The Influence of sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, vol I

At three o'clock the whole fleet was under sail, the sun was sinking fast, the weather gloomy and squally; and the vessels, unable to form from the inexperience of their officers, were running disorderly for the dangerous pass, the entrance to which, being fifteen miles from the anchorage they were leaving, could not be reached before dark. The flag-officers, except Richery, had quitted their own ships-of-the-line and gone aboard frigates, the two commanders, Hoche and Morard de Galles, being together on board the "Fraternité." As night fell, the wind hauled to the southward, threatening to become foul, under which conditions the passage of the Raz would be impossible. Moved by the danger, and considering that Colpoys was not within sight, the admiral by signal countermanded his order, and directed the fleet to put before the wind and run out by the Iroise channel. In the confusion and growing darkness this order was not understood. Morard's own ship and half a dozen more, one only of which was of the line, obeyed; but all the others continued for the Passage du Raz. Thus, at the very moment of starting, the two principal officers were separated from their command. In vain did Morard send a corvette to enforce his order by voice or by signal,—she was not understood; and the confusion was increased by Pellew, who, attaching himself to the leading ships, kept on with them through the Iroise, and by burning rockets and blue lights, and firing guns, rendered utterly incoherent the attempts of the French admiral to convey by similar means his meaning to his fleet. 321 In the midst of the turmoil the "Séduisant," of seventy-four guns, ran on a rock which lies across the entrance to the passage, and was totally wrecked, her guns and signals of distress adding to the uproar. 322 At half-past eight, the "Indefatigable" saw the ships with which she had kept company pass round the outer end of the Chaussée de Sein and steer to the southward, with the hope, doubtless, of rejoining their consorts. Pellew then made sail for Falmouth, where he arrived on the 20th of December. Had this port then been the rendezvous of the Channel fleet, or even of a strong detachment, there would still have been time, for the French did not reach Bantry Bay till the 22d; the wind was east, and the distance but two hundred and fifty miles.

On the morning of the 17th of December, the French were divided into three bodies out of sight of each other. With the two commanders-in-chief were one ship-of-the-line and three frigates. Rear-Admiral Bouvet, the second in command, had with him eight ships-of-the-line and nine other vessels. In accordance with his orders he continued to steer west during the 17th and 18th. On the 19th, having opened his sealed instructions and reached the longitude of Mizen Head, he changed the course to north, and the same day was joined by the third section of the expedition, thus concentrating under his command fifteen ships-of-the-line, and, with three unimportant exceptions, all the other vessels except those with Hoche and Morard. Grouchy, second to Hoche, was with Bouvet; so that the admiral now had with him practically the whole body of the expedition. Unfortunately the soul, the young, gallant, and skilful Hoche, the emulous rival of Bonaparte's growing glory, who saw in the Irish expedition the great hope of restoring the brilliancy of his own star, paling before that of his competitor,—Hoche was absent.

With a brief exception of southwesterly weather, the wind continued from the eastward during the whole of Bouvet's passage; and notwithstanding a good deal of fog, at times very dense, 323 all those who were with him on the 19th—thirty-five out of the forty-three which composed the expedition—found themselves on the early morning of December 21st together, and in full sight of the Irish coast. "It is most delicious weather," wrote the eager, restless Irishman, Wolfe Tone, who was on board one of the ships, "with a favorable wind and everything we can desire, except our missing comrades. At the moment I am writing we are under easy sail, within three leagues at most of the coast, so that I can discern patches of snow upon the mountains. What if the general do not join? If we cruise here five days according to our instructions, the English will be upon us and all will be over. Nine o'clock (P. M.). We are now at the rendezvous appointed; stood in for the coast till twelve (noon), when we were near enough to toss a biscuit ashore. At twelve tacked and stood out again, so we have now begun our cruise of five days in all its forms.... We opened Bantry Bay; and in all my life rage never entered so deep into my heart as when we turned our backs. Continue making short tacks; the wind foul." 324

The wind was now foul, not because of its own change, but because from the entrance of Bantry Bay to its head the direction is east-north-east. The wind that had been favorable for leaving Brest and for the passage was for the short remaining distance, not over thirty miles at the most, nearly dead ahead. Unfortunately, also, in sailing north along the meridian of Bantry Bay, the east wind had set the fleet imperceptibly to the westward, so that the land first seen was not Mizen Head, at the eastern side of the entrance, but Dursey Island, at the western. 325 Had the intended landfall been made, the ships might, by hauling close round Mizen Head, have fetched a point at least twelve miles inside of Dursey Island and there anchored. Now that fortune ceased to waft them with favoring gales, the weaknesses of the expedition became painfully apparent. Crews composed mainly of landsmen, with a very small sprinkling of able seamen, crowded and impeded at every turn by the swarming mass of soldiery, were ill able to do the rapid handling of ropes and canvas necessitated by a dead beat of thirty miles, against a strong head wind in a narrow bay, where every rod lost tells, and requires three or four rods of sailing to be regained; where sails must be reefed or hoisted, set or furled, at a moment's notice, and the canvas spread varies from half-hour to half-hour. Such a tug tasks the skill, as it proclaims the excellence, of the smartest single ship, though she find the channel clear of other vessels; but to a fleet of thirty-five, manned and equipped as those of Bouvet, and compelled to give way continually as they crossed each other's paths, it proved impossible to reach the head of Bantry Bay, where shelter would have been found from the east winds, which for the following week blew with relentless fury.

Through the night of the 21st and all day of the 22d, the fleet continued turning to windward; and toward nightfall the admiral anchored with eight of-the-line and seven other vessels off Bear Island, still twelve miles from the head of the bay. The other twenty ships remained outside under way. All the 23d it blew hard from the eastward, and nothing was done. On the 24th the weather moderated, and it was decided to attempt a landing, although no more ships had come in,—the twenty outside having been blown to sea. Those at the anchorage got under way, but made no progress. "I believe," wrote the exasperated Wolfe Tone, "that we have made three hundred tacks, and have not gained a hundred yards in a straight line." At sunset the division again anchored; and during the night the wind rose to a gale, which continued all the 25th and prevented any boat work. Several ships dragged, and some cables parted. Soon after nightfall the cable of Bouvet's flag-ship gave way, and the "Immortalité" began to drive upon Bear Island. A second anchor failing to hold her, the admiral cut both cables and put to sea, signalling the other vessels to do likewise and hailing to the same effect those near whom he passed, among others the ship on board which Wolfe Tone was. This, however, held on—her captain becoming the senior naval officer present—till the 27th. The wind then falling, a council of war was held, and decided that as there were but four thousand soldiers in the bay, and as neither cannon, ammunition nor provisions necessary for the landing remained at the anchorage, the attempt must be abandoned. The wind now changing to south-west and threatening a storm, this little division, reduced to six ships-of-the-line and four smaller vessels, sailed for Brest, where they arrived on the 12th of January. Rear-Admiral Bouvet had long preceded them, having reached Brest on the 1st of the month. 326 By the 14th, four weeks and a day after sailing from Brest, thirty-five of the expedition had returned safe, though greatly battered, to French ports, after various adventures not necessary to relate. Five, including the "Séduisant," wrecked on the night of sailing, had been lost or destroyed by their officers, and six captured 327 by the British.

The one still to be accounted for closed dramatically the adventure, which, having begun by the wreck of one ship-of-the-line, ended with the yet more deplorable destruction of another. This, called by the good revolutionary name "Droits de l'Homme," had clung tenaciously to the Irish coast till January 5th; but, finding herself alone and no hope remaining, started then to return to Brest. On the 13th she fell in with two British frigates, one the "Indefatigable," Pellew's ship. The two closed with her, and just before nightfall the French vessel carried away her fore and main topmasts. The wind was blowing hard from the westward, and her captain, fearing momentarily to meet enemy's ships of greater force and numbers, decided to run steadily for his own coast. At half-past five the "Indefatigable," whose sail power was untouched, drew up, and the battle began. An hour later her consort, the "Amazon," came within range. Through the long night, with a few intermissions at the choice of the uncrippled British frigates, the strife went on,—the embarrassed condition of the "Droits de l'Homme" being increased by the fall of her mizzen mast at half-past ten. The sea was running so high that the crews of the frigates fought up to their middles in water, while the ship-of-the-line could not use her lower tier of guns; and at the end the "Indefatigable," the sole survivor of the conflict, had four feet of water in her hold. At half-past four on the morning of the 14th, land, for which a lookout had been anxiously kept, was suddenly seen. The two British ships were then holding positions a little ahead, and on either bow, of the "Droits de l'Homme." Each hauled to the wind on its own side of the enemy; the "Indefatigable" to the south, the "Amazon" to the north. All three were embayed in Audierne Bay, an unsheltered beach thirty-five miles south of Brest, between Pointe du Raz and the Penmarck rocks. By strenuous efforts the "Indefatigable," after wearing twice, cleared the latter by three quarters of a mile. As she passed them in broad daylight, the "Droits de l'Homme" lay on her side at the bottom of the bay, the surf beating over her. The "Amazon," whose situation had allowed too little time for skill to play, was also aground two miles to the northward. Here, however, the resemblance ceased. The trained and disciplined British crew got safe to land. The unfortunate French ship, crowded to repletion with men for the most part wholly unaccustomed to the sea, had had the further misfortune to take the bottom on a bank at a great distance from the beach. Three days of awful exposure, without food or water, followed. Not till the 17th did the subsidence of the gale allow relief from shore, and only on the 18th did the last survivor quit the wreck. Out of thirteen hundred men on board her when the battle began, two hundred and sixty were killed and wounded, and two hundred and seventeen lost their lives through the wreck.

The singular circumstance that, despite the first separation of the fleet on the night of sailing, the disconnected units were yet for the most part brought together and together reached the coast of Ireland, and yet that from this happy meeting the most important vessel of all, carrying the two commanders-in-chief, was excepted, creates a legitimate curiosity as to the movements of the "Fraternité" during these critical days. On the 17th, this ship had with her two frigates and one ship-of-the-line,—the "Nestor." On the 20th the other frigates had disappeared, the "Nestor" alone remaining; but it was found, from subsequent examination of the logs, that had the fog which then covered the ocean lifted, the "Fraternité" would have been in sight of the main body, which then, under Bouvet, was steering north to make Mizen Head. That night the "Nestor" parted company. On the 24th of December the "Fraternité" was pursuing her course for Bantry Bay, where the main body had already arrived, when a ship resembling a ship-of-the-line was seen. As the stranger did not reply to the signals made, the "Fraternité" took flight to the westward, and, finding herself outsailed, threw overboard some of her guns. During the night the pursuer was thrown off, and the frigate again shaped her course for Bantry Bay; but the same easterly gale which drove Bouvet from the anchorage was now blowing in her teeth. On the 29th Hoche and Morard fell in with the first of the expedition they had seen since the "Nestor" left them, and a sad meeting it was. One, the "Scevola," was sinking; the other, the "Révolution," which had been badly injured by a collision in Bantry Bay, was saving the "Scevola's" crew. In the dangerous condition of the "Révolution," now having twenty-two hundred souls on board, with provisions for but eight days, and having learned the dispersal of the vessels in Bantry Bay, Hoche and Morard determined to return. The two ships reached Rochefort on the 13th of January. Whether Hoche, with his military ardor, the high prestige of his fame, and the intense personal interest felt by him in the success of the expedition, could have triumphed over the material obstacles which defeated the lukewarm energies of Bouvet, may be questioned; but it was certainly an extraordinary circumstance that, of the whole large body of ships, the one containing the two commanders was almost alone in her failure to reach the Irish coast.

From the preceding account, it is evident that the success or failure of the French landing depended entirely upon their ability to make the thirty miles intervening between the entrance and the head of Bantry Bay. Whatever may be thought of their prospects of ultimate success in the conquest or deliverance of Ireland,—a matter of pure speculation, dependent upon many conditions rather political and economical than military,—it cannot be questioned that they had succeeded in crossing the sea and reaching almost their point of destination, not only despite the British navy but without even seeing it. On December 21st the bulk of the expedition was at the mouth of Bantry Bay. Not till the 22d did Colpoys, commanding the fleet watching, or rather detailed to watch, off Brest, know they had actually sailed; and then he did not know in what direction. Bridport at Portsmouth received the news on the same, or possibly on the previous day, through Pellew's diligence and forethought. Not till the 31st of December was it known in London that the enemy had actually appeared off the Irish coast, and at that time Bridport's fleet had not even sailed. Only continued bad weather, and that ahead, prevented the landing which even Bouvet would not have hesitated to make under better conditions. Had no other harm resulted, the capture of Cork, only forty-five miles distant, was certain. "We propose to make a race for Cork as though the devil were in us," wrote Wolfe Tone in his journal; and how severe the blow would have been may be imagined, for in that place were collected stores and supplies to the value of a million and a half sterling, including the provisions for feeding the navy during the next year. Ireland was then the great source from which naval provisions were drawn.

Such a failure on the part of the British navy, with its largely superior forces, can scarcely be called less than ignominious, and invites now, as it did then, an examination into the causes. The outcry raised at the time by panic and disappointment has long ceased; but the incident affords a fruitful field for study, as to how far the disposition of the Channel fleet conformed to a reasonable interpretation of the principles of war, as applied to the sea.

It must be obvious to any one stopping to think, that, for a fleet charged with thwarting the combinations of an enemy's navy, there can be no point so well adapted as one immediately before the port from which the greatest fraction must sail. Once away, to an unknown destination, the position to be taken becomes a matter of surmise, of guess, which may be dignified by the name of sagacity if the guess prove right, but which should not be allowed to cover the original fault of disposition, if it could have been avoided. To multiply instances would be tedious; but reference may be made to two detailed elsewhere in this work, viz: Bridport, upon the escape of Bruix in 1799, 328 and Nelson after the escape of Villeneuve in 1805, 329 though in the latter case the admiral's reasons for not cruising before Toulon were not only adequate, but imperative.

A similar perplexity existed in the closing months of 1796. The government and the admiral of the Channel fleet knew that a large expedition was preparing in Brest, and they had reason to fear the co-operation with it of the Spaniards. Opinion was somewhat divided as to the objective; according to reports industriously circulated by the French government, it might be Portugal the ally, Gibraltar the outpost, or Ireland the dependency, of Great Britain. One thing only was certain, that the surest and largest component of the undertaking was in Brest. There soldiers were gathering, and there also arms were being shipped largely in excess of the troops, 330 pointing to a hope of co-operation by inhabitants at the point of landing. Such conditions dictated certainly three things: 1, a force before Brest superior to that of the enemy inside; 2, inasmuch as the heavier ships must keep the channel open, against the danger of violent westerly gales, there should be an advance squadron of handier vessels close in with the port, powerful enough to hold its ground if the enemy came out and to keep touch with him if he sailed; 3, since Ireland was by far the most important of the interests threatened, the government should have indicated it to the admiral as the point to be covered, in case he did lose knowledge of the hostile fleet. The first of these provisions sums up the main strategic requirement, to effect which all other strategic dispositions should conduce. The second is tactical in character, relating to the disposition of the force upon the ground to which strategic considerations assign it. The third presents the alternative, the second line of defence, upon which, in case the first is forced, the defending fleet falls back.

Colpoys's fleet of fifteen sail was certainly not superior to the French. It might be considered adequate to frustrate the expedition, if met, but not sufficient to inflict the crushing blow that the policy and needs of Great Britain imperatively demanded. Moreover, a military body is not an inanimate object, like a rock, which once placed abides unchanged for years. It is rather a living organism, depending on daily nourishment, subject to constant waste, and needing constant renewal. If to station a competent force before Brest met the chief strategic requirement, its maintenance there embraced a number of subordinate strategic provisions, which in terms of land warfare are called communications. Ships meet with accidents; they degenerate by wear and tear; they consume water and provisions, their crews diminish by illness and need rest by occasional returns to port. These communications were not threatened by the French; but they were open to injury by insufficient forethought and by excessive distance, and from both they suffered. A division like Colpoys's may be renewed in two ways. Either it may be relieved by a body of similar number and go home; or it may be continually receiving fresh ships and continually sending old ones to the rear for rest. It need scarcely be said that the latter is by far the better, preserving a continuity of life and administration which the former breaks. Not only so; but the other system presupposes a squadron in port equal to that cruising, a reserve equal to the body in the field,—a fantastic proportion, which sacrifices every principle of warfare, and divides the available force into two masses, which do not even pretend to support but merely to replace each other.

A fleet charged with duty like that before Brest needs to be fixed at the highest number the resources of the nation can supply and supported by a reserve so proportioned that, by a constant coming and going, no ship at the front should ever be suffering from an exhaustion, either of condition or of supplies, against which diligent human forethought could have provided. The station of this reserve is obviously a matter of the utmost importance. It should, of course, be as near as possible to the main body, and, for sailing ships, favorably situated with reference to prevailing winds; for a head wind meant not merely the loss of time caused by itself, but often the loss of an opportunity which passes with the time. Thus, on this very occasion, when the wind blew fresh from the eastward, fair to go from Portsmouth to Ireland, Bridport's ships were unable to use it, because they could not make the stretch of three miles from Spithead to St. Helen's. Nor is the nearness of a dockyard a controlling condition for the reserve, though it may be admitted that dockyards should be placed with reference to probable theatres of war. On the contrary, a yard is the last place to which to send an active ship. Naval officers knew then, as they know now, that vessels at dockyards become valetudinarians, whose doctors, like some others, flatter the ailments of their patients to increase their practice. An available reserve is one thing, a ship needing dockyard repairs quite another; and no countenance should be given to any confusion of the two by keeping the reserve at, or close by, a yard. Properly, the reserve should be simply that portion of the active force which, for the benefit of the whole, is for a moment resting, but is ready at once to proceed.

How very little the government of the day and the then admiral of the Channel fleet realized these principles, is evident by a few facts. The reserve was at Spithead, a roadstead over two hundred miles distant. It was equal in force to the division before Brest. "The government thought it the wisest plan," said its authorized defender in the Commons, "to separate the fleet into different divisions. One fleet was off Brest to watch the enemy and intercept the sailing of the expedition; and another at home to relieve the fleet off Brest, if necessary, or to pursue the enemy, if he should sail." 331 When the French had escaped, Colpoys received the news December 22d. His orders did not cover the contingency, and in his uncertainty he first decided to keep his station, 332 than which nothing could be more satisfactory to the French, who had made a long circuit to avoid that particular spot. Like all men in the dark, however, the admiral soon changed his mind and concluded to go off the Lizard, a cape near Falmouth, where he might receive information. 333 Here, in the entrance to the Channel, he found several ships in want of necessaries, and the weather such that he could not provide them from others. 334 This statement was disputed by the Admiralty, which, however, admitted that some of these ships had not water in abundance. 335 With a properly worked reserve, a few ships might have been short,—those, that is, whose turn was to go in next,—but it is evident that a very disproportionate number were here affected; for the explanation of these short ships being still out was, that Curtis's squadron of seven ships was to have relieved them, but had been delayed for certain causes. 336 Whatever the reason, the important conclusion was that Colpoys, a good officer under a bad system, put his helm up and ran into Spithead, where he arrived December 31st, more than a week after the French reached Bantry Bay.

While the subordinate was thus badgered by the inadequate measures of his government and his chief, the latter was leisurely preparing to relieve him off Brest. On the 21st or 22d, he was spurred up by news of the French sailing, and replied that in four days he would be ready,—a truly handy reserve with the British Islands about to be invaded. On the 25th he got under way, and demonstrated at once the fitness of Spithead as a station for the reserve. Eight ships only succeeded in getting to St. Helen's that day, a sudden change of wind to south-east supervening; "which, although favorable for his getting to sea, was directly on the bows of the ships coming to join him from Spithead." 337 It was not thought prudent to sail with only eight ships, and through the delay of waiting for the others Bridport did not get away from St. Helen's (Portsmouth) until January 3, 1797,—the day before the last of the French abandoned Bantry Bay,—when he sailed with fourteen of-the-line, a mass equal to Colpoys's division which had just returned. An inadequate force at the decisive point, inadequately maintained, and dependent upon a reserve as large as itself, but unready and improperly stationed,—such were the glaring faults of the strategic disposition.