Trafalgar, battle of Trafalgar, battle of (trəfălˈgər) [key],
naval engagement fought off Cape Trafalgar on the SW coast of
Spain on Oct. 21, 1805, in which the British fleet under Horatio
Nelson won a famous victory over the allied French and Spanish
fleets under Pierre de Villeneuve. Nelson's strategy was to
divide his own fleet into two sections, one led by himself in
the HMS Victory, the other by his deputy Cuthbert Collingwood in
the HMS Royal Sovereign, and to penetrate the enemy line in two
places. This maneuver resulted in the capture of 20 enemy ships
(one was blown up). The British lost no ships. Among the dead
was Nelson himself, struck by a bullet from the French ship
Redoutable. The decisive English victory ended Napoleon I's
power on the sea and made a French invasion of England
impossible. The words signaled by Nelson at the beginning of the
battle—"England expects that every man will do his duty"—became
immortal. See studies by D. A. Howarth (1969), O. Warner (1971),
and A. Nicolson (2005). Th