I Read Articles: The Sea-Fight Off Ushant

Hi there, it’s Neil, reading a hundred year old article (1903) by Hilaire Belloc about a battle that took place another hundred years before (1794), this is my brand now, I guess we’re just going to have to roll with that.

Belloc (a prolific Anglo-French writer best known now for his comic poetry for children) sketches the situation fairly well. What with the revolution and levee en masse France has had a poor harvest and a giant convoy of grain ships is coming from America. A British fleet goes out to intercept it and a French one to protect it. France has the problem that half their crews are non-sailors and, in particular, their naval gunnery corps had been disbanded.

Belloc tries to walk the line between giving a grand overview while also detailing the experience of the men and ships. This is fairly successful, though somewhat wordy and with occasional depths of detail that seem unneeded. He is not aided in that at this early stage of the war both Navies are ill-disciplined, with orders misunderstood or ignored.

(He does not seem to be interested in the most extraordinary part of the events, a fairly new innovation, in that two fleets manage to find each other, 400 miles out from land with no more distance of sight or communication than can be done from a mast top).

Who won you might ask? Well the British fleet inflicted so much damage on The Glorious First of June that the French had to withdraw, leading to their ability to blockade French ports with more or less success for the next 20 years. In this case, however, the grain convoy reached port, saving the Republic.

Read This: Because you’ve gone weirdly deep into Edwardian commentary on Age of Sail stuff
Don’t Read This: If you don’t care about one of the great sea battles of the 18th century especially when a 100 year old wordy (but good) prose stylist is at it
Out of Copyright: And available online
Also known as: In the UK the battle was called The Glorious First of June, in France, under the Revolutionary calendar, the Combat de Prairial. It’s not generally known as The Third Battle of Ushant (the first two took place during the American Revolutionary War) due to being so far out at sea. Belloc chooses to describe it as The Sea-Fight Off Ushant as he is at least as interested in the events of May 28th-31st as the culminating battle.