idity. It is a difference of degree rather than of
kind. If, on the other hand, we extend our view to wars between worldwide
empires, the distinction at once becomes organic. Possessions which lie
oversea or at the extremities of vast areas of imperfectly settled
territory are in an entirely different category from those limited objects
which Clausewitz contemplated. History shows that they can never have the
political importance of objects which are organically part of the European
system, and it shows further that they can be isolated by naval action
sufficiently to set up the conditions of true limited war.

Jomini approaches the point, but without clearly detaching it. In his
chapter "On Great Invasions and Distant Expeditions," he points out how
unsafe it is to take the conditions of war between contiguous States and
apply them crudely to cases where the belligerents are separated by large
areas of land or sea. He hovers round the sea factor, feeling how great a
difference it makes, but without getting close to the real distinction. His
conception of the inter-action of fleets and armies never rises above their
actual co-operation in touch one with the other in a distant theatre. He
has in mind the assistance which the British fleet afforded Wellington in
the Peninsula, and Napoleon's dreams of Asiatic conquest, pronouncing such
distant invasions as impossible in modern times except perhaps in
combination with a powerful fleet that could provide the army of invasion
with successive advanced bases. Of the paramount value of the fleet's
isolating and preventive functions he gives no hint.

Even when he deals with oversea expeditions, as he does at some length, his
grip of the point is no closer. It is indeed significant of how entirely
continental thought had failed to penetrate the subject that in devoting
over thirty pages to an enumeration of the principles of oversea
expeditions, he, like Clausewitz, does not so much as mention the conquest
of Canada; and yet it is the leading case of a weak military Power
succeeding by the use of the limited form of war in forcing its will upon a
strong one, and succeeding because it was able by naval action to secure
its home defence and isolate the territorial object.

For our ideas of true limited objects, therefore, we must leave the
continental theatres and turn to mixed or maritime wars. We have to look to
such cases as Canada and Havana in the Seven Years' War, and Cuba i