Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  On 2 August Napoleon was sufficiently sure of a favourable opportunity for his invasion of England to join his Grande Armée at Boulogne. One week later he heard that Villeneuve had sought refuge from Calder in Ferrol. Even so, he expected him to sail again, northward for the Channel as soon as his combined fleets had been watered: on the 29th, Ganteaume was ordered out to effect a junction with him. But the sight of Cornwallis's ships bearing down on the Brest fleet as soon as it cleared harbour on the 21st, followed by a brief exchange of shots, was enough to persuade the French to return to port. That the British numbered only seventeen ships-of-the-line when they had twenty-one counted for nothing against Napoleon's reiterated orders to evade action.

  Cornwallis had so reduced his fleet on 17 August. Three days after Calder rejoined him off Ferrol, the Commander-in-Chief sent him back with eighteen sail-of-the-line to resume the blockade of Villeneuve, whose force now numbered thirty-five. For thus dividing his fleet Cornwallis has been much criticized on the score that it exposed him to defeat by a considerably larger force: if Ganteaume and Villeneuve had effected a junction, the former would have had more than fifty ships-of-the-line under his supreme command. But the point is no more than academic. Villeneuve was quick to leave Ferrol as soon as Calder lifted his blockade on 9 August; he hoped to meet Rear-Admiral Allemand's five ships-of-the-line that had slipped out of Rochefort. But when he failed to find them he remembered the last order he had received from Napoleon, when still in the West Indies; if, on returning to Europe, he was 'for any reason' unable to join Ganteaume, he was to go to Cadiz, seize Gibraltar and the Straits, and collect the Spanish squadron from Cartagena - which would give him a sufficient force to seize command of the Channel even if, on heading north again, Ganteaume failed to meet him. And, 'for any reason', was a fatal loophole to a man of Villeneuve's mentality: it was enough for him to choose Napoleon's alternative course of action. Heading south before Calder could again be off Ferrol, he rounded Cape St Vincent, and on the 20th entered Cadiz, after chasing away Collingwood's watching patrol of only three ships-of-the-line. Calder followed him, but could not arrive off this Spanish port until the 30th, when he provided Collingwood with a total of twenty-six ships-of-the-line with which to establish an effective blockade.

  For this collapse of the elaborate scaffolding of plans for invading England which Napoleon had been erecting for more than two years, the Emperor laid the blame on Villeneuve. 'Where,' he complained, 'did my admirals learn that they can make war without taking risks?'' But the truth is very different. Before any word of Villeneuve's decision to go south could reach Boulogne, Napoleon received news of much graver import: Austria and Russia had decided to join Britain in a Third Coalition against France. [As when he was in Egypt, Napoleon could not resist the trumpet call; 'La Patrie en danger'.] He must strike before the Austrian and Russian armies could join forces against him. On 24 August he ordered the generals commanding the several divisions of his Grande Armée to break camp and 'march for Mainz. I want to be in the heart of Germany with 300,000 men before anybody knows about it.'

  On 2 September Captain Blackwood, who had played a large part in the capture of the Guillaume Tell off Malta, and now held command of the frigate Euryalus, brought to London, and Nelson, the news that Villeneuve was in Cadiz. Pitt and Barham were in no doubt that the enemy's combined fleets must be held there and prevented from either threatening the Channel or entering the Mediterranean. The port must be blockaded until Villeneuve chose to sortie, which might well be soon because the place was known to be short of food; then, in Nelson's words, 'it is . . . annihilation that the Country wants, and not merely a splendid victory . . . honourable to all parties concerned, but absolutely useless . . . to bring Bonaparte to his marrow-bones'.

  This task was clearly his: as soon as the Victory could be made ready, at half-past ten on the night of 13 September, and a fortnight before his forty-seventh birthday, he 'drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world, to go to serve my King and Country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectation of my Country; and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the Throne of His Mercy. If it is His good Providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will protect those so dear to me, that I may leave behind. His Will be done: Amen, Amen, Amen.'

  There was nothing new in such religious fervour: Nelson was not only a clergymen's son but held the strong belief in God that is characteristic of those who follow the sea profession, despite his (and their) neglect of the seventh commandment. There was, too, no special premonition in such words: he had expressed similar sentiments before the Nile and Copenhagen - and many officers and men wrote in such terms before going into action in the First and Second World Wars. As he told Davison: 'I hope my absence will not be long, and that I shall soon meet the combined fleets with a force sufficient to do the job well; for half a victory would but half content me. . . . I will do my best. . . . I have much to lose, but little to gain; and I go because it is right, and I will serve the Country faithfully.'

  On the Portsmouth Road Nelson stopped for refreshment at the Royal Anchor Hotel, Liphook (still a flourishing hostelry), and next morning breakfasted at Portsmouth's George Hotel (unhappily destroyed in a Second World War blitz). Thence he walked to Southsea beach (near where the Clarence Pier now stands: not as is often said, to the Sally Port at the end of the High Street). 'A crowd collected in his train, pressing forward to obtain sight of his face; many were in tears, and many knelt down before him and blessed him as he passed. England has had many heroes but never one who so entirely possessed the love of his fellow-countrymen. . . . They pressed upon the parapet to gaze after him when his barge pushed off, and he was returning their cheers by waving his hat.' (Southey in his Life of Nelson) 'I had their huzzas before', he told Hardy as they rowed out to the Victory. 'I have their hearts now.'

  Next morning, hearing that the Royal Sovereign, Agamemnon and Defiance were not yet ready, Nelson sent orders to their captains to follow as soon as they could. He would not delay an hour in getting to Cadiz: as he told Blackwood, whose frigate was to accompany him, 'I am convinced . . . [of] the importance of not letting the rogues escape us without a fair fight which I pant for by day and dream of by night.' But though the Victory sailed that afternoon the wind was dead foul: not until the 17th was she off Plymouth where the Thunderer and Ajax joined Nelson's flag. South-west of the Scillies he met his erstwhile second-in-command, Bickerton, a sick man on his way home. By the 25th his small force was off Lisbon, from where he sped the Euryalus to warn Collingwood of his coming. Three days later Nelson sighted his fleet. But, much more pleasing, he also saw the masts and yards of the combined fleets lying at their moorings in Cadiz. He had caught up with Villeneuve at last!

  Nelson's first task on reassuming command of a Mediterranean station which was again extended out into the Atlantic, was a distasteful one. Calder, when first captain to Jervis in 1797, had severely criticized his decision to wear the Captain out of the line during the battle of Cape St Vincent. Yet, when Nelson heard the details of Calder's engagement with Villeneuve off Cape Finisterre, he wrote these sympathetic words:

  'Who can, my dear Fremantle, command all the success which our Country may wish? We have fought together. . . . I have the best disposed fleet of friends, but who can say what will be the event of a battle ? . . . I should have fought the enemy, so did my friend Calder; but who can say that he will be more successful than another?'

  But others were not so generous: he was required to tell Calder that the Government was dissatisfied with his conduct and that he was to return forthwith to England to stand trial by court martial. He felt so much for Calder's predicament that he had not the heart to reject his plea to return in his own flagship, rather than in a frigate, although this would deprive the fleet of a ship-of-the-line when it already numbered fewer than the enemy. Two m
onths later Calder was acquitted of cowardice but severely reprimanded for not renewing the action on 23 or 24 July.

  This episode excepted, 'the reception I [Nelson] met with on joining the fleet caused the sweetest sensation in my life. The officers who came on board to welcome my return forgot my rank . . . in the enthusiasm with which they greeted me.' This was not mere vanity: in the immediately following days, by frequent invitations to his flag officers and captains to visit him, Nelson quickly inspired them by his sympathetic understanding of their problems, his explanations of how he intended to carry out his task and, above all, by his magnetic personality. As George Duff of the Mars told his wife: 'He certainly is the pleasantest admiral I ever served under.'

  With 'my dear Coll. as perfect as could be expected', as his second-in-command, and with Louis and the Earl of Northesk as his rear-admirals, Nelson's fleet was soon reinforced to as many as thirty-three ships-of-the-line, a figure much nearer to the forty with which he credited Villeneuve. Collingwood's strategy had been a close blockade, investing Cadiz with an inshore squadron of five ships-of-the-line under Louis, and holding the rest in support to seaward. Nelson changed this to the more enterprising one that he had adopted off Toulon: Villeneuve must be encouraged to come out before the winter gales set in. Louis was recalled from his inshore watch and the whole British battle fleet withdrew some fifty miles to the west, leaving the task of reporting any movement by the combined fleets to the Euryalus and three other frigates.

  By 8 October Nelson had enough intelligence to be confident that Napoleon had issued new orders to Villeneuve. (Written on 14 September, shortly before the Emperor left Paris to lead his Grande Armée against Austria, Villeneuve received them on the 29th, the day after Nelson's arrival off Cadiz.) The combined fleets were to sail into the Mediterranean: no longer required to cover the discarded invasion of England, they were to land reinforcements at Naples to forestall the attack which Pitt had ordered General Sir James Craig to stage from Malta, in conjunction with the Russians, on the 'soft under-belly' of Napoleon's empire. 'Should the enemy move,' he told Collingwood, 'it is probable that I shall make a signal to bear up and steer for the entrance to the Straits . . . to intercept them.'

  Villeneuve had one distinct advantage; he and Gravina could sail on the day of their choice with thirty-three ships-of-the-line (not Nelson's over-estimate of forty), including the mighty Santisima Trinidad of 140 guns, the Principe de Asturias and Santa Ana with 112, and the Rayo with 100. Nelson could never have such a number: though his fleet totalled as many ships as the enemy, including seven of 98 or 100 guns, he must send detachments in turn to Gibraltar for victuals and water. More important, he had to provide battleships to escort convoys eastward from the Straits against attack by the Spanish squadron in Cartagena. So his force off Cadiz seldom numbered more than twenty-seven ships-of-the-line, six fewer than the enemy. Nelson had, however, an advantage of another kind, an abundant faith in the superiority of his officers and men as fighters and as seamen. 'Choose yourself, my Lord,' he had said to Barham, when offered a list from which to select his officers, 'the same spirit actuates the whole profession: you cannot choose wrong.' For contrast, though Villeneuve might trust his own ships, he had little faith in Gravina's: the Spaniards were not only incompetent but lacked interest in the war. Indeed, the French Commander-in-Chief so far distrusted them that, in his order of sailing, he mingled the Spanish ships with his own, so that it would be difficult for them to desert him in a crisis, instead of keeping them in one squadron under Gravina's command.

  Two pieces of intelligence precipitated Villeneuve's departure. On 18 October he learned that Vice-Admiral Francois Rosily had arrived at Madrid. Knowing that Napoleon held him in contempt for his failure to make the Channel, Villeneuve surmised (correctly) that he was about to be superseded. The same day brought a report that a British convoy had sailed eastwards from Gibraltar escorted by four ships-of-the-line, leaving two more anchored in the Bay. With Nelson's strength thus reduced, here was an opportunity for him to salvage his honour, before Rosily could complete his difficult journey. To the masthead of his flagship, the Bucentaure, went the signal, 'Prepare to weigh'.

  The wisdom of Nelson's strategy was soon apparent. At 6 am on 19 October the Sirius, which was the closest inshore of Blackwood's frigates, flew the group from Popham's code: 'Enemy have their topsails hoisted'. Three hours later Nelson responded with the signal, 'General chase south-east', so that he might place his fleet between the enemy and the Straits.

  'My dearest beloved Emma. . . . The signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleets are coming out of port. We have very little wind, so that I have no hope of seeing them before tomorrow. May the God of Battles crown my endeavours with success. I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle.' (2)

  The wind being light from south-by-west, backing in the afternoon to south-east-by-east, Nelson did not sight the Rock until 1 am on the 20th, when he hove-to midway between Cape Trafalgar and Cape Spartel. And dawn brought two disappointments. There was no sign of Louis's six battleships: the sloop carrying Nelson's orders to them to rejoin him did not reach Gibraltar until after Louis had sailed with four into the Mediterranean escorting an eastbound convoy, leaving two to take in supplies. Secondly, as Collingwood wrote to his wife:

  'All our gay hopes are fled, and instead of being under all sail in a very light breeze and fine weather, expecting to bring the enemy to battle, we are under close-reefed topsails in a very stormy wind [from the south-south-west] with thick rainy weather, and the dastardly French returned to Cadiz.'

  Or, as Nelson continued his letter to Emma:

  'In the morning we were close to . . . the Straits, but the wind had not come far enough to the westward to allow the combined fleets to weather the shoals off Trafalgar. . . . A group of them was seen off the lighthouse of Cadiz this morning; but it blows so very fresh and thick weather that I rather believe they will go into the harbour before night. May God Almighty give us success over these fellows, and enable us to get a Peace.'

  Fortunately, Nelson's and Collingwood's appreciation of the enemy's movements was soon proved wrong. After writing to Barham: 'I must guard against being caught with a westerly wind near Cadiz, as a fleet of so many three-deckers would be forced into the Straits', and setting course to the north-west to regain his station fifty miles west of the Spanish port, one of Blackwood's frigates hove in sight with the news that the enemy was, after all, at sea to the north. The light winds of the previous day had prevented many of the French and Spanish ships clearing Cadiz before sundown. Indeed, the combined fleets were not finally at sea until noon on 20 October. And since another four hours elapsed before they were formed up in a corps de bataille of three divisions under Villeneuve's immediate command, with the remaining twelve French and Spanish ships-of-the-line as an escadre d'observation in reserve under Gravina, it was not until 4 pm that, after an initial move south-west, Villeneuve began to steer south to make a good offing for entering the Straits.

  Nelson rejected Collingwood's advice in favour of an attack that day, because this would mean beginning the action too late to be sure of a decisive result. Nor was this an occasion for an attack in the dark, which was always more hazardous against a fleet at sea than, as against Brueys in Aboukir Bay, a fleet in harbour. He continued, instead, to the north-west under easy sail until his fleet was twenty miles south-west of Cadiz, a movement designed to encourage Villeneuve to pass inshore of him, whilst Blackwood's frigates, covered by three ships-of-the-line, kept the combined fleets under close observation. From them Nelson learned at 2 pm that Villeneuve was heading westwards. 'But that,' he wrote in his diary, 'they shall not do, if in the power of Nelson and Brontë to prevent them' - and steered to intercept. By nightfall, however, Blackwood had reported Villeneuve's
true course. Since the combined fleets were then too far from the Straits to reach them before the morning, Nelson instructed Blackwood to continue shadowing whilst his battle fleet maintained its windward position. If the wind should shift round to the east, so as to place it to leeward, it would be of no great consequence because Villeneuve would then be unable to steer for the Straits.

  At 4 am Nelson reversed course, and daylight on 21 October not only promised fairer weather but brought the reassuring sight of the combined fleets only nine miles to the north-east, though with the small disappointment that Henry Digby's 64-gun Africa had lost touch to the north during the night. But though the odds had lengthened to thirty-three against twenty-six, Nelson did not hesitate: at 5.40 am with the favourable omen that this was the forty-sixth anniversary of the action that had inspired him as a boy to join the Navy, Uncle Maurice Suckling's defeat of de Kersaint, Nelson signalled his fleet to, 'Form the order of sailing in two columns', followed twenty minutes later by, 'Prepare for battle'.