Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/331

Rh But if the power to undertake far-ranging operations, and to confine an enemy to port by keeping him under observation, and driving him back when he comes out remains the same, the strategy of war at sea cannot have undergone any material alteration. The possession of ports where stores can be accumulated and repairs effected is an advantage as it always was. But a powerful fleet when operating far from its own country can supply itself with a store-house (a base) on the enemy’s coast, or can be served at sea by store-ships, as of old. If beaten, it will suffer from the want of places of refuge as it always did.

Among the speculations of recent years, a good deal has been heard of the “fleet in being.” If this phrase is only used to mean that, so long as any part of an enemy’s navy is capable of acting with effect, its existence cannot be ignored with the certainty of safety, then the words convey a truth which applies to all war whether by land or sea. If it means, as it was at least sometimes clearly intended to mean, that no such operation as the transport of troops oversea can be undertaken with success, so long as the naval forces of an opponent are not wholly destroyed, it is contrary to ancient experience. The Japanese in the beginning of 1904 began transporting troops to Korea before they had beaten the Russians, and they continued to send them in spite of the risk of interruption by the Vladivostok squadron. There was a risk, but risk is inseparable from war. The degree which can be incurred with sanity depends on the stake at issue, the nature of the circumstance and the capacity of the persons, which vary infinitely and must be separately judged.

The war of 1904–05 may also be said to have shown that the vast change in the construction of ships, together with the development of old and the invention of new weapons, has done far less to alter the course of battles at sea than had been thought likely. Two calculations have been successively made and have been supported with plausibility. The first was that steam would enable the ship herself to be used as a projectile and that the use of the ram would again become common. The sinking of the “Re d’Italia” by the Austrian ironclad Ferdinand Max at the battle of Lissa in 1866 seemed to give force to this supposition. Accidental collisions such as those between the British war-ships “Vanguard” and “Iron Duke,” “Victoria” and “Camperdown” have also shown how fatal a wound may be given by the ram of a modern ship. But the sinking of the “Re d’Italia” was largely an accident. As between vessels both under full control, a collision is easily avoided where there is space to move. In a mêlée, or pell-mell battle, to employ Nelson’s phrase, opportunities would occur for the use of the ram. But the activity of science has developed one weapon to counterbalance another. The torpedo has made it very dangerous for one fleet to rush at another. A vessel cannot fire torpedoes ahead, and when charging home at an opponent presenting his broadside would be liable to be struck by one. The torpedo may be said therefore to have excluded the pell-mell battle and the use of the ram except on rare occasions. But then arose the question whether the torpedo itself would not become the decisive weapon in naval warfare. It is undoubtedly capable of producing a great effect when its power can be fully exerted. A school arose, having its most convinced partisans in France, which argued that, as a small vessel could with a torpedo destroy a great battle-ship, the first would drive the second off the sea. The battle-ship was to give place to the torpedo-boat or torpedo-boat-destroyer which was itself only a torpedo-boat of a larger growth. But the torpedo is subject to close restrictions. It cannot be used with effect at more than two thousand yards. It passes through a resisting medium, which renders its course uncertain and comparatively slow, so that a moving opponent can avoid it. The vessel built to use it can be easily sunk by gun-fire. By night the risk from gun-fire is less, but science has nullified what she had done. The invention of the search-light has made it possible to keep the waters round a ship under observation all night. In the war between Russia and Japan the torpedo was at first used with success, but the injury it produced fell below expectations, even when allowance is made for the fact that the Russian squadron at Port Arthur had the means of repair close at hand. In the sea fights of the war it was of subordinate use, and indeed was not employed except to give the final stroke to, or force the surrender of, an already crippled ship. This war (and as much may be said for the war between the United States and Spain) confirmed an old experience. A resolute attempt was made by the Americans to block or blind (in the modern phrase to “bottle-up”) the entrance to Santiago de Cuba by sinking a ship in it. The Japanese renewed the attempt on a great scale, and with the utmost intrepidity, at Port Arthur; but though a steamer can move with a speed and precision impossible to a sailing ship, and can therefore be sunk more surely at a chosen spot, the experiment failed. Neither Americans nor Japanese succeeded in preventing their enemy from coming out when he wished to come.

Since neither ram nor torpedo has established the claim made for it, the cannon remains “the queen of battles at sea.” It can still deliver its blows at the greatest distance, and in the greatest variety of circumstances. The change has been in the method in which its power is applied. Now, as in former times, the aim of a skilful officer is to concentrate a superior force on a part of his opponent’s formation. When the range of effective fire was a thousand or twelve hundred yards, and when guns could only be trained over a small segment of a circle because they were fired out of ports, concentration could only be effected by bringing a larger number of ships into close action with a smaller. To-day when gun-fire is effective even at seven thousand yards, and when guns fired from turrets and barbettes have a far wider sweep, concentration can be effected from a distance. The power to effect it must be sought by a judicious choice of position. It is true that greater rapidity and precision of fire produce concentration in one way. If of two forces engaged one can bring forty guns to bear on a chosen point of its opponent’s formations, while that opponent can bring fifty guns to bear on a part of it, the superiority would seem to be with the larger number. But this is by no means necessarily the case. The smaller number of guns may give the greater number of blows if fired with greater speed and accuracy. Yet no commander has a right to rely on such a superiority as this till it has been demonstrated, as it had been in the case of the British fleet by the time that Trafalgar was fought. Therefore an able chief will always play for position. He will do so all the more because an advantage of position adds to any other which he may possess. He may dispense with it for a particular reason at a given moment and in reliance on other sources of strength, but he will not throw it away.

When position is to be secured the first condition to be thought of is the order in which it is to be sought for. The “line ahead” was imposed on the sailing fleets by the peremptory need for bringing, or at least retaining the power to bring, all their broadsides into action. Experiments made during manoeuvres by modern navies, together with the experience gained in the war of 1904–05 in the Far East, have combined to show that no material change has taken place in this respect. It is still as necessary as ever that all the guns should be so placed as to be capable of being brought to bear, and it is still a condition imposed by the physical necessities of the case that this freedom can only be obtained when ships follow one another in a line. When in pursuit or flight, or when steaming on the look-out for a still unseen enemy, a fleet may be arranged in the “line abreast.” A pursuing fleet would have to run the risk of being struck by torpedoes dropped by a retreating enemy. But it would have the advantage of being able to bring all its guns which can fire ahead to bear on the rear-ship of the enemy. When an opponent is prepared to give battle, and turns his broadside so as to bring the maximum of his gun-fire to bear, he must be answered by a similar display of force—in other words, the line ahead must be formed to meet the line ahead.

Both fleets being in this formation, how is the concentration of a superior force to be effected? If the opponents are equal in number, speed, armament, gunnery and the leadership of the