Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 Part 19

21. [_Same as 22 of 1673_.][3]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Article 4 of 1673 is omitted, being included in Article 3 above.

[2] To sail with a quartering wind. Morogues urged this precaution a century later (_Tactique Navale_, p. 209).

[3] The MS. ends abruptly in the middle of this article.

PART VII

WILLIAM III AND ANNE

I. RUSSELL, 1691

II. ROOKE, 1703

LORD TORRINGTON, TOURVILLE AND HOSTE

INTRODUCTORY

No one doc.u.ment probably possesses so much importance for the history of naval tactics as the instructions issued by Admiral Russell in 1691. Yet it is a remarkable thing that their tenour was unknown--indeed their existence was wholly unsuspected--until a copy of them was happily discovered in Holland by Sir William Laird Clowes. By him it was presented to the United Service Inst.i.tution, and the thanks of the Society are due to him and the Inst.i.tution that these instructions are now at last available for publication.

They form part of a complete printed set of Fleet Instructions, ent.i.tled 'Instructions made by the Right Honourable Edward Russell, admiral, in the year 1691, for the better ordering of the fleet in sailing by day and night, and in fighting.' Besides the Fighting Instructions we have a full set of signals both for day and night properly indexed, instructions for sailing in a fog, instructions to be observed by younger captains to the elder, instructions for masters, pilots, ketches, hoys, and smacks attending the fleet, and the usual instructions for the encouragement of captains and companies of fireships, small frigates and ketches. Now this is the precise form in which all fleet instructions were issued, with scarcely any alteration, up to the conclusion of the War of American Independence,[1] and the peculiar importance of this set of articles therefore is, that in them we have the first known example of those stereotyped Fighting Instructions to which, as all modern writers seem agreed, was due the alleged decadence of naval tactics in the eighteenth century.

This being so, they clearly demand the most careful consideration. 'The English,' says Captain Mahan in his latest discussion of the subject, 'in the period of reaction which succeeded the Dutch Wars produced their own caricature of systematised tactics,[2] and this may be taken as well representing the current judgment. But when we come to study minutely these orders of Russell, and to study them in the light of the last of the Duke of York's and the observations thereon in the _Admiralty Ma.n.u.script_, as well as of the views of the great French admirals of the time, we may well doubt whether the judgment does not require modification. We may doubt, that is, whether Russell's orders, so far from being a caricature of what had gone before, were not rather a sagacious attempt to secure that increase of manoeuvring power and squadronal control which had been found essential to any real advance in tactics.

In the first place, after noting that these instructions begin logically with two articles for the formation of line ahead and abreast, we are struck by this disappearance of the Duke of York's article relating to 'dividing the enemy's fleet.' It is certainly to this disappearance that is mainly due the belief that the new instructions were retrograde. The somewhat hasty conclusion is generally drawn that the manoeuvre of 'breaking the line' had been introduced during the Dutch Wars, and forgotten immediately afterwards. But, as we have already seen, the Duke of York's article can hardly be construed as embodying the principle of concentration by 'breaking the line,' and 'containing.' As we know, it only applied to an attack from the leeward which the English, and indeed every power up to that time, did all they knew to avoid, and it cannot safely be a.s.sumed to mean anything more than a device for gaining the wind of part of the enemy when you cannot weather his whole fleet; while the 'containing' was intended to prevent the enemy's concentrating on the squadron that performed the manoeuvre. Now, although Russell's instructions lay down no rule for isolating and containing, they do provide three new and distinct articles by which the admiral can do so if he sees fit. Under the Duke of York's instructions, it will be remembered, it was left to the van commander to execute the manoeuvre of dividing the enemy's fleet as he saw his opportunity, and under those of Lord Dartmouth it was left apparently to 'any commander.'

With all that can be said for leaving the greatest possible amount of initiative to individual officers, such a system can hardly be called satisfactory, and in any case so important a movement ought certainly to be as far as possible under the control of the commander-in-chief.

But under the previous instructions he could not even initiate it by signal. The defect had already been seen, and it will be remembered that the additions and observations to this and the following articles which the _Admiralty Ma.n.u.script_ contains are all directed to remedying the omission. It is to exactly the same end that Russell's orders seem designed, and if, as we shall see to be most probable, they were really drawn up by Lord Torrington, we know that they were used in this way at Beachy Head. Whether the idea of concentration and containing was in the mind of their author we cannot tell for certain, but at any rate the new instructions provide signals by which the admiral can order such movements not only by any squadron, but even by any subdivision he pleases. The freedom of individual initiative it is true is gone, but this, as the _Admiralty MS_. indicates, was done deliberately, not as a piece of reactionary pedantry, but as the result of experience in battle. In all other respects the tactical flexibility that was gained is obvious, and was fully displayed in the first engagements in which the instructions were used.

So far as we can judge, the current view at this time was that where fleets were equal, every known form of concentration was unadvisable upon an unshaken enemy. The methods of the Duke of York's school were regarded as having failed, and the result appears to have been to convince tacticians that with the means at their disposal a strict preservation of the line gave a sure advantage against an enemy who attempted an attack by concentration. Tactics, in fact, in accordance with a sound and inevitable law, having tended to become too recklessly offensive, were exhibiting a reaction to the defensive. If the enemy had succeeded in forming his line, it had come to be regarded as too hazardous to attempt to divide his fleet unless you had first forced a gap by driving ships out of the line. This idea we see reflected in the 6th paragraph of the Duke of York's twenty-second article (1673) and in Russell's new twenty-third article, enjoining ships to close up any gap that may have been caused by the next ahead or astern having been forced out of the line. Briefly stated, it may be said that the preoccupation of naval tactics was now not so much to break the enemy's line, as to prevent your own being broken.

But the matter did not end here. It was seen that when your own fleet was superior, concentration was still practicable in various ways, and particularly by doubling. Tacticians were now mainly absorbed in working out this form of attack and the methods of meeting it, and Russell's elaborate articles for handling squadrons and subdivisions independently may well have had this intention.

The new phase of tactical opinion is that which we find expounded in Pere Hoste's famous work, _L' Art des armees navales, ou Traite des evolutions navales_, published in 1697 at the instigation of the Comte de Tourville. The author was a Jesuit, but claims that he is merely giving the result of his experience while serving with the great French admirals of that time, who had learned all they knew either as allies or enemies of the English. 'For twelve years,' he says in his apology for touching naval subjects, 'I have had the honour of serving with Monsieur le Marechal d'Estrees, Monsieur le Duc de Mortemart, and Monsieur le Marechal de Tourville in all the expeditions they made in command of naval fleets; and Monsieur le Marechal de Tourville has been kind enough to communicate to me his lights, bidding me write on a matter which I think has never before been the subject of a treatise.'

The whole system of tactics that he develops is based, like Russell's, on the single line ahead and the independent action of squadrons. The pa.s.sages in which he elaborates the central battle idea of concentration by doubling are as follows: 'The fleet which is the more numerous will try to extend on the enemy in such a manner as to leave its rearmost ships astern, which will immediately turn [_se repliera_] upon the enemy to double him, and put him between two fires. _Remark I_.--If the more numerous fleet has the wind it will be able more easily to turn its rear upon that of the enemy, and put him between two fires. But if the more numerous fleet is to leeward it ought none the less to leave its rear astern, because the wind may shift in the fight. Besides, the fleet that is to leeward can edge away insensibly in fighting to give its rearmost ships a chance of doubling on the enemy by hugging the wind. _Remark II_.--I know that many skilful people are persuaded that you ought to double the enemy ahead; because, if the van of the enemy is once in disorder it falls on the rest of the fleet and throws it infallibly into confusion.' And by the aid of diagrams he proceeds to show that this view is unsound, because the van can easily avoid the danger while the rear cannot. To support his view he instances the entire success with which at the battle of La Hogue, Russell, having the superior fleet, doubled on Tourville's rear.

'To prevent being doubled,' he proceeds, 'you must absolutely prevent the enemy from leaving ships astern of you, and to that end you may adopt several devices when you are much inferior in number.

'I. If we have the wind we may leave some of the enemy's leading ships alone, and cause our van to fall on their second division. In this manner their first division will be practically useless, and if it forces sail to tack upon us it will lose much time, and will put itself in danger of being isolated by the calm which generally befalls in this sort of action by reason of the great noise of the guns. We may also leave a great gap in the centre of our fleet, provided the necessary precautions be taken to prevent our van being cut off. By these means, however inferior we be in numbers, we may prevent the enemy leaving ships astern of us. _Example_.--Everyone did not disapprove the manner in which Admiral Herbert disposed his fleet when he engaged the French in the action of Bevesier [_i.e._ Beachy Head] in the year 1690. He had some ships fewer than ours, and he had determined to make his chief effort against our rear. That is why he ordered the Dutch leading division to fall on our second division.

Then he opened his fleet in the centre, leaving a great gap opposite our centre. After which, having closed up the English to very short intervals, he opposed them to our rear, and held off somewhat with his own division so as to prevent the French profiting by the gap which he had left in his fleet to double the Dutch. This order rendered our first division nearly useless, because it had to make a very long board to tack on the enemy's van, and the wind having fallen, it was put to it to be in time to share the glory of the action.[3]

'II. If the less numerous fleet is to leeward, the gap may be left more in the centre and less in the van, but it is necessary to have a small detachment of men-of-war and fireships so as to prevent the enemy profiting by the gaps in the fleet to divide it.

'III. Others prefer to give as a general rule, that the flag officers of the less numerous fleet attack the flag officers of the enemy's fleet;[4] for by this means several of the enemy's ships remain useless in the intervals, and the enemy cannot double you.

'IV. Others prefer that the three squadrons of the less numerous fleet each attack a squadron of the more numerous fleet, taking care that each squadron ranges up to the enemy in such a manner as not to leave any of his ships astern, but rather leaving several vessels ahead.

'V. Finally, there are those who would have the less numerous fleet put so great an interval between the ships as to equalise their line with that of the enemy. But this last method is, without doubt, the least good, because it permits the enemy to employ the whole of its strength against the less numerous fleet. I agree, however, that this method might be preferred to others in certain circ.u.mstances; as when the enemy's ships are considerably less powerful than those of the less numerous fleet.'

Having thus explained the system of doubling, he proceeds to give the latest ideas of his chief on breaking the enemy's line, or, as it was then called, pa.s.sing through his fleet. 'We find,' he says, 'that in the relations of the fights in the Channel between the English and the Dutch that their fleets pa.s.sed through one another.... In this manner the two fleets pa.s.sed through one another several times, which exposed them to be cut off, taken, and mutually to lose several ships. _Remark_.--This manoeuvre is as bold as it is delicate, and consummate technical skill is necessary for it to succeed as happily as it did with the Comte d'Estrees ... in the battle of the Texel, in the year 1673, for he pa.s.sed through the Zealand squadron, weathered it, broke it up, and put the enemy into so great a disorder that it settled the victory which was still in the balance.'[5]

After pointing out by diagrams various methods of parrying the manoeuvre, he proceeds: 'I do not see, then, that we need greatly fear the enemy's pa.s.sing through us; and I do not even think that this manoeuvre ought ever to be performed except under one of the three following conditions: (1) If you are compelled to do it in order to avoid a greater evil; (2) If the enemy by leaving a great gap in the midst of his squadrons renders a part of his fleet useless; (3) If several of his ships are disabled....

'Sometimes you are compelled to pa.s.s through the enemy's fleet to rescue ships that the enemy has cut off, and in this case you must risk something, but you should observe several precautions: (1) You should close up to the utmost; (2) You should carry a press of sail without troubling to fight in pa.s.sing through the enemy; (3) The ships that have pa.s.sed ought to tack the moment they can to prevent the enemy standing off on the same tack as the fleet that pa.s.ses through them.'

It is clear, then, that in the eyes of perhaps the finest fleet leader of his time, and one of the finest France ever had, a man who thoroughly understood the value of concentration, the method of securing it by breaking the line was dangerous and unsound. In this he thoroughly endorses the views contained in the 'Observations' of the _Admiralty MS._ and the modifications of the standing order which they suggest. Indeed, Hoste's remarks on breaking the line are, in effect, little more than a logical elaboration of those ideas and suggestions. In the 'Observations' we have the monition not to attempt the manoeuvre 'unless an enemy press you on a lee sh.o.r.e.' We have the signal for a squadron breaking the enemy's line, but only in order to rejoin the main body, and we have the simple method of parrying the move by tacking with an equal number of ships. The fundamental principles of the problem in both the English and the French author are the same, and a comparison of the two enables us to a.s.sert, with no hesitation, that the manoeuvre of breaking the line was abandoned by the tacticians of that era, not from ignorance nor from lack of enterprise, but from a deliberate tactical conviction gained by experience in war. In judging the apparent want of enterprise which our own admirals began to display in action at this time, we should probably be careful to refrain from joining in the unmitigated contempt with which modern historians have so freely covered them. In the typical battle of Malaga, for instance, Rooke did nothing but carry out the principles which were the last word of Tourville's brilliant career. Nor must it be forgotten that, although Rodney executed the manoeuvre in 1782, and Hood provided a signal for its revival which Howe at first adopted, it was never in much favour in the British service, seeing that it was only adapted for an attack from to leeward. The manoeuvre of breaking the line which Howe eventually introduced was something wholly different both in form and intention from what Rodney executed and from what was understood by 'dividing the fleet' in the seventeenth century.[6] How far the system of doubling was approved by English admirals is doubtful. We have seen that an 'Observation' in the _Admiralty Ma.n.u.script_ distrusts it,[7] but I have been able to find no other expression of opinion on the point earlier than 1780, and that entirely condemns it. It occurs in a set of fleet instructions drawn up for submission to the admiralty by Admiral Sir Charles H. Knowles, Bart. As Knowles was a pupil and _protege_ of Rodney's, we may a.s.sume he was in possession of the great tactician's ideas on the point; and in these _Fighting and Sailing Instructions_ the following, article occurs: 'To double the enemy's line--that is, to send a few unengaged ships on one side to engage, while the rest are fighting on the other--is rendering those ships useless. Every ship which is between two, has not only her two broadsides opposed to theirs, but has likewise their shot which cross in her favour.'[8] No signal was provided for 'doubling' in Lord Howe's or the later signal books, though Nelson certainly executed the manoeuvre at the Nile. It survived however in the French service, and the English books provided a signal for preventing its execution by a numerically superior enemy. Sir Alexander Cochrane also revived it after Trafalgar.

Knowles's objection to the manoeuvre makes it easy to understand that, however well it suited the French tactics of long bowls or boarding, it was not well adapted to the English method of close action with the guns. With the French service it certainly continued in favour, and the whole of Hoste's rules were reproduced by the famous naval expert Sebastien-Francois Bigot, Vicomte de Morogues--in his elaborate _Tactique navale, ou traits des evolutions et des signaux_, which appeared in 1763, and was republished at Amsterdam in 1779. Not only was he the highest French authority on naval science of his time, but a fine seaman as well, as he proved when in command of the _Magnifique_ on the disastrous day at Quiberon.[9]

The remainder of the new instructions, though less important than the expansion of the Duke of York's third article, all tend in the same direction. So far from insisting on a rigid observance of the single line ahead in all circ.u.mstances, the new system seems to aim at securing flexibility, and the power of concentration by independent action of squadrons. This is to be specially noted in the new article, No. 30, in which signals are provided for particular squadrons and particular divisions forming line of battle abreast. It is true that the old rigid form of an attack from windward is retained, but, ineffective as the system proved, it was certainly not inspired, as is so often said, by a mediaeval conception of naval battle as a series of single ship actions. From what has been already said, the well-considered tactical idea that underlay it is obvious. The injunction to range the length of the enemy's line van to van, and rear to rear, or _vice versa_, was aimed at avoiding being doubled at either end of the line; while the injunction to bear down together was obviously the quickest mode of bringing the whole fleet into action without giving the enemy a chance of weathering any part of it by 'gaining its wake.' That it was inadequate for this purpose is well known. It would only work when the two fleets were exactly parallel at the moment of bearing down--as was made apparent at the battle of Malaga, where the French from leeward almost succeeded in dividing Rooke's fleet as it bore down. Still the idea was sound enough. The trouble was that it did not make sufficient allowance for the unhandiness of ships of the line in those days, and their difficulty in taking up or preserving exact formations.

As to the authorship of the articles, it must be remembered that the mere fact that they were issued by Russell is not enough to attribute them to him. He had had practically no previous experience as a flag officer, and in all probability they followed more or less closely those used by Lord Torrington in the previous year. Torrington was first lord of the admiralty in 1689, and commander-in-chief of the main fleet in 1690. It was not till after his acquittal in December of that year that he was superseded by Russell. The instructions moreover seem generally to be designed in close accordance with all we know of Torrington's tactical practice, and it is scarcely doubtful that they are due to his ripe experience and not to Russell.

That the point cannot be settled with absolute certainty is to be the more lamented because henceforth this set of Fighting Instructions, and not those of Rooke in 1703, must be taken as the dominating factor of eighteenth-century tactics. Rooke's instructions, except for the modification of a few articles, are the same as Russell's, and consequently it has not been thought necessary to print them in full. For a similar reason it has been found convenient to print such slight changes as are known to have been made in the standing form after 1703 as notes to the corresponding articles of Russell's instructions.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Introductory Note to Rooke's Instructions of 1703, p. 197.

[2] _Types of Naval Officers_, p. 15.

[3] This plan of attack bears a strong resemblance to that which Nelson intended to adopt at Trafalgar. 'Nelson,' says Captain Mahan, 'doubtless had in mind the dispositions of Tourville and De Ruyter.'--_Life of Nelson_, ii. 351. Hoste, however, it would seem, though a devout admirer of both Tourville and De Ruyter, gives the credit to Lord Torrington. It was not introduced officially into the British tactical system until Lord Howe adopted it in 1792. It was retained in the subsequent Signal Books and Instructions.

[4] This proviso was added to the signal in the edition of 1799, and a corresponding explanatory instruction (No. 24) was provided. See _post_, p. 262.

[5] It should be remembered that neither the Dutch nor the English accounts of the action at all endorse this view of D'Estrees's behaviour. See also the _Admiralty MS._, p. 153, note 1.

[6] See _post_, pp. 245-9.

[7] _Ante_, p.152, note 1.

[8] Printed in 1798. A MS. note says 'These instructions were written in 1780 and afterwards very much curtailed, though the general plan is the same.'

[9] Lacour Gayet, _La marine militaire de la France sous Louis_ XV, 1902, pp. 214-5.

_ADMIRAL EDWARD RUSSELL_, 1691.

[+From a printed copy in the Library of the United Service Inst.i.tution+.]