Today’s commemorations of the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar were “watered down” to avoid upsetting allies, its organiser admitted today.
Plans were altered to prevent the 200th anniversary events of Britain’s naval victory offending the French and Spanish, both of whom sent huge aircraft carriers to take part.
Peter Workman, chairman of the International Festival of the Sea, said that his plans for the events involving a multinational fleet off southern England had not developed in the hands of contractors as he would have wanted.
“If I’d have done it properly we’d have just called it Trafalgar and said that’s it, but it’s got a little bit watered down,” he told the news agency AFP by telephone, from a Thames river barge off the coast of Portsmouth.
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“It’s a shame not to be more up front with everything. It is one of those things where people were a little bit too sensitive to what the French might feel about it. This is a period in history where sensitivity is to the fore.
“This is a shared experience: there were heroes on every side at Trafalgar.”
Navy officers had earlier denied charges of “political correctness”, levelled after it emerged that tonight’s re-enactment plans merely involve skirmishes between “red” and “blue” teams of tall ships without explicit national symbols.
The decisive naval battle was fought on October 21, 1805 off the southern coast of Spain. Mr Workmans said that tonight’s sound and light show off the Portsmouth coast promises to be spectacular, using a blaze of cannon, smoke and fireworks to recreate what has been billed as “a Nelson-era battle”.
Some 17 tall ships from five different nations are preparing to take part, ending in a massive firework display to represent the great storm that beset both fleets after the original battle.
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“What is going to take place is not the Battle of Trafalgar. A lot of it is as much of Trafalgar as can be achieved,” Mr Workman said.
“It will be an extraordinarily exciting extravaganza on the water. It is pure theatre with a hell of a lot of action and explosions.”
Mr Workman admitted that the furore over “red” and”blue” teams may have worked in his favour. “It led to a lot more coverage than it would have done,” he added.
The great great great granddaughter of Admiral Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton was dismissive of the plans to reduce the battle re-enactment to a skirmish between blue and red sides.
“I am anti-political correctness. Very much against it. It makes fools of us,” said 75-year-old Anna Tribe.
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“I think the idea of the blue team fighting the red team is pretty stupid. I am sure the French and Spanish are adult enough to appreciate we did win that battle,” she added.
The historian playing Nelson in the mock battle was equally annoyed. “If you obliterate history for the sake of political correctness, you can’t learn from the past. Nelson thought politicians were cowards. I tend to agree,” Alex Naylor said.
But Captain Steve Bramley, Royal Navy director of marketing and publicity, denied that a full-scale recreation would have been possible in any case.
“We haven’t got that number of ships. The real battle was well over 70 ships. There’s not the sea room and there’s no way we could recreate the conditions,” he told a press launch earlier this month.