arger the military enterprise contemplated the more complete must
be the command of the sea before it can be prosecuted with success and
the more certain the assurance of its continuance in unimpaired
efficiency until the objects of the enterprise are accomplished.
Conversely, the strength, even if inferior, of the fleet in being, its
strategic disposition, its tactical efficiency, and, above all, its
_animus pugnandi_ must all be accurately gauged by a naval commander
before he can safely decide that a military expedition of any magnitude
can be undertaken without fear of interference from an enemy's fleet. It
was the neglect of these principles that ruined the Athenian expedition
to Syracuse. It was equally the neglect of the same principles that
entailed the failure of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt and the ultimate
surrender of the army he had deserted there. It was the politic
recognition of them that, as Admiral Mahan has shown in a brilliant
passage, compelled Hannibal to undertake the arduous passage of the Alps
for the purpose of invading Italy instead of transporting his troops by
sea.

The limits of legitimate enterprise across seas of which the command
although firmly gripped is not unassailably established, are perhaps
best illustrated by the story of Craig's expedition to Malta and Sicily
towards the close of the Trafalgar campaign. This remarkable episode,
which has received less attention than it deserves from most historians,
has been represented by Mr Julian Corbett in his instructive work on
_The Campaign of Trafalgar_ as the masterly offensive stroke by which
Pitt hoped to abate, and, if it might be, to overthrow the military
ascendency which Napoleon had established in Europe. That view has not
been universally accepted by Mr Corbett's critics, but the episode is
entitled to close attention for the light it throws on the central
problem of naval warfare. Pitt had concluded a treaty with Russia, which
involved not merely naval but military co-operation with that Power in
the Mediterranean. Craig's expedition was the shape which the military
co-operation was to take. It consisted of some five thousand troops, and
when it embarked in April 1805 it was convoyed by only two ships of the
line in its transit over seas which, for all the Government which
dispatched it knew, might be infested at the time by more than one fleet
of the enemy.

Here, then, is a case in which the doctrine of the command of the