That was certainly London’s hope, but it was strictly circumscribed by its inability to communicate to the central Mediterranean either what it wanted or what it knew. On 13 June, when Lord Spencer wrote his intelligence summary to his brother, Nelson was still in the Tyrrhenian Sea, between Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. Orders had been sent from London to India, and points in between, to sail ships towards Suez, in particular to Commodore John Blanchett, in the Leopard, 50 guns, on his way to India, to organise a small squadron in the Red Sea. It was anyone’s guess when word might reach him. It was equally difficult to estimate when either fresh orders or information might be got to Nelson. St. Vincent, off Cadiz, had instructions and good reason to stay there, blockading the Spanish and guarding the Straits of Gibraltar. He had sent all the fast sailers at his disposal to Nelson already and could spare no more. He could forward messages by neutral ships, but they were few, and his own rear link to London was tenuous and slow. He did not even know, from week to week, where Nelson was; after mid-June, when Nelson sent back the brig Transfer from Naples with despatches, he did not know at all.
Nelson, by contrast, may have known something of Udney’s intelligence from Leghorn, since his papers contain a copy of an Udney letter which he may have picked up while on his way back to the Toulon rendezvous line after the dismasting; but it tells only of the Toulon Armament’s strength, not its destination. Soon after he left Naples on 18 June, however, he got firm news that it was sailing for Malta. On 20 June, when he was in the Strait of Messina, between Sicily and the toe of Italy, the British Consul at Messina came aboard “to tell me that Malta had surrendered,” but not before he had written to the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, urging him to put the island into a state of defence, while he hurried to help.
His message left too late. Malta had already been surrendered, as Consul Udney had warned it would be on 26 April. The Knights had caved in. That should not have come as a surprise. The Sovereign Military and Hospitaller Order of St. John was no longer what it once had been. Founded originally to care for sick Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, it had become during the Crusades an order of military monks, who built and defended castles all over the crusader states. Driven under Muslim pressure step by step from Jerusalem, Acre and the island of Rhodes, the Knights eventually ended up in Malta, where they found a new vigour. In 1565, under the leadership of Grand Master de la Valette, they defeated a major Turkish effort to capture the island and push into the western Mediterranean. For the next 200 years the Knights harried the Ottoman fleet, liberating Christian galley slaves and taking Turks to be their own. There was no nonsense about loving thine enemy in the Knights’ version of the Christian creed. The catafalques of the Grand Masters, in their headquarters church in Valetta, are supported on the bronze shoulders of turbaned Turks, chained to and bowed under their burden.
Grand Master Hompesch lacked Valette’s resolution. When Bonaparte’s armada appeared on 9 June, he quickly came to terms—a pension for himself, resettlement for the remaining Knights. Such resistance as was shown came from the ordinary Maltese, though they had little love for the decayed Order. By 18 June, Bonaparte was off, having installed a French administration and garrison, proclaimed various civil and ecclesiastical reforms and thoroughly looted the churches of treasure. It was a characteristically Napoleonic irruption, not least by its alienation of the Maltese, one of the most Catholic people of Europe. Had the Knights only shown more backbone, and encouraged the islanders to prolong resistance, the outcome would have been very different. Nelson, only a hundred miles behind and pressing onward, would have caught the Armament at a total disadvantage, with its commander and amphibious force ashore and its warships dispersed about the island’s periphery. Disaster would have been unavoidable.
Nelson, however, was misreading the signs. On Wednesday, 20 June, when he had written to Grand Master Hompesch from off Messina, he promised to be at Malta by the 22nd. So he was, or nearly. He was still convinced, however, that Sicily was the French objective and that Malta was to be used only as a base for its capture. His thoughts, therefore, misled him. He was shortly misled by objective misinformation.
Early in the morning of 22 June, when he had promised to be at Malta but was actually just south of Cape Passaro, the south-east point of Sicily nearest the island, he was brought fresh news of the French from two different sources in quick succession. The first came from Hardy, who came aboard Vanguard from Mutine at 6:25 a.m. to report stopping a brig from Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, on the Adriatic coast), with the news that Malta had fallen. The second was a sighting report from Leander of four strange ships to the east-south-east.
Nelson now decided, uncharacteristically, to consult his captains as to what to do. His conferences before Trafalgar would launch the legend of the “Band of Brothers”; but then he was expressing what he intended to do, telling not asking. Yet by 1798 he had already acquired a reputation for decisiveness. It was odd that at this moment he felt the need for moral support. Still, it was a highly complex situation. The Ragusan brig had told that Malta had fallen the previous Friday, and the French fleet sailed the following day, 15 and 16 June respectively. It was now the 22nd. Nelson must have calculated that, if the French had gone to Sicily, they would have arrived, and news could not have failed to reach him of their arrival in the intermediate six days. As there was no news, they had gone somewhere else. Given the current direction of the wind, which was westerly, the Armament was most likely to be heading east, which might mean towards the Dardanelles and the Black Sea but almost certainly meant Egypt. It was a compelling conclusion; but he needed reassurance.
The four captains for whom he sent were senior and trusted—Saumarez of the Orion, Troubridge of the Culloden, Darby of the Bellerophon and Ball of the Alexander. In Vanguard’s cabin, he put to them the following assessment: “with this information [of the “strange ships” and from the Ragusan brig] what is your opinion? Do you believe under all circumstances which we know that Sicily is [Bonaparte’s] destination? Do you think we had better stand for Malta, or steer for Sicily? Should the Armament be gone for Alexandria [Egypt] and got safe there our possessions in India are probably lost. Do you think that we had better push for that place?”
He got a variety of answers. Berry, of the Vanguard itself, was for going to Alexandria, Ball agreed that the French were heading for Alexandria, Darby thought that probable, Saumarez and Troubridge emphasised the importance of protecting Alexandria, without stating an opinion about the French destination. Still, collectively, they made Nelson’s mind up, with regrettable consequences.
Resolved now to press on at best speed to Egypt, Nelson dealt peremptorily with the sighting reports of the “strange ships.” His own sent to follow them kept up a stream of signals. At 5:30 a.m. Culloden reported that they were running, with the wind behind them. At 6:46 a.m. Leander signalled “strange ships are frigates,” and Orion repeated it to the flagship so that there could be no mistake. Four frigates made a sizeable force, likely to be part of a larger one. It was not an unreasonable guess that they might belong to the Armament. Soon after 7 a.m., however, Nelson ordered the “chasing ships” to be called back. His thoughts, which he was outlining at the time to his five captains in Vanguard’s cabin, admitted only two lines of decision: to go back to Sicily or make for Malta; alternatively, to race to Egypt, with the favourable wind. He did not raise, perhaps even to himself, the option of disposing the fleet in scouting formation and running down the course taken by the “strange ships” to see if they were in company with others. Captain Thomas of the Leander clearly could not understand and scarcely bear his superior’s refusal to follow up such an obvious pointer to the enemy’s whereabouts. At 8:29 a.m. he signalled again, “ships seen are frigates.” Nelson was unmoved.Leander, Orion andCulloden were obliged to rejoin the fleet which crowded on sail for Alexandria.
The episode brings to mind the exchanges between Admiral Nagumo and the aircrew of the cruiser Tone’s reconnaissance aircraft in the early morning of the Battle of Midway, 4 June 1942—with this difference. Then it was the admiral who was desperate to know what sort of ships the airmen had spotted, they who were slow to respond. Their first signal reported that they had sighted the enemy, their second that the enemy ships were cruisers and destroyers, no threat to Nagumo at all, only their third, sent nearly an hour after the first, that “enemy is accompanied by what appears to be a carrier,” a very serious threat indeed. Despite the differences, there is this similarity: had the commander and his reconnaissance force in each case been in tune, the enemy would have been destroyed.
Nelson might nevertheless have heeded his scouting ships had he possessed one vital piece of information: the actual date of departure of Bonaparte from Malta. The “Ragusan brig” had said Saturday, 16 June. In fact he had not left until Tuesday the 19th, and on the 22nd, when the “strange ships” were sighted, had been at sea only three days. Nelson was harder on Bonaparte’s heels than Nelson guessed; may, indeed have been only thirty miles or so behind him. That night, in the mist, the French heard bells striking and signal guns firing, which surely must have been aboard Nelson’s ships. The French Armament, however, warned by the frigates seen earlier that day, was sailing in silence, closed up tight for mutual protection. By the time day broke, Nelson had passed ahead and was over the horizon. The chance of a decisive encounter had been lost.