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Action of 18 August 1798 — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-11-07T11:48:03.660Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 8f5d1b09366f7086e6e82420f56712092caa82331d2969140c867cebfbf2384f
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_b5960698d736

How to cite

Action of 18 August 1798 — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798 (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_b5960698d736 (Metraipolis archive dc_b5960698d736, sha256 8f5d1b09366f7086e6e82420f56712092caa82331d2969140c867cebfbf2384f)

BibTeX

@misc{dcb5960698d736,
  title = {Action of 18 August 1798 — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_b5960698d736; sha256 8f5d1b09366f7086e6e82420f56712092caa82331d2969140c867cebfbf2384f},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

The action of 18 August 1798 was a minor naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between the British fourth rate ship HMS Leander and the French ship of the line Généreux. Both ships had been engaged at the Battle of the Nile three weeks earlier, in which a British fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had destroyed a French fleet at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. Généreux was one of only four French ships to survive the battle, while Leander had been detached from the British fleet by Nelson on 6 August. On board, Captain Edward Berry sailed as a passenger, charged with carrying despatches to the squadron under Earl St Vincent off Cádiz. On 18 August, while passing the western shore of Crete, Leander was intercepted and attacked by Généreux, which had separated from the rest of the French survivors the day before. Captain Thomas Thompson on Leander initially tried to escape the much larger French ship, but it rapidly became clear that Généreux was faster than his vessel. At 09:00 the ships exchanged broadsides, the engagement continuing until 10:30, when Captain Louis-Jean-Nicolas Lejoille made an unsuccessful attempt to board Leander, suffering heavy casualties in the attempt. For another five hours the battle continued, Thompson successfully raking Généreux at one stage but ultimately being outfought and outmanoeuvred by the larger warship. Eventually the wounded Thompson surrendered his dismasted ship by ordering his men to wave a French tricolour on a pike. As French sailors took possession of the British ship, Lejoille encouraged systematic looting of the sailors' personal possessions, even confiscating the surgeon's tools in the middle of an operation. Against the established conventions of warfare, he forced the captured crew to assist in bringing Leander safely into Corfu, and denied them food and medical treatment unless they co-operated with their captors. Lejoille's published account of the action greatly exaggerated the scale of his success, and, although he was highly praised in the French press, he was castigated in Britain for his conduct. Thompson, Berry and most of the British officers were exchanged and acquitted at court martial, and the captains were knighted for their services, while Leander and many of the crew were recaptured in March 1799 by a Russian squadron that seized Corfu, and returned to British control by order of Tsar Paul. Généreux survived another year in the Mediterranean, but was eventually captured off Malta in 1800 by a British squadron under Lord Nelson.

Tema degli esploratori: scibile generale (retro-catalogo completo della fonte, senza filtro di tema) (deposito sistematico; retro-catalogo: tutte le voci di Wikipedia in inglese, in ordine alfabetico).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Action of 18 August 1798» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798
Wikidata Q2984973: «1798 minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars» (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2984973
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_18_August_1798?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1370426077, consultata il 2026-11-07T11:43:57.825Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: 97b724b5783ceed046131bb03d1aa465293116127d91bcd0c12389ac82a0d225