CHAPTER IV

DISPUTED COMMAND--THE FLEET IN BEING

We have seen that blockade is only a means to an end, that end being the destruction or surrender of the armed forces of the enemy. We have seen also that that end cannot be obtained by blockade alone. All that a military blockade can do is by a judicious disposition of superior force, either to prevent the enemy coming out at all, or to secure that if he does come out he shall be brought to action. The former method is only applicable where the blockader's superiority of force is so great that his adversary cannot venture at the outset to encounter his main fleets in the open, and in that case the establishment of a blockade of this character is for many purposes practically tantamount to securing the command of the sea to the blockader so long as the blockade can be maintained. Such a situation, however, can very rarely arise. There are very few instances of it in naval history, and there are likely to be fewer in the future than there have been in the past. The closest blockade ever established and maintained was that of Brest by Cornwallis from 1803 to 1805, when Napoleon was projecting the invasion of England. Yet it would be too much to say that during those strenuous years Ganteaume never could have got out, had he been so minded, and it is not to be forgotten that for some time during the crisis of the campaign he was forbidden by Napoleon to make the attempt. Moreover, such a situation, even when it does arise, amounts at best to a stalemate, not to a checkmate. It leaves the enemy's fleet "a fleet in being," immobilized and wiped off the board for the moment, but nevertheless so operating as to immobilize the blockading fleet in so far as the chief effort of the latter must be concentrated on maintaining the blockade.

It is necessary to dwell at some length on this conception of "a fleet in being." Admiral Mahan, the great historian of sea power--whose high authority all students of naval warfare will readily acknowledge and rarely attempt to dispute--speaks of it in his _Life of Nelson_ as a doctrine or opinion which "has received extreme expression ... and apparently undergone extreme misconception." On the other hand, Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge tells us in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (_s.v._ "Sea-Power") that "the principle of the 'fleet in being' lies at the bottom of all sound strategy." Of a principle which, according to one high authority, lies at the bottom of all sound strategy, and according to another has received extreme expression and undergone misconception equally extreme, it is plainly essential that a true conception should be obtained before it can be applied to the elucidation of any of the problems of naval warfare. Now what is this much-debated principle? It is best to go to the fountain-head for its elucidation. The phrase "a fleet in being" was first used by Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, in his defence before the Court Martial which tried and acquitted him for his conduct of the naval campaign of 1690, and especially of the Battle of Beachy Head, which was the leading event--none too glorious for British arms--of that campaign. "Both as a strategist and as a tactician," says Admiral Bridge, "Torrington was immeasurably ahead of his contemporaries. The only English admirals who can be placed above him are Hawke and Nelson." Yet he was regarded by many of his contemporaries, and has been represented by many historians, merely as the incapable seaman who failed to win the Battle of Beachy Head, and thereby jeopardized the safety of the kingdom at a very critical time.

The situation was as follows. The country was divided between the partisans of James II. and the supporters of William III. James was in Ireland, where his strength was greatest, and William had gone thither to encounter him, his transit having been covered by a small squadron of six men-of-war, under the command of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. The army was with William in Ireland, and Great Britain could only be defended on land by a hastily levied militia. Its sole effective defence was the fleet; and the fleet, although reinforced by a Dutch contingent, was, for the moment, insufficient to defend it. The chief reliance of James was upon the friendship and forces, naval and military, of Louis XIV. Here was a case in which the security of England against insurrection at home and invasion from abroad depended on the sufficiency and capacity of her fleets to maintain the command of the sea--that is, either to defeat the enemy's naval forces or to keep them at bay, and thereby to deny freedom of transit to any military forces that Louis might attempt to launch against British territory. The French king resolved to make a determined attempt to wrest the command of the sea from his adversaries, and by overpowering the allied fleets of England and Holland in the Channel, to open the way for a successful invasion and a successful insurrection to follow. A great fleet was collected at Brest, under the supreme command of Tourville, and a squadron from Toulon under Chateau-Renault was ordered to join him in the Channel, so as to enable him to threaten London, to foment a Jacobite insurrection in the capital, to land troops in Torbay, and to occupy the Irish Channel in such force as to prevent the return of William and his army.

Now, of course, none of these objects could be attained unless the allied fleets in the Channel and adjacent waters could be either decisively defeated in the open or else so intimidated by the superior forces of the enemy as to decline a conflict and retire to some place of safety. On the broad principle that the paramount object of all warfare is the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy, Tourville, if he felt himself strong enough, was bound to seek out the allied fleet and challenge it to a decisive combat. On the same principle, Torrington, if he felt himself strong enough, was bound to pursue the same aggressive strategy, and by thoroughly beating the French to frustrate all their objects at once. But Torrington was not strong enough and knew that he was not strong enough. He had foreseen the crisis and warned his superiors betimes, entreating them to take adequate measures for dealing with it. They took no such measures. On the contrary, the dispositions they made were calculated rather to aggravate the danger than to avert it. Early in the year a fleet of sixteen sail of the line under Killigrew had been sent in charge of a convoy to Cadiz with orders to prevent, if possible, the exit of the Toulon fleet from the Mediterranean and to follow it up should it make good its escape. This strategy was unimpeachable if only Killigrew could make sure of intercepting Chateau-Renault and defeating him, and if the naval forces left in home waters when Killigrew was detached were sufficient to give a good account of the fleet that Tourville was collecting at Brest. But in its results it was disastrous, for Killigrew, delayed by weather and by the many preoccupations, commercial and strategic, entailed by his instructions was unable either to bar the passage of the Toulon fleet or to overtake it during its progress towards the Channel. Hence Chateau-Renault was able to effect his junction with Tourville unmolested, while Killigrew did not reach Plymouth until after the battle of Beachy Head had been fought, when, Tourville being victorious in the Channel, he was obliged to carry his squadron into the Hamoaze so as to be out of harm's way. Shovel, having escorted the king and his troops to Ireland, was equally unable to carry out his orders to join Torrington in the Channel, since Tourville stood in the way. Hence, although fully alive to the strategic value, in certain contingencies, of the forces under Killigrew and Shovel, Torrington was compelled to rely mainly on the force under his immediate command, the insufficiency of which he had many months before pointed out and vainly implored his superiors to redress.

The result of all this was that no adequate steps were, or could be, taken, to prevent the advance of Tourville in greatly superior force into the Channel. Torrington hoisted his flag in the Downs at the end of May, and even then the Dutch contingent had not joined in the numbers promised. Hence it was impossible to keep scouts out to the westward as the Dutch had undertaken to do, and the first definite intelligence that Torrington received of the advance of the French was the information that on June 23 they were anchored in great force to the westward of the Isle of Wight. Three days later, having in the meanwhile received a Dutch reinforcement bringing his force up to fifty-five sail of the line and twenty fire-ships, he offered them battle in that position, but it was declined. His own comment on this hazardous adventure may here be quoted: "I do acknowledge my first intention of attacking them, a rashness that will admit of no better excuse than that, though I did believe them stronger than we are, I did not believe it to so great a degree.... Their great strength and caution have put soberer thoughts into my head, and have made me very heartily give God thanks they declined the battle yesterday; and indeed I shall not think myself very unhappy if I can get rid of them without fighting, unless it may be upon equaller terms than I can at present see any prospect of.... A council of war I called this morning unanimously agreed we are by all manner of means to shun fighting with them, especially if they have the wind of us; and retire, if we cannot avoid it otherwise, even to the Gunfleet, the only place we can with any manner of probability make our account good with them in the condition we are in. We have now had a pretty good view of their fleet, which consists of near, if not quite, eighty men-of-war fit to lie in a line and thirty fire-ships; a strength that puts me beside hopes of success, if we should fight, and really may not only endanger the losing of the fleet, but at least the quiet of our country too; for if we are beaten they, being absolute masters of the sea, will be at great liberty of doing many things they dare not attempt while we observe them and are in a possibility of joining Vice-Admiral Killigrew and our ships to the westward. If I find a possibility, I will get by them to the westward to join those ships; if not, I mean to follow the result of the council of war."

The strategy here indicated is plain, and, in my judgment, sound. It may be profitably compared with that of Nelson as explained to his captains during his return from the West Indies whither he had pursued Villeneuve. Villeneuve was on his way back to European waters and Nelson hoped to overtake him. He had eleven ships of the line in his fleet and Villeneuve was known to have not less than eighteen. Yet, though Nelson did not shrink from an engagement on his own terms, he was resolved not to force one inopportunely. "Do not," he said to his captains, "imagine I am one of those hot-brained people who fight at immense disadvantage without an adequate object. My object is partly gained"--that is, Villeneuve had been driven out of the West Indies. "If we meet them we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty, sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I do not fall on them immediately; we won't part without a battle. I think they will be glad to leave me alone, if I will let them alone; which I will do, either till we approach the shores of Europe, or they give an advantage too tempting to be resisted." Torrington's attitude was the same as Nelson's, except perhaps that he lacked the ardent faith to say with Nelson, "We won't part without a battle." He would not think himself very unhappy if he could get rid of Tourville without a battle. But the situations of the two men were different. Nelson knew, as he said himself, that "by the time that the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they will do us no harm this year." If, that is, by the sacrifice of eleven ships of his own he could wipe out eighteen or twenty of the enemy, destroying some and disabling as many as he could of the rest, he would leave the balance of naval force still strongly in favour of his country, more strongly in fact than if he fought no action at all. Torrington, on the other hand, knew that "if we are beaten they, being absolute masters of the sea, will be at great liberty of doing many things they dare not attempt while we observe them and are in a possibility of joining Vice-Admiral Killigrew and our ships to the westward." Killigrew and Shovel had twenty-two sail of the line between them, and Torrington, in the dispatch above quoted, had requested that they should be ordered to advance to Portsmouth, whence, if the French pursued him to the eastward, they might be able to join him "over the flats" of the Thames. As he had fifty-five sail of the line himself, with a possibility of reinforcements from Chatham, the concentration off the Thames of the whole of the forces available would have enabled him to encounter Tourville on something like equal terms; and from that, assuredly, he would not have shrunk. Meanwhile he would wait, watch, observe, and pursue a defensive strategy. If Tourville should withdraw to the westward he would follow him and get past him if he could, and in that case, having picked up Killigrew and Shovel, he would be in a position to take the offensive on no very unequal terms and not to part from Tourville without a battle.

But the strategy of Torrington--admirable and unimpeachable as, according to such high authorities as Admiral Bridge and the late Admiral Colomb, it was--did not at all commend itself to Mary and her Council, who, during William's absence in Ireland, were left in charge of the kingdom. They wanted a battle, although Torrington had plainly told them that it could not be a victory and might result in a disastrous and even fatal defeat. "We apprehend," they said in a dispatch purporting to come from Mary herself, "the consequences of your retiring to the Gunfleet to be so fatal, that we choose rather you should, upon any advantage of the wind, give battle to the enemy than retreat further than is necessary to get an advantage upon the enemy." Torrington, of course, never intended to retire to the Gunfleet--which was an anchorage protected by sandbanks off the coast of Essex to the north of the Thames--if he could avoid doing so. But unless he went there, there was no advantage to be got upon the enemy by retreating to the eastward, because there alone could he get reinforcements from Chatham and possibly be joined by Killigrew and Shovel "over the flats"; which is what he meant by saying that the Gunfleet was "the only place we can with any manner of probability make our account with them in the position we are in." On the other hand, if the French gave him an opportunity he would, if he could, get past them to the westward and there join Killigrew and Shovel in a position of much greater advantage. But in his actual situation, not being one of "those hot-brained people who fight at immense disadvantage without an adequate object," he knew that a battle was the last thing which he ought to risk and the first that the French must desire. However, as a loyal seaman, who knew how to obey orders, he did as he was told. The French had pressed him as far as Beachy Head and there he gave battle, taking care so to fight as to risk as little as possible. He was beaten, as he expected to be, and the Dutch, who had been the most hotly engaged, were very severely handled by the French. But though his losses were considerable, for he had to destroy some of his ships to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, he saved his fleet from the destruction which must have befallen it had he fought otherwise than he