THE CAMPAIGN OF TRAFALGAR
BY
JULIAN S CORBETT, LL.M.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I
WITH CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS
NEW EDITION
This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING
Text originally published in 1919 under the same title.
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Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
PREFACE
In the most recent bibliography of the Waterloo campaign, that prepared by Professor Oman for the Cambridge Modern History, there appear little short of a score of works entirely devoted to its elucidation. For the Trafalgar campaign our English language cannot boast a single one. Of the battle itself there are studies innumerable, serious, fanciful, and anecdotic; but the fact remains that, though its centenary is past and gone, no British pen has ever been set to the task of producing, from the vast store of material that exists, anything like a reasoned Staff account of the crowning chapter in the history of naval warfare. We have, it is true, Mr. Newbolt's delightful volume, The Year of Trafalgar; but that, although it contains the best study of the battle that has yet appeared, makes no pretence of dealing exhaustively with the policy and operations which led to it. The truth is that for all the spade work that has been devoted to it in recent years by Sir John K. Laughton, Mr. Leyland, and others, the subject has been left, so far as the Service and the public are concerned, in the same comparative darkness that enshrouds the bulk of our naval history. Nelson's share of the work has received ample justice. Indeed the campaign has scarcely ever been approached except from his standpoint. And yet till nearly the end his share was comparatively small. Until in the last month of his life, when he resumed command of the restored Mediterranean station, he had a bare dozen of the line and a score or so of cruisers under his flag, while during the year there were in commission and reserve well over a hundred of the line and four hundred cruisers.
Nor is this all. The military side of the campaign has been left in even greater obscurity than the naval. In the course of the year, besides the troops in the East and West Indies, we had something like 50,000 men engaged in active oversea operations. Only a fraction of these touched Nelson, and where they did their deflecting influence on his strategy has been almost entirely ignored. Indeed it is not too much to say that the controlling fact that the campaign of 1805 was a combined campaign and not merely naval, has never been given its due importance. Still less has it been realised that it was essentially an offensive campaign, and not merely a campaign of defence against invasion. The failure to grasp these cardinal facts has clouded even Nelson's action and exposed him to criticism which he did not deserve. How much more then has it clouded the rest!
It is not that a minute study of the campaign detracts in the least from Nelson's greatness. High as such a study lifts the reputation of his colleagues, Nelson still remains the greatest of admirals. The fascination of his dazzling personality still dominates the judgment, and it is only by a severe and persistent effort of resistance that we can hope to see things in their true proportion and real meaning. If we would read the lesson aright not only must we keep Nelson's part in due subordination, but we must also continually forswear the calling of the sea and closet ourselves with Pitt and Melville, with Barham and Castlereagh. It is with them alone we may watch the inward springs at work, by which the fleets at sea were really controlled, and mark the flow of intelligence from spies and cruisers and embassies that set them in motion or stayed their action.
For such a detailed study, as most of our military campaigns but not one of our naval have received, the time has been ripened by the publication of a large proportion of the essential documents. For the diplomatic influences, which in this, as in most campaigns, provides the master-key, we have Mr. Holland Rose's Select Despatches relating to the Third Coalition against France, 1804-5, edited for the Royal Historical Society, though, as the editor unfortunately omitted to note the dates on which the despatches were received, their connection with naval and military instructions has been impossible to trace without collation with the originals. To this collection must be added, besides the well-known correspondence of Napoleon and Talleyrand, Mons. P. Coquelle's Napoleon et Angleterre (1803-13), and Mons. Charles Auriols La France, l'Angleterre et Naples (1803-6), both invaluable works.
For the naval side we have Mr. Leyland's Despatches and Letters relating to the Blockade of Brest, 1803-5, edited for the Navy Records Society, and the Cornwallis Papers, recently published by the Historical MSS. Commission from the collection of Mr. Cornwallis Wykeham-Martin (Various Collections, vol. vi. 1909). But for the most valuable published material by far we must acknowledge our debt with humility, if not with shame, to the French War Office. The monumental works of Colonel Edouard Desbrire, entitled, Projets et tentatives de dbarquement aux iles Britanniques (1793-1805) and La Campaign Maritime de Trafalgar, published under the direction of the Section Historique de l'tat-major de lArme, contain the first attempt to form a real Staff history of the campaign, and although they make no pretence of dealing adequately with the unpublished English material, they place us for the first time in a position to see the campaign as it really was. My debt to these volumes, increased as it is by Colonel Desbrire's courtesy in personally elucidating points that were obscured by faulty transcripts, is almost beyond recognition. A similar work from the Spanish side is still in progress in the Revista de Marina by General Galiano, a lineal descendant of a Trafalgar hero. It is useful in supplementing Colonel Desbrire's volumes, although most of the important Spanish documents were generously communicated to the French Staff by General Galiano for Colonel Desbrire's use.
Amongst manuscript sources only recently accessible, we have the Pitt Papers, deposited at the Public Record Office, and, still more valuable, the Barham Papers, which have been entrusted for publication to the Navy Records Society. To these latter I have been permitted access, and have received invaluable assistance in examining them from the editor, Sir John Laughton.
The labour of working through the mass of Ships' Logs and Journals, the Admirals' and Captains' letters, and the other rich material in the Admiralty Archives, and of subsequently reducing it to narrative and critical form, has necessarily been great; but in attempting the formidable task my path has been smoothed by many ready helpers. My thanks are especially due to Captain Hudleston, R.N., for placing at my disposal his researches into the system of naval defence in home waters; to Mr. Perrin, the Admiralty Librarian, for help in every direction, and particularly in preparing the Schedule of Signals recorded as having been made at the battle of Trafalgar; and to Lieutenant Keate, R.N., for assistance in preparing the track charts from the Logs.
