Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/145

Rh attack, but generally speaking it may be said that such results as there were pointed to a possible sequel more akin to what befel Saumarez at Algeciras and D'Estaing at St. Lucia, than Nelson at the Nile.

As a corollary to the second problem there is the question of battles between equal or very nearly equal forces. A consideration of the question leaves us in doubt just as do the others already discussed.

In the decisive battle between Suffren and Hughes, April 12, 1782, the French concentrated on and severely injured two of the English ships, while the English fire was so distributed amongst the French that though the sum total of damage was about the same in both squadrons, yet the English were minus two ships for a long time, while all the French were able to make good their defects at sea. This is perhaps the best historical instance of the effects of what we now describe as 'fire control.' Something of the sort, of course, has always been an objective, whether in those innumerable battles in which one fleet concentrated on a portion of the other by contact, or in fights such as that of Round Island, where the Russians had hardly fired a shot at anything except the Mikasa, and the Japanese till late in the day devoted themselves to the Tsarevitch. The highest pitch was reached in those British peace manoeuvres in which a fleet was umpired as defeated because, when results were being assessed, it was found that every ship in the defeated squadron had during the