"Battles of the Russian Navy 1793 - 1815" Topic

"In the naval war fought against France between 1793 and 1815, the activities of the Russian navy have been substantially neglected by Western historians. This book seeks to redress this oversight. After Great Britain and France, Russia had, during these years, the world's third most powerful navy, with squadrons of warships primarily active in the Baltic, North Sea, Black Sea, Mediterranean and Adriatic.

Active in the war against Revolutionary France as an ally of Great Britain, the central theme of this book is that of evaluating the effectiveness of the Russian navy during those war time years, giving particular attention to its co-operation with the British Royal Navy in several campaigns. That some of the leading Russian naval officers had been cadets at the Portsmouth Naval Academy in England, and some of the Russian ships captained by officers recruited from within the British navy was an important factor in ensuring that those periods of co-operation often ran smoothly. But not always. On occasions, this early example of international naval co-operation was blighted by moments of friction and misunderstanding. However, the low point came during the reign of Paul I (r.1796-1801) when the two navies were effectively at war and Nelson fully contemplating a bombardment, similar to the one conducted on Copenhagen, of Russia's two most important naval bases, Tallinn and Kronstadt…"

link

Armand

Does it cover the Russian Navy's battles against the Turks?

Interesting topic

A list of which battles are covered would be useful.

The book is not going to be published until November of this year. That's probably the reason for the lack of information.

To follow up, I also went to the Pen and Sword website. None of the information anyone has asked about is there either. Given that it is only 248 pages, I suspect that it won't go into the detail we would like as wargamers. On the other hand, English language books about the Russian navy during this period are not common.

BWW

Thanks

Armand

Useful for the Russo-Turkish conflicts is (viewable but not downloadable except one page at a time):

"Naval wars in the Levant, 1559-1853"
R. C. (Roger Charles) Anderson,
Princeton University Press, 1952
link

Useful for the Russo-Swedish conflicts:

"Naval wars in the Baltic during the sailing-ship epoch, 1522-1850"
R. C. (Roger Charles) Anderson,
C. Gilbertwood, London 1910
PDF link

Thanks also…

Armand

Perhaps this didn't come as a surprise to the naval experts but as I've always been more of a 'landlubber' than a sailor
I confess that reading that Russia had the "third" naval power surprised me
I had assumed that this rank belonged to Spain, almost as a common assumption, but the recent book on the French Revolutionary Navy confirms it.
However I had also already noticed that the Russian Navy was far more active than the British one in the Adriatic.
These are fairly telling examples of how the Russian contribution is somewhat underestimated in Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world…

Je suis d'accord avec toi, mon ami…

Armand

For the Adriatic see:

"Russia and the Mediterranean, 1797-1807.
Norman E. Saul
University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1970"

Book is borrowable via Internet Archive at link

Excerpts from the Soviet feature film *Ships Storm the Bastions* (1953). The film depicts the expedition of Russian Admiral Fyodor Ushakov, whose fleet—in this sequence—was dispatched to storm the French fortress of Corfu in 1799.

link

Thanks Cuprum2

Other useful books on the Russian navy as part of wider struggles:

Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809
By Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danielevsky
Translated by A. Mikaberidze & E. Vovsi
Volume 1 – 185 pages, 34 maps and 10 B&W illustrations
Volume 2 – 86 pages, 5 maps
$55 USD, Soft cover, treated as one volume for postage purposes

The author was the first professional Russian military historian who used Russian archival documents as the source for his writing. He adds a particular and unique perspective on military subjects because he was also a lieutenant general. This work is the complete history of the Russo-Swedish War. It contains numerous battle maps and orders of battle. There is one other English language work, obscure and very rare, on this campaign. It is a detailed account and from the Russian perspective.
link

RUSSO-TURKISH WAR OF 1806-1812
By Lt Gen. Michailovsky-Danilevsky
Translated by Alexander Mikaberidze
Illustrations: numerous B&W maps
Pages: Volume I – 149 pages
Pages: Volume II – 156 pages
$55 USD, soft cover, treated as one book for postage.

To my knowledge this is the only work in English on this obscure Napoleonic campaign written by a Russian. It is a very detailed account of six years of warfare between the Ottomans and the Russians, supported with 15-20 maps per volume of the theater and detailed maps of the battles. It contains orders of battle for the Russians, but not for the Turks (sorry!) The both volumes are now available.
link

I have both sets and well worth having as part of one's library – purchased before US postal rates to send books overseas became exhorbitant!!!!

Active in the war against Revolutionary France as an ally of Great Britain, the central theme of this book is that of evaluating the effectiveness of the Russian navy during those war time years, giving particular attention to its co-operation with the British Royal Navy in several campaigns. That some of the leading Russian naval officers had been cadets at the Portsmouth Naval Academy in England, and some of the Russian ships captained by officers recruited from within the British navy was an important factor in ensuring that those periods of co-operation often ran smoothly. But not always. On occasions, this early example of international naval co-operation was blighted by moments of friction and misunderstanding.

by contrast there was also French-Russian co-operation
One noteworthy episode I learnt about recently was the stay in France of some 500 Russian sailors and marines from the ships 'Saint Peter' and 'Moscow' in Toulon, living there for almost two years 1808-1810, paid by the French authorities. As their ships could no longer be used for a naval campaign both were sold to France, Napoleon planned initially to keep the Russian crews in his service and would like to assign them to French vessels.
Their departure was celebrated with great pomp: dressed in new clothes, they were accompanied by the inhabitants of Toulon and the band of the French Marine Artillery but they returned to their homeland on foot, making their way across France and Germany, a rather curious odyssey for Russian sailors…

The Neutral Fleet

"Senyavin was a very accomplished Russian admiral, and in August 1807, he was stationed in the Mediterranean, conducting very successful operations against the Ottoman Empire in cooperation with the British. Together, they'd decisively defeated the Turkish Navy and seized control of the Ionian Islands from the French. Then word arrived that the Treaties of Tilsit had been signed, and Russia was now allied with France and at war with Britain. He was bitterly unhappy about this, and believed that the Czar had made a disastrous mistake, but he followed orders. He bid farewell to his former ally, Lord Collingwood, evacuated the territory he'd captured, and set sail. He was supposed to circumnavigate Europe with his squadron, and report to the Baltic Sea, where he could take part in the imminent Russian attack on Sweden. Unfortunately, a sudden storm forced him to take shelter in Lisbon harbor in October. At which point, things began to go wrong. Shortly afterwards, the French occupied the city and a British fleet blockaded it. Senyavin was now trapped.

Napoleon convinced Czar Alexander I to place Senyavin's fleet under the command of the local French generals, but Senyavin refused to follow any of their orders, instead declaring his ships to be "neutral" in this conflict. (NOTE: This is not a thing that warships can just do.) Senyavin took advantage of the confused legal situation—Russia was now at war with Britain but not with Spain or Portugal—to refuse to engage in any hostilities with anyone. This infuriated the French, but there wasn't much they could do about it. This standoff lasted until August 1808, when the French lost the Battle of Vimeiro and evacuated Portugal. Now Senyavin was totally surrounded by the British and their Portuguese allies, who called on him to surrender. Instead, he announced that he was still "neutral". The British pointed out that this isn't a real thing you can do in a war, and he was like, "Fine, also if you attack me I will detonate my powder magazines and destroy the entire city of Lisbon." The British were like "Whoa, ok, calm down man, fine, you're neutral, whatever you say dude." Negotiations continued, and they agreed on a compromise where the Russian ships would return to Britain with them without surrendering or lowering their flags, in a joint squadron (technically) under Senyavin's command. They remained docked in Portsmouth until from September 1808 until August 1809, at which point they were finally allowed to return home.

The fact that enemy warships were allowed to sail up the Thames in a time of war without while still flying their national ensigns and without surrendering was seen as disgrace and humiliation by many in Britain, including the Admiralty, but Senyavin was still fired when he returned home because as it turns out, you can't just declare your battle fleet to be neutral…"

link

Armand