Julian S. Corbett - Fighting Instructions, 1530 1816

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Of Lindsey's orders only Article 18 is given here out of the
thirty-four which Monson prints in full. It is the only one relating
to tactics. The rest, which follow the old pattern, are the usual
medley of articles of war, sailing instructions, and general
directions for the conduct of the fleet at sea. We cannot therefore
safely assume that Article 18 fairly represents the tactical thought
of the time. It may be that Lindsey's orders were merely in the nature
of 'General Instructions,' to be supplemented by more particular
'Fighting Instructions,' as was the practice later.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Ante_, p. 27.

[2] The obsolete meaning of 'communicate' is to 'share' or
'participate,' to 'enjoy in common.'

_THE EARL OF LINDSEY_, 1635.

_Such instructions as were given in the Voyage in 1635 by the Right
Honourable Robert, Earl of Lindsey_.[1]

[+Monson's Naval Tracts, Book III. Extract+.]

Art. 18. If we happen to descry any fleet at sea which we may probably
know or conjecture designs to oppose, encounter or affront us, I will
first strive to get the wind (if I be to leeward), and so shall the
whole fleet in due order do the like. And when we shall join battle no
ship shall presume to assault the admiral, vice-admiral or
rear-admiral, but only myself, my vice-admiral or rear-admiral, if we
be able to reach them; and the other ships are to match themselves
accordingly as they can, and to secure one another as cause shall
require, not wasting their powder at small vessels or victuallers, nor
firing till they come side to side.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This was a fleet of forty sail, designed, under colour of securing
the sovereignty of the Seas and protecting commerce against pirates, to
assist Spain as far as possible against the French and Dutch. It never
fought.

PART IV

THE FIRST DUTCH WAR

I. ENGLISH AND DUTCH ORDERS ON THE EVE OF THE WAR, 1648-52

II. ORDERS ISSUED DURING THE WAR, 1653-54

I

ENGLISH AND DUTCH ORDERS ON THE EVE OF THE WAR, 1648-53

INTRODUCTORY

From the foregoing examples it will be seen that at the advent of the
Commonwealth, which was to set on foot so sweeping a revolution in the
naval art, all attempts to formulate a tactical system had been
abandoned. This is confirmed by the following extract from the orders
issued by the Long Parliament in 1648. It was the time when the revolt
of a part of the fleet and a rising in the South Eastern counties led
the government to apprehend a naval coalition of certain foreign
powers in favour of Charles. It is printed by Granville Penn in his
_Memorials of Sir William Penn_ as having been issued in 1647,
but the original copy of the orders amongst the Penn Tracts (_Sloane
MSS._ 1709, f. 55) is marked as having been delivered on May 2,
1648, to 'Captain William Penn, captain of the Assurance frigate and
rear-admiral of the Irish Squadron.' They are clearly based on the
later precedents of Charles I, but it must be noted that Penn is told
'to expect more particular instructions' in regard to the fighting
article. We may assume therefore that the admiralty authorities
already recognised the inadequacy of the established fighting
instructions, and so soon as the pressure of that critical time
permitted intended to amplify them.

Amongst those responsible for the orders however there is no name that
can be credited with advanced views. They were signed by five members
of the Navy Committee, and at their head is Colonel Edward Mountagu,
afterwards Earl of Sandwich, but then only twenty-two years old.[1]
Whether anything further was done is uncertain. No supplementary
orders have been found bearing date previous to the outbreak of the
Dutch war. But there exists an undated set which it seems impossible
not to attribute to this period. It exists in the _Harleian
MSS._ (1247, ff. 43b), amongst a number of others which appear to
have been used by the Duke of York as precedents in drawing up his
famous instructions of 1665. To begin with it is clearly later than
the orders of 1648, upon which it is an obvious advance. Then the use
of the word 'general' for admiral, and of the word 'sign' for 'signal'
fixes it to the Commonwealth or very early Restoration. Finally,
internal evidence shows it is previous to the orders of 1653, for
those orders will be seen to be an expansion of the undated set so far
as they go, and further, while these undated orders have no mention of
the line, those of 1653 enjoin it. They must therefore lie between
1648 and 1653, and it seems worth while to give them here
conjecturally as being possibly the supplementary, or 'more particular
instructions,' which the government contemplated; particularly as this
hypothesis gains colour from the unusual form of the heading
'Instructions for the better ordering.' Though this form became fixed
from this time forward, there is, so far as is known, no previous
example of it except in the orders which Lord Wimbledon propounded to
his council of war in 1625, and those were also supplementary
articles.[2]

Be this as it may, the orders in question do not affect the position
that up to the outbreak of the First Dutch War we have no orders
enjoining the line ahead as a battle formation. Still we cannot
entirely ignore the fact that, in spite of the lack of orders on the
subject, traces of a line ahead are to be detected in the earliest
action of the war. Gibson, for instance, in his _Reminiscences_
has the following passage relating to Blake's brush with Tromp over
the honour of the flag on May 9, 1652, before the outbreak of the
war:[3] 'When the general had got half Channel over he could see the
Dutch fleet with their starboard tacks aboard standing towards him,
having the weather-gage. Upon which the general made a sign for the
fleet to tack. After which, having their starboard tacks aboard (the
general's ship, the Old James, being the southernmost and sternmost
ship in the fleet), the rest of his fleet tacking, first placed
themselves in a line ahead of the general, who after tacking hauled up
his mainsail in the brails, fitted his ship to fight, slung his yards,
and run out his lower tier of guns and clapt his fore topsail upon the
mast.' If Gibson could be implicitly trusted this passage would be
conclusive on the existence of the line formation earlier than any of
the known Fighting Instructions which enjoined it; but unfortunately,
as Dr. Gardiner pointed out, Gibson did not write his account till
1702, when he was 67. He is however to some extent corroborated by
Blake himself, who in his official despatch of May 20, relating the
incident, says that on seeing Tromp bearing down on him 'we lay by and
put ourselves into a fighting posture'--_i.e._ battle order--but
what the 'posture' was he does not say. If however this posture was
actually the one Gibson describes, we have the important fact that in
the first recorded instance of the complete line, it was taken as a
defensive formation to await an attack from windward.

The only other description we have of English tactics at this time
occurs in a despatch of the Dutch commander-in-chief in the
Mediterranean, Van Galen, in which he describes how Captain Richard
Badiley, then commanding a squadron on the station, engaged him with
an inferior force and covered his convoy off Monte Christo in August
1652. When the fleets were in contact, he says, as though he were
speaking of something that was quite unfamiliar to him, 'then every
captain bore up from leeward close to us to get into range, and so all
gave their broadsides first of the one side and then again of the
other, and then bore away with their ships before the wind till they
were ready again; and then as before with the guns of the whole
broadside they fired into my flagship, one after the other, meaning to
shoot my masts overboard.'[4] From this it would seem that Badiley
attacked in succession in the time-honoured way, and that the old
rudimentary form of the line ahead was still the ordinary practice.
The evidence however is far from strong, but really little is
needed. Experience teaches us that the line ahead formation would
never have been adopted as a standing order unless there had been some
previous practice in the service to justify it or unless the idea was
borrowed from abroad. But, as we shall see, the oft-repeated assertion
that it was imitated from the Dutch is contrary to all the evidence
and quite untenable. The only experience the framers of the order of
1653 can have had of a line ahead formation must have been in our own
service.

The clearest proof of this lies in the annexed orders which Tromp
issued on June 20, 1652, immediately before the declaration of war,
and after he had had his brush with Blake, in which, if Gibson is to
be trusted, Tromp had seen Blake's line. From these orders it is
clear that the Dutch conception of a naval action was still
practically identical with that of Lindsey's instructions of 1635,
that is, mutual support of squadrons or groups, with no trace of a
regular battle formation. In the detailed 'organisation' of the fleet
each of the three squadrons has its own three flag officers--that is
to say, it was organised, like that of Lord Wimbledon in 1625, in
three squadrons and nine sub-squadrons, and was therefore clearly
designed for group tactics. It is on this point alone, if at all, that
it can be said to show any advance on the tactics which had obtained
throughout the century, or on those which Tromp himself had adopted
against Oquendo in 1639.

Yet further proof is to be found in the orders issued by Witte
Corneliszoon de With to his captains in October 1652, as
commander-in-chief of the Dutch fleet. In these he very strictly
enjoins, as a matter of real importance, 'that they shall all keep
close up by the others and as near together as possible, to the end
that thereby they may act with united force ... and prevent any
isolation or cutting off of ships occurring in time of fight;' adding
'that it behoved them to stand by and relieve one another loyally, and
rescue such as might be hotly attacked.' This is clearly no more than
an amplification of Tromp's order of the previous June. It introduces
no new principle, and is obviously based on the time-honoured idea of
group tactics and mutual support. It is true that De Jonghe, the
learned historian of the Dutch navy, regards it as conclusive that the
line was then in use by the Dutch, because, as he says, several Dutch
captains, after the next action, were found guilty and condemned for
not having observed their instructions. But really there is nothing
in it from which a line can be inferred. It is all explained on the
theory of groups. And in spite of De Jonghe's deep research and his
anxiety to show that the line was practised by his countrymen as well
as by the English in the first Dutch War, he is quite unable to
produce any orders like the English instructions of 1653, in which a
line formation is clearly laid down.

But whether or not we can accept De Jonghe's conclusions as to the
time the line was introduced into the Dutch service, one thing is
clear enough--that he never ventured to suggest that the English
copied the idea from his own countrymen. It is evident that he found
nothing either in the Dutch archives or elsewhere even to raise such
an idea in his mind. But, on the other hand, his conspicuous
impartiality leads him to give abundant testimony that throughout
these wars thoughtful Dutch officers were continually praising the
order and precision of the English tactics, and lamenting the
blundering and confusion of their own. It may be added that Dr.
Gardiner's recent researches in the same field equally failed to
produce any document upon which we can credit the Dutch admirals with
serious tactical reforms. Even De Ruyter's improvements in squadronal
organisation consisted mainly in superseding a multiplicity of small
squadrons by a system of two or three large squadrons, divided into
sub-Squadrons, a system which was already in use with the English, and
was presumably imitated by De Ruyter, if it was indeed he who
introduced it and not Tromp, from the well-established Commonwealth
practice.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The others were John Rolle, member for Truro, a merchant and
politician, who died in November 1648, and who as early as 1645 had been
proposed, though unsuccessfully, for the Navy Committee; and three less
conspicuous members of Parliament: Sir Walter Earle (of the Presbyterian
party), Giles Greene, and Alexander Bence. They were all superseded the
following year by the new Admiralty Committee of the Council of State.

[2] _Supra_, p. 63. It may also be noted that these articles are
intended for a fleet not large enough to be divided into squadrons--just
such a fleet in fact as that in which Penn was flying his flag. The
units contemplated, _e.g._ in Articles 2-4, are 'ships,' whereas in the
corresponding articles of 1653 the units are 'squadrons.'

[3] Gardiner, _Dutch War_, i. 9.

[4] This at least is what Van Galen's crabbed old Dutch seems to mean.
'Alsoo naer bij quam dat se couden toe schieter dragen, de elcken heer
onder den windt, gaven so elck hare laghe dan vinjt d'eene sijde, dan
veer van d'anden sijde, hielden alsdan met haer schepen voor den vindt
tal dat se weer claer waren, dan wast alsvooren met cannoneren van de
heele lagh en in sonderheijt op mijn onderhebbende schip vier gaven van
meeninge masten aft stengen overboort to schieten.' A copy of Van
Galen's despatch is amongst Dr. Gardiner's _Dutch War_ transcripts.

[5] See De Jonghe's introduction to his Third Book on 'The Condition of
the British and Dutch Navies at the outbreak of and during the Second
English War,' _Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Zeewesen_, vol. ii.
part ii. pp. 132-141, and his digression on Tactics, pp. 290 _et seq._,
and p. 182 note. De Witte's order is p. 311.

_PARLIAMENTARY ORDERS_, 1648.

[+Sloane MSS. 1709, f. 55. Extract+]

_Instructions given by the Right Honourable the Committee of the
Lords and Commons for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports, to be duly
observed by all captains and officers whatsoever and common men
respectively in their fleet, provided to the glory of God, the honour
and service of Parliament, and the safety of the Kingdom of
England_. [_Fol._ 59.]

If any fleet shall be discovered at sea which may probably be
conjectured to have a purpose to encounter, oppose, or affront the
fleet in the Parliament's service, you may in that case expect more
particular directions. But for the present you are to take notice,
that in case of joining battle you are to leave it to the vice-admiral
to assail the enemy's admiral, and to match yourself as equally as you
can, to succour the rest of the fleet as cause shall require, not
wasting your powder nor shooting afar off, nor till you come side to
side.

_SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTIONS,
circa_ 1650.

[+Harleian MSS. 1247, 43b. Draft unsigned+.]

_Instructions for the better ordering and managing the fleet in
fighting_.

1. Upon discovery of a fleet, receiving a sign from the general's
ship, which is putting abroad the sign made for each ship or frigate,
they are to make sail and stand with them so nigh as to gain knowledge
what they are and of what quality, how many fireships and others, and
what order the fleet is in; which being done the frigates or vessels
are to speak together and conclude on the report they are to give, and
accordingly report to the general or commander-in-chief of the
squadron, and not to engage if the enemy's ships exceed them in number
except it shall appear to them on the place that they have the
advantage.

2. At sight of the said fleet the vice-admiral or he that commands in
the second place, and the rear-admiral or he that commands in the
third place, are to make what sail they can to come up with the
admiral on each wing, as also each ship according to her quality,
giving a competent distance from each other if there be sea-room
enough.

3. As soon as they shall [see] the general engage, or [he] shall make
a sign by shooting off two guns and putting a red flag on the fore
topmast-head, that each ship shall take the best advantage they can to
engage with the enemy next unto him.

4. If any ship shall happen to be over-charged and distressed the next
ship or ships are immediately to make towards their relief and
assistance upon signal given; which signal shall be, if the admiral,
then a pennant in the fore topmast-head; the vice-admiral or commander
in the second place, a pennant in the main topmast-head; and the
rear-admiral the like.

5. In case any ship shall be distressed or disabled by loss of masts,
shot under water, or otherwise so as she is in danger of sinking or
taking, he or they are to give a signal thereof so as, the fleet
having knowledge, they may be ready to be relieved. Therefore the
flagships are to have a special care to them, that such provisions may
be made that they may not be left in distress to the mercy of the
enemy; and the signal is to be a weft[1] of the ensign of the ship so
distressed.

6. That it is the duty of the commanders and masters of all the small
frigates, ketches and smacks belonging to the fleet to know the
fireships that belong to the enemy, and accordingly by observing their
motion to do their utmost to cut off their boats (if possible), or if
opportunity serve that they lay them on board, fire and destroy them;
and to this purpose they are to keep to windward of the fleet in time
of service. But in case they cannot prevent the fireships from coming
on board us by coming between us and them, which by all means possible
they are to endeavour, that then, in such a case, they show themselves
men in such an exigent,[2] and shear aboard them, and with their
boats, grapnels, and other means clear them from us and destroy them;
which service, if honourably done, according to its merit shall be
rewarded, and the neglect thereof strictly and severely called to
account.

7. That the fireships belonging to the fleet endeavour to keep the
wind, and they with the small frigate's to be as near the great ships
as they can, and to attend the signal from the commander-in-chief and
to act accordingly.

8. If any engagement shall happen to continue until night and the
general please to anchor, that upon signal given they all anchor in as
good order as may be, the signal being as in the instructions for
sailing; and if the general please to retreat without anchoring, then
the signal to be firing two guns so nigh one the other as the report
may be distinguished, and within three minutes after to do the like
with two guns more. And the commander of this ship is to sign copies
of these instructions to all ships and other vessels of this
fleet. Given on board the ----

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See note, p. 99.
[Transcriber's note: The text for this note reads:
'_Waft_ (more correctly written _wheft_). It is any flag or ensign
stopped together at the head and middle portion, slightly rolled up
lengthwise, and hoisted at different positions at the after-part of a
ship.'--Admiral Smyth (_Sailors' Word-Book_).]

[2] 'Exigent' = exigence, emergency. Shakespeare has 'Why do you cross
me in this exigent?'--_Jul. Caes._ v. i.

_MARTEN TROMP, June_ 20, 1652.

[+Dr. Gardiner's First Dutch War, vol. i. p. 321. Extract+.]

_June_ 20/30, 1652. _The resolution of Admiral Tromp on the
distribution of the fleet in case of its being attacked_.

Each captain is expressly ordered, on penalty of 300 guilders, _to
keep near_[1] the flag officer under whom he serves. Also he is to
have his guns in a serviceable condition. The squadron under
Vice-Admiral Jan Evertsen is to lie or sail immediately ahead of the
admiral. Further Captain Pieter Floriszoon (who provisionally carries
the flag at the mizen as rear-admiral) is always to remain with his
squadron close astern of the admiral; and the Admiral Tromp is to take
his station between both with his squadron. The said superior officers
and captains are to stand by one another with all fidelity; and each
squadron when another is vigorously attacked shall second and free the
other, using therein all the qualities of a soldier and seaman.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The Dutch has 'troppen' = to gather round (_cf._ our 'trooping the
colour'). De With's corresponding order has 'dat zij allen bij den
anderen ... gesloten zou den blijven.' _Supra_, p. 86.

II

ORDERS ISSUED DURING THE WAR
1653 AND 1654

INTRODUCTORY

The earliest known 'Fighting Instructions' in any language which aimed
at a single line ahead as a battle formation, were issued by the
Commonwealth's 'generals-at-sea' on March 29, 1653, in the midst of
the Dutch War. This is placed beyond doubt by an office copy amongst
the Duke of Portland's MSS. at Welbeck Abbey.[1] It is of high
importance for the history of naval tactics that we are at last able
to fix the date of these memorable orders. Endless misapprehension on
the subject of our battle formations during the First Dutch War has
been caused by a chronological error into which Mr. Granville Penn was
led in his _Memorials of Penn_ (Appendix L). Sir William Penn's
copy of these Instructions is merely dated 'March 1653,'[2] and his
biographer hazarded the very natural conjecture that, as this is an
'old style' date, it meant 'March 1654.' This would have been true of
any day in March before the 25th, but as we now can fix the date as
the 29th, we know the year is really 1653 and not 1654.[3] There was
perhaps some anxiety on Mr. Penn's part to get his hero some share in
the orders, and as William Penn was not appointed one of the
'generals-at-sea' till December 2, 1653, he could not officially have
had the credit of orders issued in the previous March. This point
however is also set at rest by the Welbeck copy, which besides the
date has the signatures of the generals, and they are those of Blake,
Deane and Monck. Penn did not sign them at all, but this really in no
way affects his claim as a tactical reformer. For as he was
vice-admiral of the fleet and an officer of high reputation, his share
in the orders was probably as great as that of anyone else.

The winter of 1652-3 was the turning point of the war. The summer
campaign had shown how serious the struggle was to be, and no terms
for ending it could be arranged. Large reinforcements consequently had
been ordered, and Monck and Deane nominated to assist Blake as joint
generals-at-sea for the next campaign. Four days later, on November
30, 1652, Blake had been defeated by Tromp off Dungeness, and several
of his captains were reported to have behaved badly. An inquiry was
ordered, and the famous 'Laws of War and Ordinances of the Sea,'
prepared by Sir Harry Vane by order of Parliament for the better
enforcement of discipline, were put in force. Notwithstanding these
vigorous efforts to increase the strength and efficiency of the sea
service, it was not till after the first action of the new campaign
that an attempt was made to improve the fleet tactics. The action off
Portland on February 18, 1653, and the ensuing chase of Tromp, marked
the first real success of the war; but though the generals succeeded
in delivering a severe blow to the Dutch admiral and his convoy, it
must have been clear to everyone that they narrowly escaped defeat
through a want of cohesion between their squadrons. On the 19th and
20th Tromp executed a masterly retreat, with his fleet in a crescent
or obtuse-angle formation and his convoy in its arms, but nowhere is
there any hint that either side fought in line ahead.[4] On the 25th
the fleet had put into Stokes Bay to refit, and between this time and
March 29 the new orders were produced.[5]

The first two articles it will be seen are practically the same as the
'Supplementary Instructions' on p. 99, but in the third, relating to
'general action,' instead of the ships engaging 'according to the
order presented,' as was enjoined in the previous set, 'they are to
endeavour to keep in a line with the chief,' as the order which will
enable them 'to take the best advantage they can to engage with the
enemy.' Article 6 directs that where a flagship is distressed captains
are to endeavour to form line between it and the enemy. Article 7
however goes still further, and enjoins that where the windward
station has been gained the line ahead is to be formed 'upon severest
punishment,' and a special signal is given for the manoeuvre. Article
9 provides a similar signal for flagships.

Compared with preceding orders, these new ones appear nothing less
than revolutionary. But it is by no means certain that they were
so. Here again it must be remarked that it is beyond all experience
for such sweeping reforms to be so rigorously adopted, and
particularly in the middle of a war, without their having been in the
air for some time previously, and without their supporters having some
evidence to cite of their having been tried and tried successfully, at
least on a small scale. The natural presumption therefore is that the
new orders only crystallised into a definite system, and perhaps
somewhat extended, a practice which had long been familiar though not
universal in the service. A consideration of the men who were
responsible for the change points to the same conclusion. Blake, the
only one of the three generals who had had experience of naval
actions, was ashore disabled by a severe wound, but still able to take
part, at least formally, in the business of the fleet. Deane, another
soldier like Blake, though he had commanded fleets, had never before
seen an action, but had done much to improve the organisation of the
service, and at this time, as his letters show, was more active and
ardent in the work than ever. Monck before the late cruise had never
been to sea at all, since as a boy he sailed in the disastrous Cadiz
expedition of 1625; but he was the typical and leading scientific
soldier of his time, with an unmatched power of organisation and an
infallible eye for both tactics and strategy, at least so far as it
had then been tried. Penn, the vice-admiral of the fleet, was a
professional naval officer of considerable experience, and it was he
who by a bold and skilful movement had saved the action off Portland
from being a severe defeat for Blake and Deane. Monck's therefore was
the only new mind that was brought to bear on the subject. Yet it is
impossible to credit him with introducing a revolution in naval
tactics. All that can be said is that possibly his genius for war and
his scientific and well-drilled spirit revealed to him in the
traditional minor tactics of the seamen the germ of a true tactical
system, and caused him to urge its reduction into a definite set of
fighting instructions which would be binding on all, and would
co-ordinate the fleet into the same kind of homogeneous and handy
fighting machine that he and the rest of the Low Country officers had
made of the New Model Army. In any case he could not have carried the
thing through unless it had commended itself to the experience of such
men as Penn and the majority of the naval officers of the council of
war. And they would hardly have been induced to agree had they not
felt that the new instructions were calculated to bring out the best
of the methods which they had empirically practised.

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