II
ORDERS ISSUED DURING THE WAR 1653 AND 1654
INTRODUCTORY
The earliest known 'Fighting Instructions' in any language which aimed at a single line ahead as a battle formation, were issued by the Commonwealth's 'generals-at-sea' on March 29, 1653, in the midst of the Dutch War. This is placed beyond doubt by an office copy amongst the Duke of Portland's MSS. at Welbeck Abbey.[1] It is of high importance for the history of naval tactics that we are at last able to fix the date of these memorable orders. Endless misapprehension on the subject of our battle formations during the First Dutch War has been caused by a chronological error into which Mr. Granville Penn was led in his Memorials of Penn (Appendix L). Sir William Penn's copy of these Instructions is merely dated 'March 1653,'[2] and his biographer hazarded the very natural conjecture that, as this is an 'old style' date, it meant 'March 1654.' This would have been true of any day in March before the 25th, but as we now can fix the date as the 29th, we know the year is really 1653 and not 1654.[3] There was perhaps some anxiety on Mr. Penn's part to get his hero some share in the orders, and as William Penn was not appointed one of the 'generals-at-sea' till December 2, 1653, he could not officially have had the credit of orders issued in the previous March. This point however is also set at rest by the Welbeck copy, which besides the date has the signatures of the generals, and they are those of Blake, Deane and Monck. Penn did not sign them at all, but this really in no way affects his claim as a tactical reformer. For as he was vice-admiral of the fleet and an officer of high reputation, his share in the orders was probably as great as that of anyone else.
The winter of 1652-3 was the turning point of the war. The summer campaign had shown how serious the struggle was to be, and no terms for ending it could be arranged. Large reinforcements consequently had been ordered, and Monck and Deane nominated to assist Blake as joint generals-at-sea for the next campaign. Four days later, on November 30, 1652, Blake had been defeated by Tromp off Dungeness, and several of his captains were reported to have behaved badly. An inquiry was ordered, and the famous 'Laws of War and Ordinances of the Sea,' prepared by Sir Harry Vane by order of Parliament for the better enforcement of discipline, were put in force. Notwithstanding these vigorous efforts to increase the strength and efficiency of the sea service, it was not till after the first action of the new campaign that an attempt was made to improve the fleet tactics. The action off Portland on February 18, 1653, and the ensuing chase of Tromp, marked the first real success of the war; but though the generals succeeded in delivering a severe blow to the Dutch admiral and his convoy, it must have been clear to everyone that they narrowly escaped defeat through a want of cohesion between their squadrons. On the 19th and 20th Tromp executed a masterly retreat, with his fleet in a crescent or obtuse-angle formation and his convoy in its arms, but nowhere is there any hint that either side fought in line ahead.[4] On the 25th the fleet had put into Stokes Bay to refit, and between this time and March 29 the new orders were produced.[5]
The first two articles it will be seen are practically the same as the 'Supplementary Instructions' on p. 99, but in the third, relating to 'general action,' instead of the ships engaging 'according to the order presented,' as was enjoined in the previous set, 'they are to endeavour to keep in a line with the chief,' as the order which will enable them 'to take the best advantage they can to engage with the enemy.' Article 6 directs that where a flagship is distressed captains are to endeavour to form line between it and the enemy. Article 7 however goes still further, and enjoins that where the windward station has been gained the line ahead is to be formed 'upon severest punishment,' and a special signal is given for the manoeuvre. Article 9 provides a similar signal for flagships.
Compared with preceding orders, these new ones appear nothing less than revolutionary. But it is by no means certain that they were so. Here again it must be remarked that it is beyond all experience for such sweeping reforms to be so rigorously adopted, and particularly in the middle of a war, without their having been in the air for some time previously, and without their supporters having some evidence to cite of their having been tried and tried successfully, at least on a small scale. The natural presumption therefore is that the new orders only crystallised into a definite system, and perhaps somewhat extended, a practice which had long been familiar though not universal in the service. A consideration of the men who were responsible for the change points to the same conclusion. Blake, the only one of the three generals who had had experience of naval actions, was ashore disabled by a severe wound, but still able to take part, at least formally, in the business of the fleet. Deane, another soldier like Blake, though he had commanded fleets, had never before seen an action, but had done much to improve the organisation of the service, and at this time, as his letters show, was more active and ardent in the work than ever. Monck before the late cruise had never been to sea at all, since as a boy he sailed in the disastrous Cadiz expedition of 1625; but he was the typical and leading scientific soldier of his time, with an unmatched power of organisation and an infallible eye for both tactics and strategy, at least so far as it had then been tried. Penn, the vice-admiral of the fleet, was a professional naval officer of considerable experience, and it was he who by a bold and skilful movement had saved the action off Portland from being a severe defeat for Blake and Deane. Monck's therefore was the only new mind that was brought to bear on the subject. Yet it is impossible to credit him with introducing a revolution in naval tactics. All that can be said is that possibly his genius for war and his scientific and well-drilled spirit revealed to him in the traditional minor tactics of the seamen the germ of a true tactical system, and caused him to urge its reduction into a definite set of fighting instructions which would be binding on all, and would co-ordinate the fleet into the same kind of homogeneous and handy fighting machine that he and the rest of the Low Country officers had made of the New Model Army. In any case he could not have carried the thing through unless it had commended itself to the experience of such men as Penn and the majority of the naval officers of the council of war. And they would hardly have been induced to agree had they not felt that the new instructions were calculated to bring out the best of the methods which they had empirically practised.
How far the new orders were carried out during the rest of the war is difficult to say. In both official and unofficial reports of the actions of this time an almost superstitious reverence is shown in avoiding tactical details. Nevertheless that a substantial improvement was the result seems clear, and further the new tactics appear to have made a marked impression upon the Dutch. Of the very next action, that off the Gabbard on June 2, when Monck was left in sole command, we have a report from the Hague that the English 'having the wind, they stayed on a tack for half an hour until they put themselves into the order in which they meant to fight, which was in file at half cannon-shot,' and the suggestion is that this was something new to the Dutch. 'Our fleet,' says an English report by an eye-witness, 'did work together in better order than before and seconded one another.' Then there is the important testimony of a Royalist intelligencer who got his information at the Hague on June 9, from the man who had brought ashore the despatches from the defeated Dutch fleet. After relating the consternation which the English caused in the Dutch ranks as well by their gunnery as their refusal to board, he goes on to say, 'It is certain that the Dutch in this fight (by the relation and acknowledgment of Tromp's own express sent hither, with whom I spoke) showed very great fear and were in very great confusion, and the English he says fought in excellent order.'[6]
Again, for the next battle—that of the Texel—fought on July 31 in the same year, we have the statement of Hoste's informant, who was present as a spectator, that at the opening of the action the English, but not the Dutch, were formed in a single line close-hauled. 'Le 7 Aoust' [i.e. N.S.], the French gentleman says, 'je découvris l'armée de l'amiral composée de plus de cent vaisseaux de guerre. Elle était rangée en trois escadrons et elle faisoit vent-arrière pour aller tomber sur les Anglois, qu'elle rencontra le même jour à peu près en pareil nombre rangez [sic] sur une ligne qui tenoit plus de quatre lieues Nord-Nord-Est et Sud-Sud-Ouest, le vent étant Nord-Ouest. Le 8 et le 9 se passèrent en des escarmouches, mais le 10 on en [sic] vint à une bataille decisive. Les Anglois avoient essaié de gagner le vent: mais l'amiral Tromp en aiant toujours conservé l'avantage, et l'étant rangé sur une ligne parallèle à celle des Anglois arriva sur eux,' &c. This is the first known instance of a Dutch fleet forming in single line, and, so far as it goes, would tend to show they adopted it in imitation of the English formation.[7] At any rate, so far as we have gone, the evidence tends to show that the English finally adopted the regular line-ahead formation in consequence of the orders of March 29, 1653, and there is no indication of the current belief that they borrowed it from the Dutch.
By the English admirals the new system must have been regarded as a success. For the Fighting Instructions of 1653 were reissued with nothing but a few alterations of signals and verbal changes by Blake, Monck, Disbrowe, and Penn, the new 'admirals and generals of the fleet of the Commonwealth of England,' appointed in December 1653, when the war was practically over. They are printed by Granville Penn (Memorials of Penn, ii. 76), under date March 31, 1655, but that cannot be the actual date of their issue, for Blake was then in the Mediterranean, Penn in the West Indies, and Monck busy with his pacification of the Highlands. We must suspect here then another confusion between old and new styles, and conjecture the true date to be March 31, 1654, that is just before Monck left for Scotland, and a few days before the peace was signed. So that these would be the orders under which Blake conducted his famous campaign in the Mediterranean, Penn and Venables captured Jamaica, and the whole of Cromwell's Spanish war was fought.