176 
NAVAL ATTACK OF FORTIFICATIONS. 
keep their fire under by firing back, I think we should simply go off. 
Still it is, of course, just possible that the artillery defence might be 
so feeble that we could silence it ; in that case we should undoubtedly 
go in quite close, as I shall tell you presently, and deliberately attack 
the place, but if we could not do that we should leave the forts alone. 
Now I come to the direct attack on a fort. As you may suppose, I 
do not think it is a thing that is likely to happen; but still forts are 
not always as strong as they ideally ought to be, nor are the men 
always as good as they ought to be, and there may be cases in which 
it may be worth while to go in and attack a fort. The main question 
in that, as in all military operations, of course is : Is it worth your 
while ? 
Perhaps in the old days this was not so much considered. In olden 
times, when knights rode about on gallant steeds, when a knight saw 
a castle he said, “ Let us attack it •” or when a ship saw anything in 
the way of a castle on the shore, the ship went in at it; but I do not 
think they ever considered much whether this would tend towards 
attaining the object of the war. But that is not the case now-a-days. 
Nothing is now done unless we hope by our strategy and our tactics 
to win what we are fighting for. We do not fight for little things, 
but for large things. 
Again, there is no exception, so far as I know, to the general rule of 
war, that the weakest point of the defence should be picked out; and 
the first consideration is, whether the weakest point is afloat or on 
shore. Nearly all the experience of the past goes to show that the 
weakest point is generally on shore. That is to say, that a landing 
party can do in most cases better than ships. I believe the cases 
where strong places have fallen to an attack by ships can be counted 
upon your fingers : they do not number one to ten of the cases in 
which, when it was decided that the attack should be made, it was 
found that the weakest point was on shore, and people were landed 
to attack that weak point. 
I need not say that there must be a sufficient force, not only to 
carry out your attack, but to meet any counter attack which may come 
either from the place itself, or from ports in its neighbourhood. 
There remains the great advantage that ships always must have over 
land forces, and that is their very great mobility and, therefore, their 
power of surprise. Suddenness of assault will be the great point in 
any attack of this kind which is likely to be successful. 
One of the more notable instances of ships succeeding without any 
help frofn the shore was Portobello ; but that was a case of surprise 
and sudden assault. Yery soon after the outbreak of war we sent a 
fleet to the West Indies, and that fleet swooped down upon Portobello. 
Portobello was very much unprepared; and I believe that as soon as 
the garrison saw the English ships in the offing they made up their 
minds that they were going to be beaten; and it is further said that 
some of them coming to the conclusion that the town would certainly 
be sacked, thought they had better do the sacking themselves, rather 
than let the English do it for them, and that accordingly a consider¬ 
able number of the garrison were standing by to sack the town when 
