Planned French invasion of Britain (1744)

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In 1744, France planned to invade Britain as part of the War of the Austrian Succession and amid the Jacobite rising. Paris hoped a quick strike would knock Britain out of the war and break its alliances with Austria, Hanover and the Dutch. The plan was to land an army in southern England and install the Jacobite claimant James Edward Stuart as James III in London.

France built a large invasion force at Dunkirk, led by Marshal Maurice de Saxe, with about 6,000 to 15,000 regular troops. They also prepared many flat‑bottomed transport ships to carry the army across the Channel. The aim was to land near Maldon in Essex. The French believed Jacobite sympathizers in Britain would help, but in reality promised support proved unreliable.

Britain prepared defenses. Some 7,000 regular troops were devoted to London and the southeast, and the Dutch promised about 6,000 troops to aid Britain. The Dutch arrival would come only in late March, too late to alter the invasion.

A French squadron under Rocquefeuil sailed from Brest on January 26 to clear the Channel, while the main invasion force gathered at Dunkirk under Saxe. The French expected the British fleet to be in Portsmouth, but Admiral John Norris’s fleet was actually off The Downs, closer to the route.

On February 27 Rocquefeuil reached Dungeness, spotted Norris, and withdrew. Norris pursued, but a violent storm hit, saving Rocquefeuil’s ships. The main invasion fleet had already sailed and was crippled by the bad weather. Twelve French transport ships sank, seven of them with all hands, and the survivors limped back to Dunkirk.

With the invasion route blocked and ships damaged, the French government aborted the plan and redirected troops to Flanders to fight the Dutch and Hanoverians. The failed 1744 invasion influenced later French plans, including a much larger but unsuccessful attempt in 1759.

In Britain, the broader war continued. France later helped support a smaller Jacobite rising in Scotland (1745–46), but that rebellion ended at Culloden in 1746. Attempts to invade Britain again in 1779 and 1804 also failed.