It is seldom that we have been forced even for a time to adopt such an attitude, but our enemies have done so frequently to our serious annoyance and loss.  In the Seven Years’ War, for instance, the French by avoiding offensive operations likely to lead to a decision, and confining themselves to active defence, were able for five campaigns to prevent our reducing Canada, which was the object of the war.  Had they staked the issue on a great fleet action in the first campaign, and had the result been against them, we could certainly have achieved our object in half the time.  In the end, of course, they failed to prevent the conquest, but during all the time the catastrophe was postponed France had abundant opportunity of gaining offensively elsewhere territory which, as she at all events believed, would have compelled us to give up our conquest at the peace.

Again, in our last great naval war Napoleon by avoiding general actions was able to keep the command in dispute till by alliances and otherwise he had gathered force which he deemed sufficient to warrant a return to the offensive.  Eventually that force proved unequal to the task, yet when it failed and the command passed to his enemy, he had had time to consolidate his power so far that the loss of his fleet seemed scarcely to affect it, and for nine years more he was able to continue the struggle.

Such examples—­and there are many of them—­serve to show how serious a matter is naval defence in the hands of a great military Power with other means of offence.  They tell us how difficult it is to deal with, and how serious therefore for even the strongest naval Power is the need to give it careful study.

And not for this reason only, but also because the strongest naval Power, if faced with a coalition, may find it impossible to exert a drastic offensive anywhere without temporarily reducing its force in certain areas to a point relatively so low as to permit of nothing higher than the defensive.  The leading case of such a state of affairs, which we must further consider presently, was our own position in the War of American Independence, when, as we have seen, in order to secure an adequate concentration for offence in the West Indies we were forced to reduce our home fleet to defensive level.

What, then, do we mean by naval defence?  To arrive at a right answer we must first clear our mind of all confusing shadows cast by the accidents of land defence.  Both on land and at sea defence means of course taking certain measures to defer a decision until military or political developments so far redress the balance of strength that we are able to pass to the offensive.  In the operations of armies the most usual means employed are the holding of positions and forcing our superior enemy to exhaust his strength in attacking them.  Consequently the idea of military defence is dominated by the conception of entrenched positions and fortresses.