England expects that every man will do his duty Totally Explained

Everything about England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty totally explained

"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.

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 [for exampleis 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'):
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. The exact time the signal was sent isn't known (one account puts it as early as ten-thirty), 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. 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, 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. The word "duty" wasn't in the codebook, and wasn't substituted as "confides" had been (the two closest words "best" and "utmost" were not deemed appropriate), so had to be spelt out, meaning the whole message required twelve "lifts". (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.
The message "engage the enemy more closely" was Nelson's final signal to the fleet, sent at 12.15 pm, This message was signalled using the telegraphic flag and flags 1 and 6. Nelson ordered this signal hauled up and kept aloft. It remained up until shot away during the battle.
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 hadn't 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. although the signal flags are displayed all at once, running from fore to aft, rather than hoisted from the mizzenmast.

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.

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 Battle of Britain. Charles Dickens quotes it in Martin Chuzzlewit: ť "...as the poet informs us, England expects Every man to do his duty, England is the most sanguine country on the face of the earth, and will find itself continually disappointed."

In Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, the Bellman says: ť "For England Expects — I forbear to proceed. Tis a maxim tremendous, but trite."

It was also referenced by Margaret Thatcher during her crucial speech to the cabinet which finally persuaded them to rally behind her over the divisive issue of the Poll Tax. 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. The phrase is said by a character on a raft in Jaws 2 pretending that he's a British naval commander just before the shark attacks.
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. Such is the sentence's connotation with sport that a recent book on the history of the England national football team by James Corbett was entitled England Expects. A BBC Scotland television drama also bears its name.

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