AND THE
STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM :
Naval Campaigns
that Shaped the Modern World
1788-1851
Lawrence Phillips in SHIPS TELEGRAPH (Ministry of Defence).
Mr Padfield has produced a maritime classic, the most important work of naval history so far in the 21st century.
Andrew Lambert in The Naval Review.
...a finely written and compelling narrative of wars, campaigns and battles, interspersed with politics and finance. Nelson and Napoleon share the limelight with Pitt and Talleyrand, Baring and Rothschild. The triumph of Trafalgar is followed by a discussion of the brilliant Baltic campaigns of Admiral Saumarez, which kept open a vital trading artery, sustained the last elements of European resistance to Napoleon and then swiftly turned the tables on the French in 1812, supplying the new allies in eastern Europe with money and muskets...
Padfield has provided us with a grand context in which to place these glorious campaigns, one that explains the long-term successes, and the short-term failures of maritime strategy in total war. His battles are as well drawn as any in the canon, as befits an author rich in nautical experience, both practical and literary...a book for anyone with an interest beyond the statistics of the battle.'
Paul Kennedy in The Sunday Times
It is a simple thesis really. Thalassocracies, which are sea-based political systems and states, are inherently mixed-up, independent, cantankerous, self-asserting and thus liberal and democratic entities, unlike land-based, autocratic, non-commercial empires.
The Dutch maritime republic of the 17th century, the British monarchical-parliamentary state of the 18th and 19th centuries and President Bush's republican-democratic powerhouse of today are, therefore, not only key historical examples of maritime greatness but also - each in its time - the prime carriers of the democratic impulse that, with many intermissions, stretches all the way back to the Greeks.
Thus argues the naval historian Peter Padfield in Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom... In his preceding book, Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind... he covered the period from the Spanish Armada to the closing of the American War of Independence in 1783. The present book goes from just before the French Revolution to the great Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851. In both volumes, Padfield argues that there is a connection between, on the one hand, free thought, commerce and the rule of law and, on the other, geography and sea power. Authoritarian, land-based regimes simply could not tolerate the restlessness and entrepreneurship that went along with trading and exploring and escaping by sea...
The double-headed nature of this book means that it can be read at two levels. The first is as a colourful account of naval actions, chiefly those fought by the Royal Navy against its various opponents in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As such it makes for superb reading, since the author... is a consummate wordsmith. It is quite lovely to read his account of the battle of the Nile (1798), or of Trafalgar (1805). His sources are rich and well employed in many of the quotations. But it is the second aspect of the book - the sea power and liberty theme - that interests me.
...Whatever one's ideology, it is evident that naval power does have a symbiotic relationship to the society and politics out of which it springs, and especially as compared to land-locked states... So Padfield has a theme, and a canvas over which to stretch that theme. It will be interesting to see whether he can keep it up to the present day ... It will also be interesting to see how he will deal with our contemporary geostrategic situation, where one nation, America, has more maritime power than all the other countries in the world put together. But neither these questions, nor those raised about Padfield's shifting political interpretations, can lessen this extremely fine and readable naval narrative.
George Trefgarne in The Daily Telegraph
Perhaps the most original book published recently on the development of the British state and our place in the world is called Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind by a historian named Peter Padfield. It only went up to 1788 and I am glad to say its sequel is coming out in a couple of weeks.
The sequel's arrival is timely, because we unexpectedly find ourselves at a fork in the road. The route we go down will have a huge influence on the design of the British state, its institutions, our legal system, our taxation system and the prospects for future generations...
Padfield looks at the Navy and how it affected governing principles. His thesis is that Britain spread its influence and saw off nations such as France and Spain because it was a naval power with superior financial and constitutional arrangements.
As an island, Britain depended on trade and its merchants required a navy to protect them. The navy was expensive, so a central bank - the Bank of England - was needed to raise the debt to pay for it. A decent, uncorrupt taxation system, based on the consent of Parliament rather than the capricious whim of a monarch, was also required.
So Britain was not only the most powerful nation, but also the most democratic. Our institutions evolved with our place in the world. It is a reassuring, if rather Whiggish narrative, also in vogue among other historians, such as Niall Fergusson.
Now we face similar choices...
Tom Pocock in Literary Review
... this might almost have been two books: Maritime Power, covering the naval war with France, and The Struggle for Freedom, charting the tides and currents of politics and economics. But the author has skilfully dovetailed his twin themes to show how one depended upon the other. So those ready for an adult education course in the history of war will be satisfied and those just wanting a good read enthralled...
On naval warfare, Padfield is masterly, splicing together the strategic, tactical, technological and social strands of his story with lively narrative, and deftly sketching portraits of the great commanders. Here, 'Black Dick' Howe and Duncan are given their due for setting the pattern of naval action, and Nelson for his genius for quick and original thinking...
The final chapter might seem, at first sight, to belong to another book. In fact it draws together Padfield's proposition that the Grande Armée was made almost irrelevant and that the long struggle with France was won by naval and financial power acting in concert. His narrative runs on for more than thirty years of peace, encapsulating the formation of an empire that would last a century, the globalisation of British trade, the triumph of the Industrial Revolution, the flowering of literature and art, and the evolution of a society which, with all its faults, is still recognisable. He thus traces a direct link between what Mahan described as 'those far distant, storm-beaten ships upon which the Grand Army never looked' and the world of today.
For those attracted to naval history, and who prefer the real thing to the imagined seafaring of C.S.Forester, Patrick O'Brian and their like, there are rewards. A quarter century of sea warfare is dissected with scholarship and insight and Peter Padfield shows great descriptive flair: here comes Howe's fleet, 'bearing down in close formation at some five knots, bluff bows lifting to a heavy swell from the west, pushing out great surges of lathered salt as they fell, bright sunlit and shadowed canvas straining in arcs above'. The deck heaves beneath one's armchair.
Saul David in The Sunday Telegraph
This is the second of Padfield's trilogy of books on the dominant impact that naval supremacy has had on modern history. His brilliant opening volume, MARITIME SUPREMACY, traced the rise of the United Provinces - the first supreme sea power - and its later eclipse by Britain.
In it he stressed the vital link between merchant-dominated , consultative governments and successful maritime trade. The theme is continued in volume two as Padfield charts the golden age of British naval and commercial dominance...
...the numerous British naval victories of the period...the 'Glorious 1st of June', Cape St. Vincent, Camperdown, Aboukir Bay, Copenhagen and, of course, Trafalgar...Padfield does them full justice with as vivid a series of battle descriptions as you are likely to read.
MARITIME POWER is a worthy successor to Padfield's previous book, a particularly hard act to follow. If at times it seems a little familiar - repeating many of the themes and arguments that made the earlier volume such an original and thought-provoking work - that is only to be expected. Yet it also contains enough insight, clarity and drama to delight in its own right. I eagerly await the concluding volume.
The Good Book Guide:
An important and bloody record of the time.