My task is now finished--I will not say completed, for the subject of naval warfare is far too vast to be exhausted within the narrow compass of a Manual. I should hardly exaggerate if I said that nearly every paragraph I have written might be expanded into a chapter, and every chapter into a volume, and that even so the subject would not be exhausted. All I have endeavoured to do is to expound briefly and in simple language the nature of naval warfare, its inherent limitations as an agency for subduing an enemy's will, the fundamental principles which underlie its methods, and the concrete problems which the application of those methods presents. Tactical questions I have not touched at all; strategic questions only incidentally, and so far as they were implicated in the discussion of methods. Political issues and questions of international policy I have eschewed as far as might be, and so far as it was necessary to deal with them I have endeavoured to do so in broad and abstract terms. Of the many shortcomings in my handling of the subject no one can be more conscious than I am myself. Yet I must anticipate one criticism which is not unlikely to be made, and that is that I have repeated and insisted on certain phrases and ideas such as "command of the sea," "control of maritime communications," "the fleet in being," "blockade," and the like, until they might almost be regarded as an obsession. Rightly or wrongly that has, at any rate, been done of deliberate intent. The phrases in question are in all men's mouths. The ideas they stand for are constantly misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misapplied. I hold that, rightly understood, they embody the whole philosophy of naval warfare. I have therefore lost no opportunity of insisting on them, knowing full well that it is only by frequent iteration that sound ideas can be implanted in minds not attuned to their reception. INDEX Aircraft, 121 Alabama, the, 109 Alexander, his conquest of Darius, 48 Allemand, his escape from Rochefort, 66, 67 Amiens, Peace of, 73 _Animus pugnandi_, 46, 47, 48, 49, 55, 58, 59, 61, 78 Antony, Mark, 72 Armada, the, 79, 112 Bacon, quoted, 6 Baraille, De, his part in the Dunkirk campaign, 87, 88 Barham, Lord, 18, 64; and Nelson, 66, 67; his conduct of the Trafalgar campaign, 118 Base, flying, 142; naval, 137 Battle-cruiser, its functions, 122-128 Beachy Head, Battle of, 32, 35; campaign of, 70, 78 Berlin Decrees, 100 Bettesworth, 118 Blockade, 17; a form of disputed command, 20-29; military, its methods, 23; military and commercial, 21 Bolt from the blue, 80, 89 Boscawen, at Lagos, 79 Brest, 33, 35; blockaded by Cornwallis, 30; blockaded by Hawke, 79; De Roquefeuil at, 81, 82 Bridge, Admiral Sir Cyprian, on a fleet in being, 31; on supply and communications of a fleet, 140; his estimate of Torrington, 32, 40; on Torrington's trial, 42 Brundusium, Cæsar at, 72 Cadiz, Killigrew at, 34