Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [156]
As British heels dug in, so Napoleon responded with threats. Such bullying, however, was most ill timed, for the British had just received some good news. In the dark days of January, it is just possible that a diplomatic coup de main on the part of the French ruler might have secured a peace deal. At that point the situation in Sicily - the keystone at this time of Britain’s war - looked very bleak. Ferdinand IV was at best a figure of fun and the island’s military resources were almost non-existent. Let us here quote Henry Bunbury, a British staff officer serving with the expeditionary force that had been landed there:
If Ferdinand had been a mere noble of Naples with plenty of game to shoot, plenty of good things to eat and drink and a few toadeaters and buffoons on whom he could have played off his jokes, he would have passed through life with the credit of being a good-humoured comical fellow and a capital sportsman . . . but, placed upon a throne, and tried by difficult times, his ignorance, narrow-mindedness, cowardice and treacherous deceit arose in dark relief . . . It appeared evident [too] that the government possessed . . . no magazines, no ammunition, no artillery; that even the important fortresses of Syracuse and Agosta were almost without garrisons and entirely destitute of ordnance and stores. Of troops there were nominally 8,000, really about 6,000, rank and file of all sorts (each bad of its sort). And here were we, 7,000 English and foreigners in our pay, undertaking to defend the great island of Sicily against Napoleon.48
However, by the summer things were different. No serious attempt had been made to assault Sicily. In Calabria the French were distracted by the popular revolt that had broken out following their arrival. And, finally, a sudden raid on the mainland coast that was launched by the British commander in Sicily (now not the original Sir James Craig, but rather Sir John Stuart) secured a surprise victory at Maida on 4 July. This was not much of a battle, but it did at least suggest that even if the French managed somehow to reach Sicily the British army could put up a good fight. Reassured by the news of Russia’s rejection of a separate peace, by September Fox was insisting that peace should not be bought at the expense of Britain’s security, Russia’s friendship or the interests of the Sicilian Bourbons. As he told his nephew and devoted admirer, Lord Holland:
Bad as the queen and court of Naples are, we can in honour do nothing without their full . . . consent, but even exclusive of that consideration and of the great importance of Sicily . . . It is not so much the value of the point in dispute as the manner in which the French fly from their word which disheartens me . . . The shuffling insincere way in which they act . . . shows me that they are playing a false game, and in that case it would be very imprudent to make any concessions.49
The fact is that Fox had become utterly disillusioned with Napoleon. Wherever one looked in the first eight months of 1806, one saw nothing but bullying, aggression and bad faith, and it was quite clear that even friendship with France did not bring immunity: if Austria and the Papal States were treated badly, so were Spain, Holland and the Kingdom of Italy. It is important to note that there was both moderation and flexibility in the British position: there was, for example, no suggestion that France should give up Belgium, while even Sicily might have been surrendered if Napoleon had permitted Ferdinand