You will remember that in the war with Spain the United States navy had reproduced for it the situation I have depicted, of a detachment trying to pass round the Danube from North to South. The “Oregon” was the detachment, and she had to join the American fleet in the West Indies, in spite of the Spanish squadron. She reached Barbados May 18; the day before Cervera entered Santiago, and six days after he left Martinique, which is only one hundred miles from Barbados. The utter inefficiency of the Spanish navy has caused us to lose sight of the risk to the “Oregon,” which was keenly felt by her commander, and concerning which at the moment two former secretaries of the navy expressed to me their anxiety. Despite this experience, there are those now who would reconstitute it for us, half the fleet in the Pacific and half in the Atlantic. Should then war arise with a European state, or with Japan, it would be open to either enemy to take the Danube position between our two divisions, as Togo did between the Port Arthur and the Baltic squadrons.... _Concentration_ The general war against the House of Austria, as conducted by Richelieu, appears to have suffered from the same cause that saps the vigor of many wars; he attempted too many things at once, instead of concentrating for decided superiority in some one or two localities. For such concentration he had good opportunities, owing to the central position and interior lines possessed by France. It was open to him to act in great force either in Belgium, or on the Rhine, or in Italy, or towards Spain. Moreover, he had the initial advantage of a natural concentration: one nation against two, and those separated in space. The proverbial weakness of alliances is due to inferior power of concentration. Granting the same aggregate of force, it is never as great in two hands as in one, because it is not perfectly concentrated. Each party to an alliance usually has its particular aim, which divides action. In any military scheme that comes before you, let your first question to yourself be, Is this consistent with the requirement of concentration? Never attempt to straddle, to do two things at the same time, unless your force is evidently so supreme that you have clearly more than enough for each. Our profession has never produced a man more daring in enterprise, nor more skillful in management, than Nelson. Remember, therefore, and always, that, when he sent off two frigates on some expedition, he charged their captains: “If you meet two enemies, do not each attack one. Combine both on one of the enemy; you will make sure of that one, and you may also get the other afterwards; but, whether the second escape or not, your country will have won a victory, and gained a ship.”