The result is that you are not always free to adopt the plan which is best calculated to bring your enemy to a decision.  You may find yourself compelled to occupy, not the best positions, but those which will give a fair chance of getting contact in favourable conditions, and at the same time afford reasonable cover for your trade.  Hence the maxim that the enemy’s coast should be our frontier.  It is not a purely military maxim like that for seeking out the enemy’s fleet, though the two are often used as though they were interchangeable.  Our usual positions on the enemy’s coast were dictated quite as much by the exigencies of commerce protection as by primary strategical reasons.  To maintain a rigorous watch close off the enemy’s ports was never the likeliest way to bring him to decisive action—­we have Nelson’s well-known declaration on the point—­but it was the best way, and often the only way, to keep the sea clear for the passage of our own trade and for the operations of our cruisers against that of the enemy.

For the present these all-important points need not be elaborated further.  As we proceed to deal with the methods of naval warfare they will gather force and lucidity.  Enough has been said to mark the shoals and warn us that, admirably constructed as is the craft which the military strategists have provided for our use, we must be careful with our navigation.

But before proceeding further it is necessary to simplify what lies before us by endeavouring to group the complex variety of naval operations into manageable shape.

II.  TYPICAL FORMS OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

In the conduct of naval war all operations will be found to relate to two broad classes of object.  The one is to obtain or dispute the command of the sea, and the other to exercise such control of communications as we have, whether the complete command has been secured or not.

It was on the logical and practical distinction between these two kinds of naval object, as we have seen, that the constitution of fleets was based in the fulness of the sailing period, when maritime wars were nearly incessant and were shaping the existing distribution of power in the world.  During that period at any rate the dual conception lay at the root of naval methods and naval policy, and as it is also the logical outcome of the theory of war, we may safely take it as the basis of our analysis of the conduct of naval operations.

Practically, of course, we can seldom assert categorically that any operation of war has but one clearly defined object.  A battle-squadron whose primary function was to secure command was often so placed as to enable it to exercise control; and, vice versa, cruiser lines intended primarily to exercise control upon the trade routes were regarded as outposts of the battle-fleet to give it warning of the movements of hostile squadrons.  Thus Cornwallis during his