October 21, 1805, Battle of Trafalgar
A decisive victory for the Royal Navy that confirmed British supremacy at sea, not to be challenged again in the nineteenth century. Soon after it, at the Guildhall dinner, the Lord Mayor toasted William Pitt, the Prime Minister, as the "saviour of Europe". Pitt's response has gone down in history as one of the finest sentences uttered by a British politician:
I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, I trust, save Europe by her example.
Sadly for Pitt, the war on land was not going well enough for him to witness a victory. He died the following year.
0 comments:
Post a Comment