Glorious First of June - Background

Background

Since early 1792 France had been at war with four of its neighbours on two fronts, battling Austria and Prussia in the Austrian Netherlands, and the Austrians and Piedmontese in Italy. On 2 January 1793, almost one year into the French Revolutionary War, republican-held forts at Brest in Brittany fired on the British brig HMS Childers. A few weeks later, following the execution of the imprisoned King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, diplomatic ties between Britain and France were broken. On 1 February France declared war on both Britain and the Dutch Republic.

Protected from immediate invasion by the English Channel, Britain prepared for an extensive naval campaign and dispatched troops to the Netherlands for service against the French. Throughout the remainder of 1793, the British and French navies undertook minor operations in Northern waters, the Mediterranean and the West and East Indies, where both nations maintained colonies. The closest the Channel Fleet had come to an engagement was when it had narrowly missed intercepting the French convoy from the Caribbean, escorted by 15 ships of the line on 2 August. The only major clash was the Siege of Toulon, a confused and bloody affair in which the British force holding the town—alongside Spanish, Sardinian, Austrian and French Royalist troops—had to be evacuated by the Royal Navy to prevent its imminent defeat at the hands of the French Republican army. The aftermath of this siege was punctuated by recriminations and accusations of cowardice and betrayal among the allies, eventually resulting in Spain switching allegiance with the signing of the Treaty of San Ildefonso two years later. Nevertheless, the siege produced one major success: Sir Sidney Smith, with parties of sailors from the retreating British fleet, accomplished the destruction of substantial French naval stores and shipping in Toulon. More might have been achieved had the Spanish raiding parties that accompanied Smith not been issued with secret orders to stall the destruction of the French fleet.

The situation in Europe remained volatile into 1794. Off Northern France, the French Atlantic Fleet had mutinied due to errors in provisions and pay. In consequence, the French Navy officer corps suffered greatly from the effects of The Reign of Terror, with many experienced sailors being executed, imprisoned or dismissed from the service for perceived disloyalty. The shortage of provisions was more than a navy problem though; France itself was starving because the social upheavals of the previous year had combined with a harsh winter to ruin the harvest. By this time at war with all her neighbours, France had nowhere to turn for overland imports of fresh provisions. Eventually a solution to the food crisis was agreed by the National Convention: food produced in France's overseas colonies would be concentrated on board a fleet of merchant ships gathered in Chesapeake Bay, and augmented with food and goods purchased from the United States. During April and May 1794, the merchantmen would convoy the supplies across the Atlantic to Brest, protected by elements of the French Atlantic Fleet.