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The maritime trade of a nation at war has always been regarded by the other belligerent as his legitimate prey. In the Dutch Wars the suppression of the enemy's commerce was the main objective of both parties to the conflict. In all wars in which either belligerent has any commerce afloat worth considering one belligerent may always be expected to do all that he can for its capture or suppression, while the other will do as much as he can for its defence. In proportion to the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the potency of its destruction as an agency for bringing the national will into submission. If, for example, the maritime trade of England could be suppressed by her enemies, England would thereby be vanquished. Her commerce is her life-blood. On the other hand there are nations, very powerful in war, which either by reason of their geographical position, or because their oversea trade is no vital element in their national economy, would suffer comparatively little in like circumstances. It thus appears that the volume and value of the national trade afloat is the measure of the efforts which an enemy is likely to make for its suppression. But it is not directly the measure of the efforts which a nation so assailed must make for its defence. The measure of these efforts is determined not by the volume and value of the trade to be protected but by the amount and character of the naval force which the enemy can employ in assailing it. In the Boer War British maritime commerce was unassailed and uninterrupted in all parts of the world, and yet not a single ship of the British Navy was directly employed in its protection. If on the other hand England were at war with a naval Power of the first rank, she might have to employ the whole of her naval resources in securing the free transit of her maritime commerce. So long as she can do this with success she need give no thought to the menace of possible invasion. A command of the sea so far established as to secure freedom of transit for the vast and ubiquitous maritime commerce of this country is also, of necessity, so far established as to deny free transit to the transports of an enemy seeking to invade. The greater includes the less.

For these reasons I hold that the proposed exemption of private property from capture or molestation at sea is a chimerical one. War is essentially an act of violence. It operates by the destruction of human life as well as by all other agencies which are likely to subdue the enemy's will. Among these agencies the capture or destruction of commerce afloat is by far the most humane since it entails the least sacrifice of life, limb, or liberty, and at the same time its coercive pressure may in some cases, though not in all, be the most effective instrument for compelling the enemy's submission. Moreover, it is not proposed to exempt from capture or destruction such merchant vessels of the enemy--or even of a neutral for that matter--as attempt to break a blockade. Now the modern conditions of blockade are such that the warships conducting it may be stationed hundreds of miles from the blockaded port or ports, and their outlying cruisers, remaining in touch with each other and with the main body, may be much further afield. Within the area of the organized patrol thus established, every vessel seeking to enter a blockaded port or to issue from it will still be liable to capture. In these conditions the proposal to exempt the remainder of the enemy's private property afloat from capture would be a mockery. There would not be enough of such property afloat to pay for the cost of capture.

It would seem to follow from these premisses--fortified as they are by other historical examples that might be cited--that of two belligerents in a naval war, that one which establishes and maintains an effective command of the sea will be absolute master of the maritime commerce of the other, while his own maritime commerce, though not entirely immune, will suffer no such decisive losses as will determine or even materially affect the course and issue of the war; and that he may indeed emerge from the war much stronger and more prosperous than he was at the beginning. Such is assuredly the teaching of history, and although vast changes have taken place alike in respect of the methods, opportunities, implements, and international conventions of naval war and in respect of the conditions, volume, and national importance of maritime commerce, yet I think it can be shown that the sum total of these changes has made on the whole rather for the advantage of the superior belligerent than otherwise. In the first place privateering--formerly a very effective weapon in the hands of the weaker belligerent--is now abolished. It is true that the Declaration of Paris, which recorded and ratified its abolition, has not been formally accepted by all the naval Powers of the world; but it is also true that since its promulgation no naval Power has sought to revive privateering. It is indeed held by some that the right claimed by certain maritime Powers to convert merchant ships of their own nationality into warships by arming and commissioning them on the high seas is, or may be, equivalent to the revival of privateering in its most dangerous and aggressive form. But those who argue thus appear to overlook the fact that this process of conversion on the high seas is by the Seventh Convention of the Second Hague Conference hedged round with a series of restrictions which differentiate the warship thus improvised very sharply from the privateer of the past. The following are the leading provisions of this Convention:--

This Convention has been accepted and ratified by all the great maritime Powers. It is true that it gives the converted merchant ship what may be called the dog's privilege of taking a first bite with impunity, but it makes it very difficult for any second bite to be taken. Such a vessel may as a merchant ship have obtained coal and other supplies in a neutral port before conversion, but she cannot after conversion return to the same or another neutral port and repeat the process; nor can she easily play the game which some have attributed to her of being a merchant ship one day, a warship the next, and a merchant ship again on the third. Further, as a weapon to be employed against England in particular, the method of conversion here prescribed would seem to be largely discounted by the fact that this country could, if it were so disposed, convert as many merchant ships into warships in this way as all the rest of the world put together.

It will be argued, perhaps, that a belligerent when hard pressed will not respect the provisions of a mere paper Convention, but will, if it suits him, treat them as non-existent. In that case it is not easy to see why he should ever have accepted and ratified them. The preamble of this very Convention recites that "whereas the contracting Powers have been unable to come to an agreement on the question whether the conversion of a merchant ship into a warship may take place upon the high seas, it is understood that the question of the place where such conversion is effected remains outside the scope of this agreement, and is in no way affected by the following rules." In other words some of the very Powers which have ratified the Convention as it stands categorically declined to add to it a provision forbidding altogether the conversion of a merchant ship into a warship on the high seas. If this does not mean that, while reserving their freedom of action in this respect, they are prepared to abide by the provisions of a Convention which they have not less categorically accepted and ratified we are driven to the absurd conclusion that all International Law is a nullity.

Secondly, the practical disappearance of the sailing ship from the seas has profoundly modified all the pre-existing conditions affecting the attack and defence of commerce afloat. In the days of sailing, all vessels were compelled to sail according to the wind, that is, to take devious courses whenever the wind was adverse, so that some of them might at all times be found scattered over very wide areas of the seas connecting the ports of departure with those of arrival. Accordingly the sporadic attack on commerce by isolated warships cruising at large within the limits of trade routes, which might be hundreds of miles in width, was often productive of very appreciable results. There were few blank coverts on the seas to be drawn. Nowadays a steamer can always take the most direct course to her destination. As a consequence, trade routes have now been narrowed down to what may more fittingly be called lines of communication, and these lines possess the true characteristic of all lines, namely, that they have practically no breadth. Thus the areas bounded by these lines are nowadays all blank coverts. Any one who happens to cross the Atlantic, as I have crossed it more than once, by one of the less frequented routes, will know that the number of vessels sighted in a voyage quite as long as any warship could take without coaling may often be counted on the fingers of one hand. Another characteristic of these lines is that though their points of departure and destination are fixed, yet the lines joining these points may be varied if necessary to such an extent that any warship hovering about their ordinary direction would be thrown entirely off the scent. On the other hand their ports of departure and destination being fixed, the lines of communication must inevitably converge as they approach these points. There are other points also more in the open at which several lines of communication may intersect. At these "terminal and focal points," as Mr Corbett has aptly called them, the belligerent, being by hypothesis inferior to his adversary, must needs endeavour to concentrate his attack on his enemy's commerce, because at any other points the game would not be worth the candle. But it is precisely at these points that the superior adversary will concentrate his defence, and being superior, will take care to do so in force sufficient for the purpose. So far as the remaining portions of the lines of communication need any direct defence at all this can be afforded, if and when necessary, by collecting the merchant ships about to traverse them into convoys and giving them an escort sufficiently powerful to deal effectually with attacks which from the nature of the case can only be sporadic and intermittent. Be it remembered that the last thing a warship bent on commerce destruction wants is to encounter an enemy in superior or even in equal force. The moment she does so her game is up.

Thirdly, the substitution of steam for sails has very largely reduced the enduring mobility of the commerce-destroying warship. In time of war no warship will ever go further from the nearest available supply of coal than is represented by considerably less than half of the distance that she can steam at full speed with her bunkers full. If she does so she runs the risk, if chased, of burning her last pound of coal before she has reached shelter. Coaling at sea is only possible in exceptional circumstances, and is in any case a very tedious operation. A warship which attempts it will be taken at a great disadvantage if an enemy catches her in the process. Colliers, moreover, are exposed to capture while proceeding to the appointed rendezvous, and if they fail to reach it the warship awaiting them will be placed in extreme danger. All these difficulties and dangers may be surmounted once and again, but they must needs put a tremendous handicap in the long run on the commerce-destroying efforts of a belligerent who is not superior to his adversary at sea. Of course if he is superior at sea the enemy's commerce will be at his mercy, and nothing can prevent its destruction or at least its total suppression. But that is not the hypothesis we are considering.

Fourthly, the power of the modern warship to send her prizes into court for adjudication, or to destroy them off-hand on capture is much more limited than was that of her sailing predecessor. If she sends them into port she must either put a prize crew on board or escort them herself. In the former case the prizes, and in the latter case both prizes and their captors are liable to recapture, a liability which becomes the greater in proportion as the enemy is superior at sea. As to the former alternative, moreover, the crew of a modern man-of-war is highly specialized, and in particular its engine-room complement, which must furnish a portion of every prize crew, is at the outset no greater than is required for the full fighting efficiency of the ship. It is probable, therefore, that the captor would in nearly all cases adopt the alternative of destroying his prizes at sea. In that case there will be no prize money for any one concerned, but that is perhaps a minor consideration. A far more important consideration is that before destroying the prize the captor must take its crew on board and provide food and accommodation for them. Any other course would be sheer piracy and would inevitably lead to drastic reprisals. Now, before the captor had destroyed many prizes in this fashion--especially if even one of them happened to be a passenger steamer well filled with passengers--she would find herself gravely embarrassed by the number of her prisoners, and the need of providing for them even in the roughest fashion. A captain having to fight his ship even with a few hundreds of prisoners on board would be in no very enviable position.

Of course all this depends on the one fundamental assumption that the commerce to be defended belongs to a Power which can, and does, command the sea. On no other condition can maritime commerce be defended at all.

THE DIFFERENTIATION OF NAVAL FORCE

A warship, considered in the abstract, may be defined as a vessel employed, and generally constructed, for the purpose of conveying across the seas to the place of conflict, the weapons that are to be used in conflict, the men who are to use them, and all such stores, whether of food or other supplies, as will give to the vessel as large a measure of enduring mobility as is compatible with her displacement. If we confine our attention to the period posterior to the employment of the gun on shipboard as the principal weapon of offence, and if we regard the torpedo as a particular kind of projectile, and the tube from which it is discharged as a particular kind of gun, we may condense this definition into the modern formula that a warship is a floating gun-carriage. With the methods and implements of sea warfare anterior to the introduction of the gun we need not concern ourselves. They belong to the archaeology of the subject. It suffices to point out that in all periods of naval warfare the nature of the principal weapon employed, and to some extent that of the motive power available, have not only governed the structure of the ship and determined the practicable limit of its displacement, but have also exercised a dominant influence over the ordering of fleets and their disposition in action. Sea tactics have never been more elaborate than they were in the last days of the galley period which came to an end with the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, less than a score of years before the defeat of the Armada in 1588. But the substitution of sails for oars as the motive power of the warship and the more general employment of the gun as the principal weapon of offence necessarily entailed radical changes in the tactical methods which had been slowly evolved during the galley period. At first all was confusion and a sea-fight was reduced for a time to a very disorderly and tumultuous affair. "We went down in no order," wrote an officer who was present at Trafalgar, "but every man to take his bird." This is a very inaccurate and even more unintelligent account of the tactics pursued at Trafalgar; but it might very well stand for a picturesque summary of the tactical confusion which prevailed at the period of the Armada and for half a century afterwards.

"With the increase of the power of the ship of war, and with the perfecting of its sea and warlike qualities, there has come an equal progress in the art of utilizing them.... As naval evolutions become more skilful, their importance grows from day to day. To these evolutions there is needed a base, a point from which they depart and to which they return. A fleet of warships must always be ready to meet an enemy; logically, therefore, this point of departure for naval evolutions must be the order of battle. Now since the disappearance of galleys, almost all the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war. Hence it is the beam that must necessarily and always be turned toward the enemy. On the other hand it is necessary that the sight of the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship. Only one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy fully these conditions. That formation is the line ahead. The line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of battle, and consequently as the basis of all fleet tactics. In order that this line of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt to be the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitely the order for battle, there was established the distinction between the 'ships of the line' alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses."

But the need for other and lighter ships "meant for other uses" and not "fit to lie in a line," is equally demonstrable. The function of battleships is to act in concert. They must therefore be concentrated in fleets sufficiently strong to give a good account of the enemy's fleets opposed to them. This does not necessarily mean that all the fleets of a belligerent must be concentrated in a single position. But it does mean that if disposed in accordance with the dispositions of the enemy they must be so disposed and connected, that, moving on interior lines, they can always bring a superior force to the point of contact with the enemy. Subject to this paramount condition, that of being able to concentrate more rapidly than the enemy can, dispersal of naval force--not of units but of organized fighting fleets--is generally a better disposition than extreme concentration. But it is a fatal error in strategy so to disperse your fleets as to expose them to the risk of being overpowered by the enemy in detail.

The fleets of capital ships thus organized, and disposed as occasion may require and sound strategy dictate, are not, however, by any means to be regarded as autonomous and self-sufficing organisms. They are rather to be regarded as the moving base of a much larger organization, much more widely dispersed, consisting of lighter vessels not fit to lie in a line, but specially adapted to discharge functions which capital ships cannot as such discharge, yet which are indispensable either to the full efficiency of the latter or to the maintenance of an effective command of the sea. The first of these functions is the collection and rapid transmission of intelligence as to the enemy's dispositions and movements over as wide an area of the waters in dispute as is compatible with communication rapid enough to allow of counter-movements being made before it is too late. The development of wireless telegraphy has largely extended this area, but it is not without limits in practice, and those limits are already narrower than the extreme range of a single transmission by wireless telegraphy. For example, a warship in the Levant might, if the conditions were exceptionally favourable, communicate by direct wireless with another warship in the Orkneys. But the information thus transmitted would hardly be likely directly to influence the movements and dispositions of the latter. If it did it would probably not be through the immediate initiative of the Admiral commanding in the North Sea, but through the supreme control of all the naval forces of the belligerent affected, exercised through the General Staff of the Navy at the seat of Government. It may here be remarked in passing that the development of wireless telegraphy will probably be found in war to strengthen this supreme control and to weaken to that extent the independent and isolated initiative of individual Commanders-in-Chief. But that is not necessarily a disadvantage, and even so far as it is disadvantage at all it is more than balanced by the immense corresponding advantage of keeping the War Staff at all times in direct touch with every part of the field of naval operations, and thereby making it the focus of all available information, and the directing authority for all the larger strategy of the campaign. Except in degree, moreover, there is nothing new in this. When Nelson was returning across the Atlantic, after chasing Villeneuve out of the West Indies, his only way of informing the Admiralty of the nature of the situation was to send on Bettesworth in the brig "Curieux" with his news. Nowadays a modern "Curieux" would be able to send on the news as soon as she came within fifteen hundred or possibly two thousand miles from the British Isles, and Nelson at the same distance might have received his orders direct from the Admiralty. But the special point to note is that as soon as Bettesworth's information was received at the Admiralty, Barham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, instantly issued orders which profoundly modified the dispositions of the fleets engaged in blockading the French ports and led directly to Calder's action off Finisterre, and in the sequel to the abandonment by Napoleon of all his projects of invasion and the destruction of the allied fleets at Trafalgar. There were giants in those days both afloat and ashore. But the giants afloat did not resent the interference of the giants ashore, and, as Mr Corbett has shown, the Trafalgar campaign was conducted with consummate sagacity by Barham, who embodied in himself the War Staff of the time.

It has sometimes been argued that, inasmuch as the torpedo craft is, or may be, in certain conditions, more than a match for even the biggest battleship, battleships together with all intermediate ships between the battleship and the torpedo vessel, are not unlikely to be some day regarded as superfluous and in consequence to be discarded altogether from the naval armament of even a first-class maritime Power. It is true that the range and accuracy of the torpedo have latterly undergone an immense development, so that a range of even ten thousand yards or five sea-miles is no longer beyond its powers. It is true that the development of the submarine vessel has vastly intensified the menace of the torpedo and it may soon be true that the development of aircraft will add a new and very formidable menace to the supremacy of the battleship. But except for this last consideration, which is at present exceedingly speculative, a little reflection will disclose the underlying fallacy of arguments of this kind. The enduring mobility of the torpedo craft is necessarily limited. It is incapable of that wide range of action which is required of warships if they are to establish and maintain any effective command of the sea. It is exceedingly vulnerable to ships of a larger size, and of more ample enduring mobility. These again will be vulnerable in their turn to ships of a still larger size and thus the logic of the situation brings us back to the battleship once more with its characteristic functions. It may perhaps be urged that this chain of argument takes too little account of the submarine vessel which is at present singularly invulnerable because for the most part invisible to any vessels, whether big or little, which operate only on the surface and even if discovered betimes by the latter, is not very readily assailable by them. But of two things one. Either the submarine vessel will remain small and therefore weak, and lacking in enduring mobility, in which case it can never establish and maintain an effective command of the sea. Or it will grow indefinitely in size, in which case it will fall under the inexorable stress of the logic which brings us back once more to the battleship. It may be that the battleship of the still distant future will be a submersible battleship. But many exceedingly complex problems of construction and stability will have to be solved before that consummation is reached.

Lastly, the specific function of the so-called battle-cruiser would seem to need some further elucidation. At first sight this hybrid type of vessel might seem to be an anomalous intrusion into the time-honoured hierarchy of battleship, cruiser, and small craft, which the ripe experience of many wars, battles, and campaigns had finally established in the last golden days of the sailing ship period. It is indeed held by some high authorities that the battle-cruiser is in very truth a hybrid and an anomaly, and that no adequate reason for its existence can be given. In face of these opinions I cannot presume to dogmatize on the subject. But some not wholly irrelevant considerations may be advanced. The battle-cruiser is, as its name implies, a vessel not only fitted by the nature of its armour and armament "to lie in a line," whenever occasion may require, but also exceedingly well qualified by its armour and armament, and still more by its speed, to discharge many of the functions of a cruiser either alone or in company with other cruisers. In this latter capacity, it can overhaul nearly every merchant ship afloat, it can scout far and wide, it can push home a vital reconnaissance in cases where a weaker and slower cruiser would have to run away if she could, it can serve as a rallying point to a squadron of smaller cruisers engaged in the defence of this or that vital line of communication, and alone or in company with a consort of the same type it can hold the terminal and focal points of any such line against almost any number of hostile cruisers inferior in defensive and offensive powers to itself. Such are its powers and capacities when acting as a cruiser proper. But it may be thought that in the stress of conflict it will have very little opportunity of displaying these very exceptional powers because an admiral in command of a fighting fleet will never, when anticipating an engagement with the enemy, consent to weaken his fighting line by detaching so powerful a unit for scouting or other cruising purposes. That is as it may be. It will depend on many circumstances of the moment not to be clearly anticipated or defined beforehand; on the strength of the enemy's force, on the personality, sagacity, and fortitude of the admiral--whether he is or is not a man of the mettle and temper ascribed to Nelson by Admiral Mahan in a passage already quoted--on the comparative need as determined by the circumstances of the moment of scouting for information, of cruising for the defence of trade, or of strengthening the battle line for a decisive conflict to the uttermost extent of the nation's resources. It is unbecoming to assume that in the crisis of his country's fate an admiral will act either as a fool or as a poltroon. It is the country's fault if a man capable of so acting is placed in supreme command, and for that there is no remedy. But it is sounder to assume that the admiral selected for command is a man not incapable of disposing his force to the best advantage. "We must," said Lord Goschen, on one occasion, "put our trust in Providence and a good admiral." If a nation cannot find a good admiral in its need it is idle to trust in Providence.

It remains to consider the function of the battle-cruiser in the line of battle. The lines of battle in former times were often composed of ships of varying size and power. There was a legitimate prejudice against ships of excessive size, although their superior power in action was recognized--we have the unimpeachable testimony on that point of Nelson's Hardy, a man of unrivalled fighting experience to whom Nelson himself attributed "an intuitive right judgment"--because they were unhandy in manoeuvre and slow in sailing as compared with ships of more moderate dimensions. But except for difficulties of docking--a very serious consideration from the financial point of view--hardly any limit can be assigned to the size of the modern warship on these particular grounds. Quite the contrary. Other things being equal, the bigger the ship the higher the speed, and it is well known that ships of the Dreadnought type are as handy to steer as a torpedo boat. For tactical reasons, moreover, it is not expedient to lengthen the line of battle unduly. Hence there is a manifest advantage in concentrating offensive power, as far as may be, in single units. On the other hand, the experience and practice of the eighteenth century showed conclusively that there was also a distinct advantage in having in the line of battle a certain number of ships which, being smaller than their consorts, were more handy and faster sailing than the latter. The enemy might not want to fight. Very often he did not, and by crowding all possible sail he did his best to get away. In this case the only way to bring him to action was for the pursuing admiral to order "a general chase"--that is, to direct his ships, disregarding the precise line of battle, to hurry on with all possible sail after the enemy so that the fastest ships of the pursuing fleet might bring individually to action the laggards of the retreating fleet and hold them until the main body of the pursuing fleet came up. In this case the retreating admiral must either return to the succour of his ships astern and thereby accept the general action which he sought to avoid, or abandon his overtaken ships to the enemy without attempting to rescue them. Hawke's action in Quiberon Bay and Duncan's action off Camperdown are two of the most memorable examples of this particular mode of attack, and their brilliant results are a striking testimony to its efficacy. If ever in the naval battles of the future it becomes expedient for an admiral to order a general chase, it stands to reason that ships of the battle-cruiser type will be invaluable for the purpose. Their speed will enable them to hold the tail of the enemy's line, and their power will enable them to crush it unless the retreating admiral who seeks to avoid a decisive action turns back to succour such of his ships as are assailed and thereby renders a decisive action inevitable.

THE DISTRIBUTION AND SUPPLY OF NAVAL FORCE

The measure of naval strength required by any State is determined mainly by the naval strength of its possible adversaries in the event of war, and only in a secondary degree by the volume of the maritime interests which it has to defend. Paradoxical as the latter half of this proposition may seem at first sight, it can easily be shown to be sound. The maritime interests, territorial and commercial, of the British Empire are beyond all comparison greater than those of any other State in the world; but if no other State possessed a naval force strong enough to assail them seriously, it is manifest that the naval force required to defend them need be no greater than is sufficient to overcome the assailant, and would not therefore be determined in any degree by the volume of the interests to be defended. Each State determines for itself the measure of naval strength which it judges to be necessary to its security. No State expects to have to encounter the whole world in arms or makes its provision in view of any such chimerical contingency. The utmost that any State can do is to adjust its naval policy to a rational estimate of all the reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict, due regard being had to the extent of its financial resources and to such other requirements of national defence as circumstances impose on it. Germany, for example, has proclaimed to all the world in the preamble to the Navy Law of 1900 that--

"In order to protect German trade and commerce under existing conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Germany must possess a battle fleet of such strength that even for the most powerful naval adversary a war would involve such risks as to make that Power's own supremacy doubtful. For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the German fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval Power, for, as a rule, a great naval Power will not be in a position to concentrate all its forces against us."

I am not concerned in any way with the political aspects of this memorable declaration. But its bearing on the naval policy of the British Empire is manifest and direct. England is beyond all question "the greatest naval Power" in the world. The declaration of Germany thus lays upon England the indefeasible obligation of taking care that by no efforts of any other Power shall her "own supremacy"--that is her capacity to secure and maintain the command of the sea in all reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict--be rendered doubtful. There is no State in the world on which decisive defeat at sea would inflict such irretrievable disaster as it would on England and her Empire. These islands would be open to invasion--and if to invasion to conquest and subjugation--the commerce of the whole Empire would be annihilated, and the Empire itself would be dismembered. I need not attempt to determine what measure of naval strength is required to avert this unspeakable calamity. It suffices to say that whatever the measure may be it must be provided and maintained at all hazards. That is merely the axiomatic expression of the things that belong to our peace.

It will be observed that the German declaration assumes that "a great naval Power will not, as a rule, be in a position to concentrate all its forces against" a single adversary. This raises at once the question of the distribution of naval force, or of what has been called the peace strategy of position. I shall endeavour to discuss the problem with as little reference as may be to an actual state of war between any two individual and specific naval Powers. I shall merely assume that of two possible belligerents one is so far stronger than the other as to look with confidence to being able in the event of war to secure and maintain its own command of the sea; and in order not to complicate the problem unduly I shall include in the term "belligerent" not merely a single Power but an alliance of one or more separate Powers, while still adhering to the assumption that the relative strength of the two belligerents is as defined above. If England is one of the Powers affected it is manifest from what has already been said that this assumption is a legitimate one.

It is thus a pure delusion to assume, as loose thinkers on the subject too often assume, that the command of the sea must be either surrendered or imperilled by a superior belligerent who, apparently neglecting those regions of the sea which are not immediately assailed or threatened, concentrates his forces in the positions best calculated to enable him to get the better of his adversary, or who in time of peace so orders his strategy of position as to secure that advantage at once should war unhappily break out. Not long ago the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons used the following words:--"Ten years ago we not only had the command of the sea, but we had the command of every sea. We have the command of no sea in the world except the North Sea at this moment." Those who have followed and assimilated the exposition of the true meaning of the command of the sea given in these pages will readily discern how mischievous a travesty of that meaning is contained in these words. There is, as I have shown, no such thing as a command of the sea in time of peace. The phrase is merely a definition of the paramount objective of naval warfare as such. Ten years ago we had no command of any sea because we were not at war with any naval Power. The concentration of a large portion of our naval forces in the North Sea is no surrender of our command of the sea in any part of the world, because that command does not exist, never has existed in time of peace, and never can exist even in time of war until we have fought for it and secured it. The concentration in question is, together with the simultaneous disposition of the residue of our naval forces in different parts of the world, merely the expression of that peace strategy of position which, in the judgment of those who are responsible for it, is best calculated in the more probable, yet possibly quite remote, contingencies of international conflict, to enable our fleets to get the better of our enemies and thereby ultimately to secure the command of the sea in any and every part of the world in which we have maritime interests to defend. There are, it is true, some disadvantages involved in a close and sustained concentration of naval forces, especially in home waters. Naval officers lose in breadth and variety of experience and in the self-reliance which comes of independent command, while the prestige of the flag is in some measure diminished by the infrequency of its appearance in distant seas. But these, after all, are subsidiary considerations which must be subordinated to the paramount needs of a sound strategy, whether offensive or defensive.

It follows from the foregoing exposition of the principles which govern the strategic distribution of naval force in peace and war that a great naval Power must often maintain fleets of considerable strength in distant seas. England has for many generations maintained such a fleet in the Mediterranean, and it is hard to see how any reasonably probable change in the international situation could absolve her from that obligation. There are other and more distant stations on which she has maintained and still does maintain squadrons in a strength which has varied greatly from time to time in accordance with the changing phases of international relations and of strategic requirements as affected thereby. The measure of these requirements is determined from time to time by the known strength of the hostile forces which would have to be encountered in any reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict. But there is one antecedent requirement which is common to all considerable detachments of naval force in distant waters. In order to maintain their efficiency and mobility they must have a naval base conveniently situated within the limits of their station to which they may resort from time to time for repair, refit, and supply. The need for supply at the base is less paramount than that for refit and repair, because it is manifest that the control of maritime communications which has enabled the requisite stores to reach the base will also enable them to reach the ships themselves, wherever they may be at the moment. But for all refit and repair which cannot be effected by the ships' companies themselves, with the aid of an attached repair ship, the ships must go to the base, and that base must be furnished with docks capable of receiving them.

It is essential to note that the base is there for the sake of the ships. The ships are not there for the sake of the base. It is a fatal inversion of all sound principles of naval strategy to suppose that the ships owe, or can afford, to the base any other form of defence than that which is inherent in their paramount and primary task of controlling the maritime communications which lead to it. So long as they can do this the base will be exposed only to such attacks as can be delivered by a force which has evaded but not defeated the naval guard, and to this extent the base must be fortified and garrisoned; for, of course, if the naval guard has been decisively defeated, the control of maritime communications has passed into the hands of the enemy, and nothing but the advance of a relieving naval force, too strong for the enemy to resist, can prevent the base being invested from the sea and ultimately reduced. It will be seen from this how absurd it is ever to speak of a naval base as commanding the adjacent seas. As such it does not command, and never can command, any portion of the sea which lies beyond the range of its own guns. All that it ever does or can do is, by its resources for repair, refit, and supply, to enable the fleet based upon it constantly to renew its efficiency and mobility, and thereby to discharge its appointed task of controlling the maritime communications entrusted to its keeping. But such command is in all cases exercised by the fleet and not by the base. If the fleet is not there or not equal to its task, the mere possession of the base is nearly always a source of weakness and not of strength to the naval Power which holds it.

It is held by some that the occupation of naval bases in distant seas by a Power which is not strong enough to make sure of controlling the maritime communications which alone give to such bases their strategic value and importance is a great advantage to such a Power and a corresponding disadvantage to all its possible adversaries in war. It will readily be seen from what has been said that this is in large measure a delusion. As against a weaker adversary than itself the occupation of such bases may be an appreciable advantage to the Power which holds them, but only if the adversary in question has in the waters affected interests which are too important to be sacrificed without a struggle. On the other hand, as against an adversary strong enough to secure the command of the sea and determined to hold it at all hazards, the occupation of such distant bases can very rarely be of any advantage to the weaker belligerent and may very often expose him to reverses which, if not positively disastrous, must always be exceedingly mortifying. Of two things one. Either the belligerent in such a plight must detach a naval force sufficient to cover the outlying base, and thus, by dispersing naval forces which he desired to keep concentrated, he must expose his detachment to destruction by a stronger force of the enemy, or he must leave the base to its fate, in which case it is certain to fall in the long run. In point of fact the occupation of distant bases by any naval Power is merely the giving of hostages to any and every other Power which in the day of conflict can establish its command of the sea. That is the plain philosophy of the whole question.

My task is now finished--I will not say completed, for the subject of naval warfare is far too vast to be exhausted within the narrow compass of a Manual. I should hardly exaggerate if I said that nearly every paragraph I have written might be expanded into a chapter, and every chapter into a volume, and that even so the subject would not be exhausted. All I have endeavoured to do is to expound briefly and in simple language the nature of naval warfare, its inherent limitations as an agency for subduing an enemy's will, the fundamental principles which underlie its methods, and the concrete problems which the application of those methods presents. Tactical questions I have not touched at all; strategic questions only incidentally, and so far as they were implicated in the discussion of methods. Political issues and questions of international policy I have eschewed as far as might be, and so far as it was necessary to deal with them I have endeavoured to do so in broad and abstract terms. Of the many shortcomings in my handling of the subject no one can be more conscious than I am myself. Yet I must anticipate one criticism which is not unlikely to be made, and that is that I have repeated and insisted on certain phrases and ideas such as "command of the sea," "control of maritime communications," "the fleet in being," "blockade," and the like, until they might almost be regarded as an obsession. Rightly or wrongly that has, at any rate, been done of deliberate intent. The phrases in question are in all men's mouths. The ideas they stand for are constantly misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied. I hold that, rightly understood, they embody the whole philosophy of naval warfare. I have therefore lost no opportunity of insisting on them, knowing full well that it is only by frequent iteration that sound ideas can be implanted in minds not attuned to their reception.

INDEX

Aircraft, 121

Alabama, the, 109

Alexander, his conquest of Darius, 48

Allemand, his escape from Rochefort, 66, 67

Amiens, Peace of, 73

Antony, Mark, 72

Armada, the, 79, 112

Bacon, quoted, 6

Baraille, De, his part in the Dunkirk campaign, 87, 88

Barham, Lord, 18, 64; and Nelson, 66, 67; his conduct of the Trafalgar campaign, 118

Base, flying, 142; naval, 137

Battle-cruiser, its functions, 122-128

Beachy Head, Battle of, 32, 35; campaign of, 70, 78

Berlin Decrees, 100

Bettesworth, 118

Blockade, 17; a form of disputed command, 20-29; military, its methods, 23; military and commercial, 21

Bolt from the blue, 80, 89

Boscawen, at Lagos, 79

Brest, 33, 35; blockaded by Cornwallis, 30; blockaded by Hawke, 79; De Roquefeuil at, 81, 82

Bridge, Admiral Sir Cyprian, on a fleet in being, 31; on supply and communications of a fleet, 140; his estimate of Torrington, 32, 40; on Torrington's trial, 42

Brundusium, Caesar at, 72

Cadiz, Killigrew at, 34

Caesar, his Pharsalian campaign, 71, 72

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