Naval warfare

“ The annals of naval history record no more complete destruction of an enemy’s fleet than in the two cases we have described, and never has such work been done with so little loss—only one man being killed and a few wounded in both American fleets. It taught the world a new lesson in the art of naval warfare, and admonished the nations that the United States was a power to be gravely considered in the future in any question of war. ”

“ We have now to tell the final events in naval warfare of the century, the epoch-making contest in Manila Bay, and the desperate flight and fight off Santiago harbor. If these examples of ocean warfare be contrasted with those between the Constellation and the French frigates L’Insurgente and Vengeance a century before, they will place in striking clearness the immense advance in naval warfare within the hundred years involved. ”

“ Thus they were able to make a substantial and distinctive contribution to the art of naval warfare, and that on its highest side. For the artist is greater than his materials, the warrior than his arms; and it was in the man rather than in his weapons that the navy of the eighteenth century wrought its final conspicuous triumph. ”

“ No more heroic and devoted act illumines the long history of naval warfare than the laying of these mines close to the harbor, and under the full fire of the enemy's guns, any one of whose missiles, by exploding the dangerous cargo, might have sent the ship to destruction in a moment. ”

“ I am not in favour of binding ourselves beforehand not to use this or that mode of naval warfare. It is for the interest, I believe, of a maritime nation like ourselves to use all modes of naval warfare, to put forth its naval strength in all directions, and all juggles by which modes of warfare are limited and crippled must turn out for the exclusive benefit of the weaker maritime belligerent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This stupendous fleet forms the most striking example of naval destructiveness the world has ever seen, and the nations of the world are entering the twentieth century with powers of warfare developed enormously beyond those with which they entered the nineteenth. We can only hope that this vast development both in army and navy may prove to exert a peace-compelling influence, and that every new discovery in the art of killing and destroying may be a nail in the coffin of Mars, the god of war. ”

“ The ultimate result of all Naval warfare must naturally rest with those who are serving afloat, but it is only just to the Naval officers and others who did such fine work at the Admiralty in preparing for the sea effort, that their share in the Navy's final triumph should be known. ”

“ The control of ocean communications, or the command of the sea, being the end of naval warfare, and its acquisition being practicable only by the assumption of a vigorous offensive, it follows as a matter of course that we must have a strong and in all respects efficient mobile navy. This is the fundamental condition on which the continued existence of the British Empire depends. It is thoroughly well known to every foreign Government, friendly or unfriendly. The true objective in naval warfare is the enemy's navy. ”

“ Naval warfare, therefore, logically includes operations for the purpose of gaining, maintaining, or disputing command of sea areas, especially under conditions where freedom of movement and the keeping open of sea communications are of vital importance. ”

“ War is the armed conflict of national wills, an appeal to force as between nation and nation. Naval warfare is that part of the conflict which takes place on the seas. The civilized world is divided into separate, independent States or nations, each sovereign within its own borders. Each State pursues its own ideas and aims and embodies them in a national policy ”

“ We engage in exercising command whenever we conduct operations which are directed not against the enemy's battle-fleet, but to using sea communications for our own purposes, or to interfering with the enemy's use of them. Such operations, though logically of secondary importance, have always occupied the larger part of naval warfare. Naval warfare does not begin and end with the destruction of the enemy's battle-fleet, nor even with breaking his cruiser power. ”

“ The war which now unfortunately rages in the far East has emphasized in striking fashion the new possibilities of naval warfare. The lessons taught are both strategic and tactical, and are political as well as military. ”

“ Naval warfare in the past, in its origin and through long ages, had been waged with vessels moved by oars, which consequently, when conditions permitted engaging at all, could be handled with a scope and freedom not securable with the uncertain factor of the wind. The motive power of the sea, therefore, then resembled essentially that of the land,—being human muscle and staying power, in the legs on shore and in the arms at sea. ”

“ In other words, it seeks to drive its adversary's warships from the sea, and either by the capture of his merchant vessels to appropriate the wealth they contain or by destroying them to deprive the adversary of its enjoyment. This is all that naval warfare as such can do. If the enemy is not constrained by the destruction of his warships and the extinction of his maritime commerce to submit to his victorious adversary's will, other agencies, not exclusively naval in character, must be employed to bring about that consummation. ”

“ By rendering naval warfare not only more destructive, but at the same time making it more dependent on a combination of good gunnery and mechanical knowledge with profound [Pg 520] naval skill, he has increased the naval power of Great Britain, where all these qualities are cultivated in the highest degree. ”

“ The introduction of this deadly force into naval warfare was not intended to be unaccompanied with some merciful provisions for preventing unnecessary destruction of human life, and a code of signals had been prepared for all naval powers, to be used whenever a vessel was to be destroyed. ”

“ No change in weapons or method of propulsion can alter the general principles of naval warfare. But this may be fairly advanced, that increased rapidity of movement, improved communications with distant stations, and augmented resources in war material, all tell in the favour of the stronger navy, whether for attack or defence. ”

“ The waging of war, in the case of a maritime country which is unselfsupporting, cannot rightly be divided into naval warfare, military warfare, and combined naval and military operations, though the three types are commonly referred to and in that order. ”

“ Bombardment and blockade directed against great national centers, in the close and complicated network of national and commercial interests as they exist in modern times, strike not only the point affected, but every corner of the land.
The offensive in naval war, as has been said, is the function of the sea-going navy—of the battleships, and of the cruisers of various sizes and purposes, including sea-going torpedo-vessels capable of accompanying a fleet, without impeding its movements by their loss of speed or unseaworthiness. ”

“ In the sphere of maritime war, the navy represents the army in the field; and the fortified strategic harbors, upon which it falls back as ports of refuge after battle or defeat, for repairs or for supplies, correspond precisely to strongholds, like Metz, Strasburg, Ulm, upon which, systematically occupied with reference to the strategic character of the theater of war, military writers agree the defense of a country must be founded. The foundation, however, must not be taken for the superstructure for which it exists. In war, the defensive exists mainly that the offensive may act more freely. ”

“ Naval men have served on nearly 2,000 craft that plied the waters, on submarines, and in aviation, where men of [Pg 310] vision and courage prevent surprise attacks and fight with new-found weapons. On the land, marines and sailors have helped to hold strategic points, regiments of marines have shared with the army their part of the hard-won victory, and a wonderfully trained gun crew of sailors has manned the monster 14-inch guns which marked a new departure in land warfare. ”

“ If you are not strong enough to dispose of the enemy's naval force you are certainly not strong enough to escort an invading [Pg 71] force—itself helpless afloat—across the sea in his teeth. If you are strong enough to do this you will certainly be wise to beat him first, because then there will be nothing left to prevent the transit of your troops. In other words, command of the sea, if not absolutely and in all cases indispensable to a successful invasion, is at any rate the only certain way of ensuring its success. ”

“ We have had no end of a lesson, it will do us no end of good.” In naval warfare we have had no opportunity of learning our lesson in the light of actual experience, for we have had no big battle on the seas since Trafalgar, and our naval supremacy has not been seriously threatened since 1805 ”

“ Offensive functions of a more direct and formidable character will doubtless be developed in time, and may be developed soon; but as I am no prophet I cannot attempt to forecast the direction of the evolution, to determine its limits, or to indicate its probable effects on the methods of naval warfare as expounded in the following pages. ”

“ On the 29th, the Java, then in sight of the Brazilian coast, discovered, pursued, and most gallantly brought to action, the United States’ ship Constitution, then mounting 55 guns, with a complement of 480 persons, amongst whom we believe, were only three boys: it is our painful duty to add, that many of her crew were British sailors, long experienced in active warfare. ”

“ Then you will encounter men straining every faculty and every means to injure you. Shall we then, who prepare so anxiously for an examination, view as a “practical” proceeding, worthy of “practical” men, the postponing to the very moment of imperative action the consideration of how to act, how to do our fighting, either in the broader domain of strategy, or in the more limited field of tactics, whether of the single ship or of the fleet? Navies exist for war ”

“ Unless such disparity exists, you should be on the offensive. On the other hand, in the defensive it has to be taken for granted that you have on your side a respectable though inferior battle fleet, and a sea frontier possessing a certain number of ports which cannot be reduced without regular operations, in which the armed shipping can be got ready for battle, and to which, as to a base, they can retire for refit. Without these two elements there can be no serious defense. ”

“ The condition of disputed command of the sea is the normal condition at the outbreak of any war in which operations at sea are involved between two belligerents of approximately equal strength, or indeed between any two belligerents, the weaker of whom is sufficiently inspired by the animus pugnandi—or it may be by other motives rather political than strategic in character—to try conclusions with his adversary in the open. ”

“ And the French Admiral Touchard described the ram as “the principal weapon in naval combats—the ultima ratio of maritime warfare.” “There is a new warfare,” said Scott Russell in 1870. “It is no longer, Lay her alongside, but, Give her the stem, which will be the order of battle.” ”

“ If one belligerent can get his torpedo craft to sea before the enemy is ready, he will, if he is the stronger of the two, forthwith attempt to establish as close and sustained a watch of the ports sheltering the enemy's armed forces as may be practicable; if he is the weaker, he will attempt sporadic attacks on the ports of his adversary and on such of his warships as may be found in the open. ”

“ That it is injurious to the morale and skill of seamen to keep them thus on the defensive and off the sea. This has received abundant historical proof in the past.
4. That in giving up the offensive the navy gives up its proper sphere, which is also the most effective.
B. Offensive Strength.—The offensive strength of a seaport, considered independently of its strategic situation and of its natural and acquired resources, consists in its capacity:
1. To assemble and hold a large military force, of both ships of war and transports. ”

“ The concentration in question is, together with the simultaneous disposition of the residue of our naval forces in different parts of the world, merely the expression of that peace strategy of position which, in the judgment of those who are responsible for it, is best calculated in the more probable, yet possibly quite remote, contingencies of international conflict, to enable our fleets to get the better of our enemies and thereby ultimately to secure the command of the sea in any and every part of the world in which we have maritime interests to defend. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This condition cannot be satisfied so long as the enemy has a fleet in being, that is a fleet strategically at large, not itself in command of the sea, but strong enough to deny that command to its adversary by strategic and tactical dispositions adapted to the circumstances of the case. ”

“ Other nations had already augmented the length and power of their guns. By the adoption of the improved breech-loading ordnance, Great Britain, who for the last few years had been falling behind her rivals, not only drew level with them but definitely took the lead in the power of her heavy ordnance: a lead which from that time to this she has successfully maintained.
210
CHAPTER IX
PROPELLING MACHINERY No aspect of old naval warfare is so difficult for the modern reader to visualize, perhaps, as that which displays the essential weakness of the sailing warship: its impotence in a calm. ”