A History of Sea Power Part 11

IV. Mortars, of 1.5 caliber, including petards and murderers.

The "great ordnance," or cannon, were muzzle-loading. The secondary armament, mounted in tops, cageworks, bulkheads, etc., were breech-loading; but these smaller pieces fell out of favor as time went on owing to reliance on long-range fire and rareness of boarding actions. Down to the middle of the 19th century there was no great improvement in ordnance, save in the way of better powder and boring.

Even in Elizabeth's day the heaviest cannon had a range of three miles.

These advances in ship design and armament were accompanied by some changes in naval administration. In 1546 the Navy Board was created, which continued to handle matters of what may be termed civil administration until its functions were taken over by the Board of Admiralty in the reorganization of 1832. The chief members of the Navy Board, the Treasurer, Comptroller, Surveyor of Ships, Surveyor of Ordnance, and Clerk of Ships, were in Elizabethan times usually experienced in sea affairs. To John Hawkins, Treasurer from 1578 to 1595, belongs chief credit for the excellent condition of ships in his day. The Lord High Admiral, a member of the n.o.bility, exercised at least nominal command of the fleet in peace and war. For vice admiral under him a man of practical experience was ordinarily chosen. On shipboard, the only "gentleman" officers were the captains; the rest--masters, master's mates, pilots, carpenters, boatswains, c.o.xswains, and gunners--were, to quote a contemporary description, "mechanick men that had been bred up from swabbers." But owing to the small proportion of soldiers on board, the English ships were not like those of Spain, which were organized like a camp, with the soldier element supreme and the sailors "slaves to the rest."

_The Political Situation_

The steps taken to build up the navy in the decade or more preceding the Armada were well justified by the political and religious strife in western Europe and the dangers which on all sides threatened the English realm. France, the Netherlands, and Scotland were torn by religious warfare. In England the party with open or secret Catholic sympathies was large, amounting to perhaps half the population, the strength of whose loyalty to Elizabeth it was difficult to gage. Since 1568 Elizabeth had held captive Mary Queen of Scots, driven out of her own country by the Presbyterian hierarchy, and a Catholic with hereditary claims to the English throne. Before her death, Philip of Spain had conspired with her to a.s.sa.s.sinate the heretic Elizabeth; after Mary's execution in 1587 he became heir to her claims and entered the more willingly upon the task of conquering England and restoring it to the faith. For years, in fact, there had been a state of undeclared hostility between England and Spain, and acts which, with sovereigns less cautious and astute than both Elizabeth and Philip, would have meant war.

In 1585 Elizabeth formed an alliance with the Netherlands, and sent her favorite, Leicester, there as governor-general, and Sir Philip Sidney as Governor of Flushing, which with two other "cautionary towns" she took as pledges of Dutch loyalty. The motives for this action are well stated in a paper drawn up by the English Privy Council in 1584, presenting a situation interesting in its a.n.a.logy to that which faced the United States when it entered the World War:

"The conclusion of the whole was this: Although her Majesty should thereby enter into the war presently, yet were she better to do it now, while she may make the same out of her realm, having the help of the people of Holland, and before the King of Spain shall have consummated his conquest of those countries, whereby he shall be so provoked by pride, solicited by the Pope, and tempted by the Queen's own subjects, and shall be so strong by sea; and so free from all other actions and quarrels--yea, shall be so formidable to all the rest of Christendom, as that her Majesty shall no wise be able, with her own power, nor with the aid of any other, neither by land nor sea, to withstand his attempts, but shall be forced to give place to his insatiable malice, which is most terrible to be thought of, but miserable to suffer."

These were the compelling reasons for England's entry into the war. The aid to Holland and the execution of Mary, on the other hand, were sufficient to explain Philip's attempted invasion. The grievance of Spain owing to the incursions of Hawkins and Drake into her American possessions, and England's desire to break Spain's commercial monopoly, were at the time relatively subordinate, though from a naval standpoint the voyages are interesting in themselves and important in the history of sea control and sea trade.

_Hawkins and Drake_

John Hawkins was a well-to-do ship-owner of Plymouth, and as already stated, Treasurer of the Royal Navy, with a contract for the upkeep of ships. His first venture to the Spanish Main was in 1562, when he kidnapped 300 negroes on the Portuguese coast of Africa and exchanged them at Hispanola (Haiti), for West Indian products, chartering two additional vessels to take his cargo home. Though he might have been put to death if caught by either Portugal or Spain, his profits were so handsome by the double exchange that he tried it again in 1565, this time taking his "choice negroes at 160 each" to Terra Firme, or the Spanish Main, including the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and the Isthmus. When the Spanish authorities, warned by their home government, made some show of resistance, Hawkins threatened bombardment, landed his men, and did business by force, the inhabitants conniving in a contraband trade very profitable to them.

On his third voyage he had six vessels, two of which, the _Jesus of Lubeck_ and the _Minion_, were Queen's ships hired out for the voyage. The skipper of one of the smaller vessels, the _Judith_, was Francis Drake, a relative and protege of the Hawkins family, and then a youth of twenty-two. On September 16, 1567, after a series of encounters stormier than ever in the Spanish settlements, the squadron homeward bound was driven by bad weather into the port of Mexico City in San Juan de Ulua Bay. Here, having a decided superiority over the vessels in the harbor, Hawkins secured the privilege of mooring and refitting his ships inside the island that formed a natural breakwater, and mounted guns on the island itself. To his surprise next morning, he beheld in the offing 13 ships of Spain led by an armed galleon and having on board the newly appointed Mexican viceroy. Hawkins, though his guns commanded the entrance, took hostages and made some sort of agreement by which the Spanish ships were allowed to come in and moor alongside.

But the situation was too tense to carry off without an explosion.

Three days later the English were suddenly attacked on sea and sh.o.r.e. They at once leaped into their ships and cut their cables, but though they hammered the Spanish severely in the fight that followed, only two English vessels, the _Minion_ and the _Judith_, escaped, the _Minion_ so overcrowded that Hawkins had to drop 100 of his crew on the Mexican coast. Drake made straight for Plymouth, nursing a bitter grievance at the alleged breach of faith, and vowing vengeance on the whole Spanish race. "The case," as Drake's biographer, Thomas Fuller, says, "was clear in sea-divinity, and few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit."[1]

[Footnote 1: THE HOLY STATE, Bk. II, Ch. XXII.]

In the next three years, following the example of many a French Huguenot privateersman before him, and forsaking trade for semi-private reprisal (in that epoch a few degrees short of piracy), he made three voyages to the Spanish Indies. On the third, in 1572, he raided Nombre de Dios with fire and sword. Then, leaguing himself with the mixed-breed natives or cameroons, he waylaid a guarded mule-train bearing treasure across the Isthmus, securing 15 tons of silver which he buried, and as much gold as his men could stagger away under. It was on this foray that he first saw the Pacific from a height of the Cordilleras, and resolved to steer an English squadron into this. .h.i.therto unmolested Spanish sea.

The tale of Drake's voyage into the Pacific and circ.u.mnavigation of the globe is a piratical epic, the episodes of which, however, find some justification in the state of virtual though undeclared hostilities between England and Spain, in the Queen's secret sanction, and in Spain's own policy of ruthless spoliation in America. Starting at the close of 1577 with five small vessels, the squadron was reduced by shipwreck and desertion until only the flagship remained when Drake at last, on September 6 of the next year, achieved his midwinter pa.s.sage of the Straits of Magellan and bore down, "like a visitation of G.o.d" as a Spaniard said, upon the weakly defended ports of the west coast. After ballasting his ship with silver from the rich Potosi mines, and rifling even the churches, he hastened onward in pursuit of a richly laden galleon nicknamed _Cacafuego_--a name discreetly translated _Spitfire_, but which, to repeat a joke that greatly amused Drake's men at the time, it was proposed to change to _Spitsilver_, for when overtaken and captured the vessel yielded 26 tons of silver, 13 chests of pieces of eight, and gold and jewels sufficient to swell the booty to half a million pounds sterling.

For 20 years the voyage across the northern Pacific had been familiar to the Spanish, who had studied winds and currents, laid down routes, and made regular crossings. Having picked up charts and China pilots, and left the whole coast in panic fear, Drake sailed far to the northward, overhauled his ship in a bay above San Francisco, then struck across the Pacific, and at last rounded Good Hope and put into Plymouth in September of the third year. It suited Elizabeth's policy to countenance the voyage. She put the major part of the treasure into the Tower, took some trinkets herself, knighted Drake aboard the _Golden Hind_, and when the Spanish amba.s.sador talked war she told him, in a quiet tone of voice, that she would throw him into a dungeon.

This red-bearded, short and thickset Devon skipper, bold of speech as of action, was now the most renowned sailor of England, with a name that inspired terror on every coast of Spain. It was inevitable, therefore, that when Elizabeth resolved upon open reprisals in 1585, Drake should be chosen to lead another, and this time fully authorized, raid on the Spanish Indies. Here he sacked the cities of San Domingo and Carthagena, and, though he narrowly missed the plate fleet, brought home sufficient spoils for the individuals who backed the venture. In the year 1587 with 23 ships and orders permitting him to operate freely on Spain's home coasts, he first boldly entered Cadiz, in almost complete disregard of the puny galleys guarding the harbor, and destroyed some 37 vessels and their cargoes. Despite the horrified protests of his Vice Admiral Borough (an officer "of the old school" to be found in every epoch) at these violations of traditional methods, he then took up a position off Saigres where he could harry coastwise commerce, picked up the East Indiaman _San Felipe_ with a cargo worth a million pounds in modern money, and even appeared off Lisbon to defy the Spanish Admiral Santa Cruz. Thus he "singed the King of Spain's beard,"

and set, in the words of a recent biographer, "what to this day may serve as the finest example of how a small, well-handled fleet, acting on a nicely timed offensive, may paralyze the mobilization of an overwhelming force."[1]

[Footnote 1: DRAKE AND THE TUDOR NAVY, Corbett, Vol. II, p. 108.]

_The Grand Armada_

At the time of this Cadiz expedition Spanish preparations for the invasion of England were already well under way, Philip being now convinced that by a blow at England all his aims might be secured--the subjugation of the Netherlands, the safety of Spanish America, the overthrow of Protestantism, possibly even his accession to the English throne. As the secret instructions to Medina Sidonia more modestly stated, it was at least believed that by a vigorous offensive and occupation of English territory England could be forced to cease her opposition to Spain. For this purpose every province of the empire was pressed for funds. Pope Sixtus VI contributed a million gold crowns, which he shrewdly made payable only when troops actually landed on English soil. Church and n.o.bility were squeezed as never before. The Cortes on the eve of the voyage voted 8,000,000 ducats, secured by a tax on wine, meat, and oil, the common necessities of life, which was not lifted for more than two hundred years.

To gain control of the Channel long enough to throw 40,000 troops ash.o.r.e at Margate, and thereafter to meet and conquer the army of defense--such was the highly difficult objective, to a.s.sure the success of which Philip had been led to hope for a wholesale defection of English Catholics to the Spanish cause. Twenty thousand troops were to sail with the Armada; Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, was to add 17,000 veterans from Flanders and a.s.sume supreme command. With the Spanish infantry once landed, under the best general in Europe, it was not beyond reason that England might become a province of Spain.

What Philip did not see clearly, what indeed could scarcely be foreseen from past experience, was that no movement of troops should be undertaken without first definitely accounting for the enemy fleet. The Spanish had not even an open base to sail to. With English vessels thronging the northern ports of the Channel, with 90 Dutch ships blockading the Scheldt and the shallows of the Flanders coast, it would be necessary to clear the Channel by a naval victory, and maintain control until it was a.s.sured by victory on land. The leader first selected, Santa Cruz--a veteran of Lepanto--at least put naval considerations uppermost and laid plans on a grand scale, calling for 150 major ships and 100,000 men, 30,000 of them sailors.

But with his death in 1587 the campaign was again thought of primarily from the army standpoint. The ships were conceived as so many transports, whose duty at most was to hold the English fleet at bay. Parma was to be supreme. To succeed Santa Cruz as naval leader, and in order, it is said, that the gray-haired autocrat Philip might still control from his cell in the Escorial, the Duke of Medina Sidonia was chosen--an amiable gentleman of high rank, but consciously ignorant of naval warfare, uncertain of purpose, and despondent almost from the start. Medina had an experienced Vice Admiral in Diego Flores de Valdes, whose professional advice he usually followed, and he had able squadron commanders in Recalde, Pedro de Valdes, Oquendo, and others; but such a commander-in-chief, unless a very genius in self-effacement, was enough to ruin a far more auspicious campaign.

Delayed by the uncertain political situation in France, even more than by Drake's exploits off Cadiz, the Armada was at last, in May of 1588, ready to depart. The success of the Catholic party under the leadership of the Duke of Guise gave a.s.surance of support rather than hostility on the French flank. There were altogether some 130 ships, the best of which were 10 war galleons of Portugal and 10 of the "Indian Guard" of Spain. These were supported by the Biscayan, Andalusian, Guipuscoan, and Levantine squadrons of about 10 armed merchantmen each, four splendid Neapolitan gallea.s.ses that gave a good account of themselves in action, and four galleys that were driven upon the French coast by storms and took no part in the battle--making a total (without the galleys) of about 64 fighting ships. Then there were 35 or more pinnaces and small craft, and 23 _urcas_ or storeships of little or no fighting value. The backbone of the force was the 60 galleons, large, top-lofty vessels, all but 20 of them from the merchant service, with towering p.o.o.ps and forecastles that made them terrible to look upon but hard to handle. On board were 8,000 sailors and 19,000 troops.

Dispersed by a storm on their departure from Lisbon, the fleet again a.s.sembled at Corunna, their victuals already rotten, and their water foul and short. Medina Sidonia even now counseled abandonment; but religious faith, the fatalistic pride of Spain, and Philip's dogged fixity of purpose drove them on. Putting out of Corunna on July 22, and again buffeted by Biscay gales, they were sighted off the Lizard at daybreak of July 30, and a pinnace scudded into Plymouth with the alarm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRUISE OF THE SPANISH ARMADA]

For England the moment of supreme crisis had come, Elizabeth's policy of paying for nothing that she might expect her subjects to contribute had left the royal navy short of what the situation called for, and the government seems also, even throughout the campaign, to have tied the admirals to the coast and kept them from distant adventures by limited supplies of munitions and food. But in the imminent danger, the n.o.bility, both Catholic and Protestant, and every coastwise city, responded to the call for ships and men.

Their loyalty was fatal to Philip's plan. The royal fleet of 25 ships and a dozen pinnaces was reenforced until the total craft of all descriptions numbered 197, not more than 140 of which, however, may be said to have had a real share in the campaign. For a month or more a hundred sail had been mobilized at Plymouth, of which 69 were greatships and galleons. These were smaller in average tonnage than the Spanish ships, but more heavily armed, and manned by 10,000 capable seamen. Lord Henry Seymour, with Palmer and Sir William Winter under him, watched Parma at the Strait of Dover, with 20 ships and an equal number of galleys, barks and pinnaces.

The Lord High Admiral, Thomas Howard of Effingham, a n.o.bleman of 50 with some naval experience and of a family that had long held the office, commanded the western squadron, with Drake as Vice Admiral and John Hawkins as Rear Admiral. The _Ark_ (800 tons), _Revenge_ (500), and _Victory_ (800) were their respective flagships. Martin Frobisher in the big 1100-ton _Triumph_, Lord Sheffield in the _White Bear_ (1000), and Thomas Fenner in the _Nonpareil_ (500) were included with the Admirals in Howard's inner council of war.

"Howard," says Thomas Fuller, "was no deep-seaman, but he had skill enough to know those who had more skill than himself and to follow their instructions." As far as as possible for a commoner, Drake exercised command.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From Pigafetta's _Discorso sopro l'Ordinanza dell'

Armata Catholico_ (Corbett's _Drake_, Vol. II, p. 213).

ORIGINAL "EAGLE" FORMATION OF THE ARMADA, PROBABLY ADOPTED WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS AND SHOWING THE INFLUENCE OF GALLEY WARFARE]

On the morning of the 31st the Armada swept slowly past Plymouth in what has been described as a broad crescent, but which, from a contemporary Italian description, seems to have been the "eagle"

formation familiar to galley warfare, in line abreast with wide extended wings bent slightly forward, the main strength in center and guards in van and rear. Howard was just completing the arduous task of warping his ships out of the harbor. Had Medina attacked at once, as some of his subordinates advised, he might have compelled Howard to close action and won by superior numbers. But his orders suggested the advisability of avoiding battle till he had joined with Parma; and for the Duke this was enough. As the Armada continued its course, Howard fell in astern and to windward, inflicting serious injuries to two ships of the enemy rear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From Hale's _Story of the Great Armada._

THE COURSE OF THE ARMADA UP THE CHANNEL]

A week of desultory running battle ensued as the fleets moved slowly through the Channel; the English fighting "loose and large," and seeking to pick off stragglers, still fearful of a general action, but taking advantage of Channel flaws to close with the enemy and sheer as swiftly away; the Spanish on the defensive but able to avoid disaster by better concerted action and fleet control. Only two Spanish ships were actually lost, one of them Pedro de Valdes'

flagship _Neustra Senora del Rosario_, which had been injured in collision and surrendered to Drake without a struggle on the night of August 1, the other the big _San Salvador_ of the Guipuscoan squadron, the whole after part of which had been torn up by an explosion after the fighting on the first day. But the Spanish inferiority had been clearly demonstrated and they had suffered far more in morale than in material injuries when on Sunday, August 7, they dropped anchor in Calais roads. The English, on their part, though flushed with confidence, had seen their weakness in organized tactics, and now divided their fleet into four squadrons, with the flag officers and Frobisher in command.

It betrays the fatuity of the Spanish leader, if not of the whole plan of campaign, that when thus practically driven to refuge in a neutral port, Medina Sidonia thought his share of the task accomplished, and wrote urgent appeals to Parma to join or send aid, though the great general had not enough flat-boats and barges to float his army had he been so foolhardy as to embark, or the Dutch so benevolent as to let him go. But the English, now reenforced by Seymour's squadron, gave the Duke little time to ponder his next move. At midnight eight fire hulks, "spurting flames and their ordnance exploding," were borne by wind and tide full upon the crowded Spanish fleet. Fearful of _maquinas de minas_ such as had wrought destruction a year before at the siege of Antwerp, the Spanish made no effort to grapple the peril but slipped or cut cables and in complete confusion beat off sh.o.r.e.

At dawn the Spanish galleons, attempting with a veering wind from the southward and westward to form in order off Gravelines, were set upon in the closest approach to a general engagement that occurred in the campaign. While Howard and several of his ships were busy effecting the capture of a beached gallea.s.s, Drake led the attack in the _Revenge_, seeking to force the enemy to leeward and throw the whole body upon the shallows of the Flanders coast. With splendid discipline, the Spanish weather ships, the flagship _San Martin_ among them, fought valiantly to cover the retreat. But it was an unequal struggle, the heavier and more rapid fire of the English doing fearful execution on decks crowded with men-at-arms. Such artillery combat was. .h.i.therto unheard of. Though warned of the new northern methods, the Spanish were obsessed by tradition; they were prepared for grappling and boarding, and could they have closed, their numbers and discipline would have told. Both sides suffered from short ammunition; but the Armada, with no fresh supplies, was undoubtedly in the worse case. "They fighting with their great ordnance," writes Medina Sidonia, "and we with harquebus fire and musketry, the distance being very small." Six-inch guns against bows and muskets tells the tale.

A slackening of the English pursuit at nightfall after eight hours'

fighting, and an off-sh.o.r.e slant of wind at daybreak, prevented complete disaster. One large galleon sank and two more stranded and were captured by the Dutch. These losses were not indeed fatal, but the remaining ships staggering away to leeward were little more than blood-drenched wrecks. Fifteen hundred had been killed and wounded in the day's action, and eleven ships and some eight thousand men sacrificed thus far in the campaign. The English, on the other hand, had suffered no serious ship injuries and the loss of not above 100 men. In the council held next day beyond the Straits of Dover, only a few of the Spanish leaders had stomach for further fighting; the rest preferred to brave the perils of a return around the Orkneys rather than face again these defenders of the narrow seas. Before a fair wind they stood northward, Drake still at their heels, though by reason of short supplies he left them at the Firth of Forth.

In October, fifty ships, with 10,000 starved and fever-stricken men, trailed into the Biscay ports of Spain. Torn by September gales, the rest of the Armada had been sunk or stranded on the rough coasts of Scotland and Ireland. "The wreckers of the Orkneys and the Faroes, the clansmen of the Scottish isles, the kernes of Donegal and Galway, all had their part in the work of murder and robbery.

Eight thousand Spaniards perished between the Giant's Causeway and the Blaskets. On a strand near Sligo an English captain numbered eleven hundred corpses which had been cast up by the sea."[1]

[Footnote 1: HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE, Green, Vol. II, p. 448.]

"Flavit Deus, et dissipati sunt"--"The Lord sent His wind, and scattered them." So ran the motto on the English medal of victory.

But storms completed the destruction of a fleet already thoroughly defeated. Religious faith, courage, and discipline had availed little against superior ships, weapons, leadership, and nautical skill. "Till the King of Spain had war with us," an Englishman remarked, "he never knew what war by sea meant."[2] It might be said more accurately that the battle gave a new meaning to war by sea.

[Footnote 2: Sir Wm. Monson, NAVAL TRACTS, Purchas, Vol. III, p.

121.]

From the standpoint of naval progress, the campaign demonstrated definitely the ascendancy of sail and artillery. For the old galley tactics a new system now had to be developed. Since between sailing vessels head-on conflict was practically eliminated, and since guns mounted to fire ahead and astern were of little value save in flight or pursuit, the arrangement of guns in broadside soon became universal, and fleets fought in column, or "line ahead,"

usually close-hauled on the same or opposite tacks. While these were lessons for the next generation, there is more permanent value in the truth, again ill.u.s.trated, that fortune favors the belligerent quicker to forsake outworn methods and to develop skill in the use of new weapons. The Spanish defeat ill.u.s.trates also the necessity of expert planning and guidance of a naval campaign, with naval counsels and requirements duly regarded; and the fatal effect of failure to concentrate attention on the enemy fleet. It is doubtful, however, whether it would have been better, as Drake urged, and as was actually attempted in the month before the Armada's arrival, if the English had shifted the war to the coast of Spain. The objections arise chiefly from the difficulties, in that age, of maintaining a large naval force far from its base, all of which the Spanish encountered in their northward cruise. It is noteworthy that, even after the brief Channel operations, an epidemic caused heavy mortality in the English fleet. Finally, the Armada is a cla.s.sic example of the value of naval defense to an insular nation. In the often quoted words of Raleigh, "To entertain the enemy with their own beef in their bellies, before they eat of our Kentish capons, I take it to be the wisest way, to do which his Majesty after G.o.d will employ his good ships at sea."

Upon Spain, already tottering from inherent weakness, the Armada defeat had the effect of casting down her pride and confidence as leader of the Catholic world. Though it was not until three centuries later that she lost her last colonies, her hold on her vast empire was at once shaken by this blow at her sea control.

While she maintained large fleets until after the Napoleonic Wars, she was never again truly formidable as a naval power. But the victory lifted England more than it crushed Spain, inspiring an intenser patriotism, an eagerness for colonial and commercial adventure, an exaltation of spirit manifested in the men of genius who crowned the Elizabethan age.

_The Last Years of the War_

The war was not ended; and though Philip was restrained by the rise of Protestant power in France under Henry of Navarre, he was still able to gather his sea forces on almost as grand a scale. In the latter stages of the war the naval expeditions on both sides were either, like the Armada, for the purpose of landing armies on foreign soil, or raids on enemy ports, colonies and commerce. Thus Drake in 1589 set out with a force of 18,000 men, which attacked Corunna, moved thence upon Lisbon, and lost a third or more of its number in a fruitless campaign on land. Both Drake and the aged Hawkins, now his vice admiral, died in the winter of 1595-96 during a last and this time ineffective foray upon the Spanish Main. Drake was buried off Puerto Bello, where legend has it his spirit still awaits England's call--