II. TYPICAL FORMS OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
In the conduct of naval war all operations will be found to relate to two broad classes of object. The one is to obtain or dispute the command of the sea, and the other to exercise such control of communications as we have, whether the complete command has been secured or not.
It was on the logical and practical distinction between these two kinds of naval object, as we have seen, that the constitution of fleets was based in the fulness of the sailing period, when maritime wars were nearly incessant and were shaping the existing distribution of power in the world. During that period at any rate the dual conception lay at the root of naval methods and naval policy, and as it is also the logical outcome of the theory of war, we may safely take it as the basis of our analysis of the conduct of naval operations.
Practically, of course, we can seldom assert categorically that any operation of war has but one clearly defined object. A battle-squadron whose primary function was to secure command was often so placed as to enable it to exercise control; and, vice versa, cruiser lines intended primarily to exercise control upon the trade routes were regarded as outposts of the battle-fleet to give it warning of the movements of hostile squadrons. Thus Cornwallis during his blockade of Brest had sometimes to loosen his hold in order to cover the arrival of convoys against raiding squadrons; and thus also when Nelson was asked by Lord Barham for his views on cruiser patrol lines, he expressed himself as follows: "Ships on this service would not only prevent the depredations of privateers, but be in the way to watch any squadron of the enemy should they pass on their track.... Therefore intelligence will be quickly conveyed, and the enemy never, I think, lost sight of."15 Instructions in this sense were issued by Lord Barham to the commodores concerned. In both cases, it will be seen, the two classes of operation overlapped. Still for purposes of analysis the distinction holds good, and is valuable for obtaining a clear view of the field.
Take, first, the methods of securing command, by which we mean putting it out of the enemy's power to use effectually the common communications or materially to interfere with our use of them. We find the means employed were two: decision by battle, and blockade. Of the two, the first was the less frequently attainable, but it was the one the British service always preferred. It was only natural that it should be so, seeing that our normal position was one of preponderance over our enemy, and so long as the policy of preponderance is maintained, the chances are the preference will also be maintained.
But further than this, the idea seems to be rooted in the oldest traditions of the Royal Navy. As we have seen, the conviction of the sea service that war is primarily a question of battles, and that battles once joined on anything like equal terms must be pressed to the last gasp, is one that has had nothing to learn from more recent continental discoveries. The Cromwellian admirals handed down to us the memory of battles lasting three, and even four, days. Their creed is enshrined in the robust article of war under which Byng and Calder were condemned; and in the apotheosis of Nelson the service has deified the battle idea.
It is true there were periods when the idea seemed to have lost its colour, but nevertheless it is so firmly embedded in the British conception of naval warfare, that there would be nothing left to say but for the unavoidable modification with which we have to temper the doctrine of overthrow. "Use that means," said its best-known advocate, "when you can and when you must." Devoutly as we may hold the battle faith, it is not always possible or wise to act upon it. If we are strong, we press to the issue of battle when we can. If we are weak, we do not accept the issue unless we must. If circumstances are advantageous to us, we are not always able to effect a decision; and if they are disadvantageous, we are not always obliged to fight. Hence we find the apparently simple doctrine of the battle was almost always entangled in two of the most difficult problems that beset our old admirals. The most thorny questions they had to decide were these. In the normal case of strength, it was not how to defeat the enemy, but how to bring him to action; and in casual cases of temporary weakness, it was not how to sell your life dearly, but how to maintain the fleet actively on the defensive so as at once to deny the enemy the decision he sought and to prevent his attaining his ulterior object.
From these considerations it follows that we are able to group all naval operations in some such way as this. Firstly, on the only assumption we can permit ourselves, namely, that we start with a preponderance of force or advantage, we adopt methods for securing command. These methods, again, fall under two heads. Firstly, there are operations for securing a decision by battle, under which head, as has been explained, we shall be chiefly concerned with methods of bringing an unwilling enemy to action, and with the value to that end of the maxim of "Seeking out the enemy's fleet." Secondly, there are the operations which become necessary when no decision is obtainable and our war plan demands the immediate control of communications. Under this head it will be convenient to treat all forms of blockade, whether military or commercial, although, as we shall see, certain forms of military, and even commercial, blockade are primarily concerned with forcing the enemy to a decision.
Our second main group covers operations to which we have to resort when our relative strength is not adequate for either class of operations to secure command. In these conditions we have to content ourselves with endeavouring to hold the command in dispute; that is, we endeavour by active defensive operations to prevent the enemy either securing or exercising control for the objects he has in view. Such are the operations which are connoted by the true conception of "A fleet in being." Under this head also should fall those new forms of minor counter-attack which have entered the field of strategy since the introduction of the mobile torpedo and offensive mining.
In the third main group we have to deal with the methods of exercising control of passage and communication. These operations vary in character according to the several purposes for which the control is desired, and they will be found to take one of three general forms. Firstly, the control of the lines of passage of an invading army; secondly, the control of trade routes and trade terminals for the attack and defence of commerce; and thirdly, the control of passage and communication for our own oversea expeditions, and the control of their objective area for the active support of their operations.
For clearness we may summarise the whole in tabulated analysis, thus:—
1. Methods of securing command:
(a) By obtaining a decision.
(b) By blockade.
2. Methods of disputing command:
(a) Principle of "the fleet in being."
(b) Minor counter-attacks.
3. Methods of exercising command:
(a) Defence against invasion.
(b) Attack and defence of commerce.
(c) Attack, defence, and support of military expeditions.
CHAPTER TWO
METHODS OF SECURING COMMAND
I. ON OBTAINING A DECISION
Whatever the nature of the war in which we are engaged, whether it be limited or unlimited, permanent and general command of the sea is the condition of ultimate success. The only way of securing such a command by naval means is to obtain a decision by battle against the enemy's fleet. Sooner or later it must be done, and the sooner the better. That was the old British creed. It is still our creed, and needs no labouring. No one will dispute it, no one will care even to discuss it, and we pass with confidence to the conclusion that the first business of our fleet is to seek out the enemy's fleet and destroy it.
No maxim can so well embody the British spirit of making war upon the sea, and nothing must be permitted to breathe on that spirit. To examine its claim to be the logical conclusion of our theory of war will even be held dangerous, yet nothing is so dangerous in the study of war as to permit maxims to become a substitute for judgment. Let us examine its credentials, and as a first step put it to the test of the two most modern instances.
Both of them, it must be noted, were instances of Limited War, the most usual form of our own activities, and indeed the only one to which our war organisation, with its essential preponderance of the naval element, has ever been really adapted. The first instance is the Spanish-American War, and the second that between Russia and Japan.
In the former case the Americans took up arms in order to liberate Cuba from Spanish domination—a strictly limited object. There is no evidence that the nature of the war was ever clearly formulated by either side, but in just conformity with the general political conditions the American war plan aimed at opening with a movement to secure the territorial object. At the earliest possible moment they intended to establish themselves in the west of Cuba in support of the Colonial insurgents. Everything depended on the initiative being seized with decision and rapidity. Its moral and physical importance justified the utmost risk, and such was the conformation of the sea which the American army had to pass, that a strictly defensive or covering attitude with their fleet could reduce the risk almost to security. Yet so unwisely dominated were the Americans by recently rediscovered maxims, that when on the eve of executing the vital movement they heard a Spanish squadron was crossing the Atlantic, their own covering force was diverted from its defensive position and sent away to "seek out the enemy's fleet and destroy it."
Puerto Rico was the most obvious point at which to seek it, and thither Admiral Sampson was permitted to go, regardless of the elementary truth that in such cases what is obvious to you is also usually obvious to your enemy. The result was that not only did the Americans fail to get contact, but they also uncovered their own army's line of passage and paralysed the initial movement. In the end it was only pure chance that permitted them to retrieve the mistake they had made. Had the Spanish squadron put into a Cuban port in railway communication with the main Royalist army, such as Cienfuegos or Havana, instead of hurrying into Santiago, the whole campaign must have been lost. "It appears now," wrote Admiral Mahan, in his Lessons of the War with Spain, "not only that the eastward voyage of our Havana division was unfortunate, but it should have been seen beforehand to be a mistake, because inconsistent with a well and generally accepted principle of war, the non-observance of which was not commanded by the conditions. The principle is that which condemns eccentric movements. By the disregard of rule in this case we uncovered both Havana and Cienfuegos, which it was our object to close to the enemy's division."
Whether or not we regard Admiral Mahan's exposition of the error as penetrating to the real principle that was violated, the movement was in fact not only eccentric, but unnecessary. Had the Americans been content to keep their fleet concentrated in its true defensive position, not only would they have covered their army's line of passage and their blockade of the territorial objective, but they would have had a far better chance of bringing the Spaniards to action. The Spaniards were bound to come to them or remain outside the theatre of operations where they could in no way affect the issue of the war except adversely to themselves by sapping the spirit of their own Cuban garrison. It is a clear case of the letter killing the spirit, of an attractive maxim being permitted to shut the door upon judgment. Strategical offence in this case was not the best defence. "Seeking out the enemy's fleet" was almost bound to end in a blow in the air, which not only would fail to gain any offensive result, but would sacrifice the main defensive plank in the American war plan upon which their offensive relied for success. To stigmatise such a movement as merely eccentric is to pass very lenient censure.
In the Russo-Japanese War we have a converse case, in which judgment kept the aphorism silent. It is true that during the earlier stage of the naval operations the Japanese did in a sense seek out the enemy's fleet, in so far as they advanced their base close to Port Arthur; but this was done, not with any fixed intention of destroying the Russian fleet—there was small hope of that at sea—but rather because by no other means could they cover the army's lines of passage, which it was the function of the fleet to secure, the true offensive operations being on land. Never except once, under express orders from Tokio, did either Admiral Togo or Admiral Kamimura press offensive movements in such a way as to jeopardise the preventive duty with which the war plan charged them. Still less in the later stage, when everything depended on the destruction of the Baltic fleet, did Admiral Togo "seek it out." He was content, as the Americans should have been content, to have set up such a situation that the enemy must come and break it down if they were to affect the issue of the war. So he waited on the defensive, assured his enemy must come to him, and thereby he rendered it, as certain as war can be, that when the moment for the tactical offensive came his blow should be sure and sudden, in overwhelming strength of concentration, and decisive beyond all precedent.
Clearly, then, the maxim of "seeking out" for all its moral exhilaration, for all its value as an expression of high and sound naval spirit, must not be permitted to displace well-reasoned judgment. Trusty servant as it is, it will make a bad master, as the Americans found to their serious jeopardy. Yet we feel instinctively that it expresses, as no other aphorism does, the secret of British success at sea. We cannot do without it; we cannot do with it in its nakedness. Let us endeavour to clothe it with its real meaning, with the true principles that it connotes. Let us endeavour to determine the stuff that it is made of, and for this purpose there is no better way than to trace its gradual growth from the days when it was born of the crude and virile instinct of the earliest masters.
The germ is to be found in the despatch already mentioned which Drake wrote from Plymouth at the end of March in 1588. His arguments were not purely naval, for it was a combined problem, a problem of defence against invasion, that had to be solved. What he wished to persuade the Government was, that the kernel of the situation was not so much Parma's army of invasion in Flanders, as the fleet that was preparing in Spain to clear its passage. The Government appeared to be acting on the opposite view. Howard with the bulk of the fleet was at the base in the Medway within supporting distance of the light squadron that was blockading the Flemish ports in concert with the Dutch. Drake himself with another light squadron had been sent to the westward with some indeterminate idea of his serving as an observation squadron, or being used in the mediaeval fashion for an eccentric counterstroke. Being invited to give his opinion on this disposition, he pronounced it vicious. In his eyes, what was demanded was an offensive movement against the enemy's main fleet. "If there may be such a stay or stop made," he urged, "by any means of this fleet in Spain, so that they may not come through the seas as conquerors, then shall the Prince of Parma have such a check thereby as were meet." What he had in his mind is clearly not so much a decision in the open as an interruption of the enemy's incomplete mobilisation, such as he had so brilliantly effected the previous year. For later on he says that "Next under God's mighty protection the advantage of time and place will be the only and chief means for our good, wherein I most humbly beseech your good lordships to persevere as you have begun, for with fifty sail of shipping we shall do more upon their own coast than a great many more will do here at home; and the sooner we are gone, the better we shall be able to impeach them." He does not say "destroy." "Impeach" meant "to prevent."
Clearly, then, what he had in his mind was a repetition of the previous year's strategy, whereby he had been able to break up the Spanish mobilisation and "impeach" the Armada from sailing. He did not even ask for a concentration of the whole fleet for the purpose, but only that his own squadron should be reinforced as was thought convenient. The actual reasons he gave for his advice were purely moral—that is, he dwelt on the enheartening effect of striking the first blow, and attacking instead of waiting to be attacked. The nation, he urged, "will be persuaded that the Lord will put into Her Majesty and her people courage and boldness not to fear invasion, but to seek God's enemies and Her Majesty's where they may be found."
Here is the germ of the maxim. The consequence of his despatch was a summons to attend the Council. The conference was followed, not by the half measure, which was all he had ventured to advise in his despatch, but by something that embodied a fuller expression of his general idea, and closely resembled what was to be consecrated as our regular disposition in such cases. The whole of the main fleet, except the squadron watching the Flemish coast, was massed to the westward to cover the blockade of Parma's transports, but the position assigned to it was inside the Channel instead of outside, which tactically was bad, for it was almost certain to give the Armada the weather gage. No movement to the coast of Spain was permitted—not necessarily, be it remembered, out of pusillanimity or failure to grasp Drake's idea, but for fear that, as in the recent American case, a forward movement was likely to result in a blow in the air, and to uncover the vital position without bringing the enemy to action.
When, however, the sailing of the Armada was so long delayed Drake's importunity was renewed, with that of Howard and all his colleagues to back it. It brought eventually the desired permission. The fleet sailed for Coruña, where it was known the Armada, after an abortive start from Lisbon, had been driven by bad weather, and something like what the Government feared happened. Before it could reach its destination it met southerly gales, its offensive power was exhausted, and it had to return to Plymouth impotent for immediate action as the Armada finally sailed. When the Spaniards appeared it was still in port refitting and victualling. It was only by an unprecedented feat of seamanship that the situation was saved, and Howard was able to gain the orthodox position to seaward of his enemy.
So far, then, the Government's cautious clinging to a general defensive attitude, instead of seeking out the enemy's fleet, was justified, but it must be remembered that Drake from the first had insisted it was a question of time as well as place. If he had been permitted to make the movement when he first proposed it, there is good reason to believe that the final stages of the Spanish mobilisation could not have been carried out that year; that is to say, the various divisions of the Armada could not have been assembled into a fleet. But information as to its condition was at the time very uncertain, and in view of the negotiations that were on foot, there were, moreover, high political reasons for our not taking too drastic an offensive if a reasonable alternative existed.
The principles, then, which we distil from this, the original case of "seeking out," are, firstly, the moral value of seizing the initiative, and, secondly, the importance of striking before the enemy's mobilisation is complete. The idea of overthrow by a great fleet action is not present, unless we find it in a not clearly formulated idea of the Elizabethan admirals of striking a fleet when it is demoralised, as the Armada was by its first rebuff, or immediately on its leaving port before it had settled down.
In our next naval struggle with the Dutch in the latter half of the seventeenth century the principle of overthrow, as we have seen, became fully developed. It was the keynote of the strategy which was evolved, and the conditions which forced it to recognition also emphasised the principles of seeking out and destroying. It was a case of a purely naval struggle, in which there were no military considerations to deflect naval strategy. It was, moreover, a question of narrow seas, and the risk of missing contact which had cramped the Elizabethans in their oceanic theatre was a negligible factor. Yet fresh objections to using the "seeking out" maxim as a strategical panacea soon declared themselves.
The first war opened without any trace of the new principle. The first campaign was concerned in the old fashion entirely with the attack and defence of trade, and such indecisive actions as occurred were merely incidental to the process. No one appears to have realised the fallacy of such method except, perhaps, Tromp. The general instructions he received were that "the first and principal object was to do all possible harm to the English," and to that end "he was given a fleet in order to sail to the damage and offence of the English fleet, and also to give convoy to the west." Seeing at once the incompatibility of the two functions, he asked for more definite instructions. What, for instance, was he to do if he found a chance of blockading the main English fleet at its base? Was he to devote himself to the blockade and "leave the whole fleet of merchantmen to be a prey to a squadron of fast-sailing frigates," or was he to continue his escort duty? Full as he was of desire to deal with the enemy's main fleet, he was perplexed with the practical difficulty—too often forgotten—that the mere domination of the enemy's battle strength does not solve the problem of control of the sea. No fresh instructions were forthcoming to clear his perplexity, and he could only protest again. "I could wish," he wrote, "to be so fortunate as to have only one of these two duties—to seek out the enemy, or to give convoy, for to do both is attended with great difficulties."
The indecisive campaign which naturally resulted from this lack of strategical grip and concentration of effort came to an end with Tromp's partial defeat of Blake off Dungeness on 30th November 1652. Though charged in spite of his protests with a vast convoy, the Dutch admiral had sent it back to Ostend when he found Blake was in the Downs, and then, free from all preoccupation, he had gone to seek out his enemy.
It was the effect which this unexpected blow had upon the strong military insight of the Cromwellian Government that led to those famous reforms which made this winter so memorable a landmark in British naval history. Monk, the most finished professional soldier in the English service, and Deane, another general, were joined in the command with Blake, and with their coming was breathed into the sea service the high military spirit of the New Model Army. To that winter we owe not only the Articles of War, which made discipline possible, and the first attempt to formulate Fighting Instructions, in which a regular tactical system was conceived, but also two other conceptions that go to make up the modern idea of naval warfare. One was the conviction that war upon the sea meant operations against the enemy's armed fleets in order to destroy his power of naval resistance as distinguished from operations by way of reprisal against his trade; and the other, that such warfare required for its effective use a fleet of State-owned ships specialised for war, with as little assistance as possible from private-owned ships. It was not unnatural that all four ideas should have taken shape together, so closely are they related. The end connotes the means. Discipline, fleet tactics, and a navy of warships were indispensable for making war in the modern sense of the term.
The results were seen in the three great actions of the following spring, the first under the three Generals, and the other two under Monk alone. In the last, he carried the new ideas so far as to forbid taking possession of disabled vessels, that nothing might check the work of destruction. All were to be sunk with as much tenderness for human life as destruction would permit. In like manner the second war was characterised by three great naval actions, one of which, after Monk had resumed command, lasted no less than four days. The new doctrine was indeed carried to exaggeration. So entirely was naval thought centred on the action of the battle-fleets, that no provision was made for an adequate exercise of control. In our own case at least, massing for offensive action was pressed so far that no thought was given to sustaining it by reliefs. Consequently our offensive power suffered periods of exhaustion when the fleet had to return to its base, and the Dutch were left sufficient freedom not only to secure their own trade, but to strike severely at ours. Their counterstrokes culminated in the famous attack upon Sheerness and Chatham. That such an opportunity was allowed them can be traced directly to an exaggeration of the new doctrine. In the belief of the British Government the "St. James's Fight"—the last of the three actions—had settled the question of command. Negotiations for peace were opened, and they were content to reap the fruit of the great battles in preying on Dutch trade. Having done its work, as was believed, the bulk of the battle-fleet for financial reasons was laid up, and the Dutch seized the opportunity to demonstrate the limitations of the abused doctrine. The lesson is one we have never forgotten, but its value is half lost if we attribute the disaster to lack of grasp of the battle-fleet doctrine rather than to an exaggeration of its possibilities.
The truth is, that we had not obtained a victory sufficiently decisive to destroy the enemy's fleet. The most valuable lesson of the war was that such victories required working for, and particularly in cases where the belligerents face each other from either side of a narrow sea. In such conditions it was proved that owing to the facility of retreat and the restricted possibilities of pursuit a complete decision is not to be looked for without very special strategical preparation. The new doctrine in fact gave that new direction to strategy which has been already referred to. It was no longer a question of whether to make the enemy's trade or his fleet the primary objective, but of how to get contact with his fleet in such a way as to lead to decisive action. Merely to seek him out on his own coasts was to ensure that no decisive action would take place. Measures had to be taken to force him to sea away from his own bases. The favourite device was to substitute organised strategical operations against his trade in place of the old sporadic attacks; that is, the fleet took a position calculated to stop his trade altogether, not on his own coasts, but far to sea in the main fairway. The operations failed for lack of provision for enabling the fleet by systematic relief to retain its position, but nevertheless it was the germ of the system which afterwards, under riper organisation, was to prove so effective, and to produce such actions as the "Glorious First of June."
In the third war, after this device had failed again and again, a new one was tried. It was Charles the Second's own conception. His idea was to use the threat of a military expedition. Some 15,000 men in transports were brought to Yarmouth in the hope that the Dutch would come out to bar their passage across the open North Sea, and would thus permit our fleet to cut in behind them. There was, however, no proper coordination of the two forces, and the project failed.
This method of securing a decision was not lost sight of; Anson tried to use it in the Seven Years' War. For two years every attempt to seek out the enemy's fleet had led to nothing but the exhaustion of our own. But when Pitt began his raids on the French coast, Anson, who had little faith in their value for military purposes, thought he saw in them definite naval possibilities. Accordingly when, in 1758, he was placed in command of the Channel Fleet to cover the expedition against St. Malo, he raised the blockade of Brest, and took up a position near the Isle of Batz between the enemy's main fleet and the army's line of passage. The Brest fleet, however, was in no condition to move, and again there was no result. It was not till 1805 that there was any clear case of the device succeeding, and then it was not used deliberately. It was a joint Anglo-Russian expedition in the Mediterranean that forced from Napoleon his reckless order for Villeneuve to put to sea from Cadiz, and so solved the problem out of which Nelson had seen no issue. Lissa may be taken as an analogous case. But there the Italians, treating the territorial attack as a real attack instead of as a strategical device, suffered themselves to be surprised by the Austrian fleet and defeated.
This instance serves well to introduce the important fact, that although our own military expeditions have seldom succeeded in leading to a naval decision, the converse was almost always true. The attempt of the enemy to use his army against our territory has been the most fertile source of our great naval victories. The knowledge that our enemy intends to invade these shores, or to make some serious expedition against our oversea dominions or interests, should always be welcomed. Unless History belie herself, we know that such attempts are the surest means of securing what we want. We have the memories of La Hogue, Quiberon, and the Nile to assure us that sooner or later they must lead to a naval decision, and the chance of a real decision is all we can ask of the Fortune of War.