Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  Ill-clothed, poorly paid, too savagely punished, liable to desert and prone to mutiny - British seamen were all of these in 1793. Why then, were they superior to the Frenchmen of whom Ganteaume wrote a like description? The reputation which the British gained between 1793 and 1815, for being the finest seamen and the toughest fighters in the world (though sometimes deftly matched by the new-fledged United States Navy in the short, unnecessary War of 1812) is not to be denied. Nelson might write: 'Nothing can stop their courage', and Wellington say: 'I never found naval men at a loss. Tell them to do anything that is not impossible, and depend upon it, they will do it.' But it was Villeneuve's chief of staff; Captain Prigny, who voiced this damning comment after Trafalgar: 'We were all amazement, wondering what the English seaman could be made of. All ours were either drunk or disabled.' The most significant tribute was, however, paid by Captain Maitland of the Bellerophon after the Emperor's surrender in 1815:

  'He seemed much struck with . . . the men, saying ''that our seamen were surely a different class of people from the French; and that it was owing to them we were always victorious at sea''. I answered, ''I must beg leave to differ with you; I do not wish to take from the merit of our men; but my opinion is that perhaps we owe our advantage to the superior experience of the officers; and I believe the French seamen, if taken as much pains with, would look as well as ours. As British ships are constantly at sea, the officers have nothing to divert their attention from them and their men; and in consequence . . . they are much better trained for the services they have to perform.'' '

  Here lies the key to the superiority of British seamen. Both Fleets were largely manned by men culled from an ignorant, unskilled, unruly rabble: to turn them into an effective instrument of war required discipline, training and, above all, leaders. The Royal Navy had many officers who had learned this lesson: the French Republican Navy had all too few to turn their men into crews who could make proper use of their better designed, more powerfully gunned ships-of-the-line. Napoleon might be able to turn the French revolutionary mob into an all-conquering Army: there was no one to do as much for his Fleet.

  4. Command and Control

  Until the reforms of Sir James Graham, when First Lord in 1830-4, the affairs of the Royal Navy were managed at the centre - not without results despite the maladministration ruthlessly exposed by Lord St Vincent - by three autonomous bodies. Since 1628, policy, plans, operations and the appointment of officers (to use modern terms) had been directed by 'Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral'. This Board, which had its offices in Thomas Ripley's Admiralty building in Whitehall, comprised both Naval Lords and Civilian Lords (the latter drawn from Parliament), under the dominant chairmanship of the First Lord, (who had a seat in the Cabinet) who was sometimes a politician, at others a naval officer of distinction. (14) Matériel, in particular ship-building, repair and maintenance, including administration of the Royal Dockyards, and manning were the separate responsibility of the Navy Board, headed by a naval officer as Controller, with subordinate Victualling and Transport Boards, which had their offices in Somerset House. Guns and ammunition (for both the Navy and the Army) were provided by the Board of Ordnance which, in addition to such arsenals as that at Woolwich, maintained Gun Wharves adjacent to each dockyard.

  With the exception of the handful of flag officers and captains on these Boards: of Port Admirals in home waters (at the Nore, Portsmouth and Plymouth); of Commissioners of H.M. Dockyards at home (Sheerness, Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth) and abroad (at various times, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, Minorca, Corsica, Halifax, Nova Scotia and Antigua), such as Nelson's friend Captain John Moutray, no naval officers served ashore. In particular, all commanders-in-chief flew their flags afloat.

  Time was when there were only three flag officers; a Lord Admiral who commanded the fleet from the centre, with a Vice-Admiral in charge of the van and a Rear-Admiral in charge of the rear. But the single large fleet (some hundred ships) into which the Royal Navy was organized during the Dutch Wars required more than these three: the admiral of the fleet was given a vice-admiral and a rear-admiral to help him command the centre division, now raised to the status of squadron, and the van and rear squadrons were each allowed an admiral in command, likewise with a vice-admiral and a rear-admiral to help them. To distinguish their respective ships, those of the centre squadron flew a red flag at the peak, those of the van squadron a white flag, and those of the rear squadron a blue flag - whence the names, red, white and blue squadrons - with (in order to avoid confusion with the white flag of the Bourbons flown by French ships) the cross of St George in the upper canton nearest the halyards, to which was added that of St Andrew in 1707. The union with Ireland in 1801 was similarly marked by the addition of the cross of St Patrick.

  Flagships were further distinguished: the admiral of the fleet flew the Union Flag at the main masthead: others flew an additional flag of their squadron colour (the white having a St George's cross superimposed upon it), an admiral at the main, a vice-admiral at the fore, a rear-admiral at the mizen. In a commodore's flagship the captain's long, tri-coloured, swallow-tailed pendant was replaced by a broad red one.

  When, at the turn of the eighteenth century, it became necessary to organize the British Navy into a number of fleets and squadrons for service overseas as well as in home waters, the elements of this system were retained. Although the largest of these forces no longer needed as many as nine flag officers, together they required a considerable increase in the flag list: by 1803 this totalled 166. The suffixes red, white and blue were retained only as an indication of relative seniority (e.g. a rear-admiral of the blue was junior to a rear-admiral of the white, and the latter junior to a rear-admiral of the red) when a fleet was no longer necessarily under the command of an admiral of the red. To cite two examples: Nelson had risen no higher than vice-admiral of the white when appointed Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean, at a time when the Commander-in-Chief in the Leeward Islands, the younger Samuel Hood, was only a commodore. The old system of distinguishing flagships was likewise retained; but for an ensign at the peak it became the custom for all ships in a fleet, even though organized into two or three divisions, to fly the colour of the flag officer in supreme command. Much of this was continued until it had become wholly outdated in 1864, when the white ensign was adopted for use by the whole of the Royal Navy, rather than the previously superior red, because the former had been flown by all of Nelson's ships in his finest hour (a tribute copied, perhaps unconsciously, by many other Navies, notably those of Imperial Germany, Imperial Russia, and the USSR); when for the same reason a white flag with the cross of St George superimposed, was adopted by all admirals, those of vice-admirals and rear-admirals being distinguished by the addition of one or two red balls in the cantons nearest the halyards (a far-sighted decision in a day when none could have envisaged flagships with less than three masts such as became a common feature of steam-driven battleships).

  World-wide naval operations could be directed by such a small body as comprised the Admiralty at the turn of the nineteenth century - no more than those who sat around the table in the Board Room, aided by First and Second Secretaries and a mere score of clerks - because there was no strategic system of communication except by letter. These were subject to delays of upwards of twenty-four hours to ships lying in Torbay, a week to one in the Baltic, two weeks or more to one in the Mediterranean, and a month to one in the West Indies. Dispatches from Britain's fleets and squadrons were likewise delayed by days or months in transit to Whitehall. So the First Lord could do little more than issue general instructions, in accordance with the Government's intentions. There were, indeed, considerable advantages in leaving any closer control to the man-on-the-spot, as will be seen later in this book. Contrariwise it had its drawbacks. Pitt had every reason to regret the lack of a speedier methods of communication when, in 1806, Admiral Sir Home Popham exceeded instructions limited to capturing the Cape of Good Hope, to the extent o
f crossing the South Atlantic and attempting to do likewise with Buenos Aires, just when the British Government was determined on establishing friendly relations with Spain's colonies as they struggled for liberation.

  Other European Navies were similarly directed and administered from their capitals, notably the French by a Ministry of Marine, whose fleets and squadrons were comparably organized, but without the complications of red, white and blue. France was, moreover, the first to evolve a method of communication which was a significant step towards the more effective method of controlling maritime operations that was later achieved by the invention of the electric telegraph and cable (brought into use during the Crimean War) and, after the turn of the twentieth century, by radio. Following up an idea suggested by Richard Edgeworth, the English author of such works as Essays on the Construction of Roads and Railways, Claude Chappe erected a chain of 116 'aerial telegraph' stations in 1794, linking Paris with Lyons, each comprising a tower surmounted by a mast to which were affixed a pair of rotating arms, given the name semaphore. This initial chain was subsequently extended to a network of over 500 stations serving 29 towns in more of Europe than France itself, because Napoleon found this speedy visual method of signalling messages of such value for controlling his armies when, as Emperor, he had sometimes to leave the field for Paris.

  Two years later the British Admiralty, having previously ignored Edgeworth's idea, produced its own adaptation of Chappe's system, building chains of telegraph stations between Whitehall and the Downs, with a branch to the Nore; between Whitehall and Spithead; and later, between Whitehall and Torbay and Plymouth. These used an invention of the Reverend Lord George Murray, later Bishop of St Davids: six round holes in a large vertical board, which could be opened and closed by mechanically operated shutters in a sufficient number of combinations to cover both the letters of the alphabet and such standard phrases as: 'The fleet to weigh and proceed down Channel under easy sail.'

  Chappe's and Murray's systems had serious limitations: they could not be used by night, nor in mist or fog. They were, nonetheless, a distinct advance: an order could be passed from the Admiralty to Spithead through eleven intermediate stations in as little as ten minutes; news of an approaching invasion force from the south coast to Whitehall in no more. The semaphore telegraph is, therefore, relevant to those brief periods of Nelson's career, to be covered in later chapters, in which he held commands in Home waters. Moreover, it so far proved its value that, except for the replacement of Murray's clumsy system by one similar to Chappe's in 1816, both networks survived until the electric telegraph came into use some thirty years later, by which time the English chains had been augmented by commercial ones, notably from the City of London to Holyhead for transmitting intelligence and instructions to and from merchant ships inward and outward bound from Liverpool. Hence the numerous Telegraph Hills, Lanes, Inns and Farms which still remain as mute memorials to Chappe's and Murray's inventive brains (e.g. on London's Putney Common).

  Turning to tactical communications, the need for a naval commander to issue orders to, and receive reports from his ships by signal, would seem so essential that nothing is, perhaps, more surprising than the failure to develop any method that was at all adequate before the last decade of the eighteenth century. For more than fifteen hundred years after centurions waved their cloaks to order their galleys to attack the enemies of Rome, navies were content to arrange for every ship (to quote a British instruction of 1558) to 'keep company with the Admiral and twice every day to speak with him', by 'speaking trumpet' or by boat, except for a very small range of intelligence which might have to be conveyed in an emergency - for example, to warn a ship against standing into danger - which was done by 'ringing bells, blowing horns, beating drums and firing guns'.

  There was no real urge to provide anything more as long as naval battles were confused mȇlées, such as those fought by Howard, Hawkins and Drake against Medina Sidonia's Armada. Not until the formal method of fighting in line was evolved in the First Dutch War, did Blake, Deane and Monk devise a code of signalling by flags. Even so, this comprised no more than five, but with different meanings according to the positions in which they were hoisted, at the fore, main or mizen. For example: 'When the Admiral would have the Rear-Admiral of the Red and his division tack and endeavour to gain the wind of the enemy, he will hoist a red flag at the mizen-top masthead.' Indeed, it was not possible to communicate more than such preconceived orders by signal for the better part of the subsequent century in which British tactics were confined to the Permanent Fighting Instructions of 1691. The only development was an increase in the number of flags, simple two or three colour designs being added to the initial single colour ones, to meet the requirements of the Additional Fighting Instructions.

  The next major change was delayed until the second half of the eighteenth century, when Howe realized that, with the growth in the number of Fighting Instructions, it was not easy for his captains to find, from the one book, the meaning of a particular flag. In 1776, he issued to his ships in the West Indies a separate Signal Book, in which a page was allotted to each flag. Below a sketch of it was a list of the positions in which it might be hoisted, and against each a brief reference to the particular Fighting Instruction or other order with which the fleet was required to comply. A separation between tactical instructions and flag signals soon followed, as it had in the French Navy as early as 1693.

  But the tactical innovations of Rodney and others of his age, required more Fighting Instructions than there were flags of a design simple enough to be distinguished at a distance. From Bourdé de Villehuet's Le Manoeuvrier, describing a signal code invented by Mahé de la Bourdonnais (who worsted Commodore Peyton off Negapatam in 1746), Rear-Admiral Richard Kempenfelt (before losing his life in the Royal George disaster) devised his Primer of Speech for Fighting Ships, which was adopted by Howe in 1782. Sixteen flags, hoisted in pairs, referred captains, first to one of the sixteen pages in the book, then to one of the sixteen articles on that page, giving a total of 256 pre-determined meanings. Eight years more and Howe issued his own Signal Book for Ships of War, which reduced the number of flags to ten, but numbered them from zero to nine and allowed as many as four to be deftly hitched to halyards in a single hoist, thereby increasing the number of meanings to 9,999.

  Nelson took full advantage of this considerable step forward; but his tactical genius would not have blossomed to full flower, nor could his immortal signal have been hoisted at Trafalgar, if Popham had not written thus to Keith in 1801:

  'My Lord, I take the liberty of sending you a vocabulary of marine telegraph. I have found it of particular use in receiving intelligence from detached ships, for every proper name and word not in the vocabulary can be spelt. I conceive the advantage to be not only a saving of time and trouble, but of boats. Instead of making signals for officers to be sent to the flagship to take down a message, it might be directly communicated.'

  First issued to ships-of-the-line in 1803, Popham's Telegraphic Signals or Marine Vocabulary was the final breakthrough to complete 'freedom of speech' by signal. In addition to a vocabulary of commonly used words, to each of which was allotted a number so that it could be signalled by a two- or three-flag hoist, this numbered the letters of the alphabet so that other words could be spelt in full.

  To Nelson this new found freedom was so important that, before leaving England for the last time in September 1805, he twice visited the newly-appointed Second Secretary at the Admiralty, John Barrow, to ensure that Popham's code was supplied to all ships in his fleet.

  This attention to detail allowed Captain Blackwood to write to his wife from the frigate Euryalus off Cape Trafalgar on 1 October 1805: 'At this moment we are within four miles of the enemy and talking to Lord Nelson by means of Sir Home Popham's signals.' So, too, did it allow Nelson to turn to his signal lieutenant three weeks later with these words: 'Now I'll amuse the fleet with a signal. Mr Pasco, I wish to say: "England confides that every man wil
l do his duty." ' Popham's book in hand, Lieutenant Pasco answered: 'If your Lordship will permit me to substitute "expects" for "confides" it will be sooner completed, because "expects" is in the vocabulary, and "confides" will have to be spelt.' With Nelson's agreement, a series of flag hoists was run up to the Victory's mastheads: 253 (England) - 269 (expects) - 863 (that) - and so on. Only 'duty' had to be spelt, using four hoists to the eight needed for 'confides', when Nelson was impatient to make one more signal before battle was joined - this last injunction to his captains for which a group was provided in Howe's Signal Book, flags 16 meaning: 'Engage the enemy more closely.'

  5. Strategy and Tactics

  How, in Nelson's time, were these sailing Ships, with their multi-gunned broadsides whose range was only 2,500 yards, which were officered by professionals but crewed by pressed men more than by volunteers, which could be controlled only by such restricted methods as by letter, 'councils of war' and flag signals - how were these Ships used in war?

  Strategy first. Britain’s was conditioned by her island structure and her consequent dependence on the sea. Bishop Adam de Moleyns spelled its essence as far back as 1436: 'Kepe then the sea that is the walle of England.' Bacon added the rest in 1625: 'He that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.' The prime objective was the greatest danger, the enemy battle fleet. In the time of Queen Elizabeth I Spain’s was opposed only when it came so close to England as the Channel. In the Dutch Wars, when the chief threat was to the North Sea and the Channel, the British waited in their own waters until the enemy was reported to have left harbour – usually only in the summer months. But something more was needed in the eighteenth century, when France’s and Spain’s geographical positions laid the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and seas yet further afield, open to forays by their fleets, something which stronger ship construction made possible. The strategy of close blockade was then evolved by the elder Pitt and Lord Anson for use in the Seven Years War; neutralizing the enemy’s fleet, until an opportunity arose to destroy them, by maintaining battle fleets of sufficient size off each of his principle ports, to ensure, so far as possible, that his ships did not put to sea without being brought to action. As already related in Chapter III, much of Britain’s Mediterranean fleet was so employed under Hood and Hotham from 1793 to 1795. And thus did Britain’s storm-tossed ships stand – off Brest, Rochefort, Ferrol and Cadiz, as well as Toulon – between Napoleon and his dream of French dominion of the world, throughout the ten years from 1796 to 1805 in which Nelson played a vital role, and in the ten subsequent years that ended at Waterloo.