THE NAVY IN EUROPEAN CRISES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3400, 14 May 1919, Page 59

THE NAVY IN EUROPEAN CRISES.

BRITAIN'S PROUD RECORD

The part played by sea-power in the ■world's history has received singularly little recognition at the hands of most historians of the past. The pomp and pageantry of land warfare has filled their eyes with a blaze of glory in which the army has been magnified. The navy, working on steadily in isolation, with little of dramatic episode to attract attention, has again and again been overlooked, and its real influence in historic crises but scantily recognised. In the struggle in early European history between the Greeks and the Persians, the famous battle of Marathon, though the Greeks won a splendid victory, was not, as often represented, decisive. The Persian navy was undefeated, and strong to invade and harass Greek shores again. The later sea fight at Salamis, on the other hand, was decisive, securing not only the independence of the Greeks from their powerful enemy, and supremacy of the sea for Athens, but deciding also the fate of European civilisation in one of the historic contests between West and East. In the interval betweeen Marathon and Salamis the Greek leader, Themistocles, had realised that command of the sea was the determining factor in any struggle for world-power, and that Greece must stand or fall on the sea. Salamis confirmed his conviction, especially following as it did close upon the splendid but futile stand of the Greeks in the Pass of "Thermopylas, overcoming which Xerxes host marched on to storm, burn, and outrage Athens itself. Everywhere on land his armies had triumphed, yet the defeat at Salamis spread panic in land as in sea forces, and both, were soon beating a hasty and inglorious retreat to the Hellespont. _ A remnant of the Persian army, that' Asiatic force which for long had been the scourge of the then known world, was, it is true, left in occupation of part of the Greek territories, but it was defeated at Platcea in 479 B.C. by a smaller force, and the Persian hordes finally expelled from Europe. The lesson of Salamis has been illustrated over and over again in later his-: tory, the role of the Athenic navy being played by that of Britain, and now to the names of Philip 11, Louis XIV, and Napoleon must be added that of William of Hohenzollern. The Overthrow of Spain.—

It was in 1588 that, by deposing Spain from her proud position of Mistress of the Seas, England saved Europe from despotism, while laying the foundations of the future British Empire. Spain at that time was the mightiest of European Powers. Columbus had given her the New- World, and its vast treasures were being poured into her lap, gold and silvei jewels untold. Portugal, with its great navy, and its colonies in Indian and Pacific Seas, the best parts of Italy, the flourishing Low Countries, Flanders and its great manufactures, with Antwerp the central mart of world commerce —all these came under the sovereignty of Phillip II of Spain. But his ambitions ranged further yet, over Europe, and far eastward, and to England, under its Protestant Queen. Drake and the other great seamen of the time urged Elizabeth not to wait for his coming, but, taking to heart the lessons of history, to go out to meet and check him, to " seek God's enemies and your Majesty's where they may be found." But the seadogs of England were held in leash, though Drake himself carried out daring victorious raids in the West Indies and along the coasts of Spain and Portugal—"singeing the Spanish King's beard," he humorously called it. So the great, the " Invincible," Armada of Spain sailed out in all its pride, and with something of scorn, to punish and destroy the English fleet, the smaller, lighter vessels of which Spanish commanders called contemptuously the "Beggars of the Sea." But Philip discovered that man-power and high moral and fine seamanship may make uu for relative weakness in the details of a navy, and that Drake and Hawkins, Howard and Frobisher, and the rest of them had not challenged his supremacy without knowing what they were doing. So the Grand Fleet of Spain that set out to conquer England as another step towards world-conquest came instead to disaster and humiliation. The Great Louis.—

A century later Louis XIV of France had taken the place of Philip of Spain, and anticipated Napoleon as a possible dictator of if not of the ••world. France had become'the dominant and the richest Power. But Louis came up against British sea-power, supplemented in this case by that of Plolland, and went down before it in the battle of La Hogue, 1692. This engagement, while having no claim to rank as a great naval feat, destroyed the possibility of that sea supremacy without which the ambitious plans of Louis could not be carried out. Not long before his fleet had threatened invasion, defeating a smaller British and Dutch force off Beachy Head, and had landed an army in Ireland to fight for James II and Catholicism against the Protestant champion, William 111. But his command of the sea was short-lived. La Hogue not only saved these shores from invasion and established Britain finally as mistress of the seas, but broke the spell of French triumphs and marked the first step in the downfall of Louis XIV. The First Consul.— After a lapse of a century Napoleon, emerging triumphantly after surmounting many difficulties and dangers, as First Consul of France, climbed to the throne as Emperor. The sea supremacy of Britain was a great block in his onward v/ay, waiting, watching, battling incessantly against him; never sleeping, isolat-

ing him from countries overseas, checking his moves, exercising tireless pressure upon him through all the years of his great and victorious campaigns. Strengthen' his own fleet as he might by alliance with those of Spain or Holland, still Britain remained mistress of the seas. Whether in the famous fight of the Ist of June in 1794 or those of Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown in 1797, or other lesser engagements, victory lay with her. When he tried to establish his power in Egypt as a base for the conquest of India and destruction of British authority and standing in the East, Nelson won his great victory of the Nile, cutting _ c •Napoleon's great army from communication with Europe, and destroying his chance of conquest in the Orient. When applying the lesson of history, he determined to attack British Power at its base, using the whole French navy, together with a fleet of flat-bottomed boats for the transport of his army, -for a great invasion of England, our navy was ready. ' Let us be masters oi the Channel for six hours," he said, " and we are masters of the world," and Nelson replied by the glorious victory of Trafalgar in 1305. History has repeated itself again in our own time, for, after another interval of 100 years, the British navy has once more interposed between Europe and a tyrant, and set a bound to his ambitious schemes. The Fourth Challenge.—

Amid the clash of mighty land-battles, the ex-Kaiser, joining hands with his allies, and dreaming his dream of a Germanised Europe spreading into Asia, and reaching finally to the uttermost parts of the earth, felt under all the curbing, strangling pressure of British sea-power. Holding up his High Seas Fleet in home waters, chasing and defeating the submarines that were going to defeat the world, convoying vast armies and stores across seas and oceans, feeding Britons at home and on far-flung battle-fronts, carrying and " convoying " necessaries of life to Allies and neutrals and refugees from lands devastated by German hordes, the British fleet, including gallant merchantmen and brave little trawlers, made possible all other operations contributing to the triumph of right and justice, the downfall of military despotism. Then came the final pageant-in the Firth of Forth, when for the first time a great and notable fleet came out from its home waters at a word, and surrendered without firing a single shot. That was the supreme, unforgettable moment in the triumph of British sea-power—a triumph unparalleled in history.—'Glasgow Herald.