Strategic Theories by Admiral Raoul Castex French Navy

Author:Admiral Raoul Castex French Navy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682472781
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2017-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

1. Raoul Castex, Théories stratégiques, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Paris: Société d’Editions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1939): 291–313.

2. This chapter follows the chapters analyzing manoeuvres by Bruix in 1799, Villeneuve in 1805, von Spee in 1914, and Germany in World War I.

3. The importance of combined arms is the theme of Castex’s La liaison des armes sur mer, Coutau-Bégarie, ed. (Paris, 1991).

4. “Masse” to Castex.

5. . . . the use of such bait to bring about battle does not by itself constitute a favorable manoeuvre as long as the enemy can appear at the chosen point with excessive force (author’s note).

6. In analyzing Sheer’s manoeuvre, however, Castex stresses the primary importance of security, which he elsewhere calls “the soul of manoeuvre,” above, 111.

7. That is, in their reconnaissance and screening roles.

8. The submarine’s surface speed has increased in recent years with growing displacements but remains much inferior to that of the new surface vessels and, more important, submerged speed has improved only insignificantly (author’s note).

9. Castex, Théories, vol. 1, part 3, chapter 7 (author’s note).

10. Castex at his most obscure: “quand on cherche à déjouer des réactions des théâtres secondaires sur le théâtre principal c’est à dire dans la partie négative de l’affaire.”

11. Castex analyzes the 1799 campaign in Théories, vol. 2, chapter 3.

12. Close blockade became obsolete with the steam ship, which gave blockaders a limited endurance on station and allowed the blockaded to act independently of the wind. Also, the invention of mines and torpedo boats barred capital ships from inshore activities.

13. At the time of Bruix’s breakout from Brest, Admiral Lord Keith was in the process of relieving the ailing St. Vincent as commander in chief in the Mediterranean.

14. Assuming, which is pure fiction, that Gibraltar would be usable as a base in the case of an Anglo-Spanish war (author’s note).

15. Admiral John Duckworth (1748–1817).

16. Mazzaredo’s Spanish fleet at Cadiz comprised eighteen ships of the line and eight or nine others lacking crews. Melgarejo had five or six at Ferrol. The French had no significant naval force in the Mediterranean after the battle of the Nile, but Bruix had twenty-five ships of the line, six frigates, and seven corvettes at Brest. Keith had sixteen ships of the line in the Mediterranean, Duckworth four at Minorca, Nelson nine, and Rear Admiral Sir Alexander Ball blockading Malta and Captain Sir Sidney Smith of the Levant Squadron three each. Admiral Bridport’s Channel Fleet nominally contained fifty-one, A.B. Rodger, The War of the Second Coalition 1798–1801 (Oxford, 1964): 94–97.

17. Bruix’s ill-defined mission included joining Mazzaredo’s squadron, driving the British from the Mediterranean, and, eventually, relieving Corfu, Malta, and Alexandria, Rodger, 98–99.

18. Rodger refers to errors by the frigate Nymph’s captain but not to her being chased from her station, Rodger, 102.

19. Sir William Sydney Smith, born 1764, promoted to full admiral 1821.

20. Admiral Sir C. Cotton eventually succeeded Collingwood as commander in chief in the Mediterranean.

21. Author’s emphasis.

22. In 1799 Mazzaredo left Cadiz very hesitantly, suffered severe storm damage, and holed up in Cartagena while Bruix himself was safely in Toulon, Rodger, 105.

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