The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1913-05-19
War Secretary Discusses
Preparedness of Coast
Cites Against Land
Attack
MUST DEPEND ON
MOBILE FORCES
Armament Of Fortresses De-
signed Primarily To
Prevent an Advance
From the Sea

WASHINGTON, May 1s.-secretary
Garrison. in prepared statement to-
day. discussed the preparedness of sea-
board cities to defend themselves
against land attack. Mr.. Garrison
emphasized at the outset of his state
"a recently published article respect
ing the land side defenses Of our
coast"
The statement in part follows:
MY attention has been directed to a
recent article respecting the land side
defense of our coast defenses.
WOULD FIND DIFFICULTY
1T is perfectly true that many Of our
seaboard defenses would find serious
difficulty in defending themselves by
their own garrisons against land at
tack by a numerous force. and 1t is
also true that they have been con-
structed in many instances without any
reference to an attack coming from
the land side, but as was natural, IN
view of their purpose, almost wholly
with view OF giving protection to
the cities and harbors behind them by
an attack of hostile fleet.
.This being their principal function,
pretty much everything else was sub
bordinated to this end. and in many
cases fortffcations were so placed in
the effort to secure the best field OF
fire over the sea front and channels
as to render their defense from land
attack extremely difficult. 1t can be
said of many OF them-in fact most OF
them (except those which are on
islands3--that their defense in case OF
any serious attack from the land must
rest upon the bodies of mobile troops
assigned to this city.
DRAWN FROM MILITIA
"Such mobile troops would probably
be drawn to a great extent from the
militia The coast artillery troops
while available for certain amount
of work as infantry, are primarily
trained for service with the big guns
and cannot well be assigned to other
work without jeopardizing the effic-
iency of the work for which they are
maintained; so that. as stated above.
In case of land attack 1t will be
necessary to assign considerable bod
les Of mobile troops to defend these
works.
with a view to correcting this def
cit (the liability to successful attack,
lines of land defense works have been
laid out, and necessary instructions
prepared for their prompt construc-
ton in time of threatened war. In
future construction 1t is believed that
much more attention will be devoted
to making each. individual group Of
works reasonably secure against land
attack. even though unsupported by
troops other than Its own garrison.
Certainly the construction should be
of such type as to enable defense
sufficiently long to permit arrival Of
assistance from coast guard troops.
USE OF FORTS RESTRICTED
But after all, this whole question
brings up very forcibly the folly OF
depending upon fortresses alone. Their
usefulness is very much restricted un-
less there is an adequate mobile army.
The real purpose of sea coast defenses
is to prevent hostile fleets lombard
ing cities behind them. occupying the
harbors whose entrance they are de-
signed to close or bombarding fleets
taking refuge In these harbors. Their
guns are OF q heavy type necessarily,
too heavy in most instances for work
against troops.
"The department is now considering
the installation of guns up to six
inch caliber with all round fire. with
view to helping out in the defense
Of the works from land attack. and
it has paid much more attention than
heretofore to the construction Of bat
teries which have a well thought out
and prepared system Of defense against
land attack"