Even Churchill might have been discouraged had he, instead of Lord Portland, been prime minister and surveying the scene in 1807. Bonaparte had crushed the Prussians, knocked out the Austrians, and forced Russia to sue for peace. He had organised an almost total blockade of the continent against British trade, was redrawing the map of central and eastern Europe to consolidate his position, and had placed his family on thrones from the Mediterranean to the Baltic.
Britain’s only allies were Sweden and Naples, and even Naples was in French hands except for Sicily, whence the king had fled. But while Sweden and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies were strategically well-placed, both were probably net liabilities since they lacked the means to defend themselves unaided, let alone to put armies into the field for a continental campaign.
The saving card was the Royal Navy.
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