When reading
of the Royal Navy’s role in the Napoleonic Wars one is always struck by the
dogged determination with which a blockade of the French and French-controlled
coasts of Europe was maintained for more than two decades. One imagines the
blockade in terms of sealing off these coasts to commercial traffic as well as
to movement of warships. In the later stages of the conflict however, when
Napoleon introduced his “Continental System” to close all Europe off to trade
with Britain, an important role for the Navy became an economic one – to
facilitate smuggling of British goods into French-controlled countries, while
preventing trade in the opposite direction. This was perhaps nowhere more
notable than along the shores of the German Bight, those of the northern
Netherlands and the German states, all controlled by the French, and of the
western coast of Denmark, a country that was to be at war with Britain from
1807 to 1814.
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| Danish Kanonchalup Gunboat |
The Royal
Navy’s presence in these waters did not normally involve – or require – a
battle-fleet, as was the case elsewhere, since the Netherlands Navy had never
recovered from the defeat of Camperdown in 1797 while the Danish Navy had been
massacred at the Battle of Copenhagen three years later. The actions in the
years of the Continental System were involve what later came to be known as
“coastal forces”, with small Royal Navy units facing even smaller open gunboats
propelled by oars as well as sails. The two main Danish types were typical of
those used in the area. The larger was the Kanonchalup that carried two 24-pounder long-guns in bow and stern,
often complemented by four 4-pounder
howitzers and a crew of as much as 80. A smaller type was the Kanonjol, armed
with one 24-pounder cannon and two 4-pounder howitzers, and manned by some 40
men. Such vessels would be at a
disadvantage if they were to engage a larger vessel alone but the balance could
shift were larger numbers present, with the oars providing high mobility and
nimbleness, independently of the wind. Once such instance of gunboat success
was in 1808 when the powerfully-armed brig-sloop HMS Tickler hauled down her colours after defeat by Danish craft.
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| HMS Tickler surrenders to Danish gunboats 4th June 1808 |
It was
recognised that maintenance of a Royal Navy presence close inshore in enemy
waters would be aided immeasurably by availability of a nearby base. The answer
was to occupy the Danish-held island of Heligoland, a speck of rocky ground
less than three quarters of a square mile in area and situated some 30 miles from
the German coast. It was surrendered
without a fight in 1807 (though the destruction by explosion of the aptly named
bomb ketch HMS Explosion added some
excitement) and was to remain in British possession until 1890 when Britain
traded it with Germany to get control of Zanzibar instead.
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| The German Bight - courtesy of Google Earth |
In the years
1807-1814 Heligoland was to become not just a forward naval support-base but also a
base through which goods could be smuggled into mainland Europe to the benefit
of the British economy. The deterrent to such smuggling was in the form of
gunboats and in 1811 a Royal Navy operation was undertaken to destroy those
concentrated in the vicinity of the East Friesan island of Nordeney. The
shallow coastal waters precluded inshore action by larger units and like had to
be met with like, Royal Navy pulling boats matching themselves against the
enemy gunboats.
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| Heligoland - courtesy of Wikipedia (c) CCBY-SA 3.0 |
At the end of
July 1811 what would now be described as a task force arrived north of
Nordeney. Led by HMS Quebec, a 32-gun frigate, it included
three brig-sloops Raven, Exertion and
Redbreast as well as the armed yacht Princess Augusta and an ex-collier, now
armed, the Alert. On 1st
August a total of ten boats were
launched from these ships and they headed shorewards. They carried a total of
117 officers and men, under command of Lieutenant Samuel Blyth (1783-1813) of
the Quebec and piloted by James Muggeridge,
mate of the Princess Augusta, who
seems to have known these challenging waters well. They carried on through the
night and on the following day identified six heavily-armed enemy gunboats.
Blythe realised that he was outgunned and though he did not attack he held his
ground, being credited with the remark that he “would play children’s play and let them alone if they would him”.
His resolute stand intimidated the enemy craft and they stood away.
Undeterred, Blyth’s force continued to creep shorewards
through the night hours, the navigation being intricate in the extreme due to
the shallows. Early on the morning of 3rd August four moored enemy
gunboats were sighted. Each proved to be crewed by twenty men, with some
soldiers in addition, and to be each armed with a single 12-pounder and two
smaller weapons. Blyth determined to attack and told his crew that “They seem to be waiting for us and, as the
witch said when she was going to be burnt, there will be no fun until we get
there.”
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| Samuel Blyth |
What followed was the stuff of naval fiction. The day was
calm and Blyth’s boats stroked forward, lashed by two volleys as they neared
their quarry and holding fire until they ran alongside. That they ever got so
close is a negative commentary on the skill and alertness of the gunboats’
crews but, even so, the Quebec’s
barge alone was found afterwards to have been hit by fourteen grape shot and
twenty-two musket balls. Blyth drove his
own boat towards what he identified as that of the enemy commander. He leaped
across, killing one man and wounding two others, while Muggeridge was
confronted by two soldiers. He shot one dead but was bayoneted in the throat by
the other and fell overboard. The fight was brief however – Blyth possessed the
gunboat in minutes and turned her 12-pounder on the three other enemy craft,
all so placed as not to be able to return fire without damaging each other.
Blyth found powder charges stacked by the cannon and they were used to load it.
A match could not however be found and the Quebec’s
gunner, who was one of the party, set it off by firing his own pistol over the
touchhole. The cannon blasted but its flash set off powder spilled on the deck,
leading to an explosion that engulfed nineteen, three of whom were later to
die. Blyth himself had his clothes burned off on one side and was thrown into
the water and others suffered similar injuries. This disaster did not however
check the attack of the remaining British boats which quickly boarded, and
captured, the three remaining enemy craft. From first shot to last the action
had lasted ten minutes. The number of prisoners taken exceeded the number of
attackers and surprise rather than hand-to-hand combat had decided the issue,
as was evidenced by enemy casualties of two dead and twelve founded. The
British force lost four dead – and three who would die later – as well as nine
wounded, a casualty rate of 13%, a high one for such a short action.
The British force withdrew – it had made another pinprick on
the hide of Napoleon’s empire and one cannot but wonder if the gain made outweighed
the loss of life. Blyth himself was to gain by it however and a month later he
was promoted from Lieutenant to Commander.
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| Capture of HMS Boxer by USS Enterprise, September 1813 |
Blyth’s career thereafter was however to be a short one. In
1812 he took command of the 12-gun brig sloop HMS Boxer. In the war now in progress with the United States he
captured a total of seven vessels of the American Atlantic coast. An act of
chivalry by him was to win praise from the enemy, stemming from capturing a
small craft crewed by a group of ladies out for a sail. He brought them on board
Boxer, where he courteously advised
them that they should stay closer inshore in future. He then released them. One
of the ladies was the wife of the local militia commander who was so impressed
that he placed advertisements in local newspapers praising Blyth’s chivalry.
The luck that had saved Blyth from worse injury at Nordeney was however to run
out in September 1813. In a single-ship action, in which Boxer met the American brig USS Enterprise,
he was killed by the first broadside and Boxer
was captured. He was just 30 years old.
Interesting history, especially since Heligoland is my favorite island. It's a magnet for both birds and bird watchers today.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ann Marie - it's a place I'd like to visit. One wonders how history might have gone if Britain had not traded it for Zanzibar. If if had been heavily fortified it would have been a major strategic asset, possibly just tenable in WW1 although possibley not so in the face of air-attack in WW2. There's an alternate-history stor yhere waiting for somebody to follow up!
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