Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 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).
The Trafalgar campaign was a long and complicated series of fleet manoeuvres carried out by the combined French and Spanish fleets; and the opposing moves of the Royal Navy during much of 1805. These were the culmination of French plans to force a passage through the English Channel , and so achieve a successful invasion of the United Kingdom .
Napoleon, however, had lost his faith in Godoy and Spanish King Charles IV. There was also growing support in Spain for the king's son, Ferdinand , who opposed the widely despised Godoy. Ferdinand, however, favoured an alliance with Britain, and Napoleon had always doubted the trustworthiness of any Bourbon royalty.
The Battle of Trafalgar by J. M. W. Turner shows the last three letters of the signal flying from the Victory. "England expects that every man will do his duty" was a signal sent by Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, from his flagship HMS Victory as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence on 21 October 1805.
The Trafalgar Companion: A Guide to History's Most Famous Sea Battle and the Life of Admiral Lord Nelson. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 1-84513-018-9. "The Battle of Trafalgar". Broadside. 2012. Archived from the original on 27 April 2007. Clash of Steel (2007). "Order of Battle: The British Fleet". Archived from the original on 27 October 2007.
The war for all the oceans: from Nelson at the Nile to Napoleon at Waterloo. London: Abacus. ISBN 978-0-349-11916-8. Clowes, William Laird (1997) [1900]. The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, Volume V. Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-014-0. Gardiner, Robert, ed. (2001) [1998]. The Campaign of Trafalgar. Caxton Editions.
Napoleon was frustrated in his repeated attempts to defeat Britain. Attacks that involved naval power had all failed, with the systematic defeats of the combined French and Spanish navies. After the decisive defeat at Trafalgar, Napoleon made no attempt to rebuild his navy. He turned instead to economic warfare, planning to ruin the British ...
Gravina (left) and Horatio Nelson (right) in an illustration by Benito Pérez Galdós, 1882. When Napoleon proposed to invade Great Britain, following the orders of the government of Godoy, Gravina was placed under the command of French Admiral Villeneuve, who took the Franco-Spanish fleet into Caribbean waters to confuse the British fleet.