The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei / Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office

by A. J. Sargent

When we think of these sieges, we can perhaps understand better why Gibraltar, rather than any of the other four towns, holds the key to the Strait. When our fleet was away the fortress was powerless and the enemy could close the passage. A fleet alone could keep it open, but a fleet, now as then, must have a harbour close at hand as a base. In the case of Gibraltar only of the five towns do we find both fortress and fleet together.

The history of Gibraltar in the nineteenth century has been mainly concerned with the difficulties of governing its miscellaneous population and the problem of improving the defences and adapting them to the ever-changing conditions of modern warfare. Towards the end of the century the need of further dock accommodation for the fleet became pressing. The new harbour was begun in 1893, but while it was in course of construction the science of artillery was also making great progress, and it has been pointed out that the docks could be assailed by the fire from long-range guns hidden behind the hills on the mainland. So from the purely military point of view the fortress is perhaps less impregnable than in former times.

In the matter of internal administration there has been much improvement. Gibraltar has gained a bad reputation in the past for climate and health. The bare rock adds to the burning heat of the summer sun; the town is shut off from fresh breezes by the hill, and when the Levanter blows from the east, and heavy clouds hang over the summit of the ridge, the clammy air makes the heat still more oppressive. There have been severe epidemics on the Rock, due largely to the bad drainage of the old town and the want of sufficient water. Most of the rain falls in the winter months, and a heavy downpour is soaked up at once by the porous rock. There are no springs, so the water is collected in tanks from the roofs of the houses, while the authorities have built reservoirs and artificial catches on the lower hill slopes and have set up condensing engines as a reserve in time 14 of need. Here is one of these catches on the north peak above Catalan Bay; it is made of sheets of corrugated iron, coated with cement, and lies like a roof over the porous sand beneath. There are wells, too, on the low ground to the north; but the water is brackish and not good for drinking. Better drainage and more water have greatly changed the condition of the town; so that the water famines and epidemics of the past are not likely to recur; but food must always be imported, as there is no room to grow it on the Rock, with its small area and poor soil.

Yet all is not bare and dry, as we shall see if we continue 15 our tour of the peninsula. We drive through the old south gate to the Alameda gardens, the beauty spot of 16 Gibraltar. Here are shaded walks and open spaces as in an English park, though many of the plants are strange to us. But we are even here reminded of the fortress, 17 since on the level parade ground we see the troops of the garrison at drill in the cool of the early morning. Our 18 road runs through a grove of trees; there is the southern suburb in front of us, and below as we turn round is spread 19 out the harbour and dockyard, with the calm bay of Algeciras beyond. We pass more old fortifications spanning 20 the road, and come out above Europa point, the southern outlook of the Rock. Here is the lighthouse, which we 21 saw from the steamer, standing on the low cliffs. We have left the trees behind us and all is bare and windswept; but the fresh breeze brings relief after the stifling heat of the town, and so in this corner the Governor 22 has his summer cottage. Here is a view taken from it. We continue our walk round the eastern side of the point, 23 past the old batteries, only to find that the path ends suddenly, where the hill comes sheer down into the sea. As we have a special permit, let us climb the heights and see what is beyond the corner. The narrow ridge 24 with its sharp peaks stretches away to the north; we are looking along its steep eastern slope. Down below, in a little hollow, hemmed in by the sea and the hill, is 25 the village of Catalan Bay, with its colony of Genoese fishermen, descendants of those who settled on the Rock when the Spanish inhabitants left it two centuries ago. 26 Here are the fishermen and their boats at close quarters. Beyond the bay is a long line of surf beating on the low eastern shore of the isthmus, and in the distance, hidden by the mists, the range of the Sierra Nevada. On the 27 middle peak is the signal station, with the old wall of Charles V. running down the hillside; and behind it the aërial line joining the station to the town. Here ends our journey. The signal station is the eye of Gibraltar, ever watching the sea and the Strait, and ready to give instant warning of an enemy’s coming to the guns and ships below.

We think of Gibraltar to-day as one of the most valuable and necessary links in the chain of communication with the East; yet in the eighteenth century, some of the most patriotic and far-seeing among English statesmen were ready and even eager to restore it to Spain. Over and over again it was offered in exchange for some other place, or as a bribe for the Spanish alliance. In 1728, the Cabinet was prepared to surrender it without any return; Lord Townshend, writing to our ambassador, explains why they hesitated. “I am afraid that the bare mention of a proposal which carried the most distant appearance of laying England under an obligation of ever parting with that place would be sufficient to put the whole nation in a flame.” Even in 1783, after the great siege, we proposed to exchange Gibraltar for Porto Rico. The policy of our ministers was not so unreasonable as it seems at first sight. Our trade with the Near East was not increasing, and we had no special interests in the Mediterranean, so that it seemed a waste of strength to maintain a costly fortress there, when all that we could spare was needed for the defence of our distant dominions. In fact, France seemed to be the Power marked out by her history and geographical position as the natural ruler of the inland sea; and it was the sentiment of the English people rather than any practical justification in the conditions of the time which made us cling obstinately to our conquest.

We may realize more clearly the place of Gibraltar in British policy if we turn for a moment to another outpost in this region, which we held for most of the eighteenth century. Minorca was captured soon after Gibraltar, and the two were commonly associated since they both served a like purpose. Gibraltar divided Carthagena 28 from Cadiz, and Toulon from Brest; it was a bar to the union of the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets of France or Spain. But in the eighteenth century France was the more dangerous enemy, and from the point of view of our relations with France, Minorca was more valuable than Gibraltar. Minorca had no land attack to fear and was better placed than Gibraltar for keeping guard over Toulon, the great arsenal of the French navy in the Mediterranean. The value of both stations lay in their influence on our fights in the Atlantic and the English Channel, since our road to India was round the Cape and we had no thought of the Mediterranean as an alternative. At the end of the century the eyes of British ministers were opened, when Gibraltar became associated not with Minorca but with Malta. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who first directed our policy towards Egypt and drove us to the occupation of Malta.

In 1797, Minorca was no longer ours; we had retired from Corsica and Elba after a short occupation, and not a single British warship was to be seen east of Gibraltar; the Mediterranean became for a time a French lake. Napoleon had been waiting and planning for this, and at once started on his great expedition to Egypt and the East. The expedition was part of a far-reaching design: Egypt was to be colonized by France, a canal cut through the Isthmus of Suez, and England to be attacked by way of India, while the Dutch and Spanish fleets kept us busy in the North Sea and the Atlantic. The defeat of the Dutch off Camperdown and of the Spanish off Cape St Vincent upset this elaborate plan, and in the spring of 1798 Nelson was in the Mediterranean. The French had a week’s start; their destination was uncertain. They were expected in Ireland, Sicily, Portugal; anywhere but in Egypt. Napoleon had been in Egypt for a month when Nelson’s long search ended in the battle of the Nile and the consequent cutting off of the French from their supports at home.

Malta had been occupied by the French without trouble, as there was treachery within the walls; it needed two years of blockade by the Maltese people, aided by our fleet, to compel the garrison to surrender. Still we did not realize its value. At the peace of Amiens we agreed to give it back under guarantees to the Knights of St. John, in spite of the strong protests of the Maltese. We prepared to withdraw our troops, but changed our plans at the last moment, through suspicion of Napoleon’s design; and the island remained in our possession with the full concurrence and goodwill of its inhabitants. When the war broke out again, the French occupied Italy; but Sicily was guarded by the British fleet and was used by us as a base from which to harry the French on the mainland and cut off their supplies by sea. It was a fine object-lesson in the value of a secure island base in these waters as an aid to the command of the sea.

A glance at the map will make clear the importance 29 of the position of Malta. It lies midway between Gibraltar and Port Said, the entrance and exit of the Mediterranean, where Sicily stretching out towards the projecting corner of Africa divides the long narrow sea into two distinct basins. The entry to the eastern half is either by the broad passage between Cape Bon and Sicily, or by the narrow strait of Messina. Malta blocks the one passage and is within easy reach of the other.