Dawlish Chronicles

Guest Blog by Geri Walton

Geri Walton

It is my pleasure to host historian Geri Walton on my blog today. Geri is a specialist on the late 18^th century. I find her splendidly researched website a huge source of delight and you can find out more about her and her work at the end of this article. She has chosen as her subject today one of the most notable actions fought by that paladin of the Age of Fighting Sail, Edward Pellew. We’ve met him on previous blogs (Rescue against all odds: Pellew and the Dutton1796, posted 29^th January 2016 and HMS Indefatigable vs. Droits de l’Homme 1797, posted 16^th May 2014, both of which can be found via the sidebar) but now we encounter him at the very outset of the Revolutionary War in 1793. This was the start of two decades almost continuous conflict between Britain and France in which Pellew was to advance, deservedly, to the first rank of commanders. Over then to Geri!

Beating the French: HMS Nympheversus Cléopâtre

In 1793, during the French Revolutionary Wars, one of the most celebrated naval encounters that occurred was between a British frigate (HMS Nymphe) and the French frigate (Cléopâtre). It all began a month earlier, when the Cléopâtreand another frigate called the Sémillante, were successfully raiding British shipping merchants in the English Channel and Eastern Atlantic. To stop the raids, the British ordered the HMS Nymphe, and the 36-gun HMS Venus into action.

Edward Pellew (1757-1833)
Consummate naval commander
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

On June 17, the 32-gun Nymphe was cruising off the Devon Coast at daybreak. It was captained
by Edward Pellew and was carrying 240 men, with at least half of the crew inexperienced. It seems that because the press gangs had swept Portsmouth clean of seaman, Pellew's crew consisted of 32 marines, 80 Cornish tin-miners, and the remainder of the men were acquired from merchant vessels Pellew was escorting. It was while commanding this less than stellar crew that Pellew noticed a strange sail in the distance and decided to investigate.

Pellew quickly discovered the strange sail was the French frigate Cléopâtre. It was a 32-gun frigate, designed by Jacques-Noël Sané with a coppered hull, and it was carrying 320 men. As it was one of the French frigates that had been conducting raids against the British, Pellew gave chase. Initially, the Cléopâtre, which was captained by Lieutenant de Vaisseau Jean Mullon, fled, but realizing the Nymphe possessed the advantage and was bound to overtake them, Mullon turned the Cléopâtre and headed towards the Nymphe.

At a little before six the two frigates passed each other within hail, and as they did both crews cheered loudly. It was heady experience for the British and French crews as each side was filled with the hope of victory. The French Captain Mullon waved his hat and exclaimed, "Vive la Nation!"He then turned and addressed his crew, holding the red cap of liberty, which he waved before them. At the end of his speech, the crew "renewed their cheers and the cap was given to a sailor, who ran it up the main rigging and screwed it on the mast head."

Pellew observed this and as he was holding his own hat in his hand, he raised it to his head, which was a "preconcerted signal for the Nymphe's artillery to open." Thus, at 6:15 "a furious action commenced."The Nympheopened fire with a broadside shot against the starboard quarter of the Cléopâtre, and then the ships were "yard-arm and yard-arm; the sails and rigging being completely intermixed." This resulted in the men in the tops assailing one another because of their closeness.

Despite the two vessels being closely matched, it quickly became evident that the French frigate was taking the worst of it. Soon after the "Cléopâtre's mizen-mast was shot away; and in a quarter of an hour afterwards her wheel." This made her ungovernable and "in consequences of this double disaster she fell on board her opponent."Part of the Nymphe's crew then rushed onto the "Cléopâtre's forecastle, and another party...board[ed] through the main deck ports…fighting their way along the gangways to the quarter-deck." It took ten minutes before the Cléopâtre's colors were struck.

Drawing of the action by Nicholas Pocock (1740 - 1821)
Though a preliminary sketch for a later work, this conveys the excitement of the action superbly(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The duration of the battle was a short fifty-five minutes, and even though the British Nymphe may have won, it was damaged. The Nymph's"fore and main-mast were much damaged and her main and mizen stays shot away; as was the greater part of her sails, shrouds, and running rigging."As for the Cléopâtre, besides losing her mizzen-mast and wheel, she also suffered damage to her sails, rigging, and hull. Each side also lost men: The killed and wounded on board the Cléopâtre was sixty-three compared to fifty on the Nymphe.

Israel Pellew (1758-1832)
in later life(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

The Nymphe limped home and arrived at Portsmouth with her prize on the 21^st of June. On the 29th, Captain Pellew and his brother, Commander Israel Pellew (who happened to be on board the Nymphe at the time), were introduced by the Earl of Chatham to King George III. The King conferred knighthood upon Edward Pellew and Israel Pellew was granted the rank of post-captain. In addition, "the Cléopâtre was purchased by [the] government; and, under the name of Oiseau(there being a Cléopâtre already in the service) became a cruising 36-gun frigate in the British Navy."

As for Mullon, he was mortally wounded during the engagement and cut nearly "in two by a round shot. During his short death agony he recollected that he had in his pocket the list of coast signals in use in the French navy, and not wishing it to fall into the hands of the enemy, he took out what he considered to be the paper; but by mistake he had laid his hands on his commission and died in the act of biting it to pieces." Thus, as the Pellew brothers were being lauded, Mullon was laid to rest on English soil in the Portsmouth churchyard. The following inscription was written on his coffin:

CITOYEN MULLON

Slain in battle with La Nymphe,

18th June, 1793,

Aged 42 years.

As to the Cléopâtre she went on to serve in the Royal Navy, commissioned as the HMS Oiseau in September 1793. In June 1794, she seized fourteen French ships from a twenty-five vessel convoy. She also served in the Indian Ocean and captured three French frigates in January 1800 off the Atlantic coast in north-western Spain. She began to serve as a prison hulk at Portsmouth in June 1806, and, in 1812, she was lent to the Transport Board and fell under the command of John Bayby Harrison in 1814. After being put in ordinary in 1815, she was sold to a Mr. Rundle in 1816 for £1500, and he broke her up after buying her on September 18.

References:

"Capture of a French Frigate," in Kent Gazette, 25 June 1793
"Naval History of Great Britain," in Lancaster Gazette, 2 February 1822
"Romance of the Sea," in Dundee Courier, 5 October 1877
Winfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817, 2008

About Geri Walton:

Geri Walton has long been interested in history and fascinated by the stories of people from the 1700 and 1800s. This led her to get a degree in History and resulted in her website, http://www.geriwalton.com/, which offers unique history stories from the 1700 and 1800s.

Her first book, Marie Antoinette’s Confidante: The Rise and Fall of the Princesse de Lamballe, was published last month. It looks at the relationship between Marie Antoinette and the Princesse de Lamballe, her closest confidante.Click here for more information.

You can find Geri on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/geri.walton), Twitter (@18thCand19thC), Google Plus (https://plus.google.com/u/0/117631667933120811735/posts/p/pub), Instagram (@18thcand19thc), and Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.com/geriwalton9/).

Carronade on slide mounting

Carronades – large-calibre, short-range cannon throwing very heavy shot – were a game-changing weapon when introduced in the 1780s (Clickhere for the article “HMS Flora 1780:the Carronade's arrival” posted on 15th December 2015). Their light weight allowed them to be mounted on smaller craft that would be incapable of carrying larger “long guns”, thereby giving such vessels an offensive capability wholly disproportionate to their size. They were to prove no less valuable on larger vessels, especially for raking the decks of enemy vessels at close quarters with grapeshot.

Henry Trollope

One notable British officer of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars period was to gain a reputation as “carronade crazy” and, though his career was to be a long and successful one, he is best remembered for two spectacular actions in which his use these weapons proved decisive. Henty Trollope (1756-1839) had entered the Royal Navy at 14. In 1781, having seen extensive action in the American War of Independence, he achieved the coveted rank of “post captain” at the young age of 25. His first command was the frigate HMS Rainbow. Though the war was by then in its final stages, active hostilities between Britain and France were still in full swing and 1782 found Trollope on patrol off the northern coast of Brittany.

As Trollope commanded her, HMS Rainbow was an experiment - a 35-year old 44-gun frigate that had been re-armed entirely with carronades. She now carried a total of 48 of them – 20 68-pounders on her main-deck, 22 42-pounders on her upper deck, 4 32-pounders on her quarter-deck, and 2 32-pounders on her forecastle. This gave her a “weight of metal” – the total discharged in a single broadside of 1238 pounds. This compared with a broadside weight of metal of only 318 pounds if she were to be armed as a conventional frigate mounting only long guns. It should also be noted that the largest guns carried by line-of-battle ships was the 32-pounder long gun. The disadvantage was however that Rainbow would have to come to very close range with an enemy before she could loosen her enormous firepower and during the approach she would be vulnerable to fire from conventional weapons. In a worst case, a skilful enemy commander might be able to manoeuvre nimbly so as to stay outside Rainbow’s range and batter her into submission with long-range fire. In 1782 however, with the carronade still a novelty, and the possibility of any frigate being entirely armed with them was a remote one, thereby giving Rainbow the potential for surprise.

Hébé’s sister Prosperine (seen here as HMS Amelia, following capture in 1785)

Painting by John Christian Schetky (1778 – 1874)

On 4th September 1782, off the Isle du Bas, Rainbow sighted a French frigate which was escorting a small convoy from Saint-Malo to Brest. Trollope immediately ordered a chase. The enemy proved to be the Hébéand her armament was typical for a French or British frigate of the period – 28 18-pounders and 12 8-pounders. The French commander, the Chevalier de Vigney, could reasonably expect an evenly matched contest and – unwisely – allowed Trollope’s vessel to close. It was only when Rainbowopened fire with her bow-chasers, and when several large shots struck the Hébé, was it apparent that something unusual was involved. The French vessel returned fire without great effect and both ships then manoeuvred for advantage for the next hour and a half – Trollope obviously concerned about keeping the range short. He finally got into position to launch a single devastating broadside that was some four times heavier than the French could respond with. This was enough to decide the duel. The Hébé’s foremast was brought down by a single 68-pound shot, her steering was disabled, and her second captain and four men killed. No one was hurt on board the Rainbow. The Chevalier de Vigney struck his colours without offering further resistance, convinced that another two or three of Rainbow’s broadsides would have sunk his frigate.

As Trollope’s prize, Hébéwas purchased into the Royal Navy. Her hull-form was regarded as outstanding and she subsequently served as an inspiration for future British frigate designs. She retained her own name initially – as was the custom with captured warships – but she was renamed HMS Blonde in 1805, serving a further five years thereafter. Rainbow’s useful life was nearing an end and she was demoted to harbour service from 1784 until her disposal in 1802.

Trollope’s career was however only taking off and in 1795 he was to fight an even more remarkable action in which carronades were again to prove a critical factor. A later post will tell about it.

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s Reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel, which details a murderous war launched by a British-owned company to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers.

This story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam.

Click here to read the opening chapters

In the first two decades of the new German Empire, after its proclamation in 1870, and before Germany embarked on construction of the world's second-largest navy in the world, German naval units were active in some very unexpected places. This was in support of efforts to establish colonies overseas and to protect German commercial interests in the Far East. In reading about this I stumbled on the story of the small gunboat SMS Iltis (1880) which was to have a very active career which included such a surprising event as a confrontation between Germany and Spain that was only solved by Papal intervention.

SMS Iltis: memorial illustration from 1896

Commissioned in 1880, the Iltis was a typical small gunboat of a type common in many navies of the time and suited to interventions in remote colonial areas. Of 560 tons and 155 ft overall she had a single 142 hp engine that gave her a maximum speed of eight knots. Considered to be a good sea boat, the Iltis carried a barquentine rig – a significant advantage when operating far from coaling stations. To minimise drag when under sail her propeller could be hoisted. She was more than adequately armed for what was expected of her – two 125 mm and two 87mm breech-loaders, supplemented by two 37 mm revolvers (essentially like overgrown hand guns). Her crew was 85.

The Iltis’s first assignment was to Germany’s “East Asia Station” and she was to remain in eastern waters for almost five years. As Germany had no naval base in the Far East the Iltis seems to have mainly operated out of the British possession of Hong Kong.

Germany had come late to acquisition of colonies but considered them essential as much for prestige reasons as for economic purposes. With major portions of the globe already occupied by other colonial powers, Germany found herself seeking opportunities in some unlikely places, not least in New Guinea and in island groups in the Pacific. Small gunboats such as the Iltis were important tools in this process.

In the early 1880s German ambitions focussed on creation of the colony of New Guinea. This consisted not only of the northeastern part of the vast island of New Guinea but of the nearby islands of the Bismarck Archipelago and the North Solomon Islands. No other nation body protested the acquisition of these areas but the situation was different as regards the Carolines, a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands to the north of New Guinea. The Carolines had been claimed by the Spanish in the 17^thCentury and known as Las Nuevas Filipinas. Though in theory governed from Manila in the Spanish colony of the Philippines there was no attempt to settle the Carolines and missionary efforts had been resisted by the Micronesian inhabitants. Spain formally reasserted her rights in 1875. A decade later Germany, now an ascendant and growing power, decided to seize the islands – and this is when the Iltis played her part.

In early August 1885 the Iltis, then at Shanghai, was instructed to proceed to the Carolines, hoist the German flag there, and present the Spaniards, and the world, with a fait accompli. Putting in at Hong Kong to take on coal, information was received that two Spanish ships were en route for the same purpose. Speed was now of the essence and by hard driving the Iltis reached Yap, in the Western Carolines, by the 25^th of the month. Wasting no time, her captain, KptLt Hofmeier, went ashore immediately, raised the black-white-red German flag and formally claimed the islands. The Spanish had lost the race.

The scene was now set for an international confrontation, one in which the weak Spanish Empire would certainly come off badly if it came to war. Spain did not back down however and took a step which might have seemed normal several centuries earlier, but which was unexpected in the late nineteenth century – they appealed to the Pope.

This was a master-stroke. In the early years of the new German Empire the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf (Culture War), a series of restrictions on the role of the Church initiated by the chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had led to fraught relations with the papacy. Leo XIII, who had succeeded to the papal throne in 1878, was however eager to end the struggle and this was in Germany’s interest as well, given the large percentage of its population that was Catholic.

Contemporary cartoon: Bismarck and Pope Leo XIII
play out the Kulturkampf

Submission of the Carolines issue for arbitration was a gesture of reconciliation and when Leo ruled in Spain’s favour Germany accepted the decision without protest and evacuated the islands. She was however awarded face-saving trading and plantation rights. The Spanish did indeed settle the islands from 1886 onwards but their tenure was to be brief. In 1899, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, and its loss of the Philippines, Spain sold the islands to Germany. This tenure was also to be brief – Japan was to occupy them at the start of WW1 and they were to see bitter fighting in WW2. Today they are divided between the Federated States of Micronesia in the east and Palau in the west.

The Iltis returned to Germany in 1886 for a complete refit. She sailed back to the Far East the following year. For the next decade she was engaged in an endless and busy round of trade protection and flag-showing assignments in China, Korea and Japan. In 1891 she cooperated with French, British and American gunboats on the Yangtse to protect western interests during widespread unrest. Four years later, during the Sino-Japanese War, she was to rescue Chinese survivors from a transport sunk off Korea by the Japanese. Thereafter she steamed to Formosa – now Taiwan – where Chinese forces were resisting Japanese invaders, unsuccessfully, once more to provide protection for German lives and property. In the process the Iltiswas to fire her guns in what might have been the only time she did so in anger, hitting a fortified Chinese position with three shells.

SMS Iltis on the reef - with her ensign still lying

The Iltis’s days were now numbered. On 23^rd June 1896 she was caught in a typhoon off the Chinese coast. Her engine strained at full power to keep her off the reefs of a lee shore but the effort was unavailing and she struck around midnight. The engine room was immediately filled with water and the boiler fire was extinguished, leaving the vessel wholly helpless. She broke amidships into two parts, initially held together by rigging. Some in the forward section managed to hold on – it remained lodged on the reef – but all but two of those on the after part died when it tore free and capsized. The survivors, eleven out of eighty-eight on board, were finally rescued by local villagers. The captain and all the officers died.

Iltis Memorial - Shanghai

The loss of the Iltiscaused considerable shock in Germany, the more so since the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was volubly “naval minded” and the empire was now embarked on creation of a large navy. Memorials to the crew were erected on the Bund in Shanghai (is it still there?) and in Kiel in Germany. The Iltisof 1880 had provided sterling service over hundreds of thousands of miles steaming and sailing and had provided invaluable training for the officers and men of the growing navy.

The name Iltiswas to be kept alive by a new – and much more sophisticated – gunboat launched in 1898, which was also to see active service in the Far East, in the Boxer Rising in 1900 and in the defence of Tsingtao in 1914. But that’s another story!

SMS Iltis II - 1898

Britannia’s Shark by Antoine Vanner

Click here to read the opening chapters.

1881 and the power of the British Empire seems unchallengeable.

But now a group of revolutionaries threaten the economic basis of that power. Their weapon is the invention of a naïve genius, their sense of grievance is implacable and their leader is already proven in the crucible of war. Protected by powerful political and business interests, conventional British military or naval power cannot touch them. A daring act of piracy draws the ambitious British naval officer, Nicholas Dawlish, and his wife into this deadly maelstrom. Amid the wealth and squalor of America’s Gilded Age, and on a fever-ridden island ruled by savage tyranny success – and survival – will demand making some very strange alliances...

Britannia’s Shark brings historic naval fiction into the dawn of the Submarine Age.

Click here to read the opening chapters.

Henry Trollope

A week ago, in the blog of 1^st November, we met the “carronade crazy” Royal Navy officer Henry Trollope (1756-1839). His career was a distinguished one – he rose to full Admiral – but his long-term reputation rests on two spectacular actions in which carronades played a decisive role. The previous article describes these large-bore but short range weapons, which represented cutting-edge technology from the 1780s onwards, and Trollope’s brilliant use of them when he commanded HMS Rainbow in the last years of the American War of Independence.

The gap between the American War – in which France, as usual, sided against Britain – and the next conflict Britain would fight with France, the Revolutionary War, was a short one, just a decade long. In this decade however the British government did what governments have done through history – once victory was gained it was assumed that no further conflict was likely in the near future and that economic advantage could be achieved by standing down armed forces, disposing of warships and running down stores. This was to offer what is now called a “peace dividend”. It was to prove an illusion once revolution erupted in France and launched more than two decades of warfare on a global scale. Britain’s new was began in early 1793 and by then large numbers of warships that had proved so essential in the earlier conflict had by now been disposed of. More ships were needed –and as soon as possible. New construction was immediately committed to but, until these vessels were completed and commissioned, stopgaps were essential.

East Indiaman Woodford by Samuel Atkis (1787-1808) - Glatton would have looked generally similar
(with acknowledgement to the WikiGallery.ord)

One such stopgap measure was to purchase ten “East Indiamen” – stoutly built trading vessels in the service of the East India Company and well suited to long ocean voyages. Typical of these was the Glatton, a 1253-ton ship, pierced with gun ports like all of her kind and carrying defensive armament to protect her against Algerine corsairs off North Africa and other pirates in Eastern Seas. By the time she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1795 she had already participated in the capture of a French brig, Le Franc while part of a trading convoy. On being taken into the Navy, command of her was assigned to Captain Henry Trollope, who had the responsibility for arming and commissioning her, and getting her into service as soon as possible. Trollope, building on his previous experience, made maximum use of the latitude allowed him and armed Glatton entirely with carronades rather than with the usual mix of long guns. A total of twenty-eight 68-pounder carronades were mounted on the lower deck and twenty-eight 32-pounder carronades on the upper. All were on slides rather than trucks but the vessel’s gun ports were too small to allow training other than on the beam. Added to this was the fact that the deck layout did not allow mounting of bow-chasers or stern-chasers. Careful manoeuvering of the entire ship would therefore be needed to bring her firepower to bear.

East Indiaman - contemporary engraving

Classed as a fourth-rate, Glatton was assigned to the North Sea Fleet, under Admiral Adam Duncan. On the 14th July 1794 she was directed to sail to join a squadron of two ships of the line and several frigates cruising off the Dutch coast, the Netherlands being by this stage a French satellite. In the early afternoon of the 16th, close to the Dutch naval base Helevoetsluis, Trollope and the Glatton sighted a powerful enemy squadron. This consisted of consisted of six large frigates, a brig, and a cutter. One of these, as far as could be made out, mounted 50 guns, two 36, and the other three 28. Given these odds, Trollope might be forgiven for judging discretion to be the better part of valour but he banked instead on the same advantage that had proved so decisive in his earlier action with HMS Rainbow– the surprise element and the massive firepower of the carronades if the range could be closed. He therefore ordered Glatton to be cleared for action and steered towards the enemy. On sighting Glattonthe other vessels shortened sail to keep their station in line. It was late evening, though still light, when Trollope drew level with the third ship in the enemy’s line. That he was allowed to come so close is a mystery, as is the fact that the enemy was so rigidly attached to line tactics in the circumstances. Trollope hailed this third ship, and finding that she was French, ordered her commander to strike his colours. Instead of doing so, the Frenchman not surprisingly responded with a broadside. Glatton, at a separation of only thirty yards, unleashed her own broadside, one comparable to that of a ship of the line. The other enemy ships now – at last – manoeuvred to surround Glatton, the two headmost vessels tacking about so that one placed herself alongside to windward, and the other on the Glatton’sbow, while the remaining ships engaged her on her lee-quarter and stern.

French frigate Incorruptible - one of Glatton's opponents

Glatton’s awesome firepower was mitigated by the fact that her crew was insufficient to man her guns on both sides simultaneously. The solution was to divide each gun-crew into two gangs. One loaded and ran out the gun, leaving the most experienced hands to aim and fire it while they ran across and loaded and ran out the gun on the opposite side. Fire was now continuous, the range on each side so close that Glatton’s yard-arms were nearly touching those of the enemy. Her massive firepower was by now inflicting serious damage and the French commodore tried to decide the issue by having his lead ship attempt to drive the Glatton on to a nearby shoal. By skilful manoeuvring Trollope tacked to avoid this and while the French vessel was herself doing the same he managed to rake her. His own masts yards and sails were by now badly damaged and though further damage was inflicted on the enemy it proved impossible to manoeuvre effectively to bring his cannonades into play. The enemy vessels stood off as darkness fell and through the night Trollope’s crew was occupied in strengthening masts and yards, and in bending fresh sails. By daylight Glatton was in a fit state to renew the action – and the light also revealed that eh enemy squadron was now running for the protection of the port of Flushing. Trollope followed for two hours but as he had no hope of reinforcement, and as the wind was blowing on shore, he was compelled to haul off and steer for Yarmouth Roads, where he arrived on the 21st.

Trollope with the mortally wounded Marine Captain Henry Ludlow Strangeways on the HMS Glatton

It was subsequently found that all the enemy ships had been badly damaged, one sinking in Flushing harbour after arrival. The largest, with which the Glatton was chiefly engaged, was the Brutus, a “74” 300 tons larger and cut down to some 50 guns, of which 46 were 24-pounders. Also present were the frigates Incorruptible, Magicienne and Républicaine. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the action was that although the French losses must have been heavy (though undetermined), Glatton’scasualties were two wounded only, one of whom, the captain of Marines, died subsequently.

Trollope’s achievement was immediately recognised as unprecedented. He had deliberately engaged six other powerful ships simultaneously, and had put them to flight. He was rewarded with a well-deserved knighthood. He was to retain command of Glatton for three more years, still in the North Sea fleet and one of his notable achievements was persuading her crew not to join the Nore mutiny in 1797. He went further – by threatening to unleash Glatton’s firepower on two other ships that were in open mutiny, he induced their crews to return to duty. Promoted to command of the “74” Russell, he was to participate in Duncan’s victory at Camperdown later the same year.

And Glatton? She was converted in due course the more conventional armament – her “carronades-only” surprise value could only be of limited duration – and she was to see extensive action in the North Sea, Baltic and the Mediterranean until being hulked for harbour service in 1814.

Britannia’s Amazon by Antoine Vanner

Click here to read the opening chapters.

This latest novel runs in parallel in time with the action of the earlier Britannia’s Spartan, and concentrates on the adventures of Nicholas Dawlish’s wife Florence while she is at home in Britain while he and his cruiser are in Korean waters. Dedicated to the welfare of seaman’s families, and especially to those of her husband’s crew, Florence intends to spend the months of separation caring for them. But a chance encounter is to plunge her into the maelstrom of vice, cruelty and espionage that is the corrupt underside of complacent Late-Victorian society. And if Florence is to survive - and to save innocent victims- she must face evil head-on, deal with conflicts of loyalty and employ guile as her most powerful weapon.

This volume also includes the long short-story Britannia’s Eye, which casts a new light on Nicholas Dawlish’s relationship with his uncle, an invalided naval officer who made him his heir. But Nicholas was never to know - or even guess - the truth about what his uncle had really been…

Britannia's Amazon - available in paperback and Kindle formats

US and rest of world: Click here to purchase on Amazon.com

UK: Click here to buy on Amazon.co.uk

This article was first published exactly two years ago but it is, I believe, one of my best. I hope you like it if you did not see it then!

The fact that often strikes one regarding even the largest ships of “The Age of Fighting Sail” is the sheer number of men – and of guns – that they carried. As an example, Nelson’s HMS Victory, which is still extant at Portsmouth in all her glory, carried a crew of 850 plus 104 guns of varying sizes. It is all the more remarkable that all these were carried in a ship 227 feet long overall. (the photographs in this article were taken by myself, Antoine Vanner, prior to the recent refit of Victory).

HMS Victory at Portsmouth - 32-pounders mounted on lowest tier. Gun ports closed.

The number of guns determined the total number of men carried, since the crew for crew needed for sailing only was considerably fewer. The size of the crew required to serve a single gun was remarkable by modern standards and this was brought home to me by an account in a book entitled “Naval Gunnery”, by Captain H. Garbett R.N., published in 1895. The greater part of the volume deals with the breech-loaders of the 1890s but the first chapter discusses the smooth-bore cannon era in considerable detail. A full account is provided of how a 32-pounder – the largest type of gun carried by Victory and her contemporaries – was served. Due to their size and weight these weapons were carried on the “gundeck”, the lowest tier, 30 of them in total on Victory. The next level up, the middle-gundeck, carried 24-pounders, and above that again the upper-gundeck with 12-pounders.Guns of the latter size were also carried in the open on the quarterdeck and forecastle, where the close-range, large calibre Carronades were also mounted.

32-pounders on HMS Victory's gundeck - as cleared for action

Gun deck when not cleared for action - note that crews messed on tables between the guns
and slung their hammocks over them. Note the fleece sponge at end of heavy rope.

The ship carried only enough men to crew the guns on one side of the ship only and should it be necessary to fight on both sides simultaneously – as when breaking the French line at Trafalgar – the guns could only be served with half-crews. The weapons were heavy – a 32-pounder’s barrel alone weighed almost three tons – and considerable strength was demanded to run them out and to train them on target.

Elevation was controlled by a “quoin”, a graduated wedge placed under the rear of the barrel (see illustration) and if all guns on a broadside were to be fired together at the same target the amount of elevation, as per marks on the quoin, was ordered for all guns by the officer in charge. In training the gun to left or right to lay on the target “handspikes” – wooden crowbars – were used to lever the entire carriage across, aided by hauling on rope “side-tackles” which linked the carriage to the ship’s side. The illustration below shows this, and also the crew positions, as will later be discussed further.

Note "Breeching" on second and third guns from camera and
side tackles on the first, rammers and sponges stored on deckhead

There was no way of controlling the recoil other than by a heavy rope – called the “breeching” – which passed through an eye on the breech of the gun and the ends of which were secured to ringbolts on the ship’s side. Then the gun fired it recoiled back the full length of the breeching. This brought the weapon into the loading position, with the muzzle just inside the gun-port and was restrained against running back out with the ship’s roll, by another tackle at the rear.

The normal crew for a 32-pounder was 14 man and their positions are identified in the illustration above. Their roles were as follow:

No.1 - Gun Captain, at the rear and facing the port

No.2 - “Second Captain”, assisting and being ready to take over if needed

No.3 - Loader, on left side

No.4 - Sponger, on the right side

No.5 - Assistant Loader, left side

No.6 - Assistant Sponger, right side

These six men were called the “Gun Numbers” and the numbers above them were called the auxiliaries, Nos. 7, 9, 11 and 13 on the right and Nos. 8, 10, 12 and 14 on the right. Numbers 9 and 10 were the handspike men and Nos. 11,12,13 and 14 hauled on the side tackles to assist them.

It can be seen from the diagram, and from the photographs of Victory’s middle gun-deck, that this large crew had to operate within a very confined space. The physical labour required was immense. If a high rate of fire was to be maintained then all fourteen men needed to function as a single well-rehearsed team and to do so, amid the choking and eye-stinging smoke and despite crashing noise that made verbal commands inaudible. Add to this the fact that the ship might be under fire itself and that great rents might be torn in the walls to either side by enemy shot, and that guns to right and left might have been dismounted and their crews killed or wounded. The size of the gun-crew meant that even with members knocked out of action sufficient men remained to maintain fire, albeit at a lower rate.

The Gun Captain was responsible for his gun’s maintenance and for command of his gun-crew in action, during which he supervised laying, training and firing. After each round was fired No.4 sponged the gun with a wet fleece to ensure that any residual and glowing particles of gunpowder had been left by the previous discharge. The cartridge and shot were then inserted by No.3 – manhandling one 32-pound shot after another demanded considerable strength and stamina. No.4 now inserted a wad to prevent the ball rolling out and he rammed them home. During these operations Nos. 5 and 6 provided support by passing ammunition and tools.

The Second Captain was responsible for supervising elevation, via the quoin, for inserting the firing tube – which carried the ignition charge from the firing lock – and for cocking the lock itself, which was essentially a pistol, to be fired by the Gun Captain by jerking on a lanyard attached to the trigger. When laying the gun the Gun Captain retreated to the full extent of the trigger lanyard, bent over to get his eye lined up along the fore and back-sights, but positioning himself (“contorting” might be a better word) to spring safely on one side when the weapon was fired. When training, the Gun Captain ordered “Muzzle Right” or “Muzzle Left” as appropriate to guide the handspike and side-tackle men until the aim was achieved. When laying for elevation he gave the handspike men the order “Elevate” and they levered beneath the breech , he giving hand-signals to raise or lower until he was satisfied. The Second Captain inserted the quoin and final adjustments up or down might then be needed until the exact elevation was set.

The procedure outlined above related to the gun firing more or less at right angles to the ship’s side but if it was necessary to train to extreme angles, as shown in the illustrations above, the crew positions would be changed accordingly. Managing this required an extreme degree of familiarity with the movements required if men were not to trip over and impede each other. Once again one is impressed with the degree of training and practice that must have been demanded.

Two methods of firing were practised: “independent firing”, when each Gun Captain laid and fired his weapon independently and “broadside firing” in which all the guns were laid on the same target and fired simultaneously by order. In the Napoleonic period broadsides were fired by a “directing gun”, whose Gun Captain was regarded as the best marksman on board, and who gave the elevation and moment of discharge to all the others but the bearing was ordered from the upper deck.

The description above related to a single gun. As a ship like Victory sailed into action fifteen such weapons lay close together along a single side, with comparable numbers on the two decks above. It is difficult to image just what a hell these gundecks must have been on close action – which sometimes lasted for hours on end – and that firing continued in a smothering haze when the decks around might be slippery with blood and strewn with body parts.

It may have been the era of wooden ships, but it was also one of iron men.

HMS Victory - launched 1765 and still in commission

-------------

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This volume also includes the long short-story Britannia’s Eye, which casts a new light on Nicholas Dawlish’s relationship with his uncle, an invalided naval officer who made him his heir. But Nicholas was never to know - or even guess - the truth about what his uncle had really been…

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This article, one of the earliest on my blog, was first published almost exactly three years ago. I find it fascinating in that the incident in question not only occurred in the period I write about in my faction but because it is remarkable that such a large-scale disaster on London's river should be all but forgotten today.

I hope you like the article now even if you did not see it originally

It is strange that some disasters, such as the loss of the Titanic in 1912, live on in the popular memory while others of comparable magnitude in terms of loss of life, such as the sinking of the liner Empress of Ireland after a collision in the St. Lawrence in May 1914, have been largely forgotten. The Empress of Ireland sinking did however claim 1012 lives as compared with 1514 in the Titanic disaster, almost exactly the same percentage, 68%, of those on board in both cases.

This line of thinking occurred to me when I recently visited the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and was struck by a contemporary model, as shown here, of the collision of the paddle steamer Princess Alice with the collier Bywell Castle in the Galleons Reach section of Thames Estuary on September 3^rd1878. Though the accident occurred close to shore the death toll was in excess of 650. I find it strange that such a huge disaster, which occurred practically in London, and which claimed the lives of so many of its citizens, would be totally absent from popular memory and that it has not figured, as far as I know, in any novel, movie or television production (especially taking into account the British fixation on costume dramas).

Contemporary model of the Princess Alice disaster in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

The Princess Alicewas a 219-foot, 171-ton, paddle steamer built as the Bute in Greenock in 1865 for ferry service on the Scottish west coast. She came south two years later, where she was renamed for service as an excursion steamer on the Thames estuary, under a succession of owners. At this time excursions downriver from London were popular outings for a growing urban population that was enjoying increased if modest prosperity.

Profile view of the Princess Alice

On September 3, 1878, a Tuesday, the Princess Alice made a routine trip from the Swan Pier, near London Bridge, to Gravesend and Sheerness. For most passengers heading for Gravesend the attraction was the Rosherville Pleasure Gardens there – officially the “Kent Zoological and Botanical Gardens Institution” and in essence an early version of a theme park – which were a favourite destination for thousands of Londoners. The gardens had their own pier to allow docking of visiting steamers.

The moment of collision

By 1940 hrs the Princess Alice was on her return journey, laden with over 700 passengers – an amazing number for such a small craft, on which there could have been little more than standing room. She was within sight of the North Woolwich Pier - where many passengers were to disembark - when she sighted the collier Bywell Castle coming downriver. At 904 tons this was a substantially larger ship than the paddle steamer and was unladen. Ignoring by the Princess Alice’s captain of the “Port to Port” rule for passing ships in the Thames Estuary brought the paddler directly in the path of the collier and though the later did reverse engines, this was not done rapidly enough, making collision inevitable.

The Princess Alicewas struck amidships by the Bywell Castleand she split in two, sinking in under four minutes and before either of its two boats could be launched – inadequate though these would have been for the number of persons on board. Many passengers were trapped below, as would be attested later when the wreckage was recovered. An added horror was the fact that the collision occurred at the point where large volumes of sewage was discharged – according to a contemporary account: “At high water, twice in 24 hours, the flood gates of the outfalls are opened when there is projected into the river two continuous columns of decomposed fermenting sewage, hissing like soda water with baneful gases, so black that the water is stained for miles and discharging a corrupt charnel house odour”. It was thought that many who found themselves engulfed in this ghastly sludge died by asphyxiation.

Recovery of bodies after the disaster

The exact death toll that resulted is not known with exactitude since there were no detailed passenger list and many bodies may have been washed downriver or buried in the Thames mud. The Thames River Police estimated the death toll as 640 and only 69 persons were saved, mainly through the efforts of the Bywell Castle’screw, this vessel being scarcely damaged. As the collier was not laden she was however high out of the water, making it difficult to take survivors from the water. The two sections of the Princess Alice were lifted and beached in the following week and unidentified bodies were buried in a mass grave in Woolwich Old Cemetery, where a granite cross still commemorates them. A distasteful aspect of the aftermath was that crowds of ghoulish sighthtseers came on trains from London to clamber over the wreckage. It appeared that “anything that could be chipped or wrenched off was carried off as curiosities by visitors”. The Princess Alice’s engines were salvaged. The Bywell Castle had its own appointment in Samarra and she was lost with all hands in the Bay of Biscay five years later.

Stern section of Princess Alice beached

The inevitable enquiry followed the disaster and the findings not unsurprisingly commented on the overloading, poor seamanship and lack of live-saving equipment on the Princess Alice. No doubt there were many statements at the time that “lessons must be learned”, as is always said in our own time after some dreadful incident, but just as today little practical action seems to have accompanied the hand-wringing. The Titanic disaster was a still 36 years in the future and application of general insights from the Princess Alice disaster could have lessened the death toll significantly.

I find that the loss of the Princess Alice has an almost unbearable poignancy about it. The victims were of all sexes and ages, and were probably in the main of modest wealth and income – I imagine Mr.Pooter and his wife Carrie of the Grossmiths’ “Diary of a Nobody” as being typical. They were returning from a day of innocent pleasure and had they survived they might well have remembered it as one of the happiest of their lives, spent with those they loved. From this humble pleasure they were plunged – literally – into a squalid maelstrom of filth in which their lives and happiness were torn from them and from the family members they left behind.

And so the final question remains – why has the Princess Alice disaster, on London’s doorstep and with its massive loss of life, faded from popular memory?

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In reading about warfare in the Age of Fighting Sail one is invariably impressed by the aggression and sheer bloody-minded will to win that characterised the Royal Navy. These were the factors that regularly brought victory even when the odds seemed stacked against British ships and the enemy, usually French or Spanish, never seems to have had the same single-minded focus on prevailing. Only in the War of 1812, when Britain again confronted the United States, did the Royal Navy consistently encounter enemies with the same ruthless commitment to victory.

HMS Pomone - a typical frigate of the time
Color lithograph by T. G. Dutton after painting by G.F. St. John

These thoughts came to me this week when leafing again through the Victorian classic, “Deeds of Naval Daring” by Admiral Edward Giffard (1812-1867), and came on an action I had not previously known of. This was a duel between equally-matched British and French frigates, HMS Santa Margarita, an ex-Spanish prize, and the French L’Amazone. As an aside I might mention that Giffard gives the date as 29^th July 1781, whereas a note on the National Maritime Museum’s website clearly identifies it as occurring exactly one year later, in 1782. It’s notable that Giffard also referred to the “Santa Margaretta” rather than “Santa Margarita”. The difference in naming is not significant but that of the date is. Built for the Spanish navy in 1774, the Santa Margarita had been captured off Lisbon in November 1779. Take into British service, she was refitted in 1780/81 and sent in June 1781, under the command of Captain Elliot Salter, to join a squadron off the American coast

In September 1781, French success in the Battle of the Virginia Capes was to be the deciding factor in ending the American War of Independence as it cut odd supplies to British forces at Yorktown and necessitated their surrender. The final peace-treaty would not be signed for another year and a half but the war was effectively decided from that point. The outright British victory over a French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782 was a hollow one that had no impact on the outcome.

Notwithstanding this, a French naval squadron was still operating off the American coast in July 1782 under Admiral de Vaudreuil (1724-1802), who had taken command of the remainder of the French fleet after the Saintes battle. It was this force that Salter in the Santa Margarita, on detached service, was to run into off Cape Henry, at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, on 29^th July. Salter had initially spotted a frigate only – apparently a 36-gun unit like his own vessel – and gave chase. As Santa Margarita neared her quarry eight French ships-of-the-line were seen bearing down on her. Salter turned to fly, caught as he was between the French squadron and a lee shore, and the frigate he had initially chased now turned and came on after him. With their superior speed both frigates outran the heavier units but Santa Margaritaappears to have been the faster of the two. By mid-afternoon the French unit – which proved to be L’ Amazone – decided to give up the chase and return to the squadron. Given the very powerful French force in the area Salter might have been well-advised to continue on and to complete his escape. Instead he came about and followed L’Amazone. Once again Santa Margarita’s superior speed proved its value and within two hours both ships were within gunshot.

The opening broadside came from L’Amazone– one suspects that in accordance with French practice it may have been aimed at Santa Margarita’smasts and rigging. Salter held his fire however and manoeuvred so as to rake his opponent – a devastating action that sent fire down the enemy’s central axis – and followed up by taking his ship “within pistol shot.” What is shocking to the modern reader is that the close-range slugging match that followed lasted an hour and a quarter. One can only imagine the hell of noise and smoke, injury and death that followed. Fighting a sailing warship demanded more than a single team, but rather a team of teams, each one – especially the individual gun crews and the marines in the tops – each fighting its own battle and yet still an integral part of the larger team. Continuous exercising would have been one factor to guarantee this level of efficiency in action but one suspects that morale was even more important, and in this the British crews usually seem to have had the edge.

HMS Santa Margarita (l) in action with Pomone. She appears after passing under her stern to rake her
Painting by Robert Dodd (1748–1815) and / or Ralph Dodd (circa 1756-1822) with thanks to Wikimedia Commons

Badly shattered, with seventy killed, and slightly more wounded from a crew of three hundred, with both main and mizzen masts toppled overboard, with several guns dismounted and with four feet of water in the hold, L’Amazone struck her colours. Santa Margarita took her prize in tow. Salter’s crew worked through the night to repair L’Amazone’s damage sufficiently to sail her away. A start was made on transferring her surviving crew to Santa Margarita as prisoners – a process hindered by the boats of both ships having been destroyed or damaged in the fighting. At dawn however the French squadron was seen approaching. There was no option but to abandon L’Amazone. Salter’s preference would have been to burn her but, with large numbers of French prisoners still on the crippled ship, common humanity prevented it. By now faced with overwhelming force Santa Margarita once again made use of her speed and escaped. Her casualties were five dead and seventeen wounded. As in so many of such actions one is stuck by the disparity in casualties – perhaps because Santa Margarita managed to rake her opponent.

A pleasing aspect of the account given by Giffard is that it includes extracts from Salter’s official report. He gave considerable credit to the French captain, who was killed early in the action, and even more to the second-in-command who took over, the Chevalier de Lepine. This gentleman “did everything that an experienced officer could possibly do, and did not surrender until he himself and all his officers but one, and about half the ship’s company were either killed or wounded.” After listing L’Amazone’s damage Salter characterised it as “a situation sufficiently bad to justify to his king and country the necessity of surrender.” One suspects that had the outcome been reversed, the French captain’s report would have been equally generous of spirit.

I have been unable to find out any more about Elliot Salter, other than that he died in 1790, how, or at what age or rank, I do not know. Would any of this article’s readers be able to shed some light on the career of this intrepid officer?

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This latest novel runs in parallel in time with the action of the earlier Britannia’s Spartan, and concentrates on the adventures of Nicholas Dawlish’s wife Florence while she is at home in Britain while he and his cruiser are in Korean waters. Dedicated to the welfare of seaman’s families, and especially to those of her husband’s crew, Florence intends to spend the months of separation caring for them. But a chance encounter is to plunge her into the maelstrom of vice, cruelty and espionage that is the corrupt underside of complacent Late-Victorian society. And if Florence is to survive - and to save innocent victims- she must face evil head-on, deal with conflicts of loyalty and employ guile as her most powerful weapon.

This volume also includes the long short-story Britannia’s Eye, which casts a new light on Nicholas Dawlish’s relationship with his uncle, an invalided naval officer who made him his heir. But Nicholas was never to know - or even guess - the truth about what his uncle had really been…

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In 1747, at the height of the War of Austrian Succession, when Britain was (once more) at war with France and Spain, the departure of a Spanish warship from the Americas was to trigger a series of brutal naval engagements reminiscent of the pursuit of the Bismarck, two centuries later. The 70-gun ship-of-the-line Glorioso was carrying four-million silver dollars and as such was a prize well worth the taking. She was to be engaged both by the Royal Navy and by British privateers and it is the performance of the flotilla of the latter, nicknamed “The Royal Family”, which was the most remarkable.

Pedro de la Cerda
The Glorioso's captain

The Glorioso’s first encounter with the enemy was off the Azores on July 25^th when she encountered a British convoy of seven merchantmen, escorted by three Royal Navy vessels. The largest was the Warwick– a 60-gun ship comparable to the Glorioso, the Lark, a 40-gun frigate, and a 20-gun brig. The escort commander ordered the brig to stay with the merchant ships and the Lark to initiate the attack, with the slower Warwickfollowing. By the time Warwickarrived the Glorioso had badly damaged the Lark but was herself so badly raked that she was partially dismasted. The Spaniard sailed on, with structural damage and some casualties, but the British ships broke off the action – one indeed which they might have been victorious in had they persisted.

Outcome Round One: Victory to Glorioso.

Nearing the Spanish coast, off Cape Finisterre, the Glorioso now encountered three further British ships, the same combination as before of a ship-of-the-line (Oxford, 50-guns), a frigate (Shoreham, 24 guns) and a brig (Falcon 20 guns.) In an engagement lasting three hours all the British ships were damaged and the Glorioso, though she had lost her bowsprit, escaped to the harbour of Corcubión, in North-West Spain. There she off-loaded her silver cargo.

Outcome Round Two: Victory to Glorioso.

Her repairs compete as much as Corcubión’s facilities would allow, the Glorioso headed for the well-equipped base of Ferrol, further north. Adverse winds, which damaged the rigging, made the Glorioso’s Captain de la Cerda to head south instead towards Cadiz. Fully aware of the presence of British units, he decided to stay far off the Portuguese coast. In the event however this availed him nothing and on October 17^th the Glorioso ran into a squadron of British privateers – not Royal Navy ships - close to Saint Vincent.

George Walker 1700-1777

At this point it’s appropriate to pause to look at the nature and composition of this privateering squadron. It was commanded by Captain George Walker but funded by private financial interests in London and Bristol. Walker’s reputation as a privateer sailing under letters of marque was already high and on a previous voyage each ordinary seaman under him had received £850 as his share of prize money – a quite enormous sum at the time. Walker had therefore no trouble in recruiting hands for his next venture and in April 1746 he sailed from Britain with four ships named King George, Prince Fredrick, Duke and Princess Amelia, carrying between them 960 men and 120 guns. By the time this force entered Lisbon eight months later prizes worth some £220,000 had been taken without the loss of a single man. After adding two more vessels to his squadron – the Prince George and the Prince Edward– Walker sailed out from Lisbon in July 1747 to resume commerce raiding. His six-ship task force had by now become commonly known as “The Royal Family”.

The Prince Edwardwas lost soon afterwards in an unusual accident. She had crowded on so much canvas that pressure above pulled the heel of the mainmast out of its step, so that it plunged down to punch a hole in the ship’s bottom. Only three men survived the rapid sinking that followed. Despite this setback the Royal Family was to have a profitable cruise and in early October put in to Lagos Bay to take on water. From here, in the early morning of October 17^th, a large ship was seen approaching – this was the Glorioso. Only two of Walker’s ships were ready to give chase, the King George, with thirty-two guns and 300 men, and the Prince Fredrick with twenty-six guns and 260 men.

Glorioso (left) in action with King George and Prince Fredrick

The chase continued until midday, when the King George came up to the Glorioso. At this point the wind fell to dead calm, leaving the Prince Fredricktoo far back to render support to her consort. King George and Gloriosolay at a distance from each other, all but motionless, for some five hours, the latter with her lowest tier of guns run out. Only thereafter did a light breeze spring up and the Glorioso headed for Cadiz, with King George in close pursuit and the Prince Fredrickfollowing at a distance. By 2000 hrs King George was close enough to pull alongside Glorioso and hail her – it appears that there might still have been some idea that the Spaniard was an armed merchantman which might decline to fight. Glorioso replied with a full broadside, knocking out two of King George’sguns and bringing down her maintopsail yard. The fire was returned and what was to be a three-hour battle commenced.

What saved the King Georgefrom outright destruction appears to be that the Glorioso’s gun-ports were so small and her sides so thick that her guns could only be trained or depressed at a very limited angle. The consequence was that hitting a small vessel such as the King George was difficult in the extreme. Despite this however, three hours pounding at close range (how did flesh and blood endure it?) meant that the King George had suffered serious damage to her masts and that most of her standing rigging had been shredded. Only after the Prince Fredrick, driven by a very light wind, arrived about 2230 hrs did the Glorioso break off the action and head for Cadiz.

Outcome Round Three: Victory to Glorioso, but only just.

Walker did not order immediate pursuit. In the morning however, realising that the King George’sinjuries were not fatal and that his crew had sustained low casualties, and because the Duke and Prince George, and later the Princess Amelia, had now also joined him, he sent his other ships off after the Glorioso, following as best he could in King George.

A large ship was now seen approaching from the east and on recognising it as a British warship Walker sent a note by one of his boats to explain the situation. She was the 80-gun HMS Russell, homeward bound from the Mediterranean and her captain now joined the Royal Family in the chase.

Glorioso (left) in action against the Dartmouth

Glorioso was still ahead of her pursuers when yet another British warship, the 50-gun Dartmouth, which had been cruising to the west and had been attracted by the sound of gunfire, now met her on an interception course. A running fight developed, in the course of which a fire reached the Dartmouth’s magazines and she blew up. Out of a crew of 325, only fifteen were saved. One of these was a young lieutenant, John O’Brien, who was picked up off a floating gun-carriage. When taken on board the Duke it appeared that he had been blown through a gun port. Though his clothes were burnt and in tatters he excused himself to the Duke’s captain with the words “Sir, you must excuse the unfitness of my dress to come aboard a strange ship, but, really, I left my own with so much precipitation that I had not time to put on better.”

Outcome Round Four: Victory to Glorioso, and decisively so.

Glorioso engaging Russell in her last fight
In the background: remains of Dartmouth (left) and crippled King George (right)

The remaining pursuers, awed by the disaster to the Dartmouth held off attacking. At midnight however the Russellran up beside Glorioso and began a five-hour long close engagement. After they had been through so much already one wonders how Glorioso’s crew were in a position to put up anything of a fight, yet they did so with great tenacity, despite 33 dead and 130 wounded. It was only at dawn that she finally struck her colours, dismasted and on the point of sinking.

Outcome Round Five: British victory through knockout.

Victory proved empty consolation however. It appears to have been only after surrender that it was learned that the Glorioso’s silver had already been landed. Had this been known it could have been unlikely that Walker would have risked the Royal Family – the privateering enterprise was aimed at profit, not Britain’s national interest. One of Walker’s backers afterwards gave him “a very uncouth welcome for venturing the ship against a man-of-war”. Walker responded elegantly:

“Had the treasure been aboard the Glorioso, as I expected, my dear sir, your compliment would have been far different. Or had we let her escape from us with the treasure aboard, what would you have said then?”

State of King George near the end of the last battle

After surrender, the Glorioso’sCaptain de la Cerda and his crew were brought to Britain as prisoners. De la Cerda was to be honoured as much by the British for his achievement as he was by Spain itself, which later rewarded him with promotion to commodore.

Glorioso as captured, too badly damaged to be taken into British service

And Walker? He continued cruising until the end of the war, the Royal Family’s total prize money being reckoned as more than £400,000. His subsequent career was less glorious. He appears to have lost or squandered the money he had won with the Royal Family, got involved in a dispute with ship-owners about accounts, and was imprisoned for debt in the late 1750s and died in 1777. No matter what happened later however, nothing could take away the fact that he had been one of the few captains in naval history who ever ran a small and outgunned vessel against a 70-gun ship and engaged her yard-arm to yard-arm.

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It’s always gratifying to see a bully and tyrant cut down to size and a particularly satisfying example of this occurred in London in 1850, even if the retribution meted out was disproportionately small compared with the crimes in question.

Haynau

1848 was “The Year of Revolutions” across Europe, and in Austria revolts led to the abdication of the feeble-minded Emperor Ferdinand, and his replacement by his 18-year old nephew, Franz Josef. The latter was, amazingly, still on the throne at the start of World War 1 and he was only to die in 1916. During 1848 and 1849 the Austrian-ruled possessions of Hungary and Northern Italy were also among the areas affected, with nationalist groups rising up to demand greater autonomy, or even independence. These insurrections were suppressed with savage efficiency by the Austrians – in the case of Hungary with significant support from Russian forces. The Italian campaign was notable for its prosecution by the 82-year old Marshal Radetzky (of “March” fame) and one of his ablest commanders was to be the 62-year old General Julius Haynau.

Austrian troops storming rebel positions at Brescia, April 1849

Haynau’s military career had begun in the Napoleonic wars and though a competent soldier he also demonstrated qualities of cruelty, arrogance and blind devotion to his superiors which a century later might have brought him to dizzy heights in the Nazi party. In Italy he was to earn the reputation of “Butcher of Brescia”, when he followed up his suppression of a revolt in that town in April 1849 by shootings, hangings and floggings. This was however mild compared with Haynau’s record in Hungary, where among those he hanged were thirteen surrendered Hungarian generals. His most notable achievement was however to gain a reputation for having women sympathetic to the rebels flogged. Austrian admirers were to label him “The Hapsburg Tiger.” In Britain however his savagery was to earn comparison with a less noble beast and he became commonly known as “General Hyena”.

A Hungarian woman being flogged by Austrian troops, 1849

Upon restoration of peace Haynau retired from the army and in 1850 undertook a tour of Western Europe. Given his nickname it was less than wise to include Britain on his itinerary. While in London he decided to tour the Barclay and Perkins Brewery in Park Street, just off Southwark Bridge Road. This was considered a state-of-the-art industrial plant, a marvel of efficiency and innovation, and it was to play host over the years to many eminent visitors, including British and foreign royalty.

Popular illustration of Haynau under attack at the brewery
Note inset pictures, left and right of hanging, and flogging

Haynau arrived at the brewery on September 4^th with his nephew and an interpreter. His prominent (and wholly ridiculous) moustache seems to have revealed his identity to the workers as prints showing him flogging women had been in circulation prior to this. Word of his presence began to spread and as he was brought to see the stables of the delivery horses a group of draymen – delivery men – began to pelt him with hay and horse-droppings. Haynau and his companions now took to their heels, the workers pummelling him and tearing off part of his trademark moustache. Now in ignominious flight, and pursued by a mob which may have grown to 500, Haynau and those with him managed to dart in to the George Inn in Bankside. He seems to have tried to hide first in the coal cellar, and afterwards in a bedroom, but when discovered with pelted with more manure.

Some popular verses of the time record Haynau’s come-uppance. Though hardly great poetry, the following extract typifies the popular view of the incident:

One day he went to have a stare,

At where we English brew our beer,

And met a warm reception there,

From Barclay and Perkins’ draymen.

“Out, Out, the tyrant!” all did cry!

How you would laugh to see him fly,

To cut his lucky he did try,

But soon found out it was all my eye,

One collared him by his moustache, and one with mud his face did splash,

Another rolled him in the slush…

…One let down upon his head,

Straw enough to make his bed,

One pulled his nose till it was red,

DidBarclay and Perkins’ draymen.

Then out of the gate he did run,

And now there was some precious fun,

A rotten egg he got from one,

For all did try – yes every one,

To show how we loved a brute

Who women flogg’d and men did shoot,

For trying tyranny to uproot etc.etc.

Haynau trying to hide

The police arrived too late to spare the general these indignities but they did at least manage to get him away through a window at the back of the inn, and to bring him across the river to safety by boat. Thoroughly and deservedly humiliated, Haynau cut short his British holiday. The draymen responsible were instant heroes. Congratulatory letters arrived from overseas as well as from Britain, a well-attended celebration rally was held at Farringdon Hall and the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi subsequently visited the brewery to thank the workers.

As so often, Queen Victoria was not amused however and she demanded that the government apologise to Austria for an outrage against what she called “one of the Emperor’s distinguished generals.” Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, was directed to write the necessary apology. He himself had told his colleagues that he was as delighted as any man in England about what had happened and his official despatch to the Austrians reflected this. He regretted the attack but added, pointedly, that it was ill-advised for Haynau to have come to Britain in the first place in view of the general indignation about his behaviour in Italy and Hungary. Palmerston added that it would be unwise for Austria to ask for prosecution of the brewery workers because, were they put on trial, their defence council would obviously use, and thereby publicise still further, evidence of Haynau’s own atrocities.

Haynau being rescued from further indignities by the police

Queen Victoria was indignant when she saw the despatch, but it had already been sent. She demanded that another, with an unqualified apology, be drafted. Palmerston told the Prime Minister that any such new despatch would have to be signed by a new Foreign Secretary. Unwilling to lose the most capable member of the government, Russell, the Prime Miniser did not force the issue. Palmerston had won, and himself became Prime Minister five years later. Victoria loathed him.

A commemorative plaque on the site of the (now demolished) brewery

Haynau died in 1853. It is ironic – and pleasing – that a cruel and arrogant tyrant should not be remembered for his undoubted military capabilities and achievements, but as the flogger of women who was himself to get the beating he richly deserved from London workmen.

The Dawlish Chronicles

This series now comprises five books so far, plus a long short-story as a bonus in the latest - Britannia's Amazon.

Click here to access Antoine Vanner's Author Page to get details of the series. All are available in e-book and paperback format. The latter are especially suitable as Christmas gifts for anybody who enjoys a rattling good tale of danger, courage and adventure.

In a recent blog about Captain Henry Trollope and HMS Glatton, we saw a single Royal Navy warship engage eight enemy vessels successfully. Today’s blog deals with an equally desperate battle against the odds.

Captain James Luttrell

By 1782 the American War of Independence was winding down, but actions were still being fought at sea. In December of that year Captain James Luttrell (1751-1788) was in command of the 44-gun fifth-rate, HMS Mediator, off the north-west coast of Spain. Luttrell was as much a politician as a naval officer, having been elected to Parliament in 1775 (one would like to know more about he juggled his time commitments since he appears to have been respected in both roles). He opposed the war with the American colonists, believing that their cause was just, but as a serving officer he did not hesitate to fight them and their French and Spanish allies to the limit of his abilities.

At dawn on December 12^th 1782 the Mediator sighted a convoy of five vessels and closed with them to investigate. Three of the ships proved to be French: the Ménagère, a 64-gun ship of the line that had had half of its armament removed to make room for carrying freight; the Aimable Eugénie, a 36-gun frigate; the Dauphin Royal, primarily a transport but carrying 28 guns. Two vessels were at least nominally American, the Alexander, a privateer, operating under a French-issued letter of marque, armed with 24 guns, as well as an un-named American brig. They represented a formidable challenge for a single warship to take on. What was however in Luttrell’s favour was that the convoy was primarily a transport unit rather than a fighting force and was conveying supplies from France to the American rebels. It was part of a much larger logistics operation that had run during much of the war and was masterminded by Pierre Beaumarchais – remembered today as the dramatist who wrote The Marriage of Figaro, the “must-see” play of the period that was subsequently turned into an opera by Mozart.

The enemy convoy shortened sail and formed a line of battle, obviously prepared to fight off any attack. Luttrell’s tactic was to drive straight at it, taking advantage of the handiness of the Mediator, hoping to dislocate the enemy line, cause what damage he could, and run should the action not develop to his satisfaction. By 10 a.m. the range had closed sufficiently for the Ménagère– which Luttrell still believed to be a fully-armed ship of the line – to open fire. The broadside she released came from her upper deck only, demonstrating that she was only partially armed and thereby considerably less dangerous than she appeared. This encouraged Luttrell to drive through the enemy line (the tactic that Nelson would later make his trademark) and cut off the Alexander. A single broadside was enough for this privateer to strike her colours while the remaining French vessels and the American brig made their escape. Luttrell put a prize crew aboard the Alexander and took some 100 prisoners from her on board the Mediator. This must have taken considerable time, and it is an indication of Luttrell’s confidence in Mediator’s speed and sailing abilities – not to mention in her crew – that he believed that he could catch up with the retreating enemy.

HMS Mediator in action, December 12th 1782 (note enemy vessels escaping on the right)
Painting by Thomas Luny (1759-1837)

It took five hours to get in range of the Ménagère, which had been by then separated from the other ships. She might well be under-armed but she still carried heavy guns and Luttrell did not want to close the range further. He maintained instead distant but ineffective fire. The weather was now deteriorating and a sudden heavy squall caught Mediator and heeled her over so that water poured in through her lower-deck gun ports to “knee depth”. This was when the professionalism of both officers and seamen showed to advantage. Despite this setback, Mediatorwas soon in a state to resume the chase. It was dark before she caught up with the Ménagère, which was by now within five-miles of the shelter offered by the Spanish naval base of Ferrol. He French captain’s nerve seems to have failed at this point and before Mediator could deliver a broadside he struck his colours. The same process was repeated as with the Alexander– a prize crew put on board and prisoners, some 200 in this case, taken on to the Mediator and both ships then bore away from the Spanish coast. At dawn the escaped French frigate and American brig were sighted – both had been damaged in the earlier fighting – but by now Luttrell’s crew was seriously depleted through provision of prize-crews. Mediator had taken only seven casualties but was now manned by only 190 men, compared with the more than 300 prisoners on board. Luttrell reluctantly decide not to engage these enemy vessels and set course for Plymouth with his prizes.

A new drama played out during this voyage back to Britain. The American captain of the captured Alexander, one Stephen Gregory, and some of his officers had been accommodated in the Mediator’s gun-room. They managed somehow to establish communication with the other prisoners on board and hatched a plan for a take-over of the ship. The signal for action to commence was that one of the eighteen-pounders in the gun room was to be discharged – one wonders how Gregory managed to acquire the necessary powder to prime it – and in the resulting confusion the prisoners were to burst out of the hatchways.

The gun was fired during darkness but Mediator’s marines had been well posted at all exits and the prisoners were unable to break out. Luttrell went to the gun-room and found it on fire and everything within it shattered. Gregory and a single accomplice were found there, miraculously unharmed. They were immediately clapped in irons but it is typical of the gentlemanly standards of the period that the French officers, who had taken no part in the plot, continued to dine, under parole, at Luttrell’s own table.

In this dramatic action, in which boldness and confidence had proved the decisive factor, a single 44-gun ship, with a crew already depleted by provision of manning for earlier prizes, took on a force deploying 132 guns and 634 men. Casualties amounted to seven wounded. The enemy casualties were low also – a total of ten dead and fifteen wounded on the two vessels captured, an indication in itself of the lack of will which might otherwise have secured a different result.

Considering Luttrell’s splendid victory, it is sad to record the he died young, at only thirty-seven and that his potential for high command was never realised.

Download a free story: Britannia’s Eventide

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If you have not already subscribed to the mailing list, you can do so in the box in the column to the right of this. You will then a copy of the story by e-mail.

Britannia's Eventide is a snapshot of a critical moment in the later years of Admiral Sir Nicholas Dawlish and his wife, Lady Florence, whom you will have met earlier in their lives in the five books of the series so far. It is not available elsewhere at this time. It is a companion piece to the short-story Britannia's Eye, which is a bonus-addition to the novel Britannia's Amazon, and which gives a glimpse of Nicholas Dawlish's childhood.

I hope that you will enjoy the story, no less than the novels in the series. I always value feedback, so don't hesitate to get back to me. I'd especially like to know what you think of the idea of free short-stories that fill in gaps in Dawlish's career that may not justify full books.

Best Wishes: Antoine Vanner

The illustration below is from a German WW1 part-work, published monthly, in this case in 1914/15. It is an artist’s impression of the destruction of the Bayan-class Russian armoured cruiser Pallada on 11^thOctober 1914. There were no survivors from her 597-man crew when she blew up after being torpedoed by the German submarine U-26.

This 7750 ton vessel, armed with a main armament of two 8-inch and eight 6-inch guns, plus smaller weapons, was already obsolete then she was commissioned in 1911. In overall configuration – single bow and stern chasers and her remaining heavy weapons in casemates – she had more in common with doomed British counterparts, such as Aboukir, Cressey, Hogue and Good Hope, built a decade earlier, than with the battle-cruisers that were already replacing armoured cruisers in the British and German navies. Palladawas however of only half the displacement of the old British cruisers and one wonders why money was ever invested in her and in her sisters Bayan and Makarov.

SMS Magdeburg

Though the Pallada was the first Russian warship to be lost in World War 1 she had already provided a service of inestimable value, even though it came about by pure chance. The tltra-modern German cruiser Magdeburg had run aground off the Estonian coast on 26^thAugust and efforts by a destroyer to tow her free had proved unsuccessful. While the attempt continued the Palladaarrived on the scene with another cruiser, the Bogatyr, one of the few Russian ships to survive operations in the Far East during the Russo-Japanese War. Unable to run, and taken under fire by the Russians, the Magdeburg’s crew attempted to scuttle, blowing off the forepart of the ship but leaving the remainder largely intact. More important however was the fact that priority had not been given by the German captain to destruction of the code-books. These the Russians managed to recover from the wreck – a fact that the Germans did not suspect. The need to change the codes was not appreciated and the Russians had won a treasure. The code-book was passed on to the British and was of vital importance in allowing the Royal Navy’s “Room 40” – the WW1 centre of code-breaking which was comparable to Bletchley Park in WW2 – to read German naval radio-traffic through much of the war.

Short the Pallada’sservice life might have been, but it was to have a massive impact on Britain’s prosecution of the war at sea. The tragedy was that her crew died without knowing it.

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Best Wishes: Antoine Vanner

There have been many blogs on this site dealing with actions in the Age of Fighting Sail that involved only a few vessels, in many cases two only. In most cases, skilful manoeuvring and sail management, taking full advantage of wind and sea conditions, were key factors in positioning vessels to deliver their broadsides from the most advantageous position. There can only have been few cases in which the action took place in a calm and the movements of sailing warships were determined by the ability of their crews to propel them by sweeps or oars. Sweeps were long oars which could be extended out through gun ports and their use seems to have fallen away in the course of the 18^thCentury. In Britain’s National Maritime Museum in Greenwich there is only one model of a vessel with sweeps deployed, as shown in the photograph below

It was during the War of Austrian Succession in January 1743 that HMS Pulteney fought a battle in the Straits of Gibraltar in which her sweeps, and her enemies’, were to determine the course of action. The Pulteney, “a large brigantine” carrying 16 carriage guns (I can find no further detail) and commanded by a Captain James Purcell, had been cruising in the Straits to deter Spanish naval movements (as was the case in most in 18^th Century wars, Spain was allied with France against Britain). She now however found herself becalmed off the British fortifications at Gibraltar and under observation from Spanish forces at Algeciras, directly across the bay from them.

Two Spanish xebecs now left Algeciras to intercept Pulteney. Xebecs were a type of craft common in the Mediterranean and were employed by the Spanish and French navies as well as by North African corsairs. Light and highly manoeuvrable, many were essentially galleys, with provisions as a matter of course for oar propulsion as well as by large lanteen sails. (Sentencing to galley service was a dreaded punishment for criminals). This contrasted with the use of sweeps, which were usually employed as a last resort, and operated by members of the crew. The two xebecs that came out to confront Purcell and the Pulteneywere each crewed by 120 men and each carried 12 guns, apparently 9-pounders. Their rowers’ efforts were supplemented by the current through the Straits running in their favour. The Pulteney by contrast had only 42 men on board, three of whom had been wounded in an earlier action.

A superb painting of Xebecs in action five years before the Pulteney's encounter

"Antonio Barceló's Xebec Facing two Algerian Corsair Galiots, 1738"

Madrid's Navy Museum (catalog number: 522). 1902 oil painting by Ángel Cortellini y Sánchez (1858-1912).

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

The xebecs opened fire with individual guns as they approached but when within hailing distance called on Captain Purcell by name to strike so as to avoid unnecessary slaughter. He and the Spanish captains appear to have known each other – this being an era of gentlemanly warfare and courteous respect for the enemy. Purcell, as was probably expected, refused to yield and the engagement commenced, the Pulteneybeing at a disadvantage to her more manoeuvrable foes. Gunfire was exchanged for an hour and three quarters and the Spanish xebecs made three separate attempts to board. Given how small Purcell’s crew was it is improbable that all 16 of Pulteney’s guns could have been manned but they at last inflicted sufficient damage to the xebecs that they broke off the action to head for home. Even now, Pulteney attempted to chase them, with the Pulteneynow propelled by her sweeps since there was still no wind. The lighter xebecs managed however to make their escape.

The Pulteney had suffered seriously, her sails and rigging completely destroyed and her hull and masts damaged. The action had occurred in full view of the Gibraltar garrison and boats went out to tow her back to safety. Her crew had suffered one dead and five seriously wounded but it was reported afterwards that the clothes of every man on board had been rent by shot or fragments. A subscription was raised by Gibraltar’s governor, officers and merchants to present Purcell with a piece of plate while money was distributed to the crew. Purcell’s and Pulteney’s heroic stand was the type of incident that was to inspire so much naval fiction in later years.

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To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide has been sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

If you have not already subscribed to the mailing list, you can do so by clicking here or on the image above. You will then receive a copy of the story by e-mail.

Best Wishes: Antoine Vanner

Note equal prominence given to the
German (L) and Austro-Hungarian (R) eagles

As we come to the end of the year that is the 100^thAnniversary of the battles of Verdun, the Somme and Jutland, of the siege of Kut, of the Brusilov Offensive and of the smashing of Rumania, I found it interesting to see how it was viewed from a German perspective. This was through an illustrated part-work that was published regularly through the conflict, and re-issues in bound copies. (See also my blog “WW1, a German View – the Last Years of Cavalry” posted on January 2^nd 2015). There are many drawings, and not a few photographs, but they are printed in the text and the quality is poor.

What is most striking from these illustrations is how alien, how remote that world seems. It is admittedly a hundred years ago, but WW2 is three quarters of that time away and yet the feeling of remoteness is nothing like so strong. The “feel” of WW2 has some familiarity for us – a world of radar and radio, of aircraft carriers, of armoured forces, of strategic bombing, of air transport, of the arrival of the jet engine, of penicillin, of the Manhattan Project, all developments that have their lineal descendants today. But the WW1 era feels so radically different – to a large extent more a hangover of the 19^th Century than the start of the 20^th– that it’s hard to believe that a mere 25 years separated 1914 with its horsed cavalry, its strutting rulers and generals in operetta-style uniforms, its horse-drawn transport, its infantry tactics that were essentially Napoleonic, its infantry walking over vast distances, its wood and linen aircraft, from a later war in which technology would be the deciding factor. Some of the illustrations below provide examples:

Austro-Hungarian forces advancing in the Balkans -
a scene reminiscent of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow

Constructing a dug-out - a scene drawn from imagination rather than reality.
The overall "feel" is 19th Century however - it could be an illustration for Zola's Germinal

A Turkish ambulance - it would not be out of place at Gettysburg 50 years earlier

Austro-Hungarian troops advancing against Italy in the Dolomites

Russian infantry

Russian Cavalry - in what's virtually Napoleonic uniform

Rumanian cavalry trooper - note his lance. His son may be trapped and facing tanks,
and praying for air-supply, a quarter-century later in the mechanized hell of Stalingrad

Death in 1916 of A-H Emperor Franz-Josef - reigning since 1848!

An over-optimistic view of what Zeppelins were achieving against enemy naval forces

But the real air war was getting serious. Aces here of 1916 -
and those marked with a cross were already dead by year's end

The British attack at the Somme presented - generously - in heroic terms

French grenade thrower - uncertain whether it's a crossbow or some even more
complicated contraption. Note shopping-basket for transporting grenades.

And a view of the German and British maneuvers at the Battle of Jutland

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide by clicking the cover image below

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I recently enjoyed one of the two best books I’ve read this year: “In the Kingdom of the Ice –The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette” by Hampton Sides. It deals with the disastrous American expedition of 1878/81 – an attempt to reach the North Pole by sea after entering the Arctic via the Bering Strait. It was all but doomed from the start as the plan was based on a false premise. This was that the ice on the edge of the Arctic Ocean was only a narrow barrier, with open water beyond, and the premise was based on scant – and misinterpreted – evidence and wild supposition. The officers and crew of the USS Jeanette were to endure appalling hardships, and to display limitless courage in rescuing themselves - which not all were successful in doing.

Contemporary illustration: USS Jeannette's crew hauling boats and sledges across the ice

The Jeannette's is an inspiring story of valour and resourcefulness, but also one of greed and callousness on the side of the ruthless press-baron who financed the undertaking as a publicity stunt. I had previously touched briefly on this epic in my blog of 26^th September 2014 (it can be located via the side-bar to the right) but until I read Hampton Sides’ brilliant book I had not appreciated the full extent of the tragedy and the heroism. Touched on is the fact that as the Jeannette was setting out, it was known that a Swedish vessel, the Vega, was attempting the North-East Passage, and if she were to be successful might be emerging from the Bering Strait at around the same time that the Vega would be entering it. With my interest piqued I decided to find out more about the Vega’s voyage and what follows is a very brief summary of her achievement.

Finding the North-West Passage, across the north of Canada, that would allow the Orient to be reached from Europe by a shorter route than around the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, was to be the focus of exploration – and tragedy – for some three centuries. The search was to involve spectacular hardship, failure and loss of life and it was only in the years 1903 to 1906 that Roald Amundsen, in a tiny fishing boat called the Gjøa, navigated the entire route for the first time. Though an epic achievement – which included getting locked in the ice for two years – it also demonstrated that the route was not practical for regular traffic.

Dezhnev Expedition as imagined by
a 19th Century illustrator

The North-West Passage’s counterpart was the North-East Passage, the route across the north of Europe and Asia, from Norway’s North Cape to the Bering Strait. From the sixteenth-century onwards British and Dutch ships had been trading with the White Sea in Northern Russia and had ventured as far east as the island of Nova Zembla – an amazing achievement considering the hazards involved. Further progress east was subsequently made eastwards, along the coast by Russian vessels, but winter ice always proved a block to a single continuous passage to the Bering Strait. The Russian achievement was however spectacular. The 17^th Century saw the penetration of Russian explorers and settlers into Siberia, not only across the landmass, but along the northern coast bordering the Arctic Ocean and reaching the estuaries of the vast rivers Ob, Yenesei and Lena. These efforts were facilitated by the use of “Koch” vessels – small sailing craft with reinforced skin-planking that were equipped to deal with ice. The greatest achievement of these years came in 1648 when a Russian explorer named Semyon Dezhnev descended the Kolyma river in north-eastern Siberia, reached the Arctic Ocean and travelled eastwards to emerge into the Northern Pacific through the Bering Strait. Of seven boats involved only two made it the whole way. (This expedition is largely forgotten outside Russia. (If any of my Russian blog-followers – of whom there are many – would like to contribute a guest blog on this I would be delighted to host it).

With Dezhnev’s heroic achievement left in obscurity, the credit for achieving the first North-East Passage has usually been attributed to Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjold (1832 – 1901). First or not, Nordenskjold’s voyage was an epic in its own right, and a triumph of systematic planning and sound leadership. Born in Finland – which was at that time ruled by Russia – and from an aristocratic Swedish/Finnish family, Nordenskjold qualified as a geologist at the university of Helsinki and after graduation in 1853 undertook a mineralogical study in the Urals. Russian rule was resented by the Finns and Nordenskjold, outspoken on the subject, drew such unwelcome attention from the authorities that he moved to Sweden in 1857, establishing himself as curator of mineralogy at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. By now interested in the Arctic, he participated in an unsuccessful 1861 expedition which attempted to reach the North Pole by means of dog-sledges from the north coast of Spitzbergen. He returned to the Arctic several times in the following years and in 1868 reached the highest northern latitude yet attained in the eastern hemisphere. This was followed by an expedition to Greenland in 1870 and a return thereafter to Spitzbergen. In a series of voyages, he once more achieved a “furthest north” record and in 1875 he pushed as far eastwards as the mouth of the Yenisei, one of the three great rivers that flow north from Siberia into the Arctic Ocean. These expeditions established him as the most experienced Arctic explorer of his day and he was now convinced that – with correct timing to take account of summer ice-melting – it would be possible to complete the North-East Passage. He gained a powerful patron for this scheme, King Oscar II of Sweden.

Nordenskjold - meticulous planner

Systematic in all he undertook, Nordenskjold, set out his plans and schedule in detail: "It is my intention to leave Sweden in July 1878 in a steamer specially built for navigation among ice, which will be provisioned for two years at most. The course will be shaped for Nova Zembla, where a favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara Sea. The voyage will be continued to the mouth of the Yenisei, which I hope to reach in the first half of August. As soon as circumstances permit, the expedition will continue its voyage along the coast to Cape Chelyuskin, where the expedition will reach the only part of the proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel, and is rightly considered as that which it will be most difficult for a vessel to double during the whole North-East Passage; but our vessel, equipped with all modern appliances, ought not to find insuperable difficulties in doubling this point, and if that can be accomplished, we will probably have pretty open water towards Behring's Straits, which ought to be reached before the end of September. From the Bering Strait the course will be shaped for some Asiatic port and then onwards round Asia to Suez."

With Oscar II’s support, a subscription was raised to fund the expedition. A ship was purchased, the Vega,of 300 tons, formerly used in walrus-hunting in northern waters, and she was further strengthened to withstand ice. She left Sweden in early July 1878, carrying supplies for thirty people for two years. An especially impressive achievement was that fresh bread was to be baked during the whole expedition that followed.

Having rounded the North Cape and entered the Arctic Ocean, the Vega made good time through ice-free waters, passing into the Kara Sea east of Nova Zembla at the beginning of August, then anchoring briefly at mouth of Dickson Island, north of the Yenisei mouth. The Vega pushed on in fog and on 19^thAugust reached Cape Chelyuskin, the most northerly point of the Asian landmass. It was appropriate that as the fog lifted there a polar bear was sighted. Nordenskjold was to write later that "here we reached the great goal, which for centuries had been the object of unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at anchor off the northernmost cape of the Old World. With colours flying on every mast and saluting the venerable north point of the Old World with the Swedish salute of five guns, we came to anchor."

The Vega at Cape Chelyuskin, observed by a polar bear
Painting by Jacob Hägg (Source Wikipedia)

Cape Chelyuskin had been e after one of the leaders of a Russian expedition that had reached it by a land journey in 1742 which had entailed terrible hardships and suffering. The Vega left a cairn there over a box that contained a message describing the status of the expedition at this point and headed eastwards on August 20^th.

Nordenskjold & Vega in the ice
Painting by Georg von Rosa, 1886

Progress now became steadily more difficult as the Vega pushed on. Thick fog made navigation through increasing numbers of ice-floes both difficult and dangerous. Notwithstanding this, the Vegareached the mouth of the Lena 27th August. From this point conditions improved and fast progress was made through an ice-free sea and hopes began to rise of completing the passage before the full onset of winter. This soon proved over-optimistic. Snow fell from September 1^st and fog again descended. Ice was pushing down from the north and progress was only possible by hugging a narrow ice-free channel near the coast. Contact was however made with Chukchi, an indigenous people of North-Eastern Siberia. These were the first people the Vega’s crew has seen for six weeks and they were dressed in reindeer skins with tight-fitting trousers of seal-skin, shoes of reindeer-skin with seal-skin boots and walrus-skin soles. In very cold weather they wore hoods of wolf fur with the head of the wolf at the back. Nordenskjold, wrote later that "Although it was only five o'clock in the morning, we all jumped out of our berths and hurried on deck to see these people of whom so little was known. The boats were of skin, fully laden with laughing and chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed beings climbed up over the gunwale and a lively talk began. Great gladness prevailed when tobacco and Dutch clay pipes were distributed among them. None of them could speak a word of Russian; they had come in closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders."

The mention of “American whalers” was significant since it indicated that some vessels at least had reached that point from the east, and that open water must exist for some part at least of the year. Nordenskjold therefore pressed on through snow and ice and fog in the hope of getting through to the Pacific before the sea was completely frozen over. But the ice was beginning to close. Large blocks were constantly hurled against the Vega, threatening her destruction.

Vega's voyage and key dates

On 28th September, the struggle eastwards ended and the Vega was frozen inextricably into the ice. Nordenskjold estimated that this was only 120 miles distant from the Bering Strait, a fact all the more galling as 2400 miles had already been covered since leaving Sweden. Nordenskjold’s meticulous planning stood the Vega and her crew in good stead for the coming winter months and food was not going to be a problem. Locked as she was in the ice, the vessel was close to a settlement of Chukchi. These hospitable people helped the crew to enliven the winter with short expeditions in land on dog-sledges when weather permitted. The trapped ship was enshrouded by snow and it was reported to penetrate every nook and cranny where the wind could find an opening. Morale remained high however and Christmas was celebrated in the traditional Swedish manner.

The first hopes of release came in the following April (of 1879) when large flocks of geese, eider-ducks, gulls, and little song-birds began to arrive, some perching on the Vega’srigging. This proved a false dawn however and the ship remained locked in the ice during May and June. It was not until 18th July 1879 that, as Nordenskjold wrote, "the hour of deliverance came at last, and we cast loose from our faithful ice-block, which for two hundred and ninety-four days had protected us so well against the pressure of the ice and stood westwards in the open channel, now about a mile wide. On the shore stood our old (Chukchi)friends, probably on the point of crying, which they had often told us they would do when the ship left them."TheVega pressedonbetween closely packed ice with occasional glimpses through the fog of the coastline until she could at last swing southwards to encounter the heave swell of the Pacific Ocean at what was the Bering Strait. On 14^th August, less than a month after breaking free, the Vega anchored at the Russian settlement on Bering Island to be greeted by a voice calling out in Swedish, "Is it Nordenskiöld?"

Vega's welcome as she arrives back in Stockholm, 24th April 1880.

What followed was almost an anti-climax compared with what had gone before, a triumphal progress home that included Nordenskjold’s reception by the Emperor of Japan – who presented him with a medal. On 24^thApril 1880 the weather-beaten Vega, accompanied by flag-decked flotillas of admirers, sailed into Stockholm and an ecstatic welcome, led by Oscar II, who ennobled Nordenskjold as a baron.

Nordenskjold was to make one more Arctic expedition, in 1882-83, this time to Greenland, and again in the Vega. Thereafter his career was academic and in 1901 he was nominated to receive the first Nobel Prize for Physics though he died before the award. Relatively little-remembered today, he must count as one of the greatest of all Polar explorers, the meticulous nature of his planning and his strict scientific approach ensuring success.

He deserves to be remembered.

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Then plunge into a world of adventure with Nicholas Dawlish of the Royal Navy and his indomitable wife Florence. They face danger and intrigue by land and by sea in the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, in the squalor and opulence of the United States' Gilded Age, during savage guerrilla warfare in Cuba, and in Paraguay during bloody revolution and repression. In Korea, ruled by a weak king and a clever queen, Nicholas is caught between ruthless Chinese and Japanese efforts to dominate while back in Britain Florence faces enemies no less vicious as she uncovers scandal and exploitation behind the complacent facade of Victorian respectability.

Click here or on the image below for an overview of the series and links to each book.

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The year now slipping away was an active one for me as regards blogging, the publication of the 5^th Dawlish Chronicles novel, Britannia’s Amazon, the completion of the 6^th novel – due out early next year. Other highlights were running a workshop on plotting at the Weymouth Leviathan Literary Festival in March and helping organise the Historical Novel Society’s conference in Oxford in September.

I published 74 blogs during the year, including eight from guests who included Helen Hollick (twice), Richard Abbott (twice), Chris Sams, Tom Williams, Nykle Dijkstra, Catherine Curzon and Geri Walton. As usual, my logs fall into three categories: the Age of Fighting Sail, the Victorian Era and the Early 20^th Century. For the 2016 retrospective I’ve picked out one blog for each month of the year and I’ve added a thirteenth for good measure. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

January: War in the North Sea, 1864 - The Battle of Heligoland

In 1864 the small nation of Denmark was attacked by the combined forces of Prussia and Austria-Hungary. The Danish resistance was to be heroic, and never more so than when naval forces clashed off the island of Heligoland in a battle now largely forgotten outside Denmark. Click here to read about this action.

February: HMS Hector 1782 – an epic of leadership

The survival of 200 men from a battle-damaged and hurricane-battered ship of the line in 1782 was due to the outstanding leadership and professional competence of a 20-year old officer, Lieutenant Henry Inman (1762 –1809), who was later to be a noted frigate commander. Clickhere to read about this drama.

March: A British cruiser 2000 miles up the Amazon: HMS Pelorus1909

The greed and excesses of the Fitzcarraldo rubber-boom era on the Amazon, slavery and exploitation of helpless indigenous people, and Britain’s laureate of Empire – all linked by a Royal Navy cruiser some 2000 miles from the sea. Click here for this remarkable story.

April:The Ram Triumphant: Lissa 1866

The clash between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies off the Dalmatian island of Lissa in 1866 was to be the only large-scale battle fought by first-generation ironclads. It was remarkable not only for the success of ramming tactics but for the aggressive and capable leadership of the Austro-Hungarian commander, Wilhelm von Tegettoff. An earlier blog saw him in action against the Danes two years earlier but his day of greatest glory was to be at Lissa. Click here to read about thebattle.

May: An epic stand against French oared-galleys in British Waters – 1707

When one thinks of battles involving oared galleys one thinks automatically of actions in the Mediterranean. The galley’s day as a fighting vessel – a long one, stretching back two thousand years – ended in the early eighteenth century and as such they do not figure in most accounts of sea warfare of that era, as “Fighting Sail” reached its apogee of efficiency. I was therefore all the more surprised to come on an account of an epic last-stand by a single British frigate against French galleys in the Thames estuary in 1707. Click here to read about it.

June: The Dutch East Indies Ulcer – the Aceh Wars begin 1873-74

The history of the Netherlands in the 19th Century is a closed book for most non-Dutch, not least because of the incorrect perception that “little happened” and as the country was at peace in Europe from 1831 to 1940. The Netherlands were however involved in a series of colonial campaigns in the vast territory of the Dutch East Indies, which constituted most of what is the present-day nation of Indonesia. The greatest – and most sustained – of these conflicts was the series of difficult campaigns from 1873 to 1914 which became known as the Aceh War.Click hereto read how it started.

July:Naval Hero Sir James Lucas Yeo

Handsome and courageous, obviously a born leader, Sir James Lucas Yeo (1782 – 1818) seems like a figure who steps from the pages of naval fiction. He is best remembered today for his command of British forces on the Great Lakes in the War of 1812 but this naval officer’s rapid ascent to such a significant command started with a spectacular attack on coastal fortifications in 1805. This was the first of three articles dealing with Yeo’s career. Click here to read it.

August: First Blood 1914: Amphion and Königin Luise

Within 48 hours of Britain and Germany going to war on 4th August 1914, one British ship and one German ship had been destroyed by each other. The high casualties involved brought home to both nations the stark reality of how murderous war at sea would prove in the conflict now embarked upon. Click here to read of these events.

September: The Capture of Curaçao 1807

In just a few hours on New Year’s Day 1807 the Royal Navy captured the Dutch base at Curaçao in the Caribbean with almost ludicrous ease despite its powerful defences. Failure to recover in time from hangovers resulting from the previous night’s festivities may have played a role… Click here to read about it.

October: The bloody Plattsburg mutiny, 1816

A fast-sailing American trading schooner carrying eleven thousand pounds of coffee and forty-two thousand dollars in coins was hijacked by her mutinous crew in 1816. But the voyage that followed brought them to a very unlikely destination and was to end in a mystery that is still unsolved. Click here to read of this savage affair.

November: Frigate Duel 1782: HMS Santa Margarita and L’Amazone

Two evenly-matched frigates, one British, one French encountered each other off the entrance to Chesapeake Bay in 1782. A French squadron of eight ships of the line were drawing close however and flight rather than flight seemed the more reasonable option for the British ship. That was not however as it worked out… Click here to read about it.

December: HMS Mediator at odds of Five to One, 1782

In the closing months of the American War of Independence an out-gunned British warship engaged an enemy force at odds of five to one. It proved to be one of the most remarkable actions of the period – and had a unlikely link to Mozart’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro! Click here to read about it.

And my own choice as 13^th:

Guest Blog by Nykle Dijkstra: A Treasure Trove of Naval Art

I was lucky to be approached by Nykle Dijkstra, a Dutch reader of my blog who is interested, among much else of a nautical nature, in the art of the great Age of Fighting Sail. A student of maritime history, Nykle told me something of what he was undertaking add I invited him to prepare a blog. It turned out to be a superb one, as you’ll see, and it reflects some detective work on his part. It all starts, as good detective stories so often do, with the discovery of an old sketch and a few written pages. What followed led to him striking gold – the world of Hornblower and Jack Aubrey brought to life. I hope you enjoy his article as much as I did. Click here forit.

And a little about my 2016 book: Britannia’s Amazon, the fifth in the Dawlish Chronicles series.

Click here or on the imagebelow for more information.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide by clicking the cover image below

To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide has been sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

If you have not already subscribed to the mailing list, you can do so by clicking here or on the image above. You will then receive a copy of the story by e-mail.

1917 was to mark a turning point not just in World War 1, but in world history, for it saw not only the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the birth of the Soviet state, but the entry of the United States into the conflict and its emergence as a global power. The American declaration of war on Germany in April 1917 was triggered by the German decision to launch unrestricted submarine warfare, which would make no allowance for American neutrality. In retrospect, the rationale underlying this action by Germany can be seen to be flawed, but at the time the success thus-far of German (and Austro-Hungarian) submarines against British and French shipping gave every indication that they could starve the European allies into submission long before American troops could be trained and landed in France. Earlier blogs (5^th May 2015, 9^th and 26^th June 2015, 7^thand 21^st October 2016 – access via bar on the right) have illustrated just how devastatingly effective the U-boats, even small ones, had been in the early years of the war, and 1917 was to be ushered in with yet another spectacular sinking of a large allied vessel.

UB-45, sister of UB-47, and also re-assembled at Pola

The UB-47 was one of six small U-boats that were built in Germany, broken down into sections, sent south by railway and re-assembled at the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. This 300-ton (submerged), 120-foot craft was armed with two torpedo-tubes and a single 88mm deck gun. (It should be borne in mind that in WW1 a high percentage of shipping was sunk by gunfire, since radio was not widely available to make distress calls, and convoy systems were only introduced late in the conflict so that victims were all too often on their own.) Making her first war patrol in the Mediterranean in July 1916, the UB-47 was to sink twenty ships over the next year, including some very large ones. Thereafter she was transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Navy and made three further scores before the war’s end. On the basis of value of enemy shipping sunk per ton of her displacement, she must count as one of the most successful warships in history. She survived to be scrapped in 1920.

Under her commander, Wolfgang Steinbauer, UB-47 was to start her tally with the sinking on August 17^th of an Italian liner acting as a troopship, the 9000-ton Stampalia, off Cape Matapan on the Greek mainland’s southern tip (an area of sea that was to host much action in both World Wars). The Stampaliawas mercifully not carrying troops at the time and there were no casualties. Many successes followed – including three sinkings of freighters on a single day in August 1916.

RMS Franconia, shown in 1910 postcard

On October 4^th UB-47 torpedoed and sank the largest-tonnage victim of her career, the 18,500-ton 625-foot Cunard liner Franconia east of Malta.She had been taken into service as a trooper but luckily, as in the case of the Stampalia, she was carrying no troops at the time. Twelve of her crew of 312 lost their lives. The toll of smaller shipping continued, including five small sailing vessels sunk off Sicily and a particularly gruesome tragedy involving a freighter transporting horses.

French pre-dreadnought Galois (1896)

UB-47 was to close out 1916 with another spectacular victim, this time the French pre-dreadnought battleship Galois, encountered in the Aegean Sea on December 27^th. This 11,000-ton survivor of damage sustained in the 1915 attack on the Dardanelles was returning from a refit n France and was screened by a destroyer and two armed trawlers. Steinbauer, undeterred by the escorts, pressed his attack and scored a hit with a single torpedo amidships. It was enough to doom the antiquated battleship. She began to list, capsizing some twenty minutes later and sinking shortly afterwards, but giving enough time for all but four of her almost 700-man crew to escape.

The Ivernia, seen pre-war

Five days later, UB-47 was to usher in 1917 with another high-tonnage sinking. This was the 13,800-ton, 600-foot Cunard liner Ivernia, also serving as a troopship and sighted south-east of Cape Matapan, en-route from Marseilles to Alexandria. On this occasion the potential for loss of life was enormous since she was carrying some 2,400 British soldiers in addition to her crew. She was under the command of Captain William Turner (1856-1933) who the previous year had been in command of the liner Lusitania, when she had been sunk without warning off the Irish coast by U-20 with great loss of life. Though beyond hope of survival, the Iverniasank slowly enough for the vast majority of those on board to escape by boat or by raft, many to be rescued by the escorting destroyer HMS Rifleman and armed trawlers in company with her. The final death toll came to 36 crew and 84 troops – tragedies for individual families but in their totality far smaller than the hecatomb that could otherwise have ensued. Captain Turner had been criticised for not going down with the Lusitania but he remained on the Ivernia’s bridge until she sank under his feet, swimming to safety thereafter.

HMS Rifleman, photographed during rescue operations

It was still only midday on January 1st 1917. The drama that had played out off Matapan was to be the overture to one of the most bloody – and momentous – years in history. Worse, far worse, was to come.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide by clicking the cover image below

To thank subscribers to the Dawlish Chronicles mailing list, a free, downloadable, copy of a new short story, Britannia's Eventide has been sent to them as an e-mail attachment.

If you have not already subscribed to the mailing list, you can do so by clicking here or on the image above. You will then receive a copy of the story by e-mail.

Napoleon III and Eugenie in glory

I was set off on the train of thinking that led to this article when driving past a girl’s school some six-miles from my home. As I did I membered that I was passing the last resting place of the French Emperor Napoleon III, his Spanish-born Empress Eugenie and his son, Napoleon Eugene, the Prince Imperial, who was to die, incongruously, in British uniform during the Zulu War. Exiled after France’s collapse before Prussian professionalism in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Napoleon spent his last days in England. His wife was to retire to the house that is now the Farnborough Hill School and close by she built a mausoleum for herself, her husband and her son, whose body she had travelled to South Africa to recover. She lived on in sad retirement until 1920, the survivor of a bygone age. In an earlier blog of mine (Click here to read it) we met her at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the last moment of her glory before war, death and exile enveloped her

Napoleon III's dream of military glory. The reality was somewhat different.

Napoloeon III’s “Second French Empire” lasted from 1852 to 1870 and for much of its existence was at war in one past of the world or another, not least because its mountebank emperor saw the pursuit of glory as one way of marginalising internal critics. The most extravagant and unlikely adventure was intervention in Mexico, and the short-lived installation of a puppet “emperor” there, and there were several colonial campaigns but the most bloody of Napoleon’s war were to take place in Europe. The post-Waterloo nineteenth century in Europe is often seen as peaceful but it was so only in the sense that there was no continent-wide conflicts on the lines of the Napoleonic Wars or World War 1 There were however a number of brutal, if short-duration, struggles and they culminated in the Franco-Prussian War (Click here for an earlier blog about this). Unlike 20^th Century conflicts there was no ideological element involved and the objectives were mainly focussed on balance-of-power considerations and on the desire to shift frontiers or control more territory.

French assets en route to the front

One of the bloodiest of these wars was fought in 1859 when Napoleon III decided to commit French power to support the tiny North-Italian kingdom of Piedmont against the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence. Italy as known today did still not exist as a single entity and major portions of Northern Italy were under Austro-Hungarian rule. Piedmont aspired – wholly successfully as it later turned out – not only to eject the Austro-Hungarians but to unite all the other Italian States under a single crown, that of Piedmont. Small in population and resources compared with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, tiny Piedmont had little hope of success unless she could secure a powerful ally – which proved to be France. Napoleon III’s price was to be Piedmont’s handing over of its the provinces of Savoy and Nice to France. The bargain was a cynical one and because of it large numbers of innocent men were to die and there would be misery and suffering on a vast scale.

Once assured of French support Piedmont set out to provoke the Austro-Hungarians, less by issuing predicable demands than be mobilising its troops. The Austrians sent an ultimatum demanding immediate demobilisation while the French Ambassador in Vienna told them that any move against Piedmont wold be considered a declaration of war on France. (The similarities with 1914 need no stressing). On 27^th April 1859 the Austrians crossed the Piedmontese frontier and were then at war with both France and Piedmont.

Eager to earn military laurels in imitation of his uncle, Napoleon I, the French Emperor took personal command of the his army. It was at this time a respected fighting force – it had performed well in the Crimea five years before and many of its officers and men had also been hardened by fighting in Algeria. The army the French sent into Northern Italy was upwards of 100,000 men and the Piedmontese added another 40,000 to this. Faced by a 130,000 Austrian troops, the stage was set for the largest battle on European soil since the Napoleonic Wars.

Battle of Magenta - French troops pushing back Austrian "White Coats"

Pushing eastwards towards Milan from the Piedmontese capital of Turin, the combined French-Piedmontese force crashed into the Austrians at the village of Magenta on June 4^th. The fighting was savage as the area was well suited to defence, a landscape of orchards seamed with streams and canals. The Austrians turned every house into a miniature fortress that must be taken by storm. Dogged though the defence was, the Austrians were forced back with dead, wounded and captured reaching some 10,000.The French victory was to be marked by a newly discovered aniline dye being called after it.

Emperor Franz Josef

Elated by success the French-Piedmontese juggernaut rolled on eastwards. Three weeks later, on June 24^th, it ran into four Austrian Armies, a total of 130,000 men, under the titular command of the 29-year old Emperor Franz-Josef, east of Milan and directly south of Lake Garda. The Austrians had entrenched themselves, or had occupied strong-points, on a ten-mile north south front and, once again, much of the fighting was to involve hand-to hand-storming of defended positions. The battle was to be the last at which two reigning monarchs were present.

The French-Piedmontese attacks were launched at dawn and fighting was to continue for some fifteen hours. The sheer size of the battlefield, and the number of men involved, made coordination very difficult, especially on the French-Piedmontese side. The conflict therefore descended into three all-but-separate battles in flat farmland. In the north the Austrians, with the lake on their right flank, though outnumbered, resisted Piedmontese attacks successfully and retired in good order. The village of Solferino, in the centre, held out for most of the day but the French finally punched through in early evening. At the southern extremity, where the French were outnumbered, the Austrians held out successfully, counterattacking when appropriate, but, as at the northern end, it was necessary to fall back once the centre had been breached. They withdrew to the fortified area known as “The Quadrilateral” and were not followed – the war was essentially at an end.

French attack at Solferino village - the decisive point

The losses were horrendous – over 2300 French and Piedmontese killed, over 12000 wounded and a further 2700 missing. – a 12% casualty rate. The corresponding figures for the Austrians were over 2300 killed, over 10,000 wounded and over 9000 missing – 17% of the men involved. The fighting was a merciless as is usually the case in close action and many wounded men on both sides were shot or bayoneted.

Solferino - the bloody aftermath

The suffering of the dead was over, but that of those surviving was immeasurable given the inadequate ambulance and medical services and the fact that battlefield surgery was performed without anaesthetics. Napoleon III was himself horrified and kept repeating “The poor fellows. The poor fellows. What a terrible thing was is!” Though this realisation that did not deter him from launching further wars in the future, he was sufficiently moved on this occasion to meet Emperor Franz Josef some days later and to make a separate peace with him.

Napoleon III walking, shocked, among the wounded

Henri Dunant

Though Nice and Savoy – Napoleon III’s price – remain French today (Mussolini got them back briefly for Italy in WW2), the most significant long term consequence of the battle was the most unexpected. A Swiss businessman, Henri Dunant (1828-1910), who had encountered problems with the French authorities in Algeria about interests he had there, had sought out Napoleon in Northern Italy to seek his assistance. The result was that Dunant saw the appalling aftermath of Solferino, although he did not witness the battle himself. Shocked to the core by the carnage, but determined to do something to help, Dunant enlisted the local civilians, including women, to assist the wounded. Short as they were of the necessary resources, Dunant organised purchase of supplies and set up makeshift hospitals. He negotiated with the French to get captured Austrian doctors released and, without reference to difference in nationality, managed the initiative under the slogan "Tutti fratelli" (“All men are brothers”).

Dunant subsequently described his experiences in a book entitled Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory of Solferino), published in 1862. It not only described the battle and its aftermath but also the idea of a neutral organisation dedicated to caring for wounded, regardless of nationality. He sent the book to many leading political and military figures in Europe. Support for such his ideas came first in Switzerland and the Geneva Society for Public Welfare took practical steps to establish what was to be the International Committee of the Red Cross. The symbol chosen was the reverse of the Swiss flag – a white cross on a red ground – and its simplicity, like its future Red Crescent counterpart in Muslim countries, made it an easy one to recognise even under battle conditions. The rest is history and Dunant’s legacy – and reputation – has outlasted that of the emperors whose ambitions prompted his actions.

Dunant in old age

Much of Dunant’s later life was unhappy. His business efforts did not prosper and he drifted away from the organisation he had inspired. He descended into poverty and was dependent on friends in later years. It was only towards the end of his life that his personal achievement was fully recognised and in 1901 he was the joint recipient of the first Nobel Peace Prize. Dying nine years later, after suffering years of depression, his last words were "Where has humanity gone?"

Napoleon III lies forgotten in a mausoleum in Hampshire and Franz Josef was to remain on the Austro-Hungarian throne until 1916, leaving his empire plunged in a war that would destroy it two years after his death. But Henri Dunant’s legacy lives on. His was a life to be more proud of than of either.

Download a free copy of Britannia’s Eventide by clicking the cover image below

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A contemporary satirical print showing Byng
and the inconclusive action that doomed him

The execution by firing squad in 1757 of Admiral George Byng (1704-1757) on the quarterdeck of HMS Monarchin 1757 is perhaps best remembered by Voltaire’s verdict in his novel Candide: “In this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others."Byng had been court-martialled for failure to relieve the besieged British garrison in Minorca in the Western Mediterranean the previous year. The key element in the charge was that he “had not done his utmost against the enemy in battle or pursuit”, as required by the “Articles of War” that governed the Royal Navy. A death sentence was mandatory for conviction on this charge. Byng’s squadron was seriously undermanned and ill-prepared for the latest conflict with France – later to be known as the Seven Years War. One of the French opening moves was to land 15,000 men on the island and lay siege to the British base there. Byng’s force, sent to succour the besieged garrison, did indeed engage the enemy in the inconclusive naval Battle of Minorca in May 1756 and, following a council with his senior officers thereafter, he decided that Minorca was beyond saving from the French. Byng brought his ships back to Gibraltar for refitting and the Minorca garrison was obliged to surrender to the French, thereby depriving Britain of a vital strategic resource. Recalled to Britain, Byng’s disgrace, court-martial and execution followed.

Though the full responsibility for the disaster had been laid on Byng, a degree of opprobrium also attached itself to his captains. Among these was Captain Arthur Gardiner, who had been Byng’s flag-captain, an honourable man who felt that his own honour had been compromised. He appears to have been especially hurt by a remark by the First Lord of the Admiralty, the formidable Lord Anson, which he reported to his friends and was to the effect that “he was one of the men who had brought disgrace on the nation.” For a man like Gardiner it was essential to demonstrate, at whatever cost to himself, that he was not the man Anson had judged him to be.

A French "64" of the period - Monmouth would have looked generally similar
(Attribution: Wikipedia Commons and www.musee-marine.fr Authority control VIAF: 19144648200974718522 Museofile: M5026 Accession number 3 OA 10)

Soon after Byng’s death Gardiner was sent back to the Mediterranean in command of the 64-gun HMS Monmouth,as part of Admiral Henry Osborne’s squadron. In early 1758 this force had succeeded in driving a French fleet of fifteen ships into the Spanish port of Cartagena and keeping them blockaded there. This fleet had been en-route to Louisbourg, the great French fortress on Cape Breton Island, with reinforcements. On February 28^th a French relieving force of three ships-of- the-line, carrying the Governor of “New France” (French Canada) and under the naval command of Admiral Gallifoniere. This officer also spotted the British force, and realising that it was larger, decided to retreat. Osborne responded by ordering a general chase, directing Gardiner in Monmouth, and two other ships, the Hampton Courtand the Swiftsure, to engage Gallifoniere’s flagship, the Foudroyant. The latter was one of the most powerful vessels afloat, her eighty guns consisting of thirty 42-pounders – enormous weapons for the time – as well as thirty-two 24-pounders and eighteen 12-pounders. With a crew of 470, a French privateer previously captured by the Monmouthhad said of the Foudroyant that “She would fight today, tomorrow, and the next day, but could never be taken.” By contrast, the Monmouth was armed with sixty-four 24-pounders and had a crew of 470 and her two consorts were almost identically armed. Together, these three ships might have been enough to defeat the more powerful French vessel, but any one of them alone would be heavily outgunned.

An accident of fate had provided Gardiner with the opportunity he craved to wipe out the stain on his honour. As the Monmouth, faster-sailing than Hampton Court or Swiftsure, closed with Foudroyantit was revealed that she was flying the flag of the Admiral Gallifoniere, the commander who had been present on board her during the action with Byng. Eager now for action, Gardiner pressed on with Monmouth, determined to engage the Foudroyantat any cost and unwilling to wait for the other British ships to catch up. According to one account he pointed to Foudroyantand told an army-officer on board “Whatever becomes of you and me, that ship must go into Gibraltar.”

By the time Monmouthopened fire on Foudroyant, both Hampton Court and Swiftsure were out of sight and Gardiner was committed to a one-to-one duel. He was wounded in the arm almost immediately, but not badly enough to incapacitate him. Monmouth’s opening fire damaged the Foudroyant’s rigging, thereby lessening her manoeuvrability, and Gardiner placed his ship off the enemy’s quarter. From this position Monmouth pounded Foudroyant for almost two hours while being exposed to less fire herself (As so often when learning of such actions, one Is struck by the duration of such cannonades – one can only assume that sheer exhaustion of the gun crews would have lessened the rate of fire considerably). Gardiner, directing operations from the open deck, now received his second, and ultimately fatal, wound, a blow from a ball or fragment on his forehead. Before he passed out and was carried below to the surgeon he called for his first lieutenant – Robert Carkett (approx. 1720 – 1780) – and asked him not to give up the ship or halt the action. Carkett responded by having the colours nailed to the mast and with a pistol in each hand swore that he would shoot anybody who would attempt to strike them.

The climax of the battle, near midnight - the crippled Foudroyant on the left,
under fire from Monmouth, and Swiftsure and Hampton Court arriving on the right
Painting by Thomas Swaine (1725-1782) - with thanks to Wikipedia

Monmouth’s mizzen mast now collapsed but shortly after the corresponding mast on Foudroyant also came down, followed soon afterwards by the main mast. Now crippled, the French ship was subjected to no less than four hours of fire from Monmouth, which still had some ability to manoeuvre. This lasted through the evening and into darkness and when Swiftsurearrived on the scene around midnight, to add her fire to Monmouth’s, Foudroyantsurrendered. Consistent with the chivalry of the period, the French captain recognised Carkett’s courage by insisting on handing his sword to him, rather than to the more senior officer commanding Swiftsure.

An engraving of Swaine's picture. Such engravings were very popular
and some original ones can still be found in English country public houses

Captain Gardiner died the following day but his aspiration to have Foudroyant brought into Gibraltar was realised. Lieutenant Carkett was appointed to command her “as a reward for his conduct and an encouragement for future emulation” and was further rewarded by promotion to post captain, the coveted goal of every ambitious officer. It was especially valuable as he had originally entered the navy as a common seaman and had risen by his own exertions. This was however his last promotion and he was still a captain in 1780 when he was accused – unfairly – of failure to obey signals during the Battle of Martinique. Tragically, he did not live to clear his name as his ship, the Stirling Castle, was wrecked in a hurricane There was only a handful of survivors and Carkett was not among them.

The “butcher’s bill“ for the Monmouth vs. Foudroyantaction was decidedly one-sided, reflecting Monmouth’sability to retain manoeuvrability while her opponent was immobilised. She suffered 27 killed and 79 wounded (a not-inconsiderable loss rate of 23%) while the more powerful Foudroyant had 190 killed and wounded (40%). Gardiner’s grim determination to ignore the disparity in armament had paid off, though it cost him his own life.

It is probable that he found the price an acceptable one for redemption of his name and honour.

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While leafing through an 1894 book entitled “The British Fleet” by Commander Charles N. Robinson (Assistant Editor of the Army and Navy Gazette) I came on a copy of the engraving above made from a painting by Philip James de Loutherbourg, about whom I will blog again shortly. It shows a cutting-out mission on July 22^nd 1801 in which crews from four Royal Navy ships attacked a French ship in small boats, even while it was moored for protection under the guns of a shore battery at Camaret Bay on the Breton coast. Such cutting-out exploits feature frequently in naval fiction, as they often did in real-life during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. This engraving, though an artist’s impression, gives an idea of just how brutal – and near suicidal – such actions could be. As I had not heard of this action previously I searched for more details and was surprised at just how high a price was paid for capture of so small a prize.

The captain of the 20-gun corvette Chevrette, must have regarded his vessel as invulnerable as he sheltered under shore-battery cover. British ships lying offshore on blockade duty included however the frigates HMS Beaulieu, Doris and Uranie, and the ship of the line HMS Robust (74-guns). The Uraniewas originally a French ship, and had been renowned for her capture of a British frigate, HMS Thames, in a spirited action in 1793, prior to being captured and taken into British service in 1797.

The Uranie, in French service, capturing HMS Thames in 1793

A first attempt at cutting out was made on the night of 20^th/21^stJuly by boats from Beaulieu and Doris. This went awry when the surprise was lost and the boats withdrew. The French had however been alerted to the danger and the Chevrette was moved in even closer under the shore batteries. Soldiers were also embarked to add to the corvette’s defence, bringing the total on board up to with a crew of 339, including soldiers who had recently board.

Undeterred, a fresh British attack was mounted on the night of 21^st/22^nd, with men and boats from the Robust and the Uranie now also joining in. The attacking force now consisted of 280 men carried in 15 boats. Several of these boats lost their way in the darkness so that only nine reached the Chevrette, those on board significantly outnumbered by the seamen and soldiers on board her. The British approach was now detected and fire was opened on them from both the French shore battery and from the Chevrette. The boats closed however with the moored ship – a fact that must have made it impossible for the shore batteries to maintain fire – and, despite furious opposition, a large number of men gained the Chrevette’s deck. Within three minutes of boarding, and as fighting raged, the outnumbered British attackers managed to cut the anchor cable and set sufficient sail for a light breeze to carry the vessel out into the bay. Many of the French, apparently trapped on the waist when the British gained possession of both quarterdeck and forecastle, either jumped overboard or took cover below. The shore batteries kept the Chrevetteunder fire until she cleared the bay. Here the six missing British boats brought reinforcements, so that possession was assured.

The ferocity of the action was underlined by the high casualties. The French had 92 killed and 62 wounded while the British attackers lost 11 killed, 57 wounded and one missing. Given that the Chevrette was a small vessel and that her capture would have made no possible impact on the outcome of the war, and that the British casualty rate was almost 25%, the decision to attack looks foolhardy in the extreme. The only justification can be, in hindsight, that attacks of this type were vital in maintain a sense of moral superiority over the French and by so doing increasing their reluctance to break the blockade.

One other, perhaps unworthy, thought does however strike one. Was the desire for prize money a prime motivator on this occasion? One sincerely hopes not.

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I dipped recently into a magnificently titled 19^th Century book, of indeterminate date, called:

“THRILLING NARRATIVES OF MUTINY, MURDER AND PIRACY,

a weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster,

from the earliest part of the century to the present time,

with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities”

The anonymous author might not have been gifted in thinking up short, snappy titles, but there’s no doubt about what this volume published in New York contained. I was particularly taken by a short account of an exploit in the early years of a cabin boy who galvanised a ship’s crew to withstand attack by a French privateer – a story that sounds too good to be true. A little further digging did indicate however that the case was a true one and that the boy in question was to ascend to dizzy heights in his later life. I’ll quote extensively (in italics)from the account in the book as its period-style gives it a charm of its own.

Charles Wager in later life

Though the father and grandfather of Charles Wager (1666-1743) had seen service at sea under both Cromwell and Charles II, he lacked the patronage that would have allowed him easy entry to the Royal Navy. His mother had married a Quaker merchant in London after his father’s death – this being a time when Quakers were a new and often suspect sect. Through his step-father however, Wager gained an apprenticeship with a Quaker from Barnstable, Massachusetts, a merchant ship’s captain called John Hull who sailed regularly between Britain and the Americas. The key event of Wager’s early career, as told below, must have happened before 1689, the first year in which he appears in the Royal Navy’s records.

Britain was at war with France in the late 1680s – a condition that was to be almost the norm from this period until 1815, interspersed with only brief intervals of peace. Though war was being waged at sea, and with merchant shipping the much sought-for quarry of privateers, Captain John Hull, as a Quaker, refused to arm his ship. On one of his voyages from America and close to the British coast, his vessel was chased, and ultimately overhauled, by a French privateer. Hull “had used every endeavor to escape, but seeing from the superior sailing of the Frenchman, that his capture was inevitable, he quietly retired below: he was followed into the cabin by his cabin boy, a youth of activity and enterprise, named Charles Wager. He asked his commander (Hull) if nothing more could be done to save the ship—his commander replied that it was impossible, that everything had been done that was practicable, there was no escape for them, and they must submit to be captured.”

Notwithstanding his age – and obviously unconvinced by Quaker pacifism, however much he might be beholden to Hull – – Wager went on deck, summoned the crew and told them what their captain intended. Then, “then, with an elevation of mind, dictated by a soul formed for enterprise and noble daring, he observed, “if you will place yourselves under my command, and stand by me, I have conceived a plan by which the ship may be rescued, and we in turn become the conquerors.” The sailors no doubt feeling the ardor, and inspired by the courage of their youthful and gallant leader, agreed to place themselves under his command. His plan was communicated to them, and they awaited with firmness, the moment to carry their enterprise into effect.”

When French vessel grappled the surrendered ship shortly after and a boarding party began to cross to claim their prize, these “exhilarated conquerors, elated beyond measure, with the acquisition of so fine a prize, poured into the vessel cheering and huzzaing; and not foreseeing any danger, they left but few men on board their ship. Now was the moment for Charles Wager, who, giving his men the signal, sprang at their head on board the opposing vessel, while some seized the arms which had been left in profusion on her deck, and with which they soon overpowered the few men left on board; the others, by a simultaneous movement, relieved her from the grapplings which united the two vessels.”

Wager had managed the near-impossible, essentially hijacking the attacker. “Our hero now having the command of the French vessel, seized the helm, and placing her out of boarding distance, hailed, with the voice of a conqueror, the discomfited crowd of Frenchmen who were left on board of the peaceful bark he had just quitted, and summoned them to follow close in his wake, or he would blow them out of water, (a threat they well knew he was very capable of executing, as their guns were loaded during the chase.)”

It is probably an understatement that the French “sorrowfully acquiesced with his commands, while gallant Charles steered into port, followed by his prize. The exploit excited universal applause—the former master of the merchant vessel was examined by the Admiralty, when he stated the whole of the enterprise as it occurred, and declared that Charles Wager had planned and effected the gallant exploit, and that to him alone belonged the honor and credit of the achievement.”

The battle off Cartagena, 28 May 1708 known as “Wager’s Action”, in which

he became a rich man through prize money. Painting, via Wikipedia, by Samuel Scott (1702-1772)

This exploit gained for Wager what had previously been beyond his reach – a footing in the Royal Navy. He was appointed a midshipman, and by 1689 was listed as a lieutenant on the frigate HMS Foresight. His career thereafter was to be an active one in both naval and diplomatic service, one that, culminated in appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty – the head of the Royal Navy – from 1733 to 1742. Prize money was to make him immensely rich but “it is said that he always held in veneration and esteem, that respectable and conscientious Friend (i.e. Quaker), whose cabin boy he had been, and transmitted yearly to his OLD MASTER, as he termed him, a handsome present of Madeira, to cheer his declining days.”

The cabin boy had come a very long way.

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