History of the Royal Navy
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For the beginning of the history of the Royal Navy , no date of foundation or concrete historical date can be given. The origins of the Royal Navy can be traced back to the small fleets that the British kings put together as needed during the Middle Ages to repel external enemies. These fleets were manageable in the number and size of their ships and were then usually quickly disbanded; there was no standing fleet with specially built and equipped warships. It was not until the 16th century that a fleet of warships was formed, which were constantly manned and maintained, and became a permanent feature during the 17th century. In particular, the armed conflicts with France from 1690, which lasted until the Napoleonic Wars , led to the build-up of a large fleet that dominated the oceans. The 19th century brought a long period of peace between Britain and its great rival France. The introduction of steam power , steel as a building material and large-caliber, long-range weapons changed warships, but as a leading industrial nation, Great Britain was at the forefront of this technological development and was able to maintain the paramount importance of its fleet into the 20th century. It was not until the Second World War that the Royal Navy lost its leadership position in technology and combat capabilities to the US Navy. Today, however, the Royal Navy is still considered a major navy.
The time of the Anglo-Saxons 897 to 1066
Since 793 the Danish Vikings had conquered large parts of the east of the British Isles . Alfred the Great had a number of boats built in 897 to repel attacks by the Vikings, who plundered the coast of southern England on their raids. The boats were rowed and fitted with 60 oars. However, at Stourmouth, Kent , the royal fleet was defeated by the Vikings. Only King Æthelstan rebuilt a fleet and at the time of the battle of Brunanburgh in 937 against the allied kings of Dublin , Scotland and Strathclyde the fleet is said to have had a strength of 400 ships. When the Danish King Sven I "Gabelbart" attacked the English coast from 1003 and conquered the whole of England, there was no English fleet that could have repelled the attacks. Harald II had built up a small fleet, but when the Normans landed under William the Conqueror in 1066, the fleet was no longer operational.
The time of the Normans 1066 to 1485
The Norman kings had a constant need for transportation between the British Isles and their home country on the continent and began building a royal fleet from 1155 onwards. The coastal cities of Hastings , New Romney , Hythe , Dover and Sandwich , which had come together to form the Cinque Ports , had to provide and maintain 57 ships, each equipped with 21 sailors.
When the English King John Ohneland lost Normandy to the French King Philip II in 1204 , the fleet had to be enlarged to fend off the French king's attempted invasions. William of Wrotham built a fleet of galleys that were also suitable for attacking mainland France. Under the leadership of William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury , the galley fleet raided the town of Damme in Flanders in 1213 and destroyed part of the French fleet.
At this time, the construction of an infrastructure for the fleet began. In 1212 a base was established in Portsmouth which was the home port for at least 10 ships. The fleet was later used in the 13th century to support military campaigns, for example during the conquest of Anglesey in 1282. Edward II tried unsuccessfully to use the fleet to block Scotland. The costs for the fleet were already considerable at that time, so in 1294 a total of 20 galleys were purchased, each manned by 120 rowers.
During the Hundred Years War with France, the fleet was used to attack the opposing mainland, but encounters between warships only occurred in the rarest of cases. At the sea battle of Sluis in the mouth of the Zwin on June 24, 1340, the English King Edward III. a great victory over the French King Philip VI. who subsequently put the French on the defensive at sea and on land. On August 29, 1350, the fleet of Eduard III. with 50 ships off L'Espagnols sur Mer on the Spanish fleet. Of the 40 Spanish ships, between 14 and 26 ships were captured, some sank, the rest fled. This was most likely the English fleet's first real sea battle. At that time, the Eduard III fleet. a size of about 700 ships. Also due to the displeasure of the merchants who resisted the constant requisition of their ships, the English fleet was reduced to only 4 ships by the end of the reign of Richard II in 1400 - in 1409 there were only 2 ships left. Only his successor Heinrich V rebuilt a fleet, including the 1,400 t flagship Grace Dieu , which was launched in 1420. The English fleet won some notable victories against the French around 1417. However, there were no noteworthy new buildings again in the period around 1480, when the first warships were built, which were intended for the use of ship cannons . According to the state of the art, these cannons were still simple field snakes , as they were also used by the army.
Under Henry VII they began again to maintain a standing fleet; the new ships were much larger than the previous ships. When Henry VIII took over the fleet, it consisted of 15 large ships, some of which were already equipped with the new gun ports. Also because of an impending war with France, the infrastructure for the fleet was expanded; In 1514 the Corporation of Trinity House was established, which maintained the lighthouses and sea marks. In 1512 Sir Edward Howard took over the office of Lord Admiral and attacked the French ship Cordelière with his ship Regent; Both ships were destroyed at this sea meeting. Sir Edward fell in the further fighting in 1513 and his brother Thomas Howard took his position. 1514 ran the Carrack Great Harry from the stack, the first two-decker of the British fleet and equipped with portholes and large bronze cannons. Henry VIII also had the Anthony Roll made , an overview of the British fleet around 1546, with pictures of the most important ships.
After the end of the war with France, it was decided to maintain a fleet of 30 ships at all times, even in times of peace. As a result, more port facilities were built for the fleet and an administration set up. In 1538, a royal decree created the legal basis for the fleet.
In 1539 the royal fleet already consisted of 45 ships and in 1545 Lord Lisle was able to defeat a French fleet of 130 ships with a fleet of 160 ships in a sea battle on the Solent and repel an impending invasion. In the same year a royal council for the navy was set up, consisting of seven high officers who were to regulate the affairs of the navy; Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Clere took over the presidency.
Under Edward VI. and Mary I the fleet did not develop much further; During the war with France from 1557 to 1559, the fleet could not prevent Calais from being lost. Elizabeth I took over the fleet with 39 ships; a plan was to lay up another 30 ships and to divide them into 5 classes. The fleet has been expanded slowly but steadily for over 20 years.
With the support of privateers like Hawkins , Drake - who attacked the city of Calais in 1587 and destroyed dozens of Spanish ships - through Elizabeth I, relations with Spain were very strained. In 1588, Philip II of Spain attacked England with his armada . In a sea battle that lasted over a week, the Armada was repulsed by the English fleet ( Sea Battle of Gravelines ).
Towards the end of the Anglo-Spanish War, the English fleet lost its fighting power, caused by rampant corruption, which could not be stopped until 1618. Notable newbuildings were the Prince Royal (built 1608–1610), the first three-decker in the royal fleet, and in 1637 the Sovereign of the Seas with 102 cannons.
Various attacks were carried out under James I - against pirates on the Barbarian Coast , Cadiz and La Rochelle - but all of them ended rather unhappy.
Increase in combat strength from 1642 to 1689
At the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642, the Navy, with its 35 ships at the time, was on the side of Parliament. The execution of Charles I in 1649 led to a rapid expansion of the Navy, as England had created many enemies through the revolution. From 1650, a larger number of new buildings were therefore launched. Major operations of the Navy were the three wars with the United Netherlands in the years 1652 to 1674. These wars were triggered by seemingly trivial conflicts, but behind them there was massive economic competition with the Netherlands. These wars were remarkable in that they were waged almost exclusively by the Navy in the English Channel and the North Sea. Strategically, these wars were of little importance to England, but the Navy learned how to fight large-scale battles. The Navy Articles of War, which regulated the conduct of officers and common seamen, and the combat instructions, which prescribed fighting in a given order of battle, both date from this period. At the beginning of the restoration by Charles II , the Navy numbered 40 larger ships with a crew of 3,695 men. The administration of the Navy was greatly improved by Sir William Coventry and Samuel Pepys .
The wars with France and the USA from 1756 to 1815
During the Seven Years' War , the Royal Navy won significant victories against the royal French fleet and was clearly dominant at the end of the war. In the years after 1763, however, the strength and fighting power deteriorated rapidly. In the American Revolutionary War , the British fleet was still dominant, but it became clear that the Royal Navy suffered from an overstretched task. The Royal Navy was able to raise 90 ships of the line at that time and was thus superior to France (66 ships of the line) and Spain (58 ships of the line), but it proved impossible to secure the supply lines at the same time, to control the home waters and above all the English Channel, to monitor the exit of the Baltic Sea, to survive in the fight against the French fleet and to carry out relief operations to Gibraltar , the West Indies, the Indian Ocean and North America. In 1778 the blockade strategy against the French fleet was abandoned in order to protect the Navy from wear and tear. However, this gave France the opportunity to send fleets to the distant theaters of war and to support the American rebels. After the peace treaty, however, the prudent policies of William Pitt the Younger ensured that Great Britain recovered quickly. During the French Revolution and the years that followed, the Royal Navy blocked French ports to prevent Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Army from landing in Great Britain. In the naval battles of Abukir (1799, Battle of the Nile) and Trafalgar (1805), the British, under the leadership of Admiral Horatio Nelson, attacked the French fleet and thus prevented a possible landing of French troops on the British Isles. It thus consolidated its supremacy over the oceans for more than another century. With the American-British War, a new type of naval warfare was introduced. Instead of the clumsy ships of the line sailing in the keel line, the age of the fast and powerful frigates was dawning. After Napoleon's final demise, the Royal Navy was downsized again and new ships were built.
Pax Britannica 1815 to 1895
Secured by a global network of naval bases, British rule over the oceans was unchallenged during the 19th century. Many colonies were also acquired from the point of view of naval domination. It became the maxim to keep the Royal Navy stronger than the next two largest fleets combined ( two-power standard ). In the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) against the Russian Empire , the Royal Navy demonstrated its superiority in operations in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea , the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean, making victory possible in the first place. The Royal Navy never lost its qualitative and quantitative superiority due to the changeover to steamships , but in some cases even expanded it.
The industrial revolution took place earlier in Great Britain than in any other country on earth ( "motherland of industrialization" ). See also Imperialism # Great Britain .
The time of the battleships 1895 to 1919
The German Kaiser Wilhelm II was a patron of the navy , for which he had a special love. With the help of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , he began a massive armament of the German fleet from the end of the 19th century, which he practically challenged the British government. It came to the German-British naval competition . The naval arms race was further fueled by a class of battleships that left all other types of battleships obsolete: the dreadnought class. In 1914 the First World War finally broke out and it came to sea war with Great Britain. After initial minor successes by the Germans, a stalemate arose with the Royal Navy. The sea battle in the Skagerrak ended in a draw. There was no further sea battle until the end of the war. The German military leadership now carried out the sea war against Great Britain exclusively with the submarine weapon.
The time up to the end of the Second World War 1919 to 1945
After the end of the First World War, the British Navy had to adapt to many changes; the United States Navy caught up with the Royal Navy during the war. The 1922 Washington Naval Agreement - an early example of arms control - limited the mutual strength of the fleets between Japan, the United States, and Great Britain; the US Navy was allowed to hold parity with the British Royal Navy from now on.
With the advancing development of aviation, several aircraft carriers were also put into service.
With the beginning of the Second World War , the Royal Navy was faced with a double challenge: on the one hand, it had to fight against Hitler's navy , and on the other hand, it had to fend off the Japanese threat in the Far East .
There were various theaters of war during the fight against Hitler's Navy: The most important arena here was probably the Atlantic Ocean , where there were permanent threats to the British trade routes - primarily from German submarines. The war of the surface ships tended to take place in individual actions, such as the destruction of the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee on the Río de la Plata or the sinking of the British battleship HMS Hood by the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen . During the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 ( Operation Overlord ), American and British units were jointly involved.
In the Mediterranean a separate theater of war arose at times, in which the Italian fleet was also against them. Here the Royal Navy supported actions in North Africa as well as various landing companies, e.g. B. the landing in Sicily ( Operation Husky ).
The Southeast Asian theater of war was initially characterized by a withdrawal of the British fleet against the Japanese air superiority (loss of the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales ). But when the threat from the German navy subsided in 1944, the British fleet was able to help the Americans in the Pacific.
Since the end of World War II, the Royal Navy had shrunk significantly in size. Essential tasks for the Royal Navy resulted from the founding of NATO in 1949. During the Cold War , the Royal Navy had essential tasks in the context of securing the North Atlantic. With the independence of India and Pakistan and other colonies, the role of the navy as the protective power of the Empire diminished considerably. However, due to the newly created nuclear deterrent and the Cold War, a new part of the fleet was built up, namely a submarine fleet with nuclear propulsion and missiles equipped with nuclear weapons .
In the Falklands War of 1982, which was essentially about the reconquest of the British Falkland Islands occupied by Argentina , the Royal Navy played the main military role. More recently, the British Navy was involved in the Second Gulf War , the war in Afghanistan, and actions against Somali pirates .
See also
- British Baltic Fishery Protection Service
- History of the French Navy
- History of the Dutch Navy
- History of the United States Navy
- Imperial Navy
literature
- William Laird Clowes : The Royal Navy. A History From the Earliest Times to Present. Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1897-1903 London. 7 volumes (digital copies: Volume 1 , Volume 2 , Volume 3 , Volume 4 , Volume 5 , Volume 6 , Volume 7 ). Reprint 1997, ISBN 1-86176-015-9 .
- Nicolas Wolz: And we're rusting in the harbor. Germany, Great Britain and the War at Sea 1914–1918 . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-423-28025-9 .
- Richard Hill: The Ironclad War . Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89488-139-9 - Comprehensive presentation of naval history from the Crimean War to the Russo-Japanese War, in which the Royal Navy plays a major role.
- Paul M. Kennedy: The Rise and Fall of British Maritime Power . Verlag der Marine- Officier -Vereinigung, Bonn 1978, ISBN 3-921391-04-0 - No longer entirely up-to-date, but comprehensive presentation of the Royal Navy from the beginning to the late 20th century in German.
- Julia Angster: Strawberries and Pirates: the Royal Navy and the Order of the World 1770–1860 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-525-30037-4
- Víctor San Juan Sánchez: Veintidós derrotas navales de los británicos . Editorial Renacimiento, Sevilla 2019, ISBN 978-84-17550-84-4 .