Napoleon's Admiral's - Boney's Boys on the high seas

Josh Provan joins me to talk about some of the most significant French naval commanders of the period, looking at the successes, failures, and arguably unfair criticisms that can be made of these often neglected seafarers.

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Every week a treat - this time the higher ranking officers of the French Navy are introduced. It starts to dim on me - how complicated Naval Warfare was and that one was in dire need of a complete Navy from top leadership down to skill of the seamen.

Though it is concluded that the Royal Navy just had superior training - I have the impression that the leadership - and here the top commanders were just better and could orchestrate full fleed manoeuvres and battles in contrast to the French. My impression about Royal Navy training got a dent listening to the 1812 podcase, and again just stressing the point that all hugh organisations are not a homogenous but a heterogenous mass.

must be in 1814 or later, note the white cockade

here a sailor of 1792 in splendid Revoutionary outfit

11 comments

11 Comments

Daniel Studer

Jun 27, 2022

It is a pity Mr. Weiss has no intention to contribute to the advance of knowledge on the uniforms of the French Navy of the Revolution and the Empire - as revealed by the fact that he did not answer my questions regarding the provenance of the illustration depicting French sailors around 1792. But, well ...

Thanks to everyone who has shown an interest in the matter. It would have been really nice to have learnt more about it.

Brendan Morrissey

Jun 19, 2022

And of course, La Touche-Treville's name was the origin of the phrase "the Nelson touch" (see also the title of David Howarth's book on Trafalgar).

Daniel Studer

Jun 18, 2022

Hans-Karl, your second picture representing French sailors of c.1792 is most interesting. Could you tell us where this image is from? Is it from a published work? If so, from which one? Or, perhaps, from a private collection? Perhaps, from your own collection? At any rate, this is a most important picture shedding light on the costume worn by (some?) French sailors at the end of the Ancien Régime and at the beginning of the Revolution. In my opinion, the style and composition are strongly reminiscent of Nicolas Hoffmann's uniform plates. Maybe it was he who executed this image (one of his "lost" ones?)? I hope you will help to advance the subject of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic naval uniforms and costumes (unfortunately still very much neglected, despite Eric Schérer's recent but still very much wanting work on French naval uniforms ...). Thank you very much.