Heresies of Sea Power/Part 2/Chapter 6
VI
THE INVASION OF ENGLAND
Theoretically, so long as the British Fleet maintains command of the sea, an invasion of England, other than a trifling and purely local raid is impossible. Against this theory, military men are now and again wont to urge that the fleet 'might be decoyed away,' but this particular hypothesis hardly needs refutation. Whether 'decoying away' was possible in the old days is a matter open to dispute: in the present day it may be dismissed as impossible. The incident of Nelson 'decoyed on a wild goose-chase in the days of the Great War'—a decoy which incidentally led to nothing—can hardly be paralleled in these days when ship movements are far more certain and touch far more easily maintained. Even were it possible, wireless stations like that of Poldhu render recall easy[1] should the dreaded 'invasion during the absence of the fleet' take place, so that a fleet to-day half-way across the Atlantic is really considerably nearer the scene of action than was a fleet at Milford Haven in the old sailing days. The modern increase of radius is a preponderating factor.
This being so, historical analogies, even were they applicable to the 'invasion during the absence of the fleet' theory, can hardly be said to bear upon the matter although compensations may exist, as so many assert. The supposed working of the theory of compensations may be put as follows:—
To-day, owing to wireless telegraphy and the absence of any delaying effect from contrary winds, a distant fleet is relatively comparatively near, and though it be a thousand miles away, it is only four days or so off. But against this the compensating factors are that invading troops can be conveyed across infinitely more surely and quickly than in the days of sail,[2] also the torpedo craft of the invader have a prospect of dealing with the defending fleet on its return far greater potentially than any vessels had in the old days.
Hence the tendency to balance things and to say that when the new and balancing conditions are subtracted from both sides, the resultant is much what the resultant was in the days of sailing ships. Napoleon's attempted invasion of England is then taken; its failure demonstrated, and the deduction drawn that invasion (other than a raid) is impossible so long as a British fleet holds command of the sea. To which those who may loosely be termed the military party
Map to illustrate Campaign of 1805 and Earlier.
respond that all this may be true and obvious, but Napoleon's was not a surprise invasion.
The details of Napoleon's attempt are very well known. In bare fact they are usually described as follows:—
On the northern shores of France an army was openly massed and flat-bottomed boats for its transport collected at all available ports, towards the end of the first war. In the second war more boats were collected. At a pre-arranged time the three fleets blockaded at Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon were to break out and rendezvous at Martinique, return en masse and hold the Channel while the troops crossed in the flat-bottomed boats.
The plan so far as it existed failed because for one thing only the Rochefort squadron arrived to time. The Toulon fleet under Villeneuve arrived after long delay, to find the Rochefort ships already returned to France, while the Brest fleet never got out at all. Nelson followed the Toulon fleet, but he was certainly not 'decoyed away' by it, since the sole and only object of the fleet he commanded was to bring Villeneuve to battle; and so long as he 'contained' Villeneuve the locale mattered little. Napoleon's object was simply an attempt so to mass his ships that the British fleet should be defeated, after which, of course, he could deal with the small craft opposed to his boats and then invade at leisure, if he wished.
Much of the reality of the proposed invasion is, however, open to doubt. What Napoleon actually did and what he really intended to do are not necessarily one and the same thing. England believed absolutely in the invasion threat: it is not impossible that the threat was his chief purpose,—the invasion to be materialised only in the somewhat unlikely event of his fleets succeeding in combining and in winning a big battle at sea.
The reasons against the Napoleonic invasion being a really serious project are numerous. In the first place, Napoleon was undoubtedly a marvellous genius, a man little likely to make miscalculations, and altogether unlikely to fail at profiting by past experience. Past experience in Egypt cannot but have convinced him that to attempt over-sea operations in face of a superior and unbeaten fleet was dangerous; therefore it is extremely unlikely that he contemplated any replica of the invasion of Egypt, or any imitation of the Spanish Armada such as was believed by the people of England. It is infinitely more probable that, as suggested above, his design was to try to win command of the sea, and after that materialise his invasion project. His scheme if taken thus was, of course, sound enough.
As for the boats intended to convey the invaders, they first became a factor in 1801—that is towards the end of the first war. Those collected were then altogether inadequate for any invasion. When Nelson was put in command in the Channel to defend against the dreaded invasion, almost the first thing he did was to demonstrate that the invasion was
impracticable. He estimated that at least two hundred boats would have to be collected about Boulogne, and as many in the Dunkirk district. But the total he actually found at Boulogne was about sixty, and these could not sail and seemed extremely unlikely to be able to row.
'The information respecting the number of troops assembled at Boulogne cannot be true.' . . .
'Whenever it [the invasion] comes forth it will be from Flanders; and what a forlorn undertaking! Consider cross-tides, etc. As for rowing, that is impossible. It is perfectly right to be prepared against a mad government; but with the active force your lordship has given me, I may pronounce it impracticable.'
'I am certain that in the towns of Boulogne and the surrounding hills the total number (of troops) could not exceed two thousand men. . . . The boats collected at Ostend and Blankenberg may amount to sixty or seventy; . . . they could not carry more than fifty or sixty men each. . . . Where, my dear lord, is your invasion to come from?'
So Nelson wrote about the invasion, and, having investigated, proved it to be an affair of quite a few thousand men at the most.
Following upon this he made an attempt upon such boats as there were at Boulogne: an attempt which proved a disaster, since they were all found to be specially protected against any possible attack. All of
which suggests that Napoleon may have collected the boats with a view to their being so attacked, so as to occupy the British fleet and British public opinion, with the possible idea of using the boats as a nucleus for some effort in the future if several other plans succeeded.
When war broke out again, the invasion question once more came to the fore. More boats were collected: but the boats were never so plentiful nor the army at Boulogne so large as was believed in England, and it is even possible that to the end the whole thing was merely a mask for Napoleonic intentions which found their expression later on at Austerlitz. Indeed, Napoleon himself, despite his explicit instructions to Villeneuve,[3] spoke of the boat flotilla as a sham and told Metternich that the Boulogne army 'was always an army assembled against Austria.' . . . 'I could not place it anywhere else without giving offence,' he is reported by Metternich to have said when in conversation with the prince. Whatever Napoleon said or wrote never revealed to a certainty his plans and intentions, so this alone need not go for too much; but equally it may well have been that in impressing upon Villeneuve the necessity of coming off Boulogne he was only taking steps to insure a battle in the Channel which Villeneuve might otherwise be disposed to evade.
The victory of Trafalgar rendered impossible any invasion that may have been contemplated, because it destroyed a large number of the ships which in Napoleon's design (if it existed) had to destroy the British fleets before successful invasion was in any way possible; but the successful blockade of Brest also did the same thing. There is no reason to suppose that Napoleon contemplated any invasion in face of the unbeaten British fleet. If this be granted, then we must say that the fleet saved England from invasion mainly by the fact that Napoleon did not believe in attempting any over-sea operation without having command of the sea. And, therefore, whatever lessons it may convey, Napoleon's 'projected invasion' is not evidence as to what would befall an attempt at invasion to-day or to-morrow in face of a superior fleet.
Everything that can be brought forward points to the fact that Napoleon, in holding the doctrine that invasion without having command of the sea was not possible, was right: though historical examples to show that invasion in face of a superior fleet is doomed to failure are rare, because hardly ever in history have such attempts been made. The Romans did it when they invaded Sicily in the First Punic War,—but they met with success. All other serious invasions have been either with superior naval force or with a force believed to be superior, as in the case of the Spanish Armada.
Of course the Roman invasion was over a very small space of water, and the Carthaginian fleet was somewhere else. It was also not expecting the invasion or, at any rate, not on the spot to try to prevent it.
These conditions were peculiar; but this invasion is of infinitely more importance to Great Britain than anything attempted or believed to have been projected by Napoleon. Assuming Napoleon's projects to have been as serious as Englishmen of his day believed, the action of the British fleet spells no more than the obvious moral which needs no historical demonstration whatever, that the defending fleet must be discounted. The fate of crowded transports with a few hostile cruisers among them is too certain to need discussion. The essential of success is to discount the defending fleet.
There are two ways in which this can be done: the first by the obvious and historical method of beating it; the second by the Roman method against which the fleet is of very small avail, because surprise landings in force being once effected, it is—at any rate if the invading troops be good enough material—relatively easy to run over stores and fresh troops in individual ships, as the Japanese did in 1904 when the Vladivostok cruisers threatened communications. By 'relatively easy,' something that looks sufficiently possible to cause it to be attempted should be understood. The problem of an invading army once landed in England being solved, other risks would be faced cheerfully enough in the certainty that the invaders would make themselves felt even were their communications cut.
The invasion of England is a common continental problem, both as a mental exercise and as something more serious. Its possibility is a constantly recurring nightmare to the English people, who are as periodically soothed with official statements that 'in face of the Fleet invasion is impossible.' This statement is usually sufficiently obvious to allay any qualms. It, however, takes no account of an invasion not in face of the Fleet.
Rightly or wrongly possible invasion is always looked for from Germany; and undoubtedly Germany is the country in which its possibilities have been most carefully considered, certainly Germany is the nation with most ability to plan and accomplish such a thing. It may be taken for granted, too, that ample consideration is given to the point of view of that general who said, or is supposed to have said, that he 'could think of twenty ways of throwing an invading army into England, but not one way for getting it out again.' More, it may be taken that any definite plan does not presuppose necessity for the 'getting it out again' save on the conclusion of peace. If disaster befel the invaders, an army of 100,000 men would be no serious loss to a military power of Germany's rank.
Let us now take one of these German possibilities and examine it. The effective German fleet can be roughly put for the immediate future at from 15 to 20 battleships of medium power, about a dozen old or small coast-defence ships, a few very moderate armoured cruisers, a dozen or so of small cruisers, and about 100 effective destroyers or torpedo-boats.
The British fleet on the immediate scene may be put at 12 or more battleships in the Channel Fleet, about as many again in the Reserve, an ample supply of cruisers and very nearly a hundred torpedo craft of one kind and another; in fine a fleet large enough with ordinary luck to defeat the Germans without aid from the Atlantic Fleet of eight very superior battleships or the Mediterranean Fleet of more battleships, cruisers, and a large torpedo force. Roughly, it may be said that the Atlantic and Mediterranean squadrons combined would form a fleet quite capable of annihilating the German fleet even were all the ships in British home waters destroyed.
This being the situation: it stands approximately that there are two British fleets, either of which is capable in the ordinary way of destroying the German Navy, so there is very little, if any, scope whatever for a German invasion after war has been declared. Though individual transports might get through the British fleet, it is impossible to suppose that enough would do so to form an effective invasion. The absolute minimum of invaders would have to be 100,000 sure of early reinforcement; and probably 200,000 might be nearer the necessary mark. If 20,000 ran through a blockading British fleet to various points they would be most extremely lucky.
The German fleet might of course plan to sail for some apparent destination such as Canada in order to 'draw the British fleet after it'; but since to sail it would have to break the blockade, it would be brought to action long before it reached any distant point, and in any case the lighter blockading vessels would still remain in the way of any fleet of transports. The 'decoyed away' idea is altogether and in every way an absurd one to any careful student of naval problems.
From all of which it is abundantly clear that a German invasion would have to be accomplished as a 'bolt from the blue' in time of peace. The landing of the invaders on English shores would have to be the first sign that a state of war existed or could possibly exist. That is to say:—
(1) Nearly 100,000 men would have to be massed on the German coast without exciting suspicion.
(2) The necessary vessels to carry them and their supplies—something like two hundred ships at least—would also have to be collected without exciting any suspicion.
(3) The British fleet would have to be disqualified from arriving on the scene too immediately after the disembarkation.
(4) The invading army would have to march on London (or the naval bases) carrying all before it.
Now, none of these four things is absolutely impossible. There are always a good many ships in and about German harbours and by the aid of some imaginary manœuvres it is just possible that troops could be collected in transports without exciting suspicion across the North Sea or bringing it about that a British army also chanced to be doing manœuvres not far from some of the likely landing places.[4] Invaders with their paths blocked, even by considerably inferior forces, would probably have each day's unopposed advance altered into a week's slow progress.
A large army, no matter how well drilled and efficient, cannot be landed in an hour or so upon a strange beach. Even if the transports are successfully beached, nothing but men are to be got ashore that way. Where there are convenient docks so that a transport can come alongside, quick disembarkations may be made, but a hundred thousand men are not going to be landed in a few hours,[5] however carefully the disembarking transports are spread along the coast. It is pretty safe to assume that British war-ships upon the scene any time within twelve hours would make sad havoc of the invasion; and quite a large number should arrive before that.
Consequently the Fleet would have to be provided against, even in a surprise invasion, A time would have to be selected when the Channel Fleet was west of Dover and refitting in its home ports. Of course, much could be done here. In profound peace it would probably not prove impossible to block Sheerness, and consequently Chatham, by destroying lightships and buoys, and by merchant ships sunk at the convenient moment. 'Blocking' in war has so far proved impossible both at Santiago and Port Arthur—each ideal harbours for the operation—but without the confusion of gun fire and search lights the operation might be feasible and everything inside the Medway—except perhaps torpedo craft—shut in. It might be possible to do the same thing at Portsmouth; at any rate it is tolerably obvious that some such action would occur together with the first landing or immediately before it.[6] Outside both places and outside Plymouth mines could also be dropped. Finally the Straits of Dover would have to be held by the entire German fleet.
This is practically the only scheme that offers prospects of a successful German invasion; and though success must be admitted as possible, the difficulties in the way of securing the necessary conditions are very considerable indeed. Its best chance of success would lie in the seeming wild impracticability of it all: that fact alone would allay the suspicions that any large collection of ships in German harbours would otherwise arouse.
The question is essentially a military rather than a naval one. If means were found to discount the Fleet for the first few days, it is easier to assert than to prove that the presence of the fleet later on would save the situation, especially as, were the bulk of ships in home waters destroyed or shut in, the combined Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets would not very greatly outmatch the German navy. They could not force the Straits of Dover without delays, difficulty, and perhaps heavy loss,[7] and even having forced them and destroyed the German fleet, their influence upon the land operations would for some days be infinitesimal. They would certainly, having forced Dover Straits, stop the bulk of supply ships, and cut sea communications, but it is easy to overestimate the value of these to a powerful army marching through a prosperous country to the no distant goal of London, especially indeed as it might have reached London ere the British fleet had passed Dover Straits.
The military question is whether the fall of London would be the fall of England. The capture of the capital is always regarded as a sort of checkmate in the game of war, and undoubtedly the loss of Woolwich Arsenal would be a blow of tremendous importance. Chatham also would either fall with London or be rendered harmless by investment; but Portsmouth and Devonport, certainly Devonport, could not be seized as part of the main surprise. Portsmouth, perhaps, may be more really the capital of the Empire than London, being the metropolis of the Navy. Supposing the army able to defend these two great naval bases—which is not supposing anything unreasonable, crude though the actual land defences of Portsmouth are—it may be allowed that the fleet, if handled by a sufficiently merciless leader might do a good deal towards discounting the German success inside England, because devastated coasts and ruined trade would mean much to Germany. Everything, therefore, turns upon whether London is the real as well as the nominal heart of the Empire, or, to put it another way, on whether the Navy could continue to exercise its functions unimpaired by the loss of all that internal machinery which has its seat in Whitehall. If it could not so continue, then a successful surprise invasion should be fatal: if, however it could continue to function, then a surprise invasion would probably be expensive rather than fatal, since invaders permanently cut off from their supplies would be doomed to certain ultimate failure.
The thing is, of course, unlikely, apart from its difficulties. Also, once the principle of surprise wars is admitted, what nation could consider itself safe? Still the 'bolt from the blue' school are somewhat unduly characterised as vague alarmists, because after all the main object of all wars is success, and that hesitation which usually precedes all wars is probably a deal more due to reckoning up chances than to moral restraints felt by the contending governments. And the mere existence of the idea that every war must be preceded by a long series of diplomatic discussions, is a temptation to every virile nation to seize on the obvious advantage of a sudden and unexpected action. In a small way Japan did this in 1904, and secured valuable initial advantages. Her preparations for the blow, however plain they may now seem, went practically unheeded by the Russians. Negligence may count for something here, but the Russian conviction that there would be no war counted a great deal more. This element of belief that all war-talk will end with words, is one of the factors that lead to surprises being possible. And so a surprise invasion of England is quite possible enough to give ample reason to those who demand that some military should, like the navy, be always on a war footing: for the possible situation is one in which the limitations of Sea Power are very apparent. To succeed against Britain Germany must invade: since she cannot invade in face of the fleet, if she does anything at all she must act by surprise, and unable to discount the fleet by ordinary war methods have recourse to 'other ways.'
- ↑ Poldhu messages are continually taken in the Mediterranean 2,000 miles or more away.
- ↑ Napoleon's row-boats in the beginning of the nineteenth century could hardly have made an average of three miles an hour at the best. Twelve knots is a low average for a modern transport fleet bent on getting across quickly.
- ↑ 'The principal end of the whole operation is to give us, for some days, a superiority before Boulogne. Masters of the Straits for four days 150,000 men embarked in 2,000 vessels will entirely complete the expedition.'—Draft instructions to Villeneuve.
- ↑ It may be pure coincidence, but the 1905 British army manœuvres took place in the east of England just after German military manœuvres began.
- ↑ In the Crimean War, with primitive appliances 60,000 men were landed in twelve hours. There was no opposition. Recently it took 36 hours to land 12,000 men and 3,000 horses at Clacton, but the Crimean incident of fifty years before indicates that this Clacton landing must have been managed very badly. It is probably not unreasonable to accept the Crimean record as a quite possible minimum—that is to say 6,000 men an hour.
- ↑ Torpedo craft unsupported could do little harm to beached transports. Torpedoes would be ineffective and the invaders' light craft would be in the way of even such attempts as might be made. It is likewise conceivable that those who contemplated a surprise invasion would also be able to contemplate the annihilation of the Channel Fleet by a surprise torpedo attack while on cruise. This, however, would only be possible when no serious 'strained relations' existed.
- ↑ The German fleet would, however, have to meet submarine attack: to repel which the Straits of Dover are hardly ideal.