Bad Boss

5 ASSESS: the situation

Admiral Horatio Nelson, considered perhaps Britain's greatest naval commander, had a long and distinguished career culminating in his decisive victory over the heavier combined fleet of France and Spain at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Britain's main advantage over France during the Napoleonic Wars was its naval superiority. A central part of its strategy, therefore, was to use that power to blockade the French naval ports, frustrating Napoleon's invasion plans, and to cut off trade with France by other nations, such as Denmark, which had joined the Second League of Armed Neutrality, created to counter this threat to their trade.

After rounds of failed diplomacy, a British fleet was sent to Copenhagen to force Denmark's hand and potentially secure an alliance to prevent the Danish navy falling into Napoleon's hands. Entering the harbour, the British ships were met by a Danish–Norwegian fleet determined to defend the capital. At one point in the battle, Nelson's superior, the more cautious Sir Hyde Parker, worrying that his second-in-command was suffering huge losses, hoisted the signal for all ships to disengage.

Nelson chose to ignore this signal, claiming he didn't see it. He had ostentatiously raised his telescope to the eye that had been blinded eight years earlier at the Battle of Corsica. An hour later the Danish ships were in ruins, and victory was Nelson's. This is often attributed as the origin of the saying to ‘turn a blind eye'.

Nelson ...