The British battle fleet, Vol. 1 (of 2)

1 All statements as to King Alfred’s navy are taken directly from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Asser, and Florence of Worcester.

2 An interpolated passage

3 Wace.

4 Guyot de Provins ex Nicholas.

5 ex Nicolas.

6 Henry VIII introduced a new form of warship in the “pinnaces,” which were, to a certain extent, analogous to the torpedo craft of to-day.

7 Records of the Drake family.

8 The italics are mine.—F.T.J.

9 So far as I am aware nothing about this appears in any official account. I have no Japanese confirmation, but accounts gleaned at the time from the Russian auxiliaries—who, being foreigners had no object in lying—make it perfectly clear to my mind that the Russian admirals believed that the Japanese were astern of them till they met them at Tsushima. It is the only logical explanation of why Rodjestvensky essayed the narrow passage with his best ships, when he could equally well have gone round Japan with them unopposed, and so secured at Vladivostok that refit of which he was so much in need.

10 It was badly weather-beaten, of course, and in sore straits on account of its lengthy voyage.

11 In 1620 the first submarine appeared. It was invented by a Dutch physician, C. Van Drebel; and James I went for a lengthy underwater trip in a larger replica.—See Submarine Navigation, by Alan H. Burgoyne.

12 In this connection, see The First Dutch War, a few pages further on.

13 It is interesting to note that this particular argument, seemingly rather hyperbolical to-day on account of railways, is so only if the hostile ships can be kept under observation.

14 This practice appears to have been allowed to die out. At any rate it was re-introduced in the time of Queen Anne.

15 Admiral Colomb (Naval Warfare) traced the Dutch defeat—or perhaps one should write, “lack of advantage”—mainly to the fact that the Dutch had a larger mercantile marine to protect, and merely mentions incidentally the constant complaints of Van Tromp and others to the inferiority of Dutch warships compared to English ones. But since so many of the Dutch merchantmen carried very fair armaments, and as “tactics” played no part in this war, I prefer to accept the explanation of the Dutch Admirals, none of whom assigned failures to the more obvious excuse of being hampered by convoys. Dutch contemporary accounts of this and following wars appear generally to be nearer the actual truth than English ones.

16 Churnock, ex Fincham.

17 Charles II always had an eye for and interest in improvements in detail, and himself invented new forms of hull, which, however, did not come up to his expectations. Both he and James wore devoted to yachting and steered their own boats.

A singular defect of all the Stuarts in naval matters was their inability to appreciate the importance of the human as well as the material element. In the Cromwell régime, all the old abuses in connection with food, clothing and delayed pay, wore done away with; to re-appear, however, almost as bad as ever soon after the Restoration.

18

English.

Dutch.

19 See Crimean War in a later chapter for a revival of this.

20 Fincham.

21 He was Master of the fleet at Beachy Head and also at Cape La Hogue.

22 The Pembroke (sixty-four) captured by the French in 1710, in this war, had her armament reduced to fifty guns by them.

23 This extraordinary story of a soldier saving the fleet is made all the stranger by the fact that Sir Hovenden Walker, the Admiral, was a teetotaller and a vegetarian, an almost unheard of thing in those days.

24 Fincham.

25 See later references to Sir William White and Sir Philip Watts.

26 Their recklessness was such that Peter had to give orders that no Swedish ship was to be boarded unless the superior officers were killed. Swedish captains, attacked by superior forces, made a regular practice of allowing themselves to be boarded and then blowing up their ships!

27 Colomb.

28 For a very full and detailed account see Chapter XV. of Colomb’s Naval Warfare.

29 The treasure ship was well armed and did not hesitate to engage him. Anson’s success was in some considerable measure attributable to the fact that not having enough men for the broadside firing of the period, he ordered independent firing. It was the Spanish custom to lie down as the enemy fired a broadside, then jump up and fire back. Anson’s independent firing caused much unexpected slaughter on them. This rule of “broadsides” compares interestingly with the salvo firing of the present day.

30 See earlier reference to the same thing in Raleigh’s time.

31 Is the well-known Royal George, which capsized at Spithead, in 1782.

32 Admiral Mahan (Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 286) shows how Byng’s dread of anything unconventional in the way of tactics led to the action being indecisive.

33 Time after time, hostile ships, having had enough of it, passed away ahead and escaped, because to have pressed them would have “disorganised the line.”

34 Our own naval manœuvres in recent years have seen more than one disaster from the change of a rendezvous.

35 While this battle of Quiberon was in progress, people in England were burning Hawke in effigy for having allowed the French fleet to escape!

36 This appears to be the solitary instance in French history in which a use of the fleet on English lines was ever contemplated.

37 Admiral Mahan (Influence of Sea Power upon History) has quoted at length (p. 380) from French authorities to show that only the action of the captain of the Destin (74), in hurrying to block the gap, prevented Rodney from getting through the line on this occasion.

38 I draw this from Mahan (Influence of Sea Power upon History) (page 494). Fincham specifically mentions (p. 107) the introduction of carronades ten years later.

39 Fincham ex Campbell.

40 The fire-ship grew to be less and less of a menace owing to the improved handiness of warships.

41 Here again see Raleigh on Elizabethan Customs.

42 By the burning of the bulk of the ships in Toulon, the French Toulon fleet was rendered non-existent; but the state of affairs with that fleet was such that its fighting value had long been a cypher.

43 In order to bring the enemy to action, Howe formed a detached squadron of his faster ships. Hannay (Ships and Men) extols him because, in this and certain other movements in the battle, he reverted to the tactics of Monk and other Commonwealth admirals, and threw aside the conventional practice of his own day.

44 For two opposite views of this particular incident, see Admiral Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution, and Chapter X. of Brassey, 1894.

45 The preservation of an orderly line throughout the battle.

46 The story of this ship going down firing, her crew crying Vive la Republique, is pure fiction. She surrendered after a very gallant fight, and sank with an English flag flying.

47 Seeing that, had Howe sunk the grain convoy and then been totally destroyed himself, the Revolution would still have come to nothing from starvation, this French view of the matter is intelligible enough and also very reasonable.

48 It was in connection with this engagement that Nelson wrote, “Had I commanded our fleet on the 14th, either the whole of the French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded scrape.” Also, commenting on Hotham’s, “We must be contented, we have done very well”—“Now, had we taken ten sail and allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done.”

49 Nelson, by J. K. Laughton.

50 The British Tar in Fact and Fiction.

51 The title of “delegates” seems quaintly enough to have led Parker and his friends into trouble. The men got hold of the word as “delicates,” and interpreted it more or less literally as a claim to superiority.

52 For a very interesting detailed account, see Ships and Men, by David Hannay.

53 Fincham.

54 Troude.

55 He, at the same time, sent a private message to Nelson that if he wished to continue, he was at liberty to do so. The telescope to his blind eye was merely a little jest on Nelson’s part, and in no way disobedience of orders. Parker’s whole object in making the signal to withdraw was to intimate to Nelson that if he deemed himself defeated, he (Parker) would accept responsibility.

56 Paul had just been murdered, and Alexander changed his policy.

57 Compare with the similar delay of the Spanish Armada.

58 Actually never exceeded 93,000.—Campaign of Trafalgar.—Corbett.

59 Six was sometimes twelve, sometimes longer periods still. The most reasonable explanation is that Napoleon’s real intentions were to use the army to invade England, if luck and chance threw the opportunity in his way; but otherwise to use it only as a threat.

60 It was here that he recorded in his diary that he went on shore on July 20th—the first time for close on two years!

61 His orders were to go to Brest; but having been frightened by some purely mythical news of a British fleet of twenty-five sail (sent him via a neutral ship), he went to Cadiz. As, had he got to Brest, he would have found Cornwallis with thirty-five ships of the line, this piece of precaution (which incidentally led to Trafalgar) saved him for a while.

62 Rodjestvensky, seeking to inspire the Baltic fleet on its way to Tsushima, is a close modern parallel.

63 The British Tar in Fact and Fiction, Commander Robinson, R.N.

64 Vide Anson’s boat’s crew in his trip up to Canton. Some captains spent a good deal of money in providing white shirts for their boat’s crews. Others indulged in purely fanciful attires.

65 A year or two ago a famous Royal Academy picture showed a fleet of Dreadnoughts cruising at sea with the steam trial water tanks on board!

66 To wear the smartest possible clothes on coming up for punishment was invariable routine. It was hoped that a smart appearance would mitigate the captain’s wrath.—Vide, Sea Life in Nelson’s Time, John Masefield.

67 To this day the British bluejacket calls himself a “matlo”—a corruption of the French matelot; so this pigtail introduction theory may be correct enough.

68 See Food, a page or so further on.

69 The curious, who wander into the by-lanes off Queen Street, Portsea, will still find heavy iron gates in places. Inside these gates those anxious to escape the press-gangs used to take refuge.

70 The “bounty” offered, however, was a decided inducement. Cases of bounties as high as £70 can be found.

71 The British Tar in Fact and Fiction.

72 There are West Country villages to-day in which, to my own knowledge, one pound of meat a week is an outside estimate of what is eaten per head.

73 There were those who accepted weevils in ship’s biscuits as mites in Gorgonzola cheese are accepted to-day! Unpalatable as ship’s biscuit is, there is a certain acquired taste about it. In the later nineties I have frequently seen it handed round as a species of dessert in the wardroom, every senior officer taking some and enjoying it. In the 1890 manœuvres the wardroom officers of “C fleet” did three weeks on “ships” only, in quite a casual way, though the quality even then left something to be desired.

74 They began at 4s. a day, working up to 11s. a day after six years, and 18s. a day at twenty years’ service, which few ever reached.

75 For extremely detailed accounts of surgery in action see Sea Life in Nelson’s Times, John Masefield.

76 A form of this rule exists to-day. A man wounded in action is not now mulcted; but a man who tumbles down a hatchway and breaks his leg has to suffer “hospital stoppages,” and “pay for his own cure,” to a certain extent.

77 Commander Robinson, R.N., in The British Tar in Fact and Fiction, seems to have got nearer the true picture than those who have painted things in darker and more lurid colours. He is practically the only writer upon the subject who has realised that many old yarns are capable of being discounted.

78 It is only fair to the Hebrew race to say that “Jew” was a generic term for a special type of person who grew rich on advancing money to sailors and selling them shoddy articles at ridiculously enhanced prices. Quite a large number of them were not of the Jewish race.

79 To-day this is flown at the bow only when a ship is at anchor.

80 At Trafalgar, the Victory, as she bore down, suffered heavily from the shot that penetrated her thin forward bulkhead.

81 Ex Fincham, where the report is given in full.

82 The mail packet service was under the Admiralty in those days.

83 The seventy-three ton iron steamboat Ruby.

84 The Lord Armstrong, founder of Elswick, etc.

85 The italics are mine.—F.T.J.

86 My italics. In the Germany of to-day (May, 1915), exactly the same style of argument is being advanced.

87 c.f. the Dardanelles in May, 1915.

88 Subsequently Sir E. J. Reed, Chief Constructor.

89 c.f. Views expressed about Dreadnoughts, for another reason in the present year (1915).

90 From Naval Development of the Century, by Sir N. Barnaby, K.C.B.

91 The Warrior now forms part of the Vernon Establishment at Portsmouth.

92 Our Ironclad Ships, by (Sir) E. J. Reed. Sir N. Barnaby in Naval Development of the Century gives 5,470 = 14.36 knots.

93 Apparently the first instance of the putting forward of a principle which later on profoundly affected construction.

94 In 1863, three ironclads, the Lord Clyde and Lord Warden, of 7,840 tons, and a small ship, the Pallas, 3,660 tons, were constructed with wooden hulls, in order to use up the stores of timber which had been accumulated.—See p. 70, Our Ironclad Ships, by Sir E. J. Reed.

95 Our Ironclad Ships, by Sir E. J. Reed.

96 The American monitors all had conning towers; but British masted battleships were without them.

97 At a subsequent date, after he had left the Admiralty, he designed the Independencia for Brazil. This ship, afterwards bought into the British Navy as the Neptune, was simply an enlarged Monarch. Probably, however, the general features of the ship were specified by the Brazilians.

98 The Scorpion and Wivern, built for the Confederate States and bought in 1865. The Peruvian Huascar also ante-dated the Captain in design. All of these were low freeboard ships. Coles had something to do with the designs of all.

99 All the above ships had one or more tripod masts.

100 For two of these, 12½ ton M.L.R. were afterwards substituted.

101 Coles had projected 1,000 tons; but 500 was all that she could take.

102 She was then rolling from 12½ to 14 degrees.

103 The Audacious herself was “modernised” in the later eighties. Her sailing rig was removed and a “military rig” substituted. Some minor changes in her lesser guns were also made.

104 Our Ironclad Ships, by Sir E. J. Reed.

105 Ironclads in Action, by H. W. Wilson.

106 The Sultan was built as a ship-rigged ship. In 1894–96 she was “reconstructed,” two military masts being substituted for her original rig. She was also re-engined and re-boilered by Messrs. Thompson, of Clydebank. Beyond going out for the naval manœuvres one year she did not, however, perform any service in her altered condition, and is now used as a hulk.

107 Later on this was removed and an ordinary revolving turret, carrying two 25 ton guns, substituted.

108 About the year 1890–2 Devastation and Thunderer were re-boilered and re-armed with 10-inch B.L.R.

109 c.f. Frontispiece to Our Ironclad Ships, E. J. Reed.

110 Naval and Military Gazette.

111 She was about nine years from laying down to completion!