A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan - The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2)

A >> A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan >> The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2)

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

"A Flotilla to be kept near Margate and Ramsgate, to consist of
Gun-boats and Flat-boats; another Squadron to be stationed near
the centre, between Orfordness and North Foreland, and the third
in Hoseley Bay.[38] The Floating Batteries are stationed in all
proper positions for defending the different Channels, and the
smaller Vessels will always have a resort in the support of the
stationed ships. The moment of the Enemy's movement from
Boulogne, is to be considered as the movement of the Enemy from
Dunkirk. Supposing it calm, the Flotillas are to be rowed, and
the heavy ones towed, (except the stationed Ships), those near
Margate, three or four leagues to the north of the North
Foreland; those from Hoseley Bay, a little approaching the
Centre Division, but always keeping an eye towards Solebay; the
Centre Division to advance half-way between the two. The more
fast Rowing boats, called Thames Galleys, which can be procured
the better, to carry orders, information, &c. &c.

"Whenever the Enemy's Flotilla can be seen, our Divisions are to
unite, but not intermix, and to be ready to execute such orders
as may be deemed necessary, or as the indispensable
circumstances may require. For this purpose, men of such
confidence in each other should be looked for, that (as far as
human foresight can go,) no little jealousy may creep into any
man's mind, but to be all animated with the same desire of
preventing the descent of the Enemy on our Coasts. Stationary
Floating Batteries are not, from any apparent advantage, to be
moved, for the tide may prevent their resuming the very
important stations assigned them; they are on no account to be
supposed neglected, even should the Enemy surround them, for
they may rely on support, and reflect that perhaps their gallant
conduct may prevent the mischievous designs of the Enemy.
Whatever plans may be adopted, the moment the Enemy touch our
Coast, be it where it may, they are to be attacked by every man
afloat and on shore: this must be perfectly understood. _Never
fear the event_. The Flat Boats can probably be manned (partly,
at least,) with the Sea Fencibles, (the numbers or fixed places
of whom I am entirely ignorant of,) but the Flat Boats they may
man to be in grand and sub-divisions, commanded by their own
Captains and Lieutenants, as far as is possible. The number of
Flat Boats is unknown to me, as also the other means of defence
in Small Craft; but I am clearly of opinion that a proportion of
the small force should be kept to watch the Flat-Boats from
Boulogne, and the others in the way I have presumed to suggest.
These are offered as merely the rude ideas of the moment, and
are only meant as a Sea plan of defence for the City of London;
but I believe other parts may likewise be menaced, if the Brest
fleet, and those from Rochfort and Holland put to sea; although
I feel confident that the Fleets of the Enemy will meet the same
fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will
facilitate the coming over of their Flotilla, as they will
naturally suppose our attention will be called only to the
Fleets."

Coming by water, the expectation seems to have been that the enemy
might proceed up the river, or to a landing on some of the flats at
the mouth of the Thames. Nelson says expressly that he does not think
those alone are the points to be guarded; but he characterizes his
paper as being "only meant as a sea plan of defence for the city of
London," and the suggestion already noticed, that the enemy's fleet
will support the attack by diversions, is merely mentioned casually.
London being the supposed object, and the Thames the highway, the
purely defensive force is to be concentrated there; the Channel
coasts, though not excluded, are secondary. "As many gun-vessels as
can be spared from the very necessary protection of the coast of
Sussex, and of Kent to the westward of Dover, should be collected
between the North Foreland and Orfordness, for this part of the coast
must be seriously attended to."

The attack is expected in this quarter, because from Flanders and
Flushing it is the most accessible. The object, Nelson thinks, will be
to get on shore as speedily as possible, and therefore somewhere
within one hundred miles of London. Anywhere from the westward of
Dover round to Solebay--"not an improbable place"--must be looked upon
as a possible landing. If there are forty thousand men coming, he
regards it as certain that they will come in two principal bodies, of
twenty thousand each--"they are too knowing to let us have but one
point of alarm for London." "From Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre,
the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent; and
from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other ports of Flanders, to land on the
coast of Essex or Suffolk." "In very calm weather, they might row over
from Boulogne, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same
instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of
Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c. Added to this, the enemy will create a
powerful diversion by the sailing of the combined fleet, and either
the sailing, or creating such an appearance of sailing, of the Dutch
fleet, as will prevent Admiral Dickson [commander-in-chief in the
North Sea] from sending anything from off the great Dutch ports,
whilst the smaller ports will spew forth its flotilla--viz, Flushing
&c. &c."

To frustrate that part of this combined effort which is supposed to be
directed against the Channel coast, Nelson proposes that, "if it is
calm when the enemy row out, all our vessels and boats appointed to
watch them, must get into the Channel, and meet them as soon as
possible; if not strong enough for the attack, they must watch, and
keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. Should it
remain calm," so that the cruising ships cannot assist, "the moment
that they begin to touch our shore, strong or weak, our flotilla of
boats must attack as much of the enemy's flotilla as they are
able--say only one half or two thirds--it will create a most powerful
diversion, for the bows of our flotilla will be opposed to their
unarmed sterns."

The dispositions to defend the entrance of the Thames, being
considered the more important, are the more minute. Blockships are
stationed in the principal channels, as floating fortifications,
commanding absolutely the water around them, and forming strong points
of support for the flotilla. It is sagaciously ordered that these "are
not, from any apparent advantage, to be moved, for the tide may
prevent their resuming the very important stations assigned them."
Nelson was evidently alive to that advantage in permanent works, which
puts it out of the power of panic to stampede them; tide is not the
only factor that prevents retrieving a false step. The eastern
flotilla is organized into three bodies, the right wing being near
Margate, the left in Hollesley Bay near Harwich, the centre, vaguely,
between Orfordness and the North Foreland. When the alarm is given,
they are to draw together towards the centre, but not to emphasize
their movement sufficiently to uncover either flank, until the enemy's
flotilla can be seen; then they are "to unite, but not intermix."

To both divisions--that in the Channel and that on' the East
Coast--the commander-in-chief, in concluding, renews his charge, with
one of those "Nelson touches" which electrified his followers:
"Whatever plans may be adopted, the moment the enemy touch our coast,
be it where it may, they are to be attacked by every man afloat and on
shore: this must be perfectly understood. _Never fear the event_."

This plan for the defence of London against an attack by surprise,
drawn up by Nelson on the spur of the moment, was based simply upon
his general ideas, and without specific information yet as to either
the character or extent of the enemy's preparations, or of the means
of resistance available on his own side. It has, therefore, something
of an abstract character, embodying broad views unmodified by special
circumstances, and possessing, consequently, a somewhat peculiar
value in indicating the tendency of Nelson's military conceptions. He
assumes, implicitly, a certain freedom of movement on the part of the
two opponents, unrestricted by the friction and uncertainty which in
practice fetter action; and the use which, under these conditions, he
imagines either will make of his powers, may not unfairly be assumed
to show what he thought the correct course in such a general case.

Prominent among his ideas, and continuous in all his speculations as
to the movements of an enemy, from 1795 onward, is the certainty that,
for the sake of diversion, Bonaparte will divide his force into two
great equal fragments, which may land at points so far apart, and
separated by such serious obstacles, as were Solebay and Dover. Those
who will be at the trouble to recall his guesses as to the future
movements of the French in the Riviera, Piedmont, and Tuscany, in 1795
and 1796, as well as his own propositions to the Austrians at the same
period, will recognize here the recurrence, unchastened by experience
or thought, of a theory of warfare it is almost impossible to approve.
That Bonaparte,--supposed to be master of his first movements,--if he
meant to land in person at Dover, would put half his army ashore at
Solebay, is as incredible as that he would have landed one half at
Leghorn, meaning to act with the other from the Riviera. If this
criticism be sound, it would show that Nelson, genius as he was,
suffered from the lack of that study which reinforces its own
conclusions by the experience of others; and that his experience,
resting upon service in a navy so superior in quality to its enemies,
that great inferiority in number or position could be accepted, had
not supplied the necessary corrective to an ill-conceived readiness to
sub-divide.

The resultant error is clearly traceable, in the author's opinion, in
his dispositions at Copenhagen, and in a general tendency to allow
himself too narrow a margin, based upon an under-valuation of the
enemy not far removed from contempt. It was most fortunate for him, in
the Baltic, that Parker increased to twelve the detachment he himself
had fixed at ten. The last utterances of his life, however, show a
distinct advance and ripening of the judgment, without the slightest
decrease of the heroic resolution that so characterized him. "I have
twenty-three sail with me," he wrote a fortnight before Trafalgar,
"and should they come out I will immediately bring them to battle; ...
but I am _very, very, very_ anxious for the arrival of the force which
is intended. It is, as Mr. Pitt knows, annihilation that the country
wants, and not merely a splendid victory of twenty-three to
thirty-six. Numbers only can annihilate."

The assumption that Bonaparte's plan would be such as he mentioned,
naturally controlled Nelson in the dispositions he sketched for the
local defence of the shore lines. The invasion being in two bodies,
the defence was to be in two bodies also; nor is there any suggestion
of a possibility that these two might be united against one of the
enemy's. The whole scheme is dual; yet, although the chance of either
division of the British being largely inferior to the enemy opposed to
it is recognized, the adoption of a central position, or concentration
upon either of the enemy's flotillas, apparently is not contemplated.
Such uncertainty of touch, when not corrected by training, is the
natural characteristic of a defence essentially passive; that is, of a
defence which proposes to await the approach of the enemy to its own
frontier, be that land or water. Yet it scarcely could have failed
soon to occur to men of Nelson's and St. Vincent's martial capacities,
that a different disposition, which would clearly enable them to unite
and intercept either one of the enemy's divisions, must wreck the
entire project; for the other twenty thousand men alone could not do
serious or lasting injury. The mere taking a position favorable to
such concentration would be an adequate check. The trouble for them
undoubtedly was that which overloads, and so nullifies, all schemes
for coast defence resting upon popular outcry, which demands outward
and visible protection for every point, and assurance that people at
war shall be guarded, not only against broken bones, but against even
scratches of the skin.

This uneducated and weak idea, that protection is only adequate when
co-extensive with the frontier line threatened, finds its natural
outcome in a system of defence by very small vessels, in great
numbers, capable of minute subdivision and wide dispersal, to which an
equal tonnage locked up in larger ships cannot be subjected. Although
St. Vincent was at the head of the Admiralty which in 1801 ordered
that Nelson should first organize such a flotilla, and only after that
proceed to offensive measures, the results of his experience now were
to form--or at the least to confirm in him--the conclusion which he
enunciated, and to which he persistently held, during the later truly
formidable preparations of Napoleon. "Our great reliance is on the
vigilance and activity of our cruisers at sea, any reduction in the
number of which, by applying them to guard our ports, inlets, and
beaches, would in my judgment tend to our destruction." Very
strangely, so far as the author's opinion goes, Nelson afterwards
expressed an apparently contrary view, and sustained Mr. Pitt in his
attack upon St. Vincent's administration on this very point; an
attack, in its tendency and in the moment chosen, among the most
dangerous to his country ever attempted by a great and sagacious
statesman. Nelson, however, writing in May, 1804, says: "I had wrote a
memoir, many months ago, upon the propriety of a flotilla. I had that
command at the end of the last war, and I know the necessity of it,
even had you, and which you ought to have, thirty or forty sail of the
line in the Downs and North Sea, besides frigates &c.; but having
failed so entirely in submitting my mind upon three points I was
disheartened." This Memoir has not been preserved, but it will be
noticed that, in expressing his difference from St. Vincent in the
words quoted, he assumes, what did not at any time exist, thirty or
forty sail-of-the-line for the North Sea and the Downs. St. Vincent's
stand was taken on the position that the flotilla could not be manned
without diminishing the cruisers in commission, which were far short
of the ideal number named by Nelson. It may be believed, or at least
hoped, that if forced to choose between the two, as St. Vincent was,
his choice would have been that of the great Earl. It seems clear,
however, that in 1804 he believed it possible that the Army of
Invasion _might_ get as far as the shores of England--a question which
has been much argued. "I am very uneasy," he then wrote to Lady
Hamilton, "at your and Horatia being on the coast: for you cannot
move, if the French make the attempt."

Whatever weight may be attributed to this criticism on Nelson's
hastily sketched scheme, there can scarcely be any discord in the note
of admiration for the fire that begins to glow, the instant he in
thought draws near the enemy. There, assuredly, is no uncertain sound.
They must be met as soon as possible; if not strong enough to attack,
they must be watched, and company kept, till a favorable opportunity
offers. If none occur till they draw near the beach, then, "Whatever
plans may be adopted, the moment they touch our coast, be it where it
may, they are to be attacked by every man afloat and on shore: this
must be perfectly understood. Never fear the event." The resolution
shown by such words is not born of carelessness; and the man who
approaches his work in their spirit will wring success out of many
mistakes of calculation--unless indeed he stumble on an enemy of equal
determination. The insistence upon keeping the enemy under
observation, "keeping company" with them, however superior in
numbers, may also be profitably noted. This inspired his whole
purpose, four years later, in the pursuit of the French to the West
Indies--if the odds are too great for immediate attack, "We won't part
without a battle." It was the failure to hold the same principle of
action, applicable to such diverse cases, that ruined Calder in the
same campaign.

With the general views that have been outlined, Nelson hastened to his
task. His commission for the new service was dated July 24, three
weeks after his return from the Baltic. On the 25th he presented the
memorandum of operations which has been discussed, on the 26th the
Admiralty issued their instructions, and on the 27th he hoisted his
flag upon the "Unite" frigate at Sheerness. "I shall go on board this
day," he said, "in order to show we must all get to our posts as
speedily as possible." His orders, after mentioning the general reason
for creating the "Squadron on a Particular Service," as his command
was officially styled, designated the limits of his charge, coastwise,
as from Orfordness, on the Suffolk shore, round to Beachy Head, on the
Channel. On the enemy's side of the water, it extended from end to end
of the line of ports from which the especial danger of an invasion by
troops might be supposed to issue--from Dieppe to Ostend; but the
mouth of the Scheldt was implicitly included.

The district thus assigned to him was taken out of the commands
hitherto held by some very reputable admirals, senior to himself, who
otherwise retained their previous charges, surrounding and touching
his own; while at the Scheldt he trenched closely upon the province of
the commander-in-chief in the North Sea. Such circumstances are
extremely liable to cause friction and bad blood, and St. Vincent, who
with all his despotism was keenly alive to the just susceptibilities
of meritorious officers, was very careful to explain to them that he
had with the greatest reluctance yielded to the necessity of
combining the preparations for defence under a single flag-officer,
who should have no other care. The innate tact, courtesy, and
thoughtful consideration which distinguished Nelson, when in normal
conditions, removed all other misunderstandings. "The delicacy you
have always shown to senior officers," wrote St. Vincent to him, "is a
sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give
umbrage to Admiral Dickson, who seems disposed to judge favourably of
the intentions of us all: it is, in truth, the most difficult card we
have to play." "Happy should I be," he said at another time, "to place
the whole of our offensive and defensive war under your auspices, but
you are well aware of the difficulties on that head." From first to
last there is no trace of a serious jar, and Nelson's instructions to
his subordinates were such as to obviate the probability of any. "I
feel myself, my dear Lord," he wrote St. Vincent, relative to a
projected undertaking on the Dutch coast, "as anxious to get a medal,
or a step in the peerage as if I had never got either. If I succeeded,
and burnt the Dutch fleet, probably medals and an earldom. I must have
had every desire to try the matter, regardless of the feelings of
others; but I should not have been your Nelson, that wants not to take
honours or rewards from any man; and if ever I feel great, it is, my
dear Lord, in never having, in thought, word, or deed, robbed any man
of his fair fame."

He was accompanied from London by a young commander, Edward Parker,
who seems first to have become known to him in the Baltic, and who now
acted as an additional aide. The latter was filled with the
admiration, felt by most of those thrown into contact with Nelson, for
the rapidity with which he transacted business, and set all about him
in movement. "He is the cleverest and quickest man, and the most
zealous in the world. In the short time we were in Sheerness, he
regulated and gave orders for thirty of the ships under his command,
made every one pleased, filled them with emulation, and set them all
on the _qui vive_." In forty-eight hours he was off again for the
Downs, by land, having to make some inquiries on the way as to the
organization, and readiness to serve, of the Sea Fencibles, a large
body of naval reserves, who were exempt from impressment upon the
understanding that they would come forward for coast defence, in case
of threatened invasion. Concerning their dispositions he received
fairly flattering assurances, which in the event were not realized. If
the men were certified that they would not be detained after the
danger was over, it was said, they certainly would go on board. "This
service, my dear Lord," he wrote to St. Vincent, "above all others,
would be terrible for me: to get up and harangue like a recruiting
sergeant; but as I am come forth, I feel that I ought to do this
disagreeable service as well as any other, if judged necessary."

Three days more, and he was off Boulogne in a frigate with some
bomb-vessels. The French admiral, Latouche Treville, had moored in
front of the pier a line of gun-vessels, twenty-four in number,
fastened together from end to end. At these, and at the shipping in
the small port, some bombs were thrown. Not much injury was done on
either side. Prevented by an easterly wind from going on to Flushing,
as he had intended, Nelson returned to Margate on the 6th of August,
issued a proclamation to the Fencibles, assuring them that the French
undoubtedly intended an invasion, that their services were absolutely
required at once on board the defence-ships, and that they could rely
upon being returned to their homes as soon as the danger was over. Out
of twenty-six hundred, only three hundred and eighty-five volunteered
to this urgent call. "They are no more willing to give up their
occupations than their superiors," wrote Nelson, with
characteristically shrewd insight into a frame of mind wholly alien
to his own self-sacrificing love of Country and of glory.

Hurrying from station to station, on the shores, and in the channels
of the Thames, he was on the 12th of August back at Margate, evidently
disappointed in the prospects for coast-defence, and more and more
inclining to the deep-sea cruising, and to action on the enemy's
coast, recommended by the Admiralty, and consonant to his own temper,
always disdainful of mere defensive measures. "Our active force is
perfect," he wrote to St. Vincent, "and possesses so much zeal that I
only want to catch that Buonaparte on the water." He has satisfied
himself that the French preparations were greatly exaggerated;
Boulogne in fact could not harbor the needed vessels, unless enlarged,
as afterwards by Napoleon. "Where is our invasion to come from? The
_time_ is gone." Nevertheless, he favors an attack of some sort,
suggests an expedition against Flushing, with five thousand troops,
and proposes a consultation. St. Vincent replied that he did not
believe in consultations, and had always avoided them. "I disapprove
of unnecessary consultations as much as any man," retorted Nelson,
"yet being close to the Admiralty, I should not feel myself justified
in risking our ships through the channels of Flushing without buoys
and pilots, without a consultation with such men as your Lordship, and
also I believe you would think an order absolutely necessary." "Lord
St. Vincent tells me he hates councils," he writes rather sorely to
Addington. "So do I between military men; for if a man consults
whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, _it is
certain that his opinion is against fighting_; but that is not the
case at present, and I own I do want good council. Lord St. Vincent is
for keeping the enemy closely blockaded; but I see they get alongshore
inside their sand banks, and under their guns, which line the coast of
France. Lord Hood is for keeping our squadrons of defence stationary
on our own shore (except light cutters to give information of every
movement of the enemy).... When men of such good sense, such great
sea-officers, differ so widely, is it not natural that I should wish
the mode of defence to be well arranged by the mature consideration of
men of judgment?"

Meanwhile he had again gone off Boulogne, and directed an attack in
boats upon the line of vessels moored outside. He took great care in
the arrangements for this hazardous expedition, giving personal
supervision to all details. "As you may believe, my dear Emma," he
wrote to her who had his closest confidence, "my mind feels at what is
going forward this night; it is one thing to order and arrange an
attack, and another to execute it; but I assure you I have taken much
more precaution for others, than if I was to go myself--then my mind
would be perfectly at ease." He professed, and probably felt, entire
confidence in the result. Fifty-seven boats were detailed for the
attack. They were in four divisions, each under a commander; Edward
Parker having one. Each division was to advance in two columns, the
boats of which were secured one to another by tow-ropes; a precaution
invaluable to keep them together, though rendering progress slower.
The points in the enemy's line which each division was to make for
were clearly specified, and special boats told off and fitted to tow
out any vessels that were captured. Simultaneous with this onslaught,
a division of howitzer flatboats was to throw shot into the port.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35