Dan Snow's History Hit - The Battle of Trafalgar

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

On 21 October 1805, A British fleet commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson met the combined might of the French and Spanish fleets off the coast of Spain. Outnumbered, Nelson used innovative tactics to break up the allied fleet and ensure success but at great cost to his men and of course himself. It was a truly crushing defeat for the Franco-Spanish forces though. With the majority of their ships destroyed or captured it confirmed Britain's naval supremacy for decades to come. In this dramatic telling of one of the most famous battles in naval history, Dan brings to life the men, the commanders, the ships, and the tactics that enabled the British fleet to emerge as victors.This episode was edited by Dougal Patmore.This episode was first broadcast on 21st October 2021.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. It is the 21st of October. That is, of course, Trafalgar Day. It's the anniversary of one of the greatest sea battles in history. A name imprinted on the naval history not just of Britain, but the world. Trafalgar is still so resonant today. Pubs and public spaces are still named after it around Britain and its former empire. It was a battle of annihilation that became, like Hannibal's victory at Cannae, an obsession with subsequent naval strategists and thinkers and authors, not just British, but American and Japanese as well. I think for the public, it's the one naval battle that we keep in our memory. Quibron Bay, sadly, Jutland, Graveline, the Saints, even the Battle of Nile are now,

well, I think pretty much forgotten. But Trafalgar endures. Trafalgar endures, not just because of its association with famous place names, but because I think it was such a crushing victory that has neatly come to symbolise the start of a period of British naval domination of the world's oceans. I would argue that period domination began somewhat earlier, but in the public mind, I think that Trafalgar is in many ways a starting point. And of course, you've got the heroic death of one of the most famous Britons who has ever lived, Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, mortally wounded on the court deck of HMS Victory, the court deck which survives on a ship which survives to this day,

as you may have heard mentioned on this podcast once or twice, then taken below and died a few hours later. So let's talk about what happened that terrible day in 1805. This, everybody, I'm afraid, is another one of my storytelling podcasts where I do the talking. I'm very lucky to have clips from Andrew Baines, a brilliant creator, HMS Victory,

a man who I interviewed a couple of years ago for the anniversary. So we're using a few of his clips and then I'll tell the rest of the story. I'm going to tell you what happened and I'll try and tell you why it mattered as well. Here is me and Andrew Baines talking about that fateful battle. Vice Admiral Lord Collingwood to the Honourable General Fox, Lieutenant Governor of Gibraltar.

Urialis at sea, 22nd of October, 1805. Urialis at sea, 22nd of October, 1805. Sir, yesterday a battle was fought by His Majesty's fleet with the combined fleets of Spain and France, which will stand recorded as one of the most decisive and brilliant that ever distinguished the British Navy. Those are the words of Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. He had been second in command on the morning of Trafalgar, but as news of the death of the Commander-in-Chief, Horatio Nelson, reached him, he assumed overall command of the British fleet. He is talking about the Battle of Trafalgar.

Yes, this podcast, I'm afraid, begins with a gigantic spoiler. This tremendous battle, as Collingwood called it, was a decisive British victory. A victory the likes of which had never really been seen before, certainly in the age of Anglo-French competition, the long 18th century, the age of sail. The majority of the enemy fleet, 18 battleships, had been captured or destroyed. More enemy battleships would fall into British hands during mopping up operations and some of the ships that escaped safely were almost beyond repair. Most of the enemy's admirals were now prisoners of the British, captured or they were killed or mortally wounded. It was the most decisive of naval victories and one that would have an important impact on the course of

Napoleonic wars. But it's a victory, and as Collingwood refers to in that message, a victory that's become associated perhaps with one man, somewhat unfairly given the contribution of so many others. And that man was Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, a man who'd shot to fame through daring naval actions in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. At the Battle of Cape St Vincent on Valentine's Day, he'd captured not just one but two enemy ships, using one as a bridge to get to the other. He had wiped out Napoleon's fleet supporting him during his invasion of Egypt in the late 1790s. He had neutralised, destroyed the Danish fleet, a powerful fleet that could be turned by Napoleon for use against Britain. He'd wiped that out in the Battle of Copenhagen. He was the man that Britain looked

to as it faced its most dangerous continental enemy in generations, Napoleon Bonaparte. He was vain, he was controversial, he was keenly aware of his own brand. He was in many ways a very modern celebrity, but he was also a superlative sailor, a remarkable leader of men, a great diplomat, as we'll see, a brilliant tactician. Trafalgar was the climax of quite an extraordinary campaign. You may have heard that Trafalgar saved Britain from invasion. He actually didn't do that, not in the short term anyway. Napoleon in 1805 had wanted to invade Britain. And with his Spanish allies, he believed that he could achieve, like so many continental would-be conquerors who look out across the narrows of the Straits of Dover, you think, how hard can it be to get across there? This is

ridiculous. Napoleon looked out across there? This is ridiculous. Napoleon looked out across there and thought that with his fleet, with that of his Spanish allies, he could achieve local superiority just long enough, sounds a bit like Hitler in 1940, just long enough to get his battle-hardened professionals across the Channel, march them into London and topple the regime of George III as he toppled so many European monarchs on his path to supreme power in Europe. And so Napoleon, with this lack of understanding about the nature of naval warfare, came up with a completely impractical plan, absolutely bonkers plan. It's so complicated I'm not even going to try and talk you through it. Just suffice to say, various squadrons left various ports around France

and Spain. We're talking down in the Mediterranean, we're talking the Atlantic coast, all over the place. It was hoped that all of these squadrons could leave their ports, sail to the Caribbean, yes, join forces, and then double back, double back to Europe, overwhelm the British force in the Channel, and ferry the invasion fleet across. He thought that if all those forces worked in unison, he'd have something like 50 battleships, an absolutely extraordinary number of battleships, with which he could overwhelm even Britannia's battleships. The plan, given it never had any chance of working at all, went fairly well, actually. Nelson was given a slip by a French admiral, Villeneuve, out of Toulon in southern France. He managed to slide through the Balearic Islands,

past Ibiza and Menorca and all the rest of it, and did get to the Caribbean, met up with various other units, came back, and then off Cape Finisterre in northern Spain, fought a strange kind of battle, a stalemated battle almost, on the 22nd of July 1805 against a British force under Admiral Calder. Now, that's a battle no one's ever heard of but that battle saved Britain from invasion because Villeneuve after the sort of bloody nose he received, slightly indecisive battle, he decided to retreat to Spain, lick his wounds and wait for kind of reinforcements. This was not the battle of annihilation the Brits wanted but it was a battle that stopped this big combined fleet arriving in the Channel. So spare a thought always for Calder and the Battle of Finisterre.

But Napoleon was absolutely furious. He wanted to know why his navy had not ended up in the Channel. And he was also getting bored. Central Europe was getting ever more dangerous for Napoleon. The Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire were moving towards an alliance funded by British gold to move against Napoleon. He couldn't be sitting with his army of invasion on the northwest coast of France while his enemies moved against him in central Europe. So he packed up camp and headed towards the Austrians. The invasion scare was basically over, even though most people in Britain had no idea this was happening. As part of that new strategy, Napoleon got in touch with Admiral Villeneuve, now sitting down in Spain, and told him to head around to Italy to create a diversion to keep the Austrians busy and guessing in Italy, while

Napoleon struck straight Vienna. So the Franco-Spanish fleet are going to leave Cadiz and they're going to sail around into the Mediterranean, away from Britain. But never mind, never mind. It's still an important victory. The French and Spanish fleet was large enough. It was about 33 battleships, including some of the biggest ships in the world, 35,000 men on board. And they would eventually face a smaller British force, around 27 battleships, only 20,000 men, because as you'll hear, the Brits and the Allies had quite different approaches to fighting at sea.

The French and Spanish had some decent ships. The Spanish ships in particular were very good. They had some modern mechanisms for firing their guns, but they both had a key problem in that their crews were less experienced, less disciplined, less battle-hardened, less trained than the British crews. The British had been engaging in blockade, that is, forcing the French and Spanish to stay in their ports, whilst the British tacked up and down outside their ports, which means the British sailors were so used to their ships, they were at sea for months and months on end, whereas the Spanish and French had to train up landsmen, new recruits, sitting in harbour, teaching them the ropes, when nothing can ever prepare you for what life is like actually out at sea, facing heavy weather or firing your cannon for

real with real ammunition at targets. Admiral Villeneuve commented, it's very distressing to see such fine and powerful ships manned with herdsmen and beggars and having such a small number of seamen. He's particularly talking about the Spanish allies, but the French ships were undermanned as well. As a result, the French and Spanish came up with an interesting strategy for how to deal with the British superiority in gunnery and seamanship. And that is they would seek a close quarters battle. They would seek a bloodbath. They would bring their ships as close possible to British, grapple them, lash them to the sides of French and Spanish ships, and then use soldiers on board their ships in big numbers to flood across the British decks and seize them as prizes. This meant they wanted to

fight a battle at close quarters, not standing off having pot shots at each other with artillery. And the interesting thing is what guaranteed that Shrugged would be such a terrible battle is that's exactly the strategy that Nelson also wanted to pursue. Because Nelson, he didn't just want a victory, he didn't just want to break up this combined fleet, he wanted its complete destruction. And that meant getting up close and pulverising it, not with borders, not with people swinging across on ropes with pistols and swords, but it meant pulverising it with big heavy guns at point blank range. Before leaving London to take command of the British fleet,

blockading the combined fleet in Cadiz, Nelson had told government ministers, it is an annihilation the country wants. He said he was going to fight a battle that would bring Bonaparte to his marrow bones. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds pretty destructive. Just before he left on September 12, 1805, he went to see Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State at Downing Street. Fascinating. I love this moment. He met Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, in the waiting room. They had a chat.

No one knows what they said. But years later, Wellington would say he didn't think he ever had a more interesting conversation, that Nelson was really a very superior man. Now, that's a lot coming from Wellington, because let me tell you, it's a great expression about Wellington. He had a social disdain for his intellectual equals, an intellectual disdain for his social equals, right? And because he was, therefore, very posh and very clever, he basically hated everyone. So the fact that he thought Nelson was amazing is fascinating. If I could have been a fly on the wall of any conversation in history, it may well have been that one. Anyway chatting with Wellesley he went down to Portsmouth he put to sea on the 15th of September 1805 on the mighty three-decker battleship HMS

Victory let's hear now from Andrew Baines curator of HMS Victory talking about Nelson and that ship Nelson's presence and association with Victory really begins towards the end of the 18th century. Victory is the flagship of an admiral called John Jarvis, a very famous battle, the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Immediately after that battle, John Jarvis writes about victory being badly decayed. And every time somebody steps off the ladder above his deck, the whole ship shakes and you can see the sea through the seams and it really recommends that she should go for breaking up. So Nelson's association with Victory was almost a very, very brief one. HMS Victory was and is an extraordinary ship.

Massive 32-pound guns on the lower deck firing a 32-pound cannonball, but new carronades on the upper deck. Very light, very powerful guns, which is why you can mount them so high up in the ship's superstructure. From the Caron Company near Glasgow, these are the product of Britain's burgeoning industrial revolution. The Navy is one of the great customers of British industry, so it's driving, like the Americans with the microprocessors and the developments of the 20th century, the American Department of Defence essential as a customer, as someone to inject money into this new system.

The Navy was doing that in 19th century, 18th century Britain. British gunpowder was better. Saltpeter was coming mainly from India. It was the best supply in the world. They say it was about 20% more efficient than the French and Spanish powder. The guns were better, as well as the Caron factory. The Walker Iron Foundry was world-leading, so British guns were less likely to burst. The Walker Iron Factory was not just making cannon for the Royal Navy, it was trying to make things like the first iron bridges for the rest of Britain. The cannon also

had flintlock firing mechanisms on the cannon. You didn't have to wait for a slow match, like a fuse burning down. You could instantly fire. So the gap between aiming and firing was instantaneous. So even when the ship was rolling, you could actually shoot at the right time. Whereas two of the French and Spanish guns, you set the fuse running and by the time the cannon actually fired, the ship was pointing in a different direction. Let's hear from Andrew Bains again, talking about the three deckers of nelson's navy the three decker at the time is the most complex object built by the human race up until that time so it's uh industrially extremely complex they're extremely expensive to build they are the absolute pinnacle there are not very many of them because they are so expensive

they have a firepower unlike anything else afloat so they give you the opportunity to totally dominate and people who are at the battle of Trafalgar who are serving in the ship who have seen battle write about the experience of battle especially from the the middle gun deck where you have the lower gun deck below you you have the guns around you and you have the upper gun deck above you and it is unlike anything they have seen before and in many cases are really able to describe they write about their inability to describe what it's like to be on these ships in the heat of battle the downside is they do have a tendency to sail a bit like a haystack. They're not easy to manoeuvre and they're not quick. So Victory, because she's a three-decker

and she has a reputation for being a good sailor and a fast ship, that is one of the reasons Nelson picks her. It's worth remembering that HMS Victory, with its over 100 guns on board, was just one of these 28 battleships the British had. Bear in mind, Wellington, the great British general of the time, he would never command more than 100 guns in battle until the Battle of Waterloo. He finally, at the Battle of Waterloo, had more than 100 guns. But all his battles previous to that, all through India, all through Portugal, Spain, southern France, he never had 100 cannon in one battle.

So the British fleet at Trafalgar has got multiples of the firepower that Wellington was able to unleash on a battlefield. That is the scale of what is going on here. In fact, Sam Willis, the great historian and friend of the pod, says to me that the firepower on Battle of Waterloo was something like 7% of the firepower from the Battle of Trafalgar. That is how industrial this battle was going to be. HMS Victory had about 800 men on board to work those guns, but also sail the ship while it was going on. They lived in extraordinary conditions on board, 14 inches of space to hang a hammock, four hours on, four hours off, round the clock, on blockades, on passages, sailing down to meet

their fleet off Cadiz, carrying out the extraordinarily complicated task of sailing one of these great ships, but also transforming it in short order into a floating artillery platform, and then drilling the guns perhaps every afternoon in the build-up to battle to make sure that those guns could be fired, reloaded, run out, and fired again as quickly as possible. And that rapidity of fire, that weight of fire would prove decisive. Let's hear from Andrew Baines again. Nelson's not that interested in sitting around. He's already been doing it for two years, two and a half years almost, in the Mediterranean. It's not terribly exciting. He wants a battle of annihilation. He doesn't want

a marginal victory. One or two ships captured isn't going to be enough. Giving Villeneuve the opportunity to get back into port is not going to be enough. He wants to destroy him. So to do that, he's 50 miles away and he's relying on a chain of frigates, small single deck ships in many ways, the workhorse of the fleet to keep him up to date. They form a signaling chain, if you like. They're stationed from horizon to horizon so they can just see one another and they will signal from Cadiz all the way out to Nelson in victory and keep him up to date with what is happening. That's their role. So his intention is to monitor what's happening and when the opportunity presents itself, lure the French and Spanish fleet to where he wants it, and then fall upon them and destroy

them. Nelson had a particular plan for fighting this battle. As I said earlier, he wanted a battle of annihilation. And that meant that the long sort of slightly more glacial battles that had marked many of the encounters of the 18th century, 17th century up to this point, where the two lines of ships would just fire at each other in rather stately ways, grinding along each other, exchanging cannon fire. Nelson was going to abandon that completely, jesson it completely. He said to a friend before leaving London, I would go at them at once if I can. And he said, I'll go at them about a third of the way down their line from their leading ship. What do you think of it? I'll tell you what I think of it. I think it will surprise and confound the enemy. They won't know what I'm about. It will bring forward a pell-mell battle. And that is what I

want. A pell-mell battle. So he knows he's going to be outnumbered. And by sailing his fleet in two lines, one towards the centre of the enemy fleet, one towards the rear, he thinks he can overwhelm those portions of the Franco-Spanish line before the head of this allied line is able to turn around and come to their rescue. So he can achieve local superiority, crush the enemy, and then deal with any latecomers. He doesn't mind the fact that he's going to be temporarily outnumbered while he crashes into the enemy line in his columns, because he knows he's made men are better seamen, they're better trained. He also knows that British ships are built

for bludgeoning French ships to death. They're stronger, they're squatter, they're built for blockade, they're beasts. They're built for battle. The French ships are lighter, they're faster, beautiful sailing ships. They're designed for convoy protection, trade protection, heading out to great sugar plantations

of the Caribbean and India and escorting those rich merchant ships back. The British ships are built for a pell-mell battle and so he waits. He waits outside Cadiz and the Allies come. The French and Spanish fleet, Villeneuve, desperate to prove to Napoleon the utility of the navy, worrying that he's about to be replaced as commander-in-chief, leaves Cadiz and heads towards the Mediterranean to discharge his orders. Here's Nelson's diary on the 20th of October 1805. It's available as an audiobook on History Hit TV, by the way. Go and get your subscription at historyhit.tv. Here's what he wrote in his diary.

transcriptionhistory.tv. Here's what he wrote in his diary. Horatio Nelson's private diary. Sunday, October 20th, 1805. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. podcasts. Fresh breezes south-southwest and rainy. Communicated with Phoebe, Defence and Colossus, who saw near 40 sail of ships of war outside of Cadiz yesterday evening, but the wind being southerly, they could not get to the mouth of the straits. We were between Trafalgar and Cape Spartle. The frigates made the signal that they

saw nine sail outside the harbour, gave the frigates instructions for their guidance, and placed Defence, Colossus and Mars between me and the frigates. At noon fresh gales and heavy rain. Cadiz, northeast nine leagues. In the afternoon Captain Blackwood telegraphed that the enemy seemed determined to go to the westward and that they shall not do if in the power of Nelson and Bronte to prevent them. At five telegraphed Captain B that I relied upon his keeping sight of the enemy. At six o'clock, Nyad made the signal for 31 sail of the enemy north-northeast. The frigates and lookout ships kept sight of the enemy most admirably all night, and told me by signals which tack they were upon.

That was Nelson's private diary, but it wasn't just Nelson that was writing things down. We're very lucky to have lots of diaries and accounts of the battle. One from an able seaman, not an officer, just a member of the crew, an able seaman on board the Neptune called James Martin. He wrote, looking back on that night, now the moment was fast approaching, which was to decide whether the boasted heroism of France and Spain or the genuine valour of free-born Britons was to rule the main.

Just before dawn on the 21st of October 1815, a man with the unfortunate nickname of Nastyface, William Nastyface Robinson, was on board the Revenge, one of the British ships, and he recalls that a main top mastman called down to the deck and said he could see sails on board the Revenge, one of the British ships. And he recalls that a main top mastman called down to the deck and said he could see sails on the starboard bow. The crew rushed to sea. And there, says Nastyface, he said there was a forest of masts rising from the ocean. The Allied fleet, the combined fleet of Spain and France, was at sea. And at 6am,

of Spain and France was at sea and at 6am Nelson gave the order to prepare for battle. The ships had to clear for action at this point. Drums beat to quarters. Sailors would stuff their hammocking nets along the sides of the ships to try and soak up a bit of enemy fire when it came in. Yards were chained up, those great big spars, the things the sails hang off, they were tied to the mast with chains so they were more likely to stay up in battle. Everything was wetted. The decks were wetted, covered with water to try and suppress fire. Partitions were moved from the ships. Down below decks, officers had cabins, different partitions. They were all taken out. Officers' furniture was removed. They were put in boats to tow behind the ships. Fourteen men gathered around a 32-pounder. They had to serve two guns each, one on either side,

the port and starboard side, starboard and larboard sides. They had to rush between them. Boys started to bring powder to the guns from the powder room, which is deep, the lowest possible point of the ship, below the waterline, far away from where it might get in trouble, might get hit by a cannonball or a spark would occur. They had to keep the ship's gunpowder as low as possible in the ship. And so from that powder room where no light was allowed, there were windows and lanterns shone through the windows to shed light on what the gunners were doing inside the powder room. Those gunners

prepared cartridges, they scooped out powder, they measured the powder, then they gave it to so-called powder monkeys, these young boys, some as young as 10 years old who would run and deliver it to the cannon so there was never too much powder on deck any time so there could never be a negligent explosion on the gun deck that could prove disastrous carpenters and their mates prepared plugs and tools to make sure that cannonballs coming to the sides of the ship wouldn't let too much water in deep down below quite near the powder room surgeons sharpened their saws and prepared for the flood of casualties that everyone knew was to come. Some of the more agile sailors, the more experienced sailors, took their position not by the guns but up in the rigging with spare rope and tools to make sure that as rigging was

cut, sliced by flying cannonballs and projectiles, that they would be able to make running repairs. I presume the men were terrified of what was to come. Some would have been in battle before, but there was certainly excitement as well. We know that there was excitement from the accounts written at the time. Some had scrawled death or victory on a cannon, and there was also the prospect of prize money. The British sailors weren't just motivated. You might be surprised to learn, for a great love of their parliamentary system, of their green and pleasant land. They were also motivated by cash. If you captured enemy ships, you got paid. Glory and money, a powerful combination. Aboard the ships were people like John Franklin, the future Arctic explorer. He was a midshipman

on the Bellerophon. There were many others. There's a particularly moving note that I always think about when it comes to Trafalgar Day. Captain Duff of the Mars. His son Norwich was on board, and three other young men who were his friends. They were sent down, but he sent them down below. It's very common to take your son to sea at the time and give him a leg up on the naval ladder. He sent him down below where it's a bit safer.

And he wrote a note to his wife. My dearest Sophia, I've just done tell you we're going to action with the combined fleet I hope and trust in God that we shall all behave as becomes us and I may yet have the happiness of taking my beloved wife and children in my arms Norwich is quite well and happy I have however ordered him off the quarterdeck yours ever and most truly George Duff that letter would eventually reach his wife, accompanying a letter from their son, Norwich, who reported that the following day after the battle,

he'd watched as his father was buried at sea, a casualty of Trafalgar. Once the ships were cleared for action, the British made for the enemy. Unusually, they attacked under full sail. Great mountains of canvas, something like an acre of sail, to catch the very light winds of that morning. Nelson was desperate to speed up the clash, to bring things to the decisive melee.

And although minimal sails meant much more confusion, you couldn't read signals from ships and the sails were always in the way, Nelson didn't mind. He'd gone through the plan before very, very clearly with his captains. Once the ships were set off towards the enemy, there wasn't much Nelson or Collingwood could do about it anyway. Much better to get there fast, engage the enemy, and fight it out in the way that Nelson wanted this battle to be fought. The plan was simply to break their line, break it into three different parts, and then defeat them in detail. Ignore the front of the enemy fleet, attack the centre and rear and achieve that

local superiority. Encircle the centre and rear before the front ships could come back and rescue them. If anything was unclear, Nelson said, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy. Let's hear from Andrew Baines again. When the sun rises on the morning of October 21st, the French and Spanish fleet is stretched out in a line about five miles long, and it's slightly concave, this line, so it's further away in the middle than it is at the end. And Nelson is sailing in two lines directly towards it,

and that means the 33 ships of the French and Spanish fleet can all fire at the two leading ships of the British fleet. So Nelson in victory and his number two, Cuthbert Collingwood in Royal Sovereign, know they're going to be exposed to fairly withering fire for quite a long time when they come in range of the enemy and because the guns of a line of battleship are mounted on the broad side on the side of the ship they are not going to be able to return fire because they are head-on to the enemy so it's only when they are able to punch through the line and then turn and fall upon individual ships that they will be able to return

fire and that's the risk it exposes you to an awful lot of fire for quite a long time and that risk is magnified on October the 21st because the winds are very squally they're quite light and Victory with Nelson and Royal Sovereign with Collingwood are closing on the enemy at about a walking pace so Victory's under fire for well over 40 minutes before she's able to return fire with a reasonable degree of force and Nelson there's only one way he knows how to lead and that's from the front so he's out in front with victory at the head of his line Collingwood in Royal Sovereign is a little way ahead of him actually and he's the first to smash through the French line but Nelson and Hardy his captain on victory in the sales of victory

just really have to sit and wait as she painfully moves towards the enemy. This is the moment as the British are slowly coasting towards this massive French and Spanish fleet. This is the moment when there had been time for contemplation. It must have been so weird. You're advancing into battle at such slow speed. There had been plenty of time for demons, I think, and terror. There was also plenty of time to look at the think, and terror. There was also plenty of time to look at the enemy fleet. It was a massive concentration of naval might. In the French and

Spanish fleet, there was the world's most powerful warship, the Santissima Trinidad, the only four in the world, guns on four enclosed decks, extraordinarily ambitious. It was painted gleaming white with red stripes donating each gun deck. A massive, massive carving sculpture, sort of gargantuan carving at the bowels of the Holy Trinity, carrying 140 guns and with 400 sailors on board ready to jump down to decks of any enemy that temerities come alongside. The British would have had plenty of time to look at that as they advanced about two miles an hour, walking pace towards the enemy. And HMS Victory wasn't the quickest sailor in the world, to be honest. Other ships threatened to overtake it. Nelson, at one point, got onto the stern of

Victory and shouted in particular, Neptune, take in your studding sails and drop a stern. I shall break the line myself. He was determined to lead his line into battle. Around about this time, Nelson went below and wrote in his private diary. He wrote down a prayer. May the great God whom I worship grant to my country and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory. And may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it. And may humanity, after victory, be the predominant feature in the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to him who made me,

and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. To him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen. Right, let's take a break. More coming up on the Battle of Trafalgar after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research.

From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades.

Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. I must say that reads rather well, but that's entirely deliberate. Nelson knew that one day that diary, that prayer would be made public. And so the mention of Europe, for example, is very particular. The fact he's fighting on behalf of Europe. He's a keen coalition builder. He's a keen diplomat, even at this moment of crisis. While Nelson was writing his prayers, the men were piped to dinner. They were given some food. John Brown was a young, ableaman from Ireland. He was on HMS Richter and he said they ate a bit of raw pork

and they were given half a pint of wine, which I'm sure they appreciated very much. Then they busied themselves attaching Union jacks, anything they could find, so the ship would be identifiable and the melee to come. It was likely that flags would be shot away, masts rigging, brought down, so anything that could support a little Union Jack to tell a friendly ship not to give it a broadside would be very important. At about 11.45 in the morning, Nelson made his famous flag signal, England expects that every man will do his duty. In fact, he'd ordered his flag officer to say England confides that every man will do his duty. But he said, be quick, because I'm in a hurry.'d ordered his flag officer to say, England confides that every man will do his duty.

But he said, be quick, because I'm in a hurry. And so his flag officer said, well, if you'll let me substitute expects for confines, it can be very quick. So Nelson said, that'll do, make it directly. There were three cheers from every ship, a roar that would have reached the enemy. And then he flew a signal that's less famous, but even more important, the last signal that he left flying, which is simply engage the enemy more closely. That was basically Nelson's last instruction to his fleet during the Battle of Trafalgar.

The French, for their part, paraded their imperial eagles and shouted, The Spanish cheered themselves hoarse for their king as well. And then it was a matter of waiting for the ranges to close. There was not enough wind. There just wasn't enough wind. Nelson's plan was extremely risky. If the absolute worst had happened, and often did happen in these waters, that the wind had changed direction, Nelson's front few ships, like Collingwood's Royal Sovereign or his victory, both leading their respective columns towards the enemy, they would have become completely isolated. They'd have been dismasted hulks, blasted by the entire enemy fleet.

It is a very, very risky plan, but the wind just about held up. But Lieutenant Humphrey Senhouse on HMS Conqueror put it better than I can. An enemy of equal spirit and equal ability and seamanship and the practice of gunnery would have annihilated our ships, one after the other in detail, carried slowly on as they were in this instance, only by heavy swell and light airs. And he gets

the heart of it. This plan that Nelson's come up with is predicated on the idea that the British ships can survive what the French and Spanish throw at them, because the French and Spanish gunnery will be too poor to destroy them in the approach. Would Nelson be right? Let's see. The French and Spanish line opened fire around about noon. They had several ranging shots and then one ship put a cannonball right through Victory's main to Gallant's sail. Everyone says there was a pause and then, after about 30 seconds, five or six French and Spanish ships opened up with full broadsides. A massive discharge of all the cannon down the side of their ships.

Perhaps a ton, a ton and a half of cannonballs blasting out towards the British ships. Now remember, ships in this period, you fire broadsides. Your cannon are all arrayed along the side of your ships. So you fire at 90 degrees to the direction you travel. So Nelson leading in HMS Victory, Collingwood in Royal Sovereign leading their two columns. They can't really fire forward at the enemy ships. They're pretty much helpless. But when they get amongst the ships, it'll be a different story. The French and Spanish, therefore, had to do everything they could to prevent the British

from getting closer, to dismass them, disable them, leave them floating hulks. And they fired chain shot. They fired bar shot. They fired cannon balls joined by a bar in between that boomerang through the air and sliced through ropes and sails and halyards and things, disabling the British and stopping them dead. But there were big Atlantic rollers, big waves, and that made the aiming hard. Then smoke blinded them. It was very light winds that suddenly smoke from all these cannons blinded them. So their accuracy was poor, and HMS Victory came ever closer to the Allied line. But for about 40 minutes, Victory was under fire. A grim 40 minutes from ships like Santissima Trinidad, the massive battleship Redoutable, and the French Neptune.

Annoyingly, the Spanish, French, and Brits all have a Neptune pleasant at the Battle of Trafalgar, but I won't confuse things. We know from the other ships how grim this period was. On board the Tonnant, a British ship, a band were playing a particular hit that everyone loved at the time. The Gallic Fleet Approaches Nye Boys, a popular song from the time. From about 100 yards from the Allied fleet, as the band reached a crescendo, a 40-pound cannonball killed two of the bandsmen.

So the British ships are taking casualties. They're taking damage from the combined fleet. Victory takes a particular battering. A number of her crew are killed and wounded. Her wheel is shot away. She had to be steered by Attila below decks, all before she's able to respond to the French and Spanish fire. The first person killed is possibly a cannonball which strikes Nelson's secretary, John Scott,

to cut him in two. His blood is still on Nelson's uniform, which you can go and see in Portsmouth. His body was unceremoniously dumped overboard. Hardee's clerk took over, so taking instructions from the admiral and his captain, Captain Hardee's clerk, who was in command of HMS Victory,

Nelson's in command of the whole fleet. He too was almost immediately killed. Another cannonball cut down eight Marines, eight Royal Marines who were waiting on the poop deck. Again, other ships experienced a similar thing as they got closer. The revenge was under fire for some time before she could reply. Down in the darkened low deck, remember nasty-faced Robinson? He writes that many of our men thought it was hard. The firing should be all on one side and became impatient to return the compliment. But his captain, who was Captain Mawson, a steady North Yorkshireman, made his wishes very clear. He said, we shall want all our shot when we get close in, i.e. don't waste your cannonballs. Never mind their fire. When I

fire a carronade from the quarterdeck, that'll be a signal for you to begin and I know you'll do your duty as Englishman. Back on HMS Victory, one cannonball passed between Nelson and Captain Hardy, actually tore the buckles off Hardy's shoe. They both look at each other, they can't believe they're uninjured, and Nelson observed, this is too warm work to last long. By the time HMS Victory reached the French and Spanish line, there were 50 casualties, maybe 20 dead, and Miss Victory reach the French and Spanish line, there were 50 casualties, maybe 20 dead, 30 wounded. And now as they get closer, this is where Nelson's aim becomes very clear. He wants to decapitate the Allied line. He wants to go for the French flagship Beaucenture and destroy it. And actually, Victory's been heading for the wrong ship. It's been heading for the massive

Spanish four-decker Santissima Trinidad. And only when the French and Spanish break up their colours, their French and Spanish flags, does Victory realise their mistake. And Nelson Law's a handbrake turn. He heads straight for Beausaunture. The French ships don't want to let the British break their line. They want to precipitate a battle where you sail alongside each other, broadside to broadside. They do not want the British ships breaking through their line. And so they pack themselves so tightly together that the bowsprit of one is actually grazing Boatswain Shore's stern, the back of the Boatswain Shore. He does not want to let victory through the gap, but a small gap does open up, as happens at sea, between the Boatswain Shore and the Redoutable, a ship astern. Hardy asks to go for the gap, and Nelson says, whichever you like. He says to Hardy, take your choice. And Nelson sealed his own fate with that order.

Victory has been double or even triple-shotted. It's cannon waiting silently for that first gigantic broadside. Over 50 guns on one broadside. Cannonballs, but also case shot, great cases full of musket balls that will turn the guns into giant shotguns, projectiles flying out in all directions when they get close enough to be fired. And as victory breaks through that French and Spanish lines, it has survived the firestorm, it gets into the French and Spanish lines, and it has its turn to fire its broadside into the stern, into the back of Beausenture. Beausenture is now the hunted. And with one order, about a tonne and a half of

metal, of iron, crashes out from HMS Victory's broadside at almost touching range, 15 or so metres. These projectiles scream out of the side of HMS Victory, travelling the length of Beausenture, beam out of the side of HMS Victory, travelling the length of Boatswain Shore, smashing cannons, killing crew, turning the gun decks into a slaughterhouse. Body parts, blood all over the deck. It's a scene of absolute carnage.

Andrew Baines takes up the story. The problem we have on Victory is that the next ship astern of Basintau is Redoutar. And she is commanded by Captain Luca. And Luca has very, very thoroughly drilled his men in close quarters fighting and boarding. And Victory and Redoutar become locked together. Their masts and rigging tangled together. And these two ships fall out of the line

and Victory's now really in a very, very precarious position up against this very, very, very competent opponent. So Nelson has his melee, but at the moment Victory is by himself. The ships behind him are yet to catch up, And Collingwood, leading the other line of British ships, has the same problem. Collingwood's actually crashed into the French line slightly before victory. Collingwood said to his officers as they were about to engage the enemy, now gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter. And hereafter we are talking of it. So he was right. His ship, Royal Sovereign, was briefly alone, like victory, crashed into the enemy fleet, but it was surrounded by no fewer

than six ships that it engaged unaided. Now Collingwood's ship was the right one for that job because Collingwood had trained his crews to be able to fire three broadsides in three and a half minutes, almost unheard of. It had to be unheard of because it was surrounded by enemy ships and it had to suppress them. It had to destroy their ability to fire back. It had to destroy them before it was destroyed. It survived, though. It survived and up came British reinforcements.

The Bellerophon went so close to one French ship, the Aigle, that the gunners were able to steal each other's ramrods. They were just touching the masts and rigging fell off on top of each other. The sails caught fire. Great sheets of flame had to be hacked away by sailors as the guns fired so close that the wadding would set fire to enemy ships. In fact, some sailors were putting out fires on enemy ships because they were so desperate that they would spread to their own.

The captain of the Bellerophon was killed. A sailing mast had his leg chopped off. A fire came very close to the magazine. The ship almost blew up. The French captain was killed as well. You wouldn't want to be a French captain or any French or Spanish captain. Despite knowing that they were the underdogs, they fought with exceptional bravery. They were always where the action was hottest and they took terrible casualties. The proportion of French and Spanish captains killed and wounded was remarkable. This was the battle, actually, ironically, that Villeneuve had wanted too, because the ships were crashing into each other. They were locked, they were

entangled in each other, and the Frenchmen were then able to leap across and get a foothold in the Bellerophon, but they were beaten off with cold steel. There was hand-to-hand fighting, at which point the two battered ships drifted apart. Of the 47 men on the Bellerophon's quarter deck at the start of the battle, only seven remained unwounded. The bosun, Thomas Robinson, had been blown up by a grenade, but he staggered downstairs to see the surgeon, but the queue was too long, so he staggered back on deck to see how he could help and ended up dying of his wounds a week later. The fighting was no less fierce than HMS Victory. It was locked together with the French ship Renoutable. By bad luck for the British ship, the crew of the Redoutable had been particularly trained

and brought to a level of extraordinary efficiency at boarding enemy ships. The crew had been drilled and drilled and drilled. There were lots of soldiers on board and they were now preparing to launch the attack they'd trained so hard for. They were going to board and seize HMS Victory. Captain Lucas of the Red Tableau wrote after the battle, a violent small arms exchange ensued. Our fire became so superior that within 15 minutes we'd silenced out of Victory. Her castles were covered with dead and wounded, meaning the slightly raised bits at the fore and aft of HMS Victory.

The castles were covered with dead and wounded. They were evacuated and Victory almost completely ceased firing upon us. But boarding proved difficult because of her elevated third battery. I ordered the rigging of the great yard to be cut and to be carried to serve as a bridge. So the Red Tabler was relying on its musketry, pistols, grenades to clear the top deck of HMS Victory. Victory, however, was firing back with its great guns below, causingols, grenades to clear the top deck of HMS Victory. Victory, however,

was firing back with its great guns below, causing carnage on the French ship. Our junior Marine Lieutenant Lewis Routley went down into the gun deck to fetch more Marines to replace the casualties above and he found the experience astonishing. It's a great description of battle. Every gun was going off. A man should witness battle in a free-decker from the middle deck. It beggars all description. It bewilders the senses of sight and hearing. There was fire from above, fire from below. Besides the fire from the deck I was on, guns recoiling with violence, reports louder than thunder. Decks heaving, sides straining. I fancied myself in the infernal regions where every man appeared a devil. Lips might move, but orders and hearing were out of the question. Everything was

done by signs. He neatly reminds us there that leadership, where it's hearing were out of the question. Everything was done by signs. He neatly reminds us there that leadership, where it's Nelsons over the whole fleet or the officers of the ship in the heat of battle, is pretty much irrelevant. By the time you're in the heat of battle, it comes down to the training and the endurance of the men. They knew what they were doing. They kept doing it. Even if people wanted to change a plan or give orders, there was no way anyone would have heard them. Captain Hardy and Nelson were on that quarter. They were in the hail of fire. The ship's surgeon later said that scarcely a person in the Victory escaped unhurt who was exposed to the enemy's musketry. Nearly every officer on HMS Victory's quarterdeck was hit,

and Nelson was hit. It's often said by a sniper, but actually I don't think it was a sniper. It was just a crewman with a musket in the mizzenmast, firing down from about 15 metres range. Nelson was a proud man. He always signed his name, Nelson and Bronte. And that's a bit confusing, but actually the Neapolitan king, the king of southern Italy, gave him a dukedom of Bronte. So he always liked the fact that he was Viscount Nelson and Duke of Bronte.

And he was proud of that. He signed his letters that. And he wore as many medals and Duke of Bronte. And he was proud of that. He signed his letters that, and he wore as many medals and awards on his uniform. They were replicas, but he was covered in medals. And he would have been recognisable. As the smoke cleared, a soldier in the rigging must have spotted this small, famous admiral, shouldered his musket and fired. A two centimetre ball entered Nelson's left shoulder, bringing pieces of his epaulette into the wound with it. It went through Nelson's lung, cut his pulmonary artery, smashed through his backbone and came to rest under his shoulder blade. He fell the deck

immediately. They've done for me at last, Hardy, he said. My backbone is shot through. Now, we shouldn't necessarily take Nelson at his word when it comes to his health. He was a bit hypochondriac. He was convinced he was going to die in Tenerife in 1797 when a musket bolt smashed his arm and led to his arm being amputated. And at the Nile, his head was sliced open by a great splinter. And he also announced he was dying then. But this time, he was right. There was no hope for him. And he was carried down below, a handkerchief on his face to disguise him not to dishearten the crew. He was carried deep below to the Orlop deck, where the surgeon could attend to him. Meanwhile, let's see how the battle's going from Andrew Baines.

Things are very, very precarious for victory. The men on the deck have been exposed to this fire now for well over an hour on the run and then as they've smashed through the line. And as well as having trained his men to be sharpshooters aloft, Luca of the Reditab has trained them and has them supplied with grenades. And these are iron spheres two or three inches across that have a fuse and a detonating charge.

And these grenades have been raining down onto Victory's decks to such an extent that within a few minutes of Nelson being carried below, Victory's upper decks are almost clear. And she has to stop firing and men from the gun decks come up on deck to try and push back borders that it looks like are going to be coming over from Redoutable. However, Redoutable's men are so well trained that they continue with the grenades and the men that have come up from below are driven back below on Victory. And it looks like we're about to be boarded. And indeed, the first of the French boarders are beginning to clamber up onto Victory's fo'c'sle. When the ship astern of her in the line, the French borders are beginning to clamber up onto Victory's forecast.

When the ship astern of her in the line, the fighting Temeraire goes around and comes alongside on the disengaged side of Redoutable, firing a carronade, one of the heaviest guns that the British fleet has, into the exposed French crew on the decks of Redoutable, on the bow of Redoutable, and then backing that up with a broadside. And less than an hour later, Captain Luca has to surrender. And out of a crew of almost 650 men on that French ship, only 100 of them are left fit.

He's got 550 men who are killed and wounded, so that gives you an indication of the horrendous punishment they've taken at the hands of Temeraire and also of Victory's broadside guns. It's hard to overstate the drama at this moment. Admiral Nelson has been wounded, carried off the quarterdeck. Victory, the fire from the Sotbeks, basically been suppressed by the fantastic French small arms fire and grenading. And some of the Redoutable's crew were now boarding Victory, to climb onto Victory's anchor. The rest cheered, they prepared to board. At that exact moment, though, the fighting Temeraire came crashing out of the smoke and straight into the Redoutable's bow. The impact would have knocked many people off their feet, but what followed was far worse. Temeraire had seven 32-pound carronades

on the larboard side and left-hand side of her upper deck, and her upper deck looked down on Redoutable's decks. She fired one of the most significant and terrible broadsides in the history of naval warfare. At a range of just meters, a hail, a blizzard of iron, travelling at supersonic speed, tore through the crew of the Redoutable, who had massed, gathered to launch themselves onto HMS Victory. It was a shattering moment. Lucas wrote later, it is impossible to describe the carnage produced by the murderous broadside of this ship. More than 200 of our brave men were killed or wounded by it. Now at the end of the battle, it is true that something like 550 men were killed or wounded, about 300 of them dead on the Redoutable. That's out of a pre-battle muster of 643.

Now, I often think about the Battle of Somme at this point. We think in Britain as this unprecedented time of slaughter, tragedy for the people involved. Well, the Accrington pals attacked Serre on the first day of the Somme, an infamous part of the assault on that first day. Of 700 of them, they lost 235 killed and 350 wounded in the space of around 20 minutes. That is directly comparable to the casualties suffered by the Redoutable. So when we think about the age of industrial slaughter, we shouldn't just think about the battlefields of the American Civil War, the Crimea, the Russo-Japanese War, or the First

World War. The industrial slaughter is well underway here at the beginning of the American Civil War, the Crimea, the Russo-Japanese War or the First World War. The industrial slaughter is well underway here at the beginning of the 19th century as these state-of-the-art weapon systems turn a great crowd of men into a mass of killed, wounded, severed limbs and body parts on the bloody deck. Victory had been saved by the arrival of Temeraire. However, there was no saving Admiral Nelson, who lay below. When he arrived below, the surgeon, Beattie, had brought up to him. He was covered in blood. He just amputated a limb. There were 30 men in a line waiting to be seen. There were shouts of, Mr. Beattie, Mr. Beattie, the Admiral's here. But Nelson simply waved him away.

He said, you can do nothing for me. I've got a short time to live. My back is shot through. And he explained to Beatty that he felt a spurt of blood every time his heart beat. He felt a spurt of blood into his chest cavity. They tried to make him comfortable. They lent him against the side of the ship. The ship's reverend, Padre, a steward, a couple of servants, propped Nelson up and they fanned him and they tried to slake his thirst. And they listened to the cheers as enemy ships started to surrender. Captain Hardy came down to report on how the battle was going. He made it clear that enemy ships were surrendering one by one. It was clear the British were winning. Nelson closed his eyes and said,

thank God I've done my duty. He asks Hardy to look after his partner, girlfriend, Lady Emma Hamilton and their child Horatia. Then he asks Hardy to kiss him. Hardy does so. Then he pauses, contemplates, leans down and kisses him again. And Nelson says, who is it? He can't see by that point. And Hardy has to say, it's Hardy. At that point, the captain seems to have a sort of almost breakdown. He's overwhelmed with emotion and he heads up on deck. He never sees Nelson alive again. Nelson passed away at around 4.30 that afternoon. The battle was continuing elsewhere. HMS Colossus would end up losing 200 men killed and wounded. She helped to smash no fewer than three enemy ships. She had followed Collingwood and Royal Sovereign into the thick of battle. Colossus

probably had the most remarkable performance of any British ship. There's a moment of the battle that I'm certainly confused has not gone down as one of the legends of British history. HMS Defiance came across the shattered Aigle. Now James Spratt was a young Irishman commanding Defiance's group of boarders. So when they came to boarding enemy ships, they were trained with cutlasses pistols to fight hand to hand. He was famously one of the best looking men in the Navy and he had a charismatic personality to match. He begged the captain of Defiance to let him jump overboard and swim across as the men had trained to do, swim across to take the Eagler. He'd trained 50 or 60 boarders so well, he said, he knew they could swim like sharks.

And so the captain said yes, and he leapt into the water, cutlass in his mouth, tomahawk in his belt. He clambered onto the stern of the egler. He looked around, climbed up to the kind of stern windows and realised that no one had followed him. He was completely alone. That didn't put him off. He charged inside, fought his way up to the poop deck. He reportedly showed myself to our ship's crew from the enemy's taffrail and gave them a cheer with my hat on the point of my cutlass. At that moment, the Defiance had managed to throw their helm over. They did crash into the Aigler and his boarders were able to join him on the deck.

They fought their way towards the stern where Spratt was fighting the entire ship's company by himself. I mean, it's like something out of a bad Errol Flynn movie. At one stage, he jumped on a halyard, swung along, and knocked out three enemy infantrymen that were trying to bayonet him. Then someone aimed a gun at him. He slapped it away with his blade. The bullet hit his leg and shattered his leg,

at which point the Aigler surrendered. Half its crew were casualties and Spratt swung across back onto his own ship on a rope. His leg actually survived. They didn't am ship on a rope. His leg actually survived, they didn't amputate his leg, his leg survived. It was covered in maggots a week later, he almost died, but he kept his leg even though it was three inches longer. It made for one hell of a story. And so always remember James Spratt, folks. At 5.30, a French ship, a keel, exploded. A fire had reached its powder room and it blew up in a gigantic explosion. That really

marked the end of the battle. It seemed to take, well, almost literally take the wind out of the sails of the surviving French and Spanish ships. Nelson had gambled right. When the unengaged ships had finally managed to tack round, to wear round, to rejoin the battle, their appetite to join that battle was dampened by the fact that the centre and rear of the Spanish and French line had been so comprehensively defeated. So the surviving unengaged French and Spanish ships decided to stand off and try and head back to Cadiz. The battle lasted about five and a half hours. It was now over. Around 500 Brits had been killed, well over a thousand wounded. Many of them would die in appalling conditions in the days that followed. 2,000 Frenchmen killed, perhaps around 1,000

Spanish, but 11,000 prisoners were now in British hands. 17 ships were captured. 17 ships captured, one blew up. The previous record for a fleet action in the age of sailors was at the Battle of the Nile, where Nelson had captured seven ships and destroyed four. So it was a naval victory unprecedented in its magnitude. 22% of Nelson's captains had been killed, 19% lieutenants and marine officers, 18%. So one in five lieutenants, one in five marine commanders killed. Very, very dangerous job. More junior officers had been stationed on the gun decks below, and they had been safer down there, protected by the mighty oak hulls.

30%, one third of the sailing masters, the people particularly concerned with the sails, the rigging of the ship, had been killed or wounded in the British fleet. And the same number, one third of bosuns who were on the foredeck, they'd been killed or wounded as well. That kind of conspicuous leadership was incredibly dangerous. Nelson's body was placed in a cask of brandy. It was mixed with myrrh as well to preserve it. And then it was lashed to Victory's main mass and placed under

guard. Much as the men loved their commander, wouldn't have stopped them having a few drinks, I think, if they could have done. Let's hear now from Collingwood's dispatch that he wrote after the battle. He was wounded himself. Now, commander of this fleet, contains the report of Nelson's death. Our loss has been great in men, but what is irreparable and the cause of universal lamentation is the death of the noble commander-in-chief who died in the arms of victory. I have not yet had any reports from the ships, but have heard that Captains Duff and Cook fell in the action. I have to congratulate you upon the great event, and have the honour to be, etc. C. Collingwood. It's fascinating the impact that Nelson's death had. You read the accounts of Collingwood, charged, but who was a personal friend of Nelson's, but the captains who serve under him,

but also the ordinary seamen. His death had a profound effect. He had the most extraordinary leadership style, and his death touched nearly everyone in that fleet. Gnarled, grisly seamen breaking down in tears when they heard of the death of their commander. And those gnarled, grisly sailors were plenty to worry about in the days that followed. Many of the ships were utterly ruinous. Masks smashed over the side of ships.

They were basically floating hulks. And there was an insane storm that blew up on the evening and the days following Trafalgar. It was some of the highest wind speeds ever recorded at that point of history by a nearby weather station on the Spanish coast. And in the aftermath of the storm, Collingwood wrote, the condition of our own ships was such it was very doubtful what would be their fate. I can only say that in my life, I never saw such efforts as were made to save the enemy prize ships and I'd rather fight another battle and pass through such a week that followed it. It was said a further 2,000 men, mostly French and Spanish, were drowned during the storm

and veterans said that surviving the storm was tougher than the battle. Three more Allied ships were lost in that storm, never returned to harbour. By early November, the combined fleet had been practically destroyed. The loss in the battle, loss in the storm, and a mopping up operation in November cost the French four more ships at Cape Ortegal. No subsequent British ships were lost, as none had been lost at Trafalgar. Did Trafalgar matter? It would take 10 years to

finally and conclusively defeat Napoleon. But the sea matters. The sea was essential, even more so in the era before railways and road transport. The sea was the way that you communicate. The sea was the way that you carried heavy goods. You supplied armies. You sent treasure to bribe allies or encourage allies. The economies of the European coast, the Rhine and Danube economies, were dependent on that sea trade. And the Royal Navy could now shut off Europe, shut off Napoleon's conquest from global trade. Millions of consumers were unable now to be accessed

by French and Spanish merchant fleets. Millions of tons of raw materials could not arrive in French and Spanish merchant fleets. Millions of tons of raw materials could not arrive in French and Spanish ports. Napoleon, like the Kaiser after him and Hitler, was slowly strangled to death. It might take 10 years, but Britannia's grip on the oceans was decisive. Britain could supply an army in the peninsula when Spain eventually changed sides. British troops could keep Portugal safe and supply a Spanish government that was taking on Napoleon's men in what Napoleon would come to call the Spanish ULSA, a terrible campaign that helped to break Napoleon's armies. All that was made possible by British command of the seas as troops, reinforcements, supplies, food flooded into Iberia.

A help was given to the Russians when Napoleon invaded in 1812 via the Baltic. Napoleon was isolated, cut off, and laid siege to in Europe. It might take 10 years, but Trafalgar and the battles that preceded it were decisive. Napoleon did try and build up a fleet, but he was always half-hearted. He built a fleet in the low countries, but his professional elite, the naval elite, was dead. They were imprisoned. The best sailors were languishing in British prison hulks. Their morale was trashed. Who was going to lead an untested fleet of untested ships down the Scheldt out of Antwerp to take on the British fleet in the Channel? It would take a brave man to lead that forlorn hope out to sea.

Never again would the French seriously seek to wrest control of the seas from the British. And also Trafalgar served that other important purpose, which is provide inspiration. Naval officers, particularly but not exclusively British, saw Trafalgar as squarely within a tradition of British excellence at sea, of an unflinching determination to take the fight to the enemy, of conspicuous bravery, of the subordination of your ship and your own life to the widest strategic goal. Nelson and Trafalgar would be an example

to generations of British seafarers that came subsequently, that turned the British Navy into the most dominant maritime force the world has ever seen. It would see the British Navy win victories in the Mediterranean against the Turks in high latitudes. It would see the Navy penetrate deep into the rivers of China and have a huge impact on the shape of the modern world, eventually culminating in the great clashes of the 20th century. King George III wrote a tribute to Nelson that rightly, I think, emphasised the example of his service and leadership over the

long term. And anyone with a passing familiarity of the Royal Navy today knows that the animating principle of Trafalgar and Nelson's life live on. Here's what George III had to say. and Nelson's life live on. Here's what George III had to say. I receive with particular satisfaction the congratulations of my loyal city of London on the late, glorious and decisive victory obtained under the blessing of God by my fleet, commanded by the late Lord Viscount Nelson, over the combined force of France and Spain. The skill and intrepidity of my officers and seamen were never more conspicuous than on this important occasion. The loss of the distinguished commander under whom this great victory has been achieved, I most sincerely and deeply lament. His transcendent and heroic services will,

I am persuaded, exist forever in the recollection of my people, and whilst they tend to stimulate those who come after him to similar exertions, they will prove a lasting source of strength, security, and glory to my dominions. Well, thank you everybody for listening to that episode on Trafalgar. It was a bit of a monster, I'm afraid. Once I start talking about Trafalgar, I find it very, very difficult to stop. So thank you for bearing with me. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. you