Kitabı oku: «The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I», sayfa 11
Although the French officers, lacking both experience and instruction in fleet warfare, failed to do all they might in the battle, distinct misconduct by doing what should not have been done appears only in two cases. The first was the captain of the leading ship, for whose act in forsaking his post in the van no good reason appears. The second and much more serious fault was committed by the captain of the "Jacobin." The course of this officer in making sail to close upon the flag-ship, when the intention of the "Queen Charlotte" to pass between the two became evident, was perfectly proper. His keeping away, when collision with the "Montagne" threatened, was probably the only way of avoiding a disaster. Being thus forced to leeward of the line, he still retained the power of attacking the British ship to starboard, while she was, or should have been, engaged on the other side by the "Montagne." Instead of using this opportunity, Captain Gassin kept off and ran to leeward. This fault, grave in any case, was especially blameworthy in the next astern or next ahead of the commander-in-chief. Those were posts of peculiar honor, held by heavy vessels, chosen with the special object of supporting their leader and strengthening the part of the order in which he was. For Captain Gassin, personally, there may have been many excuses; but for the course of the ship, considered from a military and tactical point of view, no excuse whatever appears, for she suffered little in the fight. The void caused by the "Jacobin" was filled by the ships astern of her pressing up, and this forward movement, being transmitted to the end of the line, was partly the cause why the rear British ships did not reach their numerical opposite in the French order.
Some attention is due to the naval strategy, to the general conduct and results of this short maritime campaign, which covered only four weeks,—from the 16th of May, when Villaret sailed from Brest, to the 11th of June, when he again anchored just outside the port. In order to form a just opinion there must be considered the objects of each party, the forces at their control, and the measures pursued by them.
The object of the French was to insure the arrival of the convoy from America. For this purpose they had at sea, at the first, two detachments,—one of five ships-of-the-line under Nielly, the other of twenty-five under Villaret. The rendezvous for the two was the same, and the important point where their intended junction should take place was known to their admirals and unknown to the British. It may be again said that the instructions of the French government to its officers compelled the latter to avoid, if possible, any decisive engagement.
The object of the British was twofold: to intercept the expected convoy, and to bring the French fleet to battle. The two might, and did, interfere with each other,—might, by divergence of interest, prompt a separation of the force. Of the two, fighting the French fleet was indisputably the more important, and was doubtless so considered by Howe, in accordance with the usual British naval policy, which aimed at the destruction of the enemy's organized force afloat. The ships at his disposal, including Montagu's squadron, amounted to thirty-two of the line. He was ignorant of the rendezvous of the French fleets and of the exact course that would be followed by the convoy; but of both he could form approximate estimates.
From the 4th of May, when Montagu's squadron first separated, until the 19th, Howe supposed the French to be in Brest. On the latter day his lookouts reconnoitred the port for the second time, and he then learned that they had sailed. The same evening he was joined by a frigate from Montagu, bearing a request for a re-enforcement. Fearing that his subordinate might fall in with Villaret's greatly superior force, Howe next morning made all sail to join him; making a course of west by south, while the French had been steering west one-half south. On the 21st he fell in with and recaptured a number of Dutch ships, which had been taken by Villaret on the 19th. From the logs of these ships, the position and course of the French fleet two days before was ascertained; and Howe, concluding that they would not go near Montagu, who was well to the southward, dismissed the latter from his mind and devoted himself thenceforth to finding the enemy. This decision challenges criticism, because Montagu's orders were, if unsuccessful in finding the convoy, to abandon his cruise on the 20th and rejoin the admiral off Ushant. If he complied strictly with these instructions, he should not now have been very far from the main fleet.
Montagu, however, had seen reason for delaying some days on his cruising ground, and while thus waiting retook some of the Dutch prizes taken by Villaret and which had escaped recapture by Howe on the 21st. He then first learned of the French sailing, and at the same time that Howe was in pursuit. Instead of making any attempt to rejoin his superior, or to take a position where he might further the general objects of the cruise, he on the 24th or 25th of May bore up for England and anchored at Plymouth on the 30th. The British naval historian, James, says this was done in compliance with the spirit of his orders. It would be more convincing to be told what was the letter of orders that could admit such a construction, and what the condition of his ships that could justify forsaking the field of action with so strong a detachment at such a critical moment. His decision, on whatever grounds made, seems not to have met the approval of the government, and orders were at once sent for him to sail immediately, accompanied by all the ships-of-the-line ready for sea at Plymouth. He accordingly did sail on the 4th of June with nine ships, and on the 8th reached the rendezvous appointed by Howe off Ushant, which was also the station indicated by the last instructions of the admiralty to him. On the 3d of June, the day before he left, the "Audacious" arrived, bringing the first tidings of the meeting of the fleets on the 28th of May, in which she had been disabled.
It appears from this account that neither Howe nor Montagu attached sufficient importance to the concentration of the British fleet. Howe's immediate pursuit might indeed be defended on the ground of the necessity to overtake Villaret, before he had effected his junction with Nielly; but, as both these admirals knew their rendezvous, while he did not, and as Villaret had three days' start, the chances all were that he would not come up before they met. Actually, one of Nielly's ships joined before Howe found him, another on the 29th, and the remainder on the 30th; thus neutralizing the advantages gained by the fine tactical efforts of the British admiral on the 28th and 29th. Had Montagu's six ships, however, come up, the full profit of the two previous days' fighting would have been preserved; and it is hard to over-estimate the effect which they would have had upon the results, even if maintained simply as a reserve. To these considerations may be added the risk of missing both fleet and convoy, by going in search of them, instead of simply taking a position near which they must pass, and there uniting the British fleet. That this was very possible is shown by the facts of the chase. "On the 27th, at 9 A.M., having got a few leagues to the northward of the latitude in which he had reason to think Villaret was cruising, Lord Howe bore up and ran to the eastward, with the wind on the starboard quarter." 95 The fleet had been running on this course, with a fair and apparently fresh wind for twenty-one hours, when the French were first seen in the south-south-east. Although no precise data are at hand, it is reasonable to conclude from the above that Howe had gone over a hundred miles to the westward of the French rendezvous, which Villaret had reached a week before. 96 If in the meantime the convoy had appeared, as it perfectly well might, Villaret would at once have sailed for Brest, and the British admiral would not improbably have lost both fleet and convoy.
The question presented is purely strategic. It was certain that the French fleet, if undisturbed, would meet the convoy; therefore after it had sailed from Brest the two objects of the British were merged into one. There was no occasion thenceforth to remain divided into two detachments. For what point precisely the convoy would aim was not known, but Brest and Rochefort marked the two extreme points of the coast line, between which it would probably arrive. The approach of so large a body of ships, tied down to a common movement, is necessarily slow. It would be as ignorant of the point where the British would concentrate, as the latter were of the rendezvous where the different French detachments were to meet. Fast single ships, well scattered to the westward, might reasonably be expected to meet it and to return to their main body in time to warn this where to look for the prey. That there were no difficulties in this line of action will not, certainly, be contended; but it was more sure and militarily sounder thus to concentrate the British force of thirty-two ships-of-the-line in a well chosen position, and with adequate lookouts, than to lead it hither and thither in search of the enemy's whereabouts. It is a singular and instructive fact that from first to last not a single British ship appears to have laid eyes on the convoy from America. Ships both of commerce and war, belonging to other bodies, were taken and retaken in the Bay of Biscay; but those coming from America wore invisible garments.
The strategic aim of the French admiral, after he had been so unfortunate as to be found by the British fleet, was to draw it away from the rendezvous appointed for the convoy. Both his orders and the tactical condition of his fleet forbade the attempt to secure this by bringing the enemy to battle. When first met, the French were to windward, south of the British. If they had been north, with the same advantage of the wind, the situation would have been most satisfactory to them; for the convoy was approaching from the west-south-west, and by retreating to the northward and westward Villaret would have led the enemy directly from the position endangering it. As things were, it was impossible to steer to the northward without bringing on the battle he had to avoid; and if defeated where he then was, the victorious fleet would be left too near the convoy. Villaret, therefore, kept the advantage of the wind and steered a west course, which diverged slowly from the convoy's path, and, if long enough continued, would allow it to pass out of sight. The slowness of this divergence, however, doubtless contributed to reconcile him to the loss of the weather gage on the 29th, and immediately upon finding himself north of the enemy he went to the northward and westward during the two following days. 97 The result was eminently successful. It is stated by the latest French authorities 98 that on the 30th the convoy passed over the ground where the partial engagement of the 29th was fought. If so, it must have been under cover of the dense fog which then prevailed, as the fleets had not moved very far.
It is impossible not to admire heartily the judicious and energetic measures by which Howe, on the 28th and 29th of May, succeeded in gaining the weather gage, while inflicting, at the same time, a heavy loss upon the enemy. Whatever judgment may be passed upon his tactics on the 1st of June,—and in the opinion of the writer they were the best adapted to the situation and to the condition of his fleet,—it cannot be denied that those of the preceding days were well conceived, and, on the part of the admiral, vigorously and gallantly executed. But the strategic mistake, or misfortune, wherever the fault lay, by which Montagu's detachment was absent, neutralized the tactical advantage gained; while the correct strategy of the French, which brought the two parts of their fleet within supporting distance of each other, restored the balance of strength. Thus was again confirmed the maxim of military writers, that a strategic mistake is more serious and far-reaching in its effects than an error in tactics.
After the two fleets separated each made the best of its way to a home port. Lord Howe waited until the morning of the 3d, securing and refitting his prizes and disabled ships, and reached Portsmouth on the 13th of June. Villaret Joyeuse went to Brest. On the morning of the 9th he fell in with Montagu's squadron, a little south of Ushant. The condition of the French, encumbered with injured ships, would have afforded an opportunity to a quick-moving fleet; but two of the British were excessively slow and the admiral did not dare approach a much superior force. Villaret pursued for a short distance, but, fearing to be drawn to leeward of his port in his crippled state, he soon gave over the chase. On the 11th of June, all his fleet anchored in Bertheaume roads, outside of Brest. Montagu, on the 10th, departed for England, a movement which finally closed the campaign on the part of the British. On the night of the 12th the French crews saw a number of lights in the Raz de Sein, the southern passage by which Brest is approached. They were those of the long-expected convoy. Admiral Van Stabel, fearing to find a hostile fleet before the usual and safer entrance, had steered for the Penmarcks, a rocky promontory thirty miles south of the port, and thence for the Raz de Sein. On the same day that Van Stabel made the land Montagu anchored in Plymouth. Two days later, June 14, the convoy and the remnant of Villaret's squadron entered Brest together. Thus ended the cruise, which was marked, indeed, by a great naval disaster, but had insured the principal object for which it was undertaken.
CHAPTER VI
The Year 1794 in the Atlantic and on the Continent
WHILE the British ships engaged on the 1st of June were refitting, Admiral Cornwallis, on the 22d of the month, sailed in command of Montagu's division for a cruise to the westward, from which he returned to port on the 8th of July. With this short exception, both the Channel and the Bay of Biscay were left unguarded until the 3d of September, when Howe again sailed with thirty-four ships-of-the-line, five of which were Portuguese, returning on the 21st to Torbay after a tempestuous cruise. The fleet remained in port until November 8, when the "Canada" seventy-four arrived with the news that her consort, the "Alexander," of similar force, had been captured two hundred miles west of Ushant by a French division of five ships-of-the-line, from which she herself had escaped by better sailing. The British at once put to sea, but, it is needless to say, failed to find the French ships, which had cruised with impunity during their absence; and on the 29th the fleet anchored again at Spithead, a station so far to the eastward as to indicate little expectation of interfering with any of the operations of the enemy from Brest. There accordingly it remained until the 14th of the following February. The protection of commerce was entrusted to squadrons of frigates, whose young and enterprising commanders did much service by capturing or dispersing the French forces of a similar character.
The Committee of Public Safety determined to use the opportunity which was permitted them by the diligent care of the British admiral to economize his fleet. There were, at this time, in Brest and the other Biscay ports as many as forty-six ships-of-the-line, either afloat or building; whereas in the Mediterranean, in consequence of the disaster at Toulon, there were only fifteen. The Committee therefore decided to send six ships round, and Villaret Joyeuse was directed to sail with the entire Brest fleet, thirty-five in all, for the purpose of escorting this division clear of the Bay of Biscay; after which he was to cruise for a fortnight against British commerce. The destitution of the Brest arsenal, however, still continued; for, with the enemy's command of the Channel, the naval stores of the Baltic could reach Brest only by going north of the British islands, and then running the risk of capture in the Atlantic by hostile cruisers. There had therefore been great difficulty in repairing the injuries received in the actions with Lord Howe, as well as in equipping the ships not then engaged. When the orders were received, vivid remonstrances were made, and the condition of the vessels fully represented to the Committee as being entirely unfit for a winter's cruise. Many masts wounded in the battle could not be replaced, the rigging was in bad condition, the crews were untrained. Several of the ships it was proposed to send were old and worn out; and so great was the dearth of provisions that only those for Toulon received enough for some months, the others for no more than four weeks.
Robespierre had fallen five months before, and the Reign of Terror was now over; but the Committee were still unaccustomed to admit objections, and did not find in their limited knowledge of sea matters any reason for recalling orders once given. On the 24th of December, 1794, the fleet began to leave Brest, and, in so doing, one of the largest, of one hundred and ten guns, was wrecked on a rock in the entrance. On the 29th the remaining thirty-four had cleared the harbor and anchored in the road outside, whence they sailed on the 30th. On the night of January 1, 1795, a furious gale sprang up, followed by a spell of violent weather. Two eighty-gun ships and a seventy-four foundered, the crews being with difficulty saved. Two yet larger, of one hundred and ten guns, had seven feet of water in the hold and would have been lost had the storm lasted for twenty-four hours longer. Another seventy-four had to be run on the coast to save the lives of her people. In the midst of these difficulties, which caused the separation of the fleet, it was necessary to transfer provisions from the Toulon division to the other ships, an herculean undertaking, but imperative to keep the latter from starving. On the 2d of February the greater part of the survivors again reached Brest; but some had to scatter to other ports as the weather permitted. The Toulon ships returned with the rest. This mid-winter cruise had cost the republic five ships-of-the-line; it brought in one British corvette and seventy merchantmen as prizes.
The stars, or rather the winds, in their courses had fought for Great Britain; but in no wise did she owe anything to her own efforts. Not till the 14th of February did the Channel fleet put to sea, nearly a fortnight after the French had returned to Brest. Whatever may be said of the inexpediency of exposing the heavy ships to winter weather, it seems clear that the opposite system left the enemy at perfect liberty to combine his movements; and that there was little likelihood of these being made known to the commander-in-chief in Torbay soon enough for him to follow efficaciously. Howe himself felt this, and, from instructions issued by him to Sir James Saumarez on the 15th of January, it would appear that this escape of the French roused him for a moment to contemplate the close watch off Brest, afterwards practised by Jervis and Cornwallis. 99 This was the last occasion on which the veteran admiral actually went to sea in command of a fleet; although, from an apparent reluctance to try new men, the government insisted upon his exercising a nominal charge from quarters on shore. He was now in his seventieth year and suffering from many infirmities. The command afloat devolved upon a man not much younger, Lord Bridport, one of the naval family of Hood, but whose career does not bear the impress of great ability which distinguished so many of its members. Immediately before this, general dissatisfaction had caused a change in the Admiralty, over which, since 1788, had presided Pitt's elder brother, the Earl of Chatham. He was succeeded, in December, 1794, by Earl Spencer, a more vigorous and efficient man, who remained First Lord until the fall of Pitt's administration in 1801.
The new head, however, did not make any substantial variation of system, calculated to frustrate the enemy's naval combinations by the strategic dispositions of the British fleet. More activity was displayed by keeping a small squadron of half a dozen ships-of-the-line constantly cruising in the soundings and to the westward, and the great Channel fleet was more continuously at sea during the summer months; but the close blockade of Brest was not attempted, nor was Bridport the man to persuade the government to the measures afterwards so vigorously, and in the main successfully, carried out by Lord St. Vincent, both as successor to Bridport in the Channel fleet and subsequently as First Lord of the Admiralty. To this faulty policy contributed not a little the system of telegraphs, adopted in 1795, by which communications were quickly transmitted from height to height between London and Portsmouth. This great improvement unfortunately confirmed the tendency of the Admiralty to keep the Channel fleet at the latter point, regardless of the obvious, but unappreciated, strategic disadvantage of a position so far east of Brest, with winds prevailing from the western quarters. To have the commander-in-chief just there, under their own hand, to receive orders from them, seemed much safer than to put him and his fleet in a central position whence he could most certainly intercept or most rapidly follow the enemy, and then to trust to the judgment of a trained and competent sea-officer to act as the emergency required. The plan came near resulting very disastrously when the French attempted to invade Ireland; and would have done so, had not the elements again interfered to remedy the absence of the British fleet. "If," says Osler in his life of Lord Exmouth, 100 from whom he probably received the idea, "if Lord Bridport (in 1796) had been waiting at Falmouth, with discretional powers, Sir Edward Pellew having been instructed to communicate directly with him, he might have sailed early on December 21st" (Pellew reached Falmouth from before Brest on the 20th) "and found the enemy in Bantry Bay, when perhaps not a ship would have escaped him. It is, however, to be remembered that, as the destination of the French armament was unknown to the last, the Admiralty might very properly determine that he should receive his final instructions from themselves, and therefore would keep the fleet at Spithead (Portsmouth) for the convenience of ready communication." But why! How could they in London judge better than a good admiral on the coast?
During the year 1794, now closing, the Revolution in France had been rapidly devouring its children. After the overthrow of the Girondists in June, 1793, the Terror pursued its pitiless march, sweeping before it for the time every effort made in behalf of moderation or mercy. The queen was put to death on the 16th of October, and her execution was followed on the 31st by that of those Girondists who had not deigned to escape from their accusers. Dissension next arose and spread among the now triumphant party of the Jacobins; resulting in March and April, 1794, in the trial and death of the Hébertists on the one side, and of Danton and his friends on the other. More and more power fell into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, whose tokens to the world were Robespierre and his chief supporters, St. Just and Couthon, ruling the Convention which passively decreed their wishes, and, through the Convention, France. For three short months Robespierre now appeared as the master of the country, but was himself carried on and away by the torrent which he had done so much to swell. The exigencies and dangers of his position multiplied the precautions he deemed necessary to secure his authority and his safety; and the cold relentlessness of his character recognized no means so sure as death. On the 10th of June, by his sole authority, without the intervention of the Committee of Public Safety, he procured a decree modifying the procedure of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and suppressing the few checks that restrained its uncontrolled power. In the fourteen months preceding this decree 1256 persons had been by the tribunal condemned to death; in the six weeks that followed, until Robespierre himself fell, the executions were 1361. 101 So extreme an access of fury betokened approaching exhaustion; no society could endure the strain; the most violent and blood-thirsty, as well as the most timid, felt their own lives in danger. Bitter opposition to the dictator arose both in the Committee of Public Safety and in the Legislature. The doubtful struggle, between the prestige of his power and long continued success and the various passions of fear and vengeance animating his opponents, culminated in a violent scene in the Convention on the 27th of July. For some hours the issue was balanced, but in the end the arrest and trial of Robespierre and his chief supporters were decreed. The following day he, St. Just and Couthon, with some others of lesser note, died on the guillotine.
No immediate change in the form of government ensued. The Committee of Public Safety, reconstituted, continued to exercise the executive functions which nominally depended upon the Convention; and the impulse which it had imparted to the soldiers and armies of France continued for a time to carry them resistlessly forward. But the delirious intensity of the popular movement had reached its climax in the three months' unrestrained power of Robespierre, with whose name it has been ever associated. Though the external manifestations of strength continued for a time unabated, the inner tension was relaxing. Weakness was about to succeed the strength of fever, to spread from the heart throughout the whole organism, and, by threatening social dissolution, to prepare the way for concentrated absolute power.
The onward swing of the French armies on the north-east still continued. The year 1794 had opened with the investment of Landrecy by the allies, and its surrender to them on the 30th of April. The French began their campaign with the plan, especially affected by Carnot in all his military combinations, of attacking at the same time both flanks of the allied Austrians, Dutch and English, concentrating at each extremity of the line a force greatly superior to the enemy before it. As Jourdan, commanding the French right, threatened the allied stronghold of Charleroi, he drew thither the greater effort of the allies, and Pichegru, on the left, found his task easier. Five times did Jourdan cross the Sambre to attack Charleroi, and four times was he compelled to re-cross; but on the fifth, before the allies could come up in sufficient force, the place capitulated,—the guns of the relieving force being heard just as the garrison was marching out. The following day, June 26, 1794, Jourdan fought and won the battle of Fleurus; the Austrians retreating upon Nivelles towards the future field of Waterloo. The allies on both flanks continued to fall back; Ostend and Nieuport, ports on the North Sea facilitating communication with England, were successively surrendered, and Brussels uncovered. On the 10th of July Pichegru entered Brussels and formed his junction with Jourdan. On the 15th the allies lost Landrecy, the first and only prize of the campaign. On the same day the French attacked in force the centre of the allied line, where the Anglo-Dutch left touched the Austrian right. The former being gradually turned fell back, and the Austrians, finding their flank uncovered, did the same. From this time the allies retired in divergent directions, the Anglo-Dutch north-east toward Holland, the Austrians eastward toward Coblentz; thus repeating in retreat the unmilitary and ruinous mistake which had rendered abortive the offensive campaign of 1793.
The French advance was now stayed by the Committee of Public Safety, in deference to an emotion of patriotism, until the towns surrendered the year before should be retaken. On the 11th of August Le Quesnoy opened its gates, on the 27th Valenciennes, and on the 30th Condé. The siege corps now rejoined the armies in the field and the advance was resumed; Pichegru following the British and Dutch toward Holland, Jourdan, by a series of flank attacks which threatened the communications of the Austrians, forcing the latter from one position to another, until on the 5th October they recrossed to the east side of the Rhine, the French occupying Coblentz and Bonn on the west bank. The advance of Pichegru was marked by less of battle and more of siege than that of Jourdan, but was alike successful. By the middle of October his army had reached the Rhine; which in Holland divides into two branches, the Waal and the Leek, between which the enemy lay. A month later they had retreated beyond the latter, the French being for a moment stopped by the floating ice in the rivers; but the winter was one of unusual severity, and early in January the waters were frozen hard. On the 17th of January, 1795, the Prince of Orange left Holland for England, and on the 20th Pichegru entered Amsterdam. The provinces and cities everywhere declared for the French, and a provisional republican government was established; while the pursuit of the British troops was continued with unremitting diligence until they had escaped into German territory, whence they returned, in April, to England.
The occupation of Belgium and Holland by the French was in every way a matter of concern to the other European powers. It threatened Great Britain in the North Sea, where her flank had previously been strengthened by the Dutch alliance, and compelled her at once to weaken the Channel fleet by a detachment of five ships-of-the-line to confront the Dutch squadrons. The merchants of Holland being among the great money-lenders of Europe, large revenues were opened to the needy French; and the resources thus gained by them were by the same blow lost to the allies. Great Britain thenceforth had to bear alone the money burden of the war. But on the other hand the republican commissaries sucked like leeches the substance of the Dutch; and the sources of their wealth, commerce and the colonies, were at the same time threatened with extinction by the British sea power, whose immediate hostility was incurred by the change in their political relations. Within a month, on the 9th of February, orders were issued to arrest all Dutch ships at sea; temporary provision being made to restore neutral property found on board them, because shipped while Holland was an ally. Vigorous measures were at once taken for the seizure of the rich Dutch colonies in all parts of the world; and before the year 1795 closed, there passed into the hands of Great Britain the Cape of Good Hope, Malacca, all the Dutch possessions on the continent of India, and the most important places in Ceylon; the whole island submitting in 1796. Besides these, other colonies were taken in the farther East and in the West Indies. The Dutch navy remained inoffensively in its ports until the year 1797, with the exception of a small expedition that escaped from the Texel in February, 1796, prepared to retake the Cape of Good Hope. Unable to go through the English Channel, which was completely under the enemy's control, it passed north of the British Islands and eluded capture until Saldanha Bay, near the Cape, was reached. Upon hearing of its arrival the British admiral on that station sailed in pursuit, and, having a greatly superior force, received its instant surrender.
