Data
Date	October 21, 1805.
Place	Cabo Trafalgar, Cádiz, Spain.
Belligerents	France and Spain vs. Britain.
Outcome	Great Britain victory.

The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval combat that pitted Great Britain against France and Spain and took place off Cape Trafalgar , in southern Spain , on October 21, 1805 . It is one of the most important battles of the Napoleonic wars .

Enhance your reading: Nazca culture religion/location/characteristics/economy

In this battle the following sides faced:

• The navy of France, with the support of that of Spain:  commanded by the French Admiral Pierre Villeneuve and the Spanish Lieutenant General Federico Gravina, in command of 33 warships, 15 Spanish and 18 French.
• The fleet of Great Britain:  led by the English Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, which had 27 ships. Britain was an ally of Austria, Russia, Naples and Sweden, with whom it had formed the Third Coalition, an anti-French alliance.

Aware that Great Britain was his most tenacious enemy, the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte , he decided to ally himself with Spain, offering her territories in exchange for her help to invade the British Isles. To achieve this objective, Napoleon concentrated a large number of troops on the banks of the English Channel while awaiting the news of the destruction of the enemy fleet.

On October 21, 1805, the French and Spanish fleets met off Cape Trafalgar, in Cádiz, Spain, where the British navy maintained a blockade of the Mediterranean Sea. Due to their superiority in strategy, experience and weaponry,  the British managed to defeat their enemies , although they outnumbered them.

However, in the battle, Vice Admiral Nelson , one of the best British sailors, lost his life  .

After Trafalgar, Napoleon abandoned the idea of ​​invading Great Britain. Instead, he tried to impose a continental blockade, which prevented the inhabitants of the Napoleonic Empire from buying English merchandise. But that measure also failed.

The importance of Trafalgar lies in the fact that it imposed the naval superiority of Great Britain, due to the destruction of a large part of the French fleet and part of the Spanish.

Enhance your reading: Where did the Incas live/religion/characteristics/economy

Importance of  the battle of Trafalgar

Despite the British victory over the Franco-Spanish navies, Trafalgar had negligible impact on the remainder of the War of the Third Coalition. Less than two months later, Napoleon decisively defeated the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz, knocking Austria out of the war and forcing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Although Trafalgar meant France could no longer challenge Britain at sea, Napoleon proceeded to establish the Continental System in an attempt to deny Britain trade with the continent. The Napoleonic Wars continued for another ten years after Trafalgar …

However

Following the battle, the Royal Navy was never again seriously challenged by the French fleet in a large-scale engagement.

It meant that Napoleon could never again take the offensive against Britain in Britain and hence he had to rely on his disastrous Continental System to wage economic warfare against Britain to bring it to its heels. But the opposite result followed because economics isn’t a zero-sum game and as Henry Kissinger points out Napoleon lacked a legitimacy principle to bring peace in Europe because he was asserting his personal authority on everyone turning everyone against him. Instead of overt personal aggrandizement where he was punishing other powers by seizing their territory, he should have developed a system where peace could be ensured based on a legitimacy principle agreeable to all powers. This distinguishes Napoleon from someone like Augustus, Phillip, and Alexander for they never tried to assert their personal dominance in someone else’s territory but rather developed trust and assurance of the people by giving them the administration they wanted while retaining the military power. The basis of their power was the goodwill of the people, not brute force. Napoleon’s situation was different because of the growing nationalistic consciousness and anger against the rulers but he did not show any ingenuity to adapt to the situation. It was thus Napoleon the Statesman that failed Napoleon the General.

Causes and consequences of the Battle of Trafalgar

Causes

The main causes of the Battle of Trafalgar were the following:

• The old  rivalry between France and Great Britain , along with Napoleon‘s ambition to dominate all of Europe.
• The breaking of the Treaty of Amiens , signed in 1802, which established peace between France and Great Britain. This was a precarious peace, which was broken due to Napoleon‘s claims to extend his domination throughout the continent. This restarted hostilities between the old rivals because Britain could not allow France to build a powerful empire that would end up threatening its existence.
• The alliance between Napoleon and Carlos IV of Spain , founded on the interest of the Spanish Bourbons to recover the Rock of Gibraltar, which had been under British rule since 1713. The union between the fleets of Spain and France  outnumbered that of Great Britain , which led Napoleon to think that it would be the opportunity to obtain victory.

Consequences

The main consequences of the Battle of Trafalgar were the following:

• Admiral Nelson died from injuries received during this battle and became one of the greatest heroes in British history.
• France lost 12 ships, reported 2,218 dead, 1,155 wounded and more than 500 prisoners. On the other hand, Great Britain did not lose any ships, although it had 449 dead and 1,241 wounded.
• Spain, for its part, lost 10 ships, had 1,022 dead, 1,383 wounded and some 2,500 prisoners.
• The weakening of the Spanish fleet meant that Spain could not adequately protect its American colonies . This contributed to the development of the Spanish-American independence processes when Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and captured the Spanish royal family in 1808.
• The British fleet was left intact and remained the largest in the world for more than 100 years.
• Napoleon could not carry out the invasion of Great Britain, so he turned his attention to his continental rivals. Known the news of the defeat in Trafalgar, the French emperor immediately moved his troops from the English Channel to the east, to cross the river Rhine and face Austria and Russia, which he defeated in the battle of Austerlitz .