Lord Nelson's battle of the Nile

Horatio Nelson’s battle against the French was an important one to the Federalists in America. Written in England by J. W. Fielding, this song, “Lord Nelson’s Battle of the Nile,” in high-flown language was pure nationalist propaganda and was soon parodied in The Siege of Tripoli. The song was published in sheet music in England and America and appeared in four songsters between 1806 and 1811 (Schnapper 37; Wolfe, Secular Music #460-64; R. Keller, Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources). Commander Martin describes the circumstances that led to the battle, derived from correspondence of the English principals involved:

By the winter of 1798, England and France had been at war for five years. The period had been one characterized by French successes on land and English victories at sea. At this point, the latter were recovering from the traumatic mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, and were looking to reenter the Mediterranean from which they had been forced to withdraw when allies and bases were swallowed up by the French. The man selected by the Earl St. Vincent, Admiral John Jervis, to make the effort was Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, with a small squadron made up of Vanguard (flag), Orion, and Alexander, each of seventy-four guns, frigates Emerald and Terpsichore, and sloop of war La Bonne Citoyenne.

Nelson sailed from Gibraltar on May 9, 1798, and made for the Gulf of Lyons, where he intended to discover what the French situation was in Toulon and environs. In this location, at two A.M. on the twenty-second, a violent squall struck the squadron, driving the frigates and sloop off and leaving Vanguard a crippled wreck, her foremast and all topmasts carried away. As the British sought a haven in which to recover, a French squadron escorted a fleet of transports out of Toulon, transports bearing Napoleon Bonaparte on an expedition.

Two days later, the British made Sardinia, where, while the official stance was hostile, the locals quietly provided Nelson assistance in repairing his flagship. On the twenty-eighth Nelson was underway again, determined to carry out his orders and discover where the French had gone. He received the good news on June fourth from the war brig La Mutine that his force was to be augmented by ten line of battleships and a fifty-gunner, all of which appeared on the tenth.

The twelfth found him satisfied that the French were nowhere on the western coast of Italy or in the offshore islands, and he shaped course through the Straits of Messina to see if Malta had been the French target. Learning on the twenty-second from a passing merchant ship that his foe had departed the island four days earlier, Nelson decided to head for Alexandria, Egypt, which he then thought was the likeliest objective. Arriving off that city a week later, Nelson was disappointed to find that his foe had not been seen or heard from.

The little admiral next turned northward to scout out Crete, Turkey, and Greece, lamenting the fact he had no frigates to act as his wide-ranging scouts, only a horde of lumbering liners. The circuit was made, and on July eighteenth Nelson was back in sight of Sicily with no clue as to where the French had gone. A week later, his ships re-provisioned at Syracuse. Nelson moved out again, determined to check Alexandria once more as there didn’t seem, to him, another likely target for such a force. (It was later determined that, despite his damage, Nelson had actually beaten the French to Egypt the first time by sailing a more direct route, and that the antagonists had passed just out of sight of one another at one point.)

The British arrived off Alexandria at noon on August first. Alexander and Swiftsure, which had been sent ahead the night before to reconnoiter the harbors, reported no French, but Zealous, which had been sent to look in the bay next eastward, reported sixteen men-of-war anchored in line of battle in Aboukir Bay. (There were actually seventeen.)  Having held repeated strategy sessions with his captains during the preceding two months to inform them of his plans in several different tactical situations, Nelson immediately signaled ‘prepare for battle’ and shaped his course eastward.

Aboukir Bay opens to the east, with mainland to the west and south, and the northern limit marked by a series of islands connected by shoals which extended a considerable distance eastward of the easternmost island. Thirteen French liners were anchored in a north-south line beginning a short distance due south of the largest island in the northern line. The line bowed slightly eastward. To the west were four frigates, also anchored in a roughly parallel line. The French admiral De Brueys, commanding from the 120-gunner L’Orient in the middle of the line, thought he had arranged things so that the British could only attack him from the east. Nelson’s thirteen liners plus Leander (50) and Mutine, swept in around the shoals. Culloden cut it too close and went hard aground where she remained until after the battle. Nelson in Vanguard, headed for the third ship in the French line, opposite which he anchored, while his subordinates fanned out in accordance with their well-discussed plans. Some made for the Frenchmen on either side of Nelson’s target, while others, led by Goliath and Zealous, proceeded through the fires from the leading French ships and artillery on the island to the north to enter the waters between the two French lines and gradually envelop the main French line to include the seventh unit (the flagship L’Orient).

The action began at sunset, about six-thirty P.M., and continued an unstinting bombardment until about ten o’clock, when the huge French ship blew up with an astounding roar, killing Admiral De Brueys and most of the ship’s thousand-man crew and showering the other combatants with a rain of debris. A stunned silence followed. When fire resumed it continued until five the next morning, as the British beat successive foes into submission and moved forward down the line. At the latter hour, only the last two French liners still had their colors flying. At eleven, they, together with two frigates still able to maneuver, cut their cables and stood out to sea. A wounded Nelson decided against pursuit with his heavily damaged and exhausted ships. (In the months ahead, all four escapees were taken by the British.)  The British had suffered nearly 900 killed and wounded; the French more than twice that.

The battle was a personal triumph for Horatio Nelson, who was showered with honors, and a strategic victory for Britain. Not only was her bid to reenter the Mediterranean an unmitigated success, but Napoleon’s aspirations for the conquest of the Middle East and India were permanently smashed.