The War of Wars (36 page)

He proceeded to travel by boat from ship to ship through his fleet to suppress the mutiny, and on one ship grabbed a mutineer by the collar and dangled him over the side of the ship, declaring, ‘My lads, look at this fellow who dares to deprive me of command of the fleet.’ The mutiny sputtered to a halt in his North Sea Fleet. When mutiny broke out at Sheerness he immediately ordered his fleet to sea from Yarmouth – to find only one ship, the
Adamant
, following his own
Venerable
, as he sailed on 29 May.

He reached the Texel three days later with his lonely companion ship, to find the Dutch fleet preparing for combat. ‘I looked into the Texel last evening and saw in the roads fourteen sail of the line and eight frigates, with a number of other vessels, amounting in the whole to ninety-five.’ These were formidable odds for a single flagship and another small one, but Duncan told them with grim Scottish humour that ‘the soundings were so shallow that his flag would still fly above the shoal water after the ship and company had disappeared’.

The biggest expeditionary force yet for the invasion of Ireland, some 35,000 men under the most redoubtable of all French generals, Lazare Hoche, had been preparing to embark at Texel for the invasion of Ireland. Wolfe Tone was there too, complaining as ever about adverse winds which were delaying sailing. Some 4,000 Dutch troops had actually embarked, although shortly before Duncan’s arrival, Hoche died suddenly: he was the only French military commander then with greater prestige than Napoleon and might indeed have been preferred over him as France’s military dictator had he lived.

Duncan’s ships set about blockading the Texel on their own. They policed the narrowest part of the Channel outside the Dutch port, through which only one ship could move at a time and for three days and nights kept the crew on full alert while waiting for the Dutch to emerge. When the wind turned, he was forced to withdraw, and in one of the most ingenious naval deceptions of the time, feigned signals to an imaginary fleet just over the horizon, to give the Dutch the
impression that a huge force awaited them. Thus the mighty Dutch fleet was kept in port for nearly a fortnight by just two ships until, after the collapse of the Sheerness mutiny, on 17 June the rest of the fleet joined Duncan.

Rather more convincingly, the blockade then resumed for nearly four months, until the Dutch fleet decided to try and break out under Admiral de Winter with twenty-one ships manned by 7,000 seamen while Duncan was refitting the bulk of his fleet at Yarmouth. A small watchdog cutter sailed at speed for Yarmouth, firing its guns excitedly to alert Duncan, who promptly put to sea and intercepted the Dutch fleet on 11 October.

De Winter organized his fleet in a disciplined line parallel to the shore some five miles out. Duncan did not hesitate: he chose to attack frontally, in two groups, passing through the enemy lines and engaging them on the lee side, with the advantage of being able to fire up into the enemy ships while their shot would often fire overhead into the sea. It was a gamble, because it would place the British ships between the Dutch fleet and a potentially dangerous shore, especially if the wind got up.

The religious Duncan prayed with his officers on the quarter-deck as the two fleets closed. Captain Onslow of the
Monarch
, in charge of the second group, reached the enemy line first, aiming for a narrow gap with such determination that the ship behind had to slow its course. He pulled through, firing broadsides in both directions, then swinging around alongside the
Jupiter
, the Dutch vice-admiral’s ship. The
Venerable
, leading the second group to the north, broke the line behind the Dutch flagship, the
Vreheid
.

The Dutch broadsides were equally lethal, but much slower – one to every three British. The battle was brutal and straightforward, ship against ship, and lasted three long hours with immense courage being displayed on both sides until, under the superior British rate of fire, the Dutch ships one after another began to surrender. Duncan observed: ‘The pilot and myself were the only two unhurt on the quarter-deck, and De Winter, who is as tall and as big as I am, was the only one on his quarter-deck left alive.’ At last the
Vreheid
also lowered her colours and de Winter, as was the Dutch custom, proposed to escape in a small
boat. To his astonishment he found a British officer had crossed a huge raft of wreckage to make him prisoner.

De Winter, with his officers about him openly crying, crossed the wreckage, fell into the sea, and was rescued. His second-in-command escaped with a handful of ships. Only seven of the twenty-one ships that had been the pride of the Dutch navy escaped. Duncan gathered with his men in the presence of the captured de Winter to offer thanks for victory. De Winter told Duncan: ‘Your not waiting to form a line ruined me. If I had got nearer to the shore before your attack, I should probably have drawn both fleets on it, and it would have been a victory to me, being on my own coast.’

It was not an elegant victory, simply a slogging match, ship for ship. Once again traditional tactics had been abandoned in favour of a frontal attack, but this time a disorganized one. However, by his direct and immediate attack, as de Winter realized, Duncan had prevented the Dutch getting into position closer to their own shore, and the superiority, speed and skill of the British gunners had done the rest.

It was a huge relief for the British nation, worrying almost daily for an invasion that never came: it completely destroyed the Dutch fleet, which although smaller than the Spanish, was much more feared for the courage of its seamen.
The Times
remarked that the amount of money spent toasting the health of Admiral Duncan would increase the revenue’s duty by £5,000. A third great naval victory had been won, in a fight in which the British navy had very nearly been deprived of its fleet: and the sixty-six-year-old Duncan joined Howe and St Vincent (at the times of their respective victories), as sexagenarian toasts of their country. With the victory of Camperdown, the threat of invasion had momentarily passed.

The tension in Paris that followed Napoleon’s return from Italy was defused by an extraordinary decision, whose midwife was Talleyrand – to despatch Napoleon at the head of a huge expedition to Egypt. It was certain that Talleyrand inspired the idea: nearly a year before, in January 1797, he had argued that Egypt would make the perfect colony for France, being much closer than the West Indies. A month later Napoleon, clearly in contact with Talleyrand, whom at that stage he had not met, made a similar argument: ‘The time is not far distant when we shall feel that, in order to destroy England once and for all we must occupy Egypt. The approaching death of the vast Ottoman empire forces us to think ahead about our trade in the Levant.’ Napoleon suggested occupying Malta, then administered by the Knights of St John, as a first stage. In January and February 1798 Talleyrand, as foreign minister, delivered two impressive presentations for this course to the Directory.

French statesmen had long toyed with the idea. It might seem crackpot, but it had huge attractions for Napoleon: like Italy, and unlike Britain, Egypt was likely to be a walkover: the country was a distant fiefdom of the decaying Ottoman empire but in fact was virtually independent under an ancient and ruling caste, the Mame-lukes: he could not believe it would put up any stiffer resistance than the Italians had. It appealed to Napoleon’s innate sense of mysticism and romanticism, as a new Alexander the Great forging a great empire for France in the east.

It made some logistical sense too: with Britain’s conquest of the
Cape Colony, Britain’s Indian empire seemed secure; but if French ideas for digging a canal across Suez to the Red Sea could be realized, the French would have a far faster route to India to attack the British and join up with their enemy Tippoo Sultan. Napoleon believed he could more effectively strike at Britain through Egypt than by leading a doomed invasion of the British Isles. Napoleon and Talleyrand also believed that seizing Egypt would give a final push to the tottering Ottoman empire which would then lie at France’s feet. Talleyrand, as part of the scheme, was to become ambassador in Constantinople to await Napoleon’s victory. Napoleon thought the time was not yet ripe to seize power in Paris – indeed he feared he was in personal danger from his enemies there: by taking Egypt he could return covered in glory. He remarked of the Directory: ‘The Parisian lawyers who have been put in the Directory understand nothing of government. They are mean-minded men . . . I doubt that we can stay friends much longer. They are jealous of me. I can no longer obey. I have tasted command and I would not know how to give it up.’

The evidence seems overwhelming that Talleyrand was playing a double game: on the one hand, by indulging in Napoleon’s eastern fantasies, he appeared to be his closest friend and supporter; on the other he was removing from Paris the most dangerous player there, which would permit the wily foreign minister to dominate the intrigues in the capital. For their part the Directors were only too glad to be rid of the threatening Bonaparte.

However to guarantee success to the scheme for invading Egypt, Napoleon’s demands were heavy: he had little doubt he could cross the Mediterranean, which had been abandoned by the British. But he had to overawe the Egyptians with overwhelming force. Accordingly he demanded 24,000 men – which he proposed to double with recruits from Egypt – the money for 10,000 horses and 5,000 camels and 150 field batteries. He would use the Toulon fleet for the crossing – some 400 transports to be convoyed by fifteen battleships, fifteen frigates and thirty-seven lesser craft.

To pay for the expedition, Napoleon proposed barefaced looting: he despatched a henchman to occupy helpless Switzerland and extract from the mountain state no less than 16 million francs in gold and as
much again in art and supplies. Meanwhile, General Louis Berthier was sent to pick a quarrel with the ageing Pope and plundered a huge quantity of gold.

Napoleon himself recruited the flower of the French army: General Louis Charles Desaix, a tough young ex-aristocrat to whom Napoleon had taken a rare personal liking; the veteran Jean-Baptiste Kléber, an old enemy of Napoleon but a superb general; Alexandre Dumas as cavalry commander, the father of the famous novelist to-be; Louis Caffareli as chief engineer; Berthier as his chief of staff; Androche Junot as his closest aide; and the young Joachim Murat.

Napoleon chose to dress up this nakedly imperialist venture with an appeal to France’s highest sensibilities. He was going to educate the people of Egypt and embark on a great enterprise of scientific discovery; some 150 men of science, art and letters were also recruited for this fabulous
folie de grandeur
. These included the inventor of geometry, Gaspard Monge, along with another brilliant mathematician, Jean-Baptiste Fourier, who specialized in studying heat (which would be useful in Egypt); Gratet de Dolomieu, the mineralogist after whom the Dolomites are named; Nicolas Conté, a famous balloonist; Matthieu de Lesseps, (whose son was to build the Suez Canal, inspired by his father after the expedition); and two brilliant artists, Vivant Denon and Pierre-Joseph Redouté, as well as the poet Parseval-Grandmaison.

Napoleon’s most brilliant coup was to keep the whole colossal enterprise completely secret: the British, watching the massed troops across the Channel, suspected nothing and with no presence in the Mediterranean failed to detect the build-up. Nor would it have made any sense to them. At the last moment Napoleon was nearly foiled when war threatened to break out with Austria after troops attacked the French embassy in Vienna when Napoleon’s old rival, Bernadotte, who had gone there as ambassador, provoked them by raising the Tricolor on his embassy. Napoleon dissuaded the Directory from declaring war.

By the time of his departure on 19 May the Army of Egypt had swollen to 38,000 men. Napoleon left Josephine behind for her own safety, inviting her to join him later: she never did, as she was badly injured in an accident when a balcony she was standing on collapsed.

So began the most harebrained, pointless and vainglorious adventure in Napoleon’s entire career before his invasions of Spain and Russia, which in some respects it resembled, and foreshadowed, revealing him to be a brilliant tactician and hopeless strategist.

On 17 May 1798 the vast expeditionary force of warships and troops set sail from Toulon. For fully eight hours 180 craft sailed past the flagship
L’Orient
. There were thirteen three-masted ships of the line with billowing sails and a combined firepower of 1,026 cannon; forty-two frigates and other smaller warships; and 130 transports bearing 17,000 troops, some 16,000 sailors and 700 horse. There were 1,000 artillery pieces, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and nearly 600 supply wagons.

This colossal armada sailed to rendezvous with three smaller fleets from Genoa, Civitavecchia and Ajaccio in Corsica, which would double the number of ships and bring the total manpower to 55,000. This was no on-the-cheap British-style imperial adventure, but empire-building on a colossal, overwhelming scale. The horizon of canvas stretched some four square miles. Napoleon Bonaparte, still only thirty-one years old, stood watching, his breast surging at the huge force he commanded.

The day before he had addressed his troops with a speech full of bluster and reckless promises that reflected his growing sense of absolute self-confidence and destiny:

Officers and soldiers, two years ago, I came to take command of you. At that time, you were on the Ligurian coast, in the greatest want, lacking everything, having sold even your watches to provide for your needs. I promised to put an end to your privations. I led you into Italy. There all was given you in abundance. Have I not kept my word?

[‘Yes!’]

Well, let me tell you that you have not done enough yet for the motherland, nor the motherland for you. I shall now lead you into a country where by your future deeds you will surpass even those that now are astonishing your admirers, and you will render to the Republic such services as she has a right to expect from an invincible
army. I promise every soldier that upon his return to France, he shall have enough to buy himself six acres of land.