At the close of the Great War, which ended in the downfall of Napoleon, the maritime position of the British Empire was not only predominant—­it also was, and long remained, beyond the reach of challenge.  After the stupendous events of the great contest such successes as those at Algiers where we were helped by the Dutch, at Navarino where we had two allies, and at Acre were regarded as matters of course, and no very grave issue hung upon any one of them.  For more than half a century after Nelson’s death all the most brilliant achievements of British arms were performed on shore, in India or in the Crimea.  There were also many small wars on land, and it may well have seemed to contemporaries that the days of great naval contests were over and that force of circumstances was converting us into a military from a naval nation.  The belief in the efficacy of naval defence was not extinct, but it had ceased to operate actively.  Even whilst the necessity of that form of defence was far more urgent, inattention to or ignorance of its true principles had occasionally allowed it to grow weak, but the possibility of substituting something else for it had not been pressed or even suggested.  To this, however, we had now come; and it was largely a consequence of the Crimean war.  In that war the British Army had nobly sustained its reputation as a fighting machine.  For the first time after a long interval it had met in battle European troops, and had come out of the conflict more renowned for bravery than ever.  Nothing seemed able to damp its heroism—­not scantiness of food, not lack of clothing amidst bitter cold, not miserable quarters, not superior forces of a valiant enemy.  It clung to its squalid abodes in the positions which it was ordered to hold with a tenacious fortitude that had never been surpassed in its glorious history, and that defied all assaults.  In combination with its brave allies it brought to a triumphant conclusion a war of an altogether peculiar character.

The campaign in the Crimea was in reality the siege of a single fortress.  All the movements of the Western invaders were undertaken to bring them within striking distance of the place, to keep them within reach of it, or to capture it.  Every battle that occurred was fought with one of those objects.  When the place fell the war ended.  The one general who, in the opinion of all concerned, gained high distinction in the war was the general who had prolonged the defence of Sebastopol by the skilful use of earthworks.  It was no wonder that the attack and defence of fortified places assumed large importance in the eyes of the British people.  The command of the sea held by the allied powers was so complete and all-pervading that no one stopped to think what the course of hostilities would have been without it, any more than men stop to think what the course of any particular business would be if there were no atmosphere to breathe in.  Not a single allied soldier had been delayed on passage by the hostile fleet; not a single merchant vessel belonging to the allies had been captured by a hostile cruiser.  Supplies and reinforcements for the besieging armies were transported to them without escort and with as little risk of interruption as if the operations had been those of profound peace.