by Sam Willis
I am under the most serious apprehensions for several of the Ships of my Squadron, the Belleisle is the only one totally dismasted, but the Victory, Royal Sovereign, Temeraire, and Tonnant are in a very decrepit state.
I have taken Admiral Villeneuve into this Ship; – Vice Admiral Don Aleva is dead; – whenever the temper of the weather will permit, and I can spare a frigate (for there were only 4 in the action with the fleet, Euryalus, Sirius, Phoebe, and Naiad: – the Melpomene joined the 22nd, and the Eurydice, (and Scout the 23rd) I shall collect the other Flag Officers, and send them to England with their Flags (if they do not all go to the bottom) to be laid at His Majesty’s Feet.
I cannot discover what the destination of the Enemy was, but if the Bucentaure is above water, when the gale abates, I will endeavour to do it: there were 4,000 troops embarked under the command of General Contamine, who was taken with Admiral Villeneuve, in the Bucentaure.
I am
Sir
Your most obedient
humble servant
Cuthb. Collingwood
WILLIAM MARSDEN, ESQ
By now Collingwood has realised that there is another story afoot, having identified 4,000 of the captured French crew as soldiers destined for land service rather than soldiers drafted into sea service. He has clearly interrupted another of Napoleon’s schemes but has been unable to confirm its details. His ignorance of Napoleon’s plan, however, is not as complete as this letter suggests. We know that the Royal Sovereign joined Nelson’s fleet off Cadiz on 9 October and brought with her accurate intelligence that the combined fleet had orders to sail for Naples. Collingwood and Nelson had even been discussing Italy as a destination for the Allied fleet on the eve of battle.20
His reference to anchoring matters because it suggests a measure of self- justification. He writes: ‘– if I had anchored such as had good Cables, they (having all their crews on board) would certainly have cut them, and run for Port in the Stormy weather.’ Maybe that is so but the important point to realise is that Collingwood did not anchor, in spite of the fact that Nelson had repeatedly ordered his flag captain, Hardy, to do so. Indeed, some contemporaries believed that Collingwood’s failure to anchor was a major factor in the loss of the prizes during the storm, while others, including Collingwood himself, stressed the shocking condition of the ships’ equipment and superstructure that were crucial for anchoring. The ferocity of the subsequent storm must also be taken into consideration. It is surely unlikely that any anchor would have held in such waters and in such conditions and Nelson never lived to see the full ferocity of the weather after Trafalgar.
Rear Admiral C. Collingwood to W. Marsden, 28 October 1805
It has been estimated that, in the two days following 24 October, the date of Collingwood’s last letter (p. 271), the storm rose to storm force 10 or violent storm force 11 on what we now know as the Beaufort scale, invented in 1805 by Sir Francis Beaufort who had been present at The Glorious First of June aboard the frigate Aquilon. Contemporary mariners did not yet know of Beaufort’s scale but they knew enough to label the storm a hurricane. Edward Codrington, captain of the Orion, later considered it ‘the most violent hurricane I was ever in’.21
EURYALUS, OFF CADIZ
28 OCTOBER 1805
Sir
Since my letter to you of the 24th, stating the Proceedings of His Majesty’s Squadron, our situation has been the most critical, and our Employment the most arduous, that ever a Fleet was engaged in: – On the 24th, and 25th it blew a most violent Gale of Wind, which completely dispersed the Ships, and drove their captured hulls in all directions.
I have since been employed in collecting and destroying them, where they are at anchor, upon the Coast between Cadiz, and six leagues Westward of San Lucar, without a prospect of saving one to bring into Port.
I mentioned in my former letter the joining of the Donegal, and Melpomene, after the action, – I cannot sufficiently praise the activity of their Commanders in giving assistance to the Squadron in destroying the Enemy’s ships.
The Defiance after having stuck to the Aigle, as long as it was possible, in hope of saving her from wreck (which separated her for some time from the Squadron) was obliged to abandon her to her fate, and she went on shore, – Captain Durham’s Exertions have been very great. –
I hope I shall get them all destroyed by tomorrow, if the Weather keeps moderate.
In the Gale the Royal Sovereign, and Mars lost their Foremasts, and are now rigging anew where the body of the Squadron is, at anchor to the NW of San Lucar.
I find that on the return of Gravina to Cadiz he was immediately ordered to Sea again, and came out, which made it very necessary for me to form a Line, to cover the disabled Hulls, that night it blew hard, and his Ship the Prince of Asturias was dismasted, and returned into Port, the Rayo was also dismasted, and fell into our hands; Don Enrique McDonal, had his Broad Pendant in the Rayo, and from him I find the Santa Ana was driven near Cadiz, and towed in by a Frigate.
I am Sir
Your most obedient
humble servant
Cuthb. Collingwood
WILLIAM MARSDEN, ESQ
PS.
I enclose a list of the killed, and wounded, as far as I have been able to collect it, that of the Victory, and Belleisle I cannot get, as they have I hope got into Gibraltar.
By now the exhausted sailors had been fighting the weather in broken ships for an entire week with just one day’s respite, an achievement that did far more than simply save the British ships from destruction. In the weeks after the battle, the British achievement off Cape Trafalgar began to be appreciated in more complex terms than one might immediately suspect. The grinding British discipline deeply impressed the French and Spanish survivors. When so many of the enemy simply gave themselves up to the mercy of the weather, the British fought the storm as determinedly as they had their enemy in the battle. It was a telling lesson, that nothing at all, neither cannon nor divine fury, could drive the British from the sea.
List of Killed and Wounded in the British Fleet, 21 October 1805
This casualty list, though missing the figures from the Tonnant, is instructive of the way in which the British fought during the battle. It is dated 28 October and is therefore an early return. Subsequent figures22 are different, and in most cases higher.
What is clear is that the leading six or so ships of both British columns (p. 265) suffered the majority of the casualties. Indeed, only about half of the ships on either side were involved in heavy fighting. In the weather column, Victory and Temeraire bore the brunt of the action as they smashed their way into the heavily crowded and powerful enemy centre. As they broke the line, they received the fire of at least five Allied ships, one of which was the towering Santissima Trinidad of 140 guns.
Furthermore, Victory and Temeraire both suffered particularly high casualties amongst their officers. Is it possible that French marksmen deliberately targeted British officers on these two ships in the centre of the battle? They were certainly sitting ducks because the Victory became entangled with the French Redoutable and the Temeraire fought with a French ship lashed to each side. Marksmen in the rigs of all three enemy ships could therefore take pot shots at British officers on their weather decks. As a more general observation, the proportion of British officers killed and wounded is very high with a third of the 30 British flag-officers and captains killed or wounded.
Meanwhile, more ships in the lee column bore the brunt of the fighting and more received heavy damage than in the weather column. As these figures demonstrate, Royal Sovereign, Mars, Belleisle, Bellerophon, Colossus and Achille together received the full force of the Allied rear. The highest casualty figures were sustained by the Colossus. She was heavily engaged for most of the action and took fire on both sides from two French and two Spanish 74s, before crashing into yet another French 74. Her complement at Trafalgar was 571 and so her casualty figure represents 35 per cent of her entire crew. The only other ship
to suffer a similar casualty rate was Bellerophon at 30 per cent. The other heavily-damaged ships experienced casualty rates of between 10 and 20 per cent.
Although more ships in Collingwood’s division shared the damage than in the weather column, the figures from the lee column are still unequal, which is partly explained by the absence of so many of Collingwood’s ships from their intended positions. As he bore down to the enemy, a ragged hole appeared in the centre of his division where Polyphemus, Swiftsure, Defence, Africa and Defiance should have been. This meant that the first eight ships of Collingwood’s division were heavily outnumbered and had to fight hard and hold until the rest of the line came up. Thus the first eight ships took the greater share of the casualties and the rearguard far less. Within the rearguard the exception is the Defiance, which threw herself into the battle where others did not.
Some ships, meanwhile, have strikingly small numbers of casualties for their size. Most notable are the 98-gun three-decked Prince with none, the 100-gun three- decked Britannia – 52, the two-decked 74-gunners Ajax – 11, and Swiftsure – 17, and the two-decked 64-gunners Polyphemus – 6, and Agamemnon – 9. The behaviour of the Britannia, one of the largest ships in the British fleet, was strange, even accepting that she was renowned for being a bad sailer. Rather than withholding her fire until close to the enemy, she blazed away only 10 minutes after the engagement began, although still a great distance from the enemy line. Indeed, she did not even reach the enemy line until two hours and ten minutes after she opened fire and then failed to break through. It is certain that Britannia had the opportunity of engaging earlier and closer, but failed to and the fact that she engaged from such a distance prevented a number of other British ships from engaging as and when Nelson had intended. Her commander, Northesk, had little fighting experience and no solid reputation. He was third in command at Trafalgar only because no more experienced and more reliable flag-officers were available. Edward Rotherham, Collingwood’s flag captain, was disgusted and declared that Northesk ‘behaved notoriously ill’23 at Trafalgar, a criticism he also fired at Captain Richard Grindall of the Prince. Her performance was undoubtedly affected by the bad state of her hull. Her copper bottom had not been scraped recently and thus reduced her speed, but she also seems to have taken a circuitous route into battle, finding herself out of position at dawn. Nonetheless, her lack of energy was well-noted.
The behaviour of the Agamemnon is noteworthy because she was commanded by Sir Edward Berry who was famed for taking part in more engagements than any other British officer. Most recently, he had fought at the Nile, and had been captured while returning with Nelson’s dispatches, albeit only after a fierce and prolonged battle. We must be careful, however, not to confuse fortune with talent. When Nelson once took Berry to court and the King commented on the loss of Nelson’s arm, Nelson introduced Berry as ‘my right hand’.24 This phrase has been used to bolster Berry’s reputation when it can just as easily be used as evidence of Nelson’s conversational wit. In fact, Berry is now considered to have been wholly reliant on Nelson. He was renowned amongst his fellow officers for his company and courage rather than his intellect or seamanship. When he joined Nelson’s fleet before the battle, Nelson laughed and declared, ‘Here comes that damned fool Berry! Now we shall have a battle!’25 From what we know of Agamemnon’s behaviour at Trafalgar, supported by the evidence of this casualty list, the subtleties of Nelson’s plan seem to have entirely escaped the ‘damned fool’, who ranged around the battle’s epicentre firing ineffectually at long range. We know that he fired 6,781 lbs of powder and 1,145 shot without ever engaging close, an extraordinary waste of ammunition expended whilst hundreds of British sailors were dying in the thick of the action and would have greatly benefited from the nearer presence of the Agamemnon.
The Ajax was another ship that engaged ineffectually and at long range. Her experienced captain was in England, sitting in judgment at Robert Calder’s court martial. In his place, she was commanded by Lieutenant John Pilford, her first lieutenant, and he had only been in post for a week. The Thunderer, another ship with surprisingly low casualty figures, was also commanded by her first lieutenant, John Stockham.
The behaviour of the Polyphemus, as reflected in her casualty figures, is also difficult to explain because she arrived late into the action, having adopted a very odd route. Her captain, Robert Redmill, retired on grounds of ill health the following year and it is quite possible that he was unwell during Trafalgar. The Swiftsure, like the Polyphemus, took a circuitous route into action and, once engaged, took little part. There is no record that her captain, William Rutherford, had ever been in action before.
The figures for Minotaur and Spartiate are revealing because they could and perhaps should have been much higher, though this was through no fault of their novice captains. Even though they entered the battle relatively late, they still suffered heavy casualties due to the arrival of Vice-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir’s van division. Exactly according to plan, Nelson’s attack had severed Dumanoir’s division from the rest of the Allied fleet. By the time that he returned to assist the heavily engaged centre, the battle was nearly over. However, his attack, with four ships of the line, was well met by Minotaur and Spartiate, but if he had pressed his attack, as he should have done, the casualty figures of Minotaur and Spartiate would have been much higher than they were.
One of the most enduring myths about Trafalgar is that everything went to plan, yet these figures are an important reminder that, in some instances, there were large gaps between the British ships where, ideally, there should have been none, and that several captains did not engage in the manner that was expected. The subsequent scale of the victory suffered accordingly. Thomas Fremantle, captain of the Neptune, wrote: ‘On this as on all occasions of the sort many have in my opinion behaved improperly; had all gone into action with the determination that Nelson did, it is probable few only could have escaped … ’; the frigate commander Henry Blackwood ‘saw the faults, or rather mistakes, on both sides … ’; Captain Edward Codrington of the Orion declared ‘ … it was all well done errors excepted … ’; William Pringle Green, master’s mate of the Conqueror, was certain that ‘ … if the officers had done their duty in every ship, the action would have been over sooner, and the whole of the enemy taken or destroyed.’26 Once this is realised, Collingwood’s fawning Order of Thanks (p. 262), naming Northesk, becomes risible and reveals instead the strength of his desire to appease his subordinates and deliberately smooth any ruffled feathers. Controversy and criticism were beyond the pale: Collingwood was utterly committed to maintaining the esteem in which the navy was held by the public.
There was, however, to be a hidden advantage in the fact that some of the British fleet were relatively unscathed. Those who played little part in the action for whatever reason soon found themselves with a crucial role to play in the ensuing storm. The Polyphemus, for example, towed the Victory back to Gibraltar and Berry’s Agamemnon towed the shattered Colossus.
Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the British casualty list, however, lies in the absence of its expected companion report. Where is the Allied fleet’s return? Simply put, that list did not exist because, after the chaos of battle and storm, no one had any idea how many French and Spanish soldiers and sailors had died. And we still don’t know today.
It is generally accepted that at least 4,400 Allied sailors died in the battle and perhaps 2,500 were wounded and that many more perished in the storm.27 The British casualty figures are, therefore, very high in relation to British returns for other battles, but very low in comparison with the estimated Allied return for Trafalgar. The French and Spanish fought harder than anyone expected, but the battle was prolonged and fierce and the British superiority telling.
The Allied ships and their fates.
The following documents give a powerful impression of the scale of victory. Viewed together, they are astonishing. Undoubtedly this counts as the annihilation that Nelson had sought bu
t which he did not know had been achieved before he died.
The Algeciras and Santa Ana are listed as ‘taken, but got into Cadiz’, an apparently contradictory statement. The Algeciras was indeed taken but was then retaken by her crew when it became clear that the British prize crew, a paltry 50 strong, was unable to cope with the challenge of keeping the shattered ship clear of the Trafalgar shoal. In spite of continued signalling, no other British ship came to her aid. She was, therefore, taken by the British but she was also taken back into Cadiz.
The Bucentaure is noted here as being wrecked ‘on the Porques’, the Spanish name for the rocks at the entrance to Cadiz harbour. She, like the Algeciras, had been retaken by the French but they were unable to bring her to safety. A similar fate befell the Santa Ana, which had been captured by the British but was then recaptured by a squadron commanded by Commodore Cosmao-Kerjulien, who sortied from Cadiz. Kerjulien also saved the Neptune and several Allied frigates but neither he nor any of the British was able to save the Indomptable, which was wrecked with the loss of over 1,000 men, 500 of whom had just been saved from the wrecked Bucentaure. The Fougueux was also wrecked, her prize crew from the Temeraire having survived one of the most intense parts of the battle only to die in the storm with their prize.