Chapter TWO: Methods of Securing Command (2)

In the end the disposition did fail to prevent the landing of part of the force intended for Ireland, but it made the venture so difficult that it had to be deferred till mid-winter, and then the weather which rendered evasion possible broke up the expedition and denied it all chance of serious success. It was, in fact, another example of the working of Kempenfelt's rule concerning winter weather. So far as naval defence can go, the disposition was all that was required. The Irish expedition was seen leaving Brest by our inshore cruiser squadron. It was reported to Colpoys, who had the battle-squadron outside, and it was only a dense fog that enabled it to escape. It was, in fact, nothing more than the evasion of a small raiding force--an eventuality against which no naval defence can provide certain guarantee, especially in winter.

It was under wholly different conditions that at the end of 1800 Hawke's system was revived. St. Vincent's succession to the control of the fleet coincided with Napoleon's definite assumption of the control of the destinies of France. Our great duel with him had begun. The measures he was taking made it obvious we were once more facing the old life and death struggle for naval supremacy; we were openly threatened with invasion, and we had a distinct preponderance at sea. In short, we have to recognize the fact that the methods of the Seven Years' War were revived when the problems and factors of that war were renewed. As those problems grew more intense, as they did after the Peace of Amiens, and the threat of invasion became really formidable, so did the rigour of the close blockade increase. Under Cornwallis and Gardner it was maintained in such a way as to deny, so far as human effort could go, all possibility of exit without fighting. In spite of the importance of dealing with the enemy's squadrons in detail no risks were taken to bring Ganteaume to decisive action. Our first necessity was absolute local command. The acuteness of the invasion crisis demanded that the Brest fleet should be kept in port, and every time Ganteaume showed a foot the British admiral flew at him and drove him back. Once only during the continuation of the crisis was the rigour of this attitude relaxed, and that was to deal with what for the moment was the higher object. It was to meet Villeneuve on his return from the West Indies, but even then so nicely was the relaxation calculated, that Ganteaume was given no time to take advantage of it.

The analogy between the conditions of the blockade which St. Vincent inaugurated and those of the Seven Years' War becomes all the more significant when we note that while Cornwallis and Gardner in home waters were pressing close blockade to its utmost limit of rigour, Nelson in the Mediterranean was not using it at all. Yet with him also the chief concern was to prevent an invasion. His main function, as he and his Government saw it, was to prevent a descent from Southern France upon Neapolitan or Levantine territory. Why, then, did he not employ close blockade? It is usually assumed that it was because of his overpowering desire to bring the Toulon squadron to action. Occasional expressions in his letters give colour to such a view, but his dispositions show clearly that his desire to bring the fleet to action was kept in scientific subordination to the defensive duty with which he was charged. Close blockade was the most effectual means of securing this end, but in his case one of the conditions, which we have found always accompanying successful close blockade, was absent. He had no such preponderance of force as would enable him to nourish it up to the point of perfect continuity. In the circumstances the close form was too weak or exhausting for him to use with the force at his disposal.

If this case be not considered conclusive as to Nelson's views, we have a perfectly clear endorsement from his pen in 1801. It is a particularly strong testimony, for he was at the time actually charged with defence against the invasion of England. With several cruiser squadrons he had to prevent the enemy's force issuing from a number of ports extending from Flushing to Dieppe, and he was directing the operations from the Downs. On the approach of winter he was impressed with the inexpediency of attempting to continue a close blockade, and wrote to the Admiralty as follows: "I am of opinion, and submit to their Lordships' better judgment, that care should be taken to keep our squadrons compact and in good order ... under Dungeness to be their principal station.... In fine weather our squadrons to go out and show themselves, but never to risk either being crippled or drawn into the North Sea; thus we shall always be sure of an effective force, ready to act as occasion calls for it."[18]

[18] To Evan Nepean, 4 September 1801. Nicolas, _Nelson Despatches_, iv,
484.

The case of course is not entirely in point, for it concerns the question of direct resistance to invasion and not to securing general command. Its value is that it gives Nelson's views on the broad question of balancing the risks--that is, the risk of relaxing close watch against the risk of destroying the efficiency of the ships by maintaining it too rigorously.

With Nelson holding this view, it is not surprising to find that as late as 1804 naval opinion was not quite settled on the relative advantages of close and open blockade even in the case of threatened invasion. Just a year before Trafalgar was fought, Cornwallis pressed the Admiralty for more strength to enable him to keep his blockade efficient. Lord Melville, who at this time had Barham at his elbow, replied recommending the "policy of relaxing the strictness of blockade, formerly resorted to." He protested the means available were insufficient for "sustaining the necessary extent of naval force, if your ships are to be torn to pieces by an eternal conflict with the elements during the tempestuous months of winter."[19] Melville was craving for a decisive action to end the insupportable strain. "Allow me to remind you," he added, "that the occasions when we have been able to bring our enemy to battle and our fleets to victory have generally been when we were at a distance from the blockading station." In the end, as we know, Cornwallis had his way, and the verdict of history has been to approve the decision for its moral effect alone. Such conflicts must always arise. "War," as Wolfe said, "is an option of difficulties," and the choice must sway to the one side or the other as the circumstances tend to develop the respective advantages of each form. We can never say that close blockade is better than open, or the reverse. It must always be a matter of judgment.

[19] For Barham's final views, 1805, see _Barham Papers_, iii, 90-93.

Are there, then, no principles which we can deduce from the old practice for the strengthening of judgment? Certain broad lines of guidance at least are to be traced. The main question will be, is it to our advantage, in regard to all the strategical conditions, to keep the enemy in and get him to sea for a decision? Presumably it will always be our policy to get a decision as soon as possible. Still that desire may be overridden by the necessity or special advantage of closely blockading one or more of his squadrons. This situation may arise in two ways. Firstly, it may be essential to provide for the local and temporary command of a certain theatre of operations, as when an invasion threatens in that area, or when we wish to pass a military expedition across it, or from special exigencies in regard to the attack or defence of commerce. Secondly, even where we are seeking a great decision, we may blockade one squadron closely in order to induce a decision at the point most advantageous to ourselves; that is to say, we may blockade one or more squadrons in order to induce the enemy to attempt with one or more other squadrons to break that blockade. In this way we may lead him either to expose himself to be struck in detail, or to concentrate where we desire his concentration.

For any of these reasons we may decide that the best way of realising our object is to use close blockade, but the matter does not end there. We have still to consider whether close blockade is within the limit of the force we have available, and whether it is the best method of developing the fullest potentialities of that force. Close blockade being the more exhausting form will require the greater strength; we cannot blockade closely for any length of time without a force relatively superior; but if by open blockade of a squadron we permit it to put to sea with contact assured, we know that, even with a slightly inferior force, we can so deal with it as to prevent its getting local control sufficient to break down our mobile flotilla defence or to interfere seriously with our trade.

Finally, there is the question of risk. In the old days, before free movement and wireless telegraphy, and before the flotilla had acquired battle power, there was always to be faced the risk of not getting contact in time to prevent mischief. This consideration was specially dominant where the enemy had a squadron within or near the critical theatre of operations. Therefore when the invasion threatened, our developed policy was to blockade Brest closely at almost any sacrifice. There was always a vague possibility that by evasion or chance of wind a squadron so close to the line of invasion might get sufficient temporary command in the vital area before it could be brought to action. It was a possibility that was never realised in the Narrow Seas, and since mobility of fleets and means of distant communication have so greatly increased in range and certainty, and since the power of resistance in the flotilla has become so high, the risk is probably much less than ever, and the field for open blockade is consequently less restricted.

There is no need, however, to accept these principles as incontrovertible. Even if we take the great blockade of 1803-5, which has most firmly dominated thought on the subject ever since, it may be argued with some plausibility that the situation could have been solved more quickly and effectually by letting Ganteaume get out from Brest into the open, at least as far as Admiral Togo was forced to permit the Russians to emerge from Port Arthur, though his reasons for keeping them in were even stronger than ours in 1805. But in any case, the whole trend of the evidence will admit no doubt as to the inherent weakness of close blockade as a form of war. As under modern developments the possibilities of open blockade have increased, so the difficulties and dangers of close blockade have certainly not decreased. It is also probable that certain advantages which in the sailing era went far to compensate for its weakness have lost much of their force. A sailing fleet cooped up in port not only rapidly lost its spirit, but, being barred from sea-training, could not be kept in a condition of efficiency, whereas the blockading fleet was quickly raised to the highest temper by the stress of vigilance and danger that was its incessant portion. So long as the strain did not pass the limit of human endurance, it was all to the good. In the old days, with very moderate reliefs, the limit was never reached, and the sacrifices that were made to those exhausting vigils were rewarded twentyfold in exuberant confidence on the day of battle. Can we expect the same compensation now? Will the balance of strength and weakness remain as it used to be? In the face of the vast change of conditions and the thinness of experience, it is to general principles we must turn for the answer.

What, in fact, is the inherent weakness of close blockade? Strategical theory will at once reply that it is an operation which involves "an arrest of the offensive," a situation which is usually taken to exhibit every kind of drawback. Close blockade is essentially an offensive operation, although its object is usually negative; that is, it is a forward movement to prevent the enemy carrying out some offensive operation either direct or by way of counterstroke. So far the common tendency to confuse "Seeking out the enemy's fleet" with "Making the enemy's coast your frontier" may be condoned. But the two operations are widely different in that they have different objectives. In "seeking out," our objective is the enemy's armed force. In "making the enemy's coast our frontier," the objective is inseparable from the ulterior object of the naval war. In this case the objective is the common communications. By establishing a blockade we operate offensively against those communications. We occupy them, and then we can do no more. Our offensive is arrested; we cannot carry it on to the destruction of the enemy's fleet. We have to wait in a defensive attitude, holding the communications we have seized, till he chooses to attack in order to break our hold; and during that period of arrest the advantage of surprise--the all-important advantage in war--passes by a well recognised rule to our enemy. We, in fact, are held upon the defensive, with none of the material advantages of the defensive. The moral advantage of having taken the initiative remains, but that is all. The advantage which we thus gain will of course have the same kind of depressing effect upon the blockaded fleet as it had of old, but scarcely in so high a degree. The degradation of a steam fleet in port can scarcely be so rapid or debilitating as it was when nine-tenths of seamanship lay in the smart handling of sails. For the blockading fleet it is also true that the effects of weather, which formerly were the main cause of wear and tear, can scarcely be so severe. But, on the other hand, the physical strain to officers and men, and the difficulty of supply, will be far greater, so long at least as coal is the chief fuel. The wind no longer sets a measure on the enemy's movements. Vigilance close and unremitting beyond all our predecessors knew is the portion of the blockaders to prevent surprise. Furthermore, in the old days surprise meant at worst the enemy's escape; now it may mean our own destruction by mine or torpedo. It is unnecessary to labour the point. It is too obvious that a close blockade of the old type exhibits under present conditions the defects of "arrested offence" in so high a degree as practically to prohibit its use.

What, then, can be done? Must we rest content in all situations with Howe's system, which riper experience condemned for cases of extreme necessity? Cannot the old close blockade be given a modern form? Assuredly it can. In old days the shoreward limit of the blockading fleet was just beyond the range of the coast batteries, and this position it held continuously by means of an inshore squadron. In these days of mobile defence that limit is by analogy the night range of destroyers and the day range of submarines, that is, half the distance they can traverse between dark and dawn or dawn and dark respectively, unless within that limit a torpedo-proof base can be established. A blockade of this nature will correspond in principle to a close blockade of the old type; nor in practice, as was proved in the Japanese blockade of Port Arthur, will its incidents be materially different. The distance at which the battle-squadron must keep will seem at first sight to deny it certainty of immediate contact--the essence of close blockade. But in truth other new factors already noticed will reduce that distance relatively. Quicker and more certain means of communication between the admiral and his scouts, the absolute freedom of movement and the power of delaying the enemy's actual exit by mining, may go far to bring things back to their old relations. At Port Arthur they did so entirely. If then, as in that case, our paramount object is to keep the enemy in, there seems still no reason why we should not make our dispositions on the principle of close blockade. Distances will be greater, but that is all.

Nor must it be forgotten that for a squadron to take station off a port in the old manner is not the only means of close blockade. It may still effect its purpose, at least temporarily, by supporting mining vessels or block ships--"sinkers," as they used to be called. The latter expedient, it is true, had little success in the latest experiments, but even in the Russo-Japanese War its possibilities were by no means exhausted. We have therefore to conclude that where the strategical conditions call obviously for close blockade, our plan of operations will be modified in that direction with the means still at our disposal.

If, however, our object is not so sharply defined, if in spite of our desire to deny the enemy the sea we are ready to take risks in order to bring about a decision, the case is not so clear. It will be observed that the looseness which the new conditions force upon close blockade-increasing as they are in intensity year by year-must tend more and more to approximate it in practice to open blockade. The question will therefore present itself whether it would not be more in accordance with the fundamental elements of strength to adopt open blockade frankly for all purposes. We should thus substitute a true defensive disposition for an arrested offence, and, theoretically, that in itself is a great advantage. The practical benefits, whatever the correlative drawbacks, are equally clear, nor are they less great now than they appeared to Howe and Kempenfelt. We avoid exhaustion of machinery, coal, and men, and this, at least for the necessary flotilla screen, will be greater than anything that had to be faced in former days. We have at least the opportunity of occupying a position secure from surprise, and of keeping the fleet continually up to its highest striking energy. Finally, assuming the geographical conditions give reasonable promise of contact, a quick decision, which modern war demands with ever greater insistence, is more probable. In such a disposition of course contact can rarely be made certain. The enemy, whom the hypothesis of blockade assumes to be anxious to avoid action, will always have a chance of evasion, but this will always be so, even with the closest blockade now possible. We may even go further and claim for open blockade that in favourable conditions it may give the better chance of contact. For by adopting the principle of open blockade we shall have, in accordance with the theory of defence, the further advantages of being able the better to conceal our dispositions, and consequently to lay traps for our enemy, such as that which Nelson prepared for Villeneuve in the Gulf of Lyons in 1805.

The objection to such a course which appears to have the most weight with current opinion is the moral one, which is inseparable from all deliberate choices of the defensive. If the watching fleet remains in a home fortified base, it may be assumed that the usual moral degradation will set in. But the method does not entail the inglorious security of such a base. A sound position may well be found at a spot such as Admiral Togo occupied while waiting for the Baltic fleet, and in that case there was no observable degradation of any kind. Nor is there much evidence that this objection weighed materially with the opponents of Howe's view. Their objection was of a purely physical kind. Open blockade left the enemy too much freedom to raid our trade routes. The watching system might be sufficient to keep an unwilling battle-fleet in port or to bring a more adventurous one to action, but it could not control raiding squadrons. This was certainly Barham's objection. "If," he wrote to Pitt in 1794, "the French should have any intention of sending their fleet to sea with this easterly wind, and Lord Howe continues at Torbay, our Mediterranean and Jamaica convoys are in a very critical situation. Both fleets must by this time be drawing near the Channel, and cannot enter it while the easterly wind holds." This danger must always be with us, especially in narrow waters such as the North Sea. In more open theatres the difficulty is not so obtrusive, for with sufficient sea room trade may take naturally or by direction a course which our watching dispositions will cover. Thus with Nelson in the case of Toulon, his normal positions on the Sardinian coast covered effectually the flow of our trade to the Levant and the Two Sicilies, which was all there was at the time.

The truth is, that in endeavouring to decide between open and close blockade we find ourselves confronted with those special difficulties which so sharply distinguish naval warfare from warfare on land. We cannot choose on purely naval considerations. In naval warfare, however great may be our desire to concentrate our effort on the enemy's main forces, the ulterior object will always obtrude itself. We must from the first do our best to control sea communications, and since those communications are usually common, we cannot refrain from occupying those of the enemy without at the same time neglecting and exposing our own. Thus in the case of Brest a close blockade was always desirable, and especially at convoy seasons, because the great trade routes which passed within striking distance of the port were all common, whereas in the region of Toulon the main lines were not common except along the coasts of Africa and Southern Italy, and these Nelson's open blockade amply secured.

The general conclusion, then, is that however high may be the purely naval and strategical reasons for adopting open blockade as the best means of securing a decision against the enemy's fleet, yet the inevitable intrusion of the ulterior object in the form of trade protection or the security of military expeditions will seldom leave us entirely free to use the open method. We must be prepared, in fact, to find ourselves at least at times faced with the necessity of using a form of blockade as nearly modelled on the old close blockade as changed conditions will permit.

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