After the final beleaguered French troops were forced to surrender in Chatham and the Great Patriotic War had come to an end, people across the British Isles entered a state of celebration. In the streets of London, having only recently had the siege surrounding it lifted, Londoners raised Union Jacks from their windows, and, from Christmas Day to Boxing Day, there was a consistent, jubilant and triumphant cry of:
‘Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!’
On the 28th, a victory parade occurred along the Mall, as the numerous soldiers and seamen who participated in the battle, from the Yeomanry Regiments to the most senior officers in the British Army, marched along the road to Buckingham Palace, with grateful citizens on each side applauding their military men. Cheers rose to particularly high levels when the generals who had won Britain some of its greatest victories during the campaign – in particular Wellesley and Nelson, the victors of Watlington and Hurd’s Deep respectively, who, when they marched across the Mall individually, received cheers and applauses from the crowds which lasted for several hours. Other individuals who received a large applause included Pitt, who was rightly recognised as being the man who had ensured Britain had the strong defences necessary to defeat Napoleon, and for being a firm head of government throughout the campaign (as well as serving on the frontline himself under George III at the Battle of Stock), and York, the man who had overseen the defence of London and the overall command of the British Army. Yet the largest applause came when King George III marched across the Mall, to be greeted with large cheers and, when the King and his Family arrived at Buckingham Palace to wave to the crowds from the balcony, there was a consistent cry of
‘God Save the King! Long Live the King!’. This reflected not only Britain’s adoration for her Monarch, yet also a snub at the failed Republics which Napoleon had attempted to set up during his failed invasion.
Other than the march across the Mall, later referred to as the ‘Victory March’, which would be re-enacted every time a significant anniversary of the Great Patriotic War arrived (first the fifty-year anniversary, then the centenary, etc.), Britons also celebrated through different means. For example, James Gillray, Britain’s famed political satirist, published a cartoon shortly after the end of the war depicting a triumphant John Bull kicking Napoleon back across the Channel, with the caption ‘Sorry Boney, but you’re not wanted here!’ – a particularly famous cartoon, and perhaps one of Gillray’s best and most well-known. In the decades following the conclusion of the Revolutionary Wars, further tributes would be made to Britain’s victory in the Great Patriotic War, and the men who brought about such a victory – between 1840 and 1843, a major tribute to Nelson was constructed in the form of Admiralty Square, a public square next to the Mall, which features, in its centre, Nelson’s Column, a monument featuring the victorious Admiralty himself [1]. Meanwhile, Wellesley (or, the Earl, and then Duke, of Wellington as he became known shortly after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War) would receive a tribute in the form of the Duke’s Mound, a large artificial hill constructed at the site of the Battle of Watlington, which featured a column at the top with a statue of Wellesley, while, at the bottom of the hill, a monument was built with an inscription which reads: ‘HERE, SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY DEFEATED NAPOLEON BONAPARTE ON DECEMBER THE 18TH 1804, PAVING THE WAY FOR BRITAIN’S TOTAL VICTORY IN THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR’. Both of these sites have become major tourist attractions in Britain, and are one of the first thoughts that might come to mind when one thinks of a famous British tourist attraction.
Another famous tribute to Britain’s victory in the Great Patriotic War came from the famous musician Sir Hubert Parry, who, in 1880, composed an overture known as
The Year of 1804, or, as it is better known, the
1804 Overture, to commemorate Britain’s victory over France during the Great Patriotic War [2].
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Although the Austro-Prussian defeat on the Continent in February 1805 came as a shock to many Britons, it did not dampen British pride at their own victory in the Great Patriotic War – yet it did force Pitt and the British Government to re-assess their wartime strategy, and where Britain would confront France next, for any action in Continental Europe would be out of the question for the time being, as Austria and Prussia had been forced into the French sphere through the adoption of the Continental System, while Russia was certainly in no mood to agree to establish a Fourth Coalition after witnessing how quickly Austria and Prussia had collapsed.
Fortunately for the British Army, any French threat to the British Isles had been quickly dispelled by the Great Patriotic War – Napoleon, in spite of securing victory over Austria and Prussia, still commanded an army vastly depleted, having essentially lost 200,000 of its finest soldiers, and would therefore take several years to threaten a Continental Power such as Russia and at least a decade to stage another amphibious assault on Britain. Meanwhile, the French Emperor also had to concern himself with internal dissent within France for the time being, for the French defeat of the Austro-Prussian army and the enlargement of the French Empire did not distract Napoleon’s detractors from his disastrous attack across the Channel, and therefore, between 1805 and 1807, Napoleon faced three separate assassination attempts – first from a disgruntled Bourbon Royalist, then from a military officer enraged by the losses sustained by France during the campaign in Britain, and finally from a radical Jacobin, who believed that assassinating Napoleon could lead to the restoration of the Republic. Consequently, Napoleon was far too distracted by internal matters and solidifying his now uncertain rule to launch a strike against Britain, or indeed against Russia or any other nation on the Continent. Therefore, for several years, now major military action occurred in Europe.
Meanwhile, the economic threat which Napoleon had sought to impose on Britain also proved to be ineffective – the Continental System, as would become clear over several years, was unable to harm the British economy [3], as the Industrial Revolution (which emerged in Britain during the mid to late 18th century, and had now led to the advent of factories in British cities and canals across the country) ensured that Britain was more or less self-sufficient, for any loss in imports from the Continent could be made up for through home-made goods or, if necessary, trade with the colonies [4].
Consequently, with any threat France posed to Britain, both militarily and economically, being neutered, Pitt and the British Government determined that the next move for Britain would be to secure complete dominance of the colonial theatre. In order to achieve this, it was planned that the 45,000 soldiers who had been planned to land in Brittany prior to the Austro-Prussian defeat would be used for several expeditions against Spain, France’s key ally and the member of the Continental System most dependent on its colonies. The first expedition, set to take place in June 1805, would occur in South America and would feature 22,900 British soldiers who would land at the Rio de la Plata and seize Buenos Aires, Montevideo and other key population centres in the area, thereby allowing Britain to establish a new colony around the River Plate. The second expedition, set to take place in October 1805, would occur at the Isthmus of Panama, which 9,600 British soldiers intended to seize in order to examine the prospect of a canal over the isthmus which would greatly assist British access to her territory in India and trade with China. The third and final expedition, set to also take place in October 1805, would take place in Asia – or, to be specific, the Philippines, where a British force of 12,500 men would land at Manila and capture the city, thereby providing Britain with a new, valuable port in the East Indies. In addition to these expeditions, Britain also planned to support a revolt against Spanish rule in Venezuela, which would be carried out by Francisco de Miranda, a South American Revolutionary who was, in 1805, based in London and had secured the support of Pitt and the British Government to carry out his plans.
And so, the plans for these grand expeditions, which would both expand Britain’s maritime empire and deal a significant blow to one of France’s crucial allies, were set – now all that could be done was to see if they would succeed.
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[1] Essentially, this is the alternate timeline equivalent of Trafalgar Square in all but name.
[2] This is the same as Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s
1812 Overture from our timeline.
[3] As in our timeline.
[4] It is worth pointing out at this point that the Napoleonic invasion had a negligible impact on Britain’s industry – most factories, and the machinery and equipment inside them, were left undamaged by the invading French forces, as did the numerous canals. Therefore, the Industrial Revolution is continuing at the same pace in Britain in this timeline as it did in our timeline.