Naval Warfare Part 2

There is, moreover, one characteristic of naval warfare which has no exact counterpart in the conduct of military enterprises on land. This is the power which a naval belligerent has of withdrawing his sea-going force out of the reach of the sea-going force of the enemy by placing it in sheltered harbours too strongly fortified for the enemy to reduce by naval power alone. The only effective answer to this which the superior belligerent can make is, as has already been shown, to establish a blockade of the ports in question. This procedure is a.n.a.logous to, but not identical with, the investment by military forces of a fortress in which an army has found shelter in the interior of the enemy's country.

But the essential difference is that the land fortress can be completely invested so that no food or other supplies can reach it, whereas a sea fortress cannot, unless it is situated on a small island, be completely invested by naval force alone. In the one case, even if no a.s.sault is attempted, starvation must sooner or later bring about the surrender of the fortress together with any military force it contains, whereas in the other the blockaded port being, as a rule, in open communication with its own national territory, cannot be reduced by starvation.

Moreover, for reasons already explained, a maritime fortress cannot nowadays be so closely blockaded as to prevent the exit of small craft almost at all times or even to prevent the exit of squadrons of battleships in circ.u.mstances favourable to the enterprise. Now the exit of small craft equipped for torpedo attack is a much more serious threat to the blockader than the exit of small craft, not so equipped, was in the old days of close blockade. In those days small craft could do no harm to ships of the line or even to frigates, whereas a torpedo craft is nowadays in certain circ.u.mstances the equal and more than the equal of a battleship. For these reasons the escape from a blockaded port of a squadron of battleships might easily be regarded by the blockading enemy as a less serious and even much more welcome incident of the campaign than the frequent issue of swarms of torpedo craft skilfully handled, daringly navigated, and sternly resolved to do or die in the attempt to reduce the battle superiority of the enemy.

It follows from these premisses that a naval blockade--or a connected series of blockades--can never be regarded as equivalent to an established command of the sea. At its best it can only achieve a temporary command of the sea in a state of unstable and easily disturbed equilibrium. At its worst, that is when it is least close and least effective, and when the _animus pugnandi_ of the enemy is unimpaired and not to be intimidated, and is therefore ready at all times to take advantage of "an opportunity too tempting to be resisted," it amounts to a state of things in which the "fleet in being" becomes the dominant factor of the situation. It is mainly a psychological problem and scarcely a strategic problem at all to determine when the actual situation approximates to either of these extremes, and the principle embodied in the words _bene ausus vana contemnere_ is the key to the solution of this problem. If the blockaded fleet is merely a fortress fleet, or not even that, as was the Russian fleet at Port Arthur for some time after the first night of the war, and even more after the critical but indecisive conflict of August 10, then it is legitimate, as Togo triumphantly showed, to regard the situation so established as so far equivalent to a temporary command of the sea that military operations, involving the security of oversea transit and the continuity of oversea supply, might be undertaken with no greater risk than is always inseparable from a vigorous initiative in war. But had the Russian naval commanders been inspired--as, perhaps, the ill-fated Makaroff alone was--with a genuine _animus pugnandi_, they might have perceived that their one chance of bringing all the j.a.panese enterprises, naval and military, to nought, was by fighting Togo's fleet "to a frazzle," even if their own fleet perished in the conflict. Then the Baltic Fleet, if it had any fight in it at all, must have made short work of what remained of Togo's fleet, and the j.a.panese communications with Manchuria being thereby severed, Russia might have dictated her own terms of peace. The real lesson of that war is not that a true fleet in being can ever be safely neglected, but that a fleet which can be neglected with impunity is no true fleet in being. It should never be forgotten that the problems of naval warfare are essentially psychological and not mechanical in their nature. Their ultimate determining factors are not material and ponderable forces operating with measurable certainty, but those immaterial and imponderable forces of the human mind and will which can be measured by no standard other than the result. By the material standard so popular in these days, and withal so full of fallacy, Nelson should have been defeated at Trafalgar and Rozhdestvensky should have been victorious at Tsu-Shima.

It is, of course, idle to press the doctrine of the command of the sea and the principle of the fleet in being so far as to affirm that no military enterprise of any kind can be prosecuted across the sea unless an una.s.sailable command of the sea has first been established. Such a proposition is disallowed by the whole course of naval history, which is, in truth, for the most part, the history of the command of the sea remaining in dispute, often for long periods, between two belligerents, the balance inclining sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other, according to the fortune of war. The whole question is in the main one of degree and of circ.u.mstances. Broadly speaking, it may be said that the larger the military enterprise contemplated the more complete must be the command of the sea before it can be prosecuted with success and the more certain the a.s.surance of its continuance in unimpaired efficiency until the objects of the enterprise are accomplished.

Conversely, the strength, even if inferior, of the fleet in being, its strategic disposition, its tactical efficiency, and, above all, its _animus pugnandi_ must all be accurately gauged by a naval commander before he can safely decide that a military expedition of any magnitude can be undertaken without fear of interference from an enemy's fleet. It was the neglect of these principles that ruined the Athenian expedition to Syracuse. It was equally the neglect of the same principles that entailed the failure of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt and the ultimate surrender of the army he had deserted there. It was the politic recognition of them that, as Admiral Mahan has shown in a brilliant pa.s.sage, compelled Hannibal to undertake the arduous pa.s.sage of the Alps for the purpose of invading Italy instead of transporting his troops by sea.

The limits of legitimate enterprise across seas of which the command although firmly gripped is not una.s.sailably established, are perhaps best ill.u.s.trated by the story of Craig's expedition to Malta and Sicily towards the close of the Trafalgar campaign. This remarkable episode, which has received less attention than it deserves from most historians, has been represented by Mr Julian Corbett in his instructive work on _The Campaign of Trafalgar_ as the masterly offensive stroke by which Pitt hoped to abate, and, if it might be, to overthrow the military ascendency which Napoleon had established in Europe. That view has not been universally accepted by Mr Corbett's critics, but the episode is ent.i.tled to close attention for the light it throws on the central problem of naval warfare. Pitt had concluded a treaty with Russia, which involved not merely naval but military co-operation with that Power in the Mediterranean. Craig's expedition was the shape which the military co-operation was to take. It consisted of some five thousand troops, and when it embarked in April 1805 it was convoyed by only two ships of the line in its transit over seas which, for all the Government which dispatched it knew, might be infested at the time by more than one fleet of the enemy.

Here, then, is a case in which the doctrine of the command of the sea and the principle of the fleet in being might seem to be violated in a crucial fashion. But the men who directed the arms of England in those days knew what they were about. Long before they allowed the expedition to start they had established a close and, as they thought, an effective blockade of all the Atlantic and Mediterranean ports in which either French or Spanish warships ready for sea were to be found. Nevertheless we have here a signal ill.u.s.tration of the essential difference between a command of the sea which has been made absolute by the destruction of the enemy's available naval forces--as was practically the case after Trafalgar--and one which is only virtual and potential, because, although the enemy's fleets have for the time been masked or sealed up in their ports, they may, should the fortune of war so determine, resume at any time the position and functions of a true fleet in being. On the strength of a command of the sea of this merely contingent and potential character Pitt and his naval advisers had persuaded themselves that the way to the Mediterranean was open for the transit of troops. Craig's transports, accordingly, put to sea on April 19. But a week before Villeneuve with his fleet had left Toulon for the last time, had evaded Nelson's watch, and pa.s.sing rapidly through the Straits, had called off Cadiz, and picking up such Spanish ships as were there had disappeared into s.p.a.ce, no man knowing whither he had gone. He might have gone to the East Indies, he might have gone to the West Indies, as in fact he did, or he might be cruising unmolested in waters where he could hardly fail to come across Craig's transports with their weak escort of two ships of the line. It was a situation which no one had foreseen or regarded as more than a contingency too remote to be guarded against when Craig's expedition was allowed to start. How Nelson viewed the situation may be seen from his reply to the Admiralty, written on his receipt of the first intimation that the expedition was about to start.

"As the 'Fisgard' sailed from Gibraltar on the 9th instant, two hours after the enemy's fleet from Toulon had pa.s.sed the Straits, I have to hope she would arrive time enough in the Channel to give their Lordships information of this circ.u.mstance _and to prevent the Rear-Admiral and Troops before mentioned_"--that is Craig's expedition--"_from leaving Spithead_." In other words, Nelson held quite plainly that had the Admiralty known that Villeneuve was at sea outside the Straits they would not have allowed Craig to start. That Nelson was right in this a.s.sumption is proved by the fact that acting on the inspiration of Barham--perhaps the greatest strategist that ever presided at Whitehall--the Admiralty, as soon as they had grasped the situation, sent orders to Calder off Ferrol, that if he came in contact with the expedition he was to send it back to Plymouth or Cork under cruiser escort and retain the two ships of the line which had so far escorted it under his own command. The fact was that if Craig's expedition once pa.s.sed Finisterre it would find itself totally without the naval protection on which the Admiralty relied when it was dispatched.

Villeneuve was outside the Straits no one knew where, and had been reinforced by the Spanish ships from Cadiz. Nelson, whose exact whereabouts was equally unknown to the Admiralty, was detained in the Mediterranean by baffling winds and also by the necessity of making sure before quitting his station that Villeneuve had not gone to the Levant. Orde, who had been blockading Cadiz with a weak squadron which had to retire on Villeneuve's approach, had convinced himself, on grounds not without cogency, that Villeneuve was making for the northward, and had, quite correctly on this hypothesis, fallen back on the fleet blockading Brest, being ignorant of the peril to which Craig was exposed. Thus Craig's expedition seemed to be going straight to its doom unless Calder could intercept it and give it orders to return.

However, Craig and Knight, whose flag flew in one of the ships of the line escorting the expedition, pa.s.sed Finisterre without communicating with Calder, and having by this time got wind of their peril, they hurried into Lisbon, there to await developments in comparative safety, though their presence caused great embarra.s.sment to the Portuguese Government and raised a diplomatic storm. It was not until Craig and Knight had ascertained that Villeneuve was out of the way and that Nelson had pa.s.sed the Straits that they put to sea again and met Nelson off Cape St Vincent. Nelson had by this time satisfied himself, after an exhaustive survey of the situation, that Villeneuve had gone to the West Indies, and resolved to follow him there as soon as he had sped the expedition on its appointed way. But so apprehensive was he of the Spanish ships remaining at Carthagena, that, inferior to Villeneuve as he was, he detached the "Royal Sovereign" from his own squadron, and placed her under Knight's command. It only remains to add that the expedition reached its destination in safety and that its result was the Battle of Maida, fought in the following year--the first battle in which Napoleon's troops crossed bayonets with British infantry and were beaten by an inferior force. The expedition was also the indirect cause of the Battle of Trafalgar itself, for it was in order to frustrate the coalition with Russia of which it was the instrument that Napoleon had ordered Villeneuve to make for the Mediterranean when he finally left Cadiz to encounter Nelson on his path. Thus was it, as Mr Corbett says, "to prove the insidious drop of poison--the little sting--that was to infect Napoleon's empire with decay and to force his hand with so tremendous a result."

Yet it very nearly miscarried at the outset. Nelson and Barham--between them a combination of warlike energy and strategic insight, without a parallel in the history of naval warfare--both realized the tremendous risks it ran. It may be argued that had Villeneuve gone to the north he would have found himself in the thick of British squadrons closing in on Brest and vastly superior in force. Yet Allemand, who had escaped a few weeks later from Rochefort, was able to cruise in these very waters for over five months without being brought to book. It is true that the destruction or capture of five thousand British troops would not seriously have affected the larger issues of the naval campaign, but it would have broken up the coalition with Russia by which Pitt set so much store, and which Mr Corbett at any rate represents as having exercised a decisive influence on the ultimate fortunes of Napoleon. The moral of the whole story seems to be that competent strategists--for the world has known none more competent and none more intrepid than Nelson and Barham--will not risk even a minor expedition at sea unless its line of advance is sufficiently controlled by superior naval force to ensure its unmolested transit. The principle thus exhibited in the case of a minor expedition manifestly applies with immensely increased force to those larger expeditions which a.s.sume the dimensions of an invasion. It was not until long after Trafalgar had been fought, and the command of the sea had been secured beyond the possibility of challenge, that the campaigns in the Peninsula were undertaken--campaigns which ended and were always intended to end, should the fortune of war so decree, in the invasion of France and the overthrow of Napoleon. This opens up the whole question of invasion, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VI

INVASION

England has not been invaded since A.D. 1066, when, the country having no fleet in being, William the Conqueror effected a landing and subjugated the kingdom. During the eight centuries and more that have since elapsed, every country in Europe has been invaded and its capital occupied, in many cases more than once. It is by no means for lack of attempts to invade her that England has been spared the calamity of invasion for more than eight hundred years. It is not because she has had at all times--it may indeed be doubted if she has had at any time--organized military force sufficient to repel an invader, if he could not be stopped at sea. It is because she can only be invaded across the sea, and because whenever the attempt has been made she has always had naval force sufficient to bring the enterprise to nought. It is merely a truism to say that the invasion of hostile territory across the sea is a much more difficult and hazardous enterprise than the crossing of a land frontier by organized military force. But it is no truism to say that the reason why it is so much more difficult and more hazardous is that there is no real parallel between the two cases. I a.s.sume a vigorous defensive on the part of the adversary a.s.sailed in both cases--a defensive which, though commonly so called, is really offensive in its nature. The essential difference lies in this, that two countries which are separated by the sea have no common frontier. Each has its own frontier at the limit of its territorial waters, but between these two there lies a region common to both and from which neither can be excluded except by the superior naval force of the other.

For the moment an expeditionary force emerges from its own territorial waters--which may be any distance from a few miles up to many thousands of miles from the territorial waters of the adversary to be a.s.sailed--it must be prepared to defend itself, and naval force alone can afford it an adequate measure of defence. Military forces embarked in transports are defenceless and practically unarmed. They cannot defend themselves with their own arms, nor can the transports which carry them be so armed as to afford adequate defence against the smallest warship afloat, least of all against torpedo craft. Hence, unless the sea to be traversed has been cleared of the naval forces of the enemy beforehand, the invading military force must be covered by a naval force sufficient to overcome any naval force which the enemy is able to bring against it. If the latter can bring a fleet--as he must be able to do if the invasion is to be prevented--the covering fleet must be able to beat any fleet that he can bring. That condition being satisfied, however, it is clear that the covering fleet must be terribly hampered and handicapped in the ensuing conflict by the presence of a huge and unwieldy a.s.semblage of unarmed transports filled with disarmed men, and by the consequent necessity of defending it against the attack of those portions of the enemy's naval force to which, albeit not suitable for engaging in the princ.i.p.al conflict, the transports would offer an otherwise defenceless prey. Hence the escorting fleet must be stronger than its adversary in a far larger proportion than it need be if naval issues pure and simple were alone at stake--so strong indeed that, if the transports were out of the way, its victory might be taken as certain. But if that is so it is manifest that the prospects of successful invasion would be immeasurably improved by seeking to decide the naval issue first--as Tourville very properly did in the Beachy Head campaign--and keeping the transports in hand and in port until it had been decided in favour of the intending invader. This is the eternal dilemma of invasion across a sea of which the command has not previously been secured. If you are not strong enough to dispose of the enemy's naval force you are certainly not strong enough to escort an invading force--itself helpless afloat--across the sea in his teeth. If you are strong enough to do this you will certainly be wise to beat him first, because then there will be nothing left to prevent the transit of your troops. In other words, command of the sea, if not absolutely and in all cases indispensable to a successful invasion, is at any rate the only certain way of ensuring its success.

Naval history from first to last is full of ill.u.s.trations of the principles here expounded. I will examine one or two of them, and I must take my ill.u.s.trations mainly from the naval history of Britain, first, because Britain, being an island, is the only country in Europe which cannot be invaded except across the sea, and secondly, because Britain for that very reason has often been subjected to attempts at invasion and has always frustrated them by denying to her adversary that sufficiency of sea control which, if history is any guide, is essential to successful invasion. But first I will examine two cases which might at first sight seem to militate against the principles I have enunciated. The brilliant campaign of Caesar which ended in the overthrow of Pompey and his cause at Pharsalus, was opened by Caesar's desperate venture of carrying his army across the Adriatic to the coast of Epirus, although Pompey's fleet was in full command of the waters traversed.

This is one of those exceptions which may be said to prove the rule.

Caesar had no alternative. Pompey was in Illyria, and if Caesar could not overthrow Pompey on that side of the Adriatic it was certain that Pompey would overthrow Caesar on the other side. For this reason, and perhaps for this reason alone, Caesar was compelled to undertake a venture which he must have known to be desperate. How desperate it was is shown by the fact that, not having transports enough to carry more than half his army at once, he had to send his transports back as soon as he had landed, and they were all destroyed on their way back to Brundusium. Antony his lieutenant did, indeed, succeed after a time in getting the remainder of his army across, but not before Caesar had been reduced to the utmost straits. The whole enterprise moreover was not, strictly speaking, an invasion of hostile territory. The inhabitants of the territory occupied by both combatants were neutral as between them, and were willing to furnish Caesar with such scanty supplies as they had. Again, an army in those days needed no ammunition except the sword which each soldier carried on his person, and that kind of ammunition was not expended in fighting. Hence Caesar had no occasion to concern himself with the security of his communications across the sea--a consideration which weighs with overwhelming force on the commander of a modern oversea expedition. "A modern army," as the late Lord Wolseley said, "is such a complicated organism that any interruption in the line of communications tends to break up and destroy its very life." An army marches on its belly. If it cannot be fed it cannot fight. After the Battle of Talavera Wellington was so paralysed by the failure of the Spanish authorities to supply his troops with food that he had to abandon the offensive for a time and to retreat towards his own line of communication with the sea.

Caesar on the other hand abandoned the sea, which could not feed him, and trusted to the resources of the country. The difference is vital. The one risk that Caesar ran was the destruction of his army afloat, and that he ran not because he chose but because he must. The risk of destruction on land he was prepared to run, and this, at any rate, was, as the event proved, a case of _bene ausus vana contemnere_.

Again, Napoleon's descent on Egypt is another exception which proves the rule, and proves it still more conclusively. Napoleon evaded Nelson's fleet and landed his army in Egypt. The army so landed left Egypt in British transports, having laid down its arms and surrendered just before the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens; and but for the timely conclusion of that short-lived armistice, every French soldier who survived the Egyptian campaign might have seen the inside of a British prison. This was because Napoleon, who never fathomed the secrets of the sea, chose to think that to evade a hostile fleet was the same thing as to defeat it. He managed for a time to escape Nelson's attentions by the skin of his teeth, and fondly fancied that because he had done so the dominion of the East was won. He was quickly undeceived by the Battle of the Nile. That victory destroyed the fleet which had escorted his army to Egypt and thereby made it impossible for the army ever to return except by consent of the Power which he never could vanquish on the sea.

The Battle of the Nile, wrote a Frenchman in Egypt, "is a calamity which leaves us here as children totally lost to the mother country. Nothing but peace can restore us to her." Nothing but the so-called Peace of Amiens did restore them. If it be argued, as it often has been, that Napoleon's successful descent on Egypt proves that military enterprises of large moment may sometimes be undertaken without first securing the command of the sea to be traversed, surely the Battle of the Nile and its sequel are a triumphant refutation of such an argument. Such enterprises are merely a roundabout way of presenting the belligerent who retains the command of the sea with as many prisoners of war as survive from the original expedition.

I need not labour the point which the unbroken testimony of history from the time of the Norman Conquest has established, that all attempts to invade England have been made in the past and must be made in the future across a sea not commanded by the intending invader. If he has secured the command of the sea beforehand, there is nothing to prevent the invasion except the consideration that he can attain his end--that is, the subjugation of the nation's will--at less cost to himself. That being premised, let us consider how the intending invader will set about his task. There are three ways, and three ways only. First, he may seek to overpower the British naval defence on the seas, that is to obtain the command of the sea. If he can do that, the whole thing is done. Or secondly, he may collect the military forces destined for the invasion in ports suitable for the purpose, and when all is ready he may cover their embarkation and transit by a naval force sufficient to overcome any naval force which this country can direct against it. I have already shown, however, that a force sufficient to do this with any certainty, or even with any reasonable prospect of success, must needs be more than sufficient to overpower the British naval defence and thereby to secure the command of the sea, if the enemy were freed from the entangling and wellnigh disabling necessity of providing for the safe conduct of an unwieldy host of otherwise defenceless transports. In other words he is putting the cart before the horse, a procedure which has never yet succeeded in getting the cart to its destination. This second alternative is then merely a clumsy and extremely inefficient way of attaining the same end as the first, and need only be mentioned in order to exclude it from further consideration.

There remains only a third alternative. This is to a.s.semble the invading military force at suitable ports as before, and to attempt to engage the attention of the defending naval force by operations at a distance for a time sufficient to secure the unmolested transit of the military expedition. This is the method which has nearly always been employed by an enemy projecting an invasion of this country. It has never yet succeeded, because it always leads in the end to a situation which is practically indistinguishable from that involved in the second alternative, which I have already discussed and excluded. The naval and the military elements in the enterprise of invasion being now, by the hypothesis, separated in s.p.a.ce and for that reason incapable of being very exactly combined in time, a whole series of highly indeterminate factors is thereby introduced into the problem to be solved by the invader. There are elements of naval force, to wit, all manner of small craft, which are not required for the main conflict of fleets--and it is this conflict which alone can secure the command of the sea--but which are eminently adapted for the impeachment and destruction of unarmed transports. These will be employed in the blockade of the ports in which the military forces are collecting. If the a.s.sailant employs similar craft to drive the blockaders away, the defender will bring up larger craft to stiffen his blockading flotillas. The invading force will therefore still be impeded and impeached. The process thus goes on until, if it is not otherwise decided by the conflict of the main fleets at a distance, the contending naval forces of both sides are attracted to the scene of the proposed embarkation, there to fight it out in the conditions involved in the second alternative considered above, conditions which I have already shown to be the least favourable to the would-be invader. In a masterly a.n.a.lysis Mr Julian Corbett has shown that the British defence against a threatened invasion has always been conducted on these lines, that the primary objective of the defence has been the troops and their transports, and that the vigorous pursuit of this objective has always resulted in a decision being obtained as between the main fleets of the two belligerents. That the decision has always been in favour of the British arms is at once a lesson and a warning--a lesson that immunity from invasion can only be ensured by superiority at sea, a warning that such superiority can only be secured by the adequate preparation, the judicious disposition, and the skilful handling of the naval forces to be employed, as well as by an unflinching _animus pugnandi_. But no nation which goes to war can hope for more or be content with less than the opportunity of obtaining a decision in these conditions. The issue lies on the knees of the G.o.ds.

A few ill.u.s.trations may here be cited. We have seen how in the Beachy Head campaign Tourville, having failed to force a decision on Torrington's fleet in being, could not turn aside with Torrington at his heels and Killigrew and Shovel on his flank to bring over an invading force from France. He was paralysed by that abiding characteristic of French naval strategy which impelled the French naval commanders to fix their eye on ulterior objects and blinded them to the fact that the best way to attain those objects was to destroy the naval forces of the enemy whenever the opportunity offered of so obtaining a decision. Hence their preference for the leeward position in action, their constant reluctance to fight a decisive action, their habitual direction of their fire at the masts and sails of the enemy rather than at his hulls, and in Tourville's case his failure to annihilate Torrington's fleet in being, resulting in the total miscarriage of the schemes for invasion, to be followed by internal insurrection, which, as Admiral Colomb has shown, were the kernel of the French plan of campaign. In the case of the Armada in the previous century, the task of invasion was entrusted to Parma, who had collected troops for the purpose, and vessels for their transport, in the ports of the Spanish Netherlands. But Justin of Na.s.sau kept a close watch outside, and Parma could not move. He summoned Medina Sidonia with the Armada to his a.s.sistance, but he summoned him in vain, for the Armada, hara.s.sed throughout the Channel, and, as it were, smoked out of Calais, was finally shattered at Gravelines. Precisely the same thing happened in the eighteenth century during the Seven Years' War.

Troops and transports were being collected in the Morbihan, but their exit was blocked by a British naval force stationed off the ports.

Conflans with the French main fleet was at Brest, and there he was blockaded by Hawke. Evading the blockade, Conflans put to sea and straightway went to release the troops and transports, hopelessly blockaded in the Morbihan. But Hawke swooped down on him and destroyed him in Quiberon Bay, Boscawen having previously destroyed at Lagos the fleet which De La Clue was bringing from Toulon to effect a junction with Conflans.

One more ill.u.s.tration may be cited, and I will treat it at some length, because it presents certain features which give it peculiar significance in relation to current controversies. This is the projected invasion of England by France in 1744. It is, so far as I know, the solitary instance in our naval history which shows the enemy framing his plans on the lines of what is now known as "a bolt from the blue"--that is, he projected a surprise invasion, at a time when the two countries were nominally at peace, in the hope that the first overt act of the war he was contemplating might be the landing of his troops on British soil.

In 1743, when this project was conceived, England and France were, as I have said, nominally at peace, but troops belonging to both had fought at Dettingen, not in any direct quarrel of their own, but because England was supporting Maria Theresa and France was supporting her enemies. The fleets of both Powers were jealously watching each other in the Mediterranean, a situation which led early in 1744 to the too notorious action of Mathews off Toulon. Nevertheless, until the very end of 1743 no direct conflict with France was antic.i.p.ated by the English Government.

Yet France was already secretly preparing her "bolt from the blue." She had resolved to support the Pretender's cause and to prepare an invasion of England in which the Pretender's son was to take part, and on landing in England to rally his party to the overthrow of the Hanoverian dynasty. The bolt was to be launched from Dunkirk and directed at the Thames, the intention being to land the invading force at Blackwall.

Some ten thousand French troops to be employed in the expedition were sent into winter-quarters in and around Dunkirk, but this aroused no suspicion in England, because this region was the natural place for the left flank of the French army to winter in, and Dunkirk contained no transports at the time. Transports were, however, being taken up under false charter-parties at French ports on the Atlantic and in the Channel, and were ordered as soon as ready to rendezvous secretly and separately at Dunkirk. At first the intention was for the expeditionary force to make its attempt without any support from the French fleet. But Marshal Saxe, who was to command it and knew that the Thames and its adjacent waters were never denuded of naval force sufficient to make short work of a fleet of unarmed transports, flatly declined to entertain this project and demanded adequate naval support for the enterprise. Accordingly a powerful fleet, held to be sufficient to contain or defeat any British fleet that was thought likely to be able to challenge it, was fitted out with all secrecy at Brest and placed under the command of De Roquefeuil. Even he was not told its destination, and false rumours on the subject were allowed to circulate among those who were concerned in its preparation.

So far everything seemed to be going well. The blow was timed for the first week in January, but the usual delays occurred, and for a month or more after the date originally fixed, the expeditionary force and its escort were separated by the whole length of northern France. Yet even before the date originally fixed, England had got wind of the preparations. From the middle of December Brest had been kept under watch, and orders had been issued to the dockyards to prepare for sea as many ships of the line as were available. These preparations were continued, without intermission, until the end of January, the purpose and destination of the armament at Brest still being unknown. Then two alarming pieces of intelligence reached England at the same time. One was that Roquefeuil had put to sea on January 26 (O.S.) with twenty-one sail of the line, and before being lost sight of by the British cruiser told off to watch him, had been seen to be clearly standing to the northward. The other was that Prince Charles, the son of the Pretender, had left Rome and had landed without hindrance in France. This, being a direct violation of the Treaty of Utrecht, was naturally held to give to the sailing of the Brest fleet the complexion of a direct hostile intent. It was on February 1 that these facts were known, and on February 2, Sir John Norris, a veteran of Barfleur and La Hogue, who was now well over eighty years of age, but as the event showed was still fully equal to the task entrusted to him, was ordered to hoist his flag at Portsmouth and to "take the most effectual measures to prevent the making of any descent on the Kingdoms." Norris hoisted his flag on the 6th, and by the 18th he had eighteen sail of the line under his command.

Subsequently his force was increased to twenty. Nothing was known of the movements of the French fleet since January 29, when the frigate set to watch it had finally lost sight of it. It was in fact still off the mouth of the Channel, baffled by adverse winds and gales and vainly seeking to make headway against them. If it had gone to the Mediterranean, Mathews off Toulon would be placed in grave jeopardy, and there were some projects for detaching a powerful squadron of Norris's ships to his support. If, on the other hand, it was aiming at the Channel, Norris with his whole force would be none too strong to encounter and defeat it. This was Norris's dilemma, and it was not until February 9 that he learned from the Duke of Newcastle that an embargo had been laid on all shipping at Dunkirk, where some fifty vessels of one hundred and fifty to two hundred tons had by this time a.s.sembled.

These might at a pinch and for a short transit be estimated to be capable of transporting some ten thousand troops. But an embargo, although clear proof of hostile intent, was not necessarily a sign of impending invasion. It was a common expedient, preliminary to war, whereby you deprived your enemy of ships and men very necessary to his purposes and secured ships and men equally necessary to your own. Hence no strategic connexion could with any certainty be held to exist between the embargo at Dunkirk and the sailing of the French fleet from Brest.

On the other hand it was clearly dangerous to uncover the Channel so long as the destination of the Brest fleet was unknown, and, although Newcastle had suggested to Norris that he should divide his fleet and send the major part of it to reinforce Mathews in the Mediterranean, yet Norris strongly demurred to the suggestion, and before the time came to act on it the situation had so far developed as to disallow it altogether. On February 11, Norris received information that a French fleet of at least sixteen sail of the line had been seen the day before off the Start. This convinced him that the French had some scheme to the eastward in hand; and as he had frigates watching the Channel between the Isle of Wight and Cape Barfleur he was equally convinced that the French had so far no appreciable armed force to the eastward of him.

Newcastle, however, did not share this conviction. He had received numerous reports of movements of French ships in the Channel to the eastward of the Isle of Wight and other information which pointed to a concentration at Dunkirk. As a matter of fact no French men-of-war were at this time east of the Isle of Wight, and the vessels reported to Newcastle must have been transports making for Dunkirk and magnified into ships of the line by the fog of war. Newcastle, accordingly, ordered Norris to go forthwith to the Downs. Foul winds prevented Norris from sailing at once from St Helen's, and on the 13th, the day before he did sail, he received further information which confirmed his conviction that the French were still to the westward. But Newcastle's orders remained peremptory, and on the 14th he sailed with eighteen ships, and anch.o.r.ed in the Downs on the 17th. There he found two more ships awaiting him, while two others were on their way to join him from Plymouth.

I pause here for a moment to point out that Norris's desire, over-ruled by Newcastle, to remain at Portsmouth was thoroughly well advised. He knew that there was naval force enough in the Thames and the Downs to dispose of any expedition coming from Dunkirk unless it were escorted by the Brest fleet, or by a very considerable detachment therefrom. He was well a.s.sured that no such detachment could have eluded the vigilance of his frigates, and he felt that in these circ.u.mstances he could better impeach Roquefeuil by lying in wait for him at Spithead or St Helen's than by preceding him to the Downs. How right he was in this appreciation will be seen from a closer consideration of the movements of the French fleet. It was not until February 13 that Roquefeuil received his final orders off the Start. He was directed to detach De Baraille, his second in command, with five ships. These were to go forthwith to Dunkirk and escort Saxe's expedition, while he himself with the remainder of his fleet was to blockade Norris at Portsmouth and defeat him if he could. But Roquefeuil and his council of war found these orders too hazardous for execution. They resolved not to divide the fleet until at least Norris, presumed to be at Portsmouth, had been disposed of. On the 17th, the day on which Norris had anch.o.r.ed in the Downs, they looked into Spithead and persuaded themselves that they had seen Norris there with eleven sail of the line. Judging that the weather was too bad for a successful blockade, Roquefeuil then pa.s.sed on up the Channel, convinced that Norris was now behind him with too weak a force to be of any effect. Baraille was then sent on with his detachment to Dunkirk, but by this time Saxe had lost heart and declined to sail until Roquefeuil's whole fleet was at hand to escort him.

It never was at hand to escort him, and the expedition never sailed.

Roquefeuil, with his fleet now greatly reduced, anch.o.r.ed off Dungeness on the 22nd, and never got any further. What had happened in the meanwhile was this. Norris remained in the Downs, being held there for some time by a gale. He was not unaware of what was going on at Dunkirk, but he hesitated to proceed thither lest the French fleet behind him should be covering another expedition coming from some French port in the Channel. He sent to reconnoitre, however, and on the 21st received information that four sixty-gun ships--these were, no doubt, Baraille's detachment--were at anchor off Gravelines, and there covering the transports at Dunkirk. On the 22nd, Roquefeuil appeared off Dungeness and anch.o.r.ed there. As soon as he knew Roquefeuil's whereabouts, Norris resolved to attack him without delay. The wind, being N.W., was favourable to his enterprise, and at the same time made it impossible for the expedition to leave Dunkirk. Should the wind change before Roquefeuil was brought to action and defeated, Norris held that he was strong enough to detach a force to impeach Saxe and Baraille, and at the same time to give a good account of Roquefeuil. But matters did not exactly turn out in this wise. On the 24th Norris left the Downs, with a light wind from the N.W., and an ebb tide in his favour, making for Dungeness, where Roquefeuil was still lying. His appearance in the offing was Roquefeuil's first information that Norris was to the eastward of him in superior force, and it greatly disconcerted Roquefeuil. He held a hasty council of war and decided to cut and run.

By this time the tide had turned and the wind had fallen, so that he could not stir until the tide again began to ebb. Norris, similarly disabled, had anch.o.r.ed some few miles to the eastward, intending to make his attack as soon as wind and tide allowed. But during the night a furious gale from the N.E. sprang up, which drove most of Norris's ships from their anchors, and when daylight came the French were nowhere to be seen. Roquefeuil had slipped his cables, and with the gale behind him was hurrying back to Brest. Norris went after him as far as Beachy Head, but there gave up the chase and returned to the Downs, to make sure that Saxe and Baraille, for whom the wind was now favourable, might find their way barred should they attempt to set sail. The transports, however, were by now in no position to move, nor was either Saxe or Baraille in any mind to allow them to move. They both realized that the game was up. The troops were in the transports, and they suffered greatly in the gale that frustrated Norris' attack on Roquefeuil. But that was merely an accident of warfare. It was not the gale that shattered the expedition, nor did it save England from invasion. On the contrary, while it played havoc with the transports and troops at Dunkirk, it also saved Roquefeuil's fleet from destruction at Dungeness.

But, gale or no gale, the transports and troops never could have crossed so long as Norris held on to the Downs. Nor could they have crossed had Norris been allowed to remain at Portsmouth as he desired; for in that case Baraille could not have been detached.

To point the moral of this memorable story, I cannot do better than quote Mr Julian Corbett's comment on it. "The whole attempt, it will be seen, with everything in its favour, had exhibited the normal course of degradation. For all the nicely framed plan and perfect deception, the inherent difficulties, when it came to the point of execution, had as usual forced a clumsy concentration of the enemy's battle fleet with his transports, and we on our part were able to forestall it with every advantage in our favour by the simple expedient of a central ma.s.s on a revealed and certain line of pa.s.sage." We were certainly taken at a disadvantage at the outset, for the "bolt from the blue" was preparing some time before any one in England got wind of it. The country had been largely denuded of troops for foreign enterprises, Scotland was deeply disaffected, the Jacobites were full of hope and intrigue, the Ministry was supine and feeble, the navy was deplorably weak in home waters, and such ships as were available had been dispersed to their ports for refit. Nevertheless with all these conditions in its favour the projected "bolt from the blue" was detected and antic.i.p.ated--tardily, it is true, and with no great sagacity except on the part of Norris--long before the expedition was ready to start. Surely the moral needs no further pointing.

By these instances, and others which might be quoted, the law seems to be established that in default of an a.s.sured command of the sea the fleet which seeks to cover an invasion is drawn by irresistible attraction towards the place of embarkation, and that the same attraction brings it there--if not earlier--into conflict with the superior forces of the enemy. If in the Trafalgar campaign, which I have no s.p.a.ce to examine in detail, the law does not seem to operate to the extent that it did in the other cases examined, that is only because the disposition of the British fleets was so masterly that Napoleon never got the opportunity he yearned for of bringing his fleets to the place of embarkation. They were outmanoeuvred beforehand and finally overthrown at Trafalgar.

There is indeed a fourth alternative which has been advanced by some speculative writers, though history lends it no countenance, and it has never, I believe, been taken seriously by any naval authority of repute.

I cannot take it seriously myself. It a.s.sumes that some naval Power, suitably situated as regards this country, might without either provocation or overt international dispute, clandestinely take up transport--either a comparatively small number of very large merchant vessels or a very large number of barges, lighters, or what not to be towed by steam vessels--might clandestinely put an army with all its necessary _impedimenta_ on board the transports so provided and then clandestinely, and without either notice or warning, send them to sea, with or without escort, with intent to effect a landing at some suitable point on the English coast. The whole theory seems to me to involve at least three monstrous improbabilities: first, a piratical intent on the part of a civilized nation; secondly, a concealment of such intent in conditions wellnigh incompatible with the degree of secrecy required; and thirdly, a precision and a punctuality of movement in the operations of embarkation, transit, and landing of which history affords no example, while naval opinion and experience scoff at them as utterly impracticable. Of course the future may not resemble the past, and naval wars of the future may not be conducted on a pattern sealed by the unbroken teaching of over eight hundred years. But that is an a.s.sumption which I cannot seriously entertain.

CHAPTER VII

COMMERCE IN WAR

The maritime trade of a nation at war has always been regarded by the other belligerent as his legitimate prey. In the Dutch Wars the suppression of the enemy's commerce was the main objective of both parties to the conflict. In all wars in which either belligerent has any commerce afloat worth considering one belligerent may always be expected to do all that he can for its capture or suppression, while the other will do as much as he can for its defence. In proportion to the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the potency of its destruction as an agency for bringing the national will into submission. If, for example, the maritime trade of England could be suppressed by her enemies, England would thereby be vanquished. Her commerce is her life-blood. On the other hand there are nations, very powerful in war, which either by reason of their geographical position, or because their oversea trade is no vital element in their national economy, would suffer comparatively little in like circ.u.mstances. It thus appears that the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the measure of the efforts which an enemy is likely to make for its suppression. But it is not directly the measure of the efforts which a nation so a.s.sailed must make for its defence. The measure of these efforts is determined not by the volume and value of the trade to be protected but by the amount and character of the naval force which the enemy can employ in a.s.sailing it.

In the Boer War British maritime commerce was una.s.sailed and uninterrupted in all parts of the world, and yet not a single ship of the British Navy was directly employed in its protection. If on the other hand England were at war with a naval Power of the first rank, she might have to employ the whole of her naval resources in securing the free transit of her maritime commerce. So long as she can do this with success she need give no thought to the menace of possible invasion. A command of the sea so far established as to secure freedom of transit for the vast and ubiquitous maritime commerce of this country is also, of necessity, so far established as to deny free transit to the transports of an enemy seeking to invade. The greater includes the less.

It may at first sight seem to be an anomaly--some, indeed, would represent it as a mere survival of barbarism--that whereas in war on land the private property of an enemy's subjects is, by the established law and custom of civilized nations, not liable to capture or destruction without compensation to its owners, the opposite rule still prevails in war at sea. But a little consideration will, I think, show that the a.n.a.logy sought to be established between the two cases is a very imperfect one. War on land does _ipso facto_ suspend in large measure the free transport of commerce in transit. As between the two belligerents it interrupts it altogether. Moreover, throughout the territory occupied by the enemy, the railways, and in large measure the roads, are practically monopolized for the movements of his troops and the transport of his supplies--in a word for the maintenance of his communications. There can have been little or no consignment of goods from Paris to Berlin or _vice versa_ during the war of 1870, and even though at certain stages of the war goods might have been consigned, say, from Lyons to Geneva, or from Lille to Brussels, yet such cases are really only the counterparts of the frequent failure of one belligerent's cruisers to intercept the merchant vessels of the other on the high seas. Again, in the case of a beleaguered fortress, the besiegers would never dream of allowing a convoy of food or of munitions of war--or for the matter of that of merchandise of any kind--to enter the fortress. They would intercept it as a matter of course, and if necessary they would appropriate it to their own use. The upshot of it all is that even in war on land the transit of all commerce, albeit the private property of some one, is practically suspended within the area of the territory occupied, and very seriously impeded throughout the whole country subject to invasion. It is not, therefore, true to say without many qualifications that in war private property is respected on land and not respected at sea. The only difference that I can discern is that by the law and custom of nations private property cannot be appropriated on land, whereas at sea it can. But this difference is not really essential. The essential thing in both cases is that the wealth of the enemy is diminished and the credit of his traders destroyed--a far more important matter in these days than the destruction of this or that cargo of his goods--by the suspension of that interchange of commodities with other nations which is the chief element of national prosperity, and may be, as in the case of England, the indispensable condition of national existence. Indeed, although private property on land is exempt from capture, and at sea it is not, yet there are many nations which would suffer far more from the interruption of their mercantile communications which war on land entails than they would from the destruction of their commerce at sea.

For these reasons I hold that the proposed exemption of private property from capture or molestation at sea is a chimerical one. War is essentially an act of violence. It operates by the destruction of human life as well as by all other agencies which are likely to subdue the enemy's will. Among these agencies the capture or destruction of commerce afloat is by far the most humane since it entails the least sacrifice of life, limb, or liberty, and at the same time its coercive pressure may in some cases, though not in all, be the most effective instrument for compelling the enemy's submission. Moreover, it is not proposed to exempt from capture or destruction such merchant vessels of the enemy--or even of a neutral for that matter--as attempt to break a blockade. Now the modern conditions of blockade are such that the warships conducting it may be stationed hundreds of miles from the blockaded port or ports, and their outlying cruisers, remaining in touch with each other and with the main body, may be much further afield.

Within the area of the organized patrol thus established, every vessel seeking to enter a blockaded port or to issue from it will still be liable to capture. In these conditions the proposal to exempt the remainder of the enemy's private property afloat from capture would be a mockery. There would not be enough of such property afloat to pay for the cost of capture.

It is an axiom of naval warfare that an a.s.sured command of the sea is at once the best defence for commerce afloat and an indispensable condition for any such attack on it as is likely to have any appreciable effect in subduing the enemy's will. War is an affair not of pin-p.r.i.c.ks but of smashing blows. "The hara.s.sment and distress," says Admiral Mahan, "caused to a country by serious interference with its commerce will be conceded by all. It is doubtless a most important secondary operation of naval war, and is not likely to be abandoned until war itself shall cease; but regarded as a primary and fundamental measure sufficient in itself to crush an enemy, it is probably a delusion, and a most dangerous delusion, when presented in the fascinating garb of cheapness to the representatives of a people." Here again we may discern some of the larger implications of that potent and far-reaching agency of naval warfare, the command of the sea. If a belligerent not aiming at the command of the sea, and having no sufficient naval force wherewithal to secure it, thinks to crush his enemy by directing sporadic attacks on his commerce, he will, if history is any guide, soon find out his mistake. His naval forces available for this purpose, are, by the hypothesis, inferior to those of the enemy. It is certain that they will sooner or later be hunted down and destroyed. Moreover, the mercantile flag of the weaker belligerent will, as I have shown, disappear from the sea from the very outset of the conflict; and the maritime commerce of such a belligerent must be of very insignificant volume if the loss entailed by its suppression is not greater than that likely to be inflicted by such a belligerent on the enemy's commerce which crosses the seas under the _aegis_ of a flag which commands them. Admiral Mahan has estimated that during the whole of the war of the French Revolution and Empire the direct loss to England "by the operation of hostile cruisers did not exceed 2-1/2 per cent. of the commerce of the Empire; and that this loss was partially made good by the prize ships and merchandise taken by its own naval vessels and privateers." It should be noted, however, that the Royal Commission on Food Supply was of opinion that 4 per cent. would be a more accurate estimate. It is also well known that during the same period the maritime commerce of England was doubled in volume while that of France was annihilated. In point of fact the risks run in war by commerce afloat are measured very exactly by the degree in which the flag which covers it has secured the command of the sea--that is, be it always remembered, the control of the maritime communications affected. During the War of American Independence, when British supremacy at sea was seriously challenged and at times was in grave jeopardy--owing quite as much to faulty disposition as to inferiority of force--premiums of fifteen guineas per cent. were paid in 1782 on ships trading to the Far East; whereas from the spring of 1793 until the close of the struggle with Napoleon no premiums exceeding half that rate were paid. Yet to the very end of the war British merchant vessels were being seized even in the Channel almost every day. There is, however, good reason to think that many of these seizures were in reality collusive operations undertaken for the purpose of carrying on clandestinely the direct trade with the Continent which Napoleon sought in vain to suppress. The full history of the memorable conflict between the Berlin Decrees of Napoleon and the British Orders in Council, is still to be written. Some very illuminating side-lights are thrown on it by Mr David Hannay in a volume ent.i.tled _The Sea-Trader, His Friends and Enemies_.

It would seem to follow from these premisses--fortified as they are by other historical examples that might be cited--that of two belligerents in a naval war, that one which establishes and maintains an effective command of the sea will be absolute master of the maritime commerce of the other, while his own maritime commerce, though not entirely immune, will suffer no such decisive losses as will determine or even materially affect the course and issue of the war; and that he may indeed emerge from the war much stronger and more prosperous than he was at the beginning. Such is a.s.suredly the teaching of history, and although vast changes have taken place alike in respect of the methods, opportunities, implements, and international conventions of naval war and in respect of the conditions, volume, and national importance of maritime commerce, yet I think it can be shown that the sum total of these changes has made on the whole rather for the advantage of the superior belligerent than otherwise. In the first place privateering--formerly a very effective weapon in the hands of the weaker belligerent--is now abolished. It is true that the Declaration of Paris, which recorded and ratified its abolition, has not been formally accepted by all the naval Powers of the world; but it is also true that since its promulgation no naval Power has sought to revive privateering. It is indeed held by some that the right claimed by certain maritime Powers to convert merchant ships of their own nationality into warships by arming and commissioning them on the high seas is, or may be, equivalent to the revival of privateering in its most dangerous and aggressive form. But those who argue thus appear to overlook the fact that this process of conversion on the high seas is by the Seventh Convention of the Second Hague Conference hedged round with a series of restrictions which differentiate the warship thus improvised very sharply from the privateer of the past. The following are the leading provisions of this Convention:--

1. A merchant ship converted into a warship cannot have the rights and duties appertaining to vessels having that status unless it is under the direct authority, immediate control, and responsibility of the Power the flag of which it flies.

2. Merchant ships converted into warships must bear the external marks which distinguish the warships of their nationality.

3. The commander must be in the service of the State and duly commissioned by the proper authorities. His name must figure on the list of the officers of the fighting fleet.

4. The crew must be subject to military discipline.