Famous Sea Fights Part 11

[15] Rodney in at first refusing was upholding the strict letter of the "Fighting Instructions," which forbade breaking the line or changing the order of battle during an action. Instruction XVI laid it down that:--

"In all cases of fight with the enemy the commanders of His Majesty's ships are to _keep the fleet in one line_, and (as much as may be) to preserve that order of battle, which they have been directed to keep before the time of fight."

In the haste to carry it out the signal to fight to leeward of the French was forgotten and left flying. The "Formidable" turned her high bows into the gap, and swept through it with all her hundred guns and her carronades in action, pouring broadside after broadside right and left into the "Glorieux" and the "Diademe." Six ships in succession swung round and followed in the wake of the flagship, which was now engaged with the French on the windward side. Shattered by successive blasts of well-directed fire, the "Diademe" was drifting a helpless wreck, and the rearward ships, with their way checked, were huddling in confusion behind her, English ships firing into them on both sides. Through another gap in the French line, ahead of De Gra.s.se's giant "Ville de Paris," other English ships made their way in the dense cloud of smoke, some of the captains hardly aware of what they were doing. The French van had meanwhile forged ahead, and then, as the wind suddenly fell to a dead calm, it was seen that De Gra.s.se's fleet was broken into three isolated fragments.

To the southward lay the van ships under De Bougainville becalmed, with no enemy in range of them. The "Ville de Paris," with several of her consorts of the French centre, formed another group, with the whole of the rearward English division exchanging fire with them at long range. The rear of the French, under Vaudreuil, and the ships of the centre cut off by Rodney's manoeuvre were huddled together, with Hood's division and the ships that had followed the "Formidable" through the line shepherding them. The loss of the wind had made it difficult or impossible to keep the broadsides bearing, and for an hour the action died down into a desultory cannonade.

When the breeze came again over the ridges of Dominica, De Bougainville's division, now far to leeward, made no attempt to succour De Gra.s.se. Only one of his ships slowly beat up to the main battle. The French admiral tried to get away to the westward, but Hood clung doggedly to him, while Rodney and Drake completed the defeat of Vaudreuil and the French rear. The "Diademe" soon struck her colours. A frigate tried to tow the dismasted "Glorieux" out of the melee, but the captain of the "Glorieux," De Kerlessi, saw that the effort would only end in the friendly frigate being also captured, and with his own hand he cut the tow-rope and hauled down his flag. Then the "Cesar" struck her colours, and while the rearward ships were being thus disposed of, in the broken Centre the "Hector" and the "Ardent" surrendered to Hood's division.

The English attack was now concentrated on the centre, and the battle raged fiercely round the French flagship, distinguished by her huge bulk and her towering masts. One by one these came down, trailing in a tangle of spars, sails, and rigging over her sides. Her crowded decks were a shambles of dead and dying, but still De Gra.s.se fought on--for honour, not for victory.

His van held aloof, his broken rear was in flight. Five of his ships had struck. Still he kept his guns in action till Hood in his flagship, the "Princesse," ranged close up alongside of him and poured in a series of destructive broadsides. Then the French flag came down at last, and De Gra.s.se went on board the "Princesse" and gave up his sword to the vice-admiral.

The sun was going down when the French flagship surrendered. The captured "Cesar," set on fire by her crew, was blazing from stem to stern. The other prizes had been secured. Rodney attempted no pursuit of the scattered French ships that were sailing away to the southward and the north-westward. Enough had been done, he said. It was now his business to refit his fleet and take it to Jamaica. He had shattered the French power in the West Indian seas and made himself the master of the field of operations. A younger and more vigorous man would have perhaps marked down Vaudreuil's or Bougainville's fugitive divisions for utter destruction. But Rodney was content with the solid success he had obtained.

The losses of the French fleet had been very heavy. In their crowded decks the English fire had effected something like a ma.s.sacre. On board the "Ville de Paris" more men had been killed and wounded than in the whole English fleet. Very few officers and men had escaped some kind of wound.

Many of the ships that had got away were now very shorthanded, with leaking hulls, and spars and rigging badly cut up.

The effect of the victory was to enable England to obtain much better terms in the treaty that was signed next year. A disastrous war was closed by a brilliant success. But England owed to it more than this temporary advantage. It was a new beginning, the opening event of the period of splendid triumphs on the sea on the reputation of which we are still living. To quote the words of Rodney's latest biographer,[16] "it marked the beginning of that fierce and headlong yet well-calculated style of sea-fighting which led to Trafalgar, and made England undisputed mistress of the sea."

[16] David Hannay, "Rodney" (English Men of Action), p. 213.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A THREE-DECKER OF NELSON'S TIME]

CHAPTER IX

TRAFALGAR

1805

The closing years of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the nineteenth represent the most splendid period in the annals of the British Navy. Howe destroyed the French fleet in the Atlantic on "the glorious First of June, 1794," Nelson died in the midst of his greatest victory off Cape Trafalgar on 21 October, 1805. Little more than eleven years separated the two dates, and this brief period was crowded with triumphs for Britain on the sea. The "First of June," St. Vincent, Camperdown, the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar are the great names in the roll of victory; but "the meteor flag of England" flew victorious in a hundred fights on all the seas of the world.

Men who were officers young in the service on the day when Rodney broke at once the formal traditions of a century and the battle-line of the Comte de Gra.s.se lived through and shared in the glories of this decade of victory. A new spirit had come into the navy. An English admiral would no longer think he had done his duty in merely bringing his well-ordered line into cannon-shot of an enemy's array and exchanging broadsides with him at half-cannon range. Nor was the occupation of a port or an island recognized as an adequate result for a naval campaign. The enemy's fighting-fleet was now the object aimed at. It was not merely to be brought to action, and more or less damaged by distant cannonading. The ideal battle was the close fight amid the enemy's broken line, and victory meant his destruction.

The spirit of the time was personified in its greatest sailor. Nelson's battles were fought in grim earnest, taking risks boldly in order to secure great results. Trafalgar--the last of his battles, and the last great battle of the days of the sail--was also the final episode in the long struggle of Republican and Imperial France to s.n.a.t.c.h from England even for a while the command of the sea.

When Napoleon a.s.sembled the Grand Army at Boulogne, gave it the official t.i.tle of the "_Armee d'Angleterre_," and crowded every creek from Dunkirk to Havre with flat-bottomed boats for its transport across the Channel, he quite realized that the first condition of success for the scheme was that a French fleet should be in possession of the Channel at the moment his veterans embarked for their short voyage. He had twenty sail of the line, under Admiral Ganteaume, at Brest; twelve under Villeneuve at Toulon; a squadron of five at Rochefort under Admiral Missiessy; five more at Ferrol; and in this last port and at Cadiz and Cartagena there were other ships belonging to his Spanish allies. But every port was watched by English battleships and cruisers. The vigilant blockade had been kept up for two years, during which Nelson, who was watching Toulon, had hardly been an hour absent from his flagship, the "Victory"; and Collingwood, in the "Royal Sovereign," did not anchor once in twenty-two months of alternate cruising and lying to.

Napoleon's mind was ceaselessly busy with plans for moving his fleets on the sea as he moved army corps on land, so as to elude, mislead, and out-manoeuvre the English squadrons, and suddenly bring a concentrated French force of overwhelming strength into the narrow seas. The first move in these plans was usually a.s.signed to the Toulon fleet. According to one project it was to give Nelson the slip, make for the Straits of Gibraltar, combine with the Cadiz fleet in driving off or crushing the blockading squadron before that port, sail north with the liberated vessels, fall on the blockading ships before Rochefort and Brest, and then sweep the Channel with the united squadrons. In other projects French fleets were to run the blockades simultaneously or in succession, raid the West Indies, draw off a part of the naval forces of England to the other side of the Atlantic, and then come swooping back upon the Channel.

In the plan finally adopted the first move was to be the escape of the Toulon fleet; the second, the threat against the West Indies. Its execution was entrusted to Villeneuve, because Napoleon, ever since the escape of his squadron from the disaster in Aboukir Bay, had regarded him as "a lucky man," and luck and chance must play a great part in such a project.

Nelson did not keep up a close and continuous blockade of Toulon with his fighting-fleet of battleships. He used Sardinia as his base of supplies, and there were times when all the heavier ships were in Sardinian waters, while his frigates watched Toulon. His previous experiences had led him to believe that if the French Mediterranean fleet came out it would be for another raid on Egypt, and this idea was confirmed by reports that Villeneuve was embarking not only troops, but large quant.i.ties of saddlery and muskets. The story of the saddles seemed to indicate an expedition to a country where plenty of horses could be obtained to mount a body of cavalry--horses, too, that when they were bought or requisitioned would not have saddles that a European trooper was used to. Nelson did not want to keep the French shut up in Toulon. He was anxious to catch them in the open sea, and with his fleet on the coast of Sardinia and his frigates spread out in a fan to the northwards he counted on bringing Villeneuve to action if he attempted to reach the Levant.

In January, 1805, the frigates brought news that the French were out, and Nelson at once disposed his fleet to intercept their expected voyage to Egypt. He found no trace of them in the direction he expected, and he was greatly relieved on returning from a hurried rush eastward to learn that bad weather had driven Villeneuve back to his port. "These gentlemen," he said, "are not accustomed to the Gulf of Lyons gales, but we have buffeted them for twenty-one months without carrying away a spar."

On 30 March Villeneuve came out of Toulon again with eleven ships of the line. This time, thanks to Nelson's fixed idea about Egypt, he got a good start for the Atlantic. As soon as his frigates brought the news that the French were out, Nelson strung out his ships from the south point of Sardinia to Sicily and the African coast. He thus watched every possible avenue to the Eastern Mediterranean, ready to concentrate and attack the enemy as soon as he got touch of them anywhere. But not a French sail was sighted.

Villeneuve had run down past the Balearic Islands to Cartagena, where Admiral Salcedo was in command of a Spanish squadron. But the Spaniards were not ready for sea, and Villeneuve was anxious to be west of the Straits of Gibraltar as soon as possible, and could not wait for his dilatory allies. On 8 April he pa.s.sed through the Straits. Then he steered for Cadiz, drove off Sir John Orde's blockading squadron of six sail, and entered the harbour on the 9th.

At Cadiz there were Admiral Gravina's Spanish fleet and a French battleship, the "Aigle." Again the Spaniards were mostly unready for sea, but six of them and the "Aigle" joined Villeneuve when he sailed out into the Atlantic steering for the West Indies, now at the head of eighteen battleships and seven frigates.

Information was difficult to obtain and travelled slowly a hundred years ago. It was not till 11 April that Nelson learned that Villeneuve had pa.s.sed through the Straits of Gibraltar eight days before. Then, while the French were running down into the trade wind that was to carry them westward, Nelson, still ignorant whether they were raiding the West Indies or Ireland, but anxious in either case to be in the Atlantic as soon as might be, had to work his way slowly towards the Straits against stormy head winds, and then wait wearily at anchor on the Moorish coast for a change of wind that would carry him into the ocean. He was suffering from disappointment, depression, and ill-health. It was not till 7 May that he pa.s.sed the Straits. He had made up his mind that the French were probably bound for the West Indies, and he followed them. They had a long start, but he trusted to find them among the islands and make the West Indian seas once more famous for a great British victory.

On 4 June he reached Barbadoes, and began his search, only to miss the French, thanks to false information, and learn too late that they were returning to Europe. Villeneuve had paid only a flying visit to the West Indies, leaving Martinique on 5 June, the day after Nelson arrived at Barbadoes, and steering first north, then eastwards across the Atlantic.

Nelson followed on 13 June, and reached Gibraltar without once sighting his enemy.

He had, however, taken the precaution of dispatching a fast sailing brig to England with the news that the French fleet was returning to Europe. This ship, the "Curieux," actually got a glimpse of the enemy far off in mid ocean, and outsailed him to such good purpose that the Admiralty was able to order the squadrons blockading Brest and Rochefort to unite under the command of Sir Robert Calder and try to intercept Villeneuve on his way back. Though inferior in numbers to the allied fleet, Calder brought it to action in thick, foggy weather on 22 July, some ninety miles off the Spanish Cape Finisterre. The battle, fought in semi-darkness, was a desultory, indecisive encounter, and though Calder cut off and took two Spanish ships of the line, the feeling in England, when the news arrived, was not one of satisfaction at his partial success, but of undeserved indignation at his having failed to force the fighting and destroy the enemy's fleet.

Villeneuve took his fleet into Vigo Bay. According to the plan of campaign, now that he had shaken off Nelson's pursuit, he should have sailed for the Channel, picking up the Brest and Rochefort squadrons on his way. Napoleon, at Boulogne, was ceaselessly drilling the Grand Army in rapid embarkation and disembarkation, and hoping each day for news of his admiral's dash into the Channel. But Villeneuve, who knew Keith had a squadron in the Channel, and had a vague dread of Nelson suddenly making his appearance, had a better appreciation of the small chance of the scheme giving any result than the imperious soldier-Emperor, who had come to believe that what he ordered must succeed. From Vigo, Villeneuve wrote to the Minister of Marine, Decres, that his fleet was hardly in condition for any active enterprise. It had met with trying weather in the Atlantic. His flagship, the "Bucentaure," had been struck and damaged by lightning. All the ships needed a dockyard overhaul. There was sickness among the crews.

He had to land hundreds of men and send them to hospital. He wanted recruits badly, and Vigo afforded only the scantiest resources for the refitting of the ships. He was already thinking of going back to Cadiz. He moved his fleet to Corunna, but there he found things in such a condition that he reported that he could not even find hospital room for the sick.

From Napoleon came pressing orders to push on to the Channel at all risks.

On 11 August Villeneuve put to sea, picking up a combined French and Spanish squadron from the neighbouring port of Ferrol. He meant to sail to Brest, bring out the squadron there, and call up the ships at Rochefort by sending on a frigate in advance with orders for that port. (The frigate was captured on the way by a British cruiser.) He sent a dispatch overland to Napoleon to say that at last he was coming.

In the Bay of Biscay, two days out from Corunna, he was told by a Danish merchant-ship that there was a great fleet of British battleships close at hand to the northward. The news was false. A few hours before the captain of a British cruiser had stopped the Dane and purposely given him this false information, in the hope that it would reach the French and mislead them. Except a few scattered cruisers, there was nothing between Villeneuve and the ports of Brest and Rochefort--nothing that could stop his projected concentration. Nelson had waited a few days at Gibraltar, where the news of Calder's fight had not arrived. He communicated with Collingwood, who was watching Cadiz with six ships, and then, conjecturing that the object of the French expedition might be Ireland, he sailed north and was off the Irish coast on 12 August, the day after Villeneuve left Corunna. Finding no trace of the enemy, he joined the squadron of Cornwallis off Ushant on 15 August, and then, broken in health and depressed at what seemed a huge failure, he went back to England to spend some time with Lady Hamilton at Merton.

Villeneuve had hardly heard of the imaginary fleet when the wind, which had so far been fair, went round to the north. This decided the irresolute admiral. To the dismay of his captains he suddenly altered his course and ran before the wind southward to Cadiz, where he arrived on 22 August, contenting himself with watching the retirement of Collingwood's six ships and making no effort to envelop and cut them off with his enormously superior force. Collingwood promptly resumed the blockade when the French and Spanish anch.o.r.ed, and deluded Villeneuve into the belief that the blockade was in touch with a supporting fleet by keeping one of his ships well out in the offing, and frequently signalling through her to imaginary consorts below the horizon.

On the very day that Villeneuve anch.o.r.ed at Cadiz, Napoleon sent off from Boulogne this pressing dispatch to him at Brest:--

"Admiral, I trust you have arrived at Brest. Start at once. Do not lose a moment. Come into the Channel with our united squadrons, and England is ours. We are all ready. Everything is embarked. Come here for twenty-four hours and all is ended, and six centuries of shame and insult will be avenged."

When he heard that the admiral had lost heart and turned back he was furious. But he had already formed plans for an alternative enterprise. The English ministry had succeeded in forming a new coalition with Austria and Russia as a means of keeping the Emperor occupied on the Continent. On 27 August Napoleon issued his orders for the march of the Grand Army to the Danube, and on 1 September he started on the career of victory, the stages of which were to be Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland.

To Villeneuve he sent, through Decres, bitter reproaches and new orders for a naval campaign in the Mediterranean. Decres, writing to his old comrade, transmitted the new plan of campaign and softened down the Emperor's angry words. Villeneuve reported that he could not leave Cadiz for some time. He was doing all that was possible to refit his fleet and find full crews for the French and Spanish ships. For the latter men were provided by pressing landsmen into the service. "It is pitiful," wrote a French officer, "to see such fine ships manned with a handful of seamen and a crowd of beggars and herdsmen." In the councils of war held at Cadiz there were fierce disputes between the French and Spanish officers, the latter accusing their allies of having abandoned to their fate the two ships lost in Calder's action.

The jealousy between the two nations rose so high that several French sailors were stabbed at night in the streets.

The English Government knew nothing of the inefficient state and the endless difficulties of the great fleet concentrated at Cadiz, and regarded its presence there as a standing danger. Collingwood was reinforced, and it was decided to send Nelson out to join him, take over the command, blockade the enemy closely, and bring him to action if he ventured out.

Nelson sailed from Spithead on 15 September in his old flagship the "Victory," accompanied by the "Euryalus," Captain Blackwood, one of the swiftest and smartest frigates in the navy. Picking up the battleships "Thunderer" and "Ajax" on the way, he joined the fleet off Cadiz on 28 September.

Villeneuve had written to Decres that none of the ships were in really good order, and that the Spanish vessels were "quite incapable of meeting the enemy." Only a portion of his fleet had had the slight training afforded by the Atlantic voyage. The rest had lain for years in harbour, and many of them had crews chiefly made up of recently enrolled landsmen. Many of the captains held that if there was to be a fight it would be useless to manoeuvre or to attempt an artillery duel, and that the only chance of success lay in a hand-to-hand fight by boarding. But, then, to produce the position for boarding meant being able to manoeuvre. Villeneuve was supported by most of the superior officers of the fleet in the opinion that he had better stay at Cadiz; but from Napoleon there came reiterated orders for the fleet to enter the Mediterranean.

The last hesitation of the unfortunate admiral was ended by the news that Admiral Rosilly was coming from Paris to supersede him. If he did not attempt something, his career would end in disgrace. He held a final council of war, gave his last instructions to his officers, and then wrote to Decres that he would obey the Emperor's orders, though he foresaw that they would probably lead to disaster.

Contrary winds from the westward delayed his sailing for some days after this decision. Reefs and local currents made it difficult to work a large fleet out of Cadiz without a fair wind. A smaller but better-trained fleet than that of Villeneuve had once taken three days to get out, and a portion of the fleet at sea and unsupported would be in deadly peril. On 17 October the wind began to work round to the eastward. Next day it fell almost to a calm, but it increased towards evening, and Villeneuve, after a conference with his Spanish colleague, Admiral Gravina, signalled that the ships were to weigh anchor at sunrise on the 19th.

Nelson had been watching Cadiz for three weeks, keeping his fleet well out at sea, with his frigates close in to the port, and a chain of ships acting as connecting links with them to pa.s.s on information by signalling with flags by day and lanterns by night. The system of signalling had been lately so improved that it was fairly rapid and reliable, and Nelson kept his fleet out of sight, and requested that the names of ships sent to reinforce him should not appear in the papers, as he hoped to delude Villeneuve into a false idea that he had a very inferior force before Cadiz. He feared that if the whole array of his fleet were visible from the look-out stations of the port the allies would remain safe at anchor.

During this period of waiting he had had more than one conference with his captains, and had read and explained to them a ma.n.u.script memorandum, dated 9 October, setting forth his plans for the expected battle. His plan of battle excited an enthusiasm among them, to which more than one of them afterwards bore testimony. They said that "the Nelson touch" was in it, and it is generally taken for granted that they saw in it something like a stroke of genius and a new departure in tactics. I hope it is not presumption on my part to suggest that their enthusiasm was partly the result of their seeing that their trusted leader was thoroughly himself again and, to use a familiar phrase, meant business, and they had a further motive for satisfaction in seeing how thoroughly he relied on them and how ready he was to give them a free hand in carrying out his general ideas.

The "Nelson touch" memorandum of 9 October and the whole plan of the battle have been, and still are, the subject of acute controversy, the various phases of which it would be far too long to discuss. It is strange that after the lapse of a hundred years and the publication of a vast ma.s.s of detailed evidence--British, French, and Spanish--there are still wide differences of opinion as to how the most famous naval battle in history was actually fought out. There is even much uncertainty as to the order in which the British ships came into action.

The memorandum shows that Nelson originally contemplated a formation in three lines, an advanced division to windward, a main division under his personal command, and a lee division under his second-in-command, Collingwood. The final grouping of the ships in the battle was in two divisions. In the following list of the British fleet the names of ships are arranged in the same order in which they appear in Collingwood's dispatch, written after the action:--

WINDWARD LINE.