METHODS OF
DISPUTING COMMAND
I. DEFENSIVE FLEET OPERATIONS—"A FLEET IN
BEING"

In dealing with the theory of sea command, attention was called to the error of assuming that if we are unable to win the command we therefore lose it. It was pointed out that this proposition, which is too often implied in strategical discussion, denies in effect that there can be such a thing as strategical defensive at sea, and ignores the fact that the normal condition in war is for the command to be in dispute. Theory and history are at one on the point. Together they affirm that a Power too weak to win command by offensive operations may yet succeed in holding the command in dispute by assuming a general defensive attitude.

That such an attitude in itself cannot lead to any positive result at sea goes without saying, but nevertheless even over prolonged periods it can prevent an enemy securing positive results, and so give time for the other belligerent to dominate the situation by securing his ends ashore.

It is seldom that we have been forced even for a time to adopt such an attitude, but our enemies have done so frequently to our serious annoyance and loss. In the Seven Years\' War, for instance, the French by avoiding offensive operations likely to lead to a decision, and confining themselves [pg 210] to active defence, were able for five campaigns to prevent our reducing Canada, which was the object of the war. Had they staked the issue on a great fleet action in the first campaign, and had the result been against them, we could certainly have achieved our object in half the time. In the end, of course, they failed to prevent the conquest, but during all the time the catastrophe was postponed France had abundant opportunity of gaining offensively elsewhere territory which, as she at all events believed, would have compelled us to give up our conquest at the peace.

Again, in our last great naval war Napoleon by avoiding general actions was able to keep the command in dispute till by alliances and otherwise he had gathered force which he deemed sufficient to warrant a return to the offensive. Eventually that force proved unequal to the task, yet when it failed and the command passed to his enemy, he had had time to consolidate his power so far that the loss of his fleet seemed scarcely to affect it, and for nine years more he was able to continue the struggle.

Such examples—and there are many of them—serve to show how serious a matter is naval defence in the hands of a great military Power with other means of offence. They tell us how difficult it is to deal with, and how serious therefore for even the strongest naval Power is the need to give it careful study.

And not for this reason only, but also because the strongest naval Power, if faced with a coalition, may find it impossible to exert a drastic offensive anywhere without temporarily reducing its force in certain areas to a point relatively so low as to permit of nothing higher than the defensive. The leading case of such a state of affairs, which we must further consider presently, was our own position in the War of American Independence, when, as we have seen, in order to secure an adequate concentration for offence in the West Indies we were forced to reduce our home fleet to defensive level.
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What, then, do we mean by naval defence? To arrive at a right answer we must first clear our mind of all confusing shadows cast by the accidents of land defence. Both on land and at sea defence means of course taking certain measures to defer a decision until military or political developments so far redress the balance of strength that we are able to pass to the offensive. In the operations of armies the most usual means employed are the holding of positions and forcing our superior enemy to exhaust his strength in attacking them. Consequently the idea of military defence is dominated by the conception of entrenched positions and fortresses.

In naval warfare this is not so. At sea the main conception is avoiding decisive action by strategical or tactical activity, so as to keep our fleet in being till the situation develops in our favour. In the golden age of our navy the keynote of naval defence was mobility, not rest. The idea was to dispute the control by harassing operations, to exercise control at any place or at any moment as we saw a chance, and to prevent the enemy exercising control in spite of his superiority by continually occupying his attention. The idea of mere resistance was hardly present at all. Everything was counterattack, whether upon the enemy\'s force or his maritime communications. On land, of course, such methods of defence are also well known, but they belong much more to guerilla warfare than to regular operations. In regular warfare with standing armies, however brilliantly harassing operations and counter-attack are used, the fundamental conception is the defended or defensible position.

Similarly at sea, although the essence of defence is mobility and an untiring aggressive spirit rather than rest and resistance, yet there also defended and defensible positions are not excluded. But they are only used in the last resort. A fleet may retire temporarily into waters difficult of access, where it can only be attacked at great risk, or into a fortified base, where it is practically removed from the board and cannot be [pg 212] attacked at all by a fleet alone. But the occasions on which such expedients can be used at sea are far rarer than on land. Indeed except for the most temporary purposes they can scarcely be regarded as admissible at sea, however great their value on land. The reason is simple. A fleet withdrawing to such a position leaves open to the enemy the ulterior object, which is the control of sea communications, whereas on land an army in a good position may even for a prolonged period cover the ulterior object, which is usually territory. An army in position, moreover, is always doing something to exhaust its opponent and redress the unfavourable balance, but a fleet in inactivity is too often permitting the enemy to carry on operations which tend to exhaust the resources of its own country.

For a maritime Power, then, a naval defensive means nothing but keeping the fleet actively in being-not merely in existence, but in active and vigorous life. No phrase can better express the full significance of the idea than "A fleet in being," if it be rightly understood. Unfortunately it has come to be restricted, by a misunderstanding of the circumstances in which it was first invented, to one special class of defence. We speak of it as though it were essentially a method of defence against invasion, and so miss its fuller meaning. If, however, it be extended to express defence against any kind of maritime attack, whether against territory or sea communications, its broad truth will become apparent, and it will give us the true conception of the idea as held in the British service.

The occasion on which it was first used was one that well exhibits the special possibilities of a naval defensive. It was in the year 1690, when, in alliance with the Dutch, we were at war with France, and though really superior, had been caught in a situation which placed us temporarily at a great disadvantage in home waters. The French by a surprising rapidity of mobilisation and concentration had stolen a [pg 213] march on us before either our mobilisation or our concentration was complete. King William, with the best of the army, was in Ireland dealing with a French invasion in support of James, and a squadron of seven sail under Sir Cloudesley Shovel had been detached into the Irish Sea to guard his communications. Another squadron, consisting of sixteen of the line, British and Dutch, had been sent to Gibraltar under Admiral Killigrew to take down the trade and to keep an eye on Chateaurenault, who with a slightly inferior squadron was at Toulon. It was assumed he would probably make a push for Brest, where the French main fleet was mobilising under the Comte de Tourville, and Killigrew had orders to follow him if he got through the Straits. Chateaurenault did get through; Killigrew failed to bring him to action, and instead of following him immediately, he went into Cadiz to complete his arrangements for forwarding his outward-bound convoy and escorting the one he was to bring home. What of course he should have done, according to the practice of more experienced times, was to have left this work to a [pg 214] cruiser detachment, and failing contact with Chateaurenault, should have closed at once to the strategical centre with his battle-squadron.

Meanwhile the home fleet, which Lord Torrington was to command, was still unformed. It lay in three divisions, at the Downs, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, while a considerable part of the promised Dutch contingent had not made its appearance. It was a splendid chance for the French to seize the command of the Channel before the concentration could take place and to crush the British in detail. Accordingly, on June 13th, as soon as Chateaurenault had arrived, Tourville put to sea with some seventy of the line. The day before, however, Torrington, having hoisted his flag in the Downs, had massed his two main divisions at Portsmouth, and by the time Tourville appeared off the Isle of Wight he had with later arrivals, both Dutch and British, about fifty-six of the line in St. Helen\'s Road. Not knowing that the Toulon contingent had joined, he put to sea intending to fight, but on discovering the great superiority of the French, he decided in concert with his council of war to act on the defensive, and before offering battle to endeavour to secure a concentration with Killigrew and Shovel and the Plymouth division by getting to the westward. If he found this course impossible without fighting an action, his plan was to retire before Tourville "even to the Gunfleet," where amidst the shoals of the Thames estuary he felt he would have a good chance of repelling an attack with success. There, too, he counted on being reinforced not only [pg 215] by the ships still at Chatham, but also possibly by ships from the westward which might steal along the coast and join him "over the flats" by channels unknown to the French. To fight as he was he considered to be only playing the enemy\'s game. "If we are beaten," he said in communicating his plan to the Government, "they being absolute masters of the sea will be at great liberty of doing many things which they dare not do whilst we observe them and are in a possibility of joining Admiral Killigrew and our ships to the westward."

It was a plan conceived on the best principles of defence—waiting till the acquisition of fresh force justified a return to the offensive. It is further interesting as a pure case of naval defence, with no ulterior object other than control of home waters. In the minds of the Government there was no apprehension of any definite attempt to invade across the Channel, but the invasion of Ireland was in full progress, and all nourishment of it must be stopped and our own communications kept free. There was, moreover, serious anxiety lest the French should extend their operations to Scotland, and there was Killigrew\'s homeward-bound convoy approaching. The situation was one that obviously could not be solved effectually except by winning a general command of the sea, but in Torrington\'s judgment it could be rendered innocuous by holding the command in dispute. His design, therefore, was to act upon the defensive and prevent the enemy achieving any positive result until he was in a position to fight them with a fair chance of victory. A temporary defensive he considered was the only way to win the command, while to hazard a decision in inferior strength was the best way to lose it.

Nothing could be in closer harmony with the principles of good strategy as we understand them now. It was undoubtedly [pg 216] in advance of anything that had been done up to that time, and it was little wonder if the Government, as is usually said, failed to appreciate the design. Their rejection of it has come in for very severe criticism. But it would seem that they misunderstood rather than failed to appreciate. The Earl of Nottingham, who was at the head of the Government, believed, as his reply to the admiral clearly shows, that Torrington meant to retire to the Gunfleet at once; whereas it is equally clear to us that the Gunfleet was to be his extreme point, and that he did not mean to retire so far unless the French forced him. The Minister failed, as others have done since, to grasp what the admiral meant by "A fleet in being." He thought that in Torrington\'s view a fleet safe in port and not in contact with the enemy was "in being," whereas Torrington had no such idea. As Nottingham conceived the admiral\'s intention he saw that although it might preserve the fleet, it would expose everything else to destruction; that is, he was oppressed with the special characteristic of naval warfare which always permits action against the ulterior object when the enemy denies you any chance of acting against his armed force.

Under this misapprehension, which indeed was not justified by the words of Torrington\'s despatch, he procured from the Queen an order in these terms: "We apprehend," it ran, "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 farther than is necessary to get an advantage upon the enemy." It was, however, left to his discretion to proceed to the westward to complete his concentration that way, provided, it said, "you by no means ever lose sight of the French fleet whereby they [pg 217] may have opportunity of making attempts upon the shore or in the rivers of Medway or Thames, or get away without fighting."

This order has been very hardly dealt with by modern critics, although it clearly contemplates true preventive observation, and even, as the last words suggest, the idea contained in Nelson\'s well-known saying, "that by the time the enemy had beat our fleet soundly they would do us no more harm this year." It is true that Nelson could rely on the proved superiority of the British at that time unit for unit, but it is also true that Nottingham and his colleagues in the Government had information which led them greatly to underestimate Tourville\'s strength. This was evident on the face of Nottingham\'s despatch which covered the order, so evident indeed that Torrington might well perhaps have suspended the execution of an order so obviously based on incorrect information. But knowing probably what intrigues were going on against him at Court, he chose to regard it as a peremptory command to engage whenever he found himself to windward.

Much as a more scientific view of naval strategy may admire Torrington\'s conception, there seems no reason for losing temper over the Government\'s plan. It was certainly one way of solving the problem, and seeing how large were our reserves, a defeat need not have meant disaster. Still, it was doubtless dictated by an inability to grasp, the strategical strength of Torrington\'s novel plan, a plan which was not [pg 218] only safer, but was calculated to achieve greater positive results in the end. The real fallacy of the Government\'s plan was that although it had a specious appearance of a bold offensive, it could have achieved nothing but a negative result. The most a battle could have given in the circumstances could only have left the command in dispute, and the worst would have given the enemy a positive result, which must have gravely compromised William\'s campaign in Ireland.

On these lines Torrington replied to the Government. Dealing with their anxiety for the ships to the westward and the Mediterranean convoy, whose danger was their expressed reason for forbidding him the Gunfleet, he pointed out that they could not run much hazard if they took care of themselves. For, as he repeated, "while we observe the French, they cannot make any attempt on ships or shore without running great hazard, and if we are beaten, all is exposed to their mercy." Thus without specially noticing the Minister\'s misinterpretation of his despatch, he intimated that his intention was observation, and not simple retreat.

By the time Torrington sent this reply he had been pressed back as far as Beachy Head; it was no longer possible to get to the westward; and the following day, finding himself to windward, he attacked. But still confirmed in his idea of defence, and carrying it on to his tactics, he refused to give the French the chance of a real decision, and disengaged as soon as a drop in the wind permitted. So far he felt justified in [pg 219] interpreting orders which he knew were founded on false information. He was sure, as he said in justification of the way he fought the action, "that the Queen could not have been prevailed with to sign an order for it, had not both our weakness and the strength of the enemy been disguised to her."

So severely was his fleet crippled that he believed his plan could no longer act. "What the consequences of this unfortunate battle may be," he wrote in his Journal, "God Almighty only knows, but this I dare be positive in, had I been left to my liberty I had prevented any attempt upon the land, and secured the western ships, Killigrew, and the merchantmen." Actually in all this he was successful. Slowly retiring eastward he drew the French after him as far as Dover before he ran to the Nore; and Tourville was unable to get back to [pg 220] the westward, till all the endangered ships were safe in Plymouth. In spite of Torrington\'s being forced to fight an action at the wrong time and place, his design had so far succeeded. Not only had he prevented the French doing anything that could affect the issue of the war, but he had completely foiled Tourville\'s plan of destroying the British fleet in detail. That he had done, but retribution by passing to the offensive was no longer in his power.

That Tourville or his Government was impressed with the efficacy of the method was demonstrated the following year, when he in his turn found himself in an inferiority that denied him hope of a successful battle decision. During the summer he kept his fleet hovering off the mouth of the Channel without giving the British admiral a chance of contact. His method, however, differed from that of Torrington, and he only achieved his negative object by keeping out of sight of his enemy altogether. In his opinion, if a fleet remained at sea in close observation of an active enemy an action could not be avoided. "If (the admiral)," he wrote in his memorandum on the subject, "be ordered to keep the sea to try to amuse the enemy and to let them know we are in a position to attack in case they attempt a descent, I think it my duty to say that in that case we must make up our mind to have to fight them in the end; for if they have really sought an action, they will have been able to fight, seeing that it is impossible to pirouette so long near a fleet without coming to grips."20 This is as much as to say that a sure point of temporary retreat is necessary to "a fleet in being," and this was an essential part of Torrington\'s idea.

In Torrington\'s and Tourville\'s time, when ships were unhandy and fleet tactics in their infancy, the difficulty of avoiding [pg 221] action, when a determined enemy had once got contact, were undoubtedly great, unless a port of retreat was kept open. But as the art of naval warfare developed, the possibilities of "a fleet in being" were regarded as much wider, at least in the British service. It was nearly a hundred years before we were again forced to use the same device on a large scale, and then it was believed that superior speed and tactical precision were factors that could be counted on to an almost unlimited extent. In the darkest days of the War of American Independence we have a memorandum of the subject by Kempenfelt, which not only gives the developed idea of "a fleet in being" and the high aggressive spirit that is its essence, but............