Napoleonic Invasion of Ireland

[IchBinDieKaiser]

It is quite unanimously agreed that an invasion of Britain by Napoleon would be quite impossible. What if he tried invading Britain from a place less friendly to them, like Ireland?
The Irish are no friends of England, and they might be more willing to colaborate with the Napoleonic forces.
Could this kind of invasion be successful?

What about an Invasion of Wales? Just wondering.

 

[Thande]

Er...the French did invade Ireland and Wales. You might want to research the subject before you post a thread like this.

 

[Flocculencio]

Er...the French did invade Ireland and Wales. You might want to research the subject before you post a thread like this.

One suspects the last invasion of England would gain more publicity if it had occurred at a slightly more heroic sounding place than Fishguard.

 

[Faeelin]

Er...the French did invade Ireland and Wales. You might want to research the subject before you post a thread like this.

Napoleon didn't though, so he was dead on in his post.

 

[Andrew Hudson]

An attempted invasion of Ireland in 1796 failed owing to bad weather despite managing to elude the Royal Navy.

In 1798 there were a few attempted small invasions of Ireland in Mayo and Donegal. A thousand soldiers landed in Mayo and were defeated quickly but the Donegal invasion never got ashore and was intercepted by the Royal Navy.

In other words there have been attempts to invade that failed

 

[Atlantic Friend]

There was General Humbert's soldiers in 1798 IIRC. They did land in Ireland and fight there, before dissolving as troops deprived of supplies tended to do a lot, in these days.

 

[Thande]

Realistically Napoleon had less chance than the earlier French Revolutionary attempts, I would say, given how the French Navy had decayed and been bottled up in harbour for so long so it was largely crewed by inexperienced and incompetent individuals.

I suppose if Napoleon had managed to obtain the Danish fleet in 1806...but it's still unlikely, his strategies always focused on "making the Channel his for six hours" for a quick dash across before interception was possible. Trying to reach Ireland by that point, given the overwhelming superiority of the RN, would be near suicide even without the weather problems the earlier Revolutionary attempts faced.

 

[Wolf]

According to my copy of Historical Atlas of the 19th Century World 1783-1914 by John Haywood with Brian Catchpole there was a Battle of Carrick fought in 1798 but I can't find anything about it on the Genocide.

 

[rcduggan]

According to my copy of Historical Atlas of the 19th Century World 1783-1914 by John Haywood with Brian Catchpole there was a Battle of Carrick fought in 1798 but I can't find anything about it on the Genocide.

I found it on Wikipedia! Here's what I did: searched Google Books and found this, a snippet that revealed it was alternately called the Battle of Collooney. I then Googled and found this basic list of Napoleonic battles, amongst which is Collooney. And finally I came to the Wikipedia article.

 

[Wolf]

I found it on Wikipedia! Here's what I did: searched Google Books and found this, a snippet that revealed it was alternately called the Battle of Collooney. I then Googled and found this basic list of Napoleonic battles, amongst which is Collooney. And finally I came to the Wikipedia article.

Ah ok. I was wondering because I trust the Atlas more than the Genocide.

 

[Evil Tristin]

It is quite unanimously agreed that an invasion of Britain by Napoleon would be quite impossible. What if he tried invading Britain from a place less friendly to them, like Ireland?
The Irish are no friends of England, and they might be more willing to colaborate with the Napoleonic forces.
Could this kind of invasion be successful?

What about an Invasion of Wales? Just wondering.

Didnt France try to invade Ireland in 1796 or 97?

 

[Faeelin]

There was General Humbert's soldiers in 1798 IIRC. They did land in Ireland and fight there, before dissolving as troops deprived of supplies tended to do a lot, in these days.

I think a Hoche invasion in 1796 might go somewhere; the British didn't have many troops on teh island, and the United Irishmen hadn't been crushed yet.

The British blockade would bite eventually, of course. But given his experience in the Vendee, I'm pretty confident he'd prove pretty good at giving the British a hard time for a while.

 

[MerryPrankster]

If Napoleon had expressed interest in Fulton's steamship designs and for whatever reason couldn't use them to cross the Channel, he might try to use them for an Irish invasion.