COAST DEFENCE IN RELATION TO WAR. 
531 
Policy must have been relegated to experts, who, whether naval or 
military, are invaluable, so long as they are never permitted to have 
anything to do with it. 
At a time when principles ceased to be derived from the experience 
of war, details naturally escaped from the same controlling influence, 
and the Coast Fortifications inaugurated in 1859, while freely reproduc¬ 
ing defects previously admitted, failed in some conspicuous instances to 
profit from teaching so recent as that of Sebastopol. 
I doubt whether any lesson could have been more clear than that 
afforded by the action of the Wasp and Telegraph batteries. It exactly 
corroborated experience gained in the French wars; it was emphatically 
enforced by General Todleben himself. Yet, in the rage for monument- 
alism which supervened, it remained almost unheeded. A reaction has 
happily occurred, and the coast battery is no longer copied, as nearly 
as possible, from the two or three decker, thus reproducing all the dis¬ 
advantages inherent in the ship. 
At the present time interest tends to fix itself on subsidiary ques¬ 
tions, such as those of mines, torpedoes, guard-boats, electric-lights, 
and position-finders—all perhaps useful in their several spheres, but 
dangerously capable of making their advocates oblivious of principles. 
Each must be studied, but none affects general policy. 
For Coast Defence cannot properly be regarded in the light of a 
direct contest between the ships and weapons employed on shore. 
Such contests have been relatively few and unimportant in the past, 
and will probably be even fewer and less important in the future. The 
ship is not, and never was, constructed with a view to them, and where, 
as in the case of the old bomb vessel of Nelson’s day, or the armoured 
batteries used by the French at Kinburn, special craft have been called 
into play, the command of the sea was the first condition of their action. 
The function of the special craft was in fact a mere incident in the large 
operations of war. 
Broader aspects of the questions must be regarded. We must look 
to history where principles, such as those so admirably deduced by 
Captain Mahan, will surely be found. The records of the attack and 
defence of fortified positions established on coast lines are sufficiently 
voluminous. What as a rule were the issues; how were those issues 
determined ? 
Early maritime warfare took the form of mere raids for plunder. 
The raider might, perhaps, be met and advantageously opposed on the 
beach; but Coast Defence in the modern sense was unknown, and the 
helpless population of a seaboard could provide itself with no specialised 
protection. 
Probably the first step was a look-out station of some sort, from 
which an alarm could be given to enable the coast dwellers to hide 
their families and portable property. As the art of building advanced, 
the dwelling would be designed for purposes of defence, and by slow 
degrees would reach the stately proportions of Dover Castle. Special¬ 
ised Coast Defences appear to date from the introduction of gunpowder, 
previous to which time the castle, whether on the coast or inland, would 
be practically the same. The one difference of conditions was that the 
