The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature

NAVAL WARFARE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.

C.F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET
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With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The title chosen by its author for this little volume would assuredly commend it to the Naval Service, even if that author's name were not—as it is—a household word with more than one generation of naval officers. But to such of the general public as are not yet familiar with Mr Thursfield's writings a brief word of introduction may perhaps be useful. For the matters herein dealt with are by no means of interest only to the naval profession. They have their bearing also on every calling and trade. In these days when national policy is at the mercy of the ballot-box, it is not too much to say that a right understanding of the principles of maritime warfare is almost as desirable amongst civilians as amongst professional sailors.

Regrettable indeed would it be if the mere fact that this little book bears a more or less technical title should tempt the careless to skip its pages or pitch it to that dreary limbo which attends even the best of text-books on subjects which we think do not concern us. The fruits of naval victory, the calamities attendant on naval defeat are matters which will come home—in Bacon's classic phrase—to the business and the bosoms of all of us, landsmen and seamen alike. Most Englishmen are at least dimly aware of this. They realise, more or less reluctantly perhaps, that a decisive British defeat at sea under modern conditions would involve unspeakable consequences, consequences not merely fatal to the structure of the Empire but destructive also of the roots of our national life and of the well-being of almost all individuals in these islands.

Elementary prudence insists on adequate safeguards against evils so supreme, and amongst those safeguards the education of the people to-day occupies a foremost place. Our Empire's destinies for good and evil are now in the hands of the masses of the people. Sincerely as all lovers of ordered freedom may rejoice in this devolution of political power to the people, thoughtful men will be apt to reflect that an uninstructed crowd is seldom right in its collective action. If Ministerial responsibility has dwindled, pro tanto that of each one of His Majesty's lieges has enormously increased; and it is more incumbent on the nation's rank and file to-day than ever in the past to equip themselves with the knowledge necessary to enable them to record their votes aright.

It is from this point of view that this Manual should be read. It epitomises the principles upon which success in naval warfare depends. It shows how the moral factor in all cases and at every epoch dominates and controls the material; how the "animus pugnandi," as Mr Thursfield calls it, the desire to get at the enemy in "anything that floats," transcends every other weapon in a nation's armoury; how if that spirit is present, all other difficulties can be surmounted, and how without it the thickest armour, the biggest all-shattering guns shrivel in battle to the measure of mere useless scrap iron.

This is the message of the book for the seaman. But—and this is of the essence of the whole matter—for the landsman it has also a lesson of a very different kind. His responsibility is for the material factor in naval war. Let him note the supreme value of the moral factor; let him encourage it with all possible honour and homage, but let him not limit his contribution to the nation's fighting capital to any mere empty lip-service of this kind. The moral factor is primarily the sailor's business. The landsman's duty is to see to it that when war comes our sailors are sent to sea, not in "anything that floats" but in the most modern and perfect types of warship that human ingenuity can design.

How can this fundamental duty be brought home to the individual Englishman? Certainly not by asking him to master the niceties of modern naval technique, matters on which every nation must trust to its experts. But, the broad principles of naval warfare are to-day precisely as they were at Salamis or Lepanto; and to a people such as ours, whose history from its dawn has been moulded by maritime conditions, and which to-day more than ever depends upon free oversea communications for its continued existence, these broad principles governing naval warfare have so real a significance that they may wisely be studied by all classes of the community.

Tactics indeed have profoundly altered, and from age to age may be expected to change indefinitely. But so long as the sea remains naval warfare will turn upon the command of the sea; a "Fleet in Being" will not cease to be as real a threat to its foe as it was in the days of Torrington; invasion of oversea territory will always be limited by the same inexorable factors which for centuries have told in favour of the British race and have kept the fields of England inviolate from the tread of a conqueror.

There are indications that still more heavy sacrifices will be demanded from the British taxpayer for the upkeep of the Fleet in the future than has been the case even in the recent past. Nothing but iron necessity can justify this unfruitful expenditure, this alienation of the national resources in men and money to the purposes of destruction. Even as it is, naval administrators are finding it increasingly difficult to carry all sections of politicians and the whole of the masses of this country with them in these ever-increasing demands. The best way of ensuring that future generations of Englishmen will rise to the necessary height of a patriotic sense of duty and will record their votes in support of such reasonable demands is to prepare their minds by an elementary knowledge of what naval warfare really means.

No Englishman, so far as the writer is aware, is better fitted than Mr Thursfield to undertake this task, and this little book is a very excellent example of the way in which that task should be fulfilled. It unites—very necessarily—a high degree of condensation with a simplicity of language and a lucidity of exposition both alike admirable. And Mr Thursfield's right to be heard on naval questions is second to that of no civilian in these islands. His relations with the British Navy have been for more than a quarter of a century of the closest kind. His reputation in the particular field of literary endeavour which he has made his own ranks high amongst writers as celebrated as Admiral Mahan, Sir George Sydenham Clarke (Lord Sydenham), the late Sir John Colomb, and his brother the late Admiral P.H. Colomb, Sir J.K. Laughton, Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Admiral Sir R.N. Custance, Mr Julian Corbett, Mr David Hannay, Mr Archibald Hurd, and others. In the domain of naval history, its philosophy and its literature, he has done brilliant work. When it is added that Mr Thursfield is known to have been, for many years, one of the chief naval advisers of The Times, enough will probably have been said to ensure a sympathetic attention for this the veteran author's latest publication.

C.L. OTTLEY

24th July 1913

PREFACE

Intelligent readers of this little Manual will perceive at once that it pretends to be nothing more than an introduction, quite elementary in character, to the study of naval warfare, its history, and its principles as displayed in its history. As such, I trust it may be found useful by those of my countrymen who desire to approach the naval problems which are constantly being brought to their notice and consideration with sound judgment and an intelligent grasp of the principles involved in their solution. It is the result of much study and of a sustained intimacy with the sea service, both afloat and ashore, such as few civilians have been privileged to enjoy in greater measure. Even so, I should have thought it right, as a civilian, to offer some apology for undertaking to deal with so highly technical and professional a subject, were I not happily relieved of that obligation by the kindness of my friend Rear-Admiral Sir Charles L. Ottley, who has, at the instance of the Editors of this series, contributed to this volume an Introduction in which my qualifications are set forth with an appreciation which I cannot but regard as far too flattering. It would ill become me to add a single word—unless it were of deprecation—to credentials expounded on such high authority.

I should hope that readers who have found this volume useful to them will not confine their studies to it. Abundant materials for a deeper and more comprehensive study of the subject will be found in the several works incidentally mentioned or quoted in my text, and in the writings of those other contemporary authors with whom Sir Charles Ottley has done me the high honour to associate myself. In these several works further guidance to a still more sustained study of the subject will be found, and in this regard I would specially mention the admirable Short History of the Royal Navy, by Mr David Hannay—two volumes which, in addition to their other and more conspicuous merits, contain a well-selected list of authorities to be consulted prefixed to each chapter. These references, which in truth cover the whole subject, will, I trust, better serve the purpose of the advanced or advancing student than any such Bibliography as I could compile on a scale commensurate with the form and purpose of the present Manual.

Readers of my other writings on naval topics will, perhaps, observe that in one or two cases, where the same topics had to be discussed, I have not hesitated to reproduce, with or without modification, the language I had previously employed. This has been done deliberately. The topics so treated fell naturally and, indeed, necessarily within the scope of the present volume. To exclude them because I had discussed them elsewhere was impossible. Wherever I found I could improve the language previously employed in the direction of greater lucidity and precision I have done so to the best of my ability, so that the passages in question are close paraphrases rather than mere transcripts of those which occur elsewhere. But I have not attempted to disguise or weaken by paraphrase any passages which still seemed to me to convey my meaning better than any other words I could choose.

Changes in the methods, though not in the principles, of naval warfare are in these days so rapid and often so sudden that one or two topics have emerged into public prominence even since the present volume was in type. I desire therefore to take this opportunity of adding a few supplementary remarks on them. The first, and possibly in the long run the most far-reaching of these topics, is that of aviation, which I have only mentioned incidentally in the text. That aviation is still in its infancy is a truism. But to forecast the scope and direction of its evolution is as yet impossible. For the moment it may perhaps be said that its offensive capacity—its capacity, that is, to determine or even materially to affect the larger issues of naval warfare—is inconsiderable. I say nothing of the future, whether immediate or remote. Any day may witness developments which will give entirely new aspects to the whole problem. In the meanwhile the chief functions of aircraft in war will probably be, for some time to come, those of scouting, observation, and the collection and transmission of intelligence not obtainable by any other means. Offensive functions of a more direct and formidable character will doubtless be developed in time, and may be developed soon; but as I am no prophet I cannot attempt to forecast the direction of the evolution, to determine its limits, or to indicate its probable effects on the methods of naval warfare as expounded in the following pages. I will, however, advance two propositions which will not, I believe, be gainsaid by competent authorities. They are true for the moment, though how long they may remain true I do not know. One is that no aircraft yet constructed can take or keep the air in all conditions of weather. The number of days in the year in which it can do so in safety can only be represented by the formula 365-x, in which x is as yet an unknown quantity, though it is no doubt a quantity which will diminish as the art of aviation is developed. The other is that there is as yet no known method of navigating an aircraft with accuracy and precision out of sight of land. The air-currents by which it is affected are imperceptible to those embarked, variable and indeterminate in their force and direction, and quite incapable of being charted beforehand. In these conditions an airman who sought to steer by compass alone, say, from Bermuda to New York, might perchance find himself either at Halifax, on the one hand, or at Charleston on the other.

In my chapter on "Invasion" no mention is made of those subsidiary forms of military enterprise across the sea which are known as raids. I have treated invasion as an enterprise having for its object the subjugation of the country invaded, or at least the subjection of its people and their rulers to the enemy's will. As such it requires a force commensurate in numbers with the object to be attained, and it stands to reason that this force must needs be so large that its chances of evading the vigilance of an enemy who is in effective command of the sea must always be infinitesimal. A raid, on the other hand, is an enterprise of much lesser magnitude and much smaller moment. Its method is to elude the enemy's naval guard at this or that point of his territory; and, having done so, its confusion and to do as much harm as they can—which may be considerable before their sea communications are severed by the defending naval force assumed to be still in effective command of the sea affected. If that command is maintained, the troops engaged in the raid must inevitably be reduced sooner or later to the condition of a forlorn hope which has failed. If, on the other hand, that command is overthrown, then the troops aforesaid may prove to be the advanced guard of an invasion to follow. Thus, although a successful raid may sometimes be carried out in the teeth of an adverse command of the sea, yet it cannot be converted into an invasion until that adverse command has been assailed and overthrown. It is thus essentially fugitive in character, possibly very effective as a diversion, certain to be mortifying to the belligerent assailed, and not at all unlikely to cause him much injury and even more alarm, but quite incapable of deciding the larger issues of the conflict so long as his command of the sea remains unchallenged. It is perhaps expedient to say this much on the subject, because the programme of the Naval Manœuvres of this year is known to have included a series of raids of this fugitive character. Whether, or to what extent, any of these operations were adjudged to have been successful I do not know. I am only concerned to point out that, whether successful or not, their utmost success can throw little or no light on the problem of invasion unless in the course of the same operations the defenders' command of the sea was adjudged to have been overthrown.

In my chapter on "The Differentiation of Naval Force" I endeavoured to define the functions of the so-called "battle-cruiser" and to forecast its special uses in war. At the same time I pointed out that "it is held by some high authorities that the battle-cruiser is in very truth a hybrid and an anomaly, and that no adequate reason for its existence can be given." It would appear that the views of these high authorities have now been adopted, in some measure at least, by the Admiralty. Since the chapter in question was in type it has been officially announced that the battle-cruiser has been placed in temporary, and perhaps permanent, abeyance. Its place is to be taken by a special type of fast battleship, vessels in every way fit to lie in a line and yet, at the same time, endowed with qualities which, without unduly increasing their size and displacement, will enable them to discharge the special functions which I assigned to the battle-cruiser in the line of battle. This is done by employing oil instead of coal as the source of the ship's motive power. The change thus adumbrated would seem to be in the natural order of evolution, and at the same time to be in large measure one rather of nomenclature than of substance. The battle-cruiser, as its name implies, is itself essentially a fast battleship in one aspect and an exceedingly powerful cruiser in another. In the fast battleship which is to replace it, the battle function will be still further developed at the expense of the cruiser function. But its speed will still qualify it to be employed as a cruiser whenever occasion serves or necessity requires, just as the battle-cruiser was qualified to lie in a line and do its special work in a fleet action. The main difference is that the fast battleship is much less likely to be employed as a cruiser than the battle-cruiser was; but I pointed out in the text that the employment even of the battle-cruiser in cruiser functions proper was likely to be only occasional and subsidiary.

The decision to use oil as the exclusive source of the motive power of fast battleships, and of certain types of small cruisers of exceptional speed, is undoubtedly a very significant one. It may be taken to point to a time when oil only will be employed in the propulsion of warships and coal will be discarded altogether. But that consummation can only be reached when the internal combustion engine has been much more highly developed forpurposes of marine propulsion than it is at present. At present oil is only employed in large warships for the purpose of producing steam by the external combustion of the oil. But it may be anticipated that a process of evolution, now in its initial stages in the Diesel and other internal combustion engines, will in course of time result in the production of an internal combustion engine capable of propelling the largest ships at any speed that is now attainable by existing methods. When that stage is reached oil will, for economic reasons alone, undoubtedly hold the field for all purposes of propulsion in warships. It is held by some that this country will then be placed at a great disadvantage, inasmuch as it possesses a monopoly of the best steam coal, whereas it has no monopoly of oil at all, and probably no sufficient domestic supply of it to meet the needs of the Fleet in time of war. But oil can be stored as easily as coal and, unlike coal, it does not deteriorate in storage. To bring it in sufficient supplies from abroad in time of war should be no more difficult for a Power which commands the sea than to bring in the supplies of food and raw material on which this country depends at all times for its very existence. Moreover, even if we continued to depend on coal alone, that coal, together with other supplies in large quantities, must, as I have shown in my last chapter, be carried across the seas in a continuous stream to our fleets in distant waters, and one of the great advantages of oil over coal is that it can be transferred with the greatest ease to the warships requiring it at any rendezvous on the high seas, whether in home waters or at the uttermost ends of the globe, which may be most conveniently situated for the conduct of the operations in hand. For these reasons I hold that no serious apprehension need be entertained lest the supply of oil to our warships should fail so long as we hold the command of the sea. If ever we lost the command of the sea we should not be worrying about the supply of oil. Oil or no oil, we should be starving, destitute and defenceless.

It only remains for me to express my gratitude to my friend Sir Charles Ottley, not merely for an Introduction in which I cannot but fear that he has allowed his friendship to get the better of his judgment, but also for his kindness in devoting so much of his scanty leisure to the reading of my proofs and the making of many valuable suggestions thereon. I have also to thank my friend Captain Herbert W. Richmond, R.N., for his unselfish kindness in allowing me to make use of his notes on the Dunkirk campaign which he has closely studied in the original papers preserved at the Admiralty and the Record Office. To my son, Lieutenant H.G. Thursfield, R.N., I am also indebted for many valuable suggestions. Finally, my acknowledgments are due to the Editors of this series and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for their uniform courtesy and consideration.

J.R.T.

4th September 1913.

NAVAL WARFARE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

War is the armed conflict of national wills, an appeal to force as between nation and nation. Naval warfare is that part of the conflict which takes place on the seas. The civilized world is divided into separate, independent States or nations, each sovereign within its own borders. Each State pursues its own ideas and aims and embodies them in a national policy; and so far as this policy affects only its own citizens, it is subject to no control except that of the national conscience and the national sense of the public welfare. Within the State itself civil war may arise when internal dissensions divide the nation into two parties, of which either pursues a policy to which the other refuses to submit. In this case, unless the two parties agree to separate without conflict, as was done by Sweden and Norway a few years ago, an armed conflict ensues and the nation is divided into two belligerent States which may or may not become, according to the fortune of war, separate, independent, and sovereign in the end. The great example of this in our own time was the War of Secession in America, which, happily for both parties, ended without disruption, in the surrender of the weaker of the two, and after a time in a complete reconciliation between them.

Thus war may arise between two parties in a single State, and when it does the two parties become, to all intents and purposes, separate, independent, and sovereign States for the time being, and are, for the most part, so regarded and treated by other independent States not taking part in the conflict. For this reason, though the origin of a civil war may differ widely in all its circumstances and conditions from that of a war between two separate States, sovereign and independent ab initio, yet as soon as a state of war is established, as distinct from that of a puny revolt or a petty rebellion, there is, for a student of war, no practical difference between a civil war and any other kind of war. Both fall under the definition of war as the armed conflict of national wills.

Between two separate, sovereign, independent nations a state of war arises in this wise. We have seen that the internal policy of an independent State is subject to no direct external control. But States do not exist in isolation. Their citizens trade with the citizens of other States, seeking to exchange the products of their respective industries to the advantage of both. As they grow in prosperity, wealth, and population, their capital seeks employment in other lands, and their surplus population seeks an outlet in such regions of the earth as are open to their occupation. Thus arise external relations between one State and another, and the interests affected by these relations are often found—and perhaps still more often believed—by one State to be at variance with those of another. In pursuit of these interests—which, as they grow and expand, become embodied in great consolidated kingdoms, great colonial empires, or great imperial dependencies, and tend to be regarded in time as paramount to all other national interests—each State formulates and pursues an external policy of its own which may or may not be capable of amicable adjustment to the policy of other States engaged in similar enterprises. It is the function of diplomacy to effect adjustments such as these where it can. It succeeds much more often than it fails. Conflicting policies are deflected by mutual agreement and concession so as to avoid the risk of collision, and each State, without abandoning its policy, modifies it and adjusts it to the exigencies of the occasion. Sometimes, however, diplomacy fails, either because the conflicting policies are really irreconcilable, or because passion, prejudice, national ambition, or international misunderstanding induces the citizens of both States and their rulers so to regard them. In that case, if neither State is prepared so to deflect its policy as to avert collision, war ensues. The policy remains unchanged, but the means of further pursuing it, otherwise than by an appeal to force, are exhausted. War is thus, according to the famous definition of Clausewitz, the pursuit of national policy by other means than those which mere diplomacy has at its command—in other words by the conflict of armed force. Each State now seeks to bend its enemy's will to its own and to impose its policy upon him.

The means of pursuing this policy vary almost indefinitely. But inasmuch as war is essentially the conflict of armed force, the primary object of each belligerent must in all cases be to subdue, and, in the last resort, to destroy the armed forces of the adversary. When that is done all is done that war can do. How to do this most speedily and most effectively is the fundamental problem of war. There is no cut-and-dried solution of the problem, because although war may be considered, as it has been considered above, in the abstract, it is the most concrete of all human arts and, subject to the fundamental principle above enunciated, its particular forms may, and indeed must, vary with the circumstances and conditions of each particular war. Many commentators on war distinguishing, with Clausewitz, between "limited" and "unlimited" war, would further insist that the forms of war must vary with its objects. I cannot follow this distinction, which seems to me to be inconsistent with the fundamental proposition of Clausewitz, to the effect that war is the pursuit of policy by means of the conflict of armed force. If you desire your policy to prevail you must take the best means that are open to you to make it prevail. It is worse than useless to dissipate your energies in the pursuit of any purpose, however important in itself, which does not directly conduce, and conduce better than any other purpose you could pursue, to that paramount end. The only limitation of your efforts that you can tolerate is that they should involve the least expenditure of energy that may be necessary to make your policy prevail. But that is a question of the economics of war; it is not a question of "limited war" or of "war for a limited object." Your sole object is to bend the enemy to your will. That object is essentially an unlimited one, or one that is limited only by the extent of the efforts which the enemy makes to withstand you. The only sure way of attaining this object is to destroy his armed forces. If he submits before this is done it is he that limits the war, not you. Bacon's unimpeachable maxim in this regard is often misinterpreted. "This much is certain," he says, "he that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much or as little of the war as he will." That is indisputable, but its postulate is that the belligerent has secured the command of the sea; that is, as I shall show hereafter, that he has subdued, if not destroyed, the armed forces of the enemy afloat. Having done that he may, in a certain sense, take as much or as little of the war as he chooses; but he must always take as much as will compel the enemy to come to terms.

Naval warfare is no essential part of the armed conflict between contending States. In some cases it exercises a decisive influence on the conduct and issue of the conflict, in others none at all or next to none. But sea power, that is, the advantage which a nation at war derives from its superiority at sea, may largely affect the issue of a war, even though no naval engagements of any moment may take place. In the Crimean War the unchallenged supremacy of England and France on the seas alone made it possible for the Allies to invade the Crimea and undertake the siege of Sebastopol; while the naval campaigns of the Allies in the Baltic, although they resulted in no decisive naval operation, yet largely contributed to the success of the Allied arms in the Crimea by compelling Russia to keep in the north large bodies of troops which might otherwise have turned the scale against the Allies in the South. In the War of 1859, between France and Austria, with the Sardinian kingdom allied to the former, the superiority of the Allies at sea enabled considerable portions of the French army to be transported from French to Piedmontese ports, and by threatening the flank of the Austrian line of advance, it accelerated the concentration of the Allies on the Ticino. It also enabled the Allies to maintain a close blockade of the Austrian ports in the Adriatic, and might have led to an attack from the sea on the Austrian rear in Venetia had not the military reverses of Austria in Lombardy brought the war to an end. In the War of Secession in America the issue was largely determined, or at least accelerated, by the close but not impenetrable blockade established by the North over the ports and coasts of the South, and by the co-operation of Farragut on the Mississippi with the Federal land forces in that region. On the other hand, in the War of 1866 there was no naval conflict worth mentioning between Austria and Prussia, because Prussia had no navy to speak of; but as Italy, a naval Power, was the ally of Prussia, and as Austria had a small but very efficient naval force led by a great naval commander, the conflict between these two Powers led to the Battle of Lissa, in which the Italian fleet was decisively defeated, though the triumph of Prussia over the armies of Austria saved Italy from the worst consequences of defeat, and indeed obtained for her, in spite of her military reverses on land, the coveted possession of Venetia. In the War of 1870 again, although the supremacy of France on the seas was never seriously challenged by Prussia, yet her collapse on land was so sudden and complete that her superiority at sea availed her little or nothing. The maritime trade of Prussia was annihilated for the time, but it was then too insignificant a factor in the economic fabric of Prussia for its destruction to count for much, and the fleets of France rode triumphant in the North Sea and the Baltic; but finding no ships to fight, having no troops to land, and giving a wide berth to fortifications with which they were ill-equipped—as ships always are and always must be—to contend without support from the military arm, their presence was little more than an idle and futile demonstration. In the Boer War the influence of England's unchallenged supremacy at sea, albeit latent, was decisive. The Boers had no naval force of any kind; but no nation not secure in its dominion of the seas could have undertaken such a war as England then had to wage, and it was perhaps only the paramount sea power of this country that prevented the conflict taking a form and assuming dimensions that would have taxed British endurance to the uttermost and must almost certainly have entailed the loss of South Africa to the Empire. Certain naval features of the Cuban War between Spain and the United States, and of the War in the Far East between Russia and Japan, will be more conveniently considered in subsequent chapters of this manual.

The normal correlation and interdependence of naval and military forces in the armed conflict of national wills is sufficiently illustrated by the foregoing examples. In certain abnormal and exceptional cases each can act and produce the desired effect without the other. In a few extreme cases it is hard to see how either could act at all. If, for instance, Spain and Switzerland were to fall out, how could either attack the other? They have no common frontier, and though Spain has a navy, Switzerland has no seaboard. Cases where naval conflict alone has decided the issue are those of the early wars between England and Holland. Neither could reach the other except across the sea, there was no territorial issue directly involved, and the object of both combatants was to secure a monopoly of maritime commerce. But as territorial issues, and territorial issues involving the sea and affected by it directly or indirectly, are nearly always at stake in great wars, history affords few examples of great international conflicts in which sea power does not enter as a factor, often of supreme importance.

It must of course enter as a factor of paramount importance in any war between an insular State and a continental one—as in the war between Russia and Japan—or between two continental States which—as in the war between Spain and the United States—have no common frontier on land. War being the armed conflict of national wills, it is manifest that the opposing wills cannot in cases such as these be brought into armed conflict unless one State or the other is in a position to operate on the sea. The first move in such a conflict must of necessity be made, by one belligerent or the other, on the sea. This involves the conception of "the command of the sea," and as this is the fundamental conception of naval warfare as such, our analysis of naval warfare must begin with an exposition of what is meant by the command of the sea.

CHAPTER II

THE COMMAND OF THE SEA

We have seen that when two States go to war the primary object of each is to subdue and if possible to destroy the armed forces of the other. Until that is done either completely, or to such an extent as to induce the defeated belligerent to submit, the conflict of wills cannot be determined, and the two States cannot return to those normal relations, involving no violence or force, which constitute a state of peace. If they have a common frontier this circumstance indicates what is, as a general rule, the best and most efficient way of securing the object to be attained. The armed forces of both belligerents lie at the outset within their respective frontiers. If those of either can be constrained by the superior strategy of the other to keep within their own territory, the initial advantage lies with the belligerent who has so constrained them, and the war has in common parlance been carried into the enemy's country. In other words, the invasion of the enemy's territory has begun, and pressure has been brought to bear on his will which, if maintained without intermission and with an intensity duly proportioned to its growing extent, must in the end subdue it. To this there is no alternative. To invade the enemy's territory at all is to inflict a reverse on his armed forces, which would assuredly have prevented the invasion if they could. The territory in the rear of the invading army is in greater or less degree brought under the control of the invader and thereby temporarily lost to the invaded State. If this process is continued the authority and the resources of the invaded State are progressively diminished, until at last when the capital is occupied and the remainder of the invaded country lies open to the advance of the invader, the defeated State must sue for peace on such terms as the invader may concede, because it has nothing left to fight for, and no force wherewithal to fight. This is of course merely an abstract and generalized description of the course of a war on land, but I need not consider its concrete details nor analyse any of the conditions which may, and in the concrete often do, impede or deflect its course, because my sole purpose is to show how armed force operates in the abstract to subdue the will of the belligerent who is worsted in the conflict. It operates by the destruction of his armed forces, by the occupation of his territory, and by the consequent extinction of his authority and appropriation of his resources. He can only recover the latter and liberate his territory by submitting to such terms as the invader may dictate or concede.

Naval warfare aims at the same primary object, namely, the destruction of the enemy's armed forces afloat; but it cannot by itself produce the same decisive effect, because there is no territory which naval force, as such, can occupy and appropriate. The sea is not territory. It is not nor can it be made subject to the authority of an enemy in the same sense that the land can, nor does it possess any resources in itself such as on the land can be appropriated to the disadvantage and ultimate discomfiture of a belligerent whose territory has been invaded. The sea is the common highway of all nations, and the exclusive possession of none. Apart from its fisheries, which, outside the territorial waters of any particular State, are open to all nations, it is of no use, except as a highway, to any State. But its use as a highway is the root of all sea power, the foundation of all naval warfare. It is only by this highway that an island State can be invaded, only by this highway that an island State, or a State having no common frontier with its adversary, can encounter and subdue the armed forces of the enemy, whether on sea or on land.

Moreover, the sea as a highway differs in many important respects from such highways or other lines of communication as serve for the transit and transport of armed forces and their necessary supplies on land. In one sense it is all highway, that is, it can be traversed in every direction by ships, wherever there is water enough for them to float. For military purposes land transit is confined to such highways as are suitable to the march of an army accompanied by artillery and heavy baggage and supply trains, or to such railways as can more expeditiously serve the same purpose. Hence an army advancing in an enemy's country cannot advance on a very broad front, nor can it outmarch its baggage and other supplies except for a very limited time and for some exceptional purpose. Sea transport is subject to no such limitations. Ships carry their own supplies with them, and a fleet of ships, whether of transports or of warships, can move on as broad a front as is compatible with the exercise of due control over their combined movements. Moreover, within certain limits and with certain exceptions, where the waters to be traversed are narrow, ships and fleets can vary their line of transit and advance to such an extent as to render the discovery of their whereabouts a matter of some difficulty. The same conditions affect the transit of such merchant vessels as, carrying the flag of one belligerent, are liable to capture by the other. Hence the primary aim of all naval warfare is and must be so to control the lines of communication which traverse the seas affected, that the enemy cannot move his warships from one point to another without encountering a superior force of his adversary, and that his merchant ships cannot prosecute their voyages without running extreme risk of capture by the way. This is called, in time-honoured phraseology, securing the command of the sea, and the true meaning of this phrase is nothing more nor less than the effective control of all such maritime communications as are or can be affected by the operations of either belligerent. This control may extend, according to circumstances, to all the navigable seas of the globe, or it may be confined, for all practical purposes, to the waters adjacent to the respective territories of the two belligerents. In theory, however, its effect is unlimited, and so it must be in practice, where the territories of one belligerent or the other are widely scattered over the globe. That is the sense in which "the sea is all one."

It is important to note that the phrase "command of the sea" has no definite meaning except in war. In time of peace no State claims to command the sea or to control it in any way. But in any war in which naval force is engaged each belligerent seeks to secure the command of the sea for himself and to deny it to his enemy, that is to close the highway which the sea affords in time of peace to his warships and his merchant vessels alike. As regards the enemy's warships, moreover, he seeks to secure his own command by their destruction or capture. This is not always possible, because if the naval forces of the two belligerents are very unequally matched, it is always open to the weaker of the two to decline the conflict by keeping his main fleets in ports unassailable by naval force alone, and seeking to reduce the superiority of his adversary by assailing him incessantly with torpedo craft. He may also attempt the hazardous enterprise of sending out isolated cruisers to prey upon his adversary's commerce afloat. But in the case supposed, where the superiority of one side is so great as to compel the main fleets of the other to seek the protection of their fortified ports, such an enterprise is, as I shall show in a subsequent chapter, not only extremely hazardous in itself, but quite incapable of inflicting such loss on the superior adversary as would be likely to induce him to abandon the conflict.

Nevertheless the command of the sea is not established, or at best it is only partially, and it may be only temporarily, established by driving the main fleets of the enemy into ports which are inaccessible to naval force alone. They must not only be driven there but compelled to remain there. This has generally been done in the past, and according to many, but not all, naval authorities, it will generally have to be done in the future by the operation known as blockade, whereby the enemy is prevented from coming out, or is compelled if he does come out to fight a superior force lying in wait outside. As a matter of fact, inasmuch as a blockade to be really deterrent must be conducted by a blockading force superior to that which is blockaded—for otherwise the latter need not shun an engagement in the open with the former—it can rarely be the interest of the blockader to prevent the exit of his adversary, since by the hypothesis if he could get him out he could beat him. But the blockade must nevertheless be maintained, because, although the blockaded fleet cannot by that means be destroyed, it can, at any rate, be immobilized and wiped off the board so long as it remains where it is.

The situation in which a blockade is set up by one belligerent and submitted to by the other is not identical with an effective command of the sea, though in certain circumstances it may approximate very closely to it. The blockaded forces may not be so thoroughly intimidated by the superior forces of the blockaders that they could not or would not, if they could, seek a favourable opportunity for breaking or evading the blockade imposed upon them. They may merely be waiting in a position unassailable by naval force alone until the blockading forces are so weakened through incessant torpedo attack, through the wear and tear inflicted on them by the nature of the service on which they are engaged, through stress of weather, through the periodical necessity which compels even the best found ships to withdraw temporarily from the blockade for the purposes of repair, refit, and replenishment of their stores, and through the fatigue imposed on their officers and crews by the incessant vigilance which a blockade requires as to afford them a favourable opportunity of challenging a decision in the open. Or, again, if the forces of the blockaded belligerent are distributed between two or more of his fortified ports, he may attempt an evasion of the blockade at two or more of them for the purpose of combining the forces thus liberated and attacking one or more of the blockading fleets in superior force before they can re-establish their own superiority by concentration. Broadly speaking, this was the plan of operations adopted, or rather attempted, by Napoleon in the memorable campaign which ended at Trafalgar. It was frustrated by the persistent energy of Nelson, by the masterly dispositions of Barham at the Admiralty, by the tenacity with which Cornwallis maintained the blockade at Brest, and by the instinctive sagacity with which other commanders of the several blockading and cruising squadrons nearly always did the right thing at the right moment, divined Barham's purpose, and carried it out almost automatically. Practically, Napoleon was beaten and his projected invasion of England was abandoned many weeks before Trafalgar was won. But the command of the sea was not thereby secured to England. It needed Trafalgar and the destruction of the French and Spanish Fleets there accomplished to effect that consummation. England thenceforth remained in effective and almost undisputed command of the sea, and the Peninsular campaigns of Wellington were for the first time rendered possible. The contrasted phases of the conflict before and after Trafalgar are perhaps the best illustration in history of the vast and vital difference between a command of the sea in dispute and a command of the sea established. Trafalgar was the turning-point in the long conflict between England and Napoleon.

CHAPTER III

DISPUTED COMMAND—BLOCKADE

I have so far treated blockade as the initial stage of a struggle for the command of the sea. That appears to me to be the logical order of treatment, because when two naval Powers go to war it is almost certain that the stronger of the two will at the outset attempt to blockade the naval forces of the other. The same thing is likely to happen even if the two are approximately equal in naval force, but in that case the blockade is not likely to be of long duration, because both sides will be eager to obtain a decision in the open. The command of the sea is a matter of such vital moment to both sides that each must needs seek to obtain it as soon and as completely as possible, and the only certain way to obtain it is by the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy. The advantage of putting to sea first is in naval warfare the equivalent or counterpart of the advantage in land warfare of first crossing the enemy's frontier. If that advantage is pushed home and the enemy is still unready it must lead to a blockade. It is, moreover, quite possible that even if both belligerents are equally ready—I am here assuming them to be approximately equal in force—one or other, if not both, may think it better strategy to await developments before risking everything in an attempt to secure an immediate decision. In point of fact, the difference between this policy and the policy of a declared blockade is, as I am about to show, almost imperceptible, especially in modern conditions of naval warfare. It is therefore necessary to consider the subject of blockade more in detail. Other subjects closely associated with this will also have to be considered in some detail before we can grasp the full purport and extent of what is meant by the command of the sea.

There are two kinds of blockade—military and commercial. The former includes the latter, but the latter does not necessarily involve the former, except in the sense that armed naval force is necessary to maintain it. By a commercial blockade a belligerent seeks to intercept the maritime commerce of the enemy, to prevent any vessels, whether enemy or neutral, from reaching his ports, and at the same time to prevent their egress to the same extent. This in certain circumstances may be a very effective agency for bending or breaking the enemy's will and compelling his submission, but I reserve its consideration for more detailed treatment hereafter. It is with military blockade that I am here more especially concerned.

We have seen that the paramount purpose of all naval warfare, and, indeed, of all warfare, is the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy. His armed forces are in the last resort the sole instrument of his will, and their destruction to such an extent as is necessary to subdue his will is the sole agency by which peace can be restored. Whatever the extent of the war, whether it is limited or unlimited, in the sense assigned to those words by Clausewitz and his followers, the conflict of national wills out of which the quarrel arose must in some way be composed, either by concessions on both sides or by the complete subjection of one side to the other, before it can come to an end. It follows that the main object of a military blockade can rarely be to keep the enemy's forces sealed up, masked, and to that extent immobilized in the blockaded ports. Its real object is to secure that if they do come out they shall be observed, shadowed, and followed until such time as they can be encountered by a superior force, and if possible destroyed. The classical text on this topic is a letter written on August 1, 1804, by Nelson to the Lord Mayor of London, acknowledging a vote of thanks passed by the Corporation, and addressed to Nelson as commanding the fleet blockading Toulon. Nelson said in his reply: "I beg to inform your Lordship that the port of Toulon has never been blockaded by me: quite the reverse—every opportunity has been offered to the enemy to put to sea, for it is there that we hope to realize the hopes and expectations of our country, and I trust that they will not be disappointed." What Nelson here meant was that the so-called blockade of the port—it was a common, but, as he held, an erroneous expression—was merely incidental to the operation he was conducting. His main objective was the armed forces of the enemy lying unassailable within the blockaded port. He could not make them put to sea but he gave them every opportunity of doing so. So far from wishing to keep them in, his one desire was to get them out into the open, "for it is there that we hope to realize the hopes and expectations of our country"—that is to get a decision in favour of the British arms.

Now, this being the object of a military blockade, its methods will be subordinated to that object. In the days of sailing ships the method which commended itself to the best naval authorities of the time was to have an inshore squadron, consisting mainly of frigates and smaller craft, but strengthened if necessary by a few capital ships, generally two-deckers, closely watching the entrance to the port, but keeping outside the range of its land defences. This was supported at a greater distance in the offing by the main blockading fleet of heavier ships of the line, cruising within narrow limits and keeping close touch with the inshore squadron. Such a method is no longer practicable owing to the development of steam navigation, and to the introduction into naval warfare of the locomotive torpedo, and of special vessels designed to make the attack of this weapon extremely formidable and extremely difficult to parry. The inshore squadron of the old days was liable to no attack which it could not parry if in sufficient force, and if too hardly pressed it could always fall back on the main blockading fleet, which was unassailable except by a corresponding force of the enemy. The advent of the torpedo and of its characteristic craft has changed all this. No naval Power can now afford to place its battleships at a fixed station, or even in close touch with a fixed rendezvous, which is within reach of an enemy's torpedo craft. The torpedo vessel which operates only on the surface is, it is true, formidable only at night; in the daytime it is powerless in attack and extremely vulnerable. But the submarine is equally formidable in the daytime, and its attack even in the daytime is far more insidious and difficult to parry than that of the surface torpedo vessel is at night. The effective range of the surface torpedo vessel is thus, for practical purposes, half the distance which it can traverse in any given direction from its base between dusk and dawn—say from one hundred to two hundred miles, according to its speed and the season of the year. The speed of the submarine is much less, but it can keep the sea for many days together, sinking beneath the surface whenever it is threatened with attack. It can also approach a battleship or fleet of battleships in the same submerged condition, and experience has already demonstrated that its advance in that condition to within striking distance is extremely difficult to detect. Moreover, even if its presence is detected in time, the only certain defence against it is for the battleship to steam away from it at a speed greater than any submarine has ever attained or is likely to attain in the submerged condition. It should further be noted that torpedo craft engaged in offensive operations of this character are not confined to the blockaded port as a base. Any sheltered anchorage will serve their purpose, provided it is sufficiently fortified to resist such attacks from the sea as may be anticipated.

Thus, in the conditions established by the advent of the torpedo and its characteristic craft, there would seem to be only two alternatives open to a fleet of battleships engaged in blockade operations. Either it must be stationed in some sheltered anchorage outside the radius of action of the enemy's surface torpedo craft, and if within that radius adequately defended against torpedo attack—as Togo established a flying base for the use of his fleet, first at the Elliot Islands and afterwards at Dalny, for the purpose of blockading Port Arthur; or it must cruise in the open outside the same limits, keeping in touch with its advanced cruisers and flotillas by means of wireless telegraphy, and thereby dispensing with anything like a fixed rendezvous. It is not, perhaps, imperative that it should always cruise entirely outside the prescribed radius, because experience in modern naval manœuvres has frequently shown that it is a very difficult thing for torpedo craft, moving at random, to discover a fleet which is constantly shifting its position at high speed, especially when they are at any moment liable to attack from cruisers and torpedo craft of the other side.

Thus a modern blockade will, so far as battle fleets are concerned, be of necessity rather a watching blockade than a masking or sealing up blockade. If the two belligerents are unequal in naval strength it will probably take some such form as the following. The weaker belligerent will at the outset keep his battle fleet in his fortified ports. The stronger may do the same, but he will be under no such paramount inducement to do so. Both sides will, however, send out their torpedo craft and supporting cruisers with intent to do as much harm as they can to the armed forces of the enemy. If one belligerent can get his torpedo craft to sea before the enemy is ready, he will, if he is the stronger of the two, forthwith attempt to establish as close and sustained a watch of the ports sheltering the enemy's armed forces as may be practicable; if he is the weaker, he will attempt sporadic attacks on the ports of his adversary and on such of his warships as may be found in the open. If the enemy is so incautious as to have placed any of his capital ships or other important craft in a position open to the assault of torpedo craft—as Russia did at Port Arthur at the opening of the war with Japan—or if he has been so lacking in vigilance and forethought as not to have taken timely and adequate measures for meeting sporadic attacks of the kind indicated, such attacks may be very effective and may even go so far to redress the balance of naval strength as to encourage the originally weaker belligerent to seek a decision in the open. But the forces of the stronger belligerent must be very badly handled and disposed for anything of the kind to take place. The advantage of superior force is a tremendous one. If it is associated with energy, determination, initiative, and skill of disposition no more than equal to those of the assailant, it is overwhelming. The sea-keeping capacity, or what has been called the enduring mobility, of torpedo craft, is comparatively small. Their coal-supply is limited, especially when they are steaming at full speed, and they carry no very large reserve of torpedoes. They must, therefore, very frequently return to a base to replenish their supplies. The superior enemy is, it is true, subject to the same disabilities, but being superior he has more torpedo craft to spare and more cruisers to attack the torpedo craft of the enemy and their own escort of cruisers. When the raiding torpedo craft return to their base he will make it very difficult for them to get in and just as difficult for them to get out again. He will suffer losses, of course, for there is no superiority of force that will confer immunity in that respect in war. But even between equal forces, equally well led and handled, there is no reason to suppose that the losses of one side will be more than equal to those of the other; whereas if one side is appreciably superior to the other it is reasonable to suppose that it will inflict greater losses on the enemy than it suffers itself, while even if the losses are equal the residue of the stronger force will still be greater than that of the weaker. It is true that the whole art of war, whether on sea or on land, consists in so disposing your armed forces, both strategically and tactically, that you may be superior to the enemy at the critical point and moment, and that success in this supreme art is no inherent prerogative of the belligerent whose aggregate forces are superior to those of his adversary. But this is only to say that success in war is not an affair of numbers alone. It is an affair of numbers combined with hard fighting and skilful disposition.

CHAPTER IV

DISPUTED COMMAND—THE FLEET IN BEING

We have seen that blockade is only a means to an end, that end being the destruction or surrender of the armed forces of the enemy. We have seen also that that end cannot be obtained by blockade alone. All that a military blockade can do is by a judicious disposition of superior force, either to prevent the enemy coming out at all, or to secure that if he does come out he shall be brought to action. The former method is only applicable where the blockader's superiority of force is so great that his adversary cannot venture at the outset to encounter his main fleets in the open, and in that case the establishment of a blockade of this character is for many purposes practically tantamount to securing the command of the sea to the blockader so long as the blockade can be maintained. Such a situation, however, can very rarely arise. There are very few instances of it in naval history, and there are likely to be fewer in the future than there have been in the past. The closest blockade ever established and maintained was that of Brest by Cornwallis from 1803 to 1805, when Napoleon was projecting the invasion of England. Yet it would be too much to say that during those strenuous years Ganteaume never could have got out, had he been so minded, and it is not to be forgotten that for some time during the crisis of the campaign he was forbidden by Napoleon to make the attempt. Moreover, such a situation, even when it does arise, amounts at best to a stalemate, not to a checkmate. It leaves the enemy's fleet "a fleet in being," immobilized and wiped off the board for the moment, but nevertheless so operating as to immobilize the blockading fleet in so far as the chief effort of the latter must be concentrated on maintaining the blockade.

It is necessary to dwell at some length on this conception of "a fleet in being." Admiral Mahan, the great historian of sea power—whose high authority all students of naval warfare will readily acknowledge and rarely attempt to dispute—speaks of it in his Life of Nelson as a doctrine or opinion which "has received extreme expression ... and apparently undergone extreme misconception." On the other hand, Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge tells us in the Encyclopædia Britannica (s.v. "Sea-Power") that "the principle of the 'fleet in being' lies at the bottom of all sound strategy." Of a principle which, according to one high authority, lies at the bottom of all sound strategy, and according to another has received extreme expression and undergone misconception equally extreme, it is plainly essential that a true conception should be obtained before it can be applied to the elucidation of any of the problems of naval warfare. Now what is this much-debated principle? It is best to go to the fountain-head for its elucidation. The phrase "a fleet in being" was first used by Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, in his defence before the Court Martial which tried and acquitted him for his conduct of the naval campaign of 1690, and especially of the Battle of Beachy Head, which was the leading event—none too glorious for British arms—of that campaign. "Both as a strategist and as a tactician," says Admiral Bridge, "Torrington was immeasurably ahead of his contemporaries. The only English admirals who can be placed above him are Hawke and Nelson." Yet he was regarded by many of his contemporaries, and has been represented by many historians, merely as the incapable seaman who failed to win the Battle of Beachy Head, and thereby jeopardized the safety of the kingdom at a very critical time.

The situation was as follows. The country was divided between the partisans of James II. and the supporters of William III. James was in Ireland, where his strength was greatest, and William had gone thither to encounter him, his transit having been covered by a small squadron of six men-of-war, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. The army was with William in Ireland, and Great Britain could only be defended on land by a hastily levied militia. Its sole effective defence was the fleet; and the fleet, although reinforced by a Dutch contingent, was, for the moment, insufficient to defend it. The chief reliance of James was upon the friendship and forces, naval and military, of Louis XIV. Here was a case in which the security of England against insurrection at home and invasion from abroad depended on the sufficiency and capacity of her fleets to maintain the command of the sea—that is, either to defeat the enemy's naval forces or to keep them at bay, and thereby to deny freedom of transit to any military forces that Louis might attempt to launch against British territory. The French king resolved to make a determined attempt to wrest the command of the sea from his adversaries, and by overpowering the allied fleets of England and Holland in the Channel, to open the way for a successful invasion and a successful insurrection to follow. A great fleet was collected at Brest, under the supreme command of Tourville, and a squadron from Toulon under Château-Renault was ordered to join him in the Channel, so as to enable him to threaten London, to foment a Jacobite insurrection in the capital, to land troops in Torbay, and to occupy the Irish Channel in such force as to prevent the return of William and his army.

Now, of course, none of these objects could be attained unless the allied fleets in the Channel and adjacent waters could be either decisively defeated in the open or else so intimidated by the superior forces of the enemy as to decline a conflict and retire to some place of safety. On the broad principle that the paramount object of all warfare is the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy, Tourville, if he felt himself strong enough, was bound to seek out the allied fleet and challenge it to a decisive combat. On the same principle, Torrington, if he felt himself strong enough, was bound to pursue the same aggressive strategy, and by thoroughly beating the French to frustrate all their objects at once. But Torrington was not strong enough and knew that he was not strong enough. He had foreseen the crisis and warned his superiors betimes, entreating them to take adequate measures for dealing with it. They took no such measures. On the contrary, the dispositions they made were calculated rather to aggravate the danger than to avert it. Early in the year a fleet of sixteen sail of the line under Killigrew had been sent in charge of a convoy to Cadiz with orders to prevent, if possible, the exit of the Toulon fleet from the Mediterranean and to follow it up should it make good its escape. This strategy was unimpeachable if only Killigrew could make sure of intercepting Château-Renault and defeating him, and if the naval forces left in home waters when Killigrew was detached were sufficient to give a good account of the fleet that Tourville was collecting at Brest. But in its results it was disastrous, for Killigrew, delayed by weather and by the many preoccupations, commercial and strategic, entailed by his instructions was unable either to bar the passage of the Toulon fleet or to overtake it during its progress towards the Channel. Hence Château-Renault was able to effect his junction with Tourville unmolested, while Killigrew did not reach Plymouth until after the battle of Beachy Head had been fought, when, Tourville being victorious in the Channel, he was obliged to carry his squadron into the Hamoaze so as to be out of harm's way. Shovel, having escorted the king and his troops to Ireland, was equally unable to carry out his orders to join Torrington in the Channel, since Tourville stood in the way. Hence, although fully alive to the strategic value, in certain contingencies, of the forces under Killigrew and Shovel, Torrington was compelled to rely mainly on the force under his immediate command, the insufficiency of which he had many months before pointed out and vainly implored his superiors to redress.

The result of all this was that no adequate steps were, or could be, taken, to prevent the advance of Tourville in greatly superior force into the Channel. Torrington hoisted his flag in the Downs at the end of May, and even then the Dutch contingent had not joined in the numbers promised. Hence it was impossible to keep scouts out to the westward as the Dutch had undertaken to do, and the first definite intelligence that Torrington received of the advance of the French was the information that on June 23 they were anchored in great force to the westward of the Isle of Wight. Three days later, having in the meanwhile received a Dutch reinforcement bringing his force up to fifty-five sail of the line and twenty fire-ships, he offered them battle in that position, but it was declined. His own comment on this hazardous adventure may here be quoted: "I do acknowledge my first intention of attacking them, a rashness that will admit of no better excuse than that, though I did believe them stronger than we are, I did not believe it to so great a degree.... Their great strength and caution have put soberer thoughts into my head, and have made me very heartily give God thanks they declined the battle yesterday; and indeed I shall not think myself very unhappy if I can get rid of them without fighting, unless it may be upon equaller terms than I can at present see any prospect of.... A council of war I called this morning unanimously agreed we are by all manner of means to shun fighting with them, especially if they have the wind of us; and retire, if we cannot avoid it otherwise, even to the Gunfleet, the only place we can with any manner of probability make our account good with them in the condition we are in. We have now had a pretty good view of their fleet, which consists of near, if not quite, eighty men-of-war fit to lie in a line and thirty fire-ships; a strength that puts me beside hopes of success, if we should fight, and really may not only endanger the losing of the fleet, but at least the quiet of our country too; for if we are beaten they, being absolute masters of the sea, will be at great liberty of doing many things they dare not attempt while we observe them and are in a possibility of joining Vice-Admiral Killigrew and our ships to the westward. If I find a possibility, I will get by them to the westward to join those ships; if not, I mean to follow the result of the council of war."