RISE OF ENGLISH SEA POWER [_Continued_]. WARS WITH FRANCE TO THE
FRENCH REVOLUTION
The effect of the expulsion of James II from the throne of England
coupled with the accession of the Dutch prince, William of Orange,
was to make England change sides and take the leadership in the
coalition opposed to Louis XIV. From this time on, for over 125
years, England was involved in a series of wars with France. They
began with the threat of Louis to dominate Europe and ended with
the similar threat on the part of Napoleon. In all this conflict
the sea power of England was a factor of paramount importance. Even
when the fighting was continental rather than naval, the ability
of Great Britain to cut France off from her overseas possessions
resulted in the transfer of enormous tracts of territory to the
British Empire. During the 18th century, the territorial extent
of the expire grew by leaps and bounds, with the single important
loss of the American colonies. And even this brought no positive
advantage to France for it did not weaken her adversary's grip
on the sea.
_The War of the League of Augsburg_
The accession of William III was the signal for England's entry
into the war of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697) against France,
and the effort of the French king to put James II back again upon
the English throne. By this time the French navy had been so greatly
strengthened that at the outset it outnumbered the combined fleets of
the English and the Dutch. It boasted the only notable admiral of this
period, Tourville, but it missed every opportunity to do something
decisive. It failed to keep William from landing in England with an
army; it failed also to keep the English from landing and supplying
an army in Ireland, where they raised the siege of Londonderry and
won the decisive victory of the Boyne. On the other hand the British
navy was handled with equal irresolution and blindness in strategy.
It accomplished what it did in keeping communications open with
Ireland through the mistakes of the French, and its leaders seemed
to be equally unaware of the importance of winning definitely the
control of the sea.
[Illustration: THREE-DECKED SHIP OF THE LINE, 18TH CENTURY]
If the naval strategy on both sides was feeble the tactics were
equally so. The contrast between the fighting of Blake, Monk, Tromp
and de Ruyter and that of the admirals of this period is striking.
For example, on May 1, 1689, the English admiral Herbert and the
French admiral Châteaurenault fought an indecisive action in Bantry
Bay, Ireland. After considerable powder had been shot away without
the loss of a ship on either side, the French went back to protect
their transports in the bay; Herbert also withdrew, and was made
Earl of Torrington for his "victory." This same officer commanding
a Dutch and English fleet encountered the French under Tourville
off Beachy Head on the south coast of England (July 10, 1690).
It is true that Tourville's force was stronger, but Torrington
acted with no enterprise and was thoroughly beaten. At the same
time the French admiral showed lack of push in following up his
victory, which might have been crushing. By this time the line
ahead order of fighting had become a fetich on both sides. The
most noted naval battle of this war is that of La Hogue (May 29,
1692), which has been celebrated as a great British victory. In
this action an allied fleet of 99 were opposed to a French fleet
of 44 under Tourville. Tourville offered battle under such odds
only because he had imperative orders from his king to fight the
enemy. During the action the French did not lose a single ship, but
in the four days' retreat the vessels became separated in trying
to find shelter and fifteen were destroyed or taken. This was a
severe blow to the the French navy but by no means decisive. The
subsequent inactivity of the fleet was due to the demands of the
war on land.
As the war became more and more a continental affair, Louis was
compelled to utilize all his resources for his military campaigns.
For this reason the splendid fleet with which he had begun the
war gradually disappeared from the sea. Some of these men of war
were lent to great privateersmen like Jean Bart and Du Guay Trouin,
who took out powerful squadrons of from five to ten ships of the
line, strong enough to overcome the naval escorts of a British
convoy, and ravaged English commerce. In this matter of protecting
shipping the naval strategy was as vacillating and blind as in
everything else. Nevertheless no mere commerce destroying will
serve to win the control of the sea, and despite the losses in
trade and the low ebb to which English naval efficiency had sunk,
the British flag still dominated the ocean routes while the greater
part of the French fleet rotted in port.
In this war of the League of Augsburg, Louis XIV was fighting
practically all Europe, and the strain was too great for a nation
already weakened by a long series of wars. By the terms of peace
which he found himself obliged to accept, he lost nearly everything
that he had gained by conquest during his long reign.
_Wars of the Spanish and the Austrian Succession_
After a brief interval of peace war blazed out again over the question
whether a French Bourbon should be king of Spain,--the War of the
Spanish Succession, 1702-1713. England's aim in this war was to
acquire some of the Spanish colonies in America and to prevent
any loss of trading privileges hitherto enjoyed by the English
and the Dutch. But as it turned out nothing of importance was
accomplished in the western hemisphere except by the terms of peace.
The French and Spanish attempted no major operations by sea. But
the English navy captured Minorca, with its important harbor of
Port Mahon, and Rooke, with more initiative than he had ever shown
before in his career, took Gibraltar (August 4, 1704). These two
prizes made Great Britain for the first time a Mediterranean power,
and the fact that she held the gateway to the inland sea was of
great importance in subsequent naval history.
In addition to these captures the terms of peace (the Treaty of
Utrecht) yielded to England from the French Newfoundland, the Hudson
Bay territory, and Nova Scotia. All that the French had left on the
eastern coast of Canada was Cape Breton Island, with Louisburg,
which was the key to the St. Lawrence. As for commercial privileges,
England had gained from the Portuguese, who had been allies in
the war, a practical monopoly of their carrying trade; and from
France she had taken the entire monopoly of the slave trade to
the Spanish American colonies which had been formerly granted by
Spain to France. Holland got nothing out of the war as affecting
her interests at sea,--not even a trading post. Her alliance with
Great Britain had become as some one has called it, that of "the
giant and the dwarf." At the conclusion of the War of the Spanish
Succession, to quote the words of Mahan, "England was _the_ sea
power; there was no second."
In this war as in the preceding, French privateersmen made great
inroads on British commerce, and some of these privateering operations
were conducted on a grand scale. For example, Du Guay Trouin took
a squadron of six ships of the line and two frigates, together
with 2000 troops, across the Atlantic and attacked Rio Janeiro.
He had little difficulty in forcing its submission and extorting
a ransom of $400,000. The activities of the privateers led to a
clause in the treaty of peace requiring the French to destroy the
fortifications of the port of Dunkirk, which was notorious as the
nest of these corsairs.
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748, was another of the
dynastic quarrels of this age, with France and Spain arrayed against
England. It has no naval interest for our purposes here. The peace
of 1748, however, leaving things exactly as they were when the war
began, settled none of the existing grudge between Great Britain
and France. Eight years later, hostilities began again in the Seven
Years' War, 1756-1763, in which Great Britain entered on the side
of Prussia against a great coalition of Continental powers headed
by France.
_The Seven Years' War_
The naval interest of this war is centered in the year 1759, when
France, having lost Louisburg on account of England's control of
the sea, decided to concentrate naval and military forces on an
invasion of England. Before the plans for this projected thrust
were completed, Quebec also had fallen to the British. The attempted
invasion of 1759 is not so well known as that of Napoleon in 1805,
but it furnished the pattern that Napoleon copied and had a better
chance of success than his. In brief, a small squadron under the
famous privateer Thurot was to threaten the Scotch and Irish coasts,
acting as a diversion to draw off the British fleet. Meanwhile
the squadron at Toulon was to dodge the British off that port,
pass the Straits and join Conflans, who had the main French fleet
at Brest. The united forces were then to cover the crossing of
the troops in transports and flatboats to the English coast.
This plan was smashed by Admiral Hawke in one of the most daring
feats in British naval annals. Thurot got away but did not divert
any of the main force guarding the Channel. The Toulon fleet also
eluded the English for a time but went to pieces outside the Straits
largely on account of mismanagement on the part of its commander.
The remnants were either captured or driven to shelter in neutral
ports by the English squadron under Boscawen. On November 9, a
heavy gale and the necessities of the fleet compelled Hawke to lift
his blockade of Brest and take shelter in Torbay, after leaving
four frigates to watch the port. On the 14th, Conflans, discovering
that his enemy was gone, came out, with the absurd idea of covering
the transportation of the French army before Hawke should appear
again. That very day Hawke returned to renew the blockade, and
learning that Conflans had been seen heading southeast, decided
rightly that the French admiral was bound for Quiberon Bay to make
an easy capture of a small British squadron there under Duff before
beginning the transportation of the invading army.
For five days pursuer and pursued drifted in calms. On the 19th
a stiff westerly gale enabled Hawke to overtake Conflans, who was
obliged to shorten sail for fear of arriving at his destination in
the darkness. The morning of the 20th found the fleets in sight
of each other but scattered. All the forenoon the rival admirals
made efforts to gather their units for battle. A frigate leading
the British pursuit fired signal guns to warn Duff of the enemy's
presence, and the latter, cutting his cables, was barely able to
get out in time to escape the French fleet and join Hawke. Conflans
then decided that the English were too strong for him, and abandoning
his idea of offering battle, signaled a general retreat and led
the way into Quiberon Bay.
Hawke instantly ordered pursuit. The importance of this signal
can be realized only by taking into account the tremendous gale
blowing and the exceedingly dangerous character of the approach to
Quiberon Bay, lined as it was with sunken rocks. Hawke had little
knowledge of the channels but he reasoned that where a French ship
could go an English one could follow, and the perils of the entry
could not outweigh in his mind the importance of crushing the navy
of France then and there. The small British superiority of numbers
which Conflans feared was greatly aggravated by the conditions
of his flight. The slower ships in his rear were crushed by the
British in superior force and the English coming alongside the
French on their lee side were able to use their heaviest batteries
while the French, heeled over by the gale, had to keep their lowest
tier of ports closed for fear of being sunk. One of their ships tried
the experiment of opening this broadside and promptly foundered.
Darkness fell on a scene of wild confusion. Two of the British
vessels were lost on a reef, but daylight revealed the fact that
the French had scattered in all directions. Only five of their
ships had been destroyed and one taken, but the organization and
the morale were completely shattered. The idea of invasion thus
came to a sudden end in Quiberon Bay. The daring and initiative
of Hawke in defying weather and rocks in his pursuit of Conflans
is the admirable and significant fact of this story, for the actual
fighting amounted to little. It is the sort of thing that marked
the spirit of the Dutch Wars and of Blake at Santa Cruz, and is
strikingly different from the tame and stupid work of other admirals,
English or French, in his own day.
The Seven Years' War ended in terms of the deepest humiliation
for France--a "Carthaginian peace." She was compelled to renounce
to England all of Canada with the islands of the St. Lawrence, the
Ohio valley and the entire area east of the Mississippi except
New Orleans. Spain, which had entered the war on the side of France
in 1761, gave up Florida in exchange for Havana, captured by the
English, and in the West Indies several of the Lesser Antilles
came under the British flag. It is hardly necessary to point out
that the loss of these overseas possessions on such a tremendous
scale was due to the ability of the British navy to cut the
communications between them and the mother country.
Naval administration in England at this time was corrupt, and the
admirals, with the notable exception of Hawke, were lacking in
enterprise; they were still slaves to the "Fighting Instructions."
But in all these respects the French were far worse, and the British
government never lost sight of the immense importance of sea power.
Its strategy was sound.
_The War of American Independence_
The peace of 1763 was so humiliating that every patriotic Frenchman
longed for the opportunity of revenge. This offered itself in the
revolt of the American colonies against the North Ministry in 1775.
From the outset French neutrality as regards the American rebels
was most benevolent; nothing could be more pleasing to France than
to see her old enemy involved in difficulties with the richest and
most populous of her colonies. For the first two or three years
France gave aid surreptitiously, but after the capture of Burgoyne
in 1777, she decided to enter the war openly and draw in allies
as well. She succeeded in enlisting Spain in 1779 and Holland the
year following. The entrance of the latter was of small military
value, perhaps, but at all events France so manipulated the rebellion
in the colonies as to bring on another great European war. In this
conflict for the first time she had no enemies to fight on the
Continent; hence she was free to throw her full force upon the
sea, attacking British possessions in every quarter of the world.
The War of the American Revolution became therefore a maritime war,
the first since the conflicts with the Dutch in the 17th century.
While Paul Jones was in Paris waiting for his promised command,
he forwarded to the Minister of Marine a plan for a rapid descent
in force on the American coast. If his plan had been followed and
properly executed the war might have been ended in America at one
blow. But this project died in the procrastination and red tape of
the Ministry of Marine, and a subsequent proposal for an attack
on Liverpool dwindled into the mere commerce-destroying cruise
which is memorable only for Jones's unparalleled fight with the
_Serapis_. Eventually the navy of France was thrown into the balance
to offset that of Great Britain, and it is largely to this fact
that the United States owes its independence; men and munitions
came freely from overseas and on one momentous occasion, the Battle
of the Virginia Capes, the French navy performed its part decisively
in action. But on a score of other occasions it failed pitiably on
account of the lack of a comprehensive strategic plan and the want
of energy and experience on the part of the commanding officers.
It is true that the French navy had made progress since the Seven
Years' War. In 1778, it possessed 80 good line of battle ships.
To this force, a year later, Spain was able to contribute nearly
sixty. But England began the war with 150. Thus even if the French
and Spanish personnel had been as well trained and as energetic
as the British they would have had a superior force to contend
with, particularly as the allied fleet was divided between the
ports of Spain and France, and under dual command. But in efficiency
the French and Spanish navies were vastly inferior to the British.
Spanish efficiency may be dismissed at the outset as worthless. For
the French officer the chief requisite was nobility of birth. The
aristocracy of England furnished the officers for its service also,
but in the French navy, considerations of social grade outweighed
those of naval rank, a condition that never obtained in the British.
In consequence, discipline--the principle of subordination animated
by the spirit of team work--was conspicuously wanting in the French
fleets. Individual captains were more concerned about their own
prerogatives than about the success of the whole. This condition
is illustrated by the conduct of the captains under Suffren in
the Bay of Bengal, where the genius of the commander was always
frustrated by the wilfulness of his subordinates. Finally in the
matter of tactics the French were brought up on a fatally wrong
theory, that of acting on the defensive, of avoiding decisive action,
of saving a fleet rather than risking it for the sake of victory.
Hence, though they were skilled in maneuvering, and ahead of the
British in signaling, though their ships were as fine as any in
the world, this fatal error of principle prevented their taking
advantage of great opportunities and sent them to certain defeat
in the end.
Thus it is clear that the sea power of France and Spain was not
formidable if the English had taken the proper course of strategy.
This should have been to bottle up French and Spanish fleets in
their own ports from Brest to Cadiz. Such a policy would have left
enough ships to attend to the necessities of the army in America
and the pursuit of French and American privateers, and accomplished
the primary duty of preventing the arrival of French squadrons and
French troops on the scene of war. Here the British government
made its fatal mistake. Instead of concentrating on the coast of
France and Spain, it tried to defend every outlying post where
the flag might be threatened. Thus the superior English fleet was
scattered all over the world, from Calcutta to Jamaica, while the
French fleets came and went at will, sending troops and supplies
to America and challenging the British control of the sea. Had the
French navy been more efficient and energetic in its leadership
France might have made her ancient enemy pay far more dearly for
her strategic blunder. As it was, England lost her colonies in
America.
Instead of the swift stroke on the American coast which Paul Jones
had contemplated, a French fleet under d'Estaing arrived in the
Delaware about five months after France had entered the war and
after inexcusable delays on the way. In spite of the loss of precious
time he had an opportunity to beat an inferior force under Howe
at New York and seize that important British base, but his
characteristic timidity kept him from doing anything there. From
the American coast he went to the West Indies, where he bungled
every opportunity of doing his duty. He allowed St. Lucia to fall
into British hands and failed to capture Grenada. Turning north
again, he made a futile attempt to retake Savannah, which had fallen
to the English. Then at the end of 1779, at about the darkest hour
of the American cause, he returned to France, leaving the colonists
in the lurch. D'Estaing was by training an infantry officer, and
his appointment to such an important naval command is eloquent of
the effect of court influence in demoralizing the navy. "S'il avait
été aussi marin que brave," was the generous remark of Suffren on
this man. It is true that on shore, where he was at home, d'Estaing
was personally fearless, but as commander of a fleet, where he was
conscious of inexperience, he showed timidity that should have
brought him to court martial.
In March, 1780, the French fleet in the West Indies was put under
the command of de Guichen, a far abler man than d'Estaing, but
similarly indoctrinated with the policy of staying on the defensive.
His rival on the station was Rodney, a British officer of the old
school, weakened by years and illness, but destined to make a name
for himself by his great victory two years later. In many respects
Rodney was a conservative, and in respect to an appetite for prize
money he belonged to the 16th century, but his example went a long
way to cure the British navy of the paralysis of the Fighting
Instructions and bring back the close, decisive fighting methods
of Blake and de Ruyter.
In this same year in which Rodney took command of the West Indies
station, a Scotch gentleman named Clerk published a pamphlet on
naval tactics which attracted much attention. It is a striking
commentary on the lack of interest in the theory of the profession
that no British naval officer had ever written on the subject. This
civilian, who had no military training or experience, worked out
an analysis of the Fighting Instructions and came to the conclusion
that the whole conception of naval tactics therein contained was
wrong, that decisive actions could be fought only by concentrating
superior forces on inferior. One can imagine the derision heaped
on the landlubber who presumed to teach admirals their business,
but there was no dodging the force of his point. Of course the
mathematical precision of his paper victories depended on the enemy's
being passive while the attack was carried out, but fundamentally
he was right. The history of the past hundred years showed the
futility of an unbroken line ahead, with van, center, and rear
attempting to engage the corresponding divisions of the enemy.
Decisive victories could be won only by close, concentrated fighting.
It may be true, as the British naval officers asserted, that they
were not influenced by Clerk's ideas, but the year in which his
book appeared marks the beginning of the practice of his theory
in naval warfare.
At the time of the American Revolution the West Indies represented
a debatable ground where British interests clashed with those of
her enemies, France, Spain, and Holland. It was very rich in trade
importance; in fact, about one fourth of all British commerce was
concerned with the Caribbean. Moreover, it contained the rival
bases for operations on the American coast. Hence it became the
chief theater of naval activity. Rodney's business was to make the
area definitely British in control, to protect British possessions
and trade and to capture as much as possible of enemy possessions
and trade. On arriving at his station in the spring of 1780, he
sought de Guichen. The latter had shown small enterprise, having
missed one opportunity to capture British transports and another
to prevent the junction of Rodney's fleet with that of Parker who
was awaiting him. Even when the junction was effected, the British
total amounted to only 20 ships of the line to de Guichen's 22,
and the French admiral might still have offered battle. Instead
he followed the French strategy of his day, by lying at anchor
at Fort Royal, Martinique, waiting for the British to sail away
and give him an opportunity to capture an island without having
to fight for it.
Rodney promptly sought him out and set a watch of frigates off
the port. When de Guichen came out on April 15 (1780) to attend
to the convoying of troops, Rodney was immediately in pursuit,
and on the 17th the two fleets were in contact. Early that morning
the British admiral signaled his plan "to attack the enemy's rear,"
because de Guichen's ships were strung out in extended order with
a wide gap between rear and center. De Guichen, seeing his danger,
wore together and closed the gap. This done, he again turned northward
and the two fleets sailed on parallel courses but out of gunshot.
[Illustration: THE WEST INDIES]
About eleven 0' clock, some four hours after his first signal,
Rodney again signaled his intention to engage the enemy, and shortly
before twelve he sent up the order, "for every ship to bear down
and steer for her opposite in the enemy's line, agreeable to the
21st article of the Additional Fighting Instructions." Rodney had
intended to concentrate his ships against their _actual_ opposites at
the time,--the rear of the French line, which was still considerably
drawn out; but the captain of the leading ship interpreted the
order to mean the _numerical_ opposites in the enemy's line, after
the style of fighting provided for by the Instructions from time
immemorial. Rodney's first signal informing the fleet that he intended
to attack the enemy's rear meant nothing to his captain at this
time. Accordingly he sailed away to engage the first ship in the
French van, followed by the vessels immediately astern of him,
and thus wrecked the plan of his commander in chief.
Nothing could illustrate better the hold of the traditional style
of fighting on the minds of naval officers than this blunder, though
it is only fair to add that there was some excuse in the ambiguity
Of the order. Rodney was infuriated and expressed himself with
corresponding bitterness. He always regarded this battle as the one
on which his fame should rest because of what it might have been
if his subordinates had given him proper support. The interesting
point lies in the fact that he designed to throw his whole force
on an inferior part of the enemy's force--the principle of
concentration. In a later and much more famous battle, as we shall
see, Rodney departed still further from the traditional tactics
by "breaking the line," his own as well as that of the French,
and won a great victory.
Meanwhile there occurred another operation not so creditable. Rodney
had spent a large part of his life dodging creditors, and it was
due to the generous loan of a French gentleman in Paris that he
did not drag out the years of this war in the Bastille for debt.
When Holland entered the war he saw an opportunity to make a fortune
by seizing the island of St. Eustatius, which had been the chief
depot in the West Indies for smuggling contraband into America.
To this purpose he subordinated every other consideration. The
island was an easy prize, but the quarrels and lawsuits over the
distribution of the booty broke him down and sent him back to England
at just the time when he was most needed in American waters, leaving
Hood in acting command.
In March, 1781, de Grasse sailed from Brest with a fleet of 26
ships of the line and a large convoy. Five of his battleships were
detached for service in the East, under Suffren, of whom we shall
hear more later. The rest proceeded to the Caribbean. On arriving
at Martinique de Grasse had an excellent opportunity to beat Hood,
who had an inferior force; but like his predecessors, d'Estaing and
de Guichen, he was content to follow a defensive policy, excusing
himself on the ground of not exposing his convoy. While at Cape
Haitien he received messages from Rochambeau and Washington urging
his coöperation with the campaign in America. To his credit be
it said that on this occasion he acted promptly and skillfully,
and the results were of great moment.
At this time the British had subdued Georgia and South Carolina,
and Cornwallis was attempting to carry the conquest through North
Carolina. In order to keep in touch with his source of supplies
the sea, however, he was compelled to fall back to Wilmington.
From there, under orders from General Clinton, he marched north
to Yorktown, Virginia, where he was joined by a small force of
infantry. Washington and Rochambeau had agreed on the necessity of
getting the coöperation of the West Indies fleet in an offensive
directed either at Clinton in New York or at Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Rochambeau preferred the latter alternative, because it involved
fewer difficulties, and the message to de Grasse was accompanied
by a private memorandum from him to the effect that he preferred
the Chesapeake as the scene of operations. Accordingly de Grasse
sent the messenger frigate back with word of his intention to go to
Chesapeake Bay. He then made skillful arrangements for the transport
of all available troops, and set sail with every ship he could
muster, steering by the less frequented Old Bahama Channel in order
to screen his movement.
[Illustration: SCENE OF THE YORKTOWN CAMPAIGN]
On August 30 (1781) de Grasse anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, just inside
the Chesapeake Capes, with 28 ships of the line. The two British
guard frigates were found stupidly at anchor inside the bay; one
was taken and the other chased up the York river. De Grasse then
landed the troops he had brought with him, and these made a welcome
reënforcement to Lafayette, who was then opposing Cornwallis. At
the same time Washington was marching south to join Lafayette,
and word had been sent to the commander of a small French squadron
at Newport to make junction with de Grasse, bringing the siege
artillery necessary to the operations before Yorktown. Thus the
available farces were converging on Cornwallis in superior strength,
and his only route for supplies and reënforcements lay by sea.
All depended on whether the British could succeed in forcing the
entrance to Chesapeake Bay.
Hood, with 14 ships of the line, had followed on the trail of de
Grasse, and as it happened looked into Chesapeake Bay just three
days before the French admiral arrived. Finding no sign of the
French, Hood sailed on to New York and joined Admiral Graves, who
being senior, took command of the combined squadrons. As it was
an open secret at that time that the allied operations would be
directed at Cornwallis, Graves immediately sailed for the Capes,
hoping on the way to intercept the Newport squadron which was known
to be bound far the same destination. On reaching the Capes, September
5, he found de Grasse guarding the entrance to the bay with 24 ships
of the line, the remaining four having been detailed to block the
mouths of the James and York rivers. To oppose this force Graves
had only 19 ships of the line, but he did not hesitate to offer
battle.
In de Grasse's mind there were two things to accomplish: first,
to hold the bay, and secondly, to keep the British occupied far
enough at sea to allow the Newport squadron to slip in. Of course
he could have made sure of both objects and a great deal more by
defeating the British fleet in a decisive action, but that was not
the French naval doctrine. The entrance to the Chesapeake is ten
miles wide but the main channel lies between the southern promontory
and a shoal called the Middle Ground three miles north of it. The
British stood for the channel during the morning and the French,
taking advantage of the ebbing tide at noon, cleared the bay, forming
line of battle as they went. As they had to make several tacks to
clear Cape Henry, the ships issued in straggling order, offering
an opportunity for attack which Graves did not appreciate. Instead
he went about, heading east an a course parallel to that of de
Grasse, and holding the windward position. When the two lines were
nearly opposite each other the British admiral ware down to attack.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES, SEPT. 5, 1781
(After diagram in Mahan's _Major Operations in the War of American
Independence,_ p. 180.)]
Graves's method followed the orthodox tradition exactly, and with
the unvarying result. As the attacking fleet bore down in line ahead
at an angle, the van of course came into action first, unsupported for
some time by the rest. As the signal for close action was repeated,
this angle was made sharper, and in attempting to close up the line
several ships got bunched in such a way as to mask their fire.
Meanwhile the rear, the seven ships under Hood, still trailing
along in line ahead, never got into the action at all. Graves had
signaled for "close action," but Hood chose to believe that the
order for line ahead still held until the signal was repeated,
whereupon he bore down. As the French turned away at the same time,
to keep their distance, Hood contributed nothing to the fighting
of the day. At sunset the battle ended. The British had lost 90
killed and 246 wounded; the French, a total of 200. Several of the
British ships were badly damaged, one of which was in a sinking
condition and had to be burned. The two fleets continued on an
easterly course about three miles apart, and for five days more
the two maneuvered without fighting. Graves was too much injured by
the first day's encounter to attack again and de Grasse was content
to let him alone. Graves still had an opportunity to cut back and
enter the bay, taking a position from which it would have been
hard to dislodge him and effecting the main object of the expedition
by holding the mouth of the Chesapeake. But this apparently did not
occur to him. De Grasse, who had imperiled Washington's campaign
by cruising so far from the entrance, finally returned on the 11th,
and found that the Newport squadron had arrived safely the day
before. When Graves saw that the French fleet was now increased to
36 line-of-battle ships, he gave up hope of winning the bay and
returned to New York, leaving Cornwallis to his fate. A little
over a month later, October 19, the latter surrendered, and with
his sword passed the last hope of subduing the American revolution.
This battle of the Capes, or Lynnhaven, has never until recent
times been given its true historical perspective, largely because
in itself it was a rather tame affair. But as the historian Reich[1]
observes, "battles, like men, are important not for their dramatic
splendor but for their efficiency and consequences.... The battle
off Cape Henry had ultimate effects infinitely more important than
Waterloo." Certainly there never was a more striking example of
the "influence of sea power" on a campaign. Just at the crisis of
the American Revolution the French navy, by denying to the British
their communications by sea, struck the decisive blow of the war.
This was the French _revanche_ for the humiliation of 1763.
[Footnote 1: FOUNDATIONS OF MODERN EUROPE, p. 24.]
The British failure in this action was due to a dull commander
in chief carrying out a blundering attack based on the Fighting
Instructions. Blame must fall also on his second in command, Hood,
who, though a brilliant officer, certainly failed to support his
chief properly when there was an obvious thing to do. Perhaps if
the personal relations between the two had been more cordial Hood
would have taken the initiative. But in those days the initiative
of a subordinate was not encouraged, and Hood chose to stand on
his dignity.
Although the war was practically settled by the fall of Yorktown,
it required another year or so to die out. In this final year a
famous naval battle was fought which went far toward establishing
British predominance in the West Indies, and which revealed something
radically different in naval tactics from the practice of the time.
In the spring of 1782, Rodney was back in command of the West Indian
station, succeeding Hood, who continued to serve as commander of a
division. The British base was Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia. De
Grasse was at Fort Royal, Martinique, waiting to transport troops
to Santo Domingo, where other troops and ships were collected. There,
joining with a force of Spaniards from Cuba, he was to conduct a
campaign against Jamaica. It was Rodney's business to break up this
plan. During a period of preparation on both sides, reënforcements
joined the rival fleets, that of the British amounting to enough to
give Rodney a marked superiority in numbers. Moreover his ships
were heavier, as he had five 3-deckers to the French one, and about
200 more guns. The superiority of speed, as well, lay with Rodney
because more of his ships had copper sheathing. A still further
advantage lay in the fact that he was not burdened with the problem
of protecting convoys and transports as was de Grasse. Thus, in the
event of conflict, the advantages lay heavily with the British.
On the morning of April 8, the English sentry frigate off Fort
Royal noted that the French were coming out, and hastened with
the news to Rodney at Santa Lucia. The latter put to sea at once.
He judged rightly that de Grasse would steer for Santo Domingo, in
order to get rid of his transports at their destination as soon
as possible, and on the morning of the 9th he sighted the French
off the west coast of the island of Dominica. On the approach of
the English fleet, de Grasse signaled his transports to run to
the northwest, while he took his fleet on a course for the channel
between the islands of Dominica and Guadeloupe. As the British would
be sure to pursue the fleet, this move would enable the convoy to
escape.
The channel toward which de Grasse turned his fleet is known as
the Saints' Passage from a little group of islands, "les isles des
Saintes," lying to the north of it. In the course of the pursuit,
Hood, with the British van division of nine ships, had got ahead of
the rest and offered a tempting opening for attack in superior force.
If de Grasse had grasped his opportunity he might have inflicted a
crushing blow on Rodney and upset the balance of superiority. But
the lack of aggressiveness in the French doctrine was again fatal
to French success. De Grasse merely sent his second in command
to conduct a skirmish at long range--and thus threw his chance
away.
The light winds and baffling calms kept both fleets idle for a day.
On the 11th de Grasse tried to work his fleet through the channel
on short tacks. Just as he had almost accomplished his purpose he
discovered several of his vessels still so far to westward as to
be in danger of capture. In order to rescue these he gave up the
fruits of laborious beating against the head wind and returned.
The following morning, April 12 (1782), discovered the two fleets
to the west of the strait and so near that the French could no
longer evade battle. The French came down on the port tack and the
British stood toward them, with their admiral's signal flying to
"engage to leeward." When the two lines converged to close range,
the leading British ship shifted her course slightly so as to run
parallel with that of the French, and the two fleets sailed past each
other firing broadsides. So far the battle had followed traditional
line-ahead pattern.
Just as the leading ship of the British came abreast of the rearmost
of the French, the wind suddenly veered to the southward, checking
the speed of the French ships and swinging their bows over toward
the English line. At best a line of battle in the sailing ship
days was an uneven straggling formation, and the effect of this
flaw of wind, dead ahead, was to break up the French line into
irregular groups separated by wide gaps. One of these opened up
ahead as Rodney's flagship, the _Formidable_, forged past the French
line. His fleet captain, Douglas, saw the opportunity and pleaded
with Rodney to cut through the gap. "No," he replied, "I will not
break my line." Douglas insisted. A moment later, as the _Formidable_
came abreast of the opening, the opportunity proved too tempting
and Rodney gave his consent. His battle signal, "engage the enemy
to leeward," was still flying, but the _Formidable_ luffed up and
swung through the French line followed by five others. The ship
immediately ahead of the _Formidable_ also cut through a gap, and
the sixth astern of the flagship went through as well, followed by
the entire British rear. As each vessel pierced the broken line
she delivered a terrible fire with both broadsides at close range.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF THE SAINTS' PASSAGE, APRIL 12, 1782
After diagram in Mahan's _Influence of Sea Power Upon History_,
p. 486.]
The result of this maneuver was that the British fleet found itself
to windward of the French in three groups, while the French ships
were scattered to leeward and trying to escape before the wind,
leaving three dismasted hulks between the lines. An isolated group
of six ships in the center, including de Grasse's _Ville de Paris_,
offered a target for attack, but the wind was light and Rodney
indolent in pursuit. Of these, one small vessel was overhauled
and the French flagship was taken after a heroic defense, that
lasted until sunset, against overwhelming odds. De Grasse's efforts
to reform his fleet after his line was broken had met with failure,
for the van fled to the southwest and the rear to the northwest,
apparently making little effort to succor their commander in chief
or retrieve the fortunes of the day.
Rodney received a peerage for this day's work but he certainly
did not make the most of his victory. Apparently content with the
five prizes he had taken, together with the person of de Grasse,
he allowed the bulk of the French fleet to escape when he had it in
his power to capture practically all. On this point his subordinate,
Hood, expressed himself with great emphasis:
"Why he (Rodney) should bring the fleet to because the _Ville de
Paris_ was taken, I cannot reconcile. He did not pursue under easy
sail, so as never to have lost sight of the enemy, in the night,
which would clearly and most undoubtedly have enabled him to have
taken almost every ship the next day.... Had I had the honor of
commanding his Majesty's noble fleet on the 12th, I may, without
much imputation of vanity, say the flag of England should now have
graced the sterns of _upwards_ of twenty sail of the enemy's ships
of the line."[1]
[Footnote 1: Quoted by Mahan, THE ROYAL NAVY (Clowes), Vol. III,
p. 535.]
Sir Charles Douglas, who had been responsible for Rodney's breaking
the line, warmly agreed with Hood's opinion on this point. Nevertheless,
although the victory was not half of what it might have been in younger
hands, it proved decisive enough to shatter the naval organization
of the French in the West Indies. It stopped the projected campaign
against Jamaica and served to write better terms for England in
the peace treaty of January 20, 1783.
Tactically this battle has become famous for the maneuver of "breaking
the line," contrary to the express stipulations of the Fighting
Instructions. Certainly the move was not premeditated. Rodney may
well be said to have been pushed into making it, and two of his
captains made the same move on their own initiative. Indeed it
is quite likely that, after the event, too much has been made of
this as a piece of deliberate tactics, for the sudden shift of
wind had paid off the bows of the French ships so that they were
probably heading athwart the course of the British line, and the
British move was obviously the only thing to do. But the lesson of
the battle was clear,--the decisive effect of close fighting and
concentrated fire. In the words of Hannay, "It marked the beginning
of that fierce and headlong yet well calculated style of sea fighting
which led to Trafalgar and made England undisputed mistress of the
sea."[1] It marked, therefore, the end of the Fighting Instructions,
which had deadened the spirit as well as the tactics of the British
navy for over a hundred years.
[Footnote 1: Rodney (ENGLISH MEN OF ACTION SERIES), p. 213.]
The tactical value of "breaking the line" is well summarized by
Mahan in the following passage:
"The effect of breaking an enemy's line, or order-of-battle, depends
upon several conditions. The essential idea is to divide the opposing
force by penetrating through an interval found, or made, in it,
and then to concentrate upon that one of the fractions which can
be least easily helped by the other. In a column of ships this
will usually be the rear. The compactness of the order attacked,
the number of the ships cut off, the length of time during which
they can be isolated and outnumbered, will all affect the results.
A very great factor in the issue will be the moral effect, the
confusion introduced into a line thus broken. Ships coming up toward
the break are stopped, the rear doubles up, while the ships ahead
continue their course. Such a moment is critical, and calls for
instant action; but the men are rare who in an unforeseen emergency
can see, and at once take the right course, especially if, being
subordinates, they incur responsibility. In such a scene of confusion
the English, without presumption, hoped to profit by their better
seamanship; for it is not only 'courage and devotion,' but skill,
which then tells. All these effects of 'breaking the line' received
illustration in Rodney's great battle in 1782."[1]
[Footnote 1: THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, pp. 380-381.]
Before we leave the War of American Independence mention should
be made of Commodore Suffren who, as we have seen, left de Grasse
with five ships of the line to conduct a campaign in the Indian
Ocean in the spring of 1781. His purpose was to shake the British
hold on India, which had been fastened by the genius of Clive in
the Seven Years' War. But the task given to Suffren was exceedingly
difficult. His squadron was inadequate--for instance, he had only
two frigates for scout and messenger duty--and he had no port that
he could use as a base in Indian waters. To conduct any campaign
at all he was compelled to live off his enemy and capture a base.
These were risky prospects for naval operations several thousand
miles from home, and for the faintest hope of success required an
energy and initiative which had never before appeared in a French
naval commander. In addition to these handicaps of circumstance Suffren
soon discovered that he had to deal with incorrigible slackness
and insubordination in his captains.
In spite of everything, however, Suffren achieved an amazing degree
of success. He succeeded in living off the prizes taken from the
British, and he took from them the port of Trincomalee for a base. He
fought five battles off the coast of India against the British Vice
Admiral Hughes, in only one of which was the latter the assailant,
and in all of which Suffren bore off the honors. He was constantly
hampered, however, by the inefficiency and insubordination of his
captains. On four or five occasions, including an engagement at the
Cape Verde Islands on his way to India, it was only this misconduct
that saved the British from the crushing attack that Suffren had
planned. Unfortunately for him his victories were barren of result,
for the terms of peace gave nothing in India to the French which
they had not possessed before. As Trincomalee had belonged to the
Dutch before the British captured it, this port was turned back
to Holland.
Nevertheless Suffren deserves to be remembered both for what he
actually accomplished under grave difficulties and what he might
have done had he been served by loyal and efficient subordinates.
Among all the commanders of this war he stands preeminent for naval
genius, and this eminence is all the more extraordinary when one
realizes that his resourcefulness, tenacity, aggressiveness, his
contempt of the formal, parade tactics of his day, were notoriously
absent in the rest of the French service. Such was the admiration
felt for him by his adversaries that after the end of the war,
when the French squadron arrived at Cape Town on its way home and
found the British squadron anchored there, all the British officers,
from Hughes down, went aboard the French flagship to tender their
homage.[1]
[Footnote 1: "If ever a man lived who justified Napoleon's maxim
that war is an affair not of men but of a man, it was he. It was
by his personal merit that his squadron came to the very verge of
winning a triumphant success. That he failed was due to the fact
that the French Navy... was honeycombed by the intellectual and moral
vices which were bringing France to the great Revolution--corruption,
self-seeking, acrid class insolence, and skinless, morbid vanity."--THE
ROYAL NAVY, David Hannay, II, 287.]
Although the War of American Independence was unsuccessfully fought
by Great Britain and she was compelled to recognize the independence
of her rebellious colonies, she lost comparatively little else by the
terms of peace. As we have seen, her hold in India was unchanged.
The stubborn defense of Gibraltar throughout the war, aided by
occasional timely relief by a British fleet, saved that stronghold
for the English flag. To Spain England was forced to surrender
Florida and Minorca. France got back all the West Indian islands
she had lost, with the exception of Tobago, but gained nothing
besides. The war therefore did not restore to France her colonial
empire of former days or make any change in the relative overseas
strength of the two nations. Despite the blunders of the war no
rival sea power challenged that of Great Britain at the conclusion
of peace.
Meanwhile, just before the war and during its early years, an English
naval officer was laying the foundation for an enormous expansion
of the British empire in the east. This was James Cook, a man who
owed his commission in the navy and his subsequent fame to nothing
in family or political influence, but to sheer genius. Of humble
birth, he passed from the merchant service into the navy and rose
by his extraordinary abilities to the rank of master. Later he
was commissioned lieutenant and finally attained the rank of post
captain.[1] Such rank was hardly adequate recognition of his great
powers, but it was unusually high for a man who was not born a
"gentleman."
[Footnote 1: Full captain's rank, held only by a captain in command
of a vessel of at least 20 guns.]
At the end of the Seven Years' War he distinguished himself, by
his work in surveying and sounding an the coasts of Labrador and
Newfoundland, as a man of science. In consequence, he was detailed
to undertake expeditions for observing the transit of Venus and
for discovering the southern continent which was supposed to exist
in the neighborhood of the Antarctic circle. In the course of this
work Cook practically established the geography of the southern half
of the globe as we know it to-day. And by his skill and study of
the subject he conquered the great enemy of exploring expeditions,
scurvy. Thirty years before, another British naval officer, Anson,
had taken a squadron into the Pacific and lost about three-fourths
of his men from this disease. When the war of the American Revolution
broke out, Cook was abroad on one of his expeditions, but the French
and American governments issued orders to their captains not to
molest him on account of his great service to the cause of scientific
knowledge. Unfortunately he was killed by savages at the Sandwich
Islands in 1779.
The bearing of his work on the British empire lies chiefly in his
careful survey of the east coast of Australia, which he laid claim
to in the name of King George, and the circumnavigation of New
Zealand, which later gave title to the British claim on those islands.
Thus, while the American colonies in the west were winning their
independence, another territory in the east, far more extensive,
was being brought under British sway, destined in another century
to become important dominions of the empire. The Dutch had a claim
of priority in discovery through the early voyages of Tasman, but
they attempted no colonization and Dutch sea power was too weak
to make good a technical claim in the face of England's navy.
Finally, when the results of a century of wars between France and
England are summarized, we find that France had lost all her great
domain in America except a few small islands in the West Indies.
In brief, it is due to British control of the sea during the 18th
century that practically all of the continent north of the Rio
Grande is English in speech, laws, and tradition.
This control of the sea exercised by England was not the gift of
fortune. It was a prize gained, in the main, by wise policy in
peace and hard fighting in war. France had the opportunity to wrest
from England the control of the sea as England had won it from
Holland, for France at the close of the 17th century dominated
Europe. In population and in wealth she was superior to her rival.
But the arrogance of her king kept her embroiled in futile wars on
the Continent, with little energy left for the major issue, the
conquest of the sea. Finally, when the war of American Independence
left her a free hand to concentrate on her navy as against that of
England, France lost through the fatal weakness of policy which
corrupted all her officers with the single brilliant exception of
Suffren. The French naval officer avoided battle on principle,
and when he could not avoid it he accepted the defensive. To the
credit of the English officer be it said that, as a rule, he sought
the enemy and took the aggressive; he had the "fighting spirit."
This difference between French and British commanders had as much
to do with the ultimate triumph of England on the sea as anything
else. It retrieved many a blunder in strategy and tactics by sheer
hard hitting.
The history of the French navy points a moral applicable to any
service and any time. When a navy encourages the idea that ships
must not be risked, that a decisive battle must be avoided because
of what might happen in case of defeat, it is headed for the same
fate that overwhelmed the French.
REFERENCES
INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, A. T. Mahan, 1890.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROYAL NAVY, David Hannay, 1909.
THE ROYAL NAVY (vols. II, III), W. L. Clowes et al., 1903.
ADMIRAL BLAKE, English Men of Action Series, David Hannay, 1909.
RODNEY, English Men of Action Series, David Hannay, 1891.
MONK, English Men of Action Series, Julian Corbett, 1907.
ENGLAND IN THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR, J. S. Corbett, 1907.
THE GRAVES PAPERS, F. E. Chadwick, 1916.
STUDIES IN NAVAL HISTORY, BIOGRAPHIES, J. K. Laughton, 1887.
FROM HOWARD TO NELSON, ed. by J. K. Laughton, 1899.
MAJOR OPERATIONS IN THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, A. T.
Mahan, 1913.
SEA KINGS OF BRITAIN, Geoffrey Callender, 1915.