France's greatest naval success

@Andrew Bamford "The paper that I linked to above argues that although it helped keep Paris fed the Robespierre regime still fell (but then again, as you say, French Revolutionary governments had a habit of falling anyway), so for me the jury's still out on that one."

Of course, Robespierre wasn't the Revolution (Napoleon was 😁). To say one thing "saved the Revolution" is silly, but feeding Paris was a primary problem (see the armées révolutionnaires). So had the RN stopped the convoy, there would have been more unrest, the effect of which we can't know-could even have made things more radical.

@tomholmberg Point taken, although if it was the Robespierre regime that organised the supply convoy (was it? one wonders how long it took to set something like that up?) then in that specific sense it was a failure for their particular brand of Jacobinism since the extra food didn't prevent their fall even if the Revolutionary government, or at least the Republic, continued for a few more years.

@Andrew Bamford "Le combat doit être resitué dans son contexte lié aux réseaux atlantiques au XVIIIe siècle. Tout commence avec un convoi chargé de sucre et de café qui quitte Saint-Domingue le 20 juin 1793, au moment de l’incendie du Cap-Français, lorsque les commissaires de la Convention Polverel et Sonthonax reprennent la ville des mains du gouverneur Galbaud, favorable aux colons. Arrivés aux États-Unis, les navires sont chargés de farine pour éviter la disette qui menace en France. La jeune République espère d’ailleurs toute l’aide que les États-Unis pourront apporter, en raison de l’alliance entre les deux pays datant de 1778."

bcd.bzh

La bataille de Prairial est un affrontement naval entre la France républicaine et l’Angleterre qui a eu lieu le 1er juin 1794, ou 13 prairial an II. Du fait de sa localisation en plein océan Atlantique, la bataille n’est pas nommée en référence à un point terrestre, comme Trafalgar.Le combat doit être resitué dans son contexte lié aux réseaux atlantiques au XVIIIe siècle.

June 1793 would have been during the first Committee of Public Safety, so no Robespierre, and likely the planning was even earlier, possibly before the CPS was formed.

A bushel of wheat weighs about 60lb and yields about 42 loaves. To give everyone in France, say, a daily ration of half a loaf that would be 334,524 bushels a day, or approximately 63,700 tonnes per week. Anyone know how many ships we are talking about and their capacity?

@david Tomlinson Online sources tend to agree on 117 ships, capacity unspecified. While searching for that, I found this which is rather interesting: https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol05/tnm_5_1_45-51.pdf Apparently not so much a case of saving France from starvation as saving Paris from starvation.

If we take an average of 1,000 tonnes, that means less than a fortnight’s provisions for the nation. That also assumes all this was grain and going to bread production and not other uses. So saving Paris seems possible, the remainder of France less so.

Excellent choice, indeed amazing