Palmerston replied that the fleet could not do much to assist the Danes in Copenhagen and that nothing should be done to persuade Napoleon to cross the Rhine. Britain had a small army and it had no powerful ally to help. Bismarck remarked that the Royal Navy lacked wheels—it was powerless on land where the war would be fought. In April Austria's navy was on its way to attack Copenhagen. Palmerston told the Austrian ambassador that if his fleet entered the Baltic to attack Denmark the result would be war with Britain. The ambassador replied that the Austrian navy would not enter the Baltic and it did not do so.