But free as a fleet is from the special fetters of an army, there always exist at sea peculiar conditions of friction which clog its freedom of disposition.  One source of this friction is commerce protection.  However much our war plan may press for close concentration, the need of commerce protection will always be calling for dispersal.  The other source is the peculiar freedom and secrecy of movements at sea.  As the sea knows no roads to limit or indicate our own lines of operation, so it tells little about those of the enemy.  The most distant and widely dispersed points must be kept in view as possible objectives of the enemy.  When we add to this that two or more fleets can act in conjunction from widely separated bases with far greater certainty than is possible for armies, it is obvious that the variety of combinations is much higher at sea than on land, and variety of combination is in constant opposition to the central mass.

It follows that so long as the enemy’s fleet is divided, and thereby retains various possibilities of either concentrated or sporadic action, our distribution will be dictated by the need of being able to deal with a variety of combinations and to protect a variety of objectives.  Our concentrations must therefore be kept as open and flexible as possible.  History accordingly shows us that the riper and fresher our experience and the surer our grip of war, the looser were our concentrations.  The idea of massing, as a virtue in itself, is bred in peace and not in war.  It indicates the debilitating idea that in war we must seek rather to avoid than to inflict defeat.  True, advocates of the mass entrench themselves in the plausible conception that their aim is to inflict crushing defeats.  But this too is an idea of peace.  War has proved to the hilt that victories have not only to be won, but worked for.  They must be worked for by bold strategical combinations, which as a rule entail at least apparent dispersal.  They can only be achieved by taking risks, and the greatest and most effective of these is division.

The effect of prolonged peace has been to make “concentration” a kind of shibboleth, so that the division of a fleet tends almost to be regarded as a sure mark of bad leadership.  Critics have come to lose sight of the old war experience, that without division no strategical combinations are possible.  In truth they must be founded on division.  Division is bad only when it is pushed beyond the limits of well-knit deployment.  It is theoretically wrong to place a section of the fleet in such a position that it may be prevented from falling back on its strategical centre when it is encountered by a superior force.  Such retreats of course can never be made certain; they will always depend in some measure on the skill and resource of the opposing commanders, and on the chances of weather:  but risks must be taken.  If we risk nothing, we shall seldom perform anything.  The great leader is the man who can measure rightly to what breadth of deployment he can stretch his concentration.  This power of bold and sure adjustment between cohesion and reach is indeed a supreme test of that judgment which in the conduct of war takes the place of strategical theory.