517. Nelson: The Hunt for Napoleon (Part 4)

In the wake of the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, Horatio Nelson, though a much acclaimed public hero for his bravery during the battle, is in the doldrums. Having led a harebrained attack on Tenerife, Nelson must now contend with the loss of his arm. Upon returning to England, famous and lauded, Nelson declared his intention to retire to a cottage in the countryside to recover. However, carrying on the tide from France came murmurings that that the French were amassing an enormous force of soldiers and ships. The supreme commander of this formidable host: a Corsican by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. It seemed that at last, the monumental struggle for which Britain had been grimly preparing up for so long - a total struggle of apocalyptic proportions - was in the offing. And with it, Nelson, the man of the hour, was given command of the squadron charged with finding the vast French fleet and hunting down the formidable Napoleon. Nelson’s hour of glory had finally arrived. Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the aftermath of the Battle of St. Vincent, Nelson’s burgeoning legend and emotional turmoil, and his thrilling hunt for Napoleon Bonaparte. _______ LIVE SHOWS *The Rest Is History LIVE in the U. S. A.* If you live in the States, we've got some great news: Tom and Dominic will be performing throughout America in November, with shows in San Francisco, L. A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D. C., Boston and New York. Tickets on sale now at TheRestIsHistory.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 1:25Tom Holland?

  Nelson glanced up at the sky. In the east, black clouds were gathering. In ancient times, he thought, people would have considered that a disturbing omen. But was it bad news for him? Or for the French? Upon this mission depended the fate of the war. Perhaps even the survival of Britain. But he felt no fear, just a quiet, calm resolve.

• 1:53Tom Holland?

  He nodded to his lieutenants. It was time to leave, to face his destiny. As darkness fell across the Mediterranean, they sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, east into the unknown. So it is the 8th of May 1798, and Dominic, as the storm clouds of war gather, brilliant metaphor there that we've never had on the rest is history before, Horatio Nelson is preparing to sail into the Mediterranean in search of Britain's greatest foe, Napoleon Bonaparte, and people wondering where they can find this masterly

• 2:33Tom Holland?

  prose and this excellent analysis of naval warfare in the age of Napoleon. Why? It's a new book from a leading naval scholar, one Dominic Sandbrook, Nelson, hero of the seas, and Dominic, I believe it's available from all good bookshops now, right?

• 2:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is, Tom, and it's aimed at readers of all ages. So younger readers especially, I think it's fair to say. But if you're an older reader, don't feel inhibited.

• 2:54Tom Holland?

  Pile in.

• 2:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, buy multiple copies for friends and family, I would say.

• 2:59Tom Holland?

  Yeah, Christmas is coming.

• 3:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  And Tom, do you know what? We're recording this on Trafalgar Day.

• 3:02Tom Holland?

  I know.

• 3:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  On the 21st of October.

• 3:04Tom Holland?

  I've been aglow with patriotic fervour since I leapt out of bed.

• 3:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  Have you? Oh, that's great news.

• 3:09Tom Holland?

  It's the best day of the year.

• 3:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is the best day. It's Christmas for a historian, isn't it? Absolutely, it is.

• 3:13Tom Holland?

  Oh, not all historians.

• 3:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  No.

• 3:15Tom Holland?

  Certainly for us.

• 3:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  If you're an academic historian, I think it's, it's a day like any other. But for those of us who ply our trade in the public eye, it's a great moment, isn't it? Trafalgar Day.

• 3:26Tom Holland?

  It truly is. But we're not talking about the Battle of Trafalgar. We are talking about the campaign that culminates in another of Nelson's remarkable victories, the Battle of the Nile. But Dominic, we've got a long way before we get there, haven't we?

• 3:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  We have, because this is the amazing story of the hunt for Bonaparte, today's episode. And actually, last time, Tom, we ended with Nelson really in the doldrums. So he had been incredibly brave at the Battle of Cape St Vincent. Then he had led this very reckless and foolhardy attack on Tenerife to try and snatch the Spanish treasure with his mate Thomas Trubridge. And listeners will recall that it was a harebrained scheme. They turned up on the beach, dawn breaking, bells ringing, cannons firing at them. Nelson is shot in the elbow.

• 4:09Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  Rescued by his oafish stepson.

• 4:13Tom Holland?

  Josiah.

• 4:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Josiah.

• 4:15Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 4:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Who ties a tourniquet, uses his neckerchief. Nelson carried back to the ship. Refuses to accept a chair to bring him up to the ship, so clambers up with his one arm.

• 4:25Tom Holland?

  And Theo, who is French, didn't believe that.

• 4:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, the thing is, if you start doubting any element of Nelson's, then Nelson's life, then the whole story falls apart. But also, the thing with Nelson's life that makes it such an extraordinary, irresistible subject, is that these sort of Hollywood touches that we can scoff at, and I think by and large, they genuinely did happen, didn't they? Nelson consistently behaved in an almost preposterously.

• 4:47Tom Holland?

  Heroic manner.

• 4:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, melodramatic and heroic manner.

• 4:50Tom Holland?

  But he's quite depressed, isn't he? Obviously, he's lost his arm and he's suffered a defeat.

• 4:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 4:55Tom Holland?

  And he tells Saint Vincent, who is his great patron now.

• 4:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 5:00Tom Holland?

  That basically, you know, it's all up for him, that he will be a burden to my friends and useless to my country.

• 5:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  He was going to go off to a cottage, wasn't he? No one would want a one-armed admiral.

• 5:08Tom Holland?

  Yeah, just kind of lick his wounds and be miserable. But actually, when he arrives in Portsmouth, so he lands there on the afternoon of the 2nd of September, 1797, for the first time, he is greeted as a public hero.

• 5:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, because Nelson himself had made sure that the news of the Battle of Cape St Vincent placed him at the centre. So he had written letters to friends and things.

• 5:30Tom Holland?

  I mean, not unjustifiably.

• 5:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, not unjustifiably, but one of Nelson's perhaps more irritating traits for his superiors, more amusing ones for us, is that he's an inveterate self-promoter. You know, he's very keen that everybody in England knows that he was in the thick of the action.

• 5:45Tom Holland?

  #Nelson, #StVincent.

• 5:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 5:49Tom Holland?

  #Victory.

• 5:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  And when he arrives, as you say, at Portsmouth, he's a very wizened and kind of miserable-looking figure because he's, you know, he's been very ill, he's lost his arm, he's suffered a terrible defeat at Tenerife. But there's this little crowd there and they kind of shout three cheers for, you know.

• 6:06Tom Holland?

  Yeah, huzzards.

• 6:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Huzzards, all this. And he is, I think, surprised by this because he's obviously been so low, wasn't expecting it, and it gives him a little boost. And actually, this is the first time, as you say, that he becomes a national figure. So when he arrives in Bath to be reunited with his father Edmund and his wife Fanny, the newspapers in Bath, the local papers, all report the stories. So there are lots of extracts in, for example, John Sugden's biography, saying, you know, the Bath Bugle or whatever will say, oh, wonderful news. The hero of the Battle of Capes and Vincent has arrived in the town and he's going to be strolling around the spars and going to the theatre and stuff. And we can all see him and isn't that wonderful?

• 6:45Tom Holland?

  Because actually, it's all about St Vincent, isn't it? They don't really mention Tenerife.

• 6:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  No.

• 6:49Tom Holland?

  Even the newspapers that do say that was a bit cack-handed.

• 6:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Tom Holland?

  I mean, they still say, well, he was very brave. So he's not overly criticised for Tenerife. He is still the hero of the hour.

• 6:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Absolutely. Do you want to read a little bit of poetry? Would you like to read the poem from the Bath Herald?

• 7:01Tom Holland?

  I would love to because I'm actually very interested in the topic of Nelson as a theme for poetry.

• 7:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 7:07Tom Holland?

  So we've already mentioned Byron.

• 7:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Tom Holland?

  Who called him Britannia's God of all Coleridge and Southie. They were very keen. William Blake, who we'll probably come to, did an extraordinary painting of Nelson. But this is maybe not entirely up there with Byron and Coleridge and Blake. But it was dedicated to that intrepid Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson on his arrival from scenes of danger and glory to the arms of his family in the city. And there are a lot of capital letters in that sentence. Oh, Nelson, subject of our praise, while conscious worth shall gild thy future days, soothed with the blessings of domestic life, a reverent father and a faithful wife.

• 7:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh dear, Tom. The irony.

• 7:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, that will soon have a bitterly ironic meaning. Of course, Fanny is always a very faithful wife, isn't she?

• 7:55Tom Holland?

  Yeah, it's a question of whether Nelson will be a faithful husband.

• 7:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, exactly. So he's come home later that autumn. He goes up to London and he's given the Freedom of the City in a ceremonial sword by the Lord Mayor. He goes to St James's Palace with the Earl of St Vincent, formerly Sir John Jervis. And there George III, who's in one of the intervals between being mad and talking to trees, gives him the Silver Star and Crimson Ribbon of a Knight of the Order of Bath.

• 8:22Tom Holland?

  Because Dominic, George III had been quite down on Nelson, hadn't he? Because Nelson had been given responsibility for looking after his son, William.

• 8:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 8:30Tom Holland?

  Who's become the Duke of Clarence and felt that he'd done it poorly.

• 8:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  He had done it poorly.

• 8:34Tom Holland?

  But now he's, George III has forgiven Nelson.

• 8:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's right. Yes. Because people will remember that Nelson was looking after, he was called William Henry at the time, wasn't he? Your future William the Fourth. And when he's the king, when he's William the Fourth, everybody thinks of him as jolly bluff. Yeah. Bluff is the word.

• 8:50Tom Holland?

  You're legally required to use that word when describing him.

• 8:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  But actually, as a young man, he was just an absolutely dreadful person. He was the kind of person, there's a thing that our producers were telling us about people being banned from student unions when they wear chinos and blue shirts. Isn't that public school boys who are in hockey teams who get drunk and harass everybody?

• 9:09Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 9:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  This is William Henry, isn't it? This is absolutely William Henry.

• 9:13Tom Holland?

  And very much not Nelson.

• 9:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Anyway, Nelson's been made a knight of the bath. And he gets to choose his own coat of arms. And he absolutely goes for it, doesn't he? So his coat of arms has got a British sailor stamping on a Spanish flag. And a lion ripping a Spanish flag apart with his teeth.

• 9:32Tom Holland?

  Does what it says on the tin?

• 9:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, would not be popular with the well dressed king of Spain.

• 9:35Tom Holland?

  No, they could fly it over. Welcome to Gibraltar.

• 9:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, exactly. That's what they should do. So we shouldn't underplay Nelson's disability, I suppose.

• 9:44Tom Holland?

  No, not at all.

• 9:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because, I mean, it's a really, really serious business, isn't it? He can't see out of one eye, he's lost this arm above the elbow, he can't dress himself properly in the morning. Like even to do up his breeches, to fasten his coat, to put his stockings on and all this kind of thing. It's like a real effort.

• 10:01Tom Holland?

  So it's lucky he's got a faithful wife, isn't it, to help him?

• 10:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Fanny is amazing for him. She's so uncomplaining and patient and stuff. So he does have some things that are specially done for him. He has specially made shirts, like you, Tom.

• 10:14Tom Holland?

  Yeah, like me.

• 10:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Handmade shirts. He has a special fork. I don't know if you have a fork like this. It's a fork their friend makes, like an ancestor of the spork, kind of half fork, half knife.

• 10:24Tom Holland?

  So he could take it camping.

• 10:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a brilliant, it's camping fork, basically.

• 10:27Tom Holland?

  I mean, he finds the effort of cutting up food in public very humiliating, doesn't he? Because he's kind of chasing bits of meat around his plate and things.

• 10:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, for somebody who fancies himself as a bit of a kind of, you know, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great. It's not the image, is it?

• 10:39Tom Holland?

  No, not quite the look.

• 10:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, it's not the look.

• 10:41Tom Holland?

  But I think, I mean, more than anything, it's just unbelievably painful, isn't it? I don't entirely understand the medicine of it, but there's a strand of silk that has. Dropped off and this is causing him immense pain and it means that the wound can't heal. Is that right? I think I've got that right.

• 10:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, that's exactly it. So the wound is still open at the end of his arm because this silk thread has not fallen away. And he goes to see a surgeon in London. The surgeon says, look, it will eventually. There's nothing we can do, but you can't go to sea really while this is the case because it's could get infected.

• 11:11Tom Holland?

  Well, also he's necking vast quantities of laudanum, isn't he?

• 11:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, he is.

• 11:14Tom Holland?

  So he's off his face on opio.

• 11:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  He is. So his mood, though, is perfectly matched to that of the country. Britain has been fighting now for five years against revolutionary France, far longer than anybody imagined. France has proved a much more resilient and indeed more than resilient, a formidable opponent, revolutionary France. The British fleet, people will remember, has been forced out of the Mediterranean. Britain's allies are dropping out of the war like flies. It's proved very expensive. The French have actually landed at one point a little raiding party at Fishguard in Wales. There's a great story, isn't there? The local towns' women lined up.

• 11:51Tom Holland?

  In their Welsh hats.

• 11:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  In their Welsh hats. And the French mistook them for.

• 11:55Tom Holland?

  Grenadiers or whatever. Yeah.

• 11:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, and surrendered on mass. A great victory for the women of Wales. But news of that little invasion sparked a financial panic. So there was a huge run on the Bank of England. A lot of country banks collapsed. And if you read Jenny Uglow's brilliant book about Britain and the Napoleonic Wars, she has all this stuff with kind of letters from country parsons and things at this point, seventeen ninety seven.

• 12:20Tom Holland?

  So we will be doing a bonus with her.

• 12:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 12:22Tom Holland?

  So if you're a member of the Restless History Club, we will be talking to her about that book.

• 12:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  And that's a brilliant book about Britain in the seventeen nineties.

• 12:28Tom Holland?

  Living in Britain through Napoleon's Wars, seventeen ninety three to eighteen fifteen. Absolutely wonderful book.

• 12:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Anyway, then there are a wave of mutinies in the spring of seventeen ninety seven, a few months before Nelson's return. There's been a mutiny at Spithead, then there's been a mutiny at the Nore, and a blockade of the Thames, actually, by the mutineers. I mean, this for the Royal Navy is an absolute near dear, is a shocking moment that the sword and shield of Britain can be disrupted in this way.

• 12:54Tom Holland?

  But what's amazing about this is that Nelson is very sympathetic to the Spithead. Mutineers who he feel have been badly done by.

• 13:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Tom Holland?

  This is very much his kind of noblesse oblige, that those in the higher ranks owe a duty of care to those low down. And so he said of the spithead mutiny, I was amazed to read this, the most manly thing I ever heard of. And does the British sailor infinite honour? And that's what he says to the Duke of Clarence, who's.

• 13:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hang them all.

• 13:20Tom Holland?

  Yeah. And he says, no, no, we have a duty to them. He does view the the ringleaders of the norm mutiny though as as Jacobas. Who are kind of misleading the honest British tar.

• 13:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 13:31Tom Holland?

  And he'd be all in favour of hanging them from the yardarm, which I think actually is what happens to them. I think they do all get hanged, don't they?

• 13:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, they are hanging. The ringleaders are hanged. I think because there's a couple of different things happening at once. One is understandable anxiety and resentment at the kind of low pay. The fact they've been at sea for ages, the war has dragged on.

• 13:48Tom Holland?

  Bad food.

• 13:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  All of that stuff. And then among some people, there is a radical sentiment and those two things have become mixed up.

• 13:54Tom Holland?

  And that's at the norm.

• 13:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Anyway, for people in Britain, the news of the mutineers on top of everything else is really shocking. And then in October seventeen ninety seven, Britain's last major ally, Austria, signs a separate peace with France. And wouldn't you know it, not for the last time, Britain stands alone. And there's an amazing scene, actually. William Pitt, the Prime Minister, gets up in the Commons. And of course, Pitt is largely forgotten today. But it's a very Churchillian moment. He says, better to face danger accompanied with honour.

• 14:26Tom Holland?

  That's not how he speaks. He says, danger accompanied with honour. Because he's about ten.

• 14:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  You've got to do it in Churchill's voice, otherwise it doesn't work. And to accept indelible shame and disgrace.

• 14:36Tom Holland?

  Indelible shame and disgrace. And listeners can decide who's more accurate there.

• 14:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, I mean, he's a very impressive man, William Pitt, so I don't think he sounded like Tom's version. Tom's version is from Blackadder, let's be honest. Anyway, Pitt says, we need to fight on. We can't surrender everything that constitutes the pride, the safety and happiness of England. And he says, all freeborn Britons must join hand and heart in a solemn pledge to fight for the laws, liberties and religion of our country. This is very stirring stuff, but actually this is the pretext for him to massively increase taxes.

• 15:08Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so it's kind of Rachel Reeves. School black hole, isn't it?

• 15:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. He trebles taxes and announces the first income tax. So if you're a high earner, you will pay a tenth of your income over £200.

• 15:22Tom Holland?

  And also notoriously, he triples the window tax, doesn't he?

• 15:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  He does indeed. So all the bricked up windows that you sometimes see.

• 15:27Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Are from this moment.

• 15:29Tom Holland?

  Tax evasion.

• 15:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. So morale is pretty low, I think it's fair to say. And Nelson at this point gets a letter. He gets an invitation to go to a parade to bolster morale. The King wants to celebrate the three great victories they've had at sea. So that's Cape St Vincent that Nelson was involved in against the Spanish. They won a tremendous victory at Camperdown against the Dutch.

• 15:50Tom Holland?

  And that's amazing, isn't it? Because that's for only a few weeks after the mutinies.

• 15:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 15:54Tom Holland?

  I think it's Admiral Duncan, as in the gay pub in Soho.

• 15:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think that's right, yes.

• 15:58Tom Holland?

  So I tell you what N A M Roger said of that.

• 16:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  I'd love to hear it.

• 16:02Tom Holland?

  Of Camperdown. "It bestowed for the first time on the Royal Navy something of the aura of invincibility, which now hung about the French armies on land." I mean, he'd know about that.

• 16:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 16:10Tom Holland?

  And this presumably is why they're having this parade.

• 16:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's right.

• 16:13Tom Holland?

  Because essentially, it's the only good news story they have.

• 16:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, they have won three Titanic naval battles.

• 16:19Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 16:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  The third one was called a battle with a brilliant name of the glorious first of June. Because it's fought in the middle of nowhere in the Atlantic. And that was against the French a year earlier. So they've had three victories against the Spanish, the Dutch and the French. And previously, victories had not been greeted by parades because they were seen as kind of populist.

• 16:38Tom Holland?

  Vulgar.

• 16:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Kind of thing people do, actually, in revolutionary France, Jacobin behaviour. But the government feels they really need this parade, so they have it on the 19th of December. It's freezing cold, but tens of thousands of people turn out. Nelson wears his order the bath and he's in charge of handing the Spanish flags to the dean of St Paul's Cathedral, which is a kind of tribute to his newfound celebrity. But also, as John Sugden says in his biography. This is a moment kind of shadowed with irony because it's on this very spot in just eight years' time that his own body will rest in the most famous state funeral in British history.

• 17:15Tom Holland?

  And this is why his story has such a quality of epic. I mean, it's full of these kind of ironies and foreshadowings and echoes. It's amazing.

• 17:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. So the weeks after this, this great parade are quite bleak. Everybody is very anxious about the taxes and about the fact that Britain is now isolated in Europe. And there's a real sense, I think, about Britain gearing up, you know, almost reluctantly for this kind of total struggle. You know, it is clearly now a different kind of war from even the Seven Years' War, I think. It is a much more financially demanding and kind of emotionally demanding war, a genuinely national campaign. And it's about this point that some of William Pitt's spies start to bring whispers that on the other side of the Channel, the French are massing troops and preparing ships.

• 18:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  And they eventually discover that as the supreme commander of this new army, the Directory, who are running France, have appointed the man who had carried all before him in Italy. And this, of course, is the Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte. And what nobody knows is, are they planning an attack on the dockyards across the Channel? Chatham, Tom?

• 18:22Tom Holland?

  Chatham and Portsmouth. Because we discussed this before, didn't we, that that would be the only way, really, that France could knock Britain out of the war would be to destroy the dockyards?

• 18:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. If you destroy the dockyards and win control of the Channel, you could then land troops. You don't necessarily need to. You know, if you can control the Channel, starve Britain out, starve Britain of supplies.

• 18:42Tom Holland?

  They'd be reduced to terms.

• 18:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, then Britain would have no choice but to come to terms. So no one really knows what the plan is, but by the early spring, there are more rumours reaching London and spy reports and things. Then the south of France, in Toulon, which of course had been retaken by Napoleon, you remember that, that forensically researched scene of Napoleon looking out across the smoking harbour of Toulon, a cruel smile, I think, was playing on his lips, wasn't it, Tom?

• 19:08Tom Holland?

  But presumably because he had scabies, which he'd got from picking up the glove, wasn't it?

• 19:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's well remembered.

• 19:14Tom Holland?

  In the course of that siege.

• 19:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. He's like a Bond villain. He's not just cruel and despotic, but he's physically malformed with scabies. Right. So from Toulon, there are reports that this guy, Admiral François Paul Bruess. Is assembling a fleet with more than a dozen warships and hundreds of transports. And the question which people in London are debating for week after week is, where is the armament, as they call it, where is it heading? So there are rumours that they're going to Greece, that Bonaparte has his eye set on Naples or Sicily, Constantinople, maybe even Egypt, but nobody knows for certain.

• 19:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  And eventually the Admiralty decides, right, we will send a new squadron back to the Mediterranean to find out what on earth is going on with this enormous force being assembled in Toulon. But also because we want to fly the flag to try and persuade the Austrians somehow to get back into the war.

• 20:12Tom Holland?

  But it's a gamble, isn't it?

• 20:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course.

• 20:14Tom Holland?

  Because the ships that will go into the Mediterranean have to come from St Vincent's fleet, which are busy blocking Cadiz and patrolling the Atlantic seaboard of Iberia.

• 20:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's right.

• 20:24Tom Holland?

  So his fleet in turn has to be reinforced by ships from the Channel. So essentially, for as long as the British fleet is in the Mediterranean, the Channel fleet will have no strategic reserve. So it is a gamble.

• 20:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, but you can't just allow this enormous fleet to rampage around unchecked.

• 20:41Tom Holland?

  Well, that's because you are Nelson and I am Hoffa. About the nervous, twitchy.

• 20:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  You would have done nothing, Tom, you'd hunkered down.

• 20:48Tom Holland?

  I would.

• 20:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, no, you'd have lost the Napoleon at Wars, what a terrible confession.

• 20:52Tom Holland?

  I would, I absolutely would. But you with your dash, had you been there, doubtless you'd have been given the command, but instead it goes to Nelson.

• 20:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's right, yeah, sadly it goes to Nelson. He is given the Vanguard, excellent name for a ship, the 74 gun Vanguard. And he is told, we want you to go into the Mediterranean and find this colossal enemy fleet and basically report on what's going on.

• 21:13Tom Holland?

  And he's given that command, isn't he, partly, obviously because he's the man of the hour. There's a sense that he's full of dash and initiative. But also, I think, because there's a feeling that he's good at geopolitics as well.

• 21:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 21:23Tom Holland?

  Because presumably that British have no ports, no bases.

• 21:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 21:28Tom Holland?

  In the Mediterranean, and so he'll need to find some of those, and that will require negotiation and diplomacy.

• 21:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  He will indeed, and supplies and water and all of this kind of stuff that they will need. You know, you need somebody who's really on top of this, which he absolutely is. On top of the paperwork side of things, I suppose. So he says farewell to Fanny. And actually, at this point, everybody says Horatio and Fanny are very close. They have never seemed closer. They bought a new house together, round Wood, near Ipswich, and the indications are they're looking forward to making it their own. And there's a lovely story that one evening, he has dinner with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer and Lady Spencer, this guy's wife. And Lady Spencer remembered afterwards that the talk turned to how Nelson was going away and he'd be leaving Fanny behind.

• 22:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  And he suddenly speaks very emotionally and he says, Fanny is so lovely and she's so kind and she's so accomplished that I regard myself as the luckiest man in England. Her angelic tenderness to me, he says, has been beyond imagination. She's dressed my wounds, she's cut up my meat, she's helped me get dressed, she's done all these things and I really think, he says, that she's saved my life because I was so depressed and she's helped me out of it. And he says to Lady Spencer, if anything happens to me while I'm away, I hope you'll always look after Fanny.

• 22:48Tom Holland?

  Well, something does happen to him while he's away.

• 22:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 22:52Tom Holland?

  But it doesn't involve a cannonball.

• 22:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nothing good, I think it's fair to say, Tom, nothing good. You know my views of this, of this business.

• 22:58Tom Holland?

  We will discuss this.

• 23:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right, so he sets sail from Portsmouth on the Vanguard at the beginning of April. And for weeks he sails south. At the end of the month, he reaches, you mentioned Cadiz. That's where Sir John Jervis, now the Earl of St Vincent, is blockading the Spanish fleet. There's an awful lot of blockading in the Napoleonic Wars, which is unbelievably boring to talk about.

• 23:19Tom Holland?

  Um, is it?

• 23:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think it is.

• 23:21Tom Holland?

  I think it's quite interesting because I think the supplying of it is so interesting.

• 23:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nothing happens.

• 23:26Tom Holland?

  No, but the fact that these ships can stay out for month after month after month and be supplied, I mean, I find it amazing, but that's because I have an intense interest in the logistics of the Royal Navy.

• 23:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course.

• 23:36Tom Holland?

  And that may be a point of difference between us.

• 23:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course, I like close action, Tom. I'm itching to get into close action. You like, like Admiral Hutham, actually, he would enjoy a blockade.

• 23:45Tom Holland?

  Yeah. Oh, let's not go anywhere near a cannon.

• 23:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right, exactly. So, members of the Rest is History Club, you can look forward to Tom doing loads of bonus episodes about a day by day account of a blockade of Cadiz that ends with no fighting whatsoever.

• 24:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Anyway, he meets up with St Vincent and St Vincent says, look, we've had no news of the French, we've had no sign of them, we don't really have any sense of what's going on. And he says to him, I will give you two ships, the Orion and the Alexander, and I'll give you three smaller frigates.

• 24:14Tom Holland?

  And Dominic, is there a recently published book that describes this scene?

• 24:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, do you want to read it or shall I read?

• 24:21Tom Holland?

  Shall I read it?

• 24:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  You read it.

• 24:22Tom Holland?

  I'm going to read it.

• 24:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  But read it with the dignity and the respect that I think this prose deserves.

• 24:26Tom Holland?

  I will, I will. So this is, we're moving up here to the end of part one, and I can think of no better way than to read something from Dominic's new book on Nelson. St Vincent met his friend's eye and his face was grave. Nelson must remember, he said, that once he sailed east of Gibraltar, he would pass beyond help. Most of the Mediterranean ports were loyal to France now. If he needed supplies or repairs, the only reliable harbour was at Naples. And thanks to Bonaparte, Naples' independence hung by a thread. A thread? Nelson nodded. He knew the risks, but he also knew the stakes. Upon this mission depended

• 25:08Tom Holland?

  the fate of the war, perhaps even the survival of Britain. But he felt no fear, just a quiet, calm resolve. And so Dominic, on the 8th of May 1798, he sets off through the Straits of Gibraltar, east, into the unknown.

• 25:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  What tension, what an incredible tension. Let's take a break because I can hardly breathe.

• 25:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So go to mintmobile.com/history. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required, $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra, initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot, capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

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• 26:40Speaker 01

  Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Witness the beginning of the revolution.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Filmed for IMAX.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Make them remember you.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.

• 27:02Tom Holland?

  So Dominic, we left our listeners on a moment of excruciating tension. Everything is literally hanging on a thread.

• 27:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, everything.

• 27:09Tom Holland?

  So Nelson sailed east into the Mediterranean, searching for this vast French fleet known as the Arbument. There is a massive burden on him, isn't there? Because as we've said, the ships that he's taking into the Mediterranean essentially is the naval reserve that would help Britain to block a French crossing of the Channel.

• 27:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, that's right.

• 27:27Tom Holland?

  He can't afford to lose it.

• 27:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, he can't. He does have something in his favour, which is that the two ships that St Vincent has given him are really excellent ships. I mean, Nelson's delighted. They're the Alexander and the Orion. And these two captains are tremendous people. So the captain of the Alexander is a guy called Alexander Ball. And he's from Gloucestershire. He's a squire's son from Gloucestershire. He's a great reader. And I'm delighted to report that he was inspired to go to sea by reading Robinson Crusoe.

• 27:55Tom Holland?

  Well Dominic, could I just intervene at this point? I know that Daisy Cristodoulou, wonderful educationalist who came on and did the history of exams for us.

• 28:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 28:05Tom Holland?

  She, I'm afraid, argues that Robinson Crusoe is wholly irrelevant and hasn't had any impact on history at all. I know she's a listener, and I hope that when she hears this, she will go away and reflect on her error.

• 28:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, because the entire career of Alexander Ball.

• 28:19Tom Holland?

  I know.

• 28:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  An important player at the Battle of Than I'll probably somebody who had he not read Robinson Crusoe, Tom, you and I might be speaking French. Imagine.

• 28:26Tom Holland?

  Yes, and Daisy would be doing her educationalist stuff in French. So she should reflect on that. And also just to say, I mean, Nelson does really come to admire Alexander Ball, doesn't he? But I'm afraid to say that at one point Alexander Ball had disgraced himself by wearing epaulettes in the French style.

• 28:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, no.

• 28:43Tom Holland?

  And Nelson didn't approve of this and thought him a great coxcomb.

• 28:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's terrible.

• 28:49Tom Holland?

  Yeah, but it all ends well. They end up great pals, don't they?

• 28:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, which actually is not the case with the other man. The other man is also a brilliant captain. He's called James Someray. And he's from Guernsey. I mean, these are funny characters, all of these captains, because this guy, Someray, is very sensitive and serious. And he's always sinking into black dogs kind of depressions. And he and Nelson have a slightly more tense relationship, I think it's fair to say. But Nelson knows that he's a brilliant captain.

• 29:13Tom Holland?

  And that's what really matters.

• 29:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  And that is what matters. Exactly.

• 29:16Tom Holland?

  Can he serve Britain? Yes, then he's good.

• 29:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  And their crews love them. The three ships that he's got are as good as you could find anywhere in the world. Anyway, it's almost over before it begins this mission because just outside Toulon, they run into this massive storm. Nelson is a bit careless and heedless going into the storm because he's thinking only of the kind of political situation. So the vanguard loses four of its masts and four sailors are swept overboard. And Nelson is very shaken by this. He writes to Fanny and he says, you know, I had thought myself one of the most fortunate men to command such a squadron in such a place. My pride was too great. But the accidents which have happened to the vanguard were a just punishment for my vanity. I hope it has made me a better officer as I believe it has made me a better man. And actually, I thought this would be a nice moment to just stop and reflect on Nelson's character a bit.

• 30:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because if you'd spoken to people in the Admiralty, you could have heard very disobliging reports of Nelson. People might have said, he's actually very vain, he's extremely annoying. You know, he's difficult, he's prickly, he's a bit of a nightmare. But I think what redeems him is precisely this quality that is expressed in the letter to Fanny. He is reflective about his own faults. He genuinely is incredibly hardworking and he's self-improving and he's dedicated. And resilience and all of these kinds of things.

• 30:33Tom Holland?

  I mean, I think the thing about losing the mast, it's often said that Nelson, you know, his seamanship was incomparable. I don't think that's quite true. It's not really his qualities of seamanship that make him the extraordinary naval commander that he is. And he is capable of errors like that. I think also the other thing, it's something that Patrick O'Brien famously alludes to when Jack Aubrey talks about meeting Nelson. And there's this kind of passage about, you know, he doesn't need a great coat in the cold because he's aflame with seal for king and country. And Aubrey says, coming from anyone else, this would have sounded ludicrous.

• 31:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 31:04Tom Holland?

  Melodramatic, overwrought, but coming from him, you know, you felt, yeah, that's great. And there's something about that, you know, the letter to Fanny, isn't there? I hope it has made me a better officer, as I believe it has made me a better man.

• 31:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 31:16Tom Holland?

  Had he not been intensely, burningly serious when he wrote that, it would have just seemed ludicrous.

• 31:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think that's the thing, isn't it? Nelson is an extremely earnest man. I wouldn't credit him with too much of a sense of humour.

• 31:29Tom Holland?

  No.

• 31:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's not funny and he's certainly not self-deprecating. And I don't think he would be a man who would enjoy jokes about the Royal Navy. He's so committed. He has this kind of moral earnestness. And actually, if you think about our podcast that we did about the French Revolution, you know, moral earnestness.

• 31:45Tom Holland?

  Is the character of the age, isn't it?

• 31:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Is absolutely a character of the age. I suppose it's the early age of Romanticism, isn't it? And it's kind of part of that vibe.

• 31:52Tom Holland?

  But I think he takes cliche and cranks it up to such a pitch that the cliche becomes kind of Homeric.

• 31:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes, storm clouds of war hanging by a thread.

• 32:01Tom Holland?

  And people thrilled to it, you know, people who would laugh if it came from anyone else, find it utterly inspiring.

• 32:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  But that's why I think the character that he most resembles in British history is Churchill. Churchill is exactly the same. I'm a great man, all that kind of rubbish. And then when Churchill says, you know, in the Second World War, what's he say to the Tory MPs or something? If this island story of ours to end here, let it end when we're all choking in our own blood on the ground. I mean, if somebody says that in real life, if Theo said that about the rest is history, we'd just laugh.

• 32:30Tom Holland?

  Keir Starmer.

• 32:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes. Keir Starmer would never say that in a million years, but I think there's a.

• 32:37Tom Holland?

  It's a histrionic quality that is elevated to the operatic, you might say.

• 32:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. The operatic quality of Nelson, I think, is exactly right. I'm amazed. Have there not been operas about Nelson? There must have been.

• 32:47Tom Holland?

  There should be. I mean, there's quite a lot of music, as we may see in the second part of our series.

• 32:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yes.

• 32:51Tom Holland?

  But not an opera, I think.

• 32:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  So anyway, they have not been wrecked. So they continue and they approach Toulon. It is clear the French are long gone from too long.

• 33:00Tom Holland?

  So now, basically, they're looking for a needle in a haystack.

• 33:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  They are. I mean, the huge expanse of the Mediterranean, to find this fleet is going to be really tough. They then spot a sort of sail, it's a brig, and it's come from St Vincent. He has sent, of all people, Hardy, Thomas Masterman Hardy, who's now a Commodore. And Hardy says, "We've heard intelligence, we have news. This enormous fleet has been spotted heading towards Italy. At least a dozen ships of the line, hundreds of transports. The orders have changed. We want you to intercept this fleet, and we will be sending reinforcements for you to do this." So your old mate, Thomas Trubridge, of Tenerife fame, is on his way.

• 33:40Tom Holland?

  Hates the French.

• 33:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  He does hate the French with a passion, with 11 more ships. And, you know, go for it now. This is a campaign of annihilation.

• 33:48Tom Holland?

  And so he's told that he's being sent the elite of the Navy of England. But there is one big drawback, which is that there's a lack of cruisers, an order of ship that had begun to be constructed the previous year and are designed for speed. And obviously, they would be ideal if you're looking for a fleet. And St Vincent actually sends Nelson nine of these cruisers, but for kind of concatenation of reasons, only one reaches him. And so this will be a real problem for Nelson over the next few weeks, because he just lacks the resources necessary to find an expedition.

• 34:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. So Hina has 14 fighting ships, and they are, as you said, Tom, they're the elite of the Royal Navy. And he's also got supplies for three months, so bread and oranges and beef and all that stuff.

• 34:32Tom Holland?

  Literal bullocks.

• 34:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Literal bullocks. We have Trubridge in the Culloden, we have Henry d'Estaire Darby in the Bellerophon, Thomas Foley in Goliath. These are the cream of the crop of the Royal Navy. These are people of Nelson's level, really. You know, brilliant commanders in extremely well-disciplined, well-trained ships.

• 34:53Tom Holland?

  So like the cream of the English peerage at the Battle of Agincourt, Dominic?

• 34:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, that's the comparison, isn't it? That is the comparison, because we talked to him in the very first episode about how Nelson clearly must have loved Shakespeare at school, because he's got this absolute fixation on Henry V. And on the idea of the Band of Brothers. And this now, the reason we've mentioned all these people is that this is the Band of Brothers. He has this romantic yearning, I guess, that these are like, you know, Alexander the Great's companions or Henry the Fifth's paladins before Agincourt. These are the people who will stand together in the darkest hour, you know, shoulder to shoulder, all of this kind of thing, which Nelson absolutely believes in.

• 35:31Tom Holland?

  And it is said of Nelson that there was never an admiral who was more open to being approached by his fellow captains.

• 35:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, because his way of working is he will have them over, won't he, for dinner and stuff.

• 35:43Tom Holland?

  A touch of Nelson.

• 35:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, the Nelson touch. Over their kind of spotted dog and kind of steak pudding or whatever. They will talk on and on about the tactics and the plan. He's very open and very generous, which is unusual.

• 35:58Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, obviously there is a hierarchy and they do defer to him, but by the standards of the time, he's much less strict.

• 36:06Tom Holland?

  He wants to hear what they've got to say. And obviously they have a lot to discuss because they don't know where this armament is heading and they've got to try and work it out, haven't they?

• 36:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. So here are the options. It could well be heading for southern Italy to basically snuff out the Kingdom of Naples. It could head to Greece. Greece is part of the Ottoman Empire, but a lot of the Ottoman Empire feels like it's ripe for the plucking. So it could be going to Greece. There's talk of Constantinople. There is also talk of going further east, going southeast towards Egypt. You mentioned Egypt earlier. There are some rumours that the French have been lining up scholars and scientists and they've got some crazy operation in mind.

• 36:44Tom Holland?

  Very far fetched though, isn't it?

• 36:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Very far.

• 36:46Tom Holland?

  Go all the way to Egypt. I mean, very unlikely.

• 36:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, there are even rumours that the French have dispatched agents to India and that there is something brewing, perhaps an attack on the East India Company.

• 36:56Tom Holland?

  I mean, it's a dream mad in the way that Alexander the Great's dreams were mad. I mean, just wholly implausible.

• 37:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, Tom, exactly. So everybody back home in Britain is following this. I mean, they're following us weeks behind at one remove. So they're reading the newspapers and there is a sort of immense nervousness, you know, Fanny poring over the papers with reports of her husband. The people at the Admiralty waiting all the time. Where is this armament heading? One of them writes, an Admiralty official writes, "On the success or destruction of Bonaparte's fleet, an event of great moment, not to us alone, but to all Europe, may depend."

• 37:34Tom Holland?

  Amazing. But you know, they. They can't find it.

• 37:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  No.

• 37:38Tom Holland?

  It seems to have vanished into the air. And John Sugden in his, I mean, incomparable biography of Nelson sums it up gloriously. So he writes mysteriously, no one had heard a reliable word about the French. They seemed to be phantasms capable of materializing and dematerializing at their pleasure. It's like something out of science fiction.

• 37:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is.

• 37:59Tom Holland?

  A kind of alien fleet with, you know, invisibility shields or something.

• 38:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's exactly what it is because the Mediterranean is a million square miles of sea. And wherever they go, they hear rumors, but nothing's certain. They go to Naples and Trubridge goes ashore to consult with the British envoy in Naples, Sir William Hamilton. He's there for two hours and then he comes back to the ship and he says, Hamilton is sure of it, they're heading for Sicily. They sail south through the Straits of Messina, past Etna, smoking on the horizon. They spot another brig and the captain of this brig says, I've heard reports of French flags flying over Malta. But, so they've taken Malta.

• 38:40Tom Holland?

  And that's crucial, isn't it? Because Malta is the pivot between the eastern and the western half of the Mediterranean. So whoever controls Malta essentially controls the hinge.

• 38:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 38:49Tom Holland?

  On which sea routes through the Mediterranean operate. Slightly makes my metaphors there, I think, but you know what I mean.

• 38:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, I think it's a powerful description, Tom.

• 38:57Tom Holland?

  Thank you, Dominic.

• 38:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  So.

• 38:59Tom Holland?

  Tying by a thread.

• 39:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Bonaparte has moved on. He's gone past Malta, Greece, Constantinople, Egypt. Why would he make for Egypt? I mean, this is the question that must be in Nelson's mind. Egypt is technically a province of the Ottoman Empire, but in practice it has been run for centuries by the Mamluks. So they're the descendants of the Turkic slave soldiers of the Ottomans. On paper, the Mamluks are neutral. But if Bonaparte could get Egypt, that basically gives him the whole of the southeastern Mediterranean. And it also means it gives him ports on the Red Sea from which the French could strike east to hoover up the British trade with India.

• 39:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  So maybe that stuff, those reports about French agents out there in the east moving. Through the bazaars.

• 39:51Tom Holland?

  Their mastery of tongues.

• 39:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly, maybe.

• 39:53Tom Holland?

  Mastery of disguise.

• 39:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Maybe there's something in it. It's very green mantle. It's very John Buck and all this, isn't it? So Nelson has this crucial conference. He invites the four captains to whom he's closest. That is Trubridge, Ball, Summeray and Darby aboard the Vanguard. And he says, right, we have three possible courses of action here. We could attack Malta, turf out the French garrison and try to retake Malta. But that means, you know, the armaments is sailing around and we've, you know, we don't know what it's doing. We could head back towards Sicily and Naples in case this is all a ruse and that's what the French have in mind. Or we could turn south towards Egypt.

• 40:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  And he says to the other captains, and I quote, should the armament be gone to Alexandria and get safe there? Our possessions in India are probably lost. Do you think we had better push for that place? And then he hands out, it's a very kind of dramatic moment.

• 40:52Tom Holland?

  Brilliant, yeah.

• 40:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Four pieces of paper and he says, each of you write your answer on this piece of paper. And one by one, they write the same word, Alexandria.

• 41:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Brilliant. It's a brilliant moment.

• 41:04Tom Holland?

  So off to Alexandria they head and the wind is behind them and they make tremendous speed. And they don't know it, but as they are heading, they pass perilously close to the French armament. I mean, unbelievably close.

• 41:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Tom Holland?

  Maybe a couple further miles south and they would have seen it. But anyway, on they go. And a week later, on the 29th of June, they sail into Alexandria. One of the most romantic historic cities in the whole of the Mediterranean.

• 41:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, imagine that, you know, they are in the great drama of the age themselves, but they're against a backdrop. That is, that couldn't be bettered.

• 41:43Tom Holland?

  Well, we've already mentioned Alexander, haven't we? I mean, this is founded by Alexander the Great. It's where Antony Cleopatra hung out. It's one of the great cities of Christianity and Islam. I mean, incredible.

• 41:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  For somebody who conceives of himself as an operatic figure, as the hero of a great melodrama, what a moment.

• 42:02Tom Holland?

  But to be a hero of a great melodrama, you don't want to look like an idiot. And Nelson looks like an idiot because there's no sign of the French. They've called it wrong.

• 42:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  They arrive and there's nothing. He sends Hardy ashore to talk to the locals. And Hardy comes back and he says, nothing, no sign of the French. There's been no reports of the French.

• 42:19Tom Holland?

  I mean, what a devastating moment for Nelson. Crushing.

• 42:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because time is of the essence. He doesn't have that many supplies. And getting supplies in what is a French lake is so difficult. And he knows that every day lost is a day that the French could be, you know, laying siege to Constantinople, laying siege to Naples, who knows?

• 42:38Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 42:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  He has made a terrible mistake and they are probably heading to either Constantinople or Naples and he must hurry. So the very next day, the 30th, he says, we're not waiting any more time in Alexandria. We have to get out and get on with the hunt. And they, they make sail and unbelievably, one day and one hour later, Bonaparte sails into Alexandria.

• 43:03Tom Holland?

  And this, of course, is one of the pivotal moments in world history. It's a moment where you could say the age of European imperialism really begins. This is where the 19th century, perhaps in global terms, starts. And we have already done an episode on it, haven't we? We did an episode on Napoleon in Egypt.

• 43:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 43:22Tom Holland?

  And it's an incredible story. So for Napoleon, attacking Egypt is an attack on Britain. So he describes that expedition as being the left wing of the army of England. To destroy England thoroughly, we must seize Egypt because then they can throttle Britain's trade with India and maybe win India. That's the way Napoleon thinks to get at Britain. But it's also much more than that. The fantasy of being a new Alexander is playing. In Napoleon's mind, in his cabin, he has a huge library full of books, you know, the books of Greek and Roman history that he had so loved as a boy. He's reading them through to inspire him. He literally sees himself as the new Alexander the Great.

• 44:04Tom Holland?

  So I saw myself marching to Asia, mounted on an elephant, a turban on my head and in my hand a new Quran that I would have composed to suit my needs. So we talked about Nelson being histrionic and operatic. I mean, Napoleon is ordered in a different order, but there is also the fact that this is an expedition that will open the eyes of Europe to the reality of Egypt. Egypt as an Islamic country that can be studied in the way that savants might study, you know, plants or wildlife or whatever, but also of course, the great centre of Veronic history. And this is why Napoleon is taking savants with him.

• 44:46Tom Holland?

  It's an expedition not just of imperial conquest, but of the Enlightenment laying claim to the study of the world. And so, you know, you might well say that that's also an imperial project. So he takes teams of savants with him, philosophers. He takes a printing press that he'd nicked from the Vatican.

• 45:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, yes.

• 45:03Tom Holland?

  Which can print in Latin, in Arabic and Syriac. And he even takes a hot air balloon. I mean, it is an extraordinary story. And if you have any interest in it and haven't heard the episode that we did when, about three years ago, I think, something like that, do listen to that.

• 45:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Absolutely.

• 45:17Tom Holland?

  I slightly perhaps underplayed the military dimensions of this. I mean, so he's brought 40,000 soldiers, he's got 20,000 sailors. This is an enormous amphibious expedition.

• 45:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  And very successful because it takes him three weeks and three weeks after landing, he smashes the Mamluk army at the Battle of the Pyramids.

• 45:34Tom Holland?

  Yes, soldiers, what is it? Something 4,000 years of history gaze down upon you.

• 45:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. Exactly. I mean, he too, of course, Napoleon too, regards himself as an operatic figure. And I mean, that's the joy of this story, actually. I can't think of many moments in history that really match it, where everybody is conscious of that. They're playing a part on the greatest stage of all. And on the 24th of July, he marches into Cairo. He is now the master of Egypt. So Napoleon, it seems, has won. Now meanwhile, Nelson has been sailing east, still searching for this fleet. He cruised along the coast of Turkey and then he turned back east towards Sicily. At this point, he's running out of supplies, fruit and water. They head back towards Sicily, they stop at Syracuse. Here, they get new intelligence from Naples.

• 46:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  The French have not passed Naples, they have not gone through into the Western Mediterranean, they have not landed in Italy, they've definitely gone east. Again, it's probably about this point that Nelson has his captains for dinner and he says, you know, time is running out, but I think we've clearly narrowed down, there must be somewhere out there in the east. And when we find them, this is what we will do. It's not Admiral Hawtham, it's not a blockade.

• 46:51Tom Holland?

  Well, we attack them.

• 46:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  We go straight at them.

• 46:53Tom Holland?

  Amazing.

• 46:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  And wipe them off the face of the sea. And this is unusual at the time, right? We talked in previous episodes.

• 47:00Tom Holland?

  Becoming less unusual, I think, though, isn't it?

• 47:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson is drawing on Captain Locker and, you know, Admiral Hood and all of these people who have been his great patrons.

• 47:09Tom Holland?

  St Vincent had done it.

• 47:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  St Vincent had done it. But he says, look, this is what we're doing. It is all or nothing, we risk everything, we just go for it. An aggressive strategy.

• 47:20Tom Holland?

  And the aim is a battle of annihilation, isn't it? If they can wipe out the French fleet, then Napoleon's military victory on land will count for nothing.

• 47:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly.

• 47:27Tom Holland?

  They'll be stranded there.

• 47:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  So a strategy in which we have an overall plan, but within that you have a degree of discretion and to use your initiative. I mean, he trusts his captains. His captains are delighted and after four days, they set off again, they are drilling now with their guns all the time.

• 47:42Tom Holland?

  But of course, they still don't know where he is, where Napoleon is.

• 47:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, itching for battle. There is a real sense of mounting tension now because time is so short. They get letters from London and Nelson opens one of them and a diplomat says to him, the eyes of all Europe are upon you. You know, you've got to do this now. They return to Greece. They reach a place called Corone at the very bottom tip of the Peloponnese. And Trubridge goes ashore to find information and he comes back within hours and he's bursting with news. He says, the Ottoman governor says he has had definite confirmation, they are in Alexandria after all. So again, Nelson turns south and he spreads his sails to catch the wind. He can't sleep, he's pacing the quarter deck and they rush and they rush.

• 48:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  At 10am on the first of August, the lookout on the Alexander spies in the horizon, the kind of telltale grey blur of land. And within, you know, an hour or so.

• 48:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  News comes to Nelson, there are French tricolor flags flying over Alexandria, there are French transports in the harbour, empty, the French army has landed and has moved on, Egypt has fallen. And one of Nelson's captains said later that at that moment, they felt, quote, utterly hopeless and out of spirits. They've been pursuing the French for hundreds of miles. They've pushed their ships and their men to the limit and they have failed. The French have got the foothold in Egypt they wanted.

• 49:11Tom Holland?

  And of course, there's the risk, isn't there? That the fleet will have gone somewhere safer.

• 49:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Exactly. That's the one crumb of consolation, the one possibility of redemption.

• 49:22Tom Holland?

  The one flickering of hope.

• 49:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  The last flicker of hope exactly is if they can find that French fleet. Just maybe their French admiral may have taken the fleet down the coast and parked it in their harbour closer to Cairo. If they can get it and destroy it, then everything Bonaparte would have done would be for nothing because the French army will be stranded and cut off from supplies. And his conquests will just be ephemeral.

• 49:46Tom Holland?

  And Dom, just to say that the French High Command in the navy had wanted to withdraw. They'd wanted to withdraw to the Ionian Islands, but Napoleon has said no.

• 49:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 49:55Tom Holland?

  And it's, well, we'll find out in the next episode whether it's a fateful mistake or not.

• 49:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Nelson says to the captains of the zealous and the Goliath, just quickly head east along the coast, it won't take long. We know from our charts, there's a deep harbour at Abu Ghia Bay, which is quite close to the mouth of the Nile. Just have a look. Down along the coast they go, east. And at two o'clock that afternoon, they approached the delta of the Nile. And at two thirty, a midshipman, 16 years old, George Elliot.

• 50:26Tom Holland?

  Not the novelist, obviously.

• 50:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's in the, not the novelist, is on the highest yards of the Goliath with a telescope to his eye.

• 50:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  And then he sees something in the distance. It's like the scene from Master and Commander. Thirteen ships of the line, four frigates, five briggs and bomb vessels. Their French flags fluttering in the breeze. Tom, they have found them.

• 50:52Tom Holland?

  What a cliffhanger. And in the final episode of this season, we will tell the story of what happens next. The Battle of the Nile. And if you just can't wait, then you can head to therestlessnesshistory.com to join the club. Obviously, if you're already a subscriber like Nelson, go straight in. Don't delay. England expects.

• 51:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Goodbye.

• 51:26Speaker 00

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