ant, it is overwhelming. The
sea-keeping capacity, or what has been called the enduring mobility, of
torpedo craft, is comparatively small. Their coal-supply is limited,
especially when they are steaming at full speed, and they carry no very
large reserve of torpedoes. They must, therefore, very frequently return
to a base to replenish their supplies. The superior enemy is, it is
true, subject to the same disabilities, but being superior he has more
torpedo craft to spare and more cruisers to attack the torpedo craft of
the enemy and their own escort of cruisers. When the raiding torpedo
craft return to their base he will make it very difficult for them to
get in and just as difficult for them to get out again. He will suffer
losses, of course, for there is no superiority of force that will confer
immunity in that respect in war. But even between equal forces, equally
well led and handled, there is no reason to suppose that the losses of
one side will be more than equal to those of the other; whereas if one
side is appreciably superior to the other it is reasonable to suppose
that it will inflict greater losses on the enemy than it suffers itself,
while even if the losses are equal the residue of the stronger force
will still be greater than that of the weaker. It is true that the whole
art of war, whether on sea or on land, consists in so disposing your
armed forces, both strategically and tactically, that you may be
superior to the enemy at the critical point and moment, and that success
in this supreme art is no inherent prerogative of the belligerent whose
aggregate forces are superior to those of his adversary. But this is
only to say that success in war is not an affair of numbers alone. It is
an affair of numbers combined with hard fighting and skilful
disposition.

CHAPTER IV

DISPUTED COMMAND--THE FLEET IN BEING

We have seen that blockade is only a means to an end, that end being the
destruction or surrender of the armed forces of the enemy. We have seen
also that that end cannot be obtained by blockade alone. All that a
military blockade can do is by a judicious disposition of superior
force, either to prevent the enemy coming out at all, or to secure that
if he does come out he shall be brought to action. The former method is
only applicable where the blockader's superiority of force is so great
that his adversary cannot venture at the outset to encounter his main
fleets in the open, and in that c