II

THE EFFECT OF DEFICIENT COAST-DEFENCE UPON THE MOVEMENTS OF

THE NAVY.--THE MILITARY AND NAVAL CONDITIONS OF SPAIN

AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR.

The unsatisfactory condition of the coast defences, whereby the navy

lost the support of its complementary factor in the scheme of national

sea power, imposed a vicious, though inevitable, change in the

initial plan of campaign, which should have been directed in full

force against the coast of Cuba. The four newer monitors on the

Atlantic coast, if distributed among our principal ports, were not

adequate, singly, to resist the attack which was suggested by the

possibilities of the case--though remote--and still more by the panic

among certain of our citizens. On the other hand, if the four were

massed and centrally placed, which is the correct disposition of any

mobile force, military or naval, intended to counteract the attack of

an enemy whose particular line of approach is as yet uncertain, their

sluggishness and defective nautical qualities would make them

comparatively inefficient. New York, for instance, is a singularly

central and suitable point, relatively to our northern Atlantic

seaboard, in which to station a division intended to meet and thwart

the plans of a squadron like Cervera's, if directed against our coast

ports, in accordance with the fertile imaginations of evil which were

the fashion in that hour. Did the enemy appear off either Boston, the

Delaware, or the Chesapeake, he could not effect material injury

before a division of ships of the _Oregon_ class would be upon him;

and within the limits named are found the major external commercial

interests of the country as well as the ocean approaches along which

they travel. But had the monitors been substituted for battleships,

not to speak of their greater slowness, their inferiority as steady

gun-platforms would have placed them at a serious disadvantage if the

enemy were met outside, as he perfectly well might be.

It was probably such considerations as these, though the writer was

not privy to them, that determined the division of the battle fleet,

and the confiding to the section styled the Flying Squadron the

defence of the Atlantic coast for the time being. The monitors were

all sent to Key West, where they would be at hand to act against

Havana; the narrowness of the field in which that city, Key West, and

Matanzas are comprised making their slowness less of a drawback, while

the moderate weather which might be expected to prevail would permit

their shooting to be less inaccurate. The station of the Flying

Squadron in Hampton Roads, though not so central as New York

relatively to the more important commercial interests, upon which, if

upon any, the Spanish attack might fall, was more central as regards

the whole coast; and, above all, was nearer than New York to Havana

and to Puerto Rico. The time element also entered the calculations in

another way, for a fleet of heavy ships is more certainly able to put

to sea at a moment's notice, in all conditions of tide and weather,

from the Chesapeake than from New York Bay. In short, the position

chosen may be taken to indicate that, in the opinion of the Navy

Department and its advisers, Cervera was not likely to attempt a dash

at an Atlantic port, and that it was more important to be able to

reach the West Indies speedily than to protect New York or Boston,--a

conclusion which the writer entirely shared.

The country, however, should not fail to note that the division of the

armored fleet into two sections, nearly a thousand miles apart, though

probably the best that could be done under all the circumstances of

the moment, was contrary to sound practice; and that the conditions

which made it necessary should not have existed. Thus, deficient coast

protection reacts unfavorably upon the war fleet, which in all its

movements should be free from any responsibility for the mere safety

of the ports it quits. Under such conditions as then obtained, it

might have been possible for Spain to force our entire battle fleet

from its offensive undertaking against Cuba, and to relegate it to

mere coast defence. Had Cervera's squadron, instead of being

despatched alone to the Antilles, been recalled to Spain, as it should

have been, and there reinforced by the two armored ships which

afterwards went to Suez with Cámara, the approach of this compact body

would have compelled our fleet to concentrate; for each of our

divisions of three ships--prior to the arrival of the _Oregon_--would

have been too weak to hazard an engagement with the enemy's six. When

thus concentrated, where should it be placed? Off Havana, or at

Hampton Roads? It could not be at both. The answer undoubtedly should

be, "Off Havana;" for there it would be guarding the most important

part of the enemy's coast, blocking the access to it of the Spanish

fleet, and at the same time covering Key West, our naval base of

operations. But if the condition of our coast defences at all

corresponded to the tremors of our seaport citizens, the Government

manifestly would be unable to hold the fleet thus at the front. Had

it, on the contrary, been impossible for an enemy's fleet to approach

nearer than three miles to our sea-coast without great and evident

danger of having ships damaged which could not be replaced, and of

wasting ammunition at ranges too long even for bombardments, the

Spanish battle fleet would have kept away, and would have pursued its

proper object of supporting their campaign in Cuba by driving off our

fleet--if it could. It is true that no amount of fortification will

secure the coasting trade beyond easy gunshot of the works; but as the

enemy's battle fleet could not have devoted itself for long to

molesting the coasters--because our fleet would thereby be drawn to

the spot--that duty must have devolved upon vessels of another class,

against which we also would have provided, and did provide, by the

squadron of cruisers under Commodore Howell. In short, proper coast

defence, the true and necessary complement of an efficient navy,

releases the latter for its proper work,--offensive, upon the open

seas, or off the enemy's shores.

[Illustration: Map of Cuba (map)]

The subject receives further illumination when we consider, in

addition to the hypothetical case just discussed,--the approach of six

Spanish ships,--the actual conditions at the opening of the campaign.

We had chosen Cuba for our objective, had begun our operations,

Cervera was on his way across the ocean, and our battle fleet was

divided and posted as stated. It was reasonable for us to estimate

each division of our ships--one comprising the _New York_, _Iowa_, and

_Indiana_, the other the _Brooklyn_, _Massachusetts_, and _Texas_--as

able to meet Cervera's four, these being of a class slightly inferior

to the best of ours. We might at least flatter ourselves that, to use

a frequent phrase of Nelson's, by the time they had soundly beaten one

of these groups, they would give us no more trouble for the rest of

the year. We could, therefore, with perfect military propriety, have

applied the two divisions to separate tasks on the Cuban coast, if our

own coast had been adequately fortified.

The advantage--nay, the necessity--of thus distributing our

battleships, having only four enemies to fear, will appear from a

glance at the map of Cuba. It will there be seen that the island is

particularly narrow abreast of Havana, and that from there, for a

couple of hundred miles to the eastward, extends the only tolerably

developed railroad system, by which the capital is kept in

communication with the seaports, on the north coast as far as Sagua la

Grande, and on the south with Cienfuegos and Batabano. This

narrowness, and the comparative facility of communication indicated by

the railroads, enabled Spain, during her occupation, effectually to

prevent combined movements between the insurgents in the east and

those in the west; a power which Weyler endeavored to increase by the

_trocha_ system,--a ditch or ditches, with closely supporting works,

extending across the island. Individuals, or small parties, might slip

by unperceived; but it should have been impossible for any serious

co-operation to take place. The coast-wise railroads, again, kept

Havana and the country adjacent to them in open, if limited,

communication with the sea, so long as any one port upon their lines

remained unblockaded. For reasons such as these, in this belt of land,

from Havana to Sagua and Cienfuegos, lay the chief strength of the

Spanish tenure, which centred upon Havana; and in it the greatest

part of the Spanish army was massed. Until, therefore, we were ready

to invade, which should not have been before the close of the rainy

season, the one obvious course open to us was to isolate the capital

and the army from the sea, through which supplies of all kinds--daily

bread, almost, of food and ammunition--were introduced; for Cuba, in

these respects, produces little.

To perfect such isolation, however, it was necessary not only to place

before each port armed cruisers able to stop merchant steamers, but

also to give to the vessels so stationed, as well on the south as on

the north side, a backbone of support by the presence of an armored

fleet, which should both close the great ports--Havana and

Cienfuegos--and afford a rallying-point to the smaller ships, if

driven in by the appearance of Cervera's division. The main

fleet--three armored ships--on the north was thus used, although the

blockade, from the fewness of available cruisers, was not at first

extended beyond Cardenas. On the south a similar body--the Flying

Squadron--should from the first have been stationed before

Cienfuegos; for each division, as has been said, could with military

propriety have been risked singly against Cervera's four ships. This

was not done, because it was possible--though most improbable--that

the Spanish squadron might attempt one of our own ports; because we

had not perfect confidence in the harbor defences; and because, also,

of the popular outcry. Consequently, the extremely important port of

Cienfuegos, a back door to Havana, was blockaded only by a few light

cruisers; and when the Spanish squadron was reported at Curaçao, these

had to be withdrawn. One only was left to maintain in form the

blockade which had been declared; and she had instructions to clear

out quickly if the enemy appeared. Neither one, nor a dozen, of such

ships would have been the slightest impediment to Cervera's entering

Cienfuegos, raising our blockade by force; and this, it is needless to

add, would have been hailed in Spain and throughout the Continent of

Europe as a distinct defeat for us,--which, in truth, it would have

been, carrying with it consequences political as well as military.

This naval mishap, had it occurred, would have been due mainly to

inadequate armament of our coasts; for to retain the Flying Squadron

in the Chesapeake, merely as a guard to the coasting trade, would have

been a serious military error, subordinating an offensive

operation--off Cienfuegos--to one merely defensive, and not absolutely

vital. "The best protection against an enemy's fire," said Farragut,

"is a well-directed fire from our own guns." Analogically, the best

defence for one's own shores is to harass and threaten seriously those

of the opponent; but this best defence cannot be employed to the

utmost, if the inferior, passive defence of fortification has been

neglected. The fencer who wears also a breastplate may be looser in

his guard. Seaports cannot strike beyond the range of their guns; but

if the great commercial ports and naval stations can strike

effectively so far, the fleet can launch into the deep rejoicing,

knowing that its home interests, behind the buckler of the fixed

defences, are safe till it returns.

The broader determining conditions, and the consequent dispositions

made by the Government of the United States and its naval authorities,

in the recent campaign, have now been stated and discussed. In them

is particularly to be noted the crippling effect upon naval operations

produced by the consciousness of inadequate coast defences of the

permanent type. The sane conclusion to be drawn is, that while

sea-coast fortification can never take the place of fleets; that

while, as a defence even, it, being passive, is far inferior to the

active measure of offensive defence, which protects its own interests

by carrying offensive war out on to the sea, and, it may be, to the

enemy's shores; nevertheless, by the fearless freedom of movement it

permits to the navy, it is to the latter complementary,--completes it;

the two words being etymologically equivalent.

The other comments hitherto made upon our initial plan of

operations--for example, the impropriety of attempting simultaneous

movements against Puerto Rico and Cuba, and the advisability or

necessity, under the same conditions, of moving against both

Cienfuegos and Havana by the measure of a blockade--were simply

special applications of general principles of warfare, universally

true, to particular instances in this campaign. They address

themselves, it may be said, chiefly to the soldier or seaman, as

illustrating his especial business of directing war; and while their

value to the civilian cannot be denied,--for whatever really

enlightens public opinion in a country like ours facilitates military

operations,--nevertheless the function of coast defence, as

contributory to sea power, is a lesson most necessary to be absorbed

by laymen; for it, as well as the maintenance of the fleet, is in this

age the work of peace times, when the need of preparation for war is

too little heeded to be understood. The illustrations of the

embarrassment actually incurred from this deficiency in the late

hostilities are of the nature of an object lesson, and as such should

be pondered.

At the same time, however, that attention is thus called to the

inevitable and far-reaching effect of such antecedent neglects, shown

in directions where men would not ordinarily have expected them, it is

necessary to check exaggeration of coast defence, in extent or in

degree, by remarking that in any true conception of war,

fortification, defence, inland and sea-coast alike, is of value merely

in so far as it conduces to offensive operations. This is

conspicuously illustrated by our recent experience. The great evil of

our deficiencies in coast armament was that they neutralized

temporarily a large part of our navy; prevented our sending it to

Cuba; made possible that Cervera's squadron, during quite an interval,

might do this or that thing of several things thus left open to him,

the result of which would have been to encourage the enemy, and

possibly to produce political action by our ill-wishers abroad.

Directly upon this consideration--of the use that the Flying Squadron

might have been, if not held up for coast defence--follows the further

reflection how much more useful still would have been a third

squadron; that is, a navy half as large again as we then had.

Expecting Cervera's force alone, a navy of such size, free from

anxiety about coast defence, could have barred to him San Juan de

Puerto Rico as well as Cienfuegos and Havana; or had Cámara been

joined to Cervera, as he should have been, such a force would have

closed both Cienfuegos and Havana with divisions that need not have

feared the combined enemy. If, further, there had been a fourth

squadron--our coast defence in each case remaining the same--our

evident naval supremacy would probably have kept the Spanish fleet in

Europe. Not unlikely there would have been no war; in which event, the

anti-imperialist may observe there would, thanks to a great and

prepared navy, have been no question of the Philippines, and possibly

none of Hawaii.

In short, it is with coast defence and the navy as it is with numbers

_versus_ size in battleships. Both being necessary, the question of

proportion demands close attention, but in both cases the same single

principle dominates: offensive power, not defensive, determines the

issues of war. In the solution of the problem, the extent to be given

coast defence by fortification depends, as do all military decisions,

whether of preparation or of actual warfare, upon certain

well-recognized principles; and for a given country or coast, since

the natural conditions remain permanent, the general dispositions, and

the relative power of the several works, if determined by men of

competent military knowledge, will remain practically constant during

long periods. It is true, doubtless, that purely military conclusions

must submit to some modification, in deference to the liability of a

population to panics. The fact illustrates again the urgent necessity

for the spread of sound elementary ideas on military subjects among

the people at large; but, if the great coast cities are satisfied of

their safety, a government will be able to resist the unreasonable

clamor--for such it is--of small towns and villages, which are

protected by their own insignificance. The navy is a more variable

element; for the demands upon it depend upon external conditions of a

political character, which may undergo changes not only sudden, but

extensive. The results of the war with Spain, for instance, have

affected but little the question of passive coast defence, by

fortification or otherwise; but they have greatly altered the

circumstances which hitherto have dictated the size of our active

forces, both land and sea. Upon the greater or less strength of the

navy depends, in a maritime conflict, the aggressive efficiency which

shortens war, and so mitigates its evils. In the general question of

preparation for naval war, therefore, the important centres and

internal waterways of commerce must receive local protection, where

they are exposed to attack from the sea; the rest must trust, and can

in such case safely trust, to the fleet, upon which, as the offensive

arm, all other expenditure for military maritime efficiency should be

made. The preposterous and humiliating terrors of the past months,

that a hostile fleet would waste coal and ammunition in shelling

villages and bathers on a beach, we may hope will not recur.

Before proceeding to study the operations of the war, the military and

naval conditions of the enemy at its outbreak must be briefly

considered.

Spain, being a state that maintains at all times a regular army,

respectable in numbers as well as in personal valor, had at the

beginning, and, from the shortness of the war, continued to the end to

have a decided land superiority over ourselves. Whatever we might hope

eventually to produce in the way of an effective army, large enough

for the work in Cuba, time was needed for the result, and time was not

allowed. In one respect only the condition of the Peninsula seems to

have resembled our own; that was in the inadequacy of the coast

defences. The matter there was even more serious than with us,

because not only were the preparations less, but several large

sea-coast cities--for instance, Barcelona, Malaga, Cadiz--lie

immediately upon the sea-shore; whereas most of ours are at the head

of considerable estuaries, remote from the entrance. The exposure of

important commercial centres to bombardment, therefore, was for them

much greater. This consideration was indeed so evident, that there was

in the United States Navy a perceptible current of feeling in favor of

carrying maritime war to the coast of Spain, and to its commercial

approaches.

The objection to this, on the part of the Navy Department, was, with

slight modifications, the same as to the undertaking of operations

against Puerto Rico. There was not at our disposition, either in

armored ships or in cruisers, any superfluity of force over and above

the requirements of the projected blockade of Cuba. To divert ships

from this object, therefore, would be false to the golden rule of

concentration of effort,--to the single eye that gives light in

warfare. Moreover, in such a movement, the reliance, as represented in

the writer's hearing, would have been upon moral effect, upon the

dismay of the enemy; for we should soon have come to the end of our

physical coercion. As Nelson said of bombarding Copenhagen, "We should

have done our worst, and no nearer friends." The influence of moral

effect in war is indisputable, and often tremendous; but like some

drugs in the pharmacopoeia, it is very uncertain in its action. The

other party may not, as the boys say, "scare worth a cent;" whereas

material forces can be closely measured beforehand, and their results

reasonably predicted. This statement, generally true, is historically

especially true of the Spaniard, attacked in his own land. The

tenacity of the race has never come out so strongly as under such

conditions, as was witnessed in the old War of the Spanish Succession,

and during the usurpation of Napoleon.

On the other hand, such an enterprise on our part, if directed against

Spanish commerce on the seas, as was suggested by several excellent

officers, would have had but a trivial objective. The commerce of

Spain was cut up, root and branch, by our expeditions against her

colonies, Cuba and Manila; for her most important trade depended upon

monopoly of the colonial markets. The slight stream of traffic

maintained in Spanish bottoms between the English Channel and the

Peninsula, was so small that it could readily have been transferred to

neutral ships, whose flag we had for this war engaged should protect

enemy's goods. Under these circumstances, the coasts of the

Philippines and of Cuba were to us the coast of Spain, and far more

conveniently so than that of the home country would have been. A

Spanish merchant captain, writing from Barcelona as early as the 7th

of May, had said: "At this moment we have shut up in this port the

[steam] fleets of five transatlantic companies," which he names. "The

sailing-vessels are tied up permanently. Several [named] ships have

fallen into the hands of the enemy. Meantime the blockade of Cuba,

Puerto Rico, and Manila continues, at least for our flag, and maritime

commerce is at a standstill. In Barcelona some foreign firms,

exporters to the Philippines, have failed, as well as several

custom-house brokers, owing to the total cessation of mercantile

movement. The losses already suffered by our trade are incalculable,

amounting to much more than the millions needed to maintain a

half-dozen armored ships, which would have prevented the Yankees from

daring so much." These vessels continued to lie idle in Barcelona

until the dread of Commodore Watson's threatened approach caused them

to be sent to Marseilles, seeking the protection of the neutral port.

A few weeks later the same Spanish writer comments: "The result of our

mistakes," in the management of the navy, "is the loss of the markets

of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, and, in consequence, the

death of our merchant marine." Inquiries were addressed by the state

to the Chambers of Commerce, for suggestions as to the opening of new

markets, to compensate for the existing suspension of communications

with "the over-sea provinces."

With such results from our operations in the Antilles and the

Philippines, there was no inducement, and indeed no justification, for

sending cruisers across the ocean, until we had enough and to spare

for the blockade of Cuba and Puerto Rico. This was at no time the

case, up to the close of the war, owing to a combination of causes.

The work of paralyzing Spanish trade was being effectually done by

the same measures that tended to strangle the Spanish armies in Cuba

and the Philippines, and which, when fully developed, would entirely

sever their necessary communications with the outside world. Besides

all this, the concentration of our efforts upon Cuba, with a

subsequent slight extension to the single port of San Juan in Puerto

Rico, imposed upon Spain the burden of sustaining the war between

three and four thousand miles from home, and spared us the like

additional strain. Every consideration so far entertained, therefore,

of energy as well as of prudence, dictated the application of all the

pressure at our disposal at the beginning of hostilities, and until

the destruction of Cervera's squadron, upon Cuba, and in a very minor

degree upon Puerto Rico. Indeed, the ships placed before San Juan were

not for blockade, properly so called, but to check any mischievous

display of energy by the torpedo cruiser within.

After thus noting briefly the conditions of the enemy's coast defences

and commerce, there remains to consider the one other element of his

sea power--the combatant navy--with regard to its force and to its

disposition when war began.

As was before said, the disparity between the armored fleets of the

two nations was nominally inconsiderable; and the Spaniards possessed

one extremely valuable--and by us unrivalled--advantage in a nearly

homogeneous group of five[1] armored cruisers, very fast, and very

similar both in nautical qualities and in armament. It is difficult to

estimate too highly the possibilities open to such a body of ships,

regarded as a "fleet in being," to use an expression that many of our

readers may have seen, but perhaps scarcely fully understood.

The phrase "fleet in being," having within recent years gained much

currency in naval writing, demands--like the word "jingo"--preciseness

of definition; and this, in general acceptance, it has not yet

attained. It remains, therefore, somewhat vague, and so occasions

misunderstandings between men whose opinions perhaps do not materially

differ. The writer will not attempt to define, but a brief

explanation of the term and its origin may not be amiss. It was first

used, in 1690, by the British admiral Lord Torrington, when defending

his course in declining to engage decisively, with an inferior force,

a French fleet, then dominating in the Channel, and under cover of

which it was expected that a descent upon the English coast would be

made by a great French army. "Had I fought otherwise," he said, "our

fleet had been totally lost, and the kingdom had lain open to

invasion. As it was, most men were in fear that the French would

invade; but I was always of another opinion, for I always said that

whilst we had a fleet in being, they would not dare to make an

attempt."

A "fleet in being," therefore, is one the existence and maintenance of

which, although inferior, on or near the scene of operations, is a

perpetual menace to the various more or less exposed interests of the

enemy, who cannot tell when a blow may fall, and who is therefore

compelled to restrict his operations, otherwise possible, until that

fleet can be destroyed or neutralized. It corresponds very closely to

"a position on the flank and rear" of an enemy, where the presence of

a smaller force, as every military student knows, harasses, and may

even paralyze offensive movements. When such a force is extremely

mobile, as a fleet of armored cruisers may be, its power of mischief

is very great; potentially, it is forever on the flank and rear,

threatening the lines of communications. It is indeed as a threat to

communications that the "fleet in being" is chiefly formidable.

The theory received concrete and convincing illustration during the

recent hostilities, from the effect exerted--and justly exerted--upon

our plans and movements by Cervera's squadron, until there had been

assembled before Santiago a force at once so strong and so numerous as

to make his escape very improbable. Even so, when a telegram was

received from a capable officer that he had identified by night, off

the north coast of Cuba, an armored cruiser,--which, if of that class,

was most probably an enemy,--the sailing of Shafter's expedition was

stopped until the report could be verified. So much for the positive,

material influence--in the judgment of the writer, the reasonable

influence--of a "fleet in being." As regards the moral effect, the

effect upon the imagination, it is scarcely necessary more than to

allude to the extraordinary play of the fancy, the kaleidoscopic

effects elicited from our own people, and from some foreign critics,

in propounding dangers for ourselves and ubiquity for Cervera. Against

the infection of such tremors it is one of the tasks of those in

responsibility to guard themselves and, if possible, their people.

"Don't make pictures for yourself," was Napoleon's warning to his

generals. "Every naval operation since I became head of the government

has failed, because my admirals see double and have learned--where I

don't know--that war can be made without running risks."

The probable value of a "fleet in being" has, in the opinion of the

writer, been much overstated; for, even at the best, the game of

evasion, which this is, if persisted in, can have but one issue. The

superior force will in the end run the inferior to earth. In the

meanwhile, however, vital time may have been lost. It is conceivable,

for instance, that Cervera's squadron, if thoroughly effective, might,

by swift and well-concealed movements, have detained our fleet in the

West Indies until the hurricane of September, 1898, swept over the

Caribbean. We had then no reserve to replace armored ships lost or

damaged. But, for such persistence of action, there is needed in each

unit of the "fleet in being" an efficiency rarely attainable, and

liable to be lost by unforeseen accident at a critical moment. Where

effect, nay, safety, depends upon mere celerity of movement, as in

retreat, a crippled ship means a lost ship; or a lost fleet, if the

body sticks to its disabled member. Such efficiency it is probable

Cervera's division never possessed. The length of its passage across

the Atlantic, however increased by the embarrassment of frequently

recoaling the torpedo destroyers, so far over-passed the extreme

calculations of our naval authorities, that ready credence was given

to an apparently authentic report that it had returned to Spain; the

more so that such concentration was strategically correct, and it was

incorrect to adventure an important detachment so far from home,

without the reinforcement it might have received in Cadiz. This delay,

in ships whose individual speed had originally been very high, has

been commonly attributed in our service to the inefficiency of the

engine-room force; and this opinion is confirmed by a Spanish officer

writing in their "Revista de la Marina." "The Americans," he says,

"keep their ships cruising constantly, in every sea, and therefore

have a large and qualified engine-room force. We have but few

machinists, and are almost destitute of firemen." This inequality,

however, is fundamentally due to the essential differences of

mechanical capacity and development in the two nations. An amusing

story was told the writer some years ago by one of our consuls in

Cuba. Making a rather rough passage between two ports, he saw an

elderly Cuban or Spanish gentleman peering frequently into the

engine-room, with evident uneasiness. When asked the cause of his

concern, the reply was, "I don't feel comfortable unless the man in

charge of the engines talks English to them."

When to the need of constant and sustained ability to move at high

speed is added the necessity of frequent recoaling, allowing the

hostile navy time to come up, it is evident that the active use of a

"fleet in being," however perplexing to the enemy, must be both

anxious and precarious to its own commander. The contest is one of

strategic wits, and it is quite possible that the stronger, though

slower, force, centrally placed, may, in these days of cables, be able

to receive word and to corner its antagonist before the latter can

fill his bunkers. Of this fact we should probably have received a very

convincing illustration, had a satisfactory condition of our coast

defences permitted the Flying Squadron to be off Cienfuegos, or even

off Havana, instead of in Hampton Roads. Cervera's entrance to

Santiago was known to us within twenty-four hours. In twenty-four more

it could have been communicated off Cienfuegos by a fast despatch

boat, after which less than forty-eight would have placed our division

before Santiago. The uncertainty felt by Commodore Schley, when he

arrived off Cienfuegos, as to whether the Spanish division was inside

or no, would not have existed had his squadron been previously

blockading; and his consequent delay of over forty-eight hours--with

the rare chance thus offered to Cervera--would not have occurred. To

coal four great ships within that time was probably beyond the

resources of Santiago; whereas the speed predicated for our own

movements is rather below than above the dispositions contemplated to

ensure it.

The great end of a war fleet, however, is not to chase, nor to fly,

but to control the seas. Had Cervera escaped our pursuit at Santiago,

it would have been only to be again paralyzed at Cienfuegos or at

Havana. When speed, not force, is the reliance, destruction may be

postponed, but can be escaped only by remaining in port. Let it not,

therefore, be inferred, from the possible, though temporary, effect of

a "fleet in being," that speed is the chief of all factors in the

battleship. This plausible, superficial notion, too easily accepted in

these days of hurry and of unreflecting dependence upon machinery as

the all in all, threatens much harm to the future efficiency of the

navy. Not speed, but power of offensive action, is the dominant factor

in war. The decisive preponderant element of great land forces has

ever been the infantry, which, it is needless to say, is also the

slowest. The homely summary of the art of war, "To get there first

with the most men," has with strange perverseness been so distorted

in naval--and still more in popular--conception, that the second and

more important consideration has been subordinated to the former and

less essential. Force does not exist for mobility, but mobility for

force. It is of no use to get there first unless, when the enemy in

turn arrives, you have also the most men,--the greater force. This is

especially true of the sea, because there inferiority of force--of gun

power--cannot be compensated, as on land it at times may be, by

judiciously using accidents of the ground. I do not propose to fall

into an absurdity of my own by questioning the usefulness of higher

speed, _provided_ the increase is not purchased at the expense of

strictly offensive power; but the time has come to say plainly that

its value is being exaggerated; that it is in the battleship secondary

to gun power; that a battle fleet can never attain, nor maintain, the

highest rate of any ship in it, except of that one which at the moment

is the slowest, for it is a commonplace of naval action that fleet

speed is that of the slowest ship; that not exaggerated speed, but

uniform speed--sustained speed--is the requisite of the battle fleet;

that it is not machinery, as is often affirmed, but brains and guns,

that win battles and control the sea. The true speed of war is not

headlong precipitancy, but the unremitting energy which wastes no

time.

For the reasons that have been given, the safest, though not the most

effective, disposition of an inferior "fleet in being" is to lock it

up in an impregnable port or ports, imposing upon the enemy the

intense and continuous strain of watchfulness against escape. This it

was that Torrington, the author of the phrase, proposed for the time

to do. Thus it was that Napoleon, to some extent before Trafalgar, but

afterward with set and exclusive purpose, used the French Navy, which

he was continually augmenting, and yet never, to the end of his reign,

permitted again to undertake any serious expedition. The mere

maintenance of several formidable detachments, in apparent readiness,

from the Scheldt round to Toulon, presented to the British so many

possibilities of mischief that they were compelled to keep constantly

before each of the French ports a force superior to that within,

entailing an expense and an anxiety by which the Emperor hoped to

exhaust their endurance. To some extent this was Cervera's position

and function in Santiago, whence followed logically the advisability

of a land attack upon the port, to force to a decisive issue a

situation which was endurable only if incurable. "The destruction of

Cervera's squadron," justly commented an Italian writer, before the

result was known, "is the only really decisive fact that can result

from the expedition to Santiago, because it will reduce to impotence

the naval power of Spain. The determination of the conflict will

depend throughout upon the destruction of the Spanish sea power, and

not upon territorial descents, although the latter may aggravate the

situation." The American admiral from before Santiago, when urging the

expedition of a land force to make the bay untenable, telegraphed,

"The destruction of this squadron will end the war;" and it did.

In other respects it is probable that the Spanish admiral had little

confidence in a squadron which, whatever the courage or other

qualities of the officers and seamen, had never manoeuvred together

until it left the Cape de Verde Islands. Since its destruction, a

writer in a Spanish naval magazine has told the following incident:

"A little more than a year ago we visited General Cervera in La

Carraca, [the Cadiz arsenal], and we said to him: 'You appear to be

indicated, by professional opinion, for the command of the squadron in

case war is declared.' 'In that case,' he replied, 'I shall accept,

knowing, however, that I am going to a Trafalgar.' 'And how could that

disaster be avoided?' 'By allowing me to expend beforehand fifty

thousand tons of coal in evolutions and ten thousand projectiles in

target practice. Otherwise we shall go to a Trafalgar. Remember what I

say.'"

It is curious to contrast with this well-founded fear of an

experienced and gallant officer, expressed in private conversation,

the opinion of another Spanish officer, lately Minister of Marine,

reported to the Madrid public through a newspaper,--the "Heraldo," of

April 6, 1898. It illustrates, further, the curious illusions

entertained in high quarters in Spain:

"We had an opportunity to-day of talking for a long time with General

Beranger, the last Secretary of the Navy under the Conservative

Cabinet. To the questions which we directed to him concerning the

conflict pending with the United States, he was kind enough to inform

us that he confided absolutely in the triumph of our naval forces....

'We shall conquer on the sea, and I am now going to give you my

reasons. The first of these is the remarkable discipline that prevails

on our warships; and the second, as soon as fire is opened, the crews

of the American ships will commence to desert, since we all know that

among them are people of all nationalities. Ship against ship,

therefore, a failure is not to be feared. I believe that the squadron

detained at Cape de Verde, and particularly the destroyers, should

have, and could have, continued the voyage to Cuba, since they have

nothing to fear from the American fleet.'"

The review from which Cervera's opinion is quoted has, since the

disasters to the Spanish Navy, been full of complaints and of detailed

statements concerning the neglect of the navy, both in its material

and in drills, during the antecedent months of peace, owing to the

practice of a misplaced, if necessary, economy. But that economy, it

is justly argued, would not have been required to a disabling degree,

if so disproportionate an amount of money had not been expended upon

the army, by a state whose great colonial system could in war be

sustained only by a fleet. "In more than a year," writes a captain in

the Spanish Navy, "we have had only one target practice, and that

limited in extent, in order to expend the least possible amount of

ammunition." The short brilliant moments of triumph in war are the

sign and the seal of the long hours of obscure preparations, of which

target practice is but one item. Had even the nominal force of Spain

been kept in efficient condition for immediate action, the task of the

United States would have been greatly prolonged and far from so easy

as it has been since declared by those among our people who delight to

belittle the great work our country has just achieved, and to

undervalue the magnanimity of its resolution to put a stop to outrages

at our doors which were well said to have become intolerable. Neither

by land nor by sea was the state of the case so judged by professional

men, either at home or abroad. It was indeed evident that, if we

persevered, there could be but one issue; but this might have been

postponed, by an active opponent, long enough to have disheartened our

nation, if it was as easily to be discouraged by the difficulties and

dangers, now past, as it is in some quarters represented again to be

by the problems arising out of the war and its conquests. Such

discouragement, perplexity, and consequent frustration of the

adversary's purposes are indeed the prime function of a "fleet in

being,"--to create and to maintain moral effect, in short, rather than

physical, unless indeed the enemy, yielding to moral effect, divides

his forces in such wise as to give a chance for a blow at one portion

of them. The tendency to this also received illustration in our war.

"Our sea-coast," said a person then in authority to the present

writer, "was in a condition of unreasoning panic, and fought to have

little squadrons scattered along it everywhere, according to the

theory of defence always favored by stupid terror." The "stupidity,"

by all military experience, was absolute--unqualified; but the Navy

Department succeeded in withstanding the "terror"--the moral

effect--so far as to compromise on the Flying Squadron; a rational

solution, though not unimpeachable. We thus, instead of a half-dozen

naval groups, had only two, the combination of which might perhaps be

effected in time enough.