Battle of Trafalgar

battle_name=Battle of Trafalgar

Aftermath

Vice-Admiral Villeneuve was taken prisoner and was brought back to England. On his return to France, he was found stabbed six times in the chest in his inn room while returning to Paris. The verdict was that he had committed suicide.

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Only eleven ships regained Cádiz, and of those only five were considered seaworthy. Under captain Julien Cosmao, they set sail two days later an attempted to re-take some of the English prizes; they succeded in re-capturing two ships, and forced Collingwood to scuttle a number of his prizes.

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When Rosily arrived in Cádiz, he found only five French ships remained rather than the 18 he was expecting. The surviving ships remained bottled up in Cádiz until 1808, when Napoleon invaded Spain. The French ships were then seized by the Spanish forces and put into service against France.

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Napoleon had tight control over the Paris media and he kept the defeat a closely guarded secret until following his victory at Austerlitz. In a propaganda move, the battle was then declared a "spectacular victory" by the French and Spanish. As he could no longer defeat Britain at sea, however, Napoleon went on to impose a continental blockade in an attempt to deny Britain trade with the continent.

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