were complete. But it is
to be observed that his objections to the plan were really due, not to the
principle of its organisation, but to our having insufficient force to give
it adequate naval support without prejudicing the higher consideration of
our whole position at sea.[27]

[27] On analogous grounds almost every military critic has condemned the
policy of this disastrous expedition as involving a dispersal of our
slender military force at a time when everything called for its
concentration in Europe.

It is obvious that the foregoing considerations, beyond the strategical
reactions already noted, will have another of the first importance, in that
they must influence the choice of a landing place. The interest of the army
will always be to fix it as near to the objective as is compatible with an
unopposed landing. The ideal was one night's march, but this could rarely
be attained except in the case of very small expeditions, which could be
landed rapidly at the close of day and advance in the dark. In larger
expeditions, the aim was to effect the landing far enough from the
objective to prevent the garrison of the place or the enemy's local forces
offering opposition before a footing was secured. The tendency of the navy
will usually be in the opposite direction; for normally the further they
can land the army away from the enemy's strength, the surer are they of
being able to protect it against naval interference. Their ideal will be a
place far enough away to be out of torpedo range, and to enable them to
work the covering and the transport squadron in sound strategical
independence.

To reduce these divergencies to a mean of efficiency some kind of joint
Staff is necessary, and to ensure its smooth working it is no less
desirable to ascertain, so far as possible, the principles and method on
which it should proceed. In the best recent precedents the process has been
for the Army Staff to present the limits of coast-line within which the
landing must take place for the operation to have the desired effect, and
to indicate the known practicable landing points in the order they would
prefer them. It will then be for the Naval Staff to say how nearly in
accordance with the views of the army they are prepared to act. Their
decision will turn on the difficulties of protection and the essentials of
a landing place from the point of view of weather, currents, beach and the
like, and also in a secondary measu