Men Who Have Made the Empire

by George Chetwynd Griffith

It was very easy to see that this Armed Neutrality meant in plain English that these three Powers were quite agreeable to the smashing-up of Great Britain by France provided that they were not called upon to pay any of the expenses or suffer any of the other losses of the war. Denmark was therefore politely but firmly requested to detach herself from this league, the reason being that Denmark in those days kept the key of the Baltic. Denmark refused, and unhappily for her she did so just at the time when the Victor of the Nile had come home for a well-earned holiday.

We are not accustomed now, in the pride of our unequalled naval strength, to take very much account of the fleets of these three countries, but just before the Battle of the Baltic was fought it was a very different matter.

The Danes had twenty-three line-of-battle ships and thirty-one frigates, not counting bomb-vessels and guard-ships. Sweden had eighteen ships of the line, fourteen frigates and sloops and seventy-four galleys, as well as a small swarm of gun-boats, while Russia could put to sea eighty-two line-of-battle ships and forty-two frigates.

Such a force within the narrow waters of the Baltic was a very formidable one, but before we can arrive at a just appreciation of the magnificence and importance of the service which Nelson did for his country we must remember that of all European waters those of the Baltic, and especially of the approaches to it, are the most difficult and dangerous. Even with the aid of steam it would be no light matter to take a fleet into the Baltic under the guns of Elsinore and Kronberg were the lamps of the lighthouses extinguished and all the buoys removed.

What then must it have been to go in with a fleet of sailing ships utterly at the mercy of wind and current, to say nothing of the ice? Indeed, Southey tells us that when Nelson went to Yarmouth to join the fleet under Admiral Sir Hyde-Parker he found him a little nervous about dark nights and ice-floes.

His own remarks on the subject are very well worthy of remembrance: “These are not times for nervous systems,” he said. “I hope we shall give our northern enemies that hailstorm of bullets which gives our dear country the dominion of the sea. We have it and all the devils in the North cannot take it from us if our wooden walls have fair play.”

It was a most egregious mistake not to have made the Victor of the Nile and the Conqueror of the Mediterranean commander-in-chief of the Northern Squadron. His fame was already resounding through the world, and every one except the Lords of the Admiralty seems to have already recognised the fact that he was by far the finest sailor of the age.

Here again, too, officialism at home sadly crippled the work of valour and genius abroad. As usual Nelson had his own plans, and as usual they were the very best possible. His idea was to attack the Russian Squadron in Reval and the Danish in Copenhagen simultaneously, and by preventing their coalition make it too risky for the Swedes to join in.

Captain Mahan, who is certainly entitled to be considered one of the foremost naval authorities of the day, describes Nelson’s plan of attack as worthy of Napoleon himself, and says that if adopted it “would have brought down the Baltic Confederacy with a crash that would have resounded throughout Europe.” As it was, more timid counsels prevailed, but thanks to Nelson the end was the same, or nearly so.

We may gather some notion of the difficulty of getting on to the scene of battle when we read that no less than three English line-of-battle ships went aground before the battle began, and we also get an interesting glimpse of that old hand-to-hand style of naval warfare which has now passed away for ever, when we are told that the ships opened fire at a range of two hundred yards! Nowadays firing would begin at between three and four thousand. If two modern fleets were to get to business at that range the said business would probably consist of one broadside from each, one discharge of the big guns, and after that general wreck and ruin. It is not likely that either side would win, and it is certain that both sides would lose.