The advantages,
though not fully utilised, which the enforcement of this line of
advance put into the hands of the Turks, and the difficulties
and losses which it caused the Russians, exhibited in a striking
manner what sea-power can effect even when its operation is scarcely
observable.
This was more conspicuous in a later series of hostilities. The
civil war in Chili between Congressists and Balmacedists is specially
interesting, because it throws into sharp relief the predominant
influence, when a non-maritime enemy is to be attacked, of a navy
followed up by an adequate land-force. At the beginning of the
dispute the Balmacedists, or President's party, had practically
all the army, and the Congressists, or Opposition party, nearly
all the Chilian navy. Unable to remain in the principal province
of the republic, and expelled from the waters of Valparaiso by the
Balmacedist garrisons of the forts--the only and doubtful service
which those works rendered to their own side--the Congressists
went off with the ships to the northern provinces, where they
counted many adherents. There they formed an army, and having
money at command, and open sea communications, they were able
to import equipment from abroad, and eventually to transport
their land-force, secured from molestation on the voyage by the
sea-power at their disposal, to the neighbourhood of Valparaiso,
where it was landed and triumphantly ended the campaign.
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