Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/268

 the whole question—the man in the street at home does contribute to victory or defeat. His letters to his friends who are righting, the tone of the newspapers which reflect his thoughts, the effect of his determination to go on fighting or not—all these things are inseparably connected with the results in the fighting line.

In the past secrecy has rarely led to any definite results. Old time leaders were wont to send out trusted agents with misleading reports, a system much used by Nelson in the Mediterranean in the great French war. But Nelson at one and the same time diligently studied French and Spanish newspapers to glean intelligence, without—so far as we can gather—reflecting that other newspapers were carefully supplied by him with false news of his own movements and intentions. He employed secrecy also when he joined his fleet before the battle of Trafalgar, ordering no salutes to be fired lest the enemy should suspect his arrival. Here he had a definite object in view, his desire was for Villeneuve to come out and be beaten, and he imagined, rightly or wrongly, that the knowledge that he was in command would keep the enemy in harbour. But even here it is permissible to wonder whether containing the enemy in harbour, as Cornwallis did off Brest, would not really have been a sounder step. Due allowance must be made for the moral effect of a glorious victory upon both the victorious and vanquished sides; but even when that is