Raid on Boulogne
Encyclopedia
The Raid on Boulogne in 1804 was a naval assault by elements of the Royal Navy
on the fortified French port of Boulogne, during the Napoleonic Wars
. It differed from the conventional tactics of naval assaults of the period by utilizing a wide range of new equipment produced by the American-born inventor Robert Fulton
, with the backing of the Admiralty
. Despite its ambitious aims the assault produced little material damage to the French fleet anchored in the harbour, but did perhaps contribute to a growing sense of defeatism amongst the French as to their chances of crossing the English Channel
in the face of the Royal Navy and launching a successful invasion of the United Kingdom.
Napoleon
had marked out the Channel port of Boulogne as one of the main embarkation points for his Armée de l'Angleterre. Preparations for an invasion flotilla to carry French troops across the Channel from a number of ports had been underway since the late 1790s, but had been temporarily shelved by the Peace of Amiens
. The resumption of hostilities resulted in the gathering of forces outside Boulogne, the construction of large military camps and the fortification of port in preparation for the assembling of the invasion flotilla. Napoleon himself visited the town on 16 August 1804 to review the troops and present medals. The Royal Navy was the main obstacle to a successful invasion, but Napoleon declared that his fleet need only be masters of the Channel for six hours and the crossing could be effected. Meanwhile British land-based defences were under-prepared and ill-equipped to resist an invasion force numbering upwards of 100,000 men. Unless the French invasion fleet could be destroyed either in port or at sea, it was doubtful that the south of the country could be held in the immediate aftermath of a landing and advance on London. Though the intended departure points were known and were being closely blockaded by the Royal Navy, First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Melville
was short of ships. If a combined Franco-Spanish fleet were to force the Navy from its station for even a short while, the French invasion force might succeed in crossing unmolested.
With tensions running high in Britain, prominent politicians suggested attacking the French force in port, in the hopes of at the very least delaying the anticipated invasion while defences were hurriedly constructed along the coast. Boulogne had been heavily fortified over the years, and a number of conventional assaults had already failed, notable being one commanded by Horatio Nelson
in 1801. The invasion barges were defended by a double line of warships anchored nose-to-tail, with these covered by gun batteries lining the cliff tops. New methods had to be considered.
William Pitt
met with a number of inventors and amateur tacticians during the year, who proposed new and novel ways of attacking the French before they could put to sea. Ideas included sinking blockship
s in the harbour mouth, releasing rocket-carrying balloons over the port at night to be detonated by clockwork, or sending in a fleet of fireships. On 20 July 1804 Pitt and Sir Home Popham
met with the American born inventor Robert Fulton
. Fulton had been working in France designing submarine
s, but having failed to generate any real interest in the French Navy for the practical application of his inventions, Fulton had come to Britain and offered his services to the Admiralty. He proposed an assault using a combination of fireships, torpedoes, mines and other explosive devices, a concept that Pitt agreed to. A contract was signed and Fulton was tasked with working with the Admiralty to build his devices in anticipation of an assault later that year.
to visit the tomb of Charlemagne
, and to see his wife Joséphine
. The army remained encamped outside Boulogne and the British were initially suspicious that his departure was a ruse, and that he would double back unexpectedly to take command of the army and launch the invasion. In the meantime the frigate
HMS Immortalite
was sent under the command of Captain Edward Owen
to carry out surveys along the French coast around the port. Fulton subsequently pronounced his inventions ready, and an assault was planned for early October. Working at Portsmouth Dockyard Fulton had built several types of craft and explosive devices. The 'torpedo-catamaran' was a coffer-like device balanced on two wooden floats and steered by a man with a paddle. Weighted with lead so as to ride low in the water, the operator was further disguised by wearing dark clothes and a black cap. His task was to approach the French ship, hook the torpedo to the anchor cable and, having activated the device by removing a pin, remove the paddles and escape before the torpedo detonated. Also to be deployed were large numbers of casks filled with gunpowder, ballast and combustible balls. They would float in on the tide and on washing up against an enemy's hull, explode. Also included in the force were several fireships, carrying 40 barrels of gunpowder and rigged to explode by a clockwork mechanism.
The force assembled outside Boulogne in later September, under the overall command of Lord Keith aboard his flagship
. There to witness the operation were Lord Melville and Fulton. Fulton had negotiated a sum of £40,000 for the first decked ship destroyed in the attack, and half the value of any ship destroyed, on top of his salary of £200 a month. However Keith made no attempt to conceal the British force, and the French were alerted that an attack could be imminent. By 9pm on the night of 2 October the wind and tide were judged right and the flotilla began to approach the harbour.
s. The French sentries soon spotted the approaching ships and opened fire. Abandoning any hope of achieving surprise the crews on the fireships steered full ahead, set the mechanisms and abandoned ship. The results were visually spectacular but achieved little. One fireship exploded in the gap between two frigates, another passed between the French line and exploded beyond it. Another was stopped by a French pinnace, whose crew boarded it and began to search it. While they were doing this it blew up, killing the French aboard it, and destroying the pinnace alongside. This was the only success of the night, neither the torpedo catamarans nor the exploding casks achieved any successes. The British remained in action until 4am the next morning, when a gale forced them to seek shelter in the Downs
.
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
on the fortified French port of Boulogne, during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
. It differed from the conventional tactics of naval assaults of the period by utilizing a wide range of new equipment produced by the American-born inventor Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat...
, with the backing of the Admiralty
Admiralty Islands
The Admiralty Islands are a group of eighteen islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the south Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-covered islands form part of Manus Province, the smallest and...
. Despite its ambitious aims the assault produced little material damage to the French fleet anchored in the harbour, but did perhaps contribute to a growing sense of defeatism amongst the French as to their chances of crossing the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
in the face of the Royal Navy and launching a successful invasion of the United Kingdom.
Boulogne and the Armée de l'Angleterre
Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
had marked out the Channel port of Boulogne as one of the main embarkation points for his Armée de l'Angleterre. Preparations for an invasion flotilla to carry French troops across the Channel from a number of ports had been underway since the late 1790s, but had been temporarily shelved by the Peace of Amiens
Treaty of Amiens
The Treaty of Amiens temporarily ended hostilities between the French Republic and the United Kingdom during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was signed in the city of Amiens on 25 March 1802 , by Joseph Bonaparte and the Marquess Cornwallis as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace"...
. The resumption of hostilities resulted in the gathering of forces outside Boulogne, the construction of large military camps and the fortification of port in preparation for the assembling of the invasion flotilla. Napoleon himself visited the town on 16 August 1804 to review the troops and present medals. The Royal Navy was the main obstacle to a successful invasion, but Napoleon declared that his fleet need only be masters of the Channel for six hours and the crossing could be effected. Meanwhile British land-based defences were under-prepared and ill-equipped to resist an invasion force numbering upwards of 100,000 men. Unless the French invasion fleet could be destroyed either in port or at sea, it was doubtful that the south of the country could be held in the immediate aftermath of a landing and advance on London. Though the intended departure points were known and were being closely blockaded by the Royal Navy, First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Melville
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville PC and Baron Dunira was a Scottish lawyer and politician. He was the first Secretary of State for War and the last person to be impeached in the United Kingdom....
was short of ships. If a combined Franco-Spanish fleet were to force the Navy from its station for even a short while, the French invasion force might succeed in crossing unmolested.
With tensions running high in Britain, prominent politicians suggested attacking the French force in port, in the hopes of at the very least delaying the anticipated invasion while defences were hurriedly constructed along the coast. Boulogne had been heavily fortified over the years, and a number of conventional assaults had already failed, notable being one commanded by Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
in 1801. The invasion barges were defended by a double line of warships anchored nose-to-tail, with these covered by gun batteries lining the cliff tops. New methods had to be considered.
British plans for attack
Prime MinisterPrime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
William Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
met with a number of inventors and amateur tacticians during the year, who proposed new and novel ways of attacking the French before they could put to sea. Ideas included sinking blockship
Blockship
A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used.It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of HMS Hood at Portland Harbour; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to...
s in the harbour mouth, releasing rocket-carrying balloons over the port at night to be detonated by clockwork, or sending in a fleet of fireships. On 20 July 1804 Pitt and Sir Home Popham
Home Riggs Popham
Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham KCB was a British Royal Naval Commander who saw service during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars...
met with the American born inventor Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat...
. Fulton had been working in France designing submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s, but having failed to generate any real interest in the French Navy for the practical application of his inventions, Fulton had come to Britain and offered his services to the Admiralty. He proposed an assault using a combination of fireships, torpedoes, mines and other explosive devices, a concept that Pitt agreed to. A contract was signed and Fulton was tasked with working with the Admiralty to build his devices in anticipation of an assault later that year.
Preparations
Napoleon left Boulogne on 27 August, bound for AachenAachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
to visit the tomb of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, and to see his wife Joséphine
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
. The army remained encamped outside Boulogne and the British were initially suspicious that his departure was a ruse, and that he would double back unexpectedly to take command of the army and launch the invasion. In the meantime the frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
HMS Immortalite
French frigate Immortalité (1795)
The Immortalité was a Romaine class frigate of the French Navy.She took part in the Expédition d'Irlande, and was captured shortly after the Battle of Tory Island by HMS Fisgard...
was sent under the command of Captain Edward Owen
Edward Owen (Royal Navy officer)
Admiral Sir Edward William Campbell Rich Owen GCB GCH was a Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet. He was the son of Captain William Owen and elder brother of Vice-Admiral William Fitzwilliam Owen....
to carry out surveys along the French coast around the port. Fulton subsequently pronounced his inventions ready, and an assault was planned for early October. Working at Portsmouth Dockyard Fulton had built several types of craft and explosive devices. The 'torpedo-catamaran' was a coffer-like device balanced on two wooden floats and steered by a man with a paddle. Weighted with lead so as to ride low in the water, the operator was further disguised by wearing dark clothes and a black cap. His task was to approach the French ship, hook the torpedo to the anchor cable and, having activated the device by removing a pin, remove the paddles and escape before the torpedo detonated. Also to be deployed were large numbers of casks filled with gunpowder, ballast and combustible balls. They would float in on the tide and on washing up against an enemy's hull, explode. Also included in the force were several fireships, carrying 40 barrels of gunpowder and rigged to explode by a clockwork mechanism.
The force assembled outside Boulogne in later September, under the overall command of Lord Keith aboard his flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
. There to witness the operation were Lord Melville and Fulton. Fulton had negotiated a sum of £40,000 for the first decked ship destroyed in the attack, and half the value of any ship destroyed, on top of his salary of £200 a month. However Keith made no attempt to conceal the British force, and the French were alerted that an attack could be imminent. By 9pm on the night of 2 October the wind and tide were judged right and the flotilla began to approach the harbour.
Assault
The British approached in three divisions. The fireships were escorted in by several gun-brigs, accompanied by Fulton's torpedo-catamarans, up to 18 in total. The French had responded to the increased British forces by anchoring their line of frigates further inshore, and deploying a protective line of pinnacePinnace (ship's boat)
As a ship's boat the pinnace is a light boat, propelled by sails or oars, formerly used as a "tender" for guiding merchant and war vessels. In modern parlance, pinnace has come to mean a boat associated with some kind of larger vessel, that doesn't fit under the launch or lifeboat definitions...
s. The French sentries soon spotted the approaching ships and opened fire. Abandoning any hope of achieving surprise the crews on the fireships steered full ahead, set the mechanisms and abandoned ship. The results were visually spectacular but achieved little. One fireship exploded in the gap between two frigates, another passed between the French line and exploded beyond it. Another was stopped by a French pinnace, whose crew boarded it and began to search it. While they were doing this it blew up, killing the French aboard it, and destroying the pinnace alongside. This was the only success of the night, neither the torpedo catamarans nor the exploding casks achieved any successes. The British remained in action until 4am the next morning, when a gale forced them to seek shelter in the Downs
The Downs
The Downs are a roadstead or area of sea in the southern North Sea near the English Channel off the east Kent coast, between the North and the South Foreland in southern England. In 1639 the Battle of the Downs took place here, when the Dutch navy destroyed a Spanish fleet which had sought refuge...
.