Saving a Warship for France

Summing up the Royal Navy’s role in defeating Napoleon, Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote, “Those far distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.'” This is perhaps the most frequently quoted sentence ever to flow from Mahan’s prolific pen, but, as he was well aware, it is not entirely accurate. It is true that French soldiers never looked on the great battle fleets that effectively confined them to the European continent. On the other hand, troops stationed in seaports saw more than they would have liked of the cruisers—frigates and brigs—that maintained a close blockade of France and its allies and occupied territories—interdicting overseas trade, attacking coastal shipping, and often sending boat parties to “cut out” vessels at anchor in supposedly safe places.²

Among the formations that eyed these intrusive ships was the 5eme Tirailleurs.¹ A regiment of the “Young Guard," the unit had been raised in May 1811 in anticipation of war with Russia and was garrisoned at Calais, at the northern end of the Strait of Dover.⁴ Its adjutant, fresh out of Saint-Cyr (France’s military college), was 20-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Baron Paul de Bourgoing. "War had not yet been declared on Russia,” he remembered, “but in this maritime fortress we had the interesting and almost daily spectacle of episodes of naval warfare. The frequent cannonades between English and French ships were like a prelude to the actions in which we were readying ourselves to take part, and we recalled that we were only seven leagues [21 miles] from England. . . . We frequently perceived the British flag cruising in sight of the coast and the forts along the shore sending shots at it, too often harmlessly because of the range and the uncertainties of maritime fire.”⁵

This was not Lieutenant Bourgoing’s first view of the Royal Navy. His father had been the French ambassador to Denmark in 1801, and at the age of ten he had witnessed Nelson’s defeat of the Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen.⁶ At Calais, however, Bourgoing would do more than merely observe British warships. Here is how he told the story in his previously untranslated memoirs:⁷

I did not expect that my debut in the profession of arms would be an action at sea. I am grateful that my good for- tune provided the occasion for it at so early an age, and thereby completed the very varied picture gallery of my military career. Here is the bulletin of that naval action, of rather modest dimensions, it is true, since two second lieutenants were the generals in chief of the embarked troops.⁸

It was the 21st of November 1811; the oldest inhabitants of the city of Calais can certify the exactitude of what I am about to relate, which took place within sight of their shores. A dozen French gunboats commanded by Captain Louvel had been ordered to proceed from Boulogne to Ostend. They passed through the straits [of Dover] and shortly after coming in sight of our port they were attacked by two English brigs, each carrying 22 cannon, which we had time to count from pretty close.

The first ship of the French squadron, imprudently outstripping the other vessels, was captured by the enemy. Ten others took shelter near the port. The 12th gunboat, carrying the squadron commander, was closely following the one taken by the English and escaped the same fate only by flinging herself on the coast and grounding in the sand, thereby denying the brigs, which needed much deeper water to navigate, the possibility of pursuing her so near to land.

The two enemy ships had to content themselves with loosing their broadsides at their immobile adversary, heeling to one side and able to return their fire only with difficulty. But this gunboat was commanded by one of our bravest sailors, resolved to defend himself to the death if the enemy chose to board.

The dunes along the beach confined the echo of a lively cannonade, as all the forts along the coast—Fort Rouge, situated at the end of a jetty that extended far out to sea, Fort Risban, and several others—answered the English fire. At that moment 1 found myself in the headquarters of the governor of the fortress, General Barbazon. I had accompanied Colonel Hennequin [commanding the 5eme Tirailleurs], who hastened there to receive orders on the subject of the perilous situation in which the gunboat found herself.

While these two commanders were discussing what was to be done, a major of the garrison staff burst in all out breath and exclaimed:

“The English are lowering boats to capture or burn the grounded ship; general, shouldn’t we send some infantry to the seashore to protect the crew’s disembarkation?”

I report the major’s exact words; they are important for the rest of what I have to relate. They show that, from the look of the action, the ship was already regarded as lost. The two commanders who heard this report thought the same.

“To be sure, we must help those brave men,” answered General Barbazon. Then, turning to Colonel Hennequin, he ordered him to have an officer and 50 men set out at once.

“Carry out that order,” my colonel told me. “Time is pressing. Go to the citadel and send 50 tirailleurs to the beach without delay.”

I set off with all the promptitude the circumstances demanded.

I had to cross through the whole city of Calais before reaching the citadel, where our troops were quartered. I chose 50 of them, and within minutes 1 had cartridges issued to them; at the same time, without slowing down, I sent word to the officer who was to command the detachment, but I was told that my comrade, the second lieutenant detailed as duty officer, was not in his quarters. Like all the other young officers, he was at the end of the jetty, occupied in watching, more comfortably and at closer range, the interesting spectacle of an action at sea.

Although my position as adjutant gave me the responsibility of designating which of the company’s officers were to go and not of commanding detachments myself, I believed that in this urgent case the right thing would be to put myself at the head of the 50 men. It was, in fact, impossible to wait for another officer, not knowing where to send for one; a delay could have ruined everything.

When we reached the port, advancing at the doubletime, we were greeted by cries of satisfaction and impatience: a large number of inhabitants had gathered there and the crowd shouted at us from all directions:

“Come on, come on! Hurry up! The gunboat’s about to be captured!”

The ardor, the vivacity, of my soldiers’ pace would have increased, if that had been possible, in response to these demonstrations of a just and patriotic impatience.

From where my 50 men debouched on the beach we could see how much the danger was pressing. Our national colors were still floating over the gunboat, immobile and heeling over a few toises⁹ from shore, but the ship, in a disadvantageous position for action, appeared an assured prey for the enemy who menaced her. Farther out to sea, the two brigs under the red flag of England were moving under full sail; their sole maneuver consisted of drawing away for a moment, then coming back again, after having tacked, to fire their broadsides each in turn. We saw, in addition, several dingies and longboats filled with armed men: these were the craft the two English ships had launched to cross the shallows, close with the gunboat, and capture or bum her.

Fortunately, help had arrived.

At that moment enemy roundshot were bouncing around us on the ricochet off the sandy beach; the English realized that they must fire all they could at the infantry that was rushing forward to dispute their over-easy victory.

It was then that, from the end of the jetty, the officer whom 1 was replacing, Charles de Fontaneilles, saw the detachment running along the beach. He shuddered to think that he was not at his post, quickly climbed down from the jetty, and was soon in the midst of us.

On his arrival, he cried, “Why, my friend, didn’t you notify me?”

“You could not be found, to my great regret: every moment was precious, I had to make haste.”

“But I would have been dishonored if by chance I had not been on the jetty.”

“Happily, dear friend, all that has been made good since you reached here at just the right moment.”

“Yes, that’s all very well, but go away now; I’m in command.”

“To be sure, take command, but I can’t leave now that we’ve been fired on. I’ll stay with you.”

Talking in this manner, we came near the water’s edge. The captain of the gunboat shouted to us through his speaking-trumpet:

“I order you to come on board to defend the gunboat!”

“What are your orders?” Fontaneilles asked me. “Have you been given any that would allow us to go on board?”

I repeated what had been said to me at the governor’s.

“It seems to me,” I added, “that the orders are so vague that you need only to reach a decision according to circumstances.”

“That’s also my opinion.”

Captain Louvel shouted to us anew.

“I order you to come on board! I am a post captain!¹⁰1 order you to come on board!”

Fontaneilles had already gone into the water and was heading toward the small boats sent to carry us to the gunboat. I followed my friend with the number of soldiers who could find a place in the boats; the waves were pushing them steadily toward us. Twenty- eight of our soldiers were transported to the imperiled gunboat.

When this reinforcement arrived, the captain decided that it was sufficient to defend the ship. The 22 other men waited on shore.

As for us, already ranged on the grounded vessel’s deck, we disposed our men in a manner to repulse the boarding that the English seemed still to be meditating. . . . Their armed boats kept advancing toward us. The two brigs had drawn fairly close to one another, so as to be able to cannonade us with roundshot and grape without preventing their boats from advancing in the direction their fire did not reach.

With a view to an action with cold steel, the captain had those very purposeful weapons used on board ship brought before us.

“Friends,” he said to Fontaneilles and me, “leave your pretty little infantry swords in their scabbards. I’m going to give you something better to receive these English, if they dare come close.”

At the same moment, we were handed cutlasses, well sharpened, with solid handguards and no fancy open-work, all in iron. In addition, a row of loaded pistols was spread out at our feet. We were given cartridges to reload them.

Presently we told the captain, “It’s time to becalm those boats that are still advancing by a good fusillade.”

Fontaneilles then ordered his soldiers to open fire. The English realized that a vessel with so strong a garrison of infantry could not be stormed by men approaching in boats. The latter went about and we watched them return to their respective brigs.

Captain Louvel then told us that he considered his gunboat saved; his son was beside him; these two brave sailors thanked us very handsomely.

During the action the sea had risen; the captain called attention to this added:

“An hour from now my will be back afloat; I’ll cut my cables and, with a wind, we’ll again sail for Ostend, where I’ll find a refuge. . . . You come with me, my young friends, because it’s possible the English will attack me again, if not ;tonight, then tomorrow morning.”

We made some objections... I said that we had not even received orders to embark. Fontaneilles added that to sail so far with a detachment of the regiment without our colonel’s consent seemed pretty serious to him.

“What are you afraid of?” said the captain. “I’ll take everything on myself. . . . I’ll provide you with a letter that fully justifies you. ... It is I who gave you the order to come help us. You had to obey me. I’ll say, moreover, that if you hadn’t come, by now Gunboat Number 61 would have been carried off to England or burned.... Come now, young men, rest easy; I’ll cut my cables and leave my anchors in French sand, then we’ll start for Ostend. There’s no way to enter Calais under a west wind in the presence of enemy brigs. ... In a little while it will be dark and once at sea I’ll have no fear of their pursuit.”

We were only half reassured on the manner in which our colonel would take the affair; but it would have been too painful to abandon those we had come to defend and who were asking us still to protect them.

The gunboat was set afloat by the rising tide and, the darkness that favored our departure having permitted us to sail all night, we successfully entered the port of Ostend the next day.

We returned to Calais by land five days after our departure; we grew more and more uneasy over the welcome we would receive from our colonel, whose strictness we knew. In the event, he reproached us for having acted without precise orders. I was no doubt wrong to have embarked once my friend had arrived to take command, but Fontaneilles had only done his duty with discernment and conscience. I respectfully recalled that I had borne rather vague instructions, which could not have been made more positive; but that, under the English guns, Fontaneilles had received very pressing and very clear orders from the mouth of a post captain exposed to great danger.

Finally, I added that we had thought that, in the presence of the enemy, isolated commanders are often obliged to consult the circumstances and their inspirations as men of honor. The colonel let me finish and then said:

“For that beautiful reasoning, monsieur, and above all for having embarked without orders and without need, you will observe close arrest for a month. ... As for M. de Fontaneilles, for having consented to the embarkation and the voyage to Ostend, he will observe 15 days’ open arrest.”¹¹

This decision was, however, accompanied by some words of consolation for the devotion we had shown and the courage of our soldiers.

I had to resign myself; with more experience, I would have understood that one must never debate with his military commander and that the laws of discipline do not permit a subordinate verbally to get the better of his superior; to obey and keep quiet, afterwards to protest, if there is cause, in a respectful letter; that is one’s duty in such cases. Besides, 1 did not have any protest to raise on my account against a punishment that was, perhaps, a little stiff; I had mixed in a conflict in which I no longer had a right to figure after the legitimate commander arrived. As for my friend Fontaneilles, he deserved only praise. Fie had saved a warship for France.

Despite the official displeasure it provoked, Paul de Bourgoing’s conduct at Calais marked the beginning of a long and distinguished career. In the following two years he soldiered through the destruction of two French armies, the first during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 and the second in the Battle of Nations at Leipzig in 1813. A captain at the commencement of the 1814 campaign, he commanded a battalion before being named an aide-de-camp to Marshal Edouard Adolphe-Casimir- Joseph Mortier, the commander of the Imperial Guard. As such, on 30 March 1814, Bourgoing teas assigned the melancholy mission of entering enemy lines to open negotiations for the surrender of Paris. Most of the German staff officers who thronged around him seemed sympathetic, but one unpleasant upstart asked, “Monsieur, what are the ladies of Paris going to say on seeing their city captured?” Bourgoing was ready for him. “The ladies of Paris will console themselves together with the ladies of Vienna, Berlin, Naples, Lisbon, and Moscow”—all of which had been captured by French armies in the recent past. “My reply appeared to astonish the circle of foreigners,” he wrote proudly, “but none disapproved. One of the generals rather sharply reprimanded the young blowhard who had spoken to me.”¹²

Bourgoing transferred from the army to the corps diplomatique in 1816, but his campaigning days were not quite done. In April 1828, Russia declared war on Turkey. Bourgoing, then first secretary of the St. Petersburg embassy, requested permission to accompany Czar Nicholas I to the front. The czar, impressed with Bourgoing’s military background, not only authorized his excursion but also offered him a temporary posting to the Russian army. Thus it came about that on 10 August 1828, outside the Danubian port of Silistra, a veteran of the retreat from Moscow found himself leading a Russian battalion in a bayonet charge. Bourgoing sheathed his sword for good at the end of that summer, carrying back to his desk at the embassy Russian commendations replete with such phrases as “brilliant valor," “zeal and bravery,” and “extreme courage and complete success.”¹³ Decades later, his diplomatic service culminated in the appointment of ambassador to Spain. In retirement he occupied himself with writing his delightful memoirs. He died in 1864, the year of their publication.¹⁴