Friedrich Engels

British Defence

Written about July 24, 1860.

From the English.

[New-York Daily Tribune, No. 6020, August 10, 1860, leader]

The plan for the national defence of England, just laid before Parliament, proposes to confine all expenditure to the fortification of the dockyards and some minor works barely sufficient to protect the larger ports of the country against sudden attacks by small hostile squadrons, and to construct strong, large forts at Dover and Portland, to afford sheltered roadsteads to fleets and detached ships. The whole of the money is to be spent on the periphery of the country, on the coastline accessible to a hostile fleet; and since it is impossible to defend the coast along its whole length, a few important points, in particular the naval arsenals and dockyards, are selected. The interior of the country is to be left entirely to its own resources.

Now that England admits that her wooden walls, her ships, protect her no longer, and that she requires means for fortifications for national defence, it is reasonable that she should first protect her naval arsenals, the cradle of her fleet, from attack. That Portsmouth, Plymouth, Pembroke, Sheerness, and Woolwich (or any other place) should be made strong enough to be able to beat off any attack from the sea and to hold out for a certain time against a regular siege by land, no one will doubt. But it is utterly ridiculous to call the precaution against such a danger a system of national defence. Indeed, to raise the plan to this dignity, it seems necessary to make it far more complicated and costly than is required for the mere protection of the dockyards.

A country like France or Spain, which is just as much exposed to invasion on its land frontier as to attacks from the sea and hostile landings on its coast, is compelled to develop its naval depots into fortresses of the first rank. Toulon, Cartagena, Genoa, even Cherbourg may be subjected to such a combined attack as destroyed the arsenals and dockyards of Sevastopol. They must therefore have a very strong land front with detached forts, to keep the dockyards out of range of bombardment. But this does not apply to England. Even supposing that a defeat at sea had for a moment called England’s maritime superiority into question, even then an invading army landed on British soil could never rely on open communications and would therefore have to act swiftly and decisively. This invading army would be incapable of carrying out a regular siege; and were it capable, no one would ever dream of expecting the invader to march down to Portsmouth, calmly take up his quarters there, and expend his resources in a protracted siege, instead of, while his moral and material superiority was at its height, marching straight on London and seeking an immediate decision on the main line. When it comes to a point where troops and material sufficient to attack London and at the same time to besiege Portsmouth can be safely landed in England, then England is on the verge of collapse, and no land forts around Portsmouth can save it. What holds good for Portsmouth applies also to the other naval arsenals. The sea fronts may be fortified as strongly as possible, but on the land fronts everything is superfluous that goes beyond keeping the enemy far enough away to protect the dockyards from bombardment and securing them against a fortnight’s regular siege. But if we are to judge by the estimate and by some of the plans of the proposed fortifications of Portsmouth which have appeared in the London *Times*, a great deal of brick and mortar, of ditches and parapets, of money, and in the event of war also of men is being wasted. The engineer staff seems formally to be revelling in this abundance of fortification plans, which for them has hitherto been a forbidden pleasure. England is threatened with a vegetation of forts and batteries, springing up as quickly as mushrooms and growing as luxuriant as creepers in a tropical forest. The government seems to insist that something must be shown for the money—but that will be the sole advantage of all these magnificent structures.

As long as the dockyards are not secured against a coup de main, raids may be carried out with the sole object of destroying one of them and then retiring. Thus the dockyards serve as safety-valves for London, so to speak. But as soon as they are protected against an attack by the main force, and even against a regular attack for a fortnight—and this is manifestly necessary—no other object remains for an invasion but London. All insignificant nooks are protected; limited raids promise no success; an invasion has the chance of either destroying England or being destroyed itself. Thus London is endangered by the mere fact that the dockyards are fortified. This compels the invading force to concentrate all its strength at once upon an attack on London. London, as Lord Palmerston informs us, must be defended in a pitched battle. Suppose it is so; the stronger the army, then, the more secure London will be. But where is this strong army to come from, if Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, and Sheerness, and perhaps Pembroke, are transformed into first-class fortresses of the size of Cherbourg, Genoa, Coblenz, or Cologne, requiring garrisons of 15,000 to 20,000 men for their defence? The more you strengthen the dockyards, therefore, the more London and other districts are weakened. And this is then called national defence.

At any rate, a single lost battle would decide the fate of London, and considering the immense commercial centralisation of the country, and the stoppage to which the occupation of London would condemn the whole industrial and commercial machinery of England, there can be no doubt that this one battle would decide the fate of the whole kingdom. And so—while it is proposed to spend twelve millions on securing the dockyards—the very heart of the country is to remain unprotected and dependent upon the result of a battle!

It is no use mincing the matter. By all means, fortify the dockyards reasonably, which can be done for less than half the money now to be squandered on them; but if a national defence is desired, then set about fortifying London at once. It is no use saying with Palmerston that this is impossible. It is the same talk as was heard when Paris was to be fortified. The area enclosed by the continuous rampart around Paris is not much smaller than that occupied by London; the line of forts surrounding Paris has an extent of 27 miles, and a circle drawn round London, six miles from Charing Cross, would give a periphery of 37 miles. This circle might very well represent the average distance of the forts from the centre, and ten miles more will not make the line too long, if a suitable system of radiating and circular railway communications facilitates the rapid movement of the reserves. It is quite clear that London cannot be defended without preparation, as is proposed in the *Cornhill Magazine*, according to which 6 large forts would suffice; the number of forts must be at least 20; but on the other hand, London need not be fortified in the pedantic style of Paris, for it will never have to stand a siege. The only thing required is defence against a coup de main, against the forces which an invading army can bring against London within a fortnight after landing. The continuous enceinte may be dispensed with; instead of it, the villages and groups of houses in the outskirts can do excellent service, if the plan of defence is carefully worked out beforehand.

When London is thus fortified, and the dockyards strengthened on their sea fronts and protected on their land fronts against a violent, irregular attack, indeed even against a weak siege, England can defy any invasion, and the whole can be achieved for about fifteen million pounds sterling. The dockyards, all in all, would require no more than 70,000 regular soldiers and 15,000 volunteers, while the whole remainder of the line troops, militia, and volunteers—say, 80,000 men line and militia and 100,000 volunteers—could defend the entrenched camp around London or accept a battle before its gates, and the whole country north of London would have the possibility of organising fresh volunteer corps and depots for the line troops and militia. The enemy would in any case be compelled to act; he could not, even if he wished, evade the large entrenched camp of London, and would then have no choice but either to attack and be beaten, or to wait and thereby daily increase the difficulties of his position.

Instead of this, the government’s plan for national defence would have the effect—if England’s forces consisted of 90,000 line troops and militia and 115,000 volunteers—that the garrisons would require at least 25,000 regular soldiers and 35,000 volunteers, so that for the defence of London 65,000 regular troops and 80,000 volunteers would remain, while 35,000 men, who might be most urgently needed on the day of battle, would be sitting peacefully and unthreatened behind stone walls that nobody intended to attack. But the army would not only be weakened by 35,000 men; it would also be deprived of a fortified position from which it could not be driven out except by a regular siege; it would be obliged to expose 80,000 inexperienced, only poorly commanded volunteers to an engagement in the open field, and would thus fight under far less favourable circumstances than the army which, as set forth above, would be constituted.