Fort Saint Louis (Martinique)

Fort Saint Louis is under command of the capitaine de vaisseau in charge of the navy and the naval air forces for the Caribbean (COMAR ANTILLES).

One Engins de Débarquement Amphibie – Standards (EDA-S) landing craft is to be delivered to naval forces based in Martinique by 2025.

[2] In 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc and the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique established a French colony in Martinique, which the company governed until 1650.

In 1638, Jacques Dyel du Parquet (1606-1658), nephew of Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc and first governor of Martinique, decided to have Fort Saint Louis built to protect the city against enemy attacks.

The fort was soon destroyed, and rebuilt in 1669, when Louis XIV appointed Jean-Charles de Baas-Castelmore, the Marquis of Baas, as governor-general.

On 19 July 1674, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Admiral de Ruyter led a Dutch fleet of eighteen warships, nine storeships, and fifteen troop transports bearing 3,400 soldiers in an attack on the fort.

Sieur de Gemozat, the Lieutenant du Roi (an engineering officer), was the only member to absolutely reject the option to surrender.

During their attack, Commander Charles John Napier of the brig-sloop Recruit noticed that Fort Edward, as he termed it, appeared abandoned.

Sir Alexander Cochrane immediately landed marines to occupy the fort and turn its mortars, which its fleeing garrison had not spiked, against the French.

[3] Admiral Louis Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse, who had become Governor-General in September 1802, was still in office at the time of the British attack.

A Court of Inquiry in Paris in December 1809 stripped the Admiral and some of his subordinates of their rank and honors, holding them responsible for problems with the fortification of Fort Desaix and the subsequent loss of the island.