Like many a social sailor, I've long had a fascination for the professionals, whether they be the fighting Jack Tars of the Napoleonic era, or even today's merchant navy personnel, who, like my late father in World War II, seem to once again in many places be facing violence to their ships and their livelihoods.
Having devoured a few shelves of Kent, O'Brien, Forester and that ilk, I feel a particular fondness for books that deal with the over two decades of worldwide struggle between France's revolutionary and subsequently Napoleonic rulership and Britain's tottering establishment in concert with a series of "subsidised" and often defeated allies in Continental Europe. South African-born Canadian journalist Noel Mostert has done a remarkable job with The Line Upon a Wind (sample pages here) in both contextualizing and deepening a story I thought I knew: how the Royal Navy flirted with the odds, mutiny and the incompetence of many senior officers to keep Napoleon from utterly dominating Europe. Mostert, who states that contemporaries referred to the 22-year struggle as "the Great War" (something I didn't know, having always heard that term reserved for World War I), finds much to admire with the British navy, and much to condemn in its brutal discipline, its stale tactics, its sanctioned jealousies and its almost institutional arrogance, particularly after the victory of Trafalgar essentially finished "big ship actions" and proved that the way forward was in smaller, more nimble frigates.
Mostert relates, not entirely without relish, how it took a fairly one-sided thumping from an enemy...the United States...considered not very seriously when considered at all to realize that a fighting spirit, easy access to the grog and the finest collection of sea shanties would not, in fact, beat sailors as good as the British fighting in newer, technically superior ships. Time and again Mostert reminds his readers how much the British success (which was by no means consistent or properly exploited) was bought with men's lives, men who spent literally years at sea without stepping ashore, men who, inevitably, mutinied or deserted, even to the French, to escape lives too miserable for the Admiralty to generally acknowledge, never mind remedy. The connection between the appalling conditions and capricious commands aboard and the high rate of desertion in the Royal Navy was not easily established until, it seems, near the end of the war, and even then, "tradition" held too many official attitudes in thrall to the legacy of the "Articles of War".
Mostert's doorstopper shines light into corners less known: the run-up to war, the rapidly changing economics that fattened merchant pockets as it bankrupted governments, and the chaotic inability of the Jacobins to use their better ships using new tactics...proving, as did Stalin, that killing a large part of your military officer class tends to strangle initiative. His Canadian background comes through with a focus on the "War of 1812" when the lakes I sail on were the scene of a forest-backed arms race to get ever larger warships built on stretches of water without today's locks to move them up or down the chain. "Fleet actions" on Lake Ontario were intense, but brief; neither side could dare alter the balance of power when one hundred soldier in front of the right isolated fort could secure Spain-sized chunks of wilderness, along with varying numbers of native allies or enemies.
Best of all, here, however, is not just the focus on battles and tactics, but the perceptive takes on the personalities that the Royal Navy nurtured, sometimes in spite of itself. Nelson and Napoleon are seen, even after Nelson's almost inevitable death in 1805, as brothers in spirit while enemies in arms, and receive a lot of attention. Less well-known names, however, like Codrington and Hoste, get a full discussion, and their inventiveness and daring became a hallmark of why the British prevailed in this conflict despite, as the author lists, a daunting number of reasons why they should have fallen before old Boney like millions did before them.
This is a great companion piece to Arthur Herman's 2004 brick To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, but simply isn't quite as well written and cannot, due to the far greater time span covered, drill down so exquisitely into the pulp of why Britain with its rotating cast of semi-competent politicians and mad/bad royalty, its dubious financing and alliances and its frequently compromised ships kept the French bottled up in their ports, like furious bottled wasps unable to wield their stingers. Very much recommended.
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