It has been suggested above that the constitution of fleets appears to have some more or less recognisable relation to the prevalent theory of war.  Now, amongst all our uncertainty we can assert with confidence that the theory which holds the field at the present day bears the closest possible resemblance to that which dominated the soldier-admirals of the Dutch war.  It was the “Overthrow” theory, the firm faith in the decisive action as the key of all strategical problems.  They carried it to sea with them from the battlefields of the New Model Army, and the Dutch met them squarely.  In the first war at least their commerce had to give place to the exigencies of throwing into the battle everything that could affect the issue.  It is not of course pretended that this attitude was dictated by any clearly conceived theory of absolute war.  It was due rather to the fact that, owing to the relative geographical conditions, all attempts to guard trade communications were useless without the command of the home waters in the North Sea, and the truth received a clinching moral emphasis from the British claim to the actual dominion of the Narrow Seas.  It was, in fact, a war which resembled rather the continental conditions of territorial conquest than the naval procedure that characterised our rivalry with France.

Is it then possible, however much we may resist the conclusion in loyalty to the eighteenth-century tradition, that the rise of a new naval Power in the room of Holland must bring us back to the drastic, if crude, methods of the Dutch wars, and force us to tread under foot the nicer ingenuity of Anson’s system?  Is it this which has tempted us to mistrust any type of vessel which cannot be flung into the battle?  The recurrence of a formidable rival in the North Sea was certainly not the first cause of the reaction.  It began before that menace arose.  Still it has undoubtedly forced the pace, and even if it be not a cause, it may well be a justification.

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CHAPTER THREE

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THEORY OF THE METHOD—­
CONCENTRATION AND DISPERSAL OF FORCE

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From the point of view of the method by which its ends are obtained, strategy is often described as the art of assembling the utmost force at the right time and place; and this method is called “Concentration.”

At first sight the term seems simple and expressive enough, but on analysis it will be found to include several distinct ideas, to all of which the term is applied indifferently.  The result is a source of some confusion, even to the most lucid writers.  “The word concentration,” says one of the most recent of them, “evokes the idea of a grouping of forces.  We believe, in fact, that we cannot make war without grouping ships into squadrons and squadrons into fleets."[11] Here in one sentence the