Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  If Nelson's unorthodox strategy was so effective in enabling him to bring a reluctant enemy to battle, what of his tactics? Those which he conceived for the small fleet with which he had hoped to fight Villeneuve in the Caribbean were outlined in the previous chapter. For use against a much larger force, the combined fleets which he believed might number as many as forty-six ships-of-the-line when he could expect his own to be reinforced to no more than forty, he devised a fresh plan which, when he explained it to his flag officers and captains soon after arriving off Cadiz, `was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. "It was new: it was singular : it was simple!" And from admirals downwards it was repeated, "It must succeed." '

  Since this 'Nelson touch', as he called his plan, is of such importance to what followed, we are fortunate that it has survived in his own hand. On 9 October he wrote a secret memorandum of which this is the essence.

  'Thinking it almost impossible to bring 40 sail-of-the-line into a line of battle in variable winds, thick weather and other circumstances which must occur, without such a loss of time that the opportunity would probably be lost of bringing the enemy to battle, I have made up my mind that the order of sailing is to be the order of battle, in two lines of 16 ships each, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest, which will always make, if wanted, one line of 24 sail on whichever one the Commander-in-Chief may direct. The Second-in-Command will have the entire direction of his line.

  If the enemy should be seen to windward, [i.e. the British would be required, contrary to their usual practice, to attack from to leeward], the enemy line of battle will probably be so extended that their van could not succour their rear. I should therefore signal the Second-in-Command to lead through, about the twelfth ship from their rear; my line would lead through about their centre, and the advanced squadron cut through two or three ships ahead of their centre, so as to ensure getting at their Commander-in-Chief. It must be some time before their untouched van of 20 sail can manoeuvre to attack any part of the British fleet, or to succour their own engaged ships.

  For an attack from to windward, the British fleet will be brought nearly within gunshot of the enemy's centre. The signal will then be made for the lee line; under the Second-in-Command, to bear up together, setting all their sails in order to cut through the enemy's line as quickly as possible, beginning from the twelfth ship from the enemy's roar. Should the enemy wear together, the 12 ships first composing his rear are still to be attacked by the lee line. The remainder of the enemy's fleet are to be left to the Commander-in-Chief.

  Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight. Shot will carry away the masts and yards of friends as well as foes; but I look with confidence to a victory before the van of the enemy can succour their rear, and then that most of the British fleet would be ready to receive them, or to pursue them should they endeavour to make off. Captains are to look to their particular line as their rallying point. But in case signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.'

  This memorandum included a line sketch making clear how Nelson intended to attack Villeneuve's fleet from the windward position. In short, for the first action in which he would command a fleet against an enemy under may at sea, Nelson wholly rejected the dogma of a gun duel in line ahead on parallel courses. Instead, as he had told Lord Sidmouth (the erstwhile Addington) before leaving England: 'Rodney [at The Saints] broke the enemy's line in one place, I will break it in two' - which would not only cut it into three parts but enable him to concentrate his whole strength on little more than half the enemy's in 'a pell-mell battle . . . that is what I want', leaving the remainder powerless to intervene until too late. And to achieve this he could rely on Collingwood, just as half a century later, General Robert E. Lee trusted 'Stonewall' Jackson: 'I [Lee] have but to show him my design and I know that if it can be done it will be done. No need for me . . . to watch him.'

  Notwithstanding the smaller number of ships (twenty-seven instead of forty) available to him when Villeneuve decided to sortie (with thirty-three instead of the expected forty-six) Nelson at first conformed to this plan. For much of 20 October Duff in the Mars led an Advanced Squadron of eight two-deckers: the rest of the fleet sailed in two columns, one including the Victory, the other Collingwood's Royal Sovereign. But during the manoeuvring of that day in search of the enemy in variable winds, the British fleet was unable to preserve this disposition: by the evening Nelson had absorbed Duff's ships into his main body. Villeneuve was in similar difficulties; though his fleet endeavoured to form up in accordance with his plan - a main body of twenty in three divisions under his own command, with the rest in reserve under Gravina - his captains laboured in vain to achieve this.

  The night did nothing to improve matters: when dawn on 21 October revealed the two fleets in sight of each other, Nelson's being about nine miles to the west of his opponents, neither was in any regular formation. In the words of Able Seaman J. Brown: 'The French and Spanish fleets were like a great wood on our lee bow, which cheered the hearts of any British tar in the Victory like lions anxious to be at it.' Nor did Nelson disappoint them: despite the lightness of the breeze from the west-north-west, his one thought was to close with the enemy before they could run through the Straits, or return to Cadiz; then to attack them in accordance with the essence of his plan - cutting their line in two places and concentrating all his ships against their centre and rear. He had taken particular care to ensure that his new Band of Brothers understood this, so that any departure from his memorandum, such as abandoning the concept of an advanced squadron, would be of no consequence. As soon as 6 am (3) he signalled, 'Form the order of sailing in two columns' - and all knew that the order of sailing was also the order of battle - followed at 6.10 by, 'Bear up and sail large [i.e. with the wind from abaft the quarter] on the course east-north-east', which at 6.45 was amended to east - with the need for speed repeatedly emphasized by, 'Make more sail', until, for the first time a British fleet was going into action with studding sails set, and with bands playing Heart of Oak, Rule Britannia, and Britons Strike Home, so that Midshipman John Franklin (later the famous Arctic explorer) of the Bellerophon wrote: 'One would have thought that the people were preparing for a festival rather than a combat.'

  Villeneuve knew enough about Nelson to have perceived his plan: according to his fighting instructions: 'The enemy will not trouble to form line parallel to ours and fight it out gun for gun. . . . He will try to . . . cut through the line, and bring against our ships thus isolated, groups of his own to surround and capture them.' Nevertheless, the French Admiral did nothing to counter such tactics; he ordered his fleet to form the usual line of battle, a long single line on a southerly course towards the Straits, with Gravina taking his squadron into station immediately ahead. But only until 8 am: at that hour Villeneuve had a change of heart. If he held on he would be committed to passing Gibraltar with Nelson in pursuit, and to finding Louis's squadron waiting for him ahead. Supposing that he would do better to keep Cadiz under his lee, so that if needs be he could seek safety there, he ordered his ships to reverse course to the north, placing Gravina's squadron in the rear. But this was a manoeuvre which, in such a light wind, and in a swell rolling in from the Atlantic, took so much time that it was 10 am before the combined fleets were round, in far from good order. They had been thrown into what Collingwood described as 'a crescent convexing to leeward', with many bunched up two and three deep. Since the British fleet was now bearing down upon them less than five miles away, Captain Churruca of the San Juan Nepomuceno was moved to comment to his first lieutenant: 'The fleet is doomed. The French Admiral does not understand his business. He has compromised us all.'

  Since the Royal Sovereign was already to leeward, Collingwood's division had little difficulty in moving to its allotted place on the Victory's starboard hand. But it was otherwise with the rest of Nelson's plan. Had he wished to adhere closel
y to it, he must have held back his faster ships to allow both columns to form in line abreast in the sequence, from left to right, before turning north parallel with the enemy, and then bearing down to cut his line. But he had always intended the plan to be a flexible one to fit any situation which might arise; hence the wide discretion given to his second-in-command. And in such a light wind there was no time for precision; if the enemy was not to escape he must be brought to action at the earliest possible moment. To this end Nelson pressed his fastest ships so hard that by 11.30 am neither column had achieved more than a line of bearing which, by the time the battle began, was no better than quarterline.

  This formation needs to be stressed because, for more than a century afterwards, until in 1912 the matter was fully investigated by a committee of experts, it was generally believed that the two columns sailed into action in line ahead at near to right angles to the enemy line. Had this been so, Nelson would have been open to the serious criticism of not only ignoring his carefully conceived plan, but of hazarding his fleet by reckless tactics equivalent to those which were later to be known as allowing the enemy to 'cross the T' - exposing his ships to enemy broadsides when they could not return them, and which, exactly a century later when gun range had increased from a mile to four or five, proved suicidal for Rozhestvensky's fleet at Tsushima.

  Nelson and Collingwood led their respective columns. When the faster Téméraire gained on the Victory, Nelson called across the intervening water: 'I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to keep in your proper station which is astern of the Victory.' He was determined to set the same example to his division as Collingwood was doing to his. But others, realizing that the Victory would bear the brunt of the action in the centre of the enemy's line before the rest of her division could come to her support, were concerned for their Commander-in-Chief's safety. He was advised to cover his uniform coat, with its several stars, (4) so that he would not be readily identifiable to the enemy when the fleets came within musket range. He rejected the suggestion on the just score that, by being clearly recognizable, his own officers and men would be greatly encouraged. (More than a century later, in 1943, Vice-Admiral Sir Algernon Willis made a practice of hoisting a very large silk flag in HMS Nelson when leading Force H into action, the importance of this inspiring sight - and that it was inspiring the author can testify from his own experience - overriding any possibility that it would more easily identify the flagship to the enemy.)

  Likewise for a good reason Nelson rejected Hardy's suggestion that he should shift his flag to one of Blackwood's frigates which were lying to the north of his column. Rodney had tried this in his action against de Guichen on 12 May 1780 and found that, from a position out of the line of battle, he was unable to control it. (5) Both points give the lie to the suggestion that Nelson courted death at Trafalgar: he no more did so than in his previous actions, as any man devoid of fear must seem to do. So, too, with Blackwood's description of his visit to the Victory during the morning of 21 October in which he noted that Nelson's last words to him were: 'God bless you, Blackwood, I shall never speak to you again.' To see in this a 'death-wish' is to assume that Blackwood's recollections were accurate. A man so deeply affected by Nelson's death is as likely to have thus remembered nothing more ominous than: 'I shall not speak to you again until after the battle' - for there is ample evidence that, subject to doing his duty, annihilating Villeneuve, Nelson wanted to live, for Emma and Horatia.

  During the long six hours in which they closed the enemy at a speed that never exceeded a couple of knots in the light west-north-westerly wind which prevailed throughout the day, Nelson had no need to stay continuously on deck. Around 11 am he retired to the privacy of his cabin, to write in his diary these memorable words :

  '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 any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commend my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen, Amen, Amen.'

  Then, remembering how he had failed to persuade the Government to give any tangible recognition for what he believed to be Emma's eminent services at the Neapolitan Court, and how little money he had managed to save, he added this codicil to his will:

  'Could I have rewarded these services, I would not now call upon my Country; but as it is not in my power, I leave Emma Hamilton . . . a legacy to my King and Country, that they will give her ample provision to maintain her rank in life. I also leave to the beneficience of my Country my adopted [sic] daughter, Horatia. . . . These are the only favours I ask of my King and Country at this moment when I am going into battle.'

  As he finished writing, his signal officer, Lieutenant Pasco, came into the cabin. In all the hours since daybreak, Nelson had made only five general signals to his fleet, plus a dozen to individual ships. Now he ordered Pasco to hoist two more. First, to telegraph a final clarifying phrase to Collingwood, using Popham's recently issued vocabulary code: 'I intend to push or go through the end of the enemy's line to prevent them getting into Cadiz.' Then, for all his single-minded concern with the imminent battle, he was reminded that the growing swell which again and again lifted the Victory's stern, presaged a storm, when the British fleet would be threatened with a lee shore that would be especially dangerous for damaged ships, particularly those of the enemy which he expected to take in prize. By anchoring on the night of 20 November 1759 Hawke had saved his fleet from the disaster that overwhelmed the French in Quiberon Bay. So, now, Nelson warned: 'Prepare to anchor after the close of the day.' Only after this did he 'amuse the fleet' with: 'England expects . . .' which for all its subsequent immortality, prompted Collingwood to growl: 'I wish Nelson would stop signalling, as we all know well enough what we have to do.'

  'Old Coll' was heading for Vice-Admiral Alava's 112-gun Santa Ana. She might be the sixteenth ship from the rear of the enemy's line, counting Gravina's squadron, but she was the proper opponent for the 100-gun Royal Sovereign, and fifteen British ships were a match for sixteen of the enemy. Nelson, whose division numbered only eleven until the Africa rejoined later in the day, because of the absence of Louis with six on convoy duty and replenishing at Gibraltar, was heading for the 140-gun Santisima Trinidad in the centre of the enemy's line.

  'It was a beautiful sight [wrote Midshipman Babcock of the Neptune] when their line was completed, their broadsides turned towards us, showing their iron teeth, and now and then trying the range of a shot . . . that they might, the moment we came within point blank, open their fire upon our van ships. . . . Some of the enemy's ships were painted like ourselves, with double yellow sides, some with a broad red or yellow streak, others all black, and the noble Santisima Trinidad, with four distinct lines of red, with a white ribbon between them, made her seem a superb man-of-war . . . her head splendidly ornamented with a colossal group of figures . . . representing the Holy Trinity from which she took her name.'

  At noon, the Victory flew Nelson's last signal: 'Engage the enemy more closely.' 'Now,' he said, 'I can do no more. We must trust to the great Disposer of all events, and to the justice of our cause. I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my duty.' A few minutes later the Royal Sovereign came within range of the enemy and Captain Baudoin's 74-gun Fougueux fired the broadside that began the battle of Trafalgar. And though it was Nelson's intention that his lee column should be the first in action, such was Collingwood's enthusiasm, and his understanding of his Commander-in-Chief, that he called to his flag captain: 'Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here!'

  Nelson was to be in the thick of the fight soon enough, but clarity requires this account to follow the further progress of Collingwood's division first. Unperturbed by enemy fire, Edward Rotherham sailed the Royal Sovereign under the Santa Ana's stern i
nto which she discharged double-shotted broadsides, the while her starboard guns raked the Fougueux's bow. He then turned north, so close under the Santa Ana's lee that their yard-arms locked, and continued a furious duel muzzle to muzzle. The Belleisle was next in action, William Hargood holding his fire until he could engage the Indomitable at point-blank range. The remainder of Collingwood's captains likewise sailed their ships in succession into the grouped mass of the enemy's rear. By 1 pm most were shrouded in the smoke of a general engagement with seventeen of the combined fleet, which were not only thrown into confusion but partly separated from Villeneuve's centre.

  At 2.15 pm the Santa Ana, having lost all her masts and with Alava severely wounded, struck to the Royal Sovereign, after the latter had herself suffered heavy damage. HMS Belleisle was not so fortunate, being reduced to a wreck by the Fougueux, and only being saved from destruction by the intervention of the Polyphemus, Defiance and Swiftsure, when Hargood had the deserved satisfaction of taking the surrender of the Argonauta. The Mars was seriously mauled in actions with the Pluton, Monarca and Fougueux in which Duff was killed. Charles Tyler's Tonnant then engaged the Monarca yard-arm to yard-arm until Captain Argumosa struck his colours, before turning his guns on the Algesiras which (according to one of the Tonnant's lieutenants), 'locked her bowsprit in our starboard main shrouds and attempted to board us. . . . She had riflemen in her tops who did great execution. Our poop was soon cleared, and our gallant captain shot through the left thigh. . . . [But] we were not idle. We gave it her most gloriously with the starboard maindeckers, and turned the forecastle gun [carronade], loaded with grape, on the gentleman who wished to give us a fraternal hug. The marines kept up a warm destructive fire on the boarders, only one [of whom] made good his footing on our quarterdeck. . . . At length we had the satisfaction of seeing her three lower masts go by the board. . . . The crew were then ordered . . . to board her. They cheered, and in a short time carried her. They found the gallant Admiral Magon [de Medine] killed, and the captain dangerously wounded.'