Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/83

Rh consisted altogether of about 160 important warships, disposed as follows:

Forty ships defending Sardinia.

Forty cruising off Sicily.

Eighty coastguard service off the Italian coast.

Of how the Carthaginian fleet was disposed we know very little. At least a hundred ships were at Carthage or thereabouts: while the defensive dispositions of the Romans suggest that many more Carthaginian vessels were engaged in raiding the coast of Italy or at the service of Hannibal at Tarentum. There is much to suggest that, at any rate at this period, Carthage had the sea command rather than Rome. In any case Scipio's fleet contained only twenty large warships to defend his fleet of transports. As there were a hundred warships at Carthage, Scipio, at any rate, displayed a fine disregard for the 'fleet in being' and all present-day conceptions of Sea Power.

Scipio reached Africa and landed quite unopposed. He besieged Utica and had advanced on Tunis, before the Carthaginian ships appeared. His naval position was then so desperate that he chained his transports together, crammed them with soldiers, and put his warships behind them,—certainly not the action of dominant Sea Power.

Through this defence the Carthaginians ultimately broke and destroyed half the Roman fleet—after which, for reasons unknown they retired to Carthage, allowed Tunis to surrender, and never more appeared in the