tion would be identical.

This was also the case in all our imperial wars with France.

_This peculiarity is the controlling influence of maritime warfare._ Nearly
all our current maxims of Naval strategy can be traced to the pressure it
exerts on Naval thought.

It is at the root of the fundamental difference between Military and Naval
strategy, and affords the explanation of much strategical error and
confusion, which has arisen from applying the principles of land warfare to
the sea without allowing for the antagonistic conditions of the
communications and operations against them in each case.

On land the chief reason for not always striking the enemy's communications
at once is that as a rule we cannot do so without exposing our own.

At sea, on the contrary, since the great lines are common to both, we
cannot defend our own without striking at the enemy's.

Therefore, at sea, the obvious opening is to get your fleet into such a
position that it controls the common lines, unless defeated or evaded.

EXAMPLE.--This was usually done in our old wars with France, by our
getting a fleet off Brest before the French could sail.

Hence the maxim "that the proper place for our fleets is off the enemy's
coast," "the enemy's coast is our true frontier," and the like.

But these maxims are not universally true, witness Togo's strategy against
Rojesvensky, when he remained correctly upon his own coast.

Take again the maxim that the primary object of the fleet is to seek out
the enemy's fleet and destroy it.

Here again Togo's practice was the reverse of the maxim.

The true maxim is "The primary object of the fleet is to secure
communications, and if the enemy's fleet is in a position to render them
unsafe it must be put out of action."

The enemy's fleet usually is in this position, but not always.

EXAMPLE.--Opening of War of Spanish Succession. The operations of 1702
were to secure some point (Cadiz, Gibraltar, or Ferrol) on the Spanish
trade communications, the French lateral communications, and our own
lines of passage to the Mediterranean, where was to be our chief
theatre of operation. These last two lines were identical. 1703.--Chief
operations had for their object to secure the alliance of Savoy, and
particularly of Portugal, and with same object in view, Rooke's
official instructions directed that the French fleet was to be ignored
unless it threatened our com