Moniteur.
âTwo negatives make a positive,â Lord Nelson had said, and a pattern was certainly emerging. The Sussex coast was mentioned 23 times as a destination for the invasion and Kent only thrice; each time it was a passing reference to the white cliffs of the South Foreland at Dover. Essex was mentioned nineteen times, Ipswich seven and Colchester nine. London was never named, except for one reference to Napoleon holding a victory parade in St Jamesâs Park.
Providing it was not all a wild coincidence, there was someone on the staff of
Le Moniteur
whose job was to make the British believe that the French would land on the Sussex coastâusing the vessels at Calais, Boulogne and nearby portsâand in Essex, using those at Ostend and Dunkirk. He was doing his best to make the British think there was no interest in landing on the Kentish beaches, and that London would not be the main objective.
Ramage shrugged his shoulders: Lord Nelson could draw what conclusions he liked, once he had the facts. He arranged the pages in sequence and found himself trying to look at it through the eyes of Admiral Bruix and Marshal Soult, who were in command of the French Invasion forces. Did Bruix know the English coast well? Had Soult ever visited England? Well, they had advisers, that was certain enough.
Forget visits and forget advisers: Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage is now a French admiral whose sole concern is to get at least 100,000 troops on shore and ready to fight. Where would be the best spot to land them?
Romney Marsh: somewhere along the dozen miles of flat coast between Dymchurch and Dungeness!
He reached for his pen and began writing:
â1 Landing troops from flat-bottomed barges requires (ideally) a smooth, sand or pebble beach. The barges should arrive near high water so they dry out as the tide falls and their cargo can be unloaded on to the beach.
2 The beach should not have off-lying rocks or sandbanks on which barges could strand themselves, but must be reasonably well sheltered from prevailing westerly winds.
3 The countryside inshore of the beaches must be reasonably flat so that large numbers of cavalry and troops can deploy immediately.
4 The beaches must be readily identifiable from seaward because navigation in the barges will vary from poor to nonexistent.
5 The stretch of coast from Dungeness to Dymchurch, about eight miles, fulfils all these requirements, and barges would need only to steer for the southernmost piece of land (Dungeness itself).
6 It also provides the shortest practical sea crossing for the Boulogne ships and adds only a small distance for those from Calais.â
He put down the pen and read over what he had written. As far as he was concerned, if the French troops managed to land, they would march first towards London. They would cross Romney Marsh, that strange, secretive part of Kent, absolutely flat for miles, much of it below sea-level and only saved from flooding by the sea wall, and laced with more canals and drainage ditches than there were hedgerows. They would find scattered hamlets built round squat, square-towered churches, and peopled by the dour Marsh folk, men who smuggled, fished, bred sheep and kept their own counsel. They would find few trees on the Marsh and those there were bent by the wind. The Marsh had precious little but mutton for an invader to plunder â¦
He put his notes in his pocket and replaced the papers in the portfolio. A day spent shut up in an airless room, poring over
Le Moniteurâs
fine print, had left him with a headache and, for that matter, an empty feeling in his stomach as he contemplated the enormity of the task ahead. The whole thing seemed absurd until one realized that the Admiralty had no choice: their only chance of discovering the answers in good time was by sending a man to Boulogne, the port which was obviously the French headquarters. The Admiralty had nothing to lose and everything to gain; the man had
âTwo negatives make a positive,â Lord Nelson had said, and a pattern was certainly emerging. The Sussex coast was mentioned 23 times as a destination for the invasion and Kent only thrice; each time it was a passing reference to the white cliffs of the South Foreland at Dover. Essex was mentioned nineteen times, Ipswich seven and Colchester nine. London was never named, except for one reference to Napoleon holding a victory parade in St Jamesâs Park.
Providing it was not all a wild coincidence, there was someone on the staff of
Le Moniteur
whose job was to make the British believe that the French would land on the Sussex coastâusing the vessels at Calais, Boulogne and nearby portsâand in Essex, using those at Ostend and Dunkirk. He was doing his best to make the British think there was no interest in landing on the Kentish beaches, and that London would not be the main objective.
Ramage shrugged his shoulders: Lord Nelson could draw what conclusions he liked, once he had the facts. He arranged the pages in sequence and found himself trying to look at it through the eyes of Admiral Bruix and Marshal Soult, who were in command of the French Invasion forces. Did Bruix know the English coast well? Had Soult ever visited England? Well, they had advisers, that was certain enough.
Forget visits and forget advisers: Lieutenant Nicholas Ramage is now a French admiral whose sole concern is to get at least 100,000 troops on shore and ready to fight. Where would be the best spot to land them?
Romney Marsh: somewhere along the dozen miles of flat coast between Dymchurch and Dungeness!
He reached for his pen and began writing:
â1 Landing troops from flat-bottomed barges requires (ideally) a smooth, sand or pebble beach. The barges should arrive near high water so they dry out as the tide falls and their cargo can be unloaded on to the beach.
2 The beach should not have off-lying rocks or sandbanks on which barges could strand themselves, but must be reasonably well sheltered from prevailing westerly winds.
3 The countryside inshore of the beaches must be reasonably flat so that large numbers of cavalry and troops can deploy immediately.
4 The beaches must be readily identifiable from seaward because navigation in the barges will vary from poor to nonexistent.
5 The stretch of coast from Dungeness to Dymchurch, about eight miles, fulfils all these requirements, and barges would need only to steer for the southernmost piece of land (Dungeness itself).
6 It also provides the shortest practical sea crossing for the Boulogne ships and adds only a small distance for those from Calais.â
He put down the pen and read over what he had written. As far as he was concerned, if the French troops managed to land, they would march first towards London. They would cross Romney Marsh, that strange, secretive part of Kent, absolutely flat for miles, much of it below sea-level and only saved from flooding by the sea wall, and laced with more canals and drainage ditches than there were hedgerows. They would find scattered hamlets built round squat, square-towered churches, and peopled by the dour Marsh folk, men who smuggled, fished, bred sheep and kept their own counsel. They would find few trees on the Marsh and those there were bent by the wind. The Marsh had precious little but mutton for an invader to plunder â¦
He put his notes in his pocket and replaced the papers in the portfolio. A day spent shut up in an airless room, poring over
Le Moniteurâs
fine print, had left him with a headache and, for that matter, an empty feeling in his stomach as he contemplated the enormity of the task ahead. The whole thing seemed absurd until one realized that the Admiralty had no choice: their only chance of discovering the answers in good time was by sending a man to Boulogne, the port which was obviously the French headquarters. The Admiralty had nothing to lose and everything to gain; the man had
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