Intelligence in War: The Value--And Limitations--Of What the Military Can Learn About the Enemy by John Keegan Page B
Authors: John Keegan
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great French bases at Brest and Rochefort and to keep an eye on the remains of the Spanish navy in Cadiz, detached squadrons to protect the British possessions in the West Indies, at the Cape of Good Hope and in India, and a host of smaller line-of-battleships and frigates to protect the convoys of merchantmen and Indiamen on which British trade, the lever of the war against France, depended.
Britain had the superiority. In 1797 it had 161 line-of-battle ships and 209 fourth-rates and frigates, against only 30 French line-of-battle ships and 50 Spanish. 3 The French and Spanish did not, however, have to keep the seas, but could remain comfortably in port, awaiting their chance to sally forth at an unguarded moment, while the British ships were constantly on blockade, wearing out their masts and timbers in a battle with the elements, or else in dockyard, repairing the damage. Only two-thirds of the Royal Navy was on station at any one time, while the demands of blockade and convoy even further reduced the numbers available to form a fighting fleet for a particular mission: Duncan had only 16 ships to the Dutch 15 at Camperdown, Jervis was actually heavily outnumbered, 15 to 27, at Cape St. Vincent. Moreover, both the French and Spanish navies built new ships at a prodigious rate and found less difficulty in manning than the British did. With larger resources of manpower, they conscripted soldiers and landsmen to fill the naval ranks, and while the recruits included fewer experienced seamen than the British collared by the press, they were not necessarily more unwilling. The inequity of the press, the paucity of naval pay, the harshness of life aboard, caused large-scale naval strikes in the Royal Navy in the spring of 1797—the “mutinies” at Spithead and the Nore—which, for once, frightened the admirals out of thinking flogging the cure for all indiscipline. The prospect of joining action against the revolutionary French with an untrustworthy lower deck prompted immediate improvements to the lot of the common sailor.
Just in time. By the spring of 1798, a new naval threat had arisen. Unknown to the British government, the French leadership—the Directory—had relinquished for the time being the project of an invasion of England and decided to create an alternative threat to its island enemy’s strategic interests. The initiative had come from General Bonaparte. On 23 February he wrote, “To perform a descent on England without being master of the seas is a very daring operation and very difficult to put into effect . . . For such an operation we would need the long nights of winter. After the month of April, it would be increasingly impossible.” 4 As an alternative, he proposed an attack on King George III’s personal homeland, the Electorate of Hanover. Its occupation would not, however, damage the commercial power of Britain. He saw another possibility: “We could well make an expedition to the Levant which would menace the commerce of the Indies.” The Levant, the region of the sunrise, lay across the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, in southern Turkey, Syria but also Egypt. Egypt was not only a fabled land but also the point at which the Mediterranean most nearly approached the Red Sea, the European means of access to the Indian Ocean and the Moghul dominions in India proper. France had not abandoned hopes of supplanting Britain as the dominant external influence in the Moghuls’ affairs, set back though its interests had been by British victories in the sub-continent in the last thirty years. A French descent on India, principal source of British overseas wealth since its loss of the American colonies, might deal a disabling blow to the Revolution’s chief enemy.
Bonaparte, moreover, had chosen the moment shrewdly. The Mediterranean was temporarily a French lake. Even given the diminished strength of its navy, enough warships could be found to escort a troop convoy from France’s southern ports to
Britain had the superiority. In 1797 it had 161 line-of-battle ships and 209 fourth-rates and frigates, against only 30 French line-of-battle ships and 50 Spanish. 3 The French and Spanish did not, however, have to keep the seas, but could remain comfortably in port, awaiting their chance to sally forth at an unguarded moment, while the British ships were constantly on blockade, wearing out their masts and timbers in a battle with the elements, or else in dockyard, repairing the damage. Only two-thirds of the Royal Navy was on station at any one time, while the demands of blockade and convoy even further reduced the numbers available to form a fighting fleet for a particular mission: Duncan had only 16 ships to the Dutch 15 at Camperdown, Jervis was actually heavily outnumbered, 15 to 27, at Cape St. Vincent. Moreover, both the French and Spanish navies built new ships at a prodigious rate and found less difficulty in manning than the British did. With larger resources of manpower, they conscripted soldiers and landsmen to fill the naval ranks, and while the recruits included fewer experienced seamen than the British collared by the press, they were not necessarily more unwilling. The inequity of the press, the paucity of naval pay, the harshness of life aboard, caused large-scale naval strikes in the Royal Navy in the spring of 1797—the “mutinies” at Spithead and the Nore—which, for once, frightened the admirals out of thinking flogging the cure for all indiscipline. The prospect of joining action against the revolutionary French with an untrustworthy lower deck prompted immediate improvements to the lot of the common sailor.
Just in time. By the spring of 1798, a new naval threat had arisen. Unknown to the British government, the French leadership—the Directory—had relinquished for the time being the project of an invasion of England and decided to create an alternative threat to its island enemy’s strategic interests. The initiative had come from General Bonaparte. On 23 February he wrote, “To perform a descent on England without being master of the seas is a very daring operation and very difficult to put into effect . . . For such an operation we would need the long nights of winter. After the month of April, it would be increasingly impossible.” 4 As an alternative, he proposed an attack on King George III’s personal homeland, the Electorate of Hanover. Its occupation would not, however, damage the commercial power of Britain. He saw another possibility: “We could well make an expedition to the Levant which would menace the commerce of the Indies.” The Levant, the region of the sunrise, lay across the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, in southern Turkey, Syria but also Egypt. Egypt was not only a fabled land but also the point at which the Mediterranean most nearly approached the Red Sea, the European means of access to the Indian Ocean and the Moghul dominions in India proper. France had not abandoned hopes of supplanting Britain as the dominant external influence in the Moghuls’ affairs, set back though its interests had been by British victories in the sub-continent in the last thirty years. A French descent on India, principal source of British overseas wealth since its loss of the American colonies, might deal a disabling blow to the Revolution’s chief enemy.
Bonaparte, moreover, had chosen the moment shrewdly. The Mediterranean was temporarily a French lake. Even given the diminished strength of its navy, enough warships could be found to escort a troop convoy from France’s southern ports to
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