Austrian expedition against Morocco (1829)

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The Austrian expedition against Morocco in 1829 was a successful undertaking by the Austrian Navy to liberate an Austrian merchant ship and its crew that had been captured by Morocco .

Austrian naval officers and marines in the 1820s
Heroic painting by Alexander Kircher about the battle on the Moroccan coast.

Austria and Morocco first entered into diplomatic relations in 1783. On April 17, 1783, a friendship and trade treaty was signed in Vienna. As a result of the Peace of Campo Formio , Austria annexed the Republic of Venice in 1797 and thereby received a significant increase in its merchant fleet. In order to protect itself against the piracy of Moroccan corsairs , Venice had paid tributes to Morocco since 1765. Austria stopped these payments. Then in 1803 Moroccan corsairs began to capture Austrian merchant ships. However, it was possible for the Austrian envoy Charles-Marie Mogniat de Pouilly to renew the friendship and trade treaty with the Moroccan Sultan Sulaiman in November 1805 .

The trade and shipping treaty between Brazil and Austria signed in 1827 led to brisk trade between the two countries. On the way from Trieste to Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1828 the Austrian trading brigantine Veloce was captured by the Moroccan brig Rabia-el-Gheir off Cádiz and brought to Rabat . Under the command of Corvette Captain Franz Bandiera , an Austrian fleet of four ships, the Corvettes Carolina (26 guns), Adria (20 guns), the brig Veneto and the schooner Enrichetta , sailed to Gibraltar . Due to difficult weather conditions, the goal could not be reached until January 1829. Negotiations then began in Gibraltar between the Austrian envoy Wilhelm von Pflügl , who had accompanied the fleet, and the Moroccan consul general Judah Benoliel.

Although the release of the 13-man team and an apology from the Moroccan government - which asserted that this action was not authorized by it - could be obtained, the handover of the Veloce and payment of compensation were refused. Bandiera then blocked Moroccan ports. With the Carolina , the Adriatic and the Veneto , he had the city of Larache bombed on June 3, 1829 and a landing party (commanded by Paul Zimburg von Reinerz) of 136 men landed in the port to sink the two anchored Moroccan briggs. The Moroccan ships could be set on fire with the help of rockets without resistance , but there was a fight when retreating. The losses of the Austrians amounted to 22 dead and 14 wounded, those of Morocco about 150 men. The cities of Asilah and Tétouan were also bombed. In January 1830 the Moroccan government signaled readiness to negotiate, as a result of a preliminary peace treaty between Austria and Morocco being signed in Gibraltar on February 2, 1830. On March 19, 1830, the peace and trade treaty of 1783 and 1805 was renewed and the Veloce was delivered to the Austrians.

See also

literature

  • Helmut Pemsel: Seeherrschaft - A maritime world history from the beginnings to 1850. Vol. 1, Koblenz 1996, p. 387
  • Karl Gogg: Austria's Navy 1848–1918. Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg 1972. ISBN 3-7023-0013-9 .
  • Julius Heinz: 1829, June 3rd. El-Araish . In: Memorial sheets of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Pola 1910, Volume I, pp. 28-42 ( digitized on Internet Archive ).
  • [NN]: An Austrian sea expedition against Morocco fifty years ago . In: Oesterreichische monthly for the Orient, ed. v. Oriental Museum in Vienna, 1879 (5) No. 6, Vienna 1879, pp. 118–119 ( digitized version ).
  • [NN]: Report on the errors between Morocco and Austria . In: Latest state files and documents, Volume 15, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1830, pp. 168–176 ( digitized version ).