TRAFALGAR DAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21396, 20 October 1934, Page 12

TRAFALGAR DAY

GREAT NAVAL VICTORY ANNIVERSARY TO-DAY To-dav is Trafalgar Day, the 129 th anniversary of 0110 of the most famous victories in British naval history. The day commemorates, too, the death of Lord Nelson, who led the British fleet in the engagement with tho ships of Franco and Spain but who was fatally wounded by a musket ball beforo the issue was finally decided. To-day it is generally accepted that the victory of Trafalgar blotted out France as a great naval power and marked a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. That view was hardly shared in 1805 when the whole of England was plunged into mourning at the news of Nelson's death. The Times of November 7, 180-5, commenting on Collingwood's despatches describing the victory at Trafalgar, said: " The victory created none of those enthusiastic emotions in the public mind, which the success of our naval arms have in every former instance produced. There was not a man who did not think that the life of the Hero of the Nile was too great a price for the capture and destruction of twenty sail of French and Spanish men-of-war." To-day the spirit of Nelson and Trafalgar still lives. The anniversary will bo observed throughout the Empire in ships of the Royal Navy and by branches of the Navy League. In Portsmouth, where Nelson's old ship, ithe Victory, remains as a historic inspiration to the Navy, there will be ceremonial to mark a day of proud memories.