questioned by anyone of importance. It is as follows: 'The control
of the sea, however real, does not imply that an enemy's single
ships or small squadrons cannot steal out of port, cannot cross
more or less frequented tracts of ocean, make harassing descents
upon unprotected points of a long coast-line, enter blockaded
harbours.' It is extraordinary that everyone does not perceive
that if this were not true the 'dinghy school' would be right.
Students of Clausewitz may be expected to remember that the art
of war does not consist in making raids that are unsuccessful;
that war is waged to gain certain great objects; and that the
course of hostilities between two powerful antagonists is affected
little one way or the other by raids even on a considerable scale.

The Egyptian expedition of 1798 deserves fuller treatment than
it has generally received. The preparations at Toulon and some
Italian ports were known to the British Government. It being
impossible for even a Moltke or--comparative resources being taken
into account--the greater strategist Kodama to know everything
in the mind of an opponent, the sensible proceeding is to guard
against his doing what would be likely to do you most harm. The
British Government had reason to believe that the Toulon expedition
was intended to reinforce at an Atlantic port another expedition
to be directed against the British Isles, or to effect a landing
in Spain with a view to marching into Portugal and depriving our
navy of the use of Lisbon. Either if effected would probably cause
us serious mischief, and arrangements were made to prevent them. A
landing in Egypt was, as the event showed, of little importance.
The threat conveyed by it against our Indian possessions proved
to be an empty one. Upwards of 30,000 hostile troops were locked
up in a country from which they could exercise no influence on
the general course of the war, and in which in the end they had
to capitulate. Suppose that an expedition crossing the North Sea
with the object of invading this country had to content itself
with a landing in Iceland, having eventual capitulation before it,
should we not consider ourselves very fortunate, though it may
have temporarily occupied one of the Shetland Isles _en_route_?
The truth of the matter is that the Egyptian expedition was one of
the gravest of strategical mistakes, and but for the marvellous
subsequent achievements of Napoleon it would have been the typical
examp