The Cavalry Battle At Sea

In the aftermath of France's Revolution, the French Revolutionary Wars that followed from 1792 until 1802 pitted the new republic against Austria, Great Britain, and several other monarchies, including Holland. The aftermath left the French with a number of new territories across Europe and across the Atlantic, including the Louisiana Territory.

In one bizzare episode from the early days of these wars, a French cavalry regiment managed to capture a Dutch fleet of 14 ships on horseback! On the tip of the North Holland peninsula lies the town of Dan Helder, which was once separated from the small island of Texel by an inlet of the shallow bay of Zuiderzee (which means 'southern sea' in Dutch, though it is really part of the North Sea).

Léon Morel-Fatio, Capture of The Dutch Fleet.

In the autumn of 1794, General Jean-Charles Pichegru oversaw the campaign into the Netherlands , entering Amsterdam with his army in January of the following year, with the intent to spend the winter. He quickly established an efficient intelligence network, and soon learned of a fleet anchored at Den Helder, 50 miles to the north. As luck would have it for the French, it had turned into an unusually cold winter, and the Zuiderzee was frozen over. The best ships of the Dutch fleet, along with 850 heavy guns were trapped in the ice, unable to maneuver, flee, or give chase.

General Jan Willem de Winter was sent with a Hussar (Hungarian or central European cavalrymen) regiment to take the ships. They arrived at night on the 23rd of January, with each horse wearing fabric booties to maintain silence for the element of surprise. In addition, each Hussar carried an infantryman with him on his horse. The short-lived Battle of Texel started when Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Joseph Lahure began the assault across the ice, which held up under the cavalry charge. They quickly boarded to vessels and met no resistance; soon all the ships and guns, as well as the Dutch Admiral, were in the raiders' hands.

Charles Louis Mozin

Later in the war, de Winter would command the captured ships against their makers in the Battle of Camperdown, when the French defeated the Batavian (re-organized Dutch Republic) Navy. Eventually, France gave the ships back to the Batavian Republic under the Treaty of The Hague. Several Dutch historians dispute the accuracy of the French accounts of the incident, however. They instead argue that the Dutch Admiral was already under orders to hand the ships over, and that the frozen cavalry crossing was merely a meeting to discuss terms of the transfer.