under Sir John Moore to achieve the impossible, and in conjunction with the Spaniards drive the French from the Peninsula, the ministry abandoned all idea of intervention on the main theatre, although, as we have seen, had such intervention been well timed, it might easily have changed the current of events. It is true that when the main theatre is occupied by huge armies, as was the case during the whole of the Napoleonic conflict, the value of a comparatively small force, however sudden its appearance, is by no means easily realized. For instance, it would seem at first sight that a British contingent of 100,000 men would be almost lost amid the millions that would take part in the decisive conflicts of a European war. It is remembered, however, that with enormous masses of men the difficulties of supply are very great. Steam has done much to lighten them, and the numbers at the point of collision will be far greater than it was possible to assemble in the days of Napoleon. Nevertheless, the lines of communication, especially railways, will require more men to guard them than heretofore, for they are far more vulnerable. The longer, therefore, the lines of communication, the smaller the numbers on the field of battle. Moreover, the great hosts of the Continent, not only for convenience of supply, but for convenience of manœuvre, will deploy several armies on a broad front. At some one point, then, a reinforcement of even one or two army corps might turn the scale.
The objections, however, to intervention of this character
are numerous. Between allied armies, especially if one is far
larger than the other, there is certain to be friction.
as was the case in the Crimea; and the question of
supply is not easily settled. If, however, the decisive
Weakness of
allied armies.
point is near the coast, as in the campaign of Eylau,
the army of the maritime power, possessing its own base, can
render effective aid without embarrassment either to itself
or its ally. But, under all other conditions, independent operations
of a secondary nature are distinctly to be preferred. Such
was clearly the opinion of the British ministries during the
war with France. They recognized that by giving vitality
and backbone to popular risings even a small army might create
useful diversions. But their idea of a diversion was a series
of isolated efforts, made at far-distant points; and even so late
as 1813 they were oblivious of the self-evident facts that for a
diversion to be really effective it must be made in such strength
as to constitute a serious threat, and that it should be directed
against some vital point. Fortunately for Europe, Wellington
foresaw that the permanent occupation of Portugal, and the
presence of a British army in close proximity to the southern
frontier of France, would be a menace which it would be
impossible for Napoleon to disregard. Yet with what difficulty
he induced the government to adopt his views, and how lukewarm
was their support, is exposed in the many volumes of his
dispatches. In all history there are few more glaring instances
of incompetent statesmanship than the proposal of the cabinet
of 1813, at the moment Wellington was contemplating the
campaign that was to expel the French from Spain, and was
asking for more men, more money and more material, to detach
a large force in the vague hope of exciting a revolution in southern
Italy. Whether the improvement in communications, as well
as the increase in the size of armies, have not greatly weakened
the value of diversions on the mainland, it is difficult to say.
Railways may enable the defender to concentrate his forces
so rapidly that even the landing may be opposed, and with the
enormous numbers at his command he may well be able to
spare a considerable force from the main theatre. It is possible
to conceive that a small army, even if it completed its embarkation,
might find itself shut up in an entrenched position by a
force little larger than itself. If, however, the diversion were
made at a crisis of the campaign, the sudden appearance of a
new army might be decisive of the war. Otherwise, the army
would probably do more good if it refrained from landing and
confined itself to threats. So long as it was hidden by the
horizon, it would be invested with the terrors of the unknown.
The enemy’s knowledge that at any moment a well-equipped
force, supported by a powerful fleet, might suddenly descend
upon some prosperous port or important arsenal, would compel
him to maintain large garrisons along the whole seaboard.
The strength of these garrisons, in all probability, would be
much larger in the aggregate than the force which menaced
them, and the latter would thus exercise a far greater disintegrating
effect on the enemy’s armed strength than by adding a few
thousand men to the hosts of its ally. On theatres of war which
are only thinly populated or half civilized, a descent from the
sea might easily produce a complete change in the situation.
The occupation of Plevna, in close proximity to the Russian
line of communications and to the single bridge across the Danube,
brought the Russian advance through Bulgaria to a sudden stop,
and relieved all pressure on Turkey proper. The deadlock
which ensued is suggestive. Let us suppose that the invaders
line of communications had been a railway, and Plevna situated
near the coast. Supplied from the sea, with unlimited facilities
for reinforcement, Osman’s ring of earthworks would have
been absolutely impregnable; and had the ring been pushed
so far inland as to secure scope for offensive action, the Russians,
in all human probability, would never have crossed the Balkans.
It is perfectly possible, then, that if an army lands within reach
of a precarious line of communications it may compel the enemy,
although far superior in numbers, to renounce all enterprises
against distant points.
Railways in war are good servants, but bad masters. In
some respects they are far superior to a network of highroads.
Two trains will supply the daily needs of 100,000 men
several hundred miles distant from their base. But
the road-bed is easily destroyed; the convoy system is impracticable,
Railways.
and the regular course of traffic is susceptible to the slightest
threat. So, when railways become the principal factors, as
when an army finds itself dependent on a long and exposed line,
a powerful aggressive combination becomes a matter of the
utmost difficulty. The whole attention of the commander will
be given to the security of his supplies, and even if he is not
thrown on the defensive by the enemy’s activity, his liberty
of action will be exceedingly circumscribed. The relative values
of the different kinds of communications have a most important
bearing on the art of war. A great waterway, such as the Nile,
the Mississippi, the Danube or the Ganges, is safer and surer
than a railway. But railways are far more numerous than
navigable rivers, and a series of parallel lines is thus a better
The sea as a line
of operation.
means of supplying a large army. But neither railways
nor waterways as lines of supply or of operation are
to be compared with the sea. Before the war of 1870,
for instance, a study of the French railway system
enabled Moltke to forecast, with absolute accuracy, the direction
of Napoleon’s advance, the distribution of his forces, and the
extent of front that they would occupy. In a war, therefore,
between two Continental powers, the staff on either side would
have no difficulty in determining the line of attack; the locality
for concentration would be at once made clear; and as the
carrying capacity of all railways is well known, the numbers
that would be encountered at any one point along the front
might be easily calculated. But if the enemy’s army, supported
by a powerful fleet, were to advance across blue water, the case
would be very different. Its movements would be veiled in the
most complete secrecy. It would be impossible to do more than
guess at its objective. It might strike at any point along
hundreds of miles of coast, or it might shift from one point to
another, perhaps far distant, in absolute security; it could
bewilder the enemy with feints, and cause him to disperse his
forces over the whole seaboard. Surprise and freedom of
movement are pre-eminently the weapons of the power that
commands the sea. Witness the War of Secession. McClellan,
in 1862, by the adroit transfer of 120,000 men down the reaches
of Chesapeake to the Virginia Peninsula, had Richmond at his
mercy. Grant in 1864, by continually changing his line of
communication from one river to another, made more progress
in a month than his predecessors had done in two years.
Sherman’s great march across Georgia would have been impossible
had not a Federal fleet been ready to receive him when he reached
