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To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines
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165 Wellington Street West
Pickup available, usually ready in 24 hours165 Wellington Street West
Unit 2B
Barrie ON L4N 1L7
Canada+17057224884
Here is the extraordinary story of an important, prophetic, yet often neglected event in U.S. history: America's first war against an Arab despot.
For centuries, four nations along the northern rim of Africa, then known as the Barbary Coast—Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco—had been terrorizing merchant shippers, capturing and looting their vessels and imprisoning their crews for ransom. With a vital lifeline of the infant United States threatened by the Barbary pirates, President Thomas Jefferson faced one of the first major challenges to U.S. foreign policy. He could continue trading arms for hostages with the Barbary Coast rulers or he could meet force with force. Jefferson decided to send a squadron of warships to the Mediterranean while Congress was in recess, and in doing so prompted the first major U.S. debate on the war-making powers of the president. Though faced with a fait accompli, Congress voted not for a formal declaration of war but authorization for the president to use force if he found it necessary—which he promptly did.
What became known as the Barbary War forced Americans who had disbanded the Continental Navy to establish a new U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The war included a blockade of Tripoli, followed by sustained bombardment by the high-tech weapons of the time, America's powerful new frigates. the ground war that followed, with an army captain and eight U.s. marines leading a motley coalition of Christians and Arabs to invade Tripoli, was successful beyond expectations. But President Jefferson settled for a peace treaty that left the bashaw on the throne, whereupon the other Barbary Coast tyrants renewed their harassment of American shipping in intermittent hostilities that lasted for nearly two more decades.
The Barbary War throngs with fascinating personalities: Jefferson, the lonely widower pacing the echoing room of the unfinished White House; hot-tempered Commodore Edward Preble, whose iron discipline made his Mediterranean squadron the "Nursery of the Navy"; Yusuf Karamanli, the tyrannical bashaw who boasted, "I do not fear war; it is my trade," and continued to bluster even in defeat; U.S. Army Captain William Eaton, an early-day Lawrence of Arabia, who by sheer willpower kept his starving, feuding foreign legion marching 500 miles across the desert to invade Tripoli; Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, the tough, raw-boned frontiersman, who brought along his violin; and a host of potentates and politicians, sailors and soldiers of fortune, hostages and harem women.
A.B.C. Whipple has written a rousing narrative of a significant but little-remembered war; it is also a cautionary tale, the lessons of which are valid nearly two hundred years later.
For centuries, four nations along the northern rim of Africa, then known as the Barbary Coast—Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco—had been terrorizing merchant shippers, capturing and looting their vessels and imprisoning their crews for ransom. With a vital lifeline of the infant United States threatened by the Barbary pirates, President Thomas Jefferson faced one of the first major challenges to U.S. foreign policy. He could continue trading arms for hostages with the Barbary Coast rulers or he could meet force with force. Jefferson decided to send a squadron of warships to the Mediterranean while Congress was in recess, and in doing so prompted the first major U.S. debate on the war-making powers of the president. Though faced with a fait accompli, Congress voted not for a formal declaration of war but authorization for the president to use force if he found it necessary—which he promptly did.
What became known as the Barbary War forced Americans who had disbanded the Continental Navy to establish a new U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. The war included a blockade of Tripoli, followed by sustained bombardment by the high-tech weapons of the time, America's powerful new frigates. the ground war that followed, with an army captain and eight U.s. marines leading a motley coalition of Christians and Arabs to invade Tripoli, was successful beyond expectations. But President Jefferson settled for a peace treaty that left the bashaw on the throne, whereupon the other Barbary Coast tyrants renewed their harassment of American shipping in intermittent hostilities that lasted for nearly two more decades.
The Barbary War throngs with fascinating personalities: Jefferson, the lonely widower pacing the echoing room of the unfinished White House; hot-tempered Commodore Edward Preble, whose iron discipline made his Mediterranean squadron the "Nursery of the Navy"; Yusuf Karamanli, the tyrannical bashaw who boasted, "I do not fear war; it is my trade," and continued to bluster even in defeat; U.S. Army Captain William Eaton, an early-day Lawrence of Arabia, who by sheer willpower kept his starving, feuding foreign legion marching 500 miles across the desert to invade Tripoli; Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon, the tough, raw-boned frontiersman, who brought along his violin; and a host of potentates and politicians, sailors and soldiers of fortune, hostages and harem women.
A.B.C. Whipple has written a rousing narrative of a significant but little-remembered war; it is also a cautionary tale, the lessons of which are valid nearly two hundred years later.