ially unwise in the case of concentration and division.
The current rule is that it is bad to divide unless you have a great
superiority; yet there have been numerous occasions when, being at war with
an inferior enemy, we have found our chief embarrassment in the fact that
he kept his fleet divided, and was able thereby to set up something like a
deadlock. The main object of our naval operations would then be to break it
down. To force an inferior enemy to concentrate is indeed the almost
necessary preliminary to securing one of those crushing victories at which
we must always aim, but which so seldom are obtained. It is by forcing the
enemy to attempt to concentrate that we get our opportunity by sagacious
dispersal of crushing his divisions in detail. It is by inducing him to
mass that we simplify our problem and compel him to choose between leaving
to us the exercise of command and putting it to the decision of a great
action.

Advocates of close concentration will reply that that is true enough. We do
often seek to force our enemy to concentrate, but that does not show that
concentration is sometimes a disadvantage, for we ourselves must
concentrate closely to force a similar concentration on the enemy. The
maxim, indeed, has become current that concentration begets concentration,
but it is not too much to say that it is a maxim which history flatly
contradicts. If the enemy is willing to hazard all on a battle, it is true.
But if we are too superior, or our concentration too well arranged for him
to hope for victory, then our concentration has almost always had the
effect of forcing him to disperse for sporadic action. So certain was this
result, that in our old wars, in which we were usually superior, we always
adopted the loosest possible concentrations in order to prevent sporadic
action. True, the tendency of the French to adopt this mode of warfare is
usually set down to some constitutional ineptitude that is outside
strategical theory, but this view is due rather to the irritation which the
method caused us, than to sober reasoning. For a comparatively weak
belligerent sporadic action was better than nothing, and the only other
alternative was for him to play into our hands by hazarding the decision
which it was our paramount interest to obtain. Sporadic action alone could
never give our enemy command of the sea, but it could do us injury and
embarrass our plans, and there was always hope it might so much loos