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Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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In Our Time: The Battle of Trafalgar

02/12/2021

The Battle of Trafalgar

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Battle of Trafalgar

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nelson's famous victory and death on 21 October 1805.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Nelson's decisive naval victory in 1805, long celebrated in Britain and remembered as a watershed in Spain yet overshadowed in France by Austerlitz.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the events of 21st October 1805, in which the British fleet led by Nelson destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet in the Atlantic off the coast of Spain.  Nelson's death that day was deeply mourned in Britain, and his example proved influential, and the battle was to help sever ties between Spain and its American empire. In France meanwhile, even before Nelson's body was interred at St Paul's, the setback at Trafalgar was overshadowed by Napoleon's decisive victory over Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, though Napoleon's search for his lost naval strength was to shape his plans for further conquests.

The image above is from 'The Battle of Trafalgar' by JMW Turner (1824).

With

James Davey
Lecturer in Naval and Maritime History at the University of Exeter

Marianne Czisnik 
Independent researcher on Nelson and editor of his letters to Lady Hamilton

And

Kenneth Johnson
Research Professor of National Security at Air University, Alabama


Producer: Simon Tillotson

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