ill be used in narrow waters, in
rivers, or to fluster or destroy ships in harbour or with poor-spirited
crews--that is to say, it will simply be an added power in the hands of
the nation that is predominant at sea. And, even then, it can be merely
destructive, while a sane and high-spirited fighter will always be
dissatisfied if, with an indisputable superiority of force, he fails to
take.[42]

No; the naval warfare of the future is for light, swift ships, almost
recklessly not defensive and with splendid guns and gunners. They will
hit hard and ram, and warfare which is taking to cover on land will
abandon it at sea. And the captain, and the engineer, and the gunner
will have to be all of the same sort of men: capable, headlong men, with
brains and no ascertainable social position. They will differ from the
officers of the British Navy in the fact that the whole male sex of the
nation will have been ransacked to get them. The incredible stupidity
that closes all but a menial position in the British Navy to the sons of
those who cannot afford to pay a hundred a year for them for some years,
necessarily brings the individual quality of the British naval officer
below the highest possible, quite apart from the deficiencies that must
exist on account of the badness of secondary education in England. The
British naval officer and engineer are not made the best of, good as
they are, indisputably they might be infinitely better both in quality
and training. The smaller German navy, probably, has an ampler pick of
men relatively, is far better educated, less confident, and more
strenuous. But the abstract navy I am here writing of will be superior
to either of these, and like the American, in the absence of any
distinction between officers and engineers. The officer will be an
engineer.

The military advantages of the command of the sea will probably be
greater in the future than they have been in the past. A fleet with
aerial supports would be able to descend upon any portion of the
adversary's coast it chose, and to dominate the country inland for
several miles with its gun-fire. All the enemy's sea-coast towns would
be at its mercy. It would be able to effect landing and send raids of
cyclist-marksmen inland, whenever a weak point was discovered. Landings
will be enormously easier than they have ever been before. Once a wedge
of marksmen has been driven inland they would have all the military
advantages of the defence wh