Читать книгу The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei. Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office онлайн

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In 1797, Minorca was no longer ours; we had retired from Corsica and Elba after a short occupation, and not a single British warship was to be seen east of Gibraltar; the Mediterranean became for a time a French lake. Napoleon had been waiting and planning for this, and at once started on his great expedition to Egypt and the East. The expedition was part of a far-reaching design: Egypt was to be colonized by France, a canal cut through the Isthmus of Suez, and England to be attacked by way of India, while the Dutch and Spanish fleets kept us busy in the North Sea and the Atlantic. The defeat of the Dutch off Camperdown and of the Spanish off Cape St Vincent upset this elaborate plan, and in the spring of 1798 Nelson was in the Mediterranean. The French had a week’s start; their destination was uncertain. They were expected in Ireland, Sicily, Portugal; anywhere but in Egypt. Napoleon had been in Egypt for a month when Nelson’s long search ended in the battle of the Nile and the consequent cutting off of the French from their supports at home.