Sidney Smith (Admiral)

Sir William Sidney Smith in Acre

Smith's grave in Pere Lachaise Cemetery

Sir William Sidney Smith , GCB (born June 21, 1764 in Westminster , † May 26, 1840 in Paris ) was a British naval officer, politician and diplomat. He served in the American War of Independence against the insurgent colonies and rose to Admiral in the French Revolutionary Wars . Smith fought several times directly against Napoleon Bonaparte and contributed significantly to his defeat in the Egypt campaign . Napoleon saw in him one of his most dangerous opponents and at the end of his life even said: "Cet homme m'a fait manquer ma fortune." (This man made me miss my destiny.)

Life

family

Sidney Smith was the second son of Captain Edward Smith (⚔ 1743) from his marriage to Mary Wilkinson. In October 1810 he married Caroline Hearn († 1826), the widow of the diplomat and ambassador to the Hanseatic cities, Sir George Rumbold (1764-1807). The couple remained childless. After his death, Smith was buried in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery .

In the American War of Independence

He joined the Royal Navy in June 1777 at the age of 13 and served in the American War of Independence . He took 1,780 of the sea battles repealing naval blockade of the besieged fortress Gibraltar part and distinguished himself at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent by special bravery so that Admiral Rodney him in September 1780 at the age of only 16 years to Lieutenant promoted and him entrusted command of a ship of the line . This was exceptional as the minimum age required for the rank of lieutenant was 19. He fought in the naval battle of the Chesapeake Bay in 1781 and in the Battle of Les Saintes in 1782 . In October 1782 he was promoted to captain . After the war he returned to England in early 1784 and was released from service by the Royal Navy on half pay.

In Swedish service

In the following years he traveled to France, Spain and Morocco and joined Swedish services as a naval advisor after the beginning of the Russo-Swedish War in 1790 . After the Russian fleet was defeated in the naval battle of Svensksund on July 9, 1790, he was made a Grand Cross Knight of the Swedish Order of the Swords for his services . After the Peace of Värälä in August 1790, he returned to England.

First fights against Bonaparte

In 1792 he took a trip to Constantinople , where his younger brother James Spencer Smith (1769-1845) was serving as assistant to the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire . After the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars , he hired some British sailors in Smyrna and acquired a ship at his own expense, with which he joined the British fleet under Admiral Hood in December 1793 , which was in the port of Toulon at the invitation of the French royalist and there from French revolutionary troops, including the artillery officer Napoléon Bonaparte , was besieged. When the port was evacuated in view of the overwhelming power of the besiegers, Smith, who was still on half pay, volunteered for a commando operation in which he succeeded with some men in the French naval port and there ten ships of the line, some frigates and some to burn down important warehouse buildings.

Back in England he was given a command again in early 1794 and subsequently operated in the English Channel . In 1795 he entered the port of Brest with his frigate under the French flag and thus obtained precise information about the French fleet. On April 19, 1796, he had just hijacked a French privateer ship in the Seine estuary near Le Havre when, due to unfavorable wind and current conditions, he was driven off the cannons of a French fort, had to surrender and was taken prisoner by the French. He was held in Temple prison in Paris , and the French side repeatedly refused to exchange prisoners. It was not until April / May 1798 that he managed to escape to England with the help of French royalists.

Service in the Levant

In October 1798 he received the command of a ship of the line with which he moved to the Mediterranean in 1799 . Together with his brother James Spencer Smith, now British envoy to Constantinople, he persuaded the Sublime Porte to form an alliance aimed at expelling the French from Egypt . He then sailed to the Levantine coast, where the French expeditionary army under Napoléon Bonaparte was just beginning to besiege the city of Acre ( see Siege of Acre (1799) ). Smith succeeded in capturing the French convoy at Haifa that was transporting the French siege artillery. He supplied the Ottoman defenders of Acre with guns and officers and provided fire protection with the naval artillery, so that Napoléon Bonaparte finally had to give up the siege of the city and retreated to Egypt. For his services in the defense of Acre, Smith received the British Parliament's Special Thanks, an annual pension of £ 1,000, and was awarded the Ottoman Order of the Half Moon .

Smith then made diplomatic contact with the French General Jean-Baptiste Kléber on his own initiative and concluded an agreement with him at al-Arish in January 1800 on the complete evacuation of French troops from Egypt by British ships. This was not confirmed by Admiral Lord Keith , who insisted on the unconditional surrender of the French expeditionary troops. Only after losing battles and the siege and conquest of the French-held fortresses of Cairo and Alexandria was an agreement concluded with the French in September 1802, according to which the remaining French troops were brought to France on British ships on almost identical terms as already agreed by Smith .

Smith, meanwhile, returned to England in 1801, where he was elected to the British House of Commons as MP for Rochester in 1802 . He held this mandate until 1806.

Second mission in the Mediterranean

In 1803 he commanded a fleet that patrolled the French coast. In 1804 he was appointed Colonel in the Royal Marines , a well-paid sinecure . In 1805 he was promoted to Rear Admiral of the Blue and joined his squadron to Admiral Collingwood in the Mediterranean, who tasked him with guarding the Kingdom of Sicily under King Ferdinand I against the Kingdom of Naples , which had just been conquered by France, under Napoléon's brother Joseph Bonaparte . With the help of Calabrian militants and British and Sicilian soldiers, Smith planned an invasion to conquer Naples , but was relieved in 1806 because he exceeded his authority in 1806, and command of Sicily was transferred to General Moore , who limited himself to strengthening the fortifications on Sicily.

In February 1807, under Admiral Duckworth , he took part in the Dardanelles Operation , a foray into Constantinople designed to deter the Ottoman Empire from an alliance with France. The Ottoman fortifications were reinforced under the direction of the French envoy Horace-François Sébastiani . Because he had no landing troops at his disposal and in order not to open the way to the conquest of Constantinople for the Russians who had also arrived under Admiral Senjawin , the British refrained from bombarding the city and left the waters on March 13, 1807 and sailed for Egypt . There he took part in the landing in Alexandria . In the summer of 1807 he and Duckworth were ordered back to England.

Use in Portugal, Brazil and again in the Mediterranean

In October 1807 he crossed the mouth of the Tejo and in November escorted Prince Regent John of Portugal , who had been driven out by the French, and the royal family to Rio de Janeiro in the Portuguese colony of Brazil . The Prince Regent honored him there as Grand Cross Knight of the Order of the Tower and the Sword . In February 1808 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British fleet off South America and, contrary to his orders, planned an attack on the neighboring Spanish colonies together with the Portuguese. Before these plans could be implemented, he was ordered back home in July 1809.

On July 31, 1810, he was promoted to Vice Admiral of the Blue . Between 1812 and 1814 he operated as Admiral Pellew's deputy in the Mediterranean and was awarded during this period in Sicily by King Ferdinand as a Grand Cross Knight of the Order of St. Ferdinand and Merit . After Napoléon Bonaparte was defeated in 1814 and exiled on Elba , he returned to England. On January 2, 1815, he was in recognition of his services by King George III. for Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath beaten and finally received a British knighthood .

After Waterloo

On 15 June 1815 he took in Brussels on Richmond ball of the Duchess of part. When he heard gunfire three days later, he rode out and met the Duke of Wellington , who had just defeated the returning Napoléon Bonaparte in the Battle of Waterloo . Smith thereupon accepted the surrender of the French garrisons of Arras and Amiens and provided the Allied entry into Paris without a fight, as well as the safe return of King Louis XVIII. after there for sure.

After the war he lived with his wife mostly in Paris. He took part in the Congress of Vienna and campaigned for the abolition of slavery and debt bondage and, in particular, for the acquisition of funds to free Christian slaves from the barbarian pirates . On July 19, 1821 he was promoted to the rank of Admiral of the Red , on June 28, 1830 to Lieutenant-General of the Royal Marines, but after 1814 no longer led his own naval command . On July 20, 1838, he was raised by Queen Victoria to the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

literature

• John Barrow : The life and correspondence of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, GCB London 1848.
• Tom Pocock : A Thirst for Glory - The Life of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith. London 1998, ISBN 0-7126-7341-5 .
• Peter Shankland: Beware of heroes: Admiral Sir Sidney Smith's was against Napoleon. London 1975.
• Smith, Sir William Sidney . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 25 : Shuválov - Subliminal Self . London 1911, p. 272 f . (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
• William Richard O'Byrne: Smith, William Sidney . In: A Naval Biographical Dictionary. John Murray, London 1849, p. 1092, footnote 1.

Web links

Commons : Sidney Smith  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Admiral Sir Sidney Smith on thepeerage.com