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gunboatdiplomacy t1_iy5i5da wrote

Reply to comment by Sdog1981 in TIL that after the battle between the USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere, the captain of the Constitution, Isaac Hull, refused the sword of surrender from the captain of the Guerriere, James Richard Dacre, saying he could not accept it from a man who fought so gallantly by alcapwnage0007

There was this thing, after an admiral wussed out of a fight & we lost Minorca they only went and shot him (despite him having some extremely influential mates). After that, the RN developed a fighting attitude under pretty much all circumstances. I’ve read that in some battles the French/Spanish leaders went in trying to preserve as many of their ships as possible, the Brits went in to win. Yeah sure, sometimes it didn’t work but it did an awful lot of the time (and sometimes the overly aggressive attitude nearly ended in disaster: Jutland). To briefly (probably mis)quote Admiral Cunningham whilst ordering his destroyers back to Crete to evacuate as many soldiers as poss (after losing many the day before) It takes 3 years to build a ship, it takes 3 centuries to build a tradition, we go back in

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Sdog1981 t1_iy5joyt wrote

Violence of action is a another way of saying it too.

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HiddenStoat t1_iy80gmm wrote

> after an admiral wussed out of a fight [the Admiralty] went and shot him

Inspiring Voltaire's famous quote

>Mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de tems en tems un Amiral pour encourager les autres. > > but in this country it is found good, from time to time, to kill one Admiral to encourage the others.

And it did indeed have a galvanising effect on the Royal Navy - officers were incredibly gung-ho and would prosecute an attack in the face of insurmountable odds. Thanks to the high training and discipline of the Royal Navy they would typically win as well.

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