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CHAPTER VII
VOYAGE: DISEMBARKATION; AND—AFTER
"As in a caravan, the speed is regulated by the pace of the slowest animal, so to keep transports together the rate of steaming should not exceed that of the slowest vessel."Colonel G. A. Furse, C.B."A mass of transports and warships is the most cumbrous and vulnerable engine of war ever known."Julian S. Corbett, LL. M."If he [the enemy] is sighted by any of our destroyers at night, they will have little difficulty in avoiding the men-of-war and torpedoing the transports."Admiral of the Fleet Sir A. K. Wilson, G.C.B., V.C."Directing your chief attention to the destruction of the ships, vessels, or boats having men, horses, or artillery on board, and in the strict execution of this important duty losing sight entirely of the possibility of idle censure for avoiding contact with an armed force, because the prevention of debarkation is the object of primary importance to which every other consideration must give way."Admiral Viscount Keith in 1803."But at this instant to rush into the interior of Spain [England] without any organised centre or magazines, with hostile armies on one's flank and in one's rear, would be an attempt without precedent in the history of the world. . . . According to the laws of war, every general who loses his line of communication deserves death."—Napoleon.
However much the desire to take England
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