Battle of Ulm

‘…Meanwhile, Mack found himself, with the remains of his army, cooped up in Ulm, as Wurmser had been in Mantua. He published an order of the day, which intimated an intention to imitate the persevering defence of that heroic veteran. He forbade the word surrender to be used by any one—he announced the arrival of two powerful armies, one of Austrians, one of Russians, whose appearance would presently raise the blockade—he declared his determination to eat horse-flesh rather than listen to any terms of capitulation. This bravado appeared on the 16th October, and the conditions of surrender were subscribed by Mack on the next day, having been probably in the course of adjustment when he was making these notable professions of resistance.

The course of military misconduct which we have traced, singular as it is, might be perhaps referred to folly or incapacity on the part of Mack, though it must be owned it was of that gross kind which civilians consider as equal to fraud. But another circumstance remains to be told, which goes far to prove that this once celebrated and trusted general had ingrafted the traitor upon the fool. The terms of capitulation, as subscribed on the 17th October, bore, that there should be an armistice until 26th October at midnight; and that if, during this space, an Austrian or Russian army should appear to raise the blockade, the army at Ulm should have liberty to join them, with their arms and baggage. This stipulation allowed the Austrian soldiers some hope of relief, and in any even it was sure to interrupt the progress of Buonaparte's successes, by detaining the principal part of his army in the neighbourhood of Ulm, until the term of nine days was expired. But Mack consented to a revision of these terms, a thing which would scarcely have been proposed to a man of honour, and signed on the 19th a second capitulation, by which he consented to evacuate Ulm on the day following'; thus abridging considerably, at a crisis when every minute was precious, any advantage, direct or contingent, which the Austrians could have derived from the delay originally stipulated…’

Several events in Napoleon’s military campaigns coincide with a date of October 19^th.  In 1813 that date witnessed the end of the Battle of Leipzig, which was a terrible defeat for Napoleon.  A year previous, was Napoleon retreating from Moscow.  In 1805, however, Bonaparte’s fortune was still with him, and he emerged victorious from the Battle of Ulm.

General Karl Mack, whose actions are described above in text from Walter Scott’s “The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte”, fared poorly on the battle field, and, having been given his freedom by Napoleon, was court-martialed for surrendering the Austrian army.

Battle of Basque Roads

The Battle of Basque Roads took place this day, April 11, in the year 1809.  Basque Roads is a bay on the west coast of France where the British and French were facing off during the Napoleonic Wars.  The British under Admiral James Gambier and Captain Thomas Cochrane won this affair.  A precurser to the battle involved a number of French ships that Gambier chased into the Basque Roads, after they escaped from Brest.  This event was reported in The Edinburgh Annual Register (ed. Walter Scott) dated March 9, 1809.  It was Captain Cochrane that successfully led the attack on the ships once in Basque Roads.

'ESCAPE OF A SQUADRON FROM BREST, INTO BASQUE ROADS.—Intelligence has been received at the Admiralty, of a squadron of the enemy's ships having lately eluded the vigilance of our blockading force, and got out of Brest. The force which thus escaped is understood to have consisted of eight sail. Their object is said to have been to surprise our small squadron off Rochefort, and then to proceed to the West Indies. The enemy has along his coast signal stations, or telegraphs, by which intelligence is quickly communicated from north to south; and it is believed that they had been informed in this manner that our small squadron off Rochefort was in the habit of lying at anchor with its sails down. Accordingly, when our fleet was blown off Brest, they slipped out, and ran directly for Rochefort. Meanwhile the Naiad, our look-out frigate off Rochefort, descrying the enemy, made the signal to Admiral Stopford, who instantly shifted his station into another part of the bay. The enemy, as soon as they arrived off Rochefort, ran for the position in which their telegraph had taught them to expect our squadron; and not finding it there, conceived it had quitted its station. They then put into Basque Roads, between Rochefort and Rochelle. The promptitude with which our naval affairs are administered soon reinforced Admiral Stopford with three more sail of the line ; and these heroes, who came with eight sail of the line to attack four, did not venture out with eleven sail of the line, because Admiral Stopford was before Rochefort with seven. Lord Gambier had dispatched Admiral Duckworth after the enemy. His lordship is arrived at Plymouth.




Enemy's force in Basque Roads ---


One 3-decker, ten 2-deckers, one 50 gun ship, and four frigates.


At Sable D'Olonne—Three frigates.


British force with Admiral Stopford—Three sail of the line, four frigates, and one brig.


With Captain Beresford, and nearly in sight of Admiral Stopford— Four sail of the line and one frigate.


It is expected that an attempt will be made to destroy these ships in Basque Roads. All the line of battle ships in the Downs were ordered on Monday to sail with all possible expedition to Plymouth ; and an order was received at Plymouth on Saturday, for all the line of battle skips there to put to sea immediately. The Black Joke lugger, Parthian, and Weazle schooner, sailed lately from Plymouth, to warn all the vessels they might meet with of the sailing of the above squadron from, Brest. They may now return quietly into port.'

The Summer Tour Reaches Holland

In the wake of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo (June 18, 1815), Walter Scott's 1815 Tour of Waterloo and Paris (published in John Scott's journal of that name) reached the shores of Helvoet, sailing up the Maes en route to Bergen-op-zoom.

A few words from Walter Scott on first visiting the Antwerp Gate reveal something of what he kept in his memory:

'Thence we proceeded to the Antwerp gate, between which and the water-port gate, an attack was made by the column under General Cooke; and were shown the place, near the former, where Colonel Macdonald fell. A demolished garden, in which part of Cooke's division had sustained severe loss, and the spot where General Skerret was wounded, were also pointed out to us.


While we walked along the ramparts, on which we remarked several of the trees riddled with musket shot, the sky was frequently illuminated with flashes of sheet lightning ; and I well recollect the solemn feelings with which the scene impressed us, when listening to the melancholy details given us of this bold, though unfortunate attempt; " and heard," as Sir W. Scott relates, " from below the hollow roll of the drums announcing the setting of the watch, and the deep and sullen ' Wer da' of the sentinels, as they challenged those who passed their station." *
 
* See Paul's Letters, letter ii...'

Battle of the Nile

The Battle of the Nile took place on August 2, 1798.  In this battle, Napoleon's navy under Vice Admiral Francois-Paul Brueys D'Aigalliers was defeated by the British Royal Navy under Admiral Horatio Nelson.  The British navy gained the upper hand in the Napoleonic Wars with this victory.

Walter Scott references this battle in the line 'On Egypt...' in his poem Marmion.

'Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launch'd that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprize,
For Britain's weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain's sins, an early grave!
His worth, who, in his mightiest hour,
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spum'd at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, when the frantic crowd amain
Strain'd at subjection's bursting rein,
O'er their wild mood full conquest gain'd,
The pride, he would not crush, restrain'd,
Show'd their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman's arm, to aid the freeman's laws...'

Income Tax

The first English income tax was introduced on January 9, 1799, by Prime Minister William Pitt.  The tax, of two shillings on the Pound, was used to finance the Napoleonic Wars.  Presumably among the items ultimately funded, would be the light-weight carronade naval cannons, produced near Falkirk by the Carron Iron Works, that earned a tremendous amount of credit for defeating Napoleon.

A curious event involving carronades occurred in March of 1792, when the brig Rosamond was seized by the government at Dumfries as a smuggling ship.  One of the officials who boarded the ship was the excise man and poet Robert Burns.  The ship and its contents were subsequently sold.

According to a report by antiquarian Joseph Train, Burns purchased 4 carronades at that sale. Train passed documents relating to the sale of the Rosamond inventory to Sir Walter Scott, in 1825.  According to John Lockhart, Burns later sent the carronades to the French Convention in a show of sympathy.  Train relates that Scott attempted to trace receipt of the guns in France, and learned from Custom House authorities that the carronades had been seized at the port of Dover, never reaching France.