Chapter Eleven
Wherein a Battle is lost, a War is won, celebrated public Figures become revered historical Figures
On the 1st of January, 1670, Edward Hyde passed away. Hyde had served on the Council of State since England was declared a Commonwealth, and greatly contributed to defining the government of the new state.
Hyde had been the only revolutionary on the council since Milton’s death in 1665. These men would not soon be replaced, as year after year the crop of employable advisors showed little potential.
In brighter news, the tremendous shipbuilding endeavors of the Commonwealth left craftsmen of Naval Supplies well-practiced. Their excellent output eased the cost of replacing the Navy’s war-galleons with the new two-deckers.
With lower shipbuilding cost, some of the budget had to be reallocated. Parliament decided to expand Commonwealth support for the Greek revolution to the financial realm. For a period of one year, war subsidies flowed to the young republic.
However, the war against the Ottoman Empire could not be won on balance sheets. Action was needed.
Captain-General Braddock found himself in a familiar position. The Empire he now faced, like the Swedish and Spanish before, outnumbered him significantly on land.
Ottomans, leader of the six-figure club
Like his war against Sweden, Braddock enjoyed naval supremacy, and used it to sever his enemy’s sea lines of communication. Largely, he planned to repeat his Baltic campaign. He would counter his enemy’s superior numbers with superior mobility, constantly raiding their vulnerable coasts; Meanwhile his enemy would march circuitous leagues, but the slowness of their response would frustrate their attempts to engage him.
While he dusted off old battle plans, the Lord Protector also took new facts into consideration. First, the New Model Army was stronger than ever before, in terms of both quantity and quality. Second, the Spanish had demonstrated, with great effect, the utility of a mass amphibious invasion. These facts in mind, Braddock modified his plans to include seeking engagement.
He ordered an expansion of the transport fleet to accommodate his bold new strategy. (A strategy perhaps too ambitious for a man of his advanced age.)
As Braddock prepared for an invasion of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks again attempted to invade the Commonwealth. This time, however, their transport was intercepted by the first flight of two-deckers, which had been patrolling since the Battle of Leinster.
Meanwhile, England’s Indian adventure continued. After the assault and battle of Kongu, the India Army rested to regain morale; for their part, the defeated Mysoreans joined troops from Gondwana in their siege of Madras. By March 1670, the India Army was ready and raring to go. General Dampier, perhaps made overconfident by the Battle of Kongu, moved to relieve Madras, despite being outnumbered nearly two-to-one.
Hubris
England suffered a defeat, but the Indian allies arguably suffered a victory. An enemy half their size inflicted similar casualties and nearly ten times the war exhaustion. Still, Dampier marched back to occupied Kongu humbled. If his enemies pursued in concert, the India Army may have been destroyed; luckily, the allies were not that coordinated.
Again Dampier’s army recovered in the interior of India, and again they marched for the coast, but westward. As August ended, the Mysorean province of Calicut fell to English occupation. Now the Red Squadron, which was unable to supply from Madras, could take victuals from the seized port. Their attrition ceased.
Capturing a port also allowed Dampier renewed correspondence with London. In which he received encouragement from the seasoned soldier Braddock, who had taken an interest in the relatively young man’s military career. Dampier was receptive to the old man’s tutelage, and reportedly was never without his copy of
English War-making.
To my friend, the General Dampier:
Fear not for Madras, she is mightily defended by the three thousand soules [sic] in St. George. Go not where your enemy is strong, go where he is weak. Let the indians stand impotently about our forts whilst you take their country by storm.
D. Braddock
(White, Olivia, comp. Braddock’s Letters. Oxford University Press, 1988)
The General of the India Army took this advice to heart and moved against the capital of Mysore itself. In less than a month, it too was in English hands. The small Mysorean navy was forced from port. Red Squadron finally saw action.
His seat of power seized, the Prince of Mysore was unwilling to continue the war. He bowed to Commonwealth demands; Kongu and Calicut were ceded. Now England’s Indian holdings stretched from coast to coast. Importantly, the central province Kongu produced spices.
As the war in India ended, so too did 1670. The new year brought new challenges. The Commonwealth Navy’s blockades successfully defended the Greek Patriots on Naxos and Rhodes, but they also exhausted and destabilized Ottoman society. This had further consequences. Intermittent uprisings of Epirote Nationalists, Morean Nationalists, and Orthodox Zealots forced the Ottomans to concentrate significant force in the Balkans. Braddock’s campaign was still preparing, but already its Greek mainland objectives seemed thwarted.
The Ottomans, feeling invincible on the ground, issued demands that the Commonwealth of England surrender. They were adamant that England sever its ties with Cypriot Greece, which they still hoped to reconquer.
Naturally, this was rejected. For all their strength, the Ottomans were no threat to the Commonwealth. England, for its part, could be a threat to the Turks, if Braddock’s war went as planned.
It was not to be. On April 22, 1671, as Braddock’s grand invasion scheme was less than a month from fruition, the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, the Captain-General of the New Model Army, met his end--not on the battlefield, but on a deathbed.
Braddock was one of the most significant early Protectors. If Cromwell defined the character of the New Model Army, then Braddock defined its application. More generally, he established military strategy and foreign policy that endured many decades after his death.
To replace Braddock, Parliament elected a man named Hugh Rodney. He was not exceptionally gifted; instead, he was elected due to his reputation as a pragmatic compromiser in Parliament (though opponents criticized this as indecisiveness). Of note, he was the first Lord Protector who had been uninvolved in the revolutionary Civil War--his political career beginning a few years after its conclusion.
Immediately, plans for the invasion were shelved. Rodney was not a field commander. He viewed his rank of Captain-General as a consequence of his chief-magistracy, and would exercise its function comfortably from his London offices. For now, the question of martial initiative went unanswered. The status quo remained: the Commonwealth Navy maintained static blockades in defense of the Greek Patriots.
Six months into Rodney’s Protectorship, good news emerged from the Aegean. The Ottoman Empire finally admitted their failure and recognized the new Greek Republic on Cyprus.
However, they refused to recognize the Hellenic Republic’s jurisdiction over Naxos and Rhodes. The Ottomans still sought to crush the rebellion there, but could not hope to overcome the Commonwealth Navy. Their only chance was to convince the Commonwealth to withdraw support from Greece. A year into Rodney’s Protectorship, April 1672, they again demanded as much, and were again refused.
Invincible as they were on the seas, the Commonwealth had nothing to fear. Though that invincibility and fearlessness was shaken on 13 July, 1672. General at Sea Robert Blake passed away.
Blake had been absolutely instrumental in defining the institution of the Commonwealth Navy. He was to the Navy as Cromwell had been to the Army. Blake’s consummate command truly established the Commonwealth’s sea power.
Now Samuel Hudson, a merely-good tactician, was in the unenviable position of succeeding the masterful Blake as chief commander at sea. To join him, the newly-promoted Henry Cornwallis. Cornwallis was an excellent sailor--before his naval career he crewed fishing vessels, then navigated aboard merchantmen--but he lacked combat instincts.
Luckily, the Commonwealth’s current enemy was completely feeble at sea. The Commonwealth Navy continued to act with impunity, despite the tremendous loss.
Otherwise, 1672 concluded uneventfully, but Hugh Rodney’s indecision with regards to the Ottoman war ceased. He decided his early career as Lord Protector simply could not be marred by failure. Ironically, the man elected as a compromiser was now uncompromising: The only acceptable peace was one predicated on Ottoman surrender. With the loss of some of its greatest military minds, the Commonwealth had to prove, to itself and the world, it could still win wars.