The Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on the 21st of October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar on the Spanish coast, between the combined fleets of Spain and France and the Royal Navy. It was the last great sea action of the period and its significance to the outcome of the war in Europe is still debated by historians.

The Chase
The battle itself was the culmination of a long campaign. After the Treaty of Amiens Europe was at peace for 14 months. Many ships in the Royal Navy were paid off and the British returned to their peace time activities. But across the Channel in France Napoleon was planning the next stage of his domination of Europe. He realised that if war broke out again then the Royal Navy would blockade French and continental ports as they had done before and French overseas trade would be crippled. So he planned to invade England and free the seas for French trade. He ordered the building of a fleet of invasion barges and the Grand Army was moved to the Pas de Calais area.
But to get the army across safely the French fleet would need to control the English Channel. To this end he tried to engineer a meeting of his fleets so they could control the sealanes, and protect his invasion barges. He gave orders for the fleets in Toulon, Brest and Ferrol to break out of their blockaded ports.

After an aborted attempt Admiral Villeneuve eventually managed to evade Nelson, blockading him in Toulon, and sailed for the West Indies on March 30th. According to Napoleons plan to meet up with Ganteaume ( who was blockaded in Brest ) , and then to sail back to Europe and with the Rochefort, Ferrol and Brest Squadrons 'procure our superiority before Boulogne for some days'.
When Nelson was told that the French fleet had sailed he assumed they were heading for Egypt, so he sent his ships off to the South East. When he discovered his mistake he set off in pursuit of Villeneuve. Villeneuve picked up Admiral Gravina and the Spanish fleet from Cadiz, and sailed for Martinique.

Nelson discovered that Villeneuve had sailed out of the Med and resumed the chase on the 10th May across the Atlantic to the West Indies. Eventually following the French and Spanish fleet back again to Europe. Villeneuve waited for Ganteaume to join him. But Ganteaume failed to break the British blockade, so Villeneuve sailed back for Ferrol.
He encountered Calders squadron of 15 battleships off Cape Finisterre on 22nd of July. (Description of the Battle of Cape Finisterre). They fought an abortive action in poor visabilty. Calder captured two French ships, and several of the British ships were damaged. Calder failed to press home the action, for which he was severely criticized.
(After Calder joined up with Nelsons fleet he was allowed to sail back to England on the Prince of Wales in an attempt to clear his name at a court martial. The Prince of Wales was a powerful 98 gun ship, and Nelson could ill afford to lose it.) weather forced him to to run into Vigo. From there Napoleon ordered him to sail for the Straits of Dover. Decres, the French chief minister of marine, whose confidence in the invasion project had never been high, wrote the orders, stating that Villeneuve was to sail for the Channel, unless the state of the fleet was such as to mitigate against this, in which case he was to sail to Cadiz.
On August the 13th the Combined Fleet of 29 battleships sailed westwards, Villeneuves' initial intention was unclear. But after picking up intelligence from passing merchantmen and sighting some British ships in the distance Villeneuve decided to head for Cadiz. He arrived there on August 20th.
Nelson arrived off Cadiz to join Collingwoods' fleet on September 28th and ordered his frigates, under Captain Blackwood, to watch Cadiz while he cruised 50 miles offshore with the rest of the fleet, hoping to draw the Combined Fleet out.

During the course of the summer Napoleon, despairing of bringing his fleets together, had abandoned his invasion plans for England and had turned his attention to Austria. The British had sent a small army under General Craig to Sicily to threaten Napoleons southern flank and to support the Russians. To try and guard Italy and his operations in Austria, Napoleon ordered Villeneuve to sail back into the Mediterranean. He had also decided to replace Villeneuve with Admiral Rosily . On September 27th Villeneuve received his orders to sail back into the Med for Naples, to support a landing of 4000 troops there. Troops designed to counter Craigs small force.