A History of Sea Power

by William Oliver Stevens; Allan F. Westcott

This plan was smashed by Admiral Hawke in one of the most daring feats in British naval annals. Thurot got away but did not divert any of the main force guarding the Channel. The Toulon fleet also eluded the English for a time but went to pieces outside the Straits largely on account of mismanagement on the part of its commander. The remnants were either captured or driven to shelter in neutral ports by the English squadron under Boscawen. On November 9, a heavy gale and the necessities of the fleet compelled Hawke to lift his blockade of Brest and take shelter in Torbay, after leaving four frigates to watch the port. On the 14th, Conflans, discovering that his enemy was gone, came out, with the absurd idea of covering the transportation of the French army before Hawke should appear again. That very day Hawke returned to renew the blockade, and learning that Conflans had been seen heading southeast, decided rightly that the French admiral was bound for Quiberon Bay to make an easy capture of a small British squadron there under Duff before beginning the transportation of the invading army.

For five days pursuer and pursued drifted in calms. On the 19th a stiff westerly gale enabled Hawke to overtake Conflans, who was obliged to shorten sail for fear of arriving at his destination in the darkness. The morning of the 20th found the fleets in sight of each other but scattered. All the forenoon the rival admirals made efforts to gather their units for battle. A frigate leading the British pursuit fired signal guns to warn Duff of the enemy's presence, and the latter, cutting his cables, was barely able to get out in time to escape the French fleet and join Hawke. Conflans then decided that the English were too strong for him, and abandoning his idea of offering battle, signaled a general retreat and led the way into Quiberon Bay.

Hawke instantly ordered pursuit. The importance of this signal can be realized only by taking into account the tremendous gale blowing and the exceedingly dangerous character of the approach to Quiberon Bay, lined as it was with sunken rocks. Hawke had little knowledge of the channels but he reasoned that where a French ship could go an English one could follow, and the perils of the entry could not outweigh in his mind the importance of crushing the navy of France then and there. The small British superiority of numbers which Conflans feared was greatly aggravated by the conditions of his flight. The slower ships in his rear were crushed by the British in superior force and the English coming alongside the French on their lee side were able to use their heaviest batteries while the French, heeled over by the gale, had to keep their lowest tier of ports closed for fear of being sunk. One of their ships tried the experiment of opening this broadside and promptly foundered.

Darkness fell on a scene of wild confusion. Two of the British vessels were lost on a reef, but daylight revealed the fact that the French had scattered in all directions. Only five of their ships had been destroyed and one taken, but the organization and the morale were completely shattered. The idea of invasion thus came to a sudden end in Quiberon Bay. The daring and initiative of Hawke in defying weather and rocks in his pursuit of Conflans is the admirable and significant fact of this story, for the actual fighting amounted to little. It is the sort of thing that marked the spirit of the Dutch Wars and of Blake at Santa Cruz, and is strikingly different from the tame and stupid work of other admirals, English or French, in his own day.

The Seven Years' War ended in terms of the deepest humiliation for France—a "Carthaginian peace." She was compelled to renounce to England all of Canada with the islands of the St. Lawrence, the Ohio valley and the entire area east of the Mississippi except New Orleans. Spain, which had entered the war on the side of France in 1761, gave up Florida in exchange for Havana, captured by the English, and in the West Indies several of the Lesser Antilles came under the British flag. It is hardly necessary to point out that the loss of these overseas possessions on such a tremendous scale was due to the ability of the British navy to cut the communications between them and the mother country.

Naval administration in England at this time was corrupt, and the admirals, with the notable exception of Hawke, were lacking in enterprise; they were still slaves to the "Fighting Instructions." But in all these respects the French were far worse, and the British government never lost sight of the immense importance of sea power. Its strategy was sound.

The War of American Independence

The peace of 1763 was so humiliating that every patriotic Frenchman longed for the opportunity of revenge. This offered itself in the revolt of the American colonies against the North Ministry in 1775. From the outset French neutrality as regards the American rebels was most benevolent; nothing could be more pleasing to France than to see her old enemy involved in difficulties with the richest and most populous of her colonies. For the first two or three years France gave aid surreptitiously, but after the capture of Burgoyne in 1777, she decided to enter the war openly and draw in allies as well. She succeeded in enlisting Spain in 1779 and Holland the year following. The entrance of the latter was of small military value, perhaps, but at all events France so manipulated the rebellion in the colonies as to bring on another great European war. In this conflict for the first time she had no enemies to fight on the Continent; hence she was free to throw her full force upon the sea, attacking British possessions in every quarter of the world. The War of the American Revolution became therefore a maritime war, the first since the conflicts with the Dutch in the 17th century.

While Paul Jones was in Paris waiting for his promised command, he forwarded to the Minister of Marine a plan for a rapid descent in force on the American coast. If his plan had been followed and properly executed the war might have been ended in America at one blow. But this project died in the procrastination and red tape of the Ministry of Marine, and a subsequent proposal for an attack on Liverpool dwindled into the mere commerce-destroying cruise which is memorable only for Jones's unparalleled fight with the Serapis. Eventually the navy of France was thrown into the balance to offset that of Great Britain, and it is largely to this fact that the United States owes its independence; men and munitions came freely from overseas and on one momentous occasion, the Battle of the Virginia Capes, the French navy performed its part decisively in action. But on a score of other occasions it failed pitiably on account of the lack of a comprehensive strategic plan and the want of energy and experience on the part of the commanding officers.

It is true that the French navy had made progress since the Seven Years' War. In 1778, it possessed 80 good line of battle ships. To this force, a year later, Spain was able to contribute nearly sixty. But England began the war with 150. Thus even if the French and Spanish personnel had been as well trained and as energetic as the British they would have had a superior force to contend with, particularly as the allied fleet was divided between the ports of Spain and France, and under dual command. But in efficiency the French and Spanish navies were vastly inferior to the British. Spanish efficiency may be dismissed at the outset as worthless. For the French officer the chief requisite was nobility of birth. The aristocracy of England furnished the officers for its service also, but in the French navy, considerations of social grade outweighed those of naval rank, a condition that never obtained in the British. In consequence, discipline—the principle of subordination animated by the spirit of team work—was conspicuously wanting in the French fleets. Individual captains were more concerned about their own prerogatives than about the success of the whole. This condition is illustrated by the conduct of the captains under Suffren in the Bay of Bengal, where the genius of the commander was always frustrated by the wilfulness of his subordinates. Finally in the matter of tactics the French were brought up on a fatally wrong theory, that of acting on the defensive, of avoiding decisive action, of saving a fleet rather than risking it for the sake of victory. Hence, though they were skilled in maneuvering, and ahead of the British in signaling, though their ships were as fine as any in the world, this fatal error of principle prevented their taking advantage of great opportunities and sent them to certain defeat in the end.