y strong to
do this, we may still be able to control some of the communications; that
is, our control may be general or local. Obvious as the point is, it needs
emphasising, because of a maxim that has become current that "the sea is
all one." Like other maxims of the kind, it conveys a truth with a trail of
error in its wake. The truth it contains seems to be simply this, that as a
rule local control can only avail us temporarily, for so long as the enemy
has a sufficient fleet anywhere, it is theoretically in his power to
overthrow our control of any special sea area.

It amounts indeed to little more than a rhetorical expression, used to
emphasise the high mobility of fleets as contrasted with that of armies and
the absence of physical obstacles to restrict that mobility. That this
vital feature of naval warfare should be consecrated in a maxim is well,
but when it is caricatured into a doctrine, as it sometimes is, that you
cannot move a battalion oversea till you have entirely overthrown your
enemy's fleet, it deserves gibbeting. It would be as wise to hold that in
war you must never risk anything.

It would seem to have been the evil influence of this travestied maxim
which had much to do with the cramped and timorous strategy of the
Americans in their late war with Spain. They had ample naval force to
secure such a local and temporary command of the Gulf of Mexico as to have
justified them at once in throwing all the troops they had ready into Cuba
to support the insurgents, in accordance with their war plan. They had also
sufficient strength to ensure that the communications with the
expeditionary force could not be interrupted permanently. And yet, because
the Spaniards had an undefeated fleet at sea somewhere, they hesitated, and
were nearly lost. The Japanese had no such illusions. Without having struck
a naval blow of any kind, and with a hostile fleet actually within the
theatre of operations, they started their essential military movement
oversea, content that though they might not be able to secure the control
of the line of passage, they were in a position to deny effective control
to the enemy. Our own history is full of such operations. There are cases
in plenty where the results promised by a successful military blow oversea,
before permanent command had been obtained, were great enough to justify a
risk which, like the Japanese, we knew how to minimise by judicious use of
our favourable geographical