Some Principles of Maritime Strategy by Julian Stafford Corbett

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If, on the other hand, the transport squadron is able to furnish all the
support necessary, the covering squadron will take station as close as
possible to the enemy's naval base, and there it will operate according to
the ordinary laws of blockade. If nothing is desired but to prevent
interference, its guard will take the form of a close blockade. But if
there be a subsidiary purpose of using the expedition as a means of forcing
the enemy to sea, the open form will be employed; as, for instance, in
Anson's case above cited, when he covered the St. Malo expedition not by
closely blockading Brest, but by taking a position to the eastward at the
Isle de Batz.

In the Japanese operations against Manchuria and the Kuantung Peninsula
these old principles displayed themselves in undiminished vitality. In the
surprise descents against Seoul and at Takusan the work of support was left
entirely with the transport squadron, while Admiral Togo took up a covering
position far away at Port Arthur. The two elements of the fleet were kept
separate all through. But in the operations for the isolation and
subsequent siege of Port Arthur they were so closely united as to appear
frequently indistinguishable. Still, so far as the closeness of the landing
place to the objective permitted, the two acted independently. For the
actual landing of the Second Army the boats of the covering squadron were
used, but it remained a live naval unit all through, and was never
organically mingled with the transport squadron. Its operations throughout
were, so far as modern conditions permit, on the lines of a close blockade.
To prevent interference was its paramount function, undisturbed, so far as
we are able to judge, by any subsidiary purpose of bringing the enemy to
decisive action.

All through the operations, however, there was a new influence which tended
to confuse the precision of the old methods. Needless to say it was the
torpedo and the mine. Their deflective pressure was curious and
interesting. In our own operations against Sebastopol, to which the Port
Arthur case is most closely comparable, the old rules still held good. On
the traditional principle, dating from Drake's attack on San Domingo in
1585, a landing place was chosen which gave the mean between facility for a
_coup de main_ and freedom from opposition; that is, it was chosen at the
nearest practicable point to the objective which was undefended by
batteries and out of reach of the enemy's main army.

In the handling of the covering squadron Admiral Dundas, the
Commander-in-Chief, gave it its dual function. After explaining the
constitution of the transport squadron he says, "The remainder of my force
... will act as a covering squadron, and where practicable assist in the
general disembarkation." With these two objects in mind he took a station
near enough to the landing place to support the army with his guns if it
were opposed, but still in sight of his cruisers before Sebastopol, and at
such a distance that at the first sign of the Russians moving he would have
time to get before the port and engage them before they could get well to
sea; that is, he took a position as near to the army as was compatible with
preventing interference, or, it may be said, his position was as near to
the enemy's base as was compatible with supporting the landing. From either
aspect in fact the position was the same, and its choice presented no
complexity owing mainly to the fact that for the first time steam
simplified the factors of time and distance.

In the Japanese case the application of these principles was not so easy.
In selecting the nearest undefended point for a landing, it was not only
batteries, or even the army in Port Arthur, or the troops dispersed in the
Liaotung Peninsula that had to be considered, but rather, as must always be
the case in the future, mines and mobile torpedo defence. The point they
chose was the nearest practicable bay that was unmined. It was not strictly
out of mobile defence range, but it so happened that it lay behind islands
which lent themselves to the creation of fixed defences, and thus it
fulfilled all the recognised conditions. But in so far as the defences
could be turned by the Russian fleet a covering squadron was necessary, and
the difficulty of choosing a position for it was complicated by the fact
that the objective of the combined operations was not merely Port Arthur
itself, but also the squadron it contained. It was necessary, therefore,
not only to hold off that squadron, but to prevent its escape. This
indicated a close blockade. But for close blockade a position out of night
torpedo range is necessary, and the nearest point where such a position
could be secured was behind the defences that covered the disembarkation.
Consequently, in spite of what the strategical conditions dictated, the
covering squadron was more or less continuously forced back upon the army
and its supporting force, even when the support of the battle-squadron was
no longer required.

In the conditions that existed nothing was lost. For the lines of the
Japanese fixed defences were so near to the enemy's base, that by mining
the entrance of the port Admiral Togo ensured that the enemy's exit would
be slow enough for him to be certain of getting contact from his defended
anchorage before the Russians could get far to sea. What would happen in a
case when no such position could be secured is another matter. The landing
place and supply base of the army must be secured against torpedo attack,
and the principle of concentration of effort would suggest that the means
of defence should not be attenuated by providing the covering squadron with
a defended anchorage elsewhere. Thus it would appear that unless the
geographical conditions permit the covering squadron to use one of its own
national bases, the drift of recent developments will be to force it back
on the army, and thus tend to confuse its duties with those of the
transport squadron. Hence the increased importance of keeping clear the
difference in function between the two squadrons.

To emphasise the principle of the covering squadron, these two cases may be
contrasted with the Lissa episode at the end of the Austro-Italian War of
1866. In that case it was entirely neglected, with disastrous results. The
Austrian admiral, Tegethoff, with an inferior fleet had by higher order
been acting throughout on the defensive, and was still in Pola waiting for
a chance of a counter-stroke. Persano with the superior Italian fleet was
at Ancona, where he practically dominated the Adriatic. In July the
Italians, owing to the failure of the army, were confronted with the
prospect of being forced to make peace on unfavourable terms. To improve
the position Persano was ordered to take possession of the Austrian island
of Lissa. Without any attempt to organise his fleet on the orthodox British
principle he proceeded to conduct the operation with his entire force.
Practically the whole of it became involved in amphibious work, and as soon
as Persano was thus committed, Tegethoff put to sea and surprised him.
Persano was unable to disentangle a sufficient force in time to meet the
attack, and having no compact squadron fit for independent naval action, he
was decisively defeated by the inferior enemy. According to British
practice, it was clearly a case where, if the operation were to be
undertaken at all, an independent covering squadron should have been told
off either to hold Tegethoff in Pola or to bring him to timely action,
according to whether the island or the Austrian fleet was the primary
objective. The reason it was not done may be that Persano was not given a
proper landing force, and he seems to have considered that the whole
strength of his fleet was needed for the successful seizure of the
objective. If so, it is only one more proof of the rule that no matter what
fleet support the landing operations may require, it should never be given
in an imperfectly commanded sea to an extent which will deny the
possibility of a covering squadron being left free for independent naval
action.

The length to which the supporting functions of the fleet may be carried
will always be a delicate question. The suggestion that its strength must
be affected by the need of the army for the men of the fleet or its boats,
which imply its men as well, will appear heretical. A battle-squadron, we
say, is intended to deal with the enemy's battle-squadron and its men to
fight the ships, and the mind revolts at the idea of the strength of a
squadron being fixed by any other standard. Theoretically nothing can seem
more true, but it is an idea of peace and the study. The atmosphere of war
engendered a wider and more practical view. The men of the old wars knew
that when a squadron is attached to a combined expedition it is something
different from a purely naval unit. They knew, moreover, that an army
acting oversea against hostile territory is an incomplete organism
incapable of striking its blow in the most effective manner without the
assistance of the men of the fleet. It was the office, then, of the naval
portion of the force not only to defend the striking part of the organism,
but to complete its deficiencies and lend it the power to strike. Alone and
unaided the army cannot depend on getting itself ashore, it cannot supply
itself, it cannot secure its retreat, nor can it avail itself of the
highest advantages of an amphibious force, the sudden shift of base or line
of operation. These things the fleet must do for it, and it must do them
with its men.[25]

[25] The Japanese in the late war attempted to do this work by means of a
highly organized Army Disembarkation Staff, but except in perfect
conditions of weather and locality it does not seem to have worked well,
and in almost all cases the assistance of the navy was called in.

The authority for this view is abundant. In 1800, for instance, when
General Maitland was charged with an expedition against Belleisle, he was
invited to state what naval force he would require. He found it difficult
to fix with precision. "Speaking loosely, however," he wrote, "three or
four sail of the line and four or five active frigates appear to me to be
properly adequate to the proposed service. The frigates to blockade."
(Meaning, of course, to blockade the objective and prevent reinforcements
reaching it from the mainland, always one of the supporting functions of
the squadron attached to the transports.) "The line-of-battle ships," he
adds, "to furnish us with the number of men necessary for land operations."
In this case our permanent blockading squadrons supplied the cover, and
what Maitland meant was that the battleships he asked for were to be added
to the transport squadron not as being required for escort, but for
support. St. Vincent, who was then First Lord, not only endorsed his
request, but gave him for disembarkation work one more ship-of-the-line
than he had asked for. At this time our general command of the sea had been
very fully secured, and we had plenty of naval force to spare for its
exercise. It will be well to compare it with a case in which the
circumstances were different.

When in 1795 the expedition under Admiral Christian and General Abercromby
was being prepared for the West Indies, the admiral in concert with Jervis
drew up a memorandum as to the naval force required.[26] The force he asked
for was considerable. Both he and Jervis considered that the escort and
local cover must be very strong, because it was impossible to count on
closing either Brest or Toulon effectually by blockade. But this was not
the only reason. The plan of operations involved three distinct landings,
and each would require at least two of the line, and perhaps three, "not
only as protection, but as the means by which flat-boats must be manned,
cannon landed, and the other necessary services of fatigue executed."
Christian also required the necessary frigates and three or four brigs "to
cover [that is, support] the operations of the smaller vessels [that is,
the landing flotillas doing inshore work]." The main attack would require
at least four of the line and seven frigates, with brigs and schooners in
proportion. In all he considered, the ships-of-the-line [the frigates being
"otherwise employed"] would have to provide landing parties to the number
of 2000 men "for the flat-boats, landing and moving guns, water, and
provisions," and this would be their daily task. The military force these
landing parties were to serve amounted to about 18,000 men.

[26] Sir Hugh Cloberry Christian was an officer of high distinction with
a remarkable record of battle service. He had been serving as Howe's
second captain just before his promotion to flag rank in 1795, and died
as Commander-in-Chief at the Cape at the early age of fifty-one.

Lord Barham, it must be said, who as Sir Charles Middleton was then First
Sea Lord, objected to the requirements as excessive, particularly in the
demand for a strong escort, as he considered that the transit could be
safeguarded by special vigilance on the part of the permanent blockading
squadrons. The need for large shore parties he seems to have ignored. His
opinion, however, is not quite convincing, for from the first he had taken
up an antagonistic attitude to the whole idea of the expedition. He
regarded the policy which dictated it as radically unsound, and was
naturally anxious to restrict the force that was to be spent upon it. His
opposition was based on the broad and far-sighted principles that were
characteristic of his strategy. He believed that in view of the threatening
attitude of Spain the right course was to husband the navy so as to bring
it up to a two-Power standard for the coming struggle, and to keep it
concentrated for decisive naval action the moment Spain showed her hand. In
short, he stoutly condemned a policy which entailed a serious dissipation
of naval force for a secondary object before a working command of the sea
had been secured. It was, in fact, the arrangements for this expedition
which forced him to resign before the preparations were complete. But it is
to be observed that his objections to the plan were really due, not to the
principle of its organisation, but to our having insufficient force to give
it adequate naval support without prejudicing the higher consideration of
our whole position at sea.[27]

[27] On analogous grounds almost every military critic has condemned the
policy of this disastrous expedition as involving a dispersal of our
slender military force at a time when everything called for its
concentration in Europe.

It is obvious that the foregoing considerations, beyond the strategical
reactions already noted, will have another of the first importance, in that
they must influence the choice of a landing place. The interest of the army
will always be to fix it as near to the objective as is compatible with an
unopposed landing. The ideal was one night's march, but this could rarely
be attained except in the case of very small expeditions, which could be
landed rapidly at the close of day and advance in the dark. In larger
expeditions, the aim was to effect the landing far enough from the
objective to prevent the garrison of the place or the enemy's local forces
offering opposition before a footing was secured. The tendency of the navy
will usually be in the opposite direction; for normally the further they
can land the army away from the enemy's strength, the surer are they of
being able to protect it against naval interference. Their ideal will be a
place far enough away to be out of torpedo range, and to enable them to
work the covering and the transport squadron in sound strategical
independence.

To reduce these divergencies to a mean of efficiency some kind of joint
Staff is necessary, and to ensure its smooth working it is no less
desirable to ascertain, so far as possible, the principles and method on
which it should proceed. In the best recent precedents the process has been
for the Army Staff to present the limits of coast-line within which the
landing must take place for the operation to have the desired effect, and
to indicate the known practicable landing points in the order they would
prefer them. It will then be for the Naval Staff to say how nearly in
accordance with the views of the army they are prepared to act. Their
decision will turn on the difficulties of protection and the essentials of
a landing place from the point of view of weather, currents, beach and the
like, and also in a secondary measure upon the extent to which the
conformation of the coast will permit of tactical support by gun-fire and
feints. If the Naval Staff are unwilling to agree to the point or points
their colleagues most desire, a question of balance of risk is set up,
which the higher Joint Staff must adjust. It will be the duty of the Naval
Staff to set out frankly and clearly all the sea risks the proposal of the
army entails, and if possible to suggest an alternative by which the risk
of naval interference can be lessened without laying too heavy a burden on
the army. Balancing these risks against those stated by the army, the
superior Staff must decide which line is to be taken, and each service then
will do its best to minimise the difficulties it has to face. Whether the
superior Staff will incline to the naval or the military view will depend
upon whether the greater danger likely to be incurred is from the sea or on
land.

Where the naval conditions are fairly well known the line of operations can
be fixed in this way with much precision. But if, as usually happens, the
probable action of the enemy at sea cannot be divined with sufficient
approximation, then assuming there is serious possibility of naval
interference, the final choice within the limited area must be left to the
admiral. The practice has been to give him instructions which define in
order of merit the points the army desire, and direct him to select the one
which in the circumstances, as he finds them, he considers within
reasonable risk of war. Similarly, if the danger of naval interference be
small and the local conditions ashore imperfectly known, the final choice
will be with the general, subject only to the practicable possibilities of
the landing place he would choose.

During the best period of our old wars there was seldom any difficulty in
making things work smoothly on these lines. After the first inglorious
failure at Rochefort in 1757 the practice was, where discretion of this
kind had been allowed, for the two commanders-in-chief to make a joint
coast-reconnaissance in the same boat and settle the matter amicably on the
spot.

It was on these lines the conduct of our combined operations was always
arranged thenceforth. Since the elder Pitt's time it has never been our
practice to place combined expeditions under either a naval or a military
commander-in-chief and allow him to decide between naval and military
exigencies. The danger of possible friction between two commanders-in-chief
came to be regarded as small compared with the danger of a single one
making mistakes through unfamiliarity with the limitations of the service
to which he does not belong.

The system has usually worked well even when questions arose which were
essentially questions for a joint superior Staff. The exceptions indeed are
very few. A fine example of how such difficulties can be settled, when the
spirit is willing, occurred in the Crimea. The naval difficulties, as we
have already seen, were as formidable as they could well be short of
rendering the whole attempt madness. When it came to the point of execution
a joint council of war was held, at which sat the allied Staffs of both
services. So great were the differences of opinion between the French and
British Generals, and so imperfectly was the terrain known, that they could
not indicate a landing place with any precision. All the admirals knew was
that it must be on an open coast, which they had not been able to
reconnoitre, where the weather might at any time interrupt communications
with the shore, and where they were liable to be attacked by a force which,
until their own ships were cleared of troops, would not be inferior. All
these objections they laid before the Council General. Lord Raglan then
said the army now perfectly understood the risk, and was prepared to take
it. Whereupon the allied admirals replied that they were ready to proceed
and do their best to set the army ashore and support it at any point that
should be chosen.

There remains a form of support which has not yet been considered, and that
is diversionary movements or feints by the fleet to draw the enemy's
attention away from the landing place. This will naturally be a function of
the covering battle-squadron or its attendant cruisers and flotilla. The
device appears in Drake's attack on San Domingo in 1585, an attack which
may be regarded as our earliest precedent in modern times and as the
pattern to which all subsequent operations of the kind conformed so far as
circumstances allowed. In that case, while Drake landed the troops a
night's march from the place, the bulk of the fleet moved before it, kept
it in alarm all night, and at dawn made a demonstration with the boats of
forcing a direct landing under cover of its guns. The result was the
garrison moved out to meet the threat and were surprised in flank by the
real landing force. Passing from this simple case to the most elaborate in
our annals, we find Saunders doing the same thing at Quebec. In preparation
for Wolfe's night landing he made a show of arrangements for a bombardment
of Montcalm's lines below the city, and in the morning with the boats of
the fleet began a demonstration of landing his marines. By this device he
held Montcalm away from Wolfe's landing place till a secure footing had
been obtained. Similar demonstrations had been made above the city, and the
combined result was that Wolfe was able to penetrate the centre of the
French position unopposed.

Such work belongs of course to the region of tactics rather than of
strategy, but the device has been used with equal effect strategically. So
great is the secrecy as well as the mobility of an amphibious force, that
it is extremely difficult for an enemy to distinguish a real attack from a
feint. Even at the last moment, when a landing is actually in progress, it
is impossible for the defenders to tell that all the troops are being
landed at the one point if a demonstration is going on elsewhere. At Quebec
it was not till Montcalm was face to face with Wolfe that he knew he had to
deal with the whole British force. Still less from a strategical point of
view can we be certain whether a particular landing represents an advance
guard or is a diversionary operation to mask a larger landing elsewhere.
This is a special difficulty when in the case of large operations the
landing army arrives in echelon like the Second Japanese army. In that
instance the naval feint was used strategically, and apparently with
conspicuous effect. The Russians were always apprehensive that the Japanese
would strike for Newchuang at the head of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and for
this reason General Stakelberg, who had command of the troops in the
peninsula, was not permitted to concentrate for effective action in its
southern part, where the Japanese had fixed their landing place. Admiral
Togo, in spite of the strain on his fleet in effecting and securing the
disembarkation of the army, detached a cruiser squadron to demonstrate in
the Gulf. The precise effect of this feint upon the Russian Staff cannot be
measured with certainty. All we know is that Stakelberg was held back from
his concentration so long that he was unable to strike the Japanese army
before it was complete for the field and able to deal him a staggering
counter-stroke.

This power of disturbing the enemy with feints is of course inherent in the
peculiar attributes of combined expeditions, in the facility with which
their line of operation can be concealed or changed, and there seems no
reason why in the future it should be less than in the past. Good railway
connections in the theatre of the descent will of course diminish the
effect of feints, but, on the other hand, the means of making them have
increased. In mine-sweeping vessels, for instance, there is a new
instrument which in the Russo-Japanese War proved capable of creating a
very strong impression at small cost to the fleet. Should a flotilla of
such craft appear at any practicable part of a threatened coast and make a
show of clearing it, it will be almost a moral impossibility to ignore the
demonstration.

On the whole then, assuming the old methods are followed, it would seem
that with a reasonable naval preponderance the power of carrying out such
operations over an uncommanded sea is not less than it has proved to be
hitherto. The rapidity and precision of steam propulsion perhaps places
that power higher than ever. It would at any rate be difficult to find in
the past a parallel to the brilliant movement on Seoul with which the
Japanese opened the war in 1904. It is true the Russians at the last moment
decided for political reasons to permit the occupation to take place
without opposition, but this was unknown to the Japanese, and their
arrangements were made on the assumption that their enemy would use the
formidable means at his disposal to obstruct the operation. The risk was
accepted, skillfully measured, and adequately provided for on principles
identical with those of the British tradition. But, on the other hand,
there has been nothing to show that where the enemy has a working command
of the sea the hazard of such enterprises has been reduced. Against an
enemy controlling the line of passage in force, the well-tried methods of
covering and protecting an oversea expedition will no more work to-day than
they did in the past. Until his hold is broken by purely naval action,
combined work remains beyond all legitimate risk of war.

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