succession two parts of a force numerically very superior, and by the injuries inflicted on each neutralize the whole for a definite time. But, had he never seen Linois, Bonaparte's plan still required the junctions from Rochefort and Brest which were never effected.
By naval combinations and by holding the Neapolitan ports Bonaparte sought to preserve Egypt and force Great Britain to peace. "The question of maritime peace," he wrote to Ganteaume, 48 "hangs now upon the English expedition to Egypt." Portugal, the ancient ally of Great Britain, was designed to serve other purposes of his policy,—to furnish equivalents, with which to wrest from his chief enemy the conquests that the sea power of France and her allies could not touch. "Notify our minister at Madrid," wrote he to Talleyrand, September 30, 1800, "that the Spanish troops must be masters of Portugal before October 15. This is the only means by which we can have an equivalent for Malta, Mahon, and Trinidad. Besides, the danger of Portugal will be keenly felt in England, and will by so much quicken her disposition to peace."
A secret treaty ceding Louisiana to France, in return for Tuscany to the Spanish infante, had been signed the month before; and Spain at the same time undertook to bring Portugal to break with Great Britain. Solicitation proving ineffectual, Bonaparte in the spring again demanded the stronger measure of an armed occupation of the little kingdom; growing more urgent as it became evident that Egypt was slipping from his grasp. Spain finally agreed to invade Portugal, and accepted the co-operation of a French corps. The first consul purposed to occupy at least three of the Portuguese provinces; but he was outwitted by the adroitness of the Spanish government, unwillingly submissive to his pressure, and by the compliance of his brother Lucien, French minister to Madrid. Portugal made no efficient resistance; and the two peninsular courts quickly reached an agreement, by which the weaker closed her ports to Great Britain, paid twenty million francs to France, and ceded a small strip of territory to Spain.
Bonaparte was enraged at this treaty, which was ratified without giving him a chance to interfere; 49 but in the summer of 1801 his diplomatic game reached a stage where further delay was impossible. He saw that the loss of Egypt was only a question of time; but so long as any French troops held out there it was a card in his hand, too valuable to risk for the trifling gain of a foothold in Portugal. "The English are not masters of Egypt," he writes boldly on the 23d of July to the French agent in London. "We have certain news that Alexandria can hold out a year, and Lord Hawkesbury knows that Egypt is in Alexandria;" 50 but four days later he sends the hopeless message to Murat, "There is no longer any question of embarking" 51 the troops about Taranto, sent there for the sole purpose of being nearer to Egypt. 52 He continues, in sharp contrast with his former expectation, "The station of the troops upon the Adriatic is intended to impose upon the Turks and the English, and to serve as material for compensation to the latter by evacuating those provinces." Both Naples and Portugal were too distant, too ex-centric, and thrust too far into contact with the British dominion of the sea to be profitably, or even safely, held by France in her condition of naval debility; a truth abundantly witnessed by the later events of Napoleon's reign, by the disastrous occupation of Portugal in 1807, by the reverses of Soult and Masséna in 1809 and 1811, and by the failure even to attempt the conquest of Sicily.
Russia and Prussia had grown less friendly since the death of Paul. Even their agreement that Hanover should be evacuated, disposed as they now were to please Great Britain, was to be postponed until "it was ascertained that a certain power would not occupy that country;" 53 a stipulation which betrayed the distrust felt by both. Since then each had experienced evasions and rebuffs showing the unwillingness of the first consul to meet their wishes in his treatment of the smaller states; and they suspected, although they did not yet certainly know, the steps already taken to incorporate with France regions to whose independence they held.54 Both were responding to the call of their interests, beneficially and vitally connected with the sea power of Great Britain, and threatened on the Continent by the encroaching course of the French ruler. Bonaparte felt that the attempt to make further gains in Europe, with which to traffic against those of Great Britain abroad, might arouse resistance in these great powers, not yet exhausted like Austria, and so indefinitely postpone the maritime peace essential to the revival of the French navy and the re-establishment of the colonial system; both at this time objects of prime importance in his eyes. Thus it was that, beginning the year 1801 without a single ally, in face of the triumphant march of the French armies and of a formidable maritime combination, the Sea Power of Great Britain had dispersed the Northern coalition, commanded the friendship of the great states, retained control of the Mediterranean, reduced Egypt to submission, and forced even the invincible Bonaparte to wish a speedy cessation of hostilities.
The great aim of the first consul now was to bring Great Britain to terms before news of the evacuation of Alexandria could come to hand. Negotiations had been slowly progressing for nearly six months; the first advances having been made on the 21st of March by the new ministry which came into power upon Pitt's resignation. Both parties being inclined to peace, the advantage necessarily belonged to the man who, untrammelled by associates in administration, held in absolute control the direction of his country. The Addington ministry, hampered by its own intrinsic weakness and by the eagerness of the nation, necessarily yielded before the iron will of one who was never more firm in outward bearing than in the most critical moments. He threatened them with the occupation of Hanover; he intimated great designs for which troops were embarked at Rochefort, Brest, Toulon, Cadiz, and ready to embark in Holland; he boasted that Alexandria could hold out yet a year. Nevertheless, although the terms were incontestably more advantageous to France than to Great Britain, the government of the latter insisted upon and obtained one concession, that of Trinidad, which Bonaparte at first withheld. 55 His eagerness to conclude was in truth as great as their own, though better concealed. Finally, he sent on the 17th of September an ultimatum, and added, "If preliminaries are not signed by the 10th of Vendémiaire (October 2), the negotiations will be broken." "You will appreciate the importance of this clause," he wrote confidentially to the French envoy, "when you reflect that Menou may possibly not be able to hold in Alexandria beyond the first of Vendémiaire, that at this season the winds are fair to come from Egypt, and ships reach Italy and Trieste in very few days. Thus it is essential to push them to a finish before Vendémiaire 10;" that is, before they learn the fall of Alexandria. The question of terms, as he had said before, hinged on Egypt. The envoy, however, was furnished with a different but plausible reason. "Otto can give them to understand that from our inferiority at sea and our superiority on land the campaign begins for us in winter, and therefore I do not wish to remain longer in this stagnation." 56 Whatever motives influenced the British ministry, it is evident that Bonaparte was himself in a hurry for peace. The preliminaries were signed in London on the first of October, 1801.
The conditions are easily stated. Of all her conquests, Great Britain retained only the islands of Ceylon in the East Indies and Trinidad in the West. How great this concession, will be realized by enumerating the chief territories thus restored to their former owners. These were, in the Mediterranean, Elba, Malta, Minorca; in the West Indies, Tobago, Santa Lucia, Martinique, and the extensive Dutch possessions in Guiana; in Africa, the Cape of Good Hope; and in India, the French and Dutch stations in the peninsula. France consented to leave to Portugal her possessions entire, to withdraw her troops from the kingdom of Naples and the Roman territory, and to acknowledge the independence of the Republic of the Seven Islands.
March 2, 1801. Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 72.
The treaty was signed June 6, and ratified June 16. (Ann. Reg. 1801; State Papers, p. 351.) Bonaparte received his copy June 15. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 215.)
Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 256.
Ibid., p. 266.
See ante, p. 60.
Ann. Reg. 1801; State Papers, p. 257.
Paul I. had particularly held to the preservation of Naples and the restitution of Piedmont to the king of Sardinia. On April 12 the first consul heard of Paul's death, and the same day issued an order making Piedmont a military division of France. This was purposely antedated to April 2. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 147.) Talleyrand was notified that this was a first, though tentative, step to incorporation. If the Prussian minister remonstrated, he was to reply that France had not discussed the affairs of Italy with the king of Prussia. (Ibid., p. 153.) Alexander was civilly told that Paul's interest in the Italian princes was considered to be personal, not political. (Ibid., p. 169.) The Russian ambassador, however, a month later haughtily reminded Talleyrand that his mission depended upon the "kings of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies being again put in possession of the states which they possessed before the irruption of the French troops into Italy." (Ann. Reg., 1801; State Papers, pp. 340-342) Liguria (Genoa) was also made a military division of France by order dated April 18. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 162.)
While refusing this in his instructions to the French negotiator, the latter was informed he might yield it, if necessary. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vii., pp. 255-258.)
Corr. de Nap., vol. vii. p. 323.