Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811
| Mauritius campaign | |||||||||
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| Part of the Napoleonic Wars | |||||||||
 Ceylon and Vénus, Pierre Julien Gilbert, 1835 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 United Kingdom
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 French Empire
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Josias Rowley Henry Keating Albemarle Bertie and others |
Charles Decaen Jacques Hamelin and others |
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British victory
The Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811 was a series of amphibious operations and naval actions fought to determine possession of the French Indian Ocean territories of Isle de France and Île Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. The campaign lasted from the spring of 1809 until the spring of 1811, and saw both the Royal Navy and the French Navy deploy substantial frigate squadrons with the intention of disrupting or protecting trade from British India. In a war in which the Royal Navy was almost universally dominant at sea, the campaign is especially notable for the local superiority enjoyed by the French Navy in the autumn of 1810 following the British disaster at the Battle of Grand Port, the most significant defeat for the Royal Navy in the entire conflict. After their victory, the British used the original Dutch name of Mauritius for Isle de France. In 1814, Île Bonaparte was returned to France, who eventually renamed it La Réunion.
The Royal Navy had been planning an operation against Isle de France since neutralizing the threats from Cape Town and Java in the Dutch East Indies in 1806, but was forced to act earlier than expected following the despatch from France of a powerful frigate squadron under Commodore Jacques Hamelin in late 1808. This French force was able to capture a number of East Indiamen and disrupt trade routes across the Indian Ocean by raiding the convoys in which the merchant ships travelled. Forced to confront this enemy, Admiral Albemarle Bertie at the Cape of Good Hope ordered Commodore Josias Rowley to blockade the French islands and prevent their use as raiding bases.
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