Elements of Military Art and Science, Henry Wager Halleck [top young adult novels txt] 📗

the festivities of the occasion, and none were left to serve the few guns of the forts which had been prepared for defence. But while the admiral was waiting on the Sea of Marmora for the result of negotiations, or for a favorable wind to make the attack upon Constantinople, the fortifications of this city were put in order, and the Turks actively employed, under French engineers and artillery officers, in repairing the defences of the Straits. Campbell, in his Naval History, says:—"Admiral Duckforth now fully perceived the critical situation in which he was placed. He might, indeed, succeed, should the weather become favorable, in bombarding Constantinople; but unless the bombardment should prove completely successful in forcing the Turks to pacific terms, the injury he might do to the city would not compensate for the damage which his fleet must necessarily sustain. With this damaged and crippled fleet, he must repass the Dardanelles, now rendered infinitely stronger than they were when he came through them."

Under these circumstances the admiral determined to retreat; and on the 3d of April escaped through the Dardanelles, steering midway of the channel, with a favorable and strong current. "This escape, however," says Baines, "was only from destruction, but by no means from serious loss and injury. * * * * In what instance in the whole course of our naval warfare, have ships received equal damage in so short a time as in this extraordinary enterprise?" In detailing the extent of this damage, we will take the ships in the order they descended. The first had her wheel carried away, and her hull much damaged, but escaped with the loss of only three men. A stone shot penetrated the second, between the poop and quarter deck, badly injured the mizzen-mast, carried away the wheel, and did other serious damage, killing and wounding twenty men. Two shot struck the third, carrying away her shrouds and injuring her masts; loss in killed and wounded, thirty. The fourth had her mainmast destroyed, with a loss of sixteen. The fifth had a large shot, six feet eight inches in circumference, enter her lower deck; loss fifty-five. The sixth, not injured. The seventh, a good deal damaged, with a loss of seventeen. The eighth had no loss. The ninth was so much injured that, "had there been a necessity for hauling the wind on the opposite tack, she must have gone down:" her loss was eight. The tenth lost twelve. The eleventh was much injured, with a loss of eight—making a total loss in repassing the Dardanelles, of one hundred and sixty-seven; and in the whole expedition two hundred and eighty-one, exclusive of two hundred and fifty men who perished in the burning of the Ajax.

Such was the effect produced on the British fleet, sailing with a favorable wind and strong current past the half-armed and half-manned forts of the Dardanelles. Duckforth himself says, that "had he remained before Constantinople much longer—till the forts had been completely put in order—no return would have been open to him, and the unavoidable sacrifice of the squadron must have been the consequence." Scarcely had the fleet cleared the Straits, before it (the fleet) was reinforced with eight sail of the line; but, even with this vast increase of strength, the English did not venture to renew the contest. They had effected a most fortunate escape. General Jomini says that if the defence had been conducted by a more enterprising and experienced people, the expedition would have cost the English their whole squadron.

Great as was the damage done to the fleet, the forts themselves were uninjured. The English say their own fire did no execution, the shot in all probability not even striking their objects—"the rapid change of position, occasioned by a fair wind and current, preventing the certainty of aim." The state of the batteries when the fleet first passed, is thus described in James's Naval History: "Some of them were dilapidated, and others but partially mounted and poorly manned." And Alison says: "They had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The castles of Europe and Asia, indeed, stood in frowning majesty, to assert the dominion of the Crescent at the narrowest part of the passage, but their ramparts were antiquated, their guns in part dismounted, and such as remained, though of enormous calibre, little calculated to answer the rapidity and precision of an English broadside."

Much has been said because the fortifications of the Dardanelles did not hermetically seal that channel, (an object they were never expected to accomplish, even had they been well armed and well served;) but it is forgotten, or entirely overlooked, that twelve Turkish line-of-battle -ships, two of them three-deckers, with nine frigates, were with their sails bent and in apparent readiness, filled with troops, and lying within the line of fortifications; and yet this naval force effected little or nothing against the invaders. It is scarcely ever mentioned, being regarded of little consequence as a means of defence; and yet the number of its guns and the expense of its construction and support, could hardly have fallen short of the incomplete and half-armed forts, some of which were as ancient as the reign of Amurath!

Algiers.—The following narrative of the attack on Algiers, in 1816, is drawn from the reports of the English and Dutch admirals, and other official and authentic English papers.

The attack was made by the combined fleets, consisting of five sail of the line, eighteen or twenty frigates and smaller vessels, besides five bomb-vessels and several rocket-boats, carrying in all about one thousand guns. The armament of some of the smaller vessels is not given, but the guns of those whose armaments are known, amount to over nine hundred. The harbor and defences of Algiers had been previously surveyed by Captain Warde, royal navy, under Lord Exmouth's direction; and the number of the combined fleet was arranged according to the information given in this survey—just so many ships, and no more, being taken, as could be employed to advantage against the city, without being needlessly exposed. Moreover, the men and officers had been selected and exercised with reference to this particular attack.

From the survey of Captain Warde, and the accompanying map, it appears that the armament of all the fortifications of Algiers and the vicinity, counting the water fronts and the parts that could flank the shore, was only two hundred and eighty-four guns of various sizes and descriptions, including mortars. But not near all of these could act upon the fleet as it lay. Other English accounts state the number of guns actually opposed to the fleet at from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and thirty. Some of these were in small and distant batteries, whereas nearly all the fleet was concentrated on the mole-head works. (Fig. 36.) Supposing only one broadside of the ships to have been engaged, the ratio of the forces, as expressed by the number of guns, must have been about as 5 to 2. This is a favorable supposition for the ships; for we know that several of them, from their position and a change of anchorage, brought both broadsides to bear; moreover, at no one time could all the guns of the water fronts of the batteries bear on the attacking ships. The Algerine shipping in the harbor was considerable, including several vessels of war, but no use was made of them in defence, and nearly all were burnt. The attacking ships commanded some of the batteries, and almost immediately dismounted their guns. The walls of the casemated works were so thin as to be very soon battered down. Most of the Algerine guns were badly mounted, and many of them were useless after the first fire. They had no furnaces for heating shot, and, as "they loaded their guns with loose powder, put in with a ladle," they could not possibly have used hot shot, even had they constructed furnaces. The ships approached the forts, and many of them anchored in their intended position, without a shot being fired from the batteries. The action commenced at a quarter before three, and did not entirely cease till half-past eleven. The ships then took advantage of the land breeze, and, by warping and towing off, were able to get under sail and come to anchor beyond reach of the land-batteries. Negotiations were again opened, and the Dey surrendered the Christian slaves and yielded to the terms of the treaty.

During the contest, the fleet "fired nearly one hundred and eighteen tons of powder, and fifty thousand shot, (weighing more than five hundred tons of iron,) besides nine hundred and sixty thirteen and ten-inch shells, (thrown by the bomb-vessels,) and the shells and rockets from the flotilla." The vessels were considerably crippled, and their loss in killed and wounded amounted to eight hundred and eighty-three. The land batteries were much injured, and a large part of their guns dismounted. Their loss is not known; the English confess they could obtain no account of it, but suppose it to have been very great. This seems more than probable; for, besides those actually employed in the defence, large numbers of people crowded into the forts to witness the contest. So great was this curiosity, that, when the action commenced, the parapets were covered with the multitude gazing at the manœuvres of the ships. To avoid so unnecessary and indiscriminate a slaughter, Lord Exmouth (showing a humanity that does him great credit) motioned with his hand to the ignorant wretches to retire to some place of safety. This loss of life in the batteries, the burning of the buildings within the town and about the mole, the entire destruction of their fleet and merchant vessels anchored within the mole and in the harbor, had a depressing effect upon the inhabitants, and probably did more than the injuries received by the batteries in securing an honorable conclusion to the treaty. We know very well that these batteries, though much injured, were not silenced when Lord Exmouth took advantage of the land breeze and sailed beyond their reach. The ships retired—1st, because they had become much injured, and their ammunition nearly exhausted; 2d, in order to escape from a position so hazardous in case of a storm; and 3d, to get beyond the reach of the Algerine batteries. Lord Exmouth himself gives these as his reasons for the retreat, and says, "the land wind saved me many a gallant fellow." And Vice-admiral Von de Capellan, in his report of the battle, gives the same opinion: "in this retreat" says he, "which, from want of wind and the damage suffered in the rigging, was very slow, the ships had still to suffer much from the new-opened and redoubled fire of the enemy's batteries; at last, the land breeze springing up," &c. An English officer, who took part in this affair, says: "It was well for us that the land wind came off, or we should never have got out; and God knows what would have been our fate, had we remained all night."

The motives of the retreat cannot, therefore, be doubted. Had the Arabs set themselves zealously at work, during the night, to prepare for a new contest, by remounting their guns, and placing others behind the ruins of those batteries which had fallen,—in other words, had the works now been placed in hands as skilful and experienced as the English, the contest would have been far from ended. But (to use the words of the Board of Defence) Lord Exmouth relied on the effects produced on the people by his dreadful cannonade; and the result proves that he was right. His anxiety to clear the vessels from the contest shows that there was a power still unconquered, which he thought it better to leave to be restrained by the suffering population of the city, than to keep in a state of exasperation and activity by his presence. What was this power but an unsubdued