Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851
What overturned the throne and pacific policy of Louis Philippe? – His determination to keep at peace; his resolution to coerce, at any hazard, the ambitious designs of the Parisian democrats. He tried to be a "Napoleon of Peace," and he lost his throne and died in exile in consequence. What immediately followed the triumph of the Republicans in Paris in February 1848? Was it the reign of universal tranquillity – the advent of peace and good-will among men? Was it not, on the contrary, an outbreak of general hostility – the universal arming of nation against nation, of people against people, of race against race? Did not Republican Piedmont invade Lombardy; and Republican Prussia, Holstein; and Republican France besiege Rome? Did not the Magyar rise up, against the Sclave, and the Bohemian against the Austrian, and the Lombard against both; and was not the frightful scene of almost universal hostility appeased – and that for the time only – by the appalling appearance of a hundred thousand Muscovites on the Hungarian plains? Have not Austria and Prussia for the last six months been on the verge of a dreadful contest? Have not the burghers and ploughmen of all Germany been called from their peaceful avocations, to man the ranks of the landwehr? Have not eight hundred thousand men been arrayed on the opposite sides, and the banks of the Saale crowded with armies paralleled only by those which in 1813 stood on those of the Elbe? And what stopped this dreadful war, and sent back those multitudes of armed citizens unscathed to their peaceful homes? Was it republican France, or popular England? No; it was despotic Russia. It was the presence of a hundred and fifty thousand armed and disciplined Muscovites on the banks of the Vistula, which like a thundercloud overcast the east of Europe, and at last cooled down the ardent ambition of democratic Prussia into something like a just estimate of the chances of the conflict, and a temporary respect for the rights of other nations.
Turn to distant parts of the world, and is the prospect more indicative of the advent of a pacific millennium? Is it to be found among the English colonists in India, or the energetic republicans of America? Have not the English, for the last twenty years, been engaged in almost ceaseless hostilities in Hindostan or China, during which ultimately our victorious standards have been advanced to Cabul and Nankin; and we have seen our empire shaken to its very foundation by the disasters of the Coord Cabul Pass, and the frightful contest on the banks of the Sutlej? Is America more peaceful, and is the advent of the reign of peace foreshadowed by the entire abstinence from ambitious and angry passions in the republicans of its southern or northern hemisphere? Has not the former, since the disastrous era when its revolution began, been the theatre of convulsions so frequent, and bloodshed so incessant, that history, in despair, has ceased to record the names of these conflicts, and points with horror only to their woeful consequences? And has not Northern America, during the last twenty years, exhibited the most unequivocal evidence of the lust of conquest having gained possession of the most influential portions of her inhabitants? Were they not actually at war with us in 1837 to support the Canadian revolutionists; did they not cheat us out of three-fourths of Maine, and bully us out of half of Oregon; and have they not squatted down, without the vestige of a title, on Texas; and when the Mexicans resented the aggression, invaded their territory and wrested from them the half of it, including the whole auriferous region of California? In short, war surrounds us on all sides; its passions are raging throughout the world; an era of such hostile prognostications is scarcely to be found in the annals of mankind. And yet Mr Cobden and Mr Bright declare, to admiring and assenting audiences in Manchester, that the era of war is past, and that we should disband our troops and sell our ships of the line! They are like an insane patient in a distant wing of a building which is wrapped in flames, who positively refuses to do anything to save himself, saying, "They will never reach me."
Has the conduct of the English Government for twenty years past evinced the reality of the alleged disinclination to hostilities which is said to be creeping over all established governments, and to which popular ones in particular are in so remarkable a manner averse? Has not our conduct, on the contrary, even in Europe, been aggressive and provocatory to war in the very highest degree? Did we not unite with France to force a revolutionary government on Spain and Portugal, and to prevent a legitimate one in Belgium from recovering its lawful possessions? Did we not, along with Russia, Prussia, and Austria, throw down the gauntlet, at the time of the bombardment of Beyrout and the siege of Acre, to France; and did not the firmness of Louis Philippe and the accession of Guizot, whom he called to his councils at the critical moment, alone prevent a general and frightful war in Europe? It is well known, to all persons acquainted with the subject, that we were still nearer a war with France some years afterwards, when the affair of Otaheite and Queen Pomare revived the ancient and undying jealousy of the two countries. We know it for a fact, that at that period the French were prepared for, and fully expected instant hostilities; and that for several nights six thousand choice light troops slept armed and accoutred on board the huge war-steamers at Cherbourg, ready to start at daybreak for a descent on the southern shores of Britain, and on some of its undefended dockyards, where not a vestige of preparation had been made to repel them.
But why recur to periods comparatively remote for proofs of a state of things which recur under our present foreign administration as periodically as commercial catastrophes do under our monetary system? In November 1849 we sent Admiral Parker, with the whole Mediterranean fleet, to the mouth of the Dardanelles, and took the Czar by the beard to rescue from his grasp some thousand Hungarian insurgents; and not content with this demonstration – which was as hostile as the anchoring of a Russian fleet off the Nore would have been to this country – he was directed to cast anchor, on his return, off the Piræus, and bid defiance to France and Russia, the guarantees with ourselves of the independence of Greece. On this occasion we were so near a rupture that the French ambassador actually left London, and the Russian one was preparing to follow his example, when an immediate war with the two largest powers of Europe – thus, by unparalleled rashness on our part, brought, for the first time for half a century, to act cordially together – was only prevented by our succumbing and referring the matter to arbitration, as they had all along proposed, instead of exacting it at the cannon's mouth, as we had at first endeavoured to do. And for what mighty national interest was this enormous peril incurred, when, as usual, we were wholly unprepared to meet it? Was it to save Hindostan from invasion, or raise the blockade of the Nore, or extricate our fleet from the grasp of the Czar? No! It was to enforce private claims of M. Pacifico and Mr Finlay on the Greek Government, to the amount of a few thousand pounds – a proceeding which afforded the Continental powers, if they had been as hostilely disposed as our Government, a fair precedent for sending a Russian fleet of thirty ships of the line to the Nore, to demand satisfaction from our Government for the brutal attack on Marshal Haynau! And yet, such is the infatuation produced by party spirit, that not only was this aggressive act approved by a majority of the House of Commons, even after we had been obliged to recede from it, but it was approved by the very men who are constantly preaching up the immediate advent of a pacific millennium, and the necessity of disbanding our troops and selling our ships of the line.
Surrounded then, as we undeniably are, with the flames and the passions of war on every side; slumbering on the edge of a volcano, the fires of which are smouldering under our feet and gathering strength for a fresh and still more terrific explosion; actuated as we are by unbounded national haughtiness, and a most aggressive system of foreign policy, have we done anything to support our pretensions, or avert those ravages from our own shores which we have so liberally scattered on all the adjacent coasts? Have we 100,000 regular troops and 200,000 landwehr, in the British Islands, ready to repel insult; and a fleet of 30 ships of the line and 20 armed steamers, ready afloat and manned, on the German Ocean and in the Channel, to secure our harbours from attack, and raise a blockade of our coasts? Have we – since we are so set upon a foreign war, and have done so much to spread the passions which necessarily lead to it, and made so many hostile demonstrations calculated instantly to induce it– made preparations in our Exchequer and our granaries for its expenses and its privations? Have we, like Frederick the Great when he invaded Silesia, a fund of £7,000,000 in the Treasury, to meet his war expenses; or Napoleon, when he plunged into Russia, a reserve of £14,000,000 in the vaults of the Tuileries? Have we fortified Woolwich, the general arsenal of the empire, and Chatham, and our other naval depots, hitherto undefended? Have we cleared out the glacis of Portsmouth and Plymouth, so as to give free range to the guns of the works, and established a great central fortification at Weedon, or some other central point in England, whither our troops might retire, if obliged to evacuate London, and where the new levies, raised in haste, might receive the elements of discipline, without the risk of being assailed, while yet in the awkward squad state, by the enemies' cuirassiers?
Alas! we have done none of these things. Woolwich is still an open depot, liable to be taken by a single regiment; there is not a bastion at Weedon; there is not a defensible post in the environs of London; Chatham, Sheerness, and Deptford are entirely open on the land side; and although Portsmouth and Plymouth are fortified, and may be pronounced impregnable against a naval assault, they are far from being so against a land force. The enemy would not require to run a sap up to the counter-scarp: we have saved him the trouble, by allowing houses to be built almost everywhere so near the ditch, that the besiegers would effect a lodgment there the first day, and be able to batter in the breach in two days more. Landwehr we have none, unless 30,000 pensioners – most valuable veterans, of great use against mobs, or for garrison service, but little qualified for the field – deserve the name: our yeomanry, though admirably mounted and full of spirit, are wholly unacquainted with the duties, and unaccustomed to the fatigues, of actual warfare. We have not more than seven or eight ships of the line, and these but imperfectly manned, ready for sea in our harbours; and the regular troops in Great Britain, though second to none in the world in discipline and courage, can only muster 37,000 sabres and bayonets, and in the two islands amount only to 61,000!! In proportion to the eagerness with which we have spread abroad the passions and lighted the flames of war in all the adjoining states, is the assiduity with which we have neglected or abandoned our own defences; and the promptitude we have evinced, on every possible occasion, to provoke the hostility or rouse the jealousy of the most powerful states in our neighbourhood can be paralleled only by the simultaneous reductions we have effected in our own armaments, and the utterly defenceless state in which we have exposed ourselves to their attacks. Judging from our internal reductions, one would suppose we were never again to go to war: judging from our foreign policy, one would suppose we were never again to be at peace.
To illustrate these remarks, and demonstrate the utter insanity of our simultaneous adoption of the most aggressive foreign policy and the most pacific internal preparation, we subjoin from Sir Francis Head's late most admirable and interesting work a vidimus of the military force of the principal European powers, as compared with that of Great Britain, and subjoin to it a statement of our naval force, accompanied with that of France, Russia, and the United States – the principal maritime powers of the Continent and America: —
– Sir F. Head, p. 5-36.
This is the entire force, so far as European troops are concerned, which is on foot to protect the immense British dominions in the four quarters of the globe! And as the entire regular force in Great Britain and Ireland is only 61,848 men, with 40 guns equipped for the field – and at least a fifth of every military force must always be deducted for sick, absent, and deserters – it follows that 50,000 men, with 40 guns, is the very utmost of regular troops that could be relied on in both islands to meet an enemy. Of this at least 20,000 would require to be left in Ireland; so that 30,000 men alone could be assembled in the last extremity for the defence of Great Britain! As to the pensioners and yeomanry, they would be entirely absorbed in forming garrisons, keeping up the communications, and preserving tranquillity in the manufacturing towns in the interior.
Formidable as this state of matters is, it becomes doubly serious when the state of our naval force is considered.
In 1792, before the war broke out, and when our population was not a half, nor our commerce and colonial dominions a fourth of what they now are, the naval force of Great Britain was —
Примечание 15
At this moment our naval force stands as follows: —
The forces of the principal maritime powers of the globe, Spain being effete, stand thus: —
Примечание 16
Thus Russia and France could produce 85 ships of the line, 80 frigates, and 102 war-steamers, against our 65 or 70 of the line, 147 frigates, and 56 war-steamers. A disproportion sufficiently great for a country which boasts of being mistress of the waves: the more especially when it is recollected that both these hostile nations are actuated by the greatest jealousy of our naval power, and envy of our commercial greatness, and that we have so managed our foreign policy that, not six months ago, we were within a hairsbreadth of a war with both united. We are aware of the resources which, if the contest were prolonged for any considerable period, would arise to this country from the steam-packets to America and the West Indies, which their owners are taken bound, on an emergency, to place at the disposal of the Admiralty. But this provision, though a most wise and judicious one, and of very great moment in a lengthened conflict, would obviously be of little or no avail if war surprised us, as to all appearance it will do, in our usual state of fancied security and entire want of preparation, and a Russian fleet of twenty-five ships of the line from the Baltic anchors off the Nore, simultaneously with a French one of ten off Portsmouth, with as little warning or intimation as Admiral Parker gave to the Russians when he appeared at the mouth of the Dardanelles, or to the Greek Government when he cast anchor off the harbour of the Piræus.
But the danger becomes incomparably greater, and assumes the most portentous aspect, when two other circumstances connected with our naval situation are taken into consideration, of vital importance in this question, but which the advocates for reduction studiously keep out of view in its discussion.
The first is, the immense extent of the colonial empire we have to defend, and the consequent unavoidable dispersion of our naval force, such as it is, over the whole globe. This appears in the most decisive manner from the table quoted below, taken from the United Service Gazette for December 1850, showing the distribution of our ships of the line in commission up to 25th November last.
This shows that out of twenty-eight line-of-battle ships and fifties in commission at that period, only thirteen were in the British harbours, and even including the Experimental Squadron, only fifteen. Of these, at least a half are mere guardships – such as the Victory at Portsmouth – of little real use but to furnish a mast for the Admiral on the station to hoist his flag. Of the six or seven that really are fit for sea, not more than one half are fully manned. Accordingly, it is universally known among naval men, that there are not more than three or four ships of the line that could on a sudden emergency be got ready for sea in the British harbours: being not half the force which the Danes had when they were suddenly attacked by Nelson in 1801, and by Lord Cathcart in 1807. On the first occasion, they had nine ships of the line and floating batteries moored off Copenhagen: on the last, eighteen ships of the line were taken by the victors, and brought to the British shores.
We are often told of the immense force which England now has in her steam-vessels – more numerous, it is said, and unquestionably better manned and navigated than any in Europe; and the "Excellent," at Portsmouth, is referred to as able at a moment's warning to furnish the requisite amount of experienced gunners. Fully admitting the high discipline and training of the gunners on board the Excellent, of whose merits we are well aware, they cannot do impossibilities. They amount only to five hundred men; and what are they to the forces requisite to defend the British shores against a combined French and Russian fleet, such as we all but brought upon us last April, when the French ambassador left London? What could four or five hundred trained gunners do when scattered over fifteen or twenty sail of the line, and as many steamers, the crews of which were suddenly huddled together – supposing them got at all – from the merchant service, where they had received no sort of training in naval warfare? What could the peace steam-boats, not pierced for a single gun, do against the broadsides of the Russian line-of-battle ships, or the huge war-steamers which excited such astonishment among our naval men, when exhibited at the late review at Cherbourg? The thing is quite ridiculous. They would furnish, in Napoleon's words, ample chair au cannon, and nothing more.
Contrast this now with the state of preparation in which the French and Russian navies are kept, in consequence of their having both a regular force raised by conscription, and constantly paid and under arms like their land forces, wherewith to commence the conflict. The Czar has always twenty ships of the line and ten frigates in the Baltic, completely equipped and ready for sea, with 30,000 soldiers ready to step on board of them; and it would be surprising if, in passing the Sound, they were not reinforced by the six ships of the line and steam-frigates at the disposal of Denmark,7 who would desire nothing better than to return, in a manner equally unexpected, the sudden visits we paid her in 1801 and 1807. France, in addition to sixteen ships of the line in commission, and double that number of war-steamers, has no less than 55,000 seamen ready to be called on, like the national guard, at a moment's warning, perfectly trained to gunnery and warlike duties, who could man double that number of line-of-battle ships and war-steamers.
"The French nation, however, deeming it unsafe to rest on any such frail contingency as voluntary enlistment, has wisely, as well as justly, decreed that her maritime districts and commercial marine shall be subject to the same obligation to serve their country as the other classes of the community; and, accordingly, by the laws of France, every boy who goes to sea is required to register his name on the 'Inscription Marine.' After one year's probation, he enters into the class of 'Mousses' until he is sixteen, when he becomes a 'novice' or apprentice till eighteen, when he is classed as a marine or seaman, and he is thenceforward at the service of the state till he is fifty years of age. Besides this, about 1/20 of the general conscription throughout the inland provinces are by law liable to serve in the navy. By the above arrangements, it appears that between the year 1835 and 1844, both inclusive, 55,517 seamen answered the calls of the annual Levée permanente, and, moreover, that very nearly the whole of the French merchant seamen, amounting altogether to upwards of 100,000 men, must have passed successively through the royal navy.
"Under this admirable system – which, while it flatters the passions, cultivates the mind, and comfortably provides for the sailor, – the French nation are prepared, by beat of drum, to march from their various quarters to their respective ships, compagnies permanentes of well-trained gunner seamen; and thus, at a moment's warning, even in time of peace, to complete the manning of sixteen sail of the line." – Sir Francis Head, 184, 185.
It is no exaggeration, therefore, but the simple truth, to say, that France and Russia could, in ten days from the time that their respective ambassadors left London, appear with a fleet of thirty ships of the line and forty frigates or war-steamers in the Channel, with which they could with ease blockade the Thames, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, where not more, at the very utmost, than eight or ten line-of-battle ships, and ten or twelve war-steamers, most of them only half manned, could be collected to oppose them. We have no doubt the crews of this diminutive fleet would do their duty as nobly as they did at the Nile and Trafalgar; but we shudder at the thought of the national blindness and infatuation which would expose them, and with them the existence of England as an independent nation, to such fearful odds.
In any such conflict, it is by the forces which can suddenly be rendered available that everything will be determined. It may be quite true that England possesses resources in the vast extent of her mercantile navy and steam-vessels, and the undaunted character of her seamen, which, in any prolonged contest, would give her the same superiority which she maintained throughout the last war; but it is not the less true, that this contingent ultimate superiority would be of no avail to avert disaster – it may be conquest – if the enemy, by having their forces better in hand, and available in the outset, were in a situation to gain an advantage which could never be recovered from in the commencement. It is impossible to overestimate the shock to credit, and ruin to the best interests of the empire, which would arise from a blockade of our harbours even for a single fortnight. Of what would it avail us that we had six noble sail of the line, and double that number of war-steamers in the Mediterranean, and as many scattered through the world, from China to California, if the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde, were blockaded by hostile fleets, and Portsmouth and Plymouth could only furnish five or six half-manned line-of-battle ships to raise the blockade? Russia has no colonies; France, next to none: thus the whole naval forces of both these Powers could be brought to bear, without deduction or defalcation of any sort, on Great Britain, more than half of whose navy is necessarily scattered over the globe. Our distant fleets would, in such a crisis, avail us as little as an army of pawns, with bishops and knights, would a chess-player who had received checkmate.
In the next place, these considerations become doubly powerful when it is recollected how very peculiar and tardy is the mode of collecting men, which alone is now thought of in the British navy. It is not generally known by landsmen – though hereafter they may come to know it to their cost – that in England at present there is neither any standing royal naval force, nor any compulsory means of levying it. By our great naval establishment and right of impressing seamen, we had, practically speaking, both during the war: but these days are past. The navy sailors are changed as ships come into harbour, and the right of impressment has virtually become obsolete. When a ship, after two or three years' service, comes into port, she is immediately paid off, and a new set of sailors, wholly ignorant of war, are slowly got together by the next captain who gets that or a corresponding ship; who in their turn, when they begin to become expert at their new duties, are displaced to make way for a third body of untrained men! What should we say to a manufacturer, a merchant, or a general, who should conduct things in this manner? Yet, such as it is, it is the system of the British navy. This subject, of vital importance, has been so well illustrated by two gallant naval officers, that we cannot do better than quote their admirable observations on it.
"A ship," says Admiral Bowles, "is required to relieve another for foreign service. She is selected, reported ready for commission, the captain and officers are appointed, and then volunteers are advertised for. They come in slowly and uncertainly. If the ship is a large one, the men will not enter until the heaviest part of the work of fitting is completed: the equipment proceeds slowly and carelessly, because energy and rapidity are impracticable; but even then, those who enter first feel they are unfairly worked, and the seeds of discontent and desertion are sown at the very commencement of their service.
"Three, or sometimes four, months thus pass away, before the ship's complement is complete; and, in the meanwhile, little progress is made in discipline or instruction. She at last sails for her destination, and relieves a ship which, having been three or four years on active service is, or ought to be, in a high state of efficiency; but on its arrival in England it is dismantled, the officers and crew are paid off and discharged, and we thus proceed, on the plan of perpetually creating and as perpetually destroying, what we have with so much labour and expense endeavoured to obtain – an effective ship of war."8
Captain Plunkett adds his valuable testimony to the same effect: —
"Voluntary enlistment may be considered entirely inapplicable to cases of emergency. There are no means of calculating how long ships would be manning, if, as would necessarily happen in cases of emergency, their crews were not increased by men recently paid off from other ships. In peace, there are usually as many ships paid off as commissioned in a year; and thus the men who leave one ship join another. But, even with this aid, the average time occupied by general line-of-battle ships in completing their crews, we find to have been above five months. In 1835-6, when we commissioned several ships of line at once, they were six months waiting for seamen, and were then very ill manned. We may safely suppose that, were ten sail of the line commissioned at this moment, and did circumstances not admit of paying others off, we should not see them manned in less than eight months. We may therefore say that, for any case of emergency, simple volunteering will fail, as it always has failed. We may expedite the material fitting of a fleet; we may move ships about our harbours, put their masts in, and call them 'demonstration' or 'advance ships!' we may even fit them for sea – for the dockyard men can do all that – but, when fitted, there they must remain for months waiting for seamen. Foreign powers are quite aware of this, for it is the duty of their consuls at our ports to inform their governments, and they must laugh at the demonstration by which John Bull plays a trick upon – Himself!
"It is a matter of official avowal, and, we may add, of personal and painful recollection, that, in 1840, we were unable to collect a few hundred seamen to make a show of preparation… When England was vainly trying to scrape together a few hundred seamen, France had (in compagnies permanentes) upwards of 3000 ready in the Atlantic ports, and probably not less at Toulon.
"It is a fact as surprising as it is discreditable to England, that Russia could send thirty sail of the line to sea before England could send three.
"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, we might build a ship in the time required to man one."
We add not a word of comment on these admirable passages. Further illustration were worse than useless, after such words coming from such quarters.
It is often said that all fears of invasion are ridiculous, after the failure of Napoleon, who had 130,000 of the finest troops in the world to effect it. The Times, with its usual ability, makes the most of this argument. We accept the challenge: and, if we are not much mistaken, that able journal will have no reason to congratulate itself on having referred to that period for support of its argument: —
1. The regular land forces of France at that period were 450,000 men: about the same as they are now. But now that Power has, in addition, 2,000,000 well-trained National Guards in arms, which, by rendering her territory wellnigh unassailable, leaves her whole regular force available for foreign expedition.
2. England had then 160,000 regular troops on foot, including 30,000 of the army of reserve, raised in the preceding years, of whom about 100,000 were in the British Islands. In 1808, the Duke of York reported to Government that, without detriment to any necessary home service, 60,000 regulars could be spared for the Peninsula; and in 1809 she had 80,000 in active warfare – viz., 40,000 at Walcheren, 30,000 in Spain, and 10,000 in Sicily.
3. In addition to this, she had 80,000 militia, quite equal to troops of the line, in Great Britain and Ireland, besides 300,000 volunteers in arms, tolerably drilled and full of spirit.
4. She had 83 ships of the line in commission, and 230 in all the royal dockyards, and 508 vessels of war bore the royal flag.