Why read a history of the British Navy? Why read a history of a Navy? A partial answer is that war is always entertaining. A truer answer perhaps would be that there is no greater teacher than war. Arthur Herman’s book is the story of one of the greatest instruments of war ever to exist – the Royal Navy. It is about how this instrument was forged. It is also about how it was wielded over five centuries to create the greatest empire in history. That the sun did not set on the British Empire was in very large measure due to its Navy.
The book begins in 1568 with a raid on San Juan in Mexico by a John Hawkins of Plymouth. Hawkins and his flotilla of 5 small ships were out to attack the annual “treasure” fleet that carried gold and silver from South American mines to the royal Spanish treasury. To the Spaniards, Hawkins was a brigand and an outlaw, a pirate, albeit a rather distinguished pirate. His foray hade been financed by a syndicate of very respectable investors that included Queen Elizabeth. The syndicate invested on the basis of Hawkins rather remarkable track record of providing rates of return in tens of thousands of percent on capital in previous voyages. Piracy was one of his two revenue streams. The other more predictable source of profit was a controlling position in the slave trade that dominated world commerce in the 16th century.
Hawkin’s cousin, Francis Drake, deserted him during this raid but went on to win eternal glory – and respectability – as the man who saved England from the wrath of then global hegemon, King Philip of Spain, by destroying the Spanish Armada in 1588. The second part of the story, which begins after this famous victory, is also about Empire, and about how small, scrappy England became the mighty United Kingdom. Mr Herman does a fine job of describing in rich detail the characters of Hawkins, Drake and their contemporaries and the temper of their lawless and violent world. He describes how these tough and brutal men created a nucleus of fighting vessels and sailors. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is about how this marine force subsequently morphed into the mighty Royal Navy instead of becoming a criminal empire.
A fighting organization is built on three pillars: its weapons, its administrative ability and the quality of its manpower in general and its leadership in particular. Over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries a succession of capable Englishmen strengthened each pillar. Shipbuilding became a major industry that ceaselessly innovated to increase the speed and maneuverability of its vessels and the lethality of its weapons. An Admiralty office with very capable officials oversaw the growing machinery that learned to pay, victual, arm and run the Navy. Ships and armaments were standardized. The officer corps attracted the best talent in the country and rewarded performance. Naval tactics like the broadside, signaling, maneuvering together under a single commander (that origin of the office of a fighting Admiral) were developed over a century of constant fighting with the French and more occasionally, the Dutch. Shipboard medicine and nutrition developed to treat war-wounds and diseases such as scurvy that incapacitated more sailors than the enemy. All this was in tune with the spirit of an England that was being energized by the Industrial Revolution and political reform.
A fighting organization also requires what the French call elan. The Royal Navy was able to retain the habitual daring and the tradition of superb seamanship that were characteristic of its piratical forbears. It also found ways of maintaining very high levels of motivation and morale amongst its sailors even as it slowly moderated fearsome shipboard discipline
Perhaps no one represented the spirit of this Navy better than the impossibly brave and impossibly patriotic Nelson. His victories, culminating in Trafalgar (1805), and later, Wellington’s triumph at Waterloo, paved the way for world domination by a Britannia that ruled the waves. Nelson died because he, like Hawkins, led his men from the front. But the Royal Navy was a very dissimilar to Hawkins fleet of marauders. Amongst other things, it occupied itself very differently. England learnt from what it inflicted on the Spanish. Protection of free passage on the high seas became non-negotiable. A small island dependent almost entirely on its well being for ship-borne trade could not afford the insecurity of lawless seas. Hawkin’s descendants accordingly concentrated on stamping out piracy. They were very successful. The temper of the times had also changed. The Royal Navy became the scourge of slavers, stamping out the trade that had made Hawkins a rich man.
The book describes not just how an institution like the Navy is created but also how it is necessary to possess such an instrument if a nation has an aspiration to become a great power. Mr Herman establishes that the guns of the Royal Navy anchored the unparalleled prosperity of the relatively small British Isles. The British state could transcend its island home because it could develop a mighty instrument of state. In Nelson’s time. when a voyage to India was still a six-month affair, the British already had “blue-water navy” with squadrons for the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. We would have called it “strategic thinking.” Another interesting take-away from this book is the very fine line that divides good and evil in statecraft. Today’s robber is tomorrow’s policemen and statecraft every so often consists of setting a robber to catch a thief.
The book is a great read. Memorable characters populate it. Sir Francis Drake, Lord Nelson, King Philip of Spain, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and Captain James Cook to name a few. The demands of command, the dreams of glory and the nightmares of defeat are brought out vividly. Dry technical details are brought to life and illuminate the fog of battle. The portrayals of the horrors of war, the details of lives of the human beings that fought and died on the ships are woven with the flow of larger events to create an excellent popular history.
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