Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/148

124 of 'Tactics alter while strategies do not' is correct. That is the obvious lesson. But is it necessarily correct?

If we accept such an explanation we must, to be logical, say that Nelson won the battle of the Nile because 'tactics had altered' since experience had shown that a fleet anchored like that of Brueys was safe from attack. Yet both before and after the Nile similar attempts were failures: and so we are driven to confess that the Nile was probably a victory just because Nelson and his men happened to be the men fittest to win in such a conflict, and that tactics were a secondary matter.

Pursuing this train of thought, we may ask whether results would have been materially different had the Japanese at Round Island elected to destroy entirely the Tsarevitch and Retvizan, or the Russians attempted a scheme of general damage, instead of trying to annihilate the Mikasa?

The only conceivable answer is surely in the negative; and a similar answer results from any other battle being considered in the same light.

The same reasoning may be applied to strategy. We may supply Rogestvensky with the best possible strategy, but who will contend that had he adopted the best possible to be derived from a study of history he would have fared any better than he did? His defeat would not perhaps have been in Tsushima Straits, but would there have been any other material