Monk over-estimated the advantage of his surprise and the relative fighting
values of the two fleets, and believed he saw his way to victory
single-handed. The danger of division is being surprised and forced to
fight in inferiority. This was not Monk's case. He was not surprised, and
he could easily have avoided action had he so desired. To judge such a case
simply by using concentration as a touchstone can only tend to set up such
questionable habits of thought as have condemned the more famous division
which occurred in the crisis of the campaign of 1805, and with which we
must deal later.

Apart from the general danger of using either words or maxims in this way,
it is obviously specially unwise in the case of concentration and division.
The current rule is that it is bad to divide unless you have a great
superiority; yet there have been numerous occasions when, being at war with
an inferior enemy, we have found our chief embarrassment in the fact that
he kept his fleet divided, and was able thereby to set up something like a
deadlock. The main object of our naval operations would then be to break it
down. To force an inferior enemy to concentrate is indeed the almost
necessary preliminary to securing one of those crushing victories at which
we must always aim, but which so seldom are obtained. It is by forcing the
enemy to attempt to concentrate that we get our opportunity by sagacious
dispersal of crushing his divisions in detail. It is by inducing him to
mass that we simplify our problem and compel him to choose between leaving
to us the exercise of command and putting it to the decision of a great
action.

Advocates of close concentration will reply that that is true enough. We do
often seek to force our enemy to concentrate, but that does not show that
concentration is sometimes a disadvantage, for we ourselves must
concentrate closely to force a similar concentration on the enemy. The