Historiography of Guerre de Course, or Commerce Raiding from the Eighteenth Century to the Present
By: Jonathan Wanzer ORCiD 0009-0004-9275-7410
Submitted on: October 11, 2022
Submitted to: Dr. Strickland – Liberty University
Course: HIST 602 Historiography
Chicago Citation:
Wanzer, Jonathan. “Historiography of Guerre de Course, or Commerce Raiding from the Eighteenth Century to the Present.” Historical Interpretations. Jonathan Wanzer, October 11, 2022. http://wanzer.org/historiography-of-guerre-de-course/.
Instroduction
A discussion of the historiography of Guerre de Course, or Commerce Raiding, is interesting but it could become confusing quickly without a clarification of terms. Commerce, as defined by The American Heritage Desk Dictionary is “the buying and selling of goods, esp.[sic] on a large scale” and a raid is “a surprise attack, invasion, or forcible entry.” [1] However, these definitions alone cannot convey the meaning of the combination of the two words as a term. The French term guerre de course, or as Admiral Stavridis puts it “war against shipping”[2] comes closer by further developing the theme of intentional disruption of sea trade by an aggressor for some geopolitical or another, non-state strategic purpose. At the time guerre de course was in common parlance, a large portion of international trade was conducted by sea. While most of the international movement of products is still conducted by sea, the buying and selling of products and commodities have shifted from brokerage houses and coffee shops of port cities to the internet dividing commerce across two very different platforms, creating two different kinds of commerce raiding, over the seas and over the internet.
Though this doesn’t quite encompass the motivations inherent to commerce raiding, it also neglects the idea of using guerre de course as a political tool to avert open war. The foundations of commerce raiding are as old as commerce itself. There is a long history of commerce raiding on land along the silk road and other trade routes, and in the Mediterranean, a case could be made for the mythical Robin Hood as a literary commerce raider in a class war. From highwaymen to corsairs and privateers, to modern blockades, and potentially the state-sponsored hacking of commercial and government internet assets, all of these can be rolled into the term commerce raiding. With all these connections throughout the span of history in commercial, social, political, and technological spheres, defining the parameters is critical in determining the historiography of the topic.
In this paper, Commerce Raiding will be confined to maritime actions and only those in the western world. The Middle East and Asia have their own historical contexts for commerce raiding and denial of access that are beyond the scope of this paper. While the roots of documented commerce raiding go back to Thucydides in The Peloponnesian War,[3] this paper will concern itself with modern naval applications from the 18th century to the present.
Broad Historical Context
The following resources cover the broader context of commerce raiding in the Atlantic. Some are more theoretical in nature, some are policy-driven, and others are more historically oriented, all are of use in the historical research of commerce raiding.
In the mid-18th century, a keystone of modern naval history was born, Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), the son of Dennis Mahan, a professor at the United States Military Academy. Alfred Mahan was steeped in naval history and tradition from birth. John Keegan called Mahan “the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century”[4] which has been consistently agreed with across the field. The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660–1783 is his seminal work that has influenced naval officers and historians ever since its publication in 1890. In the study of commerce raiding, The Gulf and Inland Waters[5] is also a volume worth looking at. Mahan and his books are the foundations of the study of naval history, naval strategy, and commerce raiding.
Sea Power: A Naval History (1960) is a late 20th century look at naval history by a naval officer and professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, Elmer Belmont Potter. This is one of his many books on the topic of naval history and the biographies of Admirals Nimitz, Halsey, and Burke, Sea Power covers naval history from the 1600s to the Cold War and is a broad look at naval history with interspersed coverage of commerce raiding and its evolution in the context of America’s engagements during this time. Potter covers the major American conflict periods, commerce raiding strategies, and their evolution over time from the prize-taking strategy of the Seven Years War up to the period of the Civil War when a blending of prize-taking and denial by destruction or blockade began to take hold. He then covers the dominance of destruction or blockade as the method of denial during the WWI and WWII period, and the eventual shift to the blockade and the primary tool of denial in the Cold War period with the Korean and Viet Nam conflicts. In his final chapter, he briefly touches on the denial of access during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Each of the actions and the shifts from one strategy of denial of access to the next is touched on in its context.
One of the best sources for modern, policy-based discussions on commerce raiding is Milan Vego’s Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial: Theory and Practice (2018). Vego takes a deep look at the strategy of denial of access and its application in defensive and offensive situations as well as several sub-topics within the denial of access from the strategy and policy perspective. While the book is specific to denial of access, its focus is on theory and policy, and its use of WWII and later historical examples for context bind it to contemporary discussions.
Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009 (2013) edited by Elleman and Paine[6] is a collection of sixteen papers that are specific cases of commerce raiding with a conclusion by Elleman and Paine, “Guerre de Course in the Modern Age.” Though it is limited in detail to the specific engagements, its breadth of time provides a good series of snapshots in the evolution and historical application of guerre de course. The last chapter, before the conclusion, is “Twenty-First-Century High-Seas Piracy off Somalia,” a paper by Martin F. Murphy, that looks at the period of 1989-2006 and non-state piracy. Each paper has its own bibliography allowing a reader to compile a large list of topic-specific material for further research on commerce raiding and denial of access.
Another pivotal author in naval history is Colin Gray and his The Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War (1992). Gray has written 26 books on naval history, naval strategy and tactics, and geopolitics from 1972 to 2014. He was a professor of International Relations and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading, Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies, and Senior Associate to the National Institute for Public Policy. His work is well respected in the field. Many of his books are on strategic geopolitical relationships and statecraft, which includes denial of access and commerce raiding.
Naval Power: A History of Warfare and the Sea From 1500 (2009) by Jeremy Black is another broad historical look at the naval extension of sea power including the use of commerce raiding as a political and warfare tool. Black is a professor of history at the University of Exeter and has written or edited well over 100 books on the history and politics of Europe and the Atlantic. In Naval Power, the first six chapters focus on the historical, while the last three chapters look at recent history and the dynamics of an evolving maritime environment, including the evolving place of commerce raiding in that environment.
Admiral James Stavridis looks at history and geopolitics by focusing each chapter of Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans (2017) on a specific body of water and the nations surrounding them. Having a distinguished naval career, a 1976 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, later serving as commander of United States Southern Command (2006 to 2009), United States European Command, and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (2009 to 2013). He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, and on his Navy retirement in 2013 he became the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was on the shortlist as a running mate for Hilary Clinton in 2016, and as Secretary of State for the Trump administration. He is an experienced and educated expert on national and international politics and statecraft. Sea Power is a broad look at geopolitics around the world with a little historical context. Denial of access is not the main theme in this book, it is merely a tool in the statecraft toolbox, and it is not discussed in depth. The value of this book is in providing contextual links that may not be present in other works and insight into when and where it may have been a consideration historically, and under what conditions it should be considered in the future.
One of Gray’s[7] later works, Modern Strategy (1999) is a broad reference to the strategic and geopolitical application of denial of access and commerce raiding. This is far more to the theoretical side with less history than those previously covered. It is used mainly as a military strategy reference, but it does include the topic of commerce raiding from that vantage point.
18th and 19th Century Context
Patrick O’Brian is best known for his historical fiction, particularly the 21 book Aubrey–Maturin series that inspired the movie Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, less known is his non-fiction and translation work as well as the decades of historical work he did in pursuit of his lifelong passion. His book Men-of-War: Life in Nelson’s Navy (1974) is not about guerre de course, though there is some mention of it, its main value is as a resource to identify the vessels of the period. The next few resources will be more focused on this early period of the mid-18th to early-19th centuries. Those less familiar with the ships of the day may miss some of the significance of the accounts of the raiders and the vessels they engaged without the background this book provides. O’Brian’s scholarship is impressive, and this is an excellent background source.
Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy (2008) is a resource on the early ships of the line that established the U.S. Navy written by Ian W. Toll, a lecturer at the Naval War College and cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department. There are several mentions throughout the book regarding blockades these ships engaged in and encountered, but of particular interest is the small section, “More Than Any Other Nation,” which covers the British mastery of the blockade.[8] Toll presents how a properly deployed blockade can, in its effectiveness, diminish the enemy’s freedom of movement, disrupt his supply lines, and affect his economy, all desirable outcomes in the process of softening an enemy.
Janice E. Thomson has an interesting take on state violence theory and sovereignty which she explores in her book Mercenaries Pirates, & Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (1996). Her exploration goes into detail about the period of history when Atlantic European states, including Great Briton, were transitioning from the prize-taking phase of commerce raiding to the denial of access as the primary focus of commerce raiding, as well as the problems resulting from this shift caused by the international agreements banning “letters of marque” and similar instruments of diplomacy which brought about the privateer industry. With privateering no longer legal, piracy could no longer be tolerated by nation-states, or chartered companies. This is a great resource for research into 18th century guerre de course in the Atlantic and Mediterranean with 14 pages filled with bibliographic entries to aid in further research.
Early American Context
Narrowing the context further, the last two books this paper will focus on cover American Naval operations in blue water and coastal waters. The first covers the U.S. Navy’s early raiding operations and the second narrows the field even further by covering a specific area of operations, the Chesapeake Bay, and the individuals conducting the operations.
Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy (2019) by Benjamin Armstrong, Assistant Professor of Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy, covers both offensive and defensive actions of the early U.S. Navy from the birth of Naval irregular warfare with John Paul Jones to the East India Squadron in Sumatra. It is a subject-specific book that outlines irregular and asymmetrical naval engagements in the young U.S. Navy conducting and countering denial of access operations and commerce raiding.
Jamie Goodall’s Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars (2020) is interesting in that it covers the individuals who, depending on when you focus on their operations and whom they were attacking may have been a pirate or a privateer. This was a time and place that a person could be both a pirate and privateer at the same time depending on who was swearing out the charges.
Conclusion
Commerce raiding is a broad field that has documentary evidence from the earliest written works, both fictional and historical, with examples that span the globe. From highwaymen disrupting trade routes over land to the privateers and corsairs patrolling the Atlantic and Mediterranean, this includes the variations of modern denial of access and the potential disruption of access to sales points, state websites, and the hijacking and or hacking of cargo vessels navigation systems, stalling, or redirecting them. Even in the narrowed focus of this paper, there is a wide range of possibilities. No paper of this size can convey a full historiography of the topic of guerre de course, or commerce raiding, however, these selections provide a limited but solid background on the topic of commerce raiding in the Atlantic.
Bibliography
Adamiak, Stanley. “Great Britain, Blockades, and Neutral Rights: Royal Navy Operations During the Mexican American War, 1846-1848.” The Northern Mariner: Journal of the Canadian Nautical Research Society 31, no. 2 (2021).
Armstrong, Benjamin. Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy. Campaigns and Commanders, volume 66. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
Black, Jeremy. Naval Power: A History of Warfare and the Sea from 1500. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Elleman, Bruce A. and S. C. M. Paine ed. Commerce Raiding: Historical Case Studies, 1755-2009. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 2013.
Goodall, Jamie L. H. Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars. Chicago, IL: Arcadia Publishing, 2020.
Gray, Colin S. The Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War. New York, NY: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1992.
Gray, Colin S. Modern Strategy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1890.
O’Brian, Patrick. Men-of-War. 1st American ed. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1995.
Peifer, Douglas C. “Maritime Commerce Warfare: The Coercive Response of the Weak?” Naval War College Review 66, no. 2, Article 8. (2013).
Potter, E. B., ed. Sea Power: A Naval History. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981.
Robson, Martin L. “The Royal Marines Capture, Fortification and Defence of Anholt Island 1807–1812.” The Mariner’s Mirror: The International Quarterly Journal of The Society for Nautical Research 105, no. 4 (2019): 407–24.
Stavridis, James. Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans. New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2017.
Thomson, Janice E. Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Toll, Ian W. Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy. New York, NY: Norton, 2008.
Vego, Milan. Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial: Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge, 2020.
[1] 14th edition, 2003
[2]James Stavridis, Sea Power: The History and Geopolitics of the World’s Oceans, New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2017. 64.
[3] Thucydides, Victor Davis Hanson ed., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian Wars, ed. by Robert B. Strassler, trans. by Richard Crawley, New York, NY: Free Press, 2008; Donald Kagan, The Peloponnesian War, New York, NY: Penguin books, 2004.
[4] Keegan, John, The American Civil War Knopf, 2009, 272.
[5] Mahan, Alfred Thayer, The Gulf and Inland Waters: The Navy in the Civil War, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1898.
[6] Article authors: Thomas M. Truxes, Christopher P. Magra, Silvia Marzagalli, Kevin D. McCranie, Spencer C. Tucker, David H. Oliver, S. C. M. Paine, Bruce A. Elleman, Paul G. Halpern, Michael T. McMaster, William C. Frank Jr., Werner Rahn, Ken-ichi Arakawa, Joel Holwitt, George K. Walker, and Martin N. Murphy.
[7] Gray, Colin S. Modern Strategy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999
[8] Ian W. Toll, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, New York, NY: Norton, 2008. 383-386.