The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-05-15

shore duties denied the big ships Like the frigates and scouts, these found their inspiration and incentive, and when en- gagged in hazardous enterprises their base and protectors, in the mother ships.
 III.
 Logically enough, these approved prac- ttces aud solid maxims of the sea world that accord this supreme mission to the battle ship have come down to us un- changed. They are enforced today in the Far East; and when this struggle be- comes only another chapter of sea his- tory, the ancient truths will be reas- serted no less earnestly than when the Dutch and English fought from sun up to sun down, and after a troubled sleep by their gun carriages were up and at IL hammer and tongs from the earliest break of day. For these old richards and valorous shipmen fought, not long hour by Shrewsbury clock-that would be a trifie-but the dial round; often innocu- ously more often with a slaughter that has no parallels in the sea fighting of later centuries.
 It is interesting to note that the value and the principles of sea power have never been reasserted more forcibly than by the present operations in the Pacific, nor has the ancient aphorism of Bacon, that The who has command of the sea can fight where and when he will" ever found more speedy confirmation. No bat tlo ship engagement has, 1t is true been fought, but these vessels of the fighting Nine have constituted the indispensable bases from which the Japanese destroy CTS and miners have derived their power to assault. Without some such base even the most intrepid seaman might well be ral, N,H less essay. The destroyers-the type thus far most actively employed-achieved the first success that has counted for so much not because of an inherent capac- ity but because the battle ships conveyed and protected, fed and rested them, un- til a supreme moment of unreadiness of- fered the chance for slipping the leashes held by the master ships. Without such aid destroyers, submarines, torpedo boats, gunboats, small cruisers, moving craft in short, all save the armored classes and new scouts-would never have dared the entrance at Port Arthur Not one of these auxiliartes Is self-supporting ex- cept in a limited sense. They can keep the sea for relatively brief periods only, their range of action is narrow and pinch ed. and they present absolutely no de- fence against properly handled guns,
 
 on shipboard. Tn other words. Togo's de- stroyers could never have gone in, and the Russians would surely have come out and scattered the attack like chaff, had 1t not been for the grim line of armored ships lying like the three Fates Tn the offtng.
 Had Japan been lacking in the seagoing and sea keeping ships and fixed her de- pendence on the cruisers, coast defence craft. torpedo boats or submarines dear tn the valiantly ignorant, the policy she must have pursued would have begun with doubt. run into disorder and ended in defeat. But owing to their material resources the Japanese have been able to conduct the war according to the ap- proved principles of war. Both sides at the outset had accepted the strategical necessity that control of the sea is exer- cised by homogeneous units of great size In which the maximum of fighting power is concentrated, and that to secure the greatest effects out of these units they must be gathered in the working group known as a fleet Owing to con d.tions that may not be criticised here. these two centralized forces have been governed by theories that differ at the poles. Japan pushed the argument home. for she was guided by the other maxim which insists that a navy Is meant for offensive and not for defensive opera tions. and that it's vantage ground is at the threshold or on the high seas in search of squadrons presumably setting out to attack home ports or to cut naval lines of communication.
 Maxim off Warare.
 Another maxim not SO much honored Is the futility of bombardlng fortified places