Napoleon invades Britain instead of Russia

@funnyhat Furthermore in 1809 the Austrian actually surrendered even before the French took Vienna (ending the 5th coalition), and in 1806 Napoleon beat a Prussian force that outnumbered him 2 to 1 so badly that the could occupy all of Prussia pretty much unopposed and force their surrender. And for Russia, not only was Moscow not the capital of Russia, but for the Russians letting him capture Moscow was all part of a large scheme which wouldn't, and couldn't have been implemented in Britain.
 

Manman

Banned
Britain would lose in any invasion scenario. They just don't have the forces and the navy wont be able to do much to Napoleons army since they will probably live of the land. Also the entire area will be cut of from reinforcements and wont get any outside help. Britain is alone without a good army and the militia are just that militia.
 
I think it is worth, at this point in the debate, to provide some details and the strengths of the British defence in the event of an invasion, and why that would most likely give Britain an advantage in the event of any fighting on British soil.

At this point, the professional British Army in the Great Britain was, according to Island Fortress: The Defence of Great Britain by Norman Longmate, distributed as follows (bare in mind that these are military districts, so some of the names may be a bit odd):
- Southern district: 55,000 men
- Eastern district: 30,000 men
- Western district: 12,000 men
- London and the Midlands: 10,000 men
- Northwest district: 10,000 men
- Southwest district: 8,000 men
- Yorkshire: 6,000 men
- Northern district: 6,000 men
- The Severn district: 2,000 men
- Scotland: 13,000 men
Ireland was not included in the total given in the book, but, if my memory serves correctly, I seem to remember it was stated elsewhere that there were roughly 70,000 professional British soldiers stationed there.

Now, alongside these professional soldiers defending Britain, you also have the Militia and the Yeomanry Regiments. The Militia consisted of roughly 51,000 men, and, if we assume that they were distributed across each military district evenly, then you can add 4,636 men to each total (including Ireland). Meanwhile, the Yeomanry Regiments were (as I mentioned in a previous post) by far the largest of these forces used in the defence of Britain, with 480,000 men in total. Once again, if we assume that these are evenly distributed, then you can add a further 43,636 men to each total.

On to defensive positions - the Martello Towers were the largest defensive structure on the coast of Southern England. There were seventy-four Martello Towers in total (this website provides a list of each one and its location, so it is quite helpful), each of which were manned by twenty-four British soldiers who were equipped with an 18-pounder gun in each tower with enough ammunition to withstand a protracted siege. Other than the Martello Towers, you also have the Redoubts, which were located at Dover and Eastbourne - now, as has been pointed out before, if we assume that the invasion takes place during the period between 1803 and 1805, then these would not be completed yet, but if we assume it takes place in 1812 (as the OP requested), then they would be ready to resist a French landing. Finally, we have Dover Castle, which was manned by 2,000 British soldiers and underwent a modernisation during the Napoleonic Wars, being equipped with modern defensive positions, such as Redans.

We also have the Admiralty Shutter Telegraph, which was a semaphore line which enabled sightings of an approaching French army to be alerted to London from numerous points along the Southern and Eastern coasts of England - so, if a French invasion did take place, the British Government would be alerted of it possibly before Napoleon even landed, providing time for an evacuation of London to take place and for the Southwest and Eastern military districts to dispatch their own men to the Southern district to resist any French landing.

Mentioning an evacuation of London brings me on nicely to the contingency plans formed by the British Government. It was agreed that, in the event of a French landing, then Parliament, the Royal Family and the gold and other reserves of the Bank of England would be evacuated to Worcester, which would essentially become capital of the United Kingdom throughout the invasion. And, due to the construction of the Grand Union Canal, it is likely that this evacuation would be a quick process, and therefore the Government would be safely away from London by the time that Napoleon reached the outskirts of the city. This is quite an important detail, as, even if he did capture London, Napoleon would not 'win', as London would, for all intensive purposes, not be the British capital. Rather than landing in Kent and being 70 miles from the capital city, the French would instead be 218 miles away.

Now it is worth giving a mention the main commanders in the Southern district. The overall commander of the British Army in that district was Sir David Dundas, whose plan, in the event of a French landing, was to oppose Napoleon's forces and, if he failed to stop the French from pushing inland, then he would march to the rear of the French Army and capture Dover and any other occupied ports, thereby cutting the French off from the sea. Alongside Dundas, we also have Sir John Moore, who was in command of a light infantry regiment stationed at Folkestone. Rather than serving as a main resistance to any French landing, Moore instead planned to have his regiment serve as a guerrilla force, engaging in Fabian tactics and harassing vulnerable French positions.

This brings up my final point about the British response to any French landing - civilian resistance. It is likely that an invasion of Britain would be France's Vietnam - some civilians trapped behind enemy lines would engage in guerrilla warfare, in a similar fashion to local Spanish forces during the Peninsular War. In addition to this, in the event of a French invasion, it is likely that the British Government would give instructions to farmers to horde food and prevent the French from living off of the land - if done and carried out successfully, this would be fatal to the French invasion, as, if we assume that the Royal Navy is able to reclaim supremacy in the Channel after the French landing, then Napoleon would be cut off from his supply line with no easy method of securing new supplies.
 
Austria fought on with the knowledge that the Russians would soon come to their aid (Austerlitz) - which would not likely be the case in Britain.

I think it is more likely that Britain simply cuts its losses and makes peace, and then plots revenge after the French are gone.

The Austrians fought on again in 1809 with no allies in theater, so there's that. Maybe the British use negotiations to stall for time, of course.

@funnyhat Furthermore in 1809 the Austrian actually surrendered even before the French took Vienna (ending the 5th coalition), and in 1806 Napoleon beat a Prussian force that outnumbered him 2 to 1 so badly that the could occupy all of Prussia pretty much unopposed and force their surrender. And for Russia, not only was Moscow not the capital of Russia, but for the Russians letting him capture Moscow was all part of a large scheme which wouldn't, and couldn't have been implemented in Britain.

On the contrary, the two main battles of that campaign were both after Vienna had been occupied.
 

Maoistic

Banned
I think it is worth, at this point in the debate, to provide some details and the strengths of the British defence in the event of an invasion, and why that would most likely give Britain an advantage in the event of any fighting on British soil.

At this point, the professional British Army in the Great Britain was, according to Island Fortress: The Defence of Great Britain by Norman Longmate, distributed as follows (bare in mind that these are military districts, so some of the names may be a bit odd):
- Southern district: 55,000 men
- Eastern district: 30,000 men
- Western district: 12,000 men
- London and the Midlands: 10,000 men
- Northwest district: 10,000 men
- Southwest district: 8,000 men
- Yorkshire: 6,000 men
- Northern district: 6,000 men
- The Severn district: 2,000 men
- Scotland: 13,000 men
Ireland was not included in the total given in the book, but, if my memory serves correctly, I seem to remember it was stated elsewhere that there were roughly 70,000 professional British soldiers stationed there.

Now, alongside these professional soldiers defending Britain, you also have the Militia and the Yeomanry Regiments. The Militia consisted of roughly 51,000 men, and, if we assume that they were distributed across each military district evenly, then you can add 4,636 men to each total (including Ireland). Meanwhile, the Yeomanry Regiments were (as I mentioned in a previous post) by far the largest of these forces used in the defence of Britain, with 480,000 men in total. Once again, if we assume that these are evenly distributed, then you can add a further 43,636 men to each total.

So it's a myth that the British army was small
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Maoistic

Banned
Hum has anyone read this monograph on the subject? Napoleon's Obsession-the Invasion of England
This in particular interested me:

"In consequence, by the end of 1803 a total of 615,000 men were available for the nation’s defence.28 Numbers alone, however, only tell half the story for despite sound patriotic feeling, these men could resign at their own will and many were not properly armed. Hardly a match for the Grande Armée." (p. 126, or 12 of the PDF)

I have been repeatedly told elsewhere the British army was insignificant, but their only problem seems to be that it wasn't as seasoned or trained, not that it was small. Can people please tell me if the British army was reduced in size following the decades after Napoleon?
 
@Brittanica So the way I see it any invasion after 1810 has a 99% chance to end in failure. I still don't believe that an invasion before 1808 cannot succeed. Other than the lack of some of the British assets at that time I'm seriously not convinced by David Dundas's plans which to me pretty much sounds like ' we'll just outmanoeuvre the guy who's know to manoeuvre his armies so well he beats forces twice the size of his'. Not to mention that geurrilla war, it worked in Spain due to a large amount of factors including climate, terrain, etc., all of those are completely different in Britain.
 
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This in particular interested me:

"In consequence, by the end of 1803 a total of 615,000 men were available for the nation’s defence.28 Numbers alone, however, only tell half the story for despite sound patriotic feeling, these men could resign at their own will and many were not properly armed. Hardly a match for the Grande Armée." (p. 126, or 12 of the PDF)

I have been repeatedly told elsewhere the British army was insignificant, but their only problem seems to be that it wasn't as seasoned or trained, not that it was small. Can people please tell me if the British army was reduced in size following the decades after Napoleon?

Yes, if you count regulars it would shrink steadily until it had an authorised strength of just 91,000 by 1838. Following the Crimean War it would grow again and technically received even more of a numbers boost when it absorbed the 'European' regiments of the East India Company after the Indian Mutiny.
 

Kaze

Banned
Napoleon was no fool. He has seen the failures of Battle of Quiberon Bay and Trafalgar. He had seen the battle plan of the invasion of 1799.
Ballons were still experimental - so it would be a few years before they could be useful for invasion.
However if you want to ASB - . Pyroscaphe - a French steamship was available but expirmental.

But let us say we can cross the channel - which cousin will Napoleon put in charge of being the viceroy of the British Isles?
 
Napoleon was no fool. He has seen the failures of Battle of Quiberon Bay and Trafalgar. He had seen the battle plan of the invasion of 1799.
Ballons were still experimental - so it would be a few years before they could be useful for invasion.
However if you want to ASB - . Pyroscaphe - a French steamship was available but expirmental.

But let us say we can cross the channel - which cousin will Napoleon put in charge of being the viceroy of the British Isles?

Steamships aren't enough to give a significant advantage in naval warfare in the 1810s. There have been claims that the British technological lead over the French makes for a French steam fleet difficult to build, but personally I think that the French would be able to build it : the French government played around with steam engines, but it wasn't profitable to build them to the same extent as in England because the French had less coal and wages were lower. I think that there were some steam industries in French Belgium, but I might be incorrect on that. Anyway, assuming they can, the problem with 1810 steam ships is that the steam engines take up a lot of space on a ship, they reduce the armament available due to paddle-wheels, they're heavy, probably dangerous, and they lack the power to provide any significant speed advantage over conventional ships. Napoleon was no fool to reject steamships. The only thing I could potentially see as being a useful application for naval steam power for in the 1810s is a commerce raiding ship, which would utilize its steam engine to sail against the wind if pursued by English sail frigates. Of course, the English would doubtless build their own steam frigates soon enough, and more of them, but I could see some brief utility for such vessels and they might wreak a fair amount of damage on English commerce. This seems hardly "ASB" to me, although it is not a weapon which will decide a conventional Mahan-style conflict, but rather a weapon of the guerre de course.

This brings up my final point about the British response to any French landing - civilian resistance. It is likely that an invasion of Britain would be France's Vietnam - some civilians trapped behind enemy lines would engage in guerrilla warfare, in a similar fashion to local Spanish forces during the Peninsular War. In addition to this, in the event of a French invasion, it is likely that the British Government would give instructions to farmers to horde food and prevent the French from living off of the land - if done and carried out successfully, this would be fatal to the French invasion, as, if we assume that the Royal Navy is able to reclaim supremacy in the Channel after the French landing, then Napoleon would be cut off from his supply line with no easy method of securing new supplies.

I have some doubts about the utility of civilian resistance à l'espagnol. The concentration of forces in Southern England will be huge, in any invasion. There is a question about how many troops can arrive, but any invasion would have to have a very large number of troops, and these would be in a small area. The infrastructure there is very good, and the terrain is one which is mostly flat and well built. This does not compare well to the huge expanses of Spain with terrible infrastructure, numerous mountains, large expanses of hills, and other difficult terrain (or to Vietnam with its jungles, year-long occupation duty of a huge expanse, mountains, difficult political situation, and the lack of a conventional enemy at first : the Americans after all won all the conventional battles in Vietnam, they just lost the war anyway and then the North Vietnamese conventional army rolled over the South Vietnamese forces). In such an environment, civilian resistance in non-conventional formations would be most likely a nuisance for the French, and one which would greatly drive up the casualties and devastation sustained in England. However, a food denial strategy does seem to be the most effective way civilian resistance could be mobilized, although I have my doubts about the ability for the English to completely deny food from a rich and densely populated countryside to the French in the short term, although as the devastation of war enters the region this would change.

I don't really have anything to disagree with what you said in the post you quoted other than to say it's an excellent description of the scale of the challenges the French Navy faced and the amount of time and money that would be needed to fix them. So long as Napoleon was fighting on land and he couldn't devote enough resources to the Navy to beat the RN and if he had supremacy on the continent and the Continental system was working Britain would be forced to make peace even without the RN being defeated in battle.

Yes, I'll freely admit it is a tremendous challenge. The English lead was not an insurmountable one, but it was very large. Still, if some changes are made such as a different Trafalgar where the French fleet doesn't sortie, leaving the French a larger fleet in being, then I've proposed that the French fleet might be better to an outsized extent in 1812 than merely the numbers of ships lost at Trafalgar would indicate at first. In any case, I'll fully agree that I've always been of the opinion that a French victory is much more likely from a position of a negotiated peace won by an economic victory from domination of the continent and the prospect that a successful invasion of England can be carried out, rather than an actual invasion being conducted. The English, whatever their other flaws were, were not stupid, and would be able to recognize if the war was turning against them naval-wise and negotiate then while they still had strength, rather than negotiating with a French army in London.

I might be guilty of quoting exceptionally large posts that I've made in other threads of this type, but to do that again....

I think that it is important, even if an 1806 invasion is impossible in any circumstances. The French after Trafalgar had a significant naval construction program, which aimed to eventually rebuild the French navy to the point of being able to challenge the RN, but it wasn't anywhere near completion by the time the war ended. Without losing so many ships at Trafalgar, this can be pushed forward, and it gives the French both significantly more power during the critical 1806-1812 periods where their naval power was at a nadir, and also might steer them away from some bad decisions.

Without the loss at Trafalgar the French fleet would have had many more ships of the line, around 20 more, plus more sailors, and at least some of them must have been the experienced ones the French navy so desperately lacked. Instead of having 104 ships of the line under construction or in service in 1814 (per French Warships in the Age of Sail. 1786-1861, Design, Construction, Careers and Fates), it is ~125, with a larger portion of these being in actual service. Of course this isn't enough to challenge the Royal Navy, as England has more ships total in service and the English ships have a qualitative edge over their French opponents, but there is the eternal problem of trying to keep ships on station, since one has to deal with the wear and tear on these ships by repairs, allot times for ships to sail out and join those on station. I thought I had read somewhere it was that only 1/3 of ships can be maintained permanently on station, but even if it is lower then that means only a relative fraction of the RN can be kept in a constant blockade of the French coast. The French don't need numerical superiority over the RN to be able to have enough ships to conduct a sortie with local numerical superiority, and even if that's just for say, training, that could be very important to start fixing the qualitative problems of the French navy. Of course, the RN does have bases that help them engage in their blockades, but the basic problem persists, even if these bases alleviate it.

I also would wonder if the presence of an intact Spanish fleet - as opposed to having declined from 26 ships in 1805 to 17 in 1810, not even taking into account whatever other losses they had - might have swayed the Peninsula Campaign and prevented the situation there from turning out as it did, so badly for the French. The main Spanish benefit to the French was the Spanish fleet. When they lost the fleet, they had little remaining value. If the Spanish were able to negotiate from a better bargaining position - that they had a fleet which was of at least some marginal value - then they might be able to make the French take them more seriously, and tread more lightly in Spain and prevent the situation there from flaring up into a revolt. In addition, if the French fleet is still in Cadiz, like the POD is that the Allied fleet doesn't sail to sea with Villeneuve being so petty about the prospect of being replaced - then that's 18 ships of the line that the French stand to lose if hostilities with the Spanish break out. Instead of the capture of the Rosily squadron being losing 5 ships of the line (and a frigate), the French would stand to lose 18 ships of the line, and whatever frigates they had. Around 4,000 French sailors were lost, so if we're looking at 18 ships we're looking at well in excess of 15,000 sailors at the very least. Losing 15,000 people to captivity isn't something that can be brushed off lightly. Preventing the Spanish quagmire from happening would be a war-changing event, and might very well win the war then and there. If the Spanish stay as part of the Napoleonic alliance, the Portuguese occupation doesn't flare up into a rebellion or if it does without the Spanish problem the French are able to send enough troops to keep Portugal in check and the English out, then the Continental System, is immensely strengthened. English trade was decisively impacted by the Continental Blockade in the 1806/1807 period, but it recovered with trade to Portugal and the Spanish colonies. Continued Spanish hostility against English denies them this market, a French navy capable of better contesting English smuggling and hence decreasing the porous nature of the Continental System, and it might be enough to cause enough pain to bring the English to the negotiating table as the economy craters. The loss of Portugal would also mean the English would lost a vital allied nation which was important for resupply of their fleet in the theatre.

If we assume that the Spanish fleet isn't destroyed, and stays roughly around the same size, then the Franco-Spanish fleet together has around 150 ships of the line, although of course some of them are under construction. This is a large fleet in being, and as new vessels are commissioned then it raises the possibility for the French navy to be able to challenge the RN in some limited engagements or at least being able to have enough strength to be put to sea for training exercises, taking into account that only a portion of English ships can be actively deployed to blockade the French given world-wide obligations and only some of those available against the French can be used for blockading purposes to keep the French in port since only a fraction can be maintained on station.

Furthermore, if the assumption is made that the Danish fleet is spared from destruction as some above posts seem to indicate might have been the case (I don't know enough myself about whether that is a possibility but just assuming for a moment that it is), then that denies the RN 15 additional ships of the line they captured, and provides an additional neutral which would do much to help the French fleet to build up their own fleet by way of timber shipping from the Baltic on neutral Danish ships. Of course there are some advantages to the English as a continued Danish neutrality would give the British another trade outlet on the continent, but I don't know what the Danish balance of trade was with the English - most of the Baltic had a very positive balance, because they exported their timber supplies to the English, but Denmark I don't know.

If the Danes are brought onto the French side at some point (it doesn't seem unlikely given the repeated attacks the English staged on the Danes and their hostility to neutral nations which wanted to ply their commerce), then that further increases French power, with 15 extra ships of the line and a lot of competent sailors - and another area where the English have to spread themselves thin blockading.

The combination of all of this, presuming an admittedly optimal scenario, is that without Trafalgar it might be enough to either bring about an English economic collapse in the immediate years following the Continental System or in the long term places the French and Allied fleets with sufficient power to leave them well placed to start raising the costs of continued prosecution of the war to dangerous levels and possibly leaving them with the capability for pitched battles against the RN years earlier than otherwise.
 
Mentioning an evacuation of London brings me on nicely to the contingency plans formed by the British Government. It was agreed that, in the event of a French landing, then Parliament, the Royal Family and the gold and other reserves of the Bank of England would be evacuated to Worcester, which would essentially become capital of the United Kingdom throughout the invasion. And, due to the construction of the Grand Union Canal, it is likely that this evacuation would be a quick process, and therefore the Government would be safely away from London by the time that Napoleon reached the outskirts of the city. This is quite an important detail, as, even if he did capture London, Napoleon would not 'win', as London would, for all intensive purposes, not be the British capital. Rather than landing in Kent and being 70 miles from the capital city, the French would instead be 218 miles away.

It is one thing to plan this in the abstract, and another to actually do it when an actual foreign army on its soil. There was a portion of the British public that wanted to make peace with Napoleon OTL; if he has troops on British soil their number will be greater. At that point the government might fall.
 
It is one thing to plan this in the abstract, and another to actually do it when an actual foreign army on its soil. There was a portion of the British public that wanted to make peace with Napoleon OTL; if he has troops on British soil their number will be greater. At that point the government might fall.

But the planning in abstract versus the dealing with the inevitable friction of reality statement applies in spades to any invasion. Thus if you are going to argue for a successful crossing of a sufficiently large force to discommode the British you need to give equal credence to the ability of the British to evacuate a functional administration to Worcester.
 

Md139115

Banned
The shells contain soldiers :D. Basically Jules Verne meets Napoleon

Did Verne ever figure out the whole "sudden stop" part?

Launch them from really high towers and have the Imperial Guard zip-wire into Dover :D

This...

...

...

...

Is honestly the best idea I've heard on this whole blasted thread.

Someone please work out how tall the towers have to be, and how long it would take to build, assuming that you prefabricated the components.

Come to think of it, could this be extended to a cable car system? If so, that could solve the supply issues...
 
Did Verne ever figure out the whole "sudden stop" part?



This...

...

...

...

Is honestly the best idea I've heard on this whole blasted thread.

Someone please work out how tall the towers have to be, and how long it would take to build, assuming that you prefabricated the components.

Come to think of it, could this be extended to a cable car system? If so, that could solve the supply issues...

I can picture two scenarios, they slow and stop half way across the channel, the second bumping into the first and so on.
The second is "My arms are tired" but in French. Even at the speed of a ferry that's at least 40 minutes.
 
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