Admiral Suffren in the Indies

The bailiff de Suffren died of a heart attack on the eve of the French Revolution. ‘Had he been alive in my time’, Napoleon said wistfully on St Helena, ‘he would have been my Nelson.’ Today, though France’s most modern warship is called after him, Suffren’s is not a household name, even in France. For Pierre Andre de Suffren, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and Vice Admiral of France, was born too soon and promoted too late.

When he died he had no heirs. Indeed, if we can believe Clerk of Eldin, it was Nelson who understood the greatness of Suffren and sailed into action off Trafalgar with the Scotch laird’s Essay on Naval Tactics open at the description of the Battle of Sadras. There on February 17th, 1782, the Bailiff had tried, a few miles off the Coromandel coast, to escape from the sterile confrontation of line of battle squadrons.

By concentrating on his opponent’s rear and centre, by engaging him on both sides, he hoped to break the English line; once it was broken, he could fight the rest of the battle pell-mell with the advantage of numbers.