According to another officer: ‘Eagerness and heat in action, especially in a first onslaught, ought never to be the cause of a man putting himself so much off his guard . . . as to lift his arm to make a blow with his cutlass . . . But on the contrary, by rushing sword in hand straight out and thereby the guard maintained, and watching his opportunity of making the thrust, the slightest touch of the point is death to his enemy.’ Pikes and tomahawks were also used, as were hand grenades, smoke bombs and ‘stink pots’, largely to confuse the enemy.
Most ships had a marine complement. This dated back to 1664, when they had the role of forming boarding parties as a sea-going infantry. However it was later realized that sailors made more skilled boarders. Instead the marines fulfilled two functions: as a kind of military police, separated from the sailors and used to suppress mutinies and be at hand during punishments; and in amphibious operations, when they usually took the lead.
Navigation was done by compass and the use of seamarks to estimate the position of a ship off the land, as well as the use of log lines – dragged behind the ship – to estimate the ship’s speed, and lead lines to work out the depth of the water in dangerous inshore navigation. Although courses were meticulously plotted, navigation was at best more of an art than a science, as Captain Basil Hall commented: ‘The ship’s place each day, as estimated from the log-board, is noted on the chart; and also the place, as deduced from chronometers and lunar observations. The first is called the place by dead reckoning, the other the true place. The line joining the true places at noon, is called the true track; and that joining the others is called the track or course by dead reckoning. As it happens, invariably, that these two tracks separate very early in the voyage, and never afterwards come together, unless by accident.’
Life at sea was confined, essentially, to four variables for most of the time: the sea; the wind and the sky; the ship; and the crew. The sea was the most unpredictable, and the one that took most getting used to. The disrespect for the sea manifested by those who travel aboard large ships today, or even humble ferries, was never displayed by those in sailing vessels. It was their potential killer at all times, except in extremely fair weather, and a sailor had to grow accustomed to subdue his own initial fear of it and to understand it in all of its moods – gently swelling, growing, mountainous, calming. The construction of these vessels, with their relatively shallow draughts and rounded hulls, which were designed to make them more manageable and manoeuvrable under sail, meant that they were much more sensitive to the movements of the sea than a large ship of today, and finding one’s sea-legs took a considerable time for a newcomer aboard. The sea in all its moods provided, day after day, the only scenery for those aboard, always changing, yet always the same. Similarly, the wind and the sky, of relatively little importance to those on dry land, were a real menacing presence to those aboard ship. Experienced sailors could tell what slight changes in the direction or strength of the wind, or in the height, shape and speed of the clouds overhead, or even in the light, portended.
The ship itself – confined, cramped, creaking, leaking, smelling, uncomfortable, crowded and in constant sickening motion, yet simultaneously home and the very daily means of survival to the crew – loomed much larger in the lives of those aboard. Although most aboard regarded their tasks as a matter of routine, the furling and unfurling of the sails, the handling of the ship, the navigation with only primitive compasses and leads for sounding depths, the judgement of the winds and sea, the techniques of sailing and tacking all required the constant exercise of skills and seamanship.
The strains of living so closely to other men in that confined space, far closer for most than the most crowded of schools or factories, were intense. It mattered hugely whether one’s immediate superior or subordinate or crewmates were pleasant or harsh, fair-minded or vindictive, friends or bullies, cheerful or resentful. To a great extent the intensely formal, layered and disciplined structure of life aboard had evolved to make sure the human parts worked smoothly alongside each other. The little community would have been utterly strange and alien at first, at times even alarming and depressing. But it could be exhilarating: for the challenge was the freedom of roaming the whole world, with strange ports and alien cultures as destinations. A sailor was simultaneously a confined prisoner aboard ship and had the freedom of the entire globe.
There were six principal tasks for the British navy in the war that began in 1793. The first was to blockade the French by watching their principal ports for any sign of movement and giving chase if they emerged and bring them to battle: that the French did not blockade Britain’s ports was a sign of the British fleet’s acknowledged superiority – a curious feature of the war; for French crews were their equals as seamen, and the French ships were actually better built and faster. There seemed to be some curious British mystique both of flair and the sheer courage to engage aggressively in fighting that caused even the French to avoid fighting them wherever possible, break off engagements at the earliest opportunity, and adopt defensive rather than aggressive tactics.
The second task of the British fleets was to deter French invasion; the third to enforce the economic embargo against the French empire; the fourth to provide escorts to convoys bringing vital supplies to Britain and generally to protect Britain’s huge and life-supporting maritime trade; the fifth, to attack the enemy’s trade; and the sixth to transport British military forces and supply them when these engaged in overseas expeditions. Of these tasks, blockade duty was wearying and relentless, while convoy duty was equally tiresome. Raiding enemy ships and coastal ports was glamorous and exciting, if dangerous, and offered the opportunity for advancement and prize money.
The principal admirals of the time have not come down in history as attractive figures. They are usually portrayed as crabby old men with a disciplinary streak, reining back the talents of the dashing young captains of the age – apart from Nelson, of course, who somehow brought the glamour of youth to his admiral’s epaulettes. Yet they had far greater responsibilities, for the safety of whole fleets, and a more difficult task: that of preserving a semblance of tactics and order in battle when winds and seas, the strong personalities of the individual captains, and the sheer difficulty of receiving and reading signals, sometimes at a distance of a few miles, all conspired against order.
The First Lord of the Admiralty was the head of the Admiralty board. During the decades of war with France there were eight of these. At the outset of war the First Lord was the Earl of Chatham, Pitt’s older brother, who showed no great ability in the job and was soon replaced by the competent Earl Spencer. Other politicians who held the post were Viscount Melville, a capable but corrupt Scottish political boss; Thomas Grenville, the able brother of the foreign secretary; Earl Grey, later to become a reforming prime minister; and the competent Charles Yorke.
The two most prominent naval figures were Barham, the extremely skilful organizer of the British navy before the war and, much more controversially, Earl St Vincent, whose abilities as a seaman were among the foremost of his age, but whose crustiness had a knack of making enemies. The commander of the prestigious Channel Fleet at the outset of war was the sixty-eight-year-old Earl Howe, ‘Black Dick’, one of the heroes of the American War. He was succeeded in 1799 by Lord Bridport and then by St Vincent himself the following year. Admiral Cornwallis followed in 1804, and then St Vincent again succeeded after an interval, being followed by the bold and capable George Elphinstone, Viscount Keith.
Admiral Lord Gardner was the most notable commander of the Irish Squadron, and Sir James Saumarez of the Channel Isles Squadron. Keith was a distinguished commander of the North Sea Fleet, while Sir Hyde Parker and the disastrous Lord Gambier commanded the Baltic Fleet.
The hugely important Mediterranean Fleet was variously commanded by the capable but elderly Viscount Hood, another American war veteran, Admiral Hotham, St Vincent, Keith and in 1803 by Nelson himself. He was succeeded by Collingwood, another brillia
nt sailor, Sir Charles Cotton, and the remarkable sea-captain Sir Edward Pellew in 1811. St Vincent (as Sir John Jervis) had also briefly commanded the West Indies Squadron. The East Indies Squadron was at one stage commanded by Keith.
Of this handful of men, Howe, St Vincent, Keith, Saumarez, Hood, Pellew and Collingwood have come down in history as great commanders, with the genius of Nelson at their head. In spite of their crusty reputation, Britain was well served by her admirals during more than two decades of war. Most of these had reached their positions through ability and were not of aristocratic or moneyed origin, unlike the army commanders; only the system of seniority, which made it difficult for younger men to be promoted because of the large number of longer-serving men with a better claim to the few senior positions available, served to block promotion by ability.
It was the captains, however, who were the glamorous stars of the navy. The two most celebrated were, of course, Nelson and later Thomas, Lord Cochrane. Others included Saumarez, Sir John Warren, Sir Sidney Smith, Sir Richard Keats, Sir Robert Barlow, Eliab Harvey, Sir John Murray, Commander John Wright, Samuel Sutton, Manvers Sutton, Commander Nathaniel Dance, Sir William Hoste, Sir Charles Brisbane, Sir Philip Broke, James Bowen, Edward Pellew, Sir Robert Calder, Charles Stirling, Commodore Sir Home Popham and John Hayes. These men were to be in the front line of the British war against revolutionary France.
Chapter 26
THE GLORIOUS FIRST OF JUNE
The war at sea got off to a slow start, damping down the widespread expectation in Britain of instant victories in the country’s natural medium of war. Lord Howe, commander of the Channel Fleet, picked a cautious course, protecting cargo vessels – some fifty in the first four months of the war – with not a single ship thus accompanied being lost, cruising about to deter French attack, keeping trading lines open and seeking to confine the enemy to port without engaging them aggressively.
This phoney war no doubt fitted in well with Pitt’s refusal to pursue the war with any great enthusiasm in the hope that the French would soon conclude peace. Howe remained at Spithead or at the fleet’s anchorage in the spectacular Tor Bay off the coast of Devon. When he set sail in May, he was forced back twice by gales, although he sighted but did not catch a French squadron. The navy was partly blamed by public opinion for the Dunkirk fiasco.
By the beginning of 1794 there was much greater pressure on Howe to achieve a substantial naval victory. Parliament increased spending on the navy by £4 million to £5.5 million. The total fleet was now 279 vessels manned by around 85,000 men. Howe was bitterly attacked for his tactic of ‘open blockade’ – waiting for the French to emerge from Brest and Rochefort from the safety of British waters, which it was feared, might permit French fleets to escape. However, the old man with the hangdog expression was more astute than he appeared. Nelson himself was to call Howe ‘the finest and greatest sea officer the world has ever produced’.
The reason for Nelson’s tribute was the revolution in naval tactics invented by Howe, which was radically to transform the nature of maritime warfare. Before then British fleet actions were rigorously confined to respecting the line-of-battle. Article 20 of the Permanent Instructions stated insistently that ‘none of the ships of the fleet shall pursue any small number of enemy ships till the main body be disabled or retreat’. The British would traditionally attack aggressively ‘from the weather gauge’ – that is the side the wind was blowing from – because the smoke of battle would therefore drift on to the enemy and because the attacker had the advantage of deciding the timing and length of the action. However, this also meant that lower-deck guns would sometimes fire into the sea, because the wind would tilt the ship, and the men on the upper decks were exposed to enemy musket shot. Moreover, the French, who preferred to defend and conserve their ships, could easily break away from the action, which the British could not do without crossing the enemy fleet.
British commanders during the American War of Independence chafed under the Permanent Instructions and tried to stretch them. But it was Howe who finally issued a new set, giving much greater flexibility to commanders: If the fleet was larger than that of the enemy and some ships found themselves without an opponent, they were ‘to distress the enemy, or assist the ships of the fleet, in the best manner that the circumstances will allow’. In certain circumstances, ships were allowed to pursue their beaten opponents out of the line and, above all, provision was made for breaking the enemy’s line, in a highly effective manner, on the orders of the commander-in-chief Howe was to put his innovation to devastating effect, in the first great naval engagement of the revolutionary war with France.
Howe’s objection to close blockades was that they placed too much wear and tear on ships and men as well as being expensive. He was certainly wrong: as the later blockades were to show, they were not just effective in bottling up the enemy, but in steeling the officers and men for war at sea.
On 2 April 1794 a huge convoy of grain worth £5 million departed Virginia for France (the Americans were taking commercial advantage of the war to supply both sides). Some 117 merchantmen were bearing deeply needed food supplies to relieve the French people, who were suffering from the collapse of agricultural production following the Revolution. The French squadrons – one from Brest and one from Rochefort – gave the apparently drowsy Howe the slip and escaped to sea. Their commander, Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, sailed out into the open Atlantic, to meet the convoy and escort it into Brest.
When the two French fleets had escaped, Howe made the second mistake of splitting his forces into one under Admiral Montagu to intercept the colossal convoy while he pursued Villaret-Joyeuse. In fact he should have kept his fleet united and simply gone in pursuit of the French admiral, who was sure to meet the convoy. In his defence he reasoned that the convoy might slip away while the French engaged his fleet – which is in fact what happened anyway.
On 28 May Howe spotted the distant French fleet ten miles away to the south-east on the horizon. He immediately ordered his fleet in pursuit, but could not catch it up. He ordered four of the fastest British ships – the Bellerophon, the Thunderer, the Marlborough and the Russell – in pursuit. They soon caught up with the stragglers of the French fleet, a small two-decker and a massive three-decker, the Revolutionnaire.
The four British ships in turn engaged this giant, disabling its mizzen mast and forcing it to wear and tack before the wind into a pursuing British ship, the Audacious, which although only half its size and gunpower, engaged it closely as night fell. The battle continued to blaze in the darkness, with the smaller British ship fighting with lethal accuracy, losing just three men to the French ship’s 400. The French battleship was almost dismasted, while the British ship was also badly damaged. The fury ceased at about midnight as the two ships drifted slowly apart.
By dawn a fog had descended. When this rose the Audacious observed that two other French ships were coming to the crippled Revolutionnaire’s help, and the British ship sped to Plymouth to escape. The French ship was towed back to Rochefort. It was a good start for the British.
To the south-west, the British fleet of twenty-five ships continued to pursue the evenly matched French fleet of twenty-six on a parallel course, trying to narrow the distance between them. By noon they were exchanging fire, hopelessly out of range of one another. Howe now ordered his ships to tack and make directly for the French line – in complete contravention of classical naval tactics, setting a precedent for Nelson years later. As the naval historian Brian Lavery has observed:
Breaking the enemy line could be a very risky manoeuvre. A ship had to turn towards the opposing line, so that her guns would be largely ineffective while the enemy was at full strength. The structure of her bows was weaker than that of her sides, and she could suffer much damage on the approach. However, once she was passing between two ships of the enemy line, she could use both her broadsides, and the enemy could use none. Having passed through, she could engage the enemy on the other side, which
was probably unprepared. If she had started with the weather gage she would now have the lee gage, and thus cut off the enemy’s retreat. Breaking the line was a tactic which could win battles, and it did at the Saintes, St Vincent and Trafalgar. Perhaps it would have been too risky if the gunnery of other fleets had been as good as that of the British fleet; but in the given circumstances it was highly successful.
Howe’s flagship, the Queen Charlotte, broke through under heavy fire, followed by two others, cutting off the rearguard of six French ships behind. Villaret-Joyeuse promptly wore his own flagship, the Montagne, around (a hugely difficult naval task, not like reversing a car) and came to the rescue. Meanwhile the clumsy Queen Charlotte took too long to turn back to engage the enemy. They escaped, but now the three British ships were to windward and thus held the initiative to attack.
Night descended again, and then a further fog that lasted twenty-six hours. Lieutenant Codrington, peering into the eerie gloom, remarked to Howe that ‘God knows whether we are steering into our own fleet or that of the enemy.’ British lookouts occasionally glimpsed the tops of sails across the ocean of fog, an alarming and sinister scene. Only on the morning of 1 June did the murk clear – to reveal that the French had drifted some six miles to leeward, and had been reinforced by four more line-of-battle ships, giving them a slight edge over the British. As thousands of British sailors for the first time contemplated battle in this floating world of rival fleets, it must have seemed an awesome moment: the British had retained the all-important weather gauge.
Howe resorted to controversial battle tactics – with a difference: he mustered his fleet in a perfect line, each ship to engage a French opponent – so far, so conventional – but ordered each to cut through behind his adversary and engage to leeward, so that the British guns, firing upwards into the French hulls, could be used to maximum effect while most of the French shot fell into the sea. Breaking the line in this way was a complete revolution, and an amazing idea for an old man – although perhaps one he had bottled up all his life until command should fall to him. When the two fleets were four miles apart, he gave the order for the fleet to advance.
The War of Wars Page 23