Modern ships of war

by Sir Edward J. Reed; Edward Simpson

The five originally projected—the Orlando, Narcissus, Australia, Galatea, and Undaunted—together with the Immortalité, subsequently laid down, have already been launched, and an additional cruiser of the same type, the Aurora, is well advanced. The general construction is similar to the Naniwa and Mersey, the larger tonnage being given in order to carry a water-line belt, which is ten inches thick, stretches for 190 feet amidships, and was intended to extend from 1½ feet above to four feet below the load water-line. The armored deck is from two to three inches thick, and the conning-tower is thirteen inches. The triple-expansion engines are planned to develop 8500 horse-power and a speed of 18 knots. Like the Impérieuse and Warspite, these vessels are found to draw much more water than was originally proposed. When designed in 1884 they were expected to have, with all weights on board, a mean draught of twenty-one feet, and to carry above water eighteen inches of the five feet six inch armor-belt. But a fever for improvement set in so valorously that the changes made in armament and machinery added one hundred and eighty-six tons to the displacement and increased the draught seven inches—that is, an amount which left the top of the protective belt only eleven inches above the smooth water-line. This submersion did not, however, cool the ardor of the Admiralty officials, for it has been decided that the nine hundred tons of coal originally fixed as the fuel supply must be carried; the immediate result of this is said to be an increase in the draught of eighteen inches, and a disappearance of the armor-belt to a point nearly six inches below the water-line. Subsequent improvements will be awaited with great interest, especially by those American journalists of inquiring tendencies who envyingly detect between the promise and performance of these ships opportunities which, had they occurred at home, would have enabled them to swamp our naval service and its administration in billows of pitiless ink.

The most popular naval event of the year was the review in July of the British fleet assembled at Spithead. The one hundred and twenty-eight war-vessels participating included three squadrons of armored vessels and cruisers, aggregating thirty-four ships, seventy-five torpedo-boats and gun-boats, divided into five flotillas, six training brigs, and thirteen troop-ships. Besides these there were the troop-ships appointed to carry the distinguished visitors, and the small vessels and dockyard craft allotted to the corporation of Portsmouth.

The war-ships were drawn up in four lines, facing up channel, the starboard column lying opposite the Isle of Wight, and the port column off Portsmouth. The ships were two cables and the columns three cables apart. The flotillas were ranged in double columns between the port line of the armored vessels and the main-land, and the troop-ships were placed in single column between the starboard line and the Isle of Wight. This made four lines of vessels on one side of the channel and three on the other, extending from South Sea Castle to the Rye Middle Shoals, or a distance of two miles. No such fleet was ever seen before in time of peace, for every class of the British navy was so well represented that the review of the Crimean fleet by the Queen and the Prince Consort, thirty-one years ago, suffered by comparison. Some of the wooden ships which figured at that time were present, and the wide differences in everything bore strong testimony to the developments which have been made within a generation. Nelson’s old ship, the Victory, was a conspicuous object, and her timbers echoed again and again with cheers as boat after boat passed her. More than that, the old ship mounted a gun or two and joined in the universal salute to the Queen. Shortly after two o’clock the Euphrates, Crocodile, and Malabar hove to off Osborne as an escort to the royal yachts when the Queen embarked.

The Queen left Osborne House a few minutes before three o’clock, went aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, and left the buoy in the bay promptly at the hour fixed. She was preceded by the Trinity yacht and followed by the royal yachts Osborne and Alberta, and by the war-vessels Enchantress, Helicon, Euphrates, Crocodile, and Malabar. The royal procession proceeded straight to its destination and passed between the lines, leaving the coast-defence ships, gun-boats, and torpedo-boats on the port hand. After steaming as far as the Horse Elbow buoy the Victoria and Albert turned to starboard, passed between the two columns of large ships, and then between the lines of the foreign war-vessels. As the yacht steamed slowly by the war-ships the crews cheered loudly, but it was not until the Queen had gone through the double line that the royal salute was fired. On board such vessels as had no masts the turrets, breastworks, and decks were lined with the crews, and the spectacle was as splendid as it was potent with an earnest evidence of mighty power. Altogether the fleet extended over four miles, and even this length was added to by the great troop-ships which steamed into line and saluted the Queen as she made her progress.

The jubilee week was not without its accidents, for the Ajax and Devastation collided at the rendezvous, and subsequently the Agincourt and Black Prince had a similar experience. These mishaps evoked much hostile criticism, and among other things gave currency to an extract from a speech made by Lord Randolph Churchill several weeks before. Speaking of the navy, he had declared that, “In the last twelve or thirteen years eighteen ships have been either completed or designed by the Admiralty to fulfil certain purposes, and on the strength of the Admiralty statements Parliament has faithfully voted the money. The total amount which either has been or will be voted for these ships is about ten millions, and it is now discovered and officially acknowledged that in respect of the purposes for which these ships were designed, and for the purposes for which these ten millions either have been or will be spent, the whole of the money has been absolutely misapplied, utterly wasted and thrown away.”

Sir Charles Dilke does not agree with this pessimism of his political opponent, though he, too, has something to say of the British fleet, in relation to its influence upon the present position of European politics, which is well worth quoting.

“There is less to be said in a hostile sense with regard to the present position of the navy,” he concedes, “than may be said, or must be said, about the army. Clever German officers may write their ‘Great Naval War of 1888,’ and describe the destruction of the British fleet by the French torpedo-boats, but on the whole we are not ill-satisfied with the naval progress that has been made in the last three years. There is plenty of room for doubt as to whether we get full value for our money; but at all events our navy is undoubtedly and by universal admission the first navy in the world, and relatively to the French we appear to show of ships built and building a number proportionate to our expenditure. The discovery of the comparative uselessness of automatic torpedoes is an advantage to this country, and no great change in the opposite direction has recently occurred. M. Gabriel Charmes has pointed out to France the manner to destroy our sea-borne trade, but excellent steps have been taken since his book appeared to meet the danger which he obligingly made clear to us. It remains a puzzle to my civilian mind how Italy can manage to do all that in a naval sense she does for her comparatively small expenditure, and how, spending only from a fourth to a sixth what we spend upon our navy, she can nevertheless produce so noble a muster of great ships. But our naval dangers are, no doubt, dangers chiefly caused rather by military than by naval defects. Our navy is greatly weakened for the discharge of its proper duties by the fact that duties are thrown upon it which no navy can efficiently discharge. As Admiral Hoskins has said, it is the duty of the commander of the British fleet to drive the hostile squadrons from the seas, and to shut up the enemy’s ships in his different ports; but, on the other hand, he has a right to expect that our own ports and coaling stations shall be protected by batteries and by land forces. This is exactly what has not yet been done, although the defence of our coaling stations by fortresses and by adequate garrisons is essential to the sustaining of our maritime supremacy in time of war.

“It is only, however, by comparison with our army that I think our navy in a sound position. In other words, our military situation is so alarming that it is for a time desirable to concentrate our attention upon that, rather than upon the less pressing question of the condition of the navy. I must not be thought, however, to admit, for one single instant, that our navy should give us no anxiety. As long as France remains at peace, and spends upon her navy such enormous sums as she has been spending during the last few years, she will be sufficiently near to us in naval power to make our position somewhat doubtful; make it depend, that is, upon how the different new inventions may turn out in time of war. Our navy is certainly none too large (even when the coaling stations and commercial ports have been fortified, and made for the first time a source of strength rather than of weakness to the navy) for the duties which it has to perform. It would be as idle for us, with our present naval force, to hope to thoroughly command the Mediterranean and the Red Sea against the French without an Italian alliance, as to try to hold our own in Turkey or in Belgium with our present army. Just as the country seems now to have made up its mind to abandon not only the defence of Turkey against Russia, but also the defence of the neutrality of Belgium, so it will have to make up its mind, unless it is prepared to increase the navy, to resort only to the Cape route in time of war. Italy being neutral, and we at war with France, we could not at present hope to defend the whole of our colonies and trade against attack, and London against invasion, and yet to so guard the Mediterranean and the Red Sea as to make passage past Toulon and Algiers, Corsica and Biserta, safe. Our force is probably so superior to the French as to enable us to shut up their iron-clads; but it would probably be easier to shut in their Mediterranean iron-clads by holding the Straits of Gibraltar than to attempt to blockade them in Toulon. I confess that I cannot understand those Jingoes who think that it is enough to shriek for Egypt, without seeing that Egypt cannot be held in time of war, or the Suez route made use of with the military and naval forces that we possess at present.

“As against a French and Russian combination of course we are weaker still. Englishmen are hardly aware of the strength of Russia in the Pacific, where, if we are to attack at all, we must inevitably fight her, and where, if we are to adopt the hopeless policy of remaining only on the defensive, we shall still have to meet her for the protection of our own possessions. Just as the reduction of the horse artillery, comparatively unimportant in itself, has shown that the idea of the protection of Belgian neutrality has been completely given up, so the abandonment of Port Hamilton, instead of its fortification as a protection for our navy, seems to show that we have lost all hope of being able to hold our own against Russia in the North Pacific. On the 1st of August Russia will have upon her North Pacific station—cruising, that is, between Vladivostock and Yokohama—three new second-class protected ships—the Vladimir, Monomakh, and the Dmitri Donsköi, of nearly six thousand tons apiece, and the Duke of Edinburgh, of four thousand six hundred tons; one older protected ship, the Vitiaz, of three thousand tons; four fast-sailing cruisers—the Naïezdnik, the Razboïnik, the Opritchnik, and the Djighite; and four gun-boats, of which two are brand-new this year. While talking about their European fleets, the Russians are paying no real attention to them, and are more and more concentrating their strength in the North Pacific.”