Sunday 18 September 2022

The French Admiral Suffren - Bane of the Royal Navy

After finishing listening to Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power on History" (although I have to say, it was a much longer than expected slog), I was delighted to uncover an aspect of naval history I was completely ignorant of, namely the illustrious career of the French Admiral Suffren, who was the bane of the Royal Navy on the India station in the late eighteenth century. I have to confess to my relative ignorance of the of both the "Age of Sail" and this great French admiral (other than a class of French WWI vintage armoured cruisers being named after ), things I am trying to address (see below, the Wikipedia link is a very useful starting point):  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Andr%C3%A9_de_Suffren

There is also a wonderfully titled tomb (Satan's admiral) on Admiral Suffren's career, but it is somewhat outside of my price range and budget (see below, I ask you is there nothing [in theory] you cannot buy on Amazon?):  


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Admiral-Satan-Life-Campaigns-Suffren/dp/185043686X

From my internet poking I see there are plenty of other wargame bloggers have tread the Suffren path before: 

http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/12/admiral-satan-life-campaigns-of-suffren.html

http://devonwargames.blogspot.com/2013/02/battle-of-sadras-1782.html

There are even board games to play: 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31251/monsoon-seas-naval-warfare-south-atlantic-and-indi

Interesting "Age of Sail" web-site:

http://www.larsonweb.com/transfer/miniatures/sail/sailhomepage.htm

More doubtless to follow ;) 


2 comments:

Jennifer said...

If your library has access to Interlibrary Loan, you should still be able to obtain it for a modest fee...

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Good point, I know a friend who does, thank you!
;)