Why did the French land in north Pembrokeshire In 1797 and how were they defeated so quickly?
Why did the French land in north Pembrokeshire
In 1797 and how were they defeated so quickly?
Assignment 1
Near my home town of Fishguard a man called William Tate landed on the North Pembrokeshire coast in Carreg Wasted. This was the last invasion of main land Britain. The invasion did not work the French were defeated quickly. The question we have to ask is why did then land in north Pembrokeshire? And How where they defeated so quickly?
In 1797 the French revolution broke out with the battle of Bastille in Paris. Later, in 1793, the revolutionaries captured the monarchs, King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, they were both executed. Source a2 shows King Louis XVI getting executed, this is useful as it shows the execution but it is only a sketch so it doesn’t show the horror of the actual execution. A new Revolutionary Government now controlled France. The British Government was now worried. After seeing what had happened in France, they believed that their people could do the same and rebel against them. This meant Britain had to take action. In 1793, Britain declared war on France. After this, a military man named Lazare Hoche, he planned a three pronged attack. He planned to attack Ireland in hope that they would rebel against Britain and have their freedom. He planned to send ships to north England to get support for the revolution and to distract British troops. The third part of the plan was to send troops to Bristol; they planned to burn the city to the ground. The first and second plans failed due to bad weather. The third plan went ahead, it is not known why Lazare Hoche went ahead with the third plan, maybe he didn’t mind if William Tate got killed. The third plan was to travel up the Bristol Channel, land in Bristol then burn the city to the ground. As the French fleet approached the Bristol Channel, they were spotted making their landing in Bristol impossible without threat of attack by British Troops.
