Chapter III: War and Its Chief Lessons58

[Footnote 58: Written in 1900. (_Naval_Annual_, 1901.)]

Had the expression 'real war' been introduced into the title of this chapter, its introduction would have been justifiable. The sources--if not of our knowledge of combat, at least of the views which are sure to prevail when we come to actual fighting--are to be found in two well-defined, dissimilar, and widely separated areas. Within one are included the records of war; within the other, remembrance of the exercises and manoeuvres of a time of peace. The future belligerent will almost of a certainty have taken a practical part in the latter, whilst it is probable that he will have had no personal experience of the former. The longer the time elapsed since hostilities were in progress, the more probable and more general does this absence of experience become. The fighting man--that is to say, the man set apart, paid, and trained so as to be ready to fight when called upon--is of the same nature as the rest of his species. This is a truism; but it is necessary to insist upon it, because professional, and especially professorial, strategists and tacticians almost invariably ignore it. That which we have seen and know has not only more, but very much more, influence upon the minds of nearly all of us than that of which we have only heard, and, most likely, heard but imperfectly. The result is that, when peace is interrupted and the fighting man--on both sea and land--is confronted with the problems of practical belligerency, he brings to his attempts at their solution an intellectual equipment drawn, not from knowledge of real war, but from the less trustworthy arsenal of the recollections of his peace training.

When peace, especially a long peace, ends, the methods which it has introduced are the first enemies which the organised defenders of a country have to overcome. There is plenty of evidence to prove that--except, of course, in unequal conflicts between highly organised, civilised states and savage or semi-barbarian tribes--success in war is directly proportionate to the extent of the preliminary victory over the predominance of impressions derived from the habits and exercises of an armed force during peace. That the cogency of this evidence is not invariably recognised is to be attributed to insufficient attention to history and to disinclination to apply its lessons properly. A primary object of the _Naval_Annual_--indeed, the chief reason for its publication--being to assist in advancing the efficiency of the British Navy, its pages are eminently the place for a review of the historical examples of the often-recurring inability of systems established in peace to stand the test of war. Hostilities on land being more frequent, and much more frequently written about, than those by sea, the history of the former as well as of the latter must be examined. The two classes of warfare have much in common. The principles of their strategy are identical; and, as regards some of their main features, so are those of the tactics followed in each. Consequently the history of land warfare has its lessons for those who desire to achieve success in warfare on the sea.

That this has often been lost sight of is largely due to a misapprehension of the meaning of terms. The two words 'military' and 'army' have been given, in English, a narrower signification than they ought, and than they used, to have. Both terms have been gradually restricted in their use, and made to apply only to the land service. This has been unfortunate; because records of occurrences and discussions, capable of imparting much valuable instruction to naval officers, have been passed over by them as inapplicable to their own calling. It may have been noticed that Captain Mahan uses the word 'military' in its right sense as indicating the members, and the most important class of operations, of both land- and sea-forces. The French, through whom the word has come to us from the Latin, use it in the same sense as Mahan. _Un_militaire_ is a member of either a land army or a navy. The 'Naval _and_ Military Intelligence' of the English press is given under the heading 'Nouvelles Militaires' in the French. Our word 'army' also came to us direct from the French, who still apply it equally to both services--_armée_de_ _terre,_armée_de_mer_. It is a participle, and means 'armed,' the word 'force' being understood. The kindred words _armada_ in Spanish and Portuguese, and _armata_ in Italian--equally derived from the Latin--are used to indicate a fleet or navy, another name being given to a land army. The word 'army' was generally applied to a fleet in former days by the English, as will be seen on reference to the Navy Records Society's volumes on the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

This short etymological discussion is not inappropriate here, for it shows why we should not neglect authorities on the history and conduct of war merely because they do not state specially that they are dealing with the naval branch of it.

A very slight knowledge of history is quite enough to make us acquainted with the frequent recurrence of defeats and disasters inflicted on armed forces by antagonists whose power to do so had not been previously suspected. It has been the same on the sea as on the land, though--owing to more copious records--we may have a larger list of events on the latter. It will not be denied that it is of immense importance to us to inquire how this happened, and ascertain how--for the future--it may be rendered highly improbable in our own case. A brief enumeration of the more striking instances will make it plain that the events in question have been confined to no particular age and to no particular country.

It may be said that the more elaborately organised and trained in peace time an armed force happened to be, the more unexpected always, and generally the more disastrous, was its downfall. Examples of this are to be found in the earliest campaigns of which we have anything like detailed accounts, and they continue to reappear down to very recent times. In the elaborate nature of its organisation and training there probably never has been an army surpassing that led by Xerxes into Greece twenty-four centuries ago. Something like eight years had been devoted to its preparation. The minute account of its review by Xerxes on the shores of the Hellespont proves that, however inefficient the semi-civilised contingents accompanying it may have been, the regular Persian army appeared, in discipline, equipment, and drill, to have come up to the highest standard of the most intense 'pipeclay' epoch. In numbers alone its superiority was considerable to the last, and down to the very eve of Platæa its commander openly displayed his contempt for his enemy. Yet no defeat could be more complete than that suffered by the Persians at the hands of their despised antagonists.

As if to establish beyond dispute the identity of governing conditions in both land and maritime wars, the next very conspicuous disappointment of an elaborately organised force was that of the Athenian fleet at Syracuse. At the time Athens, without question, stood at the head of the naval world: her empire was in the truest sense the product of sea-power. Her navy, whilst unequalled in size, might claim, without excessive exaggeration, to be invincible. The great armament which the Athenians despatched to Sicily seemed, in numbers alone, capable of triumphing over all resistance. If the Athenian navy had already met with some explicable mishaps, it looked back with complacent confidence on the glorious achievements of more than half a century previously. It had enjoyed many years of what was so nearly a maritime peace that its principal exploits had been the subjection of states weak to insignificance on the sea as compared with imperial Athens. Profuse expenditure on its maintenance; the 'continued practice' of which Pericles boasted, the peace manoeuvres of a remote past; skilfully designed equipment; and the memory of past glories;--all these did not avail to save it from defeat at the hands of an enemy who only began to organise a fleet when the Athenians had invaded his coast waters.

Ideal perfection as a regular army has never been so nearly reached as by that of Sparta. The Spartan spent his life in the barrack and the mess-room; his amusements were the exercises of the parade ground. For many generations a Spartan force had never been defeated in a pitched battle. We have had, in modern times, some instances of a hectoring soldiery arrogantly prancing amongst populations whose official defenders it had defeated in battle; but nonesuch could vie with the Spartans in the sublimity of their military self-esteem. Overweening confidence in the prowess of her army led Sparta to trample with ruthless disdain on the rights of others. The iniquitous attack on Thebes, a state thought incapable of effectual resentment, was avenged by the defeat of Leuctra, which announced the end of the political supremacy and the military predominance of Sparta.

In the series of struggles with Carthage which resulted in putting Rome in a position enabling her eventually to win the dominion of the ancient world, the issue was to be decided on the water. Carthage was essentially a maritime state. The foundation of the city was effected by a maritime expedition; its dominions lay on the neighbouring coast or in regions to which the Carthaginians could penetrate only by traversing the sea. To Carthage her fleet was 'all in all': her navy, supported by large revenues and continuously maintained, was more of a 'regular' force than any modern navy before the second half of the seventeenth century. The Romans were almost without a fleet, and when they formed one the undertaking was ridiculed by the Carthaginians with an unconcealed assumption of superiority. The defeat of the latter off Mylæ, the first of several, came as a great surprise to them, and, as we can see now, indicated the eventual ruin of their city.

We are so familiar with stories of the luxury and corruption of the Romans during the decline of the empire that we are likely to forget that the decline went on for centuries, and that their armed forces, however recruited, presented over and over again abundant signs of physical courage and vigour. The victory of Stilicho over Alaric at Pollentia has been aptly paralleled with that of Marius over the Cimbri. This was by no means the only achievement of the Roman army of the decadence. A century and a quarter later--when the Empire of the West had fallen and the general decline had made further progress--Belisarius conducted successful campaigns in Persia, in North Africa, in Sicily, and in Italy. The mere list of countries shows that the mobility and endurance of the Roman forces during a period in which little creditable is generally looked for were not inferior to their discipline and courage. Yet they met with disastrous defeat after all, and at the hands of races which they had more than once proved themselves capable of withstanding. It could not have been because the later Roman equipment was inferior, the organisation less elaborate, or the training less careful than those of their barbarian enemies.

Though it is held by some in these days that the naval power of Spain in the latter part of the sixteenth century was not really formidable, that does not appear to have been the opinion of contemporaries, whether Spaniards or otherwise. Some English seamen of the time did, indeed, declare their conviction that Philip the Second's navy was not so much to be feared as many of their fellow-countrymen thought; but, in the public opinion of the age, Spain was the greatest, or indeed the one great, naval state. She possessed a more systematically organised navy than any other country having the ocean for a field of action had then, or till long afterwards. Even Genoa and Venice, whose operations, moreover, were restricted to Mediterranean waters, could not have been served by more finished specimens of the naval officer and the man-of-war's man of the time than a large proportion of the military _personnel_ of the regular Spanish fleet. As Basques, Castilians, Catalans, or Aragonese, or all combined, the crews of Spanish fighting ships could look back upon a glorious past. It was no wonder that, by common consent of those who manned it, the title of 'Invincible' was informally conferred upon the Armada which, in 1588, sailed for the English Channel. How it fared is a matter of common knowledge. No one could have been more surprised at the result than the gallant officers who led its squadrons.

Spain furnishes another instance of the unexpected overthrow of a military body to which long cohesion and precise organisation were believed to have secured invincibility. The Spanish was considered the 'most redoubtable infantry in Europe' till its unexpected defeat at Rocroi. The effects of this defeat were far-reaching. Notwithstanding the bravery of her sons, which has never been open to question, and, in fact, has always been conspicuous, the military superiority of Spain was broken beyond repair.

In the history of other countries are to be found examples equally instructive. The defeats of Almansa, Brihuega, and Villaviciosa were nearly contemporary with the victories of Blenheim and Ramillies; and the thousands of British troops compelled to lay down their arms at the first named belonged to the same service as their fellow-countrymen who so often marched to victory under Marlborough. A striking example of the disappointment which lies in wait for military self-satisfaction was furnished by the defeat of Soubise at Rossbach by Frederick the Great. Before the action the French had ostentatiously shown their contempt for their opponent.

The service which gloried in the exploits of Anson and of Hawke discerned the approach of the Seven Years' war without misgiving; and the ferocity shown in the treatment of Byng enables us now to measure the surprise caused by the result of the action off Minorca. There were further surprises in store for the English Navy. At the end of the Seven Years' war its reputation for invincibility was generally established. Few, perhaps none, ventured to doubt that, if there were anything like equality between the opposing forces, a meeting between the French and the British fleets could have but one result--viz. the decisive victory of the latter. Experience in the English Channel, on the other side of the Atlantic, and in the Bay of Bengal--during the war of American Independence--roughly upset this flattering anticipation. Yet, in the end, the British Navy came out the unquestioned victor in the struggle: which proves the excellence of its quality. After every allowance is made for the incapacity of the Government, we must suspect that there was something else which so often frustrated the efforts of such a formidable force as the British Navy of the day must essentially have been. On land the surprises were even more mortifying; and it is no exaggeration to say that, a year before it occurred, such an event as the surrender of Burgoyne's army to an imperfectly organised and trained body of provincials would have seemed impossible.

The army which Frederick the Great bequeathed to Prussia was universally regarded as the model of efficiency. Its methods were copied in other countries, and foreign officers desiring to excel in their profession made pilgrimages to Berlin and Potsdam to drink of the stream of military knowledge at its source. When it came in contact with the tumultuous array of revolutionary France, the performances of the force that preserved the tradition of the great Frederick were disappointingly wanting in brilliancy. A few years later it suffered an overwhelming disaster. The Prussian defeat at Jena was serious as a military event; its political effects were of the utmost importance. Yet many who were involved in that disaster took, later on, an effective part in the expulsion of the conquerors from their country, and in settling the history of Europe for nearly half a century at Waterloo.

The brilliancy of the exploits of Wellington and the British army in Portugal and Spain has thrown into comparative obscurity that part of the Peninsular war which was waged for years by the French against the Spaniards. Spain, distracted by palace intrigues and political faction, with the flower of her troops in a distant comer of Europe, and several of her most important fortresses in the hands of her assailant, seemed destined to fall an easy and a speedy prey to the foremost military power in the world. The attitude of the invaders made it evident that they believed themselves to be marching to certain victory. Even the British soldiers--of whom there were never many more than 50,000 in the Peninsula, and for some years not half that number--were disdained until they had been encountered. The French arms met with disappointment after disappointment. On one occasion a whole French army, over 18,000 strong, surrendered to a Spanish force, and became prisoners of war. Before the struggle closed there were six marshals of France with nearly 400,000 troops in the Peninsula. The great efforts which these figures indicate were unsuccessful, and the intruders were driven from the country. Yet they were the comrades of the victors of Austerlitz, of Jena, and of Wagram, and part of that mighty organisation which had planted its victorious standards in Berlin and Vienna, held down Prussia like a conquered province, and shattered into fragments the holy Roman Empire.

In 1812 the British Navy was at the zenith of its glory. It had not only defeated all its opponents; it had also swept the seas of the fleets of the historic maritime powers--of Spain, of France, which had absorbed the Italian maritime states, of the Netherlands, of Denmark. Warfare, nearly continuous for eighteen, and uninterrupted for nine years, had transformed the British Navy into an organisation more nearly resembling a permanently maintained force than it had been throughout its previous history. Its long employment in serious hostilities had saved it from some of the failings which the narrow spirit inherent in a close profession is only too sure to foster. It had, however, a confidence--not unjustified by its previous exploits--in its own invincibility. This confidence did not diminish, and was not less ostentatiously exhibited, as its great achievements receded more and more into the past. The new enemy who now appeared on the farther side of the Atlantic was not considered formidable. In the British Navy there were 145,000 men. In the United States Navy the number of officers, seamen, and marines available for ocean service was less than 4500--an insignificant numerical addition to the enemies with whom we were already contending. The subsequent and rapid increase in the American _personnel_ to 18,000 shows the small extent to which it could be considered a 'regular' force, its permanent nucleus being overwhelmingly outnumbered by the hastily enrolled additions. Our defeats in the war of 1812 have been greatly exaggerated; but, all the same, they did constitute rebuffs to our naval self-esteem which were highly significant in themselves, and deserve deep attention. Rebuffs of the kind were not confined to the sea service, and at New Orleans our army, which numbered in its ranks soldiers of Busaco, Fuentes de Onoro, and Salamanca, met with a serious defeat.

When the Austro-Prussian war broke out in 1866, the Austrian commander-in-chief, General Benedek, published an order, probably still in the remembrance of many, which officially declared the contempt for the enemy felt in the Imperial army. Even those who perceived that the Prussian forces were not fit subjects of contempt counted with confidence on the victory of the Austrians. Yet the latter never gained a considerable success in their combats with the Prussians; and within a few weeks from the beginning of hostilities the general who had assumed such a lofty tone of superiority in speaking of his foes had to implore his sovereign to make peace to avoid further disasters.

At the beginning of the Franco-German war of 1870, the widespread anticipation of French victories was clearly shown by the unanimity with which the journalists of various nationalities illustrated their papers with maps giving the country between the French frontier and Berlin, and omitting the part of France extending to Paris. In less than five weeks from the opening of hostilities events had made it certain that a map of the country to the eastward of Lorraine would be practically useless to a student of the campaign, unless it were to follow the route of the hundreds of thousands of French soldiers who were conveyed to Germany as prisoners of war.

It is to be specially noted that in the above enumeration only contests in which the result was unexpected--unexpected not only by the beaten side but also by impartial observers--have been specified. In all wars one side or the other is defeated; and it has not been attempted to give a general _résumé_ of the history of war. The object has been to show the frequency--in all ages and in all circumstances of systematic, as distinguished from savage, warfare--of the defeat of the force which by general consent was regarded as certain to win. Now it is obvious that a result so frequently reappearing must have a distinct cause, which is well worth trying to find out. Discovery of the cause may enable us to remove it in the future, and thus prevent results which are likely to be all the more disastrous because they have not been foreseen.

Professional military writers--an expression which, as before explained, includes naval--do not help us much in the prosecution of the search which is so eminently desirable. As a rule, they have contrived rather to hide than to bring to light the object sought for. It would be doing them injustice to assume that this has been done with deliberate intention. It is much more likely due to professional bias, which exercises over the minds of members of definitely limited professions incessant and potent domination. When alluding to occurrences included in the enumeration given above, they exhibit signs of a resolve to defend their profession against possible imputations of inefficiency, much more than a desire to get to the root of the matter. This explains the unremitting eagerness of military writers to extol the special qualities developed by long-continued service habits and methods. They are always apprehensive of the possibility of credit being given to fighting bodies more loosely organised and less precisely trained in peace time than the body to which they themselves belong.

This sensitiveness as to the merits of their particular profession, and impatience of even indirect criticism, are unnecessary. There is nothing in the history of war to show that an untrained force is better than a trained force. On the contrary, all historical evidence is on the other side. In quite as many instances as are presented by the opposite, the forces which put an unexpected end to the military supremacy long possessed by their antagonists were themselves, in the strictest sense of the word, 'regulars.' The Thebans whom Epaminondas led to victory over the Spartans at Leuctra no more resembled a hasty levy of armed peasants or men imperfectly trained as soldiers than did Napoleon's army which overthrew the Prussians at Jena, or the Germans who defeated the French at Gravelotte and Sedan. Nothing could have been less like an 'irregular' force than the fleet with which La Galissonnière beat Byng off Minorca, or the French fleets which, in the war of American Independence, so often disappointed the hopes of the British. The records of war on land and by sea--especially the extracts from them included in the enumeration already given--lend no support to the silly suggestion that efficient defence can be provided for a country by 'an untrained man with a rifle behind a hedge.' The truth is that it was not the absence of organisation or training on one side which enabled it to defeat the other. If the beaten side had been elaborately organised and carefully trained, there must have been something bad in its organisation or its methods.

Now this 'something bad,' this defect--wherever it has disclosed itself--has been enough to neutralise the most splendid courage and the most unselfish devotion. It has been seen that armies and navies the valour of which has never been questioned have been defeated by antagonists sometimes as highly organised as they were, and sometimes much less so. This ought to put us on the track of the cause which has produced an effect so little anticipated. A 'regular' permanently embodied or maintained service of fighting men is always likely to develop a spirit of intense professional self-satisfaction. The more highly organised it is, and the more sharply its official frontiers are defined, the more intense is this spirit likely to become. A 'close' service of the kind grows restive at outside criticism, and yields more and more to the conviction that no advance in efficiency is possible unless it be the result of suggestions emanating from its own ranks. Its view of things becomes narrower and narrower, whereas efficiency in war demands the very widest view. Ignorant critics call the spirit thus engendered 'professional conservatism'; the fact being that change is not objected to--is even welcomed, however frequent it may be, provided only that it is suggested from inside. An immediate result is 'unreality and formalism of peace training'--to quote a recent thoughtful military critic.

As the formalism becomes more pronounced, so the unreality increases. The proposer or introducer of a system of organisation of training or of exercises is often, perhaps usually, capable of distinguishing between the true and the false, the real and the unreal. His successors, the men who continue the execution of his plans, can hardly bring to their work the open mind possessed by the originator; they cannot escape from the influence of the methods which have been provided for them ready made, and which they are incessantly engaged in practising. This is not a peculiarity of the military profession in either branch--it extends to nearly every calling; but in the profession specified, which is a service rather than a freely exercised profession, it is more prominent. Human thought always has a tendency to run in grooves, and in military institutions the grooves are purposely made deep, and departure from them rigorously forbidden. All exercises, even those designed to have the widest scope, tend to become mere drill. Each performance produces, and bequeaths for use on the next occasion, a set of customary methods of execution which are readily adopted by the subsequent performers. There grows up in time a kind of body of customary law governing the execution of peace operations--the principles being peace-operation principles wholly and solely--which law few dare to disobey, and which eventually obtains the sanction of official written regulations. As Scharnhorst, quoted by Baron von der Goltz, said, 'We have begun to place the art of war higher than military virtues.' The eminent authority who thus expressed himself wrote the words before the great catastrophe of Jena; and, with prophetic insight sharpened by his fear of the menacing tendency of peace-training formalism and unreality, added his conviction that 'this has been the ruin of nations from time immemorial.'

Independently of the evidence of history already adduced, it would be reasonable to conclude that the tendency is strengthened and made more menacing when the service in which it prevails becomes more highly specialised. If custom and regulation leave little freedom of action to the individual members of an armed force, the difficulty--sure to be experienced by them--of shaking themselves clear of their fetters when the need for doing so arises is increased. To realise--when peace is broken--the practical conditions of war demands an effort of which the unfettered intelligence alone seems capable. The great majority of successful leaders in war on both elements have not been considerably, or at all, superior in intellectual acuteness to numbers of their fellows; but they have had strength of character, and their minds were not squeezed in a mould into a commonplace and uniform pattern.

The 'canker of a long peace,' during recent years at any rate, is not manifested in disuse of arms, but in mistaken methods. For a quarter of a century the civilised world has tended more and more to become a drill-ground, but the spirit dominating it has been that of the pedant. There has been more exercise and less reality. The training, especially of officers, becomes increasingly scholastic. This, and the deterioration consequent on it, are not merely modern phenomena. They appear in all ages. 'The Sword of the Saracens,' says Gibbon, 'became less formidable when their youth was drawn from the camp to the college.' The essence of pedantry is want of originality. It is nourished on imitation. For the pedant to imitate is enough of itself; to him the suitability of the model is immaterial. Thus military bodies have been ruined by mimicry of foreign arrangements quite inapplicable to the conditions of the mimics' country. More than twenty years ago Sir Henry Maine, speaking of the war of American Independence, said, 'Next to their stubborn valour, the chief secret of the colonists' success was the incapacity of the English generals, trained in the stiff Prussian system soon to perish at Jena, to adapt themselves to new conditions of warfare.' He pointed out that the effect of this uncritical imitation of what was foreign was again experienced by men 'full of admiration of a newer German system.' We may not be able to explain what it is, but, all the same, there does exist something which we call national characteristics. The aim of all training should be to utilise these to the full, not to ignore them. The naval methods of a continental state with relatively small oceanic interests, or with but a brief experience of securing these, cannot be very applicable to a great maritime state whose chief interests have been on the seas for many years.

How is all this applicable to the ultimate efficiency of the British Navy? It may be allowed that there is a good deal of truth in what has been written above; but it may be said that considerations sententiously presented cannot claim to have much practical value so long as they are absolute and unapplied. The statement cannot be disputed. It is unquestionably necessary to make the application. The changes in naval _matériel_, so often spoken of, introduced within the last fifty years have been rivalled by the changes in the composition of the British Navy. The human element remains in original individual character exactly the same as it always was; but there has been a great change in the opportunities and facilities offered for the development of the faculties most desired in men-of-war's men. All reform--using the word in its true sense of alteration, and not in its strained sense of improvement--has been in the direction of securing perfect uniformity. If we take the particular directly suggested by the word just used, we may remember, almost with astonishment, that there was no British naval uniform for anyone below the rank of officer till after 1860. Now, at every inspection, much time is taken up in ascertaining if the narrow tape embroidery on a frock collar is of the regulation width, and if the rows of tape are the proper distance apart. The diameter of a cloth cap is officially defined; and any departure from the regulation number of inches (and fractions of an inch) is as sure of involving punishment as insubordination.

It is the same in greater things. Till 1853--in which year the change came into force--there was no permanent British naval service except the commissioned and warrant officers. Not till several years later did the new 'continuous service' men equal half of the bluejacket aggregate. Now, every bluejacket proper serves continuously, and has been in the navy since boyhood. The training of the boys is made uniform. No member of the ship's company--except a domestic--is now allowed to set foot on board a sea-going ship till he has been put through a training course which is exactly like that through which every other member of his class passes. Even during the comparatively brief period in which young officers entered the navy by joining the college at Portsmouth, it was only the minority who received the special academic training. Till the establishment of the _Illustrious_ training school in 1855, the great majority of officers joined their first ship as individuals from a variety of different and quite independent quarters. Now, every one of them has, as a preliminary condition, to spend a certain time--the same for all--in a school. Till a much later period, every engineer entered separately. Now, passing through a training establishment is obligatory for engineers also.

Within the service there has been repeated formation of distinct branches or 'schools,' such as the further specialised specialist gunnery and torpedo sections. It was not till 1860 that uniform watch bills, quarter bills, and station bills were introduced, and not till later that their general adoption was made compulsory. Up to that time the internal organisation and discipline of a ship depended on her own officers, it being supposed that capacity to command a ship implied, at least, capacity to distribute and train her crew. The result was a larger scope than is now thought permissible for individual capability. However short-lived some particular drill or exercise may be, however soon it is superseded by another, as long as it lasts the strictest conformity to it is rigorously enforced. Even the number of times that an exercise has to be performed, difference in class of ship or in the nature of the service on which she is employed notwithstanding, is authoritatively laid down. Still more noteworthy, though much less often spoken of than the change in _matériel_, has been the progress of the navy towards centralisation. Naval duties are now formulated at a desk on shore, and the mode of carrying them out notified to the service in print. All this would have been quite as astonishing to the contemporaries of Nelson or of Exmouth and Codrington as the aspect of a battleship or of a 12-inch breech-loading gun.

Let it be clearly understood that none of these things has been mentioned with the intention of criticising them either favourably or unfavourably. They have been cited in order that it may be seen that the change in naval affairs is by no means one in _matériel_ only, and that the transformation in other matters has been stupendous and revolutionary beyond all previous experience. It follows inevitably from this that we shall wage war in future under conditions dissimilar from any hitherto known. In this very fact there lies the making of a great surprise. It will have appeared from the historical statement given above how serious a surprise sometimes turns out to be. Its consequences, always significant, are not unfrequently far-reaching. The question of practical moment is: How are we to guard ourselves against such a surprise? To this a satisfactory answer can be given. It might be summarised in the admonitions: abolish over-centralisation; give proper scope to individual capacity and initiative; avoid professional self-sufficiency.

When closely looked at, it is one of the strangest manifestations of the spirit of modern navies that, though the issues of land warfare are rarely thought instructive, the peace methods of land forces are extensively and eagerly copied by the sea-service. The exercises of the parade ground and the barrack square are taken over readily, and so are the parade ground and the barrack square themselves. This may be right. The point is that it is novel, and that a navy into the training of which the innovation has entered must differ considerably from one that was without it and found no need of it during a long course of serious wars. At any rate, no one will deny that parade-ground evolutions and barrack-square drill expressly aim at the elimination of individuality, or just the quality to the possession of which we owe the phenomenon called, in vulgar speech, the 'handy man.' Habits and sentiments based on a great tradition, and the faculties developed by them, are not killed all at once; but innovation in the end annihilates them, and their not having yet entirely disappeared gives no ground for doubting their eventual, and even near, extinction. The aptitudes still universally most prized in the seaman were produced and nourished by practices and under conditions no longer allowed to prevail. Should we lose those aptitudes, are we likely to reach the position in war gained by our predecessors?

For the British Empire the matter is vital: success in maritime war, decisive and overwhelming, is indispensable to our existence. We have to consider the desirability of 'taking stock' of our moral, as well as of our material, naval equipment: to ascertain where the accumulated effect of repeated innovations has carried us. The mere fact of completing the investigation will help us to rate at their true value the changes which have been introduced; will show us what to retain, what to reject, and what to substitute. There is no essential vagueness in these allusions. If they seem vague, it is because the moment for particularising has not yet come. The public opinion of the navy must first be turned in the right direction. It must be led to question the soundness of the basis on which many present methods rest. Having once begun to do this, we shall find no difficulty in settling, in detail and with precision, what the true elements of naval efficiency are.

IV[59]

THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE NAVY AND THE MERCHANT SERVICE

[Footnote 59: Written in 1898. (_The_Times_.)]

The regret, often expressed, that the crews of British merchant ships now include a large proportion of foreigners, is founded chiefly on the apprehension that a well-tested and hitherto secure recruiting ground for the navy is likely to be closed. It has been stated repeatedly, and the statement has been generally accepted without question, that in former days, when a great expansion of our fleet was forced on us by the near approach of danger, we relied upon the ample resources of our merchant service to complete the manning of our ships of war, even in a short time, and that the demands of the navy upon the former were always satisfied. It is assumed that compliance with those demands was as a rule not voluntary, but was enforced by the press-gang. The resources, it is said, existed and were within reach, and the method employed in drawing upon them was a detail of comparatively minor importance; our merchant ships were manned by native-born British seamen, of whom tens of thousands were always at hand, so that if volunteers were not forthcoming the number wanted could be 'pressed' into the Royal service. It is lamented that at the present day the condition of affairs is different, that the presence in it of a large number of foreigners forbids us to regard with any confidence the merchant service as an adequate naval recruiting ground in the event of war, even though we are ready to substitute for the system of 'impressment'--which is now considered both undesirable and impossible--rewards likely to attract volunteers. The importance of the subject need not be dwelt upon. The necessity to a maritime state of a powerful navy, including abundant resources for manning it, is now no more disputed than the law of gravitation. If the proportion of foreigners in our merchant service is too high it is certainly deplorable; and if, being already too high, that proportion is rising, an early remedy is urgently needed. I do not propose to speak here of that matter, which is grave enough to require separate treatment.

My object is to present the results of an inquiry into the history of the relations between the navy and the merchant service, from which will appear to what extent the latter helped in bringing the former up to a war footing, how far its assistance was affected by the presence in it of any foreign element, and in what way impressment ensured or expedited the rendering of the assistance. The inquiry has necessarily been largely statistical; consequently the results will often be given in a statistical form. This has the great advantage of removing the conclusions arrived at from the domain of mere opinion into that of admitted fact. The statistics used are those which have not been, and are not likely to be, questioned. It is desirable that this should be understood, because official figures have not always commanded universal assent. Lord Brougham, speaking in the House of Lords in 1849 of tables issued by the Board of Trade, said that a lively impression prevailed 'that they could prove anything and everything'; and in connection with them he adopted some unnamed person's remark, 'Give me half an hour and the run of the multiplication table and I'll engage to payoff the National Debt.' In this inquiry there has been no occasion to use figures relating to the time of Lord Brougham's observations. We will take the last three great maritime wars in which our country has been engaged. These were: the war of American Independence, the war with Revolutionary France to the Peace of Amiens, and the war with Napoleon. The period covered by these three contests roughly corresponds to the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first fifteen years of the nineteenth century. In each of the three wars there was a sudden and large addition to the number of seamen in the navy; and in each there were considerable annual increases as the struggle continued. It must be understood that we shall deal with the case of seamen only; the figures, which also were large, relating to the marines not being included in our survey because it has never been contended that their corps looked to the merchant service for any appreciable proportion of its recruits. In taking note of the increase of seamen voted for any year it will be necessary to make allowance also for the 'waste' of the previous year. The waste, even in the latter part of the last century, was large. Commander Robinson, in his valuable work, 'The British Fleet,' gives details showing that the waste during the Seven Years' war was so great as to be truly shocking. In 1895 Lord Brassey (_Naval_Annual_) allowed for the _personnel_ of the navy, even in these days of peace and advanced sanitary science, a yearly waste of 5 per cent., a percentage which is, I expect, rather lower than that officially accepted. We may take it as certain that, during the three serious wars above named, the annual waste was never less than 6 per cent. This is, perhaps, to put it too low; but it is better to understate the case than to appear to exaggerate it. The recruiting demand, therefore, for a year of increased armament will be the sum of the increase in men _plus_ the waste on the previous year's numbers.

The capacity of the British merchant service to supply what was demanded would, of course, be all the greater the smaller the number of foreigners it contained in its ranks. This is not only generally admitted at the present day; it is also frequently pointed out when it is asserted that the conditions now are less favourable than they were owing to a recent influx of foreign seamen. The fact, however, is that there were foreigners on board British merchant ships, and, it would seem, in considerable numbers, long before even the war of American Independence. By 13 George II, c. 3, foreigners, not exceeding three-fourths of the crew, were permitted in British vessels, 'and in two years to be naturalised.' By 13 George II, c. 17, exemption from impressment was granted to 'every person, being a foreigner, who shall serve in any merchant ship, or other trading vessel or privateer belonging to a subject of the Crown of Great Britain.' The Acts quoted were passed about the time of the 'Jenkins' Ear War' and the war of the Austrian Succession; but the fact that foreigners were allowed to form the majority of a British vessel's crew is worthy of notice. The effect and, probably, the object of this legislation were not so much to permit foreign seamen to enter our merchant service as to permit the number of those already there to be increased. It was in 1759 that Lord, then Commander, Duncan reported that the crew of the hired merchant ship _Royal_ _Exchange_ consisted 'to a large extent of boys and foreigners, many of whom could not speak English.' In 1770 by 11 George III, c. 3, merchant ships were allowed to have three-fourths of their crews foreigners till the 1st February 1772. Acts permitting the same proportion of foreign seamen and extending the time were passed in 1776, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, and 1782. A similar Act was passed in 1792. It was in contemplation to reduce the foreign proportion, after the war, to one-fourth. In 1794 it was enacted (34 George III, c. 68), 'for the encouragement of British seamen,' that after the expiration of six months from the conclusion of the war, vessels in the foreign, as distinguished from the coasting, trade were to have their commanders and three-fourths of their crews British subjects. From the wording of the Act it seems to have been taken for granted that the proportion of three-fourths _bona_fide_ British-born seamen was not likely to be generally exceeded. It will have been observed that in all the legislation mentioned, from the time of George II downwards, it was assumed as a matter of course that there were foreign seamen on board our merchant vessels. The United States citizens in the British Navy, about whom there was so much discussion on the eve of the war of 1812, came principally from our own merchant service, and not direct from the American. It is remarkable that, until a recent date, the presence of foreigners in British vessels, even in time of peace, was not loudly or generally complained of. Mr. W. S. Lindsay, writing in 1876, stated that the throwing open the coasting trade in 1855 had 'neither increased on the average the number of foreigners we had hitherto been allowed to employ in our ships, nor deteriorated the number and quality of British seamen.' I have brought forward enough evidence to show that, as far as the merchant service was the proper recruiting ground for the British Navy, it was not one which was devoid of a considerable foreign element.

We may, nevertheless, feel certain that that element never amounted to, and indeed never nearly approached, three-fourths of the whole number of men employed in our 'foreign-going' vessels. For this, between 50,000 and 60,000 men would have been required, at least in the last of the three wars above mentioned. If all the foreign mercantile marines at the present day, when nearly all have been so largely increased, were to combine, they could not furnish the number required after their own wants had been satisfied. During the period under review some of the leading commercial nations were at war with us; so that few, if any, seamen could have come to us from them. Our custom-house statistics indicate an increase in the shipping trade of the neutral nations sufficient to have rendered it impossible for them to spare us any much larger number of seamen. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to resist the conclusion that during the wars the composition of our merchant service remained nearly what it was during peace. It contained a far from insignificant proportion of foreigners; and that proportion was augmented, though by no means enormously, whilst war was going on. This leads us to the further conclusion that, if our merchant service supplied the navy with many men, it could recover only a small part of the number from foreign countries. In fact, any that it could give it had to replace from our own population almost exclusively.

The question now to be considered is, What was the capacity of the merchant service for supplying the demands of the navy? In the year 1770 the number of seamen voted for the navy was 11,713. Owing to a fear of a difficulty with Spain about the Falkland Islands, the number for the following year was suddenly raised to 31,927. Consequently, the increase was 20,214, which, added to the 'waste' on the previous year, made the whole naval demand about 21,000. We have not got statistics of the seamen of the whole British Empire for this period, but we have figures which will enable us to compute the number with sufficient accuracy for the purpose in hand. In England and Wales there were some 59,000 seamen, and those of the rest of the empire amounted to about 21,000. Large as the 'waste' was in the Royal Navy, it was, and still is, much larger in the merchant service. We may safely put it at 8 per cent. at least. Therefore, simply to keep up its numbers--80,000--the merchant service would have had to engage fully 6400 fresh hands. In view of these figures, it is difficult to believe that it could have furnished the navy with 21,000 men, or, indeed, with any number approximating thereto. It could not possibly have done so without restricting its operations, if only for a time. So far were its operations from shrinking that they were positively extended. The English tonnage 'cleared outwards' from our ports was for the years mentioned as follows: 1770, 703,495; 1771, 773,390; 1772 818,108.

Owing to the generally slow rate of sailing when on voyages and to the great length of time taken in unloading and reloading abroad--both being often effected 'in the stream' and with the ship's own boats--the figures for clearances outward much more nearly represented the amount of our 'foreign-going' tonnage a century ago than similar figures would now in these days of rapid movement. After 1771 the navy was reduced and kept at a relatively low standard till 1775. In that year the state of affairs in America rendered an increase of our naval forces necessary. In 1778 we were at war with France; in 1779 with Spain as well; and in December 1780 we had the Dutch for enemies in addition. In September 1783 we were again at peace. The way in which we had to increase the navy will be seen in the following table:--

-------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | Total |
| | Seamen | | | additional |
| | voted for | | | number |
| Year. | the navy | Increase. | 'Waste.' | required. |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| 1774 | 15,646 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1775 | 18,000 | 2,354 | 936 | 3,290 |
| 1776 | 21,335 | 3,335 | 1,080 | 4,415 |
| 1777 | 34,871 | 13,536 | 1,278 | 14,184 |
| 1778 | 48,171 | 13,300 | 2,088 | 15,388 |
| 1779 | 52,611 | 4,440 | 2,886 | 7,326 |
| 1780 | 66,221 | 13,610 | 3,156 | 16,766 |
| 1781 | 69,683 | 3,462 | 3,972 | 7,434 |
| 1782 | 78,695 | 9,012 | 4,176 | 13,188 |
| 1783 | 84,709 | 6,014 | 4,722 | 10,736 |
-------------------------------------------------------

It cannot be believed that the merchant service, with its then dimensions, could have possibly satisfied these great and repeated demands, besides making up its own 'waste,' unless its size were much reduced. After 1777, indeed, there was a considerable fall in the figures of English tonnage 'outwards.' I give these figures down to the first year of peace.

1777 736,234 tons 'outwards.'
1778 657,238 " "
1779 590,911 " "
1780 619,462 " "
1781 547,953 " "
1782 552,851 " "
1783 795,669 " "
1784 846,355 " "

At first sight it would seem as if there had, indeed, been a shrinkage. We find, however, on further examination that in reality there had been none. 'During the [American] war the ship-yards in every port of Britain were full of employment; and consequently new ship-yards were set up in places where ships had never been built before.' Even the diminution in the statistics of outward clearances indicated no diminution in the number of merchant ships or their crews. The missing tonnage was merely employed elsewhere. 'At this time there were about 1000 vessels of private property employed by the Government as transports and in other branches of the public service.' Of course there had been some diminution due to the transfer of what had been British-American shipping to a new independent flag. This would not have set free any men to join the navy.

When we come to the Revolutionary war we find ourselves confronted with similar conditions. The case of this war has often been quoted as proving that in former days the navy had to rely practically exclusively on the merchant service when expansion was necessary. In giving evidence before a Parliamentary committee about fifty years ago, Admiral Sir T. Byam Martin, referring to the great increase of the fleet in 1793, said, 'It was the merchant service that enabled us to man some sixty ships of the line and double that number of frigates and smaller vessels.' He added that we had been able to bring promptly together 'about 35,000 or 40,000 men of the mercantile marine.' The requirements of the navy amounted, as stated by the admiral, to about 40,000 men; to be exact, 39,045. The number of seamen in the British Empire in 1793 was 118,952. In the next year the number showed no diminution; in fact it increased, though but slightly, to 119,629. How our merchant service could have satisfied the above-mentioned immense demand on it in addition to making good its waste and then have even increased is a thing that baffles comprehension. No such example of elasticity is presented by any other institution. Admiral Byam Martin spoke so positively, and, indeed, with such justly admitted authority, that we should have to give up the problem as insoluble were it not for other passages in the admiral's own evidence. It may be mentioned that all the witnesses did not hold his views. Sir James Stirling, an officer of nearly if not quite equal authority, differed from him. In continuation of his evidence Sir T. Byam Martin stated that afterwards the merchant service could give only a small and occasional supply, as ships arrived from foreign ports or as apprentices grew out of their time. Now, during the remaining years of this war and throughout the Napoleonic war, great as were the demands of the navy, they only in one year, that of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, equalled the demand at the beginning of the Revolutionary war. From the beginning of hostilities till the final close of the conflict in 1815 the number of merchant seamen fell only once--viz. in 1795, the fall being 3200. In 1795, however, the demand for men for the navy was less than half that of 1794. The utmost, therefore, that Sir T. Byam Martin desired to establish was that, on a single occasion in an unusually protracted continuance of war, the strength of our merchant service enabled it to reinforce the navy up to the latter's requirements; but its doing so prevented it from giving much help afterwards. All the same, men in large numbers had to be found for the navy yearly for a long time. This will appear from the tables which follow:--

REVOLUTIONARY WAR

-------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | Total |
| | Seamen | | | additional |
| | voted for | | | number |
| Year. | the navy | Increase. | 'Waste.' | required. |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| 1794 | 72,885 | 36,885 | 2,160 | 39,045 |
| 1795 | 85,000 | 12,115 | 4,368 | 16,483 |
| 1796 | 92,000 | 7,000 | 5,100 | 12,100 |
| 1797 | 100,000 | 8,000 | 5,520 | 13,520 |
| 1798 | 100,000 | -- | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| 1799 | 100,000 | -- | 6,000 | 6,000 |
| 1800 | 97,300 | -- | -- | -- |
| 1801 | 105,000 | 7,700 | Absorbed | 7,700 |
| | | | by | |
| | | | previous | |
| | | |reduction.| |
-------------------------------------------------------

NAPOLEONIC WAR

-------------------------------------------------------
| | | | | Total |
| | Seamen | | | additional |
| | voted for | | | number |
| Year. | the navy | Increase. | 'Waste.' | required. |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| | /38,000\ | | | |
| 1803 | \77,600/ | 39,600 | -- | 39,600 |
| 1804 | 78,000 | 400 | 3,492 | 3,892 |
| | | |(for nine | |
| | | | months) | |
| 1805 | 90,000 | 12,000 | 4,680 | 16,680 |
| 1806 | 91,000 | 1,000 | 5,400 | 6,400 |
| 1807 | 98,600 | 7,600 | 5,460 | 13,060 |
| 1808 | 98,600 | -- | 5,460 | 5,460 |
| 1809 | 98,600 | -- | 5,460 | 5,460 |
| 1810 | 113,600 | 15,000 | 5,460 | 20,460 |
| 1811 | 113,600 | -- | 6,816 | 6,816 |
| 1812 | 113,600 | -- | 6,816 | 6,816 |
| 1813 | 108,600 | Reduction | -- | -- |
| | /86,000\ | | | |
| 1814 | \74,000/ | Do. | -- | -- |
-------------------------------------------------------

(No 'waste' is allowed for when there has been a reduction.)

It is a reasonable presumption that, except perhaps on a single occasion, the merchant service did not furnish the men required--not from any want of patriotism or of public spirit, but simply because it was impossible. Even as regards the single exception the evidence is not uncontested; and by itself, though undoubtedly strong, it is not convincing, in view of the well-grounded presumptions the other way. The question then that naturally arises is--If the navy did not fill up its complements from the merchant service, how did it fill them up? The answer is easy. Our naval complements were filled up largely with boys, largely with landsmen, largely with fishermen, whose numbers permitted this without inconvenience to their trade in general, and, to a small extent, with merchant seamen. It may be suggested that the men wanted by the navy could have been passed on to it from our merchant vessels, which could then complete their own crews with boys, landsmen, and fishermen. It was the age in which Dr. Price was a great authority on public finance, the age of Mr. Pitt's sinking fund, when borrowed money was repaid with further borrowings; so that a corresponding roundabout method for manning the navy may have had attractions for some people. A conclusive reason why it was not adopted is that its adoption would have been possible only at the cost of disorganising such a great industrial undertaking as our maritime trade. That this disorganisation did not arise is proved by the fact that our merchant service flourished and expanded.

It is widely supposed that, wherever the men wanted for the navy may have come from, they were forced into it by the system of 'impressment.' The popular idea of a man-of-war's 'lower deck' of a century ago is that it was inhabited by a ship's company which had been captured by the press-gang and was restrained from revolting by the presence of a detachment of marines. The prevalence of the belief that seamen were 'raised'--'recruited' is not a naval term--for the navy by forcible means can be accounted for without difficulty. The supposed ubiquity of the press-gang and its violent procedure added much picturesque detail, and even romance, to stories of naval life. Stories connected with it, if authentic, though rare, would, indeed, make a deep impression on the public; and what was really the exception would be taken for the rule. There is no evidence to show that even from the middle of the seventeenth century any considerable number of men was raised by forcible impressment. I am not acquainted with a single story of the press-gang which, even when much embellished, professes to narrate the seizure of more than an insignificant body. The allusions to forcible impressment made by naval historians are, with few exceptions, complaints of the utter inefficiency of the plan. In Mr. David, Hannay's excellent 'Short History of the Royal Navy' will be found more than one illustration of its inefficient working in the seventeenth century. Confirmation, if confirmation is needed, can be adduced on the high authority of Mr. M. Oppenheim. We wanted tens of thousands, and forcible impressment was giving us half-dozens, or, at the best, scores. Even of those it provided, but a small proportion was really forced to serve. Mr. Oppenheim tells us of an Act of Parliament (17 Charles I) legalising forcible impressment, which seems to have been passed to satisfy the sailors. If anyone should think this absurd, he may be referred to the remarkable expression of opinion by some of the older seamen of Sunderland and Shields when the Russian war broke out in 1854. The married sailors, they said, naturally waited for the impressment, for 'we know that has always been and always will be preceded by the proclamation of bounty.'

The most fruitful source of error as to the procedure of the press-gang has been a deficient knowledge of etymology. The word has, properly, no relation to the use of force, and has no etymological connection with 'press' and its compounds, 'compress,' 'depress,' 'express,' 'oppress,' &c. 'Prest money is so-called from the French word _prest_--that is, readie money, for that it bindeth all those that have received it to be ready at all times appointed.' Professor Laughton tells us that 'A prest or imprest was an earnest or advance paid on account. A prest man was really a man who received the prest of 12d., as a soldier when enlisted.' Writers, and some in an age when precision in spelling is thought important, have frequently spelled _prest_ pressed, and _imprest_ impressed. The natural result has been that the thousands who had received 'prest money' were classed as 'pressed' into the service by force.

The foregoing may be summed up as follows:--

For 170 years at least there never has been a time when the British merchant service did not contain an appreciable percentage of foreigners.

During the last three (and greatest) maritime wars in which this country has been involved only a small proportion of the immense number of men required by the navy came, or could have come, from the merchant service.

The number of men raised for the navy by forcible impressment in war time has been enormously exaggerated owing to a confusion of terms. As a matter of fact the number so raised, for quite two centuries, was only an insignificant fraction of the whole.