Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It was a naval battle between the Royal Navy and a combined fleet of the French and Spanish navies during the War of the Third Coalition. As part of Napoleon’s planned invasion of the United Kingdom, the French and Spanish navies planned to take control of the English Channel and provide the French invasion army with safe passage to Britain.
The allied fleet was under the command of French Vice-admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, while the British fleet was under the command of Vice-Admiral of the White Horatio Nelson. Nelson’s fleet was outnumbered, having only 27 ships of the line to the 33 of Villeneuve’s fleet, which included the largest warship in either fleet, the Spanish ship of the line Santísima Trinidad. To address this imbalance, Nelson sailed his fleet directly at the allied battle line’s flank in two columns, hoping to break the line into pieces.
The British plan worked almost perfectly; Nelson’s columns split the Franco-Spanish fleet in three, isolating the rear from the rest of the fleet. In the battle that followed, 18 allied ships were captured or destroyed, while the British lost none. Nelson’s own HMS Victory led the front column and was almost knocked out of action. Nelson was shot by a French musketeer during the battle, and died shortly before it ended.
Nelson’s victory against the odds and death during battle secured his place as a British national hero. His signal to the fleet shortly before the battle, “England expects that every man will do his duty”, is regularly quoted and paraphrased.
The Battle of Trafalgar by William Clarkson Stanfield
Myself?
It’s getting to be that season. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q54HMKWxwpk
