Battle of Schooneveld - First Battle

First Battle

On 2 June 1673 (New Style; 23 May in the Julian calendar then in use in England), the allies, deciding they had waited long enough, approached the Dutch fleet. Prince Rupert had a considerable superiority in ships (eighty-six against sixty-four), men (24,295 to 14,762) and cannon (4,826 to 3,157) — indeed the Dutch admirals nicknamed their fleet the "Little Hope". The Dutch fleet was smaller than usual because the Admiralty of Frisia was unable to assist, that province and Groningen being attacked by Bernhard von Galen, bishop of Münster. However a sudden storm prevented a battle. On 7 June, the wind blowing from the northwest, Rupert tried again and arranged his own squadron of the Red in the van, the French squadron of the White commanded by Jean II d'Estrées in the centre, and Sir Edward Spragge's squadron of the Blue in the rear. The Dutch van was commanded by Tromp, the centre by Lieutenant-Admiral Aert Jansse van Nes under direct supervision of De Ruyter himself and the rear by Lieutenant-Admiral Adriaen Banckert.

Rupert, convinced that the smaller Dutch fleet would withdraw to Hellevoetsluis when pressed, detached a special squadron at nine in the morning to cut off the retreating Dutch from the north. In this taskforce he concentrated all lighter ships from the regular squadrons so that it would be able to manoeuvre more easily over the shoals. However De Ruyter didn't budge. When however the squadron at last returned to the main allied line, joining Rupert's squadron, the Dutch started to move, but surprisingly in the direction of the enemy. This forced Rupert to attack immediately to prevent the Dutch from gaining the weather gauge, before he could form a proper keel line.

The battle began at noon and lasted for nine hours. Using his superior knowledge of the shallow waters, De Ruyter was able to manoeuvre his fleet so close to the shoals that the allies found it difficult to engage without grounding.

Rupert first made contact with the squadron of Cornelis Tromp. He had now about half of the allied fleet with him. Sailing slowly to the northeast after some time he reached the edge of the basin. This gave him the opportunity to surround Tromp from the north with the mass of frigates while simultaneously using his favourable windward position to attack him directly from the west with the heavy English ships. The frigate squadron was now in complete disarray however and couldn't execute such a complicated manoeuvre. Nor did Rupert choose the direct attack. He was much criticised for this afterwards and defended himself by claiming his approach would have been blocked by shoals. This was simply not true and Rupert knew it. Whatever his motives he turned to the southwest, both fleets bombarding each other from a distance, the Dutch inferiority in numbers compensated by the fact that their leeward position gave their guns a better range and the lack of a proper battle line in the enemy squadron.

De Ruyter had at first closely followed Tromp; but becoming aware the French flotilla of de Grancey had joined Spragge against Banckert, creating a gap in the French line, he suddenly tacked to the southwest, separating Tromp from the rest of the Dutch fleet. This greatly surprised the French fleet. The French main force of d'Estrées, both frightened and delighted by what it saw as a brilliant manoeuvre, disengaged slowly to the northwest to keep the weather gauge, but like Rupert didn't use this position to attack. This caused De Ruyter to comment: "The De Zeven Provinciën can still inspire awe among its enemies". The Dutch centre now moved in opposite tack behind the enemy rear. Spragge understood that if De Ruyter reached the southern edge of the basin his force would be trapped between the Dutch centre and rear. He immediately broke formation to tack to the southwest also, narrowly escaping to the west with his flotilla, but leaving the flotilla's of Ossorey and Kempthorne behind with that of de Grancey in a slower turn in the same direction. Banckert now united his squadron with the Dutch centre by making a similar but larger turn, sailing behind De Ruyter. The Dutch supreme commander had thus gained an excellent position: the enemy fleet was now divided in four uncoordinated parts and he could attack the confused enemy rear with a numerical superiority having the weather gauge. At that moment he had no knowledge of Tromp's situation however and typically decided not to take any unnecessary risks but to join Tromp with the remainder of the Dutch fleet instead, saying: "First things first; it's better to help friends than to harm enemies". He tacked to the northeast, Banckert now in front, towards both vanguards moving in the opposite direction. Seeing him approach Tromp yelled to his men: "There's Granddad! (the Dutch sailors used this term of endearment for De Ruyter) He's coming to help us. I in return shall never abandon him, as long as I can breathe!" That these things needed to be said at all shows the underlying political divisions within the Dutch fleet. As the Dutch crews of the van had become rather nervous by the size of their opposing force, Tromp had for hours pretended to be in signal contact with the Dutch centre. The allied rear could now escape to the west also.

When the Dutch main force reached Tromp it again tacked to the southwest forming a perfect continuous line of battle with his squadron. The allied rear tried to do likewise with their centre and van, but its formations remained very confused. Spragge, having moved far to the north to reach Tromp, his personal enemy, now inserted his flotilla between d'Estrées and Rupert. The combined Dutch fleet then broke repeatedly through the many gaps in the allied line and Rupert, worried by the mounting disorder in his fleet, was happy to disengage at nightfall, only halting his retreat at first light, when it became clear the Dutch weren't pursuing. Two French ships were lost, one Dutch ship was captured and then recaptured, and one, Deventer (70), sank after grounding the next day. Dutch Vice-Admiral Volckhard Schram (of the van) and Rear-Admiral David Vlugh (of the rearguard) were killed.