Raid on St Malo
Raid on St Malo | |
---|---|
Part of St Malo, France 48°38′53″N 2°00′27″W / 48.6481°N 2.0075°W | |
Result | British victory[1] |
22 Ships of the line
8 Frigates
The Raid on St Malo took place in June 1758 when an
Background
As part of an effort to provide a diversion in support of Britain's German Allies,
Raid
By early 1758 the British cabinet planned the next raid and began to assemble a force on the Isle of Wight. Pitt had learned a number of lessons from the Rochefort expedition. New landing-craft were designed, and the process of assembling the force improved to speed up the departure date. The selected target of the expedition, St Malo - a fishing and privateer port on the northern coast of Brittany - would allow the British force to remain in the English Channel so it could return home at short notice in case of a French invasion of Britain.[3]
On 1 June the expedition sailed from England, reaching
The troops then marched towards St Malo, but it soon became apparent they would need to conduct a full-scale siege to take the town - something they did not have the time to do. Instead the British occupied
Aftermath
While the expedition had failed to seize St Malo, it was widely considered a success.
In September of the same year, following a
It was announced that the
References
- ^ Middleton p.72
- ^ Szabo p.141
- ^ Middleton p.65-70
- ^ Syrett p.20-21
- ^ Great Britain. War Office. Intelligence Division (1884). "First expedition to St. Malo and Cherbourg, 1758". British Minor Expeditions: 1746 to 1814. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. p. 11. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
The transports, having the Guards on board, were ordered to stand in near the shore, protected by three of the frigates. The troops were pulled towards the shore in flat-bottomed boats, when a battery opened fire upon them at short range; but the well-directed fire from the frigates soon silenced the enemy's guns, and the troops soon after landed without opposition, and seized the village of Cancale.
- ^ Szabo p.141
- ^ Syrett p.21
- ^ Middleton p.72
- ^ Anderson p.302-303
- ^ Tyllard p.42-43
Bibliography
- Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766. Faber and Faber, 2000.
- Corbett, Julian Stafford. England in the Seven Years' War: A study in Combined Operations. Volume I. London, 1907.
- Middleton, Richard. The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years' War, 1757-1762. Cambridge University Press, 1985.
- Syrett, David. Admiral Lord Howe: A Biography. Spellmount, 2006.
- Szabo, Franz A.J. The Seven Years War in Europe, 1756-1763. Pearson, 2008.
- Tyllard, Stella. A Royal Affair: George III and his Troublesome Siblings. Vintage, 2007.