On This Day In History: Battle Of Lagos Took Place Between Royal Navy Of Britain and France – On August 19, 1759

AncientPages.com - On August 19, 1759, the naval Battle of Lagos between the Royal Navy of Britain and France, which began one day earlier, continued.

This historical event happened off the coasts of Spain and Portugal and is named after Lagos, Portugal.

An engraving shows the Namur (center) fighting in the 1759 Battle of Lagos, a critical incident in the Seven Years' War Credit: National Maritime Museum

It was part of a series of critical British victories over French-led opponents during the Seven Years' War for the British. The battle was crucial to the foundation of the naval mastery that Britain enjoyed after 1759.

Edward Boscawen harried the French Mediterranean fleet until they were forced to split up. Those few that stayed to fight were burned or captured.

The result was that the French could rely only on their Atlantic fleet, based at Brest, to realize their ambitions for the rest of the war. They were irrevocably weakened and forced to take risks that would not otherwise have been necessary.

The result was the destruction of that French Atlantic fleet at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in November 1759.

The Battle of Lagos made it possible to obtain this result.

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