Edmond Jurien de la Gravière
Encyclopedia
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, Finistère
Finistère
Finistère is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.-History:The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel...
– 4 March 1892) was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
admiral, son of Admiral Pierre Roch Jurien de La Gravière
Pierre Roch Jurien de La Gravière
Pierre Roch Jurien de La Gravière was a French naval officer.- Biography :Born at Gannat in Allier, La Gravière entered the service under the name Jurien Desvarennes as a novice pilot on the corvette La Favorite in May 1786.Volunteer aspirant on the frigate La Flore 29 November 1787, aspirant, 1st...
, who served through the Revolutionary
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
and Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
and was a peer of France under Louis-Philippe.
He entered the navy in 1828, was made a commander in 1841, and captain in 1850. During the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
he commanded a ship in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
. He was promoted to be rear-admiral on 1 December 1855, and appointed to the command of a squadron in the Adriatic in 1859, when he absolutely sealed the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n ports with a close blockade. In October 1861 he was appointed to command the squadron in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
, and two months later the expedition against Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
On 15 January 1862 he was promoted to be vice-admiral. During the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
of 1870 he had command of the French Mediterranean fleet, and in 1871 he was appointed director of charts. As having commanded in chief before the enemy, the age-limit was waived in his favor, and he was continued on the active list. Jurien died on 4 March 1892.
He was an author of voluminous works on naval history and biography, most of which first appeared in the Revue des deux mondes. Among the most noteworthy of these are Guerres maritimes sous la république et sous l’empire, which was translated by Lord Dunsany under the title of Sketches of the Last Naval War of Admiral Jurien; La Marine d'autrefois (1865), largely autobiographical; and La Marine d'aujourd'hui (1872). In 1866 he was elected a member of the Academy.