![]() Other ports on the French Atlantic coast harboured smaller squadrons. The main French fleets were at Brest in Brittany and at Toulon on the Mediterranean coast. 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. ![]() When the Third Coalition declared war on France, after the short-lived Peace of Amiens, Napoleon renewed his determination to invade Britain. Despite several successful evasions of the blockade by the French navy, it failed to inflict a major defeat upon the British, who were able to attack French interests at home and abroad with relative ease. During the course of the war, the British imposed a naval blockade on France, which affected trade and kept the French from fully mobilising their naval resources. In 1805, the First French Empire, under Napoleon Bonaparte, was the dominant military land power on the European continent, while the British Royal Navy controlled the seas. The victory confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century, and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy. The senior Spanish fleet officer, Admiral Federico Gravina, escaped with the remnant of the Franco-Spanish fleet (a third of what it had been in number of ships) he died of wounds sustained during the battle five months later. He attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. Villeneuve was captured along with his flagship Bucentaure. Nelson was shot by a French musketeer and died shortly before the battle ended. Nelson's own HMS Victory led the front column and was almost knocked out of action. The tactic exposed the leading ships in the British lines to intense fire from multiple ships as they approached the Franco-Spanish lines. The ensuing fierce battle resulted in 22 allied ships being lost, while the British lost none. ![]() The allied vanguard sailed off while it attempted to turn around, giving the British temporary superiority over the remainder of their fleet. The plan worked almost perfectly Nelson's columns split the Franco-Spanish fleet in three, isolating the rear half from Villeneuve's flag aboard Bucentaure. Villeneuve had worried that Nelson might attempt this tactic but, for various reasons, had made no plans in case this occurred. To address this imbalance, Nelson sailed his fleet directly at the allied battle line's flank, hoping to break it into pieces. Nelson was outnumbered, with 27 British ships of the line to 33 allied ships including the largest warship in either fleet, the Spanish Santísima Trinidad. They encountered the British fleet under Lord Nelson, recently assembled to meet this threat, in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain, off Cape Trafalgar. The allied fleet, under the command of the French admiral, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, sailed from the port of Cádiz in the south of Spain on 18 October 1805. Īs part of Napoleon's plans to invade England, the French and Spanish fleets combined to take control of the English Channel and provide the Grande Armée safe passage. ![]() The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). ![]()
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