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78 Corbett : The Campaign of Trafalgar
stroke which led to the actual battle of Trafalgar. But for the need
to do something to check this Anglo-Russian attack on Naples, there
would have been nothing to make the French quit Cadiz and give Nelson
the chance to bring them to battle. Otherwise they might have remained
quietly on the defensive in Cadiz, imposing on the English the difficult and
exhausting task of keeping up a blockade. A passive defensive inside a wellprotected
port was, as Mr. Corbett has shown, the strategical alternative
which the French always found most effective as a
reply to the naval
supremacy of England, and unless some stroke such as Craig's expedition
could be struck at a vulnerable point it was bound to produce a deadlock.
Seeing then how important Sicily was as the key to the diplomatic and
strategical situation in the Mediterranean, not merely being essential as the
source of supply for our fleet but providing a point where England might
have given the Coalition effective aid on land, one criticism often directed
left the
against Nelson must be modified. He is charged with having
Straits open to Villeneuve through undue over-anxiety
for
Sicily and Sardinia.
Mr. Corbett shows that this was in accord with his instructions, and he
approves of his action in not leaving the position in which he covered those
islands until he had positive intelligence of Villeneuve's course (p. 60). Yet
one hardly feels inclined to make quite as light as Mr. Corbett does of the
risks of leaving the Straits open (p. 55). Of course his whole view is coloured
by his conviction that there was no serious danger of invasion, and that the
projected offensive was the more important consideration, but one must
point out that the special feature which governed the strategical situation
was the inefficiency of the Allies. Their unreadiness to face a pitched
battle was the true guarantee against invasion and Nelson's
justification
for
leaving the Straits open. Had they
been able to face the English on equal
terms with as good chances of success as the French fleets had between
1778 and 1783, Nelson's strategy would have been most dangerous, both in
leaving the Straits open it is a little strained by the way to speak of Nelson
as having < driven Villeneuve through the Straits' (p. 97) and also in
returning to Gibraltar from the West Indies instead of making for Brest
and Ferrol. Mr. Corbett does not discuss the route taken by Nelson at any
length, but the chart certainly suggests that had Nelson made for either of
those ports he must have fallen in with Villeneuve on the way. Certainly
had he not left so many frigates in the Mediterranean he would have had
a better chance of
locating Villeneuve either in the West Indies or in Mid-
Atlantic. But especially
in view of what Mr. Corbett says of the tradition
of
concentrating on the Western it Squadron, does look as if Nelson was
wrong in making for Gibraltar. It was not for the Mediterranean that
Villeneuve was likely to be making, but for one of the ports where he
would find another detachment of the Allied fleet. The return to the
Straits was taking Nelson well out of the way to do any effective service
while the crisis was being decided elsewhere. Luckily Villeneuve's fleet
was not
battleworthy enough to beat Calder or to attempt to come up to
Brest even when re-enforced by the Ferrol ships. It was the
inability
of the Allies to face even weaker forces with any prospect of success
that was at the root of their failure, though one must remember that