INVASION AND "PANIC."
ONE of the heaviest shadows of invasion which ever visited this country fell during the years 1796-1805. And in all that period the expectation of invasion was most acute in 1803. It was much more real and widespread than it is now,
for all the bombardment of the Hartlepoole, Scarborough, and Whitby, with its consequent proof that swift German men-
of-war, during long nights and with the aid of fog, can reach our coasts without being observed. Napoleon in 1803 not merely contemplated invasion, but openly declared that he meant to attempt it. In his official organ, the Moniteur, he personally answered with bitterness and insult the defiances of some of the English newspapers. He never understood that the English Press was not official, and in retorting upon individual opinions expressed in this or that newspaper he believed himself to be replying to the calculated opinions of the British Government. It is strange that this mistake should be made as readily by foreign countries to-day as it was then. The British Govern- ment should never have signed the Treaty of Amiens, but having done so they put themselves diplomatically rather at the mercy of Napoleon when, in order to save Britain and her Colonies, they disregarded the letter of that Treaty. They would not abandon Malta as they had engaged to do because Napoleon, by territorial conquest and by his threats against Egypt, had altered the situation which the Treaty had presupposed. Nevertheless, it was an easy and obvious move for Napoleon to revile Englishmen as treaty- breakers. He was able to quote the letter of the Treaty of Amiens against them, though all the world except France knew that the spirit of international contract was being out- raged, not by Britain, but by Napoleon himself. In such a hopeless conflict of superficial rights and fundamental wrongs war could not be avoided, as all informed persons in both, Britain and France recognized. It was in these circumstances that Napoleon in 1803 placed troops along the seaboard of Holland and Northern France. When war had been declare l by Britain, the probability of the invasion of England was the terrifying preoccupation of the people of these islands. Napoleon collected a fleet, and added to his troops contin- gents of Dutch, Italians, and Swiss. If ever there was a panic in England from the threat of invasion, it was in that
year 1803.
We have before us a pamphlet, dated 1 03, entitled Invasion Defeated—the defeat being prophetic, not actual. It is curious to notice that the writer expressly argues that the probability of invasion does not depend upon the likelihood of its success. He thinks that the logic of Napoleon's position will drive bins to attempt invasion even though he court failure. The same argument applies perfectly to-day to the possibility of a German invasion. No one here thinks that invasion could have more than a small and passing success, yet no one who has studied German methods thinks that the prospect of almost certain failure would deter Germany. If her plans were failing everywhere else, she would very likely try invasion as not being more desperate than other plans, or as, at all events, being the only plan left untried. She would be urged to it by the logic of circumstances. The writer of the pamphlet says :— " The Consul has threatened us, and promised his slaves, that he will make a descent upon Great Britain. So that he has pledged himself to as by his threats, to his supporters by his promises, and to Europe by the publicity of both. Now he knows that if he does not fulfil these hazardous engagements, we shall defy him, Europe will despise him, and his disappointed followers will destroy him. As to the scheme of Invasion being wise or unwise, easy or difficult, practicable or impracticable, that makes no change in his reasoning and should make none in ours. He has men to throw away, and the fruits of plunder to spend. Besides he thinks, and so do his admirers, that he can do what no other man could. Upon this supposed capacity of achieving impossi- bilities, his throne of Usurpation rests ; and this very consideration, of which he is aware, affords good ground for believing that he is sincere, when he threatens and prepares to invade us."
We need not insist further upon the similarity of the motive here attributed to Napoleon and of that which would actuate the German Emperor were he to attempt invasion. That the view taken by the writer of the pamphlet coincided with that of all English men and women in 1S03 is proved by the extraordinary character of the preparations made to resist invasion. The organizations of Volunteers which sprang into existence, over and above the Volunteer corps created during the preceding years, were pledged to defence pure and simple. They were not for foreign service. They were rooted to the soil as firmly as Pitt's Martello forts which were built in the same year. The fact we wish to draw attention to is that every one
freely ministered to what our present Government would perhaps regard as panic, and yet there was no panic in the sense that action was paralysed. On the contrary, among men of our cool Northern blood there is never the least danger of panic causing hysteria and confusion. What is called panic has always been one of the greatest incentives to preparation and action among Englishmen. The writer of the tract from which we have quoted did not hesitate to address himself to the women and children as well as to the men. To the women he says : "Let them employ their com- manding influence over the other sex, and those services which are compatible with their own, for the great object of Common Defence, and their country will ask—will need no more." To the children he says:— "I call upon Children, who can but be spectators of the great scene which is performing before their eyes, not to be indifferent spectators of it. If their Parents fill the ranks of this Patriotic Army, let them learn to pay those Parents double honor. And if Providence should carry them on to manhood, let them learn from the example which has been set them, how to prize the blessings of their happy constitution in the season of peace, and in the hour of extremity how to defend them."
Even the King shared in the creation of "panic." In a letter to the Bishop of Worcester, which will be found quoted in full in Napoleon and the Invasion of England, by Messrs. H. F. B. Wheeler and A. 31. Broadley (John Lane), the King informed the Bishop that he would place himself at the head of the Army of Defence, but that he would send his wife and daughters across the Severn to the safe keeping of the epis- copal palace at Worcester. To tell the truth to Englishmen is never a risky policy. Anxiety and astonishment there may be, but they do not make a panic. If some women and children weep (as we beard of some doing a few days ago in an East Coast village when an Emergency Committee informed them
of the plans for removing them in case of need to an inland town), is not that a strong proof of the need of the precautions taken? For if invasion comes it will come without half an hour's notice, and what would then be the confusion, and perhaps even the unmanageable condition, of people into whose heads the idea of a sudden removal before an invader had never so much as entered ? The present writer fell in the other day with a party of grumblers on the coast whose grievance was that many of their boats had been removed inland. Yet only spare boats had been taken ; the boats used daily for fishing and so forth had all been left. It was plain that those men could not understand why any precautions at all should have been taken. Surely to talk of panic among such unimaginative creatures is a misuse of words. What they need rather is that panic should be deliberately preached to them, so that they might at length arrive at something remotely approximating to an appreciation of what invasion means.
In 1803 the population of the coast towns was much smaller than now. Roads would not have been blocked by a non- combatant population retiring without system as they would be to-day. Yet the arrangements for removing the non-com- batants and for bringing every able-bodied man to the service of the State were in many districts of the South of England extraordinarily careful and minute. It is true that good plans are being drawn up now for meeting the emergency of an invasion and for controlling the civil population. But there is no sign yet that the people as a whole are to be taught by the Government to think about invasion as a thing intimately concerning themselves, and as an affair in which they will have to play their definite part. All this awaits the moment when the Government will take the people into their confidence and treat them as sentient and responsible beings. As an example of what was done in 1803 in the South of England, even in small villages, there is the evidence of certain church papers. In one Wiltshire village the churchwardens' papers show, for instance, that every waggon was numbered, and that the women and children knew which waggon they were to seat themselves in at the word of command. Like the King's wife and daughters, they were to be taken beyond the Severn. Another example was
given in a letter from Mr. J. T. Trelawny-Ross to the Church Times of December 4th. He says :—
"In Devon the details of the 'Army of Reserve,' its levies of volunteers and arrangements for the safety of women and children in case of invasion, gave the Deputy-Lieutenants much to do during the months a July and August, 1803 (England had declared war on May 16th). They met every week, called for returns of all men between fifteen and sixty-five, specifying the able-bodied ; of all men over sixty-five ; and of the women and children, show- ing those who were infirm or incapable of removing themselves. Arrangements were made for removing cattle and horses to a place of safety. I have the Active Service, dm., Rolls and the Removal Papers of two parishes in Devon, 1503, in the handwriting of a relative responsible for their organization. The Active Service Roll is divided into five compartments for the names of the Armed Force : Artificers, viz., smiths, carpenters, and masons ; pioneers with felling axes, &a ; pioneers with shovels and pickaxes ; and sea or river fenciblos. Some men are noted as having picklocks. The reason was the terrible scarcity of arms. In 1803 there were one hundred and twenty thousand volunteers in Great Britain without muskets. The Removal Paper is divided into ten compartments : Directors of stock, guardians appointed by the parish, directors of waggons, carts and horses ; proprietors of stook, drivers of ditto, and assistants ; superintendents of women and children and infirm persons; persons incapable of removing themselves; their respective conveyances ; proprietors of waggons, carts, and draft horses, and the number, drivers of ditto. The organization of the parishes was thorough and complete, and every man seems to have been given something to do in the event of invasion. Have we anything like it in the face of a far greater and more real danger?"
It is obvious that we have nothing like it as yet, and the sooner we have it the better. If only the people were thereby brought to feel their personal contact and responsible associa- tion with the war, a great moral gain would have been achieved. The absence of such feelings in some classes is unworthy of a democracy.
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