A History of Sea Power Part 10

Though not yet able to stand up against Spanish infantry, the Dutch in naval battles were usually successful. In the Scheldt, January 29, 1574, 75 Spanish vessels were attacked by 64 Dutch under Admiral Boisot. After a single broadside, the two fleets grappled, and in a two-hour fight at close quarters eight of the Spanish ships were captured, seven destroyed, and 1200 Spaniards killed. The Spanish commander, Julian Romero, escaped through a port-hole, is said to have remarked afterwards, "I told you I was a land fighter and no sailor; give me a hundred fleets and I would fare no better."

In September following, Admiral Boisot brought some of his victorious ships and sailors to the relief of Leyden, whose inhabitants and garrison had been reduced by siege to the very last extremities.

The campaign that followed was typical of this amphibious war.

Boisot's force, with those already an the scene, numbered about 2500, equipped with some 200 shallow-draft boats and row-barges mounting an average of ten guns each. Among them was the curious _Ark of Delft_, with shot-proof bulwarks and paddle-wheels turned by a crank. As a result of ruthless flooding of the country, ten of the fifteen miles between Leyden and the outer d.y.k.e were easily pa.s.sed; but five miles from the city ran the Landscheidung or inner d.y.k.e, which was above water, and beyond this an intricate system of ca.n.a.ls and flooded polders, with forts and villages held by a Spanish force four times as strong. The most savage fighting on decks, d.y.k.es, and bridges marked every step forward; the Dutch in their native element attacking with cutla.s.s, boathook and harpoon, while the superior military discipline of the Spanish could not come in play. But at least 20 inches of water were necessary to float the Dutch vessels, and it was not until October 3 that a spring tide and a heavy northwest gale made it possible to reach the city walls. In storm and darkness, terrified by the rising waters, the Spanish fled. The relief of the city marked a turning-point in the history of the revolt.

During the six terrible years of Alva's rule in the Netherlands (1567-1573) the Dutch sea forces contributed heavily toward the maintenance of the war, a.s.sured control of the Holland and Zealand coasts, and more than once, as at Brill and Leyden, proved the salvation of the patriot cause. Holland and Zealand, the storm-centers of rebellion, were not again so devastated, though the war dragged on for many years, maintained by the indomitable spirit of William of Orange until his a.s.sa.s.sination in 1584, and afterward by the military skill of Maurice of Na.s.sau and the aid of foreign powers.

The seven provinces north of the Scheldt, separating from the Catholic states of the south, prospered in trade and industry as they shook themselves free from the stifling rule of Spain. By a twelve-year truce, finally ratified in 1609, they became "free states over which Spain makes no pretensions," though their independence was not fully recognized until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The war, while it ruined Antwerp, increased the prosperity of Holland and Zealand, which for at least twenty years before the truce were busily extending their trade to every part of the world.

_Growth of Dutch Commerce_

The story of this expansion of commerce is a striking record. The grain and timber of the Baltic, the wines of France and Spain, the salt of the Cape Verde Islands, the costly wares of the east, came to the ports of the Meuse and Zuyder Zee. In 1590 the first Dutch traders entered the Mediterranean, securing, eight years later, the permission of the Sultan to engage in Constantinople trade. In 1594 their ships reached the Gold Coast, and a year later four vessels visited Madagascar, Goa, Java, and the Moluccas or Spice Islands. A rich Zealand merchant had a factory at Archangel and a regular trade into the White Sea. Seeking a reward of 25,000 florins offered by the States for the discovery of a northeast pa.s.sage, Jacob van Heimskirck sailed into the Arctic and wintered in Nova Zembla; Henry Hudson, in quest of a route northwestward, explored the river and the bay that bear his name and died in the Polar Seas.

Statistics, while not very trustworthy and not enlightening unless compared with those for other nations, may give some idea of the preponderance of Dutch shipping. At the time of the truce she is said to have had 16,300 ships, about 10,000 of which were small vessels in the coasting trade. Of the larger, 3000 were in the Baltic trade, 2000 in the Spanish, 600 sailed to Italy, and the remainder to the Mediterranean, South America, the Far East, and Archangel. The significance of these figures may be made clearer by citing Colbert's estimate that at a later period (1664) there were 20,000 ships in general European carrying trade, 16,000 of which were Dutch. Throughout the 17th century Dutch commerce continued to prosper, and did not reach its zenith until early in the century following.

In the closing years of the 16th century several private companies were founded in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Zealand to engage in eastern trade. These were combined in 1602 into the United East Indies Company, which sent large fleets to the Orient each year, easily ousted the Portuguese from their bases on the coast and islands, and soon established almost a monopoly, leaving to England only a small share of trade with Persia and northwest India. The relative resources invested by English and Dutch in Eastern ventures is suggested by the fact that the British East Indies Company founded in 1600 had a capital of 80,000, while the Dutch Company had 316,000.

By 1620 the shares of the Dutch company had increased to three times their original value, and they paid average dividends of 18 per cent for the next 200 years.

In this Dutch conquest of eastern trade, like that of the Portuguese a century earlier, we have an ill.u.s.tration of what has since been a guiding principle in the history of sea power--a national policy of commercial expansion st.u.r.dily backed by foreign policy and whenever necessary by naval force. The element of national policy is evident in the fact that Holland--and England until the accession of James I in 1603--preferred war rather than acceptance of Spanish pretensions to exclusive rights in the southern seas. The Dutch, like the Portuguese, saw clearly the need of political control. They made strongholds of their trading bases, and gave their companies power to oust compet.i.tors by force. As a concession to Spanish pride, the commerce clause in the Truce of 1609 was made intentionally unintelligible--but the Dutch interpreted it to suit themselves.

As for the element of force, every squadron that sailed to the east was a semi-military expedition. The Dutch seaman was sailor, fighter, and trader combined. The merchant was truly, in the phrase of the age, a "merchant adventurer," lucky indeed and enriched if, after facing the perils of navigation in strange waters, the possible hostility of native rulers, and the still greater danger from European rivals, half his ships returned. The last statement is no hyperbole; of 9 ships sent to the East from Amsterdam in 1598, four came back, and just half of the 22 sent out from the entire Netherlands.

From time to time, either to maintain the blockade of the Scheldt and a.s.sist in operations on the Flanders coast, or to protect their trade and strike a direct blow at Spain, the Dutch fitted out purely naval expeditions. One of the most effective, from the standpoint of actual fighting, was that led by van Heimskirck, already famous for Arctic exploration and exploits in the Far East. In 1607 he took 21 converted merchantmen and 4 transports to the Spanish coast to protect Dutch vessels from the east and the Mediterranean.

Encountering off Gibraltar an enemy force of 11 large galleons and as many galleys under Alvarez d'Avila, a veteran of Lepanto, he destroyed half the Spanish force and drove the rest into port, killing about 2000 Spanish and coming out of the fight with the loss of only 100 men. Heimskirck concentrated upon the galleons and came to close action after the fashion which seems to have been characteristic of the Dutch in naval engagements throughout the war. "Hold your fire till you hear the crash," he cried, as he drove his prow into the enemy flagship; and the battle was won after a struggle yard-arm to yard-arm. Bath admirals were killed.

Portugal, broken by the Spanish yoke, could offer little resistance in the Far East. In 1606 a Dutch fleet of 12 ships under Matelieff de Jonge laid siege to Malacca, and gave up the attempt only after destroying 10 galleons sent to relieve the town. Matelieff then sailed to the neighboring islands, and established the authority of the company at Bantam, Amboyna, Ternate, and other centers of trade.

Other fleets earlier and later promoted the interests of the company by the same means. English traders, with scanty government encouragement from the Stuart kings, were not as yet dangerous rivals. A conflict occurred with them in 1611 off Surat; and at Amboyna in 1623 the Dutch seized the English Company's men, tortured ten of them, and broke up the English base. For more than a century Holland remained supreme in the east; she has retained her colonial empire down to the 20th century; and she did not surrender her commercial primacy until exhausted by the combined attacks of England and France.

Less successful than England in the development of colonies, she has stood out as the greatest of trading nations.

REFERENCES

_The Vikings_

THE VIKING AGE, H. F. Du Chaillu, 1889.

_The Hansa_

THE HANSA TOWNS, H. Zimmerman, 1889.

HISTORY OF COMMERCE, Clive Day, 1913 (bibliography).

CIVILIZATION DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, George Burton Adams, 1918.

CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY, Vols. I and II.

_Dutch Sea Power_

MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC (still the best source in English for political and naval history of the period).

HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, P. J. Blok, trans. Ruth Putnam, 1898-1912.

HISTORY OF COMMERCE IN EUROPE, W. H. Gibbins, 1917.

THE SEA BEGGARS, Dingman Versteg, 1901.

SOME EXPLOITS OF THE OLD DUTCH NAVY, Lieut. H. H. Frost, U. S.

Naval Inst.i.tute Proceedings, January, 1919.

CHAPTER VIII

ENGLAND AND THE ARMADA

By reason of England's insularity, it is an easy matter to find instances from even her early history of the salutary or fatal influence of sea power. Romans, Saxons, Danes swept down upon England from the sea. By building a fleet, King Alfred, said to have been the true father of the British navy, kept back the Danes. It was the dispersion of the English fleet by reason of the lateness of the season that enabled William the Conqueror, in the small open vessels interestingly pictured in the Bayeux tapestry, to win a footing on the English sh.o.r.e.

But during the next three centuries, with little shipping and little trade save that carried on by the Hansa, with no enemy that dangerously threatened her by sea, England had neither the motives nor the national strength and unity to develop naval power. She claimed, it is true, dominion over the narrow waters between her and her possessions in France, and also over the "four seas" surrounding her; and as early as 1201 an ordinance was pa.s.sed requiring vessels in these waters to lower sails ("vail the bonnet") and also to "lie by the lee" when so ordered by King's ships. But though these claims were revived in the 17th century against the Dutch, and though the requirement that foreign vessels strike their topsails to the British flag remained in the Admiralty Instructions until after Trafalgar, they were at this time enforced chiefly to rid the seas of pirates--the common enemies of nations. During this period there were a few "king's ships," the sovereign's personal property, forming a nucleus around which a naval force of fishing and merchant vessels could be a.s.sembled in time of war. The Cinque Ports, originally Dover, Sandwich, Hastings, Romney and Hythe, long enjoyed certain trading privileges in return for the agreement that when the king pa.s.sed overseas they would "rigge up fiftie and seven ships" (according to a charter of Edward I) with 20 armed soldiers each, and maintain them for 15 days.

An attack in 1217 by such a fleet, under the Governor of Dover Castle, affords perhaps the earliest instance of maneuvering for the weather-gage. The English came down from the windward and, as they scrambled aboard the enemy, threw quicklime into the Frenchmen's eyes. At Sluis, in 1340, to take another instance of early English naval warfare, Edward III defeated a large French fleet and a number of hired Genoese galleys lashed side by side in the little river Eede in Flanders. Edward came in with a fair wind and tide and fell upon the enemy as they lay aground at the stem and unmanageable.

This victory gave control of the Channel for the transport of troops in the following campaign. But like most early naval combats, it was practically a land battle over decks, and, although sanguinary enough, it is from a naval stand paint interesting chiefly for such novelties as a scouting force of knights on horseback along the sh.o.r.e.

The beginnings of a permanent and strong naval establishment, as distinct from merchant vessels owned by the king or in his service, must be dated, however, from the Tudors and the period of national rehabilitation following the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and the War of the Roses (1455-1485). One reason for this was that the employment of artillery on shipboard and the introduction of port-holes made it increasingly difficult to convert merchant craft into dependable men-of-war. Henry VIII took a keen interest in his navy, devoted the revenues of forfeited church property to its expansion, established the first Navy Board (1546), and is even credited with the adoption of sailing vessels as the major units of his fleet.

_From Oar to Sail_

The use of heavy ordnance, already mentioned, as well as the increasing size and efficiency of sail-craft that came with the spread of ocean commerce and navigation, naturally pointed the way to this transition in warfare from oar to sail. The galley was at best a frail affair, c.u.mbered with oars, benches and rowers, unable to carry heavy guns or withstand their fire. Once sailing vessels had attained reasonable maneuvering qualities, their superior strength and size, reduced number of non-combatant personnel, and increased seaworthiness and cruising radius gave them a tremendous superiority.

That the change should have begun in the north rather than in the Mediterranean, where naval and military science had reached its highest development, must be attributed not only to the rougher weather conditions of the northern seas, and the difficulty of obtaining slaves as rowers, but also to the fact that the southern nations were more completely shackled by the traditions of galley warfare.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GALLEON]

Yet for the new type it was the splendid trading vessels of Venice that supplied the design. For the Antwerp and London trade, and in protection against the increasing danger from pirates, the Venetians had developed a compromise between the war-galley and the round-ship of commerce, a type with three masts and propelled at least primarily by sails, with a length about three times its beam and thus shorter and more seaworthy than the galley, but longer, lower and swifter than the clumsy round-ship. To this new type the names _gallea.s.s_ and _galleon_ were bath given, but in English and later usage _gallea.s.s_ came to be applied to war vessels combining oar and sail, and _galleon_ to either war or trading vessels of medium size and length and propelled by sail alone.

The Spanish found the galleon useful in the Atlantic carrying trade, but, as shown at Lepanto, they retained the galley in warfare; whereas Henry VIII of England was probably the first definitely to favor sail for his men-of-war. An English navy list of 1545 shows four clumsy old-fashioned "great-ships" of upwards of 1000 tons, but second to these a dozen newer vessels of distinctly galleon lines, lower than the great-ships, flush-decked, and sail-driven.

Though in engagements with French galleys during the campaign of 1545 these were handicapped by calm weather, they seem to have held their own both in battle and in naval opinion. Of the royal ships at the opening of Elizabeth's reign (1558), there were 11 large sailing vessels of 200 tans and upwards, and 10 smaller ones, but only two galleys, and these "of no continuance and not worth repair."[1] In comment on these figures, it should be added that there were half a hundred large ships available from the merchant service, and also that pinnaces and other small craft still combined oar and sail.

[Footnote 1: DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVY, Corbett, Vol. I, p. 133.]

In England the superiority of sail propulsion was soon definitely recognized, and discussion later centered on the relative merits of the medium-sized galleon and the big "great-ship." The characteristics of each are well set forth in a contemporary naval treatise by Sir William Monson: the former with "flush deck fore and aft, sunk and low in the water; the other lofty and high-charged, with a half-deck, forecastle, and copperidge-heads [athwortship bulkheads where light guns were mounted to command the s.p.a.ce between decks]." The advantages of the first were that she was speedy and "a fast ship by the wind" so as to avoid boarding by the enemy, and could run in close and fire effective broadsides between wind and water without being touched; whereas the big ship was more terrifying, more commodious, stronger, and could carry more and heavier guns. Monson, like many a later expert, suspended judgment regarding the two types; but Sir Walter Raleigh came out strongly for the smaller design. "The greatest ships," he writes, "are the least serviceable...., less nimble, less maniable; 'Grande navi grande fatiga,' saith the Spaniard. A ship of 600 tons will carry as good ordnance as a ship of 1200 tons; and though the greater have double her number, the lesser will turn her broadsides twice before the greater can wind once." And elsewhere: "The high charging of ships makes them extreme leeward, makes them sink deep in the water, makes them labor, and makes them overset. Men may not expect the ease of many cabins and safety at once in sea-service."[1]

[Footnote 1: WORKS, Oxford ed. 1829, Vol. VIII, p. 338.]

These statements were made after the Armada; but the trend of English naval construction away from unwieldy ships such as used by the Spanish in the Armada, is clearly seen in vessels dating from 1570-1580--the _Foresight, Bull,_ and _Tiger_ (rebuilt from gallea.s.ses), the _Swiftsure, Dreadnought, Revenge,_ and others of names renowned in naval annals. These were all of about the dimensions of the _Revenge,_ which was of 440 tons, 92 feet over all, 32 feet beam, and 15 feet from deck to keel. That is to say, their length was not more than three times their beam, and their beam was about twice their depth in the hold--the characteristic proportions of the galleon type.

The progressiveness of English ship construction is highly significant, for to it may be attributed in large measure the Armada victory.

Spain had made no such advances; in fact, until the decade of the Armada, she hardly had such a thing as a royal navy. The superiority of the English ships was generally recognized. An English naval writer in 1570 declared the ships of his nation so fine "none of any other region may seem comparable to them"; and a Spaniard some years later testified that his people regarded "one English ship worth four of theirs."

Though not larger than frigates of Nelson's time, these ships were crowded with an even heavier armament, comprising guns of all sizes and of picturesque but bewildering nomenclature. According to Corbett,[1] the ordnance may be divided into four main cla.s.ses based on caliber, the first two of the "long gun" and the other two of the carronade or mortar type.

[Footnote 1: DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVY, Vol. I, p. 384.]

I. Cannon proper, from 16 to 28 caliber, of 8.5-inch bore and 12 feet in length, firing 65-pound shot. The demi-cannon, which was the largest gun carried on ships of the time, was 6.5 inches by 9 feet and fired 30-pound shot.

II. Culverins, 28 to 34 caliber long guns, 5 inches by 12 feet, firing 17-pound shot. Demi-culverins were 9-pounders. Slings, bases, sakers, port-pieces, and fowlers belonged to this cla.s.s.

III. Perriers, from 6 to 8 caliber, firing stone-b.a.l.l.s, sh.e.l.ls, fire-b.a.l.l.s, etc.