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NAVAL ATTACK OP FORTIFICATIONS. 
As to history upon this point, I do not think it tells us very much ; 
at any rate, it is pretty negative. I do not think anyone can say that 
this or that great war was affected much because successful bombard¬ 
ment took place; neither, I think, can one say that this or that Power 
was unable to put such a large fleet at sea because its arsenals were 
bombarded and the work was retarded. I do not think anything of 
the kind has happened; and when bombardment has taken place, it 
has often been, because there was nothing much better to do. 
A very good instance is Sveaborg in the Baltic. We had obtained 
complete ascendancy at sea, and the British fleet had nothing to 
do; the Russian batteries covered some stores and magazines and a 
few ships : of course the fleet were most anxious to go and do some¬ 
thing', and the something was decided to be an attack upon Sveaborg. 
Well, there was lots of time; there was no particular object in attack¬ 
ing Sveaborg at that moment rather than in attacking it a month later, 
because nothing that would hurt us was likely to issue from Sveaborg 
within the month; so there being lots of time, they built special craft 
for the purpose. That shows that we did not care, even in that extreme 
case, to risk our valuable sea-going ships in knocking down those 
magazines and things at Sveaborg; but we built special gunboats, and 
supplied them with a lot of shell, and they went in and bombarded 
the place. There was an immense deal of firing for two or three days : 
we said we had done a great deal of harm, and the Russians said we had 
not. There was certainly nothing done that proved to be of advan¬ 
tage in the general conduct of the war, and the result does not appear 
to me to encourage a similar course of action in the future. 
Again, in the war of the American rebellion Charlestown was 
shelled, but it did not affect the defence of Charlestown one whit. It 
annoyed the people, and frightened some of them, but Charlestown 
did not fall in the least any quicker because it was shelled. The 
Federals complained rather in the case of Vicksburg, which they had 
attacked specially with mortar-boats, that although for the time every¬ 
body was shelled out of the river front, they came back again, and 
refused to be shelled out permanently ; and so I think it would be 
generally—bombardment would have no permanent effect. 
However, supposing we had to bombard a place, supposing it were 
found that something was to be gained by it, the principle would be to 
risk a little and do as much indiscriminate damage as you could; and 
very indiscriminate it would be, I am afraid. On the one hand, you 
have the sea-going ship some thousands of yards out in the open. If 
there are any batteries to defend the place you want to bombard, the 
batteries can see the ship quite plainly, and they have every assistance 
in the way of range-finders to improve their fire ; whereas you, remem¬ 
ber, are not attacking a dockyard, but a ship in the dockyard, or the 
stores in the dockyard. If you throw shell haphazard into the dock¬ 
yard, I dare say four shells out of five will not hit anything except 
gravel walks, or stones, or an empty dock or basin, and that will not 
do much harm. The only shell that will do harm will be those that 
fall into the stores, where there is something that can be broken up 
easily, or those that actually hit a ship. When we consider that the 
