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One hundred and sixty-seven naval, merchant and tall ships from 36 countries today gathered in Portsmouth, England, to mark the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar. But the way this celebration has turned out, it could be any old boat show. The intended message of the day has been drowned in a sea of historical embarrassment, and the official line is now: 'Celebrate Nelson: But don't mention the war.'
| Caught up on a seemingly endless round of celebrations of Great National Historic Moments, the British establishment has got itself in a bind. The fact that nothing in recent history gives Britain anything to celebrate - as symbolised by the tortured discussion about who to put on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth, before deciding on a temporary sculpture of a pregnant disabled artist whom nobody had ever heard of - leads to desperate attempts to latch on to historic victories way back when Britain had some clout and some purpose, in order to provide some meaning for today.
| Yet those very historic achievements are coloured by present-day sensibilities, giving off a palpable sense of embarrassment about Empire, violence, and anything that might be considered offensive. The upshot is less a celebration of historic victories than a cringing attempt to adapt the events of the past to the morality of today, rendering history banal.
| The Trafalgar celebrations are a case in point. During the battle, off the Spanish Cape Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, the Royal Navy annihilated French and Spanish naval forces, defeating Napoleon Bonaparte's plans to invade Britain and sealing Britain's control of the oceans, the basis of its global power for over a century. It also brought the death of the Admiral Lord Nelson who, according to one commentary, 'was already a national hero, and considered the ultimate naval commander' (1). There is no doubt that Trafalgar is right up there in the league table of events that, had things gone another way, would have made a profound change to history; and it should be expected that 200 years later, there would be some kind of marker.
| But while the British establishment has shown itself more than keen to celebrate Trafalgar - for four months, from now until the anniversary of Nelson's death in October, there is to be an ongoing flurry of events - it has demonstrated a striking timidity in dealing with the actual history.
| There has been a 're-enactment' of the battle in Portsmouth - but the two sides were labelled red and blue, to avoid offending the French. The ensuing discussion about this ridiculous gesture has focused not on the historical reality, but on the hypothetical question 'what would Nelson have said?'
| Though the cause of Britain's celebrations was a battle between two opposing forces, all everybody wants to talk about is the joys of multicultural cooperation. And even the conceit that the Battle of Trafalgar was a wholly British victory has been cast into doubt - as Bruno Pappalardo, naval expert at the National Archives, told BBC Online magazine: 'It was a very cosmopolitan navy.... Many men came from different nationalities - Turkish, Chinese, French, Italian, Irish, American and African. The navy recruited near and far.' (2) Of the 18,000 men at Trafalgar, 4,000 - almost a quarter - were Irish.
| | | Britain is wracked with doubt about its present role and its imperial past |
| The red team/blue team idea has been slammed by Nelson's great, great, great granddaughter, Anna Tribe, who is 75 years old. 'The idea of the blue team fighting the red team is pretty stupid', she said. 'I am sure the French and Spanish are adult enough to appreciate we did win that battle.' Tribe added that such 'political correctness' would 'make fools of us' (3). The cry of 'PC gone mad' has been picked up by others: the Sun has Alex Naylor, an historian who dresses up as Nelson for historical re-enactments, to speculate on what Nelson would have thought of it all, and the paper's leading article suggests that 'Next the PC buffoons will be rewriting Nelson's famous message to his heroic ships to prevent offence to women… "England expects every person to do his/her* duty" (*delete as applicable)' (4). And yes, it is all pretty stupid.
| But this coyness about who really won the war is pretty much par for the course. The Britain of today is as uncomfortable with overt expressions of power as it is with such military language as the kind of warfare that Nelson characterised as 'annihilation' (5). It might look plain silly for the British establishment to worry about offending the French through a representation of history, and Anna Tribe is right to point out that our continental neighbours are grown-up enough not to care. But Britain is not an Empire anymore, and it is wracked with doubt and insecurity about its present role and its imperial past.
| The British establishment's desperation to use history to claw back some distant sense of national pride is continually coloured by the pragmatism about its position today, and sensitivity to the kind of politics and language considered acceptable in the modern world. Even this year's celebrations of the defeat of fascism on VE Day and VJ Day radiate discomfort about British jingoism and upsetting our European neighbours - to the point where the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War will be held on some made-up date in July, mid-way between the actual dates on May and August, as though history can be simply rewritten by an organising committee. Trouble is, the updated, inoffensive version of history that comes out of all this is pretty unconvincing.
| So when it came to finding a riposte to Nelson's great, great, great granddaughter's 'pretty stupid' comments about the Trafalgar celebrations, the Navy had to go sensitive, contemporary and empathetic. 'Nelson would have absolutely approved of what's going on this year', said the First Sea Lord. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the involvement of ships from 30-odd nations reflected 'the way we are employed around the world now, fighting terrorism, working with our close allies. And Nelson would have approved of that, to get the maritime back in the public eye' (6).
| The bloody Battle of Trafalgar, an exercise in annihilation through military skill, is represented for modern consumption as a lesson in cooperation and PR. It's hard to take seriously an historian who spends his professional life in fancy dress, but when Alex Naylor says, 'If you obliterate history for the sake of political correctness, you can't learn from the past', he surely has a point.
| (1) The Battle of Trafalgar, by Andrew Lambert, BBC
(2) Were they one of Nelson's men?, BBC News, 21 June 2005
(3) Trafalgar mock-up 'pretty stupid', BBC News, 27 June 2005
(4) Lord Nelson would have given PC mob a broadside, Sun, 28 June 2005
(5) The Battle of Trafalgar, by Andrew Lambert, BBC
(6) Queen conducts Trafalgar review, BBC News, 28 June 2005
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