It never was at hand to escort him, and the expedition never sailed. Roquefeuil, with his fleet now greatly reduced, anchored off Dungeness on the 22nd, and never got any further. What had happened in the meanwhile was this. Norris remained in the Downs, being held there for some time by a gale. He was not unaware of what was going on at Dunkirk, but he hesitated to proceed thither lest the French fleet behind him should be covering another expedition coming from some French port in the Channel. He sent to reconnoitre, however, and on the 21st received information that four sixty-gun ships—these were, no doubt, Baraille's detachment—were at anchor off Gravelines, and there covering the transports at Dunkirk. On the 22nd, Roquefeuil appeared off Dungeness and anchored there. As soon as he knew Roquefeuil's whereabouts, Norris resolved to attack him without delay. The wind, being N.W., was favourable to his enterprise, and at the same time made it impossible for the expedition to leave Dunkirk. Should the wind change before Roquefeuil was brought to action and defeated, Norris held that he was strong enough to detach a force to impeach Saxe and Baraille, and at the same time to give a good account of Roquefeuil. But matters did not exactly turn out in this wise. On the 24th Norris left the Downs, with a light wind from the N.W., and an ebb tide in his favour, making for Dungeness, where Roquefeuil was still lying. His appearance in the offing was Roquefeuil's first information that Norris was to the eastward of him in superior force, and it greatly disconcerted Roquefeuil. He held a hasty council of war and decided to cut and run. By this time the tide had turned and the wind had fallen, so that he could not stir until the tide again began to ebb. Norris, similarly disabled, had anchored some few miles to the eastward, intending to make his attack as soon as wind and tide allowed. But during the night a furious gale from the N.E. sprang up, which drove most of Norris's ships from their anchors, and when daylight came the French were nowhere to be seen. Roquefeuil had slipped his cables, and with the gale behind him was hurrying back to Brest. Norris went after him as far as Beachy Head, but there gave up the chase and returned to the Downs, to make sure that Saxe and Baraille, for whom the wind was now favourable, might find their way barred should they attempt to set sail. The transports, however, were by now in no position to move, nor was either Saxe or Baraille in any mind to allow them to move. They both realized that the game was up. The troops were in the transports, and they suffered greatly in the gale that frustrated Norris' attack on Roquefeuil. But that was merely an accident of warfare. It was not the gale that shattered the expedition, nor did it save England from invasion. On the contrary, while it played havoc with the transports and troops at Dunkirk, it also saved Roquefeuil's fleet from destruction at Dungeness. But, gale or no gale, the transports and troops never could have crossed so long as Norris held on to the Downs. Nor could they have crossed had Norris been allowed to remain at Portsmouth as he desired; for in that case Baraille could not have been detached.
To point the moral of this memorable story, I cannot do better than quote Mr Julian Corbett's comment on it. "The whole attempt, it will be seen, with everything in its favour, had exhibited the normal course of degradation. For all the nicely framed plan and perfect deception, the inherent difficulties, when it came to the point of execution, had as usual forced a clumsy concentration of the enemy's battle fleet with his transports, and we on our part were able to forestall it with every advantage in our favour by the simple expedient of a central mass on a revealed and certain line of passage." We were certainly taken at a disadvantage at the outset, for the "bolt from the blue" was preparing some time before any one in England got wind of it. The country had been largely denuded of troops for foreign enterprises, Scotland was deeply disaffected, the Jacobites were full of hope and intrigue, the Ministry was supine and feeble, the navy was deplorably weak in home waters, and such ships as were available had been dispersed to their ports for refit. Nevertheless with all these conditions in its favour the projected "bolt from the blue" was detected and anticipated—tardily, it is true, and with no great sagacity except on the part of Norris—long before the expedition was ready to start. Surely the moral needs no further pointing.
By these instances, and others which might be quoted, the law seems to be established that in default of an assured command of the sea the fleet which seeks to cover an invasion is drawn by irresistible attraction towards the place of embarkation, and that the same attraction brings it there—if not earlier—into conflict with the superior forces of the enemy. If in the Trafalgar campaign, which I have no space to examine in detail, the law does not seem to operate to the extent that it did in the other cases examined, that is only because the disposition of the British fleets was so masterly that Napoleon never got the opportunity he yearned for of bringing his fleets to the place of embarkation. They were outmanœuvred beforehand and finally overthrown at Trafalgar.
There is indeed a fourth alternative which has been advanced by some speculative writers, though history lends it no countenance, and it has never, I believe, been taken seriously by any naval authority of repute. I cannot take it seriously myself. It assumes that some naval Power, suitably situated as regards this country, might without either provocation or overt international dispute, clandestinely take up transport—either a comparatively small number of very large merchant vessels or a very large number of barges, lighters, or what not to be towed by steam vessels—might clandestinely put an army with all its necessary impedimenta on board the transports so provided and then clandestinely, and without either notice or warning, send them to sea, with or without escort, with intent to effect a landing at some suitable point on the English coast. The whole theory seems to me to involve at least three monstrous improbabilities: first, a piratical intent on the part of a civilized nation; secondly, a concealment of such intent in conditions wellnigh incompatible with the degree of secrecy required; and thirdly, a precision and a punctuality of movement in the operations of embarkation, transit, and landing of which history affords no example, while naval opinion and experience scoff at them as utterly impracticable. Of course the future may not resemble the past, and naval wars of the future may not be conducted on a pattern sealed by the unbroken teaching of over eight hundred years. But that is an assumption which I cannot seriously entertain.
CHAPTER VII
The maritime trade of a nation at war has always been regarded by the other belligerent as his legitimate prey. In the Dutch Wars the suppression of the enemy's commerce was the main objective of both parties to the conflict. In all wars in which either belligerent has any commerce afloat worth considering one belligerent may always be expected to do all that he can for its capture or suppression, while the other will do as much as he can for its defence. In proportion to the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the potency of its destruction as an agency for bringing the national will into submission. If, for example, the maritime trade of England could be suppressed by her enemies, England would thereby be vanquished. Her commerce is her life-blood. On the other hand there are nations, very powerful in war, which either by reason of their geographical position, or because their oversea trade is no vital element in their national economy, would suffer comparatively little in like circumstances. It thus appears that the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the measure of the efforts which an enemy is likely to make for its suppression. But it is not directly the measure of the efforts which a nation so assailed must make for its defence. The measure of these efforts is determined not by the volume and value of the trade to be protected but by the amount and character of the naval force which the enemy can employ in assailing it. In the Boer War British maritime commerce was unassailed and uninterrupted in all parts of the world, and yet not a single ship of the British Navy was directly employed in its protection. If on the other hand England were at war with a naval Power of the first rank, she might have to employ the whole of her naval resources in securing the free transit of her maritime commerce. So long as she can do this with success she need give no thought to the menace of possible invasion. A command of the sea so far established as to secure freedom of transit for the vast and ubiquitous maritime commerce of this country is also, of necessity, so far established as to deny free transit to the transports of an enemy seeking to invade. The greater includes the less.
It may at first sight seem to be an anomaly—some, indeed, would represent it as a mere survival of barbarism—that whereas in war on land the private property of an enemy's subjects is, by the established law and custom of civilized nations, not liable to capture or destruction without compensation to its owners, the opposite rule still prevails in war at sea. But a little consideration will, I think, show that the analogy sought to be established between the two cases is a very imperfect one. War on land does ipso facto suspend in large measure the free transport of commerce in transit. As between the two belligerents it interrupts it altogether. Moreover, throughout the territory occupied by the enemy, the railways, and in large measure the roads, are practically monopolized for the movements of his troops and the transport of his supplies—in a word for the maintenance of his communications. There can have been little or no consignment of goods from Paris to Berlin or vice versa during the war of 1870, and even though at certain stages of the war goods might have been consigned, say, from Lyons to Geneva, or from Lille to Brussels, yet such cases are really only the counterparts of the frequent failure of one belligerent's cruisers to intercept the merchant vessels of the other on the high seas. Again, in the case of a beleaguered fortress, the besiegers would never dream of allowing a convoy of food or of munitions of war—or for the matter of that of merchandise of any kind—to enter the fortress. They would intercept it as a matter of course, and if necessary they would appropriate it to their own use. The upshot of it all is that even in war on land the transit of all commerce, albeit the private property of some one, is practically suspended within the area of the territory occupied, and very seriously impeded throughout the whole country subject to invasion. It is not, therefore, true to say without many qualifications that in war private property is respected on land and not respected at sea. The only difference that I can discern is that by the law and custom of nations private property cannot be appropriated on land, whereas at sea it can. But this difference is not really essential. The essential thing in both cases is that the wealth of the enemy is diminished and the credit of his traders destroyed—a far more important matter in these days than the destruction of this or that cargo of his goods—by the suspension of that interchange of commodities with other nations which is the chief element of national prosperity, and may be, as in the case of England, the indispensable condition of national existence. Indeed, although private property on land is exempt from capture, and at sea it is not, yet there are many nations which would suffer far more from the interruption of their mercantile communications which war on land entails than they would from the destruction of their commerce at sea.
For these reasons I hold that the proposed exemption of private property from capture or molestation at sea is a chimerical one. War is essentially an act of violence. It operates by the destruction of human life as well as by all other agencies which are likely to subdue the enemy's will. Among these agencies the capture or destruction of commerce afloat is by far the most humane since it entails the least sacrifice of life, limb, or liberty, and at the same time its coercive pressure may in some cases, though not in all, be the most effective instrument for compelling the enemy's submission. Moreover, it is not proposed to exempt from capture or destruction such merchant vessels of the enemy—or even of a neutral for that matter—as attempt to break a blockade. Now the modern conditions of blockade are such that the warships conducting it may be stationed hundreds of miles from the blockaded port or ports, and their outlying cruisers, remaining in touch with each other and with the main body, may be much further afield. Within the area of the organized patrol thus established, every vessel seeking to enter a blockaded port or to issue from it will still be liable to capture. In these conditions the proposal to exempt the remainder of the enemy's private property afloat from capture would be a mockery. There would not be enough of such property afloat to pay for the cost of capture.