In peace a charge; in war a weak defence.

I have to say that I did not prepare this paper simply for the pleasure of reading it, or in order to bring before you mere sets of figures and estimates of expense.  My object has been to arouse in some of the officers who hear me a determination to devote a portion of their leisure to the consideration of those great problems which must be solved by us if we are to wage war successfully.  Many proofs reach me of the ability and zeal with which details of material are investigated by officers in these days.  The details referred to are not unimportant in themselves; but the importance of several of them if put together would be incomparably less than that of the great question to which I have tried to direct your attention.

The supply of a fleet is of high importance in both peace time and time of war.  Even in peace it sometimes causes an admiral to pass a sleepless night.  The arrangements which it necessitates are often intricate, and success in completing them occasionally seems far off.  The work involved in devising suitable plans is too much like drudgery to be welcome to those who undertake it.  All the same it has to be done:  and surely no one will care to deny that the fleet which has practised in quiet years the system that must be followed in war will start with a great advantage on its side when it is at last confronted with the stern realities of naval warfare.

POSTSCRIPT

The question of ‘Communications,’ if fully dealt with in the foregoing paper, would have made it so long that its hearers might have been tired out before its end was reached.  The following summary of the points that might have been enlarged upon, had time allowed, may interest many officers:—­

In time of war we must keep open our lines of communication.

If we cannot, the war will have gone against us.

Open communications mean that we can prevent the enemy from carrying out decisive and sustained operations against them and along their line.

To keep communications open it is not necessary to secure every friendly ship traversing the line against attacks by the enemy.  All that is necessary is to restrict the enemy’s activity so far that he can inflict only such a moderate percentage of loss on the friendly vessels that, as a whole, they will not cease to run.

Keeping communications open will not secure a friendly place against every form of attack.  It will, however, secure a place against attacks with large forces sustained for a considerable length of time.  If he can make attacks of this latter kind, it is clear that the enemy controls the communications and that we have failed to keep them open.

If communications are open for the passage of vessels of the friendly mercantile marine, it follows that the relatively much smaller number of supply-vessels can traverse the line.