Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith (21 June 1764 – 26 May 1840) was a British naval officer and politician. Serving in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, he rose to the rank of admiral in the Royal Navy. Smith was known for his outspoken character and penchant for acting on his own initiative, which caused a great deal of friction with many of his superiors and colleagues.
Smith's military skill, personal intelligence and enterprise led to his involvement in a variety of tasks which involved warfare, diplomacy and espionage. He became a hero in Britain for leading the successful defence of Acre in 1799, thwarting Napoleon's plans of further conquest in Ottoman Syria. Napoleon, reminiscing later in his life, reportedly said of him: "That man made me miss my destiny". From p. 299: "Mais son regret fut tel, que malgré sa destinée inouïe, on lui a entendu répéter souvent, en parlant de Sidney-Smith: Cet homme m'a fait manquer ma fortune." (But his [i.e., Napoleon's] regret was such that despite his extraordinary destiny, one heard him often repeat, in speaking of Sidney-Smith: That man made me miss my chance.)
Early life and career Sidney Smith, as he always called himself, was born into a military and naval family with connections to the Pitt family. He was born at Westminster, the second son of Captain John Smith of the Guards and his wife Mary Wilkinson, daughter of wealthy merchant Pinckney Wilkinson. Sidney Smith attended Tonbridge School until 1772. He joined the Royal Navy in 1777 and fought in the American War of Independence. From June 1777 to January 1778 he served under Commander Jahleel Brenton on board the storeship . He moved to the post ship , and in her saw action in 1778 against the American frigate .
For his bravery under Rodney in the action near Cape St Vincent in January 1780, Sidney Smith was, on 25 September, appointed lieutenant of the 74-gun third-rate , despite being under the required age of nineteen.
He distinguished himself under Admiral Thomas Graves at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781 and under Admiral George Rodney at the Battle of the Saintes. In consequence he received his first command, the sloop . He was soon promoted to captain a larger frigate, but following the peace of Versailles in 1783, he was put ashore on half pay.
During the peace, Smith chose to travel to France and first became involved with intelligence matters while observing the construction of the new naval port at Cherbourg. He also travelled in Spain and Morocco which were also potential enemies.
Service in the Swedish Navy
In 1790, he applied for permission to serve in the Swedish Navy in the war between Sweden and Russia. King Gustav III appointed him to command one light squadron and to be one of his principal naval advisers. Smith led his forces in the attempt of clearing the Bay of Viborg of the Russian fleet and later at the Battle of Svensksund (Finnish: Ruotsinsalmi, Russian: Rochensalm). The Russians lost sixty-four ships and over a thousand men. The Swedes lost four ships and had few casualties. For this, Smith was knighted by the king and made a Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword. Smith used this title, with King George III's permission.
Service in the French Revolutionary Wars
In 1792, Smith's younger brother, John, was appointed to the British embassy to the Ottoman court in Constantinople. Smith obtained permission to travel to the Ottoman Empire. While there, Revolutionary France declared war on Britain in February 1793. Smith recruited some British seamen and sailed to join the British fleet under Admiral Lord Hood which had occupied the French Navy's principal Mediterranean port of Toulon at the invitation of the French Royalist forces.
By Smith's arrival in December 1793, the Revolutionary forces, including a colonel of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, had surrounded the port and were attacking it. The British and their allies had insufficient soldiers to mount an effective defence and so the port was evacuated. Smith, serving as a volunteer with no command, was given the task of burning as many French ships and stores as possible before the harbour could be captured. Despite his efforts, lack of support from the Spanish forces sent to help him left more than half of the French ships to be captured undamaged. Although Smith had destroyed more French ships than had the most successful fleet action to that date, Nelson and Collingwood, among others, blamed him for this failure to destroy all of the French fleet.
On his return to London, Smith was given command of the fifth-rate and in 1795 joined the Western Squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren. This squadron consisted of some of the most skilful and daring captains, including Sir Edward Pellew. Smith fitted this pattern and on one occasion took his ship almost into the port of Brest to observe the French fleet.
In July 1795, Captain Smith, commanding the western frigate squadron in HMS Diamond, occupied the Îles Saint-Marcouf off the coast of Normandy. He sacrificed two of his gun vessels, and , to provide materials and manpower for fortifying the islands and setting a temporary naval garrison. Further defences were constructed by Royal Engineers, and Royal Marines and Royal Artillery detachments were established. The islands served as a forward base for the blockade of Le Havre, a launching point for intercepting coastal shipping, and as a transit point for French émigrés, and were held by the Royal Navy for nearly seven years.
Smith specialised in inshore operations, and on 19 April 1796, he and his secretary John Wesley Wright were captured while attempting to cut out a French ship in Le Havre. Smith had taken the ship's boats into the harbour, but the wind died as they attempted to leave the harbour, and the French were able to recapture the ship with Smith and Wright aboard. Instead of being exchanged, as was the custom, Smith and Wright were taken to the Temple prison in Paris where Smith was to be charged with arson for his burning of the fleet at Toulon. As Smith had been on half pay at the time, the French considered that he was not an official combatant. Whilst in the Temple prison he commissioned a drawing of himself and his secretary John Wesley Wright from the French artist Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, which is now in the British Museum.British Museum Online Catalogue - 1963,1214.14 Another drawing by Hennequin, depicting only Smith, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art..
Smith was held in Paris for two years, despite a number of efforts to exchange him and frequent contacts with both French Royalists and British agents. Notably Captain Jacques Bergeret, captured in April 1796 with the frigate Virginie, was sent from England to Paris to negotiate his own exchange; when the Directoire refused, he returned to London. The French authorities threatened several times to try Smith for arson, but never followed through on the threats. Eventually in 1798 the Royalists, who pretended to be taking him to another prison, helped Smith and Wright to escape. The royalists brought the two Englishmen to Le Havre, where they boarded an open fishing boat and were picked up on 5 May by on patrol in the English Channel, arriving in London on 8 May 1798.. Bergeret was then released, the British government considering the prisoner exchange as completed.
Service in the Mediterranean
Following Nelson's overwhelming victory at the Battle of the Nile, Smith was sent to the Mediterranean as captain of , a captured 80-gun French ship of the line which had been bought into the Royal Navy. It was not a purely naval appointment, although he was ordered to place himself under the command of Lord St Vincent, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. St Vincent gave him orders as Commodore with permission to take British ships under his command as required in the Levant. He also carried a military and diplomatic mission to Istanbul where his brother was now a Minister Plenipotentiary to the Sublime Porte. The mission's task was to strengthen Ottoman opposition to Napoleon and to assist the Ottomans in destroying the French army stranded in Egypt. This dual appointment caused Nelson, who was the senior officer under St Vincent in the Mediterranean, to resent Smith's apparent superseding of his authority in the Levant. Nelson's antipathy further adversely affected Smith's reputation in naval circles.
Napoleon, having defeated the Ottoman forces in Egypt, marched north along the Mediterranean coast with 13,000 troops through Sinai and into what was then the Ottoman province of Syria. Here he took control of much of the southern part of the province, representing modern-day Israel and Palestine, and of a single town in today's Lebanon, Tyre. On the way north he captured Gaza and Jaffa, the latter with much brutality towards the civilian population and the massacre of 3,000 captured Ottoman soldiers, whom he was unable to take with him or send back to Egypt. Napoleon's army then marched to Acre.
Smith sailed to Acre and helped the Ottoman commander Jezzar Pasha reinforce the defences and old walls and supplied him with additional cannon manned by sailors and marines from his ships. He also used his command of the sea to capture the French siege artillery being sent by ship from Egypt and to deny the French army the use of the coastal road from Jaffa by bombarding the troops from the sea.
Once the siege began in late March 1799, Smith anchored HMS Tigre and so their broadsides could assist the defence. Repeated French assaults were driven back, several attempts to mine the walls were prevented. By early May, replacement French siege artillery had arrived overland and a breach was forced in the defences. However, the assault was again repelled and Ottoman reinforcements from RhodesThe site of the acropolis in Rhodes town is still named "Monte Smith" after the admiral, who was stationed there in the early 1800s to report on the movements of Napoleon's fleet. See, e.g., Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953, page 76). were able to land. On 9 May after another fierce bombardment, the final French assault was made. This, too, was repelled and Napoleon began making plans for the withdrawal of his army to Egypt. Shortly after this, Napoleon abandoned his army in Egypt and sailed back to France evading the British ships patrolling the Mediterranean.
Smith attempted to negotiate the surrender and repatriation of the remaining French forces under General Kléber and signed the Convention of El-Arish. However, because of the influence of Nelson's view that the French forces in Egypt should be annihilated rather than allowed to return to France, the treaty was abrogated by Lord Keith who had succeeded St Vincent as commander-in-chief.
In 1801, the British landed an army under Sir Ralph Abercromby at Abukir Bay. Smith and Tigre were involved in the training and transport of the landing forces and as liaison with the Ottomans, but his unpopularity resulted in the loss of his diplomatic credentials and his naval position as Commodore in the eastern Mediterranean. The invasion was successful and the French defeated, although Abercromby was wounded and died soon after the battle. Following this Smith then supported the army under Abercromby's successor John Hely-Hutchinson, which besieged and captured Cairo and finally took the last French stronghold of Alexandria. The French troops were eventually repatriated on terms similar to those previously obtained by Smith in the Convention of El-Arish.
Service in British waters