Темéraire: Британдық әскери кеме тарихы

British Royal Navy ship of the line

HMS Temeraire was a 98 gun second rate ship of the line of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. Launched in 1798, she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, mostly on blockades or convoy escort duties. She fought only one fleet action, the Battle of Trafalgar, but became so well known for that action and her subsequent depictions in art and literature that she has been remembered as The Fighting Temeraire. Built at Chatham Dockyard, Temeraire entered naval service on the Brest blockade with the Channel Fleet. Missions were tedious and seldom relieved by any action with the French fleet. The first incident of note came when several of her crew, hearing rumours they were to be sent to the West Indies at a time when peace with France seemed imminent, refused to obey orders. This act of mutiny eventually failed and a number of those responsible were tried and executed. Laid up during the Peace of Amiens, Temeraire returned to active service with the resumption of the wars with France, again serving with the Channel Fleet, and joined Horatio Nelson's blockade of the Franco Spanish fleet in Cadiz in 1805. At the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, the ship went into action immediately astern of Nelson's flagship, During the battle Temeraire came to the rescue of the beleaguered Victory, and fought and captured two French ships, winning public renown in Britain. After undergoing substantial repairs, Temeraire was employed blockading the French fleets and supporting British operations off the Spanish coasts. She went out to the Baltic in 1809, defending convoys against Danish gunboat attacks, and by 1810 was off the Spanish coast again, helping to defend Cadiz against a French army. Her last action was against the French off Toulon, when she came under fire from shore batteries. The ship returned to Britain in 1813 for repairs, but was laid up. She was converted to a prison ship and moored in the River Tamar until 1819. Further service brought her to Sheerness as a receiving ship, then a victualling depot, and finally a guard ship. The Admiralty ordered her to be sold in 1838, and she was towed up the Thames to be broken up. This final voyage was depicted in a J. M. W. Turner oil painting greeted with critical acclaim, entitled The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up, 1838. The painting continues to be held in high regard: it was voted Britain's favourite painting in a BBC radio poll in 2005 and it appears briefly in the James Bond movie Skyfall. A reproduction of the painting appears on the back of the Bank of England £20 note issued in 2020.

Temeraire was ordered from Chatham Dockyard on 9 December 1790, to a design developed by Surveyor of the Navy Sir John Henslow. She was one of three ships of the , alongside her sisters and The keel was laid down at Chatham in July 1793. Her construction was initially overseen by Master Shipwright Thomas Pollard and completed by his successor Edward Sison. Temeraire was launched in the rain on Tuesday 11 September 1798 and the following day was taken into the graving dock to be fitted for sea. Her hull was fitted with copper sheathing, a process that took two weeks to complete. Refloated, she finished fitting out, and received her masts and yards. Her final costs came to £73,241, and included £59,428 spent on the hull, masts and yards, and a further £13,813 on rigging and stores.

Under Eyles's command Temeraire finally put to sea at the end of July, flying the flag of Rear Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, and joined the Channel Fleet under the overall command of Admiral Lord Bridport.

On the morning of 3 December, a small group of sailors gathered on the forecastle and, refusing orders to leave, began to argue with the officers. Captain Eyles asked to know their demands, which were an assurance that Temeraire would not go to the West Indies, but instead would return to England. Eventually Rear Admiral Campbell came down to speak to the men, and having informed them that the officers did not know the destination of the ship, he ordered them to disperse. The men went below decks and the incipient mutiny appeared to have been quashed. The mutiny began with the crew closing the ship's gunports, effectively barricading themselves below deck. Having done so, they refused orders to open them again, jeered the officers and threatened violence. The crew then came up on deck and once again demanded to know their destination and refused to obey orders to sail for anywhere but England. Having presented their demands they returned below decks and resumed the usual shipboard routine as much as they could. Alarmed by the actions of Temeraires crew, Campbell met with Vice Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell the following day and informed him of the mutineers' demands. Mitchell reported the news to the Admiralty while Campbell returned to Temeraire and summoned the crew on deck once more. He urged them to return to duty, and then dismissed them. Meanwhile, discipline had begun to break down among the mutineers. Several of the crew became drunk, and some of the officers were struck by rowdy seamen. When one of the marines who supported the mutiny was placed in irons for drunken behaviour and insolence, a crowd formed on deck and tried to free him. The officers resisted these attempts and as sailors began to push and threaten them, Campbell gave the order for the marines to arrest those he identified as the ringleaders. The marines hesitated, but then obeyed the order, driving the unruly seamen back and arresting a number of them, who were immediately placed in irons. Campbell ordered the remaining crew to abandon any mutinous actions, and deprived of its leaders, the mutiny collapsed, though the officers were on their guard for several days afterwards and the marines were ordered to carry out continuous patrols. News of the mutiny created a sensation in England, and the Admiralty ordered Temeraire to sail immediately for Spithead while an investigation was carried out. Vice Admiral Mitchell was granted extraordinary powers regarding the death sentence and Temeraires complement of marines was hastily augmented for the voyage to England. On the ship's arrival, the 14 imprisoned ringleaders were swiftly court martialled in Portsmouth aboard , some on 6 January 1802 and the rest on 14 January. After deliberations, twelve were sentenced to be hanged at the yardarm, and the remaining two were to receive two hundred lashes each. A further seven men involved were sent to prison hulks for life.

After the executions, Temeraire was immediately sent to sea, sailing from Portsmouth for the Isle of Wight the day after and beginning preparations for her delayed voyage to the West Indies. She sailed for Barbados, arriving there on 24 February, and remained in the West Indies until the summer. During her time there the Treaty of Amiens was finally signed and ratified, and Temeraire was ordered back to Britain. She arrived at Plymouth on 28 September and Eyles paid her off on 5 October. Because of the drawdown in the size of the active navy as a result of the peace, Temeraire was laid up in the Hamoaze for the next eighteen months. Work was delayed when a heavy storm hit Plymouth in January 1804, causing appreciable damage to Temeraire, but was finally completed by February 1804, at a cost of £16,898. As a much forgotten part of history, Napoleon had assembled his Grand Army, 160,000 men, near Boulogne as part of a plan to invade England. The bulk of the French navy: 21 ships of the line, were harboured at Brest but were needed for the invasion plan. Temeraire now resumed her previous duties blockading the French at Brest, patrolling between Ushant Island and Cape Finisterre. Heavy weather took its toll, forcing her to put into Torbay for extensive repairs after her long patrols, repairs which eventually amounted to £9,143. During this time Harvey was often absent from his command, usually attending to his duties as Member of Parliament for Essex. He was temporarily replaced by Captain William Kelly on 27 August 1804, and he in turn was succeeded by Captain George Fawke on 6 April 1805. Harvey returned to his ship on 9 July 1805, and it was while he was in command that the reinforced Rochefort squadron under Vice Admiral Sir Robert Calder intercepted and attacked a Franco Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. The French commander, Pierre Charles Villeneuve, was thwarted in his attempt to join the French forces at Brest, and instead sailed south to Ferrol, and then to Cadiz. When news of the Franco Spanish fleet's location reached the Admiralty, they appointed Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson to take command of the blockading force at Cadiz, which at the time was being commanded by Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood. Nelson was told to pick whichever ships he liked to serve under him, and one of those he specifically chose was Temeraire. Collingwood replaced Calder on the Temeraire in August 1804. The ship sheltered with the Channel Fleet at Douarnenez Bay during the storms of November 1804. Further winter storms caused her to go to Torbay for repairs in January 1805 and she did not return to the squadron at Brest until April. Command returned to Calder again on 16 August 1805 and headed for Ferrol to intercept Admiral Vileneuve and the French fleet. The French unexpectedly turned south and the British fleet followed them down to Cadiz.

Temeraire duly received orders to join the Cadiz blockade, and having sailed to rendezvous with Collingwood, Harvey awaited Nelson's arrival. Nelson's flagship, the 100 gun , arrived off Cadiz on 28 September, and he took over command of the fleet from Collingwood. He spent the next few weeks forming his plan of attack in preparation for the expected sortie of the Franco Spanish fleet, issuing it to his captains on 9 October in the form of a memorandum. The fleet patrolled a considerable distance from the Spanish coast to lure the combined fleet out, and the ships took the opportunity to exercise and prepare for the coming battle. For Temeraire this probably involved painting her sides in the Nelson Chequer design, to enable the British ships to tell friend from foe in the confusion of battle. Nelson agreed to this, and signalled for Harvey to come past him. As Temeraire drew up towards Victory, Nelson decided that if he was standing aside to let another ship lead his line, so too should Collingwood, commanding the lee column of ships. He signalled Collingwood, aboard his flagship , to let another ship come ahead of him, but Collingwood continued to surge ahead. Reconsidering his plan, Nelson is reported to have hailed Temeraire, as she came up alongside Victory, with the words "I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to keep in your proper station, which is astern of the Victory." Nelson's instruction was followed up by a formal signal and Harvey dropped back reluctantly, but otherwise kept within one ship's length of Victory as she sailed up to the Franco Spanish line. Closely following Victory as she passed through the Franco Spanish line across the bows of the French flagship French ship Bucentaure, Harvey was forced to sheer away quickly, just missing Victorys stern. Turning to starboard, Harvey made for the 140 gun Spanish ship Santísima Trinidad and engaged her for twenty minutes, taking raking fire from two French ships, the 80 gun French ship Neptune and the 74 gun French ship Redoutable, as she did so. Redoutables broadside carried away Temeraires mizzen topmast. While avoiding a broadside from Neptune, Temeraire narrowly avoided a collision with Redoutable. Another broadside from Neptune brought down Temeraires fore yard and main topmast, and damaged her fore mast and bowsprit. Harvey now became aware that Redoutable had come up alongside Victory and swept her decks with musket fire and grenades. A large party of Frenchmen now gathered on her decks ready to board Victory.

Temeraire then rammed into Redoutable, dismounting many of the French ship's guns, and worked her way alongside, after which her crew lashed the two ships together. Temeraire now poured continuous broadsides into the French ship, taking fire as she did so from the 112 gun Spanish ship Spanish ship Santa Ana lying off her stern, and from the 74 gun French ship French ship Fougueux, which came up on Temeraires un engaged starboard side. Harvey ordered his gun crews to hold fire until Fougueux came within point blank range. Temeraires first broadside against Fougueux at a range of caused considerable damage to the Frenchman's rigging, and she drifted into Temeraire, whose crew promptly lashed her to the side. Temeraire was now lying between two French 74 gun ships. As Harvey later recalled in a letter to his wife "Perhaps never was a ship so circumstanced as mine, to have for more than three hours two of the enemy's line of battle ships lashed to her." Temeraire narrowly escaped destruction when a grenade thrown from Redoutable exploded on her maindeck, nearly igniting the after magazine. Master At Arms John Toohig prevented the fire from spreading and saved not only Temeraire, but the surrounding ships, which would have been caught in the explosion. Temeraire had also suffered heavily, damaged when Redoutables main mast fell onto her poop deck, and having had her own topmasts shot away. Informed that his ship was in danger of sinking, Lucas finally called for quarter to Temeraire. Harvey sent a party across under the second lieutenant, John Wallace, to take charge of the ship.