The French Republic, its forces having overrun…
March 1797 CE
The French Republic, its forces having overrun the neighboring Dutch Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars, had then reorganized the country as a client state named the Batavian Republic, and it has joined France against the allies in the War of the First Coalition.
One of the most important Dutch assets of which the French have gained control is the Dutch Navy, which had been captured in its frozen harbor in the island of Texel by French cavalry advancing across the ice.
The Dutch fleet has provided a substantial reinforcement to the French forces in Northern European waters, which are principally based at Brest on the Atlantic Ocean and whose main opponent was the Royal Navy's Channel Fleet.
The location of the main anchorage of the Dutch fleet in the waters off the Texel have prompted a reorganization of the distribution of British warships in Northern European waters, with a new focus on the importance of the North Sea.
The French Navy had suffered a series of one-sided defeats in the opening years of the war, suffering heavy losses at the Glorious First of June in 1794 and during the Croisière du Grand Hiver the following January.
In late 1796, after prompting from representatives of the United Irishmen (a society dedicated to ending British rule of the Kingdom of Ireland), the French Atlantic Fleet had launched a large scale attempt to invade Ireland, known as the Expédition d'Irlande.
This too had ended in disaster, with twelve ships lost and thousands of men drowned in fierce winter gales.
Their ambitions frustrated, the representatives of the United Irishmen, led by Wolfe Tone, have turned to the new Batavian state for support and are promised assistance in the coming year by a united French and Dutch fleet.
A plan is formulated to merge the French and Dutch fleets and attack Ireland together in the summer of 1797.
Tone joins the staff of Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter on his flagship Vrijheid at Texel and thirteen thousand five hundred Dutch troops are equipped in preparation for the operation, the fleet waiting only for the best moment to take advantage of easterly winds and sweep past the British blockade and down the English Channel.