Speaker: Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers

The Defence Studies Department (DSD) is pleased to invite you to the third departmental research seminar on Tuesday, December 10th at 13:00, where we will be joined by Rachel Blackman-Rogers (DSD). Rachel will be giving a talk entitled, ‘How the Navy Saved Britain, 1793-1798’, which will be followed by a Q&A session.

Despite a traditional historiography that during the French Revolutionary Wars Britain was strategically paralysed by the unlimited threat of invasion, in political and financial crisis and with every theatre in dispute, this paper will adopt a Clausewitzian/Corbettian approach to demonstrate that this was not the case. Instead, it is clear that from the onset of the war Britain understood that Revolutionary France posed two unlimited threats to its security: invasion and interference. Consequently, it looked back to the previous unlimited wars against Louis XIV of 1689-1714 as a template to mobilise Britain politically, militarily and financially. It then used its maritime power to secure command of the sea and its finances to support the war in Europe as an insurance policy against the costs of home defence.

By the beginning of 1795 Britain had achieved its maritime objectives, however, France did not negotiate. Instead, it remembered that its success during the American War of Independence had been forged from a maritime federation and had soon reconstructed and expanded its unlimited threat to Britain’s political existence. Consequently, His Majesty’s Navy had to evolve its strategy and undergo a cultural and organisational transformation. As a result, Britain was secured from the unlimited threat of revolutionary France, the enemy could not use the sea and was locked into Europe and Egypt, and Britain had resolved itself to continue the war to save Europe from French hegemony.

Please note: This event will be held live in person at the JSCSC, UK Defence Academy and online via Microsoft Teams

About the Speaker

Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers is currently a lecturer in Defence Studies at King’s College London. She was awarded her PhD from King’s College London in Naval History in 2023. She has been actively involved in the podcast, The Napoleonic Quarterly, as a presenter and contributor on eighteenth century naval warfare since 2020. Prior to returning to academia after a career break, Rachel was a senior strategist for BBC News, and also worked as a research analyst at INSEAD business school for the Heineken Chair of Marketing.