STATE OF EUROPE IN 1660.--SECOND ANGLO-DUTCH WAR, 1665-1667. SEA
BATTLES OF LOWESTOFT AND OF THE FOUR DAYS.
The period at which our historical survey is to begin has been loosely
stated as the middle of the seventeenth century. The year 1660 will
now be taken as the definite date at which to open. In May of that
year Charles II. was restored to the English throne amid the general
rejoicing of the people. In March of the following year, upon the
death of Cardinal Mazarin, Louis XIV. assembled his ministers and said
to them: "I have summoned you to tell you that it has pleased me
hitherto to permit my affairs to be governed by the late cardinal; I
shall in future be my own prime minister. I direct that no decree be
sealed except by my orders, and I order the secretaries of State and
the superintendent of the finances to sign nothing without my
command." The personal government thus assumed was maintained, in fact
as well as in name, for over half a century.
Within one twelvemonth then are seen, setting forward upon a new stage
of national life, after a period of confusion more or less prolonged,
the two States which, amid whatever inequalities, have had the first
places in the sea history of modern Europe and America, indeed, of the
world at large. Sea history, however, is but one factor in that
general advance and decay of nations which is called their history;
and if sight be lost of the other factors to which it is so closely
related, a distorted view, either exaggerated or the reverse, of its
importance will be formed. It is with the belief that that importance
is vastly underrated, if not practically lost sight of, by people
unconnected with the sea, and particularly by the people of the United
States in our own day, that this study has been undertaken.
The date taken, 1660, followed closely another which marked a great
settlement of European affairs, setting the seal of treaty upon the
results of a general war, known to history as the Thirty Years' War.
This other date was that of the Treaty of Westphalia, or Munster, in
1648. In this the independence of the Dutch United Provinces, long
before practically assured, was formally acknowledged by Spain; and it
being followed in 1659 by the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France
and Spain, the two gave to Europe a state of general external peace,
destined soon to be followed by a series of almost universal wars,
which lasted as long as Louis XIV. lived,--wars which were to induce
profound changes in the map of Europe; during which new States were to
arise, others to decay, and all to undergo large modifications, either
in extent of dominion or in political power. In these results maritime
power, directly or indirectly, had a great share.
We must first look at the general condition of European States at the
time from which the narrative starts. In the struggles, extending over
nearly a century, whose end is marked by the Peace of Westphalia, the
royal family known as the House of Austria had been the great
overwhelming power which all others feared. During the long reign of
the Emperor Charles V., who abdicated a century before, the head of
that house had united in his own person the two crowns of Austria and
Spain, which carried with them, among other possessions, the countries
we now know as Holland and Belgium, together with a preponderating
influence in Italy. After his abdication the two great monarchies of
Austria and Spain were separated; but though ruled by different
persons, they were still in the same family, and tended toward that
unity of aim and sympathy which marked dynastic connections in that
and the following century. To this bond of union was added that of a
common religion. During the century before the Peace of Westphalia,
the extension of family power, and the extension of the religion
professed, were the two strongest motives of political action. This
was the period of the great religious wars which arrayed nation
against nation, principality against principality, and often, in the
same nation, faction against faction. Religious persecution caused the
revolt of the Protestant Dutch Provinces against Spain, which issued,
after eighty years of more or less constant war, in the recognition of
their independence. Religious discord, amounting to civil war at
times, distracted France during the greater part of the same period,
profoundly affecting not only her internal but her external policy.
These were the days of St. Bartholomew, of the religious murder of
Henry IV., of the siege of La Rochelle, of constant intriguing between
Roman Catholic Spain and Roman Catholic Frenchmen. As the religious
motive, acting in a sphere to which it did not naturally belong, and
in which it had no rightful place, died away, the political
necessities and interests of States began to have juster weight; not
that they had been wholly lost sight of in the mean time, but the
religious animosities had either blinded the eyes, or fettered the
action, of statesmen. It was natural that in France, one of the
greatest sufferers from religious passions, owing to the number and
character of the Protestant minority, this reaction should first and
most markedly be seen. Placed between Spain and the German States,
among which Austria stood foremost without a rival, internal union and
checks upon the power of the House of Austria were necessities of
political existence. Happily, Providence raised up to her in close
succession two great rulers, Henry IV. and Richelieu,--men in whom
religion fell short of bigotry, and who, when forced to recognize it
in the sphere of politics, did so as masters and not as slaves. Under
them French statesmanship received a guidance, which Richelieu
formulated as a tradition, and which moved on the following general
lines,--(1) Internal union of the kingdom, appeasing or putting down
religious strife and centralizing authority in the king; (2)
Resistance to the power of the House of Austria, which actually and
necessarily carried with it alliance with Protestant German States and
with Holland; (3) Extension of the boundaries of France to the
eastward, at the expense mainly of Spain, which then possessed not
only the present Belgium, but other provinces long since incorporated
with France; and (4) The creation and development of a great sea
power, adding to the wealth of the kingdom, and intended specially to
make head against France's hereditary enemy, England; for which end
again the alliance with Holland was to be kept in view. Such were the
broad outlines of policy laid down by statesmen in the front rank of
genius for the guidance of that country whose people have, not without
cause, claimed to be the most complete exponent of European
civilization, foremost in the march of progress, combining political
advance with individual development. This tradition, carried on by
Mazarin, was received from him by Louis XIV.; it will be seen how far
he was faithful to it, and what were the results to France of his
action. Meanwhile it may be noted that of these four elements
necessary to the greatness of France, sea power was one; and as the
second and third were practically one in the means employed, it may be
said that sea power was one of the two great means by which France's
_external_ greatness was to be maintained. England on the sea, Austria
on the land, indicated the direction that French effort was to take.
As regards the condition of France in 1660, and her readiness to move
onward in the road marked by Richelieu, it may be said that internal
peace was secured, the power of the nobles wholly broken, religious
discords at rest; the tolerant edict of Nantes was still in force,
while the remaining Protestant discontent had been put down by the
armed hand. All power was absolutely centred in the throne. In other
respects, though the kingdom was at peace, the condition was less
satisfactory. There was practically no navy; commerce, internal and
external, was not prosperous; the finances were in disorder; the army
small.
Spain, the nation before which all others had trembled less than a
century before, was now long in decay and scarcely formidable; the
central weakness had spread to all parts of the administration. In
extent of territory, however, she was still great. The Spanish
Netherlands still belonged to her; she held Naples, Sicily, and
Sardinia; Gibraltar had not yet fallen into English hands; her vast
possessions in America--with the exception of Jamaica, conquered by
England a few years before--were still untouched. The condition of her
sea power, both for peace and war, has been already alluded to. Many
years before, Richelieu had contracted a temporary alliance with
Spain, by virtue of which she placed forty ships at his disposal; but
the bad condition of the vessels, for the most part ill armed and ill
commanded, compelled their withdrawal. The navy of Spain was then in
full decay, and its weakness did not escape the piercing eye of the
cardinal. An encounter which took place between the Spanish and Dutch
fleets in 1639 shows most plainly the state of degradation into which
this once proud navy had fallen.
"Her navy at this time," says the narrative quoted, "met one of
those shocks, a succession of which during this war degraded her
from her high station of mistress of the seas in both
hemispheres, to a contemptible rank among maritime powers. The
king was fitting out a powerful fleet to carry the war to the
coasts of Sweden, and for its equipment had commanded a
reinforcement of men and provisions to be sent from Dunkirk. A
fleet accordingly set sail, but were attacked by Von Tromp, some
captured, the remainder forced to retire within the harbor
again. Soon after, Tromp seized three English [neutral] ships
carrying 1070 Spanish soldiers from Cadiz to Dunkirk; he took
the troops out, but let the ships go free. Leaving seventeen
vessels to blockade Dunkirk, Tromp with the remaining twelve
advanced to meet the enemy's fleet on its arrival. It was soon
seen entering the Straits of Dover to the number of sixty-seven
sail, and having two thousand troops. Being joined by De Witt
with four more ships, Tromp with his small force made a resolute
attack upon the enemy. The fight lasted till four P.M., when the
Spanish admiral took refuge in the Downs. Tromp determined to
engage if they should come out; but Oquendo with his powerful
fleet, many of which carried from sixty to a hundred guns,
suffered himself to be blockaded; and the English admiral told
Tromp he was ordered to join the Spaniards if hostilities began.
Tromp sent home for instructions, and the action of England only
served to call out the vast maritime powers of the Dutch. Tromp
was rapidly reinforced to ninety-six sail and twelve fire-ships,
and ordered to attack. Leaving a detached squadron to observe
the English, and to attack them if they helped the Spaniards, he
began the fight embarrassed by a thick fog, under cover of which
the Spaniards cut their cables to escape. Many running too close
to shore went aground, and most of the remainder attempting to
retreat were sunk, captured, or driven on the French coast.
Never was victory more complete."[16]
When a navy submits to such a line of action, all tone and pride must
have departed; but the navy only shared in the general decline which
made Spain henceforward have an ever lessening weight in the policy of
Europe.
"In the midst of the splendors of her court and language," says
Guizot, "the Spanish government felt itself weak, and sought to
hide its weakness under its immobility. Philip IV. and his
minister, weary of striving only to be conquered, looked but for
the security of peace, and only sought to put aside all
questions which would call for efforts of which they felt
themselves incapable. Divided and enervated, the house of
Austria had even less ambition than power, and except when
absolutely forced, a pompous inertia became the policy of the
successors of Charles V."[17]
Such was the Spain of that day. That part of the Spanish dominions
which was then known as the Low Countries, or the Roman Catholic
Netherlands (our modern Belgium), was about to be a fruitful source of
variance between France and her natural ally, the Dutch Republic. This
State, whose political name was the United Provinces, had now reached
the summit of its influence and power,--a power based, as has already
been explained, wholly upon the sea, and upon the use of that element
made by the great maritime and commercial genius of the Dutch people.
A recent French author thus describes the commercial and colonial
conditions, at the accession of Louis XIV., of this people, which
beyond any other in modern times, save only England, has shown how the
harvest of the sea can lift up to wealth and power a country
intrinsically weak and without resources:--
"Holland had become the Phoenicia of modern times. Mistresses of
the Scheldt, the United Provinces closed the outlets of Antwerp
to the sea, and inherited the commercial power of that rich
city, which an ambassador of Venice in the fifteenth century had
compared to Venice herself. They received besides in their
principal cities the workingmen of the Low Countries who fled
from Spanish tyranny of conscience. The manufactures of clothes,
linen stuffs, etc., which employed six hundred thousand souls,
opened new sources of gain to a people previously content with
the trade in cheese and fish. Fisheries alone had already
enriched them. The herring fishery supported nearly one fifth of
the population of Holland, producing three hundred thousand tons
of salt-fish, and bringing in more than eight million francs
annually.
"The naval and commercial power of the republic developed
rapidly. The merchant fleet of Holland alone numbered 10,000
sail, 168,000 seamen, and supported 260,000 inhabitants. She had
taken possession of the greater part of the European
carrying-trade, and had added thereto, since the peace, all the
carriage of merchandise between America and Spain, did the same
service for the French ports, and maintained an importation
traffic of thirty-six million francs. The north countries,
Brandenburg, Denmark, Sweden, Muscovy, Poland, access to which
was opened by the Baltic to the Provinces, were for them an
inexhaustible market of exchange. They fed it by the produce
they sold there, and by purchase of the products of the
North,--wheat, timber, copper, hemp, and furs. The total value
of merchandise yearly shipped in Dutch bottoms, in all seas,
exceeded a thousand million francs. The Dutch had made
themselves, to use a contemporary phrase, the wagoners of all
seas."[18]
It was through its colonies that the republic had been able thus to
develop its sea trade. It had the monopoly of all the products of the
East. Produce and spices from Asia were by her brought to Europe of a
yearly value of sixteen million francs. The powerful East India
Company, founded in 1602, had built up in Asia an empire, with
possessions taken from the Portuguese. Mistress in 1650 of the Cape of
Good Hope, which guaranteed it a stopping-place for its ships, it
reigned as a sovereign in Ceylon, and upon the coasts of Malabar and
Coromandel. It had made Batavia its seat of government, and extended
its traffic to China and Japan. Meanwhile the West India Company, of
more rapid rise, but less durable, had manned eight hundred ships of
war and trade. It had used them to seize the remnants of Portuguese
power upon the shores of Guinea, as well as in Brazil.
The United Provinces had thus become the warehouse wherein were
collected the products of all nations.
The colonies of the Dutch at this time were scattered throughout the
eastern seas, in India, in Malacca, in Java, the Moluccas, and various
parts of the vast archipelago lying to the northward of Australia.
They had possessions on the west coast of Africa, and as yet the
colony of New Amsterdam remained in their hands. In South America the
Dutch West India Company had owned nearly three hundred leagues of
coast from Bahia in Brazil northward; but much had recently escaped
from their hands.
The United Provinces owed their consideration and power to their
wealth and their fleets. The sea, which beats like an inveterate enemy
against their shores, had been subdued and made a useful servant; the
land was to prove their destruction. A long and fierce strife had been
maintained with an enemy more cruel than the sea,--the Spanish
kingdom; the successful ending, with its delusive promise of rest and
peace, but sounded the knell of the Dutch Republic. So long as the
power of Spain remained unimpaired, or at least great enough to keep
up the terror that she had long inspired, it was to the interest of
England and of France, both sufferers from Spanish menace and
intrigue, that the United Provinces should be strong and independent.
When Spain fell,--and repeated humiliations showed that her weakness
was real and not seeming,--other motives took the place of fear.
England coveted Holland's trade and sea dominion; France desired the
Spanish Netherlands. The United Provinces had reason to oppose the
latter as well as the former.
Under the combined assaults of the two rival nations, the intrinsic
weakness of the United Provinces was soon to be felt and seen. Open to
attack by the land, few in numbers, and with a government ill adapted
to put forth the united strength of a people, above all unfitted to
keep up adequate preparation for war, the decline of the republic and
the nation was to be more striking and rapid than the rise. As yet,
however, in 1660, no indications of the coming fall were remarked. The
republic was still in the front rank of the great powers of Europe.
If, in 1654, the war with England had shown a state of unreadiness
wonderful in a navy that had so long humbled the pride of Spain on the
seas, on the other hand the Provinces, in 1657, had effectually put a
stop to the insults of France directed against her commerce; and a
year later, "by their interference in the Baltic between Denmark and
Sweden, they had hindered Sweden from establishing in the North a
preponderance disastrous to them. They forced her to leave open the
entrance to the Baltic, of which they remained masters, no other navy
being able to dispute its control with them. The superiority of their
fleet, the valor of their troops, the skill and firmness of their
diplomacy, had caused the prestige of their government to be
recognized. Weakened and humiliated by the last English war, they had
replaced themselves in the rank of great powers. At this moment
Charles II. was restored."
The general character of the government has been before mentioned, and
need here only be recalled. It was a loosely knit confederacy,
administered by what may not inaccurately be called a commercial
aristocracy, with all the political timidity of that class, which has
so much to risk in war. The effect of these two factors, sectional
jealousy and commercial spirit, upon the military navy was disastrous.
It was not kept up properly in peace, there were necessarily rivalries
in a fleet which was rather a maritime coalition than a united navy,
and there was too little of a true military spirit among the officers.
A more heroic people than the Dutch never existed; the annals of Dutch
sea-fights give instances of desperate enterprise and endurance
certainly not excelled, perhaps never equalled, elsewhere; but they
also exhibit instances of defection and misconduct which show a lack
of military spirit, due evidently to lack of professional pride and
training. This professional training scarcely existed in any navy of
that day, but its place was largely supplied in monarchical countries
by the feeling of a military caste. It remains to be noted that the
government, weak enough from the causes named, was yet weaker from the
division of the people into two great factions bitterly hating each
other. The one, which was the party of the merchants (burgomasters),
and now in power, favored the confederate republic as described; the
other desired a monarchical government under the House of Orange. The
Republican party wished for a French alliance, if possible, and a
strong navy; the Orange party favored England, to whose royal house
the Prince of Orange was closely related, and a powerful army. Under
these conditions of government, and weak in numbers, the United
Provinces in 1660, with their vast wealth and external activities,
resembled a man kept up by stimulants. Factitious strength cannot
endure indefinitely; but it is wonderful to see this small State,
weaker by far in numbers than either England or France, endure the
onslaught of either singly, and for two years of both in alliance, not
only without being destroyed, but without losing her place in Europe.
She owed this astonishing result partly to the skill of one or two
men, but mainly to her sea power.
The conditions of England, with reference to her fitness to enter upon
the impending strife, differed from those of both Holland and France.
Although monarchical in government, and with much real power in the
king's hands, the latter was not able to direct the policy of the
kingdom wholly at his will. He had to reckon, as Louis had not, with
the temper and wishes of his people. What Louis gained for France, he
gained for himself; the glory of France was his glory. Charles aimed
first at his own advantage, then at that of England; but, with the
memory of the past ever before him, he was determined above all not to
incur his father's fate nor a repetition of his own exile. Therefore,
when danger became imminent, he gave way before the feeling of the
English nation. Charles himself hated Holland; he hated it as a
republic; he hated the existing government because opposed in internal
affairs to his connections, the House of Orange; and he hated it yet
more because in the days of his exile, the republic, as one of the
conditions of peace with Cromwell, had driven him from her borders. He
was drawn to France by the political sympathy of a would-be absolute
ruler, possibly by his Roman Catholic bias, and very largely by the
money paid him by Louis, which partially freed him from the control of
Parliament. In following these tendencies of his own, Charles had to
take account of certain decided wishes of his people. The English, of
the same race as the Dutch, and with similar conditions of situation,
were declared rivals for the control of the sea and of commerce; and
as the Dutch were now leading in the race, the English were the more
eager and bitter. A special cause of grievance was found in the action
of the Dutch East India Company, "which claimed the monopoly of trade
in the East, and had obliged distant princes with whom it treated to
close their States to foreign nations, who were thus excluded, not
only from the Dutch colonies, but from all the territory of the
Indies." Conscious of greater strength, the English also wished to
control the action of Dutch politics, and in the days of the English
Republic had even sought to impose a union of the two governments. At
the first, therefore, popular rivalry and enmity seconded the king's
wishes; the more so as France had not for some years been formidable
on the continent. As soon, however, as the aggressive policy of Louis
XIV. was generally recognized, the English people, both nobles and
commons, felt the great danger to be there, as a century before it had
been in Spain. The transfer of the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) to
France would tend toward the subjection of Europe, and especially
would be a blow to the sea power both of the Dutch and English; for it
was not to be supposed that Louis would allow the Scheldt and port of
Antwerp to remain closed, as they then were, under a treaty wrung by
the Dutch from the weakness of Spain. The reopening to commerce of
that great city would be a blow alike to Amsterdam and to London. With
the revival of inherited opposition to France the ties of kindred
began to tell; the memory of past alliance against the tyranny of
Spain was recalled; and similarity of religious faith, still a
powerful motive, drew the two together. At the same time the great and
systematic efforts of Colbert to build up the commerce and the navy of
France excited the jealousy of both the sea powers; rivals themselves,
they instinctively turned against a third party intruding upon their
domain. Charles was unable to resist the pressure of his people under
all these motives; wars between England and Holland ceased, and were
followed, after Charles's death, by close alliance.
Although her commerce was less extensive, the navy of England in 1660
was superior to that of Holland, particularly in organization and
efficiency. The stern, enthusiastic religious government of Cromwell,
grounded on military strength, had made its mark both on the fleet and
army. The names of several of the superior officers under the
Protector, among which that of Monk stands foremost, appear in the
narrative of the first of the Dutch wars under Charles. This
superiority in tone and discipline gradually disappeared under the
corrupting influence of court favor in a licentious government; and
Holland, which upon the whole was worsted by England alone upon the
sea in 1665, successfully resisted the combined navies of England and
France in 1672. As regards the material of the three fleets, we are
told that the French ships had greater displacement than the English
relatively to the weight of artillery and stores; hence they could
keep, when fully loaded, a greater height of battery. Their hulls also
had better lines. These advantages would naturally follow from the
thoughtful and systematic way in which the French navy at that time
was restored from a state of decay, and has a lesson of hope for us in
the present analogous condition of our own navy. The Dutch ships, from
the character of their coast, were flatter-bottomed and of less
draught, and thus were able, when pressed, to find a refuge among the
shoals; but they were in consequence less weatherly and generally of
lighter scantling than those of either of the other nations.
Thus as briefly as possible have been sketched the conditions, degree
of power, and aims which shaped and controlled the policy of the four
principal seaboard States of the day,--Spain, France, England, and
Holland. From the point of view of this history, these will come most
prominently and most often into notice; but as other States exercised
a powerful influence upon the course of events, and our aim is not
merely naval history but an appreciation of the effect of naval and
commercial power upon the course of general history, it is necessary
to state shortly the condition of the rest of Europe. America had not
yet begun to play a prominent part in the pages of history or in the
policies of cabinets.
Germany was then divided into many small governments, with the one
great empire of Austria. The policy of the smaller States shifted, and
it was the aim of France to combine as many of them as possible under
her influence, in pursuance of her traditional opposition to Austria.
With France thus working against her on the one side, Austria was in
imminent peril on the other from the constant assaults of the Turkish
Empire, still vigorous though decaying. The policy of France had long
inclined to friendly relations with Turkey, not only as a check upon
Austria, but also from her wish to engross the trade with the Levant.
Colbert, in his extreme eagerness for the sea power of France, favored
this alliance. It will be remembered that Greece and Egypt were then
parts of the Turkish Empire.
Prussia as now known did not exist. The foundations of the future
kingdom were then being prepared by the Elector of Brandenburg, a
powerful minor State, which was not yet able to stand quite alone, but
carefully avoided a formally dependent position. The kingdom of Poland
still existed, a most disturbing and important factor in European
politics, because of its weak and unsettled government, which kept
every other State anxious lest some unforeseen turn of events there
should tend to the advantage of a rival. It was the traditional policy
of France to keep Poland upright and strong. Russia was still below
the horizon; coming, but not yet come, within the circle of European
States and their living interests. She and the other powers bordering
upon the Baltic were naturally rivals for preponderance in that sea,
in which the other States, and above all the maritime States, had a
particular interest as the source from which naval stores of every
kind were chiefly drawn. Sweden and Denmark were at this time in a
state of constant enmity, and were to be found on opposite sides in
the quarrels that prevailed. For many years past, and during the early
wars of Louis XIV., Sweden was for the most part in alliance with
France; her bias was that way.
The general state of Europe being as described, the spring that was to
set the various wheels in motion was in the hands of Louis XIV. The
weakness of his immediate neighbors, the great resources of his
kingdom, only waiting for development, the unity of direction
resulting from his absolute power, his own practical talent and
untiring industry, aided during the first half of his reign by a
combination of ministers of singular ability, all united to make every
government in Europe hang more or less upon his action, and be
determined by, if not follow, his lead. The greatness of France was
his object, and he had the choice of advancing it by either of two
roads,--by the land or by the sea; not that the one wholly forbade the
other, but that France, overwhelmingly strong as she then was, had not
power to move with equal steps on both paths.
Louis chose extension by land. He had married the eldest daughter of
Philip IV., the then reigning king of Spain; and though by the treaty
of marriage she had renounced all claim to her father's inheritance,
it was not difficult to find reasons for disregarding this
stipulation. Technical grounds were found for setting it aside as
regarded certain portions of the Netherlands and Franche Comté, and
negotiations were entered into with the court of Spain to annul it
altogether. The matter was the more important because the male heir to
the throne was so feeble that it was evident that the Austrian line of
Spanish kings would end in him. The desire to put a French prince on
the Spanish throne--either himself, thus uniting the two crowns, or
else one of his family, thus putting the House of Bourbon in authority
on both sides of the Pyrenees--was the false light which led Louis
astray during the rest of his reign, to the final destruction of the
sea power of France and the impoverishment and misery of his people.
Louis failed to understand that he had to reckon with all Europe. The
direct project on the Spanish throne had to wait for a vacancy; but he
got ready at once to move upon the Spanish possessions to the east of
France.
In order to do this more effectually, he cut off from Spain every
possible ally by skilful diplomatic intrigues, the study of which
would give a useful illustration of strategy in the realm of politics,
but he made two serious mistakes to the injury of the sea power of
France. Portugal had until twenty years before been united to the
crown of Spain, and the claim to it had not been surrendered. Louis
considered that were Spain to regain that kingdom she would be too
strong for him easily to carry out his aims. Among other means of
prevention he promoted a marriage between Charles II. and the Infanta
of Portugal, in consequence of which Portugal ceded to England, Bombay
in India, and Tangiers in the Straits of Gibraltar, which was reputed
an excellent port. We see here a French king, in his eagerness for
extension by land, inviting England to the Mediterranean, and
forwarding her alliance with Portugal. The latter was the more
curious, as Louis already foresaw the failure of the Spanish royal
house, and should rather have wished the union of the peninsular
kingdoms. As a matter of fact, Portugal became a dependent and outpost
of England, by which she readily landed in the Peninsula down to the
days of Napoleon. Indeed, if independent of Spain, she is too weak not
to be under the control of the power that rules the sea and so has
readiest access to her. Louis continued to support her against Spain,
and secured her independence. He also interfered with the Dutch, and
compelled them to restore Brazil, which they had taken from the
Portuguese.
On the other hand, Louis obtained from Charles II. the cession of
Dunkirk on the Channel, which had been seized and used by Cromwell.
This surrender was made for money, and was inexcusable from the
maritime point of view. Dunkirk was for the English a bridge-head into
France. To France it became a haven for privateers, the bane of
England's commerce in the Channel and the North Sea. As the French sea
power waned, England in treaty after treaty exacted the dismantling of
the works of Dunkirk, which it may be said in passing was the home
port of the celebrated Jean Bart and other great French privateersmen.
Meanwhile the greatest and wisest of Louis' ministers, Colbert, was
diligently building up that system of administration, which, by
increasing and solidly basing the wealth of the State, should bring a
surer greatness and prosperity than the king's more showy enterprises.
With those details that concern the internal development of the
kingdom this history has no concern, beyond the incidental mention
that production, both agricultural and manufacturing, received his
careful attention; but upon the sea a policy of skilful aggression
upon the shipping and commerce of the Dutch and English quickly began,
and was instantly resented. Great trading companies were formed,
directing French enterprise to the Baltic, to the Levant, to the East
and West Indies; customs regulations were amended to encourage French
manufactures, and to allow goods to be stored in bond in the great
ports, by which means it was hoped to make France take Holland's place
as the great warehouse for Europe, a function for which her
geographical position eminently fitted her; while tonnage duties on
foreign shipping, direct premiums on home-built ships, and careful,
rigorous colonial decrees giving French vessels the monopoly of trade
to and from the colonies, combined to encourage the growth of her
mercantile marine. England retaliated at once; the Dutch, more
seriously threatened because their carrying-trade was greater and
their home resources smaller, only remonstrated for a time; but after
three years they also made reprisals. Colbert, relying on the great
superiority of France as an actual, and still more as a possible
producer, feared not to move steadily on the grasping path marked out;
which, in building up a great merchant shipping, would lay the broad
base for the military shipping, which was being yet more rapidly
forced on by the measures of the State. Prosperity grew apace. At the
end of twelve years everything was flourishing, everything rich in the
State, which was in utter confusion when he took charge of the
finances and marine.
"Under him," says a French historian, "France grew by peace as
she had grown by war.... The warfare of tariffs and premiums
skilfully conducted by him tended to reduce within just limits
the exorbitant growth of commercial and maritime power which
Holland had arrogated at the expense of other nations; and to
restrain England, which was burning to wrest this supremacy from
Holland in order to use it in a manner much more dangerous to
Europe. The interest of France seemed to be peace in Europe and
America; a mysterious voice, at once the voice of the past and
of the future, called for her warlike activity on other
shores."[19]
This voice found expression through the mouth of Leibnitz, one of the
world's great men, who pointed out to Louis that to turn the arms of
France against Egypt would give her, in the dominion of the
Mediterranean and the control of Eastern trade, a victory over Holland
greater than the most successful campaign on land; and while insuring
a much needed peace within his kingdom, would build up a power on the
sea that would insure preponderance in Europe. This memorial called
Louis from the pursuit of glory on the land to seek the durable
grandeur of France in the possession of a great sea power, the
elements of which, thanks to the genius of Colbert, he had in his
hands. A century later a greater man than Louis sought to exalt
himself and France by the path pointed out by Leibnitz; but Napoleon
did not have, as Louis had, a navy equal to the task proposed. This
project of Leibnitz will be more fully referred to when the narrative
reaches the momentous date at which it was broached; when Louis, with
his kingdom and navy in the highest pitch of efficiency, stood at the
point where the roads parted, and then took the one which settled that
France should not be the power of the sea. This decision, which killed
Colbert and ruined the prosperity of France, was felt in its
consequences from generation to generation afterward, as the great
navy of England, in war after war, swept the seas, insured the growing
wealth of the island kingdom through exhausting strifes, while drying
up the external resources of French trade and inflicting consequent
misery. The false line of policy that began with Louis XIV. also
turned France away from a promising career in India, in the days of
his successor.
[Illustration: ENGLISH CHANNEL AND NORTH SEA.]
Meanwhile the two maritime States, England and Holland, though eying
France distrustfully, had greater and growing grudges against each
other, which under the fostering care of Charles II. led to war. The
true cause was doubtless commercial jealousy, and the conflict sprang
immediately from collisions between the trading companies. Hostilities
began on the west coast of Africa; and an English squadron, in 1664,
after subduing several Dutch stations there, sailed to New Amsterdam
(now New York), and seized it. All these affairs took place before the
formal declaration of war in February, 1665. This war was undoubtedly
popular in England; the instinct of the people found an expression by
the lips of Monk, who is reported to have said, "What matters this or
that reason? What we want is more of the trade which the Dutch now
have." There is also little room to doubt that, despite the
pretensions of the trading companies, the government of the United
Provinces would gladly have avoided the war; the able man who was at
their head saw too clearly the delicate position in which they stood
between England and France. They claimed, however, the support of the
latter in virtue of a defensive treaty made in 1662. Louis allowed the
claim, but unwillingly; and the still young navy of France gave
practically no help.
The war between the two sea States was wholly maritime, and had the
general characteristics of all such wars. Three great battles were
fought,--the first off Lowestoft, on the Norfolk coast, June 13, 1665;
the second, known as the Four Days' Battle in the Straits of Dover,
often spoken of by French writers as that of the Pas de Calais,
lasting from the 11th to the 14th of June, 1666; and the third, off
the North Foreland, August 4 of the same year. In the first and last
of these the English had a decided success; in the second the
advantage remained with the Dutch. This one only will be described at
length, because of it alone has been found such a full, coherent
account as will allow a clear and accurate tactical narrative to be
given. There are in these fights points of interest more generally
applicable to the present day than are the details of somewhat
obsolete tactical movements.
In the first battle off Lowestoft, it appears that the Dutch
commander, Opdam, who was not a seaman but a cavalry officer, had
very positive orders to fight; the discretion proper to a
commander-in-chief on the spot was not intrusted to him. To interfere
thus with the commander in the field or afloat is one of the most
common temptations to the government in the cabinet, and is generally
disastrous. Tourville, the greatest of Louis XIV.'s admirals, was
forced thus to risk the whole French navy against his own judgment;
and a century later a great French fleet escaped from the English
admiral Keith, through his obedience to imperative orders from his
immediate superior, who was sick in port.
In the Lowestoft fight the Dutch van gave way; and a little later one
of the junior admirals of the centre, Opdam's own squadron, being
killed, the crew was seized with a panic, took the command of the
ship from her officers, and carried her out of action. This movement
was followed by twelve or thirteen other ships, leaving a great gap in
the Dutch line. The occurrence shows, what has before been pointed
out, that the discipline of the Dutch fleet and the tone of the
officers were not high, despite the fine fighting qualities of the
nation, and although it is probably true that there were more good
seamen among the Dutch than among the English captains. The natural
steadfastness and heroism of the Hollanders could not wholly supply
that professional pride and sense of military honor which it is the
object of sound military institutions to encourage. Popular feeling in
the United States is pretty much at sea in this matter; there is with
it no intermediate step between personal courage with a gun in its
hand and entire military efficiency.
Opdam, seeing the battle going against him, seems to have yielded to a
feeling approaching despair. He sought to grapple the English
commander-in-chief, who on this day was the Duke of York, the king's
brother. He failed in this, and in the desperate struggle which
followed, his ship blew up. Shortly after, three, or as one account
says four, Dutch ships ran foul of one another, and this group was
burned by one fire-ship; three or four others singly met the same fate
a little later. The Dutch fleet was now in disorder, and retreated
under cover of the squadron of Van Tromp, son of the famous old
admiral who in the days of the Commonwealth sailed through the Channel
with a broom at his masthead.
Fire-ships are seen here to have played a very conspicuous part, more
so certainly than in the war of 1653, though at both periods they
formed an appendage to the fleet. There is on the surface an evident
resemblance between the rôle of the fire-ship and the part assigned in
modern warfare to the torpedo-cruiser. The terrible character of the
attack, the comparative smallness of the vessel making it, and the
large demands upon the nerve of the assailant, are the chief points of
resemblance; the great points of difference are the comparative
certainty with which the modern vessel can be handled, which is
partly met by the same advantage in the iron-clad over the old
ship-of-the-line, and the instantaneousness of the injury by torpedo,
whose attack fails or succeeds at once, whereas that of the fire-ship
required time for effecting the object, which in both cases is total
destruction of the hostile ship, instead of crippling or otherwise
reducing it. An appreciation of the character of fire-ships, of the
circumstances under which they attained their greatest usefulness, and
of the causes which led to their disappearance, may perhaps help in
the decision to which nations must come as to whether the
torpedo-cruiser, pure and simple, is a type of weapon destined to
survive in fleets.
A French officer, who has been examining the records of the French
navy, states that the fire-ship first appears, incorporated as an arm
of the fleet, in 1636.
"Whether specially built for the purpose, or whether altered
from other purposes to be fitted for their particular end, they
received a special equipment. The command was given to officers
not noble, with the grade of captain of fire-ship. Five
subordinate officers and twenty-five seamen made up the crew.
Easily known by grappling-irons which were always fitted to
their yards, the fire-ship saw its rôle growing less in the
early years of the eighteenth century. It was finally to
disappear from the fleets _whose speed it delayed and whose
evolutions were by it complicated_. As the ships-of-war grew
larger, their action in concert with fire-ships became daily
more difficult. On the other hand, there had already been
abandoned the idea of combining them with the fighting-ships to
form a few _groups_, _each_ provided with all the means of
attack and defence. The formation of the close-hauled
line-of-battle, by assigning the fire-ships a place in a second
line placed half a league on the side farthest from the enemy,
made them more and more unfitted to fulfil their office. The
official plan of the battle of Malaga (1704), drawn up
immediately after the battle, shows the fire-ship in this
position as laid down by Paul Hoste. Finally the use of shells,
enabling ships to be set on fire more surely and quickly, and
introduced on board at the period of which we are now treating,
though the general use did not obtain until much later, was the
last blow to the fire-ship."[20]
Those who are familiar with the theories and discussions of our own
day on the subject of fleet tactics and weapons, will recognize in
this short notice of a long obsolete type certain ideas which are not
obsolete. The fire-ship disappeared from fleets "whose speed it
delayed." In heavy weather small bulk must always mean comparatively
small speed. In a moderate sea, we are now told, the speed of the
torpedo-boat falls from twenty knots to fifteen or less, and the
seventeen to nineteen knot cruiser can either run away from the
pursuing boats, or else hold them at a distance under fire of machine
and heavy guns. These boats are sea-going, "and it is thought can keep
the sea in all weathers; but to be on board a 110-foot torpedo-boat,
when the sea is lively, is said to be far from agreeable. The heat,
noise, and rapid vibrations of the engines are intense. Cooking seems
to be out of the question, and it is said that if food were well
cooked few would be able to appreciate it. To obtain necessary rest
under these conditions, added to the rapid motions of the boat, is
most difficult." Larger boats are to be built; but the factor of loss
of speed in rough weather will remain, unless the size of the
torpedo-cruiser is increased to a point that will certainly lead to
fitting them with something more than torpedoes. Like fire-ships,
_small_ torpedo-cruisers will delay the speed and complicate the
evolutions of the fleet with which they are associated.[21] The
disappearance of the fire-ship was also hastened, we are told, by the
introduction of shell firing, or incendiary projectiles; and it is not
improbable that for deep-sea fighting the transfer of the torpedo to a
class of larger ships will put an end to the mere torpedo-cruiser. The
fire-ship continued to be used against fleets at anchor down to the
days of the American Civil War; and the torpedo-boat will always be
useful within an easy distance of its port.
A third phase of naval practice two hundred years ago, mentioned in
the extract quoted, involves an idea very familiar to modern
discussions; namely, the group formation. "The idea of combining
fire-ships with the fighting-ships to form a few groups, each provided
with all the means of attack and defence," was for a time embraced;
for we are told that it was later on abandoned. The combining of the
ships of a fleet into groups of two, three, or four meant to act
specially together is now largely favored in England; less so in
France, where it meets strong opposition. No question of this sort,
ably advocated on either side, is to be settled by one man's judgment,
nor until time and experience have applied their infallible tests. It
may be remarked, however, that in a well-organized fleet there are two
degrees of command which are in themselves both natural and necessary,
that can be neither done away nor ignored; these are the command of
the whole fleet as one unit, and the command of each ship as a unit in
itself. When a fleet becomes too large to be handled by one man, it
must be subdivided, and in the heat of action become practically two
fleets acting to one common end; as Nelson, in his noble order at
Trafalgar, said, "The second in command will, _after_ my intentions
are made known to him" (mark the force of the "after," which so well
protects the functions both of the commander-in-chief and the second),
"have the entire direction of his line, to make the attack upon the
enemy, and to follow up the blow until they are captured or
destroyed."
The size and cost of the individual iron-clad of the present day makes
it unlikely that fleets will be so numerous as to require subdivision;
but whether they are or not does not affect the decision of the group
question. Looking simply to the principle underlying the theory, and
disregarding the seeming tactical clumsiness of the special groups
proposed, the question is: Shall there be introduced between the
natural commands of the admiral and of the captains of individual
ships a third artificial contrivance, which on the one hand will in
effect partly supersede the supreme authority, and on the other will
partly fetter the discretion of commanders of ships? A further
difficulty springing from the narrow principle of support specially
due to particular ships, on which the group system rests, is this:
that when signals can no longer be seen, the duty of the captain to
his own ship and to the fleet at large will be complicated by his duty
to observe certain relations to particular ships; which particular
ships must in time come to have undue prominence in his views. The
group formation had its day of trial in old times, and disappeared
before the test of experience; whether in its restored form it will
survive, time will show. It may be said, before quitting the subject,
that as an order of sailing, corresponding to the route-step of an
army in march, a loose group formation has some advantages;
maintaining some order without requiring that rigid exactness of
position, to observe which by day and night must be a severe strain on
captain and deck-officers. Such a route-order should not, however, be
permitted until a fleet has reached high tactical precision.
To return to the question of fire-ships and torpedo-boats, the rôle of
the latter, it is often said, is to be found in that _mêlée_ which is
always to succeed a couple of headlong passes between the opposing
fleets. In the smoke and confusion of that hour is the opportunity of
the torpedo-boat. This certainly sounds plausible, and the torpedo
vessel certainly has a power of movement not possessed by the
fire-ship. A _mêlée_ of the two fleets, however, was not the condition
most favorable for the fire-ship. I shall quote here from another
French officer, whose discussion of these Anglo-Dutch sea-fights, in a
late periodical, is singularly clear and suggestive. He says:
"Far from impeding the direct action of the fire-ship, which was
naught or nearly so during the confused battles of the war of
1652, the regularity and _ensemble_ newly attained in the
movements of squadrons seem rather to favor it. The fire-ships
played a very important part at the battles of Lowestoft, Pas de
Calais, and the North Foreland. Thanks to the good order
preserved by the ships-of-the-line, these incendiary ships can
indeed be better protected by the artillery; much more
efficiently directed than before toward a distinct and
determined end."[22]
In the midst of the confused _mêlées_ of 1652 the fire-ship "acted, so
to speak, alone, seeking by chance an enemy to grapple, running the
risk of a mistake, without protection against the guns of the enemy,
nearly sure to be sunk by him or else burned uselessly. All now, in
1665, has become different. Its prey is clearly pointed out; it knows
it, follows it easily into the relatively fixed position had by it in
the enemy's line. On the other hand, the ships of his own division do
not lose sight of the fire-ship. They accompany it as far as possible,
cover it with their artillery to the end of its course, and disengage
it before burning, if the fruitlessness of the attempt is seen soon
enough. Evidently under such conditions its action, always uncertain
(it cannot be otherwise), nevertheless acquires greater chances of
success." These instructive comments need perhaps the qualifying, or
additional, remark that confusion in the enemy's order at the time
that your own remains good gives the best opening for a desperate
attack. The writer goes on to trace the disappearance of the
fire-ship:--
"Here then we see the fire-ship at the point of its highest
importance. That importance will decrease, the fire-ship itself
will end by disappearing from engagements in _the open sea_,
when naval artillery becoming more perfect shall have greater
range, be more accurate and more rapid;[23] when ships receiving
better forms, greater steering power, more extensive and better
balanced sail power, shall be able, thanks to quicker speed and
handling, to avoid almost certainly the fire-ships sent against
them; when, finally, fleets led on principles of tactics as
skilful as they were timid, a tactics which will predominate a
century later during the whole war of American Independence,
when these fleets, in order not to jeopardize the perfect
regularity of their order of battle, will avoid coming to close
quarters, and will leave to the cannon alone to decide the fate
of an action."
In this discussion the writer has in view the leading feature which,
while aiding the action of the fire-ship, also gives this war of 1665
its peculiar interest in the history of naval tactics. In it is found
for the first time the close-hauled line-of-battle undeniably adopted
as the fighting order of the fleets. It is plain enough that when
those fleets numbered, as they often did, from eighty to a hundred
ships, such lines would be very imperfectly formed in every essential,
both of line and interval; but the general aim is evident, amid
whatever imperfections of execution. The credit for this development
is generally given to the Duke of York, afterward James II.; but the
question to whom the improvement is due is of little importance to
sea-officers of the present day when compared with the instructive
fact that so long a time elapsed between the appearance of the large
sailing-ship, with its broadside battery, and the systematic adoption
of the order which was best adapted to develop the full power of the
fleet for mutual support. To us, having the elements of the problem in
our hands, together with the result finally reached, that result seems
simple enough, almost self-evident. Why did it take so long for the
capable men of that day to reach it? The reason--and herein lies the
lesson for the officer of to-day--was doubtless the same that leaves
the order of battle so uncertain now; namely, that the necessity of
war did not force men to make up their minds, until the Dutch at last
met in the English their equals on the sea. The sequence of ideas
which resulted in the line-of-battle is clear and logical. Though
familiar enough to seamen, it will be here stated in the words of the
writer last quoted, because they have a neatness and precision
entirely French:--
"With the increase of power of the ship-of-war, and with the
perfecting of its sea and warlike qualities, there has come an
equal progress in the art of utilizing them.... As naval
evolutions become more skilful, their importance grows from day
to day. To these evolutions there is needed a base, a point from
which they depart and to which they return. A fleet of war-ships
must be always ready to meet an enemy; logically, therefore,
this point of departure for naval evolutions must be the order
of battle. Now, since the disappearance of galleys, almost all
the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war. Hence
it is the beam that must necessarily and always be turned toward
the enemy. On the other hand, it is necessary that the sight of
the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship. Only
one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy
fully these conditions. That formation is the line ahead
[column]. This line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of
battle, and consequently as the basis of all fleet tactics. In
order that this order of battle, this long thin line of guns,
may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest,
there is at the same time felt the necessity of putting in it
only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally
strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which
the line ahead became definitively the order for battle, there
was established the distinction between the ships 'of the line,'
alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant
for other uses."
If to these we add the considerations which led to making the
line-of-battle a close-hauled line, we have the problem fully worked
out. But the chain of reasoning was as clear two hundred and fifty
years ago as it is now; why then was it so long in being worked out?
Partly, no doubt, because old traditions--in those days traditions of
galley-fighting--had hold of and confused men's minds; chiefly because
men are too indolent to seek out the foundation truths of the
situation in their day, and develop the true theory of action from its
base up. As a rare instance of clear-sightedness, recognizing such a
fundamental change in conditions and predicting results, words of
Admiral Labrousse of the French navy, written in 1840, are most
instructive. "Thanks to steam," he wrote, "ships will be able to move
in any direction with such speed that the effects of collision may,
and indeed must, as they formerly did, take the place of projectile
weapons and annul the calculations of the skilful manoeuvrer. The ram
will be favorable to speed, without destroying the nautical qualities
of a ship. As soon as one power shall have adopted this terrible
weapon, all others must accept it, under pain of evident inferiority,
and thus combats will become combats of ram against ram." While
forbearing the unconditional adhesion to the ram as the controlling
weapon of the day, which the French navy has yielded, the above brief
argument may well be taken as an instance of the way in which
researches into the order of battle of the future should be worked
out. A French writer, commenting on Labrousse's paper, says:--
"Twenty-seven years were scarce enough for our fathers, counting
from 1638, the date of building the 'Couronne,' to 1665, to pass
from the tactical order of the line abreast, the order for
galleys, to that of the line ahead. We ourselves needed
twenty-nine years from 1830, when the first steamship was
brought into our fleet, to 1859, when the application of the
principle of ram-fighting was affirmed by laying down the
'Solferino' and the 'Magenta' to work a revolution in the
contrary direction; so true it is that truth is always slow in
getting to the light.... This transformation was not sudden, not
only because the new material required time to be built and
armed, but above all, it is sad to say, because the necessary
consequences of the new motive power escaped most minds."[24]
We come now to the justly celebrated Four Days' Battle of June, 1666,
which claims special notice, not only on account of the great number
of ships engaged on either side, nor yet only for the extraordinary
physical endurance of the men who kept up a hot naval action for so
many successive days, but also because the commanders-in-chief on
either side, Monk and De Ruyter, were the most distinguished seamen,
or rather sea-commanders, brought forth by their respective countries
in the seventeenth century. Monk was possibly inferior to Blake in the
annals of the English navy; but there is a general agreement that De
Ruyter is the foremost figure, not only in the Dutch service, but
among all the naval officers of that age. The account about to be
given is mainly taken from a recent number of the "Revue Maritime et
Coloniale,"[25] and is there published as a letter, recently
discovered, from a Dutch gentleman serving as volunteer on board De
Ruyter's ship, to a friend in France. The narrative is delightfully
clear and probable,--qualities not generally found in the description
of those long-ago fights; and the satisfaction it gave was increased
by finding in the Memoirs of the Count de Guiche, who also served as
volunteer in the fleet, and was taken to De Ruyter after his own
vessel had been destroyed by a fire-ship, an account confirming the
former in its principal details.[26] This additional pleasure was
unhappily marred by recognizing certain phrases as common to both
stories; and a comparison showed that the two could not be accepted as
independent narratives. There are, however, points of internal
difference which make it possible that the two accounts are by
different eye-witnesses, who compared and corrected their versions
before sending them out to their friends or writing them in their
journals.
The numbers of the two fleets were: English about eighty ships, the
Dutch about one hundred; but the inequality in numbers was largely
compensated by the greater size of many of the English. A great
strategic blunder by the government in London immediately preceded the
fight. The king was informed that a French squadron was on its way
from the Atlantic to join the Dutch. He at once divided his fleet,
sending twenty ships under Prince Rupert to the westward to meet the
French, while the remainder under Monk were to go east and oppose the
Dutch.
A position like that of the English fleet, threatened with an attack
from two quarters, presents one of the subtlest temptations to a
commander. The impulse is very strong to meet both by dividing his own
numbers as Charles did; but unless in possession of overwhelming force
it is an error, exposing both divisions to be beaten separately,
which, as we are about to see, actually happened in this case. The
result of the first two days was disastrous to the larger English
division under Monk, which was then obliged to retreat toward Rupert;
and probably the opportune return of the latter alone saved the
English fleet from a very serious loss, or at the least from being
shut up in their own ports. A hundred and forty years later, in the
exciting game of strategy that was played in the Bay of Biscay before
Trafalgar, the English admiral Cornwallis made precisely the same
blunder, dividing his fleet into two equal parts out of supporting
distance, which Napoleon at the time characterized as a glaring piece
of stupidity. The lesson is the same in all ages.
[Illustration: Pl. I.]
The Dutch had sailed for the English coast with a fair easterly wind,
but it changed later to southwest with thick weather, and freshened,
so that De Ruyter, to avoid being driven too far, came to anchor
between Dunkirk and the Downs.[27] The fleet then rode with its head
to the south-southwest and the van on the right; while Tromp, who
commanded the rear division in the natural order, was on the left. For
some cause this left was most to windward, the centre squadron under
Ruyter being to leeward, and the right, or van, to leeward again of
the centre.[28] This was the position of the Dutch fleet at daylight
of June 11, 1666; and although not expressly so stated, it is likely,
from the whole tenor of the narratives, that it was not in good order.
The same morning Monk, who was also at anchor, made out the Dutch
fleet to leeward, and although so inferior in numbers determined to
attack at once, hoping that by keeping the advantage of the wind he
would be able to commit himself only so far as might seem best. He
therefore stood along the Dutch line on the starboard tack, leaving
the right and centre out of cannon-shot, until he came abreast of the
left, Tromp's squadron. Monk then had thirty-five ships well in hand;
but the rear had opened and was straggling, as is apt to be the case
with long columns. With the thirty-five he then put his helm up and
ran down for Tromp, whose squadron cut their cables and made sail on
the same tack (V'); the two engaged lines thus standing over toward
the French coast, and the breeze heeling the ships so that the English
could not use their lower-deck guns (Fig. 2, V''). The Dutch centre
and rear also cut (Fig. 1, C'), and followed the movement, but being
so far to leeward, could not for some time come into action. It was
during this time that a large Dutch ship, becoming separated from her
own fleet, was set on fire and burned, doubtless the ship in which was
Count de Guiche.
As they drew near Dunkirk the English went about, probably all
together; for in the return to the northward and westward the proper
English van fell in with and was roughly handled by the Dutch centre
under Ruyter himself (Fig. 2, C''). This fate would be more likely to
befall the rear, and indicates that a simultaneous movement had
reversed the order. The engaged ships had naturally lost to leeward,
thus enabling Ruyter to fetch up with them. Two English flag-ships
were here disabled and cut off; one, the "Swiftsure," hauled down her
colors after the admiral, a young man of only twenty-seven, was
killed. "Highly to be admired," says a contemporary writer, "was the
resolution of Vice-Admiral Berkeley, who, though cut off from the
line, surrounded by enemies, great numbers of his men killed, his ship
disabled and boarded on all sides, yet continued fighting almost
alone, killed several with his own hand, and would accept no quarter;
till at length, being shot in the throat with a musket-ball, he
retired into the captain's cabin, where he was found dead, extended at
his full length upon a table, and almost covered with his own blood."
Quite as heroic, but more fortunate in its issue, was the conduct of
the other English admiral thus cut off; and the incidents of his
struggle, though not specially instructive otherwise, are worth
quoting, as giving a lively picture of the scenes which passed in the
heat of the contests of those days, and afford coloring to otherwise
dry details.
"Being in a short time completely disabled, one of the enemy's
fire-ships grappled him on the starboard quarter; he was,
however, freed by the almost incredible exertions of his
lieutenant, who, having in the midst of the flames loosed the
grappling-irons, swung back on board his own ship unhurt. The
Dutch, bent on the destruction of this unfortunate ship, sent a
second which grappled her on the larboard side, and with greater
success than the former; for the sails instantly taking fire,
the crew were so terrified that nearly fifty of them jumped
overboard. The admiral, Sir John Harman, seeing this confusion,
ran with his sword drawn among those who remained, and
threatened with instant death the first man who should attempt
to quit the ship, or should not exert himself to quench the
flames. The crew then returned to their duty and got the fire
under; but the rigging being a good deal burned, one of the
topsail yards fell and broke Sir John's leg. In the midst of
this accumulated distress, a third fire-ship prepared to grapple
him, but was sunk by the guns before she could effect her
purpose. The Dutch vice-admiral, Evertzen, now bore down to him
and offered quarter; but Sir John replied, 'No, no, it is not
come to that yet,' and giving him a broadside, killed the Dutch
commander; after which the other enemies sheered off."[29]
It is therefore not surprising that the account we have been following
reported two English flag-ships lost, one by a fire-ship. "The English
chief still continued on the port tack, and," says the writer, "as
night fell we could see him proudly leading his line past the squadron
of North Holland and Zealand [the actual rear, but proper van], which
from noon up to that time had not been able to reach the enemy [Fig.
2, R''] from their leewardly position." The merit of Monk's attack as
a piece of grand tactics is evident, and bears a strong resemblance to
that of Nelson at the Nile. Discerning quickly the weakness of the
Dutch order, he had attacked a vastly superior force in such a way
that only part of it could come into action; and though the English
actually lost more heavily, they carried off a brilliant prestige and
must have left considerable depression and heart-burning among the
Dutch. The eye-witness goes on: "The affair continued until ten P.M.,
friends and foes mixed together and as likely to receive injury from
one as from the other. It will be remarked that the success of the day
and the misfortunes of the English came from their being too much
scattered, too extended in their line; but for which we could never
have cut off a corner of them, as we did. The mistake of Monk was in
not keeping his ships better together;" that is, closed up. The remark
is just, the criticism scarcely so; the opening out of the line was
almost unavoidable in so long a column of sailing-ships, and was one
of the chances taken by Monk when he offered battle.
The English stood off on the port tack to the west or west-northwest,
and next day returned to the fight. The Dutch were now on the port
tack in natural order, the right leading, and were to windward; but
the enemy, being more weatherly and better disciplined, soon gained
the advantage of the wind. The English this day had forty-four ships
in action, the Dutch about eighty; many of the English, as before
said, larger. The two fleets passed on opposite tacks, the English to
windward;[30] but Tromp, in the rear, seeing that the Dutch order of
battle was badly formed, the ships in two or three lines, overlapping
and so masking each other's fire, went about and gained to windward of
the enemy's van (R'); which he was able to do from the length of the
line, and because the English, running parallel to the Dutch order,
were off the wind. "At this moment two flag-officers of the Dutch van
kept broad off, presenting their sterns to the English (V'). Ruyter,
greatly astonished, tried to stop them, but in vain, and therefore
felt obliged to imitate the manoeuvre in order to keep his squadron
together; but he did so with some order, keeping some ships around
him, and was joined by one of the van ships, disgusted with the
conduct of his immediate superior. Tromp was now in great danger,
separated [by his own act first and then by the conduct of the van]
from his own fleet by the English, and would have been destroyed but
for Ruyter, who, seeing the urgency of the case, hauled up for him,"
the van and centre thus standing back for the rear on the opposite
tack to that on which they entered action. This prevented the English
from keeping up the attack on Tromp, lest Ruyter should gain the wind
of them, which they could not afford to yield because of their very
inferior numbers. Both the action of Tromp and that of the junior
flag-officers in the van, though showing very different degrees of
warlike ardor, bring out strongly the lack of subordination and of
military feeling which has been charged against the Dutch officers as
a body; no signs of which appear among the English at this time.
How keenly Ruyter felt the conduct of his lieutenants was manifested
when "Tromp, immediately after this partial action, went on board his
flagship. The seamen cheered him; but Ruyter said, 'This is no time
for rejoicing, but rather for tears.' Indeed, our position was bad,
each squadron acting differently, in no line, and all the ships
huddled together like a flock of sheep, so packed that the English
might have surrounded all of them with their forty ships [June 12,
Fig. 2]. The English were in admirable order, but did not push their
advantage as they should, whatever the reason." The reason no doubt
was the same that often prevented sailing-ships from pressing an
advantage,--disability from crippled spars and rigging, added to the
inexpediency of such inferior numbers risking a decisive action.
Ruyter was thus able to draw his fleet out into line again, although
much maltreated by the English, and the two fleets passed again on
opposite tacks, the Dutch to leeward, and Ruyter's ship the last in
his column. As he passed the English rear, he lost his maintopmast and
mainyard. After another partial rencounter the English drew away to
the northwest toward their own shores, the Dutch following them; the
wind being still from southwest, but light. The English were now
fairly in retreat, and the pursuit continued all night, Ruyter's own
ship dropping out of sight in the rear from her crippled state.
The third day Monk continued retreating to the westward. He burned, by
the English accounts, three disabled ships, sent ahead those that were
most crippled, and himself brought up the rear with those that were in
fighting condition, which are variously stated, again by the English,
at twenty-eight and sixteen in number (Plate II., June 13). One of the
largest and finest of the English fleet, the "Royal Prince," of ninety
guns, ran aground on the Galloper Shoal and was taken by Tromp (Plate
II. a); but Monk's retreat was so steady and orderly that he was
otherwise unmolested. This shows that the Dutch had suffered very
severely. Toward evening Rupert's squadron was seen; and all the ships
of the English fleet, except those crippled in action, were at last
united.
The next day the wind came out again very fresh from the southwest,
giving the Dutch the weather-gage. The English, instead of attempting
to pass upon opposite tacks, came up from astern relying upon the
speed and handiness of their ships. So doing, the battle engaged all
along the line on the port tack, the English to leeward.[31] The Dutch
fire-ships were badly handled and did no harm, whereas the English
burned two of their enemies. The two fleets ran on thus, exchanging
broadsides for two hours, at the end of which time the bulk of the
English fleet had passed through the Dutch line.[32] All regularity of
order was henceforward lost. "At this moment," says the eye-witness,
"the lookout was extraordinary, for all were separated, the English as
well as we. But luck would have it that the largest of our fractions
surrounding the admiral remained to windward, and the largest fraction
of the English, also with their admiral, remained to leeward [Figs. 1
and 2, C and C']. This was the cause of our victory and their ruin.
Our admiral had with him thirty-five or forty ships of his own and of
other squadrons, for the squadrons were scattered and order much lost.
The rest of the Dutch ships had left him. The leader of the van, Van
Ness, had gone off with fourteen ships in chase of three or four
English ships, which under a press of sail had gained to windward of
the Dutch van [Fig. 1, V]. Van Tromp with the rear squadron had
fallen to leeward, and so had to keep on [to leeward of Ruyter and the
English main body, Fig. 1, R] after Van Ness, in order to rejoin the
admiral by passing round the English centre." De Ruyter and the
English main body kept up a sharp action, beating to windward all the
time. Tromp, having carried sail, overtook Van Ness, and returned
bringing the van back with him (V', R'); but owing to the constant
plying to windward of the English main body he came up to leeward of
it and could not rejoin Ruyter, who was to windward (Fig. 3, V'',
R''). Ruyter, seeing this, made signal to the ships around him, and
the main body of the Dutch kept away before the wind (Fig 3, C''),
which was then very strong. "Thus in less than no time we found
ourselves in the midst of the English; who, being attacked on both
sides, were thrown into confusion and saw their whole order destroyed,
as well by dint of the action, as by the strong wind that was then
blowing. This was the hottest of the fight [Fig. 3]. We saw the high
admiral of England separated from his fleet, followed only by one
fire-ship. With that he gained to windward, and passing through the
North Holland squadron, placed himself again at the head of fifteen or
twenty ships that rallied to him."
[Illustration: Pl. II.]
Thus ended this great sea-fight, the most remarkable, in some of its
aspects, that has ever been fought upon the ocean. Amid conflicting
reports it is not possible to do more than estimate the results. A
fairly impartial account says: "The States lost in these actions three
vice-admirals, two thousand men, and four ships. The loss of the
English was five thousand killed and three thousand prisoners; and
they lost besides seventeen ships, of which nine remained in the hands
of the victors."[33] There is no doubt that the English had much the
worst of it, and that this was owing wholly to the original blunder of
weakening the fleet by a great detachment sent in another direction.
Great detachments are sometimes necessary evils, but in this case no
necessity existed. Granting the approach of the French, the proper
course for the English was to fall with their whole fleet upon the
Dutch before their allies could come up. This lesson is as applicable
to-day as it ever was. A second lesson, likewise of present
application, is the necessity of sound military institutions for
implanting correct military feeling, pride, and discipline. Great as
was the first blunder of the English, and serious as was the disaster,
there can be no doubt that the consequences would have been much worse
but for the high spirit and skill with which the plans of Monk were
carried out by his subordinates, and the lack of similar support to
Ruyter on the part of the Dutch subalterns. In the movements of the
English, we hear nothing of two juniors turning tail at a critical
moment, nor of a third, with misdirected ardor, getting on the wrong
side of the enemy's fleet. Their drill also, their tactical precision,
was remarked even then. The Frenchman De Guiche, after witnessing this
Four Days' Fight, wrote:--
"Nothing equals the beautiful order of the English at sea. Never
was a line drawn straighter than that formed by their ships;
thus they bring all their fire to bear upon those who draw near
them.... They fight like a line of cavalry which is handled
according to rule, and applies itself solely to force back those
who oppose; whereas the Dutch advance like cavalry whose
squadrons leave their ranks and come separately to the
charge."[34]
The Dutch government, averse to expense, unmilitary in its tone, and
incautious from long and easy victory over the degenerate navy of
Spain, had allowed its fleet to sink into a mere assembly of armed
merchantmen. Things were at their worst in the days of Cromwell.
Taught by the severe lessons of that war, the United Provinces, under
an able ruler, had done much to mend matters, but full efficiency had
not yet been gained.
"In 1666 as in 1653," says a French naval writer, "the fortune
of war seemed to lean to the side of the English. Of the three
great battles fought two were decided victories; and the third,
though adverse, had but increased the glory of her seamen. This
was due to the intelligent boldness of Monk and Rupert, the
talents of part of the admirals and captains, and the skill of
the seamen and soldiers under them. The wise and vigorous
efforts made by the government of the United Provinces, and the
undeniable superiority of Ruyter in experience and genius over
any one of his opponents, could not compensate for the weakness
or incapacity of part of the Dutch officers, and the manifest
inferiority of the men under their orders."[35]
England, as has been said before, still felt the impress of Cromwell's
iron hand upon her military institutions; but that impress was growing
weaker. Before the next Dutch war Monk was dead, and was poorly
replaced by the cavalier Rupert. Court extravagance cut down the
equipment of the navy as did the burgomaster's parsimony, and court
corruption undermined discipline as surely as commercial indifference.
The effect was evident when the fleets of the two countries met again,
six years later.
There was one well-known feature of all the military navies of that
day which calls for a passing comment; for its correct bearing and
value is not always, perhaps not generally, seen. The command of
fleets and of single vessels was often given to soldiers, to military
men unaccustomed to the sea, and ignorant how to handle the ship, that
duty being intrusted to another class of officer. Looking closely into
the facts, it is seen that this made a clean division between the
direction of the fighting and of the motive power of the ship. This is
the essence of the matter; and the principle is the same whatever the
motive power may be. The inconvenience and inefficiency of such a
system was obvious then as it is now, and the logic of facts gradually
threw the two functions into the hands of one corps of officers, the
result being the modern naval officer, as that term is generally
understood.[36] Unfortunately, in this process of blending, the less
important function was allowed to get the upper hand; the naval
officer came to feel more proud of his dexterity in managing the
motive power of his ship than of his skill in developing her military
efficiency. The bad effects of this lack of interest in military
science became most evident when the point of handling fleets was
reached, because for that military skill told most, and previous study
was most necessary; but it was felt in the single ship as well. Hence
it came to pass, and especially in the English navy, that the pride of
the seaman took the place of the pride of the military man. The
English naval officer thought more of that which likened him to the
merchant captain than of that which made him akin to the soldier. In
the French navy this result was less general, owing probably to the
more military spirit of the government, and especially of the
nobility, to whom the rank of officer was reserved. It was not
possible that men whose whole association was military, all of whose
friends looked upon arms as the one career for a gentleman, could
think more of the sails and rigging than of the guns or the fleet. The
English corps of officers was of different origin. There was more than
the writer thought in Macaulay's well-known saying: "There were seamen
and there were gentlemen in the navy of Charles II.; but the seamen
were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen." The trouble
was not in the absence or presence of gentlemen as such, but in the
fact that under the conditions of that day the gentleman was
pre-eminently the military element of society; and that the seaman,
after the Dutch wars, gradually edged the gentleman, and with him the
military tone and spirit as distinguished from simple courage, out of
the service. Even "such men of family as Herbert and Russell, William
III.'s admirals," says the biographer of Lord Hawke, "were sailors
indeed, but only able to hold their own by adopting the boisterous
manners of the hardy tarpaulin." The same national traits which made
the French inferior as seamen made them superior as military men; not
in courage, but in skill. To this day the same tendency obtains; the
direction of the motive power has no such consideration as the
military functions in the navies of the Latin nations. The studious
and systematic side of the French character also inclined the French
officer, when not a trifler, to consider and develop tactical
questions in a logical manner; to prepare himself to handle fleets,
not merely as a seaman but as a military man. The result showed, in
the American Revolutionary War, that despite a mournful history of
governmental neglect, men who were first of all military men, inferior
though they were in opportunities as seamen to their enemies, could
meet them on more than equal terms as to tactical skill, and were
practically their superiors in handling fleets. The false theory has
already been pointed out, which directed the action of the French
fleet not to crushing its enemy, but to some ulterior aim; but this
does not affect the fact that in tactical skill the military men were
superior to the mere seamen, though their tactical skill was applied
to mistaken strategic ends. The source whence the Dutch mainly drew
their officers does not certainly appear; for while the English naval
historian in 1666 says that most of the captains of their fleet were
sons of rich burgomasters, placed there for political reasons by the
Grand Pensionary, and without experience, Duquesne, the ablest French
admiral of the day, comments in 1676 on the precision and skill of the
Dutch captains in terms very disparaging to his own. It is likely,
from many indications, that they were generally merchant seamen, with
little original military feeling; but the severity with which the
delinquents were punished both by the State and by popular frenzy,
seems to have driven these officers, who were far from lacking the
highest personal courage, into a sense of what military loyalty and
subordination required. They made a very different record in 1672 from
that of 1666.
Before finally leaving the Four Days' Fight, the conclusions of
another writer may well be quoted:--
"Such was that bloody Battle of the Four Days, or Straits of
Calais, the most memorable sea-fight of modern days; not,
indeed, by its results, but by the aspect of its different
phases; by the fury of the combatants; by the boldness and skill
of the leaders; and by the new character which it gave to sea
warfare. More than any other this fight marks clearly the
passage from former methods to the tactics of the end of the
seventeenth century. For the first time we can follow, as though
traced upon a plan, the principal movements of the contending
fleets. It seems quite clear that to the Dutch as well as to the
British have been given a tactical book and a code of signals;
or, at the least, written instructions, extensive and precise,
to serve instead of such a code. We feel that each admiral now
has his squadron in hand, and that even the commander-in-chief
disposes at his will, during the fight, of the various
subdivisions of his fleet. Compare this action with those of
1652, and one plain fact stares you in the face,--that between
the two dates naval tactics have undergone a revolution.
"Such were the changes that distinguish the war of 1665 from
that of 1652. As in the latter epoch, the admiral still thinks
the weather-gage an advantage for his fleet; but it is no
longer, from the tactical point of view, the principal, we might
almost say the sole, preoccupation. Now he wishes above all to
keep his fleet in good order and compact as long as possible, so
as to keep the power of _combining_, during the action, the
movements of the different squadrons. Look at Ruyter, at the end
of the Four Days' Fight; with great difficulty he has kept to
windward of the English fleet, yet he does not hesitate to
sacrifice this advantage in order to unite the two parts of his
fleet, which are separated by the enemy. If at the later fight
off the North Foreland great intervals exist between the Dutch
squadrons, if the rear afterward continues to withdraw from the
centre, Ruyter deplores such a fault as the chief cause of his
defeat. He so deplores it in his official report; he even
accuses Tromp [who was his personal enemy] of treason or
cowardice,--an unjust accusation, but which none the less shows
the enormous importance thenceforth attached, during action, to
the reunion of the fleet into a whole strictly and regularly
maintained."[37]
This commentary is justified in so far as it points out general aims
and tendencies; but the results were not as complete as might be
inferred from it.
The English, notwithstanding their heavy loss in the Four Days'
Battle, were at sea again within two months, much to the surprise of
the Dutch; and on the 4th of August another severe fight was fought
off the North Foreland, ending in the complete defeat of the latter,
who retired to their own coasts. The English followed, and effected an
entrance into one of the Dutch harbors, where they destroyed a large
fleet of merchantmen as well as a town of some importance. Toward the
end of 1666 both sides were tired of the war, which was doing great
harm to trade, and weakening both navies to the advantage of the
growing sea power of France. Negotiations looking toward peace were
opened; but Charles II., ill disposed to the United Provinces,
confident that the growing pretensions of Louis XIV. to the Spanish
Netherlands would break up the existing alliance between Holland and
France, and relying also upon the severe reverses suffered at sea by
the Dutch, was exacting and haughty in his demands. To justify and
maintain this line of conduct he should have kept up his fleet, the
prestige of which had been so advanced by its victories. Instead of
that, poverty, the result of extravagance and of his home policy, led
him to permit it to decline; ships in large numbers were laid up; and
he readily adopted an opinion which chimed in with his penury, and
which, as it has had advocates at all periods of sea history, should
be noted and condemned here. This opinion, warmly opposed by Monk,
was:--
"That as the Dutch were chiefly supported by trade, as the
supply of their navy depended upon trade, and, as experience
showed, nothing provoked the people so much as injuring their
trade, his Majesty should therefore apply himself to this, which
would effectually humble them, at the same time that it would
less exhaust the English than fitting out such mighty fleets as
had hitherto kept the sea every summer.... Upon these motives
the king took a fatal resolution of laying up his great ships
and keeping only a few frigates on the cruise."[38]
In consequence of this economical theory of carrying on a war, the
Grand Pensionary of Holland, De Witt, who had the year before caused
soundings of the Thames to be made, sent into the river, under De
Ruyter, a force of sixty or seventy ships-of-the-line, which on the
14th of June, 1667, went up as high as Gravesend, destroying ships at
Chatham and in the Medway, and taking possession of Sheerness. The
light of the fires could be seen from London, and the Dutch fleet
remained in possession of the mouth of the river until the end of the
month. Under this blow, following as it did upon the great plague and
the great fire of London, Charles consented to peace, which was signed
July 31, 1667, and is known as the Peace of Breda. The most lasting
result of the war was the transfer of New York and New Jersey to
England, thus joining her northern and southern colonies in North
America.
Before going on again with the general course of the history of the
times, it will be well to consider for a moment the theory which
worked so disastrously for England in 1667; that, namely, of
maintaining a sea-war mainly by preying upon the enemy's commerce.
This plan, which involves only the maintenance of a few swift cruisers
and can be backed by the spirit of greed in a nation, fitting out
privateers without direct expense to the State, possesses the specious
attractions which economy always presents. The great injury done to
the wealth and prosperity of the enemy is also undeniable; and
although to some extent his merchant-ships can shelter themselves
ignobly under a foreign flag while the war lasts, this _guerre de
course_, as the French call it, this commerce-destroying, to use our
own phrase, must, if in itself successful, greatly embarrass the
foreign government and distress its people. Such a war, however,
cannot stand alone; it must be _supported_, to use the military
phrase; unsubstantial and evanescent in itself, it cannot reach far
from its base. That base must be either home ports, or else some solid
outpost of the national power, on the shore or the sea; a distant
dependency or a powerful fleet. Failing such support, the cruiser can
only dash out hurriedly a short distance from home, and its blows,
though painful, cannot be fatal. It was not the policy of 1667, but
Cromwell's powerful fleets of ships-of-the-line in 1652, that shut
the Dutch merchantmen in their ports and caused the grass to grow in
the streets of Amsterdam. When, instructed by the suffering of that
time, the Dutch kept large fleets afloat through two exhausting wars,
though their commerce suffered greatly, they bore up the burden of the
strife against England and France united. Forty years later, Louis
XIV. was driven, by exhaustion, to the policy adopted by Charles II.
through parsimony. Then were the days of the great French privateers,
Jean Bart, Forbin, Duguay-Trouin, Du Casse, and others. The regular
fleets of the French navy were practically withdrawn from the ocean
during the great War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1712). The French
naval historian says:--
"Unable to renew the naval armaments, Louis XIV. increased the
number of cruisers upon the more frequented seas, especially the
Channel and the German Ocean [not far from home, it will be
noticed]. In these different spots the cruisers were always in a
position to intercept or hinder the movements of transports
laden with troops, and of the numerous convoys carrying supplies
of all kinds. In these seas, in the centre of the commercial and
political world, there is always work for cruisers.
Notwithstanding the difficulties they met, owing to the absence
of large friendly fleets, they served advantageously the cause
of the two peoples [French and Spanish]. These cruisers, in the
face of the Anglo-Dutch power, needed good luck, boldness, and
skill. These three conditions were not lacking to our seamen;
but then, what chiefs and what captains they had!"[39]
The English historian, on the other hand, while admitting how severely
the people and commerce of England suffered from the cruisers,
bitterly reflecting at times upon the administration, yet refers over
and over again to the increasing prosperity of the whole country, and
especially of its commercial part. In the preceding war, on the
contrary, from 1689 to 1697, when France sent great fleets to sea and
disputed the supremacy of the ocean, how different the result! The
same English writer says of that time:--
"With respect to our trade it is certain that we suffered
infinitely more, not merely than the French, for that was to be
expected from the greater number of our merchant-ships, but than
we ever did in any former war.... This proceeded in great
measure from the vigilance of the French, who carried on the war
in a piratical way. It is out of all doubt that, taking all
together, our traffic suffered excessively; our merchants were
many of them ruined."[40]
Macaulay says of this period: "During many months of 1693 the English
trade with the Mediterranean had been interrupted almost entirely.
There was no chance that a merchantman from London or Amsterdam would,
if unprotected, reach the Pillars of Hercules without being boarded by
a French privateer; and the protection of armed vessels was not easily
obtained." Why? Because the vessels of England's navy were occupied
watching the French navy, and this diversion of them from the cruisers
and privateers constituted the support which a commerce-destroying war
must have. A French historian, speaking of the same period in England
(1696), says: "The state of the finances was deplorable; money was
scarce, maritime insurance thirty per cent, the Navigation Act was
virtually suspended, and the English shipping reduced to the necessity
of sailing under the Swedish and Danish flags."[41] Half a century
later the French government was again reduced, by long neglect of the
navy, to a cruising warfare. With what results? First, the French
historian says: "From June, 1756, to June, 1760, French privateers
captured from the English more than twenty-five hundred merchantmen.
In 1761, though France had not, so to speak, a single ship-of-the-line
at sea, and though the English had taken two hundred and forty of our
privateers, their comrades still took eight hundred and twelve
vessels. But," he goes on to say, "the prodigious growth of the
English shipping explains the number of these prizes."[42] In other
words, the suffering involved to England in such numerous captures,
which must have caused great individual injury and discontent, did not
really prevent the growing prosperity of the State and of the
community at large. The English naval historian, speaking of the same
period, says: "While the commerce of France was nearly destroyed, the
trading-fleet of England covered the seas. Every year her commerce was
increasing; the money which the war carried out was returned by the
produce of her industry. Eight thousand merchant vessels were employed
by the English merchants." And again, summing up the results of the
war, after stating the immense amount of specie brought into the
kingdom by foreign conquests, he says: "The trade of England increased
gradually every year, and such a scene of national prosperity, while
waging a long, bloody, and costly war, was never before shown by any
people in the world." On the other hand, the historian of the French
navy, speaking of an earlier phase of the same wars, says: "The
English fleets, having nothing to resist them, swept the seas. Our
privateers and single cruisers, having no fleet to keep down the
abundance of their enemies, ran short careers. Twenty thousand French
seamen lay in English prisons."[43] When, on the other hand, in the
War of the American Revolution France resumed the policy of Colbert
and of the early reign of Louis XIV., and kept large battle-fleets
afloat, the same result again followed as in the days of Tourville.
"For the first time," says the Annual Register, forgetting or ignorant
of the experience of 1693, and remembering only the glories of the
later wars, "English merchant-ships were driven to take refuge under
foreign flags."[44] Finally, in quitting this part of the subject, it
may be remarked that in the island of Martinique the French had a
powerful distant dependency upon which to base a cruising warfare; and
during the Seven Years' War, as afterward during the First Empire, it,
with Guadeloupe, was the refuge of numerous privateers. "The records
of the English admiralty raise the losses of the English in the West
Indies during the first years of the Seven Years' War to fourteen
hundred merchantmen taken or destroyed." The English fleet was
therefore directed against the islands, both of which fell, involving
a loss to the trade of France greater than all the depredations of her
cruisers on the English commerce, besides breaking up the system; but
in the war of 1778 the great fleets protected the islands, which were
not even threatened at any time.
So far we have been viewing the effect of a purely cruising warfare,
not based upon powerful squadrons, only upon that particular part of
the enemy's strength against which it is theoretically directed,--upon
his commerce and general wealth; upon the sinews of war. The evidence
seems to show that even for its own special ends such a mode of war is
inconclusive, worrying but not deadly; it might almost be said that it
causes needless suffering. What, however, is the effect of this policy
upon the general ends of the war, to which it is one of the means, and
to which it is subsidiary? How, again, does it react upon the people
that practise it? As the historical evidences will come up in detail
from time to time, it need here only be summarized. The result to
England in the days of Charles II. has been seen,--her coast insulted,
her shipping burned almost within sight of her capital. In the War of
the Spanish Succession, when the control of Spain was the military
object, while the French depended upon a cruising war against
commerce, the navies of England and Holland, unopposed, guarded the
coasts of the peninsula, blocked the port of Toulon, forced the French
succors to cross the Pyrenees, and by keeping open the sea highway,
neutralized the geographical nearness of France to the seat of war.
Their fleets seized Gibraltar, Barcelona, and Minorca, and
co-operating with the Austrian army failed by little of reducing
Toulon. In the Seven Years' War the English fleets seized, or aided in
seizing, all the most valuable colonies of France and Spain, and made
frequent descents on the French coast. The War of the American
Revolution affords no lesson, the fleets being nearly equal. The next
most striking instance to Americans is the War of 1812. Everybody
knows how our privateers swarmed over the seas, and that from the
smallness of our navy the war was essentially, indeed solely, a
cruising war. Except upon the lakes, it is doubtful if more than two
of our ships at any time acted together. The injury done to English
commerce, thus unexpectedly attacked by a distant foe which had been
undervalued, may be fully conceded; but on the one hand, the American
cruisers were powerfully supported by the French fleet, which being
assembled in larger or smaller bodies in the many ports under the
emperor's control from Antwerp to Venice, tied the fleets of England
to blockade duty; and on the other hand, when the fall of the emperor
released them, our coasts were insulted in every direction, the
Chesapeake entered and controlled, its shores wasted, the Potomac
ascended, and Washington burned. The Northern frontier was kept in a
state of alarm, though there squadrons, absolutely weak but relatively
strong, sustained the general defence; while in the South the
Mississippi was entered unopposed, and New Orleans barely saved. When
negotiations for peace were opened, the bearing of the English toward
the American envoys was not that of men who felt their country to be
threatened with an unbearable evil. The late Civil War, with the
cruises of the "Alabama" and "Sumter" and their consorts, revived the
tradition of commerce-destroying. In so far as this is one means to a
general end, and is based upon a navy otherwise powerful, it is well;
but we need not expect to see the feats of those ships repeated in the
face of a great sea power. In the first place, those cruises were
powerfully supported by the determination of the United States to
blockade, not only the chief centres of Southern trade, but every
inlet of the coast, thus leaving few ships available for pursuit; in
the second place, had there been ten of those cruisers where there was
one, they would not have stopped the incursion in Southern waters of
the Union fleet, which penetrated to every point accessible from the
sea; and in the third place, the undeniable injury, direct and
indirect, inflicted upon individuals and upon one branch of the
nation's industry (and how high that shipping industry stands in the
writer's estimation need not be repeated), did not in the least
influence or retard the event of the war. Such injuries, unaccompanied
by others, are more irritating than weakening. On the other hand, will
any refuse to admit that the work of the great Union fleets powerfully
modified and hastened an end which was probably inevitable in any
case? As a sea power the South then occupied the place of France in
the wars we have been considering, while the situation of the North
resembled that of England; and, as in France, the sufferers in the
Confederacy were not a class, but the government and the nation at
large. It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys, be they
few or many, that strikes down the money power of a nation; it is the
possession of that overbearing power on the sea which drives the
enemy's flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive; and
which, by controlling the great common, closes the highways by which
commerce moves to and from the enemy's shores. This overbearing power
can only be exercised by great navies, and by them (on the broad sea)
less efficiently now than in the days when the neutral flag had not
its present immunity. It is not unlikely that, in the event of a war
between maritime nations, an attempt may be made by the one having a
great sea power and wishing to break down its enemy's commerce, to
interpret the phrase "effective blockade" in the manner that best
suits its interests at the time; to assert that the speed and disposal
of its ships make the blockade effective at much greater distances and
with fewer ships than formerly. The determination of such a question
will depend, not upon the weaker belligerent, but upon neutral powers;
it will raise the issue between belligerent and neutral rights; and if
the belligerent have a vastly overpowering navy he may carry his
point, just as England, when possessing the mastery of the seas, long
refused to admit the doctrine of the neutral flag covering the goods.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Davies: History of Holland.
[17] République d'Angleterre.
[18] Lefèvre-Pontalis: Jean de Witt.
[19] Martin: History of France.
[20] Gougeard: Marine de Guerre.
[21] Since the above was written, the experience of the English autumn
manoeuvres of 1888 has verified this statement; not indeed that any
such experiment was needed to establish a self-evident fact.
[22] Chabaud-Arnault: Revue Mar. et Col. 1885.
[23] The recent development of rapid-firing and machine guns, with the
great increase of their calibre and consequent range and penetration,
reproduces this same step in the cycle of progress.
[24] Gougeard: Marine de Guerre.
[25] Vol. lxxxii. p. 137.
[26] Mémoires du Cte. de Guiche. À Londres, chez P. Changuion. 1743
pp. 234-264.
[27] See Map of English Channel and North Sea, page 107.
[28] Plate I., June 11, 1666, Fig. 1. V, van; C, centre; R, rear: in
this part of the action the Dutch order was inverted, so that the
actual van was the proper rear. The great number of ships engaged in
the fleet actions of these Anglo-Dutch wars make it impossible to
represent each ship and at the same time preserve clearness in the
plans. Each figure of a ship therefore represents a group more or less
numerous.
[29] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[30] Plate I., June 12, Fig. 1, V, C, R.
[31] Plate II., June 14, Fig. 1, E, D.
[32] Fig. 1, V, C, R. This result was probably due simply to the
greater weatherliness of the English ships. It would perhaps be more
accurate to say that the Dutch had sagged to leeward so that they
drifted through the English line.
[33] Lefèvre-Pontalis. Jean de Witt.
[34] Mémoires, pp. 249, 251, 266, 267.
[35] Chabaud-Arnault: Revue Mar. et Col. 1885.
[36] The true significance of this change has often been
misunderstood, and hence erroneous inferences as to the future have
been drawn. It was not a case of the new displacing the old, but of
the military element in a military organization asserting its
necessary and inevitable control over all other functions.
[37] Chabaud-Arnault: Revue Mar. et Col. 1885.
[38] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[39] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine Française.
[40] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[41] Martin: History of France.
[42] Martin: History of France.
[43] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils.
[44] Annual Reg., vol. xxvii. p. 10.