May to 1 August 1798
Nelson’s search for the French fleet
Alarmed by the French preparations in Toulon, the Admiralty orders Earl St Vincent, commanding the Mediterranean Fleet off the Tagus, to send a squadron into the Mediterranean. Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson sails with three ships of the line and three frigates, but on 21 May a gale off Toulon dismasts his flagship Vanguard and scatters the frigates, which do not return. On 7 June ten more ships of the line under Captain Thomas Troubridge join him, with orders to find and destroy the French fleet.
Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, portrait by Lemuel Francis Abbott, 1799Wikimedia Commons, Lemuel Francis Abbott, Public domain (HoratioNelson1.jpg)
Without frigates to scout, Nelson learns at Naples that the French have passed towards Malta, and on 22 June that they have left it sailing east. He concludes that they are bound for Egypt and sails straight for Alexandria, passing the slower French convoy in the dark that night. He reaches Alexandria on 28 June, finds no French ships and turns north to Anatolia and back west to Sicily. The French scouts arrive off Alexandria the next evening.
After taking on supplies at Syracuse, Nelson sails again on 24 July and learns at Coron in the Morea on 28 July that the French are in Egypt. Brueys meanwhile has anchored his 13 ships of the line in Aboukir Bay, 32 km north-east of Alexandria, because the channel into the harbour is too shallow for the larger ships. His ships are short of food and water, and up to a third of the sailors are ashore at any time, digging wells and gathering supplies under guard against Bedouin attacks.
Vice-admiral François-Paul Brueys d’Aigalliers, portrait by an unknown artistWikimedia Commons, Unknown artist, Public domain (François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers.jpg)
Brueys draws his ships up in a line about 2.6 km long, south-east from Aboukir Island, where a small fort and gunboats cover the head of the line. The ships lie about 150 m apart along the edge of the shoals, with four frigates on the landward side. On the afternoon of 1 August Nelson’s scouts find the French transports at Alexandria, and at 14:00 the lookouts on Zealous sight the fleet at anchor. Nelson orders an immediate attack.
Sources
- Oliver Warner, The Battle of the Nile (1960).
- Noel Mostert, The Line upon a Wind (2007).
- Roy and Lesley Adkins, The War for All the Oceans (2006).
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