Nile 1798: Nelson’s first great victory

100 Pages·12.074 MB·English

by  Gregory Freemont-Barnes, Howard Gerrard(Illustrator)

NILE 1798
Nelson's first great victory
ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES holds a doctorate in Modern History
from Oxford University and serves as a Senior Lecturer in War Studies at
the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, dividing his time between teaching
cadets on-site and commissioned officers of the British Army posted to
garrisons throughout the UK and abroad. His wider work for the Ministry
of Defence has taken him to Iraq, Afghanistan and both republics of the
Congo. He has written extensively, with his principal naval works including:
Trafalgar 1805, Nelson's Sailors, Nelson's Officers and Midshipmen, The Royal
Navy, 1793-1815, Victory vs Red ou table: Ships of the Line at Trafalgar 1805
and The Wars of the Barbary Pirates.
HOWARD GERRARD studied at the Wallasey School of Art and has
been a freelance designer and illustrator for over 20 years. He has worked
for a number of publishers and is an associate member of the Guild
of Aviation Artists. He has won both the Society of British Aerospace
Companies Award and the Wilkinson Sword Trophy and has illustrated
a number of books for Osprey.
CAMPAIGN • 230
NILE 1798
Nelson's first great victory
GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES ILLUSTRATED BY H GERRARD
Series editor Marcus Cowper
First published in 2011 by Osprey Publishing EDITOR'S NOTE
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Cover image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum.
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E-mail: [email protected] ARTIST'S NOTE
Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the
© 2011 Osprey Publishing Limited colour plates in this book were prepared are available for private sale.
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reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form Howard Gerrard
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 5
CHRONOLOGY 10
OPPOSING COMMANDERS 13
British commanders - French commanders
OPPOSING FORCES 18
The British squadron . The French squadron - Orders of battle
OPPOSING PLANS 24
French plans . British plans
THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE 29
Cat and mouse . French arrival in Egypt and the continuing British search
British approach and French reaction . Action commences
Crescendo of battle . The final phase
AFTERMATH 81
Tactical analysis
THE BATTLEFIELD TODAY 90
GLOSSARY OF NAVAL TERMS 93
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING 94
INDEX 95

INTRODUCTION
The battle of the Nile ranks as one of the most decisive engagements in naval
history. The action not only stranded the young general Napoleon Bonaparte
and his army in Egypt; it thrust Horatio Nelson forward as a brilliant naval
tactician, with the coming victories at Copenhagen and, above all, Trafalgar,
confirming him as history's pre-eminent naval commander. Furthermore, it
encouraged resistance to Revolutionary France, bringing into being a powerful
coalition including Britain, Austria, Russia, Turkey, Naples and other powers.
Finally, victory at the Nile restored the Royal Navy's ascendancy in the
Mediterranean - a grave strategic setback for the recent Franco-Spanish
alliance, which had until then denied Britain her century-old strong naval
presence east of Gibraltar. The battle of the Nile compounded the effect
of Britain's previous successes - notably at Camperdown and St Vincent,
fought the year before - by setting for the Royal Navy a standard for fighting
prowess that continued well beyond the era of the French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars.
The battle of the Glorious First
of June, fought off Ushant in
1794, was the first fleet action
of the French Revolutionary
Wars. Earl Howe, with a fleet of
25 ships of the line sought to
prevent an immense French
grain convoy from reaching
home port. In this Howe failed,
though the British claim victory
on the strength of the six ships
of the line they captured and
one sunk. (Author's collection)
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Nelson's triumph formed a line of departure from all previous major naval
encounters of the 18th century - indeed, of virtually any era - constituting as
it did a battle of annihilation: a truly decisive victory resulting in the loss of
nearly every ship in the opposing force. In the age of fighting sail no precedent
existed for an action in which two forces of approximately equal size ended
with such a disproportionate result. In all respects - leadership, discipline,
gunnery, training, organization and morale - the British demonstrated a
marked superiority against an opponent undoubted for its fighting spirit, but
seriously lacking in tactical imagination, adequate training and initiative.
Beginning in 1792 Europe was convulsed by war. Austria, Prussia, many
of the smaller German states, Spain, Holland and other powers sought to
force the French revolutionary genie back in its bottle, restore the Bourbon
monarchy to the French throne and turn back the tide of radicalism that the
French republic had carried across its frontiers - thanks in part to the sheer
size and number of its newly raised conscript armies - threatening the whole
political and social stability of Western and Central Europe. By 1798 the
struggle that had begun between Britain and Revolutionary France five years
earlier had reached a stalemate of predictable geographical limits: Britain
stood supreme at sea - thanks to successes in 1797 at St Vincent against the
Spanish and at Camperdown against the Dutch - while France boasted
unchallenged mastery on land, the same year proving decisive as the occasion
for the young Napoleon Bonaparte's stunning victory over the Austrians at
Rivoli in northern Italy and the subsequent imposition upon them of the
punitive Treaty of Campo Formio.
With this humiliating settlement came the fall of Britain's last great
continental ally - Prussia and Spain having left the First Coalition by the
Treaty of Basel in 1795 - by which Austria ceded much of northern Italy and
the Dalmatian coast to French control and acknowledged as a fait accompli
the republic's occupation of the Rhineland and the Low Countries. French
power and influence extended still further with the acquisition of Corfu, the
creation soon thereafter of a Roman republic in central Italy and the exaction
of millions of gold ducats in reparations from the Pope and several northern
Italian states. Capitalizing on these conquests, and unhindered by further
opposition from Vienna, the French invaded defenceless Switzerland,
establishing a satellite state which the revolutionaries dubbed the Helvetic
Republic - applying the name given by Imperial Rome and thus confirming the
French desire for conquest on a grand scale. In short, the events of 1797-98
offered irrefutable proof that, far from benignly offering fraternal protection
and liberation from the yoke of monarchical tyranny, which their propaganda
had selflessly promised since 1792, the French revolutionaries confirmed what
most contemporaries had long since feared; the war machine created for the
defence of the republic had now become an instrument of shameless conquest,
with France bent on territorial aggrandizement at the expense of adversaries
and neutrals alike. Relentless campaigning, conscription and the recasting of
the Army based on merit rather than privilege had meanwhile paid dividends;
by 1798 French occupied territories stretched from the Low Countries to the
Rhineland, and from Switzerland down the Italian peninsula.
After Campo Formio only Britain - reeling from a financial crisis, rocked
by two major naval mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, and forced to
withdraw her fleet from the Mediterranean as a consequence of a recent
Franco-Spanish alliance - stood in any position, albeit a very weak one, to
oppose French expansion. Under these circumstances Britain unsurprisingly
opened peace talks with France at Lille, but with no result; in truth, Bonaparte secured Egypt
apart from possessing most of the French and Dutch colonies in the West through the application of
force on land, but Nelson's
Indies - certainly lucrative, though not indispensable, to the French economy
application of sea power
- Britain could bring little to the bargaining table. Under such advantageous
made it impossible to retain -
circumstances Bonaparte, the hero of the Italian campaign, returned to Paris a perfect example of the
in December 1797 and received command of an army stationed along the profound influence that naval
Channel coast designated for the invasion of England. There could be no operations can exert on their
land-based counterparts.
question but that France, albeit experiencing a financial crisis of her own and
(Author's collection)
still struggling to recover from the period of political instability that marked
Robespierre's Terror in 1793-94, stood in the ascendant.
In the ascendant, certainly, but only on land; crossing the English Channel was
no mean feat in light of British naval dominance. As such, the prospect of a
successful strike across the Channel had shifted in 1797 from merely problematic
to downright remote as the next year dawned. In early 1798 Bonaparte, faced
with this strategic deadlock and keen for a distant command to avoid the turmoil
in Paris - indeed, the Directory, wary of his widespread popularity within the
Army, stood just as anxious to be rid of his potentially dangerous presence -
conducted an inspection of the camps around Boulogne, the staging ground for
the optimistically named Armee de l'Angleterre.
Bonaparte reckoned he could do much with this fine instrument - but
much farther afield than the south coast of England. Egypt satisfied many
needs at once: it strongly appealed to his sense of romantic adventure, for little
was known of the region in Europe and he could do more than merely conquer
this land of mystery and ancient culture - he could enlighten its people. There
lay at once the opportunity for French scholars to study the archaeology and
natural history of one of the cradles of civilization, while at the same time
introduce Western ideas of liberalism and the modern social and political
institutions of which most Frenchmen were proud. In addition, a team of
scientists, mathematicians, botanists and other scholars accompanying the
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LEFT expedition could confirm their country's justifiable reputation for rapidly
The Paris National Guard expanding mankind's understanding of the world in the continuing tradition
marches off to join the Army of Enlightenment thought. If naked conquest and commercial and strategic
at the front in 1793. Having
advantage underpinned the primary French motives for the conquest of Egypt,
executed or driven into exile its
aristocratically dominated officer at the very least their later discovery of the Rosetta Stone, with its inscriptions
corps, the French government in Greek, Demotic and Hieroglyphs - which would eventually enable scholars
sought to compensate for this to translate many of the texts of the ancient world - confirmed France as
loss by raising vast numbers
Europe's leader in scientific scholarship.
of recruits, appealing to the
patriotic instincts of potential The idea of invading Egypt was not new; it had originated during the reign
volunteers and establishing of Louis XV in the mid-18th century, but the notion remained dormant until
a meritocratic system of resurrected by Talleyrand, the French foreign minister, who in July 1797
promotion - expedients that
presented a lecture on the subject to the Institut de France, followed by
together succeeded first in
holding at bay and, later, correspondence exchanged with Bonaparte while that commander still
defeating the armies of the remained at the Italian front. The scheme appealed to the young and ambitious
First Coalition (1792-97). general, not merely on the grounds of adventure and cultural advancement,
(Author's collection)
but also at the prospect of funding the expedition by seizing en route to Egypt
the vast wealth held by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, an ancient order
RIGHT
Fighting around Charleroi, June dating from the time of the Crusades, which had ruled Malta since the early
1794. Having held back the 16th century. Bonaparte deemed the Knights - who were known to be corrupt
invading Austrian and Prussian
and unpopular and who numbered fewer than a thousand men - incapable of
armies in 1792, the French
mounting an adequate defence; in short, Malta was ripe for the picking.
revolutionaries went on the
offensive, invading the Austrian The island's prominent place in Bonaparte's strategy for conquering Egypt
Netherlands (Belgium) and lay beyond its mere wealth; situated in a prime position in the central
Holland with armies consisting
Mediterranean, with Valetta one of the world's great deep-water ports,
of a few veterans but mostly
French occupation would extend the republic's naval dominance in the
comprising a torrent of eager
young men raised via the levee Mediterranean still further at a time when the Royal Navy maintained no
en masse, the first instance of meaningful presence beyond Gibraltar. With the French not only ensconced
universal conscription in Europe.
at their great port at Toulon - and across much of Italy, at Corfu and along
Partly on the basis of numerical
the Dalmatian coast thanks to Campo Formio - the occupation of Malta
superiority, by the time of the
Nile campaign France controlled could extend their power farther east with virtual impunity. To this end,
most of Western Europe, Talleyrand reinforced the argument for a descent on Egypt in February 1798,
including the Low Countries,
when in a report to the government he outlined the particular commercial
the west bank of the Rhine,
and strategic advantages of such a campaign, its relatively low cost and the
Switzerland and northern and
central Italy. (Author's collection) benefits to be derived from establishing a colony that could compensate
8