Trafalgar Anniversary

Maybe I missed it, but I don’t recall seeing this on the Board, and I couldn’t find it using the Search function either.

Last Friday was the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. The only US mention of this I’ve seen was the cover and lead story in U.S. News and World Report.

I’m kinda surprised no Dopers mentioned it. Especially with all of the UK folk here.

It hasn’t escaped my attention; I work near Portsmouth and we heard all the guns going off during the various displays. The main celebration was held earlier in the year though, when the weather should have been better.

Indeed, there was much coverage in the newspapers and on TV in the UK of the Battle Trafalgar and the commemorative events, as well as lots of stuff about Horace Nelson, the “one-armed adulterer” as someone calls him in James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. There have been many calls over the years for a Trafalgar public holiday, which would fill the large gap between the August Bank Holiday (i.e. last Monday in August) and Christmas and would also bring Brits more into line with their European friends, who tend to have more public holidays.

I was a little surprised that it did not even show up in the regional newspaper’s “this day in history” side bar. Eastern Iowa doesn’t pay much attention to the Napoleonic Wars or the foundations of the British Empire.

What little I’ve seen continues to peddle the old canard that the one armed adventurer saved England (for that’s what it was in 1805) from French invasion. By October, 1805, the Grand Army was deep in central Europe, marching on Vienna, setting the stage for Austerlitz in December. What Trafalgar did was secure the British Empire by freeing it from interference by French or Spanish fleets – there were still small task forces and commerce raiders out there but nothing that could, for instance, seriously threaten British India or British sea borne trade.

Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly?

No!

Do you want that bastard Napoleon Bonaparte to be your king?

No!

Do your want your children to sing the Marseillaise?

No!

I just got back from the UK today (Via Miami, what a thread that will be) and I was in Portsmouth on Sunday. I missed the big stuff but they were still in the throws of the bicentennial weekend. I can share pictures of the event if anyone is interested.