COAST DEFENCE. 
193 
I read before the United Service Institution, 1 I specially attacked the 
phrase. I have always denounced it. The Navy and the Army, as you 
put it, are as one in the matter of National Defence—they stand or fall 
together. The Army ha^ but to take care not to waste its money by trying 
to do, as it were, over again, what the Navy has already done. Its money 
should be used only in doing what the Navy cannot do. 
“A certain amount of Coast Defence is a necessity, but it requires to be 
kept well within the mark; it must be understood that it works with the 
Navy, and not ‘in the absence of the fleet,’ as the phrase goes. Absence 
of the fleet at the moment may always be calculated on, but if all things 
are as they should be, its presence, as far as may be necessary to defend, 
may be equally calculated on.” 
Sir George Clarke wrote (June 10, 1896) :— 
“ Do not forget that I think and meant to say that./ the dog ’ ought to be 
very ‘fierce/ always on the spot, and always ready with his bristles up, 
which he is not invariably at present. I think that it is a disadvantage to 
have too many dogs spread about over miles of coast. They are apt to 
become less fierce thereby, and certainly less ready to bite. Also, it seems 
to me to be still more disadvantageous to put up a number of notices, and 
to keep too few dogs. But you must not think I do not ‘ give the coast 
gunner sufficient credit.’ I have had to do with coast gunners for about 
fifteen years, and I do not think any other branch of the Service has made 
half as much progress in this time. 
“But except against torpedo-boat raids, which might be attempted 
against a few of our ports, I fear that the coast gunner—the British coast 
gunner—cannot expect in war to find any more employment at his special 
trade than he did in the past, and this was not much. 
“ The great Siege of Gibraltar is the only important instance I can recall, 
and here the coast gunner did his duty admirably and proved more than 
a match for his assailants. In spite, however, of the immense defensive 
advantages of the Bock in the eighteenth century, the coast gunner could 
not have saved it, if great naval efforts for its relief had not been 
successfully put forth. 
“For all that, he is absolutely necessary to the British Empire. It is his 
misfortune that, in proportion to his known efficiency, his prospects of 
fighting with his own weapon diminishes; because his menace is so great, 
and ships—his only assailants—are now less than ever fit for a task which 
lies quite outside their proper role. 
“There is no parity of conditions. It is the business of the coast gunnei 
to sink, disable, or drive off the ship, and he is specially trained, equipped, 
and circumstanced with a view to attain this object. It is not the business 
of the ship to attack the coast gunner, and she is not in any way prepared 
for the task. To permit her to undertake it, is like employing cavalry to 
attack infantry behind earthworks. This has actually been done ; but like 
the charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade at Balaclava, it certainly is not war. 
“I do not, of course, forget that, as at Kinburn, craft specially con¬ 
structed with a view to oppose the coast gunner, have been occasionally 
employed, but I do not see how our enemies can make use of such craft 
until our star has set, and then these measures will not be in the least 
necessary.” 
1 The paper to which Admiral Colomb refers was published in the Royal United Service 
Institution Journal of December 1895. Every artillery officer who has not read it should 
do so. 
26 
