June 7, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
17 
The Nelson Touch 
By Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, U.S.N. 
[ Published by pemission of the U.S. Navy Department ] 
Admiral Fiske, xe>ho /s on the staff of the U.S. Naval War 
Cnllege, has u>un distinction, not only as a naval officer, but 
as an inventor and a publicist. His work " jileclricity 
in Theory and Practice,' published over thirty years ago, 
is a classic. He has invented range finders ; a fire-control 
system: a nn^thoi oj steering torpedoes by Hertzian waves, 
etc., etc. In ic)05 he received the gold medal oj the U.S. 
Xaval Institute for his e.s.say on" A merican A'ara/ Policy.' ' 
IF any na\-al officer should try to explain to a civilian 
the order of battle that Nelson issued a few days before 
he met the enemy fleet near Cape Trafalgar, he would be 
puzzled to find any distinctive features of tactical bril- 
liancy or originality on which he could dilate. It would be 
difticult for him to show any new conception, any special 
tactical insight, or the expression of any principle of military 
or naval attack that was distinctly novel. If it had not been 
for Rodney's battle fought long before in the West Indies. 
Nelson's proposed attack miglit be said to hold an element of 
originality ; but since Rodney's attack and the victory result- 
in,g were already known to everybody, and since the general 
principle of attacking a portion of an enemy's force when 
separated from another portion was as old as military history, 
he would find it a difficult task to impress a layman with the 
idea that Nelson's order was a flight of genius, and he would be 
considerably embarra.ssed if he tried to point out just how the 
order gave evidence of having received as its crowning finish 
The Nelson Touch." 
Apart from the matter of originality, or brilliancy of 
conception, Nelson's now famous order showed a bold in- 
tention, an intention distinctly Nelsonian. But boldness 
of intention was not a thing exclusively Nelsonian ; for bold- 
ness of intention and boldness of execution had always 
been the distinguishing qualities of the British seamen, 
and v.cre as old as the British navy. Yet the words," the 
Nelson Touch " do convey an idea, or at least a suggestion, 
vague though the idea or the suggestion seems to be. 
'l"he phrase conveys some such feeling as is conveyed 
by the word " touch," in speaking of any act performed 
witii consummate skill ; we speak for instance of the 
touch of Paderewski, or of any great artist of anv kind ; 
we speak even of the touch of a gentle nurse upon the forehead 
of a patient, and we know from Shakespeare that " one 
touch of nature makes the whole world kin." What is the 
vague and yet positive impression the word gives to us in 
the well-known phrase, the Nelson Touch ? 
Clearly Jt must be something distinctive of the person who 
gave the touch, or at least of the skill with which he gave it. 
It must be something characteristic of the man or of his art. 
If it is charactcris;ic of either, it is characteristic of both ; 
for the art of the artist is his most salient characteristic, and 
Nelson was the greatest naval artist that ever lived ; the man 
who practised the naval art with more skill than any other man 
who had lived before him, who lived at the time, or who has ' 
lived since. Looked at from this point of view, the Nelson 
touch was the touch of the great artist ; the touch so perfect, 
so delicate, and yet so strong, that nobodv else has ever been 
able to even approximate it. . Why could Nelson give that 
touch ? 
The easiest way to answer would be to say that Nelson was 
a genius. Doubtless he was a genius ; but when we say he was 
a genius, we merely use a word that is vague in its meaning, 
and that is always employed to explain why a certain man 
can do a certain thing that other men cannot do. Such an 
explanation, while convenient, does not explain at all, and 
rather clouds the subject than clears it up, because it distracts 
the attention by the question that must subconsciously arise, 
" What is genius ?" Such an explanation, furthermore, 
by ascribing the cause of a man's achievements wholly to the 
Almighty, who alone can inspire a man with genius, diverts 
us from such an analysis of his character as might assist 
other meii to see how a great man did great things, and 
possibly help them to do great things themselves. 
(iranting, however, that Nelson was a genius, but realising 
that he was a man besides, and not only a man, but a man 
with certain faults, perhaps a little reflection will make it 
clear that the Nelson touch did not depend upon genius so 
much as upon a certain combination of qualities ; and that 
these qualities were not rare, though the combination of them 
in one man unquestionably was. 
In tliinking (if Nelson, the quality that first impresses one 
IS, of course, his courage. As courage is ordinarily divided 
into two kinds, physical and moral, we may say that the kind 
of courage in Nelson which has most impressed the crowd 
was his physical courage. This is not strange, for the crowd 
loves physical courage ; and the pages of history can be 
searched without success for the name of any man who 
cisplayed physical courage more brilliantly, more frequently, 
or more consistently than Nelson. Yet if there was any 
quality in which Nelson was not pre-eminent among the men 
' of the British navy, it was in physical courage ; for the history 
of the British navy is a continuous record of deeds of physical 
courage that cannot be surpassed, and the jirevalence of 
physical courage was at its greatest height during the time 
when Nelson lived. 
Moral Courage 
But in the matter of moral courage. Nelson was pre-eminent. 
Although the words " moral courage " are often incorrectly 
used, and although physical courage must be a moral quality, 
yet there is a meaning generally accepted, according to which 
the phrase, " physical courage " means courage to dare a 
danger to the physical body, and "moral courage? " means 
courage to dare a danger to the reputation or tlic material 
interests. Accepting these meanings we may say that in the 
matter of moral courage, we see Nelson standing out clear 
and sharp against the background of the others. Nelson's 
moral courage, as shown in his willingness to assume 
re.sponsibility, led him sometimes to positive disobedience 
of orders ; in some cases the disobedience was justified 
and even laudable, while in other cases it was not 
justified, but distinctly reprehensible. In the former 
cases. Nelson was guided by patriotic considerations only ; 
in the latter he was swayed unduly by vanity ami 
personal affection ; and his greatest admirers must admit 
that vanity and personal affection occasionally led him astray, 
and sometimes seriously so. The fact that this is true, 
however, does not in the least contravene the statement that 
Nelson possessed moral courage in a superb degree. 
Of the two kinds of courage which Nelson possessed in so 
great measure, it is impossible to say which was the more 
vitally necessary to his success, since they constituted two 
links of the chain by which he gained it. It is perfectly safe 
to say, however, that it was his moral courage which influenced 
most powerfully those actions of Nelson which were great. 
His physical and his moral courage had somewhat the same 
relation to each other and to him, as had his physical body 
and his mind. Without his physical body and without his 
mind. Nelson could not have been Nelson ; and equally 
without his physical courage and his moral courage Nelson 
could not have been Nelson. 
In the ordinary affairs of an ordinary man,, moral courage 
has its field of usefulness in relation, mainly, to the personal 
concerns of his private life ; but when a man occupies a high 
public station, especially in military life, in which decisions 
involving momentous risks ha\e to be taken without time 
for reflection, or the opportunity of securing advice from 
others, then moral courage influences international events, 
and takes on an importance which the imagination of most 
men fails to grasp. It is this quality of moral courage, more 
than any other, that stamps the great and successful leader. 
No great leader has ever appeared who did not have it ; 
no great leader could exist who did not have it. No matter 
how brilliant the conceptions of the mind may be, no matter 
how powerful the combinations it may form, no matter what 
situations of advantage it may create, nothing can be ac- 
complished in military or naval life, if there be not moral 
courage to risk the adventure which the mind prescribes : 
He either dreads his fate too much or his desert is small. 
Who fears to put it to the touch to win or lose it all. 
In Nelson there was never any such fear. Whatever his 
judgment said should be done, and whatever he had the power 
to do. Nelson did ; and like his great antagonist. Napoleon, 
he did it instantly, before other people realised that anything 
was to be done at all. Like Napoleon, his mind operated 
with extraordinary quickness, and brought him to decisions 
towards which he himself possibly did not see the intervening 
steps. But the process of reasoning up to his decision was no 
more rapid than was the action of the mechanism of the will, 
whereby was started the plan decided on. Both Napoleon 
and Nelson realised the deadly effect of mere delay, and threw 
into their mental processes and their physical and spiritual 
activities all the propelling force of an ardent, impatient 
temperament. 
Yet Nelson, like Napoleon, was cautious in the extreme. 
