Nelson & His World

Nelson famously sent a flag of truce during the battle of Copenhagen because Danish ships which had already surrendered resumed firing on British ships. Nelson said that he 'must either send on shore and stop this irregular proceeding, or send in our fire ships and burn them', though the action has also been described as a 'ruse de guerre'.

Was it common to send flags of truce during a battle? If so, whose was the final decision to do so? Lord Nelson was only second in command at Copenhagen. Did he act without the approval of Admiral Parker for this course of action? And if so, was he contravening naval discipline in acting on his own authority?

Were there other circumstances in which a captain might send a flag of truce? For example, supposing a ship in difficulties - an unseaworthy vessel or widespread sickness among the crew, for example - encountered an enemy ship and was not in a position to engage it; might a captain send a flag of truce to ask to be spared attack and proceed unmolested, or would he have to surrender his ship?

Is there anything to distinguish a flag of truce from a flag indicating surrender? Or does the flag in both cases simply indicate a request to approach unmolested so that your intention can be made clear? If negotiations failed, how were hostilities opened or resumed? I assume the envoy allowed to return to his ship unharmed prior to any action?

Anna,

Whether Nelson's action was a 'ruse de guerre' or not, (a fact which is debateable and may have been a little of both) Hyde Parker had given the command of the squadron attacking the Danish batteries to Nelson, whilst he himself anchored to the North and effectively kept out of any fighting. Nelson thereafter probably assumed that there would be very little practical assistance coming from his Commander-in-Chief, both from what he knew of the man himself and the fact that it would have been very difficult to send any reinforcements due to the changing wind direction and the difficulties of navigation. There was also the distinct possibility that some of Parker's ships would have gone aground on coming down to join Nelson's squadron (three of whom also went aground) seeing that many were of deeper draught than those of the attacking force. (Nelson, you'll remember, exchanged his flagship 'St George' for the lighter draught 'Elephant', the former remaining with Parker's fleet.)

The effect of all of this was that Nelson would have expected to have full control of the ships under his immediate command and their effective employment in the battle. Being Nelson, he quite possibly assumed more than he might and certainly more than Parker expected, even to draughting the letter to the Danish Crown Prince calling for the armistice. However, an important point which had a bearing on the situation was the fact that Nelson, from his close vantage point, was in a far better position than Parker to assess the progress of the fighting and any action that needed to be taken. Unfortunately, either Parker wasn't going to concede that, or he wanted to remind Nelson that he was still the C-in-C, and thus issued the famous order for signal 39 to be hoisted - and from a position from where he couldn't possibly have known the actual situation. What happened as a result is of course well known, both from the casualities that resulted and Nelson's own actions. If the dithery Parker had kept his 'cool' and realised that Nelson would have used his shrewd judgement, this might have been avoided. Allied to that is the fact that few battle situations remain static and tactics and consequently orders have to be changed or modified to reflect that. Nelson would certainly have been aware of this and knew that it would have taken far too long, if not impossible, for him to get a message to his Commander-in-Chief as to what he should do! In any case that was not Nelson's style and he knew that such an action would only have prelonged, and possibly lost, the battle.

Basically there was a difference in the approach of the two men. Parker was cautious, hesitant and dithery, whilst Nelson was almost the complete opposite. The latter probably often wondered, as have historians since, why Hyde Parker was ever put in command of the British fleet in the Baltic. As to whether Nelson was contravening naval discipline, he himself obviously didn't think so and thought his actions were warranted. He had acted on his own initiative, of course, on other occasions, e.g. at St Vincent. His tenacity and intuition had paid off there, so why shouldn't it on this occasion? I believe his philosophy was always to take a calculated gamble and as he said just before Trafalgar, if all else fails, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of an enemy.

Regarding flags of truce in general, I don't think there are necessarily any 'rules' and each situation would have been treated differently. In any case why should an enemy commander play by any supposed regulations? If one were so disposed as to advertise the fact that your ship was thus disabled, that may have given him even more of an excuse to attack! I'm not sure many ship's captains would have done that, at least not in the first instance.

I'm afraid, that there were probably never any niceties, or certainties, in war.