introductory
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 [pg 156] 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 [pg 157] 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 [pg 158] 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 [pg 159] 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 [pg 160] 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. [pg 161] 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 [pg 162] 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 [pg 163] 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.
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.
[pg 164]
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." [pg 165] 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.
