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Page 36
Now, the United States has made an announcement that she will support
by force a policy which may bring her into collision with states of
military antecedents, indisposed by their interests to acquiesce in
our position, and still less willing to accept it under appearance of
threat. What preparation is necessary in case such a one is as
determined to fight against our demands as we to fight for them?
Preparation for war, rightly understood, falls under two
heads,--preparation and preparedness. The one is a question mainly of
material, and is constant in its action. The second involves an idea
of completeness. When, at a particular moment, preparations are
completed, one is prepared--not otherwise. There may have been made a
great deal of very necessary preparation for war without being
prepared. Every constituent of preparation may be behindhand, or some
elements may be perfectly ready, while others are not. In neither case
can a state be said to be prepared.
In the matter of preparation for war, one clear idea should be
absorbed first by every one who, recognizing that war is still a
possibility, desires to see his country ready. This idea is that,
however defensive in origin or in political character a war may be,
the assumption of a simple defensive in war is ruin. War, once
declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not
be fended off, but smitten down. You may then spare him every
exaction, relinquish every gain; but till down he must be struck
incessantly and remorselessly.
Preparation, like most other things, is a question both of kind and of
degree, of quality and of quantity. As regards degree, the general
lines upon which it is determined have been indicated broadly in the
preceding part of this article. The measure of degree is the estimated
force which the strongest _probable_ enemy can bring against you,
allowance being made for clear drawbacks upon his total force, imposed
by his own embarrassments and responsibilities in other parts of the
world. The calculation is partly military, partly political, the
latter, however, being the dominant factor in the premises.
In kind, preparation is twofold,--defensive and offensive. The former
exists chiefly for the sake of the latter, in order that offence, the
determining factor in war, may put forth its full power, unhampered by
concern for the protection of the national interests or for its own
resources. In naval war, coast defence is the defensive factor, the
navy the offensive. Coast defence, when adequate, assures the naval
commander-in-chief that his base of operations--the dock-yards and
coal depots--is secure. It also relieves him and his government, by
the protection afforded to the chief commercial centres, from the
necessity of considering them, and so leaves the offensive arm
perfectly free.
Coast defence implies coast attack. To what attacks are coasts liable?
Two, principally,--blockade and bombardment. The latter, being the
more difficult, includes the former, as the greater does the lesser. A
fleet that can bombard can still more easily blockade. Against
bombardment the necessary precaution is gun-fire, of such power and
range that a fleet cannot lie within bombarding distance. This
condition is obtained, where surroundings permit, by advancing the
line of guns so far from the city involved that bombarding distance
can be reached only by coming under their fire. But it has been
demonstrated, and is accepted, that, owing to their rapidity of
movement,--like a flock of birds on the wing,--a fleet of ships can,
without disabling loss, pass by guns before which they could not lie.
Hence arises the necessity of arresting or delaying their progress by
blocking channels, which in modern practice is done by lines of
torpedoes. The mere moral effect of the latter is a deterrent to a
dash past,--by which, if successful, a fleet reaches the rear of the
defences, and appears immediately before the city, which then lies at
its mercy.
Coast defence, then, implies gun-power and torpedo lines placed as
described. Be it said in passing that only places of decisive
importance, commercially or militarily, need such defences. Modern
fleets cannot afford to waste ammunition in bombarding unimportant
towns,--at least when so far from their own base as they would be on
our coast. It is not so much a question of money as of frittering
their fighting strength. It would not pay.
Even coast defence, however, although essentially passive, should have
an element of offensive force, local in character, distinct from the
offensive navy, of which nevertheless it forms a part. To take the
offensive against a floating force it must itself be afloat--naval.
This offensive element of coast defence is to be found in the
torpedo-boat, in its various developments. It must be kept distinct in
idea from the sea-going fleet, although it is, of course, possible
that the two may act in concert. The war very well may take such a
turn that the sea-going navy will find its best preparation for
initiating an offensive movement to be by concentrating in a principal
seaport. Failing such a contingency, however, and in and for coast
defence in its narrower sense, there should be a local flotilla of
small torpedo-vessels, which by their activity should make life a
burden to an outside enemy. A distinguished British admiral, now dead,
has said that he believed half the captains of a blockading fleet
would break down--"go crazy" were the words repeated to me--under the
strain of modern conditions. The expression, of course, was intended
simply to convey a sense of the immensity of suspense to be endured.
In such a flotilla, owing to the smallness of its components, and to
the simplicity of their organization and functions, is to be found the
best sphere for naval volunteers; the duties could be learned with
comparative ease, and the whole system is susceptible of rapid
development. Be it remembered, however, that it is essentially
defensive, only incidentally offensive, in character.
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