The Orion followed the other two ships, dangerously close to the shoals, and slipped in to engage the third French ship on the inside. A French frigate had the temerity to open fire on it, and was destroyed with a single broadside from the Orion, which had also raked Le Guerrier a third time, bringing down its remaining mast and leaving it a wreck. The Orion engaged two ships simultaneously.
The Theseus came next, once again pouring shot into Le Guerrier, and then navigated the small channel between the British and French ships between broadsides, exchanging fire with the latter, before curving around the Orion to engage another French ship; all of this was flawless seamanship of the highest order. The French guns’ elevation was aimed at the other British ships; so the Theseus took advantage to run under the arch of the shot. Another British ship followed on the inside. The British ships could be distinguished in the darkness by the four horizontal lights on the mizzen peak.
Nelson, in his flagship the Vanguard, was next and led the way down the outside of the French line, engaging its third ship, the Spartiate, which was already under attack from the Theseus, between two fires. Pounded by a combined total of 148-guns, the ship quickly surrendered. The Bellerophon, behind the Vanguard, found itself in the already fallen darkness engaging the huge French flagship, L’Orient, with its 120-guns. Two of the Bellerophon’s masts fell under the intense fire from L’Orient, which set her on fire three times and killed a third of the crew before she drifted off to port crippled. Immediately three more British ships took up the fight against the deadly three-decker.
The brave but devastated Le Guerrier had by now struck her colours, as had two other French ships, the Conquerant and the Spartiate, attacked by Nelson. But he had once again been seriously wounded, an inch of skin falling from his brow over his good eye, with blood pouring down his face. ‘I am killed,’ he said, ‘Remember me to my wife.’ He was carried below for treatment. The French admiral, Brueys, likewise had no sooner dismasted the Bellerophon when he was hit, nearly cut in two by a cannonball at 7.30. He refused to go to the infirmary so that he might die on the bridge.
Meanwhile disaster had struck a British ship, the Culloden, commanded by Sir Thomas Troubridge, regarded as second only to Nelson in the British fleet. He had sailed too close to Aboukir Island and run aground. With two British ships out of action compared to three French, the battle was far from won.
Then, under fire from three much smaller ships, it became apparent that the giant L’Orient was ablaze. Some historians allege, based on a second-hand story from the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, that phosphorous firecrackers had been thrown on to the deck by the British: but this would have been very difficult to achieve with the three-decker French ship towering over the British ships and it was the French rather than the British that carried firecrackers. The French believed oil cans left behind by painters started the fire.
Ensign Lachenede described the crisis on L’Orient:
Everything at that moment contributed to increase the confusion. The pump, it was found, was broken; the hatches were hidden under mounds of debris; the buckets which we kept on the forecastle were scattered all over the place; we had to have some brought up from the holds; five ships had surrounded us and were firing at us with double intensity. After incredible but futile efforts, we left the bridge deck, which was covered with flaming corpses. The mainmast and the mizzen crashed toward port . . . The ship was burning fore and aft, and already the flames were reaching the 24-pounder battery. And yet in the 36-pounder battery, the men seemed to be unaware of the danger, and they continued to fire vigorously.
At about ten o’clock, after well over an hour fighting the fire, Admiral Ganteaume, who had succeeded Brueys, gave the order to abandon ship. A nine-year-old boy who refused to leave his injured father, Captain Casabianca, was immortalized as the boy who ‘stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled’. The colossal ship blew up a few minutes later, at about 10.15, with a blast that was felt some twenty-five miles away, lighting up Alexandria and Rosetta, sending blazing timbers and bodies far into the air.
After the awesome explosion, there was a ten-minute silence, as all the gunners on both sides, subdued by the spectacle, stopped firing. Out of 1,000 men aboard L’Orient, only seventy survived, including a lieutenant who was picked up by a British ship naked except for his hat, which he had saved, he explained, to prove he was an officer. With L’Orient sank some £600,000 (around £120 million in today’s values) in gold coins, ingots and diamonds – the treasure looted from the Knights of Malta, which was supposed to finance Napoleon’s expedition.
The French ship Franklin was the first to recommence firing after the deathly lull, although two-thirds of that ship’s company had been killed or wounded. She surrendered at 11.30. Another French ship, Le Peuple Souverain, was a wreck by 11 p.m. L’Artemise drifted ashore and was set on fire by her crew; it blew up in the morning. By then the flagship was no more, six of the French ships had struck their colours, three ships had gone ashore and the Tonnant was a floating wreck, although it ultimately surrendered with 120 men killed and 150 wounded. Only two French ships remained and made good their escape.
An inexplicable element of the whole battle was the failure of the commander of the rear, Admiral Villeneuve, to order his ships to come to the help of those in the van under attack. Napoleon was later scathing: ‘It was only at 2 p.m. the following afternoon that Admiral Villeneuve seemed to take notice of the fact that there had been a battle going on for the past 18 hours . . . it was in Villeneuve’s power to turn the battle into a French victory even as late as daybreak.’ This is clearly unfair, but Villeneuve gave no satisfactory explanation. Still more inexplicable is that Napoleon, who was so frightened of being caught at anchorage by Nelson that he had disembarked his army on the very evening of their arrival, should have left the fleet exposed to British attack for a full month. Perhaps both Napoleon and Brueys genuinely did believe the anchorage at Aboukir Bay was impregnable: if so it was a huge risk to take, for the French navy rarely so exposed itself to the British. It was a colossal and unforgivable mistake on the part of both men.
Napoleon later accused Brueys of ignoring an explicit order to leave for Corfu. This account was directly contradicted by Vice-Admiral Ganteaume, in a subsequent despatch to the minister of war: ‘Perhaps it may be said that it would have been advisable to have quitted the coast as soon as the disembarkation had taken place. But considering the orders of the commander-in-chief, and the incalculable force afforded to the land-army by the presence of the squadron, the admiral thought it was his duty not to quit these seas.’ Brueys was killed in the battle, so was unable to defend himself. But probably, if granted permission, he would have sailed his ships to safety on Corfu. Almost certainly Napoleon’s calumny against Brueys was a lie to protect his own reputation.
It was a famous victory indeed. The French fleet had been virtually annihilated. The French had lost eleven of their thirteen battleships and some 4,000 men to two British ships and some 900 men. More than 3,000 French prisoners had been taken, most of whom were later set loose ashore, as the British could not care for them. At a stroke the British were masters of the Mediterranean, although a considerable French fleet still remained in the Atlantic. Napoleon’s army in Egypt was stranded. True, the troop transports remained at Alexandria, but without the protection of the French fleet they could be picked off at will by the British.
Nelson, in the aftermath of the battle, despatched Sir James Saumarez with six French prizes to Gibraltar and himself left with three ships for Naples, leaving behind three battleships and three frigates to blockade the coast of Egypt. All communications between Napoleon’s army and France had been severed. Nelson decided against an attack on Alexandria itself because he believed the French defences there to be stronger than they actually were: Generals Kléber and Menou were fearful that he would attempt an attack.
Napoleon, when he learnt of the disaster on 13 August, feigned indifference. He told
his officers: ‘Well, gentlemen, now we are obliged to accomplish great things: we shall accomplish them. We must found a great empire, and we shall found it. The sea, of which we are no longer master, separates us from our homeland, but no sea separates us from either Africa or Asia.’
Yet the impression further afield of the most unqualified naval victory in the whole conflict was immense. It was felt in Russia, where the new Tsar Paul – the pro-British Catherine had died in 1796 – now began to end his francophile policy and move towards hostility towards France. It was felt in Austria, which was emboldened to re-enter the war against revolutionary France. It was felt in Constantinople, where the Ottoman Emperor had watched aghast Napoleon’s invasion of one of his great provinces. Above all it was felt in Britain, which was desperately in need of good news. A joyous mob gathered in Whitehall, forcing all those who wore hats to doff them in tribute, in an early display of crowd power. Hood said Nelson had saved Europe from anarchy and misery, while Lady Spencer exulted: ‘Joy, joy, joy to you, brave gallant, immortal Nelson! May that great God, whose cause you so valiantly support, protect and bless you to the end of your brilliant career. Such a race surely never was won. My heart is absolutely bursting with different sensations of joy, of gratitude, of pride, of every emotion that ever warmed the bosom of a British woman – and all produced by you, my dear, my good friend.’ Lady Hamilton wrote to him: ‘If I was King of England, I would make you the most noble, puissant Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl Alexandria, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile and Prince Victory, that posterity might have you in all forms.’
When Nelson arrived in Naples after the Battle of the Nile, Queen Maria Carolina exclaimed, ‘Oh brave Nelson! Oh God bless you and protect our brave deliverer.’ The simple-minded King Ferdinand called him his ‘deliverer and preserver’. Suddenly it seemed for the first time that French domination of Europe was not inevitable after all and that those few places such as Naples which still held out could survive. Nelson was made a baron – Lord Nelson of the Nile. Pitt had wanted to confer a viscountcy, but the King was reluctant to confer even a peerage, perhaps disapproving of his support of Prince William. There was a small outcry that he had not been granted a greater title. Pitt ordained that a pension of £20,000 a year be set up for Nelson and his two male heirs (£4 million at today’s values). Fanny Nelson was received by the Queen.
Nelson himself suffered nausea and splitting headaches from his new wound, and was also plagued again by malaria. He increasingly felt himself to be a child of destiny, writing that ‘Almighty God has made me the happy instrument in destroying the enemy’s fleet’. His mood was understandable. After his career had once more teetered with his failure to find the French fleet, its destruction had conferred greatness beyond any expectation. He had served God, the King and his country to the very summit of duty and glory. Moreover he felt himself increasingly under divine protection, for he always sensed he was close to the next world. He had nearly died in the Indies of disease; he had nearly died in Nicaragua of illness; in Cape St Vincent he had risked his life in open combat; he had nearly been killed in Tenerife; now again he had escaped death by the narrowest of margins.
Yet as so often with this strange, attractive, romantic, severe, duty-driven genius of a naval commander, pride came before a fall, hubris was followed by nemesis. Sailing to Naples to have his crippled flagship refitted, he was greeted by the kind of welcome only the Neapolitans can give. When the Vanguard arrived on 22 September, it was surrounded by a flotilla of boats and music. Nelson was lodged in the splendid palazzo of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, who bathed his wounds in ass’s milk. On his fortieth birthday, some 1,700 people were invited to a ball, eighty of them supping with the Hamiltons. The Sultan of the Ottoman empire sent him an aigrette, a superbly embossed if bizarre clockwork jewel.
Hamilton persuaded Nelson that he had an even greater role to play: to help expel the French, who he suggested were seeking to annex Naples, from Italy. Nelson agreed with him and Queen Maria Carolina that unless the King took action he would be deposed by the French. In November the King was persuaded to send a force northwards under the Austrian General Mack, while Troubridge was despatched to help the Duke of Tuscany in Leghorn to outflank the French rear. A week later Ferdinand was in Rome taking up residence in the Farnese Palace.
The triumph was shortlived. A week later a formidable French army marched on Rome, taking 10,000 Neapolitans prisoner and most of the rest hastily abandoned their baggage. On the King’s return, the Queen became fearful of a French-inspired uprising by Jacobins and recalled the fate of her sister, Marie Antoinette. Nelson summoned Troubridge’s squadrons from Leghorn and agreed to carry the royal family and their court to the safety of Palermo in Sicily. This infuriated the Neapolitan naval commander, Count Caracciolo.
Emma Hamilton is said to have led the royal family through a secret passage from the royal palace to the harbour. The Vanguard was piled high with royal Neapolitan treasures – around £2½ million worth (£500 million in today’s currency). Bad weather kept the ship in harbour for a day in deadly peril of discovery, and the passage across to Sicily was, according to Nelson, the worst weather he had ever experienced. The royal family were in the depths of despair and their youngest child, Prince Albert, died on the voyage in Emma Hamilton’s arms.
The royal family was however greeted with rapture in Palermo, and Ferdinand was soon engaged in his favourite pastime, hunting. Meanwhile the French took Naples and proclaimed it a republic on Christmas Eve. It was a small compensation for the loss of their fleet at the Battle of the Nile. What exactly the victor of that battle – whose job it was to harass the French throughout the Mediterranean – was doing as an aide to this corrupt Bourbon court was a question that increasingly exercised the minds of his British superiors.
Chapter 36
THE UPPER NILE
Napoleon, his boats now literally burnt behind him by his enemy, had no alternative but to press on with his surreal adventure into Egypt. For all his triumphalism, it was soon apparent that he controlled only three cities – Cairo, Alexandria and Rosetta – and was confronted by the sullen hostility of the population. At El Mansura, for example, a local French garrison was massacred by the inhabitants. The only survivor, Private Mourchon, gave this vivid description:
General Vial, when passing through El Mansura, left a detachment of 120 men . . . The day after General Vial left with his battalion, three soldiers of the garrison were assassinated by the inhabitants, one being stoned while standing guard duty, another while bringing soup to a sentry, the third while returning from his post . . .
From then on, we barricaded ourselves in the house we used for a barracks . . . [About two days later] at approximately 8 am, the barracks was surrounded by a large number of Moslems, carrying various weapons. One of them tried to set the house on fire . . . but was killed by one of our dragoons: they then tried to tear the house down. In short, the fighting . . . lasted until 4 pm. We then marched out of the house, in which we had lost eight men . . . As we marched through the streets to leave the town, we were shot at continuously from the windows; we returned the fire as best we could. When we reached the open country, the same individuals pursued us and kept firing. Some of them ran to nearby villages to look for reinforcements.
. . . During the retreat, a bullet traversed my left thigh . . . At daybreak, there were twenty-five or thirty of us left, and we were still pursued by the enemy . . . Having run out of cartridges, we defended ourselves with steel. The wounded, of whom there were ten, preferred drowning themselves to falling into the enemy’s hands. When only fifteen of us were left, a multitude of infuriated peasants threw themselves upon us, stripped us of our clothes, and massacred us, my comrades and me, with clubs; I threw myself into the Nile all naked with the intention of drowning myself, but since I can swim, instinct proved the stronger and I reached the opposite shore . . . I began to walk without any fixed purpose.
I saw seven Moslem horsemen appro
aching and threw myself into the Nile again. Having noticed that two of them were beckoning to me, I returned on shore; one of them fired at me pointblank, but his carbine jammed; the other said something to the effect that I should be spared and handed me over to two armed peasants . . . who tied my hands and led me to a village along a thorny path on which I suffered much, being barefoot and wounded. At the village, the inhabitants unbound me, took care of me, fed me, and showed me much kindness. I remained thus . . . until today, when the villagers came . . . to tell me that a barge loaded with French soldiers was passing by . . . I cannot omit mentioning that the person who took care of me most was a child about eight years old who secretly brought me boiled eggs and bread.
Outside Rosetta, General Menou’s party was set upon by armed peasants, and the painter Joly was murdered. Most of the passengers of a French ship that reached Marabut were massacred by Bedouins.
Napoleon’s response to the loss of his entire fleet and the precariousness of his grip upon Egypt was entirely characteristic: he pushed ahead with his make-believe attempt to turn the country into a colony and persuade the inhabitants of his benevolence. Meanwhile he continued with his military effort to subdue the rest of the country: for Napoleon, attack was always the best form of defence.
Napoleon attempted at first to woo the tribal chiefs, with limited success; his efforts at making friends with his defeated enemy, Murad Bey, were rebuffed, as were his peace feelers to the governor of Acre, Ahmad Pasha, known as Djezzar (the Butcher), the Pasha of Damascus and the Bey of Tripoli. Unknown to him, Talleyrand had broken his promise to go to Constantinople and seek the Turkish government’s consent to the takeover of Egypt. Instead Talleyrand informed the luckless French envoy there of France’s intervention in Egypt in brutally frank terms:
The War of Wars Page 32