If the object of naval warfare is to control communications, then the fundamental requirement is the means of exercising that control. Logically, therefore, if the enemy holds back from battle decision, we must relegate the battle-fleet to a secondary position, for cruisers are the means of exercising control; the battle-fleet is but the means of preventing their being interfered with in their work. Put it to the test of actual practice. In no case can we exercise control by battleships alone. Their specialisation has rendered them unfit for the work, and has made them too costly ever to be numerous enough. Even, therefore, if our enemy had no battle-fleet we could not make control effective with battleships alone. We should still require cruisers specialised for the work and in sufficient numbers to cover the necessary ground. But the converse is not true. We could exercise control with cruisers alone if the enemy had no battle-fleet to interfere with them.

If, then, we seek a formula that will express the practical results of our theory, it would take some such shape as this. On cruisers depends our exercise of control; on the battle-fleet depends the security of control. That is the logical sequence of ideas, and it shows us that the current maxim is really the conclusion of a logical argument in which the initial steps must not be ignored. The maxim that the command of the sea depends on the battle-fleet is then perfectly sound so long as it is taken to include all the other facts on which it hangs. The true function of the battle-fleet is to protect cruisers and flotilla at their special work. The best means of doing this is of course to destroy the enemy's power of interference. The doctrine of destroying the enemy's armed forces as the paramount object here reasserts itself, and reasserts itself so strongly as to permit for most practical purposes the rough generalisation that the command depends upon the battle-fleet.

Of what practical use then, it may be asked, is all this hairsplitting? Why not leave untainted the conviction that our first and foremost business is to crush the enemy's battle-fleet, and that to this end our whole effort should be concentrated? The answer is to point to Nelson's dilemma. It was a dilemma which, in the golden age of naval warfare, every admiral at sea had had to solve for himself, and it was always one of the most difficult details of every naval war plan. If we seek to ensure the effective action of the battle-fleet by giving it a large proportion of cruisers, by so much do we weaken the actual and continuous exercise of control. If we seek to make that control effective by devoting to the service a large proportion of cruisers, by so much do we prejudice our chance of getting contact with and defeating the enemy's battle-fleet, which is the only means of perfecting control.

The correct solution of the dilemma will of course depend upon the conditions of each case—mainly upon the relative strength and activity of the hostile battle-fleet and our enemy's probable intentions. But no matter how completely we have tabulated all the relevant facts, we can never hope to come to a sound conclusion upon them without a just appreciation of all the elements which go to give command, and without the power of gauging their relative importance. This, and this alone, will ultimately settle the vital question of what proportion of our cruiser force it is right to devote to the battle-fleet.

If the doctrine of cruiser control be correct, then every cruiser attached to the battle-fleet is one withdrawn from its true function. Such withdrawals are inevitable. A squadron of battleships is an imperfect organism unable to do its work without cruiser assistance, and since the performance of its work is essential to cruiser freedom, some cruisers must be sacrificed. But in what proportion? If we confine ourselves to the view that command depends on the battle-fleet, then we shall attach to it such a number as its commander may deem necessary to make contact with the enemy absolutely certain and to surround himself with an impenetrable screen. If we knew the enemy was as anxious for a decision as ourselves, such a course might be justified. But the normal condition is that if we desire a decision it is because we have definite hopes of success, and consequently the enemy will probably seek to avoid one on our terms. In practice this means that if we have perfected our arrangements for the destruction of his main fleet he will refuse to expose it till he sees a more favourable opportunity. And what will be the result? He remains on the defensive, and theoretically all the ensuing period of inaction tends to fall into his scale. Without stirring from port his fleet is doing its work. The more closely he induces us to concentrate our cruiser force in face of his battle-fleet, the more he frees the sea for the circulation of his own trade, and the more he exposes ours to cruiser raids.

Experience, then, and theory alike dictate that as a general principle cruisers should be regarded as primarily concerned with the active occupation of communications, and that withdrawals for fleet purposes should be reduced to the furthest margin of reasonable risk. What that margin should be can only be decided on the circumstances of each case as it arises, and by the personal characteristics of the officers who are responsible. Nelson's practice was to reduce fleet cruisers lower than perhaps any other commander. So small indeed was the margin of efficiency he left, that in the campaign already cited, when his judgment was ripest, one stroke of ill-luck—a chance betrayal of his position by a neutral—availed to deprive him of the decision he sought, and to let the enemy's fleet escape.

We arrive, then, at this general conclusion. The object of naval warfare is to control maritime communications. In order to exercise that control effectively we must have a numerous class of vessels specially adapted for pursuit. But their power of exercising control is in proportion to our degree of command, that is, to our power of preventing their operations being interfered with by the enemy. Their own power of resistance is in inverse proportion to their power of exercising control; that is to say, the more numerous and better adapted they are for preying on commerce and transports, the weaker will be their individual fighting power. We cannot give them as a whole the power of resisting disturbance without at the same time reducing their power of exercising control. The accepted solution of the difficulty during the great period of Anson's school was to provide them with a covering force of battle units specially adapted for fighting. But here arises a correlative difficulty. In so far as we give our battle units fighting power we deny them scouting power, and scouting is essential to their effective operation. The battle-fleet must have eyes. Now, vessels adapted for control of communications are also well adapted for "eyes." It becomes the practice, therefore, to withdraw from control operations a sufficient number of units to enable the battle-fleet to cover effectively the operations of those that remain.

Such were the broad principles on which the inevitable dilemma always had to be solved, and on which Anson's organisation was based. They flow naturally from the communication theory of maritime war, and it was this theory which then dominated naval thought, as is apparent from the technical use of such phrases as "lines of passage and communication." The war plans of the great strategists from Anson and Barham can always be resolved into these simple elements, and where we find the Admiralty grip of them loosened, we have the confusion and quite unnecessary failures of the War of American Independence. In that mismanaged contest the cardinal mistake was that we suffered the enemy's battle-fleets to get upon and occupy the vital lines of "passage and communication" without first bringing them to action, an error partly due to the unreadiness of a weak administration, and partly to an insufficient allocation of cruisers to secure contact at the right places.

So far, then, the principles on which our naval supremacy was built up are clear. For the enemies with whom we had to deal Anson's system was admirably conceived. Both Spain and France held the communication theory so strongly, that they were content to count as success the power of continually disturbing our control without any real attempt to secure it for themselves. To defeat such a policy Anson's constitution and the strategy it connoted were thoroughly well adapted and easy to work. But it by no means follows that his doctrine is the last word. Even in his own time complications had begun to develop which tended to confuse the precision of his system. By the culminating year of Trafalgar there were indications that it was getting worn out, while the new methods and material used by the Americans in 1812 made a serious rent in it. The disturbances then inaugurated have continued to develop, and it is necessary to consider how seriously they have confused the problem of fleet constitution.

Firstly, there is the general recognition, always patent to ourselves, that by far the most drastic, economical, and effective way of securing control is to destroy the enemy's means of interfering with it. In our own service this "overthrow" idea always tended to assert itself so strongly, that occasionally the means became for a time more important than the end; that is to say, circumstances were such that on occasions it was considered advisable to sacrifice the exercise of control for a time in order quickly and permanently to deprive the enemy of all means of interference. When there was reasonable hope of the enemy risking a decision this consideration tended to override all others; but when, as in Nelson's case in the Mediterranean, the hope was small, the exercise of control tended to take the paramount place.

The second complexity arose from the fact that however strong might be our battleship cover, it is impossible for it absolutely to secure cruiser control from disturbance by sporadic attack. Isolated heavy ships, taking advantage of the chances of the sea, could elude even the strictest blockade, and one such ship, if she succeeded in getting upon a line of communication, might paralyse the operations of a number of weaker units. They must either run or concentrate, and in either case the control was broken. If it were a squadron of heavy ships that caused the disturbance, the practice was to detach against it a division of the covering battle-fleet. But it was obviously highly inconvenient and contrary to the whole idea on which the constitution of the fleet was based to allow every slight danger to cruiser control to loosen the cohesion of the main fleet.

It was necessary, then, to give cruiser lines some power of resistance. This necessity once admitted, there seemed no point at which you could stop increasing the fighting power of your cruisers, and sooner or later, unless some means of checking the process were found, the distinction between cruisers and battleships would practically disappear. Such a means was found in what may be called the "Intermediate" ship. Frigates did indeed continue to increase in size and fighting power throughout the remainder of the sailing era, but it was not only in this manner that the power of resistance was gained. The evil results of the movement were checked by the introduction of a supporting ship, midway between frigates and true ships-of-the-line. Sometimes classed as a battleship, and taking her place in the line, the 50-gun ship came to be essentially a type for stiffening cruiser squadrons. They most commonly appear as the flagships of cruiser commodores, or stationed in terminal waters or at focal points where sporadic raids were likely to fall and be most destructive. The strategical effect of the presence of such a vessel in a cruiser line was to give the whole line in some degree the strength of the intermediate ship; for any hostile cruiser endeavouring to disturb the line was liable to have to deal with the supporting ship, while if a frigate and a 50-gun ship got together they were a match even for a small ship-of-the-line.

In sailing days, of course, this power of the supporting ship was weak owing to the imperfection of the means of distant communication between ships at sea and the non-existence of such means beyond extreme range of vision. But as wireless telegraphy develops it is not unreasonable to expect that the strategic value of the supporting or intermediate ship will be found greater than it ever was in sailing days, and that for dealing with sporadic disturbance the tendency will be for a cruiser line to approximate more and more in power of resistance to that of its strongest unit.

For fleet service a cruiser's power of resistance was hardly less valuable; for though we speak of fleet cruisers as the eyes of the fleet, their purpose is almost equally to blindfold the enemy. Their duty is not only to disclose the movements of the enemy, but also to act as a screen to conceal our own. The point was specially well marked in the blockades, where the old 50-gun ships are almost always found with the inshore cruiser squadron, preventing that squadron being forced by inquisitive frigates. Important as this power of resistance in the screen was in the old days, it is tenfold more important now, and the consequent difficulty of keeping cruisers distinct from battleships is greater than ever. The reason for this is best considered under the third and most serious cause of complexity.

The third cause is the acquisition by the flotilla of battle power. It is a feature of naval warfare that is entirely new.[10] For all practical purposes it was unknown until the full development of the mobile torpedo. It is true that the fireship as originally conceived was regarded as having something of the same power. During the Dutch wars—the heyday of its vogue—its assigned power was on some occasions actually realised, as in the burning of Lord Sandwich's flagship at the battle of Solebay, and the destruction of the Spanish-Dutch fleet at Palermo by Duquesne. But as the "nimbleness" of great-ships increased with the ripening of seamanship and naval architecture, the fireship as a battle weapon became almost negligible, while a fleet at anchor was found to be thoroughly defensible by its own picket-boats. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century indeed the occasions on which the fireship could be used for its special purpose was regarded as highly exceptional, and though the type was retained till the end of the century, its normal functions differed not at all from those of the rest of the flotilla of which it then formed part.

[10] But not without analogous precedent. In the later Middle Ages small craft were assigned the function in battle of trying to wedge up the rudders of great ships or bore holes between wind and water. See Fighting Instructions (Navy Record Society), p. 13.

Those functions, as we have seen, expressed the cruising idea in its purest sense. It was numbers and mobility that determined flotilla types rather than armament or capacity for sea-endurance. Their primary purpose was to control communications in home and colonial waters against weakly armed privateers. The type which these duties determined fitted them adequately for the secondary purpose of inshore and despatch work with a fleet. It was, moreover, on the ubiquity which their numbers gave them, and on their power of dealing with unarmed or lightly armed vessels, that we relied for our first line of defence against invasion. These latter duties were of course exceptional, and the Navy List did not carry as a rule sufficient numbers for the purpose. But a special value of the class was that it was capable of rapid and almost indefinite expansion from the mercantile marine. Anything that could carry a gun had its use, and during the period of the Napoleonic threat the defence flotilla rose all told to considerably over a thousand units.

Formidable and effective as was a flotilla of this type for the ends it was designed to serve, it obviously in no way affected the security of a battle-fleet. But so soon as the flotilla acquired battle power the whole situation was changed, and the old principles of cruiser design and distribution were torn to shreds. The battle-fleet became a more imperfect organism than ever. Formerly it was only its offensive power that required supplementing. The new condition meant that unaided it could no longer ensure its own defence. It now required screening, not only from observation, but also from flotilla attack. The theoretical weakness of an arrested offensive received a practical and concrete illustration to a degree that war had scarcely ever known. Our most dearly cherished strategical traditions were shaken to the bottom. The "proper place" for our battle-fleet had always been "on the enemy's coasts," and now that was precisely where the enemy would be best pleased to see it. What was to be done? So splendid a tradition could not lightly be laid aside, but the attempt to preserve it involved us still deeper in heresy. The vital, most difficult, and most absorbing problem has become not how to increase the power of a battle-fleet for attack, which is a comparatively simple matter, but how to defend it. As the offensive power of the flotilla developed, the problem pressed with an almost bewildering intensity. With every increase in the speed and sea-keeping power of torpedo craft, the problem of the screen grew more exacting. To keep the hostile flotilla out of night range the screen must be flung out wider and wider, and this meant more and more cruisers withdrawn from their primary function. And not only this. The screen must not only be far flung, but it must be made as far as possible impenetrable. In other words, its own power of resistance must be increased all along the line. Whole squadrons of armoured cruisers had to be attached to battle-fleets to support the weaker members of the screen. The crying need for this type of ship set up a rapid movement for increasing their fighting power, and with it fell with equal rapidity the economic possibility of giving the cruiser class its essential attribute of numbers.

As an inevitable result we find ourselves involved in an effort to restore to the flotilla some of its old cruiser capacity, by endowing it with gun armament, higher sea-keeping power, and facilities for distant communication, all at the cost of specialisation and of greater economic strain. Still judged by past experience, some means of increasing numbers in the cruising types is essential, nor is it clear how it is possible to secure that essential in the ranks of the true cruiser. No point has been found at which it was possible to stop the tendency of this class of vessel to increase in size and cost, or to recall it to the strategical position it used to occupy. So insecure is the battle-squadron, so imperfect as a self-contained weapon has it become, that its need has overridden the old order of things, and the primary function of the cruising ship inclines to be no longer the exercise of control under cover of the battle-fleet. The battle-fleet now demands protection by the cruising ship, and what the battle-fleet needs is held to be the first necessity.

Judged by the old naval practice, it is an anomalous position to have reached. But the whole naval art has suffered a revolution beyond all previous experience, and it is possible the old practice is no longer a safe guide. Driven by the same necessities, every naval Power is following the same course. It may be right, it may be wrong; no one at least but the ignorant or hasty will venture to pass categorical judgment. The best we can do is to endeavour to realise the situation to which, in spite of all misgivings, we have been forced, and to determine its relations to the developments of the past.

It is undoubtedly a difficult task. As we have seen, there have prevailed in the constitution of fleets at various times several methods of expressing the necessities of naval war. The present system differs from them all. On the one hand, we have the fact that the latest developments of cruiser power have finally obliterated all logical distinction between cruisers and battleships, and we thus find ourselves hand in hand with the fleet constitution of the old Dutch wars. On the other, however, we have armoured cruisers organised in squadrons and attached to battle-fleets not only for strategical purposes, but also with as yet undeveloped tactical functions in battle. Here we come close to the latest development of the sailing era, when "Advanced" or "Light" squadrons began to appear in the organisation of battle-fleets.

The system arose towards the end of the eighteenth century in the Mediterranean, where the conditions of control called for so wide a dispersal of cruisers and so great a number of them, that it was almost imperative for a battle-squadron in that sea to do much of its own scouting. It was certainly for this purpose that the fastest and lightest ships-of-the-line were formed into a separate unit, and the first designation it received was that of "Observation Squadron." It remained for Nelson to endeavour to endow it with a tactical function, but his idea was never realised either by himself or any of his successors.

Side by side with this new element in the organisation of a battle-fleet, which perhaps is best designated as a "Light Division," we have another significant fact. Not only was it not always composed entirely of ships-of-the-line, especially in the French service, but in 1805, the year of the full development, we have Sir Richard Strachan using the heavy frigates attached to his battle-squadron as a "Light Division," and giving them a definite tactical function. The collapse of the French Navy put a stop to further developments of either idea. Whither they would have led we cannot tell. But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the indication of a growing tendency towards the system that exists at present. It is difficult at least to ignore the fact that both Nelson and Strachan in that culminating year found the actuality of war calling for something for which there was then no provision in the constitution of the fleet, but which it does contain to-day. What Nelson felt for was a battleship of cruiser speed. What Strachan desired was a cruiser fit to take a tactical part in a fleet action. We have them both, but with what result? Anson's specialisation of types has almost disappeared, and our present fleet constitution is scarcely to be distinguished from that of the seventeenth century. We retain the three-fold nomenclature, but the system itself has really gone. Battleships grade into armoured cruisers, armoured cruisers into protected cruisers. We can scarcely detect any real distinction except a twofold one between vessels whose primary armament is the gun and vessels whose primary armament is the torpedo. But even here the existence of a type of cruiser designed to act with flotillas blurs the outline, while, as we have seen, the larger units of the flotilla are grading up to cruiser level.

We are thus face to face with a situation which has its closest counterpart in the structureless fleets of the seventeenth century. That naval thought should have so nearly retraced its steps in the course of two centuries is curious enough, but it is still more striking when we consider how widely the underlying causes differ in each case. The pressure which has forced the present situation is due most obviously to two causes. One is the excessive development of the "intermediate" ship originally devised for purposes of commerce protection, and dictated by a menace which the experience of the American War had taught us to respect. The other is the introduction of the torpedo, and the consequent vulnerability of battle-squadrons that are not securely screened. Nothing of the kind had any influence on the fleet constitution of the seventeenth century. But if we seek deeper, there is a less obvious consideration which for what it is worth is too striking to be ignored.

It has been suggested above that the constitution of fleets appears to have some more or less recognisable relation to the prevalent theory of war. Now, amongst all our uncertainty we can assert with confidence that the theory which holds the field at the present day bears the closest possible resemblance to that which dominated the soldier-admirals of the Dutch war. It was the "Overthrow" theory, the firm faith in the decisive action as the key of all strategical problems. They carried it to sea with them from the battlefields of the New Model Army, and the Dutch met them squarely. In the first war at least their commerce had to give place to the exigencies of throwing into the battle everything that could affect the issue. It is not of course pretended that this attitude was dictated by any clearly conceived theory of absolute war. It was due rather to the fact that, owing to the relative geographical conditions, all attempts to guard trade communications were useless without the command of the home waters in the North Sea, and the truth received a clinching moral emphasis from the British claim to the actual dominion of the Narrow Seas. It was, in fact, a war which resembled rather the continental conditions of territorial conquest than the naval procedure that characterised our rivalry with France.

Is it then possible, however much we may resist the conclusion in loyalty to the eighteenth-century tradition, that the rise of a new naval Power in the room of Holland must bring us back to the drastic, if crude, methods of the Dutch wars, and force us to tread under foot the nicer ingenuity of Anson's system? Is it this which has tempted us to mistrust any type of vessel which cannot be flung into the battle? The recurrence of a formidable rival in the North Sea was certainly not the first cause of the reaction. It began before that menace arose. Still it has undoubtedly forced the pace, and even if it be not a cause, it may well be a justification.

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CHAPTER THREE

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THEORY OF THE METHOD— CONCENTRATION AND DISPERSAL OF FORCE

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From the point of view of the method by which its ends are obtained, strategy is often described as the art of assembling the utmost force at the right time and place; and this method is called "Concentration."

At first sight the term seems simple and expressive enough, but on analysis it will be found to include several distinct ideas, to all of which the term is applied indifferently. The result is a source of some confusion, even to the most lucid writers. "The word concentration," says one of the most recent of them, "evokes the idea of a grouping of forces. We believe, in fact, that we cannot make war without grouping ships into squadrons and squadrons into fleets."[11] Here in one sentence the word hovers between the formation of fleets and their strategical distribution. Similar looseness will embarrass the student at every turn. At one time he will find the word used to express the antithesis of division or dispersal of force; at another, to express strategic deployment, which implies division to a greater or less extent. He will find it used of the process of assembling a force, as well as of the state of a force when the process is complete. The truth is that the term, which is one of the most common and most necessary in strategical discussion, has never acquired a very precise meaning, and this lack of precision is one of the commonest causes of conflicting opinion and questionable judgments. No strategical term indeed calls more urgently for a clear determination of the ideas for which it stands.

[11] Daveluy, L'Esprit de la Guerre Navale, vol. i, p. 27, note.

Military phraseology, from which the word is taken, employs "concentration" in three senses. It is used for assembling the units of an army after they have been mobilised. In this sense, concentration is mainly an administrative process; logically, it means the complement of the process of mobilisation, whereby the army realises its war organisation and becomes ready to take the field. In a second sense it is used for the process of moving the army when formed, or in process of formation, to the localities from which operations can best begin. This is a true strategical stage, and it culminates in what is known as strategic deployment. Finally, it is used for the ultimate stage when the army so deployed is closed up upon a definite line of operations in immediate readiness for tactical deployment—gathered up, that is, to deal a concentrated blow.

Well as this terminology appears to serve on land, where the processes tend to overlap, something more exact is required if we try to extend it to the sea. Such extension magnifies the error at every step, and clear thinking becomes difficult. Even if we set aside the first meaning, that is, the final stage of mobilisation, we have still to deal with the two others which, in a great measure, are mutually contradictory. The essential distinction of strategic deployment, which contemplates dispersal with a view to a choice of combinations, is flexibility and free movement. The characteristic of an army massed for a blow is rigidity and restricted mobility. In the one sense of concentration we contemplate a disposal of force which will conceal our intention from the enemy and will permit us to adapt our movements to the plan of operations he develops. In the other, strategic concealment is at an end. We have made our choice, and are committed to a definite operation. Clearly, then, if we would apply the principles of land concentration to naval warfare it is desirable to settle which of the two phases of an operation we mean by the term.

Which meaning, then, is most closely connected with the ordinary use of the word? The dictionaries define concentration as "the state of being brought to a common point or centre," and this coincides very exactly with the stage of a war plan which intervenes between the completion of mobilisation and the final massing or deployment for battle. It is an incomplete and continuing act. Its ultimate consequence is the mass. It is a method of securing mass at the right time and place. As we have seen, the essence of the state of strategic deployment to which it leads is flexibility. In war the choice of time and place will always be influenced by the enemy's dispositions and movements, or by our desire to deal him an unexpected blow. The merit of concentration, then, in this sense, is its power of permitting us to form our mass in time at one of the greatest number of different points where mass may be required.

It is for this stage that the more recent text-books incline to specialise concentration—qualifying it as "strategic concentration." But even that term scarcely meets the case, for the succeeding process of gathering up the army into a position for tactical deployment is also a strategical concentration. Some further specialisation is required. The analytical difference between the two processes is that the first is an operation of major strategy and the other of minor, and if they are to be fully expressed, we have to weight ourselves with the terms "major and minor strategic concentration."

Such cumbrous terminology is too forbidding to use. It serves only to mark that the middle stage differs logically from the third as much as it does from the first. In practice it comes to this. If we are going to use concentration in its natural sense, we must regard it as something that comes after complete mobilisation and stops short of the formation of mass.

In naval warfare at least this distinction between concentration and mass is essential to clear appreciation. It leads us to conclusions that are of the first importance. For instance, when once the mass is formed, concealment and flexibility are at an end. The further, therefore, from the formation of the ultimate mass we can stop the process of concentration the better designed it will be. The less we are committed to any particular mass, and the less we indicate what and where our mass is to be, the more formidable our concentration. To concentration, therefore, the idea of division is as essential as the idea of connection. It is this view of the process which, at least for naval warfare, a weighty critical authority has most strongly emphasised. "Such," he says, "is concentration reasonably understood—not huddled together like a drove of sheep, but distributed with a regard to a common purpose, and linked together by the effectual energy of a single will."[12] Vessels in a state of concentration he compares to a fan that opens and shuts. In this view concentration connotes not a homogeneous body, but a compound organism controlled from a common centre, and elastic enough to permit it to cover a wide field without sacrificing the mutual support of its parts.

[12] Mahan, War of 1812, i, 316.

If, then, we exclude the meaning of mere assembling and the meaning of the mass, we have left a signification which expresses coherent disposal about a strategical centre, and this it will be seen gives for naval warfare just the working definition that we want as the counterpart of strategic deployment on land. The object of a naval concentration like that of strategic deployment will be to cover the widest possible area, and to preserve at the same time elastic cohesion, so as to secure rapid condensations of any two or more of the parts of the organism, and in any part of the area to be covered, at the will of the controlling mind; and above all, a sure and rapid condensation of the whole at the strategical centre.

Concentration of this nature, moreover, will be the expression of a war plan which, while solidly based on an ultimate central mass, still preserves the faculty of delivering or meeting minor attacks in any direction. It will permit us to exercise control of the sea while we await and work for the opportunity of a decision which shall permanently secure control, and it will permit this without prejudicing our ability of bringing the utmost force to bear when the moment for the decision arrives. Concentration, in fact, implies a continual conflict between cohesion and reach, and for practical purposes it is the right adjustment of those two tensions—ever shifting in force—which constitutes the greater part of practical strategy.

In naval warfare this concentration stage has a peculiar significance in the development of a campaign, and at sea it is more clearly detached than ashore. Owing to the vast size of modern armies, and the restricted nature of their lines of movement, no less than their lower intrinsic mobility as compared with fleets, the processes of assembly, concentration, and forming the battle mass tend to grade into one another without any demarcation of practical value. An army frequently reaches the stage of strategic deployment direct from the mobilisation bases of its units, and on famous occasions its only real concentration has taken place on the battlefield. In Continental warfare, then, there is less difficulty in using the term to cover all three processes. Their tendency is always to overlap. But at sea, where communications are free and unrestricted by obstacles, and where mobility is high, they are susceptible of sharper differentiation. The normal course is for a fleet to assemble at a naval port; thence by a distinct movement it proceeds to the strategical centre and reaches out in divisions as required. The concentration about that centre may be very far from a mass, and the final formation of the mass will bear no resemblance to either of the previous movements, and will be quite distinct.

But free as a fleet is from the special fetters of an army, there always exist at sea peculiar conditions of friction which clog its freedom of disposition. One source of this friction is commerce protection. However much our war plan may press for close concentration, the need of commerce protection will always be calling for dispersal. The other source is the peculiar freedom and secrecy of movements at sea. As the sea knows no roads to limit or indicate our own lines of operation, so it tells little about those of the enemy. The most distant and widely dispersed points must be kept in view as possible objectives of the enemy. When we add to this that two or more fleets can act in conjunction from widely separated bases with far greater certainty than is possible for armies, it is obvious that the variety of combinations is much higher at sea than on land, and variety of combination is in constant opposition to the central mass.

It follows that so long as the enemy's fleet is divided, and thereby retains various possibilities of either concentrated or sporadic action, our distribution will be dictated by the need of being able to deal with a variety of combinations and to protect a variety of objectives. Our concentrations must therefore be kept as open and flexible as possible. History accordingly shows us that the riper and fresher our experience and the surer our grip of war, the looser were our concentrations. The idea of massing, as a virtue in itself, is bred in peace and not in war. It indicates the debilitating idea that in war we must seek rather to avoid than to inflict defeat. True, advocates of the mass entrench themselves in the plausible conception that their aim is to inflict crushing defeats. But this too is an idea of peace. War has proved to the hilt that victories have not only to be won, but worked for. They must be worked for by bold strategical combinations, which as a rule entail at least apparent dispersal. They can only be achieved by taking risks, and the greatest and most effective of these is division.

The effect of prolonged peace has been to make "concentration" a kind of shibboleth, so that the division of a fleet tends almost to be regarded as a sure mark of bad leadership. Critics have come to lose sight of the old war experience, that without division no strategical combinations are possible. In truth they must be founded on division. Division is bad only when it is pushed beyond the limits of well-knit deployment. It is theoretically wrong to place a section of the fleet in such a position that it may be prevented from falling back on its strategical centre when it is encountered by a superior force. Such retreats of course can never be made certain; they will always depend in some measure on the skill and resource of the opposing commanders, and on the chances of weather: but risks must be taken. If we risk nothing, we shall seldom perform anything. The great leader is the man who can measure rightly to what breadth of deployment he can stretch his concentration. This power of bold and sure adjustment between cohesion and reach is indeed a supreme test of that judgment which in the conduct of war takes the place of strategical theory.

In British naval history examples of faulty division are hard to find. The case most commonly cited is an early one. It occurred in 1666 during the second Dutch war. Monk and Rupert were in command of the main fleet, which from its mobilisation bases in the Thames and at Spithead had concentrated in the Downs. There they were awaiting De Ruyter's putting to sea in a position from which they could deal with him whether his object was an attack on the Thames or to join hands with the French. In this position a rumour reached them that the Toulon squadron was on its way to the Channel to co-operate with the Dutch. Upon this false intelligence the fleet was divided, and Rupert went back to Portsmouth to cover that position in case it might be the French objective. De Ruyter at once put to sea with a fleet greatly superior to Monk's division. Monk, however, taking advantage of thick weather that had supervened, surprised him at anchor, and believing he had a sufficient tactical advantage attacked him impetuously. Meanwhile the real situation became known. There was no French fleet, and Rupert was recalled. He succeeded in rejoining Monk after his action with De Ruyter had lasted three days. In the course of it Monk had been very severely handled and forced to retreat to the Thames, and it was generally believed that it was only the belated arrival of Rupert that saved us from a real disaster.

The strategy in this case is usually condemned out of hand and made to bear the entire blame of the reverse. Monk, who as a soldier had proved himself one of the finest strategists of the time, is held to have blundered from sheer ignorance of elementary principles. It is assumed that he should have kept his fleet massed; but his critics fail to observe that at least in the opinion of the time this would not have met the case. Had he kept the whole to deal with De Ruyter, it is probable that De Ruyter would not have put to sea, and it is certain Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight would have lain open to the French had they come. If he had moved his mass to deal with the French, he would have exposed the Thames to De Ruyter. It was a situation that could not be solved by a simple application of what the French call the masse centrale. The only way to secure both places from attack was to divide the fleet, just as in 1801 Nelson in the same theatre was compelled to divide his defence force. In neither case was division a fault, because it was a necessity. The fault in Monk's and Rupert's case was that they extended their reach with no proper provision to preserve cohesion. Close cruiser connection should have been maintained between the two divisions, and Monk should not have engaged deeply till he felt Rupert at his elbow. This we are told was the opinion of most of his flag-officers. They held that he should not have fought when he did. His correct course, on Kempenfelt's principle, would have been to hang on De Ruyter so as to prevent his doing anything, and to have slowly fallen back, drawing the Dutch after him till his loosened concentration was closed up again. If De Ruyter had refused to follow him through the Straits, there would have been plenty of time to mass the fleet. If De Ruyter had followed, he could have been fought in a position from which there would have been no escape. The fault, in fact, was not strategical, but rather one of tactical judgment. Monk over-estimated the advantage of his surprise and the relative fighting values of the two fleets, and believed he saw his way to victory single-handed. The danger of division is being surprised and forced to fight in inferiority. This was not Monk's case. He was not surprised, and he could easily have avoided action had he so desired. To judge such a case simply by using concentration as a touchstone can only tend to set up such questionable habits of thought as have condemned the more famous division which occurred in the crisis of the campaign of 1805, and with which we must deal later.

Apart from the general danger of using either words or maxims in this way, it is obviously specially unwise in the case of concentration and division. The current rule is that it is bad to divide unless you have a great superiority; yet there have been numerous occasions when, being at war with an inferior enemy, we have found our chief embarrassment in the fact that he kept his fleet divided, and was able thereby to set up something like a deadlock. The main object of our naval operations would then be to break it down. To force an inferior enemy to concentrate is indeed the almost necessary preliminary to securing one of those crushing victories at which we must always aim, but which so seldom are obtained. It is by forcing the enemy to attempt to concentrate that we get our opportunity by sagacious dispersal of crushing his divisions in detail. It is by inducing him to mass that we simplify our problem and compel him to choose between leaving to us the exercise of command and putting it to the decision of a great action.

Advocates of close concentration will reply that that is true enough. We do often seek to force our enemy to concentrate, but that does not show that concentration is sometimes a disadvantage, for we ourselves must concentrate closely to force a similar concentration on the enemy. The maxim, indeed, has become current that concentration begets concentration, but it is not too much to say that it is a maxim which history flatly contradicts. If the enemy is willing to hazard all on a battle, it is true. But if we are too superior, or our concentration too well arranged for him to hope for victory, then our concentration has almost always had the effect of forcing him to disperse for sporadic action. So certain was this result, that in our old wars, in which we were usually superior, we always adopted the loosest possible concentrations in order to prevent sporadic action. True, the tendency of the French to adopt this mode of warfare is usually set down to some constitutional ineptitude that is outside strategical theory, but this view is due rather to the irritation which the method caused us, than to sober reasoning. For a comparatively weak belligerent sporadic action was better than nothing, and the only other alternative was for him to play into our hands by hazarding the decision which it was our paramount interest to obtain. Sporadic action alone could never give our enemy command of the sea, but it could do us injury and embarrass our plans, and there was always hope it might so much loosen our concentration as to give him a fair chance of obtaining a series of successful minor decisions.

Take, now, the leading case of 1805. In that campaign our distribution was very wide, and was based on several concentrations. The first had its centre in the Downs, and extended not only athwart the invading army's line of passage, but also over the whole North Sea, so as to prevent interference with our trade or our system of coast defence either from the Dutch in the Texel or from French squadrons arriving north-about. The second, which was known as the Western Squadron, had its centre off Ushant, and was spread over the whole Bay of Biscay by means of advanced squadrons before Ferrol and Rochefort. With a further squadron off the coast of Ireland, it was able also to reach far out into the Atlantic in order to receive our trade. It kept guard, in fact, not only over the French naval ports, but over the approaches to the Channel, where were the home terminals of the great southern and western trade-routes. A third concentration was in the Mediterranean, whose centre under Nelson was at Sardinia. It had outlying sub-centres at Malta and Gibraltar, and covered the whole ground from Cape St. Vincent outside the Straits to Toulon, Trieste, and the Dardanelles. When war broke out with Spain in 1804, it was considered advisable to divide this command, and Spanish waters outside the Straits were held by a fourth concentration, whose centre was off Cadiz, and whose northern limit was Cape Finisterre, where it joined the Ushant concentration. For reasons which were personal rather than strategical this arrangement was not continued long, nor indeed after a few months was there the same need for it, for the Toulon squadron had changed its base to Cadiz. By this comprehensive system the whole of the European seas were controlled both for military and trade purposes. In the distant terminal areas, like the East and West Indies, there were nucleus concentrations with the necessary connective machinery permanently established, and to render them effective, provision was made by which the various European squadrons could throw off detachments to bring up their force to any strength which the movements of the enemy might render necessary.

Wide as was this distribution, and great as its reach, a high degree of cohesion was maintained not only between the parts of each concentration, but between the several concentrations themselves. By means of a minor cruiser centre at the Channel Islands, the Downs and Ushant concentrations could rapidly cohere. Similarly the Cadiz concentration was linked up with that of Ushant at Finisterre, and but for personal friction and repulsion, the cohesion between the Mediterranean and Cadiz concentrations would have been equally strong. Finally, there was a masterly provision made for all the concentrations to condense into one great mass at the crucial point off Ushant before by any calculable chance a hostile mass could gather there.

For Napoleon's best admirals, "who knew the craft of the sea," the British fleet thus disposed was in a state of concentration that nothing but a stroke of luck beyond the limit of sober calculation could break. Decres and Bruix had no doubt of it, and the knowledge overpowered Villeneuve when the crisis came. After he had carried the concentration which Napoleon had planned so far as to have united three divisions in Ferrol, he knew that the outlying sections of our Western Squadron had disappeared from before Ferrol and Rochefort. In his eyes, as well as those of the British Admiralty, this squadron, in spite of its dispersal in the Bay of Biscay, had always been in a state of concentration. It was not this which caused his heart to fail. It was the news that Nelson had reappeared at Gibraltar, and had been seen steering northward. It meant for him that the whole of his enemy's European fleet was in a state of concentration. "Their concentration of force," he afterwards wrote, "was at the moment more serious than in any previous disposition, and such that they were in a position to meet in superiority the combined forces of Brest and Ferrol," and for that reason, he explained, he had given up the game as lost. But to Napoleon's unpractised eye it was impossible to see what it was he had to deal with. Measuring the elasticity of the British naval distribution by the comparatively cumbrous and restricted mobility of armies, he saw it as a rash and unwarlike dispersal. Its looseness seemed to indicate so great a tenderness for the distant objectives that lay open to his scattered squadrons, that he believed by a show of sporadic action he could further disperse our fleet, and then by a close concentration crush the essential part in detail. It was a clear case of the enemy's dispersal forcing us to adopt the loosest concentration, and of our comparative dispersal tempting the enemy to concentrate and hazard a decision. It cannot be said we forced the fatal move upon him intentionally. It was rather the operation of strategical law set in motion by our bold distribution. We were determined that his threat of invasion, formidable as it was, should not force upon us so close a concentration as to leave our widespread interests open to his attack. Neither can it be said that our first aim was to prevent his attempting to concentrate. Every one of his naval ports was watched by a squadron, but it was recognised that this would not prevent concentration. The escape of one division might well break the chain. But that consideration made no difference. The distribution of our squadrons before his naval ports was essential for preventing sporadic action. Their distribution was dictated sufficiently by the defence of commerce and of colonial and allied territory, by our need, that is, to exercise a general command even if we could not destroy the enemy's force.

The whole of Nelson's correspondence for this period shows that his main object was the protection of our Mediterranean trade and of Neapolitan and Turkish territory. When Villeneuve escaped him, his irritation was caused not by the prospect of a French concentration, which had no anxieties for him, for he knew counter-concentrations were provided for. It was caused rather by his having lost the opportunity which the attempt to concentrate had placed within his reach. He followed Villeneuve to the West Indies, not to prevent concentration, but, firstly, to protect the local trade and Jamaica, and secondly, in hope of another chance of dealing the blow he had missed. Lord Barham took precisely the same view. When on news of Villeneuve's return from the West Indies he moved out the three divisions of the Western Squadron, that is, the Ushant concentration, to meet him, he expressly stated, not that his object was to prevent concentration, but that it was to deter the French from attempting sporadic action. "The interception of the fleet in question," he wrote, "on its return to Europe would be a greater object than any I know. It would damp all future expeditions, and would show to Europe that it might be advisable to relax in the blockading system occasionally for the express purpose of putting them in our hands at a convenient opportunity."

Indeed we had no reason for preventing the enemy's concentration. It was our best chance of solving effectually the situation we have to confront. Our true policy was to secure permanent command by a great naval decision. So long as the enemy remained divided, no such decision could be expected. It was not, in fact, till he attempted his concentration, and its last stage had been reached, that the situation was in our hands. The intricate problem with which we had been struggling was simplified down to closing up our own concentration to the strategical centre off Ushant. But at the last stage the enemy could not face the formidable position we held. His concentration was stopped. Villeneuve fell back on Cadiz, and the problem began to assume for us something of its former intricacy. So long as we held the mass off Ushant which our great concentration had produced, we were safe from invasion. But that was not enough. It left the seas open to sporadic action from Spanish ports. There were convoys from the East and West Indies at hand, and there was our expedition in the Mediterranean in jeopardy, and another on the point of sailing from Cork. Neither Barham at the Admiralty nor Cornwallis in command off Ushant hesitated an hour. By a simultaneous induction they both decided the mass must be divided. The concentration must be opened out again, and it was done. Napoleon called the move an insigne betise, but it was the move that beat him, and must have beaten him, whatever the skill of his admirals, for the two squadrons never lost touch. He found himself caught in a situation from which there was nothing to hope. His fleet was neither concentrated for a decisive blow nor spread for sporadic action. He had merely simplified his enemy's problem. Our hold was surer than ever, and in a desperate attempt to extricate himself he was forced to expose his fleet to the final decision we required.

The whole campaign serves well to show what was understood by concentration at the end of the great naval wars. To Lord Barham and the able admirals who interpreted his plans it meant the possibility of massing at the right time and place. It meant, in close analogy to strategic deployment on land, the disposal of squadrons about a strategical centre from which fleets could condense for massed action in any required direction, and upon which they could fall back when unduly pressed. In this case the ultimate centre was the narrows of the Channel, where Napoleon's army lay ready to cross, but there was no massing there. So crude a distribution would have meant a purely defensive attitude. It would have meant waiting to be struck instead of seeking to strike, and such an attitude was arch-heresy to our old masters of war.

So far we have only considered concentration as applied to wars in which we have a preponderance of naval force, but the principles are at least equally valid when a coalition places us in inferiority. The leading case is the home campaign of 1782. It was strictly on defensive lines. Our information was that France and Spain intended to end the war with a great combined effort against our West Indian islands, and particularly Jamaica. It was recognised that the way to meet the threat was to concentrate for offensive action in the Caribbean Sea everything that was not absolutely needed for home defence. Instead, therefore, of trying to be strong enough to attempt the offensive in both areas, it was decided to make sure of the area that was most critical. To do this the home fleet had to be reduced so low relatively to what the enemy had in European waters that offence was out of the question.

While Rodney took the offensive area, Lord Howe was given the other. His task was to prevent the coalition obtaining such a command of home waters as would place our trade and coasts at their mercy, and it was not likely to prove a light one. We knew that the enemy's plan was to combine their attack on the West Indies with an attempt to control the North Sea, and possibly the Straits of Dover, with a Dutch squadron of twelve to fifteen of the line, while a combined Franco-Spanish fleet of at least forty sail would occupy the mouth of the Channel. It was also possible that these two forces would endeavour to form a junction. In any case the object of the joint operations would be to paralyse our trade and annoy our coasts, and thereby force us to neglect the West Indian area and the two Spanish objectives, Minorca and Gibraltar. All told we had only about thirty of the line on the home station, and though a large proportion of these were three-deckers, a good many could not be ready for sea till the summer.

Inferior as was the available force, there was no thought of a purely passive defence. It would not meet the case. Something must be done to interfere with the offensive operations of the allies in the West Indies and against Gibraltar, or they would attain the object of their home campaign. It was resolved to effect this by minor counterstrokes on their line of communications to the utmost limit of our defensive reach. It would mean a considerable stretch of our concentration, but we were determined to do what we could to prevent reinforcements from reaching the West Indies from Brest, to intercept French trade as occasion offered, and, finally, at almost any risk to relieve Gibraltar.

In these conditions the defensive concentration was based on a central mass or reserve at Spithead, a squadron in the Downs to watch the Texel for the safety of the North Sea trade, and another to the westward to watch Brest and interrupt its transatlantic communications. Kempenfelt in command of the latter squadron had just shown what could be done by his great exploit of capturing Guichen's convoy of military and naval stores for the West Indies. Early in the spring he was relieved by Barrington, who sailed on April 5th to resume the Ushant position. His instructions were not to fight a superior enemy unless in favourable circumstances, but to retire on Spithead. He was away three weeks, and returned with a French East India convoy with troops and stores, and two of the ships of-the-line which formed its escort.

Up to this time there had been no immediate sign of the great movement from the south. The Franco-Spanish fleet which had assembled at Cadiz was occupied ineffectually in trying to stop small reliefs reaching Gibraltar and in covering their own homeward-bound trade. The Dutch, however, were becoming active, and the season was approaching for our Baltic trade to come home. Ross in the North Sea had but four of the line to watch the Texel, and was in no position to deal with the danger. Accordingly early in May the weight of the home concentration was thrown into the North Sea. On the 10th Howe sailed with Barrington and the bulk of the fleet to join Ross in the Downs, while Kempenfelt again took the Ushant position. Only about half the Brest Squadron had gone down to join the Spaniards at Cadiz, and he was told his first duty was to intercept the rest if it put to sea, but, as in Barrington's instructions, if he met a superior squadron he was to retire up Channel under the English coast and join hands with Howe. In spite of the fact that influenza was now raging in the fleet, he succeeded in holding the French inactive. Howe with the same difficulty to face was equally successful. The Dutch had put to sea, but returned immediately they knew of his movement, and cruising off the Texel, he held them there, and kept complete command of the North Sea till our Baltic trade was safe home.

By the end of May it was done, and as our intelligence indicated that the great movement from Cadiz was at last about to begin, Howe, to whom a certain discretion had been left, decided it was time to shift the weight to his other wing and close on Kempenfelt. The Government, however, seemed to think that he ought to be able to use his position for offensive operations against Dutch trade, but in the admiral's opinion this was to lose hold of the design and sacrifice cohesion too much to reach. He informed them that he had not deemed it advisable to make detachments from his squadron against the trade, "not knowing how suddenly there might be a call, for the greater part of it at least, to the westward." In accordance, therefore, with his general instructions he left with Ross a strong squadron of nine of the line, sufficient to hold in check, and even "to take and destroy," the comparatively weak ships of the Dutch, and with the rest returned to the westward.[13] His intention was to proceed with all possible expedition to join Kempenfelt on the coast of France, but this, owing to the ravages of the influenza, he was unable to do. Kempenfelt was forced to come in, and on June 5th the junction was made at Spithead.

[13] The Dutch were believed to have sixteen of the line—one seventy-four, seven sixty-eights, and the rest under sixty guns. In Ross's squadron were one three-decker and two eighties.

For three weeks, so severe was the epidemic, they could not move. Then came news that the Cadiz fleet under Langara had sailed the day Howe had reached Spithead, and he resolved to make a dash with every ship fit to put to sea to cut it off from Brest. He was too late. Before he could get into position the junction between Langara and the Brest squadron was made, and in their full force the allies had occupied the mouth of the Channel. With the addition of the Brest ships the combined fleet numbered forty of the line, while all Howe could muster was twenty-two, but amongst them were seven three-deckers and three eighties, and he would soon be reinforced. Three of Ross's smallest ships were recalled, and five others were nearly ready, but for these Howe could not wait. The homeward-bound Jamaica convoy was at hand, and at all hazards it must be saved.

What was to be done? So soon as he sighted the enemy he realised that a successful action was out of the question. Early in the morning of July 12th, "being fifteen leagues S.S.E. from Scilly," Langara with thirty-six of the line was seen to the westward. "As soon," wrote Howe, "as their force had been ascertained, I thought proper to avoid coming to battle with them as then circumstanced, and therefore steered to the north to pass between Scilly and the Land's End. My purpose therein was to get to the westward of the enemy, both for protecting the Jamaica convoy and to gain the advantage of situation for bringing them to action which the difference in our numbers renders desirable."

By a most brilliant effort of seamanship the dangerous movement was effected safely that night, and it proved an entire success. Till Howe was met with and defeated, the allies would not venture into the Channel, and his unprecedented feat had effectually thrown them off. Assuming apparently that he must have passed round their rear to seaward, they sought him to the southward, and there for a month beat up and down in ineffective search. Meanwhile Howe, sending his cruisers ahead to the convoy's rendezvous off the south-west coast of Iceland, had taken his whole fleet about two hundred miles west of the Skelligs to meet it. Northerly winds prevented his reaching the right latitude in time, but it mattered little. The convoy passed in between him and the south of Ireland, and as the enemy had taken a cast down to Ushant, it was able to enter the Channel in safety without sighting an enemy's sail. Ignorant of what had happened, Howe cruised for a week practising the ships "in connected movements so particularly necessary on the present occasion." Then with his fleet in fine condition to carry out preventive tactics in accordance with Kempenfelt's well-known exposition,[14] he returned to seek the enemy to the eastward, in order to try to draw them from their station at Scilly and open the Channel. On his way he learnt the convoy had passed in, and with this anxiety off his mind he bore up for the Lizard, where his reinforcements were awaiting him. There he found the Channel was free. From lack of supplies the enemy had been forced to retire to port, and he returned to Spithead to make preparations for the relief of Gibraltar. While this work was going on, the North Sea squadron was again strengthened that it might resume the blockade of the Texel and cover the arrival of the autumn convoys from the Baltic. It was done with complete success. Not a single ship fell into the enemy's hands, and the campaign, and indeed the war, ended by Howe taking the mass of his force down to Gibraltar and performing his remarkable feat of relieving it in the face of the Spanish squadron. For the power and reach of a well-designed concentration there can be no finer example.

[14] See post, pp. 222-24.

If, now, we seek from the above and similar examples for principles to serve as a guide between concentration and division we shall find, firstly, this one. The degree of division we shall require is in proportion to the number of naval ports from which the enemy can act against our maritime interests and to the extent of coastline along which they are spread. It is a principle which springs from the soul of our old tradition that we must always seek, not merely to prevent the enemy striking at our heart, but also to strike him the moment he attempts to do anything. We must make of his every attempt an opportunity for a counterstroke. The distribution this aim entailed varied greatly with different enemies. In our wars with France, and particularly when Spain and Holland were in alliance with her, the number of the ports to be dealt with was very considerable and their distribution very wide. In our wars with the Dutch alone, on the other hand, the number and distribution were comparatively small, and in this case our concentration was always close.

This measure of distribution, however, will never stand alone. Concentration will not depend solely upon the number and position of the enemy's naval ports. It will be modified by the extent to which the lines of operation starting from those ports traverse our own home waters. The reason is plain. Whatever the enemy opposed to us, and whatever the nature of the war, we must always keep a fleet at home. In any circumstances it is essential for the defence of our home trade terminals, and it is essential as a central reserve from which divisions can be thrown off to reinforce distant terminals and to seize opportunities for counterstrokes. It is "the mainspring," as Lord Barham put it, "from which all offensive operations must proceed." This squadron, then, being permanent and fixed as the foundation of our whole system, it is clear that if, as in the case of the French wars, the enemy's lines of operation do not traverse our home waters, close concentration upon it will not serve our turn. If, on the other hand, as in the case of the Dutch wars, the lines do traverse home waters, a home concentration is all that is required. Our division will then be measured by the amount of our surplus strength, and by the extent to which we feel able to detach squadrons for offensive action against the enemy's distant maritime interests without prejudicing our hold on the home terminals of his lines of operation and our power of striking directly he moves. These remarks apply, of course, to the main fleet operations. If such an enemy has distant colonial bases from which he can annoy our trade, minor concentrations must naturally be arranged in those areas.

Next we have to note that where the enemy's squadrons are widely distributed in numerous bases, we cannot always simplify the problem by leaving some of them open so as to entice him to concentrate and reduce the number of ports to be watched. For if we do this, we leave the unwatched squadrons free for sporadic action. Unless we are sure he intends to concentrate with a view to a decisive action, our only means of simplifying the situation is to watch every port closely enough to interfere effectually with sporadic action. Then, sporadic action being denied him, the enemy must either do nothing or concentrate.

The next principle is flexibility. Concentration should be so arranged that any two parts may freely cohere, and that all parts may quickly condense into a mass at any point in the area of concentration. The object of holding back from forming the mass is to deny the enemy knowledge of our actual distribution or its intention at any given moment, and at the same time to ensure that it will be adjusted to meet any dangerous movement that is open to him. Further than this our aim should be not merely to prevent any part being overpowered by a superior force, but to regard every detached squadron as a trap to lure the enemy to destruction. The ideal concentration, in short, is an appearance of weakness that covers a reality of strength.

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PART THREE

CONDUCT OF NAVAL WAR

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTORY

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I. INHERENT DIFFERENCES IN THE CONDITIONS OF WAR ON LAND AND ON SEA

Before attempting to apply the foregoing general principles in a definite manner to the conduct of naval war, it is necessary to clear the ground of certain obstacles to right judgment. The gradual elucidation of the theory of war, it must be remembered, has been almost entirely the work of soldiers, but so admirable is the work they have done, and so philosophical the method they have adopted, that a very natural tendency has arisen to assume that their broad-based conclusions are of universal application. That the leading lines which they have charted are in a certain sense those which must govern all strategy no one will deny. They are the real pioneers, and their methods must be in the main our methods, but what we have to remember is that the country we have to travel is radically different from that in which they acquired their skill.

A moment's consideration will reveal how far-reaching the differences are. Let us ask ourselves what are the main ideas around which all the military lore turns. It may be taken broadly that the general principles are three in number. Firstly, there is the idea of concentration of force, that is, the idea of overthrowing the enemy's main strength by bringing to bear upon it the utmost accumulation of weight and energy within your means; secondly, there is the idea that strategy is mainly a question of definite lines of communication; and thirdly, there is the idea of concentration of effort, which means keeping a single eye on the force you wish to overthrow without regard to ulterior objects. Now if we examine the conditions which give these principles so firm a footing on land, we shall find that in all three cases they differ at sea, and differ materially.

Take the first, which, in spite of all the deductions we have to make from it in the case of limited wars, is the dominating one. The pithy maxim which expresses its essence is that our primary objective is the enemy's main force. In current naval literature the maxim is applied to the sea in some such form as this: "The primary object of our battle-fleet is to seek out and destroy that of the enemy." On the surface nothing could look sounder, but what are the conditions which underlie the one and the other?

The practical value of the military maxim is based upon the fact that in land warfare it is always theoretically possible to strike at your enemy's army, that is, if you have the strength and spirit to overcome the obstacles and face the risks. But at sea this is not so. In naval warfare we have a far-reaching fact which is entirely unknown on land. It is simply this—that it is possible for your enemy to remove his fleet from the board altogether. He may withdraw it into a defended port, where it is absolutely out of your reach without the assistance of an army. No amount of naval force, and no amount of offensive spirit, can avail you. The result is that in naval warfare an embarrassing dilemma tends to assert itself. If you are in a superiority that justifies a vigorous offensive and prompts you to seek out your enemy with a view to a decision, the chances are you will find him in a position where you cannot touch him. Your offence is arrested, and you find yourself in what, at least theoretically, is the weakest general position known to war.

This was one of our earliest discoveries in strategy. It followed indeed immediately and inevitably upon our discovery that the most drastic way of making war was to concentrate every effort on the enemy's armed forces. In dealing with the theory of war in general a caveat has already been entered against the too common assumption that this method was an invention of Napoleon's or Frederick's, or that it was a foreign importation at all. In the view at least of our own military historians the idea was born in our Civil Wars with Cromwell and the New Model Army. It was the conspicuous feature that distinguished our Civil War from all previous wars of modern times. So astonishing was its success—as foreign observers remarked—that it was naturally applied by our soldier-admirals at sea so soon as war broke out with the Dutch. Whatever may be the claims of the Cromwellian soldiers to have invented for land warfare what is regarded abroad as the chief characteristic of the Napoleonic method, it is beyond doubt that they deserve the credit of it at sea. All three Dutch wars had a commercial object, and yet after the first campaign the general idea never was to make the enemy's commerce a primary objective. That place was occupied throughout by their battle-fleets, and under Monk and Rupert at least those objectives were pursued with a singleness of purpose and a persistent vehemence that was entirely Napoleonic.

But in the later stages of the struggle, when we began to gain a preponderance, it was found that the method ceased to work. The attempt to seek the enemy with a view to a decisive action was again and again frustrated by his retiring to his own coasts, where either we could not reach him or his facilities for retreat made a decisive result impossible. He assumed, in fact, a defensive attitude with which we were powerless to deal, and in the true spirit of defence he sprang out from time to time to deal us a counterstroke as he saw his opportunity.

It was soon perceived that the only way of dealing with this attitude was to adopt some means of forcing the enemy to sea and compelling him to expose himself to the decision we sought. The most cogent means at hand was to threaten his commerce. Instead, therefore, of attempting to seek out his fleet directly, our own would sit upon the fairway of his homeward-bound trade, either on the Dogger Bank or elsewhere, thereby setting up a situation which it was hoped would cost him either his trade or his battle-fleet, or possibly both. Thus in spite of the fact that with our increasing preponderance our preoccupation with the idea of battle decision had become stronger than ever, we found ourselves forced to fall back upon subsidiary operations of an ulterior strategical character. It is a curious paradox, but it is one that seems inherent in the special feature of naval war, which permits the armed force to be removed from the board altogether.

The second distinguishing characteristic of naval warfare which relates to the communication idea is not so well marked, but it is scarcely less important. It will be recalled that this characteristic is concerned with lines of communication in so far as they tend to determine lines of operation. It is a simple question of roads and obstacles. In land warfare we can determine with some precision the limits and direction of our enemy's possible movements. We know that they must be determined mainly by roads and obstacles. But afloat neither roads nor obstacles exist. There is nothing of the kind on the face of the sea to assist us in locating him and determining his movements. True it is that in sailing days his movements were to some extent limited by prevailing winds and by the elimination of impossible courses, but with steam even these determinants have gone, and there is practically nothing to limit the freedom of his movement except the exigencies of fuel. Consequently in seeking to strike our enemy the liability to miss him is much greater at sea than on land, and the chances of being eluded by the enemy whom we are seeking to bring to battle become so serious a check upon our offensive action as to compel us to handle the maxim of "Seeking out the enemy's fleet" with caution.

The difficulty obtruded itself from the moment the idea was born. It may be traced back—so far at least as modern warfare is concerned—to Sir Francis Drake's famous appreciation in the year of the Armada. This memorable despatch was written when an acute difference of opinion had arisen as to whether it were better to hold our fleet back in home waters or to send it forward to the coast of Spain. The enemy's objective was very uncertain. We could not tell whether the blow was to fall in the Channel or Ireland or Scotland, and the situation was complicated by a Spanish army of invasion ready to cross from the Flemish coast, and the possibility of combined action by the Guises from France. Drake was for solving the problem by taking station off the Armada's port of departure, and fully aware of the risk such a move entailed, he fortified his purely strategical reasons with moral considerations of the highest moment. But the Government was unconvinced, not as is usually assumed out of sheer pusillanimity and lack of strategical insight, but because the chances of Drake's missing contact were too great if the Armada should sail before our own fleet could get into position.

Our third elementary principle is the idea of concentration of effort, and the third characteristic of naval warfare which clashes with it is that over and above the duty of winning battles, fleets are charged with the duty of protecting commerce. In land warfare, at least since laying waste an undefended part of your enemy's country ceased to be a recognised strategical operation, there is no corresponding deflection of purely military operations. It is idle for purists to tell us that the deflection of commerce protection should not be permitted to turn us from our main purpose. We have to do with the hard facts of war, and experience tells us that for economic reasons alone, apart from the pressure of public opinion, no one has ever found it possible to ignore the deflection entirely. So vital indeed is financial vigour in war, that more often than not the maintenance of the flow of trade has been felt as a paramount consideration. Even in the best days of our Dutch wars, when the whole plan was based on ignoring the enemy's commerce as an objective, we found ourselves at times forced to protect our own trade with seriously disturbing results.

Nor is it more profitable to declare that the only sound way to protect your commerce is to destroy the enemy's fleet. As an enunciation of a principle it is a truism—no one would dispute it. As a canon of practical strategy, it is untrue; for here our first deflection again asserts itself. What are you to do if the enemy refuses to permit you to destroy his fleets? You cannot leave your trade exposed to squadronal or cruiser raids while you await your opportunity, and the more you concentrate your force and efforts to secure the desired decision, the more you will expose your trade to sporadic attack. The result is that you are not always free to adopt the plan which is best calculated to bring your enemy to a decision. You may find yourself compelled to occupy, not the best positions, but those which will give a fair chance of getting contact in favourable conditions, and at the same time afford reasonable cover for your trade. Hence the maxim that the enemy's coast should be our frontier. It is not a purely military maxim like that for seeking out the enemy's fleet, though the two are often used as though they were interchangeable. Our usual positions on the enemy's coast were dictated quite as much by the exigencies of commerce protection as by primary strategical reasons. To maintain a rigorous watch close off the enemy's ports was never the likeliest way to bring him to decisive action—we have Nelson's well-known declaration on the point—but it was the best way, and often the only way, to keep the sea clear for the passage of our own trade and for the operations of our cruisers against that of the enemy.

For the present these all-important points need not be elaborated further. As we proceed to deal with the methods of naval warfare they will gather force and lucidity. Enough has been said to mark the shoals and warn us that, admirably constructed as is the craft which the military strategists have provided for our use, we must be careful with our navigation.

But before proceeding further it is necessary to simplify what lies before us by endeavouring to group the complex variety of naval operations into manageable shape.

II. TYPICAL FORMS OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

In the conduct of naval war all operations will be found to relate to two broad classes of object. The one is to obtain or dispute the command of the sea, and the other to exercise such control of communications as we have, whether the complete command has been secured or not.

It was on the logical and practical distinction between these two kinds of naval object, as we have seen, that the constitution of fleets was based in the fulness of the sailing period, when maritime wars were nearly incessant and were shaping the existing distribution of power in the world. During that period at any rate the dual conception lay at the root of naval methods and naval policy, and as it is also the logical outcome of the theory of war, we may safely take it as the basis of our analysis of the conduct of naval operations.

Practically, of course, we can seldom assert categorically that any operation of war has but one clearly defined object. A battle-squadron whose primary function was to secure command was often so placed as to enable it to exercise control; and, vice versa, cruiser lines intended primarily to exercise control upon the trade routes were regarded as outposts of the battle-fleet to give it warning of the movements of hostile squadrons. Thus Cornwallis during his blockade of Brest had sometimes to loosen his hold in order to cover the arrival of convoys against raiding squadrons; and thus also when Nelson was asked by Lord Barham for his views on cruiser patrol lines, he expressed himself as follows: "Ships on this service would not only prevent the depredations of privateers, but be in the way to watch any squadron of the enemy should they pass on their track.... Therefore intelligence will be quickly conveyed, and the enemy never, I think, lost sight of."[15] Instructions in this sense were issued by Lord Barham to the commodores concerned. In both cases, it will be seen, the two classes of operation overlapped. Still for purposes of analysis the distinction holds good, and is valuable for obtaining a clear view of the field.

[15] Nelson to Barham, 29 August 1805.

Take, first, the methods of securing command, by which we mean putting it out of the enemy's power to use effectually the common communications or materially to interfere with our use of them. We find the means employed were two: decision by battle, and blockade. Of the two, the first was the less frequently attainable, but it was the one the British service always preferred. It was only natural that it should be so, seeing that our normal position was one of preponderance over our enemy, and so long as the policy of preponderance is maintained, the chances are the preference will also be maintained.

But further than this, the idea seems to be rooted in the oldest traditions of the Royal Navy. As we have seen, the conviction of the sea service that war is primarily a question of battles, and that battles once joined on anything like equal terms must be pressed to the last gasp, is one that has had nothing to learn from more recent continental discoveries. The Cromwellian admirals handed down to us the memory of battles lasting three, and even four, days. Their creed is enshrined in the robust article of war under which Byng and Calder were condemned; and in the apotheosis of Nelson the service has deified the battle idea.

It is true there were periods when the idea seemed to have lost its colour, but nevertheless it is so firmly embedded in the British conception of naval warfare, that there would be nothing left to say but for the unavoidable modification with which we have to temper the doctrine of overthrow. "Use that means," said its best-known advocate, "when you can and when you must." Devoutly as we may hold the battle faith, it is not always possible or wise to act upon it. If we are strong, we press to the issue of battle when we can. If we are weak, we do not accept the issue unless we must. If circumstances are advantageous to us, we are not always able to effect a decision; and if they are disadvantageous, we are not always obliged to fight. Hence we find the apparently simple doctrine of the battle was almost always entangled in two of the most difficult problems that beset our old admirals. The most thorny questions they had to decide were these. In the normal case of strength, it was not how to defeat the enemy, but how to bring him to action; and in casual cases of temporary weakness, it was not how to sell your life dearly, but how to maintain the fleet actively on the defensive so as at once to deny the enemy the decision he sought and to prevent his attaining his ulterior object.

From these considerations it follows that we are able to group all naval operations in some such way as this. Firstly, on the only assumption we can permit ourselves, namely, that we start with a preponderance of force or advantage, we adopt methods for securing command. These methods, again, fall under two heads. Firstly, there are operations for securing a decision by battle, under which head, as has been explained, we shall be chiefly concerned with methods of bringing an unwilling enemy to action, and with the value to that end of the maxim of "Seeking out the enemy's fleet." Secondly, there are the operations which become necessary when no decision is obtainable and our war plan demands the immediate control of communications. Under this head it will be convenient to treat all forms of blockade, whether military or commercial, although, as we shall see, certain forms of military, and even commercial, blockade are primarily concerned with forcing the enemy to a decision.

Our second main group covers operations to which we have to resort when our relative strength is not adequate for either class of operations to secure command. In these conditions we have to content ourselves with endeavouring to hold the command in dispute; that is, we endeavour by active defensive operations to prevent the enemy either securing or exercising control for the objects he has in view. Such are the operations which are connoted by the true conception of "A fleet in being." Under this head also should fall those new forms of minor counter-attack which have entered the field of strategy since the introduction of the mobile torpedo and offensive mining.

In the third main group we have to deal with the methods of exercising control of passage and communication. These operations vary in character according to the several purposes for which the control is desired, and they will be found to take one of three general forms. Firstly, the control of the lines of passage of an invading army; secondly, the control of trade routes and trade terminals for the attack and defence of commerce; and thirdly, the control of passage and communication for our own oversea expeditions, and the control of their objective area for the active support of their operations.

For clearness we may summarise the whole in tabulated analysis, thus:—

1. Methods of securing command: (a) By obtaining a decision. (b) By blockade. 2. Methods of disputing command: (a) Principle of "the fleet in being." (b) Minor counter-attacks. 3. Methods of exercising command: (a) Defence against invasion. (b) Attack and defence of commerce. (c) Attack, defence, and support of military expeditions.

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CHAPTER TWO

METHODS OF SECURING COMMAND

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I. ON OBTAINING A DECISION

Whatever the nature of the war in which we are engaged, whether it be limited or unlimited, permanent and general command of the sea is the condition of ultimate success. The only way of securing such a command by naval means is to obtain a decision by battle against the enemy's fleet. Sooner or later it must be done, and the sooner the better. That was the old British creed. It is still our creed, and needs no labouring. No one will dispute it, no one will care even to discuss it, and we pass with confidence to the conclusion that the first business of our fleet is to seek out the enemy's fleet and destroy it.

No maxim can so well embody the British spirit of making war upon the sea, and nothing must be permitted to breathe on that spirit. To examine its claim to be the logical conclusion of our theory of war will even be held dangerous, yet nothing is so dangerous in the study of war as to permit maxims to become a substitute for judgment. Let us examine its credentials, and as a first step put it to the test of the two most modern instances.

Both of them, it must be noted, were instances of Limited War, the most usual form of our own activities, and indeed the only one to which our war organisation, with its essential preponderance of the naval element, has ever been really adapted. The first instance is the Spanish-American War, and the second that between Russia and Japan.

In the former case the Americans took up arms in order to liberate Cuba from Spanish domination—a strictly limited object. There is no evidence that the nature of the war was ever clearly formulated by either side, but in just conformity with the general political conditions the American war plan aimed at opening with a movement to secure the territorial object. At the earliest possible moment they intended to establish themselves in the west of Cuba in support of the Colonial insurgents. Everything depended on the initiative being seized with decision and rapidity. Its moral and physical importance justified the utmost risk, and such was the conformation of the sea which the American army had to pass, that a strictly defensive or covering attitude with their fleet could reduce the risk almost to security. Yet so unwisely dominated were the Americans by recently rediscovered maxims, that when on the eve of executing the vital movement they heard a Spanish squadron was crossing the Atlantic, their own covering force was diverted from its defensive position and sent away to "seek out the enemy's fleet and destroy it."

Puerto Rico was the most obvious point at which to seek it, and thither Admiral Sampson was permitted to go, regardless of the elementary truth that in such cases what is obvious to you is also usually obvious to your enemy. The result was that not only did the Americans fail to get contact, but they also uncovered their own army's line of passage and paralysed the initial movement. In the end it was only pure chance that permitted them to retrieve the mistake they had made. Had the Spanish squadron put into a Cuban port in railway communication with the main Royalist army, such as Cienfuegos or Havana, instead of hurrying into Santiago, the whole campaign must have been lost. "It appears now," wrote Admiral Mahan, in his Lessons of the War with Spain, "not only that the eastward voyage of our Havana division was unfortunate, but it should have been seen beforehand to be a mistake, because inconsistent with a well and generally accepted principle of war, the non-observance of which was not commanded by the conditions. The principle is that which condemns eccentric movements. By the disregard of rule in this case we uncovered both Havana and Cienfuegos, which it was our object to close to the enemy's division."

Whether or not we regard Admiral Mahan's exposition of the error as penetrating to the real principle that was violated, the movement was in fact not only eccentric, but unnecessary. Had the Americans been content to keep their fleet concentrated in its true defensive position, not only would they have covered their army's line of passage and their blockade of the territorial objective, but they would have had a far better chance of bringing the Spaniards to action. The Spaniards were bound to come to them or remain outside the theatre of operations where they could in no way affect the issue of the war except adversely to themselves by sapping the spirit of their own Cuban garrison. It is a clear case of the letter killing the spirit, of an attractive maxim being permitted to shut the door upon judgment. Strategical offence in this case was not the best defence. "Seeking out the enemy's fleet" was almost bound to end in a blow in the air, which not only would fail to gain any offensive result, but would sacrifice the main defensive plank in the American war plan upon which their offensive relied for success. To stigmatise such a movement as merely eccentric is to pass very lenient censure.

In the Russo-Japanese War we have a converse case, in which judgment kept the aphorism silent. It is true that during the earlier stage of the naval operations the Japanese did in a sense seek out the enemy's fleet, in so far as they advanced their base close to Port Arthur; but this was done, not with any fixed intention of destroying the Russian fleet—there was small hope of that at sea—but rather because by no other means could they cover the army's lines of passage, which it was the function of the fleet to secure, the true offensive operations being on land. Never except once, under express orders from Tokio, did either Admiral Togo or Admiral Kamimura press offensive movements in such a way as to jeopardise the preventive duty with which the war plan charged them. Still less in the later stage, when everything depended on the destruction of the Baltic fleet, did Admiral Togo "seek it out." He was content, as the Americans should have been content, to have set up such a situation that the enemy must come and break it down if they were to affect the issue of the war. So he waited on the defensive, assured his enemy must come to him, and thereby he rendered it, as certain as war can be, that when the moment for the tactical offensive came his blow should be sure and sudden, in overwhelming strength of concentration, and decisive beyond all precedent.