Trafalgar Day

[davywavy]

Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, at which Napoleon's navy was thoroughly sorted out by Admiral Lord Nelson. And quite rightly too - Napoleon was planning to invade us, the old dog.
Some people say that the British concentrate too much on past military glories, but then again the people saying that tend to hail from nations without much in the way of past military glories to obsess over so I reckon they're just jealous. The only nations with comparable military histories would be Italy/Rome, Greece, and Mongolia, and in Italy the Casears are national heroes, in Greece kids learn about Alexander the Great in School, and in Mongolia Genhis Khan has been formally recognised as a demigod.
The sooner Queen Victoria gets that sort of recogition, the happier I'll be.

So, to mark the day, a traditional song and a poll.

Come cheer up, my lads! 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?

Chorus
Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;
We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.

We ne'er see our foes but we wish them to stay,
They never see us but they wish us away;
If they run, why we follow, and run them ashore,
For if they won't fight us, we cannot do more.

Chorus

They swear they'll invade us, these terrible foes,
They frighten our women, our children, and beaus;
But should their flat bottoms in darkness get o'er,
Still Britons they'll find to receive them on shore.

Chorus

We'll still make them fear, and we'll still make them flee,
And drub 'em on shore, as we've drubb'd 'em at sea;
Then cheer up, my lads! with one heart let us sing:
Our soldiers, our sailors, our statesmen and Queen.

Chorus


[Poll #595141]

Comments

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

I am assuming the thrashing is just for general matters such as their President, theirprime minsiter, their accent, their garlic and their continued opression of sheep rather than a silly short man in a daft hat trying to sail?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Any nwhich so enthusiastically supports the Common Argricultural Policy is just asking for a good bombing.

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

Then all I ask is that we sort out Belgium at the same time! Any nation which has a city named after a sprout deserves a thrashing!

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

I disagree - any nation invented by the British to annoy the French is good for me.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Oh, those Belgians. I suggest we start with hildekitten and cygny. Or would they be *ahem* spoils of war?

[davedevil.livejournal.com]

Well I hear Hilde is a seamstress so best keep her as a spoil of war!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

A "seamstress", eh? I say!

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

That is pretty evil.

And you can get a bomb to Paris in a couple of hours on Eurostar ;)

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

In fairness, he was Corsican.

And an artillerist.

Which might explain why he did so well really.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of evidence to suggest he was one of the first people in Europe to read Sun Tzu - his positioning of artillery is straight from the Art of War.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Still, he got his Waterloo. Ironically, at Waterloo!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I know - the oriental nonsense couldn't stand up to British spunk! Hurrah!

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

That and hiding behind a hill from the mean cannon. That helped too.

The fact that Wellington was a master of supply, logistics and terrain was pretty handy as well. Oh yes, and training with actual live ammo - that was a monsterously good idea!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Apparently, in his youth Wellington had visited the what was to become the battlefield for Trafagar and effectively thought "Gosh, what a splendid place to have a battle. If I ever have to fight a French army, I'll fight them here and put my troops here, here and here."
And that's what he did.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

What, off the coast? I guess it would make things tricky for them...

And he visited the battlefield of Waterloo during the first Penninsular Campaign, took note of it. Its remarkably similar to the sites of some of his Indian battlefields - where the Sepoy General learnt to make war on the Marharratas.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I meant Waterloo. Curse my tiny brane.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

I know you did, but it was funny to mock ;)

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Helped that Napoleon was sick, as well, and had to turn over the army to Ney for a period.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Bad case of diarrhoea, apparently. But that's normal for anyone who has to fight the British! Hurrah!

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Or stomach cancer. Take your pick.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Yes, it helped that Napoleon put an aggressive cavalry general as his second in command rather than one of the other choices, and that he suffered from indigestion and had a lie down. It helped him when a large chuck of Wellington's army legged it away from the battlefield.

Still doesn't change the result. Doesn't change the decisions he made, like getting embroiled in a horribly bloody fight which hook hours and sucked in thousands of his troops and which wasn't needed - whilst the farmhouse was under attack other assaults could have been made, its forward position meant that it was perfect for flaying the sides of advancing columns, but not when under attack. Capturing the strong centre-point of Wellington's line was important, and was another opportunity not seized upon early enough.

At the end of the day, there were a lot of dead people on that field, but Napoleon and his Grand Army had been beaten.

[ukporl.livejournal.com]

It's now available as a CD single with a wicked B-side dance remix by Timo Maas.