Naval Coalition Warfare: From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom (Cass Series: Naval Policy and History)

Naval Coalition Warfare

This is the first scholarly book examining naval coalition warfare over the past two centuries from a multi-national perspective. Containing case studies by some of the foremost naval historians from the USA, Britain, and Australia, it also examines the impact of international law on coalitions. Together these collected essays comprise a comprehensive examination of the most important naval coalitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Napoleonic Wars, and ending with the second Gulf War, and each makes use of new research and methodologies to address the creation of the coalition, its actions, and its short- and long-term repercussions. The volume editors draw contemporary lessons from the book’s historical case studies. These findings are used to discuss the likelihood and character of future naval coalitions. This book will be of great interest to students of naval history, strategic studies, international history and IR in general. Bruce A. Elleman is a Research Professor in the Maritime History Department at the U.S. Naval War College. He is author of Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989 (Routledge, 2001), and co-editor, with Chris Bell, of Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective (Frank Cass, 2003). S.C.M. Paine is Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College and is author of The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power, and Primacy (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Cass series: Naval policy and history Series Editor: Geoffrey Till ISSN 1366–9478

This series consists primarily of original manuscripts by research scholars in the general area of naval policy and history, without national or chronological limitations. It will from time to time also include collections of important articles as well as reprints of classic works. 1 Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 1904–1914 Milan N. Vego

7 The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism, 1935–1940 Robert Mallett

2 Far-Flung Lines Studies in imperial defence in honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman Edited by Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy

8 The Merchant Marine and International Affairs, 1850–1950 Edited by Greg Kennedy

3 Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars Rear Admiral Raja Menon 4 The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament 1942–1947 Chris Madsen 5 Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas Milan N. Vego 6 The Pen and Ink Sailor Charles Middleton and the King’s Navy, 1778–1813 John E. Talbott

9 Naval Strategy in Northeast Asia Geo-strategic goals, policies and prospects Duk-Ki Kim 10 Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean Sea Past, present and future Edited by John B. Hattendorf 11 Stalin’s Ocean-going Fleet Soviet naval strategy and shipbuilding programmes, 1935–1953 Jürgen Rohwer and Mikhail S. Monakov 12 Imperial Defence, 1868–1887 Donald Mackenzie Schurman; edited by John Beeler

13 Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Edited by Phillips Payson O’Brien

22 Royal Navy Strategy in the Far East, 1919–1939 Planning for a war against Japan Andrew Field

14 The Royal Navy and Nuclear Weapons Richard Moore

23 Seapower A guide for the twenty-first century Geoffrey Till

15 The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period An operational perspective Joseph Moretz 16 Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power Thomas M. Kane 17 Britain’s Anti-submarine Capability, 1919–1939 George Franklin 18 Britain, France and the Naval Arms Trade in the Baltic, 1919–1939 Grand strategy and failure Donald Stoker 19 Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century An international perspective Edited by Christopher Bell and Bruce Elleman 20 The Road to Oran Anglo-French naval relations, September 1939–July1940 David Brown 21 The Secret War against Sweden US and British submarine deception and political control in the 1980s Ola Tunander

24 Britain’s Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914–1919 Eric W. Osborne 25 A Life of Admiral of the Fleet Andrew Cunningham A twentieth-century naval leader Michael Simpson 26 Navies in Northern Waters, 1721–2000 Edited by Rolf Hobson and Tom Kristiansen 27 German Naval Strategy, 1856–1888 Forerunners to Tirpitz David Olivier 28 British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 Influences and actions Edited by Greg Kennedy 29 The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Navy in the Baltic, 1921–1940 Gunnar Aselius 30 The Royal Navy, 1930–1990 Innovation and defence Edited by Richard Harding 31 The Royal Navy and Maritime Power in the Twentieth Century Edited by Ian Speller

32 Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland The question of fire control John Brooks 33 Greek Naval Strategy and Policy, 1910–1919 Zisis Fotakis 34 Naval Blockades and Seapower Strategies and counter-strategies, 1805–2005 Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and Sarah C.M. Paine

37 The Royal Navy and AntiSubmarine Warfare, 1944–49 Malcolm Llewellyn-Jones 38 The Development of British Naval Thinking Essays in memory of Bryan Ranft Edited by Geoffrey Till 39 Educating the Royal Navy 18th and 19th century education for officers H.W. Dickinson

35 The Pacific Campaign in World War II From Pearl Harbor to Guadalcanal William Bruce Johnson

40 Chinese Naval Strategy in the 21st Century The turn to Mahan James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara

36 Anti-Submarine Warfare in World War I British naval aviation and the defeat of the U-boats John J. Abbatiello

41 Naval Coalition Warfare From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine

Naval Coalition Warfare From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom

Edited by Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine

First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 selection and editorial matter Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-94532-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0-415-77082-3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-203-94532-8 (ebk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-77082-8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-94532-2 (ebk)

To Spencer C. Tucker, exemplary teacher, colleague, and friend.

Contents

Notes on contributors Foreword

xii xvi

JOHN B. HATTENDORF

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

xix

1

BRUCE A. ELLEMAN AND S.C.M. PAINE

2 International law and coalition operations

7

JANE G. DALTON

3 Caging the eagle: Napoleonic War coalitions

25

STEVE ROSS

4 Arms races and cooperation: the Anglo-French Crimean War coalition, 1854–1856

33

ANDREW LAMBERT

5 The Second Opium War Anglo-French coalition

48

DOUGLAS HURD

6 Seapower and alliances in the era of Bismarck and William II

61

LAWRENCE SONDHAUS

7 The triple intervention and the termination of the First Sino-Japanese War S.C.M. PAINE

75

x

Contents

8 “Dash to Peking”: the international naval coalition during the Boxer Uprising in 1900

86

T.G. OTTE

9 The naval coalition against the Central Powers, 1914–1918

98

PAUL HALPERN

10 Germany and assorted allies in World War II: cooperation with the Soviet Union, Spain, Italy, and Japan

110

GERHARD L. WEINBERG

11 Soviet sea denial and the KMT–CCP Civil War in Manchuria, 1945–1949

119

BRUCE A. ELLEMAN

12 Changing tides: naval coalitions and the Vietnam War

130

EDWARD J. MAROLDA

13 The Cold War as a coalition struggle

146

BRADFORD A. LEE

14 The maritime element in the 1990–91 Gulf crisis: drawing on the dividends of half a century of multinational naval operations

158

JAMES GOLDRICK

15 Western intervention in Bosnia: Operation Deliberate Force

169

CHARLES INGRAO

16 Coalition warfare over Kosovo

183

ANDREW L. STIGLER

17 Operation Enduring Freedom: coalition warfare from the sea and on the sea ROBERT J. SCHNELLER, JR

193

Contents

18 The formation of a coalition of the willing and Operation Iraqi Freedom

xi

208

DAVID B. CRIST

19 Conclusions

219

BRUCE A. ELLEMAN AND S.C.M. PAINE

Bibliography Index

233 238

Contributors

David B. Crist is a historian in the Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and adjunct professor for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. He has written extensively about current military operations in the Middle East, and is currently writing a multi-volume history for the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Operation Iraqi Freedom. Jane G. Dalton joined the Navy in 1977, and became a Navy Judge Advocate in 1985. She served as the Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (2000–2003) and as the Assistant Judge Advocate General of the Navy for Civil Law (2003–2005). In 2005–2006, she held the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College. Some of her publications during that year include “Future Navies, Present Issues,” 59 Naval War College Review 17 (2006); “The National Security Strategy: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” 52 Naval Law Review 60 (2006); and “Naval Interception Operations During the Indo China War,” To Oppose Any Foe 373 (Ross A. Fisher, John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner, eds, 2006). Bruce A. Elleman is a research Professor in the Maritime History Department in the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, and most recently author of Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989 (Routledge, 2001), Wilson and China: A Revised History of the Shandong Question (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), co-editor with Chris Bell of Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective (Frank Cass, 2003), and co-editor with S.C.M. Paine of Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and CounterStrategies, 1805–2005 (Routledge, 2006). James Goldrick is currently Rear Admiral and Commander of Australia’s interagency Border Protection Command. He commanded the Australian task group deployed to the Persian Gulf, and also served as Commander of the multinational Maritime Interception Force enforcing UN sanctions on Iraq from February until June 2002. From 2003 to 2006 he was Commandant of the Australian Defence Force Academy. His numerous published works include The King’s Ships were at Sea: The War in the North Sea August 1914–February 1915, with the Battle Cruisers (edited), Reflections on the

Contributors

xiii

Royal Australian Navy (co-edited), Mahan is Not Enough (co-edited with John B. Hattendorf), and No Easy Answers: The Development of the Navies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Paul Halpern is Professor of History at Florida State University and author of numerous books, including A Naval History of World War I (Naval Institute Press, 1994), Anton Haus: Österreich-Ungarns Grossadmiral (Verlag Styria, 1998), and The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in World War (Indiana University Press, 2004). He has edited four volumes for the Navy Records Society and is currently working on a study of the Mediterranean naval situation in the inter-war period. John B. Hattendorf is Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History and Chairman of the Maritime History Department in the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 40 volumes on maritime history and has been awarded an honorary doctorate and the National Maritime Museum’s Caird Medal. Among his most recent works are Naval History and Maritime Strategy: Collected Essays (2000), The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1978–1986 (2004), and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (2007). Douglas Hurd served as Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Author of The Arrow War: An Anglo-Chinese Confusion, 1856–1860 (New York: Macmillan, 1968); Conservatism in the 1990s (1991); Our Future in Europe (1993); The Search for Peace (1997); and The Single European Currency (1998). Charles Ingrao is a Professor in the History Department at Purdue University. His books include In Quest and Crisis: Emperor Joseph I and the Habsburg Monarchy (Purdue University Press, 1979); The Hessian Mercenary State: Ideas, Institutions, and Reform under Frederick II, 1760–1785 (Cambridge University Press, 1987); and The Habsburg Monarchy 1618–1815 (Cambridge University Press, 1994; 2nd edition, 2000). Andrew Lambert is the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, and author of The Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815–1860 (Conway, 1984), The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia 1853–1856 (Manchester University Press, 1990), The Last Sailing Battlefleet: Maintaining Naval Mastery 1815–1850 (Conway, 1991), Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 (Conway, 1992), ‘The Foundations of Naval History’: Sir John Laughton, the Royal Navy and the Historical Profession (Chatham Publishing, 1998), War at Sea in the Age of Sail (Cassell Academic, 2000), HMS Trincomalee: The last of Nelson’s Frigates (Chatham Publishing, 2002), and Nelson, Britannia’s God of War (Faber & Faber, 2004.) Bradford A. Lee is Professor of Strategy, U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of Britain and the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1939: A Study in the

xiv

Contributors

Dilemmas of British Decline (Stanford University Press, 1973); “Strategy, Arms and the Collapse of France 1930–40,” in Richard Langhorne, ed. Diplomacy and Intelligence during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press, 1985). Co-editor (with Karl F. Walling) of Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael I. Handel (London: Frank Cass, 2003). Edward J. Marolda is Senior Historian, at the Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C. He is the author of From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–1965, Vol. II in series, The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict (coauthored with Dr Oscar P. Fitzgerald; Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1986); Carrier Operations (Vol. IV in series, The Illustrated History of the Vietnam War. New York: Bantam, 1987); Operation End Sweep: A History of Minesweeping Operations in North Vietnam, ed. (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1993); By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the United States Navy and the War in Southeast Asia (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1994); and The U.S. Navy and the Korean War, ed. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006). He is the author of several other books on the history of the U.S. Navy. T.G. Otte is a Lecturer in Diplomatic History at the University of East Anglia, and associate editor of Diplomacy & Statecraft. He has written or edited six books, the most recent co-edited with Keith Neilson, Railways and International Politics, 1848–1945: Paths of Empire (Routledge, 2006); and The China Question: Great Powers Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894–1905 (Oxford University Press, 2007). S.C.M. Paine is a Professor in the Strategy & Policy Department at the U.S. Naval War College and author of Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and Their Disputed Frontiers (M.E. Sharpe, 1996), The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power and Primacy (Cambridge, 2003), and coeditor, with Bruce A. Elleman, of Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-strategies, 1805–2005 (Routledge, 2006). Current research interests include a book project on Japanese–Soviet rivalries over northeast Asia from 1931 to 1949. Steve Ross is a Professor in the Strategy and Policy Department, U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of American War Plans 1941–1945. The Test of Battle (London, Frank Cass, 1997); Historical Dictionary of the Wars of the French Revolution (Lanham, MD, 1998); U.S. War Plans 1939–1945 (Malabar, FL, Anvil Books, 2000); American War Plans 1890–1939 (London, Frank Cass, 2002); U.S. War Plans 1938–1945 (Boulder, CO, Lynne Riener, 2002) and more. Robert J. Schneller, Jr is a historian, Contemporary History Branch, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C. He is Co-author with Edward Marolda, of Shield and Sword: The U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf War (Washington:

Contributors

xv

Naval Historical Center, 1998; reprint, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001); Farragut: America’s First Admiral (Washington: Brassey’s, 2002); Cushing: Civil War SEAL (Washington: Brassey’s, 2003); and Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy’s First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Lawrence Sondhaus is the Director of the Institute for the Study of War and Diplomacy, University of Indianapolis. He is author of The Habsburg Empire and the Sea: Austrian Naval Policy, 1797–1866 (Purdue University Press, 1989); The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918: Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism (Purdue University Press, 1994); Preparing for Weltpolitik: German Sea Power before the Tirpitz Era (Naval Institute Press, 1997); Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf: Architect of the Apocalypse (Humanities Press/Brill Academic Publishers, 2000); Naval Warfare, 1815–1914 (Routledge, 2001); Navies of Europe, 1815–2002 (Longman, 2002); and Strategic Culture and Ways of War (Routledge/Frank Cass: 2006). Andrew L. Stigler is an Associate Professor in the National Security and Decision Making Department, U.S. Naval War College. He is author of “A Clear Victory for Air Power: NATO’s Empty Threat to Invade Kosovo.” International Security, Winter 2002/2003. Gerhard L. Weinberg Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1954); The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany 1933–1936: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe (Chicago University Press, 1970); World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II (Hanover: Published for Brandeis University Press by University Press of New England, 1981); The Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany: Starting World War II, 1937–1939 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); A World at Arms: a Global History of World War II (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Germany, Hitler, and World War II (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Hitler’s Second Book: the unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf/by Adolf Hitler; translated by Krista Smith (New York: Enigma; Lancaster: Gazelle, 2003).

Foreword

Alliances and coalitions are such fundamental features of wartime relations between nations that they are sometimes taken for granted and not given careful enough analysis. Coalitions can be categorized in a number of ways. In the spectrum that emerges in that categorization, naval coalition warfare forms a distinctive and specialized aspect of the larger whole. Today, forming a coalition with other naval powers seems a basic and fundamental activity for navies. Yet, it was not always so. Before the twentieth century it was a relatively rare practice, but not an unknown one. Of the famous battles where this occurred, one thinks of Lepanto, where the western navies defeated the Turks in 1571 or Trafalgar in 1805, where the British defeated a Franco-Spanish fleet. Among the most successful long-term naval coalitions that existed was the Anglo-Dutch naval relationship that continued through both the Nine Years War of 1689–1697 and the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702–1714. More common were alliances in which a predominantly naval power allied with a military power to create complementary forces. This was the situation of Britain in the various coalitions during the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon. Coalitions, like fleet battle, protection of trade, coercive diplomacy, and the projection of military force from ship to shore, are found in various forms throughout history. Despite their importance and their frequency, relatively little has been done to analyze either their historical development or the modern practice of naval coalitions in terms of varying strategic, policy, and operational uses. In European warfare, coalitions predominated throughout the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) and the entire series of European wars between 1689 and 1815. Reflecting on that era, the Prussian army officer and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz was so sure that coalitions were the “proper means to resist a superior power,” that he commented rhetorically in 1803: “What better way is there?”1 Later theorists, influenced by Clausewitz, included the naval theorist Sir Julian S. Corbett, whose Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, first published in 1911, discussed the pitfalls inherent in opposing coalitions, even warning that “the strongest naval power, if faced with a coalition, may find it impossible to exert a drastic offensive anywhere without temporarily reducing its force in certain areas to a point relatively so low as to permit of nothing higher than the defensive.” For the British, one of the most important examples of this was “our

Foreword

xvii

own position in the War of American Independence, when, as we have seen, in order to secure an adequate concentration for offence in the West Indies we were forced to reduce our home fleet to defensive level.”2 In the modern era, coalitions have played a particularly important role in both of the World Wars and during the Cold War. During this long war, Henry Kissinger commented on the Napoleonic Wars to discuss strategic fragility of coalitions, with each member looking first to their own interests: As long as the enemy is more powerful than any single member of the coalition, the need for unity outweighs all consideration of personal gain. . . . But when the enemy has been so weakened that each ally has the power to achieve its ends alone, a coalition is at the mercy of its most determined member. Confronted with the complete collapse of one of the elements of the equilibrium, all other powers will tend to raise their claims in order to keep apace.3 When this broad insight is translated down to the level of multinational fleet operations, there is another range of practical issues that emerges in terms of the operational practices, procedures, communications, logistics, and the whole range of professional matters that provide the basis for effective naval operations at sea. For many years, practical experience suggested that multinational naval forces should not be intermingled on a single vessel or that ships from different countries operated better when they were grouped in large units by nationality. For example, this was the way in which the U.S. Navy’s battleships operated with the Royal Navy during World War I and the way in which the British Pacific Fleet tended to operate with the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II. The multinational American–British–Dutch–Australian (ABDA) Command in the East Indies in 1941–1942 was an exception, while also being a harbinger of future developments. The possibilities for multinational naval cooperation that ABDA suggested were the inspiration for the development of NATO’s Standing Naval Force, Atlantic, after 1968.4 The marked success of NATO’s Standing Naval Force, Atlantic, and its extension first to the Channel, the Mediterranean, and then to other regions was facilitated by the development of the first draft Multinational Maritime Operations during the Twelfth and Thirteenth International Seapower Symposia, convened in 1993 and 1995. Since the end of the Cold War, multinational naval operations have become a much more common feature of naval coalitions and have been used by a variety of countries for the achievement of national goals. Underscoring this, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Michael Mullen told the gathered chiefs of the world’s navies at the Seventeenth International Seapower Symposium meeting at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island in September 2005: “Perhaps the most profound effect of today’s challenges is the increased value of cooperation between friends, allies, coalition partners, and like-minded nations.” Mullen emphasized that “Despite differences in the size or structure of our navies, cooperation today is more necessary than ever before.”5

xviii Foreword This volume was completed as a project in the Maritime History Department at the U.S. Naval War College. In it, Dr Bruce Elleman and Dr Sally Paine have attempted to show that historical lessons drawn from a number of naval coalition cases from the past two centuries can be relevant to current and future thinking about naval operations. Of course, this is an academic historical work involving contributors from universities and various navies around the world. Therefore, the conclusions and views expressed by the contributors to and the editors of this volume reflect neither any official view of the U.S. Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense, nor any other agency of the government of the United States of America, nor, for that matter, any of the institutions or governments to which the contributors belong. The editors and contributors of sixteen selected case studies from maritime history have jointly worked to deepen and to widen our understanding of naval coalitions. The conclusions, which have attempted to extrapolate from these cases, strive to stimulate new and original thinking about an important dimension of modern naval operations by providing a basis for understanding the uses and limitations of naval coalitions in the context of new maritime technologies and within a wider range of modern national policy goals. John B. Hattendorf Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, Chairman, Maritime History Department, and Director, Naval War College Museum U.S. Naval War College6

Notes 1 Elizabeth Greenhalgh, Victory through Coalition: Britain and France during the First World War (London: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 2; Carl von Clausewitz, Historical and Political Writings (ed. and trans. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran)(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 238. 2 Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy with an Introduction and Notes by Eric J. Grove. Classics of Sea Power series (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 210. 3 Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812–1823 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1957), 109. 4 “International Naval Cooperation and Admiral Richard G. Colbert” and “NATO’s Policeman on the Beat: The First Twenty Years of the Standing Naval Force, Atlantic, 1968–88,” in John B. Hattendorf, Naval History and Maritime Strategy: Collected Essays (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, 2000), 161–200. 5 Admiral Michael Mullen, “Keynote Address: A Global Network of Nations for a Free and Secure Maritime Commons,” in John B. Hattendorf, ed., Seventeenth International Seapower Symposium: Report of the Proceedings, 19–23 September 2005. (Newport: Naval War College Press, 2006), 4–5. 6 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College.

Acknowledgments

The editors would like to thank our contributors and the many others who shared their insights and expertise. At the NWC we benefited from the support of John Hattendorf, Barney Rubel, John Maurer, James Giblin, and Commander Ron Oard. We owe a considerable debt to Alice Juda, Wayne Rowe, and Bob Schnare for library assistance. Special thanks to Captain Steve Kenny, RN, for his advice and criticism from beginning to end, and to Jeanette Moyer, research librarian at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, for letting us reprint portions of her multinational operations bibliography. At Routledge, we are grateful to Andrew Humphrys and Katie Gordon. We are especially indebted to Andrew Marshall of the Office of Net Assessment for his ongoing support for this project. On behalf of our contributors, we would like to thank Mr Joseph Baggett and the Navy’s International and Operational Law Division in the Office of the Judge Advocate General and Naval Reserve Unit NWC (Law) 401 under the leadership of Capt. Kathleen McTighe, JAGC, USNR, for research assistance. At the Naval Historical Centers, Dr John Sherwood assisted with the Navy’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and Jeff Barlow and Randy Papadopoulos provided valuable support. Shelly Yochum shared her considerable insight into French perspectives during the Kosovo conflict. In Australia, thanks go to Dr David Stevens, Rear Admiral Mark Bonser, and Vice Admiral Rob Walls for sharing their experience of the 1990–91 conflict, and to Christopher Dawkins and the other staff of the Library at the Australian Defence Force Academy for their unfailing assistance with research materials.

1

Introduction Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine1

The present book examines the main determinants of strategic success for naval coalitions. For the last two centuries, navies have rarely gone to war alone; rather, they have usually operated within coalitions and in combination with ground forces. Since the advent of airpower, they have also operated with air forces. Many of the most important conflicts of the past two centuries have involved naval coalitions on at least one of the opposing sides. Interestingly, there has been a tendency for the side with the naval coalition to win and, in the case of wars between two naval coalitions, for the side with the most competent naval elements to persevere. Victory in this sense means not just operational but also strategic success, measured by the achievement of the national objectives for which the war was fought. In contrast to Alfred Thayer Mahan’s nineteenth-century vision of navies fighting other navies for command of the sea, recent naval coalitions have often fought adversaries lacking navies entirely to deliver military forces – often through the use of sea-based air power – far inland. In some cases, naval air has even obviated the need for basing on the territory under dispute. During the nineteenth century naval coalitions tended to be confined to the great powers of the day. Since the beginning of the Cold War, however, the membership of naval coalitions has become increasingly heterogeneous and inclusive, meaning the membership has broadened beyond the great powers to include a wide array of countries, which often bring niche capabilities rather than comprehensive military assets. This has brought to the fore issues of interoperability, communication, deconfliction, and rules of engagement. Earlier naval coalitions focused on conventional state interests: national survival, territorial aggrandizement, economic interests, and the protection of nationals, whereas at the turn of the twenty-first century, some naval coalitions have focused on the prevention of genocide not directly involving the nationals of any coalition member. Increasingly, military effectiveness must be counterbalanced with the minimization of collateral damage to win the media war of hearts and minds to retain the support of the electorate at home and of any coalition partners. There is a whole new category of military operations called humanitarian operations – such as the U.S. Navy’s Operation Unified Assistance in Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka following the 26 December 2004

2

B.A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine

earthquake and tsunamis – that focus on using naval forces not to take life but to preserve it.2 In the nineteenth century, monarchies controlled much of the world and the media meant newspapers, which not everyone could afford to buy or could even read. Over the course of the twentieth century, Europe, the United States, and key countries in East Asia became increasingly democratic, with the enfranchisement of the entire adult population. Meanwhile, their educational opportunities rapidly expanded, with the picture media becoming increasingly globalized even in highly authoritarian countries through the advent of television and the Internet. The ongoing communications revolution, whose full implications are yet to be understood, forms the backdrop, but not the focus, of the present study of naval coalitions. Likewise, the present study does not attempt to provide definitional clarity concerning coalitions in distinction to alliances. It uses the two terms according to their common dictionary definitions. Naval coalitions concern temporary groupings of countries combining military forces that include naval assets in pursuit of a common objective, while alliances pertain to permanent groupings of states, formalized in treaties, also in pursuit of a common objective. Some coalitions become formalized into alliances through treaties that regulate the relationship. Other coalitions include alliances within them. But they all share, at least at one point in time, the pursuit of unifying goals. Over the years, international law has increasingly regulated naval coalitions, hence the present work begins with an essay on this subject. It is followed by sixteen case studies examining a wide range of coalitions and associated naval missions. If there is a deliberate bias in this book, it is towards successful naval coalitions, meaning those that have achieved their objectives and had major international repercussions. The editors have chosen these cases to illustrate when, how, and in what manner naval coalitions have been most effectively utilized in the past to suggest their potential in the future. International law plays a key role in naval coalitions. In the first essay, Jane Dalton shows coalitions operate under international treaties and customary law. In the modern era, different legal restrictions related to targeting, the use of weapons, rules of engagement, and legal responsibility complicate coalition operations. Following 11 September 2001, the legalities of the Global War on Terror remain controversial. While the UN opposes terrorism, it has not legally equated terrorism with specific international crimes such as the slave trade or piracy. As a result, the international laws governing naval coalitions remain in a state of flux. The following chapters present the case studies in chronological order. Sixteen case studies address five categories of questions concerning the international environment, coalition membership, coalition administration, enemy actions, and strategic effectiveness. For the international environment: What caused the coalition to form? What were the primary interests unifying the coalition members and the primary interests driving them apart? How did third

Introduction

3

parties respond to its existence? Concerning coalition membership: Did one or several members dominate the coalition? Was the membership stable over time? Regarding coalition administration: To what extent did the coalition members coordinate their strategies? What level of burden-sharing occurred among them? For enemy actions: Did the existence of the coalition force the enemy to respond? Did enemy actions weaken or strengthen the coalition? Finally, concerning strategic effectiveness: What were the strategic and operational objectives of the coalition and to what extent were they achieved? How did the naval coalition contribute to the national strategies of the different members? The first case study looks at the naval coalition that established the international legal order defining Europe for the century preceding World War I. From 1793 until 1815, Great Britain supported numerous continental coalitions against revolutionary France and Napoleon’s Empire. The first three were not successful, but Britain’s 1805 naval defeat of France at Trafalgar secured homeland defense for England so that it could support additional combinations that brought about Napoleon’s final fall in 1815. As Steve Ross shows, Napoleon’s refusal to negotiate an equitable peace contributed to his defeat, by strengthening the opposing coalition. Unlike the series of British-backed coalitions formed to overthrow Napoleon, the bilateral Anglo-French coalition during the Crimean War (1854–56) lacked a clear political program. As Andrew Lambert explains, though the composition of the coalition was simple, the British and French had great difficulty coordinating their forces in two widely distant theaters – the Baltic and the Black Sea. While the French tended to dominate on land, the British controlled the seas. When the British threatened to escalate from a limited to unlimited objective by attacking St Petersburg, the French convinced Russia to accept a compromise peace ending the war. A second Anglo-French naval coalition opposed another empire – China during the Second Opium War (1856–60). As Douglas Hurd discusses, the mechanics of the naval coalition remained difficult, but in the end it succeeded in forcing the Manchu rulers of China to open the country to freer foreign trade. Just as the previous Anglo-French Crimean coalition succeeded, in part, by threatening the Russian capital directly, the British and French troops used their superior naval access to march to the very gates of Beijing. Only a direct threat to the capital gave the coalition the necessary leverage to terminate the war on favorable terms. In Europe from the last quarter of the nineteenth century until the beginning of World War I, competing naval coalitions helped keep the major European powers from going to war. According to Lawrence Sondhaus, during the final decade before the world war, the growth of the German fleet destabilized this delicate balance of power. But German and Austrian seapower remained insufficient to overpower their opponents in World War I, especially once they lost the bases and naval support that their erstwhile ally Italy had pledged to provide. During the late nineteenth century, Japan and China fought over control of Korea and Manchuria. As S.C.M. Paine shows, in the aftermath of the

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Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), China called on Russia, Germany, and France to prevent Japan from taking the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria. The so-called Triple Intervention did just that, but the resulting foreign scramble for concessions forced China to cede much more territory to its former coalition allies than it would have lost to Japan. In the Boxer Uprising five years later, eight powers cooperated to defeat the anti-foreign Boxers and their Manchu backers at the court in Beijing. As T.G. Otte observes, this was perhaps the last example of traditional gunboat diplomacy in East Asia, as the difficulty of the campaign and the rapidly rising cost of naval technology forced the great powers to search for alternatives. The antiBoxer naval coalition formed rapidly, making use of whatever ships and weapons came to hand. Upon victory, it fell apart, although remnants reappeared two years later in the Anglo-Japanese alliance. The Entente victory over Germany and Austria-Hungary during World War I relied on a naval coalition, especially in the Mediterranean. Paul Halpern explains that the problems arose not from the overall power of the coalition, which dwarfed the combined naval capabilities of Germany and AustriaHungary, but from the many conflicting interests of the coalition members. Such friction became especially important during the submarine conflict, which weathered a long series of misguided strategies and poor cooperation before the late addition of the United States and its naval forces decisively tipped the balance of power. In World War II, Germany coordinated poorly with its various coalition partners, including at times the USSR, Spain, Italy, and Japan. According to Gerhard Weinberg, not only did Hitler order an attack against Stalin, his most useful naval ally, but throughout the war Germany refused to coordinate with Italy and Japan in ways that might have produced a more unified naval strategy. Information-sharing was so poor that in the last months of the war Germany was considering sending engineers to Japan to study warships that were already at the bottom of the sea. Four years after the end of World War II, a Sino-Soviet naval coalition in northern China provided crucial sea denial capabilities to the Chinese Communists. Bruce Elleman demonstrates that access, or lack thereof, to strategic port facilities had a dramatic impact on the outcome of a war. In China’s case, Soviet control over Port Arthur and Dairen and refusal to let Nationalist ships land troops or offload supplies, meant that the Nationalist forces in Manchuria could more easily be surrounded and defeated by the Communists. The lack of maritime access also helped persuade Washington of the futility of intervening in the ongoing civil war. According to Edward Marolda, naval coalitions played a significant role in the thirty-year struggle for Vietnam but could not prevent the South Vietnamese defeat in 1975. The navies of the United States and France formed the first naval coalition. With France’s withdrawal from Indochina and the establishment of the Republic of Vietnam, the U.S. Navy and the Vietnam Navy partnered to battle the enemy at sea, along the coast, and in the rivers of South Vietnam. With the

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onset of major combat operations in 1965, the Royal Australian Navy reinforced the allied naval coalition. But the transition of the conflict from a guerilla war to a conventional land war limited what naval power could do to influence the final outcome. Naval coalitions were more successful in the Cold War. Brad Lee shows how the U.S.-led naval coalition in Europe and Asia came into being mainly at the request of U.S. allies, while the Soviet-led “coalition of the unwilling” was largely imposed by force. Rifts in the Soviet coalition system developed soon after Stalin’s death, with the People’s Republic of China breaking ranks and eventually forming its own anti-Soviet coalition with the United States. By the late 1980s, Soviet attempts to reform its crumbling empire backfired, leading to the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1989, and to the collapse of the USSR itself in 1991. The 1990–91 U.S.-led campaign to force Iraq out of Kuwait may have coincided with the end of the Cold War, but the naval coalition that eventually bolstered Operation Desert Storm was fifty years in the making. James Goldrick shows that frequent NATO, SEATO, and CENTO naval training exercises facilitated both the rapid response and interoperability among the eleven naval coalition members. After the land operations ended, the naval sanctions continued unabated, so that the naval coalition only ceased operations twelve years later with the second Iraq war of 2003. The end of the Cold War entailed not only the demise of the USSR, but the collapse of many former Communist states. One of these was Yugoslavia, which soon divided into several competing nations. Charles Ingrao discusses 1995’s Deliberate Force, the first military operation in the history of NATO, which intervened to stop ethnic cleansing by Bosnian Serbs against all non-Serb minorities. The coalition took many years to act, but when it finally pulled together, after just eleven days of bombing – much of it based from U.S. carriers in the Adriatic Sea – in combination with a Bosnian–Croatian ground offensive, the Serbs finally followed UN resolutions and soon signed the Dayton Peace Accords. Less than four years later, conflict erupted anew when a naval coalition formed to end Serbia’s attacks against the Albanian population of Kosovo. Although Operation Allied Force also succeeded in the end, it required seventyeight days of carrier and land-based bombing to force Serbia to relinquish Kosovo. According to Andrew Stigler, a crucial tipping point may have been Russia’s decision to withdraw its support for Serbia, and China’s acquiescence to NATO’s terms following the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that killed citizens from over eighty nations catalyzed one of the largest naval coalitions ever created. Robert Schneller’s examination of Operation Enduring Freedom shows that, by April 2002, 197 countries had expressed support for the Afghanistan mission, and 136 had offered some kind of military assistance. In the naval coalition, when flight operations began on 7 October

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2001, there were forty-eight ships from four countries – the U.S., UK, France, and Australia – while only two months later there were seventy-two support ships, including vessels from Canada, Italy, and Japan. For some of the coalition members, the war in Afghanistan led directly into the conflict in Iraq, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. David Crist shows how the original naval coalition was altered to support simultaneous operations in Afghanistan – which retained support from Germany, France, and Canada – and in Iraq, which was supported by many fewer coalition members. The size of the operation was greater, however, and the naval component eventually involved no fewer than 60,000 personnel on 176 ships, sixty-five of which were from U.S. coalition partners. The concluding chapter generalizes on the basis of the sixteen case studies. It discusses such important factors as coalition types, membership, operational and strategic objectives, niche capabilities, command structure, theater of operations, and enemy response. It examines, in particular, those enduring factors that have most affected naval coalitions in the past and which will most likely continue to influence them in the future.

Notes 1 The thoughts and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the U.S. government, the U.S. Navy Department, or the Naval War College. 2 See Bruce A. Elleman, Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy’s Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia (Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2007), Newport Papers No. 28.

2

International law and coalition operations Jane G. Dalton1

When nations join military coalitions, they bring valuable contributions with them, such as assets or resources not possessed by other partners; or essential basing and overflight rights. The goal of a coalition operation is to achieve unity of effort such that the partnership is greater than the sum of its parts. Partner contributions are molded into a multinational force to project seamless capabilities that are, in theory at least, invulnerable to exploitation by an opposing force – a result known as “interoperability.” For everything they bring to the fight, however, coalition partners also bring constraints based on their national interests and domestic political concerns. The more partners there are, the more complicated and cumbersome are the processes for decision-making and mission execution.2 This truth is nowhere more apparent than when dealing with international law and “legal interoperability.” This chapter will examine international law potentially affecting naval coalition membership. It will then analyze the impact of the law on targeting, weapons, Rules of Engagement (ROE), and legal liability. Differences in the legal obligations of the coalition members can make those operating under the most restrictive rules potentially liable for the actions of those coalition members operating under less restrictive rules. These legal complexities have had a profound effect on naval coalition building during the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

International law and naval coalitions While all nations are subject to international law, not all nations have committed themselves to adhere to the same legal obligations. International law governs the conduct of nation-states and their relationships with other nation-states.3 It is composed of international agreements and international customs. An international agreement is concluded between two or more states, usually in writing, and binds those states that accept its obligations by becoming parties to it. International custom consists of the general, consistent practice of states, followed because of a sense of legal obligation. Over time, the practice of many states may become customary international law that binds all states. An international agreement may also lead to the creation of customary international law if it is

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widely accepted by states generally and, specifically, by those states whose interests are particularly affected. International law governing the conduct of war at the time of Napoleon’s defeat was primarily based on custom and state practice. In 1856, however, the Congress of Paris produced one of the earliest agreements on the laws of war, The Declaration Respecting Maritime Law. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln promulgated the Lieber Code, a field manual governing the U.S. Army’s actions during the American Civil War. This Code became the basis for the earliest Hague Conventions Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, in 1899 and 1907. By World War I, there were a number of other Hague Conventions, governing such subjects as bombardment by naval forces, the rights and duties of neutral powers in naval war and on land, and the status of enemy merchant ships. The trend toward codification of the laws of war continued throughout the twentieth century, providing a vast body of law governing coalition warfare in general, and naval coalitions in particular. Thus, treaties increasingly governed the international legal system – both by creating new law and by codifying longstanding customary law. Two bodies of international law are particularly relevant to coalition operations. The jus ad bellum regulates the decision to use armed force against another state, whether or not war is officially declared. The jus in bello regulates the conduct of hostilities during the course of war or armed conflict.

Jus ad bellum and naval coalitions The establishment of the United Nations under the UN Charter of 1945 significantly modified the rules and practices regulating a nation’s decision to go to war. For centuries, war was viewed as simply one of several instruments of national policy. Previous efforts to eliminate the “scourge of war,” such as the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations in 1919, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, were spectacularly unsuccessful – as the horrors of World War II testified. Although the United Nations collective security system has also failed to eliminate all war, the UN Charter has become the touchstone that the world uses to judge the legality of one state’s use of armed force against another. All 192 member states of the United Nations agree, in Article 2(4) of the Charter, to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” They further agree to vest the Security Council with the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security” (Art. 24) and with the authority to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” (Art. 39). The Security Council may decide on measures, which may include the use of armed force, to maintain or restore international peace and security (Art. 41–42) and all members agree to “accept and carry out” those decisions (Art. 25). Finally, the Charter recognizes the customary and “inherent” right of individual and collective self-defense if an armed

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attack occurs against a member of the United Nations (Art. 51). Importantly, the Charter did not create or define the parameters of the right of self-defense, it simply recognized that the right is inherent to relationships between nations. The decision by a state to join a naval coalition in the post-1945 world partially depends on whether that state views the use of force against another state to be consistent with the UN Charter. When a coalition is formed on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions or as a response to blatant violations of Article 2(4) of the Charter, the legal authority for the coalition is clear. For example, the maritime interception operations against Iraq that began on 16 August 1990, and continued for the next thirteen years, were based on the inherent right of collective self-defense and were further buttressed by UN Security Council Resolution 665, of 25 August 1990. That Resolution called upon Member States cooperating with the Government of Kuwait and deploying maritime forces to the area to “use such measures . . . as may be necessary . . . to halt all inward and outward maritime shipping” to enforce the economic sanctions imposed by UN Security Council Resolution 661. Likewise, the maritime interception operation Sharp Guard in the Adriatic, involving NATO and Western European Union navies during 1992–1996, was conducted pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 787. That Resolution authorized states to “use such measures . . . as may be necessary . . . to halt all inward and outward maritime shipping . . . to insure strict implementation of” the economic sanctions and arms embargo imposed against the former Yugoslavia.4 The maritime coalition during Operation Enduring Freedom had a similar, and no less solid, legal authority. Like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon resulted in a jus ad bellum that was “self-evident and beyond rational debate.”5 UN Security Council Resolution 1368, of 12 September 2001, recognized that fact by involving the inherent right of self-defense. As further evidence of the legal authority for the operation, NATO invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the Organization of American States invoked the equivalent provision of the Rio Treaty, providing that an armed attack against one or more of the parties shall be considered an attack against them all.6 Once a state determines there is sufficient legal basis to join a naval coalition operation, then legal interoperability becomes an issue. At that point, the law regulating the decision to use armed force becomes largely moot, and the law governing the conduct of hostilities comes into play.

Jus in bello and naval coalitions The jus in bello, or law of armed conflict, regulates the conduct of hostilities during the course of war or armed conflict. It reflects a fundamental balance between two competing interests: the need of armed forces to conduct their operations efficiently and effectively to bring a quick and decisive end to the conflict, and the desire to alleviate, as much as possible, the calamities of war and their effect on the non-combatant population.

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The law of armed conflict is based on several general principles that have attained the status of customary international law: the principle of distinction between combatants and civilians; the principle of avoiding unnecessary suffering to combatants; and the principle of proportionality. It is codified in three basic groupings of treaties: 1 2

3

The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 governing the conduct of hostilities on land and at sea. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 governing the treatment of persons who are not, or are no longer, involved in hostilities – the wounded, sick, shipwrecked, prisoners of war, and civilians in occupied territories – with the 1977 Additional Protocols concerning the protection of victims of international and non-international armed conflict. Numerous treaties governing the means and methods of warfare that prohibit or restrict the use of specific weapons – poison gas, chemical and biological weapons, certain types of projectiles such as those with non-detectable fragments or expanding bullets, blinding lasers, incendiaries, and anti-personnel landmines – to name a few.

Overlaid on these bodies of law are two developing areas. The first holds individuals potentially criminally accountable for violations of the law of armed conflict, whether committed by the individuals themselves or by personnel under their command. The second holds governments potentially civilly liable for damage or injury occurring to civilians during an armed conflict. Accordingly, when a nation engages in coalition operations, it is necessary to know and understand not only its own legal commitments, but also the treaties to which other coalition partners are party, their interpretations of customary international law principles, their differing responsibilities under criminal or human rights treaties, and the effect of unreconciled legal obligations on the ability of one nation to conduct operations with another. This legal complexity is surely, at least in part, what General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, during Operation Allied Force, was referring to when he wrote about the early days of the Kosovo campaign, “We were quickly learning how difficult it is for a nineteen-nation alliance to wage a coherent military campaign.”7 The law of naval warfare is a relatively discrete and complete body of law, based on centuries of customary practice, which balances the rights of those nations involved in armed conflict (belligerents) with those seeking to avoid entanglement in the hostilities (neutrals). Neutrals have certain rights and duties – to engage in commerce and to remain impartial in the conflict; as do belligerents – to insist that neutrals remain impartial and to respect the inviolability of neutral territory. The law also contains detailed rules on the conduct of naval blockades; protections for hospital ships, medical aircraft, and other protected craft; the employment of naval mines; and the visit, search, capture, or destruction of merchant vessels.8 Today, however, navies rarely operate in isolation.

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Accordingly, the most relevant legal issues in recent coalition operations have been related, not uniquely to naval warfare, but to naval operations with effects on land. To the extent coalition members have the same international legal obligations, a shared set of rules guides their actions. Even so, there may be disagreements over the application of a particular rule to a discrete set of facts. Such concepts as “proportionality” and “necessity” defy strict definition and lend themselves to interpretations that may be grounded as much in political concerns as in legal requirements. The situation becomes more complex, however, when coalition members have different legal obligations based on their adherence to different treaties. In the first Gulf War most coalition partners and Iraq were subject to substantially similar legal obligations: as parties to the same treaties (the 1949 Geneva Conventions); as members of the international community bound by provisions of treaties that had attained the status of customary law (the 1907 Hague Conventions); or as a matter of policy (not all coalition partners were parties to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, but their forces applied the treaty as a matter of policy).9 Since then, the situation has become more complex. During Kosovo, all members of NATO except France, the United States, and Turkey were parties to Additional Protocol I. France later became a party, so only the United States and Turkey were non-parties during the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. Many nations are party to the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel land mines, but the United States is not. Despite these differences, the hostilities in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq were all conducted as coalition operations, resulting in a number of interoperability issues, such as targeting procedures.

Targeting procedures Targeting is one of the most complex aspects of coalition operations, due to a number of legal and quasi-legal factors. Parties to Additional Protocol I have assumed obligations over and above the principles found in the Hague Conventions of 1907 and other provisions of customary law. For example, the Protocol places severe restrictions on attacking dams, dikes, nuclear electrical generating stations, and other installations that may contain “dangerous forces,” even when they are legitimate military objectives.10 In addition, some provisions of the Protocol are widely recognized as difficult to interpret.11 These include the definition of legitimate military objectives – “those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”12 The legal basis for the operation may be perceived as a limiting factor. During Operation Allied Force, which relied largely on a “humanitarian” legal rationale, one goal was to “reduce to an absolute minimum,”13 the risk of unintended civilian casualties – regardless of what customary law or Additional

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Protocol I would have permitted. “Harming the Albanian civilians whose mistreatment had been the source of NATO’s action in the first place was morally, legally and logically abhorrent,” said General Clark.14 One should not mistakenly conclude, however, that the law of armed conflict changes in operations launched for humanitarian reasons. As a policy matter, decisions may be made to operate in a constrained targeting environment, but legal obligations remain the same under customary and conventional treaty law as if one were involved in a “normal” armed conflict. To conclude otherwise would undermine the long-established principle that the jus in bello applies equally to both sides in any conflict, without regard to the cause that they espouse or the legality of their action under the jus ad bellum. In addition, because forces engaged in an armed conflict on the basis of humanitarian intervention would be bound by stricter rules than the opposing forces – meaning that those causing the humanitarian crisis would have greater latitude for resistance than those forces seeking to prevent atrocities against the civilian population.15 Considerations of post-war reconstruction also impact targeting decisions. One commentator described how General Tommy Franks forbade “almost all attacks on ‘sensitive’ infrastructure” in Afghanistan, “including electrical power systems, roads and industry, or any target that had ‘political implications.’ ” He also described similar decisions with respect to targeting in Operation Iraqi Freedom, with particular attention paid to protecting the Iraqi oil infrastructure, which would be important for funding the post-regime government.16 The extent to which national leadership retains authority over targeting decisions, and how that authority is exercised, may make an already complex process even more dysfunctional. During Operation Allied Force the political leadership of the major NATO players reserved to themselves the authority to approve fixed targets, leaving the Air Component Commander authority to attack only mobile targets like tanks and armored personnel carriers. In addition, the United Kingdom insisted on approving the targets assigned to U.S. aircraft based in the UK. Despite all efforts to assign only acceptable targets to each nation’s forces, on more than one occasion strikes were cancelled in mid-flight due to late notice that the national leadership rejected the target assignments.17 These national requirements should not be unexpected. As the legal adviser to the National Security Council during Operation Allied Force explained, some target decisions assumed strategic proportions: “A government might fall. A runway might no longer be available. NATO consensus might collapse.” President Bill Clinton, like other NATO command authorities, had to be aware of potential consequences for which he would ultimately be held accountable – both politically and legally.18 Those same concerns motivated British ministers to participate in approving some targets, since they retained the ultimate responsibility for the consequences of targeting decisions.19 Coalition targeting procedures in Operation Iraqi Freedom, though probably as complex as in Kosovo, appear to have operated more smoothly and efficiently. Both the United Kingdom and Australia assessed assigned targets

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according to their national legal obligations. While some targeting authority was delegated to commanders in theater, such as time-sensitive targets based on rapidly developing intelligence, other categories were subject to Ministeriallevel approval before they could be engaged. The general consensus was that the procedures “worked very smoothly.”20 As in Kosovo, however, the United Kingdom approved all targeting operations that were prosecuted using British assets and those conducted by U.S. aircraft operating from British bases.21 One of the most controversial of all targeting issues, given that freedom of the press is a basic Western value, is the extent to which the media is a legitimate military objective. This issue was nowhere more evident than in the attack on the Radio Television Serbska (RTS) station in Belgrade on 23 April 1999. To General Clark, the station represented the “heart of Milosevic’s command and control.”22 NATO officials also stressed, however, that the strikes were part of the campaign “to dismantle the [Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’s] propaganda machinery. . . .”23 It is generally accepted that the attack on the station was legitimate if the primary purpose was to disable the Serbian military command and control system. If the justification for attacking the station was its propaganda value alone, the legality of the attack was questionable. The Committee assigned to investigate the attack concluded that the propaganda purpose was an “incidental (albeit complementary) aim,” and recommended no further investigation or action.24 Accordingly, media facilities may be legitimate military objectives if they are more than “merely a propaganda outlet” or “a symbol of the regime.”25

Weapons restrictions Customary law prohibits weapons designed to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering to combatants, and weapons that are indiscriminate because they cannot be directed solely against military objectives. Because it is difficult to obtain general agreement on such terms as “unnecessary suffering” and “indiscriminate,” the practice in modern times has been to prohibit or regulate specific weapons through detailed treaty provisions. In recent coalition operations, differing treaty obligations and political sensitivities have led to legal interoperability complexities. Neither anti-vehicle nor anti-personnel landmines are prohibited under customary international law. Over 140 states, however, have ratified the Ottawa Convention of 1997 and thus are treaty-bound not to use, produce, stockpile, or transfer anti-personnel landmines.26 Also prohibited is “assistance, encouragement, or inducement” to any other person to possess or use such mines. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have concluded that their armed forces will not violate the treaty merely by taking part in combined operations with forces of an ally not bound by the Convention (such as the United States) which deploy landmines.27 The challenge is for coalition personnel in combat operations to take advantage of lawful capabilities while honoring more restrictive national treaty obligations.

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Likewise, there is no treaty or customary law prohibiting or restricting the use of cluster bombs or depleted uranium munitions. Nevertheless, during the Kosovo campaign, concerns were expressed in Parliament, leading the British Foreign Secretary to announce publicly that the Royal Air Force was using neither anti-personnel cluster bombs nor depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo.28 However, after the campaign ended, the UK Ministry of Defence asserted that “UK armed forces will always use the weapons systems judged most effective against a given target, taking into account the need to minimise collateral damage . . . cluster bombs are an effective weapon against area targets such as a group of soft-skinned military vehicles.”29 The UK Ministry of Defence retains depleted uranium munitions as an option because they are uniquely effective against certain targets, there is no satisfactory alternative material to achieve the same results, and they are lawful under international law. “Denying ourselves the most appropriate weapons,” the Ministry noted, “would not help end conflicts quickly and could put our armed forces at greater risk of harm.”30 In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Royal Air Force used a small number of cluster bombs against targets such as highly dispersed armored vehicles and artillery or mobile targets.31 A challenge in coalition operations is to insure that the publics of all coalition partners are correctly informed and that misinformation as to the legality of the employment of various types of munitions is properly countered. Another area that poses a challenge for coalition operations is developing common Rules of Engagement.

Rules of Engagement Rules of Engagement (ROE) are orders issued to a military force by the chain of command that establish when, where, and how much force may be used and who makes the determination. In coalition operations, common ROE enhance interoperability, since ROE address two situations: the use of force in selfdefense and the use of force for mission accomplishment. The need for self-defense arises in response to a hostile act or hostile intent. A hostile act is any attack or use of force against the multinational force; hostile intent is the threat of imminent use of force. The Standing Rules of Engagement for U.S. Forces (Standing ROE) provide that U.S. forces will operate under the control of a multinational force commander only if the President and Secretary of Defense are satisfied that the coalition ROE for unit self-defense afford those forces the authority to use all necessary means available to respond to both a hostile act and hostile intent.32 While other states authorize their forces to respond to a hostile act, some do not permit a response to hostile intent. Others define hostile intent differently than does the United States.33 Apparent inconsistencies between the right of self-defense as contained in the Standing ROE and in the multinational force ROE are to be submitted through the U.S. chain of command for resolution. Pending resolution, U.S. forces will operate under national ROE.

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Concerning mission accomplishment ROE under a multinational commander, the Secretary of Defense may authorize U.S. forces to follow the ROE of the multinational force. If common ROE cannot be agreed upon, however, U.S. forces will operate under national ROE. Such arrangements are likely to lead to tensions and frustrations on all sides. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has complained that it is “‘enormously difficult’ for commanders to have flexibility when forces from different countries under their command are subject to different rules of engagement and restrictions on operations.”34 Ideally, all coalition partners will understand all ROE employed in the theater. In Operation Enduring Freedom, unfortunately, there were several difficulties in sharing United States ROE with coalition partners. First, the short period of time between the attacks on 11 September 2001 and the commencement of combat operations on 7 October 2001 did not permit coalition partner involvement in the planning or development of the ROE. Second, the ROE initially were not only classified Top Secret, but were also placed into a strictly controlled and limited-access special-handling category. Third, United States ROE on occasion varied according to unit and mission, with highly restrictive “need to know” in some cases. These security procedures thus made it difficult for United States forces to access the ROE, and practically impossible for others. This situation led to degraded operational ability of some coalition partners, who had to make last-minute changes and adjustments because only upon arrival in theater did they realize their ROE were inconsistent with U.S. ROE.35 In Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, the more deliberate planning allowed for coalition attendance at ROE planning conferences sponsored by U.S. Central Command. Thus, British and Australian attorneys were able to assist in drafting national ROE with knowledge of the likely U.S. ROE, ensuring as much consistency as possible prior to the beginning of operations.36 Legal liability flowing from combat operations, including actions taken pursuant to the approved ROE, poses yet another challenge to coalition operations.

Legal liability A long-standing principle of international law holds states liable to other states for acts contrary to international law. The corollary protects states from liability for war losses resulting from the proper conduct of military operations.37 Thus, states have a duty to insure that their forces properly conduct military operations. Even if a coalition represents an international organization like NATO, each state in the coalition is responsible for complying, and for ensuring that its armed forces comply, with its international customary law and treaty-based obligations: “While NATO is an international organization which possesses a legal personality separate from those of its members, that separate personality does not affect the applicability of international humanitarian law to the armed forces of any member State which implements a NATO decision.”38 Individual responsibility is generally adjudicated through criminal trials. From the earliest war crimes trial of Peter von Hagenbach for “murder, rape,

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illegal taxation and wanton confiscation of private property” in the Upper Rhine in 1474,39 to the many military tribunals convened by the Allies after World War II (the best known of which was the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg), ad hoc military tribunals have been constituted to try individuals for war crimes.40 These courts were created to address specific conflicts, with no authority to continue as a standing court. The same is true of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union to “prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991.”41 In 1994, the Security Council created a similar tribunal to try genocide and other crimes committed by Rwandan citizens in Rwanda or neighboring states.42 In 1998, the first permanent international criminal tribunal became a reality when the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court opened for signature. The Court has jurisdiction to try the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression, though as yet the latter crime has not been defined. The Court’s jurisdiction is “complementary” to national criminal jurisdiction – if a state is able and willing to try its own nationals for the aforementioned crimes the state’s jurisdiction takes precedence over the Court’s. However, the Court may assert jurisdiction over alleged crimes referred to it by a state party, by the Security Council, or from an investigation initiated by the Prosecutor. This unchecked prosecutorial discretion is one reason the United States has declined to become a party to the Rome Statute, and has exerted significant political capital to insure that U.S. personnel will not be tried before the court.43 State responsibility is somewhat more complex than individual responsibility. In general, coalition members share responsibility for acts committed during a coalition operation. For example, if a state permits the forces of a coalition partner to operate from its territory, it may share responsibility with the coalition partner for any breaches of customary international law and mutual treaty obligations by the latter’s armed forces. This concern probably prompted the United Kingdom to insist on approving the targets attacked by U.S. aircraft based in Britain during Operations Allied Force and Iraqi Freedom. If a particular act, such as the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, can be imputed to a single state, that state will generally address the issue through diplomatic channels. In that case, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen expressed regret and President Clinton apologized to the President of China and the Chinese people.44 In future coalition operations, however, it may be difficult to determine what role a particular nation’s forces may have played in an incident. For example, a British ship could launch a weapon against a target planned by American targeteers, who developed the collateral damage analysis based on intelligence provided by New Zealand special operations forces located ashore. Or a particular nation’s ships may not be participating in the naval portion of a coalition operation, yet its officers assigned to coalition

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headquarters might participate in planning naval attacks. In both situations, it would be difficult to pinpoint responsibility and liability. Further, no matter how scrupulously a coalition attempts to comply with the jus in bello, its conduct will be subject to legal review. On 14 May 1999, even before Operation Allied Force had concluded its bombing campaign, the ICTY Prosecutor established a committee to assess a number of “allegations that senior political and military figures from NATO countries committed serious violations of international humanitarian law during the campaign.”45 The committee reviewed twenty-one key incidents, including the attack on the Chinese Embassy. The committee ultimately determined that, based on the information available to them, “neither an in-depth investigation related to the bombing campaign as a whole nor investigations related to specific incidents” was justified.46 Even though the committee decided not to investigate, this episode “served notice that doing the right thing, and doing it well and carefully, will not necessarily immunize actors from international legal scrutiny under the law of armed conflict.”47 To obtain legal redress, victims must seek compensation from individual nations based on treaties to which the individual nations are party or on those nations’ domestic law. For example, after Operation Allied Force victims of the April 1999 bombing of the Radio Television Srbska brought suit against the seventeen NATO nations that were also parties to the European Convention on Human Rights (all NATO members except Canada and the United States). The European Court of Human Rights ultimately held, in Bankovic v. Belgium, that “a person was not to be treated as falling within the jurisdiction of a State merely because he was affected by the military operations of that State’s forces.”48 In Germany, however, in July 2005, the Higher Regional Court at Cologne broke new ground by admitting the possibility that victims of the Kosovo campaign might be able to bring claims against German national authorities based on the German constitution and the German civil code.49 Nations are well advised to be aware of this developing area of the law, and to consider potential liabilities that may result from their participation in coalition operations, based on the acts of their coalition partners.

The Global War on Terror The 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon rallied scores of coalition partners to combat terrorism, but few agreed to conduct the campaign as an actual “war.” Despite some reluctance on the part of the international community to join the all-out military effort, it appears a neworder maritime coalition is forming – an amalgam of developing authorities, operational initiatives, and intergovernmental cooperation, utilizing all the instruments of national power (economic, diplomatic, military, legal) to create a more secure maritime environment and to contain threats emanating from the global commons.

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Historically, war represented a state of hostilities between two nations. Because Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were supported and harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom had the look and feel of a traditional war between nation-states, supported by a robust maritime coalition interdicting sea and air escape routes from Southern Pakistan. Once the Taliban were defeated, al Qaeda largely driven from the area, and an interim government installed in Afghanistan, some argued that the armed conflict had ended. That is not, however, the position taken by the United States. National policy statements, and documents such as the 2002 and 2005 National Security Strategies, confirm that the President has, indeed, embarked on a “long war,” in its most literal sense, against terror and terrorists: The President’s most basic decision after 9/11 was how to think about the attack. . . . President Bush . . . decided that 9/11 meant that we are at war . . . that the U.S. would respond not with the FBI and U.S. attorneys, but with our armed forces and every instrument of U.S. national power.50 As the 2002 National Security Strategy emphasized: “The struggle against global terrorism is unlike any other war in our history. It will be fought on many fronts against a particularly elusive enemy over an extended period of time.”51 Whether the United States may legally be “at war” with terrorism is an important question, because at least three legal consequences flow from such an approach: 1

2

3

In a “war,” one can strike and kill the enemy anywhere on the battlefield, whenever he is found. If the battlefield is the entire world, can one strike and kill terrorists wherever they are located, whenever they are found? The Predator strikes in Yemen and Pakistan are examples of that proposition. Though the Yemeni government permitted the United States to take direct action, and assisted in the effort,52 the strike into Pakistan may have been without the consent or knowledge of the Pakistani government.53 In a “war,” one can hold enemy soldiers as prisoners of war until the end of hostilities. Controversy has arisen over holding enemy combatants not entitled to prisoner-of-war status, such as the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are seeking judicial review of their detention through the federal court system.54 The United Nations Committee Against Torture issued a report calling for the detention facility to be closed.55 In a “war” one can visit and search merchant ships on the high seas to determine the nature of their cargo, the manner of their employment, and other facts bearing on their relation to the armed conflict.56 Further, one can blockade ports, airfields, or coastal areas belonging to or under the control of an enemy nation to prevent all vessels and aircraft from entering or exiting.57

It is beyond dispute that the inherent right of self-defense extends to armed attacks by terrorist non-state actors of the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks, and that

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there was no legal requirement for a UN Security Council resolution to authorize “all necessary means” against the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The legal authority for a worldwide “Global War on Terror,” however, is more problematic. Few nations, if any, agree that the United States may take unilateral action to attack and destroy terrorists or terrorist facilities within their country, to hold their citizens indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” or to board and search their vessels on the high seas without their permission. In order to mitigate such difficulties, the 2002 National Security Strategy expressed the intent to reach an international consensus on terrorism similar to those concerning the slave trade and piracy.58 Pursuant to article 110 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the warships of any nation may board and inspect vessels on the high seas suspected of piracy or the slave trade. A UN Security Council resolution equating terrorism with those universal crimes would have provided the authority to board and inspect suspected terrorist vessels. Such a resolution, however, has not been forthcoming. Despite a series of resolutions concerning terrorism, the only one to address the movement of terrorists and their supplies by sea did not provide for multinational enforcement measures. It merely stated that all states should “prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer” to Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other associated entities from “their territories or by their nationals outside their territories, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel. . . .”59 Accordingly, the United States has aggressively sought enhanced security in the maritime environment through a new-order maritime coalition based on several complementary initiatives. For example, in the Proliferation Security Initiative, over 70 nations are cooperating by means of bilateral agreements, exercises, and expedited procedures in a proactive approach to halt shipments of weapons of mass destruction by sea and air.60 A Long-Range Information and Tracking regime, when implemented, will enable tracking vessels as far as 2000 nautical miles from a nation’s coastline. Further, in October 2005, largely due to U.S. leadership, the International Maritime Organization adopted significant anti-terrorism and non-proliferation amendments to the 1988 UN Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation. These amendments build a framework for flag-state consent to board suspect vessels at sea, establish expedited boarding procedures, and bring within its scope certain terrorist-related and nonproliferation offenses, such as the unlawful transport of weapons of mass destruction.61 Simultaneously, a number of operational activities are under way. Combined Task Force 150 patrols 2.4 million square miles of water centered on the Horn of Africa, aimed at “denying international terrorists use of the maritime environment as a venue for attack or to transport personnel, weapons or other material.”62 The U.S. Pacific Fleet conducts a multinational naval exercise known as the Southeast Asian Cooperative for Antiterrorism.63 Operation Active Endeavor, begun in October 2001 as part of NATO’s expanded maritime

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counter-terrorist efforts, consists of surveillance and patrols in the Mediterranean to demonstrate presence, escort vessels through the Straits of Gibraltar, and conduct compliant boardings of suspect vessels.64

Conclusion Joint and combined operations are the future of war-fighting, as shown by the large naval coalition that participated in Operation Enduring Freedom against Afghanistan, a land-locked state, and the extensive naval engagement in Operation Iraqi Freedom by Tomahawk Land-Attack Missiles and naval aircraft launched from ships at sea, and by Navy special operations personnel conducting missions on land. Accordingly, some of the most prevalent legal issues in modern coalitions will be those concerning the decision to use force and those concerning land-based targets and operations. Nevertheless, the old-fashioned naval coalition – with a new-order twenty-first century approach – will continue to be an important means of ensuring security in the maritime environment. The very nature of coalition operations insures that there will be tensions and differences of opinion on a number of issues such as targeting, weapons selection, and rules of engagement. Some of these differences will be based in differing international legal obligations, domestic legal obligations, and political realities that influence policy decisions. In the end, political and military leaders must assess whether the value of operating as a coalition outweighs the inherent inefficiencies, complexities and constraints. For the Kosovo campaign, General Wesley Clark concluded “We paid a price in operational effectiveness by having to constrain the nature of the operation to fit within the political and legal concerns of NATO member nations, but the price brought significant strategic benefits that future political and military leaders must recognize.”65 General Tommy Franks, Commander of the United States Central Command, and U.S. Commander in charge of Operation Enduring Freedom, counted more than 130 countries that banded together to fight terrorism – some sending combat troops, some providing financial or diplomatic support, some preferring not to disclose their assistance, but assisting nevertheless in vital ways such as providing intelligence. Afterward, Franks concluded that his role in forming this coalition was “worth the heartburn,” and he remains convinced that democracies will never again fight alone – that coalition warfare is the warfare of the future.66

Notes 1 The thoughts and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the U.S. government, the U.S. Navy Department, or the Naval War College. 2 During the Kosovo campaign, for example, there were nineteen heads of government, their foreign and defense ministers, the Chiefs of Defense and military leaders in each country, NATO’s Secretary General, Chairman of the Military Committee, and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. General Wesley K. Clark, USA (Ret), Waging Modern War (New York: Public Affairs, 2001) xxi.

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3 Increasingly, international law also deals with relationships between nation-states and individuals, business organizations, and other legal entities such as international organizations. Restatement of the Law Third, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States, Introductory Note and Sections 102 and 301, The American Law Institute, Vol. 1 (1987), 16–21, 24–35, and 149–152. 4 On Operation Sharp Guard, see Regional Headquarters Allied Forces Southern Europe Fact Sheets, “Operation Sharp Guard,” www.afsouth.nato.int/ operations/sharpguard. 5 James E. Baker, “When Lawyers Advise Presidents in Wartime: Kosovo and the Law of Armed Conflict,” Naval War College Review (Winter, 2002), 11, 12. 6 “NATO Update: Invocation of Article 5 confirmed – 2 October 2001,” www.nato.int/docu/update/2001; OEA/Ser G, CP/Res. 796 and 797 (1293/01), 19 September 2001. 7 Clark, xx. 8 The rules are detailed in such publications as: U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, The Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations, NWP 1–14M/MCWP 5–2.1/COMDTPUB P5800.7, October 1995; and International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, Louise Doswald-Beck, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1995). 9 Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress Pursuant to Title V of the Persian Gulf Conflict Supplemental Authorization and Personnel Benefits Act of 1991 (Public Law 102–25) (April 1992), O-1 – O-3. 10 Article 56, 1977 Geneva Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, reprinted in Documents on the Laws of War, Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff, eds (Oxford University Press, 2003) 419, 451–452. 11 Even the definitive commentary on the Protocol acknowledges that its definition of military objective may serve as a valuable guide, but is “not always easy to interpret.” International Committee of the Red Cross, Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Geneva, 1987), 635. 12 Ibid., Article 52(2), 450. 13 Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, “Kosovo One Year On,” www.nato.int/kosovo/ kosovo.htm, 24. 14 France, for example, at the time not a party to Additional Protocol I, appears to have been most averse of the NATO partners to civilian casualties, largely due to a “strongly pro-Serb orientation.” Clark, 428, 435. 15 Christopher Greenwood, “The Applicability of International Humanitarian Law and the Law of Neutrality to the Kosovo Campaign,” in Andru E. Wall, ed., Legal and Ethical Lessons of Nato’s Kosovo Campaign, International Law Studies, Vol. 78 (Naval War College Press, 2002), 35, 47–50. 16 Nathan A. Canestaro, “Legal and Policy Constraints on the Conduct of Aerial Precision Warfare,” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 37 (March 2004), 431, 475. 17 Lieutenant General Michael Short, USAF (Retired), “Operation Allied Force from the Perspective of the NATO Air Commander,” in Wall, 19–20, 25–26, 30. 18 Baker, 13, 18–19. Elsewhere, Judge Baker does agree that the targeting process was complicated, and “sometimes dysfunctional,” due to the idiosyncrasies of conducting a military campaign within a consensus decision-making framework of nineteen nations. James E. Baker, “National Security Process and a Lawyer’s Duty: Remarks to the Senior Judge Advocate Symposium,” Military Law Review, Vol. 173 (September 2002), 124, 126. 19 Peter Rowe, “Kosovo 1999: The Air Campaign – Have the Provisions of Additional Protocol I Withstood the Test?” International Review of the Red Cross (2000), 147, www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf.

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20 Department of Defence (Australia), The War in Iraq: ADF Operations in the Middle East (2003), 13, www.defence.gov.au/publications/lessons.pdf. 21 Ministry of Defence, Operations in Iraq – Lessons for the Future (December 2003) 27–28, www.mod.uk/publications/iraq_futurelessons. 22 Clark, 267. 23 “Final Report to the Prosecutor by the Committee Established to Review the NATO Bombing Campaign Against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,” in Wall, 81, 520 (paragraph 74). 24 Ibid. (paragraphs 76, 79). 25 William J. Fenrick, “Targeting and Proportionality during the NATO Bombing Campaign against Yugoslavia,” European Journal of International Law, Vol. 12 (2000), 489, 496–497. 26 Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck, eds, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 1: Rules (2005), 282. 27 UK Ministry of Defence, The Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2004), Article 6.13; Ken Watkin, “Canada/United States Military Interoperability and Humanitarian Law Issues: Land Mines, Terrorism, Military Objectives and Targeted Killing,” Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, Vol. 15, 281, 289–290. 28 Other nations were, however, using cluster munitions. One source reports that Milosevic’s press staff persuaded CNN to do a story on the cluster bomb unit “terror weapon” and that, as a result, target planners were directed at the “highest levels” to cease using cluster bomb units. Benjamin S. Lambeth, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (RAND Corporation, 2001), 200–201. 29 Ministry of Defence, Kosovo: Lessons From the Crisis, “Chapter 7: Air Operations – Conduct and Lessons,” para. 7.46, www.mod.uk/pulications/kosovo_lessons. 30 Ibid., para. 7.48. 31 Operations in Iraq, 29. 32 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3121.01B, Standing Rules of Engagement/Standing Rules for the Use of Force for U.S. Forces, 13 June 2005, Enclosure A (on file with author). 33 Center for Law and Military Operations, (The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School), Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq: Volume 1, Major Combat Operations (11 September 2001 to 1 May 2003), Squadron Leader Catherine Wallis, Royal Australian Air Force, “Coalition Issues,” 119–122. This provides a detailed discussion of differences in national interpretations of self-defense and use of force terminology. 34 “Rumsfeld urges broader scope for Nato troops,” Financial Times, 14 September 2005, 2. 35 Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq, 117–118. 36 Ibid. 37 Green H. Hackworth, Digest of International Law (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943), Vol. 5, sections 535 (at 683) and 539 (at 719). 38 Wall, 40. 39 Howard S. Levie, “War Crimes,” in Michael N. Schmitt, ed., The Law of Military Operations, International Law Studies, Vol. 72 (Naval War College Press, 2000), 96, 96–97. 40 There were war crimes trials after the American civil war; after the postSpanish–American War pacification program; during and after the Boer War; and during World War I. Ibid., 96–97. 41 UNSC Resolution S/RES 808 (1993), Feb. 22, 1993. For a more complete discussion of the ICTY and the International Criminal Court, see Howard S. Levie, “The History and Status of the International Criminal Court,” in Michael N. Schmitt, ed., International Law Across the Spectrum of Conflict, International Law Studies, Vol. 75 (Naval War College Press, 2000), 247, 252–258.

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42 UNSC Resolution S/RES 955 (1994), 8 November 1994. 43 The Rome Statute is available at www.un.org/icc/statute/romefra.htm. The Rome Statute entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 3 May 2005 the United States had concluded its 100th “Article 98 agreement.” These bilateral agreements, negotiated pursuant to Article 98 of the Rome Statute, insure that U.S. persons will not be surrendered to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court without the consent of the U.S. government, www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005. 44 William S. Cohen, “DoD News Briefing,” 10 May 1999, www.defenselink.mil/ transcripts/1999. 45 Wall, 485. 46 Ibid., 529. 47 Baker, 21. 48 Wall, 68. 49 “The Appeals Judgment in the case of the Varvarin bridge: One step further for state liability for violations of humanitarian law,” Bofaxe No. 295E, 2 September 2005, www.ifhv.de. 50 See, e.g., Undersecretary of Defense (Policy) Douglas Feith, 14 April 2004, remarks to the Policy Union, University of Chicago, www.defenselink.mil. 51 The White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (2002), 5, www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf. 52 On 3 November 2002, a Hellfire missile attack launched from a CIA-controlled Predator unmanned aerial vehicle struck a vehicle in Yemen’s Marib province, killing a key al Qaeda leader and five other al Qaeda members. Dana Priest, “U.S. Citizen Among Those Killed In Yemen Predator Missile Strike,” Washington Post, 8 November 2002; Walter Pincus, “Missile Strike Carried Out with Yemeni Cooperation,” Washington Post, 6 November 2002. 53 On 13 January 2006, an American airstrike in Northwest Pakistan killed as many as seventeen people. Though targeted against al Qaeda’s deputy Ayman Zawahiri, it is believed he was not killed in the attack. Lally Weymouth, “Q&A: Pervez Musharra, President of Pakistan,” Washington Post, 29 January 2006, B1, stated: “This [attack] was definitely not coordinated with us. We . . . have objected to it as an issue of sovereignty.”; Dafna Linzer and Griff Witte, “U.S. Airstrike Targets Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri,” Washington Post, 14 January 2006, 9, quoting a “U.S. military source” that the Pakistanis were “heavily involved.” 54 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004) recognized the President’s authority to detain persons who fought with the Taliban and al Qaeda against the United States. A number of detainees are seeking writs of habeas corpus pursuant to the decision in Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466 (2004), although the Military Commissions Act, Public Law 109–366, 17 October 2006, limits the ability of enemy combatant detainees to seek habeus corpus. 55 Tim Golden, “U.S. Should Close Prison In Cuba, U.N. Panel Says,” New York Times, 20 May 2006, 1. 56 The Commander’s Handbook, 7–6 (paragraph 7.6). 57 Ibid., 7–7 (paragraph 7.7). 58 National Security Strategy, 6. 59 UN Security Council Resolution S/RES 1390 (2002), 28 January 2002. 60 Condoleezza Rice, Secretary, U.S. Department of State, “Remarks on the Second Anniversary of the Proliferation Security Initiative (May 31, 2005),” www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46591.htm. 61 www.imo.org/Conventions/mainframe.asp?topic_id=259&doc_id=686. As of June 2007, there are over 80 PSI cooperating countries. 62 Guy Toremans, “Interview, Commodore Hank Ort,” Jane’s Navy International, May 2006, 34; CTF 150 is a true multinational coalition, with a command staff from The Netherlands exercising tactical control as of December 2005, and Pakistan taking over in summer, 2006.

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63 Jonathan Vicente, “US Pacific Fleet Lines Up RP Exercises,” Manila Times, 22 May 2006. 64 Regional Headquarters Allied Forces Southern Europe, “Operation Active Endeavor,” www.afsouth.nato.int/JFCN_Operations/Active Endeavor. 65 Clark, 426. 66 General Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 538–539.

3

Caging the eagle Napoleonic War coalitions Steve Ross1

During the Napoleonic Wars, it required the combined efforts of virtually all of Europe’s great powers to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte. Protected from attack by the sea, British leaders had long understood the need for continental allies. In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I supported the Dutch Revolt against Spain in order to divert Phillip II’s efforts against England by compelling Spain to divide its resources. In the seventeenth century, Britain in alliance with France fought against the Dutch. In the following century, Britain sought continental alliances to tie down and divert French resources. For example, in the 1740s Britain allied with Austria, and in the following decades was in league with Prussia. The one major war during this period that Britain lost – the American Revolution – was the one conflict where Britain had no continental ally, and where France actively supported the colonialists. In addition, after 1763 the British government had allowed the Royal Navy to decline in order to save money. Consequently, it had to wage a war from a position of numerical inferiority at sea. Despite its defeat in North America, however, the British economy continued to flourish, with exports almost doubling between 1780 and 1790. British trade was given a decisive push by the domestic impact of the industrial revolution, and even Britain’s trade with the United States grew rapidly. Meanwhile, France had become enormously powerful because of its Revolution, and no single power or combination of powers could hope to defeat the armed forces of the Republic and Empire. In fact, only Great Britain’s unassailable position as a seapower allowed her to resist France even while forming a series of coalitions with Europe’s other land powers in order to defeat Napoleon.

The growth of the British navy Following its New World defeat, the British government worked diligently to expand the size of the Royal Navy, increasing not only the number of warships but also improving the efficiency of dockyards and stocks of naval stores. By the time that Britain went to war against France in 1793, the Royal Navy had 115 ships of the line and 160 frigates and lighter ships. Moreover, the Navy’s size

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continued to expand, reaching 684 ships by 1800,2 of which 180 were ships of the line. The Royal Navy dominated the seas in large part because of the high quality of its officers and men. By 1793, British Naval Officers were in essence professionals. Typically an officer came from a middle-class background. He had gone to sea as a youth serving at least six years as a midshipman before becoming a lieutenant. Afterwards, promotion was a function of longevity and effectiveness. Unlike the army, there was no purchase of commissions. Crews were composed of a small number of volunteers and a large percentage of impressed men. Warships were not fully manned in peacetime. In time of war, press gangs would operate in port towns while at sea merchant vessels would be halted and ablebodied sailors would be forced into the navy. By 1795 there were 100,000 men in the fleet, and this reached 150,000 by 1813.3 Crews were ill paid and subjected to brutal discipline, although life at sea was probably not much worse than life ashore. British warships usually spent months or even years at sea, thus giving officers the time necessary to train crews not only in handling a single ship but also in operating in squadrons and fleets. During hostilities the British won every major naval engagement against France and its allies. Between 1793 and 1805 Britain may have lost five ships of the line in battle and 19 to hazards of the sea, but the Royal Navy sank or captured 59 French, 20 Spanish, 18 Dutch, and three Danish ships of the line. British naval superiority had a number of strategic consequences. The Royal Navy prevented a hostile invasion of the British Isles and virtually eliminated French seaborne commerce and the seaborne trade of other hostile continental powers. The Royal Navy also helped protect British trade. Britain’s foes resorted to commerce raiding, taking about 11,000 merchant ships representing two-and-a-half times the total number of British merchant shipping. The Royal Navy in turn resorted to convoys escorted by ships of the line and frigates – a move that sustained commerce and the wealth it produced that was so vital to the war effort. During the period from 1793 to 1815 the British supplied 65 million pounds in subsidies plus thousands of weapons to allies; Britain provided over half of these subsidies during the final three years of the war.4 The navy also supported expeditions designed to capture the colonial possessions of hostile powers, and could quickly transport entire armies to vital areas on the European continent. Despite their maritime dominance, the British understood that the defeat of the French Republic and Empire could be achieved only on land. Consequently, Britain with its small army would have to revert to its traditional strategy of finding and subsidizing continental allies to deal with the enormous French army and with Napoleon’s extensive political alliances.

The growth of the French army and alliances The French Republic created Europe’s most effective army. France felt it necessary to expand its forces by a combination of volunteering and conscription, and

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by September 1794 the Minister of War declared to the national convention that the Republic had over a million men under arms with about 800,000 serving with the active armies. In 1798, the French introduced a draft law that gave the government the ability to induct new recruits according to the needs of the moment. The Republic also mobilized the country’s national resources to equip and supply the fighting forces. France thus produced a mass citizen army backed by the resources of the mobilized nation-state. The Citizen army in turn created its own unique operational style and tactical methods. In battle, Republican armies became perpetually aggressive, seeking decisive battlefield victory. The government told its senior commanders to avoid sieges and seek instead battlefield triumphs followed by relentless pursuit. Carl von Clausewitz described this revolution in military affairs when he noted:5 In 1793 a force appeared that beggared all imagination. Suddenly war became the business of the people – a people of thirty millions all of whom considered themselves to be citizens. The people became a participant in war; instead of governments and armies as heretofore the full weight of the nation was thrown into the balance. The resources and efforts now available for use surpassed all conventional limits. Nothing now impeded the vigor with which war could be waged and consequently the opponents of France faced the utmost peril. Tactically the Republic organized its mass citizen army into flexible formations and encouraged commanders to maneuver their forces to respond to battlefield situations. Officers obtained promotion for using their initiative to seize advantage of tactical situations. In fact, the general selection of officers was based upon loyalty and talent. The Republic’s officer corps was essentially a middle class group, many of whom had prior experience at lower ranks in the Old Royal Army. Battlefield promotions were common, and at one point the Republic promoted 137 men to general officer ranks. The Republic did not, of course, win every engagement, but French armies were, nevertheless, able to achieve striking successes defeating counterrevolutionary uprisings and overrunning Belgium, the Rhineland, Holland, and Northern Italy. France also established satellite or sister Republics in Holland and North Central Italy. Moreover, Spain in 1796 switched sides and became a French ally while Prussia in 1795 left the war and signed a peace treaty with France. The Satellite republics were on the whole loyal to France. Fearing a return of the old regime, the sister republics fought at the side of France while Spain worried about British expansion in the Caribbean and South America and so also remained loyal to the Republic. After seizing power at the end of 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte improved the capabilities of his army through a program of rigorous training. As Clausewitz noted:6 Once these imperfections were corrected by Bonaparte this juggernaut of war, based on the strength of the entire people, began its pulverizing course

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S. Ross through Europe; it moved with such confidence and certainty that whenever it was opposed by armies of the traditional type there could never be a moments doubt as to the result.

Napoleon, already a military genius, as military dictator and later as emperor was probably the most effective commander of his day. Between 1805 and 1807 he defeated all of the major continental powers and in effect controlled the European Continent. To consolidate his gains, Napoleon created a series of subordinate allies including Italy, Naples, Bavaria, Saxony, and a revived Polish state, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Italy and Warsaw fully supported him, while Bavaria and Saxony feared and disliked the Austrians and Prussians and were willing to follow the Emperor wherever he led. In Western Germany the Kingdom of Westphalia – a new state created after the Prussian defeat in 1806 and ruled by one of Napoleon’s brothers – also obeyed France, as did Holland. Denmark, antagonized by the British, also became a French ally. French allies followed without question Napoleon’s directives. In 1812, for example, when Napoleon ordered an invasion of Russia roughly two-thirds of the troops involved were non-French. But defeats in Spain after 1808 and the catastrophe of the Russian campaign led to the destruction of Napoleon’s coalition. Warsaw was overrun by the Russian army and Prussia switched sides and joined the Russians. As coalition forces moved west many of France’s German allies, including Austria, joined Napoleon’s enemies in order to be on the winning side, retain their independence, and perhaps even make territorial gains. Essentially Napoleon’s coalition collapsed as a result of military defeat after 1812. By late 1813 Napoleon had, in fact, virtually no allies left.

Britain’s creation of four coalitions Defeating Napoleon was no easy task. The size of France’s armies combined with Napoleon’s own talent for both military and political leadership made it almost impossible to oppose him. Fighting Napoleon required a great power coalition with adequate forces, plus a unified command structure and a political objective adhered to by all of the coalition members. The first four coalitions, spanning the years 1792–1807, failed to counter France or oust Napoleon from power. Most of the coalitions that Britain helped to form during this early period were internally divided, as members pursued their own particular objectives without regard to broader coalition objectives. In 1792, for example, when the First Coalition (1792–1797) formed, Austria and Prussia agreed to declare war against the Revolutionary French regime. As part of the original agreement, Prussia was promised part of Poland at the end of hostilities. Prussia, however, insisted upon acquiring its share of Poland immediately, to the fury of Vienna. Prussia in league with Russia then executed the Second Partition of Poland leaving Austria nothing to show for its efforts.

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In 1793, other powers, including England, Holland, Spain, Portugal, the Italian states, and the Holy Roman Empire, joined the war against France. Many of them received subsidies from Great Britain, but the major powers in this coalition failed to cooperate. Austria began to deal with Russia to arrange a third and final partition of Poland, while Berlin reduced its participation in Western campaigns in order to prepare to seize additional Polish lands. Moreover, the coalition lacked a unified strategy for war against the French Republic. Berlin and Vienna kept thousands of troops in the east to watch events in Poland. The Russians played a paramount role in crushing the Polish revolt of 1794 and dealt with Austria in arranging the final partition of Poland. In the west, the British, Dutch, and Hanoverian forces fought their other campaign in Flanders while the Habsburg forces waged their own operations along the France–Belgian border and the Prussians fought defensively in Alsace. The Republican armies were alternately successful against domestic counterrevolutions and against the armies of the First Coalition. In 1795, Prussia left the allied ranks and signed a separate peace with France. Spain followed suit and, in 1796, became a French ally. By year’s end, despite British financial support, only Austria remained in the field. Defeated in 1797, Vienna signed a separate treaty with France, leaving England alone. During the wars of the Second Coalition (1798–1801), heavily subsidized by England but without Prussian participation, the allies agreed on an overall strategy designed to overthrow the Republic and restore the Bourbon Monarchy. Austria, however, betrayed its allies in order to seize Belgium and later trade it for Bavaria, thereby enabling the French to counterattack effectively. The infuriated Russians left the coalition leaving only England and Austria in the field. Defeated in Italy and Germany, Austria left the war. In 1802, an isolated England agreed to a peace treaty with France. The Third Coalition (1805) facing Napoleon Boneparte, also helped by British subsidies, failed largely because of military defeat. Prussia remained neutral and several lesser German states backed France. In October 1805, Napoleon destroyed a major Austrian force causing over 20,000 to capitulate. On 2 December 1805, Napoleon crushed an Austro-Prussian army at Austerlitz. Austria then agreed to peace terms and, at the end of the month, Prussia in the face of French threats became a de facto French ally while French forces occupied most of the Kingdom of Naples. The one positive note for Britain was the 21 October 1805 “Battle of Trafalgar,” in which Lord Nelson defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets, thereby insuring Britain’s security and retaining sea control.7 His defeat at Trafalgar meant that Napoleon could no longer threaten either the British home islands or their extended overseas empire, even while Britain retained its ability to threaten Napoleon and the French empire. Prussia went to the war against Napoleon in 1806, but Berlin’s army was destroyed in October. Prussia then concluded an alliance with Russia, which formed the basis of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807), and in January 1807, French and Russian forces fought an indecisive battle at Eylau while the British tried and failed to push a fleet through the Dardanelles and invade Egypt. Two

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attempts to seize Buenos Aires were also unsuccessful, and in the spring of 1807, Napoleon crushed the Russian army at Friedland. Tsar Alexander, already suspicious of British actions in the Mediterranean, not only agreed to peace terms but also to an alliance with the French Empire. When the Tsar abandoned his alliance with Prussia, the coalition collapsed because of the absence of a common policy and strategy. By the end of 1807, therefore, England and France had reached a stalemate. Britain controlled the seas and a French amphibious invasion was not feasible. Ireland remained restive, but the British kept a large garrison of over 100,000 men to crush any attempt at armed insurrection. Moreover, despite failures in the Mediterranean and South America, the British were able to capture enemy colonies and expand their hold on India. Conversely, Napoleon dominated the continent. France had firm grip on Germany and Italy, and Napoleon introduced the Continental System designed to ruin British trade and force London to sue for peace. England’s economy was sufficiently robust and flexible that it survived, but not without some problems as it had to counter Napoleon’s best efforts to wage economic warfare.8

The victory of the coalition forces The first four coalitions had failed to defeat Napoleon, but Spain, of all places, eventually gave Britain the opportunity to bring the war back to the Continent. The British realized that to make a coalition work they would have to commit troops to Europe. England did not possess an army sufficiently large to face Napoleon’s forces directly. Britain had tried unsuccessfully to place troops in Europe, only to suffer failure after failure. In 1809, as part of the Fifth Coalition (1809) the British sent an expedition to Portugal and Spain. Although it was defeated, London later decided to reinforce and support forces that had remained at Lisbon in a peripheral operation that helped to sap Napoleon’s over-extended military. In spring 1809, Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, received command of about 60,000 men. He reorganized the Portugal Army and supplied over 200,000 muskets and ammunition to the guerrilla bands. The guerrillas soon made the French situation very difficult, tying up over 300,000 troops and forcing them to suffer an estimated 100 casualties a day. British operations in Iberia also helped convince other powers that England was serious about the struggle, that the French could in fact be defeated, and that a single engagement would not decide the result of the war. Napoleon’s massive 1812 invasion of Russia and the catastrophic defeat suffered by the Grand Army was a stroke of good fortune for Napoleon’s enemies, and helped form the basis of the Sixth Coalition (1812–1814). The British provided the Russians with 100,000 muskets, and the Royal Navy assisted in the defense of Riga despite the absence of a formal alliance with the Tsar. After Napoleon was forced to retreat and remnants of the Grand Army reached Poland, the Russians decided to push west. Prussia quickly switched

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sides and joined Russia against France. England supplied subsidies to both Russia and Prussia and also negotiated with Bernadotte, the crown prince of Sweden and a former French marshal. By the summer of 1813, Austria, whose foreign minister had tried and failed to convince Napoleon to negotiate a peace, joined the allies. Thus, for the first time since 1793, all of the great powers were simultaneously at war with France. The allies, led by Austria, devised a strategy to cope with the Grand Army. Despite the presence of the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian monarchs, each with his own circle of advisers, the allies followed the Trachtenberg Plan devised by the Austrians. The plan called for the allied armies to defeat sections of the Grand Army and ultimately confront the Emperor himself. In October 1813, the three-day Battle of Leipzig led to the defeat of Napoleon’s army and forced the French back to the west bank of the Rhine. In December 1813, the allies, largely at Austria’s urgings, offered the Frankfurt Proposal wherein Napoleon was guaranteed France and its natural frontiers, but had to relinquish influence in Germany and Italy plus independent Holland. Napoleon rejected the proposals, leaving the allies with no choice but to invade France. The invasion displayed serious rifts in the coalition ranks. Austria wanted a mild peace leaving Napoleon on the throne in order to balance the power of Russia and Prussia. Alexander of Russia, by contrast, wanted a concerted drive on Paris in order to depose Bonaparte and replace him with Bernadotte of Sweden, a close ally of Russia. Metternich, the Austrian Foreign Minister, with the support of Britain, called for a slow cautious advance, designed to induce Napoleon to negotiate, and instructed his army commander to avoid any advance until the political situation was clarified. Late in January 1814, Metternich warned the Tsar that Austria would not participate in operations if the Tsar insisted upon forcing Bonaparte from the French throne. By the end of the month the allies agreed to resume operations under Austrian direction and opened negotiations with Napoleon’s representative to discuss the possibility of peace on the basis of the French frontier of 1792 with Napoleon remaining on the throne. An allied victory at La Rothiere, however, renewed the Tsar’s ambitions. The Austrian dilemma was solved by Napoleon, who defeated the Prussian Army in a series of battles near Montmiral. On 15 February 1814, Metternich, by threatening a separate peace with Napoleon, convinced Alexander to support the idea that France would be restored to the 1792 frontier and that if Napoleon accepted these terms he would be left on the throne, but if he refused he would be replaced by the Bourbon pretender, Louis XVIII. The February agreement was formalized on 9 March 1814 by the Treaty of Chaumont, which converted the coalition into a permanent alliance that was to last for 20 years after the conclusion of hostilities. The allies closed in on Paris, which fell on 31 March 1814, and a week later Napoleon had to capitulate and abdicate. A final alliance based on the Sixth Coalition formed in March 1815 as a result of Napoleon’s dramatic escape from the island of Elba. For 100 days, Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia, Sweden, The Netherlands, and several of the

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German states cooperated to defeat Napoleon’s hastily assembled forces. On 18 June 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo, the British coalition policies finally achieved their ultimate goal, forcing Napoleon’s defeat and complete abdication. Just over one month later, Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.

Conclusions The Sixth Coalition formed in March 1814 succeeded in large measure because of Napoleon’s own strength and stubbornness. He was sufficiently dangerous that the allies realized they had to stick together or face defeat. Napoleon had numerous chances to divide the coalition, but his search for a stunning military victory that would at the last moment turn the tide ultimately led to his downfall. When he attempted to regain power in 1815, the allies finally defeated Napoleon’s troops decisively in battle. Throughout this 13-year period, Britain used its defensible island position and its unequalled naval power to help form and fund a total of six coalitions to defeat Napoleon. As shown by the Napoleonic wars, coalitions are most effective if the members share a common threat perception and devise a coherent policy and strategy. Members must be willing to set aside their specific goals in the interest of the larger objectives. As a rule, whenever coalition members put their own interests first then Napoleon was able to divide and conquer. An additional lesson from these years of war was Napoleon’s unwillingness to compromise. The final coalitions could easily have failed had Napoleon been willing to sacrifice parts of his empire and reach a negotiated settlement with one or more of his adversaries. Fortunately for Britain and its allies, the major factor in maintaining coalition unity through their June 1815 victory proved to be Napoleon himself.9

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College. 2 www.flagship.org.uk/short_history.htm. 3 www.napoleonguide.com/navy_rnpay.htm. 4 R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton, A History of the Modern World. 5th edn (New York: McGraw Hill, 1978), 407. 5 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 591–592. 6 Ibid., 592. 7 Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 124. 8 See Silvia Marzagalli, “Napoleon’s Continental Blockade: An Effective Substitute to Naval Weakness?” in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine, Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-strategies, 1805–2005 (London: Routledge, 2005), 25–34. 9 Gordan A. Craig, Problems of Coalition Warfare: The Military Alliance Against Napoleon (Colorado Springs: The United States Air Force Academy, 1965), 21.

4

Arms races and cooperation The Anglo-French Crimean War coalition, 1854–1856 Andrew Lambert

The Anglo-French coalition that fought against Russia during the Crimean War was an unlikely combination. The two powers had been at war, off and on, for close on five hundred years, and well within living memory had been the principal opponents in a 22 year long total conflict, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, 1793–1815. In the years since Waterloo their relations had rarely been other than hostile. Yet they managed to agree on policy, strategy, and operate in apparent harmony to invade and defeat Imperial Russia – the continental superpower of the age. Beneath the surface, however, things were far from smooth. The clash of strategic cultures, and continuing long-term rivalries manifested in a major arms race, made the coalition a fragile instrument. Long before the war terminated the two parties anticipated an early end to the relationship, and apart from the latter stages of the Second Opium War (1856–1860), the two powers would not take the field again as partners until 1914. It should be stressed that the Crimean War was a limited maritime conflict, in which British and French troops were never more than one day’s march from the sea. This was a British strategic model. Yet the operational core of the war was a large-scale military operation dominated by French soldiers. Despite these oddities the Crimean coalition enabled two great powers to inflict a decisive defeat on the third without mobilizing for a major conflict. The damage sustained by Russia, Britain’s only global rival, removed it from the front ranks of the Great Powers for a generation.

Background to the coalition In the years that separated Waterloo from World War I, Great Britain operated as a unique global power, with its national security, prosperity, and influence based on naval mastery encapsulated in the “Two Power Standard” first enunciated by Lord Castlereagh in 1817, and restated by Lord George Hamilton in 1889.1 This required the government to insure the Royal Navy possessed a battlefleet equal to the next two most powerful navies. For most of the century, these two navies were those of France and Russia, which were Britain’s principal Great Power rivals in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The brief periods of

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Franco-Russian alignment, 1817–1825, 1857–1859, and after 1889 were marked by sharp increases in British naval spending, and a restatement of the two power standard. When France and Russia were divided by ideology and policy, British diplomacy tended to be more effective and defense spending was reduced. When its naval mastery was secure, British policy could be conducted without the need to enter into a binding alliance with another major power. This approach was best summarized by the dictum of Lord Palmerston, who held ministerial office for nearly 60 years, latterly as foreign secretary and prime minister.2 In March 1848, he explained British policy on alliances to the House of Commons: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”3 As a unique world power relying on maritime, economic, and industrial strength rather than military manpower, Britain was usually able to secure its interests without recourse to any political combination. Mainly in Europe, where the mass armies of the other great powers made it seem less formidable, was it necessary to enter into coalitions, a temporary political/military alliance directed at specific, and limited, objectives. British statesmen recognized the limits of their strength, and sought coalition with other powers on a “case by case” basis to secure political and military reinforcement, while ensuring the solution had a “European” character. Preferring profitable peace to the sterile glory of a fruitless war, Britain adopted an essentially defensive strategic posture in Europe. In 1815, the five European Great Powers – Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, and Britain – used the Vienna settlement to establish a new European polity, preserving the peace of the continent by concert. The underlying stability of the Vienna system was challenged by France. After 1815, France recovered her place among the great powers, but her domestic politics remained unstable with two revolutions and two coups d’etat in 40 years. In 1852, France was ruled by the Second Empire under Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon III. French leaders frequently tried to redirect internal tensions to the conquest of Algeria, while challenging British influence in the Levant and the Pacific, by starting naval arms races. Britain responded by combining with Russia, Austria, and Prussia to humiliate France during the Syrian Crisis of 1840–1841. In the process it created a five-power guarantee for Ottoman Turkey.4 After this humiliation, French policy-makers adopted a new naval strategy, based on steamships and the threat of a cross-channel invasion. Between 1845 and 1853, Anglo-French relations were rarely better than hostile. French political instability, a costly naval arms race, and the completion of an invasion base at Cherbourg ensured that most British considered France the “natural” enemy. However, this view was complicated by domestic politics. While conservatives, and the ex-conservative “Peelite” splinter group, were generally anti-French, and rather better disposed toward Russia, the Liberals were usually hostile to Russia, and pro-French. In 1853, Lord Aberdeen’s Peelite/Liberal coalition government had to deal with a new Turkish Crisis. While Aberdeen was notoriously pro-Russian, his liberal colleague Palmerston was pro-French. The Conservative opposition

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leader Lord Derby called the new ministry “an unprincipled coalition” and warned that “England does not love coalitions.”5 There was something repugnant to the feelings of all honest Englishmen in a coalition, which required “the sacrifice of principles and opinions for power.”6 The internal political tensions and personal rivalries of the Aberdeen ministry would prevent the development and execution of a clear and consistent policy.7 British defense policy was anti-French, with programs to create new fortified naval bases for steam-powered operations in the English Channel, and an arms race in steam battleships was underway, along with plans to attack Cherbourg.8 The anti-British rhetoric of the Second Empire brought matters to a head. The two British statesmen who held office as First Lord of the Admiralty between 1853 and 1856 were particularly outspoken in their criticism of Louis Napoleon and his regime.9 For his part Louis Napoleon, who had spent a considerable time in Britain, loathed Lord Aberdeen.10 This made the creation of the anti-Russian coalition even more surprising.

A coalition war Although the origins of the Crimean coalition lay in the complex relationship between the great powers and the crumbling Ottoman Empire, the catalyst was provided by the domestic politics of France. Britain and Russia agreed that a stable Turkey was the best guarantor of peace in the region.11 Yet in 1852–1853, France violated the 1841 Straits Convention. In the face of blatant French aggression, the initial British response to the Holy Places Crisis of 1852 was to support Russia.12 But in March 1853, when Russia demanded effective political control over Turkey, British policy-makers began to reconsider and joined with France. Before 1853, the British Mediterranean Fleet, which was the key indicator of British policy in the Levant, remained in the Grand Harbor at Malta, to avoid backing France or Russia. This enraged the French, who had sent their fleet to the Aegean in great haste, expecting the British to follow. French chagrin was increased by the ignominious return of its fleet, having failed politically, and suffered a series of collisions and engineering breakdowns. Realization that they needed British support to secure any political success in the Eastern Question led to a further round of tension in April, when the French mobilized their Atlantic Fleet and hinted they might attack Belgium if Britain did not support them at Istanbul. However, it was not French threats but the reality of Russian power that led the British to shift their policy. France could not overthrow Turkey, but Russia could, as she demonstrated by occupying the Danubian Principalities (modern Romania) in early July. However, the British ministry had ordered the fleet to Besika Bay, just outside the Dardanelles, one month earlier. This ill-considered and hasty act committed Britain to uphold Turkey against Russia, and linked it to France. The decision reflected deep divisions within the cabinet, on both diplomatic and domestic issues. It was neither rational nor considered.13 But

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having made the gesture, Britain could not withdraw unless Russia backed down, and could not advance without giving Russia just cause for war. Even as the Crimean Coalition was forming, Britain had abdicated any control over the process by linking its fleet to that of France, and committing it to support Turkey. The process was completed by the intransigence of the Tsar, a riot in Istanbul, and the failure of the Western powers to settle the crisis before the onset of winter forced them to move their fleets from the exposed anchorage at Besika. Neither Britain nor France wanted war. France wanted a diplomatic victory, and a British alliance to launch its bid to recover the dominant role in European politics.14 Britain preferred to uphold the 1841 Convention. The confusion at the heart of British policy was reflected in the failure to follow the usual pattern of crisis management. They did not attempt to deter Russia. The powers simply drifted into war. Thus, the common interests that formed the coalition were essentially negative, that of preserving Turkey. When Turkey declared war on Russia in October 1853, the Western powers moved their fleets to Istanbul, but they did not issue their own ultimatum until the following spring. When the Russians annihilated a Turkish squadron at Sinope, Louis Napoleon exploited popular outrage in Britain at the so-called “massacre” to cement the coalition. The British cabinet found profoundly unsettling the novel experience of having their actions criticized in the daily press, and held up to the scrutiny of “public opinion.” As opposition spokesman Benjamin Disraeli declared, “The war has been brought about by two opposing opinions in the cabinet. . . . It is a coalition war.”15 The British remained suspicious. Throughout 1853, British agents reported a major French naval program, and in December Foreign Secretary Lord Clarendon broke off from a discussion of Russian policy to tell the Ambassador in Istanbul: “The naval preparations of France are prodigious, there has been nothing like the present activity in their dockyards for a long time past. Eighty gun screw steamers are the ships they are principally occupied with.”16 Both Clarendon and First Lord of the Admiralty Sir James Graham distrusted France, and in particular its ruler. They saw no advantage in waging war to replace Russian influence at Istanbul with that of France. Graham, who had always been hostile, went so far as to call the alliance with France “unnatural.”17

The development of coalition strategy and structure Unnatural or not, if Britain and France were going to persuade Russia to retire from the Principalities and abandon its pretensions against Turkey they would need to concert strategy. Neither power could defeat Russia in the short term, but with the land route through Germany blocked by Austro-Prussian neutrality, the formation of allied grand strategy fell to Graham. Building on existing plans to assault Cherbourg, he simply shifted the focus to Sevastopol. His plan was accepted by the French, who ought to have had reservations about strengthening the Royal Navy by burning Russian dockyards.18

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The twin themes of his strategy were economy of effort and the continuation of long-term programs to meet the battleship challenge of France. Graham argued that the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the base at Sevastopol must be destroyed, or as he put it, “the eye tooth of the bear must be drawn” to persuade the Tsar to abandon his claims on Turkey.19 An early success would release resources for the Baltic theater, where another, larger Russian fleet would need to be dealt with later. Here, Graham hoped to revive Nelson’s plan to attack Reval (Tallin). The timing of this operation, which required the attack to be made in the brief period when Reval was ice free and the ice in the Gulf of Finland remained frozen, would settle the date on which the coalition ultimatum to Russia would expire.20 France accepted British maritime plans because the French had no specific object in going to war, beyond la gloire, and the sooner that was secured the better. The coalition was more important than the details of strategy, not least because the two powers had signed a self-denying ordinance, renouncing the right to make any territorial conquests. Both powers assumed Russia would submit after the destruction of Sevastopol, the fleet, and possibly some Baltic ports. This reflected a very limited understanding of Russia and its strategic history. Such a haphazard approach was perfectly adequate while everything went according to plan, but as soon as the coalition met the checks and disappointments of real war, tensions were bound to arise. This fundamental incompatibility of aim would complicate the conduct and termination of the war. Perhaps the most obvious sign of the fundamental lack of trust at the heart of the Crimean Coalition was the command structure. In February 1854, less than a month before the outbreak of war, Napoleon proposed that the French take supreme command on land, if only on the day of battle, conceding command afloat to Britain. The British ministers and their Queen were horrified at the thought of British troops being ordered into battle by a French general. Their concern was heightened by the notorious limitations of the designated French commander, Marshal Leroy de St Arnaud.21 The British proposed following the precedent of the two admirals already operating as joint and equal commanders in the Black Sea. This compromise left four allied commanders to make war by agreement. This worked to the advantage of the French, who had placed their admiral under the command of the army. The British selected General Lord Raglan as their military commander, because of his senior rank, fluent French, and tact, attributes he would need to maintain good relations with the French marshals and his irascible naval colleague Admiral Sir James Dundas.22 However, a command structure that required four joint and equal commanders to agree was wholly out of step with Graham’s ambitious strategy, which relied on quick, decisive movements. At critical moments it proved impossible for the allies to agree on a positive course of action. Instead they settled on half measures and delay.23 The catalog of operational and tactical indecision reached a crisis when the allied fleets were called upon to bombard the harbor defenses of Sevastopol on 17 October 1854 – a classic example of how not to conduct coalition operations.

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The bombardment of Sevastopol Shortly after landing in the Crimea, the allies defeated the Russians at River Alma; however, Marshal St Amaud would not follow up the victory, and refused to attack the Russian earthworks to the north of Sevastopol harbor, the allied target. Instead Raglan compromised by marching round the city to begin a regular siege from the south. St Arnaud then handed over command to General Canrobert. After two weeks of unrelenting effort the allies had established powerful batteries and expected to breach the defenses and storm the city with their first attack. Raglan and Canrobert expected the allied fleets to provide a diversionary bombardment of the sea defenses, well aware that the harbor entrance had been blocked by scuttled ships, so the fleets could not enter the harbor.24 Admiral Dundas recognized that the entire operation in the Crimea depended on command of the sea, and that his French colleague Admiral Hamelin was under army control. As a result, he was the sole representative of naval opinion. However, his position had been undermined by his second in command, Rear Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, a dashing officer of considerable linguistic and diplomatic talent.25 Dundas recognized that while many officers in his fleet longed for action, it was his duty to avoid unnecessary damage and casualties. When Raglan requested naval support Dundas wrote a private letter to Graham: I am quite sure this is an attack that will be of no service to the army and most likely destructive to many of our ships but I will not shrink from doing what is so looked upon by Lord Raglan as a means to effect the capture of Sevastopol. . . . I shall put this letter in the hands of the chaplain in case I should be cut off in the approaching action.26 Later that night the allied admirals agreed to support the land attack with a general bombardment of the sea defenses, leaving the timing of the attack to the generals. The question of timing was critical, since the battleships had landed men, guns, and ammunition to support the land operations. The British ships had only enough ammunition for two hours’ rapid fire. The admirals offered to open fire with the bombardment, to wait for the assault, or to fire half their ammunition on each occasion. Late on 16 October the generals accepted the last option: the fleets would open fire at 0630 the following morning. However, Lyons and the British captains did not want to retire from action, for fear that it might seem that they were beaten. Hamelin agreed, and unilaterally decided not to open fire until 1030 or 1100. Dundas grudgingly accepted the change, not expecting to achieve anything. His battle plan was dominated by the need to keep the ships safe, and relied on steamships lashed alongside the sailing battleships to keep them out of danger. The Turkish and French ships would engage the batteries to the south of the harbor entrance, the English those to the north. All ships would engage underway to complicate the task of the Russian gunners.27

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At 0700 on 17 October, just as the firing on land became heavy, Admiral Hamelin boarded Dundas’s flagship, HMS Britannia. At the last minute Canrobert had ordered him to engage at anchor, and at a range in excess of one mile. Dundas protested, but Hamelin observed that the distance between the anchorage and allied siege batteries south of Sevastopol made it impossible to refer back to the generals. He would fight at anchor. Dundas had to agree, in the interests of allied solidarity. For wooden ships to engage while at anchor in a long-range fire fight with stone casemate batteries mounting several hundred cannon was to ignore all previous experience. Ships could only defeat batteries if they could get close enough for their volume of fire to overwhelm the defenders. Alternatively, they could avoid serious damage by keeping underway. Canrobert had used the allied command structure to impose a plan on the fleets that combined impotence with exposure; it would force the ships to take risks while ensuring they would achieve nothing. Infuriated by French inconsistency, Dundas momentarily forgot his strategic priorities, allowing the “fire-eating” Lyons to take his division to within 800 yards of the Russian fortress, at which range he might do some damage. The main event on land had already commenced while the coalition fleet was still changing plans. The Russians anticipated the attack with a preemptive bombardment of the French works. At 1030, the main French magazine blew up and their attack petered out. By contrast, the British quickly gained the upper hand in their sector; by 1500 the main Russian work, the Redan, had been demolished. The time was ripe for an assault, but Raglan could not find Canrobert, so nothing was done, and nobody thought to inform the admirals. It was at least 30 minutes after the magazine explosion before the fleets began to move. As there was a flat calm, the battleships had to be towed into action. At 1255 the forts to the south of the harbor opened fire on Hamelin’s ships as they slowly took up position. There was no reply for 25 minutes. Once anchored, the French and Turkish ships maintained a heavy fire for four hours, but did little damage. In this sector the Russians lost six killed and 39 wounded, the French 50 killed and 150 wounded. The English, with further to go, took even longer to get into action – Lyons’s ships finally opened fire shortly before 1400. While Lyons temporarily silenced Fort Constantine, his success came at a high price. Two ships were forced out of action by shell explosions, another was set on fire by red hot shot. Yet instead of hauling off, Lyons called in more ships and Dundas had to support him, despite his overriding concern to preserve the fleet. Just after 1700, the fleets began to haul out. Britannia had been hit by at least 40 projectiles, Lyons’s Agamemnon by more than 200; two heavy ships had to be sent to Istanbul for repairs, the rest would require days to get back into fighting trim. Furthermore, 40 men were dead and 266 wounded.28 All but 21 of these men were in Lyons’s division. Dundas did not dare recall him, well aware of the fate of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, who had been sacked after he tried to recall a victorious Nelson from a similarly exposed position at the battle of Copenhagen. Furthermore, the British

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officers were anxious to demonstrate just how “cool” they were under fire. The French understood their role rather better, achieving their objective at far less cost. Once he had recovered his composure Dundas wrote to Raglan. He refused to repeat the attack, which he condemned as “false.” He considered a feint landing and a long-range attack by steamers would be quite enough for a diversion, anything more would use up what little ammunition he had left.29 He left his fundamental objection unspoken: he had no intention of allowing the French general to dictate his tactics in future. On the other side of the world the command relationship between British and French admirals proved equally dangerous. Rear Admiral Sir David Price and Rear Admiral Fevrier Des Pointes held a joint command in the Pacific. On 3 September, the attack on the Russian position at Petropavlosk was about to start, but Price, distressed by French procrastination and changes of plan, retired to his cabin and shot himself. Although the attack was postponed for one day, it proved to be equally unfortunate.30

Strategy and command The failure of the bombardment of Sevastopol was the first serious set-back for the allies. It would not be the last. Russian flank attacks at Balaklava and the Inkerman halted the siege. Then in November 1854 a terrible storm effectively halted the campaign and forced the allies to accept the failure of the original plan for a grand raid, intended to be over before the weather broke. They would have to winter in the Crimea, something for which neither had planned. As ever, adversity provoked recrimination and desire to apportion blame. The controlled press of Louis Napoleon’s Empire was relatively calm, but in late January 1855 the Aberdeen coalition fell, to be replaced by a new coalition under Lord Palmerston, who was expected to infuse some energy into the war. Napoleon relied on him to continue the alliance.31 Defeat quickly tore aside the flimsy veil of cooperation in the coalition fleets, reviving old rivalries. Graham even refused to help the French find transport shipping, to teach them how difficult it was to stage invasions, until the cabinet forced his hand.32 However, the fundamental result of the failure before Sevastopol was to reopen the debate on strategy in Paris. The British remained committed to the maritime strategy adopted in March 1854. Russia would be blockaded, attacked on all its coasts, and its naval bases destroyed. Throughout 1854, the British had focused their Black Sea theater effort on Sevastopol, the main operation. When that operation stalled they favored widening the attack, to cut Russian logistics supply lines into the Crimean from the River Don and the Sea of Azov, and clearing the Caucasian coast to assist the Chechnian rebels.33 The French, as befits a land power, had an altogether different view. They had no interest in destroying the Russian fleet, or a campaign in the Caucasus to protect British India. They wanted to destroy the Vienna settlement and recover

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their military prestige before reasserting diplomatic primacy in Europe. Revenge for 1812 would be sweet, but only if it could be obtained on the field of battle. Napoleon recognized that such aims required a large French army to win a “decisive” battle. He decided to go to the Crimea and take supreme command. The British considered the French strategy dangerous, while the Imperial plan to take personal command was positively terrifying. Consequently the ministers and the Queen played on Bonapartist insecurity, inviting the Emperor to London. Napoleon and his Empress arrived in April, and received all the honors due to their rank. Flattery and theater, together with pressure from his own supporters, secured a result that the British were in no position to demand. Napoleon did not go to the Crimea. Victoria and Prince Albert paid a return visit to Paris in August.34 One of the keys to any successful coalition is to know the foibles of the allied leaders and how to exploit them. Over the winter, the French army was heavily reinforced, while the British could do little more than replace losses. They only retained equal status because Lord Raglan’s calm, dignified manner and exemplary tact earned him the trust of the French generals, despite his unfortunate habit of referring to the enemy as “the French.” Meanwhile, the battlefield performance of Raglan’s troops ensured the French wanted his support in any serious fighting. When Napoleon pressed Canrobert to carry out his “decisive” battle strategy Raglan thwarted him by playing on Canrobert’s natural caution. In April 1855, he persuaded Canrobert to release 8,000 men to capture Kertch and open the Sea of Azov for the allied fleets. To the disgust of the British, Canrobert unilaterally recalled the French element of the expedition after it had sailed, following fresh orders sent from Paris on the newly laid telegraph line. Admiral Lyons, who had replaced Dundas, condemned Canrobert’s “dread of responsibility and indecision of conduct” because they were ruining the campaign, and, more seriously, undermining the moral ascendancy of the Royal Navy.35 Realizing he was in an impossible position, Canrobert turned over the command to General Pelissier. Pelissier ignored the Emperor and his telegraph orders; he would grind his way into Sevastopol by a regular siege. Recognizing the importance of British goodwill, Pelissier carried out the Kertch operation and then, with the concurrence of Raglan, set up a battle of attrition, in which the allies had the advantage of logistics, firepower, and initiative, despite being thousands of miles from home, camped outside a Russian city. The key to this strategy was the campaign in the Sea of Azov, where ten British gunboats destroyed the food and fodder that sustained the Russian army in the Crimea. Within three months starvation and disease so weakened the Russians that they could no longer sustain the battle before Sevastopol. Pelissier used tactics that presaged the carnage of World War I; small attacks and feints kept large Russian reserves in the front line, where they were decimated by superior allied artillery. After inflicting casualties in excess of 1,000 a day for much of August and early September, on 9 September 1855 the French took the Malakhoff, the key to the defense of Sevastopol. Raglan had died in June, and with him went any significant British influence on the campaign. His successors

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lacked the skill, tact, and status to maintain an artificial role in the allied command.36 In London, Palmerston wanted to exploit the successful Sea of Azov campaign by occupying the neck of the Crimean peninsula from the allied base at Eupatoria. However, the French were not interested in strangling Russian logistics, they wanted a battlefield triumph, and the British could not insist, as their Crimean army was still 40,000 men short of the size they had agreed to provide. Once the original strategy of maritime raids had broken down, superior manpower gave the French the right to direct allied strategy in the Black Sea theater, leaving the Royal Navy tied to the support of allied armies, which were essentially under French direction, denying them any opportunity for a significant maritime campaign. Little wonder the British were anxious to find separate theaters of action from their allies once Sevastopol fell. The failure of the original grand raid exposed the fundamental divergence of aim between the coalition partners, providing Russia with a golden opportunity to exploit the critical weakness of any coalition, the political cohesion between the partners. Fortunately for Britain, France had to fight until Sevastopol fell. The fall of Sevastopol effectively ended the war for the French. They had recovered their prestige and wanted to cement their achievement in a peace settlement. However, the British were embarrassed by military failures. They wanted another campaign so their army could recover some of the aura of Waterloo, while their national arm, the Royal Navy, inflicted a serious blow on Russia. Having entered the war to reduce Russian power around the world, they were hardly going to be satisfied with Sevastopol. This conflict of interests made the diplomacy of war termination more than usually fraught with tensions. It also required the British to shift the emphasis of the war effort.

The Baltic theater Although historical coverage of the Crimean war is generally restricted to the Crimean campaign, the conflict was global, with two major theaters, the Black Sea and the Baltic, and two minor, the Pacific and the White Sea. Initially coalition strategy relied on the early destruction of Sevastopol to release resources for the Baltic, where the winter ice would not clear until April or May. The Russian fleet in the Baltic was three times larger than that in the Black Sea, for the Russian capital, St Petersburg, lay on the neighboring shores of the Gulf of Finland. When Sir James Graham’s overly ambitious Baltic strategy broke down, it left a powerful fleet with little to do but impose a blockade until a French army turned up in August to capture the Aland Islands. The application of British naval power in the Baltic was limited by Graham’s refusal to build specialized craft for power projection operations. His wartime policy was dominated by the continuing battleship arms race with the French, and he was unwilling to seek the additional funds that had always been necessary to translate the peacetime battlefleet sea control navy into the offensive

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force required to carry the war to Russia. Only in October 1854, erroneously believing that Sevastopol had fallen, was he prepared to order a coastal force of armored assault craft, steam blockships, gunboats, and mortar vessels for Baltic service, in a joint program with the French.37 When he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the necessary funds, some £650,000, he stressed that the new force would be available for “coast defense” against France once the Russian war was over.38 Despite the “defense” label he was referring to an attack on Cherbourg, which remained the centerpiece of British strategic thought. At the same time Graham assembled a battlefleet in the English Channel, to demonstrate the depth of British reserves to the French, rather than carry the war to the Russians.39 Graham’s ambitious plans for the 1855 Baltic campaign, including British troops, were ruined by the impasse in the Crimea. This brought down the ministry of his political ally Lord Aberdeen, and ensured that new Prime Minister Lord Palmerston had to focus all efforts on Sevastopol. The Baltic could wait. The French had always taken this view; their Baltic fleet for 1855 was far smaller than in 1854. Long before the French arrived the large steam-powered British fleet had imposed a crippling blockade and pinned down 250,000 Russian troops.40 When the new flotilla arrived in August it was employed in a devastating 48hour bombardment of the arsenal and dockyard at Sweaborg (outside Helsinki) which crippled a major base and wiped out part of the Russian fleet. This “Cherbourg Strategy” attack demonstrated the awesome potential of steam-age naval power projection. There were no fatal casualties in the allied fleet; the Russians could not hit the mortar vessels, gunboats, and rocket craft that fired on them.41 Even Kronstadt, the mightiest sea fortress in the world and the maritime bastion of St Petersburg, was open to attack. In November, the Russian situation deteriorated further when Sweden, recognizing the decisive nature of coalition success, accepted an Anglo-French guarantee of its territory and began planning for war.42 When the French lost interest in the war, Sweaborg provided the British with an alternative strategy for war termination. Sir Charles Wood, who had replaced Graham in February 1855, ordered 200 more gunboats, 100 mortar vessels, and new ironclads, while preparing floating factories, depots, and the full panoply of naval logistics to maintain the new force in action. This “Great Armament” would be ready to open the 1856 campaign by destroying Kronstadt and threatening St Petersburg. Recognizing the drift of French policy and his inability to control his partner, Palmerston adopted the Great Armament as the basis of British strategy and diplomacy.43 The sheer size of the force obviated the need for French assistance and revived British naval prestige. Wood, like Graham before him, retained a deep-rooted suspicion of Imperial France. His flotilla craft were built in private shipyards, so that the Royal Dockyards could continue to build the new steam battleships required to maintain British naval mastery after the war, against France, Russia, or the United States.44 Naval mastery remained the cornerstone of British security.

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Peace negotiations The winter of 1855–1856 provided an opportunity for diplomacy. Although France publicly remained in the war, Louis Napoleon was anxious for peace, concocting a compromise plan with Austria in mid-October.45 When the coalition partners met in Paris early in 1856 to plan the next campaign, few expected any more fighting.46 Given the choice between a humiliating, but not disastrous peace, or the near inevitability of major defeats, loss of territory, and even the destruction of St Petersburg, Tsar Alexander II agreed to the terms, reassured by unofficial contacts that the French would resist British demands.47 The peace congress assembled in Paris to mark the triumph of Louis Napoleon and resurgence of France, but by then the coalition had already collapsed. Peace was signed on 30 March 1856. The British celebrated the victory with a Fleet review at Spithead on St George’s Day (23 April). The political and military representatives of the major powers watched as the Great Armament conducted a mock attack on Southsea Castle. The Russians, the Americans, and most particularly the French, could be in no doubt that Kronstadt, New York, and Cherbourg were the real targets.48 With peace settled, Palmertson had no qualms about allowing the wartime coalition to cool. British interests would have been damaged by Louis Napoleon’s radical plans to redraw the map of Europe, and Palmerston preferred to resume Britain’s historic balancing role. He also explained why the coalition had not reduced underlying Anglo-French tension, or ended the naval race: When we consider the different interests of England and France, the different characters and habits of the two countries, we ought rather to be thankful at having got so much out of the alliance, and to have maintained it for so long, than to be surprised or disappointed at its approaching end.49 By this time France and Russia were enjoying a brief coalition of their own, largely based on a mutual hatred of Austria.50 More significantly, the naval arms race continued unabated, French construction being aimed at reducing British freedom of action in Europe.51 The ultimate triumph of the British in this contest ensured they would not have to enter any more coalitions for half a century, or use their coastal assault force against a major power. Naval power was the key to Anglo-French relations. While Britain was superior at sea, it could follow its own interests, but if France could neutralize that superiority, Britain would lose her freedom of action in Europe and require an ally. Consequently, the continuation of the naval arms race throughout the war was logical, and because it was a question of steam battleships, not gunboats, set limits on the application of naval power against Russia. Throughout the war, the French Navy had taken every opportunity to claim equality with or even superiority over the British. Despite the much vaunted performance of the steam battleship Napoleon, and the superior education of French officers, the basic fact remained that the British were better seamen, kept

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their ships in better order, and did not need to boast about their performance.52 A disinterested observer, the American merchant ship skipper John Codman, provided a succinct assessment:53 The British navy did excite the admiration and envy of the French. They learned some useful lessons in seamanship from their association with it. But it was in vain that their ships endeavoured to rival those of the English in naval tactics and evolutions. . . . It was a study to see an English and French line of battleship or frigate coming to anchor together. On board the former, silently and as if by magic, every sail was furled at once before the Frenchmen could man their yards and gather up the bunts, chattering all the while like a lot of magpies, and all apparently giving orders to each other.

Conclusions The painful experience of coalition war-making in 1854–1856 reflected the completely different strategic ideas of Britain and France: maritime attrition opposed to military annihilation. The British recognized the limits of any coalition but could not obviate them. Lack of military manpower, global security interests, and an underlying hostility toward the coalition partner all hampered the development of British strategy. This would have been well known to the statesmen of 1854, some of whom could recall the contrast between the muddled British planning of 1803–1806, while the Third Coalition existed, when partners had to be cultivated, and the ruthless, dynamic effort against Copenhagen in 1807, when all hope of coalition appeared to be gone. Coalition war plans are inevitably a compromise. By early 1855, British theater commanders and other officers who had to deal with their partners at a high level were frustrated by the novel experience of coalition war-making. The different working methods, aims, and experiences of the two nations provided little to sustain the coalition in the face of adversity. Only the military imperative of impending disaster and the political need to win kept them on the same side, and then only until Sevastopol fell. Thereafter, the coalition fell apart almost as rapidly as it had been created. When the British threatened to escalate the conflict from a limited war to an unlimited struggle, with a direct attack on the Russian capital, the war ended. It was not in France’s interests for this escalation to occur; hence the haste with which a compromise peace was cobbled together. Coalitions require careful handling, and should be entered into with a clear-sighted appreciation of their limitations. The application of so much power without a clear political program led to results that neither partner had anticipated.

Notes 1 Andrew D. Lambert, “Preparing for the Long Peace: The Reconstruction of the Royal Navy 1815–1830,” Mariner’s Mirror 86 (1996): 41–54.

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2 Henry John Temple (1784–1865), Third Viscount Palmerston. His Irish title allowed Palmerston to sit in the House of Commons, the “popular” chamber of Parliament. 3 Kenneth Bourne, Palmerston: The Early Years 1784–1841 (London: Allen Lane, 1982), 627. 4 In 1840 British, Turkish, and Austrian forces drove the Egyptians out of Syria, (Modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel), despite French support for Egypt. Egypt had seized the territory from Turkey in 1832, claiming that it had not been repaid the costs incurred supporting Turkey in the War of Greek Independence. 5 Muriel E. Chamberlain, Lord Aberdeen: A Political Biography (London: Longman, 1983), 452; R. Blake, Disraeli (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 345. 6 Quoted in The Oxford English Dictionary, 3: 389. 7 J.B. Conacher, The Aberdeen Coalition, 1852–1855: A Study in Mid-nineteenth Century Party Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 38, 56–57, 175. 8 Andrew D. Lambert, Battleships in Transition: The Creation of the Steam Battlefleet, 1815–1860 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1984). 9 Ibid., 56–57. 10 Earl Cowley (Ambassador in Paris) to Lord Clarendon (Foreign Secretary) 5.4.1853, Cl. Dep. C5 f245, Clarendon Deposit, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 11 David M. Goldfrank, The Origins of the Crimean War (London: Longmans, 1994); Ann Pottinger Saab, The Origins of the Crimean Alliance (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1977). 12 Andrew D. Lambert, The Crimean War: British Grand Strategy against Russia, 1853–1856 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 10–16. 13 Ibid., 20–22. 14 William E. Echard, Louis Napoleon and the Concert of Europe (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983); L.M. Case, French Opinion on War and Diplomacy during the Second Empire (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954). 15 Disraeli speech of May 1854, in Conacher, 389. 16 Clarendon to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe 8.12.1853, Stratford MSS, The National Archives, Kew. FO 352/36/1 f.235. 17 Graham to Lord Heytsbury 2.2.1854, Graham MSS, Cumbria, Record Office Bundle 117. 18 Graham to General Burgoyne 25.1.1854, in George Wrottesley, The Life and Opinions of Field Marshal Sir John Fox Burgoyne (London: Bentley, 1873), 2: 6. 19 Graham to Clarendon 1.3.1854, Clarendon Deposit C14 ff.217–218. 20 Lambert, Crimean War, 74. 21 Frederick Wellesley, ed., The Paris Embassy under the Second Empire: from the Papers of Earl Cowley (London: Butterworth, 1928). 22 F. Darrell Munsell, The Unfortunate Duke: Henry Pelham, Fifth Duke of Newcastle, 1811–1864 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1985), 145–147; Christopher Hibbert, The Destruction of Lord Raglan (London: Longmans, 1961), 20–38; John Sweetman, Raglan: From the Peninsula to the Crimea (London: Arms & Armour, 1993), 169–170, 179. 23 Lambert, Crimean War, 119–121, 123–124, 124–125, 137. 24 Raglan to Dundas 13.10.1854, Raglan MSS (National Army Museum, London) 6807–298. 25 Sidney Eardley-Wimot, The Life of Vice Admiral Lord Lyons (London: Samson Low, 1898), 238–251, covers the attack on Sevastopol. 26 Dundas to Graham 15.10.1854, Dundas MSS (National Maritime Museum, London) DND/11 f.76–77. 27 Resolutions adopted by the Allied Admirals 15.10.1854, in A.C. Dewar, ed., The Russian War: 1854 (London: Navy Records Society, 1943), 339–345. Dundas to Raglan 16.10.1854, Raglan 6807–299 Dundas to Graham 16.10.1854, Graham CW5.

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28 Dundas to Admiralty 18.10.1854, No. 544, Admiralty MSS, The National Archives ADM 87/50. 29 Dundas to Raglan 18, 19, and 20.10.1854, Raglan MSS. 6807–298. 30 R.A. Parker, “The British Pacific Naval Station in 1854; Problems of Trade, International Affairs and War,” MA Dissertation, University of Newcastle 2004. 31 Jonathan Parry, The Rise and Fall of Liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 176, 190. 32 Graham to Clarendon 9.11.154, Clarendon Deposit C14 f480. Clarendon to Palmerston 19.2.1855, Broadlands MSS (Southampton University Library) GC/CL 591–2. 33 M. Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994), 263–295. 34 Wellesley, 71–74, 80–81. 35 Lyons to Wood 15.5.1855, British Library Additional MSS Add. 49,535 f.75–76. 36 Lambert, Crimean War, 240, 244–245. 37 Graham to Earl Cowley 8.10.1854, Foreign Office (FO) 519/208 f.l05–110. 38 Graham to Gladstone 6.10.1854, Add. 44,163 f.153–154. 39 Wood to Admiral Sir R. Dundas (C-in-C Baltic 1855) 16.4.1855, Add. 49,558 f.57. The Queen to Palmerston 19.3.1855, Bdlds RC/F f.573 40 A.D. Lambert, “The Crimean War Blockade, 1854–1856,” in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine, eds, Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counterstrategies, 1905–2005 (London: Routledge, 2005), 46–60, for the problems of forming coalition economic war policy. 41 A.D. Lambert, “Under the Heel of Britannia: The Bombardment of Sweaborg, 9–11 August 1855,” in P. Hore, ed., Seapower Ashore: 200 years of Royal Navy Operations on Land (London: Chatham Publishing, 2001), 96–129. 42 Jussi T. Lappalainen, “Oskar i’s planer 1854–1856,” Militarhistorisk Tidskrift 1 (1985): 5–18. 43 Palmerston to the Queen 19.10.1855, Royal Archives, Windsor Castle RAG39 f55. 44 Graham to Wood 12.10.1855, Halifax A4/70 is typical. 45 Paul Schroeder, Austria, Great Britain and the Crimean War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972), 322–326. 46 Lambert, Crimean War, 312–325. 47 Winfried Baumgart, The Peace of Paris (Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-Clio, 1981), 68–80. 48 Palmerston to Wood 19.3.1856, Halifax A4/63 f.59. 49 Palmerston to Clarendon 10.12.1856, in V.J. Puryear, England, Russia and the Straits Question, 1844–1856 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1931), 431. 50 Werner E. Mosse, The Rise and Fall of the Crimean System (London: Macmillan, 1963), 105–126. 51 Andrew D. Lambert, “Palmerston, Gladstone and the Management of the Ironclad Naval Race 1859–1865,” Northern Mariner, July 1998. 52 Michele Battesti, La Marine de Napoleon III, 2 vols. (Vincennes: Service Historique de la marine, 1997); C.I. Hamilton, Anglo-French Naval Rivalry I840–1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); J.K. Laughton, Studies in Naval History (London: Bennett, Silver, 1887). 53 John Codman, An American Transport in the Crimean War (New York: Bonnell & Silver, 1896), 192–193.

5

The Second Opium War Anglo-French coalition1 Douglas Hurd

The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing and the similar treaties by the other powers had been an attempt to make the Chinese abandon their claim to superiority and enter the Western system of international law based on the idea of equal sovereign nations. In this central aim the treaties had failed. The Chinese had, with some small exceptions, carried out the practical provisions of the treaties, but they had not revised their conviction that China was a nation superior and indeed of a different quality to the peoples of the West; foreigners could still not reside in Canton (modern-day Guangzhou), and foreign diplomats could not even enter Beijing. The British and French, and to a lesser extent the American government, concluded that it was not enough to defend the letter of the existing treaties; they must be prepared to use force to get themselves recognized, in practice as well as theory, as the equals of the Beijing government. On 9 October 1856, Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong and Superintendent of Trade, heard from Harry Parkes, the British Consul in Canton, of the seizure of the crew of Arrow and the hauling down of the British flag. He authorized Parkes to demand an apology, an assurance that the flag would be respected, and the return of the crew of 12. When Commissioner Ye Mingchen refused to budge, on 16 October Sir John wrote to Parkes: “Cannot we use the opportunity and carry the [Canton] city question? If so I will come up with the whole fleet.” The international conflict resulting from this incident, known alternately as the Arrow War, or the Second Opium War, lasted from 1856–1860. It eventually pitted a British and French naval coalition against the Manchu Court in Beijing. By 1860, the Anglo-French cooperation that had grown up in 1857 and 1858 turned sour. The French feared that Britain’s demands were so severe that the Qing dynasty would collapse, while the British thought the French were overly sentimental, suspecting that Jesuits desired to convert China to Catholicism.

Forging the Anglo-French coalition England and France had formed naval coalitions before, most notably during the recently concluded Crimean War. When James, 8th Earl of Elgin, was appointed to head the British expedition to China, Elgin’s road to China lay through Paris,

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where he had an important diplomatic task to perform. For several years it had been the custom of the British, French, and American governments to consult over Chinese matters. Britain was far from wishing to win exclusive privileges in China. It strongly upheld the most-favored nation principles, under which any advantage won by one nation was automatically conceded to the others; concessions obtained with much effort from the Chinese by Britain were enjoyed by other nations who had done little to help gain them. China seemed the obvious place to continue the Anglo-French partnership started in the Crimea. The British were worried that the French, in addition to their preoccupation with Indo-China, might try to match their annexation of Hong Kong with some Chinese prize of their own, perhaps the island of Zhoushan, off the mouth of the Yangzi River. Elgin saw Napoleon III on 24 April 1857 and found him gracious but not knowledgeable about China. The Emperor was mainly worried as to whether he should appoint a special representative who would rank equal to Elgin or whether he should leave M. de Bourboulon, the French representative based in Hong Kong, in charge. Napoleon decided in favor of a special representative, Baron Gros. Elgin met Gros just before leaving Paris. Elgin arrived in Hong Kong on 2 July 1857. His instructions said that he must act in concert with the French, however, Baron Gros had refused to take the quick way to China, which involved changing ships and taking a train across the Egyptian desert to Suez. The Baron took the Cape route instead and was not expected till the autumn. The French representative in China, M. de Bourboulon, had clear instructions to cooperate with the British, and a naval force with which to carry them out. But when Elgin sent de Bourboulon the dispatch entrusted to him in Paris, de Bourboulon retired in a huff at the news that a special representative was being sent and explained to Elgin that he could not join in any initiative until Gros arrived. Elgin pleaded with the French Admiral Rigault to intercede, but without success. As Elgin caustically wrote to the Foreign Secretary, George William Frederick Villiers, 4th earl of Clarendon, it seemed that Gros was delaying his arrival until the climate in Hong Kong became cool and healthy, by which time it would be too late to go north, since he could not safely venture ships into the little known waters of North China during the winter: “The practical effect of the nomination of a special Commissioner by the French government has therefore been to deprive me for this year of the co-operation on which in the absence of such a nomination I might have counted.” As the weeks went by, the only action that could possibly be contrived before the end of 1857 was an operation against Canton. Gradually the various obstacles against this were removed. On 14 October, Elgin received a dispatch in which Clarendon authorized him, if he had not yet been able to put direct pressure on Beijing, to use force at Canton to bring the local government to terms. On 16 October, Baron Gros finally arrived on Audacieuse, six months after his appointment as French High Commissioner. Elgin found him “civil, cautious, diplomatic; does not commit himself.” Three years of difficult cooperation

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lay before them, and though the two men never became intimate Elgin learned to rely on Gros’s calm judgment and to swallow occasional impatience at the Baron’s slowness. Gros’s instructions favored an approach to the Beihe, not an attack on Canton, but he was given discretion on this point. Storming Canton would soon become the first objective of the Anglo-French coalition.

The Anglo-French attack of Canton In late 1857, planning began for the operation against Canton, and proved to be a cumbersome business. “Few people,” Elgin wrote to his wife, “have ever been in a position which required greater tact – four Ambassadors [British, French, Russian, and American], two admirals, a general and Sir John Bowring,” Governor of Hong Kong and Superintendent of Trade with China, “and notwithstanding this luxury of colleagues, no sufficient force.” To Admiral Michael Seymour and Bowring the capture of Canton was an end in itself, and they did not particularly care what happened afterwards. Seymour put forward a plan for landings and the scaling of the city walls that would almost certainly have meant heavy casualties on both sides and destruction of much property. To Elgin, on the other hand, the capture of Canton was only the first step to coming to satisfactory terms. If Commissioner Ye refused to make concessions, the city must be taken with the least possible loss of life and property. It must then be held and conscientiously administered until Beijing signed a new treaty. In this opinion Elgin was powerfully strengthened by Baron Gros, who was worried that the French, with a useful naval force but no troops, would have too small a part in the forthcoming operation. Despite the blockade, Seymour had gathered little sure intelligence about the back waterways of Canton and the forces on which Ye could rely. Finally, he was afraid that Elgin would give in to the powerful British voices urging a swift and savage commando raid on Canton, undertaken without prior warning, and achieving almost certainly only adverse political results. After several talks with Elgin, Gros wrote a paper ably arguing the case for moderation. Despite much grumbling Gros’s paper became the basis of allied action. On 12 December 1857, Elgin wrote to Ye praising the benefits that both sides had received from the Treaty of 1842 in all the ports open to trade except Canton. Elgin made two demands: the complete execution at Canton of all treaty engagements, including the free admission of British subjects to the city; and the compensation for British losses incurred in the late disturbances. If Ye accepted these demands and those made by the French within ten days, the blockade would be raised, though the British and French would retain a number of forts on the river until a Treaty had been agreed “for regulating these and all other questions pending” between the two governments. The British and French ultimatum can hardly have taken Ye by surprise. He was excellently informed by his spies of what happened in Hong Kong. Ye’s reply was brisk and negative. He argued that Sir George Bonham had eight years

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before finally abandoned the British claim to the right of entry to Canton. As a result the Queen had given him the Order of Bath, and Elgin would do well to follow his example. In the case of Arrow, Parkes, not the Chinese, had been at fault. As for a new treaty, he ingeniously argued that since the last Emperor had decreed the 1842 Treaty was to last for ten thousand years, no Chinese official would dare to discuss its revision. The attack on Canton now became inevitable. Elgin moved up river on Furious on 17 December. Four days later he and Gros held a conference with the British and French Admirals and the British General, and formally entrusted to them the task of taking Canton. From then on he and Gros had no authority to interfere with the actual conduct of operations. Although the almost 5,000 British and 1,000 French were facing a garrison numbering about 30,000 men, of whom a proportion were Manchu troops likely to show particular loyalty to the Emperor’s cause, the attackers had one overwhelming advantage: the city and the whole scene of operations lay under the guns of the British and French warships anchored in the Canton river and the allied batteries now established on Dutch Folly and the other nearby islands. The range and power of those guns far outweighed the artillery mounted on the walls of Canton or drawn up on Magazine Hill. Ye might have held Canton if he had harassed the warships from the time they entered the river with booms or fireships or intelligent fire from coastal forts, but he made no effort to prevent the fleet from reaching its position opposite the city. Throughout the engagement, the Chinese artillery on the wall fired only two shots against the ships. On the evening of the 27 December 1857, reconnaissance parties were put ashore about a mile east of the city wall. On 28 December, the naval bombardment of the walls and nearby forts began. The main force of British and French landed to capture a position called Lin’s Fort, about a mile inland among the scattered graveyards to the east of the city. This was achieved without difficulty and the allies fanned out towards the eastern wall of the city and towards Magazine Hill to the north. They bivouacked in open ground outside the walls and a determined attack that evening by Chinese forces might have pushed them back to the river. Naval guns and mortars stopped any such attack from forming. The Chinese seem to have assumed that the allies would try to take Magazine Hill before they ventured against the wall of the city. During the morning of 29 December, the allied force moved against the eastern wall. It had been arranged that the naval guns should stop firing at 0900, but the allied troops reached the wall half an hour early and were exposed for a time to the fire of their own guns. It was the only major hitch in what was otherwise a well executed operation. The French were first up the wall shortly after 0900. Little resistance was met on the wall; the Chinese had concentrated too high a proportion of the garrison outside the wall on Magazine Hill. By the end of the afternoon the whole wall and the forts on Magazine Hill had been taken, and resistance was petering out. The allied troops looked down from all four sides on the city of Canton, on which a great and apprehensive silence had fallen. The invincible city had been won. The attack on Canton was a resounding success. British casualties were eight killed and 71 wounded, French two killed and 30 wounded. The Chinese official

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list of casualties amounted to 450, in addition to which perhaps 200 civilians were killed by the naval bombardment. When Commissioner Ye was found he was taken on board Inflexible, and was later taken to Calcutta, where he died after little more than a year in captivity.

Putting pressure on Beijing The Allies had captured Canton, detained Ye, and salved the wounded pride of Hong Kong merchants, but they were not any nearer to negotiating with the Chinese government. In a letter of 11 February 1858 to Beijing, Elgin suggested that the Chinese government should send a negotiator with full powers to Shanghai by the end of March, and touched briefly on the points which a new treaty should recover. However, the Chinese reply from 10 February refused to appoint an official to negotiate, and suggested instead that Elgin return to Canton to negotiate with Ye’s successor. This, Elgin refused to do, and the British forces prepared to move north toward Beijing. Beijing stood well inland, and was connected by canal and river with the port of Tianjin, which lay 60 miles from the Gulf of Zhili (also known as Pechihli or Chihli) along the river Beihe. Where the Beihe flowed into the sea, near the little town of Tanggu (Tangku), the Chinese had built a number of forts. These Dagu (Taku) forts were protected by a bar some five miles out to sea, over which only boats of shallow draught could pass. Knowing these elementary facts, Elgin planned to bring pressure on the capital by concentrating the Anglo-French naval force in the Gulf of Zhili, stopping the onward passage of the junks bearing the tribute rice, and if necessary moving swiftly up the river to Tianjin. Having listened to Count Euphemius V. Poutiatine, the Russian Ambassador, Elgin made sure that gunboats would be in the north when wanted. All four representatives had by now made contact with the shore. The British and French were in a different category from the Russians and Americans because they had a more serious dispute with China and the military means to settle it. The Americans and Russians were interested observers, ready to lend their good offices in negotiations and to profit from any concessions that the Chinese might make to the two Ambassadors who had the gunboats. According to a story that the French reported to the Quai d’Orsay, when Poutiatine at one point urged the Manchus to give in and so save innocent lives, the Manchu official smiled and said: “They are only Chinese lives.” Diplomacy was exhausted, and by the third week of May 1858, 16 British and ten French warships gathered in the Gulf of Zhili, a large part of them gunboats able to cross the bar and sail up the river. On 19 May, the Admirals agreed to attack the Dagu forts. At 1000 on 20 May, six gunboats (four French and two British) were detailed to silence the forts on either side of the entrance by engaging them at close range. Led by Cormorant, which smashed through a barrier of bamboo, the gunboats entered the river. Heavy fire was exchanged for an hour and a quarter. The Chinese held to their guns well, but most of their shot passed through the rigging of the gunboats at a range of 400 yards. When the Chinese

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fire slackened, the main allied force, led by the two admirals, passed up the channel and put ashore landing parties above the forts. The Chinese artillerymen were not prepared for attack from their rear and they retreated. The British casualties were five killed and 17 wounded. The French were heavier, six killed and 61 wounded, largely because of the unlucky explosion of a Chinese magazine in one of the forts that they occupied. Three days later the two admirals started up the river to Tianjin with a force of eight gunboats. The Ambassadors took their advice and stayed at Dagu until the way forward was clear. The advancing British and French forces met a cheerful reception from the mud villages along the river, most of whose inhabitants believed that a new foreign dynasty was being established and the Manchus chased out. On 26 May the gunboats reached Tianjin and the admirals were greeted by a deputation of gentry and merchants anxious to trade and believing that the gunboats must be full of cottons and woollens, if not opium. Of the Chinese authorities there was no sign. Four days later Elgin came up from Dagu. On 29 May an imperial decree named two very senior officials to negotiate with the four Ambassadors. Guiliang was 74, a senior grand secretary, captaingeneral of the plain white banner of the Manchu contingents and comptroller general of the Board of Punishments; a courteous, experienced, and apparently peaceful man. Huashana was 53, president of the Board of Civil Office and captain-general of the bordered blue banner of the Chinese contingents. The Temple of Oceanic Influences, outside the city to the south-west, was chosen as the meeting place. On 4 June, Elgin traveled there in state for his first meeting with the Commissioners, escorted by 150 marines in scarlet and the band of HMS Calcutta. The two sides exchanged their documents of authority, and this time no fault could be found with the powers delegated to the Chinese Commissioners. Elgin did not himself meet the Commissioners again until the day the treaty was signed. Negotiations were in the hands of his brother, Frederick Bruce, and of two brilliant younger men, Thomas Wade and Horatio Lay. Of the three, Lay had the strongest character and it was he who, at the age of 27, was responsible more than anyone else for achieving the Treaty of Tianjin. His tactics were simply those of the bully; when the Chinese stuck at a point or asked for delay or a British concession, Lay shouted and threatened, until the Commissioners saw in their imagination the allied forces marching upon Beijing. The Chinese negotiators tried to outflank Lay by complaining to the Russian and American Ambassadors, and these tactics created tensions within the coalition. Elgin was hot against the Russians and Americans for their complaints about Lay: “These sneaking scoundrels do what they can to thwart me and then while affecting to support the Chinese act as their worst enemies.” Each of the four Ambassadors at Tianjin was by now negotiating separately with the Chinese, while keeping his colleagues partly informed of how he was faring. The first to sign a treaty, on 13 June, was Count Poutiatine of Russia. His task had indeed been the easiest, as the frontier problems between China and Russia had been settled in an earlier treaty signed by the Governor General of

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Eastern Siberia and a local Chinese official. Poutiatine’s treaty was a simple affair. A Russian envoy might be sent to Beijing on special occasions (but not live there); Christianity was to be tolerated; the Russians were free to trade at the five existing treaty ports and at a port on Formosa and another on Hainan. Five days later, a similar American treaty was signed by W.B. Reed, although it contained a wider religious toleration clause. Both the Russian and American treaties included a most favored nation clause, which meant that Poutiatine and Reed were free to disapprove of Lay’s bullying tactics, knowing that any advantages that Lay could force from the Chinese would be automatically extended to them. The French treaty was the next. The only new point which Gros gained was that the exchange of ratifications of his treaty should take place in Beijing. He did not insist on the right to station a French Ambassador permanently in the capital, nor on the freedom of French merchants to travel in China outside the treaty ports, both proposals having run into strong Chinese opposition. His treaty was ready on 23 June, but unlike the Russians and Americans the French were the coalition partner of the British. Gros gave Elgin four more days, announcing that he would sign his treaty on 27 June. The implication was that the French gunboats and Gros himself would have no business to detain them in Tianjin after the French treaty was signed and that if the British were unreasonable they would have to shift for themselves. The British negotiations seemed to have succeeded on 24 June when agreement was reached on a text, but the next day the Chinese negotiators refused to agree to two new articles not included in the three other treaties; the first gave the right of residence in Beijing – which of course once granted to the British could be claimed by all other nations under the most favored nation principle – the second the right of traders to travel freely outside the treaty ports. Elgin was convinced that the right to keep an Ambassador in Beijing lay at the heart of the whole matter: only when a British Ambassador had access in Beijing to the highest authorities of the empire could political equality be achieved. So strongly did Elgin hold this view that he authorized Bruce on the morning of 26 June to refuse to make any further concessions on these two points. It was a delicate moment. The only threat at Elgin’s command was to break off negotiations and march on Beijing. If he tried to advance with his small force he would probably be deserted by the French as well as by the two neutral Ambassadors; he might very probably be disowned by his own government. Nevertheless, with Admiral Seymour’s backing, Elgin made the threat and it worked. The Chinese Commissioners withdrew their objections, and on the evening of 26 June, Lord Elgin paid his second and last visit to the Temple of the Oceanic Influences to sign the Treaty of Tianjin. The next day the French signed their treaty. In early July an imperial decree arrived approving the treaties. On 6 July, Elgin and Gros left Tianjin, speeded on their way with handsome gifts from the Commissioners. The treaties provided that the new tariff arrangements and various other minor commercial matters should be left for later discussion by experts, and it was tacitly agreed on the Western side that these discussions

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should be conducted by the British, who had the greatest interest in the result. These negotiations began in Shanghai during October 1858 and lasted about a month. After their completion, Elgin spent January and February 1859 in Hong Kong and Canton. He had sent his brother Frederick Bruce home in the summer with the Treaty of Tianjin, and it had since been announced that Frederick was to be the first British Minister accredited to the Chinese Empire. On 4 March 1859, Elgin left China and the two brothers met briefly in Ceylon at the beginning of April, Elgin on his way home, Bruce traveling eastward to Beijing to exchange ratifications of the Treaty of Tianjin.

China refuses to honor its treaties The Anglo-French coalition was renewed during fall 1859 when Frederick Bruce, carrying the Treaty of Tianjin to Beijing for ratification, was repulsed at the Dagu forts, with three gunboats sunk and heavy loss of life. This conflict occurred when Bruce asked that the obstacles at the Dagu forts be removed so that plenipotentiaries could continue their journey to Tianjin and Beijing. Nothing happened, and on 21 June, Bruce and de Bourboulon formally authorized their naval commanders to clear the obstacles by force. Chinese resistance was formidable. Within a few minutes the leading gunboats were forced to retreat. Admiral James Hope was hit in the leg and severely bruised in falling. The artillery duel continued for three hours until both sides were exhausted. The fire from the forts slackened towards evening, by which time six of the 11 British gunboats were out of action, most of them aground with heavy casualties. British marines attempted to take the forts, but were rebuffed. During the day the British lost 89 killed and 345 wounded, while the French lost four men killed and ten wounded. It was a shattering reverse, the more so because everyone had been confident of success. On 29 October 1859, Lord John Russell authorized Bruce to send the Chinese a 30-day ultimatum. Bruce delayed until 8 March 1860, almost nine months after the incident. The ultimatum demanded an apology for the attack on the gunboats at Dagu, the return of any captured ships and guns, the ratification of the Treaty at Beijing by Ambassadors who were to travel via Dagu and Tianjin, and for prompt payment of the 1858 indemnity. The Chinese reply on 5 April was firm and negative, suggesting that the foreigners proceed to the town of Beitang (Pehtang) on the Zhili coast to exchange ratifications and discuss matters with an Imperial Commissioner. This suggestion, if adopted, would have reversed the equality clause. Lord Elgin was once again put in charge of an expedition to China, and he visited Paris to revive his friendship with Gros, whom he found feeling sorry for himself at the prospect of having to brave again the discomforts of China. Just before he left London, Elgin received his formal instructions. He was to go to Beijing with his French colleague and insist on being received there with honor. He was further to insist on an apology for the events of 1859, on an indemnity for the losses suffered, and on ratification of the Treaty of Tianjin.

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As Elgin and Gros made their way to China, there converged on Hong Kong about 11,000 British and Indian troops and about 7,000 French. Their first military move was to occupy Zhoushan Island off the mouth of the Yangzi River. It had no strategic importance in an operation against Beijing, but could be used as a pledge in future negotiations. Meanwhile the commanders and the bulk of their forces moved north from Hong Kong to Shanghai in May 1860. The military commanders and the two Ambassadors held a meeting at Shanghai on 16 June to work out a plan of action. Eschewing a frontal attack, there was to be a pincer movement, with the French to land south of the forts, and the British east of them at Beitang. This plan changed when the French discovered they would have to wade through up to two miles of mud to get ashore. It was agreed that the French should join the British in the landing at Beitang. On 26 July, the British embarked from Dalian on the Liaodong Peninsula, in more than 150 ships and boats, and made their way slowly along the coast. On 1 August, they and the French landed at Beitang. Neither the French nor the British were pleased to discover the arrival in the Gulf of Zhili of the American representative, John Ward, and a new Russian envoy, Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev, both instructed to observe in their customary neutral role on the fringes of the expedition. It took ten days to unload supplies, during which time the soldiers occupied themselves in plundering the town. The French soldiers became skilled at chasing and capturing stray pigs, but their officers claimed that for more serious plunder the British and Indians were the worst offenders. Elgin had no doubt that the opposite was true: “This dreadful alliance, what will it not have cost us before we are done with it. The French by their exactions and misconduct have already stirred to resistance the peaceful population of China. They are cautious enough when armed enemies even Chinese are in question – but indisputably valorous against defenceless villagers and little-footed women.” The argument about plundering was to continue for months and reach an angry climax when the Summer Palace outside Beijing was burned to the ground. Finally on 12 August, the army was ready. Sir Robert Napier and the Second Division of cavalry were sent on a northward movement across the swampy plain to outflank the Chinese position on the causeway, while the French and First British Division advanced slowly along the causeway itself. Taking Tanggu on 14 August, on 21 August, the allies attacked the inner northern fort with artillery support. Despite this bombardment, the Chinese resisted with great determination. The defenders kept up a punishing fire on the parties of attackers making their way over the canals and ditches that surrounded the forts. After several hours enough men were gathered under the walls of the fort at almost the same time, and the fighting was then soon over. The British casualties were about 200 killed and wounded, the French roughly the same. Six Victoria Crosses were awarded for the storming of this single fort. Hope Grant was proved right in thinking that the fort which had been taken was the key to the whole position. A few hours of confusion followed its fall, during which Parkes was sent to persuade the Chinese commander to surrender.

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White flags soon appeared on all three remaining forts and the allies took possession. Two days later Admiral Hope and his gunboats sailed up the river to Tianjin which they found undefended. Elgin and Gros installed themselves comfortably in Tianjin, and Parkes was sent to present the allied demands. They required an apology for the events of 1859, an indemnity for the losses suffered, ratification of the Treaty of Tianjin, the advance of the army as far as Tongzhou, a town only a few miles from Beijing, and an audience for the Ambassadors with the Emperor. On 6 September, the negotiations broke down, and on 9 September, the army began to advance from Tianjin up the Beihe river towards Beijing. With them went the two Ambassadors. Negotiations continued during the advance and Parkes and Wade had reached a broad agreement with the Chinese negotiators on 14 September. The allied army was to halt short of Tongzhou, and Elgin and Gros were then to enter Beijing with an escort of 1,000 men each to ratify the Treaty of Tianjin. Fighting erupted and the Chinese captured 37 allied troops, including Parkes. The allied army pushed slowly forward, vainly seeking news of Parkes and his missing party. They outflanked Tongzhou and, on 21 September, fought a second battle to force a crossing of the canal that links that town with Beijing. No further obstacle lay between the allies and Beijing, and the Emperor now fled the capital, leaving Prince Gong (Kung) in charge. But Hope Grant and de Montauban were clear that nothing could be done until the siege guns had been brought up the river from Tianjin. Elgin and Gros fretted at the delay, Gros in particular fearing that by the time the allies broke into Beijing the missing prisoners would be dead and the Chinese authorities vanished. The siege guns arrived and on 5–6 October, the allied army moved slowly from Baliqiao towards Beijing. On 6 October, Hope Grant sent a message to the French suggesting a rendezvous that night at the Imperial Summer Palace at Yuan Ming Yuan which lay some six miles to the north-west of the northern city wall. Later in the day contact was lost with the French; the main British force was held up by skirmishing Manchu cavalry in difficult country and spent the night in camp some miles short of the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace at Yuan Ming Yuan, which the French occupied on the evening of 6 October, was not a single palace, but a huge park crowded with lavish pavilions. When Hope Grant’s messengers arrived the next morning they found what one of them described as a temporary insanity. In vain de Montauban ordered that looting should be suspended until the British arrived; in vain did the French officers try to get their men on parade. The next day Hope Grant negotiated with de Montauban a share of a roomful of gold ingots which had been found in the Palace. He ordered all under his command to hand over at once all the objects that they had seized, and these were auctioned publicly over two days. The sum realized was £8,000. But nothing he could do could alter the fact that the smaller French force had much the richer share. The French army reached the Summer Palace almost without transport; it left with 300 loaded wagons full of treasure.

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Negotiating a settlement with Beijing With the allied force at the very gates of Beijing, Parkes and many of the other British and French soldiers taken captive were released. About half of the 37 captives had died, either while fighting, because of their wounds, or due to poor treatment while in captivity. Now that the fighting was over, Elgin and Gros moved back to the center of events. But the generals, who had up to now moved with great prudence, accepting delays rather than risks, were now led by the same prudence to argue that everything must be concluded in a great hurry. Hope Grant told Elgin that the British army must be back in Tianjin by the beginning of November if it was to avoid the risks of the severe Beijing winter. This timetable left the Ambassadors no room for subtleties or setbacks; they had to hammer Prince Gong into submission as hard and as fast as they could. The first need was to dominate the city of Beijing. An ultimatum was sent to Prince Gong requiring him to surrender the Anding gate of the city by noon on 13 October. The burden of decision fell on the prince, who at 28 years of age was baffled by conflicting advice and whose long later career showed him to be a diplomat rather than a warrior. After much indecision and several attempts to water down the allied demand, Gong surrendered the Anding gate a few minutes before the allied artillery was due to open fire against it. But the way was not yet open for the final settlement and shaking of hands. Elgin had been deeply moved by the torture and killing of prisoners. He was determined on some spectacular act of redress for the atrocity, and his proposal to destroy the Summer Palace was popular among the British, but was opposed by Gros and most of the French. Gros and de Montauban were genuinely shocked at the thought that a place of such delicate beauty should be destroyed and worried that Prince Gong might be driven to break off negotiations. The French did not press their objections, though they refused to join in the work. On 18–19 October, the First Division under Sir John Michel moved slowly through the vast park of the Summer Palace, setting fire methodically to the buildings which it contained. Being mostly of wood, they burned easily. The arguments brought by Elgin and many others to support the burning of the Summer Palace as a punishment directed solely at the Manchu court, not the Han Chinese populace who were not allowed to enter the Summer Palace on pain of death, were generally approved in Britain. It is ironical that this should be for many the best-remembered act of a man whose years in China were spent in a search for a settlement resting on something more than force and destruction. There was a final week of negotiation with Prince Gong, during which the tension between the British and French grew uncomfortably. Elgin and Gros had never resumed on this expedition the easy cooperation that had grown up naturally in 1858, and each suspected the other of hidden motives. Gros feared that Elgin’s demands on Gong were so severe that the dynasty would collapse and implored the Russian Ambassador Ignatiev to persuade Gong to give way to Elgin’s demands. Elgin on his side found Gros over-sentimental about the

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dynasty. He suspected the influence of Jesuits and a design to convert Prince Gong to Catholicism. Elgin allowed himself to be persuaded out of some of his demands, but insisted on entering Beijing. These terms were finally accepted by Prince Gong, and on 24 October, Elgin was carried in state through the streets of Beijing in a large red sedan chair, escorted by 100 cavalry and 400 infantry. He was received by Prince Gong in the Hall of Audience, where the new Convention of Beijing was signed and the old Treaty of Tianjin ratified. Later, Elgin introduced his brother Frederick Bruce to Prince Gong as the first British Minister to be accredited to the Chinese government, and to choose a princely town palace as the site for the British legation. The news of the final settlement at Beijing was received with great relief in England. Ministers had realized that the 1860 war, though more easy to justify than the war started by Bowring over Arrow, was less popular with public opinion. When Elgin finally reached England the formalities of triumph were repeated. He had at long last finished with China, having imposed a settlement that lasted 40 years and having acted, he believed, “as China’s friend in all this.” What is more, Elgin had carried to China in 1857, and again in 1860, letters written by Queen Victoria in her own hand to the Emperor of China. It is a symbol of this war that these two letters of friendship are preserved at Broomhall, undelivered and unopened.

Conclusions England and France formed a temporary coalition against China in order to obtain diplomatic and juridical equality in their treaty relations with the Emperor in Beijing. It was only in Beijing, through the presence of a permanent diplomatic representative, that true equality could be gained. This goal increasingly became the main point of contention over the next few years. Tragically, only by demonstrating superiority in war could the Europeans force the Manchus to treat them as equals in peace. In the end, the British and the French used military superiority to impose, not an equal treaty system, but one codifying Western superiority. Western treaties typically granted “most favored nation” status, which meant that as one foreign nation obtained a new right or privilege, all of the foreign nations could partake of it; by contrast, no such advantage accrued to China in its relations with Europe and America. Another primary goal of the coalition was to open China to even greater foreign trade. While it is easy to dismiss the principles of the China traders as simply a cloak for their greed, the idealism of free trade still ran strong in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s. Jardine, Matheson, Dent, and the others had a keen nose for profit, but most of them believed that the opening of China to Western trade would benefit above all the Chinese. They saw themselves as doing in China what their immediate predecessors had done in Britain, sweeping away the hampering traditions of the centuries, the ancient restrictive rubbish which

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prevented the people from achieving prosperity and freedom. A century and a half later, China is still engaged in the process of opening its doors to free trade, even though it is still angry over the treaty system that initiated this beneficial process by force during the nineteenth century.

Note 1 This chapter has been condensed with the author’s permission from Douglas Hurd, The Arrow War: An Anglo-Chinese Confusion, 1856–1860 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967), based on his careful analysis of official documents from the Foreign Office Papers at The National Archives Public Record Office, London; the Gladstone Papers, British Museum; the Elgin Mss at Broomhall, Fife; the Jardine, Matheson and Co. archive at the University Library, Cambridge; and the Archives Diplomatiques, Paris, along with published documents and insight from his own diplomatic experience in China in 1954–1956.

6

Seapower and alliances in the era of Bismarck and William II Lawrence Sondhaus

In the years 1864–71, Otto von Bismarck orchestrated the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership. This was made possible by Prussian victories in three wars: Prussia allied with Austria vs. Denmark in 1864, Prussia allied with Italy against Austria in 1866, and the German states allied with each other against France in 1870–71. The great powers of Europe remained at peace with one another for the next 43 years. But because Bismarck’s many achievements included the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine from France, it was a peace that depended, until 1890, on a network of alliances and agreements designed by Germany to keep France isolated, and thereafter, during the reign of the volatile Emperor William II, on the uneasy balance between pro- and anti-German armed camps. Throughout the period 1871–1914, naval strength continued to be an important factor in the alignments of the European powers, but for a generation after the achievement of national unity German seapower remained weak in part due to constantly shifting naval coalitions. Only during the decade before the outbreak of World War I did the German fleet grow to become arguably the greatest single destabilizing factor in the European balance of power.

Creation of the German navy At its birth the German Empire ranked as the foremost military power in Europe, but the negligible role played by the Prussian and North German navy in Bismarck’s wars left deep scars on the younger generation of the German naval officer corps. Owing to the timing of unification, Germany missed the ironclad revolution that had transformed naval affairs in Europe, and the rest of the world, during the 1860s. In 1864, Prussia relied upon its Austrian ally to send a squadron from the Adriatic to force the Danes to give up their blockade of the German North Sea ports; in 1866, Prussia’s Italian ally provided an armored fleet to threaten Austria (ultimately unsuccessfully) in the Adriatic; and in 1870–71, the North German navy was blockaded by a vastly superior fleet of French ironclads. For 21-year-old Lieutenant Alfred Tirpitz, who spent most of the war at anchor in Wilhelmshaven aboard one of the navy’s three armored

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frigates, the humiliation of 1870 helped shape his later conviction that Germany must have a fleet capable of offensive action.1 In 1871, the navy of the North German Confederation became the Imperial German navy. In 1872, after the navy’s relative inactivity during the war, a politically connected general, Albrecht von Stosch, became chief of the Imperial German Admiralty. During Stosch’s 11 years at the Admiralty, the navy completed four battleship projects he inherited and began six more, of which two were built in Britain. All were inferior to the newest and largest warships of the leading European navies. Those built in Germany depended heavily upon British components or British technology transferred under license to German manufacturers. The new German Empire initially owned no colonies but had the world’s third-largest merchant marine and, thus, had a need for cruising warships that Stosch filled out by adding several fully rigged iron-hulled corvettes and gunboats.2 From this modest beginning Stosch laid the foundation of the naval-industrial complex that helped make Germany a first-class naval power in the years before World War I. By the end of his tenure all German battleships were built in German shipyards, and Stosch also took steps to end the navy’s dependence on Britain for armor plate.3 The Krupp works of Essen did not produce armor until after 1890, but from the start provided all artillery for the German fleet while also supplying the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and several smaller navies, becoming such a force in the naval ordnance industry that the leading British and French manufacturers struggled to keep pace.4 Though Stosch was considered a political rival of Bismarck, he agreed with the chancellor on the role of German naval power. Proposing a new fleet plan in 1872, he argued that the fleet should “not . . . have the task to proceed offensively against the great European states, but . . . extend our power only where we have to represent lesser interests and where we cannot otherwise bring to bear the actual power of our state, our power on land.” Bismarck agreed but added that “we must surpass all sea powers of the second rank.”5 By the early 1880s Germany had, indeed, equaled or surpassed all but Britain and France in numbers of battleships. As early as 1873, the navy was strong enough to contribute ships to a British effort to police the Mediterranean coast of Spain during the Spanish civil war of that year.6 A dozen years later, when Germany finally claimed colonies in Africa and the Pacific, it did so using the fully rigged iron cruisers built under Stosch.7 Stosch remained chief of the Admiralty until 1883, but his last five years in office were overshadowed by the scandal and crisis following the accidental sinking of the new battleship Grosser Kurfürst in May 1878. Between 1878 and 1883 the naval outlay declined by a third and no new battleships were laid down. It was thanks to projects begun earlier in his tenure that Stosch left Germany with the world’s third-largest armored fleet.8

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The impact of the Jeune École In 1878, Bismarck hosted the Congress of Berlin, which legitimized the independence or autonomy won by many of the Balkan peoples in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. By the time an armistice brought an end to the fighting in January 1878, Britain so feared a complete Turkish collapse that it deployed a fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean, which steamed through the Dardanelles on 13 February. Russia responded by marching its army to within six miles of Constantinople and preparing its navy for a full-fledged Anglo-Russian war. By March 1878, the Russians had reinforced their Baltic squadron and made arrangements with American and German firms to purchase and fuel a fleet of commerce-raiding steamers to operate against British shipping worldwide.9 Britain countered with a tactic used in future crises, in particular on the eve of World War I, seizing and purchasing four warships under construction in British shipyards for foreign powers, both to increase the strength of the British fleet and prevent them from falling into enemy hands via resale.10 Diplomatic intervention by the other great powers averted war, and during the summer Bismarck facilitated the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Berlin. The settlement left Russia with all of its territorial gains, Austria-Hungary in occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and Britain in occupation of Cyprus.11 Britain’s 1878 intervention to save Constantinople poisoned Anglo-Russian relations for years to come.12 After taking such a strong stand at the Turkish straits in 1878, for almost two decades the British navy struggled to maintain its ability to do so again, not necessarily to protect the Ottoman Empire but to stop a revived Russian Black Sea fleet from breaking out into the Eastern Mediterranean, where it could threaten Egypt and the Suez Canal. At the end of the Crimean War the victorious allies, Britain and France, had insisted upon the demilitarization of the Black Sea, but in the wake of France’s defeat at the hands of Prussia 15 years later in the Franco-Prussian War, Russia reasserted its right to maintain a Black Sea fleet. Because little had been done to revive the Russian fleet before the outbreak of war with Turkey, in 1877–78 the Russians fought a locally superior Ottoman navy with makeshift forces including torpedo boats. The results were meagre, but throughout the brief war the dual threats from torpedoes and mines sufficed to keep the Turks from bringing their armored fleet to bear in the conflict. The Russian example helped inspire the Jeune École, the French “Young School” advocating torpedo boats and unarmored cruisers over armored battleships. The Jeune École dominated the decade of the 1880s, reached its peak in 1886–87, when the school’s founder, Admiral Théophile Aube, served as French navy minister, and remained strong in some navies until the mid-1890s. Aube saw the overall Jeune École strategy – in which commerce raiding featured prominently – as a means for France to challenge British naval power worldwide. During the 1880s, the building programs of most of the great powers included fewer battleships and many more modern unarmored steel cruisers and torpedo

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boats. In France, alternating pro- and anti-Aube factions made a shambles of naval construction. Meanwhile, Germany embraced the new school of thought wholeheartedly and fell from third place to fifth in armored tonnage, while Austria-Hungary seized upon the strategy of the Jeune École as an inexpensive counter to the battleship program of its Adriatic rival, Italy. Ironically, Germany and Austria-Hungary, joined formally since 1879 in an alliance Bismarck considered the cornerstone of his anti-French system, each contributed significantly to the tactical thought of the Jeune École. Under the leadership of Admiral Max von Sterneck after 1883, the Austro-Hungarian navy hosted French visitors at its base in Pola and the Whitehead torpedo factory in Rijeka, the German alliance notwithstanding. They were impressed with AustroHungarian exercises, which included the use of torpedo boats in simulated actions against battleships at sea.13 It gave Sterneck great satisfaction to be trying at sea many of the maneuvers that the French were still discussing in the realm of theory: “It appears as if we have had the same ideas simultaneously, with the difference that I can put them into action immediately.”14 Bismarck’s Triple Alliance of 1882, joining Germany and Austria-Hungary with Italy, reinforced Sterneck’s enthusiasm for the Jeune École, because Italy was Austria’s traditional naval rival and the alliance left him with no good reason to match the Italian navy in battleships. Ultimately the impact of the Jeune École was stronger and lasted longer in Austria-Hungary than anywhere else. Between 1876 and 1893 the navy laid down just two battleships, both begun in 1884. It had ten torpedo boats when Sterneck took command but added 53 between 1883 and 1891, along with Austria-Hungary’s first modern steel cruisers. The largest of these were two heavily armed but lightly armored protected cruisers, which Sterneck marketed as “battleships of the future.” They cost half as much as Austria-Hungary’s new battleships of 1884 and thus were appealing to the politicians. Thanks to the virtual abandonment of battleship construction for 17 years, the early 1890s found Austria-Hungary mired in sixth place among the naval powers of Europe.15 Germany likewise contributed to the tactics of the Jeune École. Unlike the Austro-Hungarian navy, the German navy had no direct exchanges with the French, but Aube copied freely from a coast defense concept designed by Stosch prior to his retirement in 1883. Stosch built four of his new shallow-draught battleships with an eye toward dispersing them in fortified coastal bases, from which they would join small armored gunboats in sorties to break an enemy blockade or disrupt enemy attempts to land troops on the coast.16 Like Stosch, Aube believed that shallow-draught battleships and armored gunboats would be able to operate on the high seas and fight on equal terms with enemy battleships. The French clearly were unaware of problems that the German warships of these types experienced after entering service, owing to their lack of speed and maneuverability.17 But difficulties with the coastal defense aspect of the Jeune École failed to dampen German enthusiasm for the strategy as a whole. Indeed, General Leo von Caprivi, Stosch’s successor as chief of the Imperial Admiralty from

Bismarck and William II 65 1883–88, became a strong proponent. Caprivi ordered the navy’s first modern steel cruisers and dramatically expanded its complement of torpedo boats, adding 65 to the seven Stosch had in service as of 1883. In 1886, Caprivi established the Torpedo Inspection in Kiel, with Tirpitz, by then a captain, as its head.18 As a soldier, Caprivi could not support a program that would drain resources away from the army. His views were reflected in his often-cited remark that the question should be one of “how small our fleet can be, not how large.”19 Caprivi eventually acknowledged the need for new armored warships, provided that their design reflected a coastal-defense mission. The onset of construction of a class of coastal battleships in 1888 – the year Caprivi left the Admiralty and staunch navalist William II became emperor – signaled the revival of the German armored program. In the years 1876–88 the navy had ordered just one new battleship, and even after work commenced on the coastal battleships, the dearth of projects begun earlier caused the navy’s relative stock to continue to fall. As recently as 1883, only Britain and France had more armored tonnage than Germany, but by 1893 Germany trailed all European powers except Austria-Hungary in both armored and total warship tonnage.20 Germany’s relative decline occurred because Italy and Russia continued to build battleships during the era of the Jeune École. The Russian hiatus in battleship construction came earlier, between 1870 and 1881, while in Italy it came later, between 1885 and 1893. Even during the latter period, Italy maintained naval ambitions that required a strong battle fleet. With Austria-Hungary an ally and its navy no longer a threat to the security of Italy, Italian strategists focused on France as their leading rival. Franco-Italian relations continued to worsen, poisoned first by France’s annexation of Tunis in 1881, then by Italy’s accession to Bismarck’s Triple Alliance (1882) and the Mediterranean Agreements (1887), the latter linking Britain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Spain. After Francophobe Francesco Crispi became prime minister in 1887, tensions increased still more. In February 1888, when France broke off negotiations for a trade agreement with Italy, coincidentally at a time when the French navy was testing a new system of mobilization, Crispi concluded that the fleet at Toulon was preparing a preemptive strike and asked Bismarck for support. Appeals to London from Rome and Berlin prompted Britain to send a squadron to Genoa, reflecting British solidarity with the Italians at a time when the threat of the Jeune École had seriously strained the Anglo-French relationship. Afterward, amid talk of increased Anglo-Italian naval cooperation, Bismarck hoped to secure a firmer British commitment to his anti-French system of alliances.21 But the incident reflected a harsh reality of Italy’s strategic position: its membership in the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austro-Hungary made sense only as long as Britain and France were rivals. Around the turn of the century, the deterioration of Anglo-German relations and subsequent Anglo-French rapprochement would weaken Italy’s commitment to Germany and Austria-Hungary. By the late 1880s, new technologies and changes in the application of existing technologies helped spell the end of the Jeune École. Torpedo nets and

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electric searchlights made battleships less vulnerable to torpedo attack while at anchor, while improvements in propulsion systems and artillery that had been pioneered aboard torpedo vessels or light cruisers were introduced to larger warships, giving them the speed and rapid medium-range firepower to counter the threat of torpedo attack while underway.22 At the same time, the artificial “fog of war” that Jeune École advocates had counted upon – the smoky fire of big guns that would allow torpedo boats to close on larger warships – disappeared with the introduction of smokeless powder, and the improved armor-piercing steel shell gave new life to the big gun and to the larger warships needed as platforms for such ordnance.23 When revolutionary developments in armor production in 1890–92 resolved the problem of how to provide adequate protection for such vessels, the Jeune École would lose what little life it had left. In addition to Britain and Russia, which had never suspended their battleship construction as a result of the Jeune École, Germany (from 1888), France (from 1889), Italy, and Austria-Hungary (both from 1893) resumed their programs and continued to build ever-larger classes of battleships until the outbreak of World War I.

Bismarck retires from the scene The battleship renaissance coincided with a diplomatic revolution that followed William II’s decision to retire Bismarck from the Reich chancellery in 1890. Bismarck had been careful always to keep Russia linked to his system of alliances – via the Three Emperors’ League of 1873 (along with AustriaHungary), a revived Three Emperors’ League of 1881, and finally the bilateral German–Russian “Reinsurance Treaty” of 1887 – but after 1890 his successors no longer attempted to play both sides of the Austro-Russian rivalry in the Balkans and simply cut the Russians loose, creating an opening for France to end its isolation. In 1891, a French naval squadron visited Kronstadt, and in 1893, the Russian navy returned the favor at Toulon. Meanwhile, the two countries signed a treaty of alliance and a military convention in 1892 and 1894, respectively. The Russian navy let lapse its licensing arrangement to produce Krupp artillery, opting instead for Canet guns, likewise manufactured in Russia under license. The Russians also ordered new warships in France and built others in Russia based upon French designs.24 While the Franco-Russian alliance, on land, had clear anti-German implications and led to the formulation of the fateful Schlieffen Plan, at sea the combination was viewed as anti-British, in that it created the first formal alliance of Europe’s second and third naval powers since the Napoleonic era. Britain’s new naval war plans, like Germany’s Schlieffen Plan, took for granted that France and Russia had a common plan of their own. The most significant change came in the Mediterranean where, ever since 1878, Britain’s greatest strategic imperative had been to prevent the Russian Black Sea fleet from breaking out through the Turkish straits. As early as March 1894, the prime minister, Lord Rosebery, told the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister that he would not deploy the British

Bismarck and William II 67 Mediterranean fleet to block a Russian sortie through the straits, because under such circumstances the French Mediterranean fleet likely would attack it from the rear. Conceding that, in case of war, the Black Sea fleet would pass through the straits, in October 1896, the Admiralty produced new war plans with distinctly defensive goals, calling for the British navy to hold Gibraltar, Malta, and Alexandria, and stop the French and Russian fleets from joining forces.25 Britain had no way of knowing that France and Russia did little to coordinate their naval planning, at least until after 1900. Nevertheless, amid the waning of British naval hubris, unprecedented peacetime naval programs passed by Parliament in 1889 and 1893 ensured a continued numerical superiority over the FrancoRussian alliance, while qualitatively, the British navy still had the best personnel and the best warships in every class. Affirmation of the traditional British approach to seapower came from an unlikely source, and had unintended consequences. In 1890 an American naval officer, Alfred Thayer Mahan, published The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1763, the first of a series of books providing battle fleet proponents with historical arguments to support their cause. Mahan drew his examples from the early modern competition for empire between Britain and France, but his works were especially influential in his own country and in Germany, where his followers included William II and Tirpitz, neither of whom had been enthusiastic advocates of the battleship prior to reading Mahan. During the era of the Jeune École the opportunistic Tirpitz had embraced torpedo warfare and rose to become head of the navy’s torpedo service, before reading Mahan and turning to the battleship in 1891. William II, meanwhile, had advocated the cruiser as the warship type best suited to support his dream of a global German colonial and commercial presence, and only slowly came round to the battleship even after his first reading of Mahan. As early as 1893, when Tirpitz was still a captain, serving as chief of staff in the High Command in Berlin, his critique of the navy’s annual maneuvers encouraged officers to remedy their deficient education in “tactics and strategy” through the “study of naval history,” especially “the works of Captain Mahan.”26 Because Mahan shared many strategic assumptions with Karl von Clausewitz and the earlier work of a “Prussian school” of naval thought, which had sought to apply Clausewitzian principles to naval warfare, this accelerated the reception of his ideas in Germany. Both Mahan and the “Prussian school” had seized upon the Napoleonic–Nelsonian faith in the offensive and quest for the decisive battle as the transformational concepts in modern warfare, a faith reflected in Tirpitz’s Dienstschrift IX of June 1894 and subsequent “risk theory,” first disclosed publicly in December 1899. The First (1898) and Second (1900) navy laws set Germany on a course of naval expansion grounded in Tirpitz’s argument that a battle fleet just two-thirds the size of the British would have sufficient strategic value to justify the considerable expense of its construction. Throughout his campaign to expand the fleet, Tirpitz freely acknowledged his debt to Mahan. The 1895 German translation of Mahan’s first book was its first non-English

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edition; after Tirpitz became state secretary of the Imperial Navy Office, he had thousands of copies distributed to support his arguments for the First Navy Law.27 Shortly after his appointment in June 1897, Tirpitz warned William II that Britain was Germany’s “most dangerous enemy . . . against which we most urgently require a certain measure of naval force as a political power factor.”28 The emperor likewise viewed Britain as the obvious obstacle to Germany’s further rise to world power, and eagerly endorsed Tirpitz’s plan for a further expansion of the fleet even though it would bring an end to the generally friendly Anglo-German relations that Bismarck had fostered throughout his long tenure as chancellor. Indeed, as recently as 1889 Bismarck had praised the British fleet as “the greatest factor for peace in Europe.”29 As long as Germany was content to dominate the European mainland, leaving Britain the oceans and the colonies, the two countries had no reason to clash. But the Tirpitz plan, coinciding with German advances on Britain’s leading position in trade and industry, ultimately compelled Britain to join France and Russia in the Triple Entente, solidifying the rival armed camps of pre-1914 Europe and making the ultimate conflict far more likely. Alluding to the boast “the sun never sets on the British Empire,” late in 1897 foreign secretary (later chancellor) Bernhard von Bülow introduced Tirpitz’s first fleet expansion bill to the Reichstag with the observation “we now demand our place in the sun.”30 In a subsequent speech to the Reichstag, Tirpitz used ominous Darwinian language in characterizing the expansion of the fleet as a “question of survival” for Germany.31 The First Navy Law, passed by the Reichstag in April 1898, sanctioned a fleet of 19 high seas battleships and eight coastal battleships, 12 large cruisers, 30 small cruisers, and 12 divisions of torpedo boats, to be completed by 1905. The battleships included 12 already built or being built, and the eight coastal battleships were already in service. The 12 large cruisers included ten already built or being built. The 30 small cruisers included 23 already built or being built. Before passing the First Navy Law the Reichstag focused on the number of new warships needed to meet its goals – seven battleships, two large and seven small cruisers – which would expand the fleet by 30 percent in just seven years. Largely lost in the debate was the provision for the future automatic replacement of warships: battleships after 25 years, large cruisers after 20 years, and smaller cruisers after 15 years.32 Thereafter, the international situation favored Tirpitz’s campaign for further expansion of the fleet, as anti-British sentiments stemming from the Anglo-Boer War in South Africa (1899–1902) coincided with outrage over the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900), where the German ambassador and German missionaries had been among the first foreigners killed. In June 1900, the Reichstag passed the Second Navy Law, giving the fleet a new authorized strength of 38 battleships, 14 large and 38 small cruisers. Of the 19 additional battleships only 11 were entirely new; the other eight were the small coastal battleships already in service as of 1896, which were now counted as full-sized battleships for replace-

Bismarck and William II 69 ment purposes. The remaining new units (two large and eight small cruisers) did little to conceal the law’s clear focus on battleships, reflecting Tirpitz’s belief that a battle fleet in home waters would give Germany leverage in all international conflicts, even those far from home. The automatic replacement provision of Tirpitz’s navy laws safeguarded his plan from being reversed by a future more left-wing Reichstag, a distinct possibility as the anti-military Social Democratic Party consistently gained strength in every national election (becoming by far the largest party by 1912, with 28 percent of the seats). By 1906, 37 of the authorized 38 battleships and all 14 large cruisers were either in service or under construction. That year, the Reichstag agreed to Tirpitz’s request for a supplementary law further increasing the number of large cruisers from 14 to 20. With the next large cruiser not due for its 20-year replacement until 1912, the six new large cruisers filled the gap of 1906–12 and guaranteed that one ship of the type would be laid down every year indefinitely. At the same time, with each of the 38 battleships being replaced after 25 years, at least one new battleship would be laid down annually, without further approval from the Reichstag. Since it was taken for granted that all replacement ships had to meet the standards of the time in which they were ordered, smaller, older warships were always replaced with larger, new ones. Eventually the oldest battleships in the fleet of 1898, the four 7,600-ton units of the Sachsen class, were replaced by four 18,900-ton battleships of the Nassau class, while the smallest, the eight coastal battleships of the 3,500-ton Siegfried class, were replaced by units of the 22,800-ton Helgoland class and 24,700-ton Kaiser class.

The naval race to war For almost a decade the German naval buildup did not alarm the British. Admiral Sir John Fisher (First Sea Lord 1904–10 and 1914–15) initially remained convinced that Britain’s traditional rivals, France and Russia, were its most likely future enemies. Believing the world’s sea lanes would be the future battleground, Fisher developed the battle cruiser, a battleship-sized cruiser armed with battleship guns but with some of its armor sacrificed for the sake of speed. Theoretically, battle cruisers would be able to outgun any warship they could not outrun, and vice versa. Laying down his first capital ships in 1905–06, Fisher ordered three battle cruisers of the Invincible class, ships of 17,370 tons with eight 12-inch guns, no more than six inches of armor, and a speed of 25 knots, while placating battleship proponents with Dreadnought, a ship of 18,110 tons with ten 12-inch guns, armor as thick as 11 inches, and a speed of 21 knots. Dreadnought, built in just 14 months (October 1905 to December 1906), was intended as a test platform for the unprecedented hull size, all big-gun armament, and turbine engines that would also be featured in the three Invincibles. Yet while Dreadnought was under construction, international developments upset Fisher’s calculations regarding which ship type would form the core of the

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future British fleet. The Anglo-French Entente Cordiale (1904) survived the Moroccan crisis of 1905, while the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) practically destroyed the Russian navy. Germany, with its fleet further strengthened by the supplementary law of 1906, now appeared to be Britain’s most likely future adversary, and battleships of Dreadnought design, better suited for warfare in the confined space of the North Sea, appeared more useful than battle cruisers, whose potential global range was no longer as relevant. Because the size, speed, and firepower of Dreadnought rendered all other battleships obsolete, it became the new model capital ship for all navies.33 Thus, the onset of the “dreadnought revolution” forced Germany to build much larger and much more expensive battleships than Tirpitz had anticipated. He remained undeterred, however, and raised costs still more by insisting that future units in the “large cruiser” category be built as battle cruisers, adding another 20 battleship-sized vessels under legislation already approved by the Reichstag. In order to maintain better than a 3:2 margin of superiority over Germany’s fleet of 58 capital ships (dreadnoughts and battle cruisers), Britain would have to build at least 90, and Tirpitz certainly was not alone in assuming that Britain lacked the will and the means to do so. Germany laid down its first dreadnought in June 1907, and by March 1909 had ten dreadnoughts and battle cruisers built or being built to Britain’s 12, but thereafter the British moved decisively to stay ahead in the competition. Late that month, Parliament approved a program of three dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser to be laid down by December 1909, with another three dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser to follow early in 1910 if Germany refused to end the arms race. Tirpitz had no intention of giving in, and by May 1910 Britain had laid down all eight capital ships of its 1909–10 program. Further widening the British lead, Australia and New Zealand each paid for a battle cruiser, to be built in Britain starting in June 1910. They were the last of an astonishing ten capital ships laid down in Britain within a span of 12 months, demonstrating a resolve to make whatever financial sacrifices were necessary to stay ahead. During the same months the Germans began work on only three, and just one year after achieving near parity with the British in capital ships built-and-building, they now faced a 22:13 deficit. Tirpitz grew more amenable to a negotiated settlement, only to be foiled by his own chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, who attempted to use the fleet as the political lever Tirpitz himself had always cointended it would be. Bethmann Hollweg insisted that any Anglo-German naval treaty have as its foundation Britain’s explicit recognition of the territorial status quo in Europe, including Germany’s possession of Alsace-Lorraine. The British found such conditions unacceptable, and the race continued. In 1910–11, and again in 1911–12, the Germans laid down four capital ships (three dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser) and the British, five (four dreadnoughts and one battle cruiser), narrowing the capital ship ratio slightly, to 32:21. In February 1912, Britain sent its war minister, Lord Richard Haldane, to Berlin in a final attempt to reach a settlement, but Bethmann Hollweg’s insis-

Bismarck and William II 71 tence that any Anglo-German naval treaty must include broader political conditions doomed the negotiations before any discussion of numbers took place. The recently appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, poisoned relations still more by calling the German navy a “luxury” fleet. Tirpitz rejected Churchill’s idea of a one-year “naval holiday” and in March persuaded the Reichstag to pass another supplementary navy law adding three more battleships to the authorized strength of the German fleet. It would be his last political victory, as the following year the Reichstag funded a significant expansion of the long-neglected German army. By 1913–14, the navy’s share of the German defense outlay fell to just under 25 percent, from an all-time high of over 35 percent in 1911–12. The navy budget included the minimum one new battle cruiser per year and just one new dreadnought in 1912–13, followed by two in 1913–14. Over the same two years Britain doubled the German effort, laying down ten dreadnoughts. While Germany measured its naval progress against that of Britain, in the years before 1914 a naval race broke out in the Adriatic between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Though members of the same alliance, they shared a deep mutual animosity. Italian claims against the Dual Monarchy’s territory and the Italian coastal threat gave Austro-Hungarian naval leaders a strong case for a battle fleet deterrent. Like Germany in its contest with Britain, for AustriaHungary the dreadnought era erased Italy’s quantitative advantage, and gave the pursuing power the opportunity to catch up. Italy and Austria-Hungary each had three dreadnoughts in service when World War I began; Italy had another two under construction, Austria-Hungary one. Ironically, the tensions accompanying the onset of the Austro-Italian dreadnought race had disappeared by the time these ships were completed, as the Italian–Turkish War of 1911–12 temporarily poisoned Italy’s relations with the countries of the Triple Entente and led to an unexpected renewal of the Triple Alliance in December 1912.34 With German encouragement, in June 1913 Italy and Austria-Hungary negotiated a stronger Triple Alliance naval convention, which went into effect that November after all three allies ratified it. Because the British already were concentrating their fleet for a clash with the Germans in the North Sea, war plans drafted under the convention focused on the French navy in the Western Mediterranean. In case of war against the Triple Entente, Admiral Anton Haus would command a battle fleet consisting of the newest Italian and AustroHungarian warships, supplemented by whatever German units happened to be in the Mediterranean. The force would rendezvous off Sicily, then advance westward, seeking battle with the French navy and to disrupt convoys of North African colonial troops to France. Despite ongoing mistrust between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies, the convention remained alive until 31 July 1914. Three days after AustriaHungary declared war on Serbia, however, their long-standing animosity led the Italian foreign minister to characterize the war as an act of aggression by the Dual Monarchy, and so voided Italy’s responsibilities under the Triple Alliance. As the other five great powers of Europe exchanged declarations of war, Italy

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declared its neutrality on 2 August, leaving just the “Central Powers,” Germany and Austria-Hungary, standing against the Triple Entente. Nine and a half months later, Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente.35

Conclusions Even though Germany’s ship-building program and its naval coalitions helped destabilize Europe’s tenuous balance of power, the effort was not sufficient to achieve victory. Between the onset of the dreadnought revolution and the outbreak of World War I, Britain laid down 42 capital ships (33 dreadnoughts and nine battle cruisers), of which 29 (21 dreadnoughts and eight battle cruisers) were in commission in July 1914. Meanwhile, Germany had 20 dreadnoughts and seven battle cruisers built or being built, including 14 dreadnoughts and four battle cruisers in commission, falling just short of Tirpitz’s goal of a 3:2 Britishto-German ratio. But by the end of the summer of 1914 the balance tipped even more in favor of the British, as they seized three foreign dreadnoughts (two Turkish, one Chilean) nearing completion in British shipyards, while the Germans lost the battle cruiser Goeben, which had been trapped in the Mediterranean at the onset of the fighting and saved itself only by steaming for Constantinople and raising the Turkish flag. These changes left Britain with a commanding 45:26 lead in capital ships built-and-building, and ensured its ability to blockade Germany successfully in the North Sea for the duration of the war. Meanwhile, at the mouth of the Adriatic, an Anglo-French fleet (reinforced after 1915 by the Italian navy) closed Austria-Hungary’s outlet to the Mediterranean.36 Just as Tirpitz had abandoned the Jeune École and the torpedo boat in favor of the battleship in the early 1890s, he abandoned the battleship after the start of the war in favor of the submarine. As administrative head of the navy he had no direct responsibility for operational decisions, but from November 1914 until his resignation in March 1916 he became an increasingly vocal advocate of submarine warfare as the key to a German victory at sea. Germany had just 36 undersea boats when the war began, compared with 88 for Britain, but would employ a total of 335 by the end of the war, compared with 269 for Britain. The Tirpitz plan finally became a dead letter in January 1917, when Germany abandoned the two dreadnoughts and five battle cruisers it then had under construction in order to reallocate shipyard personnel and resources from the capital ship program to submarine construction. Shortly thereafter, Germany began a new campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare, which Austria-Hungary also joined, contributing its own small submarine force (totalling 27 boats in the entire war) as well as bases in the Adriatic that enabled German submarines to operate more effectively in the Mediterranean. By drawing the United States into World War I, however, this fateful decision ultimately ensured the defeat of the Central Powers.37

Bismarck and William II 73

Notes 1 Lawrence Sondhaus, Preparing for Weltpolitik: German Sea Power before the Tirpitz Era (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 96, 100. 2 Erich Gröner, Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe, 1815–1945, 8 vols (Coblenz: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1989), 1: 28–33, 70–71, 117, 164–166. 3 Sondhaus, Preparing, 136, 140. 4 John Roberts, “Warships of Steel, 1879–1889,” in Robert Gardiner, ed., Steam, Steel and Shellfire: The Steam Warship 1815–1905 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992), 97–98. 5 Stosch quoted in Ivo Nikolai Lambi, The Navy and German Power Politics, 1862–1914 (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1984), 4; Ekkard Verchau, “Von Jachmann über Stosch und Caprivi,” in Herbert Schlottelius and Wilhelm Deist, eds, Marine und Marinepolitik im kaiserlichen Deutschland, 1871–1914 (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 1972), 59; Bismarck quoted in Wilhelm Gerloff, Finanz- und Zollpolitik des Deutschen Reiches (Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1913), 79. 6 John F. Beeler, British Naval Policy in the Gladstone–Disraeli Era, 1866–1880 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), 21–22. 7 Sondhaus, Preparing, 153–158. 8 Lawrence Sondhaus, “The Sinking of Grosser Kurfürst and the Hiatus in German Marinepolitik, 1878–1897,” in New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the Twelfth Naval History Symposium (Annapolis, MD: : Naval Institute Press, 1997): 223–235. 9 George Sydenham Clarke, Russia’s Sea-Power Past and Present, or The Rise of the Russian Navy (London: J. Murray, 1898), 107; F.N. Gromov, Vladimir Gribovskii, and Boris Rodionov, Tri Veka Rossiiskogo Flota, 3 vols (St Petersburg: Logos, 1996), 1: 254. 10 Bernd Langensiepen and Ahmet Güleryüz, The Ottoman Steam Navy, 1828–1923, ed. and trans. James Cooper (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 135–136; Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships, 1860–1905 (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1979), 18, 25. 11 Gromov et al., 1: 255. 12 Clarke, 110–111. 13 Lawrence Sondhaus, The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary: Navalism, Industrial Development, and the Politics of Dualism, 1867–1918 (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1994), 97. 14 Sterneck quoted in Max von Sterneck to Richard Sterneck, Vienna, 3 March 1886, in Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck zu Ehrenstein, Admiral Max Freiherr von Sterneck: Erinnerungen aus den Jahren 1847 bis 1897, ed. Jerolim Benko von Boinik (Vienna: A. Hartleben, 1901), 232; Sondhaus, Naval Policy, 97–100. 15 Ibid. 16 Theodore Ropp, The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1904, ed. Stephen S. Roberts (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 28–30, 157. 17 Sondhaus, Preparing, 136. 18 Ibid., 161–164. 19 Caprivi quoted in Verchau, 67. 20 Sondhaus, Preparing, 165–166, 168. 21 Ropp, 191–192. 22 Denis Griffiths, “Warship Machinery,” in Gardiner, 177; John Campbell, “Naval Armaments and Armour,” in Gardiner, 163. 23 John Roberts, “The Pre-Dreadnought Age, 1890–1905,” in Gardiner, 113. 24 Ibid., 120–121; George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), 97–115, 220–223 and passim.

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25 Ibid., 205; see text of British naval intelligence office memorandum of 28 October 1896 in Arthur J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era, 1880–1905 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940), 578–580. 26 Tirpitz quoted in “Relation über die Herbstmanöver der Marine im Jahre 1893,” Bundesarchiv/Militärarchiv, RM 4/62, fols. 104–184. 27 Rolf Hobson, Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the Ideology of Sea Power and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875–1914 (Boston: Brill, 2002), 178–246 passim; Lambi, 66. 28 Tirpitz quoted in Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday’s Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 126. 29 Bismarck quoted in Charles William de la Poer Beresford, The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, 2 vols (Boston: Little Brown, 1914), 2: 363. 30 Bülow quoted in Terrell D. Gottschall, By Order of the Kaiser: Otto von Diederichs and the Rise of the Imperial German Navy, 1865–1902 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003), 226. 31 Tirpitz quoted in Holger H. Herwig, The German Naval Officer Corps: A Social and Political History, 1890–1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 11. 32 Unless otherwise noted, sources for this and the following paragraphs include Lawrence Sondhaus, Navies in Modern World History (London: Reaktion Books, 2004), 174–177; ibid., Preparing, 222–226; Gröner, Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe, 1: 26–46, 72–78, 118–129. 33 Unless otherwise noted, sources for this and the following paragraphs include Holger H. Herwig, “Luxury” Fleet: The Imperial German Navy, 1888–1918, revised ed. (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1987), 54–76 passim; Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance, Technology and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 50–100 passim; ibid., “Sir John Fisher and the Dreadnought: The Sources of Naval Mythology,” Journal of Military History 59 (1995): 619–638 passim; Nicholas A. Lambert, Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1999), 93–157 passim. 34 Sondhaus, Naval Policy, 191–209. 35 Ibid., 232–247. 36 Ibid., 270–341 passim; ibid., Navies, 182–183. 37 Wladimir Aichelburg, Die Unterseeboote Österreich-Ungarns, 2 vols (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1981).

7

The triple intervention and the termination of the First SinoJapanese War S.C.M. Paine1

A naval coalition of Russia, Germany, and France altered the outcome of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–5) without so much as firing a shot. The socalled Triple Intervention deprived Japan of its most coveted territorial gain, promised under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by forcing Japan to return to China the strategically located Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria. Even before the opening of hostilities, China had worked assiduously to encourage a great power intervention to constrain Japan. It succeeded only in the eleventh hour, after the signing of the peace treaty. The Triple Intervention proved to be an enormous loss of face for both the Japanese government and the Japanese people, and was thereafter a great source of bitterness in Sino-Japanese relations. Although successful in the short term, the Triple Intervention also came at a high price to China, casting doubt on this desperate diplomatic strategy that grew out of a failed military strategy. Over time, the “scramble for concessions” stripped China of many times the territory of the Liaodong Peninsula, and involved balancing relations with dozens of foreign countries. By 1900, in fact, the very same territory that had been “saved” by the Triple Intervention had been ceded to Russia, one of the leading interventionists.

The regional context of the Triple Intervention In 1895, Japan won a stunning victory over China in the First Sino-Japanese War. Hostilities had erupted over the accelerating instability in Korea reflected by the faltering Yi dynasty and the outbreak of massive peasant unrest. China, Korea’s suzerain, wished to minimize any interference in Korean domestic affairs, while the Japanese government concluded that only far-reaching reforms would stabilize Korea and forestall great power intervention.2 To preempt Russian dominance of Korea, expected upon completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway begun in 1891, the Japanese government decided to expel China and extend Japanese influence over Korea. When both Japan and China deployed troops on the pretext of quelling the peasant rebellion that had actually already subsided, clashes between these forces triggered formal declarations of war. In the ensuing conflict, Japan won every battle on land and sea; its troops

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occupied all of Korea, most of Manchuria, as well as the northern coastline of the Shandong Peninsula; and forces were positioned to march on Beijing from two directions to topple the enfeebled Qing dynasty. This situation forced the dynasty to the bargaining table, where its representatives ceded Taiwan, the Pescadore Islands, and the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria to Japan and agreed to cover all Japanese war expenses with a large indemnity. No foreign power had intervened during the fighting, but once China and Japan had signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, a coalition of Russia, Germany, and France threatened to intervene militarily if Japan did not return the Liaodong Peninsula. Of all the territorial gains from the war, the Japanese military and people considered this peninsula to be the prize because it alone was located on the Asian mainland and possessed the key port facilities capable of supporting a navy to block the sea approaches and to deploy an army to march on Beijing. A concession on the Liaodong Peninsula would have raised Japan to the rank of the other powers, most of whom already had large concessions in China. It would also have positioned Japan to protect its growing investments in Manchuria and Korea. On 23 April 1895, six days after the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the ministers of Russia, Germany, and France made a house call on the Japanese Foreign Ministry to offer some “friendly advice.” They recommended that Japan return the Liaodong Peninsula to China on the grounds that Japanese possession of it “would be a constant menace to the capital of China, would at the same time render illusory the independence of Korea, and would henceforth be a perpetual obstacle to the peace in the Far East.”3 Japanese diplomats understood that the three powers intended to intervene militarily if Japan did not agree.

The nature of the coalition There is disagreement over whether Germany or Russia instigated the intervention. While both had important interests at stake, Russia also made major naval deployments to East Asia and reinforced its land forces in Vladivostok, but then Russia bordered on the theater while Germany did not.4 France, meanwhile, joined mainly because of its treaty relations with Russia. Germany had been playing a game of colonial catch-up to secure colonies in a world largely already carved up by Britain, France, Holland, Spain, and Portugal before the unification and rapid rise of Germany in the final decades of the nineteenth century. To augment its minimal presence in East Asia, Germany desired basing rights. This would be the price for its assistance to China.5 There were also high hopes in Germany that, if properly encouraged, Russia might become so entangled in East Asia as to constrain it in eastern Europe. This would allow Germany to reap benefits in an area vital to its security and economic interests.6 Kaiser Wilhelm knew his cousin, Emperor Nicholas II, well. From the onset of hostilities, Wilhelm had been playing on Russia’s historical fears about Asian hordes inundating its sparsely settled Siberian frontiers. He had presented Nicholas with an enormous allegorical painting with figures

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representing all of the European powers highlighted against a backdrop of ominous storm clouds surmounted with a fiery image of Buddha. The painting bore the foreboding inscription, “The Yellow Peril,” intended to conjure the historical analogy of the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when Russia had saved Europe from the teeming peoples of the East.7 Nicholas II unwittingly followed the German script and invested ever more heavily in East Asia. The Trans-Siberian Railway consumed vast sums of scarce investment capital in an area of little economic value to Russia at the time. With or without German encouragement, Nicholas had Asian ambitions and Russia had Asian interests. At the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, Russia had even greater interests in East Asia than did Germany. Whereas Germany wanted to keep up with Joneses to snag a concession or two and trip up Russia if possible, Russia shared a long, vulnerable border with China, an area sparsely populated on the Russian side, but increasingly densely populated on the Chinese side. Japanese basing on the Asian mainland could threaten that border.8 The Russian government also saw Manchuria and Korea as potentially highly lucrative areas for future Russian investments. As Britain expanded its commercial interests in South China, Russia considered it both natural and prudent to extend Russian commercial ventures in North China. Russia had not yet determined the routing of the easternmost section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, but the most direct route ran through Manchuria, avoiding the circuitous and geographically challenging path along the northern bank of the Amur River.9 Such a Manchurian railway concession would make Russia by far the largest concession holder in China.10 This was Russia’s price for assisting China against Japan. Although Germany and Russia both had compelling reasons to intervene in China, France did not. Russia pulled France into the intervention by their prior alliance.11 French weakness relative to Germany and French revanchism concerning Alsace-Lorraine, the territory lost to Germany during the FrancoPrussian War of 1870–1, had made the Russo-French alliance the cornerstone of French security. France felt compelled to follow Russia’s lead in the Far East or jeopardize the alliance. Thus the coalition comprising the Triple Intervention lacked common interests; rather, it grew out of rivalry between Germany and Russia on the one hand, and between Germany and France on the other. Germany hoped that the intervention would ultimately weaken Russia, while France considered its participation as a down payment for future Russian cooperation against Germany. Each sought expanded basing and economic rights in China at the expense of the others. The lowest common dominator was the assessment that Japan should not be permitted to preempt them all. If Japan retained possession of the Liaodong Peninsula, its forces would permanently threaten the Chinese capital, potentially giving Japan great leverage over Chinese affairs. Given British dominance in South China, Japanese dominance in North China would foreclose colonial possibilities for Russia, Germany, and France. In contrast to Germany and France, Russia committed major military forces to the region. In late 1894, Russia began concentrating its fleet in East Asia and

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reinforcing its land forces in Vladivostok.12 In March of 1895, Russia dispatched its Mediterranean squadron to East Asia and in April it mobilized its land forces in the Russian Far East in preparation for an invasion of Manchuria.13 There had been an impressive international display of naval forces at the exchange of the Treaty of Shimonoseki at Yantai (or Chefoo) on 8 May 1895.14 Anchored in the harbor that day were nine Russian men-of-war, the flagship, two torpedogunboats, and one torpedo-boat all repainted in battle color in readiness for action. In addition, there were two warships each from Germany and Great Britain and one apiece from France, the United States, and Italy.15 While most of the powers had arrived to show the flag, the large Russian presence projected serious naval power. At the time of the treaty ratification, Russia had thirty warships in Pacific waters.16 This constituted only a part of its fleet, in contrast to the entire Japanese Fleet of less than sixty ships.17 In addition to matters of quantity, there was also the issue of quality. Some argued that the Russian ships possessed better armor, but others praised Japanese superiority in quick-firing guns.18 The coalition’s ability to pressure Japan depended primarily on naval forces, since Japan relied on its navy to reach the Asian mainland. If the interfering powers cut these sea lines of communication, Japan could not sustain forces there. Moreover, Japan had built its navy at great cost and could ill afford to lose ships in a great-power confrontation, especially since it lacked the domestic capability to replace its most modern capital ships. Russia, Germany, and France, in contrast, could replace their navies internally.

The effectiveness of the coalition It did not take the Japanese military long to conclude that its navy would be no match for the combined fleets of the three greatest European land powers. These navies could not conquer Japan, but they could cut Japan’s sea lines of communication with the Asian mainland by making the costs of Japanese force projection prohibitively expensive and dangerous. Whereas during the First Sino-Japanese War China had failed to deploy its state-of-the-art fleet to target Japanese troop transports or logistical trains and thus never attempted what might have been a war-winning strategy, the European powers could be expected to target this weak link in Japan’s ability to project power on the Asian mainland. Should Russia, Germany, and France become involved militarily, the Treaty of Shimonoseki would become a dead letter, meaning that Japan would lose not only the Liaodong Peninsula but also all of the other concessions contained in the treaty. Thereafter, it would have to renegotiate a settlement, not with the declining Qing dynasty, but with three great European powers. For these reasons, Japanese diplomats rapidly concluded that they had no choice but to back down. In exchange for their agreement to return Liaodong, China increased the original indemnity of 200 million Kuping taels by an additional thirty-million. The Russians also pressured China to withdraw its pledge not to cede the Liaodong Peninsula to any other power. The Russians correctly

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interpreted this treaty clause to be aimed at them. The Japanese conceded this point, much to their regret, because three years later Russia established a concession on the peninsula in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising.19 Although Japan bowed to the demands of the Triple Intervention, foreign interference outraged its diplomats, military, and public. The government censored the newspaper commentary on the diplomatic debacle and deployed the police to keep order in the streets.20 In other words, the intervening powers had forced Japan to give up a highly valued object very much against its will and at great domestic risk to the Japanese government, which became the focus of the visceral domestic condemnation.21 Yet the intervening coalition had achieved its objective without engaging its forces. Naval presence alone had sufficed. The coalition had employed a fleet-in-being strategy, where the existence of its fleet had been sufficient to conduct war by algebra, meaning the Japanese could do the math comparing the opposing naval forces, and conclude that prudence was the better part of valor.22 Carl von Clausewitz, the preeminent military theorist of land forces, then and now, had argued that “war by algebra” (his turn of phrase) rarely worked because national passions skewed the math.23 The math for naval forces, however, is simpler than for land forces since the numbers are smaller, the force projection capabilities are concentrated in a limited number of capital ships whose capabilities are more obvious than for large land forces, and the considerable replacement costs in money and time for capital ships make naval commanders wary of risking the fleet unless the anticipated rewards significantly outweigh the risks. Within two weeks of the initial demands made on 23 April 1895, Japan had agreed to return the Liaodong Peninsula, even though the signing of the new treaty did not take place until 8 November 1895. This was only step one. Each coalition member required a payment from China for the assistance rendered. The combined concessions demanded and received by the coalition members far exceeded the compromise extracted from Japan. Although diplomats in Britain and Japan correctly anticipated the nature of these demands,24 Chinese officials apparently did not or perhaps their anger at Japan clouded their judgment concerning the ambitions of the intervening coalition.

The cost of China’s diplomatic strategy Prior to the First Sino-Japanese War, Chinese diplomats had attempted to enlist the powers to prevent its outbreak.25 When this failed, the Chinese tried to encourage foreign intervention to bring the hostilities to a rapid close, but the European powers had no burning desire to intervene and much curiosity to watch events unfold.26 There was also a strong sense in the foreign community that Japan was giving China its just deserts for years of corrupt administration and unwillingness to reform.27 The death of the Tsar in November 1894 followed closely by the death of his long-serving foreign minister in January 1895 meant turmoil within the Russian leadership. The permanent replacement for the foreign minister, who was also quite elderly and possessed no particular

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expertise or interest in East Asia, did not take office until March 1895 on the eve of the negotiations for the Treaty of Shimonoseki.28 These personnel changes put Russian foreign policy out of action for a time. So the intervention took time to coalesce. The Japanese press had long speculated about a possible foreign intervention that would terminate the war in a manner prejudicial to Japanese interests.29 Japanese diplomats understood this strategy full well and did their best to counter it. Immediately prior to the conflict, the Japanese government took care to notify the British government that Shanghai would be outside the sphere of hostilities.30 This was a costly decision, since the main Chinese arsenal was located there and Chinese ships freely moved munitions from the port for the duration of the war.31 But Shanghai was also a key center of British commerce, which the Japanese did not want to disrupt. Upon the commencement of hostilities, the Japanese government issued instructions to the provincial leaders to prevent Japanese youths from harassing Chinese residents living under their jurisdictions.32 The Japanese government also sought to insure that its citizens in the West provoked no incidents.33 In the field, each Japanese army corps and fleet had an international legal expert to prevent infractions on the rules of war.34 Meanwhile, Britain’s decision not to participate in the Triple Intervention signaled the end of its long-standing policy of cultivating ties with the Chinese government pursued since the 1860s. For the next quarter-century, Britain would set its sights on Japan as its regional partner in East Asia.35 Before the Treaty of Shimonoseki had been ratified, there was already serious discussion in Britain of entering into an alliance with Japan.36 This would happen in 1902 with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In addition to the British perception that the Sino-Japanese War had changed the balance of power in Asia in favor of Japan, Britain had no desire to further the Asian objectives of its primary European rivals, Germany and Russia. So Britain refused to join the Triple Intervention. During the peace negotiations, China leaked the treaty drafts to the powers, again hoping they would intervene to curtail Japanese demands. The long anticipated intervention did not take place until after the signing of the treaty but before its ratification. Earlier in the year, the American minister to China had pinpointed the fatal flaw in the Chinese strategy of courting foreign interference: “To my view there is no good for China in foreign intervention. It is more likely to produce dismemberment than any action that may be taken by Japan. Unless Russia, and England, and France are more disinterested than history shows them to be they will each demand heavy compensation for any services rendered to China.”37 Events bore him out. Before the return of the Liaodong Peninsula in December 1895, the coalition members acted quickly to collect the initial installments of their compensation from China. France, the least enthusiastic participant in the Triple Intervention, was the first to cash in.38 In June of 1895, it secured an agreement expanding the French sphere of influence in northern Vietnam to encompass the three neighboring Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guangxi, and Guangdong.39 In October of

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1895, Germany then acquired two small concessions, one in Hankou on the Yangzi River and the other on the coast at Tianjin. Russia was the last member of the Triple Intervention to begin collecting on its services rendered. In March of 1895, before the peace terms were known or the Triple Intervention contemplated, there was already talk in Russia of running the final link of the Trans-Siberian Railway directly through Manchuria for a straight shot from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok.40 The Chinese were not enthusiastic about the idea and did their best to stall, but they were diplomatically isolated. Britain had abandoned China for Japan, while China had rejected Japan as the counterbalance to Russia. That left China at the mercy of the demands of the Triple Intervention. In June of 1896, after numerous Russian threats and ultimatums, China signed a secret treaty of alliance whereby Russia agreed to protect China from Japan in return for a huge railway concession in Manchuria to complete the Trans-Siberian Railway. The railway would be built according to Russian not Chinese track-gauge specifications meaning the new line would be integrated into the Russian and not the Chinese railway system.41 The concession cut through the heart of Manchuria along the hypotenuse of the triangle created by the big northward arc of the Amur River and comprised over 1,000 miles of track. The future Russian minister to Japan expressed satisfaction at the arrangement: “Adequate compensation for our successful intervention . . . was found in the grant by China of the right of way through Northern Manchuria to our TransSiberian Railway.”42 From 1896 to 1898, France collected additional installments of China’s payment for the services rendered by the Triple Intervention. In March of 1896, a French company acquired a railway concession to run from northern Vietnam to Guangxi and in the following year France secured a non-alienation agreement for Hainan, the enormous island located off the shores of Guangdong Province. In 1898, it secured a lease for Guangzhou Bay, Guangdong; a railway concession from northern Vietnam to Yunnan; and a Chinese guarantee not to alienate Guangdong, Guangxi, or Yunnan to another power. In other words, France secured a sphere of influence in three out of the eighteen core provinces of China.43 France retained this sphere of influence until world war in the 1930s overturned the balance of power in Europe and Asia. Germany also sought further repayment. In November of 1897, Germany finally managed to snag a major concession, when China signed an agreement making Germany the preeminent foreign power in Shandong Province and including the excellent harbor at Jiaozhou Bay with its port city of Qingdao. In March 1898, Germany acquired other railway and mining concessions in Shandong that it retained until its defeat in World War I, when Japan oversaw their return to China.44 In March of 1898, just as Germany was rounding out its sphere of influence in Shandong, Russia acquired a twenty-five-year lease for the Liaodong Peninsula, the very foreign concession that China had entered into an alliance with Russia in 1896 to protect. Russia also added a railway concession to connect the

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Liaodong Peninsula’s warm-water ports of Dalian and Port Arthur to the Manchurian railway system at Harbin, in the heart of the region. The Manchurian railway concessions made Russia by far the largest concession holder in China. A distant second was France, with the 289-mile-long Yunnan Railway.45 Contrary to the general impression that Great Britain was the most voracious imperialist in China, in terms of territory, without question, that honor belonged to Russia. Thus, the 1896 Russo-Chinese agreement did not turn out to be much of an alliance. Within two years, the Russian occupation of Liaodong had undermined the rationale for its creation; Russia did not return the last of these concessions to China until 1955, long after the Western powers had been forced out of the country. Pressed by the actions of the other powers, Great Britain belatedly joined the scramble for concessions in 1897 when it secured adjustments from China to conventions related to Burma and Tibet.46 When Russia took the Liaodong Peninsula on the northern shores of the Bo Hai, the gulf providing the naval approaches to Beijing, Britain responded in kind. In February 1898, China agreed not to alienate territory on the Yangzi River; in May of 1898, Britain acquired the Shanghai–Nanjing railway concession; in June of 1898, it negotiated a ninety-nine-year lease of the New Territories to the north of Hong Kong beyond Kowloon; and it also gained mining agreements for Shanxi, Henan, and Sichuan Provinces. Finally, in October of 1898, Britain took Weihaiwei on the southern shores of the Bo Hai and made its lease coterminous with the Russian lease for the Liaodong Peninsula. Thus, Russia and Britain, not Japan, controlled the sea approaches to the capital. Britain did not relinquish its last concessions to China until 1943, when the vicissitudes of world war made Chinese cooperation more valuable to the West. Japan, whose military victory had made possible this post-war feeding frenzy, was the last to demand a slice of China proper. In 1898 it acquired a nonalienation agreement for Fujian, the mainland province opposite Taiwan, and a concession in Shashi, Hubei on the Yangzi River.47 This had been one of the cities that Japan had included in its original demands during the negotiations at Shimonoseki but had subsequently deleted.

Conclusions In Chinese history books, the period between 1895 and 1899 is known as the scramble for concessions. The Chinese decision to initiate the Triple Intervention sparked this scramble. Had Beijing accepted Tokyo’s domination of the Liaodong Peninsula per the original terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan could have counterbalanced Russia more effectively than China proved capable of doing by itself. This might have spared China the Russo-Japanese War that would soon be fought on its territory, and perhaps the scramble for concessions as well. While the intervention of the tripartite naval coalition proved highly advantageous to the coalition members, and to many other non-intervening powers as

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well, the scramble for concessions undermined Chinese sovereignty throughout the country. In seeking foreign intervention, Chinese diplomats seemed to have only thought in terms of the asymmetry in power between the three coalition members and the rising power of Japan. They clearly hoped to leverage this asymmetry to China’s advantage. Apparently, Beijing did not turn the equation around, to note the even greater asymmetry between China and the continental European powers. If China had difficulty dealing with Japan, why would managing the greatest powers of Europe, let alone doing so simultaneously, be any easier? The Treaty of Shimonoseki was a known and fixed quantity. The ultimate demands of the Triple Intervention members were not. Instead of ceding a peninsula, China ended up ceding entire provinces, a situation that led directly to the outbreak of the Boxer Uprising in 1900.

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College. 2 Vladimir [Zenone Volpicelli], The China-Japan War Compiled from Japanese, Chinese, and Foreign Sources (Kansas City, MO: Franklin Hudson Publishing, 1905), 228–31; Mutsu Munemitsu, Kenkenryoku: A Diplomatic Record of the SinoJapanese War, 1894–95, Gordon Mark Berger, trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 22–6; “The Situation in Korea,” The Times (London), 27 June 1894, 5; “The Rising in Korea,” The Times (London), 28 June 1894, 5. 3 The oral memorandum presented by the Russian minister and cited in Mutsu, 203; Frank W. Iklé, “The Triple Intervention: Japan’s Lesson in the Diplomacy of Imperialism,” Monumenta Nipponica 22, no. 1–2 (1967): 125. 4 Iklé, 122–30; Minge C. Bee, “Origins of German Far Eastern Policy,” The Chinese Social and Political Science Review 21 (1937–8): 76; Harold Perry Ford, “Russian Far Eastern Diplomacy, Count Witte and the Penetration of China, 1895–1904,” (Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago, 1950), 110–18. 5 Bee, 89. 6 Iklé, 124. 7 Ian Littlewood, The Idea of Japan: Western Images, Western Myths (London: Secker & Warburg, 1996), 27–8, 209. 8 In the ensuing Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), not only did Russia lose to Japan on the plains of Manchuria, but the military assets and terrible costs of that war meant the expended resources would not be available for the European theater. This weakened Russian defenses in the West as events hurtled toward World War I. William C. Fuller, Jr, Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914 (NY: Free Press, 1992), 394–465. 9 A.L. Popov and S.R. Dimant, “Pervye shagi imperializma na Dal’nem Vostoke (1888–1903)” (The First Steps of Russian Imperialism in the Far East [1888–1903]) Krasnyi arkhiv (Red Archive) 52 (1932) 92, 96. 10 S.C.M. Paine, Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 187. 11 Iklé, 122–30; Bee, 76. 12 For a list of Russian warships in Far Eastern waters, see “The Japanese and Russian Men-of-War,” The North-China Herald (Shanghai), 24 May 1895, 795; Mutsu, 205, 222.

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13 Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, vol. 3 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1918), 47; George Alexander Lensen, Balance of Intrigue: International Rivalry in Korea & Manchuria, 1884–1899. 2 volumes (Tallahassee, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1982, vol. 1, 323. 14 “The Exchange of Ratifications at Chefoo,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 25 May 1895, 580. 15 Warrington Eastlake and Yoshi-aki Yamada, Heroic Japan: A History of the War between China & Japan (1897, reprint; Washington: University Publications of America, 1979), 525; John Watson Foster, Diplomatic Memoirs, vol. 2 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909), 151. 16 Lensen, vol. 1, 321. 17 David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie, Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 39. 18 “The Japanese and Russian Men-of-War,” North-China Herald (Shanghai) 24 May 1895, 795. 19 For a text of the agreement, see John V.A. MacMurray, comp., Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning China 1894–1919, vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1921), 50–3, 119–22, or “Convention between China and Japan for the Retrocession of Liao-tung,” The Peking and Tientsin Times, 23 November 1895, 358. 20 “The Spirit of the Vernacular Press during the Week,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 18 May 1895, 550; The Vernacular Press on the Treaty of Peace,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 18 May 1895, 555. 21 “The Vernacular Press on the Treaty of Peace,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 25 May 1895, 574; Tadasu Hayashi, The Secret Memoirs of Count Tadasu Hayashi, A.M. Pooley, ed. (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915), 57. 22 Lensen, vol. 1, pp. 309–10. 23 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds (Princeton University Press, 1976), 76. 24 Lensen, vol. 1, 280–1, 321. 25 Bonnie Bongwan Oh, “The Background of Chinese Foreign Policy Formation in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895”(Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago, 1974), 326–7, 410, 444–75, 484–5; Robert K. Douglas, Li Hungchang (New York: Frederick Warne, 1895?), 206; Alexander Michie, The Englishman in China during the Victorian Era, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1900), 408; Hart to Campbell, 15 July 1894, in John K. Fairbank et al., The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart Chinese Maritime Customs 1868–1907, vol. 2, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 976. For biographical information on Hart, see Hugh B. O’Neill, Companion to Chinese History (NY: Facts on File Publications, 1987), 113–14. 26 Morinosuke Kajima, Diplomacy of Japan 1894–1922, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kajima Institute of International Peace, 1976), 135–51; “China and Japan,” The Times (London), 9 January 1895, 4. 27 “The Situation,” The North-China Herald (Shanghai), 13 July 1894, 51–2; Hart to Campbell, 26 August 1894, in Fairbank et al., The I. G. in Peking, 984. 28 “The Whisper of the Throne,” The Pall Mall Gazette (London), 28 January 1895, 4th edn, 1; “Death of M. de Giers,” The Pall Mall Gazette (London), 28 January 1895, 4th edn, 7; Paine, 249; Andrew Malozemoff, Russian Far Eastern Policy 1881–1904 with Special Emphasis on the Causes of the Russo-Japanese War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 58–9; Roman Romanovich Rosen (Rozen), Forty Years of Diplomacy, vol. 1 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1922), 134; Lensen, vol. 1, 492. 29 “The Spirit of the Vernacular Press during the Week,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 17 November 1894, 554; “Shina bunkatsu ron” (Discussion Concerning the Partition of China), Nihonjin (The Japanese) (Tokyo), 25 December 1894, 5;

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36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

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“Kyou dareka sensou o hosshi dareka heiwa o hossuru ya” (Now Who Wants War and Who Wants Peace?), Nihonjin (The Japanese) (Tokyo), 3 February 1895, 7; “Rokoku no kanshou koran” (Russian Intervention Coming), Koku,min shinbun (People’s Newspaper) (Tokyo), 18 April 1895, 2; citing Kokumin “Count Okuma Interviews,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 26 January 1895, 88. “Shanghai to Be Respected,” The North-China Herald (Shanghai), 27 July 1894, 131. Morse, vol. 3, 31. “Summary of the News,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 4 August 1894, 117; “Yokohama News,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 4 August 1894, 121; “Mutual Protection,” The Japan Weekly Mail (Yokohama), 4 August 1894, 122. “Japanese in This Country,” New York Times, 9 August 1894, 5. William Elliot Griffis, Corea: The Hermit Nation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1911), 477. Paul Baker Remmey, “British Diplomacy in the Far East, 1892–1898” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1964), 86; “England’s Position before and after the War,” The Times (London), 24 September 1895, 3; George Alexander Lensen, Balance of Intrigue: International Rivalry in Korean & Manchuria, 1884–1899, vol. 1 (Tallahassee: University of Florida Press, 1982), 277–80. “An Anglo-Japanese Alliance,” The North-China Herald (Shanghai), 3 May 1895, 645. Cited in Payson J. Treat, Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Japan, vol. 2 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1932), 525. For texts of these and all of the other concession agreements, see MacMurray, vol. 1. John K. Fairbank, Edwin O. Reischauer, and Albert M. Craig, Far East: Tradition and Transformation, rev. edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 605. “The War in the East,” The Times (London), 16 March 1895, 7; “Corea and Russia,” The North-China Herald (Shanghai), 6 December 1895, 933. Lensen, vol. 2, 503–5. For a copy of the agreement, see E.D. Grimm, Sbornik dogovorov i drugikh dokumentov po istorii mezhdunarodnykh otnoshenii na Dal’nem Vostoke (1843–1925) (Collection of Treaties and Other Documents on the History of International Relations in the Far East [1842–1925]) (Moscow: Izdanie Instituta Vostokovedeniia, 1927), 105–6; MacMurray, vol. 1, 81–2, 74–7. Rosen, 139. Fairbank et al., East Asia, 603–6. Bruce A. Elleman, Wilson and China: A Revised History of the Shandong Question (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2002). Paine, Imperial Rivals, 186–94. Sung-ping Kuo, “Chinese Reaction to Foreign Encroachment with Special Reference to the First Sino-Japanese War and Its Immediate Aftermath” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1953), 181–5. Kuo, 206.

8

“Dash to Peking” The international naval coalition during the Boxer Uprising in 1900 T.G. Otte

Late nineteenth-century naval pundits, schooled in contemporary “command-ofthe-sea” doctrines, were wont to complain that the “Navy was never called upon to perform its function of defence upon its proper element;” but that, on the contrary, naval deployments took chiefly the form of naval brigades operating on shore.1 There was some truth in this statement. But it was also something of an oversimplification, as the naval operations at sea and on land in northern China in 1900 demonstrated. The Boxer Uprising has never ceased to fascinate Western audiences. As an early form of a “clash of civilizations” it has provided fertile soil for historians of modern China. And with its G.A. Henty-esque flavor, the story of the besieged foreign legations has enjoyed an enduring popularity with a wider public.2 Yet, while military historians have tended to focus on the siege, the Boxer crisis offers an opportunity also to study the only instance of Great Power naval cooperation during a conflict between the Second Opium War and World War I. The operations in northern China in 1900 were also the last exercise of traditional gunboat coercion in the Far East.

The origin of the Boxers The Boxers – the Western name for the Yi He Quan or “Fists of Righteous Harmony” – were part of a proto-nationalist backlash against the growing encroachment by the Europeans and Japanese on China during the previous halfdecade. The movement, one of a myriad of secret societies that flourished in provincial China, began in the rural isolation of the northwestern parts of Shandong province in 1899. It fed on a series of long-standing rural discontents. A prolonged drought and the subsequent harvest failures exacerbated festering tensions with Chinese Christian converts and foreign missionaries. Such grievances galvanized popular resistance against the disruption of traditional rural society caused by the perceived foreign political, commercial, and missionary interference. The Boxers’ belief system, rooted in popular superstitions and centered upon “spirit boxing” – pugilistic invulnerability rituals that would allow the initiated

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to deflect bullets and even to fly – gave the movement its charismatic appeal. Banners, placards, pamphlets, and rumors disseminated its propaganda. Initially anti-Manchu as much as anti-foreign, the die-hard clique of officials around the Empress Dowager Cixi came to patronize the growing movement so as to focus popular anger against the presence of foreigners. Combined, the force of popular xenophobia and elite opportunism created the dynamic that erupted in the international crisis of 1900.3 Clandestine court patronage of the Boxers and the movement’s nature presented the Powers with complex diplomatic and military problems. Initially, the reaction of the foreign representatives at Beijing to the Boxer phenomenon was slow. Guided by vague assumptions about its chiefly anti-missionary objectives, they tended to regard it as merely the latest manifestation of sporadically erupting peasant unrest, seemingly so endemic in rural China and almost always localized. The envoys also reasoned that, as in the past, Chinese provincial and central authorities would seek to suppress the disturbances. The gathering momentum of the Boxer movement, ostentatiously unchecked by Chinese officials, indeed secretly aided by them, eventually undermined the faith of the foreign representatives in the Beijing government. By March 1900, their remonstrances had failed to move the Chinese authorities to take steps for the suppression of Boxer activities. In response to official prolixity, the foreign diplomats increased pressure by threatening to “adopt other measures for the protection of the lives and the property of their nationals.”4 To underline their resolve, they initiated a combined demonstration of foreign naval vessels off the Dagu forts, which guarded access to Tianjin, the river port of the Chinese capital.5 The assembled warships could neither stop the Boxers nor did they make much of an impression on the Beijing court, where the proBoxer faction gained in strength. In May, Boxer disturbances had spread across much of Shandong, and spilled into the metropolitan province of Zhili. Their rapid advance now dictated the course of events. On 29 May, Boxer formations destroyed Fengtai station, less than a mile from Beijing, and so disrupted the rail-link between the capital and the sea. Two days later, four Belgian and French railway engineers were killed and several others injured in a fight with bands of armed Chinese some 20 miles from Tianjin. Anticipating an onslaught on the capital, on the previous day the foreign representatives had summoned the legation guards from Tianjin: “Without doubt it is now a question of European life and property being in danger here.”6 In a last minute effort, a mixed contingent of 337 British, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and United States marines and bluejackets arrived in Beijing on 3 June.7 Without them, the seven weeks’ siege of the legations, which began on 21 June, might well have had a different outcome. In assembling a naval force in northern Chinese waters and then calling up the legation guards, the representatives of the Powers reverted to traditional methods of using gunboats, combined with small amphibious assaults, as the principal means of coercing the Chinese. Under the specific circumstances of the summer of 1900, it was a defensive variant of gunboat diplomacy. A further

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variation was introduced by the use of the railways for transporting the guards to Beijing. This added piquancy to the situation, for railways were one of the causes of the revolt; now they were the chief instrument of meeting the Boxer challenge.

Forming the foreign coalition The dispatch of the Tianjin guards to the capital had a number of implications. Historians of the Boxer Uprising have rightly identified this as crucial in escalating the final crisis. Not only did the foreign action allow the pro-Boxer faction to gain the upper hand in the internal power struggle at the Imperial court, it also made further coercive measures necessary, and so contributed to the Chinese declaration of war on 21 June.8 Furthermore, the calling up of the guards and the continued presence of foreign men-of-war off Dagu identified the two main geographical locations of military activity. Initially, the naval vessels in northern Chinese waters were the backbone of the foreign military presence. The assembled force was very much a loose coalition. Formed at the request of the foreign envoys from American, AustroHungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Russian vessels available in East Asian waters, it had no clear command structure. A “Council of Admirals,” comprised of the most senior naval officer of each national contingent, was the supreme decision-making body, presided over by the most senior flag officer afloat. The meetings of the council were held on an ad hoc basis; and, on the whole, this consensual method worked well. Indeed, it would serve as the model for the later allied administrations of the occupied parts of northern China.9 Nevertheless, the absence of a clear chain of command meant that the allied coalition depended for its functioning upon the goodwill of its members. The strength of the Royal Navy’s China Station gave Britain a preponderance of influence in the naval coalition. Its commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Seymour, presided over the Council of Admirals. The squadron in East Asian waters, the main strategic arm of British power in the region, had sufficient strength in numbers and a range of different types of vessels to give Britain the edge over the other foreign Powers.10 Despite various other commitments at Hong Kong, on the Yangzi, or on anti-pirate patrols on the West River, Seymour was able to concentrate his forces on China Station in the Gulf of Zhili. He could also draw on manpower resources and logistical support from India and Australia.11 Such was the reputation of the Royal Navy that the commanding officer of the Austro-Hungarian cruiser S.M.S. Zenta, whose captain had been caught up in the events at Beijing, placed his ship under Seymour’s command. Indeed, during the operations on shore, Habsburg and Italian marines usually preferred to be attached to the British contingent.12 There were, however, problems within the coalition. British naval strength notwithstanding, Britain did not dominate the international forces assembled in Chinese waters. The simultaneous occurrence of two military conflicts in the periphery of the Empire, in South Africa and in China, constrained Britain’s ability

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to act decisively. The financial, military, and logistical overstretch, caused by this double crisis, was perhaps more apparent than real. Certainly in the short term it did not hamper the operations by Seymour and Sir Alfred Gaselee, the Indian Army general dispatched to the crisis region. But the limited number of troops available for service in China did restrict Britain’s ability to influence events after the successful relief of Beijing. The perceived imperial overstretch, moreover, affected especially key decision-makers in the British cabinet, and exacerbated ideological fissures within the government. As a result, there was an element of confusion at the heart of British policy; it lacked clear strategic guidance.13 A further constraint lay in the particular nature of the threat posed by the Boxers. In both quantitative and qualitative terms, Britain’s China squadron enjoyed effective command of the sea. This was sufficient to deter intervention by potential Great Power adversaries against British interests in the region.14 Against a rural guerilla force, however, driven by an essentially pre-modern ideology and sponsored by court officials who feared for the survival of the Manchu dynasty, its deterrent value was negligible. Finally, the urgency of the humanitarian crisis in the Chinese capital barely concealed the underlying tensions within the international coalition, especially between Britain and the Franco-Russian combination. Already in March, when the foreign representatives had decided on naval demonstrations off Dagu, Britain’s Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, the Marquis of Salisbury, feared that “[o]ne of the demonstrating Powers will take the opportunity of appropriating something nice, & we with our entanglements in South Africa will have to grin and look pleasant.”15 The Admiralty was equally reluctant to involve British vessels in the demonstration. The First Sea Lord, Lord Walter Kerr, insisted that Britain should intervene only in extremis to protect British lives and property.16 Seymour himself, who had twice been posted to China, was reluctant to adopt coercive measures: “The general history of our dealings with China has been that we have forced ourselves upon them and into their country. I believe we are too apt to forget this.”17 Consular pressure for active steps met with a cautious response from Seymour: “I would send a ship . . . to protect lives of Europeans . . ., but . . . was unable to give protection to property.”18 The contemporary observations by Lieutenant Roger Keyes, then commander of HMS Fame, reflect both the sense of constraints placed upon British power and the strong undercurrent of suspicions of Russia: “it is obviously impossible for a handful of seamen and Marines from the ships to make war on China, however bad its army may be, whereas the Russians could pour troops in within a few days if they wished.”19 Ultimately, it was that handful of bluejackets and marines that had to undertake the impossible.

Military operations against Beijing However reluctant Seymour might have been to resort to force, the course of events dictated his actions. The military campaign in the summer of 1900

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properly consisted of three separate, occasionally overlapping operations: Seymour’s failed relief expedition (10–26 June); the seizure of the Dagu Forts and the capture of Tianjin (17 June–14 July); and the relief of Beijing (14 July–14 August). In light of the deteriorating situation, the Council of Admirals met daily from 4 June onwards “to discuss the situation and arrange for mutual action.” On 6 June, the senior naval officers decided “that in case communication with Peking became cut off it should be reopened, using whatever force was necessary.”20 Seymour ordered two further Royal Navy vessels to rendezvous with the international flotilla off Dagu, and requested troop reinforcements from Hong Kong. Three days later, shortly before midnight on 9 June, the Admiral received a telegram from the British minister, Major Sir Claude MacDonald: “Unless arrangements are made for an immediate advance on Peking it will be too late.”21 The minister’s urgent request hardened Seymour’s attitude. Such was his standing among coalition naval commanders that they fell in with his decision immediately to dispatch a relief column to Beijing under his personal command. A naval brigade of 2,066 marines and sailors, drawn from eight different national contingents, equipped with seven guns and 12 machine-guns, was swiftly assembled at Tianjin on 10 June, and left for Beijing over the next two days in four separate trains.22 Some scholars have criticized Seymour’s relief operation as questionable since MacDonald had only requested a further reinforcement of the legation guards. One revisionist historian has even argued that the expedition amounted to an invasion of Chinese sovereign territory, and so constituted a legitimate casus belli for the Chinese.23 This argument seems somewhat overdrawn, especially in light of the Beijing government’s refusal to guarantee the safety of the foreign diplomats in the capital. This meant that the Chinese authorities were in breach of their international obligations. The legal status of the Beijing legation quarter, moreover, gave the Powers the right to maintain a military presence there.24 Undoubtedly, though, Seymour’s expedition helped to escalate the crisis. The Admiral set off on what he anticipated to be a four hours’ journey to cover the 80 miles between Tianjin and Beijing. The troops carried provisions for two days – the officers even brought their full-dress uniforms – but the relief force had very little spare ammunition. A hawkish headline in the Army and Navy Gazette proclaimed the operation to be a “Dash to Peking.”25 The reality was more prosaic. Seymour’s expedition, in fact, came close to being annihilated. The Admiral’s progress was slow. Repeated Boxer skirmishes were easily repulsed. More serious was the sabotaged state of the railway line. All four of Seymour’s trains reached Langfang station, roughly halfway between Tianjin and Beijing, on 11 June.26 Further advance was impossible. The track ahead had been torn up. Repairs were quickly reversed by the Boxers as soon as Allied troops withdrew. By 16 June, communications with Tianjin had also been cut following the destruction of the railway bridge across the Beihe River. With

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ammunition and supplies running low, Seymour’s position became perilous. The turning point came in the afternoon of 18 June, when regular Chinese infantry and cavalry joined Boxer attacks on the Allied forces.27 Although the attack was eventually repulsed, at the cost of six Allied lives and 48 wounded, the battle of Langfang marked the end of Seymour’s relief expedition. It had always been predicated on the assumption that the Boxers, though fanatical, were too ill-disciplined and ill-equipped to resist its advance. Ultimate success, however, depended on Imperial Chinese troops remaining neutral. Drilled along European lines and equipped with modern weapons, their intervention in the fighting tipped the scales against Seymour’s force. On 19 June, the relief column deserted the trains and abandoned a number of its guns and other heavy equipment, and retreated south towards Tianjin along the left bank of the Beihe. The low-lying, marshy Beihe valley, with its many waterways and lakes, swollen by recent rainfalls, impeded the retreating force. Harassed by enemy sniper fire, it was slowed down further by the unwieldy river junks commandeered to transport the wounded and heavy equipment. Seymour’s column also encountered the moral and tactical dilemmas of later twentiethcentury guerilla warfare. As Boxer bands repeatedly fired from villages along the route, the Admiral had to disperse his depleted resources on raiding and burning down settlements “as a matter of military necessity,” regardless of whether the inhabitants had supported the insurgents. Stubborn Chinese resistance and increased firepower brought Seymour’s force to a halt on 21 June. Low on food and water, and short of ammunition, the Allies had by now lost all their guns with the exception of the machine-guns. By chance, the force arrived opposite a Chinese armory at Xigu, which was taken on 22 June, albeit with considerable losses, and then defended against a Chinese attempt to retake it. With supplies of food, arms, and ammunition replenished, “[c]onditions and prospects were now somewhat better than they had been,” as Seymour noted drily. But as provisions were calculated to last for only three days at half rations, the situation remained precarious. The growing number of wounded, which had swollen to 230, moreover, made it impossible to continue the retreat toward Tianjin. It was the commencement of military operations there that ultimately rescued Seymour’s expedition. Aided by a relief column from Tianjin, the Admiral was able to evacuate the arsenal on 26 June. The capture of the Xigu armory was something of a consolation prize, since in its “primary objective,” as Seymour conceded, his expedition “ha[d] failed.”28

Storming the Dagu forts Following Seymour’s departure from Tianjin on 10 June, the situation in the port city steadily deteriorated. Chinese traders withdrew from the international settlement, and threatening crowds began to gather at the train station to obstruct work there. From 14 June, repeated sabotage of the railway line made it impossible to operate trains in and out of Tianjin. By now communications with the

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Admiral’s column had been cut, while what little news trickled out of Beijing was grave.29 On 15 June, the British consul-general at Tianjin, William Richard Carles, wired that the Chinese authorities were concentrating regular troops around Dagu and Tianjin. Fearing the imminent disruption of communications between Tianjin and coalition vessels off Dagu, the Council of Admirals now presided over by the Russian Admiral Yakov Appolonovich Hiltebrandt, decided immediately to secure Tonggu, the terminus of the Tianjin railway line, some three miles upriver from Dagu.30 On the night of 15 June, naval reconnaissance reported that the Chinese were mining the Beihe estuary, the Dagu forts were being provisioned, and reinforcements had arrived at the South Fort. On receipt of this latest intelligence, the admirals hardened their stance. They addressed an ultimatum to the Chinese commandant of the forts, requiring him to hand them over to the Allies by 0200 on 17 June.31 Dagu had been a flashpoint in Sino-Western relations before, most notably in 1859–60 during the Second Opium War. Some 34 miles downstream from Tianjin, the Beihe wound its way between mudbanks into the Gulf of Zhili here. The battlezone at Dagu covered the final three-mile stretch of the river during which it went through a double-bend before flowing into the sea. Without control of Dagu, the increasingly beleaguered international settlement at Tianjin could not be supported, nor would a relief operation on Beijing have been possible. The foreign vessels assembled in the Gulf of Zhili were an impressive sight. But the 25 larger ships, among them the British 14,200-ton first class cruiser HMS Terrible, the 10,500-ton first class battleships HMS Barfleur and Centurion, Russia’s 12,130-ton armored cruiser Rossiia, and the recently launched French 8,114-ton first class cruiser D’Entrecasteaux, could not negotiate the estuary shoals, which were protected by mines and a boom. While the larger men-of-war were anchored ten miles out, the attack on the forts had to be carried out by nine smaller gunboats and sloops, which had already passed the Dagu bar and steamed upriver.32 After the almost complete annihilation of the Chinese navy in the 1894–95 war with Japan, the Chinese were poorly equipped to resist the Allied vessels off Dagu. Most Chinese ships had, in fact, been withdrawn from northern waters, with the exception of four torpedo-boat destroyers, moored at the Dagu naval yard, about a mile upstream from the forts.33 Chinese weakness at sea notwithstanding, the forts at the entrance of the Beihe were a formidable obstacle. The two northern forts, about a third of a mile apart, but connected through a curtain wall, mounted 80 guns, with smaller guns mounted on the parapet of the covered way. The fortifications on the south bank stretched along the seashore for about a mile, and were equipped with 120 guns. All the forts had been modernized, and consisted of large-scale earthworks with concrete galleries and redoubts. The artillery was modern, and of British and German make. The garrison of the forts was reckoned to be some 3,000 regular Chinese infantry.34

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On 17 June, an hour before the ultimatum expired, the forts on the north side opened fire on the British sloop HMS Algerine, berthed at the head of a line of six foreign gunboats on the inside of the final bend of the river. The British vessel replied immediately, while the two French and German gunboats Lion and SMS Iltis steamed downriver and came into action. While these three vessels dealt principally with the forts on the northside, the three Russian gunvessels Bobr, Kore’ets, and Gilyak engaged the South Fort.35 As the six downstream gunboats shelled the estuary forts, the Japanese vessel Atago and USS Monocacy, a Civil War era paddle sloop with very limited firepower, remained upstream to cover the train station at Tonggu and to assist the Austrian, German, Japanese, and Russian landing parties that had been disembarked there earlier in the day and were to make their way to the forts once the bombardment had commenced.36 At the same time, in a preplanned “cutting out” maneuver, the two British torpedo-boat destroyers HMS Fame and Whiting, each towing a whaler with a 12-men boarding party, sheered in between the four Hai Lung-class destroyers at the Dagu naval yard and boarded them. After a brief exchange of fire the Chinese crews were driven overboard or below hatches. The prize was then moved upstream and berthed at Tonggu. On the following day, the vessels were turned over to the British, French, German, and Russian navies, each renamed Taku in the Wade–Giles transliteration system for Dagu.37 On the Chinese opening fire, the Tonggu landing parties set off to rendezvous with an Anglo-Italian force from HMS Algerine. Commander Christopher Cradock of Algerine then took command of the entire 904-men strong force, and moved it into position in skirmishing order opposite the North West Fort. The shelling of the forts had continued intermittently, the moonless night and artillery smoke impeding well-directed fire. Once dawn broke, the vessels reopened fire, with Iltis and Algerine in the vanguard. By 0430 the guns of the North West Fort had been silenced, and Cradock’s party seized it before assaulting the North Fort, which offered little resistance.38 After the operations on the north bank had commenced, the Allied gunboats, with Iltis and Algerine again in the lead, engaged the southern forts. The artillery fire from South Fort was extremely heavy, but increasingly ill-directed. At 0655 a shell from Algerine blew up one of its magazines. At the same time, British and German gunners were able to turn one of the guns of the captured North Fort on the still active Chinese artillery on the opposite bank of the river. This eventually broke Chinese resistance. The naval brigades crossed the river and took the southern forts without opposition by 0710.39 Their naval superiority notwithstanding, the success of the Allied forces was by no means preordained. Low Chinese morale and a lack of trained gunners eventually gave the Allies the edge. Some of the Chinese artillery had been carefully laid against the larger men-of-war out at sea, and were never retrained on the smaller gunboats on the river. The variety of ordnance also led the inexperienced Chinese gunners to mix up shells in the heat of battle. Allied losses were nevertheless substantial. Iltis, which had played such a prominent part during the

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entire action, suffered several hits and, her bridge and upper deck having been blown away, had to be beached. The Russian Gilyak, whose search-beam had attracted enemy fire, was immobilized and, following the explosion of one of her smaller magazines, took on water. Allied casualties afloat were significantly higher than those reported by the landing parties.40 The capture of the Dagu forts was the pivotal event of the Boxer crisis. In the short term, it acted as a catalyst escalating the Sino-Western stand-off. The opening of hostilities at Dagu finally tilted the internal balance of power at the Imperial court in favor of the anti-foreign conservatives, and so contributed to Beijing’s decision to declare war on the Powers on 21 June.41 The seizure of the forts, however, also opened the way for a solution of the crisis. Once the Beihe estuary was under Allied control, international troops and supplies poured into northern China. On 23 June, a mixed force from Dagu relieved the besieged international settlement at Tianjin, which had been held since 14 June by a 2,536-strong international garrison under Captain E.H. Bayly of HMS Aurora. Coincidentally, the relief of Tianjin also allowed for Seymour’s rescue from Xigu on 26 June.42 Fighting nevertheless continued at Tianjin until 14 July, when the Native City, controlled until then by well-equipped and disciplined Chinese regular troops and Boxers, was captured by the Allies.43 Naval brigades played some part in the fighting around Tianjin, but the international relief operation became increasingly a military campaign. By 10 July, some 21,000 troops had been landed at Dagu, now the hinge of allied logistical operations. Following the defeat of the Boxer forces at Tianjin, this allied army set off for Beijing on 4 August, relieving the legations ten days later.44

Conclusions The naval coalition against China in 1900 was brought together by a collective sense of threat to foreign interests and of an impending humanitarian crisis at Beijing. It achieved its immediate objective, the relief of the besieged legations, albeit after considerable delay and with great difficulty. The coalition also succeeded in its secondary objective, defeating the Boxers and politically neutralizing the anti-foreign elements at the Manchu court. Against these achievements it has to be borne in mind that the assembled naval force was an ad hoc defensive measure, organized by the commanding officers on the spot to meet a specific and ultimately localized contingency. Beyond that, the coalition pursued no overarching strategic objective. Allied command of the sea was the precondition for the success of the relief operations on shore. Although this vindicated contemporary navalist doctrines, in the longer term the China operations of 1900 marked a turning-point. Cooperation among the eight foreign Powers disguised, but could not resolve, the profound antagonisms of Britain and Russia, and Japan and Russia. Conversely, the campaign reinforced notions of a commonality of Anglo-Japanese interests in the region. China in 1900 was the first time that British and Japanese naval forces had cooperated. To an extent, the seeds of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese

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alliance were sown in northern China in the summer of 1900.45 Meanwhile, for the British navy especially, the China operation of 1900 was a morale boost, in particular when compared with the Army’s poor performance in South Africa.46 Beyond 1900, the difficulties attending the China relief operations, the scale of the anticipated campaigns in a similar future eventuality, and the rising costs of naval technology led to a search for alternatives. Gunboats and naval brigades were no longer sufficient to protect foreign interests in China. It was a trend that was accelerated five years later by Russia’s defeat at the hands of Japan.47 But the events of 1900 were also a watershed for China herself, undermining the legitimacy of the Manchu dynasty and reinforcing elite apprehensions of popular involvement in politics.48

Notes 1 C.N. Robinson, “The Operations of Our Naval Forces on Shore, 1900–1901,” J. Leyland (ed.), The Naval Annual 1901 (Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co., 1901), 187. 2 Peter Fleming, The Siege at Peking (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, repr. 1959), 70; Henty was a popular nineteenth-century author of historical adventure stories. 3 The best analyses of the Boxer Uprising are J.A. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987) and P.A. Cohen, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); also S.C.M. Paine, The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Perceptions, Power and Primacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 295–314. 4 Tel. d’Anthouard to Delcassé (no. 33), 11 Mar. 1900, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (ed.), Documents Diplomatiques Français (1871–1914), 1st ser., vol. xiv (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1949), no. 99. 5 Bertie to Admiralty, 24 Mar. 1900, The National Archive (Public Record Office), Kew, ADM 116/116; and tel. Salisbury to MacDonald (no. 37), 25 Mar. 1900, FO 17/1419. 6 Tels. MacDonald to Salisbury (nos. 83 and 85), 29 and 30 May 1900, FO 17/1418; V. Purcell, The Boxer Uprising: A Background Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 247. 7 MacDonald to Salisbury (no. 110), 10 June 1900, FO 17/1413; N. Oliphant, A Diary of the Siege of the Legations in Peking during the Summer of 1900 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1901), 7–8; J. Ransome, The Story of the Siege Hospital in Peking: A Diary of Events (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1901), 48–50. 8 Esherick, 287. 9 Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109; “Minutes of the Committee for the Management of the City of Beijing,” 10 Dec. 1900, and Réglement Généraux d’Administration de la Cité Chinoise de Tientsin (Tianjin: The Tientsin Press, 1900), both National Archives, Washington, DC, RG 395/920. 10 The squadron comprised three battleships, one first-class protected cruiser, two second-class cruisers, 14 smaller cruisers, and two gunboats and torpedo-destroyers each, Seymour journal, 1 June 1900, ADM 125/380. 11 The movement of vessels can be followed in Seymour’s journal, ibid. For shipments from India, tel. Curzon to Hamilton, 20 June 1900, British Library Oriental and India Office Collection, L/MIL/7/16666; min. Knox, 4 July 1900, TNA (PRO) WO 32/6144; for the Australian contribution, Cox (Colonial Office) to Walpole (India Office), 4 Dec. 1900, L/MIL/7/16750/12639.

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12 Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109; H.H. Sokol, Des Kaisers Seemacht, 1848–1914: Die k.k. österreichische Kriegsmarine (Vienna: Amalthea Verlag, 2002), 157–159. 13 For a fuller discussion of these issues see my “A Question of Leadership: Lord Salisbury, the Unionist Cabinet and Foreign Policy-Making,” Contemporary British History xiv, 3 (2000), 1–26. 14 Britain’s consular network provided the Admiral on China Station with information about the movements of foreign ships, tel. MacDonald to Seymour (no. 2), 23 Jan. 1900, FO 228/1356. 15 Min. Salisbury, n.d., on tel. MacDonald to Salisbury (no. 33), 10 Mar. 1900, FO 17/1418. 16 Min. Kerr, n.d., on Bertie (Foreign Office) to Admiralty, 24 Mar. 1900, ADM 116/116; H. Ion, “The Idea of Naval Imperialism: The China Squadron and the Boxer Uprising,” in G. Kennedy (ed.), British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000 (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 40–41. 17 E.H. Seymour, My Naval Career and Travels (London: Smith Elder, 1911), 342. 18 Tel. Seymour to Carles, 5 June 1900, as quoted in Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109. 19 R. Keyes, Adventures Ashore and Afloat (London: G.G. Harrap & Co., 1939), 198; Ion, “China Squadron,” 43. 20 Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109. 21 Tel. Seymour to Admiralty (no. 83), 6 June 1900, ibid.; tel. MacDonald to Seymour (no. 46), 9 June 1900, FO 228/1356. 22 The force was entirely naval; its order of battle was: Austro-Hungarian British French German Italian Japanese Russian United States Total

23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30

28 915 158 450 40 54 312 112 2,066

Figures from Seymour’s official report, Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109; Seymour journal, 10 June 1900, ADM 125/380. R. Bickers, “Chinese Burns: Britain in China, 1842–1900,” History Today (August 2000); L.K. Young, British Policy in China, 1895–1902 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 122. MacDonald to Salisbury (nos. 110 and 117), 10 June and 20 Sept. 1900, FO 17/1413; M. Trouche, Le Quartier Diplomatique de Pékin: Étude historique et juridique (Paris: Imprimerie Georges Subervie, 1935), 42–47. As quoted in R. Brooks, The Long Arm of Empire: Naval Brigades from the Crimea to the Boxer Rebellion (London: Constable, 1999), 237. Tel. Carles to Salisbury (no. 7), 12 June 1900, FO 17/1429. Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109; Captain Schlieper, Meine Kriegs-Erlebnisse in China: Die Expedition Seymour im Juni 1900 (Minden: Wilhelm Köhler Verlag, 1902), 57–66; A. Temple Patterson, “A Midshipman in the Boxer Rebellion,” Mariner’s Mirror, vol. lxiii, no. 4 (1977), 354. Seymour to Admiralty (no. 384), 27 June 1900, ADM 125/109; Viscount Mersey, A Picture of Life, 1872–1940 (London: John Murray, repr. 1941), 174–176. Tels. Carles to Salisbury (nos. 11 and 12), 14 and 15 June 1900, FO 17/1429. “Protocole,” 15 June 1900, and Bruce to Admiralty (no. 3), 15 June 1900, ADM 116/115.

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31 Bruce journal, 15 and 16 June 1900, ADM 125/379; E.W.H. Norie, “Official Account of the Military Operations in China, 1900–1,” 12 Apr. 1903, L/MIL/17/20/12, 12. 32 “Return of Foreign Ships of War,” 16 June 1900, ADM 116/115. For technical information on the ships see T.A. Brassey (ed.), The Naval Annual 1899 (Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co. 1899), 244–359. 33 The four destroyers Hai Lung, Hai Nin, Hai Ching and Hai Hoha were purchased in Germany in 1898–9, cf. Naval Annual 1899, 349; also D. Lyon, The First Destroyers (Chatham: Caxton Editions, repr. 2001), 118–119. 34 Cradock to Bruce, and Stewart to Bruce, and enclosures, 20 and 22 June 1900, ADM 116/115; [Y.A.] Hiltebrandt, Prise des forts de Takou par la force Alliées, le 17 Juin 1900 (s.loc., 1900), 3 (copy in RG 45/182). 35 Stewart to Bruce, 22 June 1900, ADM 116/115; Naval Intelligence Report No. 582, “Modern Naval Operations,” n.d., ADM 231/31; Hiltebrandt, Prise, 8–9, for information on the armaments of the gunboats. 36 The landing parties from the outer squadrons consisted of 22 Austrians, 133 Germans, 244 Japanese, and 159 Russians, NID Report No. 582, ADM 231/31. 37 Keyes to Stewart and Mackenzie to Stewart, both 17 June 1900, and Bruce to Admiralty, 26 June 1900, ADM 116/115. 38 Cradock to Bruce, 20 June 1900, ibid. 39 Norie, “Official Account,” 14–15. 40 Casualties afloat: two officers killed and six wounded, 20 men killed and 91 wounded; landing parties: one officer killed, three men killed and 11 wounded, NID Report No. 582, ADM 231/31; Charlton to mother, 18 June 1900, F. Urban (ed.), Ned’s Navy: The Private Letters of Admiral Sir Edward Charlton, KCB, KCM (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1998), 89–90. 41 C.C. Tan, The Boxer Catastrophe (New York: Columbia University Press, 1955), 75–76. 42 Cradock to Seymour, 26 June 1900, and Seymour to Admiralty (no. 388), 8 July 1900, ADM 125/109; Brooks, Long Arm, 238. 43 Seymour to Admiralty (nos 402 and 429), 12 and 23 July 1900, ADM 125/109. 44 Tel. Seymour to Admiralty (no. 20), 11 July 1900, ADM 116/115; Meade to Chaffee, 15 July 1900, RG 45/182; also W.M. Hewlett, The Siege of the Peking Legations, June to August 1900 (Harrow-on-the-Hill, Mdx: The Harrovian, 1900), 71–75. 45 Memo. Norie, n.d. [July 1901], and min. Creagh, 13 July 1901, L/P&S/8/9/33; Ion, “China Squadron,” 50–51. 46 Service during the Boxer campaign brought promotion for a number of naval and military officers who would rise to greater prominence during the Great War, including Roger Keyes, Vernon Kell, Christopher Cradock, John Jellicoe, and David Beatty. 47 Grey to Jordan (no. 260, confidential), 7 Aug. 1906, FO 371/35/29351; also Mumm to Bülow (no. A359), 30 Oct. 1905, “Acten der Kaiserlich Deutschen Gesandtschaft in Peking,” Baker Library, Harvard University, Mss.705.K.13/6 48 Esherick, 312.

9

The naval coalition against the Central Powers, 1914–1918 Paul Halpern

There was never any question that the combined naval power of the Triple Entente was superior to that of Germany and Austria once Great Britain entered the war on the side of France and Russia. Furthermore, the somewhat questionable situation in the Mediterranean where the development of the Austrian and Italian fleets – both nominal allies in the Triple Alliance – might have posed a challenge to Anglo-French superiority was resolved when the Italians chose to remain neutral. The entry of additional powers into the war only added to Entente superiority. The Japanese joined the war within a few weeks, bringing considerable naval strength to the British and French in the Far East and dooming Qingdao, Germany’s naval base in Asian waters. The adherence of the Ottoman Empire and eventually Bulgaria to the side of the Central Powers was more than offset at sea by the entries of Italy and the United States into the war on the side of the Entente in 1915 and 1917, respectively. The major challenge to the Entente at sea would not come from surface warships but from submarines. The very size of the Allied naval coalition tended to produce its own problems, notably the sometimes conflicting interests of its members. This would be particularly true of the relationship with Italy that resulted in a considerable waste of naval strength.

Command arrangements and theater responsibilities Geography and the marked superiority of the Royal Navy over its coalition partners tended to dictate the roles of the members of the coalition. This was already evident in the prewar secret, but non-binding, talks between the British and French.1 The French Navy in the years immediately preceding the war had been eclipsed by the growth of the German Navy and by itself stood little chance of victory in a major battle at sea with the more numerous and modern German Navy. On the other hand the French maintained a decided superiority over the Italian fleet and an even greater one over the Austro-Hungarian fleet. However, Italy and Austria were allied to Germany in the Triple Alliance and the growth of their navies after 1908 meant that a combination of their fleets might eventually pose a threat to French naval superiority in the Mediterranean;

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a Triple Alliance Naval Convention concluded in October 1913 provided for just such a combination.2 British policy had been to leave just enough British naval forces in the Mediterranean to assure French predominance. The British assumed that they would undertake major operations in the North Sea, while the French did likewise in the Mediterranean. The Italian declaration of neutrality on 2 August 1914 removed this threat and reinforced the respective roles. On 6 August the British and French concluded an agreement giving the French general direction of operations in the Mediterranean, thereby freeing the British to concentrate against the German fleet in the north. The strongest portion of the French fleet was dedicated to keeping the Austrian fleet bottled up in the Adriatic and used the British base at Malta to fulfill this mission.3 In the autumn of 1914 an observer would have found Malta full of French rather than British ships. Malta unfortunately was too far from the entrance to the Adriatic to be entirely satisfactory as a French base and the French fleet, after some bending of Greek neutrality, as well as profiting from the pro-Allied sentiments of the Greek Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos, established itself first at Argostoli and eventually at Corfu. Geographical realities also ensured that the Russian fleet, divided largely between the Baltic and the Black Sea, would operate on its own. There were examples of Russian warships outside the Baltic and Black Sea working with the British or French, but for the most part the Russian naval leaders carried on their own war. Turkey’s decision to join Germany and Austria in November 1914 strengthened this Russian naval isolation. The major exception came in October 1914 and during the late summer of 1915 when a small number of British submarines managed to make the difficult passage into the Baltic to operate with the Russians against the Germans. They were reinforced by a few British submarines that arrived in the Baltic in the late summer of 1916 from North Russia by means of the Russian river and canal systems. These operations, while not without a certain measure of success, were greatly hampered by logistical difficulties as well as climatic conditions, a portion of the Baltic and Gulf of Finland being closed by ice for part of the year.4 This did not, of course, mean there was no strategic cooperation. The Dardanelles expedition was at least partially in response to a Russian request for a strategic diversion to offset a Turkish offensive in the Caucasus.5 There were other examples. The hard pressed Russians in the autumn of 1917 requested a British offensive in the North Sea to offset the fact that thanks to the Kiel Canal the Germans could readily shift forces to and from the Baltic. The request was declined, since the geographical realities could not be overcome and the changing nature of warfare imposed new restraints on operations in proximity to the German coast.6 Japan’s entry into the war also provided advantages for the British beyond the elimination of the major German naval base in Asia. While the Japanese were primarily concerned at first with securing German colonies north of the Equator, there were enough Japanese warships available to participate in the

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search for von Spee’s elusive squadron in the Pacific as well as the cruiser Emden in the Indian Ocean. They also helped to escort the so-called “Imperial Convoys,” a series of major movements of British forces throughout the British Empire during the early months of the war. The most important was the large convoy from Australia and New Zealand whose main protection for a time was a Japanese battle cruiser. The combination of British worldwide responsibilities and the fact the German Asiatic Squadron under Admiral von Spee was on the loose meant that the resources of the Royal Navy were stretched thin. Regarding Japan, the noted historian Sir Julian Corbett remarked in the first volume of the official history, “Indeed, it is not easy to see how the thing could have been done effectively but for the assistance which Japan so opportunely provided.”7 The Japanese were given use of British naval bases in the Far East, notably Singapore, and the Japanese Navy patrolled the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean throughout the war. This support was again valuable in 1917 when German raiders like Wolf were active.

The conduct of the war The Allied navies did not usually work together in the same tactical formations although the North Sea–Mediterranean division between the British and French was not an absolute one. The conduct of the war inevitably required periodic conferences of varying size and agreements as to division of labor among local commanders. There was still a role for the older French cruisers as well as torpedo craft in the north. Here the generally obsolete French cruisers were assigned reinforcement of the blockade in the southern entrance to the English Channel, where they were not likely to encounter the powerful ships of the High Sea Fleet and were more than a match for a likely raider or minelayer.8 Naturally French destroyers and torpedo-boats also took part in local defense of the French and Belgian coast. On one occasion Rear Admiral Horace Hood, commander of the Dover Patrol, had French destroyers under his command and actually directed operations from the bridge of a French destroyer on 30 October 1914, reputedly the first time a British admiral flew his flag from a French warship in battle.9 This was, however, the exception rather than the rule. Despite initially giving the French naval direction of the war in the Mediterranean, the British were obliged to reserve for themselves a role in areas where they had the greatest interest. This naturally included the defense of the Suez Canal, although French warships joined the British here in repelling Turkish attacks in early 1915. The escape of the German Mittelmeerdivision – the battle cruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau – to the Dardanelles at the beginning of the war also meant the British had to maintain a force off the Dardanelles. The French Navy had no warship comparable with Goeben. When the Dardanelles campaign began in early 1915 the French elected to participate largely for political reasons. In the opinion of the French government, French interests in the Middle East, notably Syria, meant that the British flag should not appear at Constantinople without the French flag being represented alongside of it.10

Naval coalition in 1914–1918 101 The French force that operated with the British at the Dardanelles was initially commanded by Vice Admiral E.P.A. Guépratte, one of the quixotic characters of the war who won the admiration of his British allies, although not necessarily that of his own government. Relations between the British and French to a large extent depended on the personalities of the respective admirals. Some, such as the British naval commander at the Dardanelles, Vice Admiral John de Robeck, got along well with Guépratte, but others did not. Moreover the French were often in an inferior position in regards to numbers or size and relative power of vessels involved in combined operations. For example, the French squadron at the Dardanelles was old and its ships vulnerable. The entry of Italy into the war brought major complications. The Italians had for both historic and geographic reasons a major interest in the Adriatic. It was “their sea” and the relatively short distance between major Italian ports and Austrian naval bases – no more than a few hours steaming – meant in Italian eyes they had to maintain a high degree of readiness. The margin of superiority of the Italian fleet over the Austrian fleet was not large and as a result the Italians insisted on naval assistance from their allies. A naval convention concluded in Paris on 10 May 1915 preceded Italy’s declaration of war. The British and French specified certain levels of assistance to join the Italian light forces at Brindisi, primarily four British light cruisers and 12 French destroyers.11 The core of the Italian fleet, including the dreadnoughts, remained at the major naval base at Taranto to be used in the increasingly remote possibility of the Austrian battle fleet attempting to exit from the Adriatic. The most difficult question remained that of command in the Adriatic. The Italians regarded almost as an act of faith that only an Italian could command in the Adriatic. The French, with a larger force, were hardly anxious to place this under Italian command. The Italians might enjoy local command at bases like Brindisi or Venice, but there would remain a major question who would command should the bulk of the French fleet join the bulk of the Italian fleet in operations in the Adriatic. Despite lengthy negotiations, this thorny issue would never be satisfactorily solved during the war and had the net result of two battle fleets – the French at Corfu and the Italian at Taranto – being used to watch the smaller Austrian fleet. It was a considerable waste of naval resources. The Strait of Otranto was one of the few locations during the war where multi-national forces consistently tried to work together. Here British cruisers, submarines, drifters, and eventually British and Australian destroyers joined with French destroyers and submarines in operating with the Italians. The results were not always smooth and friction between the French and Italians was noticeable. There were difficulties in command, control, and communications that were hard to solve given the technology available at the time and the fact that actions might take place at night added to the problem. The difficulties involved were evident in the major surface action in the Adriatic: the 15 May 1917 pursuit of Austrian light cruisers and destroyers who had raided the drifter line on the Otranto barrage. In this action the senior Allied naval officer was an Italian rear admiral who exercised command from the bridge of a British light

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cruiser. The Austrians managed to reach the safety of their bases, having inflicted greater damage than they suffered.12

The naval coalition and submarine warfare The development of submarine warfare posed serious problems to the Allied naval coalition. While the bulk of submarine losses took place in the north in the approaches to the British Isles and the majority of casualties were British, this merely reflected the paramount position of the British merchant marine. The Mediterranean with multi-national interests and navies posed a particularly acute problem. The majority of the campaign against submarines and defending traffic in the north naturally fell to the British. But the Mediterranean had been intended to be a predominantly French operation, with the French later joined by the Italians. One unfortunate consequence of the Dardanelles campaign was to draw German submarines to the Mediterranean, where, operating from Austrian bases in the Adriatic, they met considerable success. The Allies met in conference at Paris in December 1915 and divided the Mediterranean into 18 patrol zones with an unassigned zone in the central and eastern basin. This first attempt was cumbersome and illogical and at a subsequent meeting in Malta in March 1916 the zones were re-drawn, enlarged, reduced to 11 and the unassigned zone eliminated. The system still did not work well, largely because British and French ideas of countering submarines were initially wrong. British naval leaders tended to think in terms of “fox hunts” along patrolled routes for shipping, while the French commander-in-chief fixated on finding secret submarine bases. The British also sought to prevent submarines from entering and leaving the Adriatic by means of a “barrage” across the Strait of Otranto maintained by drifters with nets fitted with “indicator buoys.” The French and Italians eventually tended to favor a variant of the idea, notably a “fixed” mine net barrage instead of the “mobile barrage” maintained by the drifters. The ideas were wrong, of course. The convoy system introduced and expanded after the crisis of the spring of 1917 eventually brought submarine losses down to acceptable levels. However, the anti-submarine campaign, regardless of the tactics used, soon demonstrated another fact. The type of craft needed to wage it included destroyers and sloops, but also large numbers of small craft adapted from civilian pursuits such as trawlers and drifters. The British had these in abundance, again reflecting their pre-war maritime predominance. The other Allies quickly exhausted their own resources and the French and Italians even resorted to purchasing fishing vessels from neutral nations. In short, the British had the ships, or at least far more of them, which were necessary for anti-submarine warfare. British yards also eventually turned out standardized classes of sloops used in the campaign, and a number of them went to the French Navy. British interests in the Mediterranean were as great as those of its Allies. Therefore, as the war dragged on the British considered the Mediterranean simply too important to be left to the French and the Italians, and gradually took over more and more of the anti-submarine war themselves.

Naval coalition in 1914–1918 103 At the height of the submarine crisis, a naval conference was held aboard the French flagship at Corfu at the end of April 1917. On the proposal of Vice Admiral Gauchet, the French commander-in-chief, a “Direction Général” composed of officers delegated by the different navies was formed to meet in Malta and determine Mediterranean transport routes and their protection.13 This eventually led to the Commission de Malte where the British were represented by a flag officer. Given the much larger number of British anti-submarine resources, this individual ultimately assured de facto British command of the antisubmarine war in the Mediterranean although the French commander-in-chief remained theoretical commander-in-chief. The Commission de Malte was really only an attempt at coordination, matters never went far enough to include any real common pool of warships. The authority of the French representative was diminished at the end of the year when command of French patrols reverted to either Paris or local commanders. The interests of the Allies also differed. The French tended to be primarily concerned with communications with their North African possessions, the Italians with protection of their coastal convoys, and the British with east–west communications to Egypt. The Allies also tended to run their own individual convoys, there was little mixing of escorts with the exception of the Gibraltar–Genoa convoys in 1918.14 There were particular problems with the Italians who resisted diverting their destroyers to anti-submarine convoys. The Italian chief of naval staff, Admiral Thaon di Revel, was a staunch defender of Italian interests and maintained that destroyers were needed for the immediate defense of Italian waters against Austria, or for work with the Italian fleet in the event of a major naval action. He was relatively immune to arguments that the destroyers would help protect convoys carrying vital material to Italy, and countered with the argument that the Italians were the only Allies in such close contact with the enemy at sea. Italian participation in the anti-submarine war beyond the protection of Italian coastal convoys was relatively restricted.15 Furthermore, the Italian naval staff had another consideration not broadcast to their allies: to avoid excessive loss to their main naval forces, in order to strengthen the Italian position in the Mediterranean at any peace conference and after the war.16 The Allied naval coalition in the Mediterranean did receive support from their distant ally Japan. The Japanese had refused requests to send major naval units to European waters, but during the submarine crisis in 1917 the Japanese sent a flotilla of destroyers – eventually 12 plus two British destroyers manned by Japanese crews – to the Mediterranean. Based at Malta with a cruiser as a headquarters ship, the Japanese destroyers worked only with the British, not the French or Italians. The French were, however, able to use Japanese yards to build a class of 12 destroyers based on a Japanese design and along with the Italians purchased fishing vessels for the anti-submarine campaign. The Japanese Rear-Admiral commanding the flotilla sat on the Commission de Malte. The Allies also received needed, although relatively minor, support from Greece. The story of Greek policy during the war is a tangled one. The French in

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1916 had sequestered the Greek fleet, but after King Constantine was forced into exile in 1917 Greece eventually joined the war on the side of the Allies. This meant that Greek warships also participated in the anti-submarine campaign in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, Brazil also entered the war on the side of the Entente in October 1917 and eventually sent a naval squadron to European waters, but for various reasons the Brazilian ships did not arrive until the very last days of the war.

The United States joins the coalition The United States was the major prize for the British and French in April 1917 and brought significant potential naval resources. In many respects, American capital ships were less needed than light craft, notably the destroyers sent to Queenstown soon after the American entry into the war. By the end of August there were 35. This represented a careful trade-off by American naval leaders, for it meant the U.S. Navy was depriving itself of a balanced fleet in any operations liable to involve the main battle fleet. As some American naval leaders had thoughts of future rivalry with Great Britain and Japan on their mind, this decision to deprive themselves of destroyers was not an inconsiderable sacrifice.17 The Americans also sent less useful ships to European waters, notably the 110-foot wooden-hulled so-called “submarine chasers,” which were employed in the English Channel and Strait of Otranto in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to locate German submarines by means of hydrophones. In addition there were eventually numbers of obsolete American warships or converted yachts engaged in anti-submarine patrols or convoy duties working in the Bay of Biscay or from Gibraltar. In order to support the American Army in France, the U.S. Navy developed an important base near the French port of Brest. By the time American troop movements to France were at their highest in the summer of 1918, Brest actually had more U.S. naval forces than Queenstown.18 The American leaders were also not diverted by a period of German submarine operations off the American and Canadian coasts in the spring and summer of 1918. There were a number of sinkings, some highly public. But the Americans realized that the decisive area of the anti-submarine campaign was in European waters and did not fall into the trap of pulling back forces for local defense. The Germans, in fact, did not find it profitable to operate submarines on the other side of the Atlantic and the submarine campaign in North American waters eventually wound down. The Americans, according to their slogan, were building “a fleet second to none” and were anxious to employ capital ships in European waters and join the Grand Fleet. This posed problems which should not be underestimated and the integration of the six American battleships that joined the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow was slow. The Americans sent coal-burning rather than oil-burning ships to ease logistical problems, since Great Britain had ample supplies of domestic coal. However, the Americans had to adopt British methods of signaling and it

Naval coalition in 1914–1918 105 was a long time before the British commander-in-chief was really satisfied with the state of training. The U.S. Navy also suffered problems inherent with rapid expansion, such as a shortage of trained personnel.19 Nevertheless, the American battleships added to the superiority of the Grand Fleet over their German opponents. The large American ship-building programs, including destroyers, escort craft, and standardized classes of merchant ships, meant that the long-term outlook for the Germans at sea would have been one of growing inferiority, although much of the program was unrealized when the war ended in November 1918.20 However, the American merchant marine before the war did not have the large passenger liners owned by many of the European shipping companies. In this case, the Allied naval coalition in 1918 was able to complement American efforts by providing the transports, mostly British but with some French and Italian participation, that brought an important portion of the American Expeditionary Forces across the Atlantic to the Western Front. Cooperation among the Allies also involved merchant shipping. By the winter of 1918, the Allies were able to establish the Allied Maritime Transport Council to work at the complicated task of coordinating national import programs with available tonnage.21

The Allied Naval Council In December 1917 the Allied Naval Council was formed to fulfill a role similar to that of the Supreme War Council in coordinating military operations on land. The Allied Naval Council was supposed to insure close communication and complete cooperation among the Allied naval forces, watch over the general conduct of the war at sea, and insure coordination of efforts at sea and in scientific developments. The Council, it should be emphasized, had no executive authority and could only make recommendations. The respective chiefs of naval staff and naval commanders-in-chief retained the actual responsibility for their forces and naval operations.22 The growing American naval strength in European waters in 1918 gave weight to American opinion on how to conduct the war. The U.S. government from President Woodrow Wilson down was anxious for “offensive” action at sea. In the winter of 1918, this was likely to take the form of an American landing on the Sabbioncello Peninsula on the Dalmatian coast in the Adriatic. There had been proposals of this sort from time to time during the war, but the Allies always found better places to use their troops. The plans were cancelled for good when Ludendorff’s March offensive required all available troops on the Western Front.23 The Americans were also partisans of a gigantic mine barrier across the North Sea, the so-called “Northern Barrage” from the Orkneys to Norway. The British had been less enthusiastic. So the majority of the considerable effort involving old cruisers or coastal steamers converted to minelayers proved to be an American undertaking.24 After the Northern Barrage was finished, the Americans planned similar grandiose projects in the Mediterranean, but the war ended before these could be put into effect.25

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For a brief period, the Italian defeat at Caporetto in late October 1917 caused concern over the Italian ability to remain in the war and how to secure at least a portion of the Italian fleet.26 But the Allied alliance suffered its major defection at the end of 1917 with the collapse of Russia. Nevertheless, given the superiority in surface ships that the Allies enjoyed, it is somewhat surprising to learn that for a time they considered that superiority to be threatened in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. Once again, the problem was due to French and Italian differences as to who would command in the Adriatic. The threat arose from anxiety that the Russian Black Sea Fleet would fall into German and Turkish hands. The Black Sea Fleet contained a few dreadnoughts and, until the collapse following the February and October 1917 revolutions, had generally enjoyed the upper hand in the Black Sea. The Allies now feared that the Germans and their Turkish allies would be able to use some of those Russian ships and sortie from the Dardanelles to overwhelm the older and weaker British and French warships in the Aegean, and at the very least cause considerable damage. The French battle squadron at Corfu should have sufficed to counter the threat, but the best French warships were still employed awaiting an increasingly unlikely sortie by the Austrian fleet. The Italians did not consider their fleet to have a sufficient margin of strength over the Austrians to insure victory, but the French were loath to break the unity of their battle fleet and put some of their battleships under Italian command. The Italians continued to insist that only an Italian admiral could command in the Adriatic. The British sought to get around the difficulty by having a British admiral, in this case Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, commander of the Grand Fleet at Jutland and later First Sea Lord, named as Mediterranean admiralissimo. He would enjoy a similar position to Marshal Foch on the Western Front, although there was no question of his actually flying his flag at sea. He would exercise control from Malta. The Italians openly, and the French covertly, resisted and the project ultimately failed.27 The Mediterranean naval theater never enjoyed the unity of command that was eventually established on the Western Front. In the end, the French sent older battleships to the Aegean in June 1918. Since they then had the predominant naval force, a French admiral was named to command the Aegean Squadron. The results of the joint exercise held with the French admiral commanding a mixed British and French squadron were not encouraging. It would, obviously, take practice before such a mixed squadron could work effectively together.28 Fortunately, the threat they were to guard against never materialized. Finally, the Allies were hampered by a lack of real intelligence about what was going on in the Black Sea. German armies did occupy the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, but the Russians managed to get a portion of their fleet away beforehand and subsequently scuttled a number of ships.29 The Germans ran into immense difficulties trying to put even a few of the Russian ships they had secured into service, among other things they lacked the trained personnel.30 The threat of the Russian Black Sea Fleet proved to be a mirage in the long run. It

Naval coalition in 1914–1918 107 should never have been taken seriously, but for the French and Italian difficulties over command.

Conclusions The Allied naval coalition was quick to fall apart once hostilities ceased. This was already evident when the senior French naval officer in command of the Aegean Squadron was deliberately excluded by the British Mediterranean commander-in-chief from the Armistice negotiations with the Turks, which took place aboard the British flagship at Mudros.31 In the Adriatic, Italian–French relations turned poisonous with the French backing the new South Slav state in the face of Italian ambitions. The fate of the German fleet was another potential for trouble, solved by the Germans themselves when they scuttled the ships at Scapa Flow in 1919.32 In the Eastern Mediterranean, the French were intent on securing their position in Syria and Lebanon and would soon prove willing to seek accommodations with the Nationalists in Turkey while the British tended to back the Greeks. Nevertheless, despite a certain degree of squabbling, during the course of the war the naval coalition held together with the obvious exception of Russia. This relative cohesion may have been helped by the fact the Royal Navy was so predominant that the other coalition partners at sea were more like auxiliaries, whose assistance, with the possible exception of the protection of merchant shipping from submarines, was useful but usually not absolutely necessary.

Notes 1 Samuel R. Williamson, The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War. 1904–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969). 2 On the Triple Alliance Naval Convention see Paul G. Halpern, Mediterranean Naval Situation, 1908–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971) chapters viii–ix; Mariano Gabriele, Le convenzioni navali della Triplice (Rome: Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, 1969). 3 Paul G. Halpern, The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1914–1918 (London and Annapolis: Allen & Unwin/Naval Institute Press, 1987), 26–27. Adolphe Laurens, Le Commandement navale en Méditerranée, 1914–1918 (Paris: Payot, 1931). 4 Michael Wilson, Baltic Assignment: British Submariners in Russia, 1914–1919 (London: Leo Cooper, 1985). 5 David French, British Strategy & War Aims, 1914–1916 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 69. 6 Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 219–220, 7 Julian S. Corbett and Henry Newbolt, History of the Great War: Naval Operations, 5 vols in 9 (London: Longman, Green, 1920–31), Vol. I., 278. 8 James Goldrick, The King’s Ships Were at Sea: The War in the North Sea August 1914–February 1915. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 62–63. 9 A. Thomazi, La Guerre navale dans la zone des Armées du Nord (Paris: Payot, 1924), 54. 10 George H. Cassar, The French and the Dardanelles: A Study of Failure in the Conduct of War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971), 56–60, 62–66.

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11 The negotiations and convention are summarized in Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 96–99. Four old British battleships also joined the Italian battle fleet at Taranto but saw little active service. 12 Paul G. Halpern, The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in World War I (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2004). 13 Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 347–349. 14 Ibid., 388–390; Laurens, Commandement navale, 280–284; A. Thomazi, La Guerre navale dans la Méditerranée (Paris: Payot, 1929), 201–203. 15 Halpern, Naval War in the Mediterranean, 379–384. 16 Thaon di Revel expressed these sentiments even as the Italians were negotiating the naval convention before their actual entry into the war. Ibid., 96–97. 17 “Assistance that United States can give Allies upon declaration of War,” General Board to Daniels [Secretary of the Navy], 5 April 1917, in Michael Simpson (ed.), Anglo-American Naval Relations, 1917–1919 (Aldershot: Scolar Press for the Navy Records Society, 1991), Document No. 11, 19–20; and the opinions of the American Chief of Naval Operations, Mary Klachko (with David F. Trask), Admiral William Shepherd Benson: First Chief of Naval Operations (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 63–65. 18 Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims, The Victory at Sea (New York: Doubleday, 1920; reprinted Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1984), 349–350. 19 These problems are examined in: Jerry W. Jones, U.S. Battleship Operations in World War I (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998), chapters ii and iii; Simpson, AngloAmerican Naval Relations, 325–329. 20 On U.S. shipbuilding see, for example: Norman Friedman, U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1982), 39–47; Mark H. Goldberg, The “Hog Islanders”: The Story of 122 American Ships (Kings Point, NY: American Merchant Marine Museum, 1991), 3–14; and Paul H. Silverstone, U.S. Warships of World War I (London: Ian Allan, 1970), passim. 21 C. Ernest Fayle, Seaborne Trade, 3 vols (London: John Murray, 1920–24), Vol. III, 240–246, 293–297. The standard work by the former chairman of the Allied Maritime Transport Council is: J.A. Salter, Allied Shipping Control: An Experiment in International Administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921). 22 Memorandum by Geddes [First Lord of the Admiralty] for War Cabinet, 11 December 1917 reproduced in Simpson, Anglo-American Naval Relations, Document No. 79, 142–143; David F. Trask, Captains and Cabinets: Anglo-American Naval Relations, 1917–1918 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1972), 175–9. 23 On plans for the Sabbioncello Peninsula see Halpern, 434–441. 24 Trask, Captains & Cabinets, 216–217. On British lack of enthusiasm see Beatty [C.-in-C. Grand Fleet] to Wemyss, 10 August 1918 in B. McL. Ranft (ed.), The Beatty Papers, Vol. I: 1902–1918 (Aldershot: Scolar Press for the Navy Records Society, 1989), Document No. 272, 534–536. 25 Halpern, 511–513. 26 The British were most concerned about the fate of the Italian destroyers; Halpern, 403–406. 27 Halpern, 469–474, 480–482. 28 Thomazi, La Guerre navale dans, 61–63; Halpern, 498–501. 29 George Nekrasov, North of Gallipoli: The Black Sea Fleet at War (Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs, 1992), 132–136. 30 Bernd Langensiepen, Dirk Nottelmann, and Jochen Krüsmann, Halbmond und Kaiseradler: Goeben und Breslau am Bosphorus, 1914–1918 (Hamberg: E.S. Mittler & Sohn, 1999), 200–202. 31 See the exchange of letters between French Premier Georges Clemenceau and Prime Minister David Lloyd George reproduced in: Paul G. Halpern (ed.), The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, 1915–1918 (Aldershot: Temple Smith for the Navy Records

Naval coalition in 1914–1918 109 Society, 1987), Documents Nos 264–265, 578–583; Calthorpe [British Mediterranean C.-in-C.] to Admiralty, telegrams of 27, 28 October and 2 November, 1918, ibid., Documents Nos. 266–268, 583–585. 32 Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era, 1904–1919, 5 vols (London: Oxford University Press, 1961–70), Vol. V, 262–269; Simpson, Anglo-American Naval Relations, 484–486.

10 Germany and assorted allies in World War II Cooperation with the Soviet Union, Spain, Italy, and Japan Gerhard L. Weinberg A central point that affected all German efforts at working with countries allied with the Third Reich was a complete and permanent unwillingness to engage in a comprehensive or coherent strategic plan or concept with any other country. During World War II, the strategic aims and plans of Germany were not to be coordinated with those of any other power. That said, there could and would be cooperation on specific issues, in specific limited campaigns. In addition, the Germans might attempt to influence the way an ally utilized its navy. But, at no time during World War II was the German leadership interested in what might be called serious strategic cooperation with any of its allies. To make matters worse, after June 1941 the Soviet navy was fighting Germany instead of cooperating with it. Meanwhile, in the Pacific Ocean, Japan continued to abide by the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact and so refused to attack the USSR. Hitler’s failure to organize a multinational naval coalition with the USSR, Spain, Italy, and Japan undoubtedly contributed to the Nazis’ defeat.

The German–Soviet naval coalition When Germany began World War II on 1 September 1939, the only power with which it could and would cooperate in naval matters was the Soviet Union. The Non-Aggression Pact between the two countries, signed just before the German attack on Poland, was supplemented in subsequent years by a series of economic agreements. Under these, Germany drew on Soviet oil supplies for its navy. Certainly in the early part of the war this was of great importance for the Germans, who needed all the oil they could obtain to supplement their own synthetic oil program. It is not possible to disentangle the Soviet contribution to the German navy’s fuel from that provided to the German air force and the motorized portion of Germany’s army, but in the tight German oil supply situation, every bit helped. Of special importance, at least in the eyes of the leadership of Germany’s navy, was the direct support that the Soviets provided to it in the war at sea. This support was an element in the hesitation about an attack on the USSR that was communicated to Adolf Hitler by Admiral Erich Raeder, the navy’s chief from

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1928 to 1943. One important form of support, provided at the order of Joseph Stalin, was a naval support station that the Germans were allowed to establish on Soviet territory at Zapadnaya Litza Bay, a small port on the Arctic Sea west of Murmansk. The Germans were able to utilize this facility, and occasionally Murmansk itself, for their surface and submarine operations in the winter of 1939–40. A supply ship based there was of critical significance for the German seizure of the Norwegian port of Narvik during the invasion of Norway in April 1940. Once the conquest of Norway with its ports and the seizure of the French Atlantic ports had been successfully concluded in the summer of 1940, the Germans gave up what they had code named “Basis Nord” – with effusive thanks to the Soviets – in the fall of that year. Going geographically a step beyond the provision of a base on Soviet territory on the Kola Peninsula was the provision of icebreakers to enable a German auxiliary cruiser to pass around the north of Siberia into the Pacific Ocean. As a result it could sink Allied ships in the Pacific and Indian Oceans without first trying to pass through the Allied-dominated Atlantic. That the ships sunk by Komet could not arise from the ocean bottom to carry supplies to the Soviet Union after the Germans had attacked that country was beyond Stalin’s comprehension. In a similar fashion, the Soviets helped German sailors, nominally interned in Argentina following the naval battle off the Argentine coast in December 1939, to return via the Trans-Siberian Railway to Germany in time to participate in the campaign against the USSR. Stalin was not just helping the Germans because he hoped thereby to weaken the Allies, he also wanted German assistance with his own naval program. Determined to build an ocean-going fleet, he expected German technical assistance with that project, especially since his earlier efforts to obtain help from the United States had failed. The Germans, acting on the basic assumption that they would subsequently easily crush the USSR when it suited them, were willing to provide technical help to the Soviets while benefiting from the assistance the Soviets were giving them in their war against the Western Allies. In the pre-war years, Nazi Germany had allowed the export of diesel engines for Soviet submarines. In the period of the German–Soviet Pact, the main emphasis was on the sale to the Soviets – held on account against Soviet economic aid – of technical drawings of warships, optical equipment for naval gunnery control, and other forms of technical assistance. The extent to which these types of assistance actually came to benefit the post-World War II Soviet navy remains impossible to gauge. What can be said is that the German sale to the Soviets of the uncompleted heavy cruiser Lützow proved helpful to the Soviets in defending Leningrad against the Germans, as its batteries fired at the German forces when they later besieged that city. All the negotiations and related contacts that were a part of the German–Soviet naval cooperation in 1939–41 were accompanied by many difficulties, misunderstandings, and occasional nastiness. It should, however, be noted that these were of a substantially less acrimonious sort than those that afflicted British and American contacts with the supposedly allied Soviet

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authorities in 1941–45. Since the USSR was a society in which all contacts with foreigners were most strictly controlled from the top, one can easily deduce with whom Stalin preferred to be allied.1 Germany, on the other hand, was planning to conquer the globe, so there could never be any coalition in the true sense between it and the USSR or any other country.2

The German naval coalition with Spain and Italy During the early years of World War II, Germany conducted extensive naval operations with Spain’s assistance. Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco was willing to assist Germany’s naval operations, in part because of the help he had received from the Germans in his war against the Spanish Republic, and in part because he greatly preferred to see Germany win the war. The German insistence in 1940 on acquiring bases in full sovereignty on territory that either already belonged to Spain, or was to be added to the Spanish colonial empire, kept Franco from joining Germany in full participation in the conflict, but he would still furnish some help to Germany’s military effort. In the field of naval operations, this took primarily two forms. In the first and most direct manner, Franco allowed German submarines to utilize Spanish waters to evade the British navy and also to receive supplies from Spanish ports, thereby extending the time that they could operate without having to return to home bases. These activities in the years 1939–42 certainly helped Germany’s submarine campaign against Allied shipping in the Atlantic.3 In addition, turning a blind eye to German agents operating in southern Spain and in Spanish Morocco enabled German intelligence to keep a close watch on Allied shipping passing through the Straits of Gibraltar. The Germans utilized funds they had accumulated in Spain during the Civil War to pay for their agents and other activities in that country. Germany’s naval cooperation with Italy was particularly important after Benito Mussolini took Italy into the war on Germany’s side in June 1940. Mussolini thought the war was almost over and was primarily interested in assuring Italy a substantial share of the spoils from France and Britain. He understood neither the persistence of the British in continuing to fight after the defeat of France, nor Hitler’s firm assumption that the war in the west was merely the necessary preliminary to an invasion of the USSR, which he and his military advisers originally hoped to launch in the fall of 1940 but reluctantly postponed to 1941. Mussolini had orated endlessly about the great advantages of war for the moral and physical health of society, but he had failed to prepare Italy’s armed forces for any serious conflict. His expectation of an early peace was quickly shattered. From that point on he hoped to fight a war of his own for control of the Mediterranean, but quickly discovered that his armed forces were inadequate and dependent on German support. In the early months of German–Italian cooperation in the war there was no seriously coordinated grand strategy, but there was indeed some effective naval coordination. Italian submarines based at the German-occupied French port of

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Bordeaux made a real contribution to the German efforts against Britain’s supply lines. Crises in the Mediterranean, however, soon put an end to this form of combined submarine effort. The Italian navy had to concentrate its operations in support of the Italian forces fighting in North Africa that were in constant need of supplies and reinforcements. In addition, the hasty and poorly prepared Italian invasion of Greece in October 1940 further strained Italy’s navy. Its troubles were compounded by the replacement, at Germany’s insistence, of the Italian admiralty cyphers that the British could not read by the German “Enigma” code machines, which were at times broken by the British. At times during 1941 and 1942, Italian and German naval and air forces had some successes, but these were almost always attained by independent action. German submarines and Italian frogmen seriously reduced British naval strength in the Mediterranean, and both air forces hit Malta heavily in the spring of 1942. On the most critical issue, however, the plan to seize Malta by a combined airborne and seaborne assault, Hitler backed out. The casualties German airborne forces had endured in the capture of Crete in May 1941 discouraged him from ever again attempting such a project. The summer of 1942, therefore, saw a shift in the balance of strength in the Mediterranean. Increasing British strength (aided by the United States), the use of decoding and submarines to sink Italian ships, and the Italian shortage of fuel for its navy made for a situation in which despite the increasingly close cooperation between the two Axis partners, they could not recover an initiative that had been lost.4 The only time that there was minimally effective naval cooperation between Germany and Italy was when both cooperated with the Romanians in the Black Sea in the 1941 and 1942 campaigns. Containing the Soviet Black Sea fleet and supporting Axis land operations in the area were operations in which those commanders on the spot could and did work together. In the face of a resurgent Soviet military power, however, these efforts could not avert the disaster of Axis forces in the Black Sea, culminating in total defeat in 1944. Germany and Italy had a common border, good road, rail, and air communications, and hence no technical problems standing in the way of effective coalition coordination. Within limits, each was willing to assist the other. The Germans sent the Africa Corps to Libya to try to salvage at least a portion of Mussolini’s empire, while Italy sent first a corps and then an entire army to the Eastern Front to help the Germans fight the Red Army. The Italians sent a few airplanes to bomb Britain from German bases, and the Germans sent a whole airfleet to the Mediterranean theater. None of these specific steps, however, was part of a broader strategy developed jointly by the two states. The two leaders, Hitler and Mussolini, greatly admired each other but had totally different objectives in the war. Neither was ever willing to take the other into his confidence. In the end, each directed his country’s armed forces into operations that were not coordinated with the other. The minimal participation of Italian submarines in trips to Japan as an effort at blockade breaking, like the roundtrip of one Italian airplane to Japan during

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the war, symbolized the minute way in which the powers of the Tripartite Pact were actually willing to work together.5 Likewise, the efforts of the Italian government to persuade the Germans to make a separate peace with the USSR, like the similar and even more insistent urgings of the Japanese, only underlined the failure of the two to understand what it was that their nominal ally Germany expected to accomplish by initiating another world war.

The German–Japanese naval coalition Germany was most concerned that the United States would enter the war on behalf of England before Germany could finish building her own planned bluewater navy. One way to handle this possibility was to find an ally who already had a navy strong enough to cope with the United States. The obvious candidate was Japan. The Germans had initiated their naval preparations for war against Great Britain in 1935, even before signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in the summer of that year. In 1937, once the weapons systems they believed were needed for war against France and England were being produced, Hitler had ordered the initiation of an armaments program for the war against the United States that was expected to follow the rapid and easy defeat of the USSR. A central part of the preparations for war against the United States was the construction of a blue-water navy. In German eyes, the United States was a weak power incapable of serious military effort, but it had a large navy and was far away. The issue of distance was to be solved by the development and production of intercontinental bombers, which were ordered in 1937. There were several ways for the Germans to cope with the problem presented by the American navy. One was for the Germans to build their own. Construction on the first super-battleships that could destroy American warships before coming within range of their guns – a concept independently chosen by the Japanese and by Stalin – was initiated in early 1939. The unleashing of hostilities in September of 1939 put a hold on these projects. In the summers of both 1940 and 1941, Berlin’s first reaction to its belief that the current set of hostilities had been successfully concluded was the resumption of construction of the ships designed for war with the United States. However, the actual subsequent course of events obliged the Germans to halt construction of battleships, aircraft carriers, and other big warships and instead to concentrate armament production on the immediate needs of combat. Another possible solution was that of destroying the American navy in its bases and ports by a coordinated peacetime assault by German submarines. In March 1941 the German navy’s investigation of such a project concluded that it was impossible.6 This made closer naval relations with Japan necessary. The Japanese hoped to take advantage of the German defeat of The Netherlands and France and the threatened situation of Britain to seize the colonial possessions of those countries in the South Pacific, as well as in South and Southeast Asia. The Germans, who had earlier in the war unsuccessfully attempted to purchase submarines

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from Japan, urged the Japanese forward to expand their war with China. When informed by the Japanese that such a move, especially before the Americans left the Philippines in 1946 as then planned by Washington, meant war with the United States as well, the Germans enthusiastically promised that they would immediately join Japan in such hostilities. Here was the obvious way out of their dilemma, and the German Navy joined Hitler’s efforts to convince the Japanese of the wisdom of such a move while simultaneously observing anxiously any and all signs of Japanese hesitation and negotiations with Washington. Tokyo did not inform the Germans of its plans but was reassured by Germany and Italy just before attacking Pearl Harbor that they would support the attack. Earlier, when Japan was still neutral, the Japanese had provided a little support for German ships involved in commerce raiding in the Pacific, but now the opportunity for serious wartime cooperation theoretically existed. There was even a Tripartite Commission established to meet in Berlin. Just as the Japanese decision to attack the Western Powers was a product of their faith in German victory, so too the Germans believed that the Japanese would tie down the United States in the Pacific and keep it from providing substantial assistance of any kind to Britain and the Soviet Union. However, in the face of these obvious incentives and opportunities for close coordination of their naval efforts, why did nothing of the sort ever evolve? Several factors played a role in the refusal, not inability, of Germany and Japan to coordinate their naval efforts. In the first place, the initial victories of the Japanese blinded them to the derivative character of their spectacular advances. Because these advances were in fact carried out by their own armed forces, it appears never to have occurred to anyone in Tokyo that their conquest of Malaya, to cite an outstanding example, was actually the product of two factors related to Germany’s military efforts rather than their own. The British had sent to the Middle East, to halt the Axis advance there, the reinforcements that might have halted the Japanese in Malaya, and they had sent to the USSR much of the equipment that the British forces defending that colony lacked. The absolute priority that Japan should have assigned to meeting the Germans in the Middle East by a thrust across the Indian Ocean, therefore, did not begin to receive their serious consideration until it was too late. By that time, in early 1943, their prior concentration first on the disastrous effort to strike toward Australia and Hawaii, and then on countering the American offensive into the central Solomon Islands at Guadalcanal, had forced them to miss their chance. The Red Army had held the Germans in the Caucasus and had crushed them at Stalingrad; the British Eighth Army had stopped the Axis powers at Alamein and pushed them back into Libya; and the combined American–British landings in French Northwest Africa had pushed the German and Italian forces in Tunisia into a hopeless position. There would follow endless discussions of a meeting between the Axis powers, but whatever opportunity there had ever existed was already gone. Second, in spite of Japan’s participation in the Allied anti-submarine campaign in World War I, the Japanese never grasped the significance of submarine

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warfare against merchant shipping. They failed to understand that their conquest of the oil wells, tin mines, and rubber plantations in Southeast Asia would not move the wells, mines, or plantations to the Japanese home islands, but instead only meant that the products would have to be shipped home in their own vessels, which were vulnerable to American, British, and Dutch submarines. Similarly, in their emphasis on the role of their own submarines as parts of operations against Allied naval units, the Japanese never truly grasped the significance of the German submarine campaign against Allied shipping.7 The constant attempts of the Germans to get the Tokyo authorities to understand this issue were fruitless in the years before Japan’s submarines were increasingly shifted from the supposedly more heroic direct naval war to the even less heroic role of carrying ammunition, medical supplies, and other goods to Japanese garrisons isolated by the American strategy of by-passing those islands seized in the initial Japanese offensives. The German effort to provide a substitute for a concerted campaign against Allied shipping by the dispatch of German submarines to bases provided by the Japanese on the Indian Ocean coast of Malaya did lead to some sinking of Allied ships, but was basically a misallocation of scarce Axis resources.8 Ironically, after the Germans had given the Japanese a couple of their own submarines, the Japanese asked the Germans to send their remaining submarines to Japan in early 1945 rather than surrender them to the Allies. There was, however, no fuel for such trips or the subsequent employment of any submarines that might have made it had the German leadership been willing to consider such a project. The Japanese did take over a few Italian submarines for their own use, but such last minute activities could not have had any substantial effect on the outcome of the war. From the German side, there was an astonishing degree of ignorance and inattention. Hitler was willing to agree to the Japanese request that Asia be divided between the two at the 70th degree of longitude against his military advisers’ advice, who wanted more of Siberia for Germany, but neither he nor his staff ever paid much attention to the fighting in the Pacific and Indian Ocean areas. Of course, had the Germans been more interested, the Japanese would not have made things easy for them; in fact, they provided their ally with misleading information. A striking example is that the Germans learned that the Japanese had lost, not won, the battle of Midway only when the Japanese in vain asked to purchase the unfinished German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin to tow to the Pacific. Certainly an additional fact that made concerted coalition strategy unlikely was that in both Germany and Japan the respective army and navy command structures were never able to agree on strategic priorities in the years 1941–42 when the two powers still held the initiative. In Germany, the army invariably concentrated on the fighting on the Eastern Front and looked with doubt and even horror at the navy leadership’s interest in meeting with the Japanese. As army chief of staff General Franz Halder commented with outrage rather than approval in his diary on 12 June 1942 about the German navy’s projects: “Those

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folks dream in continents.”9 In Japan, the army and navy went their own way, and there was no prospect of their combining forces to invade India in 1942 when the conquest of Burma first offered that possibility and at a time when there was serious unrest in that largest portion of the British Empire. The steady refusal of the Germans to agree to Japanese urgings, beginning in the fall of 1941, that Germany make peace with the USSR and concentrate on fighting the Western Allies, particularly in the Mediterranean, made for friction at the highest levels. Similarly, the unwillingness of the Japanese to interfere with the flow of American supplies to the USSR’s Far Eastern ports, lest the Soviets provide the United States with air bases for attacking the home islands, provided the basis for additional troubles between Tokyo and Berlin. Although the Japanese did provide the Germans with support for their submarines at bases in Malaya, whether this project, which necessitated very lengthy journeys from Europe and substantial losses along the way, was really a cost-effective employment of limited German naval resources is difficult to say. In spite of even greater losses, the efforts to break the Allied blockade by sending first surface ships and subsequently submarines with cargoes from Europe to East Asia and the other way almost certainly proved a more useful form of naval cooperation, especially for Germany. Because Germany’s synthetic rubber program required a tiny percentage of natural rubber, the small quantities that actually arrived at German-controlled French ports were of real significance. This was also true of some of the other materials transported in this fashion. On the other hand, the technical information and equipment, such as samples of new German weapons, which were provided to the Japanese, arrived too late for the latter to take advantage of the knowledge and examples provided.10 One may similarly question whether the 1943 transfer of the Indian collaborator Subhas Chandra Bose in the Indian Ocean from a German submarine to a Japanese one provided substantial aid to the Japanese. Most Indians willing to fight alongside the Japanese had already made that choice. Their addition to the ill-fated Japanese invasion of India in 1944 would most likely have been equally minimal, even had Bose continued to observe from his residence in Europe how the Germans treated conquered people and killed Gypsies, merely because they originated in India.

Conclusions As the war continued, Germany attacked its main ally the USSR, and its naval relations with both Spain and Italy deteriorated. Throughout the years 1943 and 1944, coalition discussions between German and Japanese diplomats and military representatives continued with no discernible improvement. The Germans could no longer contemplate even a theoretical advance into the Middle East, and Hitler was under no circumstances willing to listen to Japanese – or for that matter Italian – advice to make peace with the USSR. As the tide in the Battle of the Atlantic definitively turned against the

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Germans in 1943, their hopes of recruiting the Japanese into a role in the campaign against Allied shipping were no more effective than earlier. In view of Japan’s hopes of continued Soviet neutrality in the Pacific War, slowly turning to the further hope of Soviet intervention on their own side against the Western Powers, the Japanese were not about to do anything to interfere with the stream of American aid, of which fully half was being sent to the Soviet Far East. Karl Dönitz, the new commander of the German navy who had replaced Raeder early in 1943, looked in the last weeks of the war into a future in which Germany would once again build a large surface fleet.11 He wanted to send to Japan a group of naval engineering officers who were to study major Japanese warships on the assumption that these were of a superior quality. No one had informed him that most of the ships he wanted studied and copied were already at the bottom of the ocean. The project was never implemented, but its almost lunatic character surely provides a fitting conclusion to the absolute failure of German–Japanese naval cooperation.

Notes 1 On German–Soviet naval cooperation, see Gerhard L. Weinberg, Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (Leyden: Brill, 1972), chap. 5, C; Tobias R. Philbin III, The Lure of Neptune: German–Soviet Naval Cooperation and Ambitions, 1919–1941 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994). 2 On Hitler’s global aims, see Gerhard L. Weinberg, Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), chap. 1; Jochen Thies, Architekt der Weltherrschaft: Die “Endziele” Hitlers (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1976). 3 Charles B. Burdick, “‘Moro’: The Resupply of German Submarines in Spain, 1939–1942,” Central European History 3 (1970): 256–284; Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung 1935–1945, Band II: 1942–1945 (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1974), 350. The broader issues are reviewed in Norman J.W. Goda, Tomorrow the World: Hitler, Northwest Africa, and the Path toward America (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1998). 4 On Axis cooperation in the Mediterranean and its problems, see Richard L. DiNardo, Germany and the Axis Powers: From Coalition to Collapse (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005); Alberto Santoni, Ultra Siegt im Mittelmeer: Die entscheidende Rolle der britischen Entzifferung beim Kampf um den Nachschub für Nordafrika (Koblenz: Bernard & Graefe, 1985); Salewski, passim. 5 Ray Flude, “The Axis Powers’ Lost Opportunity: The Failure to Develop an Air Service between Europe and the Far East 1942–5,” PhD diss., DeMontford University, 2000; Peter Herde, Der Japanflug: Planungen und Verwirklichung einer Flugverbindung zwischen den Achsenmächten und Japan 1942–1945 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000). 6 Gerhard L. Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, 2nd edn (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 238–239. 7 Carl Boyd and Akihiko Yoshida, The Japanese Submarine Force and World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1995). 8 Weinberg, A World at Arms, 385. 9 Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (ed.), Generaloberst Halder Kriegstagebuch: Band III (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1964), 455. 10 Weinberg, A World at Arms, 400–403. 11 Ibid., 385–386.

11 Soviet sea denial and the KMT–CCP Civil War in Manchuria, 1945–1949 Bruce A. Elleman1

While most of the previous chapters have discussed naval coalitions during war, naval coalitions do not always involve ships cooperating at sea. They can also include one naval power assisting a coalition partner by denying maritime access to an enemy. A largely overlooked success of the post-World War II Sino-Soviet naval coalition was the Soviet denial of Nationalist access to the Liaodong Peninsula’s ports of Dalian (also called Dairen) and Lushun (Port Arthur), Manchuria. Conversely, the USSR allowed Chinese Communist forces to enter and be supplied by sea, which gave the CCP a clear advantage during the Civil War, whose main theater soon became Manchuria. In the two previous wars fought in Manchuria – the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 – a combined sea–land strategy proved paramount; according to Julian Corbett, it was two lines of attack – against Port Arthur by sea and central Manchuria by land – that allowed Japan to obtain victory not just once, but twice.2 Later, during the 1930s, the Japanese Navy assisted the Army’s successful invasion of Manchuria, as well as blockading the rest of China from 1937 to 1945.3 While most people emphasize Mao Zedong’s guerilla warfare to explain the Communist victory in China, his revolutionary theories largely ignored the realities of maritime strategy and so cannot explain the military outcome in Manchuria. The Communists’ victory in Manchuria can be attributed, at least in part, to the USSR’s unchallenged sea control over Dairen, Port Arthur, and along the Manchurian littoral. During the mid-to-late 1940s, the Soviet seadenial strategy prevented the Nationalist Navy from orchestrating a joint sea–land invasion of Manchuria, and also helped deter the U.S. government from intervening in the war. Without the Sino-Soviet naval coalition, the Communists might never have been able to take power in Manchuria, and from there spread southward to conquer all of China.

Post-World War II renewal of the Chinese Civil War The Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formed their first United Front in 1923, but it collapsed in 1927 when Chiang Kai-shek purged his former Communist allies. During 1937–1945 the two parties formed

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a second United Front to cooperate against Japan. Although the USSR supported this strategy, in 1939, when the Red Army fought the Japanese Army to a standstill at Nomonhan near the Mongolian–Manchurian border, the resulting military stalemate led to the signing of the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact of 13 April 1941, guaranteeing the USSR would not attack Japan for five years. But with the U.S. advance toward Japan in early 1945, Joseph Stalin agreed at Yalta to abolish this pact early if Russian railway concessions and ports in Manchuria were returned to Soviet control. These strategic assets allowed Moscow to dominate Manchuria’s sea access. At Yalta, Stalin convinced Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to grant the USSR a “preeminent” position in Manchuria, which emphasized its control over the Chinese Eastern Railway that traversed the region to the naval base at Port Arthur. The term “preeminent” was widely understood to mean “in regard to other powers, not to China.” During Sino-Soviet talks held in July–August 1945, however, Stalin claimed that this also meant greater power than China. In return for a majority stake in the railway, Stalin promised the Chinese Nationalist representative T.V. Soong not to aid the Chinese Communists. Meanwhile, Port Arthur would become a Soviet concession area for thirty years, and in times of war the USSR would administer the nearby civilian port of Dairen.4 The resulting 14 August 1945 Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty put the USSR in a position to dominate most of Manchuria’s littoral, including sea control over much of the Bo Hai Gulf and the Yellow Sea. The USSR, upon entering the war against Japan during August 1945, quickly consolidated its gains in Manchuria, militarizing Port Arthur and the nearby civilian port at Dairen. Beginning in August 1945, the Soviet Navy helped move Communists into Manchuria by land and sea. With Soviet assistance, tens of thousands of Communist troops entered southern Manchuria by ship from Shandong Peninsula, where Communist forces were reportedly also being supplied by “Soviet ships from Dairen.”5 Once in Manchuria, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) used the Soviet-controlled railways to move quickly into the major cities. In addition to allowing the Chinese Communists to use Soviet port and railway concessions to spread throughout Manchuria, Soviet troops also made available many weapons from Japanese arms dumps. Due mainly to Soviet control of sea and rail transportation, by fall of 1945 the “Communist armies, equipped from Japanese stockpiles and assisted by the Soviets, had already moved with surprising ease into the metropolitan centers of Shenyang, Changchun, and Harbin as well as smaller cities.”6 When the Soviet Red Army began to withdraw from Manchuria during spring 1946, the Communists were left in control of many important cities. This strategic advantage, however, would have been untenable without the maritime protection afforded by the USSR’s sea control off the coast of Manchuria. Soviet sea control meant that the Nationalist Navy could not land troops in Manchuria, and made U.S. naval intervention too costly to be desirable either militarily or politically.

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The Soviet sea denial strategy By 1947, the Chinese Civil War focused on the resource-rich and highly industrialized region of Manchuria. However, Soviet control over the Manchurian ports of Dairen and Port Arthur foiled all of the Nationalist efforts to consolidate power. By October 1948, the Soviets had repeatedly denied access and use of Manchuria’s main ports to the large Nationalist Navy, which by this point included over 800 vessels. The Soviet government’s continued administration of Dairen was linked to the terms of the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty, which specified that in case of war the civilian port would fall under the control of the nearby military port at Port Arthur. In the years following Japan’s surrender, the Soviet government claimed that without a signed peace treaty with Japan, Dairen fell under the military “administration of the Port Arthur naval base” and Moscow “sees no basis for a change of the regime.”7 On 29 August 1947, Tass published a Soviet communiqué specifically citing Article 4 of the Sino-Soviet Agreement: in accordance with that agreement, Dairen during the existence of a state of war with Japan falls under the regime which has been set up in the Naval base of Port Arthur. Inasmuch as the state of war with Japan is not terminated because there is as yet no peace treaty with Japan, naturally, the regime of the naval base continues to prevail over Dairen.8 Meanwhile, Soviet ships were free to enter Dairen, and used this important port to deliver much-needed armaments, oil, and other supplies to their Communist allies. The Nationalist government in Nanjing angrily denounced the Soviet Union’s interpretation of the treaty, stating that Dairen should fall under Port Arthur “only in event of war against Japan not as Tass alleges until a signature of peace treaty with Japan.”9 The Chinese Nationalists argued these provisions “had been conceived on the basis of two allies taking precautionary measures against the possible re-emergence of an aggressive Japan and not as means of fostering aggressive competition between them.”10 But Moscow stood firm behind its reading of the treaty terms: “This port for reasons independent of the Soviet Union has still not been opened for trade and navigation of all countries.”11 In response, the Nationalist Navy tried to use the alternate port of Newchwang. The Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom told Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin how the USSR was able to foil this plan: When, however, the Chinese troops were already on the way, the Russians withdrew from Newchwang, which was thereupon occupied by [Chinese Communist] guerilla forces and the Russian authorities had notified the Chinese Government that they could not guarantee a safe arrival for the Chinese [Nationalist] troops.12

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Thus, by either denying Nationalist ships direct access, or by allowing selected ports to fall into Communist hands, the Soviets could effectively halt the flow of Nationalist troops by sea to many of the most strategic areas in Manchuria. During fall 1947, British observers in China, such as A.L. Scott, wrote of this quandary: The Soviet Government will not permit Chinese troops to enter Dairen, and the Chinese Government say they [the Nationalists] cannot take over the administration of the port until that is conceded. Chinese occupation of Dairen would much strengthen their [the Nationalist’s] position in Manchuria and this is not likely to be welcome to the Soviet Government . . . the situation is therefore at a deadlock.13 As Chiang Kai-shek pointed out to British officials during May 1947, the Soviet position on Dairen was completely “dis-ingenuous.”14 From 1945 to 1948, the USSR fully fortified and administered Manchuria’s premier ports, as well as the extensive railway networks that linked them with the interior. Proclaiming that the 1945 treaty forbade use of these ports for military purposes, Moscow continued to refuse to allow Nationalist ships landing rights. Thus, the USSR actively intervened in the Chinese Civil War. Its control over Manchuria’s ports and command of the sea helped tip the military balance in Manchuria in favor of the Communists.

The Nationalist “blockade” of Dairen and Port Arthur In response to the Soviet sea denial strategy the Nationalist Navy tried, but failed, to stop Soviet ships from entering Dairen by proclaiming what was essentially a “paper” naval blockade, meaning the Nationalists declared certain ports closed to Soviet ships but did not back up their declaration with naval deployments. On 20 August 1947, the Nationalists ordered these ports closed to “all foreign shipping.” This closure order theoretically allowed the Nationalist government to interdict Soviet ships operating between Manchuria and other Chinese ports under Nationalist control. Two days after they promulgated the order, the Nationalists’ Executive Yuan clarified that it was not a blockade per se, which would have been an act of war, but merely an official closure order to allow the Nationalist government to interdict Soviet ships coming from Manchuria to other Chinese ports under Nationalist control, such as those in neighboring Shandong Province. Since the closure order was selective: “There was therefore no reason why any Government except the Soviet should object to the closing of the port, and as far as is known here none did so.”15 Because Manchuria’s ports were still closed to most foreign ships, the Nationalist decision to close Dairen elicited “no complaints” from the foreign powers.16 The British, in fact, were secretly pleased at China’s action. On the one hand,

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this closure order helped to restrict the transport of troops and cargoes from Shandong to Dairen that would “be of use to the Communists.” On the other hand, it was “retaliatory” in that Soviet shipping from Dairen to other ports in China could be penalized for the “Soviet iron screen” that blocked Chinese and other foreign ships from entering Dairen.17 The USSR was not happy with this port closing, however, and argued that without a peace treaty with Japan having yet been signed then its ships enjoyed incontestable rights to enter Dairen.18 One Soviet official even acknowledged unofficially that the USSR “hopes to control the bulk of trade out of Manchuria by controlling Dairen.” In addition to the port of Dairen itself, the USSR soon declared the nearby Nansanshan Island part of an exclusion zone patrolled by Soviet forces. To make the Soviet military position in Dairen and Port Arthur unassailable, by the end of 1946 the hills surrounding Port Arthur were reportedly “completely covered” with anti-aircraft guns and searchlights, while anywhere from 30,000–45,000 troops were stationed at the base.19 Russians and Chinese Communists closely guarded the railway link to central Manchuria, and had orders to shoot anyone within three miles of the track.20 To patrol the surrounding waters, the USSR also deployed at the neighboring Port Arthur naval base four destroyers, eighty-three PT boats, and nine landing ships of various sizes, manned by 3,000 sailors and some 2,000 marines.21 More than ten Soviet submarines were also present. In addition to carrying out gunnery practice, the “warships and submarines leave Port Arthur periodically for two or three day maneuvers on the high seas.”22 An estimated 70,000 Soviet troops were stationed throughout the area. They oversaw 135,000 Japanese POWs assigned to build coastal defense works, including tunnels and an “airfield between Dairen and Port Arthur which is large enough for heavy bombers.”23 This Soviet assistance helped protect Manchuria should the Nationalists attempt to access the ports by force. During April 1947, the Soviet Ambassador “went so far as to intimate verbally to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs that a landing of Chinese troops at Dairen would be resisted.” Since any Nationalist strategy to take Dairen by force would necessarily “involve joint land and naval action,” the Soviet threat to defend this area risked a wider war.24 To show their determination, 20,000 additional Chinese Communist troops were stationed in the area around Dairen. They were described as “completely supplied with Japanese weapons” while “some of their middle grade officers are Russian.”25 One U.S. War Department report stated that even if the Soviets left, the CCP had been given enough Japanese ammunition to last “for five years.”26 Scholars of the Chinese Civil War have generally agreed that the Soviet occupation policy seriously impeded the Nationalist advance into Manchuria, but they generally focus on the Soviet Red Army, not on the Soviet Navy. However, as early as November 1945, Chinese officials told Foreign Secretary Bevin that Soviet sea control over Manchuria’s ports was key, even complaining that “with the continued Russian refusal to allow them to use the port of Dairen there would evidently be considerable difficulty in carrying out a total

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occupation” of Manchuria.27 By November 1948, the Nationalist government had concluded that “the most fundamental factor in the general deterioration of the military situation [in Manchuria] was the nonobservance by the Soviet Union of the [August 1945] Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance.”28 This deteriorating situation would also have a direct impact on the U.S. decision not to intervene in the Chinese Civil War.

Soviet sea control and the U.S. decision not to intervene in China Military historians have argued that if only the U.S. government had not stopped Chiang Kai-shek’s successful Manchurian campaign in 1946, then he might have defeated the Communists and won the Civil War.29 This view overlooks that the Nationalists could not access Manchuria by sea, which meant that their military forces in Manchuria were almost completely surrounded by the USSR or Soviet allies: to the west by Outer Mongolia, to the north by the USSR, to the east by North Korea, and to the southeast by the Soviet-controlled Liaodong Peninsula. The lack of sea access left Nationalist troops with only a single train line from Beijing to Manchuria, which could be easily cut. American ships attempting to transport Nationalist troops to Manchuria were also repeatedly denied permission to offload troops in Dairen. The lack of maritime access severely limited the amount of assistance that U.S. naval forces could provide to the Nationalists.30 Following the end of World War II, the U.S. government was committed to helping the Nationalist government reunite China. In December 1946, Washington signed an agreement with the Nationalist government providing U.S. forces air terminal rights in Dairen and Mukden, and U.S. planes continued to fly Nationalist troops into Manchuria.31 But the number of Nationalist troops that could be delivered and supplied by air was miniscule compared with what would have been possible by ship. To fight the Communists effectively would have required a joint KMT land–sea campaign, aided by the U.S. Navy landing troops at Dairen. However, on 3 January 1947 and then again on 14 August 1947, the U.S. State Department fruitlessly protested to the USSR that “although nearly two years have passed since the signature of the instrument of surrender by Japan, Dairen has not been reopened to world trade.”32 According to a 13 May 1947 report by H. Merrell Benninghoff, Consul General at Dairen, Soviet forces were in complete control of Dairen and Port Arthur and this was unlikely to change: The Yalta Agreement and the Sino-Soviet Treaty have given Russia a strong position in the railroad, port, civil administration and exercise of police power even in Dairen as long as ‘war with Japan’ exists. This position is tantamount to extraterritoriality in the Naval Base Area. . . . In any event, as long as Russia keeps a large garrison in the Area, controls the local administration and prevents the entry of Chinese troops or the effective

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exercise by China of police power, Chinese sovereignty within the Area will be purely nominal.33 The U.S. Navy could not fully leverage its maritime power without access to Manchurian ports like Dairen and Port Arthur. This was one of the most important reasons militating against American intervention in the Chinese Civil War. A second obstacle to U.S. intervention was Washington’s renunciation in 1943 of its former treaty rights to send American naval vessels into Chinese sovereign waters. To reacquire this right from the Nationalists might smack of imperialism. On 20 February 1948, Secretary of State Marshall explained to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that “Strong Chinese sensibilities regarding infringement of China’s sovereignty . . . argues strongly against attempting any such [naval] solution.”34 Therefore, when in December 1948 the U.S. Consul at Qingdao sent a memo to the Secretary of State Marshall discussing the final withdrawal of U.S. Naval forces from Qingdao, he specifically referred to the fact that the U.S. Navy had “no legal standing” in China while the Soviet naval forces occupying Dairen and Port Arthur were “legal.”35 Finally, even if the Nationalists had managed against all odds to win control over most of the major cities in Manchuria, the U.S. government could not supply them adequately by means of the single railway line from Beijing or by air. The U.S. experience during World War II had shown time and time again that sea access was crucial to deliver military logistics. Without a dependable sea route linked to Manchuria’s main railway lines there was no guarantee that the Nationalists could have ever consolidated full control over the territory they occupied in Manchuria. In this regard too, sea control and the logistical advantage it would have provided to the Nationalist-controlled areas in Manchuria proved vital. Soviet assistance to the Chinese Communists during the Civil War took many forms, and sea denial was just one of them. These maritime factors proved to be extremely important to the Communist victory in Manchuria, however. Soviet sea denial protected the Communists by stopping not only the Nationalist Navy, but also its ally the U.S. Navy: In short, the failure of the Chinese [Nationalist] Government thus far to take over Port Arthur and Dairen has been due to two factors: (1) The repeated refusal of the Soviet Government to agree to the stationing of Chinese troops in Port Arthur and Dairen and (2) the formation by the Chinese Communists of strongly armed forces in the vicinity of Port Arthur and Dairen to hinder the take-over of these regions by the Chinese Government, the existence of such armed forces having resulted from the first refusal in October 1945 of the Soviet Government to agree to the landing of Chinese troops in Dairen.36

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The CCP’s military vs naval victory in Manchuria Japan’s experience in both the first and second Sino-Japanese wars, as well as during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, showed that the Nationalists’ longterm prospects for a land victory in Manchuria were highly unlikely without naval control of Dairen and Port Arthur. Given that American power in East Asia was primarily maritime, and so dependent on naval forces to deliver troops and supplies, it would have been equally foolhardy for the U.S. military to risk a direct confrontation with the USSR by intervening in Manchuria. But because Mao Zedong’s military writings focused on land warfare, and did not discuss maritime factors, all naval factors contributing to the CCP victory in Manchuria have been largely ignored in histories of the Chinese Civil War.37 During the mid-1930s Mao’s main military goal was to push Japan out of China proper. In particular, Mao claimed the CCP would fight to the Yalu River – the border of Manchuria and Korea – but no further. In his essay “On Protracted War,” Mao divided warfare into three stages emphasizing guerrilla, mobile, and positional warfare. In the first phase the Communists would be on the defensive using guerrilla tactics. In the second phase there would be parity, during which there could be a transition from guerrilla to mobile war. Only in the third phase would the PLA transition from a mobile to a more conventional – positional – type of warfare that would ultimately lead to victory.38 Ideological factors so often emphasized by Mao as a reason for the Communist victory in the Civil War were difficult to detect in Manchuria. Rural revolution in that region has been described as “uneven” and “anything but smooth,” and Mao’s “revolutionary-romantic ideas bear little resemblance to the actual processes through which peasants became involved in revolutionary activity in Manchuria.” In fact, contrary to the myth of mass support, much of Manchuria’s rural population – the very peasants who Mao claimed were his main supporters – looked on the Communists with “suspicion and no little hostility” and the Communists were often forced to use coercion to acquire necessary supplies.39 Interestingly, even though Japan had depended heavily on its naval forces to take Manchuria during the 1930s and early 1940s, Mao never once mentioned the need to build a Communist navy. Japan had furthermore proven time after time that a land–sea strategy could outflank, surround, and defeat any Chinese force that chose to enter Manchuria by land. During the Civil War, Mao faced the Nationalist Navy, which by October 1948 had over 40,859 men in its ranks.40 But, as late as the early spring of 1949, Mao’s military strategy to achieve victory in the Civil War still did not envision the need for a Communist navy or a distinct maritime strategy to defeat the KMT. There was a simple reason explaining Mao’s oversight. Virtually all of the Chinese Communist logistics that made a conventional war possible in Manchuria were based on sea lines of communication and railways, both under the USSR’s control. Soviet denial of Manchuria’s ports to the Nationalists saved Mao’s forces from attack from the sea. For this reason, the CCP did not need to build its own navy; only on 21 September 1949, long after the CCP victory in

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Manchuria, did Mao first proclaim the need to build a Communist navy, largely in reaction to the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan.41 With the beginning of the Korean conflict in 1950, however, the United States adopted a page from the Communist playbook, sending the Seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to stop a planned PRC invasion of Taiwan. Contrary to Mao’s later assertions that the Nationalist defeat in Manchuria was due solely to the strength and ideological commitment of the PLA, maritime support from the USSR was an equally important factor. Mao had no navy, but Chiang did. If the Nationalists had been able to coordinate their land and sea forces in a joint attack on the Communist stronghold in Manchuria, then the outcome of the Civil War might have been very different. In the end, not just Mao, but Stalin too helped determine the fate of China’s Civil War by completely denying the Nationalist Navy all sea access to Manchuria.

Conclusions During the 1945–1948 period of the Chinese Civil War, which was fought mainly in Manchuria, Soviet intervention on the CCP’s side ensured that it would not face a combined land–sea attack from the Nationalist Army and Navy. With all sea access to Manchuria cut off by Soviet forces, the PLA eventually surrounded and destroyed the isolated Nationalist troops. In truth, Soviet control over the Manchurian ports on the Liaodong peninsula completely undercut the usefulness of the Nationalist Navy. As a result of Soviet sea denial, the Nationalist Navy could never stage an effective attack on the Communists. PRC authors have tended to understate the value of this crucial Soviet contribution, since it conflicted with Mao Zedong’s nationalistic claim that the Chinese Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War unaided. Also, while the USSR’s exclusionist tactics were extremely successful during the late 1940s against the Nationalist Navy, they contributed to undermining the foundations of the Sino-Soviet naval coalition. In August 1948, British officials were already reporting that Russian officials in Dairen had begun to exclude not just Nationalist forces from the port facilities, but also “the armed forces of the Chinese Communists.”42 In the early 1950s, Stalin’s success in retaining control of Dairen and Port Arthur over Beijing’s heated opposition exacerbated political tensions. After Stalin’s death, the last Soviet forces evacuated the Manchurian ports only in 1955. During a face-to-face meeting with Mao in 1958, Nikita Khrushchev, in what proved to be a vain attempt to convince him of the value of retaining the floundering Sino-Soviet alliance, even reminded Mao that the Chinese Communists might not have come to power without this sea denial strategy: “On the issue of Port Arthur . . . it was advantageous for you that the Soviet Army was in Port Arthur and Manchuria.”43

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Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College. 2 Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy with an Introduction and Notes by Eric J. Grove, Classics of Sea Power series (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 78. 3 Ken-ichi Arakawa, “Japanese Naval Blockade of China in the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937–45,” in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine, eds, Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-strategies, 1905–2005 (London: Routledge, 2005), 105–116. 4 Bruce Elleman, Diplomacy and Deception (Armonk: NY; M.E. Sharpe, 1997), 231–251; citing negotiation transcripts in the Victor Hoo Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University. 5 “Dairen Port Closed to Foreign Ships,” North China Daily News, 21 August 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 6335. 6 Steven I. Levine, Anvil of Victory: The Communist Revolution in Manchuria, 1945–1948 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 96. 7 United States Relations with China, with special reference to the period 1944–1949, based on the files of the Department of State (hereafter China “White Paper”) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1948), 125. 8 Department of State translation of the 26 August 1947 Soviet reply to its 14 August 1947 protest, 2 September 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 9 Telegram from Nanjing to Foreign Office, September 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 10 “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State,” 12 April 1947, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1947, Vol. VII, The Far East, China (hereafter FRUS) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1972), 512–513. 11 Telegram from Moscow to Foreign Office, citing that day’s Tass report, 29 August 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 12 Report of Discussion between Ernest Bevin and Chinese Ambassador, 20 November 1945, British National Archives, FO 371 46271. 13 A.L. Scott’s “Confidential” Note to C.R. Price, Commonwealth Relations Office, 23 October 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 14 Telegram from Nanking to Foreign Office, 8 May 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63333. 15 Report on the Chinese Blockade by P.D. Coates, 4 July 1949, British National Archives, FO 371 75901. 16 Message from Commonwealth Relations Office (Secret), 5 July 1949, British National Archives, FO 371 75900. 17 Restricted Telegram from the British Embassy in Nanjing to the Foreign Office, 27 August 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 18 Telegram from Moscow to Foreign Office, citing that day’s Tass report, 29 August 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 19 “Extract from WSFE 39 dated 20 January 1947,” British National Archives, WO 208 4737. 20 “U.S.S.R. Russian Activities in Manchuria,” 23 April 1946, British National Archives, WO 208 4737. 21 “Russian Activities in the Port Arthur–Dairen Area,” Strategic Services Unit, U.S. War Department, 9 August 1946, British National Archive, WO 208 4737. 22 Ibid., 17 June 1946. 23 “U.S.S.R. Russian Activities in Manchuria,” 23 April 1946, British National Archives, WO 208 4737.

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24 Telegram from Nanking to Foreign Office, 16 April 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63333. 25 “Russian Activities in the Port Arthur–Dairen Area,” Strategic Services Unit, U.S. War Department, 11 July 1946, British National Archives, WO 208 4737. 26 Ibid., 23–29 May 1946. 27 Report of Discussion between Ernest Bevin and Chinese Ambassador, 20 November 1945, British National Archives, FO 371 46271. 28 Levine, 287. 29 Arthur Waldron, “China Without Tears: If Chiang Kai-shek Hadn’t Gambled in 1946,” in Robert Cowley, What if?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), 380. 30 FRUS, 1945: The Far East, China, 1035–1036. 31 Telegram to Foreign Office from United Kingdom Liaison Mission in Japan, 7 January 1947, British National Archive, FO 371 65519. 32 “State Department Releases Soviet Note on Dairen Status,” 2 September 1947, British National Archives, FO 371 63335. 33 “The Consul General at Dairen (Benninghoff) to the Ambassador in China (Stuart),” 13 May 1947, FRUS, 1947, Vol. VII, The Far East, China (Washington, DC: GPO, 1972), 521. 34 China “White Paper,” 514–519, cited in Elleman, Diplomacy and Deception, 191. 35 “The Consul at Tsingtao (Strong) to the Secretary of State,” 23 December 1948, FRUS, 1948, Vol. VIII, The Far East, China (Washington, DC: GPO, 1973), 342–343. 36 “The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State,” 25 June 1947, FRUS, 1947, The Far East, China, 527–529. 37 For example, the Nationalist Navy does not appear even once on the section pertaining to the Chinese Civil War in Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). 38 See Mao Zedong’s May 1938 essay “On Protracted War,” in Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1967), 210–219. 39 Levine, 198–229. 40 The ONI Review, January 1949, Intelligence Briefs: China, 39. 41 An electronic search through Mao’s collected writings for references to maritime affairs indicates that he completely overlooked the need to form a Chinese Communist navy prior to his 21 September 1949 speech, entitled “The Chinese People Have Stood Up!” www.marx2mao.org/Mao/Mao_Search.html. 42 Letter from British Embassy in Nanking to Foreign Office, 13 August 1948, British National Archives, WO 208 4571. 43 Cold War International History Project Bulletin, Issue 12/13 (Fall/Winter 2001), 254–255.

12 Changing tides Naval coalitions and the Vietnam War Edward J. Marolda1

If one considers the long war in Vietnam dating from 1945 to 1975, naval power and the coalitions that wielded that power had a significant impact on the evolution of the conflict. The naval coalitions went through several phases, including cooperation between France and the United States, then a period after France’s withdrawal that included only the United States and South Vietnam, and finally the widening of the coalition after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident to include Australia. The naval coalition could have been larger. In 1951 the U.S., New Zealand, and Australian governments, recognizing that their interests coincided not just in Korea but elsewhere on the Pacific Rim, signed the ANZUS Pact that provided for military and naval cooperation in Southeast Asia.2 Three years later, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) established a new naval coalition that included the United States, Great Britain, France, Pakistan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. The signatories pledged jointly to resist Communist aggression in Vietnam and elsewhere, with force of arms if necessary, but very little actual support was forthcoming. As the Vietnam conflict neared the end, other factors besides naval – including political and military – ultimately decided the outcome of that bloody struggle. While the naval coalition during the Vietnam War may have helped prolong the existence of South Vietnam, it was not strong enough to save that country from defeat and absorption by North Vietnam.

Background for the naval coalition in Vietnam At the end of World War II, the maritime coalition that had fought and won the conflict moved quickly to take the surrender of Japanese armies throughout Asia, return the former enemy troops to Japan, and fill the vacuum they left with Allied forces. The U.S. Navy transported Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist troops from the Tonkin region of Indochina to Shandong in northern China. Similarly, the British, Dutch, and French navies, with cooperation from the U.S. Navy, deployed their troops into the formerly Japanese-occupied countries of Southeast Asia and the British crown colony of Hong Kong.3 Before his death, President Franklin D. Roosevelt opposed French proposals

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to reestablish a colonial presence in Indochina. His successor, Harry S. Truman, however, was concerned that Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnamese Communist-dominated Viet Minh movement posed a greater problem for U.S. Far Eastern policy than France’s resumption of control in the region. Washington registered only mild displeasure when the French navy, operating ships, aircraft, and weapons provided by the United States in World War II, bombarded Viet Minh positions in the port of Haiphong in 1946 and landed French troops who soon reoccupied all of Indochina.4 A new allied naval coalition formed in June 1950 when the armies of Kim Ilsung’s North Korean Communists invaded the Republic of Korea with Moscow’s and Beijing’s backing. From 1950 to 1953, the navies of 11 UN nations dominated the seas around the Korean peninsula, enabling allied troops to retain their hold on South Korea and preserve its independence. The American and French navies fought side by side in Korea, so when U.S. naval vessels transported troops of the French army – still wearing shoulder patches of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division in which they served – to Indochina in October 1953, few regarded that cooperation as remarkable.5 Although there was no formal alliance to bind the United States and France during the Indochina War of 1946–1954, without American diplomatic, material, and naval assistance Paris could not have sustained the combat effort. On the strategic level, the powerful U.S. Navy ensured that no Communist nation would intervene at sea in support of Ho’s resistance fight. After 1950, the U.S. Seventh Fleet not only prevented Mao’s forces from invading Taiwan to destroy Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, but discouraged the Communists from interfering with French seaborne communications in the Gulf of Tonkin. Meanwhile, as part of the Mutual Defense Assistance Act, the United States provided France with $2.6 billion worth of military aid that included two light aircraft carriers, over 400 amphibious ships and craft, armored patrol boats, and 500 F6F Hellcat fighters and other aircraft.6 The extent of U.S. naval assistance to France became the prime issue in April 1954 when Viet Minh forces, supplied liberally with artillery, anti-aircraft weapons, small arms, and ammunition by the PRC, threatened to destroy the cream of France’s army, trapped at the remote outpost at Dien Bien Phu. To prepare for any contingency, Admiral Arthur W. Radford, the commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, deployed a Seventh Fleet aircraft carrier task force into the South China Sea. Their aircraft were capable of dropping either conventional “iron bombs” or nuclear weapons.7 The French appealed to Washington for help, lest their forces at Dien Bien Phu be destroyed and Indochina fall to the Communists. Admiral Radford recommended to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that nuclear weapons be considered for employment to save the French. But Eisenhower doubted that the French could be saved, with or without nuclear weapons, and America’s British ally opposed any such action. Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh troops stormed the last French-held redoubt at Dien Bien Phu on 7 May 1954 and marched the survivors off to a harsh captivity. Within a year, France had withdrawn its forces from Indochina.8

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In the decade after the signing of the 1954 SEATO agreement, member navies exchanged officers, developed multilateral operation plans, and carried out exercises. In Exercise Pony Express, held in April 1961, SEATO navies practiced naval operations off the coast of North Borneo. Two years later, under SEATO auspices, U.S., Australian, and Filipino naval forces, totaling 70 ships, 400 aircraft, and 37,000 men practiced amphibious operations in the Philippines. The exercise simulated an allied response to an invasion by Communist forces of the fictitious country of “Tahimik,” which planners understood to be South Vietnam.9 But key member states of the SEATO alliance came to view their treaty commitments as unsustainable. Drained by World War II and by costly postwar colonial interventions around the world, after the mid-1950s France and Great Britain increasingly shied away from military ventures in Indochina. Only the Australians shared American concerns about Communist encroachments in Indochina and wanted to foster closer links with the United States. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) purchased U.S.-made Charles F. Adams guided missile destroyers in the 1950s rather than British warships. But the relatively small RAN had its hands full elsewhere. Operating with British, New Zealand, and Malayan government forces, the RAN concentrated on defeating the Communist insurgency in Malaya. Thereafter, the RAN was committed with its British Commonwealth partners to frustrate the expansionist ambitions of Indonesia’s Sukarno. At one point in the mid-1960s, 80 British, New Zealand, Malaysian, and Australian naval vessels were deployed in the South China Sea to counter Indonesian aggression.10 Consequently, in 1962 the Australians denied a request by Admiral Harry D. Felt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, to deploy two RAN warships to the Gulf of Siam off South Vietnam for a joint American, Australian, and Vietnamese anti-infiltration patrol. Citing the lack of adequate naval resources and the continuing commitment to operations off Indonesia, in early 1965 Canberra again declined participation in a much larger patrol effort along Vietnam’s entire coastline.11 This left only the U.S. Navy to support the South Vietnamese efforts.

The U.S.–Vietnamese naval coalition Before the onset of major combat operations in South Vietnam, only the United States and the newly established Republic of Vietnam were members of the naval coalition. The Vietnam Navy (VNN) operated ships and craft transferred to it from the French navy. The Navy Section of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, was established in the fall of 1950 to administer aid to the French, but with their departure in 1955, the Americans took on the task of developing the VNN alone. By 1964, 8,000 officers and men served in the Vietnamese navy. By then, the VNN operated 44 seagoing ships, including escorts (PCE), motor gunboats (PGM), medium landing ships (LSM), and tank landing ships (LST), as well as over 200 landing craft, patrol boats, and

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other vessels.12 The Americans were also instrumental in the creation of the paramilitary Coastal Force. The 600 wooden junks of that force, operating from 29 austere bases, patrolled the 1,200-mile coast of South Vietnam to intercept Communist craft suspected of smuggling arms, ammunition, couriers, and other cargo from the north to the south. In the early 1960s, however, the Vietnamese–American naval coalition did not register appreciable success against the enemy. Between December 1961 and August 1962, U.S. Navy destroyer escorts and ocean minesweepers teamed up with Vietnam Navy ships in combined maritime patrols to determine if the Communists were using the sea to infiltrate munitions into South Vietnam. Supplementing these oceangoing vessels were the junks and American advisers of the Coastal Force. The operational experience benefited both navies, but they found no evidence of seaborne infiltration. Perhaps sensing an opportunity, soon after the allies ended their coastal patrol Hanoi established a transportation command whose mission was to move war materials into the south by sea. This effort picked up steam in 1963 and 1964.13 The VNN’s River Force and its American advisers were no more successful on the rivers and canals of South Vietnam. Indigenous Communists, the Viet Cong, grew in strength as Hanoi pumped weapons, ammunition, supplies, and trained “cadres” into the Mekong Delta. By early 1965, the enemy had established almost impenetrable strongholds in the delta and increasingly ambushed VNN river units. In one such action, the Communists savaged the VNN’s River Assault Group (RAG) 25, killing Lieutenant Dale C. Meyerkord, the first U.S. naval officer to die in the fight for South Vietnam.14 The naval effort suffered for a number of reasons, not least of which was the poor condition of the VNN. The Army of Vietnam (ARVN) dominated the South Vietnamese armed forces, so the generals channeled much greater resources to the ground forces than to the navy. Moreover, the sailors of the VNN suffered from bad pay, inadequate food, and substandard living conditions. Low morale prompted thousands of sailors to desert every year. The most significant problem with the VNN, however, was the involvement of its senior officers in political intrigues and cabals. During coup attempts against President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1960 and 1962, the navy supported Diem and therefore fared well in the aftermath of these failed efforts. However, when revolting officers succeeded in their overthrow of Diem in November 1963, they not only assassinated Diem but also Captain Ho Tan Quyen, the VNN’s Chief of Naval Operations, so the navy suffered for its close association with the deposed Diem regime.15 During the early 1960s, the U.S. Seventh Fleet, by far the heavy hitter of this maritime coalition, registered some success in deterring North Vietnam from aggressive behavior in Indochina. On several occasions, the deployment of powerful carrier task forces into the South China Sea caused the North Vietnamese and their Laotian Communist allies, the Pathet Lao, to back away from the outright overthrow of the pro-American government in Vientiane. A show of force by the fleet and the deployment ashore in Thailand of Marine and Army

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troops in May of 1962 not only restrained Communist activity but facilitated the multi-party Geneva agreement of that year that supposedly “neutralized” Laos.16 Naval power, however, was unable to influence the course of events ashore as Hanoi decided on a full-blown armed struggle to unify all Vietnam. Beginning in 1963, Communists in South Vietnam mounted increasingly devastating attacks on government and American forces, such as occurred in the battle of Ap Bac. To fuel this effort, especially after Diem’s assassination, Hanoi significantly increased troops and supplies it pushed into South Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail through southern Laos. During 1964, the Americans attacked this supply route in Laos to apply military pressure on the North Vietnamese. With the tacit agreement of Souvanna Phouma’s government in Vientiane, Washington kicked off joint Air Force–Navy aerial reconnaissance and later bombing operations in Laos. The Americans and their Vietnamese allies decided to combat this Communist offensive by bringing military pressure to bear on North Vietnam itself – hoping to counter the problem at its source. With the strong encouragement of Admiral Harry “Don” Felt, Commander in Chief, Pacific Command, U.S. planners developed CINCPAC Operation Plan 34. A variation of that plan, Operation Plan 34 Alpha (34A), detailed a series of clandestine maritime operations that involved South Vietnamese-manned fast attack craft landing saboteurs on the coast of North Vietnam to blow up bridges, radar stations, and similar targets. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara endorsed the plan and directed the Navy to put together a force of American-built PT boats and Nasty class fast-attack craft purchased from Norway. During 1963 the U.S. Navy armed and equipped the boats for special operations in Southeast Asia and deployed them to Danang in northern South Vietnam. The U.S. Navy also established at Danang a Naval Advisory Detachment composed of specially trained sailors, Marines, and SEAL commandos whose mission was to prepare and support South Vietnamese commandos and boat crews for the clandestine operations in the north.17 During the first 34A maritime operations, inaugurated in February 1964, the South Vietnamese commandos failed to destroy their targets ashore in North Vietnam and suffered casualties. Later missions resulted in the destruction of a few coastal military targets, but they could hardly be considered effective measures to discourage Hanoi from supporting the insurgency in South Vietnam. Indeed, the North Vietnamese responded by beefing up their coastal defenses with troops, shore batteries, and coastal patrol craft. The mainline combatants of North Vietnam’s navy then consisted of 24 Chinese-made Swatow gunboats and 12 Soviet-made P-4 torpedo boats. These units became a real threat to the 34A boat force and helped compel American and Vietnamese naval leaders to change their tactics. In late July 1964, the Vietnamese fast patrol boats (PTFs) bombarded coastal targets with their 40millimeter, 90-millimeter recoilless rifle, and 81-millimeter mortar weapons rather than land saboteurs ashore. The object was to move in quick, shoot, and head south for Danang before the enemy naval vessels could intercept them.18

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Complementing the U.S. military presence in the air over Laos, and the South Vietnamese 34A maritime operations along the coast of North Vietnam, was the almost continuous deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin after June 1964. Task forces composed of two and on occasion three aircraft carriers and 25 cruisers, destroyers, and logistic support ships operated within a few hundred miles of North Vietnam. This quickly led to an incident that dramatically widened the war.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident Into these troubled waters steamed the destroyer Maddox at the end of July 1964. The ship’s mission, as part of the long-standing Desoto Patrol along Asian Communist coastlines, was to gather all-source intelligence on North Vietnam’s defenses, primarily for the benefit of the 34A maritime program. In contrast to previous destroyer patrol operations, however, Maddox was authorized to approach as close as four miles to North Vietnamese territory. On 31 July and 1 August the ship proceeded under the tactical control of Captain John J. Herrick, the commanding officer of Destroyer Division 192, along a designated track off North Vietnam. A communications intercept group on board the destroyer confirmed that the Communists knew of the ship’s presence.19 The North Vietnamese leaders in Hanoi were aware not only of Maddox’s presence but cognizant of all the U.S. naval power arrayed around them – and they were far from deterred by it. To demonstrate their determination to prosecute the armed struggle for South Vietnam, on 2 July the North Vietnamese ordered Division 3 of Torpedo Boat Squadron 135 to carry out a torpedo attack on Maddox. A trio of Soviet-made P-4 torpedo boats gathered around Hon Me and on the afternoon of 2 August came out after the destroyer, by then alerted and heading for the southeast toward the deployed warships of the Seventh Fleet. At 1608 Saigon time, Maddox opened fire on the fast-approaching P-4s and while maneuvering to avoid torpedoes put rounds into the enemy vessels. Soon afterward, four Ticonderoga F-8 Crusader jets led by Commander James B. Stockdale arrived overhead and immediately dove on the torpedo boats, damaging all three boats and leaving one dead in the water and burning from the stern. Despite severe damage, however, the P-4s survived the attack. Maddox, whose superstructure had been penetrated by only one Communist round, reached the fleet’s protective ring. In Washington, the reaction to the North Vietnamese attack was one of incredulity. President Lyndon Johnson thought perhaps a hot-headed North Vietnamese naval commander had taken matters into his own hands. Others in the U.S. national security establishment, however, were not as surprised. Indeed, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned that the attack against Maddox was due to American sponsorship of the 34A program and “to the threat of extension of the war and bombing.” The DIA added that the “torpedo attempt on Maddox indicates North Vietnamese intent and readiness to take aggressive action if they consider their territory immediately threatened.”20

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Given the U.S. policy of applying increasing pressure on Hanoi to drop support for the insurgency in South Vietnam, however, American leaders were not about to let Hanoi’s attack stand. There were other motivations as well. Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, in calling for a resumption of the patrol, observed that “it is in our best interest that we assert right of freedom of the seas.”21 With the President’s concurrence, the Navy directed Maddox, accompanied by destroyer Turner Joy, to resume the Desoto Patrol of North Vietnam’s coast. On the night of 4 August, these ships reported being under continuous torpedo attack by enemy naval forces in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin. Persuaded by these reports and by intelligence gathered through intercepted North Vietnamese communications that Hanoi had executed another maritime attack against the United States, leaders in Washington and at fleet headquarters in the Pacific called for retaliation. Not until long after the events of 2–4 August 1964, and after the U.S. Congress’s passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that provided a legal basis for military actions in Southeast Asia, was it clear that no attack actually occurred on the night of 4 August. Instead, U.S. intelligence agencies and naval leaders misinterpreted information that seemed to confirm an attack.22 Convinced at the time, however, that Hanoi had thrown down the gauntlet in Southeast Asia, Johnson directed a one-time retaliatory air strike on naval bases and fuel storage facilities in North Vietnam. On 5 August, in Operation Pierce Arrow, fighter and attack aircraft from carriers Ticonderoga and Constellation destroyed the fuel farm at Vinh and sank or damaged 33 North Vietnamese naval vessels. This employment of coalition naval power did little to reverse the confrontational pattern of previous months. Hanoi called for and received support from the Communist powers. The day after Pierce Arrow, the PRC dispatched seventeen MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters to North Vietnam and in later months the USSR shipped to Haiphong SA-2 surface-to-air missile batteries. Communist forces under Hanoi’s direction destroyed aircraft and killed and wounded hundreds of American military personnel at the U.S. facilities in South Vietnam at Bien Hoa, Saigon, Qui Nhon, and Pleiku in the six months after the Tonkin Gulf incidents.23 Determined to increase military pressure on the Vietnamese Communists, Washington not only initiated systematic bombing operations along the Ho Chi Minh Trail during late 1964 but launched two more retaliatory air strikes on North Vietnam itself in February 1965. The attacks generated a hot enemy response, but did little to persuade Hanoi that it risked destruction by U.S. military power.24 By the spring of 1965, it was clear to U.S. naval leaders that seapower would not be the decisive factor in the struggle for Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh’s government had inaugurated a full-blown political-military offensive to destroy the Republic of Vietnam and dominate the other countries on the Indochinese peninsula. Show-of-force deployments of the fleet, limited air operations in Laos, 34A coastal bombardments, and tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes against North Vietnam had all failed to alter this outcome.

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The naval coalition widens The war entered a new phase in March 1965, when Johnson directed the U.S. Navy to deploy the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade ashore at Danang, and in April it began counterinsurgency operations in South Vietnam. Soon afterward, Johnson authorized the U.S. Army to begin the deployment of an expeditionary force that would eventually total more than half a million combat troops. Joining the South Vietnamese and U.S. troops in this fight would be South Korean, Thai, and New Zealand soldiers and airmen.25 In addition, for the first time Australia sent naval and land forces. Previously unable or unwilling to participate in major combat operations in the struggle for Indochina, the Australians now stepped forward to support the nation they considered their most vital global ally. Eventually a ground–air force of three infantry battalions, helicopter and rotary wing squadrons, and logistics units totaling 7,800 men deployed ashore in South Vietnam.26 American leaders also called on the Australians to provide surface combatants for naval gunfire support. The Australians were eager to comply, but there were significant hurdles to overcome. Most of the RAN naval vessels, weapon systems, and equipment were of British origin, and hence not compatible with the U.S. Navy, which was expected to provide the RAN units with logistic support afloat and ashore. Washington also asked Canberra for an aircraft carrier. But the RAN, whose mission had long emphasized anti-submarine warfare, had neither an appropriate ship nor aircraft for strike operations. The Australians were also concerned that they could not sustain the American norm of a 31-day combat deployment for Australia’s only carrier, HMAS Melbourne. While many problems could have been corrected, the RAN got short shrift from the Royal Australian Army-dominated leadership over the allocation of resources. In the words of the official Australian historian, “the Navy’s role during the Vietnam War in particular was . . . little more than that of handmaiden to the Army.”27 This was hardly surprising or even unjustified, since from 1965 to the end of the Vietnam War, the battle on the continent dominated the strategic scene. The mission of the naval coalition remained decidedly secondary to that of the allied expeditionary army. Nonetheless, in May 1965 the RAN’s fast troopship HMAS Sydney deployed the first Australian infantrymen to South Vietnam and continued that transport mission until December 1972. In 1967, the RAN’s Fleet Air Arm contributed a squadron of helicopters to the fight in the Mekong Delta and that same year deployed Clearance Diving Team 3 to Vung Tau and then Danang to assist the Americans with harbor defense and explosive ordnance disposal. The heaviest hitters of the RAN contingent were guided missile destroyers HMAS Hobart, HMAS Perth, and HMAS Brisbane, all of the American-built Charles F. Adams-class, and HMAS Vendetta, an Australian-built destroyer. All but Vendetta eventually completed two or three six-month deployments to Vietnam.28 For any coalition to be successful, command relationships have to be

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precisely defined at the outset. All Australian forces in South Vietnam reported to Commander Australian Forces, Vietnam, who “coordinated” with Commander Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. The Australians and Americans finalized agreements that made clear Australian forces would be guided by Canberra’s foreign policy whether or not it coincided with Washington’s. For instance, when the Australians learned in July 1971 of President Richard Nixon’s surprise forthcoming visit to Beijing, they decided to pull their troops out of Vietnam by Christmas of 1971 instead of waiting until 1972.29 Aside from these political restrictions, however, RAN units functioned under the operational control of U.S. commands. U.S. Army headquarters directed the RAN helicopter squadron, U.S. Naval Forces, Vietnam (NAVFORV) exercised operational control of Clearance Diving Team 3, and the Seventh Fleet oversaw the destroyers that supported Operation Rolling Thunder.30

Operation Rolling Thunder through Operation Market Time Operation Rolling Thunder, initiated by the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Air Force in the spring of 1965, entailed the systematic bombing and shelling of targets in North Vietnam. Even as the U.S. bombing campaign took a toll of bridges, railroads, highways, and industrial centers, American leaders increasingly doubted the effort would deter the Communists. The primary mission of Operation Rolling Thunder in North Vietnam, and a series of operations in Laos, soon became one of disrupting and if possible cutting the enemy’s line of communications from North Vietnam to South Vietnam. In support of the conflict, the U.S.-led naval coalition targeted the enemy’s logistical lines on land and at sea. As a complement to the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign, U.S. Navy and the Royal Australian Navy warships roamed the littoral of North Vietnam shelling bridges, highways, ports, and water-borne logistic craft called “WIBLICs.” In Operation Sea Dragon, U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers armed with 8-inch, 6-inch, and 5-inch guns and Australia’s destroyers armed with 5-inch guns compelled the enemy to push much of their logistic traffic inland away from the coast.31 American bluejackets grew to admire the Australians’ bravery and professional skill, and U.S. commanders adopted many of their suggestions for improving tactics and techniques. Eventually, Australian combat officers were given command of units comprised of U.S. and Australian ships. The commanding officer of HMAS Perth observed that his ship’s operations off Vietnam enabled the RAN to “demonstrate both to ourselves and to others that we could fight this sophisticated weapon of war just as well as the Americans.” And, in the words of one historian, “the experience of operating within the Seventh Fleet was enormously valuable for the RAN.” The Australians thought the Seventh Fleet was too profligate with its expenditure of ordnance, but so too did many Americans.32 A more serious problem experienced by the multinational naval operations were so-called “friendly fire” incidents. At night on 17 June 1968, U.S. Air

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Force aircraft, thinking they were attacking a Communist vessel, strafed HMAS Hobart, killing two Australian crewmen and severely damaging the ship. The strength of the alliance enabled the two navies to press on despite the mishap.33 Concentrated attacks by carrier aircraft and naval gunfire ships severely reduced enemy logistic traffic in the “panhandle” of North Vietnam below the 20th parallel. In the wake of the war’s many ceasefires to give diplomacy a chance, however, North Vietnamese supply trucks quickly returned to the coastal supply corridor. Moreover, Communist coastal batteries routinely shelled the allied bombardment flotillas, killing and wounding sailors and damaging ships. American, Vietnamese, and Australian ships steamed along the entire coast of South Vietnam below the DMZ bombarding enemy fortifications, supply caches, and troop units. On many occasions, the shells from allied ships saved ground units from being overrun. In one instance, an infantry captain in the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division praised the gunfire from HMAS Hobart: “That was the best repeat best artillery support I have ever received – close enough to rattle my teeth and send shrapnel over our heads but extremely accurate.”34 On the negative side, and this was significant when considering the overall ineffectiveness of the coalition, the Australians did not establish a strong connection with their Vietnamese counterparts. According to one view, most elements of the Australian force contribution to the Republic of Vietnam avoided operations with the South Vietnamese forces where possible . . . the basis of Australia’s force contribution to the war was support for the United States, militarily and diplomatically, and the South Vietnamese too often failed to feature in Australian assumptions.35 Recognizing the potential of the sea for delivering arms and munitions to Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam, Hanoi reinforced its seagoing infiltration effort with steel-hulled trawlers capable of carrying 100 tons of cargo. By February 1965, one month before the first large U.S. ground combat force deployed ashore at Danang, the North Vietnamese seaborne supply effort was in full swing. On the 16th, a U.S. Army helicopter pilot flying along the central coast near Vung Ro, a bay, suddenly spotted one of these trawlers with its bow up to the beach. Cargo boxes covered the vessel’s deck and the nearby shore. When U.S. Navy and Vietnam Navy ships and troops investigated the site, they found thousands of Chinese-made machine guns, recoilless rifles, and mortars and tons of small arms ammunition. American and Vietnamese naval commandoes also retrieved North Vietnamese official documents.36 With proof positive that the enemy was exploiting the sea route, the allied naval coalition mounted a massive counter-infiltration patrol named Operation Market Time. When fully operational, U.S. Navy P-2V Neptune, SP-5M Marlin seaplanes, and P-3 Orion patrol planes scoured the South China Sea for suspicious vessels. Closer to shore, Navy destroyer escorts and ocean minesweepers and U.S. Coast Guard high endurance cutters (WHECs) and 82-foot cutters

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(WPBs) roamed their slice of ocean in search of infiltrators. Within sight of the shore, Navy and Coast Guard-manned fast patrol craft (PCF) or Swift boats, Vietnam Navy gunboats and other oceangoing craft, and junks of the paramilitary Coastal Force patrolled night and day. U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and Vietnam Navy officers coordinated the entire air and sea effort from coastal surveillance centers at Danang, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, Vung Tao, and An Thoi.37 Operation Market Time, in existence for most of the Vietnam War, was a tactical success for the allied naval coalition. The North Vietnamese dispatched 50 fully loaded trawlers on missions to South Vietnam; in only two known instances did these vessels reach their destinations and unload supplies. The other 48 infiltrators were either destroyed by allied naval forces, scuttled by their crews, or forced to reverse course and return to North Vietnam after being spotted by patrol planes or ships far out to sea. Even after tens of thousands of stops and searches of junks and similar small craft by coalition patrol vessels, the Communists did manage to infiltrate agents, medicines, and some weapons into South Vietnam. But these specialized deliveries provided only a fraction of the supplies needed by the Communist forces fighting in the South.38 Although the coalition had a significant impact on the seaborne flow of goods from North to South Vietnam, until very late in the war it had little impact on the seaborne flow of goods into North Vietnamese ports.

Operation Game Warden on the rivers The allied navies were simply incapable of stemming the strategic flow by sea of soldiers, weapons, ammunition, equipment, and supplies into the combat theater. Fearful of provoking Soviet or Chinese Communist intervention, Johnson ruled out a formal blockade – in international law considered an act of war – of North Vietnam. American and Australian warships could only stand idly by as Soviet, Polish, East German, and other merchantmen loaded with surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), anti-aircraft guns, military vehicles, and war material steamed boldly through the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin to deliver their cargos to Haiphong. These same weapons soon afterward destroyed U.S. Navy aircraft and killed American pilots in the skies of North Vietnam.39 Similarly, the Johnson administration forbade interference with merchant shipping coming and going from the port of Sihanoukville in “neutral” Cambodia. Complicit in the basing of North Vietnamese combat forces in his country, Prince Norodom Sihanouk allowed Chinese ships to supply these Communist forces by sea. Only hours after unloading the vessels, Cambodian firms transported AK-47 rifles, rocket propelled grenades, and sachel charges via truck to Communist troops on the border with South Vietnam. Soon, enemy units employed these weapons against American, South Vietnamese, and Australian troops in the Mekong Delta and Saigon regions.40 Unable to strike at the enemy’s sea lines of communications via North Vietnam and Cambodia, the allied navies mounted a major campaign to destroy them in South Vietnam. To complement the VNN’s river anti-infiltration effort,

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in 1966 the U.S. Navy established the River Patrol Force and charged it with gaining control of the waterways in the Mekong Delta. In Operation Game Warden, river patrol boats (PBR) armed with .50-caliber and M-60 machine guns operated from tank landing ships (LST) and austere shore bases to secure the major tributaries of the Mekong River. American PBR sailors and their Vietnamese counterparts in river assault group vessels stopped and searched suspicious craft, checked the identify papers of those on board, and inspected cargos for contraband. These allied naval units fought pitched battles with Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops attempting to move munitions throughout the delta.41 Hard fighting and patrolling by sailors in the U.S. River Patrol Force and the VNN River Force had largely secured the Mekong’s major arms by mid-1968. By most measures, however, reinforcements and supplies continued to flow via smaller waterways to Communist forces in the Mekong Delta, enabling them to mount deadly attacks. The allied navies needed a more effective approach to their mission.42 They thought that they had found the right solution with Operation Sea Lords.

Operation Sea Lords and the “accelerated turnover to the Vietnamese” Vice Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr, who took over naval operations in fall 1968, provided that new look in Operation Sea Lords (Southeast Asia Lake, Ocean, River, Delta Strategy). To interdict Communist men and supplies coming into the delta, he decided to position powerful naval task forces as “barriers” along the South Vietnamese side of the border with Cambodia. He charged other naval forces with penetrating and destroying the enemy’s base areas deep in the forests and mangrove swamps of the delta. But he needed strong resources to execute his plan. The efforts of the Coastal Surveillance Force and an Army–Navy Mobile Riverine Force had achieved a measure of success in their operational environments. Consequently, Zumwalt redeployed those commands’ Swift boats and armored riverine vessels to the Sea Lords effort.43 Another significant measure to improve the effectiveness of allied naval operations was Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV), a subset of the Vietnamization program. To strengthen the combat power of the forces assigned to his Sea Lords campaign and to prepare the VNN to carry on the fight when the U.S. military withdrew from the war, Zumwalt pressed for the comprehensive integration of U.S. Navy and VNN operations. Beginning in late 1968, American and Vietnamese sailors lived, worked, trained, fought, and often died in close proximity as they jointly crewed PBRs, armored monitors, and other combat craft. Eventually, Vietnamese officers served on Sea Lords headquarters staffs and took over operational control of the individual border barrier and base penetration task forces.44 In a tactical sense, the Sea Lords campaign and the ACTOV program achieved a measure of success. During the hard combat years of 1969 and 1970,

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American and Vietnamese naval forces decimated Communist ranks south of Saigon, seriously disrupted the logistic flow into and throughout the region, and established an allied military and political presence in the far reaches of the delta. VNN officers and men took over river operations and with little U.S. involvement handled the naval aspects of the invasion of Cambodia in May and June of 1970. Trade, farming, and the government’s political presence blossomed in many areas of the delta. As a gauge of the success of the allied naval effort south of Saigon, the Communists concentrated their forces elsewhere during the Easter Offensive of 1972. For the first time in the long struggle, the allied command was able to shift a regionally based South Vietnamese infantry division from the delta to the front north of Saigon. Ironically, while the preparation and execution of Sea Lords and ACTOV strengthened the American–Vietnamese naval coalition, it also planted the seeds of its own disintegration. Washington’s goal in the Vietnamization program was to push the Vietnamese to the forefront of the battle and withdraw American troops. The U.S. Navy turned over PBRs, Swift boats, monitors, armored transports, and many other combat craft during 1970 and 1971. Following this transfer program, the Americans handed the VNN the keys to the major logistic bases at Danang, Saigon, and a score of other sites. Other than a small corps of naval advisers and logisticians, there were few American sailors remaining in South Vietnam when the Communists launched the 1972 invasion. In essence, the allied naval coalition that fought the Vietnam War had ceased to exist.45 From 1972 to the end of the war in 1975, the U.S. Navy and VNN fought separately. In response to the Communist Easter Offensive, the Seventh Fleet deployed in strength to the coast north of Hue. Cruisers and destroyers pumped round after round of naval gunfire into the ranks of North Vietnamese armor and infantry units working their way south. These bombardments from the sea on many occasions saved South Vietnamese troops from annihilation and delayed the enemy’s advance. The fleet also landed South Vietnamese marines behind Communist lines when the battlefront surged north again in September. Naval power provided significant support to the allied effort ashore, but could not affect the outcome. In spring 1972, the U.S. Navy concentrated six aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Their planes, along with U.S. Air Force units, pummeled targets in North Vietnam and northern South Vietnam. Their goal was to starve the enemy of fuel and munitions and put pressure on Communist ceasefire negotiators in Paris to come to terms. President Nixon also ordered the mining of North Vietnam’s ports, a measure long advocated by the Navy, after which Hanoi could no longer count on supply by sea. Naval bombardment vessels, carrier planes, and Air Force B-52 bombers brought renewed pressure on Hanoi to end the war in December when Nixon ordered the short but devastating Linebacker II or “Christmas Bombing” strikes. Hence, naval power helped the United States withdraw from the war, but did not – could not – win that war.46 Indeed, in the final Communist push for victory, naval forces proved to be of

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marginal importance. In the spring of 1975, heavily armed North Vietnamese tank and infantry divisions stormed one South Vietnamese-held city after another in a relentless offensive that began in the Central Highlands, spread to the coastal cities along the northern and central coast of South Vietnam, and ended with the seizure of Saigon on 30 April. The Vietnam Navy, then the fifth largest in the world and the recipient of a huge outlay of U.S. financial support, could only attempt to evacuate routed troops and hapless civilians ahead of the advancing Communist horde. The American fleet returned briefly to the coast south of Saigon that spring to evacuate American and South Vietnamese refugees in Operation Frequent Wind. It was perhaps fitting that the U.S. Navy cooperated with the Vietnam Navy, its longtime partner in the naval coalition, for this one last operation.47

Conclusions Many naval coalitions were formed and dissolved throughout the course of the 30-year struggle for Indochina. The major participants included France, the United States, South Vietnam, and Australia. Naval coalitions strongly influenced strategic and political-military considerations during the first two decades of the conflict and during the period 1965–1975, the navies of the antiCommunist coalition – the U.S. Navy, VNN, and RAN – contributed significantly to the fight. However, during the last decade of the struggle for Indochina, the outcome was not so much determined by naval power as by developments on the ground: the success or failure of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla operations, insurgency or counter-insurgency programs, and by conventional armies employing tanks, armored personnel carriers, long-range artillery, and combat infantry divisions. During spring 1975, North Vietnam initiated its largest, and as it would turn out final, invasion into South Vietnam. Faced with massive ground troop movements, the most that South Vietnamese naval units could do was assist in the mass retreat from the capital. The North Vietnamese tank that crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon on 30 April 1975 all too clearly symbolized the limits of naval power.

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval Historical Center. 2 James A. Field, United States Naval Operations: Korea (Washington: Naval History Division, 1962). 3 Edwin B. Hooper, Dean C. Allard, and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, The Setting of the Stage to 1959, Vol. I in series The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict (Washington: Naval History Division, 1976), 66, 82–94; Marc S. Gallicchio, The Cold War Begins in Asia: American East Asian Policy and the Fall of the Japanese Empire (New York: Columbia University, 1988); Henry I. Shaw, The United States Marines in North China, 1947–1949 (Washington: USMC Historical Branch, 1968); Edward

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J. Marolda, “The U.S. Navy and the ‘Loss of China,’ 1945–1950,” in George C. Marshall’s Mediation Mission to China, December 1945-January 1947, Larry I. Bland, ed. (Lexington, VA: Marshall Foundation, 1998). Hooper et al., 101–122. Hooper et al., 230–231. Naval Attache Saigon, report, 14-S-54 of 24 Jun 1954, JN-N-59–2184, box 44, FRC; U.S.-V.N. Relations, bk 1, pt. IVA.2, 15; Hooper et al., 256–258; Charles W. Koburger Jr, The French Navy in Indochina: Riverine and Coastal Forces, 1945–54 (New York: Praeger, 1991), 18–19; Ronald H. Spector, Advice and Support: The Early Years, 1941–1960 in series United States Army in Vietnam (Washington: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1983), 105–122. Arthur W. Radford, From Pearl Harbor to Vietnam: The Memoirs of Admiral Arthur W. Radford, Stephen Jurika Jr, ed. (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1980), 376–431; John Prados, The Sky Would Fall: Operation Vulture: The U.S. Bombing Mission in Indochina, 1954 (New York: Dial Press, 1983); Hooper et al., 243–269; Spector, 191–218. Radford, 376–431; Prados; Hooper et al., 243–269. CINCPAC, Command History, 1961, 145; CINCPACFLT, Annual Report, FY1961, 24; COM7FLT, Command History, 1961, encl. 1; Edward J. Marolda and Oscar P. Fitzgerald, From Military Assistance to Combat, 1959–196, Vol. II in series The United States Navy and the Vietnam Conflict (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1986) 64–65, 285–286; Spector, 191–218. Jeffrey Grey, Up Top: The Royal Australian Navy and Southeast Asian Conflicts, 1955–1972 (Canberra: Allen & Unwin, 1998), 2–56, 70. Grey, 74–77. Marolda and Fitzgerald, 298–333; Marolda, “Republic of Vietnam Navy (VNN),” in Spencer C. Tucker, ed., Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1998), 782–784; Richard L. Schreadley, From the Rivers to the Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1992), 28–44. Schreadley, 78–92. Thomas J. Cutler, Brown Water, Black Berets: Coastal and Riverine Warfare in Vietnam (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 47–67. Marolda and Fitzgerald, 272–275. David K. Hall, “The Laotian War of 1962 and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971” in Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, eds, The Use of Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington: Brookings, 1976), 4–11. Richard H. Shultz Jr, The Secret War Against Hanoi: Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Use of Spies, Saboteurs, and Covert Warriors in North Vietnam (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999), 174–203. Shultz, 174–203. Edwin E. Moise, Tonkin Gulf and the Escalation of the Vietnam War (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1996). Quoted in Marolda and Fitzgerald, 420–421. Msg, CPFLT 021104Z Aug 1964. Especially relevant to this reappraisal is the analysis of the National Security Agency’s Robert Hanyok in his “Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and the Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2–4 August 1954,” in National Security Agency Cryptologic Quarterly, Winter 2000/Spring 2001 (www.nsa.gov/vietnam/vietn00005.cfm); Edward J. Marolda, “Summary of the Tonkin Gulf Crisis of 1964” (www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq120–1.htm). Marolda and Fitzgerald, 470. John Morrocco, Thunder From Above: Air War, 1941–1968 (Boston: Boston Publishing Co., 1984), 30–40.

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25 Jack Shulimson and Charles M. Johnson, The Landing and the Buildup, 1965, in series U.S. Marines in Vietnam (Washington: USMC History and Museums Division, 1978). 26 Dennis Fairfax, Navy in Vietnam: A Record of the Royal Australian Navy in the Vietnam War, 1965–1972 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1980), 17–18. 27 Grey, 18, 22–23, 72, 85–86, 98. 28 Fairfax, 17–21. 29 Grey, 96, 140–141. 30 Fairfax, 19–21. 31 Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1994), 76–78. 32 Grey, 150–155, 169, 197, 229, 234. 33 Ibid., 175–188. 34 Ibid., 173. 35 Ibid., 261. 36 Alex Larzelere, The Coast Guard at War: Vietnam 1965–1975 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997), 1–2. 37 Marolda, By Sea, 143–161. 38 Schreadley, 76–92. 39 Marolda, By Sea, 70–118. 40 Schreadley, 184–186. 41 R. Blake Dunnavent, Brown Water Warfare: The U.S. Navy in Riverine Warfare and the Emergence of a Tactical Doctrine, 1775–1970 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 110–133; Cutler, 137–208. 42 Marolda, By Sea, 198–214. 43 Cutler, 285–337. 44 Schreadley, 143–321. 45 Cutler, 341–360. 46 John Darrell Sherwood, Afterburner: Naval Aviators and the Vietnam War (New York: New York University Press, 2004), 173–218, 249–287; Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The USAF and North Vietnam, 1966–1973 (Washington: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 219–280. 47 Marolda, By Sea, 355–368.

13 The Cold War as a coalition struggle Bradford A. Lee1

The Cold War was a peculiar type of coalition struggle involving naval powers. It arose from an international political situation in which the two leading powers had major conflicts of values and interests, and from a military situation in which the direct use of force by either leading power against the other promised to be very costly or risky. The former situation made a comprehensive diplomatic settlement difficult to negotiate, while the latter situation made a resolution by the direct use of force unattractive to both parties. There are two strategic perspectives that are useful for understanding the outcome of the Cold War. One perspective involves viewing the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR as analogous to other protracted, large-scale naval coalition conflicts, such as the Napoleonic Wars, World War I, and World War II. In every one of these previous big wars, the side with the more cohesive coalition prevailed. In addition, the winners did a better job integrating different forms of power. Finally, the losers suffered from egregious strategic overextension. That pattern held true in the Cold War, too. Sun Tzu provides the second strategic perspective on the Cold War, because both superpowers shied away from the direct use of force against each other. Sun Tzu offers strategic concepts circumventing a force-on-force approach: “What is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy. Next best is to disrupt his alliances. The next best is to attack his army. The worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities when there is no alternative.”2 This chapter will begin with a comparative analysis of the cohesiveness of the American and the Soviet coalitions. Then, it will consider how the U.S. and the USSR tried to attack and undermine each other’s naval coalition.

Formation of NATO To understand why the Western alliance system proved to be more politically cohesive than the Soviet one, we need to bear in mind how the two formed. The Soviet alliances stemmed from Stalin’s decisions to impose communist regimes forcibly in virtually all the places that the Red Army had liberated from Germany or Japan in World War II. Most people in Eastern Europe welcomed their liberation from fascism, and many seemed to have wanted fairly radical

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social change as well, but very few wanted the sort of Stalinist domination that they got. Stalin evidently thought that he could assert control over Eastern Europe, and probe elsewhere, without causing a counter-coalition to form in the West. As a Leninist, he thought economic contradictions would lead to conflict among capitalist powers.3 In fact, for reasons different than those Stalin had in mind, the formation of a Western coalition was by no means a sure thing. For it to form as it did, the United States, Britain, France, and Germany all had to make a major break from their policy and strategy traditions. It was the threat posed by Stalin that brought about such change. Thus, Stalin encircled himself. The American break from tradition was especially remarkable. Stalin’s opportunism in pushing the pace of communization in Eastern Europe and putting pressure on Iran and Turkey caused American leaders to adopt the containment policy proposed by George Kennan – the common policy around which the Western alliance formed. Equally noteworthy, three of the first four big steps on the path to a Western alliance committed to containment – the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the establishment of a West German state, and the establishment of NATO – that is, all but the Marshall Plan, were as much the result of British as of American initiatives. Indeed, the key figure in the early implementation of containment was British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. Above all, it was Bevin, supported by the French, who was responsible for the establishment of NATO; he had to overcome much hesitation in Washington – and even arguments by Kennan against a military alliance. Whereas Stalin imposed a coalition, the United States led the Western alliance largely by invitation.4 Even when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, President Truman was not necessarily willing to commit American ground forces to the defense of West Germany. However, the North Korean attack on South Korea that Stalin supported turned NATO into a full-fledged military alliance under American leadership. Fearing that the communist invasion of South Korea was a prelude to a communist invasion of West Germany, the U.S. presented a package proposal to its European allies: NATO would develop an integrated military force with an American Supreme Commander and with American ground forces, and in return the Europeans would have to agree to West German rearmament. The French balked at West German rearmament, but after several years of tortuous negotiations, it was another British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, who advanced the proposal that brought France and a rearmed West Germany together in NATO.5 The process by which a military alliance against the Soviets formed had been a messy one, but the final product had the voluntary consent of its members and in the long run the coalition was all the more cohesive because it rested on a democratic foundation.

Formation of the Warsaw Pact Only after Germany became a member of NATO in 1955 did the Soviets establish the Warsaw Pact. Stalin had preferred to deal with his East European puppet

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states bilaterally on military matters. The command structure of each new army in Eastern Europe was subordinated to tight Soviet control; indeed, in some cases, most notably Poland, the military leaders were Soviet officers. Stalin’s successors established the Warsaw Pact not only as a response to West German integration into NATO, but also as a multilateral institutional supplement to bilateral controls. Until the 1960s, however, the Warsaw Pact did not amount to much as an alliance structure. Though a joint command was established in Moscow in 1956, it did little in its early years. Between 1955 and 1961, the supreme political organ of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) rarely met.6 The Soviets were slow to form a functioning coalition in part because they were plagued by defections and uprisings in their bloc. The first and only fully successful European defection before 1989 was that of Yugoslavia in 1948. In August 1949, and then again in August 1950, after the Korean War began, Stalin came close to invading Yugoslavia. But he held back, probably because of a healthy respect for the military resistance that the Yugoslavs would put up. Instead he concentrated on purging other communist leaders in Eastern Europe in hope of preventing any further defections. This further Stalinization only created greater strains between the party leadership and the population in those states. After Stalin died in 1953, there were strikes and riots in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria and then a major workers’ uprising in East Germany. Soviet tanks and troops put down that uprising. Three years later, there was instability in Poland and Hungary. Soviet troops in Poland began to advance on Warsaw, but stopped on the urgent pleading of the Polish leadership, who gave assurances that they could restore order and would not defect from the Soviet alliance. In Hungary, where the leadership did contemplate defection from the Soviet bloc, the Red Army put down insurrection in bloody fashion in 1956. For the next decade or so, there was a surface calm in Eastern Europe, but it gave way to a new upheaval, this time in Czechoslovakia in 1968, which the Soviets once again put down militarily. In the 1970s, ferment bubbled back to the surface in Poland, with the rise of the Solidarity movement. In late 1980 and early 1981, the Soviets came close to yet another military intervention, but restrained themselves.7

Building NATO strategic cohesion Compared to this series of tumultuous events in the Soviet bloc, there was relative serenity in the West. Apart from communist-inspired peace movements, there were large demonstrations in Germany against rearmament in the 1950s and across much of Western Europe during the Euromissile crisis in the early 1980s, but they led neither to large-scale violence nor to any disruption of the Western coalition. There was one defection, on the part of France, from the integrated military command in 1966. This step by Charles de Gaulle actually left NATO stronger, because it became more cohesive and more capable of achieving strategic coordination. Following a common identification of a primary enemy and a common political purpose in facing that enemy, strategic coordination is essential to coalition

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cohesion. The coordination of coalition strategy was the most difficult internal challenge that NATO faced from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s. The main impediment was deciding on the role of nuclear weapons in NATO strategy. After NATO formed in 1949, there was no alternative to relying on the American atomic arsenal, because the new allies had only meager conventional forces available for the defense of Western Europe. But after the invasion of Korea, the Truman Administration urged its European allies to join the U.S. in a major build-up of conventional forces. At a NATO conference in 1952, the U.S. and its allies made plans to have some 90 divisions by late 1954, one-third of which were to be deployed combat-ready, on or near the Central Front. Had the NATO countries fulfilled this program, they would have been in a strong position to defend West Germany against a Soviet conventional attack. But they never got much more than halfway to the planned force levels. Rearmament in Britain, France, and the U.S. generated domestic political and economic problems. That was to be a recurring theme for NATO. The allies simply did not want to pay the price for an adequate strategy of conventional defense.8 When Winston Churchill returned to power in 1951 and Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected President in 1952, they both wanted a NATO strategy that relied heavily on nuclear weapons. Massive retaliation was financially cheaper than the conventional alternative. In Eisenhower’s conception of a future war in Europe, NATO would meet an attack on the Central Front immediately with tactical nuclear weapons. That would hold the shield until the U.S. had time to thrust the sword, an all-out thermonuclear assault on the USSR. NATO signed on to this strategic concept in late 1954.9 The good news is that the allies had achieved strategic coordination in their prewar plans. The bad news is that there were some problems lurking in the new strategy. One was a coalition problem. The adoption of NATO’s nuclear strategy stimulated the desire of the continental allies, including West Germany, to have their own nuclear weapons – a desire that not only raised political alarm, but also raised the thorny strategic issue of how to coordinate different national nuclear capabilities in a war. Other problems had to do with the match between policy and strategy. The primary political objective was to protect West Germany. But in a 1955 NATO exercise, the simulated use of 335 tactical nuclear weapons was estimated to result in more than five million German casualties, not including victims of radioactive fallout. News of those results stirred up the West German public.10 As for strategic nuclear weapons, the American public had to contemplate the sacrifice of American cities for the sake of defending West Germany. With the Soviets developing their own thermonuclear weapons and the means to deliver them against the U.S., how credible was a NATO strategy that rested so heavily on an American nuclear guarantee? By the late 1950s, the Eisenhower Administration was moving toward the view that more weight should be given to options other than massive retaliation. In the early 1960s, the Kennedy Administration was even more strongly of that view. If the Berlin crisis had led to a Soviet attack with a limited objective, say, control over West Berlin, President Kennedy wanted to have more options at his

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disposal than an all-out nuclear attack on the USSR. He and his advisers thought that being able to respond in kind to aggression at all levels would strengthen the credibility of nuclear deterrence. It proved quite difficult, however, to get a consensus among the Europeans allies on such a strategy of “flexible response.” The French under de Gaulle were strident in claiming that the U.S. could not be counted on to launch a nuclear attack on the USSR in response to an invasion of Western Europe. To de Gaulle, American interest in conventional options in the 1960s was definitive proof that Washington’s nuclear guarantee was not credible. British and German leaders had similar doubts. But the British in the 1960s were still not keen on paying for greater conventional capability, and the Germans remained reluctant to accept a strategy that, arguably, increased the possibility of a conventional war on their soil.11 A NATO compromise emerged in 1967, after de Gaulle’s defection. European allies of the U.S. government accepted the flexible-response concept. The American government, which hitherto had kept nuclear planning largely to itself, was now more willing to engage with its allies in a give-and-take manner. One important institutional manifestation of this new strategic collaboration was the establishment of the Nuclear Planning Group. Yet the adoption of flexible response as a NATO strategic concept was more a declaration of political cohesion than a statement of strategic guidance for military commanders. The concept meant different things to different members of NATO. Even on the American side, there was a gap between declaratory posture and nuclear war planning. The prewar strategic coordination among allies still left ambiguous the circumstances and timing of a wartime step to nuclear use.

The Warsaw Pact’s coalition of the “unwilling” For all of the faults and ambiguities of the post-1967 NATO strategic posture, it was more adequate than the previous posture, especially in the sense of considering a broad range of contingencies. But how adequate was it in terms of dynamic WTO intentions and capabilities? Especially given the penchant of Soviet military planners for using nuclear weapons right away in a war in Europe, NATO plans would not have survived the first military contact with the enemy.12 Even in terms of deterrence, NATO’s posture had difficulty in addressing the Soviet threat. Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s, like Churchill and Eisenhower earlier, had wanted to economize on defense spending by relying on nuclear weapons at the expense of conventional forces. But after Khrushchev’s fall in 1964, the USSR carried out the greatest sustained arms build-up in history, a build-up that included massive spending on conventional forces as well as nuclear weapons. In addition, the Soviets in the 1960s got serious for the first time about coalition strategy in the WTO. They integrated the East European armies into planning for a nuclearsupported military campaign against NATO. In the mid-1960s, NATO had been closer to conventional parity with the WTO than ever before. By the late 1970s, however, the Warsaw Pact had rebuilt a major quantitative edge in conventional forces over NATO. About 40 percent

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of the WTO forces available for offensive operations against NATO were East European; however, the Soviets could not be sure of the political reliability of their allies in the event of war. Meanwhile, the Soviet build-up of strategic nuclear forces had by the 1970s taken them to parity – and in some respects perhaps beyond it. In the two sets of SALT negotiations, the Soviets clung tenaciously to the heavy MIRVed missiles that gave them a theoretical first-strike capability against American land-based missiles. They seemed to hope that this theoretical capability might give them a politically useful edge in any new crisis, such as the U.S. had shown in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. At the level of theater nuclear forces the Soviets had decided in the mid-1970s to deploy MIRVed SS-20s aimed at targets in Western Europe. Thus, by the end of the 1970s the Soviets had seemingly trumped the NATO strategy of flexible response by establishing a posture of escalation dominance at every conventional and nuclear level.13 But interaction works both ways. The U.S. and its allies fought back in the arms race. In the 1980s, the Soviets faced the prospect of losing their apparent multi-level edge as a result of the threat of an American ABM system; the NATO decision to deploy new theater nuclear forces aimed at targets in the Soviet Union; and the so-called “military technical revolution” that the Soviets saw under way in resurgent American conventional capabilities. The U.S. Army and Air Force developed an operational scheme for countering a Soviet attack on the Central Front by engaging in a deep battle against follow-on WTO forces in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy developed a maritime strategy that threatened a forward attack on Soviet nuclear submarines in their home waters and cruise missile attacks on Soviet targets on land.14

Peripheral theaters during the Cold War Though Europe was the principal theater in the Cold War, the conflict was global. Beyond the role of Germany and the role of nuclear weapons in coalition strategy, the third most contentious NATO issue was “out of area” problems – in other words, what the allies should do in the hot spots of North Africa, the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and Southeast Asia, where they had different interests and different secondary enemies. During the Korean War, Britain and other NATO allies fought alongside the U.S. in defense of South Korea, but tried to restrain American leaders from widening the war against China. The allies viewed Europe as the top-priority theater and the USSR, not China, as the principal threat. In the two Taiwan Straits crises of the 1950s, the British and the other NATO allies were apprehensive about how close to the nuclear brink the U.S. seemed willing to go against China. But in 1954, when the issue was whether or not to intervene militarily to rescue the French in Vietnam, the U.S. as well as Britain held back. A decade later, Washington received little support from Britain and France during the Vietnam War. In the Middle East, the U.S. and Britain worked together at some times in

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some places, but in 1956 when the British joined the French and the Israelis in a military operation to overthrow Nasser in Egypt, the U.S. used its economic leverage to halt the operation.15 This Suez Crisis was the most serious of all the “out of area” rifts among the NATO allies. In the Arab–Israeli War of 1973, there was what some have called a “Suez in reverse,” when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger failed to receive the support they expected from their European allies. At the end of the 1970s, with the revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the European allies dragged their feet in response to American pressures to help defend Western interests in Southwest Asia. Meanwhile, Moscow faced a coalition problem outside of Europe that was much greater than anything faced by NATO: its relationship with China. Stalin had treated Mao Zedong with a studied reserve until he agreed in early 1950 to the treaty of alliance that Mao sought. Perhaps the most interesting revelation from recently available Chinese and Russian archives concerns just how formidable an alliance structure the Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans, and Viet Minh developed in 1950. Mao helped bring the Viet Minh closer to the Soviets, and a Chinese General Staff officer planned the Viet Minh offensive in 1950 that pushed the French down the road to ultimate defeat in Indochina. Stalin brought Mao in on Kim Il-sung’s plan to invade South Korea. Soviet General Staff planners worked out the operational scheme for the North Korean attack, and Mao transferred to Kim 70,000 ethnic Korean soldiers from the Chinese army.16 All of these actions represent a high degree of political cohesion and strategic coordination. But the Korean War also brought the first rifts in the Sino-Soviet alliance. Just as Mao was deciding, with encouragement from Stalin, to intervene in rescuing the North Koreans, Stalin reneged for a while on a pledge to provide air support. Numerous invading Chinese died for want of air cover. Later, in 1952, when the Chinese were tiring of the war, Stalin held them back from making a settlement.17 It seemed in Beijing that Stalin wanted to fight to the last Chinese. After Stalin died, the Sino-Soviet rift grew wider. Mao had respected Stalin as the leader of international communism, but he had no such respect for Khrushchev. Khrushchev nevertheless tried to cultivate Mao, returned the last concessions in Manchuria, and even went so far as to help China develop a nuclear capability. But, during the second Taiwan Straits crisis in 1958, Khrushchev became fully aware of just how cavalier Mao’s attitude toward nuclear war was and eventually withdrew his support of China’s nuclear program. Mao, for his part, thought that the Soviets tried to treat China like their Eastern European allies. The rift now became a chasm. From the mid-1960s on, the Soviets undertook a massive build-up of their forces along the Chinese border. In 1969, there were major Sino-Soviet border conflicts, and the Soviets probed U.S. attitudes toward a pre-emptive Soviet nuclear strike against the PRC.18 Washington did not support the idea. Indeed, much to the chagrin of the Soviets, over the course of the next decade the U.S. developed its own strategic alignment with China. Judging from the Soviets’ unhappy experience with Tito and Mao, one might have thought they would be more wary of linking up with revolutionaries who

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had come to power without dependence on Soviet ground troops. Yet when Castro came to power in Cuba, the Soviets linked up with him, too. They liked how he stood up to the Americans. The Americans had supported an abortive invasion of Cuba in 1961 and had plans for another attack on Castro in 1962. Khrushchev tried to sneak several dozen nuclear missiles into Cuba both to deter such an attack and to get an extra source of leverage in the struggle with NATO over Germany. It was the worst move he ever made. Caught in his deception, he could not discount the possibility of a pre-emptive U.S. nuclear strike against the USSR. Yet, at the height of the crisis, Castro badgered him to launch the nuclear missiles in Cuba at the U.S. if American forces invaded.19 Khrushchev’s successors were no wiser in the world beyond Europe. In the 1970s, when the Soviets saw the correlation of forces moving in their favor, they sought new client states in the Third World.20 The culmination of that series of adventures led the USSR into another fiasco, this time in Afghanistan, which became the Soviet equivalent of American strategic overextension in Vietnam. The Soviets, however, proved to be less resilient in bouncing back. The U.S., like the USSR, also had to wrestle with the issue of how far from Europe it should expand its alliance structures. American naval power made it possible to expand containment and accumulate allies around the globe. However, what is possible is not necessarily what is wise. There were good reasons to extend containment in geographic scope and good reasons not to extend it. Limiting containment geographically only to vital areas would allow the U.S. to concentrate its military forces and conserve its economic resources. Limited containment would involve the U.S. only with relatively strong local partners and would be relatively easy on the will of the American people. It would, however, foster neglect of places that were not directly vital to the U.S. but that were strategically important to allies – the so-called “gray area” problem. Limited containment, if it led to the loss of countries to communism, was susceptible to domino effects and to credibility problems with allies. Extended containment would cover these risks of limited containment, but carried with it the equal risk of strategic overextension. In pursuit of extended containment, the U.S. tried to form multilateral alliances in Southeast Asia and the Middle East analogous to NATO. That effort fizzled. What did work well in East Asia were the bilateral alliances that the U.S. made with Japan and South Korea in the 1950s. Overall, with the important exception of client states in South Vietnam and Iran, the U.S. had better longterm fortune than the Soviets in the expansion of coalition structures outside Europe. Its East Asian alliances were an important reason why East Asia, like Europe, became a more stable region as well as a more prosperous and democratic region over the course of the Cold War.

Undermining coalition cohesion The concept of attacking coalitions was a big part of the Cold War. There are, of course, non-military means of doing this, but the traditional Bismarckian

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diplomatic methods of isolating adversaries did not work as well in the bipolar system of the Cold War as they did in the multipolar Europe of the Wars of German Unification. But in the 1970s, once China and then Egypt had decided on their own to depart from their previous alignments with the USSR, American diplomacy did help consolidate their realignment toward the U.S. The Cold War gave new prominence to less traditional non-military instruments for affecting alignments. One such instrument was foreign economic aid. The Truman Administration tried to use Marshall Plan aid to draw Eastern European states away from Soviet control in 1947. Once Yugoslavia defected from the Soviet bloc, the U.S. used economic aid to support its independent stance. The U.S. did much the same with Egypt in the 1970s. Arms transfers also became a prominent instrument for attacking alliances. The Soviets used the Czechs to transfer arms to Nasser to drive Egypt apart from Britain in the mid-1950s. The U.S. provided Stingers to the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s to help them drive out the Soviets. A third instrument that achieved new prominence in the Cold War was subversion – a way of attacking societies. The Soviets had the advantage of being able to exploit for this purpose communist parties in Western Europe and elsewhere. The U.S. relied on radio broadcasts and covert operations to stir up resistance to Soviet control over Eastern Europe. But when the uprisings of 1953 and 1956 took place, the U.S. simply stood by and watched as the Soviets crushed them. It did not want to risk military confrontation to support the uprisings. This brings us to the issue of military means to attack alliances. With the specter of nuclear war hovering over them, the U.S. and USSR shied away from the risks and costs of the direct use of military force against each other. But the threat of force – what some have called coercive diplomacy – is a form of military strategy. An example was the Berlin blockade of 1948. The Soviets cut off all road, rail, and water routes between the western zones of Germany and the western sectors in Berlin. Viewed in the context of attacking alliances, Stalin’s minimum objective was to halt the Anglo-American move toward a West German state and to coerce a re-opening of the German question to further negotiation; his maximum objective was to dissolve the emerging Western coalition in disagreements over how to respond to the blockade. In fact, his strategy proved to be counterproductive, because the Berlin crisis bolstered the Western coalition. In 1950, Stalin went further and engaged in proxy war by supporting Kim Ilsung’s invasion of South Korea. Here Stalin’s maximum objective seems to have been to scare Japan away from an alliance with the U.S. Once again, Stalin’s strategy proved to be counterproductive, because Washington responded by strengthening its global alliance network. Khrushchev took a more subtle tack in the new Berlin crisis that he provoked in 1958. He told the Western powers that unless they agreed within six months to transform West Berlin into a demilitarized “free city,” he would turn over control of access to West Berlin to the East German regime, which the Western powers did not recognize. Despite the six-month time limit, the crisis went on for the better part of the next four years.

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Behind Khrushchev’s diplomatic posture lay the USSR’s first significant attempt at nuclear intimidation. In 1957, the Soviets had demonstrated an ICBM capability well ahead of the U.S., and Khrushchev ostentatiously tried to get diplomatic leverage out of this apparent edge. In this new Berlin crisis, again from the perspective of the Cold War as a coalition struggle, the minimum objective was to preserve his East German ally by getting rid of the irritant and escape hatch of West Berlin in the middle of East Germany and by getting Western recognition of the regime. Beyond that, he wanted to prevent the Federal Republic of Germany from becoming a nuclear state and, more generally, to contain growing West German economic and military power. Pressure on NATO at its strategic Achilles heel, Berlin, was bound to cause intra-alliance disputes among the U.S., Britain, France, and West Germany over how to respond to the Soviet challenge. But NATO disagreements did not lead to NATO implosion.21 The Soviets’ last great attempt to attack the Western coalition came in the crisis that arose from their deployment of SS-20s in the mid-1970s. This deployment, together with the ever-increasing WTO conventional threat and burgeoning Soviet ICBM capabilities, gave firmer shape to a posture of escalation dominance. In these circumstances, the West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt believed that NATO must respond by deploying new theater nuclear missiles of its own. With some difficulty, he got the Carter Administration and other NATO governments to agree. The result was tremendous domestic political controversy in many NATO countries. What the Soviets were doing in this Euromissile crisis went beyond trying to generate discord among Western leaders about how to respond. Now they were using their military might to attack the people–government relationship in those member states of NATO where American theater nuclear weapons were to be deployed – in Germany, above all. There was an asymmetry here in the social dimension of strategy: communist regimes did not have to worry much about public opinion; democratic regimes do. But once again NATO proved resilient in the face of this indirect form of strategic attack on Western societies.22 A notable pattern ran through these crises: NATO emerged with renewed cohesion after being subjected to Soviet military pressure. The pattern running the other way looks different. American military staying power in the Korean War frayed the Sino-Soviet alliance. In the Taiwan Straits crisis of 1958, the Eisenhower Administration’s hard line, backed up by a nuclear threat, further tore asunder the SinoSoviet alliance. More generally, during the two periods in which the NATO military posture showed the greatest vigor in the European theater – the early 1950s and the early 1980s – Soviet policy took a more conciliatory turn. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the mid-1980s with a valuable lesson learned: Soviet coercive diplomacy was counterproductive. Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition structure had backfired. Conciliatory tactics were more likely to produce a relaxed Western posture. Gorbachev also appreciated that Soviet rearmament against the many enemies with which the USSR had encircled itself had done much to produce the stagnation of the Soviet economy. He hoped that reform, against a background of détente, would put the USSR in a position to hold its own more effectively

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in the long run against the capitalist world. Gorbachev had no intention of giving up the core coalition in Eastern Europe that the USSR had hung onto for so long. But, in the crunch, unlike his predecessors before the 1980s, he was not willing to use force to prevent defections. Thus, from 1989 to 1991, the Soviet-led coalition of the unwilling dissolved around him. So indeed did the Soviet Union itself.

Naval conclusions For the Soviet Union, with the exception of Cuba, the key theaters of the Cold War were all contiguous with its continental empire and surrounding communist sphere of influence. The U.S., on the other hand, relied heavily on its navy to reach all key theaters of the Cold War. The formation of NATO, for example, was based on naval superiority. The Cold War strategy of containment, in particular, also depended heavily on naval superiority to project power across vast seas. While certainly true in the Pacific theater, this also applied to the primary theater of the Cold War in Europe, even though the first stage of any future conflict would probably have begun as a ground (and quite possibly nuclear) war. Naval power projection gave the U.S. a global menu of potential theaters to engage the Soviet Union and exert pressure all along its periphery. Peripheral wars occurred in Korea and Vietnam, and there were also many proxy wars in Africa, Latin America, and Eurasia. All the while, command of the seas provided the United States with a high level of security against conventional attack and safeguarded a new international economic order that made association with the U.S. all the more attractive to its allies in Europe and Asia.

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College. 2 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, S.B. Griffith trans. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 77–78. 3 William Taubman, Stalin’s American Policy (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982). 4 Geir Lundestad, “Empire by Invitation? The United States and Western Europe, 1945–1952,” Journal of Peace Research 23.3 (September 1986): 263–277; John Baylis, The Diplomacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942–1949 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1993). 5 Saki Dockrill, “Britain and the Settlement of the West German Rearmament Question in 1954,” in Michael Dockrill and John W. Young, eds, British Foreign Policy, 1945–56 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 149–172. 6 Vojtech Mastny and Malcolm Byrne, A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955–1991 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005); Neil Fodor, The Warsaw Treaty Organization: A Political and Organizational Analysis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990). 7 There are many new documents on and analyses of the uprisings in the Soviet bloc on the websites of the Cold War International History Project (www.wilsoncenter.org/ index.cfm) and the Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact (www.isn.ethz.ch/php/index.htm).

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8 Robert Endicott Osgood, NATO: The Entangling Alliance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 64–101. 9 Robert Allen Wampler, “Ambiguous Legacy: The United States, Great Britain and the Foundations of NATO Strategy, 1948–1957” (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1991). 10 Mark Cioc, Pax Atomica: The Nuclear Defense Debate in West Germany during the Adenauer Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 29–30. 11 For different perspectives on the debate over “flexible response,” see David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1983), 136–192; Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO’s Debate over Strategy in the 1960s (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988); Beatrice Heuser, NATO, Britain, France, and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949–2000 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); and Francis J. Gavin, “The Myth of Flexible Response: United States Strategy in Europe during the 1960s,” International History Review, 23.4 (December 2001), 847–875. 12 Warsaw Pact documents found in Eastern European archives and released after the end of the Cold War show Soviet military interest in the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against targets in Western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. See Mastny and Byrne. 13 Phillip A. Karber, “To Lose an Arms Race: The Competition in Conventional Forces Deployed in Central Europe 1965–1980,” and James J. Martin, “How the Soviet Union Came to Gain Escalation Dominance: Trends and Asymmetries in the Theater Nuclear Balance,” both in Uwe Nerlich, ed., Soviet Power and Western Negotiating Policies, vol. 1: The Soviet Asset: Military Power in the Competition Over Europe (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1983), 31–119. 14 Norman Friedman, The Fifty Year War: Conflict and Strategy in the Cold War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2000), 445–466; John B. Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977–1986 (Newport, RI: NWC Press, 2004), Newport Paper 19. 15 Diane B. Kunz, The Economic Diplomacy of the Suez Crisis (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 120–152. 16 Chen Jian, “China and the First Indochina War, 1950–1954,” China Quarterly, 133 (March 1993), 85–110; Zhai Qiang, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). 17 Kathryn Weathersby, “Stalin, Mao, and the End of the Korean War,” in Odd Arne Westad, ed., Brothers in Arms: The Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 90–116. 18 Lyle J. Goldstein, Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 76–95; Patrick Tyler, A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (New York: Public Affairs, 1999), 54–71. 19 Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “One Hell of a Gamble”: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997); Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd edn (New York: Longman, 1999). 20 Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (New York: Basic Books, 2005). 21 For different perspectives on the Berlin crisis of 1958–62, see Vladislav M. Zubok, “Khrushchev and the Berlin Crisis (1958–1962),” Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 6 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, May 1993); Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 251–351. 22 Jeffrey Herf, War by Other Means: Soviet Power, West German Resistance, and the Battle of the Euromissiles (New York: The Free Press, 1991).

14 The maritime element in the 1990–91 Gulf crisis Drawing on the dividends of half a century of multinational naval operations James Goldrick1

The coalition that enforced the United Nations sanctions against Iraq in 1990 and supported the campaign in 1991 to liberate Kuwait was the largest and most diverse since the Korean War. Arguably, the maritime component was its most complex element. The naval force levels of the United States and its partners were also more closely balanced in capability than was the case on land. There were many issues at play in August 1990 in the crisis created by Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait. Not all nations were comfortable with the idea that direct military action was appropriate. They preferred to wait on the progress of diplomatic action, up to and including sanctions. The United States, on the other hand, firmly of the view that the invader could only be ousted by force, needed time to build up its forces in theater, particularly on land. It also knew that the greater the level of international support that could be mustered and sustained, the better. Four days after Iraq’s invasion, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 661, which prohibited exports from Iraq and Kuwait and prohibited imports other than medical supplies and vital foodstuffs.2 Enforcing UN sanctions on Iraq would not only progressively erode Saddam Hussein’s ability to make war, but allow the opportunity to build international support and buy time for the assembly of forces. With an immediate job to be done, a maritime coalition had utility in more ways than one. Although Iraq is practically land-locked, it has direct access to the sea at the north-western corner of the Persian Gulf, with an indirect link to the Red Sea through a sympathetic Jordan via the port of al-Aqaba. Shutting off maritime trade would be vital to make the UN sanctions work and, in the process, undermine Saddam’s regime.

The post-World War II background The task of bringing so many nations together did not start completely from scratch. To an extent far greater than armies or air forces, many of the world’s navies shared doctrine and operating procedures, equipment, and logistic systems to a degree that made combined operations a practical possibility from the outset.

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This had not come about by accident but was the result of nearly half a century of sustained effort. During World War II, the U.S. and British navies had operated extensively with each other and became used to adopting the leading partner’s signals and tactics. Thus, U.S. Navy ships used British procedures when operating with the British Home Fleet, while the Royal Navy adopted American systems in the Pacific in 1944–45.3 Furthermore, the free naval forces of occupied Europe became closely integrated with the RN, not only in signaling and tactics, but in ships and equipment; much U.S. material was also used under lend-lease arrangements. In the decade following the war, it was not uncommon for senior European naval officers to possess as many British decorations as their RN contemporaries.4 Faced by new threats posed by the USSR, common U.S. Navy–Royal Navy tactical and replenishment procedures were under development in the late 1940s, while the formation of the Western Union in 1948 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 brought the Western European nations formally into alliance. The first major multinational maritime exercise Verity was conducted by the British, French, Dutch, and Belgians that year, with very mixed results, but a start had been made.5 Soon, naval coalitions were given impetus by the Korean War. This led to Allied Tactical Publication (ATP) 16, the Allied manual for replenishment at sea that emerged in 1954, accompanied by a series of other manuals, including the fundamental ATP 1, the handbook for tactics, maneuvering, and signaling.6 By the end of the decade a comprehensive alliance structure had been put in place for the publication of a whole framework of doctrine, together with a regime of regular multinational exercises. The NATO system was cumbersome, particularly as final approval of any doctrine required the consent of all members, but work-arounds were achieved to allow “experimental” doctrine to keep up with changing technologies and operational conditions. In the Indian Ocean and the Pacific there were similar efforts underway. The South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) sponsored major naval exercises from 1956 onwards.7 The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) also had a naval element, engaged in multinational exercises and transfers of equipment to its smaller members.8 In the Pacific, the Americans provided support to the emerging Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. As SEATO began to falter, the U.S. Navy initiated the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in 1971.9 This progressively included more and more of the navies of the Pacific and became a highlight of their operational cycles. Systematic cooperation amongst the Latin American navies took longer to develop. Local rivalries always militated against multinational cooperation, even after the signing of the Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty of 1947, and most U.S. support was on a bilateral basis.10 Nevertheless, the annual UNITAS program of exercises, initiated in 1960,11 together with training programs in the United States, created a basis of common procedures, while the British conducted a number of task group deployments to the continent.12 Within the Persian Gulf, the Commander of the U.S. Middle East Force pursued a

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program of bilateral exercises with the various Gulf nations, many of which enjoyed technical and operational support from the UK or France as they developed their own naval forces.

Interoperability within the coalition The drive towards interoperability was not confined to doctrine or procedures. Despite the constraint of national industries, there was progress towards aligning equipment and logistics. The United States organized large-scale transfers of warships to allied and friendly navies under its Mutual Defense Assistance Program to help rebuild their services, and followed this with subsidized incountry construction of approved designs under an “off shore” aid program. Although the major Western European powers had resumed in-country design and construction as soon as possible, standardization continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Ammunition calibers were aligned and many weapons systems, not only American built, became multinational. Other key logistic measures included the development of a universal NATO stock number system that allowed commonalities to be identified down to the component level. The result was that mechanisms were developed – known as “material screen requests” – by which units operating together could provide spare parts to each other. Communications interoperability was central to effective cooperation and became even more important with the advent of combat data systems and radio links, systems intended to meet the challenge of the increasing speed and lethality of modern weapons. As early as 1961, naval tactical data links – the key ones later designated Link 11 and Link 14 – were the subject of a NATO Standardization Agreement (STANAG) and combined development work continued as more and more navies adopted combat data systems.13 Other countries were allowed access to NATO doctrine. This was on a tiered basis, with British Commonwealth navies in alliance with the UK and the United States, notably Australia, New Zealand, and for a period, South Africa, receiving relatively privileged and immediate access to developments. A “trickle down” process was also put in place, whereby less sensitive publications, often at a previous change status, were made available to non-Allied services for a price. This tended to happen when a navy had purchased ships and the associated training programs from either the United States or Western Europe; all this eventually made ATP 1 in its various iterations a worldwide standard outside the Communist bloc. The scale of the effort is indicated by the fact that some 1,000 officers and sailors from the British Commonwealth, NATO, and CENTO were trained in the UK in 1961.14 In addition to shore schools, work up training was provided for new ships and the long-term alignment of naval operational standards owed much to the establishment of a formal sea training organization by the RN at Portland in 1960.15 Over the next few decades, not only was every major warship built in the UK “worked up” for the country concerned, but NATO

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navies, particularly those of The Netherlands and West Germany, regularly sent their major surface ships. This “trickle down” also applied to equipment. While the United States continued to sell or lease ships, both second hand and new, and other material to its allies, so did the UK. The increasing capacity of the Western European naval shipbuilders also meant that they could provide new construction to nonCommunist nations around the world. The South American navies looked to the UK and Western Europe because of the U.S. unwillingness to provide them with sophisticated weaponry. Possession of the same ships and equipment that operated in NATO almost invariably meant the adoption of NATO compatible logistic systems. By the 1980s, the result of the Cold War naval cooperation was that navies which belonged to what could be termed the “western alliance” shared doctrine, procedures, and equipment to a remarkable degree. Outside this “inner circle” were many other navies that shared most or all of these fundamentals of naval operations. Ironically, although much of the motivation for multinational naval commonality derived from the Cold War, its utility was also demonstrated during the protracted conflict between Iran and Iraq. By 1987, this had been in progress for seven years. In an attempt to break the stalemate and erode Iraq’s principal source of external financial support, Iran initiated what became known as the “Tanker War” by striking at ships operating out of Kuwait. The United States and a number of other nations, including the UK, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Belgium, sent naval forces into the Persian Gulf to protect the international traffic. A cease-fire negotiated by the UN in July 1988 finally brought the war to an end and with it the need for the multinational operations. Nevertheless, the services involved had gained valuable experience in working together in a complex environment. Perhaps just as significantly, many of the smaller Gulf states had been involved through their provision of fuel and port facilities.16

The 1990 crisis Events moved quickly after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, despite the strategic surprise that Iraq had achieved. When the United States sought international partners, the UK was ready to provide support and French forces were also in area. The Australians promised a three-ship task group on 10 August and nine other nations – Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Spain – quickly followed suit. There were early coalition problems. UN Security Council Resolution 661 did not give a clear mandate for the employment of force. This fault became obvious after the start of interception operations by the U.S. Navy on 17 August 1990. Iraqi merchant ships simply continued their passage undeterred, despite warning shots. A halt to the operation was called until Resolution 665 was issued on 25 August. This allowed maritime units to “use measures commensurate with the circumstances to halt all inward and outward maritime shipping.”17

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Although there was considerable scope in this mandate, the coalition forces knew that there was an abiding requirement to employ only minimum force to maintain moral authority in the eyes of the world. The initial meeting of intended contributors took place in Bahrain on 9–10 September 1990, chaired by Vice Admiral Henry H. Mauz, the Commander of U.S. Navy forces in theater. Apart from the issues relating to the invasion itself, the situation was both helped and hindered by the shared histories of the various navies. Recent cooperation in the Tanker War meant that there was a high level of shared understanding and local experience to build upon the wider and deeper links that most navies shared from their alliance background. On the other hand, many, most notably the major European powers, had local national interests and preoccupations that had to be factored into the present challenge. While all concerned were willing to accept an American coordinating role to some degree, France and Italy wanted separate arrangements for the Western European Union. Other nations were more willing to accept much closer integration within the American arrangements, but had reservations about giving the U.S. Navy outright operational or even tactical control. The compromise arrived at was one termed “loose association,” an approach that one of its authors summed up as “give us a task and we will get on with it and make it happen.”18 To accomplish the enforcement of sanctions, the multinational Maritime Interception Force (MIF) thus came into existence, divided broadly into four geographic regions – the Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, and Persian Gulf – with the Gulf states patrolling their own territorial waters and providing base facilities for the MIF. The United States deployed forces to all but the Gulf of Aden, which was the responsibility of France. France also deployed to the Red Sea, alongside Greece and Spain. Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Spain worked in the Gulf of Oman, while Canada, Denmark, Italy, Norway, and the UK operated in the Persian Gulf.19 These divisions were never absolute and, as events developed, cooperation between areas became progressively more effective. Nevertheless, there were deficiencies. Most critically, restrictions on operations in the north of the Persian Gulf provided an opportunity for Iraq to seed Kuwaiti waters with mines.

Making the sanctions work Many of the navies involved embarked on a steep learning curve. Dealing with big merchant ships in a fraught political environment presented much greater challenges than traditional enforcement work,20 even for services with a long tradition in maritime surveillance and apprehension, such as Canada.21 Personal contacts and embedded liaison officers played a vital part in ensuring shared understanding of the issues. The U.S. Coast Guard provided advice and training not only to the U.S. Navy but to other navies, while the forces in theater worked hard to develop effective waterborne and vertical insertion boarding techniques, with much exchange of ideas among the various navies. Helicopters quickly

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came into their own, while operational demands on small craft hastened the transition to fast and flexible rigid hull inflatable boats. The tactical focus was on achieving successful interceptions with minimum use of force. Well before Operation Desert Storm, the coalition was locked into a media war, in which Iraq was seeking to cast its opponents in the role of aggressors, particularly in the eyes of the Arab world. There were several false steps, but the MIF rapidly mastered the necessary techniques, as was demonstrated by the successful interceptions of the Iraqi merchant ships Al Wasitti and Amuriyah on 8 and 28 of October 1990.22 Amuriyah’s crew offered resistance to the MIF boarding parties, but the ship was eventually taken under control.23 On 26 December 1990, the “peace” ship Ibn Khaldoon was intercepted and diverted, without bloodshed and without giving Iraq a propaganda victory. The MIF’s approach was basically to assemble a multinational group of warships, surround the target ship, and then begin a sequence of actions to bring the contact to a halt. If signals, radio calls, overflights by carrier aircraft, or warning shots did not bring a result, coalition boarding teams were inserted by helicopter while other rotary wing aircraft and surface ships provided cover. Once the ship’s vital spaces were under control and the crew accounted for, the search could proceed. The most difficult problem was that each navy was operating under different rules of engagement, some much more constrained than others.24 The MIF soon learned to assign forces for interceptions based not only on their physical capability but the robustness of their ROE. It was particularly important that the on-scene commander have the greatest possible national flexibility. In one early incident, the commander’s need to refer back to his national higher command meant that securing the contact of interest took 37 hours – more than 24 of which a boarding party was onboard the Iraqi ship.25 One associated issue was the natural desire of each nation’s forces to insure that its participation received the maximum publicity. There was occasional jockeying for position for media exposure and sometimes resentment when the “product” in the international media appeared to give undue credit to one nation more than others. The blockade was never absolute, despite the increasingly sophisticated integration of surface and air forces, particularly the maritime patrol aircraft, which could conduct surveillance and provide queuing on contacts of interest. The development of an effective multinational vessel tracking system was a key measure, given the complexity of the surface picture, in which units could be tracking up to 200 contacts within a range of 100 nautical miles. One Australian frigate’s combat data system processed over 76,000 surface tracks in three months.26 By the end of 1990, the primary aims of the sanctions had been achieved. Iraq was no longer part of the world economy and had no maritime access to the materials necessary to support its war machine.27

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The transition to Operation Desert Storm As the deadline for armed intervention to force Iraq out of Kuwait approached, the U.S. Navy’s focus turned to preparation for hostilities. The prospect of a shooting war presented new challenges. France and other members of the Western European Union (WEU) wished to retain the focus on diplomacy and were not yet willing to commit themselves to an offensive campaign. For those countries that were ready to move with the United States, most concerns related to the risk that each nation was prepared to accept. Accepting risk was not just a matter of weapon and sensor capability. It also reflected the extent to which the smaller countries could integrate into the battlespace management of the U.S. Navy, itself struggling to integrate its air operations with the main U.S. Air Force-led effort ashore. With the threat posed by the Iraqi Air Force and its air-launched missiles, used to good effect during the Tanker War, as well as by shore-based surface-to-surface missiles and with the unknown quantity of the Iranians, it was essential that the front line units were fully capable of looking after themselves – and also of being integrated into the picture to the extent that “blue on blue” engagements could be prevented at the same time as rapidly emerging threats were effectively parried. There was also a recognition that the MIF task could not stop. Canada, in particular, insisted that “all Iraq-bound merchant traffic” be inspected.28 The result was a multi-tiered coalition effort. The British, Dutch, and Australians were all rapidly integrated into the U.S. Navy forces, operating as components of the carrier battle groups and other formations. Their allocation partly reflected their geographical origin, with the Australians operating with the same U.S. Navy carrier battle group with which they had recently exercised in the Pacific, but it also reflected their judgment of the combat potential of their national units in theater. For example, Royal Navy units, whose missileequipped helicopters were particularly suited for the role, worked as part of the surface action groups in the northern Gulf. The Canadians, as integrated as any other nation in other respects, had a much less favorable view of the air defense capabilities of their aging ships. Therefore, they continued their role of maritime interception operations before taking on the role of coordination and protection of the Combat Logistics Force further south. These efforts were supported within the Gulf by other nations, such as Argentina, Italy, Denmark, and France. The overall logistic effort was an essential underpinning to the combat operations. Canada’s readiness to take on its coordination represented a shrewd judgment as to how to make the most effective national contribution. Although the Americans provided a substantial proportion of the “fleet train,” coalition nations contributed significantly. The provision by the Gulf states of base facilities, as well as fuel – most notably by Saudi Arabia – made the campaign possible, but the logistic forces were still under great strain, with one tanker conducting 17 replenishments in one day. When incompatibilities in refueling gear were discovered, the logistic ships “managed to modify rigs so we could do whatever was needed.”29 What eventually became a Combined Logistic Force

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(CLF), involving not only replenishment but escort and protection duties, also provided a mechanism for the other coalition partners to support the combat effort while remaining within their own political mandate. Some 25 escorts and 30 auxiliaries from 12 nations operated for some period with or within the CLF.30 All the navies involved also worked hard to upgrade their units. Such upgrades ranged from fitting additional active and passive self-defense systems – such as close in weapon systems, decoys, and radar absorbent material – to additional communications equipment and display systems, particularly those required to share the U.S. Navy’s long range picture, the Joint Operational Tactical System (JOTS). Some unexpected problems emerged that indicated how interoperability was an increasingly complex issue. Communications became one of the greatest challenges for all concerned. Apart from the requirement for shared cryptography and procedures, the increasing U.S. reliance on satellites presented problems for the smaller nations, which also had the requirement to maintain their own national links while maintaining a watch on a wide variety of long and short range circuits. Inevitably, many had to “pick and choose” what circuits they manned. Misalignment between the operating standards for Link 11 between the U.S. Pacific Fleet, with which the Australians operated, and the Europeans, who worked to the relevant NATO STANAG, meant that the Australian destroyer Brisbane found she could not operate in the Link without corrupting the system of the British Gloucester. A solution in the form of a software patch to Brisbane’s combat data system was rapidly developed – within only 18 hours – by Australian shore authorities.31 Mine countermeasure (MCM) operations proved to be one of the most difficult areas for the coalition. The failure to prevent the Iraqis from seeding the northern Gulf with mines was one of the fundamental errors of the Operation Desert Shield – an error not repeated in 2003. The scale of the mine threat was such that an amphibious operation into Kuwait on any scale was not really practicable and the strategy eventually adopted was to threaten, but not execute, an amphibious assault. The issue, however, aroused intense debate within the American command organizations and was never wholly resolved. The intensity of this controversy was not always apparent to the other members of the coalition, particularly as it was important to make the Iraqis believe that an amphibious attack remained an option, since this would divert attention and resources from the intended avenues of attack over land. Unfortunately, the initial planning effort for MCM in the northern Gulf fell foul of the situation. The Royal Navy, which was providing a high proportion, and the most capable, of the surface MCM assets, did not accept the initial plans for the approach to Kuwait, which had been developed by U.S. Navy authorities without their involvement.32 An effective MCM plan was eventually devised and implemented, although its execution and the coordination of the supporting surface forces was not assisted by repeated changes of the U.S. Navy local commanders.33

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The coalition effort at sea did not stop with the end of hostilities. The need to force Iraqi compliance with UN requirements meant that sanctions remained in force and maritime interception operations were soon resumed, first in the Red Sea and then, as trade revived, within the Gulf itself. This marked the start of a campaign that ended only with the second Iraq war of 2003.34 The northern Gulf also required a lengthy effort to clear both harbors and open water of mines, unexploded ordnance, wrecks, and other obstructions. This activity brought a new player, in the form of an MCM squadron of the Japanese Maritime SelfDefense Force. Its successful conclusion by the beginning of 1992 was one of the less well advertised victories of the naval coalition.35

Conclusions The key lesson of the naval coalition before, during, and after Operation Desert Storm was that success depended directly upon a foundation of shared endeavor in peace. The MIF could not have been put to work so quickly nor resolved emerging challenges so effectively without a common basis of professional skills and systems – as well as shared friendship and long acquaintance. This common basis did not emerge by accident. Mechanisms to develop and share doctrine, regular multinational exercises, and as much professional and social interaction as possible between individuals through exchanges, training programs, and higher education are vital elements, not only within formal alliances, but also amongst friendly nations with shared interests. If this was the case for the enforcement of naval sanctions in a relatively low intensity environment, it was even more true for Operation Desert Storm. The coalition supplemented the U.S. Navy in a number of key areas. The most obvious was MCM, but partners were also able to contribute surface ships, which assisted materially in the establishment of sea control and provided for the protection of the logistic forces and the resources flowing into the land campaign through Saudi Arabian and Gulf ports. All this allowed the U.S. Navy to deploy a much higher proportion of its naval forces to directly supporting Operation Desert Storm than would otherwise have been possible. The crisis clearly demonstrated the utility of naval units in a complex environment. The need to possess levels of capability and readiness that would allow timely contributions to future coalitions put a premium on three areas in particular for would-be partners. The first was the need for flexible and capable surface combatants. The second was the acquisition of command and control technology to connect units to the rest of the coalition. The third was that the most useful contributions to a maritime coalition included their own logistic support – and, preferably, the capacity to make a contribution to the logistic needs of the whole. Maritime forces proved themselves not only convenient as “tools of first response” for governments wishing to make commitments in an uncertain situation at short notice, but also potent instruments for asserting substantial economic and military pressure, even against an apparently land-locked nation such

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as Iraq. By comparison with both land and air forces, their footprint on land, and thus their need for access to other nations’ sovereign territory, was minimal. Their ease of deployment not only bought time for national decision-makers, but also provided important capabilities for the campaign.

Notes 1 The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal views and do not represent those of the Australian Government, the Australian Department of Defence, or the Royal Australian Navy. 2 Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller, Jr, Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War (Washington DC: Naval Historical Center, 1998), 83–84. 3 For a first hand account of the communications aspects of BPF and USN interoperability, see Eric Grove, ed. The Battle and the Breeze: The Naval Reminiscences of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Edward Ashmore (Stroud: Sutton with the Royal Naval Museum, 1997), 60–72. 4 The Danish C-in-C was a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB), as was the senior French Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, while the Norwegian C-in-C and Chief of Naval Staff both had appointments in the Order of the British Empire. Jane’s Fighting Ships 1950–51. 5 Eric Grove, Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy Since World War II (Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1987), 165–166. 6 Peter Nash, “The Royal Navy in Korea: Replenishment and Sustainability,” in Greg Kennedy, ed. British Naval Strategy East of Suez, 1900–2000: Influences and Actions (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 172. 7 Rear Admiral G.G.O. Gatacre, Reports of Proceedings: A Naval Career 1921–1964 (Sydney: Nautical Press, 1982), 315. 8 Pakistan Navy History Section, Story of the Pakistan Navy (Islamabad: Naval Headquarters, 1991), 193–194. 9 D.M. Stevens, ed. The Royal Australian Navy (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001), 230. 10 Robert L. Schiena, Latin America: A Naval History 1810–1987 (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1987), 173. 11 U.S. Navy, Unitas XXV – A Silver Anniversary (Washington DC: Navy Department, 1985), 6–7. 12 For example, in 1962. See Desmond Wettern, The Decline of British Seapower (London: Jane’s, 1982), 209–210. 13 Norman Friedman, The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems 1991–92 (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991), 18. 14 “Memorandum to Accompany Navy Estimates, 1963–64,” The Naval Review Vol. LI, No. 2, April 1963, 217. 15 Wettern, 163–164. 16 Marolda and Schneller, 32–33. 17 Ibid., 86. 18 Recollections of Vice Admiral R.A.K. Walls AO, RAN (rtd). Held by the Sea Power Centre Australia. 19 Juan Carlos Neves, “Interoperability in Multinational Coalitions: Lessons from the Persian Gulf War,” Naval War College Review Winter 1995, Vol. LXVIII, No 1, 51. 20 Ken Doolan, “The Gulf Challenge,” in David Stevens, ed. Maritime Power in the Twentieth Century: the Australian Experience (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), 204. 21 Richard H. Gimblett, “MIF or MNF? The Dilemma of the ‘Lesser’ Navies in the Gulf

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23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

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War Coalition,” in Michael L. Hadley, Rob Huebert, and Fred W. Crickard, eds, A Nation’s Navy: In Quest of Canadian Naval Identity (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), 196. For a more detailed exposition of this period, see the author’s “Maritime Sanctions Enforcement against Iraq, 1990–2003,” in Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine, eds, Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-strategies, 1905–2005 (London: Routledge, 2005), 203–205. Marolda and Schneller, 94. Doolan, “The Gulf Challenge,” 203. Captain R.E. Shalders, CSC, RAN, “Operation Damask – HMAS Darwin,” Journal of the Australian Naval Institute May 1991. Ibid. Marolda and Schneller, 152–153. Gimblett, “MIF or MNF?” 198. Recollections of Commodore Graham Sloper AM, RAN, CO HMAS Success (AOR 134). Held by Sea Power Centre, Australia. Gimblett, “MNF or MIF?” 202. Geoff Cannon, “Technology transfer and the advance of Australian naval combat systems,” in David Stevens and John Reeve, eds, The Navy and the Nation: the Influence of the Navy on Modern Australia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 254. Captain Chris Craig, Call for Fire: Sea Combat in the Falklands and the Gulf War (London: John Murray, 1995), 236–237. Marolda and Schneller, 259. Goldrick, “Maritime Sanctions,” 205–212. Marolda and Schneller, 320–325.

15 Western intervention in Bosnia Operation Deliberate Force Charles Ingrao

In the summer of 1995, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) launched its first military operations ever against a hostile foe. Naval forces were an integral part of this coalition operation known as Operation Deliberate Force, contributing bombers, air cover, and at one point even Tomahawk missiles to the mission. The bombing campaign was as short as it was successful. After only 11 days, the badly overmatched Bosnian Serbs finally honored the UN resolutions protecting Bosnia’s non-Serb population. This happy ending should not, however, obscure the almost insurmountable political divisions that prevented NATO’s member states from acting in concert. For the Atlantic Alliance, the Bosnian conflict offers more lessons about the difficulties of molding a consensus and overcoming the self-interest of individual member states than about the orchestration of a successful military intervention. This chapter will evaluate how this coalition formed, what decisions it made, and how well naval forces cooperated to obtain their objectives.

Origins of the intervention The dissolution of Yugoslavia began with the secession of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, followed one year later by the departure of Bosnia and Macedonia. For four years, foreigners stood on the sideline while Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic directed the Rump Yugoslav army and an assortment of Serb nationalist military formations in creating a “Greater Serbia” that was intended to include roughly one-third of Croatia and two-thirds of Bosnia. Foreign observers were horrified by the Serb bombardment of cities, the organized rape of thousands of women, the murder of tens of thousands of civilians, and summary expulsion of well over one million more. Nowhere was the public reaction more trenchant than in those countries of Western Europe and North America that belonged to NATO. Televised images of helpless victims quickly evoked the “CNN effect” by which popular pressure mounted to “do something” to end the humanitarian catastrophe. The reaction was particularly intense within the traditionally pacifistic European Left, which joined with a broad range of North American voices in reminding their leaders

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of the “Never Again!” pledge that the previous generation had made in the aftermath of the Holocaust.1 Yet, if Western societies were united by a humanitarian impulse to “do something,” policy-makers in capitals like London, Paris, and Washington were equally unanimous in seeing no significant national interest to be served by intervening in the conflict. As U.S. Secretary of State James Baker explained, “We don’t have a dog in that fight.” An early manifestation of this “hands off” approach was the UN Security Council’s unanimous passage of an arms embargo against all of the Yugoslav republics in September 1991, which left secessionist Croatia and Bosnia without the means of protecting themselves adequately. The absence of an acute raison d’état explains in the broadest terms the great powers’ reluctance to incur the expense or risk the lives of their military personnel in the Balkans. This does not mean that there were not strong differences of opinion among the great powers and within the NATO alliance. Indeed, the initial line-up of Serbia’s friends and foes looked very much like a scorecard from the two World Wars. Despite public apathy and their own distaste for Milosevic and his surrogates, Russia’s leaders reflexively sided with their traditional Serbian ally, both in order to preserve their country’s reputation as defender of Orthodox Slavs on the world stage and to extract from the Western allies any advantages to be gained from Russia’s presumed influence in Belgrade. Meanwhile, Greece was in a class by itself in its advocacy of Serbia, its constant ally not only in two World Wars, but in a half-dozen insurrections against their Ottoman and Muslim oppressors. In both Paris and London, a combination of high civil and military officials were reluctant to abandon historic ties forged by Serb heroism in the two World Wars, despite clear popular support and the strident advocacy of many intellectuals in favor of the beleaguered Bosnian government.2 Italy felt little attachment to the South Slavs following a century and a half of wars that began in Habsburg times and culminated with Mussolini’s occupation of the western half of Yugoslavia during World War II; what counted most was an absolute refusal to engage in military intervention anywhere, even in its former Somaliland colony, where it had earlier rejected outright the Clinton administration’s plans for a retaliatory strike following the death of seventeen U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu.3 Of course, Serbia’s adversaries also had “historic” friendships. Like Slovenia and Croatia, Bosnia could count on a sympathetic ear from the newly reunified Germany, as well as Austria, Hungary, and other Habsburg successor states like Czechoslovakia and Poland. Indeed, on the day after Slovenia and Croatia declared independence, the influential French newspaper Le Figaro ran a headline lamenting that Germany had finally won World War I. The German public – including large numbers of naturalized Croatian and Muslim Gastarbeiter – supported their government’s attempts to secure European Community and UN recognition for the breakaway republics. Nonetheless, the horrific legacy of World War II and residual fears about German unification prevented the German government from even hinting at mil-

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itary intervention on behalf of the breakaway republics. After expending considerable political capital securing recognition for Yugoslavia’s new successor states – amid Serbian charges that it sought to erect a Fourth Reich – Bonn could not afford to undermine its relations with its European neighbors, above all its close EC partnership with France.4 Similarly, history helps explain Turkey’s partiality toward the Muslims of its former Bosnian pashalik. Like neighboring Bulgaria and other regional powers, its concern over Bosnia’s ultimate fate paled by comparison with its fear of being engulfed in a general Balkan war. Indeed, even though Bosnia’s and Croatia’s traditional “friends” articulated the hope that Serbian aggression would be stopped by military means, none envisioned committing its own forces in the process. President George H.W. Bush was wary of launching another military campaign that might arouse unease in Moscow. His reluctance was seconded by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, whose concern about “age-old hatreds” and Serbian military prowess in World War II led him to exaggerate the requirements for a successful intervention against Milosevic’s forces.5 Nor was Bush eager to give credence to presidential challenger Bill Clinton’s charge imbedded in the campaign slogan “It’s the economy, stupid!” that Bush was ignoring domestic problems. Hence his readiness to abide EC ministers who intoned that the “hour of Europe” had arrived to settle its own problems without the need for American leadership. Clinton’s succession to the presidency in January 1993 briefly raised the possibility of U.S. military intervention. Indeed, the new president launched his Balkan policy with an appeal to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia and employ NATO aircraft against the Bosnian Serb army, or VRS (Vojne Republika Srpska). It was this proposal to “Lift & Strike” – which also enjoyed widespread support with the American public – that Secretary of State Warren Christopher brought to Paris and London in May 1993. Although Christopher likely expected initial French opposition to any initiative stamped “Made in America,” he encountered equally strong opposition across the Channel from British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and Defense Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, who equated Bosnia with their own quagmire in Northern Ireland. Upon Christopher’s return, Clinton promptly shelved “Lift & Strike” since he was reluctant to open a rift within NATO or even expend valuable political capital with key allies whose help would be needed in other crisis areas, like the Middle East.6 The continuing litany of war crimes committed by Serbian forces eventually convinced the UN Security Council to vote a blanket trade embargo against Rump Yugoslavia in May 1992 that included an absolute ban on all imports, exports, and financial transactions. Thus, the general arms embargo against all belligerents now operated concurrently with a comprehensive sanctions regime against Yugoslavia.

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The naval coalition enforces an Adriatic blockade To be effective, both embargoes required strict supervision of all border traffic, as well as a naval blockade at the mouth of the Adriatic. By July 1992, there were two squadrons of warships monitoring the Strait of Otranto: a NATO contingent that included U.S. and Canadian vessels, and ships from the Western European Union (WEU), which permitted France to act independently of the United States and Germany to sidestep constitutional limitations on deploying its NATO forces outside member countries.7 In practice, NATO’s Maritime Monitor and the WEU’s Sharp Vigilence acted as one, with Italy providing a common command structure. The two operations were renamed Maritime Guard and Sharp Fence four months later following additional UN resolutions that not only authorized them to employ force against violators, but singled out Rump Yugoslavia for a broad range of economic sanctions, including oil. For greater efficiency, the NATO and WEU operations merged in June 1993 as Operation Sharp Guard.8 Between 1992 and the end of the blockade in June 1996, warships from every NATO navy participated in the operation, which was supported by over 13,000 sorties from planes and helicopters based on carriers and Italian airfields. In the process of challenging nearly 74,192 vessels, boarding 5,951, and diverting 1,480 to nearby Italian ports for further inspection, Sharp Guard caught 11 blockade runners, including seven bringing oil and other commodities to Rump Yugoslavia, plus four smuggling weapons to Croatia.9 Operation Sharp Guard was an easy plan for the Atlantic Alliance to devise and execute because NATO vessels enjoyed overwhelming superiority that rendered its personnel relatively immune to hostile action. Yet the arms embargo and sanctions against Rump Yugoslavia could only work if the watertight naval blockade was complemented by an equally effective cordon around the belligerents’ frontiers. Toward that end, the Clinton administration donated $1.45 million and two dozen U.S. agents to train, equip – and monitor – the customs officials of Serbia’s neighbors, while giving five patrol boats to Bulgaria and Romania to check merchant ships sailing up the Danube from the Black Sea. The WEU not only supplemented the U.S. effort on the lower Danube, but devoted additional resources to watching shipping heading down the river from Hungary. Yet these efforts were insufficient, largely because Romanian and Bulgarian customs officials were unwilling to use force against a fleet of over 50 blockade runners, including oil-laden vessels that not only refused to stop, but threatened to spill and ignite their cargoes.10 Despite the Greek government’s ostensible support for sanctions, it was proving to be more than just a weak link within the NATO chain around Yugoslavia. Indeed, much of the smuggling activity on the lower Danube and overland through Bulgaria and Albania was directed by Greek and Greek Cypriot front companies that worked closely with Salonika’s Yugoslav Consulate in delivering both goods and “sacks and suitcases full of cash” to Belgrade.11

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The failure to close the Danubian and overland routes enabled the Milosevic regime to continue funding and supplying Serbian forces operating in Croatia and Bosnia. But it came at a steep price for the Serbian people. The disruption in trade reduced domestic production by as much as two-thirds, while fueling runaway inflation that, at one point, reached a staggering annualized rate of 36 quadrillian percent. In its protests to the international community, Yugoslav officials claimed that sanctions had produced $100–150 billion in losses, and driven almost 80 percent of the population below the poverty line.12

The expansion of UNPROFOR and Operation Deny Flight If Belgrade’s remonstrances fell on deaf ears, it was because even these exaggerated claims paled by comparison with the situation in wartime Bosnia. By the end of 1992, nearly half of Bosnia’s four million people had become refugees, many within a short distance of the hotly contested front lines. The UN seemed the logical choice for providing them and the rest of Bosnia’s civilian population with food, medical supplies, and other humanitarian aid. It had already done so in neighboring Croatia, where it had also helped broker a fragile ceasefire at the end of 1991 that was enforced by a 15,000-strong UN “Protection Force,” known as UNPROFOR. The UN Security Council readily accepted the challenge of providing humanitarian assistance by simply expanding the existing UNPROFOR mission to include Bosnia. The problem was that the UN usually operated in a post-conflict, “peacekeeping” role, not in an active war zone like Bosnia. To meet this challenge, it ultimately committed an additional 23,000 troops drawn from over a dozen member nations. Given their greater resources and proximity, NATO countries provided the bulk of these forces – including 4,500 French and 3,300 British soldiers – all wearing blue helmets and driving white vehicles under the UN flag. At the same time, NATO supplemented the UN mission in Bosnia by airlifting humanitarian supplies through its own Operation Provide Promise.13 But the Atlantic Alliance’s robust response to the humanitarian crisis was matched by an absolute determination not to put its own personnel in harm’s way; hence, the standing orders drawn up by the allies and authorized by the UN Security Council forbade UNPROFOR from taking sides or using weapons, except in self-defense. As a result, UNPROFOR units were obliged to watch passively as one side or another committed war crimes against civilians. They were also frequently subjected to intimidation by the belligerents’ soldiers, who would block their path, steal their equipment, evict them from their posts, or take them hostage. Although all sides took advantage of UNPROFOR’s impotence, VRS forces distinguished themselves by their brazenness, whether in leaving one senior British officer in his underwear after relieving him of his uniform, shooting up UNPROFOR aircraft and outposts, employing snipers who killed dozens of peacekeepers, or murdering a Bosnian government minister traveling inside an armored personnel carrier while his French military escort stood aside. NATO

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and other contributing countries were willing to tolerate these humiliations and the eventual loss of 320 UN “peacekeepers” as an unfortunate, but acceptable price for sustaining the humanitarian effort, even as they steadfastly eschewed any military posture that might dramatically increase the number of UNPROFOR casualties. Nowhere was the tension between assisting Bosnia’s civilians and avoiding risks to UNPROFOR personnel greater than in the decision to afford more protection to the six besieged Bosnian towns of Bihac, Gorazde, Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Tuzla, and Zepa. Since each of these places was already teeming with Muslim refugees from Serb-held territory, there was a justified fear that the fall of one or more would involve a catastrophic loss of human life from starvation, disease, or wanton butchery. In October 1992, the United States, France, and Britain had reacted to VRS air attacks on these population centers by inducing the UN Security Council to create a “No Fly Zone” over Bosnia that would be monitored by AWACS aircraft. When the Serbs ignored the resolution, the Security Council passed Resolution 816 (31 March 1993) empowering NATO to deter further flights with Operation Deny Flight, which provided around-the-clock air patrols from Italian airfields and U.S. carriers. By shooting down four VRS Super Galeb fighter bombers on 28 February 1994, NATO aircraft established a measure of deterrence in what was the first hostile action in the alliance’s 45-year history. Like Operation Sharp Guard, Deny Flight demonstrated that the allies were willing to adopt measures that might limit the suffering of Bosnia’s civilian population, so long as this did not place their military personnel at risk. But enforcing the No Fly Zone did not inhibit the VRS from killing large numbers of defenseless civilians with heavy artillery. As a result, the Security Council’s smaller, non-permanent members pushed for a resolution declaring the towns “Protected Areas” that could not be bombarded or seized by their VRS besiegers. Although the United States, Britain, and France agreed that they had to avert the looming catastrophe, they collaborated with the Council’s two other permanent members – Russia and China – in rewording the draft so that neither UNPROFOR nor NATO would be compelled to retaliate against Serb violations, so long as their own personnel were not being individually targeted. The subsequent decision to reclassify the towns as “Safe Areas” reflected the three allies’ tacit decision against being dragged inextricably into hostilities with the VRS. Indeed, in the two years following the passage of Safe Areas Resolutions 819 (16 April 1993) and 824 (6 May 1993), UNPROFOR’s French and British commanders engaged in brinkmanship by periodically directing limited NATO air strikes against individual tanks, artillery pieces, airfield runways, or ammunition dumps that could be linked to attacks on civilians within the besieged towns. Yet, every time VRS General Ratko Mladic raised the stakes, whether by firing on NATO aircraft or by taking hundreds of French and British soldiers hostage, it was UNPROFOR and NATO that backed downed.14

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At the heart of the dispute was the continued American conviction that Lift & Strike could bring the VRS to heel virtually without risk to U.S. and other NATO pilots. After all, electronic countermeasures and smart weapons delivered from 15,000 feet rendered allied aircraft almost as invulnerable to enemy counterfire as the NATO naval squadron operating in the Adriatic. But the same could not be said for UNPROFOR’s 8,000 French and British ground troops, who would be exposed to VRS retaliation in the form of artillery bombardment and hostage taking. To their credit, British peace negotiator Lord David Owen had no objections to “Lift,” while Foreign Secretary Hurd was reputedly prepared to “Strike” if the United States was willing to invest its own troops in UNPROFOR.15 But by refusing repeated Anglo-French calls for U.S. ground troops, the Clinton administration not only tacitly acknowledged the risks that its allies were taking, but forfeited any chance of winning them over to Lift & Strike. Clinton was equally unwilling to act unilaterally from the air against the VRS, which Paris and London made clear would result in the immediate withdrawal of their troops from Bosnia, thereby further inflaming relations with his NATO allies.

Circumventing the arms embargo From the very beginning of hostilities, the arms embargo against both Bosnia and Croatia had as many holes as the far more comprehensive sanctions regime against Serbia. Croatia, in particular, had encountered very little difficulty purchasing weapons through corrupt eastern European officials and international arms merchants; the weapons were then easily imported through Slovenia and Hungary, often with the help of Austrian middlemen.16 Nor was Croatia averse to serving as a conduit for smuggling arms into Bosnia – so long as it received for free a large share of the equipment that passed through its territory. Although the United States itself declined to supply weapons, it made clear to Croatian President Tudjman that it would not object to shipments from third parties, principally Muslim countries ranging from its long-time friend Saudi Arabia to its arch-enemy Iran. It also looked the other way while retired U.S. army officers employed by “Military Professional Resources, Inc.” (MPRI) trained Croatian and Bosnian military officers. In both 1993 and 1994, the United States also assisted a consortium of Muslim nations in securing passage by the UN General Assembly of nonbinding resolutions to exempt Bosnia from the arms embargo. Yet U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s attempts to persuade the Security Council to follow suit were quickly defeated by Britain, France, and Russia. Immediately after the last setback in November 1994, the United States announced that it would no longer enforce the UN arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina. This meant that U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, including those participating in Sharp Guard, would no longer stop or inspect vessels with Bosnia-bound cargoes. Nor would U.S. Admiral Leighton “Snuffy” Smith share intelligence about Bosnian

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blockade runners with other countries, even though he was supreme commander for all NATO naval operations in the Adriatic, including Sharp Guard.17 By the beginning of 1995, there were suspicions in European capitals that U.S. “non-compliance” had morphed into direct, covert assistance for the Bosnian military as numerous independent sources reported many incidents of unmarked transport planes smuggling weapons into the Tuzla and Bihac Safe Areas while U.S. aircraft were supposedly monitoring the No Fly Zone. Admiral Smith silenced the indignant Europeans by pledging to resign if U.S. assets were violating the embargo.18 Lost amid the acrimony, deceit, and paralysis of Anglo–French–American policy was any appreciation that among the endless embargoes, humanitarian airlifts, No Fly Zones, Safe Areas, and UNPROFOR lay the seeds for successful allied intervention. To begin with, they had introduced substantial military assets into the Yugoslav theater, including nearly 40,000 ground troops, commanded by senior military officers from NATO members who could provide policymakers in Paris, London, and Washington with valuable information and insights about the belligerents. In the spring of 1995, the NATO members further embellished the arrangement with the Rapid Reaction Force (RRF), a multinational brigade of 12,500 fully equipped British, French, and Dutch troops designed to deter the VRS from shelling the Safe Areas and seizing UN personnel; there were even British and French officials who contemplated using the brigade to lift the siege of Sarajevo. There was, however, a darker side to this latest action, which envisioned employing the RRF to facilitate the withdrawal of the recently renamed UN “Peace Force” (UNPF) in the event that the situation there became untenable – such as after U.S. adoption of Lift & Strike. With this in mind, the North Atlantic Council had actually won Washington’s reluctant acceptance of NATO “OpPlan 40–104” in which up to 25,000 U.S. troops would be briefly deployed in Bosnia to cover the evacuation.19 Whatever its purpose, the RRF constituted another allied half-measure that bore the potential for real action. Even the embargoes were playing a role in moving the conflict to resolution. By the spring of 1995, both Croatia and Bosnia had slipped enough weaponry through the holes in the arms embargo to tilt the military balance of power; the United States had even helped them forge an alliance for joint action all along their common frontier. At the same time, two years of sanctions had so devastated Rump Yugoslavia’s economy that Milosevic was threatening to cut off all assistance to his Bosnian Serb surrogates unless they concluded peace. Realizing that time was against him, Ratko Mladic launched an all-out assault to seize eastern Bosnia’s Gorazde, Srebrenica, and Zepa Safe Areas so that he could then reallocate the besieging forces to meet the looming Bosnian–Croatian offensive in the west. Although Gorazde held firm, Mladic’s forces overran both Srebrenica on 11 July 1995 and Zepa on 24 July 1995, exposing once again the hollowness of the UN’s humanitarian commitment to the 45,000 civilians trapped inside. In Srebrenica, the UNPF’s Dutch battalion stood aside as Mladic’s men seized and

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transported over 7,000 men and boys to execution sites, while expelling the remaining 30,000 women and children to Tuzla.

The adoption of Operation Deliberate Force The Srebrenica massacre mortified Clinton. French President Jacques Chirac lamented that “the post of Leader of the Free World is vacant!” Indeed, Clinton’s sudden concern about his – and NATO’s – credibility and reputation was shared by the Pentagon. Nor were the president and his generals pleased by the prospect of sending an entire U.S. division from Germany to cover the UNPF’s retreat from the war zone.20 But the biggest push for action was now coming from Paris. Chirac’s volte face had actually begun at the end of May, after the Bosnian Serbs donned French uniforms to surprise and seize French UNPF troops in Sarajevo. A combination of “humiliation and honneur” now impelled him to appeal to his allies to recover Srebrenica, break the siege of Sarajevo, and reinforce Gorazde with 1,000 French troops.21 Although the British incurred Chirac’s anger by rejecting his appeals, they readily offered to host a day-long emergency meeting in London on 21 July 1995, at which the three allies would finally commit to a truly proactive common policy. The chaotic and fractious negotiations extracted concessions from all of the participants. The French abandoned their plans for storming into Sarajevo and Gorazde. At the urging of British UNPF Lieutenant General Rupert Smith, the government of Prime Minister John Major agreed that all of the Safe Areas needed to be defended, not just Gorazde, where British troops were stationed. For their part, the Americans promised to delay military action until British and other exposed UNPF forces could be withdrawn to prevent their being targeted or taken hostage. In return, the three allies resolved to launch a sustained strategic bombing campaign immediately after the next VRS attack on any of the four remaining Safe Areas. By acting within the existing UN Safe Areas resolutions, there would be no need to seek additional authorization from the UN. Indeed, Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali readily agreed to transfer the “key” for authorizing air operations from his civilian deputy in New York to the Zagreb headquarters of UNPF’s overall military commander, French General Bernard Janvier, so that the latter could more readily “turn” it in tandem with NATO’s Admiral Smith. Admittedly, the Alliance’s agenda extended beyond protecting the Safe Areas from VRS attack to the ultimate objective of ending the war so that its member countries could withdraw their troops from the Balkans. This broader agenda was reflected in the three-tiered list of targets approved by the North Atlantic Council, which ranged across the full extent of Serb-held territory and even included dual-use industrial infrastructure. Although some NATO members like Canada and Greece were opposed to the transition from peacekeeping to direct military intervention, the Srebrenica massacre had sucked the wind out of those who might have spoken against it, including the Russians.22

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By mid-August, allied preparations had been completed with the RRF’s arrival outside Sarajevo. Bosnia’s UNPF commanding General Rupert Smith and a consortium of NATO officers headed by USAF Lieutenant General Mike Ryan had compiled a list over 150 targets. When a mortar shell fell on a Sarajevo market on 28 August, killing 37 civilians, both the UNPF and NATO commanders quickly swung into action.23 Not only did General Smith promptly pin responsibility on the VRS, he even turned the UNPF “key” for Janvier, who had temporarily left his Zagreb post to attend a wedding. From his flagship in the Adriatic, Admiral Smith turned the NATO “key,” but held off launching his planes until General Smith in Sarajevo had safely evacuated the exposed British UNPF garrison from Gorazde. On 30 August 1995, Operation Deliberate Force began. After three years of bickering, the horror of Srebrenica had provided UN and NATO leaders with a strong unity of purpose and little desire to engage in further acrimony over conduct of the campaign. As a result, the two Smiths enjoyed complete latitude in directing the air campaign from the first two target categories – which included VRS air defenses, command and control facilities, ammunition dumps, bridges, artillery, armored vehicles, barracks, and other force concentrations – that the North Atlantic Council had judged wholly consistent with existing UN resolutions. Although General Smith conferred closely with his UNPF superior in Zagreb, security considerations led him to exclude all UN civic officials, few of whom hailed from NATO countries. Even without outside interference, the Smiths confronted a formidable challenge in bridging the divided UNPF–NATO command structure. They overcame this problem through constant communication, facilitated by the cross-posting of liaison officers. They also readily accommodated divergent viewpoints. Having served as a corps commander in Desert Storm, Rupert Smith brought a “killer instinct” to Bosnia that was uncommon among his UNPF colleagues, particularly General Janvier, who had already been widely vilified for refusing to employ air power to halt the VRS assault on Srebrenica. General Smith’s conviction that Ratko Mladic was a “control freak” who could be broken by inflicting maximum damage on his army clashed with Janvier’s reluctance to inflict casualties and arouse Mladic’s notorious thirst for revenge. Rather than cross swords with his superior and UNPF keyholder, Smith readily adopted Janvier’s dictum that NATO “inflict pain, but not death” on the enemy.24 Barracks and other troop concentrations were immediately dropped from the target list, a decision that General Ryan enforced with religious fervor by personally inspecting and approving every individual target in order to minimize collateral damage to Bosnian Serb civilian and military personnel. By deferring to Janvier, the NATO bombing campaign claimed only about 25 soldiers and not a single civilian.25 The array of ordnance unleashed on the VRS was delivered by an armada of 294 NATO aircraft from eight member states: 120 United States, 50 France, 33 United Kingdom, 20 Italy, 18 Netherlands, 16 Turkey, 14 Germany, 11 Spain, and 12 NATO. Given their superior resources, the seven most populous coun-

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tries were represented, together with The Netherlands, which was further along than the other small states in its acquisition of advanced technology. Of course, nobody could approach the United States in the number or sophistication of its air assets, for which reasons its aircraft constituted over forty percent of the total force and delivered 88 percent (622/708) of the precision ordnance – and only 4 percent (12/318) of the “dumb bombs” – expended during Operation Deliberate Force.26 U.S. preeminence was equally evident in the higher echelons of the NATO command structure. Given the air campaign’s heavy reliance on over a dozen Italian airfields, it was not surprising to find two Italian commanders, one of whom was in charge of logistics; every other member of Admiral Smith’s inner circle was an American. One among them, General Hal Hornburg, attributed the imbalance to the reluctance of European officers to step up for these positions, while others reported that even the two Italians were instinctively deferential toward their American colleagues. Whatever the mix and the reasons behind it, Admiral Smith’s staff demonstrated the same high degree of collegiality that was evident between NATO and UNPF commanders.27 Operation Deliberate Force began with two days of air strikes. Although Gorazde also received attention, the initial focus was on Sarajevo, in order to validate the link between the recent “mortar massacre” and NATO’s response. Admiral Smith closely coordinated the air attacks with General Smith, who oversaw the Multinational Brigade’s shelling of VRS positions from nearby Mt. Igman during the half-hour breaks between each NATO air package. The besiegers had very little to say in response, choosing for the most part to conceal their artillery, radar, and SAM sites from attack. The VRS did, however, score its only kill of the campaign in the skies over Gorazde by downing a French Mirage 2000K with a hand-held missile and capturing both pilots. Nonetheless, it was already clear that the VRS was seriously overmatched and in no position to engage NATO at a time when the Croatian and Bosnian armies were marching through western Bosnia. Mladic duly sought and secured a temporary respite in the bombing for the purpose of negotiating with Janvier. The resulting four-day pause caused great consternation among Western political and military leaders, who feared that Mladic would interpret the readiness with which the two UNPF and NATO “key” holders had accommodated his request as a sign of weakness and lack of resolve. Indeed, both Boutros Ghali and NATO Secretary General Willi Claes were furious when Janvier endorsed Mladic’s counter-offer to their demand for an unconditional pullback of all VRS heavy weaponry from the four remaining Safe Areas.28 But Mladic chose not to make good on a promise to withdraw his heavy weapons. At a time when the VRS was losing large chunks of territory in the west to the Croatian and Bosnian armies, Mladic must have believed that NATO leaders were bluffing once again. They were not. On 5 September NATO resumed air operations with an expanded target list that spanned the entire country and gave special attention to destroying bridges and communications

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systems that Mladic desperately needed to stave off the concurrent Croatian and Bosnian ground offensive. The Multinational Brigade only added to his woes by compelling the VRS to lift the three-year siege of Sarajevo. Yet Admiral Smith’s staff remained fiercely committed to minimizing casualties, whether among civilians, the VRS, or their own NATO air crews. In selecting targets, General Ryan avoided whole areas that were considered well-protected by SAM batteries and intact, but concealed, radar installations. In the one instance where there existed a crucial, but well-defended VRS communications center, the admiral made a special request for a squadron of F-117 stealth aircraft that could “service” it without risk. To his chagrin, the Italian government refused to grant landing rights unless it was admitted to the Contact Group of countries being formed to oversee the projected peace. As one U.S. diplomat reported from Rome, Italy “is tired of always saying yes to others, while others always say no to Italy.” Deprived of his stealth option, Smith resorted to sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles to perform the task.29 Nine days after the resumption of Operation Deliberate Force, Ratko Mladic reluctantly agreed to honor the UN Safe Areas resolutions by removing all heavy weapons and restoring Sarajevo’s road and utility service. If the air campaign and ongoing Croatian–Bosnian ground offensive gave Mladic good reason to meet NATO’s terms, he most likely capitulated on orders from Milosevic, who reputedly detained him in Belgrade for a week after the agreement just to make sure that he kept his word. The truce came in the nick of time for the Smiths, who had virtually exhausted the first two target categories and faced the difficult prospect of persuading the Atlantic Council to authorize attacks that would have incurred substantial collateral damage to civilians.30 It came too late for the Bosnian Serb regime, however, which ended up losing a third of its territory to the Bosnian–Croatian alliance before finally concluding peace on 21 November 1995. Nor did it save Milosevic, who fell from power five years later largely because of the devastation that sanctions had inflicted on the people of Rump Yugoslavia.

Conclusions Although far from ideal, Operation Deliberate Force preserved much more than it destroyed. It combined with the Bosnian–Croatian ground offensive to end a three-year conflict that had killed over 100,000 people, mostly civilians. It also saved Bosnia itself, which emerged from the Dayton Peace Accords with a constitution that, for all its flaws, has given its citizens a chance to recover. Beyond Bosnia’s contested frontiers, Operation Deliberate Force restored relations between the United States and its European allies, although they both resented and envied the ease by which U.S. political and military leadership had ended the crisis.31 It also gave new life and purpose to an Atlantic Alliance no longer united by the threat of Soviet aggression. The almost total absence of casualties also helped exorcise the ghosts of Vietnam that had continued to

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haunt the Clinton administration during the Bosnian conflict, despite the recent success of Desert Storm.32 These achievements would be evident during the next few years, as NATO admitted the first of a dozen eager new members. However, problems in the former Yugoslavia were far from over. In 1999, NATO was once again forced to launch an air campaign, only this time 78 days long, to prevent Milosevic from staging a new round of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Indeed, the insufficiency of diplomacy and success of both operations may have emboldened future policy makers to envision military action as a panacea for defeating regional troublemakers.

Notes 1 Julie Mertus, Bait and Switch: Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Routledge, 2004), 181–183. 2 Eric Shiraev and Deone Terrio, “Russian Decision Making Regarding Bosnia: Indifferent Public and Feuding Elites,” and Marc Morje Howard and Lise Morje Howard “Raison d’état or raison populaire? The Influence of Public Opinion on France’s Bosnia Policy,” in Richard Sobel and Erik Shiraev, ed, International Public Opinion and the Bosnia Crisis (Lanham: Lexington, 2003), 109–110, 130, 139–144; Brendan Simms, Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia (London: Allen Lane, 2001), 50–51, 68, 84–85; Brian Rathbun, Partisan Interventions: European Party Politics and Peace Enforcement in the Balkans (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004), 130, 133, quotes Jacques Chirac’s lament that President Francois Mitterand’s pro-Serb policy had been dictated by the “dusty pages of the First World War.” 3 Paolo Bellucci and Pierangelo Isernia, “Massacring in Front of a Blind Audience: Italian Public Opinion and Bosnia,” in Sobel and Shiraev, eds, International Public Opinion, 187, 194–195; Joseph Palazzo, “Italian Foreign Policy: Developed in Rome or developed in Washington?” ase.tufts.edu/hemispheres/2001/Palazzo.doc. 4 Laura Silber and Alan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin, 1997), 198; Karin Johnston, “German Public Opinion and the Crisis in Bosnia,” in Sobel and Shiraev, eds, International Public Opinion, 249–5, 254–267. 5 Colin Powell, My American Journal (New York: Random House, 1995), 291, 562. 6 Simms, Unfinest Hour, 6–8, 9–10, 13–14, 50–51, 56, 68, 88–89, 108–109. 7 “North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) public data service” Document 1396 (9 November 1993). For more about French attempts to marginalize U.S. influence, see Richard E. Hull, Imposing International Sanctions: Legal Aspects and Enforcement by the Military (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1997). 8 Although a full year would pass before Germany’s constitutional court ruled that only a simple Bundestag majority was needed for its NATO forces to operate outside NATO territory. Karl-Heinz Börner, “The Future of German Operations Outside NATO,” Parameters (1996), 62–72. 9 Tim Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force: the UN and NATO Campaign in Bosnia (Lancaster, UK: CDISS, 1999), 81; AFSOUTH Fact Sheet (18 June 1996). 10 “Clinton Urges Stiffer Sanctions Against Serbia to Curb Warfare,” Los Angeles Times, 27 April 1993. 11 Department of State, Bureau of European Affairs, Report on Greek Enforcement of UN Sanctions against Serbia, 2 June 1995; Kerin Hope, “Ex-minister says Cyprus aided money laundering,” Financial Times, 6 June 2006. 12 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History Myth & the Destruction of Yugoslavia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 267s.

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13 The UN also sent nearly a thousand soldiers from the United States and Scandinavia into Macedonia in Operation Able Sentry, providing an effective tripwire that prevented the conflict from spreading there. 14 Ripley, Air War Bosnia, 70–71, 88. 15 David Owen, Balkan Odyssey (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 108–109, 286. 16 James Gow, The Serbian Project and its Adversaries: a Strategy of War Crimes (Montreal: McGill-Queens, 2003), 98–101; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 80–81. 17 Congressional Record, 11 June 1996 – E1054–1056. 18 Paul Shoup and Steven Burg, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), 338–340; Brendan O’Shea, Crisis at Bihac: Bosnia’s Bloody Battlefield (Stroud: Sutton, 1998), 158–161; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 6, 45, 59–63 suggests that the transports may have been owned by the Bosnian government or Turkish military aircraft operating out of Cyprus. 19 Ivo Daalder, Getting to Dayton: the Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington: Brookings, 2000), Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998), 65–67; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 125, 130–31. 20 Wesley Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 47–48; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 73, 93, 101, 108; Ripley Operation Deliberate Force, 92; Simms, Unfinest Hour, 322–325 incorrectly attributes Chirac’s remark to Zbigniew Brzezinski. 21 Rathbun, Partisan Interventions, 141–145; Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, 352; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 112, 119, 121, 133, 135; Simms, Unfinest Hour, 325–26; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 68–69. 22 The agreement did not cover Zepa, the fall of which was already a foregone conclusion. Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force: the Art of War in the Modern World (London: Knopf, 2005), 359–360; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 156–164; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 73–79. 23 Benjamin Rusek and Charles Ingrao, “The Mortar Massacres: a Controversy Revisited,” Nationalities Papers, 32 (2004), 848–852. 24 Christopher M. Campbell, “The Deliberate Force Air Campaign Plan” and Mark Conversino “Executing Deliberate Force” in Owen, Deliberate Force, 48–49, 59–60 133; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 238–239, 258–260, 273. 25 Davis, “The Planning Background,” in Owen, Deliberate Force, 57–58; Christopher Campbell, “The Deliberate Force Air Campaign Plan,” ibid., 90; Mark Conversino, “Executing Deliberate Force,” ibid., 136, 159, 161. 26 Conversino, “Executing Deliberate Force,” ibid., 164–167. 27 Campbell, “Air Campaign Plan,” ibid., 94. 28 Holbrooke, To End a War, 119–120; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 131–132; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 261–266. 29 Smith, Utility of Force, 366–367; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 281, 284–285; Conversino, “Executing Deliberate Force,” in Owen, Deliberate Force, 151–152, 272–279; Bellucci and Isernia, “Massacring in Front of a Blind Audience,” 190–191. 30 Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 292–295, 296, 305. 31 Simms, Unfinest Hour, 333–35; Ripley, Operation Deliberate Force, 261–62; Powell, American Journal, 558, 577. 32 Four NATO personnel were injured during the bombing campaign: the two French pilots who were beaten by their VRS captors and two U.S. marines who were slightly wounded by ground fire while attempting to rescue them.

16 Coalition warfare over Kosovo Andrew L. Stigler1

NATO’s war over Kosovo in 1999 was a classic example of how the initiators of an action failed accurately to anticipate the range of possible outcomes. What was expected to amount to several days of bombing stretched out into a seventyeight-day operation that tested the alliance’s cohesion. While NATO persevered, the outcome was far from certain. The alliance’s strategy relied on coercive bombing, and given that such strategies depend on a collapse of the enemy’s will to fight in order to achieve success, the outcome is hard to predict. During the year preceding the commencement of NATO operations, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic steadily wore down what little remained of the Western community’s patience. Military units of the Federated Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) had engaged in a series of depredations against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo. The culmination of these events was the massacre of twenty-one people at Gornji Obrinje on 29 September 1998, which undermined those who formerly opposed taking military action in defense of the Kosovars; U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger called the Serb massacre at Gornji Obrinje a breach of the “atrocities threshold.”2 NATO initiated its air campaign against Serbia on 24 March 1999, with the intent of convincing Milosevic to bring Serbian troops in Kosovo to heel. While both President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that a ground operation was possible, Milosevic probably knew that NATO had insufficient ground forces to conduct a forced entry of either Kosovo or Serbia. Therefore, the success of Operation Allied Force (OAF) was perhaps the purest example of a coercive use of air power to date. It was also an unusual example of coalition warfare. An alliance created to defend the West against the USSR was instead waging a war of choice against a state that threatened none of NATO’s members. This chapter explores how the coalition managed itself during what was, at the time, the most serious military action in NATO’s history.

Formation of the coalition By 1999, Milosevic had done a superb job of taking on the mantle of Europe’s villain, and the enthusiasm with which he had played the part for years was a

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major reason that NATO was able to generate a broad coalition in support of an air campaign. Resistance to military action eventually wore thin, as those within the United States and Europe who were opposed to action were outraged by news of Serbian atrocities in Kosovo. Even in the face of such atrocities, it had proven impossible to obtain the endorsement of the international community through the United Nations, since both Russia and China remained opposed to a military solution. Russian opposition could have been stouter than it was, had Moscow not concluded that Milosevic had overplayed his hand. While Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was watching a production of La Traviata in Moscow with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in late 1998, she heard him say that “perhaps a threat of force is needed to achieve . . . a political settlement.”3 Russia opposition to NATO action had indeed lightened significantly. Milosevic had, of course, established himself as a reviled leader many years before. Nonetheless, since the Dayton accords of November 1995, neither the United States nor Europe had seen sufficient reason to consider a major military intervention in the Balkans. But the grinding pace of small-scale Serbian aggression against Kosovo eventually generated a consensus among President Clinton’s advisers that action was required. Optimism about the efficacy of air power played a role as well. A number of Clinton’s advisers were confident that bombing alone could alter the political situation. Richard Holbrook, in particular, thought that NATO air power had been instrumental in bringing Milosevic to the bargaining table in 1995, when he signed the agreement to end the conflict with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Some high-level American officials believed there was a less than 25 percent chance that Milosevic would be able to withstand even a short bombing campaign.4 The limited nature of the action was broadly understood. Most alliance members expected that it would consist of several days of bombing, and at most two to three weeks of action would be needed.5 The goal was not necessarily to compel Milosevic to end his actions against the Kosovar Albanian population in Yugoslavia’s southern province. Rather, it was visibly to punish Milosevic – while the larger political result was desired, the leading participants believed that limited air strikes in themselves would offer a significant deterrent for future atrocities, even if Milosevic did not publicly retreat. When asked what would happen if Milosevic did not give in to several days of sustained bombing, an unnamed senior NATO official stated “There is no Phase 4.”6 The use of air power – and, some maintain more dubiously, the threat of a NATO ground invasion – were the major factors that compelled Milosevic to comply with NATO’s terms on 9 June 1999. From the standpoint of the coalition, however, it was not easy going. NATO had been in existence for decades and had weathered numerous storms during the Cold War. John Lewis Gaddis has argued that, during the Cold War, NATO emerged victorious because “democracy proved superior to autocracy in maintaining coalitions.”7 Following the demise of the USSR, it continued to be a

The Kosovo conflict 185 popular alliance, despite the predictions of political scientists that NATO would wither. Ironically, it was the very democratic nature of both the alliance and its member states that would lead to serious complications during the unexpected expansion of OAF.

The alliance at sea Although the NATO naval embargo of Serbia played a limited role in the outcome of the conflict, naval air power made a significant contribution to the air campaign. The fact that the naval air contribution was an afterthought, however, suggests the extent to which NATO’s strategy envisioned no more than a limited series of airstrikes. The USS Theodore Roosevelt battle group, en route to the Arabian Gulf at the outset of Operation Allied Force, deployed to the Mediterranean two weeks into the conflict, and aviators from Roosevelt’s air wing ultimately flew over 3,000 sorties. In the understated words of Vice Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, Commander of the Sixth Fleet, the redeployment occurred “when it became clear the initial air strikes were not going to force Milosevic to the bargaining table.”8 General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, considered sending another aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, but ultimately decided against supplementing his U.S. carrier force.9 The United States was not alone in launching strikes from the sea. Aircraft carriers from Britain and France were involved, turning the Adriatic into something akin to a giant regional airport. Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from the submarine HMS Splendid marked the first time that the UK Royal Navy employed these weapons in a conflict.10 By late May 1999, there were eleven U.S. ships involved in the operation. In addition to Roosevelt, there were two cruisers, three destroyers, two submarines, and three ships composing an amphibious assault group. Other NATO allies contributed a slightly larger number of ships. In addition to Britain and Frances’s carriers, and the HMS Splendid, NATO member states altogether contributed six destroyers and ten frigates.11 The coalition navy proved to be more than sufficient as a deterrent force, since no Yugoslav navy ship left its pier during the conflict. Though there were efforts to enhance the naval cordon around Yugoslavia, these fell casualty to coalition politics and larger strategic considerations. At the outset of the conflict, Clark sought to tighten the constraints around Milosevic by asking ships to seek pre-clearance for passage through the Adriatic. Clark hoped to add the threat of an unspecified level of force against oil tankers that refused to be boarded. Yugoslavia’s two oil refineries, at Nivo Sad and Pancevo, were among the first targets of NATO airstrikes, and oil storage facilities were struck repeatedly.12 In April, Secretary of State Albright again sought international support for a cutoff of oil shipments to Serbia, and a partial blockade was imposed on 1 May.13 However, the alliance was uncomfortable with enhancing Clark’s authority to take action against oil shipments. NATO’s legal foundation for an enhanced blockade was dubious – some member states believed it was beyond the

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alliance’s authority, while others thought that, as a regional international organization, NATO could decide this matter for itself. There was also concern that an effort to tighten the noose around Milosevic would further irritate Russia. Russia continued to state its opposition to a genuine blockade. Foreign Minister Ivanov argued that “Only the Security Council of the UN may make decisions regarding embargoes or sanctions. . . . It has no force as far as Russia is concerned.” Publicly, the Russians hinted that it was not inconceivable that they would send a naval force to the Mediterranean, including an aircraft carrier, a missile cruiser, and two destroyers. It is doubtful such a move was seriously contemplated, though Moscow’s hinting was serious enough to lead Clark publicly to opine that such a move was not in Russia’s interests.14 The British were eager to assist in a more robust blockade – one British naval officer stated: “We are ready to do it or not ready to do it as the situation unfolds.”15 But the alliance had decided not to enforce a blockade of Serbia’s two main ports at Bar and Kotor Bay, most likely out of concern over Russian sensitivities.16 France and Germany were reluctant to put teeth into the allied oil embargo, and Italy and Greece had concerns about the embargo’s scope.17 In the end, the voluntary enforcement policy that was already in place was considered sufficient by many in the coalition.18 While the voluntary embargo had some effect, at one point it was estimated that at least five tankers a week were defying the embargo. Another estimate suggested that Yugoslavia was receiving a third of its normal oil supplies.19 The destruction of Yugoslavia’s refining capability, however, meant that only refined petroleum products could be imported. By late May, the alliance was still struggling to bring a halt to the flow of oil products to Belgrade from Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria.20 One journalist offered the following summary of the voluntary embargo, or “visit and search” program: “NATO prepares to fire a shot across the bows of sanctions busters – but only if they [the oil tankers] agree.”21 Ultimately, the effort failed to create a robust regime to support interdiction of petroleum products at sea. There were sincere doubts that such a regime would be legal – France, for one, believed it required a declaration of war to give the measure the needed international standing22 – and the possibility loomed that it would set an unpleasant precedent for the future. One scholar noted some of the possible legal ramifications: if international organizations other than the UN were allowed to declare embargoes, NATO would “open a Pandora’s box, where different political or commercial organizations . . . might try similar things.”23 Establishing a precedent whereby regional alliances could determine the extent of freedom of the seas could be a recipe for instability. The free passage of ships through international waters, of course, is one of the most recognized nautical customs. In a demonstration of the disfavor of some coalition members for the embargo, a ship from a NATO member state was among the first to violate the ban. A Greek tanker docked at Kotor Bay only days after the blockade was announced.24 Fortunately, Adam Smith’s invisible hand may have contributed

The Kosovo conflict 187 almost as much to NATO’s goal as did great power diplomacy. Russia claimed that it had ceased all oil shipments on 24 March, claiming it was “a decision that reflect[ed] the judgment of private oil companies that see Yugoslavia as a nonpayments risk.”25

Explaining NATO’s endurance Why did the naval coalition maintain its cohesion? Cohesion was, by no means, certain as the conflict wore on. The populations of a number of NATO member states were not solidly behind the endeavor. In Greece, for example, a staggering 97 percent of its population was against the air campaign against Yugoslavia.26 Yet even this significant portion of the population did not force Athens to leave the coalition. Ultimately, the more reluctant coalition members – Germany and France in particular – did not withdraw their support from the operation, even when no clear resolution was in the offing. The coalition was in a state of continuous tension, in that NATO operates by consensus. If even a single member declines to support a military operation, that operation will not be carried out under NATO auspices. Similarly, each member had a veto over any significant escalation of the campaign. Clark complained that “differing concepts of strategic airpower constrained” targeting, and that the alliance “paid a price in operational effectiveness by having to constrain the nature of the operation within the political and legal concerns of NATO member nations.”27 Lieutenant General Michael C. Short, director of NATO’s air operations, was even more direct in his critique of how alliance politics constrained the conduct of air operations:28 There were targets that individual nations would not let us hit, or wouldn’t let us hit with airplanes launched from their soil. There were targets that individual nations would not hit themselves, but it was okay for someone else to hit. Apparently, and clearly, it was relayed to me that every nation had a vote. An individual nation could say: you can’t hit that target. . . . [Or say] “our Parliament won’t let us hit that target, but of course they’re not going to say you can’t hit it.” . . . What I believe is unacceptable is for one nation to veto a target set that other nations believe to be important . . . It allows the interests of one nation to outweigh the interests of the alliance . . . and, I believe, prolonged the war by keeping key target sets off the table. From the standpoint of alliance politics, therefore, the NATO structure was a double-edged sword. Those in favor of a military confrontation, such as the United States, sought to formulate an operation that would satisfy the minimum requirements of each member of the alliance. This consideration, when added to the limitations of American domestic politics, led President Clinton to issue his much-criticized refusal to consider ground forces. As U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen argued immediately after Milosevic

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conceded defeat, there had been little chance of rounding up the necessary support to go to the next level.29 Milosevic apparently saw the beginning of NATO air operations as an opportunity rather than a warning. Yugoslav forces promptly undertook a potent campaign of ethnic cleansing. By day 8 of the air campaign, the number of refugees from Kosovo had more than doubled to approximately 180,000. By day 29, this number exceeded 600,000. At the conclusion of the conflict, there were over 800,000 persons displaced from Kosovo.30 This was a grievous miscalculation on Milosevic’s part. NATO was undertaking one of its first major military actions in the alliance’s history, and Western leaders never seriously considered acquiescing to this mass expulsion. Alliance leaders had previously considered conducting several days of bombing followed by a lengthy pause. Now, Milosevic was seen as having revealed his true nature, and he had to be brought to heel. Though some members of the coalition certainly wavered during the course of the seventy-eight-day air campaign, Milosevic had inadvertently galvanized the alliance in an effort to deal a blow to the Kosovar Albanians and to convince the West to reconsider the wisdom of confrontation. General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, concluded that the same pressures that could have driven the alliance apart also propelled it to success:31 NATO succeeded in Kosovo in part because many of the member governments could not afford to fail. These governments had limited objectives and methods of warfare, but they had not limited their own commitment, and so their own political survival was at stake. Ironically the very controversy that the operation aroused helped to propel it to success. Would NATO have suffered a mortal blow if it had been forced to scale back its demands, and accept token concessions from Milosevic? It is true that the coalition was not certain about its future in the post-Cold War world, and that some believed that NATO was an outmoded artifact. In late May, as the air campaign ground on, President Clinton announced that one of the goals in the conflict was to maintain NATO as a viable alliance.32 However, even if the alliance had suffered a substantial political blow, it was still an institution that had endured the Cold War. It was also popular, and continued to attract candidate members after the events of 1999 – and, more tellingly, after NATO’s deployment to Afghanistan in 2001. In fact, as Operation Allied Force was unfolding, previously uninvolved countries were offering bases to NATO aircraft.33 While member states labored mightily to coerce Milosevic to submit to the full spectrum of NATO’s demands, even a partial victory – one that would have allowed Milosevic room to claim that he had made significant improvements to his situation – would probably not have spelled the death knell of NATO. Talk of NATO’s demise was, no doubt, a handy stick to keep nervous alliance members in line, but little more than that.

The Kosovo conflict 189

Rounding up Russian support and defying China While Russian sympathy for the Slavs would normally have prompted any Russian President to lean toward supporting Belgrade in a confrontation with the West, Moscow’s support was not absolutely certain at the outset of the conflict. Yeltsin was no admirer of Milosevic. The Yugoslav President had supported the hardliners’ coup against Yeltsin in August 1991, and this had not been forgotten by the Russian President.34 However, whatever Yeltsin’s personal preferences, Russian public opinion was strongly critical of NATO’s air campaign, and Russian foreign policy elites were suspicious of the West’s encroachment on what many saw as Russia’s rightful sphere of influence.35 Offering Russia control of a sector in Kosovo gave Yeltsin the opportunity to claim that he would have a hand in Kosovo’s final disposition. Milosevic doubtless took comfort in this, even if there is reason to believe that Milosevic recognized that this “Russian sector” would be beyond his control.36 While NATO demanded operational control of the security force, the UN was designated as responsible for the civil presence in Kosovo. This doubtless gave Milosevic some consolation, since Russia held a UN Security Council veto. In fact, Milosevic emphasized this point in his statement following the end of hostilities: “We have persevered and succeeded in defending the country because we brought the entire problem to the summit of the world authority – the United Nations.”37 It is ironic that Milosevic, in one of his last major acts as a statesman, adopted a tactic from the West and tried to use the UN as a political shield. In the end, the coalition that Milosevic faced withstood all pressures. The deterioration of Russia’s support for the Yugoslav cause showed that there was little room to believe that Yugoslavia’s prospects were improving. Milosevic did not have to give in when he did. Had he endured several more days, the leading members of the alliance – in particular the United States – would have faced the unpleasant prospect of confronting their self-imposed deadline of 15 June for the commencement of serious planning for a ground operation. Russia’s decision to drop their support arguably did the trick, and in the proverbial nick of time. It is doubtful that Milosevic conceded due to a belief that a U.S.-led ground threat was materializing.38 The evidence that such threats were made is tenuous, and in any case an actual invasion was months away. Clinton’s efforts to revive the ground threat, after pointedly denying that an invasion was in the offing at the outset of OAF, was limited to statements that all options were on the table.39 According to the account provided by an individual present during the final round of negotiations with Milosevic prior to his capitulation, he did not even inquire about the prospects of a NATO ground attack.40 Of course, the major reason for the lack of a robust ground threat was the lack of coalition support. Paris had hinted it might be amenable, but apparently preferred to hold off until 2000. Italy, which offered the primary bases for the air campaign, was also uncertain. Germany had been opposed to a ground invasion since May.41 And, as mentioned above, some NATO members – most notably Greece – had populations that were strongly opposed to the conflict. While some

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claim that many of these nations would have come around to supporting a ground operation, these arguments rely heavily on speculation and on the debatable argument that allowing the Kosovar refugee population to suffer through the winter was not an option.42 One of the most enduring lessons of the conflict must be that striking bargains just to allow a coalition to undertake some form of action can significantly hamstring the coalition’s ability to consider the full range of strategic options once the shooting starts. At the outset, Clinton’s decision to rule out the use of ground forces was not, on its face, unreasonable. He was trying to unify the coalition behind a serious military action, and thought that a durable political outcome was not essential. Clinton later claimed that two factors led him to avoid contemplation of ground forces – the lack of time available to deploy them in the face of continuing Serb atrocities, and his fear that the civilian casualties would be excessive.43 Clinton argued that he was prepared to send in ground forces if the air campaign failed to achieve its aim before winter.44 Nevertheless, there were few strong indications of a major shift in strategy – even by a smaller coalition of the willing chosen from among NATO’s members.45 Some of NATO’s misfortunes may have helped convince Milosevic that the alliance was more unified behind OAF than perhaps it was. On 7 May, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed, and three Chinese journalists were killed. The initial response from Beijing was harsh. The Chinese government declared that it “reserve[d] the right to take further action . . . This is the wild behavior of an aggressor.”46 Yet the alliance withstood this unfortunate turn of events, signaling a commitment in a way it could not have in the absence of such a misfortune.

Conclusion Operation Allied Force was ultimately a success, but one achieved against the odds. De facto Serbian control over most of Kosovo was brought to an end. A robust international force, led by Western nations, was brought into Kosovo. Despite the stresses on the coalition, the air campaign had been dramatically escalated without drawing the determined opposition of even the most reluctant NATO members. The impact of this achievement should not be underestimated. Clark points out that the target base expanded from fifty-one to nearly 1,000, despite the reservations of many member nations and intermittent calls for a pause in operations.47 Both Yeltsin and Milosevic eventually became convinced that NATO would keep up its aerial assault, and decided to capitulate rather than continue. John Lewis Gaddis has argued that NATO succeeded in the Cold War due to the United States’ familiarity with “bargaining and deal-making, the coercion and conciliation, that routinely takes place” within a coalition.48 It is often easier, however, to generate a unified approach in the face of an indisputable threat. What NATO faced in Operation Allied Force were the familiar challenges of dealing with a small power bent on defying the international community. Coalition decision-making in such a situation involves a different set of complica-

The Kosovo conflict 191 tions. These were clearly seen in Clinton’s successful, but by no means guaranteed, effort to rally the alliance around continued but inherently indecisive military action. Coalitions can offer tremendous political and military assets, but can also be a considerable burden. OAF demonstrated both NATO’s potency, but perhaps more significantly its shortcomings. Europe is often portrayed as one of the more cohesive regions of the world, yet military action in Kosovo brought on sharp divisions regarding the scope of the operation. The fact that NATO was a popular and valued alliance allowed those who wanted to expand and continue the air campaign over Kosovo to attain their goals. Nevertheless, given that the United States may need to develop military coalitions in the future that have none of the history of collaboration and shared commitment that NATO could boast of in 1999, the chief lessons of the war over Kosovo must ultimately be cautionary ones.

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval War College. 2 Ivo Daalder and Michael O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2000), 43. 3 Madeleine Albright, Madame Secretary (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), 396–397. 4 Thomas W. Lippman, “Albright Misjudged Milosevic on Kosovo,” Washington Post, 7 April 1999, A1. 5 Daalder and O’Hanlon, 138. 6 Ibid., 100. 7 John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 288. 8 Vice Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, Testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, 26 October 1999. 9 Dana Priest and William Drozdiak, “NATO Hunkers Down for the Long Run,” Plain Dealer, 20 April 1999, 9. 10 Mike Harrison, “Deadly Accuracy of Tomahawk Cruise Missiles,” Press Association Limited, 3 April 1999. 11 Jack Kelley, Steven Komarow, and David J. Lynch, “NATO Action Stays Short of Conclusive,” USA Today, 24 May 1999, 12A. 12 Jim Drinkard, “Barrier to a Blockade: NATO Offers No Legal Basis,” USA Today, 3 May 1999, 4A. 13 “Operation Allied Force – Day 27,” Times-Picayune, 20 April 1999, 8. 14 Vladimir Atlasov, “Will NATO Start Inspecting Russian Oil Tankers?” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 29 April 1999, 1. 15 Bob Roberts, “Invincible Primed to Enforce Oil Blockade,” Press Association, 29 April 1999. 16 Daalder and O’Hanlon, 146. 17 Jeffrey Ulbrich, “NATO Wrestling with Plan for Naval Blockade of Yugoslav Ports,” Associated Press, 10 May 1999. 18 Steven Lee Myers, “Leaders of NATO Reject Proposal by General Clark to Fire on Ships that Defy Oil Embargo,” New York Times, 5 May 1999, 11.

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19 Ibid.; Steve Doughty, “Where the Oil is Seeping Through,” Daily Mail (London), 26 April 1999, 17. 20 “NATO Steps Up Pressure Over Oil Regime,” Financial Times, 27 May 1999, 2. 21 Michael Evans, “Ground Rules Set for Oil Blockade,” The Times (London), 11 May 1999. 22 “Balkans Notebook Day 27,” Seattle Times, 20 April 1999, A10. 23 Drinkard, “Barrier to a Blockade.” 24 Steven Lee Myers, “Leaders of NATO Reject Proposal by General Clark to Fire on Ships that Defy Oil Embargo,” New York Times, 5 May 1999, 11. 25 “NATO Drops Serb Oil Blockade,” Moscow Times, 11 May 1999. At least one Russian oil tanker, carrying 100,000 barrels, did arrive in early May, however. Myers, 11. 26 Daalder and O’Hanlon, 161. 27 Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 424, 426. 28 Interview with Michael C. Short, Frontline, date unknown, www.pbs.org/wgbh/ pages/frontline/shows/kosovo/intereviews/short.html. 29 Interview with William Cohen, Frontline, date unknown, www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/kosovo/intereviews/cohen.html. 30 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Kosovo, As Seen, As Told, December 1999, Part 1, Ch. 14, 2–3. 31 Clark, 422. 32 William Jefferson Clinton, “A Just and Necessary War,” New York Times, 23 May 1999, 17. 33 Daalder and O’Hanlon, 205. 34 Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 272. 35 Oleg Levitin, “Inside Moscow’s Kosovo Muddle,” Survival, Vol. 24, Spring 2000, 130–140. 36 Flora Lewis, “A Clash with Russia in Kosovo Came Too Close for Comfort,” International Herald Tribune, 1 October 1999. 37 Stephen T. Hosmer, Why Milosevic Decided to Settle When He Did (Santa Monica: RAND, 2001), 117–118. 38 Andrew L. Stigler, “A Clear Victory For Air Power: NATO’s Empty Threat to Invade Kosovo,” International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Winter 2002/2003), 124–157. 39 Hosmer, 112–113. 40 Stigler, 139–140. 41 Daalder and O’Hanlon, 162–163. 42 Ibid., 162–164. 43 William Jefferson Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 851. 44 Ibid., 855. 45 Stigler, 132–134. 46 John Pomfret and Michael Laris, “Thousands Vent Anger in China’s Cities,” Washington Post, 9 May 1999, A1. 47 Clark, 425. 48 Gaddis, 289.

17 Operation Enduring Freedom Coalition warfare from the sea and on the sea Robert J. Schneller, Jr1

The 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States precipitated an unprecedented outpouring of international support for America in the war on terror. The military response to these attacks, designated Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), included a large coalition naval component. The naval forces during OEF served traditional purposes. From time immemorial, navies have existed to gain control of the sea and to project power ashore. During OEF, coalition naval forces conducted operations to influence events in Afghanistan and to deny the sea to terrorists. At the time of writing in January 2007, Operation Enduring Freedom is still going on. Therefore, this chapter focuses on OEF coalition naval operations in the Central Command area of responsibility from 11 September 2001 through the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003.

The OEF coalition In attacks on U.S. territory on 11 September 2001, terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged one side of the Pentagon, and plunged a jet airliner into a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 men, women, and children from 80 different nations. Within 24 hours of the first strike, U.S. intelligence linked the attacks to Osama bin Laden, a multi-millionaire Saudi expatriate who headed a global Islamist terrorist organization known as al Qaeda. Bin Laden’s organization maintained headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan, with the support of that country’s Islamist Taliban government.2 In a televised speech to the American people on the evening of 11 September, President Bush characterized the terrorist attacks as “acts of mass murder” and pledged “to find those responsible and bring them to justice.” “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts,” he declared, “and those who harbor them.” Soon dubbed “the Bush doctrine,” the latter statement underpinned the strategy for what became known as the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).3 Nine days later, the President added a warning to terrorists everywhere. “Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there,” he declared: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”4

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Countries around the world responded to America’s call to arms. On 12 September, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 1368 condemning the terrorist attack and expressing readiness to combat terrorism. That same day, the North Atlantic Council invoked Article V of the NATO charter for the first time, declaring the attack on the United States an attack on all member states, and pledged NATO’s assistance. Australia and New Zealand also invoked their ANZUS treaty obligations to support the United States. On 21 September the Organization of American States’ General Assembly called upon member states to cooperate in international efforts against terrorism. By January 2002, President Bush had met with leaders from at least 51 different countries to build support for the war. When diplomacy failed to persuade the Taliban government to turn over Osama bin Laden, the United States and its allies launched Operation Enduring Freedom. On 7 October 2001, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and coalition naval forces commenced strike operations against the terrorists and their enablers in Afghanistan, and in support of the ethnically based anti-Taliban militias in northern Afghanistan dubbed the “Northern Alliance.” The plan for Afghanistan combined air strikes with what planners dubbed “boots on the ground” – small numbers of U.S. troops deployed inside the country. The plan called for attaching CIA paramilitary and Special Forces teams to Northern Alliance units to make airborne firepower, much of it carrier-based, available to them. Taliban and al Qaeda forces numbered an estimated 40,000 fierce but poorly trained and equipped fighters, including some 3,000 Arabs under bin Laden. By fall 2001, they controlled about 90 percent of Afghanistan. The Taliban arsenal consisted mostly of outdated equipment left over from the Soviet era, including approximately 650 tanks and armored vehicles, as many as 100 MiG-21 and MiG-23 jet fighters, an assortment of armed and utility helicopters, and an unknown number of surface-to-air missiles. One military analyst said that this equipment was so old that it could not be “sustained in combat” and was largely “irrelevant to U.S. forces.” Northern Alliance leaders numbered their forces at about 15,000 fighters and were not any better equipped.5 Coalition navies participated heavily in OEF. By August 2002, more than 100 ships from 11 different countries – Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom – had joined the U.S. Navy in OEF. The total number of non-U.S. ships steaming in the Central Command area of responsibility often exceeded the number of U.S. ships.6 Overall responsibility for seaborne coalition operations fell to Commander U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT), the naval component commander of Central Command, the U.S. unified command covering the Middle East, South Asia, and East Africa. COMUSNAVCENT also served as Commander Fifth Fleet. NAVCENT’s area of responsibility encompassed 25 countries and a huge expanse of ocean, including the Arabian Gulf, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, and part of the Indian Ocean. This area included three critical choke points: the Suez Canal, Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab Al Mandeb at the south end of the Red Sea.

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In accordance with U.S. joint doctrine for a major theater war, the CENTCOM commander, General Tommy Franks, reorganized the theater into functional components. As a result, COMUSNAVCENT became Coalition/Joint Forces Maritime Component Commander (CJFMCC; more commonly CFMCC) while Commander U.S. Central Command Air Forces became Coalition/Joint Forces Air Component Commander (CJFACC; more commonly CFACC). Vice Admiral Charles W. Moore, Jr, was COMUSNAVCENT from July 1998 until Vice Admiral Timothy J. Keating relieved him on 10 February 2002.7 Previously, Fifth Fleet numbered 20 or more ships, including a carrier battle group and often an amphibious ready group, with about 1,000 people ashore and 15,000 afloat. However, during OEF, the number of ships in the region rose to as many as 130 coalition ships, including up to 70 U.S. warships.8 During peacetime, contingency, or initial crisis response operations before 11 September 2001, Fifth Fleet operated as a naval task force, placing rotating combatant forces under a single commander, Commander Task Force 50 (CTF-50). This enabled Fifth Fleet to maintain a common, integrated tactical picture and composite warfare command organization. The deployed carrier battle group commander usually served as CTF-50. According to the standing general operational message in force when the terrorists struck America, during a major theater war, Fifth Fleet was to expand and fight as a naval expeditionary force, organized into a number of task forces, among them Task Force 50 (TF-50) (Arabian Gulf Task Force) and Task Force 53 (Logistics Force). Fifth Fleet organization would generally follow this scheme during Operation Enduring Freedom. Vice Admiral Moore placed the carriers in Task Force 50, which operated in the North Arabian Sea instead of in the Arabian Gulf. Successive U.S. carrier battle group commanders served as Commander Task Force 50. Initially, CTF-50 controlled not only the carriers and ships equipped to launch Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) conducting strike operations in Afghanistan, but also U.S. and coalition warships conducting broader maritime operations.9

The Afghan arena Naval coalition support for OEF unfolded in two arenas: the war in Afghanistan from the sea and the operations against terrorism on the sea. On 11 September 2001, coalition naval forces in the Central Command area numbered 16 U.S. warships, one Australian warship, and one British warship. They supported maritime interception operations (MIO) that had begun in 1990 to enforce UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, as well as Operation Southern Watch (OSW), the enforcement of the “no-fly” zone established over southern Iraq since 1992. When Operation Enduring Freedom began on 7 October 2001, the coalition naval order of battle had increased to 48 ships: 23 American, 20 British, two French, and one Australian.10 British, Canadian, Dutch, and Italian ships supporting the war in Afghanistan did so under the operational control of CTF-50. French naval vessels generally

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served under the operational control of the French task group commander, but transferred tactical control to CTF-50 for specific missions. Many coalition ships operated temporarily under Task Force 59, a “Coalition Integration Force,” which existed between 6 December 2001 and 23 February 2002 under Royal Navy Rear Admiral James Burnell-Nugent, who also served as Deputy COMUSNAVCENT. Thereafter TF-50 dispatched three- or four-person teams, including communications specialists, watch officers, and operations officers, to in-chopping coalition ships for about a week to help the crews orient themselves to TF-50 communications and operating procedures. Also, each new ship reported to Bahrain so its officers could receive briefings from the NAVCENT staff. Coalition navies’ use of English as the universal communications language facilitated their integration into the U.S.-led task force.11 For at least the first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom, strike and close air support operations in Afghanistan remained TF-50’s top priority. Aircraft carriers and TLAM shooters assigned to TF-50 supported the war largely by serving as force providers to the Combined Forces Air Component Commander. The CFACC produced the daily air tasking order, which included TLAM strikes as well as tactical air missions. Because of the lack of suitable facilities for land-based aircraft in the region, naval tactical aircraft flew approximately 72 percent of combat sorties over Afghanistan during the war.12 OEF air operations fell into three distinct periods. In the first period, preplanned strikes predominated as coalition aircraft prepared the battlefield for follow-on ground operations. During the first three weeks of OEF, coalition ships launched scores of Tomahawk missiles against targets in Afghanistan. British submarines fired several of the missiles, becoming the only non-U.S. TLAM shooters during the war.13 The second period of air operations began in the latter half of October as the CFACC began to dedicate the majority of strike-fighter missions to direct support of ground forces. Although operational success in Afghanistan hinged mainly on linking aircraft with boots on the ground, during the first half of October the Northern Alliance was not ready for coordinated air and ground offensives. Aid ranging from ammunition to horse fodder had to be flown into the theater and air-dropped to the Afghan allies, while U.S. special operations teams and air controllers joined forces with assigned elements of the Northern Alliance. By the end of October, Central Command had in place all of the pieces needed for rapid success on the ground. With U.S. special operators calling in air support, Northern Alliance fighters rolled over Taliban and al Qaeda forces and captured the northern cities Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad, and the capital Kabul by mid-November. During the battles for Kabul in November and Kandahar in December, ground support missions predominated almost to the exclusion of other tasks. The first two periods together comprised the “hot war,” running from 7 October to 16 December 2001. Toward the end of the second period of air operations, however, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) MEU(SOC) from the

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Peleliu (LHA 5), followed by the 26th MEU(SOC) from the Bataan (LHD 5), established a forward operating base in southern Afghanistan. These marines constituted the first conventional “boots on the ground” in OEF. After securing their base, the marines captured an airfield at Kandahar and hastened the destruction of Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan. The third period of air operations, from 17 December 2001 onward, comprised the “presence” period, which began after the fall of the Taliban stronghold of Tora Bora on the 16 December. In this phase, the strike-fighters’ primary objective was to provide on-call presence and most strike-fighters flew target-ofopportunity missions. By the end of April 2002, the air operations tempo over Afghanistan wound down to the point that the U.S. Navy had reduced its presence in the North Arabian Sea from as many as three carriers down to one.14 Non-U.S. coalition aircraft carriers began supporting operations in Afghanistan during the presence period. On 22 November 2001, the Italian aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi (CVS-551) arrived in the theater, escorted by two frigates and an oiler. Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived ready for combat, and Italian naval liaison officers quickly integrated into the CFMCC and CTF-50 staffs. The Italian officer assigned to CTF-50 helped produce the portion of the air tasking order dealing with Italian AV-8B operations. In training missions, Italian naval officers and aviators practiced aerial refueling and familiarized themselves with the area of operations, exhibiting a firm grasp of U.S. air operations procedures. The Italians’ training in U.S. Navy Flight Schools long before the war facilitated their integration into U.S.-led task forces. During their first few missions over Afghanistan, Italian Harriers flew alongside U.S. Navy Tomcats in mixed section flights. Garibaldi’s aviators had no trouble coordinating with the CFACC and with U.S. Air Force AWACS and tanker aircraft.15 On 11 December 2001, the French carrier Charles de Gaulle (CVN-91) arrived with three destroyers and an oiler. The French and Italian carriers commenced flight operations over Afghanistan respectively on 19 December 2001 and 4 January 2002, and rotated in and out of the North Arabian Sea flight line during the rest of their deployments.16 France became the first country after the United States to fly bombing missions in direct support of American ground troops. Through 19 June 2002, Charles de Gaulle’s 28 fixed-wing aircraft flew hundreds of strike, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare missions over Afghanistan. All told, 25 French naval vessels – including auxiliaries and two submarines – deployed to the region during 2002, representing a fifth of France’s entire navy and a larger proportion of the country’s combat ships.17 Canadian ships participated indirectly in Afghan operations by screening U.S. aircraft carriers and amphibious ships operating in the North Arabian Sea. On 26 November 2001, the day after his task group arrived in the area, Canadian Commodore Drew Robinson was appointed Commander Task Force 50.4, amphibious support force defense commander, and charged with protecting Amphibious Squadron Eight, including the U.S. amphibious ships Bataan, Peleliu, and Whidbey Island (LSD 41). In that role, Robinson commanded several U.S.

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frigates and coordinated the efforts of American air defense destroyers. British, Dutch, French, and Italian surface combatants also performed escort duties in the North Arabian Sea. Canadian CP-140 Aurora aircraft began participating in January 2002 and soon became the backbone of the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance support to the carrier battle force. Australian maritime patrol aircraft also flew missions over the North Arabian Sea, as well as over the Arabian Gulf.18 The Canadians had sufficient connectivity to compile and maintain a commonly recognized maritime picture over a large geographic area with multiple air, surface, and subsurface contacts. Because of American confidence in Canadian capabilities, by May 2002, the area of responsibility for the Canadian Commodore, as CTG 50.4, had grown to encompass the southern Arabian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman.19 The Canadian navy’s ability to “plug and play” resulted from its special relationship with the United States and extensive operational experience with the U.S. Navy. Canada’s naval strategy emphasized interoperability. The Canadians viewed this principle as advantageous not only to enhance their operational capabilities, but also to expand the military markets for Canadian high-technology goods. During the 1990s, Australian, British, and Canadian naval officers had participated in the U.S. Navy’s series of compute-simulated Global War Games. And because of their longstanding role in the combined air defense of North America, the Canadians faced fewer access limitations to U.S. classified information and systems than did other allies. This enhanced access enabled Canadian ships to serve as communications conduits between U.S. ships and those of other coalition navies.20 Canadian warships also escorted logistics ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Such escort duty deterred attacks on shipping in the strait, like those the Iranians had mounted with Silkworm anti-ship missiles during the Iran–Iraq War. Through November 2002, the Canadian navy conducted about a third of the Strait of Hormuz escort missions. Italian warships and the Bahraini frigate Sabha (FFG 90) also performed escort duty there.21

The maritime arena Through early 2003, operations in the maritime arena of the Global War on Terrorism – operations against terrorism on the sea – fell largely into three categories: maritime interception operations in the Arabian Gulf to enforce UN sanctions against Iraq;22 leadership interception operations in the North Arabian Sea to capture terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan via Pakistan; and Horn of Africa operations to monitor and inhibit terrorist activities in East Africa. These operations were variations of the traditional visit, board, search, and seizure mission for enforcing embargoes, with slightly different definitions for the targets of the searches. Coalition navies participated to varying degrees in each type of operation. Central Command and its naval component had long regarded combined

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operations as cornerstones of their missions. Traditionally, Central Command’s cooperative engagement strategy included forward presence, security assistance programs, and combined exercises. This strategy helped the U.S. maintain its access to the region, enhance the readiness of its allies, facilitate deterrence, stimulate coalition building, promote stability, and protect American interests. Naval Forces Central Command supported CENTCOM’s cooperative engagement strategy by participating in joint and combined naval and military exercises – more than 40 per year after 2001 – with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other allies and friends, as well as with other U.S. military forces. COMUSNAVCENT’s mission during OEF included integration of coalition navies into GWOT maritime operations.23 Combined naval forces under NAVCENT had conducted maritime interception operations in the Arabian Gulf since 1990. United Nations Security Council Resolutions 661 (6 August 1990) and 665 (25 August 1990) led to the creation of a Multinational Interception Force (MIF) comprised of ships, patrol aircraft, and sailors from numerous countries. The MIF facilitated the flow of humanitarian goods, enforced UN sanctions against Saddam Hussein, and inhibited Iraqi development of weapons of mass destruction and buildup of conventional forces.24 By 18 August 2000, the tenth anniversary of the first maritime interception operation to enforce the UN embargo of Iraq, U.S. and coalition naval forces had queried 29,307 merchant ships, boarded 12,763 of them, and diverted 748 to coalition ports for inspection. Naval forces from 21 nations had participated in the Maritime Interception Force: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom, and the United States.25 Since the start of OEF, however, only naval forces from Australia, Canada, the UK, and the United States under the operational control of TF-50 supported MIO in the Arabian Gulf against Iraq.26 On 5 January 2002, the Australian task group commander assumed duties as maritime interception commander, Commander Task Unit 50.0.9. This event marked the first time that a non-U.S. commander had been assigned the job. At that time, the maritime interception force included three American, three Australian, two British, one Canadian, and one Kuwaiti ship as well as support from American P-3 and Canadian CP-140 aircraft.27

Leadership interception operations As Northern Alliance forces swept through Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, U.S. leaders believed that Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders might try to escape via Pakistan. Possible means of escape included ships, small craft such as dhows, helicopters, small planes, or commercial aircraft.28 To seal off sea and air escape routes from southern Pakistan, coalition naval forces launched what NAVCENT dubbed “leadership interception operations” (LIO) in the Gulf of Oman on 23 November and in the North Arabian Sea on 29 November. Like

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MIO, LIO involved finding, querying, stopping, visiting, boarding, and searching suspect vessels. American, British, Canadian, Dutch, Greek, and Italian ships participated in LIO under the operational control of TF-50, while French ships did so under TF-50 tactical control. The first step involved identifying normal maritime traffic patterns in the North Arabian Sea. A centuries-old tradition of smuggling existed there. During OEF, a broad range of goods, ranging from dates and television sets to oil and weapons, moved throughout the region largely in small coastal vessels. Boats transporting illegal Pakistani immigrants in search of work to Oman and the UAE became of particular interest because of their potential for moving terrorists. Layered on top of the web of illegitimate traffic was an enormous network of legitimate traffic. Most of the world’s oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz into the North Arabian Sea. The UAE port of Jebel Ali features one of the world’s largest container trans-shipment points, where large ocean-going container-ships drop off cargo for numerous coastal vessels, some so small they carry as little as a single container. Searching for terrorist traffic in these waters was like looking for a needle in a haystack.29 British MR.A4 Nimrod patrol planes began flying intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions in November 2001 and soon became the primary maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft platform for LIO operations in the Gulf of Oman. By 25 March 2002, warships engaged in leadership interception operations had made 7,244 queries and had boarded 47 ships.30 Leadership interception operations demonstrated the ability of naval forces from different countries to work together effectively. On 14 July 2002, for example, a Canadian Aurora maritime patrol aircraft detected three speedboats crossing the Gulf of Oman. Although the French frigate Guepratte (F 714) intercepted the craft, it was left to sailors from the Canadian destroyer Algonquin (DDG 283) to board them, for they operated under less restrictive rules of engagement. The Canadians found nothing untoward on the speedboats, and so released them. Before returning to their ship, however, the boarding party took digital photos of the men on board the boats and e-mailed the images to NAVCENT headquarters in Bahrain. NAVCENT identified two Afghani passengers as terrorist suspects. A Dutch maritime patrol aircraft re-located the boats and vectored in Guepratte’s helicopter, which prevented them from escaping until Algonquin could catch up. The operation resulted in the detention of the two suspects.31 The coalition received no complaints about leadership or maritime interception operations being too aggressive or inhibiting local traffic. Generally, local ship skippers and military officials welcomed coalition interception operations as a source of authority in those waters, providing stability and a sense of law and order.

Horn of Africa operations Operations off the Horn of Africa (HOA) represented an expansion of the war on terror from fighting Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan to a broader

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effort to defeat international terrorist organizations and to deter states and non-state actors from supporting terror. Al Qaeda and similar groups had previously been active or were then operating in Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Kenya. On 5 November 2001, General Franks authorized the development of a strategic concept of operations for the region, and approved maritime interception operations and operations to monitor the situation in the area. The Horn of Africa maritime area of responsibility included the southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and a huge area of the Arabian Sea off East Africa.32 On 3 February 2002, COMUSNAVCENT established Task Force (TF) 150, Horn of Africa Maritime Interception Operations (HOA MIO) task force, to deny the sea to terrorists by countering the illegal movement of weaponry, people, and other materials. Vice Admiral Moore designated Commander Amphibious Squadron Three, Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Christopher C. Ames, embarked in Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), as Commander Task Force 150. By 2006, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States had contributed ships and aircraft to the task force.33 Their mission involved monitoring, inspecting, boarding, and stopping suspect ships and dhows. These operations sought to gather intelligence, inhibit terrorism, and curb piracy, armed robbery, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and other illegal activity. Between its establishment and the summer of 2005, the ships of TF-150 boarded nearly 1,500 vessels within its area of responsibility. German ships participated extensively in these operations. A task group of German frigates, fast patrol boats, and replenishment ships arrived in the Central Command theater in January 2002 and commenced operations off the Horn of Africa on 3 February, focusing on the Gulf of Aden and the southern Red Sea. German task group commander Rear Admiral Gottfried Hoch assumed command of TF-150 in May 2002, a job he held until the following October. Thereafter the job rotated among naval officers from various coalition countries.34 The French Navy contributed significantly to TF-150 – about a quarter of the task force – even assigning two ships to it permanently. French naval officers took three turns in command of TF-150: from September 2003 to January 2004, from June to September 2004, and from August to December 2005.35 Like leadership interception operations, Horn of Africa operations demonstrated the ability of coalition naval forces to work together effectively. Data on intercepted ships were transmitted to NAVCENT headquarters in Bahrain, where they were entered into a massive database. The information helped NAVCENT staffers identify legitimate traffic patterns, making terrorists and smugglers easier to spot. By the end of 2005, the database had grown so large that the majority of boats the task force stopped had already been entered into it. The constant allied presence in these waters seemed to have had a deterrent effect. Fishermen reported that pirates, once plentiful in the area, had become dormant.36

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Logistics operations In addition to combat, interception, and reconnaissance, coalition naval forces participated in logistics operations. Under the tactical control of Task Force 53, logistics ships delivered food, fuel, and spare parts to warships operating in the region. During December 2001, for example, 17 of the 72 coalition ships deployed in support of OEF served in the Coalition Logistics Support Force (CLSF). These 17 ships included nine American, two British, two French, one Canadian, one Italian, and two Japanese vessels. That month, logistics ships transferred to surface combatants nearly 380,000 barrels of fuel and 357 pallets of cargo during 72 replenishment-at-sea events. Canadian logistics aircraft, flying between Bahrain and Fujayrah, Egypt, moved 420 passengers and delivered 830 tons of cargo and 284 tons of mail. Germany, Spain, and other nations also contributed to the naval logistics effort.37 Japanese involvement in OEF marked Tokyo’s first dispatch of military forces to an active operational theater since the end of World War II. In November 2001, six Japanese ships formed two flotillas to transport ship and jet fuel from Gulf states to coalition warships in the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. “Operation Fuel for Freedom,” as the Japanese named it, commenced on 2 December with a replenishment at sea of the U.S. oiler Sacramento (AOE 1). By 15 March 2006, the Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force had conducted 600 successful replenishment at sea evolutions, delivering 114 million gallons of fuel valued at over $119 million to 150 U.S. ships and 160 ships from 11 other coalition nations.38 The hot war phase in Afghanistan had barely cooled when, early in 2002, United States military forces began planning for what became known as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Naval operations in the NAVCENT theater enabled countries that opposed the war in Iraq – particularly Canada, France, and Germany – to continue to support the Global War on Terrorism while operations in Iraq unfolded. The key lay in assigning forces to OEF missions that remained both politically and operationally distinct from OIF. With TF-50 destined to serve as the naval strike force for operations in Iraq, the most expedient solution involved elevating task group commanders with non-strike roles to the status of task force commanders reporting directly to COMUSNAVCENT. TF-150 already existed within its own geographically, politically, and operationally distinct area off the Horn of Africa. On 7 February 2003, Vice Admiral Keating assigned TF-151 to cover the Strait of Hormuz area formerly assigned to Task Group 50.4, including the Gulf of Oman through the central Arabian Gulf almost up to the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Canadian Commodore Roger Girouard served as TF151’s first commander, with a clearly defined responsibility for coordinating multinational naval forces toward achieving the objectives of the Global War on Terror.39

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Interoperability problems Operation Enduring Freedom coalition naval forces experienced their share of difficulties, largely stemming from broadly defined interoperability issues. Virtually all U.S. operations planning occurred at high security classification levels, making exploratory meetings with potential coalition partners difficult to conduct because U.S. representatives could not reveal their plans or sources of information. The high classification hampered coalition building and commitment of forces.40 Lack of command-and-control system interoperability among coalition naval forces exacerbated the difficulty of operating together. Different coalition partners had different secure voice communications capabilities, while some partners had none at all. Historical political, economic, cultural, doctrinal, and technological differences among partners precluded agreement on a common data and command-and-control network. For example, NATO and European allies were using two different systems as of 9/11: Crisis Response Over NATO Open System (CRONOS) and Linked Operations and Intelligence Centers/Europe (LOCE). Because of security issues, neither system could be released to all coalition partners, so a third system had to be fielded: the Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS), a system used before 9/11 only in the Pacific region. At one point, the British liaison officer assigned to NAVCENT headquarters was using seven different systems to meet all his communications needs.41 Each coalition navy operated under rules of engagement promulgated by its own national government. Some countries issued rules so “robust” that their ships could participate in a broad range of missions, nearly interchangeably with U.S. warships. Other countries’ rules limited and sometimes precluded their ships from conducting certain kinds of operations at the tactical level, as evidenced by Guepratte–Algonquin leadership interception operation of 14 July 2002. In general, for the various task force and task unit staffs, it was challenging to keep abreast of who could do what and then assigning units accordingly.42 Other problems arose from national limitations on the types of missions navies could perform at the operational level. These restrictions differed from rules of engagement, which generally governed the action of a unit in a particular tactical situation. For example, some nations’ navies were not permitted to perform maritime interception operations in the North Arabian Gulf. The limitations varied from nation to nation and required mission planners to remain alert when changes in assigned forces occurred. Capabilities among coalition naval forces also varied widely. Many coalition units could not serve in air defense roles, for example, because of their inability to link to U.S. tactical data or to communicate securely using American systems. Some communications problems were resolved using NATO secure systems, but these were not available to all coalition navies, such as those of Japan and Australia. On the other hand, each coalition navy brought to the table its own unique strengths and operating procedures. Certain coalition units were more suited to

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performing certain missions than U.S. ships. German fleet patrol boats, for example, proved ideal for patrol and interdiction missions around the Horn of Africa and the Bab al Mandeb. Operating out of Djibouti, the boats provided a comprehensive intelligence picture of maritime traffic in the area.43 “These guys will sometimes do things we never think of,” the commander of Destroyer Squadron 21 said of coalition navies. For example, to convince recalcitrant merchantmen to answer his radio calls, one coalition skipper would run his ship on a collision course with the target vessels to set off their collision avoidance warning systems and spur the merchantmen to answer the warship’s queries.44 Interoperability problems diminished as the U.S. Navy improved its ability to get classified information to coalition partners and CENTRIXS became the backbone of coalition naval communications. According to Rear Admiral James Zortman, Commander Carrier Group Seven and CTF-50 during spring 2002, “We’re come further in interoperability and the ability to work together as a team since 9/11 than we had in the previous ten years.” Zortman believed that the strength of the coalition as a whole was greater than the sum of its parts.45

Conclusions How might one gauge the effectiveness of OEF coalition naval operations? In terms of power projection, the answer is clear. Those naval forces that participated in Afghan operations contributed decisively to the downfall of the Taliban regime and the establishment of a democratically elected government. By April 2002, 197 countries and jurisdictions had expressed support for the campaign and its objectives; 89 countries had granted over-flight authority, 76 nations had granted landing rights, and 23 had granted bed-down and basing authority. Furthermore, 23 countries had agreed to host U.S. forces involved in offensive operations and 136 countries had offered some kind of military assistance.46 The wide variety of logistics, search, escort, and interception operations enabled forces of vastly different capabilities to contribute to Operation Enduring Freedom. The well-defined boundaries of the various kinds of naval operations facilitated the commitment of naval forces by nations whose diplomatic aims differed from those of the United States. Thus the French and others could stay out of the Iraq war in 2003 while continuing to support the war on terror. The assignment of a British naval officer as Deputy COMUSNAVCENT, Australian and Canadian officers as local area commanders under CTF-50, and officers from many different nations as CTF-150 demonstrated the degree of integration the OEF coalition ultimately achieved. Maritime operations kept pressure on terrorist networks, while minimizing the opportunities for possibly negative images of combat operations in the global press, and proved an attractive means of participation for many national governments. All told, coalition naval forces made significant contributions to both the Afghan and maritime arenas of Operation Enduring Freedom. While coalition naval operations from the sea during OEF represented the traditional naval role of projecting combat power ashore to influence events on

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land, coalition naval operations on the sea represented a new twist on the traditional role of sea control. In particular, they denied the sea for the use of transnational terrorist organizations that existed in many countries, but that were not necessarily affiliated with national governments.

Notes 1 The thoughts and academic opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the government of the United States of America, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval Historical Center. 2 Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 26–28. 3 George W. Bush, “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,” 11 September 2001, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911–16.html; Richard L. Kiper, “‘Find Those Responsible’: The Beginnings of Operation Enduring Freedom,” Special Warfare 15 (September 2002): 3. 4 George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,” 20 September 2001, www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/ 20010920–8.html. 5 USA Today, 21 September 2001; UK, House of Commons, “Operation Enduring Freedom and the Conflict in Afghanistan: An Update,” 31 October 2001, www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2001/rp01–081.pdf, 25–26. 6 Brief, OPNAV Deep Blue, “Course Corrections for the War on Terrorism,” August 2002, disc “Records of N3/5 during Operation Enduring Freedom (unprocessed)” (hereafter disc N3/5), Operational Archives, Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C. (hereafter OA); “We Stand By You,” Proceedings 128 (March 2002): 46–53; “Nations Unite to Combat Terrorism,” www.dod.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi?www.dod. mil/news/Feb2002/n02282002_200202285.html. 7 Joint Staff, Joint Publication 3–0: Doctrine for Joint Operations (Washington: Joint Staff, 10 September 2001), II-15–II-17. 8 Thomas A. Yeager and Danny H. Struble, “Operation Enduring Freedom COMUSNAVCENT and Fifth Fleet Documentation Team” (Washington, Naval Historical Center annotated brief, June 2002). 9 Brief, Japanese Task Group Inchop Conference, 4 December 2001, COMUSNAVCENT Disc 1 of 17, Records of Naval Forces Central Command on Operation Enduring Freedom (hereafter NAVCENT), OA; Msg., COMFIFTHFLT to ALFIFTHFLT, 1 April 2001, disc N3/5, OA; Yeager and Struble, “Operation Enduring Freedom.” 10 Brief, N3/N5, “United States Navy Operation Enduring Freedom,” c. March 2002, disc N3/5, OA. 11 Msg., CJFMCC to all CJFMCC Central Forces, 6 December 2001, disc N3/5, OA; “CTF 59 CONOPS for Coalition Training,” 27 December 2001, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA; “Maritime Coalition Forces,” 18 March 2002, COMUSNAVCENT Crisis Action Team Disc 1 of 5, NAVCENT, OA; Brief, “CTF 50 Campaign Plan,” n.d. (c. April 2002), disc N3/5, OA; VADM Charles W. Moore, Jr, interview by James Wombwell and Dan Struble, 21 June 2002, Records of Fifth Fleet in Operation Enduring Freedom (unprocessed) (hereafter 5THFLT), OA; Naval Historical Center, OEF Handbook, Chronology, 33, 49, 64, 131. 12 Brief, “CTF 50 Campaign Plan,” n.d. (c. April 2002), disc N3/5, OA; Benjamin S. Lambeth, American Carrier Air Power At the Dawn of a New Century (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), x. 13 Brief, COMUSNAVCENT, “Welcomes the Honorable Gordon R. England Secretary of the Navy,” c.28 October 2001, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA; UK, House of Commons, “Operation Enduring Freedom,” 26; Michael Webb

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19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

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and Igor Mikolic-Torreira, Overview of Carrier-based Strike-fighter Operations in Operation Enduring Freedom (Alexandria, VA: Center for Naval Analyses CRM D0006302.A2/Final, January 2003), 15–22. Webb and Mikolic-Torreira, Overview, 15–22. “Italian BG Talking Points,” 30 December 2001, COMUSNAVCENT Disc 2 of 17, NAVCENT, OA. Naval Historical Center, OEF Handbook, Chronology, 52, 69, 78, 92, 118, 121. U.S. Central Command, “France: Support to the Global War on Terror,” www.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/CoalitionPages/France.htm; U.S., Department of Defense, “Allied Contributions to the Common Defense,” www.defenselink. mil/pubs/allied_contrib2003/, Chapter I; France, Ministry of Defence, “Le Groupe aéronaval,” www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/marine/decouverte/presentation/unites/batiments_ de_surface/batiments_de_combat/les_porte-avions/le_groupe_aeronaval_dans_loperation_heracles480/le_groupe_aeronaval/. “Maritime Coalition Forces,” 18 March 2002, COMUSNAVCENT Crisis Action Team Disc 1 of 5, NAVCENT, OA; “Australia’s Contribution to the International Coalition Against Terrorism,” www.defence.gov.au/terrorism/; Richard Gimblett, Operation Apollo: The Golden Age of the Canadian Navy in the War Against Terrorism (Ottowa: Magic Light Publishing, 2004), 47, 49; 67. Gimblett, Operation Apollo, 54, 66. Ibid., 40–59. “Italian BG Talking Points,” 30 Dec 2001, COMUSNAVCENT Disc 2 of 17, NAVCENT, OA; Gimblett, Operation Apollo, 49, 77. It is important to note, however, that Naval Forces Central Command considered maritime interception operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf to be an ongoing part of Operation Desert Storm, not a part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Brief, VADM Moore, “CFMCC Commander’s Backbrief,” n.d., COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA. The Gulf Cooperation Council included Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Brief, “Maritime Interception Operations (MIO) Update,” 28 November 2001, disc N3/5, OA. Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller, Jr, Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Arabian Gulf War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), xv. Brief, Multinational Interception Force Operational Update for the UNSCR 661 Committee, 5 November 2002, www.cusnc.navy.smil.mil/ops/mio/index.htm. Naval Historical Center, OEF Handbook, “Chronology,” 93. CTF-50 CONOPS Brief Leadership Interdiction,” n.d., c. November 2001, COMUSNAVCENT Disc 16 of 17, NAVCENT, OA. CTF-50 CONOPS Brief Leadership Interdiction, n.d., COMUSNAVCENT Disc 16 of 17, NAVCENT, OA; CFMCC OEF SITREP 231903Z NOV 01, disc N3/5, OA; Brief, “Global War on Terrorism: Expanding Maritime Interception Operations,” 19 January 2002, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disk 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA; Captain Philip Wisecup, interview by Dan Struble, 8 March 2002, 5THFLT, OA (hereafter Wisecup interview); Rear Admiral James M. Zortman, interview by Dan Struble, 9 March 2002, 5THFLT, OA (hereafter Zortman interview); Maritime Coalition Forces, 18 March 2002, COMUSNAVCENT Crisis Action Team Disc 1 of 5, NAVCENT, OA. Daily Watch Files folder, COMUSNAVCENT N3 disk 01 of 09, NAVCENT, OA; Naval Historical Center, OEF Handbook, Overview Narrative, 56. Gimblett, Operation Apollo, 73. Draft, “CINCCENTCOM Strategic Concept of Operations for Horn of Africa Operations,” 18 November 2001, COMUSNAVCENT Disc 16 of 17, NAVCENT, OA; CFMCC, OPORD 01, n.d., c. February 2002, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA. Msg., CJFMCC, Night Intentions, 31 January 2002, disc N3/5, OA; Robert J.

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35 36 37 38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46

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Schneller, Jr, Anchor of Resolve: A Short History of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, forthcoming). Msg., CJFMCC, Night Intentions, 31 January 2002, disc N3/5, OA; Msg., NAVCENT SITREP, 03 Feb 02, disc N3/5, OA; Francis T. Miko and Christine Froehlich, Germany’s Role in Fighting Terrorism: Implications for U.S. Policy (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 27 December 2004). France, Ministry of Defence, Defence Against Terrorism: A Top Priority of the Ministry of Defence (Délégation à l’information et à la communication de la defense, April 2006), 25. Joshua Kucera, “Alliance Française,” New Republic Online, www.tnr.com/ doc.mhtml?i=20051017&s=diarist101705. Msg., CTF 53 to COM5THFLT, 13 January 2002, COMUSNAVCENT disc 3 of 17, NAVCENT, OA; msg., CTF 53 to COM5THFLT, 13 May 2002, COMUSNAVCENT disc 15 of 17, NAVCENT, OA. “Japan Maritime Self Defense Force Support to the War in Afghanistan,” 27 November 2001, www.vic-info.org/RegionsTop.nsf/d34b52a44d19bf398a25682e00066582/ d54a4bbc3d67eb9a0a256b12000fdbe1?OpenDocument; Hiroshi Ito, “Operation Fuel for Freedom Goes On,” Coalition Bulletin 15 (August 2004): 6; Don Tennant, “Japanese Oiler Refuels 600th Customer in Arabian Sea,” Coalition Bulletin 31 (April 2006): 3. Gimblett, Operation Apollo, 107–111. Brief, “Welcome Defense Science Board Task Force,” 7 January 2002, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA. U.S. Central Command, Brief, “Command and Control, Communications and Computer Systems, CCJ6,” c. December 2001, COMUSNAVCENT N5 Disc 2 of 4, NAVCENT, OA; Nick Chatwin, interview by Michael H. McDaniel, 4 June 2003, Records of Naval Forces Central Command in Operation Iraqi Freedom (unprocessed), OA. Doc., “Coalition ROE Comparison Matrix,” 12 March 2002, disc Carrier Group 7, 5THFLT, OA; Brief, “CTF 50 Campaign Plan,” n.d. (c. April 2002), disc N3/5, OA. Yeager and Struble, “Operation Enduring Freedom.” Wisecup interview. Zortman interview. Organization of American States, “Strengthening Hemispheric Cooperation to Prevent, Combat, and Eliminate Terrorism,” Twenty-third Meeting of Consultation OEA of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, /Ser.F/II.23 RC.23/RES.1/01, 21 September 2001, www.oas.org/OASpage/crisis/RC.23e.htm; U.S., White House, “The Global War on Terrorism: The First 100 Days”; U.S., White House, “Campaign Against Terrorism: A Coalition Update,” www.whitehouse.gov.

18 The formation of a coalition of the willing and Operation Iraqi Freedom David B. Crist

On 19 March 2003, the United States began its second major war with Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). While chiefly a ground campaign, many of its key strategic objectives lay within the littorals of Iraq. Coalition naval forces played an invaluable role in the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, especially in securing key oil terminals and in opening up the port of Umm Qasr for humanitarian supplies. Both of these objectives depended on naval forces providing amphibious, mine clearing, special operations, and naval gunfire support. In each area the coalition served an important role, enhancing American capabilities and overall success in the opening stages of the war. Building on earlier coalition efforts against Iraq and the larger Global War on Terror (GWOT), Central Command (CENTCOM) designed a littoral campaign that maximized coalition capabilities. CENTCOM’s naval component (NAVCENT) integrated coalition forces within the U.S. command structure. Rather than form separate commands, the key coalition partners, chiefly the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, offered military forces designed to augment rather than duplicate U.S. force capabilities. The naval portion of the effort to remove Saddam Hussein eventually involved some 60,000 service personnel, five carrier strike groups, three amphibious ready groups, logistics, minesweepers, and escorts totaling 176 ships, of which 65 were from coalition partners.1

Coalition preparations for Operation Iraqi Freedom No CENTCOM component commander had a greater task in coordinating coalition operations than Vice Admiral Timothy Keating. With the exception of the United Kingdom and Australia, none of the coalition naval forces operating under his command for the GWOT were going to participate in Iraq. Moreover, the fluid nature of naval operations made it difficult to draw a firm line between Iraq and GWOT operations. Admiral Keating was dual-hatted as both NAVCENT and the Combined Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (CJFMCC); coalition personnel and forces were completely integrated in the CJFMCC headquarters. The UK, for example, established a Royal Navy “enclave” of some 40–50 personnel within the 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain,

Operation Iraqi Freedom 209 and the senior UK maritime component commander (COMUKMARFOR) served as the Deputy Coalition Joint Force Maritime Commander. The strategic goals set by Washington necessitated a flexible coalition for OIF and the GWOT. Washington deemed this critical to affording CENTCOM the “operational flexibility” to retain the support of countries such as France or Germany, who were key allies in the GWOT, but opposed any attack on Iraq. While this became widely known in the public parlance as a “coalition of the willing,” it was a more sophisticated approach to coalition building. To maintain an overarching GWOT coalition, the United States separated off the Iraq coalition, purposely keeping the two operations apart, even though both would operate under the same CENTCOM chain of command. To achieve this, Admiral Keating made significant organizational changes in his command and control to enable the formation of a parallel coalition for Iraq. Under the existing GWOT configuration, all combatant warships fell under CTF-50, which controlled strike operations in Afghanistan as well as escort operations safeguarding shipping transiting from the Suez Canal to the Arabian Gulf. Keating pulled out all forces that were not going to be engaged in operations against Iraq and formed three new GWOT task forces, reporting directly to him in his role as CJFMCC. CTF-150 primarily comprised ships from Western Europe and controlled interception and surveillance operations of the Red Sea, Bab el Mandeb, and the Horn of Africa. Similarly, CTF-151, under Canadian command, controlled the Leadership Interdiction Operations (LIO) and a large swath from the Gulf of Oman, Strait of Hormuz, and well north into the Arabian Gulf. A third task force included the Gulf Cooperation naval forces. Commanded by the Kuwaiti Chief of Naval Operations, it sole purpose was to defend the coast of Kuwait. This imaginative stroke of creative command and control arrangements had an indirect, but important utility for the U.S. war in Iraq. The coalition viewed safeguarding the sea lines of communication (SLOCs), especially around the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz, from terrorist attack as a GWOT mission. CTF150 and 151 maintained some 18–23 combatants dedicated to this task. These ships provided protection for the U.S. logistics and amphibious ships transiting the choke points regardless of their cargo’s destination. Keating was able to leverage the larger GWOT naval coalition to protect the lines of communication for Operation Iraqi Freedom.2 While Germany, France, and Canada, among others, opposed the war, their ships still protected 694 transits by U.S. logistics ships supporting the buildup to OIF. The Canadians were under no illusions that these U.S. and UK amphibious and logistics ships carried men and material for the war in Iraq, but recognized the target of opportunity presented to terrorists who might want to attack one of these vulnerable ships, and agreed to escort any ship requiring protection.3 Had they discriminated against those ships destined for Kuwait, it would have severely strained the U.S. Navy’s ability to protect the main line of supply for Iraqi Freedom.4 There remained, however, a clear line of demarcation between the GWOT and OIF coalitions. The United States cut off Canadian and other GWOT

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coalition navies’ access to some intelligence information. On one occasion, a Canadian vessel boarded a suspected Iraqi minelayer off the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under its CTF-151 GWOT mission. CJFMCC ordered the vessel released, but in short order, reversed its decision and asked the Canadians to seize her to search for Iraqi agents. As the Canadian Commodore Rodger Girouard later commented, “At that point, having boarded them once under MIO, I couldn’t board again because this was now – because of the information we had – Operation Iraqi Freedom. It wasn’t OEF, it was clear to me this was OIF, and so I declined the invitation to board.”5

The naval war against Iraq With the arrival of Rear Admiral David Snelson, RN, as the new COMUKMARFOR and Deputy, CJFMCC, in August 2002, planning for the naval war against Iraq began in earnest. Both Snelson and Keating planned to build on the GWOT and the Iraqi MIO successes by continuing to emphasize integration of the coalition. As Admiral Snelson said later, this integration “was a significant factor in the success of the UK maritime contribution to the Iraqi operation.”6 Admiral Snelson did not want to establish a separate UK task force, but believed it would be more efficient to “plug” UK and other coalition capabilities into the current U.S. Navy structure. The key was not to duplicate the capabilities of the U.S. Navy, but to build force packages that augmented or enhanced U.S. shortfalls. The coalition could then be directly placed under the tactical control of the various NAVCENT functional commands. Further, Keating and Snelson did not want to give one coalition country a specific mission. Should that country opt out of the coalition at the last minute, it would leave a hole in the larger naval effort.7 This view was not universally held in London. Some within the Ministry of Defense (MOD) were uneasy about having all their naval and ground forces under American command and wanted a separate UK task force. Others advocated deploying a stand-alone force. When discussions arose in December 2002 about deploying the HMS Ark Royal to the Gulf, some in the Royal Navy wanted it as a strike platform. But Snelson and others successfully argued that rather than duplicate the far more capable U.S. carriers just for the sake of having their own strike aircraft, the ship would better serve as a helicopter carrier to support 3 Commando’s operations under the I-MEF. The UK MOD reluctantly agreed to put its forces under U.S. tactical control, but this allowed for far greater integration and for the better utilization of UK forces. While the tactical control of British forces would fall under the U.S. functional headquarters, the UK and Australia maintained separate administrative national chains of command. The senior UK commander, or National Contingent Commander in theater, was Air Marshal Brian Burridge, colocated with CENTCOM’s forward headquarters in Qatar. Burridge had been fully integrated into the Iraq planning, as the UK was the first coalition country incorporated into the compartmented planning cell in Tampa around May–June 2002.8 The Air

Operation Iraqi Freedom 211 Marshal had operational control of 45,000 service personnel ensuring their missions and tasking aligned with the U.S. 1003V plan. Management of the coalition for Iraq within CJFMCC fell to the Friendly Forces Coordination Center (F2C2), which NAVCENT established shortly after the beginning of OEF. It assumed an operational role within the CJFMCC N-3, working many of the “nuts and bolts” issues regarding force integration and planning.9 While the senior service representatives from each GWOT member remained in Tampa or forward in Qatar, some 40 liaison officers from 15 nations were working in the center by the spring of 2003. Iraq, however, brought a new set of challenges for the F2C2 as only Australia and Great Britain participated fully in all aspects of the planning. This necessitated some creative workarounds to maintain operational security for the Iraq planning and placate those within the OEF coalition who feared being inadvertently drawn into supporting OIF. Once again, CJFMCC formed two separate coalition working groups in the F2C2. The GWOT group included virtually all nations while a smaller Iraq group contained those participating in OIF. For those nations participating in both operations, CENTCOM encouraged them to send two different liaison officers, with one assigned to each operation. One coalition nation developed its own workaround by referring all of its OIFrelated matters to its liaison team in Tampa and using its F2C2 liaison strictly to work on GWOT or OEF. To support this, NAVCENT often sent out two separate messages, one for OEF and one for OIF, in some cases with both messages going to the same recipients. As one participant noted, this led to a “schizophrenic” mind-set.10

The coalition plan Constant change was a hallmark of the Iraq war planning, but by February 2003, at least the opening gambit for naval operations was set. As Admirals Keating and Snelson later observed, the main focus of the coalition naval effort at the outset would be opening the Khor Abd Allah (KAA) waterway and supporting the opening phases of the ground campaign. U.S. Navy SEALs and Polish GROM, under control of Captain Robert Harward, USN, Naval Special Warfare Task Group, CTG-561, would secure the offshore platforms of Mina Al-Basra Oil Terminal (MABOT) and Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT). Simultaneously, a combined SEAL and Royal Marine force from 40 Commando would secure key pumping stations on Al Faw. Afterwards, the rest of the 3 Commando Brigade, including 42 Commando, would be flown in on American and British helicopters from a staging area in Kuwait and amphibious ships to secure the entire peninsula, and protect the land flank of the mine countermeasure forces. Thereafter, minesweeping assets would start clearing the KAA to Umm Qasr to open the port for humanitarian supplies. Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) would secure the port of Umm Qasr to help open it for humanitarian aid.11 CJFMCC fully integrated the coalition into the command and control for

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OIF. While UK and U.S. amphibious forces fell under CTF-51, most of the coalition naval forces fell under CTF-55, commanded by Rear Admiral Barry Costello, USN, embarked on Constellation. Designated Commander Middle East Force, he effectively controlled all the non-strike offensive operations. Costello had 17–20 vessels, mostly non-American. On one of the final briefs on the Australian support ship Kanimbla, Costello and his few staff members were the only U.S. officers present, which as one participant noted, “was far different from the U.S. only model most U.S. commanders were used to.”12 There were two key task groups under Admiral Costello. CTG-55.1, Commodore John Peterson on Valley Forge, was assigned control of the Maritime Interception Operation (MIO) operations in the northern Gulf. CTG-55.4 assumed responsibility for the KAA mine clearing mission.13 Commanding the MIO screening force under Peterson was Captain Peter Jones, RAN. With a staff of 18 officers embarked on Kanimbla, as CTU-55.1.1, Jones provided security for the mine clearing and platform take-downs, and prevented any Iraqi minelayers from breaking out of the KAA. To support this, liaison officers from NAVSOF, Australia, and the UK were positioned onboard Valley Forge. While some argued that Jones and Peterson’s commands were redundant, this arrangement freed Peterson to support the Kuwaiti Naval Defense Force and Naval Special Forces missions, enabling Jones to concentrate just on the Iraqi threat.14 Further, without a U.S. classified Internet connection, it would have been difficult for Jones to track the strike missions.15 Mine clearing was also an integrated coalition undertaking. Mines were a legitimate concern since during Desert Storm Iraq laid nearly 1,300 mines. The U.S. Navy’s Mine Countermeasure Squadron 3 was the combined task group commander, designated CTG-55.4. The Royal Navy controlled the surface mine countermeasure forces, which consisted of four American and six British vessels and a logistics support ship, RFA Sir Bedivere, as a mother ship for the flotilla. Joining this U.S./UK effort, the Australian explosives ordnance diving unit – Australian Clearance Diving Team Three (AUSCDT-3) – aided in clearing mines or unexploded ordnance. Embarked on the USS Ponce, MH-53Es from Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HM)-14 were equipped with towed side-scan sonar and magnetic and acoustic sweeps.16 British and American planners, however, disagreed about the use of naval gun fire to support 3 Commando on Al Faw. Before the war, the survey ship HMS Roebuck conducted surveys of the KAA and discovered that the waterway was several meters deeper than believed. This allowed fire support ships to get in closer, especially the shallow-draft British and Australian combatants.17 British planners proposed stationing ships in the mouth of the KAA to provide naval gunfire support to the ground forces. The idea was not well received by 5th Fleet planners, however, who worried about both the shallow waters, and Iraqi mines. They argued that the abundance of American air power could provide more than enough fire power for the Royal Marines.18 But the British remained adamant on using naval gunfire. They trained extensively with the navy, and were confident of its capabilities. While concurring

Operation Iraqi Freedom 213 with the U.S. assessment about the threat of mines, they were hesitant to rely solely on airpower, especially in the event the weather turned bad.19 Costello finally relented and four ships were assigned the mission: the Australian frigate HMAS Anzac; and three UK frigates, HMS Marlborough, Chatham, and Richmond.

The war in the Gulf On 17 March 2003, smugglers staged a mass breakout from the KAA as some 40 dhows, many displaying white flags, fled in anticipation of war. Desperate to get out of the KAA before the war, many began dumping their cargo into the water. Facing a mine hazard, the last thing Commodores Jones and Peterson wanted was more floating objects in the waterway. After consulting with Admiral Keating, he approved their recommendation to try and empty the KAA by allowing the exodus to continue. To alleviate the possibility that Iraq might take advantage of the situation and covertly lay mines, HMAS Darwin embarked boarding teams, screened the dhows, and allowed them to keep their dates and oil. Word spread among the smugglers and by the time the war began, a total of 56 dhows and 38 larger “steel hulls” were inspected and allowed to proceed, thus emptying the KAA of potential hazards.20 As Commodore Jones later observed, “It was a historic moment because it was the effective end of the 12 year embargo.”21 On the morning of 19 March 2003, two Iraqi tugs evacuated UN inspectors from the oil platform MABOT. To prevent their use as hostages by Iraq, NAVCENT ordered the tugs intercepted. Australian Commodore Peter Jones dispatched the Patrol Coastal Craft, USS Chinook, which stopped the tugs and removed the five UN employees, transporting them to Valley Forge for a debriefing.22 They revealed the presence of Iraqi military and explosives on the two platforms, adding to the sense of urgency to secure the platforms as soon as possible. That afternoon, the war began following an unsuccessful F-117 strike on Saddam Hussein at Dora Farms. The United States designated it Operation Iraqi Freedom, the United Kingdom Telic, and Australia Falconer. General Franks gave the order to secure the two platforms and Al Faw the next evening. On 20 March, just a few minutes before sunset, U.S. Navy Special Operations Mark-V Special Operations Craft (MK-V SOC) and Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats (RIBs) left Kuwaiti Naval Base, loaded with the combined SEAL and GROM assault force. At 2220 local time, they received the code word “party,” the signal to assault the platforms. Within short order both platforms were in coalition hands without a shot fired or an explosive detonated. Simultaneously, a combined Royal Marine and SEAL force, flown on U.S. Air Force Special Operations helicopters, seized the key oil nodes on Al Faw, overcoming sporadic Iraqi resistance.23 Commanded by Colonel Gordon Messenger, 40 Commando immediately began flying in the rest of the battalion on UK helicopters, followed later that morning by 42 Commando.24 At 0300 HMAS Anzac and HMS Marlborough, Chatham, and Richmond

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detached to provide the naval gun fire support for the forces on Al Faw. The commanding officer of Marlborough, Mark Anderson, served as the on-scene commander. Planners established three potential fire support areas (FSA), Gold, Sword, and Juno – named after the D-Day beaches – inside the KAA just off the Al Faw. Anzac and Marlborough with their shallower draft took station furthest west at FSA Juno and Chatham and Richmond just to the east in FSA Sword. Three hours later, Anzac responded to the first call for fire from 40 Commando. Over the next 36 hours, this flotilla fired over 155 rounds in support of the Royal Marines. Their fire was remarkably accurate with some Iraqi targets destroyed with a single round. “You won’t read much about it,” Captain Peterson, noted about the British and Australian ships performance, but “They had a very successful campaign that saved a great many lives, both UK and Iraqi.”25 Meanwhile, one of the two remaining Iraqi PB-90 patrol boats was detected tied up alongside a derelict vessel, but intelligence analysts suspected it intended to move down the KAA to engage coalition vessels. After an unsuccessful attempt to engage it with British artillery on Bubiyan, Harward’s command vectored in an AC-130 Gunship, which quickly sank the Iraqi boat with its 105-mm cannon. Later that evening, the U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat Adak rescued three survivors from the PB-90. She brought them to the HMAS Kanimbla, where the men were treated for hypothermia. A Kuwaiti Naval officer, embarked as a liaison officer, interrogated the trio, who confirmed they had indeed intended to attack coalition forces.26 While operations on Al Faw commenced, other naval assets positioned themselves to prevent any minelayers or suicide boats from “squirting” out of the KAA, thus safeguarding the transit lane from Bubiyan Island across to Al Faw, which carried the heavy equipment for 3 Commando. Three suspicious Iraqi tugs were sighted towing a barge headed down the Khor Abd Allah and Captain Jones ordered them stopped by the American PCCs Chinook and Firebolt. Later a joint U.S.–Australian boarding team discovered 86 mines hidden on the barge. This discovery caused some consternation within CFMCC and led to speculation that the Iraqis had sowed the KAA with mines. But after interrogation of the tug crews, Jones and Peterson remained confident that no mines had been laid.27

Opening Umm Qasr On the day after the securing of Al Faw the “shock and awe” campaign began. The coalition fired more than 800 TLAMs, one-third from submarines. The UK had two submarines, HMS Splendid and HMS Turbulent, supporting operations. They fired a total of 35 missiles.28 With the conclusion of the successful opening gambit to seize the key oil nodes on Al Faw and the two offshore oil platforms, CFMCC immediately began opening the KAA waterway and the port of Umm Qasr for humanitarian supplies. The early work fell to Captain Harward’s SEALs and Polish GROM. Harward conducted two follow-on missions as the NAVCENT SOF component, CTG-561. One was to escort the Royal Marine Riverine force – 539 Assault

Operation Iraqi Freedom 215 Squadron – to protect the right flank of 3 Commando on the Khor Al Zubayr waterway as 3 Commando Brigade secured Umm Qasr. Harward’s other tasking entailed deploying the mine clearing assets in the KAA to protect coalition ships and clear the numerous derelict vessels lining the waterway. Beginning on 21 March, four of the new Naval SOF Special Operation CraftRiverine (SOC-Rs) began moving north, covering the smaller UK Riverine boats and preventing any small boats from hindering the coalition mine clearing forces from moving south. Additional U.S. Special Forces boats, with the Polish GROM, proceeded into the northern KAA to board and clear vessels. Supported by the High Speed Vessel or HSV Joint Venture, a 284-foot-long Australianbuilt wave-piercing high-speed ferry boat, in a week the Poles and Americans boarded 113 vessels, discovering a dhow laden with mines, and an abandoned small boat designed for a suicide mission.29 With the Al Faw secure, the mine clearing operation began, with CJFOCC reasonably confident that no mines had been laid. With the MH-53s leading and aided by dolphins scouring the bottom for potential hazards, the ten mine countermeasure vessels followed at a plodding pace of three knots, using data from the helicopters’ side-scan sonar surveys to investigate suspicious contacts. The USS Ponce served as the interim command ship, while Sir Bedivere provided logistics support for the surface mine countermeasure vessels. By the 24 March, they had cleared a 60-yard-wide path extending for nearly half the 40 miles to Umm Qasr. Later, the lane width would expand to 200 yards. They investigated 478 contacts, operating in heavy silt that reduced visibility to less than one foot at times. Coalition EOD divers counter-charged dozens of “mine like” objects, conducting “blow and go” missions, with the destruction of suspicious objects before confirming that they were mines.30 The EOD program manager, Commander Tom Green, Naval Sea Systems Command commented, “It was not the ideal way of clearing mines, except there was a large emphasis on getting Umm Qasr open as quickly as possible for humanitarian aid, and so we used the most rapid means possible of clearing out anything that looked like a mine.”31 On the 28 March, RFA Sir Galahad pulled into the newly cleared port of Umm Qasr with the first load of humanitarian aid. While the feared humanitarian crisis never emerged, the combined mine clearing force of CTG-55.4 opened up the KAA on time and without a single casualty. With the conclusion of the main naval assignments following the opening of Umm Qasr, coalition naval operations turned to the riverine forces and the Shat al Arab, the key waterway running between Iran and Iraq. Admiral Keating wanted to get “eyes” on the Shat al Arab waterway to prevent suicide boats from sortieing. Additionally, based upon the success of the KAA operation, 3 Commando requested Special Operations Craft-Riverine (SOC-R) support to provide flank security during the 1st (UK) Armored Division’s seizure of Basrah. The mission was a success, but not as planned. On 4 April, the four SOC-Rs moved into the Shat al Arab, but when confronted by belligerent Iranian Revolutionary Guards, CENTCOM ordered Harward to turn back. To get the four boats up to Basrah, the British provided CH-47 Chinook helicopters to sling-load the

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four boats and fly them and their crews to join the Royal Marine forces near Basrah. The next day, the Polish GROM joined them near Basrah to provide boarding parties and limited ground forces to support the SOC-Rs. Over the next nine day, the SOC-Rs, Poles, and Royal Marines from 539 Squadron searched some 88 vessels, dhows, and fishing boats. Under British tactical control, they provided critical support in clearing bunkers and enemy fighting positions along the river banks.32 With the conclusion of the opening stages of the campaign, the coalition naval mission moved into a more steady-state routine. After the fall of Baghdad, naval forces guarded KAAOT and MABOT while their MIO mission evolved from embargo enforcement to customs inspection for the Iraqi interim authority. The Australians began training a new Iraqi navy. Other countries also assisted. The Japanese, for example, offered $60–70 million in free fuel to the coalition forces.33

Conclusions The CJFMCC planning and execution stands in sharp contrast to the shortfalls in planning and assumptions behind 1003V that surfaced during the Phase IV, Post Hostilities, period. The creative command and control developed by Admiral Keating and his coalition staff met the intent set forth by Washington to build successive and simultaneous coalitions while preserving the larger GWOT. The plan maximized international contributions and preserved U.S. operational freedom of action. It enabled the formation of a coalition force tailored to meet the mission requirements set forth by CENTCOM. The Operation Iraqi Freedom naval effort built on the experience of 12 years of operations in the Arabian Gulf. This experience had refined coalition tactics, techniques, and interoperability. More importantly, it developed confidence among the coalition members of their respective capabilities. This allowed Keating to turn large sections of his tactical operations over to international control. The formation of CTF-150 and 151, Keating’s willingness to allow an Australian to command the screening force, and the complete integration of U.S., UK, and Australian countermine forces, reflected the trust and confidence developed by the allied navies in the years enforcing the UN-mandated blockade. NAVCENT’s creative command and control also enabled Keating to operate more than one coalition within his area of operation. The willingness of the coalition to agree to this relationship and remain under NAVCENT’s command for the GWOT, greatly facilitated U.S. operations in the Middle East. This permitted the formation of CTF-150, 151, and the Gulf naval contingent, which in turn facilitated the operation of the OIF coalition without hindering either campaign. By escorting the U.S. amphibious and logistics ships, the coalition safeguarded the OIF SLOCs. Without that support, the U.S. Navy would have been severely strained to provide security.

Operation Iraqi Freedom 217

Notes 1 Vice Admiral Timothy Keating, U.S.N., Interview, “This was a Different War,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (June 2003), 31. 2 Commander Mark Laxen, U.S.N., Interview with Captain Michael McDaniel, U.S.N., 11 June 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C. 3 The Canadian Navy operated under strict rules of engagement imposed by Ottawa, including a prohibition against turning over any Iraqi caught fleeing to the U.S. Navy. Richard Gimblett, Phone Interview with David Crist, 16 June 2006. 4 Michael Gordon, “Threats and Responses: Allies; German and Spanish Navies Take on Major Role Near Horn of Africa,” New York Times, 15 December 2002, 36; Richard Gimblett, e-mail to David Crist, 12 June 2006; NAVCENT Briefing, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” also known as the “Road Show Brief, 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C; Captain John Peterson, U.S.N., Interview with Captain Robert Sawyer and Captain Michael McDaniel, U.S.N., 10 July 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C. 5 Richard Gimblett, Operation Apollo: The Golden Age of the Canadian Navy in the War against Terrorism (Ottowa: Magic Light Publishing, 2004), 116, 119. 6 House of Commons, Defense Committee, Lessons of Iraq, Third Report of Session 2003–2004, (London: Stationery Office Limited, March 2004), 32–33, 55; Rear Admiral David Snelson, RN, Interview with Captain Michael McDaniel, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C. 7 Captain Nick Lambert, RN, Interview with Captain Michael McDaniel, U.S.N., 22 April 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C. 8 Lessons of Iraq, 32–33. 9 Captain Harry Harris, U.S.N., Interview with Captain Michael McDaniel, U.S.N., 15 May 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C 10 Commander Dennis O’Meara, U.S.N., Interview with Captain Robert Sawyer and Captain Michael McDaniel, U.S.N., 4 April 2003, Naval Historical Center, Operational Archives, Washington, D.C. 11 Ministry of Defense, Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the Future (December 2003), 11; 1st United Kingdom Armor Division, “Operation TELIC – GOC’s Directive One,” 3 February 2003; Colonel Thomas Waldhouser, U.S.M.C., Commanding Officer, 15th MEU, U.S. Marine Corps History Division, Oral History Collection, 14 April 2003. 12 Peterson Interview. 13 “Mine Countermeasures a Success:” Captain Peter Lockwood, RAN, Commanding Officer HMAS Anzac SLIPPER 4/FALCONER, unpublished transcript, Sea Power Centre, Canberra, 2003, 2, 7–8; Commodore Peter Jones, RAN, “A Farewell to the Gulf,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 2004, 43. 14 Captain Peter Jones, RAN, “Maritime Interception Operations Screen Command in the Gulf, Part II Operation BASTILLE and FALCONER,” Journal of the Australian Naval Institute (Spring 2003), 13. 15 Command of the northern Gulf MIO operation had alternated between the Australian command and the U.S. DESRON 50. The decision to have DESRON 50 form a new layer of command above the MIF force was not whole-heartedly embraced. But Jones and Peterson worked well together and the complexity of the operations necessitated a larger command structure. 16 Rear Admiral Paul Ryan, U.S.N., “Mine Countermeasures a Success,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2003, htp://www.usni.org/proceedings/Articles03/ PROryan05.htm, accessed 19 July 2006. 17 Robert Fox, Iraq Campaign 2003: Royal Navy and Royal Marines (London: Agenda Publishing, 2003), 27. 18 Peterson Interview.

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19 Lockwood, unpublished transcript, 4. 20 CFMCC, Ops/Intel Update, 21 March 2003, 36; David Stevens and John Perryman, “The RAN in the Gulf – Two Years On,” Australian Maritime Issues 2005: Papers in Australia Maritime Affairs, No. 16 (Canberra: Sea Power Centre, 2005), 99; Lockwood unpublished transcript, 2. 21 Captain Jones, “Maritime Interception Operations Part II,”15. 22 “A Farewell to the Gulf,” 44. 23 The assault force took off from a 3 Commando Forward base on Bubiyan Island named FARP Viking. 24 Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the Future, 11–13. 25 Greg Nash and David Stevens, Australia’s Navy in the Gulf: Form Countenance to Catalyst, 1941–2006 (Canberra: Sea Power Centre, 2006), 67–68; Iraq Campaign 2003, 104–110. 26 Captain Jones, “Maritime Interception Operations Part II,” 16. 27 Ibid. 28 United States Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” www.cusnc.navy.mil/orders%20to%20command/pages/oif.htm, accessed 22 June 2006, 3; Iraq Campaign 2003, 78–85. 29 Comments by panel members, Special Operations and Riverine Warfare, U.S. Naval Institute Conference, “Riverine Warfare Back to the Future?” 7 April 2006. 30 “Clearing the Way: U.S. and Coalition Sailors Clear Underwater Mines from the Waterways of the Northern Arabian Gulf and Iraq, Making the Way for Humanitarian Aid,” All Hands (June 2003), 24–33; “Mine Countermeasures a Success.” 31 Malina Brown, “Mine Clearance Efforts in Iraq Aided by Strong Intel, New UUVs,” Inside the Navy (May 2003), The Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, www.whoi.edu/science/AOPE/dept/OSL/remus_navystory.html, accessed 20 July 2006. 32 Riverine conference. 33 Keating Proceedings Interview, 33.

19 Conclusions Bruce A. Elleman and S.C.M. Paine1

In the past two centuries, as naval coalitions have become increasingly global in their membership, they have simultaneously become more localized in their operations. Instead of global coalitions fighting global wars, more recent naval coalitions have tended to focus on restoring order within a particular country, such as Afghanistan, and sometimes only a portion of a country, such as Bosnia. Typically, modern naval coalitions concentrate the combined powers of many states against diplomatically isolated adversaries, so that strategic success requires at least two offensive prongs: one military and the other diplomatic. To force a resolution, naval coalitions often focus not just on their adversary’s military and government, but also on its commerce and economy, so a third common prong integrates an economic strategy. Over the years, particularly since World War II when the United States has possessed overwhelming naval superiority over its coalition partners, coordinating strategy, making equipment interoperable, establishing communications, and balancing conflicting rules of engagement have all become increasingly important. Many of the more intractable problems facing coalition members have derived not so much from differing national perspectives, as from tensions over command and control. For reasons of sovereignty, in the past nations rarely put their forces under the tactical let alone operational command of another power. In recent years, coalition partners have accepted tactical control by another coalition member, became more comfortable with operational control, and are now considering sharing combatant command authority. But full unity of command within a coalition remains difficult, and a former deputy secretary of defence in Australia has argued that the United States must involve its partners “in the coalition’s decisionmaking more than it has done so far.”2 The following sections will analyze naval coalitions by examining such factors as coalition type, theater of operations, membership stability, duration, command relationships, naval strategy, operational and strategic objectives, and enemy response. Topical tables summarize relevant data drawn from the preceding sixteen case studies.

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Coalition types and theater of operations As Table 19.1 makes clear, up until the end of World War II, most coalitions were homogeneous but exclusive. This meant that the relatively few coalition members tended to have roughly equivalent populations and militaries and so could contribute fairly equally to the war effort. These tended to be great power coalitions. After World War II, however, coalitions have tended to include a far greater range of members in terms of size, capacity, and contributions. Thus, the membership has become increasingly inclusive as it has become more heterogeneous. This shift not only reflects the bipolar nature of the Cold War, where broad coalition membership gave greater legitimacy to each side, but also reflects a growing reliance on the niche capabilities of the different coalition members. Since the end of the Cold War, naval coalitions have consistently opposed diplomatically isolated continental adversaries. Successful naval coalitions usually leveraged a wide variety of assets by being inclusive and heterogeneous. In other words, many countries of differing capabilities cooperated and leveraged their asymmetrical naval assets against a non-naval adversary. The most successful naval coalitions, not surprisingly, have operated in theaters that allowed maritime powers to exert influence over land, either through landing troops, shelling from the sea, or by using air power, whether carrierbased aircraft or sea-based missiles. In the twentieth century, coalitions became increasingly global in scope but focused on regional problems – in other words, like a lens focusing light they have assembled capabilities worldwide to concentrate on a comparatively small area. Likewise, they have dispersed the costs of taking military action among the many members of the coalition, but concentrated the operational effect on a limited theater. This has made taking military action politically feasible for the coalition members and strategically effective against the foe that could not hope to overcome the combined force of the coalition.

Naval coalition membership, duration of operations, and command structure Table 19.2 shows that the stability of coalition membership is of crucial importance. The intervention of a hostile third party, meaning an addition to the opposing coalition, strongly correlates with strategic failure. This was true for the Axis during World War II when the United States intervened, the Nationalist defeat in the Chinese Civil War when the Soviet Union intervened, and the United States in the Vietnam War when both the Soviet Union and China intervened. Likewise, during many conflicts, the defection of a coalition member – such as Italy during World War I – made an enormous difference, just as the late addition of members – including the United States’ intervention in both World Wars – helped turn the tide of battle. From the enemy’s perspective, the many successful coalitions discussed in

Heterogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Homogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous Heterogeneous

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Inclusive Exclusive Exclusive Exclusive Exclusive Inclusive Inclusive Exclusive Exclusive Exclusive Inclusive Inclusive Inclusive Inclusive Inclusive Inclusive

Membership Continental Continental Continental varied Maritime Continental Continental Maritime Continental Continental Continental Continental Continental Continental Continental Continental

Primary enemy

Notes Composition: heterogeneous (different size members); homogeneous (similar members). Membership: inclusive (lots of members); exclusive (few members).

Composition

Coalition

Table 19.1 Types and theaters

Regional Bilateral Bilateral Regional Regional Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global Global

Coalition membership

Regional Baltic, Crimea Coastal Regional Local Local Global Global Regional Regional Global Regional Regional Regional Regional Regional

Theater scope

Defections

Various – – – – – Russia Italy – Australia, USA Cuba, Iran Various – – Various Various

Coalition

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Table 19.2 Membership

Various – – – – – Italy, USA Various – – Eastern Europe – – – – –

Additions Various – – – – – Various USA – USSR, PRC Cuba – – – – –

Enemy additions – – – – – – Italy – USA – PRC, Eastern Europe – – – – –

Enemy defections

Shifting Stable Stable Shifting Stable Stable Shifting Shifting Asymmetric Asymmetric NATO core Shrinking NATO core NATO core NATO core Shrinking

Type of coalition

Conclusions

223

this work tended to increase in scope, unity, and capacity over the course of the conflict. During the Cold War, the United States proved willing to break one naval coalition in a losing peripheral operation – the Vietnam War – in order to gain a new coalition partner – the People’s Republic of China – and thereby undermine the scope, unity, and capacity of the USSR’s coalition in the long war. Not surprisingly, regional wars tended to be shorter than global wars. Table 19.3 shows that successful long wars – such as Napoleon and the Cold War – entailed cumulative operations over larger theaters. They also tended to include blockades, or blockade-like strategies, such as containment, to erode the power of the adversary. Ever since World War I, naval coalition wars have relied on the cumulative or compounding effects of operations – also known as attrition warfare – rather than on a discrete sequence of operations – that is, until Operation Desert Storm against Iraq. It is unclear whether this war and those that followed in Afghanistan and Iraq were exceptional.3 Theorists often consider unity of command to be a coalition’s center of gravity. Coordinated command closely correlated with strategic success, just as its absence greatly contributed to strategic failure – the Axis being a prime example of the latter. Since the Cold War, the firepower of one country – the United States – has tended to dominate naval coalitions. This has made the interoperability of equipment and communications with the U.S. Navy of growing importance to many smaller navies. Table 19.3 Duration and type of operations, and command structure Coalition

Duration

Sequential/ cumulative

Dominant country asserts control over coalition

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Long Short Short Short Short Short Medium Medium Medium Medium Long Short Short Short ? ?

Cumulative Sequential Sequential Sequential Sequential Sequential Cumulative Cumulative Cumulative Cumulative Cumulative Sequential Cumulative Cumulative Sequential Sequential

– – – Prussia – – – – USSR USA USSR/USA USA USA and NATO USA and NATO USA and NATO USA

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Naval strategy, and operational and strategic objectives Table 19.4 indicates that many naval strategies have won command of the sea – with Britain’s defeat of Napoleon and its victory in both World Wars being good cases in point. But this is not always possible or is too costly, so that sea denial or deterrence strategies have also been attempted. In only a handful of the case studies was a fleet-in-being strategy used – this showed itself most clearly when the Triple Intervention forced Japan to return Liaodong to China merely by the threat of a naval deployment. Likewise, during the Cold War the Soviet Navy was rarely committed to action, for fear that its value as a deterrent force would be undermined. Both sides also recognized that their navies had a one-shot use, meaning the anticipated nuclear response would annihilate the attacker. The adversary, on the other hand, can also use sea denial strategies and deterrence – the Soviet naval coalition with the Chinese Communists to provide sea denial in Manchuria provides a good example. When evaluating operational objectives, key missions include attacking an enemy’s commerce and especially its logistics and merchant fleets through blockade, actual fires against shore targets, and interdiction at sea. According to Table 19.5, attacking an adversary’s naval forces is also important, although in many of the case studies – Boxers, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan – the other side of the conflict did not possess either a navy or significant naval forces, so land forces and commerce became the prime target through fires ashore, blockades, and counter-blockades. Another interesting change over the years has been the shift from primarily land or joint sea/land campaigns on the enemy’s coastline, to large land wars supplied from the sea, to campaigns utilizing sea-based airpower to affect events on the land. With the exception of Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s and with Operation Iraqi Freedom beginning in 2003, many of the major naval coalitions since the end of the Vietnam War have conducted primarily air or air/land campaigns, indicating the centrality of aircraft carriers. Meanwhile, sea lift has remained critical to transport and supply armies in distant theaters. While coalition members tend to share a major strategic objective, competing interests help account for the short life of many naval coalitions that collapse once the primary strategic objective was achieved. Table 19.6 shows that throughout the nineteenth century, the primary strategic objectives were the expansion of empire and balance of power. In recent years, promoting regional stability has become increasingly important. Typical naval coalition enemies – for example, Bosnia and Kosovo – have often valued the political objective more highly than did the naval coalition members. To compensate for this asymmetry, the combined power of numerous coalition members has been necessary to achieve strategic success.

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Coalition

X X X – – X X X – X X X X X X X

Command of sea

Coalition members

X X X – – X X X X X X – – – – –

Sea denial

Table 19.4 Coalition and adversary naval strategy

X – – – X – X X X X X X – – – –

Deterrence X – – X X – X X X – – – – – – –

– – – – – – – X – – – – – – – –

Adversary ■ Fleet in being Command of sea X X X – – – X X – – – X – – – –

Sea denial – – – – – – X X X X X – – – – –

Deterrence

X – – – – – X X X – X – – – – –

Fleet in being

Enemy commerce

X X – – – – X X – – X X X X X X

Coalition

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Table 19.5 Operational objectives

X X X X – X X X X X X X X X X X

Enemy logistics X X X – X – X X – X – X – – – X

Enemy navy X X X – – – X X – Eventually Containment X Embargo Embargo X Sanctions

Blockade X – – Eventually – – X X X – – – – – – –

Blockade by enemy

– X X – – X X X – X X X X X X X

Fires ashore

Overthrow France Prevent Ottoman destruction Impose trading regime Overturn balance of power Return peninsula Eliminate Boxers Overthrow Germany Expand empire Prevent nationalist victory Prevent S. Vietnam destruction Prevent USSR expansion Expel Iraq Prevent genocide Prevent genocide Overthrow Taliban/Al Qaeda Overthrow Saddam Hussein

Napoleon Crimea Opium Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Counterbalance partners Destroy regional enemy Counterbalance partners Win Cold War Minimize costs Stability in Middle East Contain Serbia Contain Serbia Stability in Middle East Stability in Middle East

Competing objectives U L L L L L U U L-U L L-U L L L U U

LIM/UN High Med Med Med Med Low High High High-Med High-Med High High-Med Low Low High-Med High-Med

VOO High High High Med High High High High High High High High High High High High

Enemy VOO

U L L L L L U U U U U L L L U L

Enemy LIM/UN

Notes LIM: Limited objective (L) means something less than regime change. UN: Unlimited objective (U) means regime change. VOO: Value of the Object (VOO) means the perceived value of the political objective, measured as high, medium (med.), or low. High entails homeland defense from an attack threatening regime change.

Primary objective

Coalition

Table 19.6 Strategic objectives

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The adversary’s response Generally speaking, successful naval coalitions face diplomatically isolated continental adversaries. The adversary is not a “potted plant” that will remain stationary, but can change the conditions of the conflict. According to Table 19.7, preferred anti-coalition strategy sometimes targets the weakest member – for example, Germany’s attempt to defeat Russia in both World Wars – but when the value of the object is high for all members, such attempts have backfired, with the coalition strengthening as a result – the United States entered both wars on the sides of the Allies only after Russia came under dire threat. One effective anti-coalition strategy has been to leverage competing economic interests and underlying rivalries – for example Saddam Hussein used the “oil for food” program to convince a number of European and Middle Eastern countries not to support Operation Iraqi Freedom. Table 19.8 suggests that in the past, coalitions repeatedly foundered on competing secondary objectives, most notably in the many unsuccessful coalitions to defeat revolutionary France and Napoleon. In the case of coalitions composed of members that did not value the political objective equally, the member with the lowest value of the object would often be targeted first. During the Cold War, this included the United States, whose global commitments meant that it typically valued any particular theater less than its theater ally did. During both the Chinese Civil War and the Vietnam War, U.S. public opinion was persuaded – in part due to Communist propaganda – that the object was not worth the effort. In both cases, domestic opposition compelled Washington either not to intervene, in the case of China, or to withdraw, in the case of Vietnam, thereby granting the Communists a victory. The success of this anti-coalition strategy depended on an underlying asymmetry in the value of the political objective, so that costs could be driven up to the point where they exceeded a key member of the naval coalition’s value of the object, causing a defection from the coalition, while not yet exceeding that of the adversary. Escalating costs, not operational failure, can lead to strategic failure. In recent years, coalitions have foundered when voters perceive that costs are beginning to outweigh the value of the political objective – Spain’s decision to withdraw from Iraq following the Madrid train bombings is a case in point. Many nations now adhere to the increasingly comprehensive international legal order so that, unlike in the past, the order is no longer in dispute, at least in the West. For example, the alternate models of fascism and communism no longer resonate in the West where there is wide acceptance for an order based on international law, democracy, and free markets. However, the cost each nation is willing to expend to support this international order remains hotly contested. Table 19.9 shows that operational success was necessary but not sufficient for strategic success. The Axis enjoyed stunning operational success at the beginning of World War II, only to meet with failure by turning the bulk of the world against it. In Vietnam, the U.S. military never lost a major engagement, yet it

Anti-coalition strategy

Defeat or buy off weaker members – – – Anglo-Japanese alliance – Defeat Russia Defeat Italy Win media war Increase costs so U.S. decides to withdraw Win media war, buy off/threaten weakest members Bribe or threaten members Sow dissent Sow dissent Rally Islamists Bribe or threaten members, win media war, sow dissent

Coalition

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Table 19.7 Enemy actions

Weaken Strengthen Strengthen – – Strengthen Strengthen Weaken Weaken Weaken Varied Strengthen Strengthen Strengthen Strengthen Weaken

Impact of enemy actions on coalition

Varied All All All – All Weakest Weakest Strongest with lowest VOO Strongest with lowest VOO Varied Arab European rivals European rivals European rivals Great power rivals of U.S.

Enemy focus on coalition members by type

Similar interests

Fleeting Fleeting Fleeting Fleeting Fleeting Fleeting Long-term Fleeting Fleeting Long-term Long-term Fleeting Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term

Coalition

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Long-term Fleeting Fleeting ? ?

Competing interests Survival Medium Low Medium Low Low-medium Survival Med.-survival Med.-survival Med.-survival High High-survival Low-medium Low-medium High Medium-high

Perceived threat level

Table 19.8 Glues and solvents binding or weakening coalitions

Fear Anti-Russia Trade Territory Anti-Japan Fear Fear Ideology Fear of U.S. intervention Anti-communism Anti-communism Anti-Iraq Public relations Public relations Anti-terrorism Fear of WMD

Primary glue

Rivalry in Europe Rivalry in Europe Rivalry in Europe Competing empires Rivalry in Europe Competing empires Competing programs Competing empires Different primary objectives Competing objectives Cost, trade Cost, trade Cost, trade Cost Cost Failure to find nuclear components

Primary solvent

Conclusions

231

Table 19.9 Coalition success Coalition

Operational success

Strategic success

Napoleon Crimea Opium War Prussia Sino-Japan Boxers Entente Axis Manchuria Vietnam Cold War Kuwait Bosnia Kosovo Afghanistan Iraq

Finally X X X N/A X X Initially X Initially Sometimes X X X X X

Finally X X X X X Temporarily Failure X Failure X X X X ? ?

lost the war. More recently, strategic success in Iraq has been called into question, not because of operational problems, but because of an inability to stop Iraqis from killing each other in the post-conflict period.

Looking into the future The immediacy and global scope of media coverage has irrevocably altered the strategic environment. During the nineteenth century, and even in the early part of the twentieth century, gunboat diplomacy displayed naval power in order to intimidate the adversary. With the increasing power of the press, however, this would now almost certainly be portrayed as bullying and so might backfire. By contrast, in today’s world coalition naval forces possess the key advantage in their ability to influence the land while they “stand off” shore, using the water both to protect themselves from attack and to limit their visibility to the enemy and to the media. Most modern coalition forces are never seen by the enemy, even while their influence is more keenly felt than ever. The Taliban in landlocked Afghanistan probably never imagined that it would come under attack from carriers in the Indian Ocean. Potential coalition partners are often willing to make available naval assets precisely because, unlike ground forces, they are invisible to the international media. As many of these nineteenth, twentieth, and early twenty-first century examples of naval coalitions demonstrate, fleet-on-fleet engagements have been the exception not the rule; the last major fleet-on-fleet engagements took place over half a century ago in World War II. Naval blockades, however, have been common. Since the advent of airpower, navies have become and remain an important means to get bombers and now cruise missiles within range of their

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intended targets. Throughout this entire period, navies have also performed crucial constabulary functions to keep the global commons open to maritime trade. They rarely get the credit they deserve for making globalization possible. Navies have often proven their operational effectiveness by following an enduring principle of warfare. To quote Sir Julian S. Corbett, the preeminent British naval theorist of the twentieth century, who was paraphrasing Carl von Clausewitz, the preeminent military theorist of the nineteenth century, wars, especially limited wars, do not necessarily turn on the “armed strength of the belligerents, but upon the amount of strength which they are able or willing to bring to bear at the decisive point.”4 The extreme versatility of the power projection capabilities inherent in navies allow naval coalitions to choose from a broader array of potential decisive points than generally available to land powers, which are confined by the geography ashore. Naval coalitions leverage to their advantage both their own mobility as well as the homeland security and force protection that the vast maritime global commons provide, particularly from continental adversaries tied to the land. Thus, naval assets provide greater flexibility as to the time and place to engage the enemy, and can help slow the speed and effectiveness of the enemy’s response. Naval attributes prove particularly useful in protracted conflicts. In both the long war against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, and the long Cold War against the Soviet Union, while most of the fighting took place on land, navies kept the global commons open to trade. This allowed wealth accumulation to continue apace for the winning coalition while the losing side became overextended on land, its economy became increasingly burdened by war, and its citizenry felt comparatively impoverished. In other words, navies played a key role for the winning side of maintaining business as usual for the home front, an advantage unattainable to non-naval powers. This disparity during long wars had enormous implications for the military balance, which over time shifted away from Revolutionary France and the Soviet Union. The Global War on Terror is another good example, since the economy in the West has continued to grow even as the military effort has intensified.

Notes 1 The thoughts and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the U.S. government, the U.S. Navy Department, or the Naval War College. 2 Paul Dibb, “The Future of International Coalitions: How Useful? How Manageable?” The Washington Quarterly, 25:2, 143. 3 For a discussion of cumulative versus sequential operations, see J.C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1967), 117–121. 4 Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy with an Introduction and Notes by Eric J. Grove. Classics of Sea Power series (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), 58.

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Index

9/11 2, 5, 9, 17–20, 195 Aberdeen, Lord 34, 35, 40, 43 Accelerated Turnover to the Vietnamese (ACTOV) 141–3 Adak 214 Aden, Gulf of 162, 194 Adriatic Sea 5, 61, 64, 72, 99, 101, 172 Aegean Sea 104, 106 Afghanistan 5, 6, 11, 12, 18, 153, 193–207, 209, 219, 223, 224, 231 Africa 33, 62 Agamemnon 39 Al Faw 211, 214–16 Al Qaeda 18–20, 23n53, 193–207 Al Wasitti 163 Aland Islands 42 Albania 5, 172, 183 Albright, Madeleine 175, 183–92 Alexander I, Tsar 30–2 Alexander II, Tsar 44–5 Alexandria 67 Algeria 34 Algerine 93 Algonquin 200 alliances xvi, 2 Allied Maritime Transport Council 105 Allied Naval Council 105–7 Alsace-Lorraine 61, 77 American–British–Dutch–Australian (ABDA) Command xvii American Independence, War of xvi, 25 Ames, Rear Admiral Christopher C. 201 Amur River 77, 81 Amuriyah 163 An Thoi 140 Anderson, Mark 214 Anding gate, Beijing 58 Anglo-Dutch alliance xvi Anglo-French coalition 33–47, 48–60

Anglo-French Entente Cordiale (1904) 70 Anglo-German Naval Agreement 114 Anglo-Japanese Alliance 4, 94–5 Anzac 214 ANZUS Pact 130 Arab–Israeli War (1973) 152 Arabian Gulf 194, 198, 209, 216 Arabian Sea 194 Arctic Sea 111 Argentina 111, 161–2, 164–5, 199 Ark Royal 210 Army of Vietnam (ARVN) 133 Arrow 48, 51 Arrow War see Opium War, Second Asia 33, 80 Atago 93 Athens 187 Atlantic Ocean 117 Aube, Admiral Théophile 63–6 Audacieuse 49 Audience, Hall of 59 Aurora 94 Austerlitz, Battle of 29 Australia 6, 12–13, 15, 70, 88, 100, 115, 130, 132, 137, 138–40, 143, 160, 163, 194, 198, 199, 201, 203, 208, 211, 212–13, 215, 216, 219 Austria 3, 25, 28, 29–32, 34, 44, 46n4, 61, 98–109, 170, 175 Austria-Hungary 4, 64, 65, 66, 71–2, 88, 96n22 Austro-Prussian coalition 36 Azov, Sea of 40, 41 Bab al Mandeb 194, 204, 209 Baghdad 216 Bahrain 194, 199, 200, 201–2 Baikal, Lake 81 Baker, James 170 Balaklava 40

Index 239 Baliqiao 57 Balkan 63, 171, 177 Baltic Sea 3, 37, 42–3, 63, 99 Barfleur 92 “Basis Nord” 111 Bataan 197 Bavaria 28 Beatty, David 97n46 Beihe River 50, 57, 91, 92, 94 Beijing 4, 48, 54, 57, 59, 76, 82, 83, 87, 89, 90, 138 Beijing, Treaty of 55 Beitang 55–6 Belgium 27, 29, 35, 100, 159, 161–2, 199 Belgrade 172, 186, 190 Benninghoff, H. Merrell 124 Berger, Sandy 183 Berlin 29, 114, 154 Berlin, Treaty of 63 Bernadotte, Crown Prince of Sweden 31 Besika Bay 35 Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von 70 Bevin, Ernest 121, 147 Bien Hoa 136 Bihac 174, 176 Bismarck, Otto von 61, 62, 63, 65, 66–9, 153–4 Black Sea 3, 37, 40, 63, 66, 67, 99, 106, 113, 172 Blair, Tony 183 Bo Hai Gulf 82, 120 Bobr 93 Boer War 22n40, 68 Bonham, Sir George 50 Bonhomme Richard 201 Bordeaux 113 Bose, Subhas Chandra 117 Bosnia 5, 169–82, 219, 224 Bosnia-Hercegovina 63, 175, 184 Bosnian-Serb Army (VRS) 171 Bourboulon, M. de 49, 55 Bowring, Sir John 48, 50 Boxer Rebellion see Boxer Uprising Boxer Uprising 4, 68, 79, 83, 86–97, 224 Brazil 40, 104 Breslau 100 Brisbane 137, 165 Britannia 39 Bruce, Frederick 53, 55, 59 Brunell-Nugent, Rear Admiral James 196 Buenos Aires 30 Bulgaria 171, 172, 186 Bülow, Bernhard von 68 Burma 82, 117

Burridge, Air Marshal Brian 210–11 Bush, President George H.W. 171, 193 Bush Doctrine 193 Calcutta 52 Cambodia 141–3 Canada 6, 13, 104, 161–2, 164–5, 177, 194, 195–6, 198, 199, 200, 201, 209–10 Canberra 137 Canet guns 66 Canrobert, General 38–40, 41 Canton 48, 50–2 Caporetto 106 Caprivi, General Leo von 64–5 Carles, William Richard 92 Castlereagh, Lord 33 Castro, Fidel 153 Catholics 48, 59 Caucasus 40, 99, 115 CENTCOM 195, 199, 208–18 Central Intelligence Agency 23n52, 194 Central Powers 72 Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) 5, 159, 160 Centurion 92 Ceylon see Sri Lanka Changchun 120 Charles de Gaulle 197 Chatham 213–14 Chaumont, Treaty of 31 Chechens 40 Chefoo see Yantai Cherbourg 35, 36, 44 Chiang Kai-shek 119–29, 130, 131 Chief of Naval Operations xvii Chile 72 China 3, 4, 5, 48–60, 68, 75–85, 86–97, 115, 119–29, 151–3, 154, 174, 184, 190, 220, 223, 224, 228 Chinese Civil War 119–29, 220 Chinese Communist Navy 126–7, 129n41 Chinese Communist Party 4, 119–29, 220, 224 Chinook 214 Chirac, Jacques 177 Chosen see Korea Christians 86 Christopher, Warren 171 Churchill, Winston 71, 120, 150 Cixi, Empress Dowager 87 Claes, Willi 179 Clarendon, Lord see Villiers, George William Frederick

240

Index

Clark, General Wesley 10, 13, 20, 185–8, 190 Clausewitz, Carl von xvi, 27–8, 67, 79, 232 Clinton, President Bill 12, 172, 184, 187, 188–91 “CNN effect” 169 coalitions see naval coalitions Codman, John 45 coercive diplomacy xvi Cohen, Secretary of Defense William S. 16, 187 Cold War xvii, 1, 5, 146–57, 161, 184–5, 188, 220, 223, 224, 228, 232 Combined Enterprise Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS) 203–4 Combined Logistic Force 164–5 Commission de Malte 103 communications xvii, 1 Congress of Berlin 63 Congress of Paris 8 Constantinople 63, 100 Constellation 136, 212 Continental System 30 convoy system 102 Copenhagen, Battle of 39, 45 Corbett, Julian S. xvi, 100, 232 Corfu 101 Cormorant 52 Costello, Rear Admiral Barry 212 Council of Admirals 88, 90 Cradock, Commander Christopher 93, 97n46 Crimean War (1854–56) 3, 33–47 Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavic (ICTY) 16, 17 Crisis Response Over Nato Open System (CRONOS) 203 Crispi, Francesco 65 Croatia 5, 169–82 Cuba 18, 153, 156 customary law 13 Cyprus 63 Czechoslovakia 148, 154 Dagu 52–5, 87, 88, 89, 90–4 Dairen 4, 56, 82, 119–29 Dalian see Dairen Danang 134, 137, 140, 142 Danube River 172 Dardanelles 29, 35, 99, 100–1, 102 Darwinism 68 Dayton Peace Accords 5, 180, 184

Declaration Respecting Maritime Law, The 8 Denmark 26, 28, 61, 161–2, 164–5, 199 Dent 59 D’Entrecasteaux 92 Derby, Lord 35 Desoto Patrol 136 Dien Bien Phu 131 Djibouti 201, 204 Don river 40 Dönitz, Karl 118 Dover Patrol 100 Dreadnought class Battleship 69–70 Dual Monarchy 71 Dundas, Admiral Sir James 37, 38–40, 41 Dutch see Netherlands, The Dutch Folly 51 earthquake 1–2 East Africa 194, 198 East Asia 2, 4, 76, 80, 117 East Indies xvii Eastern Europe 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 155 Eden, Anthony 147 Egypt 29, 46n4, 103, 152, 154, 202 Eisenhower, President Dwight D. 131, 149, 150, 155 Elba 31 Elgin, James Eighth Earl of 48–60 Elizabeth I, Queen 25 Emden 100 English Channel 35, 43, 104 Eritrea 201 Ethiopia 201 Europe 2, 3, 10, 33, 36, 44, 62, 78, 83, 86, 91, 104, 117, 228 Eylau 29 Falconer 213 Fame 93 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 18 Felt, Admiral Harry D. 132, 134 Fengtai 87 Fifth Coalition (1809) 30 Finland, Gulf of 42, 99 Firebolt 214 First Coalition (1792–97) 28–9 First Navy Law 68 First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) 4, 75–85 Fisher, Sir John 69 “Fists of Righteous Harmony” 86; see also Boxer Uprising

Index 241 fleet battle xvi “flexible response” 157n11 Formosa see Taiwan Fourth Coalition (1806–07) 29 France xvi, 4, 6, 11, 25–32, 33–47, 48–60, 61–74, 75–85, 87, 88, 93, 96n22, 98–109, 112, 114, 130–2, 147, 151, 159–61, 173–4, 178, 186, 194, 199, 201, 209, 228 Franco, Francisco 112 Franco-Prussian War 63 Franco-Russian Coalition 34 Frankfurt Proposal (1813) 31 Franks, General Tommy 12, 20, 195 free trade 59–60 French Indochina 131; see also Vietnam French Revolution xvi, 3, 25 Friendly Forces Coordination Center (F2C2) 211 Fujian Province 82 Furious 51 Gaddis, John Lewis 184, 190 Gaselee, Sir Alfred 89 Gauchet, Vice Admiral 103 Gaulle, Charles de 148–50 Geneva Conventions 10, 11 Genoa 65 Germany 3, 4, 6, 17, 28, 30, 36, 61–74, 75–85, 88, 92, 93, 96n22, 98–109, 110–18, 146, 147, 149, 154, 169–82, 186, 194, 201, 202, 209, 228 Germany, East 140 Gibraltar, Straits of 20, 67, 104, 112 Gilyak 93 Girouard, Commodore Roger 202, 210 Giuseppe Garibaldi 197 Global War Games 198 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 2, 7, 17–20, 193–207, 208–18, 232 Gloucester 165 Goeben 72, 100 Gong, Prince 57, 58–9 Gorazde 174, 176 Gorbachev, Mikhail 155–6 Gornji Obrinje massacre 183 Graf Zeppelin 116 Graham, Sir James 36, 37, 38–40, 42, 43 Grand Army 30–2 Grant, Hope 56, 57 Great Britain xvi, 3, 6, 12–15, 16, 25–32, 33–47, 48–60, 63, 65, 66, 78, 87, 88, 92, 93, 94, 96n22, 98–109, 111, 112–14, 121–3, 127, 130, 131, 147, 146–57,

159–61, 164–5, 169–82, 193–207, 208–18, 224, 232 Greece 99, 103, 104, 113, 161–2, 170, 172, 177, 187, 189, 194, 199, 200 Greek Cypriot 172 Green, Commander Tom 215 GROM 211–13, 214–16 Gros, Baron 49–60 Grosser Kurfürst 62 Guadalcanal 115 Guangdong Province 80, 81 Guangxi Province 80, 81 Guangzhou see Canton Guepratte 200 Guépratte, Vice Admiral E.P.A. 101 Guiliang 53 gunboat diplomacy 4, 87, 95 Gypsies 117 Habsburg 29–30 Hagenbach, Peter von 15 Hague Conventions Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land 8, 10 Hai-lung class Destroyer 93 Hainan Island 81 Haiphong 131, 136 Haldane, Lord Richard 70 Halder, General Franz 116–17 Hamelin, Admiral 38–40 Hamilton, Lord George 33 Hankou 81 Hanoi 133, 136, 142 Harbin 120 Harward, Captain Robert 211, 214–16 Haus, Admiral Anton 71 Hawaii 115 Helgoland class Battleship 69 Hellfire missile 23n52 Helsinki 43 Henan Province 82 Henty, G.A. 86 Herat 196 Herrick, Captain John J. 135 Hiltebrandt, Admiral Yakov Appolonovich 92 Hitler, Adolf 110–18 Ho Chi Minh 131, 136 Ho Chi Minh Trail 134, 136 Ho Tan Quyen, Captain 133 Hobart 137, 139 Hoch, Rear Admiral Gottfried 201 Holbrook, Richard 184 Holland see Netherlands, The

242

Index

Holocaust 170 Holy Places Crisis (1852) 35 Holy Roman Empire 29 Hong Kong 48, 49, 50–2, 56, 82 Hood, Rear Admiral Horace 100 Hope, Admiral James 55 Hormuz, Strait of 194, 198, 200, 209 Horn of Africa (HOA) 200–1, 209 House of Commons 34 Huashana 53 Hubei Province 82 Hungary 148, 170 Hurd, Douglas 171 Ibn Khaldoon 163 Ignatiev, Nicholas Pavlovich 56, 58–9 Iltis 93 India 30, 40, 88, 117 Indian Ocean 100, 111, 115, 116, 159, 194, 231 Indochina see French Indochina Indonesia 1, 132 Inflexible 52 Inter-American Reciprocal Assistance Treaty (1947) 159 International Environment 2 International Law 2, 7–24 International Red Cross 21n11 International Seapower Symposium xvii Internet 2 Invincible class Battleship 69 Iran 147, 152, 153 Iraq 5, 6, 9, 11, 158–68, 223 Israel 46n4 Istanbul 36 Italy 3, 4, 6, 27, 28, 30, 61, 64, 65, 71–2, 78, 87, 88, 96n22, 98–109, 110, 112–14, 161–2, 164–5, 178, 186, 189, 194, 195–6, 197, 199, 200, 201 Italian–Turkish War (1911–12) 71 Ivanov, Igor 184 Jalalabad 196 Janvier, General Bernard 177 Japan 3, 4, 6, 75–85, 86, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96n22, 98, 99–100, 103, 110–18, 123, 146, 153, 159, 166, 194, 203, 224 Jardine 59 Jellicoe, John 97n46, 106 Jesuits 48 Jeune École 63–6 Jiaozhou Bay 81 Johnson, President Lyndon 135, 136, 137, 140

Joint Operational Tactical System (JOTS) 165 Joint Venture 215 Jones, Captain Peter 212–16 jus ad bellum 8–9, 12 jus in bello 8, 9–11, 12, 17 Kabul 196 Kaiser class Battleship 69 Kandahar 197 Kanimbla 212 Keating, Vice Admiral Timothy 202, 208–18 Kell, Vernon 97n46 Kellogg-Briand Pact 8 Kennan, George 147 Kennedy, President John 149–50 Kenya 201 Kerr, Lord Walter 89 Kertch 41 Keyes, Lieutenant Roger 89, 97n46 Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal (KAAOT) 211–13, 216 Khor Abd Allah (KAA) 211–14, 215 Khrushchev, Nikita 127, 150, 152, 154–5 Kiel Canal 65, 99 Kissinger, Henry xvii, 152 Kola Peninsula 111 Komet 111 Korea 3, 75, 76, 131, 156, 159 Kore’ets 93 Kosovo 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 183–92, 224 Kotor Bay 186 Kowloon 82 Kronstadt 43, 44, 66 Krupp Artillery 62, 66 Kuping taels 78 Kuwait 5, 9, 158–68, 199, 202, 209, 211 La Rothiere, Battle of 31 Langfang 90–1 Latin America 156, 159 Laos 133–4, 136 Law of Armed Conflict 10 Law of Naval Warfare 10 Lay, Horatio 53–5 Leadership Interception Operation (LIO) 199–200 League of Nations 8 Lebanon 46n4, 107 Leipzig, Battle of 31 Leningrad 111 Lepanto, Battle of xvi

Index 243 Levant 34 Liaodong Peninsula 4, 56, 75, 119–29, 224 Libya 113, 115 Lieber Code 8 “Lift & Strike” 171, 175 Lin’s Fort 51 Lincoln, President Abraham 8 Lion 93 logistics xvii Louis XVIII 31 Lushun see Port Arthur Lützow 111 Lyons, Admiral Sir Edmund 38–40, 41 McDonald, Major Sir Claude 90 Macedonia 169–82 McNamara, Secretary of Defense Robert S. 134 Maddox 135–6 Madrid 228 Magazine Hill 51 Mahan, Alfred Thayer 1, 6 Major, John 177 Malakhoff 41 Malaya 115, 116, 117, 132 Malta 35, 67, 99, 102, 106 Manchukuo see Manchuria Manchuria 3, 4, 75–85, 119–29, 152 Manchus 3, 4, 59, 87, 94, 95 Mao Zedong 119–29, 131, 152 Maritime History Department see United States Naval War College Maritime Interception Force (MIF) 162–3, 212–13 Marlborough 213–14 Marshall, Secretary of State George 125 Marshall Plan 147, 154 Matheson 59 Mauz, Vice Admiral Henry H. 162 Mazar-e Sharif 196 Mediterranean xvii, 4, 30, 63, 66–7, 71, 72, 78, 98–9, 100, 102, 106, 112, 113, 117, 175 Mediterranean Agreements (1887) 65 Mekong Delta 133, 137, 140–1 Melbourne 137 Metternich, Austrian Foreign Minister 31 Meyerkord, Lieutenant Dale C. 133 Michel, Sir John 58 Middle East 117, 151, 153, 159, 171, 194, 228 Midway, Battle of 116 Milosevic, Slobodan 13, 169–82, 183–92

Mina Al-Basra Oil Terminal (MABOT) 211–14, 216 mine Countermeasure (MCM) 165 Mladic, General Ratko 174–7, 179–80 Mongolia, Outer 120, 124 Monocacy 93 Montauban, de 57, 58–9 Moore, Vice Admiral Timothy J. 195, 201 Moorer, Admiral Thomas H. 136 Moroccan Crisis (1905) 70 Morocco 112 Moscow 121, 171, 184 Mudros 107 Mullen, Admiral Michael xvii Multinational Interception Force (MIF) 199 Multinational Maritime Operations (1993, 1995) xvii Murmansk 111 Murphy, Admiral Daniel J. 185 Mussolini 112, 113, 170 Mutual Defense Assistance Act 131, 160 Nanjing 121 Nanjing, Treaty of (1842) 48, 50 Nansanshan Island 123 Napier, Sir Robert 56 Naples 28, 29 Napoleon Bonaparte xvi, 3, 7, 25, 29–32, 66, 223, 224, 228, 232 Napoleon, Louis III 34, 35, 36, 37, 40, 41, 44–5, 49 Napoleonic Wars xvii, 25–32, 146 Narvik 111 Nassau class Battleship 69 national survival 1 Nationalist Army 130 Nationalist Navy 119–29 Nationalist Party 4, 119–29, 220 naval blockades 10, 122–4, 231 naval coalitions xvi, 1, 2, 7–24; administration 2; command relationships 219; duration 219; enemy response 2, 6, 219; international environment 2; interoperability 1, 7; legal liability 15–17; membership 2, 3, 6, 219; niche capabilities 1, 6; operational objectives 6, 219; rules of engagement (ROE) 1, 7, 14–15, 20; strategic effectiveness 2, 3; strategic objectives 6, 219; targeting 7, 20; theater of operations 6, 219; types 6, 219; weapons selection 20 Naval Operations xviii

244

Index

Naval War College see United States Naval War College Nelson, Admiral Horatio 29, 37, 39, 67 Netherlands, The 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31–2, 76, 114, 116, 130, 159, 161, 176, 178–9, 194, 195–6, 199, 200, 201 New Territories 82 New York 44 New Zealand 16, 70, 100, 130, 132, 137, 160, 194, 199, 201 Newchwang 121 Ngo Dinh Diem, President 133, 134 Nha Trang 140 Nicholas II, Emperor 76, 77, 79 Nine Years War xvi Nixon, President Richard 138, 142 “No Fly Zone” 174–5, 176 Nomonhan 120 North Africa 71, 103, 113, 151 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) xvii, 5, 9, 11–12, 17, 19–20, 146–57, 159, 160, 169–82, 183–92 North German Confederation 62 North Korea 124, 147, 152 North Sea 70, 72 North Vietnam 130–45 Northern Alliance 193–207 “Northern Barrage” 105 Norway 105, 111, 134, 161–2, 199 Nuclear Planning Group 150 Nuremburg war trials 16 Oman, Gulf of 162, 194, 198, 199, 209 Operation Allied Force 5, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 183, 189–91 Operation Deliberate Force 5, 179–80 Operation Deny Flight 173–5 Operation Desert Storm 5, 11, 163, 164–6, 178, 223, 224 Operation Enduring Freedom 5, 15, 18, 20, 193–207 Operation Frequent Wind 143 Operation Game Warden 141 Operation Iraqi Freedom 6, 13, 15, 16, 193, 202, 208–18, 224, 228 Operation Linebacker II 142 Operation Market Time 139–40 Operation Provide Promise 173 Operation Rolling Thunder 138–40 Operation Sea Dragon 138 Operation Sea Lords 141–3 Operation Sharp Guard 172–3, 176 Operation Southern Watch 195 Operation Unified Assistance (OUA) 1

operational practices xvii, 1 Opium War, First (1838–42) Opium War, Second (1856–60) 3, 33, 48–60, 86, 92 Organization of American States 9 Orkneys 105 Orthodox Christians 170 Osama bin Laden 18, 193–207 Otranto, Strait of 101, 104, 172 Ottoman Empire 34–47, 63, 98 Pacific Ocean 34, 42, 62, 78, 111, 114, 116, 118, 159 Pacific War see World War II Pakistan 18, 130, 198, 199, 201 Palmerston, Lord 34, 40, 41, 43, 44 Parker, Admiral Sir Hyde 39 Parkes, Harry 48, 51, 56–7 Pathet Lao 133 Peace Treaty see World War II Pearl Harbor 115 Peking see Beijing Peleliu 197 Pelissier, General 41 Pentagon 5, 9 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 120 People’s Republic of China (PRC) see China Persian Gulf 161 Perth 137, 138 Petropavlosk 40 Philippines 115, 130, 132 Phillip II 25 Pierce Arrow 136 piracy 2 Pleiku 136 Pola 64 Poland 28–31, 140, 148, 199, 208; Second Partition of 28 Ponce 215 Pontes, Rear Admiral Fevrier des 40 Pony Express, Exercise 132 Port Arthur 4, 82, 119–29 Portugal 29, 30, 76, 201 Poutiatine, Count Euphemius V. 52–5 Powell, Colin 171 Predator Missile 23n52 prevention of genocide 1 Price, Rear Admiral Sir David 40 prisoners of war (POWs) 123 Proliferation Security Initiative 19 protection of nationals 1 protection of trade xvi Prussia 27, 28, 29, 30–2, 34, 61

Index 245 “Prussian School” 67 Qatar 199, 210–11 Qing Empire 48–60, 76 Qingdao 81, 98, 125 Quai d’Orsay 52 Queenstown 104 Qui Nhon 136, 140 Radford, Admiral Arthur W. 131 Radio Television Serbska (RTS) 13, 17 Raeder, Admiral Erich 110–11 Raglan, General Lord 37 Red Army 120, 146, 148 Red Cross see International Red Cross Red Sea 162, 194, 201, 209 Redan 39 Reed, W.B. 54–5 Reichstag 68, 69, 70 Reinsurance Treaty (1887) 66 Revel, Thaon di 103 Reval 37 Rhine River 31 Rhineland 27 Richmond 213–14 Rifkind, Malcolm 171 Rigault, Admiral 49 Rijeka 64 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise 159 Rio de Janeiro Treaty 9 Robeck, Vice Admiral John de 101 Robinson, Commodore Drew 197 Romania 35, 113, 172, 186 Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court 16 Roosevelt, President Franklin D. 120, 130 Rosebery, Lord 66 Rossiia 92 Royal Air Force 14 Royal Australian Navy (RAN) 5, 132, 137, 138, 143 Royal Navy xvii, 25–6, 30–2, 33–47, 88, 90, 98, 107, 112, 159, 208–18 Russell, Lord John 55 Russia 3, 4, 28, 30–2, 33–47, 50, 52, 63, 65, 66, 67, 69, 75–85, 87, 88, 89, 93, 94, 96n22, 98–109, 174, 184; see also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) 70, 82, 119, 126 Rwanda 16 Ryan, Lieutenant General Mike 178, 180

Sabbioncello Peninsula 105 Sabha 198 Sachsen class Battleship 69 Sacramento 202 Saddam Hussein 9, 158, 195, 199, 208–18, 228 Saigon 135, 136, 140, 142, 143 Salisbury, Marquis of 89 Salonika 172 SALT talks 151 Sarajevo 174 Saudi Arabia 164–5, 166, 199, 202 Saxony 28 Scapa Flow 104, 107 Schlieffen Plan 66 Schmidt, Helmut 155 Scott, A. L. 122 “scramble for concessions” 75 sea denial 4, 119–29, 205 SEALs 134 SEATO 5, 132, 159 Second Coalition (1798–1801) 29 Second Navy Law 68 Serbia 5, 13, 71, 169–82 Serbs 5 Sevastopol 36, 37, 38–40, 41–2, 43, 106 Seventh Fleet see United States Navy Seymour, Admiral Michael 50, 89–91 Shandong Peninsula 76, 87, 120, 122 Shanghai 55, 80 Shanxi Province 82 Shashi 82 Shat al Arab 215 Shenyang 120 Shimonoseki, Treaty of 75, 76, 78, 80, 83 Short, Lieutenant General Michael C. 187 Siam, Gulf of 132 Siberia 111, 116 Sichuan Province 82 Sicily 71 Siegfried class Battleship 69 Sihanouk, President Norodom 140 Sihanoukville 140 Silkworm missiles 198 Singapore 100 Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty (1945) 120, 121, 124 Sir Bedivere 212, 215 Sir Galahad 215 Sixth Coalition (1812–14) 30–2 slave trade 2 Slovenia 169–82 Smith, Admiral Leighton “Snuffy” 175–80 Smith, Lieutenant General Rupert 177–80

246

Index

Snelson, Rear Admiral David 210–11 Social Democratic Party 69 Solidarity movement 148 Solomon Islands 115 Somalia 201 Somaliland 170 Some Principles of Maritime Strategy (1911) xvi Soong, T.V. 120 South Africa 68, 88, 95, 160 South America 30, 161 South Asia 194 South China Sea 131, 132, 133 South Korea 137, 147, 152, 153, 154 South Vietnam 4, 130–45, 153 South Vietnam Army see Army of Vietnam (ARVN) Southeast Asia 19, 114, 116, 134, 136, 153 Southsea Castle 44 Souvanna Phouma 134 Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact (1941) 110, 120 Spain xvi, 4, 26, 30, 62, 65, 76, 110, 112–14, 161–2, 178, 194, 199, 201, 202, 228 Spanish–American War 22n40 Spanish Succession, War of xvi Special Operations Craft-Riverine (SOCR) 215–16 Spee, Admiral von 100 Spithead 44 Splendid 185, 214 Srebrenica 174, 176, 177–80 Sri Lanka 1, 55 St Arnaud, Marshal Leroy de 37, 38–40 St George’s Day 44 St Helena 32 St Petersburg 3, 42, 43, 45 Stalin, Joseph 4, 5, 112, 114, 120, 127, 146–7, 152, 154 Standardization Agreement (STANAG), NATO 160, 165 Sterneck, Admiral Max von 64 Stockdale, Commander James B. 135 Stosch, Albrecht von 62, 64–5 Straits Convention (1841) 35 submarines 4, 102–3, 112, 113–14, 115–16, 117, 123 Sudan 201 Suez 49 Suez Canal 63, 194, 209 Sukarno, President 132 Summer Palace (Beijing) 56, 57, 58–9 Sun Tzu 146

Swatow 134 Sweaborg 43 Sweden 31, 43 Sydney 137 Syria 34, 46n4, 100, 107 Taiwan 54, 82, 152 Taliban 18, 193–207, 231 Tampa 210–11 Tanker War 162, 164 Taranto 101 television 2 Telic 213 Temple of Oceanic Influences 53–5 Terrible 92 territorial aggrandizement 1 Thailand 1, 130, 133, 137 Theodore Roosevelt 185 Third Coalition (1805) 29, 45 Thirty Years War (1618–48) xvi Three Emperors’ League (1873) 66 Tianjin 52–5, 87, 88, 90, 91, 94 Tianjin, Treaty of 52–5, 59 Tibet 82 Ticonderoga 135, 136 Tirpitz, Alfred 61, 65, 67–72 Tokyo 82, 115 Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile 20, 195 Tonggu 93 Tongzhou 57 Tonkin, Gulf of 130, 135, 142 Tonkin Gulf Resolution 136 Toulon 65, 66 Trafalgar, Battle of (1805) xvi, 3, 29 Trans-Siberian Railway 75, 77, 81, 111 Tripartite Pact 114 Triple Alliance 71–2, 98 Triple Entente 68, 71, 98 Triple Intervention 4, 75–85 Truman, President Harry S. 149, 154 Truman Doctrine 147 tsunami 1–2 Tunis 65 Tunisia 115 Turbulent 214 Turkey xvi, 11, 34, 35, 38–40, 46n4, 63, 66, 72, 99, 107, 147, 171, 178, 201 Turner Joy 136 Tuzla 174, 176 Ukraine 186 Umm Qasr 208, 211–13, 214–16 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 3, 4, 5, 16, 110–12, 117–18,

Index 247 119–29, 130–45, 146–57, 159, 220, 224, 228, 232 UNITAS exercises 159 United Arab Emirates (UAE) 199 United Kingdom see Great Britain United Nations (UN) 5, 8–9, 158; Committee Against Torture 18; Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation 19; Protection Force (UNPROFOR) 173–5; Security Council 8, 12, 16, 158, 170, 171, 189, 194; Security Council Resolutions 9 United States 2, 4, 6, 11, 13, 15, 16, 18–20, 43, 49, 50, 52, 63, 72, 78, 87, 88, 96n22, 98, 104–7, 111, 116, 119–29, 130–45, 146–57, 158–68, 169–82, 183–92, 193–207, 208–18, 219, 220, 223, 228, 232 United States Coast Guard 162 United States Department of Defense xviii United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) 132 United States Naval War College xvii–xviii United States Navy xvii–xviii, 1, 4, 104–7, 114, 124, 127, 130–45, 158–68, 193–207, 208–18, 223

Warsaw Treaty Organization 148 Washington 4, 115, 137, 151, 228 Waterloo, Battle of 32, 33, 42 Weihaiwei 82 Wellington, Duke of 30 West Germany 149, 154 West Indies xvi Western Europe 148, 160 Western European Union (WEU) 164, 172 Westphalia, Kingdom of 28 Whitbey Island 197 White Sea 42 Whitehead torpedo factory 64 Whiting 93 Wilhelmshaven 61 William II, Emperor 61, 65, 67–9 Wilson, President Woodrow 105 Wolf 100 Wood, Sir Charles 43 World Trade Center 5, 17 World War I xvi, 3, 4, 41, 66, 71, 72, 81, 86, 97n46, 115–16, 146, 170, 220, 224, 228 World War II xvi, 4, 8, 16, 110–18, 119, 130, 132, 146, 158–60, 170, 219, 220, 224, 228, 231 Xigu 91, 94

Valley Forge 212, 213 Vendetta 137 Venizelos, Eleutherios 99 Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 8 Victoria, Queen 37, 41, 50, 59 Victoria Cross 56 Vienna 28 Vienna, Congress of 40 Vientiane 134 Viet Cong 139, 141 Viet Minh 131 Vietnam 4, 80, 81, 130–45, 151, 156, 180, 223, 224, 228; see also North Vietnam; South Vietnam Vietnam Navy (VNN) 4, 132, 140–1, 143 Villiers, George William Frederick 36, 49 Vladivostok 76, 78, 81 Vung Ro 139 Vung Tau 137, 140 Wade, Thomas 53–5, 57 Ward, John 56 Warsaw, Grand Duchy of 28 Warsaw Pact 5, 147, 150

Yalta Agreement 120, 124 Yalu River 126 Yangzi River 49, 81, 82 Yantai 78 Ye Mingchen 48, 50, 52 “Yellow Peril” 76–7 Yellow Sea 120 Yeltsin, Boris 189 Yemen 23n52, 201 Yi dynasty 75 Yi He Quan 86; see also Boxer Uprising Yuan Ming Yuan see Summer Palace Yugoslavia 5, 16, 148, 152, 154, 169–82, 183–92 Yunnan Province 80, 81 Zagreb 178 Zapadnaya Litza Bay 111 Zawahiri, Ayman 23n53 Zepa 174, 176 Zhili, Gulf of 52, 55, 87, 88 Zhoushan Island 49, 56 Zortman, Rear Admiral James 204 Zumwalt, Vice Admiral Elmo R. Jr 141