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Home The French Revolution and the Great War, 1789-1802 Renewed Isolation of Great Britain, 1801 and the Treaty of Amiens, 1802 |
Renewed Isolation of Great Britain, 1801 and the Treaty of Amiens, 1802The year 1801, like the year 1797, was therefore a critical year for Great Britain. She was again without an ally on the Continent. The Armed Neutrality threatened her with war. The prime minister, Pitt, retired in February, and was succeeded by an incompetent minister called Addington. But the events of a fortnight at the end of March and the beginning of April completely altered the situation. Abercromby, who had been sent to operate, with greatly inferior forces, against the French army still in Egypt, succeeded in effecting a landing and winning a brilliant victory at Alexandria, which led to the capitulation of the French forces five months later. Two days after this battle the Czar Paul was assassinated. With his death, the "trunk" - as Nelson called Russia - of the Armed Neutrality was broken, and the new czar, Alexander I, was favourable to the British and made a treaty with them. Meantime disasters had occurred to the "branches" of the Armed Neutrality. The British captured the Danish and Swedish islands in the West Indies. Above all, on the 1st of April, came the battle of Copenhagen. Nelson, with part of the British fleet, forced his way up the intricate straits in front of the capital, attacked and silenced the Danish batteries, took and sank the Danish fleet, and before he retired had forced the Danish Government to renounce the Armed Neutrality (Parker, the British commander-in-chief, allowed Nelson to make this attack with part of the fleet whilst he remained outside with the remainder of the ships. When, after three hours' fighting, the Danes seemed to be holding their own, Parker hoisted the signal to "discontinue the action ". But Nelson exclaimed to an officer, " You know, I have only one eye - I have a right to be blind sometimes", and then putting the telescope to his blind eye exclaimed, " I really do not see the signal!"), and so opened the Baltic to the British fleet.Great Britain, after this fortnight of success, was ready, burdened as she was by a gigantic debt and governed by a pacific minister, for peace; and so was Napoleon. Before the end of the year the preliminaries were signed, and developed into the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. "It was a peace", said a contemporary, "of which everyone was glad and nobody proud." Great Britain gave up all her conquests save Ceylon and Trinidad, whilst France retained the country which is now called Belgium, and the Rhine frontier. For nearly the whole of its course, the war had been conducted by Pitt, and his lieutenant Dundas. In Macaulay's opinion, Pitt's war policy was that of a driveller; and it has been said of Dundas that he was so profoundly ignorant of war as to be unconscious even of his ignorance. The judgments are somewhat harsh. But it is impossible to read the details of the war without realizing that our statesmen not infrequently failed to take sufficient advantage of the opportunities offered them, had no clear or consistent idea of their objectives, and made the task of the generals always difficult and sometimes impossible by providing them with inadequate or ill-equipped forces. Hence much of the war is disappointing; but in the West Indies, in the Netherlands, and above all in Egypt our soldiers fought bravely, and some of our generals - and more especially Abercromby - exhibited considerable capacity, whilst the navy won for itself immortal glory. |
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