, the rule should be
to dispose the forces at sea so as to be able to concentrate them in time
at the decisive point so soon as this point is determined, and also so as
to conceal from the enemy what it is intended to make the decisive point.

If the forces are rightly disposed within due limits, adequate control of
all the lines of passage and communication can be assured, and if the enemy
undertakes any operations it should be possible to ensure that sufficient
forces can be concentrated in time to defeat his object. On the other hand,
if the forces are concentrated in one mass, there can be little chance of
deceiving or confusing the enemy, while it gives him an opportunity of
successfully carrying out some operation by evasion.

THE PECULIARITY OF MARITIME COMMUNICATIONS

Since the whole idea of command of the sea rests on the control of
communications, it cannot be fully apprehended without a thorough
understanding of the nature of maritime communications.

Ashore, the respective lines of communications of each belligerent tend as
a rule to run more or less approximately in opposite directions, until they
meet in the theatre of operations or the objective point.

At sea, the reverse is frequently the case; for in maritime warfare the
great lines of communications of either belligerent often tend to run
approximately parallel if, indeed, they are not identical.

Thus, in the case of a war with Germany, the object of which lay in the
Eastern Mediterranean, or in America, or South Africa, our respective lines
of communication 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 have arisen from applying the principles of land warfare to
the sea without allowing for the antagonistic conditions of the
communications and the 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, when the great lines are common to both,
we cannot defend our own without striking at the enemy's.

Therefore, at sea, the