War At Sea In The Age Of Sail, By Andrew Lambert

This book makes for an interesting conundrum. When one examines the reading material that is focused for naval professionals, it is issues like strategy and logistics and politics that dominate discussion. That said, when one reads books directed for the wide market of readers interested in naval history, one sees that it is tactics, and particular battle studies that tend to dominate the size of books. This is true even when one reads a book like this one, which gives credit to the logistical capacity of a nation like Great Britain to preserve naval dominance for centuries because it had the economic power to do so and the political will to support those efforts, and to keep a well-trained body of seamen available for ship duty and conduct affairs brutally enough to imprison the seafaring population of would-be continental rivals like France. Let us make no mistake–this is a book that gives a lot of credit to English naval brilliance on the strategic and tactical level, and on the level of logistical support, but it does not in any way whitewash English behavior at sea.

In terms of its contents, this book looks chronologically at warfare at sea between 1650 and 1850. During these two centuries England (and then Great Britain) faced off against a variety of rivals and sometime allies, including the Dutch, the Danes, the French, the Turks, the Spanish, and the Russians, and even the Americans. There are at least a few serious threads running through the book. The maps and material of the book, and much of the discussion, focuses on battle tactics. This is so even though the author recognizes a few deeper truths about naval warfare, such as the fact that few battles were decisive, that seapower largely focused on attrition (and hence was a logistical matter) and that it depends greatly on having an infrastructure around merchant marine as well as naval forces, and the political will to spend money on expensive ships and ports and having the maritime economy to support it. These are of deeper interest, ultimately, to someone who wants to understand naval power, but most readers of this book will probably prefer the volume’s excellent pretty maps and pictures.

It is a testament to the skill of the author that he manages to blend so many concerns into a coherent book that manages to tell the same stories graphically and also in excellent supporting text. Some of this skill as a work probably belongs to the coherence that comes from being part of a skilled multi-volume collection with an excellent overall editor in John Keegan. There is something melancholy about this book as well, for it speaks of the loss of lives because of ignorance of longitude, of the destruction wrecked by disease and starvation, of the brutality that is necessary to win a war for survival against a dictator like Napoleon. Then, of course, there is the matter of which maritime power in defense of the trading interests of states can be ruined by the need to spend blood and treasure in continental warfare. Also, the book is honest about the limitations of naval power, making it a book that celebrates something that is limited, that is ephemeral, and that requires a massive and difficult commitment. Do we have that commitment in our own times?