Battle of Hyères Islands

Battle context

The Battle of the Hyères Islands was a fleet engagement between a combined British-Neapolitan force and the French Mediterranean Fleet during the summer of 1795. It formed part of a pattern of French naval difficulty that had persisted since the opening of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, during which the French fleet had sustained a series of damaging defeats and been confined largely to limited operations along the French Mediterranean coast under allied blockade pressure. Pierre Martin's fleet had already suffered the loss of two ships at the Battle of Genoa earlier in 1795, after attempting to test that blockade in the Gulf of Genoa. The Hyères Islands action represented another instance of the French fleet's constrained operational posture in this theater, with British commanders including William Hotham and Horatio Nelson maintaining pressure on French naval freedom of movement in the Mediterranean.