“Thank God I have done my duty.” Those were the last words of Admiral Horatio Viscount Nelson, the protagonist of the historic Franco-Spanish defeat at the decisive Battle of Trafalgar. Hailed as a “national hero”, the dead Nelson was seen almost as a redeemer. “Though it was by no means the end of the Napoleonic wars, which lasted another 10 years. But it was a victory that was badly needed and it came at the right time, when Napoleon was sweeping everything before him on the continent and had just won the battle of Ulm and Austerlitz,” writes Terry Coleman in his book, Nelson The Man and the Legend.
It was the year 1805 when Napoleon Bonaparte, the great French general, decided it was time to break the peace in Europe that lasted for 14 months (Treaty of Amiens) and invade England.
Seen as a thorn in his quest for the domination of Europe, Napoleon assembled a fleet of 2,000 ships and 90,000 men along the coast of France. To provide a safe passage to his army, the French fleet needed to control the English Channel. However, the British blockade of combined fleet of France and Spain at Toulon, Brest and Ferrol was impenetrable. Immobilized by English forces, Napoleon abandoned the idea of invading England and turned towards Austria. As the British Army under General Craig advanced towards Sicily to threaten Napoleon’s southern flank, Napoleon, out of sheer desperation, ordered a fleet of 33 ships carrying 2,640 guns, commanded by Admiral Villeneuve, to sail back into the Mediterranean out of Cadiz to engage with the enemy.
The enemy had already been aware of the activities on the French side. “French and Spanish are out at last, they outnumber us in ships and guns and men,” interpreted the string of flags on the British flank. On October 20, 1805, the Franco-Spanish Fleet was sighted. On board the HMS Victory, a blowsy, one-eyed, one-armed Admiral Nelson had been longing for this moment. However, behind this pirate-like semblance was the ingenious admiral that had already conveyed his nifty plan to his captains. A plan that would change the course of naval warfare forever: later to be referred as the ‘Nelson’s touch’.
Instead of engaging as in the conventional warfare where each ship of a fleet would take on a single opponent, firing its guns on the broadside as it passed; the fleet would be broken in two columns. The central fleet would paralyze the van of the combined fleet while the rear fleet would attack the enemy at the right angle obstructing its retreat. This plan was penned down in a detailed memorandum by the admiral himself on October 9.
Trafalgar, a cape 30miles southwest of Cadiz, was named after the nearest point of land. On October 21, with light winds cramping their flight, Admiral Villeneuve’s combined fleet, swayed in the waters with Neptune in the rear and San Juan de Nepomuceno in the van. The calm sea presented a facade of composure which was soon to be broken by the French. Admiral Nelson, now in his undress uniform, not wearing his full orders was “every bit as conspicuous” to the approaching danger. He was ready for action. He ordered his signal officer to hoist the signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty.”
The first shot was fired by Villineuve’s flagship, Bucentaure, at HMS Victory at about 20 minutes before noon. With casualty at its side, Victory steered towards Bucentaure. “The 50 guns of her broadside, all double and treble-shotted, were discharged in the same raking manner through Bucentaure’s stern, killing men throughout the length of her,” writes Terry Coleman.
After wrecking the French ship with the aid from the English ships, the Victory then took on the Redoubtable. With both ships at ‘point-blank range’, the armed crew of the Redoubtable, trained in small arms marksmanship, went over board and at quarter past one Nelson was shot from the above. Fifteen minutes later, the Victory’s crews cheered as the enemy was defeated. In all, 17 ships of the French and Spanish were captured and 16 escaped. The British had lost 449 of his men and 1,241 were wounded whereas the French and Spaniard casualties amounted to 4,408 deaths and 2,545 wounded. Drenched in blood, Admiral Nelson died of his wounds at around four in the morning. The war had devoured with it one of the greatest admirals, the first Lord of the Admiralty.
Nelson was given a state funeral to commemorate a great sea victory, the service which is “best remembered” by the tearing up of the French and Spanish flags captured at Trafalgar, into 48 pieces by as many seamen. The procession was witnessed by 30,000 men, as the “military band played the 104th psalm”. “There go the ships, and there is that Leviathan.” The whole nation mourned the irreparable loss as Nelson laid peacefully in his sarcophagus.
The battle of Trafalgar was a crucial battle that posted the authority of the Royal Navy over the seas that lasted for a century and a half until the 20th century. To mark the 200th anniversary of the battle, the Official Nelson Commemorations Committee (ONCC) has arranged the Royal Navy’s Trafalgar 200 series of events and activities that will take place throughout the summer and autumn of 2005. The celebration kicks off on June 28 with an International Fleet Review in the Solent with ships from some 40 countries, making it the biggest ever multinational gathering of ships in history.
Napoleon once said, “What is history but a fable agreed upon.” He would not have put it more appropriately as the British venerate their great war hero of the glorious past and pay homage to his “transcendent and heroic services”. The legacy of Nelson’s legend continues.
