Alexander Cochrane

Alexander Cochrane

Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane GCB (* 23. April 1758 in Scotland ; † 26. January 1832 in Paris ) was a British naval officer who in the American Revolutionary War , the Napoleonic Wars with France and the War of 1812 with the United States was used.

biography

Alexander Cochrane came from a Scottish noble family and was the ninth son of Thomas Cochrane, the 8th Earl of Dundonald . One of his brothers was the chemical industrialist Archibald Cochrane, 9th Earl of Dundonald . A nephew of his was Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald , a famous naval officer of the Napoleonic Wars . Cochrane entered the Royal Navy at a young age and was promoted to lieutenant in 1778 . In this rank he served as signal officer of Lord George Rodney during the naval battle of Martinique on April 17, 1780 and was wounded in this. He then commanded the sloops HMS St. Lucia , HMS Pachahunter and HMS Avenger . In 1782 he became captain and received first the HMS Kangaroo , later the HMS Caroline (24 cannons).

In connection with the reduction of the Royal Navy after the end of the American Revolutionary War , he was put on half pay , but in 1790 again entrusted with the command of the small frigate HMS Hind . After the start of the coalition wars with France, he received a larger ship, the HMS Thetis (32 cannons), with which he was mainly used to hunt French privateers . Here he proved to be very successful - in the spring and summer of 1793 alone he took eight enemy ships with a total of 80 cannons - and thereby also acquired a considerable fortune from prize money . In 1799 he became captain of the ship of the line HMS Ajax , with which he took part in an expedition against Quiberon , Belle-Île and Ferrol in 1800 and was then transferred to the Mediterranean . In 1801, the HMS Ajax was part of the escort of the expedition under Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Abercromby , which was supposed to drive the French out of Egypt . During the British landing in the Bay of Abukir , Cochrane was entrusted by Admiral George Elphinstone with the supervision of the naval forces and thus contributed to the fact that this excellently planned and executed operation could be carried out with only minor losses despite resolute French resistance. During the subsequent advance on Alexandria , he was in command of an association of small ships deployed on the Egyptian inland waters. On both occasions, he distinguished himself in such a way that he was officially recognized by both Keith and Abercrombie’s successor, Hutchinson .

After the peace treaty of Amiens , Cochrane returned to Great Britain in 1802 and won a seat in the British House of Commons by a narrow majority , which he lost again in 1806. After the resumption of hostilities, he was given command of HMS Northumberland (74 cannons) in 1803 and was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1804 . As such, he initially blocked the Spanish port of Ferrol and in 1805 hunted in vain with six ships of the line a French squadron that had advanced from Rochefort into the Caribbean and escaped back to France. On February 6, 1806, Cochrane stationed in the Caribbean, together with Vice Admiral John Thomas Duckworth , intercepted a French squadron and defeated it in the sea ​​battle near Santo Domingo . Of the five enemy ships of the line, two were destroyed and three captured, only two frigates and one corvette escaped. Cochrane HMS Northumberland had the highest casualties of all British ships involved with 21 dead and 79 injured. His share in the success was u. a. honored with an official acknowledgment of the House of Commons, the upper house , as well as the elevation to the Knight Commander of the Bathorder .

After the declaration of war on Denmark, Cochrane managed, together with the British Army, to conquer the Danish colonies in the Caribbean. Successful attacks on the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe followed (1809). His flagship in this operation was the HMS Neptune . Cochrane received for these successes again official thanks from the lower and upper houses, the post of governor of Martinique and was promoted to vice admiral in 1809 .

After the beginning of the war with the USA in 1812 , Cochrane took over from Sir John Borlase Warren in March 1814 the supreme command of the British naval forces in North America and with these continued the rigorous and extremely damaging blockade of the east coast, which was a major factor for the American economy for it was that the readiness for peace grew in the USA. With the blockade, his ships were largely able to neutralize the units of the US Navy and also make advances by privateers more difficult, which, however, remained a threat to British merchant shipping until the end of the war. Shortly after taking up his new position, he published a proclamation addressed to the colored slaves in the United States inviting them to join the British and offer them resettlement in Canada or the Caribbean. About 300 runaway slaves then joined the British armed forces. In addition, Cochrane units, along with units from the British Army, carried out a number of extremely destructive landing operations. Cochrane was the landing of an army and navy formation under General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn on Chesapeake Bay in 1814 . In view of the great risks, Cochrane ordered the company to be demolished, but since this order was ignored by Ross (at Cockburn's urging), the British federation was able to defend the Americans with victory in the Battle of Bladensburg and the subsequent, unimpeded destruction of the public buildings of To inflict the greatest military humiliation on Washington in its history. Cochrane was also involved in the subsequent, unsuccessful attack on Baltimore and in December 1814 created the conditions for the attack by British troops under Sir Edward Michael Pakenham on New Orleans with the hijacking of an American gunboat formation, which, however, failed with heavy losses in the following battle .

After the end of the war, Cochrane returned to England in 1815; In 1819 he was promoted to full admiral and held the post of Commander-in-Chief in Plymouth from 1821 to 1824 . He died on January 26, 1832, while staying with his daughter in Paris , probably of a heart attack .

Web links

• electricscotland.com: Sir Alexander Cochrane
• War of 1812: Fleet Admiral Alexander Cochrane
• Cochrane deployed against a French squadron at the Saintes in 1809
• The Battle of Santo Domingo, 1806