ng sea is narrowest, and where the army's passage
will be exposed to interference for the shortest time. The covering fleet
will operate from a point as distant as convenient, so as to entice the
enemy as far as possible from the army's line of passage. The defender
replies by blockading the army's ports of departure with a flotilla of
light vessels capable of dealing with transports, or by establishing a
mobile defence of the threatened coasts which transports cannot break
unaided, or more probably he will combine both expedients. The first
fallacy of the invasion plan is then apparent. The narrower the sea, the
easier it is to watch. Pure evasion becomes impossible, and it is necessary
to give the transports sufficient armed strength by escort or otherwise to
protect them against flotilla attack. The defender at once stiffens his
flotilla defence with cruisers and intermediate ships, and the invader has
to arrange for breaking the barrier with a battle-squadron. So weak and
disturbing a position is then set up that the whole scheme begins to give
way, if, that is, the defender has clung stubbornly to the strategy we
always used. Our battle-fleet refused to seek out that of the invader. It
has always held a position between the invader's fleet and the blockaded
invasion base, covering the blockade and flotilla defence. To enable a
battle-squadron to break our hold and to reinforce the army escort, the
invader must either force this covering position by battle, or disturb it
so effectively as to permit the reinforcing squadron to evade it. But since
_ex hypothesi_ he is trying to invade without securing the command by
battle, he will first try to reinforce his transport escort by evasion. At
once he is faced with new difficulty. The reinforcement entails dividing
his fleet, and this is an expedient so vicious and disturbing to morale,
that no invader has ever been found to risk it. And for this reason. To
make evasion possible for the detached squadron, he must bring up the rest
of his force and engage the attention of the enemy's fleet, and thus unless
he is in very great superiority, and by hypothesis is not--he runs the
hazard of having his two divisions beaten in detail. This method has
sometimes been urged by Governments, but so loud have been the protests
both from the fleet and the army, that it has always been dropped, and the
invader finds himself at the end of the vicious circle. Unable to reinforce
his transport