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20 that there is little record of the ancients having attempted timed strategies on a par with those attempted to-day, and it is also of course true that the certainty of steam is relative rather than absolute. Still there remains the fact that with sail a contrary wind told the blockaders that there was no fear of the enemy stealing out: while with both oar and steam exit was, and is, nearly always possible; and exit in any direction instead of in one only. Furthermore, the limitations of sail-power necessitated a technique not required by the ancients or by the moderns; and the result of this was to make the fighting man subordinate to the 'seaman.' It was sheer fine seamanship that enabled the English fleets to maintain their weary blockades of the French in the Great War. In our admiration of these qualities we are apt to over-look the fact that the purely military labours of the blockaders were comparatively easy: owing to the wind, they had but a few points of the compass to consider, where the ancients and the moderns had, and have, most of the thirty-two. The purely military problem, therefore, of blockades like those of Santiago and Port Arthur are more likely to echo incidents of ancient history than of the era of sails. A Togo in the days of sailing ships would surely have found little difficulty in preventing Russian sorties from Port Arthur.

In the following chapters certain incidents of ancient history in the days of the oar are examined,