Trafalgar

The invasion of Britain was abandoned because the element of surprise was lost, but mostly Napoleon's plans had to be set aside because he did not understand the problems of war at sea anywhere near as well as he did the deployment of armies on land. He was used to organising grand projects that relied on the fast and reliable transmission of orders to move large armies across the land-scape, and he wanted to use the same approach for the dispositions of his warships. It was a policy doomed to failure, because he did not allow for the vagaries of contacting fleets at sea. This was done through despatches carried by relatively small, lightly armed ships that relied on speed and manoeuvra-bility rather than firepower to elude capture. Speed of communication at sea seldom approached that on land, mainly because it was far more difficult to find a ship and deliver mes-sages than for a despatch rider on land to take orders to an army. Lines of communication at sea were also at the mercy of wind and weather, and it was common practice to send dupli-cate despatches in different ships to increase the chances of the information reaching its destination. In such circumstances, close central control of naval operations was impossible — a fact that Napoleon repeatedly failed to grasp. As on land, Napoleon also frequently countermanded his own orders by sending one messenger ship to follow another, without any thought that only one, or possibly none, might reach their destination in time. While trying to impose tight control on his ships at sea through a constant stream of orders, he produced more chaos than if he had left his admirals to their own devices. After so many abandoned invasion plans, he still failed to learn from his mistakes, blaming his subordinates instead. His latest plan was for Vice-Admiral Honore-Joseph-Antoine Ganteaume to lead his fleet from Brest on the north-west tip of France to Martinique in the 'West Indies. In the meantime Vice-Admiral Villeneuve was to take his fleet from Toulon on the south coast of France, collect the Spanish admiral Frederico
Carlos Gravina with five Spanish warships from Cadiz, and ren-dezvous with Ganteaume at Martinique. These combined forces would next attack British possessions in the West Indies, thereby drawing British ships away from Europe to deal with this threat. They would then return to take control of the English Channel so that the invasion of Britain could take place. Napoleon's whole strategy was based on deceiving the British; Ganteaume was to leave Brest unseen so that British ships would be occupied looking for him; a large enough fleet was to stay at Cadiz to ensure that the British maintained the blockade and so could not rapidly reinforce their fleet in the Channel; and Villeneuve was to sail for the West Indies in the hope of induc-ing a large part of the British Navy to give chase. It was a strategy that would work well enough with armies on land, but it was far too complicated and too precise to have much chance of working at sea. Because he did not trust his admirals, Napoleon also issued increasingly detailed and rigid orders in an attempt to force them to do exactly what he wanted. On 3o March 1805, Villeneuve's fleet had sailed from Toulon, setting in motion a train of events that would culminate in the Battle of Trafalgar nearly seven months later. The first part of Villeneuve's mission was successful; he avoided the British block-ade, and Nelson only found out that he had gone four days later.

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It was this sudden leap in technology to specially designed warships that carried cannons from commandeered merchant ships as mere transport for soldiers that led to Trafalgar, warships became weapons in their own right, capable of destroying other ships or land-based fortifications without any troops leaving the ship. Naval strategy rapidly changed from an emphasis on ramming and boarding to the concerted use of artillery to disable an enemy before they were close enough to ram or board. In the two centuries leading up to Trafalgar, this was the situation that had prevailed. By trial and error, the design of ships and cannons gradually improved, as did the quality of gunpowder, and at the time of the battle, wooden sailing warships had reached the very peak of technical perfection, with the expertise of the best seamen leaving little room for more advances. Trafalgar was to be the last major pitched battle between two large fleets of sailing wooden war-ships. Within sixty years the first iron battleship was launched, causing a race between European navies for more powerful guns to destroy enemy battleships and ever-thicker armour to protect them. In the meantime the development of steam engines broke the reliance on wind power and changed naval tactics for ever. With the advent of iron and steam, the advantage lay firmly with the fleet that had the best technology; no longer could the sheer skill, professionalism and endurance of the ships' crews, as at Trafalgar, produce a decisive victory in the face of unfavourable odds. Although the ships were cleared for action in great haste, because this was how the crews had practised the manoeuvre in order to be ready for any emergency, with hindsight the sailors found they had plenty of time — perhaps too much time. William Robinson, a seaman on board the Revenge who had volunteered five months before the battle, later remembered:
As the enemy was thus driven to risk a battle, they exhibited a specimen of their naval tactics by forming themselves into a crescent, or half-moon, waiting for our approach; which did not take place until ten minute of twelve o'clock, so that there was nearly six hours to prepare
for the battle, while we glided down to them under the influence of a gentle breeze . . . During this time each ship was making the usual preparations, such as breaking away the captain and officers' cabins, and sending all the lumber below — the doctors, parson, purser and loblolly men were also busy, getting the medicine chests and bandages out; and sails prepared for the wounded to be placed on, that they might be dressed in rotation, as they were taken down to the after cockpit. In such a bustling, and it may be said, trying as well as serious time, it is curious to notice the different dispositions of the British sailor. Some would be offering a guinea for a glass of grog, whilst others were making a sort of mutual verbal will, such as, if one of Johnny Crapeau's [actually `Crapaud', the French word for 'toad' and the seamen's slang for a Frenchman] shots . . . knocks my head off, you will take all my effects; and if you are killed, and I am not, why, I will have yours, and this is generally agreed to. During this momentous preparation, the human mind had ample time for meditation and conjecture, for it was evident that the fate of England rested on this battle.

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 After his decisive victory and just days after occupying Vienna, the news of the French and Spanish defeat at Trafalgar reached Napoleon on 16 November, upon which 'he flew into one of those fits of passion which always disgrace a Hero more than an individual. Several couri-ers were immediately dispatched with orders, which . . . [were later] altered or changed. It is said that he sent commands to Ganteaume, instantly to revenge with the Brest Fleet the disas-ters of the Toulon [Villeneuve's] fleet.'20 Napoleon eventually took notice of his aides and countermanded these orders to the Brest fleet. Less than a month later, on 7 December, the allies of Britain suffered an even greater disaster than Ulm, when Napoleon crushed the Austro-Russian armies at Austerlitz — a defeat so decisive that it caused the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, to say of a map of Europe, 'Roll up that map; it will not be wanted these ten years.'21 At the end of i8o5, it was obvious that there was an uneasy stalemate; Britain had command of the sea, but Napoleon would shortly have control of Europe. It would be ten years before he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. For Britain's allies on the Continent, the immediate outlook was bleak, and from the French point of view,
He [Napoleon] desired that little should be said about Trafalgar in the French newspapers . . . [and] Europe itself was willing enough to observe that silence which he desired. The mighty resonance of his steps on the continent drowned the echoes of the cannon of Trafalgar. The powers who had the sword of Napoleon at their breast were but little cheered by a naval victory, profitable to England alone, without any other result than a new extension of her commercial domination, a domination which they disliked and tolerated only from jealousy of France. Besides, British glory did not console them for their own humiliation

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at Tilsit, a small town on the Polish-Lithuanian border, Napoleon agreed a peace treaty after the French had decisively beaten the Russian Army at the Battle of Friedland. With Russia under the sway of Napoleon, the Continental System soon began to have a serious effect on Britain. Of more immediate concern was another part of the treaty that was meant to remain secret, which covered how France and Russia would divide up Europe between them with an aggressive appli-cation of the Continental System, amalgamate the French and Russian fleets, which were to be increased by more shipbuilding, and seize the fleets of Portugal and Denmark — both still neu-tral states. The secret treaty was known almost instantly in Britain, the information being carried by an English smuggler turned spy, and the government realised that it must act quickly to pre-empt Napoleon's plan. The Portuguese royal family and the Portuguese fleet were escorted to the safety of the colony of Brazil on the other side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, a Russian fleet in the Tagus River in Portugal was blockaded by British ships, leaving a few Russian vessels isolated and relatively pow-erless in the Adriatic. A plan was then set in motion to deal with the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, which was important not so much for the ships there as the seamen, since the Danish Government required every seafarer to serve six years in the navy, if they were needed, with four thousand men always avail-able and a reserve of over twenty thousand. These were all skilled and experienced seamen — the essential element that the French Navy lacked. On 25 July 1807, the British Admiral Lord Gambier set sail with a strong force of battleships and transport ships to Copenhagen, on the correct assumption that the Crown Prince of Denmark would refuse to surrender his navy. After several days of bombardment, partially from ships, but mainly from artillery batteries that had been established ashore, the city surrendered on 7 September. British losses were minimal, but about 250 Danish soldiers were killed, and because General Peyman who commanded the Danish defence had earlier refused to take advantage of the British offer to evacuate the city, over two thousand civilians also died. Those Danish ships that were not considered worth taking to Britain were destroyed, and the operation effectively stopped Napoleon's revised plans for invasion. From now on Napoleon relied on the Continental System to bring Britain to its knees, and there appeared to be every possibility of doing so. Bad harvests in 1808, 1809 and 181o, as well as the continuing mechanisation of both agriculture and industry in Britain, caused widespread unrest and often violent opposition. Luddites smashed factory machines; turnpike cottages were burned in anger against road tolls; and serious rioting occurred in several places. If strictly enforced, the Continental System would have succeeded, since by 1811 English factories were being forced to close down because there was no market for their products and because warehouses were already choked with unsold goods. The problem for Napoleon was that the cutting of trade between the Continent and Britain hurt the Continental countries almost as much. The Continental System was everywhere subverted or only half-heartedly applied. Corruption and smuggling were rife, and even Napoleon him-self sanctioned the relaxation or circumvention of the rules when it suited him. In France, the bourgeoisie — Napoleon's most faithful supporters — were alienated by goods being unob-tainable or else scarce and overpriced. The end result was an even greater strain on his imperial economy that had already been suffering under the burden of financing his military cam-paigns. The final straw was his invasion of Russia in 1812. Not merely a military disaster, the campaign made an implacable enemy of the Tsar. One by one the allies of France switched their allegiance to Britain and Russia, until Napoleon was forced to abdicate two years later and was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.