iew of the great distance from Europe
to our coast, and the impossibility of preventing the knowledge
reaching us of the departure of the fleet (unless indeed all the
powers of Europe combined to prevent it), it seems probable that
no such issuing could be prevented, and that a very considerable
American force would have time to take its station out at sea,
prepared to meet the coming foe.

The home bases if properly prepared would exert a powerful effect
on a battle near them by equipping the fleet adequately and promptly,
and also by preventing a possible defeat from becoming a disaster,
by receiving wounded ships before they sank. The wounded ships
of the enemy, on the other hand, would have no base near by, and
only those inconsiderably injured could probably be gotten home.

CHAPTER XII

OPERATING THE MACHINE

The naval machine, including the various vessels of all kinds,
the bases and the personnel, having been designed, put together,
and prepared for its appointed task of conducting war, and the
appointed task having at last been laid upon it, how shall the
machine be operated--how shall it be made successfully to perform
its task?

In order to answer this correctly, we must first see clearly what
is its task.

_War_.--War may be said to be the act of two nations or two sets
of nations, by means of which each tries to get its way by physical
force. The peaceful methods of diplomacy having been exhausted,
arguments and threats having been tried in vain, both parties resort
to the oldest and yet the latest court; the same court as that to
which resort the lions of the desert, the big and little fishes
of the sea, the fowls of the air, and even the blades of grass
that battle for the sunshine.

The vastness of the issue decided by war, the fact that from its
decision there is no appeal, the greatness of the forces that nations
can produce, the length of experience of war extending through
8,000 wars, and during more than three thousand years of recorded
history, the enormous literature of the subject, and the fact that
more brain power, energy, and character have been devoted to war
than to any other fruit of man's endeavor--combine to give to the
conduct of war an importance that no other subject can possess.

The thing that each side brings forward against the other side is
force; "that which moves or tends to move matter." In all ages, it
has been directed primarily against the physical bodies o