The bombardment was a repetition of the old story of fixed shore fortifications being assailed by a mobile and powerful fleet. As usual the fleet could manœuvre to its own best advantage for shelling an enemy and upsetting his aim. The fleet itself, however, did not escape entirely without injury. A shell entered the captain’s cabin of the Alexandra and burst, doing considerable damage to the contents of the apartment, but singularly little injury to the ship. The Alexandra’s armour was pierced several times, but none of the projectiles succeeded in getting through the backing, and a portion of her smokestack was shot away. Altogether she was struck twenty-five times. Most of the other attacking vessels also bore marks of the engagement, but in no instance was the injury inflicted serious. Much of the damage was sustained aloft, thus showing that the Egyptian gunners had for the most part aimed too high. Some of their shells, also, failed to explode, and on the whole the firing from the forts was badly directed. The British had five men killed and twenty-eight wounded. The losses of the Egyptians were never known accurately, but must have been very great, for the British shells which did not hit the forts found their billets in the town behind and, exploding, added to the terror and death-roll among the natives who had not already fled.
A correspondent who visited the forts immediately after the bombardment wrote:—
“One is amazed at the destruction accomplished which was not visible from the sea, and at the bravery of the Arab gunners in remaining at their posts so long. The number and variety of their guns are surprising and the stock of projectiles and ammunition is immense. If they had had more men and been well commanded, the fleet would have had a very warm reception. In one fort we counted several 18-ton guns, 19-inch Armstrongs. In another four 9-inch and one 10-inch Armstrong; in another two 15-inch smooth-bores ... besides 40-pounder Armstrongs and any number of old 32-pounders.... One small battery gave the ships a great deal of trouble ... it was effectually silenced at last, every gun being knocked off the trainings. At Bab el Meks some Armstrongs were knocked down, others were hit up with muzzles in the air, and embedded in one gun we found shots from a Gatling.”[48]
The present United States navy may be said to date from 1883. After the close of the rebellion the American Government had no further need of the majority of the war vessels built or improvised for that struggle, and having sold some, neglected nearly all the remainder. America and Spain almost came to blows over what was known as the Virginius affair, and the great republic prepared to do its best on “the mobilisation in southern waters of a fleet which consisted in great part of antiquated and rotting ships.”[49] The United States also sadly missed the possession of an efficient navy when serious differences arose with a powerful European state over the right interpretation and application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Panama Canal and the control thereof. Both these events, supported by the Ten Years War in Cuba and the unconcealed American sympathy for the Cubans, prepared the country for the acceptance of the dictum that a more modern navy was necessary, and this was emphasised when it was announced during the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes that the navy of any European power was superior to that of the United States, and that even Chili, with the Almirante Cochrane and the Huascar, would be able to bombard San Francisco and that the United States Government had not the means to prevent them.
In order to appreciate the enormous progress which the United States have made as a naval power in the past thirty years one must turn to the American Navy List for 1879, and compare it with the present equipment in the matter of ships and personnel, which places the United States in the position of being the second naval power of the world—second, indeed, only to Great Britain, and with resources for the production of warships of the latest design and the highest fighting capacity scarcely if at all inferior to those of the United Kingdom itself. In 1879 there—
“Were five steam vessels classed as first-rates, which had been built twenty-five years before and were then obsolete and practically useless as men-of-war; twenty-seven second-rates, of which three lay on the stocks, rotten and worthless, seven were in ordinary unfit for repair, and only nine were actually in condition for sea duty; twenty-nine third-rate steam vessels, of which fifteen only were available for naval purposes; six fourth-rate steam vessels, none of which was of account as a warship; twenty-two sailing vessels, but five of which could even navigate the sea; twenty-four ironclads, fourteen of which were ready for effective service; and two torpedo vessels, one of which was described as rather heavy for a torpedo vessel, not working so handily as is desirable for that purpose, and the other, known as the Alarm, was in the experimental stage.... In the entire navy there was not a single high-power, long-range rifled gun.”
Of the bravery of the American sailors of whatever rank there has never been any question, but the methods of selecting them seem to have been as peculiar as the British methods of corruption in the old days, when it was possible for an infant in arms to be on the pay roll of a British ship when he had never so much as seen the sea, to say nothing of never having been on board the vessel of which he was nominally a midshipman.
The following racy account,[50] which illustrates the American system of the past better than any lengthy description could do, of the examination of Midshipman Joseph Tatnall, a relative of the famous American officer of “Blood is thicker than water” fame, will be read with interest in this connection:—
Commodore: Mr. Tatnall, what would be your course, supposing you were off a lee shore, the wind blowing a gale, both anchors and your rudder gone, all your canvas carried away, and your ship scudding rapidly towards the breakers?
Tatnall: I cannot conceive, sir, that such a combination of disasters could possibly befall a ship in one voyage.