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Home The French Revolution and the Great War, 1789-1802 The Second Coalition and its Failure, 1799-1800 |
The Second Coalition and its Failure, 1799-1800The battle of the Nile had great consequences. Not only did it prevent Tippoo Sahib in India from obtaining any further help from the French, and give the British control of the Mediterranean, but it encouraged the formation of another coalition of European powers against France (1799). The insolence and aggressiveness of the foreign policy pursued by the French Government had roused the Czar; and Austria and Turkey also joined in the coalition. Affairs at first looked very promising. The French were almost driven out of Italy, while the British had in 1798 taken Minorca and blockaded Malta. The British, freed from their entanglements in the West Indies by the treaty of 1798 with Toussaint l’Ouverture, again sent an army to Holland under the command of the Duke of York. Thanks to Lord St. Vincent an efficient system of blockading the great French port of Brest was adopted (St. Vincent's maxim was to be "close in with Ushant (the island outside Brest) in an easterly wind", which was the favourable wind for the escape of the French fleet; and only once during St. Vincent's command (which lasted 121 days) did the main fleet off Ushant fail, owing to fog, to communicate with the in-shore squadron stationed between Brest and Ushant. St. Vincent made himself very unpopular by ordering that when vessels went home to refit or take in stores, their officers were not to sleep on shore or go farther inland than three miles). France herself, under an incapable and intolerant Government, was threatened with bankruptcy, anarchy, and civil war. Meanwhile Napoleon's own plans were thwarted by the maritime supremacy of the British. He invaded Syria, but British ships under Sydney Smith captured his siege train - it was going by sea - and the guns which Napoleon had intended for the attack upon Acre were therefore used in its defence. Aided by British seamen, Acre held out. With this town untaken, Napoleon was unable to advance, and had to retreat to Egypt with his great schemes of conquest unaccomplished.But then the tide turned, and the year that opened so well for the allies was to end gloomily. 'The British troops had been sent to Holland in expectation of assistance from the Dutch and the Russians. The Russian contingent, however, proved inefficient and the Dutch soldiers never came at all. Our own army, badly equipped and worse provisioned, righting at one time in a district cut up by dykes and canals and at another in one of sand dunes, could do little; but it fought sufficiently well to be able to make a capitulation by which it was allowed to return to England. The French won a great victory in Switzerland over the Austro-Russian army, and then Austria and Russia quarrelled and the latter withdrew from the coalition. Above all, Napoleon came back to France, Sydney Smith caused English newspapers to be sent to Napoleon giving an account of affairs in Europe, Sent no doubt with the amiable design of making Napoleon thoroughly uncomfortable, they had the effect of making him decide upon an immediate return; and after an exciting voyage, in which he managed to elude all British ships, Napoleon landed safely in France in October. He was welcomed enthusiastically. The old Government was overthrown, and by Christmas Day. 1799, Napoleon, with the new title of First Consul, controlled the destinies of France. Napoleon, after restoring some sort of order in France, turned his attention first to the Austrians, who were fighting in Italy. He crossed the Alps, got in the rear of the Austrian army, beat it at the celebrated victory of Marengo in June, 1800, and won North Italy; another French victory, secured at Hohenlinden in December by another general, forced the Austrians to make peace at the beginning of 1801. Against the British, Napoleon made use of the grievances of neutral powers. No country denied that a neutral ship carrying contraband of war or attempting to enter a blockaded port was liable to seizure. But the British, in the definition of what constituted contraband of war, included foodstuffs and naval stores, such as hemp, which was one of the chief exports of Russia; and they claimed the right to seize vessels bound for a port declared to be blockaded, though the blockade might be a "paper one" with no adequate force to support it. Moreover, they seized goods belonging to the enemy, even when carried on neutral ships under convoy of their own country's warships. Neutrals contested these claims, and at the end of 1800 the Armed Neutrality of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden was formed to support their views. |
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