tion or of actual warfare, upon certain
well-recognized principles; and for a given country or coast, since
the natural conditions remain permanent, the general dispositions, and
the relative power of the several works, if determined by men of
competent military knowledge, will remain practically constant during
long periods. It is true, doubtless, that purely military conclusions
must submit to some modification, in deference to the liability of a
population to panics. The fact illustrates again the urgent necessity
for the spread of sound elementary ideas on military subjects among
the people at large; but, if the great coast cities are satisfied of
their safety, a government will be able to resist the unreasonable
clamor--for such it is--of small towns and villages, which are
protected by their own insignificance. The navy is a more variable
element; for the demands upon it depend upon external conditions of a
political character, which may undergo changes not only sudden, but
extensive. The results of the war with Spain, for instance, have
affected but little the question of passive coast defence, by
fortification or otherwise; but they have greatly altered the
circumstances which hitherto have dictated the size of our active
forces, both land and sea. Upon the greater or less strength of the
navy depends, in a maritime conflict, the aggressive efficiency which
shortens war, and so mitigates its evils. In the general question of
preparation for naval war, therefore, the important centres and
internal waterways of commerce must receive local protection, where
they are exposed to attack from the sea; the rest must trust, and can
in such case safely trust, to the fleet, upon which, as the offensive
arm, all other expenditure for military maritime efficiency should be
made. The preposterous and humiliating terrors of the past months,
that a hostile fleet would waste coal and ammunition in shelling
villages and bathers on a beach, we may hope will not recur.

Before proceeding to study the operations of the war, the military and
naval conditions of the enemy at its outbreak must be briefly
considered.

Spain, being a state that maintains at all times a regular army,
respectable in numbers as well as in personal valor, had at the
beginning, and, from the shortness of the war, continued to the end to
have a decided land superiority over ourselves. Whatever we might hope
eventually to produce in the way of an effective ar