Sea battle near Augusta
Dutch War (1672–1678 / 79)
Solebay - First Schooneveld - Second Schooneveld - Texel - Bonn - Maastricht - Sinsheim - Seneffe - Enzheim - Türkheim - Sasbach - Konzer Bridge - Stromboli - Augusta - Palermo - Kokersberg - Philippsburg - Maastricht - Valenciennes - Tobago - Cassel - Freiburg - Ypres - Rheinfelden - Saint-Denis
In the naval battle of Augusta during the Dutch War on April 22, 1676, a combined fleet of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and Spain met a fleet of the Kingdom of France in the Mediterranean off the coast of Sicily near Syracuse .
The battle
After the sea battle at Stromboli , the two fleets met again. The French fleet under Abraham Duquesne comprised 29 ships of the line with a total of 2200 cannons. The Dutch-Spanish fleet under Michiel de Ruyter consisted of 17 ships of the line, including four Spanish, and nine frigates, including five Spanish.
The Allied vanguard attacked the French immediately and knocked out some ships. However, since the Spaniards held back in the center, the French were able to put the Dutch in trouble. Only the courageous intervention of the Dutch rearguard under Jan den Haen could save the vanguard.
The battle ended with a strategic advantage for the French. The Dutch commander Michiel de Ruyter was seriously injured in this battle and died a few days later; thus the Dutch lost their most important naval commander.
Both fleets met again in the sea battle off Palermo .
literature
- Gerard Brandt: Het leven en het bedryf van den Heere Michiel de Ruyter. Waasberge et al., Amsterdam 1687, ( digitized version ).
- Charles R. Boxer : The Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th Century. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1974, ISBN 0-11-290169-7 .
- Jaap R. Bruijn: Varend Verleden. De Nederlandse Oorlogsvloot in de zeventiende en achttiende Eeuw . Balans, Amsterdam 1998, ISBN 90-5018-407-3 (Dutch).
- Helmut Pemsel : Command of the Sea. Volume 2: Maritime Wars and Maritime Policy from 1650 to 1914 (= World History of Maritime Studies. Vol. 6). Koehler et al., Hamburg et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7822-0838-2 .
- David ST Blackmore: Warfare on the Mediterranean in the Age of Sail. A History, 1571-1866. McFarland, Jefferson NC et al. 2011, ISBN 978-0-7864-4799-2 , pp. 98-99, ( excerpt (Google) ).