page_title: History of the French Navy
section_title: French Revolution and the First Empire
hierarchical_section_title: History of the French Navy / French Revolution and the First Empire
caption_attribution_description: English: Map Battle of Basques Roads 1809
context_page_description: Although the history of the French Navy goes back to the Middle Ages, its history can be said to effectively begin with Richelieu under Louis XIII.
  Since the establishment of her present territory, France had to face three major challenges on the naval level:
  Geographically France had two large sections of coastline separated by the Iberian Peninsula, so she had to keep two naval forces and divide resources between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
  Politically and strategically France's main threats came from Central Europe which required a strong army rather than a strong navy.
  Inconsistent support for her navy. To be effective, navies require infrastructure, ports, dockyards, foundries which must be maintained in peacetime. Officers and crews need plenty of experience at sea. Shortage of resources and political misunderstanding repeatedly damaged the service, creating a series of brilliant eras followed by disasters.
  The history of the French Navy can be divided into the following eras:
  The creation of the first actual State Navy, under Louis XIII, thanks to the politics of Richelieu. This navy was largely ruined by the troubles of the Fronde.
context_section_description: The French Revolution, in eliminating numerous officers of noble lineage (among them, Charles d'Estaing), all but crippled the French Navy.
  The National Convention dissolved the Fleet Gunners Corps, which effectively put a halt to the training in gunnery, abysmally degrading the rate of fire and precision of batteries; in addition, the French doctrine was to fire at the rigging of enemy ships as to render them hapless; this doctrine could prove effective with highly trained crews, but was impractical with poorly trained gunners, and resulted in a number of instances where French ships did not manage to score a single hit on dangerously exposed British ships (as happened with the fight of the Ça Ira, or at the beginning of the Battle of Trafalgar). By contrast, the Royal Navy doctrine was to fire at the ship's hull in order to kill and maim the crew, and gradually degrade the firepower of their opponents — also much easier target for much better trained gunners.
  Efforts to make it into a powerful force under Napoleon were dashed by the death of Latouche Tréville in 1804, and the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where the British all but annihilated a combined Franco-Spanish fleet. This disaster guaranteed British naval domination during the Napoleonic Wars.
  From then on, the French Navy was limited to frigate actions and privateers like Robert Surcouf. This started the French tendency to prefer large numbers of smaller but powerful and swift units, rather than large capital ships.
caption: The Battle of the Basque Roads off Ile d'Aix, April 1809.
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