540 
COAST DEFENCE IN RELATION TO WAR. 
fore, attempt to raise a military analogy. If you had to guard an 
immense tract of country everywhere alike passable, and to which an 
enemy had access only at certain known points; if, further, it was 
vitally necessary that this whole area should be continuously traversed 
with no serious interruption by your own convoys, what means would 
you demand ? You will say at once “a powerful mobile army, able to 
defeat the enemy if he comes out and offers battle, and to follow and 
defeat him if he succeeds in evading us.” Would you make large 
demands on fortification ? I think you will answer, “ No, the power¬ 
ful mobile army, ex-hypothesi , renders much fortification unnecessary, 
and if our convoys must continue in motion, they can rarely avail 
themselves of it.” But if you have read the multifarious red-books 
with which you are supplied, I think you will hedge your answer by 
adding, “ of course we must have light defences at the supply depots 
of our field army and at the halting places of our convoys to guard 
against raids by small quickly moving bodies, such as the now fashion¬ 
able mounted infantry.” 
The above conditions fairly represent those of the British Empire in 
war; but the analogy is imperfect, for fleets, however large, can con¬ 
centrate, wheel, or countermarch with perfect ease, while a great field 
army would generally find any such movement difficult and sometimes 
impossible. This difficulty is illustrated with consummate skill by 
M. Zola in La Debacle , and would have presented itself in the great 
right wheel of the German Army if it had not chanced that the supply 
trains were echeloned left in front. 
Our newspapers have recently grasped the fact that naval supremacy 
is essential to the maintenance of the Empire and are never tired of 
repeating the formula; but none, even of the so-called service journals, 
understands all that it either entails upon ourselves or implies to our 
possible enemies. The maintenance of naval supremacy in certain 
waters means of necessity that large expeditions cannot traverse these 
waters without a certainty of being either intercepted, as was that of 
Conflans in 1759, or destroyed after reaching its destination, as was 
that of Napoleon in 1798. The risks are greater now than formerly, 
for the time required for the reduction of a fortified position has not 
been reduced, while the speed at which intelligence can be communi¬ 
cated and naval concentrations carried out has been immensely 
increased. It means that naval bases will receive protection of the 
most effective kind against all except raids. It means that the more 
remote the port from an enemy’s base, the greater the difficulty and 
the risks of even a raid. It means that the defences of Melbourne and 
many other places are unnecessarily great and costly. 
You will at once say, “but we have not got this supremacy, and if 
we are to believe some of our self-constituted teachers, we are at the 
present moment in a state of hopeless inferiority.” I am not going to 
enter upon these burning questions to-day; but I assert positively that, 
if this supremacy is not forthcoming in war, no amount of Coast 
Defence will help us. If, therefore, it is really a question of cost, then 
let us spend every available farthing upon the navy and its immediate 
requirements. When the navy suffices—not till then—let us begin to 
