Some Principles Of Maritime Strategy Part 11

The risk we take may be great, but we shall be able to weigh it accurately against the value of the end, and we shall take it with our eyes open and of set purpose. Above all, it will enable the Staff to settle clearly for each squadronal commander what is to be his primary objective, and what the object or purpose of the operations entrusted to him. It is above all in this last consideration, and particularly in the determination of the objective, that lies the main practical value of the distinction.

This will become clear the moment we begin to consider defence against invasion, which naturally takes the first place amongst operations for the exercise of control. Of all the current a.s.sumptions, not one is so confusing for the finer adjustments of strategy as that which affirms that the primary objective of our fleet is always the enemy's fleet. Of the battle-fleet and its attendant units it is of course true, so long at least as the enemy has a battle-fleet in being. It is true, that is, of all operations for securing control, but of operations for exercising control it is not true. In the case we have now to consider-defence against invasion-the objective of the special operations is, and always has been, the enemy's army. On this fundamental postulate our plans for resisting invasion have always been constructed from the year of the Armada to 1805.

In the old service tradition the point was perfectly well established.

Admirals' instructions constantly insist on the fact that the transports are the "princ.i.p.al object." The whole disposition of the fleet during Hawke's blockade in 1759 was based on keeping a firm hold on the transports in the Morbihan, and when he sought to extend his operations against the Rochefort squadron, he was sharply reminded by Anson that "the princ.i.p.al object of attention at this time" was, firstly, "the interception of the embarkations of the enemy at Morbihan," and secondly, "the keeping of the s.h.i.+ps of war from coming out of Brest." Similarly Commodore Warren in 1796, when he had the permanent frigate guard before Brest, issued orders to his captains that in case of encountering enemy's transports under escort they were "to run them down or destroy them in the most expeditious manner possible previous to attacking the s.h.i.+ps of war, but to preserve such a situation as to effect that purpose when directed by signal." Lord Keith's orders when watching Napoleon's flotilla were to the same effect.

"Directing your chief attention," they run, "to the destruction of the s.h.i.+ps, vessels, or boats having men, horses, or artillery on board (in preference to that of the vessels by which they are protected), and in the strict execution of this important duty losing sight entirely of the possibility of idle censure for avoiding contact with an armed force, because the prevention of debarkation is the object of primary importance to which every other consideration must give way."[22]

[22] _Admiralty Secretary's In-Letters_, 537, 8 August 1803.

In tactics, then, the idea was the same as in strategy. The army was the primary objective round which all dispositions turned. In the French service the strength and soundness of the British practice was understood at least by the best men. When in 1805 Napoleon consulted Ganteaume as to the possibility of the flotilla of transports effecting its pa.s.sage by evasion, the admiral told him it was impossible, since no weather could avail to relax the British hold sufficiently. "In former wars," he said, "the English vigilance was miraculous."

To this rule there was no exception, not even when circ.u.mstances rendered it difficult to distinguish between the enemy's fleet and army as objectives. This situation could occur in two ways. Firstly, when the invading army was designed to sail with the battle-fleet, as in the case of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt; and secondly, when, although the design was that the two should operate on separate lines, our system of defence forced the fleet to come up to the army's line of pa.s.sage in order to clear it, as happened in the case of the Armada and the French attempt of 1744.

In the latter case the invading army, whose objective was unknown, was at Dunkirk, and a French fleet was coming up the Channel to cover the pa.s.sage.

Sir John Norris, in command of the home fleet, was in the Downs. Though his name is now almost forgotten, he was one of the great founders of our naval tradition, and a strategist of the first order. In informing the Government of his plan of operations, he said he intended to proceed with his whole squadron off Dunkirk to prevent the transports sailing. "But," he says, "if they should unfortunately get out and pa.s.s us in the night and go northward, I intend to detach a superior force to endeavour to overtake and destroy them; and with the remainder of my squadron either to fight the French fleet now in the Channel, or observe them and cover the country as our circ.u.mstances will admit of; or I shall pursue the embarkation with all my strength." In this case there had been no time to organise a special squadron or flotilla, in the usual way, to bar the line of pa.s.sage, and the battle-fleet had to be used for the purpose. This being so, Norris was not going to allow the presence of an enemy's battle-fleet to entice him away from his grip on the invading army, and so resolutely did he hold to the principle, that he meant if the transports put to sea to direct his offensive against them, while he merely contained the enemy's battle-fleet by defensive observation.

In the Egyptian case there was no distinction between the two objectives at all. Napoleon's expedition sailed in one ma.s.s. Yet in the handling of his fleet Nelson preserved the essential idea. He organised it into three "sub-squadrons," one of six sail and two of four each. "Two of these sub-squadrons," says Berry, his flag-captain, "were to attack the s.h.i.+ps of war, while the third was to pursue the transports and to sink and destroy as many as it could"; that is, he intended, in order to make sure of Napoleon's army, to use no more than ten, and possibly only eight, of his own battles.h.i.+ps against the eleven of the enemy.

Many other examples could be given of British insistence on making the enemy's army the primary objective and not his fleet in cases of invasion.

No point in the old tradition was more firmly established. Its value was of course more strongly marked where the army and the fleet of the enemy endeavoured to act on separate lines of operation; that is, where the army took the real offensive line and the fleet the covering or preventive line, and where consequently for our own fleet there was no confusion between the two objectives. This was the normal case, and the reason it was so is simple enough. It may be stated at once, since it serves to enunciate the general principle upon which our traditional system of defence was based.

An invasion of Great Britain must always be an attempt over an uncommanded sea. It may be that our fleet predominates or it may be that it does not, but the command must always be in dispute. If we have gained complete command, no invasion can take place, nor will it be attempted. If we have lost it completely no invasion will be necessary, since, quite apart from the threat of invasion, we must make peace on the best terms we can get.

Now, if the sea be uncommanded, there are obviously two ways in which an invasion may be attempted. Firstly, the enemy may endeavour to force it through our naval defence with transports and fleet in one ma.s.s. This was the primitive idea on which the Spanish invasion of Philip the Second was originally planned by his famous admiral, Santa-Cruz. Ripening military science, however, was able to convince him of its weakness. A ma.s.s of transports and wars.h.i.+ps is the most c.u.mbrous and vulnerable engine of war ever known. The weaker the naval defence of the threatened country, the more devoutly will it pray the invader may use this device. Where contact with the enemy's fleet is certain, and particularly in narrow seas, as it was in this case, such a course will give the defender all the chances he could desire, and success for the invader is inconceivable, provided always we resolutely determine to make the army in its transports our main objective, and are not to be induced to break our head against its escort.

Where, however, contact is not certain, the invasion over an uncommanded sea may succeed by evasion of the defender's battle-fleet, as it did in the case of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. But that operation belongs to an entirely different category from that which we are now considering. None of the factors on which the traditional system of British defence is based were present. It was an operation over an open sea against a distant and undetermined objective that had no naval defence of its own, whereas in our own case the determining factors are permanent naval defence, an approximately determined objective, and a narrow sea where evasion by any force of invasion strength is impossible. Napoleon's exploit was in fact nothing more than the evasion of an open blockade which had no naval defence beyond it. The vital importance of these things will appear as we proceed and note the characteristics which marked every attempt to invade England. From such attempts we of course exclude the various descents upon Ireland, which, not being of invasion strength, fall into another cla.s.s, to be dealt with hereafter.

Since the expedient of forcing an invasion by the strength of a powerful battles.h.i.+p escort has always been rejected as an inadmissible operation, the invader has had no choice but to adopt a separate line for his army, and operate with his fleet in such a way as may promise to prevent the enemy controlling that line. That, in short, is the problem of invasion over an uncommanded sea. In spite of an unbroken record of failure scored at times with naval disaster, continental strategists from Parma to Napoleon have clung obstinately to the belief that there is a solution short of a complete fleet decision. They have tried every conceivable expedient again and again. They have tried it by simple surprise evasion and by evasion through diversion or dispersal of our naval defence. They have tried it by seeking local control through a local naval success prepared by surprise, or by attempting to entice our fleet away from home waters to a sufficient extent to give them temporarily local superiority.

But the end has always been the same. Try as they would, they were faced ultimately by one of two alternatives--they must either defeat our covering battle-fleet in battle, or they must close their own battle-fleet on the transports, and so set up the very situation which it was their main design to avoid.

The truth is, that all attempts to invade England without command of the sea have moved in a vicious circle, from which no escape was ever found. No matter how ingenious or complex the enemy's design, a determined hold on their army as the primary naval objective has always set up a process of degradation which rendered the enterprise impracticable. Its stages are distinct and recurrent, and may be expressed as it were diagrammatically as follows:--

Two lines of operation having been decided on, the invading army is gathered at a point as close as possible to the coast to be invaded; that is, where the intervening sea is narrowest, and where the army's pa.s.sage will be exposed to interference for the shortest time. The covering fleet will operate from a point as distant as convenient, so as to entice the enemy as far as possible from the army's line of pa.s.sage. The defender replies by blockading the army's ports of departure with a flotilla of light vessels capable of dealing with transports, or by establis.h.i.+ng a mobile defence of the threatened coasts which transports cannot break unaided, or more probably he will combine both expedients. The first fallacy of the invasion plan is then apparent. The narrower the sea, the easier it is to watch. Pure evasion becomes impossible, and it is necessary to give the transports sufficient armed strength by escort or otherwise to protect them against flotilla attack. The defender at once stiffens his flotilla defence with cruisers and intermediate s.h.i.+ps, and the invader has to arrange for breaking the barrier with a battle-squadron. So weak and disturbing a position is then set up that the whole scheme begins to give way, if, that is, the defender has clung stubbornly to the strategy we always used. Our battle-fleet refused to seek out that of the invader. It has always held a position between the invader's fleet and the blockaded invasion base, covering the blockade and flotilla defence. To enable a battle-squadron to break our hold and to reinforce the army escort, the invader must either force this covering position by battle, or disturb it so effectively as to permit the reinforcing squadron to evade it. But since _ex hypothesi_ he is trying to invade without securing the command by battle, he will first try to reinforce his transport escort by evasion. At once he is faced with new difficulty. The reinforcement entails dividing his fleet, and this is an expedient so vicious and disturbing to morale, that no invader has ever been found to risk it. And for this reason. To make evasion possible for the detached squadron, he must bring up the rest of his force and engage the attention of the enemy's fleet, and thus unless he is in very great superiority, and by hypothesis is not--he runs the hazard of having his two divisions beaten in detail. This method has sometimes been urged by Governments, but so loud have been the protests both from the fleet and the army, that it has always been dropped, and the invader finds himself at the end of the vicious circle. Unable to reinforce his transport escort sufficiently without dividing his battle-fleet, he is forced to bring his whole force up to the army or abandon the attempt till command shall have been secured by battle.

Thus the traditional British system has never failed to bring about the deadlock, and it will be observed it is founded on making the invading army the primary objective. We keep a hold on it, firstly, by flotilla blockade and defence stiffened as circ.u.mstances may dictate by higher units, and secondly, by battle-fleet cover. It is on the flotilla hold that the whole system is built up. It is the local danger to that hold which determines the amount of stiffening the flotilla demands, and it is the security of that hold which determines the position and action of the battle-fleet.

A few typical examples will serve to show how the system worked in practice under all kinds of conditions. The first scientific attempt to work on two lines of operation, as distinguished from the crude ma.s.s methods of the Middle Ages, was the Spanish enterprise of 1588. Though internal support from Catholic malcontents was expected, it was designed as a true invasion, that is, a continuing operation for permanent conquest. Parma, the military commander-in-chief, laid it down that the Spanish fleet would have not only to protect his pa.s.sage and support his landing, but also "to keep open his communications for the flow of provisions and munition."

In advising the dual line of operation, Parma's original intention was to get his army across by surprise. As always, however, it proved impossible to conceal the design, and long before he was ready he found himself securely blockaded by a Dutch flotilla supported by an English squadron. So firm indeed was the English hold on the army, that for a time it was overdone. The bulk of the English fleet was kept on the line of pa.s.sage under Howard, while Drake alone was sent to the westward. It was only under the great sailor's importunity that the disposition, which was to become traditional, was perfected, and the whole fleet, with the exception of the squadron supporting the flotilla blockade, was ma.s.sed in a covering position to the westward. The normal situation was then set up, and it could only have one result. Surprise was out of the question. Parma could not move till the blockade was broken, nor in face of the covering fleet could the Spanish fleet hope to break it by a sudden intrusion. The vague prospects the Spaniards had conceived of keeping the English fleet away from the line of pa.s.sage by threatening a descent in the West Country or blockading it in a western port would no longer do. No such expedient would release Parma, and the Duke of Medina-Sidonia was ordered to proceed direct to Dunkirk if possible without fighting, there to break the blockade and secure the pa.s.sage.

There was some idea in the King's mind that he would be able to do this without a battle, but Parma and every seasoned Spanish sailor knew that the English fleet would have to be totally defeated before the transports could venture out of port. Such a battle was indeed inevitable, and the English dispositions secured that the Spaniards would have to fight it under every disadvantage which was inherent in the plan of dual lines of operation. The English would secure certain contact at such a distance from the line of pa.s.sage as would permit prolonged hara.s.sing attacks in waters unfamiliar to the enemy and close to their own sources of support and supply. No battle to the death would be necessary until the Spaniards were herded into the confined and narrow waters which the army's pa.s.sage demanded, and where both sections of the British fleet would be ma.s.sed for the final struggle.

They must arrive there dispirited with indecisive actions and with the terrors of unknown and difficult seas at the highest point. All this was no matter of chance. It was inherent in the strategical and geographical conditions. The English dispositions had taken every advantage of them, and the result was that not only was the Spanish army unable even to move, but the English advantages in the final battle were so great, that it was only a lucky s.h.i.+ft of wind that saved the Armada from being driven to total destruction upon the Dutch banks.

In this case, of course, there had been ample time to make the necessary dispositions. It will be well to follow it with an example in which surprise came as near to being complete as it is possible to conceive, and where the arrangements for defence had to be improvised on the spur of the moment.

A case in point was the French attempt of 1744. In that year everything was in favour of the invader. England was undermined with Jacobite sedition; Scotland was restless and threatening; the navy had sunk to what is universally regarded as its worst for spirit, organisation, and command; and the government was in the hands of the notorious "Drunken Administration." For three years we had been making unsuccessful war with Spain, and had been supporting Maria Theresa on the Continent against France, with the result that our home defence was reduced to its lowest ebb. The navy then numbered 183 sail--about equal to that of France and Spain combined--but owing to the strain of the war in the Mediterranean and Transatlantic stations only forty-three, including eighteen of the line, were available for home waters. Even counting all cruising s.h.i.+ps "within call," as the phrase then was, the Government had barely one-fourth of the fleet at hand to meet the crisis. With the land forces it was little better. Considerably more than half the home army was abroad with the King, who was a.s.sisting the Empress-Queen as Elector of Hanover. Between France and England, however, there was no war. In the summer the King won the battle of Dettingen; a formal alliance with Maria Theresa followed in the autumn; France responded with a secret alliance with Spain; and to prevent further British action on the Continent, she resolved to strike a blow at London in combination with a Jacobite insurrection. It was to be a "bolt from the blue" before declaration and in mid-winter, when the best s.h.i.+ps of the home fleet were laid up. The operation was planned on dual lines, the army to start from Dunkirk, the covering fleet from Brest.

The surprise was admirably designed. The port of Dunkirk had been destroyed under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and though the French had been restoring it secretly for some time, it was still unfit to receive a fleet of transports. In spite of the warnings of Sir John Norris, the senior admiral in the service, the a.s.sembling of troops in its neighbourhood from the French army in Flanders could only be taken for a movement into winter quarters, and that no suspicion might be aroused the necessary transports were secretly taken up in other ports under false charter-parties, and were only to a.s.semble off Dunkirk at the last moment. With equal skill the purpose of the naval mobilisation at Brest was concealed. By false information cleverly imparted to our spies and by parade of victualling for a long voyage, the British Government was led to believe that the main fleet was intended to join the Spaniards in the Mediterranean, while a detachment, which was designed to escort the transports, was ostensibly equipped for a raid in the West Indies.

So far as concealment was concerned the arrangement was perfect. Yet it contained within it the fatal ingredient. The army was to strike in the Thames at Tilbury; but complete as was the secrecy, Marshal Saxe, who was to command, could not face the pa.s.sage without escort. There were too many privateers and armed merchantmen always in the river, besides cruisers moving to and fro on commerce-protection duty. The division, therefore, which we supposed to be for the West Indies was to be detached from the Brest fleet after it entered the Channel and was to proceed to join the transports off Dunkirk, while the Marquis de Roquefeuil with the main fleet held what British s.h.i.+ps might be ready in Portsmouth either by battle or blockade.

Nothing could look simpler or more certain of success. The British Government seemed quite asleep. The blow was timed for the first week in January, and it was mid-December before they even began to watch Brest with cruisers regularly. On these cruisers' reports measures were taken to prepare an equal squadron for sea by the new year. By this time nearly twenty of the line were ready or nearly so at the Nore, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and a press was ordered to man them. Owing to various causes the French had now to postpone their venture. Finally it was not till February 6th that Roquefeuil was seen to leave Brest with nineteen of the line. The news reached London on the 12th, and next day Norris was ordered to hoist his flag at Spithead. His instructions were "to take the most effectual measures to prevent the making of any descent upon the kingdoms." It was nothing but news that the young Pretender had left Rome for France that led to this precaution. The Government had still no suspicion of what was brewing at Dunkirk. It was not till the 20th that a Dover smuggler brought over information which at last opened their eyes.

A day or two later the French transports were seen making for Dunkirk, and were mistaken for the Brest fleet. Orders were consequently sent down to Norris to follow them. In vain he protested at the interference. He knew the French were still to the westward of him, but his orders were repeated, and he had to go. Tiding it up-Channel against easterly winds, he reached the Downs and joined the Nore Division there on the 28th. History usually speaks of this false movement as the happy chance which saved the country from invasion. But it was not so. Saxe had determined not to face the Thames s.h.i.+ps without escort. They were ample to destroy him had he done so.

In truth the move which the Government forced on Norris spoilt the campaign and prevented his destroying the Brest fleet as well as stopping the invasion.

Roquefeuil had just received his final orders off the Start. He was instructed by all possible means to bring the main British fleet to action, or at least to prevent further concentration, while he was also to detach the special division of four of the line under Admiral Barraille to Dunkirk to escort the transports. It was in fact the inevitable order, caused by our hold on the army, to divide the fleet. Both officers as usual began to be upset, and as with Medina-Sidonia, they decided to keep company till they reached the Isle of Wight and remain there till they could get touch with Saxe and pilots for the Dover Strait. They were beset with the nervousness that seems inseparable from this form of operation. Roquefeuil explained to his Government that it was impossible to tell what s.h.i.+ps the enemy had pa.s.sed to the Downs, and that Barraille when he arrived off Dunkirk might well find himself in inferiority. He ended in the usual way by urging that the whole fleet must move in a body to the line of pa.s.sage.

On arriving off Portsmouth, however, a reconnaissance in thick weather led him to believe that the whole of Norris's fleet was still there, and he therefore detached Barraille, who reached Dunkirk in safety.

Not knowing that Norris was in the Downs, Saxe began immediately to embark his troops, but bad weather delayed the operation for three days, and so saved the expedition, exposed as it was in the open roads, from destruction by an attack which Norris was on the point of delivering with his flotilla of fires.h.i.+ps and bomb vessels.

The Brest squadron had an equally narrow escape. Saxe and his staff having heard rumours of Norris's movement to the Downs had become seized with the sea-sickness which always seems to afflict an army as it waits to face the dangers of an uncommanded pa.s.sage. They too wanted the whole fleet to escort them, and orders had been sent to Roquefeuille to do as he had suggested. All unconscious of Norris's presence in the Downs with a score of the line more powerful than his own, he came on with the fifteen he had still with his flag to close on Barraille. Norris was informed of his approach, and it was now he wrote his admirable appreciation, already quoted, for dealing with the situation.

"As I think it," he said, "of the greatest consequence to his Majesty's service to prevent the landing of these troops in any part of the country, I have ... determined to anchor without the sands of Dunkirk, where we shall be in the fairest way for keeping them in." That is, he determined to keep hold of the army regardless of the enemy's fleet, and as Saxe's objective was not quite certain, he would do it by close blockade. "But if," he continued, "they should unfortunately get out and pa.s.s in the night and go northward [that is, for Scotland], I intend to detach a superior force to endeavour to overtake and destroy them, and with the remainder of my squadron either fight the French fleet now in the Channel, or observe them and cover the country as our circ.u.mstances will admit of; or I shall pursue the embarkation [that is, follow the transports] with all my strength." This meant he would treat the enemy's army offensively and their fleet defensively, and his plan was entirely approved by the King.

As to which of the two plans he would adopt, the inference is that his choice would depend on the strength of the enemy, for it was reported the Rochefort squadron had joined Roquefeuille. The doubt was quickly settled.

On the morrow he heard that Roquefeuille was at Dungeness with only fifteen of the line. In a moment he seized all the advantage of the interior position which Roquefeuille's necessity to close on the army had given him.

With admirable insight he saw there was time to fling his whole force at the enemy's fleet without losing his hold on the army's line of pa.s.sage.

The movement was made immediately. The moment the French were sighted "General chase" was signalled, and Roquefeuille was within an ace of being surprised at his anchorage when a calm stopped the attack. The calm was succeeded by another furious gale, in which the French escaped in a disastrous _sauve qui peut_, and the fleet of transports was destroyed. The outcome of it all was not only the failure of the invasion, but that we secured the command of home waters for the rest of the war.

The whole attempt, it will be seen, with everything in its favour, had exhibited the normal course of degradation. For all the nicely framed plan and the perfect deception, the inherent difficulties, when it came to the point of execution, had as usual forced a clumsy concentration of the enemy's battle-fleet with his transports, and we on our part were able to forestall it with every advantage in our favour by the simple expedient of a central ma.s.s on a revealed and certain line of pa.s.sage.

In the next project, that of 1759, a new and very clever plan was devised for turning the difficulty. The first idea of Marshal Belleisle, like that of Napoleon, was to gather the army at Ambleteuse and Boulogne, and to avoid the a.s.semblage of transports by pa.s.sing it across the Strait by stealth in flat boats. But this idea was abandoned before it had gone very far for something much more subtle. The fallacious advantage of a short pa.s.sage was dropped, and the army was to start from three widely separated points all in more open waters--a diversionary raid from Dunkirk and two more formidable forces from Havre and the Morbihan in South Brittany. To secure sufficient control there was to be a concentration on the Brest fleet from the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

The new feature, it will be observed, was that our covering fleet--that is, the Western Squadron off Brest--would have two cruiser blockades to secure, one on either side of it. Difficult as the situation looked, it was solved on the old lines. The two divisions of the French army at Dunkirk and Morbihan were held by cruiser squadrons capable of following them over the open sea if by chance they escaped, while the third division at Havre, which had nothing but flat boats for transport, was held by a flotilla well supported. Its case was hopeless. It could not move without a squadron to release it, and no fortune of weather could possibly bring a squadron from Brest. Hawke, who had the main blockade, might be blown off, but he could scarcely fail to bring to action any squadron that attempted to enter the Channel. With the Morbihan force it was different. Any time that Hawke was blown off a squadron could reach it from Brest and break the cruiser blockade. The French Government actually ordered a portion of the fleet to make the attempt. Conflans however, who was in command, protested his force was too weak to divide, owing to the failure of the intended concentration.

Boscawen had caught and beaten the Mediterranean squadron off Lagos, and though the West Indian squadron got in, it proved, as in Napoleon's great plan of concentration, unfit for further service. The old situation had arisen, forced by the old method of defence; and in the end there was nothing for it but for Conflans to take his whole fleet to the Morbihan transports. Hawke was upon him at once, and the disastrous day of Quiberon was the result. The Dunkirk division alone got free, but the smallness of its size, which permitted it to evade the watch, also prevented its doing any harm. Its escort, after landing its handful of troops in Ireland, was entirely destroyed; and so again the attempt of the French to invade over an uncommanded sea produced no effect but the loss of their fleet.

The project of 1779 marked these principles even more strongly, for it demonstrated them working even when our home fleet was greatly inferior to that of the enemy. In this case the invader's idea was to form two expeditionary forces at Cherbourg and Havre, and under cover of an overwhelming combination of the Spanish and French fleets, to unite them at sea and seize Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. It was in the early summer we got wind of the scheme, and two cruiser squadrons and flotillas were at once formed at the Downs and Channel Islands to watch the French coasts and prevent the concentration of transports. Spain had not yet declared war, but she was suspected, and the main fleet, under the veteran Sir Charles Hardy, who had been Norris's second in command in 1744, was ordered to proceed off Brest and prevent any Spanish squadron that might appear from entering that port. The French, however, outmanoeuvred us by putting to sea before Hardy could reach his station and forming a junction with the Spaniards off Finisterre. The combined fleet contained about fifty of the line, nearly double our own. The army of invasion, with Dumouriez for its Chief of the Staff, numbered some 50,000 men, a force we were in no condition to meet ash.o.r.e. Everything, therefore, was in favour of success, and yet in the navy, at least, a feeling of confidence prevailed that no invasion could take place.

The brains of the naval defence were Lord Barham (then Sir Charles Middleton) at the Admiralty and Kempenfelt as Chief of the Staff in the fleet; and it is to their correspondence at this time that we owe some of the most valuable strategical appreciations we possess. The idea of the French was to come into the Channel in their overwhelming force, and while they destroyed or held Hardy, to detach a sufficient squadron to break the cruiser blockade and escort the troops across. Kempenfelt was confident that it could not be done. He was sure that the unwieldy combined ma.s.s could be rendered powerless by his comparatively h.o.m.ogeneous and mobile fleet, inferior as it was, so long as he could keep it at sea and to the westward. The appreciation of the power of a nimble inferior fleet which he wrote at this time has already been given.[23] When the worst of the position was fully known, and the enemy was reported off the mouth of the Channel, he wrote another to Middleton. His only doubt was whether his fleet had the necessary cohesion and mobility. "We don't seem," he said, "to have considered sufficiently a certain fact that the comparative force of two fleets depends much upon their sailing. The fleet that sails fastest has much the advantage, as they can engage or not as they please, and so have always in their power to choose the favourable opportunity to attack.

I think I may safely hazard an opinion that twenty-five sail of the line coppered would be sufficient to hara.s.s and tease this great unwieldy combined Armada so as to prevent their effecting anything, hanging continually upon them, ready to catch at any opportunity of a separation from night, gale or fog, to dart upon the separated, to cut off convoys of provisions coming to them, and if they attempted an invasion, to oblige their whole fleet to escort the transports, and even then it would be impossible to protect them entirely from so active and nimble a fleet."

[23] _Supra_, p. 222.

Here we have from the pen of one of the greatest masters the real key of the solution--the power, that is, of forcing the ma.s.s of the enemy's fleet to escort the transports. Hardy, of course, knew it well from his experience of 1744, and acted accordingly. This case is the more striking, since defence against the threatened invasion was not the whole of the problem he had to solve. It was complicated by instructions that he must also prevent a possible descent on Ireland, and cover the arrival of the great convoys. In reply, on August 1st, he announced his intention of taking station ten to twenty leagues W.S.W. of Scilly, "which I am of opinion," he said, "is the most proper station for the security of the trade expected from the East and West Indies, and for the meeting of the fleets of the enemy _should they attempt to come into the Channel_." He underlined the last words, indicating, apparently, his belief that they would not venture to do so so long as he could keep his fleet to the westward and undefeated. This at least he did, till a month later he found it necessary to come in for supplies. Then, still avoiding the enemy, he ran not to Plymouth, but right up to St. Helen's. The movement is always regarded as an unworthy retreat, and it caused much dissatisfaction in the fleet at the time. But it is to be observed that his conduct was strictly in accordance with the principle which makes the invading army the primary objective. If Hardy's fleet was no longer fit to keep the sea without replenishment, then the proper place to seek replenishment was on the invader's line of pa.s.sage. So long as he was there, invasion could not take place till he was defeated. The allies, it was true, were now free to join their transports, but the prospect of such a movement gave the admiral no uneasiness, for it would bring him the chance of serving his enemy as the Spaniards were served in 1588. "I shall do my utmost," he said, "to drive them up the Channel." It is the old principle. If the worst comes to the worst, so long as you are able to force the covering fleet upon the transports, and especially in narrow waters, invasion becomes an operation beyond the endurable risks of war.

So it proved. On August 14th Count d'Orvilliers, the allied commander-in-chief, had made the Lizard, and for a fortnight had striven to bring Hardy to decisive action. Until he had done so he dared neither enter the Channel with his fleet nor detach a squadron to break the cruiser blockades at the invasion bases. His ineffectual efforts exhausted his fleet's endurance, which the distant concentration at Finisterre had already severely sapped, and he was forced to return impotent to Brest before anything had been accomplished. The allies were not able to take the sea again that campaign, but even had it been in their power to do so, Hardy and Kempenfelt could have played their defensive game indefinitely, and with ever-increasing chances, as the winter drew near, of dealing a paralysing blow.

There was never any real chance of success, though it is true Dumouriez thought otherwise. He believed the enterprise might have gone through if a diversion had been made by the bulk of the fleet against Ireland, and under cover of it a _coup de main_ delivered upon the Isle of Wight, "for which,"

he said, "six or eight of the line would have been enough." But it is inconceivable that old hands like Hardy and Kempenfelt would have been so easily beguiled of their hold on the line of pa.s.sage. Had such a division been detached up the Channel from the allied fleet they would surely, according to tradition, have followed it with either a superior force or their whole squadron.

The well-known projects of the Great War followed the same course. Under Napoleon's directions they ran the whole gamut of every scheme that ever raised delusive hope before. Beginning from the beginning with the idea of stealing his army across in flat-boats, he was met with the usual flotilla defence. Then came his only new idea, which was to arm his transport flotilla to the point of giving it power to force a pa.s.sage for itself. We replied by strengthening our flotilla. Convinced by experiment that his scheme was now impracticable, he set his mind on breaking the blockade by the sudden intrusion of a flying squadron from a distance. To this end various plausible schemes were worked out, but plan after plan melted in his hand, till he was forced to face the inevitable necessity of bringing an overwhelming battle force up to his transports. The experience of two centuries had taught him nothing. By a more distant concentration than had ever been attempted before he believed he could break the fatal hold of his enemy. The only result was so severely to exhaust his fleet that it never could get within reach of the real difficulties of its task, a task which every admiral in his service knew to be beyond the strength of the Imperial Navy. Nor did Napoleon even approach a solution of the problem he had set himself--invasion over an uncommanded sea. With our impregnable flotilla hold covered by an automatic concentration of battle-squadrons off Ushant, his army could never even have put forth, unless he had inflicted upon our covering fleet such a defeat as would have given him command of the sea, and with absolute control of the sea the pa.s.sage of an army presents no difficulties.

Of the working of these principles under modern conditions we have no example. The acquisition of free movement must necessarily modify their application, and since the advent of steam there have been only two invasions over uncommanded seas--that of the Crimea in 1854, and that of Manchuria in 1904--and neither of these cases is in point, for in neither was there any attempt at naval defence. Still there seems no reason to believe that such defence applied in the old manner would be less effective than formerly. The flotilla was its basis, and since the introduction of the torpedo the power of the flotilla has greatly increased. Its real and moral effect against transports must certainly be greater than ever, and the power of squadrons to break a flotilla blockade is more restricted.

Mines, again, tell almost entirely in favour of defence, so much so indeed as to render a rapid _coup de main_ against any important port almost an impossibility. In the absence of all experience it is to such theoretical considerations we must turn for light.

Theoretically stated, the success of our old system of defence depended on four relations. Firstly, there is the relation between the rapidity with which an invasion force could be mobilised and embarked, and the rapidity with which restlessness in foreign ports and _places d'armes_ could be reported; that is to say, the chance of surprise and evasion are as the speed of preparation to the speed of intelligence.

Secondly, there is the relation of the speed of convoys to the speed of cruisers and flotilla; that is to say, our ability to get contact with a convoy after it has put to sea and before the expedition can be disembarked is as the speed of our cruisers and flotilla to the speed of the convoy.