Pod Insights The Rest Is History 610. Nelson: The Battle of Copenhagen (Part 3) About this episode With fears that the powerful Danish fleet would join with the French against the British, what great gamble did Horatio Nelson take? After taking the drastic decision to attack the Danish fleet in their own harbour, what challenges did Nelson and his men face? How did the bloody Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 then unfold? And, what would be the consequences of this epic naval clash for Britain, Napoleon’s France, and Nelson himself?
Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the First Battle of Copenhagen, in the next dramatic phase of Nelson’s triumphant, though very dangerous, career…
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Transcript 12,749 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Tom Holland? This episode is brought to you by Hive.
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1:18 Tom Holland? This episode is brought to you by the Gates Foundation. We have touched on the fall of the Roman Empire a few times on this show, haven't we? But what our listeners may not know is that among the causes that historians talk about, it's not just barbarian invasions. There's also talk of a disease which people call Roman fever, which I believe we know now as malaria. For thousands of years, humanity was defenseless against it. But thankfully, we live in a time of incredible ingenuity. And American scientists and partners around the world are fighting back with support from the Gates Foundation.
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2:08 Tom Holland? The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search gatesfoundation.org/mosquito to learn more.
2:19 Tom Holland? This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked.
2:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realises, or rather, everybody else realises, that there is a vast continent out there. And it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions. And it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people?
3:02 Tom Holland? So they asked over 100,000 people, and what came back wasn't just fear, there was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions.
3:16 Dominic Sandbrook? Ask yours at claude.ai/RestIsHistory and keep thinking.
3:25 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by TikTok. We obviously love history here. It's always a treat to make a new discovery, especially in unexpected ways.
3:34 Tom Holland? Which is exactly what happens on TikTok. Like, you know, coffee, you make it, add milk, drink it, nothing more, except...
3:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Except when you hop on TikTok, you don't just learn how to make an authentic cappuccino. You can also discover videos about how in the 1700s, people would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it.
4:01 Tom Holland? And suddenly, you're imagining how people lived, drank, socialised. Makes you wonder, what will baffle historians about us? And that's the joy of TikTok. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different.
4:15 Dominic Sandbrook? Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com/discovermore.
4:35 Tom Holland? Nelson gazed out at the spires of the Danish capital. With luck, he thought, the enemy would soon come to terms and he could leave the city unscathed.
4:45 Tom Holland? That night, he invited his captains aboard the Elephant for a final dinner. He was in the highest spirits, one remembered, and drank to the success of the ensuing day. As they left, Nelson shook each man by the hand and wished him luck. When they had gone, he lay sleepless in his cot, listening to the creak of the timbers. Everything, he thought, depended on a fair wind to push them into the enemy's harbour. Dawn came. Thursday, the 2nd of April, 1801. Another grey, dreary day. But as Nelson stepped onto the quarterdeck, a smile spread across his face.
5:27 Tom Holland? The wind had changed and was blowing from the southeast. The conditions could not have been better.
5:37 Tom Holland? His personal troubles were forgotten. This was his world. The swell of the sea. The burden of command. The thrill of battle.
5:50 Tom Holland? God was with them, he thought, and ordered his crew to hoist Signal 14. Prepare for battle.
6:01 Tom Holland? A thrilling and thoroughly patriotic scene from What Else? Adventures in Time: Nelson, Hero of the Seas by top Nelson scholar Dominic Sandbrook, out last week, I think, in paperback, so a splendid read. And, I mean, the drama of it. We're in the spring of 1801 and Britain is facing a potentially mortal threat to her very survival as an independent power. So... There is a huge strategic crisis that has hovered into view. Britain, if she is to have any hope of maintaining her independence against France, needs to control the seas. But the problem is that a new czar, Paul the First, hates a waistcoat, loves issuing
6:46 Tom Holland? intemperate orders to his servants. He has organised a new League of Armed Neutrality, which actually isn't neutral at all, because it's directly targeted at the monopoly of supplies that Britain needs to maintain the Royal Navy. And this would then facilitate the growth of the French Navy, thereby threatening Britain's command of the seas. So Dominic, what is Britain to do? When you're faced with a national emergency, who do you send for?
7:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, they send for Nelson, because, as you've described, the countries of the Baltic have let themselves down by forming this League of Armed Neutrality, especially, I have to say, the Danes.
7:23 Tom Holland? I know, who are almost like Englishmen, according to Nelson. And you don't get higher praise than that, do you?
7:28 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, they're a slightly worse version of Englishmen. And for them to rank themselves alongside the Russians, and as you say, implicitly, the French, because this will be a gift to Napoleon Bonaparte.
7:40 Tom Holland? I mean, that's the real shocker, isn't it?
7:42 Dominic Sandbrook? It is, exactly. So the Admiralty's reaction has been to send this squadron east to break this League by force. And first in line is the Danish fleet and the dockyards at Copenhagen. And listeners who remember our last episode will recall that the commander of the fleet is not Nelson, it is the elderly Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, who has somehow managed to tear himself away from the delights of his teenage bride.
8:08 Tom Holland? This is the paradox, isn't it? That the reason perhaps why Nelson hasn't been given command is because there's a slight shadow over his reputation as a consequence of his affair with Emma Hamilton. But Sir Hyde Parker isn't a model of propriety at all.
8:23 Dominic Sandbrook? It takes all sorts. I don't want to pronounce on the nature of his relationship with this young woman. As you rightly say, there is this shadow hanging over Horatio Nelson, which is the fact that he has abandoned his wife Fanny for Emma Hamilton. And I see that you've added the words luscious in the notes, Tom.
8:40 Tom Holland? You, in your notes, have described Emma as vile. I've crossed that out. I mean, I think it's an accurate description of her.
8:46 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, listeners can make up their own minds, of course. We pride ourselves, don't we, that we have these little disagreements, unlike some Goalhanger podcasts, which boast of disagreeing agreeably but never disagree about anything.
8:56 Dominic Sandbrook? That's not the case, on the rest is history.
8:57 Tom Holland? No, we disagree about top mistresses and other such vital topics.
9:02 Dominic Sandbrook? We do, exactly. So we ended last time with intelligence reaching the fleet that Copenhagen's defences are even more formidable than Parker and Nelson expected. Huge citadel batteries, two massive forts bristling with guns, and the Danes have created this defensive line, this kind of wall of guns, made up of warships and hulks and sort of floating gun platforms facing the sea.
9:25 Tom Holland? And there's one particular fortress, isn't there, that's kind of outside, which is built on solid rock, so that's also got to be negotiated.
9:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly, yeah. And of course, the water is very shallow. As always in naval battles, there's lots of action with shoals, so they have to get around this.
9:40 Tom Holland? And flat bottoms.
9:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly, the shoal. So Nelson has urged Admiral Parker to launch the attack anyway. Never did our country depend so much on the success of any fleet as on this. And we ended with Parker's answer, which is, sure, all right, but you will lead the attack personally. Now, some people would find that daunting, of course, Nelson is not a man to be daunted, he's excited, he's thrilled. On the 27th of March, he moves his flag from the St George, which is the ship he'd been given back in England, to the 74-gun ship Elephant. The Elephant, as Andrew Lambert points out, ironically, the badge of the Danish monarchy.
10:18 Tom Holland? And the reason he's moving, isn't it, is that the Elephant has what naval people call a shallower draft.
10:24 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, talk us through the shallower draft.
10:27 Tom Holland? Well, it means it's better able to cope with the shallows, because Dominic, it draws less water.
10:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, does it?
10:32 Tom Holland? Yeah, it does. Basically, it can go in shallower water than the St George can, so that's why he moves. And of course, when he moves, he makes sure to take with him his two most prized possessions, which are portraits of Emma, his guardian angels, he calls them, so they go into his new cabin. So that's splendid.
10:49 Dominic Sandbrook? That's very moving. So from the elephant he will command this squadron of six other 74s, so the 74 gunship is the sort of classic warship of the Royal Navy. So you've got the Defiance, the Ganges, the Edgar, the Bellona, the Russell and the Monarch. Then there are three 64 gunships, and there are various frigates and fireships. And crucially, there are seven bomb vessels. And these are ships that will start shelling the Danish dockyards once Nelson's warships have cleared out the defences.
11:23 Tom Holland? And Dominic, just a couple of things to say about that. Firstly, the Edgar, one of the ships, named after Athelstan's nephew. And Athelstan, of course, defeated the Danes, so maybe there's a slight portent there. And the other thing is the identity of one of Nelson's captains, who is in command of a 56er. So not quite as many guns, but still very, very formidable, as we'll see. This is a ship called the HMS Glutton. And the commander of that is Captain Bligh, who 12 years before had been in command of a ship called the Bounty in the Pacific Ocean, that had witnessed a famous mutiny. So Bligh has
12:04 Tom Holland? lots to prove. And fortunately, the Glutton is a kind of ship that would enable him to prove things, because it's armed with this new kind of cannon, the Karinade, which is very short range. So if you can get the ship up close, it will flick incredible damage on its target. Massive guns, and they're mounted on pivot, so they can swivel round and they sweep at a range of targets. And as we will see, this makes the Glutton a very, very formidable addition to Nelson's armoury.
12:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. But getting into the harbour is going to be a tough job. They're waiting for the wind to sweep them in. And they haven't even got up to Copenhagen yet. So on the 30th of March, the wind finally shifts, because they've been waiting for three days. And they sail south into the Urusund, which is the strait between Denmark and Sweden.
12:51 Tom Holland? What is it?
12:51 Dominic Sandbrook? It's called the Urusund.
12:53 Tom Holland? Master of tongues.
12:54 Dominic Sandbrook? I'm just guessing. I saw an O with an accent, so I thought I'd mix it up a bit. Anyway, they sail into this strait and ahead is this, this great fortress of Kronborg, which is the castle of Elsinore, as in Hamlet.
13:08 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:09 Dominic Sandbrook? And they're worried that there are great guns at the castle, so they go over to the Swedish side of the strait.
13:15 Tom Holland? Well, they dominate, there's a risk there as well, isn't there? Because Sweden also is part of this league. You know, they don't know how many guns
13:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
13:21 Tom Holland? might be there and whether the Swedes would fire them.
13:24 Dominic Sandbrook? The Swedes are not cut from the same cloth that they were in the Great Northern War, I think by this point. They've already started to move in a Greta Thunberg style direction.
13:30 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Because they don't fire.
13:32 Tom Holland? And actually, it turns out they don't really have any guns there anyway. So Nelson's gamble pays off.
13:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So the Danish guns can't reach the British ships. The British do fire on Elsinore, don't they? Because isn't there a cannonball stuck in the
13:45 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:46 Dominic Sandbrook? in the cathedral roof or something?
13:48 Tom Holland? Yeah, apparently.
13:49 Dominic Sandbrook? So on they go into the strait. In the distance, 20 miles, where's their target? The city of Copenhagen. Now, for a couple of days, they remain at anchor. It's really, really cold. The weather is terrible. And Nelson sends this little scouting parties into what is called the Outer Deep, which is the sort of sea beyond, just outside Copenhagen. It's all very icy, so it's kind of floating ice and they're kind of cutting their way through. And their job is to check out the Danish defences.
14:16 Tom Holland? And they have to do it at night, don't they?
14:18 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it's very Hollywood, this.
14:20 Tom Holland? So kind of muffled oars and they can only use candles to inspect their charts and things. The amazing thing is, is that obviously this is the kind of adventure that Nelson, it's gagging to join in. And so he himself, even though he's the commander, goes out and joins these routines as well. Very dramatic scene.
14:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, he loves all this. And if you remember from last time, he has been going through agonies in his cabin, writing these letters to Emma about his paranoia that she's going to run off with the future Prince Regent, the future George IV. But this is the one time where you feel like a lot of these cares slip away because this is really what he loves doing. He just loves throwing himself into this kind of adventuring.
14:58 Tom Holland? And also hanging out with his band of brothers.
15:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. And there's still an abandoned brothers element to this. So on the night of the 31st, after dinner, he has a council of war aboard the Elephant. And a lot of the captains who are coming with him on this expedition are people that he served alongside at the Battle of the Nile. So names like Thomas Foley, Thomas Freemantle, George Murray. The most famous of them is Thomas Masterman Hardy, who actually volunteers to leave his own ship and come over to the Elephant because he's so keen to be in on the action. And in the last couple of episodes, we talked a lot about the downsides of working with Horatio Nelson. But this is a reminder of just how inspirational, how stirring a figure he is, that there are people who want to put themselves in harm's way just to be at his side in the thick of the action.
15:43 Tom Holland? It's the Nelson touch, isn't it? The sense that huge drama is going to happen and it's probably going to work out well.
15:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, and he is a man who's brilliant at bringing people into his confidence and inspiring them. There are these sort of descriptions of him, this guy called Colonel Stuart, William Stuart, who's commanding the sort of ground troops they brought with them. And Stuart describes Nelson afterwards as pacing up and down, shaking his head at any sign of alarm or irresolution, burning with excitement and energy as he describes his plan. This is a preview of what he will do at Trafalgar, of course, sharing his plan with his captains.
16:22 Tom Holland? Yeah, and he's brilliant at generating this kind of sense of a shared bond. I mean, almost a kind of a manly love.
16:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
16:29 Tom Holland? That animates everybody in command under Nelson to feel that they're part of a shared enterprise and that that enterprise is going to be something bold, something dramatic, and ultimately something successful that you simply wouldn't get with any other admiral. And a glaring contrast with Sahid Parker, who's not part of this, I mean, he's kind of stuck in the rear. He's absolutely not the kind of person who could marshal this kind of project.
16:57 Dominic Sandbrook? No, exactly.
16:58 Tom Holland? And in fact, is quite nervous about it.
16:59 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, he's nervous because it's a very risky plan. Basically, what they're going to do is they're going to sail into Copenhagen Harbour from the southeast. And to do that, they'll have to loop around this central sort of shoal or sandbank known as the middle ground. And if they loop around that and come up from the south, that will bring them into what's called the King's Deep, which is this quite narrow channel between the shoal and the city.
17:26 Tom Holland? But is, as its name suggests. Because I suppose the risk is that, I mean, it's exactly the risk that Nelson faced at the Battle of the Nile, where similarly there were kind of shoals and islands and sandbanks and so on. And listeners may remember that one of the most celebrated of all Nelson's captains, Thomas Trowbridge, ends up stranded there and he's terribly upset about this and Nelson has to push for him to get a medal, even though he hadn't taken part in the fight.
17:52 Dominic Sandbrook? That's right.
17:53 Tom Holland? And there is absolutely a risk, because actually the channel here, the deep, is even narrower than it had been in Egypt, that people will get stranded similarly. However, Nelson has made this less likely by having the shoals marked out with boys, because normally there would be boys there, but the Danes have removed the boys to make it more challenging for the British. And he has a splendid man, splendid officer, who he entrusts with this task. And this is a guy called Captain Edward Ryu, who's a very junior officer, but has had an amazing career. So he'd been a midshipman on Cook's third and final voyage, the voyage in which Captain Cook ends up being killed in Hawaii.
18:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
18:36 Tom Holland? There'd been massive drama with a convict ship that he'd been in command of. He was taking prisoners to Botany Bay. And they had tried to get water from an iceberg, and the iceberg had sliced a hole in the bottom of the ship.
18:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Wow.
18:51 Tom Holland? And they kept trying to bail the water out. And some of the crew say, oh, this is hopeless, we're getting out of here. And they go off in ships. But Ryu stays on board and he uses the convicts as a crew. So it's almost the opposite of Bligh. Bligh had lost his crew. Ryu recruits convicts to serve him as his crew. And somehow they managed to survive and they get rescued. I don't know if you've read Desolation Island?
19:15 Dominic Sandbrook? Of course, Patrick O'Brien.
19:16 Tom Holland? So this is exactly the plot of that. It's a direct inspiration for it.
19:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it's an amazing scene in Patrick O'Brien.
19:22 Tom Holland? Yeah. And so there's something of Jack Aubrey, Patrick O'Brien's hero, about Captain Ryu. And you can see exactly why that would appeal to Nelson. And so he has given Ryu not command of a kind of major ship of the line, but of a small squadron of frigates. And he gives him a kind of roving commission in the battle to come, you know, if kind of happenstance intervenes, if things go wrong. Ryu is to rely on his initiative and basically behave as Nelson likes to behave in battles.
19:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. So that's how they're getting round the sandbanks or the shoals. But once they've done that. They're then into the harbour and there's this line of Danish ships. Now here they really have to take a gamble. Each of Nelson's ships is given a different target and they kind of move up the line towards their targets, one by one, and they keep going till they've cleared them all out of the way. And Nelson says, when you do this, the Danes will be absolutely, you know, there will be a blizzard of Danish fire. But we should get, quote, "so close to our enemies that every shot cannot miss. Let's give them that hailstorm of bullets which gives our dear country the dominion of the seas." That's very Nelson.
20:30 Tom Holland? And that's why the charnades are so useful in such a fight.
20:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. Plus, getting up really close. So you advance closer and closer in the face of their withering fire and then you just unload and unleash hell on them. So you've got to be pretty brave. All right, we come to the morning of the first of April. The wind has begun to shift in their favour. Nelson calls the masters and the pilots of the ships for a last briefing on the elephant. Then he himself gets into a little rowing boat and he goes to visit as many ships as he can. And there's a midshipman who remembers, he says, "I always remember Nelson, his squeaking little voice and his Norfolk drawl."
21:04 Tom Holland? Alan Partridge.
21:05 Dominic Sandbrook? Alan Partridge, exactly. Very good. So they start to move south that afternoon. When they see the signal to begin the operation, great cheers rise from the crews. And in the distance, of course, they can now see the spires of Copenhagen and they can also make out the outline of the defensive line across the harbour, this wall of guns. And as dusk is falling, we have that scene that you opened with Tom, I described in such purple prose.
21:28 Tom Holland? Stirring prose, Dominic.
21:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Thanks, Tom.
21:30 Tom Holland? Honestly, I read it and I felt a thrill.
21:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, there is no higher recommendation than that. And parents listening to this podcast should immediately run out and buy this book for their children. I mean, you have already, but just buy more copies.
21:41 Tom Holland? Christmas is coming.
21:42 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So there's dinner, they drink a toast of victory, and then Nelson, of course, stays up late, doesn't he?
21:48 Tom Holland? And he has Ryu with him.
21:49 Dominic Sandbrook? With Ryu, right. And what are they doing?
21:51 Tom Holland? Well, they're drawing up very, very detailed plans. So- This is not really a battle where Nelson wants captains to show initiative. I mean, if they have to, then they do. But if they can possibly avoid it, then they're given very precise instructions. So for instance, about which of the enemy ships to target. And they draw these up and Ryu helps him. And then these orders are sent out to all the various ships so that every captain knows what is expected of him.
22:16 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, a lot of them have pieces of paper. They actually hold pieces of paper, almost like index cards telling them what to do. Now, that night, not surprisingly, Nelson finds it very hard to sleep. He's constantly calling for news of the wind. He needs the wind to be able to speed them into the harbour. When he wakes, he gets the news that he wanted. The wind is with them. So six o'clock, Nelson's up, he's dressed, he has had his breakfast. He has his plans written out on these cards. They're little cards that he can hold in one hand. Why? Because he doesn't have two hands, of course, because he'd lost his arm. At eight o'clock, as we heard in the introduction, he hoists signal fourteen, prepare for battle. And then at about nine forty five, another signal goes up.
22:59 Dominic Sandbrook? He tells the first four ships, they are the Edgar, which you described, the Ardent, the Glutton.
23:06 Tom Holland? So that's under Bligh?
23:07 Dominic Sandbrook? That's Bligh and the Isis to weigh anchor and to advance around the shoals into the King's Deep. And then 10 minutes later, the next lot of ships, the Agamemnon, the Ballona, the Ganges, the Monarch, the Defiance, the Russell and the Polyphemus.
23:24 Tom Holland? And it's an excruciating moment, I guess, for Nelson. Because now the huge anxieties are any of his ships going to be stranded? And yet what a thrill he must have felt at seeing the execution of his battle plan.
23:38 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, yeah.
23:39 Tom Holland? So nervousness and excitement kind of intermingled.
23:42 Dominic Sandbrook? I think the only reason that Hollywood hasn't made films of these kinds of things is just so complicated and expensive because it's such a cinematic scene. The British ships, most of them have painted their hulls dark, yellow and black. So Wolverhampton Wanderers colours, Tom.
23:58 Tom Holland? And the colours that visitors to HMS Victory at Portsmouth will have seen.
24:01 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So they look incredible and they move very slowly, obviously. They're kind of gliding into position. Their decks have been cleared for action. You know, what a sight they must have been. Just the spectacle of it.
24:15 Tom Holland? I always think in these naval battles, particularly under Nelson, where the point is to get up very close and inflict maximum damage. This is not what conventionally happens in battles. That the contrast between the unbelievable violence that is threatening and the slow and stately pace with which the ships glide towards their enemies must ratchet up the tension to a peculiar degree.
24:44 Dominic Sandbrook? Definitely. Yeah, there's a wonderful description by a midshipman on the Monarch, which was near the back of the line. And this is a guy called William Salter Millard, I'll quote him again later. He said, "When he saw the Edgar leading the way as they'd sort of begin their turn, it was the most beautiful and solemn spectacle he'd seen in his life. A man of war under sail is at all times a beautiful object, but at such a time, the scene is heightened beyond the powers of description. We saw her pressing on through the enemy's fire, this is the Edgar. Our minds were deeply impressed with awe and not a word was spoken throughout the ship, but by the pilot and the helmsman."
25:19 Tom Holland? Yeah, that silence of people knowing that very soon they're going to be standing on a deck that is going to be ravaged and raked by cannon fire and sniper shot. I mean, whoa.
25:31 Dominic Sandbrook? And what makes it even more cinematic, this sense of spectacle, is that the people of Copenhagen have come out to watch. So there are thousands of people, crowds on the waterfront, people packed onto the keys, onto the balconies, onto the roofs of the houses. They're watching it as though it's a great sporting occasion or something.
25:50 Tom Holland? Well, Nelson loves an audience, doesn't he? I mean, in a way, he's a kind of great dramatist.
25:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, exactly. So the Edgar leads the way around the middle ground and comes up from the south into the King's Deep. And ahead are the Citadel batteries, the line of 18 Danish ships moored in the harbour and the two Danish forts. And all of them are making ready to fire on the invaders. The first shots come at around 10:15. The first Danish ship, the Prøvestinen,
26:20 Tom Holland? Love it.
26:20 Dominic Sandbrook? opens fire at the Yedder. And then, one by one, the British ships move up the line, and other Danish ships start firing too. So you have a crash of thunder and smoke pouring above the harbour and all of this kind of thing.
26:35 Tom Holland? Which is so thick that the people actually who've come out to watch can't see it.
26:39 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, disappointing.
26:40 Tom Holland? And for the ships themselves, I mean, you know, again, it's actually quite hard to distinguish who you're firing at.
26:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. And this slight sense of chaos is heightened by the fact that further back, not unpredictably, some of the British ships have started to run aground on the shoals.
26:56 Tom Holland? Yeah, and this is the big, the big issue.
26:58 Dominic Sandbrook? So for all the efforts of this guy Ryu, it's really hard for them to work out where the shoals begin and end. Three of them, in particular the Agamemnon, the Ballona and the Russell, have got stuck. So that means that they can still fire at the Danes, but they're kind of sitting ducks themselves, they're just sort of stuck there.
27:16 Tom Holland? And also, it means that Nelson's line is now shortened because, you know, he had 12 ships of the line, he's lost three. So his line is much shorter than he had planned. However, people may remember that Ryu has been given a kind of roving brief by Nelson. And so he, in an unprompted but very Nelsonian manner, comes to the rescue. He's on a ship called the Amazon, he's got four other frigates with him. So that's about, what, 150 guns between them? And they work their way up the British line, you know, dense cannon smoke drifting everywhere. And they situate themselves at the head of the line so that the loss of these three massive ships is not quite as bad and damaging as it might otherwise have been. And this is exactly what Nelson would have wanted Ryu to do,
28:01 Tom Holland? even though he has no direct orders, because obviously, communication between Nelson's flagship and Ryu is impossible.
28:07 Dominic Sandbrook? That's right. So by about half past 11, all of Nelson's ships are engaged in one way or another. And the elephant is now flying Nelson's favourite signal, which is signal number 16, engage the enemy more closely. Now, the Danes, I know we have Danish listeners, and I definitely don't want to make this an anti-Danish podcast, that's the last thing we would ever do. They are fighting with enormous courage. They knew from the beginning that they were really up against it, that they couldn't really compete with the Royal Navy, but they were determined to kind of fight for their capital city anyway. So they're blasting away from their ships and their gun platforms. In his book Empire of the Deep, the historian Ben Wilson makes, well, it should be the obvious point, but it hadn't really occurred to me, that there
28:50 Dominic Sandbrook? is a massive difference between this and previous battles. Previously, when Nelson fought the Spanish or the French, they'd sort of fought on, as it were, neutral territory, you know, out at sea or in Egypt or whatever. But this is very different. The Danes are defending their own capital city, their own homes, their native land, in front of their friends and families, who are the people watching from the quaysides.
29:16 Tom Holland? Well, I mean, for the Danes, it's a home match, right?
29:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And they don't get to fight many home matches, I would guess, the Danes.
29:24 Tom Holland? Historically, the Danes have preferred to fight their matches on English soil.
29:28 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, exactly.
29:29 Tom Holland? There's an element of vengeance for Lindisfarne there, perhaps.
29:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, that's nice. Yeah, that scar will never really heal, will it?
29:35 Tom Holland? Not really, no.
29:36 Dominic Sandbrook? So the Danes are inflicting tremendous damage. Nelson's ships are taking horrific punishment. So the Edgar, under Captain George Murray, as you said, named after Edgar the peaceable, great law and order enthusiast.
29:48 Tom Holland? Yeah, in the 10th century.
29:49 Dominic Sandbrook? The Edgar is taking colossal damage. 142 men killed and wounded. The Ardent loses almost 100 men, and its sails and its hull are absolutely perforated by Danish shots. But worst of all, the monarch at the back of the line. This is absolutely hammered by those Danish forts. So the monarch lost 220 men, killed and wounded. One of them was the captain, Isakke James Moss, who was killed on the quarter-deck, holding his battle plan in one hand and a speaking trumpet in the other, through which he was kind of rousing his men.
30:23 Tom Holland? And Dominic, it's not surprising that under such a firestorm, the captain and many other officers would be killed because those who are not officers are allowed to duck when cannonballs come in. Officers are not supposed to. You're supposed to stand there upright. And we'll be hearing accounts in this story of officers who just kind of disintegrate, get torn in two. The courage required to be an officer in the Royal Navy under gunfire, I think is just insane.
30:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Imagine, I mean, we've described it in a slightly offhand way, but just imagine sailing your ship, advancing very slowly towards a fort or a gun platform that's just sitting there blasting at you and you just say, keep going, keep going, closer, closer.
31:04 Tom Holland? Which is why historically, this is not how battles have been fought. And what Nelson is relying on, I suppose, is two things. Firstly, the superior quality of British gunnery, which is easily the best in the world. And secondly, the martial spirit of his captains. And that's why this sense of a band of brothers, the sense of the Nelson touch, the sense of his charisma animating the battle line is so important. Because I think under Hyde Parker, for instance, they would not behave with such courage. But knowing that Nelson believes in them clearly gives them the courage to sustain this appalling damage and constantly run the risk of death.
31:42 Dominic Sandbrook? To walk into the jaws of death.
31:43 Tom Holland? Yeah.
31:44 Dominic Sandbrook? And Nelson, he is the embodiment of this, but he has to be, it's very important to him that he is the physical embodiment of this spirit. This again anticipates what we see at Trafalgar. So on the quarter deck of the Elephant, he is pacing up and down under fire, heedless of his own safety. So Colonel Stuart, the guy I quoted earlier, is at his side. Stuart went on to fight in the Peninsular War with tremendous sort of courage and acclaim. But he said afterwards that he had never felt such admiration for any officer on sea or on land.
32:19 Dominic Sandbrook? As he did for Nelson at Copenhagen, there's a point at which a Danish shot smashes into their mainmast and it showers them with splinters. A splinter can kill you, and Nelson has of course been hit by a splinter before at the Nile. But Nelson, just oblivious to it, says to Stuart, "It is warm work, and this day may be the last for any of us at any moment. But mark you, I would not be anywhere else for thousands."
32:42 Tom Holland? And that for me is the embodiment of British pluck. The other splendidly British thing that Nelson says at this point is he draws on a cricket metaphor.
32:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
32:51 Tom Holland? You know, he's anxious that perhaps this is going to take slightly longer than he thought, but still confident of victory. And he says, "We shall bowl them out in four if we cannot do it in three hours." So in other words, dismiss the opposition batsmen.
33:01 Dominic Sandbrook? And slowly but surely, the things you described, British teamwork, training, firepower, speed, they are beginning to tell. The Danes, just for all their efforts, they just can't compete with it. By about one o'clock, their flagship, which is called the Danadrog, 74-gun ship, is in real, real trouble. It's being powdered, isn't it, by Captain Bligh's ship?
33:23 Tom Holland? Yeah, by the Gaten. And this is where the Carinades are coming into their own, of course, because they are absolutely lethal at short range. And that is exactly where Bligh is. I mean, he's right up close against the Danish flagship.
33:36 Dominic Sandbrook? So there's another Danish ship, the Seeland, which has lost a third of its crew. It's lost its mast, it's lost its guns, it's riddled with holes. Most of its surviving crew are desperately getting into little boats to get away. And it starts to drift, doesn't it?
33:51 Tom Holland? Yeah, because they cut the cables.
33:52 Dominic Sandbrook? It's kind of drifting across the battle line.
33:54 Tom Holland? Like a ghost ship, almost. I mean, very eerie. You can imagine it kind of looming out of the gunsmoke. Nobody knows where it's going, caught on the currents. I mean, an awesome sight.
34:03 Dominic Sandbrook? And then there's a third ship, the Prurvestinen. This has been swept clear with grape shot, the upper decks. Its guns are disabled, three fires are burning on this ship. Seventy-five men are either dead or horribly wounded. It really feels at this point, we're about one o'clock, that it is only a matter of time before the Danish line disintegrates completely, and then Nelson can send in these bomb vessels to start shelling the city. And then...
34:30 Dominic Sandbrook? At about half past one, something else happens. So behind them is Admiral Hyde Parker with the reserve. He's with the rest of the British ships. And from behind them, Nelson and his officers hear the dull thud of two guns, a signal. And they turn and they can't believe their eyes because on the mast of Admiral Parker's flagship, they can see a new signal, which is signal number 39, discontinue the action. And what has happened? Parker has been watching this slaughter unfold and he is calling the whole thing off. It will all be for nothing. All of their effort, all of the sacrifice, all the bloodshed will have been pointless.
35:14 Dominic Sandbrook? And on the quarter deck of the Elephant, all eyes turn to Nelson. What will he do now?
35:20 Tom Holland? Wow. Well, I think we should take a break at this point. And when we come back, we have the massive excitement of describing one of the most iconic and quite possibly mythic episodes in the whole of British history.
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39:56 Tom Holland? Hello and welcome back to The Rest Is History. The Battle of Copenhagen is blazing. The Danish line is cracking. But in the rear, the elderly Admiral Parker, not one of life's center forwards, I think, he's always been anxious about probing the Danish defenses too close. He's got cold feet. He's decided to call it a day, and he has hoisted Signal 39, discontinue the action. So basically, just as Nelson is on the verge of winning a decisive victory, he's saying, no, come back. So the massive question, Dominic, what's Nelson going to do?
40:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, he has to make up his mind straight away. He's got very, very little time because, of course, they're in the heat of battle. And I think his mind works fast. He weighs up the balance of forces. If he ignores the signal, ignores a direct order, he thinks, in fact, he's almost certain he can win. He knows the Danish line is cracking. He knows some of the guns are being put out of action. He knows that his men are well trained, they're fit, they're experienced, and the balance will tip in their favor all the time. Now, if he breaks off, under Danish fire, they have to retreat, get out of the Kings Deep, get around the Shoals, and rejoin the rest of the squadron.
41:12 Tom Holland? Yeah. And as they turn, then they're subject to kind of raking fire. So it's lethal. So You know, clearly Nelson's instinct is absolutely to carry on fighting, but just to emphasise, it is a big deal for an officer in the heat of battle, you know, I mean, any time, but particularly in the heat of battle, to ignore a direct order. And should the battle not go well, then this will be the end of Nelson's career.
41:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, it would. Exactly, it would. He does have form, though. So at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, he had ignored Sir John Jervis's direct orders, his plan. He had gone out of the line and he had sort of launched this solo mission that basically changed the whole course of the battle. So sometimes, you know, when he backs his own judgement, it pays off. So it takes him just a moment and he mutters, Colonel Stuart hears him mutter under his breath, "Leave off action. No, damn me if I do." And a lieutenant says, "Shall we repeat the signal?" In other words, "Transmit the signal to the rest of our ships." Nelson says, "Acknowledge it, but do not repeat it. Keep signal 16 aloft." That is the signal. "Engage the enemy more closely."
42:20 Tom Holland? And the thing about that is, it's reflective of Nelson's confidence that he has more authority over the line of battle than the ostensible Commander in Chief does.
42:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
42:29 Tom Holland? And we will see if he's right to be that confident.
42:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, the other men on the quarterdeck know that this is rank insubordination. I think it's pretty clear that Captain Foley is shocked by it because he effectively seems to ask for confirmation, "Are you sure, sir?" or something along those lines. Or maybe he just raises an eyebrow, who knows. Now, what happens next? Here is the story that every British school child used to learn.
42:56 Tom Holland? And still should.
42:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Absolutely, they should.
42:58 Tom Holland? Let's be honest.
42:59 Dominic Sandbrook? Nelson says to Foley, "You know, Foley, I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes." And then, a great gesture, pure Nelsonian theatre, he reaches for a telescope and he puts it to his sightless eye, the one that can't see, and he says, "I really do not see the signal." Now, the sad thing about this story is that some of Nelson's biographers, I'm sorry to say, let themselves down by doubting it. Isn't that right?
43:29 Tom Holland? I don't think it's sad, because I think it's up there with, you know, Alfred Burning the Cakes.
43:34 Dominic Sandbrook? Of course it is.
43:35 Tom Holland? Yeah.
43:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Robert the Bruce and the Spider, or It's Drake and the Armada. So the Armada arrives and Drake's playing a game of bowls and he says, "It's time to finish the game and beat the Armada too." And he does.
43:45 Tom Holland? And the thing is that all these stories, they have the power that they do because they're very dramatic, but also because they illustrate the truth of the circumstances. We've done Greek myths. I mean, myths have a power that isn't directly dependent on whether they are factually true or not. However, of course, historians are going to scoff at this kind of thing. But equally, there are those who say, well, you know, I think it's more likely this happened than that Alfred burnt his cakes, for instance.
44:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Absolutely. And actually, John Sugden, who's spent an enormous amount of ink on this particular story, looking at the provenance of it, all the different accounts. So basically, Colonel Stewart told his story about what happened on the quarter deck several times in the next 10 years or so. And as so often with anecdotes, the anecdotes slightly changed in each telling.
44:32 Tom Holland? Improved, one might say.
44:34 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it improved. But Sugden says, listen, you can doubt it, and you can say, well, the very, very earliest stories about what happened on the quarter deck, don't mention it. But that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Does it have the ring of implausibility? I mean, it sounds perfectly plausible, right?
44:49 Tom Holland? That's the key. So Sugden says, the telescope story is entirely in Nelson's character. He never forgot his audience. And that could either mean that people assume it's true because it sounds right.
45:01 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes.
45:01 Tom Holland? But equally, it could be true because Nelson would do it. I mean, I think the one thing that's definitely not true is the kind of thing that you will often see on illustrations of this scene that shows Nelson raising his telescope to an eye patch. And we have already emphasised Nelson did not wear a kind of pirate eye patch.
45:18 Dominic Sandbrook? But I think we've concluded, haven't we, Tom, that it absolutely happened. And in many ways, it happened more bravely than people have given Nelson credit for.
45:25 Tom Holland? I think so.
45:26 Dominic Sandbrook? So he's taken this incredible risk. And actually, here is the ultimate demonstration of Nelson's reputation among his fellow captains.
45:36 Dominic Sandbrook? Everybody follows his lead. None of the other warship captains question him. None of them break off the attack. Of course, in that case, they would be disobeying Nelson. And there's no recrimination afterwards.
45:47 Tom Holland? There is one captain who does obey Parker's orders, and this is Edward Ryu, who Nelson particularly admires. He's shown a great initiative. He's gone to the the top of the line, but he is a very, very junior officer. It's a massive, massive deal for him, much more than for Nelson's more established captains, to break an order. And so he very, very reluctantly gives his squadron of five ships the order to withdraw. I mean, he keeps on fighting for half an hour, but ultimately thinks, you know, I've been given a direct order. I've got to obey it. And you were saying how had Nelson ordered a withdrawal, this would have been calamitous for the entire British line. And the fate of Ryu illustrates this because what happens is that as his squadron of frigates starts
46:31 Tom Holland? to turn and withdraw and stop firing, the gun smoke clears and Ryu's own ship, which is the last to withdraw, you know, there is no disguise now. It's open fire for the Danish gunners. And we have an account from Colonel Stewart, you know, who was with Nelson, who may or may not have seen him putting his telescope to his blind eye, who describes what happened. So this is Stewart on Ryu. He had expressed himself grieved at being obliged to retreat and nobly observed, what will Nelson think of us? His clerk was killed by his side and by another shot, several Marines while hauling on the main brace shared the same fate. Ryu then exclaimed, come then, my boys, let us all die together. The words
47:16 Tom Holland? were scarcely uttered when the fatal shot severed him in two.
47:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Of course, that's very moving.
47:21 Tom Holland? Yeah.
47:22 Dominic Sandbrook? How does Colonel Stewart know, by the way, because he's on a different ship?
47:25 Tom Holland? I imagine that it's reported to him.
47:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Listen, I'm never going to be skeptical about a story like this.
47:29 Tom Holland? Of course. I mean, again, what will Nelson think of us? Come then, my boys, let us all die together.
47:34 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
47:35 Tom Holland? I mean, you might think these phrases are too good to be true, but I think it's striking that Ryu is. A particular favourite of Nelson's, he's only met him on the course of this expedition. And clearly, there is a kind of self dramatizing quality to Ryu's heroism that Nelson really identifies with. So again, I think, I think it's perfectly plausible he said that.
47:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, just like the telescope, the self dramatizing is driven from the top. You have a man who is constructing his life as though he's on the stage, I would say. And so other people follow suit.
48:04 Tom Holland? And Nelson says that Ryu's loss is almost the worst loss of the battle. You know, that he would have gone on to really great things.
48:10 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. So back at the harbour, it's about two o'clock. Huge, great clouds of black smoke. The air is thick with kind of screams and explosions. The Danes are fighting manfully, but they're in real trouble now. By about two o'clock, the Danabrog, their flagship is burning. By about two thirty, its gun crews have been completely slaughtered and the flag comes down and the survivors have to flee for the shore. The Danish commander is a bloke called Commodore Olfert Fischer. And he's already moved his flag to another ship, the Holsten. About the same time, that ship's overpowered as well and he has to take refuge in one of the forts, the Trekkonur Fort. So it's very clear the British have the upper hand. They, they don't have things entirely their own way though.
48:53 Dominic Sandbrook? I mean, this is still a really, you know, this is what makes Nelson's call so dicey is that it's still pretty tight. And, you know, some of his ships, the Monarch and the Defiance are really taking terrible, terrible punishment. The Danish batteries are still intact, they're still firing relentlessly. And now I think Nelson does one of the most impressive things he ever did in a battle. Because he's not just about get up close and batter them and then we'll win. He's also thinking politically.
49:22 Tom Holland? Yeah, he's an Achilles, but he's a calculating Achilles.
49:25 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. So he goes down below for a second and he scribbles a note that is basically offering the Danes a deal. And then he gives it to a bloke called Frederick Thesiger, who speaks Danish and says, can you get in a little boat, go over to the shore, under a flag of truce, find Crown Prince Frederick and give him this note?
49:47 Tom Holland? And Crown Prince Frederick is George III's nephew.
49:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes.
49:50 Tom Holland? So. You know, there are certain familial bonds.
49:54 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. Now, why did Nelson do this? Afterwards, he always said, I did it because basically I'm a very kind person and I wanted to spare the Danes any more bloodshed.
50:04 Tom Holland? But you know, Dominic, I think that's true. I mean, it sounds counterintuitive. Nelson, he wants to practice battles of annihilation. But he does that for the broader purpose, I think. And if he had the option of not spilling blood, but still serving Britain, then he would do that. And it was striking that in the peace negotiations that culminates in the Treaty of Amiens, Nelson's backing it.
50:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
50:26 Tom Holland? He wants peace. And I think it's important for people to bear that in mind. He is not animated by a bloodlust.
50:32 Dominic Sandbrook? I think that's right. He later told Henry Addington, who became Prime Minister. He said to Addington, those Danish ships that had surrendered were trapped in the killing zone. They couldn't get away and they're being hit by friendly fire from their own batteries. It was a massacre, a sight which no real man could have enjoyed. I felt when the Danes became my prisoners, I became their protector. In other words, loads of Danes have been killed in the crossfire and I want to save them. And he actually wrote to Emma, didn't he? And said, Nelson is a warrior, but he will not be a butcher. Really good sign that he's talking about himself in the third person, I think.
51:07 Tom Holland? Like Caesar.
51:08 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
51:08 Tom Holland? I mean, you wouldn't get Caesar saying that. So I think we can agree that this reflects very well on Nelson. Listeners can admire him wholeheartedly on this.
51:16 Dominic Sandbrook? He's absolutely right. You see, Napoleon is a butcher. Napoleon, when he invades Italy, leaves a trail of looted and pillaged villages and blood and whatnot. And naturally wants to terrify the civilian population into, you know, remaining compliant. Nelson has no real history of that.
51:35 Tom Holland? His critics might say Naples, but I think Naples stands out as the most controversial episode in his career precisely because.
51:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Because it's unusual.
51:42 Tom Holland? Because it's unusual, yeah.
51:43 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, some of his own officers, I have to say, thought there was something slightly more to it. So Hardy said, for example, you know, it's not just about humanitarianism. He wanted to get off the prizes, the Danish prizes that hadn't been sunk or burnt. And he also was doing it to protect his own ships. This is Hardy talking, five of which at this time were onshore within gunshot of the batteries. In other words, they were sort of trapped on the shoals. Colonel Stewart. He wrote about this, he said it was a quote, "a masterpiece of policy." "It was the only way for Nelson to save those grounded British ships." "They got stuck and they were in a quote, "a most perilous situation." "And most historians who have written about this say, you know, whatever the swirl of motives
52:27 Dominic Sandbrook? "that went into this, it was really, really canny." "One of his supreme battle decisions," says Roger Knight. So this boat Thessager, he arrives at the citadel in Copenhagen. He takes the note to the Crown Prince. And Nelson, it's a masterpiece of diplomacy because Nelson has addressed it to, and I quote, "the brothers of Englishmen, the Danes." No, I praise. And he says, "I will absolutely flatten you if I have to, but I really, really don't want to. "I'd rather save the brave Danes who have defended your forts." And he says to the Crown Prince, you know, "I'd love to make a deal with you. "Peace and friendship with Denmark would be the greatest victory that I've ever gained."
53:06 Tom Holland? A dry eye in the house.
53:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. And the Crown Prince is an intelligent guy. He can see that this is the perfect way to save his men, to save Copenhagen, the city and his dockyards from assault and to keep his honour. You know, it's basically a good outcome for the Danes.
53:21 Tom Holland? And presumably also, the issue for the Danes is that they don't want to be attacked by the French or indeed the Russians.
53:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
53:29 Tom Holland? So essentially they've put up a good enough show that they can say to the French and Russian ministers, "Well, you know, we did our best, but what choice did we have?" I mean, because ultimately they're not really committed to the war against Britain.
53:42 Dominic Sandbrook? No.
53:42 Tom Holland? They had to choose between France and Britain. They chose France because they thought the French were more, more of a threat. So in a way, they don't want to lose lots of, of lives. They don't want to have their capital city demolished in the cause of a war with Britain.
53:55 Dominic Sandbrook? This is a great outcome for the Danes. As we will see, I was about to say, they should be thanking us. As we will see, they kind of do. So the Crown Prince says, "Fine, we'll have a ceasefire, we'll open some talks." And it takes about half an hour for the fighting to die down and the battle is over. So in all, the British have lost about 250 men killed, the Danes have lost about 500, they've lost two ships completely destroyed, 12 of their ships have been captured. Not a huge amount, you might say, but this is a small country, so this is a heavy toll.
54:25 Tom Holland? Yeah.
54:26 Dominic Sandbrook? And the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of the carnage was of a quality that a lot of the experienced British sailors said, you know, this was in a different league from the Nile even, or Cape St Vincent's or something. I think because it's such a tight channel, such withering fire, such close range action.
54:46 Tom Holland? So many bodies kind of bobbing everywhere.
54:49 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
54:49 Tom Holland? Blood in the water. Yeah, I mean, hideous.
54:51 Dominic Sandbrook? Captain Fremantle, Thomas Fremantle, had been in two of Nelson's fights before. He'd been in the battle over the Satira, if you remember that, in the 1790s, and the Nile. And he said, "The carnage on board the Danish vessels exceeds anything I ever heard of." And everybody in the British fleet said, "God, the Danes, they really fought well." So one of Nelson's men, Thomas Wilkes, wrote home, says, "I will do the Danes the credit to say they fought well, far better than I've ever found from the French or the Spaniards."
55:21 Tom Holland? Well, the Danes are not a serious enemy to the British, unlike the French or the Spaniards. So in a sense, by praising the Danes relative to their more serious enemies, it's a good propaganda twist, isn't it?
55:31 Dominic Sandbrook? It is indeed. So Nelson is absolutely shattered, isn't he? Because he hasn't been sleeping, and not surprisingly, because he's been so stressed.
55:40 Tom Holland? So just to talk about what Nelson does after the battle, and to put it in the context of what he's been doing over the previous two days. He's been preparing his battle plans. He stayed up all night drawing them and getting them ready with Captain Ryu. He has led and fought a great battle. He suffered physical danger. He's been tormented by the tension of knowing whether his plans are going to come off or not. He's witnessed hideous carnage. He's directly disobeyed an order from his superior. He's done this kind of diplomatic gambit of opening negotiations with the Danes.
56:22 Tom Holland? He has secured a stunning, overwhelming victory against all the odds. He's gazed at the horrors of the straits, the seas littered with corpses, mourning the losses both of his own sailors and those of the Danes, which made his heart run out of his eyes, quoting there. He has returned from the elephant to his cabin on the St George, because, you know, he can sail back and get on his original flagship. He's gone to his cabin, he's taken out his journal, he's recorded the details of the day. He then records that he felt very unwell, unsurprisingly. And then, after all that, he reaches for a piece of paper,
57:06 Tom Holland? picks up his pen, and he writes a letter to Emma, accusing her of keeping scandalous company with the Prince of Wales. That's his priority. After all that, works himself up into an absolute state, and he's on the verge of collapsing. And then he calms down and he writes Emma a poem. "East, west, north, south, our minds shall never part. Your angel's lodestone shall be Nelson's heart."
57:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh.
57:36 Tom Holland? And having written that, he then lies down on his cot and passes out and sleeps for about six hours. I just think it's the most Nelson series of events you could possibly imagine.
57:47 Dominic Sandbrook? It is.
57:48 Tom Holland? It's the combination of unbelievable heroism and achievement, combined with a kind of comical erotic obsession.
57:55 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, not only that, Tom, but the Prince of Wales, the future George IV, one of the worst men who ever lived, is living rent-free in Nelson's head, isn't he?
58:04 Tom Holland? Yes, it's the first thing he thinks somebody gets back to his cabin.
58:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Right, so he has this sleep. The next day, the 3rd of April, he and Hardy go ashore to negotiate personally with the Crown Prince. And this really is a lovely scene. This is why they should make a film of this. They land at the South Customs House quay in Copenhagen, and there are huge crowds waiting. And the Crown Prince has sent guards to escort them. But actually, they don't need the guards because the crowds are so friendly. You know, Nelson is a celebrity. This is the weird thing. He's attacked their capital, but people are quite excited to see him. They're offered a carriage and they say, well, no, we don't need the carriage. So they walk down the main street towards the palace. And Hardy says that Nelson was received with as much admiration as when we went to the Lord Mayor's show in London.
58:54 Tom Holland? And does Nelson enjoy this?
58:56 Dominic Sandbrook? Of course he does.
58:57 Tom Holland? Of course he does.
58:58 Dominic Sandbrook? Nelson loves it. He writes afterwards, quite rightly, I am spoilt. All my astonishment is that my head is not turned.
59:06 Tom Holland? Oh, it's such modesty.
59:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Such humility. It's nice for him to compliment himself on his own level headedness. Anyway, they get in to see the Crown Prince and Nelson says, look, why are you in bed with the Russians? That's a terrible decision. You know, we are your true friends. And his argument is the Russians have misled you. We're never going to accept this arm neutrality stuff. Our national survival depends on us being able to, you know, have these blockades. It's the only way we can fight the French.
59:34 Tom Holland? I mean, I suppose that's true.
59:35 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
59:36 Tom Holland? But the issue for the Danes remains that the Russians are much closer than the British.
59:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
59:41 Tom Holland? And, um, you know, the French are even more menacing than that.
59:44 Dominic Sandbrook? Right. And the Danes want to trade and they want to do all this. So the talks, they, they go on for a few days. So long, in fact, that Nelson is able to bunk off to the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Company, where he orders a dinner service for Emma.
59:57 Tom Holland? Brilliant.
59:57 Dominic Sandbrook? So again, his laser focused on the, the main issues. And then on the sixth day of talks, which is the eighth of April, it's a terrible day, pouring rain, very miserable. Actually, when Nelson and his officials turn up at the palace, they're so bedraggled, they have to stand by the fire for ages to dry out before they can be shown into the meeting. They get in and the Crown Prince says, okay, fine, we've got a deal. We will remain neutral for the next few months. That'll give you time to deal with the Russians. Now, in return, we will resupply you and restock your ships and stuff. You have to buy it all from us. We're happy to do that. Nelson says, brilliant, what a great deal this is. Now, only afterwards does he find out why they've come to the deal because they
1:00:41 Dominic Sandbrook? know something that he doesn't. The Crown Prince has had intelligence from St Petersburg. Bombshell news. So you described Tsar Paul I. He's a very strange and disagreeable man with his obsession with people wearing the wrong hats and waistcoats and things.
1:00:57 Tom Holland? It's so what you want from a bad Tsar.
1:00:59 Dominic Sandbrook? And Russian officers have been plotting against him for months and they've finally acted. They burst into his apartment at St Michael's Castle in St Petersburg. They cornered him in his bedroom. He was hiding behind the curtains. They dragged him out, they beat him over the head with a paperweight and then they strangled him to death with his own scarf.
1:01:19 Tom Holland? Quite Rasputin.
1:01:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, it's just standard Russian political behaviour, no?
1:01:23 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:01:24 Dominic Sandbrook? So basically, the League of Arm Neutrality that he had set up is now doomed. And in fact, his successor, Alexander I, who ends up changing sides multiple times in the Napoleonic Wars, one of his first acts is to make peace with Britain.
1:01:39 Tom Holland? A good start to the reign.
1:01:40 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, sensible policies for a happier Russia. So all's well that ends well. There's only one person who's slightly down in the dumps. And guess who that is? It is, of course, Nelson.
1:01:52 Tom Holland? Is he complaining about how ill he feels?
1:01:54 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. So he sinks immediately into massive self pity, hypochondria, complaining about headaches and his eyes and all this sort of thing. I mean, to be fair to him, it's not quite over yet because when the deal is done with the Danes, he doesn't know that the Russians are about to pull out. And in fact, he thinks the Swedes are still involved. So he spends ages sailing around the Baltic, kind of looking for the Swedes in this terrible weather.
1:02:20 Tom Holland? And he ends up commander in chief of the British fleet because poor old Sir Hyde Parker has been recalled because news of the order that he gave Nelson has come out and people blame him for giving it rather than blame Nelson for disobeying it. And it has to be said that Nelson's very decent, he never mentions it.
1:02:37 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
1:02:38 Tom Holland? I think it's Colonel Stewart who lets slip about it.
1:02:40 Dominic Sandbrook? He's always telling stories, isn't he? But then, when Nelson's looking for the Swedes, we get one of the best ever Nelson stories, which is actually reproduced in the Peter Weir Master and Commander film. So he's out in a little boat, isn't he? The boat is from HMS Bologna and they're looking for the Swedes. And the master of the boat said afterwards, "It was extremely cold and I wished him to put on a great coat of mine which was in the boat." And Nelson said to him, no, I am not cold. My anxiety for my country will keep me warm.
1:03:11 Tom Holland? Zeal for king and country.
1:03:12 Dominic Sandbrook? In the film, it's zeal for king and country. And Russell Crowe says, if it was any other man, you'd say this is poor stuff.
1:03:20 Tom Holland? But with Nelson, you believe it.
1:03:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, you felt your heart glow. See, it's brilliant.
1:03:25 Tom Holland? But it is mad from Nelson, isn't it? If he's that ill and he's going out
1:03:29 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
1:03:29 Tom Holland? On the Baltic Sea without a coat.
1:03:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
1:03:32 Tom Holland? I mean, he's asking for it, really.
1:03:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it's great stuff that we can laugh about it now, but at the time, he nearly dies because he's got this fever. He's coughing so badly that everyone thinks he's got TB. He's having what he calls heart strokes. Hard to work out what these are. They're almost like panic attacks, I think.
1:03:47 Tom Holland? Palpitations or something, I guess.
1:03:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. And his officers are really worried about him. And actually, when people go back to London, they'd say, you've got to recall Nelson from the Baltic. I mean, if you leave him out there, he will die.
1:03:57 Tom Holland? Well, it's funny because the Earl of St Vincent says to John Jervis, who knows Nelson obviously incredibly well, when these reports that Nelson's ill arrive in London, to begin with, he says, absolutely nothing to worry about. So he tells the king. Nelson is always in the habit of complaining of ill health, you know, with the implication, just ignore it. And then a week later, the reports are so serious that he becomes alarmed too. And wheels are set in motion and Nelson is brought back.
1:04:21 Dominic Sandbrook? So the orders reach him in midsummer and by the 29th of July, he lands in Yarmouth once again. Greeted by huge crowds, ringing bells, all of this stuff. It's actually quite similar to the scene nine months earlier when he landed with the Hamiltons. The difference is there was a huge shadow that time and there isn't the same shadow this time. I mean, Emma is waiting for him. And of course, this saga, the Emma Fanny saga is not quite over. You know, Nelson, Emma has been on his mind every minute of every day, hasn't she? And he's sent her tons of presents.
1:04:57 Tom Holland? Well, he's got all that porcelain set from Copenhagen.
1:05:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Porcelain, bottles of wine, Danish wine. That's an odd.
1:05:04 Tom Holland? Yeah, I mean, that's mad.
1:05:07 Tom Holland? Going to Scandinavia to buy wine.
1:05:09 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, that's, I've only just thought that.
1:05:11 Tom Holland? Not showing Nelson at his most astute.
1:05:14 Dominic Sandbrook? That's the, that's the worst decision that Nelson ever made.
1:05:17 Tom Holland? I mean, Cronenberg perhaps, but.
1:05:20 Dominic Sandbrook? And he's also bought a lot of prints for her Nelson room. And in the next episode, we shall be getting into the decor of their house, which is, which is, I think alarming, but would go down very well, I think, with the current incumbents of the White House. Now, sad to say, poor Fanny, Nelson's wife, has not quite given up hope of winning him back. So when he won the Battle of Copenhagen, she wrote him a letter of congratulation, which he completely and utterly ignored. And Edmund, his father, wrote to tell him off and said, Fanny, your wife was heavily affected with her personal feelings and not receiving a line from your own hand. And Nelson said to his father, I don't care.
1:06:02 Dominic Sandbrook? My mind is fixed. I want to be left to myself and without any inquiries from her. And Fanny still hasn't really got the message or hasn't given up. Because she sent his friend Alexander Davison, what I find a very, very sad and moving letter. She said, when she heard Nelson was coming home, my heart was all thankfulness and pleasure. But a moment's unwelcome and intruding reflection made me truly a miserable and pitiable being. I love him. I would do anything in the world to convince him of my affection. And then, I think this is the very sad bit. She says, surely I have angered him. It was done unconsciously and without the least intention. But my wish, my desire was to please him. And if he will have the goodness to send for me,
1:06:45 Dominic Sandbrook? I will make it my study to obey him in every wish. She just doesn't get that there's nothing she can do.
1:06:52 Tom Holland? So at the weekend, I went to number one London, Abstey House, where the Duke of Wellington had his house. And they had an exhibition on him and they talked about his relationship with his wife. Like Nelson found Fanny, Wellington found his wife boring. And I think it was very similar that Wellington, like Nelson, spends long periods abroad. And he lives his life at an excruciating pitch. And I suspect that in both cases. They come to feel that their wives are boring, that they don't inhabit the same kind of
1:07:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
1:07:26 Tom Holland? zone. They're not part of the vibe of excitement and heroism and glamour that overseas service offers them. And in Nelson's case, Emma does, he replies to all the demands that he see Fanny and says that he's committed to building his life around a wife more suited to my genius.
1:07:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. I don't think you could get away with saying that today, could you? I mean, people would think very poorly of you.
1:07:49 Tom Holland? I think you can if you're Nelson.
1:07:51 Dominic Sandbrook? Maybe.
1:07:51 Tom Holland? I mean, obviously, it's terrible. He treats Fanny terribly. You know, we've gone through that. At the same time, I guess you're with someone you find boring, you meet someone who you find intoxicating. What are you gonna do?
1:08:04 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. Do you know who agrees with you? Theo, because he's written in the chat, enough about Fanny. It's poor from Theo. Right. So since Theo is our overlord, we'll get to the end. On the first of July, Nelson arrives back in London and he goes straight to the Admiralty. Now, in the eyes of the Admiralty, he has redeemed himself. He has upheld Britain's national security. He has reaffirmed the Royal Navy's command of the seas.
1:08:27 Tom Holland? And there's never any, any whisper, is there, of criticism for him about disobeying orders?
1:08:33 Dominic Sandbrook? No, just like Cape St Vincent. If you gamble and it pays off, you're laughing. And he's done it not just by killing, but by diplomacy. I mean, that's the really impressive thing about Nelson at Copenhagen. You know, he's, he's proved himself a politician as well as a warrior. But when he gets to the Admiralty, long faces greet him because while he has been away, there has been bombshell intelligence from across the channel. Because while Nelson has been in the Baltic, the new first consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, has been raising an enormous new army. And this time, I am sorry to say, Bonaparte's target is not Naples or Constantinople or Egypt. His cruel and greedy eyes are set on the coast of England.
1:09:16 Tom Holland? Absolute scenes. So will Napoleon try an evasion of England? Will Nelson be able to stop him? There is literally only one way to find out, and that is to listen to our next. Next episode, which will be out on Thursday. If you are not a club member, but if you are a club member, you can hear that and the final two episodes of this epic series straight away. And if you're not a club member and you would like to be able to hear these episodes immediately, then you just have to go to therestishistory.com and sign up there. And of course, it comes with a whole slew of additional benefits, doesn't it, Dominic? One of which, this week, coming out on Friday, I will be talking to Mary Beard
1:10:00 Tom Holland? about another great military commander, Julius Caesar. So just sensational value, as we've said. Wonderful stuff. Dominic, thanks so much for that. We will be back with Napoleon's greedy eyes set on England and we will see you then. Bye bye. Bye bye.
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