Types of Naval Officers | Page 7

by the consensus of
professional opinion which such a paper as the Fighting Instructions
necessarily reflects. The stamp of the galley period is upon this:
strenuous and close battle, the piercing of the enemy's order, the
movement of the squadrons differentiated, in order that they may in a
real and effective sense combine, instead of being merely distributed,
as they afterwards were by both the letter of the later Instructions and
the tradition by which these became encrusted. Nor should there be
overlooked, in this connection, the discretion allowed the centre and
rear. They are to "keep their wind;" an expression which leaves
optional whether to tack, or stand as they are, whether to engage the
separated enemies to windward or to leeward, as occasion may offer, in
support of the van. The provisions of 1665 afterwards disappear. In
1740, and even as late as 1781, they are traceable only in certain
colorless articles, suggestive of the atrophied organs of a body
concerning whose past use physiologists may speculate.
As in the restoration of sounder methods, with which we shall be
concerned, this degeneration of ideals was a work of time. In June,
1666, the British met with a severe check in the Four Days Battle, in
which Monk, a soldier, commanded in chief. This reverse is chiefly to
be attributed to antecedent strategic errors, which made a portion only

of the available British force bear the brunt of the first three days; but,
among the inevitable criticisms, we find stress laid upon fighting in line
as essential to success. This insistence upon the line as an effective
instrument proceeded, among others, from Sir William Penn, a seaman,
and was at that time in the direction of professional advance. The line
had not yet obtained the general professional acceptance needed to
establish and utilize its indisputable value. This process was gradual,
but when effected it followed the usual laws of human development;
from a valuable means, it became in men's estimation an exaggerated
necessity. It came to pass in time that the line no longer existed for
tactics, but tactics for the line, in which they found their consummation
and end.
There intervened, however, a happier period,--one of transition,--and in
the third Anglo-Dutch war, 1672-1674, we seem to find a close
approach to just proportion between regularity of formation and
decisive tactical purpose; in which the principle of the line is
recognized and observed, but is utilized by professional audacity for
definite and efficient tactical action, aiming at conclusive results. The
finest exponent of this, the culminating epoch of naval warfare in the
seventeenth century, is the Dutchman Ruyter, who, taken altogether,
was the greatest naval seaman of that era, which may be roughly
identified with the reign of Charles II. After that, naval warfare was
virtually suspended for fifteen years, and when resumed in the last
decade of the century, the traces of incipient degeneracy can already be
noted amid much brilliant performance. From that time completeness
of military achievement became in men's minds less of an object than
accurate observance of rule, and in practice the defensive consideration
of avoiding disaster began to preponderate over offensive effort for the
destruction of the enemy.
In the development of tactical science, the French had played a leading
part, as they usually have where reflective mental processes and formal
evolution of ideas are concerned. Among admirals, the greatest name of
this later period is the French Tourville, a master of the science of his
profession, and gifted with a personal courage of the heroic type; while
the leading exponent of Tourville's ideas, as well as historian of his

achievements, was the French priest Paul Hoste,--chaplain to his fleet,
and the father of the systematic treatment of naval evolutions. But with
Tourville's name is associated not only a high level of professional
management, but a caution in professional action not far removed from
timidity, so that an impatient Minister of Marine of his day and nation
styled him "poltroon in head, though not in heart." His powers were
displayed in the preservation and orderly movement of his fleet; in
baffling, by sheer skill, and during long periods, the efforts of the
enemy to bring him to action; in skilful disposition, when he purposely
accepted battle under disadvantage; but under most favorable
opportunities he failed in measures of energy, and, after achieving
partial success, superfluous care of his own command prevented his
blows from being driven home.
Tourville, though a brilliant seaman, thus not only typified an era of
transition, with which he was contemporary, but foreshadowed the
period of merely formal naval warfare, precise, methodical, and
unenterprising, emasculated of military virility, although not of mere
animal courage. He left to his successors the legacy of a great name,
but also unfortunately that of a