If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.
In the hands of Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, war came to be seen not as a shrine to innocence, but as its destroyer. The shadow, or perhaps the light of Trafalgar, with its halo of courage, beauty and honour, its powerful and Elysian idea of the Happy Warrior, lasted only until the killing fields of industrial war.
The 19th century had chosen to remember only the Happy Warrior; the 20th century only ‘the blood come gargling.’ Both are essential to any understanding of Trafalgar: the uncompromising violence; the dedicated grip on the need for ‘annihilation’; the seeking of victory through exsanguination; combined with a hunger for honour; a belief in the reality of noble ideas; self-possession as a mark of nobility; and behind all that a tender and active humanity. However reluctant people have become to describe battle in this way, these are the ambivalent ingredients of sublime and noble war, of a kind which Homer and Virgil would have recognised, and all of which were undeniably there on 21 October 1805. It was a brutal amalgam and remains an inheritance with a troubling moral ambiguity at its heart.
Bibliography
MANUSCRIPTS
NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW
ADMiralty In Letter Book, Mediterranean Station, May-December 1805 ADM/1/411
Captain’s Logs: September-October 1805 Master’s Logs: September-October 1805
Achille ADM 51/1535 Achille ADM 52/3561
Agamemnon ADM 51/1576 Agamemnon ADM 52/3563
Belleisle ADM 51/1515 Belleisle ADM 52/3734
Bellerophon ADM 51/1522 Britannia ADM 52/3572
Britannia ADM 51/1552 Conqueror ADM 52/3742
Conqueror ADM 51/1529 Leviathan ADM 52/3640
Entreprenante ADM 51/4443 Mars ADM 52/3654
Leviathan ADM 51/1526 Neptune ADM 52/3657
Mars ADM 51/1493 & 4472 Orion ADM 52/3662
Neptune ADM 51/1545 Pickle ADM 52/3669
Orion ADM 51/1635 Revenge ADM 52/4273
Revenge ADM 51/1535 Royal Sovereign ADM 52/3678
Royal Sovereign ADM 51/1533 Spartiate ADM 52/4323 & 3691
Swiftsure ADM 51/1550 Swiftsure ADM 52/3693
Téméraire ADM 51/1530 Téméraire ADM 52/3706
Tonnant ADM 51/1547 Tonnant ADM 52/3707
Victory ADM 51/4514 Victory ADM 52/3711
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Index
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
Achille 10, 88, 229, 288-90, 309
Achilles 6, 7, 206
Acton, Sir John 232
Addington, Henry 115
Africa 4, 269, 270, 280, 298, 299
Africaine 152-3
Agamemnon 280
Aigle 19, 229
Albarracin, Pedro 293
Albion Steam Mill 67
Aldred, Ebenezer xiv
Alexander the Great 237
Algésiras 229, 257, 258
Amazon 55, 290
American War of Independence 20, 23
Amphion 120
Argonauta 293, 310
Argonaute 305
Atkinson, Master Thomas 138-9
Atlas Maritimo de España 86-7
Aurora 232
Austen, Francis 119-20, 150
Austen, Jane 5, 140, 172
Austerlitz, Battle of, 84
Authentic Narrative (Beatty) 271
Badcock, William 25, 201
Bahama 304, 306-7, 310, 311
Ball, Sir Alexander 84, 151, 152, 155, 234-5
Barbados 80-1
Barbaro, Sánchez 12
Barham, Lord 24, 59, 68-9, 70, 72-, 79, 89, 185, 187, 188
Battle of the Saints 180, 181
Bayntun, Captain Henry 51, 86, 87, 131, 132, 133-7, 147, 155, 228, 279, 280, 309
Beatty, John 88
Beatty, William 254, 255, 256, 264, 265, 267-8, 271, 274, 282
Beaufort, Captain Francis 70
Beaver 121
Beckford, William 252
Beechey, Sir William 171
Belleisle 10, 51, 90, 160, 162-3, 204, 215, 225, 226, 228-9, 230, 257, 262, 289, 292, 293, 305, 306
Bellerophon 87, 89, 93, 282
Berry, Captain Sir Edward 95, 96, 280
Berwick 10, 311
Bickerton, Sir Richard 88
Blackwood, Henry 50-1, 91, 92, 128, 149, 155-6, 233, 294, 297, 304, 312
Blake, William xix-xxi
‘Blind Sailor, The’ 39-40
boldness:
British officer’s individual encouragement to excel promotes 184-9
definition of 157
18th Century idea of hero clashes with 164-71
Nelson’s 190-201, 203-4
19th Century idea of hero promotes 169-75
Trafalgar, presence at 157, 161-4, 190-201, 203-6
Bonaparte, Napoleon 73, 190, 285
aggression 33
Army, gives priority to 84
Dumanoir, opinion of 282
forbids Villeneuve to inform his captains of French Grand Strategy 45
Grand Strategy 45, 75, 76, 77, 81, 85
Louvre, gathers masterpieces inside 19
‘manoeuvre sur la derrière’, adopts 75
on France making war in the name of principles 30
rise to power 23
systematises military 34
Villeneuve, relationship with 45, 47, 85, 86
Waterloo 314
Boreas 233
Boscawen, Ad
miral 177
Boswell, James 68
Boulton, Matthew 67
Britannia 198, 275, 280, 281, 298, 304
British Admiralty 20-1, 23, 54, 59, 79, 84, 88, 89, 112, 131, 137, 147, 181, 186, 202, 232, 256
British Treasury 21-2, 42
Brothers, Richard xiii
Brown, John 50
Bucentaure 4, 19, 46, 85-6, 93, 94, 241, 242, 244-5, 268, 269, 277-8, 304
Bulkeley, Richard xvi, 266
Bullen, Captain Charles 275
Burke, Edmund 39, 45-6, 108, 123, 174-5, 239, 251, 265-6, 266, 270, 314
Byng, Admiral John 168, 169, 170, 177
Byron, Lord 236
Ça Ira 101, 105
Calder, Sir Robert 85, 86, 92, 185-6, 187, 188-9
Canopus 90, 119, 120
Cape Finisterre 79, 85, 185
Cape St Vincent, Battle of 72, 79, 104, 183, 185, 190, 236
Captain 183
Carter, Rear Admiral Richard 57-8
Caunant, Jeannette 289
Centaur 138
Chevalier, Henry 274
chivalry, British officers sense of 122-7
Christian Knights 28
Churruca, Don Cosme 93-4, 95, 277
Cicero 285
Cisneros, Bernardo Hidalgo 17, 270
Claret, Charles 34
Cobbett, William 70-1
Codrington, Captain Edward 51, 188, 280, 281, 304, 306-7
Coleridge, Bernard 99
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 51-2, 61-2, 84, 115-16, 130, 150-1, 194, 234, 236, 238, 243
Colley, Linda 174
Collingwood, Edward 262
Collingwood, Lord, 89, 240, 288
burial in St Paul’s 276
Cadiz blockade 86, 87
complains Nelson is signalling too much 129
Duff, relationship with 148
on naval intelligence 90
TRAFALGAR
breaks through middle of Spanish fleet 183
calculates pre-battle will not signify 162
courage 160, 215
first battle between division and rear of Combined Fleet 217, 219, 228-9, 244, 279-80
flagship alone amongst enemy 160