Thomas Cochrane (1775-1860) – Brief Profile & History

Thhomas Cochrane influenced world history through a broad spectrum of achievements. He excelled in the British navy, where he implemented innovations in ship propulsion which changed the course of sea power. Then, during a break in service, he assisted the independence movements in Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Greece. Fi¬nally, his work in chemical warfare marked him as a genius to some and as a strange eccentric to others as he developed the first real plans for what would lead to gas warfare in World War I.

After his birth in 1775 at Anesfield, Lanarkshire, Cochrane lived under the early influence of his father, who impoverished his family through scientific experimentation, and his uncle, a naval officer. At age seventeen, Cochrane joined the latter as a midshipman and in 1800 advanced to the rank of lieutenant in command of the Royal Navy’s brig Speedy. With the brig,, Cochrane took more than fifty prizes, including the Spanish frigate El Gumo in 1801.

Cochrane’s personal bravery and seamanship earned him the respect of his subordinates and the praise of the British public, but his idealism and outspoken manner induced ire among his supe¬riors and distrust among the admiralty. In April 1809, Cochrane led a successful fire-ship attack against the French at Aix Roads, near Brest, but his criticism of his fleet commander’s failure to ex¬ploit the initial victory led to a court-martial.

Cochrane had also damaged any naval career ambitions by his election to Parliament in 1807, where he protested what he con¬sidered poor administration of the navy. By 1814, Cochrane had made enemies within the navy and the government, who disliked him enough to arrange for him to be tried^for stock market fraud. The court convicted the totally innocent Cochrane, dismissed him from the navy, and removed him from his seat in Parliament.

For the next decade Cochrane hired out his naval skills to rev-olutionary causes. In May 1817 he accepted an offer to command the Chilean navy in their war of independence against Spain. Using a campaign of sea blockades, bombardments of shore installations, and landing-party raids, Cochrane demolished Spain’s naval control of Chilean waters by 1820. The following year, he turned his ships northward to assist JOSE DE SAN MARTIN in liberating Peru.

Cochrane remained in Chile as a hero of the newly liberated country until, as usual, he quarreled with the government and be¬came disenchanted with the peace he had helped win. In 1823, Cochrane again took command of a rebel navy, this time in Brazil and against Portugal. With only two frigates, Cochrane harassed the Portuguese fleet of sixty transports and thirteen warships, sink¬ing several and denying others entry to the harbor at Maranhao to refit and resupply. This forced the fleet to return to Portugal, as¬suring the success of the Brazilian war of independence.

Once again, Cochrane proved inept in getting along with his superiors once hostilities ceased. In 1825 lie accepted command of the infant Greek navy, but he could not muster sufficient support from the government to launch a fleet of any significance. In frustration he returned to England and in 1829 cleared his name of the fraud charges. After much haggling, he secured a pardon from the king and reinstatement into the Royal Navy in 1832.

Cochrane, somewhat mellowed by age, fared better with his superiors as he commanded the American and East Indian Stations from 1848 to 1851, earning a promotion to admiral. During this time, he became a strong advocate of steam power and screw propulsion using tube boilers, innovations he continued to experiment with for the remainder of his long life. He died in London on October 30, 1860, at age eighty-five.

Cochrane’s application of steam propulsion certainly influ¬enced the Royal Navy, and his assistance to other countries gready contributed to their gaining independence. While these feats are remarkable, it is yet another accomplishment, one that in his time never got beyond the planning stage, that places Cochrane on this list of influential military commanders.

Beginning in 1811, Cochrane advocated a “secret war plan” to destroy harbor and land defenses. By the time of the Crimean War, in 1854, Cochrane had refined his plan to employ “explosion ships and stink vessels” to overwhelm land-based defenses with no loss of friendly forces. The design of explosion ships, or “temporary mor¬tars,” resembled huge claymore mines—ships’ hulls layered first with a clay base, then topped with tons of gunpowder and covered with metal fragments, glass, and nails. To add further harm, the plan called for bomblike canisters to be blown from the floating mortars and to explode on contact with the land. Cochrane calcu¬lated that three of these explosive ships, properly positioned off¬shore and detonated, could impact a half-mile-wide defensive fortification or ships at anchor in the harbor.

Cochrane also proposed the construction of “stink ships,” with alternating layers of clay, charcoal, and sulphur, which, when lit, would create a “noxious effluvia” carried inland by the winds and kill or disable enemy defenders. To supplement this gaseous cloud, the navy could pour tar and naphtha into the water, ignite these chemicals with potassium, and let the tide carry the fiery mass into the enemy harbor. Oncp the fumes dissipated, marines could land to secure the area.

When Cochrane proposed this first use of gas warfare in 1811, he found litde support. . During the Crimean War in 1854, however, the admiralty seriously considered’ employing the explosion and stink ships at Sevastopol but feared possible in-kind retaliation by the Russians. The fall of the port city in 1855 ended the debate, and the Royal Navy sealed all records of Cochrane’s recommenda¬tions. Unsealed in 1908, Cochrane’s “secret war plans” undoubt¬edly influenced the use of gas warfare in World War I.

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