Page 124 - Il Mediterraneo quale elemento del Potere Marittimo - Atti 16-18 settembre 1996

110 SIMON PRESTON

tory than now ensued. Nevertheless the batde of the Nile, at Aboukir Bay, on au-
gust 1st 1798, the second ofNelson's great victories, was a decisive turning point
in the war. Making an immediate decision to attack, when the French admiral De
Bruys assumed he would wait for the following morning, Nelson also made the
bold decision to assault the French from bot sides, sénding part o(his fleet into
shaliow water between the anchored French fleet and the coast.
With many men ashore and their guns mostly only pointing seaward De Bruys'
ships were destroyed. piece-meal. The climax to the batde was the explosion of the
gigantic ''L'Orient'' with ali the treasure taken from the knights ofStJohn at Malta,
killing most ofher crew including the severely wounded admiral, his captain Casa-
bianca and the captain's ten year old son. The courage shown by these persons
is legendary, an d is immortalised in che famous poem '' The hoy stood on the hurning
deck, whence al/ but he had fled".
One of the myths in history, passed down among others by Robert Southey,
the poet and early Nelson biographer, was that the French and Spanish navies we-
re cowardly and easy to defeat. It suited british propaganda of the age to make
the French out as cowards arid French propaganda to say the same of the spanish,
who allegedly let them down. The charge was far from true in either case and it
is ali the more credit to Nelson that his adversaries were for the most part coura-
geous and formidable. However, the French were handicapped by the removal du-
ring the rivolution of their best admirals, and Napoleon's impatience with nautica!
matters, and the Spanish by the confusion arising from repeatedly changing sides.
Nevertheless many of the French captains, for example Lucas of the trRedoutable"
a t Trafalgar, were courageous, loyal and ab le. The spanish ves~els in size and fire
power werw in theory unrivalied, though their crews were relatively poorly trai-
ned. What beat both was the superior gun training of the British, their seaman-
ship, endurance through long periods at sea and above ali their belief that they
simply could not lose. Por ali this Nelson was primarily responsible.
Nelson received a further injury during the battle of the Nile when a splinter
struck him on the forehead and Iaid bare a part of his skuli. Recent medicai opi-
nion has i t that this could weli ha ve not only enhanced his aggression and effective-
ness but also aggravated his libido. On this basis we should ali rush out and bang
our heads against a brick wall!
With the French Fleet crippled at the Nile the British were now in charge
again in the Mediterranean and Nelson returned in triumph to Naples. He was
now moving towards becoming the active lover of Emma, while remaining the in-
separable friend of her elderly husband in a strange relationship to be named by
the three of them tria in uno. Emma rapidly displaced Fanny, his cool conventional
wife, who irritated him by sending him to sea with the wrong shirts and socks and
by losing his cufflinks and other personal possessions. While Fanny constantly com-
plained of his putting himself into danger, Emma gloried in his triumphs and ex-
horted him to greater achievements. Frustrateci desire for Emma added to his drive
for Glory.