War at Sea in the Ironclad Age
Richard Hill. London: Cassell, 2000. 224 pp. Photos. Maps. Bib. Index. $29.95 ($26.95).
Reviewed by Paul H. Silverstone
The exciting and glamorous picture on the dust jacket of the cruiser Brooklyn at the Battle of Santiago, her guns firing, battle flags flying, and bow waves frothing white, exemplifies the contents of this book. The first decades following the abandonment of sail and the introduction of steam saw great changes in all aspects of naval warfare, and War at Sea in the Ironclad Age is a fine introduction to this period. From Kinbum to Tsushima, the naval actions of the era are described to demonstrate the influence of new technology.
Rear Admiral Richard Hill, editor of The Naval Review and biographer of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin, describes in concise chapters the rapid succession of new inventions and ideas in technology, ship construction, ordnance, and machinery that led to changes in tactics, training, and recruitment. It is one volume in Cassell’s “History of Warfare” series under the general editorship of John Keegan.
The author distills in a comparatively short space a wealth of information about the developments in technology, personnel, and strategy. Some of these innovations (such as the ram) led nowhere, and others led to disaster (such as the loss of HMS Captain). The influence of improved education and recruitment of both sailors and officers is given the prominence it deserves. In describing these developments in naval science during the period, the author concentrates on events and innovations in Great Britain and Europe—to the exclusion of those in the United States.
Hill’s description of advances in gunnery omits any mention of American contributions during the Civil War, with names such as John Dahlgren, Robert Parrott, and John Brooke notably missing. He also surprisingly leaves out any reference to the influential cruiser Wampanoag, with trial speeds at almost 17 knots over a sustained course that panicked the Admiralty into its own search for speed. The Wampanoag, powered by engines developed by Benjamin Isherwood, made speeds that would not be equaled for nearly two decades. The emphasis on Europe omits the Americans’ continued reliance on monitors. Their value during the Civil War continued to spellbind congressional leaders, who put their faith in these ships even after their usefulness was long past. In 1898 the public was relieved to learn that some ancient Civil War monitors were recommissioned to defend Atlantic ports against the Spanish fleet.
The profusion of contemporary pictures and photographs in black and white and color provides a sense of what people at the time saw of naval actions. Although many of these give exaggerated views of the battles and ships, they demonstrate the obvious patriotic intent of the artists. Excellent maps are included as well. Some of the illustrations, however, are inadequately captioned. A picture on page 131 described as the assault on Charleston actually depicts the Confederate ironclads Chicora and Palmetto State attacking the Union fleet in January 1863.
But these comments are not meant to detract from the overall usefulness of this book. It is an attractive and informative introduction to this fascinating period of naval warfare.
Prince Henry “the Navigator”: A Life
Peter Russell. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. 448 pp. Maps. Photos. Notes. Appendix. Bib. Index. $35.00 ($31.50).
Reviewed by Colin Babb
The 17th-century Portuguese statesman and Jesuit missionary Antonio Vieira once wrote: “God gave the Portuguese a small country as cradle but all the world as their grave.” Father Vieira lived in the autumn of Lusitania’s moment in the sun, presiding over an empire that stretched from the New World to the farthest ends of the Old. No one knew then that that moment would linger on until nearly the dying seconds of the 20th century. But for Portugal’s very first island discoveries in the middle of the Atlantic, that empire is gone from the world’s stage—with only historians left to tell the tale.
The founding of Portugal’s empire and its rise to power on the fringe of Europe long have been attributed to a single man, Dom Henrique, Duke of Viseu, who lived from 1394 to 1460. More familiarly known to the English-speaking world as Prince Henry “the Navigator,” Henrique is a near-mythical hero in his own country. Peter Russell’s new biography, the culmination of a lifetime of study on the prince and the first scholarly monograph in English about Henrique to appear since C. Raymond Beazley’s Prince Henry the Navigator in 1895, is bound to be received with surprise. For the Portuguese, fed for years on the worshipful vision of the prince fashioned by his contemporary chroniclers, Russell’s Henrique will be a more crass and ruthless figure than they have known. For those in North America, used to the prince as a star-gazing predecessor to Christopher Columbus, this newly fashioned Henry will come as a bit of a shock.
Russell plays the role of iconoclast here, deconstructing long-held myths about the prince’s life and his accomplishments. Gone completely is the notion that Henrique founded a “school of navigation” to which scholars and mapmakers flocked. Gone also is the suggestion that he led any of his expeditions of exploration himself, or that he had a deep personal knowledge of the sciences. The new architecture that emerges from the rubble is a life more fascinating—and human—than the myth. Russell paints a picture of a man willing to sacrifice the life of his brother Fernando after a failed attempt to take the city of Tangier in 1437. Henrique’s successful “crusades” against the cities of Ceuta and Alcácer-Ceguer nearly brought Portugal to economic collapse. He also brought his country to the brink of ruinous wars numerous times in his repeated attempts to seize the Canary Islands from their Castilian masters and indigenous inhabitants. And Henrique’s monumental explorations of the African Atlantic seem far less like scientific surveys than extended slave raids.
To his credit, Russell does not delve into the kind of hyperbole that has been expended on Columbus in recent years. The prince is revealed as the complex man he was—always in debt, reckless in war, ruthless in dealing with his family, and yet deeply religious, loyal to those who served him, and a true partisan of Portugal. Russell leaves the reader to answer the fundamental question of Henrique’s central motivation. The scarcity of documents in the prince’s own hand means that this question may never be answered.
There is something unsatisfactory and unsettling about Russell’s Henrique; the old certainty about the nature of the man has been whisked away, an enigma left in its place. But perhaps this ambiguity is the best that can he expected so far removed from the context of the subject. Russell’s magnificent magnum opus avoids the usual pitfalls of revisionism and gives us the only thing we can expect from good history: a greater understanding of an imperfect man in an imperfect world.
Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail: War at Sea, 1756-1815
Bernard Ireland. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. 240 pp. Illus. Index. $49.95 ($44.95).
Reviewed by Louis Arthur Norton
W. W. Norton continues to ride the wave of its highly successful ventures in publishing for the select community interested in seafaring. Bernard Ireland’s work is one of its latest products. It is a large- format book and beautifully constructed, but the title is misleading. The author describes most warfare under sail, but focuses mainly on Britain’s history within that endeavor. In addition, the first chapter begins with Britain’s Henry V, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I, while the last chapter strays occasionally into the 1820s. The book’s narrative nexus is activities during the reign of King George III; Ireland moves from the Seven Year’s War, visits the American War of Independence, and then dwells on the Napoleonic-era battles.
The pithy introduction vividly displays the author’s literary talent. Ireland describes his “deep admiration for the ordinary seamen of the Royal Navy,” and asks, “how [was] such a body of men, apparently bereft of education, status or prospects, motivated to form a service respected the world around?”
The work is filled with wonderful illustrations, most from the British National Maritime Museum and others from the Musee de la Marine in Paris. These reproductions, together with ship models and other graphics, are a treat for the eye, but the problem is that they lack attribution or source of reference. In addition, most of the graphic materials are not on the same text-page that refers to the event or action depicted. Some drawings made to explain square-rig sail maneuvers are missing their texts. Strangely, the term “scratch collection” appears frequently in the text without definition.
Because Ireland includes so much historical information, a chronology of events with regard to the many maritime encounters and endnotes would have been helpful. There are many striking color drawings of ships from many navies of the time; although attractive, the depictions appear fanciful and are bereft of information about the scale, special rig scheme, design innovations, vessel draft, and other attributes.
The book is well written but unbalanced. Ireland delivers a skillful account of the maritime background that led to historical events and the various types of sailing warships that shaped them, but the author tells the reader too much while, simultaneously, the information becomes cursory. The narration becomes superficial, containing many names, places, and events, but it lacks any substantive data. Ireland, like many British maritime historians, appears to be a great admirer of Admiral Horatio Nelson. His depictions of Nelson’s battles and the space devoted to them contrast markedly with the detail accorded other naval heroes of the day.
Enjoyable interludes in the account are the occasional one-column biographical sketches or vignettes of famous British naval war figures; they are useful thumbnail fragments as springboards for further study. Ireland’s momentary digressions and explanations of customs and traditions of the naval service are informative, especially in his chapter on the Royal Navy between the American and French Revolutions. There, the author describes the theme—naval warfare under sail—the reason for owning this attractive coffee table book.