Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood

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Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (born September 26, 1750 in Newcastle upon Tyne , † March 7, 1810 before Mahon ) was a British Vice Admiral and next to Horatio Nelson one of the most important naval war leaders of the Napoleonic Wars .

Life

youth

Admiral Lord Collingwood, painting by Henry Howard after Giuseppe Politi , National Portrait Gallery (London)

After attending the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle, Collingwood joined the Royal Navy at the age of 11 and initially served on the frigate Shannon , which was commanded by one of his relatives, later Admiral Brathwaite, who took him under his wing .

American War of Independence

On June 17, 1775 he took part in the bombardment of the revolutionary American troops by the British fleet at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War and was promoted to lieutenant. A little later he met Horatio Nelson, whose illustrious career in the Royal Navy was closely intertwined with his own. In 1779 he received his first own command of the brig HMS Badger as the successor to Nelson , but soon after became first officer on the frigate HMS Hinchinbroke, which was commanded by Nelson . In this function he took part in the unsuccessful Nicaragua expedition in the spring of 1780. After Nelson was transferred to the HMS Albemarle , Collingwood took over command from him. As a result, he commanded another frigate, then the 64-gun ship HMS Sampson and from 1783 the ship of the line HMS Mediator , which belonged to the Caribbean squadron commanded by Nelson. The main task of this squadron was to prevent the trade of American ships with the British possessions in the Caribbean , which was exclusively reserved for British ships under British law.

family

Between 1786 and 1793 he stayed (except for a short trip) in Great Britain, where he married Sarah Roddam in 1791. The marriage, which was happy despite the constant separations, had two daughters, Sarah and Mary.

Napoleonic Wars

In 1793 Collingwood was appointed in command of HMS Prince , the flagship of Rear Admiral Bowyer. As captain of HMS Barfleur , he took part on June 1, 1794 in the naval battle of the 13th Prairial against the French Revolutionary Fleet, known in Great Britain as "The Glorious First of June" . He also fought on February 14, 1797 in the naval battle of Cape St. Vincent under the command of Admiral John Jervis . In these battles, especially the latter, he was distinguished by bravery and great skill, which significantly increased his reputation in the Royal Navy.

In early 1799 he was promoted to Rear Admiral of the White and was tasked with the observation and blockade of the French fleet lying in Toulon on his flagship HMS Triumph in the Mediterranean . In the brief period of the Peace of Amiens in 1802, he returned to Great Britain and stayed with his family for the last time.

In the following spring, however, it was activated again after the hostilities with France had started again and monitored the French fleet lying in Brest . In May 1804 he was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue . After the breakout of the French fleet from Toulon at the end of March 1805 and their union with the Spanish fleet off Cádiz , he was ordered to pursue them with a squadron of the British Mediterranean fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson . He managed to block the port of Cadiz before the entire enemy fleet could enter there. In the course of this operation, Collingwood once escaped pursuit by sixteen enemy ships of the line with only three ships.

As a deputy of his friend Nelson, he took part in the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21, 1805 , and was again distinguished by excellent bravery and commanding qualities. With the HMS Royal Sovereign , Collingwood led the 15 ships of the second British battle line, which was to attack the rear of the enemy fleet. He was the first to enter the battle with his ship and would have sunk the Spanish flagship Santa Ana almost single-handedly if other enemy ships had not come to the rescue. After Nelson's death in battle, he took command of the Mediterranean fleet. It was largely thanks to his prudence that the British and most of the captured enemy ships could be secured in the storm that broke out after the battle. In recognition of his bravery, prudence and leadership he was on 20 November 1805 as Baron Collingwood, of Caldbourne and Hethpoole in the county of Northumberland knighted and both Houses of Parliament expressed their gratitude to him. This was accompanied by an annual pension of £ 2000, a very large sum at the time.

After the Battle of Trafalgar, Collingwood tried in vain as commander of the Mediterranean fleet to put the remaining parts of the French fleet into action. His health deteriorated noticeably and he asked several times to be released from his command and allowed to return to England . He was denied this, however, because the British government believed, not least because of his diplomatic skills, that he could not do without his services.

On March 7, 1810 he died on board the HMS Ville de Paris , which at that time was off Mahon on the island of Menorca . He was buried at the side of his lifelong close friend Lord Nelson in St Paul's Cathedral in London .

Appreciation

In Tynemouth , he was on the banks of the Tyne erected a statue. In his work Servitude et grandeur militaires (Servitude and Greatness of the Military), the French writer Alfred de Vigny set an admiring literary monument to Collingwood's indomitable sense of duty.

At least three ships and a training camp of the British Royal Navy were named after him:

Collingwood's qualities and merits as Naval Commander were widely admired. Though he lacked the ingenious charisma and romantic daredevil of his friend Nelson, his seamanship and his ability to overlook complex and contradicting situations, weigh up probabilities and arrive at well-founded decisions were unsurpassed. His contemporaries held the highest opinion of his judgment, and his advice was sought and valued not only in military but also in political matters. His generosity and philanthropy were also praised, in particular he enjoyed the reputation of treating his teams particularly well and of rejecting the then common practices of pressing and flogging.

literature

  • Max: Adams Admiral Collingwood: Nelson's own hero . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2005, ISBN 0-297-84640-X .
  • Collingwood, Cuthbert Collingwood, Baron . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 6 : Châtelet - Constantine . London 1910, p. 690 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • A selection from the public and private correspondence of Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood; interspersed with memoirs of his life . Vol 1 archive.org - Vol 2 archive.org

Web links

Commons : Cuthbert Collingwood  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Collingwood, Cuthbert, 1st Baron Collingwood
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Collingwood, Cuthbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Vice Admiral
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Newcastle upon Tyne
DATE OF DEATH March 7, 1810
Place of death before Mahon