Page:The Next Naval War - Eardley-Wilmot - 1894.djvu/12

 useful work than by allowing them to pass through and remaining attached to the vessel.

The special preparations in France had begun some seven years previously, when a thorough overhaul of the dockyards had been undertaken; old stores and machinery had been removed, the plant in all respects improved, and many old officials replaced by others with modern ideas. At the same time a change of policy in the distribution of the fleet took place. Formerly Brest had been the principal naval port, in which a large portion of the fleet was usually located; but gradually, as ships were completed here and at Cherbourg, they were sent to Toulon. This passed unnoticed at first, until England woke up to find that in the Mediterranean there was a force equal to that which she maintained in those waters and in the Channel combined; while France had a squadron in the north that, being always in commission, had a great advantage over any reserve which only comes together once a year.

It must not be supposed that this could be achieved with a fleet numerically smaller than our own, and other points remain as well guarded. We had been beguiled into retaining a number of slow vessels on foreign stations by observing that France had followed a like policy, and hence under such a condition we were not at a disadvantage. But our rival pursued this system as a blind, for arrangements had been made that at a given time