Word: nelsons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...works, Trajalgar will not be a classic, but French Author Maine's broad, historical approach, coupled with a brisk style, would win an approving nod from his great U.S. predecessor. Like Mahan, Maine is obsessed by a historical drama in which one of the principal characters, Horatio Nelson, was "specially gifted with qualities" demanded by the times and the other, Napoleon Bonaparte, decidedly...
...Reasons Why. There were many reasons why the ditch stopped and eventually ditched Napoleon. Napoleon's military and organizational genius failed him -even hindered him-at sea. Nelson could say cheerfully: "Some things must be left to chance-nothing is certain in a naval battle!" But Napoleon demanded certainty all along the line. To him a fleet was just an army that happened to walk on the water. Ordered to wheel left or right, to advance or retreat, the fleet obeyed: only poltroons protested that there was no wind, or too many rocks, or not enough water. Whether...
...Battle. The situation on the British side was strikingly different. England expected every admiral to do his duty as he saw it, even at the risk of being haled before the Board of Admiralty for making mistakes. So independent were British admirals that Nelson's second-in-command, Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, greeted his commander's famed "England expects" message with the words: "I wish Nelson would stop signalling. We know well enough what we have...
...guard these that Napoleon sent his fatal order to Admiral Villeneuve, then in port in Spain, just above Gibraltar: "Wherever you find the enemy in inferior strength you will attack him without hesitation." Against his better judgment, Villeneuve sailed out from Cadiz with 40 ships to meet Nelson...
...most bloody ferocity," the battle reached its peak when ship jammed against ship, exchanging furious broadsides and grapeshot at point-blank range, with boarding parties hanging massed along the bulwark netting. The rigging of the French ships swarmed with grenadiers and sharpshooters-and it was one of these, alongside Nelson's flagship Victory, who, recognizing the great captain dressed in "a blaze of colour," took aim and mortally wounded him with a single shot. Nonetheless, by midafternoon the Franco-Spanish line had ceased to exist, annihilated by "tactical superiority, mobility, rate of fire and dash...