Nelson: Britannia's God of War (3 page)

Cross-section of a ship of the line in Nelson’s time

 

While war was transformed out of all recognition at the political and organisational level, the tools of the trade increased only in number. Muskets, cannon and ships of the line were unaltered, and Nelson’s career witnessed no significant technical change. His flagship at Trafalgar was over forty years old, and still a first-rate, front-line warship. In consequence he could build on 150 years of naval experience fighting with ships, squadrons and fleets powered by the wind, armed with cast-iron cannon, dependent on the seamanship, dexterity and commitment of the crew to keep them functioning. The skills he had learnt as a boy and perfected as a young man were still central to the business of fighting at sea on the day he died.

When Nelson went to sea, the wooden sailing warship was nearing the end of a prolonged period of evolution. The combination of an effective three-masted sailing rig, durable wooden ships and muzzle-loading cannon had been established as the basic fighting system 250 years before, in the reign of Henry VIII. However, operating large square-rigged sailing ships remained a difficult and demanding art, acquired over many years of practical experience. As a system of propulsion it left much to be desired. It was inherently dangerous, since extremes of weather could leave a ship out of control. Sudden changes in wind strength could cripple a ship in an instant, notably the
Vanguard
in 1798, by breaking the delicate topmasts. Furthermore ships could only make progress when the wind was blowing: dead calm meant no movement, and their ability to make progress against the wind was limited. This precarious power source required a deep grasp of local and seasonal conditions, largely derived from hard-won experience. The ability to read the weather and to anticipate changes
was vital for a sea officer. Nelson kept a weather log for most of his sea-going career, and was still filling it in on the day he died. This was more than meteorological curiosity: it was the building block of his system.

The mechanics of adjusting the ship’s speed and course required the manual exertion of a significant part of the crew, including upwards of one hundred true seamen – men able to work up in the rigging, hauling in sail, mending rope and shifting masts and yards. The typical seaman was a young unattached man, between twenty and thirty, already experienced at sea. He would probably leave oceanic seafaring before reaching thirty to take up a shoreside job in the maritime industries, though a few stayed on to become masters, naval petty officers, or specialist ratings. Seamen were at the pinnacle of the working-class labour market, and vital to national security. Yet there were never enough of them in wartime, so much of the crew of a battleship would be composed of landsmen. Such men lacked the skill to work aloft, though they could haul on the ropes, run round the capstan and crew the guns; because they worked in the waist, the central section of the upper deck, they were often termed ‘waisters’.

The basic fighting instrument, the muzzle-loading cast-iron cannon, came in several sizes, and two basic forms. Long guns could fire solid iron balls over a mile, but the most effective fighting range was ‘point blank’, about 200 yards, where they required no elevation to hit an enemy ship. On the upper deck the weapons were carronades, short-barrelled lightweight guns of large bore, which compensated for their shorter range by firing heavy-calibre balls. The largest cannon fired a 6.2-inch diameter thirty-two-pound solid iron shot that could punch a hole straight through two feet of oak, and on exiting sent a cloud of huge, jagged splinters scything across the deck. The lightly built bow and stern of a wooden warship were terribly vulnerable, once Nelson had destroyed the old tactical order of linear attritional combat.

British guns, being better cast, rarely exploded; French weapons were less reliable, which discouraged their crew from trying to fire fast, for the faster the guns were fired the hotter they became, and the more likely they were to explode. On a close, confined gun deck the explosion of a heavy gun would reduce the gun crew to a bloody shambles, along with those of the pieces on either side, shatter the deck above and below, and probably cause an ammunition fire. This was far more damage than was normally done by hours of enemy fire,
and demoralised the rest of the crew. Little wonder the confident and experienced British gunners fired faster. One round every ninety seconds was possible in the opening stages of a battle. After the first broadside had been fired this rate of fire made British ships far more powerful fighting units than foreign ships of the same nominal rate.

Although they were built to the same basic design, major British warships were divided into six rates. The first three were strong enough to fight in the line of battle, the others were cruisers for scouting, trade protection and other detached roles. First-rates like HMS
Victory
had three complete covered decks armed with cannon, with further guns on the open upper deck. The total armament of a hundred or more guns gave each ship a broadside weight of fire superior to any contemporary army. Second-rates, like the
Temeraire
, were similar, but smaller, and carried fewer than a hundred guns. These two rates formed the backbone of the major fleets – Nelson reckoned a three-decker equal to two two-deckers. Third-rate ships were two-decked ships of between sixty-four and eighty guns: Nelson fought three of his four major engagements in seventy-fours. These ships were cheaper to build, usually sailed better than three-deckers, and could be used for a wider range of strategic tasks. They were the most numerous type of battleship. Fourth-rates were either very small two-decked fifty-gun ships, like the
Leander
at the Nile, or big frigates like the USS
Constitution
. Neither was common, being too expensive to build and operate for a type unable to fight in the battle line. By contrast, the fifth-rate frigate armed with thirty to forty eighteen-pounder guns was a standard warship built in huge numbers, while the twenty-gun sixth-rate, the smallest ship commanded by a captain, was equally numerous. Lesser ships were not rated, and were commanded by officers below the rank of captain.

The ships of other navies were built along similar lines, although those of France and Spain were often larger for the number of guns mounted. France favoured very big two-decked ships of eighty guns, like the
Bucentaure
,
over three-deckers, because they sailed better. Spain created a unique four-decked ship, the
Santissima
Trinidad
, which Nelson engaged twice, and a large force of powerful 112-gun three-deckers, but these ships were rarely handled with sufficient skill to exploit their strength. British officers and men were invariably better trained and more experienced than those of Spain, and after 1793 those of France as well. Nelson’s tactics were founded on this unequal
relationship between the Royal Navy and its rivals: he pushed his advantage to the limit in search of decision, speed and certainty.

*

Naval battles were rare, even for Nelson, but they provided the acid test of ships and men. The basic system of naval tactics was settled during Cromwell’s regime, a close ordered line of battle to maximise firepower and strength. This remained the basis of fleet tactics until Nelson’s day. Naval battles were usually lengthy affairs, taking many hours to resolve: at Trafalgar the fleets were in sight for six hours before they began to fight. Before 1793 fleets normally engaged in lines, broadside to broadside. The line of battle had been developed by the English as a defensive tactic to counter the more agile and aggressive Dutch fleets of the seventeenth century, relying on cohesion and firepower to smash the more lightly built Hollanders. It was used against the altogether less aggressive French and Spanish because it had become an article of faith, and the ultimate defence in the event of defeat. Failing to form a proper line was a serious offence, if the battle were lost. This regime bred admirals more frightened of losing than anxious to win. But the best admirals of the eighteenth century were quick to abandon the line, once the enemy had shown their weakness; Anson, Hawke and Rodney all used pursuit battle to destroy a fleeing enemy, and their approach culminated in that of Nelson, who began his plans with the annihilation of the enemy.

The tactics of war at sea in the age of sail have long fascinated armchair admirals, who have allowed the geometric precision of the printed page, and neat changes of course, to delude their senses.
⁷
Naval tactics were never as elegant as the theoretical drawings suggest. Any seaman knows that to keep a fleet of ships sailing in company, in close order, is a great achievement; to make them change course without losing all cohesion and order is even more difficult, particularly when under fire and smothered with smoke. To fight a fleet action both sides had to bring their forces into line, and keep close together, rather than allowing the enemy to cut the fleet into sections, and concentrate against a detachment. If both fleets were willing to fight, and kept a good line, the combat would be settled by firepower. As damaged ships fell out of line the fleets would begin to dissolve into individual combats, and after one side had given up and fled, the winner could clear up the crippled ships that were left behind.

Once a battle began it was almost impossible to signal any changes
to the plan, as smoke made it impossible for all ships to see the flagship. Therefore the best tactics were the simplest: the line was ideal because it would be set before the fighting started, and no one would break it without sanction. Nelson was the master of simplicity. At Trafalgar he had prepared his captains before the event, by discussion, and also by transmitting a ‘mission-analysis’ memorandum. This told them what he hoped to achieve, but also to exercise their own skill and judgement in fulfilling those objectives. Nelson’s predecessors – men such as Lord Hood and Earl St Vincent, from whom Nelson had learned much – also took their officers into their confidence, but because they faced more capable foes, they possessed less elevated ideas of the possible outcome. Nelson further refined the system such men had created, in pursuit of his goal of total annihilation of the enemy. His system removed the need to send any signals once the battle had started, and even when he received Home Popham’s new signal code,
⁸
he saw that it was best used to give his men a morale-boosting motto, relying for victory on the old system, prior discussion, and above all his own example. Collingwood, who knew the man and his ideas better than anyone, testified that ‘he has the faculty of discovering advantages as they arise, and the good judgement to turn them to his use. An enemy that commits a false step in his view is ruined, and it comes on him with an impetuosity that allows him no time to recover.’
⁹
After Trafalgar Collingwood reflected that ‘everything seemed, as if by enchantment, to prosper under his direction. But it was the effect of system, and nice combination, not of chance.’
¹⁰

Once in combat, ships exchanged fire until one of them was unable to continue, either because her rigging was disabled, or her crew too demoralised by losses to continue.

The human face of such battles was terrible. Round shot smashed through the sides of the ships, scattering large, jagged fragments of timber, euphemistically referred to as splinters. These scythed down the gun crew, and men on the upper deck, inflicting a combination of cutting and crushing injuries that were hard to treat. Wounded men were taken below to the cockpit where, in the gloomy pallor of battle lanterns, the surgeon and his crew did their best. They could clean and stitch wounds, remove musket balls, amputate crushed or shattered limbs and comfort the dying. They knew nothing of antiseptic practice and anaesthetics, and had no treatment for shock. Even those who escaped obvious injury were not unscathed. The concussive detonation
of so many guns left many men temporarily or permanently deafened; this, in combination with the horrors of the scene, may explain the unusually high number of insane veterans. These unfortunates had their own asylum (now the Imperial War Museum), where they provided post-war Londoners with a ‘spectacle’.

For those who survived, the regular routine of loading and firing the gun became the main event, one that required their full attention. Discipline and training superseded human responses: any sane man would run away, but these men were conditioned to stay and fight. As a result those who fought on the gun decks rarely had any notion of the wider battle, and afterwards their concerns were local. How many of their mess had survived, where were their mates? For most it was the close comradeship of shared danger that got them through. No one wanted to let down their mess, gun crew, ship or admiral. Such concerns overrode private fears, gave them a focus that depersonalised the danger, and sustained them in a truly hellish world of noise, smoke, death and mutilation.