The Commodore
Encyclopedia
The Commodore is a Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower is a fictional Royal Navy officer who is the protagonist of a series of novels by C. S. Forester. He was later the subject of films and television programs.The original Hornblower tales began with the 1937 novel The Happy Return Horatio Hornblower is a fictional Royal Navy...

 novel written by C. S. Forester
C. S. Forester
Cecil Scott "C.S." Forester was the pen name of Cecil Louis Troughton Smith , an English novelist who rose to fame with tales of naval warfare. His most notable works were the 11-book Horatio Hornblower series, depicting a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic era, and The African Queen...

. It was published in the United States under the title Commodore Hornblower.

Plot summary

Having achieved fame and financial security, Captain Sir Horatio Hornblower has married Lady Barbara Leighton (née Wellesley) and is preparing to settle down to unaccustomed life as the squire of Smallbridge in Kent. He still yearns to serve at sea and accepts with alacrity when the Admiralty puts him in command of a squadron and sends him on a diplomatic and military mission to the Baltic. His primary aim is to bring Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 into the war against Napoleon.

Hornblower is shown dealing with the problems of squadron command, and using naval mortars (carried on special ships known as bomb vessel
Bomb vessel
A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannon —although bomb vessels carried a few cannon for self-defence—but rather mortars mounted forward near the bow and elevated to a high angle, and projecting their fire in a...

s) to destroy a French prize. This leads to the French invasion of Swedish Pomerania
Swedish Pomerania
Swedish Pomerania was a Dominion under the Swedish Crown from 1630 to 1815, situated on what is now the Baltic coast of Germany and Poland. Following the Polish War and the Thirty Years' War, Sweden held extensive control over the lands on the southern Baltic coast, including Pomerania and parts...

. Later his squadron calls at Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...

, where he meets with Russian officials, including Tsar Alexander I
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

, who is favourably impressed by Hornblower and his squadron.

After Russia enters the war, Hornblower's squadron takes an important role in the defence of Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

, which is besieged by French forces. The bomb vessels again take an important role, and so do amphibious operations
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...

 under the protection of the squadron. The siege is finally broken, and Hornblower joins the pursuit of the French armies on horseback, only to fall seriously ill with typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

.

During the siege and pursuit, Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier and German military theorist who stressed the moral and political aspects of war...

, a German officer in Russian service, who is later to become famous as a military theorist and writer, is a character.

The novel occasioned some controversy when it was published. It appeared as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post, and Hornblower, in a sexual encounter with a (married) Russian Countess, was the Posts first adulterer. As Forester says in his Hornblower Companion, "...it really caused quite a flutter". Forester wanted to give Hornblower the opportunity to catch typhus, although he does comment that he believes that Hornblower caught typhus during the siege rather than in bed.

This book shows Hornblower's contrary character more strongly than many preceding books in the series. In particular, he is shown to be unable to be happy or self-satisfied in spite of accomplishments highly valued by others, including both professional and personal success. It also shows a growth of paternal feeling by Hornblower toward junior officers.

The historical accuracy of this book is limited: Forester later wrote that he did not know what British naval forces, if any, were engaged at the siege of Riga. (Historically they were commanded by Thomas Byam Martin
Thomas Byam Martin
Admiral Sir Thomas Byam Martin, GCB was a highly influential British Royal Navy officer who served at sea during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and then as a naval administrator until his death in 1854...

.) The date of publication (1945) reveals Forester's preoccupation in The Commodore—he parallels the political situation with that in the second world war. In both cases, Russia was originally allied with a continental dictator (Hitler:Napoleon) but changed sides after being treacherously invaded. In both cases Sweden remained neutral and traded with both sides. Russia similarly occupied other Baltic territories (Finland, Lithuania etc.) raising doubts about the correct response among the British government. In The Commodore (but not in the real Napoleonic period), as in the second world war, the RN offered substantial help to Russia: at the siege of Riga, and by guarding the Arctic convoys. Less obviously, Forester draws parallels between the early 19th century and his own time in one or two of the other Hornblower novels.

See also

  • The Commodore
    The Commodore (novel)
    The Commodore is an historical novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, written by British author Patrick O'Brian and published by HarperCollins in 1995. It is the seventeenth volume in the Aubrey-Maturin series. The novel features the adventures of naval commander Jack Aubrey, and his friend, ship's...

     is also the title of a 1995 Aubrey–Maturin series
    Aubrey–Maturin series
    The Aubrey–Maturin series is a sequence of nautical historical novels—20 completed and one unfinished—by Patrick O'Brian, set during the Napoleonic Wars and centering on the friendship between Captain Jack Aubrey of the Royal Navy and his ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin, who is also a physician,...

     novel by Patrick O'Brian
    Patrick O'Brian
    Patrick O'Brian, CBE , born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centred on the friendship of English Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen...

    .
  • The Commodore: A novel of the Sea (1986) is a novel written by Jan de Hartog
    Jan de Hartog
    Jan de Hartog was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker.- Early years :...

  • Commodore (rank)
    Commodore (rank)
    Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...

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