Winter naval warfare: historiography
WINTER OPERATIONS
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weather; cruisers were designed with more emphasis on keeping at sea in bad
weather, and so were more likely to be used in winter. Crews suffered from expo
sure and disease - especially typhus when it was too cold to wash bodies and
clothes; it is also possible that the plague was a factor in our short period, but this
is outside our scope.
Of the three foremost naval historians of recent decades, all have taken care not to
absolutely exclude winter naval operations. J.R. Bruijn refers to a (Dutch) 'fighting
season' which was, after the end of the Flemish blockade in 1646 (see below),
'restricted mainly from late spring to early autumn'.16 Jan Glete outlined
European practice in the seventeenth century:
naval wars were normally fought from the spring to the autumn and only small forces oflighter ships
served as 'winter guards'. The bulk of the warships stayed in their bases during halfof the year
This changed in the eighteenth century when naval wars were fought more or less
all year round, due to changes in ship design after 1702. Large two-deck battle
ships were developed: with less topweight than a three-decker, and aided by new
rigs (the removal of the sprit topsail and introduction of multiple fore-and-aft stay
sails), these combined both very heavy armaments and cruiser qualities (speed, sea
worthiness and weatherliness).18 Glete later hinted that in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries the safe operational season for large warships was limited to the
summer months.'19
Frequent disasters occurred when this was not observed.20 But without clearer
definition of what constitutes a 'large' warship, this leaves enormous room for
doubt. More recently, however, Glete gave examples of Swedish naval winter oper
ations during the seventeenth century.21 Nicholas Rodger does not tackle the issue
per se, but states the naval administration of the English/British Interregnum
(1649-1660) was the first 'to maintain substantial forces operational in winter as
well as summer'.22 Clearly something was happening in wintertime. Other leading
naval historians, however, are explicit about the Anglo-Dutch wars: the fleets
fought in the summer only'.23 Even within the limits of current literature this fails
to take full account of the 'main fleets being deployed and actually at sea until late
autumn when major encounters took place (though they did not lead to engage
ments) - and the fleet battles of Dungeness and Portland (10 December 1652 and
28 February-2 March 1653, respectively) - fought, if not in the middle of winter,
at the very least on its cusps.24
Questions are also raised through what the seventeenth-century specialists do not
say. David Davies states that British third-rates (the bulk of the battle line) 'could
be used in wintertime: British contingency war plans to keep their great ships (the
three-deck first- and second-rates) in service in the winter of 1677-1678 were a
'radical departure from past precedent'. The larger ships were kept out in winter
1692: this proved a 'disastrous experiment'.25 If the relatively few three-deck giants
