Skip to content
Surf Wiki
Save to docs
people/1640s

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Anne Hilarion de Tourville

French Navy officer


French Navy officer

FieldValue
nameAnne-Hilarion de Tourville
honorific_suffixKOSM
imageTourville-musee-marine.jpg
captionPortrait of de Tourville
birth_date
birth_placeParis, Kingdom of France
death_date
death_placeParis, Kingdom of France
allegianceKnights Hospitaller
Kingdom of France
branchNavy of the Order of Saint John
French Navy
rankMarshal of France
serviceyearsc.1660 (Malta)
1666–1693 (France)
commandsLevant Fleet
unit*Soleil Royal*
awards[[File:Ordre de Saint-Michel Chevalier ribbon.svg25px]] Order of Saint Michael
relationsLouise-Françoise d'Hymbercourt
signatureSignatur Anne Hilarion de Costentin de Tourville.PNG

Kingdom of France French Navy 1666–1693 (France) Cretan War

  • Candia Expedition 1669 Franco-Dutch War
  • Battle of Solebay 1672
  • Battle of Augusta 1676 Nine Years' War
  • Battle of Beachy Head (1690)
  • Raid on Teignmouth
  • Action at Cherbourg (1692)
  • Battles of Barfleur and La Hougue
  • Battle of Lagos (1693)

Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, Comte de Tourville (24 November 1642 – 23 May 1701) was a French Navy officer who served under King Louis XIV. Born in Paris, he was made a Marshal of France in 1693. Tourville is considered by some as one of the most talented naval officers in French military history.

Military career

At age 17, as a Knight of Malta, he fought his first naval battle on a frigate of the Order of Malta. At 25, he joined the French Royal Navy and began an active career, fighting the 1673 campaign of the Franco-Dutch War on the Sans-Pareil, at the Battle of Augusta where he was in command of the Syrene, and later in command of the Sceptre.

He served under Abraham Duquesne during the campaigns of 1676, and became a commander in 1690 during the Nine Years' War. He flew his personal flag on the Soleil Royal, where it would stay until the battles of Barfleur and La Hougue in 1692. At the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, he defeated an Anglo-Dutch fleet, sinking, destroying or capturing seven enemy ships. Three days later he led a fleet of galleys which raided the town of Teignmouth but this proved controversial and Tourville was relieved of command by Louis XIV for failing to take advantage of the naval supremacy in the English Channel.

Tourville was eventually reinstated, and on 29 May 1692, at the action at Barfleur, with only 45 ships he fought against an Anglo-Dutch fleet of 97 ships, but was forced to retreat. His fleet suffered heavy losses after the battle when English and Dutch fire ships attacked several French ships of the line which were immobilized for repairs in port at Cherbourg-en-Cotentin. On 27 June 1693, he defeated an Anglo-Dutch convoy led by George Rooke during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

Honours and tributes

Tourville mg 5199.jpg|Wooden statue of Tourville, on display at Toulon naval museum TourvilleStatue 08.jpg|Marble statue of Tourville, by Joseph Charles Marin in Tourville-sur-Sienne TourvilleStatue 02.jpg|Marble statue of Tourville, by Joseph Charles Marin in Tourville-sur-Sienne

Tourville retired after the 1697 Peace of Ryswick and died in Paris on 23 May 1701, regarded as a national hero.

A number of French naval vessels from the 18th through 20th centuries were named in Tourville's honour. An 1816 marble statue of Admiral Tourville, by French sculptor Joseph Charles Marin, formerly in the Jardin de Versailles, features prominently in the Village of Tourville-sur-Seine (Normandy, Manche Département) hometown of Tourville ancestors, though Anne-Hilarion de Tourville himself was born in Paris and not in the ancestral castle of Tourville-sur-Sienne.

References

Attribution:

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Anne Hilarion de Tourville — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report