Great Britain has existed de jure for more than two centuries, and de facto, in the format of an English state, even more. And throughout their history, there is one feature that is characteristic, perhaps, for all nations and states of the world, but it is most clearly manifested precisely among the inhabitants of Foggy Albion: they do not like to remember their own punctures very much. Even if they remember something, it would be only within the framework of glorifying their positive qualities, as in the case of “Bismarck”: the enemy was dangerous and powerful, and therefore in a battle with such it was not a sin to lose “Hood”, because in the end “Bismarck”they are utopias. But they really don't like punctures, which cannot be sweetened in any way. Especially that little puncture, when a seventy-year-old grandpa, a thunderstorm señorite of the French city of Brest, took from under the nose of the Royal Navy a whole convoy with a bunch of government property, including one and a half million pounds in gold and silver ….
Youth
Our hero named Louis was born in 1706 in a very simple family with short surnames and humble origins. His father's name was Juan de Cordoba Lasso de la Vega and Puente Verastegui, he was a knight of the Order of Calatrava and came from a very old family, albeit not titled. The mother of young Luis was his father's close relative, the daughter of the 1st Marquis of Vado del Maestre, and her name was Clemencia de Cordoba Lasso de la Vega and Ventimiglia. On his father's side, Louis' ancestors were sailors, and he himself was no exception to the rule - at the age of 11 he first stepped aboard his father's ship, by the age of 13 he had already made two trips to America and felt at home at sea.
By 1721 he was already a midshipman, in 1723 he became a midshipman of a frigate (alferez de fragata). Both in training and in battle, he showed himself bravely, skillfully, and sometimes, with a fair wind, even initiative, thanks to which the young man quickly began to move up the career ladder and earned the special attention of King Felipe V. In 1730, Cordoba became one of the selected nobles, who were supposed to accompany the Infanta Carlos de Bourbon (future Carlos III), and became, if not his friend, then certainly a good acquaintance, which later came in handy during the service. In 1731, Luis already bears the title of midshipman of the ship (alferez de navio), and in 1732 - the lieutenant of the frigate (teniente de fragata), participating in the siege of Oran and the capture of Naples from Sicily in turbulent years, when the first Spanish Bourbons returned the recently lost lands in Italy to the crown of the state.
By 1740, Cordoba already bears the rank of captain of a frigate (capitan de fragata), commands his frigate and fights against the Berber corsairs, and in 1747, being the captain of a ship (capitan de navio) and standing on the bridge of the 60-gun "America", participates in the legendary for Spain at that time, the battle between two Spanish ships of the line ("America" and "Dragon", general command of Pedro Fitz-James Stewart, both 60 guns) and two Algerian (60 and 54 guns). In total, the battle took about 30 hours over four days, after which the Algerians surrendered. Fifty Christian prisoners were freed, and Cordoba was rewarded with a knight of the Order of Calatrava.
After that, Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba moved to the western direction, and he was entrusted with an important task - the fight against smuggling in the West Indies, and in the event of a war with the British - also countering them. Apparently, he did not cope with the second very well, but in the first he achieved significant success, smuggling through Cartagena de Indias was practically stopped. Following this, for 9 long years - from 1765 to 1774 - he became the commander of a colonial squadron and performed various tasks in the waters of North and South America. Finally, he is promoted to the rank of lieutenant general when he is already 68 years old. It seemed that the old man's career was coming to an end - but it was not so …
Case at Cape Santa Maria
In 1775, the War of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain began, and Spain and France, of course, did not miss the opportunity to strike at the eternal enemy at such an inconvenient moment for him. Having solved their questions and waiting for the British to get bogged down in the conflict, the Allies in 1779 declared war on the British and began an offensive on all fronts. At sea, however, at first it turned out to be a complete zilch - having gathered huge forces on land and at sea, which became known as the "Other Armada", the Allies gained colossal superiority, including at sea (66 battleships against 38 British ones). However, two fossils were assigned to command the unified fleet - 73-year-old Cordoba under the command of 69-year-old Frenchman, Comte d'Orville. With the same success it was possible to dig up the ashes of Alvaro de Bazana and put it on the bridge of the "Santisima Trinidad" …. And instead of active, decisive, daring actions, timid campaigns came out to no one knows where and no one knows why.
Time passed, and the greatest success remained the capture of the ship "Ardent" and a small Luger, which did not go through any gate in relation to the efforts expended. Having such a clear superiority at sea, the Allies even managed to miss out on trade convoys from the British colonies, which was worthy of a separate sarcastic applause in those conditions. The allied fleet got up for repairs after four months of "active" operations, and that was, in fact, the end of the enterprise. The reasons for these modest results are legendary. Luis de Cordoba, of course, blamed everything on his superior, the Comte d'Orville, and the junior flagship of Cordoba, José de Mazarredo, was not thrilled with both old men. However, despite the modesty of real achievements, the Spanish admiral earned praise from the French Louis XVI, who sent him a box, richly decorated with jewelry, with the inscription "From Louis Louis".
Sitting in Brest, while the ships of the allied fleet were being repaired, dragged on, and even the highest ranks had already taken care of this. Floridablanca, Spain's secretary of state, wrote in 1780 that while Cordoba was based in Brest, the local senorites were in great danger, hinting that the 73-year-old man's powder flasks still had plenty of gunpowder. However, there were also positive results - the French Admiral Guichen drew attention to how the Spaniards are attentive to weather warnings, and how accurately they predict the onset of storms at sea. The reason was the usual barometer, which Armada had been actively and widely used for a long time, and which was absent on French ships. Cordoba shared such barometers with an ally, after which they found distribution on all French warships. In the end, in 1780, it was decided to start a nightmare on the supply routes between Great Britain and America, for which a solid fleet was allocated, consisting of 36 ships of the line (27 Spanish and 9 French) under a single command of the Spaniards. It was at this time that a large convoy was gathering in Great Britain to transport strategically important cargo and reinforcements to America, where there was an acute shortage of some cargo, materials and money.
The planning of the expedition was carried out, to put it mildly, carelessly - having decided that these continental sissies were not capable of anything, the British insured all merchant ships for the full amount, and allocated only 1 battleship to guard 60 armed transports (including 5 large East Indians) and 2 frigates under the command of Captain John Mutrei. The Canal fleet accompanied this convoy literally "to the gates" of Britain, without even going deep into the Bay of Biscay, and then the ships' route lay along the coast of Portugal, following the winds and currents, and straight to America. The route ran next to the Iberian Peninsula and further to the Azores. One of them had Cape Santa Maria, next to which the convoy was supposed to pass at full speed at night. The British knew that the shores of friendly Portugal would be nearby, that a long hassle in the ocean awaited them, that the Spaniards and the French could organize a light raid on the convoy if they found it, and therefore all the "merchants" went right behind the running lights of the battleship Ramillis ". But what they didn’t know was that large forces of the allied fleet (36 battleships!) Were on the high seas, hunting convoys, and, most importantly, they would be on that very night at Cape Santa Maria … …
Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba established effective reconnaissance, and that a large convoy was coming from the north, he learned in advance from the patrol frigate. The opinions of the officers subordinate to him were divided - Cordoba himself thought that this was the line fleet of the Metropolis, and intended to act with all caution, while Masarredo, on the contrary, was sure that the Channel Fleet would not leave its native waters, and that all these were merchant ships. In the end, Cordoba was persuaded to attack, but further descriptions of what happened are very different. According to the first version, which is very boring in its content, the Spaniards and the French, taking advantage of the favorable wind, attacked the convoy in broad daylight, drove away the weak security, and until the next morning they chased British merchants throughout the district.
The second version is much more interesting, although it is much less common. According to intelligence, realizing where the squadron's outpost was located, and learning that it had moved far from the convoy itself, at dusk Cordoba hung out navigation lights on his Santisima Trinidad, while the rest extinguished them. As soon as the sun dropped below the horizon, "Santisima" began to approach the convoy, and in the darkness she was mistaken for "Ramillis", standing in her wake, and walking in this way all night. Only five "merchants" did not see the lights of the Spanish flagship, and followed the lights of the British ship, which were better visible from their place. And in the morning, as soon as daybreak began, something began that strongly resembled a flock of foxes that had fallen on a poultry farm: the British suddenly found themselves in a tight formation with the Spanish-French fleet, which immediately began to quickly catch them and force them to surrender. Only three escort ships were saved, led by John Mutrey, who decided not to be heroic with his small forces, and five ships, which were tied to his "Ramillis" at night. The victory was complete and, more importantly, bloodless.
When counting the trophies, the hands of the responsible persons of Spanish and French nationality were clearly shaking. In addition to 55 ships, of which 5 were large East Indians, the production at Cape Santa Maria was:
- 3144 prisoners, including the entire personnel of the 90th Infantry Regiment;
- 80 thousand muskets for the colonial troops;
- 3 thousand barrels of gunpowder;
- a full set of supplies (uniforms, equipment, tents, etc.) for 12 infantry regiments;
- 1.5 million pounds sterling in silver and gold, including 1 million in gold bars;
- materials and components for the repair of the colonial squadrons of the Royal Navy;
Of the 36 merchant ships that the Spaniards got after the division of the trophies, 32 were later converted into frigates and patrol ships, which simply raised the size of the Armada's cruising forces to the point of obscenity. From 1.5 million pounds, the Spaniards took about a million, which amounted to approximately 40 million reais. Of these, 6 million were distributed to the crews of the ships, and just under 34 million went to the royal treasury, which was the approximate equivalent of the total cost of building ten 74-gun battleships. With the prisoners, among whom were members of the families of the British military, the Spaniards behaved extremely respectfully and carefully, as demanded by the norms of the "Gallant Age".
Great Britain, on the other hand, collapsed into a severe crisis. The army in the colonies lost many of the supplies critical to it, resulting in a series of defeats. Not having received the necessary materials and components for repairs, the British colonial squadrons were temporarily paralyzed, which turned into the surrender of the Cornwallis army at Yorktown. The government lost a million and a half pounds of money, which was an obscene amount. Moreover, the insurance companies, which so easily insured the ships of the convoy before leaving, barely scraped together the funds for payments, many of them went bankrupt. The stakes on military insurance skyrocketed, and, among other things, a government crisis deepened in the country. The stock exchange closed and was closed for several weeks. As if deciding to "finish off" the British, nature sent storms to the usual trade routes to America, as a result of which a large number of merchant ships perished during the year.
In terms of the scale of the consequences, the defeat of the convoy at Cape Santa Maria surpassed everything that the British had experienced by that time, and that they still had to go through, including the defeat of the PQ-17 convoy. And, of course, a catastrophe of this magnitude could not but affect the outcome of the war in America - so a certain Spanish admiral turned out to be one of the creators of US independence as a result. As for the fate of Mutrei, who left without a fight, they treated him tougher than they should have, but softer than they could have done, under pressure from the merchants, he was sentenced to trial and dismissed from service, although he had no way of saving the convoy. Nevertheless, a year later he returned to the service, and later remained in it until his death. Interestingly, among his friends, among others, there was a certain Horatio Nelson….
Senile worries
After such a victory, Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba for some time perked up even more, and began to look for new reasons to accomplish the feat both in Brest with local senorites and at sea. Without burdening himself with the French command and having worked well with his junior flagship Masarreda, he continued to operate on British communications. In 1781, he again captured a large British convoy, consisting of 24 West Indian merchant ships coming from the colonies with a cargo of various goods. The only relief for the British was that there were not 55 ships, and they were not carrying one and a half million pounds in precious metals. At this time, his squadron becomes a place where naval science is rapidly developing - under his leadership, they build and test their theories of Masarredo and Escagno (both will be devoted to separate articles), if Cordoba himself does not participate in their theoretical research, then at least not interferes with them. In the end, the Canal raids give birth to Spanish naval theory, perhaps drawn up by some of its best commanders.
In 1782, Spanish ships under the command of Cordoba leave Brest and go to the Gulf of Algeciras, where the Great Siege of Gibraltar has been going on for many years. There, a general assault was just being prepared, and the presence of the Armada line fleet nearby was clearly not superfluous. However, the general assault on the fortress failed, no technical tricks of the French engineers were able to ensure sufficient survivability of the floating batteries, on which the main stake was made. After that, the blockade continued, but its effectiveness was very conditional - soon the British Admiral Howe led a large convoy to Gibraltar, led by a squadron of 34 ships of the line. It was then that all the enthusiasm of Cordoba began to fade away - his indecisive actions did not allow him to intercept Admiral Howe's convoy on the way to Gibraltar, and only on the way back, at Cape Espartel, the two fleets met each other. The Spaniards had a superiority in the number of ships (46 pieces), but in the number of guns the forces were equal. This time Masarreda did not manage to stir up his superior enough, and therefore the battle was hesitant and ended with little result. Even the losses were insignificant - with a huge number of ships, only one and a half hundred killed and five hundred wounded on both sides.
In January 1783, a peace treaty was signed and the war ended. Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba immediately withdrew from direct service in the active fleet. The king gave him the honor and the post of general director of the Armada, although after the battle, Espartel had a number of questions from the junior officers, who believed that he behaved excessively passive and slow, and if not for this, the British would have broken in on the first number. As CEO, in 1786, he solemnly laid the foundation stone for the future Pantheon of Eminent Sailors in San Fernando. Louis remained in this position until 1796, when he died after living a long 90-year life. He got into the Pantheon he laid down only in 1870.
Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba was married to Maria Andrea de Romay, had a son, Antonio de Cordoba and Romay, who followed in his father's footsteps, joined the Armada and died in 1786 with the rank of brigadier. The town of Cordoba in Alaska, founded in the 18th century by the explorer Salvador Fidalgo, is named in his honor. The entire history of the life and service of this person can serve as a clear illustration of several aspects of human activity at once. Brave, skillful and successful in his youth, Cordoba kept his nature alive for a long time, but even with this in mind, demanding too much from a 73-year-old man was not only excessive, but also stupid. Yes, he was enough for some time for active hostilities (at least he was more active than the French), but in the end he turned into an old man not only in body, but also in mind, which was clearly demonstrated by the battle at Cape Espartel. Despite all this, Luis de Cordoba and Cordoba may well be called an outstanding person, and quite successful commander of the Armada, who had both magnificent victories and missed opportunities.
