The introduction of artillery in the fourteenth century marked the beginning of the first great revolution in naval warfare, and the changes in the projectiles have been no less extraordinary than those in the guns.
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The next great revolution was the introduction of the steam-engine. Its adoption in the British Navy in 1832 marked the beginning of the end of the sailing warship. Her last grim battle against inexorable fate was fought with the same doggedness which had distinguished her in many an encounter with her nation’s enemies; but the superiority of steam over sail was recognised. Temporising measures, a patched-up peace, as it were, lasted for a few years while the steam engine was employed as an auxiliary. Sail power, however, had reached its apotheosis so far as warships were concerned. Engineers, animated by practical common sense and ignoring romantic associations, improved their engines, so that the steam power was no longer the assistant of sail, but its associate, and was quick in attaining the position of chief partner and showing that sails could be dispensed with altogether. The Crimean War sounded the knell of the wooden battleship as well as of the paddle-wheel war steamer. The former gave place to the iron-clad vessel, and the latter was supplanted by the screw-propelled ship. The power of artillery had shared in the application of scientific knowledge and benefited accordingly. The great battle between the maker of armour plates and the maker of guns and projectiles had begun. Iron, the conqueror of wood, had but a short reign. Where iron was used a few years ago, steel is now invariably employed. The thoroughness of the victory is shown by the fact that in the whole of the British Isles not one iron vessel, large or small, was built in 1909 for war or commerce.
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The years 1905 and 1906 saw two of the most important steps forward in the history of warships, for they included the adoption of the turbine principle of warship propulsion and the “Dreadnought” principle of armament. The progress of the last fifty years, culminating in the Dreadnoughts, has been wonderful; already designs of vessels intended to relegate them to second place are under consideration.
Type after type of battleship, cruiser, scout, gunboat, destroyer and torpedo-boat has followed in rapid succession of late years, and submarines have become an accomplished fact. He would be a foolish man who would prophesy that the end is in sight.
There is nothing more marvellous in the world’s history than the tremendous development in marine engineering, in warship construction, in explosives, in armament, and in projectiles that has taken place in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and especially in the last twenty-five years.
WARSHIPS AND THEIR STORY
CHAPTER I
FROM ANCIENT EGYPT TO THE INTRODUCTION OF ARTILLERY