Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 2318, 4 August 1898, Page 52

NAVAL BATTLES WON BY FLUKES

Tn warfare, and in latter-day naval warfare more c-pecially. it is emphatically the unexpected which has a peculiar knack of happening. Many an important naval engagement has been decided by a fluke in days gone by. The same thing may happen again. Take, for instance, the ca.-e of the only reslly important sea fight that marked the progress of the late war between China and Japan. It was fought for the possession of a place which has since become curiously familiar to English-speaking people— Wei - Hai-Woi, to wit. And it resulted, as everybody knows, in the complete destruction of the Chinese fleet and the surrender of the fortress, followed subsequently by the suicide of Admiral Ting 3 i Chang and several of his principal officers. Yet all this was brought about not so much by the valour of the Japanese as by a stroke of good luck which all unexpectedly befell one of their torpedo boats. Prowling about just inside the harbour, she suddenly found herself close under a big black mass, which she took for a provision store-ship. She promptly blew her up and went her way. Next morning it was discovered that the supposed sfore-bhip was none other than the Ting-yuen, the only real fighting phip in the Chinese fleet. And the best of it was that the unfortunate vessel ought by ,vight to ha\e been a mile away, on the other side of the bay, where she would have been ab solutely safe. It appeared 'afterwards that

SHE HAD DRAGGED HEX

ANCHORS

Similarly, in the naval battle fought between the Chilians and the Peruvians at Iquiquo, on May 21, 1879, it was the fact of the Independencia accidentally running herself ashore while chasing the Covadonga which decided the conflict in favour of the Chilians.

-Again, it is extremely doubtful whether the Battle of the Nile would have ' -ou won by us had not a chance shot set fi -* >o the Orient, the flagship of Admiral Biuoys, and the biggest and most powerful vessel in the French navy. With her there went to the bottom of the sea more than a thousaud sailors, France's bravest and best; vast quantities of naval and military stores ; more than 120 pieces of ordnance ; treasure to the value of nearly £750,000, the plunder of the cathedrals and churches of Malta ; and last, but not least, the unhappy admiral's heroic little son, Casa Bianca, afterwards immortalised by Mrs Hemans. The destruction of the "invincible" armada was, if the plain truth be told, due quite as much to chance as to the prowess of Drake and the valour of Effingham. The elements fought on our side, and the clumsy Spanish sea castles were driven by stiess of weather clean through the Straits of Dover and out into the North Sea.

THEY > T EVER CAME BACK the way they went, as every schoolboy knows. Some 53 battered hulks did eventually reach Spain, but they had to sail right round Scotland and Ireland. Eighty odd of their largest vessels, with 14,000 men, were lost. What would have happened, however, had the wind been blowing from the northeast instead of from the south-west it were better, perhaps, not to inquire too clo,-oly. Everybody has heard of the bombardment of Algiers. It was one of the few acts _of war concerning the justifiability of which there could be no two opinions. Yet, although right and might were both apparently on our side, the outcome of the fight might have been very different from what it was but for an unforeseen and entirely unlookedfor contingency. This was the stranding, near the North Battery, of a frigate containing 140 barrels of gunpowder, the whole of the fleet's reserve of that important munition of war.

Lord Exmouth, peeing that the vessel was hopelessly aground, and being nalurilly desirous thofc her contents should not fall into the po^c-Mon of the Dey, ordered her *o be set fire to. The resultant cxplo^on was even more dreadful than the modt sanguine among the bcriegers had hoped for. .A tore than 2000 of the pirates were hurled into eternity, and the whole of the defences on that side of the city wrro i educed, in the twinkling of an eye, to heap* of crumbling ruins. Half an hour later the Dey struck his flag. The list, might be extended indefinitely. The blowing up, with her entire crew, of the Turkibh monitor Liifti-Diehl, in the Danube River, on May 11, 1377. did more at the begin ning of the conflict, to turn tho tide ox war in favour of the "Russians than any other single event. The Turkish gunboats simply dared not, after that

AWFUL WARNING, patrol the <drr>am : and the "Russian rommnn-dor-m-chief vwib subsequently enabled to pour his armies, without lot or hindrance, into Turkish territory. Yet the shell which, by exploding in Ike monitor's magazine, did the damage was fired, not at her, but at the fortress of Ibraila on the other side of the river. The blood f battle off Toulon, on February 11, 1743, when we came into collision with the combined fleets of France and Spain, and got soundly thrashed for our pains, was losl

to us, not so much on account of the superior seamanship or fighting capacities of our opponents, as because a deplorable misunderstanding arose between tho two British admirals. This disaster was, howcv.cr, fully retrieved three 33 f eas later, when, noar Cape Finisterre, Anson defeated and captured a French fleet of 38 sail. It was a smart piece of work : but to this very day French his torians claim that our success was duo to a blunder in signalling on the pait of the French commander, by which a wiong formation was taken v,p by their ship*!. In other words, our -.ie'.ory was duo to a lluke.