The Rest Is History - 245. Trafalgar: Victory

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

In this final episode Tom and Dominic discuss the legendary Battle of Trafalgar. Despite being outnumbered and facing the biggest ship in the world, Nelson took the battle to the French and Spanish forces. With the swell on his side, Nelson’s brave leadership from the deck of the Victory gave the British one of their most famous military successes. Join Tom and Dominic as they take you through the battle, Nelson’s death, and its legacy. If you want ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community, become a member of The Rest Is History Club. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. Or, if you're listening on the Apple Podcasts app, you can subscribe within the app in just a few clicks. At daylight, saw the enemy's combined fleet from east to east-southeast, bore away, made the signal for order of sailing and to prepare for battle,

the enemy with their heads to the southward. At seven, the enemy wearing in succession. 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 endeavors for serving my country faithfully. To him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.

So, Tom, that was the last diary entry by Horatio Nelson on the morning of Monday, the 21st of October, 1805. Very stirring words, I have to say. the development of the Royal Navy, the financial and political underpinnings, extraordinary maneuverings to and fro across the Atlantic as Nelson chases Villeneuve, his French antagonist. And now here we are, the moment of decision. The dawn is coming and I know you're poised to take us through blow blow by blow, the narrative? Yes. So it's just before dawn on the 21st of October, 1805, about quarter to six in the morning. And the lookouts on the masts of the British fleet spy the enemy. They're about 12 miles downwind from the British fleet. And it's confirmation that the French and Spanish have not withdrawn, have not retreated, and therefore there is an opportunity for battle. So the British are about 22 miles off Cape

Trafalgar, which lies between Cadiz and Gibraltar. Taraf al-Ghar, so Arabic, the point of the cave. It's a clear day. The previous day had been wet, had been cloudy, very poor visibility. But on the 21st of October, it's about 21 degrees. So pretty unseasonably warm, but just the faint hint of a swell. So possibility of a storm coming later in due course. But the day itself, 21st of October, looks a good day to be fighting a sea battle. The British have 26 ships. The French and Spanish between them have 33 ships. The French and Spanish ships have been kind of mixed up so that there's no prospect of either one national squadron sailing off and abandoning the other.

The French flagship is the Boussaintour, named after the gilded barge of the Doge in Venice. That is where Villeneuve is. It's not in absolutely tip top shape because it had just recently been struck by lightning, which is further added to Villeneuve's kind of slight mood of despondency. And Villeneuve is in the centre of the line as it's sailing down towards Gibraltar. He has with him a Spanish rear admiral, Balthazar de Cisneros, and he is in command of the Santissima Trinidad, so the most sacred trinity. The biggest ship in the world. And it's the biggest ship in the world.

It's the only one with four decks of guns. Yeah. So an absolute trophy. The British are absolutely itching to get their hands on it. The vanguard is commanded by another Spanish admiral, Ignacio de Alva, and he's on a ship called the Santa Ana. And the rear guard is commanded by a Frenchman, Pierre Dumenoir, and he is on board a ship called the Formidable. The Spanish admiral, so the overall commander, Frederico Gravina, he is on a ship called the Principe de Asturias, and he is commanding what Villeneuve calls

the Squadron of Observation, which is basically a kind of reserve. So this is the plan that Villeneuve suspects what Nelson is going to do. And so he doesn't know where Nelson will be targeting his attack. And so his plan is that he's going to have this tactical reserve to kind of come up

wherever it's needed. So that's the plan. Meanwhile, of course, Nelson has his plans. He has told all the captains of the fleet exactly what he's going to do. Namely, he's going to form two prongs. One of them is going to be led by himself on victory. The other one is going to be led by Admiral Collingwood, Nelson's old friend, the man that he most respects and admires among his colleagues. And he is going to be on a ship called the Royal Sovereign. So essentially, Nelson and Collingwood are the tip

of the spear. They are in the position of maximum danger. And there's some nervousness about this on the part of Collingwood and many of his colleagues. And they've tried to persuade Nelson that perhaps victory should hang back or that he should get on another ship and nelson of course absolutely scorns that because it's yeah you know the whole mystique of nelson's charisma is that he shares the dangers of his men and in fact as an officer he is obliged to run more risks than his men because he is standing on the court deck which is right you know and as all officers do, they have to stand there. They can't cower. They can't duck.

It requires absolutely phenomenal qualities of courage. And Nelson, just to be, I mean, by the time he does get on deck, we can maybe just leap ahead for a second. You're talking about the courage. He is wearing his dark blue coat. I mean, you can see what Nelson wore in the National Maritime Museum. Yeah, it's still there. They've still got it haven't they but he's wearing his dark blue coat and he's got gilt buttons 36 gilt buttons and gold epaulets

and stars adorned on the epaulets so he is absolutely visible you know if you're a frenchman or a spaniard you will see nelson literally glinting because of the stars and whatnot, surrounded by men who are clearly not officers or the mass of the men on the ship. So Nelson is a target. I mean, that's really important. He is a very, very visible target. Absolutely. And one of the things that makes what he's doing incredibly dangerous is that if you imagine two ships parallel to each other firing guns at each other the ribs of the ship serve as a kind of armor but if you imagine them shooting at the at the stern or the rear that's vulnerable and you know if you fire cannonballs say

through the prow it can go straight through the ship. It's called raking. So as Nelson on Victory and Collingwood on the Royal Sovereign approach the French and Spanish line, they will be raked and they will not have an opportunity to fire back because their cannon will obviously not be pointing at the enemy line. So it requires unbelievable reserves of courage to do that but that is what that's nelson's plan uh and at 6 10 in the morning he signals to the fleet form order of sailing in two columns say victory at the head yeah royal sovereign at the head of the second column yeah

6 22 another signal prepare for battle And so they start to move forward. 640, a French figure signals to the Boussaintour, to Villeneuve, on the French flagship, the enemy is in sight to Wynwood. And as the British fleet slowly crosses over the horizon, Villeneuve is absolutely appalled to realise how many British ships there are. There are far more than he had calculated. But he knows that if he retreats now, he's doomed. French honour will be lost.

So he is determined to stand and fight. And so he gives orders for his fleet to reverse direction, to turn northwards, to face the British, but they're unpracticed. And this maneuver generates the first Franco-Spanish mistake, which is that the tactical reserve under the command of Gravina, the Spanish admiral, gets jumbled up with all the other ships. And so it loses its coherence and gaps in the line start opening up. Well, if you ever look at a plan of the battle, Tom, the French and Spanish, the combined fleet is meant to be a sort of a line, but it's actually quite raggedy and it's more of a kind of crescent, isn't it? What this means is that Gravina's reverse force, rather than kind of entering as a solid unit, is just kind of entering pell-mell.

And in the long run, it would be like entering a meat grinder or something. So things are not looking good for the Spanish fleet and the French fleet right from the beginning. The thing that makes the whole onset of the battle kind of unbelievable is that there's enough wind for the British to advance, but not enough for it to be anything more than a kind of walking pace. The British fleet is advancing kind of two, three miles an hour. Yeah. So if it's a film,

if it's the, if you're making the film with the battle of Trafalgar, I mean, the thing is that they see each other, they start to, you know, everyone is nervous. Everybody's getting ready,

but hours will pass. Hours, yes. With them getting closer and closer. It's about six hours, I think, with them moving very, very slowly together. And the tension on board, I mean, the descriptions in the various books. So for example, I mentioned earlier, what I think is one of the most extraordinary history books that I've probably ever reviewed, which is John Sugden's, the second volume of his life of Nelson, which is just so incredibly detailed. And I know you read a book on, is it by Tim Clayton, somebody like that? Yeah, Tim Clayton and Phil Craig, but a really

good account of the battle. These amazing accounts of the Battle of Trafalgar. And what makes them so powerful is that sense of the tension building and building and building hour after hour so they they clear the decks and then the british ships what you do is when you're getting ready for for action you take all the furniture you take your hammocks down the hammocks down you know the ships kind of serve as padding to kind of reinforce the the sides of the deck the men stripped the waist they sort of tie headband headbands or bandages around their heads so that will keep the sweat out and protect their eyes they do all that but then there's still an awful lot of waiting and actually on the british ships so we started this whole epic and i read that heart of oak i mean

that's one of the songs they sing the band strikes up the bands are playing the bands are playing they sing rule britannia they're singing god King. At one point, they dance the hornpipe on board. Well, also, Dominic, for breakfast, they've been given wine. They have. Wine and meat. Yeah. Wine unusually. On Villeneuve's ship.

So the British are sort of singing Rue Britannia and dancing. On Villeneuve's ship, I was very pleased to read that he parades the Imperial Eagle. That's right. It's been given sent by by napoleon and the uh his his officers swear oaths of loyalty they renew their oaths of loyalty to the emperor so you know it's the perfect a british a sort of hogarth figure couldn't make this up you know the contrast between the sort of the high spirits of the british and the french swearing loyalty to an absolutist ruler.

But I think there's a seaman on Victory who says, you know, we are like lions anxious to be at it. They are, they're keyed up for the battle, even though they know that lots of them are going to die. They seem to have a kind of battle frenzy. Whereas on one of the Spanish ships, one of the captains says the fleet is doomed. So there's a good, you know, very, what is it? The guy from dad's army. Yeah, we're doomed, doomed. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, so Nelson, they have this kind of, they've developed this signaling, which Nelson has been using to kind of convey orders. And they have this famous, Nelsonelson wants england confides that every man will do his duty this is the message he wants to convey confides meaning trust so england

trusts that every man will do his duty but they don't have a signal for confides and so the signal says could we use expects yeah and so that's the message that goes up 31 flags it took to signal that message and And there were conflicting reports, but some say the men cheer. They raise a great cheer when they see this. Well, Collingwood thinks it's all a bit much. He complains that there are too many signals, that they know what to do. But then he reads the signal and he welcomes it as well. And hurrah, ready for battle. So slowly, slowly, slowly, the British fleet, pronged with Nelson and Collingwood, draw closer and closer and closer towards the enemy line. And a mile away, the French and Spanish start to fire. And the first shot flies over victory. And Nelson has two captains with him on board. And so he says, you know, chaps, time to go. Off you go. And they head off and he shakes the hands of one of the captains. And one of the captains takes Nelson's hand and said, I trust my Lord that on my return to the victory, which will be as soon as possible, I shall find your lordship well and in possession of 20 prizes on which he, Nelson, made this reply, God bless you, Blackwood. I shall never speak to you again.

So, yeah. Biographers have had enormous, you know, spent oceans of ink about that remark. Does Nelson feel, you know, the grim reaper peering over his shoulder? Or is this what captains, people often say before a battle in which so many people they know will be killed? And if they live, it's a remark that will be forgotten, but it lives on purely because he, I mean, who knows? Who knows? Well, so in the Victorian period where they were very agitated by his relationship with Lady Hamilton, it became part of the myth that he felt ashamed of his relationship with Emma and

was looking to re-burnish his relationship with Emma and was looking to re-burnish his sense of honor and was offering himself up as a sacrifice. And it is true that Nelson was obsessed with the death of James Wolfe at the Battle of Quebec in the Seven Years' War. And there was a famous painting by the American painter Benjamin West, who became president of the Royal Academy, who Nelson had met at Fonthill in Wiltshire, very near where I grew up and I played cricket there. And Beckford was, it was owned by William Beckford, who was a kind of plantation owner,

fabulously, dangerously rich sugar baron. And Nelson met West there and said, well, you know, why aren't you painting more canvases like the Death of Wolf? And West says, well, you know know why aren't you painting more canvases like uh like the death of wolf and west says well you know there aren't any heroes and nelson goes hmm but i don't i don't think i mean i think the consensus among those who who studied nelson is that he had no sense of a death wish i mean this was yeah he was not looking to sacrifice himself he was not looking to offer himself up as a blood sacrifice to britain or yeah to uh to exonerate his shame

or anything like that but you know it's it's a tense moment um and they are going into hell yeah we may it's basically we may we may never meet again isn't it i mean yeah nelson's quite a sentimental person he says very patriotic and sentimental things that meet again isn't it i mean yeah nelson's quite a sentimental person he says very patriotic and sentimental things that's how i perceive it i don't think he's because he thinks he's going to win i mean that's why he's devised the plan yeah i mean he's he's confident he's going to win but he also knows that that he is going as we say going into the jaws of hell and actually it's collingwoodwood rather than Nelson who hits the enemy first because the Royal Sovereign, Collingwood's flagship, has just had its hull newly coppered.

So it's very, very fast, gets ahead of Victory, gets ahead of the Belle Isle, which is the ship directly behind Collingwood. So it is first into the jaws of hell, then Victory as well. Collingwood is about two miles southeast of the victory and the cannon fire is starting to come. However, having said that, I think both Collingwood and Nelson know that it is not perhaps as dangerous as it might be, partly because the wind and the tide and the waves are against the enemy. So they're rolling up and down, up and down. Very difficult to get a kind of direct aim. However, I think that neither Collingwood nor

Nelson are kind of suicidally brave. And even though the cannon fire is starting to smash into the sails, smash into the masts, all kinds of things, cannon fire is whistling past, they know that the swell is with them so the swell is is going with them it's moving them forward but this is disrupting the ability of the french and spanish ships to get a kind of steady aim because their ships are kind of rolling up and down up and down and that means that basically it you know it's only for a few seconds every minute that the ships are level and therefore the cannon are level. And so actually the fire that is coming from the French and Spanish line is pretty irregular and very inaccurate.

And on top of that, one of the technical advances that the British do have is that when they pull the trigger, it fires, whereas the French and Spanish have slow burning fuses. And that makes it even more difficult because if you're lighting a fuse that then has to kind of slow burn and the ship is rocking up and down i mean basically you know it's impossible to target your fire accurately still i mean it's not fun is it no even so the men the crew are told to you would generally lie flat on the deck if you're under fire except for the officers who are not allowed to do that basically so they are you know standing vertical targets for these whale of cannonballs that come sort of there's an unbelievably moving account from a a lieutenant on the bell isle which is the ship immediately

behind collingwood's flagship so i mean absolutely in, absolutely in the front. And he's what, kind of 1920? He wrote after the battle, seeing that almost everyone was lying down, I was half disposed to follow the example and several times stoop for the purpose. But, and I remember the impression well, a certain monitor seemed to whisper, stand up and do not shrink from your duty. Turning around, my much esteemed and gallant senior fixed my attention. The serenity of his countenance and the composure with which he paced the deck drove more than half my terrors away and joining him i became somewhat infused with his spirit which cheered me on to act the part it became me and so that sense of being inspired by your senior officers is obviously terribly

important and that's why it's so important for n that he's prominent on the quarterdeck and that all appeals from his junior officers to him to. This is one from Ben Wilson's book, Empire of the Deep. And he says, for thousands of sailors on both sides, the battle was a glimpse into hell. The gun deck turned into a black and smoky furnace. Men slipped on the blood and viscera of their mess mates as they fought. To continue to man the guns in these conditions required the utmost courage. An officer remarked that the side effects of battle, temporary deafness, and the inability to see because of the gun smoke helped because they blotted out the noise and vision of messmates dying. All the men had to keep them sane and grounded was the mechanical rhythm of loading, hauling, firing. Hauling, loading, over and over and over.

But Dominic, I mean, remember, as they're approaching, they're not able to fire because they don't have a target. So they are sitting ducks, basically, aren't they? Until they can finally get to grips with the combined French and Spanish fleets when they finally pierce the line. Yeah, absolutely. And the closer they get, even with the swell and the slow burning fuses, the artillery, the cannon fire starts to generate casualties. So before Nelson reaches the French and Spanish line, his secretary, a man called Dr. Scott, is standing next to him, gets killed by a cannonball. Well, a cannonball that literally rips him in two. I mean, this is the extent of the horror.

Yes. So it kind of takes off his body, doesn't it? His kind of legs are left standing there and then they collapse is that poor scott gone nelson asks and he gets and also the other thing is it's not just the cannibals it's splinters from the wood that are kind of firing everywhere and a splinter rips off the buckle of hardy's shoe which is kind of an amazing thing um eight marines get killed on on the deck of victory by a single shot. And Nelson says to Hardy, you know, this is warm work, warm work to last long. And he knows they've got to get up close and then they can start the killing.

And the ship that first does that is the Royal Sovereign. Collingwood on the Royal Sovereign closing in on the Santa Ana, which is under the command of de Alva, commanding the vanguard. Adam Nicholson describes this brilliant phrase in his book, the cold silence of the approaching British guns. And the only shot that Collingwood on the Royal Sovereign aims is a couple to create a kind of smoke screen, but he's still not fired a shot in anger. And it glides past the Santa Ana. Collingwood swings round and it passes under the windows of the stern of the Santa Ana. And now the Santa Ana is absolutely at its most vulnerable and Collingwood can rake the Santa Ana. And it's able to rake it basically for about a minute

as it drifts past. So just constant hell coming from the guns of the British ship, just ripping through the Santa Ana, basically. Because as I said, if you're aiming at the ribs of a ship, the side of a ship, you can't get through. But if you're aiming at it, it's kind of soft, it's open. You can aim artillery fire and it will go through all the decks right the way to the front of the ship and so that minute that the royal sovereign is drifting past the the um uh the stern of the

santa rana 240 of a crew of 800 are killed in the space of a minute yeah and and that is the impact of kind of close impact gunnery that is is the condition of chaos that Nelson has wanted to create. I mean, imagine the scene, Tom, the smoke. I mean, literally people's heads, body parts flying through the air, splinters. I mean, splinters would kill an enormous number of people, wouldn't they? Awful, awful. It's absolute chaos, absolute carnage. Obviously, the moment that the Royal Sovereign has drifted past,

more and more French and Spanish ships are kind of coming up, I suppose like bees in a hive that's been disturbed. They're firing muzzle to muzzle, hugely playing to the British advantage. I mean, lots and lots of British sailors are dying, but they're losing maybe 25%. The French and Spanish are losing 50%. And that's the margin of victory. Well, this is an interesting thing because this is that Nelson knew,

and the whole strategy was based on the fact that the British gunnery was quicker, more effective, more efficient. So they know that as many as they are losing, if they're still firing, they will inflict more damage on the enemy than the enemy can ever possibly inflict on them so essentially those british casualties are the payment for the opportunity to force the surrender so by quarter past two in the afternoon santa ana has surrendered yeah so that the strategy is bloody it's brutal it costs a lot of british lives it costs even more lives french and spanish lives. But as far as the British are concerned, it works. Meanwhile, the head of the other line, Victory,

has reached the enemy. It aims first at the Santissima Trinidad, the largest ship in the world with its four decks, and then for the Boussaintour Villeneuve's flagship with the eagle that has been given to it by Napoleonoleon it again it rakes the uh the boost and tours stern just as collingwood had done nelson kills hundreds within that kind of you know that minute of concentrated lethal fire victory itself gets raked through its brow uh and that's the moment that that kills more people on board victory than any other. That's by the French ship Neptune or Spanish ship Neptune. That's right. French ship Neptune.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A ship called the Redoutable. Yes. Commanded by very, very brave, tough captain called Jean-Jacques Lucas blocks off victory's passage. So victory is essentially stationary. And there's a piece of iron that gets caught and essentially solders victory and Redoutable together so that the guns are just

firing away. Because otherwise, the force of the blast would have propelled victory away from Redoutable, but it doesn't. And this essentially is what dooms Nelson. Because Lucard and his men are desperate to board victory, but even though they can't do that, they're absolutely packed with musket men. And Lucard, recognizing that he can never outgun the British gunners, he locks up the portholes so that it gets harder for the British cannonballs to get through and relies on his muskets, his musketry, his soldiers. And that means a lot of musket balls firing. And 1.15 in the afternoon, probably, I mean, I don't know, maybe you'd say that the arrow that killed King Harold at Hastings is the most famous shot fired in British history. But this is is up there.

This is certainly up there, isn't it? Probably first equal. The shot is fired that hits Nelson. And he falls on his left side right into the blood where John Scott had been killed. And he gets drenched in Scott's blood. So the decks are covered in sand to soak up the blood. And it's a measure of just how much carnage had been left by the destruction of Scott's upper body. The blood drenches Nelson. And he cries out, they've done for me at last.

And Hardy, who's standing next to him, says, I hope not. And Nelson says, yes, my backbone is shot through. So he's fallen. He's been, the musket ball has hit him in his left shoulder gone through the epaulette and it's picked up fragments of fabric as it passes yeah and it goes down through his chest severs an artery i think round about his lung and then lodges it smacks into his backbone and lodges in his spine. And the force of it knocks him down onto his knees and men cluster around him.

Take him below deck. And yeah, so they realise he's got to go below deck straight away to the surgeon's cockpit. Four of them take him down the ladders. I mean, just imagine how unbelievably agonising that must have been to be carried down these ladders. And Nelson, of course, had lost his arm. It had been operated on. And one of the things that he specified before Trafalgar is fought is that the surgeons below deck should warm up their knives.

Because he remembered the chill of the iron. Yeah. So, Tom, I think we should take a break at this climactic moment and then come back after the break to talk about what happens to Nelson and what happens in the battle. In the battle, yeah. So we'll see you in a couple of minutes. I'm Marina Hyde.

And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip, and on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com.

So welcome back to the rest is history for this final concluding part of our trafalgar epic and tom uh before the break uh nelson was hit by a sniper from radio table nelson has been taken below decks uh to the surgeon dr beatty but meanwhile the battle of trafalgar is raging and it is clear i think at this point that nelson's plan is working yes because it's ironically because everything is totally unclear no one really has any idea what's going on it's absolute carnage ships are all kind of piling into it what one onto one another but this is playing to british strengths and they just devastate the uh the the french and spanish ships more and more carnage um ships smeared with blood um you know sloshing all over. I mean, literally sloshing over the, over the decks, just unspeakable. And by 140. So that's what,

that's almost half an hour after Nelson has been shot on the deck of victory. Villeneuve on the Boussaintour surrenders. And before he surrenders, he makes sure that the Eagle that has been given him by Napoleon is, is thrown overboard. And an hour after Nelson is shot, victory at last drifts away from Redoutable. So Redoutable, to give you a sense of the carnage,

Redoutable had a crew of 643 men, and 300 of those men are killed, and 222 of them are wounded, and many of those wounds are pretty severe. So that gives you a i mean basically the vast majority of the men on that ship are either killed or very very badly injured i mean you just the horror of fighting at sea is is so often i think underestimated well that's and that's the brutal reality of nelson's ambition to fight a war of annihilation yeah um you know i consider

the destruction of the enemy's fleet of so much consequence that i would willingly have half of mine burnt to affect their destruction and and it works that's the bargain that he's made yeah you look at the stats you look at the figures so of nelson's men 460 of them or so were killed and about 1200 injured200 injured. But of the French and Spanish, of those killed, wounded, or captured, the total is 14,000. So that is a testament. I mean, everything we talked about, particularly in episode one, about the efficiency, the ruthless efficiency of the Royal Navy

as a killing machine. I mean, Trafalgar is the ultimate testament to that, isn't it? Because they go straight into the battle as you said muzzle to muzzle and it's the british who emerge by a gigantic margin 10 i mean 10 times the french and spanish lose 10 times yeah the the british losses but of course among the british losses um is probably the most famous man in Britain, Horatio Nelson himself. And even as the Boussaintour and other ships, French and Spanish ships, are surrendering, Nelson can feel that he's paralyzed.

He's seen what happens when someone gets shot in the spine. He's witnessed it for himself. He knows what's happening to him. The doctors try and cheer him up and say, oh, you'll be all right, my lord. But he says, no, no, no. And of course, he's lost control over his bodily functions so he's urinating shitting um bleeding he says to the doctor straight away dr beatty i mean this is classic nelson he says ah mr beatty you can do nothing for me i have but a short time to live my back is shot through and he says to beat, don't worry about me. Look after your other patients.

And then he says constantly, Doctor, I'm gone, I'm gone. And he starts saying, remember me to Lady Hamilton. I have made a will. I have left Lady Hamilton and Horatio to my country. I mean, this line is a sort of obsession for him that Emma Hamilton and their daughter will not be looked after. And it's about, I think, 2.30 that Captain Hardy, who as you described Hardy, Tom, earlier on, I mean, Hardy is a huge man, isn't he?

Six foot four or something. He's balding, stooping. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very kind of striking figure, very stern disciplinarian, but devastated by, I mean, adores Nelson. Yes. And is absolutely devastated to see him dying. And come down to stay with Nelson about 3.30.

So that's just over a couple of hours after he's been shot. So Nelson takes quite a, for someone who's so badly injured, Tom, what struck me about this was I had, before I read up on it i had this sort of vague idea that nelson is shot he's taken downstairs and then he dies no it's very protracted it's very protracted so he's in agony for for hours asking for lemonade or asking to be fanned being given wine constantly saying you know i i have he says again and again i leave lady hamilton and horatio so that's one obsession and the other obsession of course is how is the battle going so when hardy comes down he's saying um you know how goes the battle how goes the day with us

and hardy is able to say we've got about 12 or 14 of the enemy ships um and nelson's anxious that you know have the british lost any ships and says no um and so so he has that tough he has that but also going that but you talked about nelson and his attention to detail his perfectionism at one point later on when when hardy comes down you know the second time isn't it yeah but when he comes down and he says how many and? And Hardy says, very emotionally, you know, he knows the gravity of the moment. He says, you have won a complete victory. I'm certain that it's 14 or 15 of the enemy ships have surrendered. Now, we talked about the Battle of the Nile.

How many ships had they sunk then? They'd sunk about two. Yeah. So this is a titanic. Unprecedented. Unbelievable victory. And Nelson says, that is well, but I bargained for 20. You know, that sort of drive, even at the last.

And then, of course, he says, take care of poor Lady Hamilton. And then there was this thing that schoolboys for generations in Britain have giggled about where he says, kiss me, Hardy. So Hardy leans forward and kisses him on the cheek and tom do you know the story about oberon war i know this is a slight um uh no this is an unexpected turn it is son uh son of even war the novelist he's was well known particularly well known in britain late 20th century great satirist writer for private eye oberon warded his national service and uh i think he was fiddling with a gun in cyprus or something

and the gun went off and and a burst of sort of machine gun fire or something went into him and he was convinced he was dying he's kind of lies on the ground blood seeping out of him and over on war was a man steep you know he'd read lots of history and he said to his second in command or whatever kiss me chudley right and this bloke just stared at him but unfortunately obram will then lived and he said that from that point onward some suspicion with deep deep suspicion because they didn't get the reference anyway so but hardy hardy actually kisses nelson twice doesn't he he does kisses him on the cheek and then um he kisses him on the forehead and nelson by this point is so far gone that he doesn't know who it is and he asks who it is and

it is hardy god bless you i was so moving god bless you i mean of course like all other nine year olds when i came across this in my school textbook we all sort of giggled and said golly kiss me hardy what's going on there but um you know to read these descriptions now in the accounts of trafalgar it's it's incredibly moving um and then nelson in absolute i mean he always has this hollywood quality yeah and he really does in about 4 30 he's dying and his last word and there are different accounts he either says thank god i have done my duty which he has said again and again or some people some witnesses said his last words were god and my country but both i mean box office aren't they i'm determined that they will be my last words well i hope someone is on hand to yeah to record

so that's about so that's about 4 30 by which point it point it's very, you know, Nelson dies knowing that he has won the battle. All kinds of great prizes have been taken, including the Santissima Trinidad. A horrific description of the boarding party. So there's a ship, the Africa, that thinks that the Santissima Trinidad has, has surrendered. Boarding party goes on and a mission and British mission describes it. She had between three and 400 killed and wounded. Her beams were covered with blood,

brains and pieces of flesh and the after part of her decks with wounded, some without legs and some without an arm. What calamities war brings on. Because the British, unless you're Nelson, the casualties get thrown overboard. The French and Spanish don't. They leave them there. But it turns out when the boarding party land on the Santissima Trinidad that actually they haven't surrendered, that they were just taking a a breather break and the um the uh the lieutenant who's led the boarding party apologizes and withdraws and it's all very

very good behavior um it's all it's basically just bravado it's it's bravado because there's you know there's nothing the santissimo trinidad can done uh and in due course it gets captured and taken in tow with a great cargo of dead. So basically all the French and Spanish ships either get sunk or most of them get captured. The only ones that don't are the ships under Dumanoir, who is in command of the rear guard. Right, yes. And he doesn't engage. And it's unclear why he doesn't. Some said it was cowardice. Some said that he wanted to preserve something of the ship. And the only ship that does, from his rear guard,

is a ship commanded by a French captain with the splendid name of Louis Inferné, who commands the Atrapide, plunges into the heart of battle, fights with absolutely suicidal bravery. And when the crew, you know, I mean, they're all kind of dead or dying and they finally agree to surrender. Inferné is so furious that they're surrendering that he has to be held down. And the British are unbelievably impressed by this and say that it deserves to be recorded in the memory of those who admire true heroism. And actually, the British are very, very impressed with how bravely the French and Spanish have fought.

They're surprised, aren't they? Because they thought they slightly underestimated the French and Spanish, i think it's fair to say but the victory is total and um it's marked at 5 30 so an hour after nelson has died when one of the french ships literally explodes um that's the yeah and that is the end of you know the battle five and a half hours and it is well it's an absolutely thumping victory yes it is so the the previous record for uh you know a naval battle was was the one that nelson had got at the nile you mentioned that yeah which was seven captured and four destroyed um and uh the british have taken 12 ships as prizes and one has blown up and also they take over 11 000 prisoners um as it turns out, so two things slightly cast a shadow on the victory at Trafalgar. One, of course, is the death of Nelson.

The other is the fact that this swell that people had noticed in the early hours of the battle does indeed presage a storm. And this absolutely hits the Bay of Cadiz and Trafalgar and down to Gibraltar, causes absolute chaos. Lots of the prizes are sunk. One of the things that's actually very, very impressive and the British behave very well is that rather than just abandoning the French and Spanish prisoners on these ships, they risk their lives to save them. There's no example of British sailors abandoning their prisoners to their fate. And it's thought that maybe, it's thought that perhaps 2,000 drown in the storm.

They rescue, from the Santissima Trinidad, they rescue a dog, a pug. So Collingwood would have approved of that with his love of dogs. And they end up actually only saving four prizes. And this, of course, is very bad news for everyone in the fleet because prizes, what do prizes mean? Prizes mean cash. Yes. Yeah, they do.

They absolutely do. If you've ever read the Patrick O'Brien books, you know that they obsess for prizes. That's what they're after. Yeah. do if you've ever read the patrick o'brien books you know that they they they obsess that's what they're after yeah so parliament recognizes this and actually coughs up money to try and make up the short form oh that's good that's good form that's unusually good political form yes so good behavior from the british sailors in the aftermath of the battle good behavior from from uh from parliament so you were talking about the shadow so So the news doesn't reach England until, I think, about the 5th, 6th of November. And what's remarkable is that this crushing victory,

this victory which really you could argue, I mean, we'll come to the significance of the battle in just a second, but you could argue it's decisive, not merely in the Napoleonic Wars, but in the course of the entire 19th century. People greet it with, I mean, they're as struck by the tragedy of the death of Nelson as they are by the glory of the triumph. So Pitt, William Pitt the Younger, he can't sleep when he's told.

He's told about the victory. He gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning. Cause he can't, he can't sleep. He's so upset about the death of Nelson. The King, um, sits in silence, you know, unable to speak,

not, not cause of for once, not cause of madness, but because of grief, can I say, um, because of grief about Nelson's death. Uh,

when people gather at the Admiralty buildings for news, they stay here, the news, and they stand there in a sort of a somber, broken silence because Nelson was such a hero to them. And then Nelson's body, when it's finally brought back, so Nelson's body had been kept in a barrel with spirits. A cask of brandy, isn't it? Brandy and then replaced with wine, I think. With wine, yeah. And he lies in state in Greenwich in the painted hall if anyone hasn't been to the

painted hall in greenwich it is the most extraordinary building i mean the magnificence and of the navy is sort of embodied isn't it in the the complex great complex at greenwich and then he has a state funeral at that point the biggest state funeral in history and it's not in westminster abbey in st paul's which yeah it's in st paul's and it's not in Westminster Abbey in St Paul's which yeah it's in St Paul's and it's kind of and he's buried in is it Cardinal Wolsey's it is coffin yes

built for Cardinal Wolsey yeah and you know it's a massive scene and there's all kinds of stuff with men from the victory ripping up flags

or you know sort of very moving well so this is an age when Britain is is notorious for being absolutely hopeless at state funerals and you know pomp yeah so anyone who watched the queen's

funeral may be surprised to know that britain was a byword for uselessness at this kind of thing but nelson they really pull the stops out and it's it's a great success um and you know who's there at the funeral is uh poor poor old Villeneuve. Oh, no. He's been taken back. He's been sent to Reading. Right. As punishment.

He's kept there as a prisoner. And then he has to attend the funeral. And then poor man, he gets sent back to France in 1806. And it's clearly not going to end well with him. And he's found dead. And there's much debate as to whether he is murdered or commits suicide. He would have been better off staying in Reading, Tom.

It's not often I say that phrase. Yes, he would have been. But interestingly, there's absolutely no mention of Trafalgar whatsoever in the French press. Le Moniteur. They don't even mention it. No, not mentioned. Oh, dear.

Not mentioned. The naval campaign has worked out not necessarily to our advantage. It doesn't. Don't say a word. So the significance of it. So there is a case which has been made by lots of historians of Napoleonic wars that actually it changes nothing. Yeah. But in 1806, there are two squadrons from breast that go out uh that over the course of the decade that

follows napoleon is is endlessly building new ships um i think by 1814 he has another about 100 ships uh that nothing really changes i think the significance is absolutely enormous i mean those two squadrons from breast get finished off very rapidly um napoleon is reduced basically to trying to grab ships off other power so that's the second battle of copenhagen yeah uh when the british go in and grab the uh the danish ships and there's a case for saying, isn't there, that the ambition to essentially reconstruct a navy distorts Napoleon's entire geopolitical strategy. It's what leads him to turn on Spain, his ally at Trafalgar, and to invade it. And that becomes the disaster of the Peninsular War. And in the long run, it kind of leads him to invade Russia.

It does, because what happens is that the Royal Navy can now enforce a blockade of Europe, unchallenged by a French and Spanish fleet. Napoleon has this idea of the continental system to try and keep the British out of Europe, to get British imports out and so on. But effectively, over the years, the Navy has this blockade of the continent. It seizes the merchant marine trade of most of Europe, dominates the coast, dominates commerce. So Napoleon's empire, which is a continental empire, is gradually being squeezed. In his insistence on dragging other European powers into his system, he turns on Russia. That's the casus belli to some extent. He wanted the Russians to close their ports to British ships, and they wouldn't do it. The campaign of 1812. All of this flows from, to some extent, from that defeat in 1805.

And as you said beforehand, what 1805 also does is it means that when the war is over, Britain has all its colonies. It has control of the sea lanes. It has control of the merchant marine. It has control of international commerce and it is it is it is supremely well placed to benefit from the in the years of peace and to build up its kind of imperial commercial supremacy so i think all of that arguably and of course and of course one should say that you know trafalgar there were three different types of society. There's the Ancien Régime of Spain. There was the Revolutionary Republic of France.

And there was the kind of- Constitutional monarchy of- Industrial bourgeois constitutional monarchy of Britain. But essentially, the frameworks that will underpin global industrialization and capitalism are laid, you could argue, in the abolition of the slave trade would have been impossible for the Navy to enforce had they not had domination of the seas. So here's the thing about Trafalgar, I would say. I'd say on the one hand, it's the victory of British modernity. So it's the victory of a hugely disciplined Navy, of gun crews who have been trained and trained, and all of of that takes money and it's a victory of bureaucracy. It's the victory of pit and finance and taxation

and a system of government borrowing and all of those things. It's the victory of an increasingly industrialized and financialized society. And yet, as you said, and I think you're absolutely right, it's also a um a story that belongs with the kind of homeric legends because of nelson dying and the moment of victory and this figure who had always seen himself as you said as the kind of what did you call him the christian achilles the christian achilles yes is that your own phrase tom that's my own phrase

yes very nice myself yeah i like that i think i mean like that. I think that Trafalgar really is the making of British imperialism in the 19th century. And obviously, the attitudes I would have to that story are more nuanced than when I read about the Battle of Trafalgar when I was 10. Right. And more complicated and more ambivalent perhaps. But I still cannot help but thrill at the drama and the epic quality of the courage on display at Trafalgar. And that's how I mean it being epic, rather in the way that I do to Achilles, even though he's killing lots of people.

There is a kind of the quality of heroism I do find stirring. And oddly, there are people in Britain who, the sense of kind of revulsion at perhaps the ferocity of what Nelson represents isn't a purely 21st century phenomenon. It is there in the radical counterculture in Regency London. So William Blake would be an obvious spokesman for them. He did a painting in 1809, which he described as Nelson guiding Leviathan in whose wreathings are enfolded the nations of the earth. So that's a kind of very 21st century response to what Trafalgar is about.

But I'm with Wordsworth, who before Trafalgar, but I think he's got Nelson in his mind. He's probably got the Battle of the Nile in his mind. In a poem called Home at Grasmere, he wrote, I cannot at this moment read a tale of two brave vessels matched in deadly fight and fighting to the death but i am pleased more than a wise man ought to be i wish i burn i struggle and in soul i'm there now i would nothing would make me want to be at the battle of trafalgar but i do read it and I feel a sense of the drama and the power of it oh yeah

absolutely I remember I mentioned a few times John Sugden's brilliant biography and the last line that I wrote when I reviewed that for the newspapers I said it was a tribute to his achievement that as Nelson lies stricken below decks gasping for air blood pouring into his chest his officers biting back the tears and hard wringing his hand. You pray that somehow, against all sense and reason, England's greatest hero might just pull through. And I think you do feel that reading the accounts of the back. I felt that even now, that there's this tremendous story. He's an absolutely extraordinary character,

that charisma, the concern for his men, the dash, the vigour vigor the self-belief um and it and it does feel i may use the word hollywood i mean it does feel like a hollywood ending dying in the moment of triumph well i mean he's up there with beau brummel and byron as a kind of proto film star i mean he is that he is a a media celebrity as well as everything else but i mean he he is so much more than that. And Andrew Lambert, who wrote another biography of Nelson, his summary was,

Nelson met and defeated the greatest challenge to the independence and prosperity of his country through his genius for war, moral and political courage and willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice. And I think it's worth paying tribute to those qualities no matter how shaded by ambivalence the i'm not ambivalent consequences i'm not ambivalent yeah to a degree to a degree yeah this is this is the difference between chipping well dominic you you are doing it you're doing your children's your series of children's books

aren't you yeah just in time yeah um and uh perfect opportunity to tell the story of nelson for a young generation of patriots and who are you doing it on well i'm going to okay fine you're going to do napoleon i'm going to do why do you hate why do you hate britain but nelson will be in it tom napoleon is the villain napoleon is the villain on nelson come on i think you should rip your plans up and do it on Nelson There's too much Lady Hamilton I would say

I don't think the young readers will have much tolerance for that kind of carry on They'll just say They'll love it They won't want more fighting Anyway listen

this is an incredibly pathetic ending I'm calling on you for the good of the nation. Tom, you've missed a trick. Surely what you should be saying is England expects. I expect.

Yes. I expect. So Horatio Nelson, I think we can safely say a friend of the rest is history. A very close. Well, I think, and I think we'll come back to him because we've looked at how he died.

We've looked at the last year of his life, but I think that the entire course of his career is so dramatic and extraordinary. And given that Tom managed to compile 7,000 pages of notes on the Battle of Trafalgar, I dread to think what he'll come up with for Nelson. So listen, thank you very much for sticking with us through all this. Tom, dare I say, it has been a tour de force. And your desire to do multiple episodes on the battle of trafalgar has been triumphantly vindicated so i hope you're i hope you're satisfied well what i would like to

say is that uh those of you who are members of the rest history club a very very happy trafalgar day um those of you who aren't um i hope you had a good trafalgar day on Friday. And I raise a toast to the glorious memory. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening and access to our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works we have just launched our members club if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to