Military Manners and Customs

by James Anson Farrer

Red-hot shot, legitimate for the defence of land forts against ships, used not to be considered good war in the contests of ships with one another. In the three hours’ action between the ‘Lively’ and the ‘Tourterelle,’ a French privateer, the use by the latter of hot-shot, ‘not usually deemed honourable warfare,’ was considered to be wrong, but a wrong on the part of those who equipped her for sea more than on the part of the captain who fired them.[94] The English assailing batteries that fired red-hot shot against Glückstadt in 1813 are said to have resorted to ‘a mode of warfare very unusual with us since the siege of Gibraltar.’[95]

The ‘Treatise on Tactics,’ by the Emperor Leo VI., carries back the record of the means employed against an enemy in naval warfare to the ninth century. The things he recommends as most effective are: cranes, to let fall heavy weights on the enemy’s decks; caltrops, with iron spikes, to wound his feet;[96] jars full of quicklime, to suffocate him; jars containing combustibles, to burn him; jars containing poisonous reptiles, to bite him; and Greek fire with its noise like thunder, to frighten as well as burn him.[97] Many of these methods were of immemorial usage; for Scipio knew the merits of jars full of pitch, and Hannibal of jars full of vipers.[98] Nothing was too bad for use in those days; nor can it be ascertained when or why they ceased to be used. Greek fire was used with great effect in the sea-battles between the Saracens and Christians; and it is a fair cause for wonder that the invention of gunpowder should have so entirely superseded it as to cause its very manufacture to have been forgotten. Neither does history record the date of, nor the reason for, the disuse of quicklime, which in the famous fight off Dover in 1217 between the French and English contributed so greatly to the victory of the latter.[99]

It is difficult to believe that sentiments of humanity should have caused these methods to be discarded from maritime hostilities; but that such motives led to a certain mitigation in the use of fire-ships appears from a passage in Captain Brenton’s ‘Naval History,’ where he says: ‘The use of fire-ships has long been laid aside, to the honour of the nation which first dispensed with this barbarous aggravation of the horrors of war.’ That is to say, as he explains it, though fire-ships continued to accompany the fleets, they were only used in an anchorage where there was a fair chance of the escape of the crew against which they were sent; they ceased to be used, as at one time, to burn or blow up disabled ships, which the conqueror dared not board and carry into port, and which were covered with the wounded and dying. The last instance in which they were so used by the English was in the fight off Toulon, in 1744; and their use on that occasion is said to have received merited reproach from an historian of the day.[100]

As the service of a fire-ship was one that required the greatest bravery and coolness—since it was, of course, attacked in every possible way, and it was often difficult to escape by the boat chained behind it—it displays the extraordinary inconsistency of opinion about such matters that it should have been accounted rather a service of infamy than of honour. Molloy, in 1769, wrote of it as the practice of his day to put to death prisoners made from a fire-ship: ‘Generally the persons found in them are put to death if taken.’[101] And another writer says: ‘Whether it be from a refined idea, or from the most determined resentment towards those who act in fire-ships, may be difficult to judge; but there is rarely any quarter given to such as fall into the enemy’s power.’[102]

Clock-machines, or torpedoes, were introduced into European warfare by the English, being intended to destroy Napoleon’s ships at Boulogne in 1804. It is remarkable that the use of them was at first reprobated by Captain Brenton, and by Lord St. Vincent, who foresaw that other Powers would in turn adopt the innovation.[103] The French, who picked up some of them near Boulogne, called them infernal machines. But at present they seem fairly established as part of good warfare, in default of any international agreement against them, such as that which exists against explosive bullets.

The same International Act which abolished privateering between the signatory Powers settled also between them two other disputed points which for centuries were a frequent cause of war and jealousy—namely, the liability of the property of neutrals to be seized when found in the ships of an enemy, and of the property of an enemy to be seized when found in the ships of a neutral.

Over the abstract right of belligerents so to deal with the ships or property of neutral Powers the publicists for long fought a battle-royal, contending either that a neutral ship should be regarded as neutral territory, or that an enemy’s property was lawful prize anywhere. Whilst the French or Continental theory regarded the nationality of the vessel rather than of its cargo, so that the goods of a neutral might be fairly seized on an enemy’s vessel, but those of an enemy were safe even in a neutral ship; the English theory was diametrically the opposite, for the Admiralty restored a neutral’s property taken on an enemy’s vessel, but confiscated an enemy’s goods if found on a neutral vessel. This difference between the English rule and that of other countries was a source of endless contention. Frederick II. of Prussia, in 1753, first resisted the English claim to seize hostile property sailing under a neutral flag. Then came against the same claim the first Armed Neutrality of 1780, headed by Russia, and again in 1801 the second armed coalition of the Northern Powers. The difference of rule was, therefore, as such differences always must be, a source of real weakness to England, on account of the enemies it raised against her all over the world. Yet the Continental theory of free ships making free goods was considered for generations to be so adverse to the real interests of England, that Lord Nelson, in 1801, characterised it in the House of Lords as ‘a proposition so monstrous in itself, so contrary to the law of nations, and so injurious to the maritime interests of England, as to justify war with the advocates of such a doctrine, so long as a single man, a single shilling, or a single drop of blood remained in the country.’[104] The Treaty of Paris has made binding the Continental rule, and in spite of Lord Nelson free ships now make free goods.

The fact, therefore, that if England were now at war with France she could not take French property (unless it were contraband) from a Russian or American ship, we owe not to the publicists who were divided about it, nor to naval opinion which was decided against it, but to the accidental alliance between France and England in the Crimean war. In order to co-operate together, each waived its old claim, according to which France would have been free to seize the property of a neutral found on Russian vessels, and England to seize Russian property on the vessels of a neutral. As the United States and other neutral Powers as well would probably have resisted by arms the claim of either so to interfere with their neutrality, the mutual concession was one of common prudence; and as the same opposition would have been perennial, it was no great sacrifice on the part of either to perpetuate and extend by a treaty at the close of the war the agreement that at first was only to last for its continuance.

Much, however, as that treaty has done for the peace of the world, by assimilating in these respects the maritime law of nations, it has left many customs unchanged to challenge still the attention of reformers. It is therefore of some practical interest to consider of what nature future changes should be, inasmuch as, if we cannot agree to cease from fighting altogether, the next best thing we can do is to reduce the pretexts for it to as few as possible.