French liners in WW1 – slaughter in the Mediterranean

October 4^th was the one-hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the SS Gallia, one of the worst maritime disasters of the First World War.  What made it even more terrible was that this was one of four similar tragedies, each involving troopships, each involving very heavy loss of life. It also underlines the fact that the closed waters of the Mediterranean became a happy hunting-ground for German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats in those years. Without effectively escorted convoys, and in the absence of effective submarine-detection technology, highly vulnerable Allied shipping was offered up likes lambs to the slaughter.

SS Gallia, seen here pre-war

The Salonika front, on which British, French and Serbian troops faced Bulgarian and German forces in Macedonia, is all but forgotten today. Though it absorbed large numbers of troops, who sustained serious losses through disease, it saw only intermittent though bitter and inconclusive fighting in 1916 and 1917. A major Allied offensive was to be unleashed successfully from it in the last months of the war. Established in October 1915, this front tied down a vast number of troops – by 1917 no less than 24 divisions were deployed there: six French, six Serbian, seven British, one Italian and three Greek, plus two Russian brigades. Supply had to be by sea, necessitating a heavy commitment of troop and hospital ships, plus innumerable cargo vessels, to maintain a long and vulnerable supply line that led primarily to France.

Large pre-war liners were ideal as troopships due to their large passenger capacity and the high speeds which were likely to make them difficult targets for U-boats. Four of these were to be sunk with heavy loss of life, three of them while supporting Salonika.

La Provence in her peacetime glory

Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière 

Built in 1905, the SS La Provence was a 13,700 ton, 625-foot liner employed on the North Atlantic route. Peacetime accommodation was for some 1500 passengers of all classes, making her ideal for conversion to trooping duties. Her best performance on the Havre to New York run was at a very respectable average speed of 21.63 knots. On 26^thFebruary 1916, en route to Salonika with some 1700 troops on board, she was sighted off Cape Matapan in Southern Greece by the German U-boat U-35. This craft, which was to clock up a fearsome record of 224 Allied ships sunk, mainly by gunfire, was commanded at this period by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière (1886-1941), the most successful submarine commander in history. He launched an immediate torpedo attack, as a result of which La Provence began to list immediately, so much indeed that half the lifeboats could not be launched. She sank quickly, the bows rising perpendicularly before the final plunge. Of the 1700 men on board – it is an indictment of the management of the trooping operation that exact numbers are unknown, and were initially estimated as higher – there were only some 700 survivors rescued by British and French vessels eighteen hours later.

 Next to go was the SS Gallia – the hundredth anniversary of whose sinking this article marks. This 15000-ton, 570-foot liner was new, having entered service on the Bordeaux to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires route in 1913 and being taken over by the government when war broke out in 1914. In the aftermath of the La Provence sinking it appears amazing that she should have departed Toulon without an escort on 3^rd October 1916, with some 2,350 on board, of whom 2000 were French and Serbian soldiers. The following day, between Sardinia and Tunisia, the Gallia was spotted by La Provence’s nemesis, von Arnauld de la Perière in the U-35. He fired a single torpedo which not only hit but also triggered a larger explosion of a cargo of munitions also being carried by the liner. Damage to the radio facility prevented issue of a distress call and the Gallia began to settle quickly. A degree of panic appears to have reigned and some boats capsized after launching as hundreds more men threw themselves into the water. The Gallia was gone n fifteen minutes but it was to be another day before up to 1,200 survivors were picked up by the cruiser Châteaurenault. Once again, due to what appears to have been chaotic record keeping, and uncertainly as to actual numbers on board, the total loss of life was estimated to have been be somewhere between 600 and 1800. The French Republic was indeed prodigal – and uncaring – with the lives of her soldiers.

Chateaurenault - note her lines, giving an impression from afar of being a liner

An irony was that the Châteaurenault had been built with a profile like a liner so as to make her seem less suspicious when employed in commerce-raiding. She herself was to be sunk by torpedo in December 1917, with limited loss of life. A further irony is that though the loss of life in the Le Provence and Gallia sinkings was vast, the U-35 commander, von Arnauld de la Perière, was well known for scrupulous adherence to prize rules, allowing crews of enemy merchant ships – as opposed to naval craft, which these liners definitely were – to board their lifeboats and giving them directions to the nearest port before sinking their ships.

U-boat sinking a troopship, as imagined by German artist Willy Stöwer (1864-1931)

The third Salonika-related trooping tragedy was to come just four months later. This time the victim was to be the SS Amiral Magon, a smaller (5600-ton, 390-foot) liner that had been in passenger service between France and Indo-China from 1905 until the outbreak of war. On 29^th January 1917, in company with another troopship and with a destroyer as escort, and carrying some 935 soldiers, she was torpedoed by U-39 south of Greece. She sank in ten minutes, with loss of 203 men. An added horror of this disaster was that the Amiral Magon was also carrying horses. One’s mind recoils from imaging the terror in which these innocent and trusting beasts must have died below deck.

 A further French troopship tragedy involved a brand-new ship, completed after the outbreak of war, the 12,700-ton, 530-foot SS Athos. Only three weeks after the loss of the Amiral Magon, on 17^th February 1917, the Athos was sunk east of Malta by U-65. Some 2000 in total were on board, including Chinese labourers (recruited for manual labour close to the front), Senegalese troops and civilians, including women and children. She also went down quickly – in less than a quarter of an hour – and she took with her 754 people with her. The survivors were picked up by two escorts.

 When confronted with such high losses, as in these cases, it’s very easy to see them as statistics. And yet each individual who died represented a separate tragedy, a life cut short, years and decades of sorrow – and often as not of financial hardship - for those left behind. And now, a century on, they are forgotten, few of their details known even to great-grandchildren.

 The Dawlish Chronicles website

If you are not already familiar with my website, www.dawlishchronicles.com, you may well find it worth a look. It provides background on my books and on myself – including test, audio and video interviews, as well as almost 200 articles in its “Conflict” section, which deal with naval warfare and other history in the period 1700 – 1930. Many of these articles are expansions of blogs items from the last three years and they are arranged chronologically in three sections – “The Age of Fighting Sail”, “The Victorian Era”, and “The Modern Period 1901-1930”. There’s also a short biography of Nicholas Dawlish – protagonist of the Dawlish Chronicles series, and this is added to as each new novel is published. The next, due very shortly, is Britannia’s Amazon. I’m always keen for feedback from readers and the website has a facility for queries.  Happy browsing!

                                                                                                  Antoine Vanner

The bloody Plattsburg mutiny, 1816

Radio has been an integral feature of maritime operations, whether military or civil, for well over a century and it is difficult to imagine just how isolated all ships were prior to that once they were out sight of land. Large numbers of vessels disappeared annually, the vast majority as a result of storm damage, but there must have been occasions when “lost without trace” meant hijacking by a mutinous crew who thereafter found some way of abandoning or destroying the ship and disappearing with their booty. An instance in 1816, centred on the American schooner Plattsburg, shows just how close one gang of mutineers came to realising their dreams in a world where intercontinental telegraph communication was still a half-century in the future.

The topsail schooner Amy Stockdale off Dover - by William John Huggins (1781 – 1845)
One imagines the Plattsburg to have been generally similar

In the aftermath of the futile but destructive “War of 1812” between Britain and the United States, there was every reasonable expectation or maritime trade picking up. Among those anticipating a bonanza – the more so since so much merchant shipping had been destroyed in the war, and vessels were at a premium – was the Baltimore merchant and ship-owner Isaac McKim. In 1816,  a year after the war’s end, he commissioned a new trading schooner called the Plattsburg, her name commemorating the recent American victory on Lake Champlain. The vessel was built for speed and for transport of small-volume high-value cargoes, somewhat the same role as is filled by air-transport today. The maiden voyage was to carry just such freight – eleven thousand pounds of coffee and forty-two thousand dollars in coins, the latter apparently intended for purchase of opium at the Plattsburg’s destination, the Turkish port of Smyrna – now Izmir – in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Shipping coins – the term for which was specie – was always a hazardous enterprise unless a ship was under naval escort. McKim and the Plattsburg’s master, Captain William Hackett, were well aware of the risk from a mutinous crew and endeavoured to keep details of this part of the cargo secret – though without success. Eight men who shipped as crew appear to have been driven to do so by knowledge of the specie and by recognition of the opportunities that could arise for taking it once the ship was out of sight from land. With the entire North Atlantic and Mediterranean ahead of them, the opportunities for getting booty ashore would have seemed legion. The Plattsburg had a crew of over thirty – the number is indicative of the labour-intensiveness of manning even a small sailing merchantmen –  but eight determined men, with surprise on their side, were likely to have a good chance of pulling off the hijack.

Sail still dominated trade through much of the 19th Century
Here is "Ships at Le Havre" by Eugene Boudin 1887

The leader appears to have been an experienced seaman called Stromer who had some knowledge of navigation and a pronounced ability to sway others. Six others – Smith, Rog, Peterson, Williams, Stacey and Raineaux – appear to have been less clever thugs. The eighth man was a Francis Frederick whom Captain Hackett had refused to ship as crew before relenting on hearing Frederick describing seeing Smyrna as being an ambition of his life.

Stromer’s first move was to sow resentment against the ship’s officers among the members of the crew not yet in the plot. His instrument was to be the brutal thug, Smith. The opportunity came shortly after the Plattsburg left Baltimore on July 1^st 1816. The wind was light, so that she merely glided down the Patapsco River and into Chesapeake Bay, where she anchored.  Here the first mate, named Yeiser, began working up the crew, setting them to tasks until the wind should strengthen enough to carry the Plattsburg get to sea. Smith, Stromer’s tool, was reluctant and surly. Yeiser called him to order but Smith’s manner was unchanged.  Authority had been challenged and Yeiser punched Smith on the jaw, precipitating a fistfight that he was quickly getting the worst of. He was saved only by Captain Hackett intervening with a hand spike. Smith was vanquished – and had he been on a man of war would have paid for this action with his life – but the authority of the officers had been challenged and had only been reasserted with difficulty. The atmosphere was now ideal for fostering mistrust and resentment.

The ship’s steward, a black man called Lamberson (who was probably free, as he was working at sea) was drawn into the conspiracy and with his help the officers were to be poisoned when the Plattsburg had reached the Azores.  Lamberson served contaminated coffee but, though it made those who drank it violently sick, nobody died. Stromer’s conspirators suspected Lamberson of losing his nerve and beat him savagely. Poison having failed, there must be recourse to outright violence.

On July 21^st, as the Plattsburg was passing Santa Maria, the most southerly of the Azores, the weather began to deteriorate, with a strong wind, rain and low visibility. Darkness fell and Yeiser had the eight to midnight watch while the lookout forward was Williams, one of the conspirators. As the second mate, Stephen Onion, came on deck at midnight to relieve Yeiser, Williams called out “Sail ho!” The danger of a collision was obvious.

Onion, alarmed, ran to the bows to peer into the darkness and Yeiser, who had not yet gone below, followed him. As they searched for the non-existent sail three of the conspirators crept up behind them. Yeiser was knocked senseless and flung overboard. Onion managed to break free and fled aft, where he locked himself in the bread locker. The noise had drawn Captain Hackett on deck and as he stepped into the darkness he too was beaten down and thrown into the sea. 

The remainder of the crew do not seem to have participated actively but they offered no resistance to the mutineer’s take-over. The only opposition remaining was likely to come from the supercargo – the owner’s representative, responsible for sale of the cargo – and the second mate, Onion. The supercargo was known to have close relations with the shipowner, McKim, and was therefore likely to be a hostile witness should he survive. The mutineers invited him on deck under a guarantee of safety. He hesitated, but when he did emerge he too was thrown overboard. Now only Onion remained.

The brutal reality of life at sea that triggered so many mutinies in merchant ships in the 19th Century

An illustration from an early edition of Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast”

The mutineers’ leader, Stromer, felt confident of being able to navigate the ship in the open sea, but with an intention now formed of landing the cargo in Northern European waters – a decision that seems crazy in retrospect – he realised that he would need assistance from somebody with more detailed knowledge of coastal waters. This could only be Onion, who was familiar with the English Channel and the North Sea. It was however important to enforce Onion’s future silence by forcing him to accept a share of the plunder, thus making him complicit in the mutiny. Onion, with no option but death, agreed to this. By this time the core of eight mutineers had expanded to thirteen, all of whom were committed to bringing the vessel to Norway, with the remainder of the crew cooperating under fear of violence.

Under Onion’s pilotage the Plattsburg passed through the English Channel and sailed up the English and Scottish east coasts to the Orkney archipelago, and from there eastward to the small port of Christiansand, close to the southern tip of Norway. Its isolation made it an ideal location for smuggling ashore the eleven thousand pounds of coffee in the ship's hold. It was now however that the enterprise began to unravel. Stromer seems to have been able to impose discipline on the crew while they were at sea, but this failed once the men got ashore. They drank and caroused, challenged Stormer’s authority, talked without caution and ignored his warnings. They also insisted on having the specie split fourteen ways, each conspirator to have his own share.

Many now abandoned the Plattsburg and took passage in other vessels for the Danish capital. Copenhagen, little more than a day’s sail way. Among these were Onion and the steward Lamberson. They broke away from the group and contacted the American Consul, providing full details of the whole affair. The consul moved fast and action by the respective authorities followed in both Norway and Denmark.

"Entrance to Copenhagen" by J. C. Dahl, 1830

The Platttsburg was seized at Christiansand but Stromer, the brains behind the mutiny had disappeared, never to be found. Six mutineers were arrested in Copenhagen, one in Christiansand. The shares of these seven should have totalled twenty-one thousand dollars but when they were arrested they had only five thousand. It seems inconceivable that they had spent sixteen thousand dollars in two weeks ashore and one wonders if Stromer had not taken much of the remainder with him – if so, he would have had enough to set himself up in respectable affluence for the rest of his life. Two mutineers were captured in Europe – one in Prussia and one in France, but the authorities in both countries refused to deport them to the United States. In total some twenty-seven of the crew were rounded up in various places but most were let go after questioning. The remainder were shipped to America. Here, four – Williams, Rog, Peterson and Frederick – were convicted of murder and hanged at Boston Neck on February 18, 1819. It was noted at the time that "Their conduct in prison is said to have been exemplary and they met their fate with firmness.” Onion and Lamberson had acted as state witnesses and a seaman named White was cleared on the grounds that he had been forced into the mutiny.

The Plattsburg was to have a less than honourable future. She was brought home from Christiansand and McKim put her up for sale by public auction. Her speed fitted for carrying another high-value cargo – in this case human – and she was bought by slavers based in Cuba. Furnished with Spanish papers, she was captured in 1820 off the coast of West Africa by the United States sloop-of-war Cyane, which was tasked with slave-trade suppression.  The seizure of the Plattsburgh gave rise to a US Supreme Court case, with the court finding in favour of her seizure as a slaver, despite a number of subterfuges.

And Stromer? Nobody knows what became of him, but if he had indeed taken the money, he might well have died decades later, under some other name, as a revered pillar of society.

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.

The Novara scientific expedition, 1857-59

Title page of the official report on
the Novara Expedition

The Natural History (Naturhistorisches) museum in Vienna, Austria, is one of the largest – and most impressive – institutions of its type in the world. My wife and I spent two days there in recent days and we could have spent an entire week there with no less pleasure. As Austria no longer has a sea coast, and as a consequence no navy, it was a pleasant surprise to see two splendid models of ships of the Austro-Hungarian navy which had participated in important scientific expeditions in the 19^th Century. I will return to the second in a later blog but I’m writing on this occasion about the first, the global circumnavigation by the frigate Novara from 1857 to 1859.

In this period the Austro-Hungarian Empire had a significant coastline on the Adriatic Sea, with Trieste and Fiume as its major commercial ports and Pola as its main naval base. Oceanography was being established as a science – Britain’s Beagle expedition had established the model – and Austro-Hungary was eager to participate in this prestigious endeavour. The impetus for an ambitious expedition came from the Austro-Hungarian Emperor’s younger brother, Arch-Duke Maximillian (1832-67), who had limited naval experience himself. The findings – which would include oceanographic and geomagnetic surveys as well as onshore botany and geology of lands visited – would provide material for what would become the Naturhistorisches Museum and in such volume that some of it is still under examination today. The voyage would be a complete circumnavigation, the first ever by a ship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

Novara model in Vienna's Naturhistorisches Museum

The vessel chosen was the frigate Novara. Built in 1850, this 2615-ton, 250-foot, 34-gun wooden vessel which would not have seemed out of place during the Napoleonic Wars. (She was not to have  a 1200-hp auxiliary steam engine installed until 1862). Setting out in April 1857, she carried a crew of 345, and a team of seven scientists. Over the next two and a quarter years the Novara’s route was to bring her from the Adriatic, via Gibraltar, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Madras, the Nicobar Islands, Singapore, Batavia, Manila, Hong Kong and  Shanghai. From there she would sail on into the Pacific, visiting the Caroline and Solomon Islands, moving south to Sydney and on to New Zealand, crossing thereafter to Valparaiso in Chile via Tahiti. She arrived back in Trieste in August 1859. Some 26,000 specimens of all types were collected and the final report on the expedition – which was not completed until 1876 – comprised 21 volumes, plus three volumes of illustrations. One arguably negative consequence of the work was identification of the coca plant, which led to isolation of cocaine in 1860.

The Novara was to have an active career thereafter. She carried Arch-Duke Maximillian to Mexico in 1864 for his enthronement there as puppet “Emperor” by the French and at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 (see blog of 8^th April 2016) she was to lead the second division of Austrian warships, her commander being killed in the encounter. Her final involvement with Maximillian was a sad one, for she was sent to Mexico to bring his body home in 1867 after he had been shot by the government of Benito Juarez.  Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, victor at Lissa, was in charge of this mission. By then an anachronism as a warship, the Novara was decommissioned in 1876.

The Novara model in the Naturhistorisches Museum is a splendid one, with fascinating details, as the photographs below confirm.

Novara's bows - note chicken coops on fore-deck!

Live milk (and beef) supply in Novara's forecastle

Venetian gondola-type boat on davits near Novara's stern

Novara's helm

Britannia's Amazon is on the way

The talented artist and designer Sara Lee Paterson has completed the cover design for the fifth novel in the Dawlish Chronicles series - Britannia's Amazon. It's due for hard-copy and Kindle publication in October.

Sharp-eyed readers of the earlier novels will note that the period covered (April - August 1882) is the same as that of the fourth novel, Britannia's Spartan. Since naval officer Nicholas Dawlish can't be in two places at once, what's the explanation?

Could it be that his spirited and resourceful wife Florence is the Amazon of the title? She has proved her mettle in the hell of the last winter of the Russo-Turkish War (in Britannia's Wolf) and in the United States of the Gilded Age and on a fever-ridden tropical island (in Britannia's Shark). Has she now yet more adventures in store? And if so, where?

On the Royal Navy List for 96 Years - Admiral Sir Provo Wallis (1791-1892)

Wallis in 1813

I am always amazed at just what change – political, technical, economic, scientific – can occur in a single human lifetime. I was reminded of this when I saw a reference in an 1895 book to the demise in 1893 of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo Wallis. He was 101 years old and his name had been entered on the Navy List for 96 of these years.  

Sir Provo Wallis in old age

This was due to his father, a clerk in the Naval Yard at Halifax, Nova Scotia, getting his name entered as an able seaman on a frigate, HMS Oiseau, when he was just over four years old. Such sharp-practice was common in the period, though usually with much older boys, and they did not actually go to sea until older. They were however amassing seniority. It is probable that Wallis did not actually serve afloat until he joined the frigate HMS Cleopatra as a midshipman in 1800. By 1809 he was a lieutenant on the sloop-of-war HMS Curieux (captured French ships retained their names when serving in the Royal Navy).

Wallis’s moment of glory was to come in 1813, when he was serving as second lieutenant on board the frigate HMS Shannon when she fought her victorious action against her counterpart USS Chesapeake on June 1^st, 1813. When Shannon’s Captain Philip Broke was badly injured and her first lieutenant killed, the twenty-two year old Wallis took command. He had the honour of taking the captured Chesapeake into his home town, Halifax, Nova Scotia and the victory was especially significant for having ended a series of Royal Navy defeats inflicted by American ships. (In Patrick O’Brian’s The Fortunes of War Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are passengers on board the Shannon).

The Shannon-Chesapeake action Jun 1st 1813

Wallis, in Shannon, leads the Chesapeake into Halifax 

 Wallis was to have a distinguished career afterwards, his last active service in 1858, retiring as an Admiral in 1863.  He was to benefit from a special clause in the Navy’s retirement scheme of 1870 that provided for officers who had commanded a ship in the wars with France up to 1815 should be retained on the active list, thus drawing pay. The few days Wallis was in command of Shannon thus qualified him to remain on the active list until he died.  (It is sad to note that the clause was inserted to save two old admirals dying as paupers). Being on the active list meant he was liable for call-up for a seagoing command and in his late nineties he confirmed that he was ready to accept one!

The French Revolution was underway, but the Reign of Terror had not yet commenced, when Wallis was born. When he died Kaiser Wilhelm II was German Emperor (an empire that did not exist until 1871) and the seeds of the First World War had been sown. Wallis had grown up in the Royal Navy of Nelson and Cochrane, the age of wooden sailing ships. He saw the introduction of steam propulsion, rifled breech-loaders, steel construction, torpedoes, and much else. The most powerful Royal Navy ship of his youth was a 100-gun three decker – in the year of his death the title was held by HMS Royal Sovereign, the first pre-dreadnought class, one of which, HMS Revenge, was to bombard the Belgian coast in 1914 and 1915. His lifetime had seen the discovery of bacteria, antiseptics and anaesthetics, the arrival and spread of railways across the world, the shrinking of distance, even intercontinentally, by telegraph, the invention of the telephone, light bulb and internal combustion engine, the electrification of cities and , the extension of the franchise in Britain – the list is endless.

And all in one human lifetime.

HMS Royal Sovereign, commissioned in the year of Wallis's death

Britannia’s Spartan - and the Taku Forts, 1859 

The Anglo-French assault at the Taku Forts in Northern China – and the highly irregular but welcome intervention of the neutral United States Navy – was one of the most dramatic incidents of the mid-nineteenth century. It also led to the only defeat of the Royal Navy between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of World War 1.

A remark of the American commander at the height of the battle - "Blood is thicker than water" - has entered the English language.

The Taku Forts attack is described in detail in the opening of Britannia's Spartan.

Clickhere to read about this bloody action.

The Capture of Curaçao 1807

Lying some 40 miles north of the Venezuelan coast, the Caribbean island of Curaçao is today a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It was first colonised by the Dutch in the mid-17^th Century and was to have major strategic importance thereafter sine it contains one of the most enclosed, and easily defended harbours in the world. This is the Saint Anna Bay, on which the island’s capital, Willemstad, is located. The bay is approached through a mile-long channel that is nowhere wider than some 300 yards.  In the colonial era this approach was easily defensible by flanking forts, thereby making the island a secure base for Dutch naval forces in the Caribbean.

From 1795 to 1813 the Netherlands were dominated by the French, until 1806 as the so-called Batavian Republic, and thereafter as the “Kingdom of Holland” with the Emperor Napoleon’s brother Louis (father of the future Emperor Napoleon III) as king. French rule was by no means unpopular with large portions of the population and Dutch troops, and the Dutch Navy, fought in support of the French. Most notable of such actions was the defeat of the Dutch Fleet by Britain’s Royal Navy at Camperdown in 1797  and the fact that some 14,000 Dutch troops marched in Napoleon’s Grande Armée in the 1812 invasion of Russia. Major British campaigns were launched against Dutch possessions in the East Indies and Dutch naval bases in the Caribbean, such as Curaçao were havens for French as well as Dutch naval forces.

1836 Map of Curaçao - inset at top right is map of St. Anna Bay and of the channel leading to it.

Considering its importance, and despite its strong defences, Curaçao was to be captured by Britain with almost ludicrous ease. In late 1806 – a period when French naval power was in decline – word reached the Royal Navy’s commander-in-chief on the Jamaica station, Vice-Admiral Dacres, that there was support from some citizens on Curaçao for throwing off French allegiance. Dacres accordingly despatched a task force consisting of the frigates HMS Arethusa, (commanded by Captain Charles Brisbane) and HMS Latona (Captain Wood), together with HMS Anson (Captain Charles Lydiard), originally a 64-gun “third rate” but later cut down to frigate dimensions. Another frigate, HMS Fisgard (Captain Bolton), which had been captured from the French in 1797, joined the others close to Curaçao.

An earlier exploit of Arethusa and Anson - capturing the Spanish frigate Pomona
off Havana in 1806 (painting by Thomas Whitcombe (1760- 1824)

Brisbane, leading the British force, suspected that neither the island’s governor, nor the garrisons of its forts, might not be as eager as the parties who had contacted Dacres to break the French connection. Rather than enter into diplomatic negotiations, which could be strung out over a long period, thereby allowing defences to be strengthened, he revolved to launch an immediate attack that would rely heavily on surprise. His objective was to drive directly past the gun batteries at the mouth of the access channel and into the bay of St. Anne. Once there the guns of his ships could threaten the town of Willemstad and provide a powerful inducement to the authorities there to surrender. Success depended on two factors – firstly an appearance so sudden that the four frigates would be past the shore defences before their crews had time to man them effectively and, secondly, wind conditions that would allow the ships to drive straight up the narrow channel and into the bay beyond.

Brisbane

On the last day of December 1806 Fortune was to favour Brisbane as regards both these requirements. A favourable wind arose which would be ideal for his purpose, and celebrations of the New Year, quite probably involving much alcohol, were likely to lead to a collective and temporary relaxation of Dutch watchfulness. The defences were powerful –  Fort Amsterdam, a two-tier masonry structure on the right of the channel mounted 60 guns and opposite lay a chain of batteries anchored at the end by the formidable Fort République.  Together, these two fortresses would be capable of shredding  Brisbane’s force and he might well have recalled Nelson’s uncomfortable dictum that “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort”.

Lydiard

At dawn on January 1^st 1807 – by which time many of the defenders might be nursing hangovers – Brisbane’s force drove for the channel under a flag of truce, with HMS Arethusa leading the other three frigates. Strong parties had been mustered on all of them for boarding and landing duties.  The Dutch, surprised, opened a hot but ineffectual fire but the British ships drove into the port. Here they found a 36-gun frigate Halstaar, a 20-gun corvette Suriname, and two large armed schooners. Brisbane brought Arethusa so close inshore that her jib-boom projected over the wall of Willemstad.  He now sent a summons to the governor, to the effect that the British squadron had come to protect, not to conquer the inhabitants, but that if a shot was fired, he should immediately storm the batteries. The governor was given five minutes to make up his mind and when none was received Brisbane ordered fire to be opened on the Dutch ships. Three broadsides sufficed to allow Arethusa to take the Halstaar and for the Anson to capture Suriname. Assault parties were now landed to attack Fort Amsterdam, some smashing a gate open with crowbars while more escalated the walls. Resistance ceased after ten minutes. Storming of the town’s citadel and several outlying batteries went just as quickly and as successfully. Only Fort République now remained and was still strong enough to smash the British ships. Faced however by an assault party of 300 seamen and marines, the Dutch commander lost his nerve and surrendered without further resistance. By 1000 hrs all fortifications had surrendered and by midday a capitulation of the entire island was formalised.

The cost of this remarkable victory was low – three British killed and fourteen wounded, as compared with over 200 Dutch casualties both ashore and afloat. (When mention is made of “wounded” however it should be noted that gangrene was often to cause deaths later, and that in many cases the only way to avoid it was by amputation of a limb. However small the numbers, casualties were never “low” for victims and their families). 

Brisbane was deservedly knighted for his victory and was to see little further service. Much of his later life was spent as governor of the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, where he was to die, aged 60, in 1829.  

Contemporary impression of the loss of HMS Anson , December 1807

A sadder fate awaited Captain Charles Lydiard who returned to Britain in the Anson later in 1807. After refitting, the Anson was allocated to blockade duty off the coast of Brittany. On December 28^th, less than a year after his exploits at Curaçao, Lydiard and the Anson were caught in a gale on a lee shore off Cornwall. The ship still carried the heavy spars from her days as a third-rate, and she rolled excessively.  Anchors were run out but the cables parted the following day and Lydiard attempted to run the vessel on to a beach to save lives. The surf was too furious to allow launching of boats from the ship and the survivors managed to reach the shore only by clambering along the fallen main-mast. Throughout this crisis Lydiard remained on deck to supervise the evacuation. He was at last washed away and drowned while attempting to save a ship’s boy – an end as heroic as his life itself.

The five Padstow heroines of 1879

Most of my blog-entries deal with naval history, and inevitably involve much “Blood and Iron”. This post deals however with a peacetime act of heroism and one that typifies the courage and resolution of so many formidable Victorian women. It came about when I was looking through some Victorian nautically-related books, coming across a story which I find not only impressive for its heroism, but for the delightful illustration that accompanied the item.

On 9th August 1879 a fishing boat capsized in a wind squall off Bray Hill, Padstow Harbour, Cornwall. At the time, the five young ladies, four sisters from the Prideaux Brune family, and a friend called O'Shaughnessy, were in their rowing boat which was being towed behind a fishing -smack. The latter was skippered by a Samuel Bate, previously the assistant coxswain of the Padstowe lifeboat. They saw that three men had been thrown into the water from the overturned craft, two of whom drowned. They were not prepared to allow the same fate to befall the third.

Despite the heavy sea the ladies asked Bate to be cast them off from his smack. He refused initially but there demands were such that he could not resist longer and he described them as rowing away “like tigers”. They stroked fearlessly through heavy surf to reach the third man. They managed to get him into their boat with the greatest difficulty, and at serious risk to themselves, saved his life and got back to shore safely.

It is pleasing to record that Royal National Lifeboat Institution awarded Silver Medals to Misses Ellen Frances Prideaux-Brune; Gertrude Rose Prideaux-Brune; Mary Katherine Prideaux-Brune, and Beatrice May Prideaux-Brune; together with Miss Nora O’Shaughnessy “for their intrepid and prompt services”. It is equally pleasing to record for our generation the names of these intrepid women. I particularly like the illustration of them in action – appropriately dressed in sailor suits – and note that one of them did however suffer the disaster that every proper Victorian lady feared: she lost her hat.

Though I had previously never heard of this incident – which must have been famous in its time – I was within minutes possible to find via Google a photograph of the Prideaux Brune sisters (though without Miss O’Shaughnessy ), all proudly wearing their Silver Medals. Such are the wonders of the electronic age!

Naval Hero Sir James Lucas Yeo – Part 3

Two recent articles on this blog introduced us to the real-life naval hero Sir James Lucas Yeo (1782 – 1818), a handsome and dashing officer who might seem overdone were he to step from the pages of a Jane Austen novel. The first two articles (which can be read below, dated 15^th July 2016 and 29^th July 2016) saw Yeo knighted in 1810, still under thirty, for his capture of the French colony of Cayenne by a British-Portuguese task force under his command. His “lead from the front” character, whether at sea or in attacks on land fortifications, made him an ideal frigate captain, command of the 32-gun HMS Southampton being his reward for Cayenne. In her, in 1811, he captured the French privateer, the Amethyste, a prize which is likely to have benefitted him and his crew financially.

HMS Pomone (1805) typical frigate of this era

When war broke out with the United States in 1812, Yeo was stationed in the Bahamas and in the course of the year captured another French privateer, the Heureuse Réunion. This was followed by his taking an American brig-of-war, the USS Vixen, in November 1812. Yeo was not to profit from the Vixen however – both she and the Southampton were wrecked five days later on Conception Island in the Bahamas. Yeo was duly court-martialled for the loss of these ships but had his sword returned to him on the grounds that an uncharted reef was the cause of the accident. (It is hard to imagine today just how limited charts were in this period – it was only later in the nineteenth century that a massive international hydrographic effort, largely driven by the Royal Navy, led to most of the world’s coastlines being surveyed and charted for the first time.)

The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States was by now in full swing, the Canadian border representing a major – and possibly decisive – front. Critical to this was naval control of the Great Lakes, most especially Lake Ontario, the southern and south-eastern shores of which could provide the British with access to New York State and threaten the Hudson Valley. A “Lakes Service" command was accordingly established by the Royal Navy, with headquarters at Kingston, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario’s Canadian shore – and almost directly across from the United States base and shipyard – at Sacket’s Harbor on the opposite shore. Situated close to the point of exit of the St. Lawrence river, the nation that managed to occupy both these locations would be well situated to dominate the lake.

Sir George Prévost

Command of the Lakes Service was entrusted to Yeo and he arrived, as a Commodore, in 1813. The skill he had demonstrated in previous amphibious operations was probably a strong influence on the Navy choosing him as capture of Sacket’s Harbor would demand an opposed landing. The American shipyards were a major objective – they were to build no less than eleven warships in the course of the conflict – and a British attempt at capture had been repulsed before Yeo’s arrival. In early 1813 the balance of naval forces on the lake were in favour of the Americans and Yeo concentrated on getting a sloop, HMS Wolfe, completed and some smaller vessels refitted as warships. The major threat was however the intelligence that the Americans were building a similarly-sized sloop, the General Pike, at Sacket’s Harbor. Pre-emption of this was possibly a major factor in the British decision to mount an amphibious assault. Had Yeo been in sole command – and indeed had he stronger forces – this might have been successful. In this era of intense inter-service rivalries (a situation that sometimes seems to occur even today!) it was however inconceivable that overall command would not be taken by the senior army officer present, Lieutenant Sir George Prévost,, who also happened to be Governor General of Canada.

Contemporary view of British ships off Sacket's Harbor

The second battle of Sacket’s Harbor, on May 28^th and 29^th 1813, resulted in a second repulse, despite the British force arriving there when much of the American naval force was at the other end of the lake. Yeo’s larger, deep- draught, vessels could not come close inshore to provide covering fire and the shallower gunboats that could were armed only with carronades, weapons only effective at very short range. Only the 16-gun brig Beresford, could be taken close enough inshore – by use of sweeps – to deliver the necessary bombardment capability. This was enough to disable one of the American gun emplacements and rounds from Beresford also fell in the dockyard where the General Pike was under construction. Believing a British victory imminent, American orders were given to burn the General Pike and large quantities of stores. Despite this limited success the landing itself did not go well – Yeo, characteristically, had gone ashore with the assault force – and it was beaten back. The blame of the failure was largely attributed to Prévost, the army commander, who failed to push what advantages he had.

The following year, 1814, was dominated by a building race between the British and Americans. Yeo pulled ahead in this contest and with two frigates now at his disposal, each more powerful than the brigs and sloops that constituted the American force, he was able to blockade Sacket’s Harbor. He was simultaneously building a 112-gun First Rate ship-of-the line, the HMS St. Lawrence. When this was completed at the year’s end Yeo now had effective command of the lake, and he had two more similar ships also under construction. The Americans were not idle and also had two equally large warships on the stocks. Neither was completed. Had this unnecessary war not ended in 1815, a major naval battle might have been fought between line-of-battle ships on Lake Ontario.

The never-completed American line-of-battle ship USS New Orleans.
Laid down at Sacket's Harbor in 1814, she was not broken up until 1883

Yeo’s subsequent career was short and tragic. He was awarded important commands on both the West African and West Indian stations – both notoriously unhealthy, and he was to die in 1818. Had he lived he wold almost certainly have reached the highest ranks in the Royal Navy. This daring, handsome, capable man had however packed more into his 35 years than many other officers achieved in an entire lifetime.

Britannia’s Wolf is available as an audio book

                                             – listen to a sample

The first book in the Dawlish Chronicles series is now available as an audio book read by the distinguished American actor David Doersch. If you haven't previously ordered an audio-book from audible.com you can download it without cost as part of a 30-Day Free Trial. You can listen on your Smart Phone, Tablet or MP3 Player.

To listen to as sample go to the links below and click on the small arrow beneath the cover image there:

Click here for sample and audio details (UK)

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