The Offensive must not be confused with the Initiative. It is possible to seize the Initiative, under certain conditions, by taking a defensive position from which the enemy is bound to dislodge us or abandon the operation.

In most cases where the weaker side successfully assumes the offensive, it is due to his doing so before the enemy’s mobilization or concentration is complete, whereby the attacking force is able to deal in succession with locally inferior forces of the enemy.

The advantages of the Offensive are well known.

Its disadvantages are:—­

  (1) That it grows weaker as it advances, by prolonging its
      communications.
  (2) That it tends to operations on unfamiliar ground.
  (3) That it continually increases the difficulty of retreat.

The advantages of Defence are chiefly:—­

  (1) Proximity to base.
  (2) Familiar ground.
  (3) Facility for arranging surprise by counter attack.

    NOTE.—­In modern Naval warfare these advantages—­that is, the
    advantages of fighting on your own ground—­are specially high as giving
    greater facility for the use of mine and torpedo.

    The disadvantages are mainly moral or when the enemy’s objective or
    line of operations cannot be ascertained, but this disadvantage can be
    neutralised when it is possible to secure an interior position.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DEFENSIVE.

True Defensive means waiting for a chance to strike.

    NOTE.—­When the Dutch burnt our ships at Chatham, we were not acting on
    the defensive, we had laid them up and were doing nothing at all.

The strength and the essence of the defensive is the counter-stroke.

A well designed defensive will always threaten or conceal an attack.

A general defensive policy may consist of a series of minor offensive operations.

The maxim is:  If you are not relatively strong enough to assume the offensive, assume the defensive till you become so—­

(1) Either by inducing the enemy to weaken himself by attacks or otherwise;

(2) Or by increasing your own strength, by developing new forces or securing allies.

Except as a preparation or a cover for offensive action the defensive is seldom or never of any use; for by the defensive alone we can never acquire anything, we can only prevent the enemy acquiring.  But where we are too weak to assume the offensive it is often necessary to assume the defensive, and wait in expectation of time turning the scale in our favour and permitting us to accumulate strength relatively greater than the enemy’s; we then pass to the offensive, for which our defensive has been a preparation.

As a cover or support for the offensive, the defensive will enable us to intensify the attack; for by assuming the defensive in one or more minor theatres of operation we can reduce our forces in those theatres to a minimum, and concentrate to a maximum for the offensive in the most important theatre.