tuated for the conduct of the operations in hand. For
these reasons I hold that no serious apprehension need be entertained
lest the supply of oil to our warships should fail so long as we hold
the command of the sea. If ever we lost the command of the sea we should
not be worrying about the supply of oil. Oil or no oil, we should be
starving, destitute and defenceless.

It only remains for me to express my gratitude to my friend Sir Charles
Ottley, not merely for an Introduction in which I cannot but fear that
he has allowed his friendship to get the better of his judgment, but
also for his kindness in devoting so much of his scanty leisure to the
reading of my proofs and the making of many valuable suggestions
thereon. I have also to thank my friend Captain Herbert W. Richmond,
R.N., for his unselfish kindness in allowing me to make use of his notes
on the Dunkirk campaign which he has closely studied in the original
papers preserved at the Admiralty and the Record Office. To my son,
Lieutenant H.G. Thursfield, R.N., I am also indebted for many valuable
suggestions. Finally, my acknowledgments are due to the Editors of this
series and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for their
uniform courtesy and consideration.

J.R.T.

_4th September 1913._

NAVAL WARFARE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

War is the armed conflict of national wills, an appeal to force as
between nation and nation. Naval warfare is that part of the conflict
which takes place on the seas. The civilized world is divided into
separate, independent States or nations, each sovereign within its own
borders. Each State pursues its own ideas and aims and embodies them in
a national policy; and so far as this policy affects only its own
citizens, it is subject to no control except that of the national
conscience and the national sense of the public welfare. Within the
State itself civil war may arise when internal dissensions divide the
nation into two parties, of which either pursues a policy to which the
other refuses to submit. In this case, unless the two parties agree to
separate without conflict, as was done by Sweden and Norway a few years
ago, an armed conflict ensues and the nation is divided into two
belligerent States which may or may not become, according to the
fortune of war, separate, independent, and sovereign in the end. The
great example of this in our own time was the War of Secession in
America, which, happily