Britain at Bay

by Spenser Wilkinson

The argument of the preceding chapters points to the conclusion that if Great Britain is to maintain her position as a great Power, probably even if she is to maintain her independence, and certainly if she is to retain the administration of India and the leadership of the nations that have grown out of her colonies, her statesmen and her people must combine to do three things:—

1. To adopt a policy having due relation to the condition and needs of the European Continent.

2. To make the British navy the best possible instrument of naval warfare.

3. To make the British army strong enough to be able to turn the scales in a continental war.

What are for the navy and for the army the essentials of victory? If there had never been any wars, no one would know what was essential to victory. People would have their notions, no doubt, but these notions would be guesses and could not be verified until the advent of a war, which might bring with it a good deal of disappointment to the people who had guessed wrong. But there have already been wars enough to afford ample material for deductions as to the causes and conditions of success. I propose to take the two best examples that can be found, one for war at sea and the other for war on land, in order to show exactly the way in which victory is attained.

By victory, of course, I mean crushing the enemy. In a battle in which neither side is crippled, and after which the fleets part to renew the struggle after a short interval, one side or the other may consider that it has had the honours of the day. It may have lost fewer ships than the enemy, or have taken more. It may have been able and willing to continue the fight, though the enemy drew off, and its commander may be promoted or decorated for having maintained the credit of his country or of the service to which he belongs. But such a battle is not victory either in a political or a strategical sense. It does not lead to the accomplishment of the purpose of the war, which is to dictate conditions of peace. That result can be obtained only by crushing the enemy's force and so making him powerless to renew the contest.

A general view of the wars of the eighteenth century between Great Britain and France shows that, broadly speaking, there was no decision until the end of the period. The nearest approach to it was when Hawke destroyed the French fleet in Quiberon Bay. But this was hardly a stand-up fight. The French fleet was running away, and Hawke's achievement was that, in spite of the difficulties of weather on an extremely dangerous coast, he was able to consummate its destruction. The real decision was the work of Nelson, and its principal cause was Nelson himself.

The British navy had discovered in its conflicts with the Dutch during the seventeenth century that the object of naval warfare was the command of the sea, which must be won by breaking the enemy's force in battle. This was also perfectly understood by the Dutch admirals, and in those wars was begun the development of the art of fighting battles with sailing vessels. A formation, the line of battle, in which one ship sails in the track of the ship before her, was found to be appropriate to the weapon used, the broadside of artillery; and a type of ship suitable to this formation, the line-of-battle ship, established itself. These were the elements with which the British and French navies entered into their long eighteenth century struggle. The French, however, had not grasped the principle that the object of naval warfare was to obtain the command of the sea. They did not consciously and primarily aim, as did their British rivals, at the destruction of the enemy's fleet. They were more concerned with the preservation of their own fleet than with the destruction of the enemy's, and were ready rather to accept battle than to bring it about. The British admirals were eager for battle, but had a difficulty in finding out how a decisive blow could be struck. The orthodox and accepted doctrine of the British navy was that the British fleet should be brought alongside the enemy's fleet, the two lines of battleships being parallel to one another, so that each ship in the British fleet should engage a corresponding ship in the French fleet. It was a manoeuvre difficult of execution, because, in order to approach the French, the British must in the first place turn each of their ships at right angles to the line or obliquely to it, and then, when they were near enough to fire, must turn again to the left (or right) in order to restore the line formation. And during this period of approach and turning they must be exposed to the broadsides of the French without being able to make full use of their own broadsides. Moreover, it was next to impossible in this way to bring up the whole line together. Besides being difficult, the manoeuvre had no promise of success. For if two fleets of equal numbers are in this way matched ship against ship, neither side has any advantage except what may be derived from the superior skill of its gunners. So long as these conditions prevailed, no great decisive victory of the kind for which we are seeking was gained. It was during this period that Nelson received such training as the navy could give him, and added to it the necessary finishing touch by never-ceasing effort to find out for himself the way in which he could strike a decisive blow. His daring was always deliberate, never rash, and this is the right frame of mind for a commander. "You may be assured," he writes to Lord Hood, March 11, 1794, "I shall undertake nothing but what I have moral certainty of succeeding in."

His fierce determination to get at the ultimate secrets of his trade led him to use every means that would help him to think out his problem, and among these means was reading. In 1780 appeared Clerk's "Essay on Naval Tactics." Clerk pointed out the weakness of the method of fighting in two parallel lines and suggested and discussed a number of plans by which one fleet with the bulk of its force could attack and destroy a portion of the other. This was the problem to which Nelson gave his mind—how to attack a part with the whole. On the 19th of August 1796 he writes to the Duke of Clarence:—

"We are now 22 sail of the line, the combined fleet will be above 35 sail of the line.... I will venture my life Sir John Jervis defeats them; I do not mean by a regular battle but by the skill of our Admiral, and the activity and spirit of our officers and seamen. This country is the most favourable possible for skill with an inferior fleet; for the winds are so variable that some one time in the 24 hours you must be able to attack a part of a large fleet, and the other will be becalmed, or have a contrary wind."