François Joseph Paul de Grasse

Comte de Grasse

François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse , Marquis de Grasetilly, (born September 13, 1722 in Le Bar-sur-Loup , France , † January 11, 1788 in Paris ), Knight of the Order of Malta and commander of the Order of St. Louis, was a French admiral who - although he did not even step on American soil - played a brief but decisive role in the American War of Independence (1775–83).

The victory of his fleet over the Royal Navy in Chesapeake Bay on September 5, 1781 enabled the fall of Yorktown and thus contributed significantly to the defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War. George Washington referred to him in a letter of thanks as "the Arbitrator of the War" - the decider of the war - and after Jonathan R. Dull, historian at Yale University, Grasse achieved the most important naval victory of the 18th century.

Life

François-Joseph-Paul, comte de Grasse was born in 1722 at the castle "Les Valettes" in Le Bar-sur-Loup near Nice, the tenth child of the Count of Grasse. He entered the Naval Academy in Toulon at the age of 11 and in 1734 boarded a galley of the Order of Malta's fleet . In 1740 he switched to French services. In 1747 he was captured by the British during the sea ​​battle at Cape Finisterre . In 1754 he was promoted to lieutenant. During the Seven Years' War he served mainly in the Mediterranean and the West Indies. In 1762 he received his first command on the prothée .

American War of Independence

As commander of the liner Le Robuste , he took part in the naval battle of Ouessant in 1778 under d'Orvilliers . Under d'Estaing he fought in 1779 in the naval battle of Grenada , and in 1780 under de Guichen in the naval battle of Martinique .

In the spring of 1780, now Vice Admiral, he took over command of the West India Squadron. While he was leading a convoy to Port Royal with his squadron , he first met the British squadron under Hood near Martinique on April 29, 1780 . After a long distance artillery duel, the battle ended without a decision. In 1781 the war was about to be decided. Cornwallis and his troops were surrounded by the Americans and the French at Yorktown . The British troops could only be supplied via the Chesapeake Bay . De Grasse, landing French reinforcements from the West Indies, was urged by Washington to block the bay with his squadron. In August 1781, Grasse consulted with the Spanish officer Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis - the two drafted a battle plan , the "Grasse-Saavedra Agreement", which was confirmed by the respective governments. In the naval battle of Chesapeake he succeeded in repelling the British fleet under the admirals Graves and Hood. With the surrender of the British troops in Yorktown on October 19, 1781, the American War of Independence was decided on land. However, the naval war between France and England over the West Indian colonies was still in full swing.

The liberation of the Leeward Islands (Antilles) was the second part of the plan. On January 11, 1782, de Grasse landed French troops on St. Kitts , which included the British occupation. De Grasse covered the action with 26 ships of the line. He was caught off guard by Admiral Hood, who sailed with his fleet of 22 liners through the strait between the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis and thus came to rest between the French fleet and the island. In the naval battle of St. Kitts on January 25 and 26, 1782, de Grasse tried twice in vain to oust the British from their position. However, since the British troops on the island had to surrender during the day, this tactical defeat de Grasses was still a strategic victory for the French.

In the further course the British Hoods squadron and the returned from England Admiral Rodney united and could now proceed more offensively. The first meeting of the two fleets, each with 30 ships of the line, took place on April 9, 1782 near Dominica . First, the eight ships of the British vanguard came into action with 15 French ships. When the British bulk approached after several hours , de Grasse broke off the fight. Three days later the fleets faced each other again. In the battle of Les Saintes , the French were decisively defeated. Four French ships of the line had to remove the flag, and de Grasse was captured by the British on his flagship, the Ville de Paris . This delayed the implementation of the third part of the Grasse-Saavedra agreement, the invasion of British Jamaica .

During his imprisonment in London he played a key role in the negotiations to end the Revolutionary War, which resulted in the Peace of Paris (1783) . He returned to France from captivity in August 1782 and published his memoirs. A court martial acquitted him of guilt for the defeat at Les Saintes.

Vice Admiral de Grasse died on January 11, 1788 at his Château de Tilly near Paris and was buried on January 16, 1788 in the church of Saint-Roch on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.

Tilly Castle was burned down during the French Revolution and the four cannons he received as thanks for his services in the Revolutionary War were melted down.

Posthumous appreciation

On October 19, 1931, on the 150th anniversary of the Victory at Yorktown , a plaque was placed on the church by the Société des Cincinnati de France , of which Grasse was a member. In the same year, a statue by the French sculptor Paul Landowski (1875–1961) was erected on the Avenue des Nations-Unies in Paris , showing de Grasse on board his flagship "Ville de Paris" as he did Washington , Rochambeau and Lafayette at a victory celebration receives. A copy of the statue is in the Musée Naval de la Citadelle in Toulon. In addition, numerous streets and squares in France are named after de Grasse. In Yorktown there is Comte de Grasse Street .

A French Navy Tourville-class cruiser and frigate and three US Navy warships are named after de Grasse. The third and so far last ship in the US Navy was the USS Comte De Grasse DD 974 , a Spruance-class destroyer, launched in 1976 and decommissioned in 1998 .

Works

• Mémoire du comte de Grasse sur le combat naval du 12 avril 1782, avec les plans des positions principales des armées respectives . - 1782

literature

• Alexandre de Grasse (son of the admiral): Notice biographique sur l'amiral comte de Grasse d'après les documents inédits . 1840
• Georges Lacour-Gayet : La Marine militaire de la France sous le regne de Louis XV . - Paris, champion 1902
• Robert A. Selig: Francois Joseph Paul Compte de Grasse, the Battle off the Virginia Capes, and the American Victory at Yorktown . - In: The Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation , Vol. 21, No. 5, October / November 1999, pp. 26-32. on-line
• Potter, Elmar B. / Nimitz, Chester W. / Rohwer, Jürgen: Seemacht. A history of naval warfare from antiquity to the present . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-88199-082-8
• World history of seafaring, Volume 4, Biographical Lexicon by Helmut Pemsel , Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7083-0024-6 , ISBN 3-7822-0836-6
• World history of seafaring, Volume 6, Seeherrschaft II by Helmut Pemsel, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7083-0026-2 , ISBN 3-7822-0838-2

Web links

Commons : François Joseph Paul de Grasse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files