FRENCH NAVAL OPERATIONS – American War of Independence III
Posted by Mitch Williamson in Naval on Tuesday, December 6, 2011
EARLY FRENCH SUCCESSES
D’Orvilliers led the Brest fleet of twenty-seven ships that
met, on 27 July 1778, Admiral Keppel’s thirty Royal Navy ships off the Île
de Ouessant (Ushant) off Brittany. The action was inconclusive, and both sides
claimed victory, but the French had more grounds to be pleased. The British
squadron had certainly not vanquished the French; rather, it had met an
opponent that had badly damaged many of its ships thanks to remarkably good
shooting. D’Orvilliers had not destroyed the British but had kept his position.
This was very bad news for the British, whose control of the French coast now
vanished and who now had to protect the English Channel at all cost.
Meanwhile, Admiral Estaing had sailed with twelve
ships-of-the-line for North America. His squadron’s arrival in August 1778 at
Newport, Rhode Island, brought a palpable sign to the Americans that they now
had a powerful ally. After some inconclusive engagements with elements of
Admiral William Howe’s fleet, Estaing sailed for the West Indies. There, the
aggressive governor general of Martinique, the marquis de Bouille´, had already
captured Dominica from the British. During the following years, this daring and
brilliant officer, who would later be all but forgotten, masterminded the
conquest of most of the British Leeward and Windward Islands, often personally
taking part in the assaults. De Bouille´ was an ideal officer for working with
a fleet commander, as he understood combined operations perfectly. It seems,
however, that Estaing was less proficient in this area, and in November things
were rather bungled at St. Lucia, to Bouille´’s considerable disappointment.
The naval campaigns of 1779 got off to a brilliant start for
the French in the West Indies, with Bouille´’s and Estaing’s assault on Grenada
on July 3 and the repulse of Admiral Byron’s relieving British squadron three
days later. The island of St. Vincent had already fallen in late June. Estaing
then sailed for Haiti, picked up troops there, and landed them for a joint
operation with the Americans against Savannah, Georgia, in October. The siege
failed, however, and Estaing, who was badly wounded in the attempt, finally
sailed for Europe. Elsewhere, a small squadron under the comte de Vaudreuil had
captured the British forts on the coast of Senegal.
THE SPANISH AGENDA
Meanwhile, Spain had declared war on Britain on 16 June
1779. This brought the world’s third largest navy into the conflict, which gave
the allies on paper a comfortable superiority of some ninety ships-of-the-line
over the Royal Navy. However, the Spanish navy’s strategic objectives were
historically quite different than those of the French or the British. Spain’s
fleet was far more concerned with protection, notably for the safety of the
treasure convoys from America, than with fast movements and elaborate
maneuvers. Spanish ships were therefore built as floating fortresses and were
thus slower than other vessels of their class. As a result, Spanish navy
officers tended to be cautious and did not have a truly aggressive stance or
doctrine. The courts of France and Spain had hatched a plan for a combined
Hispano-French fleet of sixty-six ships-of-the-line to take control of the
English Channel and land a French army in England. Overall command was given to
Spanish Admiral de Cordoba with French Admiral d’Orvilliers as
second-in-command. The British Isles certainly feared an invasion that summer,
but nothing went according to plan for the allies. Besides operational
difficulties, bad weather set in. And the reinforced Royal Navy home fleet was
not about to be swept away from the Channel. The invasion plan was finally
abandoned and the joint fleet went back into Brest in late September.
Posts
