The naval policy of France in almost all her wars with Great Britain has been to gain, if possible, some material advantage without deliberately risking a Fleet action. The naval policy of Great Britain has simply been to seek the enemy’s Fleet and to endeavour to sink, burn, or take it. On numerous occasions France has missed the opportunity of gaining a great victory because she has preferred the prospect of securing ultimate advantages. On occasions still more numerous Great Britain has won a great victory because she has had no eye for anything more distant than the foe. The methods of action have been contrasted over and over again, and most ably by Captain A. T. Mahan, U.S.N., in his volume on “The Influence of Sea Power upon History.” This valuable work appeared some time before the sudden outbreak of hostilities off Toulon; and so convincing is it, at least to the Anglo-Saxon mind, on the subject of the relative values of the traditional naval policies of the two Powers, that it is difficult for an Englishman to believe that, after the publication of that book, France could ever again have been capable of playing her old part. But service traditions are not easily destroyed; and after having, in a moment of unreflecting rage, fallen upon the British in the Mediterranean and practically annihilated them there, France settled down into her usual modes of war. It is true that she reinforced her own Division cuirassée du Nord, and sent it, as has been shown, in search of the home-coming British Channel Squadron; but that was on the impulse of the first heat of hostilities. She soon dispatched word to it to proceed to Gibraltar, whither she also ordered a strong squadron from Toulon, leaving in that port only sufficient vessels to watch the very small and enfeebled British force which, after the Toulon disaster, had assembled at Malta. The captains of the partially disabled British ships would, no doubt, have all proceeded to Gibraltar after the battle, especially as Gibraltar had been named by the Commander-in-Chief as his rendezvous; but several of the vessels were so mauled and leaky that they needed immediate docking, and, as everyone knows, there is unfortunately no dock at Gibraltar, while at Malta there are good facilities for ships of all sizes. The consequence was that, after the Toulon affair, the Colossus, Sanspareil, Victoria, Polyphemus, and Surprise went to Malta, and only the Trafalgar, Dreadnought, and Australia to the Rock.

Thither also went the French Division cuirassée du Nord. The Australia, which, having received but little damage in the action, was kept on scouting duty in the Strait, sighted it early on the morning of May 2nd, and at once steamed in to report. Of course, a British force of two battleships, a belted cruiser, and the three first-class torpedo boats, Nos. 7, 18, and 70, which, apart from stationary and harbour craft, constituted the entire floating strength at Gibraltar, could hope to do very little against a French Fleet of eight ironclads and six cruisers, besides torpedo boats. The Malta cable informed the Admiral that he must, for the present, harbour no hope of succour from the eastward. He depended, therefore, for help upon the Fleet which he knew was gathering at Spithead, and, in the meantime, he made up his mind to confine himself mainly to the defensive. But his prospects looked blacker than ever when, on Sunday, May 3rd, a second hostile Fleet coming from Toulon was sighted. This included the ironclads Formidable, Dévastation, Hoche, Amiral Baudin, Terrible, and Indomptable, which, with the Victorieuse, Requin, Furieux, Suffren, Fulminant, Vengeur, Tempête, and Tonnerre, made a fleet of fourteen ironclads, besides smaller vessels, designed for the attack on Gibraltar. The idea of the directing brains in Paris was, no doubt, that, if Gibraltar fell, Malta would fall too; and that, after the capture of these strongholds, the Mediterranean might be reduced to the condition of a French lake.

Gibraltar had been held, even by many French writers, to be impregnable. A very great number of heavy ordnance, including two 100-ton, and a battery of 38-ton guns, of tolerably modern construction, had been mounted in it, and in the matter of water and of provisions it was better prepared against a siege than it had been at any previous period of its history. But it lacked armoured defences of the most recent kind, as, for example, Gruson cupolas; and it also lacked a proper supply of quick-firing and machine guns. Yet it was very strong. So, too, was the French Fleet.

The two French Fleets, having effected a junction, kept under easy steam off the Barbary coast between Ceuta and Tangier during the whole of Sunday, and never approached within about ten miles of the Rock; but after sunset, having crossed to the European side opposite Tarifa, they steamed eastward under cover of the land, and kept barely outside the limit of Spanish territorial waters. Thus they reached the mouth of Gibraltar Bay, where, formed into two divisions, they opened a furious fire, at a range of about 9,000 yards, on that face of the fortress which extends from Europa Point to the new Mole. Each division moved independently and slowly in a circle, and, the wind coming briskly from the north-west, the smoke was borne away in such a manner as to inconvenience neither side; but, as the night was dark, the practice was at first very indifferent. The garrison and the warships lying off the old Mole replied promptly and spiritedly, but used search-lights, and so, after a time, assisted the aim of the enemy, who, throughout, showed no lights at all. Discovering their mistake, the defenders turned off their lights, and used instead rockets, which were fired well to seaward, and burst, if not over, at least in the direction of the foe, and, for brief intervals, showed them clearly under the bright blaze of the magnesium stars. But the range of the rockets was not sufficient to render their light thoroughly effective, and they seemed to help the attack fully as much as the defence. The French further improved their situation by occasionally throwing on to the Rock a species of carcase, which burnt very brilliantly, and could not be extinguished. Whenever one of them fell near a battery, the enemy seemed to find no difficulty in getting the range, and immediately poured in so hot a fire that for a time that particular position became almost untenable. Even the solid rock failed to resist the enormous force of the heavy mélinite shells which were hurled against it in bouquets, as light and opportunity served, and which, bursting, brought down hundreds of tons of débris, choking up the casemates, and sometimes burying guns and gunners in common ruin. These shells also, when they burst, as they once or twice did, in a gallery, or in any comparatively confined space, evolved such⁠[2] suffocating fumes that all near were obliged to crawl away, or to remain and be stifled. All night, from sunset to dawn, the bombardment continued without intermission, for not until daybreak was the Fleet out of sight behind Cabareta Point, and it continued its fire as long as it was within range. It withdrew apparently intact, and a few hours later it was seen cruising as before on the south side of the Strait, still fourteen ironclads strong. Some ships, no doubt, had suffered; but the Rock, it was tolerably clear, had suffered more. The loss of life, it is true, had been small in comparison with the huge number of projectiles that had been thrown into the place, but the damage to the material had been enormous; and both inhabitants and garrison looked forward with considerable uneasiness to the prospect of a long succession of nights similar to the sleepless night of the 3rd of May. The ships at anchor off the old Mole had not been struck, and they were therefore able, upon the withdrawal of the French, to proceed to the mouth of the Bay, so as to be ready, in case of need, to afford some protection to any British vessel that might seek shelter beneath the fortress; but they could attempt nothing more, and, indeed, the whole attitude of the defence, during the days of anxiety and nights of horror that followed, was, so far as the men-of-war were concerned, perforce a very passive one.

But there was an opportunity for the torpedo boats; and nobly did they avail themselves of it. The following account of the exploits of boat No. 70 on the second night of the attack is taken from the Daily News. No. 70, it should be explained, was a 125 ft. boat, 13 ft. broad, with a displacement of about 75 tons, engines of 670 indicated horse-power, and a smooth water speed of 19·5 knots. She was built at Poplar by Messrs. Yarrow & Co., in 1886, and carried, in addition to her torpedo armament, three machine guns, and a crew of sixteen officers and men. The Daily News correspondent, who was, by profession, a medical man, was permitted to accompany the boat as volunteer surgeon. There were thus seventeen all told on board the little craft when she went out on as perilous a mission as was ever undertaken.

“Gibraltar, Tuesday, May 5th.—Last night at ten o’clock, the French Fleet having about an hour earlier renewed the bombardment, the Admiral, after consultation with the Governor, sent for the three lieutenants commanding the torpedo boats in harbour here, and explained to them that he was desirous of trying whether or not it might be possible to do damage to the enemy, but that he could not afford to risk the sacrifice of the only three boats at his disposal. He therefore asked one of the lieutenants to volunteer. All three volunteered at once. The Admiral pointed out the great danger of the mission, and offered to allow the officers to reconsider their decision. All volunteered again. He then thanked them handsomely, but said that he could not avail himself of the services of more than one; upon which the officers, retiring for a few minutes to consider the matter, ultimately settled it by throwing poker dice. Lieutenant Penherne, of torpedo boat No. 70, won, throwing five sixes. The losers then begged to be allowed to accompany Penherne in any subordinate capacity, but this was not permitted by the Admiral, who nevertheless complimented the other lieutenants on their zeal. Penherne was ordered to wait his opportunity for going out, and, acting in accordance with his own judgment, to run into the enemy’s Fleet, and do his best to torpedo one or more of their ships. With some difficulty I obtained permission to go with him.

“By a quarter to eleven we were all on board, with steam up for full speed. The enemy was at the time throwing in a very heavy fire on our batteries, which were replying steadily; and there seemed to be a good opportunity for us to get away without exciting much attention; but it was rather too light to suit Lieutenant Penherne. There was very little moon. The stars, however, were bright between the masses of scudding cloud, and he decided to wait until some heavier masses of vapour which were coming up from the westward should give him a greater degree of concealment. Knowing, as I did know, how anxious this gallant young officer was to get at the enemy, I could not help admiring the coolness which prompted this decision. There was a brisk westerly breeze, with a short lumpy sea not altogether most suitable for torpedo boat work; but the unsuitableness of the weather would, we hoped, give us the better chances of success, by putting the enemy to some extent off his guard.

“By half-past twelve, the bombardment still continuing with full fury, Lieutenant Penherne found the sky to be much more obscured, and determined to cast off. We had lain during the previous hour and a half inside the old Mole, watched with curiosity by a small crowd of people who, though they did not know on what mission we were bound, had discovered for themselves that we were about to leave harbour. Our first movements could not greatly have enlightened them, for as soon as we were clear of the Mole head we steered straight to the westward across the Bay, as if we were making for the mouth of the Palmones. Our immediate object was to get out of the way of shells, and we succeeded, but not until we had had a very narrow escape. Scarcely had we started ere a big projectile came screeching over the Mole, sent the people flying panic-stricken, and pitched quite close to us in the water, where it burst. We were not more than twenty feet away, and part of the column of mud and water that shot up fell on us, while the waves caused by the explosion made us heel over until our port side was altogether under. But we were not damaged. Penherne had ordered all of us to put on cork belts, had seen that the machine guns were well supplied with ammunition, had loaded all five of our torpedo tubes—after having carefully examined the torpedoes—and had had the dingy’s cover removed. By this time we were under the Spanish side of the bay—very much, I am afraid, within Spanish waters. We altered our course to port, therefore, and steamed slowly down the coast, and so near to it that as we passed Algesiras Island we could see the Algesiras people, backed by the lights of their town, watching the bombardment. We could even hear—for we were sheltered by the shore, and such wind as reached us was from the right quarter—the exclamations of the crowds whenever any exceptionably loud or brilliant explosion attracted their attention. I could not resist being reminded of a firework night on the terrace of the Crystal Palace, though the circumstances were so terribly different. So occupied were the Spaniards that they did not seem to notice us, in spite of the fact that we passed within a couple of cables of three of their gunboats; and we went quietly on, confidently expecting to find a French cruiser, or at least a torpedo boat, waiting somewhere off Cabareta Point to upset all our plans. Surely enough we did sight a craft of some kind there, but keeping inside Pigeon Island, we avoided being noticed by her, and thus reached the open Strait. Here we altered course again, this time to starboard, and still stole along under the coast. From our new position the scene behind us was fearfully grand. The wild puffing rattle of heavy projectiles in the air was continuous. Ever and anon, high in the darkness, there came out a red blotch of flame and silver smoke, and a minute later we heard the report of an exploded shell. More than once, several of these blotches of red flashed out almost simultaneously. Below them, on each side, tongues of flame leapt out at the rate, I should suppose, of from forty to fifty a minute. Those from the grim old Rock came from all sorts of elevations. Those from the enemy came, of course, all from the water, but were directed upwards. And against the dense bank of smoke that rolled to leeward the dark hulls of the French ships stood out clearly and plainly at every flash.

“We went westward until we were abreast of Tarifa, and until the flashes from the French ships seemed to spring up, not from dark hulls, but from the horizon. ‘You must go below now,’ said Lieutenant Penherne, coming slowly to me aft where I was sitting on the after conning tower. ‘I will only have the fighting hands on deck. But you can get inside this conning tower if you can find room alongside the lookout there. If we get into the thick of it, I may go into the forward conning tower; but I don’t yet know whether, when we are steaming at full speed, I shall be able to see anything from it; and, if I can’t, I shall stay on deck, and not use the director, or anything else, but discharge the torpedoes with my own hands. Now’—with a smile—‘down you tumble. England, you know, expects every man to do his duty. You have to write a dispatch, and patch us up if we get hit; so, down you tumble, and out with your stylograph pen and your saws and bandages. You must cut us up on the cabin table. Let us have a look at it.’

“He led me below, and stood by, cutting up some tobacco in his palm, while I opened my instrument case and loosened my bundles of lint rolls. I recollected that between me and the enemy’s shot there would be no better protection than is afforded by a steel plate about as thick as a piece of cardboard, and I admit that I felt very nervous; but Penherne was absolutely cool. When he had cut his tobacco, he said: ‘Those beggars will see the spark of my pipe if I’m not careful. Can’t you lend me something to cover it up?’ I offered him the top of a small metal box. This he fitted to his pipe, after he had bored a few holes through the tin with the point of his knife. Then hastily cramming in the tobacco, lighting it, giving a couple of vigorous puffs, and clapping on his impromptu cover, he climbed on deck again, and, as he went up the ladder, cried, ‘I hope this pipe will last me till the business is over. So long!’

“No sooner was the lieutenant on deck than he altered the boat’s course again, and headed his craft right across the Strait for Al Kazar Point. It was already nearly a quarter-past two, and seeing that the sun would rise at half-past four, we had less than a couple of hours’ darkness before us. But we were now steaming fast, and gradually swerving more and more to the eastward; and as, in the middle of the Strait, there is a constant current in that direction, we were making good progress. From my place in the after conning tower, I could only see the points of Penherne’s elbows as he held his night glass to his eyes, for he stood just forward of the funnel; but I heard him, from time to time, giving the order to alter course one point more to port, and I knew that we were getting up behind the French Fleet. Soon, indeed, I could see it on our port bow, still circling slowly in two divisions, with a bank of smoke to leeward, and the vivid flashes of guns and bursting shells all around it. The spray was now flying over us, and the boat was throbbing from stem to stern with the vibration of her machinery, for Penherne had clapped on full speed. Right ahead loomed a long low black mass, without lights. It must have been a French torpedo boat on the look-out. Another point to port enabled us to clear it easily. The enemy must have either not seen us, or mistaken us for one of his own boats; for there was no hail and no symptoms of alarm; and now, not two miles before us, was the leeward division of the foe’s ironclads.

“Penherne laid down his glass, and stepped to the foremost broadside torpedo tubes, which were trained upon the beam. Taking the lanyards in his hands, he stood upright between them. The enemy must, by this time, have seen us, for the flames glowed above the top of our funnel, and shone on the spray that came swishing over our nose. Nearer and nearer we drew, but still there was no sign that the enemy believed anything to be wrong. His ships were circling in column of line ahead, with about three cables between the vessels; and the leader of the line—apparently a flagship—was just coming round to port, after having delivered her fire, when we came within range of her. Confident that he was mistaken for a friend, Penherne altered course yet another point or two to port, as if to pass under the ironclad’s stern. There was at once some indistinct shouting from the ship’s bridge and poop; but Penherne did not heed it, and when he was on the enemy’s quarter, and not a hundred yards from it, he pulled his right-hand lanyard, and I saw the starboard torpedo glisten for an instant as it leapt with a splash into the waves. The French, too, must have seen this, and I can only attribute the fact that they did not immediately open a heavy fire on us to the probable circumstances that the starboard guns, having just been engaged, were cooling, and so, of course, were unloaded. The second ship of the line was by this time coming up slowly on our starboard bow. Penherne shouted ‘Hard-a-port!’ and even as he did so, I heard the muffled explosion of our first torpedo. We swung round quickly, crossing close under the second ship’s forefoot; and, while she towered over us, Penherne pulled his left lanyard and sent his second torpedo into her broad bows. The weapon had barely fifty yards to travel, and the almost instantaneous shock of its explosion jolted us up as if we had ridden over a submarine volcano, and, smashing the glass in the little scuttles of the conning tower, covered me with the fragments. But there was so much smoke, spray, and darkness that I could not see the results. ‘Helm amidship!’ shouted Penherne, running aft to the other two torpedo tubes. ‘Keep her steady now;’ and once more steaming with wind and current, we tore across to where the rearmost ship of the French line was still firing deliberately at the Rock. She, however, ceased that fire as we approached, and devoted her whole attention to us. Her consorts also began blazing at us from almost every side; for we had placed ourselves, as it were, within the horseshoe formed by the encircling squadron. Nor was this all; the shells from Gibraltar were dropping all around us. Yet Penherne, who, at the after tubes, was quite close to me, was calm and cool. Red rents began to open in our funnel as the Hotchkiss projectiles struck it. Machine gun bullets, fired at too acute an angle to penetrate, rattled upon our deck. ‘Come in, Penherne,’ I cried involuntarily. ‘You have done enough, in all conscience.’ But he took no heed, for he was carefully training the port after tube upon the last ship. We neared her rapidly. A perfect storm of bullets swept over us, and some penetrated my tower. Penherne stumbled backwards, and, knowing that he was hit, I rushed to the companion. But as soon as my head appeared at the top of it, he sang out, ‘Don’t be a fool! Keep below!’ and I saw that, though he now lay at full length on deck, he was watching the foe, and had the lanyard ready in his hand. I could not obey him; indeed, for a moment I could not move. We were passing the last ship’s port quarter. Her side was crowded with men, who were firing at us with rifles. Penherne struggled and cried out as if with pain, and then the spell passed away from me, and I clambered on deck and ran to him. He had the lanyard in his teeth, and, as I reached him, he raised himself with an effort, threw himself violently backward, and discharged the torpedo. ‘I have done it!’ he cried. And then came a roar behind us, and a blast of wind, as our third torpedo struck its mark.

“That explosion relieved us, for the last ship of the line fired no more, and we left her in the darkness.

“Penherne, as gallant an officer as ever ornamented the Navy, was dead. No fewer than five bullets had struck him, and two at least had inflicted wounds, either of which would have been mortal. It was with the last ebbing remnants of his strength and consciousness that he pulled the lanyard.

“Sub-lieutenant Smith, who had been all night in the fore conning tower, and who had been wounded in the shoulder, took command of the boat, and brought her into the Bay just before sunrise. Although Lieutenant Penherne was the only person on deck while we were under fire, we have lost two bluejackets killed and five wounded, by shots which pierced the vessel’s deck or sides. The boat herself has been struck by over a hundred Hotchkiss and machine gun projectiles, and has a good deal of water in her; but her engines and boilers are untouched, and she can easily be made ready for work again in a few days.

“The French temporarily drew off almost immediately after we left them. As I write, they are in sight on the other side of the Strait; but there are only eleven instead of fourteen of their ironclads, and we have, therefore, the best grounds for hoping that we have disabled—if not actually sunk—three vessels. This, looking to our comparatively small loss, is very satisfactory. Yet the fall of so marvellously brave and cool an officer as Lieutenant Penherne is a heavy price to pay for success. His body has been brought ashore in the Admiral’s barge, which was expressly sent for it, and it is to be buried this afternoon with all honours.”

It afterwards appeared that No. 70 had actually sunk the Victorieuse, and had so seriously disabled the Suffren and Tonnerre as to oblige those vessels to proceed, under convoy of the Troude and Lalande, to Toulon, to be docked and repaired. This misfortune, though it did not relieve the British force at the Rock from the presence of any considerable part of the enemy, had the effect of rendering the French very shy and careful. Each night they renewed the bombardment; but not until they had first surrounded their Fleet with such a crowd of torpedo boats that undetected approach from any quarter was rendered almost hopeless. On the night of May 6th, torpedo boat No. 18 tried to steal out and repeat the exploit of No. 70, but was at once driven back by a heavy fire from some French craft which were lying in wait in the shadows on the Spanish side of the bay, where, apparently, the Spaniards were quite willing to shut their eyes to their presence. This may be explained by the fact, since discovered, that the French ambassador at Madrid, without asking for any pledges in return, secretly informed the Spanish Government that, if Gibraltar fell into French hands, it should, upon the conclusion of hostilities, be delivered over to Spain.

Two nights later, on the night, that is, of Friday, May 8th, the French made a counter attack upon the Trafalgar and Dreadnought, which lay with their nets out, as far up the Bay as was considered safe. The Dreadnought was the southernmost of the two; the Trafalgar was two cables astern of her, and both vessels headed to the southward. Around them and outside their nets was a strong boom composed of spars and wire hawsers. It was jumpable by torpedo boats, but it was very securely moored, and was, moreover, so thoroughly fitted with ugly spikes and hooks that no boat could hope to jump it without receiving severe damage. The attack was made at about midnight by two divisions, each of six torpedo boats of the 114 ft. class. They crept in under the Spanish shore, and were unseen until they were nearly opposite Algesiras. A chance beam from one of the search-lights of the Australia, which lay inside the ironclads, then showed them up for an instant. The officer on the Australia’s bridge promptly extinguished the light, and flashed to the Trafalgar: “Torpedo boats about to attack from direction of Algesiras.” The senior officer had already directed what was to be done in the event of such an attack, and, as the night was not so dark but that the enemy, when once his position was known, could be pretty easily seen, the French were under observation some minutes before fire was opened upon them. One division attacked the Trafalgar, and the other the Dreadnought. Some of the boats fired their torpedoes from outside the boom; others jumped the boom and fired afterwards. Two torpedoes exploded in rapid succession against the Trafalgar’s nets, and three against the Dreadnought’s; but no harm worth mentioning was done, and, in the meantime, the boats themselves were suffering awfully. Two were “hung up” on the boom; five got over it, but were almost blown to pieces when inside by the concentrated quick-firing gun fire from the ships; and all these five were sunk. The two on the boom struck their flags and called for quarter, and the remaining five either got away to the French Fleet or were run ashore on the neutral ground to save them from foundering. The loss on the side of the attack was, in addition to the loss of boats, at least sixty men killed or wounded; while the defence escaped with only two men wounded.

This ill-judged but pluckily executed onslaught had been covered by an unusually hot fire from the French Fleet, which, on perceiving that the attack had wholly failed, drew off for the rest of the night, and was not anywhere visible in the morning. The garrison’s hopes that it had gone elsewhere were, however, disappointed, for on the evening of the 9th the bombardment was resumed with greater fury than ever; and for several nights afterwards it was continued. It was only temporarily interrupted by an incident, an account of which will be found in the next chapters.