For educational purposes
Nelson's celebrated signal opened the Battle of Trafalgar, the most famous engagement of the age of sail.
Tragically, he would not live to enjoy his crowning glory. Cut down by a French sniper at the very moment of triumph.
His greatest victory was also destined to be his memorial, for his fleet ended forever the Emperor Napoleon's dream of an invasion of of England.
Nelson's celebrated signal opened the Battle of Trafalgar, the most famous engagement of the age of sail.
Tragically, he would not live to enjoy his crowning glory. Cut down by a French sniper at the very moment of triumph.
His greatest victory was also destined to be his memorial, for his fleet ended forever the Emperor Napoleon's dream of an invasion of of England.
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LearningTranscript
00:00The battle that freed Britain of the threat of invasion by the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte
00:08was fought not on land but at sea. In a bloody and brutal engagement not far from the Spanish
00:14port of Cadiz, Admiral Villeneuve's combined French and Spanish fleet was completely routed
00:20by British ships commanded by Admiral Lord Nelson, the country's greatest naval hero.
00:28The most famous battle in naval history was fought on a calm October day in 1805 at Trafalgar.
00:58The Treaty of Amiens, signed on 25th March 1802, provided Great Britain and France with
01:28a fragile peace that lasted little more than a year. Napoleon detested the British, whose
01:34victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1801 had ended his designs in the Middle East,
01:40and the treaty was little more than an interval between wars, during which the Emperor rebuilt
01:45his navy and drew up detailed plans to invade England. By the time hostilities resumed between
01:52the two countries in 1803, Napoleon had constructed an impressive armada, and British fears of
01:59a French invasion were growing by the day. The British public's clamour for a tangible
02:08response to the renewed French militarism saw to it that the country's land defences
02:13were significantly improved, and Britain, like Napoleon, also set about strengthening
02:19her navy. 20,000 extra men were recruited in 1803 alone, mainly through the conscription
02:28of merchant seamen, and in a frenzy of ship building, 80 new warships were built during
02:34a period of just 12 months. Even without this rapid expansion of her fleet, at the beginning
02:42of the 19th century, Britain already possessed the most professional navy in the world, with
02:48experienced, disciplined seamen moulded by first-class training into a formidable fighting
02:55force. There are a number of ways of judging the efficiency of a navy, and I think we should
03:01start looking at the officers. The officers of the Royal Navy had all known each other
03:05for a very long time. They actually started together as midshipmen around about the age
03:10of 10, 11, or 12, and so by the time they reached the rank of captain, they had been
03:15at sea for about 30 years. And that meant that you had an officer corps with a tremendous
03:21amount of seafaring experience, and a lot of gunnery skill. The French, on the other
03:27hand, remember, had just had a revolution, and they'd just spent a lot of time slaughtering
03:35all their aristocrats. And the French Royal Navy, from before the revolution, had been
03:41a very aristocratic organisation, when all of those who had any form of noble connection
03:47had fled the country in order to avoid being guillotined, or any of the other penalties
03:52brought upon those of the old regime, as they had been called. As a result, Admiral Villeneuve
03:58and his senior officers, you might say, belonged to the second or even the third eleven of
04:02French naval commanders. And what was not particularly gut-strong at the top tended
04:07to be reflected all the way down. Tactically, too, the British and the French thought very
04:13differently. French tactics during battle were often defensive, aimed at limiting damage
04:19to their own ships, to increase their chances of escape, rather than achieving a decisive
04:25victory. Once the French realised that they could no longer mix it in a general action
04:31with the Royal Navy, they decided what they would do is actually try and immobilise British
04:35men of war. When they were going to fire their guns, a French gunner would fire as the ship
04:43rolled up, which meant that the French gunner was shooting for the enemy's rigging. So the
04:48French always shot to impair the mobility of their enemies, whereas the British shot
04:56for the hull to actually try to sink their enemies. The Royal Navy had maintained its
05:03tradition of going for guns which were essentially ship killers. And these reached their apogee
05:10in the Caranart. This was a gun like, it looked like an enormous mortar, and it was actually
05:17manufactured, these guns were manufactured in the Scottish town of Caran, and hence they
05:21were called the Caranart. It was also known in the Royal Navy as a smasher, and by the
05:26French as the devil gun, because of the amount of damage it could do. It was fired when quite
05:30close to the enemy ships. And they fired 68 pound shot, very powerful weapons, but
05:39short range. And this was the first cannon to be shot by victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
05:51Of the several tactics used to inflict damage on an enemy ship and kill those aboard, raking
05:57a ship was known to be the most effective. In order to achieve this, a vessel was required
06:03to pass to the stern of its opposition, from where it could blast the solid metal shot
06:08from its cannon from stern to bow. And that allowed you to concentrate your entire broadside
06:14against the area of his ship where he was weakest, where he couldn't actually maximise
06:19his firepower and you could maximise yours. Anything in the ship that can be hit, gets
06:27hit. You're firing right through the stern of the ship, then you can hit anything on
06:31that ship. You can hit all three masts if you want.
06:35When it was not possible to make the complicated manoeuvres required to rake a ship during
06:39the heat of battle, ships would fight broadside to broadside, with cannon fire poured into
06:46an enemy ship at point blank range.
06:51The broadside had evolved as the commonest form of engaging an enemy ship. It had been
06:56evolving since the 16th century. And essentially what one did was to bring oneself parallel
07:01to the enemy ship and then you opened up with your cannon. The disadvantage of the broadside
07:08is that it took a very, very long time to have any impact on the enemy ship. It was
07:12absolutely astonishing the amount of punishment that, say, a three-decker with very thick
07:17teak decks and a thick teak hull could actually sustain.
07:22When Nelson wrote in his famous memorandum before Trafalgar that no captain can go very
07:28wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy, he spoke from experience. He
07:34had seen the effects of a broadside fired into the unbelievably cramped interiors of
07:39the gun decks of a warship.
07:44Cannon from other ships firing into the ship's side would basically break it up into vicious
07:51and very large splinters. And these flying around the lower gun decks would cause absolute
07:56mayhem and very severe and unpleasant injuries to the men, often causing death, but more
08:02often than not causing very severe mutilation.
08:08English gun crews were able to serve their guns much faster than French gun crews, largely
08:13because of their level of training. And they were better shots than their French counterparts.
08:19The guns were all muzzle loaders, but they were able to fire different types of ammunition
08:25depending on what they were trying to do. They fired round solid shot for structural
08:30damage. They then fired bar shot, which was basically two cannonballs locked together
08:37by a steel bar, which actually went spinning through the air to damage the masts. There
08:42was then chain shot, which was basically a cannonball cut in half, linked together by
08:47a piece of chain, which when fired out of the cannon would go spinning through the air
08:53to damage sails and rigging. And finally they had a thing called grape shot, which was a
08:58metal plate with nine two-pound cannonballs wrapped together with canvas and string. This
09:04was an anti-personnel weapon, as when they were fired out of the cannon, the canvas and
09:10string burnt away and then just splayed out these small cannonballs over the opposition's
09:16deck. And they usually fired these when they saw boarding parties mustering on the opposition's decks.
09:25The British were especially fearsome opponents when boarding a ship. On one famous occasion,
09:33the 50 men who made up the crew of the Speedy managed to overwhelm and defeat a ship manned
09:39by more than 300 French sailors. More often than not, however, a vessel would strike its
09:45colours and surrender before hand-to-hand combat was necessary.
09:52Hand-to-hand combat, such as in boarding actions, was a very brutal and personal man-to-man
09:58battle in which basically anything which could cause hurt or injury to another human being
10:04was used, whether it be a cutlass, an axe, a musket, a bayonet, boarding pikes, clubs,
10:10bits of wood, anything they could hurl or hit another man with would be used in trying
10:16to take control of an enemy ship.
10:30The overall tactics of fleet engagements during the Age of Sail were dictated by practical
10:36considerations. The fact that guns and cannons were installed primarily along the sides of
10:42the ship meant that they could not both easily advance and fire upon the enemy at the same
10:48time. Ships often fought in a single line, side-on to the enemy, as at the battles of
10:56Copenhagen and the Nile in 1801.
11:00The line was designed to maximise your firepower. If you could get your men of war in a continuous
11:07line then they could have all their broadsides directed at you as you were coming towards
11:13them.
11:14The line of battle was also an excellent defensive formation, for if ships remained in close
11:20order it reduced the prospect of the enemy breaking the line.
11:26When you break the enemy's line with your ships, you are sailing in between them. That
11:34means that as you pass between two enemy ships, both sides of your ship can rake the ship
11:41to either side of you.
11:45Since 1803, Napoleon had been collecting his armies at Boulogne, waiting for the right
11:51moment to strike across the Channel. In the two years that had passed, that moment had
11:57not arrived, and the camps had turned into semi-permanent townships.
12:04One of the problems of having a fleet inactive is that the crew lose their edge. Training
12:09in harbour cannot be equated to training at sea. There is simply no way that it is comparable.
12:15One of the other problems of being in harbour all the time is that you will have desertion.
12:19Others will go ashore. Some will decide that they are bored and want to go somewhere else.
12:24Others will actually quite like being in harbour and they will actually form liaisons in the
12:28town. They will get drunk. Generally they become very sloppy, very fat and very lazy.
12:35You have to compare the state of the French and the Spanish in Gdith Harbour with the
12:41state of the Royal Navy, those storm-battered ships which have been training relentlessly
12:47for 22 months.
12:51With every week that passed, Napoleon grew more and more impatient, for his plans were
12:56being hampered and frustrated by Sir William Cornwallis, whose ships threw a blockade around
13:02every port between Brest and El Farol.
13:10And by Cuthbert Collingwood, who successfully sealed off the port of Cadiz. And, of course,
13:22the British fleet was under the overall command of a man who had long since been a thorn in
13:26the Emperor's side, Horatio Nelson.
13:31Horatio Nelson was, without the least doubt, very much the greatest hero produced by the
13:38British Isles in these long and difficult Napoleonic wars. Perhaps his greatest quality
13:43was the way he was able to inspire everybody, from his under-admirals and his captains all
13:49the way down to the ordinary seamen and the marines, with a sense of being part of a brotherhood
13:54and a very exclusive brotherhood at that.
13:56He looked after his people and as a result his people thought very highly of him. Nelson's
14:02subordinates worshipped him. And one of the most striking things about Nelson is that
14:10his subordinates feared to disappoint him. They didn't want to do anything which would
14:18cause him to think less of them. And that kind of loyalty you can only get from providing
14:24very impressive leadership.
14:26Nelson was a gambler, just like Bonaparte. And he would take the most astonishing risks.
14:31The Battle of the Nile, for example, no sane man would have done what he did at the Battle
14:35of the Nile. But Nelson, like Napoleon, had the ability to calculate the risks. And as
14:41he said famously, that no battle at sea can be fought without an element of risk. So he
14:47took chances.
14:49The great American historian Mahon wrote of Nelson that he was the embodiment of sea power.
14:56And I think he can say that is true, a very good comment for the purpose.
15:04After months of negotiation, and not a few threats, a formal agreement was signed between
15:09France and Spain in December 1804 that brought Spain into the war on the French side. With
15:17this added strength, the Allies concocted an elaborate plan to lure the British fleet
15:22away from home waters to the Caribbean, giving Napoleon's armies sufficient time to slip
15:28over the Channel and begin their invasion of England. It was proposed that Villeneuve
15:34would sail to the West Indies, where he would give Nelson the slip, leaving Villeneuve to
15:40join forces with Admiral Messisi and Admiral Ganton. This enlarged fleet would then return
15:47to Europe and play its part in the invasion.
15:52The minute you look at the West Indies Diversion Plan, you know it was not put together by
15:56a sailor. This was Napoleon's plan. This was a plan put together by somebody who could
16:00actually calculate the rate of march of an army. And so Napoleon, when he looked at it,
16:05said, you know, I can get an army from Boulogne to Austerlitz in so many days or so many weeks.
16:11I'll do the same with a fleet. I'll draw the British off, I'll take them over to the West
16:15Indies, and then I'll cross the Channel. Easy. Well, no, it's not easy. You can't do it,
16:19Napoleon. I'm sorry. You know, you might be able to do it in the age of steam and the
16:23age of the radio, but you can't do it in the age of sail power. It's simply not possible.
16:28As well, the West Indies Gambit assumed that the combined French and Spanish fleet could
16:34get out of the harbour and actually sail off to the West Indies. And that just wasn't an
16:40option. They couldn't just sail out the harbour. They were being blockaded.
16:46All attempts by the French to escape had failed. The most recent, on New Year's Day
16:511805, had foundered in atrocious weather. But on March the 30th, Villeneuve did manage
16:58to break through Nelson's blockade. In accordance with the plan, he sailed at full speed for
17:04Martinique in the West Indies. Sure enough, Nelson gave chase to the French fleet. So
17:11far, everything was going to plan. Sadly for Villeneuve, he had not reckoned on the
17:17speed at which Nelson would make the journey. A voyage that took Villeneuve six weeks and
17:22left him with a thousand sick men was completed by Nelson in only three weeks, by men fit
17:29and ready to fight when they arrived. Nelson's early arrival took Villeneuve completely
17:37by surprise, for he had not yet linked up with the fleets of Messisi and Gantan. In
17:43a panic, he set sail for European waters, but Nelson, now fully aware of the French
17:49plan, raced back to Gibraltar. Ignoring Napoleon's order to sail to the north of France, Villeneuve
17:55eventually sailed south to the port of Cadiz, where he was immediately blockaded once more
18:01by Collingwood and Cornwallis. The French plan to rid themselves of the British Navy
18:07had made a particularly inauspicious start. The French Navy could not allow the state
18:14of affairs to continue. Napoleon said, I need to have a few days free of the Royal Navy
18:20in which I can go over and invade Britain. He was very insistent that the French Navy
18:27actually leave port and fight. On the other hand, it would do the French no good if the
18:33entire French fleet went to the bottom, or worse, was taken over as prizes by the Royal
18:37Navy. So, the French were in the awkward position of either staying in port and failing, or
18:47coming out of port and failing. Napoleon was always very impatient about the problems which
18:56his sailors faced. He could not really allow or conceive that the matter of the wind blowing
19:02in the wrong direction, or a strong current, would make it frankly impossible for them
19:06on certain occasions to reach a certain rendezvous on the exact date he had laid down in his
19:11overall orders. There is one example of how callous he could be where sailors were concerned,
19:18or the naval element was concerned, relating to the camp of Boulogne on the 20th of July
19:221804, when in spite of the onset of an onshore gale, and against the complete advice of his
19:31admirals who were present, one of whom indeed Admiral Brugge, he sacked on the spot for
19:35criticising, he ordered an invasion review of shipping and troops to go in front of him on
19:41the shoreline, resulting in 20 sloops being dashed ashore and 2,000 soldiers drowned. And then
19:49Napoleon just apparently stamped off back to his quarters without another word.
19:53Napoleon had lost all patience with Villeneuve. Convinced that the Admiral's refusal to leave
20:00Cadiz was influenced by his own cowardice, on September the 16th the Emperor ordered him to
20:07sail for Naples. Our intention is that whenever you meet the enemy in inferior force, you will
20:13attack without hesitation and obtain a decision against them, demanded Napoleon. But by sunset on
20:19September the 16th, the French fleet had still not sailed to meet any foe, inferior or otherwise.
20:26The following day, Napoleon, now furious with Villeneuve, decided to replace him with Vice
20:33Admiral Rosselli, who was immediately dispatched to Cadiz to take command of the fleet. Unfortunately,
20:40he would not arrive in time to take command at Trafalgar, because Villeneuve, finally stung
20:46into action by Rosselli's appointment, decided to obey the Emperor and leave port on October the 18th.
20:52Villeneuve jumped the gun. The reason he decided to sail out on the 19th of October, 1805, is that
21:01he knew that another Admiral was being sent from France to take his job. And so Villeneuve decided
21:08that what he would do was, before this other Admiral arrived, have a victory over the British.
21:13What he would do is overwhelm what he imagined to be the small British blockading squadron, win a
21:20local victory, and then sail on into the Mediterranean. And then it would be one in the eye for his
21:25critic Napoleon Bonaparte. The Battle of Trafalgar was now only a few hours away.
21:38Nelson realised that there would be a large number of capital ships within each fleet, and to get a
21:55conclusive victory, something that could be finished in one day, he decided that he had to employ
22:03something totally different to anything normally experienced at those times. And he came up with a
22:09tactic of attacking the French and Spanish line from the sides. Nelson disposed his fleet in two
22:17columns, and proposed to sail directly at the Franco-Spanish line. Now this flew in the face
22:24of conventional naval wisdom. What this meant is that for a period, the two British columns would
22:31get the full force of the Franco-Spanish broadsides. But what it would mean is that if they survived
22:37those broadsides, that they would then be able to break the Franco-Spanish line. They were going to
22:43run right into the French line of battle, so that on the left, Nelson hit the French line of battle
22:53dead centre, Collingwood hit the French line of battle off on the right, and half of the French
23:01line would just keep on going, sailing away from the battle. And while half the fleet was trying to
23:08turn round and come back, which is very difficult to do in a sailing ship, Nelson and Collingwood
23:14would be beating up the rest of the French fleet and destroying it. At 6 a.m. on the morning of
23:22October the 21st, 1805, the British fleet formed into two columns as planned. The first column of
23:2915 ships led by Collingwood aboard the Royal Sovereign, and the second consisting of 12 ships
23:35led by Nelson aboard the Victory. As they sailed towards the Allies, Nelson hoisted the signal,
23:42prepare for battle, and the men of the British fleet readied themselves for the coming fight.
23:47Furniture was stowed away, and all unnecessary items were thrown overboard. Small arms were
23:55issued, the galley stove was extinguished, and the decks were doused with sand. At 8 a.m. Villeneuve
24:04issued an order that astonished the officers and men of both fleets. He bade his ships alter their
24:10course and sail back towards Cadiz. Confused and already thoroughly demoralized, the men of the
24:18Allied fleet turned their ships slowly and raggedly, while with every passing minute Nelson's
24:24ships came ever nearer. The Great Admiral could sense the confusion amongst the Allied ships,
24:30and was determined to cut off their retreat to Cadiz. The fleet is doomed, the French Admiral
24:37does not understand his business, pronounced one Spanish captain as he surveyed the scene. It was
24:43certainly an accurate summary of the prospects for the Allied fleet. Villeneuve wasn't incompetent,
24:52he just wasn't up to the job. But there were no serving French admirals sufficiently young and
25:02energetic to actually take up a command like this except Villeneuve, so Villeneuve was the one they
25:07sent. He hated it, he knew he wasn't up to this job, and ever since the Battle of the Nile he'd
25:13been personally afraid of Nelson. When you read about Villeneuve you get the feeling that he must
25:17have woken up screaming in the night that Nelson was gonna come and get him. He had a fear of Lord
25:22Nelson. He was the best the French had, and had Villeneuve been serving in the in the Royal Navy,
25:29serving with British crews on a British ship, he would have been the equal of any number of
25:35Nelson's lieutenants. But he wasn't. He was serving with the French Navy, and he had to
25:42do the best he could with the materials at hand. The two British columns continued to bear down
25:52on the ragged Allied line, Nelson heading for the van and Collingwood making for the rear.
25:58Even now Nelson's astute tactical mind was seeking more ways to gain an advantage over his
26:05enemy. I shall go at them at once if I can, about one-third of the line from their leading ship.
26:11I think it will surprise and confound the enemy. It will bring on a pell-mell battle, and that is
26:18what I want. He positioned Victory where he wanted her. Victory was his flagship, and so
26:27he decided that his ship would lead the line, and obviously be in the most difficult or most
26:35precarious position to be damaged as they broke through. And as they were approaching, Captain
26:42Hardy, who was the captain of Victory, said to Nelson, where would you like me to break through,
26:47sir? And he said, I don't care, just aim for the nearest ship. At 11.25am, Nelson hoisted the
26:56famous signal, England expects that every man will do his duty, which was received with an
27:02enormous cheer from the British ships. Now, one would assume that this signal actually stirred
27:08emotions throughout the fleet, and on some ships it did, it was greeted with cheering, but on the
27:12Royal Sovereign, Admiral Collingwood, who was Nelson's second-in-command, got very, very annoyed,
27:17and then he was reported as saying when he read the signal, he said, I do wish Nelson would stop
27:24sending these signals, we quite well know what to do. At 11.40am, Nelson gave his final signal,
27:33which read, I intend to push or go through the enemy line to prevent them from getting into
27:39Cadiz. The Admiral's move was checked by the Red Hotel, who closed the gap between her and the
27:45Boussinot, thereby denying Victory the room to break through and rake her target. The Victory
27:53herself was now under heavy broadside fire from the Red Hotel and the Santissima Trinidad, which,
28:01as she had not yet broken the line, she was unable to return. Victory did receive some severe damage,
28:09the majority of the foremast was taken away, part of the main mast was also damaged, and so Victory
28:17lost a lot of her sailing capacity. Meanwhile, to the southeast of Nelson and the Victory,
28:24Collingwood's Royal Sovereign became the first British ship to reach the enemy line. Despite
28:30coming under heavy fire, she engaged the Spanish flagship Santa Anna, which was then the largest
28:37battleship in the world. Saving her fire until she was right on her opponent, the Royal Sovereign
28:44loosed a fearful broadside into the Santa Anna from point-blank range, causing terrible damage
28:50and inflicting many casualties. It was a major success for Collingwood and the British fleet,
28:57but the Royal Sovereign quickly came under heavy fire from the San Justo and the San Leandro. It
29:04was only the timely arrival of Captain Harwood's Belle ÃŽle, with the Mars and the Tonnant close
29:09behind, that saw off the Allied ships. The Royal Sovereign continued her merciless barrage against
29:17the Spanish flagship until, at 2.15pm, with all three of her masts blasted away, she surrendered
29:24to Collingwood. 340 Spanish seamen had been killed or wounded during the attack. The Royal Sovereign
29:32was also badly damaged, with 141 dead or seriously wounded men strewn about her decks.
29:44The wind on the day of the battle was little more than a breeze, which meant that the opposing
29:49fleets could only drift toward each other slowly. The lack of wind had a very considerable effect
29:56on how the Battle of Trafalgar was actually fought. First of all, you have Collingwood's
30:03column on the right coming into action and being fully engaged for a complete hour before Nelson
30:09and the left-hand column were able to come up. Essentially, they were just drifting along towards
30:14the enemy, with very few ways which they could adopt to speed their rate of progress at all.
30:20In any case, almost all vessels would have put on battle sails, it was called, reducing their amount
30:25of canvas before coming into the actual engagement line. So there was very little he could do about
30:31this, and so it dictated really the stages of the battle, we could say. As she made her sluggish
30:39advance, the victory, now seriously damaged, was still under fire from the Redoutable and the
30:45Boussaintour, and with 50 men already killed, she was still unable to return fire.
30:56At last, at 1pm, the victory broke the Allied line and was in a position to rake the Boussaintour,
31:04which she did with devastating effect, leaving the French vessel severely damaged and belching
31:10thick black smoke. As victory broke through the line, she did that at the stern of the French ship,
31:18the Boussaintour. Her crew were trying to sort out the sails that had been dropped,
31:28the masts that were falling around the deck, and as they did so, they actually came alongside
31:33the next ship that was following on from the Boussaintour, the Redoutable, and to the point
31:39that the ships became locked together, and it was only that victory was actually being to some degree
31:45overrun. Even in this desperate position, with their cannon all but touching, some French guns
31:54still fired at the victory's rigging, while the British ship poured its fire into the French
31:59vessel's hull and decks. Then, at 1.25pm, came a moment of the highest drama.
32:17When Nelson was hit, he was walking on the quarterdeck, pacing the quarterdeck with Hardy.
32:23There was very little else for him to do. He just had to let the men see that he was there
32:28in order to maintain their fighting spirit. Now, Nelson didn't wear a uniform coat. Nelson wore a
32:35ratty old frock coat, but Nelson was a knight of four different orders of knighthood,
32:45and he had the badges of all four orders of knighthood embroidered on his frock coat.
32:51He was a straightforward target. He wasn't wearing an admiral's uniform, but he was wearing a coat
32:56that anybody in the world could distinguish. Nelson had just turned at the hatchway and was
33:02facing aft, and a ball came straight down from the redoubtable, hit him in the left shoulder,
33:08and passed right through his body, and then penetrated the spine. And Nelson, as he was being
33:13raised up, said to Hardy, they have done for me at last, Hardy. My backbone is shot through.
33:19And of that, Nelson was carried from the deck.
33:24The mortally wounded Nelson was carried to the cockpit of the Victory, which was filled with
33:29dead or dying seamen in a scene that was later likened to a butcher's shambles by the ship's
33:36chaplain, Alexander Scott. Amidst this nightmare of torn limbs and shattered bodies, Admiral Lord
33:43Nelson lay dying. Wounded sailors and officers on a man-of-war were treated far, far below the
33:52decks in the cockpit of the ship, and the surgeons worked down there, and it was a scene of horror.
34:00Lord Nelson was taken down, carried like a babe in arms by a marine, taken down to the cockpit,
34:08and the surgeon said, I'm going to try to save you, my lord, and Nelson said,
34:12don't waste your time on me. I am going to die. I feel my spine is severed. I felt the ball break
34:20my back, and he said he felt bleeding in him every time he breathed, and he said he was finished.
34:28Don't bother with me, said Nelson. Go look after the guys, you can say it.
34:35At 2pm, the Redoutable finally surrendered by striking her colours.
34:40Battered by the victory on her port side and the Temeraire to her starboard,
34:45her courageous captain, Jean-Jacques Lucas, and his crew had fought bravely.
34:51The Redoutable had entered the battle with 643 officers and crew. As the badly wounded
34:57Lucas gave up his sword in surrender, he could not have known that 487 of these had been killed,
35:04and that 81 more were the victims of mortal wounds. Only 75 men were fit enough to crew the
35:11ship. The British were not having it all their own way. It is notorious that the victory was
35:17almost dead in the water. It was for all intents and purposes just a hulk by three o'clock in the
35:22afternoon, so badly damaged had it been by the fire of the Redoutable. Collingwood's royal sovereign
35:29had suffered the most enormous punishment. It had actually been surrounded by five French and
35:33Spanish ships and had been pounded. But the Spanish and the French, mercifully, had been
35:38hurting each other just as much as they'd been hurting royal sovereign. As early as 1.45pm,
35:46Villeneuve had signalled to the Formidable in the Allied van with a desperate order to sail
35:51to the aid of the remainder of the fleet. Admiral Dumas Noir, in command of the Formidable and at
35:58the head of no less than ten unmolested ships in his division, chose to ignore the Admiral's signal.
36:05The behaviour of Dumas Noir is one of the big imponderables of that day. What was he about?
36:11Why didn't he put about more rapidly and more quickly? Was he a coward, or was there something
36:16else motivating him? I do not believe he was a coward, and I don't think historians, or my whole
36:22think that Dumas Noir lacked the stomach for a fight. Dumas Noir hated Villeneuve. There was an
36:28enormous conflict between the two men. There'd been a rivalry going back years, and Dumas Noir
36:35had a very good idea that Villeneuve was trying to pull off a victory in order to boost his own
36:41position and his struggle with Napoleon Bonaparte. That indeed there had been another naval officer
36:47on his way to actually take command of the Franco-Spanish fleet, and that Villeneuve had,
36:53for his own personal advancement, brought on this battle. It was only at 2.30pm that he reluctantly
37:01turned to head for the fighting, by which time there were only five ships remaining. The Rayo,
37:08Francisco de Isis and Heros had headed north, as far away from the battle as possible,
37:15while the San Agustin and the Entrepied had taken matters into their own hands and had sailed
37:21towards the fighting. Dumas Noir didn't have enough wind to turn quickly, so he was able to
37:30actually turn his ships, but to get back to the scene of the battle, he didn't have enough wind
37:35to do that, so he was slowly crawling back. I mean, these are sailing ships. Without the wind,
37:41they cannot move at all. He's only got a gentle breeze, and he's got to get back as fast as he can
37:48to the scene of the battle. He just couldn't do it. Dumas Noir's reduced division finally arrived
37:54three hours after the fighting started, and it did not fare well. The Mont Blanc and the
38:00Entrepied managed to sail into one another, while the Neptuno was set upon by the Minotaur
38:07and the Sparsiate, who blasted her until she surrendered at 5.10pm.
38:13By 3pm, Dumas Noir was attacking the Sparsiate and the Minotaur, and there was a general melee.
38:23There was a lot of fighting, a lot of ball going from ship to ship. A lot of ships were grappled
38:29together with boarding parties roaring back and forth between them, and there was no way
38:35to know which way the battle was going to go. Dumas Noir himself took his remaining ships away
38:41and beyond the reach of the British fleet. At 4.15pm, after more terrible treatment at the
38:48hands of the Leviathan, the Boussaintour with Villeneuve on board struck her colours.
38:55So great were her damage and losses that her surrender to the captain of the Conqueror
39:00was made by just one officer and five men. The Leviathan also accounted for the Saint-Augustine,
39:07which lost nearly 400 men. In stark contrast, the Leviathan had 26 men killed or wounded during
39:15the battle. The ship's log of HMS Victory records that partial firing continued until 4.30pm,
39:24when, Victory having been reported to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson KB,
39:30he died of his wound. After nearly three hours, the life of the Admiral had finally ebbed away
39:37at the hour of his greatest victory. The spot where he died is now a shrine to his memory.
39:44Nelson's death is one of the best recorded deaths of all time. It has come into the consciousness
39:52of the British people. Everyone knows that Nelson's final words, just about his last words,
39:58were kiss me hardy. They'd known each other all their lives and this was a brother
40:05leaving the band of brothers. And he'd lived long enough to give his orders at the beginning of the
40:10battle. One of the last orders he gave before the battle was everyone should drop anchor as soon as
40:16the battle was over so the fleet wouldn't be scattered and ironically that order was carried
40:22out right after he died. During the battle when Nelson was shot, he ordered that his face be
40:27covered whilst he was carried down to the oil op deck to be cared for. Even then he was aware that
40:34his personality was a great boon to the morale of the Royal Navy and he didn't want to reduce
40:41the fighting efficiency of HMS Victory, hence asking for the handkerchief over his face.
40:46When he died, as word got out through first Victory and then through the rest of the ship
40:51and then eventually of course when the news reached England, you cannot really imagine
40:59just how such a blow was received by the sailors because they really thought he was invincible and
41:06he would lead them on to greater victories. Usually when the British people heard of a
41:14great victory, there was a great deal of rejoicing. The usual guns were fired in the
41:19parks and in the tower, however this time there was a great sense of loss because they'd heard
41:26that Nelson had died. There wasn't this joyous celebration. They felt that even though they'd
41:34won this great victory, a large percentage of the French and Spanish fleet had either been captured
41:41or sunk, but they felt a great deal of loss because Nelson, their hero, had died.
41:49The Battle of Trafalgar ended at 5.45pm when the French Imperial ship Achille disappeared
41:57in a massive explosion that killed nearly 500 men. It was the final bloody act of a dreadful day
42:05and all around the fleet the solemn and terrible process of attending to battered ships
42:10and broken bodies began. The French and Spanish fleet lost more than 4,000 dead, 4,408
42:20dead and about 2,500 wounded. That's an approximate figure for the combined French
42:27and Spanish fleets. The British fleet lost 449 dead, so roughly a tenth
42:36that the combined French and Spanish fleets suffered, and 1,200 or so wounded, roughly half
42:44what the combined French and Spanish fleets suffered. To a great extent this is because
42:50British gunners fired at French hulls. That meant that there were a lot of splinters
42:56flying around French ships killing people, whereas the French went for the mobility kill,
43:02as we say in modern parlance, and they were shooting at sails, shooting at rigging,
43:08trying to preserve the ship to take it home as a prize, and they were not killing as many
43:13British sailors. In terms of ships, 17 ships were taken, 17 Franco-Spanish ships were taken
43:20as prizes in the first instance. One ship blew up, the Achille, in the most spectacular fashion,
43:26but then a storm blew up on the night of the 21st of October, and 13 of the prizes were actually
43:32lost. So this reduced the total bag to just four ships. Now of the 27 British ships engaged in
43:40combat, about half were unserviceable on the evening of the 21st of October. So this was not
43:47a cheap victory by any means. The French and the Spanish had fought extremely hard and had
43:53inflicted major damage on the ships of the Royal Navy. Following Trafalgar, Victory was severely
43:59damaged. She was then refitted, and she actually continued her working life until 1812, and during
44:06the period 1808 to 1812, she was used by Admiral Simmeres up in the Baltic. Then she returned to
44:15Portsmouth, where she was anchored as the Port Admiral's flagship until 1921, when she was brought
44:22into the dry dock where she currently stands. However, as then, she is now, and hopefully ever
44:28will be, a commissioned ship in the Royal Navy, and she is currently the oldest commissioned warship
44:34in the world, as notified by the flying of the White Ensign and a Royal Navy crew on board.
44:40If the outcome of the Battle of Trafalgar was strategically decisive, its wider effects on
44:45Victor and Vanquished were equally profound. It established Great Britain as the world's
44:52major naval power for more than a century to come, and made Nelson a legend. Preserved in spirits,
45:00his body was borne back to England, where he was given a state funeral. The captured Villeneuve
45:06was repatriated a year later, only to die almost immediately by his own hand in suspicious
45:12circumstances. It is often claimed that the Battle of Trafalgar saved Great Britain from the
45:18immediate danger of invasion. In fact, that was not the case. Napoleon had called off the whole
45:25of the invasion preparations as soon as he learnt that Admiral Villeneuve had entered Cadiz
45:29some time before. And indeed, on the day of the Battle of Trafalgar, he was deep in Germany,
45:35involved in the Ulm campaign. So there's no question of it saving Britain from immediate
45:40invasion. Other historians have pointed out that Trafalgar did not actually stop the French
45:45shipbuilding program, and that indeed, by 1814, that the French Navy was much more powerful than
45:51it had been in 1805, and indeed was beginning to equal the Royal Navy in strength. Now, having said
45:58all that, it's easy to actually minimise the Battle of Trafalgar and its impact on European
46:04history. But the fact is that it had an enormous impact. Without a fleet, Bonaparte can't cross the
46:14Channel, Bonaparte can't invade Britain. Without a fleet, France cannot challenge the Royal Navy
46:23for dominance of the Mediterranean. So after Trafalgar, Britain is no longer worried about a
46:32French invasion. After Trafalgar, the Mediterranean Sea becomes an English lake. And after Trafalgar,
46:41France becomes a continental power. That means they cannot try to get colonies, they can't rely
46:48on colonies. They have to rely on just the resources that are in Europe. Napoleon's dream
46:56of invading England was crushed forever, although the defeat did not lessen his ambition.
47:03The despotic ruler had already turned his Grande Armée away from the shores of northern France
47:10to Austria, where the glories of Austerlitz waited. The unfortunate Villeneuve, who observed after the
47:17Battle of Trafalgar that so much courage deserved a better fate, best summed up the plight of
47:23Napoleon's navy, which had been dealt such a savage blow.
47:53you