The Battle of Trafalgar (painting) installation. The painting now hangs in the National Maritime Museum, also in Greenwich, London. This work depicts a scene from the Battle of Trafalgar, a naval battle fought between the British and Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Trafalgar in southwest Spain. The British had twenty-seven ships to the thirty-three of the Franco-Spanish fleet. Despite this, the British came out as decisively victorious and captured or destroyed nineteen of the Franco-Spanish ships. Admiral Nelson, of the British Navy, took an unconventional approach to this battle and split his fleet into two lines, one led by his flagship "Victory" and the other by
Battle of Trafalgar plans to commission 150 ships of the line and again challenge the Royal Navy, compensating for the inferiority of their crews with sheer numbers. For almost 10 years after Trafalgar, the Royal Navy maintained a close blockade of French bases and anxiously observed the growth of the French fleet. In the end, Napoleon's Empire was destroyed by land before his ambitious naval buildup could be completed. Nelson became – and remains – Britain's greatest naval war hero, and an inspiration to the Royal Navy, yet his unorthodox tactics were seldom emulated by later generations. The first monument to be erected