ADMIRAL NELSON AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
Horatio Nelson was Britain’s greatest naval hero. He was born September 29, 1758, in Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk, a county lying to the northeast of London bordering on the North Sea. He died October 21st, 1805, at Trafalgar, off the southwest coast of Spain. He was 47 years of age.
His father was the Reverend Edmund Nelson, the Anglican rector of the village. It was a modest, but respectable position. His mother was Catherine Suckling Nelson, a woman with modest social connections, one of the more prominent being captain Maurice Suckling, a captain in the Royal Navy. He was to be an important influence in Nelson’s early career. Young Nelson was one of a large family, but sadly his mother died in 1767, when he was just eight years of age.
He was quickly perceived to be the brightest and most promising of the young family, and at the age of twelve, with the encouragement of his father and the support of captain Suckling, he entered the navy as a midshipman. His first ship was the Raisonnable, a 64 gun ship of the line. Maurice Suckling was the captain.
The majority of the officers in the navy started their careers as able seamen, captain’s servants or midshipman. There was very little formal training for a naval career. Most of the future officers learned their craft through on-the-job training. As in Nelson’s case, most of these young men were appointed through family connections or other such influence.
Nelson served for a short time on Raissonnable and was then assigned to a merchantman, trading in the West Indies. After fourteen months he returned to England and applied to sail on an expedition to explore the Arctic. The declared objective was “an expedition towards the North Pole”. The dedicated vessels were converted bomb-ketches, Carcass and Racehorse, both reinforced to withstand the Arctic ice. Nelson was assigned to the Carcass. The voyage promised unusual adventure, but it was not a success. The Arctic ice proved to be too much of an obstacle.
Nelson was then assigned to the 20-gun frigate Seahorse, which was sailing for India. The voyage lasted nearly three years, and stopped at Madras, Bombay and Trincomalee, in Ceylon. It marked Nelson’s transition from boy to near adulthood. It also reacquainted him with the rigor of navy discipline. However, he did not complete the voyage. He was stricken with a near fatal case of malaria and was transferred to the frigate Dolphin for the trip home. He recovered as the Dolphin lay off-shore at Cape Town, re-fitting after a vicious storm and provisioning. Two months later Nelson arrived back in England. The year was 1776.
Nelson’s next assignment was to the Worcester, a 64-gun ship of the line, where with Maurice Suckling’s patronage he found himself with the rank of acting lieutenant.
After short service aboard Worcester, Nelson went before a promotion board to be examined for the position of lieutenant. Aided again by his uncle, who was one of the three captains comprising the board, he passed. He was next, at a very young age, appointed second lieutenant of the frigate Lowestoft, a 32 -gunner. He suffered a recurrence of malaria, but recovered in time to sail with his ship to Jamaica, where his ship served protecting merchant convoys from American privateers.
In the summer of 1778, after Britain had declared war on France, Nelson was appointed to Admiral Sir Peter Parker’s flagship as first lieutenant. By December of that year he was posted commander of the brig Badger, and in June of the following year he was promoted to post-captain to the Hinchingbroke, a frigate of 32 guns.
At the age of twenty Horatio Nelson had now, in the naval sense, arrived; no officer junior to him could be promoted above his head. He was three months short of his twenty first birthday. By any standards it was an early promotion. He had seen no significant naval action and his record of active service in the face of the enemy was negligible. However he had sailed to the West Indies, to the Arctic, and to India, and he had patrolled the waters between Britain and continental Europe. His experience was broad.
There can be no doubt that Nelson owed much to his uncle Maurice Suckling for his rapid progress. Suckling had continually placed his nephew in the right place at the right time, from midshipman to command. In 1779, Maurice Suckling died, but by this time Nelson was now positioned to advance his career on his own account.
Also in 1779 Spain joined forces with France, and declared war on Britain. This led to Nelson’s first exposure to wartime action with an enemy. The British had conceived a plan to land a military force at the mouth of the San Juan River, on the Isthmus of Panama, at the border of what is now Nicaragua and Panama. It was the objective to navigate up the San Juan and capture the Spanish forts on the western shore of Lake Nicaragua, at Grenada and Leon, thus giving the British a base close to the Pacific Ocean, and the Spanish colonial trade routes. In principle it was a good idea. In practice it was an unmitigated disaster.
Nelson, on the Hinchingbroke was the naval commander. Captain of one of the ships under his command was Cuthbert Collingwood, who subsequently became one of Nelson’s devoted companions, one of the original “Band of Brothers”. The army contingent was to be landed at the mouth of the river, and ferried up the river in a flotilla of small boats. Once on Lake Nicaragua a surprise attack was to be launched on the Spanish forts. The plan was simple in concept. However navigation of the shallow river proved to be difficult, and the impact of malaria and yellow fever proved to be disastrous. Nelson, characteristically, led the expedition, and small cannon were actually conveyed up river and fired on the fort. However the mortality rate among the British forces was horrific. When they regrouped at the mouth of the river it was estimated that of the 2,000 men who ascended the river, only one hundred survived. Captain Collingwood noted that of his original crew of 200, only ten survived. Nelson suffered another severe bout of malaria, but once again recovered.
After a long period of convalescence in England, Nelson was given command of the Albemarle, a 28-gun frigate. After a brief tour of the Baltic the Albemarle was assigned to escort a convoy of merchantmen to Newfoundland. It was then transferred to the West Indies. Once again the principal activities involved protecting merchantmen against French warships and American privateers. Then, in June 1783, after peace had been signed with the Americans, the Albemarle was paid off in Portsmouth.
Following six months of leave, spent mostly in France, Nelson was given command of the 28-gun frigate Boreas and posted once again to the West Indies. For the next three years his duties were principally administrative. Then, in Jamaica, he met Frances Nisbet, a widow with a five year old son. In March of 1787 Nelson and Fanny were married, with Prince William, the future King William lV, attending as best man. The newlyweds returned to England and Boreas was paid off. During the next six years Britain was at peace and Nelson was on shore on half pay with no ship. He spent his time at Burnham Thorpe, hugely frustrated and constantly bombarding the Admiralty with requests for a post.
In January 1793 Britain and France were at war again and Nelson was quickly called back into service. He was assigned command of the 64-gun Agamemnon, a ship that was only twelve years old and one of the fastest in the fleet. In August 1793, after refitting and a period of convoy duty, Agamemnon was ordered to the Mediterranean. The British captured Toulon, but with only few troops were unable to hold it. Agamemnon was then dispatched to Naples, at that time an independent kingdom, to request reinforcements from the Court of Naples. It was here that Nelson was to meet certain individuals who were to exert enormous influence over him for the rest of his life. These included the king of Naples and his prime minister, but above all the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma, Lady Hamilton.
The relationship between Sir William and Lady Hamilton was complicated. The presence of Nelson very quickly made it more so. Lady Hamilton’s maiden name had been Amy Lyon. Her father was a Welsh blacksmith. As a young woman she was extraordinarily attractive, and evidently of easy virtue. By the time she was nineteen she had borne two illegitimate children. At that point she had the good fortune to meet the Honorable Charles Greville, second son of the Earl of Warwick, and she became his mistress. He re-christened her Emma Hart, and taught her the arts of being a lady – singing, dancing, playing the harpsichord, entering a room gracefully, serving tea, etc. However Greville found himself with the opportunity of marrying an heiress, an important consideration in those days, and he had to find another berth for Emma. Fortunately his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, a childless widower, was then in England. He was rich, he was foster brother to George lll, he was a fellow of the Royal Society, and he was British Ambassador to the King of Naples. Sir William found Emma to his liking and after returning to Naples invited her to join him, and married her. When Nelson arrived in Naples he also found Emma to his liking. His feelings were evidently reciprocated and Sir William, Emma, and Horatio appear to have formed a congenial ménage a trois.
In the summer of 1794, in the course of his Mediterranean duties, Nelson was ordered to lay siege to Calvi, a seaport in Corsica controlled by the French. He captured the stronghold, but during the battle an enemy shot spattered sand into his right eye. The wound healed without disfigurement, but he was left permanently blind in the right eye.
In 1796 Spain, angered by British actions in the West Indies, once again joined forces with France and declared war against England. With the Spanish and French fleets united in the Mediterranean, the British departed – temporarily.
In January 1797 Nelson was temporarily assigned to command of the frigate Minerve and on February 1st., on a reconnaissance mission, found that the Spanish fleet had exited the port of Cartagena On reaching Gibraltar he was told that the fleet had passed through the strait into the Atlantic. Nelson continued his reconnaissance, ventured into the Atlantic, and in the midst of a thick fog found himself passing through the center of the Spanish fleet. He was able to slip away and get word to admiral Sir John Jervis, commander of the British Atlantic fleet, that the Spanish fleet was out and also in the Atlantic. Jervis deduced that the Spanish were making for Cadiz, and sailed to intercept them. Jervis was on board his flagship, the Victory. Nelson returned to his original command, the Captain, a 74-gun ship of the line.
The British fleet, comprised of fifteen ships of the line, in due course encountered the Spanish fleet, still in a dense fog. At first the strength of the Spanish fleet was not recognized, but as additional ships came looming out of the fog it was seen that there were twenty seven ships of the line. Some doubt was expressed about the wisdom of the British attacking against such odds, but Admiral Jervis is reported to have said “Enough sir, no more of that. The die is cast and if there are fifty of the sail of the line, I will go through them”. And this he did.
The Spanish were in two groups, one behind the other, with some considerable distance between them. Admiral Jervis decided to sail alongside the Spanish formation, and then to cut across through the gap and separate the two groups. This would offset, at least for a while, the Spanish numerical advantage. As the scene unfolded in monumental slow motion, Nelson noticed that the British ships were simply not fast enough. The two Spanish groups would unite before the British could intercept. Thus Nelson, disobeying orders, cut loose alone and sailed to divide the two groups. To disobey an order was unthinkable in the British navy of those days. Nelson risked hanging. And indeed, the situation at first looked grim…At one point, as he neared the Spanish ships, the Captain was outnumbered seven to one. But the manoeuver worked, the Captain was joined by the other fourteen British ships, and the Spanish were crushed.
Nelson ended the battle as he had started it – a hero. With his sails and rigging shot away and the Captain barely controllable, Nelson decided on closer action. He ordered his captain to put the helm a-starboard and he rammed the 80-gun San Nicolas, which had herself already become entangled with the 112-gun San Joseff. Nelson with his crew led the charge to board the San Nicolas, and then, when she surrendered, continued on to take the San Josef. This variant on conventional naval warfare became known as “Nelson’s Patent Bridge”. It is amusing to think of this fragile, five feet four little man leading the charge. But he did, and he describes the adventure in some detail in his diary. Jervis was created Earl St. Vincent. Nelson was made a Knight of the Bath and promoted to rear admiral.
The next action of consequence occurred at Cadiz, where the British were blockading the remnants of the Spanish fleet. Not content with a passive campaign, Nelson launched a foray into Cadiz Harbor which he led himself. Once again he led the charge, but this time would undoubtedly have been killed but for the action of one of his men who sacrificed his arm in deflecting a blow aimed for Nelson’s head.
Later in the year there was further opportunity for glory. Admiral Jervis was eager to to carry out an attack on the port of Santa Cruz, on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Nelson was to be the leader. It was a poorly conceived plan. The element of surprise was lost. Nelson, as he was climbing from a small boat in the harbor, leading the charge as usual, was shot in the upper right arm. The musket ball shattered the bone, and it was realized immediately that the arm would be have to be amputated. He was rowed to his ship; he climbed on board using his left hand, and with no ceremony made his way to the cockpit to have his arm removed. He was, of course, fully conscious and is reported to have said to the surgeon “The next time you do this, warm the instruments. It would be much less painful”. Within the hour, with his arm removed, he was in his cabin dictating instructions to his secretary. Once again Nelson had demonstrated his grit, but the attack on Santa Cruz harbor had been in every other way an unmitigated disaster.
Nelson next saw action in the Mediterranean. In 1798 Nelson, in his flagship the Vanguard, was once again blockading the French fleet in Toulon. From a prisoner Nelson learned that the French, with fifteen ships of the line, including the giant l’Orient, of 120 guns, were in port, and that they had embarked 12,000 troops, with more to follow.
Then, in late May, an enormous gale swept across the British fleet, seriously damaging the Vanguard, and many others. Taking advantage of the gale the French fleet, with its army on board, slipped out of Toulon and successfully evaded Nelson‘s blockade. At first there was no knowing where the French were headed. It was some weeks later, after fruitless searching, that the French fleet, now comprised of more than twenty warships and three hundred transports, was sighted off the coast of Greece, apparently heading for Egypt.
Nelson also headed for Egypt!! After some further searching he found the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay. The ships were in line ahead, in shallow water. The army had been disembarked. The shore-facing guns were only lightly manned, with the crews ashore foraging for fresh water and food. The French believed they were secure. Nelson, as always, gambled, dividing his fleet of thirteen into two approximately equal groups. One group sailed inshore of the French, something that the French had considered impossible. Nelson’s second group sailed on the ocean side. The French, attacked from both sides with only one side adequately manned, were destroyed. Only two of their thirteen ships escaped. The l’Orient, its magazine hit, exploded. Napoleon’s army, which had been destined for India, was cut off and isolated. Very few survivors straggled back eventually to France. Another Nelson gamble had succeeded.
However, he was injured in the battle, when a wooden splinter passed briskly across his forehead, separating his scalp from his skull. Momentarily he thought he was killed. But when, in the surgeon’s cockpit, he learned that his wound was bloody but slight, he refused attention until his men had been cared for.
Nelson’s next command was the Elephant, a 74-gunner, in which he was assigned to the Baltic Fleet, under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. The situation at the time involved Napoleon, as it usually did, and his plans to conquer Europe. The Scandinavian countries had allied themselves with him, and their fleet was at anchor in Copenhagen harbor. Russia had also allied itself with him, and its fleet was at anchor in the eastern Baltic, frozen in the winter ice. The time was April of the year
There was much deliberation in connection with attacking the Scandinavian fleet in its secure anchorage, with the Danish shore-mounted batteries a huge factor. But time was of the essence. Action had to be taken before the ice went out in the eastern Baltic and the Russian fleet able to sail. Nelson was in favor of immediate action. Hyde Parker, an older man who had just married his teen-aged bride, was for some strange reason not so enthusiastic. Thus Admiral Parker remained at the entrance to the harbor, while Nelson led the attack.
The battle went very badly for him. The shore-mounted batteries fired a heavier shot, and being mounted on solid ground, were more accurate. Hyde Parker, observing the slaughter from a safe distance, hoisted the signal ordering Nelson to disengage. Famously, Nelson is said to have put his telescope to his blind eye and turned to his captain and said “I really do not see the signal”. He persevered with the attack, and in turn wreaked great damage to the Scandinavian fleet, the shore batteries, and to Copenhagen itself. At this point Nelson offered a truce to the Danes in order to do no further damage to the city, and they accepted. The outcome was a victory for the British, a semi-victory for the Danes, the negation of the Scandinavian fleet, and the continued isolation of the Russian fleet. There is a postscript. It has been suggested that if Nelson had obeyed his admiral’s orders and turned his stern to the shore batteries, his ships would have been shattered, together with their crews. If Nelson realized this, and he probably did, then his ignoring of Hyde Parker’s signal was simply one more Nelson gamble, one that once again succeeded.
Between 1801 and 1803 Nelson and Emma Hamilton enjoyed an idyll in England. She had leased Merton Place, an elegant country house, and there with their daughter they enjoyed two tranquil years together. Francis, Lady Nelson, was completely ignored.
The next call to action came in 1803. Napoleon was once again involved. By this time he had conquered all of Europe, from its western shore-line to its border with Russia. Next, in his mind, was the conquest of Britain. His circumstances in many ways were similar to those in which Adolf Hitler found himself in 1940. And like Hitler, in order to carry out his plan he had to have control of the English Channel. In 1940 Britain’s primary line of defence was the Royal Air Force. In 1803 it was Nelson’s Navy.
At the beginning of the campaign the Mediterranean fleet, under Nelson in his flagship the Victory , was blockading the French fleet in Toulon. There were other units of the French fleet, also blockaded, at anchor in the the ports of Brest and Rochefort. The British Atlantic fleet, under Admiral Collingwood in his flagship the Royal Sovereign, was blockading the Spanish fleet in Cadiz. It was Napoolean’s plan to somehow unite the French and Spanish fleets in their entirety, in which case there would have been over fifty ships of the line, and they would have totally outnumbered and out-gunned the British in any sea battle, thus securing for Naploeon control of the Channel.
In January of 1805, in the midst of a heavy gale, the French fleet under Admiral Villeneuve evaded Nelson’s blockade and made its way past Gibraltar and into the Atlantic. At about the same time the Spanish fleet escaped from Cadiz and joined with the French. With Nelson in pursuit Villeneuve then led his combined fleet all the way to the West Indies, then back to Europe, and in fact back to Cadiz, where he was able to sneak into port. Napoleon’s plan was thus to large extent accomplished. The combined French and Spanish fleets at anchor in Cadiz harbor totaled thirty three. Not as many as Napolean would have wished, but enough to outnumber the British.
Nelson, in the meantime, had taken a short rest in England. He and his men had been at sea for over two years without stepping on dry land. However on September 2nd, 1805, Nelson was once again summoned to duty. This time in command of the fleet, he raised his flag on HMS Victory and rejoined his fleet off Cadiz on September 28th.
At the same time Napoleon had given admiral Villeneuve instruction to leave Cadiz and take his fleet to the Mediterranean to support the French armies in Italy. On October 19th./20th. Villeneuve led his 33 ships out of Cadiz and headed for Gibraltar. On October 20th. the British sighted them and Nelson at once ordered his 27 ships to clear for action.
Nelson had explained his plan of action to his captains before sighting the combined fleet. Instead of following the accepted tactic of forming a line of battle parallel to the enemy line, Nelson planned to form his fleet in two columns, one to be led by himself on his flagship the Victory, the other to be led by admiral Collingwood on the Royal Sovereign.
They would attack perpendicular to the enemy line. He believed that by cutting the enemy line in two places he could defeat the two rear sections before the leading section could turn and rejoin the battle. It would also negate the numerical advantage of the enemy, at least for some time. In principle it sounds very simple. In practice it was very risky. It meant that for an interminable stretch Nelson and Collingwood, at the head of their sections, would be facing the broadsides of the French/Spanish ships with no way of responding. Once among the enemy ships, however, the British would have the advantage, with their broadsides able to train on the sterns and the bows of the opponents.
The action was joined on October 21st, 1805, off Cape Trafalgar, on the coast of Spain south of Cadiz. As expected, Villeneuve from his flagship Bucentaure signaled his ships to form a single line from north to south, with their port sides to the oncoming enemy. The crews at this point however had been in port for a long time. As a consequence the manoeuvre was poorly handled, and it was barely completed before they found themselves the target of the British forces already advancing in double line.
The winds were light from the west as Nelson’s two columns advanced slowly forward. Then, at 11.35 AM., he hoisted his famous signal to the fleet, “England expects that every man will do his duty”. “What is Nelson signaling about“, growled Collingwood, on the quarter-deck of the Royal Sovereign. “We all know what we have to do”.
Nelson had calculated that the French and Spanish crews, having spent much of the previous two years in port, would not be as sharply honed as were the British, who had been at sea for more than two years. The key issue, he believed, would their gunnery expertise, and he was right. When the British finally cut into the enemy lines they were able to wreak havoc. One single raking broadside from the Victory into the stern of the French flagship Bucentaure caused more than 400 casualties.
However as Victory passed beyond Bucentaure she was attacked by the French Redoutable. As the two ships came together French snipers in the rigging were firing down on the decks of the Victory. At about 1.30 PM., A sniper’s ball from Redoutable struck Nelson in the left shoulder, before lodging in his spine. As he was carried to the cockpit he put a handkerchief over his face so that he would not be recognized by his men. To the surgeon he said “Ah, Mr. Beatty! You can do nothing for me. I have but a short time to live. My back is shot through“.
As Nelson lay dying the battle raged on, with the British fleet gaining a decisive upper hand. He lived until 4.30 PM., by which time he knew that his fleet had won the day.
With his last words he asked that his country would care for Lady Hamilton and their daughter. The country did not. Lady Hamilton died in poverty, ironically in France. Nelson’s body was preserved in a barrel of brandy and returned to England for a state funeral. He is buried in Saint Paul’s cathedral.
For all the sad anti-climax, it was a great victory. The French and Spanish together lost 22 ships and many thousands of men, either as casualties or captives. The British lost no ships and relatively few men. Britain was saved from the all-conquering machinations of Napoleon, who then turned his attention disastrously to Russia. His armies were finally defeated at Waterloo and he was exiled to the island of St. Helena.
There was more. Without a navy the Spanish very quickly lost control of their colonies, all the way from the Rio Grande, southwards to Cape Horn. All of Spain’s Central and South American colonies very quickly gained their independence. Napoleon also had his wings clipped. Without a navy France lost control of virtually all of its overseas colonies, most notably in the Caribbean, and Napoleon could no longer dream of returning to North America.
Edited by J Peter Davies / 14/27/2011.
Refs. Tom Thompson, VCMM Docent.
Horatio Nelson, by Tom Pocock. Published by Alfred A. Knopf. 1988