Battle of Trafalgar

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500-1750

Battle of Trafalgar
Part of the Napoleonic Wars
The Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen starboard shrouds of the Victory by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1806 to 1808)
Date 21 October 1805 Location Cape Trafalgar, Spain Result Decisive British Victory
Belligerents
United Kingdom	First French Empire Bourbon Spain
Commanders
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson   †	Pierre Villeneuve Federico Gravina
Strength
27 ships of the line and 6 others.	France: 18 ships of the line and 8 others. Spain: 15 ships of the line
Casualties and losses
449 dead, 1,246 wounded Total: 1,695	7,000 captured, 21 ships captured, 1 ship destroyed France: 2,218 dead, 1,155 wounded Spain: 1,025 dead, 1,383 wounded Total: 12,781

War of the Third Coalition Invasion of England – Cape Finisterre – Ulm Campaign – Trafalgar – Caldiero – Amstetten – Cape Ortegal – Dürenstein – Schöngrabern – Austerlitz – Gaeta – Campo Tenese – Maida

The Battle of Trafalgar was a historic sea battle between the British Royal Navy fleet of 27 ships of the line which defeated the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy of 33 ships of the line. It was fought on 21 October 1805 west of Cape Trafalgar in south-west Spain.

The French and Spanish lost 22 ships, while the British lost none in the most decisive naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. The British commander Admiral Lord Nelson died late in the battle. Since then he has been considered one of Britain's greatest naval heroes.

The combined French-Spanish fleet was commanded by French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve, under whose command was the Spanish Admiral Federico Gravina commanding the Spanish fleet, who also died months after the battle due to the wounds he received.

It was part of the War of the Third Coalition, and a pivotal naval battle of the 19th century. The British victory spectacularly confirmed the naval supremacy that Britain had established during the 18th century. However, by the time it was fought, Napoleon had abandoned his plans to invade southern England and instead was defeating the other two major powers of the time, Austria and Russia in Central Europe.

Origins

In 1805, the First French Empire, under Napoleon, was the dominant military land power on the European continent, while the British Royal Navy controlled the seas. During the course of the war, the British imposed a naval blockade on France, which affected trade and kept the French from fully mobilizing their own naval resources. Despite several successful evasions of the blockade by the French navy, it failed to inflict a major defeat upon the British. The British were able to attack French interests at home and abroad with relative ease.

Meanwhile the French built the so-called Continental System which disallowed any trade whatsoever for the British with the European Continent with the net result and effect that the British trade was frozen out of Europe as the French controlled all major European ports except the Prussian ones. Thus Britain was eventually forced to attack Napoleon on land.

When the Third Coalition declared war on France after the short-lived Peace of Amiens, Napoleon Bonaparte was determined to invade Britain. To do so, he needed to ensure that the Royal Navy would be unable to disrupt the invasion flotilla, which would require control of the English Channel.

The main French fleets were at Brest in Brittany and at Toulon on the Mediterranean coast. Other ports on the French Atlantic coast contained smaller squadrons. France and Spain were allied, so the Spanish fleet based in Cádiz and Ferrol was also available.

The British possessed an experienced and well-trained corps of naval officers. By contrast, most of the best officers in the French navy had either been executed or dismissed from the service during the early part of the French Revolution. As a result, Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve was the most competent senior officer available to command Napoleon's Mediterranean fleet. However, Villeneuve had shown a distinct lack of enthusiasm to face Nelson and the Royal Navy after the defeat at the Battle of the Nile.

Napoleon's naval plan in 1805 was for the French and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean and Cádiz to break through the blockade and join forces in the West Indies. They would then return, assist the fleet in Brest to emerge from the blockade, and together clear the English Channel of Royal Navy ships, ensuring a safe passage for the invasion barges. The plan seemed good on paper but as the war wore on, Napoleon's unfamiliarity with naval strategy and ill-advised naval commanders continued to haunt the French.

West Indies

Early in 1805, Admiral Lord Nelson commanded the British fleet blockading Toulon. Unlike William Cornwallis, who maintained a tight blockade of Brest with the Channel Fleet, Nelson adopted a loose blockade in hopes of luring the French out for a major battle. However, Villeneuve's fleet successfully evaded Nelson's when his forces were blown off station by storms. While Nelson was searching the Mediterranean for him, Villeneuve passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, rendezvoused with the Spanish fleet, and sailed as planned to the West Indies. Once Nelson realised that the French had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, he set off in pursuit.

Cádiz

Villeneuve returned from the West Indies to Europe, intending to break the blockade at Brest, but after two of his Spanish ships were captured during the Battle of Cape Finisterre by a squadron under Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Calder, Villeneuve abandoned this plan and sailed back to Ferrol.

Napoleon's invasion plans for England depended entirely on having a sufficiently large number of ships of the line before Boulogne, France. This would require Villeneuve's force of 32 ships to join Vice-Admiral Ganteaume's force of 21 ships at Brest, along with a squadron of 5 ships under Captain Allemand, which would have given him a combined force of 58 ships of the line.

When Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol on 10 August, he was under strict orders from Napoleon to sail northward toward Brest. Instead, he worried that the British were observing his manoeuvres, so on 11 August he sailed southward towards Cádiz on the southwestern coast of Spain. With no sign of Villeneuve's fleet by 26 August, the three French army corps invasion force near Boulogne broke camp and marched to Germany, where it would become fully engaged.

The same month, Nelson returned home to England after two years of duty at sea, for some well-earned rest. He remained ashore for 25 busy days, and was warmly received by his countrymen, who were understandably nervous about a possible French invasion. Word reached England on 2 September about the combined French and Spanish fleet in the harbour of Cádiz. Nelson had to wait until 15 September before his ship HMS Victory was ready to sail.

On 15 August, Cornwallis made the fateful decision to detach 20 ships of the line from the fleet guarding the Channel and to have them sail southward to engage the enemy forces in Spain. This left the Channel somewhat denuded of ships, with only eleven ships of the line present. However, this detached force formed the nucleus of the British fleet that would fight at Trafalgar. Initially this fleet was placed under the command of Vice-Admiral Calder, reaching Cádiz on 15 September. Nelson joined the fleet on 29 September to take command.

The British fleet used frigates to keep a constant watch on the harbour, while the main force remained out of sight 50 miles (80 km) west of the shore. Nelson's hope was to lure the combined Franco-Spanish force out and engage them in a "pell-mell battle". The force watching the harbour was led by Captain Blackwood, commanding HMS Euryalus. He was brought up to a strength of seven ships (five frigates and two schooners) on 8 October.

Supply situation

At this point, Nelson's fleet badly needed provisioning. On 2 October, five ships of the line, Queen, Canopus, Spencer, Zealous, Tigre, and the frigate Endymion were dispatched to Gibraltar under Rear-Admiral Louis for supplies. These ships were later diverted for convoy duty in the Mediterranean, whereas Nelson had expected them to return. Other British ships continued to arrive, and by 15 October the fleet was up to full strength for the battle. Although it was a significant loss, once the first-rate Royal Sovereign had arrived, Nelson allowed Calder to sail for home in his flagship, the 98-gun Prince of Wales. Calder's apparent lack of aggression during the engagement off Cape Finisterre on July 22 had caused the Admiralty to recall him for a court martial and he would normally have been sent back to Britain in a smaller ship.

Meanwhile, Villeneuve's fleet in Cádiz was also suffering from a serious supply shortage that could not be readily rectified by the cash-strapped French. The blockades maintained by the British fleet had made it difficult for the allies to obtain stores and their ships were ill fitted. Villeneuve's ships were also more than two thousand men short of the force needed to sail. These were not the only problems faced by the Franco-Spanish fleet. The main French ships of the line had been kept in harbour for years by the British blockades with only brief sorties. The hasty voyage across the Atlantic and back used up vital supplies and was no match for the British fleet's years of experience at sea and training. The French crews contained few experienced sailors, and as most of the crew had to be taught the elements of seamanship on the few occasions when they got to sea, gunnery was neglected. Villeneuve's supply situation began to improve in October, but news of Nelson's arrival made Villeneuve reluctant to leave port. Indeed, his captains had held a vote on the matter and decided to stay in the harbour.

On the 16th of September, Napoleon gave orders for the French and Spanish ships at Cadiz to put to sea at the first favourable opportunity, join with seven Spanish ships of the line then at Cartagena, go to Naples, and land the soldiers they carried to reinforce his troops there, and fight with decisive action if they met a British fleet of inferior numbers.

Nelson's battle plan

Prevailing tactical orthodoxy at the time involved manoeuvring to approach the enemy fleet in a single line of battle and then engaging in parallel lines. Before this time the fleets had usually been involved in a melée with the fleets becoming mixed together. One of the reasons for the development of the line of battle was to help the admiral control the fleet. If all the ships were in line, signalling in battle became possible. The line also had defensive properties, allowing either side to disengage by breaking away in formation. If the attacker chose to continue combat their line would be broken as well. Often this latter tactic led to inconclusive battles or allowed the losing side to reduce its losses. Nelson wished to see a conclusive battle.

His solution to the problem was to deliberately cut the opposing line in two. Approaching in two columns sailing directly at the enemy, one near the centre of the opposing line and one near the trailing end, his ships would break the enemy formation in half, surround that half, and force them to fight to the end. Nelson specifically hoped to cut the line just in front of the flagship: the isolated ships in front of the break would not be able to see the flagship's signals, hopefully taking them out of combat while they reformed. The intention of going straight at the enemy echoed the tactics used by Admiral Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown and Admiral Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, both in 1797.

The plan had three principal advantages. Firstly, it would allow the British fleet to close with the French-Spanish fleet as quickly as possible, reducing the chance that it would be able to escape without fighting. Secondly, it would quickly bring on a mêlée and frantic battle by breaking the French-Spanish line and inducing a series of individual ship-to-ship fights, in which the British were likely to prevail. Nelson knew that the better seamanship, faster gunnery, and higher morale of his crews had decisive advantages that could not be compensated for by any amount of bravery on the part of their opponents. Thirdly, it would bring a decisive concentration on the rear of the French-Spanish fleet. The ships in the van of the enemy fleet would have to turn back to support the rear, an effort which would take a long time.

The main drawback of attacking head on was that the Franco-Spanish ships would be able to maintain a raking broadside fire on the bows of the leading British ships as they approached, to which the British ships would be unable to reply. Nelson, however, was well aware that French and Spanish gunners were ill-trained, would in all probability be supplemented with soldiers, and would have difficulty firing accurately from a moving gun platform. After all the Combined Fleet was sailing across a heavy swell, which caused the ships to roll heavily and exacerbated the problem. Nelson's plan was indeed a gamble, but a carefully calculated one.

During the period of blockade off the coast of Spain in October, Nelson instructed his captains as to how he meant to fight the approaching battle over two dinners aboard Victory. The governing principles of his instructions were that the order of sailing, in which the fleet was arranged when the enemy was first sighted, was to be the order of ensuing battle, so that no time would be wasted in forming a precise line. The attack was to be made in two bodies, of which one, to be led by the second in command, Collingwood, was to throw itself on the rear of the enemy, while the other, led by Nelson, was to take care of the centre and vanguard. In preparation for the battle, Nelson ordered the ships of his fleet painted in a distinctive yellow and black pattern (later known as the Nelson Chequer) that would make them easy to distinguish from their opponents.

Nelson was careful to point out that something had to be left to chance. Nothing is sure in a sea fight beyond all others, and he left his captains free from all hampering rules by telling them that "No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy." In short, the execution was to be as circumstances dictated, subject to the guiding rule that the enemy's rear was to be cut off and superior force concentrated on that part of the enemy's line.

Admiral Villeneuve himself expressed his belief that Nelson would use some sort of unorthodox attack, stating specifically that he believed he would drive right at his lines. But his long game of cat and mouse with Nelson had worn him down, and he was suffering from a loss of nerve. Arguing that the inexperience of his officers meant he would not be able to maintain formation in more than one group, he chose to do nothing to counter an accurate assessment of Nelson's intentions.

Departure

On 18 October 1805, Villeneuve received a letter informing him that Vice-Admiral François Rosily had arrived in Madrid with orders to take command. At the same time, he received intelligence that a detachment of six British ships (Admiral Louis's squadron) had docked at Gibraltar. Stung by the prospect of being disgraced before the fleet, Villeneuve resolved to go to sea before his successor could reach Cadiz. Following a gale on 18 October, the fleet began a rapid scramble to set sail.

The weather, however, suddenly turned calm following a week of gales. This slowed the progress of the fleet departing the harbour, giving the British plenty of warning. Villeneuve had drawn up plans to form a force of four squadrons, each containing both French and Spanish ships. Following their earlier vote to stay put, the captains were reluctant to leave Cádiz and as a result they failed to follow Villeneuve's orders closely (Villeneuve had reportedly become despised by many of the fleet's officers and crew). As a result, the fleet straggled out of the harbour in no particular formation.

It took most of 20 October for Villeneuve to get his fleet organised, and it set sail in three columns for the Straits of Gibraltar to the south-east. That same evening, the ship Achille spotted a force of 18 British ships of the line in pursuit. The fleet began to prepare for battle and during the night they were ordered into a single line. The following day Nelson's fleet of 27 ships of the line and four frigates was spotted in pursuit from the north-west with the wind behind it. Villeneuve again ordered his fleet into three columns, but soon changed his mind and ordered a single line. The result was a sprawling, uneven formation.

The British fleet was sailing, as they would fight, under signal 72 hoisted on Nelson's flagship. At 5:40 a.m., the British were about 21 miles (34 km) to the north-west of Cape Trafalgar, with the Franco-Spanish fleet between the British and the Cape. At 6 a.m. that morning, Nelson gave the order to prepare for battle.

At 8 a.m., Villeneuve ordered the fleet to wear together and turn back for Cádiz. This reversed the order of the Allied line, placing the rear division under Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley in the vanguard. The wind became contrary at this point, often shifting direction. The very light wind rendered manoeuvring virtually impossible for all but the most expert crews. The inexperienced crews had difficulty with the changing conditions, and it took nearly an hour and a half for Villeneuve's order to be completed. The French and Spanish fleet now formed an uneven, angular crescent, with the slower ships generally leeward and closer to the shore.

By 11 a.m. Nelson's entire fleet was visible to Villeneuve, drawn up in two parallel columns. The two fleets would be within range of each other within an hour. Villeneuve was concerned at this point about forming up a line, as his ships were unevenly spaced and in an irregular formation. The French-Spanish fleet was drawn out nearly five miles (8 km) long as Nelson's fleet approached.

As the British drew closer, they could see that the enemy was not sailing in a tight order, but rather in irregular groups. Nelson could not immediately make out the French flagship as the French and Spanish were not flying command pennants.

The six British ships dispatched earlier to Gibraltar had not returned, so Nelson would have to fight without them. He was outnumbered and outgunned, nearly 30,000 men and 2,568 guns to his 17,000 men and 2,148 guns. The Franco-Spanish fleet also had six more ships of the line, and so could more readily combine their fire. There was no way for some of Nelson's ships to avoid being "doubled on" or even "trebled on".

Battle

The battle progressed largely according to Nelson's plan. At 11:45, Nelson sent the famous flag signal, "England expects that every man will do his duty" He had instructed his signal officer, Lieutenant John Pasco, to signal to the fleet the message "England confides [i.e. is confident] that every man will do his duty." Pasco suggested to Nelson that expects be substituted for confides, since the former word was in the signal book, whereas confides would have to be spelled out letter-by-letter. Nelson agreed to the change.

“

His Lordship came to me on the poop, and after ordering certain signals to be made, about a quarter to noon, he said, "Mr. Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, ENGLAND CONFIDES THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY" and he added "You must be quick, for I have one more to make which is for close action." I replied, "If your Lordship will permit me to substitute the confides for expects the signal will soon be completed, because the word expects is in the vocabulary, and confides must be spelt," His Lordship replied, in haste, and with seeming satisfaction, "That will do, Pasco, make it directly."

”

The term England was widely used at the time to refer to the United Kingdom, though the British fleet included significant contingents from Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as England. Unlike the photographic depiction, this signal would have been shown on the mizzen mast only and would have required 12 'lifts'.

As the battle opened, the French and Spanish were in a ragged curved line headed north. As planned, the British fleet was approaching the Franco-Spanish line in two columns. Leading the northern, windward column in his 104-gun flagship Victory was Nelson, while Collingwood in the 100-gun Royal Sovereign led the second, leeward, column. As the two British columns approached from the west at nearly a right angle. Nelson led his line into a feint toward the van of the Franco-Spanish fleet and then abruptly turned toward the actual point of attack. Collingwood altered the course of his column slightly so that the two lines converged at this line of attack.

Just before his column engaged the allied forces, Collingwood said to his officers, "Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter". Because the winds were very light during the battle, all the ships were moving extremely slowly, and the foremost British ships were under heavy fire from several of the enemy ships for almost an hour before their own guns could bear.

At noon, Villeneuve sent the signal "engage the enemy", and Fougueux fired her first trial shot at Royal Sovereign. Royal Sovereign had all sails out and, having recently had her bottom cleaned, outran the rest of the British fleet. As she approached the allied line, she came under fire from Fougueux, Indomptable, San Justo and San Leandro, before breaking the line just astern of Admiral Alava's flagship Santa Ana, into which she fired a devastating double-shotted raking broadside.

The second ship in the British lee column, Belleisle, was engaged by L'Aigle, Achille, Neptune and Fougueux; she was soon completely dismasted, unable to manoeuvre and largely unable to fight, as her sails blinded her batteries, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until the following British ships came to her rescue.

For 40 minutes, Victory was under fire from Héros, Santísima Trinidad, Redoutable and Neptune; although many shots went astray others killed and wounded a number of her crew and shot away her wheel, so that she had to be steered from her tiller belowdecks. Victory could not yet respond. At 12:45, Victory cut the enemy line between Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure and Redoutable. Victory came close to the Bucentaure, firing a devastating raking broadside through her stern which killed and wounded many on her gundecks. Villeneuve thought that boarding would take place, and with the Eagle of his ship in hand, told his men: "I will throw it onto the enemy ship and we will take it back there!" However Admiral Nelson of Victory engaged the 74 gun Redoutable. Bucentaure was left to be dealt with by the next three ships of the British windward column Temeraire, Conqueror and Neptune.

A general mêlée ensued and, during that fight, Victory locked masts with the French Redoutable. The crew of the Redoutable, which included a strong infantry corps (with 3 captains and 4 lieutenants), gathered for an attempt to board and seize the Victory. A musket bullet fired from the mizzentop of the Redoutable struck Nelson in the left shoulder and passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thorax vertebrae lodging two inches below his right scapula in the muscles of his back. Nelson exclaimed, "They finally succeeded, I am dead." He was carried below decks.

Victory ceased fire, the gunners having been called on the deck to fight the capture but were repelled to the below decks by French grenades. As the French were preparing to board Victory, the Temeraire, the second ship in the British windward column, approached from the starboard bow of the Redoutable and fired on the exposed French crew with a carronade, causing many casualties.

At 13:55, Captain Lucas, of the Redoutable, with 99 fit men out of 643 and severely wounded himself, surrendered. The French Bucentaure was isolated by the Victory and Temeraire, and then engaged by Neptune, Leviathan and Conqueror; similarly, the Santísima Trinidad was isolated and overwhelmed, surrendering after three hours.

As more and more British ships entered the battle, the ships of the allied centre and rear were gradually overwhelmed. The allied van, after long remaining quiescent, made a futile demonstration and then sailed away. The British took 22 vessels of the Franco-Spanish fleet and lost none. Among the taken French ships were the L'Aigle, Algésiras, Berwick, Bucentaure, Fougueux, Intrépide, Redoutable, and Swiftsure. The Spanish ships taken were Argonauta, Bahama, Monarca, Neptuno, San Agustín, San Ildefonso, San Juan Nepomuceno, Santísima Trinidad, and Santa Ana. Of these, Redoutable sank, Santísima Trinidad and Argonauta were scuttled by the British and later sank, Achille exploded, Intrépide and San Augustín burned, and L'Aigle, Berwick, Fougueux, and Monarca were wrecked in a gale following the battle.

As Nelson lay dying, he ordered the fleet to anchor as a storm was predicted. However, when the storm blew up many of the severely damaged ships sank or ran aground on the shoals. A few of them were recaptured by the French and Spanish prisoners overcoming the small prize crews or by ships sallying from Cádiz. Admiral Nelson's final words were: 'Thank God, I have done my duty". He died at about 16:30, as the battle that would make him a legend was ending in favour of the British.

Battle of Trafalgar (1805) French and Spanish Casualties.	Battle of Trafalgar British Casualties
Data for this chart are in Trafalgar order of battle and casualties. Blue = French (the two ships that took no casualties were both French.) Red = Spanish The number is the order in the line.	Data for this chart are in Trafalgar order of battle and casualties. Yellow = HMS Africa Green = The Weather Column, led by Nelson Grey = Lee Column, led by Collingwood The number, is the order in the column.

Aftermath

Only eleven ships regained Cádiz, and of those only five were considered seaworthy. Under captain Julien Cosmao, they set sail two days later and attempted to re-take some of the British prizes; they succeeded in re-capturing two ships, and forced Collingwood to scuttle a number of his prizes.

The four van ships which escaped with Dumanoir were taken on November 4 by Sir Richard Strachan at the Battle of Cape Ortegal.

When Rosily arrived in Cádiz, he found only five French ships remained rather than the 18 he was expecting. The surviving ships remained bottled up in Cádiz until 1808, when Napoleon invaded Spain. The French ships were then seized by the Spanish forces and put into service against France.

HMS Victory made its way to Gibraltar for repairs carrying on board the body of Admiral Nelson. It put into Rosia Bay, Gibraltar and after emergency repairs were carried out it returned to England. Many of the injured crew were brought ashore at Gibraltar and treated in the Naval Hospital. Those that subsequently died from injuries sustained at the Battle are buried in and near the Trafalgar Cemetery, at the south end of Main Street, Gibraltar.

All of the Royal Marine Corps officers in HMS Victory were killed, leaving the Sergeant Major of Marines (who was first by Nelson's side when he was hit) in command of Victory's Marine detachment.

The Battle took place the very day after the Battle of Ulm, and Napoleon did not hear about it for a few weeks - the Grande Armée had left Boulogne to meet Britain's allies before they could muster a huge force. He had tight control over the Paris media and kept the defeat a closely guarded secret. In a propaganda move, the battle was declared a "spectacular victory" by the French and Spanish.

Vice-Admiral Villeneuve was taken prisoner aboard his flagship and taken back to England. After his parole in 1806 and return to France, Villeneuve was found in his inn room during a stop on the way to Paris stabbed six times in the chest with a dining knife. While the verdict was that he had committed suicide, he was very likely murdered on the orders of Napoleon. Villeneuve had fallen from favour with Napoleon before Trafalgar and it was rumoured he was to be relieved of command. Losing the battle resulted in further disfavour with Napoleon.

Less than two months later, the War of the Third Coalition ended with a decisive French victory over Russia and Austria, Britain's allies, at the Battle of Austerlitz. Prussia decided not to join the Coalition and, for a while, France was at peace again. However, it could no longer challenge Britain at sea. Napoleon instead established the Continental System in an attempt to deny Britain trade with the continent.

Consequences

Following the battle, the Royal Navy was never again seriously challenged by the French fleet in a large-scale engagement. Napoleon had already abandoned his plans of invasion before the battle and they were never revived. The battle did not mean however that the French naval challenge to Britain was over. First, as the French control over the continent expanded, Britain had to take active steps in 1807 and 1808 to prevent the ships of smaller European navies from falling into French hands. This effort was largely successful, but did not end the French threat as Napoleon instituted a large scale shipbuilding program that produced a fleet of 80 ships of the line at the time of his fall from power in 1814, with more building. In comparison Britain had 99 ships of the line in active commission in 1814, and this was close to the maximum that could be supported. Given a few more years, the French could have realised their plans to commission 150 ships of the line and again challenge the Royal Navy, compensating for the inferiority of their crews with sheer numbers. For almost 10 years after Trafalgar the Royal Navy maintained close blockade of French bases and anxiously observed the growth of the French fleet. In the end, Napoleon's Empire was destroyed before the ambitious buildup could be completed.

Nelson became - and remains - Britain's greatest naval war hero, and an inspiration to the Royal Navy, yet his unorthodox tactics were only infrequently emulated by later generations. The first monument to be erected in Britain to commemorate Nelson was raised on Glasgow Green in 1806, possibly preceded by a monument at Taynuilt, near Oban dated 1805, both also commemorating the many Scots crew and captains at the battle. The 44 m (144 ft) tall Nelson Monument on Glasgow Green was designed by David Hamilton and paid for by public subscription. Around the base are the names of his famous victories: Aboukir (1798), Copenhagen (1801) and Trafalgar (1805). In 1808, Nelson's Pillar was erected in Dublin to commemorate Nelson and his achievements (many sailors at Trafalgar had been Irish), and remained until it was blown up by "Old IRA" members in 1966. Nelson's Monument in Edinburgh was built between 1807 and 1815 in the form of an upturned telescope, and in 1853 a time ball was added which still drops at noon GMT to give a time signal to ships in Leith and the Firth of Forth. In summer this coincides with the one o'clock gun being fired. The Britannia Monument in Great Yarmouth was raised by 1819

London's famous Trafalgar Square was named in honour of his victory, and Nelson's statue on Nelson's Column, finished in 1843, towers triumphantly over it.

The disparity in losses has been attributed by some historians less to Nelson's daring tactics, than to the difference in fighting readiness of the two fleets. Nelson's fleet was made up of ships of the line which had spent considerable amount of sea time during months of blockades of French ports, whilst the French fleet had generally been at anchor in port. However, Villeneuve's fleet had just spent months at sea crossing the Atlantic twice, which supports the proposition that the main difference between the two fleets' combat effectiveness was the morale of the leaders. The daring tactics employed by Nelson were to ensure a strategically decisive result. The results vindicated his naval judgement.

The Royal Navy proceeded to dominate the seas for the remaining years of sail. Although the victory at Trafalgar was typically given as the reason at the time, modern analysis by historians such as Paul Kennedy suggests that relative economic strength was a more important underlying cause of British naval mastery.

An anecdotal consequence, related to Trafalgar, is that French Navy officers have not been called "sir" ever since, supposedly due to Napoleon's disgust at his great fleet having been so comprehensively beaten.

200th anniversary

In 2005, a series of events around the UK, as part of the Sea Britain theme, marked the bicentenary. The 200th anniversary of the battle was also marked by six days of celebrations in Portsmouth during June and July, and at St Paul's Cathedral (where Nelson is entombed) and in Trafalgar Square in London in October ( T Square 200), as well as across the rest of the UK.

On 28 June, the Queen was involved in the biggest Fleet Review in modern times in the Solent, in which 167 ships from 35 nations took part. The Queen inspected the international fleet from the Antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance. The fleet included six carriers: Charles De Gaulle, Illustrious, Invincible, Ocean, Príncipe de Asturias and Saipan.

The frigate Grand Turk played the part of HMS Victory in a symbolic re-enactment of the battle.

Lapenotiere's historic voyage in HMS Pickle bringing the news of victory from the fleet to Falmouth and thence by post chaise to the Admiralty in London, was commemorated by the New Trafalgar Dispatch and Trafalgar Way celebrations, from July to September, in which an actor played the part of Lapenotiere and reenacted the historic journey.

On 21 October, naval manoeuvres were conducted in Trafalgar Bay, near Cadiz, involving a combined fleet from Britain, Spain and France. Many descendants of those men who fought and died in these waters, including members of Nelson's family, were present at the ceremony.

In popular culture

• In the Richard Sharpe series of novels (specifically Sharpe's Trafalgar) by Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe finds himself at the Battle of Trafalgar aboard the fictitious HMS Pucelle, following a complicated series of events which began in India.

• In 1805, one of the Nathaniel Drinkwater series of novels by Richard Woodman. Drinkwater is a prisoner aboard the French flagship Bucentaure.

• Trafalgar, a book about the battle of the same name, opens the series of novels Episodios Nacionales by Benito Pérez Galdós.

• In the alternate history collection Alternate Generals, John W. Mina's short story "Vive l'Amiral" posits Admiral Nelson fleeing an English debtor's prison, ending up in France and leading Napoleon's navy to victory at Trafalgar.

• Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte has published the novel Cape Trafalgar (Cabo Trafalgar, ed. Alfaguara 2004, in Spanish).

• Recently an Alexandre Dumas, père novel was discovered entitled Le Chevalier de Sainte-Hermine. The book is an adventure story set in the Napoleonic Era in which the main character is alleged to be the one who shot Nelson.

• In the final episode of the third series of the BBC historical sitcom Blackadder "Duel and Duality", the Duke of Wellington ( Stephen Fry) informs Blackadder ( Rowan Atkinson) (disguised as the Prince Regent) that Nelson is stationed in Alaska "in case Boney should try and trick us by coming via the North Pole". Blackadder suggests that the Royal Navy block the French from leaving the Mediterranean at Trafalgar - something Wellington declares he will mention to Nelson.

• In the Horatio Hornblower series, by C.S. Forester, Hornblower is given the task of delivering false orders to Villeneuve. Since Hornblower speaks fluent French and Spanish, he is successful in his mission. Villeneuve sends his fleet out of Cadiz and to the destruction that takes place at Trafalgar. Even though Hornblower does not participate in the battle itself, he is put in charge of Admiral Nelson's funeral in England. These events take place at the end of Hornblower and the Crisis and at the beginning of Hornblower and the Atropos.

• In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Hornblower is mentioned as being the British commander at the Battle of Trafalgar (taking the position of the historical Nelson) and with "Hornblower's Column" being built in London to commemorate his role in the battle.

• In the novel Honour This Day from the what is known as the Richard Bolitho series by Alexander Kent, Bolitho's squadron is sent first to the West Indies with the task of intercepting a Spanish quota ship and, then, in 1805 to the Mediterranean, to prevent reinforcements from reaching the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar

• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode " The Best of Both Worlds", Captain Jean-Luc Picard discusses the traditions of touring a ship before battle with his bartender and confidant, Guinan, and mentions Horatio Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar. In the film Star Trek Generations, Picard reveals that one of his ancestors fought at Trafalgar (it was never made clear for which side, although Picard is originally from France).

• In Louis A. Meyer's Under the Jolly Roger, the third Bloody Jack novel, the heroine, Jacky Faber, cross-dressing English-woman and Lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, is captured as a pirate by British forces on the eve of the battle. Her ship is destroyed, but she escapes from the brig in time to "man" the guns in grim action against the Redoutable.

• In the manga and anime One Piece the pirate captain Trafalgar Law is named after the Battle of Trafalgar.