The Battle of the Basque Roads, also known as the Battle of Aix Roads, was a major naval battle of the Napoleonic Wars, fought in the narrow Basque Roads at the mouth of the Charente River on the Biscay coast of France. The battle, which lasted from 11–24 April 1809, was unusual in that it pitted a hastily-assembled squadron of small and unorthodox British Royal Navy warships against the main strength of the French Atlantic Fleet. The circumstances were dictated by the cramped, shallow coastal waters in which the battle was fought. The battle is also notorious for its controversial political aftermath in both Britain and France.
HMS Latona was a 36-gun, fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy that served during the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars. Shortly after her launch in 1781, she participated in the Battle of Dogger Bank against a Dutch squadron in the North Sea. In September 1782, Latona took part in the relief of Gibraltar and was the first ship in the convoy to pass through the Straits, when Richard Howe sent her ahead, to spy on the condition of the Franco-Spanish fleet in Algeciras Bay.
Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite was a French sea captain and rear admiral, notable for his involvement in the Glorious First of June and his expedition into the Atlantic in 1805.
Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez was a French naval officer and nobleman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Willaumez joined the French Navy at the age of 14, and proved to be a competent sailor. Having risen to the rank of pilot, he started studying navigation, attracting the attention of his superiors up to Louis XVI himself. Willaumez eventually became an officer and served under Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux in his expedition to rescue Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse and explore the Indian Ocean and Oceania.
The Croisière du Grand Hiver was a French attempt to organise a winter naval campaign in the wake of the Glorious First of June.
D'Hautpoul was a Téméraire class 74-gun French Navy ship of the line launched at Lorient on 2 September 1807. She was previously named Alcide and Courageux.
Troude's expedition to the Caribbean was a naval operation by a French force under Commodore Amable-Gilles Troude during the Napoleonic Wars. The French squadron departed from Lorient in February 1809 in an attempt to reach and resupply the island colony of Martinique in the Caribbean Sea, then under invasion from a British expeditionary force. The force arrived much too late to affect the outcome of the successful invasion and took shelter from a British squadron in the Îles des Saintes, where they were blockaded by part of the British invasion fleet, led by Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. Two weeks after the French ships arrived, British troops invaded and captured the Saintes, constructing mortar batteries to bombard the French squadron. With his position unsustainable, Commodore Troude decided to break out.
Amable Gilles Troude was a French Navy officer, who served in the Napoleonic Wars.
L'Hermite's expedition was a French naval operation launched in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The operation was intended as both a commerce raiding operation against the British trading posts of West Africa and as a diversion to the Trafalgar campaign. Sailing from Lorient in October 1805 with one ship of the line, two frigates and a corvette, Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermite was under orders to intercept and destroy British traders and slave ships off the West African coast and await reinforcements under Jérôme Bonaparte which were to be used in the invasion and capture of one of the British trading forts for use as a permanent French naval base from which further raiding operations could be conducted. It was also hoped by the French naval command that L'Hermite might draw some of the large British fleet maintained off Cadiz away from the blockade to allow the French and Spanish allied fleet trapped in the harbour to escape.
Allemand's expedition of 1805, often referred to as the Escadre invisible in French sources, was an important French naval expedition during the Napoleonic Wars, which formed a major diversion to the ongoing Trafalgar Campaign in the Atlantic Ocean. With the French Mediterranean Fleet at sea, Emperor Napoleon I hoped to unite it with the French Atlantic Fleet and together form a force powerful enough to temporarily displace the British Royal Navy Channel Fleet for long enough to allow an invasion force to cross the English Channel and land in Britain. In support of this plan, the French squadron based at Rochefort put to sea in July 1805, initially with the intention that they would join the Atlantic Fleet from Brest. When this fleet failed to put to sea, the Rochefort squadron, under Contre-Admiral Zacharie Allemand, went on an extended raiding cruise across the Atlantic, both to intercept British trade left lightly defended by the concentration of British forces in European waters and with the intention of eventually combining with the French Mediterranean Fleet then blockaded in Spanish harbours.
Zacharie Jacques Théodore Allemand was a French admiral.
The Battle of Les Sables-d'Olonne was a minor naval battle fought on 23 February 1809 off the town of Les Sables-d'Olonne on the Biscay Coast of France between a French Navy squadron of three frigates and a larger British squadron of ships of the line. The French squadron had sailed from the port of Lorient on 23 February in an effort to link up with a fleet from Brest under Jean-Baptiste Willaumez, but missed the rendezvous and was pursued by a British blockade squadron under Rear-Admiral Robert Stopford. The French commander, Commodore Pierre Roch Jurien, anchored his squadron under the batteries which protected the town of Les Sables-d'Olonne in the hope of dissuading an attack.
The Algeciras campaign was an attempt by a French naval squadron from Toulon under Contre-Admiral Charles Linois to join a French and Spanish fleet at Cadiz during June and July 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars prior to a planned operation against either Egypt or Portugal. To reach Cadiz, the French squadron had to pass the British naval base at Gibraltar, which housed the squadron tasked with blockading Cadiz. The British squadron was commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez. After a successful voyage between Toulon and Gibraltar, in which a number of British vessels were captured, the squadron anchored at Algeciras, a fortified port city within sight of Gibraltar across Gibraltar Bay. On 6 July 1801, Saumarez attacked the anchored squadron, in the First Battle of Algeciras. Although severe damage was inflicted on all three French ships of the line, none could be successfully captured and the British were forced to withdraw without HMS Hannibal, which had grounded and was subsequently seized by the French.
The action of 10 April 1795 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars in which a squadron of French Navy frigates was intercepted by a British battle squadron under Rear-Admiral John Colpoys which formed part of the blockade of the French naval base of Brest in Brittany. The French squadron split up in the face of superior British numbers, the three vessels seeking to divide and outrun the British pursuit. One frigate, Gloire was followed by the British frigate HMS Astraea and was ultimately brought to battle in a closely fought engagement. Although the ships were roughly equal in size, the British ship was easily able to defeat the French in an engagement lasting just under an hour.
The action of 22 May 1812 took place off Groix when a small French squadron comprising the French frigates Ariane and Andromaque, and the brig Mameluck returning from a commerce raiding campaign in the Atlantic, met the 74-gun HMS Northumberland while trying the slip to Lorient through the British blockade.
Jean-François Lemaresquier was a French naval officer.
Jean-Léon Émeric was a French naval officer.
The Battle of the Tagus was a naval engagement that took place on 11 July 1831 at the mouth of the Tagus river, in Portugal. A French fleet attacked and subdued Portuguese fortifications at the entrance of the Tagus, with the aim to strong-arm the government of Miguel I into recognising the newly established Kingdom of the French. The damage to the forts defending access to the Tagus and the arrival of French warships at Lisbon forced the Portuguese to cave in and comply with French demands.
Amand Leduc was a French sailor and Navy officer of the First French Empire.
Richery's expedition was a French naval operation during 1795 and 1796 as part of the French Revolutionary Wars. The operation was led by Commodore Joseph de Richery and comprised two separate cruises; the first was an operation off Cádiz in Southern Spain in which Richery attacked and defeated a large British merchant convoy with a weak escort, taking many prizes. Forced to anchor at Cádiz, the French squadron was subsequently blockaded in the port for almost a year. Richery was enabled to escape in August 1796 by a Spanish fleet, and went on to attack British fisheries off Newfoundland and Labrador before returning to France having inflicted severe damage to British Atlantic trade.
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