Comment by alcuin

A British loss at Trafalgar would not have prevented the Prussians from tipping the scale in favor of the anti-Napoleonic coalition at Waterloo ten years later. And for good reason: continental Europe was the center of world power, the main chessboard where it was measured and exercised, not overseas backwater where naval blockades could only go so far. And I'm only paraphrasing Brzezinski's famous book here.