Attachment 12000
Horatio Times
As morning dawned on 21st October 1805, the combined fleets of France and Spain prepared to face a smaller British fleet off Cape Trafalgar. This battle was the culmination of the long pursuit from the Mediterranean to the West Indies earlier that year which had left Nelson frustrated and exhausted. At last, on that calm October morning, he had the chance to decisively defeat the enemy and end the threat of a French invasion of Britain.
Piqued by orders that were to lead to his replacement, and increasingly anxious to do something to fight his nemesis, French Admiral Pierre Charles Villeneuve had lead the fleet out of Cadiz on the 20th where they were almost instantly spotted by the British. In the hours that were to follow, Villeneuve and his forces were decisively defeated as the Allied line was sliced in two. Meanwhile Nelson, mortally wounded in the height of the fighting, was left to suffer a slow and painful death deep in the hold of his flagship while his men fought like lions above to secure him his greatest victory, perhaps the greatest and most famous victory in naval history.