Trafalgar

by Nicholas Best

  He left Merton for the last time on the evening of 13 September. The mood at dinner that night was funereal. Afterwards, Nelson went up to Horatia’s room and spent a while praying at the bedside of his only child. He looked in again four times before the rattle of wheels outside told him the coach had arrived. Nelson seemed like a condemned man as he tore himself away from his daughter and went downstairs. Emma was there to see him off, and his sister Catherine with her husband and son. ‘Be a good boy till I come back again,’ he told the stable lad holding the coach door for him. Choking with emotion, Emma gave him one last hug as he took his seat. Then the coach set off for Portsmouth and he vanished from her sight for ever.

  At Liphook, the coach stopped for a change of horses. Nelson took advantage of the stop to record his feelings in his diary:

  At half past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world, to go to serve my King and country. May the Great God whom I adore, enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of His Mercy.

  If it is His good Providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will protect those so dear to me, that I may leave behind. His will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen.

  The coach reached Portsmouth at 6 a.m. the following morning. Nelson had breakfast at the George, then went to the dockyard to pay courtesy calls on Commissioner Saxton and other officials. After collecting copies of Sir Hume Popham’s newly published Telegraphic Signals for use in the fleet, he was back at the hotel around mid-morning. He was joined there by George Canning, the new Treasurer of the Navy, and George Rose, the vice-president of the Board of Trade. Word of his arrival had spread by then and a crowd had formed outside the hotel, jostling to catch a glimpse of the great man. This was a crucial moment in the country’s history and everyone knew it. They all wanted to see Nelson and touch his coat, be a part of the occasion. They knew he was sailing to defeat the French and save his country or die in the attempt. Their hopes and prayers went with him. Their fears, too.

  The crowd was so large that Nelson couldn’t leave the hotel by the main entrance again to join his ship. A party of soldiers tried to clear the way, but the High Street was so crowded that there was no chance of Nelson boarding his barge from the sally port at the end. He decided instead to embark from Southsea beach, where the funfair now stands.

  Slipping out the back way, he headed down Penny Street into Pembroke Road. From there, he turned down past the King’s Bastion and reached the beach through the narrow tunnel in the ramparts. He was followed every step of the way by an adoring crowd. ‘Many were in tears and many knelt down before him and blessed him as he passed.’ They were so excited by the time Nelson reached the beach that an army officer unwisely ordered his men to hold them back with bayonets. The crowd was not deterred. They simply pushed the bayonets aside and continued to pursue Nelson.

  Benjamin Silliman, a Yale professor on his way back to America, happened to be in Portsmouth that day. Eager to see ‘the man on whom the eyes of all Britain, and indeed of Europe and America, are at this moment fixed’, he joined the throng watching Nelson’s departure:

  Some hundreds of people had collected in his train, pressing all around and pushing to get a little before him to obtain a sight of his face. I stood on one of the batteries near which he passed, and had a full view of his person. He was elegantly dressed, and his blue coat was splendidly illuminated with stars and ribbons. As the barge in which he embarked pushed away from the shore, the people gave him three cheers, which his lordship returned by waving his hat.

  The Victory was anchored at St Helen’s, off the eastern tip of the Isle of Wight. It was a long row from Southsea. Nelson was accompanied by the two government ministers and his flag-captain, Thomas Hardy. They reached the ship about noon and Nelson was ceremonially piped aboard. The White Ensign was hoisted at once to let the rest of the fleet know he was back.

  That evening he entertained Rose and Canning at dinner while the Victory prepared for sea. She sailed next morning, accompanied by the Euryalus. Two days later, she was off Plymouth, where Nelson seized the opportunity to write a quick note to Emma:

  I sent, my own dearest Emma, a letter for you, last night in a Torbay boat, and gave the man a guinea to put it in the post-office. We have a nasty blowing night, and it looks very dirty. I am now signalizing the ships at Plymouth [Ajax and Thunderer] to join me; but I rather doubt their ability to get to sea. However, I have got clear of Portland, and have Cawsand Bay and Torbay under the lee. I intreat, my dear Emma, that you will cheer up; and we will look forward to many, many happy years, and be surrounded by our children’s children. God Almighty can, when he pleases, remove the impediment. My heart and soul is with you and Horatia.

  It took another two days for the Ajax and Thunderer to join Nelson. They finally reached him on 19 September. Without further ado, the four British ships turned their backs on England and hoisted full sail for Cadiz.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE GRAND ARMY

  CROSSES FRANCE

  In Austria, Emperor Francis had decided not to wait for his Russian allies now the war had started, but to advance into Bavaria at once. Austrian troops crossed the River Inn on 8 September, six weeks ahead of the agreed timetable. They struck north from the Tyrol, aiming for the fortress city of Ulm on the Danube, 100 miles from the French border. Field Marshal Karl von Mack intended to establish his base there until the Russians arrived.

  By Mack’s calculation, the French army would be unable to reach the Danube before 10 November at the earliest. That would allow him ample time to set up a defensive position along the River Iller, which joined the Danube at Ulm. The Austrian army was cumbersome, ill-suited to forced marches and rapid manoeuvres. It was much better at defending a fortified position. With the Iller in front of him and fortress Ulm on his right, Mack was confident nothing could dislodge him before his Russian allies arrived.

  But he had reckoned without Napoleon. The French would reach the Danube long before 10 November – they would be there seven weeks earlier, by Napoleon’s calculation. He had been very thorough in his preparations, poring over the map with a pair of dividers, estimating to the nearest mile how far his men could march each day, and for how many days they could keep up the pace. His dividers had been no use to him when determining Villeneuve’s progress across the sea, but they worked perfectly on land. Napoleon knew what he was doing on land.

  Napoleon lingered in Paris to allay suspicion while his troops rushed to the frontier. There were 200,000 of them in total, advancing in seven different columns. They came from Holland and Hanover as well as the Channel, converging on Bavaria at the rate of fourteen miles a day. They followed different routes, so as not to get in each other’s way, but they were always within a day or two’s march of each other, so that they could join forces if necessary. The staff work to keep so many men on the move was brilliant. It had never been attempted on such a scale before.

  Even so, the staff had plenty of logistical worries, as Corporal Blaise of the 108th Regiment recalled:

  The speed of our march made it impossible for supplies to keep pace with us. We were often short of bread in spite of all the efforts of our commanding general, Marshal Davout . . . Fortunately, it was the height of the potato season, and they were plentiful in our sector. How many times did we ruin the hopes of the villagers! We pillaged from them the fruits of an entire year’s work.

  Private Jean-Roch Coignet of the Grenadiers remembered the weariness rather than the lack of food:

  Never was there such a terrible march. We didn’t have a moment for sleep, marching by platoons all day and night, and at last clinging on to each other to avoid falling. Those who did fall could not be roused. Some fell into ditches. Hitting them with the flat of a sabre had no effect. The bands played and the drums beat, but nothing could stop them sleep
ing.

  The nights were dreadful. I was on the section’s right. About midnight one night, I tumbled down the bank at the side of the road. I went rolling down and didn’t stop until I reached an open field. I kept hold of my musket, but I rolled into another world. My brave captain sent a man down to look after me. I was badly bruised. He took my knapsack and musket for me, but I was wide awake after that.

  The march was even worse for the thousands of women following in the army’s wake, grumbling constantly as they struggled to keep up. The men were setting an outrageous pace, in their opinion, without a thought for the camp followers trailing along behind. Some of them had to give birth under trees by the roadside before gathering up their babies and continuing the onward march. What kind of army was it that moved so fast and never seemed to stop?

  Even for the men, the pace was often too much. Those who couldn’t keep up had to be thrown into horse-drawn carts to follow the rest. Nothing was allowed to delay the army. It pushed forward relentlessly, hurrying across Europe at terrifying speed. Men, horses and artillery never stopped moving, the long columns snaking forward as far as the eye could see. Nothing like it had ever been known before. Marlborough had covered this ground with 40,000 men. Turenne had sworn it couldn’t be done with more than 50,000. Yet Napoleon was advancing with four times as many, stopping for nothing in his headlong dash for the Rhine and the Danube beyond. The advance was unparalleled in military history. So many men, so many horses and guns. So many boats for the river crossing, all moving like clockwork, all in the right place at the right time, all proceeding exactly according to plan. It was just what Napoleon had intended for England.

  He himself remained in Paris until the last week of September. It was not until the 26th that he rejoined his army at Strasbourg, on the French side of the Rhine. Before leaving, he sent Villeneuve a fresh set of instructions, the orders Villeneuve had been expecting for so long.

  Napoleon had lost all patience with Villeneuve. The retreat to Cadiz had been the last straw. Napoleon had complained bitterly about it to Decrès, heaping abuse on Villeneuve for everything that had gone wrong:

  He is a wretch who ought to be cashiered in disgrace. He has no plan, no courage, no insight; he would sacrifice everything to save his own skin. Until you find something plausible to say, I beg you will not speak to me of an affair so humiliating, nor remind me of a person so cowardly.

  Yet Napoleon still needed the man, for the time being at least. The invasion of England might have been postponed, but there was trouble now in the Mediterranean. British troops in Malta were poised to join forces with the Russians to attack Napoleon’s army in Italy, thus relieving the pressure on their Austrian allies to the north. The quickest way for Napoleon to forestall them would be to send Villeneuve to Italy with the troops aboard his fleet. They had been expecting to go to England, but they could just as easily go to Italy instead. Villeneuve would take them.

  Napoleon dictated the orders with care. Villeneuve was to leave Cadiz at once, taking the whole Spanish fleet with him. He was to head past Gibraltar, collect the Spanish squadron at Cartagena and proceed to Naples, where he would land his 4,000 troops to reinforce General Laurent St Cyr’s army at Taranto. He was then to return to Toulon and await further instructions from Paris.

  There was no mention in the orders of Villeneuve’s feebleness in running for Cadiz instead of Boulogne. Napoleon didn’t discuss it at all. Admiral Decrès had borne the brunt of his wrath on the subject. Napoleon had been all for hanging Villeneuve on the spot, but Decrès had shielded his old shipmate from the worst of it. He had tactfully put it to Napoleon that Villeneuve’s task had never been as easy as it looked, arguing that it would have been suicide for Villeneuve to sail for Boulogne as planned. He had pointed out that the Royal Navy was simply too strong for the French in the Channel.

  Napoleon had not been mollified, but he had calmed down by the time he composed Villeneuve’s new orders. What mattered now was to regain the initiative in Italy. ‘Audacity and lots of action,’ he emphasised to his recalcitrant admiral. ‘Attack wherever you outnumber the enemy. Attack without hesitation. Make a decisive job of it.’

  Napoleon signed the orders in hope rather than expectation. They went off at once and reached Cadiz on 28 September. They arrived the same day as Lord Nelson.

  CHAPTER 26

  NELSON ARRIVES OFF CADIZ

  As soon as he had seen Napoleon’s new orders, Admiral Gravina rowed across to the Bucentaure to discuss them with Villeneuve.

  Relations between the two were not good. Gravina was a proud man, deeply ashamed at having lost two of his ships in the fight with Calder. He blamed the French for the debacle and shared the general lack of confidence in Villeneuve. If it had been up to him, Gravina would have handled things very differently over the past few months. But it was not up to him while Villeneuve was in overall command. As a professional officer, Gravina had little option but to swallow his pride and make the best of it.

  Aboard the Bucentaure, he and Villeneuve conferred quietly. Between them, they now had forty warships under command, but crews for only thirty-three. They could sail at once if necessary, although Gravina would have preferred more time in port to train his new men and get them ready for sea. The numbers had been made up with landlubbers, many of whom had only just come aboard. Few of them knew one end of a ship from the other.

  Both men realised that once at sea, a battle with the British was all but inevitable. Collingwood’s little squadron had now been massively reinforced and was spoiling for a fight. Even as the two admirals sat talking, the blockade was being joined by three new ships from England. One of them was a three-decker, according to Villeneuve’s lookouts. This was the Victory, although he did not yet realise it.

  The fight would come as soon as they left harbour, in Villeneuve’s opinion. ‘From the position and strength of the enemy outside this port, an engagement must take place the very same day that the fleet puts to sea,’ he wrote to Decrès. But he was optimistic about the outcome:

  The fleet will see with satisfaction the opportunity offered to it to display that resolution and daring which will ensure its success, avenge the insults to its flag, and lay low the tyrannical domination of the English upon the seas.

  Our allies will fight at our side, under the walls of Cadiz and in sight of their fellow citizens. The Emperor’s gaze is fixed upon us.

  Gravina did not share Villeneuve’s optimism, but felt obliged to pledge his support. His fourteen ships would sail with the French. They could not leave at once because the 4,000 French troops were still ashore, recuperating on dry land. Villeneuve gave orders for the men to re-embark immediately. Once they were aboard, the fleet would move to the harbour mouth to wait for a fair wind. After that, it would set course for Gibraltar, forcing a way through the Royal Navy if it had to, and avenging all the insults to its flag.

  While Gravina and Villeneuve were conferring, Nelson was arriving unheralded to take command of the blockade. At his insistence, there was no gun salute or hoisting of signals when the Victory appeared. He had sent the Euryalus ahead to ensure that no one took any notice of his arrival. He didn’t want Villeneuve to know he was there, in case it frightened him into remaining in port.

  But everyone on the British side knew Nelson had arrived. The word had spread as soon as the Victory had been sighted. Few of the many thousands aboard the British fleet had ever set eyes on the admiral, but they all knew him by reputation. He was a legend throughout the navy. A brilliant sailor, whose skill in battle was unmatched. A fearless commander, who always led from the front and had lost an arm and an eye in the process. A good and decent man, whose kindness to officers and men alike was legendary. Nelson was that rarest of beings in British history, a commander who enjoyed the full confidence of the people serving under him. Just to know he was there made them all feel better. ‘Lord Nelson is arrived,’ wrote one officer to his wife. ‘A sort of general joy has been the consequence, and many
good effects will shortly arise from our change of system.’ The officer spoke for the whole fleet.

  The Victory anchored on the evening of 28 September. At seven next morning, Vice-Admiral Collingwood came aboard to pay his respects. He and Nelson were old friends who had known each other for most of their careers. Cuthbert Collingwood was eight years older than Nelson, a veteran of the American War of Independence. He had fought at Bunker Hill with a party of sailors attached to the British army. Thereafter, he and Nelson had often served side by side, learning to value each other highly. Collingwood resented Nelson’s appointment over his head, but was far too good an officer to show it. He was a fine sailor and a safe pair of hands. Now fifty-five, he had already spent forty-four years in the navy, all but six of them at sea. His hobby was gardening.

  ‘Tell me,’ he once wrote to his wife in Northumberland. ‘How do the trees which I planted thrive? Is there shade under the three oaks for a comfortable summer seat? Do the poplars grow at the walk, and does the wall of the terrace stand firm?’ It was Collingwood’s habit on his rare home leaves to scatter acorns around the countryside, to provide oak for future Royal Navy ships.

  Aboard the Victory, he quickly briefed Nelson on the situation in Cadiz. The town was in trouble as a result of the navy’s blockade. It was suffering food shortages, exacerbated by the presence of so many extra mouths aboard the French and Spanish fleets. The betting was that Villeneuve would have to put to sea sooner rather than later to relieve the situation on land. Collingwood’s strategy had been for a show of strength outside the harbour mouth to keep the French in port for as long as possible, while he waited for British reinforcements to arrive.

  Nelson decided to reverse this policy as soon as the British vessels were all in place. He planned to withdraw his ships altogether, presenting Villeneuve with an apparently empty horizon. He knew the only way to destroy Villeneuve was to lure him out to sea. He knew too that autumn gales were approaching, bringing westerly winds that might blow Nelson’s unwieldy three-deckers off course and force them past Gibraltar into the Mediterranean. By withdrawing his fleet fifty miles to the west of Cadiz, Nelson would have much more room to manoeuvre in the teeth of a gale. He would also be better placed to attack the French when they did finally venture out of harbour.