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Trailblazers: Virtual Tours
History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Administration]

One of the beautiful paintings on display, the seaport is Brest.

[Diving Doc]

Interesting to note that there are Camels alongside the Warship in the background, lightening ship to go across the bar. Don't see that very often.
Doc

[Administration]

[Administration]

[Administration]

This is an exact reproduction of an 18th Century Frigate built according to the original plans. An amazing project and collection of craftsmen.

[Administration]

The only deviation from the original materials is the use of epoxy where timbers of insufficient length and breadth had to be scarfed together to match the drawings.

[Administration]

[Administration]

A very nice scale model of a French ship board cannon of the 18th Century.

[Sovereign]

Truly fantastic images.
Thank you!

[Administration]

To the immediate right of the old drydock is the covered drydock where the Hermione is being constructed.

[Diving Doc]

The French Naval Museum was a most enjoyable research. I was especially fascinated by the demonstration put on for us of the ancient, but functioning, rope walk.
I'm sorry we didn't use the movie camera, kick my self now, I could have captured stills for our members.
Cheers,
Doc

[Solomon]

There's a rope walk you'll be able to see on your visit to the UK, at Chatham.

Sol

[Diving Doc]

I'll do a photo study of same,

Moran Taing!

Doc

[Diving Doc]

Here is a model of Reale de France, a most magnificent French galley built during the reign of Louis XIV in 17th century.  The "Reale" in the name means that the ship belonged to the king. 

Decorated by the famous sculptor Pierre Puget, some of the stern ornaments are displayed in the Mus?e de la Marine in Paris which holds the original plans and many documents about the ship.
Cheers,
Doc
 

[Diving Doc]

In December 1665 Rochefort was chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a place of "refuge, defense and supply" for the French navy. Its military harbour was fortified by Louis XIV's commissary of fortifications Vauban. Between 1666-1669 the king had the "Corderie Royale" (then the longest building in Europe) constructed to make cordage for French ships of war. The making of cordage ceased in 1867, and in 1926 the arsenal of Rochefort was closed. The building was burned by occupation forces in 1944 and left abandoned for twenty years. Today it has been restored for municipal and tourist purposes. Another infrastructure of early Rochefort from 1766 was its bagne, a high-security penal colony involving hard labour. Bagnes were then common fixtures in military harbours and naval bases, such as Toulon or Brest, because they provided free labour.

Off Rochefort, Napoleon Bonaparte was intercepted and surrendered to Captain F. L. Maitland aboard HMS Bellerophon, on July 17, 1815, ending the "Hundred Days".

Rochefort is a notable example of seventeenth-century "ville nouvelle" or new town, which means its design and building resulted from a political decree. The reason for building Rochefort was to a large extent that royal power could hardly depend on rebellious Protestant La Rochelle, which Cardinal Richelieu had had to besiege a few decades earlier. Well into the twentieth century, Rochefort remained primarily a garrison town. The tourist industry, which had long existed due to the town's spa, gained emphasis in the 1990s.

Cheers,
Doc

[Diving Doc]

Scaled drawings of French Iron and Bronze Cannon just after the French Establishment of 1674
Iron Cannon of 1680                                                                                             Bronze Cannon of 1689
4 pdr                                                                                                                             36 pdr
6 pdr                                                                                                                              24 pdr
8 pdr                                                                                                                              18 pdr
12 pdr                                                                                                                            12 pdr
18 pdr                                                                                                                             8 pdr
8 pdr cast at Nivernais                                                                                            6 pdr
8 pdr cast at Perigord                                                                                              4 pdr

These fine drawings were done by Jean Boudriot. Bronze guns were gradually replaced by Iron Guns in the 1690's and 1700's . A new Establishment for iron guns was introduced in 1690.
Doc

[Solomon]

HMS Bellerophon at Torbay

Doc: Off Rochefort, Napoleon Bonaparte was intercepted and surrendered to Captain F. L. Maitland aboard HMS Bellerophon, on July 17, 1815, ending the "Hundred Days".


Napoleon on board HMS 'Bellerophon', 1815.

When HMS Bellerophon was at Torbay, so many tourists came to see Napoleon - then cheered him - that the government panicked. Until then, it was the intention to bring Napoleon to London, as the king wanted t0 meet him. That was cancelled and he never set foot in England.



Solomon

[Diving Doc]

For your enjoyment, the art of Guillaume le Testu, French Pilot and cartographer.

[Diving Doc]

It might be of interest how the French made their cannon in the 18th C. Here they were using the Maritz principle. The cutter was stationary and the cannon revolved on its axis on gearing that derived its power from water wheels. The illustration is from a late 18th C. French encyclopedia.
Doc

[Sovereign]

Looks to me that the French were a little late in coming to the Industrial Revolution, using a water wheel for this at that time.

[Diving Doc]

Maybe so but let me get back to Guillaume le Testu, the artist was also a pirate. He studied navigation at Dieppe and was pilot of a French ship during the exploration mission to Brazil in 1551. Le Testu participated in the expedition that founded a colony near Rio de Janeiro in 1555 and in 1556 he was appointed royal pilot and presented to King Henry II a world atlas which consisted of 56 maps which he drew. Sounds a lot like Sharpe doesn't he? Le Testu's Atlas included a southern continent which didn't exist stating, "Not imaginary even though no one has found it yet."
Cheers,
Doc

[Solomon]

Here it is.

[Diving Doc]

Let me tell you a little more about this man; Le Testu became the captain of an 80 ton warship with a 70 man crew, he encountered Sir Francis Drake in April of 1573 off Panama. Le Testu joined Drake in an attack on a mule train carrying treasure to Nombre de Dios. The attack was a complete success and the pirates loaded themselves with as much booty as they could carry and buried the rest. Le Testu's loot amounted to some 20,000 pounds sterling. Le Testu was wounded in the attack however and chose to remain so he could recover. Later Spanish soldiers fell upon Le Testu and two comrades who had remained with him. Le Testu was killed and beheaded, his head prominently displayed in the market square of Nombre de Dios.
Doc

[Diving Doc]

The Siege of La Rochelle
 Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle.During the Renaissance, La Rochelle adopted reformist ideas, and from 1568 became a centre for the Huguenots, initiating a period of freedom and prosperity until the 1620s. The city finally entered in conflict with the central authority of the King Louis XIII, when cannon shots were exchanged on September 10th 1627 with Royal troops. This resulted into the Siege of La Rochelle in which Cardinal Richelieu blockaded the city for 14 months, until the city surrendered and lost its mayor and its privileges. The growing persecution of the Huguenots culminated with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Many Huguenots emigrated, founding such cities as New Rochelle in the vicinity of today's New York in 1689.

http://www.arikah.net/encyclopedia/La_Rochelle

[Solomon]

Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle, Henri Motte, 1881.

Siege of La Rochelle
The Siege of La Rochelle was a result of a war between the French royal forces of Louis XIII of France and the Huguenots of La Rochelle in 1627-1628.

In the Edict of Nantes, Henry IV of France had given the Huguenots extensive rights. La Rochelle had become the stronghold of the French Huguenots, under its own governance.

Following a Huguenot revolt by Duke Henri de Rohan and his brother Soubise from 1625, Henri's successor Louis XIII, however, declared war against the Huguenots. Louis' Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu declared the suppression of the Huguenot revolt the first priority of the kingdom.


The Siege of La Rochelle (map), by Jacques Callot, 17th century.

Dutch support
The Roman Catholic government of France rented ships from the Protestant city of Amsterdam to conquer the Protestant city of La Rochelle. This resulted in a debate in the city council of Amsterdam as to whether the French soldiers should be allowed to have a Roman Catholic sermon on board of the Protestant Dutch ships. The result of the debate was that it was not allowed. The Dutch ships transported the French soldiers to La Rochelle. France was a Dutch ally in the war against the Habsburgs.
[edit]

English support
The rebels had received the backing of the English king Charles I, who sent his favorite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham with a fleet of 80 ships. In June 1627 Buckingham organized a landing on the nearby island of R? with 6,000 men in order to help the Huguenots. Although a Protestant stronghold, ?le de R? had not directly joined the rebellion against the king.
[edit]

The siege
In September 1627 Royal forces besieged La Rochelle. La Rochelle was the greatest stronghold among the Huguenot cities of France, and the centre of Huguenot resistance. Cardinal Richelieu acted as the commander of the besieging troops (during those times when the King was absent).

On Ile de Re, the English tried to take the small fort of St Martin, but were repulsed. Small French boats managed to supply St Martin in spite of an English blockade. Buckingham ultimately ran out of money and support, and his army was weakened by diseases. After a last attack on St Martin they were repulsed with heavy casualties, and left with their ships.

French engineers further isolated the city with entrenchments 12 kilometers long, fortified by 11 forts and 18 redoubts. They also built with 4,000 workmen a 1,400 meters long seawall, to block the seaward access to the city. The wall was built on top of a foundation made of sunken hulks, filled with rubble. French artillery was used against English ships that tried to supply the city.

English relief efforts
In September 1628, another English fleet tried to relieve the city. After bombarding French positions, the English fleet had to withdraw. Following this last disappointment, the city surrendered on October 28, 1628.

Residents of La Rochelle had resisted for 14 months, under the leadership of the mayor Jean Guitton and with the gradually diminishing help from England. During the siege, the population of La Rochelle decreased from 27.000 to 5,000 due to casualties, famine and disease.

Surrender was unconditional. By the terms of the Peace of Alais, the Huguenots lost their territorial, political and military rights, but retained the religious freedom granted by the Edict of Nantes.

The French philosopher Descartes is known to have visited the scene of the siege in 1627.

[moneypenny]

Well, this thread has taken a turn towards La Rochelle, but anyone who is interested in traveling back to Rochefort can visit the website of the Maritime museum, in which is found the re-construction project of the Hermione, and the 'rope-walk'.  This rope walk was an amazing bit of building, which began in 1666. It produced rope until the 1800's. And during that time 350 ships were built. (see the photo of the dry dock that was posted earlier in this thread, a truly magnificent structure)
   When you use the link below to go to the website, run your mouse over the 'rope walk' building silouette, and click. On the pop-up window, you can view flash productions of 360 degree views of all the museum grounds. There are at least 5 Flash programs there to see.

http://www.corderie-royale.com/13_visitez_anglais/visitez.php

Enjoy, moneypenny

[Diving Doc]

That was an excellent find.
I do hope Admin can figure a way to post the entire map with the hyper links for the enjoyment of our members.
Cheers,
Doc

[Sovereign]

The Rope Factory as seen from the Charente River

The longest factory in Europe in the 17th Century

Here, you are in the heart of the former arsenal of Rochefort, whose construction was started in 1666 at Colbert's initiative. Over a period of 250 years, more than 350 boats were built here.

The Royal Rope Factory of Rochefort today is one of the finest jewels of our maritime heritage -and the symbol of an extraordinary ambition : to rejoin the sea.
In 1666, Colbert wanted to create a major arsenal between Nantes and Bordeaux.
He chose Rochefort (located at 23 kilometers from the sea).

Due to the instability of the land, the Rope Factory - 374 meters long and 8 meters wide- was set upon an " oak raft ". Its construction lasted from 1666 until 1679. Ropes and riggings for the Navy were manufactured here until 1867.
Damaged by fire in 1944, the building underwent complete restoration from 1976 to 1988.

[Diving Doc]

Great! It was a very cloudy rainy day and I didn't even try to take a picture.
Watching them actually make rope the old way was a real treat. Thanks.
Cheers,
Doc

[Diving Doc]

I would like to go into some detail about the frigate Hermione that we viewed under construction in Rochefort. When the people set about the restoration of the shipyard one thing was missing, a ship. They settled on an exact rebuilding of the Hermione for history's sake and feasibility, she stood out above all others.  She was a 32-gun frigate of 1779. There were some very good reasons for selecting this vessel. She was built at the naval yard in Rochefort, and she was elegant, and she had had an interesting history in service. The Hermione  was one of six near identical ships in her class and her log books still survived in the French national archives. It also happened that one of her sister ships, the Concorde, had been captured by the Royal Navy in February 1783. Prior to commissioning the Concorde into RN service as a 5th rate frigate they proceeded to measure the vessel in fine detail. With this wealth of technical data available she was the natural choice.

Doc

[Solomon]

It also happened that one of her sister ships, the Concorde, had been captured by the Royal Navy in February 1783. Prior to commissioning the Concorde into RN service as a 5th rate frigate they proceeded to measure the vessel in fine detail.
A long and fine tradition of the Royal Navy!

[Diving Doc]

I have been told that there are in excess of 900,000 plans of ships on file in the archives in the UK. This seems quite large but that is what I was told. I have seen thousands at the Caird library in Greenwich.

What a stroke of luck it was to have all the data at hand to rebuild this famous ship.

Doc

[Diving Doc]

Let me continue with the story of the Hermione

The original frigate Hermione was built at Rochefort in 1748 . She was an experiment and the forerunner of all the 12-pounder frigates launched in the 18th century.  Now the Hermione under consideration for reproduction was the second ship of that name. She was number five of the six ships in her class. Her hull was built in the remarkably short time of six months, far ahead of the work on the reproduction. She was launched in April 1779  and put to sea on May 21, 1779 under the command of M. Levassor de La Touche.
This vessel was very much involved in the war between Britain and the American colonists. France had made an alliance with the United States and declared war on England and on 20 March 1780. The Marquis de La Fayette  had been made a  Major General of the American Army and  sailed over on the Hermione. On July of the same year French regiments landed at Newport to fight as allies of the Americans.

After the troops had been disembarked the Hermione went on and engaged in battle, on June 7, with an English frigate, the Iris and her escort. There was a reception on board the Hermione for the American Congress on 4 May 1781 for an official announcement of the victory of Chesapeake on March 16, 1781. Just a couple of months later she took part in a battle against six English vessels at Louisbourg and fired 509 cannonballs.

The Hermione returned to Rochefort on February 25, 1782. French seapower had played a crucial role, including the surrender of the British Army at Yorktown in 1871.

Doc

[Solomon]

L'Hermione


The Frigate
Navire de guerre du XVIIIe si?cle
Photo prise sur le chantier de l'Hermione ? Rochefort





Doc - I've changed the images for the better.

Solomon

[Diving Doc]

Solomon,
thanks for the pictures. Unless my eyes deceive me the original Hermione was a single battery. I'll have to do a little looking as soon as I get some time. Here's a nice link on the ship, she does now appear to have been a single battery frigate.
 http://hermione.free.fr/english/summary.html
Cheers,
Doc

[Diving Doc]

Here's a nice painting from the seventeenth C. that shows how radically different the frigate type was from her predecessors

[Diving Doc]

Shipbuilding in Charente-Maritime

Shipbuilding has played an important role in the history of Charente-Maritime.
Shipyards and boatyards, both large and small, grew up along the coast of the old provinces of Saintonge and Aunis and on the banks of the river Charente for building ocean-going ships, coasters and river barges.

The major part of the shipbuilding activity was concentrated in Rochefort-sur-Mer from the middle of the 17th century.

The Hermione.
   

By 1780, the Naval shipyard was building ships up to 900 to 1,000 register tons.
Colbert (1619-1683), advisor to Louis XIV, decided to build the Rochefort Arsenal in 1666, a magnificent building which soon aroused great admiration. In 1688, Michel B?gon was appointed Intendant of the Ponant Fleet in Rochefort. He wrote that the Arsenal was:

"the largest, the most complete and the most impressive in the Kingdom: it has the best shipbuilding yard in the world, three large docks for careening ships, all the general and special warehousing required, rope works, forges, and other workshops. It has one of the best armouries in the kingdom. [..] There are three powder magazines for storing the gunpowder from the factory in Saint-Jean-d'Ang?ly which makes gunpowder only for Rochefort."

Michel B?gon

was appointed the first Intendant of the new Grand Fleet of La Rochelle in 1694.
   

   

The Arsenal was very important for the economy. Constructing, arming and provisioning large fleets required an ever increasing amount of supplies. These supplies were sent to the new town of Rochefort from all over France and from abroad. To build just one 74 gun ship needed 4,000 oak trees, 17,124 aunes* of canvas for the sails and 1,480 aunes of cloth for the flags, the bunting and the pennants.                                                 

* an aune is 1.2 metres - more than 20 km (13 miles) of sailcloth.



Wood, canvas and victuals
The old provinces of Aunis and Saintonge, which are now part of Charente Maritime, supplied some of the wood needed for building the ships. Saintonge was a rich land, able to supply the Arsenal with wheat, meat and wine. Its agricultural resources were an important factor in the choice of the site for the Arsenal.

[Mariner]

Doc, et al.,

This thread gave me some very good memories of a visit to Rochefort and La Rochelle about two years ago, when I visited the rope works and the Hermione.  If my memory serves me correctly, was this not the ship that Lafayette used to travel to the United States, where he got involved in some kind of minor disturbance in which insurgents overthrew their legitimate government?  They called it the American Revolution.

Mariner

[Mariner]

Doc,

Sorry !! I had missed your mention of the La Fayette connection in an earlier post.

Incidentally, quite close to Rochefort is a small walled port where a French lady exiled herself after suffering great disappointment in a love connection.  She did it to punish herself, and claimed that this small town was the most boring place in France.  My daughter-in-law, who made the trip with us, remarked that she had obviously not visited the rope factory!  One man's meat etc.

Best wishes,

Mariner

[Bart]

La Rochelle

   La Rochelle is a city and commune of western France, and a seaport on the Atlantic Ocean (population 78,000 in 2004). It is the pr?fecture (capital) of the Charente-Maritime d?partement(17). The city is connected to the ?le de R? (island) by a 2.9 km bridge, completed in 1988. Its harbour opens into a protected strait, the Pertuis d'Antioche.



   The area of La Rochelle was occupied in Antiquity by the Gaul tribe of the Santones, who gave their name to the nearby region of Saintonge and the city of Saintes. The Romans then occupied the area, where they developed salt production along the coast as well as wine production, which was then reexported throughout the Empire.

Foundation

   La Rochelle was founded during the 10th century, and became an important harbour from the 12th century. In 1137, Guillaume X, Duke of Aquitaine essentially made La Rochelle a free port and gave it the right to establish itself as a commune. Fifty years later Eleanor of Aquitaine upheld the communal charter promulgated by her father, and for the first time in France, a city mayor was named for La Rochelle, Guillaume de Montmirail. Guillaume was assisted in his responsibilities by 24 municipal magistrates, and 75 notables who had jurisdiction over the inhabitants. Under the communal charter, the city obtained many privileges, such as the right to mint its own coins, and to operate some businesses free of royal taxes, dispositions which would favour the development of the entrepreuneurial middle-class (bourgeoisie).

   The main activities of the city were in the areas of maritime commerce and trade, especially with England, the Netherlands and Spain. In 1196, wealthy bourgeois named Alexandre Auffredi sent a fleet of seven ships to Africa to tap the riches of the continent. He went bankrupt and went into poverty as he waited for the return of his ships, but they finally returned seven years later filled with riches.

   Until the 15th century, La Rochelle was to be the largest French harbour on the Atlantic coast, dealing mainly in wine and salt.

Hundred Years War

   The naval Battle of La Rochelle took place on 22 June 1372 during the Hundred Years War between a Castilian-French and an English fleet. The Spanish had 60 ships and the English 40. They also had more knights and men than the English. The French and Castillians decisively defeated the English, securing French control of the Channel for the first time since the Battle of Sluys in 1340.

Sieges of La Rochelle

     Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle

Second World War

     The La Rochelle submarine base (still standing) was used as a set for the movie Das Boot

   During the Second World War, Germany established a submarine naval base at La Pallice (the main port of La Rochelle), which became the setting for the movie Das Boot. The U-Boat scenes in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark were also shot in La Rochelle.

   A German stronghold, La Rochelle was the last French city to be freed at the end of the War. A siege took place between September 12th, 1944, and May 7th, 1945, in which the stronghold, including the islands of R? and Ol?ron, was held by 20,000 German troops under a German vice-admiral. Following negotiations by the French Navy frigate captain Meyer, and the general German capitulation on May 7th, French troops entered La Rochelle on May 8th.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rochelle