Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/70

54 the other hand exhibited superior tactical qualities, and their victory was of the easiest description. Hanno's fleet was annihilated.

Communications with Sicily cut, her mercenaries almost in a state of revolt, Carthage surrendered Lilybæum and Drepanum and made peace.

Few wars are more interesting and instructive than this—the first Punic War. The bone of contention was an island: but that island was invaded with considerable success by a military power which had practically no fleet at all.

It may be said that the Carthaginians should have been able to stop the invasion by Sea Power; and gross laxity would seem the only explanation of their failure to do so. But on examination it will be found that Carthage did not desire war, and the invasion was of the nature of a political surprise—in some ways not very dissimilar to that invasion of Korea which began the Russo-Japanese War in February 1904. A nation resolved on war can always undertake a military operation to open that war against a nation less eager to fight. A Continental ideal for the defeat of England is the declaration of war by the landing on British shores of the hostile army. Whether practicable or not in these days of telegraphs and steam, the idea is not at all a novel one, and something of the sort is to be found in the Roman invasion of Sicily. Japan's invasion of Korea in 1904 is not on a par with projected invasions of England, since Japan had the conviction