The British Navy Book Part 15

Pa.s.sing over the operations in China in 1858-9-60, and the attack on Simomosaki in j.a.pan, in all of which both seamen and marines were engaged, we come to the Ashanti War of 1873. The opening operations were entirely carried out by the navy, with the a.s.sistance of a few black troops. The invading army of Ashantis was forced back over the River Prah by the marines and seamen of the squadron, reinforced by a small force of the former sent especially from England, Cape Coast Castle and Elmina were saved, and time was gained for the arrival of the expeditionary force from England under Sir Garnet Wolseley. A small naval brigade of 200 seamen, and 60 marines, with a rocket train, accompanied the army on its advance to k.u.ma.s.si and played a conspicuous part in the battle of Amoaful, suffering a loss of six officers and forty men wounded.

A little naval brigade of 3 officers and 121 men with two rocket-tubes, six 12-pounders, and a Gatling gun partic.i.p.ated in the fighting with the Kafirs in South Africa in 1877-8; while in the Zulu War of a year or so later the _Shah_, _Active_, _Boadicea_, and _Tenedos_ landed a brigade of seamen and marines of the strength of 41 officers and 812 men, with several guns. It was employed in somewhat scattered detachments. In 1881 a small naval brigade took part in the inglorious Boer War and suffered heavily at the unfortunate battle on Majuba Hill, where it lost more than half its strength. It is to one of the seamen present that the following terse summary of that disastrous day is attributed. "We took three mortal hours to get up that bloomin' hill," he said, "but we come down in three bloomin' strides."

The navy and marines played a considerable part in the sh.o.r.e operations which followed on the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. After the fire of Sir "Breach'em" Seymour's fleet had driven Arabi and his soldiers out of the city, the mob gave itself up to murder, looting, and incendiarism. No troops had yet arrived, and the only thing to do was to land the naval brigade to keep order and save the city and its European inhabitants. The bluejackets, with their Gatling guns, supported by the marines with their rifles, lost no time in clearing the streets of the murderous rabble. The work was done in a thorough and effective manner, and as soon as possible a rough-and-ready tribunal was established to deal with special cases. In addition to these duties the naval brigade had to find detachments to hold a line of outposts round the landward side of the city, ready to check a very probable attempt of Arabi to recapture the city. In a day or so the hardly-worked seamen and marines were strengthened by the arrival of a battalion of the Royal Marines which had been specially sent out from England in the _Tamar_ in view of possible hostilities. It could easily have arrived at Alexandria two or three days earlier but for a series of orders and counter-orders from home which delayed it at Gibraltar, Malta, and finally sent it out of the way to Cyprus, where it was greeted with news of the bombardment, and the _Tamar_ steamed straight out of Limasol harbour without letting go her anchor. When the army began to arrive, the naval brigade was gradually withdrawn on board its ships, but shortly afterwards was employed in seizing Port Said, Ismailia, and other points on the ca.n.a.l.

In the advance along the Sweet-water Ca.n.a.l, which culminated in the victory of Tel-el-Kebir, only a very small naval contingent from the ships took part, but a battalion of the Royal Marine Light Infantry and another of Royal Marine Artillery were attached to the army, the latter being told off as a body-guard to Lord Wolseley. But we must not omit to mention Lieutenant Rawson of the Royal Navy, to whom was committed the important task of guiding the night march of the army against the Egyptian lines of Tel-el-Kebir by the aid of the stars, and who fell in the moment of victory. "No man more gallant fell on that occasion,"

reported Lord Wolseley.

Naval brigades were well to the fore in the fighting which took place in the Sudan in 1884-5. At the Battle of El Teb 13 naval officers and 150 seamen, with six machine-guns, were present, as well as a battalion of 400 marines. It was in this action that Captain A. K. Wilson--now Admiral of the Fleet, Sir A. K. Wilson, V.C., G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O.--gained the V.C. for the gallant way in which he, single-handed, engaged no less than six of the enemy who had endeavoured to capture one of his machine-guns. The naval brigade suffered heavy casualties at the Battle of Tamaii, which took place not long afterwards. In the Gordon Relief Expedition the naval brigade was naturally of great use on the Nile, and a small detachment of fifty-eight seamen under Lord Charles Beresford accompanied the Camel Corps in its dash across the desert and took part in the fiercely-contested fights of Abu Klea and Abu Kru. The marines formed the fourth company of the Guards Camel Corps on this occasion. In the operations on the upper Nile which preceded the fall of Khartoum there were a few naval and one marine officer in command of the Egyptian gunboats, whose fire proved such a useful auxiliary to the advance of the Anglo-Egyptian Army, while about a dozen non-commissioned officers of the Royal Marine Artillery were responsible for the instruction of their Egyptian gunners and the direction of their fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVAL BRIGADE IN THE BATTLE OF EL-TEB]

Naval brigades were very much in evidence in the South African War. No special squadron and no battalions of marines were sent out, because it was necessary to keep our main fleet and its personnel ready to hand in case of complications with European powers. The big cruisers _Terrible_ and _Powerful_, however, appeared on the scene, and their crews a.s.sisted in the formation of the naval brigades. In October, 1899, one of these was formed at Simonstown from the _Doris_, _Terrible_, _Powerful_, and _Monarch_.

It is noteworthy that for the first time on record both seamen and marines were provided with khaki uniform in place of their usual blue-serge service-dress. This brigade was sent to Stormberg, on to Queenstown, and then, to its intense disappointment, back to Simonstown by sea from East London. That is, with the exception of the _Terribles_, who sailed for Durban. However, the very day the brigade arrived at Simonstown it was ordered off again to join Lord Methuen's force on the Modder River. The khaki-clad bluejackets, with their straw hats covered with the same coloured material, were rather a puzzle to the soldiers.

During one of the engagements which took place, some of the Scots Guards, pa.s.sing them standing by their guns, said to each other: "Blimy, Tommy, there's them Boer guns we've took!"

At the Battle of Graspan the naval brigade particularly distinguished itself. Captain Protheroe was in command, Commander Ethelston commanding the seamen, and Major Plumbe the marines. In the course of the action Captain Protheroe was wounded and both the other officers mentioned were killed, the brigade being brought out of action by Captain Marchant of the Royal Marines.[65] The Boers were strongly posted on a pair of kopjes. The eastern kopje was attacked by a force distributed as follows:--

_Firing Line._--One company bluejackets, 50 strong; three companies Royal Marines, 190 strong in all; one company King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

_Supports._--Seven companies King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

_Reserve._--Half a battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.

The remainder of the seamen belonging to the naval brigade--about 150 in number--helped to cover the attack by bringing their guns into action at about 2800 yards range. The kopje was taken, but a heavy price was paid by the naval brigade. There were 2 naval and 2 marine officers killed and one of each wounded, 2 seamen and 6 marines killed, and 13 seamen and 82 marines wounded. During the farther advance on our western flank the guns of the naval brigade were constantly in action. One of the big 47 guns, mounted on the travelling carriage suggested by Captain (now Admiral) Sir Percy Scott of the _Terrible_, and put into practical form by one of her engineer officers, arrived in time for the naval brigade to use it at Magersfontein with considerable effect. At Paardeberg they had four of these weapons in action, besides smaller guns. Manned either by bluejackets or marines, and hauled along either by teams of oxen or by the men of the brigade themselves, they again and again proved most effective during the operations which followed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. Cribb, Southsea_

OUR SEAMEN GUNNERS WITH A MAXIM]

Meanwhile the _Powerfuls_ had formed a naval brigade of their own, and in response to the appeal made by Sir George White, the defender of Ladysmith, for more guns, Captain the Hon. Hedworth Lambton of that ship rushed up 17 officers and 267 men with two 47 guns, four 12-pounders, and four Maxims, just managing to get into the beleaguered town in time.

On the very first day the 12-pounders managed to put the Boer "Long Tom", which was lobbing its big projectiles into the place, out of action, and their presence undoubtedly saved the situation. Another naval brigade formed part of the relieving force and fought at Colenso.

This force comprised 20 officers and 403 bluejackets and marines, to whom must be added 2 officers and 50 men belonging to the Natal Naval Volunteers. A formidable battery of one 6-inch, five 47-inch, and eighteen long 12-pounders accompanied this brigade, which was of the greatest possible a.s.sistance to the army.

About this time the Boxer outbreak in China led to the formation of other naval brigades. Though hardly to be termed a naval brigade, it may be noted that the British portion of the small international force which so stoutly defended the Pekin Legations consisted of 79 Royal Marines and 3 officers, together with a leading signalman, an armourer's mate, and a sick-berth steward. But the relief column, under Vice-Admiral Sir E. H. Seymour, was a big naval brigade of various nationalities, of which about half were British--62 officers, 640 seamen, and 218 marines.

The British were under the immediate command of Captain J. R. Jellicoe, C.B., C.V.O.,[66] the marines being under Major J. R. Johnstone, R.M.L.I.[67] A determined attempt was made to advance along the railway line to Pekin, but the Chinese troops, who were exceedingly well armed, having thrown in their lot with the Boxers, the brigade was unable to get farther than An-tung, which was occupied by Major Johnstone with sixty men, while preparations were made to fall back on Tien-tsin.

The force had come up in a series of trains, but, the railway having been broken behind it in more than one place, a great part of the return journey had to be carried out on foot. Village after village had to be stormed, and not far from Tien-tsin the retreating column had to pa.s.s close under the walls of the important Chinese a.r.s.enal of Hsi-ku, which stood on the opposite bank of the river. From this big fortified enclosure a heavy fire was poured upon the Europeans at short range. It was a regular death-trap. However, the princ.i.p.al part of the column sought what cover the rather high bank of the river afforded, while Major Johnstone, with the British marines and half a company of bluejackets, contrived to get across in junks a little higher up, and, forming under cover of a small village, fixed bayonets and stormed the enclosure in flank with a tremendous rush, driving out the garrison before him. The column halted for the night and for the next day or two inside the a.r.s.enal, where it was attacked again and again till a relief column moved out from Tien-tsin and brought off the hara.s.sed naval brigade. In the meanwhile Admiral Seymour's brigade were fighting fiercely in Tien-tsin itself. The Pei-Yang a.r.s.enal held by the Chinese had to be stormed, the European quarter defended, and finally the high-walled native city had to be taken by a.s.sault, an operation in which the British seamen and marines suffered very heavily.

This is the last important occasion on which a naval brigade was in action until the European War. So far no naval brigade, in the sense of a force of bluejackets and marines disembarked from their ships, has taken part in the fighting, except perhaps at the Dardanelles. The Naval Division which went to Antwerp was composed of marines and reservists from their head-quarters and of naval reservists and volunteers, but we have so little reliable information of what happened on that occasion that it would be very inadvisable to attempt to give any account of its performances at the present time.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] Possibly not, as there was a composite battalion at Tangier composed of companies from various regiments, including one of marines.

[58] "Five or six hundred seamen and others of the Marine Regiment."--_Reminiscences of Cork_, by Crofton Croker (MS.).

[59] Lutterell.

[60] Several years ago the Kaiser bestowed this distinction on a Hessian Regiment on account of its ancestors--so it is stated--having partic.i.p.ated in the capture. I have studied the taking of Gibraltar pretty thoroughly, but have never found any mention of a German regiment taking part in it.

[61] _Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop_. London, 1744.

[62] Quoted in Ca.s.sell's _British Sea Kings and Sea Fights_.

[63] A soldier who used to be placed in front of a regiment, by whose motions the movements of the exercises with arms were directed. In some regiments at the present day the right-hand man steps a pace forward on the order "Fix bayonets", to give the time and ensure all moving together.

[64] _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1858.

[65] Now Brigadier-General Marchant, C.B., A.D.C.

[66] Now Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, K.C.B., K.C.V.O., the famous commander of our Grand Fleet.

[67] Now Major-General Johnstone, C.B.

CHAPTER XIV

War-ships of all Sorts

"The King's Navy exceeds all others in the World for three things, viz.: Beauty, Strength, and Safety. For Beauty, they are so many Royal Palaces; for Strength, so many moving Castles and Barbicans; and for Safety, they are the Most Defensive Walls of the Realm.

Amongst the Ships of other Nations, they are like Lions amongst silly Beasts, or Falcons, amongst fearful Fowle."--_Lord c.o.kes Fourth Inst.i.tute._

IN a previous chapter was set forth the story of the evolution of our battleships, up to and including the famous _Dreadnought_ of 1907, the so-called "first all-big-gun type". As there had been several "all-big-gun ships" among our earlier ironclads, this description seems hardly warranted. However, the _Dreadnought_ stands pre-eminent as the first of the modern type of battleship, though in power, speed, tonnage, and general efficiency she has been far out-cla.s.sed by the successive batches of Super-Dreadnoughts which have followed her, which are represented by the _Bellerophon_, _St. Vincent_, _Colossus_, _Orion_, _King George V_, _Iron Duke_, and, last of all, the monster _Queen Elizabeth_, or "_Lizzie_" as she is irreverently called. To describe this latest product of the naval designer's art is the best way of explaining what a really modern battleship is like.

The _Queen Elizabeth_, then, is 600 feet in length--that is to say, just 200 yards. Think of the distance you have often seen measured off for a hundred-yards' race, multiply it by two, and you will have some idea of what this means. Or, if you have ever done any shooting on the range, try to remember how far off the 200-yard target looked, and you will realize what must be the size of a ship long enough to cover all the ground between it and the firing-point. (The _Dreadnought_, by the way, was only 490 feet in length.) The beam of the _Queen Elizabeth_ is 92 feet--10 feet more than that of the _Dreadnought_. You may well imagine that the tonnage, or weight of water displaced, by a ship of these dimensions is enormous, and so it is, being no less than 27,500 tons!

So, also, is the horse-power of her engines--58,000! But when we know that they have to be able to drive this leviathan through the water at a speed of 25 knots an hour, we can well understand the necessity for powerful engines. To feed their furnaces 4000 tons of fuel are carried.

It is not coal, but what is known as "heavy oil", arrangements having been made by the Admiralty for an immense quant.i.ty of this fuel, which is considered to have many advantages over coal. Earlier ships carry a proportion of both coal and oil. The engines are, of course, of the turbine type, which has entirely superseded the old reciprocating engines in the Royal Navy.

"The introduction of the turbine engine", writes a naval officer, "has revolutionized the appearance of the engine-room. The flashing piston-rods and revolving cranks have vanished. All the driving-power of the ship is hidden in some mahogany-sheathed horizontal cylinders, and there is nothing to indicate that the engines are in movement but a small external dial and needle no larger than a mantelpiece clock, attached to each of the shafts, of which there are two in each engine-room."[68]

The _Queen Elizabeth_ can hardly be called an "all-big-gun ship", since besides the eight huge 15-inch guns which form her princ.i.p.al armament she carries sixteen 6-inch quick-firing guns, firing projectiles of 100 pounds weight, and about a dozen little cannon specially mounted for firing up at Zeppelins or aeroplanes. But her 15-inch guns are the biggest and most powerful cannon now afloat. Not only do they fire huge elongated sh.e.l.ls of 1950 pounds weight, but their range and accuracy is most remarkable. We have seen a little of what they can do in the Dardanelles, when the ship, steaming well out at sea, pitched these terrible projectiles right over the peninsula of Gallipoli, to descend like a combination earthquake and avalanche upon the Turkish forts in the straits. The _Dreadnought_ had 12-inch guns firing 850-pound projectiles, but she carried ten to the four of all her predecessors.

But though the _Queen Elizabeth_ had to give up one turret,[69] and therefore two guns, in order to make room for more boiler-power for the production of greater speed, her broadside totals 15,600 pounds of metal as against the 8500 of the earlier war-ship, or the 12,500 pounds of later Super-Dreadnoughts armed with ten 13-1/2-inch big guns. But the ability to throw heavier projectiles was by no means the only reason for increasing the calibre of our big guns. The fact was that gradual improvements in the 12-inch gun had made it so long in proportion to its calibre that there was an imperceptible sort of "whip" at the muzzle on discharge that was yet quite enough to interfere with its accuracy.[70]

So we brought out the 13.5-inch, a most formidable weapon, and, later on, the 15-inch gun. With each of these the difficulty of making sure of hitting at long range decreased, and the encounters in the war that have taken place between our ships and those of the Germans which have had the temerity to put their noses outside their harbour defences have all gone to prove the previously-advanced theory that the battles of the immediate future will take place at immense ranges, at which the smaller guns and torpedoes cannot be effectively used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DECK OF A _DREADNOUGHT_ CLEARED FOR ACTION]

It would be superfluous to describe the general appearance of the _Queen Elizabeth_ in words, the photograph opposite presenting it better than the most detailed description: but it may be fairly said that while in picturesque beauty modern battleships cannot compete with the masterpieces of "the days of wood and hemp", there is yet an appearance of power, proportion, and impressiveness about them which forms a combination that may be almost called a beauty in itself. In the same way we may compare the plain, severe beauty of the Parthenon at Athens with the elaborately carved, gilded, and painted workmanship of a j.a.panese temple. Both are attractive to the eye in their own peculiar and far differing ways. In the old wooden ships an appreciable proportion of their cost went in decoration alone, but out of the 2,400,000 expended on the "_Lizzie_" such expenditure may be set down practically as _nil_. A plain slate-coloured coat of paint, extending from truck to water-line, is all the painter has had to do with her external appearance.

The turrets in which the _Queen Elizabeth's_ big guns are carried are four in number, and are placed on the centre line of the ship--two forward and two aft. Each turret contains a pair of guns, and the two innermost turrets are perched up on a species of protected tower or pedestal in such a way that they can fire directly over the foremost and aftermost turrets. By this arrangement four guns can be discharged dead ahead, four astern, and the whole eight on either broadside. We have been some time evolving this arrangement of turrets--in point of fact some foreign "Dreadnoughts" were the first to adopt it.

Our original _Dreadnought_ had five turrets, three on the centre line of the ship and one on either broadside. The same arrangement was carried out in the _Bellerophon_ and _St. Vincent_ cla.s.ses, which followed her, but in the _Colossus_ cla.s.s, which succeeded them, the position of the five turrets was altered. There was one right forward on the centre line of the ship, then one on the port side, and farther aft another on the starboard side. In fact, these two turrets were arranged _en echelon_, just as they were in the earlier _Colossus_ and other ships. The fourth and fifth turrets were on the centre line, and the fourth was able to fire over the fifth, just as the second can fire over the first in the _Queen Elizabeth_. In the _Orion_ cla.s.s, which came next, the same arrangement as in the _Queen Elizabeth_ was followed, but as there was an additional turret it was placed by itself right amidships. No change in this respect was made in the _King Georges_.

We must not leave our typical modern battleship without some reference to the way in which she is protected by armour. As in all such ships, the armour-plating is distributed (_a_) to protect her flotation and (_b_) to protect her guns. With the former object in view she has a broad water-line belt of the finest and strongest 13-1/2-inch armour procurable, which is supplemented by an armoured deck of considerable thickness. Each turret stands on a species of armoured tower, going right down to the armoured deck, and is itself made of 13-1/2-inch armour. Her flotation is further safeguarded by minute subdivision below the water-line.

"Long experience of naval war has established a belief, shown by the practice of maritime powers to be unanimous, that a navy should comprise three great cla.s.ses of ships, these cla.s.ses admitting of much internal subdivision. In the period of the great naval wars there were ships of the line, frigates, and small craft. These are now represented by battleships, cruisers, and smaller and special-service vessels.