Nelson's Battles. Nicholas Tracy
British hands. French, Spanish and Austrian interests converged in the area. In the wars at the beginning of the eighteenth century London, by deploying a fleet to the Mediterranean coast of France, had tied down large French armies far away from the decisive theatres in Germany and Flanders. The capacity of the British Mediterranean fleet to provide protection for allies threatened by seaborne attack was even more important.
British governments were aware of the need to support the prestige of the Royal Navy by reacting to any use of naval power by other states that might undermine Britain’s role of naval arbiter. The mobilisation of 1770 in response to a Spanish attack on British interests in the Falkland Islands, which was the occasion for Nelson’s first joining the navy, was primarily motivated by the need to protect the reputation of Britain’s naval power.45 The circumstances of that crisis were as much concerned with the affairs of the Mediterranean as they were with those of the South Atlantic. In 1790 Spain was warned off interference in British interests in Vancouver Island, and for the same reason.
When in 1796, after the defeat of the Royalist uprising in Toulon, the decision was taken to withdraw the British fleet from the Mediterranean, the effect on British affairs in the region was most unfortunate. The defection of Austria from the first coalition against France followed. The damage done to British interests began to be repaired in 1798 when the deployment of a squadron under Nelson defeated the French at the Nile putting an end to Napoleon’s ability to determine events by moving a French army about the Mediterranean. The consequence was that Turkey concluded an understanding with Britain. Turkish and British armies were transported to Egypt, and eventually the army that Napoleon had abandoned there to its fate was defeated. The Kingdom of Naples threw off its restraint, and openly returned to hostilities with France. In December Russia concluded an alliance with Britain, and extended her protection to Naples. In 1799 a joint Turkish and Russian army expelled the French from Corfu and a Russian army of 6,000 was left as a garrison. Austria adhered to this second coalition against France. The ambition of the Russians to acquire their own naval footing in the Mediterranean, however, complicated Anglo-Russian relations in the 1800s, as indeed it had in the 1760s under Catherine the Great.
Gibraltar was an inadequate base for the Royal Navy because of its distance from Toulon, because of the prevailing northerly winds and the current through the Straits into the Mediterranean, and because the harbour was open to attack by Spanish gunboats. A British squadron based on Port Mahon in Minorca had commanded the western Mediterranean in the mid-eighteenth century, but Minorca was lost in the American War, and was not again available for British use until it was captured by Captain John Duckworth in late 1798. It was returned again to Spain at the Peace of Amiens in 1802. Naples provided supplies for the Royal Navy from time to time, but was vulnerable to the French army in northern Italy. The only really secure base which could provide distant support for the ships watching Toulon, and also block French ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean, was Malta. This island with its superbly fortified harbour had been captured by Napoleon on his way to Egypt in 1798, and was subsequently taken from its French garrison after a prolonged siege. The desire of the mad Tsar Paul to obtain Malta was a contributing factor to the Baltic crisis in 1801. The Addington Ministry agreed as part of the 1802 peace treaty with France that Malta should be returned to the Order of St John which Napoleon had driven out, but backed out of the commitment when it became apparent that Napoleon did not intend to honour the spirit of the treaty. Britain declared war on France, and Pitt, who was returned to power, refused to cede Malta to Russia even when Tsar Alexander I made that a condition for accession to the third coalition against Napoleon. Alexander only changed his mind in July 1805 because he was insulted by Napoleon’s proclaiming himself an Emperor, and alarmed by his seizure of Genoa.
The British refusal of the Russian demand was based on a concern that the Russian navy would not be able to contain the French Mediterranean fleet, and was consistent with the long-standing reluctance to share naval power with Russia. Russia and Britain were so far able to cooperate, however, that a joint military force was deployed to Naples at the time of Trafalgar to provide security against a French army that had occupied Taranto.
Naval control of the Baltic was no less important than was a commanding naval position in the Mediterranean, because of the continuing need for naval building materials from the north. Long before the end of the eighteenth century, the domestic British supply of timber had become inadequate. The need to import the great trees which were used to make masts and yards was older still. The best foreign source of supply for timber, masts, and for tar, hemp, canvas, and iron for fastenings, anchors and guns, was from the states around the Baltic. Efforts had been made periodically to develop North American sources of supply, but only in the case of masts had this been successful. France and Spain were very nearly as dependent on Baltic sources for naval stores as was Britain.
The objectives of British naval control of the Baltic trade were to deny to their enemies access to naval building material, and to ensure that British dockyards would be well supplied at a reasonable price. Before the development in the nineteenth century of the idea that neutrals had an obligation to act impartially, and to avoid destabilising the balance of power, these objectives were practically speaking the two sides of the same coin. The same naval operation could deny the enemy access to supply, and ensure British supply. At the same time, the work of the British cruisers also helped to ensure that British trade was profitable enough to pay for the supply. This last, the purely mercantilist objective of using force to dominate trade, was as important as was the blockade of French dockyards.
In the eighteenth century blockade operations were rarely able to deny an enemy access to strategically important cargoes, and instead concentrated on making a profit by seizing enemy ships and cargoes for their monetary value. The profit made from the sale of prizes, and from carrying on the trade that the enemy lost through late delivery and increased costs, was strategically important because the wealth gained could be extracted in taxes and used to support the war effort. The chances of enemy shipping being able to run a blockade were good enough to limit strategic value of attempting to block supplies of most of the materials used for military purposes, let alone block consumer goods. Only when efforts were narrowly focused on a few harbours, and on heavy cargoes that could not be transported by land, was there much prospect of preventing supplies getting through. In this respect, geography gave Britain an important advantage over the French. Naval stores were so bulky and so heavy that they could only reach their destinations by sea. When the Royal Navy was strong enough, as it had been following the battle of Quiberon Bay in the Seven Years War, it was able to impede the repair of the French fleet by cruises along the Normandy and Brittany coasts. Victuals for the fleet at Brest also had to be shipped by sea, because Breton farms could not supply the needs. Napoleon solved the problem of bringing supplies from central France by building canals, but naval stores from the Baltic continued to be sent by sea close by British naval harbours.
The ability of the Royal Navy to intercept the flow of naval stores from the Baltic was dependent upon the balance of power. Generally, the masts, timber, hemp and tar were freighted in neutral merchantmen. Although British interpretation of international law asserted the right of a belligerent to seize enemy-owned cargo carried in neutral bottoms, the Baltic neutrals did not acknowledge that right, and resisted when they could.46
In the seventeenth century the British had had to fight to prevent the Dutch intercepting supplies to British dockyards, but the French did not enjoy a similarly powerful geographic position. Arrangements to convoy the cargoes of naval stores to England were well established, and there was little prospect of French privateers being able to intercept more than a small proportion of them.47 It was a usual practice for French privateers to ransom their captives while they were still at sea so that they could continue their voyage. Furthermore, traditional French interpretation of international law protected neutral vessels carrying enemy-owned cargo. What London had to worry about was not the strangulation of supply so much as the prospect that the neutral Balts would drive up the price of naval stores to a degree which threatened Britain’s ability to pay, and at the same time facilitate the armament of the French and Spanish fleets.
Apart from the blockade of naval stores, maritime control of the Baltic had important offensive as well as defensive implications. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Britain was not able to use her commanding position at sea to threaten the