WAR OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN ALLIANCE AGAINST THE UNITED
PROVINCES, 1672-1674.--FINALLY, OF FRANCE AGAINST COMBINED
EUROPE, 1674-1678.--SEA BATTLES OF SOLEBAY, THE TEXEL, AND
STROMBOLI.
Shortly before the conclusion of the Peace of Breda, Louis XIV. made
his first step toward seizing parts of the Spanish Netherlands and
Franche Comté. At the same time that his armies moved forward, he sent
out a State paper setting forth his claims upon the territories in
question. This paper showed unmistakably the ambitious character of
the young king, roused the anxiety of Europe, and doubtless increased
the strength of the peace party in England. Under the leadership of
Holland, but with the hearty co-operation of the English minister, an
alliance was formed between the two countries and Sweden, hitherto the
friend of France, to check Louis' advance before his power became too
great. The attack first on the Netherlands in 1667, and then on
Franche Comté in 1668, showed the hopeless weakness of Spain to defend
her possessions; they fell almost without a blow.
The policy of the United Provinces, relative to the claims of Louis at
this time, was summed up in the phrase that "France was good as a
friend, but not as a neighbor." They were unwilling to break their
traditional alliance, but still more unwilling to have her on their
border. The policy of the English people, though not of their king,
turned toward the Dutch. In the increased greatness of Louis they saw
danger to all Europe; to themselves more especially if, by a settled
preponderance on the continent, his hands were free to develop his sea
power. "Flanders once in the power of Louis XIV.," wrote the English
ambassador Temple, "the Dutch feel that their country will be only a
maritime province of France;" and sharing that opinion, "he advocated
the policy of resistance to the latter country, whose domination in
the Low Countries he considered as a threatened subjection of all
Europe. He never ceased to represent to his government how dangerous
to England would be the conquest of the sea provinces by France, and
he urgently pointed out the need of a prompt understanding with the
Dutch. 'This would be the best revenge,' said he, 'for the trick
France has played us in involving us in the last war with the United
Provinces.'" These considerations brought the two countries together
in that Triple Alliance with Sweden which has been mentioned, and
which for a time checked the onward movement of Louis. But the wars
between the two sea nations were too recent, the humiliation of
England in the Thames too bitter, and the rivalries that still existed
too real, too deeply seated in the nature of things, to make that
alliance durable. It needed the dangerous power of Louis, and his
persistence in a course threatening to both, to weld the union of
these natural antagonists. This was not to be done without another
bloody encounter.
Louis was deeply angered at the Triple Alliance, and his wrath was
turned mainly upon Holland, in which from the necessities of her
position he recognized his most steadfast opponent. For the time,
however, he seemed to yield; the more readily because of the probable
approaching failure of the Spanish royal line, and the ambition he had
of getting more than merely the territory lying to the east of France,
when the throne became vacant. But, though he dissembled and yielded,
from that time he set his mind upon the destruction of the republic.
This policy was directly contrary to that laid down by Richelieu, and
to the true welfare of France. It was to England's interest, at least
just then, that the United Provinces should not be trodden down by
France; but it was much more to the interest of France that they
should not be subjected to England. England, free from the continent,
might stand alone upon the seas contending with France; but France,
hampered by her continental politics, could not hope to wrest the
control of the seas from England without an ally. This ally Louis
proposed to destroy, and he asked England to help him. The final
result is already known, but the outlines of the contest must now be
followed.
Before the royal purpose had passed into action, and while there was
still time to turn the energies of France into another channel, a
different course was proposed to the king. This was the project of
Leibnitz, before spoken of, which has special interest for our subject
because, in proposing to reverse the lines which Louis then laid down,
to make continental expansion secondary and growth beyond the sea the
primary object of France, the tendency avowedly and necessarily was to
base the greatness of the country upon the control of the sea and of
commerce. The immediate object offered to the France of that day, with
the attainment of which, however, she could not have stopped short,
was the conquest of Egypt; that country which, facing both the
Mediterranean and Eastern seas, gave control of the great commercial
route which in our own day has been completed by the Suez Canal. That
route had lost much of its value by the discovery of the way round the
Cape of Good Hope, and yet more by the unsettled and piratical
conditions of the seas through which it lay; but with a really strong
naval power occupying the key of the position it might have been
largely restored. Such a power posted in Egypt would, in the already
decaying condition of the Ottoman Empire, have controlled the trade
not only of India and the far East, but also of the Levant; but the
enterprise could not have stopped there. The necessity of mastering
the Mediterranean and opening the Red Sea, closed to Christian vessels
by Mohammedan bigotry, would have compelled the occupation of stations
on either side of Egypt; and France would have been led step by step,
as England has been led by the possession of India, to the seizure of
points like Malta, Cyprus, Aden, in short, to a great sea power. That
is clear now; but it will be interesting to hear the arguments by
which Leibnitz sought to convince the French king two hundred years
ago.
After pointing out the weakness of the Turkish Empire, and the
readiness with which it might be further embarrassed by stirring up
Austria and Poland, the latter the traditional ally of France; after
showing that France had no armed enemy in the Mediterranean, and that
on the other side of Egypt she would meet the Portuguese colonies,
longing to obtain protection against the Dutch in India, the memorial
proceeds:--
"The conquest of Egypt, that Holland of the East, is infinitely
easier than that of the United Provinces. France needs peace in
the west, war at a distance. War with Holland will probably ruin
the new Indian companies as well as the colonies and commerce
lately revived by France, and will increase the burdens of the
people while diminishing their resources. The Dutch will retire
into their maritime towns, stand there on the defensive in
perfect safety, and assume the offensive on the sea with great
chance of success. If France does not obtain a complete victory
over them, she loses all her influence in Europe, and by victory
she endangers that influence. In Egypt, on the contrary, a
repulse, almost impossible, will be of no great consequence, and
victory will give the dominion of the seas, the commerce of the
East and of India, the preponderance in Christendom, and even
the empire of the East on the ruins of the Ottoman power. The
possession of Egypt opens the way to conquests worthy of
Alexander; the extreme weakness of the Orientals is no longer a
secret. Whoever has Egypt will have all the coasts and islands
of the Indian Ocean. It is in Egypt that Holland will be
conquered; it is there she will be despoiled of what alone
renders her prosperous, the treasures of the East. She will be
struck without being able to ward off the blow. Should she wish
to oppose the designs of France upon Egypt, she would be
overwhelmed with the universal hatred of Christians; attacked at
home, on the contrary, not only could she ward off the
aggression, but she could avenge herself sustained by universal
public opinion, which suspects the views of France of
ambition."[45]
The memorial had no effect. "All that the efforts of ambition and
human prudence could do to lay the foundations for the destruction of
a nation, Louis XIV. now did. Diplomatic strategy on a vast scale was
displayed in order to isolate and hem in Holland. Louis, who had been
unable to make Europe accept the conquest of Belgium by France, now
hoped to induce it to see without trembling the fall of Holland." His
efforts were in the main successful. The Triple Alliance was broken;
the King of England, though contrary to the wishes of his people, made
an offensive alliance with Louis; and Holland, when the war began,
found herself without an ally in Europe, except the worn-out kingdom
of Spain and the Elector of Brandenburg, then by no means a
first-class State. But in order to obtain the help of Charles II.,
Louis not only engaged to pay him large sums of money, but also to
give to England, from the spoils of Holland and Belgium, Walcheren,
Sluys, and Cadsand, and even the islands of Goree and Voorn; the
control, that is, of the mouths of the great commercial rivers the
Scheldt and the Meuse. With regard to the united fleets of the two
nations, it was agreed that the officer bearing the admiral's flag of
England should command in chief. The question of naval precedence was
reserved, by not sending the admiral of France afloat; but it was
practically yielded. It is evident that in his eagerness for the ruin
of Holland and his own continental aggrandizement Louis was playing
directly into England's hand, as to power on the sea. A French
historian is justified in saying: "These negotiations have been
wrongly judged. It has been often repeated that Charles sold England
to Louis XIV. This is true only of internal policy. Charles indeed
plotted the political and religious subjugation of England with the
help of a foreign power; but as to external interests, he did not sell
them, for the greater share in the profit from the ruin of the Dutch
was to go to England."[46]
During the years preceding the war the Dutch made every diplomatic
effort to avert it, but the hatred of Charles and Louis prevented any
concession being accepted as final. An English royal yacht was ordered
to pass through the Dutch ships-of-war in the Channel, and to fire on
them if they did not strike their flags. In January, 1672, England
sent an ultimatum, summoning Holland to acknowledge the right of the
English crown to the sovereignty of the British seas, and to order its
fleets to lower their flags to the smallest English man-of-war; and
demands such as these received the support of a French king. The Dutch
continued to yield, but seeing at length that all concessions were
useless, they in February ordered into commission seventy-five
ships-of-the-line, besides smaller vessels. On the 23d of March the
English, without declaration of war, attacked a fleet of Dutch
merchantmen; and on the 29th the king declared war. This was followed,
April 6th, by the declaration of Louis XIV.; and on the 28th of the
same month he set out to take command in person of his army.
The war which now began, including the third and last of the great
contests between the English and Dutch upon the ocean, was not, like
those before it, purely a sea war; and it will be necessary to mention
its leading outlines on the land also, not only in order to clearness
of impression, but also to bring out the desperate straits to which
the republic was reduced, and the final deliverance through its sea
power in the hands of the great seaman De Ruyter.
The naval war differs from those that preceded it in more than one
respect; but its most distinctive feature is that the Dutch, except on
one occasion at the very beginning, did not send out their fleet to
meet the enemy, but made what may properly be called a strategic use
of their dangerous coast and shoals, upon which were based their sea
operations. To this course they were forced by the desperate odds
under which they were fighting; but they did not use their shoals as a
mere shelter,--the warfare they waged was the defensive-offensive.
When the wind was fair for the allies to attack, Ruyter kept under
cover of his islands, or at least on ground where the enemy dared not
follow; but when the wind served so that he might attack in his own
way, he turned and fell upon them. There are also apparent indications
of tactical combinations, on his part, of a higher order than have
yet been met; though it is possible that the particular acts referred
to, consisting in partial attacks amounting to little more than
demonstrations against the French contingent, may have sprung from
political motives. This solution for the undoubted fact that the Dutch
attacked the French lightly has not been met with elsewhere by the
writer; but it seems possible that the rulers of the United Provinces
may have wished not to increase the exasperation of their most
dangerous enemy by humiliating his fleet, and so making it less easy
to his pride to accept their offers. There is, however, an equally
satisfactory military explanation in the supposition that, the French
being yet inexperienced, Ruyter thought it only necessary to contain
them while falling in force upon the English. The latter fought
throughout with their old gallantry, but less than their old
discipline; whereas the attacks of the Dutch were made with a
sustained and unanimous vigor that showed a great military advance.
The action of the French was at times suspicious; it has been alleged
that Louis ordered his admiral to economize his fleet, and there is
good reason to believe that toward the end of the two years that
England remained in his alliance he did do so.
The authorities of the United Provinces, knowing that the French fleet
at Brest was to join the English in the Thames, made great exertions
to fit out their squadron so as to attack the latter before the
junction was made; but the wretched lack of centralization in their
naval administration caused this project to fail. The province of
Zealand was so backward that its contingent, a large fraction of the
whole, was not ready in time; and it has been charged that the delay
was due, not merely to mismanagement, but to disaffection to the party
in control of the government. A blow at the English fleet in its own
waters, by a superior force, before its ally arrived, was a correct
military conception; judging from the after-history of this war, it
might well have produced a profound effect upon the whole course of
the struggle. Ruyter finally got to sea and fell in with the allied
fleets, but though fully intending to fight, fell back before them to
his own coast. The allies did not follow him there, but retired,
apparently in full security, to Southwold Bay, on the east coast of
England, some ninety miles north of the mouth of the Thames. There
they anchored in three divisions,--two English, the rear and centre of
the allied line, to the northward, and the van, composed of French
ships, to the southward. Ruyter followed them, and on the early
morning of June 7, 1672, the Dutch fleet was signalled by a French
lookout frigate in the northward and eastward; standing down before a
northeast wind for the allied fleet, from which a large number of
boats and men were ashore in watering parties. The Dutch order of
battle was in two lines, the advanced one containing eighteen ships
with fire-ships (Plate III., A). Their total force was ninety-one
ships-of-the-line; that of the allies one hundred and one.
The wind was blowing toward the coast, which here trends nearly north
and south, and the allies were in an awkward position. They had first
to get under way, and they could not fall back to gain time or room to
establish their order. Most of the ships cut their cables, and the
English made sail on the starboard tack, heading about north-northwest,
a course which forced them soon to go about; whereas the French took
the other tack (Plate III., B). The battle began therefore by the
separation of the allied fleet. Ruyter sent one division to attack the
French, or rather to contain them; for these opponents exchanged only a
distant cannonade, although the Dutch, being to windward, had the
choice of closer action if they wished it. As their commander, Bankert,
was not censured, it may be supposed he acted under orders; and he was
certainly in command a year later, and acting with great judgment and
gallantry at the battle of the Texel. Meanwhile Ruyter fell furiously
upon the two English divisions, and apparently with superior forces;
for the English naval historians claim that the Dutch were in the
proportion of three to two.[47] If this can be accepted, it gives a
marked evidence of Ruyter's high qualities as a general officer, in
advance of any other who appears in this century.
[Illustration: Pl. III.]
The results of the battle, considered simply as an engagement, were
indecisive; both sides lost heavily, but the honors and the substantial
advantages all belonged to the Dutch, or rather to De Ruyter. He had
outgeneralled the allies by his apparent retreat, and then returning
had surprised them wholly unprepared. The false move by which the
English, two thirds of the whole, stood to the northward and westward,
while the other third, the French, went off to the east and south,
separated the allied fleet; Ruyter threw his whole force into the gap,
showing front to the French with a division probably smaller in
numbers, but which, from its position to windward, had the choice of
coming to close action or not, while with the remainder he fell in much
superior strength upon the English (Plate III., B). Paul Hoste says[48]
that Vice-Admiral d'Estrées, commanding the French, had taken measures
for tacking and breaking through the Dutch division opposed to him so
as to rejoin the Duke of York, the allied commander-in-chief. It may be
so, for D'Estrées was a very brave man, and not enough of a seaman to
appreciate the dangers of the attempt; but no such move was begun, and
both the English and Ruyter thought that the French rather avoided than
sought close action. Had D'Estrées, however, gone about, and attempted
to break through the line of experienced Dutchmen to windward of him
with the still raw seamen of France, the result would have been as
disastrous as that which overtook the Spanish admiral at the battle of
St. Vincent a hundred and twenty-five years later, when he tried to
reunite his broken fleet by breaking through the close order of Jervis
and Nelson. (See Plate III., a.) The truth, which gradually dawns
through a mass of conflicting statements, is, that the Duke of York,
though a fair seaman and a brave man, was not an able one; that his
fleet was not in good order and was thus surprised; that his orders
beforehand were not so precise as to make the French admiral
technically disobedient in taking the opposite tack from the
commander-in-chief, and so separating the squadrons; and that Ruyter
profited most ably by the surprise which he had himself prepared, and
by the further opportunity given him by the ineptness of his enemies.
Unless for circumstances that are not stated, the French admiral took
the right tack, with a northeast wind, for it led out to sea and would
give room for manoeuvring; had the Duke of York chosen the same, the
allied fleet would have gone out together, with only the disadvantage
of the wind and bad order. In that case, however, Ruyter could, and
probably would, have done just what he did at the Texel a year
later,--check the van, the French, with a small containing force, and
fall with the mass of his fleet upon the centre and rear. It is the
similarity of his action in both cases, under very different
conditions, that proves he intended at Southwold Bay merely to keep the
French in check while he destroyed the English.
In this battle, called indifferently Southwold Bay and Solebay, Ruyter
showed a degree of skill combined with vigor which did not appear upon
the sea, after his death, until the days of Suffren and Nelson. His
battles of the war of 1672 were no "affairs of circumspection," though
they were fought circumspectly; his aim was no less than the enemy's
total overthrow, by joining good combinations to fury of attack. At
Solebay he was somewhat, though not greatly, inferior to his enemies;
afterward much more so.
The substantial results of Solebay fight were wholly favorable to the
Dutch. The allied fleets were to have assisted the operations of the
French army by making a descent upon the coast of Zealand. Ruyter's
attack had inflicted an amount of damage, and caused an expenditure of
ammunition, which postponed the sailing of the fleet for a month; it
was a diversion, not only important, but vital in the nearly desperate
condition to which the United Provinces were reduced ashore. It may be
added, as an instructive comment on the theory of commerce-destroying,
that after this staggering check to the enemy's superior forces,
Ruyter met and convoyed safely to port a fleet of Dutch merchantmen.
The progress of the land campaign must now be briefly described.[49]
Early in May the French army in several corps moved forward, passing
through the outskirts of the Spanish Netherlands, and directing their
attack upon Holland from the south and east. The republican party
which was in power in Holland had neglected the army, and now made the
mistake of scattering the force they had among many fortified towns,
trusting that each would do something toward delaying the French.
Louis, however, under the advice of Turenne, simply observed the more
important places, while the second-rate towns surrendered nearly as
fast as they were summoned; the army of the Provinces, as well as
their territory, thus passing rapidly, by fractions, into the power of
the enemy. Within a month the French were in the heart of the country,
having carried all before them, and with no organized force remaining
in their front sufficient of itself to stop them. In the fortnight
following the battle of Solebay, terror and disorganization spread
throughout the republic. On the 15th of June the Grand Pensionary
obtained permission of the States-General to send a deputation to
Louis XIV., begging him to name the terms on which he would grant them
peace; any humiliation to the foreigner was better in the eyes of the
politician than to see the opposite party, the House of Orange, come
into power on his downfall. While negotiations were pending, the Dutch
towns continued to surrender; and on the 20th of June a few French
soldiers entered Muyden, the key to Amsterdam. They were only
stragglers, though the large body to which they belonged was near at
hand; and the burghers, who had admitted them under the influence of
the panic prevailing throughout the land, seeing that they were alone,
soon made them drunk and put them out. The nobler feeling that
animated Amsterdam now made itself felt in Muyden; a body of troops
hurried up from the capital, and the smaller city was saved.
"Situated on the Zuyder Zee, two hours distant from Amsterdam, at the
junction of a number of rivers and canals, Muyden not only held the
key of the principal dykes by which Amsterdam could surround herself
with a protecting inundation, it also held the key of the harbor of
this great city, all the ships which went from the North Sea to
Amsterdam by the Zuyder Zee being obliged to pass under its guns.
Muyden saved and its dykes open, Amsterdam had time to breathe, and
remained free to break off her communications by land and to maintain
them by sea."[50] It was the turning-point of the invasion; but what
would have been the effect upon the spirit of the Dutch, oppressed by
defeat and distracted in council, if in that fateful fortnight which
went before, the allied fleet had attacked their coasts? From this
they were saved by the battle of Solebay.
Negotiations continued. The burgomasters--the party representing
wealth and commerce--favored submission; they shrank from the
destruction of their property and trade. New advances were made; but
while the envoys were still in the camp of Louis, the populace and the
Orange party rose, and with them the spirit of resistance. On the 25th
of June Amsterdam opened the dykes, and her example was followed by
the other cities of Holland; immense loss was entailed, but the
flooded country and the cities contained therein, standing like
islands amid the waters, were safe from attack by land forces until
freezing weather. The revolution continued. William of Orange,
afterward William III. of England, was on the 8th of July made
stadtholder, and head of the army and navy; and the two De Witts, the
heads of the republican party, were murdered by a mob a few weeks
later.
The resistance born of popular enthusiasm and pride of country was
strengthened by the excessive demands of Louis XIV. It was plain that
the Provinces must conquer or be destroyed. Meanwhile the other States
of Europe were waking up to the danger, and the Emperor of Germany,
the Elector of Brandenburg, and the King of Spain declared for
Holland; while Sweden, though nominally in alliance with France, was
unwilling to see the destruction of the Provinces, because that would
be to the advantage of England's sea power. Nevertheless the next
year, 1673, opened with promise for France, and the English king was
prepared to fulfil his part of the compact on the seas; but the Dutch,
under the firm leadership of William of Orange, and with their hold on
the sea unshaken, now refused to accept conditions of peace which had
been offered by themselves the year before.
Three naval battles were fought in 1673, all near the coast of the
United Provinces; the first two, June 7 and June 14, off Schoneveldt,
from which place they have taken their name; the third, known as the
battle of the Texel, August 21. In all three Ruyter attacked, choosing
his own time, and retiring when it suited him to the protection of his
own shores. For the allies to carry out their objects and make any
diversion upon the seaboard, or on the other hand to cripple the sea
resources of the hard-pressed Provinces, it was necessary first to
deal successfully with Ruyter's fleet. The great admiral and his
government both felt this, and took the resolution that "the fleet
should be posted in the passage of Schoneveldt, or a little farther
south toward Ostend, to observe the enemy, and if attacked, or seeing
the enemy's fleet disposed to make a descent upon the shores of the
United Provinces, should resist vigorously, by opposing his designs
and destroying his ships."[51] From this position, with good lookouts,
any movement of the allies would be known.
The English and French put to sea about the 1st of June, under the
command of Prince Rupert, first cousin to the king, the Duke of York
having been obliged to resign his office on account of the passage of
the Test Act, directed against persons of the Roman Catholic faith
holding any public employment. The French were under Vice-Admiral
d'Estrées, the same who had commanded them at Solebay. A force of six
thousand English troops at Yarmouth was ready to embark if De Ruyter
was worsted. On the 7th of June the Dutch were made out, riding within
the sands at Schoneveldt. A detached squadron was sent to draw them
out, but Ruyter needed no invitation; the wind served, and he followed
the detached squadron with such impetuosity as to attack before the
allied line was fairly formed. On this occasion the French occupied
the centre. The affair was indecisive, if a battle can be called so in
which an inferior force attacks a superior, inflicts an equal loss,
and frustrates the main object of the enemy. A week later Ruyter again
attacked, with results which, though indecisive as before as to the
particular action, forced the allied fleet to return to the English
coast to refit, and for supplies. The Dutch in these encounters had
fifty-five ships-of-the-line; their enemies eighty-one, fifty-four of
which were English.
The allied fleets did not go to sea again until the latter part of
July, and this time they carried with them a body of troops meant for
a landing. On the 20th of August the Dutch fleet was seen under way
between the Texel and the Meuse. Rupert at once got ready to fight;
but as the wind was from the northward and westward, giving the allies
the weather-gage, and with it the choice of the method of attack,
Ruyter availed himself of his local knowledge, keeping so close to the
beach that the enemy dared not approach,--the more so as it was late
in the day. During the night the wind shifted to east-southeast off
the land, and at daybreak, to use the words of a French official
narrative, the Dutch "made all sail and stood down boldly into
action."
The allied fleet was to leeward on the port tack, heading about
south,--the French in the van, Rupert in the centre, and Sir Edward
Spragge commanding the rear. De Ruyter divided his fleet into three
squadrons, the leading one of which, of ten or twelve ships only, he
sent against the French; while with the rest of his force he attacked
the English in the centre and rear (Plate IV., A, A', A''). If we
accept the English estimate of the forces, which gives the English
sixty ships, the French thirty, and the Dutch seventy, Ruyter's plan
of attack, by simply holding the French in check as at Solebay,
allowed him to engage the English on equal terms. The battle took on
several distinct phases, which it is instructive to follow. M. de
Martel, commanding the van of the French, and consequently the leading
subdivision of the allied fleet, was ordered to stretch ahead, go
about and gain to windward of the Dutch van, so as to place it between
two fires. This he did (B); but as soon as Bankert--the same who had
manoeuvred so judiciously at Solebay the year before--saw the danger,
he put his helm up and ran through the remaining twenty ships of
D'Estrées' squadron with his own twelve (C),--a feat as creditable to
him as it was discreditable to the French; and then wearing round
stood down to De Ruyter, who was hotly engaged with Rupert (C'). He
was not followed by D'Estrées, who suffered him to carry this
important reinforcement to the Dutch main attack undisturbed. This
practically ended the French share in the fight.
[Illustration: Pl. IV. TEXEL. Aug. 21, 1673.]
Rupert, during his action with De Ruyter, kept off continually, with
the object of drawing the Dutch farther away from their coast, so that
if the wind shifted they might not be able to regain its shelter. De
Ruyter followed him, and the consequent separation of the centre from
the van (B, B') was one of the reasons alleged by D'Estrées for his
delay. It does not, however, seem to have prevented Bankert from
joining his chief.
In the rear an extraordinary action on the part of Sir Edward Spragge
increased the confusion in the allied fleet. For some reason this
officer considered Tromp, who commanded the Dutch rear, as his
personal antagonist, and in order to facilitate the latter's getting
into action, he hove-to (stopped) the whole English rear to wait for
him. This ill-timed point of honor on Spragge's part seems to have
sprung from a promise he had made to the king that he would bring back
Tromp alive or dead, or else lose his own life. The stoppage, which
recalls the irresponsible and insubordinate action of the junior Dutch
flag-officers in the former war, of course separated the rear (A'',
B'', C''), which also drifted rapidly to leeward, Spragge and Tromp
carrying on a hot private action on their own account. These two
junior admirals sought each other personally, and the battle between
their flags was so severe that Spragge twice had to shift his own to
another ship; on the second occasion the boat in which he was embarked
was sunk by a shot, and he himself drowned.
Rupert, thus forsaken by his van and rear, found himself alone with
Ruyter (B'); who, reinforced by his van, had the address further to
cut off the rear subdivision of the allied centre, and to surround the
remaining twenty ships with probably thirty or forty of his own (C').
It is not creditable to the gunnery of the day that more substantial
results did not follow; but it is to be remembered that all Ruyter's
skill could secure, except for probably a very short time, was an
action on equal terms with the English; his total inferiority in
numbers could not be quite overcome. The damage to the English and
Dutch may therefore have been great, and was probably nearly equal.
Rupert finally disengaged himself, and seeing that the English rear
(C'') was not replying well to its immediate opponents, ran down
toward it, Ruyter following him; the two opposing centres steering
parallel courses, and within cannon-shot, but by mutual consent,
induced perhaps by ammunition running short, refraining from firing.
At four P.M. the centres and rears united, and toward five a fresh
engagement began, which continued till seven, when Ruyter withdrew,
probably because of the approach of the French, who, by their own
accounts, rejoined Rupert about that time. This ended the battle,
which, like all that preceded it in this war, may be called a drawn
fight, but as to which the verdict of the English naval historian is
doubtless correct: "The consequences which the Dutch, through the
prudence of their admiral, drew from this battle were exceedingly
great; for they opened their ports, which were entirely blocked up,
and put an end to all thoughts, by removing the possibility, of an
invasion."[52]
The military features of the action have sufficiently appeared in the
account that has been given,--the skill of De Ruyter; the firmness and
promptness of Bankert, first in checking and then in passing through
the French division; the apparent disloyalty or, at the best,
inefficiency of the latter; the insubordination and military
blundering of Spragge; the seeming lack of everything but hard
fighting on Rupert's part. The allies indulged in bitter mutual
recriminations. Rupert blamed both D'Estrées and Spragge; D'Estrées
found fault with Rupert for running to leeward; and D'Estrées' own
second, Martel, roundly called his chief a coward, in a letter which
earned him an imprisonment in the Bastille. The French king ordered an
inquiry by the intendant of the navy at Brest, who made a report[53]
upon which the account here given has mainly rested, and which leaves
little doubt of the dishonor of the French arms in this battle. "M.
d'Estrées gave it to be understood," says the French naval historian,
"that the king wished his fleet spared, and that the English should
not be trusted. Was he wrong in not relying upon the sincerity of the
English alliance, when he was receiving from all quarters warnings
that the people and the nobles were murmuring against it, and Charles
II. was perhaps alone in his kingdom in wishing it?"[54] Possibly not;
but he was surely wrong if he wished any military man, or body of men,
to play the equivocal part assigned to the French admiral on this day;
the loss of the fleet would have been a lighter disaster. So evident
to eye-witnesses was the bad faith or cowardice (and the latter
supposition is not admissible), that one of the Dutch seamen, as they
discussed among themselves why the French did not come down, said:
"You fools! they have hired the English to fight for them, and all
their business here is to see that they earn their wages." A more
sober-minded and significant utterance is that with which the
intendant at Brest ends the official report before mentioned: "It
would appear in all these sea-fights Ruyter has never cared to attack
the French squadron, and that in this last action he had detached ten
ships of the Zealand squadron to keep it in play."[55] No stronger
testimony is needed to Ruyter's opinion of the inefficiency or
faithlessness of that contingent to the allied forces.
Another chapter in the history of maritime coalitions was closed, on
the 21st of August, 1673, by the battle of the Texel. In it, as in
others, were amply justified the words with which a modern French
naval officer has stamped them: "United by momentary political
interests, but at bottom divided to the verge of hatred, never
following the same path in counsel or in action, they have never
produced good results, or at least results proportioned to the efforts
of the powers allied against a common enemy. The navies of France,
Spain, and Holland seem, at several distinct times, to have joined
only to make more complete the triumph of the British arms."[56] When
to this well-ascertained tendency of coalitions is added the equally
well known jealousy of every country over the increasing power of a
neighbor, and the consequent unwillingness to see such increase
obtained by crushing another member of the family of nations, an
approach is made to the measure of naval strength required by a State.
It is not necessary to be able to meet all others combined, as some
Englishmen have seemed to think; it is necessary only to be able to
meet the strongest on favorable terms, sure that the others will not
join in destroying a factor in the political equilibrium, even if they
hold aloof. England and Spain were allies in Toulon in 1793, when the
excesses of Revolutionary France seemed to threaten the social order
of Europe; but the Spanish admiral told the English flatly that the
ruin of the French navy, a large part of which was there in their
hands, could not fail to be injurious to the interests of Spain, and a
part of the French ships was saved by his conduct, which has been
justly characterized as not only full of firmness, but also as
dictated by the highest political reason.[57]
The battle of the Texel, closing the long series of wars in which the
Dutch and English contended on equal terms for the mastery of the
seas, saw the Dutch navy in its highest efficiency, and its greatest
ornament, De Ruyter, at the summit of his glory. Long since old in
years, for he was now sixty-six, he had lost none of his martial
vigor; his attack was as furious as eight years before, and his
judgment apparently had ripened rapidly through the experience of the
last war, for there is far more evidence of plan and military insight
than before. To him, under the government of the great Pensionary De
Witt, with whom he was in close sympathy, the increase of discipline
and sound military tone now apparent in the Dutch navy must have been
largely due. He went to this final strife of the two great sea-peoples
in the fulness of his own genius, with an admirably tempered
instrument in his hands, and with the glorious disadvantage of
numbers, to save his country. The mission was fulfilled not by courage
alone, but by courage, forethought, and skill. The attack at the Texel
was, in its general lines, the same as that at Trafalgar, the enemy's
van being neglected to fall on the centre and rear, and as at
Trafalgar the van, by failing to do its duty, more than justified the
conception; but as the odds against De Ruyter were greater than those
against Nelson, so was his success less. The part played by Bankert at
Solebay was essentially the same as that of Nelson at St. Vincent,
when he threw himself across the path of the Spanish division with his
single ship (see Plate III., c, c'); but Nelson took his course
without orders from Jervis, while Bankert was carrying out Ruyter's
plan. Once more, still himself in his bearing, but under sadly altered
surroundings, will this simple and heroic man come before us; and
here, in contrast with his glory, seems a proper place to insert a
little description by the Comte de Guiche[58] of his bearing in the
Four Days' Fight, which brings out at once the homely and the heroic
sides of his character.
"I never saw him [during those last three days] other than
even-tempered; and when victory was assured, saying always it
was the good God that gives it to us. Amid the disorders of the
fleet and the appearance of loss, he seemed to be moved only by
the misfortune to his country, but always submissive to the will
of God. Finally, it may be said that he has something of the
frankness and lack of polish of our patriarchs; and, to conclude
what I have to say of him, I will relate that the day after the
victory I found him sweeping his own room and feeding his
chickens."
Nine days after the battle of the Texel, on the 30th of August, 1673,
a formal alliance was made between Holland on the one hand, and Spain,
Lorraine, and the emperor of Germany on the other, and the French
ambassador was dismissed from Vienna. Louis almost immediately offered
Holland comparatively moderate terms; but the United Provinces, with
their new allies by their sides and with their backs borne firmly upon
the sea which had favored and supported them, set their face steadily
against him. In England the clamor of the people and Parliament became
louder; the Protestant feeling and the old enmity to France were daily
growing, as was the national distrust of the king. Charles, though he
had himself lost none of his hatred of the republic, had to give way.
Louis, seeing the gathering storm, made up his mind, by the counsel of
Turenne, to withdraw from his dangerously advanced position by
evacuating Holland, and to try to make peace with the Provinces
separately while continuing the war with the House of Austria in Spain
and Germany. Thus he returned to Richelieu's policy, and Holland was
saved. February 19, 1674, peace was signed between England and the
Provinces. The latter recognized the absolute supremacy of the English
flag from Cape Finisterre in Spain to Norway, and paid a war
indemnity.
The withdrawal of England, which remained neutral during the remaining
four years of the war, necessarily made it less maritime. The King of
France did not think his navy, either in numbers or efficiency, able
to contend alone with that of Holland; he therefore withdrew it from
the ocean and confined his sea enterprises to the Mediterranean, with
one or two half-privateering expeditions to the West Indies. The
United Provinces for their part, being freed from danger on the side
of the sea, and not having, except for a short time, any serious idea
of operating against the French coast, diminished their own fleets.
The war became more and more continental, and drew in more and more
the other powers of Europe. Gradually the German States cast their lot
with Austria, and on May 28, 1674, the Diet proclaimed war against
France. The great work of French policy in the last generations was
undone, Austria had resumed her supremacy in Germany, and Holland had
not been destroyed. On the Baltic, Denmark, seeing Sweden inclining
toward France, hastened to make common cause with the German Empire,
sending fifteen thousand troops. There remained in Germany only
Bavaria, Hanover, and Wurtemberg faithful still to their French
alliance. The land war had thus drawn in nearly all the powers of
Europe, and, from the nature of the case, the principal theatre of the
conflict was beyond the eastern boundary of France, toward the Rhine,
and in the Spanish Netherlands; but while this was raging, a maritime
episode was introduced by the fact of Denmark and Sweden being engaged
on opposite sides. Of this it will not be necessary to speak, beyond
mentioning that the Dutch sent a squadron under Tromp to join the
Danes, and that the united fleets won a great victory over the Swedes
in 1676, taking from them ten ships. It is therefore evident that the
sea superiority of Holland detracted greatly from Sweden's value as an
ally to Louis XIV.
Another maritime strife arose in the Mediterranean by the revolt of
the Sicilians against the Spanish rule.[59] The help they asked from
France was granted as a diversion against Spain, but the Sicilian
enterprise never became more than a side issue. Its naval interest
springs from bringing Ruyter once more on the scene, and that as the
antagonist of Duquesne, the equal, and by some thought even the
superior, of Tourville, whose name has always stood far above all
others in the French navy of that day.
Messina revolted in July, 1674, and the French king at once took it
under his protection. The Spanish navy throughout seems to have
behaved badly, certainly inefficiently; and early in 1675 the French
were safely established in the city. During the year their naval power
in the Mediterranean was much increased, and Spain, unable to defend
the island herself, applied to the United Provinces for a fleet, the
expenses of which she would bear. The Provinces, "fatigued by the war,
involved in debt, suffering cruelly in their commerce, exhausted by
the necessity of paying the emperor and all the German princes, could
no longer fit out the enormous fleets which they had once opposed to
France and England." They however hearkened to Spain and sent De
Ruyter, with a squadron of only eighteen ships and four fire-ships.
The admiral, who had noted the growth of the French navy, said the
force was too small, and departed oppressed in spirit, but with the
calm resignation which was habitual to him. He reached Cadiz in
September, and in the mean time the French had further strengthened
themselves by the capture of Agosta, a port commanding the southeast
of Sicily. De Ruyter was again delayed by the Spanish government, and
did not reach the north coast of the island until the end of December,
when head winds kept him from entering the Straits of Messina. He
cruised between Messina and the Lipari Islands in a position to
intercept the French fleet convoying troops and supplies, which was
expected under Duquesne.
On the 7th of January, 1676, the French came in sight, twenty
ships-of-the-line and six fire-ships; the Dutch had but nineteen
ships, one of which was a Spaniard, and four fire-ships; and it must
be remembered that, although there is no detailed account of the Dutch
ships in this action, they were as a rule inferior to those of
England, and yet more to those of France. The first day was spent in
manoeuvring, the Dutch having the weather-gage; but during that night,
which was squally and drove the Spanish galleys accompanying the Dutch
to take refuge under Lipari, the wind shifted, and coming out at
west-southwest, gave the French the weather-gage and the power to
attack. Duquesne resolved to use it, and sending the convoy ahead,
formed his line on the starboard tack standing south; the Dutch did
the same, and waited for him (Plate V., A, A, A).
[Illustration: Pl. V. STROMBOLI JAN. 8, 1676. Pl. Va. POCOCK AND
D'ACHÉ 1758.]
An emotion of surprise must be felt at seeing the great Dutch admiral
surrender the choice of attack on the 7th. At daybreak of that day he
saw the enemy and steered for him; at three P.M., a French account
says, he hauled his wind on the same tack as themselves, but out of
cannon-shot to windward. How account for the seeming reluctance of the
man who three years before had made the desperate attacks of Solebay
and the Texel? His reasons have not been handed down; it may be that
the defensive advantages of the lee-gage had been recognized by this
thoughtful seaman, especially when preparing to meet, with inferior
forces, an enemy of impetuous gallantry and imperfect seamanship. If
any such ideas did influence him they were justified by the result.
The battle of Stromboli presents a partial anticipation of the tactics
of the French and English a hundred years later; but in this case it
is the French who seek the weather-gage and attack with fury, while
the Dutch take the defensive. The results were very much such as Clerk
pointed out to the English in his celebrated work on naval tactics,
the accounts here followed being entirely French.[60]
The two fleets being drawn up in line-of-battle on the starboard tack,
heading south, as has been said, De Ruyter awaited the attack which he
had refused to make. Being between the French and their port, he felt
they must fight. At nine A.M. the French line kept away all together
and ran down obliquely upon the Dutch, a manoeuvre difficult to be
performed with accuracy, and during which the assailant receives his
enemy's fire at disadvantage (A', A'', A'''). In doing this, two ships
in the French van were seriously disabled. "M. de la Fayette, in the
'Prudente,' began the action; but having rashly thrown himself into
the midst of the enemy's van, he was dismantled and forced to haul
off" (a). Confusion ensued in the French line, from the difficult
character of the manoeuvre. "Vice-Admiral de Preuilli, commanding the
van, in keeping away took too little room, so that in coming to the
wind again, the ships, in too close order, lapped and interfered with
one another's fire [A']. The absence of M. de la Fayette from the line
threw the 'Parfait' into peril. Attacked by two ships, she lost her
maintopmast and had also to haul off for repairs." Again, the French
came into action in succession instead of all together, a usual and
almost inevitable result of the manoeuvre in question. "In the _midst_
of a terrible cannonade," that is, after part of his ships were
engaged, "Duquesne, commanding the centre, took post on the beam of
Ruyter's division." The French rear came into action still later,
after the centre (A'', A'''). "Langeron and Bethune, commanding
leading ships of the French centre, are crushed by superior forces."
How can this be, seeing the French had the more ships? It was because,
as the narrative tells us, "the French had not yet repaired the
disorder of the first movement." However, all at last got into action
(B, B, B), and Duquesne gradually restored order. The Dutch, engaged
all along the line, resisted everywhere, and there was not one of
their ships which was not closely engaged; more cannot be said for the
admiral and captains of the inferior fleet. The remaining part of the
fight is not very clearly related. Ruyter is said to have given way
continually with his two leading divisions; but whether this was a
confession of weakness or a tactical move does not appear. The rear
was separated (C'), in permitting which either Ruyter or the immediate
commander was at fault; but the attempts made by the French to
surround and isolate it failed, probably because of damaged spars, for
one French ship did pass entirely around the separated division. The
action ended at 4.30 P.M., except in the rear, and the Spanish galleys
shortly after came up and towed the disabled Dutch ships away. Their
escape shows how injured the French must have been. The positions, C,
C', are intended to show the Dutch rear far separated, and the
disorder in which a fleet action under sail necessarily ended from
loss of spars.
Those who are familiar with Clerk's work on naval tactics, published
about 1780, will recognize in this account of the battle of Stromboli
all the features to which he called the attention of English seamen in
his thesis on the methods of action employed by them and their
adversaries in and before his time. Clerk's thesis started from the
postulate that English seamen and officers were superior in skill or
spirit, or both, to the French, and their ships on the whole as fast;
that they were conscious of this superiority and therefore eager to
attack, while the French, equally conscious of inferiority, or for
other reasons, were averse to decisive engagements. With these
dispositions the latter, feeling they could rely on a blindly furious
attack by the English, had evolved a crafty plan by which, while
seeming to fight, they really avoided doing so, and at the same time
did the enemy much harm. This plan was to take the lee-gage, the
characteristic of which, as has before been pointed out, is that it is
a defensive position, and to await attack. The English error,
according to Clerk, upon which the French had learned by experience
that they could always count, was in drawing up their line parallel to
the enemy, or nearly so, and then keeping away all together to attack,
ship for ship, each its opposite in the hostile line. By standing down
in this manner the assailant lost the use of most of his artillery,
while exposed to the full fire of his opponent, and invariably came up
in confusion, because the order of attack was one difficult to
maintain at any time, and much more so in the smoke under fire, with
torn sails and falling masts. This was precisely the attack made by
Duquesne at Stromboli, and it there had precisely the consequences
Clerk points out,--confusion in the line, the van arriving first and
getting the brunt of the fire of the defence, disabled ships in the
van causing confusion in the rear, etc. Clerk further asserts, and he
seems to be right, that as the action grew warm, the French, by
running off to leeward, in their turn, led the English to repeat the
same mode of attack;[61] and so we find, at Stromboli, Ruyter giving
ground in the same way, though his motive does not appear. Clerk also
points out that a necessary corollary of the lee-gage, assumed for
tactical reasons, is to aim at the assailant's spars, his motive
power, so that his attack cannot be pushed farther than the defendant
chooses, and at Stromboli the crippled condition of the French is
evident; for after Ruyter had fallen to leeward, and could no longer
help his separated rear, it was practically unmolested by the French,
although none of these had been sunk. While therefore there cannot
with certainty be attributed to Ruyter the deliberate choice of the
lee-gage, for which there was as yet no precedent, it is evident that
he reaped all its benefits, and that the character of the French
officers of his day, inexperienced as seamen and of impetuous valor,
offered just the conditions that gave most advantage to an inferior
force standing on the defensive. The qualities and characteristics of
the enemy are among the principal factors which a man of genius
considers, and it was to this as much as to any other one trait that
Nelson owed his dazzling successes. On the other hand, the French
admiral attacked in a wholly unscientific manner, ship against ship,
without an attempt to concentrate on a part of the enemy, or even
trying to keep him in play until the French squadron of eight
ships-of-the-line in Messina, near by, could join. Such tactics cannot
be named beside that of Solebay or the Texel; but as Duquesne was the
best French officer of the century, with the possible exception of
Tourville, this battle has a value of its own in the history of
tactics, and may by no means be omitted. The standing of the
commander-in-chief is the warrant that it marks the highest point to
which French naval tactics has as yet attained. Before quitting this
discussion, it may be noted that the remedy Clerk proposed was to
attack the rear ships of the enemy's line, and preferably to leeward;
the remainder of the fleet must then either abandon them or stand down
for a general action, which according to his postulate was all that
the English seamen desired.
After the fight De Ruyter sailed to Palermo, one of his ships sinking
on the way. Duquesne was joined outside Messina by the French division
that had been lying there. The remaining incidents of the Sicilian war
are unimportant to the general subject. On the 22d of April, De Ruyter
and Duquesne met again off Agosta. Duquesne had twenty-nine ships, the
allied Spaniards and Dutch twenty-seven, of which ten were Spanish.
Unfortunately the Spaniard commanded in chief, and took the centre of
the line with the ships of his country, contrary to the advice of
Ruyter, who, knowing how inefficient his allies were, wished to
scatter them through the line and so support them better. Ruyter
himself took the van, and the allies, having the wind, attacked; but
the Spanish centre kept at long cannon range, leaving the brunt of the
battle to fall on the Dutch van. The rear, following the
commander-in-chief's motions, was also but slightly engaged. In this
sorrowful yet still glorious fulfilment of hopeless duty, De Ruyter,
who never before in his long career had been struck by an enemy's
shot, received a mortal wound. He died a week later at Syracuse, and
with him passed away the last hope of resistance on the sea. A month
later the Spanish and Dutch fleets were attacked at anchor at Palermo,
and many of them destroyed; while a division sent from Holland to
reinforce the Mediterranean fleet was met by a French squadron in the
Straits of Gibraltar and forced to take refuge in Cadiz.
The Sicilian enterprise continued to be only a diversion, and the
slight importance attached to it shows clearly how entirely Louis XIV.
was bent on the continental war. How differently would the value of
Sicily have impressed him, had his eyes been fixed on Egypt and
extension by sea. As the years passed, the temper of the English
people became more and more excited against France; the trade
rivalries with Holland seemed to fall into the shade, and it became
likely that England, which had entered the war as the ally of Louis,
would, before it closed, take up arms against him. In addition to
other causes of jealousy she saw the French navy increased to a number
superior to her own. Charles for a while resisted the pressure of
Parliament, but in January, 1678, a treaty of alliance, offensive and
defensive, was made between the two sea countries; the king recalled
the English troops which until now had been serving as part of the
French army, and when Parliament opened again in February, asked for
money to equip ninety ships and thirty thousand soldiers. Louis, who
was expecting this result, at once ordered the evacuation of Sicily.
He did not fear England by land, but on the sea he could not yet hold
his own against the union of the two sea powers. At the same time he
redoubled his attacks on the Spanish Netherlands. As long as there was
a hope of keeping the ships of England out of the fight, he had
avoided touching the susceptibilities of the English people on the
subject of the Belgian sea-coast; but now that they could no longer be
conciliated, he thought best to terrify Holland by the sharpness of
his attack in the quarter where she dreaded him most.
The United Provinces were in truth the mainspring of the coalition.
Though among the smallest in extent of the countries arrayed against
Louis, they were strongest in the character and purpose of their
ruler, the Prince of Orange, and in the wealth which, while supporting
the armies of the confederates, also kept the poor and greedy German
princes faithful to their alliance. Almost alone, by dint of mighty
sea power, by commercial and maritime ability, they bore the burden of
the war; and though they staggered and complained, they still bore it.
As in later centuries England, so at the time we are now speaking of
Holland, the great sea power, supported the war against the ambition
of France; but her sufferings were great. Her commerce, preyed upon by
French privateers, lost heavily; and there was added an immense
indirect loss in the transfer of the carrying-trade between foreign
countries, which had contributed so much to the prosperity of the
Dutch. When the flag of England became neutral, this rich business
went to her ships, which crossed the seas the more securely because of
the eager desire of Louis to conciliate the English nation. This
desire led him also to make very large concessions to English
exigencies in the matter of commercial treaties, undoing much of the
work of protection upon which Colbert sought to nourish the yet feeble
growth of French sea power. These sops, however, only stayed for a
moment the passions which were driving England; it was not
self-interest, but stronger motives, which impelled her to a break
with France.
Still less was it to the interest of Holland to prolong the war, after
Louis showed a wish for peace. A continental war could at best be but
a necessary evil, and source of weakness to her. The money she spent
on her own and the allied armies was lost to her navy, and the sources
of her prosperity on the sea were being exhausted. How far the Prince
of Orange was justified, by the aims of Louis XIV., in that unyielding
attitude of opposition toward him which he always maintained, may be
uncertain, and there is here no need to decide the question; but there
can be no doubt that the strife sacrificed the sea power of Holland
through sheer exhaustion, and with it destroyed her position among
the nations of the world. "Situated between France and England," says
a historian of Holland, "by one or other of them were the United
Provinces, after they had achieved their independence of Spain,
constantly engaged in wars, which exhausted their finances,
annihilated their navy, and caused the rapid decline of their trade,
manufactures, and commerce; and thus a peace-loving nation found
herself crushed by the weight of unprovoked and long-continued
hostilities. Often, too, the friendship of England was scarcely less
harmful to Holland than her enmity. As one increased and the other
lessened, it became the alliance of the giant and the dwarf."[62]
Hitherto we have seen Holland the open enemy or hearty rival of
England; henceforward she appears as an ally,--in both cases a
sufferer from her smaller size, weaker numbers, and less favored
situation.
The exhaustion of the United Provinces and the clamor of their
merchants and peace party on the one hand, aided on the other by the
sufferings of France, the embarrassment of her finances, and the
threatened addition of England's navy to her already numerous enemies,
inclined to peace the two principal parties to this long war. Louis
had long been willing to make peace with Holland alone; but the States
had been withheld, at first by fidelity to those who had joined them
in their hour of trouble, and latterly by the firm purpose of William
of Orange. Difficulties were gradually smoothed away, and the Peace of
Nimeguen between the United Provinces and France was signed August 11,
1678. The other powers shortly afterward acceded to it. The principal
sufferer, as was natural, was the overgrown but feeble monarchy whose
centre was Spain, which gave up to France Franche Comté and a number
of fortified towns in the Spanish Netherlands, thus extending the
boundaries of France to the east and northeast. Holland, for whose
destruction Louis began the war, lost not a foot of ground in Europe;
and beyond the seas only her colonies on the west coast of Africa and
in Guiana. She owed her safety at first, and the final successful
issue, to her sea power. That delivered her in the hour of extreme
danger, and enabled her afterward to keep alive the general war. It
may be said to have been one of the chief factors, and inferior to no
other one singly, in determining the event of the great war which was
formally closed at Nimeguen.
The effort none the less sapped her strength, and being followed by
many years of similar strain broke her down. But what was the effect
upon the vastly greater state, the extreme ambition of whose king was
the principal cause of the exhausting wars of this time? Among the
many activities which illustrated the brilliant opening of the reign
of the then youthful king of France, none was so important, none so
intelligently directed, as those of Colbert, who aimed first at
restoring the finances from the confusion into which they had fallen,
and then at establishing them upon a firm foundation of national
wealth. This wealth, at that time utterly beneath the possibilities of
France, was to be developed on the lines of production encouraged,
trade stimulated to healthful activity, a large merchant shipping, a
great navy, and colonial extension. Some of these are sources, others
the actual constituents, of sea power; which indeed may be said in a
seaboard nation to be the invariable accompaniment, if it be not the
chief source, of its strength. For nearly twelve years all went well;
the development of the greatness of France in all these directions
went forward rapidly, if not in all with equal strides, and the king's
revenues increased by bounds. Then came the hour in which he had to
decide whether the exertions which his ambition naturally, perhaps
properly, prompted should take the direction which, while imposing
great efforts, did nothing to sustain but rather hindered the natural
activities of his people, and broke down commerce by making control of
the sea uncertain; or whether he should launch out in pursuits which,
while involving expense, would keep peace on his borders, lead to the
control of the sea, and by the impulse given to trade, and all upon
which trade depends, would bring in money nearly if not quite equal
to that which the State spent. This is not a fanciful picture; by his
attitude toward Holland, and its consequences, Louis gave the first
impulse to England upon the path which realized to her, within his own
day, the results which Colbert and Leibnitz had hoped for France. He
drove the Dutch carrying-trade into the ships of England; allowed her
to settle peacefully Pennsylvania and Carolina, and to seize New York
and New Jersey; and he sacrificed, to gain her neutrality, the growing
commerce of France. Not all at once, but very rapidly, England pressed
into the front place as a sea power; and however great her sufferings
and the sufferings of individual Englishmen, it remained true of her
that even in war her prosperity was great. Doubtless France could not
forget her continental position, nor wholly keep free from continental
wars; but it may be believed that if she had chosen the path of sea
power, she might both have escaped many conflicts and borne those that
were unavoidable with greater ease. At the Peace of Nimeguen the
injuries were not irreparable, but "the agricultural classes,
commerce, manufactures, and the colonies had alike been smitten by the
war; and the conditions of peace, so advantageous to the territorial
and military power of France, were much less so to manufactures, the
protective tariffs having been lowered in favor of England and
Holland,"[63] the two sea powers. The merchant shipping was stricken,
and the splendid growth of the royal navy, that excited the jealousy
of England, was like a tree without roots; it soon withered away under
the blast of war.
Before finally quitting this war with Holland, a short notice of the
Comte d'Estrées, to whom Louis committed the charge of the French
contingent of the allied fleet, and who commanded it at Solebay and
the Texel, will throw some light upon the qualifications of the French
naval officers of the day before experience had made seamen of many of
them. D'Estrées went to sea for the first time in 1667, being then a
man of mature years; but in 1672 we find him in the chief command of
an important squadron, having under him Duquesne, who was a seaman,
and had been so for nearly forty years. In 1677, D'Estrées obtained
from the king a body of eight ships which he undertook to maintain at
his own expense, upon the condition of receiving half the prizes made.
With this squadron he made an attack upon the then Dutch island of
Tobago, with a recklessness which showed that no lack of courage
prompted his equivocal conduct at the Texel. The next year he went out
again and contrived to run the whole squadron ashore on the Aves
Islands. The account given by the flag-captain of this transaction is
amusing as well as instructive. In his report he says:--
"The day that the squadron was lost, the sun having been taken
by the pilots, the vice-admiral as usual had them put down the
position in his cabin. As I was entering to learn what was going
on, I met the third pilot, Bourdaloue, who was going out crying.
I asked him what the matter was, and he answered: 'Because I
find more drift than the other pilots, the admiral is
threatening me and abusing me, as usual; yet I am only a poor
lad who does the best he can.' When I had entered the cabin, the
admiral, who was very angry, said to me, 'That scoundrel of a
Bourdaloue is always coming to me with some nonsense or other; I
will drive him out of the ship. He makes us to be running a
course, the devil knows where, I don't.' As I did not know which
was right," says the captain of the ship, rather naïvely, "I did
not dare to say anything for fear of bringing down a like storm
on my own head."[64]
Some hours after this scene, which, as the French officer from whom
the extract is taken says, "appears now almost grotesque, but which is
only an exact portrayal of the sea manners of the day, the whole
squadron was lost on a group of rocks known as the Aves Islands. Such
were the officers." The flag-captain, in another part of his report,
says: "The shipwreck resulted from the general line of conduct held by
Vice-Admiral d'Estrées. It was always the opinion of his servants, or
others than the proper officers of the ship, which prevailed. This
manner of acting may be understood in the Comte d'Estrées, who,
without the necessary knowledge of a profession he had embraced so
late, always had with him obscure counsellors, in order to appropriate
the opinions they gave him so as to blind the ship's company as to his
capacity."[65] D'Estrées had been made vice-admiral two years after he
first went aboard ship.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Martin: History of France.
[46] Martin: History of France.
[47] Ledyard, vol ii. p. 599; Campbell: Lives of the Admirals. See
also letter of Sir Richard Haddock, Naval Chronicle, vol. xvii. p.
121.
[48] Hoste: Naval Tactics.
[49] See Map, p. 107.
[50] Martin: History of France.
[51] Brandt: Life of De Ruyter.
[52] Campbell: Lives of the Admirals.
[53] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France, year 1673.
[54] Ibid.
[55] Troude: Batailles Navales de la France, year 1673.
[56] Chabaud-Arnault: Revue Mar. et Col. July, 1885.
[57] Jurien de la Gravière: Guerres Maritimes.
[58] Mémoires.
[59] See Map of Mediterranean, p. 15.
[60] Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine Française.
[61] This movement, according to Clerk, was not made by the whole of a
French line together, but in a way much more scientific and military.
A group of two or three ships withdrew at a time, being covered by the
smoke and the continued fire of the rest of their line. In time a
second line was partly formed, which in its turn protected the ships
which had remained on the first, as they executed the somewhat exposed
movement of falling back. In Plan V., Dutch ships at b, b, b, are
represented as thus withdrawing. English official reports of the
eighteenth century often speak of French ships acting thus; the
English officers attributing to their superior valor a movement which
Clerk more plausibly considers a skilful military manoeuvre, well
calculated to give the defence several opportunities of disabling the
assailants as they bore down on a course which impeded the use of
their artillery. In 1812 the frigate "United States," commanded by
Decatur, employed the same tactics in her fight with the "Macedonian;"
and the Confederate gunboats at Mobile by the same means inflicted on
Farragut's flag-ship the greater part of the heavy loss which she
sustained. In its essential features the same line of action can now
be followed by a defendant, having greater speed, when the ardor of
the attack, or the necessities of the case, force the assailant to a
direct approach. An indirect cause of a lee line falling farther to
leeward has never been noticed. When a ship in that line (as at c)
found itself without an opponent abeam, and its next ahead perhaps
heavily engaged, the natural impulse would be to put up the helm so as
to bring the broadside to bear. This advantage would be gained by a
loss of ground to leeward and consequent disorder in the line; which,
if the act were repeated by several ships, could only be restored by
the whole line keeping away.
[62] Davies: History of Holland.
[63] Martin: History of France.
[64] Gougeard: Marine de Guerre.
[65] Troude: Batailles Navales.