Casey G's G+ Feed

Just imagine Russel Crowe, ponytail blowing in the sea breeze... Originally shared by Dirk Puehl 6 May 1801, #onthisday 215 years ago, "el Diablo" Commander Thomas Cochrane's commerce raiding cruise in the Western Mediterranean reached its climax off Barcelona when his brig sloop HMS “Speedy” met with the Spanish xebec frigate “El Gamo”, dispatched to put a stop to Cochrane’s game. They didn’t call him “El Diablo” for nothing. But then, many of his brother officers and especially his superiors would have heartily agreed. The proud, outspoken, brilliant, daring, capricious and quite quixotic Scottish lord simply would not fit in. Even so, after war broke out in 1793 and Cochrane, aged 17, had joined the Royal Navy it took the maverick mariner five years anyhow to get court-martialled for insubordination and “flippancy” and earn the lasting enmity of many. He was given command of a man-of-war in 1800 none the less, or what passed for one, a cockleshell brig-sloop named HMS ...

Originally shared by Dirk Puehl #onthisday in 1781, off the Virginia Capes, the French Admiral Francois Joseph Paul, the Comte de Grasse with 24 ships of the line saw off a British squadron of 19 line-of-battle ships under Thomas Graves in a tactical more or less inconclusive engagement, known as the Battle of the Chesapeake, that proved to be the deathblow for British ambitions in the American War of Independence. De Grasse was not quite the naval military genius and his preparation for receiving the British squadron that might still have turned the tables for Cornwallis were, all in all, a bit ramshackle. Nonetheless, the concert between Washington’s and Rochambeau’s armies and de Grasse’s fleet, taking into account all the imponderables of 18th century long-range communication, made the setting of the stage and prelude of the battle one of the most brilliant strategic manoeuvres in naval history. And, tactical naval victory or not, de Grasse’s squadron did prevent the Royal Navy and...