226 Chapter Seven
the British navy supreme on the seas was firmly in place and func
tioning. Why, then, embrace untried devices? Why indeed? The Ad
miralty’s oft-quoted memorandum of 1828, though radically wrong in
its view of the future, nevertheless expressed an entirely rational ap
preciation of the circumstances British naval authorities confronted.
The memorandum read as follows:
Their Lordships feel it is their bounden duty to discourage to the
utmost of their ability the employment of steam vessels, as they
consider that the introduction of steam is calculated to strike a
fatal blow at the naval supremacy of the Empire.^4
The Royal Navy’s conservatism, however, constituted an opportu
nity for any rival who might choose to build technologically more
modern ships. The French saw the possibility very quickly. In 1822,
for example, General Henri J. Paixhans published a book entitled
Nouvelle force maritime, in which he argued that ships protected by
armor plate and carrying large-caliber guns capable of firing explosive
shells could break up and destroy wooden warships with complete
impunity. Paixhans had just developed a shell gun when he wrote his
book. Tests against an old hulk in 1824 showed that his claims were
well founded, so the French navy officially adopted Paixhans’ shell
guns in 1837. The Royal Navy followed suit in the very next year, and
other European navies soon did likewise. From that time onward,
everyone was aware that if it ever came to battle, wooden warships
were critically vulnerable to the new explosive shells.^5 This was dem
onstrated in 1853 at the Battle of Sinope in the Black Sea when
Russian shells swiftly destroyed the Turkish fleet. This Russian victory
did much to precipitate British entry into the Crimean War
(1854–56), for it seemed in London that Constantinople now lay
within the Russians’ reach, unless British (and French) warships sailed
into the Black Sea to bar the way.
Experience during the Crimean War set French and British naval
designers off on a new tack, seeking security against increasingly pow
- Quoted from Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy (Baltimore, 1957),
p. 224.
- As early as 1827, private initiative and British philhellenism had in fact armed a
steamship with one of Paixhans’ shell guns for use in the Greek War of Independence
against the Turks. This ship, the Karteria, gave sovereignty over the Aegean to the
Greek insurgents; but it never really was tested, since British, French, and Russian
warships of the old design had already destroyed the only important Moslem counter
force at the Battle of Navarino (1827), before the Karteria came on the scene. Cf.
Christopher J. Bartlett, Great Britain and Sea Power. 1815–1851 (Oxford, 1963),
p. 200.
