612. Nelson: The Final Showdown (Part 5)

15:47Tom Holland:Yes. And I think that that's a kind of subliminal memory that carried right the way up to the building of the actual channel tunnel that exists now. People kind of nervous about it. The French will attack us. Yeah, exactly.

15:57Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, they were. Completely they were. And it's easy for us to laugh at it and say, oh, this is overblown because we know the invasion didn't happen. but there were very good reasons for people to be frightened. I mean, just to get into the invasion panic, the mood that Nelson encounters when he returns in 1805. If the French ever got across the channel, they would be pretty much unstoppable. Britain has only a tiny army. What army it had, what professional army it had, had been devastated by a failed invasion of Haiti in the 1790s and has never really been rebuilt. Napoleon's army, by contrast, the most formidable machine in Europe, they've destroyed every enemy in their path.

16:32Dominic Sandbrook:They've left a trail of blood behind them, plundering and sacking all these towns and villages in Italy and so on. And it's understandable that people think if the French ever did get across the Channel, the consequences will be nightmarish for Britain.

16:47Tom Holland:But also, they only need control of the Channel for a day to land their forces. And then essentially, Britain would be knocked out of the war. So there was a marshal of Napoleon, André Masséna, who said, we're never going to conquer Britain. and no one even dreamt of it. It was just a question of ruining it, of leaving it in a condition that no one would ever have wanted to possess it. And essentially that would mean destroying the dockyards at Portsmouth. Or Chatham, of course. Chatham would have been right in the pathway. A place so close to your heart. Yeah. So I think it's not entirely unjustified.

17:16Tom Holland:I mean, the stakes are high. If the Royal Navy loses control of the seas, Britain is sunk. Yeah. Nice marine metaphor there, Tom. Well done.

17:24Dominic Sandbrook:That's what I'm all about. So by August 1805, all of this has reached a climax. Napoleon assembles his invasion force. It's French, Dutch, and Bavarian armies. They're camped along the coast of the Channel, all the way from Boulogne, eastwards to Antwerp, including the French cavalry and the Imperial Guard. So the very kind of cream of the Napoleonic war machine. And on the 20th of August, so that's just to the day after I think Nelson has returned, he has a formal inspection in Boulogne. And there is a plan. I mean, the plan has been made that there would be a first wave of more than 100 ,000 men in 2 ,000 transports, and then a second wave of 50 ,000 men in another 600 transports.

18:05Dominic Sandbrook:Now, we know that they don't come, and a lot of historians say it was actually never going to work, this plan. But nobody knows this in Britain. and the newspapers in August 1805 are telling their readers, and I quote, the movements on the French coast have given rise to the belief that the invasion of England will be attempted immediately. So there are all kinds of plans that have been made, a series of what are called optical telegraphs to link the Admiralty with Chatham, Tom, with Sheerness. So these are people waving flags and stuff to communicate with each other on hills. There are beacons, there are coastal batteries, They are working on the Martello Towers, which actually don't get finished until after the Battle of Trafalgar.

18:49Dominic Sandbrook:And Dominic, what about the Sea Fencibles? Well, the Sea Fencibles are the absolute crap troops, aren't they? People with one leg, disgruntled fishermen, anglers, whatever. Twitching heads. They've been called out. And actually, I have to say, almost 400 ,000 volunteers are drilling as Nelson arrives. So people genuinely think this is going to happen. There are contingency plans to close the stock exchange, to safeguard the gold reserves and the Bank of England, even to move the king and the government to the Midlands, should the French actually manage to land. Now, William Pitt and Cone know that the control of the channel is what this is all about.

19:29Dominic Sandbrook:And that's, of course, why London had been thrown into panic by the news of Villeneuve and Gravina forming the combined fleet, because the combined fleet would outnumber Nelson's fleet. And they were also furious with this bloke, this bloke called Robert Calder, who had intercepted Villeneuve on his way home and basically allowed him to escape to Ferrol. And so everyone is saying, oh, this guy Kulder is useless, which is actually very unfair because the combined fleet should have been killed off.

20:00Tom Holland:It shouldn't have been allowed to get safe into port. But it is a reminder of the absolute assumption that it's a duty of a Royal Navy officer to attack, which has been the case ever since poor old Admiral Bing got shot on the deck of his own boat to encourage the others, as Voltaire put it.

20:18Dominic Sandbrook:So this is all the context to explain why Nelson's return home is such a popular sensation and why there is such a tremendous sense of mounting tension and excitement, of events speeding towards a showdown. John Sugden, in his brilliant biography of Nelson, has some excellent lines on this. He says, nowhere that summer could Nelson escape the feeling that he was in the centre of a huge unfolding drama, inexorably gathering pace towards some historic climax. He was the country's champion, arming himself for the decisive contest.

20:50Tom Holland:And I think we talked about this before, but I think he genuinely feels that he is kind of God's champion in this, that there is a kind of apocalyptic tinge to the whole drama that is brewing. I think so.

21:02Dominic Sandbrook:I think he thinks, listen, this is it now. If I can destroy the combined fleet, that is it. The war at sea is over. It is done. Britain is the mistress of the seas. End of story. And actually, in that case, the Royal Navy can take over the French and Spanish trade. It can blockade their ports. And over time, we can squeeze Napoleon into surrender.

21:25Tom Holland:And basically, that is what happens. That is what happens. And that doctrine of annihilation, I mean, again, we've talked about this throughout the series. It's one that Nelson absolutely upholds, but it is also essentially Royal Navy dogma. And increasingly, getting up close, blasting the enemy ships out of the water. This is becoming the orthodoxy, but it takes Nelson to enshrine it and to reveal the full devastating impact that it can have.

21:51Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, I think that's right. I think all this time he's turning over the plan in his mind, what he'll do. He knows when the showdown will come, and he's thinking, how will I do this? There's a very, very famous story. A guy called Captain Richard Keats visited Merton, and Nelson went for a walk with him and said, okay, here is the plan. I will go straight at the Combined Fleet when I see them. I'll have two attacking columns to splinter their line. He says, what do you think of it? I'll tell you what I think of it. I think it will surprise and confound the enemy. They won't know what I'm about.

22:21Dominic Sandbrook:It will bring forward a pell-mell battle. And that's what I want.

22:25Tom Holland:So get in really close and go for it. So Adam Nicholson in his brilliant book on Trafalgar describes it as the introduction of chaos as a tool of battle. Because the kind of the traditional naval battle is like a kind of a waltz, a minuet, like the kind of thing that you see in a Jane Austen adaptation. His plan is to totally upend that and in the conditions of chaos, rely on the fact that British gunnery is so superior that the Royal Navy ships will inevitably emerge triumphant.

22:55Dominic Sandbrook:But will he get the chance? This is the question. So all the time he's waiting and waiting and waiting for news. And then five o 'clock in the morning on Monday, the 2nd of September, a coach and four comes rattling down the drive towards Merton place and out gets this naval officer he's quite a stocky bloke he's come all the way by sea and by land so he's covered with seawater and mud and this guy is called Henry Blackwood and he is the captain of the frigate Uriahlus and he has come all the way from Cadiz with news from Admiral Collingwood Cuthbert Collingwood who's been keeping tabs on the Spanish port on the Spanish coast and this is what Blackwood says to Nelson.

23:36Dominic Sandbrook:He says, Villeneuve has left Feral. He left two weeks ago on the 13th of August. He clearly was planning to head towards France, but he was deterred by the sight of British cruises and he's turned around and gone south. Villeneuve has now taken refuge in the port at Cadiz. He and Gravina have almost 40 ships between them, but they're very short on morale and they're very short on food and water and supplies generally. Now, in truth, Villeneuve is a very demoralized, broken man. Villeneuve has lost faith completely in his emperor's plan, which he always thought was mad.

24:14Tom Holland:To be fair, the emperor has also lost faith in him, which is also preying on Villeneuve's mind.

24:18Dominic Sandbrook:It is. Now, Nelson doesn't know this, but he does know that Villeneuve cannot stay in Cadiz for long because there will not be enough supplies. He will have to leave to find supplies. And when he does, this is it.

24:33Tom Holland:But Dominic also, there's a risk, isn't there, that he might go into the Mediterranean, which would cause chaos, or he might head northwards. So there's opportunity, but there is also risk in Villeneuve and the Spanish breaking out.

24:46Dominic Sandbrook:Because there's another Spanish fleet at Cartagena. And if Villeneuve was to link up with them and then to head into the Mediterranean, who knows where he could go sardinia sicily um naples egypt again you know it's not hard or what if he then makes for the channel so nelson thinks right this is my chance the stakes are very high if i can annihilate villeneuve now then it's the war is won at sea so within hours he's jumped into a carriage and he is heading into london he goes straight to the admiralty then he goes to downing Street to meet William Pitt and the First Lord, Lord Barham. Nelson says, give me the chance.

25:28Dominic Sandbrook:I want to strike immediately. That will eliminate the threat of invasion. That will give us command of the Mediterranean forever. And as he later told a friend of his, George Rose, who was a confidant of William Pitt, he said, it is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory. So this is going to be a different kind of battle. The question is, will he get enough ships? Lord Barham says, look, I've only got about 70 ships of the line fit for service to cover the entire globe. But he says, I will back you, go back to Cadiz, take over the victory and take command of the fleet.

26:04Dominic Sandbrook:You can name your own officers. I will send you whatever ships I can. You're probably going to get about 27 in total. And let us hope that is enough. And your instructions, I'll leave it very simple. to protect Britain's trade, to prevent the enemy getting to sea. Everything else is up to you. You handle it as you see fit.

26:24Tom Holland:And I think, don't you, that this is the Admiralty and the Prime Minister and the government buying into this sense of Nelson's destiny, that fate has brought him to this point, and they are kind of going, yes, go for it.

26:41Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, I think so. You can really sense the mood at this point, This sort of sense that John Suxton described of events hastening towards an inevitable conclusion. And they were all really buying into this. The very next day, it started to rain. And, you know, this sort of fantastic example of the kind of pathetic fallacy. It starts to rain, grey skies. Emma Hamilton has been very downcast by the news that Villeneuve is out. She had hoped that Nelson would be ashore for months. But once again, the clock is ticking. And she writes this letter, doesn't she, to Lady Kitty Bolton. It seems as though I've had a fortnight's dream and I'm awoke to all the misery of this cruel separation.

27:21Dominic Sandbrook:But what can I do? His powerful arm is of so much consequence to his country. But I cannot say more. My heart is broken. Of course, Nelson doesn't have that much time to think about this because he's thinking about his plan. He is anxious whether he's going to have enough ships. He's thinking about this business, about smashing them into fragments. so he's rushing back and forth across London making all the preparations getting all the stuff ready making sure they'll have enough supplies you know is he going to link up the victory all of this kind of thing interestingly there is a sense of fatalism I think to Nelson isn't there

27:56Tom Holland:there's a sense that he knows this could be it for him and I think that that's not just fatalism I think that's realism because as we've been saying his plan is to form two columns that will drive straight into the French and Spanish lines, which is ripping up the orthodoxy of how you fight a battle. And I'm sure by this point, there's no question that he, on victory, is going to be leading one of those two columns. And that means that he will be directly in the line of fire, because essentially he can't ask his men to risk such a dangerous course of action and not himself be in the forefront of the fighting.

28:33Tom Holland:So he must think, I'm going to be in more danger in this battle than I've ever been before. And doubtless he has told Emma this. And that's why she is, or lacrimose would be an unfair word. I mean, that's why she's so devastated at the thought of him leaving. Yeah, I think so.

28:49Dominic Sandbrook:So his last full day is Thursday, the 12th of September. And again, he spends most of it in London. He goes to see Lord Castle Ray at the Colonial Office in Downing Street, a very famous incident. Nelson is shown into an ante room to wait for Lord Castlereagh. And another man is waiting there who's a short man, another short man, who has a very distinctive kind of beaky nose. And this other man makes some sort of polite, small talk to Nelson. But Nelson is tired. And of course, he's nervous and he's excited and distracted. And the other man said afterwards, he could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself and in really a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me

29:35Tom Holland:so that's the tone of lord minto visiting um merton and seeing all the nelson memorabilia

29:42Dominic Sandbrook:everywhere it is so nelson just talking about himself then the other man must have said something that made nelson think because nelson then went out and he had a word with the clerk or the official outside obviously to find out who this bloke was and then he came in and was completely transformed because this man is Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley, who is just back from India, having been smiting the Maharata Empire and keeping India for the East India Company. And he is, of course, the future Duke of Wellington. And Wellington said, when Nelson came back in, he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter.

30:20Dominic Sandbrook:What Wellington called his charlatan style had vanished. And he talked about strategy and politics. with a good sense and a knowledge that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done. He talked like an officer and a statesman. I don't know that I've ever had a conversation that interested me more. There you have the two. I mean, obviously this is after the event, so maybe there's a tiny pinch of salt.

30:45Tom Holland:It plays very well for Weldington, doesn't it? Because on the one hand, it makes him look good, but it also subtly makes Nelson look a bit of a coxcomb.

30:53Dominic Sandbrook:But that said, this is Nelson to a T, right? I mean, Nelson would have just talked about himself and been completely vain and self-interested.

31:01Tom Holland:Well, maybe. I think Nelson has a capacity to take an interest in someone else.

31:06Dominic Sandbrook:He has lapses. I mean, he's often had lapses. Remember that time when he was going from Naples all the way through Vienna and Prague and whatnot? And he wasn't always showing himself to his best side then. Anyway, he's had that meeting with Lord Carcer. His very last meeting is at number 10 Downing Street. And this is his farewell to William Pitt. We don't know what was said, but we do know that Pitt unusually is said to have come down with Nelson and escorted him to his carriage, which was a marked gesture, I think, of affection and respect because Pitt didn't usually do this. Actually, on his way out of town, there is one last thing.

31:42Dominic Sandbrook:He makes sure, he stops to make sure that the very latest signal book has been sent to the fleet. A good example, actually, of attention to detail. Nelson knows these little things could really make a difference. Do you think he already has a zingy slogan in mind? Well, a slogan that actually, as we'll find out, has to be corrected by his signals, Lieutenant, because he's trying to send a message for which there's no code. Anyway, we're jumping ahead. Back he goes to Merton. He's there in time for dinner. But it's a pretty sad occasion. Lord Minto, who is there, said that Emma could not eat and hardly drink and was near swooning.

32:18Dominic Sandbrook:And Lord Minto, who's no Emma fan, found all this very over the top and very sort of showy and performative. So Emma is clearly very, very upset. You know, Nelson is going away and maybe this will be for the last time.

32:31Tom Holland:He will have shared the odds with her. I mean, you know, I don't think it's performative at all. I think if you're in love with someone and he's going off and likely to die, I think you're allowed the occasional tear.

32:41Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, you're soft-hearted. So the next day is Friday the 13th of September. It's the last day of their lives together. It's a cloudy, windy day and they are stuck inside a Merton. Now, it may be today that there's a sort of celebrated incident. They took communion together, Nelson and Emma, and they exchanged gold rings in what they called a private sacrament. So biographers often describe this as kind of unofficial betrothal or marriage ceremony. Nelson, of course, is married already to Fanny. His ring, which I think recently came up for auction, It was mounted with a large H and was actually engraved with the date, the 13th of September, probably afterwards.

33:24Dominic Sandbrook:Well, it must have been afterwards, I guess. Which suggests that they did something because they know, as you've said, this could be it. This could be the last time they ever see each other. You know, it's a very humdrum day. Nelson's doing a lot of chores. He's making a lot of arrangements to pay bills, bills for prints, no doubt of himself, and wine and whatnot, and architects' bills. The coach has been ordered for 10 o 'clock that evening to take him down to the coast to the victory. Night falls, the hour approaches, the scene that you described earlier, he goes up to Horatia to say goodbye.

33:57Dominic Sandbrook:The coach is loaded, Emma is in tears, she won't come outside. Nelson comes back in four times from the coach. And finally, he does this thing where he kneels and asks God his blessing. And he says these lines that, Tom, you find very moving. If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons and all of this. But that's not the last exchange, actually. The very last exchange is with his brother-in-law, George Matcham, who's married to Nelson's sister. And Nelson says to George, I'm actually really sorry that I haven't done more for our family. I should have done more, made more money. Maybe this time I'll get some prize money.

34:33Dominic Sandbrook:And George says to him, we want for nothing. All that matters to us is that you're safe. And away Nelson goes into the night, and then he writes that moving journal entry that you read out, where he's again thinking about his own death. If it's God's good providence to cut short my days on earth, I bow with the greatest submission, and he hopes that God will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. and as we'll see next time that's a running theme even in extremis before the battle and after the battle nelson is thinking about those people that he's left behind at six o 'clock the following morning his carriage arrives at the george inn at portsmouth and nelson writes a note to emma my dearest and most beloved of women emma nelson's emma i arrived here victories atst helen's if possible i shall be away at sea this day god protect you and my dear horatia portsmouth is support preparing for war, carts and wagons everywhere, loads of people.

35:29Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, this is a great dockyard. It's one of the great motors of Britain's war efforts. And Nelson actually, before he leaves, this is a lovely detail, he has the time to visit a new manufacturing that is almost ready to kind of go online at Portsmouth, which is this block mills powered by steam. It's the most advanced factory on earth. It has been designed by a French exile called Marc Isambard Brunel. And it has machines basically to create these blocks, these kind of blocks. I don't quite understand what these blocks do. They're kind of to do with pulleys, aren't they?

36:05Tom Holland:Yeah, pulleys and ropes.

36:07Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, exactly. So brilliant rope work.

36:09Tom Holland:And the amazing detail that I remember from our previous series is that there was machinery operating in Portsmouth when Nelson left on Victory that was still operating in 1982 when the Falklands Task Force left.

36:22Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, it's incredible. That's a crazy detail, isn't it? So he goes back to the George Inn after that. He goes through a back door to avoid the crowds and he's going to leave from the beach by the bathing machines. So a nice Emma-related touch there. It is. It's not the normal place. He's trying to escape the crowds, but actually there are hundreds of people waiting. And as he comes down to the boarding point, there are people kneeling on the ground. There are people cheering. There are people trying to touch his coat. Some people are in tears. and as his boat pushes away towards the victory they give him three cheers and he waves his hat in farewell and then very famously nelson murmurs i had their huzzahs before i have their hearts now and by 11 30 he is on the victory and his last voyage begins unbelievable drama uh my heart

37:14Tom Holland:is beating so fast that I need to go and calm down. But we will be back in a few minutes to continue the story of Nelson's journey to Trafalgar. This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. History's most fascinating questions don't have simple answers. Meet Claude, the AI built for deep thinking. Whether you're tracing how ideas moved across empires or exploring why certain patterns repeat claude works through historical complexity with you researching with citations and connecting threads across centuries try claude for free

37:55Dominic Sandbrook:at claude.ai slash rest is history and see why the world's best problem solvers choose claude

38:03Tom Holland:as their thinking partner there are two types of business owners those who are busy and those who want to be busy toast is designed for both with tools to keep you humming and help turn grind into growth that's how you turn busy into business toast built for busy hello there it's al murray here and james holland they're hosts of the second world war pod we have ways of making you talk al and i have been on the rest is history a few times now talking all things world war ii with tom and dominic if you've enjoyed their recent topics on 20th century history then we have good news for you. Yes, that's right, Jim.

38:40Tom Holland:We have our own show all about the fascinating history of World War II. Every Tuesday and Thursday, WW2 pod, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, discusses the fascinating people, amazing innovations and terrible tragedies of this most pivotal period in human history. Yeah. And the bottom line is other history has absolutely nothing on this. This past year alone, we've done series on visionary US presidents like FDR and Truman, HMS Hood versus Bismarck and Japan's road to war. We've also explored daring night raids behind enemy lines like Brunewald and the nerve-wracking Atlantic convoys. And right now, we're doing the truly Titanic Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi-German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941.

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39:37Dominic Sandbrook:Hi everybody, it's Dominic here from The Rest Is History. I just wanted to let you all know that on our sister podcast, The Book Club, we have just released an episode digging deep into George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the first book in his Song of Ice and Fire sequence. We go deep into the history behind Game of Thrones. So we go into the Wars of the Roses, Hadrian's Wall. We talk about the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien in comparisons with The Lord of the Rings. But Tabby, we also talk, don't we, about George R.R. Martin's apparent stagnation and whether he's actually ever going to finish the books.

40:09Tom Holland:We investigate why it is that he has battled to finish them at all and whether he will ever be able to. But if you want to hear lots more about the history behind some of the greatest novels of all time, fear not. Coming up on the book club, we have The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, which is all about Italian unification. we talk about Circe where we delve into a particular part of the Odyssey and then after that we are doing the 39 steps which Dominic you chose and you love please join us at the book club

40:39Dominic Sandbrook:it's loads of fun and you will never find a better way to spend your life bye-bye bye

40:48Tom Holland:hello everyone welcome back um it is Saturday the 14th of September 1805 Horatio Nelson has been reunited with HMS Victory and he is preparing to sail south to face the combined fleet, the French and Spanish ships. And Dominic, he has exactly one month and one week left to live.

41:10Dominic Sandbrook:So the victory, the victory with which Nelson is forever associated is an excellent nick. It is, you know, how old is the victory at this point? It's about 40 years, I think. Yeah, 40 years old. It was named after the victors in the Seven Years' War, wasn't it? It's had a full refit while he's been ashore. The rigging's been repaired. The deck's been scrubbed. The guns have been taken out and checked and run in again. The crew are pretty knackered. They haven't had a break, unlike Nelson. And Hardy, he's been flocking away, who sneaks up behind you. With his big feet and his stooped shoulders.

41:45Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, he is absolutely exhausted. I mean, people, when they saw him, said he looked like he'd aged 20 years in one year. and you already look quite old. In their favour, they are very healthy. So Hardy has looked after their health as Nelson has. They're tired, but they are fit and they know they're, you know, as we would discover, they are the best fighting men anywhere in the world. They know exactly what their goal is. And pumped by having Nelson. Of course, they're delighted to see him. So now they sail south, bound for Spain. They make quite slow progress because it's foggy and windy. Not windy in a good way.

42:18Dominic Sandbrook:Nelson all the time, as so often is writing to Emma, entreating her to cheer up and saying, you know, we can look forward to many, many happy years and to be surrounded by our children, our children's children. As I said, they move quite slowly. They only glimpse Lisbon on the 25th of September, 11 days later, and they only reach the fleet of Cadiz three days after that. When they get there, there is this tremendous sense of excitement among the captains in Cadiz. So many of these captains are not familiar to Nelson. These are not the Band of Brothers from the Nile. These are often younger, much more inexperienced men.

42:54Dominic Sandbrook:Only five of them have commanded a ship of the Lyle in battle before. Some of these are well-known names. Thomas Hardy, Thomas Fremantle, Edward Berry, Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, of course, Nelson's old friend from when they were very young. Collingwood, I mean, we talked about him in, ironically, the episode about history's greatest his dogs. We did. His beloved dog, Bounce. Yeah. So Collingwood, who's been in charge of the fleet, he's a really kind of kindly and decent man, quite shy and retiring, but doesn't have Nelson's star quality, does he? He loves nothing more than his Northumberland garden.

43:31Tom Holland:He does, and planting oak trees there. But I mean, Nelson doesn't know many of the captains, but of course the captains know all about Nelson. And for them, it's like the arrival of a rock star.

43:45Dominic Sandbrook:Very exciting moment. So Saturday, the 28th of September, that he reaches the fleet. And he immediately says, let's pull back the fleet. We are over the horizon. We'll leave the frigates to watch Cadiz. We don't want to blockade it too closely because we want Villeneuve to come out.

43:59Tom Holland:But having the frigates there, he's learned the lesson from when the French fleet had escaped from Toulon. His blockade there had existed to encourage the French to come out, but it had left a gap that they had then utilised. He's not going to let that happen now.

44:13Dominic Sandbrook:No. So they're waiting for the French, but the weather is very fine, sort of dry, hazy. There's no wind. The French and the Spanish are not going to move in this kind of weather. The next day, the Sunday is Nelson's 47th birthday. He has exactly 22 days to live. And that Sunday afternoon, he starts the process of building team spirit and camaraderie among the captains. He invites them in batches to dinner aboard the Victory. And because they're younger and because they're not as experienced, he is very keen to make them feel part of the story, part of the planning and whatnot. So he will gather them.

44:50Dominic Sandbrook:This is one of the things that makes him a brilliant leader, a brilliant leader and a model of leadership. He will gather them in his great cabin, which you can visit today in Portsmouth on the Victory. They'll sit around this big mahogany table they have dinner of silver plate and wine and wine glasses and so on it's very convivial and he makes them feel valued it makes them feel seen to use today's kind of

45:12Tom Holland:jargon yeah there's such kind of wonderful testimony so uh captain freemantle we dined with lord nelson the juniors and i never passed a pleasant today i stand with him until eight at night he would not let me leave him before and then there's another captain george duff who never met nelson um and writes to his wife i dined with his lordship yesterday and had a very merry dinner he is certainly the pleasantest admiral i ever served under he is so good and pleasant a man that we all wish to do what he likes without any kind of orders and you get there the sense of the star quality he's writing to his wife saying i've met nelson but also he's great he's puts you at ease and he makes you feel like you are part of a band of brothers and this is exactly

45:54Dominic Sandbrook:Nelson's plan. He wants them to feel calm and confident. He knows that they will be outnumbered, so they have to completely believe in what they are doing. And what he wants to explain in particular is this thing that he calls the Nelson Touch, which is a strategy that is based on speed and aggression, striking really fast and hard under full sail, get in close for this pell-mell battle and annihilate the French and the Spanish and settle the issue at sea for good. It is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory.

46:28Tom Holland:And of course, the parallel there is with Napoleon on land. That's Napoleon's strategy. And in that sense, Nelson is the kind of the British Napoleon.

46:37Dominic Sandbrook:You know, the comparison with Napoleon is an interesting one because both of them inspire this extraordinary affection and respect among their closest officers. Nelson described, and I don't think he's exaggerating, he wrote to Emma, he said, when I explained to them my plan, the Nelson touch, it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new. It was singular. It was simple. I think part of this is Nelson's style quality, but also you mentioned earlier, this is becoming part of the culture of the Navy. The Royal Navy over the last sort of 10, 20 years has developed this new ethos.

47:14Dominic Sandbrook:No more of the sort of stately minuets. You get in and you absolutely go for total destruction of the enemy.

47:20Tom Holland:And that's something new in naval history. And what he's saying to his captains is, you are the best and your men are the best. And my strategy reflects that. So it's very, very complementary to them.

47:33Dominic Sandbrook:But will they get the battle? September becomes October and still they wait. Nelson's fleet has now been reinforced. It's grown to 33 ships of the line. Most of them are two-decker 74s, the kind of standard battleship, warship of the day. And there are another four frigates. And these ships, to remind people, these are effectively huge floating gun platforms.

47:57Tom Holland:They are killing machines. I mean, the firepower available to Nelson is massively in excess of, say, the firepower that Wellington will have at Waterloo. I mean, by an enormous quantity.

48:10Dominic Sandbrook:And just a word on the men that he's commanding. 20 ,000 sailors and Marines. And it's not a kind of modern contrivance to point out. This is a genuinely multinational kind of force. So on the victory, for example, there are Englishmen, but there are also Scots, Irish. There are 22 Americans, nine men from the West Indies, Maltese. There's a Russian. There's an African. There are even three Frenchmen. Yeah.

48:31Tom Holland:And you see that famously on the reliefs at the foot of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, Very pointedly illustrated.

48:39Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, an African guy who people identified as George Ryan. I'll talk about him in the next episode. So for Nelson, keeping all these different men fit and healthy is the absolute priority. So actually what he's doing in all this time, day after day, is the kind of, you know, the bureaucratic work that he'd been doing during the blockade. He's getting supplies. He's organizing fresh food and water. He's organizing drills. He's doing all this kind of thing.

49:04Tom Holland:He sends Jane Austen's brother off to get oranges. That's right. And so he then misses the battle and is devastated. But of course, Dominic, what he's also doing is moping over Emma and writing poetry. Can I read a poem? I think everyone would love that. So this is his last love poem to Emma. No calm at sea this heart shall know, while far from thee, midst lengthening hours of absence and of woe, I gaze in sorrow where the boundless deep, with eyes which, were they not ashamed, would weep.

49:37Dominic Sandbrook:I think that's very good. I think it's solid. I think it's pretty good. Yeah, I agree with you. I definitely agree with you. And while he's doing this, his captains are also doing a very nice thing, something that will be very familiar to anyone who's visited HMS Victory at Portsmouth, and that is they are painting their ships black and yellow in imitation of the colour scheme that Nelson preferred. I've read different things from his biographers. Some say he ordered it, and others, in a gesture that I prefer, say that his captains were motivated to do it voluntarily because they wanted to, as Captain Duff put it, paint their ships a la Nelson.

50:14Dominic Sandbrook:Kind of swarm of hornets as well. Yeah, this sense of being a team united in pursuit of a common goal. I like that. Now, still, the combined fleet don't come out. On the 2nd of October, Nelson sent a squadron under Sir Thomas Louis to collect food and water from Gibraltar and North Africa. so now his numbers are down by six from 33 to 27 six fewer as it turns out than the combined fleet still he waits on the 9th of october he sends collingwood his final battle plan and he says i'm sending you this so you know exactly what i want to do and so that you can use your own initiative to carry out my instructions according to the general plan he says we can my dear col have no little jealousies.

50:59Dominic Sandbrook:We can only have one great object in view, that of annihilating our enemies and getting a glorious peace for our country. No man has more confidence in another than I have in you, and no man will render your services more justice than your very old friend, Nelson and Bronte. It's Nelson reaching out to his kind of deputy. So Nelson explains the plan. Basically, there's two columns are going to attack and strike the enemy line head on. Nelson leading one in the victory. Collingwood leading the other in the Royal Sovereign. Now, what is unusual about this is admirals usually like to keep their ships in the centre.

51:33Dominic Sandbrook:But Nelson says, no, I will lead from the front. We won't fire until we're really close.

51:40Tom Holland:But I mean, they won't be able to, will they? That's the key thing. Because the reason that you have this minuet is that the ship can only fire at an angle. So if you're going straight at a line, you can't actually fire until you've broken through past the line.

51:54Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly. But the danger is that if they're side onto you, they will be blasting and blasting you before you can turn to get into position to repay the compliments, as it were.

52:05Tom Holland:And so Nelson's presentiments of death, I think, are entirely natural. I mean, that's what makes it so dangerous.

52:10Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, exactly. However, still the combined fleet does not move. Still Nelson waits and more than two weeks go by. And by about Friday the 18th, he's beginning to wonder if the combined fleet is ever going to come out at all. That day, the Friday, the wind off Cadiz changed and Nelson in his journal wrote, fine weather, wind easterly. The enemy cannot have finer weather to set sail. Collingwood sent him a message that day saying, surely the combined fleet will move now. But the day passes and no news comes. And then the next morning, Saturday the 19th of October, nine o 'clock in the morning, Nelson is writing a letter to Collingwood, dear Cole, to invite him for dinner.

52:58Dominic Sandbrook:And bounce. And bounce and the dog. What a beautiful day. Will you be tempted out of your ship? If you will, hoist the ascent and victory's pendants. And then just a moment after Nelson has written that letter, there comes a signal from the frigates. And Nelson knows what that means. Because 50 miles east in the port of Cadiz, Villeneuve's nerve at last has cracked. And the French and the Spanish are going to put to sea.

53:26Tom Holland:So, Dominic, what has been happening in Cadiz? Because you said that they can't really stay there because they didn't really have the supplies. I suppose there's also the risk of disease if they don't have enough fruit. There's scurvy and all that kind of thing. And they're ravaged by yellow fever. Which they brought back from the Caribbean.

53:44Dominic Sandbrook:Yes. Villeneuve has been basically skulking in caddies in a right misery. About half of his men were not sailors. They were infantrymen. And they've been supplemented by slaves from France's Caribbean colonies. Villeneuve was very disparaging about the quality of his own men. He said they were herdsmen and beggars. Well, he is an aristocrat. And a French aristocrat at that, the most aristocratic of all aristocrats. So in early October, he'd received orders from the emperor from Napoleon telling him to break out of Cadiz and head east towards Italy because there Bonaparte was planning a new offensive against Naples.

54:18Dominic Sandbrook:Now at first, Villeneuve completely ignored his orders. He thought it's absolute madness to try to break out of Cadiz with Nelson just there waiting for us. Better to try to sneak out in bad weather or to wait for the British to lose interest and to divide their fleet. But then a week later, Villeneuve had heard two items of news that changed his mind. First of all, he heard this news that Nelson had sent Thomas Louis off to get supplies. So now the combined fleet had a numerical advantage. But secondly, and even more importantly, I think, he was told that Napoleon was about to sack him, that his replacement, in fact, was already en route to Cadiz, which is true.

54:56Dominic Sandbrook:And Villeneuve knew that armchair critics in Paris were saying that he was a coward, that he'd run away at the Battle of the Nile and he didn't have the guts to face Nelson. And this is really his last chance, if he's going to be sacked, to clear his name and to go down fighting. And he says to his officers, they will see if I know how to fight. Because Villeneuve, to be clear, I don't think Villeneuve is a coward. I don't think he's a bad commander. I think he's actually a pretty honorable and in many ways, and quite an impressive and admirable man. And I think wanting to put to sea, wanting to roll the dice and see if he can clear his name, an understandable and admirable thing to do.

55:35Dominic Sandbrook:So on the 18th of October, he said to Gravina, his Spanish counterpart, with whom he actually got on pretty well, he said, look, we're going to put to sea the way we will deal with Nelson if he catches up with us. Because we've got so many infantrymen, we will turn this into a land battle. Yeah, like the Romans.

55:52Tom Holland:Exactly, the Romans with the Carthaginians. But the irony of this is, of course, this is exactly what Nelson wants. Nelson wants to go in close. So in a sense, Villeneuve's strategy is playing into his hands. Giving Nelson what he wants, exactly.

56:04Dominic Sandbrook:But it's the only way Villeneuve could conceivably win, I think. You know, if they had fought an old-fashioned sea battle, Villeneuve would still have lost. Anyway, Gravina, the Spanish guy, doesn't really, he's not massively convinced by this, but his orders are to go along with what Villeneuve wants, so he says, fine and fair enough. And so that afternoon, the 18th, a very, very cinematic scene. The French and the Spanish officers walked a mass together in the church of the Virgin of Carmen, the patron saint of sailors in Cadiz. And then after five o 'clock, these huge crowds have assembled on the quayside in silence because they know just how bleak the situation is.

56:40Dominic Sandbrook:They start to set off from the harbour. It took them all night. And by the morning of the 19th, the first French and Spanish ships have reached the open sea. And this is the news that that morning, the frigates have transmitted to the victory.

56:55Tom Holland:that stops Nelson from getting Collingwood over.

56:59Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, his dinner plans have been ruined. So immediately he springs into action. He orders a general chase to Windward, i.e. to the southeast. And within moments, the entire British fleet is making sail. And the crews, some of them already are frantically clearing the decks for action. They're rolling up the hammocks. They're removing the bulkheads and partitions. They're stowing the furniture. They're slaughtering the animals or throwing them overboard, but not the dog bounce.

57:24Tom Holland:No, Bounce stays there, although he will be hiding in the bowels of Collingwood's ship because he doesn't like bangs. So I think it's very unfortunate for a nautical dog. Dogs don't like fireworks, do they? They don't like fireworks or any form of explosion. In Nelson's cabin, you know, obviously, so all his personal effects are being stored away. And among those, of course, are his most treasured possessions, the pictures of Emma and of Horatia and people who listened way back to our episode on Emma Hamilton. we began with this moment because even in the hurly-burly of preparations for battle he's still thinking about Emma and Horatia

58:02Dominic Sandbrook:Tom I know you love to read a moving emotional tear-soaked letter

58:05Tom Holland:can I read it again? I think it would be a shame if you didn't so this is Nelson writing to Emma as the preparations for battle at Trafalgar are being made my dearest beloved Emma the dear friend of my bosom the signal has been made that the enemy's combined fleet are coming out of port may the god of battles crown my endeavours with success at all events, I will take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own life. And as my last writing before the battle will be to you, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the battle.

58:38Tom Holland:And if that sounds breathless, it's because Nelson has picked up Emma's habit of never putting any punctuation into her letters. But I think the lack of punctuation just conveys the kind of the hurly burly sense of his emotions but this is only one of of two letters that he writes there tom so do you want to give us the second letter yeah so this is to his daughter horatia my dearest angel i was made happy by the pleasure of receiving your letter of september the 19th and i rejoice to hear that you are so very good a girl and love my dear lady hamilton who most dearly loves you give her a kiss for me the combined fleet of the enemy are now reported to be coming out of Cadiz.

59:15Tom Holland:And therefore I answer your letter, my dearest Horatia, to mark to you that you are ever uppermost in my thoughts. I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest, and speedy return to dear Merton and our dearest good Lady Hamilton. Be a good girl. Mind what Miss Connor says to you. Receive, my dearest Horatia, the affectionate parental blessing of your father, Nelson and Bronte.

59:44Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, your father. He didn't often write that, did he? While Tom is mopping his eyes, I'll tell you what happened next. So they sail all day and all night. Overnight, the weather turns. By Sunday morning, the 20th, it is raining hard. It's very misty and there is no sign of the combined fleet. Briefly, Nelson turns back towards Cadiz. Have they retreated into port? No. A frigate from Henry Blackwood's inshore squadron signals to him the enemy are still definitely at sea and they are heading eastward. At 10 o 'clock that Sunday, Collingwood is rowed to the victory with three other captains. They have one last meeting and Collingwood says when we find them, we should attack at once.

1:00:28Dominic Sandbrook:Nelson says, no, we're still too close to Cadiz. They could fight till darkness and then they could get away. And that's the last thing we want. Let us wait till the morning when we're all further out. We will only get one chance. We want the whole day to do this, so we cannot waste it. Midday, they're 20 miles southwest of Cuddys now, and there is still no sign of the enemy. And all afternoon, they continue sailing. And then at six o 'clock, they get another signal from Henry Blackwood. His frigates have spotted the enemy, at least 30 of them, 30 ships to the northeast. So now you can imagine the tension.

1:01:06Dominic Sandbrook:darkness falls the last night of horatio nelson's life he can't sleep out at sea he can see nothing but the blue lights the frigates assuring him that they can still see the enemy ahead and every hour henry blackwood fires a gun from his frigate to signal that all is well it is a scene tom of unbelievable tension and drama now many great historians have written about this moment. But I think there's only one book that truly does it justice, and we all know what that book is.

1:01:38Tom Holland:And for the avoidance of any doubt, that book is, of course, Adventures in Time, Nelson, Hero of the Seas by Dominic Sandbrook. And I shall read it now. So I'm kind of giving a reading from the Bible or something. Still, Nelson paced the deck, unable to sleep. Everything he had ever cared about. His king, his country, his friends and family, even his place in history, hung in the balance. This was more than a battle. It was the final chapter in a story that had begun long before he was born. Midnight came, then one o 'clock, two, three, four o 'clock. The enemy fleet was close. Somehow, deep in his bones, he could feel it.

1:02:23Tom Holland:Five o 'clock. The rain had stopped. The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze. In the east, the sun was rising, the faintest hint of red spreading across the far horizon. From the masthead came a shout, a sail on the starboard bow. And in the distance, he saw them framed against the rising sun, a forest of masts, emerging from the darkness, the awe-inspiring spectacle of the combined fleet, the naval might of France and Spain. It was Monday, the 21st of October, 1805. The day of destiny had come at last. Do you know, Dominic, that's great. That is, oh God, I can't wait for the next episode. Oh my word, well.

1:03:17Tom Holland:this is going to be our last episode um you will know what it is it's going to be the battle of trafalgar uh will nelson survive it only one way to find out uh and if you are a member of the rest is history club then of course you can hear it right away if you would like to join them go straight into the battle of trafalgar then you can head to the rest is history.com and sign up there it's all set we will see you for episode six of this epic epic account of nelson's life the battle of trafalgar don't miss it bye-bye goodbye

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