This power of disturbing the enemy with feints is of course inherent in the peculiar attributes of combined expeditions, in the facility with which their line of operation can be concealed or changed, and there seems no reason why in the future it should be less than in the past.  Good railway connections in the theatre of the descent will of course diminish the effect of feints, but, on the other hand, the means of making them have increased.  In mine-sweeping vessels, for instance, there is a new instrument which in the Russo-Japanese War proved capable of creating a very strong impression at small cost to the fleet.  Should a flotilla of such craft appear at any practicable part of a threatened coast and make a show of clearing it, it will be almost a moral impossibility to ignore the demonstration.

On the whole then, assuming the old methods are followed, it would seem that with a reasonable naval preponderance the power of carrying out such operations over an uncommanded sea is not less than it has proved to be hitherto.  The rapidity and precision of steam propulsion perhaps places that power higher than ever.  It would at any rate be difficult to find in the past a parallel to the brilliant movement on Seoul with which the Japanese opened the war in 1904.  It is true the Russians at the last moment decided for political reasons to permit the occupation to take place without opposition, but this was unknown to the Japanese, and their arrangements were made on the assumption that their enemy would use the formidable means at his disposal to obstruct the operation.  The risk was accepted, skillfully measured, and adequately provided for on principles identical with those of the British tradition.  But, on the other hand, there has been nothing to show that where the enemy has a working command of the sea the hazard of such enterprises has been reduced.  Against an enemy controlling the line of passage in force, the well-tried methods of covering and protecting an oversea expedition will no more work to-day than they did in the past.  Until his hold is broken by purely naval action, combined work remains beyond all legitimate risk of war.

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APPENDIX

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THE
“GREEN PAMPHLET”

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WAR COURSE

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Strategical Terms and Definitions used in Lectures on Naval History

BY

JULIAN S. CORBETT, ESQ., L.L.M.

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NAVAL STRATEGY

Naval strategy does not exist as a separate branch of knowledge.  It is only a section of a division of the art of war.