5 Most Popular Dawlish Chronicles Blogs of 2021 2021 saw sustained activities on the Antoine Vanner Writing-Front, Covid-19 notwithstanding. The tenth book of the Dawlish Chronicles, Britannia’s Guile, was published in December (click here for details) and blog articles continued to appear regularly. These last relate to all aspects of naval and maritime history in the [...]

The Bayonnaise and HMS Ambuscade action, 1798 On my blog I have dealt several times with single-ship actions during the Age of Fighting Sail, the protagonists being mainly British and French, though the Americans do figure in 1812-15. In most cases British victory over the French seems to have been all but pre-ordained, for the Royal Navy had reached [...]

HMS Indefatigable vs. Droits de l’Homme  Desperate action in storm and darkness  1797 Besides their few major fleet actions, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw many vicious encounters between small numbers of French and British ships which have since provided the inspiration for much naval fiction. One of the most ferocious of these battles was fought [...]

The Crimean War’s North Pacific Theatre: Petropavlovsk, August 1854 The most common image of the Crimean War (1854 – 56) is of Britain’s Light Brigade charging to death and glory against Russian guns at Balaclava. Almost equally well known are the epics of the ”Thin Red Line” and of the Storming of the Redan, [...]