The 1759 French invasion project

Choiseul believed an army that crossed the Channel could exploit Britain's relative weakness on land. Preparations included hundreds of flat-bottomed transports, rapid embarkation drills, and an invasion force that fell from an imagined 100,000 troops to about 48,000 ready participants. Plans for landings in southern England and Scotland assumed favourable winds, limited supplies, and a Jacobite rising, while a British raid destroyed some transports at Le Havre. Weather, changing objectives, and the difficulty of proceeding without naval cover steadily altered the project, bringing the Brest fleet back into the centre of the problem.