Bombardment of Odessa

Bombardment of Odessa, showing the explosion of the Imperial Mole

Date	22 April 1854
Location	Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire
Result	Franco-British victory

Belligerents

Russia

United Kingdom

France

Commanders and leaders

Dmitri Osten-Sacken

James Dundas

Strength

Shore batteries and troops

8 × steam paddle-wheel frigates
1 × screw frigate
1 × screw corvette
1 × sailing frigate
1 × screw ship
6 × rocket-firing ship's boats

Casualties and losses

5 killed, 15 wounded

The Bombardment of Odessa was an action during the Crimean War in which a joint Anglo-French squadron of warships attacked the Russian port of Odessa.

On 6 April 1854, soon after the declaration of war by Britain and France on Russia, the British steam frigate Furious, under the command of Captain William Loring, sailed to Odessa and sent a boat into the port under a flag of truce to collect the British Consul there. When leaving the port the boat was fired upon by the Russians. The British naval commander Vice-Admiral James Dundas demanded an explanation from Lieutenant-General Dmitri Osten-Sacken, the military governor of Odessa, for this breach of the laws of war. His reply was considered unacceptable, so a squadron was quickly selected to mount a punitive expedition.

An article by Karl Marx, printed in the New York Daily Tribune of 16 May 1854, reported that the Russians had claimed that the Furious was actually carrying out a covert reconnaissance of the port, as the Retribution had done some time earlier, entering the port of Sevastopol under the pretext of delivering dispatches, but also making a survey of the defences, as had been admitted by the British press. Marx also pointed out the "ridiculousness" of the Allies requiring such justifications for launching an attack on an enemy naval base in a time of war.

The squadron consisted of eight steam paddle-wheel frigates; the French Descartes, Mogador and Vauban, and the British Furious, Retribution, Sampson, Terrible and Tiger, supported by the British screw frigate Highflyer, fourth-rate sailing frigate Arethusa, and steam ship Sans Pareil, and the French screw corvette Caton. There were also six ship's boats armed with 24-pounder rockets; two from Britannia, and one each from Agamemnon, Trafalgar, Sans Pareil and Highflyer.

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