Horatio Nelson: Britain’s Most Beloved Sailor

just warriors started I do want to mention another channel that a host called mega-projects mega-projects there's a channel all about mankind's greatest achievements where I take deep look at incredible buildings project structures and more whether it's the world's most impressive skyscrapers the International Space Station or Chernobyl sarcophagus I cover it all new videos come out a couple of times a week on mega projects so I think it could be for you please do go head over and subscribe there is a link in the description below and let's get into it [Music] being an island nation you would figure that Great Britain would have its fair share of naval heroes after all the wooden walls of the Royal Navy protected the nation from invasion by various unfriendly continental neighbours for hundreds of years and then projected British strength across a globe spanning Empire that the Sun never sat on but if you asked who the greatest of Britain's naval heroes are most people would give you the same answer the humble son of an Anglican priest Horatio Nelson rose to the rank of vice-admiral while confounding and taking apart the French and Spanish Navy sent against him becoming one of the most famous men in the world in the process he did everything he could do to encourage that fame relishing in his own success but he was also genuinely beloved by the people who knew him well and particularly the sailors who served under him his style of leadership is cited today in business and military leadership courses as being highly effective Nelson's death only added to his legend killed with almost the last bullet in the greatest naval battle of the age and one of the most famous in world history once again the Royal Navy had prevailed frustrating the invasion plans of Napoleon and keeping British soil safe but the death of Nelson at Trafalgar touched off a wave of national mourning that made people question if it was all worth it but before we tell you about his death let us tell you about his fascinating and complicated life Horatio Nelson was born on September the 29th 1758 in Norfolk England his father Edmonds was the parish priest of the small village of Burnham thought his mother Katherine's brother Maurice suckling was a captain in the Royal Navy ins young Horatio seemed destined for a naval career from the start in 1771 aged only 12 Nelson became a midshipman reporting to the ship HMS reasonable captain's by his uncle to be trained as a naval officer in those days it was common for teenage boys to serve on Navy ships in the days before military academies it was figured that the best teacher would be officers with first-hand experience his only career was helped along by his uncle who ensured that he was continually transferred to ships that were to see active service so that Nelson rapidly gained more experience than his peers and was thus promoted quicker in 1777 he was promoted to leftenant and was assigned to HMS Loused off which was about to sail to Jamaica and to war the rebellion of the 13 colonies of America had quickly blossomed into a worldwide war with the entry of France and Spain into the conflicts on the side of the Americans the Caribbean where ships from all for belligerence routinely sailed was a hotbed of naval activity nelson spent the next two years taking prizes capturing enemy ships the value of which was awarded to the ship's crew as prize money all the while being given more and more responsibility as his obvious talents became apparent he was promoted to captain in 1779 and in early 1780 Nelson captured a Spanish held fort on the San Juan River in Nicaragua his first significant military achievements his career was temporarily stalled when he was struck ill with malaria and was forced to return to Britain to recover Nelson soon returns to active duty in command of the HMS Albemarle which he commanded up and down the American coast until the war ended in an American victory in 1783 after the war Nelson was sent to the Caribbean to act as a sort of policeman seizing any American ships that attempted to trade with British colonial islands which was illegal under the navigation Act it was during this time that he met Frances Fanny Nesbitt a widow who lived on a plantation on the island of Nevis Nelson was smitten and her uncle offered him a large dowry to marry her it wasn't until after they were engaged that Nelson discovered the dowry was a fiction the family wasn't worth anywhere near as much as they had claimed to make matters worse Fanny had hidden the fact that she was infertile incapable of having children until after they were engaged breaking off the engagement would have been dishonorable for an English gentleman so Nelson had no choice but to go ahead with the wedding in 1787 the deception had soured the romance however and Nelson and Fanny would become more and more estranged as time passed [Music] in 1788 Nelson was sent home to Britain and for five years he languished on shore without a command with no water fight that simply weren't enough ships to go round in the peacetime Navy and so Nelson was kept in reserve on half pay and had absolutely nothing to do but tend to his affairs at home while continually badgering anyone he knew for a command he got his chance in late 1792 when the French Revolutionary Government eager to flex its might to its neighbours annex the austrian netherlands modern-day Belgium which had traditionally been kept as a buffer state the move heightened tensions between Britain and France and in preparation for war the Royal Navy called back its reserve officers including Nelson in January 1793 soon after France declared war and Nelson's ship sailed to Gibraltar in May as part of a fleet it determines to establish British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean the flashpoint of the area was the French city of tuna which was held by French Royalists but came under attack by the revolutionary Jacobins the city appealed to the Royal Navy for help but eventually a large Republican force occupied the hills around the city and began to bombard it into submission the artillery officer in charge of the bombardment was a young man named Napoleon Bonaparte and this was to be the start of his own military success story though no one knew it at the time till all fell in December and seeking a naval base close to the French coast the fleet commander ordered Nelson to blockade the French controlled island of Corsica followed by an invasion in February 1794 after the army proved reluctant to proceed Nelson himself was put in command of the land forces and helped capture the city of Ostia he played an important role in ground operations for the remainder of the Corsican campaign using cannons offloaded from naval ships to bombard enemy positions on July the 12th Nelson was wounded by debris from an artillery rounds that exploded no one of his batteries the wounds eventually cost him his sight in his right eye after the capture of Corsica Nelson spent the next three years engaged in operations in the Mediterranean until French victories in Italy at the head of an army commanded by Napoleon forced the Royal Navy to leave their base in Corsica and sail to Gibraltar in December 1796 Nelson was on the way to join them on February the 1st 1797 when quite by accident he happens upon the Spanish fleets that had left Carter Haner and was headed south to the port of Cadiz to eventually link up with their French allies Nelson's ship unseen in the fog escaped to alert the fleet commander Admiral John Jervis of the Spanish movements Gervais decided to give battle ins on Valentine's Day the two fleets met off of capes and Vincennes it was here that Nelson first distinguished himself in the eyes of the British public in commands of the HMS captain he engaged three much larger Spanish ships and captured two of them by boarding them and engaging in vicious hand-to-hand combat the prize money from these two captured ships made Nelson rich and his heroism at Cape st. Vincent had made him famous he was now sir Horatio Nelson having been made Knight of the bath and soon after the battle he was promoted to Rear Admiral one of the first things Admiral Nelson did after his promotion was to oversee a plan to capture the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands an important Spanish outpost and stopover points for the Spanish treasure fleets returning from the Americas the plan called for a simultaneous bombardment and an amphibious landing but after two aborted attempts to storm the beach on the night of July the 24th 1797 Nelson decided to lead the troops ashore himself the resulting battle was a disaster for the British the Spanish defenders were well dug in and they blasted the invading troops on the beach with cannon fire and musket tree no sooner had Nelson gone ashore than he was shot in the right arm and collapsed back into his boat the basketball had smashed his humerus bone into multiple pieces and he was rowed back to his flagship to be attended to by the surgeon medicine at the time period was barely out of the dark ages germ theory was still decades away in the most common way to prevent a wounded limb from getting gangrene and killing the victim was stabbed potaters most of Nelson's right arm was sliced off and thrown overboard most of the British force didn't fare much better when they withdrew the next day 250 had been killed and another 128 wounded Nelson was despondent both over the failure to capture Santa Cruz and by the loss of his arm he wrote to the commanding Admiral of the Mediterranean fleets that he intended to return home to England and retire as in his words a left-handed Admiral will never again be considered useful Nelson remains in England for several months recuperating but in March 1798 he went to sea again having been convinced that the Royal Navy had use for a one-armed Admiral after all and that retirement didn't really suit him anyway he returns the Mediterranean where he was given a squadron of 15 ships and ordered to Toulon to intercept a French fleet that was on the move in France Napoleon Bonaparte had become the most important political and military figure in the country his strategy for 1798 was to invade Egypt with a large army and navy and thus bring pressure to British occupied India this was in the hope that it would threaten her commercial interests and force Great Britain to abandon the war Napoleon got away from Nelson after the British ships were blown off-course by a storm but the British soon pursued them across the Mediterranean to Alexandria the French army had already won a series of victories against the ruling Mamluks and the French fleet was anchored off the coast of Alexandria in adultery of the NAR River in a supposedly impregnable defensive position but Nelson was unimpressed and moved immediately to attack as dusk fell on August the 1st the British ships fell upon the stationary friendships the French Admiral dubrow's had figured that the shoals on the flanks of his battle line would prevent the British from getting onto his starboard right side and thus surrounding him so all of his sailors were ordered to man the port left-side cannons but Nelson's lead ships found a gap in the shoals and suddenly the French found themselves under attack from both sides darkness fell but the scene was illuminated by the battle raging in the Nile Delta cannons belched out flames from all sides and started several fires including one that engulfed the French flagship lorry on this exploded when the flames reached the Gunpowder magazine killing Admiral de braze Admiral Nelson was wounded for the third time in his career a flesh wounds that he quickly had bandaged and then we returned to oversee the battle overwhelmed by the amount of British cannons brought to bear on them the friendships began to surrender as dawn broke on August the second the battle was for all intents and purposes over the French fleet was completely destroyed out of 17 ships that began the battle for were burned and nine were captured the French suffered 3,500 casualties to the British 900 the battle had great strategic consequences for the war it traps in Napoleon's army in Egypt forcing the general to return to France without his troops he never trusted the Navy again and this mistrust would weigh heavily in his future military decisions Great Britain meanwhile had gained complete dominance of the seas around the conflict zone an advantage that hold for the rest of the war Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile made him a national hero heads of state from all over Europe sent him accolades and he reveled in the attention for all his many virtues Nelson was rather vain and a shameless self-promoter for instance when shortly afterward reached London of his victory he was given the title Baron Nelson of the Nile and Nelson was insulted that he was only given a mere Baron arey instead of a more prestigious title shortly after the Battle of the Nile Nelson sailed to Naples to refit his squadron he was fated by the Neapolitan raw court and was a guest of British ambassador Sir William Hamilton Nelson had briefly met Sir William and his wife Emma in 1793 but he was a far different man now he was Scott he was blind in one eye missing an arm and internationally renowned Emma Hamilton was 35 years younger than her husband and was considered one of the most beautiful and intelligent women of her day during Nelson's stay in Naples he owned Emma fell deeply in love with each other and soon were carrying on an affair that the entire world seemed to know about the strange part was that not only was it apparent that Sir William was aware of his wife's affair with Nelson but he was surprisingly open-minded about it considering the time he lived in the three lived together in Naples and when Hamilton was recalled home to England Nelson returned as well and the three set up together at a house in London much to the fury of Nelson's wife Fanny around Christmas 1800 Fanny gave her husband an ultimatum to choose Emma or her and well Nelson choices mistress the two never lived together again [Music] On January the 1st 1801 Nelson was promoted to vice admiral and was sent on a new assignment to the Baltic Sea Denmark tired of Britain blockading her ports to stop French trade had allied itself with Prussia Sweden and Russia in order to break the blockade of the Royal Navy Nelson was sent as part of a fleet to break up this League of armed neutrality that threatened British naval supremacy in Europe Nelson convinced his superior Admiral Parker to allow him to take a dozen ships of the line into Copenhagen Harbor and attack the Danish fleet before they had time to join up with the Swedish and Russian fleets Nelson attacks on April the 2nd battle didn't start out well for the British three ships ran aground early in the battle prompting Admiral Parker to signal the retreat but Nelson who had a better grasp of the situation than Parker did decided to continue the attack in a bit of his trademark wit he held up his telescope to his blind eye and said I honestly can't see the signal the battle soon turned in the favour of the British as they destroyed three Danish ships and captured and burned a dozen more Nelson called for a truce which the Danes accepted the destruction of the Danish fleet together with the sudden death of Tsar Peter the first of Russia marked the end of the league and Nelson returned home to receive more accolades he was now Vie counts Nelson of the Nile and considered the country's foremost naval hero in October 1801 Great Britain and France signals and the Peace of a me on ending the war Nelson spent the next two years in Britain living with William and Emma Hamilton and touring the country with him Emma had given birth to a daughter Horatio that everyone knew was Nelson's illegitimate daughter ins the unconventional family all lived together at a country estate in Surrey until sir william died in april 1803 a month later Bohr again broke out and Nelson was back at sea Nelson was appointed commander of the Mediterranean fleet and given the pride of the Royal Navy HMS victory as his flagship his orders were to blockade to know where the French Navy under the command of Admiral Pierre chauvel nerve was a tanker it was essential to keep the French ships from escaping the blockade and moving north to the English Channel where they could help Napoleon now emperor of the French invade Great Britain for two years Nelson and Villeneuve played a cat-and-mouse game with each other a series of back-and-forth maneuvers that saw Nelson at one point chase Ville nerve all the way across the Atlantic to the West Indies and then back again in August 1805 Nelson returns briefly to England on leave he was cheered everywhere he went much to his delight in September word came the Allied French and Spanish fleets had combined together at the Spanish port of Cadiz Nelson knew it was time to return to sea he departed on board victory on September the 14th after saying goodbye to his beloved Emma Nelson arrived at Cadiz on September the 27th and spent most of the next month preparing for the battle he was sure was to come meanwhile his French counterpart Villeneuve was feeling the heat from Napoleon the Emperor was angry that his Admiral Wooden's engaged the British fleet and break out of the blockade at Cadiz he sent a replacement overland Cadiz to take command of the fleet fill nerve in an effort to stave off the humiliation of being relieved of command decided to sail out before his replacement arrived on October the 20th the 33 ships of the franco-spanish fleet sailed out of Cadiz and were spotted by British Scout frigates who quickly moved to inform Nelson when October the 21st Nelson moved his 27 ships to engage the enemy off the coast of cape trafalgar at 11:45 he prepared to engage he ordered his signalman to signal the rest of the ships in the fleet England expects that every man will do his duty a great share went up throughout the British fleet Nelson was truly beloved by the many commanders in a time when naval officers were expected to be strict disciplinarian to the point of cruelty towards the common sailor Nelson garnered respect with affection and kindness Nelson's battle plan was simple he meant to close with the franco-spanish fleet as quickly as possible cut their battle line into three pieces and engaged the enemy in ship-to-ship combat which he was sure he would be victorious at due to the superior training of his gun Kruse he split his force into two squadrons one led by himself aboard victory and the other led by a second-in-command Admiral Collingwood aboard the raw sovereign with a little win to speed their progress the British ships slowly moved towards the Allied line all while under fire from the French and Spanish ships finally after almost an hour victory passed between two French ships and fired a devastating broadside other ships followed and a general melee ensued victory found herself engaging the friendship redoubtable the French skroob had largely abandoned their cannons and were massing on deck to try and board the Admirals flagship until they were cut apart by the cannon fire of a passing British ship all the while the murderous fire poured down from the redoubtable mast and rigging from sailors stations up there with muskets Nelson had forbidden his captains from doing this worried about the sails catching on fire thus unhampered the French sharpshooters could pick their targets at weldment Nelson standing on the quarterdeck in his distinctive uniform made for a perfect target at around 1:00 p.m. an hour into the battle Nelson was shot the bullet entering through his shoulder blade and severing his spinal cord the Admiral collapsed to the deck recognizing immediately that the wound was fatal he was carried below deck and made comfortable as there was nothing that the doctor could do for him Nelson live long enough to hear that yet another spectacular victory was his the French and Spanish had lost 22 ships the British had lost none thank God I have done my duty Nelson said the Admiral died at 4:30 at the age of 47 you there was no celebration of the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar instead the death of Admiral Nelson touched off a period of profound national mourning in Great Britain that wouldn't be seen again in solve the death of Princess Diana nearly 200 years later Nelson's body was returned to England and given a state funeral at simples Cathedral in London thousands of people lined the funeral route and packed the pews of the Cathedral to say goodbye to their hero one person not in attendance however was Emma Hamilton Nelson had neglected to amend his will to include Emma and Horatio and although he begged the country to take care of them before he died Nelson's brother who inherited most of his estate was completely uninterested in helping her the British public may have been willing to overlook Nelson's affair because of his status as a national hero after his death mo was branded an adulterer and was shunned by her former friends she died in 1815 at the age of 49 deeply in debt and suffering from a number of health problems her daughter with Nelson Horatio lived a quiet life as a reverence wife and raised ten children living until 1881 Nelson had so many places and things named after him that it would be impossible to list them all the most famous of these is Trafalgar Square in London one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city located prominently in the square is a 145 foot 44 meter granite column topped with a statue of the man who will likely forever be known as Britain's most beloved sailor so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe brand new videos several times per week and as always thank you for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 221,221

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, Horatio Nelson, Horatio Nelson facts, Horatio Nelson life, Horatio Nelson bio, Horatio Nelson biography, Horatio Nelson sailor, Horatio Nelson death, Horatio Nelson personal life

Id: u1WYxqkSADU

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020