Trafalgar

by Nicholas Best

  Nevertheless, Villeneuve knew his duty. His orders were to put to sea, so to sea he would go. He wrote again to Decrès on 11 August:

  I am about to set out, but I don’t know what I shall do. Eight vessels are in view on the coast, a few leagues away. They will follow us, but I shan’t be able to avoid them. Then they will go and join the other squadrons before Brest or Cadiz, according to which port I make for. I deeply regret to say that I am far from being in a position, on leaving this place with twenty-nine ships, to engage a similar number of the enemy. I’m not afraid to tell you, indeed, that I should be hard pressed to engage twenty.

  The fleet sailed later that day, many of the ships bumping into each other as they struggled out of harbour. By 13 August, all twenty-nine had made it out to sea and were heading west past Corunna towards the Atlantic. That evening, they spotted some warlike sails on the horizon and shied away to avoid a fight. They saw more sails next day, one group of eight warships, another of fourteen. The ships flew no flags, so it was impossible to identify them as friend or foe.

  This was a dilemma for Villeneuve. He had sent a frigate ahead to contact Captain Allemand’s squadron, which had broken out of Rochefort, to arrange a rendezvous off Brest. It would complicate matters if he got into a fight along the way. He needed to arrive with his fleet intact, ready for the assault on England.

  In fact, his frigate had been intercepted by the British and the message about a rendezvous had never reached Allemand. The sails spotted by Villeneuve almost certainly belonged to Allemand’s squadron. Had they only known it, the nearest Royal Navy force of any strength lay 380 miles to the north. Villeneuve would have had command of the seas if either he or Allemand had been brave enough to hoist their colours and identify themselves to each other. As it was, neither did, and Villeneuve thought he had had a lucky escape from a hostile British fleet.

  His view was confirmed on 15 August when he stopped a neutral Danish ship and was told that twenty-five British warships were in the vicinity, looking for him. Without a doubt, those must have been the sails he had seen on the horizon.

  What Villeneuve didn’t know, or the Dane either, was that the twenty-five warships were pure invention. Captain Edward Griffith of HMS Dragon had boarded the Danish ship a few hours earlier to interrogate the captain. Knowing how few navy ships were really in the area, he had casually let it slip that the Dragon was part of a fleet of twenty-five men-of-war, a piece of disinformation that was bound to disconcert the French if it came to their ears. Sure enough, Griffith later watched from a distance as one of Villeneuve’s frigates stopped the Dane in turn and questioned the captain. The French had been sold a pup.

  It had the desired effect on Villeneuve. He was badly shaken by the news. With twenty-five British warships lying in wait for him, it would be folly to sail north. His fleet would never make it to Brest, let alone the Channel. They would be heading for certain disaster.

  Where should they go instead? Villeneuve’s orders allowed for Cadiz in extremis. As it happened, the wind was blowing that way as well. He took it as an omen. On the evening of 15 August, he suddenly gave the order for his fleet to turn about. While the Grand Army waited impatiently for them at Boulogne, Villeneuve’s dumbfounded crews hauled their ships around and reversed course, proceeding in precisely the opposite direction. By dawn next morning, they were all heading away from Boulogne as fast as their sails would carry them, aiming for Cadiz instead.

  CHAPTER 22

  LORD NELSON GOES HOME

  As Villeneuve turned about, Lord Nelson’s ships were making contact with the Royal Navy’s Channel fleet at Brest. Twenty-seven miles off the isle of Ushant, the Victory hove to at 6 p.m. and fired a gun salute. Two hours later, after taking delivery of newspapers detailing Calder’s action against Villeneuve, Nelson left his force with Admiral Cornwallis and sailed for England aboard the Victory.

  He was due for sick leave at home. Long overdue, in fact, because his health had been deteriorating for months. ‘The mind and body both wear out,’ he had complained to his brother William. Nelson badly needed time ashore to rest from the strain and recover his strength for the coming fight.

  Even so, he went reluctantly, nervous about what would happen in his absence. There was no immediate danger from the French, with Cornwallis’s fleet now heavily reinforced and Villeneuve seen off by Calder, but Nelson hated the thought of missing any action. ‘I would die ten thousand deaths rather than give up my command when the Enemy is expected every day.’ Nelson was so exhausted that he feared the Admiralty would replace him while he was on leave. He was also worried about the reception he would receive in England. He was supposed to have blockaded Villeneuve in Toulon, but had ended up chasing him to the West Indies and back without ever catching him. It had not been a distinguished performance, with Villeneuve still at large somewhere, threatening the safely of the nation. Nelson was terrified the First Lord would sack him and give his command to someone else.

  The Victory sighted Weymouth on 17 August and sailed on towards Portsmouth, anchoring at Spithead next day. Nelson was not allowed ashore at once because there was an outbreak of yellow fever in Spain and he had recently been in Gibraltar. It wasn’t until the evening of 19 August that he persuaded the officials that no one aboard the Victory or the accompanying Superb was sick. Nelson went ashore immediately, longing to get home to his mistress and daughter at their farmhouse near London.

  He found an enthusiastic crowd waiting for him at the dockside. For better or worse, Nelson was the most famous man in England, far more popular than the king or William Pitt. His face was familiar to the public from countless prints and plaster busts. They came to stare and stayed to cheer, applauding vigorously as the one-armed legend stepped ashore and made his way to the Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth for a brief courtesy call before taking a post chaise to London.

  The post chaise left from the George, in the High Street. It was raining as they set out. The countryside beyond Portsmouth was full of tents and men in military uniform, volunteers and yeomanry preparing for the invasion. The whole country had rallied to the colours at the sighting of Villeneuve’s fleet. With mass troop movements along the Boulogne coast, they knew it could mean only one thing: the French were coming at last. The British were going to stop them or die in the attempt.

  Nelson travelled through the night and reached home at 6 a.m. next day. Merton lay in fifty-two acres on the London – Portsmouth road, an hour’s drive from the Admiralty. It was a modest house by aristocratic standards, but it was where his heart lay, the place he always longed to be when not at sea.

  He had sent word ahead that he was coming, but nobody was up when he arrived. Lady Hamilton soon surfaced, however, and flung herself into his embrace. A blacksmith’s daughter, stunningly beautiful in her youth, Emma Hamilton was in her forties now and putting on more weight than was prudent. But she adored Nelson and the slightly built admiral adored her in return. It was one of history’s more bizarre love matches.

  They hadn’t seen each other for well over two years. ‘What a day of rejoicing!’ declared Emma. ‘How happy he is to see us all.’ She immediately sent invitations to his family to come and stay, inviting everyone except Nelson’s wife.

  For the rest of the day, Nelson did nothing except relax in his own home and reacquaint himself with his four-year-old daughter Horatia. Tomorrow he would go to London to report to the Admiralty and see the Prime Minister. But today belonged to his family. While he was away, Lady Hamilton had installed ‘a large feather bed & bolsters fill’d with best goose feathers’. The passion they had for each other was ‘as hot as ever’, according to a family friend. Two years was a long time for a lover to be away at sea.

  That same evening, at Montreuil near Étaples, Marshal Ney and his wife were giving a ball. The guest of honour was Napoleon’s twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter Hortense. A military band was playing while the ladies and gentlemen danced the quadrille. Good-natured and popular, Hortense was enjoy
ing the fun, dancing with a succession of young officers while the music continued late into the night.

  The party went on almost until dawn, when it was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a messenger from the Emperor. He brought astonishing news: the invasion was starting. Napoleon was embarking the troops at Boulogne. Everyone was to return to their unit at once.

  They needed no urging. Hurriedly abandoning their partners, the officers called for their horses and headed at once for Boulogne, galloping through the darkness to rejoin their men. They couldn’t believe this was happening. They were terrified they would arrive too late, to find everyone had gone without them.

  Hortense followed, accompanied by an equerry. She was overcome with emotion at the momentousness of the event. ‘I already imagined that, as I stood at the Tour d’Ordre, I was witnessing the naval battle and seeing our vessels plunge into the watery deep. I trembled at the thought.’

  In the camps along the cliff tops, the troops had been roused in the middle of the night and ordered to parade outside with all their kit. Stumbling in the gloom, they assembled rapidly along the roads outside their huts, forming up in ranks for the march down to the port. By 5 a.m. on 21 August, tens of thousands of them had already moved off, heading in disciplined columns for the barges waiting to ferry them across the Channel. They were still half-asleep, but they sang as they marched, their hearts full of excitement. This was it, at last. They were on their way to England. The day had finally arrived.

  As they reached the town, the people of Boulogne got up to see them off. Roused by the commotion, they came to their windows first, then to their doors to see what was happening. Some were fully dressed, others still in their nightclothes. All of them stood and watched as an endless procession of troops poured along the cobbled streets and made their way down to the port, halting there and numbering off in front of each barge, as they had practised so often before.

  The port was frantically busy in the darkness. Artillery pieces were being loaded aboard the flotilla and supplies of gunpowder were being distributed from the powder ships anchored for safety in the middle of the river beyond the basin. Horses were whinnying as they were led down the gangplanks. Everywhere there was action and movement, flurries of men working flat out to get the army on to the barges and out on to the open sea. It was an operation they had rehearsed many times before. This time, though, it was for real.

  As they waited to embark, many of the soldiers sold their watches on the quayside, trading their valuables for ready cash to spend in London. Some crossed themselves and a few prayed. Most just stood and cursed at the delay, longing to get on with it now that it was actually happening at last.

  The operation was completed by 8 a.m. The men and horses were all aboard and the flotilla was ready for sea. The whole town came to see them off, thousands of spectators crowding the quays and cliff tops to watch the army go. The atmosphere was electric as Napoleon himself appeared. The men watched expectantly as the Emperor reviewed the flotilla and conferred with his staff officers. Not much longer now. A few more minutes and they would all be on their way to England.

  But then Napoleon disappeared, heading back to Pont-de-Briques. A little later, a message arrived for the waiting troops. It was all off! No invasion today. No attack on England. The men were to disembark instead and return to camp at once.

  It was an astonishing volte-face. The troops were visibly shaken as they did what they were told. Forming up again on the dockside, they shouldered their knapsacks unhappily for the march back to camp. Nobody sang as they went. They did not feel like singing any more. They simply shook their heads in disbelief.

  They were told later it had all just been an exercise. In fact, though, the weather was right for a crossing and the invasion would almost certainly have been launched if Villeneuve’s fleet had appeared with the daylight, as Napoleon had confidently expected it would. He had been waiting for the telegraph station to signal the fleet’s arrival. But no signal had come, so he had abandoned the invasion for that day and returned his men to barracks instead.

  It was the right decision, from a military point of view. For the ordinary soldiers, however, trudging angrily back to barracks without their watches, it simply confirmed what ordinary soldiers in every army know – that whoever is in charge doesn’t have a clue what he is doing.

  In Austria, meanwhile, the population was reluctantly preparing for war. It was inevitable now. Nobody wanted war, but the Austrians had little choice with Napoleon menacing them along their Italian border and across the waters of the Rhine. War was bound to come, sooner or later.

  The previous November, the Austrian Emperor Francis II had signed a preliminary agreement with the Czar of Russia, pledging Austrian help if Napoleon displayed any further aggression towards Turkey, Naples or the states of north Germany. Now, on 9 August 1805, he followed this up by entering into a formal coalition with Russia and Great Britain, promising hundreds of thousands of troops for the war so long as the British could pay for them. The coalition was to remain secret for the time being, but its purpose was clear: Napoleon had to be stopped before he turned the whole of Europe upside down. The safety of everyone depended on it.

  The Austrians had been quietly mobilising for some time, strengthening their southern borders with Italy and reinforcing their garrisons in the Tyrol. They assured Napoleon that they did not intend to fight and were only interested in defence, but he declined to believe them. On 12 August, he issued an ultimatum demanding withdrawal of Austrian troops from the Tyrol, a reduction of the Adriatic garrisons and a declaration to England of Austrian neutrality. Otherwise the French would have to take action. ‘My heart bleeds at the thought of the evils that must follow,’ he announced on 25 August. ‘God knows, I am not to blame. But Austria is asking for war. She will get it sooner than she bargains for.’ Napoleon meant what he said.

  CHAPTER 23

  VILLENEUVE RETREATS

  TO CADIZ

  Villeneuve reached Cadiz on 22 August. All the way down the Iberian coast, his men muttered sullenly, outraged at what was happening. Those who hadn’t already done so were fast losing confidence in their commanding officer.

  The situation worsened when they arrived at Cadiz, because there was nothing for them there. With yellow fever still not eradicated, the port was in no state to accommodate the unexpected arrival of a large fleet. There were few naval stores and even less food. What did exist could not be released to the French without orders from Madrid. The Spanish were furious with the French. The two Spanish ships captured by Admiral Calder with great loss of life had come from Cadiz. It was widely believed that they had been abandoned by the French, who had sacrificed them in action to save their own skins. The Spanish authorities made their feelings plain by refusing to cooperate with Villeneuve in any way at all. They did their best to thwart him at every opportunity.

  Villeneuve complained to the French ambassador in Madrid, but the Cadiz authorities still refused to help. They insisted on cash in advance for all transactions, rather than paper credit. Admiral Gravina travelled to Madrid and begged to resign his command, arguing that the loss of the two Spanish ships had compromised his honour. He was persuaded to stay, but advised to let the French bear the brunt of the fighting next time round. The Spanish were politically bound to France. They had to cooperate with Napoleon and his navy, whether they liked it or not.

  But the Cadiz authorities were still difficult. The French were hated in the port. Eyewitness accounts of their cowardice in allowing the two Spanish ships to be captured were read out indignantly in tavernas and other public places. The French retorted that the Spanish only had themselves to blame for their own incompetence. Ordinary Cadiz citizens spat at French officers in the street. Relations had almost reached breaking point, as an Englishman in Cadiz reported to London:

  Our Admiral Gravina loudly accuses Villeneuve of treachery in the late action, and has solicited leave to resign. Between the sailors animosities have ari
sen to the highest pitch, and scarce a night passes but the dead bodies of assassinated Frenchmen are found in our streets.

  So many were murdered that leave was cancelled and Frenchmen from the fleet were no longer allowed on shore.

  Yet French officers too were critical of Villeneuve. They thought him pusillanimous, forgetting that his lack of confidence was based in part on their own shortcomings. He would have been much more adventurous if they had been capable of sailing their ships without bumping into each other. Villeneuve did not personally get on with Rear-Admirals de Magon and Pierre Dumanoir. He was a lonely man with no one to turn to, doing his best to carry out a plan of Napoleon’s that had been fatally flawed from the outset.

  Villeneuve was very worried about Napoleon. He feared the Emperor’s wrath. What would Napoleon say when he learned that the French fleet was in Cadiz instead of bounding up the Channel towards Boulogne? He would undoubtedly be furious. Villeneuve was acutely aware that the whole invasion plan depended on him, that he had let everyone down. He waited miserably for a dispatch from France, wondering what Napoleon’s reaction would be. But day after day no dispatches arrived. Villeneuve was left with nothing to do except busy himself with the fleet, repairing the damage and getting his ships ready for sea again.

  It was no easy task. The ships were in a sorry state. Two were leaking badly, several had been damaged in collisions and many needed repairs of one kind or another. All the frigates were short of sails, and there was an acute shortage of manpower as well. Villeneuve had lost 311 men from desertion since leaving Toulon. The Spanish, with far fewer ships, had lost even more. A further 1,731 men lay sick in hospital, a substantial proportion of the total. The deficit was impossible to make up. Spanish press gangs regularly trawled the streets of Cadiz, but most trained seamen had either been pressed already or were dead of yellow fever. All that remained were beggars and herdsmen too slow or half-witted to escape when they saw the press gang coming. And for the French, prohibited by law from recruiting foreigners, it was a sign of their desperation that some crews had to be augmented with British sailors, Royal Navy deserters from Gibraltar.