gth required
would be measured by the dangers of interference in transit. But as it is,
that standard will not serve for combined expeditions; for however small
those risks, the protective arrangements must be sufficiently extensive to
include arrangements for support.

Before dealing with this, the most complex aspect of the question, it will
be well to dismiss attack. From the strategical point of view its
principles differ not at all from those already laid down for active
resistance of invasion. Whether the expedition that threatens us be small
or of invasion strength, the cardinal rule has always been that the
transports and not the escort must be the primary objective of the fleet.
The escort, according to the old practice, must be turned or contained, but
never treated as a primary objective unless both turning and containing
prove to be impracticable. It is needless to repeat the words of the old
masters in which this principle lies embalmed. It is seldom that we find a
rule of naval strategy laid down in precise technical terms, but this one
is an exception. In the old squadronal instructions, "The transports of the
enemy are to be your principal object," became something like a common
form.

Nor did this rule apply only to cases where the transports were protected
by a mere escort. It held good even in the exceptional cases where the
military force was accompanied or guarded by the whole available battle
strength of the enemy. We have seen how in 1744 Norris was prepared to
follow the French transports if necessary with his whole force, and how in
1798 Nelson organised his fleet in such a way as to contain rather than
destroy the enemy's battle-squadron, so that he might provide for an
overwhelming attack upon the transports.

Exceptions to this as to all strategical rules may be conceived. Conditions
might exist in which, if the enemy's battle-fleet accompanied his
transports, it would be worth our while, for ulterior objects of our own,
to risk the escape of the transports in order to seize the opportunity of
destroying the fleet. But even in such a case the distinction would be
little more than academical; for our best chance of securing a decisive
tactical advantage against the enemy's fleet would usually be to compel it
to conform to our movements by threatening an attack on the transports. It
is well known that it is in the embarrassment arising from the presence of
transports that lies the special wea