The first great bourgeois victory

The proposal that the English have a long tradition of violence is the opening of Adam Nicolson’s book and he supports his belief by invoking the Book of Revelations, Virgil, Homer, Joanna Southcott, the Methodists, Jane Austen and William Blake to bring this together at Trafalgar. That occasion cannot, of course, be without Nelson, and he writes, ‘The apocalyptic tradition required a conjuring, wise, intuitive, violent and triumphant leader.’ That this is an original and discursive bicentennial contribution is apparent. But, before a peace-loving Englishman can protest, invoking similar, even more violent tendencies among at least a dozen other nationalities, Nicolson has him on the quarterdeck of the Victory at dawn on 21 October 1805, and is making his point.

What follows is a beguiling discourse on the character of the English at that time, illustrated by their behaviour amid the shocking realities of war at sea. Nicolson’s eye for detail creates a compelling readability (recalling Sir Arthur Bryant at his best) with the freshness and perception that gives his own writing its quality.

The winning factor at Trafalgar was not the British ships but the men who manned them, and, in particular, the officers who trained and led them. These were, in 1805, predominantly what Nelson had described, in another context, as the ‘middling class of people’, like himself. The middle classes had the incentive to succeed socially and financially, whereas the aristocracy and the workers tended to accept their lot as, respectively, being perfectly satisfactory, or probably impossible to change. The Royal Navy offered the means of achieving advancement through merit, prize-money and what was seen as glory in battle. Thus, writes Nicolson, ‘Victory is neither a luxury, nor an ornament. It is a compulsion and a necessity.’ So, ‘Trafalgar… might be seen as the first great bourgeois victory of European history and its heroes as the first great heroes of the British middle class.’