Corsair

Etymology

The word “corsair” was borrowed of Italian corsaro him even derived from Latin course , “race”.

The war of race

The war of race was often used by a belligerent to mitigate the insufficiency of its means against an adversary having naval supremacy.

It is thus the Stratégie of the French against the English during most of the 18th century and during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. The two principal ports in France were Dunkirk and Saint-Malo, followed by Calais, Boulogne, Grandville and others. The race is abolished by international treaty in 1856.

In the same way, during the two world wars, although the expression " corsaire" that is to say used wrongly in this context, the German navy armed with the commercial buildings for the war with the trade combined in secondary theaters where the traffic was not organized in convoys (Indian Ocean, Pacifique, South Atlantic). Adventures of these " corsaires" are generally picturesque but without much consequence on the course of the two conflicts.

Ships corsairs

The corsairs , wrongly confused with the Pirate S, carry on their activity only in time of war and with the authorization of their government. Captured, they are entitled to the statute of prisoners of war. They often used ships of small size, rapids, operating and discrete to at sea carry out boardings more by surprise that by force. When “fortune” smiled to them, they could remove boats of strong tonnage (the emblematic capture of the Kent by the flute Confidence of Robert Surcouf the August 31st 1800) but often commercial, not very favourable with their activity and that they often resold.

Spoils

When a corsair returned to good port with a catch, there was auction of this catch. The product of this sale was then divided between the people having collaborated in the capture of the enemy in the order of the priorities:

the king took between 20 and 40 percent (it is him which provided the letter of mark).
expenses (one paid food, the powder, the ammunition, as well as the repairs made during the voyage).
widows and casualties (the widows twice took the share of their late husbands, and the casualties had an allowance, fixed at the beginning according to the missing part of the body, in addition to their share).
the ship-owner took then 50 percent of the remainder.
Lastly, each man had his share according to his place in the crew (the mousse=demi-part, the capitaine=25 shares, the chirurgien=25 shares etc…)

For more information, to consult the articles on the ships corsairs .

Modern corsairs

Nowadays, the " course" is abolished except notable for the United States. According to the American constitution, the Congrès preserves the right of " to declare the war, to grant letters of mark and reprisals and to establish regulations on the catches on ground and mer" (Article 1, section VIII). The United States never signed the Déclaration of Paris of 1856 which abolished the race.

During the Second world war , Germany used ships corsairs to carry the conflict in the oceans of the South in order to disorganize the British trade. Trading vessels were armed, their modified superstructures and these buildings raised neutral houses of country. Thus transformed into auxiliary cruisers they furrowed the southern Indian Ocean in particular between 1940 and 41. The Atlantis (run by the English cruiser Devonshire on November 21st, 1941), the Pinguin (run by the Cornwall ), the Komet foamed water of the Kerguelen islands. There was also the Orion , the Widder , the Thor , the Kormoran (run by the Australian cruiser Sydney ), the Michel (cast in front of Japan), the Stier (run by an American ship in South Atlantic) foamed all the oceans of the world.

Very recently, the Bush administration, after the attacks of the September 11th, 2001 , reinforced the constitutional law of catches at sea while making vote a law, September 11 Marque and Reprisal Actes off 2001 , which authorizes the State Department to grant letters of mark without awaiting the downstream of the Congress. Thus people or companies can be seen entrusting offensive naval military missions. In 2007, a private american company, the Pistris company, was seen granting a letter of mark to arm a ship flying American flag charged to track the pirates in the Golfe of Aden.

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