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Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar

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That description of the U.S. Marines who fought at Iwo Jima in 1945 is an equally appropriate description of the British, French, and Spanish sailors who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805.

Napoleon once referred to England as a nation of shopkeepers ("LAngleterre est une natione de boutiquiers"). This was a disparaging remark meant to signify that England was not capable of success in a war against his France. The heart of Adam Nicolson's "Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty and the Battle of Trafalgar" is the suggestion that England bested the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in part because they were a nation of shopkeepers not despite that fact. Nicolson make a compelling argument that differences in the social and political conditions of the combatants played a significant role in determining the outcome of the battle before it began.

Seize the Fire consists of three interwoven story lines: the battle itself; an overview of the social structures of the combatants; and a discussion of the officer class of the British navy. The book is structured as a chronological narrative of the preparations for and the battle itself on October 21, 1805. Chapters are set up to cover specific time periods during the day. The narrative of the battle is straightforward. Nicolson provides a description of the fleets and the morale of their crews. Nicolson provides a good general overview of vessel construction and operation in the age of sail. By the time battle is joined I had sufficient background information to follow the course of the battle itself. What I was not prepared for was the sheer carnage of Trafalgar. If you have seen the opening minutes of the movie Saving Private Ryan you will have a good idea of the word-picture painted by Nicolson.

The early chapters contains Nicolson's discourse on the social structure of the combatants. Spain is seen as a society still struggling to emerge from the middle ages. It had an ossified social structure that was part monarchical and part theocratic. There was little economic growth, a very low birth rate, and no upward social mobility of any kind. There was no middle class to speak of and the country was effective divided between an effete aristocracy and a peasant class. Its navy was similarly constructed. Although many of its naval officers were brave, and some very capable sailors, advancement was not based on merit but through a complex aristocratic hierarchy. Post-revolutionary France also suffered from a very low birth rate and a stagnant economy. More importantly, the French Navy was not immune from the revolution's dramatic restructuring of French society. At the height of the Terror the Navy was radicalized along lines later made famous by the Soviet Union. Political commissars subverted the authority of the officer class. Experienced officers fell victim to the Terror in a manner starkly similar to the decimation of the Soviet officer class in the years rior to World War II. Consequently, even after the rise of Napoleon the damage to the French navy's discipline and spirit of initiative was too great to be repaired before Trafalgar. Nicolson describes an emerging capitalist England marked by both a booming birth rate and economy and a burgeoning middle class. Upward social and economic mobility was a very real prospect to most Englishmen (at least for those who had already reached certain minimal levels of advancement) and those prospects were readily available in the Navy. Opportunity for advancement (of its officer class) in the Navy was available not just to the aristocracy but also to the English middle class, including Nelson and many of his flag officer..

Last, Nicolson provides a detailed analysis of the cultural ethos that permeated the British Navy. Concepts of duty, honor, and courage formed an integral element of each Navy, but the necessity of victory was first and foremost in the minds of the English. Courage and honor without victory was not enough. Victory was everything and duty and courage was considered obvious prerequisites.

The arguments Nicolson makes are compelling even if one does not agree with all his conclusions or if you think his emphasis on the critical impact England's developing capitalist ethos had on victory is a bit too fulsome. I happen to think that Nicolson goes a long way towards making his case. Others may disagree but that should not detract from the underlying quality of Nicolson's writing and his analysis.

Seize the Fire is a fine examination of an historic battle and the world in which it took place.

How rare to read a work of non-fiction, especially one which focuses on some portion of 19th century military history, and dread reaching its conclusion. Too often, the phrase "page-turner" is applied irresponsibly but not so when describing Nicolson's Seize the Fire. I read it from start to finish and now plan to do so again after re-reading Garrett Mattingly's The Armada. (There are striking similarities between the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and Nelson's victory 217 years later.) Also John Sugden's Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797, Andrew Lambert's Nelson: Britannia's God of War, and Joel S. A. Hayward's For God and Glory: Lord Nelson and His Way of War.

Briefly, here is some background information provided by Lambert.

"During the engagement at Trafalgar, on 21 October 1805, the Royal Navy annihilated the greatest threat to British security for 200 years, but lost Britain's national hero in the process. Little wonder the battle transcended the mundane calculation of ships and men, victory and defeat. It guaranteed Britain's control of the oceans, the basis of her global power for over a century.

"By 1805 Nelson was already a national hero, and considered the ultimate naval commander. His elevated conception of war ensured that every battle he fought was used to solve major strategic problems, and his many successes ensured he was the only contemporary to rival Bonaparte as ultimate exemplar of total war. Nor did Bonaparte disagree - he kept a bust of Nelson in his private quarters. Nelson developed the art of war at sea to the new, terrible form he characterised as 'annihilation' to counter the war effort of Napoleonic France. He did so by taking the command system of Admiral Sir John Jervis, the tough old officer who taught him how to keep a fleet efficient, and melding it with the genius for battle and strategy he developed while serving under Admiral Lord Hood."

Credit Nicolson with skillfully examining, step-by-step, the process by which Nelson and his associates engaged in and then achieved one of the greatest naval victories in history. According to Nicolson, "Navies reflect the societies from which they come." In this instance, British meritocracy opposed by European aristocracy. Recalling Sun Tzu's observation in The Art of War that every battle is won or lost before it is fought, I soon realized that the outcome off Cape Trafalgar was inevitable. Napoleon's forces and those of his Spanish allies were no match for Nelson's "animal courage" as well as his leadership skills, in combination with his uncommonly loyal officers and men. For them, "Victory [was] neither a luxury nor an ornament, It [was] a compulsion and a necessity." Their decisive killing ratio (approximately 1-10) without losing a single ship suggests just how skilled and determined as well as violent the British were. Of course, they were aided by the fact that they could fire a cannon round every 90 seconds whereas their opponents required five minutes to do so during what Nelson intended to be "pell-mell" combat. Nicolson is at his best when describing it in compelling detail. For example, the reader learns that that those killed were then tossed overboard to keep the decks clear (a fate which the dying Nelson feared), and, that an "iron wind" of cannonballs filled the air causing many of them to collide. For me, the highlight of this book is Nicolson's sensitive description of the fatally wounded Nelson as his death approached. "Thank God, I have done my duty." He had indeed.

When concluding, Nicolson suggests that Trafalgar must be understood in terms of "the uncompromising violence; the dedicated grip on the need for `annihilation'; the seeking of victory through exsanguination; combined with a hunger for honor; a belief in the reality of noble ideas; self-possession as a mark of nobility; and behind all that a tender and active humanity." What occurred on October 21, 1805, was "a brutal amalgam and remains an inheritance with a troubling moral ambiguity at its heart." What can be certain is that the victory on that day denied Napoleon his intended invasion. For the next century or so, Britannia then ruled the waves.

To whom do I strongly recommend this book? My list includes those who have read and enjoyed Patrick O'Brian's novels in the Aubrey/Maturin series; those who share my high regard for the film Master and Commander, directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey, based on two of O'Brian's novels (Master and Commander and The Far Side of the World); and those who share my high regard for the eleven novels in C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series. Who else? Others who prefer non-fiction, more specifically military history, which is thoroughly researched and eloquently presented. In addition, I strongly recommend Nicolson's previous work, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible, also published by HarperCollins.

Adam Nicolson's book is about the famed battle of Trafalgar, in which Admiral Nelson and the British fleet destroyed an allied French-Spanish armada that was intended to convoy a Napoleonic invasion of Great Britain.

The book isn't really about the battle itself or the war that it shaped, even though it does provide a lot of hour-by-hour detail about the battle. Rather, the author is interested in studying the values and cultures that caused men to act as they did on that day.

Nicolson explains how the social structures of the British nation, and in particular, of its navy, differed from the French and Spanish, and how in turn this shaped the behavior and confidence of those opposing forces at sea. He also describes the evolution of the public British value for battles of annihilation, how expectations had changed relative to the 18th century military ethic. (As a kid, I always used to wonder why the British were always bringing their military leaders up before courts martial as though they were common criminals, and this book helps one to understand that a lot more.)

The book is at its best in explaining the character of Nelson, the love he had for his men, the trust he placed in their initiative, and most especially, in the acts of humanity that occurred routinely once the battle was resolved. Time and again, men risked their lives to save those whom they were trying to kill just a few hours before.

This combination of lethal aggression and honorable compassion is worth understanding. (I found myself wondering, as I read it, about the role of cultural familiarity in allowing for such humanity; it seems that when very different cultures meet on the battlefield, as happens more often today, they are less likely to practice such humane actions, because they view one another as having violated the proper norms of war.) The author clearly feels some admiration for cultural values that have long perished, and as a reader, I felt sympathy for that view.

A good book, and certainly a vivid, descriptive book. The author is intent upon enabling the reader to understand the feel of naval culture of the time. I felt as though I were reading a Patrick O'Brian novel, except that this was a non-fiction attempt to achieve a similar conveyance of cultural authenticity and detail.

Most of the negative reviews of this book comment on the author's aversion to historical data and historical narrative. In Seize the Fire, Nicolson captures the intellectual currents that fed into Nelson's personality, and, ultimately, Nelson's victory.
Nicolson sees Nelson as a Blakean Romantic superhero fighting off French philosophes and decadent Catholic Spaniards, two species in biological decline. Trafalgar isn't a sea battle, it is Apocalypse. While colder minds may be put off by the hyperbole and the somewhat loose connection of thematic material, it makes for rousing non-fiction. Nicolson writes superbly, inviting typical readers, who steer away from historical accounts, back to historical topics.

Seize the Fire is an extraordinary book, one that provides a different perspective on The Battle of Trafalgar, an event that has come down to us in a blaze of heroic glory. Adam Nicolson brilliantly traces the changes in naval warfare from the 18th century to the 19th when a gentlemanly conduct of war changed to one of ruthless animation. The vast contradictions behind the victory of Nelson were reflected in the man himself; a savage sense of conflict tempered by humane feelings toward the enemy once they were defeated. The sense of the times was victory at all costs with compassion after the horrible cost of war had been exacted.

Mr. Nicolson provides an in-depth look behind the reasons of Nelson's victory - the sorry state of the French and Spanish fleets and the excellent training of English gun crews that allowed so many more broadsides being fired to the few of the enemy. Coupled with the will to annihilate the enemy was the British sense of seeing the ships company as a family unit so a captain would refer to them as "our people."
There was no corresponding feeling among the French and Spanish crews.

The book also brilliantly describes the battle and the horrors of naval warfare. The fighting we are accustomed to seeing in film provides the barest idea of the carnage that was unleashed by these huge vessels. Mr. Nicolson asks the right questions. At one point during the description of the battle he wonders how sailors could keep up the brutal sense of annihilation the enemy with all of the horrible examples of carnage spread before them.

What came out of Trafalgar was the image of the happy warrior as personified by the poet Wordsworth where the carnage of battle is accepted as the daughter of God. The image of Nelson, giving his life having done his duty for his country, came to be the image of this warrior that was accepted down to the First World War when the carnage of battle was experienced in an unprecedented scale. Some readers may be disappointed that there is not more about Nelson in this book but it is about the battle, not Nelson, and as the chief architect of the battle there is plenty of information. Nelson's death is also covered in astonishing detail and told with pathos.

Mr. Nicolson has written a well-balanced and marvelously researched book that will fascinate those who tend to overlook such events as Trafalgar. The text flows beautifully and the quotes from letters and journals that are included illuminate the ideas expressed and are to the point. The only thing I would have liked was a diagram of a ship so I could better tell which masts were which. I could not give this book a higher recommendation that it changed my point of view on sea battles and war.

Adam Nicholson's "Seize The Fire: Heroism, Duty and the Battle of Trafalgar" is one of the finest books I have come across on the battle itself, and, I might add, one of the most novel with regards to the intentions of those who fought it. It is quite simply more a brilliant psychological and sociological study of the combatants - especially of the Royal Navy fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson - than a fine history of the battle itself, in which it too succeeds most admirably. Nicholson's central theme is explaining how a "nation of shopkeepers" so decisively defeated the combined fleets of Napoleonic France and Spain. It is Nicholson's contention that this success was due to the laissez-faire capitalism espoused by the burgeoning British middle class and the desire by the Royal Navy to obtain victory first, with honor and duty the necessity prerequisites to victory (In stark contrast, both the French and Spanish naval commanders regarded honor and duty as traits that were as important - if not more so - than obtaining victory.).

Nicholson's chapters are succinct summaries of the psychology and sociology of the three navies which fought at Trafalgar. He compares and contrast, the British wanton desire for glory and financial success from the seizure of prizes with more medieval notions of honor and duty from the Spanish, and to a lesser extent, the French (They, in turn, were motivated more by the prospect of failing Napoleon Bonaparte than by any strong sense of honor and duty; a fear born of realism since Napoleon did not react well to failure by his military commanders and their subordinates.). Appropriately, he delves deeply into the thoughts of Horatio Nelson and his subordinates, observing that the Royal Navy operated more along the lines of a successful modern corporation than a classical military organization, especially with regards to the seizure of prizes - both commercial and military vessels - and career advancement.

Nicholson also devotes much prose to the battle itself, hinting that it was as bloody and as chaotic as any of the great battles fought in modern times. The Royal Navy was an aggressive military machine which excelled at killing its opponents; at Trafalgar, the ratio of those killed and wounded aboard Royal Navy warships to those aboard the combined French and Spanish fleets was a remarkable 1:10; clearly with regards to casualties it was a decisive victory for the British. Nicholson also notes how much this battle affected British consciousness, describing the artistic tributes paid to Nelson and his comrades by artists ranging from the distinguished American painter Benjamin West to the lesser known Arthur William Devis (His depiction of the death of Nelson is probably the most accurate, much more so than West's mythological tribute.) and to, of course, the great JMW Turner.

"Seize The Fire" should appeal to anyone who has any interest at all in the Battle of Trafalgar. However, I suspect that its most avid readership will be those interested in the military history of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and especially, of the Royal Navy during this period. Other potential admirers of this book will definitely include fans of Patrick O'Brian's "Aubrey/Maturin" series of novels and of C. S. Forrester's "Horatio Hornblower" series.

Several years ago, I had the good fortune to take the guided inspection - available to any tourist with the requisite admission fee - of Admiral Lord Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, now permanently moored at the Portsmouth (UK) Naval Yard. The experience left a lasting impression, perhaps partly due to the excellence of the guide, a salty, retired Royal Marine. (A subsequent tour of the USS Constitution, moored near Boston and conducted by a young, female petty officer, paled woefully in comparison.)

If, in Adam Nicolson's SEIZE THE FIRE: HEROISM, DUTY, AND THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR, you expect a rousing narrative that'll leave you - assuming you're an Anglophile - singing "Rule Britannia", you'll be disappointed. Rather, what the author gives us is an erudite, scholarly, well-researched, and relatively dispassionate narrative account of the great naval battle off the coast of Spain on October 21, 1805 in which the British Fleet virtually annihilated the Combined Fleet of France and Spain. As everyone knows, Nelson was mortally wounded as he strode his quarterdeck; his death nearly three hours later vaulted him to the head of the queue of England's all-time heroes. In great part, and as the subtitle of the book implies, SEIZE THE FIRE is an examination of what it was about the contemporary English psyche and its perceptions of "duty" and "heroism" that ensured the victory. Indeed, as Nilcolson has it, the outcome of the contest was preordained even before the two sides collided because of the Spanish fleet's medieval command structure and the demoralization within the French fleet brought about by the officer purges of the French Revolution (much as the Soviet Army suffered from Stalin's purges of the 1930s). Love (of its commander), honour, a ferocious and zealous aggression, and skill won the day for the Royal Navy, not tactics.

Nicolson's first five chapters (entitled: "Zeal", "Order and Anxiety", "Honour", "Love", "Boldness"), which deal with the England's national character and that of its naval officers, are cleverly headed with the time of day on that October 21st and the distance between the two fleets as they closed with each other at a walking pace. Thus, it's: 5:50 - 8:30 AM, 10 - 6.5 miles; 8:30 - 9:30 AM, 6.5 - 5.9 miles; 9:30 - 11:30 AM, 5.9 - 2 miles; 11:30 AM - 12 noon, 2 - 1 miles; 12 noon - 12:30 PM, 1 mile - contact. This effectively builds suspense. The last three chapters ("Violence", "Humanity", "Nobility") describe the battle itself, Nelson's death, and the shortly subsequent great storm at sea that beset both victor and vanquished.

There's a commendable color section of paintings and portraits of the battle and the top commanders, as well as several diagrams showing the various ships' positions at progressive stages of the cataclysm. During the battle sequence itself, the focus is initially on the first English vessel to make contact with the enemy's line of ships, the HMS Royal Sovereign commanded by Admiral Lord Collingwood, Nelson's number two, and then switches to the HMS Victory. The point of reference throughout is, understandably, pretty much the latter, though the actions of many of the English ships are touched upon.

The relatively subdued tone of the narrative is given considerable power by the descriptions - perhaps some of the best I've ever read about naval warfare of that period - of the awful carnage. After the French flagship Bucentaure capitulated, boarding British officers found:

"Within the remains of (the) ship, the dead were no longer recognizable but lay along the middle of each deck in rough piles of blood and guts through which the roundshot and the splinters had ploughed again and again."

It was Nelson, who understood and personified the English concepts of honour and heroism as perceived by his island nation at this point in its history, that engineered the Trafalgar triumph by harnessing the combative potential of his captains and funneling it into the violence and independent action which they, more than their French and Spanish counterparts, were capable of at this time and place. Yet, after Nelson's death, we hear nothing more of him from Nicolson other than that his corpse was conveyed back to England in a massive water cask filled with drinking spirits. There should have been some sort of epilogue - closure to the story - encompassing the Admiral's funeral (from which the love of his life, Lady Hamilton, was apparently excluded). But there wasn't, and I'm knocking off a star.

In conclusion, the author writes:

"... the uncompromising violence; the dedicated grip on the need for 'annihilation'; the seeking of victory through exsanguination; combined with a hunger for honour; a belief in the reality of noble ideas; self-possession as a mark of nobility; and behind all that a tender and active humanity ... these are the ambivalent ingredients of sublime and noble war, of a kind which Homer and Virgil would have recognized, and all of which were undeniably there on 21 October 1805."

Seize by Fire by Adam Nicolson proves to be a well written and nicely researched book on the leadership culture of the British Navy of Nelsonian Age, as seen by modern readers. Mr. Nicolson does a fine job in relating what was important to leaders back in 1805 and tries to related that to the modern readers in hope to gained a greater understanding on how that affected the Battle of Trafalgar. I thought its a rather novel approach to the concept.

People who wants a detail looks at the actual battle may have to look else where. The book looks at the situation from the British perception since the author believes with certain justification that the battle once joined, was a sure victory for the British. Outcome which was decided long before the first cannon ball soared through the air on that October day in 1805.

This book proves to be an interesting look at how leaders and style of combat were viewed and decided by the contemporaries of Horatio Nelson and how that translated to us today. Its interesting that the culture of the British Navy were quite reflective the nation its represented. Not only in terms of how they view wars but how they also regards their heroes, their battles and their enemies.

Highly interesting book, thanks to the 200th anniversary of Battle of Trafalgar this year, we should have a good bumper crops of books on this subject. This book proves to be one of the highlights of that crops.

With all the books on Nelson, especially this year, Nicolson has found a different and persuasive view on the contest. He contends that the outcome of the action was a sure thing way before the fleets ever found each other in October of 1805. He argues that the economic and social climate of Great Britain as well as a sense of patriotism, and yes, even a healthy birthrate all contributed to turning pressed landlubbers into fighting seamen. In contrast, French crews, he claims, were a poor lot and the Spanish even worse. The rapid rate of British gunfire is mentioned by all authors, but there was also superior shiphandling, honed by years of keeping the ships at sea, and an aggressive spirit among the captains that not only allowed but encouraged individual initiative.
The prose is an easy read and, unlike most current volumes on Nelson, images of the players and some actions are rendered in color plates.

This is a well-written book, an account of the sea battle off Trafalgar which destroyed the French-Spanish fleet and Napoleon's plans to invade England. However, the first 200 pages of the book leading up to the battle are really a comparison of the culture of the three countries and how it affected their navies and the outcome of the conflict. Interesting, but I kept asking, when does the battle start? The battle itself is fascinating but I expected more. Still, I'm glad I read it and I did learn a lot about that era.