Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
4 - Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
- John B. Hattendorf – A Transatlantic Tribute
- Introduction
- 1 Spanish Noblemen as Galley Captains: A Problematical Social History
- 2 Strategy Seen from the Quarterdeck in the Eighteenth-Century French Navy
- 3 Danish and Swedish Flag Disputes with the British in the Channel
- 4 Reconsidering the Guerre de Course under Louis XIV: Naval Policy and Strategic Downsizing in an Era of Fiscal Overextension
- 5 British Naval Administration and the Lower Deck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 6 British Naval Administration and the Quarterdeck Manpower Problem in the Eighteenth Century
- 7 The Raison d’Être and the Actual Employment of the Dutch Navy in Early Modern Times
- 8 British Defensive Strategy at Sea in the War against Napoleon
- 9 The Offensive Strategy of the Spanish Navy, 1763–1808
- 10 The Influence of Sea Power upon Three Great Global Wars, 1793–1815, 1914–1918, 1939–1945: A Comparative Analysis
- 11 The Evolution of a Warship Type: The Role and Function of the Battlecruiser in Admiralty Plans on the Eve of the First World War
- 12 The Royal Navy and Grand Strategy, 1937–1941
- 13 The Atlantic in the Strategic Perspective of Hitler and his Admirals, 1939–1944
- 14 The Capital Ship, the Royal Navy and British Strategy from the Second World War to the 1950s
- 15 ‘No Scope for Arms Control’: Strategy, Geography and Naval Limitations in the Indian Ocean in the 1970s
- 16 Sir Julian Corbett, Naval History and the Development of Sea Power Theory
- 17 The Influence of Identity on Sea Power
- 18 Professor Spenser Wilkinson, Admiral William Sims and the Teaching of Strategy and Sea Power at the University of Oxford and the United States Naval War College, 1909–1927
- 19 Naval Intellectualism and the Imperial Japanese Navy
- 20 History and Navies: Defining a Dialogue
- 21 Teaching Navies Their History
- Afterword
- A Bibliography of Books, Articles and Reviews Authored, Co-authored, Edited or Co-edited by John B. Hattendorf, 1960–2015
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
The Expansion and Contraction of the Colbertian Fleet
Between the late 1660s and early 1690s, the French Navy underwent an unprecedented operational and administrative expansion, the latter of which was reflected in the extensive 1689 Ordonnance pour les armées navales. Naval minister and contrôleur généralJean-Baptiste Colbert (1663–83) and later his son, the Marquis de Seignelay (1683–90), had presided over a series of naval reforms in an effort to create a strong battle fleet that competed with the English and Dutch fleets by incorporating the latest tactical and technological refinements. Rebuilding the navy had been a comprehensive effort that required not only the acquisition or construction of ships, but also the management of a complex logistical network, extensive investments in ports and arsenals at Toulon, Brest and Rochefort, the formation of a conscription system to supply the navy with approximately 50,000 sailors, and the oversight of an administrative system of maritime intendantsand commissaireswith a broad array of responsibilities. While the Colbertian navy was built on a network of ‘fisco-financiers’ where administrative and subcontracting roles were often conflated, the growth of La Royaleechoed, it would seem, a wider determination by Louis XIV to reassert monarchical sovereignty and establish firm royal control over the armed forces.
With impressive speed, the navy increased in size and sophistication over the course of three decades, expanding from 18 ships in 1661 to 132 rated warships by January 1692. By 1676, when it gained an important victory over a combined Spanish–Dutch fleet at Palermo during the Franco-Dutch Wars (1672–78), the navy had demonstrated its importance as an instrument of war by enabling the French monarchy to project its military power and influence beyond its immediate reach. The offshore bombardments of Algiers (1682–83), Genoa (1684) and Tripoli (1685) underscored not only the strategic value of a standing fleet, but also the devastating effect with which it could be deployed. On the surface, the results of the Colbertian naval reconstruction programme were decisive, leading to the creation of a fleet capable of challenging the Anglo-Dutch navies for superiority, in warship tonnage terms, and for relative strategic dominance of the Mediterranean between 1676 and 1693.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Strategy and the SeaEssays in Honour of John B. Hattendorf, pp. 37 - 48Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2016