Sea-Power and Other Studies

by Sir Cyprian Bridge

[Footnote 40: _United_Netherlands_, ii. p. 132.]

Mahan's great survey of sea-power opens in 1660, midway between the first and second Dutch wars. 'The sailing-ship era, with its distinctive features,' he tells us, 'had fairly begun.' The art of war by sea, in its more important details, had been settled by the first war. From the beginning of the second the general features of ship design, the classification of ships, the armament of ships, and the handling of fleets, were to remain without essential alteration until the date of Navarino. Even the tactical methods, except where improved on occasions by individual genius, altered little. The great thing was to bring the whole broadside force to bear on an enemy. Whether this was to be impartially distributed throughout the hostile line or concentrated on one part of it depended on the character of particular admirals. It would have been strange if a period so long and so rich in incidents had afforded no materials for forming a judgment on the real significance of sea-power. The text, so to speak, chosen by Mahan is that, notwithstanding the changes wrought in naval matériel during the last half-century, we can find in the history of the past instructive illustrations of the general principles of maritime war. These illustrations will prove of value not only 'in those wider operations which embrace a whole theatre of war,' but also, if rightly applied, 'in the tactical use of the ships and weapons' of our own day. By a remarkable coincidence the same doctrine was being preached at the same time and quite independently by the late Vice-Admiral Philip Colomb in his work on 'Naval Warfare.' As a prelude to the second Dutch war we find a repetition of a process which had been adopted somewhat earlier. That was the permanent conquest of trans-oceanic territory. Until the seventeenth century had well begun, naval, or combined naval and military, operations against the distant possessions of an enemy had been practically restricted to raiding or plundering attacks on commercial centres. The Portuguese territory in South America having come under Spanish dominion in consequence of the annexation of Portugal to Spain, the Dutch—as the power of the latter country declined—attempted to reduce part of that territory into permanent possession. This improvement on the practice of Drake and others was soon seen to be a game at which more than one could play. An expedition sent by Cromwell to the West Indies seized the Spanish island of Jamaica, which has remained in the hands of its conquerors to this day. In 1664 an English force occupied the Dutch North American settlements on the Hudson. Though the dispossessed rulers were not quite in a position to throw stones at sinners, this was rather a raid than an operation of recognised warfare, because it preceded the formal outbreak of hostilities. The conquered territory remained in English hands for more than a century, and thus testified to the efficacy of a sea-power which Europe had scarcely begun to recognise. Neither the second nor the third Dutch war can be counted amongst the occurrences to which Englishmen may look back with unalloyed satisfaction; but they, unquestionably, disclosed some interesting manifestations of sea-power. Much indignation has been expressed concerning the corruption and inefficiency of the English Government of the day, and its failure to take proper measures for keeping up the navy as it should have been kept up. Some, perhaps a good deal, of this indignation was deserved; but it would have been nearly as well deserved by every other government of the day. Even in those homes of political virtue where the administrative machinery was worked by or in the interest of speculating capitalists and privileged companies, the accumulating evidence of late years has proved that everything was not considered to be, and as a matter of fact was not, exactly as it ought to have been. Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York, have been held up to obloquy because they thought that the coast of England could be defended against a naval enemy better by fortifications than by a good fleet and, as Pepys noted, were 'not ashamed of it.' The truth is that neither the king nor the duke believed in the power of a navy to ward off attack from an island. This may have been due to want of intellectual capacity; but it would be going a long way to put it down to personal wickedness. They have had many imitators, some in our own day. The huge forts which stud the coast of the United Kingdom, and have been erected within the memory of the present generation, are monuments, likely to last for many years, of the inability of people, whom no one could accuse of being vicious, to rate sea-power at its proper value. It is much more likely that it was owing to a reluctance to study questions of naval defence as industriously as they deserved, and to that moral timidity which so often tempts even men of proved physical courage to undertake the impossible task of making themselves absolutely safe against hostile efforts at every point.

Charles II has also been charged with indifference to the interests of his country, or worse, because during a great naval war he adopted the plan of trying to weaken the enemy by destroying his commerce. The king 'took a fatal resolution of laying up his great ships and keeping only a few frigates on the cruise.' It is expressly related that this was not Charles's own idea, but that it was urged upon him by advisers whose opinion probably seemed at the time as well worth listening to as that of others. Anyhow, if the king erred, as he undoubtedly did, he erred in good company. Fourteen hundred years earlier the statesmen who conducted the great war against Carthage, and whose astuteness has been the theme of innumerable panegyrics since, took the same 'fatal resolution.' In the midst of the great struggle they 'did away with the fleet. At the most they encouraged privateering; and with that view placed the war-vessels of the State at the disposal of captains who were ready to undertake a corsair warfare on their own account.'[41] In much later times this method has had many and respectable defenders. Mahan's works are, in a sense, a formal warning to his fellow-citizens not to adopt it. In France, within the last years of the nineteenth century, it found, and appears still to find, adherents enough to form a school. The reappearance of belief in demonstrated impossibilities is a recognised incident in human history; but it is usually confined to the emotional or the vulgar. It is serious and filled with menaces of disaster when it is held by men thought fit to administer the affairs of a nation or advise concerning its defence. The third Dutch war may not have settled directly the position of England in the maritime world; but it helped to place that country above all other maritime states,—in the position, in fact, which Great Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Empire, whichever name may be given it, has retained up to the present. It also manifested in a very striking form the efficacy of sea-power. The United Provinces, though attacked by two of the greatest monarchies in the world, France and England, were not destroyed. Indeed, they preserved much of their political importance in the State system of Europe. The Republic 'owed this astonishing result partly to the skill of one or two men, but mainly to its sea-power.' The effort, however, had undermined its strength and helped forward its decline.

[Footnote 41: Mommsen, ii. p. 52.]

The war which was ended by the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 presents two features of exceptional interest: one was the havoc wrought on English commerce by the enemy; the other was Torrington's conduct at and after the engagement off Beachy Head. Mahan discusses the former with his usual lucidity. At no time has war against commerce been conducted on a larger scale and with greater results than during this period. We suffered 'infinitely more than in any former war.' Many of our merchants were ruined; and it is affirmed that the English shipping was reduced to the necessity of sailing under the Swedish and Danish flags. The explanation is that Louis XIV made great efforts to keep up powerful fleets. Our navy was so fully occupied in watching these that no ships could be spared to protect our maritime trade. This is only another way of saying that our commerce had increased so largely that the navy was not strong enough to look after it as well as oppose the enemy's main force. Notwithstanding our losses we were on the winning side in the conflict. Much misery and ruin had been caused, but not enough to affect the issue of the war.

Torrington's proceedings in July 1690 were at the time the subject of much angry debate. The debate, still meriting the epithet angry, has been renewed within the last few years. The matter has to be noticed here, because it involves the consideration of a question of naval strategy which must be understood by those who wish to know the real meaning of the term sea-power, and who ought to learn that it is not a thing to be idly risked or thrown away at the bidding of the ignorant and the irresponsible. Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington—the later peerage is a viscounty held by the Byng family—was in command of the allied English and Dutch fleet in the Channel. 'The disparity of force,' says Mahan, 'was still in favour of France in 1690, but it was not so great as the year before.' We can measure the ability of the then English Government for conducting a great war, when we know that, in its wisdom, it had still further weakened our fleet by dividing it (Vice-Admiral Killigrew having been sent to the Mediterranean with a squadron), and had neglected, and indeed refused when urged, to take the necessary steps to repair this error. The Government having omitted, as even British Governments sometimes do, to gain any trustworthy intelligence of the strength or movements of the enemy, Torrington suddenly found himself confronted by a considerably superior French fleet under Tourville, one of the greatest of French sea-officers. Of late years the intentions of the French have been questioned; but it is beyond dispute that in England at the time Tourville's movements were believed to be preliminary to invasion. Whether Tourville deliberately meant his movement to cover an invasion or not, invasion would almost certainly have followed complete success on his part; otherwise his victory would have been without any valuable result. Torrington saw that as long as he could keep his own fleet intact, he could, though much weaker than his opponent, prevent him from doing serious harm. Though personally not a believer in the imminence of invasion, the English admiral knew that 'most men were in fear that the French would invade.' His own view was, 'that whilst we had a fleet in being they would not dare to make an attempt.' Of late years controversy has raged round this phrase, 'a fleet in being,' and the strategic principle which it expresses. Most seamen were at the time, have been since, and still are in agreement with Torrington. This might be supposed enough to settle the question. It has not been allowed, however, to remain one of purely naval strategy. It was made at the time a matter of party politics. This is why it is so necessary that in a notice of sea-power it should be discussed. Both as a strategist and as a tactician Torrington was immeasurably ahead of his contemporaries. The only English admirals who can be placed above him are Hawke and Nelson. He paid the penalty of his pre-eminence: he could not make ignorant men and dull men see the meaning or the advantages of his proceedings. Mahan, who is specially qualified to do him full justice, does not devote much space in his work to a consideration of Torrington's case, evidently because he had no sufficient materials before him on which to form a judgment. The admiral's character had been taken away already by Macaulay, who did have ample evidence before him. William III, with all his fine qualities, did not possess a military genius quite equal to that of Napoleon; and Napoleon, in naval strategy, was often wrong. William III understood that subject even less than the French emperor did; and his favourites were still less capable of understanding it. Consequently Torrington's action has been put down to jealousy of the Dutch. There have been people who accused Nelson of being jealous of the naval reputation of Caracciolo! The explanation of Torrington's conduct is this:— He had a fleet so much weaker than Tourville's that he could not fight a general action with the latter without a practical certainty of getting a crushing defeat. Such a result would have laid the kingdom open: a defeat of the allied fleet, says Mahan, 'if sufficiently severe, might involve the fall of William's throne in England.' Given certain movements of the French fleet, Torrington might have manoeuvred to slip past it to the westward and join his force with that under Killigrew, which would make him strong enough to hazard a battle. This proved impracticable. There was then one course left. To retire before the French, but not to keep far from them. He knew that, though not strong enough to engage their whole otherwise unemployed fleet with any hope of success, he would be quite strong enough to fight and most likely beat it, when a part of it was trying either to deal with our ships to the westward or to cover the disembarkation of an invading army. He, therefore, proposed to keep his fleet 'in being' in order to fall on the enemy when the latter would have two affairs at the same time on his hands. The late Vice-Admiral Colomb rose to a greater height than was usual even with him in his criticism of this campaign. What Torrington did was merely to reproduce on the sea what has been noticed dozens of times on shore, viz. the menace by the flanking enemy. In land warfare this is held to give exceptional opportunities for the display of good generalship, but, to quote Mahan over again, a navy 'acts on an element strange to most writers, its members have been from time immemorial a strange race apart, without prophets of their own, neither themselves nor their calling understood.' Whilst Torrington has had the support of seamen, his opponents have been landsmen. For the crime of being a good strategist he was brought before a court-martial, but acquitted. His sovereign, who had been given the crowns of three kingdoms to defend our laws, showed his respect for them by flouting a legally constituted tribunal and disregarding its solemn finding. The admiral who had saved his country was forced into retirement. Still, the principle of the 'fleet in being' lies at the bottom of all sound strategy.

Admiral Colomb has pointed out a great change of plan in the later naval campaigns of the seventeenth century. Improvements in naval architecture, in the methods of preserving food, and in the arrangements for keeping the crews healthy, permitted fleets to be employed at a distance from their home ports for long continuous periods. The Dutch, when allies of the Spaniards, kept a fleet in the Mediterranean for many months. The great De Ruyter was mortally wounded in one of the battles there fought. In the war of the Spanish Succession the Anglo-Dutch fleet found its principal scene of action eastward of Gibraltar. This, as it were, set the fashion for future wars. It became a kind of tacitly accepted rule that the operation of British sea-power was to be felt in the enemy's rather than in our own waters. The hostile coast was regarded strategically as the British frontier, and the sea was looked upon as territory which the enemy must be prevented from invading. Acceptance of this principle led in time to the so-called 'blockades' of Brest and Toulon. The name was misleading. As Nelson took care to explain, there was no desire to keep the enemy's fleet in; what was desired was to be near enough to attack it if it came out. The wisdom of the plan is undoubted. The hostile navy could be more easily watched and more easily followed if it put to sea. To carry out this plan a navy stronger in number of ships or in general efficiency than that of the enemy was necessary to us. With the exception of that of American Independence, which will therefore require special notice, our subsequent great wars were conducted in accordance with the rule.

SEA-POWER IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AND EARLY PART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

In the early part of the eighteenth century there was a remarkable manifestation of sea-power in the Baltic. Peter the Great, having created an efficient army, drove the Swedes from the coast provinces south of the Gulf of Finland. Like the earlier monarchies of which we have spoken, Russia, in the Baltic at least, now became a naval state. A large fleet was built, and, indeed, a considerable navy established. It was a purely artificial creation, and showed the merits and defects of its character. At first, and when under the eye of its creator, it was strong; when Peter was no more it dwindled away and, when needed again, had to be created afresh. It enabled Peter the Great to conquer the neighbouring portion of Finland, to secure his coast territories, and to dominate the Baltic. In this he was assisted by the exhaustion of Sweden consequent on her endeavours to retain, what was no longer possible, the position of a quasi great power which she had held since the days of Gustavus Adolphus. Sweden had been further weakened, especially as a naval state, by almost incessant wars with Denmark, which prevented all hope of Scandinavian predominance in the Baltic, the control of which sea has in our own days passed into the hands of another state possessing a quickly created navy—the modern German empire.

The war of the Spanish Succession left Great Britain a Mediterranean power, a position which, in spite of twice losing Minorca, she still holds. In the war of the Austrian Succession, 'France was forced to give up her conquests for want of a navy, and England saved her position by her sea-power, though she had failed to use it to the best advantage.'[42] This shows, as we shall find that a later war showed more plainly, that even the Government of a thoroughly maritime country is not always sure of conducting its naval affairs wisely. The Seven Years' war included some brilliant displays of the efficacy of sea-power. It was this which put the British in possession of Canada, decided which European race was to rule in India, and led to a British occupation of Havannah in one hemisphere and of Manila in the other. In the same war we learned how, by a feeble use of sea-power, a valuable possession like Minorca may be lost. At the same time our maritime trade and the general prosperity of the kingdom increased enormously. The result of the conflict made plain to all the paramount importance of having in the principal posts in the Government men capable of understanding what war is and how it ought to be conducted.