ABSTRACT
The new British forces, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, that had appeared in the Peninsula and driven the French out of Northern Portugal, commenced a dangerous advance on Madrid; similar success had attended the Austrian troops sent into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Saxony; and much. It seemed, could legitimately be expected both from the formidable mobilisation of Britain’s Mediterranean forces against Murat’s Kingdom of Naples and from North German insurrections, directed particularly to the destruction of Jerome Buonaparte’s Kingdom of Westphalia. Not only did the Mediterranean effort against the Kingdom of Naples fail to do anything, even locally decisive, but the far more powerful North Sea effort also proved unfortunate from the start. It was, in the first place, so long a-gathering, that, three weeks before the order to sail could be given, Napoleon had secured a decision in the Danube valley, at Wagram, and induced the Austrian Government to sign a temporary armistice.
