This short etymological discussion is not inappropriate here, for it shows why we should not neglect authorities on the history and conduct of war merely because they do not state specially that they are dealing with the naval branch of it.

A very slight knowledge of history is quite enough to make us acquainted with the frequent recurrence of defeats and disasters inflicted on armed forces by antagonists whose power to do so had not been previously suspected.  It has been the same on the sea as on the land, though—­owing to more copious records—­we may have a larger list of events on the latter.  It will not be denied that it is of immense importance to us to inquire how this happened, and ascertain how—­for the future—­it may be rendered highly improbable in our own case.  A brief enumeration of the more striking instances will make it plain that the events in question have been confined to no particular age and to no particular country.

It may be said that the more elaborately organised and trained in peace time an armed force happened to be, the more unexpected always, and generally the more disastrous, was its downfall.  Examples of this are to be found in the earliest campaigns of which we have anything like detailed accounts, and they continue to reappear down to very recent times.  In the elaborate nature of its organisation and training there probably never has been an army surpassing that led by Xerxes into Greece twenty-four centuries ago.  Something like eight years had been devoted to its preparation.  The minute account of its review by Xerxes on the shores of the Hellespont proves that, however inefficient the semi-civilised contingents accompanying it may have been, the regular Persian army appeared, in discipline, equipment, and drill, to have come up to the highest standard of the most intense ‘pipeclay’ epoch.  In numbers alone its superiority was considerable to the last, and down to the very eve of Plataea its commander openly displayed his contempt for his enemy.  Yet no defeat could be more complete than that suffered by the Persians at the hands of their despised antagonists.

As if to establish beyond dispute the identity of governing conditions in both land and maritime wars, the next very conspicuous disappointment of an elaborately organised force was that of the Athenian fleet at Syracuse.  At the time Athens, without question, stood at the head of the naval world:  her empire was in the truest sense the product of sea-power.  Her navy, whilst unequalled in size, might claim, without excessive exaggeration, to be invincible.  The great armament which the Athenians despatched to Sicily seemed, in numbers alone, capable of triumphing over all resistance.  If the Athenian navy had already met with some explicable mishaps, it looked back with complacent confidence on the glorious achievements of more than half a century previously.  It had enjoyed many years of what was so nearly a maritime