title: Battle of the Nile

text: Although initially disappointed that the main French fleet was not at Alexandria, Nelson knew from the presence of the transports that they must be nearby. At 14:00 on 1 August, lookouts on reported the French anchored in Aboukir Bay, its signal lieutenant just beating the lieutenant on with the signal, but inaccurately describing 16 French ships of the line instead of 13. At the same time, French lookouts on , the ninth ship in the French line, sighted the British fleet approximately nine nautical miles off the mouth of Aboukir Bay. The French initially reported just 11 British ships – "Swiftsure" and "Alexander" were still returning from their scouting operations at Alexandria, and so were to the west of the main fleet, out of sight. Troubridge's ship, , was also some distance from the main body, towing a captured merchant ship. At the sight of the French, Troubridge abandoned the vessel and made strenuous efforts to rejoin Nelson. Due to the need for so many sailors to work onshore, Brueys had not deployed any of his lighter warships as scouts, which left him unable to react swiftly to the sudden appearance of the British.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: As his ships readied for action, Brueys ordered his captains to gather for a conference on "Orient" and hastily recalled his shore parties, although most had still not returned by the start of the battle. To replace them, large numbers of men were taken out of the frigates and distributed among the ships of the line. Brueys also hoped to lure the British fleet onto the shoals at Aboukir Island, sending the brigs and "Railleur" to act as decoys in the shallow waters. By 16:00, "Alexander" and "Swiftsure" were also in sight, although some distance from the main British fleet. Brueys gave orders to abandon the plan to remain at anchor and instead for his line to set sail. Blanquet protested the order on the grounds that there were not enough men aboard the French ships to both sail the ships and man the guns. Nelson gave orders for his leading ships to slow down, to allow the British fleet to approach in a more organised formation. This convinced Brueys that rather than risk an evening battle in confined waters, the British were planning to wait for the following day. He rescinded his earlier order to sail. Brueys may have been hoping that the delay would allow him to slip past the British during the night and thus follow Bonaparte's orders not to engage the British fleet directly if he could avoid it.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Nelson ordered the fleet to slow down at 16:00 to allow his ships to rig "springs" on their anchor cables, a system of attaching the bow anchor that increased stability and allowed his ships to swing their broadsides to face an enemy while stationary. It also increased manoeuvrability and therefore reduced the risk of coming under raking fire. Nelson's plan, shaped through discussion with his senior captains during the return voyage to Alexandria, was to advance on the French and pass down the seaward side of the van and centre of the French line, so that each French ship would face two British ships and the massive "Orient" would be fighting against three. The direction of the wind meant that the French rear division would be unable to join the battle easily and would be cut off from the front portions of the line. To ensure that in the smoke and confusion of a night battle his ships would not accidentally open fire on one another, Nelson ordered that each ship prepare four horizontal lights at the head of their mizzen mast and hoist an illuminated White Ensign, which was different enough from the French tricolour that it would not be mistaken in poor visibility, reducing the risk that British ships might fire on one another in the darkness. As his ship was readied for battle, Nelson held a final dinner with "Vanguard"s officers, announcing as he rose: "Before this time tomorrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey," in reference to the rewards of victory or the traditional burial place of British military heroes.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Shortly after the French order to set sail was abandoned, the British fleet began rapidly approaching once more. Brueys, now expecting to come under attack that night, ordered each of his ships to place springs on their anchor cables and prepare for action. He sent the "Alerte" ahead, which passed close to the leading British ships and then steered sharply to the west over the shoal, in the hope that the ships of the line might follow and become grounded. None of Nelson's captains fell for the ruse and the British fleet continued undeterred. At 17:30, Nelson hailed one of his two leading ships, HMS "Zealous" under Captain Samuel Hood, which had been racing "Goliath" to be the first to fire on the French. The admiral ordered Hood to establish the safest course into the harbour. The British had no charts of the depth or shape of the bay, except a rough sketch map "Swiftsure" had obtained from a merchant captain, an inaccurate British atlas on "Zealous", and a 35-year-old French map aboard "Goliath". Hood replied that he would take careful soundings as he advanced to test the depth of the water, and that, "If you will allow the honour of leading you into battle, I will keep the lead going." Shortly afterwards, Nelson paused to speak with the brig , whose commander, Lieutenant Thomas Hardy, had seized some maritime pilots from a small Alexandrine vessel. As "Vanguard" came to a stop, the following ships slowed. This caused a gap to open up between "Zealous" and "Goliath" and the rest of the fleet. To counter this effect, Nelson ordered under Captain Ralph Miller to pass his flagship and join "Zealous" and "Goliath" in the vanguard. By 18:00, the British fleet was again under full sail, "Vanguard" sixth in the line of ten ships as "Culloden" trailed behind to the north and "Alexander" and "Swiftsure" hastened to catch up to the west. Following the rapid change from a loose formation to a rigid line of battle, both fleets raised their colours; each British ship hoisted additional Union Flags in its rigging in case its main flag was shot away. At 18:20, as "Goliath" and "Zealous" rapidly bore down on them, the leading French ships "Guerrier" and opened fire.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Ten minutes after the French opened fire, "Goliath", ignoring fire from the fort to starboard and from "Guerrier" to port, most of which was too high to trouble the ship, crossed the head of the French line. Captain Thomas Foley had noticed as he approached that there was an unexpected gap between "Guerrier" and the shallow water of the shoal. On his own initiative, Foley decided to exploit this tactical error and changed his angle of approach to sail through the gap. As the bow of "Guerrier" came within range, "Goliath" opened fire, inflicting severe damage with a double-shotted raking broadside as the British ship turned to port and passed down the unprepared port side of "Guerrier." Foley's Royal Marines and a company of Austrian grenadiers joined the attack, firing their muskets. Foley had intended to anchor alongside the French ship and engage it closely, but his anchor took too long to descend and his ship passed "Guerrier" entirely. "Goliath" eventually stopped close to the bow of "Conquérant", opening fire on the new opponent and using the unengaged starboard guns to exchange occasional shots with the frigate and bomb vessel "Hercule", which were anchored inshore of the battle line.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Foley's attack was followed by Hood in "Zealous", who also crossed the French line and successfully anchored next to "Guerrier" in the space Foley had intended, engaging the lead ship's bow from close range. Within five minutes "Guerrier"s foremast had fallen, to cheers from the crews of the approaching British ships. The speed of the British advance took the French captains by surprise; they were still aboard "Orient" in conference with the admiral when the firing started. Hastily launching their boats, they returned to their vessels. Captain Jean-François-Timothée Trullet of "Guerrier" shouted orders from his barge for his men to return fire on "Zealous".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The third British ship into action was under Captain Sir James Saumarez, which rounded the engagement at the head of the battle line and passed between the French main line and the frigates that lay closer inshore. As he did so, the frigate "Sérieuse" opened fire on "Orion", wounding two men. The convention in naval warfare of the time was that ships of the line did not attack frigates when there were ships of equal size to engage, but in firing first French Captain Claude-Jean Martin had negated the rule. Saumarez waited until the frigate was at close range before replying. "Orion" needed just one broadside to reduce the frigate to a wreck, and Martin's disabled ship drifted away over the shoal. During the delay this detour caused, two other British ships joined the battle: "Theseus", which had been disguised as a first-rate ship, followed Foley's track across "Guerrier"s bow. Miller steered his ship through the middle of the melee between the anchored British and French ships until he encountered the third French ship, . Anchoring to port, Miller's ship opened fire at close range. under Captain Davidge Gould crossed the French line between "Guerrier" and "Conquérant", anchoring between the ships and raking them both. "Orion" then rejoined the action further south than intended, firing on the fifth French ship, "Peuple Souverain", and Admiral Blanquet's flagship, .


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The next three British ships, "Vanguard" in the lead followed by and , remained in line of battle formation and anchored on the starboard side of the French line at 18:40. Nelson focused his flagship's fire on "Spartiate", while Captain Thomas Louis in "Minotaur" attacked the unengaged and Captain John Peyton in "Defence" joined the attack on "Peuple Souverain". With the French vanguard now heavily outnumbered, the following British ships, and , passed by the melee and advanced on the so far unengaged French centre. Both ships were soon fighting enemies much more powerful than they and began to take severe damage. Captain Henry Darby on "Bellerophon" missed his intended anchor near "Franklin" and instead found his ship underneath the main battery of the French flagship. Captain George Blagdon Westcott on "Majestic" also missed his station and almost collided with "Heureux", coming under heavy fire from . Unable to stop in time, Westcott's jib boom became entangled with "Tonnant"s shroud.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The French suffered too, Admiral Brueys on "Orient" was severely wounded in the face and hand by flying debris during the opening exchange of fire with "Bellerophon". The final ship of the British line, "Culloden" under Troubridge, sailed too close to Aboukir Island in the growing darkness and became stuck fast on the shoal. Despite strenuous efforts from the "Culloden"s boats, the brig "Mutine" and the 50-gun under Captain Thomas Thompson, the ship of the line could not be moved, and the waves drove "Culloden" further onto the shoal, inflicting severe damage to the ship's hull.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: At 19:00 the identifying lights in the mizzenmasts of the British fleet were lit. By this time, "Guerrier" had been completely dismasted and heavily battered. "Zealous" by contrast was barely touched: Hood had situated "Zealous" outside the arc of most of the French ship's broadsides, and in any case "Guerrier" was not prepared for an engagement on both sides simultaneously, with its port guns blocked by stores. Although their ship was a wreck, the crew of "Guerrier" refused to surrender, continuing to fire the few functional guns whenever possible despite heavy answering fire from "Zealous". In addition to his cannon fire, Hood called up his marines and ordered them to fire volleys of musket shot at the deck of the French ship, driving the crew out of sight but still failing to secure the surrender from Captain Trullet. It was not until 21:00, when Hood sent a small boat to "Guerrier" with a boarding party, that the French ship finally surrendered. "Conquérant" was defeated more rapidly, after heavy broadsides from passing British ships and the close attentions of "Audacious" and "Goliath" brought down all three masts before 19:00. With his ship immobile and badly damaged, the mortally wounded Captain Etienne Dalbarade struck his colours and a boarding party seized control. Unlike "Zealous", these British ships suffered relatively severe damage in the engagement. "Goliath" lost most of its rigging, suffered damage to all three masts and suffered more than 60 casualties. With his opponents defeated, Captain Gould on "Audacious" used the spring on his cable to transfer fire to "Spartiate", the next French ship in line. To the west of the battle the battered "Sérieuse" sank over the shoal. Her masts protruded from the water as survivors scrambled into boats and rowed for the shore.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The transfer of "Audacious"s broadside to "Spartiate" meant that Captain Maurice-Julien Emeriau now faced three opponents. Within minutes all three of his ship's masts had fallen, but the battle around "Spartiate" continued until 21:00, when the badly wounded Emeriau ordered his colours struck. Although "Spartiate" was outnumbered, it had been supported by the next in line, "Aquilon", which was the only ship of the French van squadron fighting a single opponent, "Minotaur". Captain Antoine René Thévenard used the spring on his anchor cable to angle his broadside into a raking position across the bow of Nelson's flagship, which consequently suffered more than 100 casualties, including the admiral. At approximately 20:30, an iron splinter fired in a langrage shot from "Spartiate "struck Nelson over his blinded right eye. The wound caused a flap of skin to fall across his face, rendering him temporarily completely blind. Nelson collapsed into the arms of Captain Edward Berry and was carried below. Certain that his wound was fatal, he cried out "I am killed, remember me to my wife", and called for his chaplain, Stephen Comyn. The wound was immediately inspected by "Vanguard"s surgeon Michael Jefferson, who informed the admiral that it was a simple flesh wound and stitched the skin together. Nelson subsequently ignored Jefferson's instructions to remain inactive, returning to the quarterdeck shortly before the explosion on "Orient" to oversee the closing stages of the battle. Although Thévenard's manoeuvre was successful, it placed his own bow under "Minotaur"s guns and by 21:25 the French ship was dismasted and battered, Captain Thévenard killed and his junior officers forced to surrender. With his opponent defeated, Captain Thomas Louis then took "Minotaur" south to join the attack on "Franklin".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: "Defence" and "Orion "attacked the fifth French ship, "Peuple Souverain", from either side and the ship rapidly lost the fore and main masts. Aboard the "Orion", a wooden block was smashed off one of the ship's masts, killing two men before wounding Captain Saumarez in the thigh. On "Peuple Souverain", Captain Pierre-Paul Raccord was badly wounded and ordered his ship's anchor cable cut in an effort to escape the bombardment. "Peuple Souverain" drifted south towards the flagship "Orient", which mistakenly opened fire on the darkened vessel. "Orion" and "Defence" were unable to immediately pursue. "Defence" had lost its fore topmast and an improvised fireship that drifted through the battle narrowly missed "Orion". The origin of this vessel, an abandoned and burning ship's boat laden with highly flammable material, is uncertain, but it may have been launched from "Guerrier" as the battle began. "Peuple Souverain" anchored not far from "Orient", but took no further part in the fighting. The wrecked ship surrendered during the night. "Franklin" remained in combat, but Blanquet had suffered a severe head wound and Captain Gillet had been carried below unconscious with severe wounds. Shortly afterwards, a fire broke out on the quarterdeck after an arms locker exploded, which was eventually extinguished with difficulty by the crew.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: To the south, HMS "Bellerophon" was in serious trouble as the huge broadside of "Orient" pounded the ship. At 19:50 the mizzenmast and main mast both collapsed and fires broke out simultaneously at several points. Although the blazes were extinguished, the ship had suffered more than 200 casualties. Captain Darby recognised that his position was untenable and ordered the anchor cables cut at 20:20. The battered ship drifted away from the battle under continued fire from "Tonnant" as the foremast collapsed as well. "Orient" had also suffered significant damage and Admiral Brueys had been struck in the midriff by a cannonball that almost cut him in half. He died fifteen minutes later, remaining on deck and refusing to be carried below. "Orient"s captain, Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca, was also wounded, struck in the face by flying debris and knocked unconscious, while his twelve-year-old son had a leg torn off by a cannonball as he stood beside his father. The most southerly British ship, "Majestic", had become briefly entangled with the 80-gun "Tonnant", and in the resulting battle, suffered heavy casualties. Captain George Blagdon Westcott was among the dead, killed by French musket fire. Lieutenant Robert Cuthbert assumed command and successfully disentangled his ship, allowing the badly damaged "Majestic" to drift further southwards so that by 20:30 it was stationed between "Tonnant" and the next in line, "Heureux", engaging both. To support the centre, Captain Thompson of "Leander" abandoned the futile efforts to drag the stranded "Culloden" off the shoal and sailed down the embattled French line, entering the gap created by the drifting "Peuple Souverain" and opening a fierce raking fire on "Franklin" and "Orient".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: While the battle raged in the bay, the two straggling British ships made strenuous efforts to join the engagement, focusing on the flashes of gunfire in the darkness. Warned away from the Aboukir shoals by the grounded "Culloden", Captain Benjamin Hallowell in "Swiftsure" passed the melee at the head of the line and aimed his ship at the French centre. Shortly after 20:00, a dismasted hulk was spotted drifting in front of "Swiftsure" and Hallowell initially ordered his men to fire before rescinding the order, concerned for the identity of the strange vessel. Hailing the battered ship, Hallowell received the reply ""Bellerophon", going out of action disabled." Relieved that he had not accidentally attacked one of his own ships in the darkness, Hallowell pulled up between "Orient" and "Franklin" and opened fire on them both. "Alexander", the final unengaged British ship, which had followed "Swiftsure", pulled up close to "Tonnant", which had begun to drift away from the embattled French flagship. Captain Alexander Ball then joined the attack on "Orient".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: At 21:00, the British observed a fire on the lower decks of the "Orient", the French flagship. Identifying the danger this posed to the "Orient", Captain Hallowell directed his gun crews to fire their guns directly into the blaze. Sustained British gun fire spread the flames throughout the ship's stern and prevented all efforts to extinguish them. Within minutes the fire had ascended the rigging and set the vast sails alight. The nearest British ships, "Swiftsure", "Alexander", and "Orion", all stopped firing, closed their gunports, and began edging away from the burning ship in anticipation of the detonation of the enormous ammunition supplies stored on board. In addition, they took crews away from the guns to form fire parties and to soak the sails and decks in seawater to help contain any resulting fires. Likewise the French ships "Tonnant", "Heureux", and all cut their anchor cables and drifted southwards away from the burning ship. At 22:00 the fire reached the magazines, and the "Orient" was destroyed by a massive explosion. The concussion of the blast was powerful enough to rip open the seams of the nearest ships, and flaming wreckage landed in a huge circle, much of it flying directly over the surrounding ships into the sea beyond. Falling wreckage started fires on "Swiftsure", "Alexander", and "Franklin", although in each case teams of sailors with water buckets succeeded in extinguishing the flames, despite a secondary explosion on "Franklin".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: It has never been firmly established how the fire on "Orient" broke out, but one common account is that jars of oil and paint had been left on the poop deck, instead of being properly stowed after painting of the ship's hull had been completed shortly before the battle. Burning wadding from one of the British ships is believed to have floated onto the poop deck and ignited the paint. The fire rapidly spread through the admiral's cabin and into a ready magazine that stored carcass ammunition, which was designed to burn more fiercely in water than in air. Alternatively, Fleet Captain Honoré Ganteaume later reported the cause as an explosion on the quarterdeck, preceded by a series of minor fires on the main deck among the ship's boats. Whatever its origin, the fire spread rapidly through the ship's rigging, unchecked by the fire pumps aboard, which had been smashed by British shot. A second blaze then began at the bow, trapping hundreds of sailors in the ship's waist. Subsequent archaeological investigation found debris scattered over of seabed and evidence that the ship was wracked by two explosions. Hundreds of men dived into the sea to escape the flames, but fewer than 100 survived the blast. British boats picked up approximately 70 survivors, including the wounded staff officer Léonard-Bernard Motard. A few others, including Ganteaume, managed to reach the shore on rafts. The remainder of the crew, numbering more than 1,000 men, were killed, including Captain Casabianca and his son, Giocante.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: For ten minutes after the explosion there was no firing; sailors from both sides were either too shocked by the blast or desperately extinguishing fires aboard their own ships to continue the fight. During the lull, Nelson gave orders that boats be sent to pull survivors from the water around the remains of "Orient". At 22:10, "Franklin" restarted the engagement by firing on "Swiftsure". Isolated and battered, Blanquet's ship was soon dismasted and the admiral, suffering a severe head wound, was forced to surrender by the combined firepower of "Swiftsure" and "Defence". More than half of "Franklin"s crew had been killed or wounded.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: By midnight only "Tonnant" remained engaged, as Commodore Aristide Aubert Du Petit Thouars continued his fight with "Majestic" and fired on "Swiftsure" when the British ship moved within range. By 03:00, after more than three hours of close quarter combat, "Majestic" had lost its main and mizzen masts while "Tonnant" was a dismasted hulk. Although Captain Du Petit Thouars had lost both legs and an arm he remained in command, insisting on having the tricolour nailed to the mast to prevent it from being struck and giving orders from his position propped up on deck in a bucket of wheat. Under his guidance, the battered "Tonnant" gradually drifted southwards away from the action to join the southern division under Villeneuve, who failed to bring these ships into effective action. Throughout the engagement the French rear had kept up an arbitrary fire on the battling ships ahead. The only noticeable effect was the smashing of "Timoléon"s rudder by misdirected fire from the neighbouring .


title: Battle of the Nile

text: As the sun rose at 04:00 on 2 August, firing broke out once again between the French southern division of "Guillaume Tell", "Tonnant", "Généreux" and "Timoléon" and the battered "Alexander" and "Majestic". Although briefly outmatched, the British ships were soon joined by "Goliath" and "Theseus". As Captain Miller manoeuvred his ship into position, "Theseus" briefly came under fire from the frigate . Miller turned his ship towards "Artémise", but Captain Pierre-Jean Standelet struck his flag and ordered his men to abandon the frigate. Miller sent a boat under Lieutenant William Hoste to take possession of the empty vessel, but Standelet had set fire to his ship as he left and "Artémise" blew up shortly afterwards. The surviving French ships of the line, covering their retreat with gunfire, gradually pulled to the east away from the shore at 06:00. "Zealous" pursued, and was able to prevent the frigate from boarding "Bellerophon", which was anchored at the southern point of the bay undergoing hasty repairs.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Two other French ships still flew the tricolour, but neither was in a position to either retreat or fight. When "Heureux" and "Mercure" had cut their anchor cables to escape the exploding "Orient", their crews had panicked and neither captain (both of whom were wounded) had managed to regain control of his ship. As a result, both vessels had drifted onto the shoal. "Alexander", "Goliath", "Theseus" and "Leander" attacked the stranded and defenceless ships, and both surrendered within minutes. The distractions provided by "Heureux", "Mercure" and "Justice" allowed Villeneuve to bring most of the surviving French ships to the mouth of the bay at 11:00. On the dismasted "Tonnant", Commodore Du Petit Thouars was now dead from his wounds and thrown overboard at his own request. As the ship was unable to make the required speed it was driven ashore by its crew. "Timoléon" was too far south to escape with Villeneuve and, in attempting to join the survivors, had also grounded on the shoal. The force of the impact dislodged the ship's foremast. The remaining French vessels: the ships of the line "Guillaume Tell" and "Généreux" and the frigates "Justice" and , formed up and stood out to sea, pursued by "Zealous". Despite strenuous efforts, Captain Hood's isolated ship came under heavy fire and was unable to cut off the trailing "Justice" as the French survivors escaped seawards. "Zealous" was struck by a number of French shot and lost one man killed.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: For the remainder of 2 August Nelson's ships made improvised repairs and boarded and consolidated their prizes. "Culloden" especially required assistance. Troubridge, having finally dragged his ship off the shoal at 02:00, found that he had lost his rudder and was taking on more than of water an hour. Emergency repairs to the hull and fashioning a replacement rudder from a spare topmast took most of the next two days. On the morning of 3 August, Nelson sent "Theseus" and "Leander" to force the surrender of the grounded "Tonnant" and "Timoléon". The "Tonnant", its decks crowded with 1,600 survivors from other French vessels, surrendered as the British ships approached while "Timoléon" was set on fire by its remaining crew who then escaped to the shore in small boats. "Timoléon" exploded shortly after midday, the eleventh and final French ship of the line destroyed or captured during the battle.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: British casualties in the battle were recorded with some accuracy in the immediate aftermath as 218 killed and approximately 677 wounded, although the number of wounded who subsequently died is not known. The ships that suffered most were "Bellerophon" with 201 casualties and "Majestic" with 193. Other than "Culloden" the lightest loss was on "Zealous", which had one man killed and seven wounded.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The casualty list included Captain Westcott, five lieutenants and ten junior officers among the dead, and Admiral Nelson, Captains Saumarez, Ball and Darby, and six lieutenants wounded. Other than "Culloden", the only British ships seriously damaged in their hulls were "Bellerophon", "Majestic," and "Vanguard". "Bellerophon" and "Majestic" were the only ships to lose masts: "Majestic" the main and mizzen and "Bellerophon" all three.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: French casualties are harder to calculate but were significantly higher. Estimates of French losses range from 2,000 to 5,000, with a suggested median point of 3,500, which includes more than 1,000 captured wounded and nearly 2,000 killed, half of whom died on "Orient". In addition to Admiral Brueys killed and Admiral Blanquet wounded, four captains died and seven others were seriously wounded. The French ships suffered severe damage: Two ships of the line and two frigates were destroyed (as well as a bomb vessel scuttled by its crew), and three other captured ships were too battered ever to sail again. Of the remaining prizes, only three were ever sufficiently repaired for frontline service. For weeks after the battle, bodies washed up along the Egyptian coast, decaying slowly in the intense, dry heat.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Nelson, who on surveying the bay on the morning of 2 August said, "Victory is not a name strong enough for such a scene", remained at anchor in Aboukir Bay for the next two weeks, preoccupied with recovering from his wound, writing dispatches, and assessing the military situation in Egypt using documents captured on board one of the prizes. Nelson's head wound was recorded as being "three inches long" with "the cranium exposed for one inch". He suffered pain from the injury for the rest of his life and was badly scarred, styling his hair to disguise it as much as possible. As their commander recovered, his men stripped the wrecks of useful supplies and made repairs to their ships and prizes.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Throughout the week, Aboukir Bay was surrounded by bonfires lit by Bedouin tribesmen in celebration of the British victory. On 5 August, "Leander" was despatched to Cadiz with messages for Earl St. Vincent carried by Captain Edward Berry. Over the next few days the British landed all but 200 of the captured prisoners on shore under strict terms of parole, although Bonaparte later ordered them to be formed into an infantry unit and added to his army. The wounded officers taken prisoner were held on board "Vanguard", where Nelson regularly entertained them at dinner. Historian Joseph Allen recounts that on one occasion Nelson, whose eyesight was still suffering following his wound, offered toothpicks to an officer who had lost his teeth and then passed a snuff-box to an officer whose nose had been torn off, causing much embarrassment. On 8 August the fleet's boats stormed Aboukir Island, which surrendered without a fight. The landing party removed four of the guns and destroyed the rest along with the fort they were mounted in, renaming the island "Nelson's Island".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: On 10 August, Nelson sent Lieutenant Thomas Duval from "Zealous" with messages to the government in India. Duval travelled across the Middle East overland via camel train to Aleppo and took the East India Company ship "Fly" from Basra to Bombay, acquainting Governor-General of India Viscount Wellesley with the situation in Egypt. On 12 August the frigates under Captain Thomas Moutray Waller and under Captain George Johnstone Hope, and the sloop under Captain Robert Retalick, arrived off Alexandria. Initially the British mistook the frigate squadron for French warships and "Swiftsure" chased them away. They returned the following day once the error had been realised. The same day as the frigates arrived, Nelson sent "Mutine" to Britain with dispatches, under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Bladen Capel, who had replaced Hardy after the latter's promotion to captain of "Vanguard". On 14 August, Nelson sent "Orion", "Majestic", "Bellerophon", "Minotaur", "Defence", "Audacious", "Theseus", "Franklin", "Tonnant", "Aquilon", "Conquérant", "Peuple Souverain," and "Spartiate" to sea under the command of Saumarez. Many ships had only jury masts and it took a full day for the convoy to reach the mouth of the bay, finally sailing into open water on 15 August. On 16 August the British burned and destroyed the grounded prize "Heureux" as no longer fit for service and on 18 August also burned "Guerrier" and "Mercure". On 19 August, Nelson sailed for Naples with "Vanguard", "Culloden," and "Alexander", leaving Hood in command of "Zealous", "Goliath", "Swiftsure," and the recently joined frigates to watch over French activities at Alexandria.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The first message to reach Bonaparte regarding the disaster that had overtaken his fleet arrived on 14 August at his camp on the road between Salahieh and Cairo. The messenger was a staff officer sent by the Governor of Alexandria General Jean Baptiste Kléber, and the report had been hastily written by Admiral Ganteaume, who had subsequently rejoined Villeneuve's ships at sea. One account reports that when he was handed the message, Bonaparte read it without emotion before calling the messenger to him and demanding further details. When the messenger had finished, the French general reportedly announced ""Nous n'avons plus de flotte: eh bien. Il faut rester en ces contrées, ou en sortir grands comme les anciens"" ("We no longer have a fleet: well, we must either remain in this country or quit it as great as the ancients"). Another story, as told by the general's secretary, Bourienne, claims that Bonaparte was almost overcome by the news and exclaimed "Unfortunate Brueys, what have you done!" Bonaparte later placed much of the blame for the defeat on the wounded Admiral Blanquet, falsely accusing him of surrendering "Franklin" while his ship was undamaged. Protestations from Ganteaume and Minister Étienne Eustache Bruix later reduced the degree of criticism Blanquet faced, but he never again served in a command capacity. Bonaparte's most immediate concern however was with his own officers, who began to question the wisdom of the entire expedition. Inviting his most senior officers to dinner, Bonaparte asked them how they were. When they replied that they were "marvellous," Bonaparte responded that it was just as well, since he would have them shot if they continued "fostering mutinies and preaching revolt." To quell any uprising among the native inhabitants, Egyptians overheard discussing the battle were threatened with having their tongues cut out.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Nelson's first set of dispatches were captured when "Leander" was intercepted and defeated by "Généreux" in a fierce engagement off the western shore of Crete on 18 August 1798. As a result, reports of the battle did not reach Britain until Capel arrived in "Mutine" on 2 October, entering the Admiralty at 11:15 and personally delivering the news to Lord Spencer, who collapsed unconscious when he heard the report. Although Nelson had previously been castigated in the press for failing to intercept the French fleet, rumours of the battle had begun to arrive in Britain from the continent in late September and the news Capel brought was greeted with celebrations right across the country. Within four days Nelson had been elevated to Baron Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe, a title with which he was privately dissatisfied, believing his actions deserved better reward. King George III addressed the Houses of Parliament on 20 November with the words:


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Saumarez's convoy of prizes stopped first at Malta, where Saumarez provided assistance to a rebellion on the island among the Maltese population. It then sailed to Gibraltar, arriving on 18 October to the cheers of the garrison. Saumarez wrote that, "We can never do justice to the warmth of their applause, and the praises they all bestowed on our squadron." On 23 October, following the transfer of the wounded to the military hospital and provision of basic supplies, the convoy sailed on towards Lisbon, leaving "Bellerophon" and "Majestic" behind for more extensive repairs. "Peuple Souverain" also remained at Gibraltar: The ship was deemed too badly damaged for the Atlantic voyage to Britain and so was converted to a guardship under the name of HMS "Guerrier". The remaining prizes underwent basic repairs and then sailed for Britain, spending some months at the Tagus and joining with the annual merchant convoy from Portugal in June 1799 under the escort of a squadron commanded by Admiral Sir Alan Gardner, before eventually arriving at Plymouth. Their age and battered state meant that neither "Conquérant" nor "Aquilon" were considered fit for active service in the Royal Navy and both were subsequently hulked, although they had been bought into the service for £20,000 (the equivalent of £ million as of ) each as HMS "Conquerant" and HMS "Aboukir" to provide a financial reward to the crews that had captured them. Similar sums were also paid out for "Guerrier", "Mercure", "Heureux" and "Peuple Souverain", while the other captured ships were worth considerably more. Constructed of Adriatic oak, "Tonnant" had been built in 1792 and "Franklin" and "Spartiate" were less than a year old. "Tonnant" and "Spartiate", both of which later fought at the Battle of Trafalgar, joined the Royal Navy under their old names while "Franklin", considered to be "the finest two-decked ship in the world", was renamed HMS "Canopus". The total value of the prizes captured at the Nile and subsequently bought into the Royal Navy was estimated at just over £130,000 (the equivalent of £ million as of ).


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Additional awards were presented to the British fleet: Nelson was awarded £2,000 (£ as of ) a year for life by the Parliament of Great Britain and £1,000 per annum by the Parliament of Ireland, although the latter was inadvertently discontinued after the Act of Union dissolved the Irish Parliament. Both parliaments gave unanimous votes of thanks, each captain who served in the battle was presented with a specially minted gold medal and the first lieutenant of every ship engaged in the battle was promoted to commander. Troubridge and his men, initially excluded, received equal shares in the awards after Nelson personally interceded for the crew of the stranded "Culloden, "even though they did not directly participate in the engagement. The Honourable East India Company presented Nelson with £10,000 (£ as of ) in recognition of the benefit his action had on their holdings and the cities of London, Liverpool and other municipal and corporate bodies made similar awards. Nelson's own captains presented him with a sword and a portrait as "proof of their esteem." Nelson publicly encouraged this close bond with his officers and on 29 September 1798 described them as "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers", echoing William Shakespeare's play "Henry V". From this grew the notion of the Nelsonic Band of Brothers, a cadre of high-quality naval officers that served with Nelson for the remainder of his life. Nearly five decades later the battle was among the actions recognised by a clasp attached to the Naval General Service Medal, awarded upon application to all British participants still living in 1847.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Other rewards were bestowed by foreign states, particularly the Ottoman Emperor Selim III, who made Nelson the first Knight Commander of the newly created Order of the Crescent, and presented him with a chelengk, a diamond studded rose, a sable fur and numerous other valuable presents. Tsar Paul I of Russia sent, among other rewards, a gold box studded with diamonds, and similar gifts in silver arrived from other European rulers. On his return to Naples, Nelson was greeted with a triumphal procession led by King Ferdinand IV and Sir William Hamilton and was introduced for only the third time to Sir William's wife Emma, Lady Hamilton, who fainted violently at the meeting, and apparently took several weeks to recover from her injuries. Lauded as a hero by the Neapolitan court, Nelson was later to dabble in Neapolitan politics and become the Duke of Bronté, actions for which he was criticised by his superiors and his reputation suffered. British general John Moore, who met Nelson in Naples at this time, described him as "covered with stars, medals and ribbons, more like a Prince of Opera than the Conqueror of the Nile."


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Rumours of a battle first appeared in the French press as early as 7 August, although credible reports did not arrive until 26 August, and even these claimed that Nelson was dead and Bonaparte a British prisoner. When the news became certain, the French press insisted that the defeat was the result both of an overwhelmingly large British force and unspecified "traitors." Among the anti-government journals in France, the defeat was blamed on the incompetence of the French Directory and on supposed lingering Royalist sentiments in the Navy. Villeneuve came under scathing attack on his return to France for his failure to support Brueys during the battle. In his defence, he pleaded that the wind had been against him and that Brueys had not issued orders for him to counterattack the British fleet. Writing many years later, Bonaparte commented that if the French Navy had adopted the same tactical principles as the British:


title: Battle of the Nile

text: By contrast, the British press were jubilant; many newspapers sought to portray the battle as a victory for Britain over anarchy, and the success was used to attack the supposedly pro-republican Whig politicians Charles James Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: In the United States, the outcome of the battle led President John Adams to pursue diplomacy with France to end the Quasi-War, as the French naval defeat rendered the prospect of an invasion of the United States less likely.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: There has been extensive historiographical debate over the comparative strengths of the fleets, although they were ostensibly evenly matched in size, each containing 13 ships of the line. However, the loss of "Culloden", the relative sizes of "Orient" and "Leander" and the participation in the action by two of the French frigates and several smaller vessels, as well as the theoretical strength of the French position, leads most historians to the conclusion that the French were marginally more powerful. This is accentuated by the weight of broadside of several of the French ships: "Spartiate", "Franklin", "Orient", "Tonnant" and "Guillaume Tell" were each significantly larger than any individual British ship in the battle. However inadequate deployment, reduced crews, and the failure of the rear division under Villeneuve to meaningfully participate, all contributed to the French defeat.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The Battle of the Nile has been called "arguably, the most decisive naval engagement of the great age of sail", and "the most splendid and glorious success which the British Navy gained." Historian and novelist C. S. Forester, writing in 1929, compared the Nile to the great naval actions in history and concluded that "it still only stands rivalled by Tsu-Shima as an example of the annihilation of one fleet by another of approximately equal material force". The effect on the strategic situation in the Mediterranean was immediate, reversing the balance of the conflict and giving the British control at sea that they maintained for the remainder of the war. The destruction of the French Mediterranean fleet allowed the Royal Navy to return to the sea in force, as British squadrons set up blockades off French and allied ports. In particular, British ships cut Malta off from France, aided by the rebellion among the native Maltese population that forced the French garrison to retreat to Valletta and shut the gates. The ensuing siege of Malta lasted for two years before the defenders were finally starved into surrender. In 1799, British ships harassed Bonaparte's army as it marched east and north through Palestine, and played a crucial part in Bonaparte's defeat at the siege of Acre, when the barges carrying the siege train were captured and the French storming parties were bombarded by British ships anchored offshore. It was during one of these latter engagements that Captain Miller of "Theseus" was killed in an ammunition explosion. The defeat at Acre forced Bonaparte to retreat to Egypt and effectively ended his efforts to carve an empire in the Middle East. The French general returned to France without his army late in the year, leaving Kléber in command of Egypt.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The Ottoman Empire, with whom Bonaparte had hoped to conduct an alliance once his control of Egypt was complete, was encouraged by the Battle of the Nile to go to war against France. This led to a series of campaigns that slowly sapped the strength from the French army trapped in Egypt. The British victory also encouraged the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire, both of whom were mustering armies as part of a Second Coalition, which declared war on France in 1799. With the Mediterranean undefended, an Imperial Russian Navy fleet entered the Ionian Sea, while Austrian armies recaptured much of the Italian territory lost to Bonaparte in the previous war. Without their best general and his veterans, the French suffered a series of defeats and it was not until Bonaparte returned to become First Consul that France once again held a position of strength on Continental Europe. In 1801 a British Expeditionary Force defeated the demoralised remains of the French army in Egypt. The Royal Navy used its dominance in the Mediterranean to invade Egypt without the fear of ambush while anchored off the Egyptian coast.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: In spite of the overwhelming British victory in the climactic battle, the campaign has sometimes been considered a strategic success for France. Historian Edward Ingram noted that if Nelson had successfully intercepted Bonaparte at sea as ordered, the ensuing battle could have annihilated both the French fleet and the transports. As it was, Bonaparte was free to continue the war in the Middle East and later to return to Europe personally unscathed. The potential of a successful engagement at sea to change the course of history is underscored by the list of French army officers carried aboard the convoy who later formed the core of the generals and marshals under Emperor Napoleon. In addition to Bonaparte himself, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, Auguste de Marmont, Jean Lannes, Joachim Murat, Louis Desaix, Jean Reynier, Antoine-François Andréossy, Jean-Andoche Junot, Louis-Nicolas Davout and Dumas were all passengers on the cramped Mediterranean crossing.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The Battle of the Nile remains one of the Royal Navy's most famous victories, and has remained prominent in the British popular imagination, sustained by its depiction in a large number of cartoons, paintings, poems, and plays. One of the best known poems about the battle is "Casabianca", which was written by Felicia Dorothea Hemans in 1826 and describes a fictional account of the death of Captain Casabianca's son on "Orient".


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Monuments were raised, including Cleopatra's Needle in London. Muhammad Ali of Egypt gave the monument in 1819 in recognition of the battle of 1798 and the campaign of 1801 but Great Britain did not erect it on the Victoria Embankment until 1878. Another memorial, the Nile Clumps near Amesbury, consists of stands of beech trees purportedly planted by Lord Queensbury at the behest of Lady Hamilton and Thomas Hardy after Nelson's death. The trees form a plan of the battle; each clump represents the position of a British or French ship.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: On the Hall Place estate, Burchetts Green, Berkshire (now Berkshire College of Agriculture), a double line of oak trees, each tree representing a ship of the opposing fleets, was planted by William East, Baronet, in celebration of the victory. He also constructed a scale-sized pyramid and a life-sized statue of Nelson on the highest point of the estate.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The composer Joseph Haydn had just completed the Missa in Angustiis (mass for troubled times) after Napoleon Bonaparte had defeated the Austrian army in four major battles. The well received news of France's defeat at the Nile however resulted in the mass gradually acquiring the nickname "Lord Nelson Mass". The title became indelible when, in 1800, Nelson himself visited the Palais Esterházy, accompanied by his mistress, Lady Hamilton, and may have heard the mass performed.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: The Royal Navy commemorated the battle with the ship names and , and in 1998 commemorated the 200th anniversary of the battle with a visit to Aboukir Bay by the modern frigate , whose crew laid wreaths in memory of those who lost their lives in the battle.


title: Battle of the Nile

text: Although Nelson biographer Ernle Bradford assumed in 1977 that the remains of "Orient" "are almost certainly unrecoverable," the first archaeological investigation into the battle began in 1983, when a French survey team under Jacques Dumas discovered the wreck of the French flagship. Franck Goddio later took over the work, leading a major project to explore the bay in 1998. He found that material was scattered over an area in diameter. In addition to military and nautical equipment, Goddio recovered a large number of gold and silver coins from countries across the Mediterranean, some from the 17th century. It is likely that these were part of the treasure taken from Malta that was lost in the explosion aboard "Orient". In 2000, Italian archaeologist Paolo Gallo led an excavation focusing on ancient ruins on Nelson's Island. It uncovered a number of graves that date from the battle, as well as others buried there during the 1801 invasion. These graves, which included a woman and three children, were relocated in 2005 to a cemetery at Shatby in Alexandria. The reburial was attended by sailors from the modern frigate and a band from the Egyptian Navy, as well as a descendant of the only identified burial, Commander James Russell.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York City.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Bohemian immigrant Joseph Bulova. It was reincorporated under the name Bulova Watch Company in 1923, and became part of the Loews Corporation in 1979 and sold to Citizen at the end of 2007.


title: Bulova

text: In 1912, Joseph Bulova launched his first plant dedicated entirely to the production of watches. Manufacturing watches at their factory in Biel (Switzerland), he began a standardized mass production new to watchmaking. In 1919, Bulova offered the first complete range of watches for women and men in 1924. The visual style of his first popular advertising made its watches popular with the American public. But beyond the original style, precision and technological research also became imperative for Bulova. In 1927, he set up an observatory on the roof of a skyscraper located at 580 5th Avenue to determine universal time precisely.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova established its operations in Woodside, New York, and Flushing, New York, where it made innovations in watchmaking, and developed a number of watchmaking tools. Its horological innovations included the watch, which used a resonating tuning fork as a means of regulating the time-keeping function.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova became a renowned watch company in 1923. Bulova produced the first advertisement broadcast on radio in 1926, announcing the first beep in history: ‘At the tone, it’s eight o’clock, Bulova Watch Time’, an announcement heard by millions of Americans. In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh became the first solo pilot to cross the Atlantic nonstop. His crossing earned him a Bulova Watch and a check for $1000, and it became an emblem for the brand that created the model "Lone Eagle" in his likeness. Bulova claims to have been the first manufacturer to offer electric clocks beginning in 1931, but the Warren Telechron Company began selling electric clocks in 1912, 19 years prior to Bulova. In the 1930s and 1940s, the brand was a huge success with its rectangular plated watches whose case was strongly curved to better fit the curve of the wrist.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova produced the world's first television advertisement, on July 1, 1941 (the first day that commercial advertising was permitted on television), before a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies over New York station WNBT (now WNBC). The announcement, for which the company paid anywhere from $4.00 () to $9.00 (), displayed a WNBT test card modified to look like a clock with the hands showing the time. The Bulova logo, with the phrase "Bulova Time", was shown in the lower right-hand quadrant of the test pattern while the second hand swept around the dial for one minute.


title: Bulova

text: In the 1940s, Bulova made a few examples of their complex four sided, five-dial per side "sports timer" analog game clock for use in NHL pro ice hockey games and for the nascent NBA pro basketball league of that time. They were put in indoor sports arenas such as Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium and the Detroit Olympia. The last example was taken out of service in Chicago in 1976, all replaced by digital-display game timepieces.


title: Bulova

text: In 1945, Arde Bulova, chairman of the board, founded the Joseph Bulova School of Watchmaking to provide training for disabled veterans after the Second World War. The school later became a full-fledged rehabilitation facility, an advocate for disabled people nationwide, and one of the founders of wheelchair sports in the United States. The school closed in 1993.


title: Bulova

text: In 1967, Bulova bought the Manufacture des Montres Universal Perret Frères SA at Geneva and sold it in December 1977. The factory in Biel was closed in 1983.


title: Bulova

text: Bulova's "Accutron" watches, first sold in October 1960, use a 360 Hz tuning fork instead of a balance wheel as the timekeeping element. The inventor, Max Hetzel, was born in Basel, Switzerland, and joined the Bulova Watch Company in 1948. The tuning fork was powered by a one-transistor electronic oscillator circuit, so the Accutron qualifies as the second "electronic watch", following the Hamilton Electric released in 1957. Instead of the ticking sound made by mechanical watches, the Accutron had a faint, high-pitched hum which came from the vibrating tuning fork. A forerunner of modern quartz watches which also keep time with a vibrating resonator, the Accutron was guaranteed to be accurate to one minute per month, or two seconds per day, considerably better than mechanical watches of the time.


title: Bulova

text: In the 1960s, the company was involved in a rivalry with Omega Watches to be selected as the 'first watch on the Moon'. In 1971, a Bulova chronograph was carried on board Apollo 15, the fourth mission to land men on the Moon, by mission commander David Scott. All twelve men who walked on the Moon wore standard Omega Speedmaster watches that had been officially issued by NASA. Those watches are deemed to be government property. Transcripts from the Apollo 15 Lunar Surface Journal attest to the fact that during Scott's second excursion on the Moon's surface, the crystal on his Omega watch had popped off. So, during his third lunar walk, he used his backup Bulova watch. The Bulova Chronograph Model #88510/01 is the only privately owned watch to have been worn on the lunar surface. There are images of Scott wearing the watch, when he saluted the American flag on the Moon, with the Hadley Delta expanse in the background. The watch shows "significant wear from exposure while on the Moon, and from splashdown and recovery." In 2015, the watch sold for $1.625 million at RR Auction in Boston, which makes it the one of the most expensive astronaut-owned artifacts ever sold at auction and the one of the most expensive watches sold at auction. The watch is also a unique timepiece as it seems to have been a prototype, only revealed by Scott to Bulova's fans in 2014. Therefore, the company released an homage edition of the lunar watch in early 2016, using a modern high frequency quartz movement for the watch that took more than 40 years to make its way into production line.


title: Bulova

text: During the quartz crisis, Bulova followed the lead of other watchmakers creating electronic quartz watches by introducing the Computron watch in 1976. The Computron was Bulova's first watch with a LED display and first digital watch. It featured a distinctive trapezoidal steel case profile, with the display located on the side of the case rather than the main face. It was marketed as a beneficial design for drivers so that they could view the watch without needing to roll their wrists or release the steering wheel, but this was mitigated by the need to press a button on the side of the case to wake the display. In later versions, repeatedly pressing the button cycled the display to the seconds, date, day, and a second timezone. The success of the Computron was a significant factor in keeping Bulova financially viable through the next several years.


title: Bulova

text: Currently Bulova designs, manufactures, and markets several different brands, including: the signature "Bulova", the stylish "Caravelle" (formerly "Caravelle New York"), the dressy/formal Swiss-made "Wittnauer Swiss", and the "Marine Star". In 2014 Bulova ceased the sale of watches under the "Accutron" and "Accutron by Bulova" brand, eliminating some Accutron models and subsuming others under the "Bulova" brand.


title: Bulova

text: In 2010, Bulova introduced the Precisionist, a new type of quartz watch with a higher frequency crystal (, eight times the industry standard ) which is claimed to be accurate to ±10 seconds per year () and has a smooth sweeping seconds hand like automatic watches rather than the typical quartz watch seconds hand that jumps each second.


title: Bulova

text: From 2012 to 2015, Bulova produced a line of Swiss-Made watches known as Accu•Swiss, which took the place of the previously discontinued Accutron line. Accu•Swiss itself was discontinued in 2015 at the direction of Citizen.


title: Bulova

text: In 2019, Bulova reissued the Computron brand, preserving the size and appearance of the originals, but updating the internal electronics. The new Computrons were made available in chrome, gold, and black, the first two colors being what had been used for the originals.


title: Thumbelina

text: Thumbelina (; ) is a literary fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen first published by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with "The Naughty Boy" and "The Travelling Companion" in the second instalment of "Fairy Tales Told for Children". Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.


title: Thumbelina

text: Thumbelina is chiefly Andersen's invention, though he did take inspiration from tales of miniature people such as "Tom Thumb". Thumbelina was published as one of a series of seven fairy tales in 1835 which were not well received by the Danish critics who disliked their informal style and their lack of morals. One critic, however, applauded Thumbelina. The earliest English translation of Thumbelina is dated 1846. The tale has been adapted to various media including television drama and animated film.


title: Thumbelina

text: A woman yearning for a child asks a witch for advice, and is presented with a barley which she is told to go home and plant (in the first English translation of 1847 by Mary Howitt, the tale opens with a beggar woman giving a peasant's wife a barleycorn in exchange for food). After the barleycorn is planted and sprouts, a tiny girl named Thumbelina (Tommelise) emerges from its flower.


title: Thumbelina

text: One night, Thumbelina, asleep in her walnut-shell cradle, is carried off by a toad who wants her as a bride for her son. With the help of friendly fish and a butterfly, Thumbelina escapes the toad and her son, and drifts on a lily pad until captured by a stag beetle who later discards her when his friends reject her company.


title: Thumbelina

text: Thumbelina tries to protect herself from the elements. When winter comes, she is in desperate straits. She is finally given shelter by an old field mouse and tends her dwelling in gratitude. Thumbelina sees a swallow who is injured while visiting a mole, a neighbor of the field mouse. She meets the swallow one night and finds out what happened to him. She keeps on visiting the swallow during midnight without telling the field mouse and tries to help him gain strength and she frequently spends time with him singing songs and telling him stories and listening to his stories in the winter until spring arrives. The swallow, after becoming healthy, promises that he would come to that spot again and flies away saying goodbye to Thumbelina.


title: Thumbelina

text: At the end of winter, the mouse suggests Thumbelina marry the mole, but Thumbelina finds the prospect of being married to such a creature repulsive because he spends all his days underground and never sees the sun or sky, even though he is impressive with his knowledge of ancient history and lots of other topics. The field mouse keeps pushing Thumbelina into the marriage, insisting the mole is a good match for her. Eventually Thumbelina sees little choice but to agree, but cannot bear the thought of the mole keeping her underground and never seeing the sun.


title: Thumbelina

text: At the last minute, Thumbelina escapes the situation by fleeing to a far land with the swallow. In a sunny field of flowers, Thumbelina meets a tiny flower-fairy prince just her size and to her liking; they eventually wed. She receives a pair of wings to accompany her husband on his travels from flower to flower, and a new name, Maia. In the end, the swallow is heartbroken once Thumbelina marries the flower-fairy prince, and flies off eventually arriving at a small house. There, he tells Thumbelina's story to a man who is implied to be Andersen himself, who chronicles the story in a book.


title: Thumbelina

text: Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805 to Hans Andersen, a shoemaker, and Anne Marie Andersdatter. An only child, Andersen shared a love of literature with his father, who read him "The Arabian Nights" and the fables of Jean de la Fontaine. Together, they constructed panoramas, pop-up pictures and toy theatres, and took long jaunts into the countryside.


title: Thumbelina

text: Andersen's father died in 1816, and from then on, Andersen was left on his own. In order to escape his poor, illiterate mother, he promoted his artistic inclinations and courted the cultured middle class of Odense, singing and reciting in their drawing-rooms. On 4 September 1819, the fourteen-year-old Andersen left Odense for Copenhagen with the few savings he had acquired from his performances, a letter of reference to the ballerina Madame Schall, and youthful dreams and intentions of becoming a poet or an actor.


title: Thumbelina

text: After three years of rejections and disappointments, he finally found a patron in Jonas Collin, the director of the Royal Theatre, who, believing in the boy's potential, secured funds from the king to send Andersen to a grammar school in Slagelse, a provincial town in west Zealand, with the expectation that the boy would continue his education at Copenhagen University at the appropriate time.


title: Thumbelina

text: At Slagelse, Andersen fell under the tutelage of Simon Meisling, a short, stout, balding thirty-five-year-old classicist and translator of Virgil's "Aeneid". Andersen was not the quickest student in the class and was given generous doses of Meisling's contempt. "You're a stupid boy who will never make it", Meisling told him. Meisling is believed to be the model for the learned mole in "Thumbelina".


title: Thumbelina

text: Fairy tale and folklorists Iona and Peter Opie have proposed the tale as a "distant tribute" to Andersen's confidante, Henriette Wulff, the small, frail, hunchbacked daughter of the Danish translator of Shakespeare who loved Andersen as Thumbelina loves the swallow; however, no written evidence exists to support the theory.


title: Thumbelina

text: "Thumbelina" is essentially Andersen's invention but takes inspiration from the traditional tale of "Tom Thumb" (both tales begin with a childless woman consulting a supernatural being about acquiring a child). Other inspirations were the six-inch Lilliputians in Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", Voltaire's short story "Micromégas" with its cast of huge and miniature peoples, and E. T. A. Hoffmann's hallucinatory, erotic tale "Meister Floh", in which a tiny lady a span in height torments the hero. A tiny girl figures in Andersen's prose fantasy "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager" (1828), and a literary image similar to Andersen's tiny being inside a flower is found in E. T. A. Hoffmann's "Princess Brambilla" (1821).


title: Thumbelina

text: Andersen published two installments of his first collection of "Fairy Tales Told for Children" in 1835, the first in May and the second in December. "Thumbelina" was first published in the December installment by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen. "Thumbelina" was the first tale in the booklet which included two other tales: "The Naughty Boy" and "The Traveling Companion". The story was republished in collected editions of Andersen's works in 1850 and 1862.


title: Thumbelina

text: The first reviews of the seven tales of 1835 did not appear until 1836 and the Danish critics were not enthusiastic. The informal, chatty style of the tales and their lack of morals were considered inappropriate in children's literature. One critic however acknowledged "Thumbelina" to be "the most delightful fairy tale you could wish for".


title: Thumbelina

text: The critics offered Andersen no further encouragement. One literary journal never mentioned the tales at all while another advised Andersen not to waste his time writing fairy tales. One critic stated that Andersen "lacked the usual form of that kind of poetry [...] and would not study models". Andersen felt he was working against their preconceived notions of what a fairy tale should be, and returned to novel-writing, believing it was his true calling. The critical reaction to the 1835 tales was so harsh that he waited an entire year before publishing "The Little Mermaid" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" in the third and final installment of "Fairy Tales Told for Children".


title: Thumbelina

text: In 1861, Alfred Wehnert translated the tale into English in "Andersen's Tales for Children" under the title Little Thumb. Mary Howitt published the story as "Tommelise" in "Wonderful Stories for Children" in 1846. However, she did not approve of the opening scene with the witch, and, instead, had the childless woman provide bread and milk to a hungry beggar woman who then rewarded her hostess with a barleycorn. Charles Boner also translated the tale in 1846 as "Little Ellie" while Madame de Chatelain dubbed the child 'Little Totty' in her 1852 translation. The editor of "The Child's Own Book" (1853) called the child throughout, 'Little Maja'.


title: Thumbelina

text: H. W. Dulcken was probably the translator responsible for the name, 'Thumbelina'. His widely published volumes of Andersen's tales appeared in 1864 and 1866. Mrs. H.B. Paulli translated the name as 'Little Tiny' in the late-nineteenth century.


title: Thumbelina

text: In the twentieth century, Erik Christian Haugaard translated the name as 'Inchelina' in 1974, and Jeffrey and Diane Crone Frank translated the name as 'Thumbelisa' in 2005. Modern English translations of "Thumbelina" are found in the six-volume complete edition of Andersen's tales from the 1940s by Jean Hersholt, and Erik Christian Haugaard's translation of the complete tales in 1974.


title: Thumbelina

text: For fairy tale researchers and folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, "Thumbelina" is an adventure story from the feminine point of view with its moral being people are happiest with their own kind. They point out that Thumbelina is a passive character, the victim of circumstances; whereas her male counterpart Tom Thumb (one of the tale's inspirations) is an active character, makes himself felt, and exerts himself.


title: Thumbelina

text: Folklorist Maria Tatar sees "Thumbelina" as a runaway bride story and notes that it has been viewed as an allegory about arranged marriages, and a fable about being true to one's heart that upholds the traditional notion that the love of a prince is to be valued above all else. She points out that in Hindu belief, a thumb-sized being known as the innermost self or soul dwells in the heart of all beings, human or animal, and that the concept may have migrated to European folklore and taken form as Tom Thumb and Thumbelina, both of whom seek transfiguration and redemption. She detects parallels between Andersen's tale and the Greek myth of Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, and, notwithstanding the pagan associations and allusions in the tale, notes that "Thumbelina" repeatedly refers to Christ's suffering and resurrection, and the Christian concept of salvation.


title: Thumbelina

text: Andersen biographer Jackie Wullschlager indicates that "Thumbelina" was the first of Andersen's tales to dramatize the sufferings of one who is different, and, as a result of being different, becomes the object of mockery. It was also the first of Andersen's tales to incorporate the swallow as the symbol of the poetic soul and Andersen's identification with the swallow as a migratory bird whose pattern of life his own traveling days were beginning to resemble.


title: Thumbelina

text: Roger Sale believes Andersen expressed his feelings of social and sexual inferiority by creating characters that are inferior to their beloveds. The Little Mermaid, for example, has no soul while her human beloved has a soul as his birthright. In "Thumbelina", Andersen suggests the toad, the beetle, and the mole are Thumbelina's inferiors and should remain in their places rather than wanting their superior. Sale indicates they are not inferior to Thumbelina but simply "different". He suggests that Andersen may have done some damage to the animal world when he colored his animal characters with his own feelings of inferiority.


title: Thumbelina

text: Jacqueline Banerjee views the tale as a success story. "Not surprisingly," she writes, "”Thumbelina" is now often read as a story of specifically female empowerment." Susie Stephens believes Thumbelina herself is a grotesque, and observes that "the grotesque in children's literature is [...] a necessary and beneficial component that enhances the psychological welfare of the young reader". Children are attracted to the cathartic qualities of the grotesque, she suggests. Sidney Rosenblatt in his essay "Thumbelina and the Development of Female Sexuality" believes the tale may be analyzed, from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalysis, as the story of female masturbation. Thumbelina herself, he posits, could symbolize the clitoris, her rose petal coverlet the labia, the white butterfly "the budding genitals", and the mole and the prince the anal and vaginal openings respectively.


title: Thumbelina

text: The earliest animated version of the tale is a silent black-and-white release by director Herbert M. Dawley in 1924. Lotte Reiniger released a 10-minute cinematic adaptation in 1954 featuring her "silhouette" puppets.


title: Thumbelina

text: In 1964 Soyuzmultfilm released "", a half-hour Russian adaptation of the fairy tale directed by Leonid Amalrik. Although the screenplay by Nikolai Erdman stayed faithful to the story, it was noted for satirical characters and dialogues (many of them turned into catchphrases).


title: Thumbelina

text: In 1992, Golden Films released "Thumbelina" (1992), and "Tom Thumb Meets Thumbelina" afterwards. A Japanese animated series adapted the plot and made it into a movie, "" (1992), released in 1993.


title: Thumbelina

text: On March 30, 1994, Warner Brothers released the animated film "Thumbelina" (1994), directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, with Jodi Benson as the voice of Thumbelina.


title: Thumbelina

text: On June 11, 1985, a television dramatization of the tale was broadcast as the 12th episode of the anthology series "Faerie Tale Theatre". The production starred Carrie Fisher.


title: Special Relationship

text: The Special Relationship is a term that is often used to describe the political, social, diplomatic, cultural, economic, legal, environmental, religious, military and historic relations between the United Kingdom and the United States or its political leaders. The term first came into popular usage after it was used in a 1946 speech by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Both nations have been close allies during many conflicts in the 20th and the 21st centuries, including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Gulf War and the War on Terror.


title: Special Relationship

text: Although both governments also have close relationships with many other nations, the level of cooperation between the UK and the US in trade and commerce, military planning, execution of military operations, nuclear weapons technology, and intelligence sharing has been described as "unparallelled" among major world powers. The close relationships between British and American heads of government such as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as well as between Tony Blair and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been noted. At the diplomatic level, characteristics include recurring public representations of the relationship as "special", frequent and high-profile political visits and extensive information exchange at the diplomatic working level.


title: Special Relationship

text: Some critics deny the existence of a "special relationship" and call it a myth. Former US President Barack Obama considered German Chancellor Angela Merkel to be his "closest international partner" and said the UK would be at the "back of the queue" in any trade deal with the US if it left the European Union, and he accused British Prime Minister David Cameron of being "distracted by a range of other things" during the 2011 military intervention in Libya. During the 1956 Suez Crisis, US President Dwight Eisenhower threatened to bankrupt sterling due to Britain's invasion of Egypt. In the 1960s, British troops served in the Vietnam War. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher privately opposed the 1983 US invasion of Grenada, and US President Reagan unsuccessfully initially pressured against the 1982 Falklands War.


title: Special Relationship

text: Although the "Special Relationship" between the UK and the US was perhaps most memorably emphasized by Churchill, its existence and even the term itself had been recognized since the 19th century, not least by rival powers.


title: Special Relationship

text: The American and British governments were enemies when foreign relations between them first began, after the American colonies declared their independence from British rule, which triggered the American Revolutionary War. Relations often continued to be strained until the mid-19th century, erupting into open conflict during the War of 1812 and again verging on war when Britain almost supported the rebel Confederate States during the beginning of the American Civil War. British leaders were constantly annoyed from the 1830s to the 1860s by what they saw as American pandering to the mob, as in the Aroostook War in 1838–1839 and the Oregon boundary dispute in 1844–1846. However, British middle-class public opinion sensed a common "special relationship" between the two peoples based on their shared language, migrations, evangelical Protestantism, classical liberalism and extensive private trade. That constituency rejected war, which forced Britain to appease America. During the Trent Affair of late 1861, London drew the line, and Washington retreated.


title: Special Relationship

text: Troops from both nations had begun fighting side by side, sometimes spontaneously in skirmishes overseas by 1859, and both liberal democracies shared a common bond of sacrifice during the First World War (though the US was never formally a member of the Allies but entered the war in 1917 as a self-styled "Associated Power"). British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's visit to the US in 1930 confirmed his own belief in the "special relationship" and so he looked to the Washington Naval Treaty, rather than a revival of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, as the guarantee of peace in the Far East.


title: Special Relationship

text: However, as the historian David Reynolds observed, "For most of the period since 1919, Anglo-American relations had been cool and often suspicious. United States 'betrayal' of the League of Nations was only the first in a series of US actions—over war debts, naval rivalry, the 1931–2 Manchurian crisis and the Depression—that convinced British leaders that the United States could not be relied on". Equally, as US President Harry S. Truman's Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, recalled, "Of course a unique relation existed between Britain and America—our common language and history ensured that. But unique did not mean affectionate. We had fought England as an enemy as often as we had fought by her side as an ally".


title: Special Relationship

text: The outbreak of World War II provoked the rapid emergence of an unambiguously positive relationship between the two nations. The Fall of France in 1940 has been described as a decisive event in international relations, which led the Special Relationship to displace the Entente Cordiale as the pivot of the international system. During the war, one observer noted, "Great Britain and the United States integrated their military efforts to a degree unprecedented among major allies in the history of warfare". "Each time I must choose between you and Roosevelt", Churchill shouted at General Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French, in 1945, "I shall choose Roosevelt". Between 1939 and 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt exchanged 1,700 letters and telegrams and met 11 times. Churchill estimated that they had 120 days of close personal contact. On one occasion, Roosevelt went to Churchill's room when Churchill had just emerged from the bath. On his return from Washington, Churchill said to King George VI, "Sir, I believe I am the only man in the world to have received the head of a nation naked". Roosevelt found the encounter amusing and remarked to his private secretary, Grace Tully, "You know, he's pink and white all over".


title: Special Relationship

text: Churchill's mother was a US citizen, and he keenly felt the links between the two English-speaking peoples. He first used the term "special relationship" on 16 February 1944, when he said it was his "deepest conviction that unless Britain and the United States are joined in a special relationship... another destructive war will come to pass". He used it again in 1945 to describe not the Anglo–American relationship alone but Britain's relationship with both the Americans and the Canadians. "The New York Times Herald" quoted Churchill in November 1945:


title: Special Relationship

text: Churchill used the phrase again a year later, at the onset of the Cold War, this time to note the special relationship between the US and the English-speaking nations of the British Commonwealth and the Empire. The occasion was his "Sinews of Peace Address", delivered in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946:


title: Special Relationship

text: In the opinion of one international relations specialist, "the United Kingdom's success in obtaining US commitment to cooperation in the postwar world was a major triumph, given the isolation of the interwar period". A senior British diplomat in Moscow, Thomas Brimelow, admitted, "The one quality which most disquiets the Soviet government is the ability which they attribute to us to get others to do our fighting for us... they respect not us, but our ability to collect friends". Conversely, "the success or failure of United States foreign economic peace aims depended almost entirely on its ability to win or extract the co-operation of Great Britain".


title: Special Relationship

text: Reflecting on the symbiosis, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1982 declared: "The Anglo-American relationship has done more for the defence and future of freedom than any other alliance in the world".


title: Special Relationship

text: While most government officials on both sides have supported the Special Relationship, there have been sharp critics. The British journalist Guy Arnold (1932–2020) denounced it in 2014 as a "sickness in the body politic of Britain that needs to be flushed out". Instead, he called for closer relationships with Europe and Russia so as to rid "itself of the US incubus".


title: Special Relationship

text: The intense level of military co-operation between the UK and the US began with the creation of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in December 1941, a military command with authority over all American and British operations. After the end of the Second World War, the joint command structure was disbanded, but close military cooperation between the nations resumed in the early 1950s with the start of the Cold War.


title: Special Relationship

text: Since the Second World War and the subsequent Berlin Blockade, the US has maintained substantial forces in Britain. In July 1948, the first American deployment began with the stationing of B-29 bombers. Currently, an important base is the radar facility RAF Fylingdales, part of the US Ballistic Missile Early Warning System although the base is operated under British command and has only one US Air Force representative, largely for administrative reasons. Several bases with a significant US presence include RAF Menwith Hill (only a short distance from RAF Fylingdales), RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall (scheduled to close in 2027), RAF Fairford (the only base for US strategic bombers in Europe), RAF Croughton (not an air base but a military communications hub) and RAF Welford (an ammunition storage depot).


title: Special Relationship

text: Following the end of the Cold War, which was the main rationale for their presence, the number of US facilities in the UK has been reduced in number in line with the US military worldwide. However, the bases have been used extensively in support of various peacekeeping and offensive operations of the 1990s and the early 21st century.


title: Special Relationship

text: The two nations also jointly operate on the British military facilities of Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory and on Ascension Island, a dependency of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. The US Navy also makes occasional use of British naval bases at Gibraltar and Bermuda, and the US Air Force uses RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, mainly for reconnaissance flights.


title: Special Relationship

text: The Quebec Agreement of 1943 paved the way for the two countries to develop atomic weapons side by side, the British handing over vital documents from its own Tube Alloys project and sending a delegation to assist in the work of the Manhattan Project. The Americans later kept the results of the work to themselves under the postwar McMahon Act, but after the UK developed its own thermonuclear weapons, the US agreed to supply delivery systems, designs and nuclear material for British warheads through the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement.


title: Special Relationship

text: The UK purchased first the Polaris system and then the US Trident system, which remains in use. The 1958 agreement gave the UK access to the facilities at the Nevada Test Site, and from 1963, it conducted a total of 21 underground tests there before the cessation of testing in 1991. The agreement under which the partnership operates was updated in 2004; anti-nuclear activists argued that the renewal may breach the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The US and the UK jointly conducted subcritical nuclear experiments in 2002 and 2006 to determine the effectiveness of existing stocks, as permitted under the 1998 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.


title: Special Relationship

text: The Reagan administration offered Britain the opportunity to purchase the F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft while it was a black program. The UK is the only collaborative, or Level One, international partner in the largest US aircraft procurement project in history, the F-35 Lightning II program. The UK was involved in writing the specification and selection and its largest defense contractor, BAE Systems, is a partner of the American prime contractor Lockheed Martin. BAE Systems is also the largest foreign supplier to the US Defense Department and has been permitted to buy important US defense companies like Lockheed Martin Aerospace Electronic Systems and United Defense.


title: Special Relationship

text: The US operates several British designs including Chobham Armour, the Harrier GR9/AV-8B Harrier II and the US Navy T-45 Goshawk. The UK also operates several American designs, including the Javelin anti-tank missile, M270 rocket artillery, the Apache gunship, C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.


title: Special Relationship

text: A cornerstone of the Special Relationship is the collecting and sharing of intelligence, which originated during the Second World War with the sharing of code-breaking knowledge and led to the 1943 BRUSA Agreement, which was signed at Bletchley Park. After the war, the common goal of monitoring and countering the threat of communism prompted the UK-USA Security Agreement of 1948. This agreement brought together the SIGINT organizations of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and is still in place today (Five Eyes). The head of the Central Intelligence Agency station in London attends each weekly meeting of the British Joint Intelligence Committee.


title: Special Relationship

text: One present-day example of such cooperation is the UKUSA Community, comprising America's National Security Agency, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Australia's Defence Signals Directorate and Canada's Communications Security Establishment, which collaborate on ECHELON, a global intelligence gathering system. Under the classified bilateral accords, UKUSA members do not spy on each other.


title: Special Relationship

text: After the discovery of the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot, the CIA began to assist the Security Service (MI5) by running its own agent networks in the British Pakistani community. One intelligence official commented on the threat against the US from British Islamists: "The fear is that something like this would not just kill people but cause a historic rift between the US and the UK".


title: Special Relationship

text: The US is the largest source of foreign direct investment to the UK, and the UK is likewise the largest single foreign direct investor in the US. British trade and capital have been important components of the American economy since its colonial inception. In trade and finance, the Special Relationship has been described as "well-balanced", with the City of London's "light-touch" regulation in recent years attracting a massive outflow of capital from Wall Street. The key sectors for British exporters to America are aviation, aerospace, commercial property, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and heavy machinery.


title: Special Relationship

text: British ideas, classical and modern, have also exerted a profound influence on American economic policy, most notably those of the historian Adam Smith on free trade and the economist John Maynard Keynes on countercyclical spending, and the British government has adopted American workfare reforms. American and British investors share entrepreneurial attitudes towards the housing market, and the fashion and music industries of both countries are major influences on each other. Trade ties have been strengthened by globalisation, and both governments agree on the need for currency reform in China and for educational reform at home to increase their competitiveness against India's developing service industries. In 2007, US Ambassador Robert H. Tuttle suggested to British business leaders that the Special Relationship could be used "to promote world trade and limit environmental damage as well as combating terrorism".


title: Special Relationship

text: In a press conference that made several references to the Special Relationship, US Secretary of State John Kerry, in London with UK Foreign Secretary William Hague on 9 September 2013, said:


title: Special Relationship

text: Prior to their collaboration during World War II, Anglo–American relations had been more stand-offish. President Woodrow Wilson and Prime Minister David Lloyd George in Paris had been the only previous leaders of the two nations to meet face-to-face, but had enjoyed nothing that could be described as a "special relationship", although Lloyd George's wartime Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, got on well with Wilson during his time in the US and helped convince the previously skeptical president to enter World War I. Britain, previously somewhat the predominant partner out of the two countries, had found itself in a more of a secondary role beginning in 1941.


title: Special Relationship

text: The personal relations between British prime ministers and U.S. presidents have often affected the Special Relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. The first example was the close relationship between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, who were in fact distantly related. Churchill spent much time and effort cultivating the relationship, which had a positive impact on the war effort.


title: Special Relationship

text: Two great architects of the Special Relationship on a practical level were Field Marshal Sir John Dill and General George Marshall, whose excellent personal relations and senior positions (Roosevelt was especially close to Marshall) helped to strengthen the alliance. Major links were created during the war, such as the Combined Chiefs of Staff.


title: Special Relationship

text: The diplomatic policy behind the Special Relationship was two-pronged, encompassing strong personal support between heads of state and equally forthright military and political aid. The most cordial personal relationships between British prime ministers and American presidents have always been those based around shared goals. Peaks in the Special Relationship include the bonds between Harold Macmillan (who like Churchill had an American mother) and John F. Kennedy; between James Callaghan and Jimmy Carter, who were close personal friends despite their differences in personality; between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan; and more recently between Tony Blair and both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Low points in the relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. have occurred due to disagreements over foreign policy, such as Dwight D. Eisenhower's opposition to U.K. operations in Suez under Anthony Eden and Harold Wilson's refusal to enter the war in Vietnam.


title: Special Relationship

text: When Winston Churchill entered the office of Prime Minister, the UK had already entered World War II. Immediately at the start of Churchill's premiership, the Battle of Dunkirk took place.


title: Special Relationship

text: Before Churchill's premiership, President Roosevelt had secretively been in frequent correspondence with him. Their correspondence had begun in September 1939, at the very start of World War II. In these private communications, the two had been discussing ways in which the US might support Britain in their war effort. However, at the time when Winston Churchill assumed the office of Prime Minister, Roosevelt was nearing the end of his second term and making considerations of seeking election to an unprecedented third term (he would make no public pronouncements about this until the Democratic National Convention that year). From the American experience during the First World War, Roosevelt judged that involvement in the Second World War was likely to be an inevitability. This was a key reason for Roosevelt's decision to break from tradition and seek a third term. Roosevelt desired to be president when the US would finally be drawn into entering the conflict. However, in order to win a third term, Roosevelt made the American people promises that he would keep them out of the war.


title: Special Relationship

text: In November 1940, upon Roosevelt's victory in the presidential election, Churchill sent him a congratulatory letter,


title: Special Relationship

text: Having promised the American public to avoid entering any foreign war, Roosevelt went as far as public opinion allowed in providing financial and military aid to Britain, France and China. In a December 1940 talk, dubbed the "Arsenal of Democracy Speech", Roosevelt declared, "This is not a fireside chat on war. It is a talk about national security". He went on to declare the importance of American support of Britain's war effort, framing it as a matter of national security for the U.S. As the American public opposed involvement in the conflict, Roosevelt sought to emphasize that it was critical to assist the British in order to prevent the conflict from reaching American shores. He aimed to paint the British war effort as beneficial to the US by arguing that they would contain the Nazi threat from spreading across the Atlantic.


title: Special Relationship

text: To assist the British war effort, Roosevelt enacted the Lend-Lease policy and drafted the Atlantic Charter with Churchill. The US ultimately joined the war effort in December 1941, under Roosevelt's leadership.


title: Special Relationship

text: Roosevelt and Churchill had a relative fondness of one another. They connected on their shared passions for tobacco and liquors, and their mutual interest in history and battleships. Churchill later wrote, "I felt I was in contact with a very great man, who was also a warm-hearted friend, and the foremost champion of the high causes which we served."


title: Special Relationship

text: One anecdote that has been told to illustrate the intimacy of Churchill and Roosevelt's bond alleges that once, while hosting Churchill at the White House, Roosevelt stopped by the bedroom in which the Prime Minister was staying to converse with him. Churchill answered his door in a state of nudity, remarking, "You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide from you." The president is said to have taken this in good humor, later joking with an aide that Churchill was, "pink and white all over."


title: Special Relationship

text: Between 1939 and 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill exchanged an estimated 1700 letters and telegrams and met with one another 11 times. On Churchill's 60th birthday, Roosevelt wrote him, "It is fun to be in the same decade as you." Beginning under Roosevelt and Churchill, the U.S. and U.K. worked together closely to establish the IMF, World Bank and NATO.


title: Special Relationship

text: Roosevelt died in April 1945, shortly into his fourth term in office, and was succeeded by his vice president, Harry Truman. Churchill and Truman likewise developed a strong relationship with one another. While he was saddened by the death of Roosevelt, Churchill was a strong supporter of Truman in his early presidency, calling him, "the type of leader the world needs when it needs him most." At the Potsdam Conference, Truman and Churchill, along with Joseph Stalin, made agreements for settling the boundaries of Europe.


title: Special Relationship

text: Four months into Truman's presidency, Churchill's party was handed a surprise defeat at the polls, and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister.


title: Special Relationship

text: The deputy in Churchill's wartime coalition government, Attlee had been in the US at the time of Roosevelt's death, and thus had met with Truman immediately after he took office. The two of them had come to like one another. However, Attlee and Truman never became particularly close with one another. During their coinciding tenure as heads of government, they only met on three occasions. The two did not maintain regular correspondence. Their working relationship with each other, nonetheless, remained sturdy.


title: Special Relationship

text: When Attlee assumed the position of Prime Minister, negotiations had not yet been completed at the Potsdam Conference, which had begun on 17 July. Attlee took Churchill's place at the conference once he was named Prime Minister on 26 July. Therefore, Attlee's first sixteen days as Prime Minister were spent handling negotiations at the conference.


title: Special Relationship

text: Attlee flew to Washington in December 1950 to support Truman in standing up against Douglas MacArthur. In 1951, Truman pressured Attlee not to intervene against Mossadeq in Iran. In his time as Prime Minister, Attlee also managed to convince Truman to agree to greater nuclear cooperation.


title: Special Relationship

text: Churchill became Prime Minister again in October 1951. He had maintained his relationship with Truman during his six-year stint as Leader of the Opposition. In 1946, on invitation from Truman, Churchill visited the U.S. to deliver a speech at Westminster College in Truman's home state of Missouri. The speech, which would be remembered as the "Iron Curtain" speech, affected greater public attention to the schism that had developed between the Soviet Union and the rest of the Allied Powers. During this trip, Churchill lost a significant amount of cash in a poker game with Harry Truman and his advisors. In 1947, Churchill had written Truman an unheeded memo recommending that the US make a pre-emptive atomic bomb strike on Moscow before the Soviet Union could acquire nuclear weapons themselves.