than the Italian states, or the cities of the Baltic, to take
advantage of the maritime discoveries of the great epoch which
stretches from 1492 to 1526. In the natural course the leadership
fell to Portugal and Spain. Both owed much to Italian science
and capital, but the profit fell inevitably to them. The reasons
why Spain failed to found a permanent naval power have been
given, and they apply equally to Portugal. Neither achieved
the formation of a solid navy. The claim of both to retain a
monopoly of the right to settle in, or trade with, the New World
and Asia was in due course contested by neighbouring nations.
France was torn by internal dissensions (the Wars of Religion and
the Fronde) and could not compete except through a few private
adventurers. England and Holland were able to prove the
essential weakness of the Spaniards at sea before the end of the
16th century. In the 17th century the late allies against Spain
now fought against one another. Her insular position, her
security against having to bear the immense burden of a war
on a land frontier, and the superiority of her naval organization
over the divided administration of Holland, gave the victory to
Great Britain. She was materially helped by the fact that the
French monarch attacked Holland on land, and exhausted its
resources. Great Britain and France now became the competitors
for superiority at sea, and so remained from 1689 till
the fall of Napoleon in 1815.
During this period of a century and a quarter Great Britain had again the most material advantage: that her enemy was not only contending with her at sea, but was engaged in endeavouring to establish and maintain a military preponderance over her neighbours on the continent of Europe. Hence the necessity for her to support great and costly armies, which led to the sacrifice of her fleet, and drove Holland into alliance with Great Britain (Wars of the League of Augsburg, of the Spanish Succession, of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War). During the War of American Independence France was in alliance with Spain and Holland, and at peace on land. She and her allies were able to impose terms of peace by which Great Britain surrendered positions gained in former wars. But the strength of the British navy was not broken, and in quality it was shown to be essentially superior.
The French Revolution undid all that the government of France had gained between 1778 and 1783 by attention to its navy and abstinence from wars on land. The result of the upheaval in France was to launch her into schemes of universal conquest. Other nations were driven to fight for existence with the help of Great Britain. In that long struggle all the navies of Europe disappeared except the French, which was broken by defeat and rendered inept by inaction, and the victorious British navy. When Napoleon fell, the navy of Great Britain was not merely the first in the world; it was the only powerful navy in existence.
The pre-eminent position which the disappearance of possible rivals had given to Great Britain lasted for several years unchallenged. But it was too much the consequence of a combination of circumstances which could neither recur nor endure. The French navy was vigorously revived under the Restoration and the government of Louis Philippe (the periods from 1815 to 1830 and 1830 to 1848). The emperor Nicholas I. of Russia (1825–1855) built ships in considerable numbers. As early as 1838 the fear that the naval superiority of Great Britain would be destroyed had already begun to agitate some observers. The “extremely reduced state” of the British navy, and the danger that an overwhelming force would be suddenly thrown on the English coast, were vehemently set forth by Commander W. H. Craufurd, and by an anonymous flag-officer. The peril to be feared, it was argued, was an alliance between France and Russia. In 1838 the British navy contained, built and building, 90 ships of the line, 93 frigates and 12 war steamers; the French, 49 of the line, 60 frigates and 37 war steamers, including armed packets; Russia, 50 of the line, 25 frigates and 8 steamers; the United States, 15 of the line, 35 frigates and 16 war steamers. The agitation of 1838 passed away, and the Crimean War, entailing as it did the destruction of a great part of the Russian fleet at Sebastopol, and proving the weakness of the Baltic fleet, and having, moreover, been conducted by an alliance of France and Great Britain against Russia, would seem to have shown that the anxieties of 1838 were exaggerated. But the rivalry which is inherent in the very position of states possessing sea coasts and maritime interests could not cease. The French imperial government was anxious to develop its navy. By the construction of the armoured floating batteries employed in bombardment of Kinburn in October 1855, and by the launch of the first seagoing ironclad “La Gloire” in 1859, it began a new race for superiority at sea, which has shown no sign of slackening since. The launch of the “Gloire” was followed by political events in Europe which brought forward new competitors, while great navies were developed in America and Asia.
The year 1871 was the beginning of a vast growth of naval armaments. It saw the completion of the unity of Italy and the formation of the German empire, two powers which could not dispense with strong fleets. But for some years the Italian and German navies, though already in existence, were still in a youthful stage. The rapid Growth of modern rivalry in armaments. growth of the United States navy dates from about 1890, and the Japanese is a few years younger. France, Russia and Great Britain, in answer to them, began the race in which the efforts of each had a stimulating effect on the others. Though the alliance between France and Russia was not formed till later, their common interests had marked them out as allies from the first, and it will be no less convenient than accurate to treat Great Britain and the partners in the Dual Alliance as for some time opposed to one another.
In the general reorganization of her armaments undertaken by France after the war of 1870–71, her navy was not neglected. Large schemes of construction were taken in hand. The instability of French ministries, and the differences of principle which divided the authorities who favoured the construction of battleships from those who were England and the Dual Alliance. partisans of cruisers and torpedo-vessels, militated against a coherent policy. Yet the French navy grew in strength, and Russia began to build strong vessels. As early as 1874 the approaching launch of a coast-defence ironclad at Kronstadt (the “Peter the Great” designed by the English constructor Sir E. J. Reed) caused one of the successive “naval scares” which recurred frequently in the coming years. It was, however, largely fictitious, and passed away without producing much effect. In 1878 the prospect of a war arising out of the Russian and Turkish conflict of that year, again stirred doubts as to the sufficiency of her naval armaments in England. Yet it was not till about 1885 that an agitation for the increase of the British fleet was begun in a consistent and continuous way. The controversy of the succeeding years was boundless, and was perhaps the more heated because the controversialists were not controlled by the necessity for using terms of definite meaning, and because the lists published for the purpose of making comparisons were inevitably of doubtful value; when ships built, building and ordered to be built, but not begun, were counted together—or as not infrequently happened, were all added on one side, but not on the other. The belief that the British navy was not so strong as it should be, in view of the dependence of the British empire on strength at sea, spread steadily. Measures were first taken to improve the opportunities for practice allowed to the fleet by the establishment of yearly naval manœuvres in 1885, and the lessons they afforded were utilized to enforce the necessity for an increase of the British fleet. In 1888 a committee of three admirals (Sir W. Dowell, Sir Vesey Hamilton and Sir R. Richards), appointed to report on the manœuvres of that year, gave it as their opinion that “no time should be lost in placing the British navy beyond comparison with that of any two powers.” This verdict met a ready acceptance by the nation, and in 1889 Lord George Hamilton, then first lord of the admiralty, introduced the Naval Defence Act, which provided for the addition to the navy within four and a half years of 70 vessels of 318,000 tons at a cost of £21,500,000. The object was to obviate the risk of sudden reductions for reasons of economy in the building vote.
