Battle of Trafalgar

Date

21 October 1805

Category

Military & conflict

Region

Atlantic Ocean, off Spain

Era

Modern

Significance

On 21 October 1805, off Cape Trafalgar on the southwest coast of Spain, a British fleet of 27 ships of the line under Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson decisively defeated a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 ships commanded by Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve.

Abandoning conventional line-of-battle tactics, Nelson drove his fleet in two columns through the enemy line, breaking it into sections that could be overwhelmed in detail. The allied fleet lost some 19 or 20 ships and around 14,000 men killed, wounded or captured, while the Royal Navy lost no vessels. Nelson was mortally wounded by a French sniper and died certain of victory. The battle shattered Napoleon's hopes of invading Britain and confirmed British command of the seas, a maritime supremacy that would underpin Britain's global power and empire for more than a century. With invasion impossible, Napoleon turned to economic warfare against Britain through the Continental System.

Empires active in 21 October 1805

• Russian Empire
  1721 CE to 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE to 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE to 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE to 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE to 1857 CE

Related military & conflict events

• Haiti declares independence after a successful slave revolution
  1 January 1804
• Napoleon's invasion of Russia
  June to December 1812
• Battle of Waterloo
  18 June 1815
• First Opium War and the Treaty of Nanking
  1839 to 1842 (Treaty of Nanking, 29 August 1842)
• The Taiping Rebellion
  1850 to 1864
• American Civil War and the abolition of slavery
  1861 to 1865 (Emancipation Proclamation 1 January 1863; 13th Amendment ratified 6 December 1865)

Essential reading

• The Great Irish Famine
  1845 to 1852
• Qing conquest of the Dzungars and the creation of Xinjiang
  1755 to 1759
• Emancipation of the serfs in Russia
  3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
• The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
  19 July 1870 to 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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