Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/255

Rh This is practically the only scheme that offers prospects of a successful German invasion; and though success must be admitted as possible, the difficulties in the way of securing the necessary conditions are very considerable indeed. Its best chance of success would lie in the seeming wild impracticability of it all: that fact alone would allay the suspicions that any large collection of ships in German harbours would otherwise arouse.

The question is essentially a military rather than a naval one. If means were found to discount the Fleet for the first few days, it is easier to assert than to prove that the presence of the fleet later on would save the situation, especially as, were the bulk of ships in home waters destroyed or shut in, the combined Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets would not very greatly outmatch the German navy. They could not force the Straits of Dover without delays, difficulty, and perhaps heavy loss, and even having forced them and destroyed the German fleet, their influence upon the land operations would for some days be infinitesimal. They would certainly, having forced Dover Straits, stop the bulk of supply ships, and cut sea communications, but it is easy to overestimate the value of these to a powerful army marching through a prosperous country to the no distant goal of London,