Who fought on the southern coast of Spain?

Answer 1

On October 21, 1805 the British Royal Navy fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson met and defeat a combined Spanish - French Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle was named for a Cape Trafalgar on the coast of southwestern Spain. The British fleet was outnumbered by the larger Franco - Spanish fleet 41 ships to 33 ships for the British. Pierre-Charles Villeneuve commanded the combined French - Spanish fleet.

Until this battle sea battles were fought by placing each fleet in a line parallel to the line formed by the enemy fleet. Ships had gun ports on both sides. The guns of the time had ample up/down adjustment for range but decidedly limited lateral (called traverse) adjustment. By sailing past each other in parallel lines, then, each ship could only fire from one side while the cannon on the opposite side of the ship had no targets. Additionally, the British had much better sailors and gunners.

Lord Nelson decided to break his fleet into two lines, parallel to each other but sailing perpendicular tho the French-Spanish line of battle. He had the portion of the British fleet under his command sail right into about the middle of the French-Spanish line of battle. The other portion of the British fleet was to sail directly across the line of battle, and as close as possible, to the rear of the French-Spanish line of battle. Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood commanded this line of ships.

This plan provided the British 2 huge advantages. First, it allowed the British to train their guns to the extremes of left or right traverse. That allowed the line commanded by Nelson to fire upon ships well up and down the French-Spanish line in both directions. In other words, his line of battle would be firing from both sides of the ship. Additionally, the closer he got to the enemy line of battle the fewer guns they could bring to bear on him because of their inability to traverse their guns.

The line of ships commanded by Collingwood would have a lesser advantage in that they could only shoot toward the front of the combined French-Spanish fleet. Finally, as each British ship, in either British line crossed through the French-Spanish line they could fire through the length of the ship on either side. That was the structurally weakest point of a ship. Futhermore, they could do so with relative impunity because the bulk of the cannon on all the combatants just fired out from the sides of the ships. In effect, when the British were closest to the enemy they could fire at the enemy without receiving fire from the enemy.

The result was a lopsided victory for the British. They did not lose a ship, and they only had 458 killed and 1,208 wounded or a total of 1,666 casualties. Unfortunately, Vice Admiral Lord Nelson was one of those killed in the action. The combined French-Spanish fleet lost 21 ships captured, 1 ship destroyed, 3,243 killed, 2,538 wounded, and about 8,000 captured.

The maneuver employed by Nelson became known as "Crossing the T".

The body of Nelson himself was placed in a cask of brandy mixed with camphor and myrrh and taken to Gibraltar. There it was placed in a lead lined coffin filled with spirits of wine and returned to England.

The ship on which he sailed, the HMS Victory was launched in 1759, it was repaired after the battle, and is still on the Active list of the Royal Navy. It is on display in Portsmith England.