History of the Royal Navy (after 1707)

The Navy grew considerably during the global struggle with France that had started in 1690 and culminated in the Napoleonic Wars, a time when the practice of fighting under sail was developed to its highest point.

However, a major victory over France and Spain at Vigo Bay (1702), further successes in battle, and the scuttling of the entire French Mediterranean fleet at Toulon in 1707 virtually cleared the Navy's opponents from the seas for the latter part of the war.

Another war with Spain broke out in 1727, which saw the Royal Navy dispatch a fleet to resupply the British garrison in Gibraltar, which proved crucial in repelling a Spanish siege.

[4] After a period of relative peace, the Navy became engaged in the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739–1748) against Spain, which was dominated by a series of costly and mostly unsuccessful attacks on Spanish ports in the Caribbean, primarily a huge expedition against Cartagena de Indias in 1741.

Naval fighting in this war, which for the first time included major operations in the Indian Ocean, was largely inconclusive, the most significant event being the failure of an attempted French invasion of England in 1744.

)[11] Minorca was lost but subsequent operations went more successfully (due more to government support and better strategic thinking, rather than admirals "encouraged" by Byng's example), and the British fleet won several victories, starting with the Battle of Cartagena in 1758.

The Gaspee Affair in which a revenue cutter ran aground in Rhode Island and was attacked led colonial legislatures starting with the Virginia House of Burgesses to form committees of correspondence.

[30] Naval pay also often ran years in arrears, and shore leave decreased as ships needed to spend less time in port with better provisioning and health care, and copper bottoms (which delayed fouling).

[33] Although brief in retrospect, the years of the Napoleonic wars came to be remembered as the apotheosis of "fighting sail", and stories of the Royal Navy at this period have been told and retold regularly since then, most famously in the Horatio Hornblower series of C. S.

[43] The British blockade further damaged the American economy by forcing merchants to abandon the cheap and fast coastal trade to the slow and more expensive inland roads.

Bermuda replaced Newfoundland initially as the winter base of the North America and West Indies Squadron, and then as its year-round headquarters, naval station, and dockyard, with its Admiralty House at Mount Wyndham, in Bailey's Bay, and then at Spanish Point, opposite Ireland Island on the mouth of Great Sound.

In response to American actions at Lake Erie (the Burning of York), however, Sir George Prevost requested a punitive expedition which would "deter the enemy from a repetition of such outrages".

They were also used to fight pirates; to hunt down slave ships; and to assist the army when sailors and marines were landed as naval brigades, as on many occasions between the siege of Sevastopol and the 1900 Boxer Rebellion.

[60] Steam power was of interest to the Royal Navy from the beginning of the 19th century, since it neatly solved the difficult and dangerous sailing problems encountered in estuaries and other inshore areas.

The industrial and economic development of Germany had by this time overtaken Britain, enabling the Imperial German Navy to attempt to outpace British construction of dreadnoughts.

Changes in British foreign policy, such as the Great Rapprochement with the United States, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and the Entente Cordiale with France allowed the fleet to be concentrated in home waters.

After this reorganisation, war planning and strategic matters were transferred to the newly created Naval Mobilisation Department and the NID reverted to the position it held prior to 1887—an intelligence collection and collation organisation.

The Navy's response to this new form of warfare had proved inadequate due to its refusal to adopt a convoy system for merchant shipping, despite the demonstrated effectiveness of the technique in protecting troopships.

The treaty, together with the deplorable financial conditions during the immediate post-war period and the Great Depression, forced the Admiralty to scrap all capital ships with a gun calibre under 13.5 inches and to cancel plans for new construction.

In addition to new construction, several existing old battleships, battlecruisers and heavy cruisers were reconstructed, and anti-aircraft weaponry reinforced, while new technologies, such as ASDIC, Huff-Duff and hydrophones, were developed.

[118] During one of the earliest phases of the War the Royal Navy provided critical cover during Operation Dynamo, the British evacuations from Dunkirk, and as the ultimate deterrent to a German invasion of Britain during the following four months.

[120] The successful invasion of Europe reduced the European role of the navy to escorting convoys and providing fire support for troops near the coast as at Walcheren, during the battle of the Scheldt.

She operated along with three much smaller Invincible-class aircraft carriers, and the fleet was now centred around anti-submarine warfare in the north Atlantic as opposed to its former position with worldwide strike capability.

The Egyptian government had signed arms treaties with Warsaw Pact states and increasingly moved against British goals in the region- and prime minister Anthony Eden privately wished to depose President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In terms of Royal Navy assets, this included an aircraft carrier task group, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, minesweepers and an amphibious warfare squadron.

The action began with a week long air assault, and when it became clear that paratroopers landing in Operation Telescope would be unable to occupy Port Said on their own, this was followed by a naval attack on November 6.

[137][138] While the operation had broadly met its military objectives, Britain and France faced an extreme negative response internationally, even from allies including the United States and Canada.

The fact that the United States had refused to support the endeavour – not wishing to compromise wider Arab relations – exposed the weakness of Britain and France after their retreat.

[165] The British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War highlighted several oversights in naval policy at the time, including a need for Britain to project power outside the Middle East.

The project was intended to defend against an attack from the Warsaw Pact nations—a foe which had disbanded by the time the first Trident missiles ultimately entered service in 1994, aboard HMS Vanguard.