The Algeciras campaign (also known as the Battle of Algeciras or Battles of Algeciras) was an attempt by a French Navy squadron from Toulon under Counter-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois to join a Franco-Spanish fleet at Cádiz in June-July 1801 during the War of the Second Coalition prior to a planned expedition to either Egypt or Portugal. To reach Cádiz, Linois's squadron had to pass the British naval base at Gibraltar, which contained the squadron tasked with blockading Cádiz. The British squadron was commanded by Rear-admiral Sir James Saumarez. After a successful voyage between Toulon and Gibraltar in which a number of British vessels were captured, the squadron anchored at Algeciras, a fortified port city within sight of Gibraltar across Gibraltar Bay. On 6 July 1801, Saumarez attacked the anchored squadron, in the First Battle of Algeciras. Although severe damage was inflicted on all three French ships of the line, none could be successfully captured and the British were forced to withdraw without HMS Hannibal, which had grounded and was subsequently seized by the French.
In the aftermath of the first battle, both sides set about making urgent repairs and calling up reinforcements. On 9 July a fleet of five Spanish and one French ship of the line and several frigates arrived from Cádiz to safely escort Linois's squadron to Cádiz, and the British at Gibraltar redoubled their efforts to restore their squadron to fighting service. In the evening of 12 July the French and Spanish fleet sailed from Algeciras, and the British force followed them, catching the trailing ships in the Second Battle of Algeciras and opening fire at 11:20. A confused night action followed in which the British ship HMS Superb cut through the disorganised Franco-Spanish rearguard, followed by the rest of Saumarez's force. In the confusion one French ship was captured, a Spanish frigate sank and two huge 112-gun Spanish first rates collided and exploded, killing as many as 1,700 men. The following morning the French ship Formidable came under attack at the rear of the combined squadron, but successfully drove off pursuit and reached Cádiz safely.
Ultimately the French and Spanish fleets were successful in their aim of uniting at Cádiz, albeit after heavy losses, but they were still under blockade and in no position to realise either the Egyptian or the Portuguese plans. The two battles, "generally regarded as a single linked battle", proved decisive in cementing British control of the Mediterranean Sea and condemning the French Army in Egypt to defeat, totally unsupported by reinforcements from the French Navy.
Background
On 1 August 1798, a British fleet surprised and almost completely destroyed the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile in the aftermath of the successful French invasion of Egypt. This immediately reversed the strategic situation in the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating the French fleet based at Toulon as a significant threat and granting the British and their allies in the War of the Second Coalition naval dominance in the region. Over the next three years, British and allied squadrons enforced blockades against all significant French and Spanish naval bases in the region, including Alexandria, Corfu and Malta but particularly the significant harbours at Toulon and Cádiz. This drastically limited the movement of French troops and military materials across the Mediterranean, with the result that Malta and Corfu were captured and the army in Egypt was steadily reduced in size and effectiveness.
In January 1801, in an attempt to increase the size of the French Mediterranean Fleet and to reinforce the beleaguered Egyptian garrison, First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte ordered a squadron of seven ships of the line to sail from Brest on the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean under Counter-Admiral Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume. The squadron made three unsuccessful attempts to reach Egypt, eventually retiring to Toulon in late July 1801. During the final effort, Ganteaume's squadron sailed from Toulon on 27 April 1801 with instructions to briefly secure local naval supremacy around Elba to allow a seabourne invasion to go ahead, before travelling on into the Eastern Mediterranean. During these operations, Ganteaume discovered that several ships in his force were dangerously undermanned, and therefore decided to consolidate his crews and send three ships of the line, Formidable, Indomptable and Desaix, and the frigate Créole back to Toulon.
The presence of this force at Toulon enabled the French to plan a secondary operation using Ganteaume's new arrivals. A deal had been brokered earlier in the year between Bonaparte and Charles IV of Spain for the Spanish government to provide six ships of the line from the Cádiz fleet to the French Navy. Orders were given that the new squadron at Cádiz was to be joined by the three ships of the line detached from Ganteaume's squadron, as well as the frigate Muiron under the overall command of Counter-Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois. This force of nine French ships, accompanied by six promised vessels from the Spanish fleet, was then to fulfill one of two mooted plans: the first was a large scale attack on Lisbon. Portugal and Spain were engaged in the War of the Oranges and Lisbon was a major British trading port: the French admiral Kerguelen had estimated some years earlier that an attack there could seize as much as "2 millions" of British goods and shipping. The other planned operation, adopted following the end of the War of the Oranges on 2 June, was for the force to resupply Egypt using soldiers stationed at Italian ports.
To facilitate the transfer of the Spanish ships to French control, Napoleon ordered Counter-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley to sail to Cádiz. Le Pelley arrived at the Spanish port on 13 June in the frigates Libre and Indienne with sailors to begin manning the newly purchased ships and Commodore Julien le Ray to command them. His arrival was noted by the British blockade squadron off Cádiz under Rear-admiral Sir James Saumarez, a veteran of the Battle of the Nile and one of Lord Nelson's famous "Band of Brothers": Le Pelley's ships were chased by HMS Superb and HMS Venerable, but the French admiral managed to evade his pursuers and reach Cádiz safely. Saumarez had been ordered to Cádiz in May 1801 with orders to blockade the Spanish fleet but also specifically to watch for an attempt by a French squadron to link with the Spanish fleet at Cádiz.
Linois's voyage
Linois sailed from Toulon on 13 June 1801 with three ships of the line and one frigate carrying 1,560 troops under Brigade-general Pierre Devaux. Ganteaume's earlier expedition was still in the Eastern Mediterranean, and so the British blockade force under Sir John Borlase Warren detailed to watch Toulon was instead off Malta hoping to intercept Ganteaume on his return. Therefore, the only British ships on hand when Linois emerged from the port were a few frigates, which were easily chased away by the larger warships of the French squadron. Linois's passage was slow, facing winds from the southwest that delayed his squadron and so by 30 June, they were only off Cape de Gata in the Alboran Sea. On 1 July. they were spotted from Gibraltar although the only warship there was the 14-gun HMS Calpe under Captain George Dundas, which was unable to influence their advance. Instead, Captain Dundas ordered Lieutenant Richard Janvarin to take a boat and communicate with the Cádiz blockade force of seven ships of the line, under Saumarez.
Linois passed Gibraltar on 3 July and during the night discovered the 14-gun brig HMS Speedy a short distance ahead. Linois's squadron had captured a number of merchant vessels during their voyage but this was their first warship, and although it was no match for size, Speedy was an infamous vessel under the command of Captain Thomas Cochrane. Cochrane had spent the last year raiding off Spanish coast with great success, capturing or destroying more than 50 ships including the Spanish xebec-frigate El Gamo on 6 May 1801 off Barcelona. Cochrane's initial belief that the strange ships were part of the Spanish treasure fleet caused him to bring Speedy closer to the vessels, and by the time he realised his error escape was impossible.
Rather than surrender, Cochrane threw all of his guns and excessive weight overboard and manoeuvred his ship to avoid coming into range of the French broadsides. He then attempted to cut directly between the approaching Formidable and Desaix, the small target avoiding the concentrated fire of the French ships and pulling into open water. At this, Commodore Jean-Anne Christy de la Pallière on Desaix swung his ship about and pursued, several shots damaging Speedy's sails and rigging. As Speedy slowed, Desaix overtook the small brig and fired a full broadside at close range. This was fired as the French ship was on the uproll and therefore missed the deck entirely and failed to cause a single casualty. It did however tear away the remaining rigging and sails, leaving Speedy unmanageable. Rather than suffer another broadside, Cochrane surrendered his ship and was taken aboard Desaix, where Christy-Pallière acknowledged his brave defence by refusing to accept Cochrane's surrendered sword with the words "I will not accept the sword of an officer who has for so many hours struggled against impossibility". From Cochrane, Linois learned of Saumarez's presence ahead of him and, knowing that his presence would have been reported by the garrison at Gibraltar, his squadron returned eastwards around Cabrita Point and came to anchor at Algeciras, a fortified Spanish port that lay directly opposite and within sight of Gibraltar across the Bay of Gibraltar on 4 July.
Off Cádiz, the squadron under Saumarez was notified of Linois's arrival by Lieutenant Janvarin at 02:00 on 5 July and immediately turned back towards Gibraltar, tacking against the wind. The frigate HMS Thames was detached and sent 18 nautical miles (33 km) westwards to the mouth of the Guadalquivir to collect HMS Superb under Captain Richard Goodwin Keats, which was blockading the river with the small brig HMS Pasley. Keats did follow Saumarez back to Algeciras, and was in distantly in sight when the battle commenced, but on hearing an inaccurate report from an American merchant ship that Linois had escaped the bay and was at sea once more, Keats reasoned that the French must be returning to Toulon and that he would be in a better position returning to the blockade of Cádiz than attempting to join Saumarez's chase. The lugger HMS Plymouth was also detached to Lisbon with despatches for the British Admiralty informing them of Saumarez's intentions. Saumarez, knowing that Linois was still anchored in the bay, intended to descend on Algeciras immediately but was beset by a series of calm spells that prevented his squadron from doing more than slowly drifting eastwards away from Superb and towards Algeciras. It was not until the morning of 6 July therefore that Saumarez was in a position to attack the anchored French squadron. In anticipation of Saumarez's arrival, Linois had formed his squadron into a strong defensive position, the three ships of the line anchored in a line north to south across in shallow waters off the mouth of Algeciras harbour, protected by Spanish forts at either extremity and around the town itself, where Murion was anchored in shallower water. Linois led the line himself in Formidable, but despatched parties from the crews of the ships of the line to augment the Spanish defences.
First Battle of Algeciras
At 07:00, Saumarez ordered his squadron to advance into the bay without delay and engage the French directly, the attack to be led by Captain Samuel Hood in HMS Venerable. Hood was delayed by light winds however, and the first ship into action was HMS Pompée under Captain Charles Stirling, which attacked the anchored French ships in succession before anchoring close to Formidable. Pompée was followed by HMS Audacious, Saumarez's flagship HMS Caesar and HMS Hannibal, with Venerable and HMS Spencer participating at a greater distance because of the unreliable wind. By 10:00 both squadrons were fully engaged except for Pompée, at the head of the British line, which had been caught by a current and swung so that the ship's bow was facing Formidable's broadside, allowing Linois to rake the British ship. Seeing the danger Stirling was in, Saumarez ordered Captain Solomon Ferris to take Hannibal around the head of the French line and rake Formidable. In the light wind, Ferris took almost an hour to reach the head of the lines, but as he turned inshore, Hannibal grounded on a shoal directly under the guns of the Spanish fort at Torre de Almirante.
Saumarez ordered his squadron's boats to assist Hannibal and Pompée, both of which were trapped under heavy fire and unable to effectively respond. As he did so, Linois ordered his ships to cut their anchor cables and drift into the shallows, away from the becalmed British squadron. Formidable successfully completed the manoeuvre, but both Desaix and Indomptable grounded inshore, where they were exposed to heavy fire from Saumarez's ships, which had also cut their cables in an effort to close with their opponents. At 13:35 however, Saumarez recognised that his squadron was in danger of grounding directly under the fire of the Spanish batteries. With the squadron's boats either sunk or employed towing Pompée back to Gibraltar, there was no possibility of launching an amphibious operation against the Spanish forts and Saumarez reluctantly called the attack off, the remainder of the squadron retiring to Gibraltar but leaving the stranded Hannibal in the Bay of Gibraltar.
Hannibal had been exposed to the combined French and Spanish fire for four hours, and had lost two masts and more than 140 men killed and wounded. In an effort to preserve the lives of his crew, Ferris ordered his men to shelter below decks, but at 14:00 fires broke out on the ship and Ferris, isolated by Saumarez's withdrawal, surrendered his ship. French boarding parties extinguished the fires and rehung the struck ensign upside down to signify that Hannibal had surrendered. However, in the Royal Navy an inverted flag is a signal of distress, and at least one British ship's boat was captured while attempting to bring assistance to Ferris before the misunderstanding was realised.