L'Invasion du Grande-Bretagne

I'm not sure a successful diversion to land troops is going to make for a successful invasion. For the French to keep their supply lines they need naval domination, otherwise they're simply going to end up with a major chunk of their army cut off on foreign soil.

Conflans Fleet will ensure the channel is open after ferrying the final troops over.

However, until then the French can live off the land (and captured British supplies), the supplies they brought on the transports with them, and supplies ferried over by the original troop transports (I doubt the British will manage a full blockade of the French Coast when their fleet whose task it was to do that is mostly destroyed or scattered)
 
325 Transports were needed to move 50,000 men, so France needs 650 to move all of their people. France spent about 30 million Livres to build 325 ships, and spending another 30 million (while expensive) isn't inconceivable, and It could theoretically be less since the French are planning to move people in two waves.
Even so, you apparently have them building all of those ships within only a year or thereabouts... and I seriously doubt that they had anywhere near that much "spare" shipbuidling capability (on top of the capability needed for repairing damaged warships and replacing worn-out ones) available...
 
Even so, you apparently have them building all of those ships within only a year or thereabouts... and I seriously doubt that they had anywhere near that much "spare" shipbuidling capability (on top of the capability needed for repairing damaged warships and replacing worn-out ones) available...

They managed 325 in about half a year, I think they can manage to get another 200 and repair the damaged ships at Le Havre at the same time.
 
Pearsonwright,

I have just joined this forum after stumbling on it by accident as an amateur historian rather than an alternative historian. I hope you don't mind me asking a few questions about your timeline which will hopefully prompt more debate.

Specifically it is the Scottish part of your timeline which I have the questions about: a French force of 20k lands on the Clyde and then accumulates 12k Jacobites in 2 days in their advance to Glasgow.

History places the landing on the Clyde and expects 20,000 Jacobites to flock to the French. Perhaps given the size of the French force there would be a large number of Jacobite Highlanders willing to join them but I would suggest it would take weeks, not days for the Highlanders to hear about the landing and then head south to strengthen the French. Did the French plans also take into account The Act of Proscription of 1746 which effectively disarmed the highlanders. The French may have had volunteers but did they also have the weapons to arm them?

Therefore Can I ask where the 5,000 Jacobites on day one and 7,000 on day two have come from? I ask because the area around Glasgow did not produce large numbers of Jacobite troops in 1745-6. Quite the opposite in fact.

The Clyde is a big stretch of water so where have they landed; Ayrshire, Dunbartonshire or Renfrewshire? Does history provide us with detail of the French plans (if they had got as far as choosing a landing place) or are you going to chose the landing point yourself?

North of the Clyde is near the lands of the Duke of Argyll -a staunch supporter of the Government and home of the Argyll Fencibles raised in 1759. They may have been no match for French regulars but may have put a stop to Jacobite recruits reaching Glasgow from the Highlands.

South of the Clyde will not produce any of the highlanders which made up such a large proportion of the Highland Army thirteen years before and I would suggest most Lowland Scots would see a large French force as being invaders, not liberators, especially if they had to provide the supplies the French needed on the march.

Are the French in Scotland there to stay or to march south- were the real plans to march on Edinburgh and Dundee or is that your idea? Are 20k Frenchmen being sent to Scotland to capture it or are they there to march south as a pincer to aid the main attack in England?

I would also suggest that as well as stimulating a Jacobite recruitment drive the landing would also mean anti-French /anti-Jacobite fencibles and militia would be raised in Scottish towns and cities. They may not be much use against French regulars but would be useful in keeping Jacobite recruit numbers down. See the Earl of Loudon's force in 1746 (not the 64th Highlanders - but the loyal independent companies he commanded from Inverness and later Dornoch)

I hope this helps rather than hinders your thoughts

Kind regards

HMD
 
I am slightly worried about the numbers of French soldiers being used.

5000 troops (assuming none killed) to secure Southampton and Portsmouth AND the supply routes from Portsmouth to London. Given than the two cities must of had a population of 100,000 (including the Royal Navy officer academy) this seems to be an incredibly low number to secure the land.

This leaves 45,000 troops to cliam London, a city with a population of about 700,000 (compaired to the 560,000 of Paris). Even if only 10% are of fighting age it would leave the French with almost a 2:1 disadvantage.

Given that George II was the last British monarch to lead troops in battle I can't see him just fleeing from Windsor to America(?).
 
GP

There were a total of 100k French troops available in 1759. If 50k had already landed on the South coast and 20k in Scotland, the 5k in Southampton/Portsmouth would be bolstered by another 30k shortly afterwards - weather permitting.

Because of imperial commitments in 1759 regular British forces in the south of England would be outnumbered by the French.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_French_Invasion_of_Britain_(1759)

General Ligonier estimated that he would have only 10,000 regular troops immediately available to resist any French landing

There would have been Militia available but untrained and poorly armed troops, however enthusiastic, are unlikely to be able to outfight regulars even if they outnumber them.

The same applies to the London populace. Outnumbering the French is one thing but taking on an army without training, arms or equipment is another.

I would like to see more detail on the composition of the French expeditionary forces in England and Scotland and the British troops available in the UK in late November 1759 (regular and militia/ fencible) to see if there would have been any serious opposition to the French landings.

HMD
 
They managed 325 in about half a year, I think they can manage to get another 200 and repair the damaged ships at Le Havre at the same time.
Have they actually got the materials for building those other 200 in stock? If that construction wasn't pre-planned then its far more likely that building the first 325 pretty much stripped the shipyards of supplies, which it would take a while to replenish...
And with that sort of construction rate earlier on, compared to historical Royal Navy construction rates and bearing in mind what I've read about the two nations' relative capabilities in that respect, I strongly suspect that they only managed the first 325 so quickly because as those were intended for a specific mission rather than as long-term additions to the fleet the construction process focused on building speed rather than durability... possibly even using 'green' timber in some cases rather than the properly-seasoned timber that would have been in shorter supply. And if that was the case then by the time they'd built that further 200 a number of the first batch would already be falling apart just due to contact with the weather & tides.
EDIT: And at that date copper sheathing, which was by far the most effective protection against both shipworm and fouling, hadn't yet come into use... so they'd have a half-year's worth of those problems, too.

Also, could they have found enough additional trained seamen to crew those extra 200 transports properly? That was a field in which France definitely was at a disadvantage compared to Britain...
 
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