Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  Nelson's physical health, always so robust in the past, remained (according to a contemporary authority) 'uniformly good. . . . The only bodily pain . . . was a slight rheumatic affection of the stump of his amputated arm on any sudden variation in the weather.' Otherwise he was afflicted only with seasickness, to which he was so accustomed that he did not allow it to trouble him. In particular, he did not lose a vital quality lacking in many another great commander, his sense of humour ('Nelson was the man to love', said an officer who also knew the future Duke of Wellington). Having advised two of his frigate captains not to engage both ships of a similar enemy force, but to 'endeavour together to take one frigate; if successful chase the other; [for] if you do not take the second, still you have won a victory', he bade them farewell with the smiling comment: 'I daresay you consider yourselves a couple of fine fellows, and when you get away from me you will do nothing of the sort, but think yourself wiser than I am.'

  But it was otherwise with Nelson's mental state. The mercurial temperament of the creative genius, which throve on action and withered when there was none, rebelled against the tedium of waiting and watching. 'If that [French] Admiral were to cheat me out of my hopes of meeting him, it would kill me much easier than one of his balls.' Debilitated by a year's suspense and anxiety, he wrote to Melville in August 1804: 'The state of my health [is] such as to make it absolutely necessary that I should return to England. . . . Another winter such as the last I feel myself unable to stand against. A few months of quiet may enable me to serve again next spring.' Bickerton was well able to command the Mediterranean in his absence. The First Lord agreed, but before his reply, written on 6 October, reached the Victory in December (an example of how long communications dependent on letters alone could be delayed, with significant consequences) events combined to change Nelson's mood.

  In October, having managed (after nearly eighteen months of war) to find the men to commission some eighty ships-of-the-line, out of an available force of nearly 120, the Admiralty decided to spare five to blockade Cadiz, both to counter the Aigle and against the likelihood of Spain joining the war. Nelson should have welcomed this reinforcement when he had 'but four [ships-of-the-line] fit to keep the sea'. The rest needed docking, but he could spare none for this when he had no margin over Villeneuve. But the Admiralty accompanied their decision with a tactless one: to command this new squadron they chose an admiral senior to Nelson. Sir John Orde, now a vice-admiral of the red, had languished on half-pay since his quarrel with St Vincent over his choice of Nelson to command the squadron sent into the Mediterranean in the spring of 1798. Melville, having no such aversion to Orde, decided to re-employ him, and to overcome the problem of his seniority, removed from Nelson's command that part of the Mediterranean station which lay to the west of Gibraltar, extending to Cape Finisterre, which was the richest for prize-money. This, because of his prodigal expenditure, Nelson could no longer afford to scorn in favour of honour. He resented Melville's decision:

  'He [Orde] is sent off Cadiz to reap the golden harvest. . . . It is very odd [two Admiralties] to treat me so: surely I have dreamed that I have done the State some service. But never mind: I am superior to those who could treat me so. I believe I attach more to the French fleet than making captures. . . . This thought is far better than prize money - not that I despise money - quite the contrary, I wish I had £100,000 [$240,000] this moment.'

  He protested to the Admiralty at the consequences; Orde was issuing instructions to his frigates; Orde was denuding Gibraltar dockyard of his stores. And when Gore received direct orders to intercept a Spanish treasure fleet expected at Cadiz from South America, he went much further than complaining that this was not the way to treat the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean; he countermanded Gore's orders.

  For this drastic action, Nelson had, however, another reason: he disagreed with the Government's decision to counter Spain's frequent breaches of neutrality (the Aigle's use of Cadiz being one of many) by ordering the seizure of the treasure ships on which her economy largely depended. For this must finally provoke a war which would give his fleet the additional task of preventing the five Spanish ships-of-the-line which were lying in Cartagena from joining with Villeneuve's to form a fleet superior to his own. This prospect became a reality on 14 December shortly after Campbell suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be invalided home. Since Bickerton could not be left without the support of another flag officer, Nelson wrote on the 30th: 'I shall avail myself of Their Lordships' permission to return home on leave the moment another admiral . . . joins the fleet, unless the enemy . . . should be at sea, when I shall not think of quitting my command until after the battle.'

  He was, indeed, so determined not to miss 'the battle', that, when he heard that Orde might relieve him, he compounded vanity with magnanimity. Having complained that Orde's 'general conduct towards me is not such as I had a right to expect', 'I shall show my superiority . . . by offering to serve under him, and the world will see what a sacrifice I am ready to make for my King and Country'. Orde's appointment to the Mediterranean command was, however, only rumour. Nelson's flag still flew in the Victory when his ships closed Toulon at the beginning of January 1805. He had heard, 'from various sources . . . that the French were assembling troops near Toulon. . . . On the 16th the Active spoke a vessel from Marseilles who reported that 7,000 troops had embarked onboard the French fleet.' But a week close off Toulon produced no other evidence that Villeneuve was about to sortie, by which time Nelson's ships needed water. On 11 January his fleet anchored in the Maddalenas. One week later, in the afternoon of the 19th, his two look-out frigates hove in sight: the reason they had left their station to seaward of Toulon was clear as soon as their signal flags could be distinguished against the darkening sky of a north-westerly gale. Villeneuve was at sea.

  Would Nelson's strategy now be proven? His first aim, to encourage the French fleet to come out had succeeded; but would he be able to find Villeneuve and bring him to battle? First, however, a look 'over the hill' for the answer to another question, why the French fleet had left the security of Toulon. Bonaparte had evolved his initial plan for invading England in the summer of 1803. Four army corps (150,000 officers and men) were assembled, Marmont's at Utrecht, Davout's at Bruges, Soult's at St Omer, and Ney's at Montreuil, with a fifth (20,000 strong) under Augerau at Brest for a landing in Ireland. And to carry them more than 2,000 transports, schooners, brigs and landing craft were assembled, chiefly at Boulogne and Staples, under Bruix, with another flotilla of 400 provided by the Dutch at Flushing and the Texel. But the operation could not be launched for so long as Keith's squadron, based on the Downs, and Cornwallis' fleet ruled the Narrow Seas and its western. approaches. This much Bonaparte understood - but little more. Accustomed to ordering armies to march, and to be sure that they would adhere to his time-table, he was frustrated by his admirals' reluctance to face their enemies. In his growing impatience at the delays imposed on his plans, he issued orders of greater and greater complexity, with the increasing certainty that they would go astray.

  He decided to launch the invasion on 20 February 1804, when a winter's night gave the cover of twelve hours of darkness. Latouche-Treville would sortie from Toulon on 11 January and lead Nelson's fleet away into the eastern Mediterranean, while the small French squadron at Rochefort decoyed Cornwallis in the direction of Ireland, leaving Ganteaume's Brest fleet free to sail up Channel. This operation was, however, aborted by a Royalist plot to kidnap Bonaparte. An alarmed First Consul decided that he must consolidate his personal authority by establishing an hereditary monarchy: on 18 May he proclaimed himself Emperor, with the title of Napoleon I.

  After this distraction, Napoleon issued new invasion orders. This time Ganteaume was to keep Cornwallis occupied by staying in port, while Latouche-Treville gave Nelson the slip, passed Gibraltar and headed for a rendezvous with the Rochefort squadron. 'If we are masters of the Channel for six hours, we shall be masters of the world. If you hoodwink
Nelson, he will sail to Sicily, Egypt or Ferrol. You should leave by 29 July, sail round the north of Ireland and arrive off Boulogne in September.' But Latouche-Treville did not live to show whether he could evade Nelson as easily as his Emperor supposed.

  In September Napoleon expounded a third plan to Decrès:

  'We must send off three expeditions; from Rochefort to secure Martinique and Guadeloupe against enemy action and seize Dominica and St Lucia; from Toulon to capture Surinam and other Dutch [West Indian] colonies; from Brest [a small squadron] to capture St Helena. The Toulon squadron might sail on 10 October, the Rochefort one on 1 November and the Brest one on 22 November.'

  All this would allow Ganteaume to sortie, with Augerau's and Marmont's corps embarked, and head for Lough Swilly, while 'the Grande Armée of Boulogne will embark simultaneously and . . . try to invade Kent'.

  'The landing in Ireland is only the first act. [Ganteaume's] squadron must then enter the English Channel . . . to get news of the Boulogne army. If, on arriving off Boulogne, it meets . . . contrary winds, it must go on to the Texel, where it will find seven [sic] Dutch ships with 25,000 men embarked. It will convoy them to Ireland. One of the two operations must succeed. . . . Whether I am in England or in Ireland, we shall have won the war.'

  But this elaborate scheme for an invasion in the winter of 1804-5 brought Napoleon no nearer to achievement. None of his fleets left their harbours.

  So he issued another, more grandiose, plan. Villeneuve's fleet, with troops embarked, was to leave the Mediterranean and collect the Aigle from Cadiz. He was then to detach a squadron to relieve Senegal, retake Gorée (surrendered to the British on 7 March 1804), ravage British settlements in West Africa and capture St Helena. He himself was to rendezvous at Cayenne with Rear-Admiral Missiessy's squadron out of Rochefort after this had landed reinforcements in Martinique and Guadaloupe and captured Dominica and St Lucia. These moves, Napoleon calculated, would draw not only Nelson's fleet but at least twenty other ships-of-the-line in pursuit, especially to save the rich sugar harvest which Britain gained from her West Indies possessions. Having secured Surinam (captured by Commodore Hood's Windward and Leeward Islands squadron on 5 May 1804) and other Dutch colonies, and the other British islands in the Caribbean, and having evaded action with any substantial British force, Villeneuve's fleet, now numbering fifteen sail-of-the-line, would return across the Atlantic, lift the British blockade of Ferrol and, thus further augmented to twenty sail, appear off Rochefort. Here he would receive orders as to how he should combine with Ganteaume's twenty ships-of-the-line, reinforced by ten of Spain's out of Cadiz, to gain command of the Channel for the Grande Armée to cross in safety in the spring or early summer of 1805.

  Missiessy was the first to sail. Leaving Rochefort on 11 January 1805 with five sail-of-the-line and three frigates, with 3,500 troops embarked, he eluded Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves' blockading squadron, and headed for the West Indies. He was pursued by Rear-Admiral the Hon. Alexander Cochrane who for this purpose did not hesitate to leave his assigned station off Ferrol. The Admiralty could more speedily assign further ships-of-the-line to the latter task than they could send another squadron after Missiessy: indeed Cornwallis was soon ordered to detach Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder to continue the watch on Ferrol. When communications were so slow, commanders had to act on their own initiative; and, as will shortly be seen, it was their readiness - above all Nelson's - to shoulder this responsibility, coupled with their experience and understanding of war at sea, that played such a large part in setting Napoleon's plans at nought. Throughout a year of baffling French moves, a large number of British admirals and captains in more or less independent commands, with no method of communication except by letter, and no organization for gathering and disseminating intelligence, made vital decisions on their own, as if by instinct. (In sharp contrast, less than a century and a half later, the Bismarck was more speedily found and sunk by widespread forces whose movements were directly controlled, almost from minute to minute, by radio from Whitehall.) But if it be said of Nelson and his contemporaries that they were giants who never put a foot wrong, it is well to remember that they were not almighty. The French defeat in the campaign of 1805 was as much due to their own errors, as to the consummate skill and courage of their British opponents.

  Villeneuve sortied six days later: seeing no British sail off Toulon, he ordered his eleven ships-of-the-line, accompanied by seven frigates, to leave harbour on 17 January. But the Active and Seahorse were only just over the horizon: as soon as 6.30 pm their captains sighted the French on a southerly course and shadowed them until early on the 19th, before bearing up for the Maddalenas to signal the Victory in Agincourt Bay. The news was a tonic to their Admiral's flagging spirits. In little more than two hours his fleet was under way. He was in no doubt of the course to steer: since the French were headed for the southern end of Sardinia, they must be going to Naples, to Sicily or into the eastern Mediterranean.

  By 7 pm Nelson's ships were under all plain sail in a brisk breeze down Sardinia's east coast. But on leaving the island's lee they met the full force of a southerly gale against which they could make no headway for the next three days, during which they gained no news of the enemy fleet.

  Then, on the 26th, Nelson was able to communicate with Cagliari: no landing had been attempted in Sardinia. Later that day the frigate Phoebe reported that the French 80-gun Indomtable had been dismasted by the storm and lay crippled in Ajaccio. What could Nelson infer from this? 'I considered the character of Bonaparte; and that [his] orders . . . would not take into consideration winds or weather; nor indeed could [an] accident [to] three or four ships alter . . . [a] destination of importance.' With no news of the French to the south of Sardinia, which might portend an attack on Sicily, they must be going to Egypt. Since Napoleon's first invasion plans envisaged using the Toulon fleet to draw the British into the eastern Mediterranean, Nelson is not to be faulted for this reasoning. On 31 January he took his fleet through the Straits of Messina.

  As soon as 7 February he was in touch with the British Consul at Alexandria; but, as before the Nile, he gained no news of his opponent there. So he returned to the west, arriving twelve days later off Malta where he received the disheartening report that all the excitement and anxiety of the chase had been for nothing. Villeneuve's fleet was back in Toulon.

  Encountering a gale in the Gulf of Lions shortly after leaving port, the French ships had soon suffered enough damage to their masts and rigging for their captains to decide to run for safety. Except for four, including the Indomtable which sought refuge elsewhere, all returned to Toulon by 20 January. Though the Emperor could not know it, this early disruption of his complicated plan to gain command of the Channel was the beginning of the end of his ambition to invade England. For the moment he could only write: 'What is to be done with admirals who . . . hasten home at the first damage they receive? . . . The damage should have been repaired en route. . . . A few topmasts carried away . . . [are] everyday occurrences.' But, since Nelson's fleet had been doing as much for the past eighteen months, the truth lay in Napoleon's further words: 'The great evil of our Navy is that the men who command it are unused to all the risks of command.'

  There being now no prospect of Villeneuve reaching the West Indies before the time limit of thirty-five days set for Missiessy's stay, Napoleon changed his plans again. On 14 March 1805, after assaulting but failing to capture Dominica, St Kitts and Montserrat, Missiessy received orders to return at once to Rochefort, where he arrived on 20 May, to be relieved of his command because, wrote Napoleon to Decrès: 'I choked with indignation when I read that he had not taken the Diamond Rock', which had been seized and fortified by Hood in January 1804, to facilitate the British blockade of Fort Royal, capital of the French West Indies. On the same date, 14 March, Villeneuve was ordered to sail for Cadiz, collect such Spanish ships as might be ready, and then head for Martinique. Augereau's invasion of Ireland was cancelled: Ganteaume was to lea
ve Brest with twenty-one sail-of-the-line, collect such French and Spanish ships as could escape from Rochefort and Ferrol, and likewise head for Martinique. Having evaded any substantial British force, the combined fleets, numbering some forty sail, were to return from the West Indies, under Ganteaume's command, in time to defeat Cornwallis' force and appear off Boulogne between 10 June and 10 July.

  `Had [the French] not been crippled nothing could have hindered our meeting them on 21 January off the south end of Sardinia', wrote Nelson. As it was he had to encourage Villeneuve to make a fresh sortie by allowing him to know that the British were to the westward of Toulon. Having appeared off Barcelona, he returned to his old cruising ground off Cape San Sebastian. Thence he proceeded to rendezvous with his store-ships in the Gulf of Palmas at the southern end of Sardinia on 26 March, where he was joined by Campbell's relief, and an old friend, Rear-Admiral Thomas Louis who had commanded the Minotaur at the Nile. His ruse succeeded: Villeneuve left Toulon for the second time on the 30th, as before steering his ten ships-of-the-line to pass between the Balearics and Sardinia, and five days elapsed before the Phoebe brought the news to Nelson on 4 April.

  Again he supposed the French to be destined for Naples, Sicily or Egypt, but he did not this time press another vain chase to Alexandria: declaring that 'I shall neither go to the eastward of Sicily, or to the westward of Sardinia, until I know something positive', he cruised midway between Sardinia and the Barbary Coast in the hope of intercepting the enemy there. The wisdom of this decision was soon confirmed. On 9 April he decided to close Toulon to make sure that Villeneuve had not again returned, only to be seriously delayed by head winds; so he was still to the south of Sardinia on the 18th when a passing vessel reported seeing the French off Cape de Gata ten days before. He knew immediately what this must mean: 'I am going out of the Mediterranean. It may be thought that I have protected too well Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, the Morea and Egypt; but I feel I have done right, and am, therefore, easy about any fate which may await me for having missed the French fleet.'