Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  'I hope you have seen Jellicoe. . . . He has all the Nelson attributes: 1. Self-reliance, 2. Fearlessness of Responsibility, 3. Fertility of Resource, 4. Power of Initiative. . . . He will win the battle of Armageddon on 21 October 1914 (Make a note of that date!). . . . It won't be victory . . . that Jellicoe will accomplish! It will be annihilation.'

  On two counts he was very wrong. His belief that Germany's High Seas Fleet would seek an early action with Britain's Grand Fleet was founded on the dramatic attack on Port Arthur which opened the Russo-Japanese war, and the more extravagant statements of Grand Admiral von Tirpitz; though fond of citing Nelson's maxims, he overlooked the two years which it took him to bring Villeneuve to action at Trafalgar. Secondly, he gravely misjudged his protégé: though Jellicoe might be the best man available to command the Grand Fleet in 1914, he lacked Nelson's imagination and creative qualities as a tactician. He did not treat his flag officers and captains as a Band of Brothers; he controlled their every action. Above all he was cautious to a fault in the face of a threat that Nelson never faced, the underwater mine and torpedo.

  The result was Jutland; although this cannot be paralleled with Trafalgar, in that Jellicoe's command included almost all of Great Britain's dreadnoughts whereas Nelson's counted only a quarter of her ships-of-the-line, so that a defeat for the former must have had more disastrous consequences than one for the latter, Jellicoe failed to defeat Scheer (tactically that is; subsequent events proved it to have been a strategic victory) because he adhered to the dogma of a gun duel fought in single line ahead, because all initiative was stifled in his flag officers and captains (with honourable exceptions), and because he could not 'throw his bonnet over the moon'.

  The spirit of Nelson was not, however, dead in British naval commanders of this era. Beatty typified it at the battle of Heligoland Bight; the pity is that his great qualities did not gain him the victory that he deserved in subsequent clashes with the enemy. At the Dogger Bank, his second-in-command failed him; and at Jutland he suffered the loss of three of his nine battle-cruisers for a reason beyond his control, serious faults in their design. Nelson's spirit lived on, too, in Commodore Reginald Tyrwhitt's leadership of the Harwich Force; in Rear-Admiral Roger Keyes' assault on Zeebrugge, for all that this came near to being another Santa Cruz; and in Commodore Walter Cowan, though his successful raid on Kronstadt is now largely forgotten because it occurred after the Armistice.

  As important was another aspect of Nelson's legacy. Because he personified the Royal Navy's great years of victory, his memory inspired the sure will to win in every officer and man in the British Fleet of 1914-18. The Kaiser feared this spirit so much that he refused to allow von Tirpitz to risk the High Seas Fleet in action. And because of it the Grand Fleet's morale remained unshaken by four long years of maintaining a blockade from the monotonous wastes of Scapa Flow, whilst that of the High Seas Fleet collapsed in the greater comforts of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven, despite the near success of its U-boats because Britain was so slow to recognize that the only way to defeat this new form of guerre de course was the old way, by convoy.

  So, although there was no Trafalgar, the Royal Navy's very real achievements during the First World War are not to be denied. It was the blockade relentlessly maintained by the British Grand Fleet - with its power augmented during the last year by an American battle squadron - which by 1918 so weakened Germany's will to resist that the Allied armies were able to end the stalemate in Flanders. How much Nelson, watching from another world, must have envied Beatty that day in November 1918 when the High Seas Fleet surrendered and ceased to exist: this was annihilation beyond his dreams.

  The Second World War is, perhaps, too recent for any historian to give a definitive judgement on its naval commanders. But that the Royal Navy had not lost the Nelson Touch was clearly shown as early as December 1939, when Commodore Henry Harwood's three cruisers set the pretensions of the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee at nought. The Nelson spirit animated Admiral Sir John Tovey and those under him who sank the Bismarck, Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser and those who dealt with the Scharnhorst, Admiral Sir Philip Vian of Cossack fame, Captain B. A. Warburton-Lee at Narvik, and many others. Above all, Nelson lived again in Admiral Sir Andrew B. Cunningham, especially at Taranto and Matapan. Nor was the Royal Navy alone in remembering Nelson; his spirit animated the Navy of the United States in its many actions against the Japanese and, to name just one of its commanders, Nelson would surely have seen much of his own image in Admiral W. F. Halsey. Above all, these two great Navies, together with those of their allies, achieved Nelson's enduring ambition, 'annihilation' the total surrender of the Italian Fleet in 1943, and of all that remained of the German and Japanese Navies in 1945.

  Since then the United States, which in the nineteenth century grew to greatness behind the sure shield of the Royal Navy, has grasped Neptune's trident. The USSR also aims to do so. Great Britain, as always 'very small among the nations', no longer boasts the largest Navy in the world, although it has spawned a number of not insignificant Fleets among such countries as Australia, Canada, India, Pakistan and New Zealand which were once under her dominion but now form part of that free association, the British Commonwealth of Nations. And among all these, the Royal Navy's history, reputation and traditions remain. Nelson long served his country by his exertions; he has served her and her friends for longer still by his example - and, one trusts, will always do so. In peace or war the Navy that is true to Nelson cannot fail.

  The man and the ships he knew how to lead have passed away, but Nelson's uplifting touch remains. The hazardous difficulties of handling a fleet under canvas have passed beyond our conception. The difference in the character of the ships is so enormous that the modern naval man must feel that the time has come for the great sea officers of the past to be laid in the temple of august memories. But Nelson's conviction and audacity, sustained by an unbounded trust in the men he led, stand out from his Trafalgar Memorandum. Those who from the heat of Trafalgar sank together in the cool depths of the ocean would gaze with amazed eyes at the engines of our strife. All passes, all changes: the animosity of peoples, the handling of fleets, the forms of ships; even the sea itself seems to wear a different and diminished aspect from the sea of Nelson's day. We must turn to the national spirit which, in its continuity to good and evil fortune, can alone give us the feeling of an enduring existence and of an invincible power against the fates. In its incorruptible flow it preserves the greatness of our great men, amongst them the passionate and gentle greatness of Nelson, the nature of whose genius was such as to 'Exalt the glory of our nation'. (Abridged from The Mirror of the Sea, by Joseph Conrad.)

  So let 'Finis' be written in the words of Richard Brinsley Sheridan - Dublin born be it noted by those who are still as critical of Nelson as the two Irishmen quoted in the first chapter of this book - which are inscribed on James Smith's monument, erected in London's Guildhall as early as 1810 (nearly forty years before the completion of Railton's column in Trafalgar Square: the Alderman and Common Councilmen must have remembered how they had failed to do justice to Nelson's victory at Copenhagen):

  'A Man amongst the few, who promoted the grandeur, and added to the security of Nations. Providence implanted in his breast an ardent passion for deserved renown, and bounteously endowed him with transcendent talents. Rising to command, he infused into those he led the valorous ardour and enthusiastic zeal for the service of his King and Country with which he himself was animated; and while he acquired the love of all, he inspired universal confidence in the never-failing resources of his capacious mind. History will relate the many great exploits through which he became the glory of his profession; but in his illustrious career he commanded and conquered at the battles of the Nile and Copenhagen, victories never before equalled, yet afterwards surpassed by his own last achievement, the battle of Trafalgar. On that day he fell mortally wounded; but the sources of life and sense failed not until he knew the destruction of the enemy to be co
mpleted, and the glory of his Country, and his own, had attained their summit.

  This monument has been erected to manifest our estimation of the Man, and as admiration of his deeds. This testimony of our gratitude will, we trust, remain as long as our own renowned City shall exist. The period to Nelson's fame can only be the end of time.'

  Chapter Notes

  Chapter I

  1. The reader who is reluctant to accept the military virtues as relevant to the nuclear age is reminded of the Socialist George Orwell's words, in My Country Right or Left: 'The spiritual need for patriotism and the military virtues, for which however little the boiled rabbits of the Left may like them, no substitute has yet been found.'

  2. In sharp contrast to the great Duke of Marlborough who, having fought at sea as a young officer onboard the British flagship at the battle of Sole Bay (1672), was wise enough to rebuke those who would have him interfere with the conduct of naval operations in the War of the Spanish Succession, with these words: The Sea Service is not so easily arranged as that of land, there are many more precautions to take, and you and I are not capable of judging them.'

  Chapter II

  1. This is the date calculated by Mahan and accepted by Laughton. But Nicolas gives December 1770, and many other authorities 1 January 1771. Nelson himself gave the last date in an auto-biographical memorandum, but since this is inaccurate as to his date of birth it cannot be relied on.

  2. Often spelt Comptroller. For the duties of this office see Chapter IV.

  3. Election to Parliament need not have curtailed Nelson's naval career. Officers, whether unemployed on half-pay or holding appointments on full pay, were allowed to take seats in the House of Commons until shortly before the First World War. Only in the present century has a parliamentary career been limited to officers on the retired or emergency lists.

  4. Hood's adjective: RA. Add.15/750

  5. Nelson's Dockyard, as it is now called, was first established in 1725. With officers' quarters and seamen's barracks, with capstan house, mast house, boat house and blacksmith's shop, with copper, canvas and timber stores, and with forts on nearby Shirley Heights and the Ridge guarding the entrance to a harbour that provided a safe refuge from hurricanes, it continued in use until the advent of steam-driven warships too large to negotiate the narrow entrance channel, compelled its abandonment in 1899, after which tropical decay and occasional hurricanes reduced much of it to ruins. Most fortunately, however, the Society of Friends of English Harbour was formed in 1950 and under their auspices the dockyard has been restored much as it was in Nelson's day, to serve anew as a yacht marina.

  6. On the evidence of the marriage certificate - not in the 'little church' of St John and St Thomas as is commonly stated. The site of the house is now occupied by a hotel.

  Chapter III

  1. The relative strengths of the two Fleets are discussed in Chapter IV.

  2. The British Museum is indirectly indebted to him for many treasures, the most famous being the vase of Roman cameo glass, dating from the reign of Augustus, which he sold to the Dowager Duchess of Portland for 1,800 guineas ($4,536).

  3. From the Tower's stout resistance came the Anglicized name Martello for the numerous circular forts soon to be built round Britain's coasts (e.g. seventy-four between Folkestone and Seaford) as a defence against a French invasion, many of which still stand (most in ruins but one, at Dymchurch, has been fully restored, complete with 24-pounder gun, and is open to the public).

  4. Compare these words with Shakespeare's:

  Cowards die many time before their deaths;

  The valiant never taste of death but once.

  5. Not, as many historians have written, the Jean Barras, a mistake for which Nelson's better knowledge of the names of the members of the French Directory than of France's naval history, must be held responsible.

  6. Nelson's tactics in this action are discussed further in Chapter IV.

  7. At which he led his squadron of four frigates into victorious action against a Franco-Venetian force of six frigates and four smaller vessels, flying the signal: 'Remember Nelson'.

  Chapter IV

  1. For example, Admiral Togo's claim to be counted among the Great Captains is open to question because, although he scored an annihilating victory at Tsushima in 1905, this was over a Russian fleet whose ships were ill-found, poorly manned and inadequately led, not-withstanding Admiral Rozhestvensky's considerable feat in surmounting all the obstacles which stood between the Baltic and Vladivostock, except for the enemy fleet that awaited him in the Sea of Japan.

  2. Hence the importance attached to growing oak trees in England, and the eighteenth century wartime ban on using their wood for any purpose other than shipbuilding. When, for example, the Myddletons of Chirk, on the Welsh border, required new beams to repair Chirk Castle, they were obliged to 'make do' with discarded ships' timbers, despite the extent to which these had been shaped and bored to fit them for their original purpose. These 'second hand' beams are still in situ at Chirk.

  3. As many as 4,500 British ships passed through the Sound in a year, chiefly laden with naval stores, with more than 350 in a single convoy.

  4. It was the British Navy's enormous appetite for wood blocks, 100,000 a year in 1800, that impelled Marc Isambard Brunel (a French naval officer who, to escape the Revolution, adopted American citizenship, and who was later to build the first tunnel under the Thames) to design and equip Portsmouth Dockyard with special steam-driven machine tools in 1803 for the speedy manufacture of such a large number of sleeves and pulleys. Some of these machines are still in use today; the rest are preserved in London's Science Museum as the world's first mass production plant. See The Portsmouth Block-making Machinery, by K. R. Gilbert.

  5. Nelson was, incidentally, sufficiently far-sighted to recognize the advantages of steam propulsion even though the first practicable steamboat was not built (by the American Robert Fulton) until two years before his death - nor the first seagoing steam vessel completed (by a Scot, Thomas Bell) until 1815. This contrasts sharply with the Admiralty attitude. In 1828 they (wrote the First Lord, Lord Melville) 'felt it their bounden duty to discourage, to the utmost of their ability, the employment of steam vessels, as they considered that the introduction of steam was calculated to strike a fatal blow at the naval supremacy of the Empire' - an attitude that was maintained until its patent absurdity was exposed in both the Baltic and the Black Seas during the Crimean War.

  6. For merchant ships cargo-carrying capacity was more important. Hence the reason why Nelson's converted Albemarle was 'a poor sailer and a brute to handle'.

  7. They were, however, sometimes used for other purposes. In particular, the Carcass, in which Midshipman Horatio Nelson visited the Arctic in 1773, was a bomb stripped of her mortars. 'Since sail gave way to steam, battleships, aircraft-carriers, cruisers, destroyers and other sizeable craft have been classed as Ships, inshore minesweepers and fast patrol boats, etc. as Vessels.

  8. In 1780 mariners were warned of the proximity of the English coast by only twenty-five lights: today it is marked by as many hundred. As important, British naval strategy required her fleet to be constantly at sea when those of her enemies were as often as not secure in their own ports.

  9. In 1801 Nelson rejected a proposal to introduce a better method of sighting guns with the comment that he hoped that 'our ships would be able, as usual, to get so close to our enemy's that our ships cannot miss the object'.

  10. Flint locks, the only significant improvement in gun design since the time of Henry VIII's Mary Rose, were introduced into the Royal Navy in 1755

  11. A minor classic which has not been played since 1773, except for a production in the BBC Third Programme in 1949 using a text edited by the present author. A revival is overdue.

  12. Moreover some ships' crews included women. For example, Nancy Perriam, who died in 1865 at the ripe age of ninety-eight, served onboard the Orion at the Nile. But this practice, tolerated but not
officially recognized by the Admiralty, could involve complications: the shock of HMS Elephant's first broadside at Copenhagen was enough to expedite the birth of a son to the sailmaker's mate.

  13. Thirty-four years after Trafalgar one-third of the population of the Three Towns, Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport, which then totalled nearly 90,000, was still living in the crowded squalor of single-room homes, with no means of sewage disposal other than throwing it into the street.

  14. Middleton, First Lord, 1805-6, was the last naval officer to hold this office. The Naval Lords were co-equal subordinates until 1805, when the senior one became the First Lord's deputy, with prime responsibility for operations, and so First Naval (or Sea) Lord.

  15. Daniel Defoe noted in his A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain that the roads were so bad that 'I have seen one tree on a carriage . . . drawn . . . by two and twenty oxen . . . carried so little a way . . . that sometimes it is two or three years before it gets [from the Surrey woods] to Chatham.' The roads were no better in the late eighteenth century. The canal was, nonetheless, begun too late; it was not finished until 1816, by which time it was again practicable to use the faster sea route between Spithead and the Nore (see London's Lost Route to the Sea, by P. A. L. Vine).

  Chapter V

  1. Or, as one jealous brother captain grumbled: 'You did as you pleased in Lord Hood's time, the same in Admiral Hotham's, and now again with Sir John Jervis. It makes no difference to you who is Commander-in-Chief' - to which speech Nelson returned 'a pretty strong answer'.

  2. This is a more likely version of how Hardy was rescued than that chronicled by Colonel Drinkwater, a passenger in the Minerve, which most historians have accepted without questioning its fallacies. According to this landsman, Hardy's boat was prevented from returning to the Minerve by the strong current flowing through the Straits - which ignores the natural phenomena that a current has as much effect upon a ship under way (as opposed to one at anchor) as it has upon any boat she may lower - and Nelson limited his order to Cockburn to, 'Back the mizzen topsail' - when more drastic action was clearly required to recover Hardy's boat as quickly as possible.