Napoleon Bonaparte received the news a few days after the battle that was to lead to his greatest military triumph. He was flushed with the success of capturing an entire Austrian army which had assumed it was safe sheltering in the city of Ulm behind the Danube river. Its commander, Gen. Mack, was to learn the hard way that nowhere was safe when the little Corcisan genius, and thug, was in the field! Actually, when the couriers reached him he was already on the road that would eventually lead to the hitherto insignificant village of Austerlitz where he would win his greatest victory, one that would cement his place in the pantheon of Great Captains of History. The messages told him that the combined fleets of France and Spain had been destroyed by the British. Not just pushed or hounded back to port but destroyed - utterly. He shrugged it off as of little importance. His only use for a navy was earlier that year, 1805, when he desired it to hold open the Channel so that his new Grande Armee could cross safely into England and finally scotch the never-ending nuisance that it had become. His insouciance betrayed the fact that whilst he stands supreme as a master of grand tactics, or the 'operational, as it is called these days, he never fully grasped the intricacies of strategy, particularly naval strategy.
The fact of British mastery of the sea meant that his attempt to enforce a trade embargo against England was flawed because too many of his captive nations inside 'Fortress Europa' were able to maintain sea links to Britain. Similarly, his aquisition of Spain through dynastic shenanigans opened his territories to invasion by British armies carried hither and thither in perfect safety by a Royal Navy which now really did rule the waves. The long drawn-out Spanish campaign may not have been the spectacular catastrophe of the invasion of Russia but year after year it became a septic, open-wound sapping the strength of French power.
Trafalgar was won by another military genius. Nelson was not only fearless and pugnacious, a characteristic of many commanders, but also, and more rarely, a highly intelligent man who was possessed of a very deep understanding of naval warfare. What appeared to many of his contemporaries as dangerous recklessness was in fact based on his knowledge of the inacuracy of smooth-bore canon at sea and the immense strength of wooden ships. Thus, he was content, indeed, eager, to break the golden rule of naval war by allowing his 'T' to be crossed not once but twice as he attacked the extended line of Franco-Spanish ships in two parallel columns. Outnumbered, this approach allowed him to cut off the leading ships in the van of the enemy fleet which were forced to sail onwards under the wind leaving their compatriots to be reduced whilst they struggled to turn round and beat back up to the battle, by which time it was too late.
But Nelson, thoughtful and analytical as he was, knew enough of warfare, and was wise enough to accept, that no matter how carefully he planned "Something must be left to chance". Well, happily, 205 years ago today, chance went his way, so let us all raise a glass - not rum, can't stand it - to the memory of all those 'Jack Tars' of yesteryear. The fact that this anniversary comes two days after we have been told that we are to build two aircraft carriers without any aircraft is almost too bitter to take - so make mine a large one!
Thanks to Publius of Brietbart for reminding me.
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