Read Nelson: Britannia's God of War Online
Authors: Andrew Lambert
Neapolitan artist Guzzardi captured the exhaustion, illness and strain so evident in Nelson’s letters.
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He desperately needed rest, but the royal family depended on him, the Hamiltons and Acton, the English quartet who worked on
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while prominent Neapolitans started to drift back to the mainland. Notable among them was Commodore Francesco Caracciolo, whom the king warned against serving the republicans.
Nelson was equally worried by the arrival of the Russians. He was not alone in rinding a Russo-Turkish alliance odd, but he was unusual in the vehemence of his warning that the Russians were not to be trusted. He supported the Sultan, declaring ‘I hate the Russians’, while Admiral Oushakov was ‘a blackguard’. He blocked Russian schemes to seize Malta by securing the reversion of the island from Ferdinand, who owned the freehold. If the French capitulated Ball was to take control for Britain and Naples.
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Although the island was of little use to the British while they held Minorca or had access to the ports of Sicily or Naples, in French hands it would be a major problem.
When St Vincent backed his complaints about Smith, he declared himself content to stay, ill as he was, as long as he had the admiral’s trust and the Queen’s faith.
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Without the support of the one man to whom he would defer, he would have gone home: he was at a low ebb, his spirit all but broken by the disasters of December. He even told Alexander Davison that ‘my only wish is to sink with honour into my grave’.
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This was impossible. He never lost his belief in a defining moment to die: he would find his own Quebec. On the same day and at the same desk he could pour out his flawed human thoughts and direct Mediterranean strategy with energy, penetration and that unique insight that elevated him above his contemporaries. He was something strange and rare.
As a French puppet republic was established to plunder the Kingdom of Naples, he sustained the various forces under his command. He had hoped to finish the siege of Valletta with an assault, but when it failed he immediately absolved Ball of any blame. When the Neapolitan government failed to send corn to Malta, he forcefully
reminded Acton that the island belonged to the King of Naples. The same corn supplies, he told Ball, would be withheld if the Russians tried to act in the Islands. To preserve these supplies from pirates he worked to secure a truce between Sicily, Tunis and Tripoli, and to end a war between Portugal and Tunis. He recovered Moorish prisoners from the Portuguese flagship as a goodwill gesture, while flattering the Portuguese admiral, the Marquess de Niza, to secure his aid off Malta. Although Niza’s ships were little more than window-dressing, they made it possible for Ball to carry on without Russian aid.
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The North African pirate cities preoccupied Nelson, and would require a visit from his flagship during the crisis of 1799.
Nelson’s clear strategic view took in the entire theatre. He understood that the ‘Vesuvian’ Republic would only survive until the Emperor joined the war in Northern Italy, drawing off the French troops. His priority was to preserve Sicily, seize Malta, bombard Alexandria and be ready for the Austrian attack.
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Sicily would be safe if the people remained loyal, but he planned a second Bourbon evacuation just in case. Fearing Northern Italy would be overrun by the French before the Russians arrived, Nelson worked harder to bring the various allied forces, Turkish, Russian and Portuguese, into line, to secure Sicily and sustain the Maltese blockade. The key to the campaign was the port of Messina: if it could be held, Sicily was safe; if it fell, the game was up. To hold the fortress at Messina he turned to his old companion in arms, General Sir Charles Stuart at Minorca. Newly raised Sicilian forces were unready for a severe trial: the Neapolitans were untrustworthy and the citadel was too big to be held, as he had initially thought, by a garrison of marines and sailors under Troubridge. He needed a substantial force of British troops, at least a thousand, but preferably around three thousand. He requested Stuart’s help. In the mean time he would place Troubridge’s squadron off the harbour, once it returned from Egypt.
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No one would land there without a fight. Once again the overland mail link gave him ample excuse to keep the First Lord informed.
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To secure British interests at Malta, meanwhile, Ball was given chief command ashore by Ferdinand. For the duration of the war the campaign would be waged under joint British and Neapolitan flags.
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Nelson understood that the Maltese trusted the British to save them from the atheist French, the luxurious Knights and the indifferent Bourbons. He anticipated Ball becoming Governor after the island
was taken, and stressed that the gift of a jewelled portrait of the Tsar would not stop him watching the Russian moves with the deepest suspicion.
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He was convinced they wanted the Island for a future war with Turkey,
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and politely warned Admiral Oushakov that the island was under British protections.
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The new Parthenopean Republic, proclaimed in Naples on 27 January 1799, was not a runaway success. While it satisfied the long-suppressed ambitions of the aristocracy, Freemasons, the intelligentsia and merchants, it had no popular support. The working classes preferred their vulgar, populist monarch, and the old order he represented, and it required the bayonets of a French army to keep the people committed to their own liberty. Outside the city the new regime had no support, prompting the King to send an agent to raise the royal standard in rural Calabria. Cardinal Fabrice Ruffo, a Prince of the Church, writer on military subjects and a local magnate, landed alone on 8 February 1799. Raising a core of support from his estates he formed a ‘Christian’ army of peasants, released prisoners and assorted ruffians. Initially Ruffo was not expected to achieve much, and was therefore given wide-ranging powers to act in the King’s name. Instead his cause triumphed in terrible fashion. Unable to discipline his ‘troops’, Ruffo had to stand by as they rampaged through captured towns, butchering anyone suspected of Jacobin sympathies.
The campaign in Calabria became a triumphal procession, and by mid-March Ruffo was within forty miles of Naples. In Sicily, meanwhile, the arrival of a thousand British regulars had secured Messina. By the time Troubridge returned from Egypt on 17 March, without effecting much against the well-prepared French position, Stuart’s arrival had released him to take command in the bay of Naples. He would impose a close blockade and support the counter-revolution. The steady improvement in allied fortunes encouraged Nelson to hang on to restore the Bourbons, despite his ill-health, before he went home. He could not, he informed his Commander in Chief, leave the court at Palermo.
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The fact that St Vincent respected this decision, when he could have ordered Nelson to any position in the Mediterranean or sent him home, suggests that he shared Nelson’s belief that it was the focal point of the campaign. While the Earl became fixated upon Minorca and the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, he left the active prosecution of the war to Nelson.
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As Ruffo’s strength grew, Ferdinand reduced his powers, instructing him on no account to offer terms to the rebels.
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The King would settle the fate of traitors, and took a severe line on any who had taken up arms against him. These instructions were sent to Nelson, to inform Troubridge’s operations.
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The counter-revolution had been promised Russian and even Turkish support, but the pace of Ruffo’s advance was such that this only arrived at the very end of the campaign. Instead Troubridge cut off the city and supported Ruffo’s advance, seizing two islands in the Bay of Naples on 3 April. This further undermined the already fragile authority of the Republic.
News that the French had attacked the Austrians in mid-March was welcome, but there was still much to be done. At Nelson’s dictation King Ferdinand instructed Troubridge: ‘always bearing in mind, that speedy rewards and quick punishments are the foundation of good government’.
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Troubridge soon discovered that the people had no faith in the Parthenopean Republic, welcoming the royal revival. The Jacobin experiment would be over once the French retreated.
In Malta, meanwhile, the British government, in order to secure Russian support, had accepted the revival of the Knights of St John by the unstable Tsar Paul, and allowed the Russians to claim a role in the siege. Ball would require all his tact to adopt this new policy without disgusting the Maltese and compromising the siege.
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It was in response to this ministerial volte-face that Nelson famously disparaged the utility of Malta to Britain once Naples was back in friendly hands. The same private letter lamented Spencer’s failure to promote Maurice to the Navy Board.
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Other personal correspondence of the same time shared thoughts about the lack of family rewards with brother William, while noting the death of the youngest brother, drunken Suckling. Fanny was warned not to come out to Sicily; Nelson would return with the Hamiltons once the Bourbons were restored.
Nelson’s protestations that he only remained at Palermo in order to restore the royal regime in Naples, and thereby secure British interests, occur throughout his correspondence and must be taken seriously. The pleadings of the Queen, affecting as they must have been even at seond-hand in Emma’s translation, were as nothing to the strategic imperatives that directed his programme. He was the only man who could energise the Neapolitan cause and rescue the hooligan King from his treacherous subjects, securing the best naval facilities in the Mediterranean for his country.
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Moreover, there were longer-term
imperatives: by restoring Ferdinand, Nelson and Hamilton would cement the links with Vienna and drive the French out of the greater part of Italy. Improved conditions for trade would help fund the war, while damaging the prospects of the enemy.
For the next three months Nelson lived ashore at Palermo, in the Hamiltons’ residence. This offered the political benefits of enabling him to work closely with the British minister and the exiled court. By living ashore, Nelson anticipated the practice of modern theatre commanders: a ship cannot be everywhere at once, and it is better to be at the hub than isolated at some unknown point on the rim of a wide-ranging theatre. But Palermo also offered more tangible and immediate comforts: good food, the society of leading figures and the unalloyed love of his hosts. It is often alleged that Nelson ‘dallied’
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at Palermo, gambling and amusing himself in the company of Lady Hamilton, ‘cutting the most absurd figure possible for folly and vanity’.
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Like most contemporary criticism, these comments came from a man with no personal knowledge of the situation; like any slander it had an element of truth. Nelson was inordinately vain; he loved the trappings of success, the decorations, awards, praises and tributes that showered over his poor battered head after the Nile. But it would be churlish and unrealistic to expect Nelson to have sustained the quasimonastic discipline of his life afloat while his flagship lay at anchor in harbour. After three months of intense mental anguish, and a stunning blow to the head, he needed rest, but his country kept him at work. He was too famous to be granted leave. As for gambling, he is on record as never taking part, while his abstemious views suggest that he was never drunk. The criticisms, on closer inspection, dissolve into the mean-spirited carping of hostile witnesses. He had earned the right to enjoy a little pantomime at the end of the day, even one in which he was the chief character. He knew the difference between such off-duty trifles and the gasconades of Sir Sidney Smith, who all too often accompanied his public actions with ‘a parade of nonsense’.
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Far from falling under the spell of his hosts, Nelson knew exactly what to expect. When the Queen belatedly sent money to help the Maltese, he advised Ball to have the bags opened and counted in the presence of witnesses, having no faith in the honesty of court officials.
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Nor did he trust Cardinal Ruffo, the astonishing prelate-general and acting head of state. Closely connected by class and origins to many of the leading figures in the ‘Vesuvian’ regime, Ruffo took the
view that the sooner the Jacobins were out of office the better, and was quite happy to excuse their error if he could avoid bloodshed, battle or the destruction of property. Such leniency did not accord with Nelson’s view that treason would recur unless suppressed with exemplary force. The King and Queen realised that Ruffo’s actions would undermine their regime, specifically withdrawing his authority to make any treaty or peace with the rebels. They rightly feared he would let the ringleaders escape. With Austria in the war, and the French evacuating Naples, there was no need to compromise with treachery.
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