The British Battle Fleet (Complete)

Frederick Thomas Jane

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The birth of British naval power is involved in considerable obscurity and a good deal of legend. The PhÏnicians and the Romans have both been credited with introducing nautical ideas to these islands, but of the PhÏnicians there is nothing but legend so far as any ÒBritish NavyÓ is concerned. That the PhÏnicians voyaged here we know well enough, and a ÒBritish fleetÓ of the B.C. era may have existed, a fleet due to possible PhÏnicians who, having visited these shores, remained in the land. Equally well it may be mythical. Whatever share the ancient Britons may have had in the supposed commercial relations with Gaul, it is clear that no fleet as we understand a fleet existed in the days of Julius C¾sar. Later, while England was a Roman province, Roman fleets occasionally fought upon British waters against pirates and in connection with Roman revolutions, but they were ships of the ruling power. Roman power passed away. Saxons invaded and remained; but having landed they became people of the landÑnot of the sea. Danes and other seafarers pilaged English shores much as they listed till Alfred the Great came to the throne. Alfred has been called the ÒFather and Founder of the British Fleet.Ó It is customary and dramatic to suppose that Alfred was seized with the whole modern theory of ÒSea PowerÓ as a sudden inspirationÑthat Òhe recognised that invaders could only be kept off by defeating them on the sea.Ó This is infinitely more pretty than accurate. To begin with, even at the beginning of the present Twentieth Century it was officially put on record that Òwhile the British fleet could prevent invasion, it could not guarantee immunity from small raids on our great length of coast line.Ó In AlfredÕs day, one mile was more than what twenty are now; messages took as many days to deliver as they now do minutes, and the ÒraidÓ was the only kind of over-sea war to be waged. It is altogether chimerical to imagine that Alfred Òthought things outÓ on the lines of a modern naval theorist. In actual fact, what happened was that Alfred engaged in a naval fight in the year 875, somewhere on the South Coast. There is little or no evidence to show where, though near Wareham is the most likely locality. In 877 something perhaps happened to the Danes at Swanage, but the account in Asser is an interpolated one, and even so suggests shipwreck rather than a battle.