flotilla was not 'weatherly' enough for a winter crossing of the Channel;
the movement of shipping from the assembly ports to the concentration
area had been badly affected by the weather and Royal Navy intercep
tions; a calculation of winds and tides threw up too many imponderables,
including the nightmare scenario that the flotilla might be becalmed in
mid-sea for three days or that it would take six days to get the entire
armada out of Boulogne. In January 1804 Napoleon bowed to the
inevitable and ordered the project shelved. This was an acute personal
disappointment, for he had even chosen the boat (Le Prince de Galles) in
which he intended to cross the Channel. But he stressed that his order
meant postponement only, not cancellation; in March 1804 he wrote to
his ambassador in Constantinople: 'In the present position of Europe all
my thoughts are directed towards England ... nearly 120,000 men and
3,000 boats ... only await a favourable wind to plant the imperial eagle
on the Tower of London.' A believer in bad omens, he made light of an
incident in January when his horse tripped over a cable and threw him
into the sea; laughing it off, but doubtless inwardly troubled, he said: 'It's
nothing. It's only a bath.'
When he returned seriously to the invasion project in July 1804, he
began by conceding that his earlier ideas were chimerical: he would have
to use the French fleet somehow to hold the Royal Navy at bay, and he
would have to make the attempt in fine weather in the summer. But an
alarming incident on 20 July showed that he had still not completely
absorbed the problems posed by the elements. That day a gale was
blowing which threatened to develop into a full storm. Napoleon blithely
insisted that a scheduled naval review go ahead, which drew vociferous
protests from Admiral Bruix. When Bruix persisted, he was dismissed on
the spot and later exiled. His successor, Admiral Magon, dared not risk
the imperial wrath fu rther and gave the order to put to sea. In the
ensuing storm ships were wrecked and over 2,ooo soldiers and sailors
drowned. The Emperor strode up and down the beach in a fury but
expressed no remorse for the lives he had lost by his folly.
The year 1804 saw Napoleon engaged in two major stratagems to
outfox the Royal Navy as he strove to make good his oft-repeated dictum:
'Let us be masters of the Straits of Dover for six hours and we shall be
masters of the world.' His first scheme depended on luring away the
English under Admiral Cornwallis, who was then blockading Brest.
Admiral Ganteaume would clear for Ireland with his squadron, tying
down Cornwallis outside Brest; meanwhile La Touche-Treville, the
Admiral of the Fleet and by far Napoleon's best naval commander, would
come up from Toulon with eleven ships of the line, link off Cadiz with
marcin
(Marcin)
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