the advance from the galley timidly creeping from port to port to the
sailing-ship launching out boldly to the ends of the earth, and from
the latter to the steamship of our own time, has increased the scope
and the rapidity of naval operations without necessarily changing the
principles which should direct them; and the speech of Hermocrates
twenty-three hundred years ago, before quoted, contained a correct
strategic plan, which is as applicable in its principles now as it was
then. Before hostile armies or fleets are brought into contact (a word
which perhaps better than any other indicates the dividing line
between tactics and strategy), there are a number of questions to be
decided, covering the whole plan of operations throughout the theatre
of war. Among these are the proper function of the navy in the war;
its true objective; the point or points upon which it should be
concentrated; the establishment of depots of coal and supplies; the
maintenance of communications between these depots and the home base;
the military value of commerce-destroying as a decisive or a secondary
operation of war; the system upon which commerce-destroying can be
most efficiently conducted, whether by scattered cruisers or by
holding in force some vital centre through which commercial shipping
must pass. All these are strategic questions, and upon all these
history has a great deal to say. There has been of late a valuable
discussion in English naval circles as to the comparative merits of
the policies of two great English admirals, Lord Howe and Lord St.
Vincent, in the disposition of the English navy when at war with
France. The question is purely strategic, and is not of mere
historical interest; it is of vital importance now, and the principles
upon which its decision rests are the same now as then. St. Vincent's
policy saved England from invasion, and in the hands of Nelson and his
brother admirals led straight up to Trafalgar.