Sir George Rooke

He Captured the Rock of Giraltar

This Naval History continues on from: "The Executive Officer"

When war appeared once more it gave the chance to test theories, the principal commander was Sir George Rooke. According to custom he issued his fleet with his Fighting Instructions, in 1703.

In a purely time sence these are the most important ever published, for they were by far the longest lived; eighty-years.

The Old Article 23, which provides for the instant closing up of the line if a ship is forced to leave it. The commanding officer of such a ship must now obtain the Commander-in-Chief's consent before he leaves the line.

The penalty of supersession on the spot is threatened to any officer who shall be wanting in his duty in this respect. And it is scarcely necessary to add that the old Article 20; the order not to leave the line in pursuit of any small number of beaten enemy ships, no matter how much destruction they have received.

In 1704, after the glorious capture of the famous Rock at the gateway to the Mediterranean, Rooke had his chance of conducting a major action, and not unnaturally conducted it exactly "according to the rules," his own rules.

The resulting action was uninspiring and remarkably indecisive, yet it was undeniably successful. The trouble was that its strategic background was exceptional.

The Executive Officer

The predicament was unusual

The circumstances of the case dictated that a British Commander-in-Chief should use his fleet defensively, and that, in the history of the British Navy, was by no means the norm.

So things panned out well, in the short view. An action which ought, strategically, to be a defensive action was fought upon a tactical plan which tended distinctly to the defensive; and Sir George achieved his defensive strategic object. The wisdom of his Instructions, and those who had issued them, seemed to be proven up to the hilt.

The reasons for this unusual strategic condition were, in brief, these. Rooke had just taken Gibraltar using British and Dutch Marines as his main fighting force, and realising the immence importance of what he had done, rightly made it his principal aim to retain his significant prize.

His opponent, the Comte de Toulouse, with exactly the same realization in the forefront of his mind, decided he must retake the Rock: which meant he must do the attacking, if he wanted to achieve his end.

This was the first time in over seven-hundred years that the Rock had changed hands; and it took a lot of intense fighting by courageous and determined troops to accomplish such an extraordinary feat.

At Sea A Disturbance Was Gathering Way

In the preliminary manoeuvrings Toulouse's squadrons got the better of his adversary as to penetrate between his fleet and Gibraltar; where-upon it became necessary for Sir George to retrace his route from the east, to take on Toulouse.

The fleets headed in towards the Mediterranean. And Toulouse was prepared to accept the challenge, because he wanted to retake Gibraltar, but he had to defeat Rooke first. One factor favoured Toulouse, he had the wind advantage, tactically he could take the offensive while strategically he remained on the defensive.

The fleets both sailing approximately south, made contact off Malaga on 13th August 1704, the lines sailed facing each other. When suddenly the whole English fleet at once swung into line abreast and bore down on the French, who waited for them, because, for once, they wanted to fight.

So as the allies bore down with Rooke in the centre, and with the Dutch in the rear, instead of waiting tamely for their arrival, Toulouse kept his fleet forging ahead, thereby letting his leading ships overlap the allied left with a view to doubling back on the English ships.

The English instructions had an answer to that. By artical 18 of the 1691 code, the admiral's fleet is to steer with the enemy's and there to engage them. The English ships steered for the ship directly in front of them and there followed a spell of hard give and take combat. Both sides fighting and both side receiving damage and casualties.

The Allies Gradually Bore Down the Opposition

Rooke's ships were in the centre, being those which had borne the brunt of the capture of Gibraltar, were somewhat short of powder and though hitting targets seemed to be making no real impression for the considerable damage they were receiving from the French.

Inevitably, several of the damaged ships had to ask to leave the line; on receiving permission to make their way back to port. Other ships filled the gaps they left, closing up gradually on Rooke's fleet flagship.

So the line was restored. Both sides stayed at loggerheads until, at nightfall Toulouse withdrew everywhere, battered but not broken.

Rooke praised his captains for their part in the day's action, it was masterly, being most neatly accomplished and strictly in accordance with orders.

We may be permitted to wonder, what would have happened had the English captains continued to put pressure upon the almost beaten enemy, and to ask whether it was not a pity that they had done so.

The answer is perhaps is that they did not have a completely free hand, such a move would have been the best, and it might have brought a dicisive success.

As things stood, it would probably have failed, since Artical 21 would have continually handicapped them. No individual ship, however wounded or broken its opponent, would have been permitted to leave the line.

So ended the fighting in this day's battle.

Moves Were Strategical in Nature

When daylight failed. strategical victory did not lie with Sir George; the French still lay between him and the place which it was his aim to defend. Moreover his powder was low, and too add to his misfortunes, the wind swung round in the night and left him to leeward.

If with the advantage of the wind, and with at least some powder for his guns, he had failed to win through, what were his chances now?

Fortunatly for him, Toulouse saw the situation differently. As far as he was concerned he was barring his enemy from Gibraltar, it is true, but Rooke was also barring him; from getting home to Toulon.

Toulouse's fleet had been very serverely battered.

It seems to have occured to him during the night that discretion was the better part of valour; for he probably knew; as perhaps Rooke did not, how very near to disaster his fleet had been the previous afternoon. Another such hammering and he would have no chance of battling through the allies and returning to Toulon.

Toulouse Slipped Away in the Darkness

Sir George must have had an anxious night himself, but he was contemplating no such thing. He was probably somewhat surprised and grateful to find the next day that Toulouse had solved his insoluble problem for him!

At Toulon the Comte de Toulouse proclaimed loudly that he had won the battle of Malaga. So did Louis XIV, partly for purposes of propoganda and partly because he happened to be the Comte's father.

While Rooke's political foes at home, for obvious reasons of their own, professed to believe it too; they actually got Rooke deprived of his command.

Informed opinion took another view; and it may not have been the right one either. Yet it was only natural. Rooke was certainly lucky in many ways, but equally he had great results to show.

He had won, at a trifling cost, a really great offensive success; he had captured the well defended Rock. He had also done, by fighting a big defensive action at sea, to keep his prize, he had retained the great Rock.

Judgement by Success or Failure

More than once, through history we have seen, that a commander will be judged by the acid test of success or failure. We must not be surprised that Rooke, in informed circles at any rate, got the credit for his success, which were not wholly deserved. But his personal share in those successes was in fact considerable.

What threatened to bring failure was not so much himself but the system upon which he worked. Rooke deserved at least as much credit as he received; what really was unfortunate was that the system received so undeserved a boosting.

What a boosting it was in the event! As it chanced, there were no more major fleet actions in that eleven-years' war, and there followed what, for those days, was an exceedingly long period of peace.

It came about that those Instructions of Rooke, which had certain merits, especially in furnishing the Commander-in-Chief with real control of a very pliable instrument, got themselves imprinted upon the naval mind as something almost too important to alter.

Those Orders laid their dreadening grip upon the eighteenth-century fleets of Britan under the proud title of the Permanent Fighting Instructions.

The process which changed Rooke's Fighting Instructions into the Permanent Fighting Instructions had little to do with tactics. It was mainly the result of a long period when there was no chance of putting theories to the test of practice.

The Navy's General Efficiency and Moral Dipped

Because for so long it had been seriously neglected by the old men of the admiralty; who were now too old to care; and who could not see the necessity for modification because of the cost and of it being slightly troublesome for them and difficult to impliment without the finance.

When the real effort had to be made once more, there was not, on any level, a sufficiency of trained personnel to make it better.

There were good individual officers, all the way up the naval hierachy, but there was a lack of interest at the top. From the nature of the case, there was bound to be too few of adequate experience to see the job through.

The cause for this lay deeply in the system which insisted that, in peace-time, a bare minimum of ships should be kept in commission, with the bare minimum of officers in employment. The relatively long peace-period ensured that those chosen for high command would be either too old, or else quite inexperienced.

In a word, they changed what had been the Admiral's Fighting Instructions into the Permanent Fighting Instructions. When the wars began again, we find exactly the same instructions isseud to all; but they are not those of the Admiral commanding a fleet.

They Emanated From a Higher Authority Altogether

They are Standing Orders, as binding on the Admiral himself as they are on every one else in the fleet. The Standing Orders went back to an earlier and typically inferior set of rules, when Captain's made their own decisions.

The Admiral's Fighting Instructions had put into the Commander's hands a reasonably pliable instrument for him to wield. When issuing Instructions such as Rooke did, the commanding officers then, were their own masters to a certain extent. The could have control of the whole fleet in action.

But now they could not. They were tied down to a convention, or a set of conventions, which was not their own making. It was fatal for the Enterprize of action. And to top it all, there was the grievous handicap of an inadequate signalling system.

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Good Men Striving Against a Bad System

Different men had different ways of setting about their up-hill tasks. Some did not risk much and failed. Some risked much and failed. Some exercised ingenuity and boldness and failed. For all who had clung to the Line failed, needless to say some more than others.

The only ones who did not fail, were those who were bold enough to discard the Line altogether; not for the approach; no reputable admiral would do that, but for the close action that would follow.

And this was a dangerous business, which was not always practicable. In the end though, they won through to tactical efficiency, untill, in the late 1700s, where they had evolved a sensible offensive set of tactics that proved to be successful.

The continuation of this Naval History will be: "Richard Howe"

Sir George Rooke Richard Howe

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