BY
AND
PROFESSORS IN THE UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
WITH MAPS, DIAGRAMS,
AND ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
This volume has been called into being by the absence of any brief work covering the evolution and influence of sea power from the beginnings to the present time. In a survey at once so comprehensive and so short, only the high points of naval history can be touched. Yet it is the hope of the authors that they have not, for that reason, slighted the significance of the story. Naval history is more than a sequence of battles. Sea power has always been a vital force in the rise and fall of nations and in the evolution of civilization. It is this significance, this larger, related point of view, which the authors have tried to make clear in recounting the story of the sea. In regard to naval principles, also, this general survey should reveal those unchanging truths of warfare which have been demonstrated from Salamis to Jutland. The tendency of our modern era of mechanical development has been to forget the value of history. It is true that the 16" gun is a great advance over the 32-pounder of Trafalgar, but it is equally true that the naval officer of to-day must still sit at the feet of Nelson.
The authors would acknowledge their indebtedness to Professor F. Wells Williams of Yale, and to the Classical Departments of Harvard and the University of Chicago for valuable aid in bibliography. Thanks are due also to Commander C. C. Gill, U. S. N., Captain T. G. Frothingam, U. S. N. R., Dr. C. Alphonso Smith, and to colleagues of the Department of English at the Naval Academy for helpful criticism. As to the "References" at the conclusion of each chapter, it Page vi should be said that they are merely references, not bibliographies. The titles are recommended to the reader who may wish to study a period in greater detail, and who would prefer a short list to a complete bibliography.
William Oliver Stevens
Allan Westcott
United States Naval Academy,
June, 1920.
| chapter | ||
| I | The Beginnings of Navies | |
| II | Athens as a Sea Power: | |
| 1. The Persian War | ||
| 2. The Peloponnesian War | ||
| III | The Sea Power of Rome: | |
| 1. The Punic Wars | ||
| 2. The Imperial Navy | ||
| IV | The Navies of the Middle Ages: | |
| The Eastern Empire | ||
| V | The Navies of the Middle Ages [Continued] | |
| Venice and the Turk | ||
| VI | Opening the Ocean Routes: | |
| 1. Portugal and the New Route to India | ||
| 2. Spain and the New World | ||
| VII | Sea Power in the North: | |
| Holland's Struggle for Independence | ||
| VIII | England and the Armada | |
| IX | Rise of English Sea Power: | |
| Wars with the Dutch | ||
| X | Rise of English Sea Power [continued]: | |
| Wars with France to the French Revolution | ||
| XI | Napoleonic Wars: | |
| The First of June and Camperdown | ||
| XII | Napoleonic Wars [Continued]: | |
| The Rise of Nelson | ||
| XIII | Napoleonic Wars [Concluded]: | |
| Trafalgar and AfterPage viii | ||
| XIV | Revolution in Naval Warfare: | |
| Hampton Roads and Lissa | ||
| XV | Rivalry for World Power | |
| XVI | The World War: | |
| The First Year | ||
| XVII | The World War [Continued]: | |
| The Battle of Jutland | ||
| XVIII | The World War [Concluded]: | |
| Commerce Warfare | ||
| XIX | Conclusion | |
| Index | ||
Route of Xerxes' Fleet to Battle of Salamis
Scene of Preliminary Naval Operations, Campaign of Salamis
The Battle of Salamis, 480 B. C.
The Athenian Empire at its Height—About 450 B. C.
Battle of the Corinthian Gulf, 429 B. C.
Carthaginian Tactics at the Battle of Ecnomus, 256 B. C.
Points of Interest in the First Punic War
Scene of Battle of Actium, 31 B. C.
The Saracen Empire at its Height, About 715 A. D.
Theater of Operations, Venice and the Turk
Battle of Lepanto, October 7, 1571
The Known and Unknown World in 1450
Portuguese Voyages and Possessions
The Netherlands in the 16th Century Page x
Original "Eagle" Formation of the Armada
The Course of the Armada up the Channel
The Battle of Portland, February 18, 1653
Three-Decked Ship of the Line, 18th Century
Scene of the Yorktown Campaign
Battle of the Virginia Capes, September 5, 1781
Battle of the Saints' Passage, April 12, 1782
Battle of the First of June, 1794
Battle of Camperdown, October 11, 1797
Battle of Cape St. Vincent, February 14, 1797
The Nile Campaign, May-August, 1798
Coast Map—From Alexandria to Rosetta Mouth of the Nile
Position of British and Enemy Ships, March, 1805
Nelson's Pursuit of Villeneuve
Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805
Battle of Lissa, July 20, 1866
Battle of the Yalu, September 17, 1894
West Indies—Movements in Santiago Campaign Page xi
Battle of Santiago, July 3, 1898
Theater of Operations, Russo-Japanese War
Rojdestvensky's Cruise, October 18, 1904-May 27, 1905
Battle of Tsushima, May 27, 1905
Heligoland Bight Action, Final Phase, 12:30-1:40
Battle of Coronel, November 1, 1914
Battle of Falkland Islands, December 8, 1914
The Cruise of the Emden, September 1-November 9, 1914
Theater of Operations, in the North Sea
Dogger Bank Action, January 24, 1915
The Approaches to Constantinople
Cruising Formation of the British Battle Fleet
Type of German Battle Cruiser: The Derflinger
Type of British Battle Cruiser: The Lion
Battle of Jutland: First Phase
Type of British Battleship: The Iron Duke
Battle of Jutland: Second and Third Phases
Type of German Battleship: the Koenig
Effects of the Blockade of Germany
Ocean-Going Types of German Submarines
Zeebrugge Harbor with German Defenses and British Blockships
British, Allied and Neutral Merchant Ships Destroyed by German Raiders, Submarines and Mines
Page 13 A HISTORY OF SEA POWER
THE BEGINNINGS OF NAVIES
Civilization and sea power arose from the Mediterranean, and the progress of recent archeological research has shown that civilizations and empires had been reared in the Mediterranean on sea power long before the dawn of history. Since the records of Egypt are far better preserved than those of any other nation of antiquity, and the discovery of the Rosetta stone has made it possible to read them, we know most about the beginnings of civilization in Egypt. We know, for instance, that an Egyptian king some 2000 years before Christ possessed a fleet of 400 fighting ships. But it appears now that long before this time the island of Crete was a great naval and commercial power, that in the earliest dynasties of Egypt Cretan fleets were carrying on a commerce with the Nile valley. Indeed, the Cretans may have taught the Egyptians something of the art of building sea-going ships for trade and war.[1] At all events, Crete may be regarded as the first great sea power of history, an island empire like Great Britain to-day, extending its influence from Sicily to Palestine and dominating the eastern Mediterranean for many centuries. From recent excavations of the ancient capital we get an interesting light on the old Greek legends of the Minotaur and Page 16 the Labyrinth, going back to the time when the island kingdom levied tribute, human as well as monetary, on its subject cities throughout the Ægean.
[Footnote 1: It is interesting to note that the earliest empires, Assyria and Egypt, were not naval powers, because they arose in rich river valleys abundantly capable of sustaining their inhabitants. They did not need to command the sea.]
On this sea power Crete reared an astonishingly advanced civilization. Until recent times, for instance, the Phœnicians had been credited with the invention of the alphabet. We know now that 1000 years before the Phœnicians began to write the Cretans had evolved a system of written characters—as yet undeciphered—and a decimal system for numbers. A correspondingly high stage of excellence had been reached in engineering, architecture, and the fine arts, and even in decay Crete left to Greece the tradition of mastery in laws and government.
|
| From Torr, Ancient Ships. |
| EGYPTIAN SHIP |
The power of Crete was already in its decline centuries before the Trojan War, but during a thousand years it had spread its own and Egyptian culture over the shores of the Ægean. The destruction of the island empire in about 1400 B.C. apparently was due to some great disaster that destroyed her fleet and left her open to invasion by a conquering race—probably the Greeks—who ravaged her cities by sword and fire. On account of her commanding position in the Mediterranean, Crete might again have risen to sea power but for the endless civil wars that marked her subsequent history.
The successor to Crete as mistress of the sea was Phœnicia. The Phœnicians, oddly enough, were a Semitic people, a Page 17 nomadic race with no traditions of the sea whatever. When, however, they migrated to the coast and settled, they found themselves in a narrow strip of coast between a range of mountains and the sea. The city of Tyre itself was erected on an island. Consequently these descendants of herdsmen were compelled to find their livelihood upon the sea—as were the Venetians and the Dutch in later ages—and for several hundred years they maintained their control of the ocean highways.
The Phœnicians were not literary, scientific, or artistic; they were commercial. Everything they did was with an eye to business. They explored the Mediterranean and beyond for the sake of tapping new sources of wealth, they planted colonies for the sake of having trading posts on their routes, and they developed fighting ships for the sake of preserving their trade monopolies. Moreover, Phœnicia lay at the end of the Asiatic caravan routes. Hence Phœnician ships received the wealth of the Nile valley and Mesopotamia and distributed it along the shores of the Mediterranean. Phœnician ships also uncovered the wealth of Spain and the North African coast, and, venturing into the Atlantic, drew metals from the British Isles. According to Herodotus, a Phœnician squadron circumnavigated Africa at the beginning of the seventh century before Christ, completing the voyage in three years. We should know far more now of the extent of the explorations made by these master mariners of antiquity were it not for the fact that they kept their trade routes secret as far as possible in order to preserve their trade monopoly.
In developing and organizing these trade routes the Phœnicians planted colonies on the islands of the Mediterranean,—Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Malta. They held both shores of the Straits of Gibraltar, and on the Atlantic shores of Spain established posts at Cadiz and Tarshish, the latter commonly supposed to have been situated just north of Cadiz at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River. Cadiz was their distributing point for the metals of northern Spain and the British Isles. The most famous colony was Carthage, situated Page 18 near the present city of Tunis. Carthage was founded during the first half of the ninth century before Christ, and on the decay of the parent state became in turn mistress of the western Mediterranean, holding sway until crushed by Rome in the Punic Wars.
Of the methods of the Phœnicians and their colonists in establishing trade with primitive peoples, we get an interesting picture from Herodotus,[1] who describes how the Carthaginians conducted business with barbarous tribes on the northern coast of Africa.
[Footnote 1: History, translated by Geo. Rawlinson, vol. III, p. 144.]
|
| SCENE OF ANCIENT SEA POWER |
"When they (the Carthaginian traders) arrive, forthwith they unload their wares, and having disposed them in orderly fashion on the beach, leave them, and returning aboard their ships, raise a great smoke. The natives, when they see the smoke, came dawn to the shore, and laying out to view so much gold as they think the wares to be worth, withdraw to a distance. The Carthaginians upon this come ashore and look. If they think the gold enough, they take it up and go their way; but if it does not seem sufficient they go aboard their ships once more and wait patiently. Then the others approach and add to the gold till the Carthaginians are satisfied. Neither party deals unfairly with the other; for the Carthaginians Page 19 never touch the gold till it comes up to the estimated value of their goods, nor do the natives ever carry off the goads till the gold has been taken away."
In addition to the enormous profits of the carrying trade the Phœnicians had a practical monopoly of the famous "Tyrian dyes," which were in great demand throughout the known world. These dyes were obtained from two kinds of shellfish together with an alkali prepared from seaweed. Phœnicians were also pioneers in the art of making glass. It is not hard to understand, therefore, how Phœnicia grew so extraordinarily rich as to rouse the envy of neighboring rulers, and to maintain themselves the traders of Tyre and Sidon had to develop fighting fleets as well as trading fleets.
Early in Egyptian history the distinction was made between the "round" ships of commerce and the "long" ships of war. The round ship, as the name suggests, was built for cargo capacity rather than for speed. It depended on sail, with the oars as auxiliaries. The long ship was designed for speed, depending on oars and using sail only as auxiliary. And while the round ship was of deep draft and rode to anchor, the shallow flat-bottomed long ships were drawn up on shore. The Phœnicians took the Egyptian and Cretan models and improved them. They lowered the bows of the fighting ships, added to the blunt ram a beak near the water's edge, and strung the shields of the fighting men along the bulwarks to protect the rowers. To increase the driving force and the speed, they added a second and then a third bank of oars, thus producing the "bireme" and the "trireme." These were the types they handed down to the Greeks, and in fact there was little advance made beyond the Phœnician war galley during all the subsequent centuries of the Age of the Oar.
About the beginning of the seventh century before Christ the Phœnicians had reached the summit of their power on the seas. Their extraordinary wealth tempted the king of Assyria, in 725 B.C., to cross the mountain barrier with a great army. He had no difficulty in overrunning the country, but the inhabitants fled to their colonies. The great city of Page 20 Tyre, being on an island, defied the invader, and finally the Assyrian king gave up and withdrew to his own country. Having realized at great cost that he could not subdue the Phœnicians without a navy, he set about finding one. By means of bribes and threats he managed to seduce three Phœnician cities to his side. These furnished him sixty ships officered by Phœnicians, but manned by Assyrian crews.
With this fleet an attack was made on Tyre, but such was the contempt felt by the Tyrians for their enemy that they held only twelve ships for defense. These twelve went out against the sixty, utterly routed them, and took 500 prisoners. For five years longer the Assyrian king maintained a siege of Tyre from the mainland, attempting to keep the city from its source of fresh water, but as the Tyrians had free command of the sea, they had no difficulty in getting supplies of all kinds from their colonies. At the end of five years the Assyrians again returned home, defeated by the Phœnician control of the sea. When, twenty years later, Phœnicia was subjugated by Assyria, it was due to the lack of union among the scattered cities and colonies of the great sea empire. Widely separated, governed by their own princes, the individual colonies had too little sense of loyalty for the mother country. Each had its own fleets and its own interests; in consequence an Assyrian fleet was able to destroy the Phœnician fleets in detail. From this point till the rise of Athens as a sea power, the fleets of Phœnicia still controlled the sea, but they served the plans of conquest of alien rulers.
As a dependency of Persia, Phœnicia enabled Cambyses to conquer Egypt. However, when the Phœnician fleet was ordered to subjugate Carthage, already a strong power in the west, the Phœnicians refused on the ground of the kinship between Carthage and Phœnicia. And the help of Phœnicia was so essential to the Persian monarch that he countermanded the order. Indeed the relation of Phœnicia to Persia amounted to something more nearly like that of an ally than a conquered province, for it was to the interests of Persia to keep the Phœnicians happy and loyal.
When, in 498 B.C., the Greeks of Asia and the neighboring Page 21 islands revolted, it was due chiefly to the loyalty of the Phœnicians that the Persian empire was saved. Thereafter, the Persian yoke was fastened on the Asiatic Greeks, and any prospect of a Greek civilization developing on the eastern shore of the Ægean was destroyed.
|
| From Torr, Ancient Ships. |
| GREEK WAR GALLEY |
But on the western shore lay flourishing Greek cities still independent of Persian rule. Moreover, the coastal towns like Corinth and Athens were developing considerable power on the sea, and it was evident that unless European Greece were subdued it would stand as a barrier between Persia and the western Mediterranean. Darius perceived the situation and prepared to destroy these Greek states before they should become too formidable. The story of this effort, ending at Salamis and Platea, and breaking for all time the power of Persia, belongs in the subsequent chapter that narrates the rise and fall of Athens as a sea power.
At this point, it is worth pausing to consider in detail the war galley which the Phœnicians had developed and which they handed down to the Greeks at this turning point in the world's history. The bireme and the trireme were adopted Page 22 by the Greeks, apparently without alteration, save that at Salamis the Greek galleys were said to have been more strongly built and to have presented a lower freeboard than those of the Phœnicians. A hundred years later, about 330 B.C., the Greeks developed the four-banked ship, and Alexander of Macedon is said to have maintained on the Euphrates a squadron of seven-banked ships. In the following century the Macedonians had ships of sixteen banks of oars, and this was probably the limit for sea-going ships in antiquity. These multiple banked ships must have been most unhandy, for a reversal of policy set in till about the beginning of the Christian era the Romans had gone back to two-banked ships. In medieval times war galleys reverted to a single row of oars on each side, but required four or five men to every oar.
|
| From Torr, Ancient Ships. |
| GREEK MERCHANT SHIP |
At the time of the Persian war the trireme was the standard type of warship, as it had been for the hundred years before, and continued to be during the hundred years Page 23 that followed. In fact, the name trireme was used loosely for all ships of war whether they had two banks of oars or three. But the fleets that fought in the Persian war and in the Peloponnesian war were composed of three-banked ships, and fortunately we have in the records of the Athenian dockyards accurate information as to structural detail.
The Athenian trireme was about 150 feet in length with a beam of 20 feet. The beam was therefore only 2/15 of the length. (A merchant ship of the same period was about 180 feet long with a beam of 1/4 its length.) The trireme was fitted with one mast and square sail, the latter being used only when the wind was fair, as auxiliary to the oars, especially when it needed to retire from battle. In fact, the phrase "hoist the sail" came to be used colloquially like our "turn tail" as a term for running away.
The triremes carried two sails, usually made of linen, a larger one used in cruising and a smaller one for emergency in battle. Before action it was customary to stow the larger sail on shore, and the mast itself was lowered to prevent its snapping under the shock of ramming.
The forward part of the trireme was constructed with a view to effectiveness in ramming. Massive catheads projected far enough to rip away the upper works of an enemy, while the bronze beak at the waterline drove into her hull. This beak, or ram, was constructed of a core of timber heavily sheathed with bronze, presenting three teeth. Although the ram was the prime weapon of the ship, it often became so badly wrenched in collision as to start the whole forward part of the vessel leaking.
The rowers were seated on benches fitted into a rectangular structure inside the hull. These benches were so compactly adjusted that the naval architects allowed only two feet of freeboard for every bank of oars. Thus the Roman quinquiremes of the Punic wars stood only about ten feet above water. The covering of this rectangular structure formed a sort of hurricane deck, standing about three feet above the gangway that ran around the ship at about the level of the bulwarks. This gangway and upper deck formed the platform Page 24 for the fighting men in battle. Sometimes the open space between the hurricane deck and the gangway was fenced in with shields or screens to protect the rowers of the uppermost bank of oars from the arrows and javelins of the enemy.
The complement of a trireme amounted to about 200 men. The captain, or "trierarch," commanded implicit obedience. Under him were a sailing master, various petty officers, sailors, soldiers or marines, and oarsmen.
The trireme expanded in later centuries to the quinquereme: upper works were added and a second mast, but in essentials it was the same type of war vessel that dominated the Mediterranean for three thousand years—an oar driven craft that attempted to disable its enemy by ramming or breaking away the oars. After contact the fighting was of a hand to hand character such as prevailed in battles on land. These characteristics were as true of the galley of Lepanto (1571 A.D.) as of the trireme of Salamis (480 B.C.). Of the three cardinal virtues of the fighting ship, mobility, seaworthiness, and ability to keep the sea, or cruising radius, the oar-driven type possessed only the first. It was fast, it could hold position accurately, it could spin about almost on its own axis, but it was so frail that it had to run for shelter before a moderate wind and sea. In consequence naval operations were limited to the summer months. As to its cargo capacity, it was so small that it was unable to carry provisions to sustain its own crew for more than a few days. As a rule the trireme was beached at night, with the crew sleeping on shore, and as far as possible the meals were cooked and eaten on shore. In the battle of Ægospotami (405 B.C.), for example, the Spartans fell upon the Athenians when their ships were drawn up on the beach and the crews were cooking their dinner. Moreover, the factors of speed and distance were both limited by the physical fatigue of the oarsmen. In the language of to-day, therefore, the oar-driven man-of-war had a small "cruising radius."
This dependence on the land and this sensitiveness to weather are important facts in ancient naval history. It is fair to say that storms did far more to destroy fleets and naval Page 25 expeditions than battles during the entire age of the oar. The opposite extreme was reached in Nelson's day. His lumbering ships of the line made wretched speed and straggling formations, but they were able to weather a hurricane and to keep the sea for an indefinite length of time.
As a final word on the beginnings of navies, emphasis should be laid on the enormous importance of these early mariners, such as the Cretans and the Phœnicians, as builders of civilization. The venturesome explorer who brought his ship into some uncharted port not only opened up a new source of wealth but also established a reciprocal relation that quickened civilization at both ends of his route. The cargo ships that left the Nile delta distributed the arts of Egypt as well as its wheat, and the richest civilization of the ancient world, that of Greece, rose on foundation stones brought from Egypt, Assyria, and Phœnicia. It may be said of Phœnicia herself that she built-up her advanced culture on ideas borrowed almost wholly from her customers. But control of the seas for trade involved control of the seas for war, and behind the merchantman stood the trireme. It is significant and appropriate that a Phœnician coin that has come down to us bears the relief of a ship of war.
In contrast with these early sea explorers and sea fighters stand the peoples of China and India. Having reached a high state of culture at an early period, they nevertheless, sought no contact with the world outside and became stagnant for thousands of years. Indeed, among the Hindus the crossing of the sea was a crime to be expiated only by the most agonizing penance. Hence these peoples of Asia, the most numerous in the world, exercised no influence on the development of civilization compared with a mere handful of people in Crete or the island city of Tyre. And for the same reason China and India ceased to progress and became for centuries mere backwaters of history.
It is worth noting also that the Mediterranean, leading westwards from the early developed nations of Asia Minor and Egypt, opened a westward course to the advance of discovery and colonization, and this trend continued as the Pillars of Page 26 Hercules led to the Atlantic and eventually to the new world. For every nation that bordered the Mediterranean illimitable highways opened out for expansion, provided it possessed the stamina and the skill to win them. And in those days they were practically the only highways. Frail as the early ships were and great as were the perils they had to face, communications by water were far centuries faster and safer than communications by land. Hence civilization followed the path of the sea. Even in these early beginnings it is easy to see that sea-borne commerce leads to the founding of colonies and the formation of an empire whose parts are linked together by trade routes, and finally, that the preservation of such an empire depends an the naval control of sea. This was as true of Crete and Phœnicia as it was later true of Venice, Holland, and England.
REFERENCES
The Sea Kings of Crete, J. Baikie, 1910.
Phœnicia, Story of the Nations Series, George Rawlinson, 1895.
The Sailing Ship, E. Keble Chatterton, 1909.
Ships and Their Ways of Other Days, E. Keble Chatterton, 1913.
Ancient Ships, Cecil Torr, 1894.
Archeologie Navale, Auguste Jal, 1840.
The Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe, G. H. Buhmer, in Report of the U. S. National Museum, 1893. This article contains a complete bibliography on the subject of ancient ships.
Sea Power and Freedom (chap. 2), Gerard Fiennes, 1918.
ATHENS AS A SEA POWER
1. THE PERSIAN WAR
In determining to crush the independence of the Greek cities of the west, Darius was influenced not only by the desire to destroy a dangerous rival on the sea and an obstacle to further advances by the Persian empire, but also to tighten his hold on the Greek colonies of Asia Minor. Helped by the Phœnician fleet and the treachery of the Lesbians and Samians, he had succeeded in putting down a formidable rebellion in 500 B.C. In this rebellion the Asiatic Greeks had received help from their Athenian brethren on the other side of the Ægean; indeed just so long as Greek independence flourished anywhere there would always be the threat of revolt in the Greek colonies of Persia. Darius perceived rightly that the prestige and the future power of his empire depended on his conquering Greece.
In 492 he dispatched Mardonius with an army of invasion to subdue Attica and Eretria, and at the same time sent forth a great fleet to conquer the independent island communities of the Ægean. Mardonius succeeded in overcoming the tribes of Thrace and Macedonia, but the fleet, after taking the island of Thasus, was struck by a storm that wrecked three hundred triremes with a loss of 20,000 lives. As the broken remnants of the fleet returned to Asia, leaving Mardonius with no sea communications, and harassed by increasing opposition, he was compelled to retreat also. In 490 Darius sent out another army under Mardonius, this time embarking it on a fleet of 600 triremes which succeeded in arriving safely at the coast of Attica in the bay of Marathon. While the army was Page 28 disembarking it was attacked by Miltiades and utterly defeated. The second expedition, therefore, came to nothing. But Marathon can hardly be called a decisive battle because it merely postponed the invasion; it affected in no way the communications of the Persians and it did not weaken seriously their military resources.
The great savior of Greece at this crisis was the Athenian, Themistocles. He foresaw the renewed efforts of the Persian king to destroy Greece, and realized also that the most vital point in the coming conflict would be the control of the sea. Accordingly he urged upon the Athenians the necessity of building a powerful fleet. In this policy he was aided by one of those futile wars so characteristic of Greek history, a war between Athens and the island of Ægina. In order to overcome the Æginetans, who had a large fleet, the Athenians were compelled to build a larger one, and by the time this purpose was accomplished rumors came that the Persian king was getting ready another invasion of Greece.
Campaign of Salamis
The third attempt was undertaken ten years after the second, in the year 480, under Xerxes, the successor to Darius. This time the very immensity of the forces employed was to overcome all opposition and all misfortunes. An army, variously estimated at from one to five million men, crossed the Hellespont on a bridge of boats to invade the peninsula from the north, while a fleet of 1200 triremes was assembled to insure the command of the sea.
Against the unlimited resources of the Persian empire and the unity of plan represented by Xerxes and his generals, the Greeks had little to offer. They possessed the two advantages of the defensive, knowledge of the terrain and interior lines,[1] but their resources were small and their spirit divided. Page 29 Greece in those days was, as was later said of Italy, "merely a geographical expression." The various cities were mutually jealous and hostile, and it took a great common danger to bring them even into a semblance of coöperation. Even during this desperate crisis the cities of western Greece, counting themselves reasonably safe from invasion, declined to send a ship or a man for the common cause.
[Footnote 1: "'Interior Lines' conveys the meaning that from a central position one can assemble more rapidly on either of two opposite fronts than the enemy can, and therefore utilize force more effectively." NAVAL STRATEGY, A. T. Mahan, p. 32.]
|
| ROUTE OF XERXES' FLEET TO BATTLE OF SALAMIS |
The Persian army advanced without opposition as far as the pass of Thermopylæ, which guarded the only road into the rest of Greece. Twelve days after the army had started on its march the great fleet crossed the Ægean to establish contact with the army and bring supplies. The army was checked by the valor of Leonidas, and the Persian fleet was intercepted by a Greek fleet which stood guard over the channel leading to the Gulf of Lamia, thus protecting the sea flank of Leonidas. The Persian fleet, after crossing the open sea safely, made its base at Sepias preparatory to the attack on the Greek fleet. The latter numbered only about Page 30 380 vessels to some 1200 of their enemy and the prospects for the Persian cause looked bright indeed. But as the very number of the Persian ships made it impossible to beach all of them for the night a large proportion of them were anchored, lying in eight lines, prows toward the sea. At dawn a northeast gale fell upon them, and, according to the Greek accounts, wrecked 400 triremes, together with an uncounted number of transports. Meanwhile the Greek ships had taken refuge under the lee of the island of Eubœa, and the news of the Persian disaster was signaled to them by the watchers on the heights.
|
| SCENE OF PRELIMINARY NAVAL OPERATIONS, CAMPAIGN OF SALAMIS |
As soon as the weather moderated the Greeks returned to their position in the straits near Artemisium, and during the next three days the two fleets fought stubbornly but without advantage to either side. During the second day a southerly gale caught a flying squadron of some 200 triremes, that had been dispatched round the island of Eubœa to catch the Greeks in the rear, and not one of the Persian ships survived. The Greek rear guard squadron of fifty brought the welcome news to the main fleet and served as a much needed Page 31 reënforcement. Although the Persian armada had lost about half its force in three days by storms, the odds were still so heavily against the Greeks that they found themselves in constant peril of having their flanks turned in this open sea fighting.
On the afternoon of the third day the pass of Thermopyæ was forced, thanks to the treachery of a Greek and the contemptible policy of the Spartan government which steadily refused the plea of Leonidas for reënforcements. With Thermopyæ taken there was no further reason for the Greek fleet to try to hold the straits north of Eubœa, and during the night it retired unobserved. The following day the Persian fleet advanced and brought to the army the supplies which it sorely needed.
With the fall of Thermopyæ and the contact established between his army and his fleet, Xerxes found his route open for the invasion of Attica. Since there was no possibility of opposing him on land, the population of the province was removed and Athens left to its fate. Themistocles, who was in command of the Athenian division of the Greek fleet, now urged the assembling of the fleet at Salamis, partly to cover the withdrawal of the Athenians and partly to assist in the defense of the Isthmus of Corinth, which was to be the next stand of the Greeks. The advice was adopted and the fleet assembled off the town of Salamis. Athenian refugees had crowded into the town and from the heights above they watched the smoke of their burning city. Their own future and the future of Athenian civilization hung on the long lines of triremes drawn up on the shore.
A glance at the map of the region of Salamis shows the advantages offered by the position for the defensive. The fighting off Artemisium had shown the peril of attacking a greatly superior force in the open because of the danger of being outflanked. In the narrow straits between Salamis and the mainland the Greek line of battle would rest its flanks on the opposite shores. But it is one thing to choose a position and another to get the enemy to accept battle in that position. If the Persians ignored the Greek fleet and moved Page 32 to the Isthmus, the Greeks would be caught in an awkward predicament. To regain touch with the Greek army, the fleet would be then compelled to come out of the straits and fight at a disadvantage in the open. There was only one chance of defeating the Persian fleet and that was to make it fight in the narrow waters of the strait where numbers would not count so heavily. Everything depended on bringing this to pass.
Nor could the Greeks wait indefinitely for the Persians. Already the incorrigible jealousies of rival cities had almost reached the point of disintegrating the fleet. Although the commander in chief was the Spartan general Eurybiades, the whole Spartan contingent was on the point of deserting in a body to its own coasts. The situation was saved by Themistocles. Having wrung from his allies a reluctant consent to stop at Salamis temporarily to cover the withdrawal of the Athenian populace, the story is that he secretly dispatched a messenger to Xerxes to say that if he would attack at once he could crush the entire naval forces of the Greeks at a blow, but if he delayed the Greeks would scatter. Acting on this advice, Xerxes landed troops on the island of Psyttaleia, dispatched a squadron to block the western outlet of Salamis Straits, and proceeded to move the main body of his fleet to attack the Greeks by way of the eastern channel. The preparations were made during the night and were not completed till dawn of the day of battle, September 20, 480 B.C.
The debates in the allied fleet came to an end with the appearance of the Persians. The shrewd plan of Themistocles had succeeded. The Greeks would have to fight with their backs to the wall, but they would fight with better chance of success than under any other circumstances.
The Greek force consisted of about 380 vessels. Of these, Athens contributed 180, Sparta and the rest of the Peloponnesus were represented by 89 and the remainder were made up of squadrons from the island states. Some of these island contingents contained a type of ship different from the triremes, the penteconter. This was a galley with only one bank of Page 33 oars, but these were long sweeps, each manned by five oarsmen. The penteconter was an early prototype of the galley of the Christian era.
The Persians had been reduced by this time to about 600 ships, although there had been numerous reënforcements since the disaster at Cape Sepias. The fleet was "Persian" only in name, for, except for bands of Persian archers on some of the ships, it was composed of elements levied from each of the subject nations that followed the sea. Indeed Persia is a curious example in history of a nation with a purely artificial sea power, for its navy was composed of aliens entirely. Thus the squadron that was sent to blockade the western end of the straits was Egyptian, the right wing of the fleet as it advanced to the attack was composed of Phœnicians, and the center and left was made up of Cyprians, Cilicians, Samothracians, and Ionians, the latter only recently in rebellion against Persia and at that time welcoming help from Athens in a cause in which Athens herself was now involved. Apparently there was no compunction felt on this account, for the Ionians distinguished themselves by gallant fighting against their Greek brethren. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine difficulties involved in the task of making a unit of such an assortment of peoples. The fleet was commanded by a Persian, Prince Ariabignes, brother of Xerxes.
At daybreak the Persian triremes drew up in three lines on each side of the island of Psyttaleia and advanced into the straits. But the narrowing waters of the channel made it necessary to reduce the front and bear to the left. Consequently all formation was lost, and the Persian triremes poured into the narrows "in a stream,"—to quote the phrase of the tragedian Æschylus, who fought on an Athenian trireme in this battle and describes it in one of his plays.
Facing the invader was a smaller array of ships but a better ordered line of battle. On the Greek left was the Athenian division opposing the advancing triremes of Phœnicia; on the right was the Spartan division facing the Greeks of Asia Minor. The two fleets rushed toward each other, but just before contact the Persians found themselves embarrassed Page 34 by their very number of ships. As may be seen by the map, they had an awkward turn to make in entering the narrows. At this point, just opposite the peninsula of Salamis, the straits are only about 2000 yards wide, making it impossible for more than 80 or 90 triremes to advance abreast. As a result the Phœnician wing of the line was extended considerably in advance of the rest, forced ahead by the pressure of ships behind. Although, as a matter of fact, the Spartan wing also was somewhat in advance of the rest of the Greek line, the first shock of battle came between the Phœnicians and the Athenians.
| |
| After Grundy, The Great Persian War. | |
| THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS, 480 B. C. | |
|
This initial advantage offered by an exposed wing was immediately seized upon. While the Athenians bore the frontal attack, the Æginetans on their right fell upon the Phœnicians' flank. This double attack on the Persian right wing eventually proved the turning point of the battle. The Phœnicians, however, had the reputation of being the foremost sea Page 35 fighters in the world, and they bore themselves well. Similarly the Asiatic Greeks proved themselves foemen worthy of their brethren from the Peloponnesus, and the fight was maintained with great ferocity all along the line. The inhabitants of Athens who had been removed to Salamis blackened the shores on one side of the Strait, as anxious watchers of the tremendous spectacle. Opposite them on the slope of Mt. Ægaleos sat Xerxes himself, surrounded by his staff, a less anxious spectator but no less interested in the outcome.
About seven o'clock a fresh westerly wind arose, as it does at this day in that region, and as it did some years later during a battle won by an Athenian admiral in the Gulf of Corinth.[1] This wind blows every morning with considerable violence for about two hours; and in this battle it must have tended to make the bows of the Persian ships pay off—thus exposing their sides to the Greek rams—and drift back upon the galleys that were crowding forward from the rear in the attempt to get into the battle.
[Footnote 1: The Battle of the Corinthian Gulf: v. p. 43]
The Greeks pressed their advantage, using their rams to sink an adversary or disable her by cutting away her oars. Where the mêlée was too close for such tactics they tried to take their enemy by boarding. On every Greek trireme was a specially organized boarding party consisting of 36 men—18 marines, 14 heavily armed soldiers, and four bowmen; and the Greeks seem to have been superior to their enemy at close quarters. On the Persian side the superiority lay in their archers and javelin throwers. Toward the end of the battle, for instance, a Samothracian trireme performed a remarkable feat. Having been disabled by an Æginetan ship, the Samothracian cleared the decks of her assailant with arrows and javelins and took possession. Although the invaders seem to have fought with the greatest courage and determination, the disadvantage of confusion at the outset of the battle, augmented by the head wind, told decisively against them. They were unable to take advantage of their superiority in ships on account of the narrowness of the channel, Page 36 and indeed found that the very multitude of their ships only added to their difficulties.
The retreat began with the flower of the Persian fleet, the Phœnician division. Caught at the opening of the battle with the Athenians in front and the Æginetans on the left flank, they were never able to extricate themselves, although they fought stubbornly. The foremost ships, many in a disabled condition, began to retreat; others backed water to make way for them; the rearmost finding it impossible to reach the battle at all, withdrew out of the straits; and soon the retreat became general. As the Phœnicians withdrew, the Athenians and the Æginetans fell upon the center of the Persian line, and the rout became general with the Greeks in full pursuit. The latter pressed their enemy as far as the island of Psyttaleia, thus cutting off the Persian force on the island from their communications. Whereupon Aristides, the Athenian, led a force in boats from Salamis to the island and put to death every man of the Persian garrison. The Persian ships fled to their base at Phaleron, while the Greeks returned to their base at Salamis.
The battle of Salamis was won, but at the moment neither side realized its decisive character. The Greeks had lost 40 ships; the Persians had lost over 200 sunk, and an indeterminate number captured. Nevertheless, the latter could probably have mustered a considerable force for another attack—which the Greeks expected—if their morale had not been so badly shaken. Their commander, Ariabignes, was among the killed, and there was no one else capable of reorganizing the shattered forces. Xerxes, fearing for the safety of his bridge over the Hellespont, gave orders for his ships to retire thither to protect it, and the very night after the battle found the remains of the Persian fleet in full flight across the Ægean.
The news reached the Greeks at noon of the following day and they set out in pursuit, but having gone as far as Andros without coming up with the enemy, they paused for a council of war. The Athenians urged the policy of going on and destroying the bridge over the Hellespont, but they were Page 37 voted down by their allies, who preferred to leave well enough alone.
It is customary to speak of the victory of the Greeks at Salamis as due to their superior physique and fighting qualities. This superiority may be claimed for the Greek soldiers at Marathon and Platæ, where the Persian army was actually Persian. The Asiatic soldier, forced into service and flogged into battle, was indeed no match for the virile and warlike Greek. But at Salamis it was literally a case of Greek meeting Greek, except in the case of the Phœnicians—who had the reputation of being the finest seafighters in the world—and it is not easy to see how the battle was won by sheer physical prowess. There is no evidence to show any lack of either courage or fighting ability on the Persian side. The decisive feature of the battle was the fatal exposure of the Phœnician wing at the very outset. However, it is worth noting that the invaders had been maneuvering all night and were tired—especially the oarsmen—when called upon to enter battle against an enemy that was fresh. In that respect there was undoubtedly some advantage to the Greeks, but it can hardly have been of prime importance.
The immediate results of the victory at Salamis were soon apparent. The all-conquering Persian army suddenly found itself in a critical situation. Cut off from its supplies by sea, it had to retreat or starve, for the country which it occupied was incapable of furnishing supplies for a host so enormous. Xerxes left an army of occupation in Thessaly consisting of 300,000 men under Mardonius, but the rest were ordered to get back to Persia as best they could. A panic-stricken rout to the Hellespont began, and for the next forty-five days a great host, that had never been even opposed in battle, went to pieces under famine, disease, and the guerilla warfare of the inhabitants of the country it traversed, and it was only a broken and demoralized remnant of the great army that survived to see the Hellespont. This great military disaster was due entirely to the fact that Salamis had deprived Xerxes of the command of the sea. Indeed, if the advice of Themistodes had been taken and the Greek fleet had proceeded to the Page 38 Hellespont and held the position, not even a remnant of the retreating army would have survived. It happened that the bridge had been carried away by storms and the army had to be ferried over by the ships of the beaten and demoralized Persian fleet, an operation which would have been impossible in the face of the victorious Greeks.
Xerxes still held to the idea of conquering Greece; but the chance was gone. Mardonius, it is true, remained in Thessaly with an army, but it was no longer an army of millions. The Greeks assembled an army of about 100,000 men and in the battle of Platæa the following year utterly defeated it. On the same day the Greeks destroyed what was left of the Persian fleet in the battle of Mycale, on the coast of Asia Minor. This, strictly speaking, was not a naval battle at all, for the Persians had drawn their ships up on shore and built a stockade around them. The Greeks landed their crews, took the stockade by storm and burnt the ships. These later victories were the direct consequences of the earlier victory of Salamis.
Another phase of the Persian plan of conquering the Greeks must not be overlooked. Xerxes had stirred up Carthage to undertake a naval and military expedition against the Greeks of Sicily, in order that all the independent Greek states might be crushed simultaneously. Again the weather came to the rescue, for the greater part of the Carthaginian fleet was wrecked by storms. The survivors of the expedition laid siege to the city of Himera, but were eventually driven back to their ships in rout with the loss of their general. Thus the Greek civilization of Sicily was saved at the same time as that of Athens.
East and west, therefore, the grandiose plan of the Persian despot fell in ruin, and with it fell the prestige and the power of the empire. The Ionians revolted and joined Athens as allies, and the control of the Ægean passed from Persia to Athens. With this loss of sea power began the decline of Persia as a world power.
The significance of this astounding defeat of the greatest military and naval power of the time lies in the fact that Page 39 European, or more particularly Greek, civilization was spared to develop its own individuality. Had Xerxes succeeded, the paralyzing régime of an Asiatic despotism would have stifled the genius of the Greek people. Self-government would never have had its beginnings in Greece, and a subjugated Athens would never have produced the "Age of Pericles." In the two generations following Salamis, Athens made a greater original contribution to literature, philosophy, science, and art than any other nation in any two centuries of its existence.
For the fact that this priceless heritage was left to later ages the world is indebted chiefly to the Greeks who fought at Salamis. The night before that battle the cause of Greece seemed doomed beyond hope. The day after, the invaders began a retreat that ended forever their hopes of conquest. This amazing change of fortune was due to the fact that the success of the Persian invasion depended on the control of the sea. Hence the Greeks, though unable to muster an army large enough to meet the Persian host on land, defeated it disastrously by winning a victory on the sea.
2. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR
After Salamis, Athens rose to a commanding position among the Greek states. Her period of supremacy was brief, lasting less than 75 years, but while it endured it rested on her triremes. In the middle of the fifth century she had 100,000 men in her navy, practically as many as Great Britain in her fleet before 1914. Although the period of Athenian supremacy was short-lived, it is interesting because it produced a great naval genius, Phormio, and because it wrecked itself as Persian sea power had done, in an attempt at foreign conquest.
Scarcely had the Persian invasion come to an end when bickering broke out among the various Greek states, much of it directed against Athens. She had small difficulty, however, in maintaining her ascendancy in northern Greece on account of her superiority on the sea, and it was during the half century after Salamis that Athens arose to her splendid Page 40 climax as the intellectual and artistic center of the world.
|
| After Shepherd's Historical Atlas. |
| THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT—ABOUT 450 B.C. |
In 431 began the Peloponnesian War. Its immediate cause was the help given by Athens to Corcyra (Corfu) in a war against Corinth. Corinth called on Sparta for help, and in consequence northern and southern Greece were locked in a mortal struggle. The Athenians had a naval base at Naupaktis on the Gulf of Corinth, and in 429, two years after war broke out, the Athenian Phormio found himself supplied with only twenty triremes with which to maintain control of that important waterway. At the same time Sparta was setting in motion a large land and water expedition with the object of sweeping Athenian influence from all of western Greece and of obtaining control of the Gulf of Corinth. A fleet from Corinth was to join another at Leukas, one of the Ionian Islands, and then proceed to operate on the northern coast of the gulf while an army invaded the province.
|
| SCENE OF PHORMIO'S CAMPAIGNS |
As it happened, the army moved off without waiting for Page 41 the coöperation of the fleet and eventually went to pieces in an ineffectual siege of an inland city. When the fleet started out from Corinth it numbered 47 triremes. As this was more than twice the number possessed by Phormio, the Corinthian admiral evidently counted on being secure from attack. Accordingly he used some of his triremes as transports and started on his journey without taking the precaution to train his oarsmen or practice maneuvers. But as he skirted along the southern coast he was surprised to see the Athenian ships moving in a parallel course as if on the alert for an opportunity to attack. When the Corinthian ships bore up from Patræ to cross to the Ætolian shore, the Athenian column steered directly toward them. At this threat the Corinthian fleet turned away and put in at Rhium, a point near the narrowest part of the strait, in order to make the crossing under cover of night. The Corinthian admiral made the same fatal mistake committed by the commander of the Spanish Armada 2000 years later in a similar undertaking, that of trying to avoid an enemy on the sea rather than fight him before carrying out an invasion of the enemy's coast. This ignominious conduct on the part of the Corinthian admiral was partly due to the fact that he was encumbered with his transports, but chiefly to the fact that he knew that in fighting qualities his Page 42 men were no match for the Athenians. The latter had no peers on the sea at that time. Since Salamis they had progressed far in naval science and efficiency and were filled with the confidence that comes from knowledge and experience.
|
| BATTLE OF THE CORINTHIAN GULF, 429 B. C. |
| Corinthian Formation and Circling Tactics of Phormio. |
All night Phormio watched his enemy and at dawn surprised him in mid-crossing. On seeing Phormio advance to the attack, the Corinthian drew up his squadron in a defensive position, ranging his vessels in concentric circles, bows outward, like the spokes of a wheel. In the center of this formation he placed his transports, together with five of his largest triremes to assist at any threatened spot. The formation suggests a leader of infantry rather than an admiral; moreover, it revealed a fatal readiness to give up the offensive to an enemy force less than half his own.
At any rate there was no lack of decision on the part of Phormio. He advanced rapidly in line ahead formation, closed in near the enemy's prows as if he intended to strike at any moment and circled round the line. The Corinthian Page 43 triremes, having no headway and manned by inexperienced rowers, began crowding back on one another as they tried to keep in position for the expected attack. Then the same early morning wind that had embarrassed the Persian ships at Salamis sprang up and added to the confusion of fouling ships and clashing oar blades. Choosing his opening, Phormio flew the signal for attack and rammed one of the flagships of the Corinthian fleet. The Athenians fell upon their enemy and almost at the first blow routed the entire Corinthian force. In addition to those triremes that were sunk outright, twelve remained as prizes with their full complement of crews, and the rest scattered in flight. Phormio returned in triumph to Naupaktis with the loss of scarcely a man.
So humiliating a defeat had to be avenged, and Sparta organized a new expedition. This time a fleet of 77 triremes was collected. Meanwhile Phormio had sent to Athens the news of his victory together with an urgent plea for reënforcements. Unfortunately the great Pericles was dying and the government had fallen into weak and unscrupulous hands. Consequently while 20 triremes were ordered to the support of Phormio, political intrigue succeeded in diverting this squadron to carry out a futile expedition to Crete, and Phormio was left to contest the control of the gulf against a fleet of 77 with nothing more than his original twenty.
It is interesting to observe what strategy Phormio adopted in this difficult situation. In the campaign of Salamis, Themistocles chose the narrow waters of the strait as the safest position for a fleet outnumbered by the enemy, because of the protection offered to the flanks by the opposite shores. But Phormio, commanding a fleet about one-fourth that of his adversary, chose the open sea. Apparently his decision was based on the fact that the superiority of the Athenian ship lay in its greater speed and skill in maneuvering. Unable to cope with his adversary in full force, he might by his superior mobility beat him in detail. Accordingly, he boldly took the open sea.
For about a week the two fleets lay within sight of each Page 44 other, with Phormio trying to draw his enemy out of the narrows into open water and his adversary attempting to crowd him into a corner against the share. Finally the Peloponnesian, realizing that Phormio would have to defend his base, and hoping to force him to fight at a disadvantage, moved upon Naupaktis. As this port was undefended, Phormio was compelled to return thither.
The Peloponnesian fleet advanced in line of four abreast with the Spartan admiral and the twenty Spartan triremes—the best in the fleet—in the lead. At the signal from the admiral the column swung "left into line" and bore down in line abreast upon the Athenians who were ranging along the shore in line ahead. The object of the maneuver was to cut the Athenians off from the port and crowd them upon the shore. The latter, however, developed such a burst of speed that eleven of the twenty succeeded in reaching Naupaktis; the remaining nine drove ashore and their crews escaped. Apparently the victory of the Spartan was as complete as it was easy. But while the rest of the fleet busied itself with the deserted Athenian triremes on the share, the Spartan squadron continued in the pursuit of the eleven Athenian ships that were heading for Naupaktis. Ten of the eleven reached port and drew up in a position of defense. The eleventh, less speedy than the rest, was being overhauled by the Spartan flagship which was pushing the pursuit far in advance of the rest of the squadron. The captain of the Athenian ship, seeing this situation, determined on a bold stroke. Instead of pushing on into the harbor he pulled round a merchant ship that lay anchored at the mouth, and rammed his pursuer amidships, disabling her at a blow. The Spartan admiral promptly killed himself and the rest of the ship's company were too panic stricken to resist.
At this disaster the rest of the Spartan squadron hesitated, dropped oars or ran into shallow water. Seeing his opportunity, Phormio dashed out of the harbor with his ten triremes and fell upon the Spartans. In spite of the ridiculous disparity of forces, this handful of Athenian ships pressed their attack so gallantly that they destroyed the Spartan Page 45 advance wing and then, catching the rest of the fleet in disorder, routed the main body as well. By nightfall Phormio had rescued eight of the nine Athenian triremes that had fallen into the hands of the enemy and sent the scattered remnants of the Peloponnesian fleet in full flight towards Corinth. This battle of Naupaktis remains one of the most brilliant naval victories in history, a victory won against overwhelming odds by quick decision and superb audacity.
Only a half century separates Salamis from the battle of the Corinthian Gulf and the battle of Naupaktis, but during that period there had been a great advance in naval science.
As far as naval tactics are concerned, Salamis was merely a fight between two mobs of ships, except that when opportunity offered, a vessel used her ram. Otherwise the only difference from land fighting was the fact that the combatants stood on floating platforms. But in the Peloponnesian war we see not only the birth of naval tactics but a very high development, especially as revealed in these two victories of Phormio.
With the development of a naval science rose also a naval profession. At Salamis Themistocles was a politician and Eurybiades was a soldier; it happened that they were made fleet commanders for the emergency. Phormio was a naval officer by profession, and he won by genius combined with superior efficiency in the personnel under his command. In his courage, resourcefulness, in the spirit he inspired, and the high pitch of skill he developed among his officers and men, he is an ideal type for every later age. Little is known of his life and character beyond the story of these two exploits, but they are sufficient to give him the name of the first great admiral of history.
His exploits illustrate, too, at the very outset of naval history, the vital truth that the man counts more than the machine. In these later days, when the tendency is to measure naval power merely by counting dreadnoughts, and to settle all hypothetical combats by the proportion of strength at a given point on the game board, it is well to remember that the most overwhelming victories have been won by the skill Page 46 and audacity of a great leader, which overcame odds that would be reckoned by the experts as insuperable.
The Peloponnesian war dragged on with varying fortunes for ten years. The Athenians were regularly successful on the sea and unsuccessful on land. They seem to have laid an unwise dependence on their navy for a state situated on the mainland with land communications open to the enemy. They attempted to make an island of their state by withdrawing into the city of Athens the entire population of Attica, leaving open to the invader the rest of the province. The repeated ravaging of Attica by Peloponnesian armies weakened both the resources and the morale of the Athenians, and the crowding of the inhabitants into the city resulted in frightful mortality from the plague. At the same time the naval expeditions sent out to harry the coast of the Peloponnesus accomplished nothing of real advantage.
In 421 a truce was agreed upon between Athens and Sparta, which was to last fifty years. Both sides were sorely weakened by the protracted struggle and neither had gained any real advantage over the other. Without waiting to recuperate from the losses of the war, Athens embarked in 415 on an ambitious plan of conquering Syracuse, and gaining all of Sicily as an Athenian colony. In the event of success Athens would have a western outpost for the eventual control of the Mediterranean, as she already had an eastern outpost in Ionia, which gave her control of the Ægean.
In the light of the event it is customary to refer to this expedition as the climax of folly, and yet it is clear that if the commander in chief had not wasted time in interminable delays the Athenians might easily have won their objective. At first the Syracusans felt hopeless because of the large army and fleet dispatched against them, and the great naval prestige of their enemy, but as delay succeeded delay, assistance arrived from Corinth and Sparta, and the besieged citizens took heart. The siege dragged on for the greater part of two years, with the offensive gradually slipping from the Athenians to the Syracusans, till finally the invaders found their troops besieged on shore and their ships bottled up in Page 47 the harbor by a line of galleys anchored across the entrance. The Syracusans knew that they were no match for the Athenians on the open sea, but with a fleet crowded into a harbor with no room for maneuvering, the problem was not essentially different from that of fighting on land. They built a fleet of ships with specially strengthened bows for ramming and erected catapults for throwing heavy stones on the decks of the enemy. Meanwhile, the Athenian ships had deteriorated from lack of opportunity to refit and their crews had been heavily reduced by disease. In a pitched battle between the two fleets in the harbor, the Athenians were worsted. Shortly after as the Athenians were attempting to break through the barrier and escape, they were again attacked by the Syracusans. There was no room for maneuvering; the Athenian ships were jammed together in a mass in which all advantage of numbers was lost. Moreover, against the deadly rain of huge stones the Athenians had no defense whatever.
The result was an overwhelming victory for the Syracusans. Out of 110 triremes the Athenians lost fifty. The besieging army went to pieces in attempting a retreat across the island, and the whole expedition came to a tragic end. This defeat of the Athenian fleet in the harbor of Syracuse was the ruin of Athens. When the news reached Greece, many of her dependencies revolted, the Peloponnesian war had broken out anew, and she had no strength left to hold her own. The deathblow was given when a Spartan admiral destroyed all that was left of the Athenian navy at Ægospotami in the year 405. Thereafter Athens was merely a conquered province, permitted to keep a fleet of only twelve ships, and watched by a garrison of Spartan soldiers in the citadel.
The downfall of Athenian sea power at Syracuse may be compared with the downfall of Persian sea power at Salamis. Just as the latter prevented the spread of an Asiatic form of civilization in Europe and gave Greek civilization a chance to develop, so the former put an end to the extension of a strong Hellenic power in Italy and left opportunity for the rise of the civilization of Rome.
Page 48 REFERENCES
History of Greece, Ernst Curtius, 1874.
History of Greece, George Grote, 1856.
The Great Persian War, G. B. Grundy, 1901.
History of the Persian Wars, Herodotus, ed. and transl. by Geo. Rawlinson, 1862.
History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides, ed. and transl. by Jowett.
THE SEA POWER OF ROME
1. THE PUNIC WARS
When peoples have migrated in the past, they have frequently changed their habits to conform to new topographical surroundings. We have seen that the Phœnicians, originally a nomadic people, became a seafaring race because of the conditions of the country they settled in; and on the other hand, at a later period, the Vikings who overran Normandy or Britain forsook the sea and became farmers. The popular idea that a race follows the sea because of an "instinct in the blood of the race" has little to stand on. When, however, the colonists from Phœnicia settled Carthage and founded an empire, they continued the traditions of their ancestors and built up their power on a foundation of ships. This was due to the conditions—topographical and geographical—which surrounded them, and which were much like those of the mother country. Carthage possessed the finest harbor on the coast of Africa, situated in the middle of the Mediterranean, where all the trade routes crossed. To counteract these attractions of the sea there was nothing but the arid and mountainous character of the interior. It was inevitable, therefore, that the Carthaginians, like their ancestors, should build an empire of the sea.
As early as the sixth century B.C. Carthage had established her power so securely in the western Mediterranean as to be able to set down definite limits beyond which Rome agreed not to go. Thus the opening sentence of a treaty between the two nations in 509 B. C. ran as follows:
"Between the Romans and their allies and the Carthaginians and their allies there shall be peace and alliance upon the Page 50 conditions that neither the Romans nor their allies shall sail beyond the Fair Promontory[1] unless compelled by bad weather or an enemy; and in case they are forced beyond it they shall not be allowed to take or purchase anything except what is barely necessary for refitting their vessels or for sacrifice, and they shall depart within five days."[2]
[Footnote 1: A cape on the African coast about due north from Carthage.]
[Footnote 2: General History, Polybius, Bk. III, chap. 3.]
A second and a third treaty emphasized even mare strongly the Carthaginian dictatorship over the Mediterranean.
|
| SCENE OF THE PUNIC WARS |
It was inevitable, therefore, that as Rome expanded her interests should come in collision with those of Carthage. The immediate causes of the Punic wars are of no consequence for our purpose; the two powers had rival interests in Sicily, and the clash of these brought on the war in the year 264 B.C. There followed a mortal struggle between Rome and Carthage that extended through three distinct wars and a period of aver a hundred years.
When the two nations faced each other in arms, Carthage Page 51 had the advantage of prestige and the greatest navy in the world. Her weaknesses lay in the strife of political factions and the mercenary character of her forces. Her officers were usually Carthaginians, but it was considered beneath the dignity of a Carthaginian to be a private. The rank and file, therefore, were either hired or pressed into service from the subject provinces. In the case of Xanthippus, who defeated Regulus in the first Punic war, even the commanding officer was a Spartan mercenary. These troops would do well so long as campaigns promised plunder but would became disaffected if things went wrong.
The Romans, on the other hand, had only a small navy and no naval experience; their strength lay in their legionaries. And in further contrast with their enemy they had none but Romans in their forces, or allies who were proud of fighting on the side of Rome. Consequently they fought in the spirit of intense patriotism which could stand the moral strain of defeat and even disaster. On land there was no better fighter than the Roman soldier. At sea, however, all the advantage lay with the Carthaginian, and it soon became clear that if the Romans were to succeed they would have to learn to fight on water.
For the first three years Carthaginian fleets raided the coasts of Sicily and Italy with impunity. Finally, in desperation, Rome set about the creation of a fleet, and the story is that a Carthaginian quinquereme that had been wrecked an the coast was taken as a model, and while the ships were building, rowers were trained in rowing machines set up an shore. The first contact with the enemy was not encouraging. The new fleet, which was constructed in two months, consisted of 100 quinqueremes and 30 triremes. Seventeen of these while on a trial cruise were blockaded in the harbor of Messina by twenty Carthaginian ships, and the Roman commander was obliged to surrender after his crews had landed and escaped.
The next encounter was a different story. The Romans, realizing their ignorance of naval tactics and their superiority in land fighting, determined to make the next naval battle as nearly as possible like an engagement of infantry. Accordingly Page 52 the ships were fitted with boarding gangways with a huge hooked spike at the end, like the beak of a crow, which gave them their name, "corvi" or "crows."[1]
[Footnote 1: The following is the description in Polybius of what they were like and how they were worked.
"They [the Romans] erected on the prow of every vessel a round pillar of wood, of about twelve feet in height, and of three palms breadth in diameter, with a pulley at the top. To this pillar was fitted a kind of stage, eighteen feet in length and four feet broad, which was made ladder-wise, of strong timbers laid across, and cramped together with iron: the pillar being received into an oblong square, which was opened for that purpose, at the distance of six feet within the end of the stage. On either side of the stage lengthways was a parapet, which reached just above the knee. At the farthest end of this stage or ladder was a bar of iron, whose shape was somewhat like a pestle; but it was sharpened at the bottom, or lower point; and on the top of it was a ring. The whole appearance of this machine very much resembled those that are used in grinding corn. To the ring just mentioned was fixed a rope, by which, with the help of the pulley that was at the top of the pillar, they hoisted up the machines, and, as the vessels of the enemy came near, let them fall upon them, sometimes on their prow, and sometimes on their sides, as occasion best served. As the machine fell, it struck into the decks of the enemy, and held them fast. In this situation, if the two vessels happened to lie side by side, the Romans leaped on board from all parts of their ships at once. But in case that they were joined only by the prow, they then entered two and two along the machine; the two foremost extending their bucklers right before them to ward off the strokes that were aimed against them in front; while those that followed rested the boss of their bucklers upon the top of the parapet on either side, and thus covered both their flanks." GENERAL HISTORY, Book 1.]
Armed with this new device, the Consul Duilius took the Roman fleet to sea to meet an advancing Carthaginian fleet and encountered it off the port of Mylæ (260 B.C.). The Carthaginians had such contempt for their enemy that they advanced in irregular order, permitting thirty of their ships to begin the battle unsupported by the rest of the fleet. One after the other the Carthaginian quinqueremes were grappled and stormed, for once the great corvus crashed down on a deck all the arts of seamanship were useless. Before the day was over the Carthaginians had lost 14 ships sunk and 31 captured, a total of half their fleet, and the rest had fled in disorder towards Carthage.
The unexpected had happened, as it so frequently does in history. The amateurs had beaten the professionals, not by trying to achieve the same efficiency but by inventing something new that would make that efficiency useless. Thus, as Page 53 we nave seen, the Syracusans, who were no match for the Athenians in the open sea, destroyed the sea power of Athens by bottling up her fleet in a harbor and bombarding it with catapults. It is an instance such as we shall see recurring throughout naval history, in which the power of a great fleet is largely or completely neutralized by a new or device in the hands of the nation with the smaller navy.
The significance of Mylæ lay in the fact that a new naval power had arisen, that henceforth Rome must be reckoned with on the sea. The victory served to encourage the Romans to enlarge their navy, and with it to press the war into the enemy's territory. Soon after Mylæ they gained possession of the greater part of Sicily, and in the year 256 they dispatched a fleet to carry the offensive into Africa. This Roman fleet of 330 ships met, just off Ecnomus, on the southern coast of Sicily, a Carthaginian fleet of 350, and a great battle took place, interesting for the grand scale on which it was fought and the tactics employed.
The Romans, an seeing their enemy, assumed a formation hitherto unknown in tactics at sea. Their first and second squadrons formed the sides of an acute-angled triangle; the third squadron formed the base of the triangle, towing the transports, and the fourth squadron brought up the rear, covering the transports. The whole formed a compact wedge, pushing forward like a great spear head to pierce the enemy's line.
Admirable as this formation was, the Carthaginians were no less skillful in their tactics for destroying it. Instead of keeping an unbroken line to receive the attack, they stationed their left wing at same distance from the center so as to overlap the Roman right, and their right wing in column ahead, so as to overlap the Roman left. As the Romans advanced, the Carthaginian center purposely gave way, drawing the advance wings of their enemy away from the transports and the two squadrons in the rear. Then they faced about and attacked. Meanwhile the two Carthaginian squadrons on the flanks swung round the Roman wedge, the left wing engaging the Roman third squadron, which was hampered by the transports,Page 54 and driving it toward the shore. At the same time the Carthaginian right wing attacked the fourth, or reserve, squadron from the rear and drove it into the open sea. Thus the battle went on in three distinct engagements, each separated by considerable distance from the others. The outcome is thus narrated by Polybius:
|
| ROMAN FORMATION AT ECNOMUS |
"Because in each of these divisions the strength of the combatants was nearly equal, the success was also for some time equal. But in the progress of the action the affair was brought at last to a decision: a different one, perhaps, from what might reasonably have been expected in such circumstances. For the Roman squadron that had begun the engagement gained so full a victory, that Amilcar [the Carthaginian commander] was forced to fly, and the consul Manlius brought away the vessels that were taken.
"The other consul, having now perceived the danger in which the triarii[1] and the transports were involved, hastened to their assistance with the second squadron, which was still entire. The triarii, having received these succors, when they werePage 55 Just upon the point of yielding, again resumed their courage, and renewed the fight with vigor: so that the enemy, being surrounded on every side in a manner so sudden and unexpected, and attacked at once both in the front and rear were at last constrained to steer away to sea.
[Footnote 1: The rear guard, or fourth squadron.]
"About this time Manlius also, returning from the engagement, observed that the ships of the third squadron were forced in close to the shore, and there blocked up by the left division of the Carthaginian fleet. He joined his forces, therefore, with those of the other consul, who had now placed the transports and triarii in security, and hastened to assist these vessels, which were so invested by the enemy that they seemed to suffer a kind of siege. And, indeed, they must have all been long before destroyed if the Carthaginians, through apprehension of the corvi, had not still kept themselves at distance, and declined a close engagement. But the consuls, having now advanced together, surround the enemy, and take fifty of their ships with all the men. The rest, being few in number, steered close along the shore, and saved themselves by flight.
|
| CARTHAGINIAN TACTICS AT THE BATTLE OF ECNOMUS, 256 B.C. |
"Such were the circumstances of this engagement; in which the victory at last was wholly on the side of the Romans. Twenty-four of their ships were sunk in the action, and more than thirty of the Carthaginians. No vessel of the Romans Page 56 fell into the hands of the enemy; but sixty-four of the Carthaginians were taken with their men."[2]
[Footnote 2: Polybius's General History, Book I, Chap. 2.]
The battle of Ecnomus had no such decisive effect on history as the battle of Salamis, but it was on a far greater scale and it reveals an enormous advance in tactics. Three hundred thousand men, rowers and warriors, were engaged, and nearly 700 ships. Up to the battle of Actium, two centuries later, Ecnomus remained the greatest naval action in history. Moreover, the tactics of the rival fleets show a high degree of discipline and efficiency. The Carthaginian plan of dividing their enemy's force and defeating it by a concentrated attack on his transport division, was skillfully carried out and came perilously near succeeding. Had the first and second squadrons of the Carthaginians been able to carry out their part of the plan and "contain" the corresponding advance squadrons of the Romans, the result would have been an overwhelming victory for Carthage, involving not only the destruction of the Roman fleet but also the capture of the Roman army of invasion.
This victory left open the way for the advance into Africa. The Romans had landed and marched almost to the gates of Carthage when the army was destroyed by the skill of a Spartan, Xanthippus, and Regulus, the Consul in command, was captured. This astonishing catastrophe inflicted on the Roman legionaries was due to the use of elephants, and offers a curious parallel to the effect of the corvi on the Carthaginian sailors. Such was the terror inspired by these animals that the Roman soldier would not stand before them until a year or two later, in Sicily, the Consul Cecilius showed how they could not only be repulsed but turned back on their own army by the use of javelins and arrows.
Nothing daunted by the loss of their army, Rome dispatched a fleet of 350 ships to Africa to carry off the remnants of the defeated army that were besieged in the city of Aspis. They were met by a hastily organized Carthaginian fleet off the promontory of Hermæa in a brief action in which Page 57 the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious. The latter took 114 vessels with their crews. The Roman expedition continued on its course to Africa, rescued the besieged troops and turned back in high feather toward Sicily. The Consuls in command had been warned by the pilots not to attempt to skirt the southern coast of Sicily at that season of the year, but the warning was disregarded. Suddenly, as the fleet was approaching the shore it was overwhelmed by a great gale, and out of 464 vessels only eighty survived.
Frightful as this loss was in ships and men, Rome proceeded at once to build another fleet, to the number of 250, which, with characteristic energy, was made ready for service in three months. This force also, after an ineffectual raid on the African coast, fell victim to a storm on the way home with the loss of 150 ships.
Unwilling to relinquish the mastery of the sea that had been won by an uninterrupted series of victories, Rome sent another fleet to attack a Carthaginian force lying in the harbor of Drepanum. As the Romans approached, the Carthaginians went out to meet them, and so maneuvered as to force them to fight with an enemy in front and the rocks and shoals of the coast in their rear. The Roman ships were never able to extricate themselves from this predicament, and the greater part were either taken or wrecked on the coast. The Consul in command managed to escape with about thirty of his vessels, but 93 were taken with their crews. This is the single instance of a pitched battle between Roman and Carthaginian fleets in which the victory went to Carthage, a victory due entirely to better seamanship. The immediate result of this success was the destruction of the Roman squadron lying in the port of Lilybæum which was assisting the troops in the siege of that town.
Still another Roman fleet that had the temerity to anchor in an exposed position was destroyed by a storm. "For so complete was the destruction," writes Polybius, "that scarcely a single plank remained entire."
Stunned by these disasters, the government at Rome gave up the idea of contesting any further the command of the Page 58 sea. The citizens, how ever, were not willing to submit, and displayed a magnificent spirit of patriotism in this the darkest period of the war. Individuals of means, or groups of individuals, pledged each a quinquereme, fully equipped, for a new fleet, asking reimbursement from the government only in case of victory. By these private efforts a force of 200 quinqueremes was constructed. At this time, as at the very beginning, the model for the Roman ships was a prize taken from the enemy.
|
| POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE FIRST PUNIC WAR |
Meanwhile the Carthaginians, confident that the Romans were finally driven from the sea, had allowed their own fleet to disintegrate. Accordingly when the astonishing news reached them that the Romans were again abroad they were compelled to fill their ships with raw levies of troops and inexperienced rowers and sailors. And, since the Carthaginian troops who were besieging the city of Eryx in Sicily were in need of supplies, a large number of transports were sent with the fleet. The Carthaginian commander planned to make a landing unobserved, leave his transports, exchange his raw crews for some of the veterans before Eryx and then give battle to the Roman fleet.
Page 59 This program failed because of the initiative of the Roman Consul commanding the new fleet. Having got word of the coming of the Carthaginians and divining their plan, he braved an unfavorable wind and a rough sea for the sake of forcing an action before they could establish contact with their army. Accordingly he sought out his enemy and met him (in the year 241 B.C.) off the island of Ægusa, near Lilybæum. Almost at the first onset the Romans won an overwhelming victory, capturing seventy and sinking fifty of the Carthaginian force.
This final desperate effort of Rome was decisive. The Carthaginians had no navy left, and their armies in Sicily were cut off from all communications with their base. Accordingly ambassadors went to Rome to sue for peace, and the great struggle that had lasted without intermission for twenty-four years and reduced both parties to the point of exhaustion, ended with a triumph for Rome through a victory on the sea. By the treaty of peace Carthage was obliged to pay a heavy indemnity and yield all claim to Sicily.
Whatever historical moral may be drawn from the story of the first Punic war, the fact remains that a nation of landsmen met the greatest maritime power in the world and defeated it on its own element. In every naval battle save one the Romans were victors. It is true, however, that in the single defeat off Drepanum and in the dreadful disasters inflicted by storms, Rome lost through lack of knowledge of wind and sea. No great naval genius stands above the rest, to whom the final success can be attributed. Rome won simply through the better fighting qualities of her rank and file and the stamina of her citizens. To quote the phrase of a British writer,[1] Rome showed the superior "fitness to win."
[Footnote 1: Fred Jane, Heresies of Sea Power, passim.]
The Second Punic War
In the first Punic war the prize was an island, Sicily. Naturally, therefore, the fighting was primarily naval. The second Punic war (218-202 B.C.) was essentially a war on land. Page 60 Carthage, driven from Sicily, turned to Spain and made the southern part of the peninsula her province. Using this as his base, Hannibal marched overland, crossed the Alps, and invaded Italy from the north. Had he followed up his unbroken series of victories by marching on the capital instead of going into winter quarters at Capua, it is possible that Rome might have been destroyed and all subsequent history radically changed. The Romans had no general who could measure up to the genius of Hannibal, but their spirit was unbroken even by the slaughter of Cannæ, and their allies remained loyal. Moreover, Carthage, thanks to factional quarrels and personal jealousies, was deaf to all the requests sent by Hannibal for reënforcements when he needed them most. In the end, Scipio, after having driven the Carthaginians out of Spain, dislodged Hannibal from Italy by carrying an invasion into Africa. At the battle of Zama the Romans defeated Hannibal and won the war.
It is difficult to see any significant use of sea power in this second Punic war. Neither side seemed to realize what might be done in cutting the communications of the other, and both sides seemed to be able to use the sea at will. Of course due allowance must be made for the limitations of naval activity. The quinquereme was too frail to attempt a blockade or to patrol the sea lanes in all seasons. Nevertheless both sides used the sea for the transport of troops and the conveying of intelligence, and neither side made any determined effort to establish a real control of the sea.[1]
[Footnote 1: For a distinguished opinion to the contrary, v. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History, 14 ff. In this view, however, Mahan is not supported by Mommsen (vol. II, p. 100). See also Jane, Heresies of Sea Power, 60 ff.]
The Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.)
The third Punic war has no naval interest. Rome, not satisfied with defeating her rival in the two previous wars, took a convenient pretext to invade Carthage and destroy every vestige of the city. With this the great maritime empire came to an end, and Rome became supreme in the Mediterranean.
Page 61 2. THE IMPERIAL NAVY; THE CAMPAIGN OF ACTIUM
After the fall of Carthage no rival appeared to contest the sovereignty of Rome upon the sea. The next great naval battle was waged between two rival factions of Rome herself at the time when the republic had fallen and the empire was about to be reared on its ruins. This was the battle of Actium, one of the most decisive in the world's history.
The rivalry between Antony and Octavius as to who should control the destinies of Rome was the immediate cause of the conflict. In the parceling out of spoil from the civil wars following the murder of Cæsar, Octavius had taken the West, Lepidus the African provinces, and Antony the East. Octavius soon ousted Lepidus and then turned to settle the issue of mastery with Antony. In this he had motives of revenge as well as ambition. Antony had robbed him of his inheritance from Cæsar, and divorced his wife, the sister of Octavius, in favor of Cleopatra, with whom he had become completely infatuated. In this quarrel the people of Rome were inclined to support Octavius, because of their indignation over a reported declaration made by Antony to the effect that he intended to make Alexandria rather than Rome the capital of the empire and rule East and West from the Nile rather than the Tiber. Both sides began preparations for the conflict. Antony possessed the bulk of the Roman navy and the Roman legions of the eastern provinces. To his fleet he added squadrons of Egyptian and Phœnician vessels of war, and to his army he brought large bodies of troops from the subject provinces of the East. In addition he spent great sums of money by means of his agents in Rome to arouse disaffection against Octavius. At the outset he acted with energy and caused his antagonist the gravest anxiety. It was clear also that Antony intended to take the offensive. He established winter quarters at Patras, on the Gulf of Corinth, during the winter of 32-31 B.C., billeting his army in various towns on the west coast of Greece, and keeping it supplied by grain ships from Alexandria. His fleet he anchored in the Ambracian Gulf, a Page 62 landlocked bay, thirty miles wide, lying north of the Gulf of Corinth; it is known to-day as the Gulf of Arta.
Octavius, however, was equally determined not to yield the offensive to his adversary, and boldly collected ships and troops for a movement in force against Antony's position. His troops were also Roman legionaries, experienced in war, but his fleet was considerably less in numbers and the individual ships much smaller than the quinqueremes and octiremes of Antony. The ships of Octavius were mostly biremes and triremes. These disadvantages, however, were offset by the fact that his admiral, Agrippa, was an experienced sea-fighter, having won a victory near Mylæ during the civil wars, and by the other fact that the crews under him, recruited from the Dalmatian coast, were hardy, seafaring men. These were called Liburni, and the type of ship they used was known as the Liburna. This was a two-banked galley, but the term was already becoming current for any light man of war, irrespective of the number of banks of oars. In contrast with these Liburni, who divided their days between fishing and piracy and knew all the tricks of fighting at sea, the crews of Antony's great fleet were in many cases landsmen who had been suddenly impressed into service.
As soon as Antony had moved his force to western Greece he seemed paralyzed by indecision and made no move to avail himself of his advantageous position to strike. He had plenty of money, while his adversary was at his wit's end to find even credit. He had the admiration of his soldiers, who had followed him through many a campaign to victory, while Octavius had no popularity with his troops, most of whom were reluctant to fight against their old comrades in arms. And finally, Antony had a preponderating fleet with which he could command the sea and compel his opponent to fight on the defensive in Italian territory. All these advantages he allowed to slip away.
During the winter of 32-31 one-third of Antony's crews perished from lack of proper supplies and the gaps were filled by slaves, mule-drivers, and plowmen—any one whom his captains could seize and impress from the surrounding country. Page 63 The following spring Agrippa made a feint to the south by capturing Methone at the southern tip of the Peloponnesus, thus threatening the wheat squadrons from Egypt on which Antony depended. Next came the news that Octavius had landed an army in Epirus and was marching south. Then Antony realized that his adversary was aiming to destroy the fleet in the Ambracian Gulf and hastened thither. He arrived with a squadron ahead of his troops, at almost the same instant as Octavius, and if Octavius had had the courage to attack the tired and disorganized crews of Antony's squadron, Antony would have been lost. But by dressing his crews in the armor of legionaries and drawing up his ships in a position for fighting, with oars suspended, he "bluffed" his enemy into thinking that he had the support of his troops. When the latter arrived Antony established a great camp on Cape Actium, which closes the southern side of the Gulf, and fortified the entrance on that side.
Thereafter for months the two forces faced each other on opposite sides of the Gulf, neither side risking more than insignificant skirmishes. During this time Octavius had free use of the sea for his supplies, while the heavier fleet of Antony lay idle in harbor. Nevertheless, Octavius did not dare to risk all on a land battle, and conducted his campaign in a characteristically timid and vacillating manner which should have made it easy for Antony to take the aggressive and win. But the famous lieutenant of Julius Cæsar was no longer the man who used to win the devotion of his soldiers by his courage and audacity. He was broken by debauchery and torn this way and that by two violently hostile parties in his own camp. One party, called the Roman, wanted him to come to an understanding with Octavius, or beat him in battle, and go to Rome as the restorer of the republic. The other party, the Egyptian, was Cleopatra and her following. Cleopatra was interested in holding Antony to Egypt, to consolidate through him a strong Egyptian empire, and she was not at all interested in the restoration of Roman liberties. In Antony's desire to please Cleopatra and his attempt to deceive his Roman friends into thinking that he was working for their Page 64 aims, may be seen the explanation of the utter lack of strategy or consistent plan in his entire campaign against Octavius.
At the beginning of July Antony apparently proposed a naval battle. Instantly the suspicions of the Roman party were awakened. They cried out that Antony was evidently going back to Egypt without having won the decisive battle against Octavius on land, which would really break the enemy's power, and without paying any heed to the political problems at Rome. Such a furor was raised between the two parties that Antony abandoned his plan and made a feint toward the land battle in Epirus that the Romans wanted. Meanwhile two of his adherents, one a Roman, the other a king from Asia Minor, exasperated by the insolence of Cleopatra, deserted to Octavius.
August came and went without action or change in the situation. Meanwhile as Antony's camp had been placed in a pestilential spot for midsummer heat, he suffered great losses from disease. By this time Cleopatra was interested in nothing but a return to Egypt. Accordingly she persuaded Antony to order a naval battle without asking anybody's advice, and he set the date August 29 for the sally of his fleet. The Romans were amazed and protested, but in vain. Preparations went on in such a way as to make it clear to the observing that what Antony was planning was not so much a battle as a return to Egypt. Vessels which he did not need outside for battle he ordered burned, although such ships would usually be kept as reserves to make up losses in fighting. Moreover, he astonished the captains by ordering them to take out into action the big sails which were always left ashore before a battle. Nor did his explanation that they would be needed in pursuit satisfy them. It appeared also that he was employing trusted slaves at night to load the Egyptian galleys with all of Cleopatra's treasure. Two more Roman leaders, satisfied as to Antony's real intention, deserted to Octavius and informed him of Antony's plans.
Meanwhile a heavy storm had made it impossible to attempt the action on August 29 or several days after. On the 2d of September (31 B.C.) the sea became smooth again. Octavius Page 65 and Agrippa drew out their fleet into open water, about three-quarters of a mile from the mouth of the gulf, forming line in three divisions. They waited till nearly noon before Antony's fleet began to make its expected appearance to offer battle. This also was formed in three divisions corresponding to those of their enemy. The Egyptian division of sixty ships under Cleopatra took up a safe position in the rear of the center.
|
| SCENE OF BATTLE OF ACTIUM, 31 B.C. |
There was a striking contrast in the types of ships in the opposing ranks. The galleys of Octavius were low in the water, and nimble in their handling; those of Antony were bulky and high, with five to ten banks of oars, and their natural unhandiness was made worse by a device intended to protect them against ramming. This consisted of a kind of boom of heavy timbers rigged out on all sides of the hull. In addition to the higher sides these ships supported towers and citadels Page 66 built upon their decks, equipped with every form of the artillery of that day, especially catapults capable of hurling heavy stones upon the enemy's deck.
Against such formidable floating castles, the light ships of Agrippa and Octavius could adopt only skirmishing tactics. They rushed in where they could shear away the oar blades of an enemy without getting caught by the great grappling irons swung out from his decks. They kept clear of the heavy stones from the catapults through superior speed and ability to maneuver quickly, but they were unable to strike their ponderous adversaries any vital blow. On the other hand the great hulks of Antony were unable to close with them, and though the air was filled with a storm of arrows, stones and javelins, neither side was able to strike decisively at the other. As at Salamis the opposite shores were lined with the opposing armies, and every small success was hailed by shouts from a hundred thousand throats on the one side and long drawn murmurs of dismay from an equal host on the other.
In these waters a north wind springs up every afternoon—a fact that Antony and Cleopatra had counted on—and as soon as the breeze shifted the royal galley of Cleopatra spread its crimson sail and, followed by the entire Egyptian division, sailed through the lines and headed south. Antony immediately left his flagship, boarded a quinquereme and followed. This contemptible desertion of the commander in chief was not generally known in his fleet; as for the disappearance of the Egyptian squadron, it was doubtless regarded as a good riddance. The battle, therefore, went on as stubbornly as ever.
Late in the afternoon Agrippa, despairing of harming his enemy by ordinary tactics, achieved considerable success by the use of javelins wrapped in burning tow, and fire rafts that were set drifting upon the clumsy hulks which could not get out of their way. By this means a number of Antony's ships were destroyed, but the contest remained indecisive. At sunset Antony's fleet retired in some disorder to their anchorage Page 67 in the gulf. Octavius attempted no pursuit but kept the sea all night, fearing a surprise attack or an attempted flight from the gulf.
Meanwhile a flying wing of Octavius's fleet had been sent in pursuit of Antony and Cleopatra, who escaped only after a rear guard action had been fought in which two of Cleopatra's ships were captured. The fugitives put ashore at Cape Tænarus, to enable Antony to send a message to his general, Canidius, ordering him to take his army through Macedonia into Asia. Then the flight was resumed to Alexandria.
On the morning of the 3d Octavius sent a message to the enemy's camp announcing the fact of Antony's desertion and calling on the fleet and army to surrender. The Roman soldiers were unwilling to believe that their commander had been guilty of desertion, and were confident that he had been summoned away on important business connected with the campaign. Their general, however, did not dare convey to them Antony's orders because they would betray the truth and provoke mutiny. Consequently he did nothing. Certain Roman senators and eastern princes saw the light and quietly went over to the camp of Octavius. Several days of inaction followed, during which the desertions continued and the rumor of Antony's flight found increasing belief. On the seventh day, Canidius, who found himself in a hopeless dilemma, also went over to Octavius. This desertion by the commander settled the rest of the force. A few scattered into Macedonia, but the great bulk of the army and all that was left of the fleet surrendered. Nineteen legions and more than ten thousand cavalry thus came over to Octavius and took service under him. This was the real victory of Actium. In the words of the Italian historian Ferrero, "it was a victory gained without fighting, and Antony was defeated in this supreme struggle, not by the valor of his adversary or by his own defective strategy or tactics, but by the hopeless inconsistency of his double-faced policy, which, while professing to be republican and Roman, was actually Egyptian and monarchical."
Page 68 The story of the naval battle of Actium is a baffling problem to reconstruct on account of the wide divergence in the accounts. For instance, the actual number of ships engaged is a matter of choice between the extremes of 200 to 500 on a side. And the consequences were so important to Octavius and to Rome that the accounts were naturally adorned afterwards with the most glowing colors. Every poet who lived by the bounty of Augustus in later years naturally felt inspired to pay tribute to it in verse. But the actual naval battle seems to have been of an indecisive character. For that matter, even after the wholesale surrender of Antony's Roman army and fleet, neither Anthony nor Octavius realized the importance of what had happened. Antony had recovered from worse disasters before, and felt secure in Alexandria. Octavius at first followed up his advantage with timid and uncertain steps. Only after the way was made easy by the hasty submission of the Asiatic princes and the wave of popularity and enthusiasm that was raised in Rome by the news of the victory, did Octavius press the issue to Egypt itself. There the war came to an end with the suicide of both Antony and Cleopatra.
As in the case of the indecisive naval battle off the capes of the Chesapeake, which led directly to the surrender of Cornwallis, an action indecisive in character may be most decisive in results. Actium may not have been a pronounced naval victory but it had tremendous consequences. As at Salamis, East and West met for the supremacy of the western world, and the East was beaten back. It is not likely that the Egyptian or the Syrian would have dominated the genius of the western world for any length of time, but the defeat of Octavius would have meant a hybrid empire which would have fallen to pieces like the empire of Alexander, leaving western Europe split into a number of petty states. On the other hand, Octavius was enabled to build on the consequences of Actium the great outlines of the Roman empire, the influence of which on the civilized world to-day is still incalculable. When he left Rome to fight Antony, the government was bankrupt and the people torn with faction. When he returned Page 69 he brought the vast treasure of Egypt and found a people united to support him. Actium, therefore, is properly taken as the significant date for the beginning of the Roman empire. Octavius took the name of his grand-uncle Cæsar, the title of Augustus, and as "Imperator" became the first of the Roman emperors.
The relation of the battle of Actium to this portentous change in the fortunes of Octavius was formally recognized by him on the scene where it took place. Nicopolis, the City of Victory, was founded upon the site of his camp, with the beaks of the captured ships as trophies adorning its forum. The little temple of Apollo on the point of Actium he rebuilt on an imposing scale and instituted there in honor of his victory the "Actian games," which were held thereafter for two hundred years.
After the battle of Actium and the establishment of a powerful Roman empire without a rival in the world, there follows a long period in which the Mediterranean, and indeed all the waterways known to the civilized nations, belonged without challenge to the galleys of Rome. Naval stations were established to assist in the one activity left to ships of war, the pursuit of pirates, but otherwise there was little or nothing to do. And during this long period, indeed, down to the Middle Ages, practically nothing is known of the development in naval types until the emergence of the low, one- or two-banked galley of the wars between the Christian and the Mohammedan. The first definite description we have of warships after the period of Actium comes at the end of the ninth century.
There was some futile naval fighting against the Vandals in the days when Rome was crumbling. Finally, by a curious freak of history, Genseric the Vandal took a fleet out from Carthage against Rome, and swept the Mediterranean. In the year 455, some six centuries after Rome had wreaked her vengeance on Carthage, this Vandal fleet anchored unopposed in the Tiber and landed an army that sacked the imperial Page 70 city, which had been for so long a period mistress of the world, and had given her name to a great civilization.
During the four centuries in which the Pax Romana rested upon the world, it is easy to conceive of the enormous importance to history and civilization of having sea and river, the known world over, an undisputed highway for the fleets of Rome. Along these routes, even more than along the military roads, traveled the institutions, the arts, the language, the literature, the laws, of one of the greatest civilizations in history. And ruthless as was the destruction of Vandal and Goth in the city itself and in the peninsula, they could not destroy the heritage that had been spread from Britain to the Black Sea and from the Elbe to the upper waters of the Nile.
REFERENCES
History of Rome, Theodor Mommsen, tr. by W. P. Dickson, 1867.
General History, Polybius, transl. by Hampton, 1823.
History of the Romans Under the Empire, Chas. Merivale (vol. III.), 1866.
The Greatness and Decline of Rome, G. Ferrero, tr. by A. E. Zemmern, 1909.
Études sur l'Histoire Militaire et Maritime des Grecs et des Romains, Paul Serre, 1888.
Fleets of the First Punic War, W. W. Tarn, in Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1907.
Heresies of Sea Power (pp. 40-71), Fred Jane, 1906.
Influence of Sea Power on History (pp. 15 ff.), A. T. Mahan, 1889.
For a complete bibliography of Roman sea power, v. Influence of Sea Power on the Roman Republic (Doctoral Dissertation), F. W. Clark, 1915.
THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES: THE EASTERN EMPIRE
The thousand years following the collapse of the Roman empire, a period generally referred to as the Middle Ages, are characterized by a series of barbarian invasions. Angles, Saxons, Goths, Visigoths, Huns, Vandals, Vikings, Slavs, Arabs, and Turks poured over the broken barriers of the empire and threatened to extinguish the last spark of western and Christian civilization. Out of this welter of invasions and the anarchy of petty kingdoms arose finally the powerful nations that perpetuated the inheritance from Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, and developed on this foundation the newer institutions of political and intellectual freedom that have made western civilization mistress of the world. For this triumph of West over East, of Christianity over barbarism, we have to thank partly the courage and genius of great warriors and statesmen who arose here and there, like Alfred of England and Martel of France, but chiefly the Eastern Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, which stood through this entire epoch as the one great bulwark against which the invasions dashed in vain. In this story of defense, the Christian fleets won more than one Salamis, as we shall see in the course of this chapter.
In the year 328 A.D. the Emperor Constantine the Great moved his capital to Byzantium and named it "New Rome." In honor of its founder, however, the name was changed soon to "Constantinople," which it has retained ever since. It may seem strange that after so many glorious centuries Rome should have been deprived of the honor of being the center of the great empire which bore its own name, but in the fourth Page 72 century the city itself had no real significance. All power rested in the person of the Emperor himself, and wherever he went became for the time being the capital for all practical purposes. At this time the empire was already on the defensive and the danger lay in the east. Constantine needed a capital nearer the scene of future campaigns, nearer his weakest frontier, the Danube, and nearer the center of the empire. Byzantium not only served these purposes but also possessed natural advantages of a very high order. It was situated where Europe and Asia meet, it commanded the waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and it was a natural citadel. Whoever captured the city must needs be powerful by land and sea. Under the emperor's direction the new capital was greatly enlarged and protected by a system of massive walls. Behind these walls the city stood fast for over a thousand years against wave after wave of barbarian invasion.
Of the wars with the Persians, the Vandals, and the Huns nothing need be said here, for they do not involve the operations of fleets. The city was safe so long as no enemy appeared with the power to hold the sea. That power appeared in the seventh century when the Arabs, or "Saracens," as they were called in Europe, swept westward and northward in the first great Mohammedan invasion.
Most migrations are to be explained by the pressure of enemies, or the lack of food and pasturage in the countries left behind, or the discovery of better living conditions in the neighboring countries. But the impulse behind the two tremendous assaults of Islam upon Europe seems to have been religious fanaticism of a character and extent unmatched in history. The founder of the Faith, Mohammed, taught from 622 to 632. He succeeded in imbuing his followers with the passion of winning the world to the knowledge of Allah and Mohammed his prophet. The unbeliever was to be offered the alternatives of conversion or death, and the believer who fell in the holy wars would be instantly transported to Paradise. Men who actually believe that they will be sent to a blissful immortality after death are the most terrible soldiers Page 73 to face, for they would as readily die as live. In fact Cromwell's "Ironsides" of a later day owed their invincibility to very much the same spirit. At all events, by the time of Mohammed's death all Arabia had been converted to his faith and, fired with zeal, turned to conquer the world. Hitherto the tribes of Arabia were scattered and disorganized, and Arabia as a country meant nothing to the outside world. Now under the leadership of the Prophet it had become a driving force of tremendous power. Mohammedan armies swept over Syria into Persia. In 637, only five years after Mohammed's death, Jerusalem surrendered, and shortly afterwards Egypt was conquered. Early in the eighth century the Arabs ruled from the Indus on the east, and the Caucasus on the north, to the shores of the Atlantic on the west. Their empire curved westward along the coast of northern Africa, through Spain, like one of their own scimitars, threatening all Christendom. Indeed, the Arab invasion stands unparalleled in history for its rapidity and extent.
|
| THE SARACEN EMPIRE AT ITS HEIGHT, ABOUT 715 A.D. |
The one great obstacle in the way was the Christian, or Roman, empire with its center at Constantinople. Muaviah, the Emir of Syria, was the first to perceive that nothing could be done against the empire until the Arabs had wrested from it the command of the sea. Accordingly he set about building Page 74 a great naval armament. In 649 this fleet made an attack on Cyprus but was defeated. The following year, however, it took an important island, Aradus, off the coast of Syria, once a stronghold of the Phœnicians, and sacked it with savage barbarity. An expedition sent from Constantinople to recover Alexandria was met by this fleet and routed. This first naval victory over the Christians gave the Saracens unbounded confidence in their ability to fight on the sea. They sailed into the Ægean, took Rhodes, plundered Cos, and returned loaded with booty. Muaviah, elated with these successes, planned a great combined land and water expedition against the Christian capital.
At this point it is worth pausing to consider what the fighting ship of this period was like. As we have seen in the preceding chapter the Roman navy sank into complete decay. At the end of the fourth century there was practically no imperial navy in existence. The conquest of the Vandals by Belisarius in the sixth century involved the creation of a fleet, but when that task was over the navy again disappeared until the appearance of the Arabs compelled the building of a new imperial fleet. The small provincial squadrons then used to patrol the coasts were by no means adequate to meet the crisis.
The warships of this period were called "dromons," a term that persists even in the time of the Turkish invasion eight centuries later. The word means "fast sailers" or "racers." The dromon was not the low galley of the later Middle Ages but a two-banked ship, probably quite as large as the Roman quinquereme, carrying a complement of about 300 men. Amidships was built a heavy castle or redoubt of timbers, pierced with loopholes for archery. On the forecastle rose a kind of turret, possibly revolving, from which, after Greek fire was invented, the tubes or primitive cannon projected the substance on the decks of the enemy. The dromon had two masts, lateen rigged, and between thirty and forty oars to a side.
There were two classes of dromons, graded according to size, and a third class of ship known as the "pamphylian," which was apparently of a cruiser type, less cumbered with Page 75 superstructure. In addition there were small scout and dispatch boats of various shapes and sizes.
Both Christian and Saracen fought with these kinds of warships. Apparently the Arabs simply copied the vessels they found already in use by their enemies, and added no new device of their own.
|
| EUROPE'S EASTERN FRONTIER |
In 655 Muaviah started his great double invasion against Constantinople. He sent his fleet into the Ægean, while he himself with an army tried to force the passes of the Taurus mountains. Before the Arab fleet had gone far it met the Christian fleet, commanded by the Emperor himself, off the town of Phaselis on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. A great battle followed. The Christian emperor, Constantine II, distinguished himself by personal courage throughout the action, but the day went sorely against the Christians. At last the flagship was captured and he himself survived only by leaping into a vessel that came to his rescue while his men Page 76 fought to cover his escape. It was a terrible defeat, for 20,000 Christians had been killed and the remnants of their fleet were in full retreat. But the Saracens had bought their victory at such a price that they were themselves in no condition to profit by it, and the naval expedition went no further. Meanwhile Muaviah had not succeeded in forcing the Taurus with his army, so that the grand assault came to nothing after all.
The following year the murder of the Caliph brought on a civil war among the Saracens, in consequence of which Muaviah arranged a truce with Constantine. The latter was thus enabled to turn his attention to the beating back of the Slavs in the east and the recovery of imperial possessions in the west, notably the city and province of Carthage. During the last of these campaigns he was killed by a slave.
The death of this energetic and able ruler seemed to Muaviah the opportunity to begin fresh operations against the Christian empire. Three great armies invaded the territory of the Cross. One plundered Syracuse, another seized and fortified a post that threatened the existence of Carthage, a third pushed to the shores of the Sea of Marmora. These were, however, only preliminary to the grand assault on the capital itself.
In 673 a great Arab armada forced the Hellespont and captured Cyzicus. With this as a base, the fleet landed an army on the northern shore of the Sea of Marmora. By these means Constantinople was invested by land and sea. But the great walls proved impregnable against the attacks of the army, and the Christian fleet, sheltered in the Golden Horn, was able to sally out from time to time and make successful raids on detachments of the Saracen ships. This state of affairs continued for six months, after which Muaviah retired with his army to Cyzicus, leaving a strong naval guard to hold the straits.
The next spring Muaviah again landed his army on the European side and besieged the city for several months. The second year's operations were no more successful than the Page 77 first, and again the Arab force retired to Cyzicus for the winter.
The Arab commander was determined to stick it out until he had forced the surrender of the city by sheer exhaustion, but his plan had a fatal error. During the winter months the land blockade was abandoned, with the result that supplies for the next year's siege were readily collected for the beleaguered city. Emperor and citizens alike rose to the emergency with a spirit of devotion that burned brighter with every year of the siege. Meanwhile the Christians of the outlying provinces of Syria and Africa were also fighting stubbornly and with considerable success against the enemy. The year 676 passed without any material change in the situation.
|
| CONSTANTINOPLE AND VICINITY |
During the siege a Syrian architect named Callinicus is said to have come to Constantinople with a preparation of his own invention, "Greek fire," which he offered the Emperor for use against the Saracen. This, according to one historian, "was a semi-liquid substance, composed of sulphur, pitch, dissolved niter, and petroleum boiled together and mixed with certain less important and more obscure substances.... When ejected it caught the woodwork which it fell and set it so thoroughly on fire that there was no possibility of extinguishing the conflagration. It could only be put out, it is said, by pouring vinegar, wine, or sand upon it."[1]
[Footnote 1: The Art of War, Oman, p. 546.]
Constantine IV, the Emperor, was quick to see the possibilities of the innovation and equipped his dromons with projecting brass tubes for squirting the substance upon the enemy's ships. These are sometimes referred to as "siphons," but it is not clear just how they were operated. One writer[2] is of Page 78 the opinion that something of the secret of gunpowder had been obtained from the East and that the substance was actually projected by a charge of gunpowder; in short, that these "siphons" were primitive cannon. In addition to these tubes other means were prepared for throwing the fire. Earthenware jars containing it were to be flung by hand or arbalist, and darts and arrows were wrapped with tow soaked in the substance.
[Footnote 2: The Byzantine Empire, Foord, p. 139.]
The Christian fleet was no match for the Saracen in numbers, but Constantine pinned his faith on the new invention. Accordingly, during the fourth year of the siege, 677, he boldly led his fleet to the attack. We have no details of this battle beyond the fact that the Greek fire struck such terror by its destructive effect that the Saracens were utterly defeated. This unexpected blow completed the growing demoralization of the besiegers. The army returned to the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, and the survivors of the fleet turned homewards. Constantine followed up his victory with splendid energy. He landed troops on the Asiatic shore, pursued the retreating Arabs and drove the shattered remnant of their army back into Syria. The fleet was overtaken by a storm in the Ægean and suffered heavily. Before the ships could reassemble, the Christians were upon them and almost nothing was left of the great Saracen armada. Thus the second great assault on Constantinople was shattered by the most staggering disaster that had ever befallen the cause of Islam.
The Christian empire once more stood supreme, and that supremacy was attested by the terms of peace which the defeated Muaviah was glad to accept. There was to be a truce of thirty years, during which the Christian emperor was to receive an annual tribute of 3000 pounds of gold, fifty Arab horses and fifty slaves.
It is unfortunate that there was no Herodotus to tell the details of this victory, for it was tremendously important to European civilization. Western Europe was then a welter of barbarism and anarchy, and if Constantinople had fallen, in all probability the last vestige of Roman civilization would have been destroyed. Moreover, the battle is of special Page 79 interest from a tactical point of view because it was won by a new device, Greek fire, which was the most destructive naval weapon up to the time when gunpowder and artillery took its place. Indeed this substance may be said to have saved Christian civilization for several centuries, for the secret of its composition was carefully preserved at Constantinople and the Arabs never recovered from their fear of it.
The victory did not, however, mark the crisis of the struggle. In the half century that followed, Constantinople suffered from weak or imbecile emperors while the Caliphate gained ground under able rulers and generals. In the first fifteen years of the eighth century the Saracens reached the climax of their power. Under a great general, Muza, they conquered Spain and spread into southern France. It was he who conceived the grandiose plan of conquering Christendom by a simultaneous attack from the west and from the east, converging at the city of Rome. One army was to advance from Asia Minor and take Constantinople; another was to cross the Pyrenees and overrun the territory of the Franks. Had the enterprise been started at the time proposed there could have been little opposition in the west, for the Franks were then busy fighting each other, but luckily Muza fell into disgrace with the Caliph at this time and his great project was undertaken by less able hands and on a piecemeal plan.
The eastern line of invasion was undertaken first in the year 717. A fleet of warships and transports to the number of 1800 sailed to the Hellespont, carrying about 80,000 troops, while a great army collected at Tarsus and marched overland toward the same destination. Meanwhile two more fleets were being prepared in the ports of Africa and Egypt, and a third army was being collected to reënforce the first expedition. This army was to be under the personal command of the Caliph himself. The third attack on the Christian capital was intended to be the supreme effort.
Fortunately, the ruler of Constantinople at this hour of peril was a man of ability and energy, Leo III; but the empire had sunk so low as a result of the misrule of his predecessors that his authority scarcely extended beyond the shores Page 80 of the Sea of Marmora, and his resources were at a low ebb. The navy on which so much depended was brought to a high point of efficiency, but it was so inferior in numbers to the Saracen armada that he dared not attempt even a defense of the Dardanelles.
For the Arabs all went well at first. Unopposed they transported a part of their army to the European shore, moved toward Constantinople and invested it by land and sea. One detachment was sent to cover Adrianople, which was occupied by a Christian garrison; the rest of the force concentrated on the capital itself.
Meanwhile the Christian fleet lay anchored in the shelter of the Golden Horn, protected by a boom of chains and logs. As the Saracen ships came up to occupy the straits above the city they fell into confusion in trying to stem the rapid current. Seeing his opportunity, the emperor ordered the boom opened, and leading the way in his flagship, he fell upon the huddle of Saracen vessels in the channel. The latter could make little resistance, and before the main body of the fleet could work up to the rescue, the Christians had destroyed twenty and taken a number of prizes back to the Horn. Again Greek fire had proved its deadly efficacy. Elated with this success, Leo ordered the boom opened wide and, lying in battle order at the mouth of the Horn, he challenged the Arab fleet to attack. But such was the terror inspired by Greek fire that the Grand Vizier, in spite of his enormous superiority in numbers, declined to close. Instead he withdrew his dromons out of the Bosphorus and thereafter followed the less risky policy of a blockade. This initial success of the Christian fleet had the important effect of leaving open the sea route to the Black Sea, through which supplies could still reach the beleaguered city.
The Arabs then sat down to wear out the defenders by a protracted siege on land and sea. In the spring of 718 the new army and the two new fleets arrived on the scene. One of the latter succeeded, probably by night, in passing through the Bosphorus and closing the last inlet to the city. The situation for the defenders became desperate. Many Page 81 of the men serving on these new fleets, however, were Christians. These took every opportunity to desert, and gave important information to the emperor as to the disposition of the Arab ships. Acting on this knowledge, Leo took his fleet out from the shelter of the boom and moved up the straits against the African and Egyptian squadrons that were blockading the northern exit. The deserters guided him to where these squadrons lay, at anchor and unprepared for action. What followed was a massacre rather than a battle. The Christian members of the crews deserted wholesale and turned upon their Moslem officers. Ship after ship was rammed by the Christian dromons or set on fire by the terrible substance which every Arab regarded with superstitious dread. Some were driven ashore, others captured, many more sunk or burnt to the water's edge. Of a total of nearly 800 vessels practically nothing was left.
Leo followed up this spectacular naval victory by transporting a force from the garrison of the city to the opposite shore of the Bosphorus, attacking the army encamped there and driving it in rout. Meanwhile the Bulgarian chieftain had responded to Leo's appeal and, relieving the siege of Adrianople, beat back the Saracen army at that point with great slaughter. The fugitives of that army served to throw into panic the troops encamped round the walls of Constantinople, already demoralized by disease, the death of their leaders, and the annihilation of the African and Egyptian fleets in the Bosphorus.
The great retreat began. The Arab soldiers started back through Asia Minor, but only 30,000 out of the original force of 180,000 lived to reach Tarsus. The fleet set sail for the Ægean, and as in the similar retreat of a half century before, the Arabs were overwhelmed by a storm with terrible losses. The Christian ships picked off many survivors, and the Christians of the islands destroyed others that sought shelter in any port. It is said that out of the original armada of 1800 vessels only five returned to Syria! Thus the third and supreme effort of the Saracen ended in one of the greatest military disasters in history.
Page 82 The service of the Christian fleet in the salvation of the empire at this time is thus summarized by a historian:
"The fleet won most of the credit for the fine defense; it invariably fought with admirable readiness and discipline, and was handled in the most masterful manner. It checked the establishment of a naval blockade at the very outset, and broke it when it was temporarily formed in 718; it enabled the army to operate at will on either shore of the Bosphorus, and it followed up the retreating Saracens and completed the ruin of the great armament."[1]
[Footnote 1: The Byzantine Empire, Foard, p. 170.]
The winning stroke in this campaign was the tremendous naval victory at the mouth of the Bosphorus, and this, even more emphatically than Constantine's victory in 677, deserves to be called another Salamis. Not only did it save the Christian empire but it checked the Caliphate at the summit of its power and started it on its decline. Not for thirty years afterwards was the Saracen able to put any considerable fleet upon the sea.
It was ten years after the Arab defeat at Constantinople that the armies of the west began the other part of Muza's project—the conquest of the Franks. By this time the Frankish power was united and able to present a powerful defense. In six bitterly contested battles between Tours and Poitiers in 732 Charles Martel defeated the Arabs in a campaign that may well be called the Marathon, or better, the Platæa, of the Middle Ages, for it completed the work done by the imperial navy at Constantinople. From this time forward the power of the Saracen began to ebb by land and sea.
As it ebbed, the new cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice began to capture the trade and hold the control of the sea that once had been Saracen, until the Christian control was so well established as to make possible the Crusades. Later, as we shall see, a second invasion of Mohammedans, the Turks, ably assisted by the descendants of the Arabs who conquered Spain, once more threatened to control the Mediterranean for the cause of Islam. But the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, which fell into the hands of the Arabs as soon as they took to Page 83 the water, remained in Arab hands down to the times of the Portuguese. In those waters, because they were cut off from the Mediterranean, the Saracen had no competitor. As early as the eighth century Ceylon was an Arab trading base, and when the Portuguese explorers arrived at the end of the 15th century they found the Arabs still dominating the water routes of India and Asia, holding as they had held for seven centuries a monopoly of the commerce of the east.
Of the Mediterranean during the struggle between Christian and Saracen a recent English writer makes the following suggestive comment:
"The function of the Mediterranean has thus undergone a change. In early times it had been a barrier; later, under the Phœnicians, it became a highway, and to the Greeks a defense. We find that the Romans made it a basis for sea power and subdued all the lands on its margin. With the weakening of Rome came a weakening of sea power. The Barbary states and Spain became Saracen only because the naval power of the eastern empire was not strong enough to hold the whole sea, but neither was the Saracen able to gain supreme control. Thus the conditions were the same as in the earlier days of the conflict between Rome and Carthage: the Mediterranean became a moat separating the rivals, though first one and then the other had somewhat more control. The islands became alternately Saracen and Christian. Crete and Sicily were held for centuries before they were regained by a Christian power."[1]
[Footnote 1: Geography and World Power, Fairgrieve, p. 125.]
The victory of 718 saved Constantinople from any further peril from the Arabs, but it was again in grave peril, two centuries later, when a sudden invasion of Russians in great force threatened to accomplish at a stroke what the Saracens had failed to do in three great expeditions. The King of Kiev, one of the race of Vikings that had fought their way into southern Russia, collected a huge number of ships, variously estimated from one to ten thousand, and suddenly appeared Page 84 in the Bosphorus. Probably there were not more than 1500 of these vessels all told and they must have been small compared with the Christian dromons; nevertheless they presented an appalling danger at that moment. The Christian fleet was watching Crete, the army was in the east winning back territory from the Arabs, and Constantinople lay almost defenseless. The great walls could be depended an to hold off a barbarian army, but a fleet was needed to hold the waterways; otherwise the city was doomed.
In the Horn lay a few antiquated dromons and a few others still on the stocks. To Theophanes the Patrician was given this nucleus of a squadron with which to beat back the Russians. Desperate and even hopeless as the situation appeared, he went to work with the greatest energy, patching up the old ships, and hurrying the completion of the new. Meanwhile the invaders sent raiding parties ashore that harried the unprotected country districts with every refinement of cruelty. In order to make each ship count as much as possible as an offensive unit, Theaphanes made an innovation by fitting out Greek fire tubes on the broadsides as well as in the bows. This may be noted as the first appearance of the broadside armament idea, which had to wait six hundred years more before it became finally established.
When the new ships had been completed and the old ones made serviceable, Theophanes had exactly fifteen men of war. With this handful of vessels, some hardly fit to take the sea, he set out from the Horn and boldly attacked the Russian fleet that blocked the entrance to the strait. Never was there a more forlorn hope. Certainly neither the citizens on the walls nor the men on the ships had any expectation of a return.
What followed would be incredible were it not a matter of history. These fifteen ships were immediately swallowed up by the huge fleet of the enemy, but under the superb leadership of Theophanes each one fought with the fury of desperation. They had one hope, the weapon that had twice before saved the city, Greek fire. The Russians swarmed alongside only to find their ships taking fire with a flame that water would not quench. Contempt of their feeble enemy changed soon Page 85 to a wild terror. There was but one impulse, to get out of reach of the Christians, and the ships struggled to escape. Soon the whole Russian fleet was in wild flight with the gallant fifteen in hot pursuit. Some of these could make but slow headway because of their unseaworthiness, but when all was over the Russians are said to have lost two-thirds of their entire force. The invaders who had been left on shore were then swept into the sea by reënforcements that had arrived at Constantinople, and not a vestige was left of the Russian invasion. Once more Greek fire and the Christian navy had saved the empire; and for sheer audacity, crowned with a victory of such magnitude, the feat of Theophanes stands unrivaled in history.
From the tenth century on, Constantinople began to find her rivalries in the west. The coronation of Charlemagne in 800 had marked the final separation of the eastern and the western empire. As noted above, the passing of the Saracens gave opportunity for the growth of commercial city-states like Genoa, Pisa and Venice, and their interests clashed not only with one another but also with those of Constantinople.
The climax came in 1204 when Venice succeeded in diverting the Fourth Crusade to an expedition of vengeance for herself, first against the city of Zara and then against Constantinople. This time the Eastern Empire had no fleet ready for defense and the Venetian galleys filled the waters under the city walls. Many of these galleys were fitted with a kind of flying bridge, a long yard that extended from the mast to the top of the wall and stout enough to bear a file of men that scrambled by this means to the parapets. After many bloody repulses the city was finally captured, and there followed a sack that for utter barbarity outdid anything ever perpetrated by Arab or Turk. Thus the city that for nearly a thousand years had saved Christian civilization was, by a hideous irony of fate, taken and sacked by a Crusading army.
When the second Mohammedan invasion threatened Europe, Constantinople, weak on land and impotent by sea, and deserted by the Christian nations of the west, was unable to Page 86 put up a strong resistance. At last, in 1453, it was captured by the Turks, and became thereafter the capital of the Moslem power. Great as this catastrophe was, it cannot compare with what would have happened if the city had fallen to the Saracen, the Hun, or the Russian during the dark centuries when the nations of the west were scarcely in embryo. In the 15th century they were strong enough to take up the sword that Constantinople had dropped and draw the line beyond which the Turk was not permitted to go.
Although it has been the fashion since Gibbon to sneer at the Eastern Empire, it must be remembered with respect as the last treasure house of the inheritance bequeathed by Rome and Greece during the dark centuries of barbarian and Saracen. Even in its ruin it sent its fugitives westward with the manuscripts of a language and literature then little known, the Greek, and thereby added greatly to the growing impetus of the Renaissance. It is significant also that during its thousand years of life, as long as it kept its hold on the sea it stood firm. When it yielded that, its empire dwindled to a mere city fortress whose doom was assured long before it fell.
REFERENCES
Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. II., 1913.
The History of the Saracens, E. Gibbon & S. Ockley.
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, ed. by J. B. Bury.
The Byzantine Empire, E. A. Foord, 1911.
Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages, Paul Lacroix, 1874.
History of the Later Roman Empire, J. B. Bury, 1889.
History of the Eastern Roman Empire, J. B. Bury, 1912.
THE NAVIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES [Continued]: VENICE AND THE TURK
The city-state of Venice owed its origin to the very same barbarian invasions that wrecked the old established cities of the Italian peninsula. Fugitives from these towns in northern Italy and the outlying country districts fled to the islets and lagoons for shelter from the Hun, the Goth, and the Lombard. As the sea was the Venetians' barrier from the invader, so also it had to be their source of livelihood, and step by step through the centuries they built up their commerce until they practically controlled the Mediterranean, for trade or for war.
As early as 991 a Doge of Venice made a treaty with the Saracens inaugurating a policy held thereafter by Venice till the time of Lepanto; namely, to trade with Mohammedans rather than fight them. The supreme passion of Venice was to make money, as it had been of ancient Phœnicia, and to this was subordinated every consideration of race, nationality, and religion. The first important step was the conquest of the Dalmatian pirates at the beginning of the 11th century. This meant the Venetian control of the Adriatic. When the Crusades began, the sea routes to the Holy Land were in the hands of the Venetians; indeed it was this fact that made the Crusades possible. As the carrying and convoying agent of the Crusaders, Venice developed greatly in wealth and power. With direct access to the Brenner Pass, she became a rich distributing center for Eastern goods to northern Europe. In all important Levantine cities there was a Venetian quarter, Venetians had special trading privileges, and many seaports and islands came directly under Venetian rule.
|
| Page 88 THEATER OF OPERATIONS, VENICE AND THE TURK |
This rapid expansion naturally roused the jealousy of others. In 1171 Venice fought an unsuccessful war with Constantinople, and yet continued to grow in wealth and power. In 1204, as we have seen, Venice avenged herself by diverting the Fourth Crusade to the siege and sack of her eastern rival. As the reward of that nefarious exploit Venice received the greater part of the eastern empire, and became the dominating power in the Mediterranean. During the 13th and 14th centuries, however, she was compelled to fight with her rebellious colonies and her new rivals, Genoa and Padua. The wars with Genoa very nearly proved fatal to Venice, but just when matters seemed most desperate she was saved by a naval victory against a Genoese fleet in her own waters. In consequence of these wars between Venice and Genoa both were heavy losers in wealth and lives; Genoa never recovered from her defeat, but her rival showed amazing powers of recuperation. She extended her territory in Italy to include the important cities of Treviso, Padua, Vicenza, and Verona, and in 1488 acquired the island of Cyprus in the Levant. At this time the Page 89 Venetian state owned 3300 ships, manned by 36,000 men, and stood at the height of her power.
Already, however, a new enemy had appeared who threatened not only Venice but all Europe. This was the Ottoman Turk. The Turks were not like the Arabs, members of the Indo-European family, but a race from the eastern borders of the Caspian Sea, a branch of the Mongolian stock. As these peoples moved south and west they came in contact with Mohammedanism and became ardent converts. Eventually they swept over Asia Minor, crossed the Dardanelles, took Adrianople, and pushed into Serbia. Thus, when Constantinople fell in 1453 it had been for some time a mere island of Christianity surrounded by Moslems. Indeed it was only the civil wars among the Turks themselves that held them back so long from the brilliant career of conquest that characterized the 15th and early 16th centuries, for these later followers of Mohammed had all the fanaticism of the Saracens. Before the fall of Constantinople and the transfer of the Turkish seat of government to that city, a corps of infantry was organized that became the terror of the Christian world—the Janissaries. By a grim irony of the Sultan, who created this body of troops, these men were exclusively of Christian parentage, taken as children either in the form of a human tribute levied on the Christian population of Constantinople, or as captives in the various expeditions in Christian territory. The Janissaries were brought up wholly to a military life, they were not permitted to marry, and their lives were devoted to fighting for the Crescent. For a long time they were invincible in the open field.
The first half of the 16th century saw the Turks in Persia, in the east, and at the gates of Vienna in the west. For a time they got a foothold in Italy by seizing Otranto. They had conquered Egypt and Syria, penetrated Persia, and in Arabia gained the support of the Arabs for the Turkish sultan as the successor to the Caliphs. Constantinople, therefore, became not only the political capital for the Turkish empire but the religious center of the whole Moslem world. Moreover, Page 90 the Arab states on the southern borders of the Mediterranean acknowledged the suzerainty of the Turkish ruler.
This fact was of great importance, for it enabled the Turks to become masters of the inland sea. In 1492 the greater part of the Moors—the descendants of the Arab conquerors of Spain—were expelled from the Peninsula by the conquest of Granada. This event was hailed with joy throughout Christendom, but it had an unexpected and terrible consequence. Flung back into northern Africa, and filled with hatred because of the persecution they had endured, these Moors embarked on a career of piracy directed against Christians. In making common cause with the Turks they supplied the fleets that the Turkish power needed to carry out its schemes of conquest. Apparently the Turks had never taken to salt water as the Arabs had done, but in these Moorish pirates they found fighters on the sea well worthy to stand comparison with their peerless fighters on land, the Janissaries. Between 1492 and 1580, the date of Ali's death, there was a period in which the Moorish corsairs were supreme. It produced three great leaders, each of whom in turn became the terror of the sea: Kheyr ed Din, known as Barbarossa, Dragut, and Ali. It is a curious fact that the first and third were of Christian parentage.
So long as the Turk invaded Christian territory by land alone, the Venetians were unconcerned. They made what treaties they could for continuing their trade with communities that had fallen into the conquerors' hands. But when the Turk began to spread out by sea it was inevitable that he must clash with the Venetian, and so there was much fighting. Yet even after a successful naval campaign the emissary of Venice was obliged to come before the Sultan, cap in hand, to beg trading privileges in Turkish territory. Everything in Venetian policy was subordinated to the maintenance of sufficient friendly relations with the Turk to assure a commercial monopoly in the Levant. Although the Moslem peril grew more and more menacing, Venice remained unwilling to join in any united action for the common good of Europe.
Of course Venice was not alone in this policy. In 1534 Page 91 Francis the First, for example, in order to humiliate his rival, Charles V, secretly sent word to Barbarossa of the plans being made against him. Indeed France showed no interest in combating the Turk even at the time when he was at the summit of his power. But Venice, as the dominating naval power, had the means of checking the Turkish invasion if she had chosen to do so. Instead she permitted the control of the Mediterranean to slip from her into the hands of the Moslems with scarcely a blow.
The leading part in the resistance to the Moslem sea power was taken by Spain under Charles V. He had, as admiral of the navy, Andrea Doria, the Genoese, the ablest seaman on the Christian side. Early in his career he had captured a notorious corsair; later in the service of Spain, he defeated the Turks at Patras (at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth), and again at the Dardanelles. These successes threatened Turkish supremacy on the Mediterranean, and Sultan Soliman "the Magnificent," the ruler under whom the Turkish empire reached its zenith, summoned the Algerian corsair Barbarossa and gave him supreme command over all the fleets under the Moslem banner. At this time, 1533, Barbarossa was seventy-seven years old, but he had lost none of his fire or ability. On the occasion of being presented to the Sultan, he uttered a saying that might stand as the text for all the writings of Mahan: "Sire, he who rules on the sea will shortly rule on the land also."
The following year Barbarossa set out from Constantinople with a powerful fleet and proceeded to ravage the coast of Italy. He sacked Reggio, burnt and massacred elsewhere on the coast without opposition, cast anchor at the mouth of the Tiber and if he had chosen could have sacked Rome and taken the Pope captive. He then returned to Constantinople with 11,000 Christian captives.
Charles V was roused by this display of corsair power and barbarity to collect a force that should put an end to such raids. Barbarossa had recently added Tunis to his personal domains, and the great expedition of ships and soldiers which the emperor assembled was directed against that city. Despite Page 92 the warning given by the King of France, Barbarossa was unable to oppose the Christian host with a force sufficiently strong to defend the city. The Christians captured it and the chieftain escaped only by a flight along the desert to the port of Bona where he had a few galleys in reserve. With these he made his way to Algiers before Andrea Doria could come up with him. The Christians celebrated the capture of Tunis by a massacre of some 30,000 inhabitants and returned home, thanking God that at last Barbarossa was done for. Indeed, with the loss of his fleet and his newly acquired province it seemed as if the great pirate was not likely to give much trouble, but the Christians had made the mistake of leaving the work only half done.
In 1537, two years after the fall of Tunis, the Sultan declared war on Venice. The Turkish fleet, although led by the Sultan Soliman himself, was defeated by the Venetians off Corfu. Doria, in the service of Charles V, caught and burned ten richly laden Turkish merchant ships and then defeated a Turkish squadron. The prestige of the Crescent on the sea was badly weakened by these events, but suddenly Barbarossa appeared and raided the islands of the Archipelago and the coasts of the Adriatic with a savagery and sweep unmatched by anything in his long career. He arrived in the Golden Horn laden with booty, and delivered to his master, the Sultan, 18,000 captives.
This exploit changed the complexion of affairs. During the winter of 1537-1538 the naval yards of Constantinople were busy with the preparations for a new fleet which should take the offensive against the Venetians and the Christians generally. In the spring Barbarossa got out into the Archipelago and, raiding at will, swept up another batch of prisoners to serve as galley slaves for the new ships. Meanwhile the Mediterranean states nerved themselves for a final effort. Venice contributed 81 galleys, the Pope sent 36, and Spain, 30. Later the Emperor sent 50 transports with 10,000 soldiers, and 49 galleys, together with a number of large sailing ships. Venice also added 14 sailing ships of war, or "nefs," and Doria 22; these formed a special squadron. The Venetian Page 93 nefs were headed by Condalmiero in his flagship the Galleon of Venice, the most formidable warship in the Mediterranean, and the precursor of a revolution in naval architecture and naval tactics.
|
| 16TH CENTURY GALLEY |
Although the sailing ship was coming more and more into favor because of the discoveries across the Atlantic, the galley was the man of war of this period. The dromons of the Eastern empire, with their stout build and two banks of oars, had given way to a long, narrow vessel with a single bank of oars which had been developed by men who lived on the shores of the sheltered lagoons of the Adriatic. The prime characteristic of this type was its mobility. For the pirate whose business it was to lie in wait and dash out on a merchantman, this quality of mobility—independence of wind and speed of movement—was of chief importance. Similarly, in order to combat the pirate it was necessary to possess the same characteristic. Of course, as in all the days of rowed ships, this freedom of movement was limited by the physical exhaustion of the rowers. In the ships of Greek and Roman days these men had some protection from the Page 94 weapons of the enemy and from the weather, but in the 16th century galley, whether Turkish or Christian, they were chained naked to their benches day and night, with practically nothing to shelter them from the weather or from the weapons of an enemy. So frightful were the hardships of the life that the rowers were almost always captives, or felons who worked out their sentences on the rowers' bench. An important difference between the galley of this period and the earlier types of rowed ship is the fact that in the galley there was but one row of oars on a side, but these oars were very long and manned by four or five men apiece.
A typical galley was about 180 feet over all with a beam of 19 feet and a depth of hold of about 7-1/2 feet. A single deck sloped from about the water line to a structure that ran fore and aft amidships, about six feet wide, which served as a gangway between forecastle and poop and gave access to the hold. The forecastle carried the main battery of guns, and was closed in below so as to provide quarters for the fighting men. The poop had a deck house and a smaller battery; this deck also was closed in, furnishing quarters for the officers. There were two or three masts, lateen rigged, adorned in peace or war with the greatest profusion of banners and streamers. Indeed huge sums of money were expended on the mere ornament of these war galleys, particularly in the elaborate carvings that adorned the stern and prow.
In the conflict of Christian and Moslem, when Constantinople was the capital of Christendom, Greek fire on two critical occasions routed the Saracens. This substance was never understood in western Europe, and for centuries the secret was carefully preserved in the eastern capital. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it was used by the Moslem against the Christian, but the discovery of gunpowder soon made the earlier substance obsolete. In the 16th century cannon had already reached considerable dimensions, but in a naval battle between galleys these weapons were not used after the first volley or so. The tactics were little different from those of the day of the trireme, consisting Page 95 simply of ramming, and fighting at close quarters with arquebus, bows, pike, and sword.
Twenty feet from the bows of every galley projected her metal beak, and all her guns pointed forward; hence in the naval tactics of the period everything turned on a head-on attack. The battle line, therefore, was line abreast. For the same reasons a commander had to fear an attack on his flank, and he maneuvered usually to get at least one flank protected by the shore. The battle line in the days of the galley could be dressed as accurately as a file of soldiers, but the fighting was settled in a close mêlée in which all formation was lost from the moment of collision between the two fleets.
The Campaign of Prevesa
Such were the men of war and the tactics common to Christian and corsair during the 16th century. While the Christians were slowly collecting their armada, Barbarossa, with a force of 122 galleys, set out to catch his enemy in detail if he could. Pirate as he was, the old ruffian had a clear strategic grasp of what he might do with a force that was inferior to the fleet collecting against him. The Christians were to mobilize at Corfu. The Papal squadron had collected in the Gulf of Arta, and Barbarossa made for it. By sheer luck just before he arrived it had moved to the rendezvous. If he had followed it up immediately, he might have crushed both the Papal and Venetian contingents, because Doria and the Spanish fleet had not yet arrived; but apparently he felt uncertain as to just how far off these reënforcements were and therefore did not attempt the stroke. Instead, he took up a defensive position in the Gulf of Arta, exactly where Antony had collected his fleet before the battle of Actium.
In September (1538) the Christian fleet under Doria left Corfu and crossed to the Gulf. Barbarossa had drawn up his force in battle array inside the entrance, under the guns of the Turkish fortress at Prevesa. Since this entrance is obstructed by a bar with too little water for Doria's heavier ships, he lay outside. Thus the two fleets faced each other, Page 96 each waiting for the other to make the next move. For the first time in their careers the greatest admiral on the Christian side was face to face with the greatest on the Moslem side. Both were old men, Doria over seventy and Barbarossa eighty-two. The stage was set for another decisive battle on the scene of Actium. The town of Prevesa stood on the site of Octavius's camp, and again East and West faced each other for the mastery of the sea. With the vastly greater strength of the Christian fleet, and the known skill of its leader, everything pointed to an overwhelming victory for the Cross. What followed is one of the most amazing stories in history.
Having the interior lines and the smooth anchorage, Barbarossa had only to watch his enemy go to pieces in the open roadstead in trying to maintain a blockade. His officers, however, scorned such a policy, and, being appointees of the Sultan and far from subordinate in spirit to their chief, they were finally able to force his hand and compel him to offer battle to the Christians by leaving the security of the gulf and the fortress and going out into the open, exactly where Doria wanted him. Accordingly on the 27th of September, the Turkish fleet sailed out to offer battle. It happened that Doria had gone ten miles away to Sessola for anchorage, and the Galleon of Venice lay becalmed right in the path of the advancing fleet. Condalmiero sent word for help, and Doria ordered him to begin fighting, assuring him that he would soon be reënforced.
The Turkish galleys, advancing in a crescent formation, soon enveloped the lonely ship. Her captain ordered his crew to lie down on her deck while he alone stood, in full armor, a target to the host of Moslems who pushed forward in their galleys anxious for the honor of capturing this great ship. Condalmiero ordered his gunners to hold their fire until the enemy were within arquebus range. Then the broadsides of the galleon blazed and the surrounding galleys crumpled and sank. A single shot weighing 120 pounds sank a galley with practically all on board. The signal to retreat was given and speedily obeyed.
Thereafter there were to be no more rushing tactics. Barbarossa Page 97 organized his galleys in squadrons of twenty, which advanced, one after the other, delivered their fire, and retired. All the rest of the day, from about noon till sunset, this strange conflict between the single galleon and the Turkish fleet went on. The ship was cumbered with her fallen spars; she had lost thirteen men killed and forty wounded. The losses would have been far greater but for the extraordinarily thick sides of the galleon. After sundown the Turkish fleet appeared to be drawing up in line for the last assault. On the Galleon of Venice there was no thought of surrender; the ammunition was almost spent and the men were exhausted with their tremendous efforts, but they stood at their posts determined to defend their ship to the last man.
Then, to their astonishment Barbarossa drew off, sending some of his galleys to pursue and cut off certain isolated Christian units, but leaving the field to the Venetian galleon. Meanwhile, during all that long, hot afternoon the great fleet of Andrea Doria, instead of pressing forward to the relief of the Galleon of Venice and crushing Barbarossa with its great superiority in numbers, was going through strange parade maneuvers about ten miles away. Doria's explanation was that he was trying to decoy Barbarossa out into deeper water where the guns of the nefs could be used, but there is no other conclusion to be reached than that Doria did not want to fight. Fortune that day offered him everything for an overwhelming victory, one that might have ranked with the decisive actions of the world's history, and he threw it away under circumstances peculiarly disgraceful and humiliating. Never did commander in chief so richly deserve to be shot on his own deck. The following day as a fair wind blew for Corfu, Doria spread sail and retired from the gulf, while Barbarossa, roaring with laughter, called on his men to witness the cowardice of this Christian admiral.
The victory lay with Barbarossa. With a greatly inferior force he had challenged Doria and attacked. Doria had not only declined the challenge but fled back to Corfu. No wonder the Sultan ordered the cities of his domain to be illuminated. Barbarossa's prizes included two galleys and five nefs, Page 98 but he, too, had failed in an inexplicable fashion in drawing off from the assault on the Galleon of Venice at the end of the day's fighting. It is with her, with the gallant Condalmiero and his men, that all the honor of the day belongs. Nothing in the adventurous 16th century surpasses their splendid, disciplined valor on this occasion.
The astonishing powers of resistance and the deadly effect of the broadsides of the Galleon of Venice displayed in a long and successful fight against an entire fleet of galleys should have had the effect of making a revolution in naval architecture fifty years before that change actually occurred. But men of war of those days were built after the models of Venetian architects, and the latter clung doggedly to the galley. They overlooked the great defensive and offensive powers of the galleon displayed in this story and saw only the fact that she was becalmed and unable to move.
Doria's failure left conditions in the Mediterranean as bad as ever. Barbarossa died at the age of ninety, but one of the last acts of his life was to ransom a follower of his, Dragut, Pasha of Tripoli, who had served under him at Prevesa and, having been captured two years later, served four years as a galley slave on the ship of Gian Andrea Doria, the grandnephew and heir of Andrea Doria. Dragut soon assumed the leadership laid down by Barbarossa, his master, fighting first the elder Doria and then his namesake with great skill and audacity. For years the Knights of Malta had been a thorn in the side of the Moslems who roamed the sea, and in 1565 a gigantic effort was made by the Sultan, together with his tributaries from the Barbary states, to wipe out this naval stronghold. The siege that followed was distinguished by the most reckless courage and the most desperate fighting on both sides. It extended from May 18 to September 8, costing the Christians 8000 and the Moslems 30,000 lives. In the midst of the siege Dragut himself was slain, and the conduct of the siege fell into less capable hands. Finally the Turks withdrew.
The death of Soliman the Magnificent, in 1566, brought to the head of the Turkish state a ruler known by the significant Page 99 name, Selim the Drunkard. Weak and debauched as he was, nevertheless he aspired to add to the Turkish dominions as his father had done. Accordingly, he informed Venice that she must evacuate Cyprus. Previous to this time Venice had succeeded, by means of heavy bribes to the Sultan's ministers, in keeping her hold on this important island, but this policy only tempted further arrogance on the part of the Turk. Further, the time was propitious for such a stroke because Venice was impoverished by bad harvests and the loss of her naval arsenal by fire, Spain was occupied in troubles with the Moors, and France, torn with civil war, wanted to keep peace with the Sultan at any price. During the terrible siege of Malta Venice had remained neutral; now that the danger came home to her she cried for help, and not unnaturally there were those who sneered at her in this crisis and bade her save herself.
The Pope, however, had long been anxious to organize a league of Christian peoples to win back the Mediterranean to the Cross and draw a line beyond which the Crescent should never pass. In this plight of Venice he saw an opportunity, because hitherto the persistent neutrality or the unwillingness of the Venetians to fight the Turk to the finish had been one of the chief obstacles to concerted action. He therefore pledged his own resources to Venice and attempted to collect allies by the appeal to the Cross. The results were discouraging, but a force of Spanish, Papal, and Venetian galleys was finally collected and after endless delays dispatched to the scene in the summer of 1570.
Meanwhile the Turks had been pressing their attack on Cyprus and were besieging the city of Nicosia. If the Christians had been moved by any united spirit they could have relieved Nicosia and struck a heavy blow at the Turkish fleet, which lay unready and stripped of its men in the harbor. But Gian Doria, who inherited from his great uncle his great dislike of Venetians, and who probably had secret instructions from his master, Philip II, to help as little as possible, succeeded in blocking any vigorous move on the part of the other commanders. Finally, after a heated quarrel, he sailed Page 100 back to Sicily with his entire fleet, and the rest followed. The allies had gone no nearer Cyprus than the port of Suda in Crete. The whole expedition, therefore, came to nothing.
In September Nicosia fell to the Turk, who then turned to the conquest of Famagusta, the last stronghold of the Venetians on the island. Bragadino, the commander of the besieged forces, fought against desperate odds with a courage and skill worthy of the best traditions of his native city, hoping to repulse the Turks until help could arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged at the loss of 50,000 men, which Bragadino's stubborn defense had cost, no sooner had the Venetians in his power than he massacred officers and men and flayed their commander alive. This news did not reach the Christians, however, until their second expedition was almost at grips with the Turks at Lepanto.
The Campaign of Lepanto
Undismayed by the failure of his first attempt, Pope Pius had immediately gone to work to reorganize his Holy League. He had to overcome the mutual hatred and mistrust that lay between Spain and Venice, aggravated by the recent conduct of Doria, but neither the Pope nor Venice could do without the help of Spain. There was much bickering between the envoys in the Papal chambers, and it was not till February, 1571, that the terms of the new enterprise were agreed upon. By this contract no one of the powers represented was to make a separate peace with the Porte. The costs were divided into six parts, of which Spain undertook three, Venice, two, and the Pope, one. Don Juan, the illegitimate brother of Philip II, was to be commander in chief. Although only twenty-four, this prince had won a military reputation in suppressing the Moorish rebellion in Spain, and, having been recognized by Philip as a half brother, he had a princely rank that would Page 101 subordinate the claims of all the rival admirals. Finally, the rendezvous was appointed at Messina.
The aged Venetian admiral, Veniero, had been compelled by the situation in the east to divide his force into two parts, one at Crete, and the other under himself at Corfu. By the time he received orders to proceed to the rendezvous, he learned that Ali, the corsair king of Algiers, known better by his nickname of "Uluch" Ali, was operating at the mouth of the Adriatic with a large force. To reach Messina with his divided fleet, Veniero ran the risk of being caught by Ali and destroyed in detail, but the situation was so critical that he took the risk and succeeded in slipping past the corsair undiscovered. In permitting this escape, and in fact in allowing all the other units of the Christian fleet to assemble at Messina, Ali missed a golden opportunity to destroy the whole force before it ever collected. Instead, he continued his ravages on the coasts of the Adriatic, bent only on plunder. He carried his raids almost to the lagoons of Venice itself, and indeed might have attacked the city had he not been hampered by a shortage of men.
Although the Turks were having their own way, unopposed, and the situation was growing daily more critical, the Christian fleet was slow in assembling. For a whole month Veniero waited in Messina for the arrival of Don Juan and the Spanish squadrons. Philip, apparently, used one pretext after another to delay the prince, and once on his way Don Juan had to tarry at every stage of the journey to witness ceremonial fêtes held in his honor. Philip acted in good faith as far as his preparations went, but he wanted to save his galleys for use against the Moors of the Barbary coast, which was nearer the ports of Spain, and was indifferent to the outcome of the quarrel between Venice and the Porte. Undoubtedly Doria and the other Spanish officers were fully informed of their royal master's desires in this expedition as in the one of the year before. They were to avoid battle if they could.
On August 25 Don Juan arrived at Messina and was joyously received by the city and the fleet. Nevertheless, it Page 102 was the 12th of September before the decision was finally reached to seek out the Turkish fleet and offer battle. Fortunately Don Juan was a high-spirited youth who shared none of his brother's half-heartedness; he went to work to organize the discordant elements under his command into as much of a unit as he could, and to imbue them with the idea of aggressive action. In this spirit he was seconded by thousands of young nobles and soldiers of fortune from Spain and Italy, who had flocked to his standard like the knight errants of the age of chivalry, burning to distinguish themselves against the infidel. Among these, oddly enough, was a young Spaniard, Cervantes, who was destined in later years to laugh chivalry out of Europe by his immortal "Don Quixote."
In order to knit together the three elements, Spanish, Venetian, and Papal, Don Juan so distributed their forces that no single squadron could claim to belong to any one nation. As the Venetian galleys lacked men, he put aboard them Spanish and Italian infantry. Before leaving Messina, he had given every commander written instructions as to his cruising station and his place in the battle line. The fighting formation was to consist of three squadrons of the line and one of reserve. The left wing was to be commanded by the Venetian Barbarigo; the center, by Don Juan himself, in the flagship Real, with Colonna, the Papal commander on his right and Veniero, the Venetian commander, on his left, in their respective flagships. The right wing was intrusted to Doria, and the reserve, amounting to about thirty galleys, was under the Spaniard, Santa Cruz. In front of each squadron of the line two Venetian galleasses were to take station in order to break up the formation of the Turkish advance. The total fighting force consisted of 202 galleys, six galleasses, and 28,000 infantrymen besides sailors and oarsmen.
The Venetian galleasses deserve special mention because they attracted considerable attention by the part they subsequently played in the action. Sometimes the word was applied to any specially large galley, but these represented something different from anything in either Christian or Turkish Page 103 fleets. They were an attempt to reach a combination of galleon and galley, possessing the bulk, strength, and heavy armament of the former, together with the oar propulsion of the latter to render them independent of the wind. But like most, if not all, compromise types, the galleass was short-lived. It was clumsy and slow, being neither one thing nor the other. Most of the time on the cruise these galleasses had to be towed in order to keep up with the rest of the fleet. It is interesting to note that, despite the example of the Galleon of Venice at Prevesa, there was not a single galleon in the whole force.
On September 16 the start from Messina was made. The fleet crossed to the opposite shore of the Adriatic, creeping along the coast and in the lee of the islands after the manner of oar driven vessels that were unable to face a fresh breeze or a moderate sea. Delayed by unfavorable winds, it was not till October 6 that it arrived at the group of rocky islets lying just north of the opening of the Gulf of Corinth, or Lepanto[1] where the Turkish fleet was known to be mobilized. Meanwhile trouble had broken out among the Christians. Serious fighting had taken place between Venetians and Spaniards, and Veniero, without referring the case to Don Juan, had hanged a Spanish soldier who had been impudent to him, thus enraging the commander in chief. In a word, the various elements were nearly at the point of fighting each other before the object of their crusade was even sighted.
[Footnote 1: Lepanto is the modern name of Naupaktis, the naval base of Athens in the gulf. It had been a Venetian stronghold, but fell to the Turks in 1499. The name Lepanto is given to both the town and the gulf.]
At dawn of the 7th the lookout on the Real sighted the van of the Turkish fleet coming out to the attack, and this news had a salutary effect. Don Juan called a council of war, silenced those like Doria who still counseled avoiding battle, and then in a swift sailing vessel went through the fleet exhorting officers and men to do their utmost. The sacrament was then administered to all, the galley slaves freed from their chains, and the standard of the Holy League, the figure of the Crucified Savior, was raised to the truck of the flagship.
Page 104 As the Christians streamed down from the straits to meet their enemy, they faced a serious peril. The Turks were advancing in full array aided by a wind at their backs; the same wind naturally was against the Christians, who had to toil at their oars with great labor to make headway. If the wind held there was every prospect that the Turks would be able to fall upon their enemy before Don Juan could form his line of battle. Fortunately, toward noon the wind shifted so as to help the Christians and retard the Turks. This shift just enabled most of the squadrons to fall into their appointed stations before the collision. Two of the galleasses, however, were not able to reach their posts in advance of the right wing before the mêlée began, and the right wing itself, though it had ample time to take position, kept on its course to the south, leaving the rest of the fleet behind. To Turk and Christian alike this move on the part of Doria meant treachery, for which Doria's previous conduct gave ample color, but there was no time to draw back or reorganize the line.
The Turkish force, numbering 222 galleys, swept on to the attack, also in three divisions, stretched out in a wide crescent. The commander in chief, Ali Pasha, led the center, his right was commanded by Sirocco, the Viceroy of Egypt, and his left by "Uluch" Ali. This arrangement should have brought Ali, the greatest of the Moslem seafighters of his day, face to face with Doria, the most celebrated admiral in Christendom. The two opposing lines swung together with a furious plying of oars and a tumult of shouting. The four galleasses stationed well in front of the Christian battle line opened an effective fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys as they swept past. In trying to avoid the heavy artillery of these floating fortresses, the Turks fell into confusion, losing their battle array almost at the very moment of contact, and masking the fire of many of their ships. This was an important service to the credit of the galleasses, but as they were too unwieldy to maneuver readily they seem to have taken no further part in the action.
The first contact took place about noon between Barbarigo's and Sirocco's squadrons. The Venetian had planned to rest Page 105 his left flank so close to the shore as to prevent the Turks from enveloping it, but Sirocco, who knew the depth of water better, was able to pour a stream of galleys between the end of Barbarigo's line and the coast so that the Christians at this point found themselves attacked in front and rear. For a while it looked as if the Turks would win, but the Christians fought with the courage of despair. There was no semblance of line left; only a mêlée of ships laid so close to each other as to form almost a continuous platform over which the fighting raged hand to hand. Both the leaders fell. Barbarigo was mortally wounded, and Sirocco was killed when his flagship was stormed. The loss of the Egyptian flagship and commander seemed to decide the struggle at this point. The Christian slaves, freed from the rowers' benches, were supplied with arms and joined in the fighting with the fury of vengeance on their masters. A backward movement set in among the Turkish ships; then many headed for the shore to escape.
Meanwhile, shortly after the Christian left had been engaged the two centers crashed together. Such was the force of the impact that the beak of Ali Pasha's galley drove as far as the fourth rowing bench of the Real. Instantly a fury of battle burst forth around the opposing flagships. Attack and counter attack between Spanish infantry and Turkish Janissaries swayed back and forth across from one galley to another amid a terrific uproar. Once the Real was nearly taken, but Colonna jammed the bows of his galley alongside and saved the situation by a counter attack. On the other side of the flagship Veniero was also at one time in grave peril but was saved by the timely assistance of his comrades. Though wounded in the leg, this veteran of seventy fought throughout the action as stoutly as the youngest soldier.
The prompt action of Colonna turned the tide in the center, for after clearing the Turks from the deck of the Real, the Christians, now reënforced, made a supreme effort that swept the length of Ali Pasha's galley and left the Turkish commander in chief among the slain. In fighting of this character no quarter was given; of the 400 men on the Turkish Page 106 flagship not one was spared. Don Juan immediately hoisted the banner of the League to the masthead of the captured ship. This sign of victory broke the spirit of the Turks and nerved the Christians to redoubled efforts. As on the left wing so in the center the offensive now passed to the allies. Thus after two hours' fighting the Turks were already beaten on left and center, though fighting still went on hotly in tangled and scattered groups of ships.
|
| BATTLE OF LEPANTO, OCT. 7. 1571 |
| Formation of the two fleets just before contact, about 11 a. m. |
On the Christian right, however, the situation was different. Doria had from the beginning left the right center "in the air" by sailing away to the south. He explained this singular conduct afterwards by saying that he noticed Ali moving seaward as if to try an enveloping movement round the Christians' southern flank, and therefore moved to head Page 107 him off. However plausible this may be, the explanation did not satisfy Doria's captains, who obeyed his signals with indignant rage. At all events Ali had a considerably larger force than Doria, and after the latter had drawn away so far as to create a wide gap between his own squadron and the center, Ali suddenly swung his galleys about in line and fell upon the exposed flank, leaving Doria too far away to interfere. The Algerian singled out a detached group of about fifteen galleys, among which was the flagship of the Knights of Malta. No Christian flag was so hated as the banner of this Order, and the Turks fell upon these ships with shouts of triumph. One after another was taken and it began to look as if Ali would soon roll up the entire flank and pluck victory from defeat.
But Santa Cruz, who was still laboring through the straits when the battle began, was now in a position to help. After an hour's fighting with all the advantage on Ali's side, Santa Cruz arrived with his reserve squadron and turned the scale. By this time, too, Doria managed to reach the scene with a part of his squadron. Thus Ali found himself outnumbered and in danger of capture. Signaling retreat, he collected a number of his galleys and, boldly steering through the field of battle, escaped to lay at the feet of the Sultan the captured flag of the Knights of Malta. Some thirty-five others of his force made their way safely back to Lepanto.
The fighting did not end till evening. By that time the Christians had taken 117 galleys and 20 galliots, and sunk or burnt some fifty other ships of various sorts. Ten thousand Turks were captured and many thousands of Christian slaves rescued. The Christians lost 7500 men; the Turks, about 30,000. It was an overwhelming victory.
As far as the tactics go, Lepanto was, like Salamis, an infantry battle on floating platforms. It was fought and won by the picked infantrymen of Spain and Italy; the day of seamanship had not yet arrived. For the conduct of the most distinguished admiral on the Christian side, Gian Andrea Doria, little justification can be found. Even if we accept his excuse at its face value, the event proved his folly. Page 108 It is strange that in this, the supreme victory of the Cross over the Crescent on the sea, a Doria should have tarnished his reputation so foully, even as his great-uncle Andrea had tarnished his in the battle of Prevesa. It seems as if in both, as Genoese, the hatred of Venice extinguished every other consideration of loyalty to Christendom.
What were the consequences of Lepanto, and in what sense can it be called a decisive battle? The question at first seems baffling. Overwhelming as was the defeat of the Turks, Ali had another fleet ready the next spring and was soon ravaging the seas again. Twice there came an opportunity for the two fleets to meet for another battle, but Ali declined the challenge. After Lepanto he seemed unwilling, without a great superiority, to risk another close action and contented himself with a "fleet in being." In this new attitude toward the Christians lies the hint to the answer. The significance of Lepanto lies in its moral effect. Never before had the Turkish fleet been so decisively beaten in a pitched battle. The fame of Lepanto rang through Europe and broke the legend of Turkish invincibility on the sea.
The material results, it must be admitted, were worse than nothing at the time. In 1573 Don Juan was amazed and infuriated to learn that Venice, contrary to the terms of the Holy League, had secretly arranged a separate peace with the Sultan. The terms she accepted were those of a beaten combatant. Venice agreed to the loss of Cyprus, paid an indemnity of 300,000 ducats, trebled her tribute for the use of Zante as a trading post, and restored to the Turk all captures made on the Albanian and Dalmatian coast. Apparently the Venetian had to have his trade at any price, including honor. At this news Don Juan tore down the standard of the allies and raised the flag of Castile and Aragon. In two years and after a brilliant victory, the eternal Holy League, which was pledged to last forever, fell in pieces.
As for Venice, her ignoble policy brought her little benefit. She steadily declined thereafter as a commercial and naval power. Her old markets were in the grip of the Turk, and the new discoveries of ocean routes to the east—beyond the Page 109 reach of the Moslem,—diverted the course of trade away from the Mediterranean, which became, more and more, a mere backwater of the world's commerce. In fact, it was not until the cutting of the Suez Canal that the inland sea regained its old time importance.
In the long unsuccessful struggle of Christian against the Turk Venice must bear the chief blame, for she had the means and the opportunity to conquer if she had chosen the better part. And yet the story of this chapter shows also that the rest of Christendom was not blameless. If Christians in the much extolled Age of Faith had shown as much unity of spirit as the Infidels, the rule of the Turk would not have paralyzed Greece, the Balkans, the islands of the Ægean, and the coasts of Asia Minor for nearly five centuries.
REFERENCES
La Guerre de Chypre et la Bataille de Lépante, J. P. Jurien de la Gravière, 1888.
By the same author, Doria et Barberousse, 1886.
History of the Reign of Philip the Second (vol. III.), W. H. Prescott, 1858.
Sea Wolves of the Mediterranean, E. Hamilton Currey. This contains a full bibliography.
The Navy of Venice, Alethea Wiel, 1910.
The Eastern Question (chap. V.), J. A. R. Marriott, 1917.
Barbary Corsairs, Story of the Nations Series, Lane-Poole, 1890.
Drake and the Tudor Navy (Introduction), J. S. Corbett, 1898.
Geography and World Power, James Fairgrieve, 1917.
OPENING THE OCEAN ROUTES
1. PORTUGAL AND THE NEW ROUTE TO INDIA
From the days of the Phœnicians to the close of the 15th century, all trade between Europe and Asia crossed the land barrier east of the Mediterranean. Delivered by Mohammedan vessels at the head of the Persian Gulf or the ports of the Red Sea, merchandise followed thence the caravan routes across Arabia or Egypt to the Mediterranean, quadrupling in value in the transit. Intercourse between East and West, active under the Romans, was again stimulated by the crusades and by Venetian traders, until in the 14th and the 15th centuries the dyes, spices, perfumes, cottons, muslins, silks, and jewels of the Orient were in demand throughout the western world. This assurance of a ready market and large profits, combined with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), their piratical attacks in the Mediterranean which continued unchecked until Lepanto, and their final barring of all trade routes through the Levant, revived among nations of western Europe the old legends of all-water routes to Asia, either around Africa or directly westward across the unknown sea.
With the opening of ocean routes and the discovery of America, a rivalry in world trade and colonial expansion set in which has continued increasingly down to the present time, forming a dominant element in the foreign policies of maritime nations and a primary motive for the possession and use of navies. The development of overseas trade, involving the factors of merchant shipping, navies, and control of the seas, is thus an integral part of the history of sea power. The great voyages of discovery are also not to be disregarded, Page 111 supplying as they did the basis for colonial claims, and illustrating at the same time the progress of nautical science and geographical knowledge.
|
| CROSS-STAFF |
The art of navigation, though still crude, had by the 15th century so advanced that the sailor was no longer compelled to skirt the shore, with only rare ventures across open stretches of sea. The use of the compass, originating in China, had been learned from the Arabs by the crusaders, and is first mentioned in Europe towards the close of the 12th century. An Italian in England, describing a visit to the philosopher Roger Bacon in 1258, writes as follows: "Among other things he showed me an ugly black stone called a magnet ... upon which, if a needle be rubbed and afterward fastened to a straw so that it shall float upon the water, the needle will instantly turn toward the pole-star; though the night be never so dark, yet shall the mariner be able by the help of this needle to steer his course aright. But no master-mariner," he adds, "dares to use it lest he should fall under the imputation of being a magician."[1] By the end of the 13th century Page 112 the compass was coming into general use; and when Columbus sailed he had an instrument divided as in later times into 360 degrees and 32 points, as well as a quadrant, sea-astrolabe, and other nautical devices. The astrolabe, an instrument for determining latitude by measuring the altitude of the sun or other heavenly body, was suspended from the finger by a ring and held upright at noon till the shadow of the sun passed the sights. The cross-staff, more frequently used for the same purpose by sailors of the time, was a simpler affair less affected by the ship's roll; it was held with the lower end of the cross-piece level with the horizon and the upper adjusted to a point on a line between the eye of the observer and the sun at the zenith. By these various means the sailor could steer a fixed course and determine latitude. He had, however, as yet no trustworthy means of reckoning longitude and no accurate gauge of distance traveled. The log-line was not invented until the 17th century, and accurate chronometers for determining longitude did not come into use until still later. A common practice of navigators, adopted by Columbus, was to steer first north or south along the coast and then due west on the parallel thought to lead to the destination sought.
[Footnote 1: Dante's tutor Brunetto Latini, quoted in The Discovery of America, Fiske, Vol. I, p. 314.]
|
| THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN WORLD IN 1450, SHOWING THE VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS, VASCO DE GAMA, MAGELLAN, AND DRAKE |
With the revival of classical learning in the Renaissance, geographical theories also became less wildly imaginative than in the medieval period, the charts of which, though beautifully colored and highly decorated with fauna and flora, show no such accurate knowledge even of the old world as do those of the great geographer Ptolemy, who lived a thousand years before. Ptolemy (200 A.D.), in company with the majority of learned men since Aristotle, had declared the earth to be round and had even estimated its circumference with substantial accuracy, though he had misled later students by picturing the Indian Ocean as completely surrounded by Africa, which he conceived to extend indefinitely southward and join Asia on the southeast, leaving no sea-route open from the Atlantic. There was another body of opinion of long standing, however, which outlined Africa much as it actually is. Friar Roger Bacon, whose interest in the compass has already been mentioned, collected statements of classical Page 114 authorities and other evidence to show that Asia could be reached by sailing directly westward, and that the distance was not great; and this material was published in Paris in a popular Imago Mundi of 1410. In general, the best geographical knowledge of the period, though it underestimated the distance from Europe westward to Asia and was completely ignorant of the vast continents lying between, gave support to the theories which the voyages of Diaz, Vasco da Gama, and Columbus magnificently proved true.
When the best sailors of the time were Italians, and when astronomical and other scientific knowledge of use in navigation was largely monopolized by Arabs and Jews, it seems strange that the isolated and hitherto insignificant country of Portugal should have taken, and for a century or more maintained primacy in the great epoch of geographical discovery. The fact is explained, not so much by her proximity to the African coast and the outlying islands in the Atlantic, as by the energetic and well-directed patronage which Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) extended to voyages of exploration and to the development of every branch of nautical art. The third son of John the Great of Portugal, and a nephew on his mother's side of Henry IV of England, the prince in 1415 led an armada to the capture of Ceuta from the Moors, and thereafter, as governor of the conquered territory and of the southern province of Portugal, settled at Saigres near Cape St. Vincent. On this promontory, almost at the western verge of the known world, Henry founded a city, Villa do Iffante, erected an observatory on the cliff, and gathered round him the best sailors, geographers and astronomers of his age.
|
| PORTUGUESE VOYAGES AND POSSESSIONS |
Under this intelligent stimulus, Portuguese navigators within a century rounded the Cape of Good Hope, opened the sea route to the Indies, discovered Brazil, circumnavigated the globe, and made Portugal the richest nation in Europe, with a great colonial empire and claims to dominion over half the seas of the world. Portuguese ships carried her flag from Labrador (which reveals its discoverers in its name) and Nova Zembla to the Malay Archipelago and Japan.
Page 115 Page 116 It is characteristic of the crusading spirit of the age that Prince Henry's first ventures down the African coast were in pursuance of a vague plan to ascend one of the African rivers and unite with the legendary Christian monarch Prester John (Presbyter or Bishop John, whose realm was then supposed to be located in Abyssinia) in a campaign against the Turk. But crusading zeal changed to dreams of wealth when his ships returned from the Senegal coast between 1440 and 1445 with elephants' tusks, gold, and negro slaves. The Gold Coast was already reached; the fabled dangers of equatorial waters—serpent rocks, whirlpools, liquid sun's rays and boiling rivers—were soon proved unreal; and before 1480 the coast well beyond the Congo was known.
The continental limits of Africa to southward, long clearly surmised, were verified by the voyage of Bartolomeo Diaz, in 1487. Diaz rounded the cape, sailed northward some 200 miles, and then, troubled by food shortage and heavy weather, turned backward. But he had blazed the trail. The cape he called Tormentoso (tempestuous) was renamed by his sovereign, João II, Cape Bon Esperanto—the Cape of Goad Hope. The Florentine professor Politian wrote to congratulate the king upon opening to Christianity "new lands, new seas, new worlds, dragged from secular darkness into the light of day."
It was not until ten years later that Vasco da Gama set out to complete the work of Diaz and establish contact between east and west. The contour of the African coast was now so well understood and the art of navigation so advanced that Vasco could steer a direct course across the open sea from the Cape Verde Islands to the southern extremity of Africa, a distance of 3770 miles (more than a thousand miles greater than that of Columbus' voyage from the Canaries to the Bahamas), which he covered in one hundred days. After touching at Mozambique, he caught the steady monsoon winds for Calicut, on the western coast of the peninsula of India, then a great entrepôt where Mohammedan and Chinese fleets met each year to exchange wares. Thwarted here by the intrigues of Mohammedan traders, who were quick to realize Page 117 the danger threatening their commercial monopoly, he moved on to Cannanore, a port further north along the coast, took cargo, and set sail for home, reaching the Azores in August of 1499, with 55 of his original complement of 148 men. They came back, in the picturesque words of the Admiral, "With the pumps in their hands and the Virgin Mary in their mouths," completing a total voyage of 13,000 miles. The profits are said to have been sixty-fold.
The ease with which in the next two decades Portugal extended and consolidated her conquest of eastern trade is readily accounted for. She was dependent indeed solely upon sea communications, over a distance so great as to make the task seem almost impossible. But the craft of the east were frail in construction and built for commerce rather than for warfare. The Chinese junks that came to India are described as immense in size, with large cabins for the officers and their families, vegetable gardens growing on board, and crews of as many as a thousand men; but they had sails of matted reed that could not be lowered, and their timbers were loosely fastened together with pegs and withes. The Arab ships, according to Marco Polo, were also built without the use of nails. Like the Portuguese themselves, the Arab or Mohammedan merchants belonged to a race of alien invaders, little liked by the native princes who retained petty sovereignties along the coast. But the real secret of Portuguese success lay in the fact that their rivals were traders rather than fighters, who had enjoyed a peaceful monopoly for centuries, and who could expect little aid from their own countries harassed by the Turk. The Portuguese on the other hand inherited the traditions of Mediterranean seamanship and warfare, and, above all, were engaged in a great national enterprise, led by the best men in the land, with enthusiastic government support.
After Vasco's return, fleets were sent out each year, to open the Indian ports by either force or diplomacy, destroy Moslem merchant vessels, and establish factories and garrisons. In 1505 Francisco de Almeida set sail with the largest fleet as yet fitted out (sixteen ships and sixteen caravels), an Page 118 appointment as Viceroy of Cochin, Cannanore, and Quilon, and supreme authority from the Cape to the Malay Peninsula. Almeida in the next four years defeated the Mohammedan traders, who with the aid of Egypt had by this time organized to protect themselves, in a series of naval engagements, culminating on February 3, 1509, in the decisive battle of Diu.
Mir Hussain, Admiral of the Gran Soldan of Egypt and commander in chief of the Mohammedan fleet in this battle, anchored his main force of more than a hundred ships in the mouth of the channel between the island of Diu and the mainland, designing to fall back before the Portuguese attack towards the island, where he could secure the aid of shore batteries and a swarm of 300 or more foists and other small craft in the harbor. Almeida had only 19 ships and 1300 men, but against his vigorous attack the flimsy vessels of the east were of little value. The battle was fought at close quarters in the old Mediterranean style, with saber, cutlass, and culverin; ramming, grappling, and boarding. Before nightfall Almeida had won. This victory ensured Portugal's commercial control in the eastern seas.
Alfonso d'Albuquerque, greatest of the Portuguese conquistadores, succeeded Almeida in 1509. Establishing headquarters in a central position at Goa, he sent a fleet eastward to Malacca, where he set up a fort and factory, and later fitted out expeditions against Ormuz and Aden, the two strongholds protecting respectively the entrances to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. The attack on Aden failed, but Ormuz fell in 1515. Albuquerque died in the same year and was buried in his capital at Goa. His successor opened trade and founded factories in Ceylon. In 1526 a trading post was established at Hugli, near the mouth of the Ganges. Ormuz became a center for the Persian trade, Malacca for trade with Java, Sumatra, and the Spice Islands. A Portuguese envoy, Fernam de Andrada, reached Canton in 1517—in the first European ship to enter Chinese waters—and Pekin three years later. Another adventurer named Mendez Pinto spent years in China and in 1548 established a factory near Yokohama, Japan. Brazil, where a squadron under Cabral had touched Page 119 as early as 1502, was by 1550 a prosperous colony, and in later centuries a chief source of wealth. Mozambique, Mombassa, and Malindi, on the southeastern coast of Africa, were taken and fortified as intermediate bases to protect the route to Asia. The muslins of Bengal, the calicoes of Calicut, the spices from the islands, the pepper of Malabar, the teas and silks of China and Japan, now found their way by direct ocean passage to the Lisbon quays.
A few strips along the African coast, tenuously held by sufferance of the great powers, and bits of territory at Goa, Daman, and Diu in India, are the twentieth century remnants of Portugal's colonial empire. The greater part of it fell away between 1580 and 1640, when Portugal was under Spanish rule. But her own system of colonial administration, or rather exploitation, was if possible worse than Spain's. Her scanty resources of man power were exhausted in colonial warfare. The expulsion of Protestants and Jews deprived her of elements in her population that might have known how to utilize wealth from the colonies to build up home trade and industries. Her situation was too distant from the European markets; and the raw materials landed at Lisbon were transshipped in Dutch bottoms for Amsterdam and Antwerp, which became the true centers of manufacturing and exchange. Cervantes, in 1607, could still speak of Lisbon as the greatest city in Europe,[1] but her greatness was already decaying; and her fate was sealed when Philip of Spain closed her ports to Dutch shipping, and Dutch ships themselves set sail for the east.
[Footnote 1: Persiles and Sigismuda, III, i.]
But the period of Portugal's maritime ascendancy cannot be left without recording, even if in barest outline, the circumnavigation of the globe by Fernão da Magalhães, or Magellan, who, though he made this last voyage of his under the Spanish flag, was Portuguese by birth and had proved his courage and iron resolution under Almeida and Albuquerque in Portugal's eastern campaigns. Seeking a westward passage to the Spice Islands, the five vessels of 75 to 100 tons composing his squadron cleared the mouth of the Guadalquivir Page 120 on September 20, 1519. They established winter quarters in the last of March at Port St. Julian on the coast of Patagonia. Here, on Easter Sunday, three of his Spanish captains mutinied. Magellan promptly threw a boat's crew armed with cutlasses aboard one of the mutinous ships, killed the leader, and overcame the unruly element in the crew. The two other ships he forced to surrender within 24 hours. One of the guilty captains was beheaded and the other marooned on the coast when the expedition left in September. Five weeks were now spent in the labyrinths of the strait which has since borne the leader's name. "When the capitayne Magalianes," so runs the contemporary English translation of the story of the voyage, "was past the strayght and sawe the way open to the other mayne sea, he was so gladde thereof that for joy the teares fell from his eyes."
He had sworn he would go on if he had to eat the leather from the ships' yards. With three vessels—one had been shipwrecked in the preceding winter and the other deserted in the straits—they set out across the vast unknown expanse of the Pacific. "In three monethes and xx dayes they sailed foure thousande leagues in one goulfe by the sayde sea called Pacificum.... And havying in this tyme consumed all their bysket and other vyttayles, they fell into such necessitie that they were in forced to eate the pouder that remayned thereof being now full of woormes.... Theyre freshe water was also putryfyed and become yellow. They dyd eate skynnes and pieces of lether which were foulded about certeyne great ropes of the shyps." On March 6, 1521, they reached the Ladrones, and ten days later, the Philippines, even these islands having never before been visited by Europeans. Here the leader was killed in a conflict with the natives. One ship was now abandoned, and another was later captured by the Portuguese. Of the five ships that had left Spain with 280 men, a single vessel, "with tackle worn and weather-beaten yards," and 18 gaunt survivors reached home. "It has not," writes the historian John Fiske of this voyage, "the unique historic position of the first voyage of Columbus, which brought together two streams of human life that had been Page 121 disjoined since the glacial period. But as an achievement in ocean navigation that voyage of Columbus sinks into insignificance beside it.... When we consider the frailness of the ships, the immeasurable extent of the unknown, the mutinies that were prevented or quelled, and the hardships that were endured, we can have no hesitation in speaking of Magellan as the prince of navigators."[1]
[Footnote 1: The Discovery of America, Vol. II, p. 210.]
2. SPAIN AND THE NEW WORLD
It is generally taken for granted that the great movement of the Renaissance, which spread through western Europe in the 15th and the 16th centuries, quickening men's interest in the world about them rather than the world to come, and inspiring them with an eagerness and a confident belief in their own power to explore its hidden secrets, was among the forces which brought about the great geographical discoveries of the period. Its influence in this direction is evident enough in England and elsewhere later on; but, judging by the difficulties of Columbus in securing support, it was not in his time potent with those in control of government policy and government funds. The Italian navigator John Cabot and his son Sebastian made their voyages from England in 1498 and 1500 with very feeble support from Henry VII, though it was upon their discoveries that England later based her American claims. Even in Spain there seems to have been little eagerness to emulate the methods by which her neighbor Portugal had so rapidly risen to wealth and power.
But the influence of revived classical information on geographical matters was keenly felt; and the idea of a direct westerly passage to India was suggested, not only by Portugal's monopoly of the Cape route, but by classical authority, generally accepted by the best geographers of the time. The Imago Mundi of 1410, already mentioned, embodying Roger Bacon's arguments that the Atlantic washed the shores of Asia and that the voyage thither was not long, was a book Page 122 carefully studied by Columbus. Paul Toscanelli, a Florentine physicist and astronomer, adopting and developing this theory, sent in 1474 to Alfonso V of Portugal a map of the world in which he demonstrated the possibilities of the western route. The distance round the earth at the equator he estimated almost exactly to be 24,780 statute miles, and in the latitude of Lisbon 19,500 miles; but he so exaggerated the extent of Europe and Asia as to reduce the distance between them by an Atlantic voyage to about 6500 miles, putting the east coast of China in about the longitude of Oregon. This distance he still further shortened by locating Cipango (Japan) far to the eastward of Asia, in about the latitude of the Canary Islands and distant from them only 3250 miles.
With all these opinions Columbus was familiar, for the list of his library and the annotations still preserved in his own handwriting, show that he was not an ignorant sailor, nor yet a wild visionary, but prepared by closest study for the task to which he gave his later years. His earlier career, on the other hand, had supplied him with abundant practical knowledge. Born in Genoa, a mother city of great seamen, probably in the year 1436, he had received a fair education in Latin, geography, astronomy, drafting, and other subjects useful to the master-mariner of those days. He had sailed the Mediterranean, and prior to his great adventure, had been as far north as Iceland, and on many voyages down the African coast. Following his brother Bartholomew, who was a map-maker in the Portuguese service, he came about 1470 to Lisbon, even then a center of geographical knowledge and maritime activity. Probably as early as this time the idea of a western voyage was in his mind.
Skepticism may account for Portugal's failure to listen to his proposals; and her interest was already centered in the route around Africa under her exclusive control. The tale of his years of search for assistance is well known. Indeed, while the fame of Columbus rests rightly enough upon his discovery of a new world, of whose existence he had never dreamed and which he never admitted in his lifetime, his greatness is best shown by his faith in his vision, and the Page 123 steadfast energy and fortitude with which he pushed towards its practical accomplishment, during years of vain supplication, and amid the trials of the voyage itself. He had actually left Granada, when Isabella of Spain at last agreed to support his venture. In the contract later drawn up he drove a good bargain, contingent always upon success; he was to be admiral and viceroy of islands and continents discovered and their surrounding waters, with control of trading privileges and a tenth part of the wealth of all kinds derived.
With the explorations of Columbus on his first and his three later voyages (in 1496, 1498, and 1502) we are less concerned than with the first voyage itself as an illustration of the problems and dangers faced by the navigator of the time, and with the effect of the discovery of the new world upon Spain's rise as a sea power. The three caravels in which he sailed were typical craft of the period. The Santa Maria, the largest, was like the other two, a single-decked, lateen-rigged, three-masted vessel, with a length of about 90 feet, beam of about 20 feet, and a maximum speed of perhaps 6-1/2 knots. She was of 100 tons burden and carried 52 men. The Pinta was somewhat smaller. The Niña (Baby) was a tiny, half-decked vessel of 40 tons. Heavily timbered and seaworthy enough, the three caravels were short provisioned and manned in part from the rakings of the Palos jail.
Leaving Palos August 3, 1492, Columbus went first to the Canaries, and thence turned his prow directly westward, believing that he was on the parallel that touched the northern end of Japan. By a reckoning even more optimistic than Toscanelli's, he estimated the distance thither to be only 2500 miles. Thence he would sail to Quinsay (Hang Chow), the ancient capital of China, and deliver the letter he carried to the Khan of Cathay. The northeast trade winds bore them steadily westward, raising in the minds of the already fear-stricken sailors the certainty that against these head winds they could never beat back. At last they entered the vast expanse of the Sargasso Sea, six times as large as France, where they lay for a week almost becalmed, amid tangled masses of floating seaweeds. To add to their perplexities, they had passed the line Page 124 of no variation, and the needle now swung to the left of the pole-star instead of the right. On the last day of the outward voyage they were 2300 miles to the westward according to the information Columbus shared with his officers and men; according to his secret log they were 2700 miles from the Canaries, and well beyond the paint where he had expected to strike the islands of the Asiatic coast. The mutinous and panic-stricken spirit of his subordinates, the uncertainty of Columbus himself, turned to rejoicing when at 2:00 A.M. of Friday, October 12, a sailor on the Pinta sighted the little island of the Bahamas, which, since the time of the Vikings, was the first land sighted by white men in the new world.
|
| FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS |
The three vessels cruised southward, in the belief, expressed by the name Indian which they gave the natives, that they were in the archipelago east of Asia. Skirting the northern coast of Cuba and Hayti, they sought for traces of gold, and Page 125 information as to the way to the mainland. The Santa Maria was wrecked on Christmas Day; the Pinta became separated; Columbus returned in the little Ninã, putting in first at the Tagus, and reaching Palos on March 15, 1493.
Though his voyage gave no immediate prospect of immense profits, yet it was the general belief that he had reached Asia, and by a route three times as short as that by the Cape of Good Hope. The Spanish court celebrated his return with rejoicing. Appealing to the Pope, at this time the Spaniard Rodrigo Bargia, King Ferdinand lost no time in securing holy sanction for his gains. A Papal bull of May 3, 1493, conferred upon Spain title to all lands discovered or yet to be discovered in the western ocean. Another on the day following divided the claims of Spain and Portugal by a line running north and south "100 leagues west of the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands" (an obscure statement in view of the fact that the Cape Verdes lie considerably to the westward of the other group), and granted to Spain a monopoly of commerce in the waters "west and south" (again an obscure phrase) of this line, so that no other nation could trade without license from the power in control. This was the extraordinary Papal decree dividing the waters of the world. Small wander that the French king, Francis I, remarked that he refused to recognize the title of the claimants till they could produce the will of Father Adam, making them universal heirs; or that Elizabeth, when a century later England became interested in world trade, disputed a division contrary not only to common sense and treaties but to "the law of nations." The Papal decree, intended merely to settle the differences of the two Catholic states, gave rise to endless disputes and preposterous claims.
The treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between Spain and Portugal fixed the line of demarcation more definitely, 370 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, giving Portugal the Brazilian coast, and by an additional clause it made illegitimate trade a crime punishable by death. Another agreement in 1529 extended the line around to the Eastern Hemisphere, 17 degrees east of the Moluccas, which, if Spain had abided by it, Page 126 would have excluded her from the Philippines. After Portugal fell under Spanish rule in 1580, Spain could claim dominion over all the southern seas.
|
| CHART OF A.D. 1589 |
| Showing Papal line of Demarcation |
The enthusiasm and confident expectation with which Spain set out to exploit the discoveries of Columbus's first voyage changed to disappointment when subsequent explorations revealed lands of continental dimensions to be sure, but populated by ignorant savages, with no thoroughfare to the ancient civilization and wealth of the East, and no promise of a solid, lucrative commerce such as Portugal had gained. Mines were opened in the West Indies, but it was not until the conquest of Mexico by Cortez (1519-1521) laid open the accumulated wealth of seven centuries that Spain had definite assurance of the treasure which was to pour out of America in a steadily increasing stream. The first two vessels laden with Mexican treasure returned in 1523. Ten years later the exploration and conquest of Peru by Pizarro trebled the influx of silver and gold. The silver mines of Europe were abandoned. The Emperor Charles, as Francis I said, could Page 127 fight his European campaigns on the wealth of the Indies alone.
But between Spain and her "sinews of war" lay 3000 miles of ocean. To hold the colonies themselves, to guard the plate fleets against French, Dutch, and English raiders, to protect her own coastline and maintain communications with her possessions in Italy and the Low Countries, to wage war against the Turk in the Mediterranean, Spain felt the need of a navy. Indeed, in view of these varied motives for maritime strength, it is surprising that Spain depended so largely on impressed merchant vessels, and had made only the beginnings of a royal navy at the time of the Grand Armada.[1] Not primarily a nation of traders or sailors, she had, by grudging assistance to the greatest of sea explorers, fallen into a rich colonial empire, to secure and make the most of which called for sea power.
[Footnote 1: "For the kings of England have for many years been at the charge to build and furnish a navy of powerful ships for their own defense, and for the wars only; whereas the French, the Spaniards, the Portugals, and the Hollanders (till of late) have had no proper fleet belonging to their princes or state." Sir Walter Raleigh, A Discourse of the Invention of Ships.]
It is possible, however, to lay undue stress on the factor just mentioned in accounting for both the rise and the decay of Spain. Her ascendancy in Europe in the 16th century was due chiefly to the immense territories united with her under Charles the Fifth (1500-1558), who inherited Spain, Burgundy, and the Low Countries, and added Austria with her German and Italian provinces by his accession to the imperial throne. Under Charles's powerful leadership Spain became the greatest nation in Europe; but at the same time her resources in men and wealth were exhausted in the almost constant warfare of his long reign. The treasures of America flowed through the land like water, in the expressive figure of a German historian, "not fertilizing it but laying it waste, and leaving sharper dearth behind."[2] The revenues of the plate fleet were pledged to German or Genoese bankers even before they reached the country, and were expended in the purchase of foreign luxuries or in waging imperial wars, Page 128 rather than in the encouragement of home agriculture, trade, and industry. While the vast possessions of church and nobility escaped taxation, the people were burdened with levies on the movement and sale of commodities and on the common necessities of life. Prohibition of imports to keep gold in the country was ineffectual, for without the supplies brought in by Dutch merchantmen Spain would have starved, and Philip II often had to connive in violations of his own restrictions. Prohibition of exports to keep prices down was an equally Quixotic measure, the chief effect of which was to kill trade. Spain could not supply the needs of her own colonies, and in fact illustrates the truth that a nation cannot, in the end, profit greatly by colonies unless it develops industries to utilize their raw materials and supply their demands.
[Footnote 2: Das Zeitalter der Fugger, Vol. II, p. 150.]
For some time before the Armada Spain was on the downward path, as a result of the conditions mentioned. On the other hand, while the Armada relieved England of a terrible danger and dashed Spain's hope of domination in the north, it was not of itself a fatal blow. The war still continued, with other Spanish expeditions organized on a grand scale, and ended in 1604, so far as England was concerned, with that country's renunciation of trade to the Indies and aid to the Dutch.
But even if Spain's rise and decline were not primarily a result of sea power, still, taking the term to include the extension of shipping and maritime trade as well as the employment of naval forces in strictly military operations, there are lessons to be drawn from the use or neglect of sea power by both sides in Spain's long drawn-out struggle with Holland and England.
REFERENCES
General
The Expansion of Europe, a History of the Foundations of the Modern World, by Prof. W. C. Abbot, 1918.
The Story of Geographical Discovery, J. Jacobs, 1913.
Ships and Their Ways of Other Days, E. Keble Chatterton, 1906. Page 129
The Dawn of Navigation, Thomas G. Ford, U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. XXXIII., 1-3.
The Dawn of Modern Geography, 2 vols., C. Raymond Beazley, 1904.
Portugal
Prince Henry the Navigator, C. Raymond Beazley, 1895.
Vasco da Gama and his Successors, 1460-1580, K. G. Jayne, 1910.
Rise of Portuguese Power in India, R. S. Whiteway, 1910.
Cambridge Modern History, Vol. I., Ch. I.
History of the Indian Navy, Lieut. C. R. Low, 1877.
Spain
The Discovery of America, John Fiske, 1893.
Spain in America, E. G. Bourne, American Nation Series, 1909.
Spain, Martin Hume, Cam. Modern Hist. Series, 1898.
SEA POWER IN THE NORTH: HOLLAND'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
The first sea-farers in the storm-swept waters of the north, at least in historic times, were the Teutonic tribes along the North Sea and the Baltic. On land the Teutons held the Rhine and the Danube against the legions of Rome, spread later southward and westward, and founded modern European states out of the wreckage of the Roman Empire. On the sea, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in the 5th century began plundering the coasts of what is now England, and, after driving the Celts into mountain fastnesses, established themselves in permanent control.
The Vikings
These Teutonic voyagers were followed toward the close of the 8th century by their Scandinavian kindred to the northward, the Vikings—superb fighting men and daring sea-rovers who harried the coasts of western Europe for the next 200 years. There were no navies to stop them. "These sea dragons," exclaimed Charlemagne, "will tear my kingdom asunder!" In England no king before Alfred had a navy; and Alfred was compelled to organize a strong sea force to bring the invaders to terms.
Elsewhere the Vikings met little opposition. Wherever they found lands that attracted them, they conquered and settled dawn. Thus Normandy came into being. They swept up the rivers, burning and looting where they pleased, from the Elbe to the Rhone. They carried their raids as far south as Sicily and the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and Page 131 as far north and west as Iceland, Greenland, and the American continent. In the east, by establishing a Viking colony at Nishni Novgorod, they laid the foundations of the Russian empire, and their leader, Rus, gave it his name. Following river courses, others penetrated inland as far as Constantinople, where, being bought off by the emperor, they took service as imperial guards.
Their extraordinary voyages were made in boats that resemble so closely Greek and Roman models—even Phœnician, for that matter—as to suggest that the Vikings learned their ship-building from Mediterranean traders who forced their way into the Baltic in very early times. For example, the Viking method of making a rib in three parts is identical with the method of the Greeks and Romans. The chief points of difference are that Viking ships were sharp at both ends—like a canoe, were round-bottomed instead of flat, and had one steering oar instead of two. The typical Viking ship was only about 75 feet in length; but a royal vessel—the Dragon of the chief—sometimes attained a length of 300 feet, with sixty pairs of oars.
If the Vikings had had national organization under one head, they might well have laid the rest of Europe under tribute. In the 11th century, Cnut, a descendant of the Vikings, ruled in person over England, Denmark, and Norway. But their ocean folk-wanderings seem to have ended as suddenly as they began, and the effects were social rather than political. Where they settled, they brought a strain of the hardiest racial stock in Europe to blend with that of the conquered peoples.
The Hanseatic League
During the Middle Ages, peaceful trading gradually gained the upper hand over piracy and conquest. From the Italian cities the wares of the south and the Orient came over the passes of the Alps and down the German rivers, where trading cities grew up to act as carriers of merchandise and civilization among the nations of the north. The merchant guilds of Page 132 these cities, banded together in the Hanseatic League, for at least three centuries dominated the northern seas.
Perhaps the most extensive commercial combination ever formed for the control of sea trade, the Hanseatic League began with a treaty between Lübeck and Hamburg in 1174, and at the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries it included from 60 to 80 cities, of which Lübeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Danzig were among the chief. The league cleared northern waters of pirates, and used embargo and naval power to subdue rivals and promote trade. It established factories or trading stations from Nishni Novgorod to Bergen, London, and Bruges. From Russia it took cargoes of fats, tallows, wax, and wares brought into Russian markets from the east; from Scandinavia, iron and copper; from England, hides and wool; from Germany, fish, grain, beer, and manufactured goods of all kinds. The British pound sterling (Österling) and pound avoirdupois, in fact the whole British system of weights and coinage, are legacies from the German merchants who once had their headquarters in the Steelyard, London.
In the early 15th century the league attempted to shut Dutch ships from the Baltic trade by restricting their cargoes to wares produced in their own country, and by coercing Denmark into granting the league special privileges on the route through the Sound. This policy, culminating in the destruction of the Dutch grain fleet in 1437, led to a naval struggle which extended over four years and ended in a truce by which the Dutch secured the freedom of the Baltic. It was a typical naval war for sea control and commercial advantage, in which the Dutch as a rule seem to have got the better, and in which the legend first made its appearance of a Dutch admiral sweeping the seas with a broom nailed to his mast.
From this time the power of the Hansa declined. This was partly because the free cities came more and more under the rule of German princes with no interest in, or knowledge of, commerce; partly because of rivalry arising from the union of the Scandinavian states (1397) and the growth of Page 133 England, France, and the Low Countries to national strength and commercial independence; and partly also because of the decline of German fisheries when the herring suddenly shifted from the Baltic to the North Sea. Underlying these varied causes, however, and significant of the far-reaching effect of changing trade-routes upon the progress and prosperity of nations, was the fact that, when the Mediterranean trade route was closed by the Turks, and also the route through Russia by Ivan III, the German cities were side-tracked. Antwerp and Amsterdam were not only more centrally located for the distribution of trade, but also much nearer for Atlantic traffic—an advantage which Germany has ever since keenly envied.
Long before the rise of the Low Countries as a maritime power, Ghent and Bruges had enjoyed an early preëminence owing to their development of cloth manufacture, and the latter city as a terminus for the galleys of Venice and Genoa. After the silting up of the port of Bruges (1432), Antwerp grew in importance, and in the 16th century became the chief market and money center of Europe. Its inhabitants numbered about 100,000, with a floating population of upwards of 50,000 more. It contained the counting-houses of the great bankers of Europe—the Fuggers of Germany, the Pazzi of Florence, the Dorias of Genoa. Five thousand merchants were registered on the Bourse, as many as 500 ships often left the city in a single day, and two or three thousand more might be seen anchored in the Scheldt or lying along the quays.[1] Amsterdam by 1560 was second to Antwerp with a population of 40,000, and forged ahead after the sack of Antwerp by Spanish soldiers in 1576 and the Dutch blockade of the Scheldt during the struggle with Spain.
[Footnote 1: Blok, History of the People of the Netherlands, Part II, Ch. XII.]
This early prosperity of the Netherland cities may be attributed less to aggressive maritime activity than to their flourishing industries, their natural advantages as trading centers at the mouths of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse, and the privileges of self-government enjoyed by the middle classes under the House of Burgundy and even under Charles the Page 134 Fifth. Charles taxed them heavily—his revenues from the Low Countries in reality far exceeded the treasure he drew from America; but he was a Fleming born, spoke their language, and accorded them a large measure of political and religious freedom. The grievances which after his death led to the Dutch War of Independence, are almost personified in the son who succeeded him in 1555—Philip II, a Spaniard born and bred, who spoke no Flemish and left Brussels for the last time in 1573, dour, treacherous, distrustful, fanatical in religion; a tragic character, who, no doubt with great injustice to the Spanish, has somehow come to represent the character of Spain in his time.
The Dutch Struggle for Freedom
The causes of the long war in the Netherlands, which began in 1566 and ended with their independence 43 years later, is best explained in terms of general principles rather than specific grievances. "A conflict in which the principle of Catholicism with unlimited royal autocracy as Spain recognized it, was opposed to toleration in the realm of religion, with a national government according to ancient principles and based on ancient privileges,"—so the Dutch historian Blok sums up the issues at stake. The Prince of Orange, just before he was cut down by an assassin, asserted in his famous Defense three fundamental principles: freedom to worship God; withdrawal of foreigners; and restoration of the charters, privileges, and liberties of the land. The Dutch fought for political, religious, and also for economic independence. England gave aid, not so much for religious motives as because she saw that her political safety and commercial prosperity hinged on the weakening of Spain.
Resembling our American Revolution in the character of the struggle as well as the issues at stake—though it was far more bloody and desperate—the Dutch War of Independence was fought mainly within the country itself, with the population divided, and the Spanish depending on land forces to maintain their rule; but, as in the American war, control of Page 135 the sea was a vital factor. For munitions, supplies, gold, for the transport of the troops themselves, Spain had to depend primarily on the sea. It is true one could continue on Spanish territory from Genoa, which was Spain's watergate into Italy, across the Mont Cenis Pass, and through Savoy, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Luxembourg to Brussels, and it was by this route that Parma's splendid army of 10,000 "Blackbeards" came in 1577. But this was an arduous three months' march for troops and still more difficult for supplies. To cross France was as a rule impossible; when Don Juan of Austria went to Flanders for the brief period of leadership ended by his death of camp fever in 1578, he passed through French territory disguised as a Moorish slave. By the sea route, upon which Spain was after all largely dependent, and the complete control of which would have made her task infinitely easier, she was constantly exposed to Huguenot, Dutch, and English privateers. These gentry cared little whether or not their country was actually at war with Spain, but took their letters of marque, if they carried them, from any prince or ruler who would serve their turn.
With this opportunity to strike at Spanish communications, it will appear strange that the Dutch should not have immediately seized their advantage and made it decisive. One curious difficulty lay in the fact that throughout the war Dutch shipping actually carried the bulk of Spanish trade and drew from it immense profits. Even at the close of the century, while the war was still continuing, nine-tenths of Spain's foreign trade and five-sixths of her home trade was in foreign—and most of it in Dutch—hands. Hence any form of sea warfare was sure to injure Dutch trade. The Revolution, moreover, began slowly and feebly, with no well-thought-out plan of campaign, and could not at once fit out fully organized forces to cope with those of Spain. The Dutch early took to commerce warfare, but it was at first semi-piratical, and involved the destruction of ships of their own countrymen.
The Sea Beggars—Zee Geuzen or Gueux der Mer—made their appearance shortly after the outbreak of rebellion. Page 136 Page 137 "Vyve les geus par mer et par terre," wrote the patriot Count van Brederode as early as 1566. The term "beggar" is said to have arisen from a contemptuous remark by a Spanish courtier to Margaret of Parma, when the Dutch nobles presented their grievances in Brussels. Willingly accepting the name, the patriots applied it to their forces both by land and by sea. Letters of marque were first issued by Louis of Nassau, brother of William of Orange, and in 1569 there were 18 ships engaged, increased in the next year to 84. The bloody and licentious De la Marek, who wore his hair and beard unshorn till he had avenged the execution of his relative, Egmont, was a typical leader of still more wild and reckless crews. It was no uncommon practice to go over the rail of a merchant ship with pike and ax and kill every Spaniard on board. In 1569 William of Orange appointed the Seigneur de Lumbres as admiral of the beggar fleet, and issued strict instructions to him to secure better order, avoid attacks on vessels of friendly and neutral states, enforce the articles of war, and carry a preacher on each ship. The booty was to be divided one-third to the Prince for the maintenance of the war, one-third to the captains to supply their vessels, and one-third to the crews, one-tenth of this last share going to the admiral in general command.
|
| THE NETHERLANDS IN THE 16TH CENTURY |
The events of commerce warfare, though they often involve desperate adventures and hard fighting, are not individually impressive, and the effectiveness of this warfare is best measured by collective results. On one occasion, when a fleet of transports fell into the hands of patriot forces off Flushing in 1572, not only were 1000 troops taken, but also 500,000 crowns of gold and a rich cargo, the proceeds of which, it is stated, were sufficient to carry on the whole war for a period of two years. Again it was fear of pirates (Huguenot in this case) that in December of 1568 drove a squadron of Spanish transports into Plymouth, England, with 450,000 ducats ($960,000) aboard for the pay of Spanish troops. Elizabeth seized the money (on the ground that it was still the property of the Genoese bankers who had lent it and that she might as well borrow it as Philip), and minted Page 138 it into English coin at a profit of £3000. But Alva at Antwerp, with no money at all, was forced to the obnoxious "Hundreds" tax—requiring a payment of one per cent on all possessions, five per cent on all real estate transfers, and 10 per cent every time a piece of merchandise was sold—a typical tax after the Spanish recipe, which, though not finally enforced to its full extent, aroused every Netherlander as a fatal blow at national prosperity. To return to the general effect of commerce destruction, it is estimated that Spain thus lost annually 3,000,000 ducats ($6,400,000), a sum which of course meant vastly more then than now. When the Duke of Alva retired from command in 1578, the pay of Spanish troops was 6,500,000 ducats in arrears.
Among the exploits of organized naval forces, the earliest was the capture of Brill, by which, according to Motley, "the foundations of the Dutch republic were laid." Driven out of England by Elizabeth, who upon the representations of the Spanish ambassador ordered her subjects not to supply the Beggars with "meat, bread or beer," a fleet of 25 vessels and 300 or 400 men left Dover towards the end of March, 1572, with the project of seizing a base on their own coast. On the afternoon of April 1, they appeared off the town of Brill, located on an island at the mouth of the Meuse. The magistrates and most of the inhabitants fled; and the Beggars battered down the gates, occupied the town, and put to death 13 monks and priests. When Spanish forces attempted to recapture the city, the defenders opened sluice gates to cut off the northern approach, and at the same time set fire to the boats which had carried the Spanish to the island. The Spanish, terrorized by both fire and water, waded through mud and slime to the northern shore. During the same week Flushing was taken, and before the end of June the Dutch were masters of nearly the entire Zealand coast.
In the north the Spanish at first found an able naval leader in Admiral Bossu, himself a Hollander, who for a time kept the coast clear of Beggars. In October, 1573, however, 30 of his ships were beaten in the Zuyder Zee by 25 under Dirkzoon, who captured five of the Spanish vessels and scattered the rest Page 139 with the exception of the flagship. The latter, a 32-gun ship terrifyingly named the Inquisition and much stronger than any of the others on either side, held out from three o'clock in the afternoon until the next morning. Three patriot vessels closed in on her, attacking with the vicious weapons of the period—pitch, boiling oil, and molten lead. By morning the four combatants had drifted ashore in a tangled mass. When Bossu at last surrendered, 300 men, out of 382 in his ship's complement, were dead or disabled.
Though not yet able to stand up against Spanish infantry, the Dutch in naval battles were usually successful. In the Scheldt, January 29, 1574, 75 Spanish vessels were attacked by 64 Dutch under Admiral Boisot. After a single broadside, the two fleets grappled, and in a two-hour fight at close quarters eight of the Spanish ships were captured, seven destroyed, and 1200 Spaniards killed. The Spanish commander, Julian Romero, escaped through a port-hole, is said to have remarked afterwards, "I told you I was a land fighter and no sailor; give me a hundred fleets and I would fare no better."
In September following, Admiral Boisot brought some of his victorious ships and sailors to the relief of Leyden, whose inhabitants and garrison had been reduced by siege to the very last extremities. The campaign that followed was typical of this amphibious war. Boisot's force, with those already an the scene, numbered about 2500, equipped with some 200 shallow-draft boats and row-barges mounting an average of ten guns each. Among them was the curious Ark of Delft, with shot-proof bulwarks and paddle-wheels turned by a crank. As a result of ruthless flooding of the country, ten of the fifteen miles between Leyden and the outer dyke were easily passed; but five miles from the city ran the Landscheidung or inner dyke, which was above water, and beyond this an intricate system of canals and flooded polders, with forts and villages held by a Spanish force four times as strong. The most savage fighting on decks, dykes, and bridges marked every step forward; the Dutch in their native element attacking with cutlass, boathook and harpoon, while the superior military discipline of the Spanish could not Page 140 come in play. But at least 20 inches of water were necessary to float the Dutch vessels, and it was not until October 3 that a spring tide and a heavy northwest gale made it possible to reach the city walls. In storm and darkness, terrified by the rising waters, the Spanish fled. The relief of the city marked a turning-point in the history of the revolt.
During the six terrible years of Alva's rule in the Netherlands (1567-1573) the Dutch sea forces contributed heavily toward the maintenance of the war, assured control of the Holland and Zealand coasts, and more than once, as at Brill and Leyden, proved the salvation of the patriot cause. Holland and Zealand, the storm-centers of rebellion, were not again so devastated, though the war dragged on for many years, maintained by the indomitable spirit of William of Orange until his assassination in 1584, and afterward by the military skill of Maurice of Nassau and the aid of foreign powers. The seven provinces north of the Scheldt, separating from the Catholic states of the south, prospered in trade and industry as they shook themselves free from the stifling rule of Spain. By a twelve-year truce, finally ratified in 1609, they became "free states over which Spain makes no pretensions," though their independence was not fully recognized until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The war, while it ruined Antwerp, increased the prosperity of Holland and Zealand, which for at least twenty years before the truce were busily extending their trade to every part of the world.
Growth of Dutch Commerce
The story of this expansion of commerce is a striking record. The grain and timber of the Baltic, the wines of France and Spain, the salt of the Cape Verde Islands, the costly wares of the east, came to the ports of the Meuse and Zuyder Zee. In 1590 the first Dutch traders entered the Mediterranean, securing, eight years later, the permission of the Sultan to engage in Constantinople trade. In 1594 their ships reached the Gold Coast, and a year later four vessels visited Madagascar, Goa, Java, and the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Page 141 A rich Zealand merchant had a factory at Archangel and a regular trade into the White Sea. Seeking a reward of 25,000 florins offered by the States for the discovery of a northeast passage, Jacob van Heimskirck sailed into the Arctic and wintered in Nova Zembla; Henry Hudson, in quest of a route northwestward, explored the river and the bay that bear his name and died in the Polar Seas.
Statistics, while not very trustworthy and not enlightening unless compared with those for other nations, may give some idea of the preponderance of Dutch shipping. At the time of the truce she is said to have had 16,300 ships, about 10,000 of which were small vessels in the coasting trade. Of the larger, 3000 were in the Baltic trade, 2000 in the Spanish, 600 sailed to Italy, and the remainder to the Mediterranean, South America, the Far East, and Archangel. The significance of these figures may be made clearer by citing Colbert's estimate that at a later period (1664) there were 20,000 ships in general European carrying trade, 16,000 of which were Dutch. Throughout the 17th century Dutch commerce continued to prosper, and did not reach its zenith until early in the century following.
In the closing years of the 16th century several private companies were founded in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Zealand to engage in eastern trade. These were combined in 1602 into the United East Indies Company, which sent large fleets to the Orient each year, easily ousted the Portuguese from their bases on the coast and islands, and soon established almost a monopoly, leaving to England only a small share of trade with Persia and northwest India. The relative resources invested by English and Dutch in Eastern ventures is suggested by the fact that the British East Indies Company founded in 1600 had a capital of £80,000, while the Dutch Company had £316,000. By 1620 the shares of the Dutch company had increased to three times their original value, and they paid average dividends of 18 per cent for the next 200 years.
In this Dutch conquest of eastern trade, like that of the Portuguese a century earlier, we have an illustration of what Page 142 has since been a guiding principle in the history of sea power—a national policy of commercial expansion sturdily backed by foreign policy and whenever necessary by naval force. The element of national policy is evident in the fact that Holland—and England until the accession of James I in 1603—preferred war rather than acceptance of Spanish pretensions to exclusive rights in the southern seas. The Dutch, like the Portuguese, saw clearly the need of political control. They made strongholds of their trading bases, and gave their companies power to oust competitors by force. As a concession to Spanish pride, the commerce clause in the Truce of 1609 was made intentionally unintelligible—but the Dutch interpreted it to suit themselves. As for the element of force, every squadron that sailed to the east was a semi-military expedition. The Dutch seaman was sailor, fighter, and trader combined. The merchant was truly, in the phrase of the age, a "merchant adventurer," lucky indeed and enriched if, after facing the perils of navigation in strange waters, the possible hostility of native rulers, and the still greater danger from European rivals, half his ships returned. The last statement is no hyperbole; of 9 ships sent to the East from Amsterdam in 1598, four came back, and just half of the 22 sent out from the entire Netherlands.
From time to time, either to maintain the blockade of the Scheldt and assist in operations on the Flanders coast, or to protect their trade and strike a direct blow at Spain, the Dutch fitted out purely naval expeditions. One of the most effective, from the standpoint of actual fighting, was that led by van Heimskirck, already famous for Arctic exploration and exploits in the Far East. In 1607 he took 21 converted merchantmen and 4 transports to the Spanish coast to protect Dutch vessels from the east and the Mediterranean. Encountering off Gibraltar an enemy force of 11 large galleons and as many galleys under Alvarez d'Avila, a veteran of Lepanto, he destroyed half the Spanish force and drove the rest into port, killing about 2000 Spanish and coming out of the fight with the loss of only 100 men. Heimskirck concentrated upon the galleons and came to close action after Page 143 the fashion which seems to have been characteristic of the Dutch in naval engagements throughout the war. "Hold your fire till you hear the crash," he cried, as he drove his prow into the enemy flagship; and the battle was won after a struggle yard-arm to yard-arm. Bath admirals were killed.
Portugal, broken by the Spanish yoke, could offer little resistance in the Far East. In 1606 a Dutch fleet of 12 ships under Matelieff de Jonge laid siege to Malacca, and gave up the attempt only after destroying 10 galleons sent to relieve the town. Matelieff then sailed to the neighboring islands, and established the authority of the company at Bantam, Amboyna, Ternate, and other centers of trade.
Other fleets earlier and later promoted the interests of the company by the same means. English traders, with scanty government encouragement from the Stuart kings, were not as yet dangerous rivals. A conflict occurred with them in 1611 off Surat; and at Amboyna in 1623 the Dutch seized the English Company's men, tortured ten of them, and broke up the English base. For more than a century Holland remained supreme in the east; she has retained her colonial empire down to the 20th century; and she did not surrender her commercial primacy until exhausted by the combined attacks of England and France. Less successful than England in the development of colonies, she has stood out as the greatest of trading nations.
REFERENCES
The Vikings
The Viking Age, H. F. Du Chaillu, 1889.
The Hansa
The Hansa Towns, H. Zimmerman, 1889.
History of Commerce, Clive Day, 1913 (bibliography).
Civilization During the Middle Ages, George Burton Adams, 1918.
Cambridge Modern History, Vols. I and II.
Dutch Sea Power
Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic (still the best source in English for political and naval history of the period).
Page 144 History of the People of the Netherlands, P. J. Blok, trans. Ruth Putnam, 1898-1912.
History of Commerce in Europe, W. H. Gibbins, 1917.
The Sea Beggars, Dingman Versteg, 1901.
Some Exploits of the Old Dutch Navy, Lieut. H. H. Frost, U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January, 1919.
ENGLAND AND THE ARMADA
By reason of England's insularity, it is an easy matter to find instances from even her early history of the salutary or fatal influence of sea power. Romans, Saxons, Danes swept down upon England from the sea. By building a fleet, King Alfred, said to have been the true father of the British navy, kept back the Danes. It was the dispersion of the English fleet by reason of the lateness of the season that enabled William the Conqueror, in the small open vessels interestingly pictured in the Bayeux tapestry, to win a footing on the English shore.
But during the next three centuries, with little shipping and little trade save that carried on by the Hansa, with no enemy that dangerously threatened her by sea, England had neither the motives nor the national strength and unity to develop naval power. She claimed, it is true, dominion over the narrow waters between her and her possessions in France, and also over the "four seas" surrounding her; and as early as 1201 an ordinance was passed requiring vessels in these waters to lower sails ("vail the bonnet") and also to "lie by the lee" when so ordered by King's ships. But though these claims were revived in the 17th century against the Dutch, and though the requirement that foreign vessels strike their topsails to the British flag remained in the Admiralty Instructions until after Trafalgar, they were at this time enforced chiefly to rid the seas of pirates—the common enemies of nations. During this period there were a few "king's ships," the sovereign's personal property, forming a nucleus around which a naval force of fishing and merchant vessels could be assembled in time of war. The Cinque Ports, originally Dover, Sandwich, Hastings, Romney and Hythe, long enjoyed certain trading Page 146 privileges in return for the agreement that when the king passed overseas they would "rigge up fiftie and seven ships" (according to a charter of Edward I) with 20 armed soldiers each, and maintain them for 15 days.
An attack in 1217 by such a fleet, under the Governor of Dover Castle, affords perhaps the earliest instance of maneuvering for the weather-gage. The English came down from the windward and, as they scrambled aboard the enemy, threw quicklime into the Frenchmen's eyes. At Sluis, in 1340, to take another instance of early English naval warfare, Edward III defeated a large French fleet and a number of hired Genoese galleys lashed side by side in the little river Eede in Flanders. Edward came in with a fair wind and tide and fell upon the enemy as they lay aground at the stem and unmanageable. This victory gave control of the Channel for the transport of troops in the following campaign. But like most early naval combats, it was practically a land battle over decks, and, although sanguinary enough, it is from a naval stand paint interesting chiefly for such novelties as a scouting force of knights on horseback along the shore.
The beginnings of a permanent and strong naval establishment, as distinct from merchant vessels owned by the king or in his service, must be dated, however, from the Tudors and the period of national rehabilitation following the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and the War of the Roses (1455-1485). One reason for this was that the employment of artillery on shipboard and the introduction of port-holes made it increasingly difficult to convert merchant craft into dependable men-of-war. Henry VIII took a keen interest in his navy, devoted the revenues of forfeited church property to its expansion, established the first Navy Board (1546), and is even credited with the adoption of sailing vessels as the major units of his fleet.
From Oar to Sail
The use of heavy ordnance, already mentioned, as well as the increasing size and efficiency of sail-craft that came with Page 147 the spread of ocean commerce and navigation, naturally pointed the way to this transition in warfare from oar to sail. The galley was at best a frail affair, cumbered with oars, benches and rowers, unable to carry heavy guns or withstand their fire. Once sailing vessels had attained reasonable maneuvering qualities, their superior strength and size, reduced number of non-combatant personnel, and increased seaworthiness and cruising radius gave them a tremendous superiority. That the change should have begun in the north rather than in the Mediterranean, where naval and military science had reached its highest development, must be attributed not only to the rougher weather conditions of the northern seas, and the difficulty of obtaining slaves as rowers, but also to the fact that the southern nations were more completely shackled by the traditions of galley warfare.
|
| GALLEON |
Yet for the new type it was the splendid trading vessels of Venice that supplied the design. For the Antwerp and London Page 148 trade, and in protection against the increasing danger from pirates, the Venetians had developed a compromise between the war-galley and the round-ship of commerce, a type with three masts and propelled at least primarily by sails, with a length about three times its beam and thus shorter and more seaworthy than the galley, but longer, lower and swifter than the clumsy round-ship. To this new type the names galleass and galleon were bath given, but in English and later usage galleass came to be applied to war vessels combining oar and sail, and galleon to either war or trading vessels of medium size and length and propelled by sail alone.
The Spanish found the galleon useful in the Atlantic carrying trade, but, as shown at Lepanto, they retained the galley in warfare; whereas Henry VIII of England was probably the first definitely to favor sail for his men-of-war. An English navy list of 1545 shows four clumsy old-fashioned "great-ships" of upwards of 1000 tons, but second to these a dozen newer vessels of distinctly galleon lines, lower than the great-ships, flush-decked, and sail-driven. Though in engagements with French galleys during the campaign of 1545 these were handicapped by calm weather, they seem to have held their own both in battle and in naval opinion. Of the royal ships at the opening of Elizabeth's reign (1558), there were 11 large sailing vessels of 200 tans and upwards, and 10 smaller ones, but only two galleys, and these "of no continuance and not worth repair."[1] In comment on these figures, it should be added that there were half a hundred large ships available from the merchant service, and also that pinnaces and other small craft still combined oar and sail.
[Footnote 1: Drake and the Tudor Navy, Corbett, Vol. I, p. 133.]
In England the superiority of sail propulsion was soon definitely recognized, and discussion later centered on the relative merits of the medium-sized galleon and the big "great-ship." The characteristics of each are well set forth in a contemporary naval treatise by Sir William Monson: the former with "flush deck fore and aft, sunk and low in the water; the other lofty and high-charged, with a half-deck, forecastle, and copperidge-heads [athwortship bulkheads where light guns were Page 149 mounted to command the space between decks]." The advantages of the first were that she was speedy and "a fast ship by the wind" so as to avoid boarding by the enemy, and could run in close and fire effective broadsides between wind and water without being touched; whereas the big ship was more terrifying, more commodious, stronger, and could carry more and heavier guns. Monson, like many a later expert, suspended judgment regarding the two types; but Sir Walter Raleigh came out strongly for the smaller design. "The greatest ships," he writes, "are the least serviceable...., less nimble, less maniable; 'Grande navi grande fatiga,' saith the Spaniard. A ship of 600 tons will carry as good ordnance as a ship of 1200 tons; and though the greater have double her number, the lesser will turn her broadsides twice before the greater can wind once." And elsewhere: "The high charging of ships makes them extreme leeward, makes them sink deep in the water, makes them labor, and makes them overset. Men may not expect the ease of many cabins and safety at once in sea-service."[1]
[Footnote 1: Works, Oxford ed. 1829, Vol. VIII, p. 338.]
These statements were made after the Armada; but the trend of English naval construction away from unwieldy ships such as used by the Spanish in the Armada, is clearly seen in vessels dating from 1570-1580—the Foresight, Bull, and Tiger (rebuilt from galleasses), the Swiftsure, Dreadnought, Revenge, and others of names renowned in naval annals. These were all of about the dimensions of the Revenge, which was of 440 tons, 92 feet over all, 32 feet beam, and 15 feet from deck to keel. That is to say, their length was not more than three times their beam, and their beam was about twice their depth in the hold—the characteristic proportions of the galleon type.
The progressiveness of English ship construction is highly significant, for to it may be attributed in large measure the Armada victory. Spain had made no such advances; in fact, until the decade of the Armada, she hardly had such a thing as a royal navy. The superiority of the English ships was generally recognized. An English naval writer in 1570 declared Page 150 the ships of his nation so fine "none of any other region may seem comparable to them"; and a Spaniard some years later testified that his people regarded "one English ship worth four of theirs."
Though not larger than frigates of Nelson's time, these ships were crowded with an even heavier armament, comprising guns of all sizes and of picturesque but bewildering nomenclature. According to Corbett,[1] the ordnance may be divided into four main classes based on caliber, the first two of the "long gun" and the other two of the carronade or mortar type.
[Footnote 1: Drake and the Tudor Navy, Vol. I, p. 384.]
I. Cannon proper, from 16 to 28 caliber, of 8.5-inch bore and 12 feet in length, firing 65-pound shot. The demi-cannon, which was the largest gun carried on ships of the time, was 6.5 inches by 9 feet and fired 30-pound shot.
II. Culverins, 28 to 34 caliber long guns, 5 inches by 12 feet, firing 17-pound shot. Demi-culverins were 9-pounders. Slings, bases, sakers, port-pieces, and fowlers belonged to this class.
III. Perriers, from 6 to 8 caliber, firing stone-balls, shells, fire-balls, etc.
IV. Mortars, of 1.5 caliber, including petards and murderers.
The "great ordnance," or cannon, were muzzle-loading. The secondary armament, mounted in tops, cageworks, bulkheads, etc., were breech-loading; but these smaller pieces fell out of favor as time went on owing to reliance on long-range fire and rareness of boarding actions. Down to the middle of the 19th century there was no great improvement in ordnance, save in the way of better powder and boring. Even in Elizabeth's day the heaviest cannon had a range of three miles.
These advances in ship design and armament were accompanied by some changes in naval administration. In 1546 the Navy Board was created, which continued to handle matters of what may be termed civil administration until its functions were taken over by the Board of Admiralty in the reorganization of 1832. The chief members of the Navy Board, the Page 151 Treasurer, Comptroller, Surveyor of Ships, Surveyor of Ordnance, and Clerk of Ships, were in Elizabethan times usually experienced in sea affairs. To John Hawkins, Treasurer from 1578 to 1595, belongs chief credit for the excellent condition of ships in his day. The Lord High Admiral, a member of the nobility, exercised at least nominal command of the fleet in peace and war. For vice admiral under him a man of practical experience was ordinarily chosen. On shipboard, the only "gentleman" officers were the captains; the rest—masters, master's mates, pilots, carpenters, boatswains, coxswains, and gunners—were, to quote a contemporary description, "mechanick men that had been bred up from swabbers." But owing to the small proportion of soldiers on board, the English ships were not like those of Spain, which were organized like a camp, with the soldier element supreme and the sailors "slaves to the rest."
The Political Situation
The steps taken to build up the navy in the decade or more preceding the Armada were well justified by the political and religious strife in western Europe and the dangers which on all sides threatened the English realm. France, the Netherlands, and Scotland were torn by religious warfare. In England the party with open or secret Catholic sympathies was large, amounting to perhaps half the population, the strength of whose loyalty to Elizabeth it was difficult to gage. Since 1568 Elizabeth had held captive Mary Queen of Scots, driven out of her own country by the Presbyterian hierarchy, and a Catholic with hereditary claims to the English throne. Before her death, Philip of Spain had conspired with her to assassinate the heretic Elizabeth; after Mary's execution in 1587 he became heir to her claims and entered the more willingly upon the task of conquering England and restoring it to the faith. For years, in fact, there had been a state of undeclared hostility between England and Spain, and acts which, with sovereigns less cautious and astute than both Elizabeth and Philip, would have meant war. In 1585 Elizabeth formed an alliance Page 152 with the Netherlands, and sent her favorite, Leicester, there as governor-general, and Sir Philip Sidney as Governor of Flushing, which with two other "cautionary towns" she took as pledges of Dutch loyalty. The motives for this action are well stated in a paper drawn up by the English Privy Council in 1584, presenting a situation interesting in its analogy to that which faced the United States when it entered the World War:
"The conclusion of the whole was this: Although her Majesty should thereby enter into the war presently, yet were she better to do it now, while she may make the same out of her realm, having the help of the people of Holland, and before the King of Spain shall have consummated his conquest of those countries, whereby he shall be so provoked by pride, solicited by the Pope, and tempted by the Queen's own subjects, and shall be so strong by sea; and so free from all other actions and quarrels—yea, shall be so formidable to all the rest of Christendom, as that her Majesty shall no wise be able, with her own power, nor with the aid of any other, neither by land nor sea, to withstand his attempts, but shall be forced to give place to his insatiable malice, which is most terrible to be thought of, but miserable to suffer."
These were the compelling reasons for England's entry into the war. The aid to Holland and the execution of Mary, on the other hand, were sufficient to explain Philip's attempted invasion. The grievance of Spain owing to the incursions of Hawkins and Drake into her American possessions, and England's desire to break Spain's commercial monopoly, were at the time relatively subordinate, though from a naval standpoint the voyages are interesting in themselves and important in the history of sea control and sea trade.
Hawkins and Drake
John Hawkins was a well-to-do ship-owner of Plymouth, and as already stated, Treasurer of the Royal Navy, with a contract for the upkeep of ships. His first venture to the Spanish Main was in 1562, when he kidnapped 300 negroes on Page 153 the Portuguese coast of Africa and exchanged them at Hispanola (Haiti), for West Indian products, chartering two additional vessels to take his cargo home. Though he might have been put to death if caught by either Portugal or Spain, his profits were so handsome by the double exchange that he tried it again in 1565, this time taking his "choice negroes at £160 each" to Terra Firme, or the Spanish Main, including the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and the Isthmus. When the Spanish authorities, warned by their home government, made some show of resistance, Hawkins threatened bombardment, landed his men, and did business by force, the inhabitants conniving in a contraband trade very profitable to them.
On his third voyage he had six vessels, two of which, the Jesus of Lubeck and the Minion, were Queen's ships hired out for the voyage. The skipper of one of the smaller vessels, the Judith, was Francis Drake, a relative and protégé of the Hawkins family, and then a youth of twenty-two. On September 16, 1567, after a series of encounters stormier than ever in the Spanish settlements, the squadron homeward bound was driven by bad weather into the port of Mexico City in San Juan de Ulua Bay. Here, having a decided superiority over the vessels in the harbor, Hawkins secured the privilege of mooring and refitting his ships inside the island that formed a natural breakwater, and mounted guns on the island itself. To his surprise next morning, he beheld in the offing 13 ships of Spain led by an armed galleon and having on board the newly appointed Mexican viceroy. Hawkins, though his guns commanded the entrance, took hostages and made some sort of agreement by which the Spanish ships were allowed to come in and moor alongside. But the situation was too tense to carry off without an explosion. Three days later the English were suddenly attacked on sea and shore. They at once leaped into their ships and cut their cables, but though they hammered the Spanish severely in the fight that followed, only two English vessels, the Minion and the Judith, escaped, the Minion so overcrowded that Hawkins had to drop 100 of his crew on the Mexican coast. Drake made straight for Plymouth, nursing a bitter grievance at the alleged breach of Page 154 faith, and vowing vengeance on the whole Spanish race. "The case," as Drake's biographer, Thomas Fuller, says, "was clear in sea-divinity, and few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit."[1]
[Footnote 1: The Holy State, Bk. II, Ch. XXII.]
In the next three years, following the example of many a French Huguenot privateersman before him, and forsaking trade for semi-private reprisal (in that epoch a few degrees short of piracy), he made three voyages to the Spanish Indies. On the third, in 1572, he raided Nombre de Dios with fire and sword. Then, leaguing himself with the mixed-breed natives or cameroons, he waylaid a guarded mule-train bearing treasure across the Isthmus, securing 15 tons of silver which he buried, and as much gold as his men could stagger away under. It was on this foray that he first saw the Pacific from a height of the Cordilleras, and resolved to steer an English squadron into this hitherto unmolested Spanish sea.
The tale of Drake's voyage into the Pacific and circumnavigation of the globe is a piratical epic, the episodes of which, however, find some justification in the state of virtual though undeclared hostilities between England and Spain, in the Queen's secret sanction, and in Spain's own policy of ruthless spoliation in America. Starting at the close of 1577 with five small vessels, the squadron was reduced by shipwreck and desertion until only the flagship remained when Drake at last, on September 6 of the next year, achieved his midwinter passage of the Straits of Magellan and bore down, "like a visitation of God" as a Spaniard said, upon the weakly defended ports of the west coast. After ballasting his ship with silver from the rich Potosi mines, and rifling even the churches, he hastened onward in pursuit of a richly laden galleon nicknamed Cacafuego—a name discreetly translated Spitfire, but which, to repeat a joke that greatly amused Drake's men at the time, it was proposed to change to Spitsilver, for when overtaken and captured the vessel yielded 26 tons of silver, 13 chests of pieces of eight, and gold and jewels sufficient to swell the booty to half a million pounds sterling.
For 20 years the voyage across the northern Pacific had been Page 155 familiar to the Spanish, who had studied winds and currents, laid down routes, and made regular crossings. Having picked up charts and China pilots, and left the whole coast in panic fear, Drake sailed far to the northward, overhauled his ship in a bay above San Francisco, then struck across the Pacific, and at last rounded Good Hope and put into Plymouth in September of the third year. It suited Elizabeth's policy to countenance the voyage. She put the major part of the treasure into the Tower, took some trinkets herself, knighted Drake aboard the Golden Hind, and when the Spanish ambassador talked war she told him, in a quiet tone of voice, that she would throw him into a dungeon.
This red-bearded, short and thickset Devon skipper, bold of speech as of action, was now the most renowned sailor of England, with a name that inspired terror on every coast of Spain. It was inevitable, therefore, that when Elizabeth resolved upon open reprisals in 1585, Drake should be chosen to lead another, and this time fully authorized, raid on the Spanish Indies. Here he sacked the cities of San Domingo and Carthagena, and, though he narrowly missed the plate fleet, brought home sufficient spoils for the individuals who backed the venture. In the year 1587 with 23 ships and orders permitting him to operate freely on Spain's home coasts, he first boldly entered Cadiz, in almost complete disregard of the puny galleys guarding the harbor, and destroyed some 37 vessels and their cargoes. Despite the horrified protests of his Vice Admiral Borough (an officer "of the old school" to be found in every epoch) at these violations of traditional methods, he then took up a position off Saigres where he could harry coastwise commerce, picked up the East Indiaman San Felipe with a cargo worth a million pounds in modern money, and even appeared off Lisbon to defy the Spanish Admiral Santa Cruz. Thus he "singed the King of Spain's beard," and set, in the words of a recent biographer, "what to this day may serve as the finest example of how a small, well-handled fleet, acting on a nicely timed offensive, may paralyze the mobilization of an overwhelming force."[1]
[Footnote 1: Drake and the Tudor Navy, Corbett, Vol. II, p. 108.]
Page 156 The Grand Armada
At the time of this Cadiz expedition Spanish preparations for the invasion of England were already well under way, Philip being now convinced that by a blow at England all his aims might be secured—the subjugation of the Netherlands, the safety of Spanish America, the overthrow of Protestantism, possibly even his accession to the English throne. As the secret instructions to Medina Sidonia more modestly stated, it was at least believed that by a vigorous offensive and occupation of English territory England could be forced to cease her opposition to Spain. For this purpose every province of the empire was pressed for funds. Pope Sixtus VI contributed a million gold crowns, which he shrewdly made payable only when troops actually landed on English soil. Church and nobility were squeezed as never before. The Cortes on the eve of the voyage voted 8,000,000 ducats, secured by a tax on wine, meat, and oil, the common necessities of life, which was not lifted for more than two hundred years.
To gain control of the Channel long enough to throw 40,000 troops ashore at Margate, and thereafter to meet and conquer the army of defense—such was the highly difficult objective, to assure the success of which Philip had been led to hope for a wholesale defection of English Catholics to the Spanish cause. Twenty thousand troops were to sail with the Armada; Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, was to add 17,000 veterans from Flanders and assume supreme command. With the Spanish infantry once landed, under the best general in Europe, it was not beyond reason that England might become a province of Spain.
What Philip did not see clearly, what indeed could scarcely be foreseen from past experience, was that no movement of troops should be undertaken without first definitely accounting for the enemy fleet. The Spanish had not even an open base to sail to. With English vessels thronging the northern ports of the Channel, with 90 Dutch ships blockading the Scheldt and the shallows of the Flanders coast, it would be necessary to clear the Channel by a naval victory, and maintain Page 157 control until it was assured by victory on land. The leader first selected, Santa Cruz—a veteran of Lepanto—at least put naval considerations uppermost and laid plans on a grand scale, calling for 150 major ships and 100,000 men, 30,000 of them sailors. But with his death in 1587 the campaign was again thought of primarily from the army standpoint. The ships were conceived as so many transports, whose duty at most was to hold the English fleet at bay. Parma was to be supreme. To succeed Santa Cruz as naval leader, and in order, it is said, that the gray-haired autocrat Philip might still control from his cell in the Escorial, the Duke of Medina Sidonia was chosen—an amiable gentleman of high rank, but consciously ignorant of naval warfare, uncertain of purpose, and despondent almost from the start. Medina had an experienced Vice Admiral in Diego Flores de Valdes, whose professional advice he usually followed, and he had able squadron commanders in Recalde, Pedro de Valdes, Oquendo, and others; but such a commander-in-chief, unless a very genius in self-effacement, was enough to ruin a far more auspicious campaign.
Delayed by the uncertain political situation in France, even more than by Drake's exploits off Cadiz, the Armada was at last, in May of 1588, ready to depart. The success of the Catholic party under the leadership of the Duke of Guise gave assurance of support rather than hostility on the French flank. There were altogether some 130 ships, the best of which were 10 war galleons of Portugal and 10 of the "Indian Guard" of Spain. These were supported by the Biscayan, Andalusian, Guipuscoan, and Levantine squadrons of about 10 armed merchantmen each, four splendid Neapolitan galleasses that gave a good account of themselves in action, and four galleys that were driven upon the French coast by storms and took no part in the battle—making a total (without the galleys) of about 64 fighting ships. Then there were 35 or more pinnaces and small craft, and 23 urcas or storeships of little or no fighting value. The backbone of the force was the 60 galleons, large, top-lofty vessels, all but 20 of them from the merchant service, with towering poops and Page 158 forecastles that made them terrible to look upon but hard to handle. On board were 8,000 sailors and 19,000 troops.
Dispersed by a storm on their departure from Lisbon, the fleet again assembled at Corunna, their victuals already rotten, and their water foul and short. Medina Sidonia even now counseled abandonment; but religious faith, the fatalistic pride of Spain, and Philip's dogged fixity of purpose drove them on. Putting out of Corunna on July 22, and again buffeted by Biscay gales, they were sighted off the Lizard at daybreak of July 30, and a pinnace scudded into Plymouth with the alarm.
|
| CRUISE OF THE SPANISH ARMADA |
For England the moment of supreme crisis had come, Elizabeth's policy of paying for nothing that she might expect her subjects to contribute had left the royal navy short of what the situation called for, and the government seems also, even throughout the campaign, to have tied the admirals to the coast and kept them from distant adventures by limited supplies of munitions and food. But in the imminent danger, the nobility, both Catholic and Protestant, and every coastwise city, responded to the call for ships and men. Their loyalty was fatal to Philip's plan. The royal fleet of 25 ships and a dozen pinnaces was reënforced until the total craft of all descriptions numbered 197, not more than 140 of which, however, may be said to have had a real share in the campaign. For a month or more a hundred sail had been mobilized at Plymouth, of which 69 were greatships and galleons. These were smaller in average tonnage than the Spanish ships, but more heavily armed, and manned by 10,000 capable seamen. Lord Henry Seymour, with Palmer and Sir William Winter under him, watched Parma at the Strait of Dover, with 20 ships and an equal number of galleys, barks and pinnaces. The Lord High Admiral, Thomas Howard of Effingham, a nobleman of 50 with some naval experience and of a family that had long held the office, commanded the western squadron, with Drake as Vice Admiral and John Hawkins as Rear Admiral. The Ark (800 tons), Revenge (500), and Victory (800) were their respective flagships. Martin Frobisher in the big 1100-ton Triumph, Lord Sheffield in the White Bear (1000), and Thomas Fenner in the Nonpareil (500) were included with the Admirals Page 159 Page 160 in Howard's inner council of war. "Howard," says Thomas Fuller, "was no deep-seaman, but he had skill enough to know those who had more skill than himself and to follow their instructions." As far as as possible for a commoner, Drake exercised command.
|
| From Pigafetta's Discorso sopro l'Ordinanza dell' Armata Catholico (Corbett's Drake, Vol. II, p. 213 |
| ORIGINAL "EAGLE" FORMATION OF THE ARMADA, PROBABLY ADOPTED WITH SOME MODIFICATIONS AND SHOWING THE INFLUENCE OF GALLEY WARFARE |
On the morning of the 31st the Armada swept slowly past Plymouth in what has been described as a broad crescent, but which, from a contemporary Italian description, seems to have been the "eagle" formation familiar to galley warfare, in line abreast with wide extended wings bent slightly forward, the main strength in center and guards in van and rear. Howard was just completing the arduous task of warping his ships out of the harbor. Had Medina attacked at once, as some of his subordinates advised, he might have compelled Howard to close action and won by superior numbers. But his orders suggested the advisability of avoiding battle till he had joined with Parma; and for the Duke this was enough. As the Armada continued its course, Howard fell in astern and to Page 161 windward, inflicting serious injuries to two ships of the enemy rear.
|
| From Hale's Story of the Great Armada. |
| THE COURSE OF THE ARMADA UP THE CHANNEL |
A week of desultory running battle ensued as the fleets moved slowly through the Channel; the English fighting "loose and large," and seeking to pick off stragglers, still fearful of a general action, but taking advantage of Channel flaws to close with the enemy and sheer as swiftly away; the Spanish on the defensive but able to avoid disaster by better concerted action and fleet control. Only two Spanish ships were actually lost, one of them Pedro de Valdes' flagship Neustra Señora del Rosario, which had been injured in collision and surrendered to Drake without a struggle on the night of August 1, the other the big San Salvador of the Guipuscoan squadron, the whole after part of which had been torn up by an explosion after the fighting on the first day. But the Spanish inferiority had been clearly demonstrated and they had suffered far more in morale than in material injuries when on Sunday, August 7, they dropped anchor in Calais roads. The English, on their part, though flushed with confidence, had seen their weakness in organized tactics, and now divided their fleet into four squadrons, with the flag officers and Frobisher in command.
It betrays the fatuity of the Spanish leader, if not of the whole plan of campaign, that when thus practically driven to Page 162 refuge in a neutral port, Medina Sidonia thought his share of the task accomplished, and wrote urgent appeals to Parma to join or send aid, though the great general had not enough flat-boats and barges to float his army had he been so foolhardy as to embark, or the Dutch so benevolent as to let him go. But the English, now reënforced by Seymour's squadron, gave the Duke little time to ponder his next move. At midnight eight fire hulks, "spurting flames and their ordnance exploding," were borne by wind and tide full upon the crowded Spanish fleet. Fearful of maquinas de minas such as had wrought destruction a year before at the siege of Antwerp, the Spanish made no effort to grapple the peril but slipped or cut cables and in complete confusion beat off shore.
At dawn the Spanish galleons, attempting with a veering wind from the southward and westward to form in order off Gravelines, were set upon in the closest approach to a general engagement that occurred in the campaign. While Howard and several of his ships were busy effecting the capture of a beached galleass, Drake led the attack in the Revenge, seeking to force the enemy to leeward and throw the whole body upon the shallows of the Flanders coast. With splendid discipline, the Spanish weather ships, the flagship San Martin among them, fought valiantly to cover the retreat. But it was an unequal struggle, the heavier and more rapid fire of the English doing fearful execution on decks crowded with men-at-arms. Such artillery combat was hitherto unheard of. Though warned of the new northern methods, the Spanish were obsessed by tradition; they were prepared for grappling and boarding, and could they have closed, their numbers and discipline would have told. Both sides suffered from short ammunition; but the Armada, with no fresh supplies, was undoubtedly in the worse case. "They fighting with their great ordnance," writes Medina Sidonia, "and we with harquebus fire and musketry, the distance being very small." Six-inch guns against bows and muskets tells the tale.
A slackening of the English pursuit at nightfall after eight hours' fighting, and an off-shore slant of wind at daybreak, prevented complete disaster. One large galleon sank and two Page 163 more stranded and were captured by the Dutch. These losses were not indeed fatal, but the remaining ships staggering away to leeward were little more than blood-drenched wrecks. Fifteen hundred had been killed and wounded in the day's action, and eleven ships and some eight thousand men sacrificed thus far in the campaign. The English, on the other hand, had suffered no serious ship injuries and the loss of not above 100 men. In the council held next day beyond the Straits of Dover, only a few of the Spanish leaders had stomach for further fighting; the rest preferred to brave the perils of a return around the Orkneys rather than face again these defenders of the narrow seas. Before a fair wind they stood northward, Drake still at their heels, though by reason of short supplies he left them at the Firth of Forth.
In October, fifty ships, with 10,000 starved and fever-stricken men, trailed into the Biscay ports of Spain. Torn by September gales, the rest of the Armada had been sunk or stranded on the rough coasts of Scotland and Ireland. "The wreckers of the Orkneys and the Faroes, the clansmen of the Scottish isles, the kernes of Donegal and Galway, all had their part in the work of murder and robbery. Eight thousand Spaniards perished between the Giant's Causeway and the Blaskets. On a strand near Sligo an English captain numbered eleven hundred corpses which had been cast up by the sea."[1]
[Footnote 1: History of the English People, Green, Vol. II, p. 448.]
"Flavit Deus, et dissipati sunt"—"The Lord sent His wind, and scattered them." So ran the motto on the English medal of victory. But storms completed the destruction of a fleet already thoroughly defeated. Religious faith, courage, and discipline had availed little against superior ships, weapons, leadership, and nautical skill. "Till the King of Spain had war with us," an Englishman remarked, "he never knew what war by sea meant."[2] It might be said more accurately that the battle gave a new meaning to war by sea.
[Footnote 2: Sir Wm. Monson, Naval Tracts, Purchas, Vol. III, p. 121.]
From the standpoint of naval progress, the campaign demonstrated definitely the ascendancy of sail and artillery. For the old galley tactics a new system now had to be developed. Since Page 164 between sailing vessels head-on conflict was practically eliminated, and since guns mounted to fire ahead and astern were of little value save in flight or pursuit, the arrangement of guns in broadside soon became universal, and fleets fought in column, or "line ahead," usually close-hauled on the same or opposite tacks. While these were lessons for the next generation, there is more permanent value in the truth, again illustrated, that fortune favors the belligerent quicker to forsake outworn methods and to develop skill in the use of new weapons. The Spanish defeat illustrates also the necessity of expert planning and guidance of a naval campaign, with naval counsels and requirements duly regarded; and the fatal effect of failure to concentrate attention on the enemy fleet. It is doubtful, however, whether it would have been better, as Drake urged, and as was actually attempted in the month before the Armada's arrival, if the English had shifted the war to the coast of Spain. The objections arise chiefly from the difficulties, in that age, of maintaining a large naval force far from its base, all of which the Spanish encountered in their northward cruise. It is noteworthy that, even after the brief Channel operations, an epidemic caused heavy mortality in the English fleet. Finally, the Armada is a classic example of the value of naval defense to an insular nation. In the often quoted words of Raleigh, "To entertain the enemy with their own beef in their bellies, before they eat of our Kentish capons, I take it to be the wisest way, to do which his Majesty after God will employ his good ships at sea."
Upon Spain, already tottering from inherent weakness, the Armada defeat had the effect of casting down her pride and confidence as leader of the Catholic world. Though it was not until three centuries later that she lost her last colonies, her hold on her vast empire was at once shaken by this blow at her sea control. While she maintained large fleets until after the Napoleonic Wars, she was never again truly formidable as a naval power. But the victory lifted England more than it crushed Spain, inspiring an intenser patriotism, an eagerness for colonial and commercial adventure, an exaltation of spirit Page 165 manifested in the men of genius who crowned the Elizabethan age.
The Last Years of the War
The war was not ended; and though Philip was restrained by the rise of Protestant power in France under Henry of Navarre, he was still able to gather his sea forces on almost as grand a scale. In the latter stages of the war the naval expeditions on both sides were either, like the Armada, for the purpose of landing armies on foreign soil, or raids on enemy ports, colonies and commerce. Thus Drake in 1589 set out with a force of 18,000 men, which attacked Corunna, moved thence upon Lisbon, and lost a third or more of its number in a fruitless campaign on land. Both Drake and the aged Hawkins, now his vice admiral, died in the winter of 1595-96 during a last and this time ineffective foray upon the Spanish Main. Drake was buried off Puerto Bello, where legend has it his spirit still awaits England's call—
"Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder's running low.
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll leave the port of Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago."[1]
[Footnote 1: Drake's Drum, Sir Henry Newbolt.]
We are still far from the period when sea control was thought of as important in itself, apart from land operations, or when fleets were kept in permanent readiness to take the sea. It is owing to this latter fact that we hear of large flotillas dispatched by each side even in the same year, yet not meeting in naval action. Thus in June of 1596 the Essex expedition, with 17 English and 18 Dutch men-of-war and numerous auxiliaries, seized Cadiz and burned shipping to the value of 11,000,000 ducats. There was no naval opposition, though Philip in October of the same year had ready a hundred ships and 16,000 men, which were dispersed with the loss of a quarter of their strength in a gale off Finisterre. Storms also Page 166 scattered Philip's fleet in the next year; in 1598, Spanish transports landed 5,000 men at Calais; and England's fears were renewed in the year after that by news of over 100 vessels fitting out for the Channel, which, however, merely protected the plate fleet by a cruise to the Azores. As late as 1601, Spain landed 3500 troops in Ireland.
But if these major operations seem to have missed contact, there were many lively actions on a minor scale, the well-armed trading vessels of the north easily beating off the galley squadrons guarding Gibraltar and the routes past Spain. Among these lesser encounters, the famous "Last Fight of the Revenge," which occurred during operations of a small English squadron off the Azores in 1591, well illustrates the fighting spirit of the Elizabethan Englishman and the ineptitude which since the Armada seems to have marked the Spaniard at sea. In Drake's old flagship, attacked by 15 ships and surrounded by a Spanish fleet of 50 sail, a bellicose old sea-warrior named Sir Richard Grenville held out from nightfall until eleven the next day, and surrendered only after he had sunk three of the enemy, when his powder was gone, half his crew dead, the rest disabled, and his ship a sinking wreck. "Here die I, Richard Grenville," so we are given his last words, "with a joyful and a quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a good soldier ought to do, who has fought for his country and his queen, his honor and his religion."
The naval activities mentioned in the immediately preceding paragraphs had no decisive effect upon the war, which ended, for England at least, with the death of Elizabeth in 1603 and the accession of James Stuart of Scotland to the English throne. James at once adopted a policy of rapprochement with Spain, which while it guaranteed peace during the 22 years of his reign, was by its renunciation of trade with the Indies, aid to the Dutch, and leadership of Protestant Europe, a sorry sequel to the victory of fifteen years before.
The Armada nevertheless marks the decadence of Spanish sea power. With the next century begins a new epoch in naval warfare, an age of sail and artillery, in which Dutch, Page 167 English, and later French fleets contested for the sea mastery deemed essential to colonial empire and commercial prosperity.
REFERENCES
Drake and the Tudor Navy, Sir Julian Corbett, 2 vols., 1898.
The Successors of Drake, Sir Julian Corbett, 1900.
The Story of the Great Armada, J. R. Hale, no date.
Armada Papers, Sir John Knox Laughtun, 2 vols., Navy Records Society, 1894.
La Armada Invencible, Captain Fernandez Duro, 1884.
A History of the Administration of the Royal Navy, 1509-1660, by M. Oppenheim, 1896.
A History of the Royal Navy, William Laird Clowes, Vol. 1., 1897.
The Growth of English Commerce and Industry, W. Cunningham, 1907.
The Development of Tactics in the Tudor Navy, Capt. G. Goldingham, United Service Magazine, June, 1918.
RISE OF ENGLISH SEA POWER: WARS WITH THE DUTCH.
In the Dutch Wars of the 17th century the British navy may be said to have caught its stride in the march that made Britannia the unrivaled mistress of the seas. The defeat of the Armada was caused by other things besides the skill of the English, and the steady decline of Spain from that point was not due to that battle or to any energetic naval campaign undertaken by the English thereafter. In fact, save for the Cadiz expedition of 1596, in which the Dutch coöperated, England had a rather barren record after the Armada campaign down to the middle of the 17th century. During that period the Dutch seized the control of the seas for trade and war. They appropriated what was left of the Levantine trade in the Mediterranean, and contested the Portuguese monopoly in the East Indies and the Spanish in the West. Indeed the Dutch were at this time freely acknowledged to be the greatest sea-faring people of Europe.[1]
[Footnote 1: "Dutch exports reached a figure in the 17th century, which was not attained by the English until 1740. Even the Dutch fisheries, which employed over 2000 boats, were said to be more valuable than the manufactures of France and England combined." A History of Commerce, Clive Day, p. 194.]
When the Commonwealth came into power in England the new government turned its attention to the navy, which had languished under the Stuarts. A great reform was accomplished in the bettering of the living conditions for the seamen. Their pay was increased, their share of prize money enlarged, and their food improved. At the same time, during the years 1648-51, the number of ships of the fleet was practically doubled, and the new vessels were the product of the Page 169 highest skill in design and honest work in construction. The turmoil between Roundhead and Royalist had naturally disorganized the officer personnel of the fleet. Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I, had taken a squadron of seven Royalist ships to sea, hoping to organize, at the Scilly Islands or at Kinsdale in Ireland, bases for piratical raids on the commerce of England, and it was necessary to bring him up short. Moreover, Ireland was still rebellious, Barbados, the only British possession in the West Indies, was held for the King, and Virginia also was Royalist. To establish the rule of the Commonwealth Cromwell needed an efficient fleet and an energetic admiral.
For the latter he turned to a man who had won a military reputation in the Civil War second only to that of the great Oliver himself, Robert Blake, colonel of militia. Blake was chosen as one of three "generals at sea" in 1649. As far as is known he had never before set foot on a man of war; he was a scholarly man, who had spent ten years at Oxford, where he had cherished the ambition of becoming a professor of Greek. At the time of his appointment he was fifty years old, and his entire naval career was comprised in the seven or eight remaining years of his life, and yet he so bore himself in those years as to win a reputation that stands second only to that of Nelson among the sea-fighters of the English race.
Blake made short work of Rupert's cruising and destroyed the Royalist pretensions to Jersey and the Scillies. One of his rewards for the excellent service rendered was a position in the Council of State, in which capacity he did much toward the bettering of the condition of the sailors, which was one of the striking reforms of the Commonwealth. His test, however, came in the first Dutch War, in which he was pitted against Martin Tromp, then the leading naval figure of Europe.
In the wars with Spain, English and Dutch had been allies, but the shift of circumstances brought the two Protestant nations into a series of fierce conflicts lasting throughout the latter half of the 17th century. The outcome of these was that England won the scepter of the sea which she has ever since held. The main cause of the war was the rivalry of the two Page 170 nations on the sea. There were various other specific reasons for bad feeling on both sides, as for instance a massacre by the Dutch of English traders at Amboyna in the East Indies, during the reign of James I, which still rankled because it had never been avenged. The English on their side insisted on a salute to their men of war from every ship that passed through the Channel, and claimed the rights to a tribute, of all herrings taken within 30 miles off the English coast.
Cromwell formulated the English demands in the Navigation Act of 1651. The chief of these required that none but English ships should bring cargoes to England, save vessels of the country whence the cargoes came. This was frankly a direct blow at the Dutch carrying trade, one to which the Dutch could not yield without a struggle.
For this struggle the Netherlanders were ill prepared. The Dutch Republic was a federation of seven sovereign states, lacking a strong executive and torn by rival factions. Moreover, her geographical position was most vulnerable. Pressed by enemies on her land frontiers, she was compelled to maintain an army of 57,000 men in addition to her navy. As the resources of the country were wholly inadequate to support the population, her very life depended on the sea. For the Holland of the 17th century, as for the England of the 20th, the fleets of merchantmen were the life blood of the nation. Unfortunately for the Dutch, this life blood had to course either through the Channel or else round the north of Scotland. Either way was open to attacks by the British, who held the interior position. Further, the shallows of the coasts and bays made necessary a flat bottomed ship of war, lighter built than the English and less weatherly in deep water.
In contrast the British had a unity of government under the iron hand of Cromwell, they had the enormous advantage of position, they were self-sustaining, and their ships were larger, stouter and better in every respect than those of their enemies. Hence, although the Dutch entered the conflict with the naval prestige on their side, it is clear that the odds were decidedly against them.
Page 171 The First Dutch War
|
| SCENE OF THE PRINCIPAL NAVAL ACTIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND AND ENGLAND AND FRANCE |
The fighting did not wait for a declaration of war. Blake met Tromp, who was convoying a fleet of merchantmen, off Dover on May 19, 1652. On coming up with him Blake fired guns demanding the required salute. Tromp replied with a broadside. Blake attacked with his flagship, well ahead of his own line, and fought for five hours with Tromp's flagship and several others. The English were outnumbered about three to one, and Blake might have been annihilated had not the English admiral, Bourne, brought his squadron out from Dover at the sound of the firing and fallen upon Tromp's flank. As the Dutch Admiral's main business was to get his convoy home, he fell back slowly toward the coast of France, Page 172 both sides maintaining a cannonade until they lost each other in the darkness. Apparently there was little attempt at formation after the first onset; it was close quarters fighting, and only the wild gunnery of the day saved both fleets from enormous losses. As it was, Blake's flagship was very severely hammered.
Following this action, Tromp reappeared with 100 ships, but failed to keep Blake from attacking and ruining the Dutch herring fisheries for that year. This mistake temporarily cost Tromp his command. He was superseded by DeWith, an able man and brave, but no match for Blake. On September 28, 1652, Blake met him off the "Kentish Knock" shoal at the mouth of the Thames. In order to keep the weather gage, which would enable him to attack at close quarters, Blake took the risk of grounding on the shoal. His own ship and a few others did ground for a time, but they served as a guide to the rest. In the ensuing action Blake succeeded in putting the Dutch between two fires and inflicting a severe defeat. Only darkness saved the Dutch from utter destruction.
The effect of this victory was to give the English Council of State a false impression of security. In vain Blake urged the upkeep of the fleet. Two months later, November 30, 1652, Tromp, now restored to command, suddenly appeared in the Channel with 80 ships and a convoy behind him. Blake had only 45 and these only partly manned, but he was no man to refuse a challenge and boldly sailed out to meet him. It is said that during the desperate struggle—the "battle of Dungeness"—Blake's flagship, supported by two others, fought for some time with twenty of the Dutch. As Blake had the weather gage and retained it, he was able to draw off finally and save his fleet from destruction. All the ships were badly knocked about and two fell into the hands of the enemy. Blake came back so depressed by his defeat that he offered to resign his command, but the Council of State would not hear of such a thing, handsomely admitted their responsibility for the weakness of the fleet, and set at work to refit. Meanwhile for the next three months the Channel was in Tromp's hands. Page 173 This is the period when the legend describes him as hoisting a broom to his masthead.
By the middle of February the English had reorganized their fleet and Blake took the sea with another famous Roundhead soldier, Monk, as one of his divisional commanders. At this time Tromp lay off Land's End waiting for the Dutch merchant fleet which he expected to convoy to Holland. On the 18th the two forces sighted each other about 15 miles off Portland. Then followed the "Three Days' Battle," or the battle of Portland, one of the most stubbornly contested fights in the war and its turning point.
In order to be sure to catch Tromp, Blake had extended his force of 70 or 80 ships in a cross Channel position. Under cover of a fog Tromp suddenly appeared and caught the English fleet divided. Less than half were collected under the immediate command of Blake, only about ten were in the actual vicinity of his flagship, and the rest were to eastward, especially Monk's division which he had carelessly permitted to drift to leeward four or five miles. As the wind was from the west and very light, Monk's position made it impossible for him to support his chief for some time. Tromp saw his opportunity to concentrate on the part of the English fleet nearest him, the handful of ships with Blake. The latter had the choice of either bearing up to make a junction with Monk and the others before accepting battle or of grappling with Tromp at once, trusting to his admirals to arrive in time to win a victory. It was characteristic of Blake that he chose the bolder course.
The fighting began early in the afternoon and was close and furious from the outset. Again Blake's ship was compelled to engage several Dutch, including Tromp's flagship. De Ruyter, the brilliant lieutenant of Tromp, attempted to cut Blake off from his supports on the north, and Evertsen steered between Blake and Penn's squadron on the south. (See diagram 1.) Blake's dozen ships might well have been surrounded and taken if his admirals had not known their business. Penn tacked right through Evertsen's squadron to come to the side of Blake, and Lawson foiled de Ruyter by bearing away till he Page 174 had enough southing to tack in the wake of Penn and fall upon Tromp's rear (diagram 2). Evertsen then attempted to get between Monk and the rest of the fleet and two hours after the fight in the center began Monk also was engaged. When the lee vessels of the "red" or center squadron came on the scene about four o'clock, they threatened to weather the Page 175 Dutch and put them between two fires. To avoid this and to protect his convoy, Tromp tacked his whole fleet together—an exceedingly difficult maneuver under the circumstances—and drew off to windward. Darkness stopped the fighting for that day. All night the two fleets sailed eastward watching each other's lights, and hastily patching up damages.
|
| Based on diagram of Mahan's in Clowes, The Royal Navy, Vol. II, p. 180-1. |
| THE BATTLE OF PORTLAND, FEB. 18, 1653 |
Morning discovered them off the Isle of Wight, with the English on the north side of the Channel. As Tromp's chief business was to save his convoy and as the English force was now united, he took a defensive position. He formed his own ships in a long crescent, with the outward curve toward his enemy, and in the lee of this line he placed his convoy. The wind was so light that the English were unable to attack until late. The fighting, though energetic, had not proved decisive when darkness fell.
The following day, the 20th, brought a fresh wind that enabled the English to overhaul the Dutch, who could not move faster than the heavily laden merchantmen, and force a close action. Blake tried to cut off Tromp from the north so as to block his road home. Vice Admiral Penn, leading the van, broke through the Dutch battle line and fell upon the convoy, but Blake was unable to reach far enough to head off his adversary before he rounded Cape Gris Nez under cover of darkness and found anchorage in Calais roads. That night, favored by the tide and thick weather, Tromp succeeded in carrying off the greater part of his convoy unobserved. Nevertheless he had left in Blake's hand some fifty merchantmen and a number of men of war variously estimated from five to eighteen. At the same time the English had suffered heavily in men and ships. On Blake's flagship alone it is said that 100 men had been killed and Blake and his second in command, Deane, were both wounded, the former seriously.
The result of this three days' action was to encourage the English to press the war with energy and take the offensive to the enemy's own coast. English crews had shown that they could fight with a spirit fully equal to that of the Dutch, and English ships and weight of broadside, as de Ruyter frankly declared to his government, were decidedly superior. The Page 176 fact that the shallow waters of the Dutch coast made necessary a lighter draft man of war than that of the English proved a serious handicap to the Dutch in all their conflicts with the British. Both fleets were so badly shot up by this prolonged battle that there was a lull in operations until May.
In that month Tromp suddenly arrived off Dover and bombarded the defenses. The English quickly took the sea to hunt him down. As Blake was still incapacitated by his wound, the command was given to Monk. The latter, with a fleet of over a hundred ships, brought Tromp to action on June 2 (1653) in what is known as the "Battle of the Gabbard" after a shoal near the mouth of the Thames, where the action began. Tromp was this time not burdened with a convoy but his fleet was smaller in numbers than Monk's and, as he well knew, inferior in other elements of force. Accordingly, he adapted defensive tactics of a sort that was copied afterwards by the French as a fixed policy. He accepted battle to leeward, drawing off in a slanting line from his enemy with the idea of catching the English van as it advanced to the attack unsupported by the rest of the fleet, and crippling it so severely that the attack would not be pressed. As it turned out, a shift of the wind gave him the chance to fall heavily upon the English van, but a second shift gave back the weather gage to the English and the two fleets became fiercely engaged at close quarters. Blake, hearing the guns, left his sick bed and with his own available force of 18 ships sailed out to join battle. The sight of this fresh squadron flying Blake's flag, turned the fortune of battle decisively. The Dutch escaped destruction only by finding safety in the shallows of the Flemish coast, where the English ships could not follow.
After this defeat the Dutch were almost at the end of their resources and sued far peace, but Cromwell's ruthless demands amounted to a practical loss of independence, which even a bankrupt nation could not accept. Accordingly, every nerve was strained to build a fleet that might yet beat the English. The latter, for their part, were equally determined not to lose the fruits of their hard won victories. Since Blake's active Page 177 share in the battle of the Gabbard aggravated his wound so severely that he was carried ashore more nearly dead than alive, Monk retained actual command.
Monk attempted to maintain a close blockade of the Dutch coast and to prevent a junction between Tromp's main fleet at Flushing and a force of thirty ships at Amsterdam. In this, however, he was outgeneraled by Tromp, who succeeded in taking the sea with the greatest of all Dutch fleets, 120 men of war. The English and the Dutch speedily clashed in the last, and perhaps the most furiously contested, battle of the war, the "Battle of Scheveningen." The action began at six in the morning of July 30, 1653. Tromp had the weather gage, but Monk, instead of awaiting his onslaught, tacked towards him and actually cut through the Dutch line. Tromp countered by tacking also, in order to keep his windward position, and this maneuver was repeated three times by Tromp and Monk, and the two great fleets sailed in great zigzag courses down the Dutch coast a distance of forty miles, with bitter fighting going on at close range between the two lines. Early in the action the renowned Tromp was killed, but his flag was kept flying and there was no flinching on the part of his admirals. About one o'clock a shift of the wind gave the weather gage to the English. Some of the Dutch captains then showed the white feather and tried to escape. This compelled the retirement of DeWith, who had succeeded to the command, and who, as he retreated, fired on his own fugitives as well as on the English. As usual in those battles with the Dutch, the English had been forced to pay a high price for their victory. Their fleet was so shattered that they were obliged to lift the blockade and return home to refit. But for the Dutch it was the last effort. Again they sued for peace. Cromwell drove a hard bargain; he insisted on every claim England had ever made against the Netherlands before the war, but on this occasion he agreed to leave Holland her independence.
Thus in less than two years the First Dutch War came to an end. In the words of Mr. Hannay,[1] the English historian, Page 178 its "importance as an epoch in the history of the English Navy can hardly be exaggerated. Though short, for it lasted barely twenty-two months, it was singularly fierce and full of battles. Yet its interest is not derived mainly from the mere amount of fighting but from the character of it. This was the first of our naval wars conducted by steady, continuous, coherent campaigns. Hitherto our operations on the sea had been of the nature of adventures by single ships and small squadrons, with here and there a great expedition sent out to capture some particular port or island."
[Footnote 1: A Short History of the Royal Navy, Vol. I, p. 217.]
As to the intensity of the fighting, it is worth noting that in this short period six great battles took place between fleets numbering as a rule from 70 to 120 ships on a side. By comparison it may be remarked that at Trafalgar the total British force numbered 27 ships of the line and the Allies, 33. Nor were the men of war of Blake and Tromp the small types of an earlier day. In 1652 the ship of the line had become the unit of the fleet as truly as it was in 1805. It is true that Blake's ships were not the equal of Nelson's huge "first rates," because the "two-decker" was then the most powerful type. The first three-decker in the English navy was launched in the year of Blake's death, 1657. The fact remains, however, that these fleet actions of the Dutch Wars took place on a scale unmatched by any of the far better known engagements of the 18th or early 19th century.
A curious naval weapon survived from the day when Howard drove Medina Sidonia from Calais roads, the fireship, or "brander." This was used by both English and Dutch. Its usefulness, of course, was confined to the side that held the windward position, and even an opponent to leeward could usually, if he kept his head, send out boats to grapple and tow the brander out of harm's way. In the battle of Scheveningen, however, Dutch fireships cost the English two fine ships, together with a Dutch prize, and very nearly destroyed the old flagship of Blake, the Triumph. She was saved only by the extraordinary exertions of her captain, who received mortal injury from the flames he fought so courageously.
Page 179 This First Dutch War is interesting in what it reveals of the advance in tactics. Tromp well deserves his title as the "Father of Naval Tactics," and he undoubtedly taught Blake and Monk a good deal by the rough schooling of battle, but they proved apt pupils. From even the brief summary of these great battles just given, it is evident that Dutch and English did not fight each other in helter skelter fashion. In fact, there is revealed a great advance in coördination over the work of the English in the campaign of the Armada. These fleets worked as units. This does not mean that they were not divided into squadrons. A force of 100 ships of the line required division and subdivision, and considerable freedom of movement was left to division and squadron commanders under the general direction of the commander in chief, but they were all working consciously together. Just as at Trafalgar Nelson formed his fleet in two lines (originally planned as three) and allowed his second in command a free hand in carrying out the task assigned him, so Tromp and Blake operated their fleets in squadrons—Tromp usually had five—and expected of their subordinates responsibility and initiative. All this is in striking contrast with the practice that paralyzed tactics in the latter 17th and 18th centuries, which sacrificed everything to a rigid line of battle in column ahead, and required every movement to emanate from the commander in chief.
Although details about the great battles of the First Dutch War are scanty, there is enough recorded to show that both sides used the line ahead as the normal battle line. It is equally clear, however, that they repeatedly broke through each other's lines and aimed at concentration, or destroying in detail. These two related principles, which had to be rediscovered toward the end of the 18th century, were practiced by Tromp, de Ruyter, and Blake. Their work has not the advantage of being as near our day as the easy, one-sided victories over the demoralized French navy in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, but the day may come when the British will regard the age of Blake as the naval epoch of which they have the most reason to be proud. Then England met Page 180 the greatest seamen of the day led by one of the greatest admirals of history and won a bitterly fought contest by virtue of better ships and the spirit of Cromwell's "Ironsides."
Porto Farina and Santa Cruz
Nor did the age of Blake end with the First Dutch War. As soon as the admiral was able to go aboard ship, Cromwell sent him with a squadron into the Mediterranean to enforce respect for the Commonwealth from the Italian governments and the Barbary states. He conducted his mission with eminent success. Although the Barbary pirates did not course the sea in great fleets as in the palmy days of Barbarossa, they were still a source of peril to Christian traders. Blake was received civilly by the Dey of Algiers but negotiations did not result satisfactorily. At Tunis he was openly flouted. The Pasha drew up his nine cruisers inside Porto Farina and defied the English admiral to do his worst. Blake left for a few days to gain the effect of surprise and replenish provisions. On April 4, 1655, he suddenly reappeared and stood in to the attack.
The harbor of Porto Farina was regarded as impregnable. The entrance was narrow and the shores lined with castles and batteries. As Blake foresaw, the wind that took him in would roll the battle smoke upon the enemy. In a short time he had silenced the fire of the forts and then sent boarding parties against the Tunisian ships, which were speedily taken and burnt. Then he took his squadron out again, having destroyed the entire Tunisian navy, shattered the forts, and suffered only a trifling loss. This exploit resounded throughout the Mediterranean. Algiers was quick to follow Tunis in yielding to Blake's demands. It is characteristic of this officer that he should have made the attack on Tunis entirely without orders from Cromwell, and it is equally characteristic of the latter that he was heartily pleased with the initiative of his admiral in carrying out the spirit rather than the letter of his instructions.
Meanwhile Cromwell had been wavering between a war Page 181 against France or Spain. The need of a capture of money perhaps influenced him to turn against Spain, for this country still drew from her western colonies a tribute of gold and silver, which naturally would fall a prey to the power that controlled the sea. One month after Blake's exploit at Tunis, another English naval expedition set out to the West Indies to take Santo Domingo. Although Jamaica was seized and thereafter became an English possession, the expedition as a whole was a disgraceful failure, and the leaders, Penn and Venables, were promptly clapped by Cromwell into the Tower on their return. This stroke against Spain amounted to a declaration of war, and on Blake's return to England he was ordered to blockade Cadiz. One detachment of the plate fleet fell into the hands of his blockading ships and the silver ingots were dispatched to London. Blake continued his blockade in an open roadstead for six months, through autumn and winter, an unheard of thing in those days and exceedingly difficult. Blake was himself ill, his ships were not the copper-bottomed ones of a hundred years later, and there was not, as in later days, an English base at Gibraltar. But he never relaxed his vigilance.
In April (1657) he learned that another large plate fleet had arrived at Santa Cruz, Teneriffe. Immediately he sailed thither to take or destroy it. If Porto Farina had been regarded as safe from naval attack, Santa Cruz was far more so. A deep harbor, with a narrow, funnel entrance, and backed by mountains, it is liable to dead calms or squally bursts of wind from the land. In addition to its natural defenses it was heavily fortified. Blake, however, reckoned on coming in with a flowing tide and a sea breeze that, as at Porto Farina, would blow his smoke upon the defenses. He rightly guessed that if he sailed close enough under the castles at the harbor entrance their guns could not be sufficiently depressed to hit his ships, and as he saw the galleons and their escorts lined up along the shore he perceived also that they were masking the fire of their own shore batteries. For the most difficult part of his undertaking, the exit from the harbor, Page 182 he trusted to the ebbing tide with the chance of a shift in the wind in his favor.
Early on the morning of April 20th (1657) he sailed in. As he had judged, the fire of the forts did little damage. By eight o'clock the English ships were all at their appointed stations and fighting. During the entire day Blake continued his work of destruction till it was complete, and at dusk drifted out on the ebb. Some writers mention a favoring land breeze that helped to extricate the English, but according to Blake's own words, "the wind blew right into the bay." In spite of this head wind the ships that were crippled were warped or towed out and not one was lost. The English suffered in the entire action only 50 killed and 120 wounded, and repairs were so easily made that Blake returned to his blockading station at once.
This was the greatest of Blake's feats as it also was his last. All who heard of it—friend or enemy—pronounced it as without parallel in the history of ships. A few months later Blake was given leave to return home. He had long been a sick man, but his name alone was worth a fleet and Cromwell had not been able to spare him. As it happened, he did not live long enough to see England again. Cromwell, who knew the worth of his faithful admiral, gave him a funeral of royal dignity and interment in Westminster Abbey.
Blake never showed, perhaps, great strategic insight—Tromp and de Ruyter were his superiors there, as was also Nelson—but he, more than any other, won for England her mastery of the sea, and no other can boast his record of great victories. These he won partly by skill and forethought but chiefly by intrepidity. We can do no better than leave his fame in the words of the Royalist historian, Clarendon—a political enemy—who says: "He quickly made himself signal there (on the sea) and was the first man who declined the old track ... and disproved those rules that had long been in practice, to keep his ships and men out of danger, which had been held in former times a point of great ability and circumspection, as if the principal requisite in the captain of a ship had been to come home safe again. He was the first Page 183 man who brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had been thought ever very formidable.... He was the first that infused that proportion of courage into the seamen by making them see what mighty things they could do if they were resolved, and taught them to fight in fire as well as on water. And though he hath been very well imitated and followed, he was the first that drew the copy of naval courage and bold resolute achievement."
The chaos that followed the death of the Protector resulted in Monk's bringing over the exiled Stuart king—Charles II. Thereafter Round Head and Royalist served together in the British navy. An important effect of the Restoration was organization of a means of training the future officers of the fleet. The Navy as a profession may be said to date from this time, in contrast with the practice of using merchant skippers and army officers, which had prevailed to so great a degree hitherto. Under the new system "young gentlemen" were sent to sea as "King's Letter Boys"—midshipmen—to learn the ways of the navy and to grow up in it as a preparation for command. This was an excellent reform but it resulted in making the navy the property of a social caste from that day to this, and it made promotion, for a century and more, largely subject to family influence.
Another effect of the Restoration was to break down the fighting efficiency of the fleet as it had been in the days of Blake. The veterans of the First Dutch War fought with their old time courage and discipline, but the newer elements did not show the same devotion and initiative. The effect on the material was still worse, for the fleet became a prey to the cynical dishonesty that Charles II inspired in every department of his government.
The Second Dutch War
Five years after Charles II became king, England was involved in another war with the Netherlands. There was still bad feeling between the two peoples, and trading companies in the far east or west kept up a guerilla warfare which Page 184 flooded both governments with complaints. The chief cause seems to have been the desire of the English Guinea Company to get rid of their Dutch competitors who persistently undersold them in the slave markets of the West Indies. Before there was any declaration of war an English squadron was sent out to attack the Dutch company's settlement on the West African coast. After this it crossed the Atlantic and took New Amsterdam, which thereafter became New York. The Dutch retaliated by sending out one of their squadrons to retake their African post and threaten the Atlantic colonies. In March, 1665, war was declared.
In this conflict the relative strengths of the two navies were about the same as in the previous war. The Dutch had made improvements in their ships, but they still suffered from the lack of unity in organization and spirit. The first engagement was the battle of Lowestoft, on June 3, 1665. The English fleet was under the personal command of the Duke of York, later James II; the Dutch were led by de Ruyter. The two forces numbered from 80 to 100 ships each, and strung out as they were, must have extended over nearly ten miles of sea. The Duke of York formed his fleet in the pattern that he set by his own "Fighting Instructions," which governed the tactics of all navies thereafter for a hundred years, namely, the entire force drawn up in single line. This line bore down abreast toward the enemy until it reached gunshot, then swung into line ahead and sailed on a course parallel to that of the enemy. De Ruyter arranged his fleet accordingly, and the two long lines passed each other on opposite tacks three times, cannonading furiously at close range. This meant that the force was distributed evenly along the enemy's line and as against an evenly matched force these tactics could result, as a rule, only in mere inconclusive artillery duels which each side would claim as victories. In the battle of Lowestoft, however, several of the captains in the Dutch center flinched at the third passing and bore up to leeward, leaving a wide gap in de Ruyter's line. The English broke through at this point and hammered the weakened Dutch line in the center with a superior force. This was the decisive Page 185 point in the battle and de Ruyter was forced to retreat. The Dutch would have suffered even greater loss than they did had it not been for the masterly fashion in which Cornelius Tromp—son of the famous Martin Tromp—covered the retreat.
The defeat of the Dutch was due to the bad conduct of the captains in the center, four of whom were shot by order of de Ruyter and others dismissed from the service. It is interesting to note that while the first half of the battle was fought on the formal lines that were soon to be the cast iron rule of conduct for the British navy, and led to nothing conclusive; the second half was characterized by the breaking of the enemy's line, in the older style of Blake, and led to a pronounced victory.
At this time Louis XIV had pledged himself to give aid to the Netherlands in case of attack by a third Power. But when the Dutch and his own ministers called on him to make good his promise he offered more promises and no fulfillment. The rumor of an approaching French squadron which was to make junction with de Ruyter, who had now been placed in command of the Dutch fleet, caused the English government to make the grave mistake of detaching Prince Rupert with 20 ships to look for the mythical French force. This division left Monk, who was again in command of the fleet, with only 57 ships. Hearing that de Ruyter was anchored on the Flanders coast, Monk went out to find him. De Ruyter left his anchorage to meet the English, and on June 1, 1666, the two forces met in mid-Channel, between Dunkirk and the Downs. As the Dutch force heavily outnumbered him—nearly two to one—Monk might have been expected to avoid fighting, but he acted in the spirit of Blake. Having the windward position he decided that he could strike the advanced division under Tromp and maul it severely before the rest of the Dutch could succor it. Accordingly he boldly headed for the enemy's van. When Monk attacked he had only about 35 ships in hand, for the rest were straggling behind too far to help. Thus began the famous "Four Days' Battle," characterized by Mahan as "the most remarkable, in Page 186 some of its aspects that has ever been fought upon the ocean."[1]
[Footnote 1: The Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 125.]
The fighting was close and furious and in its unparalleled duration numbers were bound to tell. On the third day Monk retreated to the Thames, but on being joined by Rupert's squadron immediately sallied forth to do battle again. On this day, June 4, the Dutch succeeded in cutting through his formation and putting him between two fires. Indeed Monk escaped destruction only by breaking through his ring of enemies and finding refuge in the Thames. The Dutch had won a great victory, for the English had lost some twenty ships and 5000 in killed and wounded. But Monk was right in feeling a sense of pride in the fight that he had made against great odds. The losses that he had inflicted were out of all proportion to the relative strength of the two forces. Unfortunately the new spirit that was coming into the navy of the Restoration was evidenced by the fact that a number of English captains, finding the action too hot for them, deserted their commander in chief. On the Dutch side de Ruyter's handling of his fleet was complicated by the conduct of Cornelius Tromp. This officer believed that he, not de Ruyter, should have been made commander of the Dutch fleet and in this action as in the next, acted with no regard for his chief's orders.
As a consequence of the Four Days' Battle, Dutchmen again controlled the Channel and closed the mouth of the Thames to trade. The English strained every nerve to create a fleet that should put an end to this humiliating and disastrous situation. The preparations were carried out with such speed that on July 22 (1666), Monk and Rupert anchored off the end of the Gunfleet shoal with a fleet of about 80 ships of the line and frigates. On the 25th the English sighted de Ruyter, with a fleet slightly larger in numbers, in the broad part of the Thames estuary. Monk, forming his fleet in the long line ahead, sailed to the attack. The action that followed is called the "Battle of St. James's Day" or the "Gunfleet."
|
| THE THAMES ESTUARY |
Whether or not Monk was influenced by his princely colleague Page 187 it is impossible to say, but the tactics of this engagement do not suggest the Monk of earlier battles. He followed the "Fighting Instructions" and in spite of them won a victory, but it might have been far more decisive. The English bore down in line abreast, then formed line ahead on reaching gunshot, the van, center, and rear, engaging respectively the Dutch van, center, and rear. In these line ahead attacks the rear usually straggled. Tromp, commanding the Dutch rear, saw his chance to attack Smith, commanding the English rear, before his squadron was in proper formation. Smith retreated, and Tromp, eager to win a victory all by himself, abandoned the rest of the Dutch fleet and pursued Smith. Thus the action broke into two widely separated parts. The Page 188 English van and center succeeded in forcing the corresponding Dutch divisions to retreat, and if Monk had turned to the help of Smith he might have taken or destroyed all of the 39 ships in Tromp's division. Instead, he and Rupert went careering on in pursuit of the enemy directly ahead of them. Eventually de Ruyter's ships found refuge in shallow water and then Monk turned to catch Tromp. But the latter proved too clever for his adversaries and slipped between them to an anchorage alongside of de Ruyter.
Although the victory was not nearly so decisive as it should have been with the opportunity offered, nevertheless it served the need of the hour. De Ruyter was no longer able to blockade the Thames and the Straits of Dover. And Monk, following up his success, carried the war to the enemy's coast, where he burned a merchant fleet of 160 vessels in the roadstead of the island of Terschelling, and destroyed one of the towns. Early in 1666 active operations on both sides dwindled down, and Charles, anxious to use naval appropriations for other purposes, allowed the fleet to fall into a condition of unreadiness for service. One of the least scandals in this corrupt age was the unwillingness or inability of the officials to pay the seamen their wages. In consequence large numbers of English prisoners in Holland actually preferred taking service in the Dutch navy rather than accepting exchange, on the ground that the Dutch government paid its men while their own did not.
Early in June, 1667, de Ruyter took advantage of the condition of the English fleet by inflicting perhaps the greatest humiliation on England that she has ever suffered. Entering the Thames unopposed, he was prevented from attacking London only by unfavorable wind and tide. He then turned his attention to the dockyards of Chatham and burnt or captured seven great ships of the line, besides numerous smaller craft, carried off the naval stores at Sheerness, and then for the next six weeks kept a blockade on the Thames and the eastern and southern coasts of England. This mortifying situation continued until the signing of the "Peace of Breda" concluded the war.
Page 189 The Third Dutch War
Less than five years later Charles again made war on the Netherlands. For this there was not the shadow of excuse, but Louis XIV saw fit to attack the Dutch, and Charles was ever his willing vassal. The English began hostilities without any declaration of war by a piratical attack on a Dutch convoy.
At this juncture Holland was reduced to the last extremity. Attacked on her land frontiers by France, then the dominating military power, and on her sea frontiers by England, the strongest naval power, she seemed to have small chance to survive. But her people responded with a heroism worthy of her splendid history. They opened their dykes to check the armies of invasion and strained every nerve to equip a fleet large enough to cope with the combined navies of France and England. In this Third Dutch War four great naval battles were fought: that of Solebay, May 28, 1672, the two engagements off Schooneveldt, May 28 and June 4, 1673, and that of the Texel, August 11, 1673.
In all of these the honors go to the Dutch and their great admiral, de Ruyter. Since these actions did not restore the Netherlands to their old-time position or check the ascendancy of England, they need not be discussed individually here. The outstanding feature of the whole story is the surpassing skill and courage of de Ruyter in the face of overwhelming odds. In this war he showed the full stature of his genius as never before, and won his title as the greatest seaman of the 17th century. After his death one must wait till the day of Suffren and Nelson to find men worthy to rank with him.
In this campaign de Ruyter showed his powers not only as a tactician but as a strategist. In the words of Mahan, the Dutch "made a strategic use of their dangerous coast and shoals, upon which were based their sea operations. To this they were forced by the desperate odds under which they were fighting; but they did not use their shoals as a mere shelter,—the Page 190 warfare they waged was the defensive-offensive. When the wind was fair for the allies to attack, de Ruyter kept under cover of his islands, or at least on ground where the enemy dared not follow; but when the wind served so that he might attack in his own way he turned and fell upon them."[1] That is, instead of accepting the tame rôle of a "fleet in being" and hiding in a safe harbor, de Ruyter took and held the sea, always on the aggressive, always alert to catch his enemy in a position of divided forces or exposed flank and strike hard. His master, Martin Tromp, is regarded as the father of the line ahead formation for battle, but he undoubtedly taught de Ruyter its limitations as well as its advantages, and there is no trace of the stupid formalism of the Duke of York's regulations in de Ruyter's brilliant work.
[Footnote 1: Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 144.]
At this time he had no worthy opponent. As Monk was dead, the Duke of York had again assumed active command with Rupert as his lieutenant. Although the Duke was honestly devoted to the navy he was dull-witted, and in spite of the advantage of numbers and the dogged courage of officers and men which so often in English history has made up for stupid leadership, he was wholly unable to cope with de Ruyter's genius. As for the French navy, their ships were superb, the best in Europe, but their officers had no experience and apparently small desire for close fighting. At all events, despite the odds against him, de Ruyter defeated the allies in all four battles, prevented their landing an army of invasion, and broke up their attempt to blockade the coast.
The war was unpopular in England and as it met with ill success it became more so. After the battle of the Texel, in 1673, active operations died down to practically nothing, and at the beginning of the year England made peace. By this time Holland had managed to find other allies on the Continent—Spain and certain German states—and while she had to continue her struggle against Louis XIV by land she was relieved of the menace of her great enemy on the sea. Fifteen years later, by a curious freak of history, a Dutch Page 191 prince became King William III of England, and the two old enemies became united in alliance. But the Netherlands had exhausted themselves by their protracted struggle. They had saved their independence, but after the close of the 17th century they ceased to be a world power of any consequence.
The persistent enmity of the French king for the Dutch gained nothing for France but everything for England. Unwittingly he poured out his resources in money and men to the end that England should become the great colonial and maritime rival of France. As a part of her spoils England had gained New York and New Jersey, thus linking her northern and southern American colonies, and she had taken St. Helena as a base for her East Indies merchantmen. She had tightened her hold in India, and by repeatedly chastising the Barbary pirates had won immunity for her traders in the Mediterranean. At the beginning of the Second Dutch War Monk had said with brutal frankness, "What matters this or that reason? What we want is more of the trade which the Dutch have." This, the richest prize of all, fell from the hands of the Dutch into those of the English. During the long drawn war which went on after the English peace of 1674, while Holland with her allies fought against Louis XIV, the great bulk of the Dutch carrying trade passed from the Dutch to the English flag. The close of the 17th century, therefore, found England fairly started on her career as an ocean empire, unified by sea power. Her navy, despite the vices it had caught from the Stuart régime, had become firmly established as a permanent institution with a definite organization. By this time every party recognized its essential importance to England's future.
Nevertheless, whatever satisfaction may be felt by men of English speech in this rapid growth of England's power and prestige as a result of the three wars with the Dutch, one cannot avoid the other side of the picture. A people small in numbers but great in energy and genius was hounded to the point of extinction by the greed of its powerful neighbors. Page 192 Peace-loving, asking merely to be let alone, the only crime of the Dutch was to excite the envy of the English and the French.
REFERENCES
See next chapter, page 221.
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, Page 194 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.
|
| 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 Page 195 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 Page 196 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 Page 197 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 Page 198 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 Page 199 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 Page 200 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 Page 201 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 Page 202 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 Page 203 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 Page 204 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.
|
| THE WEST INDIES Page 205 |
Page 206 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 Page 207 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 Page 208 he could muster, steering by the less frequented Old Bahama Channel in order to screen his movement.
|
| 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 Page 209 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.
|
| 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 Page 210 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 Page 211 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 Page 212 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 Page 213 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, Page 214 "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.
|
| 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 Page 215 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 Page 216 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 Page 217 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 Page 218 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 Page 219 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 distin