Ganteaume's expeditions of 1801

Ganteaume's expeditions of 1801 were three connected major French Navy operations of the spring of 1801 during the French Revolutionary Wars. A French naval squadron from Brest under Contre-amiral Honoré Ganteaume, seeking to reinforce the besieged French garrison in Egypt, made three separate but futile efforts to reach the Eastern Mediterranean. The French army in Egypt had been trapped there shortly after the start of the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt in 1798, when the French Mediterranean Fleet was destroyed at the Battle of the Nile. Since that defeat, the French Navy had maintained only a minimal presence in the Mediterranean Sea, while the more numerous British and their allies had succeeded in blockading and defeating several French bases almost unopposed.

The despatch of Ganteaume's squadron was a direct effort to restore balance to the situation in the Mediterranean by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and on the first cruise it reached Toulon on 19 February 1801, providing vital reinforcements to the remnants of the fleet there. The second expedition, launched from Toulon a month later, was forced back to the port by a combination of bad weather and the British blockade. The third expedition actually reached the Eastern Mediterranean and a fruitless attempt was made to land troops at Benghazi, before British ships from the blockade of Egypt successfully drove Ganteaume's forces away. The French squadron returned to Toulon by 22 July, at which point the expedition was called off. Despite his failure to land troops in North Africa, Ganteaume did win a series of minor victories over lone British warships, including the frigate HMS Success and the ship of the line HMS Swiftsure, and several of his ships detached during the third expedition were subsequently involved in the Algeciras Campaign in July. Ultimately the inability of the French to break through the British blockade of Egypt resulted in the defeat and surrender of the garrison there later in the year.

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