Additional information
by Charles River (Author)
*Includes pictures
*Includes accounts of the fighting
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
Before Trafalgar, Admiral Horatio Nelson had already earned enduring fame for the British victory at the Battle of the Nile. In 1798, he was given command of a small squadron and sent ahead to Gibraltar, and eventually given instructions to hunt down and destroy Napoleon's fleet.
An initial review of France's naval forces had led Napoleon to conclude his navy could not hope to outfight the power of the Royal Navy, which had been the dominant naval power for centuries, so he was forced to look elsewhere. After months of planning, Napoleon crafted a scheme to attack and conquer Egypt, denying the British easy access to their colonies in India, with the ultimate goal of linking up with the Sultan Tipoo in India itself and defeating the British in the field there. Napoleon sailed with Admiral Brueys and 30,000 troops that June, heading for Egypt. Notionally part of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was de facto a weak independent regime run by the breakaway Mamelukes. For France, it offered an overland route to India and a chance to beat Britain at her own game via economic strangulation. Nelson however, could only speculate at French intentions. Whatever the destination of the French fleet, he sought a battle of annihilation, the culmination of all he had learned as an officer and admiral. Only by that means could Britain secure the Mediterranean and neutralize the threat of a French army operating overseas. His understanding was icily accurate.
Ironically, Nelson and the British forces beat the French to Africa, failing to take into account their slower troop transports. While the British turned north, only two days later, on June 28, Napoleon's army disembarked at Alexandria. Back in Sicily, Nelson heard further reports about the French and again sailed south. Arriving at Alexandria late in the afternoon of August 1, he found the port crowded with French transports, but no battle fleet.
At the same time, Brueys was only a few miles up the coast, anchored at Aboukir Bay. Nelson's scouts soon spotted the fleet at anchor, and without hesitation, the British attacked, their captains racing each other to be the first to engage. Brueys had made a number of mistakes, for which he paid with his life. His disposition was sloppy, with gaps between the ships and sufficient room between the line of his fleet at anchor and the shallows for an enemy to interpose himself. Many of his sailors were ashore, unable to rejoin their vessels quickly enough to defend them. Fundamentally though, he shouldn't have been there at all, as it was Napoleon, nervous about the Royal Navy and without a clear understanding of naval strategy, who had insisted that the French fleet anchor itself helplessly on the Egyptian coast. A patrolling French fleet at sea would at least have had a chance against Nelson. As it was, they were sitting ducks.
It was the battle of annihilation Nelson had sought - of 13 French battleships engaged, 2 were destroyed and 9 were captured. British losses were negligible, with no ships lost and about 900 killed or wounded. French casualties were at least 2,000, with thousands more captured. The French Mediterranean fleet had been wiped out, and Napoleon's expeditionary force was now stranded.
With Nelson's decisive victory, the Royal Navy had once again asserted itself as the dominant power in the Mediterranean. At the same time, Nelson's inability to intercept Napoleon at sea allowed the French transports and ground forces to survive unscathed, and they eventually made their way back to France. The stage was now set for over a decade of massive campaigns and battles that would only end more than 15 years later at Waterloo.
