Sir Thomas Cochrane: The British Naval Officer Who Proposed Saturation Bombing & Chemical Warfare During the Napoleonic Wars

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As a proponent of steam vessels and reform in the navy, Cochrane stayed active, but he spent only three years (1849­1851) on full pay, as commander in chief of the West Indies station. In 1853, as the possibility of war in the Crimea increased, Cochrane proposed to the Admiralty the use of explosion ships and stink vessels at Sevastopol on the Black Sea, or in the Baltic at Kronstadt, as a means of destroying Russian entrenchments. The idea was quickly dismissed by First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Graham.

The next year brought the certainty of war, and Cochrane–then 79 years old–was considered for placement as commander in chief of the Baltic fleet. The fact that he was passed over was not due to his advanced age, however. Graham explained in a letter to Queen Victoria that Prime Minister George Aberdeen and his cabinet feared that Cochrane’s ‘adventurous spirit’ would lead him to perform’some desperate enterprise,’ which might complicate the difficult international situation. In July 1854, Cochrane again urged Graham to employ his patent stink vessels to route the Russian troops away from the fortifications of the harbor at Kronstadt, so that a British landing could be made and the enemy’s guns manned and turned on the Russian ships anchored beneath the batteries. He even offered his services as a consultant to accompany Sir Charles Napier, who had been given charge of the British fleet. Once more, however, the scheme was rejected, and Napier sailed to the Baltic, where he eventually failed to subdue Kronstadt.

Cochrane supported Napier’s efforts publicly, but informed a newspaper correspondent that he had provided the government with a plan that could solve the problem. No journalistic investigation appears to have been undertaken to determine the nature of that plan, even though Cochrane sought command of the fleet in 1855 when the new prime minister, Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston, came to power.

Once again, Cochrane suggested to the press that utilization of his unnamed innovative devices would mean that a little more than a week of fair weather in the Crimea would be enough to settle the conflict. Cochrane took his appeal to Parliament, where he sought support for forcing the government to employ his new weapons against the enemy. Public support increased for using the weapon, and it was even suggested that private funds be used to equip the admiral with the resources he needed to get the job done independently.

Throughout the debate, the details of the scheme remained secret. In the board room at the Admiralty, the plan showed the stink vessels with layers of coke and sulphur ready to emit their choking fog. Added to the scheme, however, was the intention to create a smoke screen by burning barrels of tar or pouring naphtha onto the surface of the harbor and igniting it with potassium. Cochrane figured that a few hours would accomplish what months of debilitating conventional warfare had failed to achieve. Palmerston’s government appeared to be close to sanctioning the strategy when Sevastopol was taken in September 1855, followed soon by the war’s end. All discussion of the revolutionary weapons was dropped, and the plans were sealed away on the shelves reserved for confidential materials at Whitehall.

Sir Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, died on October 31, 1860. His secret war plans remained secure until 1908, when Lord Palmerston’s correspondence was published. Less than a decade later, the sulphuric yellow clouds of mustard gas ravaged thousands in the trenches of France.

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Tags: 19th Century, Historical Figures, Military Technology, Napoleonic Wars, Weaponry

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