PROOF I.--_Deductive_.--We say the aim of Naval Strategy is to get command of the sea. What does this mean? It is something quite different from the Military idea of occupying territory, for the sea cannot be the subject of political dominion or ownership. We cannot subsist upon it (like an army on conquered territory), nor can we exclude neutrals from it. Admiral Colomb's theory of "conquest of water territory," therefore, involves a false analogy, and is not safe as the basis of a strategical system. What then is the value of the sea in the political system of the world? Its value is as a means of communication between States and parts of States. Therefore the "command of the sea" means the control of communications in which the belligerents are adversely concerned. COROLLARY.--The command of the sea can never be, like the conquest of territory, the ulterior object of a war, unless it be a purely maritime war, as were approximately our wars with the Dutch in the 17th century, but it may be a primary or immediate object, and even the ulterior object of particular operations. PROOF II.--_Inductive_, from history or past experience.--History shows that the actual functions of the Fleet (except in purely maritime wars) have been threefold. 1. The prevention or securing of alliances (_i.e._, deterring or persuading neutrals as to participating in the war). EXAMPLES.--The operations of Rooke in the first years of the War of the Spanish Succession, 1702-04, to secure the adhesion of Savoy and Portugal to the Grand Alliance. Operations of Nelson to maintain the alliance of the Kingdom of Naples. In the first case there came a crisis when it was more important to demonstrate to Savoy and Portugal what they stood to lose by joining Louis XIV than to act immediately against the Toulon Fleet. In the second, the Neapolitan Alliance was essential to our operations in the Eastern Mediterranean; the destruction of the Toulon Fleet was not. 2. The protection or destruction of commerce. 3. The furtherance or hindrance of military operations ashore. NOTE.--The above is the best working "Definition of Naval Strategy," as emphasising its intimate connection with diplomatic, financial, and military aspects of major strategy. These functions may be discharged in two ways:-- (1) By direct territorial attacks, threatened or performed (bombardment, landing, raiding parties, &c). (2) By getting command of the sea, _i.e._, establishing ourselves in such a position that we can control the maritime communications of all parties concerned, so that we can operate by sea against their territory, commerce, and allies, and they cannot operate against ours.