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Knowledge Based Marketing The 21st Century
Competitive Edge 1st Edition Ian Chaston Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Ian Chaston
ISBN(s): 9781412931632, 1412931630
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.27 MB
Year: 2004
Language: english
Chaston-prelims.qxd 3/4/04 9:07 AM Page i

Knowledge-based Marketing
Chaston-prelims.qxd 3/4/04 9:07 AM Page ii
Chaston-prelims.qxd 3/4/04 9:07 AM Page iii

Ian Chaston Knowledge-based Marketing

The Twenty-First Century Competitive Edge

SAGE Publications
London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi
Chaston-prelims.qxd 3/4/04 9:07 AM Page iv

© Ian Chaston 2004

First published 2004

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or

private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced,
stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior
permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic
reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the
Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside
those terms should be sent to the publishers.

SAGE Publications Ltd

1 Oliver’s Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP

SAGE Publications Inc.

2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320

SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd

B-42, Panchsheel Enclave
Post Box 4109
New Delhi 100 017

British Library Cataloguing in Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 4129 0002 6

ISBN 0 4129 0003 4 (pbk)

Library of Congress Control Number available

Typeset by C&M Digitals (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Ltd, Trowbridge
Chaston-prelims.qxd 3/4/04 9:07 AM Page v

Contents

List of Figures and Tables vi

List of Abbreviations viii

Preface x

1 Knowledge and the Organisation 1

2 Marketing and the Application of Knowledge 22

3 The Advent of E-commerce 42

4 Mapping Knowledge Systems 63

5 Internal Competence 85

6 Knowledge-based Positioning 108

7 Constructing Knowledge Plans 127

8 Product Knowledge and Innovation 150

9 Knowledge Provision Through Promotion 176

10 Pricing and Distribution 196

11 Managing Services and Customer Relationships 217

12 Process Implementation 235

References 254

Index 268

v
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List of Figures and Tables

Figures

1.1 Alternative Learning Styles 5

1.2 Entrepreneurial Knowledge Management System 13
1.3 A Hub Knowledge Network Structure 17
1.4 A Cascade Knowledge Network 18
1.5 Process Model for Formation of a New Multi-firm Knowledge Network 19

2.1 The Use of Knowledge to Support Mass Marketing 24

3.1 An E-Commerce Alternative Orientation Matrix 52

4.1 A Core System 66

4.2 A Terrestrial System for the Consumer Market for Cars 67

5.1 A Knowledge Access Model for Supporting Business Growth 89

5.2 An Example MIS Model 100

6.1 An Expanded Strategic Options Matrix 110

6.2 Alternative Strategies for Knowledge-based Business Networking 125

7.1 The Knowledge Planning Process 130

7.2 Knowledge Management Resource Planning Matrix 133
7.3 Application of Planning Matrix to Lukes’ Garage and Engineering
Services Ltd Case 137
7.4 A Knowledge Chain Model for Supporting Added Value Generation 139

8.1 A Knowledge Enhancement Option Matrix 151

8.2 A Modified Version of the BCG Matrix 154
8.3 Product Knowledge Management Matrix 156
8.4 A Traditional Linear New Product Process Management Model 160
8.5 Influence of Knowledge Competence on the New Product Process 161

vi
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List of Figures and Tables

9.1 A Buyer Behaviour Model 177

10.1 Price–Value Relationships 197

10.2 Price–Value Option Matrix 199

Tables

5.1 Source Evidence Concerning the Characteristics Exhibited by Firms which

Achieve Market Success 88
5.2 Comparative Financial Performance 91
5.3 A Knowledge Utilisation Audit Tool 101
5.4 Contrasting Marketing Philosophies 106
7.1 Issue Coverage in a Knowledge Management Marketing Plan 142
9.1 Marketing Mix and the E-product Life Cycle 183
11.1 Factors Influencing the Service Style Decision 232

vii
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List of Abbreviations

4Ps product, price, promotion and place

AI artificial intelligence
API applications programme interface
BCG Boston Consulting Group
B2B business-to-business
CAD computer-aided design
CAM computer-aided manufacturing
CGI common gateway interface
CRM customer relationship management
DOS dual-objective segmentation
EDI electronic data interchange
EOQ economic order quantity
ERP enterprise resource planning
fmcg fast moving consumer goods
FTP file transfer protocol
GNP gross national product
HRM human resource management
HTML hypertext markup language
HTTP hypertext transfer protocol
IP internet protocol
ISP internet service provider
IT information technology
JIT just in time
LAN local area network
MBO management by objectives
ODBC open database connectivity
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OEM original equipment manufacturers
OLAP on-line analytical processing
PC personal computer
PDC parts distribution centre

viii
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List of Abbreviations

PLC product life cycle

R&D research and development
ROI return on investment
SDMI Secure Digital Music Initiative
SME small and medium size enterprise
SPSS statistical programming for social sciences
SQL structured query language
SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
TCP transmission control protocol
TQM total quality management
URL uniform resource locator
VAP value added partnership
VAR value added reseller
VAT value added tax
VEL value equivalence line
WAN wide area network

ix
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Preface

Traditionally the value of a company’s share capital has been based largely
upon the net worth of the balance sheet. In recent years the gap between
balance sheet and stock market values has widened dramatically. One
reason for explaining this difference is that in some cases this represents
investors’ perceptions of the knowledge and skills that reside within the
organisation.
In recent years governments around the world are beginning to under-
stand that knowledge is a critical contributor to stimulating the rapid
growth of entire economies. It is argued that in a modern economy, knowledge
is the most important resource within companies based within any coun-
try. Some academics have even gone as far as proposing that knowledge is
now more important than labour, capital or land. This latter assumption is
posited on the basis that knowledge is the primary resource that permits
organisations to achieve uniqueness within the market place.
Knowledge is frequently an intangible product, tacitly stored in the
minds of managers and employees. The advent of the internet and auto-
mated e-business systems has provided an important catalyst for firms
wishing to exploit the benefits of using knowledge to support their elec-
tronic trading activities. In order for these organisations to implement an
effective on-line, knowledge-based strategy they have been forced to
ensure all organisational data are converted into an explicit form capable
of real-time access for utilisation in the provision of goods and services to
their cyberspace customers.
The vast majority of texts on knowledge management tend to focus on
the information technology (IT) aspects of managing the concept. Although
management of technology is critical, there is an equally important need
for the provision of materials describing how knowledge can be utilised in
the execution of functional management tasks. In view of this situation, the
goal of this text is to assist students and practising managers to comprehend
how knowledge can be utilised to underpin and enhance the marketing
management function within organisations. The concept is presented by
drawing upon various published sources and through the use of case
materials to illustrate knowledge management in practice.

x
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Preface

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the concept of knowledge and the

management of process, and suggests appropriate internal organisational
structures for optimising the storage, accessing and exploitation of know-
ledge. Chapter 2 reviews the evolving pathway of marketing from origins
within mass marketing through to more recent theories about mass cus-
tomisation. The increasingly important role of knowledge in supporting
modern marketing practices is discussed. Chapter 3 examines how e-business
is radically altering the execution of the marketing task. The issue of know-
ledge management and the use of appropriate cyberspace platforms are
reviewed.
Chapter 4 examines how firms can map the external environment in
order to determine how different knowledge sources can impact organisa-
tion performance. Chapter 5 reviews the strategic, financial and functional
level organisational competencies that determine performance. Knowledge
management is presented as having a critical role in the effective develop-
ment and exploitation of organisational competence. Chapter 6 examines
alternative marketing positions available to the firm. The role of knowledge
supporting alternative positioning options is covered and the role of networks
creating market positions is also discussed.
Chapter 7 reviews alternative planning philosophies in the context of
their use of knowledge. The influence of knowledge on the resource-based
view of the firm is examined and examples are provided of how a marketing
plan can incorporate the exploitation of knowledge. Chapter 8 is concerned
with how knowledge can support existing and new product innovation.
Product portfolio management and processes for optimising innovation
practices are reviewed. Coverage is also provided on the subject of manag-
ing knowledge in the context of complex innovation practices. Chapter 9
examines how knowledge can be utilised in the effective execution of a
firm’s promotional strategy.
Chapter 10 reviews alternative options associated with exploiting
knowledge to optimise pricing and distribution decisions. Chapter 11
examines the increasingly important role that knowledge management
plays in the execution of service sector marketing strategies. Chapter 12
covers the recognised problems associated with the provision of leader-
ship, employee development and process structures to accelerate the use
of knowledge within the marketing process.

xi
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Knowledge and the Organisation

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Knowledge is the new asset that impacts the market value of companies. In
terms of storage, knowledge can be held by an individual or through formal
systems distributed across the entire organisation. Acquisition and exploitation of
knowledge involves organisations being prepared to learn. Organisational learn-
ing can provide the basis for new forms of competitive advantage. Management
of knowledge has been made much easier through the advent of IT systems and
more recently by the arrival of web-based technologies such as extranets and
intranets. For effective exploitation knowledge must be acquired, codified, stored
and re-accessed. To achieve this process organisations have developed knowledge
systems and knowledge platforms. Additional knowledge exploitation can occur
through the creation of information exchange links with other organisations in a
supply chain or market system.

INTRODUCTION

Traditionally the value of a company’s share capital has been based largely
upon the net worth of the balance sheet. Any difference between net
assets and market capitalisation represents the perceived market value of
non-tangible assets such as patents, brand names and quality of manage-
ment. In recent years the gap between balance sheet and stock market values
has widened dramatically. One reason for explaining this difference is that
this represents investors’ perceptions of the knowledge and skills that
reside within the organisation (Herbert 2000).
In relation to knowledge it is necessary to recognise there are two
component contributors, namely:

1 Data or information, which are the facts describing events that occur
both within an organisation and between the organisation and the market

1
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Knowledge-based Marketing

environment of which it is a part. Such information has value and in

some cases (for example, credit reference agencies such as Dun &
Bradstreet) forms the basis of a product which can be sold to customers.
2 Knowledge, which resides within the organisation, either located in the
minds of the employees or codified and stored in an organisational
repository such as a company policy manual. These sources of knowledge
can be considered as the application of information to permit under-
standing that can lead to the execution of tasks such as the resolution
of problems or employees fulfilling their assigned job roles.

Information can be considered as a component part, but not the whole, of

knowledge (Gore and Gore 1999). It can be proposed, for example, that
knowledge is an all-encompassing term that incorporates the concept of
employee beliefs and attitudes which are themselves based upon available
information. Knowledge, in addition to incorporating information, is also
dependent upon the commitment and understanding of the individuals
holding such beliefs. Furthermore as beliefs are affected by interaction
between people within the organisation, this activity can influence the
development of judgement, behaviours and attitudes. Consequently know-
ledge will usually be associated with a perspective which in turn will influ-
ence actions and is usually context-specific.
When considering the issue of knowledge it is necessary to delineate
between the knowledge held by an individual and that held by an entire
organisation. Polanyi (1996) posits that organisational knowledge is com-
prised of corporate knowledge and the shared understandings of employees.
Organisations can be expected to evolve and change as knowledge moves
from the domain of individuals and becomes an understanding shared by
others. The sharing process is a social interaction that has the potential to
enhance the future performance of the organisation. The knowledge which
is contained within the organisation has been described as covering
(a) ‘know what’, (b) ‘know how’, (c) ‘know why’ and (d) ‘care why’ (Quinn
et al. 1996).
Possibly one of the significant contributions to the identification of the
importance of knowledge was that made by Toffler (1990). He proposed that
knowledge is a critical contributor to stimulating the rapid growth of entire
economies. At an organisational level in a modern economy knowledge is the
most important resource within the company. It is now more important than
labour, capital or land, and it is knowledge which is the primary resource
that permits an organisation to achieve uniqueness within the market place.

KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING

Following recognition that the exploitation of knowledge can provide

added value to a business operation, not surprisingly over recent years
increasing attention has been focused on how organisations can effectively

2
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Knowledge and the Organisation

exploit the information that has been acquired over time. One of the
conceptual themes which has emerged in relation to exploiting information
is organisational learning (www.learning.mit.edu).
Learning how to build stronger relationships with customers has for some
time been recommended as a way of ensuring the survival of firms in the face
of turbulent and/or highly competitive market conditions (Webster 1992).
In commenting upon this scenario, De Guess (1988) has suggested that in
situations where products and processes can be rapidly copied, the only real
source of competitive advantage is to stimulate learning by employees. This
will assist these individuals to identify innovative ways of working, which in
turn permits the organisation to differentiate itself from the competition.
Bell (1973) proposed that the information and knowledge acquired by
employees is now more important than the more traditional orientation of
assuming the technology contained within the firm’s capital assets can pro-
vide the basis for delivering product superiority over the competition.
Similar views have been expressed by Slater and Narver (1995), who con-
cluded that one of the most effective ways of acquiring competitive advan-
tage is to exploit the skills learned by employees as a route through which
to offer superior value and build closer relationships with customers. This
perception is echoed by Woodruff (1977), who recommended that firms
should focus on acquiring new learning because this activity is central to
being able to deliver greater customer value.
The origins and theoretical foundations of organisational learning can
be traced back to the work of academics such as Cyert and March (1963),
Argyris and Schon (1978) and Senge (1990). Over the last few years the
literature on this topic has grown very rapidly, attracting interest from a
diverse variety of academic perspectives. Easterby-Smith (1997), in his
review of the theoretical roots from which the subject has evolved, suggests
contributions have been made from:

1 Psychology/organisational development, which focuses on the issues of

the hierarchical nature of learning – adjusting individual learning to suit
organisational learning needs – and recognition of the importance of
cognitive maps underlying the thinking process.
2 Management science, where the primary concern is with the creation,
utilisation and dissemination of information.
3 Strategic management, which is concerned with how the principles of
learning can lead to competitive advantage and how the capability of firms
to learn can permit new responses to changing market circumstances.
4 Production management, where the primary concern is with the use of
productivity as a measure of learning and the impact of organisational
design on the learning process.
5 Sociology, where the interest is directed towards the broader issues
of the nature of learning, the processes that underpin it and how
organisational realities such as power, politics and conflict impact on
process.

3
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Knowledge-based Marketing

6 Cultural anthropology, where the primary concern is the importance of

values and beliefs, especially as these relate to the cultural differences
which exist in different societies and the impact these may have on the
learning process.

Easterby-Smith also commented, however, that this diversity of sources

may have impeded the emergence of sufficiently robust paradigms, which
can be utilised to offer clear guidance to managers about how organisa-
tional learning can contribute towards enhancing performance. Within
the strategic management literature, authors such as Senge (1990) have
proposed that a clear relationship should exist between the learning
process and the acquisition of competitive advantage. Hamal and Prahalad
(1993) have expressed the view that merely being a learning organisation
is not sufficient. They perceive the learning process as an activity which
should be translated into the acquisition of new knowledge that can be
used to upgrade those areas of competence which permit the organisation
to be more effective than their competition. As noted by both Sinkula et al.
(1997) and Morgan et al. (1998), it would appear that there is also a need
to research whether a relationship exists between organisational learning
and the acquisition of competencies which influence the successful execu-
tion of the managerial functions within organisations. For example, as
noted by Slater and Narver (1995), in the case of the marketing function,
because it is positioned between the external environment and the internal
activities of the firm, it is possibly most able to exploit the benefits that can
accrue from organisational learning. Sinkula (1994) has posited that
although the conceptual reasoning for such an argument is very apparent,
research needs to be conducted in order to elaborate on whether an empiri-
cal relationship can be demonstrated between learning and organisational
competencies. This view has been echoed by Morgan et al. (1998) who
noted that very little empirical evidence exists in the literature about how
organisations seek to acquire new knowledge which can improve internal
capabilities, thereby providing the basis for evolving new forms of competi-
tive advantage.
Jaworski and Kohli (1993) concluded that the ability of a firm to respond
to identified changes in market or customer behaviour is an important
feature exhibited by successful firms. Similarly in the organisational learn-
ing literature, there have been comments about the importance of organ-
isations being able to respond to changing external environments by
exploiting new knowledge to evolve innovative work practices, perspec-
tives and frameworks. Such perspectives have been important catalysts,
which have influenced researchers interested in wishing to determine
whether an association exists between market performance, learning and
knowledge.
The common objective of such studies has been to examine how the
effective acquisition of knowledge can benefit organisations in terms of
being able to acquire and analyse information relevant to understanding

4
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Knowledge and the Organisation

Problem
Problem
Implement
new more
effective
solution Bring in
Develop and Draw upon Draw upon
new
implement past past
knowledge
solution experience experience

(a) Single-loop learning (b) Double-loop learning

FIGURE 1.1 ALTERNATIVE LEARNING STYLES

customer needs (e.g. Jaworski and Kohli 1966; Slater and Narver 1995;
Morgan et al. 1998). These authors have concluded that market orientated
organisations tend to exhibit the behavioural characteristic of seeking to
exploit new sources of knowledge. This approach, defined by Argyris and
Schon (1978) as double-loop learning and by Glyn (1996) as higher-level learn-
ing, permits organisations to be more versatile, flexible and adaptive. As
illustrated in Figure 1.1, this approach can be contrasted with a single-loop
learning or lower-level learning style, which occurs in those organisations
where virtually no new learning occurs because of a tendency by manage-
ment to rely upon utilising existing knowledge in the problem–solution
process.

Learning at St Paul Companies

As the St Paul Companies (www.stpaul.com) expanded into the global market for life
insurance, the company recognised that permitting people to access knowledge and
information was critical to success (Owens and Thompson 2001). To achieve this goal
the company has placed priority on using organisational learning to transfer best prac-
tices and lessons learned across the workforce. To support the initiative the company
has launched the St Paul University, which is constituted of 13 colleges that focus on
specific knowledge domains. All employees are required to complete at least 40 hours
of learning each year. To deliver learning an on-line gateway, the Edge, has been created
through which employees can complete on-line courses, search for learning and access
external learning opportunities.
The core of the St Paul learning strategy is the use of knowledge communities. These
communities are supported via the Knowledge Exchange, which is a web site offering
tools and processes to share expertise and resolve problems. Work group communities
usually include people from the same department. A virtual project team community
typically involves a cross-functional group working on a time-specific project. Where

5
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Knowledge-based Marketing

specialist knowledge needs sharing a centre of expertise is formed. This acts as a hub
that can be accessed by employees around the world. For example, the centre in London
serves as a hub for underwriters and was used by Australian staff to capture $15 million
in new business. Where staff need to share learning this is achieved by the formation of
a virtual classroom community. The content developed by a classroom community can
become a resource which other communities can then exploit. For example, a risk con-
trol manager in South Africa learned that a local hospital was having difficulty with a viral
infection. She was able to contact other healthcare risk managers worldwide and within
24 hours determined how to manage the infection. By helping an insured hospital con-
tain a disease, the company not only helped a healthcare provider but concurrently
reduced the company’s exposure to medical malpractice suits.

MANAGING KNOWLEDGE

By the 1990s, many firms realised that processing information using com-
puter technology was a valuable methodology through which to access
knowledge sources more rapidly. A key advantage of exploiting advances
in IT was that this offered a more effective means to capture, analyse and
distribute information. An accompanying disadvantage was that IT can
produce such a wealth of information that this can lead to ‘information
overload’. Hence as IT became the dominant communication channel for
many firms, there has been increasing pressure to identify mechanisms
through which to extract and exploit the knowledge contained within
organisations’ databases (Lahti and Beyerlein 2000).
Ikuiro Nonaka (1994), in commenting upon one of the factors influenc-
ing the successful emergence of Japanese firms as global players, proposed
that knowledge is one sure source of competitive advantage. He divided
knowledge into two types, tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is stored in the
minds of individuals and is usually shared with others through dialogue.
Explicit knowledge is more precisely formulated and articulated by being
documented in locations such databases or in company manuals. Zack
(1999) noted that explicit knowledge is playing an increasingly important
role in organisations and that in a knowledge-based economy it represents
the most important factor of production. He further proposed that the follow-
ing types of knowledge exist:

1 Declarative knowledge, which is a shared descriptive understanding of

concepts, categories and descriptors that form the basis of effective
communication and knowledge sharing within organisations.
2 Procedural knowledge, which describes how something occurs or is per-
formed. Shared knowledge of this type lays the foundation for effective
co-ordination of activities.
3 General knowledge, which is broad in nature and is shared between
different communities both inside and outside the organisation.

6
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Knowledge and the Organisation

4 Specific knowledge, which is applicable to particular organisations

describing issues such as defining customers, order processing and product
logistics.

To exploit explicit knowledge effectively requires that knowledge is

stored in a form which can be readily accessed by employees. Under these
circumstances knowledge will need to be labelled, indexed and stored in a
form which permits retrieval and manipulation. Prior to new knowledge
being added to a repository it must undergo cleansing, labelling, sorting,
abstracting, standardisation, integration and categorisation. In today’s firms
most data acquisition and storage in an appropriate form is undertaken
using automated IT systems. Under these circumstances it is critical that
managers in charge of knowledge storage recognise their responsibility to
ensure information is stored in a form which is readily accessible to all
employees across the entire organisation. Failure to fulfil this requirement
will merely render the knowledge system ineffective.
This latter outcome was demonstrated in a PhD project at Plymouth
Business School on the creation of a new IT system for South West pathology
laboratories in National Health Service hospitals. The system specification
was created without any discussions with the system users, the laboratory
staff, and upon installation, virtually no training was provided in system
usage. The outcome was that the system failed to deliver on the promise
of enhancing and upgrading execution of the clinical diagnosis tasks being
undertaken by the pathology laboratories.
A firm can classify knowledge processing into two types: integrative
and interactive (Zack 1999). Integrative applications exhibit a sequential
flow of data into and out of a data store. Information providers and users
interact with the stored system rather than with each other. Once such
example is the storage of product specifications by the company engineers.
These data are then accessed by sales staff seeking to deliver responses to
customer enquiries. To be effective such systems must be continually
updated and rigorous quality standards applied to ensure effective presen-
tation of the stored knowledge. To achieve this goal, large integrated data-
bases will require the services of individuals responsible for managing
access, distribution and delivery of the available knowledge.
Interactive applications are primarily designed to permit sharing by individuals
who have access to tacit knowledge. Content is dynamic and emergent with
data storage being merely a by-product of interaction and collaboration.
Examples of interactive systems include chat rooms, e-mail forums and
intranets containing categorised (or ‘threaded’) records of electronic con-
versations. It may be the case that these interactive applications are researched
by assigned employees to extract data-rich knowledge that may be of wider
interest to other employees. Thus, for example, a consulting firm which has
used an Intranet to manage a project for a specific client may assign an
employee the task of extracting ‘lessons learned’ and placing these into the
organisation’s integrated database.

7
Other documents randomly have
different content
superior force. Owing to light airs and other causes, only a partial
engagement followed, in which eight British and twelve French took
part. The whole British loss was one hundred and forty-four killed
and wounded. Three French ships struck, with a loss of six hundred
and seventy; and the nine others, which had been partially engaged,
had a total of two hundred and twenty-two killed and wounded. In
December, 1796, the British frigate Terpsichore met the French
Vestale, of equal force. The latter surrendered after a sharp action of
two hours, in which she lost sixty-eight killed and wounded against
the enemy's twenty-two. This a French writer speaks of as a simple
artillery duel, unmarked by any manœuvres. These are not instances
chosen to prove a case, but illustrations of the general fact, well
known to contemporaries, that the French gunnery was extremely
bad. "In comparing this war with the American," says Sir Howard
Douglas, "it is seen that, in the latter, the loss of English ships in
action with French of equal force, was much more considerable. In
the time of Napoleon, whole batteries of ships-of-the-line were fired
without doing more harm than two pieces, well directed."
Nor was it only by direct legislation that the Assemblies destroyed
the efficiency of the crews. The neglect of discipline and its bad
results have before been mentioned. The same causes kept working
for many years, and the spirit of insubordination, which sprang from
revolutionary excess, doubtless grew stronger as the crews found
themselves more and more under incapable officers, through the
emigration of their old leaders. As they threw off wholesome
restraint, they lost unavoidably in self-respect; and the class of men
to whom the confusion of an ill-ordered ship was intolerable, as it
becomes even to the humblest seaman who has been used to
regularity, doubtless did as the merchant officers of whom Villaret
Joyeuse wrote. They withdrew, under cover of the confusion of the
times, from the naval service. "The tone of the seamen is wholly
ruined," wrote Admiral Morard de Galles, on March 22, 1793, a
month after the declaration of war with England: "if it does not
change we can expect nothing but reverses in action, even though
we be superior in force. The boasted ardor attributed to them" (by
themselves and national representatives) "stands only in the words
'patriot,' 'patriotism,' which they are ever repeating, and in shouts of
'Vive la nation! Vive la République!' when they have been well
flattered. No idea of doing right or attending to their duties." The
government thought best not to interfere, for fear of alienating the
seamen. Morard de Galles's flag-ship, having carried away her head-
sails in a storm, tried unsuccessfully to wear. "If I had had a crew
such as we formerly had," wrote the admiral to the minister, "I
would have used means which would have succeeded; but, despite
exhortations and threats, I could not get thirty seamen on deck. The
army gunners and greater part of the marine troops behaved better.
They did what they were told; but the seamen, even the petty
officers, did not show themselves." [37]
In May, it being then open war, a mutiny broke out when the Brest
squadron was ordered to get under way. To obtain obedience, the
naval authorities had to call in the city government and the Society
of Friends of Liberty and Equality. In June De Galles wrote again: "I
have sailed in the most numerous squadrons, but never in a year did
I see so many collisions as in the month this squadron has been
together." He kept the sea until toward the end of August, when the
fleet anchored in Quiberon Bay, seventy-five miles south-east of
Brest. The Navy Department, which was only the mouthpiece of the
Committee of Public Safety, directed that the fleet should keep the
sea till further orders. On the 13th of September, news reached it of
the insurrection of Toulon and the reception there of the English
fleet. Deputations from different ships came to the admiral, headed
by two midshipmen, who demanded, with great insolence of manner,
that he should return to Brest, despite his orders. This he firmly
refused. The propositions of one of the midshipmen were such that
the admiral lost his temper. "I called them," says he, "cowards,
traitors, foes to the Revolution; and, as they said they would get
under way, I replied (and at the instant I believed) that there were
twenty faithful ships which would fire on them if they undertook any
movements without my orders." The admiral was mistaken as to the
temper of the crews. Next morning seven ships mast-headed their
top-sails in readiness to sail. He in person went on board, trying to
bring them back to obedience, but in vain. To mask his defeat under
a form of discipline, if discipline it could be called, he consented to
call a council of war, made up of one officer and one seaman from
each ship, to debate the question of going back to Brest. This
council decided to send deputies to the representatives of the
Convention, then on mission in the department, and meanwhile to
await further orders from the government. This formality did not
hide the fact that power had passed from the commander-in-chief
appointed by the State to a council representing a military mob. [38]
The deputies from the ships found the commissioners of the
Convention, one of whom came to the fleet. Upon consultation with
the admiral, it appeared that twelve ships out of twenty-one were in
open mutiny, and four of the other nine in doubt. As the fleet
needed repairs, the commissioner ordered its return to Brest. The
mob thus got its way, but the spirit of the government had changed.
In June the extreme revolutionary party had gained the upper hand
in the State, and was no longer willing to allow the anarchy which
had hitherto played its game. The Convention, under the rule of the
Mountain, showed extreme displeasure at the action of the fleet;
and though its anger fell upon the admirals and captains, many of
whom were deprived and some executed, decrees were issued
showing that rank insubordination would no longer be tolerated. The
government now felt strong.
The cruise of Morard de Galles is an instance, on a large scale, of
the state to which the navy had come in the three years that had
passed since mutiny had driven De Rions from the service; but it by
no means stood alone. In the great Mediterranean naval port,
Toulon, things were quite as bad. "The new officers," says Chevalier,
"obtained no more obedience than the old; the crews became what
they had been made; they now knew only one thing, to rise against
authority. Duty and honor had become to them empty words." It
would be wearisome to multiply instances and details. Out of their
own country such men were a terror rather to allies than foes. An
evidently friendly writer, speaking of the Mediterranean fleet when
anchored at Ajaccio in Corsica, says, under date of December 31,
1792: "The temper of the fleet and of the troops is excellent; only, it
might be said, there is not enough discipline. They came near
hanging one day a man who, the following day, was recognized as
very innocent of the charge made against him by the agitators. The
lesson, however, has not been lost on the seamen, who, seeing the
mis-steps into which these hangmen by profession lead them, have
denounced one of them." [39] Grave disorders all the same took
place, and two Corsican National Guards were hanged by a mob of
seamen and soldiers from the fleet; but how extraordinary must
have been the feelings of the time when a critic could speak so
gingerly of, not to say praise, the temper that showed itself in this
way.
While the tone and the military efficiency of officers and crew were
thus lowered, the material condition of both ships and men was
wretched. Incompetency and disorder directed everywhere. There
was lack of provisions, clothing, timber, rigging, sails. In De Galles's
fleet, though they had just sailed, most of the ships needed repairs.
The crews counted very many sick, and they were besides destitute
of clothing. Although scurvy was raging, the men, almost in sight of
their own coast, were confined to salt food. Of the Toulon squadron
somewhat later, in 1795, we are told almost all the seamen
deserted. "Badly fed, scarcely clothed, discouraged by constant lack
of success, they had but one thought, to fly the naval service. In
September, ten thousand men would have been needed to fill the
complements of the Toulon fleet." [40] The country was ransacked
for seamen, who dodged the maritime conscription as the British
sailor of the day hid from the press-gang.
After the action called by the British the Battle of L'Orient, and by
the French that of the Île de Groix, in 1795, the French fleet took
refuge in L'Orient, where they remained two months. So great was
the lack of provisions that the crews were given leave. When the
ships were again ready for sea "it was not an easy thing to make the
seamen come back; a decree was necessary to recall them to the
colors. Even so only a very small number returned, and it was
decided to send out singly, or at most by divisions, the ships which
were in the port. When they reached Brest the crews were sent
round to L'Orient by land to man other ships. In this way the fleet
sailed at different dates in three divisions." [41] In the Irish
expedition of 1796, part of the failure in handling the ships is laid to
the men being benumbed with cold, because without enough
clothes. Pay was constantly in arrears. The seamen, whatever might
be their patriotism, could not be tempted back to the discomforts
and hardships of such a service. Promises, threats, edicts, were all of
no avail. This state of things lasted for years. The civil commissioner
of the navy in Toulon wrote in 1798, concerning the preparations for
Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt: "Despite the difficulties concerning
supplies, they were but a secondary object of my anxiety. To bring
seamen into the service fixed it entirely. I gave the commissioners of
the maritime inscription the most pressing orders; I invited the
municipalities, the commissioners of the Directory, the commanders
of the army, to second them; and to assure the success of this
general measure, I sent with my despatches money to pay each
seaman raised a month's advance and conduct money. The
inveterate insubordination of seamen in most of the western ports,
their pronounced aversion to the service, making almost null the
effects of the maritime commissioners, I sent a special officer from
the port, firm and energetic," to second their efforts; "at length after
using every lawful means, part of the western seamen have repaired
to this port. There are still many stragglers that are being pursued
unremittingly." [42]
The chief causes for this trouble were the hardships and the
irregularity of pay, with the consequent sufferings to their families.
As late as 1801, Admiral Ganteaume drew a moving picture of the
state of the officers and men under his command. "I once more call
your attention to the frightful state in which are left the seamen,
unpaid for fifteen months, naked or covered with rags, badly fed,
discouraged; in a word, sunk under the weight of the deepest and
most humiliating wretchedness. It would be horrible to make them
undertake, in this state, a long and doubtless painful winter cruise."
[43] Yet it was in this condition he had come from Brest to Toulon in
mid-winter. At the same time the admiral said that the officers,
receiving neither pay nor table money, lived in circumstances that
lowered them in their own eyes and deprived them of the respect of
the crews. It was at about this time that the commander of a
corvette, taken by a British frigate, made in his defence before the
usual court-martial the following statement: "Three fourths of the
crew were sea-sick from the time of leaving Cape Sepet until
reaching Mahon. Add to this, ill-will, and a panic terror which seized
my crew at the sight of the frigate. Almost all thought it a ship-of-
the-line. Add to this again, that they had been wet through by the
sea for twenty-four hours without having a change of clothes, as I
had only been able to get ten spare suits for the whole ship's
company." [44] The quality of the crews, the conditions of their life,
and the reason why good seamen kept clear of the service,
sufficiently appear from these accounts. In the year of Trafalgar,
even, neither bedding nor clothing was regularly issued to the crews.
[45]

Surprise will not be felt, when human beings were thus neglected,
that the needs of the inanimate ships were not met. In the early part
of the war it is not easy to say whether the frequent accidents were
due to bad handling or bad outfit. In 1793, the escape of six sail-of-
the-line, under Admiral Van Stabel, from Lord Howe's fleet, is
attributed to superior sailing qualities of the hulls and the better
staying of the masts. [46] The next year, however, the commissioner
of the Convention who accompanied the great ocean fleet, Jean Bon
Saint-André, tried to account for the many accidents which
happened in good weather by charging the past reign with a
deliberate purpose of destroying the French navy. "This neglect,"
wrote he, "like so many more, belonged to the system of ruining the
navy by carelessness and neglect of all the parts composing it." [47]
It was well known that Louis XVI. had given special care to the
material and development of the service; nor is it necessary to seek
any deeper cause for the deterioration of such perishable materials
than the disorders of the five years since he practically ceased to
reign. From this time complaints multiply, and the indications of the
entire want of naval stores cannot be mistaken. To this, rather than
to the neglect of the dockyard officials in Brest, was due the
wretched condition of the fleet sent in December, 1794, by the
obstinacy of the Committee of Public Safety, to make a mid-winter
cruise in the Bay of Biscay, the story of whose disasters is elsewhere
told. [48]
The expedition to Ireland in 1796 was similarly ill-prepared; and
indeed, with the British preponderance at sea hampering trade, the
embarrassment could scarcely fail to grow greater. Spars carried
away, rigging parted, sails tore. Some ships had no spare sails. This,
too, was a mid-winter expedition, the squadron having sailed in
December. In 1798 the preparation of Bonaparte's Egyptian
expedition at Toulon met with the greatest difficulty. The naval
commissioner showed much zeal and activity, and was fearless in
taking upon himself responsibility; but the fleet sailed for an
unknown destination almost without spare spars and rigging, and
three of the thirteen were not fit for sea. Two had been condemned
the year before, and on one they did not dare to put her regular
battery. In January, 1801, a squadron of seven sail-of-the-line left
Brest under Admiral Ganteaume, having the all-important mission of
carrying a reinforcement of five thousand troops to the army in
Egypt. Becoming discouraged, whether rightly or wrongly, after
entering the Mediterranean, the admiral bore up for Toulon, where
he anchored after being at sea twenty-six days. Here is his report of
his fleet during and after this short cruise: "The 'Indivisible' had lost
two topmasts and had no spare one left. The trestle-trees of the
mainmast were sprung and could not support the new topmast. The
'Desaix' had sprung her bowsprit. The 'Constitution' and the 'Jean-
Bart' were in the same condition as the 'Indivisible,' neither having a
spare main-topmast after carrying away the others. Both the
'Formidable' and the 'Indomptable,' on the night we got under way,
had an anchor break adrift. They had to cut the cable; but both had
their sides stove in at the water-line, and could not be repaired at
sea. Finally, all the ships, without exception, were short of rope to a
disquieting extent, not having had, on leaving Brest, a single spare
coil; and the rigging in place was all bad, and in a state to risk every
moment the speed and safety of the ships." [49] It will be
unnecessary to quote more of these mishaps, in which lack of skill
and bad equipment each bore its part; nor need we try to
disentangle the one cause from the other.
Enough has now been said to show the general state of the French
navy in the last ten years of the eighteenth century. The time and
space thus used have not been wasted, for these conditions, which
continued under the empire, were as surely the chief cause of the
continuous and overwhelming overthrow of that navy, as the ruin of
the French and Spanish sea-power, culminating at Trafalgar, was a
principal factor in the final result sealed at Waterloo. Great Britain
will be seen to enter the war allied with many of the nations of
Europe against France. One by one the allies drop away, until the
island kingdom, with two-fifths the population of France and a
disaffected Ireland, stands alone face to face with the mighty onset
of the Revolution. Again and again she knits the coalitions, which are
as often cut asunder by the victorious sword of the French army. Still
she stands alone on the defensive, until the destruction of the
combined fleets at Trafalgar, and the ascendency of her own navy,
due to the immense physical loss and yet more to the moral
annihilation of that of the enemy, enable her to assume the offensive
in the peninsula after the Spanish uprising,—an offensive based
absolutely upon her control of the sea. Her presence in Portugal and
Spain keeps festering that Spanish ulcer which drained the strength
of Napoleon's empire. As often before, France, contending with
Germany, had Spain again upon her back.
There still remains to consider briefly the state of the other navies
which bore a part in the great struggle; and after that, the strategic
conditions of the sea war, in its length and breadth, at the time it
began.
The British navy was far from being in perfect condition; and it had
no such administrative prescription upon which to fall back as France
always had in the regulations and practice of Colbert and his son. In
the admiralty and the dockyards, at home and abroad, there was
confusion and waste, if not fraud. As is usual in representative
governments, the military establishments had drooped during ten
years of peace. But, although administration lacked system, and
agents were neglectful or dishonest, the navy itself, though costing
more than it should, remained vigorous; the possessor of actual, and
yet more of reserved, strength in the genius and pursuits of the
people,—in a continuous tradition, which struck its roots far back in
a great past,—and above all, in a body of officers, veterans of the
last, and some of yet earlier wars, still in the prime of life for the
purposes of command, and steeped to the core in those professional
habits and feelings which, when so found in the chief, transmit
themselves quickly to the juniors. As the eye of the student familiar
with naval history glances down the lists of admirals and captains in
1793, it recognizes at once the names of those who fought under
Keppel, Rodney, and Howe, linked with those who were yet to win
fame as the companions of Hood, Jervis, Nelson, and Collingwood.
To this corps of officers is to be added, doubtless, a large number of
trained seamen, who, by choice, remained in the navy under the
reduced peace complement; a nucleus round which could be rapidly
gathered and organized all the sea-faring population fit for active
service. The strength of Great Britain, however, lay in her great body
of merchant seamen; and the absence of so many of these on
distant voyages was always a source of embarrassment when
manning a fleet in the beginning of a war. The naval service was also
generally unpopular with the sailor; to whom, as to his officer, the
rigid yoke of discipline was hard to bear until the neck was used to
it. Hence, in the lack of any system similar to the French maritime
inscription, Great Britain resorted to the press; a method which,
though legally authorized, was stained in execution by a lawlessness
and violence strange in a people that so loved both law and
freedom. Even so, with both press-gang and free enlistment, the
navy, as a whole, was always shorthanded in a great war, so that
men of all nations were received and welcomed; much very bad
native material was also accepted. "Consider," wrote Collingwood,
"with such a fleet as we have now, how large a proportion of the
crews of the ships are miscreants of every description, and capable
of every crime. And when those predominate what evils may we not
dread from the demoniac councils and influence of such a mass of
mischief." [50]
The condition of the seamen on board left much to be desired. The
pay had not been increased since the days of Charles II., although
the prices of all the necessaries of life had risen thirty per cent. The
exigencies of the service, combined with the fear of desertion, led to
very close enforced confinement to the ship, even in home ports;
men were long unable to see their families. The discipline,
depending upon the character of the captain, too little defined and
limited by law, varied greatly in different ships; while some were
disorganized by undue leniency, in others punishment was harsh and
tyrannical. On the other hand, there was a large and growing class
of officers, both among the sterner and the laxer disciplinarians, who
looked upon the health and well-being of the crew as the first of
their duties and interests; and better sanitary results have perhaps
never been reached, certainly never in proportion to the science of
the day, than under Jervis, Nelson, Collingwood, and their
contemporaries, in fleets engaged in the hardest, most continuous
service, under conditions of monotony and isolation generally
unfavorable to health. Nelson, during a cruise in which he passed
two years without leaving his ship even for another, often speaks
with pride, almost with exultation, of the health of his crews. After
his pursuit of Villeneuve's fleet to the West Indies, he writes: "We
have lost neither officer nor man by sickness since we left the
Mediterranean," a period of ten weeks. The number of men in his
ships must have been near seven thousand. Both French and
Spaniards of the fleet he pursued were very sickly. "They landed a
thousand sick at Martinique, and buried full that number during their
stay." [51] Collingwood writes: "I have not let go an anchor for
fifteen months, and on the first day of the year had not a sick-list in
the ship—not one man." [52] And again a year later: "Yet, with all
this sea-work, never getting fresh beef nor a vegetable, I have not
one sick man in my ship. Tell that to Doctor ——." "His flag-ship had
usually eight hundred men; was, on one occasion, more than a year
and a half without going into port, and during the whole of that time
never had more than six, and generally only four, on her sick-list."
[53] Such results show beyond dispute that the crews were well
clothed, well fed, and well cared for.
Amid ship's companies of such mixed character, and suffering during
the early years of the war from real and severe grievances, it was to
be expected that acts of mutiny should occur. Such there were,
rivalling, if not surpassing, in extent, those which have been told of
the French navy. They also received intelligent guidance at the
hands of a class of men, of higher educational acquirements than
the average seaman, who, through drunkenness, crime, or simple
good-for-nothingness, had found their way on board ship. The
feature which distinguished these revolts from those of the French
was the spirit of reasonableness and respect for law which at the
first marked their proceedings; and which showed how deeply the
English feeling for law, duty and discipline, had taken hold of the
naval seamen. Their complaints, unheeded when made submissively,
were at once allowed to be fair when mutiny drew attention to them.
The forms of discipline were maintained by men who refused to go
to sea before their demands were allowed, unless "the enemy's fleet
should put to sea;" [54] and respect to officers was enjoined, though
some who were obnoxious for severity were sent ashore. One very
signal instance is given of military sympathy with obedience to
orders, though at their own expense. A lieutenant, having shot one
of several mutineers, was seized by the others, who made ready to
hang him, and he stood actually under the yard-arm with the halter
round his neck; but upon the admiral saying he himself was
responsible, having given orders to the officer in accordance with his
own from the Admiralty, the seamen stopped, asked to see the
orders, and, having satisfied themselves of their terms, abandoned
their purpose.
Captain Brenton, the naval historian, was watch-officer on board a
ship that for many days was in the hands of mutineers. He says,
"The seamen, generally speaking, throughout the mutiny conducted
themselves with a degree of humanity highly creditable, not only to
themselves, but to the national character. They certainly tarred and
feathered the surgeon of a ship at the Nore, but he had been five
weeks drunk in his cabin and had neglected the care of his patients;
this was therefore an act which Lord Bacon would have called 'wild
justice.' The delegates of the 'Agamemnon'" (his own ship) "showed
respect to every officer but the captain; him, after the first day, they
never insulted but rather treated with neglect; they asked
permission of the lieutenants to punish a seaman, who, from
carelessness or design, had taken a dish of meat belonging to the
ward-room and left his own, which was honestly and civilly offered in
compensation." [55] Still, though begun under great provocation and
marked at first by such orderly procedure, the fatal effects of
insubordination once indulged long remained, as in a horse that has
once felt his strength; while the self-control and reasonableness of
demand which distinguished the earlier movements lost their sway.
The later mutinies seriously endangered the State, and the mutinous
spirit survived after the causes which palliated it had been removed.
In meeting the needs of so great and widely scattered a naval force,
even with the best administration and economy, there could not but
be great deficiencies; and the exigencies of the war would not
permit ships to be recalled and refitted as often as the hard cruising
properly required. Still, by care and foresight, the equipment of the
fleet was maintained in sufficient and serviceable condition. In the
year 1783 a plan was adopted "of setting apart for every sea-going
ship a large proportion of her furniture and stores, as well as of
stocking the magazines at the several dockyards with imperishable
stores." [56] The readiness thus sought was tested, and also
bettered, by the two partial armaments of 1790 against Spain and of
1791 against Russia; so that, when orders to arm were received in
1793, in a very few weeks the ships-of-the-line in commission were
increased from twenty-six to fifty-four, and the whole number of
ships of all sizes from one hundred and thirty-six to over two
hundred. The same care and foresight was continued into the war. It
was as much an object with Great Britain to hinder the carriage of
naval stores from the Baltic to France as to get them herself, and
there was reason to fear that her seizure of ships so laden and
bound to France would, as before, bring on trouble with the
northern States. "In 1796 the quantity of naval stores remaining on
hand was too small to afford a hope of their lasting to the end of the
war; but the government, foreseeing that a rupture must ensue,
provided an abundant supply of materials for naval equipment; ship
timber was imported from the Adriatic, masts and hemp from North
America, and large importations were made from the Baltic. The
number of British ships which passed the Sound in one year was
forty-five hundred, chiefly laden with naval stores, corn, tallow,
hides, hemp, and iron. At the same time the most rigid economy was
enforced in the dockyards and on board ships of war." [57]
A bare sufficiency—to be eked out with the utmost care, turning
everything to account, working old stuff up into new forms—was the
economic condition of the British cruiser of the day. Under such
conditions the knack of the captain and officers made a large part of
the efficiency of the ship. "Some," wrote Collingwood, "who have the
foresight to discern what our first difficulty will be, support and
provide their ships as by enchantment; while others, less provident,
would exhaust a dockyard and still be in want." Of one he said: "He
should never sail without a storeship in company;" while of
Troubridge Nelson wrote that "he was as full of resources as his old
'Culloden' was of defects." A lieutenant of the day mentions feelingly
the anxieties felt on dark nights and in heavy weather off the
enemy's coast, "doubting this brace or that tack," upon which the
safety of the ship might depend. The correspondence of Nelson
often mentions this dearth of stores.
The condition of the two navies in these various respects being as
described, their comparative strength in mere numbers is given by
the British naval historian James, whose statement bears every mark
of careful study and accuracy. After making every deduction, the
British had one hundred and fifteen ships-of-the-line, and the French
seventy-six, when war was declared. The number of guns carried by
these ships was respectively 8718 and 6002; but the author claims
that, in consequence of the heavier metal of the French guns, the
aggregate weight of broadside, undoubtedly the fairest method of
comparison, of the line-of-battle in the two navies was 88,957
pounds against 73,957,—a preponderance of one sixth in favor of
Great Britain. [58] This statement is explicitly accepted by the French
admiral, La Gravière, [59] and does not differ materially from other
French accounts of the numerical strength of that navy at the fall of
the monarchy.
The navy of Spain then contained seventy-six ships-of-the-line, of
which fifty-six were in good condition. [60] Particular and detailed
accounts are wanting, but it may safely be inferred from many
indications scattered along the paths of naval records that the valid
strength fell very, very far below this imposing array of ships. The
officers as a body were inexpert and ignorant; the administration of
the dockyards partook of the general shiftlessness of the decaying
kingdom; the crews contained few good seamen and were largely
swept out of the streets, if not out of the jails. "The Spaniards at this
time," says La Gravière, "were no longer substantial enemies. At the
battle of St. Vincent there were scarcely sixty to eighty seamen in
each ship-of-the-line. The rest of the crews were made up of men
wholly new to the sea, picked up a few months before in the country
or in the jails, and who, by the acknowledgment of even English
historians, when ordered to go aloft, fell on their knees, crying that
they would rather be killed on the spot than meet certain death in
trying so perilous a service." [61]
"The Dons," wrote Nelson in 1793, after a visit to Cadiz, "may make
fine ships,—they cannot, however, make men. They have four first-
rates in commission at Cadiz, and very fine ships, but shockingly
manned. I am certain if our six barges' crews, who are picked men,
had got on board of one of them, they would have taken her." "If
the twenty-one ships-of-the-line which we are to join off Barcelona
are no better manned than those at Cadiz, much service cannot be
expected of them, although, as to ships, I never saw finer men-of-
war." [62] A few weeks later he fell in with the twenty-one. "The
Dons did not, after several hours' trial, form anything that could be
called a line-of-battle ahead. However, the Spanish admiral sent
down two frigates, acquainting Lord Hood that, as his fleet was
sickly nineteen hundred men, he was going to Cartagena. The
captain of the frigate said 'it was no wonder they were sickly for
they had been sixty days at sea.' This speech appeared to us
ridiculous, for, from the circumstance of our having been longer than
that time at sea do we attribute our getting healthy. It has stamped
with me the measure of their nautical abilities; long may they remain
in their present state." [63] In 1795, when Spain had made peace
with France, he wrote, "I know the French long since offered Spain
peace for fourteen ships-of-the-line fully stored. I take for granted
not manned, as that would be the readiest way to lose them again."
"Their fleet is ill-manned and worse officered, I believe; and besides
they are slow." "From the event of Spain making peace much may
be looked for,—perhaps a war with that country; if so, their fleet (if
no better than when our allies) will be soon done for." [64]
Captain Jahleel Brenton, a distinguished British officer of that day,
being in Cadiz on duty before the war, sought and obtained
permission to return to England in a Spanish ship-of-the-line, the
"St. Elmo," with the express object of seeing the system of their
service. He says, "This ship had been selected as one in the best
state of discipline in the Spanish navy to be sent to England. She
was commanded by Don Lorenzo Goycochea, a gallant seaman who
had commanded one of the junto ships destroyed before Gibraltar in
1782. I had, during this voyage, an opportunity of appreciating
Spanish management at sea. When the ship was brought under
double-reefed topsails, it was considered superfluous to lay the cloth
for dinner; I was told by the captain that not one officer would be
able to sit at table, all being sea-sick, but that he had ordered dinner
to be got ready in his own cabin for himself and me. It was the
custom in the Spanish navy for the captain and officers to mess
together in the ward-room. We had thenceforth a very comfortable
meal together whenever the weather prevented a general meeting.
As the safe arrival of this ship was deemed of great importance (she
carried the Nootka Sound indemnity money), she had on board an
English pilot to enable her to approach the coast of England in
safety. A few nights before our arrival at Falmouth, the ship, having
whole sails and topping sails, was taken aback in a heavy squall
from the north-east, and I was awoke by the English pilot knocking
at my cabin door, calling out,'Mr. Brenton! Mr. Brenton! rouse out,
sir; here is the ship running away with these Spaniards!' When I got
on deck I found this literally the case. She was 'running away' at the
rate of twelve knots, and everything in confusion; she was indeed, to
use the ludicrous expression of a naval captain 'all adrift, like a
French post-chaise.' It required some hours to get things to rights."
[65]

Napoleon, in 1805, ordered Admiral Villeneuve to count two Spanish

ships as equal to one French; and the latter certainly were not equal,
ship for ship, to the British. It is only fair to add that he said of the
Spanish crews, speaking of Calder's action, that they fought like
lions.
Holland, first the ally and afterwards the enemy of Great Britain in
the war, had forty-nine ships-of-the-line, but, owing to the shoalness
of her waters, they were mostly of light burden; many would not
have found a place in a British line-of-battle. The frigates were also
of small force. The condition of the ships being, besides, bad, the
Dutch navy was not an important factor on either side. [66]
Portugal and Naples had, the one six, the other four, ships-of-the-
line, which, during the early years of the war, offered a respectable
support to the British Mediterranean fleet; [66] but the advance of
the French under Bonaparte into the two peninsulas reduced these
States to neutrality before the end of the century.
The fleets of the Baltic powers and of Turkey played no part in the
war which would, at this time, require a particular consideration of
their strength.
 CHAPTER III.
The General Political and Strategic Conditions, and the Events of 1793.

T HE declaration of war against Great Britain was followed, on the

part of the National Convention, by an equally formal
pronouncement against Spain, on the 7th of March, 1793. Thus
was completed the chain of enemies which, except on the mountain
frontier of Switzerland, surrounded the French republic by land and
sea.
It is necessary to summarize the political and military condition, to
take account of the strategic situation at this moment when general
hostilities were opening, in order to follow intelligently the historical
narrative of their course, and to appreciate critically the action of the
nations engaged, both separately and, also,—in the case of the
allies,—regarded as a combined whole.
The enemies of France were organized governments, with
constitutions of varying strength and efficiency, but all, except that
of Great Britain, were part of an order of things that was decaying
and ready to vanish away. They belonged to, and throughout the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were hampered by, a past whose
traditions of government, of social order, and of military
administration, were violently antagonized by the measures into
which France had been led by pushing to extremes the philosophical
principles of the eighteenth century. But while thus at one in
abhorring, as rulers, a movement whose contagion they feared, they
were not otherwise in harmony. The two most powerful on the
continent, Austria and Prussia, had alternately, in a not remote past,
sided with France as her ally; each in turn had sustained open and
prolonged hostilities with the other, and they were still jealous rivals
for preponderance in Germany. They entered the present war as
formal allies; but were unable, from mutual distrust and their
military traditions, to act in concert, or to take advantage of the
disorganized condition into which France had fallen, and from which
the despotism of the Convention had not yet raised her. Divergent
lines of operations were imposed upon them, not by military
expediency, but by the want of any unifying motive which could
overcome their divergent ambitions. The smaller States of Germany
followed the two great powers, seeking each from day to day its
own safety and its own advantage in the troubled times through
which Europe was passing. Several of them had associations with
France as a powerful neighbor, who in the past had supported them
against the overbearing pretensions of the great German
monarchies. With the Convention and its social levelling they could
have no sympathy, but when a settled government succeeded the
throes of the Revolution the old political bias asserted itself against
the more recent social prejudice, and these weaker bodies again fell
naturally under French control.
Spain under good government has, and at that crisis still more had,
a military situation singularly fitted to give her weight in the councils
of Europe. Compact and symmetrical in shape, with an extensive
seaboard not deficient in good harbors, her physical conformation
and remoteness from the rest of the Continent combined to indicate
that her true strength was to be found in a powerful navy, for which
also her vast colonial system imperiously called. Her maritime
advantages were indeed diminished by the jog which Portugal takes
out of her territory and coast line, and by the loss of Gibraltar.
Lisbon, in the hands of an enemy, interposes between the arsenals
of Ferrol and Cadiz, as Gibraltar does between the latter and
Cartagena. But there was great compensation in the extent of her
territory, in her peninsular formation, and in the difficult character of
her only continental frontier, the Pyrenees. Her position is
defensively very strong; and whenever events make France the
centre of European interest, as they did in 1793, and as the genius
of that extraordinary country continually tends to make her, the
external action of Spain becomes doubly interesting. So far as
natural advantages go, her military situation at the opening of the
French revolution may be defined by saying that she controlled the
Mediterranean, and menaced the flank and rear of France by land.
Despite Gibraltar, her action was to determine whether the British
navy should or should not enter the Mediterranean—whether the
wheat of Barbary and Sicily should reach the hungry people of
southern France—whether the French fleet should leave Toulon—
whether the French army could advance against the Germans and
Piedmont, feeling secure as to the country behind it, then seething
with revolt. The political condition of Italy, divided like Germany into
many petty States, but unlike Germany in having no powerful
centres around which to gather, left to Spain, potentially, the control
of the Mediterranean. These advantages were all thrown away by
bad government and inefficient military institutions. The navy of
Spain was the laughing-stock of Europe; her finances depended
upon the colonies, and consequently upon control of the sea, which
she had not; while, between an embarrassed treasury and poor
military administration, her army, though at first under respectable
leadership, made little impression upon the yet unorganized levies of
France, and an abject peace soon closed an ignominious war.
The path of Great Britain, as soon as she had determined to enter
the war, was comparatively clear, being indicated alike by the
character of her military strength and by her history during the past
century. Since the days of Charles II. she had been at times the ally,
at times the enemy, of Austria, of Prussia, and of Holland; she had,
in her frequent wars, found Spain at times neutral, at times hostile,
in neither case a very powerful factor; but, under all circumstances,
France had been her enemy, sometimes secret, usually open.
Steeped in this traditional hostility, both the British government and
nation with single eye fastened upon France as the great danger,
and were not diverted from this attitude of concentrated purpose by
any jealousy of the more powerful among their allies. Spain alone
might have been an unwelcome rival, as well as a powerful support,
upon the watery plain which Great Britain claimed as her own
dominion. Spanish ships of war were numerous; but the admiralty
soon saw that the Spanish navy, from the poor quality of its officers
and men, could not seriously menace British preponderance upon
the ocean, although at times it might be an awkward
embarrassment, and even more so as a suspicious ally than as an
open foe. The co-operation of the two navies, however, at the
opening of the war effectually secured for the time the control of the
Mediterranean and of the approaches to southern France.
Russia, although declaring openly against the French Revolution,
took no active part in the early military operations, except by a
convention made with Great Britain on the 25th of March, 1793, to
interdict the trade of France with the Baltic in grain and naval stores,
as a means of forcing her to peace. Russia was then busily engaged
with her projects against Poland, and a few days later, on the 9th of
April, 1793, an imperial ukase was issued incorporating parts of that
kingdom with the empire. This, with the Prussian decree of March
25, consummated the second partition of Poland,—the result of a
series of aggressions by the two powers that had extended over the
past two years, and the intermediate step to the final partition in
1795.
The smaller European States trimmed their course as best they could
in the great convulsion which, far beyond most wars, left little room
for neutrality. Sweden and Denmark strove hard to keep out of the
turmoil and to retain the commercial advantages reaped by neutral
flags in maritime wars. Their distance from the scene of the earlier
strifes, and the peninsular position of Sweden, enabled them long to
avoid actual hostilities; but the concurrence of Russia with Great
Britain, in the latter's traditional unwillingness to concede neutral
claims, deprived the smaller Baltic powers of the force necessary to
maintain their contentions. Holland, as of old, was divided between
French and British parties; but the latter, under the headship of the
House of Orange, in 1793, held the reins of government and
directed the policy of the State in accordance with the treaty of
defensive alliance made with Great Britain in 1788. The ultimate
policy of the United Provinces depended upon the fortune of the war.
As France or her enemies triumphed, so would the party in the State
favorable to the victor be retained in, or restored to, power.
Neutrality was impossible to an open continental country, lying so
near such a great conflagration; but, not to speak of the immediate
dangers threatened by the attitude of the French Convention and its
decrees of November 19 and December 15, Holland, with her vast
colonial system, had more to fear from the navy of Great Britain,
which had no rival, than from the armies of France which, in 1793,
were confronted by the most powerful military States in Europe. At
this time the United Provinces held, besides Java and other
possessions in the far East, various colonies in the West Indies and
South America, the island of Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope.
The last two alone Great Britain has finally retained; but all of them,
as years went by, passed by conquest into her hands after Holland,
in 1795, became the dependent of France.
Portugal retained her traditional alliance with Great Britain, and so
became a point of supreme importance when the secession of Spain
to France compelled the British navy to leave the Mediterranean. The
formal connection between the two countries was for a short time
severed by the genius and power of Napoleon; but, at the uprising
of Spain in 1808, the old sentiment, unbroken, resumed its sway,
and Portugal became the base of the British army, as in an earlier
day she had been the secure haven of the British fleet.
In northern Italy the extent of Piedmont and its contiguity to the
Austrian duchies of Milan and Mantua gave the means of forming a
powerful focus of resistance to their common enemy, the French
republic, around which the smaller Italian States might feel secure to
rally; but the sluggishness and jealousies of the two governments
prevented the vigorous, combined action which alone could cope
with the energy impressed by the Convention upon its men. In the
centre of the peninsula, the Pope inevitably threw his immense
spiritual influence, as well as such temporal power as he could
exercise, against the revolution; while, in the south, the Bourbon
kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with its capital at Naples, was chiefly
controlled by the queen, herself a sister of Marie Antoinette. The
military strength of this kingdom, like that of Spain, was rendered
contemptible by miserable administration, and was further
neutralized by its remoteness from the seats of actual war; but the
bias of the monarchy was undoubted. Like all weak and corrupt
governments, it shuffled and equivocated under pressure and was
false when the pressure was removed; but, so far as it could, it
favored the allied cause and was a useful base to the British fleet in
the Mediterranean.
In the eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish empire was not then the
element of recognized critical hazard to the whole European system
which it has since become; but its territorial limits were far wider
than they now are. Extending on the north to the Save and the
Danube, Turkey held also beyond the river Wallachia and Moldavia to
the banks of the Dniester, and, on the south, the present kingdom of
Greece. The islands of the Archipelago, with Crete and Cyprus, also
belonged to her. Syria and Egypt likewise acknowledged the
authority of the Porte, but in both the submission yielded was only
nominal; the former, under Djezzar Pasha, and the latter, under the
Mamelukes, were practically independent countries. At the outbreak
of the French Revolution Turkey had sunk to the lowest pitch of
disorganization and impotence; and her rulers, keenly feeling her
condition and her danger from Russia, sought to avoid entanglement
in the troubles of western Europe, from which their great enemy
kept itself free. In this they were successful until Bonaparte, by his
attack upon Egypt, forced them from their security and aroused
Great Britain and Europe to their common interest in the East.
The islands of the western Mediterranean had not only the
importance common to all members of that geographical family in
naval wars, nor yet only that due to their intrinsic values. In so
narrow a sheet of water each possessed an added strategic weight
due to its nearness, either to some part of the mainland or to some
one of the maritime routes traversing the sea. The influence thus
exerted would fall naturally into the hands of the nation which, by
controlling the water, controlled the communications of the island;
but this statement, though generally true, is subject to limitations.
The narrowness of the belts of water, or, to use the military phrase,
the shortness of the communications from land to land, made
evasion comparatively easy. No navy, however powerful, can with
certainty stop an intercourse requiring only a night's run, and which,
therefore, can be carried on by very many small vessels, instead of
having to be concentrated into a few large ones; and this was
doubly true in the days of sail, when the smaller could have recourse
to the oar while the larger lay becalmed. Thus the British found it
impossible to prevent French partisans from passing into Corsica in
1796, when the victories of Bonaparte had placed the French army
in Leghorn; and at a later day the emperor succeeded, though with
infinite trouble, in sending re-enforcements and supplies from
southern Italy to his garrison in Corfu, upon which his far-reaching
genius hoped, in a distant future, to base a yet further extension of
power in the East. These instances, however, were but the
exception, and on the small scale demanded by the other conditions;
for the garrison of Corfu was few in number, and the French found
the Corsicans friendly. As the communications lengthened, the
influence of Sea-Power asserted itself. It was found impossible to
relieve Malta, or even to extricate the large vessels blockaded there;
and the French army in Egypt remained isolated until forced to
surrender, despite the efforts, the uncontrolled power, and the
strong personal interest of Bonaparte in the success of an
occupation for which he was primarily responsible. So also the
narrow strip which separates Sicily from Italy withstood the French
arms; not because it was impossible to send many detachments
across, but because, to support them in a hostile country, with such
insecure communications, was an undertaking more hazardous than
was justified by the possible advantages.
The political distribution in 1793 of the islands of the western
Mediterranean was as follows. The most eastern, known as the
Ionian islands, extending southward from the entrance of the
Adriatic along the coast of Greece, from Corfu to Cerigo, were in
possession of Venice. When the ancient republic fell before the policy
of Bonaparte, in 1797, the islands passed to France and began that
circulation from owner to owner which ended in 1863 with their
union to Greece. Sicily formed part of the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies. It became the refuge of that monarchy from the arms of
France, and, by its fertility and the use of its ports, was a resource to
Great Britain throughout the Napoleonic period. Malta was still in the
hands of the Knights of St. John. Of immense military importance,
from its geographical position and intrinsic strength, its transfer,
through the medium of France, into the hands of the greatest of
naval powers was due to Bonaparte. It is, perhaps, the greatest of
Mediterranean strategic positions, Egypt being rather interoceanic
than Mediterranean; but, being of scant resources, its utility is
measured by the power of the fleet which it subserves. Its fate when
in the hands of France, the history of Port Mahon in the hands of
Great Britain, nay, even the glorious and successful resistance of
Gibraltar, give warning that the fleet depends less upon Malta than
Malta upon the fleet.
Sardinia gave its name to the kingdom of which Piedmont, forming
the Italian frontier of France, was the actual seat, and Turin the
capital. Amid the convulsions of the period, the royal family, driven
from the mainland, found an obscure refuge in this large but
backward island. France could not touch it; Great Britain needed
nothing but the hospitality of its harbors. In Maddalena Bay, at its
northern extremity, Nelson found an anchorage strategically well-
placed for watching the Toulon fleet, and possessing that great
desideratum for a naval position, two exits, one or other of which
was available in any wind. The Balearic islands were in the hands of
Spain. The maritime importance of the other members of the group
was dwarfed by that of Minorca, which contained the harbor,
exceptionally good for the Mediterranean, of Port Mahon. Like Malta,
though not to the same extent, the fate of Port Mahon depends
ultimately upon the sea. The British took possession of the island in
1798, but restored it at the peace of Amiens. In the later hostilities
with Spain, from 1804 to 1808, they appear not to have coveted it.
Maddalena Bay, though a less agreeable and convenient anchorage
than Mahon, is far better fitted for prompt military movement, the
prime requisite in the clear and sound judgment of Nelson.
Of the greater islands there remains to give account only of Corsica.
This was a recent acquisition of France, received from Genoa in
1769, somewhat contrary to the wish of the people, who would have
preferred independence. They were certainly not yet assimilated to
the French, and there existed among them a party traditionally well-
inclined to Great Britain. The preponderance of this or of the other
national preference would be decisive of the final political
connection; for if the British navy did control the surrounding sea, it
was unable, as before said, entirely to isolate the island and so to
compel an unwilling submission. On the other hand, France could
not introduce any considerable body of troops, in the face of the
hostile ships; and her standard, if raised, would depend for support
upon the natives. In 1793, there was at the head of affairs the old
leader of the struggle for independence, Paoli, who had passed
many years in exile in England and had been recalled to the island
by the National Assembly; but the excesses of the later days had
shaken his allegiance to France, and the commissioners sent by the
Convention into Corsica made themselves obnoxious to him and to
the people. Denounced by the republicans of Toulon, Paoli was
summoned to the bar of the Convention in April, 1793. The
Revolutionary Tribunal had then been constituted, the Reign of
Terror was begun; and Paoli, instead of complying, summoned the
deputies from all the cities and communes of Corsica. These met in
May and sustained him in his opposition; the revolt spread through
the island, and the Commissioners with their handful of adherents
were shut up in a few of the coast towns.
Amid these surroundings stood, in the spring of 1793, the terrible
and awe-inspiring figure of the French Revolution. The Corsican
revolt against the Convention reflected but faintly the passions
agitating that body itself, and which were rapidly dividing all France
into hostile camps. The four months following the execution of the
king were one long strife between the party of the Gironde and the
Jacobins; but the revolutionary fury demanded an expression more
vigorous and more concentrated than could be had from a contest of
parties in a popular assembly. The Girondists, men of lofty sentiment
rather than of energetic action, steadily lost ground in the capital
and in the legislative body, though retaining the allegiance of the
provinces, with which they were identified. Embittered words and
feelings took material shape in acts as violent as themselves. On the
9th of March was decreed the Revolutionary Tribunal, the great
instrument of the Terror, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
On the 13th of the same month, La Vendée rose for its long and
bloody struggle in the royal cause. On the 18th, the Army of the
North, which only four weeks before had invaded Holland, was
signally defeated at Neerwinden, and its general, Dumouriez, the
victor of Valmy and Jemappes, the most successful leader the war
had yet produced, was forced to retreat upon France. On the 30th,
he evacuated the Austrian Netherlands, the prize of the last
campaign, and his army took positions within the frontiers, upon
which the enemy advanced. On the 1st of April, Dumouriez, long
since violently dissatisfied with the course of the Convention,
arrested the four commissioners and the minister of war that had
been sent to his headquarters. The next day he delivered them to
the Austrians; and on the 4th, finding that the blind attachment of
his army could no longer be depended upon, he completed his
treason by flying to the enemy.
While disorganization, treason, and fear were spreading throughout
France, from the capital to the frontiers, and seemed about to
culminate in universal anarchy, an important measure was adopted,
destined eventually to restore discipline and order, though at the
expense of much suffering. On the 6th of April the Committee of
Public Safety was reconstituted. Composed previously of twenty-five
members who met in open session, it was now reduced to nine, a
more manageable body, who sat in secret. To it was given authority
over the ministers, and it was empowered to take all measures
necessary for the general defence. The republic was thus provided
with an efficient, though despotic, executive power which it had
before lacked. The creature of the Convention, it was destined soon
to become its master; being, as a French historian has aptly termed
it, "a dictatorship with nine heads."
Time was still needed for the new authority to make itself felt, and
the strife between the parties waxed more and more bitter. On the
15th of April the city of Lyon demanded permission to investigate the
conduct of the municipality appointed by the Jacobin commissioners.
The request, being denied, became the signal for civil war. On the
26th of May the "sections" of the city rose against the mayor. At the
same time the scenes in Paris and in the Convention were becoming
more and more tumultuous, and on the 31st the sections of the
capital also rose, but against the Girondists. After two days of strife
in the streets and in the legislative halls, the Convention decreed the
arrest, at their own houses, of thirty-two members of the party.
Thus, on the 2d of June, 1793, fell the Girondists, but their fall was
followed by the revolt of their partisans throughout France.
Marseille, Toulon, Bordeaux and Lyon all declared against the
Convention; and movements in the same direction were manifested
in Normandy and Brittany. In the western provinces, however, the
attempts at resistance were chilled among the republicans by the
proximity of the royalist insurrection in La Vendée. They were forced
to reflect that armed opposition to the Convention, even as
mutilated by the events of June 2, was a virtual alliance with
royalism. In Bordeaux, likewise, the movement, though prolonged
for some weeks, did not take shape in vigorous action. Words, not
arms, were the weapons used; and the Girondist representatives
were forced to fly the very department from which they took their
name.
In the east and south conditions were far more threatening. The
rising of the sections in Lyon had been followed by fighting in the
streets on the 29th of May, and the triumphant party, after the
events of June 2, refused to acknowledge the Convention. The latter
sought to gain over the city peaceably; but its overtures were
rejected, a departmental army was formed, and the leading member
of the Jacobin party formally tried and executed. The Lyonnese also
stopped supplies being carried to the Army of the Alps. On the 12th
of July a decree was issued to reduce the place by force. The troops
of the Convention appeared before it in the latter part of the month;
but resistance was firm and well organized, and the siege dragged,
while at the same time the departments of the south in general
rejected the authority of the central government. The two seaboard
cities, Marseille and Toulon, entered into correspondence with Lord
Hood, commanding the British fleet, who arrived off the coast of
Provence in the middle of August, 1793. The party of the
Convention, favored by that want of vigor which characterized most
of the measures of their opponents, got possession of Marseille
before the treason was consummated; but in Toulon, which had long
suffered from the violence of a Jacobin municipality, the reaction
swung to the opposite extreme. A movement, beginning in honest
disgust with the proceedings in Paris and with the conduct of the
dominant party in their own city, insensibly carried its promoters
further than they had intended; until a point was reached from
which, before the savage spirit of the capital, it became dangerous
to recede. Long identified with the royal navy, as one of the chief
arsenals of the kingdom, there could not but exist among a large
class a feeling of loyalty to the monarchy. Submissive to the course
of events so long as France had a show of government, now, in the
dissolution of civil order, it seemed allowable to choose their own
path.
With such dispositions, a decree of the Convention declaring the city
outlawed enabled the royalists to guide the movement in the
direction they desired. The leading naval officers do not appear to
have co-operated willingly with the advances made to the British
admiral; but for years they had seen their authority undermined by
the course of the national legislature, and had become accustomed
to yield to the popular control of the moment. The news of the
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