The writing was on the wall as Ganteaume failed to get out of Brest
despite strenuous efforts on 26-28 March 1805, when the French admiral
was stymied by the Emperor's orders that he should avoid giving battle to
Calder's blockading fleet. The tight British blockade throttled a further
escape bid in April. Villeneuve, however, against all the odds, did manage
to get away, successfully picked up the Spanish at Cadiz and stood away
for Martinique on 9 April. Sir John Orde, stationed off Cadiz, failed to
take appropriate action. Nelson was left without any clear intelligence of
the enemy. His guess this time was wrong, as it had been when
Villeneuve first broke out in 1804 (Nelson thought the French objective
was Egypt), for he thought the Toulon fleet was merely aiming to relieve
Ganteaume at Brest prior to an invasion of Ireland.
Missiesy meanwhile raided throughout the West Indies, as ordered in
the 1804 strategy. Too late Napoleon suddenly realized that he had not
put Missiesy in the picture on his new thinking and sent him an express,
with orders to await Villeneuve at Martinique and not to leave the
Caribbean before the end of June. The ship bearing this message crossed
with Missiesy who, finding no Villeneuve at Martinique, tried to second
guess Napoleon's intentions and decided to return to Europe. The fact
was that he was in clear breach of orders, since he sailed for Europe
before the last date set down in contingency instructions for the
rendezvous with Villeneuve. For this he was justifiably dismissed by
Napoleon, but the Emperor must share some of the blame for the
confusion.
The comedy of errors continued. On 20 May Missiesy arrived at
Rochefort to find that Villeneuve was trying to rendezvous with him in
the West Indies. Six days earlier Villeneuve arrived at Martinique, well
ahead of Nelson, who was still in Madeira, to learn that the Rochefort
squadron had returned to Europe. Villeneuve's orders were to await
Ganteaume in Martinique for five weeks. But on 4 June he learned that
Nelson had arrived in Barbados in hot pursuit, so immediately cleared for
Europe. Nelson himself, having gradually worked out the tortuous
reasoning in the Emperor's mind, put about for Europe on 13 June. By
now it was abundantly clear what the French strategy was.
Napoleon meanwhile was in Italy, absurdly boasting to his followers
that Nelson was still in Europe, with badly damaged ships and exhausted
crews. Such was his aplomb that he committed the cardinal error of
trying to control a global strategy, meant to dovetail with an invasion of
England, from Milan and Genoa. This was an endeavour beyond his
powers even if he had been in Paris, but in Italy, where intelligence was
hopelessly out of date by the time it reached him, it was pure cloud-
marcin
(Marcin)
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