Famous Sea Fights, from Salamis to Tsu-Shima

by A. Hilliard Atteridge

"Admiral, I trust you have arrived at Brest. Start at once. Do not lose a moment. Come into the Channel with our united squadrons, and England is ours. We are all ready. Everything is embarked. Come here for twenty-four hours and all is ended, and six centuries of shame and insult will be avenged."

When he heard that the admiral had lost heart and turned back he was furious. But he had already formed plans for an alternative enterprise. The English ministry had succeeded in forming a new coalition with Austria and Russia as a means of keeping the Emperor occupied on the Continent. On 27 August Napoleon issued his orders for the march of the Grand Army to the Danube, and on 1 September he started on the career of victory, the stages of which were to be Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland.

To Villeneuve he sent, through Decrès, bitter reproaches and new orders for a naval campaign in the Mediterranean. Decrès, writing to his old comrade, transmitted the new plan of campaign and softened down the Emperor's angry words. Villeneuve reported that he could not leave Cadiz for some time. He was doing all that was possible to refit his fleet and find full crews for the French and Spanish ships. For the latter men were provided by pressing landsmen into the service. "It is pitiful," wrote a French officer, "to see such fine ships manned with a handful of seamen and a crowd of beggars and herdsmen." In the councils of war held at Cadiz there were fierce disputes between the French and Spanish officers, the latter accusing their allies of having abandoned to their fate the two ships lost in Calder's action. The jealousy between the two nations rose so high that several French sailors were stabbed at night in the streets.

The English Government knew nothing of the inefficient state and the endless difficulties of the great fleet concentrated at Cadiz, and regarded its presence there as a standing danger. Collingwood was reinforced, and it was decided to send Nelson out to join him, take over the command, blockade the enemy closely, and bring him to action if he ventured out.

Nelson sailed from Spithead on 15 September in his old flagship the "Victory," accompanied by the "Euryalus," Captain Blackwood, one of the swiftest and smartest frigates in the navy. Picking up the battleships "Thunderer" and "Ajax" on the way, he joined the fleet off Cadiz on 28 September.

Villeneuve had written to Decrès that none of the ships were in really good order, and that the Spanish vessels were "quite incapable of meeting the enemy." Only a portion of his fleet had had the slight training afforded by the Atlantic voyage. The rest had lain for years in harbour, and many of them had crews chiefly made up of recently enrolled landsmen. Many of the captains held that if there was to be a fight it would be useless to manœuvre or to attempt an artillery duel, and that the only chance of success lay in a hand-to-hand fight by boarding. But, then, to produce the position for boarding meant being able to manœuvre. Villeneuve was supported by most of the superior officers of the fleet in the opinion that he had better stay at Cadiz; but from Napoleon there came reiterated orders for the fleet to enter the Mediterranean.

The last hesitation of the unfortunate admiral was ended by the news that Admiral Rosilly was coming from Paris to supersede him. If he did not attempt something, his career would end in disgrace. He held a final council of war, gave his last instructions to his officers, and then wrote to Decrès that he would obey the Emperor's orders, though he foresaw that they would probably lead to disaster.

Contrary winds from the westward delayed his sailing for some days after this decision. Reefs and local currents made it difficult to work a large fleet out of Cadiz without a fair wind. A smaller but better-trained fleet than that of Villeneuve had once taken three days to get out, and a portion of the fleet at sea and unsupported would be in deadly peril. On 17 October the wind began to work round to the eastward. Next day it fell almost to a calm, but it increased towards evening, and Villeneuve, after a conference with his Spanish colleague, Admiral Gravina, signalled that the ships were to weigh anchor at sunrise on the 19th.

Nelson had been watching Cadiz for three weeks, keeping his fleet well out at sea, with his frigates close in to the port, and a chain of ships acting as connecting links with them to pass on information by signalling with flags by day and lanterns by night. The system of signalling had been lately so improved that it was fairly rapid and reliable, and Nelson kept his fleet out of sight, and requested that the names of ships sent to reinforce him should not appear in the papers, as he hoped to delude Villeneuve into a false idea that he had a very inferior force before Cadiz. He feared that if the whole array of his fleet were visible from the look-out stations of the port the allies would remain safe at anchor. During this period of waiting he had had more than one conference with his captains, and had read and explained to them a manuscript memorandum, dated 9 October, setting forth his plans for the expected battle. His plan of battle excited an enthusiasm among them, to which more than one of them afterwards bore testimony. They said that "the Nelson touch" was in it, and it is generally taken for granted that they saw in it something like a stroke of genius and a new departure in tactics. I hope it is not presumption on my part to suggest that their enthusiasm was partly the result of their seeing that their trusted leader was thoroughly himself again and, to use a familiar phrase, meant business, and they had a further motive for satisfaction in seeing how thoroughly he relied on them and how ready he was to give them a free hand in carrying out his general ideas.

The "Nelson touch" memorandum of 9 October and the whole plan of the battle have been, and still are, the subject of acute controversy, the various phases of which it would be far too long to discuss. It is strange that after the lapse of a hundred years and the publication of a vast mass of detailed evidence—British, French, and Spanish—there are still wide differences of opinion as to how the most famous naval battle in history was actually fought out. There is even much uncertainty as to the order in which the British ships came into action.