There is now a small allowance of oatmeal, pepper, mustard, and vinegar, against which we may set the 'purser's necessaries' of Elizabeth's day. In that day but little sugar was used, and tea and cocoa were unknown even in palaces. It is just a question if seven gallons of beer did not make up for the weekly allowance of these and for the seven-eighths of a pint of spirits. Tea was only allowed in 1850, and was not an additional article. It replaced part of the spirits. The biscuit allowance is now 8-3/4 lbs. Weekly.

The Victorian dietary is more varied and wholesome than the Elizabethan; but, as we have seen, it is less abundant and can be obtained for much less money, even if we grant that the 'savings price'—purposely kept low to avoid all suggestion that the men are being bribed into stinting themselves—is less than the real cost. The excess of this latter, however, is not likely to be more than 30 per cent., so that Elizabeth's expenditure in this department was more liberal than the present. Such defects as were to be found in the Elizabethan naval dietary were common to it with that of the English people generally. If there was plenty, there was but little variety in the food of our ancestors of all ranks three centuries ago. As far as was possible in the conditions of the time, Elizabeth's Government did make provision for victualling the fleet on a sufficient and even liberal scale; and, notwithstanding slender pecuniary resources, repeatedly increased the money assigned to it, on cause being shown. In his eagerness to make Queen Elizabeth a monster of treacherous rapacity, Froude has completely overreached himself, He says that 'she permitted some miserable scoundrel to lay a plan before her for saving expense, by cutting down the seamen's diet.' The 'miserable scoundrel' had submitted a proposal for diminishing the expenses which the administration was certainly ill able to bear, The candid reader will draw his own conclusions when he finds that the Queen did not approve the plan submitted; and yet that not one of her assailants has let this appear.[71]

[Footnote 71: It may be stated here that the word 'rations' is unknown in the navy. The official term is 'victuals.' The term in common use is 'provisions.']

It is, of course, possible to concede that adequate arrangements had been made for the general victualling of the fleet; and still to maintain that, after all, the sailors afloat actually did run short of food. In his striking 'Introduction to the Armada Despatches' published by the Navy Records Society, Professor Sir John Laughton declares that: 'To anyone examining the evidence, there can be no question as to victualling being conducted on a fairly liberal scale, as far as the money was concerned. It was in providing the victuals that the difficulty lay.... When a fleet of unprecedented magnitude was collected, when a sudden and unwonted demand was made on the victualling officers, it would have been strange indeed if things had gone quite smoothly.'

There are plenty of naval officers who have had experience, and within the last ten years of the nineteenth century, of the difficulty, and sometimes of the impossibility, of getting sufficient supplies for a large number of ships in rather out-of-the-way places. In 1588 the comparative thinness of population and insufficiency of communications and means of transport must have constituted obstacles, far greater than any encountered in our own day, to the collection of supplies locally and to their timely importation from a distance. 'You would not believe,' says Lord Howard of Effingham himself, 'what a wonderful thing it is to victual such an army as this is in such a narrow corner of the earth, where a man would think that neither victuals were to be had nor a cask to put it in.' No more effective defence of Elizabeth and her Ministers could well be advanced than that which Mr. Oppenheim puts forward as a corroboration of the accusation against them. He says that the victualling officials 'found no difficulty in arranging for 13,000 men in 1596 and 9200 in 1597 after timely notice.' This is really a high compliment, as it proves that the authorities were quite ready to, and in fact did, learn from experience. Mr. Oppenheim, however, is not an undiscriminating assailant of the Queen; for he remarks, as has been already said, that, 'how far Elizabeth was herself answerable is a moot point.' He tells us that there 'is no direct evidence against her'; and the charge levelled at her rests not on proof, but on 'strong probability.' One would like to have another instance out of all history, of probability, however strong, being deemed sufficient to convict a person of unsurpassed treachery and stupidity combined, when the direct evidence, which is not scanty, fails to support the charge and indeed points the other way.

The Lord Admiral himself and other officers have been quoted to show how badly off the fleet was for food. Yet at the close of the active operations against the Armada, Sir J. Hawkins wrote: 'Here is victual sufficient, and I know not why any should be provided after September, but for those which my Lord doth mean to leave in the narrow seas.' On the same day Howard himself wrote from Dover: 'I have caused all the remains of victuals to be laid here and at Sandwich, for the maintaining of them that shall remain in the Narrow Seas.' Any naval officer with experience of command who reads Howard's representations on the subject of the victuals will at once perceive that what the Admiral was anxious about was not the quantity on board the ships, but the stock in reserve. Howard thought that the latter ought to be a supply for six weeks. The Council thought a month's stock would be enough; and—as shown by the extracts from Howard's and Hawkins's letters just given—the Council was right in its estimate. Anyone who has had to write or to read official letters about stocks of stores and provisions will find something especially modern in Howard's representations.

Though the crews of the fleet did certainly come near the end of their victuals afloat, there is no case of their having actually run out of them. The complement of an ordinary man-of-war in the latter part of the sixteenth century, judged by our modern standard, was very large in proportion to her size. It was impossible for her to carry provisions enough to last her men for a long time. Any unexpected prolongation of a cruise threatened a reduction to short commons. A great deal has been made of the fact that Howard had to oblige six men to put up with the allowance of four. 'When a large force,' says Mr. D. Hannay, 'was collected for service during any length of time, it was the common rule to divide four men's allowance among six.' There must be still many officers and men to whom the plan would seem quite familiar. It is indicated by a recognised form of words, 'six upon four.' I have myself been 'six upon four' several times, mostly in the Pacific, but also, on at least one occasion, in the East Indies. As far as I could see, no one appeared to regard it as an intolerable hardship. The Government, it should be known, made no profit out of the process, because money was substituted for the food not issued. Howard's recourse to it was not due to immediate insufficiency. Speaking of the merchant vessels which came to reinforce him, he says: 'We are fain to help them with victuals to bring them thither. There is not any of them that hath one day's victuals.' These merchant vessels were supplied by private owners; and it is worth noting that, in the teeth of this statement by Howard, Dr. Jessopp, in his eagerness to blacken Elizabeth, says that they 'were, as a rule, far better furnished than the Queen's ships.' The Lord Admiral on another occasion, before the fight off Gravelines, said of the ships he hoped would join him from Portsmouth: 'Though they have not two days' victuals, let that not be the cause of their stay, for they shall have victuals out of our fleet,' a conclusive proof that his ships were not very short.

As to the accusation of deliberately issuing food of bad quality, that is effectually disposed of by the explanation already given of the method employed in victualling the navy. A sum was paid for each man's daily allowance to a contractor, who was expressly bound to furnish 'good and seasonable victuals.'[72] Professor Laughton, whose competence in the matter is universally allowed, informs us that complaints of bad provisions are by no means confined to the Armada epoch, and were due, not to intentional dishonesty and neglect, but to insufficient knowledge of the way to preserve provisions for use on rather long cruises. Mr. Hannay says that the fleet sent to the coast of Spain, in the year after the defeat of the Armada, suffered much from want of food and sickness. 'Yet it was organised, not by the Queen, but by a committee of adventurers who had every motive to fit it out well.' It is the fashion with English historians to paint the condition of the navy in the time of the Commonwealth in glowing colours, yet Mr. Oppenheim cites many occasions of well-founded complaints of the victuals. He says: 'The quality of the food supplied to the men and the honesty of the victualling agents both steadily deteriorated during the Commonwealth.' Lord Howard's principal difficulty was with the beer, which would go sour. The beer was the most frequent subject of protest in the Commonwealth times. Also, in 1759, Lord (then Sir Edward) Hawke reported: 'Our daily employment is condemning the beer from Plymouth.' The difficulty of brewing beer that would stand a sea voyage seemed to be insuperable. The authorities, however, did not soon abandon attempts to get the right article. Complaints continued to pour in; but they went on with their brewing till 1835, and then gave it up as hopeless.

[Footnote 72: See 'The Mariners of England before the Armada,' by Mr. H. Halliday Sparling, in the EnglishIllustratedMagazine, July 1, 1891.]

One must have had personal experience of the change to enable one to recognise the advance that has been made in the art of preserving articles of food within the last half-century. In the first Drury Lane pantomime that I can remember—about a year before I went to sea—a practical illustration of the quality of some of the food supplied to the navy was offered during the harlequinade by the clown, who satisfied his curiosity as to the contents of a large tin of 'preserved meat' by pulling out a dead cat. On joining the service I soon learned that, owing to the badness of the 'preserved' food that had been supplied, the idea of issuing tinned meat had been abandoned. It was not resumed till some years later. It is often made a joke against naval officers of a certain age that, before eating a biscuit, they have a trick of rapping the table with it. We contracted the habit as midshipmen when it was necessary to get rid of the weevils in the biscuit before it could be eaten, and a fairly long experience taught us that rapping the table with it was an effectual plan for expelling them.

There is no more justification for accusing Queen Elizabeth of failure to provide well-preserved food to her sailors than there is for accusing her of not having sent supplies to Plymouth by railway. Steam transport and efficient food preservation were equally unknown in her reign and for long after. It has been intimated above that, even had she wished to, she could not possibly have made any money out of bad provisions. The victualling system did not permit of her doing so. The austere republican virtue of the Commonwealth authorities enabled them to do what was out of Elizabeth's power. In 1653, 'beer and other provisions "decayed and unfit for use" were licensed for export free of Customs.' Mr. Oppenheim, who reports this fact, makes the remarkable comment that this was done 'perhaps in the hope that such stores would go to Holland,' with whose people we were at war. As the heavy mortality in the navy had always been ascribed to the use of bad provisions, we cannot refuse to give to the sturdy Republicans who governed England in the seventeenth century the credit of contemplating a more insidious and more effective method of damaging their enemy than poisoning his wells. One would like to have it from some jurist if the sale of poisonously bad food to your enemy is disallowed by international law.

That there was much sickness in the fleet and that many seamen died is, unfortunately, true. If Howard's evidence is to be accepted—as it always is when it seems to tell against the Queen—it is impossible to attribute this to the bad quality of the food then supplied. The Lord Admiral's official report is 'that the ships of themselves be so infectious and corrupted as it is thought to be a very plague; and we find that the fresh men that we draw into our ships are infected one day and die the next.' The least restrained assertor of the 'poisonous' food theory does not contend that it killed men within twenty-four hours. The Armada reached the Channel on the 20th of July (30th, New Style). A month earlier Howard had reported that 'several men have fallen sick and by thousands fain to be discharged'; and, after the fighting was over, he said of the _Elizabeth_Jonas_, she 'hath had a great infection in her from the beginning.' Lord Henry Seymour, who commanded the division of the fleet stationed in the Straits of Dover, noted that the sickness was a repetition of that of the year before, and attributed it not to bad food, but to the weather. 'Our men,' he wrote, 'fall sick by reason of the cold nights and cold mornings we find; and I fear me they will drop away faster than they did last year with Sir Henry Palmer, which was thick enough.'

'The sickness,' says Professor Laughton, 'was primarily and chiefly due to infection from the shore and ignorance or neglect of what we now know as sanitary laws.... Similar infections continued occasionally to scourge our ships' companies, and still more frequently French and Spanish ships' companies, till near the close of the eighteenth century.' It is not likely that any evidence would suffice to divert from their object writers eager to hurl calumny at a great sovereign; but a little knowledge of naval and of military history also would have saved their readers from a belief in their accusations. In 1727 the fleet in the West Indies commanded by Admiral Hosier, commemorated in Glover's ballad, lost ten flag officers and captains, fifty lieutenants, and 4000 seamen. In the Seven Years' war the total number belonging to the fleet killed in action was 1512; whilst the number that died of disease and were missing was 133,708. From 1778 to 1783, out of 515,000 men voted by Parliament for the navy, 132,623 were 'sent sick.' In the summer, 1779, the French fleet cruising at the mouth of the English Channel, after landing 500, had still about 2000 men sick. At the beginning of autumn the number of sick had become so great that many ships had not enough men to work them. The VilledeParis had 560 sick, and lost 61. The Auguste had 500 sick, and lost 44. On board the Intrepide 70 died out of 529 sick. These were the worst cases; but other ships also suffered heavily.

It is, perhaps, not generally remembered till what a very late date armies and navies were more than decimated by disease. In 1810 the House of Commons affirmed by a resolution, concerning the Walcheren Expedition: 'That on the 19th of August a malignant disorder showed itself amongst H.M. troops; and that on the 8th of September the number of sick amounted to upwards of 10,948 men. That of the army which embarked for service in the Scheldt sixty officers and 3900 men, exclusive of those killed by the enemy, had died before the 1st of February last.'

In a volume of 'Military, Medical, and Surgical Essays'[73] prepared for the United States' Sanitary Commission, and edited by Dr. Wm. A. Hammond, Surgeon-General of the U.S. Army, it is stated that, in our Peninsular army, averaging a strength of 64,227 officers and men, the annual rate of mortality from the 25th of December 1810 to the 25th of May 1813 was 10 per cent. of the officers and 16 per cent. of the men. We may calculate from this that some 25,000 officers and men died. There were 22-1/2 per cent., or over 14,000, 'constantly sick.' Out of 309,268 French soldiers sent to the Crimea in 1855-6, the number of killed and those who died of wounds was 7500, the number who died of disease was 61,700. At the same date navies also suffered. Dr. Stilon Mends, in his life of his father,[74] Admiral Sir William Mends, prints a letter in which the Admiral, speaking of the cholera in the fleets at Varna, says: 'The mortality on board the Montebello, VilledeParis, Valmy (French ships), and Britannia (British) has been terrible; the first lost 152 in three days, the second 120 in three days, the third 80 in ten days, but the last lost 50 in one night and 10 the subsequent day.' Kinglake tells us that in the end the Britannia's loss went up to 105. With the above facts before us, we are compelled to adopt one of two alternatives. We must either maintain that sanitary science made no advance between 1588 and 1855, or admit that the mortality in Elizabeth's fleet became what it was owing to ignorance of sanitary laws and not to intentional bad management. As regards care of the sick, it is to be remembered that the establishment of naval and military hospitals for the reception of sick soldiers and sailors is of recent date. For instance, the two great English military hospitals, Netley and the Herbert, are only about sixty years old.

[Footnote 73: Philadelphia, 1864.]

[Footnote 74: London, 1899.]

So far from our fleet in 1588 having been ill-supplied with ammunition, it was in reality astonishingly well equipped, considering the age. We learn from Mr. Julian Corbett,[75] that 'during the few years immediately preceding the outbreak of the war, the Queen's navy had been entirely re-armed with brass guns, and in the process of re-armament a great advance in simplicity had been secured.' Froude, without seeing where the admission would land him, admits that our fleet was more plentifully supplied than the Armada, in which, he says, 'the supply of cartridges was singularly small. The King [Philip the Second] probably considered that a single action would decide the struggle; and it amounted to but fifty rounds for each gun.' Our own supply therefore exceeded fifty rounds. In his life of Vice-Admiral Lord Lyons,[76] Sir S. Eardley Wilmot tells us that the British ships which attacked the Sebastopol forts in October 1854 'could only afford to expend seventy rounds per gun.' At the close of the nineteenth century, the regulated allowance for guns mounted on the broadside was eighty-five rounds each. Consequently, the Elizabethan allowance was nearly, if not quite, as much as that which our authorities, after an experience of naval warfare during three centuries, thought sufficient. 'The full explanation,' says Professor Laughton, 'of the want [of ammunition] seems to lie in the rapidity of fire which has already been mentioned. The ships had the usual quantity on board; but the expenditure was more, very many times more, than anyone could have conceived.' Mr. Julian Corbett considers it doubtful if the ammunition, in at least one division of the fleet, was nearly exhausted.

[Footnote 75: TheSpanishWar, 1585-87 (Navy Records Society), 1898, p. 323.]

[Footnote 76: London, 1898, p. 236.]

Exhaustion of the supply of ammunition in a single action is a common naval occurrence. The not very decisive character of the battle of Malaga between Sir George Rooke and the Count of Toulouse in 1704 was attributed to insufficiency of ammunition, the supply in our ships having been depleted by what 'Mediterranean' Byng, afterwards Lord Torrington, calls the 'furious fire' opened on Gibraltar. The Rev. Thomas Pocock, Chaplain of the Ranelagh, Byng's flag-ship at Malaga, says:[77] 'Many of our ships went out of the line for want of ammunition.' Byng's own opinion, as stated by the compiler of his memoirs, was, that 'it may without great vanity be said that the English had gained a greater victory if they had been supplied with ammunition as they ought to have been.' I myself heard the late Lord Alcester speak of the anxiety that had been caused him by the state of his ships' magazines after the attack on the Alexandria forts in 1882. At a still later date, Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay interrupted his attack on the Spanish squadron to ascertain how much ammunition his ships had left. The carrying capacity of ships being limited, rapid gun-fire in battle invariably brings with it the risk of running short of ammunition. It did this in the nineteenth century just as much as, probably even more than, it did in the sixteenth.

[Footnote 77: In his journal (p. 197), printed as an Appendix to _Memoirs_relating_to_the_Lord_Torrington_, edited by J. K. Laughton for the Camden Society, 1889.]

To charge Elizabeth with criminal parsimony because she insisted on every shot being 'registered and accounted for' will be received with ridicule by naval officers. Of course every shot, and for the matter of that every other article expended, has to be accounted for. One of the most important duties of the gunner of a man-of-war is to keep a strict account of the expenditure of all gunnery stores. This was more exactly done under Queen Victoria than it was under Queen Elizabeth. Naval officers are more hostile to 'red tape' than most men, and they may lament the vast amount of bookkeeping that modern auditors and committees of public accounts insist upon, but they are convinced that a reasonable check on expenditure of stores is indispensable to efficient organisation. So far from blaming Elizabeth for demanding this, they believe that both she and Burleigh, her Lord Treasurer, were very much in advance of their age.

Another charge against her is that she defrauded her seamen of their wages. The following is Froude's statement:—

'Want of the relief, which, if they had been paid their wages, they might have provided for themselves had aggravated the tendencies to disease, and a frightful mortality now set in through the entire fleet.' The word 'now' is interesting, Froude having had before him Howard's and Seymour's letters, already quoted, showing that the appearance of the sickness was by no means recent. Elizabeth's illiberality towards her seamen may be judged from the fact that in her reign their pay was certainly increased once and perhaps twice.[78] In 1585 the sailor's pay was raised from 6s. 8d. to 10s. a month. A rise of pay of 50 per cent. all at once is, I venture to say, entirely without parallel in the navy since, and cannot well be called illiberal. The Elizabethan 10s. would be equal to L3 in our present accounts; and, as the naval month at the earlier date was the lunar, a sailor's yearly wages would be equal to L39 now. The year's pay of an A.B., 'non-continuous service,' as Elizabeth's sailors were, is at the present time L24 6s. 8d. It is true that the sailor now can receive additional pay for good-conduct badges, gunnery-training, &c., and also can look forward to that immense boon—a pension—nearly, but thanks to Sir J. Hawkins and Drake's establishment of the 'Chatham Chest,' not quite unknown in the sixteenth century. Compared with the rate of wages ruling on shore, Elizabeth's seamen were paid highly. Mr. Hubert Hall states that for labourers 'the usual rate was 2d. or 3d. a day.' Ploughmen received a shilling a week. In these cases 'board' was also given. The sailor's pay was 5s. a week with board. Even compared with skilled labour on shore the sailor of the Armada epoch was well paid. Thorold Rogers gives, for 1588, the wages, without board, of carpenters and masons at 10d. and 1s. a day. A plumber's wages varied from 10-1/2d. to 1s.; but there is one case of a plumber receiving as much as 1s. 4d., which was probably for a single day.

[Footnote 78: Mr. Halliday Sparling, in the article already referred to (p. 651), says twice; but Mr. Oppenheim seems to think that the first increase was before Elizabeth's accession.]

Delay in the payment of wages was not peculiar to the Elizabethan system. It lasted very much longer, down to our own times in fact. In 1588 the seamen of the fleet were kept without their pay for several months. In the great majority of cases, and most likely in all, the number of these months was less than six. Even within the nineteenth century men-of-war's men had to wait for their pay for years. Commander C. N. Robinson, in his 'British Fleet,'[79] a book that ought to be in every Englishman's library, remarks: 'All through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was the rule not to pay anybody until the end of the commission, and to a certain degree the practice obtained until some fifty years ago.' As to the nineteenth century, Lord Dundonald, speaking in Parliament, may be quoted. He said that of the ships on the East Indies station, the Centurion's men had been unpaid for eleven years; the Rattlesnake's for fourteen; the Fox's for fifteen. The Elizabethan practice compared with this will look almost precipitate instead of dilatory. To draw again on my personal experience, I may say that I have been kept without pay for a longer time than most of the people in Lord Howard's fleet, as, for the first two years that I was at sea, young officers were paid only once in six months; and then never in cash, but always in bills. The reader may be left to imagine what happened when a naval cadet tried to get a bill for some L7 or L8 cashed at a small Spanish-American port.

[Footnote 79: London, 1894.]

A great deal has been made of the strict audit of the accounts of Howard's fleet. The Queen, says Froude, 'would give no orders for money till she had demanded the meaning of every penny that she was charged.' Why she alone should be held up to obloquy for this is not clear. Until a very recent period, well within the last reign, no commanding officer, on a ship being paid off, could receive the residue of his pay, or get any half-pay at all, until his 'accounts had been passed.'[80] The same rule applied to officers in charge of money or stores. It has been made a further charge against Elizabeth that her officers had to meet certain expenditure out of their own pockets. That certainly is not a peculiarity of the sixteenth-century navy. Till less than fifty years ago the captain of a British man-of-war had to provide one of the three chronometers used in the navigation of his ship. Even later than that the articles necessary for cleaning the ship and everything required for decorating her were paid for by the officers, almost invariably by the first lieutenant, or second in command. There must be many officers still serving who have spent sums, considerable in the aggregate, of their own money on public objects. Though pressure in this respect has been much relieved of late, there are doubtless many who do so still. It is, in fact, a traditional practice in the British Navy and is not in the least distinctly Elizabethan.

[Footnote 80: This happened to me in 1904.]

Some acquaintance with present conditions and accurate knowledge of the naval methods prevailing in the great Queen's reign—a knowledge which the publication of the original documents puts within the reach of anyone who really cares to know the truth—will convince the candid inquirer that Elizabeth's administration of the navy compares favourably with that of any of her successors; and that, for it, she deserves the admiration and unalloyed gratitude of the nation.



IX[81]

[Footnote 81: Written in 1905. (_Cornhill_Magazine_.)]

NELSON: THE CENTENARY OF TRAFALGAR

[The following article was read as an address, in compliance with the request of its Council, at the annual meeting of the Navy Records Society in July 1905. It was, and indeed is still, my opinion, as stated to the meeting in some prefatory remarks, that the address would have come better from a professed historian, several members of the Society being well known as entitled to that designation. The Council, however, considered that, as Nelson's tactical principles and achievements should be dealt with, it would be better for the address to be delivered by a naval officer—one, moreover, who had personal experience of the manoeuvres of fleets under sail. Space would not suffice for treating of Nelson's merits as a strategist, though they are as great as those which he possessed as a tactician.]

Centenary commemorations are common enough; but the commemoration of Nelson has a characteristic which distinguishes it from most, if not from all, others. In these days we forget soon. What place is still kept in our memories by even the most illustrious of those who have but recently left us? It is not only that we do not remember their wishes and injunctions; their existence has almost faded from our recollection. It is not difficult to persuade people to commemorate a departed worthy; but in most cases industry has to take the place of enthusiasm, and moribund or extinct remembrances have to be galvanised by assiduity into a semblance of life. In the case of Nelson the conditions are very different. He may have been misunderstood; even by his professional descendants his acts and doctrines may have been misinterpreted; but he has never been forgotten.

The time has now come when we can specially do honour to Nelson's memory without wounding the feelings of other nations. There is no need to exult over or even to expatiate on the defeats of others. In recalling the past it is more dignified as regards ourselves, and more considerate of the honour of our great admiral, to think of the valour and self-devotion rather than the misfortunes of those against whom he fought. We can do full justice to Nelson's memory without reopening old wounds.

The first thing to be noted concerning him is that he is the only man who has ever lived who by universal consent is without a peer. This is said in full view of the new constellation rising above the Eastern horizon; for that constellation, brilliant as it is, has not yet reached the meridian. In every walk of life, except that which Nelson chose as his own, you will find several competitors for the first place, each one of whom will have many supporters. Alexander of Macedon, Hannibal, Caesar, Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon have been severally put forward for the palm of generalship. To those who would acclaim Richelieu as the first of statesmen, others would oppose Chatham, or William Pitt, or Cavour, or Bismarck, or Marquis Ito. Who was the first of sculptors? who the first of painters? who the first of poets? In every case there is a great difference of opinion. Ask, however, who was the first of admirals, and the unanimous reply will still be—'Nelson,' tried as he was by many years of high command in war. It is not only amongst his fellow-countrymen that his preeminence is acknowledged. Foreigners admit it as readily as we proclaim it ourselves.

We may consider what it was that gave Nelson this unique position among men. The early conditions of his naval career were certainly not favourable to him. It is true that he was promoted when young; but so were many other officers. Nelson was made a commander only a few months after the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France, and was made a post-captain within a few days of the declaration of war by Spain. An officer holding a rank qualifying him for command at the outset of a great war might well have looked forward confidently to exceptional opportunities of distinguishing himself. Even in our own days, when some trifling campaign is about to be carried on, the officers who are employed where they can take no part in it vehemently lament their ill-fortune. How much more disheartening must it have been to be excluded from active participation in a great and long-continued conflict! This was Nelson's case. As far as his hopes of gaining distinction were concerned, fate seemed to persecute him pertinaciously. He was a captain of more than four years' seniority when the treaty of Versailles put an end to the war of American Independence. Yet, with the exception of the brief Nicaragua expedition—which by the side of the important occurrences of grand naval campaigns must have seemed insignificant—his services during all those years of hostilities were uneventful, and even humdrum. He seemed to miss every important operation; and when the war ended—we may almost say—he had never seen a ship fire a broadside in anger.

There then came what promised to be, and in fact turned out to be, a long period of peace. With no distinguished war service to point to, and with the prospect before him of only uneventful employment, or no employment afloat at all, Nelson might well have been disheartened to the verge of despondency. That he was not disheartened, but, instead thereof, made a name for himself in such unfavourable circumstances, must be accepted as one of the most convincing proofs of his rare force of character. To have attracted the notice, and to have secured the confidence, of so great a sea-officer as Lord Hood constituted a distinction which could have been won only by merit so considerable that it could not long remain unrecognised. The war of American Independence had still seven months to run when Lord Hood pointed to Nelson as an officer to be consulted on 'questions relative to naval tactics,' Professor Laughton tells us that at that time Nelson had never served with a fleet. Lord Hood was one of the last men in the world to go out of his way to pay to a youthful subordinate an empty compliment, and we may confidently base our estimate of an officer's merits on Lord Hood's belief in them.

He, no doubt, gave a Wide signification to the term 'tactics,' and used it as embracing all that is included in the phrase 'conduct of war.' He must have found out, from conversations with, and from the remarks of, the young captain, whom he treated as intimately as if he was his son, that the latter was already, what he continued to be till the end, viz. a student of naval warfare. This point deserves particular attention. The officers of the navy of the present day, period of peace though it be, can imitate Nelson at least in this. He had to wait a long time before he could translate into brilliant action the result of his tactical studies. Fourteen years after Lord Hood spoke of him as above related, by a 'spontaneous and sudden act, for which he had no authority by signal or otherwise, except his own judgment and quick perceptions,' Nelson entirely defeated the movement of the enemy's fleet, contributed to the winning of a great victory, and, as Captain Mahan tells us, 'emerged from merely personal distinction to national renown.' The justification of dwelling on this is to be found in the necessity, even at this day, of preventing the repetition of mistakes concerning Nelson's qualities and disposition. His recent biographers, Captain Mahan and Professor Laughton, feel constrained to tell us over and over again that Nelson's predominant characteristic was not mere 'headlong valour and instinct for fighting'; that he was not the man 'to run needless and useless risks' in battle. 'The breadth and acuteness of Nelson's intellect,' says Mahan, 'have been too much overlooked in the admiration excited by his unusually grand moral endowments of resolution, dash, and fearlessness of responsibility!'

In forming a true conception of what Nelson was, the publications of the Navy Records Society will help us greatly. There is something very remarkable in the way in which Mr. Gutteridge's volume[82] not only confirms Captain Mahan's refutation of the aspersions on Nelson's honour and humanity, but also establishes Professor Laughton's conclusions, reached many years ago, that it was the orders given to him, and not his amour, which detained him at Naples at a well-known epoch. The last volume issued by the Society, that of Mr. Julian Corbett,[83] is, I venture to affirm, the most useful to naval officers that has yet appeared among the Society's publications. It will provide them with an admirable historical introduction to the study of tactics, and greatly help them in ascertaining the importance of Nelson's achievements as a tactician. For my own part, I may say with gratitude that but for Mr. Corbett's valuable work I could not have completed this appreciation.

[Footnote 82: NelsonandtheNeapolitanJacobins.]

[Footnote 83: _Fighting_Instructions_, 1530-1816.]

The most renowned of Nelson's achievements was that performed in his final battle and victory. Strange as it may seem, that celebrated performance has been the subject of much controversy, and, brilliant as it was, the tactics adopted in it have been freely, and indeed unfavourably, criticised. There is still much difference of opinion as to the preliminary movements, and as to the exact method by which Nelson's attack was made. It has been often asserted that the method really followed was not that which Nelson had expressly declared his intention of adopting. The question raised concerning this is a difficult one, and, until the appearance of Mr. Julian Corbett's recent work and the interesting volume on Trafalgar lately published by Mr. H. Newbolt, had not been fully discussed. The late Vice-Admiral P. H. Colomb contributed to the UnitedServiceMagazine of September 1899 a very striking article on the subject of Nelson's tactics in his last battle, and those who propose to study the case should certainly peruse what he wrote.

The criticism of Nelson's procedure at Trafalgar in its strongest form may be summarised as follows. It is affirmed that he drew up and communicated to the officers under his orders a certain plan of attack; that just before the battle he changed his plan without warning; that he hurried on his attack unnecessarily; that he exposed his fleet to excessive peril; and, because of all this, that the British loss was much heavier and much less evenly distributed among the ships of the fleet than it need have been. The most formidable arraignment of the mode of Nelson's last attack is, undoubtedly, to be found in the paper published by Sir Charles Ekins in his book on 'Naval Battles,' and vouched for by him as the work of an eye-witness—almost certainly, as Mr. Julian Corbett holds, an officer on board the Conqueror in the battle. It is a remarkable document. Being critical rather than instructive, it is not to be classed with the essay of Clerk of Eldin; but it is one of the most important contributions to the investigation of tactical questions ever published in the English tongue. On it are based nearly, or quite, all the unfavourable views expressed concerning the British tactics at Trafalgar. As it contains a respectfully stated, but still sharp, criticism of Nelson's action, it will not be thought presumptuous if we criticise it in its turn.

Notwithstanding the fact that the author of the paper actually took part in the battle, and that he was gifted with no mean tactical insight, it is permissible to say that his remarks have an academic tinge. In fact, they are very much of the kind that a clever professor of tactics, who had not felt the responsibilities inseparable from the command of a fleet, would put before a class of students. Between a professor of tactics, however clever, and a commanding genius like Nelson the difference is great indeed. The writer of the paper in question perhaps expressed the more general opinion of his day. He has certainly suggested opinions to later generations of naval officers. The captains who shared in Nelson's last great victory did not agree among themselves as to the mode in which the attack was introduced. It was believed by some of them, and, thanks largely to the Conqueror officer's paper, it is generally believed now, that, whereas Nelson had announced his intention of advancing to the attack in lines-abreast or lines-of-bearing, he really did so in lines-ahead. Following up the path of investigation to which, in his article above mentioned, Admiral Colomb had already pointed, we can, I think, arrive only at the conclusion that the announced intention was adhered to.

Before the reasons for this conclusion are given it will be convenient to deal with the suggestions, or allegations, that Nelson exposed his fleet at Trafalgar to unduly heavy loss, putting it in the power of the enemy—to use the words of the Conqueror's officer—to 'have annihilated the ships one after another in detail'; and that 'the brunt of the action would have been more equally felt' had a different mode of advance from that actually chosen been adopted. Now, Trafalgar was a battle in which an inferior fleet of twenty-six ships gained a victory over a superior fleet of thirty-three. The victory was so decisive that more than half of the enemy's capital ships were captured or destroyed on the spot, and the remainder were so battered that some fell an easy prey to the victor's side soon after the battle, the rest having limped painfully to the shelter of a fortified port near at hand. To gain such a victory over a superior force of seamen justly celebrated for their spirit and gallantry, very hard fighting was necessary. The only actions of the Napoleonic period that can be compared with it are those of Camperdown, the Nile, and Copenhagen. The proportionate loss at Trafalgar was the least in all the four battles.[84] The allegation that, had Nelson followed a different method at Trafalgar, the 'brunt of the action would have been more equally felt' can be disposed of easily. In nearly all sea-fights, whether Nelsonic in character or not, half of the loss of the victors has fallen on considerably less than half the fleet. That this has been the rule, whatever tactical method may have been adopted, will appear from the following statement. In Rodney's victory (12th April 1782) half the loss fell upon nine ships out of thirty-six, or one-fourth; at 'The First of June' it fell upon five ships out of twenty-five, or one-fifth; at St. Vincent it fell upon three ships out of fifteen, also one-fifth; at Trafalgar half the loss fell on five ships out of twenty-seven, or very little less than an exact fifth. It has, therefore, been conclusively shown that, faulty or not faulty, long-announced or hastily adopted, the plan on which the battle of Trafalgar was fought did not occasion excessive loss to the victors or confine the loss, such as it was, to an unduly small portion of their fleet. As bearing on this question of the relative severity of the British loss at Trafalgar, it may be remarked that in that battle there were several British ships which had been in other great sea-fights. Their losses in these latter were in nearly every case heavier than their Trafalgar losses.[85] Authoritative and undisputed figures show how baseless are the suggestions that Nelson's tactical procedure at Trafalgar caused his fleet to suffer needlessly heavy loss.

[Footnote 84: Camperdown 825 loss out of 8,221: 10 per cent. The Nile 896 " " 7,401: 12.1 " Copenhagen 941 " " 6,892: 13.75 " Trafalgar 1,690 " " 17,256: 9.73 " ]

[Footnote 85: Trafalgar Ship Action Killed Wounded Total Killed Wounded Total Ajax Rodney's 9 10 19 2 9 11 (Ap. 12, 1782) Agamemnon " 15 22 37 2 8 10 Conqueror " 7 22 29 3 9 12 Defence 1st June 17 36 53 7 29 36 Bellerophon The Nile 49 148 197 27 123 150 Swiftsure " 7 22 29 9 8 17 Defiance Copenhagen 24 21 45 17 53 70 Polyphemus " 6 25 31 2 4 6

[In only one case was the Trafalgar total loss greater than the total loss of the same ship in an earlier fight; and in this case (the Defiance) the number of killed at Trafalgar was only about two-thirds of the number killed in the other action.]

It is now necessary to investigate the statement that Nelson, hastily and without warning, changed his plan for fighting the battle. This investigation is much more difficult than that into the losses of the British fleet, because, whilst the latter can be settled by arithmetic, the former must proceed largely upon conjecture. How desirable it is to make the investigation of the statement mentioned will be manifest when we reflect on the curious fact that the very completeness of Nelson's success at Trafalgar checked, or, indeed, virtually destroyed, the study of tactics in the British Navy for more than three-quarters of a century. His action was so misunderstood, or, at any rate, so variously represented, that it generally passed for gospel in our service that Nelson's method consisted merely in rushing at his enemy as soon as he saw him. Against this conception his biographers, one after another, have protested in vain.

At the outset of this investigation it will be well to call to mind two or three things, simple enough, but not always remembered. One of these is that advancing to the attack and the attack itself are not the same operations. Another is, that, in the order of sailing in two or more columns, if the ships were 'by the wind' or close-hauled—the column-leaders were not abeam of each other, but bore from one another in the direction of the wind. Also, it may be mentioned that by simple alterations of course a line-abreast may be converted into a line-of-bearing and a line-of-bearing into a line-ahead, and that the reverse can be effected by the same operation. Again, adherence to a plan which presupposes the enemy's fleet to be in a particular formation after he is found to be in another is not to be expected of a consummate tactician. This remark is introduced here with full knowledge of the probability that it will be quoted as an admission that Nelson did change his plan without warning. No admission of the kind is intended. 'In all cases of anticipated battle,' says Mahan, 'Nelson was careful to put his subordinates in possession both of his general plans and, as far as possible, of the underlying ideas.' The same biographer tells us, what is well worth remembering, that 'No man was ever better served than Nelson by the inspiration of the moment; no man ever counted on it less.'

The plan announced in the celebrated memorandum of 9th October 1805 indicated, for the attack from to windward, that the British fleet, in what would be called on shore an echelon of two main divisions and an 'advance squadron,' would move against an enemy assumed to be in single line-ahead. The 'advance squadron,' it should be noted, was not to be ahead of the two main divisions, but in such a position that it could be moved to strengthen either. The name seems to have been due to the mode in which the ships composing the squadron were employed in, so to speak, 'feeling for' the enemy. On 19th October six ships were ordered 'to go ahead during the night'; and, besides the frigates, two more ships were so stationed as to keep up the communication between the six and the commander-in-chief's flag-ship. Thus eight ships in effect composed an 'advance squadron,' and did not join either of the main divisions at first.

When it was expected that the British fleet would comprise forty sail-of-the-line and the enemy's fleet forty-six, each British main division was to be made up of sixteen ships; and eight two-deckers added to either division would increase the strength of the latter to twenty-four ships. It is interesting to note that, omitting the Africa, which ship came up late, each British main division on the morning of 21st October 1805 had nine ships—a number which, by the addition of the eight already mentioned as distinct from the divisions, could have been increased to seventeen, thus, except for a fraction, exactly maintaining the original proportion as regards the hostile fleet, which was now found to be composed of thirty-three ships.

During the night of 20th-21st October the Franco-Spanish fleet, which had been sailing in three divisions and a 'squadron of observation,' formed line and stood to the southward, heading a little to the eastward of south. The 'squadron of observation' was parallel to the main body and to windward (in this case to the westward) of it, with the leading ships rather more advanced.

The British main divisions steered WSW. till 1 A.M. After that they steered SW. till 4 A.M. There are great difficulties about the time, as the notation of it[86] differed considerably in different ships; but the above hours are taken from the Victory's log. At 4 A.M. the British fleet, or rather its main divisions, wore and stood N. by E. As the wind was about NW. by W., the ships were close-hauled, and the leader of the 'lee-line,' i.e. Collingwood's flag-ship, was when in station two points abaft the Victory's beam as soon as the 'order of sailing' in two columns—which was to be the order of battle—had been formed.

[Footnote 86: Except the chronometers, which were instruments of navigation so precious as always to be kept under lock and key, there were no clocks in the navy till some years after I joined it. Time on board ship was kept by half-hour sand-glasses.]

About 6 A.M. the enemy's fleet was sighted from the Victory, and observed to bear from her E. by S. and be distant from her ten or twelve miles. The distance is corroborated by observed bearings from Collingwood's flag-ship.[87] Viewed from the British ships, placed as they were relatively to it, the enemy's fleet must have appeared as a long single line-ahead, perhaps not very exactly formed. As soon as the hostile force was clearly made out, the British divisions bore up and stood to the eastward, steering by the Victory's compass ENE. The position and formation of the British main divisions were by this made exactly those in which they are shown in the diagram usually attached to the celebrated memorandum of 9th October 1805. The enemy must have appeared to the British, who were ten or twelve miles to windward of him, and on his beam, as if he were formed in line-ahead. He therefore was also in the position and formation assigned to him in that diagram.

[Footnote 87: It would necessitate the use of some technicalities to explain it fully; but it may be said that the bearings of the extremes of the enemy's line observed from his flag-ship prove that Collingwood was in the station that he ought to have occupied when the British fleet was in the Order of Sailing and close to the wind.]

At a time which, because of the variety in the notations of it, it is difficult to fix exactly, but somewhere between 7 and 8 A.M., the enemy's ships wore together and endeavoured to form a line to the northward, which, owing to the direction of the wind, must have been about N. by E. and S. by W., or NNE. and SSW. The operation—not merely of wearing, but of both wearing and reforming the line, such as it was—took more than an hour to complete. The wind was light; there was a westerly swell; the ships were under easy sail; consequently there must have been a good deal of leeway, and the hostile or 'combined' fleet headed in the direction of Cadiz, towards which, we are expressly told by a high French authority—Chevalier—it advanced.

Nelson had to direct the course of his fleet so that its divisions, when about to make the actual attack, would be just opposite the points to which the respective hostile ships had advanced in the meantime. In a light wind varying in force a direct course to those points could not be settled once for all; but that first chosen was very nearly right, and an alteration of a point, viz. to E. by N., was for a considerable time all that was necessary. Collingwood later made a signal to his division to alter course one point to port, which brought them back to the earlier course, which by the Victory's compass had been ENE. The eight ships of what has been referred to as the 'advance squadron' were distributed between the two main British divisions, six being assigned to Collingwood's and two to Nelson's. They did not all join their divisions at the same time, some—probably owing to the distance at which they had been employed from the rest of the fleet and the feebleness of the breeze—not till several hours after the combined fleet had been sighted.

Collingwood preserved in his division a line-of-bearing apparently until the very moment when the individual ships pushed on to make the actual attack. The enemy's fleet is usually represented as forming a curve. It would probably be more correct to call it a very obtuse re-entering angle. This must have been largely due to Gravina's 'squadron of observation' keeping away in succession, to get into the wake of the rest of the line, which was forming towards the north. About the centre of the combined fleet there was a gap of a mile. Ahead and astern of this the ships were not all in each other's wake. Many were to leeward of their stations, thus giving the enemy's formation the appearance of a double line, or rather of a string of groups of ships. It is important to remember this, because no possible mode of attack—the enemy's fleet being formed as it was—could have prevented some British ships from being 'doubled on' when they cut into the enemy's force. On 'The First of June,' notwithstanding that the advance to the attack was intended to be in line-abreast, several British ships were 'doubled on,' and even 'trebled on,' as will be seen in the experiences on that day of the Brunswick, Marlborough, RoyalSovereign, and QueenCharlotte herself.

Owing to the shape of the hostile 'line' at Trafalgar and the formation in which he kept his division, Collingwood brought his ships, up till the very moment when each proceeded to deliver her attack, in the formation laid down in the oft-quoted memorandum. By the terms of that document Nelson had specifically assigned to his own division the work of seeing that the movements of Collingwood's division should be interrupted as little as possible. It would, of course, have been beyond his power to do this if the position of his own division in the echelon formation prescribed in the memorandum had been rigorously adhered to after Collingwood was getting near his objective point. In execution, therefore, of the service allotted to his division, Nelson made a feint at the enemy's van. This necessitated an alteration of course to port, so that his ships came into a 'line-of-bearing' so very oblique that it may well have been loosely called a 'line-ahead.' Sir Charles Ekins says that the two British lines 'afterwards fell into line-ahead, the ships in the wake of each other,' and that this was in obedience to signal. Collingwood's line certainly did not fall into line-ahead. At the most it was a rather oblique line-of-bearing almost parallel to that part of the enemy's fleet which he was about to attack. In Nelson's line there was more than one alteration of course, as the Victory's log expressly states that she kept standing for the enemy's van, which we learn from the French accounts was moving about N. by E. or NNE. In the light wind prevailing the alterations of course must have rendered it, towards the end of the forenoon, impossible to keep exact station, even if the Victory were to shorten sail, which we know she did not. As Admiral Colomb pointed out, 'Several later signals are recorded which were proper to make in lines-of-bearing, but not in lines-ahead.' It is difficult to import into this fact any other meaning but that of intention to preserve, however obliquely, the line-of-bearing which undoubtedly had been formed by the act of bearing-up as soon as the enemy's fleet had been distinguished.

When Collingwood had moved near enough to the enemy to let his ships deliver their attacks, it became unnecessary for Nelson's division to provide against the other's being interrupted. Accordingly, he headed for the point at which he meant to cut into the enemy's fleet. Now came the moment, as regards his division, for doing what Collingwood's had already begun to do, viz. engage in a 'pell-mell battle,'[88] which surely may be interpreted as meaning a battle in which rigorous station-keeping was no longer expected, and in which 'no captain could do very wrong if he placed his ship alongside that of the enemy.'

[Footnote 88: Nelson's own expression.]

In several diagrams of the battle as supposed to have been fought the two British divisions just before the moment of impact are represented as converging towards each other. The Spanish diagram, lately reproduced by Mr. Newbolt, shows this, as well as the English diagrams. We may take it, therefore, that there was towards the end of the forenoon a convergence of the two columns, and that this was due to Nelson's return from his feint at the hostile van to the line from which he intended to let go his ships to deliver the actual attack. Collingwood's small alteration of course of one point to port slightly, but only slightly, accentuated this convergence.

Enough has been said here of Nelson's tactics at Trafalgar. To discuss them fully would lead me too far for this occasion.

I can only express the hope that in the navy the subject will receive fuller consideration hereafter. Nelson's last victory was gained, be it remembered, in one afternoon, over a fleet more than 20 per cent. his superior in numbers, and was so decisive that more than half of the hostile ships were taken. This was the crowning effort of seven years spent in virtually independent command in time of war—seven years, too, illustrated by more than one great victory.

The more closely we look into Nelson's tactical achievements, the more effective and brilliant do they appear. It is the same with his character and disposition. The more exact researches and investigations of recent times have removed from his name the obloquy which it pleased some to cast upon it. We can see now that his 'childlike, delighted vanity'—to use the phrase of his greatest biographer—was but a thin incrustation on noble qualities. As in the material world valueless earthy substances surround a vein of precious metal, so through Nelson's moral nature there ran an opulent lode of character, unimpaired in its priceless worth by adjacent frailties which, in the majority of mankind, are present without any precious stuff beneath them. It is with minds prepared to see this that we should commemorate our great admiral.

Veneration of Nelson's memory cannot be confined to particular objects or be limited by locality. His tomb is wider than the space covered by dome or column, and his real monument is more durable than any material construction. It is the unwritten and spiritual memorial of him, firmly fixed in the hearts of his fellow-countrymen.



X

THE SHARE OF THE FLEET IN THE DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE[89]

[Footnote 89: Written in 1907. (_Naval_Annual_, 1908.)]

At the close of the Great War, which ended in the downfall of Napoleon, the maritime position of the British Empire was not only predominant—it also was, and long remained, beyond the reach of challenge. After the stupendous events of the great contest such successes as those at Algiers where we were helped by the Dutch, at Navarino where we had two allies, and at Acre were regarded as matters of course, and no very grave issue hung upon any one of them. For more than half a century after Nelson's death all the most brilliant achievements of British arms were performed on shore, in India or in the Crimea. There were also many small wars on land, and it may well have seemed to contemporaries that the days of great naval contests were over and that force of circumstances was converting us into a military from a naval nation. The belief in the efficacy of naval defence was not extinct, but it had ceased to operate actively. Even whilst the necessity of that form of defence was far more urgent, inattention to or ignorance of its true principles had occasionally allowed it to grow weak, but the possibility of substituting something else for it had not been pressed or even suggested. To this, however, we had now come; and it was largely a consequence of the Crimean war. In that war the British Army had nobly sustained its reputation as a fighting machine. For the first time after a long interval it had met in battle European troops, and had come out of the conflict more renowned for bravery than ever. Nothing seemed able to damp its heroism—not scantiness of food, not lack of clothing amidst bitter cold, not miserable quarters, not superior forces of a valiant enemy. It clung to its squalid abodes in the positions which it was ordered to hold with a tenacious fortitude that had never been surpassed in its glorious history, and that defied all assaults. In combination with its brave allies it brought to a triumphant conclusion a war of an altogether peculiar character.

The campaign in the Crimea was in reality the siege of a single fortress. All the movements of the Western invaders were undertaken to bring them within striking distance of the place, to keep them within reach of it, or to capture it. Every battle that occurred was fought with one of those objects. When the place fell the war ended. The one general who, in the opinion of all concerned, gained high distinction in the war was the general who had prolonged the defence of Sebastopol by the skilful use of earthworks. It was no wonder that the attack and defence of fortified places assumed large importance in the eyes of the British people. The command of the sea held by the allied powers was so complete and all-pervading that no one stopped to think what the course of hostilities would have been without it, any more than men stop to think what the course of any particular business would be if there were no atmosphere to breathe in. Not a single allied soldier had been delayed on passage by the hostile fleet; not a single merchant vessel belonging to the allies had been captured by a hostile cruiser. Supplies and reinforcements for the besieging armies were transported to them without escort and with as little risk of interruption as if the operations had been those of profound peace.

No sooner was the Crimean war over than another struggle took place, viz. the war of the Indian Mutiny, and that also was waged entirely on land. Here again the command of the sea was so complete that no interruption of it, even temporary, called attention to its existence. Troops and supplies were sent to India from the United Kingdom and from Hong-Kong; horses for military purposes from Australia and South Africa; and in every case without a thought of naval escort. The experience of hostilities in India seemed to confirm the experience of the Crimea. What we had just done to a great European nation was assumed to be what unfriendly European nations would wish to do and would be able to do to us. It was also assumed that the only way of frustrating their designs would be to do what had recently been done in the hope of frustrating ours, but to do it better. We must—it was said—depend on fortifications, but more perfect than those which had failed to save Sebastopol.

The protection to be afforded by our fleet was deliberately declared to be insufficient. It might, so it was held, be absent altogether, and then there would be nothing but fortifications to stand between us and the progress of an active enemy. In the result the policy of constructing imposing passive defence-works on our coast was adopted. The fortifications had to be multiplied. Dependence on that class of defence inevitably leads to discovery after discovery that some spot open to the kind of attack feared has not been made secure. We began by fortifying the great dockyard ports—on the sea side against a hostile fleet, on the land side against hostile troops. Then it was perceived that to fortify the dockyard ports in the mother country afforded very little protection to the outlying portions of the empire. So their principal ports also were given defence-works—sometimes of an elaborate character. Again, it was found that commercial ports had been left out and that they too must be fortified. When this was done spots were observed at which an enemy might effect a landing in force, to prevent which further forts or batteries must be erected. The most striking thing in all this is the complete omission to take note of the conditions involved in the command of the sea.

Evidently it had not been understood that it was that very command which alone had enabled the armies of western Europe to proceed, not only without serious interruption, but also without encountering an attempt at obstruction, to the field in the Crimea on which their victories had been won, and that the same command would be necessary before any hostile expedition, large enough to justify the construction of the fortifications specially intended to repel it, could cross the sea and get within striking distance of our shores. It should be deeply interesting to the people of those parts of the British Empire which lie beyond sea to note that the defensive system comprised in the fortification of the coast of the United Kingdom promised no security to them in the event of war. Making all proper allowance for the superior urgency of defending the heart of the empire, we must still admit that no system of defence is adequate which does not provide for the defence of other valuable parts of the great body politic as well.

Again, the system of defence proved to be imperfect. Every part of the empire depended for prosperity—some parts depended for existence—on practically unrestricted traffic on the ocean. This, which might be assailed at many points and on lines often thousands of miles in length, could find little or no defence in immovable fortifications. It could not be held that the existence of these released the fleet from all duty but that of protecting our ocean commerce, because, if any enemy's navy was able to carry out an operation of such magnitude and difficulty as a serious attack on our home territory, it would assuredly be able to carry out the work of damaging our maritime trade. Power to do the latter has always belonged to the navy which was in a position to extend its activity persistently to the immediate neighbourhood of its opponent's coast-line.

It is not to be supposed that there was no one to point this out. Several persons did so, but being mostly sailors they were not listened to. In actual practice the whole domain of imperial strategy was withdrawn from the intervention of the naval officer, as though it were something with which he could not have anything to do. Several great wars had been waged in Europe in the meantime, and all of them were land wars. Naval forces, if employed at all, were employed only just enough to bring out how insignificant their participation in them was. As was to have been expected, the habit of attaching importance to the naval element of imperial defence declined. The empire, nevertheless, continued to grow. Its territory was extended; its population, notably its population of European stock, increased, and its wealth and the subsequent operations of exchanging its productions for those of other countries were enormously expanded. At the same time the navy, to the strength and efficiency of which it had to look for security, declined absolutely, and still more relatively. Other navies were advancing: some had, as it were, come into existence. At last the true conditions were discerned, and the nation, almost with one voice, demanded that the naval defences of the empire should be put upon a proper footing.

Let no one dismiss the foregoing retrospect as merely ancient history. On the contrary, let all those who desire to see the British Empire follow the path of its natural development in tranquillity study the recent past. By doing this we shall be able to estimate aright the position of the fleet in the defence of the empire. We must examine the circumstances in which we are placed. For five-and-thirty years the nations of the world have practically lived under the rule of force. The incessant object of every great state has been to increase the strength of its armed forces up to the point at which the cost becomes intolerable. Countries separated from one another only by arbitrary geographical lines add regiment to regiment and gun to gun, and also devise continually fresh expedients for accelerating the work of preparing their armies to take the field. The most pacifically inclined nation must do in this respect as its neighbours do, on pain of losing its independence and being mutilated in its territory if it does not. This rivalry has spread to the sea, and fleets are increased at a rate and at a cost in money unknown to former times, even to those of war. The possession of a powerful navy by some state which has no reason to apprehend over-sea invasion and which has no maritime interests, however intrinsically important they may be, commensurate with the strength of its fleets, may not indicate a spirit of aggression; but it at least indicates ability to become an aggressor. Consequently, for the British fleet to fill its proper position in the defence of the empire it must be strong. To be strong more than large numbers will be required. It must have the right, that is the best, material, the best organisation, the best discipline, the best training, the best distribution. We shall ascertain the position that it should hold, if we examine what it would have to do when called upon for work more active than that of peace time. With the exception of India and Canada no part of the empire is liable to serious attack that does not come over-sea. Any support that can be given to India or Canada by other parts of the empire must be conveyed across the sea also. This at once indicates the importance of ocean lines of communication.

War is the method adopted, when less violent means of persuasion have failed, to force your enemy to comply with your demands. There are three principal ways of effecting this—invasion of his country, raids on his territory, destruction or serious damage of his sea-borne commerce. Successful invasion must compel the invaded to come to terms, or his national existence will be lost. Raids upon his territory may possibly so distress him that he would rather concede your terms than continue the struggle.[90] Damage to his sea-borne commerce may be carried so far that he will be ruined if he does not give in. So much for one side of the account; we have to examine the other. Against invasion, raids, or attempts at commerce-destruction there must be some form of defence, and, as a matter of historical fact, defence against each has been repeatedly successful. If we need instances we have only to peruse the history of the British Empire.

[Footnote 90: Though raids rarely, if ever, decide a war, they may cause inconvenience or local distress, and an enemy desiring to make them should be obstructed as much as possible.]

How was it that—whilst we landed invading armies in many hostile countries, seized many portions of hostile territory, and drove more than one enemy's commerce from the sea—our own country has been free from successful invasion for more than eight centuries, few portions of our territory have been taken from us even temporarily, and our commerce has increased throughout protracted maritime wars? To this there can only be one answer, viz. that the arrangements for defence were effectual. What, then, were these arrangements? They were comprised in the provision of a powerful, well-distributed, well-handled navy, and of a mobile army of suitable strength. It is to be observed that each element possessed the characteristic of mobility. We have to deal here more especially with the naval element, and we must study the manner in which it operates.

Naval war is sea-power in action; and sea-power, taken in the narrow sense, has limitations. It may not, even when so taken, cease to act at the enemy's coast-line, but its direct influence extends only to the inner side of a narrow zone conforming to that line. In a maritime contest each side tries to control the ocean communications and to prevent the other from controlling them. If either gains the control, something in addition to sea-power strictly defined may begin to operate: the other side's territory may be invaded or harassed by considerable raids, and its commerce may be driven from the sea. It will be noticed that control of ocean communications is the needful preliminary to these. It is merely a variant of the often employed expression of the necessity, in war, of obtaining command of the sea. In the case of the most important portion of the British Empire, viz. the United Kingdom, our loss of control of the ocean communications would have a result which scarcely any foreign country would experience. Other countries are dependent on importations for some part of the food of their population and of the raw material of their industry; but much of the importation is, and perhaps all of it may be, effected by land. Here, we depend upon imports from abroad for a very large part of the food of our people, and of the raw material essential to the manufacture of the commodities by the exchange of which we obtain necessary supplies; and the whole of these imports come, and must come to us, by sea. Also, if we had not freedom of exportation, our wealth and the means of supporting a war would disappear. Probably all the greater colonies and India could feed their inhabitants for a moderately long time without sea-borne imports, but unless the sea were open to them their prosperity would decline.

This teaches us the necessity to the British Empire of controlling our maritime communications, and equally teaches those who may one day be our enemies the advisability of preventing us from doing so. The lesson in either case is driven farther home by other considerations connected with communications. In war a belligerent has two tasks before him. He has to defend himself and hurt his enemy. The more he hurts his enemy, the less is he likely to be hurt himself. This defines the great principle of offensive defence. To act in accordance with this principle, a belligerent should try, as the saying goes, to carry the war into the enemy's country. He should try to make his opponents fight where he wants them to fight, which will probably be as far as possible from his own territory and as near as possible to theirs. Unless he can do this, invasion and even serious raids by him will be out of the question. More than that, his inability to do it will virtually indicate that on its part the other side can fix the scene of active hostilities unpleasantly close to the points from which he desires to keep its forces away.

A line of ocean communications may be vulnerable throughout its length; but it does not follow that an assailant can operate against it with equal facility at every point, nor does it follow that it is at every point equally worth assailing. Lines running past hostile naval ports are especially open to assault in the part near the ports; and lines formed by the confluence of two or more other lines—like, for example, those which enter the English Channel—will generally include a greater abundance of valuable traffic than others. Consequently there are some parts at which an enemy may be expected to be more active than elsewhere, and it is from those very parts that it is most desirable to exclude him. They are, as a rule, relatively near to the territory of the state whose navy has to keep the lines open, that is to say, prevent their being persistently beset by an enemy. The necessary convergence of lines towards that state's ports shows that some portion of them would have to be traversed, or their traversing be attempted, by expeditions meant to carry out either invasion or raids. If, therefore, the enemy can be excluded as above mentioned, invasions, raids, and the more serious molestation of sea-borne commerce by him will be prevented.

If we consider particular cases we shall find proof upon proof of the validity of the rule. Three great lines—one from the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope, one from the Red Sea, and a third from India and Ceylon—converge near the south-western part of Australia and run as one line towards the territory of the important states farther east. If an assailant can be excluded from the latter or combined line he must either divide his force or operate on only one of the confluents, leaving the rest free. The farther he can be pushed back from the point of confluence the more effectually will he be limited to a single line, because the combining lines, traced backwards, trend more and more apart, and it is, therefore, more and more difficult for him to keep detachments of his force within supporting distance of each other if they continue to act against two or more lines. The particular case of the approaches to the territory of the United Kingdom has the same features, and proves the rule with equal clearness. This latter case is so often adduced without mention of others, that there is some risk of its being believed to be a solitary one. It stands, however, exactly on all fours with all the rest as regards the principle of the rule.

A necessary consequence of an enemy's exclusion from the combined line as it approaches the territory to be defended is—as already suggested—that invasion of that territory and serious raids upon it will be rendered impracticable. Indeed, if the exclusion be absolutely complete and permanent, raids of every kind and depredations on commerce in the neighbourhood will be prevented altogether. It should be explained that though lines and communications are spoken of, it is the area crossed by them which is strategically important. A naval force, either guarding or intending to assail a line, does not necessarily station itself permanently upon it. All that it has to do is to remain, for the proper length of time, within the strategic area across which the defended or threatened line runs. The strategic area will be of varying extent, its boundaries being determined by circumstances. The object of the defence will be to make the area from which the enemy's ships are excluded as extensive as possible. When the enemy has been pushed back into his own waters and into his own ports the exclusion is strategically complete. The sea is denied to his invading and important raiding expeditions, and indeed to most of his individual cruisers. At the same time it is free to the other belligerent. To effect this a vigorous offensive will be necessary.

The immediate theatre of operations, the critical strategic area, need not be, and often ought not to be, near the territory defended by our navy. It is necessary to dwell upon this, because no principle of naval warfare has been more frequently or more seriously misapprehended. Misapprehension of it has led to mischievous and dangerous distribution of naval force and to the squandering of immense sums of money on local defence vessels; that is, vessels only capable of operating in the very waters from which every effort should be made to exclude the enemy. Failure to exclude him from them can only be regarded as, at the very least, yielding to him an important point in the great game of war. If we succeed in keeping him away, the local defence craft of every class are useless, and the money spent on them has been worse than wasted, because, if it had not been so spent, it might have been devoted to strengthening the kind of force which must be used to keep the enemy where he ought to be kept, viz. at a distance from our own waters.

The demand that ships be so stationed that they will generally, and except when actually cruising, be within sight of the inhabitants, is common enough in the mother country, and perhaps even more common in the over-sea parts of the British Empire. Nothing justifies it but the honest ignorance of those who make it; nothing explains compliance with it but the deplorable weakness of authorities who yield to it. It was not by hanging about the coast of England, when there was no enemy near it, with his fleet, that Hawke or Nelson saved the country from invasion, nor was it by remaining where they could be seen by the fellow-countrymen of their crews that the French and English fleets shut up their enemy in the Baltic and Black Sea, and thus gained and kept undisputed command of the sea which enabled them, without interruption, to invade their enemy's territory.

The condition insisted upon by the Australasian Governments in the agreement formerly made with the Home Government, that a certain number of ships, in return for an annual contribution of money, should always remain in Australasian waters, was in reality greatly against the interests of that part of the empire. The Australasian taxpayer was, in fact, made to insist upon being injured in return for his money. The proceeding would have been exactly paralleled by a householder who might insist that a fire-engine, maintained out of rates to which he contributes, should always be kept within a few feet of his front door, and not be allowed to proceed to the end of the street to extinguish a fire threatening to extend eventually to the householder's own dwelling. When still further localised naval defence—localised defence, that is, of what may be called the smaller description—is considered, the danger involved in adopting it will be quite as apparent, and the waste of money will be more obvious. Localised defence is a near relation of passive defence. It owes its origin to the same sentiment, viz. a belief in the efficacy of staying where you are instead of carrying the war into the enemy's country.