21/10/2024
The significance of Trafalgar
– without it you’d be speaking French now
By Dr Tom Lewis
As the British fleet headed towards its French and Spanish opponent on that sunny morning of October the 21st in 1805, would those on board the ships have known how significant the battle they were about to fight would be? Probably not. The average British sailor of those times was not very literate, and often his world was encompassed by the ship he sailed in, sometimes for years at a time. He fought because he was often a pressed man, although sometimes a volunteer, and a sturdy warrior, following the traditions of centuries of warfare by the British against the country’s enemies. These were often the French and the Dutch, but also the Spanish, who were defeated by the same type of tough sailors in the Battle of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Now once again the country would be saved from invasion, and the French army, like their Spanish predecessors, would be denied the opportunity to subjugate the British Empire.
For Nelson and his “band of brothers” – the command elite ¬– it would have been somewhat different. Nelson had proved himself to be a unique individual, a warrior who understood both tactics and strategy, and some of this was imbued into his followers. They knew there was an invasion to be stopped, and a way of life to be preserved from the Terrors of the French Revolution. Nelson had demonstrated his mastery of strategy, and an understanding of international affairs repeatedly. He had been recognised by one of the great Admirals of the age, Sir John Jervis, later to be Lord St Vincent, to be "more an associate than a subordinate officer" as Nelson wrote to his wife, and Jervis made him a Commodore.
An occasional diplomat, Nelson never lost sight of the "Big Picture" of victory against Napoleon Bonaparte, and was always one to rise above personal rivalry with fellow officers, and the inter-service rivalry which then as now was a pestilence upon campaigns. Nelson, for example, was the commander of the force at the Bastia siege, while his Army equivalent, Colonel Sir John Moore, "sulked in his tent" as Lloyd put it. Before the battle of Cape St. Vincent Nelson was to write: "A victory is very essential to England at this moment". He was truly an instrument of his nation rather than himself.
Nelson was the supreme naval tactician. In the 1797 battle of Cape St Vincent, fighting against the Spanish fleet and commanding HMS Captain, Nelson without orders put his ship across the advancing line of Spanish warships – his two-decker of 74 guns facing a four-decker of 136 guns, then the biggest ship afloat – with three-deckers behind. In this way he forced the Spanish ships to alter course, thus allowing others of the British van to join the battle.
Nelson was a man of courage, honour and action who suffered most terribly and often from wounds, paradoxically being not so much a man who loved combat as one who stood back as demanded of a senior commanding officer crucial to the course of battle. His wounds resulted from being quite willing to lead from the front if that was what it took to win an action. His right arm was amputated after the battle of Santa Cruz in Teneriffe due to being hit by grapeshot. On the way back to the ship, at that time the Theseus, Nelson was lying in the bottom of the boat with a tourniquet around his arm, barely conscious from loss of blood. When they reached the ship, he was half-hauled on board, clinging to the rope with one arm while he climbed up the ship's side. Once on board he gave orders for the surgeon to be called immediately, saying: "For I know I must lose my arm, and the sooner it is off the better."
Nelson knew when to fight and when to seek peace. Having defeated the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, he negotiated with Denmark's Prince Royal afterwards, seeking to stop the Prince's country from moving towards Bonaparte. A successful armistice of 14 weeks was concluded, demonstrating his mastery of statesmanship and strategy; a vote of thanks in the House of Commons commented: "That Lord Nelson had shown himself as wise as he was brave, and proved that there may be united in the same person the talents of the Warrior and the Statesman".
Trafalgar was to be a “decisive battle”, for it changed the future of Britain, and the world Britain dominated, by its outcome. Once the result of Trafalgar was sealed, and the enemy fleet had been destroyed, it could no longer safeguard any French Army invasion across the Channel, as had been planned. No cross-Channel attack meant that the British Navy would remain paramount at sea, and therefore Napoleon’s ambitions were limited by the land he could control. He could not, by implication, attack America. He would not be able to muster enough of a force and have it survive long enough to take the new colony of Australia. He could not use the sea to transport an army to new conquests. He would not have access to materials overseas: timber, metals; all of the resources he would need to go on expanding his armies and their field of conquest. And the shambolic excesses of the Napoleonic Empire would not spread further.
That is not to say that Napoleon could not have maintained a successful fortress for the foreseeable future on the European mainland. He did for a while, after all, but the Empire became more ramshackle as it went on. Although Bonaparte’s Empire introduced several improvements to European society: the concepts of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” which had been embraced by the Revolution, the metric system, an improved French education and building system, and certainly a restoration of national pride, it was at heart an Empire founded on plunder, blood and corruption. The rule of Napoleon was one founded on conquest, looting, and harsh tactics. The law was subjugated to the demands of the tyranny which accompanied the victorious French: imprisonment without trial; quiet disappearances forever, corruption and disguised public affairs – all were part of the Evil Empire that held much of Europe in its thrall for years.
After Trafalgar the Empire was hemmed in and its many enemies began circling their prey. After the broken assault against Russia, the forces that Bonaparte had attacked and defeated on many occasions rallied and together began to combine to defeat Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo in 1815, which saw the Duke of Wellington and his Prussian allies triumph over Bonaparte for the final time, was not possible without Trafalgar.
On the 21st of October 1805 the British fleet, after months of pursuit, met the French and Spanish forces under Admiral Villeneuve at sea off Cape Trafalgar. The British, in two lines according to Nelson's instructions, sailed to cut the enemy's line of battle. In the late morning Nelson directed a signal be hoisted exhorting his people to do their best. The flag lieutenant suggested a more economical hoist of flags, and therefore the word "confides" was changed to "expects". The rolled flags raced to the masthead of Victory and snapped open: "England expects every man will do his duty". At 11.45 the battle was joined. In Victory the band played "Rule Britannia" and "Britons Strike Home" as followed by Temeraire and Neptune she opened fire. The French and Spanish fought well but the British, ruling the seas after years of battle, were their master, and the fleet action, now joined on all sides, began to go against Villeneuve.
At 1.35 Nelson, pacing his quarterdeck amidst the crash of the broadsides, calm amidst the smoke that wreathed Victory, was giving his orders quietly and firmly, as always. A French sharpshooter, stationed in the rigging of the Redoutable, took aim at the distinctively-uniformed slight figure and fired. The Admiral died a little later in Victory’s cockpit, but not before he was brought news of the complete success of the battle.
Many navies have retained the words, when toasting Nelson, “To the Immortal Memory”. But it is not only to the greatest fighting naval captain who ever lived that we raise a glass. It is to his achievements, which have given us many of the benefits of the civilisations that were preserved by the victory at Trafalgar.
References:
Fenwick, Kenneth. HMAS Victory. London: Cassell, 1960.
Ireland, Bernard. Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail. London: Harper Collins, 2000.
Lloyd, Christopher. Nelson and Sea Power. London: English Universities Press, 1973.
Padfield, Peter. Broke and the Shannon. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1968.
Southey, Robert. The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson. London: JM Dent, 1906.
Thursfield, James R. Nelson and other Naval Studies. London: John Murray, 1920.
Dr Tom Lewis OAM is a military historian. His latest work is Cyclone Warriors – the Armed Forces in Cyclone Tracy (Avonmore Books)
