nearly as far by night as by day. How can he hope to escape discovery?
Many of his transports will have speeds of not more than ten to twelve knots, so that there will be no hope for escape by flight if he is met by a superior force.
If he is sighted by any of our destroyers at night, they will have little difficulty in avoiding the men-of-war and torpedoing the transports.
Is it possible to entice part of our Fleet away by any stratagem? Possibly. But even if he succeeds in drawing off half our Fleet, the other half, in conjunction with destroyers and submarines, would be quite sufficient to sink the greater part of his transports, even if supported by the strongest Fleet he could collect. The Fleets would engage each other while the destroyers and submarines torpedoed the transports.
Finally, even if he reached the coast in safety, he would see that it was quite impossible to guard his transports against the attacks of submarines while he was landing the troops; and that it was quite certain that a superior force would be brought to attack him before the landing could be completed.
Taking all these facts into consideration, he would probably decide, as the Admiralty have done, that an invasion on even the moderate scale of 70,000 men is practically impossible.
