Evening star., 1943-06-09
Allies Now to Profit
By Their Sea Power
Major Eliot Discusses
importance Of Superiority
Of Maritime Communications

importance OF SuPerIorIty
Of Maritime Communications
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
"Amphibious operations Of peculiar
complexity and hazard"-thus Prime
Minister Churchill describes to the House
of Commons what the United Nations
have In store for their enemies in the
immediate future.
What he means is that we are about
to cash in on our command Of the sea
in the strictly offensive sense, having
already done so in the way Of supply and
preparation.
1t is hardly necessary or useful to
recapitulate now the various conjectures
previously made in these articles and
elsewhere as to where the promised blows
may fall
The ability to strike such blows is the
heritage of sea power, today as in the
past. 1t is from the records of the past
that we may perhaps draw more useful
material for reflection than from specu-
lation which may be set at naught by
the news of the next hour.
Consider, for example, the Napoleonic
wars. British sea power not only enabled
Britain to effect the slow economic
strangulation of Napoleon's continental
empire, as Germany's continental empire
Is being strangled today, but likewise,
when the time was ripe. made it possible
for British ships to land Wellington's
army in Portugal, thence to undertake
the mastery series Of operations which
have gone down in history AS the Penin-
sular Campaigns. This was the Spanish
Ulcer" which, as Napoleon sadly admitted
at st. Helena, drained the life from my
empire"
1t was likewise British sea power which
brought British armies to the continent
for the final and decisive campaign at
Waterloo
In the First World War, 1t was British
sea power which brought British armies
TO the western front, to the Dardanelles,
TO Salonlca, to Palestine and to Mesopo-
tamia. 1t is true that the Dardanelles
campaign was failure; had it not been.
1t might have shortened the war by two
years, and there were moments when it
came within an ace Of success. As for
the campaign Of Salonica, 1t was from
the first running sore in the side of
the German war effort, gaining in i'm
portance as Germany's strength dimin-
lshed elsewhere. 1t was from Salonica.
at the last that Allied armies advanced
to the decisive victories that knocked
out Bulgaria and Austria Hungary and
made Germany's surrender inevitable.
The reason for these successes of sea-
borne armies against land based conti-
mental power was the superiority of sea
communications over land communica-
tions as means of conveying troops
and the heavy supplies which an army
requires. Once British command OF the
sea had been secured, it proved almost
impossible for Napoleon to transport
forces and supplies over the bad roads
OF Spain and Portugal and to produce at
the farther end of that long line of COM
munications military effort suficient
to overcome wellington, with his sea
lanes open behind him. The same thing
was true Of the faulty land communica-
tions of the Balkan Peninsula in the last
World War.
These principles apply with equal force
to the amphibious operations that have
been or may be attempted today. North
Africa, for example, was an amphibious
theater for both sides, and it was our
ability to use the sea for our purposes
and, IN great measure, to deny it to our
enemy that was largely responsible for
our crushing victory. In the Pacific. we
have been able to advance and to hold
when we were able to keep control of
the sea. The greatest period of danger
through which our forces on GuaGal-
canal passed, was when for time, the
Japanese threatened to regain control of
the waters around that island At Attu
our naval superiority was unchallenged
and the result was never in doubt.
When 1t comes, however, to amphibious
operations directed against the German
land and air power on the shores of
Europe, we shall have to deal with the
TACT that modern land communications
are of much greater speed and capacity
than the land communica tions of Napo-
Icons day, or even those of the last
World War. The tremendous develop
ment of the motor truck and Of air
transport have introduced new factors in
the strategy of amphibious war. Our
blows will have to fall at places carefully
selected, not only with view to their
immediate vulnerability and their proper
location with respect to our bases, but
also with careful eye to their landward
communications, by which the enemy
may seek to reinforce and supply them.
The farther our points of attack are
from the centers and sources of the
enemy power, and the more difficult the
routes leading to them from those CEN
ters and sources, the easier it will be for
us to attack such points successfully
but on the other hand, the less will be
the immediate threat to the enemys
vitals and the extent of the injury which
we can inflict upon him. 1t is in the
careful weighing of these two. factors
that the field Of our decision now lies.
Perhaps 1t was because the RESPONSE
bility for the making of such decisions