England expects that every man will do his duty
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"England expects that every man will do his duty" was a signal sent by Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson from his flagship HMS Victory as the Battle of Trafalgar was about to commence on October 21, 1805. Trafalgar was the decisive naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. It gave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland control of the seas, removing all possibility of a French invasion and conquest of Britain. Although there was much confusion surrounding the wording of the signal in the aftermath of the battle, the significance of the victory and Nelson's death during the battle led to the phrase becoming embedded in the English psyche, and it has been regularly quoted, paraphrased and referenced up to the modern day.<ref>Daniel Mandel (2005-12). The ‘secret’ history of the Anglosphere. IPA Review. Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref>
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[edit] Signals during the battle
As the British fleet closed with the opposing combined fleets of France and Spain, Lord Nelson signalled all the necessary battle instructions to his ships. However, aware of the momentousness of events to come, Lord Nelson felt that something extra was required. He instructed his signal officer, Lieutenant John Pasco, to signal to the fleet, as quickly as possible, the message "England confides [i.e. is confident] that every man will do his duty." Pasco suggested to Nelson that expects be substituted for confides, since the former word was in the signal book, whereas confides would have to be spelt out letter-by-letter. Nelson agreed to the change (even though 'expects' gave a less trusting impression than 'confides'):<ref name="HMS">Nelson and His Navy - England or Nelson?. Historical Maritime Society. Retrieved on 2006-09-12.</ref>
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The term England was widely used at the time to refer to the United Kingdom, though the British fleet included significant contingents from Ireland, Scotland and Wales as well as England. Thus, at around 11:45 am on October 21, 1805, the most famous naval signal in British history was sent.<ref name="aboutnelson">England Expects. aboutnelson.co.uk. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> <ref name="trafsignals">Trafalgar signals. Broadside. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> The exact time the signal was sent is not known (one account puts it as early as ten-thirty),<ref>Lieutenant Paul Harris Nicholas, Royal Marines, HMS Belleisle (1805-10-12). Battle of Trafalgar. Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref> as the message was repeated throughout the fleet and logs would have been written up after the battle, but Pasco puts it at "about a quarter to noon" and logs from other ships of the line also put it close to this time.<ref name="NS" />
The signal was relayed using the numeric flag code known as the "Telegraphic Signals of Marine Vocabulary", devised in 1800 by Rear Admiral Sir Home Popham, and based on the signal books created earlier by Admiral Lord Howe.<ref name="popham">Popham's Signal flags. Flags of the World (2006-04-29). Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> This code assigned the digits 0 to 9 to ten signal flags. These flags in combination represented code numbers which were assigned meanings by a code book,<ref name="signals">D.Bolton (2002-06-14). Signals. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> distributed to all Royal Navy ships and weighted with lead for disposal overboard in case of capture. The code numbers are believed to have been hoisted on the mizzenmast, one after another, with the "telegraphic flag" also being flown to show that the signals employed Popham's code.<ref name="gordon">Gordon, W.J. (1930). Flags of the World. Past and Present: Their Story and Associations. Frederick Warne and Co.: London and New York, 147.</ref> The word "duty" was not in the codebook, and was not substituted as "confides" had been (the two closest words "best" and "utmost" were not deemed appropriate),<ref name="ee">England Expects. Flags of the World (2005-12-31). Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> so had to be spelt out, meaning the whole message required twelve "lifts".<ref name="signal">Barrie, Kent (1993). Signal! A History of Signalling in the Royal Navy. Hyden House Ltd, 7,100.</ref> (The word "duty" was coded as shown as the numbers 1-25 stood for the letters A-Z, without J. Moreover, in the alphabet of that time V preceded U.) It is believed that it would have taken about four minutes.<ref name="signal" /> A team of four to six men, led by Lt. Pasco, would have prepared and hoisted the flags onboard Lord Nelson's flagship HMS Victory. The message shows one of the shortcomings of Popham's code - even the two-letter "do" required three flags hoisted for the signal.<ref name="ee" /> It is reported that a great cheer went up as the signal was hoisted and repeated throughout the fleet.<ref name="NMM1">Signal Flags. National Maritime Museum. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref>
The message "engage the enemy more closely" was Nelson's final signal to the fleet, sent at 12.15 pm,<ref name="trafsignals" /> before a single British cannon had been fired at the enemy.<ref>Andidora, Ronald W. (2000). Iron Admirals: Naval Leadership in the Twentieth Century. Greenwood Press, 5. ISBN 0-313-31266-4.</ref> This message was signalled using the telegraphic flag and flags 1 and 6. Nelson ordered this signal hauled up and kept aloft.<ref name="trafsignals">Battle of Trafalgar. Broadside. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> It remained up until shot away during the battle.<ref name="NS"/>
[edit] After the battle
Image:England expects .....JPG Almost immediately, the signal began to be misquoted. A number of ships in the fleet recorded the signal as "England expects every man to do his duty," (omitting "that" and replacing "will" with "to"). This version became so prevalent that it is recorded around the base of Nelson's Column and on his tomb in St. Paul's Cathedral.<ref name="HMS" /> However, the Victory's log and the accounts of signal officer John Pasco and Henry Blackwood (captain of the frigate Euryalus), both present at the preparation of the signal, agree on the form given here.<ref name="HMS" /> In 1811, the tenor John Braham composed a song, "The Death of Nelson", including the words of the signal. The song became popular almost immediately and was performed throughout the British Empire during 19th century. To make the words fit the metre, they were altered to "England expects that every man this day will do his duty". This version of the wording is also persistent.<ref name="SB">An A to Z of Nelson:E - England Expects… Vice-Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson. SeaBritain 2005 (2005). Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref>
Between 1885 and 1908 it was believed that the signal had been sent using the 1799 code book, as in 1885 it was pointed out that this had not been replaced until 1808. In 1908 it was discovered, the Admiralty had, in fact, changed the signal code in November 1803, after the 1799 version had been captured by the French, and new code books had been issued to Nelson's fleet at Cadiz in September, 1805. As a result, books published between these two dates show the signal using the wrong flags.<ref name="ee" />
The signal is still hoisted on the Victory at her dry dock in Portsmouth on Trafalgar Day (21 October) every year,<ref name="NMM2">England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty. National Maritime Museum. Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref> although the signal flags are displayed all at once, running from fore to aft, rather than hoisted from the mizzenmast.
[edit] Similar signals
Nelson's famous signal has been imitated in other navies of the world. Napoleon ordered the French translation, "La France compte que chacun fera son devoir", to be displayed on French vessels.<ref name="SB" /> Before the Battle of Tsushima, Japanese Admiral Togo (who had studied naval science in England from 1871 to 1878) signalled to his fleet: "The fate of the Empire depends upon today's battle: let every man do his utmost".<ref name="telegraph">Colin Joyce (2005-01-06). Japan proudly flies battleflag again. Telegraph.co.uk.</ref>
[edit] References in popular culture
The phrase has become well known in England because of Lord Nelson's enduring fame and the importance of the Battle of Trafalgar in British history. Generations of English schoolchildren have been taught about Trafalgar, alongside other seminal moments of English history such as the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, the Gunpowder Plot, and the Blitz.
The phrase is known so widely in England that it has entered the English popular consciousness: Charles Dickens quotes it in Martin Chuzzlewit; in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, the Bellman says: "For England Expects — I forbear to proceed. Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite."; a BBC Scotland television drama bears its name;<ref>England Expects. BBC (2004-03-18). Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref> and further afield, it has been used by James Joyce in his novel, Ulysses which contains numerous repetitions of Nelson's message, including several that are deliberately fragmented or misquoted (even as "Ireland expects every man will do his duty"). In the United States, former Secretary of the Navy, Gordon England, wore a tie with the flags representing the famous quote when he visited naval vessels.<ref>Remarks by Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, At Western Connecticut Council Navy League, Stamford Yacht Club, Stamford, Conn. (2002-02-18). Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref>
Today "England expects…", as an abbreviated version of the phrase, is often adapted for use in the media, especially in relation to the expectations for the victory of English sporting teams.<ref>England expects.... BBC (2005-09-07). Retrieved on 16 September, 2006.</ref><ref>Rick Broadbent (2005-11-12). Great Expectations. Times Online. Retrieved on 17 September, 2006.</ref> Such is the sentence's connotation with sport that a recent book on the history of the England football team by James Corbett was entitled England Expects. Comedian and actor Brendan Dempsey gave his 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival show the same title.
[edit] Notes
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