It was, unfortunately, this group, hypnotized by a theory it did not understand, which controlled naval policy in Great Britain for the ten years preceding the war, and for the first three and a half years of it. Their error lay, of course, in supposing that a fleet, so materially strong and numerous that its defeat was unimaginable because no attack on it could be conceived, must--so long as any serious lowering of its force by attrition was avoided--be the military equivalent to one which had already defeated the enemy; that “invincible” and “victorious” were, in short, interchangeable terms. So masterful was this obsession that their apologists--shutting their eyes to the obvious and appalling consequences of this creed in action--two years after the event, still regarded the only encounter between the main fleets in this war as a great victory, because the larger, by avoiding the risk of close contact with the lesser, came out of the conflict with forces as substantially superior to the enemy’s as they were before the opportunity of a decisive battle had been offered. The group in question had, indeed, become possessed of one truth. It was simply that preponderant force is a vital element. But by holding it to the exclusion of all other truths they were blinded not only to the crucial business of studying the intellectual and technical essentials to fighting, but even to the orthodox meaning of the communication theory of sea war, on which they had so eagerly, but ignorantly, seized. For the true doctrine is, as we have already seen, just this, that when an enemy refuses battle, the stronger navy’s sole remaining offensive is to cut him off from communication with the sea. It must do this, as we have seen, to restrict his supplies, to weaken his armed forces, to strike at his prosperity and the comfort of his civil population, and thus obtain that partial paralysis of his national life, the completion of which can only be got by a victory that disarms him. And these things, which are the results of blockade, are also the intended results. But they are not intended for their own sake only, nor, primarily, to make the enemy surrender to avoid them. They are inflicted to force the enemy to the battle which he has refused, because it is only by battle that he can relieve himself from them. A stringent blockade, then, is the primary means of inducing a fleet action, and hence we see that siege, while truly the only alternative to battle, is something much more. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that, viewed in its right relation to the true theory of war--a state of things in which a conflict of wills between nations is settled by a conflict of their armed forces--it is almost the primary object of siege to bring this conflict about and so to hasten the issue. From the definition the aim of war is the enemy’s defeat and not merely his surrender. And battle is necessary to defeat.