9 of 12 August 2023 The 1805 Dispatches #23.04 Captain John Wills, RN (Retd) sent us this extract, ‘Thomas Foley and the Battle of the Nile - 1798’, from the 1902 edition of Nelson and his Captains, by W A Fitchett BA LLD, that he has in his possession, which seems a fitting way to remember the Battle of the Nile 225 years later. Round Foley's name clusters the one great dispute of Nelson's whole professional career. Foley, in the Goliath, led the British attack in that fierce and hawklike swoop on Bruey's line with which the fight at the Nile opened. And nothing recorded in naval warfare is more masterful and audacious than the fashion in which Foley took his ship through the narrow ribbon of water between the island of Aboukir, with its batteries, and the head of the French line, smashing the Guerrier with a raking broadside as he passed its bows and then swung round on the inner and unprepared sides of the enemy ships. The Zealous, the Orion and the Theseus followed the lead of the Goliath. The Audacious broke through the French line at the stern of the Guerrier; the other British ships as they came up took their places on the outer side of the French line. Thus each ship of the French van lay under a crossfire from two British ships, and the head of Bruey's line was in this manner destroyed, while his rear ships - since the line lay head to wind - could only look on in agitated helplessness. The Battle of the Nile, it may be said, was won by a stroke of brilliant tactics almost before a shot was fired. But is that master-stroke of tactics to be credited to Foley, or to Nelson? It is possible to quote much evidence, and many authoritative opinions on both sides of the question. The fashion, indeed, in which the witnesses contradict each other, on the plainest matter of fact in the story, is an amusing proof of the shortness of the human memory, and the unreliable quality of men's very senses. How far distant, for THE NILE REMEMBERED 225 Years Later "Battle of the Nile, August 1st 1798 at 10 PM" Painted in 1830 by Thomas Luny. https://www.napoleon-empire.net/en/battles/nile.php Below: Battle of the Nile battleplan https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons Guerrier Conquérant Spartiate Aquilon Souverain Franklin Tonnant Guillaume Tell Généreux Diane Timoléon Justice Artémise на мели на мели Heureux Mercure L'Orient Sérieuse Culloden на мели Leander Leander Swiftshure Swiftshure Alexander Alexander Majestic Majestic Bellerophon Zealous Zealous Audacious Audacious Vanguard Minotaur Defence Defence Goliath Theseus Goliath Theseus Orion Orion Orion Bellerophon дрейфует Bellerophon Мелководье Мелководье
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