Running the Blockade 1
Running the Blockade
A Personal Narrative of Adventures, Risks, and Escapes
during the American Civil War
Author: Thomas E. Taylor
INTRODUCTION
A German admiral has remarked that the most valuable naval history lies
in the despatches and logs of naval officers. Our own Navy Record
Society by the line it has taken thoroughly endorses this view, and has
committed itself to the teaching of naval history from the mouths of the
men who made it.
Mr. Taylor's work then must not be taken as a mere record of personal
adventure, however absorbing it be found from this point of view. As a
picture of exciting escapes, of coolness and resource at moments of
acute danger, of well-calculated risks, boldly accepted and obstinately
carried through, it has few rivals in recent sea-story: but its deeper
value does not lie here. Over and above its romantic interest it will be
recognised by students of the naval art as a real and solid contribution
to history; for it presents to us from the pen of a principal actor the
most complete account we have of a great blockade in the days of steam.
The important part that blockade plays in naval warfare is a thing
hardly recognised outside professional ranks. For the general reader,
the grand manœuvres of a great fleet in chase of the enemy and the
stirring hours of some decisive action throw into oblivion the tedious
months of dull, anxious, and exhausting work with which by far the
greater part of the war is taken up. Yet it is hardly too much to say
that during the most glorious period of our maritime history nine-tenths
of the energies of our admirals were devoted to blockade. In the future
it is possible that it will take even a higher place. Should England
become engaged with a first-rate foreign power, single-handed, it is a
recognised fact amongst naval strategists that in a week she could close
every one of her enemy's ports and have a fleet free to reduce at its
leisure everything he held beyond the seas. With almost any two Powers
against her it is probable she could do as much: and it is the
recognition of this power abroad which gives England, in spite of her
military weakness, so commanding a position in Europe.
The importance then of studying every scrap of information on the
subject in order to perfect our knowledge of the art of blockade cannot
be exaggerated, and Mr. Taylor's simple and straightforward record of
his experiences may claim to be perhaps the fullest contribution to the
subject that as yet exists. Experiences of individual captains we have
had, and, read with the present work, they are of high value: but Mr.
Taylor has something more to tell. Not only did he run the blockade
personally a greater number of times than any one else, but, boy as he
was at the time, he was the chief organiser of a great and systematised
attack on the Northern blockade, such as the world had never seen
before. His operations may be said to have opened a new era in the
history of blockade, and one which bids fair to have far-reaching
consequences for every maritime Power.
To make clear his position and its dangers and difficulties a word must
be said on the general subject of blockade. Blockade, it must be clearly
borne in mind, is of two kinds, the one military, the other commercial.
The first concerns the belligerents alone, and consists in one of them,
who has obtained a working command of the sea, imprisoning the other's
war fleets in their own ports. It was this form of blockade which
absorbed by far the greatest part of our naval activity during the great
French wars. During the American Civil War it was considerably
practised, and from American sources may be studied in complete detail
the efforts of the Confederate war-ships to escape the vigilance of
Federal blockading squadrons. The second form, or commercial blockade,
is one that principally concerns neutrals, and it was of course to this
form alone that Mr. Taylor's operations extended.
The International Law which regulates its conditions as between neutrals
and belligerents is shortly this. A belligerent, if strong enough at sea
to close one or more ports of his enemy, may give notice to Neutral
Powers that such port or ports are blockaded, and thereafter if any
neutral vessel attempts to enter or leave them, the belligerent may
treat it as an enemy, and may destroy or capture and condemn it as an
ordinary prize. To run a blockade then is an operation attended with all
the risks of war. Indeed a blockade-runner is in an even worse position
than a hostile belligerent; for not being a combatant he may not resist
the efforts of the blockaders to destroy or capture him. He is entitled
to escape if he can, but a single shot or blow in his own defence makes
him a pirate, and a belligerent capturing him may treat him as such. But
it must always be remembered that for a belligerent to be entitled to
exercise these high prerogatives he must first have constituted a real
and effective blockade. A mere declaration that a port is closed is not
enough. It must be so closely watched and invested with an adequate
naval force that no neutral can leave or enter without running present
danger of being sunk or captured.
Analogous to the rights arising out of an effective blockade, and always
to be clearly distinguished from them, is the right of a belligerent to
treat as an enemy a neutral vessel carrying contraband of war to his
enemy's ports, and this right he may always exercise, whether the ports
in question be effectively blockaded or not.
It was this consideration, no doubt, combined with a desire to preserve
a strict neutrality and to see the South treated as belligerents and not
as mere insurgents, that induced the English Government to recognise the
Federal blockade as soon as it was declared. At the opening of the war
the Federal Government, in defiance of International Law, declared the
whole Southern seaboard under blockade. It was a blockade they were then
wholly unable to enforce or even to pretend to enforce, but as most of
our blockade-runners carried contraband of war, there was very little to
be gained by disputing the Federal pretensions. Some injustice, no
doubt, was thus done to the South. But it was more than counterbalanced
by the advantage they gained in that the recognition of the blockade
made them indisputably belligerents. For these reasons our Government
thought it wise to waive its neutral rights and submit to a paper
blockade, which did not exist. As the Northern power increased at sea
the blockade became more and more effective, and by the time Mr. Taylor
had got fully to work it may be said to have been something more than a
pretence. Finally it became very strict and thoroughly effective, and it
is with this instructive period that his reminiscences are chiefly
concerned.
This declaration of a blockade that could not be enforced at the time
was not the only extension of belligerent rights which the Federal
Government claimed and exercised in respect of blockade. As Mr. Taylor
fully explains, they did not confine their operations against
blockade-runners to the established practice of watching the closed
ports. Not only did they cruise for offenders on the high seas, but they
intercepted them close to their points of departure, thousands of miles
from the blockaded ports. Nay, they even went so far as to attempt to
blockade the neutral ports which the offending vessels were using as
bases of operations. To most of these claims no objection was made, and
there is no doubt that in any future war similar operations will be
recognised without question, as within belligerent rights.
In previous wars a belligerent declaring a blockade had to concern
himself with little more than turning back ordinary merchantmen who had
not received notice of the blockade, or cutting off small fry of the
smuggling type that slipped over from adjacent coasts to take their
chance of getting in. Such a thing as neutral merchants establishing
public companies to build fleets of specially designed vessels for the
avowed purpose of breaking a blockade which was thoroughly effective
against ordinary types of merchantmen, was a thing unknown to
International Law. And further, when these merchants stretched their
rights as neutrals so far as to establish regular bases almost in the
enemy's waters from which to conduct their revolutionary operations, it
was obvious that some latitude must be granted to the blockading power.
No objection, therefore, was ever raised to his cutting off vessels
avowedly constructed for blockade-running at any point he chose; but
when he attempted to blockade neutral ports from which they were acting,
England put her foot down and compelled the Federal cruisers to draw
off. In this she was clearly within her rights. But although the Federal
claim to this bold extension of belligerent rights was undoubtedly
illegal, it was not without provocation. It is another law of blockade
that a vessel is not "guilty" and cannot be interfered with unless it is
bound for a blockaded port. The system pursued by Mr. Taylor of
establishing depots or bases on British territory close to American
waters thus greatly increased the difficulties of the cruisers. Goods
destined for the blockaded ports were consigned first to one of these
bases, Bermuda, Havana, or the Bahamas, and on their way could not be
touched by the Northern captains. It was naturally a great temptation to
these officers as they watched the offensive traffic pouring into the
runner's bases to see that it did not get out. It is even conceivable
that England might have been induced to wink at their proceedings. But
it so happened that the first and only attempt to blockade
blockade-runners in a British port was made by the very officer who was
the culprit in the _Trent_ affair, and that too while we were still
unsoothed from his last violation of our neutrality. The British
Government, therefore, happened to be in a very irritable mood with the
North, and though they had hitherto been inexhaustible in their sympathy
with the Federal belligerent pretensions, they now peremptorily stopped
their complacency and the North had to submit.
Whether the claim made tentatively by the Northern Government is
destined to become recognised by International Law is by no means clear.
In the case in question the neutral was too powerful to be resisted.
Shortly after, however, the same scheme was actually put in operation by
one of the most famous of Mr. Taylor's colleagues, the "notorious
Captain Roberts," the arch-blockade runner and a British naval officer.
When the American war closed, the Turkish Government had been trying for
months to suppress an insurrection in Crete by blockading the island on
the old lines. Hobart (whose _nom de guerre_ as a blockade-runner was
"Roberts"), profiting by his recent experience, undertook to suppress it
in a week, and his offer was accepted. The insurgents were living
entirely on supplies sent them from Greece, and Hobart having been
placed in command of the blockading squadron proceeded at once to
blockade the Greek vessels in their own ports, and the Cretans were
immediately starved into surrender.
This and every other indication show a tendency for the belligerent
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기