Drake, Nelson and Napoleon

by Baron Walter Runciman Runciman

For several months he was tearing about the seas in search of the French fleet. He popped into Naples on the 17th June, 1798, ostensibly to know if anything had been heard of it, and no doubt he took the opportunity of having a word with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, who were to come so romantically into his life. He found the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay and sailed upon it with such amazing audacity that the heart was knocked out of them at the very outset. Neither the French Admiral nor anybody else would have expected the British fleet to run their ships between them and the shore at the risk of grounding. The Culloden did ground. The French had 11 out of 13 ships put out of action, but the British fleet suffered severely also, and the loss of men was serious.[1] Out of a total of 7,401 men, 218 were killed and 678 wounded. Nelson himself was badly wounded on the forehead, and as the skin fell down on his good eye and the blood streamed into it, he was both dazed and blinded. He shouted to Captain Berry as he was staggering to a fall, "I am killed; remember me to my wife." But there was a lot more work for him to do before the fatal day. He was carried below, believing the injury would prove fatal, in spite of the assurances to the contrary of the surgeon who was in attendance.

Although Nelson's courage can never be doubted, there is something very curious in his constant, eccentric foreboding of death and the way in which he scattered his messages about to one and another. This habit increased amazingly after his conflict with the French at the Nile. He seems to have had intermittent attacks of hypochondria. The wound incident at Aboukir must have given great amusement as well as anxiety to those about him. Unquestionably the wound had the appearance at first of being mortal, but the surgeon soon gave a reassuring opinion, and after binding up the ugly cut he requested his patient to remain below. But Nelson, as soon as he knew he was not going to die, became bored with the inactivity and insisted on writing a dispatch to the Admiralty. His secretary was too excited to carry out his wishes, so he tackled it himself. But his suffering being great and his mind in a condition of whirling confusion, he did not get far beyond the beginning, which intimated that "Almighty God had blessed His Majesty's arms." The battle raged on. The Orient was set on fire and her destruction assured. When Nelson was informed of the terrible catastrophe to the great French line-of-battle ship, he demanded to be assisted to the deck, whereupon he gave instructions that his only boat not destroyed was to be sent with the Vanguard's first lieutenant to render assistance to the crew. He remained on deck until the Orient blew up, and was then urged to go to bed.

But sleep under the circumstances and in view of his own condition would not come. All night long he was sending messages directing the plan of battle the news of which was to enthral the civilized world. Nelson himself was not satisfied. "Not one of the French vessels would have escaped," he said, "if it had pleased God that he had not been wounded." This was rather a slur on those who had given their best blood and really won the battle. Notwithstanding the apparent egotism of this outburst, there are sound reasons for believing that the Admiral's inspiring influence was much discounted by his not being able to remain on deck. The sight of his guiding, magnetic figure had an amazing effect on his men, but I think it must be admitted that Nelson's head was not in a condition at that time to be entirely relied upon, and those in charge of the different ships put the finishing touches to the victory that was won by the force of his courage and commanding genius in the initial stages of the struggle.

II

Nelson was a true descendant of a race of men who had never faltered in the traditional belief that the world should be governed and dominated by the British. His King, his country, and particularly the profession to which he belonged, were to him the supreme authorities whose destiny it was to direct the affairs of the universe. With unfailing comic seriousness, intermixed with occasional explosions of bitter violence, he placed the French low down in the scale of the human family. There was scarcely a sailor adjective that was not applied to them. Carlyle, in later years, designated the voice of France as "a confused babblement from the gutters" and "scarcely human"; "A country indeed with its head cut off"; but this quotation does not reach some of the picturesque heights of nautical language that was invented by Nelson to describe his view of them. Both he and many of his fellow-countrymen regarded the chosen chief on whom the French nation had democratically placed an imperial crown as the embodiment of a wild beast.

The great Admiral was always whole-hearted in his declamation against the French people and their leaders who are our present allies fighting against that country which now is, and which Napoleon predicted to his dying day would become, one of the most imperious, inhuman foes to civilization. Nelson and his government at that time thought it a merciful high policy of brotherhood to protect and re-create Prussia out of the wreck to which Napoleon had reduced it; the result being that the military spirit of Prussia has been a growing, determined menace to the peace of the world and to the cause of human liberty in every form since the downfall of the man who warned us at the time from his exiled home on the rock of St. Helena that our policy would ultimately reflect with a vengeance upon ourselves, and involve the whole world in a great effort to save itself from destruction. He foresaw that Prussia would inveigle and bully the smaller German states into unification with herself, and, having cunningly accomplished this, that her perfidy would proceed to consolidate the united fabric into a formidable power which would crush all others by its military superiority; this dream of universal control of human life and affairs was at one time nearly realized.

The German Empire has bankrupted herself in men, necessaries of life, and money. But that in no degree minimizes the disaster she has wrought on those who have had to bleed at every pore to avoid annihilation. The Allies, as well as the Central Powers, are no longer going concerns. It will take generations to get back to the point at which we started in 1914. But the tragic thought of all is the enormous sacrifice of life, and the mental and physical wrecks that have survived the savage, brutal struggle brought on a world that was, and wished to remain, at peace, when in 1914 the Central Powers arrogantly forced the pace which caused an alliance to be formed quickly by their enemies to save them from the doom which Napoleon, with his clear vision, had predicted would come.

It was fitting that Nelson should by every conceivable means adopt methods of declamation against the French, if by doing so he thought it would inspire the men whom he commanded with the same conquering spirit he himself possessed. His country was at war with the French, and he was merely one of the instruments appointed to defeat them, and this may account for his ebullitions of hatred from time to time. I have found, however, no record that would in any way show that it was intended as surface policy, so it may be concluded that his dislike was as deep-seated as it appeared. Nelson never seems to have shown evidences of being a humbug by saying things which he did not believe. He had a wholesome dislike of the French people and of Bonaparte, who was their idol at that time. But neither he nor his government can be credited with the faculty of being students of human life. He and they believed that Paris was the centre of all that was corrupt and brutal. Napoleon, on the other hand, had no real hatred of the British people, but during his wars with their government his avowed opinion was that "all the ills, and all the scourges that afflict mankind, came from London." Both were wrong in their conclusions. They simply did not understand each other's point of view in the great upheaval that was disturbing the world. The British were not only jealous and afraid of Napoleon's genius and amazing rise to eminence—which they attributed to his inordinate ambition to establish himself as the dominating factor in the affairs of the universe—but they determined that his power should not only not be acknowledged, but destroyed, and their policy after twenty years of bitter war was completely accomplished.

The merits or demerits of British policy must always remain a matter of controversy. It is too big a question to deal with here. Napoleon said himself that "Everything in the life of man is subject to calculation; the good and evil must be equally balanced." Other true sayings of his indicate that he, at any rate, was a student of human life, and knew how fickle fortune is under certain conditions. "Reprisals," he declared, "are but a sad resource"; and again, no doubt dwelling on his own misfortunes, but with vivid truth all the same, he declares that "The allies gained by victory will turn against you upon the bare whisper of our defeat."