A History of Sea Power

[Continued]. WARS WITH FRA

egan 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 re

the League

lish and the Dutch. It boasted the only notable admiral of this period, Tourville, but it missed every opportunity to do something decisive. It failed to keep William from landing in England with an army; it failed also to keep the English from landing and supplying an army in Ireland, where they raised the siege of Londonderry and won the d

HIP OF THE LIN

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 celebr

e 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 every

too great for a nation already weakened by a long series of wars. By the terms of peace which he found

nish and the Au

erto 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

mmercial 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

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 $4

oses 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 late

ven Ye

e 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

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 tra

s 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 cable

ould 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 Br

n 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

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 und

lacking in enterprise; they were still slaves to the "Fighting Instructions." But in all these respects the French wer

American

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 rebel

e, and a subsequent proposal for an attack on Liverpool dwindled into the mere commerce-destroying cruise which is memorable only for Jones's unparalleled fight with the Serapis. Eventually the navy of France was thrown into the balance to offset that of Great Britain, and it is largely to this fact that the United States owes its independence; men

smissed 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 captain

eers, 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 wo

From the American coast he went to the West Indies, where he bungled every opportunity of doing his duty. He allowed St. Lucia to fall into British hands and failed to capture Grenada. Turning north again, he made a futile attempt to retake Savannah, which had fallen to the English. Then at the end of 1779, at about the darkest hour of the American cause, he returned to France, leaving the colonists in the lurch. D'Estaing was by training an

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

t 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

ivity. 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 tha

he 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 wid

EST I

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 f

responding 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 i

le for debt. When Holland entered the war he saw an opportunity to make a fortune by seizing the island of St. Eustatius, which had been the chief depot in the West Indies for smuggling contraband into America. To this purpose he subordinated every o

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

ce of infantry. Washington and Rochambeau had agreed on the necessity of getting the co?peration 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 ef

HE YORKTOW

ught with him, and these made a welcome re?nforcement 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

f 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

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

VIRGINIA CAPES

or Operations in the War of A

own. As the French turned away at the same time, to keep their distance, Hood contributed nothing to the fighting of the day. At sunset the battle ended. The British had lost 90 killed and 246 wounded; the French, a total of 200. Several of the British ships were badly damaged, one of which was in a sinking condition and had to be burned. The two fleets continued on an easterly course about three miles apart, and for five days more the two maneuvered without fighting. Graves was too much injured by the first day's encounter to attack again and de Grasse was content to let him alone. Graves still had an opportunity to cut back and enter the bay, taking a position from whic

nt 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 o

ndations of Mode

n 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

this final year a famous naval battle was fought which went far toward establishing British predominance in th

ce 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, re?nforcements 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

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

an 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 ba

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

ated by wide gaps. One of these opened up ahead as Rodney's flagship, the Formidable, forged past the French line. His fleet captain, Douglas, saw the opportunity and pleaded with Rodney to cut through the gap. "No," he replied, "I will not break my line." Douglas insisted. A moment later, as the Formidable came abreast of the opening, the opportunity proved too tempting and Rodney gave his consent. His battle

AINTS' PASSAGE,

s Influence of Sea Powe

ips 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

the five prizes he had taken, together with the person of de Grasse, he allowed the bulk of the French fleet to escape when h

, 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 fl

ahan, The Royal Navy (Cl

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 t

nt, 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 concentra

(English Men of Acti

the line" is well summarized b

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 w

ence of Sea Power upon

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

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

us, 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 fo

n 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

fense 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, b

n 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

held only by a captain in comman

ic circle. In the course of this work Cook practically established the geography of the southern half of the globe as we know it to-day. And by his skill and study of the subject he conquered the great enemy of exploring expeditions, scurvy. Thirty years before, another British naval officer, Anson, had taken a squadron into the Pacific and lost about three-f

sh claim on those islands. Thus, while the American colonies in the west were winning their independence, another territory in the east, far more extensive, was being brought under British sway, destined in another century to become importa

r great domain in America except a few small islands in the West Indies. In brief, it is due to British control of the sea du

kept her embroiled in futile wars on the Continent, with little energy left for the major issue, the conquest of the sea. Finally, when the war of American Independence left her a free hand to concentrate on her navy as against that of England, France lost through the fatal weakness of policy which corrupted all her officers with the single brilliant exception of Suffren. The French naval officer avoided battle on p

encourages the idea that ships must not be risked, that a decisive battle must be avoided because

ERE

ower upon History,

the Royal Navy, D

s. II, III), W. L.

h Men of Action Serie

of Action Series,

f Action Series, Ju

ven Years' War, J

pers, F. E. C

tory, Biographies, J

lson, ed. by J. K

War of American Independ

itain, Geoffrey