Diplomacy at Sea: USS Miantonomoh 1866 - 67 Two recent blogs described the loss of low-freeboard monitors in the open sea, the Dutch Adder in 1882 (Click here to read) and the Russian Rusalka in 1893 (Click here to read). In both cases the inadvisability of taking vessels designed for protected coastal waters into open-sea conditions was a major [...]
The US Navy's Sumatran Expeditions of 1832 & 1838 The US Navy’s role in the suppression of Barbary piracy in the Mediterranean is deservedly well known but few today are aware that in the 1830s two American expeditions were launched against pirates in what is now Indonesia. The scene was to be the then semi-independent [...]
Lonely Lives and Deaths French Prisoners of War in Britain 1793 - 1815 Part 2 The most notable reminder of the Napoleonic-era French prisoners in modern Alresford is to be found in the graveyard of the ancient church of St. John the Baptist (Click here to read Part 1 for context, should you have missed [...]
Lonely Lives and Deaths French Prisoners of War in Britain 1793 - 1815 Part 1 Though the focus of my own writing – in my novels of the Dawlish Chronicles series – is on the mid-Victorian period, I retain a lively interest in the Napoleonic era. I have always found the plight of prisoners of [...]
Frigate Duel, 1782: HMS Santa Margarita vs. 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 officers and crews of the Royal Navy. These were the factors that regularly brought victory even when the odds seemed stacked against [...]
Hit and Run at Sea, 1876 - SS Strathclyde and SS Franconia A recent blog dealt with an 1876 case of a ship “passing by on the other side” and not rendering assistance to a wrecked vessel (click here to read this article). An even more extreme case occurred the same year. In this “Hit and [...]
Storm and Horror: The Destruction of HMS Crescent, 1808 For most officers and men, storms represented a greater threat to life than enemy action throughout the Age of Fighting Sail. The loss of HMS Crescent, off the coast of Denmark in December 1808, is an appalling example of how a well-built wooden ship could be [...]
Massacre at Sea: the Royal Edward and UB-14, 1915 In both World Wars the greatest danger many troops faced, especially if they were in support or non-frontline roles, may well have been that of sinking of their transports. It is a tribute to the efficacy of convoy and escort provisions that in practice only few of the millions of [...]
HMS Implacable at war with Russia – 1808 & 1809 Two events dominate the general impression of Russia’s role in the Napoleonic Wars. The first is the crushing defeat of Russian and Austrian forces at Austerlitz in 1805 – arguably Napoleon’s most impressive battle. The second was the French retreat from Moscow in late 1812, [...]
HMS Hector 1782 – an epic of leadership and survival Inman in later years In a recent blog we met Captain Henry Inman (1762 –1809), a noted frigate commander who was in overall command of operations off Dunkirk in 1800 in which the French frigate Désirée was captured in dramatic circumstances. (Click here [...]
