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FLAG AND FLEET HOW THE BRITISH NAVY WON THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

BY WILLIAM WOOD

Lieutenant-Colonel, Canadian Militia; Member of the Canadian Special Mission Overseas; Editor of "The Logs of the Conquest of Canada"; Author of "All Afloat: A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways"; "Elizabethan Sea Dogs: A Chronicle of Drake and his Companions"; and "The Fight for Canada: A Naval and Military Sketch."

WITH A PREFACE BY

ADMIRAL-OF-THE-FLEET SIR DAVID BEATTY G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., Etc., Etc.

TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD., AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE

1919

To Admiral-of-the-Fleet Lord Jellicoe

In token of deep admiration And in gratitude for many kindnesses during the Great War I dedicate this little book, Which, published under the auspices of The Navy League of Canada and approved by the Provincial Departments of Education, Is written for the reading of Canadian Boys and Girls

PREFACE BY Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir David Beatty, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., etc.

In acceding to the request to write a Preface for this volume I am moved by the paramount need that all the budding citizens of our great Empire should be thoroughly acquainted with the part the Navy has played in building up the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Colonel Wood has endeavored to make plain, in a stirring and attractive manner, the value of Britain's Sea-Power. To read his Flag and Fleet will ensure that the lessons of centuries of war will be learnt, and that the most important lesson of them all is this—that, as an empire, we came into being by the Sea, and that we cannot exist without the Sea.

DAVID BEATTY, 2nd of June, 1919.

INTRODUCTION

Who wants to be a raw recruit for life, all thumbs and muddle-mindedness? Well, that is what a boy or girl is bound to be when he or she grows up without knowing what the Royal Navy of our Motherland has done to give the British Empire birth, life, and growth, and all the freedom of the sea. The Navy is not the whole of British sea-power; for the Merchant Service is the other half. Nor is the Navy the only fighting force on which our liberty depends; for we depend upon the United Service of sea and land and air. Moreover, all our fighting forces, put together, could not have done their proper share toward building up the Empire, nor could they defend it now, unless they always had been, and are still, backed by the People as a whole, by every patriot man and woman, boy and girl. But while it takes all sorts to make the world, and very many different sorts to make and keep our British Empire of the Free, it is quite as true to say that all our other sorts together could not have made, and cannot keep, our Empire, unless the Royal Navy had kept, and keeps today, true watch and ward over all the British highways of the sea. None of the different parts of the world-wide British Empire are joined together by the land. All are joined together by the sea. Keep the seaways open and we live. Close them and we die.

This looks, and really is, so very simple, that you may well wonder why we have to speak about it here. But man is a land animal. Landsmen are many, while seamen are few; and though the sea is three times bigger than the land it is three hundred times less known. History is full of sea-power, but histories are not; for most historians know little of sea-power, though British history without British sea-power is like a watch without a mainspring or a wheel without a hub. No wonder we cannot understand the living story of our wars, when, as a rule, we are only told parts of what happened, and neither how they happened nor why they happened. The how and why are the flesh and blood, the head and heart of history; so if you cut them off you kill the living body and leave nothing but dry bones. Now, in our long war story no single how or why has any real meaning apart from British sea-power, which itself has no meaning apart from the Royal Navy. So the choice lies plain before us: either to learn what the Navy really means, and know the story as a veteran should; or else leave out, or perhaps mislearn, the Navy's part, and be a raw recruit for life, all thumbs and muddle-mindedness.

CONTENTS

BOOK I
THE ROWING AGE WHEN SOLDIERS FOUGHT ROWBOAT BATTLES BESIDE THE SHORES OF THE OLD WORLD
From the Beginning of War on the Water to King Henry VIII's First Promise of a Sailing Fleet 1545

CHAPTER I
THE VERY BEGINNING OF SEA-POWER (10,000 years and more B.C.)
II THE FIRST FAR WEST (The last 5,000 years B.C.)
III EAST AGAINST WEST (480 B. C.-146 B.C.)
IV CELTIC BRITAIN UNDER ROME (55 B.C.-410 A.D.)
V THE HARDY NORSEMAN (449-1066)
VI THE IMPERIAL NORMAN (1066-1451)
VII KING OF THE ENGLISH ERA (1545)

BOOK II
THE SAILING AGE WHEN SAILORS FOUGHT ON EVERY OCEAN AND THE ROYAL NAVY OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY WON THE BRITISH COMMAND OF THE SEA BOTH IN THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW DRAKE TO NELSON 1585-1805

PART I—
THE SPANISH WAR
VIII OLD SPAIN AND NEW (1492-1571)
IX THE ENGLISH SEA-DOGS (1545-1580)
X THE SPANISH ARMADA (1588)

PART II—
THE DUTCH WAR
XI THE FIRST DUTCH WAR (1623-1653)
XII THE SECOND AND THIRD DUTCH WARS (1665-1673)

PART III—
THE FRENCH WAR
XIII THE FIRST WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV (1689-1697)
XIV THE SECOND WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV (1702-1713)
XV WAR AGAINST FRANCE AND SPAIN (1739-1748)
XVI PITT'S IMPERIAL WAR (1756-1763)
XVII THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1775-1783)
XVIII NELSON (1798-1805)
XIX "1812"

BOOK III
THE AGE OF STEAM AND STEEL WHEN THE BRITISH COMMAND OF THE SEA SAVED THE WORLD FROM GERMAN SLAVERY IN THE GREATEST OF ALL WARS 1914-1918

PART I—
A CENTURY OF CHANGE (1814-1914)
XX A CENTURY OF BRITISH-FRENCH-AMERICAN PEACE (1815-1914)
XXI A CENTURY OF MINOR BRITISH WARS (1815-1914)

PART II—
THE GREAT WAR (1914-1918)
XXII THE HANDY MAN
XXIII FIFTY YEARS OF WARNING (1864-1914)
XXIV WAR (1914-1915) XXV JUTLAND (1916)
XXVI SUBMARINING (1917-1918)
XXVII SURRENDER! (1918)
XXVIII WELL DONE!

POSTSCRIPT
THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

ILLUSTRATIONS

VIKING MAN-OF-WAR. . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

"DUG-OUT" CANOE

ROMAN TRIREME—A vessel with three benches of oars

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S TRANSPORTS

Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699. The first structure of stone and timber. Build for Trinity House by Winstanley and swept away in a storm.

Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882. The fourth and present structure, erected by Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.

The Santa Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbus when he discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of ship proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage, full displacement, 233.

DRAKE One of Drake's Men-of-War that Fought the Great Armada in 1588.

ARMADA OFF POWEY (Cornwall) as first seen in the English Channel.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ON BOARD THE REVENGE receiving the surrender of Don Pedro de Valdes.

SAILING SHIP. The Pilgrim Fathers crossed in a similar vessel (1620).

LA HOGUE, 1692.

H.M.S. Centurion engaged and took the Spanish Galleon Nuestra Senhora de Capadongo, from Acapulco bound to Manila, off Cape Espiritu Santo, Philippine Islands, June 20, 1743.

The ROYAL GEORGE NELSON FIGHTING THE GUNS ON THE MAIN DECK, 1782.

THE BLOWING UP OF L'ORIENT DURING THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.

THE BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN, APRIL 2nd, 1801. (Note the British line ahead.)

The VICTORY. Nelson's Flagship at Trafalgar, launched in 1765, and still used as the flagship in Portsmouth Harbour.

TRAFALGAR. 21st October, 1805.

MODEL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR. (Reproduced by permission from the model at the Royal United Service Institution.)

THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE.

THE ROYAL WILLIAM. Canadian built; the first boat to cross any ocean steaming the whole way (1833), the first steamer in the world to fire a shot in action (May 5, 1836).

 BATTLESHIP.

Seaplane Returning after flight.

DESTROYER.

A PARTING SHOT FROM THE TURKS AT GALLIPOLI.

JELLICOE.

BEATTY.

LIGHT CRUISER. H.M.S. Monmouth, Armoured Cruiser. Sunk at Coronel, November 1st, 1914.

BATTLESHIP FIRING A BROADSIDE.

Jellicoe's Battle Fleet in Columns of Divisions.

6.14 P.M. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND—PLAN II.

Jellicoe's battle line formed and fighting. 6:38 P.M.

British Submarine.

Minesweeper at work.

H.M. KING GEORGE V.

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