ts independent character,
and thenceforth its paramount function was to furnish a covering squadron
in touch with the troops.

Seeing how important are the support duties of such a force, the term
"Covering squadron" may seem ill-chosen to describe it. But it is adopted
for two reasons. In the first place, it was the one employed officially in
our service on the last mentioned occasion which was our last great
combined expedition. In preparing the descent on the Crimea, Sir Edmund
Lyons, who was acting as Chief of the Staff to Sir James Dundas, and had
charge of the combined operations, organised the fleet into a "Covering
squadron" and a "Squadron in charge of transports." In the second place,
the designation serves to emphasise what is its main and primary function.
For important as it is to keep in mind its support duties, they must not be
permitted to overshadow the fact that its paramount function is to prevent
interference with the actual combined operations--that is, the landing,
support, and supply of the army. Thus in 1705, when Shovel and Peterborough
were operating against Barcelona, Shovel was covering the amphibious siege
from the French squadron in Toulon. Peterborough required the assistance of
the marines ashore to execute a _coup de main_, and Shovel only consented
to land them on the express understanding that the moment his cruisers
passed the signal that the Toulon squadron was putting to sea, they would
have to be recalled to the fleet no matter what the state of the land
operations. And to this Peterborough agreed. The principle involved, it
will be seen, is precisely that which Lyons's term "Covering squadron"
embodies.

To quote anything that happened in the Crimean War as a precedent without
such traditional support will scarcely appear convincing. In our British
way we have fostered a legend that so far as organisation and staff work
were concerned that war was nothing but a collection of deterrent examples.
But in truth as a combined operation its opening movement both in
conception and organisation was perhaps the most daring, brilliant, and
successful thing of the kind we ever did. Designed as the expedition was to
assist an ally in his own country, it was suddenly called upon without any
previous preparation to undertake a combined operation of the most
difficult kind against the territory of a well-warned enemy. It involved a
landing late in the year on an open and stormy coast within stri