A history of England

While Napoleon was engaged in his Austrian war of 1809, Wellesley easily held his own in the Peninsula. He defeated Marshal Soult at Oporto, and drove him out of Portugal with the loss of all his artillery and baggage. Then, turning southward, he marched against Madrid in the company of the Spanish general Cuesta. But he found his allies almost useless. Cuesta was perverse and imbecile to an incredible degree, and his wretched provincial levies fled at the mere sound of the cannon, unless they were ensconced behind walls and trenches. At Talavera the allied armies beat Marshal Victor and King Joseph, but all the fighting fell on the English. Cuesta's troops, sheltered in the town of Talavera, refused to come out of their defences and left Wellesley's 20,000 men to repel the assaults of 40,000 French. After this experience of Spanish co-operation the victor vowed that he would never again share a campaign with a Spanish army (July 28, 1809).

The news of Talavera brought the French armies from all sides to aid the defeated marshal, and, beset by 100,000 men, Wellesley was obliged to retreat on Portugal. He got back in perfect safety, but his imbecile colleague Cuesta was caught and crushed by the pursuers. The result of the fighting at Talavera had given the English troops confidence, and the king conferred on the victor the title of Viscount Wellington. He would have preferred to receive reinforcements rather than honorary distinctions, but the cabinet had decreed otherwise. They had sent all the available troops in England, some 40,000 men, on an ill-judged expedition against Antwerp, which was too strongly fortified and lay too far inland to be readily taken by an army of such a size. The general placed in command was Lord Chatham, Pitt's elder brother, a dilatory commander who moved slowly and allowed himself to be detained in the siege of the minor fortresses which guarded the way to Antwerp. The army landed on the swampy isle of Walcheren and beleaguered Flushing for three weeks, but in the trenches the troops were smitten with marsh fever, and succumbed so rapidly that the expedition had to be given up, when 11,000 men were simultaneously in hospital. Flushing was destroyed, but the troops had to return to England, and had exercised no influence whatever on the fate of the war (July to August, 1809). If sent to Wellesley, they would have enabled him to crush King Joseph and take Madrid.

Meanwhile the Austrian war had ended in the triumph of Napoleon at the battle of Wagram (August, 1809), though the gallant efforts of the Archduke Charles, and the insurrection of the patriots of the Tyrol and Northern Germany, had seemed at first to shake his power. The Emperor of Austria was forced to cede all his Illyrian coast-line, that Napoleon might make his blockade of English goods the stricter, to surrender half his share of Poland, and to give—the bitterest drop in his cup—the hand of his daughter Maria Louisa to the conqueror. This unhallowed union was only made possible by the divorce of Josephine Beauharnais, the wife with whom Napoleon had lived for the last fourteen years (October, 1809).

Freed from the Austrian war, and with his "Grande Armée" once more unoccupied, Napoleon resolved to make an end of the Spanish insurrection. He gave 70,000 fresh troops to Masséna, the ablest of his marshals, and bade him drive Wellington into the sea and conquer all Spain and Portugal. The English general had foreseen some such assault from the moment that he heard the news of the defeat of Austria. He spent the winter of 1809-1810 in constructing a triple series of fortifications across the peninsula on which Lisbon stands, the famous "Lines of Torres Vedras." When Masséna advanced against Portugal Wellington retired slowly before him, wasting the country and compelling all the people to take refuge in Lisbon. He turned at Busaco (September 29, 1810) to inflict a sharp check on the heads of Masséna's columns, but finally withdrew into his formidable lines. The French were brought to a stand before the unexpected obstacle, for they had no knowledge that Wellington had so strengthened his place of refuge. The position, armed with 600 pieces of artillery, and defended by 30,000 English, and the whole of the militia of Portugal, seemed too strong to be meddled with. Masséna lay in front of the lines for four months, sending in vain for reinforcements to Spain. But his colleague Soult, occupied in the conquest of Andalusia, and the sieges of Cadiz and Badajos, would not come to his aid. Masséna's army suffered bitter privations in the wasted and depopulated country, and at last, in March, 1811, he was fain to draw back and retreat from Portugal, after having lost more than 20,000 men by sword and famine. Wellington followed him, perpetually harassing his retreat, and took post again on the borders of Spain, from which he had been forced back six months before.

The triumphant defence of the lines of Torres Vedras was the turning point of the whole Peninsular War. The French were never again able to invade Portugal, and Wellington, strongly reinforced from England after his success was known, was for the future able to undertake bolder strokes and no longer forced to keep to the defensive. The last offensive movements of the French were stopped by two bloody actions fought in May, 1811, within a few days of each other. In the north Masséna attacked Wellington in order to try to save the beleaguered fortress of Almeida; but he was repulsed at Fuentes d'Onoro (May 5), and was shortly afterwards recalled in disgrace by his master. In the south Marshal Soult marched to relieve Badajos, which was being besieged by Lord Beresford, Wellington's second-in-command, aided by the Spanish general Blake. Beresford met the French at Albuera, and almost lost the battle, partly by his own unskilful generalship, partly by the sudden flight of his Spanish auxiliaries. But the day was saved by the celebrated charge of the "Fusilier Brigade," in which the 7th and 23rd Fusiliers, only 1500 strong, stormed a precipitous hill held by 7000 French, and forced Soult to retreat. This was the bloodiest fight which an English army ever gained. Beresford lost 4300 men out of 7500, yet his indomitable troops won the day for him (May 16).

The years 1810-1811 were the last years of Napoleon's ascendency in Europe. They are marked by his final attempt to make the Continental System effective, by the annexation of almost the whole coast-line of Central Europe. He had already taken Rome and Central Italy from the Pope in 1809. Now he expelled his own brother Lewis from Holland, and appropriated that country. He next added to his dominions the whole north coast of Germany as far as the Baltic, including the Hanseatic towns and the realms of four or five of his vassals, the princes of the Confederation of the Rhine. These wild and arbitrary seizures, which made the coast of France extend from Rome to Lubeck, were to Napoleon mere episodes in the struggle with England. The Dutch and Germans would not enforce the blockade against English goods as stringently as he wished, and so he annexed them to make their secret trade with England impossible. The Continental System was now in full swing; it was working in all Napoleon's own dominions, in France, Italy, and Illyria, in the lands of all his vassals—the German states, Poland, Denmark, Naples, Prussia—in Sweden, where one of his marshals, Bernadotte, had lately been made heir to the throne, and even in the territories of his reluctant allies the emperors of Austria and Russia. Yet, in spite of Napoleon's many assertions to the contrary, England was neither ruined nor likely to sue for peace.

There had of late been many changes in the persons who ruled England, but the policy of Pitt was still maintained by his successors. The old king, George III., had gone mad in 1810, and the nominal control of the country was now in the hands of his worthless, vicious son George, Prince of Wales, the old ally of the Whigs. But the regency was given him guarded with so many checks and limitations, that he was completely in the hands of the ministry, and could not do much harm. First Perceval, and after he had been shot by a lunatic in 1812, Robert Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, swayed the policy of England as prime minister. Both were men of moderate abilities and narrow minds, but they had the saving virtue of obstinacy, and stuck to the old policy of war with France through thick and thin. Their task was no easy one: debt was accumulating in appalling loads from the expenses of the war; the taxes were increased year by year; trade was much hampered by the Continental System; a series of bad harvests raised the cost of corn to famine-price, and led to endless discontent and rioting both in town and country; our allies were beaten one by one on the continent. There was no compensating gain save Wellington's successes in Spain, and the fact that we had now full control of the seas and had absorbed the colonial trade of the whole world. Yet the Tories hardened their hearts, and hammered away at "the Corsican Ogre" with untiring zeal. Nor can it be doubted for a moment that they were right; Napoleon had to be put down, or England must perish. All honour therefore to the men, narrow-minded and prejudiced though they were, who carried out the struggle to the bitter end.

They were at last about to be rewarded for their perseverance. Towards the end of 1811 Napoleon became involved in a third struggle with Russia, more deadly than those of 1805 and 1806-7. The cause of the quarrel was the inevitable Continental System. Hitherto England had been the largest buyer of Russian goods, and Russia had been wont to get her luxuries and colonial wares from England. The enforced prohibition of trade with her best customer did Russia untold harm, and the Czar Alexander found that every class of his subjects was groaning under the yoke of the Berlin Decrees. Discontent was rife, and Alexander knew well enough that Russia is "a despotism tempered by assassination," and remembered the fate of his own father. He saw at last that his empire was losing more from alliance with Napoleon than she could lose by open war against him. Finally the Russian government began to provoke the Emperor by an almost overt neglect of his wishes, and practically abandoned the Continental System.

Napoleon was at the height of his arrogance and autocratic insolence. Instead of making an end to the war in Spain—"the running sore" as he called it, from the drain which it caused on his resources—he resolved to impose his will on Russia by force, and declared war upon the Czar. A vast army of 600,000 men was concentrated in eastern Germany, and crossed the Niemen in June, 1812. But the Russians had taken example by the policy by which Wellington had foiled Masséna in 1810: instead of fighting on their frontier, they withdrew into the heart of their vast plains, wasting the country behind them, and leaving no food for the invader. The French army had lost half its horses and a third of its men, before it approached Moscow or fought a serious engagement. The Russians turned to bay at Borodino, in front of their ancient capital; but Napoleon stormed their entrenchments at the cost of 25,000 men, and entered Moscow. But he found it deserted by its inhabitants, and a few days after his arrival the whole city was burnt, whether by the deliberate resolve of the Russians, or by the carelessness of the French soldiery. Winter was now at hand, and for want of food and shelter the Emperor resolved to retire on Poland. But the season was too late, and he was surprised on his way by the snow. His harassed and half-starved soldiers died by thousands on the roadside: the Russians cut off every straggler, and less than a tenth of the magnificent army that had crossed the Niemen struggled back to Germany (Nov. 1812-Jan. 1813).

The fortune of war had at last turned, and Napoleon's first disaster was soon to be followed by his fall. Prussia and all his other unwilling subjects in northern Germany took arms when the fate of the "Grande Armée" became known, and to meet them the Emperor had to call up his last reserves of men, and especially to draw on the large force in the Spanish peninsula. But he found that little help could come from Spain, for 1812 had been as fatal to his marshals in the south as to himself in the far north. Early in the year Wellington had swooped down on Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, the two fortresses in French hands which covered the Spanish frontier. He stormed each of them after a siege of a few days, making the desperate courage of his soldiery serve instead of a long bombardment, and paying for his rapid success by a heavy loss of men. Badajos was actually escaladed with ladders, the breaches having proved inaccessible. The French marshals came hurrying up to save their strongholds, but found them already fallen into English hands.

There followed the decisive battle of Salamanca, in which Wellington defeated Marshal Marmont, and crushed the main army of the enemy. This fight was a splendid exhibition of his skill: his able adversary had for a moment put his left wing in a hazardous position. Before half an hour had elapsed, Wellington had pounced upon the isolated divisions, routed them, and attacked and scattered the main body. Thus, as was happily said, he "beat forty thousand men in forty minutes." In consequence of this victory Wellington was able to retake Madrid, after it had been four years in hostile hands. To check his further success the French marshals had to evacuate all southern and central Spain, and mass their forces against the victor. When they beset him with 100,000 men he was forced to retreat towards the Portuguese frontier for a space. But the net result of the campaign had been to deliver Andalusia and most of Castile from the enemy, and more was to follow. Napoleon had to withdraw so many of his veterans from Spain, to replace his losses in the Russian war, that in the next spring Wellington was no longer in his wonted inferiority of numbers. He used his opportunity with his usual skill and promptness.

Attacking the French before they had concentrated from their scattered winter-quarters, he chased them before him in disorder all across northern Spain. It was only at Vittoria, close under the Pyrenees, that they could collect in numbers strong enough to face him. But there he fell upon them, routed Marshal Jourdan, cut off his retreat on France, and drove him into the mountains with the loss of every single cannon and waggon that the French army possessed (June 21, 1813). The autumn of the year was occupied in subduing St. Sebastian and Pampeluna, the two fortresses that guarded the French frontier, and in repulsing, at the "Battles of the Pyrenees," two gallant attempts made by Marshal Soult to relieve the beleaguered fortresses. At last they fell, and Wellington prepared to invade France in the next spring.

Meanwhile, Napoleon, with a horde of conscripts and the few veteran troops that he could collect, had been fighting hard in Germany. Against the Russians and Prussians he held his ground for some time, but when his own father-in-law, Francis of Austria, joined the enemy, he was overwhelmed by numbers. The three-days' strife at Leipzig, which the Germans call the "battle of nations," sealed his fate. It was only with the wrecks of an army that he escaped across the Rhine in the autumn of 1813. The allies followed him without giving him a moment's respite, a wise strategy that they had learnt from his own earlier doings. The Emperor made a desperate fight in France, but the odds were too many against him. After some ephemeral successes he was defeated at Laon by one body of the allies, and their main army slipped past him and took Paris (April 4, 1814). On the news of the fall of the capital the French marshals compelled Napoleon to abdicate, and laid down their arms. The humbled despot vainly attempted to commit suicide, fearing death at the victors' hands. But they spared his life, gave him the little Tuscan island of Elba as an appanage, and bade the man who had been the ruler of all Europe to spend the rest of his life in governing a rock and 10,000 Italian peasants. The crown of France was given—with questionable wisdom—to the representative of the Bourbons, the eldest surviving grandson of Lewis XV. This shrewd and selfish old invalid, who was known as the Count of Provence, now took the title of Lewis XVIII. and mounted his martyred brother's long-lost throne.

While the Austrians, Russians, and Prussians had been conquering Napoleon and capturing Paris, Wellington had not been idle. He had invaded France from the south, taken the great city of Bordeaux, and beaten Marshal Soult at the battle of Toulouse, when the news of Napoleon's abdication brought his brilliant campaign to a conclusion (April 14, 1814).

All Europe now began to disarm, dreaming that the deadly struggles of the last twenty-two years were over at last. Diplomatists from all nations were summoned to meet at Vienna, to rearrange the map of Europe and parcel out Napoleon's ill-gotten spoils. England alone was unable to disband her armies, for she had still got a war on hand. In 1812 Napoleon had succeeded in stirring up against us the United States of America. Their grievance was the Orders in Council, by which we had prohibited neutral ships from trading with France, in retaliation for the Emperor's Berlin Decrees against our own commerce. After five years of bickering and recrimination the Americans declared war on us—though they might with equally good logic have attacked Napoleon, whose conduct to them had been even more harsh and provoking than that of the Perceval cabinet. With all her attention concentrated on the Peninsula in 1812-13, England had little attention to spare for this minor war, and Canada was left much undermanned. But the small garrison and the Canadian militia fought splendidly, and three separate attempts to overrun the colony were beaten back, and two American armies forced to capitulate. But while so successful on land, the English were much vexed and surprised to suffer several small defeats at sea in duels between single vessels. The few frigates which the United States owned were very fine vessels, heavily armed and well manned; on three successive occasions an American frigate captured an English one of slightly inferior force in single combat, a feat which no French ship had ever been able to accomplish in the whole war. [55] In course of time the American vessels were hunted down and destroyed by our squadrons, but it was a great blow to English naval pride that the enemy had to be crushed by superiority of numbers instead of being beaten in equal fight. But the fact was that individually the American ships were larger and carried heavier guns than our own, so that the first defeats were no matter of shame to our navy.

When Napoleon had been crushed, England was able to turn serious attention to America, and to send many of the old Peninsular veterans over the Atlantic. But their arrival did not crush the enemy so easily as had been expected. One expedition under General Ross, landing in Maryland, beat the Americans at Bladensburg, and burnt Washington, the capital of the United States (1814). But two others failed: the imbecile Sir George Prevost invaded the State of New York, but turned back without having done any serious fighting. On the other hand, the overbold Sir Edward Pakenham, one of the bravest of Wellington's officers, was slain at New Orleans with 2000 of his followers because he endeavoured to storm from the front impregnable earthworks held by a steady foe (January 8, 1815). The war, however, had ceased just before Pakenham fell. Napoleon having abdicated, and the English having withdrawn the Orders in Council, the causes of our strife with America had been removed, and the two powers had signed the peace of Ghent on December 24, 1814. This agreement restored the old condition of affairs, each party surrendering its conquests, and agreeing to let bygones be bygones. But the struggle had bred much ill blood, not to be forgotten for many a year.

By the new year of 1815, when the treaty of Ghent had been signed, England was at peace with all men, and the Liverpool ministry began to take in hand the reduction of our army and navy, the restoration of finance, and the protection of English interests in the resettlement of Europe at the congress at Vienna, which had met in the previous autumn. All the diplomatists of the great powers were hard at work settling the new boundaries of their states, when suddenly the alarming news was heard that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France. The rule of the selfish old Lewis XVIII. and the elderly companions who had returned with him from a twenty years' exile, had irritated and disgusted the French, and most of all the army. When, therefore, Napoleon landed in Provence with seven hundred men, and called on his countrymen to rise in behalf of liberty and expel the imbecile Bourbons, his appeal met with a success such as he himself had hardly hoped for. Not a shot was fired against him; regiment after regiment went over to his side, and Lewis XVIII. had at last to fly from Paris and take refuge in Flanders (March, 1815). Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor once more, but promised the French a liberal constitution in place of his old autocratic rule. He also made overtures to the allied powers, saying that he was tired of war, and would accept any honourable terms. But they knew his lying tongue of old, and wisely refused to listen to his smooth speeches. One after another, all the monarchs of Europe declared war on him.

Napoleon's second tenure of power was only to last from March 13 till June 22, 1815, the "Hundred Days," as they are generally called. Forced to fight, he displayed his old energy, and resolved to strike at the allies before they could concentrate their scattered forces from the remotest ends of Europe. He called his old veterans to arms, and hastily organized an army of 130,000 men for an immediate attack on the nearest foe. By waiting longer he could have collected an army thrice as great, but, on the other hand, his enemies would have been able to mass their whole force against him. The only troops ready to oppose him by June, 1815, were two armies in Belgium, one of Prussians under the old Marshal Blücher, which lay about Namur, Liège, and Charleroi, the other a combined force of British, Germans, and Dutch under Wellington, now a duke, stationed round Brussels and Ghent. The Prussians were 120,000 strong, and Wellington had 30,000 English and 65,000 Hanoverians, Germans, and Dutch. Napoleon was therefore bound to be outnumbered, but he thought that he could crush one army before the other came to its aid, if he could only strike hard and fast enough. His advance into Belgium was rapid and skilful. He made for the point where the English left touched the Prussian right, near Charleroi, and thrust himself between them. On June 16 he engaged and beat Blücher's Prussians at Ligny, while his lieutenant, Marshal Ney, held back at Quatre Bras the front divisions of Wellington's army as they came marching up to try to join the Prussians.

The Prussians were severely beaten, but the indomitable old Blücher gathered together his defeated forces, and marched north to rejoin the English, while Napoleon vainly dreamed that he was flying eastward towards Germany. Thus it came to pass that the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy and 33,000 men to pursue the Prussians on the wrong road, a mistake which allowed Blücher to execute an undisturbed retreat on Wavre, where he was again in touch with the duke.

Meanwhile, Napoleon, on the 17th, marched to join his lieutenant Ney, who had been forced back from Quatre Bras by the English, and needed his aid. The Emperor, believing that the Prussians were disposed of, thought he could now deal a crushing blow at Wellington's motley army, and was overjoyed when he found the duke offering him battle on the hillside of Mont St. Jean, twelve miles north of Quatre Bras, in a good position which covered the road to Brussels. On this hillside was fought next day (June 18, 1815) the decisive battle which the English call Waterloo, from the name of the village where Wellington wrote his despatch that same night.

The armies were not very different in numbers. Napoleon's 72,000 French were opposed to 67,000 troops in the allied army. But Wellington could only count on his 23,000 English and 22,000 Hanoverians and Brunswickers, for good and zealous service. He was hindered rather than helped by the presence of 20,000 raw Dutch and Belgian conscripts, who had no heart in the war, and would as soon have fought for Napoleon. His army was stretched along the gentle slope which is crossed by the Brussels road, with the infantry in the front line, and the cavalry partly in reserve, partly on the wings. In front of his position were the two farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, the former held by the English guards, the latter by a picked battalion of Hanoverians. Napoleon ranged his men on the opposite ridge, and launched them against the English in successive attacks. His first attempt to storm the farm of Hougoumont was manfully beaten back. He then sent four heavy columns against the English left, but they were utterly routed by the charge of Picton's infantry and Ponsonby's famous "Union Brigade" of dragoons, the Royals, Scots Greys and Inniskillens. His third effort was to break the English centre by the furious charges of 15,000 gallant horsemen, supported by a tremendous fire of artillery. But the English squares held fast, though assailed for five hours by constant onsets of cavalry and pounded in the intervals by an overwhelming force of cannon. Most of the Dutch and Belgians and some of the Germans retired from the field, and many fled to Brussels: but the indomitable squares held their own, even after the farm of La Haye Sainte had been stormed, and a gap opened in the English centre. In the thick of the fighting, Napoleon was surprised to see new troops coming up on his right: these were Blücher's Prussians, marching from Wavre to aid the English, according to a promise which the old marshal had made to the Duke on the previous day. To hold them back, Napoleon had to detach nearly all his reserves; but for a final stroke against Wellington he sent out 5000 men of the "Old Guard" to break through the long-tried English line. But this last effort was foiled by the steady fire of Maitland's English guards, and when the attacking columns were seen recoiling down the hillside and Wellington's last cavalry reserves came charging after them, the whole French army broke and fled.

Never was a more complete rout seen. The defeated army disbanded itself: Napoleon could not rally a man, and fled to Paris, where he abdicated for a second time. Wellington and Blücher rapidly followed him and entered Paris (July 6). The ex-Emperor, fearing death at the hands of the infuriated Prussians, fled across France to Rochefort, and surrendered himself to the English man-of-war which blockaded that port. After much discussion the ministers resolved to send him as a prisoner to the desolate island of St. Helena, where he lived for six years, spending his time in dictating mendacious accounts of his life and campaigns, and in petty quarrels with the governor of the island.

Napoleon was now really disposed of, and the pacification of Europe was complete. The congress of Vienna had completed its work, and all the territorial changes which it dictated were carried out at leisure. England's share of the plunder in Europe was the islands of Malta and Heligoland and the Ionian Isles; beyond seas she got the French isle of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean and the valuable Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope. But her real gain was the fact that she had absorbed, during the course of the war, nearly the whole of the carrying trade of the world. Twenty years of her ascendency at sea had destroyed the mercantile marines of France, Holland, Spain, and Italy, and it was many years before those countries could recover from their losses. The naval and commercial supremacy which we enjoy to-day is the direct result of the great wars of 1793-1815.

This being so, the changes on the continent were of comparatively little moment to us. France was confined within her old boundaries of 1789. Russia took the greater part of Poland, Austria was given Lombardy and Venetia, Prussia annexed half Saxony and most of the small states along the Rhine. Belgium and Holland were joined in an unnatural union as the "Kingdom of the Netherlands," while the old despots of Central and Southern Italy returned to their long-lost thrones. These boundaries were to last, with little alteration, for half a century.