Invincible Armada

“ But the main fighting was done on galley platforms, and not so very differently done from the way the Greeks and Persians fought at Salamis twenty centuries before. Then, after less than twenty years, the Armada, though better than the Spaniards at Lepanto, was sent across the open sea to fight a regular sea-going fleet, whose leaders were admirals, whose chief fighting men were sailors, whose movements were made under sail, and whose real weapon was the shattering broadside gun. It was ancient Spanish floating army against modern English Sea-Dog fleet. ”

“ To close with and grapple in the fashion of earlier naval battles would have been to risk being crushed by superior numbers. His policy was to hang upon the flank or rear of the Armada, close in and try to cripple one or more ships by artillery fire, slip away if the enemy turned upon him, come on again as they gave up the attempt to close, and he was ready all the time to swoop down upon and capture any ship that might be detached from her consorts. ”

“ But even the best of men and ships will not make the best fleet unless trained and "tuned up" to act together; and here, in its combined manuoeuvres, lay the crowning glory of the vast Grand Fleet. One day a visitor was watching it fight a sham battle against an enemy firing big guns at long range, when up came a real enemy, in the form of a German submarine, much closer than the sham. Of course the visitor turned his glasses on the "sub" and on the destroyers racing after it, like greyhounds slipped from the leash. ”

“ An almost hysterical shout whirled the General back to the plotting board.
"Sir, our fleet is attacking—attacking!"
"What? Where?" asked the General, his eyes darting over the board in a frantic effort to orient himself.
"Here, Sir, see. The positions are changing gradually in an unusual pattern. A patrol ship, a destroyer, and a cruiser have all gone right into the enemy vortex field," analyzed the Major. ”

“ And in these conditions the evasion of an artillery fight at decisive range should present no difficulties. Finally, such risks as were involved were well worth the incalculable enhancement of German prestige that would follow if a not-too-untruthful claim could be made to a naval victory. The world that has a natural sympathy with the weaker force would be inclined to regard even the escape of the German Fleet as something very like a German success. ”

“ We pass a magnificent white-clad troop-ship, with a beading of red-coats leisurably looking over the forecastle, and glide under the lee of one of those steam-winged brigands of the deep, a steel-built cruiser, whose towering trim spars, and beautiful lines, excite admiration, but chastened with the reflection of the capabilities for destruction she carries in her enormous propelling power and far-reaching guns. ”

“ But of course this was well matched by many a vessel on the British side, in a fight so fierce and a turmoil so appalling that only men of iron training and steel nerves could face it. Light craft of all kinds were darting to and fro, attacking, defending, firing guns and torpedoes, smashing and being smashed, sinking and being sunk, and trying to help or hinder the mighty lines of battle whose own gigantic guns flashed and thundered without a moment's pause. ”

“ The Allied fleet had a great advantage in visibility all along the line. Not only the main battle fleet of the enemy in the southwest, but also his battle cruisers in the west stood out in bold relief against the afternoon sky. For this reason, as well as by virtue of the heavier guns of the Allied battleships and the disconcerting effect of the torpedo attack, the fire of the battle cruisers soon became wild and ineffective. ”

“ But in this war game, they bring the fleet out for manœuvres and they play out their problems in naval tactics like a great big match of chess, with dreadnaughts and destroyers and submarines for the pieces and the whole wide ocean for their board. They divide up into two fleets and each one tries to destroy the other. There’s no real sinking, you understand, but, for instance, a torpedo-boat tries to creep up to a battleship in the dark, and send up a rocket to show that she’s supposed to have fired a torpedo, then if she’s near enough for an undoubted hit, why that vessel is counted as sunk. ”

“ Impossible, in the hearing of the enemy, to explain the intricate movement of reinforcements or expeditions escorted across every ocean from every part of the Empire, or to unfold the reasons which rendered it impossible to bring the German Fleet to battle. There, was our little Army fighting for its life, and playing to British eyes almost as large a part as that of France; and meanwhile our great Navy—the strongest in the world—lay apparently in an inertia diversified only by occasional mishap. ”

“ The battle cruiser Invincible suddenly sprang into a sheet of flame and parted in half. A German shell had struck her vitals.
A cry of despair broke from the British as the Invincible—the greatest British ship to suffer so far—dived beneath the waves.
CHAPTER XVII THE MAIN FLEET ARRIVES It was by a miracle, it seemed, that the Queen Mary, the Indefatigable, the Marlborough and the Lion, now in the front line, had escaped being struck in their vitals by the German shells that flew all about. On the Queen Mary, dead men and wounded men strewed the deck. ”

“ It is conceivable that within twenty minutes of sighting the enemy on the horizon the action will have begun, and on the disposition of his Fleet by the Admiral—on his tactics—the battle will depend, for all the gunnery in the world is no good if the guns are masked by our own ships or cannot bear on the enemy! ”

“ If there were no German battleships the operation of confining the German cruisers, destroyers, as well as the German submarines, within waters of comparatively narrow limits, by mines, nets, &c., might not have been impossible. Certainly the opening of the battle would have been comparatively simple. There are many kinds of operations in which it would be folly to risk a battle-fleet so long as the enemy’s battle-fleet was in being. But with no hostile enemy fleet in existence a whole vista of new possibilities is opened up to naval and amphibious force. ”

“ But worse still—Not one word of commendation for the Admiralty for its unparalleled work in gaining fighting efficiency and instant readiness for war by the institution of the Nucleus Crew system—the introduction of Battle practice—the unexampled advance in Gunnery (the “Invincible” with her 12-inch guns hitting the target 1/14th her own size 15 times out of 18 at 5 miles, she herself going 20 knots and the target also moving at an unknown speed and unknown course) and getting rid of 160 vessels that could neither fight nor run away—Not one word of appreciation of all this by the Committee! ”

“ Even if the Battleship Fleet is absent — which it ought not to be so long as invasion is within the bounds of possibility, and never will be, if those who are conducting the war know their business—yet it is unthinkable that a sufficient defending force of cruisers and torpedocraft should be absent at the same time. ”

“ But varieties of speed, the disabling of some ships, and the menace of destroyers or submarines will probably throw any such regular sequence entirely out of gear, and, other things being equal, victory will incline to the fleet whose commander is quickest to adapt its formation to meet the sudden [221] emergencies of the fighting and to turn them to his own advantage. But he will not be able to do this unless his fleet is well drilled in manœuvre, and at least as capable of carrying out his orders and signals with smartness and efficiency as that of the enemy. ”

“ Before a month was over a small squadron of battle-cruisers raided the Bight between Heligoland and the German harbours, sank there small cruisers and half-a-dozen destroyers, challenged the High Seas Fleet to battle, and came away without the enemy having attempted to use his capital ships to defend his small craft or to pick up the glove so audaciously thrown down. The mere mobilization of the British Fleet seemed to have paralyzed the enemy, and it looked as if our ability to control sea communications was not only surprisingly complete, but promised to be enduring. ”

“ A naval battle of the future, according to a distinguished German admiral, if both adversaries are determined and energetic, will resemble a conflict between two 25stags, which in a moment of fury rush upon one another, entangling their antlers, and, in the end of ends, destroying one another. ”

“ It had always been held that the Grand Fleet required a total force of one hundred destroyers and ten flotilla leaders for the double purpose of screening the ships from submarine attack when at sea and of countering the enemy's destroyers and attacking his heavy ships with torpedo fire in a fleet action. ”

“ But he must add a note, that the units of the Battle Cruiser Fleet were less heavily armoured than their opponents! The obsession of the defensive idea is obvious. “The enemy constantly turned away and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens.” “The German Fleet appeared to rely very much on torpedo attacks, which were favoured by low visibility, and by the fact that we had arrived in the position of a ‘following’ or ‘chasing’ fleet. ”

“ A crippled German destroyer, crawling out of range, down by the stern, like a hare whose hindquarters have been paralysed by a clumsy sportsman: an enemy light cruiser, dismasted, funnels over the side, one gun spitting defiance from a shambles of a battery as she sank: a great battleship listing over, all aswarm with specks of humanity—surely it was none of our noisy doing? ”

“ They are farther worth consideration because in these last days of the nineteenth century a very great number of people in the nation believe that if an enemy’s battle-ship should dare to threaten the American metropolis, the courageous tugboat-men of the harbor would arm their little vessels with torpedoes and, swarming down to Sandy Hook, surround the audacious armor-clad, and by sheer force of numbers run in and explode their dynamite where it would fill the enemy with dismay, and his hull with water. ”

“ But it happens in a naval engagement that an Admiral steams at full speed right athwart an enemy's ship and sinks it! In fact it is by rapidity of movement and facility in manœuvring that victories at sea are ensured much more than by increased protective plating. ”

“ Victory in a naval battle today depends absolutely upon the weight of the broadsides and the speed of the vessels, which enables them to manœuvre and choose positions of advantage with respect to the enemy; while victory or defeat in a land fight depends upon the weight of gun-fire, which can be directed against the positions of an enemy.
The actual number of infantry engaged is of secondary importance. It is artillery that is of supreme importance. ”

“ If the coming fleet is more powerful than the defending fleet, and has a more numerous and powerful scouting force, it will, therefore, be able to push back the defending fleet, whether an actual battle occurs or not; and it will be able to bring over, also, a large invading force in transports if its fighting superiority be great enough. Furthermore, if we have not fortified and protected the places which the enemy would wish to seize and use as advanced naval bases, the enemy will be able to seize them, and will doubtless do so. ”

“ But if any country—say the United States—finds herself involved in war with—say a powerful naval Power or Powers of Europe, and the realization of the fact comes with the suddenness that characterized the coming of war in August, 1914, and we hear the same day that a fleet of battleships, battle cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft, and auxiliaries has left the enemy's country, followed by a fleet of transports carrying troops—there will be immediate need for strategy of the most skilful kind ”

“ Of all the current assumptions, not one is so confusing for the finer adjustments of strategy as that which affirms that the primary objective of our fleet is always the enemy's fleet. Of the battle-fleet and its attendant units it is of course true, so long at least as the enemy has a battle-fleet in being. It is true, that is, of all operations for securing control, but of operations for exercising control it is not true. In the case we have now to consider-defence against invasion-the objective of the special operations is, and always has been, the enemy's army. ”

“ But although the General Naval Staff, and doubtless most of the senior officers of the German navy, realized from the outset that the High Sea Fleet would certainly be hopelessly outmatched in a gunnery battle and that their only chance of victory would have to come through a reduction of the strength of the Grand Fleet in capital ships by mine or torpedo, the greatest efforts were made to prevent any such comprehension of the situation finding its way to the lower decks. ”

“ For days the ships chased one another round the planet and between the moons, throwing down a continual shower of wreckage and shot on to the ground below. Far in the rear the admirals of both fleets watched the progress of the fight, directing the movements of the vessels and carefully devising combinations of force which might lead their own ships to victory. For hour after hour the perspiring and weary gunners stood at their guns until they were relieved by others and enabled to retire to rest. ”