A History of Sea Power

by William Oliver Stevens; Allan F. Westcott

In this discussion of the scheme of the battle, around which interest chiefly centers, the actual events of the engagement have been in some measure anticipated, and may now be told more briefly. Driven to desperation by the goadings of Napoleon and the news that Admiral Rosily was approaching to supersede him, Villeneuve at last resolved to put to sea. "The intention of His Majesty," so the Minister of Marine had written, "is to seek in the ranks, wherever they may be found, officers best suited for superior command, requiring above all a noble ambition, love of glory, decision of character, and unbounded courage. His Majesty wishes to destroy that circumspection which is the reproach of the navy; that defensive system which paralyzes our fleet and doubles the enemy's. He counts the loss of vessels nothing if lost with honor; he does not wish his fleet blockaded by an enemy inferior in strength; and if that is the situation at Cadiz he advises and orders you to attack."

The Allied fleet worked out of Cadiz on the 19th of October and on the 20th tacked southward under squally westerly winds. On the 21st, the day of the battle, the wind was still from the west, light and flawy, with a heavy swell and signs of approaching storm. At dawn the two fleets were visible to each other, Villeneuve about 9 miles northeast and to leeward of the British and standing southward from Cape Trafalgar. The French Admiral had formed his main battle line of 21 ships, French and Spanish intermingled, with the Santisima Trinidad (128) in the center and his flagship Bucentaure next; the remaining 12 under the Spanish Admiral Gravina constituted a separate squadron stationed to windward to counter an enemy concentration, which was especially expected upon the rear.

As the British advance already appeared to threaten this end of their line, the Allied fleet wore together about 9 o'clock, thus reversing their order, shifting their course northward, and opening Cadiz as a refuge. The maneuver, not completed until an hour later, left their line bowed in at the center, with a number of ships slightly to leeward, while Gravina's squadron mingled with and prolonged the rear in the new order.

BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, OCT. 21, 1805

Position of ships about noon, when Royal Sovereign opened fire.

(From plan by Capt. T. H. Tizard, R.N., British Admiralty Report, 1913.)

The change, though it aroused Nelson's fear lest his quarry should escape, facilitated his attack as planned, by exposing the enemy rear to Collingwood's division. As rapidly as the light airs permitted, the two British columns bore down, Nelson in the Victory (100) leading the windward division of 12 ships, closely followed by the heavy Neptune and Téméraire, while Collingwood in the freshly coppered and refitted Royal Sovereign set a sharp pace for the 15 sail to leeward. Of the forty ships Nelson had once counted on, some had not come from England, and a half dozen others were inside the straits for water. While the enemy were changing course, Collingwood had signaled his division to shift into a line of bearing, an order which, though rendered almost ineffective by his failure to slow down, served to throw the column off slightly and bring it more nearly parallel to the enemy rear. (See plan.) Both commanders clung to the lead and pushed ahead as if racing into the fray, thus effectually preventing deployment and leaving trailers far behind. Nelson went so far as to try to jockey his old friend out of first place by ordering the Mars to pass him, but Collingwood set his studding sails and kept his lead. Possibly it was then he made the remark that he wished Nelson would make no more signals, as they all knew what they had to do, rather than after Nelson's famous final message: "England expects that every man will do his duty."

Nelson, uncertain of Villeneuve's place in the line and anxious to prevent escape northward, steered for a gap ahead of the Santisima Trinidad, as if to threaten the van. But at 12:00 noon, as the first shots were fired at the Royal Sovereign, flags were broken from all ships, and Villeneuve's location revealed. Swinging to southward under heavy fire, the Victory passed under the stern of the Bucentaure and then crashed into the Redoutable, which had pushed close up to the flagship. The relative effectiveness of the gunnery in the two fleets is suggested by the fact that the Victory while coming in under the enemy's concentrated fire had only 50 killed and wounded, whereas the raking broadside she finally poured into the Bucentaure's stern is said to have swept down 400 men. Almost simultaneously with the leader, the Téméraire and Neptune plunged into the line, the former closing with the Bucentaure and the latter with the Santisima Trinidad ahead. Other ships soon thrust into the terrific artillery combat which centered around the leaders in a confused mingling of friend and foe.

At about 12:10, nearly half an hour before the Victory penetrated the Allied line, the Royal Sovereign brought up on the leeward side of the Santa Ana, flagship of the Spanish Admiral Alava, after raking both her and the Fougueux astern. The Santa Ana was thirteenth in the actual line, but, as Collingwood knew, there were 16, counting those to leeward, among the ships he had thus cut off for his division to subdue. As a combined effect of the light breeze and the manner of attack, it was an hour or more before the action was made general by the advent of British ships in the rear. All these suffered as they closed, but far less than those near the head of the line. Of the total British casualties fully a third fell upon the four leading ships—Victory, Téméraire, Royal Sovereign and Belleisle.

Not until about three o'clock were the shattered but victorious British in the center threatened by the return of the ten ships in the Allied van. Culpably slow, however hindered by lack of wind, several of these joined stragglers from Gravina's division to leeward; the Intrépide, under her brave skipper Infernet, set an example all might well have followed by steering straight for the Bucentaure, and surrendered only to overwhelming odds; five others under Rear Admiral Dumanoir skirted to windward and escaped with the loss of one of their number, cut off by two British late-comers, Spartiate and Minotaur.

"Partial firing continued until 4:30, when a victory having been reported to the Right Honorable Lord Viscount Nelson, he died of his wound." So reads the Victory's log. The flagship had been in deadly grapple with the Redoutable, whose complement, like that of many another French and Spanish ship in the action, showed that the decadence of their navies was not due to lack of fighting spirit in the rank and file. Nelson was mortally wounded by a musket shot from the mizzen-top soon after the ships closed. In his hour of supreme achievement death came not ungraciously, giving final assurance of the glory which no man ever faced death more eagerly to win.

Of the Allied fleet, four fled with Dumanoir, but were later engaged and captured by a British squadron near Corunna. Eleven badly battered survivors escaped into Cadiz. Of the 18 captured, 11 were wrecked or destroyed in the gales that swept the coast for several days after the battle; three were recaptured or turned back to their crews by the prize-masters, and only four eventually reached Gibraltar.