e of attack he proposed to
carry out at Trafalgar. "I have," wrote Nelson, "made up my mind to keep
the fleet in that position of sailing ... that the order of sailing is
to be the order of battle, placing the fleet in two lines of sixteen
ships each, with an advanced squadron of eight _of the fastest sailing
two-decked ships_ which will always make, if wanted, a line of
twenty-four sail, on whichever line the Commander-in-Chief may direct."
Owing to the lack of ships this disposition was not adopted on the day
of Trafalgar, but the principle involved is not affected by that
circumstance. That principle is that a squadron of the fastest sailing
ships in the fleet was to be detached from the two fighting lines
entrusted with the initial attack, and reserved or "refused" until the
development of the main attack had disclosed to the Commander-in-Chief
the point at which the impact of this "advanced squadron" would by
superior concentration on that point secure that the enemy should there
be decisively overpowered. The essence of the matter is that the ships
so employed should by virtue of their superior speed be endowed with a
tactical mobility sufficient to enable them to discharge the function
assigned to them. I need hardly insist on the close analogy which
subsists between Nelson's "advanced squadron" and a modern squadron of
battle-cruisers similarly employed, and although the conflict of modern
warships must needs differ in many essential respects from the conflicts
of sailing ships in Nelson's days, yet I think a clear and authoritative
exposition of one at least of the uses and functions of the
battle-cruiser in a fleet action may still be found in what I have
called elsewhere "the last tactical word of the greatest master of sea
tactics the world has ever known, the final and flawless disposition of
sailing ships marshalled for combat."

CHAPTER IX

THE DISTRIBUTION AND SUPPLY OF NAVAL FORCE

The measure of naval strength required by any State is determined mainly
by the naval strength of its possible adversaries in the event of war,
and only in a secondary degree by the volume of the maritime interests
which it has to defend. Paradoxical as the latter half of this
proposition may seem at first sight, it can easily be shown to be sound.
The maritime interests, territorial and commercial, of the British
Empire are beyond all comparison greater than those of any other State
in the world; but if no other S