On 1 June 1794, after a week of skirmishing, the French and British fleets came to close quarters in the northwest Atlantic, some 400 miles off the coast of Brittany. No battle had ever been fought so far from land. The French, in ships painted blood-red and bearing banners proclaiming "la Republique ou la mort!" were escorting an American grain convoy to Brest to feed a starving population; the British, under the command of Lord Howe, a radical innovator and tactical genius, were bent on destroying the battle fleet of the nascent French Republic.
Both sides would claim victory in the ensuing battle; and both had reason to do so. For the French, le combat de prairial was a strategic success since the convoy and its precious cargo made it safely through. But this outcome came at a heavy material cost. 6 French ships were captured and another sunk; 4,200 French sailors were killed and 3,300 wounded – 10% of their entire maritime workforce. These were physical blows from which the French navy would never truly recover.
In The Glorious First of June Sam Willis tells, with thrilling immediacy and masterly clarity, the gripping story of an epic and complex battle. With The Fighting Temeraire and Benbow's Last Fight, T'he Glorious First of June forms part of the Hearts of Oak trilogy of scholarly but accessible histories that, between them, encapsulate Britain's maritime achievement during the age of sail.
