entirely unprotected transports at their mercy." The difference between passing an army into a contiguous State across a frontier often not wider than a mere geographical line, and "passing an army across the sea, in the teeth of a strong Navy's efforts to prevent it, is enormous," so he affirmed, adding that "The difficulties of work on the sea are not apparent to men whose work is done exclusively on shore, and so those difficulties are treated as non-existent."[1]
In a Memorandum of November lo, 1910, issued in 1911, Sir Arthur Wilson showed that the strength of our Fleet is determined by the necessity of protecting our commerce, and that, if it is sufficient for this purpose, it will practically be sufficient to prevent invasion. The main object of a fleet, whether employed in defence of commerce or in frustrating invasion, is to prevent the enemy's ships from getting to sea far enough to do
- ↑ The Art of Naval Warfare, pp. 170, 171, 173.
