August 1, 2025 • 47 mins
One of Nelson's masterpieces was also one of the most lopsided defeats suffered by the French Navy and Napoleon's military. Special guest & author John Kuehn discusses the background, strategy, outcome, and legacy of the battle.
Step back into 1798 and witness one of the most dramatic naval battles in history — explore how Admiral Horatio Nelson outmaneuvered the French fleet at Aboukir Bay, delivering a crushing blow to Napoleon’s ambitions in the East. Learn about the bold tactics, intense ship-to-ship combat, and the lasting impact this victory had on the Napoleonic Wars and British naval supremacy.
X/Twitter: @jkuehn50, @andnapoleon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.
We are thrilled to have our esteemed guest, John Kuhn back
on the line. How are you, John?
I'm doing great. Thanks, John.
Good to have you back. For those of you who might have
missed John's earlier episode onSubaroff, I highly recommend it.
And we're also going to have a wonderful episode today,
(00:21):
although not wonderful if you'rethe French Navy.
John, what are we talking about today?
We're going to look at really Horatio Nelson's probably finest
tactical masterpiece, and that'll be the Battle of the
Nile. Indeed, before we get to that,
John has a little disclaimer that we have to go over.
(00:41):
The views are those of the author and the speaker in this
case and do not reflect the official policy or position of
the Department of the Navy, the Naval War College, the
Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or the
US Government. Very good.
Thank you for that. And I have a little message to
my audience that I want to share.
If you're interested in John's books, specifically what we're
(01:04):
going to talk about today, I recommend you check out the Army
University Press website. You can find a book, 16 Cases of
Mission Command, if John was kind enough to share this with
us and he wrote a chapter withinthere that we're going to talk
about today, the Battle of the Nile.
So if you if you want to get a free download of this book, just
go to the Army University Press's website.
(01:25):
Now we are going to talk about what is considered one of the
worst defeats in French naval history.
Why is this battle such a lopsided affair for the British?
We have to recall that the British had had a long period of
tactical dominance over every Navy during the war.
The problems that the Royal Navyhad had in the the, the last big
(01:50):
war, the American, the War of the American Revolution, where
they fought the not only the American colonists, but the
Spanish, the Dutch and the French, they did the Royal Navy
had a tough time in that fight. So the British had fixed a lot
of the problems that they'd had with the Navy.
And so the Royal Navy that the French are going to meet up with
in August of 1898 at the Nile orin Abu Kirbe.
(02:13):
We call it the Nile, but it's really the Battle of Abu Kirbe
that just come off some major victories that at against the
French Navy. How had Admiral Howard defeated
Richard Howard defeated them at the battle of at the glorious
1st of June. They they smashed the a Spanish
fleet actually hadn't annihilated it, but crippled it.
(02:37):
Nelson was at that battle of battle of Saint Vincent even
more important a battle that that doesn't get much look at is
the battle of Camperdown where they'd smash the Dutch fleet and
I mean really smash the Dutch fleet and poor Admiral Admiral
Duncan doesn't get much credit for for that.
And then they'd survived the great spit head and nor mutiny.
So the royal, the Royal Navy I had had kind of weathered the
(02:59):
worst storms and it was still not completely dominant, but
pretty much have its own way wherever it showed up.
And again, this particular circumstance, we're going to
talk about it again, this is theRoyal Navy at its best and it's
not quite the French Navy at itsworst.
But but we're going to see the, the circumstances of the battle
(03:19):
are going to put, give the French every, absolutely every
disadvantage they could possiblyhave.
So you'd have to be a genius of a French Admiral to have
actually won this battle. And we'll talk about that.
How do you, how do you avoid this?
How do you avoid this kind of catastrophic defeat?
That's one of the questions. Right, right.
And we'll get to that. But to give some background on
the French Navy on the other side of the lines at the time,
(03:41):
much of their officer corps during the French Revolution had
emigrated, been guillotined or discharged because they're
usually from aristocratic stock.Does this explain some or all of
what happened here in Egypt? Not completely, but it helps.
And, and we'll talk about that in a second.
Why? But the bigger problem was the
(04:02):
breakdown of discipline, the French Navy.
So the, the French Navy just falls apart.
Most of its officer corps flees,not all of it, you know, and the
guys in command at the Nile is one of the ones who stays.
But the discipline in the FrenchNavy just absolutely breaks down
and the ships aren't maintained.You basically are putting a
bunch of amateurs in charge who don't know what they're doing.
(04:23):
And, and so you lose. You lose all of that.
So discipline and training just just get totally broken down.
And for all its great traditions, the attempts to
constitute the French Navy essentially failed.
The French Navy, you know, kind of ends the American Revolution
on a bad note in a battle that that Nelson studies, that all
(04:46):
British Admirals and captains study, and which Nelson will try
to repeat at the Nile. And that's the Battle of the
Saints, where Rodney takes takesa British fleet into Shoalwater
and smashes the fleet of the Comp de Gras.
This is the same fleet that actually defeats the British at
the Battle of the Chesapeake andresults in our independence.
(05:08):
But this same French fleet goes on to be pretty much destroyed
by Admiral Rodney, who, who, whovery much is sort of the model
for all British Admirals, which is kind of aggressive, arrogant
and willing to do sort of unusual things to achieve a
victory. And Rodney, once he gets once he
gets the fleet in the Caribbean,he he does that.
(05:29):
So the Battle of the Saints, which is just a classic naval
battle. But again, the Battle of the
Saints, there's problems with it.
They probably should have destroyed more French ships than
they did. And a lot of British Admirals
are asking that question, like, how could that have been an even
bigger victory than it was? Well, the victim of that battle
is the French fleet. And so this is the same French
fleet that's overtaken by revolution in 1789.
(05:53):
And it's it's a fleet that's notgoing to be able to to do much
of anything. It tries to at the glorious 1st
of June. And it suffers for its temerity
and taking on how at that battle, Yeah.
Well, let's jump ahead to kind of how we get to Egypt and how
Napoleon is landed here in Egyptand why this battle takes place.
(06:15):
It must be remembered that Napoleon's not yet in charge of
the French government at this point.
This is August 1798. I know Napoleon wanted to strike
at the British Empire in some way, and I know that the the
French Directory government justwanted to get this guy as far
away from Paris as possible due to his popularity.
So my first it's a two-part question.
How does he get approval to invade Egypt?
(06:37):
And do you think Napoleon had a chance of succeeding in Egypt
before the Battle of the Nile took place?
I'm going to ask answer the second question 1st and then I'm
going to go to the first question, then come back to the
second question. So so my answer to the to the to
the could Napoleon have ever been successful or could the
(06:58):
French Republic have ever been successful this expedition?
My answer is Klaus Witsy and war.
Never one never knows. You just never know.
The sheer scale and ambition of this operation, which are not
just Napoleon's idea, but the Republic's idea are
unprecedented. It's astonishing when the
British finally kind of figure out what it is the French are
(07:19):
doing. They're they're flabbergasted.
This is the craziest thing that they're trying to do.
It's threatening the Empire. It's threatening our lines of
communication through the Levantand to our cash cow.
At the same time, the French aretrying to get the Tippu Sultan
to revolt in India. So this is all part of a grand
strategy to really attack the British Empire.
(07:41):
It's really France's only enemy.And France has no way of
directly attacking Great Britainother than invasion.
And in 1797, the threat of invasion is obliterated by all
of these victories at Saint Vincent and then at Camperdown.
So, you know, and even the mutinies, which offer a narrow
window, don't work to the Frenchadvantage just because the
(08:03):
French are going to take advantage.
So this is this is the French are actually trying to solve
their problem. How do we get Great Britain to
admit defeat, right, without invading Great Britain?
We attack India and we attack our sea lines of communication
with India. The fact that the French would
do this the way they did it justkind of stuns the British.
Now, we got to remember the British had sort of abandoned
(08:26):
the Mediterranean to the French.You know, they're maintaining a
blockade on Kadith with essentially the Mediterranean
fleet. So there is no fleet blockading
too long. The French kind of got the feel
that, hey, cats away, let's let the mice play.
There's a couple quotes I want to read to you here about this
Saint Vincent, you know, AdmiralJarvis says to Evan Neepen about
(08:50):
this. What an extraordinary people
these are. No plan is too vast for their
undertaking and the magnitude oftheir operations confound and
dismay all their adversaries, except of course us, the
British, which is the British way of saying, you know, we can
see why the French are kicking everybody's butt because they
(09:10):
just, the scale of their undertakings are so vast.
And so, yeah, this does get Napoleon out of Paris, but it
also addresses the problem of how do we end this ruinous war
with Great Britain? Now, the Directory, you know,
I'm not going to give the directory more credit than they
deserve. And again, remember, there's
been a counter revolution, then there'll be a counter counter
(09:33):
revolution, you know, But the directory so far has been the
most stable government the French have had.
So, so this is a, this is a group project.
It makes perfect sense to put Napoleon in charge of it.
Napoleon wants to be in charge of it.
As Jonathan Abel famously said, you know, if you want to be a
God, where do you go? You go to Egypt.
(09:53):
Caesar went to Egypt, came out of God.
Napoleon is going to go to Egypt.
So Egypt is where gods are made and Napoleon knows that.
So the other thing here is, is, is Paul Schroeder's analysis of
why the French do this. And he says it was an expedition
was essentially A fundamental impulse followed by a weakened
(10:15):
divided government for domestic more than foreign policy reasons
without serious calculations in its feasibility and it's likely
results. So this is Paul Schroeder sort
of wordy way of saying if ever an expedition deserved to fail,
it was this one because nobody did what we call the fast test
on it. Is this feasible, acceptable and
(10:36):
suitable. So the the thing that I was
always fascinated me about the Egyptian expedition is how well
it actually manages to do in theface of all these all these sort
of challenges. You know, the the French managed
to get a pretty big capable armyinto Egypt and they begin to try
to make a self-sustaining colony.
(10:58):
And if that happens, it's a realproblem for the British.
Yeah, it's it's quite miraculous.
Napoleon's fleet, he has 30,000 troops, 10,000 sailors and
manages to evade Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean and
disembark near Alexandria, Egypt.
Now we know all about Nelson just from his fame.
Who is Napoleon's naval commander?
(11:19):
This bruise, What do we know of his abilities?
OK, let's talk about Bruise. He's not your typical French
Admiral, all right? He is of the nobility.
His full name is Francois Paul Compte de Bruyer Aguiller.
All right, so. And he comes from a noble
province in the South of France,Provence, which is where most of
(11:40):
the French Admirals and French officers tend to come from, both
in the Old Regime fleet and in the Revolutionary fleet.
And he naturally becomes a sailor initially.
He's enlisted. He's not he's not a Marine,
which is a sailor. He is a, he is a Marine guard,
which is like a Marine. OK.
So basically he's part of the ship's police force, right?
So he's like, like the way we would think of Marines.
(12:02):
And then eventually he gets commissioned and he rises
quickly in in the service and eventually is in command of a
ship of the line under de Grot, the Battle of the Chesapeake
capes. And so he's involved in one of
the great French naval victoriesof history.
He is also there, of course, when the British smashed the
(12:23):
field fleet at the at the Saints.
So he doesn't have the excuse that he's never had to fight a
battle in Shoalwater before. And the Battle of Abu Kurbay is
going to be a battle in Shoalwater.
So. So Brewer is better than anybody
knows the challenges of fightinga fleet when you're limited in
your ability to maneuver. And we'll go into that a little
(12:44):
bit more. His family, fascinatingly, they
were from Martinique and they were very close to the Beau
Harnay family. So he was friends with
Josephine. And when he meets Napoleon 96,
he's in command of the Adriatic squadron for the French, which
the French are kind of maintaining tenuously in the
Adriatic. And he meets Napoleon Bonaparte,
(13:04):
probably in Venice, I think. And he becomes an instant
devotee, becomes very devoted toNapoleon, even though he's much
his senior. He's a noble and everything, but
he totally joins Club Napoleon, right?
And just totally in favor of it.And so he's, he's actually, and
I have this line in my notes, he's, he's the closest thing
(13:24):
that the French have to a fighting Admiral.
And I think that's what I wantedto point out.
I, you know, he's a nobleman. He's probably well educated.
He's not a fool. He didn't get his Admiral baton
working his way up through the merit system like some of
Napoleon's marshals. This is like a trained naval
officer. So, and we'll get to the blame
game in a little bit. I just want to point out that he
wasn't some fool. No, no, he's, he's, I mean, if
(13:47):
you're going to have somebody incommand, there's only one other
Admiral that I can think of in the French fleet, and that's
Letouche Trevi, that you'd want in command.
Right. And Brier actually had a better
relationship with Napoleon. You know, after after this is
all over, Letouche Trevi will become the head of the French
Navy. Who's the other fighting Admiral
in the French Navy, right? Well, the harbor in Alexandria,
(14:11):
Egypt proves to be inadequate for this large fleet, so
Napoleon orders Bruise to anchorin Abukir Bay, which is a
shallow and exposed anchorage. I don't want to get in the blame
game just yet. I'll save that for the end.
But who is at fault for the upcoming naval disaster?
Napoleon or Bruise? All right.
(14:31):
Well, I am going to say that thebalance of the blame is going to
have to go to Bruyer and I'll I'll talk about that.
But but Napoleon does get some of the blame.
But what happens? And again, according to Knight,
Roger Knight, one of Nelson's more recent biographers, the
relationship between Napoleon and Bruyer, by the time that
(14:53):
army has landed has broken down so that the relationship between
the two men breaks down. But there's a, there's a lot of
stuff that we have to talk aboutbefore we did kind of pin the
tail on the donkey here. Part of your question here was,
you know, how does Napoleon's fleet, how does this invasion
fleet, and it's it's accompanying escort fleet of, of
(15:13):
these 13 ships of the line with frigates, how do they avoid
being detected by the British? And for that, we've got to go
back to, to Nelson being picked to command.
So the first thing you have to understand is why does the
French, the, why did the French get to Alexandria with the army
completely intact and unloaded without being attacked by
(15:34):
Nelson? And the first thing you have to
remember, the British know something's up, but they don't
know what is up. The British had no idea this is
what the French had planned to do, that they had planned to
invade Egypt. They thought maybe the French
are going to Corsica, maybe they're going to invade Sicily.
They've, you know, they've got designs.
(15:55):
They've signed this kind of peace treaty with, with the
Kingdom of Naples, which they'llviolate while this is all going
on. And eventually they'll chase,
chase the decrepit Bourbons out of out of of Naples.
So this takes the British by surprise.
Right now, just prior to this, Jarvis is in command of the
Mediterranean fleet, which is not in the Mediterranean, it's
(16:16):
in the Atlantic at Al Qaeda. And so he knows he needs to send
somebody into the Med to look. So he actually asks for Nelson
to be assigned to him and he cuts him loose with three ships
of the line and three frigates. His orders are basically conduct
a quick reconnaissance of the French in Toulon.
(16:37):
We hear something's going on. We don't have any information.
Our intelligence isn't really clear about what the French are
up to. So it's a basically a
reconnaissance enforced by Nelson just to see what's going
on. Nelson sells up there with his
small squadron. Now these three ships, there's
the Vanguard, which is his flagship, and then the other two
ships are under two of the best captains in the British Navy,
(16:58):
Sir Thomas Trowbridge and Suarez.
And these two guys, these two guys are very, very senior
captains. Either one of them could be an
Admiral and I think both of themwill make Admiral.
In fact, Trowbridge will go on to go very, very high.
And so so he goes up there with like 2 of Jarvis's best
captains. They hit a storm and it's and
(17:18):
they almost, and Nelson aboard Vanguard almost runs aground in
Sardinia. I mean, it's a really bad storm.
So they don't really figure out what's going on with the French,
and they're distracted by this storm.
At the same time, Jarvis decidessomething's really going on.
I don't know what it is. Nelson needs my support.
And he sends another 11 ships ofthe line to Nelson, and these
(17:40):
are his best ships of the line under his best captains.
It's like I'm going to pick the All Star team.
The Band of brothers, right? You're right and this is when
the band of brothers begins. But it the credit here should
also go to Jarvis. Jarvis.
Jarvis is the guy who picks all the talent, including the head
talent, which is which is is Nelson.
(18:02):
Nelson later calls this his bandof brothers.
He comes to love this squadron more.
It's this happens in the Navy. I mean, there's certain ships
that I just loved being on, you know, the John F Kennedy.
I loved being a part of that team when I was on the America
with Air Wing One. I loved being on that ship.
And this is this is for Nelson. This was his favorite squadron
(18:25):
of all time, was the squadron that Jarvis gives him.
Now, one of the big problems with the Storm, though, is that
it scatters Nelson's frigates. And so he has no frigates.
So he has this 14 battleship squadron.
He's got a Brig under Hardy who's later his captain on the
on the Victory. So what happens here?
(18:47):
Nelson finally gets the whole fleet together and he he goes
to, he goes towards the Eastern Med and at the same time the
French seize Malta. So Napoleon does this unexpected
thing and manages this brilliantcoup in seizing Malta.
(19:08):
Now that'll play a role later on.
We'll talk about that. But that throws off Nelsons
calculations. And once he gets the whole fleet
together just South of the Straits of Messina, which is
between southern Italy and Sicily, he will ask his four
senior captain, Suamarez, Foley,Trowbridge.
And there was one other captain.Oh, Ball, Alexander Ball.
(19:29):
He basically says, where do you think the French fleet is going?
He goes, they could go here, here, here or Egypt, which would
do us the most harm. And then that's where I think
they're going. And he asked in writing for what
they thought they all went, yeah, boss, he's going to
Alexandria. So he sails the whole fleet to
Alexandria. Well, Napoleon just kind of
leisurely finishing up at Malta,loads the fleet back up.
(19:53):
They go north of Crete. So Nelson sails so fast, he gets
to Alexandria before Napoleon gets there.
And he goes, we guessed wrong. And so he goes.
He doesn't stick around. If he had stuck around, he
probably would not have only destroyed the French fleet, he
would have destroyed the French army.
He might have killed Napoleon. In fact, you know chances are he
would have killed Napoleon because.
(20:15):
The way the British ships fight these battles is just lethal.
I mean, it's Napoleon being Napoleon.
He's one of these guys who's outthere in the midst of battle in
his uniform, kind of like Nelson.
So it's hard to imagine Napoleonwould would have survived, but
he might. He might have.
So the French fleet gets there and they unload the whole army.
And Nelson goes all the way backto Sicily and he hears Napoleon
(20:40):
has captured Malta and left Malta.
Without any hesitation he sets off with his 14 ships of the
line and his Brig under Hardy for Alexandria.
Well, yeah, And it's interestingbecause, you know, Nelson's
probably pulling his hair out trying to figure out where this
giant French fleet is. So when we get to this point
(21:01):
here in a minute, you can see why when he finally found him,
he just said let's attack. We're not waiting anymore.
We're going right in. Right, right.
So and on the cruise, both the first time to Alexandria and the
second time to Alexandria, and Italk about it in the mission
command chapter, the mission command book.
Nelson, there were a couple of his captains that he didn't know
very well. Like three of them he only knew
(21:22):
by reputation. The rest of them he personally
knew, but he kept, he would bring them on board,
particularly the four biggies, Ball, Suamarez, Foley and
Trowbridge. He'd bring those guys on board
and talk to them about what he wanted to do in the battle, how
he wanted to fight the battle, how much he trusted their
judgement. And this is going to be a battle
(21:43):
that's really a team win, not a single win by anyone, man.
Nelson's an overall command, buthe does this thing called
decentralized command. He's going to give his captains
all kinds of authorities to do all kind of things now.
He'll give them some specific, simple guidance, which he always
does with flag signals. But he let them know his idea
(22:04):
was we may attack the French fleet as soon as we arrive.
They all knew that and they wereall prepared for that.
Yeah, and I know my listeners hate when I compare Napoleon to
Nelson, but I think that's how they were similar.
I'm going to give you the what to do.
The how to do is on you guys. I'm going to delegate that to
you. But here's what you have to do.
You figure out how. Yeah, yeah.
(22:24):
Like with with Davu and Sewell and all those guys at
Ousterlitz, it's like, no, you handle that, you handle the the
flank March, you handle seizing the Pratts in high.
So I don't, I'm not going to give you a direct, I'm just
going to tell you when to go andthen you go, right?
Yeah, right. Well, let's this is the tricky
part. Now we're going to get into the
(22:45):
this how the two naval forces are set up as the battle begins.
Abu Qir Bay has rocky Shoals, and it's protected by cannons
and mortars from a nearby Fort. How does Bruets position his 13
ships of the line? OK, so bruets, by this time the
relationship with the Poland hasbroken down.
(23:06):
I don't I could never find whether he asked Napoleon to
actually leave with the fleet sothat he wouldn't be caught in a
disadvantaged position against the Lee shore, which is what
happens now. Lee shore is the shore that's
downwind, right? It's not upwind.
So, so he's worried about that, but I don't know if he ever
asked Napoleon if he could leave, but that probably would
(23:29):
have been his best move was to just take the fleet away and try
to evade what the coming Thunderbolt from Nelson.
So So he anchors and it's said that some of his captains tried
to persuade him to anchor closerin.
He does let his frigates anchor closer in, but he keeps his
(23:51):
ships of the line a little further offshore inside the
actual harbor itself. There was not room for all these
ships, but he he almost certainly could have anchored
much closer to the shore than hedid.
So. So the Anchorage position that
he chooses is, is flawed and it basically goes from West to east
(24:14):
in a sort of line that's going from the northwest, West,
northwest to South SE. So, so it's a long line of 13
battleships. And then the four French
frigates are inside that in another line.
And on the other side of the French frigates is absolutely
Shoalwater. You'll run aground there, right,
right. So they're marking that.
(24:34):
So that's the that's probably where Bruyers should have
anchored. And so he doesn't take his
captain's advice. There's some discussion that
Napoleon denies him permission to do that.
I don't think that ever happened.
I think it was Brew A's was concerned that he might run some
of his ships aground just tryingto anchor that close.
So he anchored his thought as heas close as he thought he could
(24:55):
safely get away with given the skill of his crews.
Now this is all before the British show up.
Right, so Nelson finally gets a fix on the French Navy's
position. He sees them sitting there in a
straight line, single file. How many ships does Nelson have
and what is his strategy of attack?
So the British have 14 ships to the line, 14 battleships, the
(25:19):
French have 13. But the French have the weight
of metal on their ships. They have bigger ships with more
guns, right? Including the biggest ship.
Bruet's flagship is L'Oreal, which is 120 gun first rate ship
of the line, one of the biggest,most massive ships in the world.
And it'll do some damage in thisbattle.
(25:39):
I mean, one of the British shipsof the line will be out of
position, and two broadsides from the laureate will just
practically destroy that ship, the Blairathon.
So he's got the way to meddle. The problem is many of his gun
crews are helping Napoleon ashore.
Now, first you'd go who puts their gun crews ashore?
But when they think they might get attacked by the British
(26:00):
fleet, well, remember, Napoleon had asked for these
artillerists. He's having problems finding,
you know, there's attrition. Where do you go when you need
artillery and you're the French?You go to the French fleet and
get these unemployed Gunners offthe ships.
So they've, he's actually beefedup his army was one of some of
these really good artillery Gunners from the French fleet.
(26:21):
And again, they, they're anchored in this line of 13
ships. And so they don't think anybody
can go on the inside between theinside of the French line and
the Shoal water, even though 4 French frigates have done that,
right. So that space of water, which is
probably about at most, at its widest, maybe 1000 meters,
(26:42):
difficult to navigate and sail around on a sailing ship with
contrary winds around shore water Nets.
So this is this is like a Siemens nightmare here.
So Perez is like, nobody would be stupid enough to go.
But so he doesn't need those guncrews.
So he's so he's got his gun crews just on the outward
northward facing part of the line.
(27:04):
So here are my hands. That's his line.
And so all the gun crews are facing that way, which makes
perfect sense given what Nelson is planning on doing, actually.
Yeah, for my listeners it's basically 1 French line being
enveloped by two British lines of boats.
And how that happens is fascinating.
So, so so Nelson shows up in thelate afternoon of August 1st,
(27:30):
right? So Nelson held for leather.
He's talked to his guys, he shows up, there's the French
fleet, and he sends 2 signals tohis fleet.
The first one is prepare for battle, OK.
The 2nd signal is one of the most astonishing signals ever
sent in naval history and will be until we get to Trafalgar,
(27:51):
that is, prepare for battle and prepare to anchor by the stern.
So Nelson and Jarvis, I think, had both studied Rodney at the
Saints. And they said, well, the big
problem was that the ships, you know, couldn't stay stationary.
They had to keep moving. What if they anchored next to
their victims and just pounded them to splinters?
(28:13):
So Nelson is going to have his ships sail into the swine and
then anchor opposite each of their intended targets by the
British have to move these heavyanchors, heavy ropes back to the
stern of their ships. They don't keep the anchors in
the stern. So they're doing this while
they're sailing. The sailors have to be good at
(28:35):
this. As it turns out, about 10 of
Nelson's ships are going to do this maneuver almost.
And this is one of the most difficult things to do, to do a
by the they're going to have thewind at their backs.
They're going to be moving forward and they're going to
drop anchor. And it's just a really difficult
complex when he tell when he sends this signal, British at
the British captains all know what they're supposed to do.
(28:57):
So they sail in from the north and Foley is kind of leading the
charge, decide to sail behind the French line.
So here's the French line. They sail behind the French line
into the No Go Shoalwater. And so they double the French
fleet and then they execute the anchoring maneuver as a doublet.
(29:19):
Well, here's what must have beenvery scary.
If I'm aboard, if I'm a French sailor, on those French ships,
1/2 of the gun crews are on the beach, so they can't help me.
And two, this isn't just a strafing run.
If they're dropping anchor, thatmeans they're going to stay
there and try and kill us all day, all night long.
They're not going anywhere. It must have been very scary.
(29:40):
Yeah, his, his captains have been told to choose their
victims. And so this is like, well,
couldn't you end up with too many ships on one ship and then
other ships? So the British are all watching
what they're doing. They're watching each other.
And Nelson sends the signal. Everybody who hasn't already
followed Foley and Bald follow me.
And he achieves this almost perfect doubling maneuver.
(30:03):
And then they anchor. And, yeah, the French are, like,
astonished by what takes place. They're like, oh, no.
The Belarifon tries to anchor onthe northern side of the
laureate. It mishandles the anchoring
evolution, and while it's doing that, the Laureate sends 2
broadsides, essentially 120 gunsworth of metal, and Belarifon
(30:26):
drifts out of the battle and outof the battle.
So the battle actually doesn't start out well for Nelson
because of what happens to the Belarifon.
But his guys on the inside almost immediately begin to rake
the French. And then Alexandra Ball puts
himself between the laureate andthe ship in front of the
laureate, the tonal. All right, So he actually
anchors with the line split kindof like we'll see a Trafalgar
(30:50):
where they'll penetrate the line.
And then he begins to do some fascinating things.
And we'll, we'll talk about that, but the French just kind
of freak out, Nelson famously states.
Before the battle, before this time tomorrow, I shall have
gained A peerage or Westminster Abbey.
So he he's totally confident that he's going to destroy this
(31:10):
French fleet and that the British king will make him a
Lord, will make him a noble. Or die trying.
Or die trying. And that's, and his captains are
of the same mind. They're all going to do this.
And these two guys, Foley and Ball, do the most damage of any
of the British captains. Alexander had penetrated the
(31:31):
line and he prepared special combustible grenades and he gets
close enough to the Lorion that he throws them into the Admirals
quarters at the back of the Lorion and sets it on fire.
And then he just starts pouring Castor and grape into the fire.
The Lorion catches fire. Now this is right after she's
destroyed the Belarophon. The sun is sinking, it's getting
(31:54):
dark. Everybody up and down the line
can see that the Lorion's badly on fire and it's going to blow
up and the battle dies down is everybody's battens down the
ashes for the mother of all shipexplosions which occurs.
Now prior to Loriant blowing up,Brias is killed by a cannonball.
(32:15):
So he actually dies fighting. He even says I'm going to die
fighting. One of his captains says should
we should we pull anchor and setsail?
He goes, no, I'm going to die fighting.
And so. And he does.
Yeah, the blast was so horrific that both sides stopped firing
for 10 minutes because of the shock and awe of the
destruction. But the fighting picks up again.
Again, this is in the middle of the night.
(32:36):
This is now, like, I think, 1:00AM, and some of the French fleet
escapes, right? This isn't a total loss.
No, but it it's about as close to a total loss as you can get.
The the debris, flaming debris from the Laureate sets both the
British and the French ships on fire.
So the battle dies down as all these ships try to put out these
fires so they don't all get blown to smithereens.
(32:58):
And astonishingly, ball ship theAlexander is the one that's set
most badly on fire by the explosion because she's the
closest. Takes about two hours for all
the French and British crews to put out the fires, and then they
go back to pounding each other. But remember the inner line of
the British ships, There's nobody pounding back against
(33:18):
them. And so about 3:00 or 4:00 in the
morning. The commander of the van is
Admiral Pierre Vilniv, and he's commanding the three leading
ships of the line. And he says that's it, I've had
enough. He only gets two of the ships of
the line away, +2 of the four frigates.
So two of the four frigates are destroyed.
(33:40):
So he gets away with two ships of the line and two frigates.
Now why does he get away? Well, Nelson on Vanguard is
wounded in the head. In fact, initially he's knocked
out. He's bleeding so badly they
think he's dead. So after after, after this
battle, you know, we always think of Nelson.
(34:01):
He's missing an arm, he's missing an eye.
Well, Nelson's never the same his.
He gets traumatic brain injury. He has these horrible headaches
for the rest of his life from the wound he receives at the
Nile. Hardly anybody ever talks about
his wound at the Nile. I mean, there's some discussion
that he'll never fight again because of this wound.
Yeah, and I'm glad you pointed pointed that out.
(34:23):
And the name Villanova? If you get my audience, you'll
hear that name again. And so Villanova gets away
because Nelson is effectively not.
And Nelson had failed to appointsomebody to be second in
command. So essentially after he's
wounded, which is right around the time the Laurent blows up,
these captains fight the battle without Nelson's guidance at
(34:44):
all, but Nelson has set them up for success.
He's sort of envisioned how the battle is going to go, but they
they execute the battle almost perfectly.
The fighting gradually dies downas more and more friendship
strike their colors and surrender.
So what were the ship losses on both fleets?
We'll get to the actual casualties in a minute.
(35:05):
So 11 ships of the line are captured or destroyed.
So essentially on. The French.
Side on the French side so so the bulk of the French fleet is
is destroyed. This is not quite as big of a
victory as camper down over the Dutch again, the ships are much
bigger more prestigious. I mean, this is this is, this is
(35:28):
the cream of the French Navy that Nelson has just destroyed.
The best captains, the best Admiral, the best crews in the
French Navy are destroyed. These two frigates and 11
battleships. And again, this is mostly a
night battle. So when the sun finally comes
up, the final 2 French ships arejust being pounded to pieces by
(35:48):
the British and and they finallystrike their colors.
Yeah, on the British side. I know that Belafran.
Did they lose any other ships? I know one ran or ground.
So, so Trobridges ship runs aground and Belair Fund, but
none of the British ships are sunk.
They're all damaged. Just about every single British
ship is damaged, which is a testimony to the French.
(36:09):
When you hear the casualties, you'll realize this was a hard
fight. This was not an easy, cheap
victory in any sense of the word.
All right. People tend to go, oh, yeah.
As a cheap, nearly bloodless victory.
No, it wasn't. It was was pretty bloody.
Nelson's badly wounded. Several of Nelson's captains are
wounded, but none of them are killed.
None of the ships sink, but the Belarophon is probably the worst
(36:32):
damage. The one that gives them the
biggest problems, of course, is is full as Trowbridge's ship
because it's a ground, so they have to pull it out.
You mentioned the Fort. The Fort turns out to be nothing
too far away to provide any support, and none of the British
ship ships are stupid enough to go near it.
The only ship that's in any danger from the Fort is
Trowbridge's ship. It's a ground and, and even that
(36:55):
ship finds out that there's no threat.
So, so that's that's the ship. So the British don't lose a
ship. The French lose the equivalent
of 14 ships. OK, on the human side I know the
casualties for the French are quite appalling, losing 2000
dead or wounded along with 3000 prisoners.
So basically 5000 casualties versus just 1000 casualties for
(37:18):
the British Seaman John Nichols states Quote.
I went on deck to view the stateof the fleets, and an awful
sight it was. The whole Bay was covered with
dead bodies, mangled, wounded and scorched.
End Quote. So what does this loss mean to
Napoleon's Egyptian expedition? OK, so yeah, so almost 1000
(37:41):
British are killed or wounded inthis battle.
So the the numbers of killed in this battle, though, testify to
how horrible it was. 2200 Frenchkilled.
I mean, that is just a shocking number.
Napoleon's fleet is smashed. Now, I've heard different people
talk about the legacy of the Battle of Al.
The legacy here is France's bestgeneral or best generals,
(38:04):
because we're talking about to say we're talking about
Napoleon, we're talking about LAN, we're talking about Murad,
we're talking about Davu. So you've got the best generals
in the French army, with a couple exceptions.
But they're maroon. They're marooned there.
They're marooned, they're trapped in Egypt.
There's no way to pull them out.You know, the only way to get
(38:27):
this army back to France is to March through the Ottoman
Empire. And Napoleon, you know, and
Napoleon, you know, bless his heart, he, he tries, he toss and
he gets stymied by another greatBritish naval hero, Sidney Smith
in Acre. Yeah.
So, you know, and maybe he's thinking, if I could capture
Acre, maybe we could sneak a French fleet in there and I
(38:49):
could get some of my army away. And.
Not only can they not be resupplied, where was Napoleon's
treasury it. Was on his ship, right?
It was on his ships. So he's got all this vast wealth
on these ships, much of it plundered from Malta, from the
Knights of Saint John. How's he going to pay his
(39:11):
soldiers? You know, and he's lot and it's,
he loses all this prestige with this battle.
And the thing that really matters is it Bolton's, the
Napoleon's enemies, this the, the, it's electric.
It's almost like what happens after the Battle of Victoria
when, you know, the coalition islike, wow, you know, there's
this great British victory in Spain.
(39:31):
Well, here's this great British victory in Egypt and all of a
sudden you know Austria is back talking to the British again the
about maybe coming back into thewar and the Russians when
Napoleon seizes Malta seems likea good idea, but who's the Grand
Master of the Knights of Saint John?
SAR Paul and SAR Paul is incensed.
(39:55):
The only way I think the French could have avoided getting the
Russians into the war would havebeen to essentially say we're
just waiting for a Russian fleetto come to Malta and take
possession. That's not what the French did.
They, you know, so the, so the legacy of Malta, which should
have been positive, another French base in the
Mediterranean, is negative because it brings the Russians
into the second coalition. It also leads the French to be
(40:17):
vulnerable. I mean, they've got this.
This really good army in Egypt and now they're spread thin all
over Europe with, with no more than really 200,000 troops in
the active armies. And they've made it worse
because they've conquered Naples.
And so their armies in Italy arespread, you know, with with from
the boot of Italy all the way upto the Alps.
(40:40):
And so the French armies are areare are vulnerable and the
allies look at all this. And so the Nile plays it a key
role in causing the war of the Second Coalition.
Well, let's talk about that because it the legacy is tricky.
It doesn't end Napoleon's expedition.
It doesn't prevent him from becoming emperor.
It isn't Nelson's last major victory.
(41:01):
You could say Trafalgar is probably more important.
And it doesn't end the French navy's ability to conduct
maneuvers that that happens at Trafalgar.
So is it a big bell? Absolutely.
It's very important. But does it really stop
anything? The legacy, It's tricky.
Well, the British are certainly far better off after the Nile
(41:24):
than they had been, and the and the French face probably their
most serious crisis with the Warof the Second Coalition.
So the War of the Second Coalition begins and and the war
goes very, very poorly for the French initially horrible.
They all of Napoleon's conquestsare lost in Italy, you know, and
(41:46):
eventually, you know, the saviorthat saves France, the three
guys that really do the most to save France from this string of
catastrophes will, will, will bethe minister of war Bernadotte,
Andrew Messena in Switzerland and Brune in the low low
Countries. So, so you'll have all these
other guys if you ever wonder why they all end up becoming
(42:07):
marshals. Now now you know why, why they
saved France in 1799. So you know now Nelson's legacy
after this is mixed. Nelson Nelson gets a diamond
spray from the Ottoman Sultan. He becomes feted.
He becomes the first Baron of the Nile.
He becomes he becomes the rock star of the anti Napoleon world,
(42:31):
right? And he repairs back to Naples
and then he begins his his infamous affair with Emma
Hamilton's. You know, Nelson's great victory
is the beginning of sort of a bad period for Nelson where,
where Nelson sort of, and then Nelson goes on to add, you know,
shame in Naples and hanging, hanging the revolutionaries and
(42:53):
everything. And so, so Nelson sort of
becomes this, this this embarrassment to the British
government at one point, even though they reward him and he's
so famous and everything. But again, we have to remember
the British have Carte Blasche now in the Met the the French
fleet is not destroyed, but it is crippled.
The Spanish fleet and the Frenchfleet until the Treaty of Amion
(43:16):
is signed are going to essentially be a neutralized by
the blockade. So yeah, so the the legacies
here difficult to, but certainlyit's it's it's a set back.
Right. And that leads to my final
question. And I I don't usually like to
Monday morning quarterback on this show, but what should have
(43:39):
Napoleon and Brewes done with the fleet?
Well, they they managed to accomplish the impossible.
They evade Nelson and land a hostile army in a critical
location, a decisive point alongthe British line of
communication to India. So, so Napoleon, what could have
he have done different? I'll talk about that.
(44:01):
Second, let me talk about Brier first.
Brier should have just picked, should have set sail.
He should have gone back to Malta.
I think he could have gotten a whole fleet into Valletta.
And now Nelson is going to thinktwice about trying to get him
right and going and destroy the fleet in Valletta.
Because because Nelson's won bigdefeat to this place at Teneriff
where he tried to battle forts and he lost his arm for it.
(44:21):
And he also got a relative killed, you know, And so, so
Bray should have should have runBray.
Bray should have just picked up the fleet and said, hey, you
know, I'm going to try to get back here when I can, you know,
but I'll see. Us when you need us.
Right, right. I mean, they dodged a huge
bullet when Nelson outran them and then skedaddle back to
(44:44):
Sicily, right? So if that had happened, the
battle might not have ever happened again.
Had Nelson had frigates, had he been a little bit more patient,
he might have destroyed the armyand the Navy.
Eventually Abercrombie will comeback and and finally finish off
what's left of the French army acouple of years later.
But but now for for Napoleon, What could, what could he have
(45:05):
done different? Again, if he had sent his fleet
away, he could have said, OK, we're just going to buckle down
here. We're going to go native and
we're going to do everything we can to make our position here as
safe as we possibly can. But what does he actually do?
He he manages to keep in touch with with Villeneuve.
(45:28):
And then when the time is right and he's come back from the Acre
expedition, and then he defeats another Turkish army at Abu
Kirbe, by the way, he will hop on board Villeneuve ships and
and scurry back to France for for 18 Vermeer.
Without his army. Without his army, but with a lot
of his key helpers. That's true.
(45:48):
Always. You know, the guy I think about
is, is MacArthur leaving the Philippines, right.
He takes takes his dream team with him, right.
Yeah. Well.
And I think 16 cases of mission command, I think that's why you
it was included in this book. There's a lot of things that
could have been done better looking back on it.
Right. And Nelson provides sort of a
model for how you command, command a team of proven
(46:11):
professionals. You don't micro management and
they go ahead and they win the battle for you even though
you're badly wounded. Yeah.
Nelson establishes, enables and sets the stage with his
aggression, his decision one to turn around and go back, you
know, as soon as he realizes he's been hoodwinked, his
decision to go in the 1st place,you know, so his gut instincts
(46:37):
are absolutely correct all the time here.
And then his the way he gets hiscaptains ready for this battle
and then turns him loose on the French fleet as a wonder to
behold. And, and anybody who wants to be
a, a, a great commander should study what Nelson's actions
prior to his being wounded at the battle of denial that that
the anchoring maneuver is just astonishing.
(46:59):
No other fleet in the world could have done that.
Only the British fleet could have done that.
Love that. Yeah.
And again, if you want to check it out for free, you can
download this. It's the is it the Army,
University Press, the website? Yeah, so it's 16 cages of
mission command. It's at the Army University
Press website now. There's another book called
(47:21):
Great Commanders and there's a chapter in there on Nelson by me
as well. So OK, so check that out as
well. There's a third book called
Great Unknown Victories, also free, also from Army University
Press, and my chapter in there is on Saint Vincent.
Love it. OK.
Yeah. Well, thank you, John, as
always, for joining the show. Really good episode.
I learned a lot. And yeah, Battle of the Nile.
Welcome back to Generals and Napoleon.
We are thrilled to have our esteemed guest, John Kuhn back
on the line. How are you, John?
I'm doing great. Thanks, John.
Good to have you back. For those of you who might have
missed John's earlier episode onSubaroff, I highly recommend it.
And we're also going to have a wonderful episode today,
(00:21):
although not wonderful if you'rethe French Navy.
John, what are we talking about today?
We're going to look at really Horatio Nelson's probably finest
tactical masterpiece, and that'll be the Battle of the
Nile. Indeed, before we get to that,
John has a little disclaimer that we have to go over.
(00:41):
The views are those of the author and the speaker in this
case and do not reflect the official policy or position of
the Department of the Navy, the Naval War College, the
Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, or the
US Government. Very good.
Thank you for that. And I have a little message to
my audience that I want to share.
If you're interested in John's books, specifically what we're
(01:04):
going to talk about today, I recommend you check out the Army
University Press website. You can find a book, 16 Cases of
Mission Command, if John was kind enough to share this with
us and he wrote a chapter withinthere that we're going to talk
about today, the Battle of the Nile.
So if you if you want to get a free download of this book, just
go to the Army University Press's website.
(01:25):
Now we are going to talk about what is considered one of the
worst defeats in French naval history.
Why is this battle such a lopsided affair for the British?
We have to recall that the British had had a long period of
tactical dominance over every Navy during the war.
The problems that the Royal Navyhad had in the the, the last big
(01:50):
war, the American, the War of the American Revolution, where
they fought the not only the American colonists, but the
Spanish, the Dutch and the French, they did the Royal Navy
had a tough time in that fight. So the British had fixed a lot
of the problems that they'd had with the Navy.
And so the Royal Navy that the French are going to meet up with
in August of 1898 at the Nile orin Abu Kirbe.
(02:13):
We call it the Nile, but it's really the Battle of Abu Kirbe
that just come off some major victories that at against the
French Navy. How had Admiral Howard defeated
Richard Howard defeated them at the battle of at the glorious
1st of June. They they smashed the a Spanish
fleet actually hadn't annihilated it, but crippled it.
(02:37):
Nelson was at that battle of battle of Saint Vincent even
more important a battle that that doesn't get much look at is
the battle of Camperdown where they'd smash the Dutch fleet and
I mean really smash the Dutch fleet and poor Admiral Admiral
Duncan doesn't get much credit for for that.
And then they'd survived the great spit head and nor mutiny.
So the royal, the Royal Navy I had had kind of weathered the
(02:59):
worst storms and it was still not completely dominant, but
pretty much have its own way wherever it showed up.
And again, this particular circumstance, we're going to
talk about it again, this is theRoyal Navy at its best and it's
not quite the French Navy at itsworst.
But but we're going to see the, the circumstances of the battle
(03:19):
are going to put, give the French every, absolutely every
disadvantage they could possiblyhave.
So you'd have to be a genius of a French Admiral to have
actually won this battle. And we'll talk about that.
How do you, how do you avoid this?
How do you avoid this kind of catastrophic defeat?
That's one of the questions. Right, right.
And we'll get to that. But to give some background on
the French Navy on the other side of the lines at the time,
(03:41):
much of their officer corps during the French Revolution had
emigrated, been guillotined or discharged because they're
usually from aristocratic stock.Does this explain some or all of
what happened here in Egypt? Not completely, but it helps.
And, and we'll talk about that in a second.
Why? But the bigger problem was the
(04:02):
breakdown of discipline, the French Navy.
So the, the French Navy just falls apart.
Most of its officer corps flees,not all of it, you know, and the
guys in command at the Nile is one of the ones who stays.
But the discipline in the FrenchNavy just absolutely breaks down
and the ships aren't maintained.You basically are putting a
bunch of amateurs in charge who don't know what they're doing.
(04:23):
And, and so you lose. You lose all of that.
So discipline and training just just get totally broken down.
And for all its great traditions, the attempts to
constitute the French Navy essentially failed.
The French Navy, you know, kind of ends the American Revolution
on a bad note in a battle that that Nelson studies, that all
(04:46):
British Admirals and captains study, and which Nelson will try
to repeat at the Nile. And that's the Battle of the
Saints, where Rodney takes takesa British fleet into Shoalwater
and smashes the fleet of the Comp de Gras.
This is the same fleet that actually defeats the British at
the Battle of the Chesapeake andresults in our independence.
(05:08):
But this same French fleet goes on to be pretty much destroyed
by Admiral Rodney, who, who, whovery much is sort of the model
for all British Admirals, which is kind of aggressive, arrogant
and willing to do sort of unusual things to achieve a
victory. And Rodney, once he gets once he
gets the fleet in the Caribbean,he he does that.
(05:29):
So the Battle of the Saints, which is just a classic naval
battle. But again, the Battle of the
Saints, there's problems with it.
They probably should have destroyed more French ships than
they did. And a lot of British Admirals
are asking that question, like, how could that have been an even
bigger victory than it was? Well, the victim of that battle
is the French fleet. And so this is the same French
fleet that's overtaken by revolution in 1789.
(05:53):
And it's it's a fleet that's notgoing to be able to to do much
of anything. It tries to at the glorious 1st
of June. And it suffers for its temerity
and taking on how at that battle, Yeah.
Well, let's jump ahead to kind of how we get to Egypt and how
Napoleon is landed here in Egyptand why this battle takes place.
(06:15):
It must be remembered that Napoleon's not yet in charge of
the French government at this point.
This is August 1798. I know Napoleon wanted to strike
at the British Empire in some way, and I know that the the
French Directory government justwanted to get this guy as far
away from Paris as possible due to his popularity.
So my first it's a two-part question.
How does he get approval to invade Egypt?
(06:37):
And do you think Napoleon had a chance of succeeding in Egypt
before the Battle of the Nile took place?
I'm going to ask answer the second question 1st and then I'm
going to go to the first question, then come back to the
second question. So so my answer to the to the to
the could Napoleon have ever been successful or could the
(06:58):
French Republic have ever been successful this expedition?
My answer is Klaus Witsy and war.
Never one never knows. You just never know.
The sheer scale and ambition of this operation, which are not
just Napoleon's idea, but the Republic's idea are
unprecedented. It's astonishing when the
British finally kind of figure out what it is the French are
(07:19):
doing. They're they're flabbergasted.
This is the craziest thing that they're trying to do.
It's threatening the Empire. It's threatening our lines of
communication through the Levantand to our cash cow.
At the same time, the French aretrying to get the Tippu Sultan
to revolt in India. So this is all part of a grand
strategy to really attack the British Empire.
(07:41):
It's really France's only enemy.And France has no way of
directly attacking Great Britainother than invasion.
And in 1797, the threat of invasion is obliterated by all
of these victories at Saint Vincent and then at Camperdown.
So, you know, and even the mutinies, which offer a narrow
window, don't work to the Frenchadvantage just because the
(08:03):
French are going to take advantage.
So this is this is the French are actually trying to solve
their problem. How do we get Great Britain to
admit defeat, right, without invading Great Britain?
We attack India and we attack our sea lines of communication
with India. The fact that the French would
do this the way they did it justkind of stuns the British.
Now, we got to remember the British had sort of abandoned
(08:26):
the Mediterranean to the French.You know, they're maintaining a
blockade on Kadith with essentially the Mediterranean
fleet. So there is no fleet blockading
too long. The French kind of got the feel
that, hey, cats away, let's let the mice play.
There's a couple quotes I want to read to you here about this
Saint Vincent, you know, AdmiralJarvis says to Evan Neepen about
(08:50):
this. What an extraordinary people
these are. No plan is too vast for their
undertaking and the magnitude oftheir operations confound and
dismay all their adversaries, except of course us, the
British, which is the British way of saying, you know, we can
see why the French are kicking everybody's butt because they
(09:10):
just, the scale of their undertakings are so vast.
And so, yeah, this does get Napoleon out of Paris, but it
also addresses the problem of how do we end this ruinous war
with Great Britain? Now, the Directory, you know,
I'm not going to give the directory more credit than they
deserve. And again, remember, there's
been a counter revolution, then there'll be a counter counter
(09:33):
revolution, you know, But the directory so far has been the
most stable government the French have had.
So, so this is a, this is a group project.
It makes perfect sense to put Napoleon in charge of it.
Napoleon wants to be in charge of it.
As Jonathan Abel famously said, you know, if you want to be a
God, where do you go? You go to Egypt.
(09:53):
Caesar went to Egypt, came out of God.
Napoleon is going to go to Egypt.
So Egypt is where gods are made and Napoleon knows that.
So the other thing here is, is, is Paul Schroeder's analysis of
why the French do this. And he says it was an expedition
was essentially A fundamental impulse followed by a weakened
(10:15):
divided government for domestic more than foreign policy reasons
without serious calculations in its feasibility and it's likely
results. So this is Paul Schroeder sort
of wordy way of saying if ever an expedition deserved to fail,
it was this one because nobody did what we call the fast test
on it. Is this feasible, acceptable and
(10:36):
suitable. So the the thing that I was
always fascinated me about the Egyptian expedition is how well
it actually manages to do in theface of all these all these sort
of challenges. You know, the the French managed
to get a pretty big capable armyinto Egypt and they begin to try
to make a self-sustaining colony.
(10:58):
And if that happens, it's a realproblem for the British.
Yeah, it's it's quite miraculous.
Napoleon's fleet, he has 30,000 troops, 10,000 sailors and
manages to evade Nelson's fleet in the Mediterranean and
disembark near Alexandria, Egypt.
Now we know all about Nelson just from his fame.
Who is Napoleon's naval commander?
(11:19):
This bruise, What do we know of his abilities?
OK, let's talk about Bruise. He's not your typical French
Admiral, all right? He is of the nobility.
His full name is Francois Paul Compte de Bruyer Aguiller.
All right, so. And he comes from a noble
province in the South of France,Provence, which is where most of
(11:40):
the French Admirals and French officers tend to come from, both
in the Old Regime fleet and in the Revolutionary fleet.
And he naturally becomes a sailor initially.
He's enlisted. He's not he's not a Marine,
which is a sailor. He is a, he is a Marine guard,
which is like a Marine. OK.
So basically he's part of the ship's police force, right?
So he's like, like the way we would think of Marines.
(12:02):
And then eventually he gets commissioned and he rises
quickly in in the service and eventually is in command of a
ship of the line under de Grot, the Battle of the Chesapeake
capes. And so he's involved in one of
the great French naval victoriesof history.
He is also there, of course, when the British smashed the
(12:23):
field fleet at the at the Saints.
So he doesn't have the excuse that he's never had to fight a
battle in Shoalwater before. And the Battle of Abu Kurbay is
going to be a battle in Shoalwater.
So. So Brewer is better than anybody
knows the challenges of fightinga fleet when you're limited in
your ability to maneuver. And we'll go into that a little
(12:44):
bit more. His family, fascinatingly, they
were from Martinique and they were very close to the Beau
Harnay family. So he was friends with
Josephine. And when he meets Napoleon 96,
he's in command of the Adriatic squadron for the French, which
the French are kind of maintaining tenuously in the
Adriatic. And he meets Napoleon Bonaparte,
(13:04):
probably in Venice, I think. And he becomes an instant
devotee, becomes very devoted toNapoleon, even though he's much
his senior. He's a noble and everything, but
he totally joins Club Napoleon, right?
And just totally in favor of it.And so he's, he's actually, and
I have this line in my notes, he's, he's the closest thing
(13:24):
that the French have to a fighting Admiral.
And I think that's what I wantedto point out.
I, you know, he's a nobleman. He's probably well educated.
He's not a fool. He didn't get his Admiral baton
working his way up through the merit system like some of
Napoleon's marshals. This is like a trained naval
officer. So, and we'll get to the blame
game in a little bit. I just want to point out that he
wasn't some fool. No, no, he's, he's, I mean, if
(13:47):
you're going to have somebody incommand, there's only one other
Admiral that I can think of in the French fleet, and that's
Letouche Trevi, that you'd want in command.
Right. And Brier actually had a better
relationship with Napoleon. You know, after after this is
all over, Letouche Trevi will become the head of the French
Navy. Who's the other fighting Admiral
in the French Navy, right? Well, the harbor in Alexandria,
(14:11):
Egypt proves to be inadequate for this large fleet, so
Napoleon orders Bruise to anchorin Abukir Bay, which is a
shallow and exposed anchorage. I don't want to get in the blame
game just yet. I'll save that for the end.
But who is at fault for the upcoming naval disaster?
Napoleon or Bruise? All right.
(14:31):
Well, I am going to say that thebalance of the blame is going to
have to go to Bruyer and I'll I'll talk about that.
But but Napoleon does get some of the blame.
But what happens? And again, according to Knight,
Roger Knight, one of Nelson's more recent biographers, the
relationship between Napoleon and Bruyer, by the time that
(14:53):
army has landed has broken down so that the relationship between
the two men breaks down. But there's a, there's a lot of
stuff that we have to talk aboutbefore we did kind of pin the
tail on the donkey here. Part of your question here was,
you know, how does Napoleon's fleet, how does this invasion
fleet, and it's it's accompanying escort fleet of, of
(15:13):
these 13 ships of the line with frigates, how do they avoid
being detected by the British? And for that, we've got to go
back to, to Nelson being picked to command.
So the first thing you have to understand is why does the
French, the, why did the French get to Alexandria with the army
completely intact and unloaded without being attacked by
(15:34):
Nelson? And the first thing you have to
remember, the British know something's up, but they don't
know what is up. The British had no idea this is
what the French had planned to do, that they had planned to
invade Egypt. They thought maybe the French
are going to Corsica, maybe they're going to invade Sicily.
They've, you know, they've got designs.
(15:55):
They've signed this kind of peace treaty with, with the
Kingdom of Naples, which they'llviolate while this is all going
on. And eventually they'll chase,
chase the decrepit Bourbons out of out of of Naples.
So this takes the British by surprise.
Right now, just prior to this, Jarvis is in command of the
Mediterranean fleet, which is not in the Mediterranean, it's
(16:16):
in the Atlantic at Al Qaeda. And so he knows he needs to send
somebody into the Med to look. So he actually asks for Nelson
to be assigned to him and he cuts him loose with three ships
of the line and three frigates. His orders are basically conduct
a quick reconnaissance of the French in Toulon.
(16:37):
We hear something's going on. We don't have any information.
Our intelligence isn't really clear about what the French are
up to. So it's a basically a
reconnaissance enforced by Nelson just to see what's going
on. Nelson sells up there with his
small squadron. Now these three ships, there's
the Vanguard, which is his flagship, and then the other two
ships are under two of the best captains in the British Navy,
(16:58):
Sir Thomas Trowbridge and Suarez.
And these two guys, these two guys are very, very senior
captains. Either one of them could be an
Admiral and I think both of themwill make Admiral.
In fact, Trowbridge will go on to go very, very high.
And so so he goes up there with like 2 of Jarvis's best
captains. They hit a storm and it's and
(17:18):
they almost, and Nelson aboard Vanguard almost runs aground in
Sardinia. I mean, it's a really bad storm.
So they don't really figure out what's going on with the French,
and they're distracted by this storm.
At the same time, Jarvis decidessomething's really going on.
I don't know what it is. Nelson needs my support.
And he sends another 11 ships ofthe line to Nelson, and these
(17:40):
are his best ships of the line under his best captains.
It's like I'm going to pick the All Star team.
The Band of brothers, right? You're right and this is when
the band of brothers begins. But it the credit here should
also go to Jarvis. Jarvis.
Jarvis is the guy who picks all the talent, including the head
talent, which is which is is Nelson.
(18:02):
Nelson later calls this his bandof brothers.
He comes to love this squadron more.
It's this happens in the Navy. I mean, there's certain ships
that I just loved being on, you know, the John F Kennedy.
I loved being a part of that team when I was on the America
with Air Wing One. I loved being on that ship.
And this is this is for Nelson. This was his favorite squadron
(18:25):
of all time, was the squadron that Jarvis gives him.
Now, one of the big problems with the Storm, though, is that
it scatters Nelson's frigates. And so he has no frigates.
So he has this 14 battleship squadron.
He's got a Brig under Hardy who's later his captain on the
on the Victory. So what happens here?
(18:47):
Nelson finally gets the whole fleet together and he he goes
to, he goes towards the Eastern Med and at the same time the
French seize Malta. So Napoleon does this unexpected
thing and manages this brilliantcoup in seizing Malta.
(19:08):
Now that'll play a role later on.
We'll talk about that. But that throws off Nelsons
calculations. And once he gets the whole fleet
together just South of the Straits of Messina, which is
between southern Italy and Sicily, he will ask his four
senior captain, Suamarez, Foley,Trowbridge.
And there was one other captain.Oh, Ball, Alexander Ball.
(19:29):
He basically says, where do you think the French fleet is going?
He goes, they could go here, here, here or Egypt, which would
do us the most harm. And then that's where I think
they're going. And he asked in writing for what
they thought they all went, yeah, boss, he's going to
Alexandria. So he sails the whole fleet to
Alexandria. Well, Napoleon just kind of
leisurely finishing up at Malta,loads the fleet back up.
(19:53):
They go north of Crete. So Nelson sails so fast, he gets
to Alexandria before Napoleon gets there.
And he goes, we guessed wrong. And so he goes.
He doesn't stick around. If he had stuck around, he
probably would not have only destroyed the French fleet, he
would have destroyed the French army.
He might have killed Napoleon. In fact, you know chances are he
would have killed Napoleon because.
(20:15):
The way the British ships fight these battles is just lethal.
I mean, it's Napoleon being Napoleon.
He's one of these guys who's outthere in the midst of battle in
his uniform, kind of like Nelson.
So it's hard to imagine Napoleonwould would have survived, but
he might. He might have.
So the French fleet gets there and they unload the whole army.
And Nelson goes all the way backto Sicily and he hears Napoleon
(20:40):
has captured Malta and left Malta.
Without any hesitation he sets off with his 14 ships of the
line and his Brig under Hardy for Alexandria.
Well, yeah, And it's interestingbecause, you know, Nelson's
probably pulling his hair out trying to figure out where this
giant French fleet is. So when we get to this point
(21:01):
here in a minute, you can see why when he finally found him,
he just said let's attack. We're not waiting anymore.
We're going right in. Right, right.
So and on the cruise, both the first time to Alexandria and the
second time to Alexandria, and Italk about it in the mission
command chapter, the mission command book.
Nelson, there were a couple of his captains that he didn't know
very well. Like three of them he only knew
(21:22):
by reputation. The rest of them he personally
knew, but he kept, he would bring them on board,
particularly the four biggies, Ball, Suamarez, Foley and
Trowbridge. He'd bring those guys on board
and talk to them about what he wanted to do in the battle, how
he wanted to fight the battle, how much he trusted their
judgement. And this is going to be a battle
(21:43):
that's really a team win, not a single win by anyone, man.
Nelson's an overall command, buthe does this thing called
decentralized command. He's going to give his captains
all kinds of authorities to do all kind of things now.
He'll give them some specific, simple guidance, which he always
does with flag signals. But he let them know his idea
(22:04):
was we may attack the French fleet as soon as we arrive.
They all knew that and they wereall prepared for that.
Yeah, and I know my listeners hate when I compare Napoleon to
Nelson, but I think that's how they were similar.
I'm going to give you the what to do.
The how to do is on you guys. I'm going to delegate that to
you. But here's what you have to do.
You figure out how. Yeah, yeah.
(22:24):
Like with with Davu and Sewell and all those guys at
Ousterlitz, it's like, no, you handle that, you handle the the
flank March, you handle seizing the Pratts in high.
So I don't, I'm not going to give you a direct, I'm just
going to tell you when to go andthen you go, right?
Yeah, right. Well, let's this is the tricky
part. Now we're going to get into the
(22:45):
this how the two naval forces are set up as the battle begins.
Abu Qir Bay has rocky Shoals, and it's protected by cannons
and mortars from a nearby Fort. How does Bruets position his 13
ships of the line? OK, so bruets, by this time the
relationship with the Poland hasbroken down.
(23:06):
I don't I could never find whether he asked Napoleon to
actually leave with the fleet sothat he wouldn't be caught in a
disadvantaged position against the Lee shore, which is what
happens now. Lee shore is the shore that's
downwind, right? It's not upwind.
So, so he's worried about that, but I don't know if he ever
asked Napoleon if he could leave, but that probably would
(23:29):
have been his best move was to just take the fleet away and try
to evade what the coming Thunderbolt from Nelson.
So So he anchors and it's said that some of his captains tried
to persuade him to anchor closerin.
He does let his frigates anchor closer in, but he keeps his
(23:51):
ships of the line a little further offshore inside the
actual harbor itself. There was not room for all these
ships, but he he almost certainly could have anchored
much closer to the shore than hedid.
So. So the Anchorage position that
he chooses is, is flawed and it basically goes from West to east
(24:14):
in a sort of line that's going from the northwest, West,
northwest to South SE. So, so it's a long line of 13
battleships. And then the four French
frigates are inside that in another line.
And on the other side of the French frigates is absolutely
Shoalwater. You'll run aground there, right,
right. So they're marking that.
(24:34):
So that's the that's probably where Bruyers should have
anchored. And so he doesn't take his
captain's advice. There's some discussion that
Napoleon denies him permission to do that.
I don't think that ever happened.
I think it was Brew A's was concerned that he might run some
of his ships aground just tryingto anchor that close.
So he anchored his thought as heas close as he thought he could
(24:55):
safely get away with given the skill of his crews.
Now this is all before the British show up.
Right, so Nelson finally gets a fix on the French Navy's
position. He sees them sitting there in a
straight line, single file. How many ships does Nelson have
and what is his strategy of attack?
So the British have 14 ships to the line, 14 battleships, the
(25:19):
French have 13. But the French have the weight
of metal on their ships. They have bigger ships with more
guns, right? Including the biggest ship.
Bruet's flagship is L'Oreal, which is 120 gun first rate ship
of the line, one of the biggest,most massive ships in the world.
And it'll do some damage in thisbattle.
(25:39):
I mean, one of the British shipsof the line will be out of
position, and two broadsides from the laureate will just
practically destroy that ship, the Blairathon.
So he's got the way to meddle. The problem is many of his gun
crews are helping Napoleon ashore.
Now, first you'd go who puts their gun crews ashore?
But when they think they might get attacked by the British
(26:00):
fleet, well, remember, Napoleon had asked for these
artillerists. He's having problems finding,
you know, there's attrition. Where do you go when you need
artillery and you're the French?You go to the French fleet and
get these unemployed Gunners offthe ships.
So they've, he's actually beefedup his army was one of some of
these really good artillery Gunners from the French fleet.
(26:21):
And again, they, they're anchored in this line of 13
ships. And so they don't think anybody
can go on the inside between theinside of the French line and
the Shoal water, even though 4 French frigates have done that,
right. So that space of water, which is
probably about at most, at its widest, maybe 1000 meters,
(26:42):
difficult to navigate and sail around on a sailing ship with
contrary winds around shore water Nets.
So this is this is like a Siemens nightmare here.
So Perez is like, nobody would be stupid enough to go.
But so he doesn't need those guncrews.
So he's so he's got his gun crews just on the outward
northward facing part of the line.
(27:04):
So here are my hands. That's his line.
And so all the gun crews are facing that way, which makes
perfect sense given what Nelson is planning on doing, actually.
Yeah, for my listeners it's basically 1 French line being
enveloped by two British lines of boats.
And how that happens is fascinating.
So, so so Nelson shows up in thelate afternoon of August 1st,
(27:30):
right? So Nelson held for leather.
He's talked to his guys, he shows up, there's the French
fleet, and he sends 2 signals tohis fleet.
The first one is prepare for battle, OK.
The 2nd signal is one of the most astonishing signals ever
sent in naval history and will be until we get to Trafalgar,
(27:51):
that is, prepare for battle and prepare to anchor by the stern.
So Nelson and Jarvis, I think, had both studied Rodney at the
Saints. And they said, well, the big
problem was that the ships, you know, couldn't stay stationary.
They had to keep moving. What if they anchored next to
their victims and just pounded them to splinters?
(28:13):
So Nelson is going to have his ships sail into the swine and
then anchor opposite each of their intended targets by the
British have to move these heavyanchors, heavy ropes back to the
stern of their ships. They don't keep the anchors in
the stern. So they're doing this while
they're sailing. The sailors have to be good at
(28:35):
this. As it turns out, about 10 of
Nelson's ships are going to do this maneuver almost.
And this is one of the most difficult things to do, to do a
by the they're going to have thewind at their backs.
They're going to be moving forward and they're going to
drop anchor. And it's just a really difficult
complex when he tell when he sends this signal, British at
the British captains all know what they're supposed to do.
(28:57):
So they sail in from the north and Foley is kind of leading the
charge, decide to sail behind the French line.
So here's the French line. They sail behind the French line
into the No Go Shoalwater. And so they double the French
fleet and then they execute the anchoring maneuver as a doublet.
(29:19):
Well, here's what must have beenvery scary.
If I'm aboard, if I'm a French sailor, on those French ships,
1/2 of the gun crews are on the beach, so they can't help me.
And two, this isn't just a strafing run.
If they're dropping anchor, thatmeans they're going to stay
there and try and kill us all day, all night long.
They're not going anywhere. It must have been very scary.
(29:40):
Yeah, his, his captains have been told to choose their
victims. And so this is like, well,
couldn't you end up with too many ships on one ship and then
other ships? So the British are all watching
what they're doing. They're watching each other.
And Nelson sends the signal. Everybody who hasn't already
followed Foley and Bald follow me.
And he achieves this almost perfect doubling maneuver.
(30:03):
And then they anchor. And, yeah, the French are, like,
astonished by what takes place. They're like, oh, no.
The Belarifon tries to anchor onthe northern side of the
laureate. It mishandles the anchoring
evolution, and while it's doing that, the Laureate sends 2
broadsides, essentially 120 gunsworth of metal, and Belarifon
(30:26):
drifts out of the battle and outof the battle.
So the battle actually doesn't start out well for Nelson
because of what happens to the Belarifon.
But his guys on the inside almost immediately begin to rake
the French. And then Alexandra Ball puts
himself between the laureate andthe ship in front of the
laureate, the tonal. All right, So he actually
anchors with the line split kindof like we'll see a Trafalgar
(30:50):
where they'll penetrate the line.
And then he begins to do some fascinating things.
And we'll, we'll talk about that, but the French just kind
of freak out, Nelson famously states.
Before the battle, before this time tomorrow, I shall have
gained A peerage or Westminster Abbey.
So he he's totally confident that he's going to destroy this
(31:10):
French fleet and that the British king will make him a
Lord, will make him a noble. Or die trying.
Or die trying. And that's, and his captains are
of the same mind. They're all going to do this.
And these two guys, Foley and Ball, do the most damage of any
of the British captains. Alexander had penetrated the
(31:31):
line and he prepared special combustible grenades and he gets
close enough to the Lorion that he throws them into the Admirals
quarters at the back of the Lorion and sets it on fire.
And then he just starts pouring Castor and grape into the fire.
The Lorion catches fire. Now this is right after she's
destroyed the Belarophon. The sun is sinking, it's getting
(31:54):
dark. Everybody up and down the line
can see that the Lorion's badly on fire and it's going to blow
up and the battle dies down is everybody's battens down the
ashes for the mother of all shipexplosions which occurs.
Now prior to Loriant blowing up,Brias is killed by a cannonball.
(32:15):
So he actually dies fighting. He even says I'm going to die
fighting. One of his captains says should
we should we pull anchor and setsail?
He goes, no, I'm going to die fighting.
And so. And he does.
Yeah, the blast was so horrific that both sides stopped firing
for 10 minutes because of the shock and awe of the
destruction. But the fighting picks up again.
Again, this is in the middle of the night.
(32:36):
This is now, like, I think, 1:00AM, and some of the French fleet
escapes, right? This isn't a total loss.
No, but it it's about as close to a total loss as you can get.
The the debris, flaming debris from the Laureate sets both the
British and the French ships on fire.
So the battle dies down as all these ships try to put out these
fires so they don't all get blown to smithereens.
(32:58):
And astonishingly, ball ship theAlexander is the one that's set
most badly on fire by the explosion because she's the
closest. Takes about two hours for all
the French and British crews to put out the fires, and then they
go back to pounding each other. But remember the inner line of
the British ships, There's nobody pounding back against
(33:18):
them. And so about 3:00 or 4:00 in the
morning. The commander of the van is
Admiral Pierre Vilniv, and he's commanding the three leading
ships of the line. And he says that's it, I've had
enough. He only gets two of the ships of
the line away, +2 of the four frigates.
So two of the four frigates are destroyed.
(33:40):
So he gets away with two ships of the line and two frigates.
Now why does he get away? Well, Nelson on Vanguard is
wounded in the head. In fact, initially he's knocked
out. He's bleeding so badly they
think he's dead. So after after, after this
battle, you know, we always think of Nelson.
(34:01):
He's missing an arm, he's missing an eye.
Well, Nelson's never the same his.
He gets traumatic brain injury. He has these horrible headaches
for the rest of his life from the wound he receives at the
Nile. Hardly anybody ever talks about
his wound at the Nile. I mean, there's some discussion
that he'll never fight again because of this wound.
Yeah, and I'm glad you pointed pointed that out.
(34:23):
And the name Villanova? If you get my audience, you'll
hear that name again. And so Villanova gets away
because Nelson is effectively not.
And Nelson had failed to appointsomebody to be second in
command. So essentially after he's
wounded, which is right around the time the Laurent blows up,
these captains fight the battle without Nelson's guidance at
(34:44):
all, but Nelson has set them up for success.
He's sort of envisioned how the battle is going to go, but they
they execute the battle almost perfectly.
The fighting gradually dies downas more and more friendship
strike their colors and surrender.
So what were the ship losses on both fleets?
We'll get to the actual casualties in a minute.
(35:05):
So 11 ships of the line are captured or destroyed.
So essentially on. The French.
Side on the French side so so the bulk of the French fleet is
is destroyed. This is not quite as big of a
victory as camper down over the Dutch again, the ships are much
bigger more prestigious. I mean, this is this is, this is
(35:28):
the cream of the French Navy that Nelson has just destroyed.
The best captains, the best Admiral, the best crews in the
French Navy are destroyed. These two frigates and 11
battleships. And again, this is mostly a
night battle. So when the sun finally comes
up, the final 2 French ships arejust being pounded to pieces by
(35:48):
the British and and they finallystrike their colors.
Yeah, on the British side. I know that Belafran.
Did they lose any other ships? I know one ran or ground.
So, so Trobridges ship runs aground and Belair Fund, but
none of the British ships are sunk.
They're all damaged. Just about every single British
ship is damaged, which is a testimony to the French.
(36:09):
When you hear the casualties, you'll realize this was a hard
fight. This was not an easy, cheap
victory in any sense of the word.
All right. People tend to go, oh, yeah.
As a cheap, nearly bloodless victory.
No, it wasn't. It was was pretty bloody.
Nelson's badly wounded. Several of Nelson's captains are
wounded, but none of them are killed.
None of the ships sink, but the Belarophon is probably the worst
(36:32):
damage. The one that gives them the
biggest problems, of course, is is full as Trowbridge's ship
because it's a ground, so they have to pull it out.
You mentioned the Fort. The Fort turns out to be nothing
too far away to provide any support, and none of the British
ship ships are stupid enough to go near it.
The only ship that's in any danger from the Fort is
Trowbridge's ship. It's a ground and, and even that
(36:55):
ship finds out that there's no threat.
So, so that's that's the ship. So the British don't lose a
ship. The French lose the equivalent
of 14 ships. OK, on the human side I know the
casualties for the French are quite appalling, losing 2000
dead or wounded along with 3000 prisoners.
So basically 5000 casualties versus just 1000 casualties for
(37:18):
the British Seaman John Nichols states Quote.
I went on deck to view the stateof the fleets, and an awful
sight it was. The whole Bay was covered with
dead bodies, mangled, wounded and scorched.
End Quote. So what does this loss mean to
Napoleon's Egyptian expedition? OK, so yeah, so almost 1000
(37:41):
British are killed or wounded inthis battle.
So the the numbers of killed in this battle, though, testify to
how horrible it was. 2200 Frenchkilled.
I mean, that is just a shocking number.
Napoleon's fleet is smashed. Now, I've heard different people
talk about the legacy of the Battle of Al.
The legacy here is France's bestgeneral or best generals,
(38:04):
because we're talking about to say we're talking about
Napoleon, we're talking about LAN, we're talking about Murad,
we're talking about Davu. So you've got the best generals
in the French army, with a couple exceptions.
But they're maroon. They're marooned there.
They're marooned, they're trapped in Egypt.
There's no way to pull them out.You know, the only way to get
(38:27):
this army back to France is to March through the Ottoman
Empire. And Napoleon, you know, and
Napoleon, you know, bless his heart, he, he tries, he toss and
he gets stymied by another greatBritish naval hero, Sidney Smith
in Acre. Yeah.
So, you know, and maybe he's thinking, if I could capture
Acre, maybe we could sneak a French fleet in there and I
(38:49):
could get some of my army away. And.
Not only can they not be resupplied, where was Napoleon's
treasury it. Was on his ship, right?
It was on his ships. So he's got all this vast wealth
on these ships, much of it plundered from Malta, from the
Knights of Saint John. How's he going to pay his
(39:11):
soldiers? You know, and he's lot and it's,
he loses all this prestige with this battle.
And the thing that really matters is it Bolton's, the
Napoleon's enemies, this the, the, it's electric.
It's almost like what happens after the Battle of Victoria
when, you know, the coalition islike, wow, you know, there's
this great British victory in Spain.
(39:31):
Well, here's this great British victory in Egypt and all of a
sudden you know Austria is back talking to the British again the
about maybe coming back into thewar and the Russians when
Napoleon seizes Malta seems likea good idea, but who's the Grand
Master of the Knights of Saint John?
SAR Paul and SAR Paul is incensed.
(39:55):
The only way I think the French could have avoided getting the
Russians into the war would havebeen to essentially say we're
just waiting for a Russian fleetto come to Malta and take
possession. That's not what the French did.
They, you know, so the, so the legacy of Malta, which should
have been positive, another French base in the
Mediterranean, is negative because it brings the Russians
into the second coalition. It also leads the French to be
(40:17):
vulnerable. I mean, they've got this.
This really good army in Egypt and now they're spread thin all
over Europe with, with no more than really 200,000 troops in
the active armies. And they've made it worse
because they've conquered Naples.
And so their armies in Italy arespread, you know, with with from
the boot of Italy all the way upto the Alps.
(40:40):
And so the French armies are areare are vulnerable and the
allies look at all this. And so the Nile plays it a key
role in causing the war of the Second Coalition.
Well, let's talk about that because it the legacy is tricky.
It doesn't end Napoleon's expedition.
It doesn't prevent him from becoming emperor.
It isn't Nelson's last major victory.
(41:01):
You could say Trafalgar is probably more important.
And it doesn't end the French navy's ability to conduct
maneuvers that that happens at Trafalgar.
So is it a big bell? Absolutely.
It's very important. But does it really stop
anything? The legacy, It's tricky.
Well, the British are certainly far better off after the Nile
(41:24):
than they had been, and the and the French face probably their
most serious crisis with the Warof the Second Coalition.
So the War of the Second Coalition begins and and the war
goes very, very poorly for the French initially horrible.
They all of Napoleon's conquestsare lost in Italy, you know, and
(41:46):
eventually, you know, the saviorthat saves France, the three
guys that really do the most to save France from this string of
catastrophes will, will, will bethe minister of war Bernadotte,
Andrew Messena in Switzerland and Brune in the low low
Countries. So, so you'll have all these
other guys if you ever wonder why they all end up becoming
(42:07):
marshals. Now now you know why, why they
saved France in 1799. So you know now Nelson's legacy
after this is mixed. Nelson Nelson gets a diamond
spray from the Ottoman Sultan. He becomes feted.
He becomes the first Baron of the Nile.
He becomes he becomes the rock star of the anti Napoleon world,
(42:31):
right? And he repairs back to Naples
and then he begins his his infamous affair with Emma
Hamilton's. You know, Nelson's great victory
is the beginning of sort of a bad period for Nelson where,
where Nelson sort of, and then Nelson goes on to add, you know,
shame in Naples and hanging, hanging the revolutionaries and
(42:53):
everything. And so, so Nelson sort of
becomes this, this this embarrassment to the British
government at one point, even though they reward him and he's
so famous and everything. But again, we have to remember
the British have Carte Blasche now in the Met the the French
fleet is not destroyed, but it is crippled.
The Spanish fleet and the Frenchfleet until the Treaty of Amion
(43:16):
is signed are going to essentially be a neutralized by
the blockade. So yeah, so the the legacies
here difficult to, but certainlyit's it's it's a set back.
Right. And that leads to my final
question. And I I don't usually like to
Monday morning quarterback on this show, but what should have
(43:39):
Napoleon and Brewes done with the fleet?
Well, they they managed to accomplish the impossible.
They evade Nelson and land a hostile army in a critical
location, a decisive point alongthe British line of
communication to India. So, so Napoleon, what could have
he have done different? I'll talk about that.
(44:01):
Second, let me talk about Brier first.
Brier should have just picked, should have set sail.
He should have gone back to Malta.
I think he could have gotten a whole fleet into Valletta.
And now Nelson is going to thinktwice about trying to get him
right and going and destroy the fleet in Valletta.
Because because Nelson's won bigdefeat to this place at Teneriff
where he tried to battle forts and he lost his arm for it.
(44:21):
And he also got a relative killed, you know, And so, so
Bray should have should have runBray.
Bray should have just picked up the fleet and said, hey, you
know, I'm going to try to get back here when I can, you know,
but I'll see. Us when you need us.
Right, right. I mean, they dodged a huge
bullet when Nelson outran them and then skedaddle back to
(44:44):
Sicily, right? So if that had happened, the
battle might not have ever happened again.
Had Nelson had frigates, had he been a little bit more patient,
he might have destroyed the armyand the Navy.
Eventually Abercrombie will comeback and and finally finish off
what's left of the French army acouple of years later.
But but now for for Napoleon, What could, what could he have
(45:05):
done different? Again, if he had sent his fleet
away, he could have said, OK, we're just going to buckle down
here. We're going to go native and
we're going to do everything we can to make our position here as
safe as we possibly can. But what does he actually do?
He he manages to keep in touch with with Villeneuve.
(45:28):
And then when the time is right and he's come back from the Acre
expedition, and then he defeats another Turkish army at Abu
Kirbe, by the way, he will hop on board Villeneuve ships and
and scurry back to France for for 18 Vermeer.
Without his army. Without his army, but with a lot
of his key helpers. That's true.
(45:48):
Always. You know, the guy I think about
is, is MacArthur leaving the Philippines, right.
He takes takes his dream team with him, right.
Yeah. Well.
And I think 16 cases of mission command, I think that's why you
it was included in this book. There's a lot of things that
could have been done better looking back on it.
Right. And Nelson provides sort of a
model for how you command, command a team of proven
(46:11):
professionals. You don't micro management and
they go ahead and they win the battle for you even though
you're badly wounded. Yeah.
Nelson establishes, enables and sets the stage with his
aggression, his decision one to turn around and go back, you
know, as soon as he realizes he's been hoodwinked, his
decision to go in the 1st place,you know, so his gut instincts
(46:37):
are absolutely correct all the time here.
And then his the way he gets hiscaptains ready for this battle
and then turns him loose on the French fleet as a wonder to
behold. And, and anybody who wants to be
a, a, a great commander should study what Nelson's actions
prior to his being wounded at the battle of denial that that
the anchoring maneuver is just astonishing.
(46:59):
No other fleet in the world could have done that.
Only the British fleet could have done that.
Love that. Yeah.
And again, if you want to check it out for free, you can
download this. It's the is it the Army,
University Press, the website? Yeah, so it's 16 cages of
mission command. It's at the Army University
Press website now. There's another book called
(47:21):
Great Commanders and there's a chapter in there on Nelson by me
as well. So OK, so check that out as
well. There's a third book called
Great Unknown Victories, also free, also from Army University
Press, and my chapter in there is on Saint Vincent.
Love it. OK.
Yeah. Well, thank you, John, as
always, for joining the show. Really good episode.
I learned a lot. And yeah, Battle of the Nile.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.