182 
NAVAL ATTACK OF FORTIFICATIONS. 
it was about 40) they had an enormous number of ships, nearly a ship 
to each gun on shore. At any rate each ship knew exactly where she 
had to go, and what she had to fire at. The ships came in and took 
up their stations and at once opened a very heavy fire, and the fort, 
although it "was a very good one in its way, scarcely seemed to make 
any effective reply. I think part of the reason of that was that the 
garrison considered that it was not of much use sinking a ship or two, 
or ten ships, because there were an almost unlimited number of ships 
in the North, and what the garrison wished to reserve themselves for 
was the attack by the land force. They beat off the land force on 
the first assault, and it was only on the second assault that the place 
fell. 
We should, I think, be more afraid of a counter-attack by small 
craft than of the fire of a fort on shore. We know what we are going 
to have in the case of the fort, and, as I say, we should not go in 
unless we had fair reason for supposing that we ought to beat them; 
but a counter-attack is a thing that you can scarcely sum up. Now-a- 
days matters are very different from what they used to be. A dinghey 
with an outrigger torpedo can sink an ironclad. A very small boat 
can carry a Whitehead, and so on. Very small craft can come and 
annoy you very much. Of course we should take precautions in the 
way of nets, but one torpedo will blow the nets away, and a second 
torpedo might very likely sink a valuable ship. The only way of 
meeting that, so far as I can see, is ts have a lot of torpedo catchers 
and boats yourself, which will hunt everything that they can see off 
the water. That again means rather elaborate preparation ; it means 
a base close to ; and it means that at any rate a little more time will 
be taken for the defence to bring up their counter-attacking force. 
As to the projectiles to be used, I have made a note here that the 
gunners being the main object of attack, shrapnel might come in. 
Unfortunately I am afraid we have not studied shrapnel fire as we 
should, and, as you know very well, it is not a very easy thing to carry 
on an effective fire with shrapnel. Still, if it is worth while attacking 
a place it might be worth while learning how to fit fuses properly, 
and to carefully observe the position of the burst, without which there 
is but little hope of doing much harm with shrapnel. But common 
shell would be the projectile most used with the idea of silencing 
the fire of the guns and then of dismounting them. Directly the fire 
from the guns slackened it would be possible to get closer still, and 
we should not be content until a gun was dismounted. Of course, if 
the works were made of stone which you could absolutely knock down 
with a pennyworth of shot, then it would perhaps be worth while try¬ 
ing to knock the thing down, but this would very seldom happen 
now-a-days. 
Immediately you have silenced a fort you will have to go on and do 
whatever you intend to do in attacking the place. Set to work to 
burn and destroy—this is really all you can do. At any rate you 
can sink any ships that the forts are protecting. If there is a 
dockyard you can go and blow the dock gates in, and you may 
burn the dockyard or try to, although it is not so easy to burn a dock- 
