In touch
Donald Watt Trafalgar John Terraine (Sidgwick and Jackson £5.95) John Terraine is more familiar to readers as a military historian, defender of FieldMarshal Earl Haig and others of the more traduced generals of the First and Second World Wars, and a virulent critic of amateur debunking 'instant historians'. Among aficionados of naval history his name on the spine of a picture-book which focuses, inevitably, on the greatest naval hero of British history, may raise a few eyebrows. They should however be lowered at least to half-mast once the text is perused. For this is not simply a book about a sea-battle. It is a book about the war with Napoleon in the years 1803-05, about Napoleon's plans for an invasion of Britain, Britain's manoeuvres to produce an Austro-Russian coalition against Napoleon and the disasters which befell that coalition at Ulm and Austerlitz. It is a book which contrasts Napoleon's one attempt to depart from a continental strategy with British maritime strategy in which the move of General Craig's small army, 6,000 troops, to Malta Is the key to Napoleon's abandonment of his invasion plans as much as the dominance of British sea power which made those plans impossible.
When one comes to Trafalgar itself, it is less surprising to find the historian of the Somme in charge than some might suppose. Whatever the Nelson touch was believed by past historians to comprise, to Mr Terraine it is a combination of extremely highly developed professional skills and superior gun power on the British side. Trafalgar did not, in fact, occur as it was planned, since Nelson's attack was launched against a foe he thought was retreating rather than advancing; and the tactic he adopted, a charge in two columns against a line of floating gun emplacements, resulted in the leading ships taking the brunt of the battle, while those at the rear were largely unemployed. The battle itself degenerated into a series of ship to ship engagements in which British morale, expertise and seamanship made them the inevitable victors. Nelson's tactics succeeded admirably because of the superiority of his ships and crews; against a less demoralised and better trained enemy the battle could very well have had a very different outcome. Mr Terraine has contributed an unusually sophisticated text for such a book, replete with citations from contemporary documents and a whole chapter of eye-witness accounts. It is as professional a job as that of any of the naval commanders whose professionalism Mr Terraine so clearly admires.
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