Warships and their story

ARMOURED SHIPS IN ACTION

When, in 1865, Spain deemed it necessary to give a lesson to her daughter Peru, whose victorious insurgents held views as to the non-payment of an indemnity, of which the mother country did not approve, she found that another of her offspring, Chili, sympathised with her sister, and it became necessary in Spain’s opinion to extend the lesson to both States. The best warship she could supply for the purpose was the Numancia. This was a formidable vessel built for the Spanish Government in the ’sixties, at the time that relations were likely to be strained to breaking point between Spain and the two South American States. She was accompanied by some unarmoured vessels carrying about two hundred and fifty guns altogether, nearly all of which were old smooth-bores, the others being rifled guns of no great power. The Chilians had the Esmeralda, a small vessel having a complement of one hundred and twenty-three officers and men, and carrying eighteen smooth-bores of which the heaviest were 32-pounders. With this vessel they retaliated upon the Spaniards for their preliminary blockade of the Chilian ports by capturing, in November, 1865, the gunboat Covadonga, a somewhat similar boat to the Esmeralda, with two 68-pounders as her chief weapons. As usual, the Chilians shot well and the Spaniards shot badly, and the issue of the engagement was not long in doubt. The Spanish fleet distinguished itself by a cowardly bombardment of Valparaiso in 1866, notwithstanding its defenceless condition, when, in spite of their wretched shooting, the Spaniards caused a great deal of damage, principally owing to the Numancia’s guns. Valparaiso did not reply.

The Spanish fleet next tried Callao, which was fortified and gave the Spaniards more to think about than they cared for. The principal guns in the batteries were four Armstrong rifles, 300-pounders, which were in turrets faced with 10-inch armour, and five rifles of the Blakely pattern, firing 450 lb. shot. There were also several smaller smooth-bore guns. A small vessel of the monitor type, the Victoria, with one 64-pounder, and the monitor Manco Capac, with railway iron armour and two 68-pounders, constituted the Peruvian fleet. The Numancia, at 1,500 yards range, led her consorts to the attack, but in about half an hour the Ville de Madrid was placed hors de combat with a shot in her steam-pipe. The next disaster to the Spaniards was when the Berenguela had a hole blown in her side by a Blakely shell, so that she could do no more fighting. Then two more Spanish ships had to retire, as they had fired away all their ammunition. The Numancia was hit repeatedly, but her armour saved her from serious damage. The smaller projectiles did her no harm at all, but one of the shells from an Armstrong gun went through her plating and was prevented by the backing from going farther. Both sides lost heavily, but notwithstanding the amount of ammunition expended the damage was not very extensive. This time the honours were distinctly with the shore batteries, and the Spaniards sailed for home.

That the advantage given by the possession of powerful warships may be entirely neutralised was demonstrated by the Brazilians in their conflict with Paraguay, in 1865. The Paraguayans fought with the energy of despair. They were between the devil and the deep sea, for they knew that if they did not conquer their enemy, their commander would reward them with tortures from which death would give them a welcome release. In these circumstances the Paraguayans displayed extraordinary daring with a by no means adequate fleet for resisting the Brazilians, who were allied with Uruguay and the Argentine republic, as the outcome of the Paraguayan president, Francisco Lopez’s, energetic, if unconventional, methods. During this war the Cabral and Colombo were added to the Brazilian fleet from Thames builders. They were each 160 feet long and drew 9 feet 9 inches when loaded, and with two pairs of direct-acting horizontal engines of 200 h.p., each driving a screw propeller, so that they were twin-screw boats, they could attain a speed of ten and a half knots. They were really oblong iron forts, supported on rafts. There was no central battery, but each vessel carried six guns forward, two being disposed in the front of the citadel and two on either side of the fore part. A similar battery was placed at the other end. The armour-plates were 4½ inches in thickness, and the deck before and abaft the battery gradually sloped all round to the water-line, and being covered with 2½-inch armour-plating, prevented a shot from penetrating into the ship. The arrangement of the guns enabled these vessels to be fought either end on, or on the broadside. Each was armed with twelve 70-pounder Whitworth guns. Two other powerful vessels were also built for Brazil at Birkenhead. One of the oddest naval encounters on record was fought in March, 1866, between a powerful Brazilian fleet and a Paraguayan vessel. The Brazilians had three of these ironclads, a single-turreted monitor, and several wooden ships. The Paraguayans opposed this armada with a barge mounting an 8-inch smooth-bore gun. The firing was fast, furious, and inaccurate. The smooth-bore made good practice. The Brazilians hit everything in range for some time except the one-gun barge. By dint of perseverance they struck it eventually and sunk it.[46] This glorious naval exploit was followed by another piece of daring, in which the Brazilian fleet engaged in a more or less uninterrupted encounter for three weeks with a fort mounting one gun; the fleet won.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century saw not a little warlike activity in one part of the world and another in which the navies of the contestant powers were conspicuous. The naval engagements in the Russo-Turkish War were mainly remarkable for the regularity with which the Turkish warships were blown up by the Russians, the daring of Russian officers in making attack after attack, and the apparent disinclination of the Turkish officers to take adequate means to protect their vessels. Had the Turks been as vigilant as the Russians, the latter would hardly have scored so many brilliant successes.

The South American Republics, too, were indulging in one of those periodical bursts of unrest and pugnacity which seem inseparable from South American States in their relations with each other, or in the administration of their internal affairs, and when carefully fomented may lead plotting politicians on to become dictators and the victims of assassinations—unless they are fortunate enough to retire to Paris with the spoils and live in luxury and die naturally.

One of these revivals of political ferment brought the Huascar into prominence, and made her for some years the most famous fighting ship in the world. The interest taken everywhere in the doings of this ship was extraordinary. She was launched in 1865 at Birkenhead, from that yard which has sent so many ships to sea to make history, and if local associations have their influence over ships, and sailors say they have, the records of the Huascar show that she was not false to tradition. Built to the order of the Peruvian Government, she was a turret ship of 1,800 tons displacement and eleven knots speed, and carried a belt of armour on the water-line of from 4½ inches thick at the centre portion to 2½ inches at the ends. Her one turret, which was placed rather forward of amidships, was built on Captain Coles’s design, and given 5½-inch iron plates. In it she carried two 10-inch 12½-ton Armstrong muzzle-loaders; and on her decks were two 40-pounders and one 12-pounder, all three being muzzle-loaders and unprotected. Her lower foremast was on the tripod system, but this was afterwards discarded and she was given an ordinary mast. She had a main- and mizen-mast also, and all three carried topmasts and square sails; when her masts were altered a military top of iron plates was built upon the cap of the mainmast.

She had a most exciting career. Her crew mutinied and put to sea in her, and took to freebooting quite in the spirit of the old days of the Spanish Main and the South Eastern Pacific. She was declared a pirate. At the end of May, 1877, the British cruisers Shah and Amethyst, which had been ordered to look for her, discovered her off Ilo. These were both light unarmoured cruisers, the latter being much the smaller of the two, and depended largely upon their speed to render attack upon them more difficult, or to avoid it altogether, or to assume the offensive at a time best suited to themselves. Their guns were more modern and powerful than those of the Huascar, and also more numerous, so that in gun power the cruisers were superior to the ironclad.

This engagement is noteworthy for the reason that in it the first automobile torpedo ever employed in war was discharged by the Shah against the Huascar, and failed to reach its mark. The Shah bore the brunt of the engagement with the Huascar. The latter almost ignored the Amethyst, whose small guns did no more harm to her sides than a mosquito would do to an elephant, but helped to make the mutineer’s deck guns useless, and the ironclad reserved her attention for her more formidable antagonist. Whenever the firing became unpleasantly severe, as it frequently did, the Huascar steamed in front of Ilo, and the Shah then hesitated to fire lest her shells should miss the Huascar and hit the town, notwithstanding that the Huascar then fired at the Shah. But the Huascar’s aim was faulty, partly because of the poor shooting powers of her gunners, and partly because the Shah kept rapidly on the move and so presented no steady mark to the Peruvian gunners. The Huascar tried to ram her, but the Shah’s speed enabled her to avoid the blow without difficulty, and give a telling shot at short range in return. Altogether the ironclad was hit nearly seventy times, but though she was badly dented, only one shell passed through her 3-inch armour to a sufficient extent to cause any injury to the interior of the vessel or to her crew. The hulls of the British ships were not struck once, though their rigging suffered a little trifling damage. They hoped to capture the Huascar on the morrow, but by daylight she was out of sight, and during the morning was surrendered by her commander to the Peruvian Government ships. But her fighting days were by no means over. This battle was held by the experts in naval matters to demonstrate the value of armour and the weakness of the ordinary 9-inch muzzle-loader, and also the prime necessity of accurate shooting. The English gunnery was bad and that of the Peruvians was execrable.

When Chili and Peru indulged in a war in 1879-81, the latter country owned the Huascar and the Independencia. The latter was an armoured vessel of 3,500 tons, built in England in 1865, and occasionally confused with the other Independencia built on the Thames a few years later for another South American State, but which passed into the possession of the British Government. The Peruvian Independencia carried two 150-pounders, twelve 72-pounders, and four 30-pounders, all muzzle-loading rifled guns, and for this war her fighting power was strengthened by the addition of a 9-ton gun and a 150-pounder. The Huascar had been reboilered since her fight with the Shah and the Amethyst. The Peruvian navy was a fairly formidable fighting fleet, but what it displayed in this respect was more than neutralised by the inefficiency of its personnel who, however brave individually they may have been, sadly lacked order and control. The Chilians included in their fleet two modern powerful ironclads, the Blanco Encalada and the Almirante Cochrane, both of which were built in England in 1874-5. Each was of about 3,500 tons, and designed on the central box battery plan, and as will be seen from the accompanying particulars of the Almirante Cochrane, both vessels were exceedingly formidable fighting ships. The Blanco Encalada also had two Nordenfeldts and the Almirante Cochrane one.

The Almirante Cochrane was 210 feet in length on the water-line, with a breadth of 45 feet 9 inches, and a depth of hold of 21 feet 8 inches; and in fighting trim she drew 18 feet 8 inches of water forward and a foot more aft. Her whole length in the neighbourhood of the water-line was protected by a stout belt of armour and teak backing 8 feet wide, with the armour-plates 9 inches thick at the water-line and the teak backing 10 inches. The battery was amidships, and was armed with six 12½-ton Armstrong guns. The whole of the armour and backing was fastened to a double thickness of skin plating by bolts similar to those used in the British Navy. She was the first ironclad built at Hull.

With the three guns on each side she was able to fire over all the points of the compass, this advantage being attained by placing each of the fore and aft guns at the corners of the battery, and recessing the side of the ship so as to enable the foremost guns to fire right forward and in a line with the keel, and in like manner the after guns to fire right aft. The batteries being octagonal, the corner guns could be brought into the broadside position and command any single angle between that and the line of keel. The midship guns on each side were made to fire on the broadside, and also to support the fire of the forward guns up to within 20 degrees of the line of keel.

It is unnecessary to describe the naval manœuvres preparatory to the meeting of the hostile vessels, or to deal with the causes of the war.

The Huascar very nearly blew herself up instead of her antagonist, the Abtao, off Antofagasta. She fired a Lay torpedo at her, but the missile turned and headed straight at the Huascar, whose turbulent career would most likely have been ended there and then had not one of her lieutenants dived overboard at the torpedo and diverted it so that it missed the warship by a few inches.

As soon as the Chilians heard that the Peruvian fleet had come south, the former left the historic Esmeralda and another wooden ship, the Covadonga, which was equally slow, behind at Iquique, and went to look for the Peruvian ships. The latter slipped past in the darkness and sent the Huascar and the Independencia to smash up the two wooden ships left behind to blockade Iquique. The Huascar attacked the Esmeralda and the Independencia endeavoured to account for the Covadonga. Thus, two modern powerful ironclads were opposed to two old wooden ships indifferently armed and painfully slow. On the face of the paper statistics the battle should have lasted four minutes; as it was, it lasted four hours. As soon as the Peruvians on shore saw that the Esmeralda and the Covadonga were to be attacked by the two Peruvian ironclads they opened fire on the blockading ships and compelled the Esmeralda to seek a less favourable position. The Huascar, seeing this was a suitable moment, tried to disable her with the ram, but inflicted very little injury. Before this a shell from the Huascar’s turret gun pierced the Esmeralda’s engine room, killing all the engineers and disabling the engines so that for a time the wooden ship was helpless. But the Chilians patched up the engines and got them going again. This one shot from the Huascar was probably due to good luck rather than good shooting, for although she hit once with her turret gun she missed thirty-nine times. The Esmeralda, on the contrary, hit the Huascar repeatedly, but her smaller projectiles were harmless against the iron armour, and inflicted no damage to the hull, but the careful firing of the Chilians rendered it very difficult for the Huascar’s crew to expose themselves in any degree on deck for working the other guns. The Huascar again rammed the Esmeralda, this time on the starboard bow, and the Chilians with extraordinary bravery attempted to carry the ironclad by boarding it, but in the confusion the order to board was not understood, and the attempt consequently failed. Again the Huascar rammed, now making a great gaping wound in the side of her feeble opponent, through which the water rushed and caused her to founder in a few minutes. She went down with her colours flying, all her wounded on board, and nearly all the rest of her crew.

The other duel, between the Independencia and the Covadonga, was of a very different nature. The Chilian boat had an English pilot on board and determined to effect by strategy what she could not accomplish by force. She went away along the coast, keeping in the shallower waters, pursued by the Independencia. The Covadonga at last found herself near the reefs, touched a rock and stopped, but did not remain fast. The Independencia, which was only 200 or 300 yards behind, thought that this was a grand opportunity to ram her, and not knowing the reason of the Covadonga’s sudden stoppage, headed straight for her. Instead of striking the Covadonga, she ran on the reef with all her force, and remained hard and fast. The smaller wooden boat then steamed into a favourable position astern of the ironclad where the latter could not bring her great guns to bear, and at short range poured shell after shell into her stern until it was soon blazing fiercely. During the pursuit of the Covadonga the two vessels had exchanged several shots. As usual, the Peruvian gunners, who were untrained, missed nearly every time, and the Chilian gunners, who shot carefully, seldom failed to do damage. This ended the career of the Independencia. The Covadonga was sunk by Peruvian torpedoes in September, 1880, off Chancay.

The Huascar’s next exploit was in 1879, when she fought the Almirante Cochrane and the Blanco Encalada. The Huascar opened fire at 3,000 yards range but inflicted no injury. The Cochrane steamed in and replied at 700 yards with a broadside which made the ironclad shiver from stem to stern, for every shot struck. The Huascar was no match for either of these vessels and certainly not for them both, but she fought on with a grim determination which has made this engagement one of the most memorable on record, and has caused more than one historian to compare it to the famous fight of Sir Richard Grenville’s little Revenge, when that intrepid adventurer tackled a Spanish fleet numbering fifty-three vessels, and did not surrender until he himself and nearly all his crew were wounded, and most of the others killed, and his ship was like to sink under him.

The punishment the Huascar received in this engagement was extraordinary. No fewer than twenty-seven of the heaviest projectiles fired by her opponents struck her, thirteen of the blows being severe. Two of the large shells went through her turret armour and exploded. Three others struck her conning tower. Her ’tween decks was turned into a shambles, and almost wrecked by the explosion of five heavy shells. Three times was she hit severely in the stern. The battle was fought at close range and the force of the blows inflicted must have been tremendous. Under the rain of shot and shell the wonder is that the Huascar remained afloat. Had the Chilian shooting been better it is doubtful if she could have survived. The Almirante Cochrane fired forty-five 9-inch Palliser shells, and twelve 20-pounder shells, besides a great number of smaller projectiles; and the Blanco Encalada delivered thirty-one heavy shells. The Huascar fired about forty shells, but could do little damage to her formidable antagonists. The Cochrane was hit three times, but did not sustain much injury, and the Blanco Encalada escaped practically unhurt. After her surrender, the Huascar was patched up by the Chilians, and when she was fit to go to sea again and look for more fighting she flew the Chilian flag. Under her new owners she captured a small gunboat and participated in the blockade of Callao. She was on the effective list of the Chilian navy up to a year or two ago, and is now passing to the scrap-heap by slow and dignified stages.

In the fighting off Valparaiso in April, 1891, during the Chilian Revolution, the Blanco Encalada stopped a tug called the Mary Florence and a torpedo boat from leaving the harbour, and the two latter, which were Government vessels, were so hotly fired upon that they were glad to return. A heavy shot from the Blanco Encalada struck the Mary Florence and blew her out of the water, killing the seventeen men who constituted her crew. The torpedo boat held on, but the other insurgent vessel, the O’Higgins, knocked her into pieces with a well-directed broadside, and her crew shared the fate of that of the Mary Florence. The Blanco Encalada and O’Higgins then turned their attention to the forts, and a lively battle followed. Although it was dark some good shooting seems to have been made, for the forts at last had the range of the O’Higgins, and a heavy shell struck one of the guns on her quarter-deck. The explosion shook her from end to end, and when the smoke cleared away it was found that her deck was almost torn to pieces and the gun itself was lying on the other side of the deck, while nine of the gun’s crew of twelve were either killed or blown into the water and drowned. The O’Higgins was immediately taken out of range, but the Blanco Encalada kept up the fight for a time without being any the worse and then retired to look after her consort.

After they had gone, the rebel man-of-war Esmeralda, which must not be confounded with the wooden vessel of that name, opened fire on the town while the inhabitants for and against the Government were having a pitched battle in the streets. The Government forces got the worst of the fight, and the Esmeralda took in a supply of coal and provisions, and steamed away to join other insurgent vessels.

This Esmeralda was designed and built by Armstrong, at Newcastle, in 1884, for the Chilian Government, and is of more than ordinary interest, as she was the first example of the modern protected cruiser class. She was framed on the ordinary transverse system, and had three decks; the upper, or gun deck, was 11 feet above water, the main deck about 5 feet, and the lower, or arched protective deck, which was of 1-inch steel and extended from stem to stern, was at the middle 1 foot below water-level, and at the side 5 feet. It protected the engines, boilers, magazines, and all the vital parts. Minute sub-divisions of the hold space below the protective deck and of the space between it and the main deck were effected by means of transverse and longitudinal bulkheads and of horizontal flats or platforms; cork was also packed in the cellular spaces to ensure sufficient buoyancy and trim in case the water-line region should be riddled. Her twin screws were driven by two independent sets of 2-stage expansion engines, developing 6,500 h.p., which gave her a speed of 18.25 knots. She had four double-ended boilers, 13 feet diameter and 18½ feet long, working at 90 lb. pressure, each with six furnaces supplied with forced draught. Her bunker capacity was 600 tons, sufficient for eight thousand knots at a speed of eight knots, or six thousand knots at ten knots. Her armament was two 25-ton 10-inch breechloading rifle guns, protected by steel screens, and having a training arc of 120 degrees on either side of the keel; six 4-ton 6-inch breechloading rifle guns; two 6-pounder quick-firers, and a number of machine guns, as well as three torpedo tubes. Her two military masts had a Gardner gun in each. Her displacement was 3,000 tons, her length 270 feet, her breadth 42 feet, and her draught of water 18.5 feet.

On the morning of May 23rd, before daylight, the search-light of the Government torpedo gunboat Almirante Condell revealed in the distance the presence of the Blanco Encalada. The torpedo gunboat had the Almirante Lynch as companion, and the pair lost no time in attacking the ironclad, which was at anchor with banked fires, as part of her machinery was ashore undergoing repairs. The Condell opened the ball with her torpedo, which missed, and followed it with discharges from her Hotchkiss gun. The Lynch also brought her Hotchkiss gun into play, and as both vessels were firing end-on, they presented a very small target to the ironclad, upon which, however, they could make little impression. The Blanco Encalada answered the fire, but ineffectively. The torpedo boats, attacking her from different sides, discharged five more torpedoes, which missed, and though the ironclad was firing carefully, the steel armour of the smaller vessels turned aside her shot and shell. At last a shell from the ironclad dropped on the Condell, doing a great deal of damage. The Lynch’s Hotchkiss gun played havoc with everything and everybody on the Blanco Encalada’s deck and above it.

The naval proceedings in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1 remind one somewhat of Sir Richard Strachan and the Earl of Chatham, each of whom, according to the well-known verse, had his sword drawn and waited for the other. In the Franco-Prussian conflict, however, there was a hostile meeting at sea, although on a small scale. The only naval action in this war was that between the French gunboat Bouvet, carrying one 16-centimètre gun and four 12-centimètre guns, with a complement of eighty-five officers and men, and the German gunboat Meteor, with one 15-centimètre gun and two 12-centimètre guns, and having sixty-four officers and sailors. They met at Havana, and left the harbour for the open sea at the prescribed interval. When outside territorial limits they exchanged cannonades for two hours at 1,200 yards range, with little harm to either. Then the Frenchman decided to ram, but the Meteor moved and only received a glancing blow which did little damage to her hull but brought down her main- and mizen-masts. The Bouvet was going to ram again, when the Meteor gave her a solid shot in her boiler. There was no further fighting, for the Spanish ship which had steamed out from Havana to prevent a violation of neutrality, informed them that they were now in Spanish waters and that the engagement must stop.

The Turkish fleet at the beginning of the war with Russia in 1876-7 was superior to that of Russia in every respect save efficiency. The Russian Black Sea fleet, owing to diplomatic restrictions, was of very little use. The only effective naval work performed by the Russians in this war was with torpedo boats brought overland by rail from the Baltic, which were supported by merchant steamers acquired for the purpose. The Turks had some splendid vessels which should have given a good account of themselves, and had they performed the duties expected of them and of which they were quite capable, and had they been properly handled, the history of that war would have been very different. When the Turks lost command of the sea they also lost the war. One of their finest vessels was the Messoudiye, a sister ship to the British Superb, which had also been built for the Turkish Government, but was bought by England. Both were of 9,100 tons displacement, and had engines giving them a speed of thirteen and a half knots on 1,200 h.p. They had 12-inch armour with a 10-inch backing, and carried sixteen 10-inch guns. The Turks also had four vessels of over 6,000 tons displacement, the Azazieh, Mahmoudieh, Orkanieh, and Osmanieh; the Assar-i-Tewfik, of 4,000 tons, each having fifteen 6½-ton guns and one 12-ton gun; and several smaller vessels. These were all broadside or central battery ships. There were also a couple of monitors with turrets, and some armoured gunboats, among which were the Avni-Illah, of 2,314 tons displacement, a more powerful version of the Greek King George. Some of the ships had officers trained in the English Navy, and there were also a few English officers serving with the Turkish fleet. The vessels on which these officers were engaged were managed as warships should be, but those which were left to the tender mercies of the Turkish officers were sadly neglected, and discipline on board was conspicuous by its absence. This was one reason why the Russians were successful so frequently in their surprise attacks. Then, when they were disagreeably aroused to the presence of the enemy the Turks usually distinguished themselves by shooting very wildly and widely, and before they knew what they were about the Russians had dashed in and torpedoed the Turkish ship. In spite of the preponderance of Turkish ships, they only came to close quarters once with a Russian ship, and that was a converted merchantman. It is probably a good thing for the Turks that the Russian naval force was so weak, for had it been stronger the Russians would not have hesitated to attack the Turks, and when the attack was over there would probably have been a repetition of the story of the Battle of Sinope and the destruction of the Ottoman fleet which preceded the Crimean War. The ships under English officers would have given a good account of themselves, especially with such men as Hobart Pacha in command; as it was, the English did their best, but their efforts were negatived by the incompetence and indifference of their Turkish colleagues.

The Turkish warships on the Danube began the roll of Ottoman naval disasters in this war, the first to be lost being the Lutfi Djelil, launched at Bordeaux in 1868. She was engaged with a Russian battery at Braila, during the attack on the Turkish squadron, and the engagement was proceeding fiercely when a shell struck the vessel and blew her up. As torpedoes and mines were also being employed by the Russians her destruction has sometimes been ascribed to one of these.

The Russians seem to have had very little difficulty in approaching the Turkish ships, owing to the neglectful way in which the sentries kept a look-out, and their daring was certainly rewarded by a remarkable series of successes in which the luck was unquestionably on their side. Thus at the attack on the Seifi the latter’s turret guns missed fire three times, and the Russians got so near that they blew a hole in her by pushing a Whitehead torpedo under her stern, and exploded another near her bows in order to hasten her disappearance beneath the waters of the Black Sea. Possibly one reason why the Turks generally missed the Russian torpedo boats when they aimed at them was that there were no quick-firers, as the term is now understood, and that the Turks had nothing between the clumsy and heavy 40-pounders and the Gatlings, and had no guns to meet the torpedo attacks, even when they did sight the approaching torpedo boats. Another reason why they failed to prevent the attacks by gun-fire was the great difficulty of training heavy guns upon small fast-moving boats no bigger than steam launches upon the dark and inclement nights which were usually chosen for the enterprises. Again, the slow-firing guns of those days had to be laboriously reloaded afresh and aim had to be taken again, and by that time the attacking boat might be out of range or have discharged its dangerous and destructive missile.

The one ship-and-ship encounter of the war took place between the converted merchant steamer Vesta and the Turkish Assar-i-Chevket. The latter gave chase and steadily overhauled the other until those on the Vesta began to expect that another few minutes would see her career brought to an end by the warship overtaking and ramming her. Both ships had been making good shooting, especially the Turk, but at the last minute a heavy shot from the Vesta struck the warship’s conning tower a hard blow, and the warship gave up the chase.

Many of the British ironclads, the development of which has been traced in earlier pages, participated in the bombardment of Alexandria, in July, 1882. The Egyptian fortifications mounted a great variety of guns, intended, it was unkindly suggested at that time, to meet on equal terms all kinds of floating craft from ships’ gigs to battleships. The forts were provided with a number of heavy Armstrong and Krupp guns of great calibre and immense power. These included five 10-inch 18-ton guns, eighteen 9-inch, and fourteen 8-inch guns, all of which were rifled. The majority of the guns in the forts were indifferently mounted, to a large extent through carelessness in the work, and some of the latest pattern had been so recently delivered that there was no time, as time is reckoned in the East where a few months seldom matter, to mount them at all. No doubt they had been intended to supersede the old, small, smooth-bore guns of which the forts had enough and to spare, there being no fewer than two hundred and eleven of them, but as this work had not been done the Egyptian gunners had to make shift as best they could with the guns in position. There were also thirty-eight mortars. Of course, under the circumstances many of their projectiles failed to reach the British vessels at which they were aimed. The Egyptian gunners also served their weapons very badly, and even when the British ships were within short range of the heavier guns, nearly every shot missed its mark. The forts appeared from the outside to be much better constructed than they really were, and their magazines, though extensive, were by no means the safe places they should have been for the storage of ammunition and projectiles, and in this probably lies the explanation of the blowing up of some of the forts. The heavier Egyptian guns were fired through embrasures, their gunners being thus afforded a considerable measure of protection; but most, if not all, of the smooth-bores were fired over parapets, so that they were more exposed to the fire of the ships.

The disparity in gun power between the fleet and the forts was so great that the view was confidently expressed in England that if hostilities should ensue the forts would be reduced in anything from half an hour to a couple of hours. Yet for eleven hours the Egyptian gunners maintained the unequal combat. Had their skill been equal to their determination, Alexandria had not fallen so easily and with so little damage to the British ships.

The ironclads were the Inflexible, firing a broadside of 6,880 lb. from her four 81-ton guns; the Temeraire, 8,540 tons, four 25-ton and four 18-ton guns; the Superb, 9,100 tons, with four 25-ton guns, and a weight of broadside of 3,280 lb.; the Alexandra, 9,490 tons, two 25-ton and ten 18-ton guns; the Monarch, 8,230 tons, four 25-ton and two 6½-ton guns; the Invincible, 6,010 tons, ten 12-ton guns; and the Penelope, 4,394 tons, ten 12-ton guns. All these vessels carried a number of smaller guns as well. The gunboats were the Beacon, Bittern, Cygnet, Condor, and Decoy, and there was also a small despatch boat.

The Monarch, Temeraire and Penelope attacked Fort Meks and Fort Marsa-el-Kanit on the mainland; and the Superb, Sultan and Alexandra opposed the Lighthouse and Pharos forts. The Inflexible co-operated with either squadron as required. The Marabout batteries at the entrance to the harbour were left to the five gunboats. These were each armed with a 4½-ton 7-inch rifled Woolwich gun and two 64-pounders, all muzzle-loading. The Marabout forts were protected by two 18-ton guns, two 12-ton guns, twenty 32-pounders, and five mortars. This fort had been constructed in such a manner that the guns could not be trained to fire below a certain angle, and consequently any vessel which could get within this angle would be comparatively safe from the fire of the forts, and with the superior training of its guns could shell the forts at short range with terrible effect.

Lord Charles Beresford, the commander of the Condor, saw this, and determined to make the effort. With magnificent daring and consummately skilful handling of his small vessel, he managed to get her through the zone of fire without receiving a shot in return, thanks to the erratic firing of the Egyptian gunners. Having got under the angle of fire the Condor began to use her guns with terrible effect.

A certain gun in the Marabout fort was annoying the attacking flotilla very seriously, and in spite of the efforts of the assailants they could not suppress its fire entirely. One man at this gun proved that he was an excellent marksman and sent several shells dangerously close to the ships.

The story goes that this particularly obnoxious Egyptian gunner was noticed by Lord Charles Beresford, who ordered his own best gunner to knock over the Egyptian gun. This was no sooner ordered than done, but the Egyptians worked hard and mounted the gun again, and once more the Egyptian gunner was seen to be in charge of the piece.

“Hit that gunner,” Lord Charles commanded.

“Yes, sir. Where shall I hit him?” the gunner asked.

“Hit him in the eye,” was the reply of the future admiral.

“Which eye, sir?” asked the gunner. But before the commander could indicate any preference as to the particular Egyptian optic which should be hit with an explosive shell, the gunner had fired, and the shot took off the man’s head.

The Condor maintained her duel with the forts for an hour and was not hit seriously once. Almost single-handed she silenced the great guns of the Marabout fort, and afterwards aided the Bittern and Cygnet to suppress the other guns. Little wonder was it that when she afterwards passed the Invincible she was rewarded with the splendid compliment, “Well done, Condor.” The crews of the large warships cheered her as she passed them, and her own crew returned the compliment, not forgetting cheers for their popular commander and groans for Arabi Pacha.

Meanwhile the Inflexible, with her terrible 81-ton guns, was steadily if slowly firing at the Meks and Lighthouse forts. The guns of one turret sent shell after shell into one of the forts and those of the other turret were directed upon the other fort. The heavy rumbling of her immense shells contrasted curiously with the scream of the lighter shells of the smaller guns. Her enormous projectiles, weighing about 1,700 lb. each, fired with terrible precision, blew the face of Fort Ada to pieces, and aided in reducing the Lighthouse fort.

The bombardment was a repetition of the old story of fixed shore fortifications being assailed by a mobile and powerful fleet. As usual the fleet could manœuvre to its own best advantage for shelling an enemy and upsetting his aim. The fleet itself, however, did not escape entirely without injury. A shell entered the captain’s cabin of the Alexandra and burst, doing considerable damage to the contents of the apartment, but singularly little injury to the ship. The Alexandra’s armour was pierced several times, but none of the projectiles succeeded in getting through the backing, and a portion of her smokestack was shot away. Altogether she was struck twenty-five times. Most of the other attacking vessels also bore marks of the engagement, but in no instance was the injury inflicted serious. Much of the damage was sustained aloft, thus showing that the Egyptian gunners had for the most part aimed too high. Some of their shells, also, failed to explode, and on the whole the firing from the forts was badly directed. The British had five men killed and twenty-eight wounded. The losses of the Egyptians were never known accurately, but must have been very great, for the British shells which did not hit the forts found their billets in the town behind and, exploding, added to the terror and death-roll among the natives who had not already fled.

A correspondent who visited the forts immediately after the bombardment wrote:—

The present United States navy may be said to date from 1883. After the close of the rebellion the American Government had no further need of the majority of the war vessels built or improvised for that struggle, and having sold some, neglected nearly all the remainder. America and Spain almost came to blows over what was known as the Virginius affair, and the great republic prepared to do its best on “the mobilisation in southern waters of a fleet which consisted in great part of antiquated and rotting ships.”[49] The United States also sadly missed the possession of an efficient navy when serious differences arose with a powerful European state over the right interpretation and application of the Monroe Doctrine to the Panama Canal and the control thereof. Both these events, supported by the Ten Years War in Cuba and the unconcealed American sympathy for the Cubans, prepared the country for the acceptance of the dictum that a more modern navy was necessary, and this was emphasised when it was announced during the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes that the navy of any European power was superior to that of the United States, and that even Chili, with the Almirante Cochrane and the Huascar, would be able to bombard San Francisco and that the United States Government had not the means to prevent them.

In order to appreciate the enormous progress which the United States have made as a naval power in the past thirty years one must turn to the American Navy List for 1879, and compare it with the present equipment in the matter of ships and personnel, which places the United States in the position of being the second naval power of the world—second, indeed, only to Great Britain, and with resources for the production of warships of the latest design and the highest fighting capacity scarcely if at all inferior to those of the United Kingdom itself. In 1879 there—

Of the bravery of the American sailors of whatever rank there has never been any question, but the methods of selecting them seem to have been as peculiar as the British methods of corruption in the old days, when it was possible for an infant in arms to be on the pay roll of a British ship when he had never so much as seen the sea, to say nothing of never having been on board the vessel of which he was nominally a midshipman.

The following racy account,[50] which illustrates the American system of the past better than any lengthy description could do, of the examination of Midshipman Joseph Tatnall, a relative of the famous American officer of “Blood is thicker than water” fame, will be read with interest in this connection:—