Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/90

74 one base on this a theory that cruisers well handled are sufficient to meet battleships? Scarcely: since the difference in personnel was so marked. Yet at the battle of Yalu in the Chino-Japanese War the conditions were in many ways not dissimilar, cruisers fought comparatively successfully with a fleet containing two (relatively) monster battleships. On the battleship side there was no leader—for Ting was out of action through the concussion of the first gun fired. At least one Chinese ship fled; whatever the moral effect of such an incident may be worth, it was present. Of course, Yalu was a trifling affair compared to Actium, the issues being narrower; still the comparison is profitable, the teachings of history being worth little except when applied to some modern conditions to enable us to seek for eternal principles—if they are to be found. And what do we find? That the fittest to win were victors despite the inferior matiéiel with which they were handicapped. All other details and conditions are mere embroidery.

After Actium it is natural that we should consider Lepanto. Here after an interval of hundreds of years the issue was fought on very much the same spot, and the territories involved were much the same. The Christians, like Antony, trusted in monster ships, six mastodons being in the fore front of the fight. The Turks had the smaller and handier vessels and the Turks were hopelessly defeated.