Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  As serious, if not more so observing the condition of his ships, Nelson had no base from which to keep a watch on the enemy. Genoa and Leghorn were in enemy hands; Minorca had reverted to Spain; Naples and Palermo, not to mention Malta and Gibraltar, were too far from Toulon. He resolved this dilemma in a way that no admiral had attempted before. 'I have made up my mind never to go into port till after the battle, if they [the French] make me wait a year.' For so long, and if needs be more, he would keep his fleet continuously at sea so that Latouche-Treville could be brought to action whenever he might sortie from Toulon. To achieve this, he organized storeships to bring supplies from Gibraltar and Malta, from the Two Sicilies and Sardinia whose rulers were benevolently neutral to Britain, and from ports in Spain where British gold spoke louder than Madrid's preoccupation with placating Bonaparte's demands.

  Keeping the British fleet thus replenished at sea was an anxious task. As Nelson wrote to Davison in December 1803:

  'My crazy fleet are [sic] getting in a very indifferent state. . . . I know well enough that if I was to go into Malta I should save [them] during this bad season; but if I am to watch the French, I must be at sea, and if at sea, must have bad weather; and if the ships are not fit to stand bad weather, they are useless.'

  He managed it, nevertheless, once he had allowed those most urgently in need of refit to go in turn to Gibraltar or Malta. By March 1804 he could write: 'The fleet put to sea on 18 May [1803], and is still at sea; not a ship has been refitted, or recruited, excepting what has been done at sea.' By comparison, Cornwallis's task of watching the Brest fleet was easier, except in so far as his ships were exposed to the fiercer gales and greater seas of the Atlantic. He, too, used storeships for replenishment at sea, but these could readily obtain supplies from the nearby ports of Cork and Plymouth. Nor was he wholly dependent upon them: when the wind blew from the west, preventing egress from Brest, he could avoid the hazard of a lee shore by taking his fleet to Torbay, a safer anchorage than Plymouth Sound until the breakwater was completed in 1820.

  Nelson's storeships could not, however, keep his ships-of-the-line supplied with water. To obtain this vital commodity, he could have sent them in turn to some convenient roadstead, but with the consequence that his fleet would always be weaker than the enemy's. Since this was no way to annihilate, he adopted the alternative of withdrawing them all together, accepting the risk that the French might sortie in his absence. He chose the Maddalena Islands off the north-east end of Sardinia, whose King looked to a British victory to enable him to recover his lost dominion of Piedmont. Agincourt Bay provided a better anchorage for ships' boats to ferry casks filled from running streams than any in Corsica, or in Spain whom he did not wish to provoke by abusing the neutrality of her waters, which were likewise only 200 miles (a day's sail) from Toulon. His fears, that the French might seize Sardinia - 'the most important island as a naval and military station in the Mediterranean . . . if I lose Sardinia, I lose the French fleet' - when the Government failed to respond to his suggestion that they should buy the island, proved groundless.

  Nelson did more than replenish his ships with provisions, stores and water; as important, he kept his officers and men 'in good humour'. With his fleet undermanned, he had to ensure that it lost no more men. As early as 27 September 1803 he told Addington: 'We are at this moment the healthiest squadron I ever served in, for the fact is we have no sick.' By unceasing concern for the health of his crews, by providing them with 'onions . . . good mutton . . . cattle . . . plenty of fresh water . . . [and] half the allowance of grog instead of all wine', for 'it is easier for an officer to keep men healthy than for a physician to cure them,' he kept them fit throughout his command in an age in which sickness often claimed a greater toll than any enemy.

  How apt, then, is this judgement: 'It was the carrying out of this decision, with ships in such condition, in a region where wind and seas were of exceptional violence and supplies of food and water most difficult to . . . [obtain], because surrounded . . . by countries either directly hostile, or under the over-mastering influence of Bonaparte, that made . . . Nelson's command during this period a triumph of naval administration and prevision. It does not necessarily follow that an officer . . . distinguished for . . . handling a force in the face of the enemy, will possess also the faculty which foresees and provides for the many contingencies, upon which depend . . . [its] constant efficiency and readiness. . . . For twenty-two months Nelson's fleet never went into port, other than an open road-stead on a neutral coast, destitute of supplies: at the end of that time; when the need arose to pursue an enemy for four thousand miles, it was found massed, and in all respects perfectly prepared for so distant and sudden a call.' (Mahan’s Life of Nelson)

  Self-reliance, resource, fearless responsibility and initiative, were attributes which enabled Nelson to achieve so much. But 'a triumph of administration and prevision' would not of itself have ensured that, after twenty-two months, his fleet was in all respects ready to deal with the enemy. To surmount that obstacle required a leader of star quality, who by this gift welded his captains into a Band of Brothers, and raised the morale of officers and men to a height that is never likely to be surpassed.

  Nelson's fertile imagination did not rest content with the novel concept of keeping his fleet continuously at sea. Although his strategy remained the well-established one of using his battle fleet to neutralize the enemy's, he applied it in a new way. As an officer in his fleet expressed it: 'Lord Nelson pursues a very different plan from Sir Richard Bickerton. The latter kept close to the harbour, but Nelson is scarce ever in sight of the land.' Latouche-Treville could be prevented from leaving Toulon by a close blockade; this was the safe way, but it was not Nelson's. For so long as he had to counter a French battle fleet, his own could be put to no other purpose. But once he had annihilated the enemy, he would be free to conduct offensive operations - to harass the Armée d'Italie, to capture Minorca, to free the Ionian Islands. 'It is not my intention to close-watch Toulon', he wrote. 'My system is the very contrary of blockading. Every opportunity has been offered the enemy to put to sea, for it is there we hope to realize the . . . expectations of our country.' To gain an opportunity to destroy the enemy outweighed the risk that 'my system' might enable Latouche-Treville to elude him altogether. Wherever his opponent went - to Sicily, to the eastern Mediterranean, or out into the Atlantic - Nelson was confident that he could find and destroy him, as he had found and destroyed Brueys in 1798. And 'my system' had the further advantage that Latouche-Treville could not know when the British fleet was away watering in the Maddalenas.

  For his normal station Nelson chose a position 150 miles south-west of Toulon and twenty miles to the south of Cape San Sebastian on the Costa Brava, where the highlands of Spain afforded shelter from the gales that were funnelled down between the Pyrenees and the Alps into the Gulf of Lions.

  'There are [he wrote] three days of severe blowing weather out of seven, which frequently comes on suddenly, and thereby exposes the topmasts, topsail yards and sails to great hazard . . . and there are no topmasts or topsail yards in store, either at Gibraltar or Malta. [But] by the great care and attention of every captain, we have suffered much less than could have been expected: after twenty-one months we have not carried away a single spar.'

  And if Spain joined the war, this position would be the best 'to prevent the junction of a Spanish fleet from the westward'. Nelson did not, however, keep to this area: sometimes he cruised south to the Balearics, sometimes to the east round Corsica and Sardinia. Occasionally, too, he sought shelter under the lee of the Hyeres Islands. With this exception, only his frigates, sometimes singly, sometimes a pair, stayed just over the horizon from Toulon, where they could not be seen by Latouche-Treville whilst he remained in harbour, but must see him if he should put to sea.

  But the winter of 1803-4 passed without the enemy making a move: Bonaparte was concerned only with preparing for a cross-Channel invasion: only for that would La
touche-Treville be required to sail. Nelson could not know this: he was perplexed by news of other French intentions.

  'Ball [Civil Commissioner at Malta] is sure they are going to Egypt; the Turks are sure they are going to the Morea [Greece]; Mr Elliot [British Minister at Naples] to Sicily; and the King of Sardinia to his only spot . . . but . . . I trust, and with confidence, they are destined for Spithead . . . [though] circumstances may make it necessary [for Bonaparte] to alter its destination . . . [to] Egypt or Ireland, and I rather lean to the latter.'

  There was even a time when he thought the French intended to bring their fleet from Brest into the Mediterranean, 'in which event I shall try to fight one part or the other before they form a junction'. Not until the spring of 1804 could he write: 'Monsieur Latouche sometimes plays bo-peep [sic] out of Toulon, like a mouse at the edge of his hole. Last week, at different times, two sail-of-the-line put their heads out . . . and on Thursday [5 April] . . . they all came out.' Latouche-Treville was only exercising his ships, but for Nelson, 'if they go on playing this game, some day we shall lay salt upon their tails, and so end the campaign'.

  He sent one division of his fleet inshore as bait. 'I think [the French] will be ordered out to fight close to Toulon, that they may get their crippled ships in again; and that we must then quit the coast to repair our damage, and thus leave the coast clear; but my mind is fixed not to fight them, unless . . . outside Hyeres . . . [or] to the westward of [Cape] Sicis', from where his other division would join the battle with decisive effect. But only once did this 'method of making Mr Latouche-Treville angry' come near to success. On 13 June, two months after Nelson's promotion to vice-admiral of the white in April 1804, when his own division of five ships-of-the-line was baiting this trap, two French frigates and a brig were reported near the Hyeres Islands. Two British frigates were sent to deal with these vessels, but light winds prevented them from coming up with their quarry until the next day. Since the Frenchmen were then close under the islands' batteries, Nelson ordered the Excellent, 74, to support his frigates, then bore up with the rest of his division.

  This move had the desired effect: Latouche-Treville came out of Toulon at 5 pm with eight sail-of-the-line. Nelson reacted by recalling the Excellent and forming his division into line of battle. He then hove-to, waiting to be attacked in a position from which he could lead the enemy towards Bickerton's division, lying some fifty miles over the horizon. But 'Monsieur Latouche came out . . . cut a caper . . . and went in again. I brought-to for his attack, although I did not believe anything was meant serious, but merely a gasconade. On the morning of the 15th we chased him into Toulon.' In truth, eight French ships declined action with five British. But according to Latouche-Treville's dispatch: 'J'ai poursuivi jusqu' a la nuit: il courait au sud-est' which helped to gain him the highest rank in the Legion of Honour - and raised Nelson's ire. 'I do assure you,' he told the Admiralty when he read his opponent's report, 'I know not what to say, except by a flat contradiction; for if my character is not established by this time for not being apt to run away, it is not worth my time to attempt to put the world right.' His vanity had, nonetheless, to be appeased by letters to his friends in which he called his enemy a `poltroon', a 'liar' and a 'miscreant': 'You will have seen [his letter] of how he chased me and how I ran,' he wrote, 'I keep it ; and, by G—d, if I take him, he shall eat it.'

  But this was not to be. In a further attempt to bring the French out, Nelson persuaded the Government to sanction a blockade of Genoese ports. 'Nothing,' he said, 'could distress France more: it will force Latouche out.' But the latter part of August brought news that ended his chances of avenging his defeat at Boulogne. By Latouche-Treville's sudden death on the 20th on board his new, recently completed flagship, the 80-gunned Bucentaure, France lost her ablest admiral, and the British fleet an opponent worthy of its steel. 'He has given me the slip', wrote Nelson. 'The French papers say he died of walking so often up to the signal-post . . . to watch us.' To succeed himDecrès appointed Villeneuve, now a vice-admiral, the man who had held command of the French rear at the Nile, and whose flagship, the Guillaume Tell, had been one of the small handful of vessels to escape from Aboukir Bay.

  For all this time - for half of 1803 and for all of 1804 - Nelson had much to do onboard the Victory, between turning out at his customary hour of 6 am and turning in at 9 pm, besides maintaining his watch on Toulon. Advised by his captain of the fleet, Rear-Admiral George Murray, and by Hardy, and helped by two secretaries, the Rev. A. J. Scott (who was also his chaplain and was usually known as Dr Scott) and the unrelated John Scott, he had to direct the manifold affairs of the Mediterranean station, by correspondence with the Prime Minister (Addington until Pitt regained his old office in May 1804); with the First Lord (St Vincent until the change in the Government brought Viscount Melville to the Admiralty); with the Kings of Sardinia and of the Two Sicilies and with the heads of other Mediterranean states, and with the British envoys at their Courts; with Ball at Malta; with the Dockyard Commissioners at Malta and Gibraltar; with the commanders of his cruisers employed protecting trade; and with many more. He had to find time, too, for his personal affairs, to write letters to such men as Davison (who suffered the misfortune of a year's imprisonment for dubious involvement in the conduct of a parliamentary election at Ilchester) - and, above all, to Emma.

  Space precludes more than a brief mention of the problems which troubled him. For lack of ships 'to chastise these pirates', he had to depend on diplomacy to induce the Bey of Algiers to stop plundering Maltese traders, and to receive back the British Consul whom he had expelled. He was 'distressed for frigates. From Cape St Vincent to the head of the Adriatic, I have only eight which . . . are absolutely not one half enough'; and, 'Frigates are the eyes of the fleet. I want ten more than I have in order to watch that the French do not escape me.' He had too few cruisers to deal with enemy privateers: 'I wrote to the Admiralty for more . . . until I was tired and they left off answering those parts of my letters.' And because neither he, nor the Admiralty, had any quicker method of transmitting orders than by letter, their arrangements for escorting convoys to and from the Mediterranean seldom dovetailed. 'If the Maidstone takes the convoy, and, when Agincourt arrives, there is none for Thisbe, it puzzles me to know what orders to give them. If they chase the convoy to Gibraltar, the Maidstone may have gone on to England and, in that case, two ships . . . will either go home without convoy, or they must return [to Malta] in contradiction to the Admiralty's order to send them home.'

  These convoys needed a strong escort because the treaty of friendship between France and Spain, signed on 9 October 1803, allowed the French 74-gunned Aigle to operate from Cadiz, when Nelson could spare no more than three frigates for his Gibraltar force, whose commander, Captain Gore, was advised: 'Your intentions of attacking that ship are . . . very laudable, but I do not consider your force by any means equal to it.' And only a Nelson would read such instructions with a blind eye when it was generally held, by Hawke and Howe among others, that no force of frigates could measure up to a ship-of-the-line. (So, too, more than a century later, did a court martial decide that Rear-Admiral Ernest Troubridge, in command of four armoured cruisers 'was justified in considering the [German battlecruiser] Goeben a superior force . . . and in abandoning the chase'. Not until 1939 was this thesis disproved by Commodore Harwood's three cruisers' successful engagement with the pocket-battleship Graf Spee.)

  Emma, having given birth to Nelson's second child early in 1804 - a daughter who only survived for a few weeks - pressed to be allowed to join her lover in the Mediterranean. But no woman could now deflect Nelson from his duty; Emma had to accept much the same answer as Fanny had received. His place was off Toulon, not in a harbour such as Naples or Malta; nor would he have her onboard the Victory: 'We have a hard gale every week. . . It would kill you, and myself, to see you. . . . And I, that have given orders to carry no women to sea . . . to be the first to break them! I know, my own dear Emma, if she wil
l let her reason have fair play, will say I am right. . . . Your Nelson is called upon . . . to defend his country. Absence to us is equally painful, but if I had stayed at home, or neglected my duty abroad, would not my Emma have blushed for me?'

  How marked the contrast between this attitude and that which Nelson adopted towards her in 1798-1800, when, in particular, he had taken her for a cruise in the Foudroyant. His devotion remained, but he was no longer obsessed; the naval commander had triumphed over the lover: his Achilles heel had been cured.

  Nor was this the only contrast between the present and the past, between Nelson as commander-in-chief and Nelson as a post-captain and junior flag officer. As striking is the difference between the few floggings recorded in the logs of his previous ships and the appreciable number noted in the Victory's. As a captain his personality was enough to maintain discipline: only in exceptional circumstances did he order this brutal punishment as a sharp lesson to all, much as Jervis ordered the immediate execution of the mutineers off Cadiz in 1797. So was it, too, in the years when the benevolent Berry was his flag captain. But the later Nelson who, because of Emma, had Caracciolo so speedily executed, whose vanity was so much disturbed by criticism when he expected nothing but adulation, and who dismissed Fanny so cruelly from his life, was not troubled by Hardy's belief in the need for punishment to maintain discipline, especially in a ship that was required to remain at sea without respite for so long.