and lend it the power to strike. Alone and
unaided the army cannot depend on getting itself ashore, it cannot supply
itself, it cannot secure its retreat, nor can it avail itself of the
highest advantages of an amphibious force, the sudden shift of base or line
of operation. These things the fleet must do for it, and it must do them
with its men.[25]

[25] The Japanese in the late war attempted to do this work by means of a
highly organized Army Disembarkation Staff, but except in perfect
conditions of weather and locality it does not seem to have worked well,
and in almost all cases the assistance of the navy was called in.

The authority for this view is abundant. In 1800, for instance, when
General Maitland was charged with an expedition against Belleisle, he was
invited to state what naval force he would require. He found it difficult
to fix with precision. "Speaking loosely, however," he wrote, "three or
four sail of the line and four or five active frigates appear to me to be
properly adequate to the proposed service. The frigates to blockade."
(Meaning, of course, to blockade the objective and prevent reinforcements
reaching it from the mainland, always one of the supporting functions of
the squadron attached to the transports.) "The line-of-battle ships," he
adds, "to furnish us with the number of men necessary for land operations."
In this case our permanent blockading squadrons supplied the cover, and
what Maitland meant was that the battleships he asked for were to be added
to the transport squadron not as being required for escort, but for
support. St. Vincent, who was then First Lord, not only endorsed his
request, but gave him for disembarkation work one more ship-of-the-line
than he had asked for. At this time our general command of the sea had been
very fully secured, and we had plenty of naval force to spare for its
exercise. It will be well to compare it with a case in which the
circumstances were different.

When in 1795 the expedition under Admiral Christian and General Abercromby
was being prepared for the West Indies, the admiral in concert with Jervis
drew up a memorandum as to the naval force required.[26] The force he asked
for was considerable. Both he and Jervis considered that the escort and
local cover must be very strong, because it was impossible to count on
closing either Brest or Toulon effectually by blockade. But this was not
the only reason. The plan of operations involved th