In spite of Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz, Great Britain was by no means sure of her naval superiority. The French had fought bravely at the battle of the Nile; Nelson, though not exactly outwitted in the chase to the West Indies and back, had failed to catch his opponent, who had escaped a second time without serious loss. In the administration of the admiralty there had been great slackness, except during Barham's short term; and it is now generally agreed that the navy was not highly efficient. Every official except Admiral Collingwood was totally in the dark as to the enemy's plans, and even he was correct only in one surmise, the firm belief that Villeneuve would return at once from the West Indies; he was wrong in his conviction that Ireland was Napoleon's mark. The united French and Spanish fleets made a fine appearance in the accounts which reached the admiralty, and the activity of the French dockyards was alarming. England's naval ascendancy appeared to the English to be seriously jeopardized.
Villeneuve and his subordinates were apparently the only ones who positively knew that the show made by the allied fleets was deceptive. They complained bitterly, as has been said, of the deficiencies in the equipment of both, and had good cause to do so. That Napoleon was not altogether unaware of this is sufficiently proved by the fact that some one less despondent than Villeneuve was not put in his place. In justice to the French admiral it should be remembered that after his return from the West Indies he displayed great ability. It was a series of masterly movements in which he withdrew from before Calder, entered Ferrol, sailed thence and beat up against a storm to enter the Channel until he was informed that a powerful British fleet was in his path. Many of his ill-equipped craft were much damaged by the gale, and recalling the Emperor's alternative orders, he ran for Cadiz, entering the harbor with thirty-five ships. Collingwood drew off his little blockading squadron, but immediately returned to hover before the port, reinforcements being already on their way from England. Villeneuve remained at anchor. On September twenty-fifth he received orders which had been issued on the fourteenth to weigh anchor, pass through the Strait of Gibraltar, take up the ships lying at Cartagena, and proceed to Naples, in order to cooperate with the army under Saint-Cyr. He was to engage the enemy wherever found. The wretched admiral was in despair; for lack of stores he had been unable to improve his equipment, and the number of his ships was an embarrassment rather than a source of strength. He prepared to obey, but sent home a remonstrance. On the very heels of his first order, Napoleon despatched Rosily to supersede Villeneuve, who was to return immediately to Paris and answer charges preferred by Napoleon himself. The news outran Rosily's speed. Villeneuve, hearing of the disgrace which had overtaken him, hastened his preparations, and sailed on October nineteenth with thirty-three ships of the line, five frigates, and two brigs. It is easy to see what a tremendous effect the presence of such a naval power in the Mediterranean would have had upon the grand campaign Napoleon had arranged against Austria.
Meantime the total number of ships of the line in the blockading fleet had been raised to thirty-three. On September twenty-eighth Nelson himself came to take command, Collingwood remaining as second. The great admiral hoped for nothing short of absolutely annihilating the naval power of the allies. But he was compelled to send his vessels to Gibraltar for water in detachments, and consequently had only twenty-seven present and available when called on to fight. These were disposed southwestwardly from Cadiz toward Cape Spartel, the main body being fifty miles away when Villeneuve sailed, believing that there were only twenty confronting him. On October tenth Nelson published to his fleet the plan of the coming battle, but in order not to terrify his enemy he hovered at a long distance from the shore. On the twentieth he advanced toward the northwest, having learned from his frigates, which had been watching Cadiz, that the allies had started. Next morning at daybreak his watch descried the enemy sailing southeasterly, just north of Cape Trafalgar. The French fleet, simultaneously descrying the English, at once turned northward so as to be ready for retreat toward Cadiz; and Villeneuve, skilful but ever despondent, drew up his ships for battle in two long lines parallel with the shore, those of the rear covering the spaces between those of the first, so as to make the whole virtually a single compact curved line, concave toward the enemy, and therefore prepared to deliver a cross-fire.
It was a bright morning, with a light westerly breeze, but a heavy ocean swell, as the British, with the advantage of the wind, slowly advanced in two columns, one led by Nelson in the Victory, the other by Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign. All was silent when at the appointed moment the famous signal fluttered from the flag-ship: "England expects every man to do his duty." Responsive cheers burst from ship after ship, and the French admiral murmured, "All is lost!" Nelson had given a stirring order: "In case signals cannot be seen or clearly understood, no captain can do wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy." Villeneuve's was scarcely less so: "Any captain not under fire is not at his post, and a signal to recall him would be a disgrace." It was a splendid audacity on Nelson's part which, fearing lest the light wind might make an engagement impossible, offered each of his ships in two attacking columns, one after the other, to the fire of a whole fleet. Collingwood's line—the southern—came into action first, just at noon, and broke through the enemy's ranks, as was expected; but although this was by prearrangement with Nelson, yet the Royal Sovereign, having outsailed her consorts, went too far, and was isolated for twenty minutes, being exposed to the fire of all the enemy's ships which could reach her, and was nearly lost before she could manœuver or her consorts come to her assistance.
The Victory hastened on against the Bucentaure, which carried the standard of Villeneuve, as fast as the treacherous breeze would permit, and in turn attacked on the north. She too was in advance of her consorts, and was riddled before they could come to her relief. For a time the Redoutable withstood the onset both of the Victory and the next in line; but three more British vessels coming up, the five finally broke through, capturing the Bucentaure, the Redoutable, and the Santissima Trinidad. Both the English flag-ships were saved, but the fighting was terrific on both sides. To the over-confidence of the British was opposed a dull timidity in their opponents, and in the end this began to tell. The allied van failed to use their guns with either rapidity or precision, while their inner line drifted away to leeward and was enveloped by the enemy. It was about half-past one when Nelson received a mortal wound from the maintop of the Redoutable, but he lived to hear the news of victory. He was a victim to his own system, which subordinated caution and every other idea to the single one of success. His men loved him just as Napoleon's did, and fought desperately for his approval. He was still in his prime, and in many minds his loss offset the victory. Of the whole armada, eleven ships—five French and six Spanish—escaped under Gravina; four put to sea under Dumanoir, but were eventually captured.
That night there was a violent storm. It continued throughout the twenty-third, and on the twenty-fourth three of the eleven vessels which had escaped under Admiral Gravina, having put out to cut off prizes from the British, were dashed to pieces on the shore; all but four of the English prizes were wrecked, and of Villeneuve's proud squadron only eleven were finally left. He himself was taken prisoner, and released on parole. Early in the following April he landed at Morlaix, and, proceeding to Rennes, asked for an opportunity to plead his cause before the Emperor. What the reply was is not known, but on the twenty-second he was found dead in his room, stabbed in several places, the knife embedded in the last wound. The reproaches Napoleon had heaped upon him must have been in the main undeserved, for he was never degraded; but they broke his spirit, and he doubtless committed suicide.
The effect of Trafalgar in England was enormous. No doubt of her superiority on the seas could now remain, for the navies of her foes were wiped out. She had been freed from the fear of invasion by Napoleon's great countermarch, and, in spite of the tremendous subsidies paid on the Continent, might now hope for a revival of industry and trade on whatever shores the oceans rolled. Napoleon's career was one long, thick shadow which hung menacingly over English life. The victory of Trafalgar was a great rift in the cloud. It ended French maritime aggressions for the duration of the war, but it scarcely changed the eventual course of affairs on land, and it in no way interfered with Napoleon's operations for the moment. It did not necessitate, as has been claimed, the notorious continental system, for that system was already in existence; it merely hastened the effort to enforce it rigorously enough to lame England by attacking her commerce. Her naval supremacy had been from the beginning a factor in determining French policy; it became after Trafalgar the most powerful element in molding Napoleon's policy, though it was not the only one. The continental allies of England, while of course they rejoiced, felt that, after all, the effects of Nelson's victory were remote. For the moment Austria and Russia were engaged in a struggle which even Trafalgar did not influence to their advantage. Napoleon's simple but characteristic remark on receiving the news was, "I cannot be everywhere." He began at once the reconstruction of a navy for the purpose of destroying commerce, but he never again assigned it any other share in his plans. In France there was a stunned feeling, but it quickly passed away under the influence of another event which marked nearly the highest point ever reached by the imperial power. The one most noticeable result of Trafalgar was the quick dejection it produced in Napoleon's grand army; this was symptomatic of an evil still in its initiatory stages, which, though easily cured for the moment, became in a short time periodic, and finally fatal.
Napoleon Exposition, 1895