UlSCOVliKY 



329 



slowTiess in putting about to the help of the centre. 

 From the outset it was clear that the battle must be 

 slow and long. Nelson must have asked himself, 

 Would the five and a half hours' daylight suffice for 

 crushing the naval might of France and Spain and 

 thereby ending all chance of invjision ? — an eventuality 

 which still haunted his thoughts.' We all have read 

 the account of his anxiety about Lady Hamilton and 

 Horatia ; but who can measure the responsibilities of 

 an admiral on whom depended the fortunes of Europe 

 and the security of Great Britain ? 



We can now understand the conditions under which 

 Trafalgar was fought. They were such as to render 

 Nelson's original plan or plans of attack inapplicable. 

 Of course, he was too good a seaman to order rigid 

 obedience, in all circumstances, to a programme drawn 

 up twelve days before. To do so is perilous in land 

 warfare and doubly so at sea, where conditions are ever 

 changing. True, some of his captains after\vards 

 stated that the plan had been followed ; but the weight 

 of evidence is against this supposition. Indeed, 

 much valuable time would have been taken up in 

 forming the two lines, one behind the other ; and the 

 advance of the front division in line abreast would have 

 delayed the onset until lame ducks like the Prince and 

 Dreadnought (both three-deckers) could have been 

 anything like abreast of CoUingwood's Royal Sovereign, 

 fresh out of dock and the fastest ship in the fleet. 

 Further, the marshalling of the second division behind 

 it, and its filing off (almost certainly in line) on the 

 larboard (port) tack in order to " contain " the enemy's 

 centre, would also have been a lengthy operation. 

 Speed being the dominating factor of the situation. 

 Nelson formed his twenty-seven ships in two bodies 

 pointing at the enemy. Luckily the Royal Sovereign 

 and the Victory were fast sailers, and speedily headed 

 their Unes, the Temeraire and Neptune'^ (three-deckers) 

 being a good second and third to Nelson's flagship. 

 He had designed to place the most powerful ships in 

 the van (though not in that order), and fortunately in 

 four cases the heavy ships answered his hopes. Three 

 other three-deckers, Britannia in his division and 

 DreadnouglU and Prince in CoUingvvood's division, were 

 slow, the last not opening fire until three hours after the 

 Royal Sovereign. The case of the Prince was extreme ; 

 but it shows the great irregularity of the approach in 

 the lee division. 



The weather division. Nelson's, was not less spread 

 out than that of CoUingvvood. Indeed, Captain 

 Tizard's plan of the approach, in the Admiralty 



' Sir H. Nicolas, Letters and Despatches of Nelson, vol. ii. p. 87 

 ' Alison's atlas appended to his History of Europe shows the 

 Keptune as coming down from the north and engaging the hos- 

 tile van as she made (or the centre. This ship really was the 

 Africa (64). The mistake has been copied into other historical 

 atlases. 



Memorandum on Trafalgar published in 1913, presents 

 it as even more scattered, the Minotaur and Spartiate 

 trailing off nearly four nautical miles astern of the 

 Victory. Into the vexed question of the positions and 

 distances of these and other 74's I do not propose to 

 enter. What is certain is that Nelson ordered Captains 

 Blaclavood of the Euryalus frigate and Prowse of the 

 Sirius to direct all captains in the rear to use any means 

 in their power to reach the enemy's line as quickly as 

 possible. Thus, while the best sailers crowded on each 

 other at the front (Codrington of the Orion states that 

 they pressed so close as to have to go bow and quarter 

 line instead of direct line ahead), the laggards floundered 

 along as best they could. The result, as appears in the 

 best French and Spanish plans, is that the approaching 

 British divisions figure, not as two lines, but two masses 

 — pelotons is the term used by some French observers. 

 Nelson had intended his weather division to be in line 

 ahead, but, as has now been shown, he subordinated 

 order and station-keeping to speed, the outcome being 

 not the symmetrical column, as shown by Mahan and 

 other writers, but an irregular formation only faintly 

 approximating to line ahead. 



Was the approach of Nelson's division perpendicular 

 to the enemy's line ? That assertion has generally 

 passed muster ; but French evidence renders it more 

 than doubtful whether that division headed for the 

 Spanish and French flagships, Santissima Trinidad and 

 Bucenlaure, eleventh and twelfth in their line. Captain 

 Berenger of Scipion, second ship in the van, distinctly 

 asserts that Formidable (fourth in his line) first opened 

 fire on the leading British ships, he second ; also that 

 a cannonade took place during twenty-five to thirty 

 minutes, Scipion being hulled several times. Rear- 

 Admiral Dumanoir, in Formidable, states that the 

 cannonade lasted forty minutes.' Now, even allowing 

 for some exaggeration on the part of these officers, their 

 testimony shows that Nelson actually engaged the 

 French van. His move in that direction was not a 

 feint, but a partial attack, his aim being as far as 

 possible to cripple those eight ships before he ported 

 his helm and ran down on the starboard tack towards 

 the Spanish and French flagships. The French 

 evidence further disposes of the legend that Nelson's 

 leading ships fired not a gun before they cut the line. 

 So does the log of the Victory : "At four minutes past 

 twelve opened our fire on the enemy's van — in passing 

 dowTi their line." The fact is that Nelson utilised the 

 crescent formation of the enemy to engage, at a distance 

 of course, the enemy's van, and then approach slantwise 

 his real objective. Thus the approach of the weather 

 division was not perpendicular. Its leading ships were 

 able to use their broadsides, first on the enemy's van 



' Desbridre, La Campagne Maritime de 1805 : Trafalgar. 

 Appendix, pp. 150, 155, 163. 



