(Recto) The 'Ville de Paris', French flag ship, Besika Bay, 22 July 1853- (verso) The French fleet joining the English in Besika Bay, 14 June 1853 RMG PZ0881-003

(Recto) The 'Ville de Paris', French flag ship, Besika Bay, 22 July 1853: (verso) The French fleet joining the English in Besika Bay, 14 June 1853
No. 33 of 36 (PAI0849 - PAI0884).
(Recto) Inscribed 'Ville de Paris Flag ship, Besika Bay / July 22nd 1853', this shows the ship from water level astern, off the starboard quarter. A coast is to the left with a steamer close under it and there is a lower coastline to the right. The 'Ville de Paris' has her davits and a boom out, with boats suspended on the former and three moored to the latter. Another boat pulls across from the right. The drawing occupies two-thirds of the sheet, the other third completes another drawing on the facing page and shows a small Turkish fishing boat with six men standing in it, off a coastline which extends partly under the 'Ville de Paris' drawing.
(Verso) Inscribed top, left 'Island of Tenedos'; right, 'Rabbit Islands'; lower left, ‘GP Mends / French Fleet joining the / English Fleet in / Besika Bay / June 14th 1853’; and along the bottom from rear to front of the eastward- (right-) heading line, ‘Charlemagne screw 90 [guns], Monte Bello 120, Mogador [steamer], Napoléon screw 90, Valmy 120 / Rear Flag , Magellan [steamer], Henri IV 100, Caton [steamer], Bayard 100, Jupiter 90, Sané,[steamer] Ville de Paris 100 / Vice Flag’. Behind the last ships on the left is Tenedos, with the small 'Rabbit Islands' behind those to the right.
In the early summer of 1853, in response to the start of Russian aggression against the Ottoman empire, the British Mediterranean fleet based at Malta under Vice-Admiral James Dundas, in the 120-gun 'Britannia', was ordered to rendezvous with the French fleet in Besika Bay, on the Turkish coast between the islands of Tenedos and Lesbos. They reached there well ahead of the French, who had left Toulon in March for Salamis and should have been waiting for them. It turned out vice-versa since the French admiral, de Lassuse, in spite of having steamers, only proceeded under sail from Greece, while the British used steamers to tow their larger sailing ships. De Lassuse was immediately recalled and replaced by Vice-Admiral Hamelin before both fleets conjointly moved into the Dardanelles in October, to support Turkey in what became the opening stages of the Crimean War.

The 'Ville de Paris', French flag ship, Besika Bay - panorama