Jamaica, as a British naval station, was in the 1790s concerned above all with the French in St Domingue, the western half of Hispaniola (the modern Haiti). The French revolutionary rhetoric of freedom had reached the slaves. Legally freed by the revolutionary regime in 1791, they had then risen in rebellion against their owners, who in their turn had been less than enthusiastic for the changes. The fighting was confused and savage, the slaves turning quickly to murdering their owners, and to destroying the plantations where they had suffered; the owners replied in kind. From the base at Jamaica, where a rebellion by escaped slaves (maroons) was finally suppressed late in 1795, the British naval forces had established a blockade around the colony, and a British Army invaded the rebellious island.

Duckworth was sent to Jamaica in command of the reinforcing force dispatched in May 1795 – three line-of-battle ships, Leviathan, Hannibal, and Swiftsure [77]. The commander-in-chief, Rear-Admiral William Parker (no relation to Duckworth's ward) remained mainly in Jamaica, and Duckworth was his second-in-command, and took command of operations on the coast of St Domingue as soon as he arrived [83–88]. The bases they used were at the ends of the peninsulas, at Cape Nicholas Mole, and at Jeremie, but any places along the coast were a target. It may have been resentment at this assertiveness, but Parker soon fell into a dispute with Duckworth over a trifling matter of seamanship, but Duckworth's determined stand against what he saw as an unjust accusation of negligence seems to have been sufficient to persuade Parker to trust him [91, 92], and a fortnight later Parker was consulting him about what to do [93, 94]. Parker appears to have withdrawn once more to Jamaica [97].

The military campaigns launched against the French were generally indecisive [e.g., 95–98], and much of Duckworth's work was directed to assisting the army on land [99, 102, 103]. There is a notable gap in the documents over the winter of 1795–96, but matters were not improved in the spring, as Duckworth's letter to Edward Baker (the midshipman's father) in June revealed [108]. The enemy was able to receive supplies from the United States, as consular information reported [109, 111].

1. The Man

Admiral John Thomas Duckworth was born in 1747 at Leatherhead in Surrey, attended Eton College briefly, and was sponsored into the Navy by Admiral Boscawen at the age of 13 in the midst of the Seven Years’ War. He served as a captain's servant, then a midshipman, until 1771; he was a lieutenant until 1779, by which time he had been in the Navy for nineteen years. But the American War of Independence brought promotion, to him as to so many others, and he was promoted captain in 1780. He was employed much of the time between these wars, and in the Spanish and Russian crises of 1790–91 commanded the Bombay Castle. When the French Revolutionary War began he commanded Orion in which he fought in the First of June fight.

The decisive change in his service came during his later posting to Jamaica. He was senior captain on the station by that time (1796) and when the Jamaica Station Commander-in-Chief Sir William Parker evacuated himself to England to recover his health, Duckworth was given the temporary rank of Commodore and acting Commander-in-Chief. By acquitting himself well in this role, he made his mark with the Secretary of State Earl Spencer, who became a regular correspondent. His next step up the ladder came with Admiral Earl St Vincent in the Mediterranean in 1798. St Vincent chose him to command the naval part in the conquest of Minorca, for which he was awarded the lucrative sinecure of Colonel of Marines. When St Vincent himself went home sick, Duckworth took over the command at Gibraltar (Nelson in Sicily was technically the Commander-in-Chief in place of St Vincent), and by capturing a rich Spanish convoy he secured his personal prosperity. This was sealed by his command-in-chief of the Leeward Islands station, where he organised the capture of the Danish and Swedish islands in 1801, and gathered considerable further wealth through the prizes captured on his watch.

It is a mark of the Admiralty's confidence in him he was transferred to the Jamaica command directly from the Leewards, when the commander there, ‘Lord’ Hugh Seymour, suddenly died. He remained at Jamaica for nearly four years, and on his return to Britain was employed as second-in-command to Lord Gambier in the Brest blockade. By chasing and destroying an escaped French squadron (Battle of San Domingo) he prevented further Caribbean trouble.

SECTION A

‘TORCH’:

THE LANDINGS IN NORTH AFRICA JULY 1942–MAY 1943

Operation ‘Torch’, a series of Anglo-American landings in North Africa in November 1942 designed to clear the southern shore of the Mediterranean of Axis forces, was a great success, but its origins were marked by deep division between American and British military leaders. The source of their dispute lay in their nations’ differing strategic traditions. The Americans plunged straight for the enemy's heart but the British preferred an indirect approach, wearing down their opponent in a series of marginal campaigns, which used the superiority of British sea power. In 1942 the Americans, already distracted by a desire to seek vengeance in the Pacific for the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, also sought an early end to the European war. Through operation ‘Bolero’ they proposed to build up forces in Britain with which to invade northern Europe, either in ‘Sledgehammer’, a diversionary invasion of western France in 1942 designed to relieve pressure on a collapsing Soviet Union, or in ‘Roundup’, a full-scale landing across the Channel in 1943, which intended a rapid march on Berlin. The British thought that the German army and air force were too strong for any invasion the western alliance could mount in 1942 or 1943; ministers, military leaders and public opinion feared a repeat of the Western Front's bloody stalemate of 1914–18. They pressed for an attritional campaign which would weaken German military and aerial power, leading to a return to the continent in 1944, when German strength in the air and on the ground would be more manageable. They had invested heavily, in prestige as well as military resources, in the Mediterranean, where their position in the first half of 1942 was parlous; a successful campaign in that region would restore British morale, prestige, control – and her economic and diplomatic position in the post-war Middle East and Balkans. Almost every British minister and service chief supported the idea of an early Mediterranean expedition, Cunningham included [21, 25]. It was President Franklin Roosevelt, interested in securing control of Morocco to aid the Battle of the Atlantic and realising that the British were unalterably opposed to a landing in France in 1942, who tipped the strategic balance in favour of ‘Torch’ in July 1942.

At the beginning of the 1930s the Mediterranean Fleet, Great Britain's premier naval force, was still operating in the atmosphere of what would soon seem to have been the halcyon days of the 1920s. The fleet in many of its training and exercises seemed to be preparing for a repetition of Jutland with squadrons of heavy warships and massed destroyer flotillas engaged against their enemy counterparts. At the same time, the Navy was endeavouring to integrate new weapons, notably aircraft, into its battle practices. It was, however, a period of world depression and the financial stringency was felt in the fleet, particularly in deferred spending on the defences of the bases of Malta and Gibraltar. It would be difficult to remedy these deficiencies. The world situation was also changing. In 1931 the Japanese, a former ally, embarked on aggressive expansion and in subsequent years became an apparent threat to the British position in the Far East. In the event of war with Japan, the Mediterranean Fleet was designated to move to the Far East. In 1932 the ‘Ten Year Rule’ – that Britain would not face a major war within ten years – was abandoned. In 1933 Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany and began policies that would lead to war in less than a decade. The technological progress of aviation also cast a growing uncertainty over traditional naval operations: how well were warships equipped to meet the new threat?

The first major crisis came in 1935 with the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, a member of the League of Nations. There was a very real possibility the Mediterranean Fleet would be engaged in hostilities against the Italians in support of League policies. The lasting effect of the crisis was that Italy went from being a traditional friend to a potential enemy. This had enormous consequences for the Mediterranean Fleet because of Italy's central position in the Mediterranean. The principal base of the Mediterranean Fleet at Malta was now in easy striking distance of the Italian air force. While the exact effectiveness of air power was still uncertain, and possibly underestimated, the potential danger to a fleet caught at anchor in harbour was apparent and the Mediterranean Fleet for the duration of the crisis shifted its major base far eastward to Alexandria.

It can be argued that the ‘great days’ of naval warfare, encounters between battle fleets, in the Mediterranean were over for good when our story opens in October 1943; it saw the close of two centuries of major warship engagements, culminating in Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's command of the Mediterranean Fleet between June 1939 and March 1942, with its high peaks of Taranto (November 1940) and Matapan (March 1941). His leadership of a battle fleet from Alexandria against the size-able and balanced Italian fleet was paralleled by the command of Force H from Gibraltar by his friend and contemporary Admiral Sir James Somer-ville (June 1940 to February 1942). In our period the only capital ships in the middle sea were superannuated dreadnoughts of British, American and French navies (used solely for bombardment of shore targets), for the Italian fleet was, in the words of Cunningham's famous signal, ‘under the guns of the fortress of Malta’; it was defeated, much of it was disarmed and reduced to a care-and-maintenance basis, and a handful of its light forces supplemented those of the Allies in the continuing fight against the Germans. It was, though, a diplomatic football, as President Franklin Roosevelt, eager to establish good relations with the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, ahead of post-war diplomatic arrangements, had promised rashly to hand over one-third of the Italian fleet to the Soviet navy. He appears to have done this without adequate consultation with Prime Minister Churchill or the Combined Chiefs of Staff; much time and effort was spent trying to row back from this over-hasty commitment [187, 190–91, 194, 201]. In the event, the Soviets were fobbed off with obsolete British and American vessels, pending the end of hostilities worldwide; the Russians received Italian vessels after 1945. Roosevelt's cavalier offer did not take into account Italian pique at the proposed transfer without their consent, the current co-operation of the Italian Navy, the use of its light forces and its dockyards and its mercantile marine, nor the unsuitability of vessels designed for the Mediterranean for service in the Soviet Arctic.

The modern battleships and aircraft carriers may have departed many months before this story opens and there may have been no actions between surface ships in the last eighteen months of the Mediterranean war but it is not to say that the naval contribution to the fighting was not considerable.

The date of this document is after the agreement mentioned between General Maitland and Toussaint, which was concluded in 1798. (It is filed at the National Maritime Museum in the Duckworth documents of 1794.) It appears to be a bureaucratic discussion paper concerning the trading conditions between Britain and Jamaica on one side, St Domingo as an independent state on the second, and the United States on the third. The date must therefore be between 1798 and 1802, when the French expedition arrived to attempt to reconquer the former colony. It was a problem which Duckworth as commander-in-chief had to cope with when he first arrived at Jamaica, and for several years afterwards, and this must explain its presence in his documents.

[DUC/2]

[Undated]

The intercourse at present permitted to American vessels with the British colonies in the West Indies is not under the sanction of any law passed for that purpose, but under the authority of the King in Council, and an Act of Parliament passed annually to indemnify all those officers of the Crown who are acting under the same.

The trade permitted to American vessels with the British colonies is to import to them articles the growth or produce of America only, not being manufactures, and to export from the said colonies the produce of them only, excepting dyewoods, mahogany and cotton, which being articles essential to the British manufacturies, are restricted from being sent elsewhere.

Considering America, with relation to St Domingo and the trade about to be opened, between that country, Great Britain and Jamaica, in which America is to partake, the strongest reasons present themselves for America becoming shortly professed thereof, nearly to the exclusion of Great Britain and her colonies.

American vessels navigate at about one half less expense than Brit-ish vessels, and as no restriction can be lain upon their vessels, as to the articles to be by them imported into St Domingo, they will carry the different manufactures of German linen obtained at Hamburgh, (which are more acceptable to the French than goods of British manufacture). These they will carry to St Domingo upon such terms as to undersell the British merchants, importing these articles even direct from Great Britain, and to the exclusion of the English manufactures in a certain degree.

Most histories of the Royal Navy, those of the Navy Records Society included, concentrate on the service's wartime activities. This volume does not. Rather, it is centred upon a man who never participated in combat operations during his sixty-year naval career. For an officer during the period 1650–1815, or 1900–1945, this would have been an extraordinary achievement. For Alexander Milne and his contemporaries too young to have served during the Napoleonic Wars, it was the rule, rather than the exception.

In turn, Milne's service career serves as a microcosm for the Navy during the years 1815–1900, often dubbed the Pax Britannica by diplomatic historians. This period witnessed the wholesale transformation of the Navy's materiel, and of many other facets, personnel and administration among them. Those portions of its history have received substantial historical scrutiny, especially in recent years. What the Navy did with its ships and men, however, has attracted much less attention. This volume seeks to address that lacuna.

During the wars of the long eighteenth century, the British government used naval power in ways that repeatedly antagonised not only enemies but neutral states as well. The ‘Rule of 1756’, which prohibited wartime transport of goods to destinations by parties barred from doing so in peacetime, and Britain's unilateral policy regarding visit and search of neutral vessels on the high seas had been major factors in the formation of leagues of armed neutrality in 1780–81 and 1800–1801, and, along with impressment, were among the casus belli of the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. When the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, the Royal Navy was as large as the rest of the world's navies combined and, had it chosen, Britain could have continued to use its power in similarly highhanded fashion. It did not, although the initial omens were hardly encouraging.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as in previous conflicts, British naval power had been employed in combined operations to seize enemy possessions overseas. At the Congress of Vienna the British delegation unilaterally barred any discussion of restitution. Were colonies to be returned to their former rulers, the British alone would make the decision. And, given the Royal Navy's hegemonic position, there was nothing any other European power could do about this fait accompli other than impotently to resent it.

Vice-Admiral Sir Dudley North (1881–1961) was appointed Flag Officer Commanding North Atlantic Station, based on Gibraltar, on 1 November 1939, and had his appointment extended in May 1940, being promoted to full Admiral. On 15 October 1940 (though the changeover was delayed until 14 December), the Admiralty relieved him early, alleging that he had permitted the free passage of a French squadron through the Strait of Gibraltar on 11 September 1940; as a consequence the Board had lost confidence in him, accusing him of not performing his duty and of failing to show a sense of initiative. He retired on 25 December 1941. North rejected the reasons advanced by the Admiralty for his early relief and requested a Court Martial or a Court of Enquiry on several occasions; he spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name, being supported by most of the living Admirals of the Fleet and several other senior officers. Through his efforts and theirs he achieved partial absolution from the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, in 1957. After leaving Gibraltar and later the Royal Navy, North served humbly in the Home Guard before being recalled in 1943, as a retired officer, as Flag Officer Yarmouth. In 1946 King George VI re-appointed him Admiral of the Royal Yachts, a post he had held between 1936 and 1939.

The immediate cause of North's early relief was the unmolested passage of three French cruisers and three large destroyers from Toulon to Dakar via the Strait of Gibraltar on 11 September 1940. North had incurred already the wrath of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, the First Lord (A. V. Alexander) and the First Sea Lord (Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound) for his critical views – expressed after the event – on the attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940 by Force H, commanded by his great friend Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville and also based on Gibraltar [1, 2]. He was reprimanded by the Board of Admiralty for protesting officially about a decision already taken but Pound resisted calls for his replacement from Churchill and Alexander, feeling that there were insufficient grounds for his relief and that he deserved a second chance [3, 8, 9]. Though he did not realise it, North therefore remained in post throughout the summer of 1940 pending another error of judgement.

271. Milne to the Secretary of the Admiralty

[ADM1/5759]

Nile at Halifax

8 July 1861

[received 25 July]

No. 287

Sir,

I deem it advisable to forward to their Lordships the enclosed letters1 from Messrs Esson, Boak and Co. of this City dated the 29th Ulto. and 2nd Instant relative to their Schooner the Tartar being boarded by the United States Steamer (of War) Union and her registry endorsed [with a warning not to enter any U.S. port south of Chesapeake Bay], as I conceive a record of the manner in which the United States Cruizers are exercising their belligerent right of visit and search may be useful for reference at some future date.

2. – But it is I conceive of even still greater importance at the present moment that the attention of Her Majesty's Government should be drawn to the comprehensive terms in which the notice of Blockade is couched, as the warning ‘not to attempt to enter any Port of the United States South of Chesapeake Bay, said Ports being under Blockade’ obviously embraces the whole of the Ports between that Bay and the Mexican Frontier and should it prove that any of these Ports are not effectively blockaded, which I more than suspect must be the case, it may become a question how far Neutral Commerce will have suffered prejudice from this departure from the Law of Blockade … to the effect ‘that the notice of the Blockade must not be more extensive than the Blockade itself[’].

3. – I shall forward a copy of this despatch to Lord Lyons.

272. Hickley to Milne

[ADM1/5759]

H.M.S. Gladiator

at New York, 8 July 1861

Sir,

I have the honor to inform you that having left New York on the afternoon of the 21st of June, I proceeded under sail and arrived within 30 miles north of Cape Hatteras on the 28th …

Proceeding round Cape Hatteras I came to in the evening off the Shoals … and weighing on the morning of the 29th, I sighted Ocracoke Inlet, when at the entrance I observed a small Steamer, with the Secession Flag up, which on our approach steamed under the protection of a small Fort on the right Bank, both Vessel and Fort firing blank cartridge.

In October 1907, Captain Dumas began to hear rumours that yet another change (i.e. increase) was contemplated in the German naval law [40]. The prospect of a further expansion of the German fleet a mere two years after the previous amendment to the naval law was a worrying development and reporting the rumours and then the reality of this proposal took up much of the naval attaché's attention in the last year of his posting in Berlin [42, 43, 44, 46, 52]. The fact that back in Britain the Committee of Imperial Defence was once again investigating the possibility of an invasion of the British Isles also impacted on Dumas's work and he touched upon the question of a German invasion in several of his reports [47, 48, 53, 55]. Not surprisingly, the position he adopted was the same as the Admiralty’s, namely that no major landing in the British Isles could be planned and executed in secret. However, his most significant and wide-ranging memoranda from this period were the two substantive overviews he conducted of Anglo-German naval relations. The first of these was his report on the German navy for 1907 [48]; the second was his summary of affairs produced on giving up his post [57]. Both were remarkable documents. They stressed the intensity of anglophobia in German and warned that, although there was no immediate danger of a conflict, the German desire to challenge the Royal Navy's maritime supremacy and thereby to supplant Britain's place in the world heralded a future conflagration. Intended as both warnings and as a spur to decisive counter-measures, they proved prescient analyses of affairs.

40. Philip Dumas, Germany N.A. Report 53/07

Berlin, 3 October 1907

The Rumoured New Navy Bill to be Introduced in the Next Reichstag

I have the honour to call your attention to the frequent statements in the German newspapers of late as to the introduction, during the forthcoming session of the Reichstag, of either a new Navy Bill or of an amendment to the existing one.

I may say here that while calling at the Admiralty a short time ago I asked if anything of the sort was projected and was told by my usual informant, one of Admiral von Tirpitz’ Naval secretaries, that he personally knew nothing about it.