In 18 13, i believe the french navy is up to about a hundred ships of the line and growing so larger than it had ever been. It's with just adding that if you look at the number of ships that britain takes off napoleon, exactly as kenny said at copenhagen and from portugal, it's more ships than they think,. orl capture at trafalgar. So ounow, if we're looking to think about trafalgar in context, atually, these later actions are just as important, if not more important. Have we talked enough about the example that nelson gave to the british in terms of propaganda? Nelson is used as
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. Nelson's death that day was deeply mourned in Britain, and his example proved influential, and the battle was to help sever ties between Spain and its American empire. In France meanwhile, even before Nelson's body was interred at St Paul's, the setback at Trafalgar was overshadowed by Napoleon's decisive victory over Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, though Napoleon's search for his lost naval strength was to shape his plans for further conquests.
The image above is from 'The Battle of Trafalgar' by JMW Turner (1824).
With
James Davey
Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter
Marianne Czisnik
Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton
And
Kenneth Johnson
Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama
Producer: Simon Tillotson