DISPUTED COMMAND--BLOCKADE
I have so far treated blockade as the initial stage of a struggle for
the command of the sea. That appears to me to be the logical order of
treatment, because when two naval Powers go to war it is almost certain
that the stronger of the two will at the outset attempt to blockade the
naval forces of the other. The same thing is likely to happen even if
the two are approximately equal in naval force, but in that case the
blockade is not likely to be of long duration, because both sides will
be eager to obtain a decision in the open. The command of the sea is a
matter of such vital moment to both sides that each must needs seek to
obtain it as soon and as completely as possible, and the only certain
way to obtain it is by the destruction of the armed forces of the enemy.
The advantage of putting to sea first is in naval warfare the equivalent
or counterpart of the advantage in land warfare of first crossing the
enemy's frontier. If that advantage is pushed home and the enemy is
still unready it must lead to a blockade. It is, moreover, quite
possible that even if both belligerents are equally ready--I am here
assuming them to be approximately equal in force--one or other, if not
both, may think it better strategy to await developments before risking
everything in an attempt to secure an immediate decision. In point of
fact, the difference between this policy and the policy of a declared
blockade is, as I am about to show, almost imperceptible, especially in
modern conditions of naval warfare. It is therefore necessary to
consider the subject of blockade more in detail. Other subjects closely
associated with this will also have to be considered in some detail
before we can grasp the full purport and extent of what is meant by the
command of the sea.
There are two kinds of blockade--military and commercial. The former
includes the latter, but the latter does not necessarily involve the
former, except in the sense that armed naval force is necessary to
maintain it. By a commercial blockade a belligerent seeks to intercept
the maritime commerce of the enemy, to prevent any vessels, whether
enemy or neutral, from reaching his ports, and at the same time to
prevent their egress to the same extent. This in certain circumstances
may be a very effective agency for bending or breaking the enemy's will
and compelling his submission, but I reserve its consideration for more
detailed treatment hereafter. It is with military blockade that I am
here more especially concerned.
We have seen that the paramount purpose of all naval warfare, and,
indeed, of all warfare, is the destruction of the armed forces of the
enemy. His armed forces are in the last resort the sole instrument of
his will, and their destruction to such an extent as is necessary to
subdue his will is the sole agency by which peace can be restored.
Whatever the extent of the war, whether it is limited or unlimited, in
the sense assigned to those words by Clausewitz and his followers, the
conflict of national wills out of which the quarrel arose must in some
way be composed, either by concessions on both sides or by the complete
subjection of one side to the other, before it can come to an end. It
follows that the main object of a military blockade can rarely be to
keep the enemy's forces sealed up, masked, and to that extent
immobilized in the blockaded ports. Its real object is to secure that if
they do come out they shall be observed, shadowed, and followed until
such time as they can be encountered by a superior force, and if
possible destroyed. The classical text on this topic is a letter written
on August 1, 1804, by Nelson to the Lord Mayor of London, acknowledging
a vote of thanks passed by the Corporation, and addressed to Nelson as
commanding the fleet blockading Toulon. Nelson said in his reply: "I beg
to inform your Lordship that the port of Toulon has never been blockaded
by me: quite the reverse--every opportunity has been offered to the
enemy to put to sea, for it is there that we hope to realize the hopes
and expectations of our country, and I trust that they will not be
disappointed." What Nelson here meant was that the so-called blockade of
the port--it was a common, but, as he held, an erroneous expression--was
merely incidental to the operation he was conducting. His main objective
was the armed forces of the enemy lying unassailable within the
blockaded port. He could not make them put to sea but he gave them every
opportunity of doing so. So far from wishing to keep them in, his one
desire was to get them out into the open, "for it is there that we hope
to realize the hopes and expectations of our country"--that is to get a
decision in favour of the British arms.
Now, this being the object of a military blockade, its methods will be
subordinated to that object. In the days of sailing ships the method
which commended itself to the best naval authorities of the time was to
have an inshore squadron, consisting mainly of frigates and smaller
craft, but strengthened if necessary by a few capital ships, generally
two-deckers, closely watching the entrance to the port, but keeping
outside the range of its land defences. This was supported at a greater
distance in the offing by the main blockading fleet of heavier ships of
the line, cruising within narrow limits and keeping close touch with the
inshore squadron. Such a method is no longer practicable owing to the
development of steam navigation, and to the introduction into naval
warfare of the locomotive torpedo, and of special vessels designed to
make the attack of this weapon extremely formidable and extremely
difficult to parry. The inshore squadron of the old days was liable to
no attack which it could not parry if in sufficient force, and if too
hardly pressed it could always fall back on the main blockading fleet,
which was unassailable except by a corresponding force of the enemy. The
advent of the torpedo and of its characteristic craft has changed all
this. No naval Power can now afford to place its battleships at a fixed
station, or even in close touch with a fixed rendezvous, which is within
reach of an enemy's torpedo craft. The torpedo vessel which operates
only on the surface is, it is true, formidable only at night; in the
daytime it is powerless in attack and extremely vulnerable. But the
submarine is equally formidable in the daytime, and its attack even in
the daytime is far more insidious and difficult to parry than that of
the surface torpedo vessel is at night. The effective range of the
surface torpedo vessel is thus, for practical purposes, half the
distance which it can traverse in any given direction from its base
between dusk and dawn--say from one hundred to two hundred miles,
according to its speed and the season of the year. The speed of the
submarine is much less, but it can keep the sea for many days together,
sinking beneath the surface whenever it is threatened with attack. It
can also approach a battleship or fleet of battleships in the same
submerged condition, and experience has already demonstrated that its
advance in that condition to within striking distance is extremely
difficult to detect. Moreover, even if its presence is detected in time,
the only certain defence against it is for the battleship to steam away
from it at a speed greater than any submarine has ever attained or is
likely to attain in the submerged condition. It should further be noted
that torpedo craft engaged in offensive operations of this character are
not confined to the blockaded port as a base. Any sheltered anchorage
will serve their purpose, provided it is sufficiently fortified to
resist such attacks from the sea as may be anticipated.
Thus, in the conditions established by the advent of the torpedo and its
characteristic craft, there would seem to be only two alternatives open
to a fleet of battleships engaged in blockade operations. Either it must
be stationed in some sheltered anchorage outside the radius of action of
the enemy's surface torpedo craft, and if within that radius adequately
defended against torpedo attack--as Togo established a flying base for
the use of his fleet, first at the Elliot Islands and afterwards at
Dalny, for the purpose of blockading Port Arthur; or it must cruise in
the open outside the same limits, keeping in touch with its advanced
cruisers and flotillas by means of wireless telegraphy, and thereby
dispensing with anything like a fixed rendezvous. It is not, perhaps,
imperative that it should always cruise entirely outside the prescribed
radius, because experience in modern naval manoeuvres has frequently
shown that it is a very difficult thing for torpedo craft, moving at
random, to discover a fleet which is constantly shifting its position at
high speed, especially when they are at any moment liable to attack from
cruisers and torpedo craft of the other side.
Thus a modern blockade will, so far as battle fleets are concerned, be
of necessity rather a watching blockade than a masking or sealing up
blockade. If the two belligerents are unequal in naval strength it will
probably take some such form as the following. The weaker belligerent
will at the outset keep his battle fleet in his fortified ports. The
stronger may do the same, but he will be under no such paramount
inducement to do so. Both sides will, however, send out their torpedo
craft and supporting cruisers with intent to do as much harm as they can
to the armed forces of the enemy. If one belligerent can get his
torpedo craft to sea before the enemy is ready, he will, if he is the
stronger of the two, forthwith attempt to establish as close and
sustained a watch of the ports sheltering the enemy's armed forces as
may be practicable; if he is the weaker, he will attempt sporadic
attacks on the ports of his adversary and on such of his warships as may
be found in the open. If the enemy is so incautious as to have placed
any of his capital ships or other important craft in a position open to
the assault of torpedo craft--as Russia did at Port Arthur at the
opening of the war with Japan--or if he has been so lacking in vigilance
and forethought as not to have taken timely and adequate measures for
meeting sporadic attacks of the kind indicated, such attacks may be very
effective and may even go so far to redress the balance of naval
strength as to encourage the originally weaker belligerent to seek a
decision in the open. But the forces of the stronger belligerent must be
very badly handled and disposed for anything of the kind to take place.
The advantage of superior force is a tremendous one. If it is associated
with energy, determination, initiative, and skill of disposition no more
than equal to those of the assailant, it is overwhelming. The
sea-keeping capacity, or what has been called the enduring mobility, of
torpedo craft, is comparatively small. Their coal-supply is limited,
especially when they are steaming at full speed, and they carry no very
large reserve of torpedoes. They must, therefore, very frequently return
to a base to replenish their supplies. The superior enemy is, it is
true, subject to the same disabilities, but being superior he has more
torpedo craft to spare and more cruisers to attack the torpedo craft of
the enemy and their own escort of cruisers. When the raiding torpedo
craft return to their base he will make it very difficult for them to
get in and just as difficult for them to get out again. He will suffer
losses, of course, for there is no superiority of force that will confer
immunity in that respect in war. But even between equal forces, equally
well led and handled, there is no reason to suppose that the losses of
one side will be more than equal to those of the other; whereas if one
side is appreciably superior to the other it is reasonable to suppose
that it will inflict greater losses on the enemy than it suffers itself,
while even if the losses are equal the residue of the stronger force
will still be greater than that of the weaker. It is true that the whole
art of war, whether on sea or on land, consists in so disposing your
armed forces, both strategically and tactically, that you may be
superior to the enemy at the critical point and moment, and that success
in this supreme art is no inherent prerogative of the belligerent whose
aggregate forces are superior to those of his adversary. But this is
only to say that success in war is not an affair of numbers alone. It is
an affair of numbers combined with hard fighting and skilful
disposition.