Flag and Fleet | Page 2

together could not have made, and cannot
keep, our Empire, unless the Royal Navy had kept, and keeps today,
true watch and ward over all the British highways of the sea. None of
the different parts of the world-wide British Empire are joined together
by the land. All are joined together by the sea. Keep the seaways open
and we live. Close them and we die.
This looks, and really is, so very simple, that you may well wonder
why we have to speak about it here. But man is a land animal.
Landsmen are many, while seamen are few; and though the sea is three
times bigger than the land it is three hundred times less known. History
is full of sea-power, but histories are not; for most historians know little
of sea-power, though British history without British sea-power is like a
watch without a mainspring or a wheel without a hub. No wonder we
cannot understand the living story of our wars, when, as a rule, we are
only told parts of what happened, and neither how they happened nor
why they happened. The how and why are the flesh and blood, the head
and heart of history; so if you cut them off you kill the living body and
leave nothing but dry bones. Now, in our long war story no single how
or why has any real meaning apart from British sea-power, which itself
has no meaning apart from the Royal Navy. So the choice lies plain
before us: either to learn what the Navy really means, and know the
story as a veteran should; or else leave out, or perhaps mislearn, the
Navy's part, and be a raw recruit for life, all thumbs and
muddle-mindedness.

CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE ROWING AGE
WHEN SOLDIERS FOUGHT ROWBOAT BATTLES BESIDE THE
SHORES OF THE OLD WORLD

From the Beginning of War on the Water to King Henry VIII's First
Promise of a Sailing Fleet 1545
CHAPTER
I
THE VERY BEGINNING OF SEA-POWER (10,000 years and more
B.C.) II THE FIRST FAR WEST (The last 5,000 years B.C.) III EAST
AGAINST WEST (480 B. C.-146 B.C.) IV CELTIC BRITAIN
UNDER ROME (55 B.C.-410 A.D.) V THE HARDY NORSEMAN
(449-1066) VI THE IMPERIAL NORMAN (1066-1451) VII KING
OF THE ENGLISH ERA (1545)

BOOK II
THE SAILING AGE
WHEN SAILORS FOUGHT ON EVERY OCEAN AND THE
ROYAL NAVY OF THE MOTHER COUNTRY WON THE
BRITISH COMMAND OF THE SEA BOTH IN THE OLD WORLD
AND THE NEW
DRAKE TO NELSON
1585-1805

PART I--THE SPANISH WAR
VIII OLD SPAIN AND NEW (1492-1571) IX THE ENGLISH
SEA-DOGS (1545-1580) X THE SPANISH ARMADA (1588)

PART II--THE DUTCH WAR
XI THE FIRST DUTCH WAR (1623-1653) XII THE SECOND AND
THIRD DUTCH WARS (1665-1673)

PART III--THE FRENCH WAR
XIII THE FIRST WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV (1689-1697) XIV THE
SECOND WAR AGAINST LOUIS XIV (1702-1713) XV WAR
AGAINST FRANCE AND SPAIN (1739-1748) XVI PITT'S
IMPERIAL WAR (1756-1763) XVII THE AMERICAN
REVOLUTION (1775-1783) XVIII NELSON (1798-1805) XIX
"1812"

BOOK III
THE AGE OF STEAM AND STEEL
WHEN THE BRITISH COMMAND OF THE SEA SAVED THE
WORLD FROM GERMAN SLAVERY IN THE GREATEST OF ALL
WARS
1914-1918

PART I--A CENTURY OF CHANGE
(1814-1914)
XX A CENTURY OF BRITISH-FRENCH-AMERICAN PEACE
(1815-1914) XXI A CENTURY OF MINOR BRITISH WARS
(1815-1914)

PART II--THE GREAT WAR (1914-1918)
XXII THE HANDY MAN XXIII FIFTY YEARS OF WARNING
(1864-1914) XXIV WAR (1914-1915) XXV JUTLAND (1916) XXVI
SUBMARINING (1917-1918) XXVII SURRENDER! (1918) XXVIII
WELL DONE!

POSTSCRIPT THE FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

[Transcriber's note: The following two errata items have been applied
to this e-book.]
ERRATA
Page XIII. For "Henry VII's" read "Henry VIII's."
Page 254. L. 20 for "facing the Germans" read "away from Scheer,"

ILLUSTRATIONS
VIKING MAN-OF-WAR. . . . . . . . . Frontispiece
"DUG-OUT" CANOE
ROMAN TRIREME--A vessel with three benches of oars
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S TRANSPORTS
Eddystone Lighthouse, 1699. The first structure of stone and timber.
Build for Trinity House by Winstanley and swept away in a storm.
Eddystone Lighthouse, 1882. The fourth and present structure, erected
by Sir J. N. Douglass for Trinity House.

The Santa Maria, flagship of Christopher Columbus when he
discovered America in 1492. Length of keel, 60 feet. Length of ship
proper, 93 feet. Length over all, 128 feet. Breadth, 26 feet. Tonnage,
full displacement, 233.
DRAKE
One of Drake's Men-of-War that Fought the Great Armada in 1588.
ARMADA OFF POWEY (Cornwall) as first seen in the English
Channel.
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE ON BOARD THE REVENGE receiving the
surrender of Don Pedro de Valdes.
SAILING SHIP. The Pilgrim Fathers crossed in a similar vessel (1620).
LA HOGUE, 1692.
H.M.S. Centurion engaged and took the Spanish Galleon Nuestra
Senhora de Capadongo, from Acapulco bound to Manila, off Cape
Espiritu Santo, Philippine Islands,