Some Principles of Maritime Strategy by Julian Stafford Corbett

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[16] Captain Philip Patton to Sir Charles Middleton, 27 June 1794.
_Barham Papers_, ii, 393. Patton had probably wider war experience than
any officer then living. He was regarded as possessing a very special
knowledge of personnel, and as vice admiral became second sea lord under
Barham in 1804.

Now these weaknesses, being inherent in close blockade, necessarily
affected the appreciation of its value. The weight of the objection tended
of course to decrease as seamanship, material, or organisation improved,
but it was always a factor. It is true also that it seems to have had more
weight with some men than with others, but it will appear equally true, if
we endeavour to trace the movement of opinion on the subject, that it was
far from being the sole determinant.

It was in the Seven Years' War under Anson's administration that continuous
and close blockade was first used systematically, but it was Hawke who
originated it. In the first three campaigns the old system of watching
Brest from a British western port had been in vogue, but it had twice
failed to prevent a French concentration in the vital Canadian theatre. In
the spring of 1759 Hawke was in command of the Channel Fleet with the usual
instructions for watching, but being directed to stand over and look into
Brest, he intimated his intention, unless he received orders to the
contrary, to remain off the port instead of returning to Torbay. His reason
was that he had found there a squadron which he believed was intended for
the West Indies, and he considered it better to prevent its sailing than to
let it put to sea and try to catch it. In other words, he argued that none
of the usual western watching ports afforded a position interior to the
usual French route from Brest to the West Indies.

Since rumours of invasion were in the air, it was obviously the better
course to deal with the enemy's squadrons in home waters and avoid
dispersal of the fleet in seeking them out. In spite of extraordinarily bad
weather, therefore, he was permitted to act as he advised. With Boscawen as
relief, the new form of blockade was kept up thenceforward, and with entire
success. But it must be noted that this success was rather due to the fact
that the French made no further effort to cross the Atlantic, than to the
fact that the blockade was maintained with sufficient strictness to prevent
their doing so. In certain states of weather our fleet was forced to raise
the blockade and run to Torbay or Plymouth. Such temporary reversions to
the open form nearly always afforded an opportunity for the French to get
away to the southward with two or three days' start. Against any attempt,
however, to get to the east or the north in order to dispute command of the
Channel or other home waters the system was thoroughly efficient, and was
unaffected by the intervals of the open form.

It may have been these considerations which in the War of American
Independence induced so fine an officer as Howe to be strongly in favour of
a reversion to the old system. The vital theatre was then again across the
Atlantic, and there was no serious preparation for invasion. It should also
be borne in mind in judging Howe against Hawke, that in the Seven Years'
War we had such a preponderance at sea as permitted ample reserves to
nourish a close blockade, whereas in the latter war we were numerically
inferior to the hostile coalition. Since it was impossible to prevent the
French reaching the West Indies and North America if they so determined,
our policy was to follow them with equal fleets and reduce the home force
as low as that policy demanded and as was consistent with a reasonable
degree of safety. The force required might well be inferior to the enemy,
since it was certain that all attempts upon the Channel would be made with
an unwieldy and ill-knit force composed of Spanish and French units.

In Howe's opinion this particular situation was not to be solved by
attempting to close Brest, and nothing can be more misleading than to
stretch such an opinion beyond the circumstances it was intended to meet.
He did not consider it was in his power to close the port. The enemy, he
held, could always be in readiness to escape after a gale of wind by which
the blockading squadron would be drawn off or dispersed, the ships much
damaged, and the enemy enheartened. "An enemy," he said, "is not to be
restrained from putting to sea by a station taken off their port with a
barely superior squadron." The experience of 1805 appears to contradict
him. Then a barely superior squadron did succeed in preventing Ganteaume's
exit, but though the squadron actually employed was barely superior, it had
ample fleet reserves to sustain its numbers in efficiency. It was,
moreover, only for a short time that it had to deal with any real effort to
escape. After May 20th, Ganteaume was forbidden to put to sea. There were
certainly several occasions during that famous blockade when he could have
escaped to the southward had Napoleon wished it.

This case, then, cannot be taken to condemn Howe's judgment. His special
function in the war plan was, with a force reduced to defensive strength,
to prevent the enemy obtaining command of our home waters. It was certainly
not his duty to undertake operations to which his force was not equal. His
first duty was to keep it in being for its paramount purpose. To this end
he decided on open blockade based on a general reserve at Spithead or St.
Helen's, where he could husband the ships and train his recruits, while at
the same time he protected our trade and communications and harassed those
of the enemy. Kempenfelt, than whom there was no warmer advocate of
activity, entirely approved the policy at least for the winter months, and
in his case no one will be found to suggest that the idea was prompted by
lack of spirit or love of ease. So far as the summer was concerned there
was really little difference of opinion as to whether the fleet should be
kept at sea or not, for sea-training during summer more than compensated
for the exhaustion of material likely to be caused by intermittent spells
of bad weather. Even for the winter the two policies came to much the same
thing. Thus in Hawke's blockade at the end of 1759, during the critical
month from mid-October to mid-November, he was unable to keep his station
for nearly half the time, and when he did get contact with Conflans it was
from Torbay and not Ushant. Still it may be doubted if without the
confidence bred of his stormy vigil the battle of Quiberon would have been
fought as it was.

With all this experience fresh in his mind Kempenfelt frankly advocated
keeping the fleet in port for the winter. "Suppose," he wrote from Torbay
in November 1779, "the enemy should put to sea with their fleet (that is,
from Brest)--a thing much to be wished for by us--let us act wisely and
keep ours in port. Leave them to the mercy of long nights and hard gales.
They will do more in favour of you than your fleet can." Far better he
thought to devote the winter to preparing the fleet for the next campaign
so as to have "the advantage of being the first in the field." "Let us," he
concluded, "keep a stout squadron to the westward ready to attend the
motions of the enemy. I don't mean to keep them at sea, disabling
themselves in buffeting the winds, but at Torbay ready to act as
intelligence may suggest."[17] It will be seen, therefore, that the
conclusion that close blockade was always the best means of rendering the
fleet most efficient for the function it had to perform must not be
accepted too hastily. The reasons which induced Howe and Kempenfelt to
prefer open blockade were mainly based on this very consideration. Having
in mind the whole of the surrounding conditions, in their highly
experienced opinion careful preparation in the winter and tactical
evolutions in the summer were the surest road to battle fitness in the
force available.

[17] _Barham Papers_, i, 302.

On the other hand, we have the fact that during the War of American
Independence the open system was not very successful. But before condemning
it out of hand, it must be remembered that the causes of failure were not
all inherent in the system. In the first place, the need of relieving
Gibraltar from time to time prevented the Western Squadron devoting itself
entirely to its watch. In the next place, owing to defective administration
the winters were not devoted with sufficient energy to preparing the fleet
to be first in the field in the spring. Finally, we have to recognise that
the lack of success was due not so much to permitting the French to cross
the Atlantic, as to the failure to deal faithfully with them when contact
was obtained at their destination. Obviously there is nothing to be said
for the policy of "seeking out" as against that of preventing exit unless
you are determined when you find to destroy or to be destroyed. It was here
that Rodney and his fellows were found wanting. The system failed from
defective execution quite as much as from defective design.

In the next war Howe was still in the ascendant and in command of the
Channel fleet. He retained his system. Leaving Brest open he forced the
French by operating against their trade to put to sea, and he was rewarded
with the battle of the First of June. No attempt was made to maintain a
close blockade during the following winter. The French were allowed to
sail, and their disastrous cruise of January 1795 fully justified
Kempenfelt's anticipations. So great was the damage done that they
abandoned all idea of using their fleet as a whole. Howe's system was
continued, but no longer with entirely successful results. In 1796 the
French were able to make descents upon Ireland, and Howe in consequence has
come in for the severest castigations. His method is contemptuously
contrasted with that which St. Vincent adopted four years later, without
any regard to the situation each admiral had to meet, and again on the
assumption that the closing of Brest would have solved the one problem as
well as it did the other.

In 1796 we were not on the defensive as we were in 1800. The French fleet
had been practically destroyed. No invasion threatened. With a view to
forcing peace our policy was directed to offensive action against French
trade and territory in order by general pressure to back our overtures for
a settlement. The policy may have been mistaken, but that is not the
question. The question is, whether or not the strategy fitted the policy.
We were also, it must be remembered, at war with Holland and expecting war
with Spain, an eventuality which forced us to keep an eye on the defence of
Portugal. In these circumstances nothing was further from our desire than
to keep what was left of the Brest fleet in port. Our hope was by our
offensive action against French maritime interests to force it to expose
itself for their defence. To devote the fleet to the closing of Brest was
to cripple it for offensive action and to play the enemy's game. The actual
disposition of the home fleet was designed so as to preserve its offensive
activity, and at the same time to ensure superiority in any part of the
home waters in which the enemy might attempt a counterstroke. It was
distributed in three active squadrons, one in the North Sea, one before
Brest, and one cruising to the westward, with a strong reserve at
Portsmouth. It is the location of the reserve that has been most lightly
ridiculed, on the hasty assumption that it was merely the reserve of the
squadron before Brest; whereas in truth it was a general reserve designed
to act in the North Sea or wherever else it might be needed. At the same
time it served as a training and depot squadron for increasing our power at
sea in view of the probable addition of the Spanish fleet to Napoleon's
naval force. To have exhausted our fleet merely to prevent raids leaving
Brest which might equally well leave the Texel or Dunkirk was just what the
enemy would have desired. The disposition was in fact a good example of
concentration--that is, disposal about a strategical centre to preserve
flexibility for offence without risking defensive needs, and yet it is by
the most ardent advocates of concentration and the offensive that Howe's
dispositions at this time have been most roundly condemned.

In the end the disposition did fail to prevent the landing of part of the
force intended for Ireland, but it made the venture so difficult that it
had to be deferred till mid-winter, and then the weather which rendered
evasion possible broke up the expedition and denied it all chance of
serious success. It was, in fact, another example of the working of
Kempenfelt's rule concerning winter weather. So far as naval defence can
go, the disposition was all that was required. The Irish expedition was
seen leaving Brest by our inshore cruiser squadron. It was reported to
Colpoys, who had the battle-squadron outside, and it was only a dense fog
that enabled it to escape. It was, in fact, nothing more than the evasion
of a small raiding force--an eventuality against which no naval defence can
provide certain guarantee, especially in winter.

It was under wholly different conditions that at the end of 1800 Hawke's
system was revived. St. Vincent's succession to the control of the fleet
coincided with Napoleon's definite assumption of the control of the
destinies of France. Our great duel with him had begun. The measures he was
taking made it obvious we were once more facing the old life and death
struggle for naval supremacy; we were openly threatened with invasion, and
we had a distinct preponderance at sea. In short, we have to recognize the
fact that the methods of the Seven Years' War were revived when the
problems and factors of that war were renewed. As those problems grew more
intense, as they did after the Peace of Amiens, and the threat of invasion
became really formidable, so did the rigour of the close blockade increase.
Under Cornwallis and Gardner it was maintained in such a way as to deny, so
far as human effort could go, all possibility of exit without fighting. In
spite of the importance of dealing with the enemy's squadrons in detail no
risks were taken to bring Ganteaume to decisive action. Our first necessity
was absolute local command. The acuteness of the invasion crisis demanded
that the Brest fleet should be kept in port, and every time Ganteaume
showed a foot the British admiral flew at him and drove him back. Once only
during the continuation of the crisis was the rigour of this attitude
relaxed, and that was to deal with what for the moment was the higher
object. It was to meet Villeneuve on his return from the West Indies, but
even then so nicely was the relaxation calculated, that Ganteaume was given
no time to take advantage of it.

The analogy between the conditions of the blockade which St. Vincent
inaugurated and those of the Seven Years' War becomes all the more
significant when we note that while Cornwallis and Gardner in home waters
were pressing close blockade to its utmost limit of rigour, Nelson in the
Mediterranean was not using it at all. Yet with him also the chief concern
was to prevent an invasion. His main function, as he and his Government saw
it, was to prevent a descent from Southern France upon Neapolitan or
Levantine territory. Why, then, did he not employ close blockade? It is
usually assumed that it was because of his overpowering desire to bring the
Toulon squadron to action. Occasional expressions in his letters give
colour to such a view, but his dispositions show clearly that his desire to
bring the fleet to action was kept in scientific subordination to the
defensive duty with which he was charged. Close blockade was the most
effectual means of securing this end, but in his case one of the
conditions, which we have found always accompanying successful close
blockade, was absent. He had no such preponderance of force as would enable
him to nourish it up to the point of perfect continuity. In the
circumstances the close form was too weak or exhausting for him to use with
the force at his disposal.

If this case be not considered conclusive as to Nelson's views, we have a
perfectly clear endorsement from his pen in 1801. It is a particularly
strong testimony, for he was at the time actually charged with defence
against the invasion of England. With several cruiser squadrons he had to
prevent the enemy's force issuing from a number of ports extending from
Flushing to Dieppe, and he was directing the operations from the Downs. On
the approach of winter he was impressed with the inexpediency of attempting
to continue a close blockade, and wrote to the Admiralty as follows: "I am
of opinion, and submit to their Lordships' better judgment, that care
should be taken to keep our squadrons compact and in good order ... under
Dungeness to be their principal station.... In fine weather our squadrons
to go out and show themselves, but never to risk either being crippled or
drawn into the North Sea; thus we shall always be sure of an effective
force, ready to act as occasion calls for it."[18]

[18] To Evan Nepean, 4 September 1801. Nicolas, _Nelson Despatches_, iv,
484.

The case of course is not entirely in point, for it concerns the question
of direct resistance to invasion and not to securing general command. Its
value is that it gives Nelson's views on the broad question of balancing
the risks--that is, the risk of relaxing close watch against the risk of
destroying the efficiency of the ships by maintaining it too rigorously.

With Nelson holding this view, it is not surprising to find that as late as
1804 naval opinion was not quite settled on the relative advantages of
close and open blockade even in the case of threatened invasion. Just a
year before Trafalgar was fought, Cornwallis pressed the Admiralty for more
strength to enable him to keep his blockade efficient. Lord Melville, who
at this time had Barham at his elbow, replied recommending the "policy of
relaxing the strictness of blockade, formerly resorted to." He protested
the means available were insufficient for "sustaining the necessary extent
of naval force, if your ships are to be torn to pieces by an eternal
conflict with the elements during the tempestuous months of winter."[19]
Melville was craving for a decisive action to end the insupportable strain.
"Allow me to remind you," he added, "that the occasions when we have been
able to bring our enemy to battle and our fleets to victory have generally
been when we were at a distance from the blockading station." In the end,
as we know, Cornwallis had his way, and the verdict of history has been to
approve the decision for its moral effect alone. Such conflicts must always
arise. "War," as Wolfe said, "is an option of difficulties," and the choice
must sway to the one side or the other as the circumstances tend to develop
the respective advantages of each form. We can never say that close
blockade is better than open, or the reverse. It must always be a matter of
judgment.

[19] For Barham's final views, 1805, see _Barham Papers_, iii, 90-93.

Are there, then, no principles which we can deduce from the old practice
for the strengthening of judgment? Certain broad lines of guidance at least
are to be traced. The main question will be, is it to our advantage, in
regard to all the strategical conditions, to keep the enemy in and get him
to sea for a decision? Presumably it will always be our policy to get a
decision as soon as possible. Still that desire may be overridden by the
necessity or special advantage of closely blockading one or more of his
squadrons. This situation may arise in two ways. Firstly, it may be
essential to provide for the local and temporary command of a certain
theatre of operations, as when an invasion threatens in that area, or when
we wish to pass a military expedition across it, or from special exigencies
in regard to the attack or defence of commerce. Secondly, even where we are
seeking a great decision, we may blockade one squadron closely in order to
induce a decision at the point most advantageous to ourselves; that is to
say, we may blockade one or more squadrons in order to induce the enemy to
attempt with one or more other squadrons to break that blockade. In this
way we may lead him either to expose himself to be struck in detail, or to
concentrate where we desire his concentration.

For any of these reasons we may decide that the best way of realising our
object is to use close blockade, but the matter does not end there. We have
still to consider whether close blockade is within the limit of the force
we have available, and whether it is the best method of developing the
fullest potentialities of that force. Close blockade being the more
exhausting form will require the greater strength; we cannot blockade
closely for any length of time without a force relatively superior; but if
by open blockade of a squadron we permit it to put to sea with contact
assured, we know that, even with a slightly inferior force, we can so deal
with it as to prevent its getting local control sufficient to break down
our mobile flotilla defence or to interfere seriously with our trade.

Finally, there is the question of risk. In the old days, before free
movement and wireless telegraphy, and before the flotilla had acquired
battle power, there was always to be faced the risk of not getting contact
in time to prevent mischief. This consideration was specially dominant
where the enemy had a squadron within or near the critical theatre of
operations. Therefore when the invasion threatened, our developed policy
was to blockade Brest closely at almost any sacrifice. There was always a
vague possibility that by evasion or chance of wind a squadron so close to
the line of invasion might get sufficient temporary command in the vital
area before it could be brought to action. It was a possibility that was
never realised in the Narrow Seas, and since mobility of fleets and means
of distant communication have so greatly increased in range and certainty,
and since the power of resistance in the flotilla has become so high, the
risk is probably much less than ever, and the field for open blockade is
consequently less restricted.

There is no need, however, to accept these principles as incontrovertible.
Even if we take the great blockade of 1803-5, which has most firmly
dominated thought on the subject ever since, it may be argued with some
plausibility that the situation could have been solved more quickly and
effectually by letting Ganteaume get out from Brest into the open, at least
as far as Admiral Togo was forced to permit the Russians to emerge from
Port Arthur, though his reasons for keeping them in were even stronger than
ours in 1805. But in any case, the whole trend of the evidence will admit
no doubt as to the inherent weakness of close blockade as a form of war. As
under modern developments the possibilities of open blockade have
increased, so the difficulties and dangers of close blockade have certainly
not decreased. It is also probable that certain advantages which in the
sailing era went far to compensate for its weakness have lost much of their
force. A sailing fleet cooped up in port not only rapidly lost its spirit,
but, being barred from sea-training, could not be kept in a condition of
efficiency, whereas the blockading fleet was quickly raised to the highest
temper by the stress of vigilance and danger that was its incessant
portion. So long as the strain did not pass the limit of human endurance,
it was all to the good. In the old days, with very moderate reliefs, the
limit was never reached, and the sacrifices that were made to those
exhausting vigils were rewarded twentyfold in exuberant confidence on the
day of battle. Can we expect the same compensation now? Will the balance of
strength and weakness remain as it used to be? In the face of the vast
change of conditions and the thinness of experience, it is to general
principles we must turn for the answer.

What, in fact, is the inherent weakness of close blockade? Strategical
theory will at once reply that it is an operation which involves "an arrest
of the offensive," a situation which is usually taken to exhibit every kind
of drawback. Close blockade is essentially an offensive operation, although
its object is usually negative; that is, it is a forward movement to
prevent the enemy carrying out some offensive operation either direct or by
way of counterstroke. So far the common tendency to confuse "Seeking out
the enemy's fleet" with "Making the enemy's coast your frontier" may be
condoned. But the two operations are widely different in that they have
different objectives. In "seeking out," our objective is the enemy's armed
force. In "making the enemy's coast our frontier," the objective is
inseparable from the ulterior object of the naval war. In this case the
objective is the common communications. By establishing a blockade we
operate offensively against those communications. We occupy them, and then
we can do no more. Our offensive is arrested; we cannot carry it on to the
destruction of the enemy's fleet. We have to wait in a defensive attitude,
holding the communications we have seized, till he chooses to attack in
order to break our hold; and during that period of arrest the advantage of
surprise--the all-important advantage in war--passes by a well recognised
rule to our enemy. We, in fact, are held upon the defensive, with none of
the material advantages of the defensive. The moral advantage of having
taken the initiative remains, but that is all. The advantage which we thus
gain will of course have the same kind of depressing effect upon the
blockaded fleet as it had of old, but scarcely in so high a degree. The
degradation of a steam fleet in port can scarcely be so rapid or
debilitating as it was when nine-tenths of seamanship lay in the smart
handling of sails. For the blockading fleet it is also true that the
effects of weather, which formerly were the main cause of wear and tear,
can scarcely be so severe. But, on the other hand, the physical strain to
officers and men, and the difficulty of supply, will be far greater, so
long at least as coal is the chief fuel. The wind no longer sets a measure
on the enemy's movements. Vigilance close and unremitting beyond all our
predecessors knew is the portion of the blockaders to prevent surprise.
Furthermore, in the old days surprise meant at worst the enemy's escape;
now it may mean our own destruction by mine or torpedo. It is unnecessary
to labour the point. It is too obvious that a close blockade of the old
type exhibits under present conditions the defects of "arrested offence" in
so high a degree as practically to prohibit its use.

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