J. W. Brooks

“ One scarcely ever meets with any one who has been there, and our engraving is inevitably on too small a scale to convey any idea of it beyond that it is a tract of very flat marshy country, with plenty of mud between its shore and the navigable channel of the Thames. ”

“ Now, it is true, that what our sailors of Nelson’s days used to speak of with supreme contempt as “playing at long balls,” has in our days been brought to a wonderful pitch of perfection—8000 yards, as we have already noticed, having been fixed for outside bombarding distance—and there can be no doubt that if the batteries at Sheerness and works on the opposite shore were all heavily armed with rifled-cannon, capable of pitching their projectiles to such a distance, an advancing fleet would be seriously harassed by their fire. ”

“ To bombard the dockyard and arsenal not only would be a great point gained in the way of a heavy blow and great discouragement to the garrison, but would inflict a serious loss on the nation generally, as it seems to us; and it must be a great encouragement therefore to our, or any, invading force to find that the floating batteries once passed, there is no protection for Sheerness from bombardment. ”

“ A more dreary or difficult place for the landing of an army with siege-artillery can be hardly conceived. The engravings of the disastrous attack on the Peiho forts will furnish some notion of the acres upon acres of oozy slimy mud, bare, except for a short period of each tide, and intersected by a few streams and creeks, with contents like pea-soup, which form its natural boundary riverward. ”

“ There is another point to be borne in mind in considering the effect of the modern method of warfare, at least as far as a sea attack is concerned. Our heaviest ordnance are placed, and with reason, on gunboats. A very few of these, armed with a couple of the new rifled-cannon each, and firing conical shell, would be sufficient to set all Portsmouth dockyard in a blaze at a distance of four miles, whilst at that distance each gunboat presents but a tiny mark for the batteries on shore. ”

“ We must suppose our squadron to have succeeded in threading the intricate mazework of shoals lying eastward of the Nore, in spite of the removal of buoys (which would, of course, be one of the first steps taken by the Trinity House in case of a war) , and to have with equal success run the gauntlet of a fleet of floating batteries, of small draught of water, navigating among those dangerous shoals under the guidance of officers well acquainted with their intricacies, and to have entered on the scene of our illustration abreast of the Nore Light. ”

“ The fact is, there is not only a general feeling—a little undefined, perhaps, but none the weaker for that—that the place is of immense national importance; but there is, moreover, and this especially of late years, a feeling of uneasy jealousy directed across the Channel, and a sort of tacit resolution not to allow one man to lose a chance of asserting his superiority over the other. ”

“ But the attack from which most danger seems to be apprehended is that from the ridge of hill lying northward of Portsmouth, and known as Portsdown Hill. We are told that “no position could be more favourable for effecting” the bombardment of the dockyard. “The distance varies from 6000 to 9000 yards; the naval establishments and ships in the harbour are in full view, and could be destroyed by an enemy who should succeed in establishing himself there for a short time.” ”

“ The descendants of the old Sea Kings show still—as ever—the quality of the blood which runs in their veins, as clearly and unmistakeably as their nearest continental neighbours exhibit in their strange admixture of fierceness and levity their mixed derivation from the Frank and the Gaul. ”

“ It would be possible, it is true, to throw a force—if the floating batteries would allow us—on the shore eastward of the Sheerness batteries, just where the ground begins to rise, and just where the shore of Sheppey vanishes out of our engraving; but there is but little water except for a short period at high tide; and the landing of artillery, without which the attack would be useless, would be attended with much risk and difficulty: it would be better to pass round the east coast of the island, and use the Swale as a canal for bringing up at any rate the guns and other stores. ”

“ Steam and rifled cannon, and iron-cased ships, have revolutionised warfare in many of its leading principles. In old days, no one dreamt of opening fire on a fortress at a greater distance than 1000 yards; the new works recommended in 1825, and in part completed, were considered to have provided amply for the improvements in modern artillery, by extending the works of defence to a distance of 4000 yards ”

“ That these are already provided with certain defences, which have grown up around them in the course of years, is as true as that the same sort of improvements which have rendered a second efficient line of defence essential, have at the same time impaired the efficiency of the existing materials for that line. Many of the old works have been condemned as “obsolete,” and “in a state of decay.” We have heard of a fort not a hundred miles from the mouth of the Thames, from the guns of which it has long been dangerous to fire even a salute. ”

“ In some cases, as we shall see presently, it is deemed advisable to connect these detached works by lines; but the principle remains the same.
It has been necessary to explain at length this principle of modern fortification, because, without some comprehension of it, it would be difficult to understand the full object of the seven-and-twenty detached forts, with which in our engraving the country round Portsmouth appears dotted; whilst with such a comprehension, the system becomes the simplest thing in the world. ”

“ Moreover, no one can doubt that any invading enemy possessed of the average amount of brains would make first for our dockyards, in order by their destruction to cripple our first line of defence, as well as endeavour to impair our naval prestige. ”

“ Through the channel between these five black buoys and one white, every ship of any size must pass, in order to get to Spithead or Portsmouth, and when in the centre of its narrowest part would find the head of the Horse Sand about half-a-mile on its right, No Man’s Land about the same distance to the left, and the head of the Spit two miles in front. It should be added, that about three miles further westward, and in mid-channel between Ryde and Gillkicker Point (H) , lies another shoal, called Sturbridge. ”

“ Through a well arranged cordon of such works, it would be impossible, or nearly so, for an enemy to push his way on land, at least without first reducing them; and whether at land or sea, even a successful dash through them, without reducing them, would leave the advancing force open to attack in the rear. ”

“ There are two points in connection with these systems of defences, on which it is hardly our province here to touch; one is the time their construction will occupy, the other the expense involved. As regards the first, ground has already been broken on Portsdown Hill, and a great portion of the second cordon of defence is actually completed. The forts on the shoals, however, must be a work of time; piles have to be driven first, in spots where, at every high tide, there is more than twenty feet of water, and where occasionally there is a very troublesome jerking sea ”

“ Nature, however, has on this side placed the site of the dockyard out of danger of bombardment, by hiding it behind the heights we have before alluded to. This seems reasonably comprehensible, for though a boy may throw one ball over a high wall—or a hundred for that matter—the chances are strong that not one in fifty hits what it is aimed at. ”

“ Supposing, then, our advancing squadron to determine at all hazards to try and force the passage, it would be raked in front as it steered down the channel of approach by the guns of the tower in the mud and its surrounding covered battery, as well as by those of the battery on the shore of the Isle of Grain, the whole seaward face of the north line pouring in a tremendous flanking fire all the while. Supposing it to pass through this feu d’enfer, as it rounded the point, gun after gun of each tier of the bastioned work, as well as of the new fortification, would be brought to bear ”

“ The channel here narrows to little more than half a mile: the point of the isolated land projecting on the right in our illustration is called Oakham Ness (D) . On this point and on the opposite shore two strong forts are to be erected, whose guns shall fire at once down and across the river, concentrating a heavy fire on the advancing squadron; and as soon as these two works shall have been connected by a boom, the Commissioners think that Chatham will be well protected from attack by the Medway. ”

“ The plan of action with gunboats is—as at Sweaborg—to keep constantly in motion, generally circling round and round, easing for a moment as the gun is ready, delivering fire, and then steaming on again during the reloading. To hit so small an object under such circumstances is, as has been observed, extremely difficult. ”

“ This forms the first or outlying line of defence, and it should be added that the formation of Portsdown Hill, which is entirely composed of chalk, and the peculiar character of the ridge which forms its summit, which is nearly a level expanse of open down, are both peculiarly favourable to the construction of extensive military works. The chalk is easily cut into the requisite ramparts and ditches, whilst the open nature of the ground, visible along its whole length by every part, affords the greatest facilities for communication ”

“ We are told it could not be protected by permanent fortifications, except at an expense in the shape of deep sea forts, after the fashion of Cronstadt, which it is impossible to recommend; but it is very frankly added that the dockyard and arsenal are not worth protection. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle. How happy the Sheerness folks must feel in their exposed and remarkably attractive position! ”

“ On our right lies the Essex coast, the nearest point being Shoeburyness, famous for its artillery practice-ground along the sands, as well as for a substantial work which may be used either for practice or defence. ”

“ They look formidable enough. The north line shows something like half a mile of very serious looking batteries, terminating at Garrison Point in a still more ugly bastion mounting a double tier of guns. This, we are informed, is to be still further strengthened by a powerful casemated battery; whilst another, about half a mile further up the river, just where the land defences come down to the river bank, is to co-operate in commanding the anchorage. ”

“ In order to form an idea of the state of protection afforded to the Thames and Medway by their present defences, and of the nature of resistance which could be offered by them to an invading force, we must place ourselves on board some ship forming part of the attacking squadron. ”

“ The principle of modern defences, therefore, is necessarily no longer a complete enceinte, as in old days, by which the place to be protected was surrounded by a cunningly devised system of ramparts and ditches, so arranged as that the various parts mutually supported each other ”

“ The practibility of such a scheme may be deduced from the single fact, that in the 750 miles of coast between the Humber and Penzance, there is an aggregate of no less than 300 on which a landing can be effected by an enemy. ”

“ It must suffice to say, briefly, that every available spot for a landing is to be fortified by works more or less extensive, according to the size of the opening and the nature of the facilities afforded. ”

“ They supply the sinews of our first line of defence, for the efficiency of which it is essential that it should be supported by a line of places where damaged ships can be repaired, and new ones fitted out. ”