July 22, 1805 - Napoleon's invasion plan comes to nought

History mainly remembers Nelson and Trafalgar, but l'Empereur's hopes of using his fleets to facilitate an invasion of Britain were dashed on this date by Sir Robert Calder.

Without rehashing all the details, Napoleon devised an elaborate series of schemes involving French and Spanish fleets and squadrons going as far afield as the West Indies in order to draw the Royal Navy after them and allow the Franco-Spanish to achieve temporary superiority in the English Channel and allow the French Army to cross. What's usually overlooked is that the plan worked - when Villeneuve arrived off Cape Finesterre, there were 60 French and Spanish ships of the line in the Biscay theater against 33 British - Villenueve's 20, 14 at Ferrol, a squadron of 5 that had just sortied from Rochefort, and 21 at Brest. Nelson, having chased Villeneuve across the Atlantic and back, had just arrived at Cadiz and was for the moment out of the picture.

The British were forewarned that Villeneuve was returning to European waters and posted Calder with 15 of the line to intercept him. In a confused battle in fickle winds and low visibility, the British captured two Spanish ships and inflicted considerably more damage than they received. On the following day, Calder declined to renew the battle, concerned with his prizes, damaged ships, and the danger of French or Spanish reinforcements. He therefore fell back to join the Channel Fleet off Brest, in keeping with Royal Navy doctrine.

Villeneuve after the battle gave up whatever hope he had had of carrying out his Emperor's plans. He took his battered fleet into port, and even when reinforced by the ships from Ferrol thought of little but the danger that awaited him should he put to sea. He also knew that his bete noir Nelson would not be long in arriving, and indeed Nelson's fleet soon joined the concentration in the Channel approaches.

Napoleon's scheme had collapsed. Villeneuve slipped away to Cadiz and Trafalgar, while l'Armee d'Angleterre/la Grande Armee marched to Ulm and Austerlitz.

And Sir Robert Calder? Having fought 20 ships with 15, captured two, wrecked four so badly they never fought again, lost none of his own, and defeated Napoleon's invasion scheme.....he was court martialed for not having done better and never commanded at sea again. Nelson and the rest had accustomed the British people to glorious victories, merely winning the war wasn't enough.

 

Thanks for the story. Britain at it's best when treating her heroes, unfortunately.

 

Bringing this back for the anniversary.

 

I've read that Napoleon had his troops so well drilled and organized that they could embark and disembark faster than we were able to do the same during WWII! IIRC, he could load a regiment in 20 minutes. There were also a number of Irish/Hibernian units in Napoleon's forces. Good thing for England that Sir Robert Calder stopped them, or Ireland and Scotland would likely have been liberated and allied with France.

 

Napoleon is supposed to have said: "Let us be masters of the Channel for twelve hours and we are masters of the world."

One interesting aspect of his invasion plan was a division of dismounted dragoons. Dragoons could fight effectively on foot, which they would do until they could capture mounts in England.