Awash on Unfriendly Tides: The Algeciras Campaign of 1801

After the devastation of the French fleet at the hands of Nelson in the Battle of the Nile, the remnants of the French navy in the Mediterranean were forced into drastic measures to reassert control in a hostile sea. To fulfil the wishes of Bonaparte, a fleet under contre-amiral Linois, trapped in Toulon, must make a daring escape from the Mediterranean and reunite with the Atlantic fleet at Cadiz. But between them and safety are the narrow, claustrophobic confines of the Straits of Gibraltar and the blockading fleet of Rear Admiral Saumarez with specific orders to hunt down any French ships daring to break the Royal Navy’s stranglehold on this coast. Through the logbooks of the ships, memoirs of those present, and the accounts of those who witnessed it, Awash on Unfriendly Tides recounts the lengths Linois and his officers went to in order to evade the Royal Navy for a few days more and the bloody-minded determination of Saumarez to sink or burn them before they reached Cadiz.