the practice of the best masters. Like Wellington at Torres Vedras, they
all at times used the defensive till the elements of strength inherent in
that form of war, as opposed to the exhausting strain inherent in the form
that they had fixed upon their opponents, lifted them to a position where
they in their turn were relatively strong enough to use the more exhausting
form.

The confusion of thought which has led to the misconceptions about defence
as a method of war is due to several obvious causes. Counter-attacks from a
general defensive attitude have been regarded as a true offensive, as, for
instance, in Frederick the Great's best-known operations, or in Admiral
Tegetthoff's brilliant counterstroke at Lissa, or our own operations
against the Spanish Armada. Again, the defensive has acquired an ill name
by its being confused with a wrongly arrested offensive, where the superior
Power with the positive object lacked the spirit to use his material
superiority with sufficient activity and perseverance. Against such a Power
an inferior enemy can always redress his inferiority by passing to a bold
and quick offensive, thus acquiring a momentum both moral and physical
which more than compensates his lack of weight. The defensive has also
failed by the choice of a bad position which the enemy was able to turn or
avoid. A defensive attitude is nothing at all, its elements of strength
entirely disappear, unless it is such that the enemy must break it down by
force before he can reach his ultimate objective. Even more often has it
failed when the belligerent adopting it, finding he has no available
defensive position which will bar the enemy's progress, attempts to guard
every possible line of attack. The result is of course that by attenuating
his force he only accentuates his inferiority.

Clear and well proven as these considerations are for land warfare, their
application to the sea is not so obvious. It will be objected that at sea