EACH October 21 sailors assemble aboard HMS Victory
come rain or shine. They come to lay a wreath. They come to honour
the Navy’s greatest hero, its greatest victory and the
men who ensured Britannia did indeed rule the waves.
But why was the defeat so crushing? And why does Nelson’s
spirit continue to imbue today’s Royal Navy?
Horatio Nelson was born in Burnham Thorpe, a small Norfolk village
which has changed little in a quarter of a millennium, in 1758.
The son of a clergyman, he joined the Royal Navy at the age of
12 in 1771 under the patronage of his uncle.
Before his teenage years were over, the young officer had sailed
to the West Indies and the Arctic – where he survived a
scrape with a polar bear. Nelson impressed his superiors, such
that by the time he was 21 he had been given his first command,
a brig.
A succession of commands in smaller ships – chiefly frigates – followed
and despite war between Britain and America raging during the
War of Independence, the youthful captain saw little action.
It was only when war flared up between Britain and France once
more in 1793 that Nelson’s star truly began to rise. The
following year, commanding the 64-gun ship of the line HMS Agamemnon – his
favourite vessel – he lost most of the sight in his right
eye when he was struck in the face by a shower of gravel during
an attack on the Corsican fortress of Calvi.
In 1795, his skill as a seafarer and warrior was demonstrated
when Agamemnon captured the much more powerful French ship Ca
Ira. The next year, he led successful amphibious assaults to
capture the islands of Elba and Capraia.
These actions did not bring Nelson’s name to the public’s
attention especially, but senior officers took note.
The 37-year-old commodore finally found public adulation in
1797 after victory over the Spanish at the Battle of Cape St
Vincent. In command of HMS Captain, he hauled his ship out of
the line to assist the vanguard of Sir John Jervis’ force
grappling with the Spaniards.
In the ensuing maelstrom of broadsides, two Spanish ships – San
Nicolas and San José – collided while trying to
escape. Nelson ordered the enemy vessels seized, personally leading
the boarding party from one ship to the next; it was almost unheard
of that such a senior officer would take charge of such a raiding
party.
Months later, however, his bravado bordered on the arrogant
when he led an ill-judged assault on Tenerife. After a first
assault was thwarted by the weather, Nelson’s blood was
up and he stormed the citadel of Santa Cruz – whose defenders
were well prepared and determined.
In the ensuing clash, Nelson’s upper right arm was shattered
by a musket ball as he led a landing party into a hail of fire.
The overall attack was a bloody failure; one in four British
sailors was a casualty.
Despite this personal and professional setback, Nelson – by
now a rear admiral – was still held in high regard by the
Admiralty, so much so that when Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798,
he was given command of a 14-strong battlefleet to hunt down
and destroy the French force.
It wasn’t simply that Nelson had fine ships under his
command, but also that they were commanded by some of the Navy’s
ablest captains – the legendary ‘Band of Brothers’ as
the admiral later called them, quoting his favourite Shakespeare
play, Henry V.
What followed was the overwhelming victory of the Nile on August
1 1798 when the French fleet of 17 vessels was destroyed at anchor
in Aboukir Bay. The enemy had left enough space between the head
of their line and the shoals on the landward side of the bay
for the RN ships to squeeze through and attack them.
Nelson followed on the seaward side, so that the French were
pummeled from both sides. At the height of the battle, the magazine
of the French flagship L’Orient exploded – such was
the shock of the detonation that fighting temporarily ceased.
Once again Nelson was wounded – he feared a shrapnel wound
on his forehead was fatal; mercifully it was not.
As the British fleet, by now badly damaged, moved inexorably
down the French line, just two enemy ships managed to escape.
Dawn cast light on the blazing and smouldering remnants of Napoleon’s
once proud Egyptian task force. “Victory is not a name
strong enough for such a scene,” Nelson later wrote. Seven
battleships were captured, three were burned-out hulks, and L’Orient
had been destroyed. The French suffered more than 5,000 casualties,
for the loss of fewer than 900 Britons wounded or killed.
The Nile was much more than a naval victory; Napoleon’s
armies in Egypt were cut off and subsequently surrendered to
the British in 1801 – although ‘Boney’ himself
had long since fled to France.
More than 200 years on, historians regard the Nile as a stunning
victory on a par with Trafalgar. At the time, the battle was
justly celebrated not just in Britain but across Europe as the
seemingly invincible forces of France were finally dealt a devastating
blow.
It was three more years before the admiral joined a fleet in
battle once more, this time at Copenhagen when the Navy was ordered
to destroy the Danish fleet to ensure the Baltic remained open
to British trade.
The clash on April 2 1801 proved to be Nelson’s hardest-fought
victory – and much closer than he was prepared to admit.
So punishing was the Danish fire that Nelson’s superior
ordered him to break off the action. The admiral famously raised
the telescope to his blind eye and said ‘I really do not
see the signal!’ – not, as people regularly misquote ‘I
see no ships’ – and continued the battle, victoriously.
At the dawn of the 19th century, the Royal Navy had reached
its zenith in the days of sail. It could call upon 950 warships
and 150,000 men, whose skills had been honed by years of skirmishes
and battles.
Promoted vice admiral after Copenhagen, Nelson was now placed
in charge of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1803. The threat of invasion
loomed over Britain… a threat which would lead to the decisive
clash off Cape Trafalgar.
News of victory off Spain coincided for the British public with
news of Nelson’s death. His funeral in January 1806 was
on a scale rarely witnessed.
His body was preserved aboard Victory in a large water cask,
initially filled with brandy, later wine, until the ship reached
England in December 1805.
The admiral’s corpse was removed, an autopsy performed,
and the body laid to rest in a coffin made from the mainmast
of the French flagship at the Nile, L’Orient.
The body lay in state in the famous Painted Hall in Greenwich
for three days before being taken by barge up the Thames to Whitehall,
and finally to the Admiralty. On January 9 1806, London ground
to a halt for the state funeral. Nelson’s body was hauled
on a unique funeral car through the capital’s streets,
watched by hundreds of thousands of people, until it reached
St Paul’s Cathedral for the service of committal.
“When the Coffin was brought out of the Admiralty,” Nelson’s
nephew wrote in his diary, “there seemed to be a general
Silence and every one appeared to feel for the Death of so noble
and such a good Man.”
Proceedings lasted long past dusk and as Nelson’s coffin
was lowered into the crypt, Victory’s crew who had accompanied
their admiral on his final journey, ripped up the ensign covering
the coffin and stuffed the fragments in their pockets.
Two centuries after his death, Nelson continues to inspire the
Navy and the general public alike.
What captures the imagination more than other military leaders – only
Wellington and Montgomery perhaps come close in the public’s
memory – is Nelson’s humanity. He was a larger than
life character in his day, feted by the people. Bold and brave,
willing to take risks, badly wounded in battle, an inspiring
leader, Nelson was also vain, self-centered, at times overly
confident, adulterous – Emma Hamilton was not his only,
though most famous, mistress – and craved adulation. In
short, he was more than a mere sailor.
Above all, Nelson and Trafalgar set the seal on the supremacy
of the Royal Navy: its training, its professionalism, its technological
advantage, its esprit de corps.
It is hardly surprising then that each Trafalgar Day Her Majesty’s
Ships, Royal Naval Associations and maritime societies the world
over hold commemorative dinners.
On Victory, aside from a morning ceremony, the legendary signal ‘England
expects that every man will do his duty’ is hoisted, and
a dinner is hosted in the admiral’s cabin.
And then, with the meals over, people toast ‘the Immortal
Memory of Nelson and those who fell with him’.
In 2005 such toasts will resound with particular gusto.
Further reading:
Roy Adkins – Trafalgar: Biography of a Battle
Geoffrey Bennett – The Battle of Trafalgar
Tim Clayton and Phil Craig – Trafalgar: The Men, the Battle,
the Storm
Edward Fraser – The Enemy at Trafalgar
Peter Goodwin – Nelson’s Ships
David and Stephen Howarth – The Immortal Memory
Brian Lavery – Nelson and the Nile
Carola Oman – Nelson
Tom Pocock – Horation Nelson
Alan Schom – Trafalgar
Oliver Warner – Nelson’s Battle
Colin White – The Nelson Encyclopaedia
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