Strange Engagement

It’s those curious, weird events, that defy all logic and expectation, that make history most fun. 

Just as resetting those same events in a saner, more realistic context than the myths created about them, makes investigating history so amusing.

It was my father who first told me about the extraordinary moment when French cavalry defeated a Dutch fleet. Yep, you read that right. Dutch ships captured by French horsemen. Though it may make the event slightly less extraordinary when I mention that the Dutch vessels were icebound. The horsemen came across the frozen surface to seize them. 

You can probably imagine the picture that this conjured up in my mind. The gutsy French cavalry charging across the ice at the ships, like Don Quixote against the windmills but to far greater effect. The frantic Dutch sailors trying to depress their guns far enough to defend themselves, and cursing their loss of the freedom of movement that would have allowed them to aim their cannon at their tormentors.

Charles Louis Mozin’s depiction of the
capture of the Dutch fleet by French cavalry
Note the canon firing and the general
sense of battle joined

My father may have been the first to tell me this story, but he was far from the last. Why, I vaguely remember reading it in some kind of ‘educational’ comic for kids, complete with garish picture of icebound ships trying to fire on the charging cavalry. That’s the image that might have stayed with me, were it not for my podcast A History of England.

In the podcast, I’ve now reached the time of the War of the First Coalition, which was the first of the series of wars which pitted Britain and a varying configuration of allies initially against Revolutionary France and then against Napoleon’s Empire. It was as I was reading up this exciting time that I discovered that the truth of this esceptional incident was somewhat more prosaic, but also strangely more intriguing, than the story I’d learned (or imagined).

At the end of this first phase of that series of wars, the French revolutionary army took advantage of a severe winter to march across frozen rivers into the Dutch Republic. French armies had become pretty well unstoppable by this time, so Holland fell, and a new so-called ‘Batavian’ Republic, little more than a puppet of France, was set up on its territory (minus some bits France had carved off for itself).

Not all the Dutch military units had surrendered, however. The French decided to send out detachments to call on the holdouts to fall into line, give up any resistance and accept the authority of the new, pro-French government.

One such expedition was sent to secure the obedience of a naval force of some fourteen ships – possibly fifteen: the accounts I’ve consulted don’t always agree – thought to be near the town of Den Helder. The French forces were under the orders of Brigadier General Jan Willem de Winter. He was Dutch himself and, indeed, a former sailor in the Dutch navy. He’d had the misfortune to back the pro-French Patriot party when it tried to seize power in the Dutch Republic some years earlier and, after the revolt was crushed by the Prussian Army, he’d fled to France where he’d served ever since as a soldier.

When his men turned up, they found that the ships were indeed there. And, what’s more, icebound, so incapable of moving. The hussars – light cavalry – didn’t however charge across which, thinking about it, could have been disastrous – can you imagine iron-shod hooves trying to move fast across ice? Instead a small group, with a few infantrymen to back them, rode out slowly and gingerly to the ships. 

One account I read had the horsemen wrapping their horses’ hooves in fabric first, presumably to stop them skidding around on the ice, like incompetent skaters.

At the ships, a representative was invited cordially aboard. He explained the new authorities were keen to ensure that the ships remained in the service of the Batavian Republic and, above all, that they didn’t try to slip away to Britain to join the Royal Navy.

The most senior officer in the squadron agreed to those terms and the two sides parted without a shot being fired or a soldier – or sailor – being hurt.

Léon Morel-Fatio’s rather more realistic and
significantly less martial view of the Den Helder incident

A couple of weeks later, when the ice thawed, the ships rejoined the main navy, by then Batavian. And, amusingly enough, the Admiral commanding it was none other than Jan Willem De Winter, who’d left his posting as a Brigadier in the French army, to return to his original, naval service and take over the fleet of his nation.

He took it to sea a few months later and tackled the Royal Navy at what we now know as the Battle of Camperdown. A massive and comprehensive victory for the British. Much more violent and a lot less satisfactory than the incident at Den Helder.

The principal of the first College I attended as a student was General Sir John Hackett. I got on well with him even though, as he told me, if the situation arose, we would either of us have been more than ready to sign the death warrant of the other, for the good of society and perhaps even for our own good. He was a firm upholder of the system in Britain at the time, and I was in my far-left phase.

A former Major General, he once told me that in his view the best kind of military engagement was one where not a shot was fired. 

“The trick,” he explained, “is to bring up such overwhelming force that the other side simply retreats without fighting. The moment you open fire, you’ve already lost.”

I suppose he would have approved warmly the engagement at Den Helder. No shots. No casualties. A victory gained with no pain.

Less glorious than my imaginary picture of that incident. But a lot more satisfactory too, I’d say. Certainly compared with what happened so soon after at Camperdown.