Naval History
France only had Britain as its enemy between 1803 and 1805. Napoleon Bonaparte, the famous French leader and politician, after conquering Italy and Egypt had its eyes on England territory for occupation. His Grand Armee sat idly around Boulogne in the hundreds of anchored ships in the channel ports. Napoleon's naval strategies to crush the British Royal Army using his French and Spanish fleets failed at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (Dugdale-Pointon January 07, 2006). [1: Dugdale-Pointon, T. historyofwar, "Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)." http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_napoleon.html]
The Naval Strategies of Britain and France (1803-1805)
Both France and Britain derived towards war due to a mutual misunderstanding. Both the countries were not fully prepared to conduct a renewed war against each other. There were no geo-strategic reasons that compelled the two opponents to declare a war against each other. Britain wanted to rebel against France simply because they could no more withstand the continuous challenges and degradation from Bonaparte. On the other hand, France went to war just because Napoleon wanted it to (Stilwell, 2005). [2: Stilwell, A. The Trafalgar Companion. West way, Borley: Osprey Publishing, 2005. http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=9SPR-2qwtSgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+trafalgar+companion&hl=en&ei=glDfTt3gEIinhAeMqr3vBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20trafalgar%20companion&f=false]
Neither France nor Britain was completely ready to participate in a warfare in military and naval terms. The Royal Navy, however, mobilized rapidly from 32 to 72 ships-of-the-line in service in July 1803. British government affirmed to take part in war without any guarantee of assistance from any other country. Bonaparte, on the other hand, had an enormous advantage over Britain both strategically and militarily (Stilwell, 2005). Britain's army was very small despite naval superiority over France. However, it was hard for the British to act against France without aid from its allies (Dugdale-Pointon January 07, 2006). Bonaparte knew that in order to invade Britain, he must possess 3 prime essentials; a strong army, sufficient transportation means and a powerful navy to safeguard the passage and disembarkation of the forces. All the three essentials were not easy to provide. However Bonaparte managed to raise an army of 210,000 personnel from 1803 to 1805. He did so with pain and the results did not give much hope. The men who were taken from the countryside were trained under the supervision of the experienced naval officers (Fisher 1913). [3: "Ibid."] [4: Dugdale-Pointon, T. historyofwar, "Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)." http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_napoleon.html] [5: Herbert Fisher, Napoleon (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1913), 3, http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5637802.]
France did not have enough vessels to take men to the Britain. Thus, thousands of flat-bottomed ships were ordered in May, July and August for the transportation of army. It was impossible to build such a great number of vessels. Napoleon came to the conclusion that despite inadequate transportation vessels, he must concentrate on strengthening his naval forces to be boarded to the Channel. The dilemma was that the British waters were in constant surveillance under the inflexible sailor Admiral Cornwallis (Fisher 1913). [6: "Ibid."]
Napoleon persuaded the Spanish government in 1804 to join France in war against Britain. He wanted to divert the attention of British fleet from guarding the Channel. Thus, the war of 1805 was a cat-mouse game in which the opponents tried to outwit each other with naval strategies ("HISTORY OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS"). [7: Historyworld, "HISTORY OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS." http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=mgo.]
Under the command of Villeneuve, French and Spanish fleet withdrew to Cadiz in August as a combined force. However, three British ships of the line were keeping the port under observation. Seeing this, Nelson arrived at the end of September to take control along with his men ("HISTORY OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS"). [8: "Ibid."]
The Battle of Trafalgar
It is said that the simplest way to crush a naval opponent is to destroy the masts and rigging of their ships and clear the upper deck of personnel simultaneously. The opponents can then be easily forced to surrender with no actual help. The same scenario happened at Trafalgar (Clayton & Craig 2005). On Oct. 21, 1805, the naval engagement between the forces of France and Britain held off Cape Trafalgar on the South Western coast of Spain. The allied French and Spanish fleets under Pierre de Villeneuve were defeated by the British fleet under Horatio Nelson. This was a famous victory on the part of Britain as it had less number of ships. Nelson's strategized...
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