Some Principles of Maritime StrategyCorbett, Julian Stafford
History
Some Principles of Maritime Strategy
Corbett, Julian Stafford
Naval strategy
There remains a form of support which has not yet been considered, and that
is diversionary movements or feints by the fleet to draw the enemy's
attention away from the landing place. This will naturally be a function of
the covering battle-squadron or its attendant cruisers and flotilla. The
device appears in Drake's attack on San Domingo in 1585, an attack which
may be regarded as our earliest precedent in modern times and as the
pattern to which all subsequent operations of the kind conformed so far as
circumstances allowed. In that case, while Drake landed the troops a
night's march from the place, the bulk of the fleet moved before it, kept
it in alarm all night, and at dawn made a demonstration with the boats of
forcing a direct landing under cover of its guns. The result was the
garrison moved out to meet the threat and were surprised in flank by the
real landing force. Passing from this simple case to the most elaborate in
our annals, we find Saunders doing the same thing at Quebec. In preparation
for Wolfe's night landing he made a show of arrangements for a bombardment
of Montcalm's lines below the city, and in the morning with the boats of
the fleet began a demonstration of landing his marines. By this device he
held Montcalm away from Wolfe's landing place till a secure footing had
been obtained. Similar demonstrations had been made above the city, and the
combined result was that Wolfe was able to penetrate the centre of the
French position unopposed.
Such work belongs of course to the region of tactics rather than of
strategy, but the device has been used with equal effect strategically. So
great is the secrecy as well as the mobility of an amphibious force, that
it is extremely difficult for an enemy to distinguish a real attack from a
feint. Even at the last moment, when a landing is actually in progress, it
is impossible for the defenders to tell that all the troops are being
landed at the one point if a demonstration is going on elsewhere. At Quebec
it was not till Montcalm was face to face with Wolfe that he knew he had to
deal with the whole British force. Still less from a strategical point of
view can we be certain whether a particular landing represents an advance
guard or is a diversionary operation to mask a larger landing elsewhere.
This is a special difficulty when in the case of large operations the
landing army arrives in echelon like the Second Japanese army. In that
instance the naval feint was used strategically, and apparently with
conspicuous effect. The Russians were always apprehensive that the Japanese
would strike for Newchuang at the head of the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and for
this reason General Stakelberg, who had command of the troops in the
peninsula, was not permitted to concentrate for effective action in its
southern part, where the Japanese had fixed their landing place. Admiral
Togo, in spite of the strain on his fleet in effecting and securing the
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