Battle of Mykonos

Battle of Mykonos
	Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
	; Romney and Sibylle at Myconi
Date	17 June 1794
Location	off Mykonos, Aegean Sea37°27′N 25°19′E / 37.450°N 25.317°E
Result	British victory
Belligerents
Great Britain	France
Commanders and leaders
William Paget	Jacques Rondeau
Strength
1 ship of the line	1 frigate ; 3 merchant ships
Casualties and losses
10 killed ; 28 wounded	55 killed ; 103 wounded ; 1 frigate captured ; 3 merchant ships captured

The Battle of Mykonos was a minor naval engagement fought in the main harbour of the

William Paget

diverted the 50-gun Romney to the port and demanded the surrender of the 40-gun French ship and its convoy.

The French Commodore Jacques-Mélanie Rondeau refused Paget's demands, and prepared to defend his ship. After some manoeuvring to ensure that the town was not within his firing arc, Paget brought Romney alongside the French frigate and for an hour and ten minutes the two vessels exchanged broadsides at close range. The engagement was hard fought and both ships suffered heavy casualties, but eventually the greater size of the two-decked Romney was too great for the smaller frigate and Rondeau surrendered. Sibylle was subsequently commissioned into the Royal Navy and participated in a celebrated battle in the Indian Ocean against the French frigate Forte in 1799.

Background

In August 1793, seven months after the British entry into the

frigates operating against British commerce.^[2]

During 1794, as the French fleet underwent repairs in Toulon, these frigates remained in operation across the Mediterranean. Once such ship was the newly built 40-gun

William Paget and three frigates HMS Inconstant, HMS Leda and HMS Tartar.^[4]

Battle

On 16 June, off

strike his colours". Rondeau was subsequently reported to have learned before the engagement that Romney was operating with a reduced crew, only carrying 266 men of the 341 who should have been aboard, which compared unfavourably with the 380 men on board the French ship.^[7]

The junior officer returned with Rondeau's reply, the French commodore using the delay to manoeuvre Sibylle so that the ship lay directly between Romney's line of fire and the town of Mykonos. He believed that Paget would be unwilling to attack if there was a risk of causing damage and casualties to the town, which was under the control—as with the rest of the Cylades—of the neutral Ottoman Empire.^[7] This forced Paget to alter his own ship's position, warping Romney around so that the ship's broadside faced away from the town but could still be brought to bear against Sibylle. As he did so, he moved a cannon from the unengaged side of Romney to fill an empty gunport, the manoeuvre uninterrupted by Rondeau.^[8] At 13:00 the British ship was adequately positioned, Paget ordering "springs" on the anchor cables, a system of attaching the bow anchor that increased stability and allowed Romney to swing its broadside while stationary.^[9]

Satisfied with his preparations, Paget ordered his gunners to open fire on Sibylle and the French ship immediately returned fire. The frigates were anchored immobile in the bay before Mykonos and the engagement was fought broadside to broadside, with no opportunity to manoeuvere or avoid enemy shot. The battle continued until 14:10, Sibylle taking severe damage under fire from the larger Romney. With casualties rapidly mounting and some his men slipping away from their stations and swimming to shore, Rondeau recognised that defeat was inevitable and, despite his oath, surrendered his ship to prevent further bloodshed.^[8] Casualties on Sibylle totaled two officers and 44 sailors killed, nine more dying and 103 wounded. By contrast the losses on Romney were comparatively light, with eight killed and 30 wounded, two of whom subsequently died.^[7]

Order of battle

In this table, "Guns" refers to all cannon carried by the ship, including the maindeck guns which were taken into consideration when calculating its rate, as well as any carronades carried aboard.^[10] Broadside weight records the combined weight of shot which could be fired in a single simultaneous discharge of an entire broadside.

Ship	Commander	Navy	Guns	Tons	Broadside weight	Complement	Casualties
Ship	Commander	Navy	Guns	Tons	Broadside weight	Complement	Killed	Wounded	Total
HMS Romney	Captain William Paget		54	1046bm	462 pounds (210 kg)	266	10	28	38

Sibylle	Commodore Jacques-Mélanie Rondeau		44	1091bm	380 pounds (170 kg)	380	53	103	156
Source: Clowes, p. 486

Aftermath

Although Romney officially carried ten more guns than Sibylle, their respective strengths were considerably closer than this indicates. Sibylle carried twenty-six 18-pounder long guns, sixteen 8-pounder long guns and two 36-pounder obusiers for a broadside weight of about 380 pounds (170 kg) (once one adjusts for the fact that the French pound was heavier than the British pound). This contrasts with a broadside weight of 414 pounds (188 kg) from Romney's main battery of 24-pounder long guns, which was therefore, in the opinion of British naval historian William James, "not, in reality, a decided overmatch for a 40-gun French frigate". He further considered that the two gun-decks on Romney were likely to have been the decisive factor in the outcome of the battle.^[11] Although James considered that the French fought hard, he did criticise Rondeau personally, stating "had the French captain foreborne to communicate the oath he had taken, not to strike his ship's colours, this engagement would have been yet more creditable than it was to the officers and men of Sibylle."^[11]

Following Rondeau's surrender Paget seized Sibylle and the three merchant ships from the harbour. The next morning Inconstant arrived in support and all of the ships rejoined the convoy and continued to Smyrna, arriving on 22 June.

Admiralty recognised the action with the clasp "ROMNEY 17 JUNE 1794" attached to the Naval General Service Medal, awarded upon application to all British participants still living in 1847.^[14]