Communications dominate war; broadly considered, they are the most important single element in strategy, political or military.
Rear Adm. A. T. Mahan, USN
Communication across the sea has been the principal concern of the Royal Navy for nearly 1,000 years. . . . [I know] a book on eighteenth-century naval warfare that was in fact a book about signaling systems: the two were inseparable.
Prof. J. R. Hill
AS STATED IN THE PREFACE, THE MILITARY AND NAVAL ESTABLISHMENTS were significantly hampered by their technologically primitive communications. This severely limited the rapid analysis and exploitation of information that may otherwise have decisively influenced the outcome of many significant campaigns.
In the time period of this study, the common system of strategic communications was essentially based upon the hand-written letter, with concomitant delays of transportation. As a result, the lords of the Admiralty could usually give only very general orders, instructions, and directives due to the expectation that these letters would take days, weeks, and months to get to their addressees. This meant that close, let alone detailed, management was impossible. Close control had to be left to the admiral or detached captain in receipt of the general guidance; that guidance presumably conveyed the intentions of the government as passed by the Admiralty. The man-at-the-scene therefore had great flexibility in his actions, which was often very advantageous. Also advantageous was that the extremely general nature of most Admiralty orders, combined with the slowness of communications, enabled the Admiralty to direct literally worldwide naval operations from a very small board room with a very small staff.1
At times, however, the system was disadvantageous, as on-scene commanders could undertake activity contrary to the wishes of the government. Witness Rear Adm. Sir Home Popham, who, after capturing the Cape of Good Hope, decided it would be strategically consistent, good initiative, and generally officerlike to sail across the South Atlantic and to attack and capture Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, unknown to him, the British government was very interested in establishing and maintaining friendly relations with the Spanish American colonies as they struggled for independence against Spain, and Popham’s adventure did not help those relations at all.2 As it turned out, “the invasion failed dismally, ending in capitulation, the cashiering of Lt. Gen. John Whitelocke [the senior army officer] and a . . . court-martial reprimand for Popham.”3
SURFACE MAIL traveled reasonably quickly and cheaply through England at the turn of the nineteenth century. (In addition to the mail, in Britain the Admiralty could send communications via “king’s messengers,” men employed by the government for just this task. Occasionally such officers traveled abroad, but this was more the exception than the rule.) External mail took some time; a letter from London took “a week to [a ship] in the Baltic, two weeks or more to one in the Mediterranean, and [at the very least] a month to one in the West Indies.” Of course, dispatches from deployed ships were similarly delayed in transit to Whitehall.4
Overall, slow communications to and from the operating forces were a significant problem. Lord Nelson was always bothered by this, and during the Trafalgar campaign particularly so. Writing to Lord St. Vincent from the Mediterranean in September 1803, for example, he observed that “it is now near three months since my last letters were dated from England; and but for a French newspaper, which hitherto we have procured through Spain from Paris, we should not have known how the world went on.”5
A year later, on 8 July 1804, he wrote, “I have had nothing from England since April 5th; and if we did not get the French [news]papers, we should be left in total ignorance.”6 In November 1804 he complained, “I am to this moment ignorant, except by the French papers, of what is passing in Spain. What can be expected from such communications to a Naval Commander-in-Chief?”7 This was followed in December with “It is now ninety days since I have heard from England; it is rather long at these critical times.”8
Interestingly enough, intelligence from newspapers continued to be a significant source for commanders—much as cable television is today. Almost 140 years after Nelson’s time, American admiral Kimmel (during his testimony after the Pearl Harbor attack) mentioned that he had been dependent upon newspapers for information regarding the state of negotiations, and that he obtained a major portion of “his diplomatic information from the newspapers.”9
The Post Office’s packet ships, which it used to transport mail around the world, were often also used by the navy for communications—excluding the most urgent dispatches. Some officers disliked the lack of control and the parliamentary politics that influenced packet schedules and operations. St. Vincent once wrote that he could not “but lament most exceedingly that Borough influence should ever be exercised in such very important concerns as the navigation of Packets. No wonder that so many of them have failed in their duty.”10
Even Gen. Lord Wellington spared time from his land campaign with worries about the safety of such “unofficial” ships. In early August 1812 he wrote from Madrid, “I have heard of war being declared by America, and I beg to draw your Lordship’s attention to our communications by the packets. We may depend upon it that the mouth of the Channel and the coasts of Portugal will swarm with [American] privateers.”11
Nevertheless, the packet service was particularly useful in communicating with the Americas. Sailing every two weeks from Falmouth, England, the Post Office ran a regular nine-ship relay between Britain and its American and West Indies stations,12
averaging forty-five days to Jamaica after calling at several of the Windward and Leeward Islands. Port Royal, Jamaica, was the last port of call before sailing for Falmouth, usually a 35-day passage. . . . Duplicates of all letters went by the next packet and third copies were often sent in a convoy.
The whole system . . . could, however, be halted if the French captured the packets, and there were periods when privateers had great success—at one time four homeward-bound packets were taken within four weeks. Not only were original letters lost but the duplicates were lost as well.13
Because of the great distance, communications to the East Indies required considerably more time. In fact, the East Indies station was the regional area of operation that gave its commander in chief the greatest power and widest discretion: “To send a despatch . . . [via] the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena, took about six months, so that a reply could not be looked for inside a year; and unless the [return] despatch from Admiralty was very peremptory, another year might well elapse before the C-in-C had to alter his plans.”14
In lieu of Post Office packets, the navy had to rely on its own smaller vessels for communication. That is not to say that privately owned ships were not used when convenient. The ships of the British East India Company certainly helped in this arena. Moreover, in various parts of the world, a naval commander might encounter a merchant or whaling ship with which he could entrust official and ship’s company’s personal mail. O’Brian’s Capt. Jack Aubrey used this method, even if it was a surprise to his friend Dr. Maturin: apprised of Aubrey’s intention to finish and copy an official letter, he asks, “Why are you in haste? Whitehall is half the world away or even more for all love.” Aubrey replies, “Because in these waters we may meet with a homeward-bound whaler any day.”15 However, neither fictitious nor real captains could count on this method, for the truth was that “even a single sail in mid-ocean was something of an event; Jack had often traveled five thousand miles in quite frequented sea-lanes without seeing another ship.”16
Admirals almost never had enough dispatch vessels, such as real-life Lord Gambier talking to fictitious Capt. Horatio Hornblower—who had just recaptured a cutter from the French: ‘“Witch of Endor can carry the despatches,’ he said. As with every admiral the world over, his most irritating and continuous problem was how to collect and disseminate information without weakening his main body by detachments; it must have been an immense relief to him to have the cutter drop from the clouds, as it were, to carry these despatches.”17 Lord Nelson often suffered from this problem, as evidenced by this apology to Sir Alexander Ball in January 1804: “I have nothing in the shape of a small Vessel, or your letters for Egypt should have been sent from the fleet.”18 When a naval ship was used for dispatches, the sending admiral (or the Admiralty itself) tried to ensure its efficiency. When challenged by another British vessel, such a ship would signal ‘carrying dispatches,’ which meant that a ship must neither stop nor be stopped even for a moment.19 In fact, “a ship carrying them was excused from all ordinary decencies or politeness; forbidden indeed to delay for even a minute.”20
Lord Nelson was careful not to rely on custom to ensure the noninterference of his dispatches. Note the two memoranda below:
TO THE CAPTAIN OR COMMANDER OF ANY OF HIS MAJESTY’S SHIPS OR VESSELS WHO MAY FALL IN WITH HIS MAJESTY’S SLOOP CAMELEON: You are hereby required and directed on no account to interfere with Captain Staines, or to demand a sight of his Orders, which are most secret, unless from particular circumstances it may be judged necessary, in which case you are to keep them most inviolably secret.21
Private Instructions from Lord Nelson to Captain Parker: Bring to for nothing. . . . Hoist the signal of Quarantine, and that you are “Charged with dispatches.” If you are forced to speak by a Superior Officer, show him only my order for his not interfering with you; and, unless he is an Admiral superior to me, you will obey my orders instead of [his].22
When using Post Office packets, or naval vessels, commanders prepared multiple copies of dispatches to help ensure delivery. For example, after the Battle of the Nile, Nelson sent his official reports with Captains Berry and Thompson in HMS Leander. But, “lest Berry might meet with an accident, he decided to send his signal lieutenant, Capel . . . to Naples in the Mutine, with duplicates.”23 This was fortunate, for the Leander—and Nelson’s original dispatches—were subsequently captured after a bloody duel with a French ship of the line.
Duplicates notwithstanding, sometimes the message never got through. A commander who had this happen to him—neither receiving original nor duplicate—was Rear Adm. Sir Charles Vinicombe Penrose, operating in the Mediterranean in 1816. He was to have joined forces with Lord Exmouth (Adm. Sir Edward Pellew) in order to jointly attack the Dey of Algiers. Having received no such order, Penrose and his ships made no effort to rendezvous. Wondering where they were, Exmouth was forced to proceed without them; fortunately, he was nevertheless successful in the last great action of the period.24
Slow communications were an enormous disadvantage, in many other ways, for overseas naval and military commanders. Ships at sea found it very difficult to gain information regarding declarations of war. The country first declaring war could give advance information to its commanding officers, but other than rumor the ships on the receiving end usually had to wait until actually attacked to know for sure.25 Novelist Alexander Kent’s Capt. Richard Bolitho knew this very well: “Every ship under a foreign flag was suspect; without fresh intelligence he knew nothing of greater affairs in Europe. A Spanish or Dutch flag might now be an ally, a Portuguese perhaps hostile.”26
C. S. Forester’s Commander Hornblower faced this dilemma as a French frigate approached HMS Hotspur:
“Sir,” said Bush. “Mr. Wise is asking on behalf of the hands, sir. Are we at war?” Yes or no. “The Frogs know, and we don’t—yet, Mr. Wise.” There was no harm in a captain admitting ignorance when the reason for it should be perfectly clear.
. . . There was a sudden shriek overhead. . . . A [lucky shot] had passed over the Hotspur twenty feet above her deck.
“Mr. Wise!” yelled Hornblower. . . . “Get that halliard re-rove.” “Aye aye, sir.” The spirit of mischief asserted itself in Hornblower’s mind. . . . “And Mr. Wise! If you think proper you can tell the hands we’re at war.”27
In fiction or reality, this was a real problem for captains and admirals. Lord Nelson, for instance, was very worried about being caught off guard by the Spanish in the fall of 1803, and thus wrote Ambassador Frere that recent Spanish behavior, he supposed, indicated a state of war: “I have therefore earnestly to request, that you will send me immediate notice of such an event, that I may . . . act upon it myself. If your news of War passes [to me] through England, it will be two or three months before I shall know it officially.”28
He continued this concern through October 1804, warning Capt. Henry Richardson of HMS Juno; “Most Secret. Whereas, from the recent conduct of the Spaniards at Ferrol, the greatest circumspection becomes necessary . . . in communicating with the Spanish Ports, or on falling in with any of their Ships or Vessels of War. . . . To do so with the utmost caution, taking care to anchor . . . well out of reach of shot from their Forts or Batteries, and always to be on your guard against surprise.”29
Vice Adm. Sir Herbert Sawyer, commanding British naval forces at Halifax, commenced operations against the United States in 1812, but without solid information lost the courage of his convictions. He had taken some American prizes, but “still not sure that a state of war existed, released them and actually sent one of his precious sloops under flag of truce to ask for explanations.” Simultaneously, however, American commodore John Rodgers, more knowledgeable than Sawyer, surprised HMS Belvidera; but the real “importance of the incident lay in the exasperation of the British seamen and officers at what they tended to look upon as a treacherous attack, or at least as one made in ungentlemanly fashion. Rodgers’ behavior had been correct enough . . . but . . . it might have been well had it occurred to Rodgers to give Belvidera some definite warning of the outbreak of war before he opened fire. A gesture—unnecessarily chivalrous—would have cost nothing.”30
Indeed, when one reflects on the relative need for quick communications vis-à-vis diplomatic, naval, and military affairs, state of the art then was absolutely primitive compared to the multimedia, high-volume, instantaneous, clear, and encrypted systems at our disposal today. Fortunately for the British, all nations operated under the same conditions. Having said that, it was the French who developed a methodology that revolutionized the land-based part of this equation.
Communications on land in those days, especially “before the British had copied the brilliant new French invention of the semaphore signal system (which increased the speed of message transmission, on line-of-sight, from days to 200 mph on a few vital routes), was agonizingly slow.”31 As Capt. Geoffrey Bennett explains in his book Nelson the Commander, “Following up an idea suggested by [an Englishman], Claude Chappe erected a chain of 116 ‘aerial telegraph’ stations in 1794, linking Paris with Lyons, each comprising a tower surmounted by a mast to which were affixed a pair of rotating arms, given the name semaphore. This initial chain was subsequently extended to a network of over 500 stations serving 29 towns in more of Europe than France itself, because Napoleon found this speedy visual method of signaling messages of [great] value for controlling his armies.”32
Capt. E. W. C. Owen, in HMS Clyde, reported on this system in June 1806, writing that a telegraph line he had previously identified he now observed extending from Calais to Étaples. Moreover, he was certain that it had replaced an older flag system used along that coast. “This telegraph seems so simple and at the same time so comprehensive,” he wrote, “that I take the liberty of forwarding your Lordship a sketch thereof for the information of My Lords of the Admiralty.”33
Lord Collingwood, whose officers could read the enemy’s semaphore (thanks to code books captured by Capt. Lord Cochrane), sent the following intelligence report to Whitehall in July 1809 (it concerned a British army attack against islands in the Bay of Naples): “Yesterday the French Signal Posts telegraphed that a Fleet of Transports were anchored to the southward of Port Especia and Transports landed—the Ships of War standing into the Bay. . . . I have not heard from Admiral Martin & Lieutenant General Sir John Stuart that they were about to make this movement.”34
In 1796 the British Admiralty fielded its own version of this system, as envisioned by the Rev. Lord George Murray, which was a mechanically operated shutter system. In England, Murray’s shutter system was later replaced by a mechanical rotating-arm system in 1816, which survived until the development of the electric telegraph around 1846. Slow, clumsy, and useless at night or in fog, these systems were still a quantum leap in naval-communications capability. Indeed, “the Plymouth telegraph, which began in July 1806, could send a message to the Admiralty and receive an answer in less than thirty minutes. A short message would receive an answer in ten minutes.”35
In fact, the Admiralty semaphore system was very quick, as Capt. Lord Cochrane could testify. On 19 March 1809 he came into Plymouth on board HMS Imperieuse; via telegraph the Admiralty learned of his arrival and sent him an order to attend at Whitehall, which he received within an hour of anchoring.36
Interestingly, Waterloo hero Prussian field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, visiting London in 1816 after the war was finally over, showed a particular interest in the workings of the Admiralty telegraph.37 It was mounted on the Admiralty’s roof, and had
Fig. 3-1 Cuthbert, Lord Collingwood.
Nelson’s longtime friend. He assumed command of the Mediterranean Fleet upon Nelson’s death, dying himself in that capacity in 1810 (probably of stomach cancer). This posthumous painting shows him in full dress uniform. The original portrait is by Henry Howard (1769–1847).
© National Martime Museum, London
repeating structures on hill-tops and church towers at intervals of about ten miles, all the way to Portsmouth in the south-west, Chatham in the south-east and, later on, Harwich in the north-east. It worked on a kind of blackboard divided into six ports. Combinations of ports, opened or closed, denoted the letters of the alphabet” [see fig. 3-2].
Details of the Harwich line seem to be lost, but the “Chatham line” went: (1) the roof of Admiralty House; (2) Number 36, West Square, Southwark; (3) New Cross Gate, Nunhead (now called Telegraph Hill); (4) Shooter’s Hill; (5) Swanscombe; (6) Gad’s Hill, Shorne; (7) Chatham Dockyard.
And to Portsmouth: (1) Admiralty House; (2) Royal Hospital, Chelsea; (3) “The Highland,” Putney; (4) Netley Heath; (5) Hascombe; (6) Blackdown; (7) Beacon Hill, Harting; (8) Portsdown Hill; (9) The Glacis, Portsmouth.
In the 1790s metropolitan citizens and sleepy-hollow rustics alike … took comfort, perhaps, from the thought that at least one Government department remained abreast of science and alive to the perils of invasion. It signified everything that was new, startling, efficient or supernaturally swift; by association, the British public got it into its head that the Admiralty was all of these things.38
Of course, neither the Admiralty nor the system was perfect. As late as 4 August 1815 Lord Keith wrote a note to the Admiralty, complaining that a “telegraphic message [was only] partially and indistinctly received last night.”39
Other countries were not left out of the race to develop semaphore telegraph systems. The Danes had a system operational at least in time for the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. On 29 January the Times of London told Britain that a semaphoric “telegraph has been already erected on one of the Towers of [Kronborg Castle]; to carry on a correspondence along the coasts, as far as Gillelilge, on one side, and Copenhagen on the other.”40 In addition, there exist several pictorial illustrations made at the time that give us a visual portrayal of the Danish system—which used neither the British shutter nor the French rotating arm methodologies.
Robinson Kittoe, who was the secretary to Rear Adm. Thomas Graves (Nelson’s second in command at Copenhagen), was also a talented draftsman and made a number of heavily annotated drawings during the campaign.41 Among these include a view of the British fleet, passing through the sound, under fire from Kronborg Castle. Kittoe’s drawing shows a semaphore mast on top of the left-hand tower of the castle, and, in fact, Kittoe was so impressed by this device that he redrew the mast in larger detail on the top right of his main illustration. This same mast, with four crossed yards looking very much like a ship’s mast, can also be identified in several other contemporary drawings and paintings; moreover, another such device can be readily seen in a drawing of the Battle of Copenhagen (view from Amager, looking northward across Nyeholm) beside the Sixtus Battery, with the mast standing out against the smoke of the battery’s guns (see fig. 9-1).
Fig. 3-2 Admiralty semaphore telegraph, 1796.
This contemporary print shows the station erected at Charing Cross, London, as part of the overall relay system from 1796 to 1816. The illustration shows how the letters A to R were signaled by different arrangements of the six shutters.
© National Maritime Museum, London
British frigate captain Lord Cochrane was particularly aggressive about destroying French signal stations, realizing how important this invention truly was. After a cruise full of just such activity, on 28 September 1808 he reported to Vice Adm. Lord Collingwood that “with varying opposition, but with unvaried success, the newly constructed semaphoric telegraphs … at Bourdique, La Pinede, St. Maguire, Frontignan, Canet, and Fay, have been blown up and completely demolished, together with their telegraph houses.”42 For a realistic and graphic, though fictionalized, account of the destruction of a telegraph station and battery—and the dangers involved—see C. S. Forester’s Hornblower and the Hotspur.
Communications at sea were equally appalling as those on land—generally worse—and remarkably cumbersome, relying on speaking trumpet, boat messages, line-of-sight flag signaling, and ship-borne dispatches.
It was not until the First Dutch War (1652–54) that the British developed any sort of code signaling using flags, and this system was restricted to a few, very limited, preestablished tactical directions. While the French, again taking the lead, had created a system of flag vocabulary as early as 1693, it was 1776 before Adm. Lord Richard Howe generated a signal book for his West Indies fleet that really started the British down this same path.
Sir Charles Middleton (later Adm. Lord Barham) was another officer always keenly interested in signals. His 1779 correspondence with Capt. Richard Kempenfelt included:
Signals pointed out by numbers … I have been long acquainted with. They don’t require many flags; however there must be three of each sort, or you can’t express a number which consists of three figures of the same rank.
However, I think all these objections may be obviated; and in my opinion, the signals used by numbers, or those by a superior flag, as used by D’Orvilliers the last two summers, are by much superior to any method we have.43
In 1781 Middleton and Kempenfelt were still studying the French: “Project for Signals. Signals should be simple, clear, and easily discernible. I don’t know any more perfect than those invented by M. de la Bourdonnais. He made use of broad pennants as more readily fixed to any part than flags. He fixes a number for each pennant; and that several pennants, each designating a particular number and, put one above the another, serve as cyphers. . . . With this arrangement an infinite number of signals may be made.”44 In 1788, reviewing Vice Adm. Lord Hood’s signal proposals, Middleton dared write that “the night and fog signals are amongst the worst I ever saw and would be productive of certain separation [of ships].”45
Again borrowing from the French, Rear Admiral Kempenfelt next developed a Primer of Speech for Fighting Ships.46 Kempenfelt was a pioneer in many areas, though signaling remained one of his favorites. He maintained that even in the crisis of battle most naval officers worked well “with their heads,” but they nevertheless sometimes failed “because they could not transfer their thoughts beyond the bulwarks of their own ship.”47
Adopted by Lord Howe (who remained extremely interested in the subject), Kempenfelt’s system had increased the capability to 256 predetermined meanings using sixteen different flags. In 1790 Howe then produced a Signal Book for Ships of War, which reduced the number of flags to ten, but increased the number of meanings to 9,999. Middleton’s comment at that point was more circumspect: “I understand that there has been an examination of Lord Howe’s and Lord Hood’s plans of signals by some flag officers convened for that purpose, and that their decision has been in favour of Lord Howe’s.”48
Nelson used the last system to advantage; in fact, he acknowledged Howe’s contribution in a letter to him on 8 January 1799. After the Battle of the Nile, he wrote, “I was enabled to throw what force I pleased on a few Ships. This plan my friends readily conceived by the signals [I made]—(for which we are principally, if not entirely indebted to your Lordship).”49
The final breakthrough to virtual freedom of speech via flag signaling occurred in 1801; indeed, it only became reasonably efficient around 1810, with the development and widespread use of Capt. Sir Home Popham’s system. Popham had served in the first Copenhagen campaign, and had worked at transmitting messages between the fleet and the negotiators on shore. From that point on he became extremely interested in the navy’s signaling system, and over the next ten years substantially contributed to the improvement of the methodology.50
Sir Home published his ideas in his Telegraphic Signals or Marine Vocabulary, which not only allowed for an enormous flexibility in predetermined signals and commonly used words but also simply identified all numbers and letters so that any word could be easily spelled out. Popham was very modest as he started to promote his system; on 30 June 1801 he wrote to Adm. Lord Keith, “I take the liberty of sending you a vocabulary or marine telegraph. . . . I have found it of particular use in receiving intelligence . . . from . . . detached ships. . . . For every proper name and word not in the vocabulary can be spelt. . . . I conceive the advantage to be not only a saving of time and trouble, but of boats. . . . Instead of making signals for [lieutenants to come to the flagship to take a message] the intent might be directly communicated.”51
Nelson, always concerned with communications, tactics, and tactical control, instantly saw the huge advantages afforded by Popham and aggressively ensured that all ships in the Mediterranean Fleet were supplied with Popham’s book and the required flags. In fact, he twice personally went to the Admiralty, working with Second Secretary John Barrow, to make this happen. Barrow later wrote that Lord Nelson had been with him “at the Admiralty in the morning, anxiously inquiring and expressing his hopes about a code of signals just then improved and enlarged. . . . I pledged . . . that he might rely on their being at Portsmouth the following morning.”52
It is significant to note that at these various times the systems discussed were available but not required. Like so many things, commanders incorporated them at their own discretion (and, quite often, own expense).
Night and fog signaling were primitive; there were, especially after 1800, some codified signals involving the use of fireworks, guns, horns, bells, and arrangements of lanterns hoisted in frames to the mastheads, but this was very limited; there were only seventy night signals and twenty fog signals available.53 Sometimes, when poor conditions ruled, or when other circumstances dictated, admirals could make a simple signal for a junior officer to come fetch letters or documents from the flagship. For example, right before the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, “the Elephant’s log recorded, ‘At 8 the London made our signal for a midshipman and at ½ past 11 the general signal for lieutenants’” to repair on board the flag.54
By the way, fog and night were not the only conditions affecting flag signaling; one cannot overlook the intense smoke generated by black-powder cannon. For example, at Trafalgar, ‘“the smoke was so thick in the action,’ wrote a midshipman of the Royal Sovereign, ‘we could hardly make out the French from the English.’. . . For want of a breeze to carry it off, the murky powder-smoke from hundreds of guns rolled in an ever-thickening cloud over the rear of the Combined Fleet, increasing the confusion into which it had fallen.”55 Obviously, visibility in general became a problem, to say nothing of seeing small, colored flags.
In fact, “seeing” is the key to this entire issue. After all, it was the human eye—aided by a basic telescope—that was the primary tool, and it was extremely limited. If swimming in the ocean (assuming he could swim; few knew the skill), a sailor’s “horizon was a mere 1.1 miles away. But climbing to the maintop—about 100 feet above the water on a 74-gun ship—extended the distance he could see to nearly 12 miles. . . . Perched in the rigging of a large ship, a loo kout might see the sails of another large ship at 20 miles. . . . Height was the key. Yet a person’s range of view could be affected by many circumstances, such as fog or even loud distractions on deck. At long distances, the atmosphere could create strange refractions, causing mirages.”56
There were different kinds of telescopes to address different conditions. For example, there were “night glasses” to try to compensate for low light, and there were “come-up glasses,” having “a lens half way along divided into two, so that it gives you two images. When they separate the ship is moving from you; when they overlap she is coming nearer.”57 Still, the limitations were significant; thus one finds Nelson’s last word on the subject, focused upon signaling at the time of battle: “But, in case signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.”
Admirals and captains were quick to seize upon Home Popham’s new system, recognizing its importance and reveling in its detail and flexibility. Capt. Henry Blackwood, of HMS Euryalus (who would physically bring England after-action details from Trafalgar), wrote to his wife just prior to that battle, “At this moment we are within four miles of the enemy and talking to Lord Nelson by means of Sir Home Popham’s signals.”58 And, of course, it was this system that enabled Nelson, after completing his tactical communications three weeks later, to “amuse the fleet” by making his immortal signal, “England expects that every man will do his duty.”
Captain Blackwood was to exercise all of his (and his ship’s) signaling skills in earnest the night before Trafalgar. Shadowing the French and Spanish fleets throughout the night, Blackwood “constantly informed the Admiral of their position by means of guns, blue lights, and rockets, as did also the other look-out frigates.” According to one of Blackwood’s midshipmen, “For two days there was not a movement that we did not communicate, till I thought that Blackwood, who gave the orders, and Bruce, our signal midshipman, and Soper, our signal man, who executed them, must have died of it.”
Of course, the French admiral was in no way oblivious of this activity, which told him that battle was imminent. Villeneuve, when “apprised of the rockets and signal-guns that had been seen and heard ahead, at about 7.30 P.M. ordered the Combined Fleet, which had been sailing in three columns, to form a single line of battle.”59
A few details about flag signaling would be useful at this point:
In a flagship, the flag lieutenant was in charge of signals, but on [other ships] the job usually fell to a midshipman. . . . A flagship needed many halyards to hoist signals, and [typically] had fifteen on each side.
[The flagship’s] halyards needed 973 fathoms of rope, and allowed many positions for hoisting signals, so that they could be seen from any desired angle. [Other ships of the line] needed to make fewer signals, and had 339 fathoms of halyards. To help spread the message, repeating frigates were stationed on one side of a fleet in line of battle, to show the signals being made by the admiral.60
It is interesting to note that the flagship’s signals officer was the “flag lieutenant.” While such an officer may have also acted as the flag officer’s aide—as in modern usage—the title in Nelson’s day accurately described the intense focus on signaling.
As with the land telegraph system, error was frequent even regarding simple instructions. Observe this note from Lord Nelson to the captain of HMS Active, who had done something other than his admiral intended: “My dear Sir, I believe you mistook our signal this morning—it was to reconnoitre Toulon.”61
Security was an issue. Ships, upon meeting each other, challenged each other by flying their individual “recognition” numbers and then a “private signal.” The private signals “were issued by individual commanders-in-chief. They were changed as soon as it was known that the enemy might have captured them.” Lord Hood directed his commanding officers that “the signals were to be kept ‘with sufficient weight affixed to them to insure their being sunk if it should be found necessary to throw them overboard,’ and he added that, ‘As a consequence of the most dangerous nature to His majesty’s Fleet’ resulting from the enemy getting hold of them, any officer who let that happen ‘will certainly be made to answer for his disobedience at a court martial.’”62
Nelson addressed this problem in June 1804, writing to the Admiralty secretary that “as there is doubt that the late Private Signals, established for … this station … were taken [captured] in the Swift Cutter, I herewith transmit you a Sheet of Signals altered on the 10th instant, and issued to the different Ships under my command, which you will please to lay before the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.”63 He had been concerned with a related security issue six months earlier, writing this memo to all of his ships in the Mediterranean: “And their lordships having reason to apprehend that Officers under the rank of ‘commanders’ have . . . obtained, copies of the Signals described in the Day and Night Signal-Books above mentioned, direct me to give the strictest injunctions that such improper proceedings may not take place in future, and that you recall such copies of the said Signal-Books as may be in the possession of the Officers for whom they are not intended.”64
Lord St. Vincent wrote Rear Adm. Saumarez, in June 1801, regarding a similar situation: “The Portuguese squadron is in possession of the day and night signals, but I see many and strong objections to supplying any ship of that ally with the private signals; it will therefore be necessary to establish a distinct set of signals.”65
Security of the signaling system itself was always of concern, although the main use of the system was to facilitate tactical directions to fleet units; obviously, if flag signaling had been capable of, or designed to, transmit critical pieces of sensitive information security would have been much more important. Still, officers were usually very careful to keep their signal books from being captured. Most such books were bound in leaden covers, promoting the obvious method of throwing them over-board if capture were imminent.
Over time various signaling systems of the rival navies were compromised by specific captures of signal books. In fact, signals were captured during the very first naval battle of the war between ships of equal force. Capt. Edward Pellew’s Nymphe took the French national frigate Cléopâtre in June 1793; after a brief but fierce struggle the British boarded and “on the quarterdeck they found the heroic Captain Mullon mortally wounded. . . . He had in his pocket a list of private coast-signals, and as he lay in his death-throes he pulled a paper from his pocket, bit it to pieces and was trying to swallow it when he died. In fact the paper he destroyed was his Captain’s commission, and the signals fell into British hands; but no mistake could dim his heroic devotion to duty.”66
In February 1804, Lord Keith had possession of other captured French signals, and he was determined to use them and ensure no one knew he was using them:
Sir, I herewith transmit two sets of signals, supposed to be at present in use on the French coast . . . in order that you and Captain Owen of the Immortalité . . . may have the chance of availing yourselves of a knowledge of the enemy’s intended movements; and it will be very important that, by a minute attention to the signal station, you ascertain yourself how far the code herewith sent is that which is actually in use or not.
And as it is of the greatest importance that the possession of these signals by us should be most completely concealed, you will use the most cautious measures for preventing the existence in the minds of any of the officers in the other ships or your own of any suspicion that these signals are in your hands.67
Having made the point that officers were usually very careful to destroy their important documents prior to surrendering their ships, it is surprising how often no mention was made of doing this in after-action reports. For example, none of the six captains involved—victors or vanquished—in the first three great frigate duels of the War of 1812 refer to the capture or destruction of such materials.68
Nelson was aggressive in instructing his officers to think in these terms, as this letter to Lt. Kortwright, commanding HM Cutter John Bull, indicates: “You are to keep a proper weight constantly affixed to the . . . dispatches, and, in case of falling in with an Enemy of superior force, and seeing no probability of escaping capture, you are to throw them overboard, and sink them.”69
Fictitious Capt. Jack Aubrey was always ready. He had an “iron box in his locker—pierced iron, weighted with lead, for documents that must not be taken, that must sink on being thrown overboard, sunk at once, beyond recovery: signals, codes, official letters.”70 (Ironically, sometimes one had to go to extremes to keep a dispatch from getting wet and ruined, as “indeed it is blowing so hard at present that I am under the necessity of putting this letter into a keg, in order to convey it on board the lugger.”)71
One cannot quit a discussion of communications security without observing that contemporary officers knew that many letters and codes were compromised—regardless of media and of location. Lord Nelson constantly tried to ensure thorough security, but was also resigned to losses. For example, he wrote Ambassador Frere, in October 1803, that “as probably this letter will be read before it gets to you, I can only tell the reader, that a British Fleet never was in higher order, health, and good humour, than the one I have the happiness to command.”72 On 12 August 1803, Nelson wrote his friend Alexander Ball that the latter’s letter from “the Redbridge, I fear the French are reading, for I dare say he [the captain] never threw his dispatches over-board, although it has not been for want of caution on my part, for I charged him, when he was with me off Naples, always to have lead or plenty of shot tied to his dispatches.”73
Regarding a similar problem, in 1799 Capt. Thomas Troubridge became convinced that the queen of Naples had her secret agents reading Nelson’s letters—including those written by Troubridge—and then passing them on. Troubridge informed Nelson that he believed “some person about [Ambassador] Sir William Hamilton’s house sends accounts here, as I have frequently heard things which I knew your Lordship meant to keep secret.”74
After a dispatch vessel was captured in April 1805, Nelson wrote to his mistress, “I find, my dearest Emma, that your picture is very much admired by the French Consul at Barcelona; and that he has not sent it to be admired—which, I am sure, it would be—by Buonaparte. . . . I wish I had [it, but it is] gone as irretrievably as the dispatches. . . . But, from us, what can they find out? That I love you most dearly; and hate the French most damnably.”75
Nevertheless, for the most part such holes in communications security yielded no significant intelligence triumphs nor meaningful strategic advantages.
THIS IS A GOOD PLACE to more fully develop the subject of cryptography. Loosely defined, cryptography is the enciphering and deciphering of messages in secret codes or ciphers. Technically, a code is based on the substitution of complete words or phrases for others, whereas a cipher works on the principle of replacing single letters.76 While historically small scale in comparison to his experience, statesmen had known for centuries what Winston Churchill wrote in 1924: “I attach more importance to [the decrypts] as a means of forming a true judgement . . . than to any other source of knowledge at the disposal of the state.”77 Churchill was speaking of intelligence gathered during the First World War; however, even by the mid–eighteenth century, European countries “had skillfully developed . . . complicated and efficient cipher and code systems. Moreover, their skill in intercepting dispatches and breaking cryptographic designs became famous as they employed bright code clerks and shrewd administrators.”78
Diplomats abroad often were their own “bright code clerks”; sometimes they employed whatever local talent they could find. It is interesting to note that British ambassador to Naples Sir William Hamilton used his wife Emma (later to be Nelson’s mistress) in this role. A superb example (not reproduced here) is Item 259 of the Hamilton and Nelson Papers, a partial transcription of an eleven–page 1795 enciphered letter, in Italian, in Lady Hamilton’s handwriting, from Sir William to the Neapolitan foreign minister.79
Another interesting example, which will bear upon this book’s analysis of the Battle of Copenhagen, is a letter from British envoy to Denmark William Drummond to Secretary of State for the Foreign Office Lord Grenville, just prior to the 1801 Copenhagen campaign. Deciphered by one of the Willes family (the “decypherers of letters” mentioned in chapter 1), it begins (showing both deciphered meaning as well as the cipher itself),
Your Lordship will have
209 227 1913 241
seen that the Danish Ministry has
at length avowed its intention
3365 3357 345 1417 3269
with respect to the Armed Neutrality,
2368 3874 345 779 132
I believe however I can safely
1447 1662 1447 1924 3755
assure your Lordship that (there?)
1353 2076 1377 266 2498
prevailed upon this subject
345 2695 4175 3315 1070
considerable difference of opinion
in the cabinet. Count Bernstorff
631 39 132 3749 2253
does not even affect to conceal
529 2360 1268 2201 3356
his alarm and inquietude.80
Most encryption and enciphering was at the diplomatic level within the Home and Foreign Offices. The military and naval forces generally did not use such techniques and essentially gambled that their correspondence would not be captured or otherwise intercepted.
Lord Nelson was irritated by his lack of ability in this area—“Every Jack in Diplomatic affairs is intrusted with a cipher, but an Admiral Commander–in–Chief is not.” He always maintained an interest in cryptography, as his letters occasionally show. Note this remark in June 1804: “I send you some intercepted papers from Egypt; I cannot make out the ciphers. . . . When read, pray take a copy of them .. . and let me know the cipher if you can make it out.”81
Nelson did occasionally use some codes and ciphers belonging to certain Mediterranean kingdoms. For example, on 22 December 1803, he wrote “to the Pasha [of Yannina] in his cipher, to say that Captain Cracraft [the senior British officer in the Adriatic] was gone to Panormo, if he wished to have any conversation with him.”82
Nevertheless, Nelson had no access to official British systems. Admirals did not have, or were not allowed to employ, official encryption. He was constantly concerned for the security of his own official and private communications—as well he should have been, for the small vessels (in lieu of frigates) commonly used to carry dispatches were constantly being taken by the enemy. He therefore repeatedly complained that unenciphered information was doubly at risk, for he felt that if documents had to be captured at least they did not have to be in plain English. For example, Nelson was particularly irritated by the April 1804 capture of the cutter Swift: “She was taken the 5th, and all our dispatches, letters, &c. &c., are gone to Paris.”83 He further wrote to Lord St. Vincent, “I only hope that no dispatches of any consequence were entrusted in such a Vessel. Whatever they are, they are this day before Buonaparte.”84
Lord St. Vincent maintained an interest in cryptography, though this particular letter in 1802 might make one think he equated the use of codes and concealment as prima facie guilt: “Private. I was at Gibraltar when Lord Henry Paulet brought [a seized ship] in, and upon the discovery of concealed papers in cypher, under the most suspicious circumstances, I sent the Master and Supercargo to America as State Prisoners, and acquainted the Secretary of State therewith, sending him a copy of the papers so found.”85
It is worth noting that even as late as 1812 naval cryptography was still ad hoc and ad lib among most powers. Among the instructions given to American Commo. Isaac Chauncey by Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, when ordering him to command U.S. naval forces at Lakes Ontario and Erie, was for him to personally “establish a cipher, by which when necessary, you will correspond with the [local American army] commanding officer, and . . . you may establish with the army a telegraphic communication—by which means you may be able to ascertain their movements and to communicate your own, with celerity and Secrecy.”86
Fig. 3-3 John Jervis, Lord St. Vincent.
Shown here as a rear admiral by Sir William Beechey, St. Vincent was perhaps the greatest admiral—along with Nelson—of the period.
© National Maritime Museum, London
Both cryptography and cryptology were to gain emphasis as the nineteenth century wore on. After all, the widespread use of flag hoists—and particularly the growing use of shore–based semaphore telegraph systems—essentially made government and military communications open to the public.
Of course, encoding required decoding even among those whom the communications were meant, and encoding always meant the greater likelihood of error. Note this letter from Dundas to Lord Spencer in 1799: “We had been led to hope from the telegraph communication … that the loss on our part had been five killed and wounded, and on the part of the enemy fifteen killed and wounded. In short, either from an original mistake or from an inaccuracy in decyphering the communication at Deal, the oo in both instances were omitted.”87
THIS BOOK is particularly concerned with an admiral commanding a fleet, squadron, or station with no superior officer in the area, and with a captain, commanding a ship detached on an independent mission or cruise—again with no superior officer in the area. An admiral (probably a vice or rear admiral) closely subordinate to a superior officer, as well as a captain in the same circumstances, were tasked much differently—a prime example being ships making up part of a large fleet blockading an enemy port. When a superior was in close proximity, to include most certainly visual proximity, the subordinate was limited to the most routine activities and thoughts. In a fleet at sea, cruising or blockading, almost all communications were handled, and decisions were made, by the senior officer present, including course, speed, when to tack, when to wear, what sails to carry, when to mess, what to do! A commander’s talents and burdens of responsibility were extraordinarily minimized under such circumstances. Only when the commander was himself the senior officer present (admiral or captain) was his plate full and his burden heavy. Moreover, C. S. Forester would add that officers in command “in those days of poor communications had some strange responsibilities thrust upon them,”88 a subject which will be fully developed in chapter 6.
Historian/espionage writer Anthony Price develops the real import of communications to intelligence and operations in general, particularly relative to such senior officers present:
Consider the enormous burden placed on commanders in the days before radio. . . . Of the [perils facing a] commander, battle was the least[,]. . . with rock, tempest, and fire preceding. But to these hazards might very reasonably be added the stress factor, to which admirals at sea and captains on detached duties . . . were particularly exposed for prolonged periods. With the fate of the country perhaps at stake, and certainly their own lives and professional reputations, lone commanders had to make decisions on the basis of information which might not only be sparse and imprecise, but also often days, weeks, or even months old.89
The modern commander has to sympathize with Capt. William Hoste (one of Nelson’s favorites) when he wrote to the Admiralty (his admiral perhaps a fortnight away, and London a month away, at best) from HMS Bacchante in 1813, “Sir—I have acted without any precise orders from my admiral . . . [but] upon motives which at the time I considered as best calculated … for the interest of Great Britain.”90
One cannot leave any discussion of effective and timely intelligence transmission without observing that in 1797 Britain had been barely saved from disaster. She was saved “by [an enormous] failure of French intelligence to learn of the ‘Great Mutiny’ (the widespread fleet mutiny at the major anchorages of Spithead and the Nore) in time to gain any advantage of it.”91 This was relative to a second attempt at an invasion of Ireland by the Irish rebel Wolfe Tone and the French general Louis Lazare Hoche.92 The failure to discern the paralysis of the Royal Navy, followed by a failure to quickly transmit the information to France, is likely “a failure as gross as that of German intelligence during the French Army mutinies” of World War I for the exact same reasons.93 The Great Mutiny effectively lasted from 15 April to 12 June 1797; Britain was virtually defenseless for about two months.94
Bemoaning the lost opportunity, Tone later complained that for eight weeks the English fleet was “paralyzed by mutinies at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and the Nore. The sea was open and nothing to prevent both the Dutch and French fleets to put to sea. Well, nothing was ready; that precious opportunity, which we can never expect to return, was lost; and now that at last we are ready here, the wind is against us, the mutiny is quelled and we are sure to be attacked by a superior force.”95 In fact, the expedition failed to get ashore at Bantry Bay and was abandoned.
The ultimate issue, regarding timely information transmission, must surely be the relay of the most important piece of intelligence of all: the event that makes hostilities unnecessary, or the news that peace has been signed and, therefore, hostilities are over. Two major incidents during this time period immediately come to mind. One, which will be studied in greater detail later in this work, concerns the former. The second great victory of Nelson’s career was, of course, the 1801 Battle of Copenhagen. Very briefly, the campaign was pursued because Britain felt compelled to force Denmark to accede to neutrality issues viewed as critical to Britain’s national existence; Denmark refused to cooperate, fearing the eccentric Russian czar’s enormous armies at a time when Czar Paul was raging particularly anglophobic. Unfortunately for the two thousand Britons and Danes killed and wounded at Copenhagen, the czar was assassinated on 12 March 1801, causing a total reversal of Russian foreign policy. Had this information been passed to the west more quickly than the technology of the time permitted, Danish foreign policy would have altered significantly in favor of Britain, and the battle would have been avoided. Nelson’s anguished exclamation underscores the tragedy: “Good God! why did I not know that event eight days sooner?”96
The second incident concerns ignorance of the closure of hostilities. One of the most famous land battles of this period, with horrific consequences for the British army, was the Battle of New Orleans (8 January 1815) at the end of the War of 1812. In this case a treaty (the Treaty of Ghent) had been signed between the two belligerents on 24 December 1814. Again, had it been possible to transmit this critical information more quickly across the Atlantic and then down through the American continent, over two thousand British soldiers (including their commanding officer, Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham) would have escaped death or injury in a major battle that happened literally after the war was over.
