Chapter 593 The Problem of Talent
The British "recruitment team" will even go to the United States to recruit sailors - they claim that those sailors immigrated from the UK and are still obliged to serve in the Royal Navy and bring them with them Walk into a British warship.
Historically, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British Navy's "Leopard" battleship directly stopped the U.S. Navy's "Chesapeake" in Boston Harbor and wanted to board the ship to capture the young men.
As a result, the Americans directly sounded the battle alarm. After the two sides exchanged fire, the "Chesapeake" surrendered, and the British took away some of the sailors on the ship...
This was the famous The "Chesapeake Incident" became an important trigger of the second American-British War.
As for why France doesn’t learn from the British approach.
One of the reasons is that the French are not as honest as the British people, and they have the "protest" gene flowing in their veins. If the French navy dares to recruit strong men like the British conscription team, just wait for the citizens of the port city to riot.
In addition, the number of French sailors is far less than that of the United Kingdom, which relies on the sea for its livelihood. It is a relatively scarce resource, and the French Navy is unwilling to offend the sailor group too severely.
So the reward model currently adopted by France is the sailor registration system.
Any sailor who registers at the government registration office can receive an annual subsidy of 30 francs, but when the navy is in need, registered sailors must fulfill their service obligations.
The Navy will even give registered sailors travel expenses from their hometowns to the military camp, and they will receive rights such as doubling the spoils of war.
But even so, the French sailor, who is "uninhibited and loves freedom", still refuses to register.
For example, there are currently only 10,000 sailors on the Navy's sailor registration list. The shortage of sailors during the war was as high as more than 40,000 to 50,000.
This resulted in the French Navy having to recruit many people with no sailing experience to board the ships, or even temporarily borrow people from the army - these people may have never even been on a ship before.
With the quality of sailors like France, not to mention that the warships were originally weaker than those of Britain. Even if they were given the same two fleets from Britain and France, the French would still be beaten to the north.
This was the case with the famous Battle of Trafalgar in the Napoleonic era. The warships of the French and Spanish combined fleets were not much worse than those of the British, but they still ended up being blown up by the British. Here, British high-quality sailors played a key role.
After hearing what the Marquis of Castries said, Joseph immediately thought of learning the army model.
"Perhaps, we can build a naval academy." He looked at the Minister of the Navy and said, "To train a large number of qualified sailors for the navy."
The Marquis of Castelli did not seem to be interested. Positively and euphemistically: "Your Highness, this may be of some help, but it is difficult to completely solve the problem."
"Oh? Why is this?"
"We need a lot of sailors. For example, during the Seven Years' War, we recruited 40,000 to 50,000 sailors."
"50,000?" Joseph frowned. This number was indeed a bit too much, but still Gritting his teeth, he said, "Then we will train 50,000 students."
For the development of the navy, he would rather invest a large amount of money.
The Marquis of Castelli immediately waved his hand and said: "Your Highness, we can't use so many people."
Joseph staggered back: "Do you need 50,000 sailors or not? ?”
The Marquis of Castelli hurriedly explained: "Your Highness, the navy only needs more than 6,000 sailors at ordinary times. Until the war breaks out, tens of thousands of sailors are needed. This means that we don't need to maintain so many sailors..." He went on to elaborate. After a while, Joseph finally figured it out. It turns out that nearly 70% of the navy's warships are usually docked at the port - there is no way, once these gold-swallowing behemoths are dispatched, funds will be spent faster than water.
This is also the reason why the navy spent so much money during the war.
And during war, the number of combat positions on battleships will also increase significantly.
For example, a third-class battleship only needs to carry 40 marines in peacetime, but needs a full complement of 150 marines in wartime.
The Marines here are different from the Marines of later generations. They play more of a role in supervising the crew and helping the captain maintain "rule". Of course, when the battle is fierce, they can also shoot at the enemy ships on the opposite side to join in the fun.
At the same time, the number of sailors on battleships will also increase during wartime. For example, gunners must be fully staffed, which is not necessary in normal times. Sailors in other positions should also bring some extra as a supplement when the number of personnel is reduced in combat.
This has resulted in a significant surge in the number of sailors needed by the Navy after the outbreak of war.
The British Navy is even worse in this regard. Their crew size can increase to ten times that in peacetime during wartime!
And the salary of sailors is much higher than that of infantrymen. For the Navy, which is always under financial constraints, it is absolutely unwilling to keep so many freeloaders in peacetime.
More importantly, the Navy would rather have these sailors go to sea with merchant ships than idle on land. Because this can continuously improve their sailing skills.
The operating modes of merchant ships and warships in this era are almost the same, even the passwords are the same.
Sailors from merchant ships can pull up to warships and fight directly.
Joseph and everyone sat down at the dining table and thought: "So, what we lack is not sailors, but ordinary sailors."
The Marquis of Castelli nodded immediately: " It is true, Your Highness, not only the navy, but also our merchant ships have been unable to find enough sailors for a long time. The merchants often have to go around Italy to recruit people and then sail away.”
"Then why don't people want to be sailors?"
"This..." The Minister of the Navy seemed a little embarrassed and his voice was much lower. "When we had colonies in North America and the Far East, this situation was not the same. It’s too serious...”
Joseph was also silent.
Yes, France lost all its overseas colonies in the Seven Years' War. Without the support of a huge amount of overseas trade, they all went to work as sailors and starved to death?
The UK can easily support tens of thousands of sailors with just one Anglo-Indian route.
He took a long breath and said: "The naval academy still needs to be built. Try to use professional soldiers to support the framework of the navy. This will also promote unified combat and navigation standards in the fleet."
In this era All positions on a battleship can be regarded as high-level talents, especially positions such as officers, helmsmen, navigators, gunners, and doctors. If we rely solely on civilian training, the efficiency will not be very high.
But if there is a military academy that specializes in teaching these, the speed will be much faster and the quality of talents will also be improved.
Historically, France did not realize this problem until nearly half a century later and built its first naval academy. Of course, currently, except for Portugal, which has a semi-military navigation academy, other countries in Europe do not have naval academies.
“In addition, we want to increase the volume of maritime trade as much as possible.”
(End of this chapter)