21 October carries three very different battles. At Civetot in 1096 a false rumor lured the People's Crusade into a Seljuk ambush on the road to Nicaea, and a wall built from their bones was still standing decades later. At Sekigahara in 1600 Kobayakawa Hideaki turned his 15,000 men against his own allies, and Tokugawa Ieyasu won in half a day the power his family would hold for more than two and a half centuries. At Trafalgar in 1805 Nelson signaled that England expected every man to do his duty, broke the Franco-Spanish line in two columns and was shot by a marksman in the enemy's rigging, dying as the victory was won.
Civetot, 1096: the People's Crusade crosses into Anatolia
The People's Crusade was the first wave of the First Crusade: tens of thousands of mostly poor and poorly armed followers of the preacher Peter the Hermit, who set out months before the armies of the great lords. In the late summer of 1096 the Byzantine emperor Alexios I ferried them across the Bosporus. He advised them to wait for the knights, but they did not, and they camped at Civetot, within reach of the Seljuk city of Nicaea.1
In September a German contingent, about 6,000 strong according to Encyclopedia.com, seized the castle of Xerigordos, and the Turks besieged it and cut it off from its water. The Gesta Francorum, written by a crusader, describes eight days of thirst in which the defenders bled their horses and donkeys and drank the blood. Those who surrendered and would not deny their faith, it says, were put to death.2
21 October 1096: the ambush on the road to Nicaea
Then a false report reached Civetot that the Germans had taken Nicaea and its riches. Anna Komnene, the emperor's daughter, wrote that it "excited all violently", and according to Derek Davison it was spread by a forged letter. Peter was away in Constantinople seeking supplies and help. Albert of Aachen says that 25,000 foot soldiers and 500 knights marched out; Encyclopedia.com puts the column at about 20,000.3
The army of the Seljuk ruler Kilij Arslan ambushed the column on the road and destroyed it. Walter Sans Avoir, one of the few experienced knights among them, was killed; Albert says he fell pierced by seven arrows that went through his mail coat, a figure Histories and Castles repeats. The Turks drove the survivors back into the camp, where, in the words of the Gesta, "some they found sleeping, some lying down, others naked, all of whom they killed". According to Albert, about 3,000 people fled to an old, abandoned fortress by the sea and held out until a Byzantine force sent by Alexios came to their relief; Davison speaks of a couple of thousand.4
The cost at Civetot
No reliable total exists. Most of the crusaders were killed, or captured and sold into slavery, and Histories and Castles says fewer than 3,000 of Peter's followers survived. Anna Komnene wrote that the dead were heaped into a mound "lofty as a mountain", and that their bones were later built into the walls of a fortress, so that it became a kind of tomb, still standing in her day. The People's Crusade was over. Peter himself joined the main crusading army and was present at the capture of Jerusalem in 1099.5
Sekigahara, 1600: two armies in the fog
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler of Japan, died in 1598 and left two main rivals for power, Ishida Mitsunari and Tokugawa Ieyasu. Their armies met in a valley in central Japan on the Nakasendo, the road between Kyoto and Edo: Ieyasu's Eastern Army against the Western Army, a coalition of lords led by Mitsunari. History of War gives each side about 60,000 men; the U.S. National Park Service puts them at about 80,000 each. The date is a conversion: Japanese records give the 15th day of the 9th month of the fifth year of the Keichō era, which corresponds to 21 October 1600 in the Gregorian calendar.6
Fog lay thick over the valley that morning. The fighting began when Ii Naomasa and Matsudaira Tadayoshi opened fire on Ukita Hideie's troops. On the hills above stood Western contingents whose loyalty was in doubt: Kobayakawa Hideaki with about 15,000 men on Mount Matsuo, and the large Mōri force, whose leading general Kikkawa Hiroie had secretly promised Ieyasu that he would not fight. Shimazu Yoshihiro, camped near Mitsunari, refused his requests to join the battle.7
Kobayakawa's choice
Kobayakawa had already been in secret contact with Ieyasu. In the traditional account he waited on Mount Matsuo for hours while the battle hung in the balance, until about noon Ieyasu had his gunners fire at the hill to force his hand. The Gifu Sekigahara Battlefield Memorial Museum calls this one theory. According to Stephen Turnbull, the Japanese historian Shiramine Jun argued in 2014 that Kobayakawa turned on his allies at the very start of the battle, which, Turnbull concludes, makes the shooting story "a complete myth".8
Whenever it came, his attack fell on the Western flank and on the troops of Ōtani Yoshitsugu, who, according to the National Park Service, then took his own life. Wakisaka Yasuharu and three other commanders at the foot of the hill changed sides as well, and the Western Army collapsed. Shimazu Yoshihiro, with about 1,500 men by the museum's count or 2,000 by the National Park Service's, broke through the Eastern Army to escape and made his way home to Satsuma. His nephew Shimazu Toyohisa, the museum says, died leading the rear guard.9
The cost at Sekigahara, and 260 years of Tokugawa rule
The decisive battle took about half a day: Samurai History & Culture has it starting around 7:30 in the morning and ending at about 2 in the afternoon. Casualty estimates vary. History of War puts the dead at about 40,000, while the National Park Service and Samurai History & Culture give about 30,000. Mitsunari fled but was captured and beheaded in Kyoto with other Western leaders, among them Konishi Yukinaga.10
Ieyasu became shogun three years later, and his family ruled Japan for about 260 years, until the Meiji Restoration of 1868. For the whole story, see our article on the Battle of Sekigahara and our article on Tokugawa Ieyasu.11
Trafalgar, 1805: the Nelson touch
Napoleon had planned to invade Britain, and for that he needed command of the sea. He joined the French and Spanish fleets, and on 19 October 1805 Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve came out of Cádiz with 33 ships of the line; Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson was waiting with 27. Royal Museums Greenwich describes how Nelson, outnumbered, relied on the skill of his crews and gunners and explained his plan to his captains over dinner, calling it "the Nelson touch". The fleet would attack in two columns, Nelson's own against the enemy center and Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood's against the rear. William Beatty, the surgeon of HMS Victory, counted 14 ships in Nelson's column and 13 in Collingwood's.12
At about 11:45 Victory hoisted the most famous signal in naval history: "England expects that every man will do his duty". Nelson had wanted "England confides". His signal officer, Lieutenant John Pasco, suggested "expects", which was in the signal book, while "confides" would have had to be spelled out letter by letter. In Pasco's account Nelson answered: "That will do, Pasco, make it directly". Beatty wrote that it was received throughout the fleet with enthusiasm.13
Breaking the line
Shortly before noon the enemy opened fire on Collingwood's flagship, Royal Sovereign: Royal Museums Greenwich has the French Fougueux firing the first shots at 11:50, while Beatty puts the first fire at 11:30. Royal Sovereign was the first British ship to reach the enemy line and fired into a Spanish flagship, Santa Ana. Watching from Victory, Nelson said, as Beatty recorded it: "Collingwood is doing well". Collingwood's own despatch puts it simply: "The Action began at Twelve o'Clock, by the leading Ships of the Columns breaking through the Enemy's Line".14
Victory passed under the stern of Villeneuve's flagship, Bucentaure, and fired a broadside into her, a knockout blow, and the ships behind her poured through the gap to overwhelm the allied center. Victory then became locked together with the French Redoutable.15
"They have done for me at last, Hardy"
At about 1:15 pm, as Nelson paced the quarterdeck with Captain Thomas Hardy, a musket ball fired from Redoutable's rigging struck his left shoulder, passed through his lung and smashed his spine. Beatty records the exchange that followed: "They have done for me at last, Hardy." "I hope not." "Yes, my backbone is shot through".16
Nelson was carried below to the orlop deck, where he lived in great pain for about three more hours while the battle went on above him. In Beatty's account he asked Hardy to take care of Lady Hamilton and said "Kiss me, Hardy"; the captain knelt and kissed his cheek. His last words were "Thank God, I have done my duty", and he died at 4:30 pm.17
Prizes, a storm and the cost of Trafalgar
The battle was over by about 5 pm, by the National Museum of the Royal Navy's account; Royal Museums Greenwich has the firing stop at 5:30. Seventeen enemy ships had been captured and one was ablaze: the French Achille, which, Collingwood reported, caught fire after surrendering and blew up, and 200 of her men were saved. Villeneuve was taken prisoner. Then a gale blew for days, and when it was over only four of the prizes remained in British hands; most of the rest had been wrecked, scuttled or lost.18
The Fondation Napoléon gives the French losses as 3,499 killed and drowned, 1,138 wounded and 2,200 prisoners, the Spanish losses as 1,050 killed and 1,390 wounded, and the British losses as 449 killed and 1,214 wounded. Royal Museums Greenwich gives 449 British killed and 1,217 wounded. In the Fondation Napoléon's verdict, the defeat confined Napoleon to the continent and gave Britain mastery of the sea. Villeneuve, released on parole, was found dead at an inn in Rennes in April 1806; the Fondation Napoléon records it as suicide. For more, see our article on the Battle of Trafalgar and our article on Horatio Nelson.19
Also on 21 October
In 1899, in the first weeks of the Boer War, General John French defeated a Boer force at Elandslaagte in Natal, and a charge by the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards turned the Boer retreat into a rout. The siege of Ladysmith that followed is told on our 2 November page.20
In 1944 Colonel Gerhard Wilck surrendered Aachen, which became the first major German city to fall to the Allies.21
Also on this day
- 1096: Battle of Civetot. Near Civetot in Anatolia, the crusaders of the People's Crusade marched out of their camp and into an ambush by the Seljuk Turks.
