- 18 hours ago
Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign was won and lost at sea, and Horatio Nelson’s decision at Aboukir Bay turned the Battle of the Nile into a strategic trap. The French army had already landed near Alexandria, but its fleet remained anchored close to the coast, keeping the only route back to France open. When Nelson found it in fading light, he chose to attack rather than wait for morning.
This historical documentary follows the pursuit, the difficult decision to fight in the dark, and the naval battle that unfolded between the French line and British ships moving from both sides. The destruction of L’Orient became the most famous image of the night, but the deeper result was isolation: Napoleon’s army in Egypt was left cut off, with British control in the Mediterranean strengthened.
For viewers interested in military history, naval warfare, Napoleonic history, and documentary storytelling, this is a focused account of the Battle of the Nile, Horatio Nelson, Egypt in 1798, and the strategy that trapped an army without a land battle. Ideal for history listening, educational viewing, and anyone searching for Battle of the Nile documentary, Napoleon in Egypt, and British naval history.
This historical documentary follows the pursuit, the difficult decision to fight in the dark, and the naval battle that unfolded between the French line and British ships moving from both sides. The destruction of L’Orient became the most famous image of the night, but the deeper result was isolation: Napoleon’s army in Egypt was left cut off, with British control in the Mediterranean strengthened.
For viewers interested in military history, naval warfare, Napoleonic history, and documentary storytelling, this is a focused account of the Battle of the Nile, Horatio Nelson, Egypt in 1798, and the strategy that trapped an army without a land battle. Ideal for history listening, educational viewing, and anyone searching for Battle of the Nile documentary, Napoleon in Egypt, and British naval history.
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00:00Napoleon had reached Egypt. His army was already ashore. His soldiers had crossed the Mediterranean, landed near Alexandria, and begun
00:10one of the boldest campaigns of the age.
00:13To the men marching inland, the danger seemed to lie ahead of them, in the desert, in the heat, and
00:21in the battles still waiting beyond the coast. But the real weakness was behind them, not in the sand, not
00:28in the enemy ranks forming somewhere inland.
00:31It was floating at anchor in Aboukir Bay. The French fleet that had carried Napoleon's army across the sea had
00:40not vanished after the landing. It remained near the Egyptian coast, close enough to matter, exposed enough to be found,
00:50and important enough that its destruction could change the fate of the campaign.
00:56Those ships were not just transports. They were the connection between Napoleon's army and France. They were the road home.
01:05They were the route for messages, supplies, reinforcements, orders, and escape.
01:11Without them, the army in Egypt would still have its weapons. It would still have its commander. It would still
01:19be dangerous. But it would no longer be secure.
01:23Across the Mediterranean, Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson had been hunting that fleet. For weeks, the French expedition had been the
01:34question the British could not answer. Where had it gone? What was its target? Could it still be intercepted?
01:42By the time Nelson finally found the French ships, the answer was worse than a simple naval threat. The army
01:51had already landed. The campaign had already begun. And the fleet that made the campaign possible was sitting in a
02:00bay at anchor as daylight began to fade.
02:03Nelson could wait for morning when the waters would be clearer and the shoals easier to judge. Or he could
02:11attack at once against an anchored enemy line near dangerous shallows.
02:16As darkness closed over the bay, the safer choice was to wait. The choice that changed history was not. Napoleon's
02:27expedition to Egypt was never just an isolated adventure. It was a gamble across distance, sea power, and empire.
02:35France had sent an army beyond the normal reach of European war, across waters watched by the Royal Navy, toward
02:44a land that could offer prestige, influence, and pressure against British interests farther east.
02:51But every part of that gamble depended on movement. The army could march once it reached Egypt. It could fight
03:00battles, occupy towns, raise flags, issue proclamations, and try to build authority on land.
03:07But none of that changed the basic problem. An army that crosses the sea remains tied to the sea.
03:15The ships that carried Napoleon's force were the campaign's hidden foundation. They had brought the troops, the guns, the equipment,
03:25and the promise that France could still reach the men it had sent so far from home.
03:32As long as the fleet survived, the Egyptian campaign remained connected to the wider war.
03:39If the fleet was lost, the meaning of the campaign changed. The French army would not disappear overnight.
03:47Napoleon would not suddenly be defeated by the destruction of ships he was no longer standing aboard.
03:54But the campaign would become harder to sustain, harder to reinforce, and harder to control from France.
04:03That was the danger Nelson understood when the French fleet came into view.
04:09He was not simply looking at enemy warships. He was looking at the bridge behind Napoleon's army.
04:18Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria, had become the place where that bridge rested.
04:24The French ships lay at anchor along the coast, protected in part by the shape of the bay and the
04:30dangers of shallow water.
04:32From a distance, the position could appear strong.
04:37But a ship at anchor is also a ship that has surrendered movement.
04:41It may still fight. It may still fire devastating broadsides.
04:47Its crew may still resist with courage and discipline.
04:51But it cannot maneuver with the same freedom as a fleet under sail.
04:55And in naval war, movement is often survival.
05:01The French fleet had helped Napoleon reach Egypt.
05:05Now it sat behind him like a shield.
05:08But if Nelson could break that shield, the expedition would be changed without a single British soldier marching into the
05:16desert.
05:18Napoleon had brought an army to Egypt.
05:21Nelson was hunting the one thing that could decide whether that army remained an expedition or became a stranded force.
05:30Before Nelson could strike, he had to find the enemy.
05:33That was the first battle.
05:37A battle against distance, uncertainty, and time.
05:41The Mediterranean was not a narrow road where one army could simply follow another.
05:46It was a wide theater of wind, coastline islands, ports, false reports, and missed chances.
05:54A fleet could disappear over the horizon and leave behind only questions.
05:59The British knew the French expedition mattered.
06:03They knew it was large.
06:05They knew it threatened to upset the balance of power.
06:08But knowing that an enemy fleet is dangerous is not the same as knowing where it is.
06:16Nelson searched while the French moved.
06:19Every hour mattered because the French were not merely sailing.
06:23They were carrying an army.
06:25If they reached their destination safely, the problem would no longer be just a fleet at sea.
06:33It would become an army on land, protected by the very distance that made it difficult to reach.
06:40The French destination had not been obvious from the beginning.
06:45Their force might threaten one place, then another.
06:49It might be bound for a target the British had guessed too late.
06:54In that uncertainty, the search became a race in which the enemy did not need to defeat Nelson directly.
07:02They only needed to remain unfound long enough to land.
07:06And for a time they did.
07:09Napoleon's army reached Egypt.
07:11The troops came ashore.
07:13The campaign began.
07:14The French had achieved the first part of their gamble.
07:18But the fleet remained.
07:21That was the detail that kept the story from ending with Napoleon's landing.
07:26The army had escaped immediate interception, but the ships that had carried it were still vulnerable if Nelson could locate
07:34them.
07:35Then, on August 1st, 1798, British scouts found what Nelson had been seeking.
07:42The French fleet was in Aboukir Bay, not at sea, not safely beyond reach, at anchor.
07:49After weeks of uncertainty, Nelson finally had a target.
07:54But the discovery came late in the day, and the timing created a new danger.
08:00Light was fading.
08:01The bay was not familiar ground.
08:04Shoals and shallow water threatened any ship that misjudged its approach.
08:09The French line was waiting at anchor, ready to fire.
08:14The obvious answer was caution.
08:16Wait for daylight.
08:18Study the position.
08:20Attack when visibility returned.
08:22But caution also had a cost.
08:25Morning could give the French more time to prepare, adjust, or escape the exact vulnerability Nelson had just discovered.
08:34The chase had ended.
08:35The decision had begun.
08:38After weeks of uncertainty, Nelson had found the French.
08:42But he had found them late in the day, and that changed everything.
08:48Aboukir Bay looked at first like a place where the French fleet could wait in strength.
08:54The ships lay near Alexandria, anchored in a line close to the Egyptian coast.
08:59To one side was open water, where an enemy attack might be expected.
09:05To the other were shoals and shallows, dangerous ground for any large ship that came too close.
09:13That mattered.
09:15A ship of the line was powerful, but it was not light.
09:19If it grounded in the wrong place, it could become helpless before the battle had truly begun.
09:27The French position had logic.
09:30It should not be treated as foolish simply because Nelson later found a way to attack it.
09:36The fleet had anchored where the bay, the coast, and the shallow water seemed to offer protection.
09:42An enemy coming from the sea would have to approach under fire.
09:47An enemy trying to pass inside the line would have to risk the shoals.
09:52On paper, that inner side seemed guarded by nature.
09:57But every defensive position contains a question.
10:00What happens if the enemy refuses to attack only where he is expected?
10:05The French line was strong, but it was fixed.
10:09Its ships could fire.
10:11Their crews could fight.
10:13Their guns could tear into any British vessel that came within range.
10:18But because they were anchored, they could not react with the freedom of a fleet under sail.
10:24They could not easily change formation.
10:28They could not easily move to rescue the forward ships if those ships came under concentrated attack.
10:35In Aboukir Bay, the French had traded movement for position.
10:40That position might protect them from one kind of attack.
10:44It might also expose them to another.
10:47Nelson saw more than a line of enemy ships.
10:50He saw a fixed target.
10:53The bay was not just a setting.
10:55It was the trap, waiting to decide who had misunderstood it.
11:00The French had anchored as though the shoals guarded one side of their line.
11:06Nelson's captains were about to test whether that protection was real.
11:10By the time Nelson reached the decisive moment, daylight was already failing.
11:17That single fact changed the battle before the first broadside was fired.
11:23In clear daylight, the British could study the French line more carefully.
11:28They could judge the water, watch the shoals, read the anchorage, and enter the bay with greater confidence.
11:35Signals would be easier to see.
11:39Formations would be easier to maintain.
11:42Waiting for morning made sense.
11:45It was the safer decision.
11:47But safety was not the only thing that mattered.
11:50The French fleet had been found at anchor in a position that seemed strong but might contain a flaw.
11:58That opportunity existed now.
12:01It might not exist in the same form after a night of preparation.
12:06The French could strengthen their readiness.
12:09They could prepare their guns, improve coordination, or use the delay in ways the British could not predict.
12:17And there was another danger in waiting.
12:20Nelson had spent weeks trying to find the French.
12:23Now he had found them.
12:25To pause at the edge of the bay was to give time back to the enemy.
12:30So the choice was not simple.
12:32Attack now.
12:34And risk confusion, grounding, missed signals, and ships entering dangerous water in fading light.
12:43Wait.
12:44And risk losing the sharpest edge of surprise.
12:47A night attack against an anchored enemy line meant captains would have to make decisions under pressure.
12:54It meant the water itself could cripple a vessel as surely as enemy fire.
13:00But Nelson chose not to wait.
13:02The safer decision was morning.
13:05The decisive decision was now.
13:08From this point on, the British were not only fighting the French fleet.
13:13They were fighting darkness, geography, uncertainty, and the possibility that one wrong movement could turn boldness into disaster.
13:24By choosing not to wait, Nelson turned the battle into something more dangerous than a naval engagement.
13:32He turned it into a race against darkness.
13:35The British ships began moving into Abu-Kir Bay as the light drained from the sky.
13:42Before the battle became a storm of gunfire, it was an act of navigation.
13:48That was easy to forget later, after the explosions, after the smoke, after the French line began to break.
13:56But at the beginning, the danger was not only in the enemy's guns.
14:01It was in the water beneath the hulls.
14:04The bay could punish a mistake instantly.
14:08A ship that came too close to the shallows could ground.
14:12A ship that lost formation could block another.
14:15A captain who misread the line, the wind, or the distance, could place his vessel where it could not bring
14:23its guns to bear.
14:25The French waited at anchor.
14:27Their ships formed a line of dark shapes against the coast in the fading evening.
14:32Their guns faced outward toward the danger most expected.
14:37The British approach had to be controlled enough to survive the entry,
14:42but aggressive enough to strike before night swallowed the battlefield.
14:47Every movement mattered.
14:49The first British ships entering the bay were not simply sailing toward combat.
14:55They were deciding the shape of combat.
14:58Their courses would determine which French ships were attacked first,
15:03where British fire would concentrate, and whether the shoals were a barrier or a hidden door.
15:09The men aboard those ships could not see the whole battle as it would later be drawn on maps.
15:15They saw pieces of it.
15:17A stretch of water.
15:19A line of masts.
15:20The flash of guns.
15:22Smoke beginning to gather.
15:24And still the ships came on.
15:27This was the moment when Nelson's decision became real.
15:31Now there was no return to the safety of waiting.
15:35The British fleet had committed itself to the night.
15:38Ahead of them lay the French line.
15:41Beside that line lay the shoals.
15:44And somewhere inside, the confusion, was the weakness Nelson's captains needed to find.
15:52The battle had begun before the full plan was visible.
15:56And in the confusion of the bay, one British move would decide the shape of the entire night.
16:03The first British ships did not simply attack from the expected side.
16:08Some came in from seaward where the French guns were waiting.
16:12That was the obvious direction.
16:14That was the attack the anchored line was meant to receive.
16:19But other British ships pushed farther in toward the side of the French line that had seemed protected by the
16:25shoals.
16:27This was the moment when the bay revealed its secret.
16:30The shallow water had looked like a shield.
16:34To the French, it helped guard the inner side of the anchorage.
16:38A large enemy ship that passed too close could run aground and become a target.
16:44But the British found enough room to slip inside.
16:49Once that happened, the battle changed.
16:52It was no longer a simple exchange between two lines of ships.
16:57Parts of the French line were now exposed from both directions.
17:02British ships fired from the outside.
17:05Other British ships fired from the inside.
17:08The forward French ships found themselves trapped between two fires.
17:12That was the tactical break Nelson needed.
17:16A fleet does not have to destroy every enemy ship at once to win a battle.
17:22It can overwhelm one section, crush it with concentrated fire, and then let the pressure move down the line.
17:30The French fleet still had guns.
17:33It still had crews willing to fight.
17:36But the shape of the battle had turned against it.
17:39The ships at the front could not simply sail away from the trap.
17:44They could not easily change formation.
17:47They could not bring every gun to bear against every threat.
17:50Their anchorage had become a cage.
17:53The British were no longer just attacking the French fleet.
17:57They were isolating it.
17:59The French line had been built to face an enemy from the sea.
18:03Now parts of it were being hit from the sea.
18:07And from the side, they believed was safe.
18:12As British fire concentrated, the French position began to suffer from the very thing that had once made it seem
18:19strong.
18:20The ships were anchored.
18:22That meant stability.
18:24It meant prepared guns.
18:27It meant the line could wait for an enemy to come within range.
18:31But it also meant they could not answer danger with movement.
18:35On land, a commander might shift troops, pull back, or send reserves into the threatened point.
18:42At sea, a fleet under sail might change course or maneuver to protect a weaker section.
18:49In Aboukir Bay, the French line could not react that way.
18:55The forward ships were hit first and hardest.
18:59British fire from both sides placed them under pressure that spread through wood, canvas, rigging, and gun decks.
19:06Once those ships were locked in the fight, the rest of the fleet could not easily rescue them without breaking
19:13the line.
19:14And the night made everything harder.
19:17Smoke thickened over the water.
19:20Gun flashes cut through the darkness.
19:22Signals became harder to read.
19:25Orders had to pass through noise, fire, and confusion.
19:28Men fought in wooden warships where every broadside sent splinters flying, and every spark carried danger near powder, rope, and
19:38sail.
19:39The French still fought.
19:41This was not a battle of helpless targets.
19:45Their ships were armed.
19:47Their crews resisted.
19:48Their guns answered.
19:50British vessels that came too close faced the same brutal realities of naval war.
19:56But the French were fighting inside a position that had turned against them.
20:02The line could not easily bend.
20:05The ships under the heaviest attack could not escape the concentration.
20:09The rear could not quickly save the front.
20:13This is why the battle cannot be understood only as a contest of courage.
20:19Men on both sides showed courage.
20:22What mattered now was geometry, timing, and pressure.
20:27Nelson's attack had transformed the French anchorage into a series of isolated fights.
20:33And in those isolated fights, British ships could bring more fire against fewer opponents.
20:40Somewhere within that chaos, the most famous moment of the night was still waiting.
20:45But the victory was already taking shape before the great explosion came.
20:51The battle's most famous moment had not yet come.
20:55But the French fleet was already being broken by the shape of the attack.
21:00Then, the battle gathered around the French flagship.
21:04L'Orient was one of the great ships of the French fleet.
21:08A massive presence in the line and a symbol of the expedition that had carried Napoleon's army to Egypt.
21:16In the darkness of Aboukir Bay, she became the center of the night's most terrible episode.
21:23Fire spread aboard the ship.
21:26In a wooden fleet, fire was more than damage.
21:30It was terror with a fuse.
21:33The ships of the age carried canvas, rope, tar, timber, ammunition, and powder.
21:39A blaze that could not be controlled did not simply threaten one mast or one deck.
21:45It threatened the entire vessel.
21:49Around L'Orient, the battle continued.
21:52Guns fired.
21:53Smoke moved across the water.
21:56Men aboard nearby ships could see flames growing where no flames should survive.
22:01In the dark, fire gave shape to the battle more clearly than any signal flag could have done.
22:08Then, L'Orient exploded.
22:12For a moment, the battle's violence was gathered into one enormous flash.
22:17The destruction of the flagship became the image remembered from the Battle of the Nile.
22:23It was dramatic, terrible, and impossible to separate from the memory of that night.
22:29But it must not be mistaken for the whole victory.
22:33L'Orient was the climax people remembered because it was visible, shocking, and final.
22:41Yet the French fleet was not defeated by one explosion alone.
22:46The battle had already been shaped by Nelson's decision to attack at once, by British movement inside and outside the
22:55French line, by concentrated fire, and by the inability of anchored ships to recover.
23:01The explosion was the night's terrible symbol.
23:06The collapse was larger.
23:08When the flames faded, the battle was not merely a story of one destroyed flagship.
23:14It was the story of an expedition losing the sea behind it.
23:20After L'Orient, the battle did not need to become louder to become more decisive.
23:26The meaning of the night was already clear.
23:30The French fleet in Aboukir Bay had been shattered.
23:34Much of it was destroyed or captured.
23:37The line that had waited at anchor near Alexandria was no longer the shield behind Napoleon's army.
23:43It was wreckage, surrender, fire, and loss.
23:49The British victory did more than remove ships from a battlefield.
23:53It changed control of the sea.
23:56With the French naval force in the bay broken, British power in the Mediterranean was strengthened.
24:03The army Napoleon had landed in Egypt still existed, but the force that connected it to France had been ruined.
24:12The campaign could continue on land, but it would continue under a new shadow.
24:19Isolation.
24:20That was the consequence that made the Battle of the Nile so important.
24:24Nelson had not marched into Egypt.
24:28He had not met Napoleon's army in the desert.
24:32By destroying the fleet that carried and supported the expedition, he struck at the structure beneath the campaign.
24:39The battle began as a naval engagement in a bay.
24:44By morning, it had become a strategic disaster for France.
24:49Napoleon's soldiers were still ashore.
24:52Their weapons had not vanished.
24:54Their commander still had ambition.
24:57But the sea behind them had changed hands.
25:01Nelson had not faced Napoleon's army in the desert, but by morning, he had changed what that army could become.
25:09The Battle of the Nile was not only a naval victory, its consequences moved inland.
25:16Far from the smoke and wreckage of Aboukir Bay, Napoleon's army still stood in Egypt.
25:23Its soldiers still had their weapons.
25:26Its officers still had their orders.
25:29Its commander still believed in the campaign he had carried across the Mediterranean.
25:35But something essential had been broken.
25:37The fleet behind them had been the connection to France.
25:42It had been the bridge across the sea, the line through which supplies, reinforcements, messages, and strategic choices could move.
25:52As long as that bridge existed, Napoleon's army was distant, but not truly alone.
26:01After Aboukir Bay, that changed.
26:05The French army was still physically present in Egypt, but its position had become far more dangerous.
26:12Supplies would be harder to move.
26:15Reinforcements would be harder to send.
26:18Communication with France would be more uncertain.
26:21Every future decision would have to be made under the shadow of a damaged connection to home.
26:28This was the deeper meaning of Nelson's victory.
26:31He did not need to destroy Napoleon's army to damage Napoleon's campaign.
26:37He did not need to fight the French in the desert to change what the desert meant.
26:42By striking the fleet, he struck the system that made the expedition possible.
26:47A fleet can lose a battle in one bay.
26:51An army can feel the consequences across an entire campaign.
26:56That was the strategic power of the Battle of the Nile.
27:00It showed that expeditionary war does not depend only on courage, ambition, or victory on land.
27:08It depends on routes, ships, supplies, and the ability to keep an army connected to the world that sent it.
27:15Napoleon had crossed the sea with force.
27:19Nelson had made the sea uncertain behind him.
27:22That did not end the Egyptian campaign in a single morning.
27:27History rarely moved so cleanly.
27:30But it changed the campaign's condition.
27:33From that point on, Napoleon's army in Egypt had to operate with the knowledge that the naval foundation beneath it
27:41had been shattered.
27:43The lifeline from the opening of the story was no longer waiting safely offshore.
27:49It was broken.
27:51And once that lifeline was broken, the whole meaning of the campaign changed.
27:57The victory at Abukir Bay proved that sometimes the decisive blow against an army is struck nowhere near the army
28:06itself.
28:07Seen after the battle, Nelson's decision can look inevitable.
28:12The French fleet was found.
28:14The British attacked.
28:16The French line was broken.
28:18Lorient exploded.
28:20Napoleon's army was left isolated.
28:23But none of that was guaranteed when the order to attack was made.
28:27At the moment of decision, the risks were real.
28:30Daylight was fading.
28:32The bay contained shoals and shallow water.
28:36The enemy was anchored and armed.
28:39Signals could be missed.
28:40Ships could lose position in the dark.
28:43One captain's mistake could have blocked another ship, grounded a vessel, or weakened the British attack before it fully formed.
28:51A bold decision does not stop being dangerous because it succeeds.
28:57And Nelson's choice was dangerous.
29:01But delay carried danger too.
29:04Waiting until morning might have given the British clearer water and better visibility.
29:09It might have reduced confusion.
29:12It might have made the attack easier to control.
29:15But it also would have returned time to the French.
29:19Time to prepare.
29:20Time to respond.
29:22Time to reduce the vulnerability Nelson had just found.
29:27That is what made the decision so powerful.
29:32Nelson did not attack because the risk was small.
29:36He attacked because the opportunity was too important to surrender to daylight.
29:41The French anchorage had been meant to protect the fleet.
29:45The shoals, the bay, and the line near the coast had formed a defensive position with logic behind it.
29:53But once British ships found a way to attack from both sides, that protection became part of the trap.
30:01Timing became a weapon.
30:03Darkness made the attack more dangerous, but speed made it more decisive.
30:08The battle was won by courage.
30:11But not by courage alone.
30:13It was won by the meeting of aggression and opportunity.
30:17By the decision to act before the enemy's position could change.
30:22And by the ability of British captains to turn a dangerous bay into a killing ground for an anchored fleet.
30:30That is why the battle of the Nile still matters.
30:35Not only because a fleet burned.
30:37Not only because a flagship exploded.
30:41But because one night showed how quickly power can reverse when movement, timing, and geography collide.
30:49Nelson had gambled with darkness.
30:51But the deeper gamble belonged to Napoleon, because he had sent an army across the sea without securing the sea
30:59behind it.
31:00The night sky over Abukir Bay is remembered for fire, smoke, and the destruction of Lorient.
31:07But the true consequence was quieter and larger.
31:13The battle of the Nile became one of Nelson's defining victories.
31:17Not only because of the ships destroyed, but because of what those ships represented.
31:23They were the naval foundation of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign.
31:28They were the connection between an army on foreign ground and the country that had sent it there.
31:36When that fleet was broken, the balance changed.
31:39British naval confidence grew.
31:42Royal Navy control in the Mediterranean became stronger.
31:47French ambitions in the region were damaged.
31:50And Napoleon's army, though still alive and still dangerous,
31:54now stood in Egypt under a different kind of pressure.
31:59It had reached the land it was sent to reach.
32:02But the sea behind it had changed hands.
32:07That is the strategic irony at the heart of the battle.
32:11Armies can march inland.
32:12They can win battles, occupy cities, and believe the decisive struggle lies ahead of them.
32:19But if the fleet behind them is destroyed, they can become prisoners of geography.
32:26The desert may be in front of them.
32:28The trap may be behind them.
32:32Nelson's victory mattered because he understood what the fleet at anchor truly was.
32:38It was not just a line of French warships waiting near the coast.
32:43It was Napoleon's route home.
32:45It was the campaign's bridge across the Mediterranean.
32:48It was the difference between distance and isolation.
32:53By sunrise, that bridge had been shattered.
32:58Napoleon's army still stood in Egypt.
33:00Its soldiers still held their weapons.
33:03Its commander still had ambition.
33:06But the campaign was no longer the same campaign that had landed near Alexandria.
33:12The fleet that brought it there could no longer protect it.
33:17Nelson had not destroyed Napoleon's army.
33:20He had destroyed the fleet that made that army's position possible.
33:25And in doing so, he proved that sometimes the fate of an army is decided not where its soldiers march,
33:33but where its ships are anchored.
33:36If you found this story worth remembering, share your thoughts.
33:41Had you heard of the Battle of the Nile before?
33:43The battle of the Nile before.
33:43The battle of Nile before.