Nelson: The Essential Hero (46 page)

Worse was now to follow. The
Bellona
and the
Russell
, coming too close to the western edge of the Middle Ground, ran aground. It was true that even from this position they were throughout the day able to maintain a reasonably heavy fire on the southern tail of the enemy, but it was naturally nowhere near as effective as it would have been had they been anchored at close quarters. The situation thus was that, at the opening of the battle, Nelson found himself deprived of three ships out of his squadron. Nevertheless, he managed to bring his remaining nine into close action, each anchored opposite an enemy - even though at twice the intended range. Nelson, who was following in the
Elephant
, passed down the centre of the channel with the grounded ships to starboard and the enemy batteries to port. He took up his berth opposite the Danish Admiral’s flagship, the
Dannebrog
, the position which had originally been assigned to the
Bellona.
Captain Bertie in the
Ardent
and Bligh in the
Glatton
skilfully anchored between the
Edgar
and the
Elephant.
Captain James Mosse of the
Monarch
was killed within a few moments of his ship’s getting into action, just as the last man-of-war, the
Defiance
, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Graves, anchored ahead of him. From now on, in that grey northern light, the adversaries settled down like old-fashioned pugilists to a sheer slogging match. To quote Nelson, ‘Here was no manoeuvring. It was downright fighting.’ Furthermore, since the British line was shortened by the absence of three ships, it meant that most of those engaged had to deal with two adversaries at the same time.

The first shot had been fired at five minutes past ten and a little over an hour later all the ships were engaged, the last to come into action being the bomb-vessels which opened fire on the town, dockyard and enemy ships by quarter to twelve. In terms of the number of guns involved, the two sides were fairly evenly matched, it having been calculated that the Danes had about 380 (including those of the Trekroner Fort) and the British a little over 400. Southey, whose information stemmed from his brother Thomas who was present at the battle, describes Nelson’s agitation when he saw at the very beginning that he had lost a fourth part of his ships to the dangers of the Middle Ground, ‘but no sooner was he in battle . . . than, as if that artillery, like music, had driven away all care and painful thoughts, his countenance brightened; and, as a bystander describes him, his conversation became joyous, animated, elevated, and delightful’. While the heavier units were all actively engaged, Captain Riou’s small craft had taken on the formidable Trekroner Fort itself. The absence of the
Agamemnon
, the
Russell
and the
Bellona
now made itself sadly felt.

Meanwhile, Sir Hyde Parker was beating up from the north but was unable to add the weight of the firepower of his division against the Trekroner, for the same wind that had favoured Nelson’s approach inevitably blew dead in the teeth of his Commander-in-Chief. Parker could easily tell, however, as the gunfire raged on uninterrupted right up to one o’clock, that the Danes were putting up a far fiercer resistance than had ever been expected. Tom Southey recalled the following : ‘ “I will make the signal of recall,” ’ said he to his captain, ‘ “for Nelson’s sake. If he is in a condition to continue the action successfully, he will disregard it; if he is not, it will be an excuse for his retreat, and no blame can be imputed to him.” ’ Captain Domett urged him at least to delay the signal till he could communicate with Nelson; but in Sir Hyde’s opinion the danger was too pressing for delay. ‘ “The fire,” he said, “was too hot for Nelson to oppose; a retreat he thought must be made; he was aware of the consequences to his own personal reputation, but it would be cowardly in him to leave Nelson to bear the whole shame of the failure, if shame it should be deemed.” Under a mistaken judgement therefore, with this disinterested and generous feeling, he made the signal for retreat.’ The famous recall, then, was not made - as has sometimes been suggested - out of trepidation on Sir Hyde Parker’s part, but out of a generous desire to save his junior from ‘the shame of failure’ and to take some part of it upon his own shoulders. Furthermore, as he clearly put it to Domett, Nelson could always disregard the signal if he so wished.

Signal 39, the recall, was accordingly made from the Commander-in-Chief’s
London.
Nelson’s signal lieutenant immediately reported it to him, asking whether he should repeat it for the benefit of the rest of the squadron. The moments that followed have passed into history, for Colonel Stewart, who was with Nelson as he paced the quarterdeck, left us his vivid recollections : ‘He continued his walk, and did not appear to take notice of it. The Lieutenant, meeting his Lordship at the next turn, asked “whether he should repeat it?” Lord Nelson answered, “No, acknowledge it.” On the officer returning to the poop, his Lordship called after him, “Is No. 16, for close action, still hoisted?” The lieutenant answering in the affirmative, Lord Nelson said, “Mind you keep it so.” He now walked the deck considerably agitated, which was always known by his moving the stump of his right arm. After a turn or two he said to me, in a quick manner, “Do you know what’s shown on board of the Commander-in-Chief? No. 39!” On asking him what that meant, he answered, “Why, to leave off action.” “Leave off action!” he repeated, and then added with a shrug, “Now damn me if I do!” He also observed, I believe to Captain Foley, “You know, Foley, I have only one eye - I have a right to be blind sometimes;” and then, with an archness peculiar to his character, putting his glass to his blind eye, he exclaimed, “I really do not see the signal!” ’

Rear-Admiral Graves at the head of the column also saw fit to disregard the recall, and later commented, ‘if we had discontinued the action before the enemy struck, we should all have gone aground and been destroyed’. Only Captain Riou and his division, who were heavily engaged by the Trekroner Fort, and were far closer to Parker's flagship, obeyed signal No. 39. Riou had already been wounded by a splinter in the head but, on obeying his Commander-in-Chief, he is said to have remarked: ‘What will Nelson think of us?’ As the
Amazon
and those with her turned her stern to the Trekroner Fort, the Danes, exhilarated at this British retreat, redoubled their fire. Several more men aboard Riou’s ship were killed and her captain exclaimed : ‘Come, then, my boys, let us all die together!’ A few seconds later he was cut in two. Stewart commented of him that his death deprived the British Navy ‘of one of its greatest ornaments, and society of a character of singular worth, resembling the heroes of romance’.

The battle was finally decided by the British superiority in gunnery. Although, in theory at least, the floating batteries combined with the fire of the fort should have wrought havoc among such sitting targets as Nelson’s ships-of-the-line, the British rate of fire far exceeded that of the Danes. Many of the latter were volunteers and inexperienced, and they could not compete in sheer iron-hard efficiency with those semi-naked man who toiled, with their, sweat rags clamped around their ears, in the thunder and fury of the British gun-decks. By about two o’clock in the afternoon, the bulk of the Danish line was silenced - all the ships astern of the
Elephant
having been reduced to ruined hulks; many of the other ships being on fire. Even the great
Dannebrog
, the Danish flagship, had struck her Commodore’s colours, and was drifting in a mass of flames down the anchored line of Copenhagen’s defences. (She blew up later in the afternoon.) Nelson considered moving his ships further down the Danish line to come into action against those at the northern end which had not yet been engaged, but Fremantle wisely advised against this, pointing out that they were already short of three of their number, and that those which had been engaged were nearly all severely damaged.

Southey comments that:

Between one and two the fire of the Danes slackened; about two it ceased from the greater part of the line; and some of their lighter ships were adrift. It was, however, difficult to take possession of those which struck, because the batteries on Amager Island protected them, and because an irregular fire was kept up from the ships themselves as the boats approached. This arose from the nature of the action : the crews were continually reinforced from the shore: and fresh men coming aboard did not inquire whether the flag had been struck, or perhaps did not heed it, many or most of them never having been engaged in war before. . . .

This was the crux of the matter. The Danish floating batteries, battered though they were, were steadily fed by boatloads of men coming fresh from Copenhagen. The fact that nearly all their guns were silenced, their ships on fire, and the destruction of the tail of their line complete, did not alter the situation. Nelson himself was so upset at the failure of his boats to reach the
Dannebrog
and rescue the survivors - being prevented from doing so by a steady fire from the shore - that he was heard to remark : ‘Either I must send on shore, and stop this irregular proceeding, or send in our fire ships and burn them.’ To Fremantle who, as has been said, was against any further proceeding down the enemy line to take on the as yet unengaged Danish vessels, he proposed the following message and asked for his opinion on it: To the Brothers of Englishmen, the Danes.

Lord Nelson has directions to spare Denmark, when no longer resisting; but if the firing is continued on the part of Denmark, Lord Nelson will be obliged to set on fire all the Floating-batteries he has taken, without having the power of saving the brave Danes who have defended them. Dated on board his Britannic Majesty’s ship Elephant, Copenhagen Roads, April 2nd, 1801.

Captain Sir Frederick Thesiger, a Danish-and-Russian speaker, and a member of Nelson’s staff, was sent ashore under a flag of truce to convey this message to the Prince Regent of Denmark, who was in overall command of the action. It is significant of Nelson’s temperament, and his application to detail, that even at this moment, in the hardest fought battle of his life up to date, he did not forget a certain psychological finesse which may have had some effect in turning the issue of the day. He had written his note carefully on the rudderhead of the
Elephant
, and the Purser, who stood by taking a copy of it, recalled, when it came to putting it in an envelope, ‘At first I was going to seal it with a wafer, but he would not allow this to be done, observing that it must be sealed properly, or the Enemy would think it was written and sent in a hurry.’

By about four o’clock in the afternoon the action was almost over. The Prince Regent had sent back a message ‘to ask the particular meaning of sending his flag of truce’, and had received the reply that ‘Lord Nelson’s object in sending on shore a flag of truce is humanity. He therefore consents that hostilities shall cease, and that the wounded Danes may be taken ashore. . . .’ He went on to say that he hoped that ‘this flag of truce may be the happy forerunner of a lasting and happy Union between my most Gracious Sovereign and His Majesty the King of Denmark’. Shortly after this all firing ceased, and the Danish Adjutant-General, Lindholm, came out with a flag of truce and went aboard the
London
to see Sir Hyde Parker. The signal was now made for the five ships at the head of the British line,
Defiance
,
Monarch
,
Ganges
,
Elephant
, and
Glatton
to weigh anchor in succession and proceed on down the channel - the wind still blowing fair. Of the five of them, only the
Glatton
avoided running aground at one point or another. Nelson’s
Elephant
, within a mile of the formidable but now silent Trekroner Fort, took the ground so hard that she could not be got off until the following day. If the truce, which Nelson had initiated at what was just the right moment, had spared many Danish lives, it had also saved the British from what might possibly have turned into a disaster. As he embarked in his gig, to make his way to the conference aboard the
London
, Nelson remarked, ‘Well, I have fought contrary to order, and perhaps I shall be hanged. Never mind, let them! ’

He need never have doubted. His reception by Parker was somewhat similar to that which he had received from St Vincent on the occasion of that first famous indiscretion. There could be absolutely no doubt that his action in taking his squadron round the Middle Ground and attacking the Danes from the south, falling upon the weaker end of their defences (which they had thought secure since they had envisaged that any attack must be made from the north), had won the day. Now began the long process of bargaining, ultimately to result in Adjutant-General Lindholm’s conceding that the Danish ships which had not already been captured should be formally surrendered, and that the armistice should be continued. That night, after the conference was over, Nelson slept aboard his own ship, the
St George.
Nodding over his journal, he made the following entry : ‘April 2. Moderate breezes southerly, at 9 [10 in fact] made the signal to engage the Danish line; the action began at 5 min, and lasted about 4 hours, when 17 out of 18 of the Danish line were taken, burnt or sunk. Our ships suffered a great deal. At night went on board the
St George
very unwell.’ It was hardly surprising. He was forty-two years old, approaching blindness, and had slept little for six days. He had brought his ships through shoals and narrow passages that would have taxed the nerve, ability and energy of a far younger man and, after fighting the hardest action of his life, had then proved himself a master of diplomacy. He deserved his rest.

The
battle of Copenhagen had been unnecessary. On 24 March 1801, the Tsar of Russia, Paul I, had been murdered by a party of Russian noblemen who had become increasingly dissatisfied with his policies and fearful of the growing evidence of his insanity. It was only the influence of the Tsar upon his smaller neighbours that had provoked the Northern Federation, and it was very largely fear of Russia that had led the Danes to act in open hostility to the British. But, so slow were communications in those days, the news of the Tsar’s assassination did not reach Copenhagen until 9 April, over two weeks after the event, and after the final arrangements had been made with the Danes for an Armistice designed to last fourteen weeks. Southey’s comment admirably sums up Nelson’s own feelings about this battle (at a time when it was unknown to him that the principal enemy was already dead, or that his successor would reverse Paul I’s pro-French policy):