No sooner was the Crimean war over than another struggle took place, viz. the war of the Indian Mutiny, and that also was waged entirely on land.  Here again the command of the sea was so complete that no interruption of it, even temporary, called attention to its existence.  Troops and supplies were sent to India from the United Kingdom and from Hong-Kong; horses for military purposes from Australia and South Africa; and in every case without a thought of naval escort.  The experience of hostilities in India seemed to confirm the experience of the Crimea.  What we had just done to a great European nation was assumed to be what unfriendly European nations would wish to do and would be able to do to us.  It was also assumed that the only way of frustrating their designs would be to do what had recently been done in the hope of frustrating ours, but to do it better.  We must—­it was said—­depend on fortifications, but more perfect than those which had failed to save Sebastopol.

The protection to be afforded by our fleet was deliberately declared to be insufficient.  It might, so it was held, be absent altogether, and then there would be nothing but fortifications to stand between us and the progress of an active enemy.  In the result the policy of constructing imposing passive defence-works on our coast was adopted.  The fortifications had to be multiplied.  Dependence on that class of defence inevitably leads to discovery after discovery that some spot open to the kind of attack feared has not been made secure.  We began by fortifying the great dockyard ports—­on the sea side against a hostile fleet, on the land side against hostile troops.  Then it was perceived that to fortify the dockyard ports in the mother country afforded very little protection to the outlying portions of the empire.  So their principal ports also were given defence-works—­sometimes of an elaborate character.  Again, it was found that commercial ports had been left out and that they too must be fortified.  When this was done spots were observed at which an enemy might effect a landing in force, to prevent which further forts or batteries must be erected.  The most striking thing in all this is the complete omission to take note of the conditions involved in the command of the sea.

Evidently it had not been understood that it was that very command which alone had enabled the armies of western Europe to proceed, not only without serious interruption, but also without encountering an attempt at obstruction, to the field in the Crimea on which their victories had been won, and that the same command would be necessary before any hostile expedition, large enough to justify the construction of the fortifications specially intended to repel it, could cross the sea and get within striking distance of our shores.  It should be deeply interesting to the people of those parts of the British Empire which lie beyond sea to note that the defensive system comprised in the fortification of the coast of the United Kingdom promised no security to them in the event of war.  Making all proper allowance for the superior urgency of defending the heart of the empire, we must still admit that no system of defence is adequate which does not provide for the defence of other valuable parts of the great body politic as well.