The Battle of the Basque Roads, sometimes known as the Battle of Aix Roads (French: Bataille de l'île d'Aix, also Affaire des brûlots, and seldom Bataille de la rade des Basques), was a naval battle fought off the coast of Aix during the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Lord Cochrane led a British fireship attack against a formidable squadron of French ships stationed in the Basque Roads on the night of April 11, 1809.
Two of the French ships were pushed ashore during the attack. The second conflict lasted three days but did not result in the destruction of the whole French fleet. Admiral James Gambier, the British senior officer, was accused by Cochrane of being hesitant to pursue the attack. Gambier wanted a court-martial and was eventually exonerated, effectively ending Cochrane's career in the Royal Navy. Until the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the French Navy continued to operate against the British from the Basque Roads.
The Duke of Wellington relied on naval supplies during the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. In the Basque Roads, the French fleet faced off against the British supply ships. The Royal Navy maintained a blockade of the Basque Roads to safeguard the convoys, although it was costly and never entirely effective.
Napoléon issued Decrès instructions for the fleet at Lorient and Rochefort to bring troops and supplies to Martinique in late October 1808. However, the continued presence of major British fleets hampered their withdrawal. On February 7, 1809, Napoleon directed Admiral Willaumez to raise the blockades with the Brest fleet in order to allow these small squadrons to reach Martinique. Willaumez finally set sail for Lorient with eight ships of the line and two frigates two weeks later.
Despite chasing off the British ships stationed there, calms prevented the Lorient fleet from weighing anchor; they did so later, after the fleet had left, resulting in the Battle of Les Sables-d'Olonne. Fearing capture by the British, Willaumez went south to Rochefort, but the Rochefort squadron was in no condition to sail, having recently been devastated by disease. Willaumez was stranded in Rochefort after the arrival of a huge British fleet.
With these reasons in mind, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Mulgrave, proposed an attack on the French fleet at anchor using fire ships. Cochrane's superior officer, Lord Gambier, commanding the Channel Fleet, was opposed to the plan, calling it "a horrible and anti-Christian mode of warfare".
Cochrane was given twenty-one fireships to command, but he was also focusing on his own invention: explosion ships, which were basically fireships packed tightly with explosive powder.
Gambier's opposition and Mulgrave's persuasiveness meant that full responsibility for executing the plan fell to Lord Cochrane.
The Attack
Cochrane floated in on the flood tide aboard the leading explosion vessel on the night of April 11, 1809, with the other explosion ships following. When he reached the boom, Cochrane lighted the vessel's fuse and crowded aboard their boat, only to learn that they had left their pet dog behind, which they returned to the rescue. They escaped with their dog just in time.
A mile-long "boom" of massive spars and chains constructed by the French to prevent British ships from confronting the French was broken in many places by the exploding ships. The scared French gunners shot into the line of covering frigates because they couldn't see clearly in the smoke. To avoid the surge of flame, anchor cables were swiftly cut, and the ships stacked up on the shoals without sails.
Cochrane described the attack as follows:
The frigates Aigle, Unicorn, and Pallas were stationed near the Imperieuse to receive the crews of the returning fireships, as well as to reinforce the boats of the fleet assembled alongside the Caesar to help the fireships. The fleet's boats, on the other hand, were never used for whatever reason.
So, judging our distance as best we could in relation to the time the fuse was calculated to burn, the crew of four men entered the gig, led by Lieut. While I lit the portfires, Bissel exhorted the men to pull for their lives, which they did with zeal, but without making the expected progress because the wind and waves were strong against us.
As the massive flare faded, the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, and massive piles of lumber, the wreckage of the destroyed vessel. The sea trembled like an earthquake, rising in a massive wave, on whose crest our boat was lifted like a cork, then as suddenly fell into a wide trough, out of which none expected to emerge as it closed in on us with the rush of a maelstrom. Nothing but a hard rolling wave had to be met in a matter of minutes, everything has returned to silence and darkness."
the Follow-Up
As the massive flare faded, the air seemed alive with shells, grenades, rockets, and massive piles of lumber, the wreckage of the destroyed vessel. The sea trembled like an earthquake, rising in a massive wave, on whose crest our boat was lifted like a cork, then as suddenly fell into a wide trough, out of which none expected to emerge as it closed in on us with the rush of a maelstrom. Nothing but a hard rolling wave had to be met in a matter of minutes, everything has returned to silence and darkness."
Cochrane wrote:
Battle Continues
Fallout
Cochrane's naval career appeared to be done; the Admiralty did not assign him another ship, and he returned his primary focus to Parliament. In 1814, he was convicted of stock market manipulation; sentenced to the pillory and a year in prison; expelled from Parliament and the Royal Navy; immediately re-elected to Parliament from his district; popular support and acclaim were so strong that the pillory was never used in Britain again, and he received a royal pardon; and Cochrane became the head of the Navies of Chile, Brazil, and Greece during their wars of independence.
Author C.S. Forester makes reference to the incident in Flying Colours, one of his series of Hornblower novels:
On the French side, captains were blamed for the loss of four ships and two frigates, four of whom were court-martialed. One was removed from duty, and one, Calcutta's Lafon, was executed by firing squad. Allemand's role was never called into question, much to the chagrin of the officers and open disdain of Admiral Martin; he was quickly transferred to Toulon and assigned command of the Mediterranean fleet.
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