A History of Sea Power Part 9

But between Spain and her "sinews of war" lay 3000 miles of ocean.

To hold the colonies themselves, to guard the plate fleets against French, Dutch, and English raiders, to protect her own coastline and maintain communications with her possessions in Italy and the Low Countries, to wage war against the Turk in the Mediterranean, Spain felt the need of a navy. Indeed, in view of these varied motives for maritime strength, it is surprising that Spain depended so largely on impressed merchant vessels, and had made only the beginnings of a royal navy at the time of the Grand Armada.[1]

Not primarily a nation of traders or sailors, she had, by grudging a.s.sistance to the greatest of sea explorers, fallen into a rich colonial empire, to secure and make the most of which called for sea power.

[Footnote 1: "For the kings of England have for many years been at the charge to build and furnish a navy of powerful ships for their own defense, and for the wars only; whereas the French, the Spaniards, the Portugals, and the Hollanders (till of late) have had no proper fleet belonging to their princes or state." Sir Walter Raleigh, A DISCOURSE OF THE INVENTION OF SHIPS.]

It is possible, however, to lay undue stress on the factor just mentioned in accounting for both the rise and the decay of Spain.

Her ascendancy in Europe in the 16th century was due chiefly to the immense territories united with her under Charles the Fifth (1500-1558), who inherited Spain, Burgundy, and the Low Countries, and added Austria with her German and Italian provinces by his accession to the imperial throne. Under Charles's powerful leadership Spain became the greatest nation in Europe; but at the same time her resources in men and wealth were exhausted in the almost constant warfare of his long reign. The treasures of America flowed through the land like water, in the expressive figure of a German historian, "not fertilizing it but laying it waste, and leaving sharper dearth behind."[2] The revenues of the plate fleet were pledged to German or Genoese bankers even before they reached the country, and were expended in the purchase of foreign luxuries or in waging imperial wars, rather than in the encouragement of home agriculture, trade, and industry. While the vast possessions of church and n.o.bility escaped taxation, the people were burdened with levies on the movement and sale of commodities and on the common necessities of life.

Prohibition of imports to keep gold in the country was ineffectual, for without the supplies brought in by Dutch merchantmen Spain would have starved, and Philip II often had to connive in violations of his own restrictions. Prohibition of exports to keep prices down was an equally Quixotic measure, the chief effect of which was to kill trade. Spain could not supply the needs of her own colonies, and in fact ill.u.s.trates the truth that a nation cannot, in the end, profit greatly by colonies unless it develops industries to utilize their raw materials and supply their demands.

[Footnote 2: DAS ZEITALTER DER FUGGER, Vol. II, p. 150.]

For some time before the Armada Spain was on the downward path, as a result of the conditions mentioned. On the other hand, while the Armada relieved England of a terrible danger and dashed Spain's hope of domination in the north, it was not of itself a fatal blow.

The war still continued, with other Spanish expeditions organized on a grand scale, and ended in 1604, so far as England was concerned, with that country's renunciation of trade to the Indies and aid to the Dutch.

But even if Spain's rise and decline were not primarily a result of sea power, still, taking the term to include the extension of shipping and maritime trade as well as the employment of naval forces in strictly military operations, there are lessons to be drawn from the use or neglect of sea power by both sides in Spain's long drawn-out struggle with Holland and England.

REFERENCES

_General_

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE, a History of the Foundations of the Modern World, by Prof. W. C. Abbot, 1918.

THE STORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY, J. Jacobs, 1913.

SHIPS AND THEIR WAYS OF OTHER DAYS, E. Keble Chatterton, 1906.

THE DAWN OF NAVIGATION, Thomas G. Ford, U. S. Naval Inst.i.tute Proceedings, Vol. x.x.xIII., 1-3.

THE DAWN OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY, 2 vols., C. Raymond Beazley, 1904.

_Portugal_

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR, C. Raymond Beazley, 1895.

VASCO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS, 1460-1580, K. G. Jayne, 1910.

RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA, R. S. Whiteway, 1910.

CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY, Vol. I., Ch. I.

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY, Lieut. C. R. Low, 1877.

_Spain_

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, John Fiske, 1893.

SPAIN IN AMERICA, E. G. Bourne, American Nation Series, 1909.

SPAIN, Martin Hume, Cam. Modern Hist. Series, 1898.

CHAPTER VII

SEA POWER IN THE NORTH: HOLLAND'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE

The first sea-farers in the storm-swept waters of the north, at least in historic times, were the Teutonic tribes along the North Sea and the Baltic. On land the Teutons held the Rhine and the Danube against the legions of Rome, spread later southward and westward, and founded modern European states out of the wreckage of the Roman Empire. On the sea, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the 5th century began plundering the coasts of what is now England, and, after driving the Celts into mountain fastnesses, established themselves in permanent control.

_The Vikings_

These Teutonic voyagers were followed toward the close of the 8th century by their Scandinavian kindred to the northward, the Vikings--superb fighting men and daring sea-rovers who harried the coasts of western Europe for the next 200 years. There were no navies to stop them. "These sea dragons," exclaimed Charlemagne, "will tear my kingdom asunder!" In England no king before Alfred had a navy; and Alfred was compelled to organize a strong sea force to bring the invaders to terms.

Elsewhere the Vikings met little opposition. Wherever they found lands that attracted them, they conquered and settled dawn. Thus Normandy came into being. They swept up the rivers, burning and looting where they pleased, from the Elbe to the Rhone. They carried their raids as far south as Sicily and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and as far north and west as Iceland, Greenland, and the American continent. In the east, by establishing a Viking colony at Nishni Novgorod, they laid the foundations of the Russian empire, and their leader, Rus, gave it his name. Following river courses, others penetrated inland as far as Constantinople, where, being bought off by the emperor, they took service as imperial guards.

Their extraordinary voyages were made in boats that resemble so closely Greek and Roman models--even Ph?nician, for that matter--as to suggest that the Vikings learned their ship-building from Mediterranean traders who forced their way into the Baltic in very early times. For example, the Viking method of making a rib in three parts is identical with the method of the Greeks and Romans.

The chief points of difference are that Viking ships were sharp at both ends--like a canoe, were round-bottomed instead of flat, and had one steering oar instead of two. The typical Viking ship was only about 75 feet in length; but a royal vessel--the _Dragon_ of the chief--sometimes attained a length of 300 feet, with sixty pairs of oars.

If the Vikings had had national organization under one head, they might well have laid the rest of Europe under tribute. In the 11th century, c.n.u.t, a descendant of the Vikings, ruled in person over England, Denmark, and Norway. But their ocean folk-wanderings seem to have ended as suddenly as they began, and the effects were social rather than political. Where they settled, they brought a strain of the hardiest racial stock in Europe to blend with that of the conquered peoples.

_The Hanseatic League_

During the Middle Ages, peaceful trading gradually gained the upper hand over piracy and conquest. From the Italian cities the wares of the south and the Orient came over the pa.s.ses of the Alps and down the German rivers, where trading cities grew up to act as carriers of merchandise and civilization among the nations of the north. The merchant guilds of these cities, banded together in the Hanseatic League, for at least three centuries dominated the northern seas.

Perhaps the most extensive commercial combination ever formed for the control of sea trade, the Hanseatic League began with a treaty between Lubeck and Hamburg in 1174, and at the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries it included from 60 to 80 cities, of which Lubeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Danzig were among the chief. The league cleared northern waters of pirates, and used embargo and naval power to subdue rivals and promote trade. It established factories or trading stations from Nishni Novgorod to Bergen, London, and Bruges. From Russia it took cargoes of fats, tallows, wax, and wares brought into Russian markets from the east; from Scandinavia, iron and copper; from England, hides and wool; from Germany, fish, grain, beer, and manufactured goods of all kinds.

The British pound sterling (osterling) and pound avoirdupois, in fact the whole British system of weights and coinage, are legacies from the German merchants who once had their headquarters in the Steelyard, London.

In the early 15th century the league attempted to shut Dutch ships from the Baltic trade by restricting their cargoes to wares produced in their own country, and by coercing Denmark into granting the league special privileges on the route through the Sound. This policy, culminating in the destruction of the Dutch grain fleet in 1437, led to a naval struggle which extended over four years and ended in a truce by which the Dutch secured the freedom of the Baltic. It was a typical naval war for sea control and commercial advantage, in which the Dutch as a rule seem to have got the better, and in which the legend first made its appearance of a Dutch admiral sweeping the seas with a broom nailed to his mast.

From this time the power of the Hansa declined. This was partly because the free cities came more and more under the rule of German princes with no interest in, or knowledge of, commerce; partly because of rivalry arising from the union of the Scandinavian states (1397) and the growth of England, France, and the Low Countries to national strength and commercial independence; and partly also because of the decline of German fisheries when the herring suddenly shifted from the Baltic to the North Sea. Underlying these varied causes, however, and significant of the far-reaching effect of changing trade-routes upon the progress and prosperity of nations, was the fact that, when the Mediterranean trade route was closed by the Turks, and also the route through Russia by Ivan III, the German cities were side-tracked. Antwerp and Amsterdam were not only more centrally located for the distribution of trade, but also much nearer for Atlantic traffic--an advantage which Germany has ever since keenly envied.

Long before the rise of the Low Countries as a maritime power, Ghent and Bruges had enjoyed an early preeminence owing to their development of cloth manufacture, and the latter city as a terminus for the galleys of Venice and Genoa. After the silting up of the port of Bruges (1432), Antwerp grew in importance, and in the 16th century became the chief market and money center of Europe. Its inhabitants numbered about 100,000, with a floating population of upwards of 50,000 more. It contained the counting-houses of the great bankers of Europe--the Fuggers of Germany, the Pazzi of Florence, the Dorias of Genoa. Five thousand merchants were registered on the Bourse, as many as 500 ships often left the city in a single day, and two or three thousand more might be seen anch.o.r.ed in the Scheldt or lying along the quays.[1] Amsterdam by 1560 was second to Antwerp with a population of 40,000, and forged ahead after the sack of Antwerp by Spanish soldiers in 1576 and the Dutch blockade of the Scheldt during the struggle with Spain.

[Footnote 1: Blok, HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, Part II, Ch. XII.]

This early prosperity of the Netherland cities may be attributed less to aggressive maritime activity than to their flourishing industries, their natural advantages as trading centers at the mouths of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse, and the privileges of self-government enjoyed by the middle cla.s.ses under the House of Burgundy and even under Charles the Fifth. Charles taxed them heavily--his revenues from the Low Countries in reality far exceeded the treasure he drew from America; but he was a Fleming born, spoke their language, and accorded them a large measure of political and religious freedom. The grievances which after his death led to the Dutch War of Independence, are almost personified in the son who succeeded him in 1555--Philip II, a Spaniard born and bred, who spoke no Flemish and left Brussels for the last time in 1573, dour, treacherous, distrustful, fanatical in religion; a tragic character, who, no doubt with great injustice to the Spanish, has somehow come to represent the character of Spain in his time.

_The Dutch Struggle for Freedom_

The causes of the long war in the Netherlands, which began in 1566 and ended with their independence 43 years later, is best explained in terms of general principles rather than specific grievances.

"A conflict in which the principle of Catholicism with unlimited royal autocracy as Spain recognized it, was opposed to toleration in the realm of religion, with a national government according to ancient principles and based on ancient privileges,"--so the Dutch historian Blok sums up the issues at stake. The Prince of Orange, just before he was cut down by an a.s.sa.s.sin, a.s.serted in his famous _Defense_ three fundamental principles: freedom to worship G.o.d; withdrawal of foreigners; and restoration of the charters, privileges, and liberties of the land. The Dutch fought for political, religious, and also for economic independence. England gave aid, not so much for religious motives as because she saw that her political safety and commercial prosperity hinged on the weakening of Spain.

Resembling our American Revolution in the character of the struggle as well as the issues at stake--though it was far more b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate--the Dutch War of Independence was fought mainly within the country itself, with the population divided, and the Spanish depending on land forces to maintain their rule; but, as in the American war, control of the sea was a vital factor. For munitions, supplies, gold, for the transport of the troops themselves, Spain had to depend primarily on the sea. It is true one could continue on Spanish territory from Genoa, which was Spain's watergate into Italy, across the Mont Cenis Pa.s.s, and through Savoy, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Luxembourg to Brussels, and it was by this route that Parma's splendid army of 10,000 "Blackbeards" came in 1577. But this was an arduous three months' march for troops and still more difficult for supplies. To cross France was as a rule impossible; when Don Juan of Austria went to Flanders for the brief period of leadership ended by his death of camp fever in 1578, he pa.s.sed through French territory disguised as a Moorish slave. By the sea route, upon which Spain was after all largely dependent, and the complete control of which would have made her task infinitely easier, she was constantly exposed to Huguenot, Dutch, and English privateers.

These gentry cared little whether or not their country was actually at war with Spain, but took their letters of marque, if they carried them, from any prince or ruler who would serve their turn.

With this opportunity to strike at Spanish communications, it will appear strange that the Dutch should not have immediately seized their advantage and made it decisive. One curious difficulty lay in the fact that throughout the war Dutch shipping actually carried the bulk of Spanish trade and drew from it immense profits. Even at the close of the century, while the war was still continuing, nine-tenths of Spain's foreign trade and five-sixths of her home trade was in foreign--and most of it in Dutch--hands. Hence any form of sea warfare was sure to injure Dutch trade. The Revolution, moreover, began slowly and feebly, with no well-thought-out plan of campaign, and could not at once fit out fully organized forces to cope with those of Spain. The Dutch early took to commerce warfare, but it was at first semi-piratical, and involved the destruction of ships of their own countrymen.

The Sea Beggars--_Zee Geuzen_ or _Gueux der Mer_--made their appearance shortly after the outbreak of rebellion. "_Vyve les geus par mer et par terre,_" wrote the patriot Count van Brederode as early as 1566. The term "beggar" is said to have arisen from a contemptuous remark by a Spanish courtier to Margaret of Parma, when the Dutch n.o.bles presented their grievances in Brussels. Willingly accepting the name, the patriots applied it to their forces both by land and by sea. Letters of marque were first issued by Louis of Na.s.sau, brother of William of Orange, and in 1569 there were 18 ships engaged, increased in the next year to 84. The b.l.o.o.d.y and licentious De la Marek, who wore his hair and beard unshorn till he had avenged the execution of his relative, Egmont, was a typical leader of still more wild and reckless crews. It was no uncommon practice to go over the rail of a merchant ship with pike and ax and kill every Spaniard on board. In 1569 William of Orange appointed the Seigneur de Lumbres as admiral of the beggar fleet, and issued strict instructions to him to secure better order, avoid attacks on vessels of friendly and neutral states, enforce the articles of war, and carry a preacher on each ship. The booty was to be divided one-third to the Prince for the maintenance of the war, one-third to the captains to supply their vessels, and one-third to the crews, one-tenth of this last share going to the admiral in general command.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 16TH CENTURY]

The events of commerce warfare, though they often involve desperate adventures and hard fighting, are not individually impressive, and the effectiveness of this warfare is best measured by collective results. On one occasion, when a fleet of transports fell into the hands of patriot forces off Flushing in 1572, not only were 1000 troops taken, but also 500,000 crowns of gold and a rich cargo, the proceeds of which, it is stated, were sufficient to carry on the whole war for a period of two years. Again it was fear of pirates (Huguenot in this case) that in December of 1568 drove a squadron of Spanish transports into Plymouth, England, with 450,000 ducats ($960,000) aboard for the pay of Spanish troops. Elizabeth seized the money (on the ground that it was still the property of the Genoese bankers who had lent it and that she might as well borrow it as Philip), and minted it into English coin at a profit of 3000. But Alva at Antwerp, with no money at all, was forced to the obnoxious "Hundreds"

tax--requiring a payment of one per cent on all possessions, five per cent on all real estate transfers, and 10 per cent every time a piece of merchandise was sold--a typical tax after the Spanish recipe, which, though not finally enforced to its full extent, aroused every Netherlander as a fatal blow at national prosperity. To return to the general effect of commerce destruction, it is estimated that Spain thus lost annually 3,000,000 ducats ($6,400,000), a sum which of course meant vastly more then than now. When the Duke of Alva retired from command in 1578, the pay of Spanish troops was 6,500,000 ducats in arrears.

Among the exploits of organized naval forces, the earliest was the capture of Brill, by which, according to Motley, "the foundations of the Dutch republic were laid." Driven out of England by Elizabeth, who upon the representations of the Spanish amba.s.sador ordered her subjects not to supply the Beggars with "meat, bread or beer,"

a fleet of 25 vessels and 300 or 400 men left Dover towards the end of March, 1572, with the project of seizing a base on their own coast. On the afternoon of April 1, they appeared off the town of Brill, located on an island at the mouth of the Meuse. The magistrates and most of the inhabitants fled; and the Beggars battered down the gates, occupied the town, and put to death 13 monks and priests. When Spanish forces attempted to recapture the city, the defenders opened sluice gates to cut off the northern approach, and at the same time set fire to the boats which had carried the Spanish to the island. The Spanish, terrorized by both fire and water, waded through mud and slime to the northern sh.o.r.e. During the same week Flushing was taken, and before the end of June the Dutch were masters of nearly the entire Zealand coast.

In the north the Spanish at first found an able naval leader in Admiral Bossu, himself a Hollander, who for a time kept the coast clear of Beggars. In October, 1573, however, 30 of his ships were beaten in the Zuyder Zee by 25 under Dirkzoon, who captured five of the Spanish vessels and scattered the rest with the exception of the flagship. The latter, a 32-gun ship terrifyingly named the _Inquisition_ and much stronger than any of the others on either side, held out from three o'clock in the afternoon until the next morning. Three patriot vessels closed in on her, attacking with the vicious weapons of the period--pitch, boiling oil, and molten lead. By morning the four combatants had drifted ash.o.r.e in a tangled ma.s.s. When Bossu at last surrendered, 300 men, out of 382 in his ship's complement, were dead or disabled.