Nelson: The Essential Hero (45 page)

There can be no doubt that Nelson’s advice had a salutary effect. On 26 March the fleet was ordered to weigh, and the same evening they anchored again about six miles above Cronenburg. Nelson now received orders from Parker to take ten sail-of-the-line under his command, together with four frigates, seven bomb vessels, two fire-ships, and twelve brigs. He was to be despatched on special service to carry out the assault against the Danish defences, while his chief in the heavier ships held the ring outside in case the Danish men-of-war should make a sortie out of Copenhagen. Parker still hoped that all could be resolved without action and a messenger was sent to the Governor of Elsinore castle inquiring his intentions if the British should stand on, to which the reply came back that he could not under any circumstances permit a fleet with unknown intentions to pass the fortress of Cronenburg. Patience, it is said, is a virtue learned at sea. For the next three days even the fiery second-in-command had to exercise it, for calms, coupled with head-winds, held the fleet immobile. It was not until 30 March that they were able to weigh and attempt the passage of the Sound. Only three miles wide, the strait was dominated on the Danish side by Cronenburg and on the Swedish side by the fort at Helsingborg. Fortunately for the British, the Swedes had given no instruction for their gunners to fire on this impressive fleet as it held on its way into the Baltic. Keeping to the Swedish side of the channel, then, Parker’s ships moved on with a favourable northwest wind towards the island of Hveen. The Danes for their part blazed away, but quite ineffectually. Later the same day Nelson was to write to Emma : We this morning passed the fancied tremendous fortress of Cronenburg, mounted with 270 pieces of cannon. More powder and shot, I believe, never were thrown away, for not one shot struck a single ship of the British fleet. Some of our ships fired; but the
Elephant
did not return a single shot. I hope to reserve them for a better occasion. I have just been reconnoitring the Danish line of defence. It looks formidable to those who are children at war, but to my judgement, with ten Sail of the Line I think I can annihilate them; at all events, I hope to be allowed to try.

Nelson had transferred his flag for the second time, on this occasion from the
St George
to the
Elephant
and for the same reason as before, that his new ship had an even shallower draught. The reconnaissance to which he referred in his letter to Emma was made that evening in a schooner in company with Sir Hyde Parker and other senior officers. What it revealed more than confirmed Vansittart’s previous gloomy prognostications. The Danes had taken good advantage of the British delay and had even further strengthened their defences. As Colonel Stewart commented : ‘[They] had lined the northern edge of the shoals near the Crown batteries, and the front of the harbour and arsenal, with a formidable flotilla. The Trekroner, or Three Crowns, battery appeared in particular to have been strengthened. . . .’ It was also observed that they had removed all the buoys marking the Northern and the King’s Channel. Later, under Nelson’s supervision, these were efficiently replaced by British pilots, to serve as markers to his squadron when it went into the attack.

On 31 March, after a further examination of the Danish positions, carried out in the frigate
Amazon
, commanded by one of the finest officers in the Navy, Captain Riou, a council of war was called. Such councils were everything that Nelson detested (he had never needed one before the Nile), for he held that they tended to promote indecision. As he was to write on another occasion : ‘If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands,
it is certain that his opinion is against fighting,
Nelson sensed at once> as on the previous occasion, that there was hesitancy and even pessimism in the air. He proceeded to dispel it, and Colonel Stewart, who was present, left a vivid record of the occasion. In it one seems to feel that electric quality in Nelson which could change the whole atmosphere around him. ‘During this Council of War,’ Stewart wrote: the energy of Lord Nelson’s character was remarked: certain difficulties had been started by some of the members, relative to each of the three powers we should have to engage, in succession or united, in those seas. The number of the Russians was, in particular, represented as formidable. Lord Nelson kept pacing the cabin, mortified at everything which savoured of alarm or irresolution. When the above remark was applied to the Swedes, he sharply observed, ‘The more numerous the better’; and when to the Russians, he repeatedly said; ‘So much the better, I wish they were twice as many; the easier the victory, depend on it.’ [One seems to hear the voice of his old master John Jervis in those moments before the Battle of Cape St Vincent.] He alluded as he afterwards explained in private, to the total want of tactique among the Northern Fleets; and to his intention, whenever he should bring either the Swedes or Russians to action, of attacking the head of their Line, and confusing their movements as much as possible. He used to say: ‘Close with a Frenchman, but out-manoeuvre a Russian.’

The conclusion of the conference was that Nelson’s plan of passing ‘up the deepest and straightest Channel above the Middle Grounds, and coming down the Garbar or King’s Channel, to attack their Floating batteries’ was the one adopted. It must at once be said of Sir Hyde Parker that he acted more than handsomely towards his junior by allocating to Nelson’s squadron two additional ships-of-the-line, giving him twelve in all for his assault from the south upon the Danish ships moored in their protective line as the outer defences of Copenhagen. This defence, consisting of hulks and floating batteries (all of which could be reinforced by men and munitions from the shore), possessed a firepower, an invulnerability almost, which had never been available to Brueys in Aboukir Bay. For one thing, they were moored fore and aft on shoal ground, so that there could be absolutely no chance of getting inshore of them. At the northern end was the massive Trekroner Fort, to attack which would certainly result in grave losses among the British men-of-war. Nelson’s plan was for his squadron to come down the Outer Sound with a northerly wind, a difficult enough feat of pilotage in itself, and then to drop anchor beyond the shoals of the Middle Ground. There he would have to wait until the wind shifted to the south and enabled him to run down the line of hulks and floating batteries, the weaker part of Copenhagen’s defences. At the same time he would, by this evolution, be placing his squadron in such a position that neither the Swedes nor the Russians would be able to come to the aid of their allies. The fact that the Danes had placed their weakest ships at this tail end of the line gave him every hope that, as at the Nile, his squadron could annihilate them one by one.

On the morning of 1 April, the wind set fair from the north and Parker ordered the fleet to weigh. A towering cloud of sail advanced inexorably towards Copenhagen, bringing up in a fresh anchorage only six miles from the threatened city. Nelson now boarded Captain Riou’s frigate the
Amazon
and sailed down the Outer Deep to make a final examination of the Channel. Satisfied with what he found, he returned to the
Elephant
and the signal was hoisted for the squadron to get under way. It was already agreed that, while Sir Hyde Parker should lie to the north of Copenhagen threatening the Trekroner Fort, and preventing the exit of any of the Danish fleet moored within the harbour, Nelson would strike from the south the moment that he had a fair wind. His ships would then sail down the enemy defences, the first anchoring by the stern opposite a designated vessel, the second passing outboard of her and placing herself against another, and so on all down the Danish line until each of the men-of-war had brought up abreast one of the enemy. To Edward Riou was assigned the hazardous place of taking his
Amazon
and four other frigates to attack the northern end of the Danish line, while Captain Rose in the frigate
Jamaica
was to engage their southern flank in company with six gun-brigs.

Early that afternoon Nelson’s squadron got under way and, piloted by the
Amazon
, passed safely down the Outer Channel, coming to anchor at the southern end of the Middle Ground. Here they must stay of necessity until a shift of wind into the south could boost them up the King’s Channel and bring them abreast of the Danes. The hard core of the column chosen for this attack was composed of seven 74s with Nelson flying his flag in the
Elephant
commanded by Captain Foley (Hardy was also with him as a volunteer), three 64s, Bligh’s
Glatton
of 54 guns, and Walker’s 50-gun
Isis.
The 74
Bellona
had Captain Sir Thomas Thompson, a Nile veteran, in command, while an.old friend of Nelson’s, Captain Murray, commanded the
Edgar
and another, Rear-Admiral Graves, flew his flag in Captain Retalick’s

The Battle of Copenhagen
,
April 2, 1801

Defiance.
Counting the smaller ships of under 50 guns, he had a force of 21 ships with which to attack the carefully prepared defences of Copenhagen. It was little enough perhaps, but Nelson was in a good humour when he sat down to dine that night in the cabin of Foley’s ship with a party of his comrades-in-arms. As Colonel Stewart recorded : ‘He was in the highest spirits, and drank to a leading wind, and to the success of the ensuing day.’ Nevertheless circumstances were very different from at the Nile: not only were the enemy far more securely entrenched and completely prepared for the forthcoming attack, but Nelson had not had the opportunity to work with this squadron in the same way as he had with his ‘Band of Brothers’. This necessitated the preparation of elaborate orders, and, supper completed, a large part of the night was occupied with writing instructions to be issued to each ship on the following day.

Colonel Stewart left a memorable account of the scene in Foley’s cabin: From the previous fatigue of this day, and of the two preceding, Lord Nelson was so much exhausted while dictating his instructions, that it was recommended to him by us all, and indeed, insisted upon by his old servant, Allen, who assumed much command on these occasions, that he should go to his cot. It was placed on the floor, but from it he still continued to dictate. The orders were completed about one o’clock, when half a dozen Clerks in the foremost cabin proceeded to transcribe them. Lord Nelson’s impatience again showed itself; for instead of sleeping undisturbedly, as he might have done, he was every half hour calling from his cot to these Clerks to hasten their work, for that the wind was becoming fair: he was constantly receiving a report of this during the night. The work being finished about six in the morning, his Lordship, who was previously up and dressed, breakfasted, and about seven made the Signal for all captains. The instructions were delivered to each by eight o’clock; and a special command was given to Captain Riou to act as circumstances might require.

Admiral Mahan has the comment that ‘It was characteristic of the “heaven-born” admiral, that the wind which had been fair the day before to take him south, changed by the hour of battle to take him north; but it is only just to notice also that he himself never trifled with a fair wind, nor with time.’

He had also, it must be added, superb captains and seamen to help him. During the night Captain Hardy had made a further survey of the enemy disposition, something that called for extreme skill under those conditions. He had taken a small boat down from the British anchorage, and had sounded around the rearmost enemy ships. So that the splash of lead and line should not be heard by sentries aboard the Danes, he had used a quant, or long pole, to discover exactly what depths lay around them. Hardy, Nelson’s invaluable Hardy, was the only captain to be present at all of Nelson’s great victories - the Nile, now at Copenhagen, and finally at Trafalgar.

The wind was now settled in the south-east, ideal for the enterprise, and at 9.30 the order was made to weigh in succession. The first thing to go wrong with the events of the day was the reluctance of the pilots to take the ships up the Channel. They were merchant-marine mates and navigators, accustomed to the Baltic trade, but alarmed at the draught of the vessels they were now expected to con as closely as possible to the Danish defence vessels - which they well knew were moored on shoal ground. Nelson later noted how he suffered ‘the misery of having the honour of our Country intrusted to pilots who had no other thought than to keep the ships clear of danger, and their own silly heads clear of shot’. The solution was found when Mr Briarly, a veteran of the Nile and the Master of the
Bellona
, offered to lead the ships in. He was accordingly transferred to Captain Murray’s 74, the
Edgar
, which was followed by the
Agamemnon
, Nelson’s beloved old ship. Under a fine swell of sail the
Edgar
successfully rounded the end of the Middle Ground shoal and headed for the Danish line. But disaster struck, for the
Agamemnon
found herself so placed that she could not weather the shoal and, although not running aground, had to re-anchor. In the event she never managed to clear the shoal and get into action throughout the course of the day. The
Polyphemus
was now ordered to take up the place previously assigned to the
Agamemnon.
Both these first two ships to come into action inevitably received a very heavy weight of fire, and Murray was forced to anchor opposite the Danish
Jylland
at a distance of about 500 yards, whereas Nelson’s instructions had been that all ships should try to bring up at 250 yards range. The result of this was that the
Polyphemus
and the other ships following, in order to maintain the line, all anchored at this less effective range, instead of point-blank as had been intended.