NELSON’S TRAFALGAR: THE BATTLE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
NELSON’S TRAFALGAR: THE BATTLE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD By Roy Adkins 416 Pages, Illustrated, Hardcover. ISBN: 0-670-03448-7 - $27.95. Viking Books, New York, NY; 212-366-2338; Web: www.penguin.com
It’s difficult to make a choice between Seize The Fire and Nelson’s Trafalgar for each is expertly written, astutely researched and most comprehensive in its presentation. While Adkin’s Nelson’s Trafalgar is 64-pages longer, Nicolson’s Seize The Fire boasts an outstanding gallery of period illustrations in full color. The final judgement therefore rests on the author’s style and approach to his topic. Both writers are most descriptive in their handling of the action sequences, the blood, fury and gore of brutal 19th century sea battles.
As seen through the smoke-hazed gun ports of the fighting ships, Adkins illustrates the clashing of Britain’s Royal Navy under the leadership of Lord Horatio Nelson with Napoleon’s Navy. In an atmosphere of choking fumes from cannon and musket fire, amid noise so intense it was almost tangible, the crews of the British, French, and Spanish ships did their best to carry out their allotted tasks. For over five hours they were in constant danger from a terrifying array of iron and lead missiles fired from enemy guns, as well as the deadly wooden splinter smashed from the ships’ hulls by the cannonballs. While the men fired cannons and operated the ships, the women helped the surgeons tend the injured or ill and often took on the hazardous task of carrying gunpowder cartridges from the central magazine to the gun decks.
Though it cost them their brilliant commander Nelson, the British prevailed and not only prevented Napoleon from invading Britain, but enabled Britain and its Continental allies to mount the campaign that would eventually defeat the French Emperor: Without Trafalgar there would be no Waterloo. Trafalgar set the seal on British Naval supremacy, the mainspring of the Empire’s spectacular expansion.
Drawing on a broad range of primary source material, Adkins has written an unforgettably vivid account of Trafalgar, and of early 19th century warfare. Capturing as never before the harsh conditions in which sailors lived, the mechanics of warfare, and the relentless violence of combat.