Who won the Battle of the Nile?
Great Britain won. On the evening of 1 August 1798 Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson attacked Vice Admiral Brueys's French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria. By 3 August eleven of the thirteen French ships of the line had been taken or destroyed, and the flagship L'Orient had blown up in the night.1
The Battle of the Nile, which the French call the battle of Aboukir, was the naval climax of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt. It belongs to the French Revolutionary Wars, and its victor's life is told in our biography of Horatio Nelson. This article follows both admirals, Brueys and Nelson, and the choices each of them made.2
Why was the Battle of the Nile fought?
In 1798 the French Republic sent General Bonaparte to conquer Egypt, a blow aimed at Britain's trade routes and at its position in India. The expedition sailed from Toulon on 19 May, took Malta in June and landed near Alexandria at the start of July.3
London knew that a great armament was being prepared at Toulon. Admiral the Earl of St Vincent sent Nelson into the Mediterranean, and reinforcements gave him fourteen ships, thirteen 74s and the 50-gun Leander, in early June. Without frigates to scout for him, Nelson guessed Egypt, reached Alexandria before the French, found the harbor empty and turned back to Sicily for water and food. He returned to the Egyptian coast at the end of July.4
The French knew how close they had come. Bonaparte himself recalled that he learned at Alexandria that the British had passed only days before, and landed at once in a heavy sea; Battesti describes him overruling Brueys, who wanted to wait for daylight.5
Why did Brueys anchor in Aboukir Bay?
The fleet's first duty was to the army. The Old Port of Alexandria was the only real harbor on the coast, but the pilots found too little water in its channel for ships of 74 guns, let alone the 80s and the 120-gun L'Orient, and would not take them in. Captain Barré was sent to sound the passes; his report said the ships could get through, and Jurien de La Gravière and Chevalier, both French naval officers writing in the nineteenth century, thought Brueys should have gone in. The surviving text of Bonaparte's order of 3 July told Brueys to enter the Old Port if the depth allowed; if not, to report whether the squadron could defend itself anchored in Aboukir Bay, and failing both, to sail for Corfu. Battesti suspects that the copy in the navy archives was written afterwards to support Bonaparte's case.6
Brueys chose Aboukir Bay, a shallow open roadstead east of Alexandria, sheltered from the northwest by Aboukir Island and its reef. Battesti argues that the bay was not a bad choice in itself, halfway between Alexandria and Rosetta at the mouth of the Nile, and that Brueys refused Corfu because he would not abandon an army that might still be thrown back into the sea. After the disaster Bonaparte told the Directory that he had ordered the fleet into Alexandria or to Corfu and had learned with alarm that it was still at Aboukir. The aide he sent with a final order, Jullien, was killed by Arab raiders on the way.7
When the admirals met on board L'Orient as the British came in sight, Rear Admiral Blanquet du Chayla pressed to fight under sail; Villeneuve and the chief of staff, Honoré Ganteaume, preferred to fight at anchor. Brueys sided with the anchorage, and his reason was manpower: several ships lacked full crews, and he did not trust them to work the sails and fight the guns at the same time. Blanquet's own account says the admiral lacked at least 200 good seamen per ship.8
The weaknesses showed in the details. The leading ship lay too far from the shoal to stop an enemy passing round her, the ships were anchored with wide gaps between them, about 150 meters by Chevalier's figure and 500 feet by Mahan's, and no ship kept watch outside the bay. When the British appeared, many of the boats were ashore fetching water. Brueys, both Chevalier and Mahan note, had expected any attack to fall on his rear and had made no plan for the defense of his van.9
How strong were the two fleets?
On paper the French were stronger. Brueys had 13 ships of the line, one of 120 guns, three of 80 and nine of 74, with four frigates. Nelson had 13 ships of 74 guns and the 50-gun Leander. Clowes counts 1,026 nominal guns in the French line against 1,012 in Nelson's fourteen ships and notes that the French ships were larger; Battesti, leaving out the grounded Culloden, gives 1,182 French guns against 938.10
The balance in men ran the other way. Jurien de La Gravière and Troude both describe a French fleet too short of seamen to sail and fight at once. Nelson's captains, by contrast, had spent weeks at sea with him, and Berry recorded that they had discussed his plans of attack in advance, including one for an enemy at anchor. Nelson put it this way to Earl Howe afterwards: with the wind blowing along the French line, attacking its van and center let him throw what force he pleased on a few ships, and his friends readily understood the plan.11
How did Nelson attack at the Nile?
On 1 August Nelson's squadron sighted Alexandria and found only transports and frigates in the harbor. In the early afternoon the Zealous signaled the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay. Though only a few hours of daylight remained, Nelson attacked at once, signaling that he would engage the enemy's van and center as they lay at anchor; his ships made ready to anchor by the stern so that each would stop alongside her opponent.12
The Culloden, hurrying to get into action, ran aground on the shoal off Aboukir Island and stayed there all night. At the head of the column Captain Thomas Foley in the Goliath rounded the leading French ship, the Guerrier, and anchored on the inshore side of the line; the Zealous, Orion, Theseus and Audacious followed him inside. Nelson took the Vanguard down the outer side, and the ships behind him did the same, so that the French van was caught between two fires. Several French ships had not even cleared their landward guns for action.13
Who thought of going inside is still argued. Mahan credits Foley with the idea that the French would be less ready on the inshore side, and the French naval historian Chevalier writes that Foley gave Nelson's plan a development the admiral had not foreseen. Berry insisted that the attack followed Nelson's premeditated plan, and the editor of Nelson's letters concluded that the evidence decides neither way.14
The fighting began around sunset, about 6.30 p.m. The Guerrier lost her masts within minutes, and the leading French ships, attacked from both sides, were overwhelmed one after another. Farther down the line the French hit back. The Bellerophon anchored opposite L'Orient, a ship of nearly twice her force, and was dismasted and driven out of the line; the Majestic lost her captain, George Westcott, killed early in the action. Nelson himself was struck above his blind right eye and carried below, believing for a time that he was dying.15
What happened to L'Orient?
The late arrivals, the Alexander, Swiftsure and Leander, went for the French center. Brueys, already wounded, was mortally hit by a cannon ball; he refused to be taken below and died on deck. Around 9 p.m. fire broke out aft in L'Orient and spread beyond control. At about 10 p.m. she blew up. Accounts of the stunned silence that followed differ: Berry gives about three minutes, Saumarez at least ten.16
British boats picked survivors out of the water, about seventy men by Berry's count. Ganteaume, the chief of staff, escaped in a boat and reached the shore. The ship's captain, Commodore Casabianca, died with his young son, whom both Blanquet and Clowes say was ten years old. On the Tonnant, Dupetit-Thouars was mortally wounded.17
Why did Villeneuve not help, and what happened next morning?
The French rear under Rear Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve lay to leeward and took almost no part. At about 8.15 p.m. Captain Trullet of the Timoléon loosened his topsails to show that he wanted the signal to move, but none came. Chevalier blames Brueys for not ordering his rear to weigh at the start, and Clowes, following James, argues that its ships could still have fallen on the British ships coming in. Villeneuve later defended himself in a letter, and both Chevalier and Battesti find his excuses unconvincing.18
On the morning of 2 August Villeneuve cut his cables and got away with the Guillaume Tell, the Généreux and the frigates Diane and Justice. Troude writes that he made the very maneuver he had judged impossible during the battle. The Zealous chased him alone until Nelson recalled her.19
The rest of the fleet was finished. The Timoléon, aground, was set on fire by her own crew; the Tonnant struck on 3 August; the frigate Sérieuse had been sunk by the Orion.20
How many died at the Battle of the Nile?
The British losses are exact. Nelson's return lists 218 killed and 677 wounded, 895 in all, and no British ship was lost; James and Battesti give 678 wounded, since the return left out Nelson himself.21
No official French return exists. Battesti estimates about 1,700 French killed, 1,500 wounded and more than 3,000 prisoners; the Fondation Napoléon's campaign summary repeats the same figures. Chevalier, a French naval officer, worked from the ships' reports to nearly 3,500 killed, wounded or drowned, and Clowes, weighing estimates of 2,000 to 5,000, settled on about 3,500. Southey, writing in 1813, put the dead at 5,225; Britannica gives the French about ten times the British casualties, and a London print of November 1798 claimed about 5,000.22
Most prisoners were sent ashore under the usual terms of exchange, and Bonaparte formed the sailors into a naval legion of his army.23
Who won the Battle of the Nile, and why did it matter?
Britain won one of the most complete naval victories of the age. Britannica ranks it among Nelson's greatest victories, and Clowes called it the most splendid success the British Navy had won up to the end of the eighteenth century. Of the thirteen French ships of the line, nine were captured, two were destroyed and only two escaped.24
The strategic result was immediate. Bonaparte's army of some 30,000 men was cut off in Egypt, and the British regained control of the Mediterranean; Malta was eventually retaken. In early September the Ottoman Sultan declared war on France: Troude and the Fondation Napoléon date it 4 September, Battesti 9 September. Bonaparte, who learned of the defeat in mid-August, wrote to the Directory that fate had given the empire of the seas to France's rivals, and that if Brueys had made mistakes he had paid for them with a glorious death. Battesti sees a disaster foretold but not inevitable, and credits the battle with turning Britain into the leader of a new coalition against France.25
Even the news had an adventure. Berry, carrying Nelson's dispatch in the Leander, was captured by the escaped Généreux, but duplicates got through, and London learned of the victory on 2 October. Nelson was made Baron Nelson of the Nile.26
Why is it called the Battle of the Nile, and how is it remembered?
The British named the battle after the river whose westernmost mouth closes the bay, and Nelson dated his dispatch “off the Mouth of the Nile”; the French named it after Aboukir. The Larousse encyclopedia counts three battles of Aboukir: the naval defeat of 1798, Bonaparte's victory over an Ottoman landing on 25 July 1799, and the British landing of 1801 (see the Battle of Abukir, 1801).27
In Britain the battle fixed the legend of Nelson's captains. He wrote to Howe that he had the happiness to command a band of brothers, so that night was to his advantage. French writers have argued for two centuries over whom to blame: Brueys, as Chevalier does, Villeneuve, Bonaparte's orders, or a navy that, as Battesti puts it, had lost confidence in itself. Read the two leaders side by side in Nelson vs Napoleon, and the battle's place among sea fights in the greatest naval battles in history.28
Where was the Battle of the Nile fought?
It was fought in Aboukir Bay, today Abu Qir, on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt northeast of Alexandria. The bay runs from Aboukir Point, with its fort, toward the Rosetta mouth of the Nile; the French line lay southeast of Aboukir Island, about three miles from the beach. For the land war in Egypt, read about the Battle of the Pyramids, fought inland eleven days earlier on 21 July.29
Test what you remember in the Napoleonic battles quiz, see where the Nile ranks among the greatest Napoleonic battles, or read about the day in 1 August in history.
