maxim, indeed, has become current that concentration begets concentration,
but it is not too much to say that it is a maxim which history flatly
contradicts. If the enemy is willing to hazard all on a battle, it is true.
But if we are too superior, or our concentration too well arranged for him
to hope for victory, then our concentration has almost always had the
effect of forcing him to disperse for sporadic action. So certain was this
result, that in our old wars, in which we were usually superior, we always
adopted the loosest possible concentrations in order to prevent sporadic
action. True, the tendency of the French to adopt this mode of warfare is
usually set down to some constitutional ineptitude that is outside
strategical theory, but this view is due rather to the irritation which the
method caused us, than to sober reasoning. For a comparatively weak
belligerent sporadic action was better than nothing, and the only other
alternative was for him to play into our hands by hazarding the decision
which it was our paramount interest to obtain. Sporadic action alone could
never give our enemy command of the sea, but it could do us injury and
embarrass our plans, and there was always hope it might so much loosen our
concentration as to give him a fair chance of obtaining a series of
successful minor decisions.

Take, now, the leading case of 1805. In that campaign our distribution was
very wide, and was based on several concentrations. The first had its
centre in the Downs, and extended not only athwart the invading army's line
of passage, but also over the whole North Sea, so as to prevent
interference with our trade or our system of coast defence either from the
Dutch in the Texel or from French squadrons arriving north-about. The
second, which was known as the Western Squadron, had its centre off Ushant,
and was spread over the whole Bay of Biscay by means of advanced squadrons
before Ferrol and Rochefort. With a further squadron off the coast of
Ireland, it was able also to reach far out into the Atlantic in order to