File:Heresies of sea power (1906) (14779170621).jpg

Identifier: heresiesofseapow00jane (find matches)
Title: Heresies of sea power
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Jane, Fred T. (Frederick Thomas), 1865-1916
Subjects: Sea-power Naval history War
Publisher: London, New York and Bombay : Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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first gun fired. At leastone Chinese ship fled ; whatever the moral effect ofsuch an incident may be worth, it was present. Ofcourse, Yalu was a trifling affair compared to Actium,the issues being narrower; still the comparison isprofitable, the teachings of history being worth littleexcept when applied to some modern conditions toenable us to seek for eternal principles—if they are tobe found.1 And what do we find ? That the fittestto win were victors despite the inferior matiriel withwhich they were handicapped. All other details andconditions are mere embroidery. After Actium it is natural that we should considerLepanto. Here after an interval of hundreds of yearsthe issue was fought on very much the same spot, andthe territories involved were much the same. TheChristians, like Antony, trusted in monster ships, sixmastodons being in the fore front of the fight. TheTurks had the smaller and handier vessels and theTurks were hopelessly defeated. 1 See Chapter on Eternal Principles.
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o h z< Q_UJ <CO LLl COCO < LLl <O z Ih Ll. o wzO ACTIUM AND LEPANTO 75 What again does history teach save the victory ofthe fittest to win? Antonys mastodons and the Vene-tian mastodons at Lepanto were relatively the samething,—they embodied the same reliance upon thepractically invulnerable. If we examine Actium, we find Antonys big shipsproving as invulnerable as ever the Venetian galleonsat Lepanto. They ceased to be invulnerable only whenthe ships of Octavianus began to ram so as to disablethe steering gear and then brought fire to their aid—thatis to say just so soon as the superior fitness to win ofthe crews enabled them to devise a means of over-coming the barriers between them and success. Speculatively, we may apply this reasoning to theRusso-Japanese War and the destruction of the BalticFleet. Suppose the rival sides to have changed ships,and Togo and his men to have been caught on boardthe Russian ships in the formation in which Roges-tvensky

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