[Footnote 64: Written in 1906. (_The_Morning_Post_.)]
It has been contended that raids by 'armaments with 1000, 20,000,
and 50,000 men on board respectively' have succeeded in evading
'our watching and chasing fleets,' and that consequently invasion
of the British Isles on a great scale is not only possible but
fairly practicable, British naval predominance notwithstanding.
I dispute the accuracy of the history involved in the allusions
to the above-stated figures. The number of men comprised in a
raiding or invading expedition is the number that is or can be
put on shore. The crews of the transports are not included in
it. In the cases alluded to, Humbert's expedition was to have
numbered 82 officers and 1017 other ranks, and 984 were put on
shore in Killala Bay. Though the round number, 1000, represents
this figure fairly enough, there was a 10 per cent. shrinkage
from the original embarkation strength. In Hoche's expedition
the total number of troops embarked was under 14,000, of whom
633 were lost before the expedition had got clear of its port of
starting, and of the remainder only a portion reached Ireland.
General Bonaparte landed in Egypt not 50,000 men, but about 36,000.
In the expeditions of Hoche and Humbert it was not expected that
the force to be landed would suffice of itself, the belief being
that it would be joined in each case by a large body of adherents
in the raided country. Outside the ranks of the 'extremists of the
dinghy school'--whose number is unknown and is almost certainly
quite insignificant--no one asserts or ever has asserted that raids
in moderate strength are not possible even in the face of a strong
defending navy. It is a fact that the whole of our defence policy
for many generations has been based upon an admission of their
possibility. Captain Mahan's statement of the case has never been
questioned by anyone of importance. It is as follows: 'The control
of the sea, however real, does not imply that an enemy's single
ships or small squadrons cannot steal out of port, cannot cross
more or less frequented tracts of ocean, make harassing descents
upon unprotected points of a long coast-line, enter blockaded
harbours.' It is extraordinary that everyone does not perceive
that if this were not true the 'dinghy school' would be right.
Students of Clausewitz may be expected to remember that the art
of war does not consist in making raids that are unsuccessful;
that war is waged to gain certain great objects; and that the
course of hostilities between two powerful antagonists is affected
little one way or the other by raids even on a considerable scale.
The Egyptian expedition of 1798 deserves fuller treatment than
it has generally received. The preparations at Toulon and some
Italian ports were known to the British Government. It being
impossible for even a Moltke or--comparative resources being taken
into account--the greater strategist Kodama to know everything
in the mind of an opponent, the sensible proceeding is to guard
against his doing what would be likely to do you most harm. The
British Government had reason to believe that the Toulon expedition
was intended to reinforce at an Atlantic port another expedition
to be directed against the British Isles, or to effect a landing
in Spain with a view to marching into Portugal and depriving our
navy of the use of Lisbon. Either if effected would probably cause
us serious mischief, and arrangements were made to prevent them. A
landing in Egypt was, as the event showed, of little importance.
The threat conveyed by it against our Indian possessions proved
to be an empty one. Upwards of 30,000 hostile troops were locked
up in a country from which they could exercise no influence on
the general course of the war, and in which in the end they had
to capitulate. Suppose that an expedition crossing the North Sea
with the object of invading this country had to content itself
with a landing in Iceland, having eventual capitulation before it,
should we not consider ourselves very fortunate, though it may
have temporarily occupied one of the Shetland Isles _en_route_?
The truth of the matter is that the Egyptian expedition was one of
the gravest of strategical mistakes, and but for the marvellous
subsequent achievements of Napoleon it would have been the typical
example of bad strategy adduced by lecturers and writers on the
art of war for the warning of students.
The supposition that over-sea raids, even when successful in
part, in any way demonstrate the inefficiency of naval defence
would never be admitted if only land and sea warfare were regarded
as branches of one whole and not as quite distinct things. To be
consistent, those that admit the supposition should also admit that
the practicability of raids demonstrates still more conclusively
the insufficiency of defence by an army. An eminent military writer
has told us that 'a raiding party of 1000 French landed in Ireland
without opposition, after sixteen days of navigation, unobserved
by the British Navy; defeated and drove back the British troops
opposing them on four separate occasions... entirely occupied the
attention of all the available troops of a garrison of Ireland
100,000 strong; penetrated almost to the centre of the island,
and compelled the Lord-Lieutenant to send an urgent requisition
for "as great a reinforcement as possible."' If an inference is to
be drawn from this in the same way as one has been drawn from the
circumstances on the sea, it would follow that one hundred thousand
troops are not sufficient to prevent a raid by one thousand, and
consequently that one million troops would not be sufficient to
prevent one by ten thousand enemies. On this there would arise the
question, If an army a million strong gives no security against
a raid by ten thousand men, is an army worth having? And this
question, be it noted, would come, not from disciples of the
Blue Water School, 'extremist' or other, but from students of
military narrative.
The truth is that raids are far more common on land than on the
ocean. For every one of the latter it would be possible to adduce
several of the former. Indeed, accounts of raids are amongst
the common-places of military history. There are few campaigns
since the time of that smart cavalry leader Mago, the younger
brother of Hannibal, in which raids on land did not occur or
in which they exercised any decisive influence on the issue of
hostilities. It is only the failure to see the connection between
warfare on land and naval warfare that prevents these land raids
being given the same significance and importance that is usually
given to those carried out across the sea.
In the year 1809, the year of Wagram, Napoleon's military influence
in Central Germany was, to say the least, not at its lowest.
Yet Colonel Schill, of the Prussian cavalry, with 1200 men,
subsequently increased to 2000 infantry and 12 squadrons, proceeded
to Wittenberg, thence to Magdeburg, and next to Stralsund, which
he occupied and where he met his death in opposing an assault
made by 6000 French troops. He had defied for a month all the
efforts of a large army to suppress him. In the same year the
Duke of Brunswick-Oels and Colonel Dornberg, notwithstanding the
smallness of the force under them, by their action positively
induced Napoleon, only a few weeks before Wagram, to detach the
whole corps of Kellerman, 30,000 strong, which otherwise would
have been called up to the support of the Grande Armée, to the
region in which these enterprising raiders were operating. The
mileage covered by Schill was nearly as great as that covered by
the part of Hoche's expedition which under Grouchy did reach an
Irish port, though it was not landed. Instances of cavalry raids
were frequent in the War of Secession in America. The Federal
Colonel B. H. Grierson, of the 6th Illinois Cavalry, with another
Illinois and an Iowa cavalry regiment, in April 1863 made a raid
which lasted sixteen days, and in which he covered 600 miles of
hostile country, finally reaching Baton Rouge, where a friendly
force was stationed. The Confederate officers, John H. Morgan,
John S. Mosby, and especially N. B. Forrest, were famous for the
extent and daring of their raids. Of all the leaders of important
raids in the War of Secession none surpassed the great Confederate
cavalry General, J. E. B. Stuart, whose riding right round the
imposing Federal army is well known. Yet not one of the raids
above mentioned had any effect on the main course of the war
in which they occurred or on the result of the great conflict.
In the last war the case was the same. In January 1905, General
Mischenko with 10,000 sabres and three batteries of artillery
marched right round the flank of Marshal Oyama's great Japanese
army, and occupied Niu-chwang--not the treaty port so-called, but
a place not very far from it. For several days he was unmolested,
and in about a week he got back to his friends with a loss which
was moderate in proportion to his numbers. In the following May
Mischenko made another raid, this time round General Nogi's flank.
He had with him fifty squadrons, a horse artillery battery, and a
battery of machine guns. Starting on the 17th, he was discovered
on the 18th, came in contact with his enemy on the 19th, but
met with no considerable hostile force till the 20th, when the
Japanese cavalry arrived just in time to collide with the Russian
rearguard of two squadrons. On this General Mischenko 'retired
at his ease for some thirty miles along the Japanese flank and
perhaps fifteen miles away from it.' These Russians' raids did
not alter the course of the war nor bring ultimate victory to
their standards.
It would be considered by every military authority as a flagrant
absurdity to deduce from the history of these many raids on land
that a strong army is not a sufficient defence for a continental
country against invasion. What other efficient defence against
that can a continental country have? Apply the reasoning to the
case of an insular country, and reliance on naval defence will
be abundantly justified.
To maintain that Canada, India, and Egypt respectively could
be invaded by the United States, Russia, and Turkey, backed by
Germany, notwithstanding any action that our navy could take,
would be equivalent to maintaining that one part of our empire
cannot or need not reinforce another. Suppose that we had a military
force numerically equal to or exceeding the Russian, how could any
of it be sent to defend Canada, India, and Egypt, or to reinforce
the defenders of those countries, unless our sea communications
were kept open? Can these be kept open except by the action of
our navy? It is plain that they cannot.