George Cockburn

Sir George Cockburn, 1820

Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 10th Baronet GCB (born April 22, 1772 in London , † August 19, 1853 in Leamington Spa ) was a British naval officer who served in the coalition wars against France and in the Anglo-American War of 1812 and served as naval admiral and First Sea Lord of the Admiralty rose.

Life

Cockburn, the son of a nobleman, entered the Royal Navy at the age of nine . On February 20, 1794 he was promoted to captain and commanded under Vice Admiral William Hotham in a successful naval battle with a French unit near Genoa on March 14, 1795 and in another unsuccessful battle off Hyères (May 12) the frigate HMS Meleager (32 Cannons). In 1796 he and his ship belonged to an association led by Commodore Nelson , which blocked Genoa and led successful attacks on ships of a French convoy lying on the coast under the protection of gun batteries on April 25 and May 31 . Nelson valued Cockburn, and through his intercession he received a larger ship, the 38-gun frigate HMS Minerve , which the French had recently taken .

Cockburn was involved with his ship in the evacuation of the British occupation of Corsica ; with Commodore Nelson on board, the HMS Minerve encountered the Spanish frigate Sabina (40 cannons) on December 19, 1796 . After several hours of fighting in front of the British, the latter dropped the flag, but the captured ship had to be left behind when a superior Spanish unit approached. Two lieutenants (including Thomas Masterman Hardy , who later became the captain of HMS Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805) and 40 crew members of the Minerve were briefly captured in Spain, from which they were released in exchange for the captain of the Sabina .

After a stopover in Gibraltar , Cockburn and Nelson encountered part of the Spanish fleet, sailed through them in thick fog and were able to inform Admiral John Jervis of their departure. Jervis then succeeded on February 14, 1797, the Spanish fleet to fight and defeat in the sea ​​battle at Cape St. Vincent . While Nelson played a crucial role in the battle on the HMS Captain , Cockburn and the HMS Minerve were only spectators as the ship was too small to be exposed to the fire of the heavy artillery of the line. However, she was involved in the unsuccessful hunt for the battered Spanish flagship Santissima Trinidad (130 cannons).

On May 29, Cockburn succeeded in a boat attack by parts of his crew and those of the accompanying HMS Lively (32 cannons), the French privateer Mutine (14 cannons) in the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife ( Tenerife ) despite heavy defensive fire and overpowered towed out, with Cockburn's first lieutenant Thomas Masterman Hardy particularly distinguished. In connection with an attempt to reinforce the French troops in Egypt , Cockburn and his ship forced the surrender of the French frigate Succès (32 cannons, the recently lost HMS Success ) on September 2, 1801 near Livorno and hunted together with HMS Phoenix and HMS Pomone the Bravoure (40 cannons) due.

In 1809, Cockburn was in command of HMS Pompée (74 cannons) under Rear Admiral Alexander Cochrane in the conquest of Martinique , where he led a land command of the Royal Navy, which on February 4th took the fortified island of Ilot aux Ramiers, a key position in the French defense lines . He received an official acknowledgment from the House of Commons for this service . During the naval operations in connection with the unfortunate Walcheren expedition in the summer of 1809, he led the ship of the line HMS Belleisle (74 cannons). In 1811 he was sent on an (unsuccessful) mission to America in order to achieve a reconciliation between Spain and its rebel colonies.

On August 12, 1812, he was promoted to Rear Admiral and command of a Royal Navy squadron in Spanish waters, but was sent to North America that year. Under the command of Vice Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren and (from March 1814) Sir Alexander Cochrane , he played an active role there in the war of 1812 against the United States .

Cockburn cruised the American coast with his ships, took American merchant ships and privateers, enforced the British blockade on the US coast and carried out a series of extremely destructive attacks on ports and coastal towns in Virginia , Maryland , Delaware and Georgia . These attacks made him very hated in the United States and a favored object of abuse by the press. Whether American claims that he tolerated violent attacks on civilians by his seafarers are anything more than war propaganda is more questionable. The most important of these so-called "raids" was directed against the American capital Washington , where he accompanied the landed troops under Robert Ross , encouraged them to march on despite orders to the contrary by Cochrane and after the British victory in the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814 played an active role in the demolition of Washington’s government buildings (including the White House , Senate and House of Representatives ).

This is the main reason why Cockburn still enjoys a bad reputation in the USA to this day, ignoring the fact that Ross and Cockburn only carried out an order from the Canadian Governor General Sir George Prevost with the destruction . The subsequent attack on Baltimore , in which Cockburn and his association played a key role, failed, however, as the city's defenses ( Fort McHenry ) proved too strong and the defenders were ready to fight. With the bombing of Fort McHenry by his association, Cockburn provided the poet Francis Scott Key with the inspiration for the poem The Defense of Fort McHenry , which became the text of the national anthem of the USA under the title The Star-Spangled Banner .

At the beginning of 1815 Cockburn received the Bath Order, Second Class (KCB) and after his return to Europe the order to bring Napoléon Bonaparte with the ship of the line HMS Northumberland to his place of imprisonment on St. Helena and to serve as governor of this island for a few months . In 1818 he was awarded the Bathorden first class (GCB) . On August 12, 1819 Cockburn received the rank of Vice Admiral , on January 10, 1837 that of an Admiral , was Admiral of the Fleet (July 1, 1851) and served for several years as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty (1828-1830, 1834-1835 and 1841-1846 ).

Cockburn is considered one of the most influential figures in the Royal Navy between 1815 and 1850. Politically, he was on the side of the Tories , for whom he was elected several times in the House of Commons. Although his political opponents from the ranks of the Whigs attacked him as a reactionary , in the opinion of his biographer Roger Moriss, despite his political preferences, he was more of a liberal , which can also be seen in the course he set. He was a driving force in the development of ships that were more seaworthy and equipped with steam engines and propellers . In addition, his tenure went hand in hand with the end of the flogging, forced recruitment and personal patronage in the administration of the Royal Navy. When his older brother died on February 26, 1852, he inherited the nobility title 10 Baronet , created in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia in 1627 , of Langton in the County of Berwick . When Cockburn himself died in 1853, leaving behind a daughter. His title of nobility fell to his younger brother William.

The Cockburn Island at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula , Cape Cockburn and the Cockburn River in Australia are named after Sir George Cockburn.

literature

• William Laird Clowes: The Royal Navy. A History from the earliest times to 1900 . Volumes 4-6. London 1899-1901
• Roger Morriss: Cockburn and the British Navy in Transition. Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772-1853 . University of South Carolina Press, 1998, ISBN 1-57003-253-X
• James Pack: The Man Who Burned the White House: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772-1853 . Naval Institute Press, 1987, ISBN 0-87021-420-9
• Cockburn, Sir George . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 6 : Châtelet - Constantine . London 1910, p. 624 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• Extract from a diary of Rear-Admiral Sir George Cockburn with particular reference to Gen. Napoleon Buonaparte, on passage from England to St. Helena . 1888, archive.org

Web links

Commons : George Cockburn  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Captain George Cockburn. Battle of Cape St. Vincent
• portrait of Sir George Cockburn. National Maritime Museum Collections
• famousamericans.net