. Our fleet must in any case be so powerful that our
strongest antagonist shrinks from attacking us without convincing
reasons. If he determines to attack us, we must have at least a chance
of victoriously repelling this attack--in other words, of inflicting
such heavy loss on the enemy that he will decline in his own interests
to carry on the war to the bitter end, and that he will see his own
position threatened if he exposes himself to these losses.

This conception of our duty on the sea points directly to the fact that
the English fleet must set the standard by which to estimate the
necessary size of our naval preparations. A war with England is probably
that which we shall first have to fight out by sea; the possibility of
victoriously repelling an English attack must be the guiding principle
for our naval preparations; and if the English continuously increase
their fleet, we must inevitably follow them on the same road, even
beyond the limits of our present Naval Estimates.

We must not, however, forget that it will not be possible for us for
many years to attack on the open sea the far superior English fleet. We
may only hope, by the combination of the fleet with the coast
fortifications, the airfleet, and the commercial war, to defend
ourselves successfully against this our strongest opponent, as was shown
in the chapter on the next naval war. The enemy must be wearied out and
exhausted by the enforcement of the blockade, and by fighting against
all the expedients which we shall employ for the defence of our coast;
our fleet, under the protection of these expedients, will continually
inflict partial losses on him, and thus gradually we shall be able to
challenge him to a pitched battle on the high seas. These are the lines
that our preparation for war must follow. A strong coast fortress as a
base for our fleet, from which it can easily and at any moment take the
offensive, and on which the waves of the hostile superiority can break
harmlessly, is the recognized and necessary preliminary condition for
this class of war. Without such a trustworthy coast fortress, built with
a view to offensive operations, our fleet could be closely blockaded by
the enemy, and prevented from any offensive movements. Mines alone
cannot close the navigation so effectively that the enemy cannot break
through, nor can they keep it open in such a way that we should be able
to adopt the offensive under all circumstances. For this purpo