MILITARY AND NAVAL ORGANISATION. 



fight the battles. How to make different bodies 

 of troops march from different places so as to 

 arrive at a given spot at a given time, is itself a 

 difficult tactical problem, since the general must 

 take into account the nature of each detachment 

 and the sort of ground to be got over. In short, 

 the great object of all strategy with every general 

 should be to make his force, however inferior 

 on the whole, the stronger at the point of actual 

 attack, for, as Frederick 1 1. of Prussia wittily said : 

 * Providence fights with the big battalions.' To 

 this system, Napoleon, and, on another element, 

 Nelson, owed all their victories ; their attack being 

 to double on half the hostile line, and break it 

 before help came from the other half; thus 

 Napoleon well-nigh destroyed in detail the armies 

 of Bliicher and Wellington before they had united 

 to crush him at Waterloo. 



NAVAL ORGANISATION. 



Before the sway of the Western emperors 

 had ceased to be felt, the shores of Britain 

 had been guarded for several years by a British 

 fleet under the usurper Carausius. Alfred the 

 Great, in the endeavour to vanquish the Norse 

 sea-robbers, founded the English navy, consist- 

 ing of galleys rowed by thirty or forty pair of 

 oars. William the Conqueror gave privileges to 

 the Cinque Ports, on condition of their furnish- 

 ing a certain number of ships for the national 

 service. Richard I. took a considerable fleet 

 to Palestine. John claimed that all foreigners 

 should strike to the English flag. The navy waxed 

 strong under his successors, until, in 1340, it utterly 

 defeated the French fleet, with 40,000 men on 

 board, at Sluys. The first large British ship was 



The Great Harry. 



the Great Harry, built by Henry VII. who also 

 was the first to maintain a fleet during peace. 

 The modern navy may be said to have been 

 founded by Henry VIII. who established the 

 Admiralty, the Navy Office, the Trinity House, 

 and the dockyards at Deptford, Woolwich, and 

 Portsmouth ; besides appointing regular salaries 

 for officers and sailors. His most famous ship 

 was the Henri Grace de Dieit. Under Elizabeth, 



| the fleet that encountered the Spanish Armada, 

 ! provided only in part by the crown, numbered 

 176 vessels, manned by 15,000 seamen. Under 

 i James I. the royal ships, by being built less high 

 and narrow than before, became more efficient. 

 i The largest ship in the time of Charles I. was the 

 I Sovereign of the Seas, of 100 guns, and the first 

 three-decker. Cromwell, who greatly improved 

 the navy, was the first to place naval estimates 

 before parliament, and to obtain a specified annual 

 supply for that service. The royal navy under 

 James II. comprised 173 vessels; increased at 

 the death of Anne to 200, averaging 50 guns each. 

 During the great French war the British navy in- 

 creased rapidly : in 1793, it comprised 564 ships 

 of various sizes ; in 1803, it was 970 ; but the chief 

 increase had been in small rather than large 

 vessels. In 1820, when peace had succeeded to 

 a long period of hostilities, the total war-ships, 

 built and building, amounted to 127 ships of the 

 line, and 338 under 50 guns. These numbers, in 

 1839, had decreased to 98 and 294 respectively. 



A great epoch in naval warfare was marked by 

 the introduction of steam-navigation. When the 

 British government built the screw-steamer Rattler, 

 of 900 tons, in 1843, as an experimental vessel for 

 | testing the relative capabilities of the paddle and 

 screw, the latter became the recognised propeller 

 of the service. From the time of the peace in 

 1815, the efforts of the royal ship-builders have 

 tended to larger and larger vessels. In 1853, the 

 three-deckers culminated in the Duke of Wel- 

 lington, a splendid vessel of 4000 tons, 131 

 guns, and noo men. She was essentially on 

 the same principle as the old line-of-battle ships, 

 with the addition of steam and the screw. In 

 1859 began that reconstruction of the navy which 

 led to our discarding the old ' wooden walls of 

 England.' The Warrior was built, cased in 4?- 

 inch iron plates, and could stand with impunity 

 the fire of the largest naval guns then (1860) 

 known, even though firing at 2Oo-yard ranges. 

 The Northumberland, Agincourt, and Minotaur 

 were then built, each of 6621 tons, 1350 horse- 

 power, 26 enormous guns, and clad in 5^-inch 

 iron plates, with a teak backing of 20 inches, 

 and an iron skin of I inch behind all. Some of 

 these vessels were built (as the Defence) with the 

 bow projecting under water, so that they might act 

 as rams. But when the 68-pounder was replaced 

 by 61-ton guns, there came a change ; for pro- 

 jectiles from these weapons could go through the 

 Warrior's sides at 1200 yards. Then there was 

 built the Bellerophon known to our tars as the 

 'Billyruffian' whose armour resisted 12^-ton guns 

 at a range of 800 yards. The Hercules was an 

 improvement on the Bellerophon, for its side- 

 armour was proof against the 1 8-ton gun, firing at 

 it within 600 yards. Now, however, a still more 

 wonderful step has been made in bringing naval 

 defensive armour-plating to perfection : our two 

 latest floating monsters, the Devastation and 

 Thunderer, can approach within 1200 yards of 

 each other with impunity, even though they were 

 battering each other with their 35-ton guns, 

 loaded with 700 Ib. shot, each one of which is 

 propelled by a charge of 115 Ibs. of gunpowder. 

 The development of guns and that of armour 

 have kept pace with each other, and the common 

 I assertion that guns are more powerful than armour 

 ! now, is a delusion. The power of the old 6i-tou 



205 



