r attenuate our force to cover
all probable objectives, but this disadvantage can be neutralised when it
is possible to secure an interior position.

_Functions and Characteristics of the Defensive_

True Defensive means waiting for a chance to strike.

To assume the defensive does not necessarily mean that we do not feel
strong enough to attack. It may mean that we see our way by using the
defensive to force certain movements on the enemy which will enable us to
hit harder.

A well-designed defensive will always threaten or conceal an attack. Unless
it does this it will not deflect the enemy's strategy in our favour. Thus,
in 1756, the French, by assuming the defensive in the Channel, threatened
an attack on our coasts, and concealed their attack on Minorca.

This power inherent in the defensive is peculiarly strong in naval warfare,
since the mobility of fleets enables them to pass instantaneously from the
defensive to the offensive without any warning. When we assume the
defensive because we are too weak for the offensive, we still do not lay
aside attack. The whole strength and essence of the defensive is the
counter-stroke. Its cardinal idea is to force the enemy to attack us in a
position where he will expose himself to a counter-stroke.

The stock instance upon which naval defensive is usually condemned is the
burning of our ships at Chatham by the Dutch. But in that case we were not
_acting on the defensive_ at all. We had laid up our battle fleet and were
doing nothing. We were purely passive, in expectation of peace. It is
really an instance of the successful use of defensive _by the Dutch_. Being
no longer strong enough for a general offensive, they assumed the
defensive, and induced us to lay up our ships and so expose ourselves to a
counter-stroke. It was a counterstroke by the worsted belligerent to get
better terms of peace.

So far is the defensive from excluding the idea of attack, that it may
consist entirely of a series of minor offensive operations. Clausewitz
calls it "a shield of blows." It is often called _offensive-defensive,_ or
_active defence_. Neither term is really necessary. For a defensive which
excludes the idea of offence or action is not war at all-at least at sea.
The old Elizabethan term _Preventive_ most closely expresses the idea.

The most important function of the defensive is that of covering,
buttressing, and intensifying the main attack. No plan of campaign, however
str