the command of the sea. It is
thus, first of all, a confirmation of the lesson with which this paper
opened--the lesson that command of the sea is a factor of the very
first importance in any war in which it is a factor at all. It is
secondarily a lesson in the ease with which a nation which has command
of the sea can, in these days of large fast steamers, transport its
military forces in practically unlimited numbers to any distance that
may be desired. It is thus an answer to the protestations of those who
insist that the United States is secured against the danger of
invasion by the thousands of miles of water which separate its coasts
from those of possible enemies; for it demonstrates what has, from
the day of the first Atlantic crossing by a steamship, become more and
more notably a fact--that the oceans which separate frontiers for
certain purposes, connect them for other purposes and especially for
purposes of transit and transportation. The term "Ocean Highway" is no
mere figure of speech. The millions of troops that have passed by
water from England into France have made the passage with infinitely
less difficulty than has been connected with the further passage by
land to the fighting lines; and the hundreds of thousands from
England, France, India, and Australia, which have assembled in the
Near East could not have covered the distances that they have covered,
if they had moved by land, in ten times the number of days they have
occupied in moving by sea. The sea being clear of enemy ships, the
route from Liverpool to the Dardanelles has been a lane for an easy
and pleasant promenade. With the Atlantic and Pacific controlled by
the fleets of nations at war with us, their waters would invite,
rather than impede, the movement of an army to our shores. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the significance of this lesson for the United
States.

A rather grewsome lesson, but one which cannot be ignored, is that
in a naval battle, there are, at the end, neither "wounded",
"missing", nor "prisoners" to be reported. A ship defeated is, and
will be, in a great majority of cases, a ship sunk; and sinking, she
will sink with all on board. Some few exceptions there may be, but
the rule can hardly fail to be as thus stated. One of the first
things that a ship does in preparing for battle is to get rid of her
boats; and, as both her companions and her opponents are sure to do
the same, her crew can neither help themselves