The
Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a
sea battle fought between the British
Royal Navy and the
combined fleets of the French Navy and
Spanish Navy,
during the War of the Third
Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). The
battle was the most decisive British naval victory of the war.
Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Admiral Lord Nelson
aboard defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line
under French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve off
the south-west coast of Spain
, just west
of Cape Trafalgar. The
Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single
British vessel being lost.
The British victory spectacularly confirmed the naval supremacy
that Britain had established during the past century and was
achieved in part through Nelson's departure from the prevailing
naval tactical orthodoxy, which involved engaging an enemy fleet in
a single line of battle parallel to the enemy to facilitate
signalling in battle and disengagement, and to maximize fields of
fire and target areas. Nelson instead divided his smaller force
into two columns directed perpendicularly against the larger enemy
fleet, with decisive results.
Nelson was mortally wounded during the battle, becoming Britain's
greatest war hero. The commander of the joint French and Spanish
forces, Admiral
Pierre de
Villeneuve, was captured along with his ship
Bucentaure. Spanish
Admiral
Federico
Gravina escaped with the remnant of the fleet, and succumbed
months later to wounds he sustained during the battle.
Origins
In 1805, the
First French
Empire, under
Napoleon, was the
dominant military land power on the European continent, while the
British
Royal Navy controlled the seas.
During the course of the war, the British imposed a
naval blockade on France, which affected
trade and kept the French from fully mobilizing their own naval
resources. Despite several successful evasions of the blockade by
the French navy, it failed to inflict a major defeat upon the
British. The British were able to attack French interests at home
and abroad with relative ease.
Meanwhile the French built the so-called
Continental System which disallowed any
trade whatsoever for the British with the European Continent with
the net result and effect that the British trade was frozen out of
Europe as the French controlled all major European ports except the
Prussian ones. Thus Britain was eventually forced to attack
Napoleon on land.
When the
Third Coalition declared
war on France after the short-lived
Peace of Amiens, Napoleon Bonaparte was
determined to invade Britain. To do so, he needed to ensure that
the Royal Navy would be unable to disrupt the invasion
flotilla, which would require control of the
English Channel.
The main
French fleets were at Brest
in Brittany and at Toulon
on the
Mediterranean
coast. Other ports on the French Atlantic
coast contained smaller
squadrons.
France and
Spain were allied, so the Spanish fleet based in Cádiz
and Ferrol
was also
available.
The British possessed an experienced and well-trained corps of
naval officers. By contrast, most of the best officers in the
French navy had either been executed or dismissed from the service
during the early part of the
French
Revolution. As a result, Vice-Admiral
Pierre-Charles Villeneuve was the
most competent senior officer available to command Napoleon's
Mediterranean fleet.
However, Villeneuve had shown a distinct lack
of enthusiasm to face Nelson and the Royal Navy after the defeat at
the Battle of the
Nile
.
Napoleon's
naval plan in 1805 was for the French and Spanish fleets in the
Mediterranean and Cádiz to break
through the blockade and join forces in the West Indies
. They would then return, assist the fleet in
Brest to emerge from the blockade, and together clear the English
Channel
of Royal Navy ships, ensuring a safe passage for
the invasion barges.
The Russian and Austrian armies were preparing an assault on France
once the Grand Armée crossed the Channel.
Napoleon, as a
consequence of Villeneuve disobeying
orders, was able to adjust his strategy by turning his armies from
the invasion of England to attack the Russians and Austrians with
surprising speed, defeating Britain's allies together at Austerlitz
.
West Indies
Early in 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson commanded the British fleet
blockading Toulon. Unlike
William
Cornwallis, who maintained a tight blockade of Brest with the
Channel Fleet, Nelson adopted a loose blockade in hopes of luring
the French out for a major battle. However, Villeneuve's fleet
successfully evaded Nelson's when his forces were blown off station
by storms.
While Nelson was searching the Mediterranean
for him, Villeneuve passed through the Straits of
Gibraltar
, rendezvoused with the Spanish fleet, and sailed as
planned to the West
Indies. Once Nelson realised that the French had
crossed the Atlantic
Ocean
, he set off in pursuit.
Cádiz
Villeneuve returned from the West Indies to
Europe, intending to break the blockade at Brest, but after two of
his Spanish ships were captured during the Battle of Cape Finisterre
by a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder, Villeneuve abandoned this plan
and sailed back to Ferrol.
There he received orders from Napoleon to resume to Brest according
to the Main plan.
Napoleon's invasion plans for England
depended entirely on having a sufficiently large number of ships of
the line before Boulogne
, France
. This
would require Villeneuve's force of 32 ships to join Vice-Admiral
Ganteaume's
force of 21 ships at Brest, along with a squadron of 5 ships under
Captain Allemand, which would have given him a combined force of 58
ships of the line.
When Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol on 10 August, he was under
orders from Napoleon to sail northward toward Brest.
Instead, he worried
that the British were observing his manoeuvres, so on 11 August he
sailed southward towards Cádiz on the
southwestern coast of Spain. With no sign of Villeneuve's fleet by 26
August, the three French army corps invasion force near Boulogne broke camp and marched to Germany
, where it would become fully engaged.
The same month, Nelson returned home to England after two years of
duty at sea, for some rest. He remained ashore for 25 days, and was
warmly received by his countrymen, who were nervous about a
possible French invasion. Word reached England on 2 September about
the combined French and Spanish fleet in the harbour of Cádiz.
Nelson
had to wait until 15 September before his ship HMS Victory
was ready to sail.
On 15
August, Cornwallis decided to detach 20 ships of the line from the
fleet guarding the Channel and to have them sail southward to engage the enemy
forces in Spain. This
left the Channel denuded of ships, with only 11 ships of the line
present. However, this detached force formed the nucleus of the
British fleet that would fight at Trafalgar. This fleet, under the
command of Vice-Admiral Calder, reached Cádiz on 15 September.
Nelson joined the fleet on 29 September to take command.
The British fleet used
frigates to keep a
constant watch on the harbour, while the main force remained out of
sight 50 miles (80 km) west of the shore. Nelson's hope was to
lure the combined Franco-Spanish force out and engage them in a
"pell-mell battle". The force watching the harbour was led by
Captain Blackwood, commanding
HMS
Euryalus. He was brought up to a strength of seven
ships (five frigates and two schooners) on 8 October.
Supply situation
At this point, Nelson's fleet badly needed provisioning.
On 2
October, five ships of the line, HMS
Queen, HMS
Canopus, HMS
Spencer, HMS
Zealous, HMS
Tigre, and the frigate HMS Endymion were dispatched to
Gibraltar
under Rear-Admiral Louis for supplies. These
ships were later diverted for convoy duty in the Mediterranean,
whereas Nelson had expected them to return. Other British ships
continued to arrive, and by 15 October the fleet was up to full
strength for the battle. Nelson also lost Calder's flagship, the
98-gun
Prince of
Wales, which he sent home as Calder had been recalled by
the admiralty to face a court martial for his apparent lack of
aggression during the engagement off Cape Finisterre on the
22
nd of July.
Meanwhile, Villeneuve's fleet in Cádiz was also suffering from a
serious supply shortage that could not be readily rectified by the
cash-strapped French. The blockades maintained by the British fleet
had made it difficult for the allies to obtain stores and their
ships were ill fitted. Villeneuve's ships were also more than two
thousand men short of the force needed to sail. These were not the
only problems faced by the Franco-Spanish fleet. The main French
ships of the line had been kept in harbour for years by the British
blockades with only brief sorties. The hasty voyage across the
Atlantic and back used up vital supplies and was no match for the
British fleet's years of experience at sea and training. The French
crews contained few experienced sailors, and, as most of the crew
had to be taught the elements of seamanship on the few occasions
when they got to sea, gunnery was neglected. Villeneuve's supply
situation began to improve in October, but news of Nelson's arrival
made Villeneuve reluctant to leave port. Indeed, his captains had
held a vote on the matter and decided to stay in the harbour.
On the
16th of September, Napoleon gave orders for the French and Spanish
ships at Cádiz to put to sea at the first favourable opportunity,
join with seven Spanish ships of the line then at Cartagena
, go to Naples
, and land
the soldiers they carried to reinforce his troops there, and fight
with decisive action if they met a British fleet of inferior
numbers.
The fleets
|
British |
Franco-Spanish |
| First Rates |
3 |
4 |
| Second Rates |
4 |
|
| Third Rates |
20 |
29 |
| Total Ships-of-the-Line |
27 |
33 |
| Other Ships |
6 |
7 |
British
On 21 October Nelson had 27 ships-of-the-line. He commanded the
fleet from his
flagship, the 100-gun
first rate . He had two other 100-gun
first rates in his fleet. He also had four 98-gun
second rates and twenty
third rates. One of the third rates was an 80-gun
vessel and sixteen were 74-gun vessels. The remaining three were
64-gun ships, which were being phased out of the Royal Navy at the
time of the battle. Nelson also had four
frigates of 38 or 36 guns, a 12-gun
schooner and a 10-gun cutter.
Franco-Spanish
Against Nelson, Vice-Admiral Villeneuve fielded 33
ships-of-the-line, including some of the
largest in the world at the time. The Spanish contributed four
first rates to the fleet. Three of these ships, one at 136 guns and
two at 112 guns, were much larger than anything possessed by
Nelson. The fourth first rate had 100 guns. The fleet had six
80-gun third rates, (four French and two Spanish), and one French
64-gun third rate. The remaining 22 third rates were 74-gun
vessels, of which fourteen were French and eight Spanish. In total
the Spanish contributed 15 ships of the line and the French 18. The
fleet also contained five 40-gun frigates and two 18-gun
brigs, all French.
The battle
Nelson's plan
The prevailing
tactical
orthodoxy at the time involved maneuvering to approach the
enemy fleet in a single
line of
battle and then engaging in parallel lines. Before this time
the fleets had usually been involved in a melée with the fleets
becoming mixed together. One of the reasons for the development of
the line of battle was to help the admiral control the fleet. If
all the ships were in line, signalling in battle became possible.
The line also had defensive properties, allowing either side to
disengage by breaking away in formation. If the attacker chose to
continue combat their line would be broken as well. Often this
latter tactic led to inconclusive battles or allowed the losing
side to reduce its losses. Nelson wished to see a conclusive
battle.
His solution to the problem was to deliberately cut the opposing
line in two. Approaching in two columns sailing perpendicular to
the enemy's line, one towards the centre of the opposing line and
one towards the trailing end, his ships would break the enemy
formation in half, surround one half, and force them to fight to
the end. Nelson specifically hoped to cut the line just in front of
the flagship: the isolated ships in front of the break would not be
able to see the flagship's signals, hopefully taking them out of
combat while they reformed.
The intention of going straight at the enemy
echoed the tactics
used by Admiral
Duncan at the Battle of
Camperdown and Admiral Jervis at the
Battle of
Cape St. Vincent
, both in 1797.
The plan had three principal advantages. Firstly, it would allow
the British fleet to close with the French-Spanish fleet as quickly
as possible, reducing the chance that it would be able to escape
without fighting. Secondly, it would quickly bring on a mêlée and
frantic battle by breaking the French-Spanish line and inducing a
series of individual ship-to-ship fights, in which the British were
likely to prevail. Nelson knew that the better seamanship, faster
gunnery, and higher morale of his crews had decisive advantages
that could not be compensated for by any amount of bravery on the
part of their opponents. Thirdly, it would bring a decisive
concentration on the rear of the French-Spanish fleet. The ships in
the van of the enemy fleet would have to turn back to support the
rear, an effort which would take a long time.
The main drawback of attacking head on was that the Franco-Spanish
ships would be able to maintain a
raking
broadside fire on the bows of the leading
British ships as they approached, to which the British ships would
be unable to reply. Nelson, however, was well aware that French and
Spanish gunners were ill-trained, would in all probability be
supplemented with soldiers, and would have difficulty firing
accurately from a moving gun platform. After all the Combined Fleet
was sailing across a heavy swell, which caused the ships to roll
heavily and exacerbated the problem. Nelson's plan was indeed a
gamble, but a carefully calculated one.
During
the period of blockade off the coast of
Spain in October, Nelson instructed his captains as to
how he meant to fight the approaching battle over two dinners
aboard Victory. The governing principles of his
instructions were that the order of sailing, in which the fleet was
arranged when the enemy was first sighted, was to be the order of
ensuing battle, so that no time would be wasted in forming a
precise line. The attack was to be made in two bodies, of which
one, to be led by the second in command,
Collingwood, was
to throw itself on the rear of the enemy, while the other, led by
Nelson, was to take care of the centre and vanguard. In preparation
for the battle, Nelson ordered the ships of his fleet painted in a
distinctive yellow and black pattern (later known as the
Nelson Chequer) that would
make them easy to distinguish from their opponents.
Nelson was careful to point out that something had to be left to
chance. Nothing is sure in a sea fight beyond all others, and he
left his captains free from all hampering rules by telling them
that "No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside
that of the enemy." In short, the execution was to be as
circumstances dictated, subject to the guiding rule that the
enemy's rear was to be cut off and superior force concentrated on
that part of the enemy's line.
Admiral Villeneuve himself expressed his belief that Nelson would
use some sort of unorthodox attack, stating specifically that he
believed he would drive right at his lines. But his long game of
cat and mouse with Nelson had worn him down, and he was suffering
from a loss of nerve. Arguing that the inexperience of his officers
meant he would not be able to maintain formation in more than one
group, he chose to do nothing to counter an accurate assessment of
Nelson's intentions.
Departure
The
Combined Fleet of French and Spanish warships anchored in Cadiz
and under
the leadership of Admiral Villeneuve was in disarray.
On 16
September 1805 Villeneuve received orders from Napoleon to sail the Combined Fleet
from Cadiz to Naples.
At first
Villeneuve was optimistic about returning to the Mediterranean but soon had second thoughts. A war council
was held aboard his flagship,
Bucentaure on 8 October 1805.
While some of the French captains wished to obey Napoleon's orders,
the Spanish captains and other French officers, including
Villeneuve, thought it best to remain in Cadiz. Villeneuve changed
his mind yet again on 18 October 1805 ordering the Combined Fleet
to sail immediately even though there were only very light
winds.
The
sudden change was prompted by a letter Villeneuve received on 18 Oct 1805
informing him that Vice-Admiral François Rosily had arrived in Madrid
with orders
to take command of the Combined Fleet. Stung by the prospect
of being disgraced before the fleet, Villeneuve resolved to go to
sea before his successor could reach Cadiz.
At the same time, he
received intelligence that a detachment of six British ships
(Admiral Louis' squadron) had docked at
Gibraltar, thus weakening the British fleet. This was
used as the pretext for sudden change.
The weather, however, suddenly turned calm following a week of
gales. This slowed the progress of the fleet departing the harbor,
giving the British plenty of warning. Villeneuve had drawn up plans
to form a force of four squadrons, each containing both French and
Spanish ships. Following their earlier vote on 8 Oct 1805 to stay
put, some captains were reluctant to leave Cádiz and as a result
they failed to follow Villeneuve's orders closely. As a result, the
fleet straggled out of the harbour in no particular
formation.
It took most of 20 October for Villeneuve to get his fleet
organized, and it set sail in three columns for the Straits of
Gibraltar to the south-east. That same evening, the ship
Achille spotted
a force of 18 British ships of the line in pursuit. The fleet began
to prepare for battle and during the night they were ordered into a
single line. The following day Nelson's fleet of 27 ships of the
line and four frigates was spotted in pursuit from the north-west
with the wind behind it. Villeneuve again ordered his fleet into
three columns, but soon changed his mind and ordered a single line.
The result was a sprawling, uneven formation.
The British fleet was sailing, as they would fight, under
signal 72 hoisted on Nelson's flagship. At 5:40
a.m., the British were about 21 miles (34 km) to the
north-west of Cape Trafalgar, with the Franco-Spanish fleet between
the British and the Cape. At 6 a.m. that morning, Nelson gave the
order to prepare for battle.
At 8 a.m., Villeneuve ordered the fleet to
wear together
and turn back for Cádiz. This reversed the order of the Allied
line, placing the rear division under Rear-Admiral
Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley in the
vanguard. The wind became contrary at this point, often shifting
direction. The very light wind rendered manoeuvering virtually
impossible for all but the most expert crews. The inexperienced
crews had difficulty with the changing conditions, and it took
nearly an hour and a half for Villeneuve's order to be completed.
The French and Spanish fleet now formed an uneven, angular
crescent, with the slower ships generally leeward and closer to the
shore.
By 11 a.m. Nelson's entire fleet was visible to Villeneuve, drawn
up in two parallel columns. The two fleets would be within range of
each other within an hour. Villeneuve was concerned at this point
about forming up a line, as his ships were unevenly spaced and in
an irregular formation. The French-Spanish fleet was drawn out
nearly five miles (8 km) long as Nelson's fleet
approached.
As the British drew closer, they could see that the enemy was not
sailing in a tight order, but rather in irregular groups. Nelson
could not immediately make out the French flagship as the French
and Spanish were not flying command pennants.
The six British ships dispatched earlier to Gibraltar had not
returned, so Nelson would have to fight without them. He was
outnumbered and outgunned, nearly 30,000 men and 2,568 guns to his
17,000 men and 2,148 guns. The Franco-Spanish fleet also had six
more ships of the line, and so could more readily combine their
fire. There was no way for some of Nelson's ships to avoid being
"doubled on" or even "trebled on".
Battle
Nelson's famous signal.
The battle progressed largely according to Nelson's plan except for
the fact of his death . At 11:45, Nelson sent the famous
flag signal, "
England expects
that every man will do his duty" He had instructed his signal
officer, Lieutenant
John Pasco, to signal
to the fleet the message "England confides [i.e. is confident] that
every man will do his duty." Pasco suggested to Nelson that
expects be substituted for
confides, since the
former word was in the signal book, whereas
confides would
have to be spelled out letter-by-letter. Nelson agreed to the
change.
The term
England
was widely used at the time to refer to the
United
Kingdom, though the British fleet included significant
contingents from Ireland
, Scotland
and Wales
as well as
England. Unlike the photographic depiction, this signal
would have been shown on the
mizzen mast only
and would have required 12 'lifts'.
As the battle opened, the French and Spanish were in a ragged
curved line headed north. As planned, the British fleet was
approaching the Franco-Spanish line in two columns.
Leading the northern,
windward column in his 100-gun flagship Victory was Nelson, while Collingwood in
the 100-gun Royal
Sovereign led the second, leeward, column. As the
two British columns approached from the west at nearly a right
angle. Nelson led his line into a feint toward the van of the
Franco-Spanish fleet and then abruptly turned toward the actual
point of attack. Collingwood altered the course of his column
slightly so that the two lines converged at this line of
attack.
Situation at 1200 hours as the Royal
Sovereign was breaking into the Franco-Spanish line
Just before his column engaged the allied forces, Collingwood said
to his officers, "Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which
the world may talk of hereafter." Because the winds were very light
during the battle, all the ships were moving extremely slowly, and
the foremost British ships were under heavy fire from several of
the enemy ships for almost an hour before their own guns could
bear.
At noon, Villeneuve sent the signal "engage the enemy", and
Fougueux fired her
first trial shot at
Royal Sovereign.
Royal
Sovereign had all sails out and, having recently had her
bottom cleaned, outran the rest of the British fleet. As she
approached the allied line, she came under fire from
Fougueux,
Indomptable,
San
Justo and
San Leandro, before breaking the line just
astern of Admiral Alava's flagship
Santa Ana, into which
she fired a devastating
double-shotted
raking broadside.
The second ship in the British lee column,
Belleisle, was engaged by
L'Aigle,
Achille,
Neptune and
Fougueux; she was soon completely dismasted, unable to
manoeuvre and largely unable to fight, as her sails blinded her
batteries, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until the
following British ships came to her rescue.
Trafalgar Battle, situation at
13h
For 40 minutes,
Victory was under fire from
Héros,
Santísima Trinidad,
Redoutable and
Neptune; although many
shots went astray others killed and wounded a number of her crew
and shot away her wheel, so that she had to be steered from her
tiller belowdecks.
Victory could not yet respond. At
12:45,
Victory cut the enemy line between Villeneuve's
flagship
Bucentaure and
Redoutable.
Victory came close to the
Bucentaure, firing a devastating
raking broadside through her stern which killed
and wounded many on her gundecks. Villeneuve thought that boarding
would take place, and with the Eagle of his ship in hand, told his
men: "I will throw it onto the enemy ship and we will take it back
there!" However Admiral Nelson of
Victory engaged the 74
gun
Redoutable.
Bucentaure was left to be dealt
with by the next three ships of the British windward column
Temeraire,
Conqueror and
Neptune.
Nelson is shot on the quarterdeck of
Victory
A general mêlée ensued and, during that fight,
Victory
locked masts with the French
Redoutable. The crew of the
Redoutable, which included a strong infantry corps (with 3
captains and 4 lieutenants), gathered for an attempt to board and
seize the
Victory. A
musket bullet
fired from the
mizzentop of the
Redoutable struck Nelson in the left shoulder and passed
through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae
lodging two inches below his right scapula in the muscles of his
back. Nelson exclaimed, "They finally succeeded, I am dead." He was
carried below decks.
Victory ceased fire, the gunners having been called on the
deck to fight the capture but were repelled to the below decks by
French grenades. As the French were preparing to board
Victory, the
Temeraire, the second ship in the
British windward column, approached from the starboard bow of the
Redoutable and fired on the exposed French crew with a
carronade, causing many casualties.
At 13:55,
Captain Lucas,
of the
Redoutable, with 99 fit men out of 643 and severely
wounded himself, surrendered. The French
Bucentaure was
isolated by the
Victory and
Temeraire, and then
engaged by
Neptune,
Leviathan and
Conqueror; similarly, the
Santísima Trinidad was
isolated and overwhelmed, surrendering after three hours.
As more and more British ships entered the battle, the ships of the
allied centre and rear were gradually overwhelmed. The allied van,
after long remaining quiescent, made a futile demonstration and
then sailed away. The British took 22 vessels of the Franco-Spanish
fleet and lost none. Among the taken French ships were the
L'Aigle,
Algésiras, ,
Bucentaure,
Fougueux,
Intrépide,
Redoutable, and
Swiftsure. The Spanish ships
taken were
Argonauta,
Bahama,
Monarca,
Neptuno,
San
Agustín,
San Ildefonso,
San Juan
Nepomuceno,
Santísima Trinidad, and
Santa Ana. Of these,
Redoutable sank,
Santísima Trinidad and
Argonauta were scuttled by the British and later sank,
Achille
exploded,
Intrépide and
San Augustín burned, and
L'Aigle,
Berwick,
Fougueux, and
Monarca were wrecked in a gale following the battle.
Trafalgar Battle, situation at
17h
As Nelson lay dying, he ordered the fleet to anchor as a storm was
predicted. However, when the storm blew up many of the severely
damaged ships sank or ran aground on the
shoals. A few of them were recaptured by the French
and Spanish prisoners overcoming the small prize crews or by ships
sallying from Cádiz. Surgeon
William Beatty heard Nelson murmur
"Thank God I have done my duty"; when he returned Nelson's voice
had faded and his pulse was very weak. He looked up as Beatty took
his pulse, then closed his eyes. Nelson's chaplain,
Alexander Scott, who remained by Nelson
as he died, recorded his last words as "God and my country." Nelson
died at half-past four, three hours after being hit by the
ball.
Aftermath
Only eleven ships regained Cádiz, and of those only five were
considered seaworthy. Under captain
Julien
Cosmao, they set sail two days later and attempted to re-take
some of the British prizes; they succeeded in re-capturing two
ships, and forced Collingwood to scuttle a number of his prizes.
The four van ships which escaped with Dumanoir were taken on
November 4 by
Sir
Richard Strachan at the
Battle of Cape Ortegal.
When Rosily arrived in Cádiz, he found only five French ships
remained rather than the 18 he was expecting. The surviving ships
remained bottled up in Cádiz until 1808, when Napoleon invaded
Spain. The French ships were then seized by the Spanish forces and
put into service against France.
HMS
Victory made its way to Gibraltar for repairs,
carrying Nelson's body. It put into Rosia Bay, Gibraltar and after
emergency repairs were carried out, it returned to England. Many of
the injured crew were brought ashore at Gibraltar and treated in
the Naval Hospital.
Men who subsequently died from injuries
sustained at the Battle are buried in or near the Trafalgar
Cemetery
, at the south end of Main Street,
Gibraltar
.
One Royal Marine Officer was killed onboard HMS Victory, Captain
Charles Adair. Royal Marine Officer Lt Lewis Buckle Reeve was
seriously wounded at the battle, and lay next to the mortally
wounded Nelson.
The
battle took place the day after the Battle of Ulm
, and Napoleon did not hear about it for weeks — the
Grande Armée had left Boulogne to
fight Britain's allies before they could combine a huge
force. He had tight control over the Paris media and kept
the defeat a closely guarded secret. In a propaganda move, the
battle was declared a "spectacular victory" by the French and
Spanish.
Vice-Admiral Villeneuve was taken prisoner aboard his flagship and
taken back to England. After his
parole in
1806 and return to France, Villeneuve was found in his inn room
during a stop on the way to Paris stabbed six times in the chest
with a dining knife. It was recorded that he had committed
suicide.
Less than
two months later, the War of the Third
Coalition ended with a decisive French victory over Russia and
Austria, Britain's allies, at the Battle of Austerlitz. Prussia decided not to join the Coalition
and Europe was temporarily at peace again. France could no longer
challenge Britain at sea. Napoleon instead established the
Continental System in an attempt to deny
Britain trade with the continent.
Consequences
Detail from a modern reproduction of
an 1805 poster commemorating the battle
180px-Broadside_titled_"The_Battle_of_Trafalgar".jpg"
style='width:180px' alt="" />
A broadside from the 1850s recounts the story
Following the battle, the Royal Navy was never again seriously
challenged by the French fleet in a large-scale engagement.
Napoleon had already abandoned his plans of invasion before the
battle and they were never revived. The battle did not mean,
however, that the French naval challenge to Britain was over.
First, as the French control over the continent expanded, Britain
had to take active
steps
in 1807 and 1808 to prevent the ships of smaller European navies
from falling into French hands. This effort was largely successful,
but did not end the French threat as Napoleon instituted a large
scale shipbuilding program that produced a fleet of 80 ships of the
line at the time of his fall from power in 1814, with more under
construction. In comparison Britain had 99 ships of the line in
active commission in 1814, and this was close to the maximum that
could be supported. Given a few more years, the French could have
realized their plans to commission 150 ships of the line and again
challenge the Royal Navy, compensating for the inferiority of their
crews with sheer numbers. For almost 10 years after Trafalgar the
Royal Navy maintained close blockade of French bases and anxiously
observed the growth of the French fleet. In the end, Napoleon's
Empire was destroyed before the ambitious buildup could be
completed.
Nelson became - and remains - Britain's greatest naval war hero,
and an inspiration to the Royal Navy, yet his unorthodox tactics
were only infrequently emulated by later generations.
The first monument to
be erected in Britain to commemorate Nelson was raised on Glasgow Green
in 1806, possibly preceded by a monument at
Taynuilt
, near Oban
dated 1805,
both also commemorating the many Scots crew and captains at the
battle. The 44 m (144 ft) tall
Nelson Monument on Glasgow Green was
designed by
David
Hamilton and paid for by public subscription.
Around the base are
the names of his famous victories: Aboukir
(1798), Copenhagen
(1801) and Trafalgar (1805). In 1808, Nelson's
Pillar
was erected in Dublin
to
commemorate Nelson and his achievements (many sailors at Trafalgar
had been Irish), and remained until it was destroyed in a terrorist
bombing by "Old IRA" members in
1966. Nelson's Monument
in Edinburgh
was built between 1807 and 1815 in the form of an
upturned telescope, and in 1853 a time ball was added which still drops at noon
GMT to give a time signal to ships in Leith
and the
Firth of
Forth
. In summer this coincides with the
one
o'clock gun being fired.
The Britannia Monument
in Great
Yarmouth
was raised
by 1819
London
's famous
Trafalgar
Square
was named in honour of his victory, and Nelson's
statue on Nelson's
Column
, finished in 1843, towers triumphantly over
it. The statue of Lord Nelson in Bridgetown, Barbados, in
what was also once known as Trafalgar Square, was erected in
1813.
The disparity in losses has been attributed by some historians less
to Nelson's daring tactics, than to the difference in fighting
readiness of the two fleets. Nelson's fleet was made up of ships of
the line which had spent considerable amount of sea time during
months of blockades of French ports, whilst the French fleet had
generally been at anchor in port. However, Villeneuve's fleet had
just spent months at sea crossing the Atlantic twice, which
supports the proposition that the main difference between the two
fleets' combat effectiveness was the morale of the leaders. The
daring tactics employed by Nelson were to ensure a strategically
decisive result. The results vindicated his naval judgment.
The Royal Navy proceeded to dominate the seas for the remaining
years of sail. Although the victory at Trafalgar was typically
given as the reason at the time, modern analysis by historians such
as
Paul Kennedy suggests that relative
economic strength was a more important underlying cause of British
naval mastery.
An anecdotal consequence, related to Trafalgar, is that
French Navy officers have not been
called "sir" ever since, supposedly due to Napoleon's disgust at
his great fleet having been so comprehensively beaten.
200th anniversary
In 2005, a series of events around the UK, as part of the
Sea Britain theme, marked the
bicentenary.
The 200th anniversary of the battle was also
marked by six days of celebrations in Portsmouth
during June and July, and at St Paul's
Cathedral
(where Nelson is entombed) and in Trafalgar Square
in London in October (T Square 200
), as well as across the rest of the
UK.
On 28
June, the Queen
was involved in the biggest Fleet Review in modern times in
the
Solent
, in which 167 ships from 35 nations took
part. The Queen inspected the international fleet from the
Antarctic patrol ship
HMS
Endurance. The fleet included six carriers:
Charles De Gaulle,
Illustrious,
Invincible,
Ocean,
Príncipe de
Asturias and
Saipan. In the evening a
symbolic re-enactment of the battle was staged with fireworks and
various small ships playing parts in the battle.
Lapenotiere's historic voyage in HMS Pickle bringing the news of
victory from the fleet to Falmouth
and thence by post chaise to the Admiralty in London, was commemorated by the
inauguration of The Trafalgar Way and
further highlighted by the New
Trafalgar Dispatch celebrations from July to September, in
which an actor played the part of Lapenotiere and reenacted parts
of the historic journey.
On 21
October, naval manoeuvres were conducted in Trafalgar Bay, near
Cadiz, involving a combined fleet from Britain, Spain and
France. Many descendants of those men who fought and died in
these waters, including members of Nelson's family, were present at
the ceremony.
In popular culture
- Trafalgar, a book about the battle of the same name,
opens the series of novels Episodios Nacionales by
Benito Pérez
Galdós.
- In the alternate
history collection Alternate Generals, John W.
Mina's short story "Vive l'Amiral" posits Admiral Nelson fleeing an
English debtor's prison, ending up in France and leading Napoleon's
navy to victory at Trafalgar.
- Spanish writer Arturo
Pérez-Reverte has published the novel Cape Trafalgar
(Cabo Trafalgar, ed. Alfaguara 2004, in Spanish).
- In the Horatio Hornblower
series, by C.S. Forester, Hornblower is given the task of
delivering false orders to Villeneuve. Since Hornblower speaks
fluent French and Spanish, he is successful in his mission.
Villeneuve sends his fleet out of Cadiz and to the destruction that
takes place at Trafalgar. Even though Hornblower does not
participate in the battle itself, he is put in charge of Admiral
Nelson's funeral in England. These events take place at the end of
Hornblower and the
Crisis (or at least its outline, since this book remains
unfinished) and at the beginning of Hornblower and the
Atropos.
- In the Lord Ramage series novel
Ramage at Trafalgar by
Dudley Pope, Ramage is commander of a
frigate under direct command of Captain Blackwood. Pope notes "all
the facts concerning Nelson and the Battle are true; only the
events surrounding Ramage are fiction".
- In The League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Hornblower is
mentioned as being the British commander at the Battle of Trafalgar
(taking the position of the historical Nelson) and with
"Hornblower's Column" being built in London to commemorate his role
in the battle.
- In the novel Honour This Day from the Richard Bolitho series by Alexander Kent, Bolitho's squadron is sent
first to the West Indies with the task of intercepting a Spanish
quota ship and, then, in 1805 to the Mediterranean, to prevent
reinforcements from reaching the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar
- In Louis A. Meyer's Under the Jolly Roger, the third
Bloody Jack novel, the
heroine, Jacky Faber, cross-dressing English-woman and Lieutenant
in the British Royal Navy, is captured as a pirate by British
forces on the eve of the battle. Her ship is destroyed, but she
escapes from the brig in time to "man" the guns in grim action
against the Redoutable.
- In James Clavell's novel
Tai-Pan, the Scots chieftan
of Hong Kong, Dirk Struan, reflects on his experiences as a 5 year
old powder monkey onboard HMS Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar.
- In
Paul Dowswell's The Adventures of Sam Witchall series,
Battle Fleet presents Sam Witchall, the main character, as
the flag officer's assistant midshipman
on the HMS
Victory.
Footnotes
- Admirals of the time, due to the slowness of communications,
were given considerable autonomy to make strategic as well as
tactical
decisions.
- Shoom, 1990, p.301-306
- Reeve's Naval General Service Medal with Trafalgar clasp and
Muster List for HMS Victory are on show at the Royal Marines
Museum, Southsea,
England.
- A typical example appears in Volume the Fourteenth of the
Naval Chronicle
- Richard Glover, The French Fleet, 1807-1814; Britain's Problem;
and Madison's Opportunity, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 39,
No. 3. (September, 1967), pp. 233-252.
- England expects - on the trail of Admiral Lord
Nelson Nelson monuments
- Capital City - Tree for All Five of Nelson’s 27
captains of the Fleet were Scottish as were almost 30% of the
crew
- First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Alan West on Trafalgar 2005
reports recruitment English 53%, Irish 21%, Scots 7% though many
more may have been recruited in England
- Nicolson, 2005, p.9-10
Bibliography
- Adkins, Roy, Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle,
2004, Little Brown, ISBN 0-316-72511-0.
- Corbett, Julian S., The Trafalgar Campaign, 1910,
London.
- Desbrière, Edouard, The Naval Campaign of 1805:
Trafalgar, 1907, Paris. English translation by Constance
Eastwick, 1933.
- Fernandez, Juan Cayuela, Trafalgar. Hombres y
naves entre dos épocas, 2004, Ariel (Barcelona) ISBN
84-344-6760-7
- Frasca, Francesco, Il potere marittimo in età moderna, da
Lepanto a Trafalgar, 1 st ed. 2008, Lulu Enterprises UK Ltd,
ISBN 978-1-4092-4348-9, 2 nd ed. 2008, Lulu Enterprises UK Ltd,
ISBN 978-1-84799-550-6, 3 rd ed. 2009, Lulu Enterprises UK Ltd,
ISBN 978-1-4092-6088-2, 4th ed. 2009, Lulu Enterprises UK Ltd, ISBN
978-1-4092-7881-8.
- Harbron, John D., Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy,
1988, London, ISBN 0-85177-963-8.
- Howarth, David, Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch, 2003,
Phoenix Press, ISBN 1-84212-717-9.
- Huskisson, Thomas, Eyewitness to Trafalgar, reprinted
in 1985 as a limited edition of 1000; Ellisons' Editions, ISBN
0-946092-09-5 — the author was half-brother of William Huskisson
- Lambert, Andrew, War at Sea in the Age of Sail,
Chapter 8, 2000, London, ISBN 1-55278-127-5
- Nicolson, Adam, Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of
the English Hero (U.S. title Seize the Fire: Heroism,
Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar), 2005, HarperCollins, ISBN
0-00-719209-6.
- Pocock, Tom, Horatio Nelson, Chapter XII, 1987,
London, ISBN 0-7126-6123-9
- Pope, Dudley, England Expects (U.S. title Decision
at Trafalgar), 1959, Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- Schom, Alan, Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle,
1803-1805, 1990, New York, ISBN 0-689-12055-9.
- Warner, Oliver, Trafalgar. First published 1959 by
Batsford - republished 1966 by Pan.
External links
Battle of Trafalgar (1805) French and
Spanish Casualties.
Battle of Trafalgar British
Casualties
.jpg/180px-Turner,_The_Battle_of_Trafalgar_(1822).jpg)
.
"in case
Boney should try and trick us by
coming via the North
Pole
". Blackadder suggests that the Royal Navy block the French from leaving the
Mediterranean at Trafalgar -
something Wellington declares he will mention to Nelson.
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