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CHAPTER IX

THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION

HE Walcheren expedition can hardly be described as a chapter in the history of the Peninsular War. Taken geographically, it has no relation to the Peninsula. But the expedition is a sordid and melancholy parenthesis in that history. It represents the supreme military effort put forth by England in 1809, and some brief account may be fittingly given of it at this stage.

It is the story of a failure; perhaps of the greatest failure on the English side in the long struggle with Napoleon. The Walcheren expedition itself had a wise inspiration. It was planned on a magnificent scale. But it was carried out with so much of loitering delay and of drivelling imbecility that it constitutes one of the monumental scandals of British administration. The British mind contrives to retain its self-respect by the process of diligently forgetting most of the uncomfortable facts in British history. So the story of the Walcheren expedition has grown faint, as though its characters had been written in some magical ink, which, at charity's whisper, faded

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G

THE

CHAPTER IX

THE WALCHEREN EXPEDITION

HE Walcheren expedition can hardly be described as a chapter in the history of the Peninsular War. Taken geographically, it has no relation to the Peninsula. But the expedition is a sordid and melancholy parenthesis in that history. It represents the supreme military effort put forth by England in 1809, and some brief account may be fittingly given of it at this stage.

It is the story of a failure; perhaps of the greatest failure on the English side in the long struggle with Napoleon. The Walcheren expedition itself had a wise inspiration. It was planned on a magnificent scale. But it was carried out with so much of loitering delay and of drivelling imbecility that it constitutes one of the monumental scandals of British administration. The British mind contrives to retain its self-respect by the process of diligently forgetting most of the uncomfortable facts in British history. So the story of the Walcheren expedition has grown faint, as though its characters had been written in some magical ink, which, at charity's whisper, faded

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serve a double office. It would be a powerful distraction in favour of Austria, and it would destroy the new fleet which threatened to become a menace to Great Britain.

As a mere effort in strategy, the Walcheren expedition had every possible merit. The French armies were scattered over half Europe. There were 300,000 in Spain, another 300,000 in Germany, 100,000 in Italy; and, at this moment, when Napoleon was waging an equal and desperate combat on the Rhine against Austria and in Spain against Wellington, 40,000 British troops were to land at the mouth of the Scheldt. Antwerp at that moment was almost defenceless; its batteries were unarmed, its garrison consisted of some 2000 invalids and coastguards, with such gensdarmes and customs officers as could be hastily swept in from the district about it. The chance of destroying the city seemed easy and certain, and the British Cabinet planned its expedition on an imperial scale, a scale worthy of the Power which was the Mistress of the Sea.

A fleet mightier than that which triumphed at Trafalgar was to convoy to the swampy islets at the mouth of the Scheldt a British army stronger than that which won the crowning victory at Waterloo. The fleet, under Sir Richard Strachan, numbered more than a hundred ships of war. The military force consisted of 40,000 men of all arms, with two great battering trains; its divisional leaders Graham,

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