184 
NAVAL ATTACK OF FORTIFICATIONS. 
they were quite right. What they did was this, that having cleared 
the sea of all opposition they shipped a land force and made feints 
along the coast, which disconcerted the Government party, who did not 
know where this expedition was going to land in the least, and they 
finally landed those men on the flank of the place which it was desired 
to attack. The ships* guns were so far useful that they ensured the 
safety of the landing, and they helped the land force for some little 
distance on their way to Valparaiso; hut after all the taking of the 
place was decided by the fighting on shore, and that, I believe, is the 
best way to attack a place. 
What we should have to do in such an instance would be to secure 
the landing. Now, I take it that a landing does not mean the sort of 
landing that was effected when our fleet came upon Sebastopol. There 
an open beach was seized for the purpose of landing, and had it come 
on to blow (and we know from our experience how it can blow in the 
Black Sea) when the force was half landed, we should have been in a 
very difficult position. The place where we want generally to land a 
force is some place where there is a certain amount of shelter at any 
rate. There was not much shelter at Balaclava; still there was quite 
sufficient to allow the ships which were actually landing men or stores 
to be under shelter, and the ships inside the little harbour of Balaclava 
could go on landing men almost regardless of the weather. We 
should want something of that kind unless it was quite certain that 
the attacking land force was so powerful, and the defence on shore so 
weak, that the land force could sweep all before them. 
There again, I think what we have to fear most is, not batteries on 
shore. It is impossible to put batteries along the coast for miles and 
miles from the place that you may wish to assail. What we should be 
most afraid of, I think, are counter-attacks from comparatively small 
craft. If the Government vessels the other day, lying under the forts 
of Valparaiso, had gone out with their torpedoes, and had run amuck 
amongst the transports of the expedition they might have prevented 
their landing altogether; they would have been taken and sunk, but 
still that ought not to have weighed with them. I take it that it did 
weigh with them, and therefore they did not go; but with a very 
small force afloat, if you put your heads down you can do a great deal 
of damage to a force which is landing. It would have been much the 
same thing if the Russian fleet, instead of scuttling their ships in the 
harbour of Sebastopol, had come upon our fleet whilst we were engaged 
in landing those men; and if the Russian land force on shore, had also 
attacked the people who were landing, I think matters might have gone 
very differently from the way they did go. But the Russian fleet thought 
they were inferior, and so they were. I do not think, however, that it 
is a question of inferiority, or of superiority. Any attack just at the 
critical moment when you are landing is very difficult to ward off. 
Secrecy is the great thing. With secrecy there may not be time to 
plan a counter-attack until you have got a sufficient force on shore. 
The first thing, of course, as I need not tell you, when a force gets 
on shore is to establish some works, so as to make sure that the 
force shall not be driven into the sea, and the ships will, of course, 
