THE SAILOR'S NELSON
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] -
Szn,—Please allow me to reply briefly to your reviewer's criticism of " The Sailor's Nelson." I claimed for Nelson that he was the greatest of world strategists and leaders in war (not as a law-giver), and my reasons for putting him above others of the past are as follows :
No other leader of the past had a Napoleon against him, and they had forces superior in training and material to their adversaries. Also, none of them had such a wide field of strategy, stretching from the East Indies to the West Indies, to consider, as Nelson had. In all the years that his brain was opposed to Napoleon's he never made a mistake, and he defeated Napoleon's three great schemes by penetrating his strategic ideas and defeating each of them in a tactical battle. Before the Nile, people in different parts of the British Empire !eared that_ .Napoleon was going to attack them. Lord
Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, replied to Dundas that there were other dangers besides India, and .as he did not write to Nelson it is certain that he did not put India first.
At Copenhagen, Nelson took a great risk, because he saw the danger of the Armed Neutrality (Russia, Sweden and Denmark) joining Napoleon if the battle was lost by us, and that would have crushed us ashore and afloat. If Trafalgar had been lost the probabilities are that the whole of Europe, would have been forced to join Napoleon and the day of Waterloo would never be born, for probably the world would have become " Napoleonia." In August, 1805, the British Government thought England or the West Indies 'were the next objects of attack ; but on September 1st Nelson went to Pitt and persuaded him that he was wrong, and that the French Fleet would join the Spanish at Cadiz and then on to the Mediterranean.
Nelson was Napoleon's master in world strategy—that is, Land and Sea strategy combined—and the French Minister of Marine, Decres (who adored his master) wrote to him the most pathetic letter on August 22nd, 1805, imploring him to have a Naval Council, for he said : " A Minister of Marine, dominated by Your Majesty in all that concerns the sea, must serve you ill and become as nothing for the glory of your arms, if even he does not become harmful." Three days later Napoleon " threw up the sponge," and informed Talleyrand that he was going to give up the invasion of England. As his excuse, he even allowed that he had been wrong : " I have been so often mistaken in my life that I no longer blush for it." There is no doubt that Nelson was Napoleon's master in World Strategy. It seems a pity that the English should not acknowledge that they have had the greatest world strategist and leader in history-.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
