Naval Historian Breaks Down 'Master and Commander' Movie | Deep Dives

Hello, my name is Dan Snow, I am passionate about

naval

history of the Napoleonic era and that is why one of my favorite films in the world is Master and Commander The Far Side of the World with Russell Crowe playing Captain Jack Aubrey in this

movie

review. be trying to separate fact from fiction this is history hits

deep

Dives you sure Mr. Holl yes sir Man of War I don't know sir it was just for a moment I thought I saw a shape did you see it Mr. Camie no sir? Seeing the enemy is obviously so important that there would be lookouts high up in the sea with visibility M with its changing weather, fog, its clouds were so sketchy that you have a big advantage if you see the enemy before he sees you and you.

He would have been scanning her eyes on the deck and in a loft. I in the rigging of the masts. I love the details on that boat. Look at it, it is corrected in every detail. The boats are being taken off the ship. They are towing some of the. the ship's boats behind would, in fact, have put the officer's luggage on those boats so that it would not have been damaged in the event of a firefight. The bell turned the hourglass upside down. So important that everything on board the ship had to work like clockwork. They had a system of clocks, they were called like shifts, people came up from below, people came down, ate and rested below deck and all the time was recorded with these hourglasses and time was obviously vital for navigation, too you had to know how far you were traveling and there.

You come down without a doubt in an amazing representation of a barrage that is apparently an enemy ship firing its cannons at you and, as you see here, you would have seen the flashes of any weapon long before the cannonballs hit the ship they are traveling on . slower, obviously, at the speed of light, all that wood and rope

breaks

into splinters when the iron cannonballs crash into it and you get that glowing impression, get close to Po's eye, drain the starb's battery. Mr. Allen, go up with the wind. the wind blames me along with a pistol shot, there you go, they are running out of weapons now, so on board you have blue coated sailors and red coated raw marines, they are like soldiers of the sea, armed with muskets, they could maybe fight closer and keep the officers safe from the mutiny take the section in the main stand on the far decks aren't we all I love how he drags the midshipman up he's a boy the midshipman took the boys when they were young like 9 10 11 years to see and eventually they could become midshipmen which is the lowest rank of officer, he says, stand up Mr.

Bole, raise your colors, hello sir, they understand

naval

jargon so well in this

movie

, it's one of the great lines, Mr. Bole. raise the colors, which means take out the flag, the enen shows that this ship is a British ship, you wouldn't have your national flag flying all the time, we get very worn out, but in battle, you run up, the colors show you to people who you are. the job of a Georgian naval officer was to show conspicuous leadership you had your uniform you had your epilepsy your insignia of rank and you would have been very conspicuous in the face of the enemy it is very dangerous to be a captain you are standing on the quarterdeck Just as Russell Crow is here as Jack Aubry is here here at the Battle of Trago, for example, British captains suffered terrible casualties because they were so exposed.

Hold your POS, watch the effects of those volleys crashing into those wooden walls. The big danger was not just the cannonball itself, but these splinters you can see here, supersonic fragments of razor-sharp wood spiraling through the air in the rising fire. You see, I love that you see the big, big ropes that hold up the cannon. the cannon when it recoils if the loose ones would crash against the decks they have to be held by these enormous ropes look at the complexity of that rigging there are kilometers of rope rigging on board and huge wooden poles held in the stern by all this rope and when the enemies They shoot, sometimes they use different types of shots, they use bar shots or large long iron bars that swing in the air and then they lower the massive rig sails, causing complete chaos on the deck of a ship, as it is causing a M surprise now brilliant depiction here of the surgeon uh covered in sleeves of blood people rolled up their sleeves waiting to be seen uh the surgeon would have been right in the bowels of the ship just below the water line very very dark you can see he would have been holes underneath from the waterline where they break the ship's air and the carpenter and the carpenter's companions were on standby in actions like this, they have been running with parcels of wood by simply knocking them into holes, you can see the list of the ship is now taken in The water, look, that's amazing, isn't it?

The effect of those cannonballs piercing those canvas sails. The French ship is using so-called bow chasers, so the cannons are mounted in the guts to try and get HMS surprise before she disappears. in the cloud bank you can see the water levels rising here you can see all the pumps. Manpower, of course, and human beings just pumping the boats' pumps running 24/48 to try to stop the water from rising on the boat. buges and when there was no wind this was this was common this was quite common when there was no wind you would uh put the boats on the boat uh you would tide the bait great into the bowels of the boat and try to tow that's what they're doing here they're dragging the ship towards silence in That is the most accurate representation in the history of cinema of a Napoleonic era Naval confrontation the special effects are amazing the language used the impact of cannonballs on a wooden ship is brutally realistic.

Captain Aubrey Russell Crow yells at his men to try to reduce range to reduce the distance between the theoretical ships. This is what you do when you take on a bigger ship because she has a bigger cannon. that can shoot further, so if you have a smaller cannon, you should get closer, try to stand on its face, get on its grill and use your weapons, it's a brave move to do that, take on a bigger ship, the other thing . It was also a British tactic because the British believed that the best way to win a battle at sea was to get close to the enemy and hit them with superior artillery.

The British tended to have better weapons technically, their crews were better trained and better trained, so to get close, hit them very, very hard until they give up the fight. The French usually want to stay away a little longer. They use their weapons to try to inflict damage on the enemy ship. type of move once they were seriously injured and that's actually what you see in this confrontation, so it's quite clever, these are the French combats, since they would actually want to fight, you move a little further away, you use your weapons Long, your weapons heavier. take down the sails to cause chaos on the enemy ship and if you can, take away the rudder so that the ship cannot be steered and at that point the enemy is prey, there is nothing they can do about it, you can close, you can decide, uh . the time, the scope and the intensity of the battle, all of these ships are powered by the wind, so obviously the wind is very important, the direction of the wind, the force of the wind, how it interacts with the tide and the current, of vital importance in these battles is Being against the wind is a little tricky, but these ships were very bad at sailing against the wind, you can basically Zig if the wind comes this way, you can zigzag like this, so if you are against the wind you can attack the enemy at the same time. and a speed of your choosing and you have much more ability to steer and maneuver than the enemy who has desperately tried to sail against the wind, so if they called that having the weather indicator and an enemy with the weather indicator was a very dangerous enemy, Can you I've had the weather gauge but we had the weather Gods I have no idea exactly what you're talking about but it didn't seem to go very well after 7 weeks of sailing and it happens in the dark at our exact position so maybe He was telling us searching.

This is so brutal, so realistic, and it would have been a great contrast, the noise and chaos of the battle, the navigation and the workings of the ship on the deck and then to the bowels of the ship, to the bottom of the ship, uh. and that's where these operations were carried out and you see the doctor, the surgeon applying a Tay, you see him having to bite it, just no anesthetic and good surgeons could rip off an arm in a matter of seconds and that could be the difference between saving . one life you you would use a razor to cut the flesh they would fold the skin back and then they would use a bone a bone this is hard to see and you know it's a boy uh midshipman it's a boy Nelson went to sea when he was only 12 years old , it was very normal for young children to be at sea in this period, in this case they operated without anesthesia, so amputating limbs was a very, very common procedure in Nelson's Navy.

Nelson himself had his right arm amputated, what if? If you suffer damage that cannot be repaired, you know the bone was broken, there were splinters in the arm, there was damage to the blood vessels, you can't repair that, in this period of human history, so the only option is to take it off. . because if you leave that arm terribly injured it will become infected, you will get blood poisoning and it will go up your arm and kill you, so the strongest medicine here is to remove the arm quickly, apply the torni and sew it up. I have never seen a braver patient, there were no qualifications needed for a ship surgeon, he just found someone who set up as a surgeon, came with his bag of tools and that was them in this movie, they set up the Dr. as someone. who's a little bit higher, he's actually a doctor, he's actually a, he's also had medical practice on land and they're all very proud of the fact that they have a really good doctor on board, but a lot of ships would have had doctors like that.

They were a little better than the butchers, they were actually good at cutting meat, uh, and they would have had to do it, they would have had to work in very, very dark, confined, smelly rooms, right in the depths of the ship, flickering lamps and candles, there would have been the moans of wounded men all around them uh they would have been very short staffed to try to care for these men so they have been kept in horrible conditions they have to wait to see the doctor. Nelson was taken down H Victory when He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Traal, they took him down and he said to the surgeon: no, no, don't look at me, my spine is shot, first take care of these other men, so we have the feeling that there was a long line of men. waiting to be seen in the gap help in the m g this is just a fantastic representation of a storm at sea it is one of the most difficult things to film and make unrealistic because you can't really film in a giant storm at sea in a boat like that, the effects are spectacular, they lose their rigging, which is very, very normal, you know, after months at sea, the wood rots, the ropes become loose, you know, it is very, very normal that pieces of the boat break and the rigging often falls off the boat.

There may be men in a LOFT at the time, men in the rigging and here they lose a Man Overboard. Now Russell Crow, the captain, has to make a split-second decision here and this was very normal. This was something that happened quite frequently. That's why The captains had the power of life and death literally because the rig acts like a giant. Anor uh, it's restricting the ship's ability to move to meet the waves and take on the ocean and that means the ship is in danger of sinking and being flooded. so Russell has to make a split second decision: do you try to cut the fallen rigging but death or definitively condemn that man to death or do you try to keep the rigging attached to the boat and hope that it can somehow crawl back up? ? and here they make the decision to cut the rigging, which is the right decision because it saves the ship, it saves the men, but it means that one of their beloved crew, one of their comrades, is sent into the ocean condemned to a certain frozen death. and and the way they would cut the rigging is exactly like this, there were so many different ropes holding those broken pieces of mast and mast together, you have to cut it all off, you used axes, uh, and these axes were available on the ship.

They were used to cut rigging, but they were also used for hand-to-hand fighting when the enemy was boarding your ship, so they are very versatile tools. Tragic moment, absolutely tragic. I read an account of a ship at this time. Commanding Thomas Cochran, when the same thing happened, he had to make a split-second decision on whether to try to save the man who fell overboard or let him die to save the ship, and as you can see, the ship was almost breaking down. sinking there. Being dragged down was like having a huge sea anchor with waves breaking on the side.through, basically, windows and then, by getting rid of that enormous drag, the ship writes itself and then can continue sailing, but the man stays in the Southern Ocean and can only hope to live a few minutes and in those conditions fight fighting a storm was as complicated and required as much skill as fighting the enemy and the crew would have had all kinds of techniques that they would have used to try to save the ship.

In a storm like that, first of all, you actually carry a lot of the mass down, like a Lego ship, you can almost take them, you put them down, you put them underneath, so you just have the bits of the mass on top. you have little leftovers, you don't put on much sail, just enough to allow you to steer the boat, but not too much that the wind catches you and pushes you or makes you go too fast through the waves, so there are all kinds of things , one thing they would do is place chains like anchor chains behind the ship. to try to slow down if that's what you need to do to not be surfing these huge waves, so they would employ all kinds of techniques, they had to be as expert at fighting the weather as they had to be experts at fighting the enemy, you Spanish ladies, the ladies of music and songs were really important on the royal neighboring ships, it was the only form of entertainment, you didn't have any of our modern devices, so singing would have reminded you of home, It would have reminded your loved ones that it's fun, they can do it.

Together they would have sung to do heavy work as a work song too so the music plays the FES drums, very very important on Royal Navy ships and I love this scene because you get a feeling of life at sea , you are not just seeing the fighting, you are not seeing the storms, the drama, you are having the moments of domesticity that would have been reality for men, long periods of time away from their homes, hoping for a moment to see you again, What a wonderfully true voice, Mr. Holland. owns in fact and then you get a nasty twist here because the midshipman joins in and the crew is obviously against him.

I think you like it when any group of human beings gets together, there will be outliers, there will be politics and this poor midshipman. He just found himself in a very strange position of being rejected by the rest of the crew and that must have been horrible CU there is nowhere to go to keep the crew happy it is one of the captain's most important jobs and a lot of that is food, water and alcohol, what you have to do, you have to support them physically, uh, the alcohol ration was incredibly important when they ran out of alcohol, that was a terminal event in a Royal Navy on a Royal Navy ship, too We have Encourage them to enjoy their work, to sing, to have camaraderie and a lot of that is achieved through good leadership, showing men that you are worthy of their trust, you are worthy of their obedience and that you are going to get the job done. .

Going to get them home safely is like KCK saying that on the morning of the battle he doesn't have the guts to fight in quarters, then his entire gun team dies except for him, as soon as he climbs the mizzen, Will Falls and Who was the guard? when we lost the wind, so every morning the boat would own the deck, that's what you see here, they are cleaning the deck, they are scrubbing off the day's dirt and washing it, it was a key part of the daily routine and it was have faced this half Shipman, he has trouble establishing his authority and this must have been very normal, you are a young man, you have no experience and you have people under your supervision, you have people who are much older than you, much older experienced that you, there, Stand Fast Master, arms, take that man below and grab him.

Hi sir. Mr. Pulls defaults us to eight bells. Hi sir. Captain Aubry obviously has a zero tolerance policy on these occasions and says he already knows. He says we are going to discipline eight bells, which is the time of day when eight bells were rung. He was deliberately insubordinate. I'll say it, sir, I'll be a lot tougher on them from now on. make friends with the ex Jack, in the end they will despise you, they will think that you are weak and you don't need to be a tyrant, no sir, the problem with mutinies is that they probably start with small things, it's like a slow process and that's why captains they would. be right, look for any signs of mutiny or mouth content, there is a very famous mutiny during the French wars that is famous because it is very unusual and it was in 1997 in the Caribbean when a particularly tyrannical captain was killed and his ship taken over his crew was on HMS hman there was the famous Mutiny on the Bounty where Captain Blye was put on a small bow there were big naval mutinies in the port anchorages of England in the late 1790s, but those had to do with uh low wages, the inflation rate had risen, it's a cost of living crisis, so there were some mutinies and they were often focused on ships with particularly tyrannical captains, but the vast majority of Royal Navy ships were occupied of their affairs without major disciplinary problems. passes twice as an abandoned tenant I know your habits, you are not bad, you have the knowledge that you cannot spend the rest of your life in a shipment, he is talking here about becoming an abandoned tenant, basically there was an exam, although although in The Navy depended a lot on sponsorship and having important and rich political connections.

The Navy valued seamanship and you couldn't fake that and they made you take an exam to become a leftist tenant and Russell Crow asks this midshipman why he didn't pass the exam. and he can't spend the rest of his life being a midshipman look H, it's leadership they want strength now you find it within yourself and you will earn their respect without respect true discipline overlooks difficult to observe this part you see the tied man to the fence now whipping depending on the ship was very common or very unusual in the Navy in this period some captains refused to whip most captains use whips as a last result some captains whipped a lot the boson would have a kind of rope ball that he went around beating people from time to time if he felt like it, that was a low level punishment, uh, and then whipping was a more formal procedure, the ship's company gathered officers who wore their best uniforms, uh, and a man would be tied to the railing and then whipped by the boson or Bon's companion with a cat and Ninetails like a whip with nine types of tentacles with knots and it would cause terrible damage to a man's back and to the sailors in many sails . of the time they would have had scars on their backs due to whipping and in this period it was considered essential to maintain discipline, the ship if discipline was broken it was thought that the ship would be just a rabble of men they would not be capable of.

If they worked together they would not be able to get home safely or carry out their mission, the hierarchy had to be respected and that is why Russell Crow very reluctantly I think agrees with the flogging of this man, this scene is so powerful that everyone is pulling their arms. Look at a gesture of respect towards an officer, but of course they're doing it ironically, aren't they? He had to fight his way through crammed debt, he would have been absolutely packed with people, an incredibly intimidating scene, these are the people you have to do. living next door serving next door for years has lost its respect and respect is a very, very difficult thing to hear to rebuild and you realize how small that community was, how intense those experiences were, Mr.

Har, you You made a start like that, you feel better. Now, much better, thank you. This is a very sad subplot in this movie. This is the story of Midshipman Holl, who is convinced that he is the source of all the bad luck ships experience. I think they would have been very, very superstitious. Sailors in this were famous for being superstitious. and he came to see himself as a so-called joner. He came to see himself as someone responsible for all the bad things that happen on the ship. He's not happy that the crew doesn't like him.

He has caused people to be whipped. He gets no respect. There's a nice detail here. He grabs a cannonball before jumping overboard because he knows that will suck him to death very, very quickly. There is a common practice at this time. Burial at sea H where you would tie someone to something. canvas you'd put cannonballs with them to suck them into the depths, try to stop the sharks from eating their carcasses, bye BL, you watch him disappear like that and that's the end of M Shipman H, you don't read about many. Suicides in this do come up from time to time and I think if someone is obviously experiencing some sort of mental health crisis as a result of the trauma that he has gone through from the extraordinary scenes of battle, the illness, the hardships that he experienced at sea.

It wouldn't be so strange for someone to want to end it all, particularly in this case he had been rejected by his community, he felt like a failure, he felt like he wouldn't be able to regain his place within the community. the hearts of men is a very very sad subplot it's kind of weird mister fmid it's an insect that disguises itself as a stick to confuse its predators hurry up or they'll see you and can't leave that's fine just come and get some SLS guys, Now I know there is not a weak heart among you and I know you are as eager as I am to get into close action, but we must bring him to our side before we spring this trap that will test our nerves and discipline will count as much as courage.

Topman, your handling of the sheets to be soft and unsure until the sign that tells the best men are the men at the top of the M who are going to be Manning. He tells the Cs what he wants them to do to keep the ship sailing. He tells the guys who handle the weapons. EX exactly what he wants them to do. They will deal maximum damage to the enemy ship when it approaches. He tells the Marines that he wants them to fire their musket and sweep the enemy deck trying to shoot the enemy. Enemy captain, abandoned tenants, they want to take us as a prize and we are worth more to them, without damage, their greed will be their downfall.

Well this is an impressive display of leadership and this is what it is like to be a Navy captain in this period, you had to be a charismatic leader, you had to give speeches to boost the morale of your men, you also had to be an expert navigator. , you had to be a craftsman. you had to know how the ship worked how you could repair it you had to be a meteorologist you have to do it you have to be a warrior you have to do everything and Captain Aubry embodies he gives a great speech here he is doing two things he is trying to cheer up his men , giving them courage, preparing them for the fight, encouraging them, giving them a team talk, but you're also giving them a very, very clear description of what they need to do in battle to come out victorious, so those are two very important roles.

England. is under threat of invasion and even though we are on the other side of the world this ship is our home this ship is England and what you are saying is that even though we are on a small ship on the other side of the planet floating This is still Great Britain and in Britain we do things correctly, we maintain the tradition of the Royal Navy, we fight as loyal subjects of His British Majesty King George III, so he tells them how they are going to win the battle, but he also tells them: do your duty. duty as British, so every hand is on its rope or weapon.

He speeds up the word and sharpens the action after all the surprises on our side, he has a great line after all the surprises on our side because they are in the HMS. Surprise, they have the big ship that they know and trust the ships on their side and they also surprise on their side because they are going to surprise the enemy. Everything was fair in Love and War and there are examples in this period of the Royal Navy flying the flag of different countries. account neutral Denmark United States things like that to lure the enemy close to them if you are going to engage an enemy ship that is larger it has a more powerful cannon than you need to find a way to try to get close to them and so you can use other Tactics to defeat them, like boarding them, like sending your crew aboard that ship to simply capture it with cold steel, it is not uncommon in this period to receive reports of ships disguised as others. types of ships such as goods and ships that are intended to be bait or that are a rich whaling or merchant ship with a hold full of valuable commercial goods and that will attract the enemy will act as bait, they are not going to want to shoot you with their cannon because they don't want to lose the value of what you have in the hold of your ship and that is why they will approach and try to capture you, but if at that moment you reveal If you are a warship, then you have a great advantage because you are ready to fight, you can get that first broadside vital to try to cause harm and then continue to address them.

You see captains like the famous Thomas Cochran who, uh, we're pretty sure this characterIt's based on the movie Captain Aubry, it does things like that, it gets really close using deception and then launches surprise attacks, you just have your enemy where you want them, you escape, you raise your colors. your flag you say that we are actually a warship and that is where the expression comes from to show your true color. This comes from you having the tightest deck of weapons in the refrigerator. It's really not tall enough for a tall person to stand upright. We're all doubled over waiting for the Friendship to close steadily now Guys, stay calm English Weller, this is Aeron, what's up?

You have no chance, no chance, but you have a strong warning, stop now or we will destroy your ship. English Weller, this is the last one. warning, stop now or we will destroy you, release, release, but there we go soon, as they approach, they hit, the Enon sounds, the weapons run out, they go to the loopholes and fire a massive barrage at very, very close, all trying to hit. the main MK there shoots down the main M with friendship and you have the marines there, they are firing their muskets, they are trying to shoot the French on the deck and the lieutenant goes along the gun line that would have done it, He is making sure each gun is aimed correctly, some are cited correctly and then he pulls that string.

It is connected to a flint lock mechanism, a spark falls, turns on the power to charge and the ball is launched towards the barrel of the gun, there goes the main mast down the side of the ship, if you lose your main mast, you're in big big trouble. Problems in this period, it means that your ship is, you will not be able to steal your ship, you will not be able to maneuver it, and now, now, the plans work, they have deactivated the friendship that they are going to direct, they bring their other barrage. They have two sets of cannons.

They have a set of cannons on each side of the ships. They carry the other side to aim and rake the enemy ship. This is the worst thing that can happen to your boat. to get breached, that means an enemy barrage is firing across your ship, it's the Fallen Mar, we can't stand by, form a group and cross the rec as best you can, I'll draw your fire division forward to join Mr. Pul luckily, so here it goes, now they are going to board the ship. If you have a smaller ship with less powerful artillery on board, you want to finish the action as soon as you can.

The way to do it is to address. the ship takes them by surprise uh use your aggression destroy their will to fight and there goes Captain Aubrey directly to the enemy deck leading his men like the captains would have done uh in those encounters men who come in Spar pieces of wreckage using it Like Bridges, I'm not sure how realistic this part is yet when you let the entire British crew come aboard the ship but they see the wreckage, the destruction of its sides, it looks like the job is Dan, here we go, the French are fighting back .

You can see muskets with beets on the end, so when you shoot, you have that sharp piece of steel on the end. Like a knife, a dagger on the end of your musket, you can use it as a spear. The officers would have carried guns The marines firing volleys fighting more like soldiers in a ground battle and then it's hand to hand a savage battle in five very close quarters using axes using guns bayonets Marlin pickaxes things that come handy pieces of equipment that you would use um to sail the ship and then this is a terrible example of artillery at very close range.

You would use grapeshot to pack the barrel not with a large cannonball, but basically with a soft pack of spinning musket balls. Convert it into a giant shotgun that would cause a terrible and terrible death to the enemy crew. There are examples from the Battle of Trafala, dozens of men killed. A cannon volley is a savage battle captain face to face or Aubry calling for grenades. a small metal sphere filled with gunpowder with a small fuse on top that would have caused terrible damage and tight spaces to sink it right there we were B when the ships are side by side like this, there are times when We know that the cannon can't be pressed hard enough to fire at the ship below, so we have a very strange situation where the gun batteries can't actually engage the enemy Captain Aubry, who cuts his way below deck by cutting a swinging through the enemy ship, interesting for you, you wouldn't have time to reload the guns while fighting CU, each one probably took at least 30 seconds or so, so you would have had rows of loaded guns around your neck at the ready to be ready to use that weapon I feel the fatigue there, fighting and Aubry just sweating exhausted after three or four minutes of fierce action, they have hit their colors, I think so, sir, it is the captain, the side that has not yet, sir, in the battle reaches its end. most SE battles in this period ended with one side displaying their colors and that means removing their flag even in the disorder and the D and smoke of battle which you could often detect if on deck the flag marks the star. stern and if the flag was lowering, if it was lowered, that usually meant it was over, you laid down your weapons, the ship had surrendered.

Dr. I did what I could for him before the capan died, he said I should give him this, but this. it's where the director the screenwriter I'm a little funny because I don't think there's much basis in the historical record for this but they capture the ship they the crew but they don't know where the captain is so many injured just that poor unfortunate Higgins detained is still better than no doctor I met that doctor I talked to him no, he died with fever months ago guessing it oh, the doctor gave me this sword so Mr.

M changed course Southeast to East we will intercept the acro and escort them to valiza and that prepares the whole sequel, which unfortunately never happened. I hope you enjoyed this Master and Commander movie review if you want to see more of our

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