Horatio Nelson Speaks to the 21st Century?

Barbary Wars

The novels of the Cutler Family Chronicles span the years 1774 to 1815 and have, as backdrops, the creation of the U.S. Navy and the emergence of the United States as an overseas commercial power during the Age of Sail.

During the last fifteen years of this period the United States became inevitably embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars that were ravaging Europe. During America’s quasi-war with France in the late 1790s, and again during the First Barbary War in the early nineteenth century, Great Britain viewed the fledgling United States as an ally, either because we were fighting the same enemy – France – or because Britain and her overseas colonies desperately wanted to buy what America had to sell. Aside from exchanging private recognition signals with American warships and escorting American merchantmen through pirate-infested waters, the Royal Navy opened its bases in the West Indies and the Mediterranean to American naval vessels.

Admiral Horatio Nelson

The early years of the Napoleonic Wars were also the capstone years of England’s most revered naval hero: Horatio Nelson. Richard Cutler, the main protagonist in the Cutler Family Chronicles, comes to know Nelson primarily because his wife Katherine, a young woman born and raised in the shadow of English aristocracy, was once engaged to marry the dashing young post captain. Although Katherine never again sees Horatio after she weds Richard Cutler and sails to America, the two sea officers have several occasions to cross tacks with each other during the years preceding the epic sea battle off the southwest coast of Spain in 1805 that immortalized Nelson’s life. 

One such occasion (in the recently published A Call to Arms) is in November of 1803 prior to a grand fete hosted by Sir Alexander Ball, the British governor of Malta, at the island’s magnificent San Anton Palace. Adm. Horatio Lord Nelson, commander in chief of British forces in the Mediterranean, and Captain Richard Cutler, USN, are meeting in private before the gala affair begins. With them in the small but comfortably appointed room are Captain Jeremy Hardcastle, RN, Richard’s brother-n-law and Nelson’s life-long friend, and Agreen Crabtree, Richard’s first officer in USS Portsmouth. A story that Jeremy has to relate to Richard and Agreen follows an account by Agreen regarding an earlier encounter between Portsmouth and a Tripolitan corsair. After the corsair captain strikes his colors and surrenders his ship, he orders his gun crews to open fire on the American frigate as she is lowering away her boats, an act of cowardice and dishonor that kills a number of defenseless American sailors. Captain Cutler immediately orders all sail clapped on and chases after the corsair, fleeing for her life toward the safety of Tunis. Portsmouth overtakes the corsair and reduces her to matchwood.

 What Jeremy Hardcastle has to relate is historically accurate in detail, as is the gist of Nelson’s response to Agreen’s comment. (Note: also historically accurate is the treachery of the corsair captain.)

We should listen carefully to what Nelson has to say.

    “It started right here off Malta,” Jeremy explained. “For no apparent reason two Algerian corsairs attacked one of our sloops of war. The sloop managed to escape into Grand Harbor, and a frigate was dispatched to hunt down the two corsairs and sink them. Which she did. The dey of Algiers, a chap named Mustapha, was so enraged he ordered British citizens in Algiers imprisoned and their property confiscated. When Horatio learned of that, he led Victory and a squadron of seven frigates from Toulon to Algiers and immediately started bombarding the city. Within an hour, the dey sent out a boat to the flagship under a white flag. Horatio paid it no mind. He kept the guns hot until the outer wall of Algiers had collapsed and fires were burning within the city. Finally, the dey had himself rowed out to the flagship, pleading to Horatio and Allah for mercy. I can’t speak for Allah, but Horatio agreed on the condition that he release British citizens from prison, restore their possessions, and compensate them for their trouble. And on the condition that Mustapha promise never again to impugn England’s honor. Thus far, he has acted the angelic school boy, bowing and scraping before a stern school master. Is that a fair summation, Horatio?”
    “I daresay it is,” Nelson responded.
    “And I daresay the dey learned a hard lesson that day,” Agreen added, setting off a round of chuckles.
    “I agree with you, Agreen,” Nelson said gravely,” and I am not trying to be witty in saying that. Mustapha learned the same lesson as your corsair captain. And those with Western minds must learn it as well: that the only thing these Arab despots seem to understand is brute force. That is the only anecdote to their tactics. They use diplomacy as either a tool to get what they want or as a delaying tactic. That is one reason I would not have an Arab in my fleet, except as a prisoner.”

Putting aside for the moment the politically correct world in which we live, had the State Department heeded Nelson’s words more diligently, would the four Americans killed during the terrorist attack on Benghazi last September be alive today?

I simply pose the question.

Tripoli 1801 vs. Iraq 2003

It does indeed seem odd to think that there could be any similarity between the two wars, beyond the fact that they were both fought against an Arab state. After all, in 1801 at the start of the First Barbary War (the backdrop of A Call To Arms to be released in November by the Naval Institute Press) the United States was a young republic regarded humorously if not contemptuously by Great Britain and France, as well as the four Barbary States of Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. America, at the time, was accustomed to being bullied and pushed around. In contrast, at the start of the Second Gulf War in 2003 the United States was so powerful a nation that any foreign leader brash or foolish enough to dismiss it did so at his peril.

George W. Bush

Thomas Jefferson

And then there were the two American presidents separated by two hundred years of history and a sea of ideology. But there were similarities between these two men. At least in theory, both men favored a small federal bureaucracy and both championed states’ rights as a preferred form of government and entrepreneurship as a preferred way to stimulate economic growth. Just as George W. Bush was often accused of flip-flopping on important issues, so was Thomas Jefferson, especially when it came to the need for a strong Navy. At first he was for it, then he was against it, before being for it again and then against it again. Fortunately for the United States, he was for it during the First Barbary War, perhaps because the bashaw of Tripoli had declared war on America without just cause – or, for that matter, without any cause. Yusuf Karamanli needed an excuse to send his pirate fleets out onto the Mediterranean to capture American merchant vessels, expropriate their cargoes, and enrich his coffers. Declaring a jihad, or a holy war against the infidel Christian Americans, seemed his best alternative.

In a similar fashion, Saddam Hussein provoked war with the United States and its allies in the First Gulf War by sending troops into Kuwait to expropriate Kuwait’s oil and to annex the emirate to Iraq. Twelve years later Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at U.N. sanctions related to his presumed stash of WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) – not a wise decision since the United States led a coalition of nations (including some Arab nations) demanding compliance with these sanctions.

F-15 during Operation
Iraqi Freedom

It is not the purpose of this blog to define and analyze all the reasons why the United States went to war with Tripoli and Iraq. The issues surrounding the invasion of Iraq in 2003 are sensitive ones and, to many people of various political persuasions, not yet fully resolved. And while it’s certainly true that presidents and prime ministers -- and kings and queens and sheiks and what have you -- try to inject a note of idealism and national pride into their rationale for going to war, it is also true that in the First Barbary War and in the Second Gulf War the two American presidents had a common objective. It may not have been the primary military or diplomatic objective, but in each case it was one that if successful would have justified for the ages the cost in American blood and treasure to ensure victory.

Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia
in the Harbor of Tripoli

First consider the Second Gulf War. Whatever one’s views on the American-led invasion of Iraq, most people can agree that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and evil man. Whether using instruments of torture that slowly chewed a victim to pieces in front of the victim’s own eyes, or using chemical gasses against his own citizens, Hussein is an individual who has earned the eternal condemnation of history – not to mention Allah.

Yusuf Karamanli was also a man not to be outdone when it came to mayhem and murder. When his father died, Yusuf was third in line to the Tripolitan throne. Soon after the burial rites he invited his oldest brother Hassan, the heir apparent, to have dinner with him and their mother. During the dinner Yusuf stood up, fired a bullet into his brother’s chest, and then stabbed him a hundred times to make sure he was dead – right in front of their mother! He then seized as hostages the wife and children of his next oldest brother, Hamet, and banished him from the realm. A short time later he had himself declared bashaw (king) of Tripoli.

No question: Saddam Hussein and Yusuf Karamanli were two men the world was better off without. But their manner of rule was not so very different from certain other regencies, sheikdoms and emirates of North Africa and the Middle East. These areas were / are rife with anti-Western despots who remain(ed) in power by perpetrating a reign of terror against their citizens while maintaining a firm grip on the military. President Bush and his advisers were convinced that if Saddam Hussein could be overthrown and a pro-Western style government established in his stead, Iraq would shine like a “beacon of light” to oppressed Arabs throughout the Middle East.

Similarly, President Jefferson was convinced that if the United States could defeat Tripoli and establish pro-Western rule there, Tripoli would help pull in the reins on piracy that had savaged neutral shipping in the Mediterranean for centuries. The fledgling United States would have shown the world that at least one nation had the guts to stand up to a petty tyrant, and as a result the United States would have earned the respect and gratitude of the world.

And how would all this ideally be realized? Bush would realize his objective by deploying a “shock and awe” strategy that would bring the full weight of American sea, air and land power to bear on Iraq, crush the country into submission, and then rebuild it by ousting Saddam and the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party and establishing a pro-American government. Jefferson would realize his objective by deploying an “awe and talk” strategy (I’m not making this up) in which the might of a powerful American naval squadron standing off the coast of Tripoli would convince Yusuf that since he could not prevail in this war, he should negotiate with American consuls, parlay the best deal he could for himself, and then yield the throne to his brother. During the course of the war Hamet Karamanli had become a staunch friend of the United States and he had fought bravely beside American Marines in an attack on the Tripolitan city of Derne. He had sworn to establish a pro-Western government in Tripoli when he was restored to his rightful throne.

Neither plan worked out exactly as either of the two presidents had hoped, but surely both of them shared a common idealism in their war against an Arab state.

Photo Credits: George W. Bush [Public domain]; Thomas Jefferson [Public domain]; F-15 during Operation Iraqi Freedom [Public domain]; Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia in the Harbor of Tripoli by Edward Moran [Public domain].