Alfred Thayer Mahan - The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II

Having thus relinquished a position he could not defend, and, as far as in him lay, secured the French possessions beyond the sea, Bonaparte could now give his whole attention to the plans for subjugating the British Islands which had long been ripening in his fertile brain.

It was from the first evident that Great Britain, having in the three kingdoms but fifteen million inhabitants, could not invade the territory of France with its population of over twenty-five millions. This was the more true because the demands of her navy, of her great mercantile shipping, and of a manufacturing and industrial system not only vast but complex, so that interference with parts would seriously derange the whole, left for recruiting the British armies a fraction, insignificant when compared with the resources in men of France; where capital and manufactures, commerce and shipping, had disappeared, leaving only an agricultural peasantry, upon which the conscription could freely draw without materially increasing the poverty of the country, or deranging a social system essentially simple.

This seeming inability to injure France gave rise to the sarcastic remark, that it was hardly worth while for a country to go to war in order to show that it could put itself in a good posture for defence. This, however, was a very superficial view of the matter. Great Britain's avowed reason for war was the necessity—forced upon a reluctant ministry and conceded by a bitter opposition—of resisting encroachments by a neighboring state. Of these, on the Continent, part had already occurred and were, for the time at least, irremediable; but there had also been clearly revealed the purpose of continuing similar encroachments, in regions whose tenure by an enemy would seriously compromise her colonial empire. To prevent this, Great Britain, by declaring war, regained her belligerent rights, and so resumed at once that control of the sea which needed only them to complete. She pushed her sway up to every point of her enemy's long coast-line; and following the strategy of the previous war, under the administration of the veteran seaman who had imparted to it such vigor, she prevented her enemy from combining any great operation, by which her world-wide dominion could be shaken or vital injury be inflicted at any point. The British squadrons, hugging the French coasts and blocking the French arsenals, were the first line of the defence, covering British interests from the Baltic to Egypt, the British colonies in the four quarters of the globe, and the British merchantmen which whitened every sea.

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See, for instance, his letter to Lady Hamilton, Oct. 3, 1798 (Disp., vol. iii. p. 140), which is but one of many similar expressions in his correspondence.

Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 177.

In an entirely open country, without natural obstacles, there are few or none of those strategic points, by occupying which in a central position an inferior force is able to multiply its action against the divided masses of the enemy. On the other hand, in a very broken country, such as Switzerland, the number of important strategic points, passes, heads of valleys, bridges, etc., are so multiplied, that either some must be left unoccupied, or the defenders lose, by dissemination, the advantage which concentration upon one or two controlling centres usually confers.

See ante, vol. i. p. 313 Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. .

It is said that the old marshal on receiving these orders cried: "This is the way armies are ruined."

Jomini, Guerres de la Rév. Fran., livre xv. p. 124. Martin, Hist. de France depuis 1789, vol. iii. p. 50. It was just at this moment that Nelson sent a division to the Gulf of Genoa to co-operate with Suwarrow. (Nels. Disp., vol. iii. p. 431.)

The phrase is that of Thiers. Hist. de la Rév., vol. x. p. 353.

A curious evidence of the insecurity of the highways is afforded by an ordinance issued by Bonaparte a year after he became First Consul (Jan. 7, 1801), that no regular diligence should travel without carrying a corporal and four privates, with muskets and twenty rounds, and in addition, at night, two mounted gendarmes. If specie to the value of over 50,000 francs were carried, there must be four gendarmes by day and night. (Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 697.)

See post , Chapter XVII.

Speech of February 18, 1801.

Thiers, Cons. et Empire, vol. i., p. 332.

See ante, p, 251.

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 410.

Ibid., vol. vi. p. 497.

"Voyant bien," says M. Thiers, Bonaparte's panegyrist, "que Malta ne pouvait pas tenir longtemps." (Cons. et Emp., vol. ii. p. 92.)

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 498.

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 520.

See vol. i. pp. 249, 256.

Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 738, Jan. 21, 1801.

Contrast Bonaparte's reliance upon the aggregate numbers of Baltic navies with Nelson's professional opinion when about to fight them. "During the Council of War (March 31, 1801) certain difficulties were started by some of the members relative to each of the three Powers we should have to engage, either in succession or united, in those seas. The number of the Russians was in particular represented as formidable. Lord Nelson kept pacing the cabin, mortified at everything which savored either of alarm or irresolution. When the above remark was applied to the Swedes, he sharply observed, 'The more numerous the better;' and when to the Russians, he repeatedly said, 'So much the better; I wish they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it.' He alluded, as he afterwards explained in private, to the total want of tactique among the Northern fleets." (Col. Stewart's Narrative; Nelson's Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 301.)