Naval Warfare   By: James R. Thursfield (1840-1923)

NAVAL WARFARE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.

C.F. CLAY, MANAGER

[Illustration]

Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO. Leipzig: F.A. BROCKHAUS New York: G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.

All rights reserved

NAVAL WARFARE

BY

JAMES R. THURSFIELD

M.A. Hon. Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

by Rear Admiral SIR CHARLES L. OTTLEY K.C.M.G., C.B., M.V.O.

Sometime Director of Naval Intelligence and Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence

Cambridge: at the University Press

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons

1913

With the exception of the coat of arms at the foot, the design on the title page is a reproduction of one used by the earliest known Cambridge printer, John Siberch, 1521

CONTENTS

PAGE INTRODUCTION BY SIR CHARLES OTTLEY vii

PREFACE xiii

CHAP.

I. INTRODUCTORY 1

II. THE COMMAND OF THE SEA 11

III. DISPUTED COMMAND BLOCKADE 20

IV. DISPUTED COMMAND THE FLEET IN BEING 30

V. DISPUTED COMMAND IN GENERAL 49

VI. INVASION 68

VII. COMMERCE IN WAR 93

VIII. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF NAVAL FORCE 111

IX. THE DISTRIBUTION AND SUPPLY OF NAVAL FORCE 129

INDEX 147

INTRODUCTION

The title chosen by its author for this little volume would assuredly commend it to the Naval Service, even if that author's name were not as it is a household word with more than one generation of naval officers. But to such of the general public as are not yet familiar with Mr Thursfield's writings a brief word of introduction may perhaps be useful. For the matters herein dealt with are by no means of interest only to the naval profession. They have their bearing also on every calling and trade. In these days when national policy is at the mercy of the ballot box, it is not too much to say that a right understanding of the principles of maritime warfare is almost as desirable amongst civilians as amongst professional sailors.

Regrettable indeed would it be if the mere fact that this little book bears a more or less technical title should tempt the careless to skip its pages or pitch it to that dreary limbo which attends even the best of text books on subjects which we think do not concern us. The fruits of naval victory, the calamities attendant on naval defeat are matters which will come home in Bacon's classic phrase to the business and the bosoms of all of us, landsmen and seamen alike. Most Englishmen are at least dimly aware of this. They realise, more or less reluctantly perhaps, that a decisive British defeat at sea under modern conditions would involve unspeakable consequences, consequences not merely fatal to the structure of the Empire but destructive also of the roots of our national life and of the well being of almost all individuals in these islands.