For the fifth time in 352 years, Britain's Royal Navy set forth last week to meet a major challenge to Britannia's rule of the waves. Under Effingham in 1588, Britain acquired that rule by beating the Armada of Spain in the English Channel. The French Navy of Louis XIV was vanquished at La Hogue (1692). Since then four other masters of bulging European powers have forced a showdown on that rule. Under Nelson at Aboukir Bay in 1798 and at Trafalgar in 1805 Britain's fleet crushed Napoleon's dream of making France an overseas...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
