DISPUTED COMMAND--THE FLEET IN BEING
We have seen that blockade is only a means to an end, that end being the
destruction or surrender of the armed forces of the enemy. We have seen
also that that end cannot be obtained by blockade alone. All that a
military blockade can do is by a judicious disposition of superior
force, either to prevent the enemy coming out at all, or to secure that
if he does come out he shall be brought to action. The former method is
only applicable where the blockader's superiority of force is so great
that his adversary cannot venture at the outset to encounter his main
fleets in the open, and in that case the establishment of a blockade of
this character is for many purposes practically tantamount to securing
the command of the sea to the blockader so long as the blockade can be
maintained. Such a situation, however, can very rarely arise. There are
very few instances of it in naval history, and there are likely to be
fewer in the future than there have been in the past. The closest
blockade ever established and maintained was that of Brest by Cornwallis
from 1803 to 1805, when Napoleon was projecting the invasion of
England. Yet it would be too much to say that during those strenuous
years Ganteaume never could have got out, had he been so minded, and it
is not to be forgotten that for some time during the crisis of the
campaign he was forbidden by Napoleon to make the attempt. Moreover,
such a situation, even when it does arise, amounts at best to a
stalemate, not to a checkmate. It leaves the enemy's fleet "a fleet in
being," immobilized and wiped off the board for the moment, but
nevertheless so operating as to immobilize the blockading fleet in so
far as the chief effort of the latter must be concentrated on
maintaining the blockade.
It is necessary to dwell at some length on this conception of "a fleet
in being." Admiral Mahan, the great historian of sea power--whose high
authority all students of naval warfare will readily acknowledge and
rarely attempt to dispute--speaks of it in his _Life of Nelson_ as a
doctrine or opinion which "has received extreme expression ... and
apparently undergone extreme misconception." On the other hand, Admiral
Sir Cyprian Bridge tells us in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (_s.v._
"Sea-Power") that "the principle of the 'fleet in being' lies at the
bottom of all sound strategy." Of a principle which, according to one
high authority, lies at the bottom of all sound strategy, and according
to another has received extreme expression and undergone misconception
equally extreme, it is plainly essential that a true conception should
be obtained before it can be applied to the elucidation of any of the
problems of naval warfare. Now what is this much-debated principle? It
is best to go to the fountain-head for its elucidation. The phrase "a
fleet in being" was first used by Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, in
his defence before the Court Martial which tried and acquitted him for
his conduct of the naval campaign of 1690, and especially of the Battle
of Beachy Head, which was the leading event--none too glorious for
British arms--of that campaign. "Both as a strategist and as a
tactician," says Admiral Bridge, "Torrington was immeasurably ahead of
his contemporaries. The only English admirals who can be placed above
him are Hawke and Nelson." Yet he was regarded by many of his
contemporaries, and has been represented by many historians, merely as
the incapable seaman who failed to win the Battle of Beachy Head, and
thereby jeopardized the safety of the kingdom at a very critical time.
The situation was as follows. The country was divided between the
partisans of James II. and the supporters of William III. James was in
Ireland, where his strength was greatest, and William had gone thither
to encounter him, his transit having been covered by a small squadron of
six men-of-war, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. The army
was with William in Ireland, and Great Britain could only be defended on
land by a hastily levied militia. Its sole effective defence was the
fleet; and the fleet, although reinforced by a Dutch contingent, was,
for the moment, insufficient to defend it. The chief reliance of James
was upon the friendship and forces, naval and military, of Louis XIV.
Here was a case in which the security of England against insurrection at
home and invasion from abroad depended on the sufficiency and capacity
of her fleets to maintain the command of the sea--that is, either to
defeat the enemy's naval forces or to keep them at bay, and thereby to
deny freedom of transit to any military forces that Louis might attempt
to launch against British territory. The French king resolved to make a
determined attempt to wrest the command of the sea from his adversaries,
and by overpowering the allied fleets of England and Holland in the
Channel, to open the way for a successful invasion and a successful
insurrection to follow. A great fleet was collected at Brest, under the
supreme command of Tourville, and a squadron from Toulon under
Chateau-Renault was ordered to join him in the Channel, so as to enable
him to threaten London, to foment a Jacobite insurrection in the
capital, to land troops in Torbay, and to occupy the Irish Channel in
such force as to prevent the return of William and his army.
Now, of course, none of these objects could be attained unless the
allied fleets in the Channel and adjacent waters could be either
decisively defeated in the open or else so intimidated by the superior
forces of the enemy as to decline a conflict and retire to some place of
safety. On the broad principle that the paramount object of all warfare
is the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy, Tourville, if he
felt himself strong enough, was bound to seek out the allied fleet and
challenge it to a decisive combat. On the same principle, Torrington, if
he felt himself strong enough, was bound to pursue the same aggressive
strategy, and by thoroughly beating the French to frustrate all their
objects at once. But Torrington was not strong enough and knew that he
was not strong enough. He had foreseen the crisis and warned his
superiors betimes, entreating them to take adequate measures for dealing
with it. They took no such measures. On the contrary, the dispositions
they made were calculated rather to aggravate the danger than to avert
it. Early in the year a fleet of sixteen sail of the line under
Killigrew had been sent in charge of a convoy to Cadiz with orders to
prevent, if possible, the exit of the Toulon fleet from the
Mediterranean and to follow it up should it make good its escape. This
strategy was unimpeachable if only Killigrew could make sure of
intercepting Chateau-Renault and defeating him, and if the naval forces
left in home waters when Killigrew was detached were sufficient to give
a good account of the fleet that Tourville was collecting at Brest. But
in its results it was disastrous, for Killigrew, delayed by weather and
by the many preoccupations, commercial and strategic, entailed by his
instructions was unable either to bar the passage of the Toulon fleet or
to overtake it during its progress towards the Channel. Hence
Chateau-Renault was able to effect his junction with Tourville
unmolested, while Killigrew did not reach Plymouth until after the
battle of Beachy Head had been fought, when, Tourville being victorious
in the Channel, he was obliged to carry his squadron into the Hamoaze so
as to be out of harm's way. Shovel, having escorted the king and his
troops to Ireland, was equally unable to carry out his orders to join
Torrington in the Channel, since Tourville stood in the way. Hence,
although fully alive to the strategic value, in certain contingencies,
of the forces under Killigrew and Shovel, Torrington was compelled to
rely mainly on the force under his immediate command, the insufficiency
of which he had many months before pointed out and vainly implored his
superiors to redress.
The result of all this was that no adequate steps were, or could be,
taken, to prevent the advance of Tourville in greatly superior force
into the Channel. Torrington hoisted his flag in the Downs at the end of
May, and even then the Dutch contingent had not joined in the numbers
promised. Hence it was impossible to keep scouts out to the westward as
the Dutch had undertaken to do, and the first definite intelligence that
Torrington received of the advance of the French was the information
that on June 23 they were anchored in great force to the westward of the
Isle of Wight. Three days later, having in the meanwhile received a
Dutch reinforcement bringing his force up to fifty-five sail of the line
and twenty fire-ships, he offered them battle in that position, but it
was declined. His own comment on this hazardous adventure may here be
quoted: "I do acknowledge my first intention of attacking them, a
rashness that will admit of no better excuse than that, though I did
believe them stronger than we are, I did not believe it to so great a
degree.... Their great strength and caution have put soberer thoughts
into my head, and have made me very heartily give God thanks they
declined the battle yesterday; and indeed I shall not think myself very
unhappy if I can get rid of them without fighting, unless it may be upon
equaller terms than I can at present see any prospect of.... A council
of war I called this morning unanimously agreed we are by all manner of
means to shun fighting with them, especially if they have the wind of
us; and retire, if we cannot avoid it otherwise, even to the Gunfleet,
the only place we can with any manner of probability make our account
good with them in the condition we are in. We have now had a pretty good
view of their fleet, which consists of near, if not quite, eighty
men-of-war fit to lie in a line and thirty fire-ships; a strength that
puts me beside hopes of success, if we should fight, and really may not
only endanger the losing of the fleet, but at least the quiet of our
country too; for if we are beaten they, being absolute masters of the
sea, will be at great liberty of doing many things they dare not attempt
while we observe them and are in a possibility of joining Vice-Admiral
Killigrew and our ships to the westward. If I find a possibility, I will
get by them to the westward to join those ships; if not, I mean to
follow the result of the council of war."
The strategy here indicated is plain, and, in my judgment, sound. It may
be profitably compared with that of Nelson as explained to his captains
during his return from the West Indies whither he had pursued
Villeneuve. Villeneuve was on his way back to European waters and Nelson
hoped to overtake him. He had eleven ships of the line in his fleet and
Villeneuve was known to have not less than eighteen. Yet, though Nelson
did not shrink from an engagement on his own terms, he was resolved not
to force one inopportunely. "Do not," he said to his captains, "imagine
I am one of those hot-brained people who fight at immense disadvantage
without an adequate object. My object is partly gained"--that is,
Villeneuve had been driven out of the West Indies. "If we meet them we
shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty, sail of
the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I do not fall on them
immediately; we won't part without a battle. I think they will be glad
to leave me alone, if I will let them alone; which I will do, either
till we approach the shores of Europe, or they give an advantage too
tempting to be resisted." Torrington's attitude was the same as
Nelson's, except perhaps that he lacked the ardent faith to say with
Nelson, "We won't part without a battle." He would not think himself
very unhappy if he could get rid of Tourville without a battle. But the
situations of the two men were different. Nelson knew, as he said
himself, that "by the time that the enemy has beat our fleet soundly,
they will do us no harm this year." If, that is, by the sacrifice of
eleven ships of his own he could wipe out eighteen or twenty of the
enemy, destroying some and disabling as many as he could of the rest, he
would leave the balance of naval force still strongly in favour of his
country, more strongly in fact than if he fought no action at all.
Torrington, on the other hand, knew that "if we are beaten they, being
absolute masters of the sea, will be at great liberty of doing many
things they dare not attempt while we observe them and are in a
possibility of joining Vice-Admiral Killigrew and our ships to the
westward." Killigrew and Shovel had twenty-two sail of the line between
them, and Torrington, in the dispatch above quoted, had requested that
they should be ordered to advance to Portsmouth, whence, if the French
pursued him to the eastward, they might be able to join him "over the
flats" of the Thames. As he had fifty-five sail of the line himself,
with a possibility of reinforcements from Chatham, the concentration off
the Thames of the whole of the forces available would have enabled him
to encounter Tourville on something like equal terms; and from that,
assuredly, he would not have shrunk. Meanwhile he would wait, watch,
observe, and pursue a defensive strategy. If Tourville should withdraw
to the westward he would follow him and get past him if he could, and in
that case, having picked up Killigrew and Shovel, he would be in a
position to take the offensive on no very unequal terms and not to part
from Tourville without a battle.
But the strategy of Torrington--admirable and unimpeachable as,
according to such high authorities as Admiral Bridge and the late
Admiral Colomb, it was--did not at all commend itself to Mary and her
Council, who, during William's absence in Ireland, were left in charge
of the kingdom. They wanted a battle, although Torrington had plainly
told them that it could not be a victory and might result in a
disastrous and even fatal defeat. "We apprehend," they said in a
dispatch purporting to come from Mary herself, "the consequences of your
retiring to the Gunfleet to be so fatal, that we choose rather you
should, upon any advantage of the wind, give battle to the enemy than
retreat further than is necessary to get an advantage upon the enemy."
Torrington, of course, never intended to retire to the Gunfleet--which
was an anchorage protected by sandbanks off the coast of Essex to the
north of the Thames--if he could avoid doing so. But unless he went
there, there was no advantage to be got upon the enemy by retreating to
the eastward, because there alone could he get reinforcements from
Chatham and possibly be joined by Killigrew and Shovel "over the flats";
which is what he meant by saying that the Gunfleet was "the only place
we can with any manner of probability make our account with them in the
position we are in." On the other hand, if the French gave him an
opportunity he would, if he could, get past them to the westward and
there join Killigrew and Shovel in a position of much greater
advantage. But in his actual situation, not being one of "those
hot-brained people who fight at immense disadvantage without an adequate
object," he knew that a battle was the last thing which he ought to risk
and the first that the French must desire. However, as a loyal seaman,
who knew how to obey orders, he did as he was told. The French had
pressed him as far as Beachy Head and there he gave battle, taking care
so to fight as to risk as little as possible. He was beaten, as he
expected to be, and the Dutch, who had been the most hotly engaged, were
very severely handled by the French. But though his losses were
considerable, for he had to destroy some of his ships to prevent their
falling into the hands of the enemy, he saved his fleet from the
destruction which must have befallen it had he fought otherwise than he
did. As the day advanced and the battle raged, the wind dropped and the
tide began to ebb. Torrington, taking advantage of this, anchored his
fleet, while the French drifted away to the westward. When the tide
again began to flow he again took advantage of it and retreated to the
eastward. The French made some show of pursuit, but Torrington made good
his retreat into the Thames, where, the buoys having been taken up, the
French could not follow him. Finally, the French withdrew from the
Channel, having accomplished nothing beyond an insignificant raid on
Teignmouth. Torrington was tried by Court Martial and acquitted, though
he was never again employed afloat. But the fact remains that, as
Admiral Bridge says, "most seamen were at the time, have been since, and
still are in agreement with Torrington." As to his conduct of the
battle, which has so unjustly involved him in lasting discredit with the
historians, though not with the seamen, he said in his defence before
the Court Martial: "I may be bold to say that I have had time and cause
enough to think of it, and that, upon my word, were the battle to be
fought over again, I do not know how to mend it, under the same
circumstances." Again, as to his general conduct of the campaign, he
said: "It is true that the French made no great advantage of their
victory though they put us to a great charge in keeping up the militia;
but had I fought otherwise, our fleet had been totally lost, and the
whole kingdom had lain open to an invasion. What, then, would have
become of us in the absence of his Majesty and most of the land forces?
As it was, most men were in fear that the French would invade; but I was
always of another opinion; for I always said that, _whilst we had a
fleet in being_, they would not dare to make an attempt."
This is the first appearance of the phrase "a fleet in being" in the
terminology of naval warfare. Its reappearance in our own day and its
frequent employment in naval discussion are due to the masterly analysis
of Torrington's strategy and tactics which the late Admiral Colomb gave
in his illuminating work on _Naval Warfare_. In order to avoid giving it
the extreme expression which, according to Admiral Mahan, it has
received from some writers, and involving it in that extreme
misconception which he thinks it has undergone at the hands of
others--or it may be of the same--I have thought it worth while to
examine at some length the campaign which gave rise to it so as to
ascertain exactly what was in the mind of Torrington when he first used
it. It is plain that Torrington held, as all great seamen have held,
that the primary object of every belligerent is to destroy the armed
forces of the enemy. He was so circumstanced that he could not do that
himself, because the forces which might have been at his disposal for
the purpose, had the circumstances been other than they were, were so
divided and dispersed that the enemy might overcome them in detail. That
the enemy would do this, if he could, he did not doubt, and it was
equally certain that it must be his immediate object to prevent his
doing it. His own force being by far the strongest of the three opposed
to Tourville, it must be upon him that the brunt of the conflict would
fall. Nothing would suit him better than that Tourville should turn
back and attempt to force a battle on either Killigrew or Shovel to the
westward, because in that case he could hang upon Tourville's rear and
flanks and take any opportunity that offered to get past him and
concentrate the British forces to the westward of him. But Tourville
gave him no such opportunity. He pressed him hard and might have pressed
him back even to the Gunfleet if Torrington had not been ordered by Mary
and her advisers to give battle "upon any advantage of the wind." But
even in fighting the battle, which his own judgment told him ought not
to be fought, he never lost sight of the paramount necessity of so
fighting it as to give Tourville no decisive advantage. The victory was
a barren one to Tourville. It gave him no command of the sea and for
that reason he was unable to prosecute any enterprise of invasion. The
command of the sea remained in dispute, and unless the dispute could be
decided in Tourville's favour he would have fought and won the battle of
Beachy Head in vain, as the event showed that he did. Torrington held
that his "fleet in being," even after the reverse at Beachy Head, was a
sufficient bar to the further enterprises of Tourville, nor can
Tourville's subsequent action be explained on any other hypothesis than
that he shared Torrington's opinion and acted on it.
The truth is, that the doctrine of the fleet in being, as understood
and illustrated by Torrington, is in reality the counterpart and
complement of the doctrine of the command of the sea as expounded above.
"I consider," said the late Sir Geoffrey Hornby, a strategist and
tactician of unrivalled authority in his time, "that I have command of
the sea when I am able to tell my Government that they can move an
expedition to any point without fear of interference from an enemy's
fleet." This condition cannot be satisfied so long as the enemy has a
fleet in being, that is a fleet strategically at large, not itself in
command of the sea, but strong enough to deny that command to its
adversary by strategic and tactical dispositions adapted to the
circumstances of the case. Thus command of the sea and a fleet in being
are mutually exclusive terms. So long as a hostile fleet is in being
there is no command of the sea; so soon as the command of the sea is
established there is no hostile fleet in being. Each of these
propositions is the complement of the other.
Nevertheless, the mere statement of these abstract propositions solves
none of the concrete problems of naval warfare. War is not governed by
phrases. It is governed by stern and inexorable realities. The question
whether a particular fleet in any particular circumstances is or is not
a fleet in being is not a question of theory, it is a question of fact.
The answer to it depends on the spirit, purpose, tenacity, and
strategic insight of those who control its movements. No fleet is a
fleet in being unless inspired by what may be called the _animus
pugnandi_, that is, unless, if and when the opportunity offers, it is
prepared to strike a blow at all hazards. For this reason the Russian
fleet in Sebastopol at the time of the invasion of the Crimea was not a
fleet in being, although it had a splendid opportunity, which a Nelson
would assuredly have found too tempting to be resisted, of showing its
mettle when the French warships were employed as transports; and the
allies might have been made to pay heavily for their neglect to blockade
it had it been inspired by an effective _animus pugnandi_. On the other
hand, the four ill-fated Spanish cruisers which crossed the Atlantic to
take part in the Cuban war were a true fleet in being, however inferior
and forlorn, and were so regarded by the United States authorities so
long as they remained strategically at large. Even when two of them and
two destroyers were known to be in Santiago, the Secretary of the United
States Navy telegraphed to Admiral Sampson, "Essential to know if all
four Spanish cruisers in Santiago. Military expedition must wait this
information." The same thing happened in the war between Russia and
Japan. The first act of Japan in that war was by a torpedo attack on the
Russian fleet at Port Arthur, so to depress the _animus pugnandi_ of
the latter as practically to deprive it for a time of the character of
a fleet in being--a character which it only partially recovered
afterwards under the brief influence of the heroic but ill-fated
Makaroff. This being accomplished, the invasion of Manchuria ensued as a
matter of course. The ascendency thus established by the Japanese fleet
at the outset, though assailed more than once, was nevertheless
maintained throughout the subsequent operations until the Russian fleet
at Port Arthur, deprived of the little character it ever possessed as a
true fleet in being, was reduced to the condition of what Admiral Mahan
has aptly called a "fortress fleet," and was surrendered at the fall of
the fortress. Many other illustrations of the principle of the fleet in
being might be given. The history of naval warfare is full of them. But
they need not be multiplied as they all point the same moral. That moral
is, that a fleet in being to be of any use must be inspired by a
determined and persistent _animus pugnandi_. It must not be a mere
"fortress fleet." Torrington can never have imagined for a moment that
the fleet which, in spite of the disastrous orders of Mary and her
council, he had saved from destruction, would by its mere existence
prevent a French invasion. He had kept it in being in order that he
might use it offensively whenever occasion should arise, well knowing
that so long as it maintained that disposition Tourville would be
paralysed for offence. "Whilst we observe the French," he said, "they
cannot make any attempt on ships or shore without running a great
hazard." Such hazards may be run for an adequate object, and to
determine rightly when they may be run and when they may not is perhaps
the most searching test of a naval commander's capacity and insight. It
is a psychological question rather than a strategic one. Such a
commander must know whether his adversary's _animus pugnandi_ is so keen
and so unflinching as to invest his fleet, albeit inferior, with the
true character of a fleet in being, or whether, on the other hand, it is
so feeble as to turn it into a mere fortress fleet. But that is only to
say that in war the man always counts for far more than the machine,
that the best commander is a man "with whom," as Admiral Mahan says of
Nelson, "moral effect is never in excess of the facts of the case, whose
imagination produces to him no paralysing picture of remote
contingencies." _Bene ausus vana contemnere_, as Livy says of
Alexander's conquest of Darius, is the eternal secret of successful
war.