The maxim “Keep your forces together” does not, however, necessarily mean keeping them all concentrated in one mass, but rather keeping them so disposed that they can unite readily at will.  At sea it is more difficult than on land to foretell where the decisive point will be; but since it is quicker and easier at sea to concentrate forces at any particular point than on land, in applying this maxim for our purposes, the rule should be to dispose the forces at sea so as to be able to concentrate them in time at the decisive point so soon as this point is determined, and also so as to conceal from the enemy what it is intended to make the decisive point.

If the forces are rightly disposed within due limits, adequate control of all the lines of passage and communication can be assured, and if the enemy undertakes any operations it should be possible to ensure that sufficient forces can be concentrated in time to defeat his object.  On the other hand, if the forces are concentrated in one mass, there can be little chance of deceiving or confusing the enemy, while it gives him an opportunity of successfully carrying out some operation by evasion.

THE PECULIARITY OF MARITIME COMMUNICATIONS

Since the whole idea of command of the sea rests on the control of communications, it cannot be fully apprehended without a thorough understanding of the nature of maritime communications.

Ashore, the respective lines of communications of each belligerent tend as a rule to run more or less approximately in opposite directions, until they meet in the theatre of operations or the objective point.

At sea, the reverse is frequently the case; for in maritime warfare the great lines of communications of either belligerent often tend to run approximately parallel if, indeed, they are not identical.

Thus, in the case of a war with Germany, the object of which lay in the Eastern Mediterranean, or in America, or South Africa, our respective lines of communication would be identical.

This was also the case in all our imperial wars with France.

This peculiarity is the controlling influence of maritime warfare. Nearly all our current maxims of Naval Strategy can be traced to the pressure it exerts on naval thought.

It is at the root of the fundamental difference between Military and Naval Strategy, and affords the explanation of much strategical error and confusion which have arisen from applying the principles of land warfare to the sea without allowing for the antagonistic conditions of the communications and the operations against them in each case.

On land, the chief reason for not always striking the enemy’s communications at once is that, as a rule, we cannot do so without exposing our own.  At sea, on the contrary, when the great lines are common to both, we cannot defend our own without striking at the enemy’s.