Invasion of Martinique (1809) - Background

Background

During the Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy was charged with limiting the passage and operations of the French Navy, French merchant ships and French privateers. To achieve this objective, the Royal Navy imposed a system of blockades on French ports, especially the major naval bases at Toulon and Brest. This stranglehold on French movement off their own coastline seriously affected the French colonies, including those in the West Indies, as their produce could not reach France and supplies and reinforcements could not reach them without the risk of British interception and seizure. These islands provided excellent bases for French ships to raid the British trade routes through the Caribbean Sea: in previous conflicts, the British had countered the threat posed by French West Indian colonies by seizing them through force, such as Martinique, which had been previously captured by armed invasion in 1762 and 1794. An attempt in 1780 was defeated by a French battle squadron at the Battle of Martinique. By 1808 there were no French squadrons at sea: any that left port were eliminated or driven back in a series of battles, culminating at the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The fleet that was destroyed at Trafalgar had visited Martinique the year before and was the last full scale French fleet to visit the Caribbean for the rest of the war.

With the bulk of the French Navy confined to port, the British were able to strike directly at French colonies, although their reach was limited by the significant resources required in blockading the French coast and so the size and quality of operations varied widely. In 1804, Haiti fell to an nationalist uprising supported by the Royal Navy, and in 1806 British forces secured most of the northern coast of South America from its Dutch owners. In 1807 the Danish West Indies were invaded and in 1808 Spain changed sides and allied with Britain, while Cayenne fell to an improvised force under Captain James Lucas Yeo in January 1809. The damage done to the Martinique economy during this period was severe, as British frigates raided coastal towns and shipping, and merchant vessels were prevented from trading Martinique's produce with France or allied islands. Disaffection grew on the island, especially among the recently emancipated black majority, and during the summer of 1808 the island's governor, Vice-Admiral Louis Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse, sent urgent messages back to France requesting supplies and reinforcements. Some of these messages were intercepted by British ships and the low morale on Martinique was brought to the attention of the Admiralty, who ordered their commander on the West Indian Station, Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, to raise an expeditionary force from the ships and garrisons available to him and invade the island.

During the winter of 1808–1809, Cochrane gathered his forces off Carlisle Bay, Barbados, accumulating 29 ships and 10,000 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant-General George Beckwith. Landings were planned on the island's southern and northern coasts, with the forces ordered to converge on the capital Fort-de-France. The soldiers would be supported and supplied by the Royal Navy force, which would shadow their advance offshore. Beckwith's army was more than twice the size of the French garrison, half of which was composed of an untrained and irregular black militia which could not be relied on in combat. News of the poor state of Martinique's defences also reached France during the autumn of 1808. Attempts were made to despatch reinforcements and urgently needed food supplies, but on 30 October 1808 Circe captured the 16-gun French Curieux class brig Palinure. The British then captured the frigate Thétis in the Bay of Biscay at the Action of 10 November 1808. Another relief attempt was destroyed in December off the Leeward Islands and HMS Aimable captured the corvette Iris, carrying flour to Martinique, off the Dutch coast on 2 January 1809. Only the frigate Amphitrite, whose stores and reinforcements were insignificant compared to the forces under Cochrane and Beckwith, managed to reach Martinique.