Читать книгу Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Julian Stafford Corbett - Страница 36

From the point of view of command perhaps the most extraordinary naval expedition that ever left our shores was that of Sir Edward Cecil, Viscount Wimbledon, against Cadiz in 1625. Every flag officer both of the fleet and of the squadrons was a soldier. Cecil himself and the Earl of Essex, his vice-admiral, were Low Country colonels of no great experience in command even ashore, and Lord Denbigh, the rear-admiral, was a nobleman of next to none at all. Even Cecil's captain, who was in effect 'captain of the fleet,' was Sir Thomas Love, a sailor of whose service nothing is recorded, and the only seaman of tried capacity who held a staff appointment was Essex's captain, Sir Samuel Argall. It was probably due to this recrudescence of military influence in the navy that we owe the first attempt to establish a regular order of battle since the days of Henry VIII.

These remarkable orders appear to have been an after-thought, for they were not proposed until a day or two after the fleet had sailed. The first orders issued were a set of general instructions, 'for the better government of the fleet' dated October 3, when the fleet was still at Plymouth.

They were, it will be seen, on the traditional lines. Those used by Ralegh are clearly the precedent upon which they were drawn, and in particular the article relating to engaging an enemy's fleet follows closely that recommended by Gorges, with such modifications as the squadronal organisation of a large fleet demanded. On October 9, the day the fleet got to sea, a second and more condensed set of 'Fighting Instructions' was issued, which is remarkable for the modification it contains of the method of attack from windward.[1] For instead of an attack by squadrons it seems to contemplate the whole fleet going into action in succession after the leading ship, an order which has the appearance of another advance towards the perfected line.

Two days later however the fleet was becalmed, and Cecil took the opportunity of calling a council to consider a wholly new set of 'Fighting Instructions' which had been drafted by Sir Thomas Love. This step we are told was taken because Cecil considered the original articles provided no adequate order of battle such as he had been accustomed to ashore. The fleet had already been divided into three squadrons, the Dutch contingent forming a fourth, but beyond this, we are told, nothing had been done 'about the form of a sea fight.' Under the new system it will be seen each of the English squadrons was to be further divided into three sub-squadrons of nine ships, and these apparently were to sail three deep, as in Drake's parade formation of 1588, and were to 'discharge and fall off three and three as they were filed in the list,' or order of battle. That is, instead of the ships of each squadron attacking in succession as the previous orders had enjoined, they were to act in groups of three, with a reserve in support. The Dutch, it was expressly provided, were not to be bound by these orders, but were to be free 'to observe their own order and method of fighting.' What this was is not stated, but there can be no doubt that the reference is to the boarding tactics which the Dutch, in common with all continental navies, continued to prefer to the English method of first overpowering the enemy with the guns. This proviso, in view of the question as to what country it was that first perfected a single line ahead, should be borne in mind.

As appears from the minutes of the council of war, printed below, Love's revolutionary orders met with strong opposition. Still, so earnest was Cecil in pressing them, and so well conceived were many of the articles that they were not entirely rejected, but were recognised as a counsel of perfection, which, though not binding, was to be followed as near as might be. Their effect upon the officers, or some of them, was that they understood the 'order of fight' to be as follows:—'The several admirals to be in square bodies' (that is, each flag officer would command a division or sub-squadron formed in three ranks of three files), 'and to give their broadsides by threes and so fall off. The rear-admiral to stand for a general reserve, and not to engage himself without great cause.'[2] The confusion, however, must have been considerable and the difference of opinion great as to how far the new orders were binding; for the 'Journal of the Vanguard' merely notes that a council was called on the 11th 'wherein some things were debated touching the well ordering of the fleet,' and with this somewhat contemptuous entry the subject is dismissed.

Still it must be said that on the whole these orders are a great advance over anything we know of in Elizabethan times, and particularly in the careful provisions for mutual support they point to a happy reversion to the ideas which De Chaves had formulated, and which the Elizabethans had too drastically abandoned.