In 1910, the revered maritime strategist Sir Julian Stafford Corbett published The Campaign of Trafalgar, with the intent of providing the first ‘staff account’ of the celebrated battle. Beautifully written, and possessed of the historian’s classical precision, Corbett examines the underlying reasoning, both diplomatic and military, that wrought the framework of these famous endeavours.

Corbett examines the various relations of the events of the campaign, from Nelson’s remarkable chase of Admiral de Villeneuve, to Bonaparte’s seemingly reckless unreadiness, and accords them their true place in an over-arching strategy. The intricacies of Pitt’s negotiations are evaluated in the context of England’s most real fears and ambitions, while Corbett considers the delicate balance of England and her allies’ territorial arrangements in the clear light of their colonial concerns.

Crucially, and controversially, The Campaign of Trafalgar puts forward the theory that the campaign’s real importance lay, not so much in preventing an invasion of Britain, but in gaining control of the Mediterranean Seas; to render Britain impregnable was, however, heroism’s just reward.

Julian Corbett (1854-1921) was appointed principal lecturer on history and strategy at the Naval War College at Greenwich in 1902. The Campaign of Trafalgar (1910) was considered his most significant work up to that point. In 1914, he was awarded the Chesney Gold Medal by the Royal United Services Institute. He was a strategic advisor to the Admiralty during the First World War, for which efforts he was knighted in 1917. His works remain an important feature of maritime study.