1682 - New Weapons against Barbary Coast

Last year, a war broke out between Algiers and France at Dey Baba Hassan’s initiative. It implicitly involves the whole Barbary Coast, so the deys of Tripoli and of Tunis as well.

This is a weird escalation from the usual tensions provoked by the Barbary pirates against shipping – a lasting plague. From time to time, an European nation retaliates by destroying a few pirate ships. The last expedition was a British one : with some success for just a while, Admiral John Narborough, 35, sent boats at night to burn galleys and xebecs in the harbours of Tripoli and of Algiers in 1675.

¤ The xebec stems from the galley. As her, she is lightly built and fine. Contrary to her, she is versatile, using chiefly her lateen sails rather than oars as soon as there is a shade of wind. She is a fast sailer and tends to replace galley as the usual raider against Christian coastal towns. She also offers the oar ports to fire light guns like prangis when boarding. (The prangi is the Ottoman variant of the swivel gun meant to support boarding by strafing enemy deck with grapeshots. It is breech-loading.)

Whatever Hassan’s intent may have been in targeting France, there is no improvisation in the pirates’ actions : a Barbary fleet has been formed for the purpose of raking the Mediterranean sea and, within a few months, it has captured tens of French ships, even including a small warship.  King Louis XIV has decided to retaliate on Algiers by a heavy-handed operation.

Colbert, rightly considering the difficulties of attacking citadels, especially Algiers which resisted a number of attacks over the years, sees the opportunity of testing a new vessel meant to bombing at long range, designed and proposed by Bernard Renau d’Eliçagaray, 30 years old, who distinguished himself by his proposals at the naval conference held last year. 

His bomb galiot is a flat and beamy vessel armed with two large mortars, side by side on the weather deck at the front. Her structure is very stiff : the hull structure displays a reinforcement by tight diagonal bracing – a successful premiere – and a pillar to withstand the weight and the recoil of the mortars. She is also relatively seaworthy, slow though.

¤ This name of galiot stems from a Dutch model of barge, and the hull shape has a Dutch style as well.

The mortars are meant to fire explosive projectiles at a high angle on a curved trajectory. They are served by learned specialists when the ship is anchored. The captain has to point out his ship’s bow at the target by manoeuvring anchors. The range is tuned by the amount of powder. The explosion of the bomb is tuned as well by the length of the fuse.

Abraham Duquesne, aged 73, has been appointed to carry out the bombardment of Algiers through a heterogeneous fleet of eleven ships of the line, fifteen galleys and five bomb galiots, which reveals some tactical hesitation and much caution in the approach.   

It is interesting to observe the contributions of the three sorts of vessels.

The galleys have been intended to tow other ships, especially in case things would go wrong. But they prove their irrelevance very soon. Their endurance is quite short so they need victualling before the genuine beginning of the battle, which is named second ordre in the battle plan. Duquesne decides to get rid of them after the preparation phase, or premier ordre. They would be useless anyway for lack of both fire power and staying power.

¤ Galleys have proved their ineffectiveness for long. It is strange enough that France has spent and still spends so much money – a fifth of its naval expenditures in the 1660s, a quarter by now – to form and sustain a fleet of galleys that can only fight against their likes. It has got 30 galleys, to compare to 30 for Spain, 50 for the Ottoman empire and 60 for Venice. It reveals that King Louis XIV and Colbert, brilliant organisers when implementing a strategy, have remained laymen about strategic planning. Apart from the bomb galiots, they dare no breakthrough for they have no clear purpose for the ships they build. They therefore mimic what they observe offshore, and build the widest range of vessels including galleys.

The ships of the line themselves do not achieve anything. Duquesne has been deterred from exposing them in any direct approach by some 180 guns behind the forefront fortifications. He assigns them the task of backing the galiots which are at the forefront in case they would be threatened by light enemy vessels. His arrangement has worked well. Effectively he has had to protect the galiots against enemy actions who tried not to leave the galiots bombing quietly.

As for the galiots, they were just built for the occasion and they sailed from the English Channel to the Mediterranean sea without suffering too much. Their debut is not convincing : either the bombs do not burst at all, or they burst too early, threatening their servants and the ship. There is much to learn. But, after a few days of tuning, they have become very effective, silencing guns of the forts before terrifying the population by a rain of a hundred of bombs. Once correctly tuned and efficient, they turn to lack ammunition.

In this awful sort of war stage, silencing the fortifications and the enemy ships is the only risky and tricky phase – the second ordre. Afterwards, the troisième ordre consists of shelling quietly, blindly, unfairly and inexorably against the civilians until an expected surrender.

Based on the sight of explosions, the bomb galiots have proved their efficiency to every observer. On the ground of the military results, that is another matter.

__________

IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

NOTE A - On the aftermath of the first bombing.

The demonstration has been technically convincing, even if it does not achieve anything in military or diplomatic terms.

NOTE B - On the rematch.

Duquesne will renew the bombing of Algiers in 1683, under a more destructive form than the previous one with seven bomb galiots this time but no galley (Colbert, who dies this same year 1683, has likely understood that they matter very little). Politically, the new shower of bombs, six times harder than the previous one, does not achieve anything however.

NOTE C - About the bombardment of Genoa.

Duquesne will also carry out in 1684 the bombardment of Genoa, the small republic being involved in the war of the Reunions (1682-84) with Spain, Austria and the Holy Roman empire on the Habsburg’s side. It has no choice as it is the naval bridge between Spain and its vassal Duchy of Milan as well as Genoans are bankers of the Spanish crown and its suppliers of galleys, sailors, and soldiers.

This time, the French deploy ten bomb galiots with fourteen ships of the line and ten galleys. The outcome of the expedition is depicted as awful : two thirds of the city are said to be destroyed by the bombs but, curiously enough, the number of victims is not as heavy as one may have feared – or expected. Fortunately for the civilians, the drop points are rather predictable as well as the showers schedule. It seems that destructions are not that heavy. Especially the strongholds escaped destruction. The attack on land is repelled by the Genoans by the way.

NOTE D - About the bombardment of Tripoli.

Jean II d’Estrées, 61 then, will follow up with the bombardment of Tripoli in 1685 by five bomb galiots. Two days and a thousand bombs will suffice to reach a treaty there. Intensity of bombardment by five ships proves that the technique is now time-tested.

NOTE E - On the last rematch at Algiers.

Jean II d’Estrées comes before Algiers in 1688 with ten bomb galiots. Shelling the cities has become a mastered operation through intense training, if we may say so. The result is even more destructive than the two first operations. This time, it provokes a coup, the dey’s replacement and a ceasefire. A treaty will follow a year after.

NOTE F - About the leaks of engineering secrets.

Escaping repression by fleeing to the neighbouring countries, the French Huguenots of the navy will bring the secrets of the bomb galiots to the British and to the Dutch, who will copy them from 1687 and during the Nine Years’ war. Afterwards Dutch bomb galiots will contribute to the capture of Gibraltar in 1704 – their highest accomplishment and the only sustainable one.

__________

SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Martine Acerra & Jean Meyer - Histoire de la Marine Française - Rennes, 1994