Diverge and Conquer (Look to the West Book 1)

by Tom Anderson

  And yet, on the same day, the Vendeans and Bretons rose up in the Chouannerie, and in the darkest hour of Germany, a faint hope began to bloom that the Revolution’s hellish triumphs would one day come to an end…

  Chapter 38: Confrontations

  “The great Chinese writer Sun Tsuy[209] writes that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperilled in a hundred battles; whereas if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win only half the time. This is unsurprising, as any politicially aware individual will know that half the real enemies lie within…”

  – General Pavel Alexandrovich Andreyev, 1924

  *

  From: “The Sons of George III and I”, by Philip Hittle, University of Philadelphia Press (1948)–

  After his father’s unconventional marriage, the British establishment was desperate to return to a policy of dynastic alliances with George III. British attempts to form alliances with the royal houses of Germany – marrying off daughters and granddaughters of George I to the rulers of Denmark, Prussia, the Netherlands and many more – had stalled with the Second Glorious Revolution, for Frederick I had become estranged from most of his sisters and aunts. British influence in the Germanies waned, and was only slightly restored when Frederick’s only daughter Princess Mildred was married to King Johannes II of Denmark.

  From the perspective of the establishment, it would be better to walk before one could run. Hanover itself had grown gradually more distant from Britain over the years, the branches of the House of Hanover still living there mostly having preferred William IV to Frederick and being suspicious about the manner of his death. The governments of Rockingham and Portland (de facto, Burke) were determined to rebuild the bridge between Britain and Hanover with ties of blood. To that end, George III married his cousin Princess Sophia of Hanover, the daughter of Frederick’s sister Princess Amelia Sophia.[210]

  The marriage, though not as violent perhaps as that of his grandfather George II, was certainly loveless and it is generally acknowledged that George III maintained an American mistress. However, as it often paradoxically the case, it produced a large issue, whereas Frederick’s had only led to three surviving children – George III, Frederick William the Duke of York, and Princess Mildred, who became Queen of Denmark. George III, by contrast, was father to Prince Frederick George the Prince of Wales, his heir (born in 1765), Princess Carolina (born 1767), who became the Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel; then a gap due to two sons dying in infancy; then Princess Amelia (born 1770), who became the Duchess of Brunswick after marrying her cousin the Duke, sealing one of the rifts Frederick I had opened up; then Prince Henry William, the Duke of Cambridge (born 1771) and finally Princess Augusta (born 1772), who never married.

  Prince Frederick George was a dashing and popular heir, generally agreed to embody many of the best traits of his namesake grandfather. He became an officer in the British Army, serving in America against the Indians and then leading an army to Flanders during the early stages of the Jacobin Wars. Although that incident ended with an embarrassing withdrawal due to Charles Theodore’s declaration of neutrality, most men believed that Frederick William was a decent commander, and not so arrogant that he did not delegate to more experienced lieutenants. When he was placed in command of the Seigneur Offensive, the invasion of western France to support the Chouannerie in February 1799, these experienced men included General Sir Ralph Abercromby, Colonel Sir Thomas Græme and Colonel Sir John Moore, resulting in the Register’s well-known cartoon depicting the French Revolutionaries fleeing from an army of men in full mediaeval battle-armour from the waist up, but kilts from the waist down, i.e., an Army of Scottish Knights.[211]

  His younger brother Prince Henry William could not have been more of a contrast. An intellectual, he preferred discussing art over the dinner table to the foxhunt, and took a proactive part in political debates, somewhat alarming the establishment, which felt that royals doing so was in violation of the British Constitution. Like most of the descendants of Frederick I, he travelled extensively to the Empire of North America and liked the country – mainly for its fauna and flora, possessing such a larger scale and wilder character than those of Europe. Henry William sponsored the further expeditions of Erasmus Darwin II to the Susan-Mary region, and patronised the creation of the Royal and Imperial Museum of Natural History when it was separated from the British Museum in 1793. But, unlike his father and grandfather, Henry William was horrified by what he saw of the institution of slavery in the American colonies, writing extensive pamphlets on the subject—which irritated many established business interests who thought that royalty should be above such things. It was inevitable that Henry William should become attached to the Radical-leaning Whig movement led by Charles James Fox, which sought extensive political reforms.

  The majority of Britons, therefore, were considerably relieved when Prince Frederick’s wife Princess Charlotte of Ansbach conceived in the winter of 1798, just before Frederick left for France. Anything to avoid such a dangerous individual as Henry William sitting on the throne of Great Britain…

  *

  From : “The Jacobin Wars” by E.G. Christie (Hetherington Publishing House, 1926) –

  After Admiral Villeneuve’s effective if Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Wight[212] the Frenchman was unsatisfied. He knew that he had to inflict as much damage as possible on the combined fleet, to sink as many troopships as he could: each would make the job of the overstretched French land armies just a little easier, and the Republic could afford to lose ships more than she could afford to lose soldiers, for the war would be won or lost on land. Villeneuve had a cold appreciation of all this, and was willing to give his life—and all those of his men, of course—to ensure it.

  To that end, Villeneuve paused only to make cursory repairs, to run up new sails and to swab out all of his guns. It was at this point that his ships of the line successfully sunk two pursuing frigates of Duncan at extreme range with their stern chasers, providing a boost of morale to the Republican sailors. Villeneuve seized the moment and sent out his famous message in flags: “Allons, enfants de la patrie! Qu’un sang impur colore la Manche du rouge républicain!” [213]

  Possibly the message would have been more effective if the Revolutionary naval ministry had not changed the flag codes eight times in the past month in an attempt to find the most ‘rational’ one; as it was, only about half of Villeneuve’s ships worked it out, but it was nonetheless an historic moment. The Republican fleet pressed on westwards, but their damaged sails and hulls meant that they only slowly closed the distance with the combined Allied fleet, even though the latter was hampered by their sluggish transports.

  The Allied fleet had formed up off Portsmouth the day before. It was organised to place the Royal French forces in the centre, with Nelson’s forces taking the van and Bone’s guarding the rear. The British were determined to protect the Royal French at all costs, recognising that they were a valuable propaganda tool that turned this war ideological – liberal monarchists united against violent republicans – rather than being yet another futile round of Anglo-French war. The latter would be useless, as France had no possessions left that Britain wanted, save in India, and the results of wars in Europe had little impact on what happened in India. The French retained Louisiana and Haiti in the New World, but both possessed so many French colonists – Louisiana had been a sinkhole for all those the British had ejected from Acadia, Canada, the Ohio Country and Susan-Mary – that trying to assimilate them would be futile. In order for Britain to be able to achieve a continental victory, they had to have support from some of the people of France, and to do that they needed the King of France.

  Villeneuve realised all this as much as the British. He received good intelligence from co-opted fishing boats that spied on the Allied fleet as it moved slowly around Finisterre. He correctly guessed that they were aiming at Quiberon – though it was still possessed fortifications held by besieged Republican troops,
the British had previously fought there in 1759 and many of their older commanders would remember the layout of the bay from their service there as young midshipmen or lieutenants. So, for that matter, would the Royal French, many of whom had fought in the same battle on the opposite side. An advantage like that in intelligence could be significant.

  The Republican Admiral decided, then, that the only target worth going for was the Dauphin’s ship, the Royal flagship – the Améthyste. Sacrificing all his ships in a quixotic attack would be worth it, because the death of the Dauphin should result in a collapse of morale among the Chouans and Britain losing the ideological character of its war. To that end, Villeneuve drew up an attack of startling aggressiveness, which featured a feint on Bone’s guarded transports followed by a rapid push through to attack the Améthyste when Bone broke away from the main fleet to form his line of battle. It would almost certainly result in the destruction of the Republican fleet, but if Louis XVII was cut in half by a cannonball then nothing else would matter. Villeneuve issued the orders. Blood would turn the Channel red indeed…

  *

  From: “The Man With Three Names—A Life and Times of Napoleone Buonaparte” (Dr Henri Pelletier, University of Nantes Press, 1962) –

  Commodore Leo Bone had served in several actions after his great coup of ‘seizing’ the French fleet from Toulon. The Admiralty had moved him out of the Mediterranean, perhaps fearing the man’s burning ambition following the publication of slightly self-aggrandising papers describing his adventure; if he could convince an entire fleet to leave the Republicans by sheer brazen force of will, what more might his charisma do? Bone was therefore assigned to dull blockade and convoy escort duty for years, but had nonetheless successfully taken two Republican prizes that had been attempting to reach the West Indies, and the prize-money served to grease the rails of his ascent to commodore. He had left the Diamond, not without a moment of sorrow to say goodbye to the tough little frigate that had been the scene of his greatest act of tactical audacity—so far. Now he had been given the second-rate ship of the line HMS Lewisborough.[214]

  Command of the rearguard of the Seigneur Offensive was his greatest responsibility yet. Like his friend Nelson (now in command of the first-rate HMS Mirabilis[215]), he had been chosen over the heads of many senior commanders because of his youth, vigour, and unorthodox tactical ideas. The strategy that Admiral Charles Villeneuve adopted against him at the Battle of Penmarc’h might have worked on one of the crusty, conservative British Admirals mostly now consigned to blockade and convoy escort duties, though it would still have cost him most of his ships. It would not work on Leo Bone.

  When Villeneuve attacked Bone’s transports with his fleet’s bow chasers as a challenge, Bone did not form the conventional line of battle as Villeneuve had expected. Instead, Bone told off his frigates and arranged them into lines of attack, a strategy which he had developed together with Nelson. Villeneuve initially assumed that the frigates were going to engage that part of his fleet attacking the transports, and thus ordered the rest to push through the remainder of Bone’s force and advance towards the Royal French.

  However, when the Republicans (who had the wind gauge) advanced, Bone’s frigates snapped into their lines and drove a three-pronged thrust through the mass of Republican ships, blasting away with their broadsides almost below the waterline of Villeneuve’s first-rate monsters. The French guns were, as usual, elevated to target the masts and rigging of other ships of the line, and so the Republican response was largely ineffective against Bone’s smaller ships. Only a few of Villeneuve’s ships reacted fast enough, and Bone lost just three frigates. The others turned, tacked and began attacking Villeneuve’s rear.

  Villeneuve recognised Bone’s strategy too late, and saw that all he could do was to push through the enemy as rapidly as possible. However, he also realised that Bone was the most dangerous man on the waterborne field of battle in the immediate tactical sense, even if the Dauphin’s death was his strategic goal. Thus while the bulk of Villeneuve’s fleet was sent through to attack the Royal French, Villeneuve’s own flagship Egalité and one other first-rate, the Jacobin, targeted the Lewisborough and attempted to pound the smaller British ship to smithereens before Bone could react. The Lewisborough was trapped in a crossfire between the two larger, superior French warships.

  Bone, however, trusted his captains to act independently, having drilled them thoroughly beforehand. He saw he could therefore use Villeneuve’s move against him. The Lewisborough hoisted her royals and her skys’ls and fled, using the southerly wind to cut around the main fleet and make for the French coast. Villeneuve presumed that a man like Bone could not simply be making cowardly flight, and thus became convinced that it must be part of some grand strategy. As his frigates were now fully engaged with Bone’s remaining ships of the line and the Royal French – who were putting up a harder fight than Villeneuve had hoped – all Villeneuve had to pursue the Lewisborough with was the Egalité and the Jacobin themselves. Making a snap decision, he ordered that the Jacobin pursue the Lewisborough alone. Meanwhile, he brought the Egalité deeper into the battle and, even as his masts crumbled before the terrific hammering of both British and French gunnery, gave the order to engage the Améthyste at point-blank range. A boarding party was prepared to finally bring the fight to the would-be King of France, and if Revolutionary justice would be imparted by the blade of a cutlass rather than a chirurgien, Villeneuve cared not.

  Leo Bone’s quixotic strategy had failed to be quite as successful as he had hoped, but he had drawn off one Republican ship and given the Dauphin a fighting chance. In order to maintain the pursuit and keep the Jacobin’s attention, he ordered that sails be hauled down in time with the Jacobin’s volleys, as though they were being shot down. The Jacobin finally caught up with the Lewisborough off the Île de Yeu, a full day later—ensuring the Republican ship had been entirely taken off the scales of the battle off the Pointe de Penmarc’h.

  The Lewisborough and the Jacobin now engaged in a terrific battle. The Jacobin’s captain, François Barral, was a disciple of Surcouf and used an unorthodox strategy by French naval standard. Scorning the usual tactics of attacking the masts and rigging, he instead hit the Lewisborough with plunging shell fire from howitzers, a weapon rarely carried aboard ship. Bone’s carronades returned fire and smashed a hole in the side of the Jacobin at point-blank range. The Republican ship sank soon afterwards, though Barral and his officers escaped by boat.

  Nonetheless, the damage to Bone’s ship was done. One of the Jacobin’s shells had blasted the poop deck of the Lewisborough, and as well as killing twenty sailors and smashing all the windows in the officers’ cabins, the resulting shockwave caused the planks of the hull to part near the keel. The Lewisborough began taking on water faster than her pumps could expel it. Bone ordered that they drive for the French coast, hoping to swiftly take some little-defended harbour and then lay up there and repair the damage. He considered throwing his guns overboard to save weight and thus buy them more time, as was standard Royal Navy practice; however, in the end he decided that they were not too far from the coast and that the guns might be needed later. Thus Leo Bone was saved from not only sinking into the English Channel, but into the obscurity of a historical footnote. As her hull gradually slid ever deeper into the water, the wallowing Lewisborough sailed for Saint-Hilaire, and destiny…

  But what of the Battle of Penmarc’h? Villeneuve himself led the boarding party onto the Améthyste, shouting down his second-in-command: “This is where we succeed for the glory of the Republic or fail utterly! If we win it shall be by my hand, and if we fail then what savour shall there be in life?”[216]

  Villeneuve himself shot Admiral d’Estaing as his opposite number rallied his sailors, but was then knocked unconscious by a blow to the head from Captain Lucas. When he awoke, it was in the Améthyste’s brig. He did not learn until later that his fleet had lost half its remaining strength before surrendering, and though several tr
oopships had been sunk and Leo Bone had vanished, Villeneuve had failed in his mission. The Dauphin lived; indeed, he came to visit him at one point, and Villeneuve’s later memoirs record his shock at the incident. Louis XVII was quite unlike what he had expected. The exilic prince had been influenced by Richard Burke’s ideas and had already been fairly liberal by the standards of the House of Bourbon even before the Revolution. “Must Frenchman slay Frenchman in the name of liberty, while the genuine tyrants of all classes profit from our division?” the Dauphin asked Villeneuve. The admiral had no answer.

  The Allied fleet attacked Quiberon, as had been planned. The Republicans still held the fortifications that the French had built on the peninsula after the British victory in 1759, and barrages of hot shot ripped through the Allied fleet, sinking ten British and French ships. But a swift action by British and American Marines, spearheaded by Lieutenant Alexander Cochrane, seized the fortress from the land side and the great guns fell silent. Cochrane was promoted to captain, as he had personally led the Forlorn Hope that escaladed the walls of the Quiberon fort.[217] The British and Royal French finally fell on the city, the transports disgorging their troops and the Breton locals mostly welcoming them as liberators, at least before they drunk all the taverns dry. Louis XVII took his first steps on the soil of France for more than three years, and standing beside the Prince of Wales, spoke his famous words: “By God and my right, I reclaim my birthright.”