The Battle of Trafalgar, 1805

Background:

Why did the Battle of Trafalgar occur?

Plans into operation...

The Commanders:

British:

French:

Where is Trafalgar?

The Fleets:

Difference in size of ships:

A look at the HMS Victory:

Nelson's Touch:

The British Battle Plan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/animations/trafalgar/index_embed.shtml

What did Nelson tell his troops before the battle?

Battle Flash Diagrams:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/trafalgar_battle.swf

Outcome:

Losses:

British:

450 dead, 1,250 wounded

French:

2,200 dead, 1,150 wounded, 7,000 captured

9 ships captured, 1 sunk (plus 1 lost in storm)

Spanish:

1,025 dead, 1,400 wounded

9 ships captured (plus 2 lost in storm)

Villeneuve:

Britannia Rules the Waves!!!

The Death of a Hero:

Napoleon's Invasion Plan:

Napoleon by 1805 was strengthening his position and had 130,000 troops stationed on the English Channel ready to invade Britain. He understood that he needed to invade Britain to have a key chance of success against the British, since he had to break their stranglehold on European trade to consolidate his control. To transport this force over the Channel, Napoleon needed to control it for long enough to get his men across; this would mean having a fleet capable of defeating the British navy in battle.

Born, Norfolk, 1758, 6th of 11 children, joined the navy at age of 12. Rose through the ranks; captain by age of 20.

Nelson:

In 1794 lost right eye at Corsica in the Battle of Calvi!

Lost right arm in overzealous assault on Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, in 1797.

Against the Dutch in Battle of Copenhagen 1801, he ignored orders to cease action by putting his telescope to his blind eye and claiming he couldn't seen the signal to withdraw.

With a fleet of 14 ships, Nelson located the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria, on August 1, 1798. The Battle of the Nile was about to commence. At the Battle of the Nile in 1798, he successfully destroyed Napoleon's fleet and thus his bid for a direct trade route to India.

British Naval superiority:

Spanish Alliance:

Late in 1804, Spain joined the war as an ally of France, giving Napoleon enough ships to challenge the power of the British Royal Navy.

Key aims:

• Decoy the main Royal Naval forces away
• Unify the scattered French and Spanish fleets at Martinique
• Villeneuve - 33 ships and Gauntaume's 21 ships
• Once combined, return to the English Channel, overwhelm Cornwallis' fleet and transport troops to England

Problems with the plan:

• Napoleon did not understand the difficulties of sea warfare
• Winds could not be expected
• Admiral Ganteaume never left Brest with his 21 ship force, blockaded by the British
• Napoleon forced the Admirals into manouevre's they didn't want to carry out - such as Villeneuve fatally leaving Cadiz...

The Chase, 1805:

Villeneuve:

French Admiral

1763-1806

Joining the French navy in 1778, when he was 15, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve served in the West Indies and around French waters before setting off on the expedition to Egypt.

Even though he was of noble descent, he survived the Revolution, and managed to maintain his position, when many other able French naval officers were executed or thrown out of France.

Battle of the Nile:

In 1796 he became a rear-admiral. At the Battle of the Nile, his vessel only one of 2 French ships to escape; instead of being praised, Villeneuve found himself criticised.

On his return to France, Villeneuve was captured in Malta when the British took the island, but was released soon afterwards.

Invasion of Britain:

In 1804, and now a vice-admiral, Villeneuve was ordered to take his fleet out and draw the Royal Navy away from its home waters to allow for an invasion. The plan was to then double back and reinforce the invasion fleet.

Villeneuve successfully evaded Britain's Admiral Horatio Nelson, but then headed for the safety of Cadiz rather than continue his mission.

To help move his ships to Britain, Napoleon ordered a distraction of the main British Navy to give his forces a chance to control the English Channel.

Plan:

• Escape to West Indies, join Spanish
• Draw British away from Channel
• Return to Europe, gain control of Channel

To this end, Villeneuve sailed off to the Caribbean to act as a decoy. Not all of the French fleet managed to outmanouevre the British fleet, though, and without gaining any assistance, Villeneuve set off back to Europe, arriving in Cadiz for safe haven.

They now sat in Cadiz...

The Battle of Trafalgar, 1805

French/Spanish: 33 Ships

British: 27 Ships

French and Spanish:

British:

• On 21 October, Admiral Nelson had 27 ships-of-the-line.
• His flagship, HMS Victory, was one of three 100-gun first rates in his fleet.
• He also had four 98-gun second rates and twenty third rates. One of the third rates was an 80-gun vessel and sixteen were 74-gun vessels. The remaining three were 64-gun ships, which were being phased out of the Royal Navy at the time of the battle.
• Nelson also had four frigates of 38 or 36 guns, a 12-gun schooner and a 10-gun cutter.

• Spanish contributed four first-rates to the fleet. Three of these ships, one at 136 guns (Santisima Trinidad) and two at 112 guns (Principe de Asturias, Santa Anna), were much larger than anything under Nelson's command.
• The fourth first-rate carried 100 guns. The fleet had six 80-gun third-rates, (four French and two Spanish), and one French 64-gun third-rate. The remaining 22 third-rates were 74-gun vessels, of which fourteen were French and eight Spanish.
• In total the Spanish contributed 15 ships of the line and the French 18. The fleet also included five 40-gun frigates and two 18-gun brigs, all French.

French Sharpshooters

HMS Victory

British Franco-Spanish

First Rates 3 4

Second Rates 4

Third Rates 20 29

Total Ships-of-the-Line 27 33

Other Ships 6 7

The Battle:

21 October 1805

The French and Spanish ships were lined up in a row. Instead of lining up against them, Nelson decided to attack them by forming two columns of ships, with the aim of pushing through the enemy lines and separating their ships into smaller groups.

Fighting:

Battle commences...

Videos:

Nelson's Monument, Edinburgh

Nelson's Monument, Great Yarmouth

'The ever to be lamented death of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, the Commander in Chief, who fell in the action of the 21st, in the arms of Victory, covered with glory, whose memory will be ever dear to the British Navy and the British Nation; whose zeal for the honour of his King, and for the interests of his Country, will ever be held up as a shining example for a British seaman.' Admiral Collingwood

The Nelson Memorial, Birchen Edge, Derbyshire

Bridgetown, Barbados

"Thank God I have done my duty."

At about 1.15pm, after having secured victory by immobilising Villeneuve's ship, Nelson was hit by a 0.69in-diameter lead ball whilst walking around deck with Hardy. The sharpshooter shot cut an artery in his lung and lodged in his spine, knocking him to the deck, from where it was clear the wound was mortal. Hardy had his chief carried below, where Surgeon William Beatty was hard at work on the mounting list of casualties.

Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square, London

With his ships destroyed, Villeneuve survived the destruction of his flagship, surrendered and was sent to Britain but later freed on parole in 1806.

Despairing over the loss at Trafalgar, Villeneuve returned to France in a poor state of mind and killed himself by pushing a knife through his heart... though the suspicious circumstances around his death have lead many to believe that Napoleon had him killed! [He was stabbed 6 times in the heart with a dining knife...]

With the defeat of the French navy, British supremacy of the waves was assured for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, and carried on for the next 120 years.