1693 - French Naval Strategy Turnpoint

The defeat suffered at La Hougue last year has discouraged the king from attempting a new grand strategic manoeuvre as the destruction of the Allied fleet or the invasion of England. King Louis XIV, 55, and his Secretary for the Navy, Louis de Phélypeaux, 49, have decided to focus on attacking the Anglo-Dutch trade in the Atlantic ocean with their main Western fleet under steady Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, count of Tourville's command. This is commonplace since commerce raiding has constantly been at the top of French naval warfare mindset.

The plan has just brought forth a significant Tourville's success at Lagos, thanks to a huge misinterpretation of French intents and moves by British admiralty.

Success may has led the king of France and Phélypeaux to go further in their afterthoughts, to a massive turnpoint in strategy. Surprisingly they have got as far as ordering not to lay down any extra ship of the line from now on - a radical decision which will certainly have far-reaching consequences on balance of power. Let us see the details, roots and implications of this new and amazing situation.

Barfleur & La Hougue in Hindsight

Committed to opening the way for former King James II's troops from their camp at Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue, endowed with 44 ships of the line, Tourville fought Russell who had 88 on his own - 25 Dutch and 63 English ones - plus 28 fireships and a few other light ships.

¤ In London the official count was 82 vessels in the Anglo-Dutch line of battle against 99 in Paris - it seems that there were 88 or 89 vessels actually. There is a consensus of the both sides on the 44 within the French line, and on the 15 which were lost in the aftermath. There were seven Dutch and fourteen English three-deckers carrying more than 90 guns against nine French ones. A struggle of giants took place at a ratio of seven versus three, and wounded French ones burnt in a final apocalyptic scene.

In a first stage, Tourville reached an impossible stalemate in a yet harsh struggle. We can read his intents through the first moves. Far from resigning himself to a defensive manoeuvre, or from attempting to flee, Tourville took the initiative of attacking. Being upwind of Russell, he tried to prevent the Allies from enveloping his fleet by extending his line and by going even upwind, what he rather succeeded in, and he simultaneously pounced on the centre, trying to hit a fatal blow there, what he failed in. Tourville found thirty-one vessels in the centre against his own sixteen and sustained the brunt of English fire with heavy casualties and damages. Tourville's flagship was so crippled that it was towed off the line.

¤ The English centre was very tough indeed. Russell had three 100s, plus two extra 100s and two 90s in the neighbouring squadrons led by Ralph Delaval and Cloudesley Shovell. Tourville had only two vessels of equal strength to oppose the seven giants. To succeed in his tactics, he should have mustered the larger vessels to form a shock force - but confiscating his seconds' flagships was inconceivable, of course, in the rigid hierarchical system in force, in France as elsewhere. Thus the struggle turned to be a hopeless David against Goliath in the centre.

Fog and smoke made the battle unmanageable after a few hours. Yet the battle carried on under a piecemeal form during the chase of the retreating French line. The French escape went awry. For lack of harbours or shelters on the coasts of Normandy, the fleet attempted to retreat to Saint-Malo and Brest but fifteen damaged ships, including Tourville's flagship in tow, failed to get through the Alderney Race strait and fell at the mercy of the Allies, as they grounded three at Cherbourg and twelve at La Hougue without any protection. Most of them had partly lost their rigging, some had serious leaks in their hulls. They were attacked and burnt by the Allied fireships at Cherbourg, by boarding parties at the two sites of stranding at La Hougue. The disaster took place before the troops meant to restoring James II which did not intervene.

Why did experienced Tourville, 50 then, fight a blatantly losing battle? In England, one assumed that Tourville underestimated the Allied force. Indeed he perfectly knew what he faced and what he did. Here is the now publicly known reason - he received uncompromising, impracticable and even suicidal orders from Versailles :

fragments of Phélipeaux's instructions to Tourville

That defeat stemmed from old structural issues :

1st, fragmentation of the French fleet between Western and Southern waters, which prevented its coalition in due time ; yet sustaining a fleet in the Mediterranean waters was mandatory as France faced enemies in Spain and in Italy - say twenty to thirty ships of the line plus forty to fifty galleys, rather passive but potential opponents ;

2nd, lack of sailors which thwarted crewing the whole fleet and obliged Tourville to put to sea with two thirds of the available ships ; enlistment of seafarers and their serving in turn aboard warships was supposed to be the solution but it has partly failed in every province but in Brittany ;

3rd, lack of appropriate harbours in the east of the Channel ; the old project of enlarging the harbour of Le Havre has been abandoned, while Brest and Rochefort have absorbed all resources ; the late project of improving fortifications of Cherbourg has lately be discarded too.

The orders sent to Tourville were not only of dubious merit - they were inept perhaps -, they were contemptuous. The admiral was blatantly pushed in his back to a tragedy.

It seems that the orders sent to Victor-Marie d'Estrées, 32 years old then, admiral of the Mediterranean squadron of 16 vessels supposed to reinforce Tourville, had no such threatening tone. He took no initiative, aware of the strategic move though, but he repeatedly asked what he had to do, and complained about fleet unpreparedness. Neither Phélypeaux nor Naval Steward General François d'Usson, marquis de Bonrepaus, urged him to put to sea whatever the number of ships he could muster. He has not been blamed as far as we know. Who was responsible for his late departure? Why has he not be urged to rally as soon as possible? Who did impose such a binding schedule on Tourville, and not on d'Estrées? Bonrepaus, planner and convenor of the operation, was dismissed. He was certainly not the only culprit.

With d'Estrées, Tourville would have had 60 ships - enough perhaps to secure a stalemate.

At least, King Louis XIV seems to have partly understood his own responsibility. This war has marked his real debut as a naval strategist. Four years ago, he started with a judicious strategic manoeuvre which led to a half-success at Bantry Bay but he did not follow through. Then he ventured a decisive battle, which took place at Beachy Head and turned to be a tactical success and a strategic defeat, King William III taking advantage of the void sea of Ireland to defeat ex James II at the Boyne. For lack of better ideas, he issued piecemeal orders for 1691 which resulted in a limited success against British trade. Apparently full of resentment about the missed chance at Beachy Head, stressed out by a matter that he cannot handle, assisted by a minister as ignorant as himself, impatient of doing something without waiting for the imminent fleet reinforcement by the constructions under way, the very king who always push his land armies in lopsided struggles took a decision which looks like an unsettled freak : breaking his toy by ordering a suicidal sortie.

To his surprise, Tourville has been awarded a grant then a marshal's baton and has kept his command. Let us remind that he had been relieved of his command after Beachy Head and his non intervention against Plymouth.

On his own, the English Commander-in-Chief, Edward Russell, 40, resigned his command after the campaign, being in conflict with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Despite public acclaim, his actions have been controversial within the political establishment. He had already been lured by Tourville in the vain campaign of 1691. His victory in two steps at Barfleur and La Hougue has seemed the very least outcome he could obtain from an overwhelming force. France suffered a heavy blow, not a fatal one, as one might have expected from an one-sided struggle. Russel has been replaced by three admirals : Henry Killigrew, 51, Ralph Delaval, 52, and Cloudesley Shovell, 43 - a strange leadership given to a committee, which has failed in this year campaign, being outmanoeuvred by Tourville.

France has rebuilt its force almost immediately. A very large programme of construction was under way. The 104-gun Soleil Royal was lost but a new one, more powerful, was launched at once under the same name. Two other 104-gun ships, Terrible and Foudroyant will be ready soon in Brest, while a new giant 110-gun Royal Louis has already joined the Mediterranean fleet. Apart from his flagship, Tourville lost ten other three-deckers ; five were launched since then and four other are under construction. Two large two-deckers were lost ; six were launched in the immediate aftermath. Far from collapsing, it is clear that the French navy is preparing to bouncing back.

As for the human side, France has always been plagued with scarcity of sailors, now stressed by the exile of Protestants and by the losses suffered at war. Protestants were over-represented in seafaring trades in the Atlantic coastal provinces and, moreover, migrating was easier for a seafarer for obvious reasons (shifting from a French ship to a foreign one, using their own boats to migrate, easily meeting large needs of skills abroad).

Another issue raised by the last battle is relative incompetence of commanding officers. It has been noticed that the fifteen vessels which failed crossing the Alderney Race strait were mostly commanded by high-ranking nobles. To some extent, it has unfairly incriminated Tourville himself, who is certainly not a vain courtier. However, Philippe Le Valois, Marquis of Villette-Mursay, and Ferdinand count of Relingue, seasoned veterans though, are also complete courtiers with their dark side, and have much talked behind Tourville's back, in contrast with Jean de Gabaret who fought with gallantry, saved his squadron and did not say a word. French navy has grown fast and has become awesome, which has been appealing for high profiles coming from the nobility of the Robe as of the Sword. In support of this opinion, we can observe the fast ascent to the top of hierarchy of Jean d'Estrées, Victor-Marie's father, who never shone and certainly not deserved by skills or achievements the positions he had got by birth.

Aftermath & Balance of Power

The strategic planners in Versailles have been running out of ideas. To be frank, naval strategy is a real puzzle today. France is facing the coalition of all its neighbouring countries. It might sentence it to a defensive stance, with no other objective than holding out.

Tourville's understanding has always been that he had to prevent a possible invasion ; it was already his mindset in the happy days of 1690. Observers' afterthought was that he should have pressed his advantage to destroy Allied fleet after Beachy Head - but the chase was loose and unproductive (the ships of the vanguard which fought the Dutch were too damaged to participate in it, the other kept the line to face a possible British turnaround). That opinion stems from an underestimation of Cornelis Evertsen's action and from an overestimation of the French fleet of 1690 which based the order given by the king of destroying the enemy fleet. Indeed the French fleet was intrinsically inferior to the coalition of the Dutch and of the Britons :

1st, it could not sustain a long campaign, being unable to quickly repair a large number of damaged ships and to re-crew them ; Colbert and Louis XIV hastily built a large fleet without endowing it with an infrastructure equal to its needs ; there are two harbours in the West fit to hosting large vessels, while the Britons have six and the Dutch five ; it seems that Tourville felt this acutely ;

2nd, the French put in the line ships that are unable to stand a position in it, lacking staying power as well as striking power ; 38 in 70 ships at Beachy Head were very weak, carrying 40 to 50 guns, the largest firing balls of 12 to 18 pounds ; the vessels carrying 12-pounders as their main armament should not have a place in the line.

In 1690, it would have been possible to take control of the Channel with 70 ships of the line ; last year, it would have required 80 or 90 vessels but was stupidly attempted with 44. Today, the Dutch can put 63 ships in the line, all less than ten years old ; 14 are large three-deckers. The Britons can line up to 79 ships ; 18 are large three-deckers. The two fleets could theoretically merge into a tremendous 142-ship force, including 32 giant three-deckers. France has 78 ships to face it, including 22 giant three-deckers. Yet one in two is a rather small ship carrying 50 or 60 guns, while it is the case against only one in five in the British navy, more modern in its structure. If we focus on the very efficient ships - the ones carrying 70 guns and more -, there are 29 Dutch plus 62 British, 91 together versus 38 French. It seems that the first stage of the industrial war has been lost by the French. Does it mean that the pattern of Barfleur would unavoidably recur?

The three nations are building new ships. Who knows which would be the first obliged to leave the race by lack of money? France was not sentenced to lose the industrial war behind the military scene but seems to have given up this year. This is an unexpected relief for the United Provinces and Britain, which have been threatened by exhaustion.

Lagos

As early as 1690, after Beachy Head, Royal attention focused on the large merchant fleet sheltered in Plymouth. Tourville displeased the king for not having seriously attempted to capture or destroy it in port - a formidable strongpoint. The Royal wish was completely delusional but nobody dared to say it so the Royal feeling was that his naval servants had not the nerve to audacious operations. Less questionable, difficult though, was the instruction of seizing the merchant fleet for Smyrna the following year ; Tourville achieved to lure Russell and to capture a portion of the Jamaica convoy, a consolation prize of sorts, worth one or two million pounds.

Finally Tourville has achieved the goal this year, thanks to complete misguidance of the main Anglo-Dutch fleet. The prize is amazing, amounting to some thirty 30 million pounds - a heavy blow which could have been heavier if the Dutch ships, once again, had not sacrificed in a wild struggle.

It has been said that Tourville had 70 ships of the line, which seems very unlikely for lack of ships and of crews. For instance, d'Estrées was operating in the Mediterranean sea with 22 ships of the line while Tourville fought off the Portugal. From the records, it seems that he lined up no more than 40 ships of the line, plus a number of lighter vessels. From the orders issued by Tourville, it seems that he had fifty vessels, scouts and light two-deckers included.

The recurring vigour of the Dutch in the different battles shall be emphasized. It results from their gallantry but it also unveils a difference with their French opponents : they fire much faster.

The king has certainly considered that he was on the right tracks, that commerce raiding was the right strategy and should remain the tactical scheme for the future.

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LINK WITH PREVIOUS CHRONICLES

1685 - Dutch Plan to a 96-ship Line of Battle

1691 - Huge War shipbuilding Programmes

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

Note A - on Tourville after Lagos.

Tourville will never command at sea after Lagos. He will do his duty as an advisor to Louis de Phélypeaux within the strategic frame chosen by the king, that is commerce raiding. He dies in 1701.

Note B - on Phélypeaux.

Louis de Phélypeaux becomes count of Pontchartain in 1699 when he retires from his overwhelming ministries (finances, navy, trade, colonies, king's house) to become Grand chancellor. He shows up his skills in financing the Nine Years war. He his replaced by his son, Jérôme, 25 years old in 1699.

Note C - on the main figures of Commerce Raiding.

The main characters of the next phase of the war will be Jean Bart, 43 in 1693, who will shine at the battle of Texel the following year, Claude Forbin, 37, Jean-Bernard de Saint-Jean, baron de Pointis, 48, Jean du Casse, 43, René Trouin, seigneur du Gué, 30, also known as Duguay-Trouin, André de Nesmond, 52. They will multiply the catches which will repeatedly induce a retaliation of the British navy against Saint-Malo, Granville, Calais and Dunkirk.

Note C - on the outcome of Commerce Raiding.

The war will cost 4,000 ships to Britain and perhaps 2,000/2,500 to the United Provinces. The order of magnitude of the ship losses cost is probably in the range of some fifteen million pounds. At the beginning of the war, the merchant fleets were likely of 4,000 to 5,000 in Britain, and 6,000/8,000 in the United Provinces. The shipbuilding capacity are likely about 400/500 in Britain, 600/700 in the United Provinces. Commerce Raiding is obviously a formidable weapon but it does not make the enemy surrender, it does not win the war.

It is blatant that French maritime trade has been ruined simultaneously. It is even more blatant that the British navy left the war in a dominant position.

Alfred Mahan

Mahan came to consider that it was a strategic failure for France not to search a decisive battle after 1692. On his own, Corbett considers that sustaining a fleet in being, preventing or thwarting sea control by Britain, would have been the right strategy for France. Louis XIV chose a Commerce-Raiding only strategy, discredited by both Mahan and Corbett.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Onésime Joachim Troude - Batailles Navales de la France - Paris, 1867

Alfred Mahan - The Influence of sea power upon History 1660-1783 - New York, 1890, available on the internet

Julian Corbett - Some Neglected Aspects of War - London, 1907 - available on the Internet

Brian Tunstall - Naval warfare in the age of Sail - London, 1990

Martine Acerra (direction) - L'invention du vaisseau de ligne 1450-1700 - Paris, 1997

Daniel Dessert - Tourville - Paris, 2002

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CREDIT

Robert Levrac-Tournière - portrait of Louis de Phélypeaux - oil on canvas - circa 1695 - © private collection