The Commodore. By C.S. Forester

The Commodore

C. S. Forester (1945)

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Sir Hornblower is now the Squire of the village of Smallbridge, a property that he has purchased with his prize money and made a home for himself, his wife Barbara and his son Richard. He is appointed Commodore aboard the Nonsuch with Captain Bush (with a wooden leg) in command of the ship, and sent to the Baltic sea to keep an eye on the goings on between Sweden, Russia and France.  He has a political adviser on board by name of Braun, who fled Finland on its conquest by Russia. They pass through the narrow straits between Denmark (in French hands) and Sweden (neutral), are fired upon by batteries at Amager on the southern tip of the strait on the Danish side, but get through with some damage. The British fleet tries to blockade all shipping helpful to France. It hunts down a French privateer that seeks refuge in a harbour beyond the reach of the Nonsuch’s guns. However the fleet has a couple of ‘bomb’ vessels, i.e. ships carrying mortars and land guns, and these are used to destroy the French ship. He then escorts a British emissary from Sweden to the Russian court at St. Petersburg in an attempt to force Tsar Alexander to declare war on France. There he prevents an attempt by Braun to assassinate the Tsar, and has a brief affair with one of the ladies of the Russian court.  Later a landing party destroys much of the coastal shipping off the coast of Konigsberg. Russia declares war on France, and Hornblower and his fleet go to Riga to help the besieged town. There are descriptions of land battles here, directed by Clausewitz, then a Prussian general in Russian service. Hornblower meets him, discusses battle tactics with him, and takes part in some of the battles, and helps in the eventual rout of the French army from Riga, at the same time as Napolean’s main force is in retreat from the Russian winter. At the end of the book he collapses, and the reader may believe he dies, but in the next book we are told this was the effect of typhus, from which he duly recovers on his return to England. Many of the events in this book, especially the events in war between Russia and France, are familiar from ‘War and Peace’ and the biography of Napoleon.