It
is of the utmost importance that we should thoroughly understand
Nelson's fundamental tactical principle, viz. the bringing of
a larger number of ships to fight against a smaller number of
the enemy's. There is not, I believe, in the whole of the records
of Nelson's opinions and actions a single expression tending to
show that tactical efficiency was considered by him to be due
to superiority in size of individual ships of the same class
or--as far as _materiel_ was concerned--to anything but superior
numbers, of course at the critical point. He did not require,
and did not have, more ships in his own fleet than the whole of
those in the fleet of the enemy. What he wanted was to bring to
the point of impact, when the fight began, a larger number of
ships than were to be found in that part of the enemy's line.
I believe that I am right in saying that, from the date of Salamis
downwards, history records no decisive naval victory in which the
victorious fleet has not succeeded in concentrating against a
relatively weak point in its enemy's formation a greater number
of its own ships. I know of nothing to show that this has not been
the rule throughout the ages of which detailed history furnishes
us with any memorial--no matter what the class of ship, what the
type of weapon, what the mode of propulsion. The rule certainly
prevailed in the battle of the 10th August 1904 off Port Arthur,
though it was not so overwhelmingly decisive as some others.
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