II. William III and the Emergence of a Mediterranean Naval Policy, 1692–4

Abstract

On 19 May 1692, the English and Dutch fleets decisively defeated the French fleet off Barfleur, and followed up their advantage the next day by destroying fifteen of its ships in the bay of La Hougue. Despite the comparatively small material losses, the battle marked, and was recognized as marking, the turning point in the war at sea. It removed in dramatic form the fear of invasion which had been present, and at times had seemed real, since the French had defeated the allies off Beachy Head in 1690, and offered in its place, and for the first time, the prospect of an offensive unhindered by a superior enemy fleet. The fruits of victory, however, soon turned sour, for its very completeness had set a problem which seemed insoluble. The logical sequence of Barfleur, as was recognized at the time, was a large-scale landing on the northern coast of France; but when this was tried in the summer of 1692 the attempt ended in a public fiasco, with the admirals arguing against the generals and the ministers arguing with both. The 14,000 troops who had been put aboard the transports had to be dispersed, and the only result of the campaign was to secure the dismissal of Admiral Edward Russell as commander-in-chief of the fleet and of his rival Nottingham as the Secretary of State in charge of naval affairs. At the end of the year the future success of large-scale combined operations seemed improbable; but with the French fleet unlikely to seek an encounter in 1693 there was no alternative employment for the English fleet.