Frigate Duel 1782: HMS Santa Margarita and L’Amazone

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 Margarita appears 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’s masts 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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The Princess Alice Disaster 1878

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^rd 1878. 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 Alice was 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 Alice was struck amidships by the Bywell Castle and 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’s crew, 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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Nelson's Ship Smasher - the 32 Pounder

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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Captain Trollope and the Carronades – Part 2: HMS Glatton

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 Glatton the 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’s bow, 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’s casualties 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…

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

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

SMS Iltis – a gunboat, a pope and a confrontation in the Pacific

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^th Century 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 Iltis was 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 Iltis caused 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 Iltis of 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 Iltis was 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 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

Captain Trollope and the Carronades – Part 1: HMS Rainbow

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.  Henry 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 Hébé and 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 Rainbow opened 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, Hébé was 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