Hawke, Anson and the Establishment of Blockade Strategies

WHILE a decisive battle, such as Quiberon Bay or Trafalgar, might provide the solution to many of an admiral's most pressing problems, an indecisive battle such as Ushant might return an admiral's damaged fleet to port like his opponent, and most frequently one or other of the opposing fleets felt itself to be inferior and sought to avoid battle anyway. Battles at sea were consequently infrequent in number and often indecisive in character. If an admiral could not take, sink or otherwise destroy his enemy, he had to find alternative means to nullify the threat and fulfil the navy's wartime tasks of protecting British territory and seaborne trade, supporting the military operations of Britain and its allies, and intercepting enemy trade and communications by sea. However, while naval tactics were a distinct field of study and debate, revolving around a clear, known and readily accepted concept – the line of battle – naval strategy was not. Nicholas Rodger points out that the word ‘strategy’ did not appear in English, from the French, until about 1800, and although there was precedent to use, there was no accepted corpus of theory about how and where the navy should be deployed and operated in wartime.

Hawke showed in practice two different methods by which a strategy of blockade might be successfully employed. In 1747 his interception of de l’Etanduère’s convoy 300 miles west of Lorient provided confirmation that the strategy of a Western Squadron, cruising as a loose blockade in the quadrangle between Cape Clear at the south-west tip of Ireland, Ushant off the north-west coast of Brittany, Belle Isle halfway down the French Bay of Biscay coast, and Cape Finisterre/Cape Ortegal on the north-west tip of Spain, could work and that Anson’s interception of La Jonquière’s convoy of Cape Finisterre earlier in the year was repeatable even in more remote situations. In 1759 he showed to general wonderment that a continuous close blockade of Brest, hitherto thought impossible, could be accomplished, and between then and 1762 that blockade was extended to the whole Bay of Biscay coast.