Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/364

332 observed, crudely elemental. Carried to its logical sequence it robs many great men of the past of the tactical genius with which history has invested them. It makes waste paper of all teachings about the strategies and tactics that have led to victory in the past; for, the theory accepted, it matters nothing that Rodney cut the line on the day that made his name. Had his line been cut instead victory would still have been his, because he was Rodney and able to infuse fitness to win into his men, and because those men had it latent in them. How Nelson went into action at Trafalgar becomes no longer of significance or even of interest, because the way he placed his ships is a trivial detail beside the fact that the fitness to win lay with him and his men. Having the ships and guns he won as he did; had he not had them, could Villeneuve have won? Yes—in so far as the possession of the necessary ships and guns is part of the fitness, but otherwise No. Rome devoid of any Sea Power succeeded in beating a great sea empire upon the sea; and so, Nelson and his men, suddenly robbed of all their battleships would probably have succeeded still. They would have anticipated the shell or the torpedo, or resuscitated the Roman battleship idea, so only the nation were sufficiently fit to win.

So wild the fancies to which a logical thinking out of the 'Fitness to Win' theory may lead. It is a great deal easier to sit down and say 'Because he made certain moves he obtained an advantage, because