IEWS Fighting Sail on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay: The War of1812 and its Aftermath, by Barry Go ugh (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD , 2002, 264pp, illus, ch ro n , appen, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 15575 0-3 14- 1; $32. 95hc) T he titl e of this book is slightly misleading: there we re no ship-to-ship duels or fleet actions on Lake Huron during the War of 18 12. W hat Barry Go ugh's book ac tually ch ronicles is more interesting-an amphibious war waged over vast d istances under extremely difficult conditio ns. Accustomed as we are to think of amphibious campaigns as possible only with clear naval superiori ty and massive logistical support, this book offers a useful corrective. Lake Huron was not of decisive strategic importance during the W ar of 18 12. But the lake and the lands around it did see substantial military action, in the fo rm of active p etite guerre. The British and Canadian forces were heavily outnumbered, and the fac t that Gough writes from a British perspecti ve makes the book all the more valuable, as the British faced more difficulties than the Americans. In the end, they succeeded , thanks to improvisation, commanders who rook risks and showed creati viry and imagination , and, it must be said, some less than brilliant perfo rmances on rhe part of the Americans. Mr. Go ugh is himself a sailor on the waters he describes, and his familiari ty with them adds realism and local interest to what is already a first-rate piece of histo rical research. WILLIAM
S.
LIND
Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000-1500, by Susan Rose (Routledge, London UK & New York NY, 2002, 155pp, illus, gloss, biblio, index, ISBN 0-415-23977-X; $8 0hc, $23. 9 5pb) Dark Age Naval Power: A Reassessment of Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Seafaring Activity, by John H aywood (Anglo-Saxon Books, No rfolk U K, orig 199 1, rev'd 1999, 2 l 9pp, illus, glossary, biblio, index, ISBN 1089828 1-22-X; ÂŁ 14.95 pb) T hese first-class studies open new perspectives on the long stretch of rime between rhe fall of the Roman Empire and rhe organizatio n of modern states and naval
power in the last 500 years. Rose's wo rk covers the challenging period when oar power gave way to sail and guns began to dominate ship-to-ship combat, setting the stage for the modern era. In the earlier period sea warfa re had been almost entirely a matter of hand-to-hand struggle across the decks of ships. She traces this transition carefully, and wisely seeks out the causes of sea fighting as well as its mechanics. One co uld wish a li ttl e more attention to the ultimate outco mes of the crusades, which had impo rtant repercussions beyond the Levant- for instance in the English support for Portugal, which ass ured the independence of that dough ty country and led to the world's longest-running permanent alliance, lasting through W orld War II. And one co uld argue some points in her descriptions of battles, which are admittedly difficult to disentangle from the highly conventionalized descriptions offered by contemporary chroniclers. But that is only to say that interesting discussions can arise fro m this well researched and illuminating book! H aywood's wo rk on the preceding period , known as the D ark Ages, co nfronts quite different challenges, led by the fact that the Frankish and Anglo-Saxon peoples whose navigation he assesses were largely illiterate, so most of what is kn own about their seafaring is known through archaeology. But archaeology has made enormous strides in recent yea rs, including experimental archaeology involving the building and sailing of actual ships. T his las t development, interestingly, has done much to confirm H aywood's initial fi ndings on the nature of D ark Age seafaring and led to the revised edition of his work, which was first published in 199 1. However it is from the ch roniclers' records that he established that sail figured more promin ently in this nav igation than the existing archaeological reco rd suggested-as early as the first century AD fo r the Celts, and only a li ttle late r fo r the Germans farther to the east. T hese peoples' achievements by sea, he poin ts our, were considerable, and the Viking revolution perhaps not the to tal revolution that had been supposed. Ir is also interes ting to find his confir-
SEA HISTORY 104, SPRING/SUMMER 2003
mation that C harl emagne had things well in hand in rebuffing Viking and Muslim raids and mas tered the uses of sea power under his own command; it was the failure of later leadership , no t th e failure of C harlemagne's systems, that res ulted in the collapse of the stro ng, remarkably civilized empire he ruled in 800 AD. H aywood makes a stro ng case for th e ability of Dark Age ships to carry sail, bu t in looki ng at the proofs in living archaeological experiments, it is well not to get carried away. W ith knowledge of the possibilities of sail , it's possible to sail a bathtub to windwa rd, but it's not very effective to do so until the bathtub gets a keel and fined-down ends. T he Viki ngs, who apparentl y develo ped th ese innovatio ns shortly before 800 , made swooping voyages their predecessors hadn't dreamed of, from the Americas to the Black Sea, fo unding cities like Dublin in Ireland and Kiev in U kraine along the way. I would call that revolutionary; but again, that leads to a good discussion arising our of a fine work. P ETER STANFORD, Editor at Large USS Constellation: From Frigate to Sloop of War, by Geoffrey M. Footner (Naval Institute Press , Annapolis M D , 200 2, 392pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, ISB N 155 750-284-6; $39.95 hc) In 199 1 the reviewer and other US Navy investigators prepared an official report which examined available historical and technical evidence and concluded that the 1797 frigate USS Constellation was broken up by rhe Navy in 1853 and replaced by a modern sloop-of-war bearing the same name. T he new sloop-of- war Constellation is displayed in Baltimore today. This recent volume stridently attempts to di scredit the Navy report and substitute a much more complicated and tenuous old proposal showing how the sloop Constellation emerged from a navy yard in 1855 with onl y modifications to her hull lines, incorporating substantial timber fro m the 1797 fri gate. T he book declares that Constellation was rebu ilt th ree times before 1853 and her hull was transfo rmed incremental ly from fri gate to sloop. M idway th ro ugh the volume the author relates disappointedly that the di rec t h isto rical documentary evidence required to support the book's conclusion is "miss ing." Whil e reco rds of most other
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