July 6. 1916 
LAND & WA T E R 
11 
merely as a crafty Anyhow, the fact is incontestable 
that the gunnery efticiency of the ship in action depended 
entirely upon the seamanship of the captain, because it 
was only by good seamanship that the guns could be 
brought ^vlthm the very short range within which thev 
were elective And it was, of course, the function of 
the leader to leave the captain in no possible doubt as to 
the pomt to which he should take his ship. Thus Nelson's 
tactical boldness was based upon the fact that the more 
perfectly his manoeuvres were executed, the more effective 
his gunnery would be. 
In one very important particular conditions now arc 
almost reversed. So long as a ship's engines are running 
sweetly and the steering gear is uninjured, no great 
xcat of seamanship is required to follow "any course that 
an admiral may indicate. But with a manauvring 
ship, to find the range of the enemv, to ascertain the 
speed and the direction that he may follow from time to 
time, to keep the range, once it is found and the enemy's 
movements are known, when the firing ship is manoeuvring 
also— the performance of all these functions with the 
accuracy essential for hitting at long range, requires 
something far beyond perfection in marksmanship either 
of gunlayers or of the manipulator of the director, some- 
thing far beyond what can be achieved by any perfection 
in organising and drilhng the personnel devoted to 
fire control. The desired results can only be obtained 
by the employment of instruments and methods necessarily 
as complicated as the conditions they are designed to 
meet, and capable of working with that minute perfection 
that is essential if a changing range of 14,000 or 15,000 
yards is to be maintained accurately upon the gun sights. 
For at these ranges an error even of one per cent, of the 
range would be fatal. Thus to-day all tactical manoeuvres 
tend to make the guns ineflicient, and the measures neces- 
sary for counteracting this inefficiency do not depend 
upon the discipline, the drill and the training that the 
devotion of captains and officers can give to their ships' 
companies, but entirely upon long and costly preparations 
which are either originated by the wise foresight of a 
central naval administration or cannot be made at all. 
This truth will, I think, come home to us, if we compare 
Nelson's battles with the various actions of this war. 
The staggering thing about Nelson's great battles — 
St. Vincent, the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar — 
is that in four totally different sets of circumstances, he 
found a means of determined and, because determined, 
successful attack on the critical point of the enemy's 
force. In each case the tactics he employed would have 
been disastrous to himself and therefore wrong, had it 
not been an essential part of those tactics that they so 
added to the fighting efficiency of his guns. Nor in 
each case could he have employed the tactics he did. 
had he not been able to count on a standard of 
seamanship far beyond what other navies of the time 
would have considered not only adeq'uate but of the 
highest order. It has followed then that to historians 
it is Nelson's use of the seamanship of his fleet that has 
seemed the most striking aspect of his leading. The really 
vital point is that the leading and seamanship must have 
spelled ruin if the gunnery had not been equal to the 
demands made upon it. But given mobility and the 
mastery of weapons superior to the enemy's^ Nelson's 
genius found the v.'ay to his goal. 
End of the "Line of Battle" 
To understand the tactics of these four great battles, 
we must have a general conception of the conditions of 
each, and a general understanding of the theory of 
fighting that Nelson's generation had inherited. On the 
latter point we must remember that for considerably 
over a century, naval thought had been dominated by 
the doctrine of the line of battle. In the French Fleet 
the domination of this idea had been made imperative 
by law. A captain who left his place in the line was 
subject to the severest penalties that the worst naval 
offence could incur. There was at one period a serious 
danger that the English Navy would fall into an equally 
sterile rigidity. For the line of battle was a defensive 
conception, and from its character ensured indecisive 
results. When after the Battle of Toulon, Matthews 
was court-martialled on the ground that he had attacked 
before his line was formed, it looked as if all initiative 
must come to an end. Fortunately the numerous 
courts-martial that resulted from this action produced 
so many verdicts abhorrent to naval sense that the 
danger was averted. And .when Byng, twelve years 
later, pleaded Matthews' precedent for not attacking at 
Minorca, the excuse did not avail him. Indeed, Anson, 
at the suggestion of Sir Peter Warren, had already 
escaped from the trammels of the line by the device of 
ordering a general chase when it seemed that the enemy 
would escape engagement unless the situation were 
rushed. And in the most glorious of all sea fights until 
the Nelson era— that at Quiberon Bay— Hawke followed 
Anson's example. But in the signalbook the doctrine 
of the line still held sway ; and neither Rodney in the 
Battle of the Saints, nor Howe on the Glorious First of 
June was able to combine loyalty to traditional doctrine 
with the destruction of the enemy's fleet. When Nelson 
came upon the scene then, he had the example of these 
two great but inconclusive actions to warn him, and 
Hawke's precedent as a key to the way out. When at 
St. Vincent, he took on the Spanish van single-handed, 
his man(Euvre was unpremeditated, and therefore the 
action of the captains who supported him could not have 
been preconcerted. At the Nile and Copenhagen he had 
to deal with anchored and stationary enemies, so that 
precedent counted for nothing, and the signal book was 
dumb. But in the eight years that elapsed between St. 
Vincent and Trafalgar, Nelson's mind had been busy on 
the problem of tackling an enemy fleet in the open sea. 
At the Nile and Copenhagen he had demonstrated the 
power which mobility gave in the attack. How^ was 
this to be demonstrated against a superior fleet drawn 
up in a single line ? 
The grande ^ of the tactics of Trafalgar— the " Nelson 
touch " of history— lies in this, that there was here 
applied to two fleets, meeting in light airs and in the open 
sea, principles only hitherto employed in totally different 
circumstances. They differ from those of Quiberon in 
that they were preconcerted. The fleet was kept in such 
an order of sailing as would permit it at any moment 
to be shot — like a bolt — at the enemy wherever he might 
be found. A general chase did not in such circumstances 
mean a confused melee, but an ordered battle. The 
object in view was carefully provided for. It was to 
combine a heavy concentration of fire on a portion of the 
enemy's force with measures that would prevent the 
ships that were not attacked from turning to the rescue 
of their friends. Trafalgar gave the quietus to the line 
of battle and the theory that it embodied. It was proved 
to be inefficient even for the very unmilitary defensive 
purpose that had called it into being. It was shown 
to be not the right formation in which to receive attack, 
if the attack was at once resourceful and resolute 
Crux of Modern Tactics 
Could a battle be fought on the principles of Trafalgar 
to-day ? The difficulties in the way are immense, and 
they are so, because the school of naval thought that, 
during the last ten years, has been struggling to make 
its view on the doctrine of naval war prevail, has been 
wholly unsuccessful in influencing administration. Naval 
fighting consists to-day of the same elements as a century 
ago. To overpower an enemy, superior fire must be 
brought to bear. Superior fire means hitting him more 
often than he can hit back. It may be obtained by a 
marksmanship superior to his own, or where marksman- 
ship is equal, by concentrating more ships on fewer, in 
conditions where the guns will hit. Clearly it is mere 
parade to manoeuvre a fleet in the neighbourhood of 
another if the firing does not result in hitting. It used 
to be thought that hitting could be ensured if only you 
had the nerve to go close enough to the enemy. But the 
modern torpedo, with its range of five miles and its greatly 
improved accuracy of aim and certainty of running, 
makes the seeking of a shorter range than 10,000 yards 
look like foolhardiness. To get decisive results then at 
distances that may be held to be compulsory, marksman- 
ship of a high order is \'ital, because it is on marksmanship 
that the offensive and therefore the capacity to attack 
depends. 
Three months ago I e.xplainrd in these columns how, 
ir the ten years preceding the war. Admiralty policy, as 
shKvn\ by the official apology for the Dreadnought 
