Napoleon, notwithstanding his supereminent genius, made some
extraordinary mistakes about warfare on the sea. The explanation
of this has been given by a highly distinguished French admiral.
The Great Emperor, he says, was wanting in exact appreciation
of the difficulties of naval operations. He never understood
that the naval officer--alone of all men in the world--must be
master of two distinct professions. The naval officer must be
as completely a seaman as an officer in any mercantile marine;
and, in addition to this, he must be as accomplished in the use
of the material of war entrusted to his charge as the members of
any aimed force in the world. The Emperor's plan for the invasion
of the United Kingdom was conceived on a grand scale. A great
army, eventually 130,000 strong, was collected on the coast of
north-eastern France, with its headquarters at Boulogne. The
numerical strength of this army is worth attention. By far the
larger part of it was to have made the first descent on our
territory; the remainder was to be a reserve to follow as quickly
as possible. It has been doubted if Napoleon really meant to
invade this country, the suggestion being that his collection
of an army on the shores of the Straits of Dover and the English
Channel was merely a 'blind' to cover another intended movement.
The overwhelming weight of authoritative opinion is in favour
of the view that the project of invasion was real.
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