Dawlish Chronicles

As a prisoner on HMS Bellerophon, prior to his exile on St. Helena, Napoleon told its commander, Captain Maitland, that, "If it had not been for you English, I should have been Emperor of the East; but wherever there is water to float a ship, we are sure to find you in our way." This ability was to manifest itself on numerous occasions up to the middle of the next century. Small Royal Navy units were to operate in China on the Upper Yangtze, on Lake Tanganyika and on the Nile in the Sudan, in the Caspian Sea and on remote Russian rivers during the Russian Civil War and they were to reach Vienna, some 800 miles up the Danube from the Black Sea at the end of World War 1. More impressive of all these achievements was however that, not of a small gunboat, but of a cruiser of over 2000 tons that reached Peru in 1909. This does not perhaps seem remarkable – Peru has a long coast on the Pacific Ocean – until it is realised that the approach was from the east, up the Amazon River, almost to its headwaters.

HMS Pelorous in late 1890s - resplendent in "Victorian Livery"
of black hull, white upperworks and buff funnels

Launched in 1896, the name ship of a class of eleven, HMS Pelorus was a third-class protected cruiser. “Protected” meant that the vessel’s sides were not armoured but that an arched armoured deck protected the boilers, engines and other vital areas. “Third Class” implied a small vessel, suited to commerce-protection duties, or for scouting for larger units. Pelorusand her ten sisters were 2135-ton, 300-feet long vessels and their 7000-hp gave them a top speed of 20 knots. Crewed by 224 men, their main armament consisted of eight 4-inch breech loading guns for ant-ship use, supplemented by eight 3-pounder quick-firing weapons for defence against attack by torpedo boats. They also carried two 18-inch torpedo tubes.

Rudyard Kipling in the 1890s

Pelorus served almost ten years in the “Channel Fleet” – that tasked with operations in the North Atlantic and the North Sea but in 1906 she was posed to the Cape of Good Hope Station. Although only a small unit in a navy made up of hundreds of ships, she had already achieved fame through a series of articles published in the Morning Post newspaper, and subsequently gathered into a small book entitled “A Fleet in Being”. The author was the writer and poet Rudyard Kipling, who was a friend of a Captain E.H. Bayley, who was then commanding Pelorus. In 1897, as a guest of Bayly, Kipling was on board Pelorusfor two weeks during the Fleet’s summer exercises and he was to repeat the experience the following year. His writings about his time on Pelorus give fascinating insights into shipboard naval life in the late nineteenth-century. There if however a strong impression of forced enthusiasm, of determination to see everything through rose-tinted glasses, and to give an epic quality to what were, in reality, peacetime manoeuvres. As with much of Kipling’s writings the treatment of individuals is condescending and patronising, and leaves a sour taste with at least one modern reader.

Manaus Opera House - best known symbol of the Amazon rubber boom
(photograph by Pontanegra via Wikipedia)

In 1909 the “Rubber Boom” in Brazil and Peru was in full swing. The rubber in question grew wild in the forests lining the Amazon and its tributaries as plantation growing of rubber in Malaya had not yet taken off on the large scale it was to become. The arrival of the automobile had pushed the demand for rubber to unprecedented levels and fortunes were made by anybody who could organise its collection from trees growing wild in the forest. This was the era when the city of Manaus was to build its exotic opera house at the confluence of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, the period immortalised in Werner Herzog’s stunning movie “Fitzcaraldo”. British commercial firms were active in the trade and it was only by the investigations in 1910 and 1911 of a British consul, Roger Casement, that the true nature of their activities was revealed.

Enslaved Peruvian Indians during the rubber boom

In the Putomayo of north-eastern Peru he found that indigenous tribes were begin forced into unpaid labour – essentially slavery – to collect the forest rubber. Abuse of these innocent people included starvation-level feeding, physical abuse, rape of women and girls, branding and casual murder. The chief offender was the Peruvian Amazon Company(PAC), which had been registered in Britain in 1908 and had a British board of directors and numerous stockholders. Casement’s report aroused public outrage in Britain but what in the end brought a complete end to the abuses was the arrival of cheaper, plantation-grown rubber from Malaya that made wild-rubber collection economically unattractive. (Casement’s career was to end in hanging in 1916 as an Irish Republican working closely with Imperial Germany).

Pelorus's 200-mile route up the Amazon

Casement’s uncovering of the realities of the rubber trade were still a year and more in the future when, in February 1909, HMS Pelorusarrived in the eastern Peruvian town of Iquitos, on the upper reaches of the Amazon. The objective of this good-will visitwas to help promotion of British exports to Peru as the rubber boom had created an enormous demand for goods from the industrialised world. The arrival of a sophisticated warship was ample proof of similarly sized, or smaller, steamships, being well capable of following the same route. The achievement was a spectacular one – Pelorus had navigated some 2000 miles of winding, often forest-lined, river from the river’s estuary on the South Atlantic coast. On arrival at Iquitos the nearer ocean was the Pacific, a mere 600 miles away, but with the Andes mountain range lying between. Despite its isolation, Iquitos, a town of 30,000, boasted electric lighting, tramways, a theatre and, apparently, a cinema. The seven day visit followed the usual pattern for such “showing the flag” missions – dinners, speeches, an open-day for the public, a football match, a concert and a “cinematograph show”. (One wonders what was shown at the latter.)

Pelorus's sister HMS Perseus in tropical livery - all white but for buff funnels
This is how Pelorus would have looked on her Amazon voyage

Pelorus needed to replenish her bunkers before embarking on the return trip. Remarkably, she was to do so with Welsh coal which was apparently a normal import to the area from Britain for use on river craft. The costs of its transportation raised the cost to more than four times its British level. With congratulations, well-wishes and handshakes all round Pelorus then commenced her voyage homewards, docking at Manaus and Belem en route to the Atlantic. She spent six-weeks in total on the Amazon and was a matter of pride for both captain and crew that the river passage had been a healthy one, with minimum sickness and, despite the prevalence of mosquitoes and insects, no cases of fever.

The Amazon voyage was Pelorus’slast moment in the limelight. By the time of outbreak of war in 1914 she and the few of her sisters still in service were old, obsolete ships suited only to secondary duties. She was scrapped in 1920.

One wonders if the Indians in the Putomayo area, north of Iquitos, who laboured in slavery for the London-based Peruvian Amazon Company, ever heard of the visit. Even if they did it is unlikely that they would have been able to go on board during Pelorus’s open day.

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel , which centres on the efforts of a British owned company – not unlike the Peruvian Amazon Company (PAC) – to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers. The story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam. Click on the image below for more details.

The incident at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 when Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and stated “I really do not see the signal!” is the most famous case of a Royal Navy officer disobeying orders and thereby achieving victory. A less well-known case occurred some four decades earlier in the West Indies.

The Seven Years War of 1756 – 1763 should merit the title of “The First World War,” for was the first to be fought on a global scale. It was longer indeed than seven years, for hostilities had opened between Britain and Britain in North America in 1754, triggered by an incident in Pennsylvania involving a 22-year old officer called George Washington. Two years later the conflict took on an even wider European dimension. The British-led alliance included Prussia, Portugal and the smaller German states, including Hanover, and was opposed by a French alliance with the Austrian Empire, Spain, Sweden and Saxony. Russia was initially allied with Austria but changed sides halfway through. Vast in geographical scope, it was a war in which, in Thomas Babington Macaulay’s phrase, European enmities ensured that “black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.”

Battle of Lagos in 1759 off Portugal - painting by Thomas Luny

1759 proved to be the “Year of Victories” that firmly established Britain as a global power with battles won and conquests made by land and sea. Most notable was the capture of Quebec (and of French Canada thereafter), the smashing of a French army at Minden in Central Germany and the two massive naval victories of Lagos and Quiberon Bay. Less well known was the capture of the French island of Guadeloupe, in the West Indies in M1y 1759 after a four-month naval and land campaign. As a sugar-producer the island was of great economic significance and it also acted as a refuge for French privateers.

Sir John Moore

The “disobedience case” referred to earlier occurred at the climax of the campaign when the British commodore, Sir John Moore (1718-1779) in charge of the naval forces proposed a direct bombardment of Guadeloupe’s fortified citadel. Attacks by ships on fixed defences were always dangerous (Nelson once stated that “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort”) and in a council of war the majority of Moore’s officers advised against it. The opposition was led by Captain – later Admiral – Clark Gayton (1712-1785) who commanded the 96-gun line-of-battle-ship HMS St. George. Commodore Moore had apparently taken offence at Gayton’s stance and he accordingly assigned the St. George to lead the attack – which could be construed as an honour – but he followed this up by sending Gayton a written order to proceed. This could be regarded as a slight – a verbal order should have been sufficient – and as implying reluctance, and at worst want of courage. Gayton was deeply offended.

The attack on Guadeloupe 1759

The upshot was that Gayton not only brought the St. George into close action with the fort, close enough for its fire to envelop her. The bombardment lasted several hours and all the British ships suffered severely from shore-battery fire without any apparent effect on the citadel. Commodore Moore now began to doubt the wisdom of his decision to attack and – probably to his mortification – signalled to the St. George to break off the action. When Gayton was made aware of the signal he determined to ignore it – his honour had been impugned and he had no intention of retreating at this stage. Commodore Moore followed this up by sending a boat with a verbal order to retreat. Instead of obeying it, Gayton told the officer who brought it that he would require a written order from Moore before he would feel justified in leaving his post.

Admiral Clark Gayton

by John Singleton Copeley 1779

While this to-ing and fro-ing was in progress the St.George maintained a constant fire and at last a lucky shell reached the citadel’s magazine. It blew up before Moore’s written order was received by Gayton. His honour was thus redeemed – and indeed in the process secured victory for the Commodore.

The incident did not damage Gayton’s reputation or prospects and he finished his career as an admiral, following a very successful posting as commander of the Jamaica station during the American War of Independence.

An interesting footnote was that Gayton’s ship, the 1230-ton St.George, was one of the oldest major units in the navy at the time of the Guadeloupe action. She had been laid launched in 1668, and originally known as HMS Charles, and renamed St.George in 1691. She was rebuilt in 1701 and six years later was one of the ships to escape the mass-wrecking of Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet in the Scilly Isles. She was to be rebuilt twice more – in 1726 and 1740. Having amassed significant battle-honours she was finally broken up in 1774. Few ships of the Royal Navy can have been so long-lived.

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

Author Antoine Vanner talks about his latest novel, Britannia’s Spartan, in a short video. Click here to watch it.

Click below for more details for both paperback and Kindle versions:

For UK: Click here For US & Rest of World: Click here

The Daewongun, 1869

A recent blog, “The French Navy in Korea, 1866”, described Korean attempts in the 1860s to retain its status as “The Hermit Kingdom”, cut off from contacts with the world outside. The key figure in this was the sinister Yi Ha-ung (1821-1898), the “Daewongun” – a title meaning “Prince of the Great Court” –who was to be a near-dominant player in internal Korean politics for four decades until the late 1890s. Adept in playing off internal and external forces against each other, his main objective was to limit external contacts and to maintain traditional structures and culture unchanged. This policy had led to large-scale and savage persecution of Christian converts and French missionaries and these in turn were to lead to a brief French punitive mission in 1866, as described in the previous blog. (Click here to read this).

Korea, the "Hermit Kingdom", in the 1860s - exotic and isolated

By the 1860s Western nations were already heavily engaged in trade with China, and since 1854 with Japan, which had been “opened up” to foreign merchants from 1854 and was now rapidly modernising. In Korea, however, the Daewongun, and the conservative interests allied to him, were not convinced of the merits of such contacts and were determined to preserve Korea’s isolation. It is against this background that in August 1866 an American owned vessel, the sidewheel-steamer SS General Sherman, was involved in an attempt to open trade.

The timing was ill-chosen to say the least, for feeling against outsiders had been whipped up by the Daewongun and French intervention to avenge the slaughter of missionaries and converts was imminent. Despite her American registration, the General Sherman’s mission was funded by a British commercial company, Meadows & Co., which operated in China and hoped to negotiate trading rights. Only the vessel’s Captain Page and Chief Mate Wilson were Americans and there were two British citizens on board, the owner, W. B. Preston, and a Welsh missionary, Robert Jerman Thomas, who had been brought along as a translator. The crew consisted of thirteen Chinese and three Malay seamen. Though loaded with a cargo of trade goods – cotton, tin, and glass – the General Sherman also carried two 12-inch cannon. The presence of these weapons which was to make the vessel’s mission doubly unwelcome in Korean eyes.

A view of the Korean coast

In mid-August 1866 the General Sherman sailed up the Taedong River on Korea's west coast towards Pyongyang. Initial contact with Korean officials were peaceful, if not cordial – permission to trade was refused – and the ship proceeded unhindered until it ran aground at Yangjak island, close to Pyongyang. Korean attitudes were now hardening and on August 27^th, when an official boarded the vessel, Captain Page detained him, probably as a hostage. This worsened the situation and an order arrived from Daewongun that if the prisoner was not released, and if the General Shermandid not leave at once, all on board should be killed. Departure was not an option however – the level in the river had fallen – the ship had only reached so far upriver due to heavy rains earlier and it was now firmly lodged on a sandbank.

A North Korean stamp commemorating the destruction of the SS General Sherman

The details of what now followed are uncertain as nobody on the General Sherman was to survive. Hostilities erupted on August 31^st and cannon were apparently fired from the ship at Korean troops on the river bank. The confrontation lasted four days and was brought to a head by fire-ships being drifted downriver towards the immobile ship. Two attempts failed but the third succeeded in setting the General Sherman ablaze. Chinese and Malay crew-members either died in the flames, or drowned when they jumped overboard or were beaten to death when they reached the shore. The captain, mate, owner and translator appear to have been murdered after capture. The Korean official they had so unwisely taken hostage survived.

A North Korean depiction of the destruction of the SS General Sherman
It's not clear which of the figures is Kim Il Sung's great-grandfather!

A century later this incident was to attain near-mythic status under the later Communist Government of North Korea. The dictator Kim Il Sung claimed that his great-grandfather was involved as an early opponent of US imperialism. Like so much emanating from North Korea, the claim deserves to be viewed with some skepticism!

The steam-frigate USS Colorado

The American response was tardy in the extreme. In early 1867 an attempt by a US warship to determine what had happened seems to have got nowhere due to “foul weather” and a year later contact with the Koreans by the USS Shenandoah confirmed that all who had been on board the General Sherman were dead. Decisive action only came in May 1871 when the US American Minister to China, Frederick Low,was tasked with gaining an apology. He came in force, backed up by five warships commanded Rear-Admiral John Rodgers who flew his flag in the steam frigate USS Colorado.

The long-lived USS Monocacy - seen here at Shanghai in 1898

The American flotilla was a powerful one – besides the Coloradothere were two sloops, Alaska and Benicia, as well as the paddle-gunboat Monocacy, and the screw-gunboat Palos. Between them they mounted 85 guns. The focus was on the Han River, on which the royal capital Seoul lay some 40 miles from the sea – the same approach taken by the French five years earlier. The warships moored at the river mouth and gunboat USS Palos was sent to assess the possibility of reaching Seoul. This vessel was fired on by Korean forts defending the Han and it retired with two men wounded. When the Paloswas again fired upon, on June 1^st, the paddle-gunboat Monocacy silenced the battery responsible. Further negotiation attempts failed in the nine days that followed and Minister Lowe and Rear-Admiral Rodgers finally authorised punitive action. This was to involve the capture of Korean defences on Ganghwa Island – a total of six forts and four coastal batteries.

Officers of the USS Colorado

The landing went ahead on Jun 10^th, preceded by a bombardment by the warships. The force sent ashore consisted of 542 seamen and 109 marines, together with and six 12-pounder howitzers. The first fort to be attacked fell without significant resistance and the American force pressed on to the next, which was now labelled “Fort Monocacy”. This in turn was to fall and the landing forces spent the night in it – the first US forces to be stationed on Korean soil.

Hand-to-hand fighting in one of the Korean forts

The attack resumed the following day, the force offshore bombarding the forts while the landing party attacked from the land side as the barrage ended. The key to the Korean defence was a position labelled by the Americans as “Fort McKee” in honour of the lieutenant, Hugh McKee, who led the assault on it. Resistance by some 300 Koreans armed with antiquated matchlocks and swords was fierce but lasted only fifteen minutes – the fact that the Americans were armed with Remington rolling-block carbines proving a significant advantage. McKee, who was the first to enter the fort, was fatally wounded but Commander Winfield Scott Schley – who was to win renown in the victory over the Spanish fleet at Santiago in 1898 – was close on his heels and he shot the Korean who had killed him.

Korean prisoners on the Colorado

Captured "Sujagi" - Corporal Brown in middle

By the end of the day the island and its defences were in American hands. Korean casualties amounted to 243 dead, a small number of wounded and twenty prisoners. The Americans suffered three dead and ten wounded. Nine sailors and six marines were later awarded the Medal of Honor, among them a marine corporal, Charles Brown, who captured a large Korean standard or “sujagi”. These were the first Medals of Honor to be won on foreign service.

Then, after the victory – nothing. The Koreans still refused to negotiate and there was nothing the Americans could do about it. The first external treaty to be negotiated was with Japan, and not with a Western nation. It was not until 1882 that the United States finally signed a treaty with the Koreans, at a time when the Daewongun was temporarily side-lined by his equally clever and ruthless daughter-in-law, Queen Min. (This provides the background to my novel Britannia’s Spartan).

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

This latest novel in the Dawlish Chronicles series is set in Korea in 1882 and a sinister role is played in it by the Daewongun.

Author Antoine Vanner talks about his latest novel, Britannia’s Spartan, in a short video. Click here to watch it.

Click below for more details for both paperback and Kindle versions:

For UK: Click here For US & Rest of World: Click here

I am glad to welcome naval-historian Chris Sams as guest on my blog. I hope you'll enjoy this story of warfare in the North Sea in 1917 - Antoine Vanner

A bloody encounter in the North Sea, 1917 by Chris Sams

Day broke on the 17 October 1917 and HMS Strongbow, an R-class destroyer escorting a convoy consisting of two British, one Belgian and nine neutral Scandinavian vessels from Lerwick to Bergen with the armed trawlers Elise and P. Fannon. Strongbow was at the rear of the convoy whilst her sister HMS Mary Rose under Lt. Commander Fox led the convoy from the front, when the crew spotted two cruisers at 06:05 approaching through the early morning haze at two points after beam. Visibility was only 4000 yards and the two vessels were closing at speed. The Duty officer Acting Lieutenant James, believed them to be British light cruisers of the Cleopatra class and he signalled them for identification using a Morse spot lamp.

There was no response.

The second signal met with no response.

The third was met with a poorly morsed letters that made no sense when translated. Something was not right and James immediately sent for the Captain Lt-Commander Brooke and Strongbow turned to meet the two unknown vessels and increased speed.

HMS Strongbow

SMS Bremse and Brummer had been dispatched by Admiral Scheer to seek convoys on the Lerwick to Bergen route and if none were to be found to proceed to the West coast of Britain and range into the Atlantic at their discretion and depending on their fuel supplies.

The Germans reasoned that whilst the rest of their fleet was known to be engaged in the Baltic and capturing Helsingfors the British would not expect an attack. A successful attack would also cause problems for the enemy and ultimately aid the U-boat campaign as the Royal Navy would need to bleed off vessels searching for U-boats to protect these neutral convoys from surface raiders. The mine-laying cruisers Bremse and Brummer were specifically chosen for their appearance which was similar to British cruisers and that they had a top speed of 34 knots and could burn either oil or coal. With their decks cleared of all their mine laying equipment, save for the lowering mechanism, and the berths for 450 mines the cruisers left Wilhelmshaven and proceeded into the North Sea after a day's delay whilst minesweepers cleared a path for them.

SMS Brummer

Scheer legitimised attacking neutral ships in his memoirs;

It was known that neutral merchant vessels assembled in convoys to travel under the protection of English warships, and therefore they might be regarded as enemy vessels, since they openly claimed English protection as to benefit the enemy and consequently to injure us.

Room 40, the Admiralty's code breakers, had intercepted Bremse and Brummer reporting their position as north of the Sylt at Lister Tief. This information was passed on to Operations to evaluate as Room 40 had no knowledge of British vessels’ dispositions.

The Admiralty Operations room did not believe that two mine-laying cruisers would be a threat to anything and that they were probably adding to the formidable minefields already in existence. There had been a belief that the Germans would attempt a raid of some sort and a force of three cruisers, twenty-seven light cruisers and fifty-four destroyers spread itself from the mid North Sea to the coast of Norway looking for a mine layer and force of destroyers.

The Brummer and Bremse had slipped by at night using their high top-speed and now were closing on Strongbow. Theyfired at 3000 yards with their first salvo falling short. Their second hit the main steam pipe, causing the destroyer to stop and wrecking her wireless-room, thereby removing her ability to call for help. The time was 06:15.

With Mary Rose some way ahead the defenceless merchant ships slowed to a stop and began abandoning ship in the hope that their crews could be afforded safety in the lifeboats. The two German cruisers closed and began sinking the merchant ships with expertly aimed shots at the waterline and would eventually claim all nine of the neutral Danes, Swedish and Norwegian vessels whilst the Belgian and British vessels fled the scene.

M-Class destroyer HMS Marmion - her sister Mary Rose would have looked similar

At 06:20 the Mary Rose reappeared, reacting to the gunfire and sighting four merchant vessels already sinking. She bravely charged the German warships whilst trying to send an SOS transmission. Although acknowledged by a British shore station and asked for confirmation SMS Brummer managed to block any further communication. Mary Rose opened fire at a range of 6-7000 yards and closed with the enemy at top speed. At 2000 yards Lt. Commander Fox ordered the helm hard over. As she responded the two German cruisers hit her engine-room, disabling her. Thereafter she was pounded to destruction, taking all but eight of her crew with her to their deaths.

With the escorting destroyers dealt with the German cruisers returned to the task of shelling the defenceless merchant vessels.

The fight was not over as the plucky armed trawler Elise defied orders and returned to the scene, first trying to rescue survivors from Strongbow and then firing upon the two German vessels and trying to draw them away. When this failed the trawler could do no more than move to a safe distance and wait.

With their work completed Bremse and Brummer withdrew to the South-East without picking up a single survivor. Scheer would later legitimise this by stating that;

As two (actually three) of the steamers had been able to get away in time on noticing the attack, the care of the crews in the boats could be left to them, for our cruisers had to consider their own safety on the long return journey.

The Elise did return and picked up survivors from the disabled Strongbow whilst others were picked up by boats from the lost merchants. Strongbow finally disappeared beneath the waves at 09:30 having been scuttled by her crew following the destruction of all code books.

In all, 250 men died in few hours by gunfire or from exposure. A further 50 were wounded. The Germans suffered no casualties.

News of the disaster did not reach the British authorities until 15:50 when HMS Marmion, on the return Bergen - Lerwick track, found the Elise at 13:30 and steamed to send the message to Admiral Brock, officer commanding Shetland and Orkneys. Beatty was told within an hour and hurriedly deployed his cruisers on the off chance of catching the two Germans that night but to no avail.

Mersey Class Armed Trawler - the Elise would have been generally similar

The Admiralty were criticised for their failings by the Conservative press and questions were asked in Parliament. The only defence offered was that the sea is a large place and occasionally the enemy, using night and fog, may slip through the defences and hit a convoy. It was also pointed out that some 4500 vessels had got through safely in the last six months on the same route.

Beatty was livid that the German ships had been Bremse and Brummer as, knowing their capability, he would have changed his whole deployment. Changes to the convoy system were brought in immediately with larger convoys on a less frequent basis. Destroyer commanders were ordered to be at constant standby, to suspect all unknown vessels as enemy until absolutely certain to the contrary, to scatter the convoy when attacked, to avoid engaging "superior forces" and use W/T to call for help "IMMEDIATELY"

Criticism was brought against Fox of the Mary Rose and Brooke of the Strongbowfor their "ill advised" actions that day. (Fox had been killed in the action and Brooke died of pneumonia a year later, possibly weakened by exposure in the water before rescue). Although their bravery in engaging the enemy was recognised, the opinion of the various enquiries and court-martials that followed was that the destroyer commanders’ first duty was to summon assistance from the cruiser forces. It was later acknowledged that the Strongbow simply did not have the opportunity to contact anyone as her W/T set was knocked out within minutes. It was revealed by the Germans after the war that Mary Rose had also attempted to do the same.

Indeed the German official account post war acknowledge the bravery of the British crews:

The heroic fight put up by the two British destroyers had been in the highest British tradition, but it achieved nothing.

It was a defeat for the Allies but it was learnt from quickly. Beatty took steps to rectify the situation with his fresh orders and the number of vessels in convoy were increased whilst their frequency decreased so that they would be better protected.

For the Germans it was a victory and was celebrated by the Kaiser with the opening of champagne. Two cruisers had caused embarrassment to the Royal Navy for no loss at a time when good news in Germany was distinctly lacking. Strategically however, it achieved nothing.

There were accusations of war crimes post war with the German crews accused of shelling survivors in the water. Sir Henry Newbolt wrote that;

Throughout the attack the Germans displayed a severity which is hard to distinguish from downright cruelty. They gave the neutral masters and crews no chance to lower their boats and get away, but poured their broadsides into them without warning as though they had been armed enemies... In the case of the destroyers the enemy's conduct was even worse; for to their everlasting discredit fire was opened and maintained upon the Strongbow's survivors.

This would later be refuted by the Germans in Krieg in der Nordsee;

Some of Strongbow's crew, who had taken to the lifeboat , and others who had leapt into the water, became additional victims of gunfire, possibly from shots falling short; it stands to reason that there was no intention whatsoever of firing on them. The statement of the British Official history, that defenceless survivors from the Strongbow were deliberately fired on, cannot be refuted strongly enough.

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Chris Sams has been a student of history from a very young age and specialised in the Axis powers at war in his undergraduate studies as well as late Medieval English kingship. Chris published his first book on German cruiser warfare (Kreuzerkrieg) and the German Asiatic Squadron (Ostasiengeschwader)in 2015 and is beavering away on the next whilst trying to write blogs at boredhistorian.blogspot.com and spending time with his wife and three children.

Click here to find out more about his book.

In 1864 the Austro-Hungarian Empire joined with the Kingdom of Prussia to inflict a crushing defeat on the small nation of Denmark. This was to be the first of three wars, escalating in scale, which the Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, used to advance German unification. In a recent blog (8^thJanuary 2016) we saw the Austro-Hungarian Navy in action against the Danish Navy off the island of Heligoland in 1864, an encounter that was a tactical victory for the Danes but which had no impact on the outcome of the war. A hero of the battle off Heligoland was the flamboyant Austro-Hungarian commander, Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff (1827-1871)

Cavalry action at Königgrätz - by Alexander von Bensa

In the second of Bismarck’s wars, in 1866, the Austro-Hungarian Empire found itself the focus of its previous ally Prussia’s aggression in a contest which would determine which power was to be dominant in Central Europe. The newly-emergent Kingdom of Italy allied itself to Prussia with the objective of winning the territory of Venetia, the last major area in Italy still under Austro-Hungarian rule. The war was to prove another short one, with Prussian professionalism mercilessly punishing Austro-Hungarian inefficiency. A rapid Prussian drive south into Bohemia (the modern Czech Republic) was made possible by superb mastery of logistics and at Königgrätz (modern Hradec Králové) on 3^rd July 1866, in a clash that involved almost half-a-million men, the Austro-Hungarians suffered a massive defeat. This one battle was enough to decide the so-called “Seven Weeks War” which was ended by the “Peace of Prague” treaty the following month.

Affondatore (as later reconstructed)

Austro-Hungary was more successful against the Italians, who had invaded Venetia, defeating their numerically stronger army at Custoza in June 1866 and forcing them to retreat. The other theatre of action was at sea. Both nations had built substantial fleets with the objective of controlling the Adriatic. It is an indicator of the rapidity of technological change that only seven years after the French had launched the Gloire, the first sea-going ironclad’ the Austro-Hungarians could deploy seven such ships of varying power, and the Italians no less than twelve. Both sides also possessed wooden vessels – the Austro-Hungarians had seven steam frigates and corvettes plus another dozen smaller units, while the Italians had some sixteen. The advantage was with the Italians as regards firepower, on paper at least twice that of their enemy as regards total “weight of shot” – that fired by all guns. Great things were expected of the two Italian “Kings” – the Re d'Italia and Re di Portogallo ironclads, each armed with some 30 heavy rifled weapons – as well as the single-turret ram Affondatore, which had just arrived from its builders in Britain and which mounted two 300-pounder, 10-inch rifles.

Re d'Italia

Persano

Given the disparity between the two navies it should have seemed easy for the Italian commander, Admiral Carlo Persano, to execute the order given him to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and blockade them wherever found." In the event however inefficiency, delay and insufficient gun-drill characterised the Italian effort. Though war was declared 20th June – not unexpectedly, for a crisis had been brewing for some time – it was not until 25^th June before he moved the bulk of his fleet from Taranto in the far south to Ancona on the northern Adriatic, some eighty miles south of the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. On arrival at Ancona on 27^th June Persano found thirteen enemy ships offshore, all cleared for action. He made no effort to fight them and according to some reports was so depressed by news of the Italian defeat Custoza that he hung back from confrontation. On July 8 he took his force to sea for three days’ practice manoeuvring and signalling – but no firing-drill, despite many of the guns being newly mounted and unfamiliar to their crews.

The Italian Minister of Marine forced Persano’s hand by ordering an attack, not on Pola, but on the Austro-Hungarian held island of Lissa (now Vis), off the Adriatic’s eastern coast. Possession of this island was regarded as essential for control of the Adriatic – and gaining it had been an Italian ambition for some time – but attacking it while there was still an undefeated enemy fleet at large could only be regarded as foolhardy. One reason for the decision may have been that, with negotiations imminent to end the war, possession of Lissa, even at high cost, might provide a valuable bargaining chip.

Tegetthoff

The decisive factor in the drama now unfolding was to be the aggressive Austro-Hungarian naval commander, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, who had been blooded in action against the Danes. His crews were of both Slav and Italian stock from along the Adriatic coast, including some 600 from Venice, and they were unlikely to have been inherently superior to Persano’s men. The difference lay in the loyalty, fighting spirit and discipline which Tegettoff had instilled in them and their facing down of the Italian fleet at Ancona on 27th June had boosted their confidence.

Tegetthoff was initially suspicious that the Italian moves against Lissa were a diversion but telegrams from there convinced him that they represented a major Italian attempt to take the island. Accordingly, on 19^th July, he headed there with his entire force.

The Italian offensive was meanwhile proceeding slowly. It opened with shore bombardment – a difficult undertaking as Lissa’s coastal batteries were sited on commanding heights and manned by determined marines and artillerymen. The operation was nevertheless largely successful, not least due to the arrival of the powerful Affondatore and by the end of the second day some two-thirds of the Austro-Hungarian guns had been silenced. Had the Italian ground-troops waiting offshore been landed the island could probably have been captured before Tegettoff arrived. Zeal to do so was lacking however and on the following day, 20^th July, clearing mists revealed to the island’s defenders the Austro-Hungarian squadron driving from the north-east at full speed. Persano hurriedly gathered the Italian ships to the north of the island to meet them.

Tegettoff’s force advanced in three successive divisions, ironclads, wooden frigates, and finally the smaller vessels, each in a wedge-shaped formation (see diagram above), with the apex toward the enemy. The object was to drive through the Italian line, if possible near the van, and bring on a melee in which all ships could take part, ramming tactics could be employed, and the enemy would profit less by their superiority in armour and guns. Tegetthoff's tactic depended on aggression and confidence, matching them against a hesitant and passive enemy commander.

The Italians had been caught at a disadvantage. On the previous day the Formidabile, one of their better ships, had been put out of action by shore batteries. Another, coming from the west end of the island, was too late to take part in the action. The commander of the Italian wooden ships, one Albini, was reluctant to risk them, despite Persano signalling desperately to them to come around the Austro-Hungarian rear. With his ironclads Persano formed three divisions, each of three ships and he swung across the enemy's bows in line ahead. At this critical juncture, and for no obvious reason, he shifted his flag from the Re d'Italia in the centre to the Affondatore, which was steaming alone on the starboard side of the line. The change was not noted by all his ships, and confusion of orders inevitably followed. The delay involved also left a wide gap between the Italian van and centre divisions and through this the Austrians drove, with Tegetthoff in his flagship Erzherzog Ferdinand Max leading the way.

Contemporary painting - the confused-melee nature of the action is obvious

From this point on, formations became almost meaningless, a confused fracas in which the two forces rammed or fired into each other in a fog of smoke and spray. The Austro-Hungarian left flank and rear held up the Italian van while their ironclads attacked the Italian centre. The wooden ships of the Austro-Hungarian middle division displayed none of the hesitation of their Italian counterparts. Led by the 92-gun Kaiser, essentially a traditional wooden ship of the line equipped with a steam engine, they smashed into the Italian rear. The Kaiser, an obsolete relic, was to endure the hardest fighting of the battle. She twice avoided the Affondatore's ram though she was struck by one of her 300-pound projectiles. The Re di Portogallo then bore down on her but her Captain Petz rang for full speed ahead and steered for the ironclad, striking a glancing blow and scraping past her, both ships blazing at each other as they passed. The Kaiser thereafter withdrew, her foremast and funnel down and a fire burning amidships. Altogether she fired 850 rounds in the action, or about one-fifth of the total fired by the Austrians, and she received 80 hits, about one-fifth of the total. Of the 38 Austrians killed and 138 wounded in the battle, Kaiser lost 24 and 75 respectively.

Kaiser charging the Re di Portogallo while the Affondator attacks on her port quarter
Painting by Eduard Nezbeda

Similarly fierce action was in progress elsewhere. The Italian gunboat Palestro was forced to withdraw to fight a fire that threatened her magazines. The ironclad Re d'Italia, which was at first supposed by the Austro-Hungarians to be Persano's flagship, became a focus of their attack and her steering gear was disabled. As she could go only straight ahead or astern, Tegettoff seized his chance. He rammed her squarely amidships at full speed with the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, smashing through her armour and opening a huge gash. The Re d'Italia heeled over to starboard, lurched back again, then sank almost immediately, taking 381 of her crew with her.

Erzherzog Ferdinand Max ramming the Re d'Italia

The Re d'Italia rolling over and sinking - Erzharzog Ferdinand Max in background
Painting by Carl Frederich Sorensen

This dramatic sinking practically decided the battle. The fighting had lasted little more than an hour before the Italians withdrew westwards, allowing Tegettoff to bring his force into Lissa’s fortified harbour of San Giorgio. The fire on the Palestro reached her magazine as she retreated and she exploded with the loss of 231 of her crew. Other than this vessel and the Re d'Italia the Italians’ other losses were slight – 8 killed and 40 wounded. Their ships were badly battered however and soon afterwards the Affondatore sank in Ancona harbour, unable due to her battle damage to resist a squall.

Kaiser after the battle - foremast and funnel gone, bows badly damaged

Tegettoff’s victory had no impact on the outcome of the war, which had essentially been determined by the Prussian victory at Königgrätz. Despite defeat by land and sea at Custoza and Lissa, Italy was awarded Venetia in the peace negotiations. The most notable naval consequence of the Lissa battle was the exaggerated value many assigned to ramming as a tactic, thereby making a ram bow a feature of almost every warship, large or small, up to World War I. The more valuable lesson was that a passive and defensive policy, such as Persano had adopted, would always fail if confronted by a determined and aggressive enemy.. There have been few better examples than Lissa of the American Admiral Farragut's belief that “iron in the ships is less important than iron in the men".

It is surprising, in view of the facts, that Persano announced a victory when he returned to Italy, thereby triggering widespread celebrations which was dampened when the full story was made known. He was to suffer the humiliation of being arraigned before the Italian Senate and being dismissed from the navy on the basis of cowardice and incompetence.

The classic image of the defiant Tegetthoff on the Ferdinand Max's open bridge during the battle

Tegetthoff, still only 39 at the time of his victory, had one five years to live before he was struck down by pneumonia. Deservedly promoted and hailed as a national hero, his most significant – and painful – duty in his later career was to sail to Mexico in the frigate Novara in 1867 to bring back the body of the so-called Emperor Ferdinand Maximilian who had been shot by the Mexican government of Benito Juárez.

But that’s another story!

Britannia’s Wolf

The first book in the Dawlish Chronicles Series features ironclad action in the Black Sea as the vicious Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 reaches its climax.

Russian forces are driving deep into the corrupt Ottoman-Turkish Empire. In the depths of a savage winter, as the Turks face defeat on all fronts, a British officer is enmeshed and finds himself confronting enemy ironclads, Cossack lances and merciless Kurdish irregulars. And in the midst of this chaos, while he himself is a pawn in the rivalry of the Sultan’s half-brothers for control of the collapsing empire, he is unwillingly and unexpectedly drawn to a woman whom he believes he should not love.

Britannia’s Wolf is available in hard-copy and Kindle format –click here for details.

Britannia's Wolf It is also available as an audio book read by the distinguished American actor David Doersch. If you haven't previously ordered an audio-book from audible.com you can download it without cost as part of a 30-Day Free Trial. You can listen on your Smart Phone, Tablet or MP3 Player.

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Martian Fighting Machine in 1906 Edition

H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” first appeared in 1897 and described in terrifying detail how late-Victorian Britain was powerless to resist the devastation wreaked by huge Martian “walking machine” tripods armed with heat-rays (Lasers!) and “black smoke" poison gas. The most dramatic and memorable incident involves frantic efforts of refugees to escape in ships across the English Channel to France. The story is told from the viewpoint of the narrator’s brother, who is on one of the steamers. Just as this vessel draws away from the British coast three Martian tripods appear and begin to wade out after her. Let’s hear how Wells tells it:

“About a couple of miles out lay an ironclad, very low in the water, almost, to my brother's perception, like a waterlogged ship. This was the ram Thunder Child. It was the only warship in sight, but far away to the right over the smooth surface of the sea – for that day there was a dead calm –lay a serpent of black smoke to mark the next ironclads of the Channel Fleet, which hovered in an extended line, steam up and ready for action, across the Thames estuary during the course of the Martian conquest, vigilant and yet powerless to prevent it…”

The Thunder Child drives towards the Martians…

“…. Big iron upperworks rose out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the torpedo ram, Thunder Child, steaming headlong, coming to the rescue of the threatened shipping.

Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged. Thus sunken, and seen in remote perspective, they appeared far less formidable than the huge iron bulk in whose wake the steamer was pitching so helplessly. It would seem they were regarding this new antagonist with astonishment. To their intelligence, it may be, the giant was even such another as themselves. The Thunder Child fired no gun, but simply drove full speed towards them. It was probably her not firing that enabled her to get so near the enemy as she did. They did not know what to make of her. One shell, and they would have sent her to the bottom forthwith with the Heat-Ray.

Suddenly the foremost Martian lowered his tube and discharged a canister of the black gas at the ironclad. It hit her larboard side and glanced off in an inky jet that rolled away to seaward, an unfolding torrent of Black Smoke, from which the ironclad drove clear. To the watchers from the steamer, low in the water and with the sun in their eyes, it seemed as though she were already among the Martians.

They saw the gaunt figures separating and rising out of the water as they retreated shoreward, and one of them raised the camera-like generator of the Heat-Ray. He held it pointing obliquely downward, and a bank of steam sprang from the water at its touch. It must have driven through the iron of the ship's side like a white-hot iron rod through paper.

Thunder Child's attack - by Henrique Alvim Corréa in 1906 edition

A flicker of flame went up through the rising steam, and then the Martian reeled and staggered. In another moment he was cut down, and a great body of water and steam shot high in the air. The guns of the Thunder Child sounded through the reek, going off one after the other, and one shot splashed the water high close by the steamer … but no one heeded that very much. At the sight of the Martian's collapse the captain on the bridge yelled inarticulately, and all the crowding passengers on the steamer's stern shouted together. And then they yelled again. For, surging out beyond the white tumult, drove something long and black, the flames streaming from its middle parts, its ventilators and funnels spouting fire.

She was alive still; the steering gear, it seems, was intact and her engines working. She headed straight for a second Martian, and was within a hundred yards of him when the Heat-Ray came to bear. Then with a violent thud, a blinding flash, her decks, her funnels, leaped upward. The Martian staggered with the violence of her explosion, and in another moment the flaming wreckage, still driving forward with the impetus of its pace, had struck him and crumpled him up like a thing of cardboard. My brother shouted involuntarily. A boiling tumult of steam hid everything again…

… The steam hung upon the water for many minutes, hiding the third Martian and the coast altogether... and when at last the confusion cleared, the drifting bank of black vapour intervened, and nothing of the Thunder Child could be made out, nor could the third Martian be seen.”

HMS Polyphemus - illustrations at time of her launch

Contemporary readers would have recognised the Thunder Child as being based on HMS Polyphemus, the only torpedo-ram ever built for the Royal Navy, a bizarre but impressive experiment that was never repeated. Commissioned in 1881, she was designed as a fast, low-profile vessel of shallow-draft, with torpedoes as its main offensive weapons, with her ram as a back-up. A “stealth ship” of her time, she was designed for attack by night and for penetrating enemy anchorages.

Polyphemus in drydock

The automotive “fish” torpedo was a new weapon in the 1870s and its ability to inflict damage to a ship’s hull below the waterline was clearly its main advantage. Opinions differed on how best it could be employed and through the 1870s various solutions were considered. One of these was the torpedo-ram concept and it was to find its embodiment in the Polyphemus, a partly armoured cigar-shaped vessel that would run almost awash and carry five submerged 14-inch torpedo tubes, one of them – quite surprisingly – running down the centre of the ram. As completed in 1881 she was 240 feet long and of 2640 tons. Her twin-shaft steam engines gave her at maximum speed of 17.8 knots.

She was innovative in several ways. Her armoured turtle-deck ran almost awash and her low superstructure – which included six cylindrical shields in each of which a 1-inch semi-automatic Nordenvelt gun was mounted – sat on top and was designed to float free in the event of sinking. The hull-shape had been optimised for minimum resistance – as can be seen from diagrams – and a retractable rudder was built into the bows to facilitate movement astern, and to decrease her turning circle when going ahead. Polyphemus was also equipped with a separate 250-ton cast iron keel which could be dropped in an emergency The drill and the mechanism for doing so was tested every two weeks. She was the first Royal Navy ship to be fitted with an 80-volt direct current electrical system – this lower-voltage system reflecting experience of the dangers of the 800-volt system used on the navy’s first “electric ship” HMS Inflexible.

HMS Polyphemus, seen here at Malta

The Polyphemusspent much of her career, until she was relegated to secondary duties in 1900, in the Mediterranean. Given the low hull profile, and the need to minimise deck openings, working conditions in the boiler and machinery spaces must have been uncomfortable in the extreme. It was soon recognised that the design concept was a dead-end, as the arrival of quick-firing weapons was likely to make her very vulnerable since, due to her size, she would never have the nimbleness and “survivability” of a much smaller torpedo-boat. Launching of her 14-inch torpedoes, which had a range of 600 yards only, demanded almost suicidal closing with an enemy ship.

Polyphemus (r of centre) ramming teh boom at Berehaven 30th June 1885

Polyphemus was to have one brief moment of glory, not in combat with Martians, but when a war scare in 1885 raised the possibility of action against the Russian Navy. Penetration of the Russian base at Kronstadt was considered, with Polyphemus using her ram to smash through protective floating booms and open the way for other ships to follow. A trial was accordingly arranged at Berehaven, the Royal Navy anchorage in South-West Ireland. A boom, similar to one the Russians might employ was constructed, the floating obstacles linked by 5-inch steel cables and with nets attached to entangle propellers. Six small torpedo boats were assigned to patrolling the approaches. On 30^thJune the Polyphemus mounted her attack, building up speed on a two-mile run towards the boom and evading some ten practice-torpedoes launched by the opposing patrol boats. She smashed her way through the boom – unfortunately the only existing photograph, as shown above, was taken from a distance and the full drama is not conveyed by it – and she proved that in this one very special scenario she could prove her worth.

Contemporary artist's impression show the boom being breached
Thumbnail at top-left shows Polyphemus steaming away unharmed
Note cylindrical shields for Nordenveldts

And that was the end of her spell in the limelight. War with Russia was averted and she returned to routine – and probably very uncomfortable – service. When the Royal Navy finally attacked Kronstadt, in 1919, against Bolshevik forces, it was with light motor-torpedo boats with a turn of speed – some 40 knots – inconceivable when Polyphemus was designed. The only other scenario in which she might have proved of value was that described by H.G. Wells.

And that was fictional.

Britannia’s Sharkby Antoine Vanner

Historic naval fiction moves on into the age of Fighting Steam. Click here for more details of this story of the birth of a new weapon,of savage repression and revolt by land, of survival at sea, and below it.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries all major navies, other than the German, lost large ships through magazine explosions of unstable ammunition. The first of such tragedies was in the US Navy, when the battleship USS Maineblew up in the harbour of Havana, Cuba, in January 1898. The explosion was initially blamed on sabotage by Spanish forces, and was a factor in precipitating the Spanish-American War of the same year (the recruiting slogan being “Remember the Maine!”) but it was only long afterwards when the cause was finally attributed to a magazine explosion.

Iéna in service in happier times

The French Navy was to be particularly unlucky in this respect in the years preceding World War 1, two pre-dreadnought battleships being lost while in the naval base at Toulon. The first disaster involved the 11500-ton, 401-feet long Iéna. In service since 1902, this vessel carried an armament – four 12”, eight 6” and many smaller – generally similar to those of her British contemporaries, such as the Formidable class, but on some 3000 tons less displacement.

Contemporary image - Iéna exploding

On 12^th March 1907 Iéna was in dry-dock at Toulon for maintenance of her hull and inspection of her rudder shaft (which had provided embarrassing problems on the ship’s first commissioning). The full complement was not therefore on board when a series of explosions erupted in the port-side magazines of the 4” anti- torpedo boat armament. The normal procedure in such cases would have been to flood the magazines, but this was impossible due to the ship being in dry-dock. The quick-thinking captain of the battleship Patrie, which was moored nearby, ordered a shell to be fired into the dock-gates to flood the dock but the shell failed to have any effect. Why it was not attempted to repeat this is not obvious. While this was going on, the violence of the explosions on the Iéna was enough to cause the battleship Suffren, moored close by, to heel over so far as almost to capsize. (The Suffren was an unlucky ship ever since her launching – click here to read more about her). The dock was finally flooded, thanks to the heroism of a young officer, Ensign de Vaisseau Roux, who was killed by fragments soon thereafter. Though the Iéna was damaged beyond repair the death toll – 120 lives – was lower than if the explosions had occurred at sea with her full 700-man crew on board.

Iéna after the disaster

Investigation traced the origin of the explosion to the instability of the ammunition’s nitrocellulose-based propellant. Known as “Poudre B”, this was known to become unstable with age and to self-ignite. It was estimated that 80% of the contents of the ship's magazines were the suspect at the time of the accident – which could have been far worse had the magazines of the main 12-inch weapons also detonated. Scandals – known as affairs– were one of the great institutions of the French Third Republic that lasted from 1870 to 1940 and the Iéna disaster was to trigger a choice specimen, referred to as “l'Affaire des Poudres” which resulted in the resignation of the Navy Minister, Gaston Thomson (1848 -1932). Like so many French politicians of the time, involvement in a scandal does not seem to have affected his future career negatively.

Liberté at speed

Lessons from the loss of the Iéna should have been sufficient to avoid similar tragedies in the future but three similar accidents occurred on smaller vessels over the next three years, with no ship lost and a small death-toll. A greater disaster was however to occur, again in Toulon, for years later. The Liberté, of 14630- tons and 430-feet length, was one of the four ships of the class to which she gave her name and which were the last pre-dreadnoughts to serve in the French Navy. Liberté was obsolete at time of her launch and she entered service in 1908, a year after Britain’s HMS Dreadnought had changed the battleship paradigm. Her four 12-inch cannon represented a puny armament when compared with the Dreadnought’s ten. Liberté did however also mount ten 7.6-inch weapons, six in single turrets and four in casemates.

Liberté exploding - contemporary artist's impression

Liberté was moored in the harbour in Toulon on 25th September 1911 when an explosion erupted in one of the forward magazines of the 7.6-inch guns. The situation was serious, but not yet fatal, and the commander, Captain Louis Jaurès, sent a party forward to flood the magazines to prevent an explosion in the main magazines. A major design fault was now manifested, for the flooding valves were located beneath the magazines. Two heroic attempts were made to reach the valves but were beaten back by fire and smoke. A third attempt was in progress when the main magazine exploded, tearing the ship apart.

A 40-ton armour plate from the Liberté lodged in the side of the République

The violence of the detonation was sufficient for the pre-dreadnought République, moored over 200 yards away, to be damaged seriously when a 40-ton section of Liberté’s armoured plate was thrown against her side. The death-toll was some 250 and state funerals for these victims were attended by the president and a relief fund for the bereaved families received massive support across the nation.

The wreckage of the Liberté - hardly identifiable as a ship

France had learned the hard way, but other nations were to suffer similar disasters during World War 1. Britain was to lose the pre-dreadnought HMS Bulwark in 1914, the mine-layer HMS Princess Irene in 1915, the armoured-cruiser HMS Natal in 1915 (click here to read an earlier blog about it) and the dreadnought HMS Vanguard in 1917. The Italian Navy was to lose the pre-dreadnought Bendetto Brin in 1915 and the Imperial Russian Navy was to lose the massive new dreadnought Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya at Sevastopol in 1917. Japan’s first dreadnought, the Kawachi, blew up in 1918. In all cases the death toll was horrific.

Improvements in propellant stability ended this string of disasters after 1918 and internal explosions were not to punctuate World War 2, as they had the previous conflict.

The story of war against maritime trade in the Age of Fighting Sail is usually told, whether in fact or in fiction, from the viewpoint of the naval commerce-raider intent on prize-money. One finds few accounts which view these contests from the side of the victims. I was therefore fascinated by stumbling recently on an account of a furious battle between a civilian trader – armed, as was essential at the time – and a French privateer in 1744, during the War of Austrian Succession.

A trading brig by Joseph Walter,1838 - the Isabella may have looked generally similar.

The Wrightson andIsabella of Sunderland was a merchant ship engaged in trade across the North Sea and commanded by a Captain Richard Avery Hornsby (1699-1751). No details are available of this vessel but given the fact that she was manned by only five men and three boys, besides Hornsby, and that she mounted four carriage guns – which could only have been small ones – and two swivels, she cannot have been of large size, perhaps brig-rigged. On 13^thJune 1744 Hornsby arrived off the Dutch coast at Scheveningen, the coastal suburb of The Hague, in company with three smaller vessels with which he had sailed in convoy from Norfolk. The Isabella(it’s easier to refer to her as such) was laden with malt and barley. At this period there was no harbour at Scheveningen – one would not be constructed until 1904 – and trading vessels had to lie offshore and transfer cargoes ashore in smaller boats. Fishing boats were drawn up on to the beach (a subject for many painters, including Vincent van Gogh, for many years).

Fishing boats on the beach at Scheveningen, 1882 - by Vincent van Gogh

When the Isabellaarrived a large number of fishing boats were lying offshore and among them a French privateer, the Marquis de Brancas, had concealed herself. Commanded by a Captain André, this appears to have been a larger vessel that carried ten carriage guns and eight swivels, plus a crew of 75. She made straight for the Isabella, the other British ships turning away and escaping.

View of Scheveningen 1871 by Johannes Joseph Destree
Note the vessels clustered offshore - among such a grouping the Brancas would have lurked

Given the disparities of armament and crew, resistance by the Isabella must have appeared suicidal. Hornsby seems however to have had the agreement of his crew to fight it out and he accordingly refused to comply when André of the Brancas called on him to strike his colours. Like any privateer André was naturally focussed on capture of a valuable prize rather than on her destruction and his initial attack on the Isabella was with small-arms fire only. Hornsby ordered his men to shelter and by skilful manoeuvring avoided two French attempts to board on the port quarter. By this stage the Brancas was bringing her guns as well as her small-arms into action and Hornsby was replying with his two port weapons.

This part of the action lasted – amazingly – for upwards of an hour but at two in the afternoon the privateer ran her bowsprit into the main shrouds on Isabella’s port side and held there. Captain André again demanded that Hornsby strike, and was one again rejected. Some twenty French now crossed only to be driven back by a hail of blunderbusses fire. The Brancas now broke free and attacked the Isabella on her starboard side. A new boarding attempt was made – this must have been a nightmare conflict, conducted as it was with hatchets and pole-axes as well as small arms. The two ships were by now lashed together and Hornsby’s men, concentrated at the Isabella’s stern, were somehow holding back the attackers, fresh men crossing from the Brancas to replace dead and wounded boarders. These attackers had taken shelter behind (or rather ahead of) the mainmast when Hornsby fired on them again with his blunderbuss. He had not realised that in the heat of the moment it had been doubly loaded and, as he fired, the weapon burst, throwing him down bruised but still defiant. Boarding proving too costly, Captain André now pulled his men back on board the Brancas and broke away, apparently determined on destruction – and revenge – rather than on capture of a prize.

A Royal Navy brigantine of the18th Century - the Brancas might have looked generally similar

As the French vessel sheered off Captain Hornsby managed to fire his starboard guns into her stern – raking her – and a new yard-arm to yard-arm gunnery battle commenced, a miniature version of the single-ship frigate actions of later decades. Isabella– not surprisingly – had the worst of it, her hull damaged, her sails and rigging torn to shreds and every mast and yard damaged to some extent. The resolve of Hornsby and his crew must have been almost superhuman but it was rewarded by landing a lucky hit on the Brancas“between wind and water” – i.e. along the waterline. This forced the French captain to draw away to plug the leak, thereby giving the Isabella enough respite to haul her fallen ensign up again.

Boarding - the close-quarters horror of the Age of Fighting Sail

The contest was taking place close inshore and crowds had hurried to the beach on foot and by coach to view the spectacle. With her leak stopped the Brancas now returned to deliver the crippled Isabella what must be her coup-de-grace. She crossed under the Isabella’s stern subjecting her to a volley of small-arms fire, one musket ball hitting Hornsby on the temple. He bled profusely but was not otherwise seriously wounded. Brancas now poured three broadsides into the Isabella but was again driven away by another lucky water-line strike. A hasty repair was enough to bring her back into action – another five broadsides were smashed into the Isabella’shull and André once more called on Hornsby to strike her colours. With his demand once more rejected he ordered his men to bring Brancas alongside to board one more and was answered with a refusal. They had had enough and there was nothing more to be done but for André to break off the fight.

A man-of-war exploding - by the Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky
The Brancas's detonation would have been smaller, but no less deadly

What happened now was perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the encounter. As the Brancas drew away the Isabella fired on her for the last time. A shot passed through the French vessel’s already badly damaged stern and set off her magazine. The Brancasblew up in a spectacular explosion – so powerful in fact that only three survivors of her crew were picked up by Dutch fishing boats. Isabella herself, a floating wreck, had survived an engagement that had lasted for a seven hours. It would have been a creditable achievement for a warship but an unprecedented one for a civilian vessel.

The courage of Hornsby and his crew were deservedly recognised. Three months later, at Kensington Palace, King George II presented him with a gold medal and chain worth £100 while each of his crew members – who seem all to have survived – were awarded £5 each, though with only £2 for the boys. It is sad to note however that Hornsby lived only another seven years and died at sea “of a lingering illness”.

He and his men deserve to be remembered.

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel , which centres on the efforts of a British-owned company to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers. The story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam. Click on the image below for more details.

Ships are still lost at sea in our own time, frequently as a result of regulations and standards being ignored rather than standards being established in the first place to ensure safe operation. When reading of seafaring in the 19^th Century, and the vast numbers of maritime disasters, one is struck by the fact that not only had standards not been established, but that little thought went into recognising inevitable hazards and to identifying measures to mitigate or eliminate them. The most glaring example refers to provision of adequate numbers of lifeboats – a straightforward and obvious measure, the absence of which resulted in heavy loss of life for decades until the Titanic disaster in 1912 finally made action unavoidable. Similar shortcomings applied as regards protection against fire, an especially serious concern when steam-engines were installed in wooden ships. In addition, one is struck, when reading about Victorian-era, by what frequently amounted to an all but wilful blindness to signs of danger. This latter was to be a factor in one of the most horrific of passenger-trade tragedies, the loss by fire of the Royal Mail Steamer (RMS) Amazon, in 1852.

The horror of fire at sea, conveyed by the Victorian painter James Francis Danby (1816-1875)

Constructed in 1850-51, the Amazon, at 2256-tons and 300-feet long, and her four sisters were among the largest wooden-hulled steamers ever built, for by this time iron construction was becoming commonplace. Intended for the mail service between Britain and the West Indies, the 800-horsepower Amazon was paddle-driven and capable, under steam, of a maximum of fifteen knots, though her usual cruising speed would have been closer to eleven. As with almost all steamers of the time she also carried a sailing rig, in her case of three-masted barque configuration. Her crew of 112 reflected the need to operate under sail as well as to feed the furnaces and tend the engine. There was accommodation for 50 passengers.

Commanded by a Captain Symonds, the Amazon left Southampton on her maiden voyage to the West Indies on 2^nd January 1852. According to accounts by survivors of the subsequent tragedy, alarm was felt immediately by many passengers as regards risk of fire. The two engines installed appeared to be overheating and the captain and engineer stopped them several times to allow them to cool. A Mr. Neilson was too worried by this to go below decks and another, a Mr. Glennie, attested that may of the crew were no less concerned. Despite this, Captain Symonds was not prepared to return to Southampton.

The impressive-looking RMS Amazon, as seen before departure on her maiden voyage

Thirty-six hours into her voyage the Amazon ran into a heavy headwind in the Bay of Biscay and soon after midnight fire was seen erupting from just abaft the foremast. The watch-officer sent the quartermaster to rouse the captain, who was sleeping, and as he did alerted the passengers, apparently in a way that encouraged alarm. Even before the captain reached the bridge – which ran across between the paddle-boxes – the fourth engineer, a heroic man names Stone, attempted to go below to stop the engines but was driven back by heat and smoke. Efforts were in progress to drag a fire-hose forward when the blaze reached the oil and tallow store, worsening the inferno. Terrified passengers were now crowding on deck to be confronted with a wall of flame that spanned the deck and was as high as the paddle-boxes, isolating the officers, who were aft, with most of the crew, who were on the forecastle. The only way past the flames was to creep up the curved surface of eh paddle-boxes and slide down the other side, a manoeuvre so dangerous that few attempted it.

By this stage panic was already manifesting itself among passengers and crew alike. An account of the tragedy in an 1877 publication leaves little to the imagination: “It would be needless to tell her o the screams and shrieks of the terrified passenger, mixed with the cried of the animals on board; of the wild anguish with which they saw before them only the choice of deaths, and both almost equally dreadful – the raging flames or the raging sea; and of these fearful moments when all self-control, all presence of mind, appeared to be lost, and no authority was recognised, no command obeyed.”

Every effort was made to prevent the flames extending aft. The Amazon carried nine boats and, remarkably for this period, had in theory sufficient accommodation in them for passengers and crew, but they could not be safely lowered as the unreachable engines were still running and driving the vessel forward at some thirteen knots. The captain hoped that the ship’s movement would finally be arrested by exhaustion of the contents of the boilers but it transpired that when fire was first detected one of the engineers, fearing a boiler explosion, had opened the feed line from the water cistern to maintain a continuous feed. As the ship’s headlong charge continued Captain Symonds ordered all boats to be kept fast until he should order lowering. By the time he did, when the spread of the flames was clearly unstoppable, the forward life-boats were already on fire. According to the 1877 source: “When this was discovered, al order and discipline seemed to disappear immediately, and instead of fortitude and resolution, a selfish desire for preservation entered almost every breast.”

The Amazon ablaze - contemporary illustration. Note boat hanging from davit.

Unfamiliarity with the handling-equipment of the remaining boats now played its role – a sad indication of inadequate crew-training before departure. They were suspended from davits in the usual way but their keels were held in protruding cradles to prevent them swinging but the crew seemed unaware of this. Due to this at least three boats were flipped over as they were lifted and they dumped their occupants into the sea. The captain assisted in lowering the boats and when no more could be done went back to the wheel, took it from the steersman, and apparently perished at his post. The remaining boats did get away, the first to do so carrying sixteen people, including the Mr. Neilson previously referred to. It rescued a further five from a dinghy that had also got away – it was almost swamped and the occupants were bailing with boots – but the now empty dinghy drove into the stern of the lifeboat and wrecker her rudder.

The gale continued another three hours and all that could be done in the lifeboat was to keep her head to the wind by her oars and save her from swamping. The blazing Amazon was visible in the distance, her masts toppling over in succession as the flames ate them away. A sailing vessel now appeared, heading out from the French coast, and passed within four hundred yards of the lifeboat, which hailed her. An answer was made by signal but she made no attempt to assist and continued on her course. Around dawn an explosion was seen to engulf the Amazon. The funnels toppled over and then she herself disappeared. The lifeboat pulled for the French coast and in mid-morning was picked up by a British brig, the Marsden, which landed the survivors in France.

Burning ship by Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) - it conveys how the Amazon must have looked

The Amazon’spinnace had also got way although on launching its occupants had been tipped into the sea. A few managed to clamber back on to the ship though a lady clutching an eighteen-month old child, a Mrs. M’Lennan, managed to keep hold of the boat until it was righted. It finally got away with sixteen occupants, including the Mr. Glennie mentioned earlier. An ex-Royal Navy seaman called Berryman (“a fine fellow”) trailed a portion of a spar as a sea anchor to hold the over-loaded boat’s head to. the wind and later, when the sea had calmed, hoisted Mrs. M’Lennan’s shawl between two boat-hooks as a sail. Mr. Glennie noted as he saw the Amazon drew away that “a large hole was burnt out of her side immediately abaft the (port) paddlebox, part of which was also burnt. The hole was nearly down to the water’s edge and through it I could see the machinery.” The pinnace survived into the morning, a leak that threatened to swamp her being stopped by Stone, the heroic engineer, and it steered for the French coast. “the men plying their oars lustily, and Mrs. M’Lennan, as she lay in the sternsheets, cheering them to their work.” Later in the day another vessel was sighted and the lady’s shawl was again put to good use for signalling. It proved to be a galiot, a small Dutch trading vessel called the Gertruda, which picked up the pinnace’s occupants and set her course towards Brest to land them. On the way more survivors were picked up from another boat.

A Dutch galiot

The disaster had occurred on January 4^th and it was not until the 15^th of the month that it emerged that another thirteen persons had also been saved. They had been rescued by another Dutch vessel, the Hellechina, en route to Leghorn, which transferred them to a British revenue-cutter which took them to Plymouth. These survivors’ experiences were no less horrific than those of the others. The boat had been lowered safely from the Amazon, though a stewardess had fallen out and been drowned in in the process. Command was adopted by a Royal Navy officer, a Lieutenant Grylls, who had been a passenger on the Amazonand who had been active helping fight the fire previously. The boat was however leaking badly – “Fox, a stoker, stopped the hole by taking off his drawers and cramming them into it, keeping them in position for three or four hours by the pressure of his own body; and when seized by violent cramps was relieved by Durdney and Wall.” Another ship passed between them and the burning Amazon, though without seeing them – though it must have seen the Amazon. One wonders if it was not the same vessel that had acknowledged the lifeboat’s signal but had carried on regardless. Gryll’s boat lacked oars and attempts were made to paddle her with the bottom boards. In the course of the morning it passed over the area where the Amazonhad gone down, strewn as it was with wreckage, but with no sign of bodies. Later in the day rescue came in the shape of the Hellechina.

Of the 162 people on the Amazononly 58 survived. The loss was regarded as a national tragedy with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert heading an appeal for support of widows and orphans. A subsequent enquiry was inconclusive as regards the origin of the fire. Though blame was placed by some on the engine bearings running hot – and indeed insufficient testing had been done prior to committing to the maiden voyage – this seems to have been unlikely since the engines continued to operate without seizing until the ship consumed herself. A further consideration was that the crew was freshly raised, knew little of each other and had not exercised together. The rapid spread of the fire was attributed to the use of much “Danzig Pine” in the construction, a timber known to be particularly inflammable. The single most significant contributory factor was most likely however to be the haste in which the ship had been rushed into service without adequate shakedown of crew and machinery.

The iron-hulled RMS Atrato by William Frederick Mitchell (1845-1918)

And one lesson was most certainly learned. The next Royal Mail ship commissioned, the Atrato, was constructed of iron.

Britannia’s Spartan

Six-inch breech loading guns represented the cutting edge of naval technology in the early 1880s. In my novel Britannia’s Spartan they are seen in use on both British and Japanese ships. The splendid woodcut below shows Japanese crews managing just such a weapon in the war of 1895 against China. Click here for further details – for UK and for US & Rest of World

I have always admired – and been somewhat disturbed by – Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Convergence of the Twain” in which he meditated on how the Titanic and the iceberg that was to sink her were brought separately into existence and how they were to meet for one decisive moment only:

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be;

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent

By paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one august event.

I was reminded of this poem, and of the terrible image of inexorable, unforgiving destiny which it evokes, when I read recently of the collision of two vessels four years after the Titanicdisaster. Collisions at sea occur even in our own day, and did so much more frequently in the days before radar, so at first glance there was nothing unusual about this event. What did strike me however was that the two vessels involved were so dissimilar – one the epitome of luxury, the other’s accommodation so Spartan that its crew was entitled to compensation for their discomfort.

The SS France in her full glory

In the early years of the twentieth century giant ocean liners were as much symbols of national pride as they were means of mass transportation. Ever larger and more luxurious British and German liners competed on the North Atlantic but it was not until 1912 – “Titanic Year” – that France was to provide a worthy competitor. She was named, with obvious pride, the SS France, a 712-foot long vessel capable of carrying 2020 passengers. Driven by four Parsons steam turbines of total 45,000-hp – the first such units installed in a French passenger ship – she was capable of a top speed of 23.5 knots. Like the foreign liners she would compete with, she carried the ultimate status symbol of the era – a dummy fourth funnel.

Even before the SS France, French liners had an established reputation for comfort and luxury.
The illustrations above refer to an earlier vessel, the SS La Provence of 1905

At 24,666-tons the France was smaller her British and German competitors – her Cunard contemporary, the Lusitaniawas of 44,060-tons – but what she lacked in size was more than made up for by the unprecedented luxuriousness of her accommodation. Her first-class interiors, decorated in style Louis Quatorze were perhaps the most opulent on any liner, resulting in the nickname of TheVersailles of the Atlantic.

First Class music room on the SS France

Salon on the SS France. Note fireplace and portrait of the "Sun King"

The ship with which the France’sdestiny would “converge”, in Hardy’s phrase, could not have been more different. HMS Eden was one of thirty-four destroyers of the “River Class”commissioned into the Royal Navy between 1903 and 1905 (the sheer numbers of vessels in the navy of this period is remarkable by modern standards). One of only three of these ships to be driven by turbines, the Eden’s installed 7000-hp drove her at a maximum of 25.5 knots. On her 550-tons and her 226-foot length she carried four 12-pounder guns and a half-dozen smaller, these being primarily intended for use against other destroyers and torpedo craft. Her two 18-inch torpedo tubes would make her a threat to larger enemy vessels in any fleet action. Accommodation of her 70 strong crew was by necessity basic – her beam was a mere 24 feet – and like all destroyer crews of the period they were entitled to “Hard Lying Money” as a compensation.

HMS Eden

The Eden’s career was to be spent in home-waters. Even before outbreak of war she was to prove and unlucky ship for in 1910 she broke loose from her moorings in Dover harbour in story weather and sank. She was refloated and returned to service thereafter.

HMS Eden sunken at Dover 1910

The France’scareer on the North Atlantic was cut short after two years by the commencement of World War 1. She was taken into naval service – initially, and unsuitably due to her high coal consumption, as an armed merchant cruiser and thereafter as a troop carrier. The Eden meanwhile had been assigned to “The Dover Patrol”, the British naval force tasked with ensuring the safe passage of men and materials between Britain and France across the English Channel. The success of the Dover Patrol in keeping losses to a minimum, despite the presence of German U-boats operating out of bases on the nearby Belgian coast, was one of the Royal Navy’s most remarkable achievements in World War 1.

It was in the early hours of 18^th June 1916 that the convergence of this twain was to occur in the English Channel, off the French port of Fécamp on the Normandy coast. Wartime conditions inevitably meant manoeuvring with limited lighting of ships and collision was a constant danger. The consequences for the Eden were fatal, her 550 tons no match for the France’s more than 40-times times greater tonnage. The Eden’scommander, Lieutenant A.C.N. Farquhar, and 42 officers and men went down with her and 33 survivors were picked up by the France. Within the larger scale of World War 1, and occurring only three weeks after the Battle of Jutland, the Eden’s tragedy was quickly forgotten by all but the families of those who had perished.

The France in service as a hospital ship in the Mediterranean

Essentially undamaged, the France went on with busy war service. The sinking in late 1915 of Titanic’s sister, the Britannic, which had been converted to a hospital ship, demanded provision of another ship of high capacity. This need was to be met by the France and she was to serve in this role in the Mediterranean until entry of the United States into the war increased the demand for troop transportation. The France once again changed role and as a trooper proved capable of carrying up to 5000 men at a time across the Atlantic, shipping them to Europe in 1918 and back home in 1919. One suspects that the comfort level for these troops was substantially lower than for the 2020 passengers she would carry in peacetime.

Troops of the American 15th Infantry Division being transported by the France

The France’scivilian career resumed in 1920. Her luxurious accommodation was once again an attraction to the wealthy and in 1924 she was converted to almost total first-class accommodation only, with only 150 third-class berths. She was to continue in service until the early 1930s. By then a dinosaur, the Depression made demand for the comfort she offered less affordable and continued operation was uneconomic. She was scrapped in 1935.

The French presence in the North Atlantic passenger trade was not at an end however and in the year that the France was scrapped the Normandie, arguably the most beautiful liner ever built, entered service.

But that’s another story.

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel , which centres on the efforts of a British owned company to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers. The story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam. Click on the image below for more details.

Accounts of the Age of Fighting Sail, whether factual or fictional, are noticeably sparse as regards the activities of privateers, yet they played a vital role in the wars of the period. Essentially commercial ventures, individual or syndicate-owners were granted authorisation by their governments, by means of a “Letter of Marque” to arm vessels and wage war upon the enemy. There were obvious economic advantages for the governments – the financial risks were carried by the owners, who were remunerated from the value of the prizes they captured. With profit as the driving motive, privateers aimed at capture, ideally in an undamaged state, of unarmed or lightly armed enemy commercial vessels and they generally avoided combat with regular naval forces. The typical privateer was a small, lightly-armed vessel, powerful enough to overwhelm its typical targets, but fast enough to escape from any naval craft larger than themselves. The practice emerged in the late 16^th Century, when the Dutch “Sea Beggars” were a critical factor in the war of liberation against the Spanish. It was to be widely employed, often on a vast scale, by all maritime nations in the conflicts of the next two and a half centuries. The border between privateering and piracy was often a very blurred one and the practice was all but finally banned by international agreement in the Declaration of Paris in 1856.

The sort of vessel often used for privateering service

Danish Brig by Antoine Roux (1765-1835)

One outstanding example of a privateer in action in the Napoleonic period occurred in 1801, off Callao, the main port of what was then the Spanish colony of Peru, when Spain was still in alliance with France against Britain. This case was especially notable in that the privateer was prepared not just to dart in and out to capture a prize, but to engage in battle with a much more powerful ship.

The Chance, commanded by a Captain White and with a crew of 94, was heavily armed for a privateer as she carried 16 guns, most of which appear to have been 12 and 6-pounder carronades. The fact that she was operating off the west coast of South America, far from any British-controlled port, was in itself confirmation of White’s Intrepid spirit. In the Chance’sfavour however was that this very fact could lead to complacency by Spanish vessels that an enemy raider was not a likely threat.

Towards nightfall on 29^th August 1801 the Chance approached Callao and encountered a large Spanish trader. Captain White ordered Spanish colours to be run up – a ruse-de-guerre internationally approved as legal until fire would be opened, when British colours must replace them – and he manoeuvred so as to keep the Chancebetween the trader and Callao itself. By ten o’clock the vessels were within pistol shot and White hailed the Spaniard. Still unsuspecting, and perhaps also with suspicion dulled by the Chancebeing so much smaller, the Spanish vessel replied that she was the Amiable Maria but apparently did not indicate that she was anything but a trading vessel. White responded by running up British colours and opening fire – a manoeuvre that was calculated to intimidate any innocent trader into immediate surrender. A boat was simultaneously dropped to carry the Chance’ssecond lieutenant and a boarding party to take possession.

An action perhaps similar as regards sizes to the Chance and Maria Amiable contest

The Will of Liverpool under attach by a French privateer 1804 - by Robert Salmon (1775-1851)

White had miscalculated – the Amiable Maria was a naval vessel, armed with 18 and 24-pounder weapons – and after the initial shock the Spanish commander brought them into action. White’s stark alternatives were now to fight or to fly, and flight might have been considered the more logical choice. In a straight fire-fight the Chance’s puny armament would be no match for the enemy’s heavier battery and it was likely that she would be pounded to a wreck in short order. The only hope lay in boarding. White accordingly closed with the Amiable Maria in an attempt to run the Chance’s bowsprit over the enemy’s stern to provide a means of crossing. The wind was so light however that the Chance fell away, exposing her stern to an enemy broadside that dismounted several of her guns and killed one of the officers. Undismayed, White closed again and this time managed to run the bowsprit over the Amiable Maria’s quarter. Men swarmed across and bound the bowsprit to the enemy’s mizzen mast, so locking both ships together.

At this remove in time it is difficult to imagine just how savage a boarding action could be. In a novel it may occupy a few pages, in a movie some minutes, but the reality of hacking, stabbing and shooting in a small area sometimes lasted for hours. The Chanceand the Maria Amiable might be locked together but the Spaniards rallied and drove the boarders back on to the bowsprit. Captain White seems to have been in the thick of the action at this point and he managed, sword in hand, to beat back the defenders and get his own men across to the Spanish poop. They attempted to press forward and every inch was contested by the Maria Amiable’s crew in a struggle that lasted forty-five minutes. The Spanish captain and his men were at last forced back to the forecastle, where they began to drag the bow guns around, loaded with grape and canister, to blast sternwards. Had this succeeded then the Maria Amiablemight have been saved but at this critical moment the Spanish captain was disabled. He was carried below and his men rushed after. What must have been the worst part of the action now followed, a murderous close-quarter battle on the lower deck and in the cabins that finally resulted in only 86 of the 220-man Spanish crew surviving when they finally surrendered. The decks were littered with corpses and wounded and an added horror was the screaming of a Spanish lady who had been a passenger on board, and whose baby had been cut in half by a roundshot, although she herself was uninjured.

Another battle between unequally-matched ships: East Indiaman Kent under attack by French Confiance 1800

Painting by Ambroise Louis Garneray (1783-1857)

The two ships, still locked together had drifted to within four miles of the port. The Maria Amiable’sshrouds and braces had been badly damaged but the masts were apparently still standing and it was possible, as a breeze sprung up, to take her out to sea. The disparity in casualties seems extreme, if a 19^th Century account of the action is to be believed, with the Chanceallegedly losing only one officer killed and three officers and two seamen badly wounded. Surprise and the apparent unpreparedness of the Spanish crew, may have been significant factors in this.

The action had occurred in sight of the shore and the Spanish Viceroy of Lima was outraged. A small warship, the Limeňo, mounting 18 long 9-pounders and 12 4-pounders, was sent after the Chance with a bounty offered for every man taken, dead or alive. Though the Chance’screw was reduced to 50 through casualties and provision of a prize-crew for the Maria Amiable, White decided to accept combat. He again closed to pistol shot – at which his carronades were likely to be more effective than the enemy’s long nines and the two ships, more equally matched than in Chance’s earlier action, commenced a running firefight yard-arm to yard-arm. It lasted two and three-quarter hours before the Limeňo surrendered. She had suffered fourteen killed and seven wounded to the Chance’s two killed and one wounded.

We leave Captain White with his battered Chance and two Spanish prizes off the South American coast. What happened afterwards? The 19^thCentury account I have read makes no further mention of the man or of his ships. One hungers to know more about a man who, had he been a Royal Navy officer, would most certainly have had a stellar career thereafter.

Kindle Countdown Price Deal: Britannia’s Spartan

It's 1882 and Captain Nicholas Dawlish RN has just taken command of the Royal Navy’s newest cruiser, HMS Leonidas. Her voyage to the Far East is to be a peaceful venture, a test of this innovative vessel’s engines and boilers.

Dawlish has no forewarning of the nightmare of riot, treachery, massacre and battle he and his crew will encounter.

This weekend the Kindle edition of Britannia’s Spartan is the subject of a “countdown deal” by Amazon.com. The normal price is $3.49 but it is reduced on Friday 13^th May to $.099 and will increase back to its usual price in the coming days. The steps are:

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In my novel Britannia’s Spartan, set in 1882, an important role is played by a cruiser of the Imperial Chinese Navy, the Fu Ching. She is the fictional sister of two warships the Yang Wei and the Chao Yung, that did indeed serve in that navy. For a short period in the 1880s these vessels carried what was probably the heaviest armament for any ships of their sizes afloat. Built in British yards, their design had been evolved by Sir George Rendel, building on the success of his earlier concept, the “Flatiron Gunboat” which was armed with a single large-calibre weapon. While the latter were intended for use in estuaries and sheltered waters, the new design envisaged a small, cheap cruiser-type vessel suited for service in the open sea and carrying two of the most powerful guns then available. These were Armstrong 10” breech-loaders. With reasonable speed for the time, and with high mobility, these vessels would be suited, in theory at least, to engage larger and more heavily armoured, but less nimble ships. Despite the superficial attractiveness the concept was turned down by the Royal Navy, due to concerns about seaworthiness in the English Channel and the North Sea. These areas might well become battlegrounds in any future war since France was perceived as Britain’s most likely potential enemy in this period.

Contemporary drawing - the sailing rig was unlikely to have been used except
during the initial delivery voyage from Britain to China

Overseas customers were now sought and the first ship of the type was laid down for Chile in 1879 as this nation’s war with Peru and Bolivia was commencing. In the event that war ended before the vessel was completed and she was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy as the Tsukushi. She was to serve without distinction in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.Her construction and completion was however overtaken by two generally similar vessels for another Far Eastern customer when an order was placed by China. In the early 1880s the corrupt and floundering Chinese Empire was wakening up to the threats posed by growing Russian and Japanese power on its northern and eastern borders, as well as the pressure from France the south, from what is now Viet-Nam, and which was to erupt into the Sino-French War of 1885 which ended in a humiliating Chinese defeat. The need for a strong navy to protect China’s long coastline was obvious but corruption and inefficiency was to make progress in this spasmodic and inconsistent. A few ships of limited capacity could be built at the Foochow Dockyard and equipped with imported guns, but the majority were contracted from European sources, German as well as British, resulting in a wide variety of calibres of guns and munitions.

Japanese view of the Battle of the Yalu, 1897
One of the superb woodblock prints made in Japan at the time

The two Chinese “Rendel cruisers”, named Yang Wei and Chao Yung were of a mere 1350 tons, length 220 feet and beam of 32 feet. Two compound engines, each of 1300 HP, ensured a maximum speed of 16 knots, a respectable speed at a time when the Royal Navy’s HMS Iris, then entering service, was regarded as a marvel for achieving just under 18 knots. Like the Iris, the Chinese cruisers were of all-steel construction, which was also an innovation, but their most remarkable feature was their armament. Each ship carried two 10-inch Armstrong breech-loaders, one forward, one aft. There were mounted so as to pivot inside fixed steel drums, armoured shutters being raised to allow bearing on limited arcs ahead and astern (45 °) and on either side (70 °). In addition each ship carried four 4.7 - inch breech-loaders, two on each broadside, as well as what would have been a fearsome collection of Gatling and Nordenveldt guns’ for protection against torpedo boats. The hulls had only low freeboard fore and aft and had to be built up for the delivery voyage from Britain to China. A simple fore and aft rig was carried to supplement the engines and was probably of most use during delivery. Like Royal Navy ships of the period – notably HMS Inflexible– electricity generation on shipboard represented a major innovation, allowing incandescent light fixtures, including arc searchlights. Hydraulic steering was another innovation – and perhaps a needless complication.

Chinese ensign, initially triangular, later a rectangle

The Yang Weiand Chao Yung enteredservice in 1881. Though spasmodic efforts were made to fashion the Chinese Navy into an effective force, the state of unrest, corruption and reluctance to challenge traditional thinking meant that the process was never effective. This was by comparison with the fast-modernising Empire of Japan, which already had ambitions to dominate the Far East and set out to build a powerful navy on the model of the Royal Navy. Japanese naval development was based on coherent planning, with the emphasis not only on the necessary “hardware” – the ships and weapons – but also on “software aspects” – structured organisation, training plans and an ethos of professionalism and pride. By contrast the Chinese navy acquired ships on a random and piecemeal basis, without reference to any single coherent plan. Corruption was rife and the navy was divided into as many as four different “fleets” which at any time might, or might not, cooperate with each other.

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 announced Japan’s arrival as a major power on the world stage and resulted in humiliating defeats of Chinese forces by both land and sea. By the time of the war’s outbreak the Yang Wei and Chao Yung were in a very poor state of maintenance, little more than half their original top speed being achievable and probably several of their weapons being unserviceable. Extensive use of wooden partitioning, overlain with layers of varnish, made them particularly vulnerable to onboard-fire. The concept of the large but slow-loading gun-armament on a small vessel with limited armoured protection was by now overtaken by the development of smaller-calibre quick-loading weapons. In addition, lack of professionalism and corruption so serious that there were rumours of munitions being sold off by officers had made the Chinese Navy a hopeless adversary against the super-efficient Japanese.

Japanese cruisers in action at the Battle of the Yalu - note Chinese ships burning

In the key Battle of the Yalu on 17^thSeptember 1894 both the Yang Wei and the Chao Yung were placed in the Chinese line of battle. They were subjected to a hail of explosive 6-inch and 4.7-inch shells from the Japanese cruisers involved and both vessels were soon engulfed in flames as the wooden fittings took light. With her steering damaged the Yang Wei collided with the German-built Chinese cruiser Jiyuan and sank in shallow water, as did the Chao Yung, which may have been trying to save herself by beaching. It was a sad end for two vessels which in their time were mistakenly regarded as being at the cutting edge of naval development.

The Yang Wei's and Chao Yung's Nemesis - Japanese 6-inch quick-firers in action

Britannia’s Spartan

Here’s a fascinating and erudite article by my friend, the novelist, Tom Williams who writes about the Napoleonic and Victorian eras. His most recent novel Back Home is set in Britain in 1859 and its hero also figures in an earlier novel, Cawnpore. The latter is set in the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 and it is on this historical event that he focuses here. Tom draws some very interesting parallels with our own time.You can find more about him at the end of the piece – I trust you’ll enjoy it!

Does the Indian Mutiny have any lessons for today?

It's probably helpful to start by asking what the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 was. For starters, it wasn't a mutiny.

British India 1856 - it included
modern Pakistan and Bangladesh

Yes, everything kicked off at Meerut when Indian soldiers – known as Sepoys – refused musket drill using the new cartridges which, it had been claimed, were greased with both pig and beef fat. So they were mutineers. But, contrary to the way that we think about it now, the East India Company's army mutinied all the time. The refusals to obey orders were usually treated as localised difficulties and life moved on with no perceptible impact on the machinery of colonial government. This mutiny was different and to understand why, we need to look at the political background.

When the British first started to gain ascendancy in India they were regarded as just one of many political powers in the land. Many local rulers made alliances with them. Relations between the two communities were generally friendly. Intermarriage between British soldiers and Indian women was common and tacitly encouraged by the East India Company. European officers would join in Hindu ceremonies, piling their swords alongside the sepoys’ muskets to be blessed by the holy man. British soldiers and administrators were fascinated by the country they had come to rule and adopted many local customs – as reflected in our 21st century English vocabulary and our most popular choice of Friday night eating.

The British relied on Indian soldiers for their security. These men came from warrior castes and were happy to serve any masters who respected their martial prowess and led them to victory. This the British, at least initially, did.

6th Madras Light Cavalry Sowar (cavalry equivalent of Sepoy)

By the middle of the 19th century things were changing. A significant factor in this was the role of the missionaries. Christian organisations in England had decided that the British Empire could be a force for good if it Christianised its colonies. Missionaries duly arrived in India and started to tell the locals that their Muslim God and their Hindu deities were abominations unto the Lord and that they should adopt Christianity. To make things worse, some senior British officers joined in this proselytization. Their troops began to feel under pressure to convert. There were even remarkable rumours, including one that British women were being shipped en masse to India where Indian men would be forced to convert to Christianity and marry them.

"A Sale of English-beauties, in the East Indies" by James Gillray
Published by William Holland, hand-coloured etching and aquatiint, 16th May 1786
(with acknowledgement to the National Portrait Gallery, London)

Given the famous “fishing fleets”, in which young women came out every year to net themselves a husband in the colonial administration, perhaps the idea did not appear as obviously unrealistic to the locals as it seems to us now. In any case, what mattered was not what was true, but what was believed to be true. This is particularly the case with the famous cartridges.

Most people with even the slightest knowledge of the Indian Mutiny will know that it was triggered when troops were ordered to use cartridges which, it was claimed, had been greased with pig and beef fat. The standard way of using a cartridge was to bite the end off the waxed paper that surrounded the ball and the powder. The use of these animal fats meant that "biting the bullet" was forbidden to both Hindus and Muslims. The insistence that they do so led to a refusal to obey orders at the large British base at Meerut and everything went rather downhill from there. Historians nowadays can find no evidence that pig or beef fat was used in the cartridges – which is not to say that it was not, but simply that people chose to believe this in the absence of any clear facts one way or the other.

David Ochterloney, a famously well-assimilated Englishman and his Indian household
(a scene increasingly uncommon as the 19th Century progressed)

The move to Christianise India went alongside a general decline in respect for Indian customs. Indian soldiers believed that they would lose caste if they served overseas, and this had always been recognised, but now there were rumours that the British might order Indian regiments abroad. (Remember that we were fighting in Crimea at the time.) Indian soldiers began to feel that their traditions were not respected. European officers were now discouraged from taking Indian wives. The easy relations between the two cultures were breaking down.

At the same time, put simply, the British were getting greedy. As they had taken over more and more of India, the British came to believe that they simply had a right to all of it. Lands were seized on flimsier and flimsier pretexts. This came to a head with the Doctrine of Lapse. The British argued that where they had an arrangement with a local ruler to maintain control of his own lands, this would lapse when his line died out. This, in itself, was an uncertain moral or legal position to take, but it was made massively worse because the British insisted that they would recognise only natural heirs. Traditionally, in the absence of a male heir Indian rulers had adopted children. It was well understood in India that such an adopted child had clear rights to inherit. The British simply refused to accept this. This obviously led to considerable unhappiness amongst the Indians. Although the British had seized control of states where there was no male heir as early as 1824, the doctrine was introduced as official policy in 1848. Significantly, the important state of Oudh was seized under this doctrine in 1856. The Mutiny, of course, was in 1857.

By early 1857, there were clear signs of unrest in India. Europeans were bewildered but frightened by incidents like those of the chapattis (circular unleavened flatbread). Chapattis would be carried from village to village, the recipient being required to bake more and pass them on in the same way. Some sort of message, presumably, was being spread with these apparently innocuous offerings, but nobody to this day knows exactly what the message was. Lotus flowers were sometimes passed amongst military units in the same way. Unlike the chapattis the message here seems clearer: the lotus flower was a symbol of war. Incidents like this were accompanied with rumours that 1857 was to be "a red year" with the implication that it would be a year of bloodletting. 1857 was, in any case, potentially dangerous simply because of a real or imagined Indian obsession with celebrating anniversaries. 1857 marked the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Plassey where Clive of India began the process of imposing British rule. Many people believed that a hundred years after Plassey, the British would be driven out as dramatically as they had arrived.

Against this background came the rumours of the grease on the cartridges. As I've mentioned, there is no clear evidence that beef or pig fat ever was used and once the rumours started specific orders were sent to the arsenal at Dum Dum, where the cartridges were made up, insisting that no objectionable animal products be included. So the refusal of troops to ‘bite the bullet’ was not a random act of disobedience, but the response to long-term political agitation. Nor was this all one-sided. The man who gave the order, the splendidly named Col George Monro Carmichael-Smyth was making his own political point, insisting on parading his men and drilling him with the new cartridges at a time when wiser heads in the Company’s army were advocating that the issue be allowed to die away.

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", as depicted by the Illustrated London News

So the action at Meerut was a political event. At first, technically, it was a mutiny, but the failure to see it in its wider context led quickly to disaster. The troops did not vanish away into the countryside: they marched in ordered ranks to put themselves at the service of the Mogul Emperor in Delhi. At this point, the Mutiny was already taking on the appearance of an uprising. Local rulers, like Nana Sahib, the villain (for want of a better word) of my novel, Cawnpore, saw the opportunity to re-establish their power while the British, deprived of the support of their native troops, were weakened.

The first massacre at Cawnpore - after surrender, British families were allowed to leave
by river, but many were murdered as their boats departed

One of the first acts of the rebels in many places (including Cawnpore) was to open the jails. So beside the mutinying troops and the various forces of the native rulers, many of those who joined in the fighting were local convicts who simply saw an opportunity to profit from the general unrest. Thus natives who were associated with the British (such as Christians or other Eurasians) were often attacked and murdered, less to achieve military or political goal than because their attackers could then loot their property. With an almost complete breakdown of law and order and mass conflict spreading across huge areas of the country, there was an opportunity for many old scores to be settled.

Contemporary impression of second massacre at Cawnpore -woman and children the victims

Within a remarkably short time, much of north-west India was in revolt, in a conflict which is called, in India, the Indian War of Independence. What we don’t notice at this distance (and with the benefit of hindsight) is how close this came to defeating the British.

So: are there any lessons?

The key point to be aware of is that, although British troops (and Indian troops who remain loyal) performed logistical wonders and acts of great bravery, they were salvaging a situation which would not have arisen if there had been a more intelligent political understanding of the country in the first place. Unrest had grown because of the breakdown in the easy communication between Indians and Europeans. By 1857 the European political and military leaders had little idea of the mood of India. If they had, it is likely that, for example, the Doctrine of Lapse would not have been applied so ruthlessly.

From the point of view of the army, it is easy to consider that the mistakes were primarily made by politicians, but the military had to accept responsibility too – and at all ranks. Senior officers (like Col Carmichael-Smyth) misjudged the situation and junior officers – many of them having arrived in India with nothing but contempt for the “niggers” (yes, the obnoxious term was used of Indians – although older and wiser heads considered this offensive) could easily make bad situations worse. At Cawnpore (I use its 1857 Anglicised name – nowadays it's Kanpur), where the garrison was under the command of General Hugh Wheeler, the situation was already tense when a drunken 21-year-old European who recently left the Army under a cloud shot at a native patrol which had legitimately challenged him. At his trial the next day, it was accepted that his weapon had gone off accidentally, a decision that did not impress the men who had been shot at. Two days later the troops at Cawnpore mutinied. Probably they would have mutinied anyway, but it's far from certain.

Major General John Nicholson -

worshipped as Nikal Seyn

One of the things that becomes very clear to anyone who reads the history of the Mutiny is the importance of the relationship between officers and men. While many regiments in the north west of the country mutinied, some stayed loyal, often because of the affection that they felt for their commanders. The Indian Mutiny was, to a quite remarkable degree, a story of the successes and failures of officers to inspire loyalty in their own men and the wider population. For example, a crucial reason for the failure of the rebellion was that the rebels were not supported by the Afghan tribes, which could easily have used the situation to cross the frontier and challenge the British within the borders of India. This was largely due to the respect that the Afghanis had for John Nicholson, who may have been mad and with a sadistic streak, but who some of the locals worshipped as a god. (If the Internet is to be believed, he was still being worshipped in some of the more remote parts of Pakistan into the 1980s.)

Have we learned from this in the intervening 150 years? Quite possibly not. In 2009, the Financial Times carried a story claiming that: “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has no Pashto speakers and only a third of the Dari speakers it deems necessary to operate in Afghanistan.” Apparently it was okay not to have any Pashto speakers as: “According to the FCO’s own assessment, it requires no Pashto speakers to work effectively in Afghanistan, even though it is the main language of Helmand province.” So our senior politicians and diplomats don’t see any necessity to learn the language of countries where we have military operations. At the other end of the line of command, a search for the word “raghead” on the Army rumour service produced 192 hits. So the combination of ignorance and obvious contempt that contributed to the disaster of the Indian Mutiny still seems alive and well.

A lack of awareness of local sensitivities can lead to incidents such as the shooting at the gates of the Afghan National Army Officer Academy in Kabul, where a misjudgement by private soldiers led to the death of an Afghan soldier with potentially serious political implications.

The modern army is probably more aware than in the past that winning hearts and minds can be as important as winning the actual physical conflict, but these incidents and the attitudes behind them suggest that the strategic awareness of this necessity does not necessarily translate to the situation on the ground any better now than in 1857.

What about the actual fighting? I am not a soldier so as far as military strategy goes, I will limit myself to two remarks. The first is the importance of communications. The telegraph had only recently been introduced into India, but its use proved critical. The telegraph clerk in Delhi gave his life to get out the warning that the insurrection had started there and this resulted in the British being able to respond much more quickly than would have been the case otherwise. The mutineers were probably aware of the importance of telegraph and cut the wires in the areas they controlled, but the message had already got out and the machinery of a military response was already in motion. The Indian Mutiny is therefore notable as the first major conflict in which electronic communication proved a decisive factor. The ability to communicate effectively remains crucial today.

A mixed body of mutineers and what appear to be civilian supporters on the march

The second point is that the British response to the Mutiny was handicapped by the fact that India was regarded as pacified and safe and we therefore had a totally inadequate level of military preparedness. We relied excessively on native infantry, essentially because this was an awful lot cheaper than using Europeans. We also promoted entirely on seniority with the result that some key positions were filled by generals intellectually or physically clearly incapable of the task. One young officer claims that he served under a brigadier so blind that when he reviewed his troops he could not tell which direction they were facing.

When the Mutiny broke out, there just weren't enough troops and many of those that there were available were badly commanded. My own feeling is that history has judged General Wheeler’s actions rather cruelly, but some of his decisions do not seem to have been particularly wise and, at the age of 68, he certainly lacked the stamina for the situation he found himself in. After the death of his son, who served as his aide de camp, he had some sort of breakdown and was effectively incapable of command.

Critically, we were able to divert troop ships that were on their way to fight a colonial war in China. We also still had troops in Crimea, left over from the war there that had finished the previous year. Although reinforcements were sent out from England, they would have been too late to decisively affect the critical initial stages of the war. The implication, I think, now as then, is that you cannot have an army that plans for peace. While everybody in India had hoped for peace – and expected peace – it was the duty of the Army to have prepared for war. The lessons for today are, I think, self-evident.

FURTHER READING

The Indian Mutiny Julian Spilsbury: Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2007)

Our Bones Are Scattered Andrew Ward: John Murray (1996)

Afghan mission lacks language skills Alex Barker http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/16650940-8db9-11de-93df-00144feabdc0.html

About Tom Williams

Tom Williams lives in the 21st century and isn't sure he belongs there. When he's not writing about the 19th century, he likes to dance tango and street skate. You might think that roller-blading is a very 21st century activity, but the first in-line skates were patented in 1760. Tom is the sort of person who knows stuff like that.

Click herefor details of Cawnpore, Tom’s novel about the Indian Mutiny

A number of postings on this blog have dealt with naval ramming accidents in the late 19^th Century (see references at end of article). Ram bows had been seen as desirable feature of warships of any size after the successes scored by the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Lissa in 1866 and few vessels entered service in any navy between then and 1914 without them. In practice the ram proved a serious danger to vessels’ peacetime sisters, in what would be now termed “blue on blue” accidents, and use of the weapon in anger was to prove difficult in the extreme. An example of the latter is that the Peruvian (later Chilean) turret ram Huascar made some ten ramming attacks in the course of her career, only one of which resulted in sinking of an enemy ship.

Model of Jeanne d'Arc: Personal photograph taken by Remi Kaupp
in the Musée de la Marine, Paris (Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA)

A now largely-forgotten ramming accident occurred in 1875 when the French armoured corvette Jeanne d’Arcsank the third class cruiser Forfait off the east coast of Corsica. By that time both ships were obsolescent, their hulls constructed of wood and, in the Jeanne d’Arc’scase, protected with armoured plate. This latter was a substantial vessel, one of a class of seven launched in 1867/68 when warship design was in a state of flux. Of 3600 tons and with a length of 382 feet, these vessels carried four 7.6-inch guns in open-topped circular armoured barbettes, plus smaller weapons on the broadside. A wrought-iron belt some 8-feet wide and six-inches thick protected the entire waterline and the armour of the barbettes was some four-inches thick. One cannot but wonder how effectively this heavy plating was fastened to the wooden hull, and whether the backing structures could have stood up to heavy gunfire in actions that luckily never came. These vessels had 1600 to 1900-Horsepower single shaft steam-engines which gave them a maximum speed of over eleven knots. As was common at the time they also carried sailing rigs and crews of around 316.

Forfait in service

The Forfait was a smaller and older vessel, in service since 1860 and unarmoured. Of 1126 tons and 222 feet long, she was capable, under steam, of almost 12 knots. By the early 1870s her armament had been increased from an initial four, to a later six six-inch guns. She was classed as a “wing scout”, intended for reconnaissance duties with larger fleet units, and she could be regarded as what later came to be classed as a “Third Class Cruiser”. She was no less suited to independent roles and saw active service in the early 1860s supporting the French intervention in Mexico, transporting troops and equipment to Vera Cruz and in 1864 landing a shore party to assist capture of the Mexican city of Tuxpan. The later 1860s were spent in South-East Asia and the Pacific, including survey work off the northwest coast of Borneo. By 1872 she was back in French home waters and assigned to the Mediterranean fleet based at Toulon.

A contemporary illustration of the squadron - Jeanne d'Arc on extreme right

On 21 July 1875 a French squadron consisting of six ironclads, as well as smaller units, was involved in exercises off the east coast of Corsica. The ironclads steamed in two parallel lines, one headed by the Magenta, with the Jeanne d’Arc and Reine Blanche following astern while the other line was led by the Amide, followed by the Thetis and Alma. The squadron was a homogeneous one, all vessels sisters except for the flagship, the 6700-ton broadside ironclad Magenta.

The black-hulled ironclad Magenta, seen here at Brest in the 1860s
The three-decker Napoleon in background, still in service then,
would have been suited to service at Trafalgar

The Forfait, unsuited by her lack of armour for service in the battle-lines, was positioned to one side, ready to undertake scouting or other duties as directed. The weather was fine and the sea calm – a splendid Mediterranean day – as the two lines forged ahead majestically at 8 knots. At noon a signal from the admiral directed Forfait to pass astern of the Magenta to receive orders. At this remove the requested manoeuvre seems to have been a dangerous one since it involved inserting the Forfait into the gap between Magentaand Jeanne d’Arc.

A contemporary artist's-impression of Forfait sinking

In the event the manoeuvre proved fatal. The Forfait’s commander misjudged his turn across the Jeanne d’Arc’s bows and the ironclad’s pointed ram smashed into the smaller vessel’s side. A large rent was torn, through which water rushed in’ but the shock of collision was almost unnoticeable on the Jeanne d’Arc. Nobody was killed or injured on either ship, but the Forfaitwas now doomed. She remained afloat for fourteen minutes, allowing her 160-man crew to get away safely in her boats. Her captain remained on the bridge as his ship sank under him, then floated free, caught hold of floating wreckage, and was saved.

The ram had claimed another friendly victim and only good weather prevented a more tragic outcome. Two years later, in July 1877, two of the sister ironclads present, the Reine Blanche and the Thetis, were also involved in a ramming incident, though both survived. But the ram was to remain a fixture – and a dangerous one – for another four decades.

Here are links to earlier blogs about ramming incidents:

The Loss of HMS Vanguard, 1875: http://bit.ly/1Vh6Yys

The ramming of SMS Grosser Kurfürst, 1878: http://bit.ly/1Ro70xI

SS Utopia and HMS Anson, 1891: http://bit.ly/1TvIVwj

Collision of HMS Hannibaland HMS Prince George, 1903: http://bit.ly/1UbVsSC

When one thinks of battles involving oared galleys one thinks automatically of actions in the Mediterranean. The lot of a galley-slave chained to an oar must have been dreadful enough in the warm and usually calm waters of that sea, but it must have been infinitely worse in the cold, rough waters off the French coast and in the North Sea. The galley’s day as a fighting vessel – a long one, stretching back two thousand years – ended in the early eighteenth century and as such they do not figure in most accounts of sea warfare of that era, as “Fighting Sail” reached its apogee of efficiency. I was therefore all the more surprised to come on an account in a Victorian publication of a battle with galleys in the Thames estuary in 1707. This was during the War of Spanish Succession, the last of Louis XIV’s wars, that which began the long decline of French power through much of the remaining century.

A réale galley belonging to the Mediterranean fleet of Louis XIV

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Louis XIV (a man much given to his own comfort and luxury, as his creation of the palace at Versailles testifies) appears to have been favourable to use of galleys and ordered that courts should sentence convicted criminals to serve as oarsmen in them as far as possible, even in peacetime. Though the idea was never implemented, he appears to have considered substitution of galley-service for the death penalty. Considering that execution in France this period was by the barbaric method of breaking on the wheel, being chained to an oar would probably have represented a marginally preferable fate.

In August 1707 a French force of six galleys, commanded by a Commodore Langeron, was off the Thames estuary, en route for an attack on the British port of Harwich. It was being guided by a Captain Thomas Smith, an English Jacobite who had taken service in the French navy after fleeing to France following the deposition of the King James II from the British throne. Like many supporters of the exiled king, Smith had a bitter score to settle. The galleys appear to have been some 150-feet long and 22-feet in the beam, carrying sail on three masts and also propelled by oars pulled by some 200 chained slaves. They carried around 12 guns. Though such vessels were obviously very manoeuvrable in Mediterranean conditions, one wonders just how well their high length to beam ratio would have made them workable in rougher Northern seas.

The Battle of Grengam (a.k.a as Ledsund) in 1720 by Ferdinand Perrot (1808–41).

It shows a Russian galley engaging Swedish frigates at close range

Captain Seth Jermy

This French squadron ran into a British convoy of thirty-six merchantmen coming from the Netherlands under the escort of a single frigate, the 20-gun HMS Nightingale, commanded by a Captain Seth Jermy (1653–1724). On sighting the French Jermy ordered the convoy to crowd on sail and head up the Thames while he turned with his own single ship to meet the oncoming six vessels He must have known the odds to be hopeless – one is reminded of the epic last stands of the Rawalpindi and the Jervis Bay in WW2 – but his intention was to impose a sufficient delay to allow his charges to escape. Commodore Langeron, on the French side, decided to take on the Nightingale with his own galley, the La Palme, and pressed on so fast that he left his next ship so far astern as to make it impossible to render direct assistance. As she closed with the Nightingale the French galley opened fire but the British frigate withheld hers, making no attempt to escape. Anticipating little resistance, and encountering only irregular fire from the frigate when the range had decreased to pistol-shot, Commodore Langeron decided on carrying her by boarding.

The preferred method of attack by galley appears to have been to use her superior manoeuvrability under oars to come bows-on to the enemy’s stern, rake her with cannon fire, then ram, locking both vessels together and pouring boarders across from elevated platforms on the foreship. As the La Palme drove on Captain Jermy handled the Nightingale so skilfully that at the last moment she avoided her attacker’s viciously-pointed ram and he laid his own vessel alongside her. In the process Nightingale smashed into the galley’s oars – the effect on the wretches chained to them must have been horrific. Only now did Jermy open with a full broadside, sweeping the enemy’s deck, the effect magnified by seamen in the fighting tops dropping grenades. Jermy now launched his own boarding party and a murderous hand-to-hand conflict began on La Palme’s deck. Commodore Langeron’s next galley in line finally arrived to join the fray and the Nightingale’s boarders, outnumbered, were forced back to their own ship, where most were subdued or killed.

"English warships heeling in the breeze onshore" by Willem v/d Velde the Younger (1633-1707)
Judging from their size, HMS Nightinale would have looked very similar

Captain Seth Jermy had retreated to his own cabin, which gave access to the gunpowder store. He repulsed French attempts to enter – shooting dead a sergeant of marines – and was contemplating blowing up the ship rather than surrender. Only when he saw that his merchant charges had gained safety was he prepared to listen to terms of surrender and to accept them. A French account recorded that when Jermy was brought before the French commander his appearance was unprepossessing – Commodore Langeron “could not help testifying his surprise at the inconsiderable figure which had made such a mighty uproar – he was humpbacked, pale-faced, and as much deformed in person as beautiful in mind.” Langeron’s reaction could not have been more gracious. He returned Jermy’s sword to him with the words: ”Take, sir, a weapon no man better deserves to wear; forget you are my prisoner, but remember I respect you for a friend.”

Captain Thomas Smith, the Jacobite in French service, seems to have borne himself well in the action and was rewarded with command of the captured Nightingale. He was to enjoy it only for a year, as he was captured by the British and hanged for his part in the attempt on Harwich. Jermy was exchanged with a French prisoner fourteen months after the battle and was immediately – and deservedly – appointed to another command. He retired from the navy in 1712.

And what of the men chained to the French oars? The record seems to say nothing of them. The mind recoils from considering their ultimate fates.

Britannia’s Wolf is available as an audio book

– listen to a sample

The first book in the Dawlish Chronicles series is now available as an audio book read by the distinguished American actor David Doersch. If you haven't previously ordered an audio-book from audible.com you can download it without cost as part of a 30-Day Free Trial. You can listen on your Smart Phone, Tablet or MP3 Player.

To listen to as sample go to the links below and click on the small arrow beneath the cover image there:

Click herefor sample and audio details (UK)

Click herefor sample and audio details (US and elsewhere)

The history of the Netherlands in the 19^thCentury is a closed book for most non-Dutch, not least because of the incorrect perception that “little happened” and as the country was at peace in Europe from 1831 to 1940. The Netherlands were however involved in a series of colonial campaigns in the vast territory of the Dutch East Indies, which constituted most of what is the present-day nation of Indonesia.

Dutch power in the East Indies - end of "The Java War" in 1830
Painting by Nicolaas Pieneman shows submission of a local prince

There had been a Dutch presence on the island of Java since the early seventeenth century and the island had become the focus of intense British and French rivalry during the Napoleonic Wars. Dutch power was spread more thinly elsewhere and the nineteenth century saw a succession of campaigns to bring the entire archipelago under control. The instrument for this was the KNIL – the Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger, the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army. Established in 1830, this force was not part of the Dutch Army (which only served at home) and was not entitles to make use of Dutch conscripts. Funded by the colonial budget, it fell under the command of the Governor-General of the East Indies. It accepted volunteers of other European nationalities in addition to many from the Netherlands itself – one unlikely example being the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854 –1891) who joined in 1876, served for four months and then deserted. The officers and non-commissioned officers were mainly European (typically Dutch, German, Belgian and Swiss) but the majority of the troops were indigenous Indonesians, mainly from Java. In the KNIL’s earlier years several thousand African soldiers were recruited from the small Dutch holdings on the Gold Coast (Modern Ghana).

Location of Aceh - with thanks to Google Earth

The greatest – and most sustained – challenge faced by the KNIL was the series of difficult campaigns from 1873 to 1914 which became known as the Aceh War. Though not a single continuous conflict, it never achieved outright resolution – traces of resistance persisted until the Japanese invasion in 1942 – and it represented a steady drain on Dutch resources. Aceh represented the northern tip of Sumatra and as a sultanate had its independence guaranteed by an Anglo-Dutch Treaty in 1824. In the following decades it became a rich regional power, its wealth based on production of half the world’s pepper. Smaller local rulers were brought under control by the reigning sultan and Aceh power extended steadily southwards, coming into collision with the Dutch, who by this stage were extending their influence northwards. Piracy represented a profitable sideline for some of the coastal communities, leading to punitive expeditions by the US Navy in 1832 and 1838. (These expeditions were described in the Blog of 26^thJanuary 2016 – see link at end of article). The situation was complicated by the fact that there were still British claims to Sumatra, though these were not pressed.

A KNIL General inspecting local troops in 1870s

The situation changed in 1871 when a treaty was signed between Britain and the Netherlands which gave the Dutch a free hand in Sumatra, as well as the obligation to supress piracy, in return for the Dutch giving up its holdings on the Gold Coast. While the Ache Sultanate remained independent it represented a major obstacle to Dutch control of the enormous 182,800 square mile island – the sixth largest in the world. Concern was raised in the Dutch colonial government in 1873 when the Sultanate initiated negotiation with the American government about a bi-lateral treaty – potentially introducing another major player – and the decision was taken to annex Aceh militarily. The campaign for doing so was to prove hastily and inadequately planned and resourced. The over-optimistic objective was to bombard the Sultan’s capital at Bandar Aceh, at the island’s northern tip and to seize the town as a base for further efforts to occupy the coastal areas. It was anticipated that seizure of the sultan and his palace would trigger a collapse in resistance.

The death of General Johan Köhler 14th April 1873

The sultanate’s ability to resist was badly underestimated as significant numbers of modern weapons had been imported to Aceh. In April 1873 the Dutch force’s attempt to storm the palace was bloodily repulsed and the commander, General Johan Köhler (1818 - 1873) was killed, together with some 80of his troops. Recognising that the situation was impossible, Köhler’s deputy, now in command, ordered retreat and the expeditionary force returned to Java. A Dutch naval blockade was now imposed and efforts by the sultanate to get support from the United States and from the Ottoman Empire proved fruitless. Aceh was on its own.

KNIL officers at Banda Aceh, January 1874

The defeat had been humiliating for Dutch prestige and a second, and larger, expedition was mounted later the same year. Commanded by General Jan van Swieten (1807 –1888) this was a much better resourced effort. It was the largest offensive that the Dutch had yet mounted in the East Indies – 8,500 troops, 4,500 porters and labourers, with a further 1,500 troops being deployed after the initial landings. The timing proved disastrous as it coincided with a cholera outbreak that respected neither side. Recognising that direct confrontation was futile, the Sultan abandoned Bandar Aceh to the Dutch forces in early 1874 – relinquishing the symbolically important palace – and took to the hills and forests to the south to conduct a guerrilla campaign. In the six months from November 1873 to April 1874 the Dutch force lost 1,400 men – and this was only the beginning.

KNIL officers - possibly with captured Sultanate artillery - Banda Aceh, 1874

A vicious six-year guerrilla conflict followed, with both sides suffering heavy casualties, and with tropical diseases continuing to represent as significant a hazard as enemy action. In 1880 the Dutch realised – that for now at least – outright conquest would prove impossible. The war was proclaimed to be at and end and Dutch forces settled down to defending the areas they controlled, primarily that around Banda Aceh. While using their naval forces to patrol the coastline they initiated an effort to draw up treaties with local leaders.

A two-year period of civilian rule followed – during which increasing violence showed that resistance to Dutch rule was not at an end. In late 1883 military rule was again imposed and, in a steadily worsening situation, it was recognised that the war had reignited and a new, and even deadlier, phase was beginning. But that’s another story!

Click here for earlier blog: The US Navy's Sumatran Expeditions 1832 & 1838

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

"Britannia’s reach is not just political or military alone. What higher interest can there be than consolidation of Britain’s commercial interests?” So says one of the key figures in this novel, which centres on the efforts of a British-owned company to reassert control of its cattle-raising investment in Paraguay, following a revolt by its workers.

This story of desperate riverine combat brings historic naval fiction into the age of Fighting Steam.

Click here for more details and to "Look Inside" to read the opening

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars saw very large numbers of battles at sea between small numbers of ships, but few in which entire squadrons engaged and yet fewer fleet actions on the scale of the Nile, Camperdown or Trafalgar. On one occasion however a medium-sized Royal Navy squadron escaped from a confrontation which, due to the disparity of forces, could have ended in annihilation. That it did not reflected the cool head and tactical mastery of the British commander, Admiral Lord William Cornwallis (1744 – 1819).

Cornwallis had come to prominence in 1782, in the four-day Battle of the Saintes, as captain of the “74” ship-of-the-line Canada. He had already engaged, and defeated, a similarly sized French ship, the Hector, when he saw the opportunity to close with the enemy flagship, the massive 104-gun Ville de Paris. Despite the disparity in size, Cornwallis continued his attack for two hours and though the larger vessel’s position proved to be hopeless, the French Admiral de Grasse (1723 –1788) saw it as a point of honour not to strike his flag to anybody but an enemy admiral. He only surrendered when Admiral Sir Samuel Hood (1724-1816) came up in the Barfleur, by which stage only de Grasse himself and two other men were alive and unwounded on the upper deck. He stated after the battle that Cornwallis’s Canada had done him more harm than all the rest of the Royal Navy force together.

Battle of the Saintes, 1782 - major fleet action with ships-of-the-line

This is where Cornwallis came to prominence

On 7^th June 1795 Cornwallis, in his flagship Royal Sovereign, was cruising on blockade duty off Belle Isle, on the southern coast of Brittany, with five “sail-of-the-line” and two frigates. A French convoy of merchantmen under escort of three ships-of-the-line and six frigates. In the subsequent action, in which the French escorts beat an ignominious retreat, eight merchantmen were captured. Cornwallis remained on station thereafter and just over a week later, on 16^th June, one of his frigates signalled sighting of the French fleet – a huge force consisting of thirteen sail-of-the-line, several frigates, two brigs and a cutter. Retreat was now the better part of valour and Cornwallis decided – correctly – to decline combat. The wind at first falling and afterwards coming round to the north, the enemy's ships were enabled to get to windward, and the next morning by daylight – in calm conditions, they were seen mooring on both quarters of the British squadron. Cornwallis’s force was now potentially the meat in the sandwich.

During the preceding day and through the night Cornwallis had led the retreating ships in the Royal Sovereign, so as to be able to take advantage of any favourable opportunity that might present itself in the night for altering course and escaping unseen by the enemy. With daylight however he changed his disposition, ordering his two slowest-sailing ships, the Brunswickand the Bellerophon, to lead, and the more nimble Mars and Triumph to form the rear. He himself, in Royal Sovereign, formed a connecting link, ready to come to the assistance of any of his squadron that might need support. It was now in the power of the French admiral to engage closely, and at about nine in the morning a line-of-battle ship and a frigate opened fire on the Mars. From this time an almost constant cannonade was kept up, the French ships firing at a distance as they came up – and making no attempt to close and board – and Mars, Triumph and Royal Sovereign returning fire, thereby protecting the slow-sailing Brunswickand Bellerophon. These latter two vessels were now making every effort to increase speed, lightening themselves by cutting away their anchors and boats, throwing some of their ballast overboard and crowding on all sail. This inconclusive chase continued through the day and into the afternoon. Only then did the close upon the rear ship, the Mars. Four of the French ships of the line bore down on her. Had they concentrated their fire and laid themselves alongside, the outcome would have been fatal for her. At this critical juncture a ruse already underway was to change the situation completely.

Beaufort, an admiral in later life

In the early morning Cornwallis had called by signal for a boat from the frigate HMS Phaeton. The young officer who came across to get instructions to bring back to his captain would later be Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (1774 –1857), creator of the Beaufort Scale for indicating wind force. He was met on Royal Sovereign's deck by Cornwallis, who told him: "Stop, sir; listen: go back immediately and tell your captain to go ahead of the squadron a long way, and, when far enough off, to make the signals for seeing first one or two strange sail, then more, and then a fleet; in short, to humbug those fellows astern. He will understand me. Go."

The Phaeton sailed well, but was not until three o'clock in the afternoon that she was sufficiently far ahead to signal back with credibility that initially one, then two, five, new sail had been sighted. She followed this up by signalling an even larger British force was approaching. It was known that the French had copies of the Royal Navy’s tabular signals, and Phaeton hoisted a signal to draw on the fictitious squadron. She then turned to sail back towards Cornwallis’s force, as if guiding the newcomers on. By sheer chance three small vessels were actually just visible over the horizon. Wholly taken in by the ruse, and apparently faced with the possibility of action with a larger force, the French broke off the action and retreated. Cornwallis’s entire force escaped without loss of a single ship.

How the battle might have developed had the French exploited their numerical advantage -

Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg's painting of the "Glorious First of June" battle 1794

One cannot but wonder if poor French morale in the aftermath of the brutal culling of the French naval officer-corps during the Revolution did not play a significant role. Defeat and failure could well be rewarded with the guillotine, and officers who still remained in service were likely to be highly risk-averse – as shown by the unwillingness to close, even when the British force was outnumbered. Cornwallis, by contrast, had command of a superbly confident and professional force. In his later report he gave special credit to the seamen and marines of the Marsand Triumph, which hadthe brunt of the French fire. He stated that, "instead of being cast down at seeing thirty sail of the enemy's ships attacking our little squadron, they were in the highest spirits imaginable, and although circumstanced as we were, we had no great reason to complain of the conduct of the enemy, yet our men could not help repeatedly expressing their contempt of them. Could common prudence have allowed me to let loose their valour I hardly know what might not have been accomplished by such men."

Cornwallis himself had given an example of calm resolution, shaving, dressing and powdering his hair during the morning chase according to his normal routine. He apparently to his flag captain that he had been in similar situations before, and knew very well what they, the French, would do.

What followed was to prove him correct in his evaluation of the enemy.

Britannia’s Wolf is available as an audio book

– listen to a sample

To listen to as sample go to the links below and click on the small arrow beneath the cover image there:

Click here for sample and audio details (UK)

Click here for sample and audio details (US and elsewhere)

From the mid-19^th Century onwards the naval mine developed in the general from we know today and which was to play a significant role in the American Civil War, the Russ-Japanese War of 1904-05, both World Wars and the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. The famous order by Admiral Farragut as he drove his squadron into Mobile Bay in 1864 – “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”– referred to mines, then often labelled as torpedoes, and not the automotive weapons that emerged in the next decade. The concept of the floating mine had been around for centuries – often in the form of boats that would be allowed to drift downriver towards enemy bridges. The weakness was however that explosion would essentially be random, whether close to the enemy or not, as detonation would depend on a slow-burning fuze or a clockwork mechanism. The arrival of practical electrical technology in the 1850s and 60s got around this problem, allowing controlled detonation from shore of submerged mines, or detonation by systems integral to the mine itself and triggered by contact.

USS Tecumseh sunk by mine in Mobile Bay, 1864

As the Confederate defences of Mobile Bay demonstrated, mines proved a very effective, and relatively cheap, way of defending harbour approaches – as was shown by the dramatic sinking of a unit of Farragut’s squadron, the monitor USS Tecumseh. (One episode of my novel Britannia’s Wolfdescribes the protection of a major Russian Black Sea anchorage in 1877 by mines anchored across the entrance and controlled through electrical cables connected to observation posts onshore).

The destruction by mine of the Russian battleship Petropavlovsk off Port Arthur, 1904
She took with her Russia's best naval commander, Admiral Makarov
(Strange to see this tragedyused to decorate a box of chocolates!)

In view of my interest in such weapons systems I was fascinated recently to find sketches of early mines in a publication called “The British Navy Book” by Cyril Field, apparently published in 1915/16. It indicated that the first large-scale use of practical mines occurred in the Crimean War (1854-56) when the Russians deployed them in both the Baltic and the Black Sea to limit the movements of British and French warships. The approaches to the great Russian naval base at Kronstadt, outside St. Petersburg, were protected in this way and some fifty mines were “trawled up” in ten days and destroyed by British forces. The improvised technique used was hazardous in the extreme – two pulling- boats suspended a long rope between them and it was sunk by heavy weights to a depth of ten or twelve feet, and held suspended at that depth by empty casks as floats. The boats then separated as far as the rope would allow, and rowed onwards. There appears to have been several types of mine, some of copper, others of wooden staves like those of a barrel, and the bursting charge was 700 pounds of gunpowder. Detonation seems to have been either by a “galvanic current” sent through a cable from a shore station or by contact, the exact mechanism being unspecified. The drawings here give details of Russian mines encountered by the British.

Britain was soon afterwards in conflict in war with China in “The Arrow War” of 1856/60. The 890-ton screw corvette HMS Encounter came under attack by floating mines launched by the Chinese when operating in the Pearl River (now called the Guangdong) downstream of Canton (known as Guangzhou today). The source quoted earlier provides extracts from a letter written by an officer on board Encounter.

HMS Encounter, shown here in China in 1862

The first attempt, on 24^th December 1856, involved an explosive-laden sampan towed close by another craft, and then let loose to drift down towards Encounter’s bows. It was captured by a ship’s boat acting as guard and fuses burning inside bamboo tubes were extinguished in time to prevent explosion.

The second attempt, in the early hours of on 5^thJanuary was potentially more lethal. The officer’s letter states that the attack was by “two rafts, moored together, with about 20 fathom of line buoyed up, with hooks to catch cables or anything else, and, on the wires touching the ship's side, to break by the little lead weight the lighted fuse on the top of the bamboo, which communicated with the powder. These were lighted and all ready, but fortunately observed by our guard-boat and towed clear of ship. Being only a raft it was just awash, and in each caisson at least 17 cwt. (i.e. 1904 pounds or 865 kilograms ) of gunpowder in open tubs and jars. The raft itself was made of 6-inch plank well bound together, and caulked.”

Encounterwas attacked again two days later, again in the early morning hours of darkness. It seems to have been guided into position by swimmers – an act of considerable heroism. According to the unnamed British officer “A pair of vessels in the shape of a can-buoy with a flag on the top, about 8 inches long; the fuse, with a tin box containing punk (i.e. tinder) over the fuse, then a cover with lighted match on top; this had a string to it, which, when pulled, drew out the centre partition and communicated the fire to the punk, to allow the fellows who swam off with them towards the ship to make their escape; but they got frightened at some stir with the boats, and by accident one went off with a fearful explosion on the starboard bow, about 60 yards, and the other, being deserted, floated down on our booms. One of the men was caught and brought on board here, and had his brains blown out at the port gangway. The buoy-shaped vessel was capable of holding about 10 cwt. (i.e. half a ton) of gunpowder."

One final attempt on the Encounter was again by two floating mines coupled together by a length of rope, each containing half a ton of powder. They were towed close by a small boat but it was detected by the ship’s look-outs and destroyed by gunfire. Had these attacks been successful it is hard to imagine the Encountersurviving and one is struck by the courage of the Chinese who manoeuvred these contraptions into position. Crude though they might have been, the era of mine-warfare had commenced.

Britannia's Wolf

If you have found this article interesting you may like to read of mines used in anger in 1877. The first book in the Dawlish Chronicles Series features ironclad action in the Black Sea as the vicious Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 reaches its climax.

Britannia’s Wolf is available in hard-copy and Kindle format – click here for details and to read the opening via the "Look Inside" feature.

Click here for audio details (UK)

Click here for audio details (US and elsewhere)

I was recently approached by a Dutch reader of my blog who is interested, among much else of a nautical nature, in the art of the great Age of Fighting Sail. He told me something of what he was undertaking add I invited him to prepare a blog. It turned out to be a superb one, as you’ll see from what follows, and it reflects some detective work on his part. I found that Nykle lives in the Dutch province of Friesland, in the town of Leeuwarden, near where I have family relations living – it’s a small world! I was even more intrigued by the fact that he’s currently writing about inland navigation with which there was close family involvement in the 19^th Century. I’m handing over to Nykle to introduce himself and thereafter I trust you’ll enjoy his article, and its illustrations, as much as I have.

Introducing Nykle Dijkstra:

I’m a student in maritime history at Leiden University. I live in Leeuwarden (the Netherlands) and I’m 24 years old. I’m very interested in “The Age of Sail”, mainly the period 1600-1900 and I’ve written some articles about Dutch navy mariners in the Napoleonic times, about ships of the Dutch East India Company that were wrecked on the coast of Sri Lanka, about Dutch whaling history, and I’m currently writing about Friesian inland navigation in the nineteenth century.

Last year, Antoine Vanner posted a series of blogs about British naval artists of the 18^th century (See links at the end of the article). Most of them are fascinating life stories; in some cases the artists based their works on their own experience during the most gruesome sea battles. Especially the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century was a very intense period in terms of naval conflict. Hence this period produced some of the greatest British naval art, such as the paintings made by Nicholas Pocock. Some artists however, didn’t reach this degree of fame and were eventually lost in history.

Last year I accidentally stumbled across an original ink sketch portraying a small schooner in front of Peak Tenerife. It would be the start of a small investigation which would eventually turn into this article. It’s a story about a rather unknown naval artist who almost fought at Trafalgar but ended up making beautiful drawings of naval life just outside the spotlights.

Thank you Antoine for giving me the stage.

John Evans – a forgotten naval artist

The sketch mentioned above was accompanied by a few old written pages. I googled a fragment of the text and found out that the drawing was used for a (slightly altered) engraving in the Naval Chronicle in 1818. This was the same magazine in which Pocock placed many of his drawings. The Tenerife Peak sketch was said to be made by a man called “J.E.” Two ships were added, perhaps to make it more appealing to the audience.

Naval Chronicle, Volume 40, 1818.

A piece of handwriting which was included with the drawing of Teneriffe Peak. Perhaps it’s Evans, handwriting?

As I found out, “J.E.” made many more drawings and he also was a frequent correspondent to the Chronicle. One of the drawings stated that “J.E.” was a navy lieutenant. Interesting information, but still, his true identity was never revealed. Therefore, I decided to gather all his drawings and letters and combine them to get a better view of the author. In the end I found two biographies about a naval officer named John Evans. His career and the ships on which he served matched rather well with the drawings, and the story actually mentioned that Evans was a skilled artist. Bingo! Although we don’t have 100% certainty, it’s highly likely that J.E. was John Evans.

Toronto Public Library

According to the biography, John Evans was born on 2 December 1786 or 1787. He was the son of John Evans, Esq., of Dilwyn, co. Hereford, and of the Rock and Vermont, in Jamaica, by a daughter of John Tyler, Esq., of Dilwyn House, who was grand-niece of Bishop John Tyler, and a relative of Robert Southey, the Poet-Laureate (who would later write what was for many years the standard biography of Nelson). Evans entered the navy in 1803, but the two biographies differ from each other about the first ship on which Evans served. One says it’s the Leviathan (74 guns) but the other one names HMS Leander (50 guns). Evans speaks about the Leander in the Chronicle, but it’s also probable that he only came aboard the Leander in 1805. In a letter accompanied to a drawing of St. George’s Island, J.E. wrote: “They [the Native Americans at Nova Scotia] are extremely expert in the management of their little barks, and will impel them through the water only with the aid of two small peddles, with inconceivable velocity; a six-oared deal gig, with a stout crew, belonging to the Leander, of 50 guns, could never pull against one of them with anything like success.”

A view of Porto Bello [or Portobelo] on the Spanish Main. The French ship we see here is of a Mediterranean type called ‘xebec’. Ronald Hakwins (Cornwall Maritime Museum) was so kind to take a closer look on the drawings and pointed out that although the drawings are correct, some of the engravings are a bit inaccurate. For instance the mizzen on this xebec is drawn on a boom over the stern without a mast to support it. Maybe the engraver took some artistic liberty. (Naval Chronicle, Volume 32, 1814)

Evans allegedly joined the ships Trent (36 guns) and Desirée (36 guns). In the Desiréehe was present at the blockade of Cape François, the reduction of Port Dauphin, where two forts and a 28-gun frigate, La Sagesse, were taken from the enemy, and the surrender of the French squadron with the remains of General Rochambeau’s army from Cape Francois on board; and he was also frequently employed with the boats on cutting-out affairs of ‘a very hazardous description’. The captain of HMS Desirée was Henry Whitby, who may have been some kind of patron, as Evans followed him in 1805 to the Centaur. This ship then sailed for Jamaica to join Nelson in his pursuit of De Villeneuve, but she encountered a hurricane and only just made it safely to Halifax. Whitby was then given command of HMS Leander, and it could be possible that Evans joined him again.

Naval Chronicle, Volume 39, 1818

Officers ofHMS Centaur. Unfortunately Evans is not among them, but he came aboard in June 1805 and the hurricane happened in July, so he probably was aboard at the time. Maybe the artist John Eckstein gave Evans a few drawing lessons but that’s mere speculation.

I later found two more original drawings by John Evans. This one shows a brig and a small cutter in a storm. No doubt Evans experienced similar moments, and probably even much heavier gales. As far as I know this sketch was not used for the Naval Chronicle.

In 1807 John Evans shortly became a prisoner of war when he sailed as a passenger on an armed brig, but he was soon released. He then joined the sloops Drakeand Wolf. A short time later he served on HMS Bacchante (20 guns) under captain Samuel Hood Inglefield. He saw quite a lot of action with this ship and even succeeded in the capture of the French brig Le Griffon (16 guns):

Naval Chronicle, Volume 29, 1813

Sometime in 1808, Evans followed Inglefield to HMS Daedalus (32 guns). In this ship he served until September 1810 and contributed to the reduction of the town of Samana, in St. Domingo. During his service aboard this ship he may have encountered another hurricane, by which the ship was struck on the 3^rdof august, 1809. This happened in the vicinity of St. Domingo when the ship sailed in a squadron with the navy ships Larkand Moselle. The gale was first felt by the Daedalus. The wind on the 2^ndof August was variable and the atmosphere was hazy. At half past eight P.M., the gale commenced with very dark and gloomy weather, and bright flashes of lightning, though without thunder. At nine it had increased to a heavy gale, with a very high sea. The bowsprit, foremast, main, and mizzen topmasts went over the side. Several fruitless attempts were made to save the ship, when at last most fortunately she was kept before the wind and sea. The ship must inevitably have been lost if the wind had shifted on the evening of the 2nd to the South or South West. The Lark, less fortunate than the Daedalus, foundered with her captain (R. Nicholas), officers and crew. Only two hands were saved in an extraordinary manner after being picked up at night by the Moselle.

Naval Chronicle, Volume 29, 1813

In 1810-11 Evans was employed on the North American station. First in the Belvidera(38 guns), bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Herbert Sawyer, and then in the sloops HMS Atalante and HMS Morgiana under Captains Frederick Hickey and David Scott.

Naval Chronicle, Volume 31, 1814.

Evans was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the latter vessel on 16 November 1811; but in February 1812 he retired from future service due to a severe liver complaint, from the effects of which he would suffer for the rest of his life. Back in England, he may have sent his drawings to the Naval Chronicleas that’s when his first sketches were published. In spite of his disease he would become a frequent correspondent to the Chronicle. In 1824 he even published a book about hydrography. About his personal life the biography says he was married and had one son (also a naval officer named John Evans) and one daughter.

A third sketch by John Evans, showing Needham’s Point, Barbados. This drawing was used in the Naval Chronicle, and just like the Tenerife Peak drawing it was slightly altered (see below). The ship (a topsail schooner) looks very similar as the ship on the drawings of Tenerife Peak and Nichola Mole. Could it be the same?

Naval Chronicle, Volume 38, 1817

Neversink & Sandy Hook: Vol. 31, 1814

Port Royal: volume 36, 1816

Sources:

The Naval Chronicle

The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle

A Naval Biographical Dictionary

Earlier blogs on Naval Artists of the Age of Sail – click on links below

Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 1

Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 2

Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 3

Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 4

Naval Artists of the 18th Century – Part 5

Many thanks to Nykle for his splendid article – and for contacting me in the first place. He’s obviously a man to look for in the future in the sphere of nautical history.
Antoine Vanner

Mutiny at sea is an inherently dramatic subject and few were as dramatic – because of the small size of the crew involved, and the small craft on which it played out – than that on the brigantine Natal in 1889. I learned of it in a book entitled “Revolt at Sea” by Irvin Anthony, published in the United States by Putnam in 1937. The book contains accounts of some twenty-four other mutinies, the last three being those on the Russian pre-dreadnought Potemkin in 1905, in the German Fleet in 1918 and on the Dutch Zeven Provinciënin 1933. The Natalincident is therefore presented as factual but there are areas left unexplained which I will return to at the end of this article.

It appears that in 1889 – days and months unspecified – the “trim but small” brigantine was en routefor Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. The registration of the Natal was not specified, but as her captain was called Peter F. Enstrom it is possible that she was Scandinavian. The cargo was described as “of no particular worth” and the size of her crew, though apparently small, was not mentioned. There were apparently “no grim feuds among her people”, a fact that makes the subsequent savagery hard to understood. It should however be borne in mind that working conditions on merchant shipping in this period could be atrocious. (There is a link at the end of this article to an earlier blog on this subject). Even on the best-run ships, accommodation and messing could be unacceptable by modern standards, and the rough discipline often imposed tended to foster deeply felt animosities between owners, officers and crews.

"Winged Arrow and Southern Cross in Boston Harbour" by Fitz Hugh Lee (1804-1865)

This was the romantic view in the Age of Merchant Sail -the reality was often brutally differen

For whatever reason, four of the Natal’s crew decided on murdering the officers and taking over the ship. A seaman called Johannsen armed himself with a capstan bar, while another, Toton, possessed a revolver. The carpenter had his axe while the steward relied on a long sheath knife. Their objective remains unclear – by 1889 telegraphic communications and naval steamships had made it impossible for old-style piracy to succeed and remain undetected for any length of time.

The attempt to capture the ship began on a midnight, when the vessel was in charge of the second mate – who was the captain’s seventeen-year old son – and while the captain himself, and the first mate, were asleep in separate berths in the same cabin. The second mate had just taken over the watch and was still feeling sleepy. He therefore lowered a bucket over the side, drew up water, and sluiced it over his head to wake himself. He was in the act of doing so when the carpenter crept up behind him and split his skull with an axe. Death was instantaneous and no alarm was raised. (One has the impression that there was nobody else was on deck, or was indeed needed, as there was later mention of “light airs”). The body was unceremoniously dropped overboard.

The reality of life at sea - "Eight Bells" by Winslow Homer (1836-1910)

The four mutineers now headed for Captain Enstrom’s cabin. They entered stealthily without wakening either him or the mate. The carpenter was chosen – or had volunteered – to kill the captain, like his son, with the axe, while Toton was to shoot the mate with his revolver. The carpenter moved first, sweeping down his axe on the captain’s head, but shearing past with a glancing blow that drew blood but was not serious. Enstrom was instantly awake and on his feet, punching his assailant. Johannsen tried to intervene, but in the close confines of the cabin he could achieve only enough with his capstan bar to knock of the aim of Totton, whose four successive shots all missed the mate.

Familiarity with the cabin layout, particularly in the darkness, now played in the captain’s and mate’s favour. Fighting for their live,s they punched and kicked and their assailants’ nerve broke. They fled up the companionway and back on deck, leaving Totnes’ revolver in the hands of the mate, who had wrestled it from him. The two officers now locked themselves in the cabin and began to rummage for the small arms the ship carried but never had occasion to use. They located a rifle, three revolvers and ammunition. The captain appears to have been aware by now that his son was dead and was obviously bent on revenge. The remainder of the crew, intimidated perhaps by the mutineers, seem to have remained neutral in what had happened and to have gathered on deck.

Remaining in the cabin was no long-term alternative, especially with the firearms on board being in the hands of the captain and mate. They rushed on deck with loaded weapons and those there – neutral as well as mutineers, one gathers – rushed in panic before them down the forehatch. Captain Enstrom and the mate locked it, trapping the crew below.

The “light airs” referred to allowed the vessel to drift safely without manning and the two officers on deck kept turns on watch, with weapons trained on the scuttle opening from the forehatch. A full day passed and no food or water reached the prisoners. Two more passed, during which the conditions beneath the hatchway must have become intolerable.

On the fourth day a flag of truce was waved from the scuttle but was met with gunfire. With his son dead, Enstrom was not in a forgiving mood. Only on a second attempt at parley did the mutineers suggest surrender, only to be told that it would be unconditional. The prisoners accepted and trooped on deck. Enstrom separated the four mutineers from the others and calmly shot the carpenter and Toton. The steward and Johanssen, trembling, were sent below as prisoners and the Natal resumed her course for Brisbane.

The Age of Merchant Sail captured by British master John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893)

"Nightfall on the Thames" - 1880

The story, as told above, is a summary of that in Irvin Anthony’s “Revolt at Sea”. My immediate reaction was “Did it really happen?” for there is so much detail missing – origin of the ship, location of the mutiny, size of the crew. Were there earlier events that triggered such brutal resentment? How did the authorities in Brisbane deal with these events, and was Captain Enstrom held accountable in any way for his summary execution of two of the mutineers? What became of Johansen and the steward afterwards? The whole story seems like incidents in some of Joseph Conrad’s novels that hinge on blindly malignant brutality – one thinks of his “Victory” and “Because of the Dollars”. I had never heard of this Natal incident previously and an internet search has turned up nothing. I did however discover that the book’s author, Irvin Anthony, born in Philadelphia in 1890, had produced a large number of other books with nautical themes. The inclusion of the Natal story with those of other well-known and factually-attested mutinies inclines one to think there must be some truth in it.

But how much truth?

Is there any reader of mine out there who can shed some light on this?

Update 0930 on 22.06.16:

In answer to the question above, more light was shed on the Natal affair in two splendid comments - with external links - by "Astrodene" and by Mike Rattenbury. Here they are shown here in their entireties:

astrodene21 June 2016 at 17:35

It seems the Captain gave an interview to his local newspaper when he got back home, which was America. A much more graphic account of the cabin battle and their injuries. The mate was actually shot in his own cabin and subsequently joined the affray in the Captain's. Johanssen was captured when the others fled below and helped man the ship while the crew were confined. It seems the captain was not prosecuted, although they thought about it and the courts let the mutineers go. You can read the article at http://nyx.uky.edu/dips/xt72jm23cs9q/data/0185.pdf

Mike Rattenbury23 June 2016 at 00:38

It looks like it happened on November 27, 1883, but the news dosn't get out until the beginning of 1884. There are quite a few newspaper reports online, and entering 'Natal Mutiny 1884' brings them up. By March, the mutineers seem still to be in custody in Australia, awaiting extradition to Sweden for trial. http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP18840301.2.33 gives another detailed account. None of the reports seem to disagree with the captain's shooting of the mutineers.

(Click here to read an earlier blog about abuses in the merchant shipping industry which were uncovered by the great British maritime reformer, Samuel Plimsoll).

Britannia’s Spartan

Six-inch breech loading guns represented the cutting edge of naval technology in the early 1880s. In my novel Britannia’s Spartan they are seen in use on both British and Japanese ships. The splendid woodcut below shows Japanese crews managing just such a weapon in the war of 1895 against China. Click on the links below for further details – you can read the opening via the “Look Inside” feature at the top left of the screen opened.

UK readers click here and US & Rest of World readers click here

A British cruiser 2000 miles up the Amazon: HMS Pelorus 1909

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

Honour insulted, Disobedience triumphs – Guadeloupe 1759

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

The USA’s First Korean War, 1871

Recently published: Britannia’s Spartan

Guest Blog by Chris Sams

A bloody encounter in the North Sea, 1917 by Chris Sams

The Ram Triumphant: Lissa 1866

Britannia’s Wolf

HMS Polyphemus – The original of H.G. Wells’ Thunder Child

Britannia’s Sharkby Antoine Vanner

The Iéna and Liberté Disasters, 1907 and 1911

An Unequal Duel: Trader vs. Privateer 1744

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

The Loss by Fire of the RMS Amazon 1852

Britannia’s Spartan

The Convergence of the Twain: English Channel, June 1916

Britannia’s Reach by Antoine Vanner

Privateer Action off Peru 1801

Click here for more details.

A Flawed Concept – The Imperial Chinese Navy's doomed "Rendel Cruisers"

Britannia’s Spartan

Guest Blog by Tom Williams: Indian Mutiny

About Tom Williams

The ramming of the Forfait by the Jeanne d’Arc, 1875

An epic stand against French oared-galleys in British Waters – 1707

Britannia’s Wolf is available as an audio book

– listen to a sample

The Dutch East Indies Ulcer – the Aceh Wars begin 1873-74

A Ruse to Escape Annihilation: 1795

The Arrival of the Naval Mine

Britannia's Wolf

Guest Blog: A Treasure Trove of Naval Art

Introducing Nykle Dijkstra:

John Evans – a forgotten naval artist

The Natal Mutiny, 1889 - how much to believe?

Britannia’s Spartan