Britain Lost ZERO Ships at Trafalgar and Still Paid Everything

Britain won the most decisive sea battle in history and did not lose a single ship. It cost them everything anyway.

October 1805, off Cape Trafalgar. Admiral Nelson faces a larger combined French and Spanish fleet. The rulebook said line up parallel and trade broadsides. Nelson threw the rulebook away.

He drove his ships in two columns straight at the enemy line, punching through it at right angles. It split their fleet into pieces his better-drilled crews could destroy one by one. It was reckless, and it worked. Not one British ship was captured or sunk.

But leading from the front made Nelson a target. On the deck of HMS Victory, a French sharpshooter's musket ball tore through his shoulder and spine. The greatest admiral Britain ever produced was dying in the middle of his greatest win.

He lived just long enough to hear the battle was won. Trafalgar secured British control of the seas for a century. The victory was total. So was the price.

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