overlook the demoralizing effect on the personnel of the fleet first to go into action, of the knowledge that they are hopelessly outnumbered and already beaten on paper—that they are, in fact, regarded by their King and country as "cannon fodder." Further than this, presuming two successive fleet actions and the enemy finally beaten, the cost of victory in men and matériel will be greater in the case of the divided fleet than in the case of a single fleet of equal total fighting strength, in the proportion of the total numbers engaged—that is to say, in Fig. 9, in the proportion that the two sides of the right-angled triangle are greater than the hypotenuse.
In brief, however potent political or geographical influences or reasons may be, it is questionable whether under any circumstances it can be considered sound strategy to divide the main battle fleet on which the defence of a country depends. This is to-day the accepted view of every naval strategist of repute, and is the basis of the present distribution of Great Britain's naval forces.
§ 39. Fire Concentration the Basis of Naval Tactics. The question of fire concentration is again found to be paramount when we turn to the consideration and study of naval tactics. It is worthy of note that the recognition of the value of any definite tactical scheme does not seem to have been universal until quite the latter end of the 18th century. It is even said that the French Admiral Suffren, about the year 1780, went so far as to attribute the reverses suffered by the French at sea to "the introduction of tactics" which he stigmatised as "the veil of timidity;"[1] the probability is that the then existing standard of seamanship in the French Navy was so low that anything beyond the simplest of manœuvres led to confusion, not unattended by danger. The subject,
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