Nelson: Britannia's God of War

by Andrew Lambert

  Twelve of Nelson’s thirteen fighting ships had now been in action: one had already been knocked out, and another heavily hit, but the attack had been a remarkable success. The van of Brueys’ fleet was being overwhelmed, while his rear was unengaged. With the ships at or inside point-blank range the battle now settled into a steady exchange of fire. The limited damage that any one shot, or even broadside, could inflict made naval battles in this era a question of hours, not minutes. The faster and more accurate broadsides of the British soon dominated the contest, gradually breaking the physical and mental resistance of the enemy. The French fought bravely, but they fought like men resigned to defeat, their officers more anxious to show how well they could die than to win the battle. Nelson and his captains were also setting an example of bravery under fire, to inspire their men, but they were looking for opportunities to secure victory. The gun crews toiled away in an environment of stunning noise and parching smoke, knowing that any error in drill could be disastrous. They had no concept of the battle, only of their immediate surroundings, punctuated by occasional reports from the topsides. In the magazines powder charges were packed and handed on to boys too small to haul the gun tackles, while ready-use shot were stored on the deck, with the main supply in the shot lockers down in the hold, which had to be opened once the initial supply had been fired.

  Casualties were an inevitable part of such battles: they were quickly removed, usually by their messmates. The dead were unceremoniously heaved overboard, to maintain morale and keep the sanded decks free of slippery gore. The living were taken down to the cockpit, to wait their turn with the surgeon. At 8.30 Nelson joined them. Standing with Berry, looking at a sketch of the bay taken from a French prize, he was hit on the forehead by a scrap of iron from an anti-personnel projectile. It was a nasty wound: the flesh was cut away from the skull over an area an inch long and three inches wide. The blow knocked him off-balance, but Berry caught him.

  It was at this moment that Nelson demonstrated his underlying Wolfe fixation. He was about to win the greatest naval battle of all time so, in the manner of his hero, it was the perfect time to die. The enemy had now obliged. He could go to meet his maker, and the architect of his destiny as one of the immortals. Stunned and blinded, his only good eye covered by detached flesh and copious amounts of blood, he began to ‘perform’ the Death of the Hero. There had to be an affecting death scene, something for Benjamin West to capture in oils, for posterity to record, for his countrymen to admire and lament. This time he did not quite rise to the occasion: all he could offer was ‘I am killed; remember me to my wife’, before Berry applied a dressing and had him helped below. Staggering down three companion ways Nelson began to recover his composure. By the time he reached the cockpit he insisted on waiting his turn – there were far worse injuries to be dealt with. Surgeon Jefferson quickly cleaned up the wound, bringing the edges together with sticking plaster and a bandage. He sent the stunned admiral to the nearby bread room to rest, and to get out of his way. Determined to have his say Nelson called for his Secretary, who had been slightly wounded, and tried to dictate an official report. The Secretary, overcome by the situation, passed the task to the chaplain, but they soon gave up. There was not enough light and even Nelson needed to rest, if only to allow the first symptoms of shock to pass.

  His battle was going well. Majestic escaped from her dangerous position when her jib-boom gave way, and brought up between Hereux and Mercure, able to fire on both with relative impunity. At the head of the line Guerrière, Conquerant and Spartiate were overwhelmed, surrendering after two to three hours of unequal combat, in which they lost hundreds of men. Aquilon was also doubled and lasted no longer, while Peuple Souverain put up a stout fight, hitting Saumarez and his ship quite hard, until her cables were cut and she drifted out of the line. The vacant position exposed Franklin’s bow, and Thompson exploited it to perfection. With her decks being repeatedly raked the big eighty-gun ship was soon reduced to a helpless wreck, but her surrender was delayed by more startling events.

  L’Orient, Brueys’ flagship, was a tougher nut. Her height out of the water, weight of fire and heavily built hull made her a difficult opponent. After dismantling Bellerophon, which suffered a quarter of the British casualties, she was attacked with more skill by Ball and Hallowell. Alexander fired into her stern, killing Brueys, and starting a fire in the great cabin. The fire quickly spread: some accounts suggest that oil-based paint had been left on deck, while Hallowell deliberately directed his guns into the blazing mizzen chains to stop any fire-fighting. An explosion was inevitable; Ball cut his cable and moved down the line, Saumarez ordered fire precautions, while Hallowell, confident that any explosion would be vented upward by the stout hull, wetted his sails and decks and sat tight close to the blazing three-decker. Astern of the flagship Tonnant, Hereux and Mercure cut their cables: the former was dismasted, the others went aground.

  Nelson was sufficiently recovered to return to the deck to see the spectacle, and immediately sent his last remaining boat to save lives. This instinctive, humane action disproves the silly notion that he was a bloodthirsty killer, a mere butcher of men, dominated by hatred and blood lust. Around n o’clock the two magazines on L’Orient exploded, a stunning son et lumière to mark the defeat of the French fleet. The concussion, noise and spectacular pall of smoke suspended the fighting for at least fifteen minutes; those further away in Alexandria saw before they heard. Debris rained down on the ships of both fleets, setting fire to sails and damaging rigging. Captain Casabianca and his ten-year-old son, the famous ‘boy who stood on the burning deck’, were drowned, but Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Ganteaume was saved.

  The French had lost their flagship and their admiral, although the treasure of the Knights of Malta had been landed by Bonaparte to fund his campaign and occupation of Egypt. Plunder, rather than the island or the harbour, had drawn him to Valletta. Nelson had lost a tremendous prize, a prestige vessel which had defied him as the Sans Culotte back in 1795, and would have been a fitting trophy for his cabinet. Instead he made do with her lightning conductor, and a little later a smart example of carpenter’s work, knocked up from her mainmast. He had also lost his share of the prize money for the ship. Unlike some of his contemporaries Nelson was unlucky with money.

  Not that such thoughts would have troubled him. While ten French battleships and a frigate had been taken, destroyed or run ashore, there were still three undamaged battleships, and three frigates at the end of the line, commanded by Rear Admiral Pierre Villeneuve. Villeneuve spent the night paralysed by uncertainty: he had no orders to act and no standing instruction to reinforce the van. As Brueys made no signal, he sat still. To move against the wind would have been difficult, and dangerous under fire. The battle petered out around midnight, with only a few shots being exchanged before 4 a.m., when the sun came up. The men were so tired they simply slept where they fell, alongside their guns, or slumped over the capstan bars. Once he could see the situation Nelson ordered his least damaged ships down to continue the battle: as he had said when criticising Hotham’s action, it was not enough to win, it was necessary to annihilate. The nearest of the French ships, the seventy-four Timoleon, was soon crippled by a well-directed fire at medium-range, and after further indecision Villeneuve elected to escape, getting away at midday with two battleship and two frigates. Hood in the Zealous was the only ship in a position to block his path, but after exchanging fire on opposing courses Nelson called her back, unwilling to risk a reverse at this stage. Tonnant and Timoleon covered the escape by remaining in action for the rest of the day, the latter being deliberately burnt after surrendering.

  *

  Having won the battle, and surpassed the standard of victory set by previous generations, Nelson now had to clear up the battlefield, bury the dead, attend to the living, patch up his ships, repair his prizes and as soon as possible turn the battle to strategic account. However, before attending to any of those concerns he ordered a public thanksgivin
g for the victory at 2 p.m., before the last of the French ships had surrendered. This was not mere form, but unusual and heartfelt: Nelson had no doubt his God had preordained the victory. It was equally characteristic of Nelson to share the credit even for his greatest victory with his subordinates; his captains responded, in turn, by assembling on the Orion and agreeing to buy a sword and a portrait of their commander, and to set up a Nile Club to remind them of the occasion. Nelson had won their hearts, as well as a battle.

  Good discipline and the support of his captains remained critical: he had two fleets to repair, a large body of prisoners to control and no friendly base closer than Gibraltar. The repairs were aided by stripping some of the prizes, especially those already ashore, to supplement his stores. Two British ships, Majestic and Bellerophon, were totally dismasted, and most of the rest had been damaged aloft; the French ships were almost all bereft of masts. Until they could be repaired they were perfectly immobile on a hostile coast, controlled by the French. With little food, and many wounded prisoners, Nelson started sending the French sailors ashore, only keeping the senior officers and those unwounded officers who refused to give their parole. On 12 August he ordered Saumarez to take five of the best British ships, along with the two most badly damaged, and five prizes to Gibraltar. They sailed on 14 August, but made slow time. Culloden had finally floated free on the 5th after an epic struggle. Anyone other than Troubridge would have given up: she required urgent dockyard attention. Nelson decided to accompany her to Naples, hoping to repair the shattered rigging of his flagship at the same time.

  A public dispatch announcing the victory was addressed to St Vincent and sent on 5 August on board the Leander, which was relatively undamaged. Berry – brave but inconsistent, and not the best man to run a flagship – was sent to gather the laurels of taking it to Court, a knighthood being customary on such occasions, while Hardy was promoted into the flagship. The brief despatch opened: ‘Almighty God has blessed His Majesty’s arms in the late battle, by a Great Victory …’ and set out the basic facts. The fleet had been ‘absolutely irresistible’ and no words could add to the glory of all concerned.38

  Rewards were quickly given. Lieutenant Capel from the flagship took over the Mutine: he was a good officer and as Spencer’s nominee particularly well connected. More significantly Lieutenant Cuthbert, who had fought the Majestic so well after Westcott was killed, retained the command to await St Vincent’s decision. Every first lieutenant could expect to be promoted for the victory, while their captains would receive other distinctions. The men would get prize and head money for every ship taken and every man they contained at the outset of the fight.

  Those who died of their wounds in the weeks that followed were buried ashore on Aboukir Island, secured to provide shore exercise for the men. It had not been an easy victory: casualties amounted to almost nine hundred officers and men, around a tenth of the force engaged, with 172 of them fatalities. The French fought hard, and at close quarters their determination made them dangerous opponents. Losses were very unevenly distributed. Hood’s Zealous lost only one killed and seven wounded, Bellerophon 49 and 147 respectively, and Majesties list was almost identical.

  Having easily penetrated the ultimate destination of the French force, Nelson wasted little time in sending an officer to India, via Alexandretta, Baghdad and Basra, arriving at Bombay on 21 October. The news arrived only two weeks after that of Bonaparte’s landing in Egypt. From Calcutta the British Governor General Lord Mornington declared, ‘I cannot doubt that this success must awaken Europe.’39 India was safe, Tippoo was already dead, the Royal Navy had occupied the Red Sea – Indian forces would help to clear the French out of Egypt. Here Nelson had been in step with the Cabinet, which had accepted Henry Dundas’s argument in early June, reinforcing the subcontinent with troops and money, placing a naval force in the Red Sea, and giving orders to attack Tippoo if he showed any sign of encouraging the French. While Mornington, and his younger brother Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, destroyed the threat posed by Tippoo’s regime in Mysore, Nelson had shattered Bonaparte’s dream of conquest.

  The first fruits of the newly won British control of the Egyptian coast were a collection of French despatches and letters that revealed Bonaparte’s ambition ‘to be the Washington of his country’. These would be printed, as part of the propaganda offensive against the French, being both divisive and despondent.40

  Though Nelson told Fanny, some ten days after the battle, that he was much better than might be expected,41 professional correspondents heard a very different story. The head wound had left him sick and distracted, and he was considering handing over the command to Troubridge. The arrival of orders from St Vincent on 14 August changed the picture. The information that the British were already changing their focus to offensive operations, notably the seizure of Minorca, persuaded him to give up the hopeless struggle to refit the remaining French battleships. Two were hard aground, while the Guerrière was an old hulk that had been transformed into a picturesque ruin by close-range broadsides. They were not worth the time and trouble required to repair them, but to destroy them would deprive the men of their prize value. Nelson understood there were more important issues than money, and burnt them, along with the half-submerged Sérieuse, although he wrote to Spencer and the Admiralty asking that the men be given their share. He would have burnt two more of the prizes for the same reasons, but regarded the other four ships as ‘a treasure to our navy’.42 The Franklin, renamed HMS Canopus, became the model for a whole class of post-war ships, and remained in service until the late 1840s.

  Nelson now divided his remaining six battleships, leaving the three in best condition, with three of the belatedly recovered frigates under Hood, to blockade the Egyptian coast, open links with the Turks and cut French communications. Leaving the newly historic bay on 19 August Nelson headed for Naples. These three ship squadrons were more than equal to anything the French could now muster, and demonstrated the value of annihilating the enemy. Naval power could be spread across the Mediterranean, to cut off the French, encourage the Neapolitans and reinforce the fleet off Cadiz.

  On passage, Nelson turned his thoughts to the wider war: he had written off the French army, and hoped his success would encourage others to take up the struggle. A few bomb vessels would complete the destruction of the French transports in Alexandria, and he hoped that Naples or Turkey would provide them. The Turks declared war, but were less forthcoming with such specialist equipment. Naples was waiting on the Austrians, who were also waiting, although it was not entirely clear why.

  The voyage to Naples was long, hampered by the slow sailing of the Culloden and the elements’ continuing grudge against the Vanguard. Hit by a squall off Stromboli on 15 September she lost her foremast, part of the main topmast and the jib-boom. The crippled admiral arrived for his triumph at Naples in a suitably crippled flagship, towed into the harbour on 22 September.

  Notes – CHAPTER VIII

  1 Nelson received several trophies and rewards for this service from City companies, for whom the events of 1798 were a great relief. The Levant Company’s silver cup was a particular favourite.

  2 Baring, ed. The Diary of William Windham, 1784–1811, p. 382

  3 Ibid. p. 389

  4 Naish p. 381

  5 Nelson to St Vincent 10.1.1798; Nicolas III p. 3

  6 Spencer to Grenville 6.4.1798; Spencer II pp. 433–4

  7 Nelson to Mrs Collingwood 12.3 and Nelson to Father 14.3.1798; Nicolas III p. 6

  8 Nelson’s will 21.3.1798; Naish pp. 405–6. Nelson to William Nelson 31.3.1798; Nicolas III pp. 7–8.

  9 Spencer to St Vincent 30.3.1798; Spencer II p. 432

  10 Nelson to Clarence 24.4.1798; Nicolas III p. 10

  11 Nelson to Wife 1.5.1798; Naish p. 394–5

  12 Spencer to St Vincent 29.4.1798; Spencer II pp. 437–9

  13 Mackesy, Statesmen at War; The Strategy of Overthrow 1798–1799, pp. 3–5

  14
Lavery, Nelson and the Nile; The Naval War against Bonaparte 1798, pp. 93–8. This excellent campaign study informs the operational and tactical discssions of this chapter. Battesti, La Battaille d’Aboukir; Nelson contrarie la Stratégie de Napoleon provides a compelling assessment of the campaign from the French perspective, stressing the strategic impact of the battle, denying France, and Bonaparte, the dream of escaping the limits of Europe for world empire.

  15 Mackesy, pp. 16–41

  16 Lavery, p. 101