Dimitri’s Reviews > The Line Upon a Wind: An Intimate History of the Last and Greatest War Fought at Sea Under Sail: 1793-1815 > Status Update

The danger was in the distribution [superior in the Baltic & Middle Sea]This was no longer a pre-Trafalgar situation where a line ship action could settle the balance of forces. Napoleon's naval acquisitions allowed strong enforcement of his war on commerce. It provided as well the means for harassment & [amphibious?] Deployment in all theatres, something that could stretch British naval resources beyond capability.

[Napoleon on admiral Villeneuve]
"The English would be reduced when France had two or three admirals who were willing to die... Villeneuve was a coward who had no plan, no courage, no insight."

He had no plan provided by you, landrubber First Consul. And shifting troops from Boulougne to the Rhine shows you have no more faith in the crossing.

12.12.1804. Napoleon was now on his 3rd grand scheme within a year for bringing his whole fleet to support the Boulogne armada to enable it to cross the Channel. The shemes all supposed release of the ships blockaded at Brest, Rochefort & Toulon to form a single force. Central to the plan(s) was a divergence to the West Indies to draw Nelson there, the false trail. [This] was wildly ambitious in its supposition.

The defeat of the combined fleet in the straits of Gibraltar (Algericas, 6 july 1801) meant that Napoleon had lost all possibility of further serious naval activity in the Mediterranean in support of the army in Egypt. For him maritime power had meant [exactly that: ] triumph over the British Navy in the Mediterranean & through that holding onto Egypt.

"Never had Britain been launched upon a war that, once started, remained so lacking on all sides in certainty of aim and direction, and of any semblance of cohesive vision and intent"

Lacking? Seven different coalitions. Six different territorial adjustments. Napoleon usually on the (preemptive) defense. It's not the Unconditional Surrender of the American Civil War or WW2.

Directions change.