The Art of War written by Baron Henri de Jomini

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When the Roman authority extended from the Rhine to the Euphrates,
maritime expeditions were rare; and the great contest with the races of
the North of Europe, which began after the division of the empire, gave
employment to the Roman armies on the sides of Germany and Thrace. The
eastern fraction of the empire still maintained a powerful navy, which
the possession of the islands of the Archipelago made a necessity, while
at the same time it afforded the means.

The first five centuries of the Christian era afford but few events of
interest in maritime warfare. The Vandals, having acquired Spain, landed
in Africa, eighty thousand strong, under Genseric. They were defeated by
Belisarius; but, holding the Balearic Isles and Sicily, they controlled
the Mediterranean for a time.

At the very epoch when the nations of the East invaded Europe, the
Scandinavians began to land on the coast of England. Their operations
are little better known than those of the barbarians: they are hidden in
the mysteries of Odin.

The Scandinavian bards attribute two thousand five hundred vessels to
Sweden. Less poetical accounts assign nine hundred and seventy to the
Danes and three hundred to Norway: these frequently acted in concert.

The Swedes naturally turned their attention to the head of the Baltic,
and drove the Varangians into Russia. The Danes, more favorably situated
with respect to the North Sea, directed their course toward the coasts
of France and England.

If the account cited by Depping is correct, the greater part of these
vessels were nothing more than fishermen's boats manned by a score of
rowers. There were also _snekars_, with twenty banks or forty rowers.
The largest had thirty-four banks of rowers. The incursions of the
Danes, who had long before ascended the Seine and Loire, lead us to
infer that the greater part of these vessels were very small.

However, Hengist, invited by the Briton Vortigern, transported five
thousand Saxons to England in eighteen vessels,--which would go to show
that there were then also large vessels, or that the marine of the Elbe
was superior to that of the Scandinavians.

Between the years 527 and 584, three new expeditions, under Ida and
Cridda, gained England for the Saxons, who divided it into seven
kingdoms; and it was not until three centuries had elapsed (833) that
they were again united under the authority of Egbert.

The African races, in their turn, visited the South of Europe. In 712,
the Moors crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, under the lead of Tarik.
They came, five thousand strong, at the invitation of Count Julian; and,
far from meeting great resistance, they were welcomed by the numerous
enemies of the Visigoths. This was the happy era of the Caliphs, and the
Arabs might well pass for liberators in comparison with the tyrants of
the North. Tarik's army, soon swelled to twenty thousand men, defeated
Rodrigo at Jerez and reduced the kingdom to submission. In time, several
millions of the inhabitants of Mauritania crossed the sea and settled in
Spain; and if their numerous migrations cannot be regarded as descents,
still, they form one of the most curious and interesting scenes in
history, occurring between the incursions of the Vandals in Africa and
the Crusades in the East.

A revolution not less important, and one which has left more durable
traces, marked in the North the establishment of the vast empire now
known as Russia. The Varangian princes, invited by the Novgorodians, of
whom Rurik was the chief, soon signalized themselves by great
expeditions.

In 902, Oleg is said to have embarked eighty thousand men in two
thousand boats on the Dnieper: they passed the falls of the river and
debouched in the Black Sea, while their cavalry followed the banks. They
proceeded to Constantinople, and forced Leo the Philosopher to pay
tribute.

Forty years subsequently, Igor took the same route with a fleet said to
have consisted of ten thousand boats. Near Constantinople his fleet,
terrified by the effects of the Greek fire, was driven on the coast of
Asia, where the force was disembarked. It was defeated, and the
expedition returned home.

Not discouraged, Igor re-established his fleet and army and descended to
the mouths of the Danube, where the Emperor Romanus I. sent to renew the
tribute and ask for peace, (943.)

In 967, Svatoslav, favored by the quarrel of Nicephorus with the King of
Bulgaria, embarked sixty thousand men, debouched into the Black Sea,
ascended the Danube, and seized Bulgaria. Recalled by the Petchenegs,
who were menacing Kiew, he entered into alliance with them and returned
into Bulgaria, broke his alliance with the Greeks, and, being reinforced
by the Hungarians, crossed the Balkan and marched to attack Adrianople.
The throne of Constantine was held by Zimisces, who was worthy of his
position. Instead of purchasing safety by paying tribute, as his
predecessors had done, he raised one hundred thousand men, armed a
respectable fleet, repulsed Svatoslav at Adrianople, obliged him to
retreat to Silistria, and took by assault the capital of the Bulgarians.
The Russian prince marched to meet him, and gave battle not far from
Silistria, but was obliged to re-enter the place, where he sustained one
of the most memorable sieges recorded in history.

In a second and still more bloody battle, the Russians performed
prodigies of valor, but were again compelled to yield to numbers.
Zimisces, honoring courage, finally concluded an advantageous treaty.

About this period the Danes were attracted to England by the hope of
pillage; and we are told that Lothaire called their king, Ogier, to
France to be avenged of his brothers. The first success of these pirates
increased their fondness for this sort of adventure, and for five or six
years their bands swarmed on the coasts of France and Britain and
devastated the country. Ogier, Hastings, Regner, and Sigefroi conducted
them sometimes to the mouths of the Seine, sometimes to the mouths of
the Loire, and finally to those of the Garonne. It is even asserted that
Hastings entered the Mediterranean and ascended the Rhone to Avignon;
but this is, to say the least, doubtful. The strength of their fleets is
not known: the largest seems to have been of three hundred sail.

In the beginning of the tenth century, Rollo at first landed in England,
but, finding little chance of success against Alfred, he entered into
alliance with him, landed in Neustria in 911, and advanced from Rouen on
Paris: other bodies marched from Nantes on Chartres. Repulsed here,
Rollo overran and ravaged the neighboring provinces. Charles the Simple
saw no better means of delivering his kingdom of this ever-increasing
scourge than to offer Rollo the fine province of Neustria on condition
that he would marry his daughter and turn Christian,--an offer which was
eagerly accepted.

Thirty years later, Rollo's step-son, annoyed by the successors of
Charles, called to his aid the King of Denmark. The latter landed in
considerable force, defeated the French, took the king prisoner, and
assured Rollo's son in the possession of Normandy.

During the same interval (838 to 950) the Danes exhibited even greater
hostility toward England than to France, although they were much more
assimilated to the Saxons than to the French in language and customs.
Ivar, after pillaging the kingdom, established his family in
Northumberland. Alfred the Great, at first beaten by Ivar's successors,
succeeded in regaining his throne and in compelling the submission of
the Danes.

The aspect of affairs changes anew: Sweyn, still more fortunate than
Ivar, after conquering and devastating England, granted peace on
condition that a sum of money should be paid, and returned to Denmark,
leaving a part of his army behind him.

Ethelred, who had weakly disputed with Sweyn what remained of the Saxon
power, thought he could not do better to free himself from his
importunate guests than to order a simultaneous massacre of all the
Danes in the kingdom, (1002.) But Sweyn reappeared in the following
year at the head of an imposing force, and between 1003 and 1007 three
successive fleets effected disembarkations on the coast, and unfortunate
England was ravaged anew.

In 1012, Sweyn landed at the mouth of the Humber and again swept over
the land like a torrent, and the English, tired of obedience to kings
who could not defend them, recognized him as king of the North. His son,
Canute the Great, had to contend with a rival more worthy of him,
(Edmund Ironside.) Returning from Denmark at the head of a considerable
force, and aided by the perfidious Edric, Canute ravaged the southern
part of England and threatened London. A new division of the kingdom
resulted; but, Edmund having been assassinated by Edric, Canute was
finally recognized as king of all England. Afterward he sailed to
conquer Norway, from which country he returned to attack Scotland. When
he died, he divided the kingdom between his three children, according to
the usage of the times.

Five years after Canute's death, the English assigned the crown to their
Anglo-Saxon princes; but Edward, to whom it fell, was better fitted to
be a monk than to save a kingdom a prey to such commotions. He died in
1066, leaving to Harold a crown which the chief of the Normans settled
in France contested with him, and to whom, it is said, Edward had made a
cession of the kingdom. Unfortunately for Harold, this chief was a great
and ambitious man.

The year 1066 was marked by two extraordinary expeditions. While William
the Conqueror was preparing in Normandy a formidable armament against
Harold, the brother of the latter, having been driven from
Northumberland for his crimes, sought support in Norway, and, with the
King of Norway, set out with thirty thousand men on five hundred
vessels, and landed at the mouth of the Humber. Harold almost entirely
destroyed this force in a bloody battle fought near York; but a more
formidable storm was about to burst upon his head. William took
advantage of the time when the Anglo-Saxon king was fighting the
Norwegians, to sail from St. Valery with a very large armament. Hume
asserts that he had three thousand transports; while other authorities
reduce the number to twelve hundred, carrying from sixty to seventy
thousand men. Harold hastened from York, and fought a decisive battle
near Hastings, in which he met an honorable death, and his fortunate
rival soon reduced the country to submission.

At the same time, another William, surnamed Bras-de-fer, Robert
Guiscard, and his brother Roger, conquered Calabria and Sicily with a
handful of troops,(1058 to 1070.)

Scarcely thirty years after these memorable events, an enthusiastic
priest animated Europe with a fanatical frenzy and precipitated large
forces upon Asia to conquer the Holy Land.

At first followed by one hundred thousand men, afterward by two hundred
thousand badly-armed vagabonds who perished in great part under the
attacks of the Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Greeks, Peter the Hermit
succeeded in crossing the Bosporus, and arrived before Nice with from
fifty to sixty thousand men, who were either killed or captured by the
Saracens.

An expedition more military in its character succeeded this campaign of
religious pilgrims. One hundred thousand men, composed of French,
Burgundians, Germans, and inhabitants of Lorraine, under Godfrey of
Bouillon, marched through Austria on Constantinople; an equal number,
under the Count of Toulouse, marched by Lyons, Italy, Dalmatia, and
Macedonia; and Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, embarked with a force of
Normans, Sicilians, and Italians, and took the route by Greece on
Gallipolis.

This extensive migration reminds us of the fabulous expeditions of
Xerxes. The Genoese, Venetian, and Greek fleets were chartered to
transport these swarms of Crusaders by the Bosporus or Dardanelles to
Asia. More than four hundred thousand men were concentrated on the
plains of Nice, where they avenged the defeat of their predecessors.
Godfrey afterward led them across Asia and Syria as far as Jerusalem,
where he founded a kingdom.

All the maritime resources of Greece and the flourishing republics of
Italy were required to transport these masses across the Bosporus and in
provisioning them during the siege of Nice; and the great impulse thus
given to the coast states of Italy was perhaps the most advantageous
result of the Crusades.

This temporary success of the Crusaders became the source of great
disasters. The Mussulmans, heretofore divided among themselves, united
to resist the infidel, and divisions began to appear in the Christian
camps. A new expedition was necessary to aid the kingdom which the brave
Noureddin was threatening. Louis VII. and the Emperor Conrad, each at
the head of one hundred thousand Crusaders, marched, as their
predecessors had done, by the route of Constantinople, (1142.) But the
Greeks, frightened by the recurring visits of these menacing guests,
plotted their destruction.

Conrad, who was desirous of being first, fell into the traps laid for
him by the Turks, and was defeated in detachments in several battles by
the Sultan of Iconium. Louis, more fortunate, defeated the Turks on the
banks of the Mender; but, being deprived of the support of Conrad, and
his army being annoyed and partially beaten by the enemy in the passage
of defiles, and being in want of supplies, he was confined to Attalia,
on the coast of Pamphylia, where he endeavored to embark his army. The
means furnished by the Greeks were insufficient, and not more than
fifteen or twenty thousand men arrived at Antioch with the king: the
remainder either perished or fell into the hands of the Saracens.

This feeble reinforcement soon melted away under the attacks of the
climate and the daily contests with the enemy, although they were
continually aided by small bodies brought over from Europe by the
Italian ships; and they were again about to yield under the attacks of
Saladin, when the court of Rome succeeded in effecting an alliance
between the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the Kings of France and
England to save the Holy Land.

The emperor was the first to set out. At the head of one hundred
thousand Germans, he opened a passage through Thrace in spite of the
formal resistance of the Greeks, now governed by Isaac Angelus. He
marched to Gallipolis, crossed the Dardanelles, and seized Iconium. He
died in consequence of an imprudent bath in a river, which, it has been
pretended, was the Cydnus. His son, the Duke of Swabia, annoyed by the
Mussulmans and attacked by diseases, brought to Ptolemais scarcely six
thousand men.

At the same time, Richard Coeur-de-Lion[58] and Philip Augustus more
judiciously took the route over the sea, and sailed from Marseilles and
Genoa with two immense fleets,(1190.) The first seized Cyprus, and both
landed in Syria,--where they would probably have triumphed but for the
rivalry which sprang up between them, in consequence of which Philip
returned to France.

Twelve years later, a new Crusade was determined upon, (1203.) Part of
the Crusaders embarked from Provence or Italy; others, led by the Count
of Flanders and the Marquis of Montferrat, proceeded to Venice, with the
intention of embarking there. The party last mentioned were persuaded by
the skillful Dandolo to aid him in an attack upon Constantinople, upon
the pretext of upholding the rights of Alexis Angelus, the son of Isaac
Angelus, who had fought the Emperor Frederick and was the successor of
those Comnenuses who had connived at the destruction of the armies of
Conrad and Louis VII.

Twenty thousand men had the boldness to attack the ancient capital of
the world, which had at least two hundred thousand defenders. They
assailed it by sea and land, and captured it. The usurper fled, and
Alexis was replaced upon the throne, but was unable to retain his seat:
the Greeks made an insurrection in favor of Murzupha, but the Latins
took possession of Constantinople after a more bloody assault than the
first, and placed upon the throne their chief, Count Baldwin of
Flanders. This empire lasted a half-century. The remnant of the Greeks
took refuge at Nice and Trebizond.

A sixth expedition was directed against Egypt by John of Brienne, who,
notwithstanding the successful issue of the horrible siege of Damietta,
was obliged to give way before the constantly-increasing efforts of the
Mussulman population. The remains of his splendid army, after a narrow
escape from drowning in the Nile, deemed themselves very fortunate in
being able to purchase permission to re-embark for Europe.

The court of Rome, whose interest it was to keep up the zeal of
Christendom in these expeditions, of which it gathered all the fruits,
encouraged the German princes to uphold the tottering realm at
Jerusalem. The Emperor Frederick and the Landgrave of Hesse embarked at
Brundusium in 1227, at the head of forty thousand chosen soldiers. The
landgrave, and afterward Frederick himself, fell sick, and the fleet put
in at Tarentum, from which port the emperor, irritated by the
presumption of Gregory IX., who excommunicated him because he was too
slow in the gratification of his wishes, at a later date proceeded with
ten thousand men, thus giving way to the fear inspired by the pontifical
thunders.

Louis IX., animated by the same feeling of fear, or impelled, if we may
credit Ancelot, by motives of a higher character, set out from
Aigues-Mortes, in 1248, with one hundred and twenty large vessels, and
fifteen hundred smaller boats, hired from the Genoese, the Venetians and
the Catalans; for France was at that time without a navy, although
washed by two seas. This king proceeded to Cyprus, and, having there
collected a still larger force, set out, according to Joinville's
statement, with more than eighteen hundred vessels, to make a descent
into Egypt. His army must have numbered about eighty thousand men; for,
although half of the fleet was scattered and cast away upon the coast of
Syria, he marched upon Cairo a few months later with sixty thousand
fighting-men, twenty thousand being mounted. It should be stated that
the Count of Poictiers had arrived also with troops from France.

The sad fortune experienced by this splendid army did not prevent the
same king from engaging in a new Crusade, twenty years later,(1270.) He
disembarked upon that occasion at the ruins of Carthage, and besieged
Tunis. The plague swept off half his army in a few months, and himself
was one of its victims. The King of Sicily, having arrived with powerful
reinforcements at the time of Louis's death, and desiring to carry back
the remains of the army to his island of Sicily, encountered a tempest
which caused a loss of four thousand men and twenty large ships. This
prince was not deterred by this misfortune from desiring the conquest of
the Greek empire and of Constantinople, which seemed a prize of greater
value and more readily obtained. Philip, the son and successor of Saint
Louis, being anxious to return to France, would have nothing to do with
that project. This was the last effort. The Christians who were
abandoned in Syria were destroyed in the noted attacks of Tripoli and
Ptolemais: some of the remnants of the religious orders took refuge at
Cyprus and established themselves at Rhodes.

The Mussulmans, in their turn, crossed the Dardanelles at Gallipolis in
1355, and took possession, one after the other, of the European
provinces of the Eastern Empire, to which the Latins had themselves
given the fatal blow.

Mohammed II., while besieging Constantinople in 1453, is said to have
had his fleet transported by land with a view to placing it in the canal
and closing the port: it is stated to have been large enough to be
manned by twenty thousand select foot-soldiers. After the capture of
this capital, Mohammed found his means increased by all those of the
Greek navy, and in a short time his empire attained the first rank of
maritime powers. He ordered an attack to be made upon Rhodes and upon
Otranto on the Italian main, whilst he proceeded to Hungary in search of
a more worthy opponent (Hunniades.) Repulsed and wounded at Belgrade,
the sultan fell upon Trebizond with a numerous fleet, brought that city
to sue for terms, and then proceeded with a fleet of four hundred sail
to make a landing upon the island of Negropont, which he carried by
assault. A second attempt upon Rhodes, executed, it is stated, at the
head of a hundred thousand men, by one of his ablest lieutenants, was a
failure, with loss to the assailants. Mohammed was preparing to go to
that point himself with an immense army assembled on the shores of
Ionia, which Vertot estimates at three hundred thousand men; but death
closed his career, and the project was not carried into effect.

About the same period England began to be formidable to her neighbors on
land as well as on the sea; the Dutch also, reclaiming their country
from the inroads of the sea, were laying the foundations of a power more
extraordinary even than that of Venice.

Edward III. landed in France and besieged Calais with eight hundred
ships and forty thousand men.

Henry V. made two descents in 1414 and 1417: he had, it is stated,
fifteen hundred vessels and only thirty thousand men, of whom six
thousand were cavalry.

All the events we have described as taking place, up to this period, and
including the capture of Constantinople, were before the invention of
gunpowder; for if Henry V. had cannon at Agincourt, as is claimed by
some writers, they were certainly not used in naval warfare. From that
time all the combinations of naval armaments were entirely changed; and
this revolution took place--if I may use that expression--at the time
when the invention of the mariner's compass and the discovery of America
and of the Cape of Good Hope were about to turn the maritime commerce of
the world into new channels and to establish an entirely new system of
colonial dependencies.

I shall not mention in detail the expeditions of the Spaniards to
America, or those of the Portuguese, Dutch, and English to India by
doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Notwithstanding their great influence
upon the commerce of the world,--notwithstanding the genius of Gama,
Albuquerque, and Cortez,--these expeditions, undertaken by small bodies
of two or three thousand men against tribes who knew nothing of
fire-arms, are of no interest in a military point of view.

The Spanish navy, whose fame had been greatly increased by this
discovery of a new world, was at the height of its splendor in the reign
of Charles V. However, the glory of the expedition to Tunis, which was
conquered by this prince at the head of thirty thousand fine soldiers
transported in five hundred Genoese or Spanish vessels, was balanced by
the disaster which befell a similar expedition against Algiers, (1541,)
undertaken when the season was too far advanced and in opposition to the
wise counsels of Admiral Doria. The expedition was scarcely under way
when the emperor saw one hundred and sixty of his ships and eight
thousand men swallowed up by the waves: the remainder was saved by the
skill of Doria, and assembled at Cape Metafuz, where Charles V. himself
arrived, after encountering great difficulties and peril.

While these events were transpiring, the successors of Mohammed were not
neglecting the advantages given them by the possession of so many fine
maritime provinces, which taught them at once the importance of the
control of the sea and furnished means for obtaining it. At this period
the Turks were quite as well informed with reference to artillery and
the military art in general as the Europeans. They reached the apex of
their greatness under Solyman I., who besieged and captured Rhodes
(1552) with an army stated to have reached the number of one hundred and
forty thousand men,--which was still formidable even upon the
supposition of its strength being exaggerated by one-half.

In 1565, Mustapha and the celebrated Dragut made a descent upon Malta,
where the Knights of Rhodes had made a new establishment; they carried
over thirty-two thousand Janissaries, with one hundred and forty ships.
John of Valetta, as is well known, gained an enduring fame by repulsing
them.

A more formidable expedition, consisting of two hundred vessels and
fifty-five thousand men, was sent in 1527 to the isle of Cyprus, where
Nicosia was taken and Famagosta besieged. The horrible cruelties
practiced by Mustapha increased the alarm occasioned by his progress.
Spain, Venice, Naples, and Malta united their naval forces to succor
Cyprus; but Famagosta had already surrendered, notwithstanding the
heroic defense of Bragadino, who was perfidiously flayed alive by
Mustapha's order, to avenge the death of forty thousand Turks that had
perished in the space of two years spent on the island.

The allied fleet, under the orders of two heroes, Don John of Austria,
brother of Philip II., and Andrea Doria, attacked the Turkish fleet at
the entrance of the Gulf of Lepanto, near the promontory of Actium,
where Antony and Augustus once fought for the empire of the world. The
Turkish fleet was almost entirely destroyed: more than two hundred
vessels and thirty thousand Turks were captured or perished, (1571.)
This victory did not put an end to the supremacy of the Turks, but was a
great check in their career of greatness. However, they made such
vigorous efforts that as large a fleet as the former one was sent to sea
during the next year. Peace terminated this contest, in which such
enormous losses were sustained.

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