the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God.’ There was no arguing with them.
As these 47,000 men are moving inexorably towards battle, with the wind on their cheeks wafting them towards the fight, it seems clear that the new, commercial, selfmotivating and wage-based conception of the self which the changes in Britain had created over the previous century was the key factor lying behind the extraordinary winning power of the British Royal Navy. Compared with the fixed peasant/aristocratic mentalities of the Spanish crews and the uncomfortable mix of ancient and modern in the French, it was the commercial form of English life that made them into better fighters and killers. Nelson’s fleet carried a capitalist charge.
Soon after eight o’clock that morning, with the two columns of the British fleet slowly growing on the western horizon, Villeneuve was faced with a decision. The Combined Fleet, still making efforts to get into line of battle, with many ships still out of place and out of order, were heading southeast for the Strait of Gibraltar. The French frigate Hermione, on station to the west, made another signal to Villeneuve: ‘The enemy number twenty-seven sail of the line’. From his own quarter-deck on the Bucentaure, he still could not see them but this was more than he had reckoned. He knew, from interrogating the neutral merchantmen that had made their way into Cadiz, that the British fleet contained several three-deckers, all of them heavyweight punchers, and despite his own numerical superiority, 33 to 27, he now calculated that in the weight of firepower, not to speak in seamanly skills, the British were superior. His leading ships had already cleared Cape Trafalgar, and would now have been able to turn downwind for the Strait, but his fleet as a whole, stretched over some eight miles of sea, would not in the light airs reach that point before the British caught them. Without the van of the fleet to support them, they would be pinned against the shoals off Cape Trafalgar and either killed in battle or drowned in the huge Atlantic surf they could see breaking on the rocks and sands to leeward. A battle was inevitable. A storm was in the offing. It would be better to have the port of Cadiz to run to than those murderous shoals. Should he head on for the Strait, as his orders from the Emperor himself required? Or should he turn and keep Cadiz under his lee bow, in case disaster struck? He was already crushingly aware that Napoleon no longer trusted him as a commander in battle. Admiral Rosily was en route from Paris, only delayed in Madrid because a broken carriage spring had interrupted his journey, with orders to relieve Villeneuve of his command and replace him. Villeneuve had already written to his friend Denis Decrès, the Minister of Marine in Paris, that he knew himself and his fleet to be the ‘laughing-stock of Europe’. He was in ‘the abyss of unhappiness’.
It is a mark of his seamanship, and of his moral courage in standing up to the Emperor, that soon after eight o’clock Villeneuve gave the order for the entire fleet to reverse direction, by taking their sterns through the wind (wearing ship) and then to head on a port tack northwards for Cadiz. But this was no run for cover. The British fleet in headlong chase had every sail set but the Combined Fleet was under topsails, staysails and topgallants only, trying slowly and clumsily to form up in good order, but nevertheless waiting for the attack to reach them. The main topsails were hauled tight to the wind, so that their luffs were shivering and not driving the ships as hard as they might. British officers watching through telescopes were aware of this and appreciated it. As he watched them, Nelson ‘frequently remarked that they put a good face upon it; but always quickly added, “I’ll give them such a dressing as they never had before,” regretting at the same time the vicinity of the land.’ There was honour in the way they were standing up for battle. No English officer ever suggested that their enemy was not courageous.
But the manoeuvre involved the first Franco-Spanish failure of the day. Villeneuve’s plan had been to hold a squadron of twelve powerful ships, under the command of Admiral Gravina, in reserve. His intention was for this squadron to remain to windward of the main fleet as battle was joined and, when it became clear on which part the bulk of Nelson’s divisions were descending, for Gravina to commit his force to that part of the battle. At the crucial point, the Schwerpunkt, the hard place, as Clausewitz would call it, the defending force would then be able at least to equalise the numbers of ships engaged. This never happened. Early in the morning, as the fleet reversed direction and turned northwards, Gravina’s squadron had become mixed in with the rear of the Combined Fleet. Their identity as a separate squadron was muddled away and Gravina’s ships would enter the battle, one by one, as they came up to the series of mêlées which developed in the centre of the fleet.
At the very beginning, Villeneuve lost his ability to reshape the battle. His fleet waited in a state of victimhood. By about ten o’clock, they ended up in a shallow crescent, about eight miles long, partly bunched together, partly overlapping, and with vulnerable gaps opening in places through which an enemy could drive. Every eyeglass on every British ship watched those gaps. That was where battle would be joined.
1 Put out
2 eyes
October 21st 18058.30 am to 9.30 am
Distance between fleets: 6.5 miles-5.9 miles
Victory’s heading and speed: 034°-067° at 2.5 knots
Order is Heav’n’s first Law
ALEXANDER POPE, Essay on Man, 1734
As the British ships made their slow progress to the eastward, the crews were struck by the beauty of the spectacle they were creating. In the log of the Mars, Thomas Cook, her master, described what the men were about this morning: ‘making Ship perfectly clear for Action’. The clarity before battle was a form of perfection. It was the beauty of order and arrangement, each part of each ship designed for its task, each related to and dependent on all others, a network of interaction. Forget for a minute that these are killing machines. Years later, Midshipman Hercules Robinson of the Euryalus reminisced:
There is now before me the beautiful misty sun-shiny morning of the 21st October. The delight of us all at the idea of a wearisome blockade, about to terminate with a fair stand-up fight, of which we knew the result. The noble fleet, with royals and studding sails on both sides, bands playing, officers in full dress, and the ships covered with ensigns, hanging in various places where they could never be struck.
According to John Brown, a seaman on Victory, ‘the French and Spanish Fleets was like a great wood on our lee bow which cheered the hearts of every British tar in the Victory like lions anxious to be at it.’ Nelson, again and again, commented to the frigate captains he had summoned on board Victory how much the enemy were standing up for a fight, not running and scattering to all corners. The scene looked as these moments were intended to look: a clash of organisations in which men, ships, fleets, naval systems and countries were to be put to the test.
The Euryalus had been in close to the mouth of Cadiz harbour on the preceding days, looking for the slightest sign of enemy preparation. Midshipman Robinson remembered how
The morning of the 19th of October saw us so close to Cadiz as to see the ripple of the beach and catch the morning fragrance which came out of the land, and then as the sun rose over the Trocadero with what joy we saw the fleet inside let fall and hoist their topsails and one after another slowly emerge from the harbour mouth.
His captain, Henry Blackwood, had written on the 20th to his wife in England:
What do you think, my own dearest love? At this moment the Enemy are coming out, and as if determined to have a fair fight.
