Tactics (NAVAL the art of man uvring)

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

NAVAL, the art of manœuvring ships and fleets for the purpose of battle. Naval strategy, on the other hand, is the science of combining and employing fleets or single ships in order to carry out defined operations at sea or against an enemy's coast, for obtaining command of the sea or certain portions of it. Though fleets had existed and battles at sea been fought from the earliest periods, it was not till toward the close of the 16th century, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that naval war began to assume definite form. War at sea at this time does not appear to have been carried on by any definite plan, and consisted principally, if we except the attempt of the Great Armada, of raids on the enemy's commerce and coast towns. Perhaps the first organized attempt to obtain command of the sea as a distinct aim of the operations carried on are to be found in the three wars between the Dutch and English of 1652, 1665, and 1672. Both parties made desperate attempts to destroy the trade of the other, but in the second war Holland, considering the command of the sea the more important object, temporarily gave up her commerce, Dutch merchant ships being forbidden to put to sea. The net result of the three wars was to leave the honors pretty evenly divided between the two combatants. Several efforts were made by the French, between 1690 and their crushing defeat at Trafalgar, to obtain the command of the sea in order to effect the invasion of of England. The first of these attempts, affording one of the best examples of the value of a thorough grasp of strategical principles s, was foiled , by the Earl of Torrington. An experienced seaman and profound strategist, the earl was forced against his better aga judgment, by direct orders from the queen and council, to attack the vastly superior forces under Tourville, and accordingly he gave battle (June 30, 1690) off Beachy Head. He was defeated, but skillfully drew off and fell back under the shelter of the Gunfleet Shoals at the mouth of the Thames. Here, though "beaten, inferior, and shut up behind sandbanks," yet from the strategic position it now held this fleet still remained such a "power in observation" as to paralyze the action of the victorious and superior force; and the French admiral,