Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet (26 June 1827 – 11 June 1885) was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign (1883–86) and the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).
Courbet was born in Abbeville in 1828 as the youngest of three children. His father died when he was nine years old. He was a Polytechnician.
From 1849 to 1853 Courbet served as a midshipman (aspirant) on the corvette Capricie...
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Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet (26 June 1827 – 11 June 1885) was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign (1883–86) and the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).
Courbet was born in Abbeville in 1828 as the youngest of three children. His father died when he was nine years old. He was a Polytechnician.
From 1849 to 1853 Courbet served as a midshipman (aspirant) on the corvette Capricieuse (capitaine de vaisseau Roquemaurel). Capricieuse circumnavigated the globe during this period and cruised for several months along the China Coast, giving Courbet his first experience of the seas in which, thirty years later, he would win fame. After his return to France he was posted to the brick Olivier, attached to the Levant naval division. In December 1855, at Smyrna, he intervened to quell a mutiny aboard the Messageries impériales packet Tancrède, and was subsequently commended for his conduct by the navy ministry. He was promoted...
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