The Art of War

by baron de Antoine Henri Jomini

Finally, the celebrated Coprougli, placed by his merits at the head of the Ottoman ministry, resolved to take the personal direction of this war which had lasted so long: he accordingly proceeded to the island, where transports had landed fifty thousand men, at whose head he conducted the attack in a vigorous manner.(1667.)

In this memorable siege the Turks exhibited more skill than previously: their artillery, of very heavy caliber, was well served, and, for the first time, they made use of trenches, which were the invention of an Italian engineer.

The Venetians, on their side, greatly improved the methods of defense by mines. Never had there been seen such furious zeal exhibited in mutual destruction by combats, mines, and assaults. Their heroic resistance enabled the garrison to hold out during winter: in the spring, Venice sent reinforcements and the Duke of Feuillade brought a few hundreds of French volunteers.

The Turks had also received strong reinforcements, and redoubled their efforts. The siege was drawing to a close, when six thousand Frenchmen came to the assistance of the garrison under the leadership of the Duke of Beaufort and Navailles,(1669.) A badly-conducted sortie discouraged these presumptuous young men, and Navailles, disgusted with the sufferings endured in the siege, assumed the responsibility, at the end of two months, of carrying the remnant of his troops back to France. Morosini, having then but three thousand exhausted men to defend a place which was open on all sides, finally consented to evacuate it, and a truce was agreed upon, which led to a formal treaty of peace. Candia had cost the Turks twenty-five years of efforts and more than one hundred thousand men killed in eighteen assaults and several hundred sorties. It is estimated that thirty-five thousand Christians of different nations perished in the glorious defense of the place.

The struggle between Louis XIV., Holland, and England gives examples of great maritime operations, but no remarkable descents. That of James II. in Ireland (1690) was composed of only six thousand Frenchmen, although De Tourville's fleet contained seventy-three ships of the line, carrying five thousand eight hundred cannon and twenty-nine thousand sailors. A grave fault was committed in not throwing at least twenty thousand men into Ireland with such means as were disposable. Two years later, De Tourville had been conquered in the famous day of La Hogue, and the remains of the troops which had landed were enabled to return through the instrumentality of a treaty which required their evacuation of the island.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Swedes and Russians undertook two expeditions very different in character.

Charles XII., wishing to aid the Duke of Holstein, made a descent upon Denmark at the head of twenty thousand men, transported by two hundred vessels and protected by a strong squadron. He was really assisted by the English and Dutch navies, but the expedition was not for that reason the less remarkable in the details of the disembarkation. The same prince effected a descent into Livonia to aid Narva, but he landed his troops at a Swedish port.

Peter the Great, having some cause of complaint against the Persians, and wishing to take advantage of their dissensions, embarked (in 1722) upon the Volga: he entered the Caspian Sea with two hundred and seventy vessels, carrying twenty thousand foot-soldiers, and descended to Agrakhan, at the mouths of the Koisou, where he expected to meet his cavalry. This force, numbering nine thousand dragoons and five thousand Cossacks, joined him after a land-march by way of the Caucasus. The czar then seized Derbent, besieged Bakou, and finally made a treaty with one of the parties whose dissensions at that time filled with discord the empire of the Soofees: he procured the cession of Astrabad, the key of the Caspian Sea and, in some measure, of the whole Persian empire.

The time of Louis XV. furnished examples of none but secondary expeditions, unless we except that of Richelieu against Minorca, which was very glorious as an escalade, but less extraordinary as a descent.

[In 1762, an English fleet sailed from Portsmouth: this was joined by a portion of the squadron from Martinico. The whole amounted to nineteen ships of the line, eighteen smaller vessels of war, and one hundred and fifty transports, carrying ten thousand men. The expedition besieged and captured Havana.—TRS.]