Who is the best commander of the Army?
This is a rather rough debate. It can be said that land warfare was the main in human history, and there are many invincible commanders, so it will be very difficult to decide the strongest.
So who is the best commander of the Navy?
This would be no other than Admiral Nelson, who Napoleon had never won.
The strongest Admiral in history
Army commanders are usually represented by "General" and Navy commanders by "Admiral".
Horatio Nelson, who later made a name for himself in history, was born in 1758 in Norfolk, eastern England, as the sixth child of a family of ministers.
He later became famous as Admiral Nelson, but Nelson was his family name, and his name, Horatio, was named after his relative, the first Earl of Orford, Horatio Walpole. Furthermore, the first British Prime Minister, Walpole, is also a member of the same family, and Nelson and Walpole are distantly related.
In this way, the house where Nelson was born was close to the prestigious family, but the Nelson family seemed to have trouble living, and although Nelson himself attended school until the age of 12, he was before the age of 14. He is enlisted in the Navy with his maternal uncle Maurice Suckling.
Nelson progresses in the Navy at an astonishing speed because of his uncle's backing beyond his outstanding abilities.
Maurice Suckling was a hero of the Seven Years' War, promoted to Secretary of the Navy in 1775, and was a major influence on the Royal Navy until his death in 1778.
Nelson himself passed the Navy's General Examination in 1777 and became an officer, and in 1779 he became the captain of a ship. In other words, he became the captain of the ship at the age of only 21, and it can be said that his career advancement speed was out of the standard.
After that, he continued to play an active part in the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and when the French Revolution took place and the French army began fighting with other countries, Nelson was appointed as the captain of the battleship Agamemnon and began to play an active part in the Mediterranean area.
In 1794, he developed a strategy to capture the island of Corsica, which is also Napoleon's hometown, and in this battle he damaged his right eye and subsequently lost his eyesight.
Battle of Cape St. Vincente
In 1796, France's ally Spain declared war on Britain.
Britain has 15 battleships and France and Spain have a total of 38 battleships in the Mediterranean, and the difference is clear. Britain was forced to withdraw from Elba and Corsica, and gradually retreated.
Under such circumstances, in 1797, a naval battle at Cape Saint Vicente took place between Britain and Spain / France.
Despite the overwhelming disadvantage in terms of numbers, the Royal Navy eventually won a big victory. Nelson was awarded a medal for his success at this time and was promoted to major general.
The Royal Navy, which is inferior in number, deploys a single line of battle to divide the Spanish fleet, which stretches horizontally, and Nelson blocks the path of the group with the largest number of battleships in the divided Spanish fleet, with only one ship. It works like a lion fighting against seven Spanish Navy ships.
In this battle, four Spanish ships were successfully captured, two of which were by Nelson. The battle caused decisive damage to the Spanish fleet, creating a favorable situation for Britain.
He continued to fight France and Spain, and was injured to the point of losing his right arm in the battle on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, which was a Spanish territory.
The Tenerife strategy ended in failure, but the British did not think the failure was in Nelson, but in William Pitt, who planned the operation. Before the actual arrival of Nelson, the Spanish army was defending rock solidly, and the operation itself was quite unreasonable.
Battle of Abu Qir Bay
Nelson continued his mission in the Mediterranean, but in August 1798 Nelson discovered and attacked French troops anchored in Abu Qir Bay, Egypt.
The French side was completely ambushed, Bruis, the then Admiral of the French Navy, was killed in action and Nelson was injured in the head. One British battleship was lost due to a stranded land, but the French side suffered near-destroyed damage, leaving only three ships.
This battle left Napoleon completely isolated in Egypt.
Battle of Trafalgar
After that, Nelson, who was active in the Battle of Copenhagen with the Royal Danish Navy, became the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet in 1803, and in 1805 he took command of the famous Battle of Trafalgar.
A fleet was gathered in Cadiz, Spain, an ally of France. In October 1805, Admiral Villeneur of the French Navy led the French-Spanish fleet into the Mediterranean Sea, and Nelson was aware of this information in advance. Was ambushed.
The Battle of Trafalgar, which became a historic battle, was successful in the Nelson Touch tactics devised by Nelson, and took control of the Royal Navy and the command of the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas. The continental blockade ended in failure because Britain was able to trade with the Americas through the Atlantic Ocean.
But Nelson, the greatest contributor to the victory, loses his life in the fierce battle of the Battle of Trafalgar.
His last words were "Thank God. I have fulfilled my responsibilities."
Personal Nelson Rating
Horatio Nelson is the greatest hero in British history.
In Japan, it would be like Heihachiro Togo. It can be said that his victory was a definite victory and greatly contributed to the national interests that followed.
Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar was enormous, and the failure of the Berlin Decree put him in great trouble, and Nelson's success in every respect was a historic victory.
Trafalgar Square in London, the capital of England, has a statue and pillars of Nelson, about the four victories brought by Admiral Nelson, the Battle of Cape San Vicente, the Battle of Abu Qir Bay, the Battle of Copenhagen, and the Battle of Trafalgar. A sentence praising the achievement is engraved.
It is said that Nelson was buried with a state funeral that only the royal family was allowed to die, and the death is still respectfully explained as a representative of Britain's most revered Noblesse oblige.
He said that Nelson was usually a kind person in his lifetime, and that all his subordinates respected and respected Nelson. However, once it comes to battle, he becomes brave like a lion, and it can be seen that he has a rather stubborn personality like the anecdote of the Battle of Copenhagen.
At the Battle of Copenhagen with Denmark, Admiral Parker at the time issued an order to stop the battle, but Nelson said that he continued the battle by looking through the telescope with his blinded right eye.
All four naval victories brought by Nelson were the ones that led to the prosperity of the later British Empire, and there is no doubt that Nelson was the one who brought glory to Britain.
There was no direct confrontation, but Napoleon was the opponent who never won, and I think that the strongest admiral in history will still be decided by Nelson.