SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.
NAVAL BIOGRAPHY,
Sketches of the Last Naval War. Translated from the French of Captain E. Jurien de Is Graviere, by the Hon. Captain Plunket, R.N., Author of "The Past and
Future of the British Navy." In two volumes Longman and Co. 71111.0IIS LITERATURE, Diary and Notes of Horace Templeton, Esq., late Secretary of Legation at In two volumes Chapman and Hall. GEOLOGY. Ancient Sea-Margins, as Memorials of Changes In the relative Level of Sea and Land. By Robert Chambers. Esq., F.R.S.E Orr and Co.
SKETCHES OF THE LAST NAVAL WAR.
Tins interesting combination of sagacious criticism with graphic descrip- tion was originally published as a series of articles in the Revue des .Deux Ifondes. Its prompting cause was Sir Harris Nicolas's collec- tion of the Nelson Despatches. Not that they form the prominent subject of the " Sketches," or that the substance of the book consists of mate- rials chiefly drawn from the Nelson Correspondence ; for Captain de la Graviere brings much original knowledge and the results of a careful study of French and British history to his undertaking : but the "monu- mentum tere perenniue " which Sir Harris has erected to the great naval hero suggested the idea of the work, and perhaps furnished the means by which Captain de la Graviere's leading object was to be developed. That leading object was to examine the causes of the annihilating defeats which the French and Spanish marine suffered during the last war when opposed to nominally inferior forces, notwithstanding the ac- knowledged chivalry of the officers, and the enduring courage of the men, that sometimes disdained to surrender a sinking vessel or ship on fire, and frequently did not strike till the principal officers were killed and the decks were like a slaughterhouse. This has been attributed by popular opinion both in England Lind France to the natural inaptitude of French- men for the sea, compared with their rivals ; but Captain de la Graviere maintains that such cannot be the case, by referring to the results of naval battles before the Revolution, which were sometimes nearly equal, and never ended in such disastrous consequences as the Nile and Trafalgar,— though St. Vincent, and Rodney's victory over De Grasse, if not over Langara, should, we think, be exempted from this remark. The naval de- feats under the Republic, and the annihilation of the French navy under the Empire, were not owing to any deficiency in personal courage, theo- retical acquirement, or national aptitude; but to loose discipline, want of practical experience, and had gunnery. The Revolution bad, by the guillotine or banishment, broken up the band of naval officers formed under the old regime; and the extreme principles of "liberty, fraternity, and equality," then in vogue, were totally repugnant to that order and submission which are essential to the naval service.
"It would indeed have been folly to expect that at a time when all the social ties were relaxed elsewhere, respect for superior rank, and passive obedience, the only possible foundations of discipline should be maintained in our ships. The crews of the ships anchored inQuiberon Bay firstset the example of those danger- ous mutinies which were more than once renewed on board the ships of the Re- public. They obliged Admiral Morard de Galles to bring back the fleet to Brest; and *ere not reduced to order until a part of the mutineers had been sent to the army and replaced by levies of fishermen and conscripts. The loss of these old seamen was even less regrettable than that of the officers who, under D'Estaing, Guichen, Suffren, and D'Oriilliers, had learned to manceuvre ships and command squadrons. Those who did not emigrate of these officers were guillotined. And that navy, so glorious, so devoted, soredoubtable to the enemies of France, seemed to disappear entirely in a single year of terror. That which a regular govern- ment would not have succeeded in, a new government, obliged to face all Europe, had to undertake. Struggling against civil war, famine, and disorganization' it had also to repair the enormous breach through which the enemy was about to enter, and to raise from the lowest rank in the fleet, officers and commanders for these deserted ships now become useless. At the same time, the war was active and pressing: to supply the people, it was necessary to secure the convoy of corn expected from America. The cause of the Revolution required that French squad- rons should keep the sea; and it was necessary, with the rapidity of that period, to extemporize the very thing which requires most time and method, which least brooks precipitation and disorder—a well-organized navy. "The Convention never hesitated: it hurried to sea squadrons with inex- perienced officers and undisciplined crews; it decreed fctivity in our arsenals and heroism in our ships, as it decreed victory on the frontiers."
When, at the downfall of Robespierre and the establishment of the Directory, some of the old officers were restored, the Government was addressed on the state of the navy, and remedies were suggested.
"But how should these prudent counsels," says Captain de la Graviere, "excite the attention of Republicans who were more occupied with the traditions and relics of Rome and Greece than with the glorious ones of their own ancestors? It was a period when presumptuous innovators talked seriously of restoring the oar to its .former importance and throwing flying-bridges on to the British ships, as was done in the Carthaienian war. These honest visionaries, with Greek nalvet4, expressed the objects of their mission in some of those absurd preambles still preserved in the archives of the navy, like the following: 'Legislators, here tire the suggestions of an ingenious patriot, who is fuided by i no other principle than that of nature and a heart truly French.' "The popular clubs believed that it was sufficient for a man to have been some Erne at sea to constitute him a seaman, provided he was a patriot; and did not reflect that patriotism alone will not navigate a ship. They therefore made officers of men who had no more claim than the fact of having been long at sea, without considering that such men were little better than useless. Besides, the whole system of these men was thrown out at the first unforeseen emergency: nor was it always, it must be owned, the best qualified or the most patriotic who obtained the suffrages of these clubs; but often the most false and intriguing— such as by impudence and volubility had contrived to obtain a majority. A worse error even was fallen into; for, upon a show of activity such as is com- mon to the effervescence of youth, they gave naval rank to young men, without knowledge, without talent, without experience, and without an examination."
The genius and energy of Napoleon might sweep away the effects of ideas such as these, but it could not give practical skill to officers or sea- men, or supply the want of exercise even in veterans. Cooped up in port under the system of blockades, the French marine was incapable of contending with a storm like the British sailors who were blockading them in all seasons. "The Toulon squadron," wrote the unfortunate Ville- neuve after having been driven back by a storm in the year of the battle of Trafalgar, " looked very well at anchor, with the crews well dressed and going through their exercise well ; but when the storm came things were very different; they were not exercised for storms. The few sailors, mixed up with the soldiers, were no longer to be found ; while the latter could not stand on the decks, and only encumbered them. It was impossible to work the ship ; and hence the yards carried away and the sails split; for in all the damages incurred there was as much clum- siness and inexperience as defectiveness in the articles supplied by the dockyards." Such, says Captain de Is Graviere in commenting on the extract, were the scenes of confusion which often marked the commence- ment of any expedition by our squadrons. The gunnery, from want of practice in the rolling ocean, was equally defective: a view also advanced by some English writers ; Sir Howard Douglas, in his Naval Gunnery, says that a whole French broadside has not done more damage than would two guns properly fired. A depressing moral evil originated in these personal and material disadvantages. The French navy became accustomed to wage a war of avoidance. " Too often our squadrons," says Captain de la Graviere, " left a port with some special mission to execute, and with the intention of avoiding the enemy : to meet him, therefore, came to be regarded as a contretemps. It was thus that our ships commenced an action; they rather accepted it from the enemy than forced it upon him."
During this decline both moral and material in the French marine, an improvement had taken place in the British, over and above the great advantage arising from continual exercise in all climates at all seasons, with the stimulus of success. While the old discipline of the French navy was destroyed by the ideas of the Revolution, that of the British was re- formed, improved, and carried to the very highest pitch of excellence, by St. Vincent. At the same time, too, arose a man exactly suited to the crisis, and capable of taking advantage of the perfection to which the British navy had been brought, by. hurling its perfect force at the inferior condition of the French and Spanish ships. That man was Nelson. Impetuous and daring by nature, thoroughly versed in his profession from the most ex- tensive combination to the minutest details—to which last he paid the profoundest attention, he saw at once the deficiency of the French marine, and, discarding the old cautious system of tactics that had been continued by the British Admirals at the commencement of the Revolutionary war, he threw himself almost recklessly upon his enemy, without regard to nominal superiority, satisfied that with his crews and his gunnery the disparity of numbers was not real. Had the French navy been better disciplined and better trained, these tactics of Nelson would have been too hazardous to adopt ; because to bear down upon a fleet at right angles, or to throw a few leading ships upon the enemy without regard to the time when the others might come into action' would involve the &strut,- tion of the leading vessels and the defeat of the armament. Hence, the French moral deducible from Nelson's professional life is not to imitate his tactics, but his preparations. "The battles of Aboukir and Trafalgar have overturned the olden ideas of naval tactics. Have they substituted rules of an infallible strategy, a strategy which it is the interest of our admirals to study? There are, doubtless, circum- stances wherein they might profit by those daring examples. But those tactics, we think it has been sufficiently proved, can only be used by the strong against the weak—by veteran against unpractised navies; and it is not against such that we have to prepare: it is against an enemy who remembers the lessons of Nelson, and will be ready to practise them again if we can only oppose him with a new order of battle, instead of with better squadrons. The last war presents subjects more worthy of our study than tactics. The English did not owe their triumphs to the number of their ships, to the greatness of their maritime population, to administrative wisdom, nor the wise combinations of the Admiralty. The Eng- lish beat us because their crews were better trained and their squadrons better disciplined than ours. That superiority was the fruits of some years' cruising, and was the work of Jervis and of Nelson. It is the secret mechanism of that silent and gradual work which we most investigate; for we must study Nelson organizing his fleet ere we can understand him fighting with such successful rash- ness;we must examine the means before we can comprehend the end. • • * "The things which Nelson attempted with his ships during his remarkable career, the risks and perils to which he exposed them in his adventurous Odyssey, will strike every seaman with astonishment. Not to speak of Aboukir Bay, into which he led his squadron at sunset, with no other guide than a wretched sketch found in a French merchant-ship—without recalling his perilous expedition in the Baltic—where is there an officer who will not admire his last cruise in the Medi- terranean, wherein he conducted his fleet, and that old Victory, accustomed to more careful treatment, through unknown passages, which even in the present day appear impracticable for such ships? There were no difficulties of navi- gation which, in such a school, the English did not learn to surmount. Such 114 in part, the secret of those persevering cruises which even in the depth of winter kept our ports blockaded and our shores alarmed. Such is the best explanation of those rapid movements which disconcerted our projects, those unforeseen con- centrations by which the English squadrons seemed to be multiplied over the face of the globe. "That which we may most profitably study in Nelson, that man of such pro- digious energy as well as such uncommon valour, is still more his nautical ac- tivity than his military daring. It is by taking this view that we recognize all the importance of that collection (Nelson 'a Despatches) which has served as the ba- sis of our work. That monument which has been raised with religious care to the hero of England is also an historical monument. These semi-official dwpatches, these unstudied effusions, affording unquestionable proofs of the ardent love of the ser- vice, the professional enthusiasm which distinguished Nelson above all his rivals, transport us into the heart of the enemy's camp, and enable us at this day to enter the tent of Achilles. For our own part, we rejoice to say we return from this ex- cursion more tranquillized as to the future, more assured, even by our reverses during the last war since they neither arose from the character of our population nor from the nature of things, but from the temporary inferiority which circum- stances had imposed upon us."
This outline has been confined to an exhibition of the leading object of Captain de la Graviere, because it contains a warning as important to England as to France in its indications of the paramount necessity of exercise, exercise, exercise to a fleet, (for Mr. Cobden had some reason in his comments on "harbour-work," had his animus been less malignant,) and the prudence of keeping an eye upon the nautical preparations of our neighbours. A critical exposition of the principles of discipline, tactics, and naval battles, though a very considerable part of Captain de la Graviere's work, is not, however, by any means the sole or even the principal portion of it. Billerica' and biographical sketches are the main staple of the book : in form it is a life of Nelson, of somewhat irregular plan, but not less adapted from that circumstance to the scheme of the author,—which is to exhibit the principal naval heroes and naval actions that throw light upon Nelson's conduct and career, at a scale in proportion to their influence upon him or connexion with him. Thus, Jervis, who greatly assisted to form Nelson and some of his captains as he founded the discipline of the fleets Nelson afterwards commanded, is sketched at considerable length. Villeneuve is also a prominent figure, with several other officers, French, Spanish, and English, but each kept subordinate to the main -object of the author and the principal person Nelson. Hence the book combines in rather a rare degree a popular narrative with a critical spirit. It has the further attraction of exhibit- ing Nelson as regarded by a fair and liberal-minded Frenchman, with a professional knowledge of maritime affairs, and a fuller appreciation of the English obaracter than commonly falls to the lot of our neighbours. The strength and weaknesses in Nelson's character and conduct are seized, and presented in the main with perfect fairness and justice, though with less tenderness and more freedom than English writers have perhaps ex- hibited when touching the sore places of the national hero. The narra- tive also has great literary merits. With the skilful arrangement and the vivacity of manner of his countrymen, Captain de la Graviere has a ,sobriety of judgment and a rational logic which are less common amongst them.
Captain Plunkett is entitled to thanks for having introduced these His- torical Sketches if the Last Naval War to the English reader in an English dress, accompanied by notes which occasionally correct the na- tional views of the writer, and sometimes support what might seem he- terodox opinions as regards the riskful audacity of Nelson. Its literary merits, and its peculiarity as an unprejudiced French officer's view of our naval history during its -most eventful period, would have rendered it at any lime a desirable addition to the library : the circumstances of the .times in which it appears give it ,a practical value. Notwithstanding the 1anatical if not factious cry of "Peace, peace !" the danger of war is too imminent for the clamorous to obtain support from the sensible part of the community for reductions obviously weakening. The sounder part of Continental society may be opposed to foreign wars for aggrandizement after the old regal fashion: but wars for national objects or for political prin- tiples are more palatable ; and if the origin of such hostilities be rather bet- ter than those of selfish ambition, kis to be feared their practice would be much the same. In point of fact, one half of Europe is at war already, and the other half on the verge of it. Netter, perhaps, was it more ne- cessary to be prepared against attack.; yet never was the state of the finances more gloomy at a time of such unsettled prospects. The danger ,seems too near to permit any attempt at reducing the numbers of our forces ; but the pressure of the taxgatherer will very likely give rise to a pressure from without, which may induce some penny wise and pound foolish economy in those tools which render men efficient and enable them -to work. Incapable economists have no other mode than lopping ; whether it is a worthless or a vital branch is matter of accident. Mr. Ward has already promised a reduction of 600,000/. in the Naval Esti- mates for next year. If this be as is implied, 3 cessation of expenditure on the completion of works or vessels now in progress, it is a proper saving. If there is to be any tampering with necessary stores or ma- terials, the temporary gain may give rise to an incalculable loss. These things are out of the public sight ; if they are also out of the official mind, the inefficiency of ships or of a fleet will be probable, their total loss -possible. Like the want of such trifles as a few mules more or fewer, or a few bundles of straw, which compelled Wellington, unable to bring up his battering train, to retreat from Burgos, insufficient stores after an -action may paralyze a -fleet, or after a storm be the means of its disgrace should it escape the enemy, or its destruction if compelled to meet him. it was to these seeming trifles that Nelson gave his mind. "The IM- - petuous Admiral," says M. de la Graviere, "was more careful of his -Apars and his sails under ordinary circumstances, than of his ships, or fleet even, upon great occasions." Again and again he writes to this ,purport. "It is interesting, and at the same time instructive, to see the attention which this great admiral bestowed upon the smallest details that could promote the comfort of his sailors. When the plan of an attack was in question, he con- tented himself with giving the general idea. 'Signals are useless,' said he, 'amongst people disposed to do their duty: our principal object is to support one Another mutually; to close with the enemy, and to keep to leeward of him, that he may not escape us.' But when it was a question of the provisions sent to him from Malta, or the clothing of his men, his solicitude was by no means thus easily satisfied. It was necessary to his own satisfaction that he should himself point out the way in which the vegetables, pork, and beef, were to be tested before they were received and distributed amongst the crews; and those flannel shirts, which, being made five or six inches too short,' exposed the men to sudden chills, were the subject seriously occupying his mind at the moment when Mr. Frere, the English Ambassador at is rid, wrote him word that he was about to de- mand has passports and set out for London. 'Because,' said he, 'these shirts, five or six inches longer, would be one of the best things yet introduced into the navy, and would, perhaps, save the. lives of more than one good sailor."
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