Puerto Rico was the most obvious point at which to seek it, and thither Admiral Sampson was permitted to go, regardless of the elementary truth that in such cases what is obvious to you is also usually obvious to your enemy.  The result was that not only did the Americans fail to get contact, but they also uncovered their own army’s line of passage and paralysed the initial movement.  In the end it was only pure chance that permitted them to retrieve the mistake they had made.  Had the Spanish squadron put into a Cuban port in railway communication with the main Royalist army, such as Cienfuegos or Havana, instead of hurrying into Santiago, the whole campaign must have been lost.  “It appears now,” wrote Admiral Mahan, in his Lessons of the War with Spain, “not only that the eastward voyage of our Havana division was unfortunate, but it should have been seen beforehand to be a mistake, because inconsistent with a well and generally accepted principle of war, the non-observance of which was not commanded by the conditions.  The principle is that which condemns eccentric movements.  By the disregard of rule in this case we uncovered both Havana and Cienfuegos, which it was our object to close to the enemy’s division.”

Whether or not we regard Admiral Mahan’s exposition of the error as penetrating to the real principle that was violated, the movement was in fact not only eccentric, but unnecessary.  Had the Americans been content to keep their fleet concentrated in its true defensive position, not only would they have covered their army’s line of passage and their blockade of the territorial objective, but they would have had a far better chance of bringing the Spaniards to action.  The Spaniards were bound to come to them or remain outside the theatre of operations where they could in no way affect the issue of the war except adversely to themselves by sapping the spirit of their own Cuban garrison.  It is a clear case of the letter killing the spirit, of an attractive maxim being permitted to shut the door upon judgment.  Strategical offence in this case was not the best defence.  “Seeking out the enemy’s fleet” was almost bound to end in a blow in the air, which not only would fail to gain any offensive result, but would sacrifice the main defensive plank in the American war plan upon which their offensive relied for success.  To stigmatise such a movement as merely eccentric is to pass very lenient censure.

In the Russo-Japanese War we have a converse case, in which judgment kept the aphorism silent.  It is true that during the earlier stage of the naval operations the Japanese did in a sense seek out the enemy’s fleet, in so far as they advanced their base close to Port Arthur; but this was done, not with any fixed intention of destroying the Russian fleet—­there was small hope of that at sea—­but rather because by no other means could they cover the army’s lines of passage, which it was the function of the fleet to secure, the true offensive