The Laws of successful scouting and of the use of "search curves" have been worked out mathematically, and they are used to find an enemy of which one has certain information; but they are also used by the enemy to avoid being found, and they aid the enemy that is sought almost as much as they aid the seeker. And the sought has the advantage that the use of force, if force can be employed, breaks up the application of the mathematics of the seeker.
It is true that two main bodies of two fleets may stumble against each other in the night-time, or in a fog or heavy mist. To prevent this possible occurrence, or to prevent a night attack by destroyers, no sure means has yet been found except examination before dark of a very large area around the fleet that is sought; but the area is too great for a search rigid enough to give complete security, and will probably be so until swift aircraft can scout over long distances at sea. Accepting for the minute the convention that the main body of each side goes at the cruising speed of 10 knots, and that darkness lasts 12 hours, each side will go 120 miles in darkness; and if the two main bodies happen to be going directly toward each other they will approach 240 miles in the darkness of one night. Therefore, a coming fleet, in order to feel entirely safe, would in daylight have to inspect by its scouts a circle of 120 miles radius. To insure safety against destroyer attack, the area would have to be much greater on account of the greater speed of destroyers.
Fig. 6
Unless our defending fleet knew with reasonable sureness, however, the location, speed, and direction of motion of the coming fleet, so that it could make its dispositions for attack, it would hardly desire to meet the enemy at night, unless it were confident that it would meet the train and not the main fleet or the destroyers. Night attacks, both on sea and land, are desirable, if the attacker can inflict surprise on the attacked, and not be surprised himself. In the darkness a flotilla of destroyers may make an attack on the various vulnerable colliers and supply vessels of a fleet, or even on the main body, and achieve a marked success, because that is the rôle they are trained to play. But the tremendous power and accuracy of battleships cannot be utilized or made available in darkness; and therefore a commander-in-chief, anxious to defeat by superior skill a coming fleet larger than his own, would hardly throw away all chance of using skill by risking his main body in a night encounter. Every operation planned by strategy is supposed to result from the "decision" which follows the estimate of the situation; even if in some simple or urgent cases, the decision is not laboriously worked out, but is almost unconscious and even automatic. Now, it is hardly conceivable that any estimate of the situation would be followed by a decision to go ahead and trust to luck, except in very desperate circumstances. In such circumstances, when hope is almost gone, a desperate blow, even in the dark, may save a situation—as a lucky hand at cards may redeem a gambler's fortune at even the last moment. But strategy is opposed to taking desperate measures; and pugilists and even gamblers recognize the fact that when a man becomes "desperate," his judgment is bad, and his chances of success are almost zero.
While it is possible, therefore, that the main bodies of hostile fleets may come together in the night, we may assume that it will not be as part of any planned operations, and therefore not within the scope of this discussion; and that any combat which may result will be one in which strategy will play no part, and in which even tactics will yield first place to chance.
But while our defending fleet will have to base most of its decisions on guesses, the coming fleet, on the other hand, having accepted the strategical disadvantage of leaving its base far in rear, will advance with all the advantage of the offensive, especially in knowing where it intends to go and what it desires to do. Coming over on a definite mission it will have been able to know what preparations to make; and as the naval Powers of Europe understand the need of co-ordination between policy and strategy, the fleet will doubtless have had time to make those preparations; it will not have started, in fact, and war will not have been declared, until all those preparations have been made.
We may assume that the coming fleet will come across with all possible precautions for protecting itself against detection by the defender's scouts, and therefore against an unexpected attack, by night or by day. It cannot receive an unexpected attack unless surprised; and how can it be surprised, if it has more scouts, faster scouts, and more powerfully armed scouts than the defending fleet has?
The possession of the more powerful scouts, however, will be valuable to the enemy, not only for forming a screen as a protection against enemy scouts, but also for scouting and thereby getting information for itself. A numerous squadron of scouts of different kinds, sent out ahead and on each flank would see any of our scouts that saw them; and the scouts that were the more powerful would force the weaker scouts back to the arms of their own main body, toward which the more powerful scouts would, of course, advance. The weaker scouts, therefore, would have no value whatever as a screen, save in retarding the advance of the stronger scouts, and in delaying their getting information.
If the coming fleet is more powerful than the defending fleet, and has a more numerous and powerful scouting force, it will, therefore, be able to push back the defending fleet, whether an actual battle occurs or not; and it will be able to bring over, also, a large invading force in transports if its fighting superiority be great enough. Furthermore, if we have not fortified and protected the places which the enemy would wish to seize and use as advanced naval bases, the enemy will be able to seize them, and will doubtless do so.
Of course, this is so obvious as to seem hardly worth declaring; and yet some people hesitate even to admit it, and thereby they assume a passive condition of moral cowardice; for they know that a strong force has always overcome a weaker force that opposed it in war; and that it always will do so, until force ceases to be force. They know that force is that which moves, or tends to move, matter; and that the greater the force, the more surely it will move matter, or anything that opposes it.
If, however, we establish naval bases near our valuable commercial and strategic ports, both on our coast and in the Caribbean, and if we fortify them so that an enemy could not take them quickly, the condition of the enemy fleet will be much less happy; because it will have to remain out on the ocean, where fuelling and repairing are very difficult, and where it will be exposed, day and night, especially at night, to attack by destroyers and submarines; and in case necessity demands the occasional division of the force, it must beware of attacks on the separated portions of the fleet. The condition of a large fleet under way on an enemy's coast is one requiring much patience and endurance, and one in which the number of vessels is liable to be continuously reduced by the guerilla warfare of the defenders.
In the case of our attempting offensive operations against the distant coast of an enemy, we would be in the same position as a foreign enemy would be in when attacking our coast, in that our chances of success would be excellent if our fleet were considerably superior to the defending fleet in fighting power, and in the number and strength of scouts, and if the enemy coast possessed numerous undefended bays and islands which we could seize as bases. But even if the superiority of our fleet in fighting power and scouts was considerably greater than the enemy's our ultimate success would be doubtful, if the enemy's coast and islands were so protected by guns and mines and submarines that we could not get a base near the scene of operations. It is true that the British were able to maintain blockades of the French coast during many weary months without any base nearer than England—a place far away to ships whose only motive power was sails; but destroyers and submarines and mines did not then exist, and these agencies are much more valuable to the defender than to the blockader who has no base at hand.
Our operations without a base on a distant enemy coast would be apt to degenerate into warding off a continual series of more or less minor attacks by the minor craft of the defender. The commander of our fleet would be constrained to keep his fighting force pretty close together, thus restricting his initiative; lest the entire enemy fleet catch a detached part out of supporting distance of the main body, and annihilate it with little loss to themselves. We could probably shut off most of the enemy's sea-borne commerce; and the war would become one of endurance between our fleet, on the one hand, and the economic forces and the morale of the enemy country on the other hand.
In the case of operations carried on far away from the bases of both fleets, operations like those that the French and British carried on in the West Indies, the commanders-in-chief will naturally be much less directed by the admiralties at home than will a commander-in-chief operating near home; and the strategical advantage, as affected by the proximity of bases, and by the possession of the better chance for the initiative, will be reduced to its minimum.
Of course, the victory will go to the more powerful force; but so many factors go to make up power, that it may be difficult to determine which is the more powerful, until after victory itself shall have decided it. Supposing the skill to be equal on both sides, the victory will go to the side that possesses the most numerous and powerful vessels of all kinds. But unless there is a very great disproportion, it may be difficult to determine which side has the more powerful ships, even though we may know which side has the more numerous. It is extremely difficult to compare even two single war-ships because we do not know the relative values of their factors. Suppose two ships, for instance, to be equal in all ways, except that one ship has ten 14-inch guns, and the other has twelve 12-inch guns of higher initial velocity. Which is the more powerful ship? Suppose one ship has more armor, another more speed. Formulæ designed to assign numerical values to fighting ships have been laboriously worked out, notably by Constructor Otto Kretschmer of the German navy; but the results cannot be accepted as anything except very able approximations. Furthermore, if shipAcould whip shipBunder some conditions,Bcould whipAunder other conditions. An extreme illustration would be battleshipAengaged with submarineBat close quarters;Bbeing on the surface in one case, and submerged in the other case.
Aircraft.—The influence of aircraft on naval operations is to be very great indeed, but in directions and by amounts that it would not be wise to attempt to predict. The most obvious influence will be in distant scouting, for which the great speed of aircraft will make them peculiarly adapted, as was demonstrated in the battle near the Skagerak. It is the belief of the author, however, that the time is close at hand when aeroplanes and dirigibles of large size will be capable of offensive operations of the highest order, including the launching of automobile torpedoes of the Whitehead type.
Skill.—The question of skill bears a relation to the question of the material power directed by it that is very vital, but very elusive. If, for instance, shipC, firing ten 12-inch guns on a side, fights shipD, firing five like guns on a side, the advantage would seem to be withC; but it would not be if each gun onDmade three hits, while each gun onCmade one hit; a relative performance not at all impossible or unprecedented. Similarily, if the head of the admiralty of theEfleet were a very skilful strategist, and the head of the admiralty of theFfleet were not, and if the various admirals, captains, lieutenants, engineers, and gunners of theEfleet were highly skilled, and those of theFfleet were not, theEfleet might be victorious, even if materially it were much the smaller in material and personnel. In case the head of the admiralty of theEfleet were the more skilful, while the officers of theFfleet were, on the average, more skilful than those of theEfleet, it would be impossible to weigh the difference between them; but as a rough statement, it may be said that if the head of the admiralty of either fleet is more skilful than the other, his officers will probably be more skilful than the officers of the other; so pervasive is the influence of the chief.
The effectiveness of modern ships and guns and engines and torpedoes, when used with perfect skill, is so great that we tend unconsciously to assume the perfect skill, and think of naval power in terms of material units only. Yet daily life is full of reminders that when two men or two bodies of men contend, the result depends in large though varying measure on their relative degrees of skill.
Whenever one thinks of using skill, he includes in his thought the thing in the handling of which the skill is employed. One can hardly conceive of using skill except in handling something of the general nature of an instrument, even if the skill is employed in handling something which is not usually called an instrument. For instance, if a man handles an organization with the intent thereby to produce a certain result, the organization is the instrument whereby he attempts to produce the result.
If a man exercises perfect skill, he achieves with his instrument 100 per cent of its possible effect. If he exercises imperfect skill, he achieves a smaller percentage of its possible effect.
To analyze the effectiveness of skill, let us coin the phrase, "effective skill," and agree that, if a man produces 100 per cent of the possible, his effective skill is 100 per cent, and, in general, that a man's effective skill in using any instrument is expressed by the percentage he achieves of what the instrument can accomplish; that, for instance, if a gun is fired at a given range under given conditions, and 10 per cent hits are made in a given time, then the effective skill employed is 10 per cent.
From this standpoint we see that imperfect skill is largely concerned with errors. If a man uses, say, a gun, with perfect skill, he commits no error in handling the gun; and the smaller the sum total of errors which he commits in handling the gun, the greater his effective skill and the greater the number of hits.
The word "errors," as here used, does not simply mean errors of commission, but means errors of omission as well. If a man, in firing a gun, fails to press the button or trigger when his sights are on, he makes an error just as truly as the man does who presses the button or trigger when the sights are not on.
Suppose that, in firing a gun, under given conditions of range, etc., the effective skill employed is 10 per cent. This means that 10 per cent of hits are made. But it means another thing equally important—it means that 90 per cent of misses are made. To what are these misses due? Clearly they are due to errors made, not necessarily by the man who fires the gun, but by all the people concerned. If the correct sight-bar range were given to the, gun, and if the gun were correctly laid and the pointer pressed the button at precisely the right instant, the shot would hit the target, practically speaking. But, in actual practice, the range-finder makes an error, the spotter makes an error, the plotting-room makes an error, the sight-setter makes an error, and the gun-pointer makes an error. The sum total of all of these errors results in 90 per cent of misses.
Suppose that by careful training these errors are reduced in the relation of 9 to 8, so that instead of there being 90 per cent of misses there are only 80 per cent. This does not seem a very difficult thing for training to accomplish, but note the result: the hits are increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. In other words, by a decrease in errors in the relation of 9 to 8, the effective skill and the hits are doubled.
Conversely, if the errors increased in the ratio of 9 to 10, the misses would increase from 90 per cent to 100 per cent, and the hits would be reduced from 10 per cent to 0.
Suppose now that the conditions are so very difficult that only 1 per cent of hits is made, or 99 per cent of misses, and that by training the misses are reduced from 99 per cent to 98 per cent. Clearly, by a decrease of errors of hardly more than 1 per cent the effective skill and the hits are doubled.
Conversely, if the errors increased in the ratio of 99 to 100, the misses would increase from 99 per cent to 100 per cent, and the hits would be reduced from 1 per cent to 0.
But suppose that the conditions are so easy that 90 per cent of hits are made and only 10 per cent of misses. Clearly, if the errors were divided by 10, so that only 1 per cent of misses was made, instead of 10 per cent, the number of hits would increase only 9 per cent, from 90 per cent to 99 per cent.
Of course, this is merely an arithmetical way of expressing the ancient truths that skill becomes more and more important as the difficulties of handling an instrument increase; and that, no matter how effective an instrument may be when used with perfect skill, the actual result obtained in practice is only the product of its possible performance and the effective skill with which it is used.
Applying this idea to naval matters, we see why the very maximum of skill is required in our war mechanisms and war organizations, in their almost infinite variety and complexity. The war mechanisms and war organizations of the military nations are capable of enormous results, but only when they are used with enormous skill. There are no other instruments or organizations that need so much skill to handle them, because of the difficulties attending their use and the issues at stake. Their development has been a process long and painful. On no other things has so much money been spent; to perfect no other things have so many lives been sacrificed; on no other things, excepting possibly religion, have so many books been written; to no other things has the strenuous exertion of so many minds been devoted; in operating no other things has such a combination of talent and genius and power of will and spirit been employed.
A battleship is an instrument requiring skill to handle well, considered both as a mechanism and as an organization. Its effective handling calls for skill not only on the part of the captain, but on the part of all hands. The finest dreadnaught is ineffective if manned by an ineffective crew. The number and complexity of the mechanisms on board are so great as to stagger the imagination; and the circumstances of modern warfare are so difficult that, as between two forces evenly matched as to material, a comparatively slight advantage in errors made will turn the scale in favor of the more skilful. A difference in errors, for instance, in the relation of 9 to 8, under the conditions mentioned above, between two fleets having an equal number of similar ships, would give one side twice as many hits as the other in any given length of time.
In March, 1905, the writer published an essay in theProceedings of the U. S. Naval Institutecalled "American Naval Policy," in which the effect of initial superiority in gun-fire was shown in tables. One table showed that an initial advantage of only 10 per cent secured an overwhelming victory by an accumulative effect. Now a difference of 10 per cent in hits, under conditions in which the hits were about 10 per cent of the maximum, would mean, roughly speaking, the difference between 10 hits and 9 hits in a given length of time, or a difference between 90 misses and 91 misses; a difference in errors made of a little more than 1 per cent.
The conclusion to be drawn is too obvious to be stated. Perhaps the conclusion is not broadly new; but possibly the idea is new that so small a difference in errors made will, under conditions of sufficient difficulty, produce such a tremendous difference in results.
Now, a division is more complex and more difficult to handle perfectly than is a battleship; a squadron more so than a division; a fleet more so than a squadron; a navy more so than a fleet.
Necessity for Knowledge of the Naval Machine.—There is no machine or tool so simple that knowledge of it is not needed in order to use it skilfully. This does not mean that intimate knowledge of the details of construction of a machine is necessary in order to operate it; it does not mean, for instance, that a sharp-shooter must have a profound knowledge of the metallurgy of the metal of which his gun is mainly made, or of the laws of chemistry and physics that apply to powder, or of the laws of ballistics that govern the flight of the bullet to its target. But it does mean that any skilful handler of any machine must know how to use it; that a sharpshooter, for instance, must know how to use his machine—the gun.
Of course, a sharpshooter's skill is exercised in operating under very limited conditions, the conditions of shooting; and it does not include necessarily the maintenance of his gun in good condition. The operating of some machines, however, includes the maintenance of those machines; and a simple illustration is that of operating an automobile. An automobile is constructed to be operated at considerable distances from home; and a man whose knowledge and skill were limited to steering, stopping, starting, and backing the car—who had no knowledge of its details of construction and could not repair a trifling injury—would have very little value as a chauffeur.
A like remark might truthfully be made about the operation of any complex machine; and the more complex the machine, the more aptly the remark would apply. The chief engineer of any electric plant, of any municipal water-works, of any railroad, of any steamship must have the most profound and intimate knowledge of the details of construction and the method of operation of the machine committed to his charge. Recognition of this fact by the engineering profession is so complete and perfect as to be almost unconscious; and no man whose reasoning faculties had been trained by the exact methods of engineering could forget it for a moment. The whole structure of that noble science rests on facts that have been demonstrated to be facts, and the art rests on actions springing from those facts; and neither the science nor the art would now exist, if machines created by engineering skill had been committed to the charge of men unskilled.
It is obvious that the more complicated in construction any machine is, the more time and study are needed to understand it fully; and that the more complicated its method of operation is, the more practice is needed in order to attain skill in operating it.
The more simple the method of operation, the more closely a machine approaches automatism; but even automatic machines are automatic only in so far as their internal mechanisms are concerned; and the fact of their being automatic does not eliminate the necessity for skill in using them. An automatic gun, for instance, no matter how perfectly automatically it discharges bullets, may be fired at an advancing enemy skilfully or unskilfully, effectively or ineffectively.
In operating some machines, such as a soldier's rifle, or a billiard cue, the number of mental, nervous, and muscular operations is apparently very few; yet every physician knows that the number is very great indeed, and the operations extremely complex—complex beyond the knowledge of the psychologist, physicist, chemist, and biologist. The operation of more complex mechanisms, such as automobiles, seems to be more difficult, because the operator has more different kinds of things to do. Yet that it is really more difficult may be doubted for two reasons; one being that each single operation is of a more simple nature, and the other reason being that we know that a much higher degree of skill is possessed by a great billiardist than by an automobile chauffeur. Of course, the reason of this may be that competition among billiardists has been much more keen than among chauffeurs; but even if this be true, it reminds us thatthe difficulty of operating any machine depends on the degree of skill exacted. It also reminds us that, if a machine is to be operated in competition with another machine, the skill of the operator should be as great as it can be made.
The steaming competitions that have been carried on in our navy for several years are examples on a large scale of competitive trials of skill in operating machines. These machines are very powerful, very complex, very important; and that supreme skill shall be used in operating them is very important too. For this reason, every man in the engineering department of every ship, from the chief engineer himself to the youngest coal-passer, is made to pass an examination of some kind, in order that no man may be put into any position for which he is unfit, and no man advanced to any position until he has shown himself qualified for it, both by performance in the grade from which he seeks to rise, and by passing a professional examination as to the duties in the grade to which he desires to rise.
The same principles apply to all machines; and the common sense of mankind appreciates them, even if the machines are of the human type. A captain of a company of soldiers, in all armies and in all times, has been trained to handle a specific human machine; so has the captain of a football team, so has the rector of a church. The training that each person receives gives him such a subconscious sense of the weights and uses of the various parts of the machine, that he handles them almost automatically—and not only automatically but instantly. The captain on the bridge, when an emergency confronts him, gives the appropriate order instantly.
Now the word "machine" conveys to the minds of most of us the image of an engine made of metal, the parts of which are moved by some force, such as the expansive force of steam. But machines were in use long before the steam-engine came, and one of the earliest known to man was man himself—the most perfect machine known to him now, and one of the most complicated and misused; for who of us does not know of some human machine of the most excellent type, that has been ruined by the ignorance or negligence of the man to whose care it was committed?
A machine is in its essence an aggregation of many parts, so related to each other and to some external influence, that the parts can be made to operate together, to attain some desired end or object. From this point of view, which the author believes to be correct, a baseball team is a machine, so is a political party, so is any organization.
Before the days of civilization, machines were few in type; but as civilization progressed, the necessity for organizations of many kinds grew up, and organizations of many kinds appeared. Then the necessity for knowledge of how to operate those organizations brought about certain professions, first that of the military, second that of the priesthood, and later those of the law, medicine, engineering, etc. As time has gone on, the preparation required for these professions, especially the progressive professions, has become increasingly difficult and increasingly demanded; and the members of the professions have become increasingly strict in their requirements of candidates for membership.
Now the profession that is the most strict of all, that demands the greatest variety of qualifications, and the earliest apprenticeship, is the military. The military profession serves on both the land and the sea, in armies and navies; and while both the land and the sea branches are exacting in their demands, the sea or naval branch is the more exacting of the two; by reason of the fact that the naval profession is the more esoteric, the more apart from the others, the more peculiar. In all the naval countries, suitable youths are taken in hand by their governments, and initiated into the "mysteries" of the naval profession—mysteries that would always remain mysteries to them, if their initiation were begun too late in life. Many instances are known of men who obtained great excellence in professions which they entered late in life; but not one instance in the case of a man who entered the naval profession late in life. And though some civilian heads of navies have shown great mental capacity, and after—say three years'—incumbency have shown a comprehension of naval matters greater than might have been expected, none has made a record of performance like those of the naval ministers of Germany and Japan; or of Admiral Barham, as first lord of the admiralty, or Sir John Fisher as first sea lord, in England.
A navy is so evidently a machine that the expression "naval machine" has often been applied to it. It is a machine that, both in peace and in war, must be handled by one man, no matter how many assistants he may have. If a machine cannot be made to obey the will of one man, it is not one machine. If two men are needed, at least two machines are to be operated; if three men are needed there are at least three machines, etc. One fleet is handled by one man, called the commander-in-chief. If there are two commanders-in-chief, there are two fleets; and these two fleets may act in conjunction, in opposition, or without reference to each other.
The fact of a machine being operated by one man does not, however, prevent the machine from comprising several machines, operated by several men. A vessel of war, for instance, is operated as a unit by one man; the words "vessel of war," meaning not only the inert hull, but all the parts of personnel and material that make a vessel of war. The captain does not handle each individual machine or man; but he operates the mechanism and the personnel, by means of which all the machines and men are made to perform their tasks.
Now the naval machine is composed of many machines, but the machines that have to be "operated" in war, using the word "operated" in the usual military sense, are only the active fleet, the bureaus and offices and the bases; including in the bases any navy-yards within them. Using the word "operated" still more technically, the only thing to be operated in war is the fleet: but the head of the Navy Department must also so direct the logistical efforts of the bureaus and offices and bases, that the fleet shall be given the material in fuel, supplies, and ammunition with which to conduct those operations. Like the chief engineer of a ship, he must both operate and maintain the machine.
The fleet itself is a complex machine, even in time of peace. In war time it is more so, for the reason that many additions are made to the fleet when war breaks out; and these additions, being largely of craft and men held in reserve, or brought in hurriedly from civil life, cannot be so efficient or so reliable as are the parts of the fleet that existed in time of peace.
The active fleet consists of battleships, battle cruisers, cruisers of various speeds and sizes, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft. The fleet is under the immediate command of its commander-in-chief, just as the New York naval station is under the command of its commandant; but the commander-in-chief of the fleet is just as strictly under the command of the head of the admiralty or Navy Department as is the commandant. The commander-in-chief is the principal part of the naval machine that is operated in war; and the ultimate success of the naval machine in war depends largely on the amount and degree of understanding that exists between the commander-in-chief and the head of the Navy Department. That goodwill and kindly feeling should exist between them may be assumed, since both have the same object in view; but that real understanding should exist between them is more difficult to assume, especially if they have been trained in different schools and have not known each other until late in life. In the latter case, misunderstandings are apt to arise, as time goes on; and if they do, the most cordial good feeling may change into mutual distrust and suspicion, and even hatred. To see that such things have happened in the past, we do not have to look further back in history than the records of our own Civil War, especially the records of the mutual relations of the head of the War Department and some generals. That a situation equally grave did not exist between the head of the Navy Department and any of the admirals may be attributed to the fact that the number of naval defeats was less than the number of defeats on land, to the lesser number of persons in the navy, and to the smaller number of operations. Perhaps a still greater reason was the greater confidence shown by civilians in their ability to handle troops, compared with their confidence in their ability to handle fleets.
Even between the Navy Department and the officers, however, mutual respect and understanding can hardly be said to have existed. This did not prevent the ultimate triumph of the Union navy; but that could hardly have been prevented by any means, since the Union navy was so much superior to the Confederate.
Co-operation between the Navy Department and the Fleet.—In any war with a powerful navy, into which the U. S. navy may enter, the question of co-operation between the department and the fleet will be the most important factor in the portentous situation that will face us. We shall be confronted with the necessity of handling the most complex and powerful machine known to man with the utmost possible skill; and any lack of understanding between the fleet and the department, and any slowness of apprehension or of action by the department, may cause a national disaster. One of the most important dangers to be guarded against will be loss of time. In naval operations the speed of movement of the forces is so great that crises develop and pass with a rapidity unexampled formerly; so that delays of any kind, or due to any causes, must be prevented if that be possible. If a swordsman directs a thrust at the heart, the thrust must be parried—in time.
Click to enlargeSTRATEGIC MAP OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS.