François Joseph Bouvet

François Joseph Bouvet (Francois Joseph, baron Bouvet de Precourt) (born April 23, 1753 in Lorient ; died July 21, 1832 in Brest ) was a French admiral .

youth

He was the son of a captain in the service of the French East India Company in 1765, at the age of 12 he went with his father on board the Villevault. From 1780 he served in the French Navy in the Far East. In the campaign of 1781-83 he was under the command of Suffren . In 1785 he became a lieutenant at sea (Lieutenant de Vaisseau)

marine

At the outbreak of the French Revolution he took a republican stance. In 1790 he became second officer on board the "Prudence". In 1790 he was promoted to captain (capitaine de vaisseau) and was given command of the French ship Audacieux . In 1793 he was promoted to Rear Admiral (Contre-amiral) and commanded the second squadron of the fleet in Brest .

Sea battle on the 13th Prairial ("Glorious first of June")

In the naval battle on the 13th Prairial , the second squadron formed the vanguard of Louis Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse's fleet . The Terrible was his flagship. The squadron consisted of

1. Trajan
2. Éole
3. Téméraire
4. Terrible

Until the end of 1796 he continued to command a squadron of the French Canal Fleet.

Ireland expedition

In December of that year he was entrusted with the transport division of the fleet sent from Brest to attempt to land General Hoche with an expeditionary force in the south of Ireland. The stormy weather dispersed the French as soon as they left Brest.

• Bouvet, who split up with nine liners from the rest of the fleet at dawn on December 17, opened his secret orders and stated that he should make his way to Mizen Head.
• He took a long course to avoid British cruisers
• and united on the 19th with a considerable part of the rest of the fleet and some transports.
• On December 21, he arrived off Dursey Island at the entrance to Bantry Bay.
• On December 24th, he anchored near Bere Island with part of his fleet. The persistent storms that burned Bantry Bay made it impossible to land the troops he had with him.
• On the evening of December 25, the storm became so violent that the frigate Immortalite , in which Bouvet had hoisted his flag, was driven out to sea.
• The wind eased until December 29th, but Bouvet, convinced that none of the ships in his squadron could have stayed at anchor, headed for Brest,
• where he arrived on January 1, 1797.

By and large, he had shown more energy than most of them. He was wrong, however, to think that all of his squadrons had failed to hold their anchorage in Bantry Bay. The government, dissatisfied with his return to Brest, soon released him from command.

He had to open a school to support himself.

Guadeloupe

Napoleon reinstated him for service, and he commanded the 2- and 4-frigate squadrons sent to occupy Guadeloupe after the Peace of Amiens .

Its flagship was the Redoutable .

Marine administration

In 1803 he was promoted to military chief of the port of Brest, and in 1813 to naval prefect. In December 1813 he was replaced by Julien Cosmao.

During the Restoration of the Bourbon Dynasty, he was in July 1814 by Louis XVIII. Appointed baron by France. He became Vice Admiral and Marine Prefect (préfet maritime) of Lorient in 1816 . He left active service in November 1817 and died in Brest in 1832.

literature

• (FR) Onesime Tronde, Batailles navales de la France , Volumes II and III,
• (EN) James, Naval History , Volumes I and II
• (EN) Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 Francois Joseph Bouvet
• (FR) Jacques Aman, Les officiers bleus dans la marine française au XVIIIe siècle, Gèneve, Libraire Droz, 1976, ISBN 2-600-03375-0 .
• (FR) M. Bajot, Annales Maritimes et Coloniales. Vol.1, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1817.
• (FR) Napoleon Bonaparte, Correspondence de Napoleon avec le Ministre de la Marine depuis 1804 jusq'en avril 1815. Vol.1, Parigi, Delloye et V. Lecou Libraires-Éditeurs, 1837, p. 59-60.
• (EN) William S. Cormack, Revolution and Political Conflict in the French Navy 1789–1794, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-521-89375-5 .
• (IT) Luigi Donolo, Il Mediterraneo nell'Età delle rivoluzioni 1789–1849, Pisa, Pisa University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-88-6741-004-0 .
• (FR) Henri-Georges Gaignard, Visages de Rance, Éditions Fernand Lanore, 1983, ISBN 1-85109-672-8 .
• (FR) Joseph Francois Gabriel Hannequin, Biographie Maritime ou notice historiques sur la vie et les campagnes des Marins celébrès français et étrangers. Vol.1, Paris, Regnault Éditeur, 1835.
• (EN) William James, The Naval History of Great Britain from to Declaration of War by France in 1793 to the Accession of George IV. Vol.1, New York, McMillian and Co., Ltd., 1902.
• (EN) William James, The Naval History of Great Britain from to Declaration of War by France in 1793 to the Accession of George IV. Vol.2, London, Richard Bentley & Sons., 1896.
• (EN) Michael A. Palmer, Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control since the Sixteenth Century, Harvard, Harvard University Press, 2009, ISBN 0-674-01681-5 .
• (FR) Jean-Pierre Poussou, Rivalités maritimes européennes: XVIe-XIXe siècles, Paris, Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005, ISBN 2-84050-395-6 .
• (EN) Spencer C. Tucker, A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2010, ISBN 1-85109-672-8 .
• (FR) Jean-Marc Van Hille, Dictionnaire des marins francs-maçons, Gens de mer et professions connexes au XVIII, XIX e XX siècle, Nantes, SPM, 2011, ISBN 2-296-46369-X .
• (EN) Theobald Wolfe Tone, TW Moody, RB McDowell, The Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone 1763–98, Volume 3: France, the Rhine, Lough Swilly and Death of Tone January 1797 to November 1798, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1983 , ISBN 0-19-820880-4 .