Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

the imperial conquests after tilsit (1807–1812)

324

1810, and Malaga on the ﬁ fth, meeting with hardly any resistance. However,

they made the mistake of not marching straight upon Cadiz where the junta

had taken refuge, so that Albuquerque arrived in time to shut himself in

there on 3 February, and the French had to undertake a siege which proved

unsuccessful. Three army corps were thus immobilised in Andalusia.

This was all the more vexatious because Napoleon, as Wellington had

foreseen, was preparing a new expedition to Portugal. In 1811 he had more

than 360,000 men in the peninsula. In theory, Masséna’s army should have

numbered 130,000. But as he had had to commission Bonnet to reoccupy

Asturias and make solid provision for Navarre, Biscay and Old Castile, he in

fact had only sixty thousand men left – an altogether insufﬁ cient ﬁ ghting

force. He did not set up any powder magazines or transport depots; and he

waited till the end of the harvest to take Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. Not

till September was he ready to move. He found the countryside more or less

empty after the summoning of the ordenanza , which involved the evacuation

of the inhabitants and the destruction of all food that could not be carried

away. Wellington only offered battle at the gates of Coïmbra. Entrenched on

the heights of Busaco, he was able to throw back Masséna on 27 September;

but as the French general was manoeuvring to turn the position, Wellington

withdrew. In the course of pursuit, Masséna soon came up against the lines

of Torres Vedras, three of them, one behind the other. The ﬁ rst, forty kilo-

metres long, contained 126 fortiﬁ cations armed with 247 guns. Wellington had

thirty-three thousand English, thirty thousand Portuguese and six thousand

Spaniards, not to mention the partisans; and there was no question of being

able to reduce the position by famine, since its supplies were replenished by

sea. Masséna had no siege equipment, and only thirty-ﬁ ve thousand men. In

spite of urgent requests, Drouet only brought him ten thousand. There was

an appalling dearth of food. On 5 March 1811 he gave orders to retreat, and

did not halt till Salamanca was reached. Wellington followed in pursuit and

at once laid siege to Almeida. In order to free it, Masséna came in to attack

on 5 May at Fuentes de Onoro, on the Coa, and was driven back. Just at this

moment, Napoleon was beginning preparations for the war against Russia;

and for the time being, at any rate, this reverse could not be remedied. Only

Soult had received orders to support Masséna. He did not dare refuse, but

only went so far as to capture Badajoz on 11 March. Wellington thought his

own position strong enough to send out Beresford against him, who forced

him back, besieged Badajoz once again and repulsed the attacks on Albuera

on 16 May. Wellington, who was now rid of Masséna, then joined up with

him; but Marmont, who had taken command at Salamanca, likewise went

and joined forces with Soult. Here was one last chance to ﬁ ght a major battle

325

england’s successes (1807–1811)

in favourable conditions against the Anglo-Portuguese forces. But this does

not appear to have occurred to the two marshals; they separated, and went

their separate ways. Wellington made for Ciudad Rodrigo; but as Marmont

was approaching, he did not persist, and instead retired to Portugal.

This, however, was only a short breathing-space. When he had been re-

inforced he knew that – contrary to the emperor’s belief – he was now stronger

than Marmont, who had a bare thirty-four thousand men; besides, he was

reckoning on the surprise value of a winter campaign. This time he acted

with a boldness that proved completely successful. Setting out on 7 January

1812, he took Ciudad Rodrigo by assault on the nineteenth and straight

away marched on Badajoz, which he captured on 6 April. Soult had been

slow to move, and Marmont did not dare to undertake any major diversion.

Wellington gave orders, moreover, to multiply attacks on every hand so as to

give no chance of coming to their assistance. The Galicians besieged Astorga;

Popham appeared on the Biscay coast and kept Caffarelli busy, while Bentinck

sent Maitland to the coast of Valencia to look after Suchet. Since Napoleon

had recalled twenty-ﬁ ve thousand men to send to Russia, Joseph besought

Soult to evacuate Andalusia, but in vain. On 14 June Wellington resumed the

offensive and Marmont was forced to withdraw behind the Douro. Recalling

Bonnet from Asturias, he made a clever crossing of the river and turned the

enemy’s ﬂ ank, so that they fell back towards Salamanca. On 22 July he

crossed the Tormes and attacked the Arapiles position, but so clumsily that

he was set upon in mid-manoeuvre and routed. The French lost fourteen

thousand men and Clausel was able only with great difﬁ culty to get them

back to Burgos. Wellington marched on Madrid, Joseph evacuating it in

order to join up with Suchet. Soult ﬁ nally left Andalusia, linked forces with

them and retook the capital in October. Wellington, on his way to occupy

Burgos, now fell back upon the Tormes, and Soult seemed in no hurry

to attack him, but withdrew to Portugal, having taken twenty thousand

prisoners, captured or destroyed three thousand guns and freed Andalusia.

In the east of Spain, operations pursued an independent course. In

Catalonia, Rosas fell in 1808 and Gerona in 1809. Figueras was lost and

recaptured in 1811, and it seemed impossible to bring peace to this prov-

ince. In Aragon, Suchet at ﬁ rst withstood Blake, who was threatening

Saragossa; but when he had been reinforced he took Lerida and Mequinenza

in 1810, and in 1811 Tortosa and Tarragona. After he had been proclaimed

marshal he discomﬁ ted Blake outside the fortress of Sagunto, then before

Valencia, which he entered on 9 January 1812. As part of his troops had

been taken away from him, he did not venture further forward, and Maitland

was able to occupy Alicante.

the imperial conquests after tilsit (1807–1812)

326

Wellington had thus more than lived up to his promises. Not only had he

saved Portugal, but he was holding down a considerable French force in the

peninsula. It should be noted, however, that England’s continental diversion

had not up till then been decisive, for it had prevented neither the defeat of

Austria nor the invasion of Russia. If Russia had been defeated, Wellington

would have stood no chance of maintaining his footing, even in Portugal.

Not till 1813, when the old army of Spain had ensured Napoleon’s victory

in Germany, was he able to give decisive help to the Coalition – and even

then, not until winter had destroyed the Grande Armée.

THE CONTINENTAL BLOCKADE

Although England commanded the seas, she could not – in spite of the

Spanish diversion – wrest the Continent from the French army. On the other

hand Napoleon, by concentrating on a federated Europe under his own

control, was depriving himself – at any rate for a considerable period – of

the ability to attack his enemy at home. This is why the economic war played

such an important part after the Peace of Tilsit. The British blockade was

more or less of a purely mercantile character. Far from attempting to starve

out her adversary and to disrupt her manufacturing war potential – which

the state of the continental economy would have made useless – England’s

effort was bent upon selling her, through neutral channels, all the goods she

could possibly desire. The maritime blockade aimed at enriching England

herself, and not at destroying the military power of France – a goal that

would in any case have been beyond her capacity.

During his early years Napoleon had followed a similar policy. But

subsequently he had returned by way of the Berlin and Milan decrees to

the policy of the Convention and the Directory, with the avowed intention

of hermetically sealing the Continent against English goods, thus

condemning her to live as an enclosed economy purely on her own

resources. Such a decisive resolve, involving so many risks, could only be

based upon a relentless determination to transform the continental blockade

into a weapon of war. As long as he did not possess the command of the

seas, he had no illusions about the possibility of starving England out

and depriving her of raw materials. While not appreciating to the full the

solid basis of England’s capitalism or its up-to-date structure, he realised

the imperial conquests after tilsit (1807–1812)

328

that it depended on credit and export, and was therefore vulnerable. He

thought that if he could severely shake this ediﬁ ce, he could bring about

bankruptcy, mass unemployment, possibly even a revolution: at all events,

force England to give in. But was this a realistic threat? This has been gener-

ally denied by the economists, and others have been disposed to follow their

verdict; yet it remains an open question. Moreover, did Napoleon ever put

the policy into force with maximum rigour? And did he ever completely

free himself from the mercantile and ﬁ scal considerations which were

bound to weaken its impact? This is a subsidiary question which is also

worth examining.

ENGLISH COMMERCE DURING THE EARLY YEARS OF

THE BLOCKADE

Up to the time of the Berlin and Milan decrees, England had the advantage

of attack in the economic war. Once she had eliminated enemy shipping and

obtained complete control over the neutrals, she could interfere with French

exports and deprive her of markets, while continuing to sell to her and even

buy from her when convenient. But the Napoleonic conquests and the

continental blockade reversed the positions. Now the French intention was

to prevent her from supplying the Continent – much her best customer. She

was now reduced to the defensive, and it was up to her to make the enemy

take her goods.

In order to get the better of these awkward circumstances, she had no

need to modify her policies, and in fact she did not make any change at all

in them. It was rather the opposite: her economic pragmatism was if

anything intensiﬁ ed. In April 1808 the government even obtained parlia-

mentary powers to grant licences as it liked, in violation of the principles

recently laid down by itself in the regulations of 1807. It thus gave permis-

sion for the import and export of forbidden goods, for sailing to ports that

were effectively blockaded, for proceeding in ballast-trim from one enemy

port to another, and even allowed the French ﬂ ag to appear on sufferance in

its own harbours. Though as a result of the Franco-Austrian war, licences for

ships proceeding to the Empire were abruptly discontinued on 26 April

1809, they continued to be issued for Germany and the Baltic, and in fact

soon began to be granted for Holland and Italy. With the harvest giving

cause for anxiety, the government even went so far on 28 September as to

authorise ships to ply between any ports from Holland to Bayonne, in

ballast-trim, which was quite unprecedented. This toleration was with-

drawn in November, re-established in May 1810, suspended in October, and

329

the continental blockade

then reinstituted once again, according to the prevalent view as to the state

of supplies. In 1811 trade with the enemy was once again prohibited; but it

was reopened in 1812, even with the United States, which had already

declared war. From 1807 to 1812, 44,346 licences were granted, nearly

twenty-six thousand of them in 1809 and 1810. The neutrals received their

share, and it would seem that there was a trafﬁ c in these documents even on

the Continent. This was in fact the channel through which all the maritime

commerce ﬂ owed, and even when the government did not insist on licences,

they were nevertheless in request because the war ﬂ eet made hardly any

distinctions in practice between friend and foe. The distribution of licences

came in the end to be regulated not by any real rules, but solely by judging

each case on its merits. This encouraged arbitrary dealings, corruption, slow

procedure and mistakes; and protests were raised against a regime that

perpetuated the suspension of the Navigation Acts and for practical purposes

abolished the regulations of 1807. Nevertheless, this system helped England

to defend herself, for in most cases, the licences only allowed imports with

a view to re-export. It could when convenient be used to exert diplomatic

pressure; and as the licences cost £13 or £14, they were a not inconsiderable

source of revenue.

In Europe, success depended primarily on the effective strength of the

Continental System. In 1807 and 1808, after the Peace of Tilsit, it was for a

while extensive enough to make a perceptible reduction in imports coming

from Great Britain. But its strength soon diminished. Spain and Portugal

were lost to Napoleon, and in 1809 Turkey made peace with England and

threw the Levant open to her; Austria was once more accessible; the require-

ments of war drew the French forces away from the German coasts, and

trade again became very nearly free there. This was what they called the

second Tönning period in Holstein. Moreover, there was a more or less open

government connivance among Napoleon’s allies or vassal states. Up to

1810 Holland continued to be an important market for Britain. Louis had

promulgated the Berlin decree, but did not manage to secure respect for it;

and from 1806 onwards he too began to allow licences, and exports to

England went steadily ahead, involving, of course, return journeys and

cargoes. More than 237,000 quarters of grain arrived from the Low

Countries in 1807. In addition, ships became accustomed to providing

themselves with two sorts of papers, one to show to the English and the

other to the French; and a Liverpool house sent out circulars offering to

provide such documents. Finally, the English made full use of the dealers in

contraband. In order to encourage the blockade-runner, the French methods

of packing and labelling were adopted. All kinds of subterfuges came into

the imperial conquests after tilsit (1807–1812)

330

play, such as lowering nets full of goods at agreed spots, which would then

be picked up at night by ﬁ shermen. Most important of all were the depots

set up as close as possible to the Empire coasts. In 1808 Heligoland was

chosen as a North Sea base. Extensive works were carried out there, and two

hundred merchants took up permanent residence there – among them one

of the Parish brothers of Hamburg – so much so that it became known as

‘Little London’. Between August and November 1808, 120 ships called in

there, and arrivals were valued at eight million a year. From this point goods

went on to Holstein for Hamburg via Altona, or were landed by night with

the help of coastal ﬁ shermen; after which there were all sorts of devices for

despatching them to Frankfurt, Leipzig, Basle and Strasbourg. In the Baltic,

Göteborg became the principal centre. By 1808 this port was already

exporting 1,300,000 pounds of coffee and nearly three million pounds of

sugar, and these ﬁ gures rose respectively to 4½ and 7½ million in 1809, and

doubled the following year. These consignments found their way via

Pomerania and Prussia partly to Leipzig, and also to Poland and Russia. In

the Mediterranean the requisite bases were provided by Gibraltar, Sardinia

and Sicily, Malta, the Balearic Islands (after 1808), and the Dalmatian and

Ionian Islands after 1809, Malta being undoubtedly the essential depot

above all others. There was access to Austria via Trieste and Vienna, and

thence by another route to Leipzig. When the English gained a footing in

Turkey a new route was opened up from Salonica and Constantinople to

Belgrade and Hungary, all the proﬁ ts from which went to Vienna.

According to the English statistics, exports to Northern Europe, including

France, were only perceptibly diminished in 1808; they recovered in 1809,

and by 1810 had risen to a level very close to the value of 1805. Taking the

latter as one hundred, then the index ﬁ gure for 1808 would have been 20.9

for goods of English origin and 51.6 for re-exports, essentially colonial

produce. In 1809 they rose to 55.2 and 140 respectively; in 1810 to 74.6

and 97.3. For the total of exports to the same region, the index ﬁ gures in

comparison with 1805 were 32.6 in 1808, 87.5 in 1809, and 83.2 in 1810,

the 1809 rise being due to the Austrian War, and the 1810 fall to the ﬁ rst

effects of tightening up the Continental System and the Trianon and

Fontainebleau decrees. In 1810 British exports to Northern Europe and

France were thus not notably diminished; but the devastating drop in 1808

proves that the continental blockade was in itself effective, though it all

depended on the length of time and the completeness with which it was

applied, that is to say, on the power of the French armies.

All the same, even if the Napoleonic blockade had been extended over the

whole of Europe, and even if it had been perfectly observed, British exports

331

the continental blockade

would not have been killed, for the Continent only took three-quarters of

them as far as colonial produce was concerned, while the proportion of

goods coming directly from England was not more than one-third – thirty-

seven per cent in 1805, twenty-ﬁ ve per cent in 1808 and thirty-four per

cent in 1810. The emperor could therefore only have been certain of

attaining his goal by conquering the East as well, and if overseas countries,

or at any rate the United States, whether they were in concert with him or

no, had adopted the same policy. In fact, the real difﬁ culties encountered by

England were due to the American rebellion against the ordinances of 1807,

in which respect they reacted differently from the Swedes and Norwegians,

the Greeks and the Berbers. To be sure, the Americans did not like the

Napoleonic decrees either, but they had other grievances as well against the

English, leaving the question of the ‘press gangs’ and the nationality of

crews for the time being in suspense. On 27 May 1807 the English captured

a ship of theirs and took several of its crew to London. Those who had taken

these steps were reprimanded, but England refused to give way on the basic

issue, and a breach between the two countries took place. On 22 December

Jefferson declared an embargo, closing his ports to belligerents who had

taken measures against neutrals, and forbidding his own ships to leave these

ports. Only the English stood to suffer by this ruling. In actual fact, the

embargo was not scrupulously enforced, in spite of the passing of an

Enforcement Act in 1808. All the same, the import of grain that year from

the United States was only a twentieth of the amount imported in 1807, and

Liverpool received only twenty-three thousand sacks of cotton instead of

143,000. The price of bread rose, and there was a manufacturing crisis,

while a fall in wages led to a general strike in Manchester and a series of

disturbances. On the other hand on the Continent, though colonial imports

fell off considerably, this was due only to the withdrawal of the American

ships. According to Gogel, the Dutch minister of ﬁ nance, Holland received

from America in 1807 nearly thirty million pounds of coffee and forty-one

million pounds of sugar; in 1808 she obtained only a million pounds of

coffee and four million of sugar. These goods came of course mostly from

the English colonies. And lastly, the sale of English goods to the United States

fell by more than half, though in the ordinary way they formed a third of

her exports.

But thanks to the acquisition of new markets, England was able to guard

against this situation, which was becoming serious. Portugal and Spain were

only a moderate help. Though the amount of goods sent to them rose greatly,

the increase was chieﬂ y devoted to feeding Wellington’s troops. On the

other hand, the Levant markets proved a most valuable acquisition. The total

the imperial conquests after tilsit (1807–1812)

332

ﬁ gure for peninsular and Mediterranean exports rose from £4 million in

1805 to more than £16 million in 1811. But the really crucial event was the

opening up of markets in Brazil and the Spanish colonies. We have no exact

information about their trade; yet this development is the most likely expla-

nation of the sudden rise of English sales in America – excluding the United

States – which increased from £8 million in 1805 to £11 million in 1806

and 1807, and to nearly £20 million in 1808 and 1809. One of the perma-

nent results of the crisis was therefore to reduce the importance of the

continental market in British eyes and to turn attention to outlets overseas.

Apart from the Levant, Asia and Africa did not for the moment play any part

in this development. If anything, British exports to those parts fell off during

this period. The importance of Napoleon’s Spanish adventure stands out all

the more clearly against the facts that have just been reviewed.

Thus renewed in strength, England could afford to wait till the United

States came to a better mind, which they were not long in doing. They could

not live without exporting their corn, wood, cotton and tobacco: on this

point New England and the South were agreed. Moreover, there had been

protests from the shipowners, and the agitation soon threatened to lead to

civil war. At all events, the embargo provided an excellent platform for the

Federalists, who accused Jefferson of siding with the French. Nevertheless,

Madison was elected in 1808; but it had been agreed that the embargo

should be withdrawn. On 4 March 1809 a Non-intercourse Act was substi-

tuted, forbidding all trade with the belligerents; but it did not apply to Spain

or Portugal, Denmark or Sweden, and once on the way, American ships

contrived to go where they liked, particularly to Holland and to England.

Girard, for example, was arranging food supplies for Portugal, and from

there his ships went on with wine for England, from which they returned

with fresh cargoes. Moreover, the English ambassador promised that the

Orders in Council would soon be repealed, and although the government

issued a disclaimer, Madison had meanwhile been elected, the Non-intercourse

Act had been repealed and there was an enormous rush for Europe. In 1809

English exports to the United States rose to nearly £7½ million, and the

American ﬂ eet was once more put at the disposal of the British. In 1809

the percentage of ships leaving British ports under foreign ﬂ ags rose from

forty-ﬁ ve to seventy.

Making allowance for the variations in price, and so in proﬁ t, and for the

hazards of payment, which were apt to be very much a matter of chance in

these new countries – as was soon to be discovered – the result of the

English entry into Latin America and the Levant was that Napoleon’s designs

were effectively foiled. To be sure, the export index went down a little in

333

the continental blockade

1808 to ninety-one; but thanks to the shock administered to the Continental

System, and to the reconciliation with the United States, it was remarkably

buoyant in 1809, when it rose to 125, and even to more than 126 in 1810.

These customs ﬁ gures are conﬁ rmed by estimates of imports by weight in

the cotton industry. From 1801 to 1805 England imported on the average

56.5 million pounds of cotton bales; from 1807 to 1812 the ﬁ gures were

79.7 million, or an increase of 40.7 per cent. The sale of cotton goods rose

from £8,600,000 in 1805 to £12,500,000 in 1808 and £14.4 million in

1809. There was an equal growth in the production of coal and iron, and

continued technical progress. The population rose from 10,943,000 in

1801 to 12,597,000 in 1811. All this evidence goes to prove that Britain’s

economic structure during the early years of the century emerged victo-

rious from the tests it had undergone. Success was primarily due to its unri-

valled use of machinery and the monopoly of goods from the colonies. And

so the publicists employed by the government were able to snap their ﬁ ngers

at Napoleon, in particular d’lvernois, whose book Les Effets du blocus continental

came out in July 1809:

Votre blocus ne bloque point

Et grâce à notre heureuse adresse

Ceux que vous a Vamez sans cesse

Ne périront que d’embonpoint.

Yet it was too early to imagine that the day was won. After the defeat of

Austria, there was a tightening up of the Continental System, and there

seemed to be nothing to prevent Napoleon from making an end of Spain. It

looked as though with Alexander’s support – or when he had been defeated

– Napoleon would contrive to expel England from the Levant. Besides, the

continental blockade could well go hand in hand with closing the American

market. Just then Latin America was proving a disappointment in the matter

of payments, and by plunging into civil war was narrowing down the

markets; and it was not long before there was a renewal of the conﬂ ict with

the United States. Even during the years of prosperity, certain imports gave

cause for grave anxiety. It was no good Saumarez commanding the Baltic,

because as its ports were gradually sealed, it became increasingly difﬁ cult to

* Your blockade doesn’t block,

And thanks to our nautical skill

The folk you think you’re starving

Can more than eat their ﬁ ll.