Disgust
Today is the 200th anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. The British government has made a big production of it. I find this revolting, for two reasons.
First, it commemorates a triumph of reaction within Britain. Even granted that Napoleon had by then made himself a tyrant and stifled the Revolution, Britain had entered the war, and continued it, in order to destroy France's new republican institutions, and put an end to all liberal ferments at home as well as abroad. The alliance that finally destroyed Napoleon included Britain, Prussia and Russia - a list of powers that speaks for itself; nor is it a coincidence that Britain, at the same time, went to war against the fledgling United States. This period saw the abuse of state power, backed by a fanatized anti-French mob, against every kind of opposition, the brutal repression of yet another Irish revolt, and the hardening of all aspects of political life within Britain, stopping the process of reform dead for thirty years. Whether or not Napoleon had to be stopped - and, as a trouble-making, restless tyrant, he probably had - the British ruling classes, in stopping him, not only allied itself to all the most poisonously reactionary tendencies in Europe, but deliberately and gleefully let in the worst of the poison (including the use of mob violence) into the British body politic.
Second, the hero of the battle was one of the most loathsome figures in recent European history. If you are ever playing Trivia, ask: "Which European capital has its central square built around the statue of an unconvicted war criminal, celebrating his final victory?" The answer is: London, Trafalgar Square. If the ruling classes of Britain found it convenient to stimulate the mob to anti-French and anti-revolutionary hatred, Nelson, who was an upstart and never a part of that class, was the very incarnation of that hatred. While Wellington, the man who did more than anyone except the Russian winter to defeat Napoleon, was a genuinely chivalrous man who reated prisoners decently, kept agreements and came to increasingly hate the brutality of war (Waterloo traumatized him, and after that battle he never had anything to do with the army again), Nelson was a bloodthirsty guttersnipe who congratulated a Turkish pasha for murdering all French prisoners in a fortress that had surrendedered at discretion - men, women and children - until his very executioners were exhausted and their blades blunted; a deed that horrified both sides of the war. (The monster in question, incidentally, ended up, twenty years later, betraying his own Turkish masters and unleashing the Greek war of independence, thus showing that you can never trust a mass murderer, even if he mass murders on the right side.) Nelson was the man who, having sailed with the British fleet into the recently re-taken city of Naples, took upon himself to void the agreement that the victorious general, a genuinely heroic figure called Cardinal Ruffo di Calabria, had made with the pro-French side, and had over a thousand of them murdered in defiance of all law. This happened in 1799, and by then there still were a few public figures honourable enough, in Britain, to call for this man to be tried and executed; but the leadership found him useful, and ignored the fact that British law clearly would have called for his execution. As for Trafalgar, sure it was an important victory, but the likelihood is that the British would have won the war on the sea anyway, with or without their mass-murdering admiral; they were superior to the French in both armament and skills (for instance, British naval gunners could fire their cannon at a much faster rate than French ones). What the prsence of Nelson at that decisive occassion showed was merely this: that the British government would neither punish nor in any way discountenance a mass murderer who won battles for them.
Indeed, to this day, for some perverse reason, the English insist on summing up their supposedly proud naval tradition with two of the most odious figures who ever went to sea: "Drake and Nelson". In any language other than English, Francis Drake is known as "the pirate Drake", a disgusting figure who united vicious greed with the most loathsome kind of national and religious bigotry. He sacked cities, looted and sank ships, had Spanish prisoners flayed alive for fun (a practice which the English learned from the Turks, and which made the rest of Europe shudder in disgust), thinking himself entitled to do all these nice things by the fact that his enemies were Spanish and Catholic. Thanks to him and people like him, England in the time of Elizabeth was regarded as a pariah state by most of Europe. And yet, ask any innocent Briton about Britain's "proud" naval tradition, and the names of these two ghastly creatures will fall from their lips. Does Britain really have no more presentable naval hero than them?
First, it commemorates a triumph of reaction within Britain. Even granted that Napoleon had by then made himself a tyrant and stifled the Revolution, Britain had entered the war, and continued it, in order to destroy France's new republican institutions, and put an end to all liberal ferments at home as well as abroad. The alliance that finally destroyed Napoleon included Britain, Prussia and Russia - a list of powers that speaks for itself; nor is it a coincidence that Britain, at the same time, went to war against the fledgling United States. This period saw the abuse of state power, backed by a fanatized anti-French mob, against every kind of opposition, the brutal repression of yet another Irish revolt, and the hardening of all aspects of political life within Britain, stopping the process of reform dead for thirty years. Whether or not Napoleon had to be stopped - and, as a trouble-making, restless tyrant, he probably had - the British ruling classes, in stopping him, not only allied itself to all the most poisonously reactionary tendencies in Europe, but deliberately and gleefully let in the worst of the poison (including the use of mob violence) into the British body politic.
Second, the hero of the battle was one of the most loathsome figures in recent European history. If you are ever playing Trivia, ask: "Which European capital has its central square built around the statue of an unconvicted war criminal, celebrating his final victory?" The answer is: London, Trafalgar Square. If the ruling classes of Britain found it convenient to stimulate the mob to anti-French and anti-revolutionary hatred, Nelson, who was an upstart and never a part of that class, was the very incarnation of that hatred. While Wellington, the man who did more than anyone except the Russian winter to defeat Napoleon, was a genuinely chivalrous man who reated prisoners decently, kept agreements and came to increasingly hate the brutality of war (Waterloo traumatized him, and after that battle he never had anything to do with the army again), Nelson was a bloodthirsty guttersnipe who congratulated a Turkish pasha for murdering all French prisoners in a fortress that had surrendedered at discretion - men, women and children - until his very executioners were exhausted and their blades blunted; a deed that horrified both sides of the war. (The monster in question, incidentally, ended up, twenty years later, betraying his own Turkish masters and unleashing the Greek war of independence, thus showing that you can never trust a mass murderer, even if he mass murders on the right side.) Nelson was the man who, having sailed with the British fleet into the recently re-taken city of Naples, took upon himself to void the agreement that the victorious general, a genuinely heroic figure called Cardinal Ruffo di Calabria, had made with the pro-French side, and had over a thousand of them murdered in defiance of all law. This happened in 1799, and by then there still were a few public figures honourable enough, in Britain, to call for this man to be tried and executed; but the leadership found him useful, and ignored the fact that British law clearly would have called for his execution. As for Trafalgar, sure it was an important victory, but the likelihood is that the British would have won the war on the sea anyway, with or without their mass-murdering admiral; they were superior to the French in both armament and skills (for instance, British naval gunners could fire their cannon at a much faster rate than French ones). What the prsence of Nelson at that decisive occassion showed was merely this: that the British government would neither punish nor in any way discountenance a mass murderer who won battles for them.
Indeed, to this day, for some perverse reason, the English insist on summing up their supposedly proud naval tradition with two of the most odious figures who ever went to sea: "Drake and Nelson". In any language other than English, Francis Drake is known as "the pirate Drake", a disgusting figure who united vicious greed with the most loathsome kind of national and religious bigotry. He sacked cities, looted and sank ships, had Spanish prisoners flayed alive for fun (a practice which the English learned from the Turks, and which made the rest of Europe shudder in disgust), thinking himself entitled to do all these nice things by the fact that his enemies were Spanish and Catholic. Thanks to him and people like him, England in the time of Elizabeth was regarded as a pariah state by most of Europe. And yet, ask any innocent Briton about Britain's "proud" naval tradition, and the names of these two ghastly creatures will fall from their lips. Does Britain really have no more presentable naval hero than them?