CHAPTER FOUR

METHODS OF EXERCISING COMMAND
I. DEFENCE AGAINST INVASION

In methods of exercising command are included all operations not directly concerned with securing command or with preventing its being secured by the enemy. We engage in exercising command whenever we conduct operations which are directed not against the enemy's battle-fleet, but to using sea communications for our own purposes, or to interfering¹ with the enemy's use of them. Such operations, though logically of secondary importance, have always occupied the larger part of naval³ warfare⁴. Naval warfare does not begin and end with the destruction of the enemy's battle-fleet, nor even with breaking his cruiser power. Beyond all this there is the actual work of preventing his passing an army across the sea and of protecting the passage of our own military expeditions. There is also the obstruction⁵ of his trade and the protection of our own. In all such operations we are concerned with the exercise of command. We are using the sea, or interfering with its use by the enemy; we are not endeavouring to secure the use or to prevent the enemy from securing it. The two categories of operation differ radically⁷ in conception and purpose, and strategically they are on wholly different planes.

Logically, of course, operations for exercising command [pg 234] should follow those for securing command; that is to say, that since the attainment⁹ of command is the special object of naval warfare, and since that command can only be obtained permanently¹⁰ by the destruction of the enemy's armed forces afloat, it follows that in strictness no other objects should be allowed to interfere¹¹ with our concentration of effort on the supreme¹² end of securing command by destruction. War, however, is not conducted by logic², and the order of proceeding¹³ which logic prescribes cannot always be adhered to in practice. We have seen how, owing to the special conditions of naval warfare, extraneous¹⁴ necessities intrude¹⁵ themselves which make it inevitable¹⁶ that operations for exercising command should accompany as well as follow operations for securing command. War being, as it is, a complex sum of naval, military, political, financial, and moral factors, its actuality can seldom offer to a naval staff a clean slate¹⁷ on which strategical problems can be solved by well-turned syllogisms. The naval factor can never ignore the others. From the outset one or more of them will always call for some act of exercising command which will not wait for its turn in the logical progression. To a greater or less extent in all ordinary cases both categories of operation will have to be put in motion from the beginning.

Hence the importance of realising the distinction between the two generic¹⁸ forms of naval activity. In the hurry and stress of war confusion between them is easy. By keeping a firm grip upon the difference we can see at least what we are doing. We can judge how far any given operation that may be called for is a sacrifice of security to exercise, how far such a sacrifice may be justified¹⁹, and how far the one end may be made to serve the other. By applying the distinction as a test much error may be avoided. The risk we take may be great, but we shall be able to weigh it accurately²⁰ against the value of the end, and we shall take it with our eyes open and of set purpose. Above all, it will enable the Staff to settle clearly for each squadronal commander what is to be his primary objective, [pg 235] and what the object or purpose of the operations entrusted²¹ to him. It is above all in this last consideration, and particularly in the determination of the objective, that lies the main practical value of the distinction.

This will become clear the moment we begin to consider defence against invasion, which naturally takes the first place amongst operations for the exercise of control. Of all the current assumptions, not one is so confusing for the finer adjustments of strategy as that which affirms that the primary objective of our fleet is always the enemy's fleet. Of the battle-fleet and its attendant units it is of course true, so long at least as the enemy has a battle-fleet in being. It is true, that is, of all operations for securing control, but of operations for exercising control it is not true. In the case we have now to consider-defence against invasion-the objective of the special operations is, and always has been, the enemy's army. On this fundamental postulate²³ our plans for resisting invasion have always been constructed from the year of the Armada to 1805.

In the old service tradition the point was perfectly²⁵ well established. Admirals' instructions constantly insist on the fact that the transports are the "principal object." The whole disposition²⁶ of the fleet during Hawke's blockade in 1759 was based on keeping a firm hold on the transports in the Morbihan, and when he sought to extend his operations against the Rochefort squadron, he was sharply reminded by Anson that "the principal object of attention at this time" was, firstly, "the interception²⁷ of the embarkations of the enemy at Morbihan," and secondly³⁰, "the keeping of the ships of war from coming out of Brest." Similarly Commodore Warren [pg 236] in 1796, when he had the permanent frigate³¹ guard before Brest, issued orders to his captains that in case of encountering enemy's transports under escort they were "to run them down or destroy them in the most expeditious³² manner possible previous to attacking the ships of war, but to preserve such a situation as to effect that purpose when directed by signal." Lord Keith's orders when watching Napoleon's flotilla were to the same effect. "Directing your chief attention," they run, "to the destruction of the ships, vessels³³, or boats having men, horses, or artillery³⁴ on board (in preference to that of the vessels by which they are protected), and in the strict execution of this important duty losing sight entirely³⁵ of the possibility of idle censure³⁶ for avoiding contact with an armed force, because the prevention of debarkation³⁷ is the object of primary importance to which every other consideration must give way."22

In tactics, then, the idea was the same as in strategy. The army was the primary objective round which all dispositions³⁸ turned. In the French service the strength and soundness of the British practice was understood at least by the best men. When in 1805 Napoleon consulted Ganteaume as to the possibility of the flotilla of transports effecting its passage by evasion³⁹, the admiral told him it was impossible, since no [pg 237] weather could avail to relax the British hold sufficiently⁴⁰. "In former wars," he said, "the English vigilance was miraculous⁴¹."

To this rule there was no exception, not even when circumstances rendered it difficult to distinguish between the enemy's fleet and army as objectives. This situation could occur in two ways. Firstly, when the invading army was designed to sail with the battle-fleet, as in the case of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt; and secondly, when, although the design was that the two should operate on separate lines, our system of defence forced the fleet to come up to the army's line of passage in order to clear it, as happened in the case of the Armada and the French attempt of 1744.

In the latter case the invading army, whose objective was unknown, was at Dunkirk, and a French fleet was coming up the Channel to cover the passage. Sir John Norris, in command of the home fleet, was in the Downs. Though his name is now almost forgotten, he was one of the great founders⁴² of our naval tradition, and a strategist of the first order. In informing the Government of his plan of operations, he said he intended to proceed with his whole squadron off Dunkirk to prevent the transports sailing. "But," he says, "if they should unfortunately get out and pass us in the night and go northward⁴³, I intend to detach a superior force to endeavour to overtake and destroy them; and with the remainder of my squadron either to fight the French fleet now in the Channel, [pg 238] or observe them and cover the country as our circumstances will admit of; or I shall pursue the embarkation²⁹ with all my strength." In this case there had been no time to organise⁴⁴ a special squadron or flotilla, in the usual way, to bar the line of passage, and the battle-fleet had to be used for the purpose. This being so, Norris was not going to allow the presence of an enemy's battle-fleet to entice⁴⁵ him away from his grip on the invading army, and so resolutely⁴⁶ did he hold to the principle, that he meant if the transports put to sea to direct his offensive against them, while he merely contained the enemy's battle-fleet by defensive⁴⁸ observation.

In the Egyptian case there was no distinction between the two objectives at all. Napoleon's expedition sailed in one mass. Yet in the handling of his fleet Nelson preserved the essential idea. He organised it into three "sub-squadrons," one of six sail and two of four each. "Two of these sub-squadrons," says Berry, his flag-captain, "were to attack the ships of war, while the third was to pursue the transports and to sink and destroy as many as it could"; that is, he intended, in order to make sure of Napoleon's army, to use no more than ten, and possibly only eight, of his own battleships against the eleven of the enemy.
[pg 239]

Many other examples could be given of British insistence⁴⁹ on making the enemy's army the primary objective and not his fleet in cases of invasion. No point in the old tradition was more firmly established. Its value was of course more strongly marked where the army and the fleet of the enemy endeavoured to act on separate lines of operation; that is, where the army took the real offensive line and the fleet the covering or preventive line, and where consequently for our own fleet there was no confusion between the two objectives. This was the normal case, and the reason it was so is simple enough. It may be stated at once, since it serves to enunciate⁵⁰ the general principle upon which our traditional system of defence was based.

An invasion of Great Britain must always be an attempt over an uncommanded sea. It may be that our fleet predominates or it may be that it does not, but the command must always be in dispute. If we have gained complete command, no invasion can take place, nor will it be attempted. If we have lost it completely no invasion will be necessary, since, quite apart from the threat of invasion, we must make peace on the best terms we can get. Now, if the sea be uncommanded, there are obviously two ways in which an invasion may be attempted. Firstly, the enemy may endeavour to force it through our naval defence with transports and fleet in one mass. This was the primitive⁵¹ idea on which the Spanish invasion of Philip the Second was originally planned by his famous admiral, Santa-Cruz. Ripening⁵² military science, however, was able to convince him of its weakness. A mass of transports and warships⁵³ is the most cumbrous and vulnerable [pg 240] engine of war ever known. The weaker the naval defence of the threatened country, the more devoutly⁵⁴ will it pray the invader⁵⁵ may use this device. Where contact with the enemy's fleet is certain, and particularly in narrow seas, as it was in this case, such a course will give the defender⁵⁶ all the chances he could desire, and success for the invader is inconceivable, provided always we resolutely determine to make the army in its transports our main objective, and are not to be induced to break our head against its escort.

Where, however, contact is not certain, the invasion over an uncommanded sea may succeed by evasion of the defender's battle-fleet, as it did in the case of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. But that operation belongs to an entirely different category from that which we are now considering. None of the factors on which the traditional system of British defence is based were present. It was an operation over an open sea against a distant and undetermined objective that had no naval defence of its own, whereas in our own case the determining factors are permanent naval defence, an approximately determined⁵⁷ objective, and a narrow sea where evasion by any force of invasion strength is impossible. Napoleon's exploit was in fact nothing more than the evasion of an open blockade which had no naval defence beyond it. The vital importance of these things will appear as we proceed and note the characteristics which marked every attempt to invade England. From such attempts we of course exclude the various descents upon Ireland, which, not being of invasion strength, fall into another class, to be dealt with hereafter.

Since the expedient⁵⁸ of forcing an invasion by the strength of a powerful battleship escort has always been rejected as an inadmissible operation, the invader has had no choice but to adopt a separate line for his army, and operate with his fleet in such a way as may promise to prevent the enemy controlling that line. That, in short, is the problem of invasion over [pg 241] an uncommanded sea. In spite of an unbroken record of failure scored at times with naval disaster, continental⁵⁹ strategists from Parma to Napoleon have clung obstinately⁶⁰ to the belief that there is a solution short of a complete fleet decision. They have tried every conceivable expedient again and again. They have tried it by simple surprise evasion and by evasion through diversion or dispersal of our naval defence. They have tried it by seeking local control through a local naval success prepared by surprise, or by attempting to entice our fleet away from home waters to a sufficient extent to give them temporarily local superiority. But the end has always been the same. Try as they would, they were faced ultimately by one of two alternatives—they must either defeat our covering battle-fleet in battle, or they must close their own battle-fleet on the transports, and so set up the very situation which it was their main design to avoid.

The truth is, that all attempts to invade England without command of the sea have moved in a vicious circle, from which no escape was ever found. No matter how ingenious or complex the enemy's design, a determined hold on their army as the primary naval objective has always set up a process of degradation⁶² which rendered the enterprise impracticable. Its stages are distinct and recurrent, and may be expressed as it were diagrammatically as follows:—

Two lines of operation having been decided⁶³ on, the invading army is gathered at a point as close as possible to the coast to be invaded; that is, where the intervening sea is narrowest, and where the army's passage will be exposed to interference for the shortest time. The covering fleet will operate from a point as distant as convenient, so as to entice the enemy as far as possible from the army's line of passage. The [pg 242] defender replies by blockading the army's ports of departure with a flotilla of light vessels capable of dealing⁶⁴ with transports, or by establishing a mobile defence of the threatened coasts which transports cannot break unaided, or more probably he will combine both expedients⁶⁵. The first fallacy of the invasion plan is then apparent. The narrower the sea, the easier it is to watch. Pure evasion becomes impossible, and it is necessary to give the transports sufficient armed strength by escort or otherwise to protect them against flotilla attack. The defender at once stiffens⁶⁶ his flotilla defence with cruisers and intermediate ships, and the invader has to arrange for breaking the barrier with a battle-squadron. So weak and disturbing a position is then set up that the whole scheme begins to give way, if, that is, the defender has clung stubbornly to the strategy we always used. Our battle-fleet refused to seek out that of the invader. It has always held a position between the invader's fleet and the blockaded invasion base, covering the blockade and flotilla defence. To enable a battle-squadron to break our hold and to reinforce the army escort, the invader must either force this covering position by battle, or disturb it so effectively as to permit the reinforcing squadron to evade⁶⁷ it. But since ex hypothesi he is trying to invade without securing the command by battle, he will first try to reinforce his transport escort by evasion. At once he is faced with new difficulty. The reinforcement entails⁶⁹ dividing his fleet, and this is an expedient so vicious and disturbing to morale⁷⁰, that no invader has ever been found to risk it. And for this reason. To make evasion possible for the detached squadron, he must bring up the rest of his force and engage the attention of the enemy's fleet, and thus unless he is in very great superiority, and by hypothesis is not—he runs the hazard of having his two divisions beaten in detail. This method has sometimes been urged by Governments, but so loud have been the protests both from the fleet and the army, that it has always been dropped, and the invader finds himself [pg 243] at the end of the vicious circle. Unable to reinforce his transport escort sufficiently without dividing his battle-fleet, he is forced to bring his whole force up to the army or abandon the attempt till command shall have been secured by battle.

Thus the traditional British system has never failed to bring about the deadlock⁷¹, and it will be observed it is founded on making the invading army the primary objective. We keep a hold on it, firstly, by flotilla blockade and defence stiffened⁷² as circumstances may dictate⁷³ by higher units, and secondly, by battle-fleet cover. It is on the flotilla hold that the whole system is built up. It is the local danger to that hold which determines the amount of stiffening⁷⁴ the flotilla demands, and it is the security of that hold which determines the position and action of the battle-fleet.

A few typical examples will serve to show how the system worked in practice under all kinds of conditions. The first scientific attempt to work on two lines of operation, as distinguished⁷⁵ from the crude mass methods of the Middle Ages, was the Spanish enterprise of 1588. Though internal support from Catholic malcontents was expected, it was designed as a true invasion, that is, a continuing operation for permanent conquest. Parma, the military commander-in-chief, laid it down that the Spanish fleet would have not only to protect his passage and support his landing, but also "to keep open his communications for the flow of provisions and munition⁷⁶."
[pg 244]

In advising the dual⁷⁷ line of operation, Parma's original intention was to get his army across by surprise. As always, however, it proved impossible to conceal⁷⁸ the design, and long before he was ready he found himself securely blockaded by a Dutch flotilla supported by an English squadron. So firm indeed was the English hold on the army, that for a time it was overdone⁷⁹. The bulk of the English fleet was kept on the line of passage under Howard, while Drake alone was sent to the westward⁸⁰. It was only under the great sailor's importunity⁸¹ that the disposition, which was to become traditional, was perfected, and the whole fleet, with the exception of the squadron supporting the flotilla blockade, was massed in a covering position to the westward. The normal situation was then set up, and it could only have one result. Surprise was out of the question. Parma could not move till the blockade was broken, nor in face of the covering fleet could the Spanish fleet hope to break it by a sudden intrusion. The vague prospects⁸³ the Spaniards had conceived of keeping the English fleet away from the line of passage by threatening a descent in the West Country or blockading it in a western port would no longer do. No such expedient would release Parma, and the Duke of Medina-Sidonia was ordered to proceed direct to Dunkirk if possible without fighting, there to break the blockade and secure the passage.

There was some idea in the King's mind that he would be able to do this without a battle, but Parma and every seasoned Spanish sailor knew that the English fleet would have to be totally defeated before the transports could venture out of port. Such a battle was indeed inevitable, and the English dispositions secured that the Spaniards would have to fight it [pg 245] under every disadvantage which was inherent in the plan of dual lines of operation. The English would secure certain contact at such a distance from the line of passage as would permit prolonged harassing⁸⁵ attacks in waters unfamiliar⁸⁶ to the enemy and close to their own sources of support and supply. No battle to the death would be necessary until the Spaniards were herded⁸⁷ into the confined and narrow waters which the army's passage demanded, and where both sections of the British fleet would be massed for the final struggle. They must arrive there dispirited with indecisive actions and with the terrors of unknown and difficult seas at the highest point. All this was no matter of chance. It was inherent in the strategical and geographical⁸⁸ conditions. The English dispositions had taken every advantage of them, and the result was that not only was the Spanish army unable even to move, but the English advantages in the final battle were so great, that it was only a lucky shift of wind that saved the Armada from being driven to total destruction upon the Dutch banks.

In this case, of course, there had been ample time to make the necessary dispositions. It will be well to follow it with an example in which surprise came as near to being complete as it is possible to conceive, and where the arrangements for defence had to be improvised⁸⁹ on the spur of the moment.

A case in point was the French attempt of 1744. In that year everything was in favour of the invader. England was undermined with Jacobite sedition⁹⁰; Scotland was restless and threatening; the navy had sunk to what is universally regarded as its worst for spirit, organisation⁹¹, and command; and the government was in the hands of the notorious "Drunken Administration." For three years we had been making unsuccessful war with Spain, and had been supporting [pg 246] Maria Theresa on the Continent against France, with the result that our home defence was reduced to its lowest ebb⁹². The navy then numbered 183 sail—about equal to that of France and Spain combined—but owing to the strain of the war in the Mediterranean⁹³ and Transatlantic stations only forty-three, including eighteen of the line, were available for home waters. Even counting all cruising ships "within call," as the phrase then was, the Government had barely one-fourth of the fleet at hand to meet the crisis. With the land forces it was little better. Considerably⁹⁴ more than half the home army was abroad with the King, who was assisting the Empress-Queen as Elector of Hanover. Between France and England, however, there was no war. In the summer the King won the battle of Dettingen; a formal alliance with Maria Theresa followed in the autumn; France responded with a secret alliance with Spain; and to prevent further British action on the Continent, she resolved to strike a blow at London in combination with a Jacobite insurrection. It was to be a "bolt from the blue" before declaration and in mid-winter, when the best ships of the home fleet were laid up. The operation was planned on dual lines, the army to start from Dunkirk, the covering fleet from Brest.

The surprise was admirably designed. The port of Dunkirk had been destroyed under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and though the French had been restoring it secretly for some time, it was still unfit to receive a fleet of transports. In spite of the warnings of Sir John Norris, the senior admiral in the service, the assembling of troops in its neighbourhood from the French army in Flanders could only be taken for a movement into winter quarters, and that no suspicion might be [pg 247] aroused the necessary transports were secretly taken up in other ports under false charter-parties, and were only to assemble off Dunkirk at the last moment. With equal skill the purpose of the naval mobilisation at Brest was concealed⁹⁵. By false information cleverly imparted to our spies and by parade of victualling for a long voyage, the British Government was led to believe that the main fleet was intended to join the Spaniards in the Mediterranean, while a detachment, which was designed to escort the transports, was ostensibly equipped for a raid in the West Indies.

So far as concealment⁹⁶ was concerned the arrangement was perfect. Yet it contained within it the fatal ingredient. The army was to strike in the Thames at Tilbury; but complete as was the secrecy⁹⁷, Marshal Saxe, who was to command, could not face the passage without escort. There were too many privateers and armed merchantmen always in the river, besides cruisers moving to and fro on commerce-protection duty. The division, therefore, which we supposed to be for the West Indies was to be detached from the Brest fleet after it entered the Channel and was to proceed to join the transports off Dunkirk, while the Marquis de Roquefeuil with the main fleet held what British ships might be ready in Portsmouth either by battle or blockade.

Nothing could look simpler or more certain of success. The British Government seemed quite asleep. The blow was timed for the first week in January, and it was mid-December before they even began to watch Brest with cruisers regularly. On these cruisers' reports measures were taken to prepare an equal squadron for sea by the new year. By this time nearly [pg 248] twenty of the line were ready or nearly so at the Nore, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, and a press was ordered to man them. Owing to various causes the French had now to postpone⁹⁸ their venture. Finally it was not till February 6th that Roquefeuil was seen to leave Brest with nineteen of the line. The news reached London on the 12th, and next day Norris was ordered to hoist⁹⁹ his flag at Spithead. His instructions were "to take the most effectual measures to prevent the making of any descent upon the kingdoms." It was nothing but news that the young Pretender had left Rome for France that led to this precaution. The Government had still no suspicion of what was brewing¹⁰⁰ at Dunkirk. It was not till the 20th that a Dover smuggler¹⁰¹ brought over information which at last opened their eyes.

A day or two later the French transports were seen making for Dunkirk, and were mistaken for the Brest fleet. Orders were consequently sent down to Norris to follow them. In vain he protested at the interference. He knew the French were still to the westward of him, but his orders were repeated, and he had to go. Tiding it up-Channel against easterly winds, he reached the Downs and joined the Nore Division there on the 28th. History usually speaks of this false movement as the happy chance which saved the country from invasion. But it was not so. Saxe had determined not to face the Thames ships without escort. They were ample to destroy him had he done so. In truth the move which the Government forced on Norris spoilt the campaign and prevented his destroying the Brest fleet as well as stopping the invasion.

Roquefeuil had just received his final orders off the Start. [pg 249] He was instructed by all possible means to bring the main British fleet to action, or at least to prevent further concentration, while he was also to detach the special division of four of the line under Admiral Barraille to Dunkirk to escort the transports. It was in fact the inevitable order, caused by our hold on the army, to divide the fleet. Both officers as usual began to be upset, and as with Medina-Sidonia, they decided to keep company till they reached the Isle¹⁰² of Wight and remain there till they could get touch with Saxe and pilots for the Dover Strait. They were beset¹⁰³ with the nervousness that seems inseparable from this form of operation. Roquefeuil explained to his Government that it was impossible to tell what ships the enemy had passed to the Downs, and that Barraille when he arrived off Dunkirk might well find himself in inferiority. He ended in the usual way by urging that the whole fleet must move in a body to the line of passage. On arriving off Portsmouth, however, a reconnaissance in thick weather led him to believe that the whole of Norris's fleet was still there, and he therefore detached Barraille, who reached Dunkirk in safety.

Not knowing that Norris was in the Downs, Saxe began immediately to embark²⁸ his troops, but bad weather delayed the operation for three days, and so saved the expedition, exposed as it was in the open roads, from destruction by an attack which Norris was on the point of delivering with his flotilla of fireships and bomb vessels.

The Brest squadron had an equally narrow escape. Saxe and his staff having heard rumours¹⁰⁴ of Norris's movement to the Downs had become seized with the sea-sickness which always seems to afflict¹⁰⁵ an army as it waits to face the dangers [pg 250] of an uncommanded passage. They too wanted the whole fleet to escort them, and orders had been sent to Roquefeuille to do as he had suggested. All unconscious of Norris's presence in the Downs with a score of the line more powerful than his own, he came on with the fifteen he had still with his flag to close on Barraille. Norris was informed of his approach, and it was now he wrote his admirable appreciation¹⁰⁶, already quoted, for dealing with the situation.

"As I think it," he said, "of the greatest consequence to his Majesty's service to prevent the landing of these troops in any part of the country, I have ... determined to anchor without the sands of Dunkirk, where we shall be in the fairest way for keeping them in." That is, he determined to keep hold of the army regardless of the enemy's fleet, and as Saxe's objective was not quite certain, he would do it by close blockade. "But if," he continued, "they should unfortunately get out and pass in the night and go northward [that is, for Scotland], I intend to detach a superior force to endeavour to overtake and destroy them, and with the remainder of my squadron either fight the French fleet now in the Channel, or observe them and cover the country as our circumstances will admit of; or I shall pursue the embarkation [that is, follow the transports] with all my strength." This meant he would treat the enemy's army offensively and their fleet defensively, and his plan was entirely approved by the King.

As to which of the two plans he would adopt, the inference is that his choice would depend on the strength of the enemy, for it was reported the Rochefort squadron had joined Roquefeuille. The doubt was quickly settled. On the morrow he heard that Roquefeuille was at Dungeness with only fifteen of [pg 251] the line. In a moment he seized all the advantage of the interior position which Roquefeuille's necessity to close on the army had given him. With admirable insight he saw there was time to fling his whole force at the enemy's fleet without losing his hold on the army's line of passage. The movement was made immediately. The moment the French were sighted "General chase" was signalled, and Roquefeuille was within an ace²² of being surprised at his anchorage when a calm stopped the attack. The calm was succeeded by another furious gale¹⁰⁷, in which the French escaped in a disastrous¹⁰⁸ sauve qui peut, and the fleet of transports was destroyed. The outcome of it all was not only the failure of the invasion, but that we secured the command of home waters for the rest of the war.

The whole attempt, it will be seen, with everything in its favour, had exhibited the normal course of degradation. For all the nicely framed plan and the perfect deception¹⁰⁹, the inherent difficulties, when it came to the point of execution, had as usual forced a clumsy concentration of the enemy's battle-fleet with his transports, and we on our part were able to forestall¹¹⁰ it with every advantage in our favour by the simple expedient of a central mass on a revealed and certain line of passage.

In the next project, that of 1759, a new and very clever plan was devised for turning the difficulty. The first idea of Marshal Belleisle, like that of Napoleon, was to gather the army at Ambleteuse and Boulogne, and to avoid the assemblage of transports by passing it across the Strait by stealth in flat boats. But this idea was abandoned before it had gone [pg 252] very far for something much more subtle. The fallacious advantage of a short passage was dropped, and the army was to start from three widely separated points all in more open waters—a diversionary raid from Dunkirk and two more formidable forces from Havre and the Morbihan in South Brittany. To secure sufficient control there was to be a concentration on the Brest fleet from the Mediterranean and the West Indies.

The new feature, it will be observed, was that our covering fleet—that is, the Western Squadron off Brest—would have two cruiser blockades to secure, one on either side of it. Difficult as the situation looked, it was solved on the old lines. The two divisions of the French army at Dunkirk and Morbihan were held by cruiser squadrons capable of following them over the open sea if by chance they escaped, while the third division at Havre, which had nothing but flat boats for transport, was held by a flotilla well supported. Its case was hopeless. It could not move without a squadron to release it, and no fortune of weather could possibly bring a squadron from Brest. Hawke, who had the main blockade, might be blown off, but he could scarcely fail to bring to action any squadron that attempted to enter the Channel. With the Morbihan force it was different. Any time that Hawke was blown off a squadron could reach it from Brest and break the cruiser blockade. The French Government actually ordered a portion of the fleet to make the attempt. Conflans however, who was in command, protested his force was too weak to divide, owing to the failure of the intended concentration. Boscawen had caught and beaten the Mediterranean squadron off Lagos, and though the West Indian squadron got in, it proved, as in Napoleon's great plan of concentration, unfit for further service. The old situation had arisen, forced by the old method of defence; and in the end [pg 253] there was nothing for it but for Conflans to take his whole fleet to the Morbihan transports. Hawke was upon him at once, and the disastrous day of Quiberon was the result. The Dunkirk division alone got free, but the smallness of its size, which permitted it to evade the watch, also prevented its doing any harm. Its escort, after landing its handful of troops in Ireland, was entirely destroyed; and so again the attempt of the French to invade over an uncommanded sea produced no effect but the loss of their fleet.

The project of 1779 marked these principles even more strongly, for it demonstrated them working even when our home fleet was greatly inferior to that of the enemy. In this case the invader's idea was to form two expeditionary forces at Cherbourg and Havre, and under cover of an overwhelming combination of the Spanish and French fleets, to unite them at sea and seize Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. It was in the early summer we got wind of the scheme, and two cruiser squadrons and flotillas were at once formed at the Downs and Channel Islands to watch the French coasts and prevent the concentration of transports. Spain had not yet declared war, but she was suspected, and the main fleet, under the veteran Sir Charles Hardy¹¹¹, who had been Norris's second in command in 1744, was ordered to proceed off Brest and prevent any Spanish squadron that might appear from entering that port. The French, however, outmanoeuvred us by putting to sea before Hardy could reach his station and forming a junction¹¹² with the Spaniards off Finisterre. The combined fleet contained about fifty of the line, [pg 254] nearly double our own. The army of invasion, with Dumouriez for its Chief of the Staff, numbered some 50,000 men, a force we were in no condition to meet ashore¹¹³. Everything, therefore, was in favour of success, and yet in the navy, at least, a feeling of confidence prevailed that no invasion could take place.

The brains of the naval defence were Lord Barham (then Sir Charles Middleton) at the Admiralty and Kempenfelt as Chief of the Staff in the fleet; and it is to their correspondence at this time that we owe some of the most valuable strategical appreciations¹¹⁴ we possess. The idea of the French was to come into the Channel in their overwhelming force, and while they destroyed or held Hardy, to detach a sufficient squadron to break the cruiser blockade and escort the troops across. Kempenfelt was confident that it could not be done. He was sure that the unwieldy combined mass could be rendered powerless by his comparatively homogeneous and mobile fleet, inferior as it was, so long as he could keep it at sea and to the westward. The appreciation of the power of a nimble inferior fleet which he wrote at this time has already been given.23 When the worst of the position was fully¹¹⁵ known, and the enemy was reported off the mouth of the Channel, he wrote another to Middleton. His only doubt was whether his fleet had the necessary cohesion¹¹⁶ and mobility¹¹⁷. "We don't seem," he said, "to have considered sufficiently a certain fact that the comparative force of two fleets depends much upon their sailing. The fleet that sails fastest has much the advantage, as they can engage or not as they please, and so have always in [pg 255] their power to choose the favourable¹¹⁸ opportunity to attack. I think I may safely hazard an opinion that twenty-five sail of the line coppered would be sufficient to harass⁸⁴ and tease this great unwieldy combined Armada so as to prevent their effecting anything, hanging continually upon them, ready to catch at any opportunity of a separation from night, gale or fog, to dart¹¹⁹ upon the separated, to cut off convoys¹²¹ of provisions coming to them, and if they attempted an invasion, to oblige their whole fleet to escort the transports, and even then it would be impossible to protect them entirely from so active and nimble a fleet."

Here we have from the pen of one of the greatest masters the real key of the solution—the power, that is, of forcing the mass of the enemy's fleet to escort the transports. Hardy, of course, knew it well from his experience of 1744, and acted accordingly. This case is the more striking, since defence against the threatened invasion was not the whole of the problem he had to solve. It was complicated by instructions that he must also prevent a possible descent on Ireland, and cover the arrival of the great convoys. In reply, on August 1st, he announced his intention of taking station ten to twenty leagues W.S.W. of Scilly, "which I am of opinion," he said, "is the most proper station for the security of the trade expected from the East and West Indies, and for the meeting of the fleets of the enemy should they attempt to come into the Channel." He underlined the last words, indicating, apparently¹²², his belief that they would not venture to do so so long as he could keep his fleet to the westward and undefeated. This at least he did, till a month later he found it [pg 256] necessary to come in for supplies. Then, still avoiding the enemy, he ran not to Plymouth, but right up to St. Helen's. The movement is always regarded as an unworthy retreat, and it caused much dissatisfaction in the fleet at the time. But it is to be observed that his conduct was strictly¹²³ in accordance with the principle which makes the invading army the primary objective. If Hardy's fleet was no longer fit to keep the sea without replenishment¹²⁴, then the proper place to seek replenishment was on the invader's line of passage. So long as he was there, invasion could not take place till he was defeated. The allies, it was true, were now free to join their transports, but the prospect⁸² of such a movement gave the admiral no uneasiness, for it would bring him the chance of serving his enemy as the Spaniards were served in 1588. "I shall do my utmost," he said, "to drive them up the Channel." It is the old principle. If the worst comes to the worst, so long as you are able to force the covering fleet upon the transports, and especially in narrow waters, invasion becomes an operation beyond the endurable risks of war.

So it proved. On August 14th Count d'Orvilliers, the allied¹²⁶ commander-in-chief, had made the Lizard¹²⁷, and for a fortnight had striven to bring Hardy to decisive action. Until he had done so he dared neither enter the Channel with his fleet nor detach a squadron to break the cruiser blockades at the invasion bases. His ineffectual efforts exhausted¹²⁸ his fleet's endurance, which the distant concentration at Finisterre had [pg 257] already severely¹²⁹ sapped, and he was forced to return impotent to Brest before anything had been accomplished¹³¹. The allies were not able to take the sea again that campaign, but even had it been in their power to do so, Hardy and Kempenfelt could have played their defensive game indefinitely, and with ever-increasing chances, as the winter drew near, of dealing a paralysing blow.

There was never any real chance of success, though it is true Dumouriez thought otherwise. He believed the enterprise might have gone through if a diversion had been made by the bulk of the fleet against Ireland, and under cover of it a coup¹³² de main delivered upon the Isle of Wight, "for which," he said, "six or eight of the line would have been enough." But it is inconceivable that old hands like Hardy and Kempenfelt would have been so easily beguiled¹³³ of their hold on the line of passage. Had such a division been detached up the Channel from the allied fleet they would surely, according to tradition, have followed it with either a superior force or their whole squadron.

The well-known projects of the Great War followed the same course. Under Napoleon's directions they ran the whole gamut¹³⁴ of every scheme that ever raised delusive¹³⁵ hope before. Beginning from the beginning with the idea of stealing his army across in flat-boats, he was met with the usual flotilla defence. Then came his only new idea, which was to arm his transport flotilla to the point of giving it power to force a passage for itself. We replied by strengthening our flotilla. Convinced by experiment that his scheme was now impracticable, he set his mind on breaking the blockade by the sudden intrusion of a flying squadron from a distance. To this end various plausible¹³⁶ schemes were worked out, but plan after plan melted in his hand, till he was forced to face the inevitable necessity of bringing an overwhelming battle force up to his transports. The experience of two centuries had taught him nothing. By a more distant concentration than [pg 258] had ever been attempted before he believed he could break the fatal hold of his enemy. The only result was so severely to exhaust his fleet that it never could get within reach of the real difficulties of its task, a task which every admiral in his service knew to be beyond the strength of the Imperial Navy. Nor did Napoleon even approach a solution of the problem he had set himself—invasion over an uncommanded sea. With our impregnable flotilla hold covered by an automatic concentration of battle-squadrons off Ushant, his army could never even have put forth¹³⁷, unless he had inflicted¹³⁸ upon our covering fleet such a defeat as would have given him command of the sea, and with absolute control of the sea the passage of an army presents no difficulties.

Of the working of these principles under modern conditions we have no example. The acquisition of free movement must necessarily modify their application, and since the advent¹⁴⁰ of steam there have been only two invasions over uncommanded seas—that of the Crimea in 1854, and that of Manchuria in 1904—and neither of these cases is in point, for in neither was there any attempt at naval defence. Still there seems no reason to believe that such defence applied¹⁴¹ in the old manner would be less effective than formerly¹⁴². The flotilla was its basis, and since the introduction of the torpedo¹⁴³ the power of the flotilla has greatly increased. Its real and moral effect against transports must certainly be greater than ever, and the power of squadrons to break a flotilla blockade is more restricted. Mines, again, tell almost entirely in favour of defence, so much so indeed as to render a rapid coup de main against any important port almost an impossibility. In the absence of all experience it is to such theoretical considerations we must turn for light.

Theoretically stated, the success of our old system of defence depended on four relations. Firstly, there is the relation between the rapidity with which an invasion force could be mobilised and embarked¹⁴⁴, and the rapidity with which restlessness [pg 259] in foreign ports and places d'armes could be reported; that is to say, the chance of surprise and evasion are as the speed of preparation to the speed of intelligence.

Secondly, there is the relation of the speed of convoys to the speed of cruisers and flotilla; that is to say, our ability to get contact with a convoy¹²⁰ after it has put to sea and before the expedition can be disembarked is as the speed of our cruisers and flotilla to the speed of the convoy.

Thirdly, there is the relation between the destructive power of modern cruisers and flotillas against a convoy unescorted or weakly escorted and the corresponding power in sailing days.

Fourthly, there is the relation between the speed of convoys and the speed of battle-squadrons, which is of importance where the enemy's transports are likely to be strongly escorted. On this relation depends the facility with which the battle-squadron covering our mobile defence can secure an interior position from which it may strike either the enemy's battle-squadron if it moves or his convoy before it can complete its passage and effect the landing.

All these relations appear to have been modified by modern developments in favour of the defence. In the first ratio, that of speed of mobilisation to speed of intelligence, it is obviously so. Although military mobilisation may be still relatively¹⁴⁵ as rapid as the mobilisation of fleets, yet intelligence has outstripped¹⁴⁶ both. This is true both for gaining and for conveying intelligence. Preparations for oversea invasion were never easy to conceal, owing to the disturbance¹⁴⁷ of the flow of shipping¹⁴⁸ that they caused. Elaborate precautions were taken to prevent commercial leakage¹⁴⁹ of intelligence, but they never entirely succeeded. Yet formerly, in the condition of comparative crudeness with which international trade was then organised, concealment was relatively easy, at least for a time. But the ever-growing sensitiveness of world-wide commerce, when market movements are reported from hour to [pg 260] hour instead of from week to week, has greatly increased the difficulty. And apart from the rapidity with which information may be gathered through this alert and intimate sympathy between Exchanges, there is the still more important fact that with wireless¹⁵⁰ the speed of conveying naval intelligence has increased in a far higher ratio than the speed of sea transit¹⁵¹.

As regards the ratio between cruiser and convoy speeds, on which evasion so much depends, it is the same. In frigate days the ratio appears to have been not more than seven to five. Now in the case at any rate of large convoys it would be nearly double.

Of the destructive power of the flotilla, growing as it does from year to year, enough has been said already. With the advent of the torpedo and submarine it has probably increased tenfold. In a lesser¹⁵² degree the same is true of cruisers. In former days the physical power of a cruiser to injure a dispersing¹⁵³ convoy was comparatively low, owing to her relatively low excess of speed and the restricted range and destructive power of her guns. With higher speed and higher energy and range in gun power the ability of cruisers to cut up a convoy renders its practical annihilation almost certain if once it be caught, and consequently affords a moral deterrent¹⁵⁴ against trusting to evasion beyond anything that was known before.

The increased ratio of battle-fleet speed to that of large convoys is equally indisputable and no less important, for the facility of finding interior positions which it implies goes to the root of the old system. So long as our battle-fleet is in a position whence it can cover our flotilla blockade or strike the enemy's convoy in transit, it forces his battle-fleet in the last resort to close up on the convoy, and that, as Kempenfelt pointed¹⁵⁵ out, is practically fatal to the success of invasion.

From whatever point of view, then, we regard the future chances of successful invasion over an uncommanded sea, it [pg 261] would seem that not only does the old system hold good, but that all modern developments which touch the question bid fair to intensify¹⁵⁶ the results which our sea service at least used so confidently to expect, and which it never failed to secure.
II. ATTACK AND DEFENCE OF TRADE

The base idea of the attack and defence of trade may be summed up in the old adage¹⁵⁷, "Where the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." The most fertile areas always attracted the strongest attack, and therefore required the strongest defence; and between the fertile and the infertile¹⁵⁹ areas it was possible to draw a line which for strategical purposes was definite and constant. The fertile areas were the terminals of departure and destination where trade tends to be crowded, and in a secondary degree the focal points where, owing to the conformation of the land, trade tends to converge¹⁶⁰. The infertile areas were the great routes which passed through the focal points and connected the terminal areas. Consequently attack on commerce tends to take one of two forms. It may be terminal or it may be pelagic, terminal attack being the more profitable, but demanding the greater force and risk, and pelagic attack being the more uncertain, but involving less force and risk.

These considerations lead us directly to the paradox¹⁶¹ which underlies¹⁶² the unbroken failure of our enemies to exercise decisive pressure upon us by operations against our trade. It is that where attack is most to be feared, there defence is easiest. A plan of war which has the destruction of trade for its primary object implies in the party using it an inferiority at sea. Had he superiority, his object would be to convert that superiority to a working command by battle or blockade. Except, therefore, in the rare cases where the opposed forces are equal, we must assume that the belligerent¹⁶³ who makes commerce destruction his primary object will have to deal [pg 262] with a superior fleet. Now, it is true that the difficulty of defending trade lies mainly in the extent of sea it covers. But, on the other hand, the areas in which it tends to congregate¹⁶⁴, and in which alone it is seriously vulnerable, are few and narrow, and can be easily occupied if we are in superior force. Beyond those areas effective occupation is impossible, but so also is effective attack. Hence the controlling fact of war on commerce, that facility of attack means facility of defence.

Beside this fundamental principle we must place another that is scarcely less important. Owing to the general common nature of sea communications, attack and defence of trade are so intimately connected that the one operation is almost indistinguishable from the other. Both ideas are satisfied by occupying the common communications. The strongest form of attack is the occupation of the enemy's terminals, and the establishment of a commercial blockade of the ports they contain. But as this operation usually requires the blockade of an adjacent naval port, it also constitutes, as a rule, a defensive disposition for our own trade, even when the enemy's terminal area does not overlap¹⁶⁵ one of our own. In the occupation of focal areas the two ideas are even more inseparable, since most, if not all, such areas are on lines of communication that are common. It will suffice, therefore, to deal with the general aspect of the subject from the point of view of defence.

It was in conformity¹⁶⁶ with the distinction between fertile and infertile areas that our old system of trade defence was developed. Broadly speaking, that system was to hold the terminals in strength, and in important cases the focal points as well. By means of a battle-squadron with a full complement¹⁶⁷ of cruisers they were constituted defended areas, or "tracts¹⁶⁸" as the old term was, and the trade was regarded as safe when it entered them. The intervening trade-routes were left as a rule undefended. Thus our home terminals were held [pg 263] by two battle-squadrons, the Western Squadron at the mouth of the Channel, and the North Sea or Eastern Squadron with its headquarters usually in the Downs. To these was added a cruiser squadron on the Irish station based at Cork¹⁶⁹, which was sometimes subordinate to the Western Squadron and sometimes an independent organisation. The area of the Western Squadron in the French wars extended, as we have seen, over the whole Bay of Biscay, with the double function, so far as commerce was concerned, of preventing the issue of raiding squadrons from the enemy's ports, and acting¹⁷⁰ offensively against his Atlantic trade. That of the North Sea squadron extended to the mouth of the Baltic and the north-about passage. Its main function during the great naval coalitions¹⁷¹ against us was to check the operations of Dutch squadrons or to prevent the intrusion of French ones north-about against our Baltic trade. Like the Western Squadron, it threw out divisions usually located at Yarmouth and Leith for the protection of our coastwise trade from privateers and sporadic¹⁷² cruisers acting from ports within the defended area. Similarly, between the Downs and the Western Squadron was usually one or more smaller squadrons, mainly cruisers, and generally located about Havre and the Channel Islands, which served the same purpose for the Norman and North Breton ports. To complete the system there were flotilla patrols acting under the port admirals and doing their best to police the routes of the coastwise and local traffic, which then had an importance long since lost. The home system of course differed at different times, but it was always on these general lines. The naval defence was supplemented by defended ports of refuge, the principal ones being on the coast of Ireland to shelter the ocean trade, but others in great numbers were provided within the defended areas against the operations of privateers, and the ruins of batteries all round the British shores testify how complete was the organisation.

A similar system prevailed in the colonial areas, but there [pg 264] the naval defence consisted normally of cruiser squadrons stiffened with one or two ships-of-the-line mainly for the purpose of carrying the flag. They were only occupied by battle-squadrons when the enemy threatened operations with a similar force. The minor¹⁷³ or interior defence against local privateers was to a large extent local; that is, the great part of the flotilla was furnished by sloops¹⁷⁴ built or hired on the spot, as being best adapted for the service.

Focal points were not then so numerous as they have become since the development of the Far Eastern trade. The most important of them, the Straits of Gibraltar, was treated as a defended area. From the point of view of commerce-protection it was held by the Mediterranean squadron. By keeping watch on Toulon that squadron covered not only the Straits, but also the focal points within the sea. It too had its extended divisions, sometimes as many as four, one about the approaches to Leghorn, one in the Adriatic, a third at Malta, and the fourth at Gibraltar. In cases of war with Spain the latter was very strong, so as to secure the focal area against Cartagena and Cadiz. On one occasion indeed, in 1804-5, as we have seen, it was constituted for a short time an independent area with a special squadron. But in any case the Gibraltar area had its own internal flotilla guard under the direction of the port admiral as a defence against local privateers and pirates.

The general theory of these defended terminal and focal areas, it will be seen, was to hold in force those waters which converging¹⁷⁵ trade made most fertile, and which therefore furnished an adequate field for the operations of raiding squadrons. In spite of the elaborate defensive system, such squadrons might, and sometimes did, intrude by surprise or stealth, and were then able to set at defiance¹⁷⁶ both convoy escorts and the cruiser outposts. But, as experience proved, the system of terminal defence by battle-squadrons made it impossible for such raiding squadrons to remain long enough on the ground [pg 265] to cause any serious interruption or to do serious harm. It was only by a regular fleet of superior strength that the system could be broken down. In other words, the defence could only fall when our means of local control was destroyed by battle.

So much for the defended areas. With regard to the great routes that connected them, it has been said they were left undefended. By this is meant that the security of ships passing along them was provided for, not by patrols but by escort. The convoy system was adopted, and the theory of that system is that while vessels are on the great routes they are normally liable only to sporadic attack, and they are consequently collected into fleets and furnished with an escort sufficient to repel¹⁷⁷ sporadic attack. In theory, cruiser escort is sufficient, but in practice it was found convenient and economical to assign the duty in part to ships-of-the-line which were going out to join the distant terminal squadron or returning from it for a refit or some other reason; in other words, the system of foreign reliefs was made to work in with the supplementary¹⁷⁸ escort system. Where no such ships were available and the convoys were of great value, or enemy's ships-of-the-line were known to be out, similar units were specially¹²⁵ detailed¹⁷⁹ for convoy duty to go and return, but this use of battle units was exceptional.

Such a method of dealing with the great routes is the corollary of the idea of defended areas. As those areas were fertile and likely to attract raiding squadrons, so the great routes were infertile, and no enemy could afford to spend squadrons upon them. It is obvious, however, that the system had its weak side, for the mere⁴⁷ fact that a convoy was upon a great route tended to attract a squadron, and the comparative immunity¹⁸⁰ of those routes was lost. The danger was provided for to a great extent by the fact that the enemy's ports from which a squadron could issue were all within defended areas and watched by our own squadrons. Still, the guard could [pg 266] not be made impenetrable. There was always the chance of a squadron escaping, and if it escaped towards a critical trade-route, it must be followed. Hence there were times when the convoy system seriously disturbed our dispositions, as, for instance, in the crisis of the Trafalgar campaign, when for a short time our chain of defended areas was broken down by the escape of the Toulon squadron. That escape eventually forced a close concentration on the Western Squadron, but all other considerations apart, it was felt to be impossible to retain the mass for more than two days owing to the fact that the great East and West Indies convoys were approaching, and Villeneuve's return to Ferrol from Martinique exposed them to squadronal attack. It was, in fact, impossible to tell whether the mass had not been forced upon us with this special end in view.

In the liability to deflection of this kind lay the most serious strategical objection to the convoy system. It was sought to minimise it by giving the convoys a secret route when there was apprehension¹⁸¹ of squadronal interference. It was done in the case just cited, but the precaution seemed in no way to lessen¹⁸² the anxiety. It may have been because in those days of slow communication there could be no such certainty that the secret route had been received as there would be now.

Modern developments and changes in shipping and naval material have indeed so profoundly modified the whole conditions of commerce protection, that there is no part of strategy where historical deduction¹⁸³ is more difficult or more liable to error. To avoid such error as far as possible, it is essential to keep those developments in mind at every step. The more important of them are three in number. Firstly, the abolition¹⁸⁴ of privateering; secondly, the reduced range of action for all warships; and thirdly, the development of wireless telegraphy. There are others which must be dealt with in their place, but these three go to the root of the whole problem.

Difficult as it is to arrive at exact statistics of commerce [pg 267] destruction in the old wars, one thing seems certain—that the bulk of captures, which were reckoned in hundreds and sometimes even in thousands, were due to the action of privateers. Further, it seems certain that, reckoning at least by numbers, the greater part of the damage was done by small privateers operating close to their bases, either home or colonial, against coastwise and local traffic. The complaints of merchants, so far as they are known, relate mainly to this kind of work in the West Indies and home waters, while accounts of serious captures by large privateers on the high seas are comparatively rare. The actual damage done by the swarm¹⁸⁵ of small vessels may not have been great, but its moral effects were very serious. It was impossible for the strongest Governments to ignore them, and the consequence was a chronic¹⁸⁶ disturbance of the larger strategical dispositions. While these dispositions were adequate to check the operations of large privateers acting in the same way as regular cruisers, the smaller ones found very free play amidst the ribwork of the protective system, and they could only be dealt with by filling up the spaces with a swarm of small cruisers to the serious detriment¹⁸⁷ of the larger arrangements. Even so, the proximity¹⁸⁸ of the enemy's ports made escape so easy, that the work of repression¹⁸⁹ was very ineffective. The state of the case was indeed almost identical with a people's war. The ordinary devices of strategy failed to deal with it, as completely as Napoleon's broadly planned methods failed to deal with the guerilleros in Spain, or as our own failed for so long in South Africa.

By the abolition of privateering, then, it would seem that the most disturbing part of the problem has been eliminated. It is, of course, uncertain how far the Declaration of Paris [pg 268] will hold good in practice. It is still open even to the parties to it to evade its restrictions¹⁹⁰ to a greater or less extent by taking up and commissioning merchantmen as regular ships of war. But it is unlikely that such methods will extend beyond the larger privately¹⁹² owned vessels. Any attempt to revive in this way the old picaresque methods could only amount to a virtual repudiation¹⁹³ of statutory international law, which would bring its own retribution. Moreover, for home waters at least, the conditions which favoured this picaresque warfare no longer exist. In the old wars the bulk of our trade came into the Thames, and thence the greater part of it was distributed in small coasting vessels. It was against this coastwise traffic that the small, short-range privateers found their opportunity and their richest harvest. But, now that so many other great centres of distribution have established themselves, and that the bulk of the distribution is done by internal lines of communication, the Channel is no longer the sole artery¹⁹⁴, and the old troublesome disturbance can be avoided without a vital dislocation of our commercial system.

The probability, then, is that in the future the whole problem will be found to be simplified, and that the work of commerce protection will lie much more within the scope of large strategical treatment than it ever did before, with the result that the change should be found to tell substantially in favour of defence and against attack.

The reduction of range of action is scarcely less important. In the old days a cruising ship could be stored for six months, and so long as she could occasionally renew her fuel and water, she was free to range the sea outside the defended areas for the whole of the period with unimpaired vitality¹⁹⁵. For such pelagic operations her movement was practically unrestricted. She could run for two or three days from a superior enemy or chase for as long without loss of energy, and she could wait indefinitely at a likely spot, or change her ground, as danger or hope of plunder¹⁹⁶ dictated¹⁹⁷. So long as she had men left to man her prizes, her power of mischief¹⁹⁸ was [pg 269] almost unlimited¹⁹⁹. All this is now changed. The capacity of each cruise of a ship to-day is very small. She is confined to short dashes within a strategically defended area, or if she is bent²⁰⁰ on pelagic operations, is compelled to proceed so far to find undefended waters that her coal will scarcely permit of more than a few days' actual cruising. A couple of chases at high speed during that period may force her to return at once, subject only to the precarious²⁰¹ possibility of renewing her coal from a prize. She has, further, to face the fact that manning prizes must necessarily reduce her capacity for speed, which depends so much on a fully manned engine-room. This will tend to jeopardise her chances of return through or near defended areas. The only escape from this difficulty is to sink the captured ship. But this course has objections scarcely less weighty than the other. No Power will incur²⁰² the odium of sinking a prize with all hands, and their removal to the captor's ship takes time, especially in bad weather, and the presence of such prisoners in a cruiser in any number soon becomes a serious check on her fighting power. In the case of large ships, moreover, the work of destruction is no easy matter. In the most favourable circumstances it takes a considerable time, and thus not only eats into the cruiser's endurance, but decreases her chances of evasion.

From these and similar considerations it is obvious that the possibilities of operations on the great trade-routes are much less extensive than they were formerly, while to speak of cruisers "infesting²⁰³" those routes is sheer hyperbole. Under modern conditions it is scarcely more feasible than it would be to keep up a permanent blockade of the British Islands. It would require a flow of ships in such numbers as no country but our own can contemplate²⁰⁴ possessing, and such as could not be maintained without having first secured a very decided preponderance at sea. The loss of radius²⁰⁵ of action therefore, though it does not increase the power of defence, sensibly lessens²⁰⁶ that of attack by pelagic operations.

For the great increase in the powers of defence we must [pg 270] turn to the extraordinary development in the means of distant communication. Under former conditions it was possible for a cruising ship to remain for days upon a fertile spot and make a number of captures before her presence was known. But since most large merchantmen have been fitted with wireless installations, she cannot now attack a single one of them without fear of calling down upon her an adversary²⁰⁷. Moreover, when she is once located, every ship within wireless reach can be warned of her presence and avoid her. She must widely and constantly shift her position, thereby²⁰⁸ still further reducing her staying power. On the whole, then, it would appear that in so far as modern developments affect the problem, they certainly render pelagic operations far more difficult and uncertain than they used to be. Upon the great routes the power of attack has been reduced and the means of evasion has increased to such an extent as to demand entire reconsideration of the defence of trade between terminal areas. The whole basis of the old system would seem to be involved. That basis was the convoy system, and it now becomes doubtful whether the additional security which convoys afforded is sufficient to outweigh²⁰⁹ their economical drawbacks and their liability to cause strategical disturbance.

Over and above the considerations already noticed, there are three others, all of which favour the security of our trade by permitting a much more extended choice of route. The first is, that steam vessels are not forced by prevailing²¹⁰ winds to keep to particular courses. The second is, that the improvements in the art of navigation no longer render it so necessary to make well-known landfalls during transit. The third is, that the multiplication²¹¹ of our great ports of distribution have divided the old main flow of trade to the Channel into a number of minor streams that cover a much wider area and demand a greater distribution of force for effective attack. It will be obvious that the combined effect of these considerations is to increase still further the chances of individual [pg 271] vessels evading²¹² the enemy's cruisers and to lessen the risk of dispensing²¹³ with escort.

Nor are the new practical difficulties of sporadic operations on the great routes the only arguments that minimise the value of convoys. We have also to remember that while the number of vessels trading across the ocean has enormously increased since 1815, it is scarcely possible, even if the abolition of privateering prove abortive²¹⁴, that the number of cruisers available for pelagic attack could exceed, or even equal, the number employed in sailing days. This consideration, then, must also be thrown into the scale against convoys; for it is certain that the amount of serious operative damage which an enemy can do to our trade by pelagic operation is mainly determined by the ratio which his available cruiser strength bears to the volume of that trade. This aspect of the question is, however, part of a much wider one, which concerns the relation which the volume of our trade bears to the difficulty of its defence, and this must be considered later.

It remains²¹⁵, first, to deal with the final link in the old system of defence. The statement that the great routes were left undefended will seem to be in opposition²¹⁶ to a prevailing impression derived²¹⁷ from the fact that frigates²¹⁸ are constantly mentioned as being "on a cruise." The assumption is that they in effect patrolled the great routes. But this was not so, nor did they rove the sea at will. They constituted a definite and necessary part of the system. Though that system was founded on a distinction between defended terminals and undefended routes, which was a real strategical distinction, it was impossible to draw an actual line where the one sphere began and the other ended. Outside the regularly defended areas lay a region which, as the routes began to converge, was comparatively fertile. In this region enemies' cruisers and their larger privateers found the mean between risk and profit. Here too convoys, as they entered the zone, were in their greatest danger for fear of their escorts being overpowered [pg 272] by raiding squadrons. Consequently it was the practice, when the approach of convoys was expected, to throw forward from the defended area groups of powerful cruisers, and even battleship divisions, to meet them and reinforce their escorts. Outward-bound convoys had their escorts similarly strengthened till they were clear of the danger zone. The system was in regular use both for home and colonial areas. In no sense did it constitute a patrol of the routes. It was in practice and conception a system of outposts, which at seasons of special risk amounted to an extension of the defended areas combining with a reinforcement of the convoy escorts. Focal points of lesser importance, such as Capes²¹⁹ Finisterre and St. Vincent, were similarly held by one or two powerful cruisers, and if necessary by a squadron.

As has been already explained, owing to the peculiar²²⁰ conditions of the sea and the common nature of maritime²²¹ communications, these dispositions were adopted as well for attack as defence, and the fertile areas, for the defence of which a frigate captain was sent "on a cruise," were always liable to bring him rich reward. His mission of defence carried with it the best opportunities for attack.

In the full development of the system patrol lines did exist, but not for the great routes. They were established to link up adjacent defended areas and as a more scientific organisation of the cruiser outposts. In 1805 the Gibraltar and the home areas were thus connected by a patrol line which stretched from Cape⁶¹ St. Vincent through the Finisterre focal area to Cape Clear, with a branch extending to the strategical centre off Ushant. The new system was introduced at a time when we had reason to expect that the French and Spanish fleets were to be devoted²²² entirely to operations in small raiding squadrons against our trade and colonies. Special provision was therefore necessary to locate any such squadrons that might elude²²³ the regular blockades, and to ensure that they should be adequately pursued. The new lines were in fact [pg 273] intelligence patrols primarily, though they were also regarded as the only means of protecting efficiently²²⁴ the southern trade-route where it was flanked by French and Spanish ports.24

The whole system, it will be observed, though not conflicting with the main object of bringing the enemy's fleets to action, did entail⁶⁸ an expenditure²²⁵ of force and deflecting²²⁶ preoccupations such as are unknown in land warfare. Large numbers of cruisers had to be employed otherwise than as the eyes of the battle-squadrons, while the coming and going of convoys produced periodical oscillations in the general distribution.

Embarrassing as was this commercial deflection in the old wars, an impression appears to prevail that in the future it must be much more serious. It is argued plausibly²²⁷ enough not only that our trade is far larger and richer than it was, but also that, owing to certain well-known economic changes, it is far more a matter of life and death to the nation than in the days when food and raw material did not constitute the bulk of our imports. In view of the new conditions it is held that we are more vulnerable through our trade now than formerly, and that, consequently, we must devote relatively more attention and force to its defence.

If this were true, it is obvious that war with a strong naval combination would present difficulties of the most formidable kind, greater indeed than we have ever experienced; for since with modern developments the demand for fleet cruisers is much greater than formerly, the power of devoting cruisers to trade defence is relatively much less.
[pg 274]

It cannot be denied that at first sight the conclusion looks irreproachable²²⁸. But on analysis it will be found to involve two assumptions, both of which are highly questionable²²⁹. The first is, that the vulnerability of a sea Power through its maritime trade is as the volume of that trade. The second is, that the difficulty of defending sea-borne trade is also as its volume—that is to say, the larger the amount of the trade, the larger must be the force devoted to its protection. This idea indeed is carried so far, that we are frequently invited to fix the standard of our naval strength by comparing it with the proportion which the naval strength of other Powers bears to their sea-borne trade.

It is hoped that the foregoing sketch²³⁰ of our traditional system of trade defence will avail to raise a doubt whether either assumption can be accepted without very careful consideration. In the history of that system there is no indication that it was affected²³¹ by the volume of the trade it was designed to protect. Nor has any one succeeded in showing that the pressure which an enemy could exert upon us through our commerce increased in effect with the volume of our seaborne trade. The broad indications indeed are the other way—that the greater the volume of our trade, the less was the effective impression which an enemy could make upon it, even when he devoted his whole naval energies to that end. It is not too much to say that in every case where he took this course his own trade dwindled²³² to nothing, while ours continually increased.

It may be objected that this was because the only periods in which he devoted his main efforts to trade destruction were when we had dominated his navy, and being no longer able to dispute the command, he could do no more than interfere with its exercise. But this must always be so whether we have positively²³³ dominated his navy or not. If he tries to ignore our battle-fleets, and devotes himself to operations against trade, he cannot dispute the command. Whatever his strength, he [pg 275] must leave the command to us. He cannot do both systematically²³⁴, and unless he attacks our trade systematically by sustained strategical operation, he cannot hope to make any real impression.

If, now, we take the two assumptions and test them by the application of elementary principles, both will appear theoretically unsound. Let us take first the relation of vulnerability to volume. Since the object of war is to force our will upon the enemy, the only way in which we can expect war on commerce to serve our end is to inflict¹³⁹ so much damage upon it as will cause our enemy to prefer peace on our terms to a continuation of the struggle. The pressure on his trade must be insupportable, not merely annoying. It must seriously cripple his finance or seriously threaten to strangle his national life and activities. If his total trade be a hundred millions, and we succeed in destroying five, he will feel it no more than he does the ordinary fluctuations²³⁵ to which he is accustomed in time of peace. If, however, we can destroy fifty millions, his trade equilibrium²³⁶ will be overthrown²³⁷, and the issue of the war will be powerfully affected. In other words, to affect the issue the impression made on trade must be a percentage or relative impression. The measure of a nation's vulnerability through its trade is the percentage of destruction that an enemy can effect.

Now, it is true that the amount of damage which a belligerent can inflict with a given force on an enemy's commerce will vary to some extent with its volume; for the greater the volume of commerce, the more fertile will be the undefended cruising grounds. But no matter how fertile such areas might be, the destructive power of a cruiser was always limited, and it must be still more limited in the future. It was limited by the fact that it was physically²³⁸ impossible to deal with more than a certain number of prizes in a certain time, and, for the reasons already indicated, this limit has suffered a very marked restriction¹⁹¹. When this limit of capacity in a given [pg 276] force is passed, the volume of commerce will not affect the issue; and seeing how low that capacity must be in the future and how enormous is the volume of our trade, the limit of destructive power, at least as against ourselves, provided we have a reasonably well-organised system of defence, must be relatively low. It must, in fact, be passed at a percentage figure well within what we have easily supported in the past. There is reason, therefore, to believe that so far from the assumption in question being true, the effective vulnerability of sea-borne trade is not in direct but in inverse²³⁹ proportion to its volume. In other words, the greater the volume, the more difficult it is to make an effective percentage impression.

Similarly, it will be observed that the strain of trade defence was proportioned not to the volume of that trade, but to the number and exposure of its terminals and focal points. Whatever the volume of the trade these remained the same in number, and the amount of force required for their defence varied²⁴⁰ only with the strength that could readily be brought to bear against them. It varied, that is, with the distribution of the enemy's bases and the amount of his naval force. Thus in the war of 1812 with the United States, the West Indian and North American areas were much more exposed than they had been when we were at war with France alone and when American ports were not open to her as bases. They became vulnerable not only to the United States fleet, but also in a much higher degree to that of France, and consequently the force we found necessary to devote to trade defence in the North Atlantic was out of all proportion to the naval strength of the new belligerent. Our protective force had to be increased enormously, while the volume of our trade remained precisely²⁴¹ the same.

This relation of trade defence to terminal and focal areas is of great importance, for it is in the increase of such areas in the Far East that lies the only radical⁸ change in the problem. [pg 277] The East Indian seas were always of course to some extent treated as a defended area, but the problem was simplified by the partial survival in those regions of the old method of defence. Till about the end of the seventeenth century long-range trade was expected to defend itself, at least outside the home area, and the retention²⁴² of their armament by East Indiamen was the last survival of the practice. Beyond the important focal area of St. Helena they relied mainly on their own power of resistance or to such escort as could be provided by the relief ships of the East Indian station. As a rule, their escort proper went no farther outward-bound than St. Helena, whence it returned with the homeward-bound vessels that gathered there from India, China, and the South Sea whaling grounds. The idea of the system was to provide escort for that part of the great route which was exposed to attack from French or Spanish colonial bases on the African coasts and in the adjacent islands.

For obvious reasons this system would have to be reconsidered in the future. The expansion of the great European Powers have changed the conditions for which it sufficed, and in a war with any one of them the system of defended terminal and focal areas would require a great extension eastward²⁴³, absorbing an appreciable²⁴⁴ section of our force, and entailing²⁴⁵ a comparatively weak prolongation of our chain of concentrations. Here, then, we must mark a point where trade defence has increased in difficulty, and there is one other.

Although minor hostile bases within a defended area have lost most of their menace to trade, they have acquired as torpedo bases a power of disturbing the defence itself. So long as such bases exist with a potent¹³⁰ flotilla within them, it is obvious that the actual provision for defence cannot be so simple a matter as it was formerly. Other and more complex arrangements may have to be made. Still, the principle of [pg 278] defended areas seems to remain unshaken, and if it is to work with its old effectiveness, the means and the disposition for securing those areas will have to be adapted to the new tactical possibilities. The old strategical conditions, so far as can be seen, are unaltered except in so far as the reactions of modern material make them tell in favour of defence rather than of attack.

If we desire to formulate²⁴⁶ the principles on which this conclusion rests we shall find them in the two broad rules, firstly, that the vulnerability of trade is in inverse ratio to its volume, and secondly, that facility of attack means facility of defence. The latter, which was always true, receives special emphasis from modern developments. Facility of attack means the power of exercising control. For exercise of control we require not only numbers, but also speed and endurance, qualities which can only be obtained in two ways: it must be at the cost of armour²⁴⁷ and armament, or at the cost of increased size. By increasing size we at once lose numbers. If by sacrificing armament and armour we seek to maintain numbers and so facilitate attack, we at the same time facilitate defence. Vessels of low fighting power indeed cannot hope to operate in fertile areas without support to overpower the defence. Every powerful unit detached for such support sets free a unit on the other side, and when this process is once begun, there is no halting-place. Supporting units to be effective must multiply into squadrons, and sooner or later the inferior Power seeking to substitute commerce destruction for the clash of squadrons will have squadronal warfare thrust upon him, provided again the superior Power adopts a reasonably sound system of defence. It was always so, and, so far as it is possible to penetrate²⁴⁸ the mists which veil the future, it would seem that with higher mobility and better means of communication the squadronal stage must be reached long before any adequate percentage impression can have been [pg 279] made by the sporadic action of commerce destroyers. Ineffectual as such warfare has always been in the past, until a general command has been established, its prospects in the future, judged by the old established principles, are less promising²⁴⁹ than ever.

Finally, in approaching the problem of trade protection, and especially for the actual determination of the force and distribution it requires, there is a dominant²⁵⁰ limitation to be kept in mind. By no conceivable means is it possible to give trade absolute protection. We cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs. We cannot make war without losing ships. To aim at a standard of naval strength or a strategical distribution which would make our trade absolutely invulnerable is to march to economic ruin. It is to cripple our power of sustaining war to a successful issue, and to seek a position of maritime despotism which, even if it were attainable²⁵¹, would set every man's hand against us. All these evils would be upon us, and our goal would still be in the far distance. In 1870 the second naval Power in the world was at war with an enemy that could not be considered a naval Power at all, and yet she lost ships by capture. Never in the days of our most complete domination upon the seas was our trade invulnerable, and it never can be. To seek invulnerability is to fall into the strategical vice²⁴ of trying to be superior everywhere, to forfeit²⁵² the attainment of the essential for fear of risking the unessential, to base our plans on an assumption that war may be waged without loss, that it is, in short, something that it never has been and never can be. Such peace-bred dreams must be rigorously abjured²⁵³. Our standard must be the mean of economic strength—the line which on the one hand will permit us to nourish our financial resources for the evil day, and on the other, when that day comes, will deny to the enemy the possibility of choking our financial vigour²⁵⁴ by sufficiently checking the flow of our trade.
[pg 280]
III. ATTACK, DEFENCE, AND SUPPORT OF
MILITARY EXPEDITIONS

The attack and defence of oversea expeditions are governed in a large measure by the principles of attack and defence of trade. In both cases it is a question of control of communications, and in a general way it may be said, if we control them for the one purpose, we control them for the other. But with combined expeditions freedom of passage is not the only consideration. The duties of the fleet do not end with the protection of the troops during transit, as in the case of convoys, unless indeed, as with convoys, the destination is a friendly country. In the normal case of a hostile destination, where resistance is to be expected from the commencement of the operations, the fleet is charged with further duties of a most exacting²⁵⁵ kind. They may be described generally as duties of support, and it is the intrusion of these duties which distinguish the naval arrangements for combined operations most sharply from those for the protection of trade. Except for this consideration there need be no difference in the method of defence. In each case the strength required would be measured by the dangers of interference in transit. But as it is, that standard will not serve for combined expeditions; for however small those risks, the protective arrangements must be sufficiently extensive to include arrangements for support.

Before dealing with this, the most complex aspect of the question, it will be well to dismiss attack. From the strategical point of view its principles differ not at all from those already laid down for active resistance of invasion. Whether the expedition that threatens us be small or of invasion strength, the cardinal²⁵⁶ rule has always been that the transports and not the escort must be the primary objective of the fleet. The escort, according to the old practice, must be turned or contained, but never treated as a primary objective unless both turning and containing prove to be impracticable. It is [pg 281] needless to repeat the words of the old masters in which this principle lies embalmed²⁵⁷. It is seldom that we find a rule of naval strategy laid down in precise technical terms, but this one is an exception. In the old squadronal instructions, "The transports of the enemy are to be your principal object," became something like a common form.

Nor did this rule apply only to cases where the transports were protected by a mere escort. It held good even in the exceptional cases where the military force was accompanied or guarded by the whole available battle strength of the enemy. We have seen how in 1744 Norris was prepared to follow the French transports if necessary with his whole force, and how in 1798 Nelson organised his fleet in such a way as to contain rather than destroy the enemy's battle-squadron, so that he might provide for an overwhelming attack upon the transports.

Exceptions to this as to all strategical rules may be conceived. Conditions might exist in which, if the enemy's battle-fleet accompanied his transports, it would be worth our while, for ulterior objects of our own, to risk the escape of the transports in order to seize the opportunity of destroying the fleet. But even in such a case the distinction would be little more than academical; for our best chance of securing a decisive tactical advantage against the enemy's fleet would usually be to compel it to conform to our movements by threatening an attack on the transports. It is well known that it is in the embarrassment²⁵⁸ arising from the presence of transports that lies the special weakness of a fleet in charge of them.

There is, however, one condition which radically differentiates²⁵⁹ comparatively small expeditions from great invasions and that is the power of evasion. Our experience has proved beyond dispute that the navy alone cannot guarantee defence against such expeditions. It cannot be sure of preventing their sailing or of attacking them in transit, and this is especially [pg 282] the case where an open sea gives them a free choice of route, as in the case of the French expeditions against Ireland. It is for this reason that, although an adequate navy has always proved sufficient to prevent an invasion, for defence against expeditions it must be supplemented by a home army. To perfect our defence, or, in other words, our power of attack, such an army must be adequate to ensure that all expeditions small enough to evade the fleet shall do no effective harm when they land. If in numbers, training, organisation, and distribution it is adequate for this purpose, an enemy cannot hope to affect the issue of the war except by raising his expeditions to invasion strength, and so finding himself involved in a problem that no one has ever yet solved for an uncommanded sea.

Still, even for expeditions below invasion strength the navy will only regard the army as a second line, and its strategy must provide in the event of evasion for co-operation with that line. By means of a just distribution of its coastal²⁶⁰ flotilla it will provide for getting contact with the expedition at the earliest moment after its destination is declared. It will press the principle of making the army its objective to the utmost limit by the most powerful and energetic cruiser pursuit, and with wireless and the increased ratio of cruiser speed, such pursuit is far more formidable than it ever was. No expedition nowadays, however successful its evasion, can be guaranteed against naval interruption in the process of landing. Still less can it be guaranteed against naval interference in its rear or flanks while it is securing its front against the home army. It may seek by using large transports to reduce their number and secure higher speed, but while that will raise its chance of evasion, it will prolong the critical period of landing. If it seek by using smaller transports to quicken disembarkation, that will decrease its chances of evasion by lowering its speed and widening the sea area it will occupy in transit. All the modern developments in fact which make for [pg 283] defence in case of invasion over an uncommanded sea also go to facilitate timely contact with an expedition seeking to operate by evasion. Nor must it be forgotten, since the problem is a combined one, that the corresponding developments ashore tell with little less force in favour of the defending army. Such appear to be the broad principles which govern an enemy's attempts to act with combined expeditions in our own waters, where by hypothesis we are in sufficient naval strength to deny him permanent local command. We may now turn to the larger and more complex question of the conduct of such expeditions where the naval conditions are reversed.

By the conduct, be it remembered, we mean not only their defence but also their support, and for this reason the starting-point of our inquiry²⁶¹ is to be found, as above indicated, in the contrast of combined expeditions with convoys. A convoy consists of two elements—a fleet of merchantmen and an escort. But a combined expedition does not consist simply of an army and a squadron. It is an organism at once more complex and more homogeneous. Its constitution is fourfold. There is, firstly, the army; secondly, the transports and landing flotilla—that is, the flotilla of flat-boats and steamboats for towing them, all of which may be carried in the transports or accompany them; thirdly, the "Squadron in charge of transports," as it came to be called, which includes the escort proper and the supporting flotilla of lighter²⁶² craft for inshore work; and lastly, the "Covering squadron."

Such at least is a combined expedition in logical analysis. But so essentially²⁶³ is it a single organism, that in practice these various elements can seldom be kept sharply distinct. They may be interwoven in the most intricate manner. Indeed to a greater or less extent each will always have to discharge some of the functions of the others. Thus the covering squadron may not only be indistinguishable from the escort and support, but it will often provide the greater part of the landing [pg 284] flotilla and even a portion of the landing force. Similarly, the escort may also serve as transport, and provide in part not only the supporting force, but also the landing flotilla. The fourfold constitution is therefore in a great measure theoretical. Still its use is not merely that it serves to define the varied functions which the fleet will have to discharge. As we proceed it will be seen to have a practical strategical value.

From a naval point of view it is the covering squadron which calls first for consideration, because of the emphasis with which its necessity marks not only the distinction between the conduct of combined expeditions and the conduct of commercial convoys, but also the fact that such expeditions are actually a combined force, and not merely an army escorted by a fleet.

In our system of commerce protection the covering squadron had no place. The battle-fleet, as we have seen, was employed in holding definite terminal areas, and had no organic connection with the convoys. The convoys had no further protection than their own escort and the reinforcements that met them as they approached the terminal areas. But where a convoy of transports forming part of a combined expedition was destined²⁶⁴ for an enemy's country and would have to overcome resistance by true combined operations, a covering battle-squadron was always provided. In the case of distant objectives it might be that the covering squadron was not attached till the whole expedition assembled in the theatre of operations; during transit to that theatre the transports might have commerce protection escort only. But once the operations began from the point of concentration, a covering squadron was always in touch.

It was only where the destination of the troops was a friendly country, and the line of passage was well protected by our permanent blockades, that a covering squadron could be dispensed²⁶⁵ with altogether. Thus our various expeditions for the assistance of Portugal were treated exactly like commercial [pg 285] convoys, but in such cases as Wolfe's expedition to Quebec or Amherst's to Louisburg, or indeed any of those which were continually launched against the West Indies, a battle-squadron was always provided as an integral part in the theatre of operations. Our arrangements in the Crimean War illustrate²⁶⁶ the point exactly. Our troops were sent out at first to land at Gallipoli in a friendly territory, and to act within that territory as an army of observation. It was not a true combined expedition, and the transports were given no covering squadron. Their passage was sufficiently covered by our Channel and Mediterranean fleets occupying the exits of the Baltic and the Black Sea. But so soon as the original war plan proved ineffective and combined offensive operations against Sebastopol were decided on, the Mediterranean fleet lost its independent character, and thenceforth its paramount²⁶⁷ function was to furnish a covering squadron in touch with the troops.

Seeing how important are the support duties of such a force, the term "Covering squadron" may seem ill-chosen to describe it. But it is adopted for two reasons. In the first place, it was the one employed officially in our service on the last mentioned occasion which was our last great combined expedition. In preparing the descent on the Crimea, Sir Edmund Lyons, who was acting as Chief of the Staff to Sir [pg 286] James Dundas, and had charge of the combined operations, organised the fleet into a "Covering squadron" and a "Squadron in charge of transports." In the second place, the designation serves to emphasise²⁶⁸ what is its main and primary function. For important as it is to keep in mind its support duties, they must not be permitted to overshadow the fact that its paramount function is to prevent interference with the actual combined operations—that is, the landing, support, and supply of the army. Thus in 1705, when Shovel²⁶⁹ and Peterborough were operating against Barcelona, Shovel was covering the amphibious siege from the French squadron in Toulon. Peterborough required the assistance of the marines ashore to execute a coup de main, and Shovel only consented to land them on the express understanding that the moment his cruisers passed the signal that the Toulon squadron was putting to sea, they would have to be recalled to the fleet no matter what the state of the land operations. And to this Peterborough agreed. The principle involved, it will be seen, is precisely that which Lyons's term "Covering squadron" embodies²⁷⁰.

To quote anything that happened in the Crimean War as a precedent²⁷¹ without such traditional support will scarcely appear convincing. In our British way we have fostered a legend that so far as organisation and staff work were concerned that war was nothing but a collection of deterrent examples. But in truth as a combined operation its opening movement [pg 287] both in conception and organisation was perhaps the most daring, brilliant, and successful thing of the kind we ever did. Designed as the expedition was to assist an ally in his own country, it was suddenly called upon without any previous preparation to undertake a combined operation of the most difficult kind against the territory of a well-warned enemy. It involved a landing late in the year on an open and stormy coast within striking distance of a naval fortress²⁷² which contained an army of unknown strength, and a fleet not much inferior in battle power and undefeated. It was an operation comparable to the capture of Louisburg and the landing of the Japanese in the Liaotung Peninsula, but the conditions were far more difficult. Both those operations had been rehearsed a few years previously²⁷³, and they had been long prepared on the fullest knowledge. In the Crimea everything was in the dark; even steam was an unproved element, and everything had to be improvised. The French had practically to demobilise their fleet to supply transport, and so hazardous²⁷⁴ did the enterprise appear, that they resisted its being undertaken with every military argument. We had in fact, besides all the other difficulties, to carry an unwilling²⁷⁵ ally upon our backs. Yet it was accomplished, and so far at least as the naval part was concerned, the methods which achieved success mark the culmination²⁷⁶ of all we had learnt in three centuries of rich experience.

The first of the lessons was that for operations in uncommanded or imperfectly commanded seas there was need of a covering squadron differentiated²⁷⁷ from the squadron in charge of transports. Its main function was to secure the necessary local command, whether for transit or for the actual operations. But as a rule transit was secured by our regular blockading squadrons, and generally the covering squadron only assembled in the theatre of operations. When therefore the theatre was within a defended terminal area, as in our descents upon the northern and Atlantic coasts of [pg 288] France, then the terminal defence squadron was usually also sufficient to protect the actual operations. It thus formed automatically the covering squadron, and either continued its blockade, or, as in the case of our attack on St. Malo in 1758, took up a position between the enemy's squadron and the expedition's line of operation. If, however, the theatre of operation was not within a terminal area, or lay within a distant one that was weakly held, the expedition was given its own covering squadron, in which the local squadron was more or less completely merged²⁷⁸. Whatever, in fact, was necessary to secure the local control was done, though, as we have seen, and must presently consider more fully, this necessity was not always the standard by which the strength of the covering squadron was measured.

The strength of the covering squadron being determined, the next question is the position or "tract¹⁵⁸" which it should occupy. Like most other strategical problems, it is "an option of difficulties." In so far as the squadron is designed for support—that is, support from its men, boats, and guns—it will be desirable to station it as near as possible to the objective; but as a covering squadron, with the duty of preventing the intrusion of an enemy's force, it should be as far away as possible, so as to engage such a force at the earliest possible moment of its attempt to interfere. There is also the paramount necessity that its position must be such that favourable contact with the enemy is certain if he tries to interrupt. Usually such certainty is only to be found either in touch with the enemy's naval base or in touch with your own landing force. Where the objective is the local naval base of the enemy these two points, of course, tend to be identical strategically, and the position of the covering squadron becomes a tactical rather than a strategical question. But the vital principle of an independent existence holds good, and no matter how great the necessity of support, the covering squadron should never be so deeply engaged with the landing force as [pg 289] to be unable to disentangle itself for action as a purely²⁷⁹ naval unit in time to discharge its naval function. In other words, it must always be able to act in the same way as a free field army covering a siege.

Where the objective of the expedition is not the local naval base, the choice of a position for the covering squadron will turn mainly on the amount of support which the army is likely to require. If it cannot act by surprise, and serious military resistance is consequently to be expected, or where the coast defences are too strong for the transport squadron to overpower, then the scale will incline to a position close to the army, though the extent to which, under modern conditions, ships at sea can usefully perform the delicate operation of supporting an infantry²⁸⁰ attack with gun fire, except by enfilading the enemy's position, remains to be proved. A similar choice will be indicated where strong support of men and boats is required, as when a sufficiency of flat-boats and steam towage cannot be provided by the transports and their attendant squadron; or again where the locality is such that amphibious operations beyond the actual landing are likely to be called for, and the assistance of a large number of boats and seamen²⁸¹ acting with the army is necessary to give it the amphibious tactical mobility which it would otherwise lack. Such cases occurred at Quebec in 1759, where Saunders took his covering battle-squadron right up the St. Lawrence, although its covering functions could have been discharged even better by a position several hundreds of miles away from the objective; and again in 1800 at Alexandria, where Lord Keith ran the extremest hazard to his covering functions [pg 290] in order to undertake the supply of General Abercromby's army by inland waters and give him the mobility he required.

If, on the other hand, the transport squadron is able to furnish all the support necessary, the covering squadron will take station as close as possible to the enemy's naval base, and there it will operate according to the ordinary laws of blockade. If nothing is desired but to prevent interference, its guard will take the form of a close blockade. But if there be a subsidiary purpose of using the expedition as a means of forcing the enemy to sea, the open form will be employed; as, for instance, in Anson's case above cited, when he covered the St. Malo expedition not by closely blockading Brest, but by taking a position to the eastward at the Isle de Batz.

In the Japanese operations against Manchuria and the Kuantung Peninsula these old principles displayed themselves in undiminished vitality. In the surprise descents against Seoul and at Takusan the work of support was left entirely with the transport squadron, while Admiral Togo took up a covering position far away at Port Arthur. The two elements of the fleet were kept separate all through. But in the operations for the isolation²⁸² and subsequent siege of Port Arthur they were so closely united as to appear frequently indistinguishable. Still, so far as the closeness of the landing place to the objective permitted, the two acted independently. For the actual landing of the Second Army the boats of the covering squadron were used, but it remained a live naval unit all through, and was never organically mingled²⁸³ with the transport squadron. Its operations throughout were, so far as modern conditions permit, on the lines of a close blockade. [pg 291] To prevent interference was its paramount function, undisturbed, so far as we are able to judge, by any subsidiary purpose of bringing the enemy to decisive action.

All through the operations, however, there was a new influence which tended to confuse the precision of the old methods. Needless to say it was the torpedo and the mine. Their deflective pressure was curious and interesting. In our own operations against Sebastopol, to which the Port Arthur case is most closely comparable, the old rules still held good. On the traditional principle, dating from Drake's attack on San Domingo in 1585, a landing place was chosen which gave the mean between facility for a coup de main and freedom from opposition; that is, it was chosen at the nearest practicable point to the objective which was undefended by batteries and out of reach of the enemy's main army.

In the handling of the covering squadron Admiral Dundas, the Commander-in-Chief, gave it its dual function. After explaining the constitution of the transport squadron he says, "The remainder of my force ... will act as a covering squadron, and where practicable assist in the general disembarkation." With these two objects in mind he took a station near enough to the landing place to support the army with his guns if it were opposed, but still in sight of his cruisers before Sebastopol, and at such a distance that at the first sign of the Russians moving he would have time to get before the port and engage them before they could get well to sea; that is, he took a position as near to the army as was compatible with preventing interference, or, it may be said, [pg 292] his position was as near to the enemy's base as was compatible with supporting the landing. From either aspect in fact the position was the same, and its choice presented no complexity²⁸⁴ owing mainly to the fact that for the first time steam simplified the factors of time and distance.

In the Japanese case the application of these principles was not so easy. In selecting the nearest undefended point for a landing, it was not only batteries, or even the army in Port Arthur, or the troops dispersed²⁸⁵ in the Liaotung Peninsula that had to be considered, but rather, as must always be the case in the future, mines and mobile torpedo defence. The point they chose was the nearest practicable bay that was unmined. It was not strictly out of mobile defence range, but it so happened that it lay behind islands which lent themselves to the creation of fixed²⁸⁶ defences, and thus it fulfilled all the recognised conditions. But in so far as the defences could be turned by the Russian fleet a covering squadron was necessary, and the difficulty of choosing a position for it was complicated by the fact that the objective of the combined operations was not merely Port Arthur itself, but also the squadron it contained. It was necessary, therefore, not only to hold off that squadron, but to prevent its escape. This indicated a close blockade. But for close blockade a position out of night torpedo range is necessary, and the nearest point where such a position could be secured was behind the defences that covered the disembarkation. Consequently, in spite of what the strategical conditions dictated, the covering squadron was more or less continuously forced back upon the army and its supporting force, even when the support of the battle-squadron was no longer required.

In the conditions that existed nothing was lost. For the lines of the Japanese fixed defences were so near to the enemy's base, that by mining the entrance of the port Admiral Togo ensured that the enemy's exit would be slow enough for him to be certain of getting contact from his defended anchorage [pg 293] before the Russians could get far to sea. What would happen in a case when no such position could be secured is another matter. The landing place and supply base of the army must be secured against torpedo attack, and the principle of concentration of effort would suggest that the means of defence should not be attenuated²⁸⁷ by providing the covering squadron with a defended anchorage elsewhere. Thus it would appear that unless the geographical conditions permit the covering squadron to use one of its own national bases, the drift of recent developments will be to force it back on the army, and thus tend to confuse its duties with those of the transport squadron. Hence the increased importance of keeping clear the difference in function between the two squadrons.

To emphasise the principle of the covering squadron, these two cases may be contrasted with the Lissa episode at the end of the Austro-Italian War of 1866. In that case it was entirely neglected, with disastrous results. The Austrian admiral, Tegethoff, with an inferior fleet had by higher order been acting throughout on the defensive, and was still in Pola waiting for a chance of a counter-stroke. Persano with the superior Italian fleet was at Ancona, where he practically dominated the Adriatic. In July the Italians, owing to the failure of the army, were confronted with the prospect of being forced to make peace on unfavourable terms. To improve the position Persano was ordered to take possession of the Austrian island of Lissa. Without any attempt to organise his fleet on the orthodox British principle he proceeded to conduct the operation with his entire force. Practically the whole of it became involved in amphibious work, and as soon as Persano was thus committed, Tegethoff put to sea and surprised him. Persano was unable to disentangle a sufficient force in time to [pg 294] meet the attack, and having no compact squadron fit for independent naval action, he was decisively defeated by the inferior enemy. According to British practice, it was clearly a case where, if the operation were to be undertaken at all, an independent covering squadron should have been told off either to hold Tegethoff in Pola or to bring him to timely action, according to whether the island or the Austrian fleet was the primary objective. The reason it was not done may be that Persano was not given a proper landing force, and he seems to have considered that the whole strength of his fleet was needed for the successful seizure²⁸⁸ of the objective. If so, it is only one more proof of the rule that no matter what fleet support the landing operations may require, it should never be given in an imperfectly commanded sea to an extent which will deny the possibility of a covering squadron being left free for independent naval action.

The length to which the supporting functions of the fleet may be carried will always be a delicate question. The suggestion that its strength must be affected by the need of the army for the men of the fleet or its boats, which imply its men as well, will appear heretical. A battle-squadron, we say, is intended to deal with the enemy's battle-squadron and its men to fight the ships, and the mind revolts at the idea of the strength of a squadron being fixed by any other standard. Theoretically nothing can seem more true, but it is an idea of peace and the study. The atmosphere of war engendered²⁸⁹ a wider and more practical view. The men of the old wars knew that when a squadron is attached to a combined expedition it is something different from a purely naval unit. They knew, moreover, that an army acting oversea against hostile territory is an incomplete organism incapable²⁹⁰ of striking its blow in the most effective manner without the assistance of the men of the fleet. It was the office, then, of the naval portion of the force not only to defend the striking part of the organism, but to complete its deficiencies and lend it the [pg 295] power to strike. Alone and unaided the army cannot depend on getting itself ashore, it cannot supply itself, it cannot secure its retreat, nor can it avail itself of the highest advantages of an amphibious force, the sudden shift of base or line of operation. These things the fleet must do for it, and it must do them with its men.25

The authority for this view is abundant. In 1800, for instance, when General Maitland was charged with an expedition against Belleisle, he was invited to state what naval force he would require. He found it difficult to fix with precision. "Speaking loosely, however," he wrote, "three or four sail of the line and four or five active frigates appear to me to be properly adequate to the proposed service. The frigates to blockade." (Meaning, of course, to blockade the objective and prevent reinforcements reaching it from the mainland, always one of the supporting functions of the squadron attached to the transports.) "The line-of-battle ships," he adds, "to furnish us with the number of men necessary for land operations." In this case our permanent blockading squadrons supplied the cover, and what Maitland meant was that the battleships he asked for were to be added to the transport [pg 296] squadron not as being required for escort, but for support. St. Vincent, who was then First Lord, not only endorsed²⁹¹ his request, but gave him for disembarkation work one more ship-of-the-line than he had asked for. At this time our general command of the sea had been very fully secured, and we had plenty of naval force to spare for its exercise. It will be well to compare it with a case in which the circumstances were different.

When in 1795 the expedition under Admiral Christian²⁹² and General Abercromby was being prepared for the West Indies, the admiral in concert with Jervis drew up a memorandum²⁹³ as to the naval force required.26 The force he asked for was considerable. Both he and Jervis considered that the escort and local cover must be very strong, because it was impossible to count on closing either Brest or Toulon effectually by blockade. But this was not the only reason. The plan of operations involved three distinct landings, and each would require at least two of the line, and perhaps three, "not only as protection, but as the means by which flat-boats must be manned, cannon²⁹⁴ landed, and the other necessary services of fatigue²⁹⁵ executed." Christian also required the necessary frigates and three or four brigs "to cover [that is, support] the operations of the smaller vessels [that is, the landing flotillas doing inshore work]." The main attack would require at least four of the line and seven frigates, with brigs and schooners²⁹⁶ in proportion. In all he considered, the ships-of-the-line [the frigates being "otherwise employed"] would have to provide landing parties to the number of 2000 men "for the flat-boats, [pg 297] landing and moving guns, water, and provisions," and this would be their daily task. The military force these landing parties were to serve amounted to about 18,000 men.

Lord Barham, it must be said, who as Sir Charles Middleton was then First Sea Lord, objected to the requirements as excessive, particularly in the demand for a strong escort, as he considered that the transit could be safeguarded by special vigilance on the part of the permanent blockading squadrons. The need for large shore parties he seems to have ignored. His opinion, however, is not quite convincing, for from the first he had taken up an antagonistic²⁹⁷ attitude to the whole idea of the expedition. He regarded the policy which dictated it as radically unsound, and was naturally anxious to restrict the force that was to be spent upon it. His opposition was based on the broad and far-sighted principles that were characteristic of his strategy. He believed that in view of the threatening attitude of Spain the right course was to husband the navy so as to bring it up to a two-Power standard for the coming struggle, and to keep it concentrated for decisive naval action the moment Spain showed her hand. In short, he stoutly²⁹⁸ condemned²⁹⁹ a policy which entailed³⁰⁰ a serious dissipation of naval force for a secondary object before a working command of the sea had been secured. It was, in fact, the arrangements for this expedition which forced him to resign [pg 298] before the preparations were complete. But it is to be observed that his objections to the plan were really due, not to the principle of its organisation, but to our having insufficient³⁰¹ force to give it adequate naval support without prejudicing the higher consideration of our whole position at sea.27

It is obvious that the foregoing considerations, beyond the strategical reactions already noted³⁰², will have another of the first importance, in that they must influence the choice of a landing place. The interest of the army will always be to fix it as near to the objective as is compatible with an unopposed landing. The ideal was one night's march, but this could rarely be attained³⁰³ except in the case of very small expeditions, which could be landed rapidly at the close of day and advance in the dark. In larger expeditions, the aim was to effect the landing far enough from the objective to prevent the garrison³⁰⁴ of the place or the enemy's local forces offering opposition before a footing was secured. The tendency of the navy will usually be in the opposite direction; for normally the further they can land the army away from the enemy's strength, the surer are they of being able to protect it against naval interference. Their ideal will be a place far enough away to be out of torpedo range, and to enable them to work the covering and the transport squadron in sound strategical independence.

To reduce these divergencies to a mean of efficiency some kind of joint³⁰⁵ Staff is necessary, and to ensure its smooth working it is no less desirable to ascertain³⁰⁶, so far as possible, the principles and method on which it should proceed. In the best recent precedents³⁰⁷ the process has been for the Army Staff to present the limits of coast-line within which the landing [pg 299] must take place for the operation to have the desired effect, and to indicate the known practicable landing points in the order they would prefer them. It will then be for the Naval Staff to say how nearly in accordance with the views of the army they are prepared to act. Their decision will turn on the difficulties of protection and the essentials of a landing place from the point of view of weather, currents, beach and the like, and also in a secondary measure upon the extent to which the conformation of the coast will permit of tactical support by gun-fire and feints. If the Naval Staff are unwilling to agree to the point or points their colleagues most desire, a question of balance of risk is set up, which the higher Joint Staff must adjust. It will be the duty of the Naval Staff to set out frankly³⁰⁸ and clearly all the sea risks the proposal of the army entails, and if possible to suggest an alternative by which the risk of naval interference can be lessened³⁰⁹ without laying too heavy a burden on the army. Balancing these risks against those stated by the army, the superior Staff must decide which line is to be taken, and each service then will do its best to minimise the difficulties it has to face. Whether the superior Staff will incline to the naval or the military view will depend upon whether the greater danger likely to be incurred³¹⁰ is from the sea or on land.

Where the naval conditions are fairly well known the line of operations can be fixed in this way with much precision. But if, as usually happens, the probable action of the enemy at sea cannot be divined with sufficient approximation, then assuming there is serious possibility of naval interference, the final choice within the limited area must be left to the admiral. The practice has been to give him instructions which define in order of merit the points the army desire, and direct him to select the one which in the circumstances, as he finds them, he considers within reasonable risk of war. Similarly, if the danger of naval interference be small and the local conditions ashore imperfectly known, the final choice will be with [pg 300] the general, subject only to the practicable possibilities of the landing place he would choose.

During the best period of our old wars there was seldom any difficulty in making things work smoothly³¹¹ on these lines. After the first inglorious failure at Rochefort in 1757 the practice was, where discretion³¹² of this kind had been allowed, for the two commanders-in-chief to make a joint coast-reconnaissance in the same boat and settle the matter amicably³¹³ on the spot.

It was on these lines the conduct of our combined operations was always arranged thenceforth. Since the elder Pitt's time it has never been our practice to place combined expeditions under either a naval or a military commander-in-chief and allow him to decide between naval and military exigencies³¹⁴. The danger of possible friction³¹⁵ between two commanders-in-chief came to be regarded as small compared with the danger of a single one making mistakes through unfamiliarity³¹⁶ with the limitations of the service to which he does not belong.

The system has usually worked well even when questions arose which were essentially questions for a joint superior Staff. The exceptions indeed are very few. A fine example of how such difficulties can be settled, when the spirit is willing, occurred in the Crimea. The naval difficulties, as we have already seen, were as formidable as they could well be short of rendering³¹⁷ the whole attempt madness. When it came to the point of execution a joint council of war was held, at which sat the allied Staffs of both services. So great were the differences of opinion between the French and British Generals, and so imperfectly was the terrain³¹⁸ known, that they could [pg 301] not indicate a landing place with any precision. All the admirals knew was that it must be on an open coast, which they had not been able to reconnoitre, where the weather might at any time interrupt communications with the shore, and where they were liable to be attacked by a force which, until their own ships were cleared of troops, would not be inferior. All these objections they laid before the Council General. Lord Raglan then said the army now perfectly understood the risk, and was prepared to take it. Whereupon the allied admirals replied that they were ready to proceed and do their best to set the army ashore and support it at any point that should be chosen.

There remains a form of support which has not yet been considered, and that is diversionary movements or feints by the fleet to draw the enemy's attention away from the landing place. This will naturally be a function of the covering battle-squadron or its attendant cruisers and flotilla. The device appears in Drake's attack on San Domingo in 1585, an attack which may be regarded as our earliest precedent in modern times and as the pattern to which all subsequent operations of the kind conformed so far as circumstances allowed. In that case, while Drake landed the troops a night's march from the place, the bulk of the fleet moved before it, kept it in alarm all night, and at dawn made a demonstration³¹⁹ with the boats of forcing a direct landing under cover of its guns. The result was the garrison moved out to meet the threat and were surprised in flank by the real landing force. Passing from this simple case to the most elaborate in our annals, we find Saunders doing the same thing at Quebec. In preparation for Wolfe's night landing he made a show of arrangements [pg 302] for a bombardment of Montcalm's lines below the city, and in the morning with the boats of the fleet began a demonstration of landing his marines. By this device he held Montcalm away from Wolfe's landing place till a secure footing had been obtained. Similar demonstrations³²⁰ had been made above the city, and the combined result was that Wolfe was able to penetrate the centre of the French position unopposed.

Such work belongs of course to the region of tactics rather than of strategy, but the device has been used with equal effect strategically. So great is the secrecy as well as the mobility of an amphibious force, that it is extremely difficult for an enemy to distinguish a real attack from a feint. Even at the last moment, when a landing is actually in progress, it is impossible for the defenders³²¹ to tell that all the troops are being landed at the one point if a demonstration is going on elsewhere. At Quebec it was not till Montcalm was face to face with Wolfe that he knew he had to deal with the whole British force. Still less from a strategical point of view can we be certain whether a particular landing represents an advance guard or is a diversionary operation to mask a larger landing elsewhere. This is a special difficulty when in the case of large operations the landing army arrives in echelon³²² like the Second Japanese army. In that instance the naval feint was used strategically, and apparently with conspicuous³²³ effect. The Russians were always apprehensive³²⁴ that the Japanese would strike for Newchuang at the head of the Gulf³²⁵ of Pe-chi-li, and for this reason General Stakelberg, who had command of the troops in the peninsula, was not permitted to concentrate [pg 303] for effective action in its southern part, where the Japanese had fixed their landing place. Admiral Togo, in spite of the strain on his fleet in effecting and securing the disembarkation of the army, detached a cruiser squadron to demonstrate in the Gulf. The precise effect of this feint upon the Russian Staff cannot be measured with certainty. All we know is that Stakelberg was held back from his concentration so long that he was unable to strike the Japanese army before it was complete for the field and able to deal him a staggering counter-stroke.

This power of disturbing the enemy with feints is of course inherent in the peculiar attributes of combined expeditions, in the facility with which their line of operation can be concealed or changed, and there seems no reason why in the future it should be less than in the past. Good railway connections in the theatre of the descent will of course diminish the effect of feints, but, on the other hand, the means of making them have increased. In mine-sweeping vessels, for instance, there is a new instrument which in the Russo-Japanese War proved capable of creating a very strong impression at small cost to the fleet. Should a flotilla of such craft appear at any practicable part of a threatened coast and make a show of clearing it, it will be almost a moral impossibility to ignore the demonstration.

On the whole then, assuming the old methods are followed, it would seem that with a reasonable naval preponderance the power of carrying out such operations over an uncommanded sea is not less than it has proved to be hitherto. The rapidity and precision of steam propulsion perhaps places that power higher than ever. It would at any rate be difficult to find in the past a parallel to the brilliant movement on Seoul with which the Japanese opened the war in 1904. It is true the Russians at the last moment decided for political reasons to permit the occupation to take place without opposition, but this was unknown to the Japanese, and [pg 304] their arrangements were made on the assumption that their enemy would use the formidable means at his disposal to obstruct⁶ the operation. The risk was accepted, skillfully measured, and adequately provided for on principles identical with those of the British tradition. But, on the other hand, there has been nothing to show that where the enemy has a working command of the sea the hazard of such enterprises has been reduced. Against an enemy controlling the line of passage in force, the well-tried methods of covering and protecting an oversea expedition will no more work to-day than they did in the past. Until his hold is broken by purely naval action, combined work remains beyond all legitimate³²⁶ risk of war.
 
The End

1 interfering   

adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词

参考例句：

• He's an interfering old busybody! 他老爱管闲事！
• I wish my mother would stop interfering and let me make my own decisions. 我希望我母亲不再干预，让我自己拿主意。

2 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

3 naval   

adj.海军的，军舰的，船的

参考例句：

• He took part in a great naval battle.他参加了一次大海战。
• The harbour is an important naval base.该港是一个重要的海军基地。

4 warfare   

n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突

参考例句：

• He addressed the audience on the subject of atomic warfare.他向听众演讲有关原子战争的问题。
• Their struggle consists mainly in peasant guerrilla warfare.他们的斗争主要是农民游击战。

5 obstruction   

n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物

参考例句：

• She was charged with obstruction of a police officer in the execution of his duty.她被指控妨碍警察执行任务。
• The road was cleared from obstruction.那条路已被清除了障碍。

6 obstruct   

v.阻隔，阻塞(道路、通道等)；n.阻碍物，障碍物

参考例句：

• He became still more dissatisfied with it and secretly did everything in his power to obstruct it.他对此更不满意，尽在暗里使绊子。
• The fallen trees obstruct the road.倒下的树将路堵住了。

7 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

8 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

9 attainment   

n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣

参考例句：

• We congratulated her upon her attainment to so great an age.我们祝贺她高寿。
• The attainment of the success is not easy.成功的取得并不容易。

10 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

11 interfere   

v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰

参考例句：

• If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话，可能弊多利少。
• When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件，棘手的事情就来了。

12 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

13 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

14 extraneous   

adj.体外的；外来的；外部的

参考例句：

• I can choose to ignore these extraneous thoughts.我可以选择无视这些外来的想法。
• Reductant from an extraneous source is introduced.外来的还原剂被引进来。

15 intrude   

vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰

参考例句：

• I do not want to intrude if you are busy.如果你忙我就不打扰你了。
• I don't want to intrude on your meeting.我不想打扰你们的会议。

16 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

17 slate   

n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订

参考例句：

• The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
• What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢？

18 generic   

adj.一般的，普通的，共有的

参考例句：

• I usually buy generic clothes instead of name brands.我通常买普通的衣服，不买名牌。
• The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual.一般妇女在婚后似乎有特别突出的抑制个性的能力。

19 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

20 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

21 entrusted   

v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He entrusted the task to his nephew. 他把这任务托付给了他的侄儿。
• She was entrusted with the direction of the project. 她受委托负责这项计划。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 ace   

n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的

参考例句：

• A good negotiator always has more than one ace in the hole.谈判高手总有数张王牌在手。
• He is an ace mechanic.He can repair any cars.他是一流的机械师,什么车都会修。

23 postulate   

n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定

参考例句：

• Let's postulate that she is a cook.我们假定她是一位厨师。
• Freud postulated that we all have a death instinct as well as a life instinct.弗洛伊德曾假定我们所有人都有生存本能和死亡本能。

24 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

25 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

26 disposition   

n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署

参考例句：

• He has made a good disposition of his property.他已对财产作了妥善处理。
• He has a cheerful disposition.他性情开朗。

27 interception   

n.拦截；截击；截取；截住，截断；窃听

参考例句：

• Aerial photography can provide valuable information on precipitation, evapotraspiration, interception, and runoff. 航空摄影可提供有关降水量、蒸发蒸腾量、入渗和径流量的有价值的资料。
• Light interception and distribution in hedgerow orchards with different alleyway widths is indicated in Fig. 56. 图56显示篱壁果园不同行间宽度的光能截取和分配的情况。

28 embark   

vi.乘船，着手，从事，上飞机

参考例句：

• He is about to embark on a new business venture.他就要开始新的商业冒险活动。
• Many people embark for Europe at New York harbor.许多人在纽约港乘船去欧洲。

29 embarkation   

n. 乘船, 搭机, 开船

参考例句：

• Lisbon became the great embarkation point. 里斯本成了最理想的跳板。 来自英语连读（第二部分）
• Good, go aboard please, be about very quickly embarkation. 好了，请上船吧，很快就要开船了。

30 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

31 frigate   

n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰

参考例句：

• An enemy frigate bore down on the sloop.一艘敌驱逐舰向这只护航舰逼过来。
• I declare we could fight frigate.我敢说我们简直可以和一艘战舰交战。

32 expeditious   

adj.迅速的，敏捷的

参考例句：

• They are almost as expeditious and effectual as Aladdin's lamp.他们几乎像如意神灯那么迅速有效。
• It is more convenien,expeditious and economical than telephone or telegram.它比电话或电报更方便、迅速和经济。

33 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

34 artillery   

n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队)

参考例句：

• This is a heavy artillery piece.这是一门重炮。
• The artillery has more firepower than the infantry.炮兵火力比步兵大。

35 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

36 censure   

v./n.责备；非难；责难

参考例句：

• You must not censure him until you know the whole story.在弄清全部事实真相前不要谴责他。
• His dishonest behaviour came under severe censure.他的不诚实行为受到了严厉指责。

37 debarkation   

n.下车，下船，登陆

参考例句：

• Note: The identical account number multi-role debarkation only provides one silver piece. 注：同一账号多角色登陆只发放一次元宝。 来自互联网
• Dependence on air and sea ports of debarkation would be reduced. 对卸载机场和登陆港口的依赖性将会降低。 来自互联网

38 dispositions   

安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质

参考例句：

• We got out some information about the enemy's dispositions from the captured enemy officer. 我们从捕获的敌军官那里问出一些有关敌军部署的情况。
• Elasticity, solubility, inflammability are paradigm cases of dispositions in natural objects. 伸缩性、可缩性、易燃性是天然物体倾向性的范例。

39 evasion   

n.逃避，偷漏(税)

参考例句：

• The movie star is in prison for tax evasion.那位影星因为逃税而坐牢。
• The act was passed as a safeguard against tax evasion.这项法案旨在防止逃税行为。

40 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

41 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。

42 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

43 northward   

adv.向北；n.北方的地区

参考例句：

• He pointed his boat northward.他将船驶向北方。
• I would have a chance to head northward quickly.我就很快有机会去北方了。

44 organise   

vt.组织，安排，筹办

参考例句：

• He has the ability to organise.他很有组织才能。
• It's my job to organise all the ceremonial events.由我来组织所有的仪式。

45 entice   

v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿

参考例句：

• Nothing will entice the children from television.没有任何东西能把孩子们从电视机前诱开。
• I don't see why the English should want to entice us away from our native land.我不明白，为什英国人要引诱我们离开自己的国土。

46 resolutely   

adj.坚决地，果断地

参考例句：

• He resolutely adhered to what he had said at the meeting. 他坚持他在会上所说的话。
• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。

47 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

48 defensive   

adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的

参考例句：

• Their questions about the money put her on the defensive.他们问到钱的问题，使她警觉起来。
• The Government hastily organized defensive measures against the raids.政府急忙布置了防卫措施抵御空袭。

49 insistence   

n.坚持；强调；坚决主张

参考例句：

• They were united in their insistence that she should go to college.他们一致坚持她应上大学。
• His insistence upon strict obedience is correct.他坚持绝对服从是对的。

50 enunciate   

v.发音；（清楚地）表达

参考例句：

• Actors learn how to enunciate clearly in the theatrical college.演员在戏剧学院学习怎样清晰地发音。
• He is always willing to enunciate his opinions on the subject of politics.他总是愿意对政治问题发表意见。

51 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

52 ripening   

v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成

参考例句：

• The corn is blossoming [ripening]. 玉米正在开花[成熟]。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• When the summer crop is ripening, the autumn crop has to be sowed. 夏季作物成熟时，就得播种秋季作物。 来自《简明英汉词典》

53 warships   

军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只

参考例句：

• The enemy warships were disengaged from the battle after suffering heavy casualties. 在遭受惨重伤亡后，敌舰退出了海战。
• The government fitted out warships and sailors for them. 政府给他们配备了战舰和水手。

54 devoutly   

adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地

参考例句：

• She was a devoutly Catholic. 她是一个虔诚地天主教徒。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This was not a boast, but a hope, at once bold and devoutly humble. 这不是夸夸其谈，而是一个即大胆而又诚心、谦虚的希望。 来自辞典例句

55 invader   

n.侵略者，侵犯者，入侵者

参考例句：

• They suffered a lot under the invader's heel.在侵略者的铁蹄下，他们受尽了奴役。
• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。

56 defender   

n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人

参考例句：

• He shouldered off a defender and shot at goal.他用肩膀挡开防守队员，然后射门。
• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。

57 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

58 expedient   

adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计

参考例句：

• The government found it expedient to relax censorship a little.政府发现略微放宽审查是可取的。
• Every kind of expedient was devised by our friends.我们的朋友想出了各种各样的应急办法。

59 continental   

adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的

参考例句：

• A continental climate is different from an insular one.大陆性气候不同于岛屿气候。
• The most ancient parts of the continental crust are 4000 million years old.大陆地壳最古老的部分有40亿年历史。

60 obstinately   

ad.固执地，顽固地

参考例句：

• He obstinately asserted that he had done the right thing. 他硬说他做得对。
• Unemployment figures are remaining obstinately high. 失业数字仍然顽固地居高不下。

61 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

62 degradation   

n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变

参考例句：

• There are serious problems of land degradation in some arid zones.在一些干旱地带存在严重的土地退化问题。
• Gambling is always coupled with degradation.赌博总是与堕落相联系。

63 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

64 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

65 expedients   

n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He is full of [fruitful in] expedients. 他办法多。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Perhaps Calonne might return too, with fresh financial expedients. 或许卡洛纳也会回来，带有新的财政机谋。 来自辞典例句

66 stiffens   

（使）变硬，（使）强硬( stiffen的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Heating the foam stiffens it and forms it. 暖气泡沫stiffens它和形式。
• He stiffens in momentary panic. 他心里一阵惊慌，浑身不自在起来。

67 evade   

vt.逃避，回避；避开，躲避

参考例句：

• He tried to evade the embarrassing question.他企图回避这令人难堪的问题。
• You are in charge of the job.How could you evade the issue?你是负责人，你怎么能对这个问题不置可否？

68 entail   

vt.使承担，使成为必要，需要

参考例句：

• Such a decision would entail a huge political risk.这样的决定势必带来巨大的政治风险。
• This job would entail your learning how to use a computer.这工作将需要你学会怎样用计算机。

69 entails   

使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需

参考例句：

• The job entails a lot of hard work. 这工作需要十分艰苦的努力。
• This job entails a lot of hard work. 这项工作需要十分努力。

70 morale   

n.道德准则，士气，斗志

参考例句：

• The morale of the enemy troops is sinking lower every day.敌军的士气日益低落。
• He tried to bolster up their morale.他尽力鼓舞他们的士气。

71 deadlock   

n.僵局，僵持

参考例句：

• The negotiations reached a deadlock after two hours.两小时后，谈判陷入了僵局。
• The employers and strikers are at a deadlock over the wage.雇主和罢工者在工资问题上相持不下。

72 stiffened   

加强的

参考例句：

• He leaned towards her and she stiffened at this invasion of her personal space. 他向她俯过身去，这种侵犯她个人空间的举动让她绷紧了身子。
• She stiffened with fear. 她吓呆了。

73 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？

74 stiffening   

n. (使衣服等)变硬的材料, 硬化 动词stiffen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Her mouth stiffening, she could not elaborate. 她嘴巴僵直，无法细说下去。
• No genius, not a bad guy, but the attacks are hurting and stiffening him. 不是天才，人也不坏，但是四面八方的攻击伤了他的感情，使他横下了心。

75 distinguished   

adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的

参考例句：

• Elephants are distinguished from other animals by their long noses.大象以其长长的鼻子显示出与其他动物的不同。
• A banquet was given in honor of the distinguished guests.宴会是为了向贵宾们致敬而举行的。

76 munition   

n.军火；军需品；v.给某部门提供军火

参考例句：

• The rebels bombed the munition factory.叛军轰炸了兵工厂。
• The soldiers had plenty of arms and munition!士兵们有充足的武器和弹药！

77 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

78 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

79 overdone   

v.做得过分( overdo的过去分词 )；太夸张；把…煮得太久；（工作等）过度

参考例句：

• The lust of men must not be overdone. 人们的欲望不该过分。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The joke is overdone. 玩笑开得过火。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

80 westward   

n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西

参考例句：

• We live on the westward slope of the hill.我们住在这座山的西山坡。
• Explore westward or wherever.向西或到什么别的地方去勘探。

81 importunity   

n.硬要，强求

参考例句：

• They got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. 她们只是用脸红、惊叫、颤抖和傻笑来回答他们的要求。 来自辞典例句
• His importunity left me no alternative but to agree. 他的强硬要求让我只能答应而没有别的选择。 来自互联网

82 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

83 prospects   

n.希望，前途(恒为复数)

参考例句：

• There is a mood of pessimism in the company about future job prospects. 公司中有一种对工作前景悲观的情绪。
• They are less sanguine about the company's long-term prospects. 他们对公司的远景不那么乐观。

84 harass   

vt.使烦恼，折磨，骚扰

参考例句：

• Our mission is to harass the landing of the main Japaness expeditionary force.我们的任务是骚乱日本远征军主力的登陆。
• They received the order to harass the enemy's rear.他们接到骚扰敌人后方的命令。

85 harassing   

v.侵扰，骚扰( harass的现在分词 )；不断攻击（敌人）

参考例句：

• The court ordered him to stop harassing his ex-wife. 法庭命令他不得再骚扰前妻。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was too close to be merely harassing fire. 打得这么近，不能完全是扰乱射击。 来自辞典例句

86 unfamiliar   

adj.陌生的，不熟悉的

参考例句：

• I am unfamiliar with the place and the people here.我在这儿人地生疏。
• The man seemed unfamiliar to me.这人很面生。

87 herded   

群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动

参考例句：

• He herded up his goats. 他把山羊赶拢在一起。
• They herded into the corner. 他们往角落里聚集。

88 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。

89 improvised   

a.即席而作的,即兴的

参考例句：

• He improvised a song about the football team's victory. 他即席创作了一首足球队胜利之歌。
• We improvised a tent out of two blankets and some long poles. 我们用两条毛毯和几根长竿搭成一个临时帐蓬。

90 sedition   

n.煽动叛乱

参考例句：

• Government officials charged him with sedition.政府官员指控他煽动人们造反。
• His denial of sedition was a denial of violence.他对煽动叛乱的否定又是对暴力的否定。

91 organisation   

n.组织，安排，团体，有机休

参考例句：

• The method of his organisation work is worth commending.他的组织工作的方法值得称道。
• His application for membership of the organisation was rejected.他想要加入该组织的申请遭到了拒绝。

92 ebb   

vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态

参考例句：

• The flood and ebb tides alternates with each other.涨潮和落潮交替更迭。
• They swam till the tide began to ebb.他们一直游到开始退潮。

93 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

94 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

95 concealed   

a.隐藏的，隐蔽的

参考例句：

• The paintings were concealed beneath a thick layer of plaster. 那些画被隐藏在厚厚的灰泥层下面。
• I think he had a gun concealed about his person. 我认为他当时身上藏有一支枪。

96 concealment   

n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒

参考例句：

• the concealment of crime 对罪行的隐瞒
• Stay in concealment until the danger has passed. 把自己藏起来，待危险过去后再出来。

97 secrecy   

n.秘密，保密，隐蔽

参考例句：

• All the researchers on the project are sworn to secrecy.该项目的所有研究人员都按要求起誓保守秘密。
• Complete secrecy surrounded the meeting.会议在绝对机密的环境中进行。

98 postpone   

v.延期，推迟

参考例句：

• I shall postpone making a decision till I learn full particulars.在未获悉详情之前我得从缓作出决定。
• She decided to postpone the converastion for that evening.她决定当天晚上把谈话搁一搁。

99 hoist   

n.升高，起重机，推动；v.升起，升高，举起

参考例句：

• By using a hoist the movers were able to sling the piano to the third floor.搬运工人用吊车才把钢琴吊到3楼。
• Hoist the Chinese flag on the flagpole,please!请在旗杆上升起中国国旗！

100 brewing   

n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• It was obvious that a big storm was brewing up. 很显然，一场暴风雨正在酝酿中。
• She set about brewing some herb tea. 她动手泡一些药茶。

101 smuggler   

n.走私者

参考例句：

• The smuggler is in prison tonight, awaiting extradition to Britain. 这名走私犯今晚在监狱，等待引渡到英国。
• The smuggler was finally obliged to inform against his boss. 那个走私犯最后不得不告发他的首领。

102 isle   

n.小岛，岛

参考例句：

• He is from the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.他来自爱尔兰海的马恩岛。
• The boat left for the paradise isle of Bali.小船驶向天堂一般的巴厘岛。

103 beset   

v.镶嵌；困扰，包围

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• The plan was beset with difficulties from the beginning.这项计划自开始就困难重重。

104 rumours   

n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传

参考例句：

• The rumours were completely baseless. 那些谣传毫无根据。
• Rumours of job losses were later confirmed. 裁员的传言后来得到了证实。

105 afflict   

vt.使身体或精神受痛苦，折磨

参考例句：

• I wish you wouldn't afflict me with your constant complains.我希望你不要总是抱怨而使我苦恼。
• There are many illnesses,which afflict old people.有许多疾病困扰着老年人。

106 appreciation   

n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨

参考例句：

• I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to you all.我想对你们所有人表达我的感激和谢意。
• I'll be sending them a donation in appreciation of their help.我将送给他们一笔捐款以感谢他们的帮助。

107 gale   

n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）

参考例句：

• We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。
• According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

108 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

109 deception   

n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计

参考例句：

• He admitted conspiring to obtain property by deception.他承认曾与人合谋骗取财产。
• He was jailed for two years for fraud and deception.他因为诈骗和欺诈入狱服刑两年。

110 forestall   

vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止

参考例句：

• I left the room to forestall involvements.我抢先离开了这房间以免受牵累。
• He followed this rule in order to forestall rumors.他遵守这条规矩是为了杜绝流言蜚语。

111 hardy   

adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的

参考例句：

• The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
• He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。

112 junction   

n.连接，接合；交叉点，接合处，枢纽站

参考例句：

• There's a bridge at the junction of the two rivers.两河的汇合处有座桥。
• You must give way when you come to this junction.你到了这个路口必须让路。

113 ashore   

adv.在(向)岸上，上岸

参考例句：

• The children got ashore before the tide came in.涨潮前，孩子们就上岸了。
• He laid hold of the rope and pulled the boat ashore.他抓住绳子拉船靠岸。

114 appreciations   

n.欣赏( appreciation的名词复数 )；感激；评定；（尤指土地或财产的）增值

参考例句：

• Do you usually appreciations to yourself and others? Explain. 你有常常给自己和别人称赞吗？请解释一下。 来自互联网
• What appreciations would you have liked to receive? 你希望接受什么样的感激和欣赏？ 来自互联网

115 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

116 cohesion   

n.团结，凝结力

参考例句：

• I had to bring some cohesion into the company.我得使整个公司恢复凝聚力。
• The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality,creativity and cohesion of a nation. 文化的力量，深深熔铸在民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。

117 mobility   

n.可动性，变动性，情感不定

参考例句：

• The difference in regional house prices acts as an obstacle to mobility of labour.不同地区房价的差异阻碍了劳动力的流动。
• Mobility is very important in guerrilla warfare.机动性在游击战中至关重要。

118 favourable   

adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的

参考例句：

• The company will lend you money on very favourable terms.这家公司将以非常优惠的条件借钱给你。
• We found that most people are favourable to the idea.我们发现大多数人同意这个意见。

119 dart   

v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲

参考例句：

• The child made a sudden dart across the road.那小孩突然冲过马路。
• Markov died after being struck by a poison dart.马尔科夫身中毒镖而亡。

120 convoy   

vt.护送，护卫，护航；n.护送；护送队

参考例句：

• The convoy was snowed up on the main road.护送队被大雪困在干路上了。
• Warships will accompany the convoy across the Atlantic.战舰将护送该船队过大西洋。

121 convoys   

n.（有护航的）船队( convoy的名词复数 )；车队；护航（队）；护送队

参考例句：

• Truck convoys often stop over for lunch here. 车队经常在这里停下来吃午饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A UN official said aid programs will be suspended until there's adequate protection for relief convoys. 一名联合国官员说将会暂停援助项目，直到援助车队能够得到充分的保护为止。 来自辞典例句

122 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

123 strictly   

adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地

参考例句：

• His doctor is dieting him strictly.他的医生严格规定他的饮食。
• The guests were seated strictly in order of precedence.客人严格按照地位高低就座。

124 replenishment   

n.补充(货物)

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• Natural replenishment of this vast supply of underground water occurs very slowly. 靠自然补充大量地下水是十分缓慢的。

125 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

126 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

127 lizard   

n.蜥蜴，壁虎

参考例句：

• A chameleon is a kind of lizard.变色龙是一种蜥蜴。
• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect.蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。

128 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

129 severely   

adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地

参考例句：

• He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
• He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。

130 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。

131 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

132 coup   

n.政变；突然而成功的行动

参考例句：

• The monarch was ousted by a military coup.那君主被军事政变者废黜了。
• That government was overthrown in a military coup three years ago.那个政府在3年前的军事政变中被推翻。

133 beguiled   

v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等）

参考例句：

• She beguiled them into believing her version of events. 她哄骗他们相信了她叙述的事情。
• He beguiled me into signing this contract. 他诱骗我签订了这项合同。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

134 gamut   

n.全音阶，(一领域的)全部知识

参考例句：

• The exhibition runs the whole gamut of artistic styles.这次展览包括了所有艺术风格的作品。
• This poem runs the gamut of emotions from despair to joy.这首诗展现了从绝望到喜悦的感情历程。

135 delusive   

adj.欺骗的，妄想的

参考例句：

• Most of the people realized that their scheme was simply a delusive snare.大多数人都认识到他们的诡计不过是一个骗人的圈套。
• Everyone knows that fairy isles are delusive and illusive things,still everyone wishes they were real.明知神山缥缈，却愿其有。

136 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

137 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

138 inflicted   

把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They inflicted a humiliating defeat on the home team. 他们使主队吃了一场很没面子的败仗。
• Zoya heroically bore the torture that the Fascists inflicted upon her. 卓娅英勇地承受法西斯匪徒加在她身上的酷刑。

139 inflict   

vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担

参考例句：

• Don't inflict your ideas on me.不要把你的想法强加于我。
• Don't inflict damage on any person.不要伤害任何人。

140 advent   

n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临

参考例句：

• Swallows come by groups at the advent of spring. 春天来临时燕子成群飞来。
• The advent of the Euro will redefine Europe.欧元的出现将重新定义欧洲。

141 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

142 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

143 torpedo   

n.水雷，地雷；v.用鱼雷破坏

参考例句：

• His ship was blown up by a torpedo.他的船被一枚鱼雷炸毁了。
• Torpedo boats played an important role during World War Two.鱼雷艇在第二次世界大战中发挥了重要作用。

144 embarked   

乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事

参考例句：

• We stood on the pier and watched as they embarked. 我们站在突码头上目送他们登船。
• She embarked on a discourse about the town's origins. 她开始讲本市的起源。

145 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

146 outstripped   

v.做得比…更好，（在赛跑等中）超过( outstrip的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• That manufacturer outstripped all his competitors in sales last year. 那个制造商家去年的销售量超过了所有竞争对手。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The imagination of her mother and herself had outstripped the truth. 母亲和她自己的想象力远远超过了事实。 来自辞典例句

147 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。

148 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

149 leakage   

n.漏，泄漏；泄漏物；漏出量

参考例句：

• Large areas of land have been contaminated by the leakage from the nuclear reactor.大片地区都被核反应堆的泄漏物污染了。
• The continuing leakage is the result of the long crack in the pipe.这根管子上的那一条裂缝致使渗漏不断。

150 wireless   

adj.无线的；n.无线电

参考例句：

• There are a lot of wireless links in a radio.收音机里有许多无线电线路。
• Wireless messages tell us that the ship was sinking.无线电报告知我们那艘船正在下沉。

151 transit   

n.经过，运输；vt.穿越，旋转；vi.越过

参考例句：

• His luggage was lost in transit.他的行李在运送中丢失。
• The canal can transit a total of 50 ships daily.这条运河每天能通过50条船。

152 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

153 dispersing   

adj. 分散的 动词disperse的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Whereas gasoline fumes linger close to the ground before dispersing. 而汽油烟气却靠近地面迟迟不散。
• Earthworms may be instrumental in dispersing fungi or bacteria. 蚯蚓可能是散布真菌及细菌的工具。

154 deterrent   

n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的

参考例句：

• Large fines act as a deterrent to motorists.高额罚款是对开车的人的制约。
• I put a net over my strawberries as a deterrent to the birds.我在草莓上罩了网，免得鸟歇上去。

155 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

156 intensify   

vt.加强；变强；加剧

参考例句：

• We must intensify our educational work among our own troops.我们必须加强自己部队的教育工作。
• They were ordered to intensify their patrols to protect our air space.他们奉命加强巡逻，保卫我国的领空。

157 adage   

n.格言，古训

参考例句：

• But the old adage that men grow into office has not proved true in my experience.但是，根据我的经验，人们所谓的工作岗位造就人材这句古话并不正确。
• Her experience lends credence to the adage " We live and learn!"她的经验印证了一句格言: 活到老，学到老！

158 tract   

n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林)

参考例句：

• He owns a large tract of forest.他拥有一大片森林。
• He wrote a tract on this subject.他曾对此写了一篇短文。

159 infertile   

adj.不孕的；不肥沃的，贫瘠的

参考例句：

• Plants can't grow well in the infertile land.在贫瘠的土地上庄稼长不好。
• Nobody is willing to till this infertile land.这块薄田没有人愿意耕种。

160 converge   

vi.会合；聚集，集中；(思想、观点等)趋近

参考例句：

• The results converge towards this truth.其结果趋近于这个真理。
• Parallel lines converge at infinity.平行线永不相交。

161 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。

162 underlies   

v.位于或存在于（某物）之下( underlie的第三人称单数 )；构成…的基础（或起因），引起

参考例句：

• I think a lack of confidence underlies his manner. 我认为他表现出的态度是因为他缺乏信心。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Try to figure out what feeling underlies your anger. 努力找出你的愤怒之下潜藏的情感。 来自辞典例句

163 belligerent   

adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者

参考例句：

• He had a belligerent aspect.他有种好斗的神色。
• Our government has forbidden exporting the petroleum to the belligerent countries.我们政府已经禁止向交战国输出石油。

164 congregate   

v.(使)集合，聚集

参考例句：

• Now they can offer a digital place for their readers to congregate and talk.现在他们可以为读者提供一个数字化空间，让读者可以聚集和交谈。
• This is a place where swans congregate.这是个天鹅聚集地。

165 overlap   

v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠

参考例句：

• The overlap between the jacket and the trousers is not good.夹克和裤子重叠的部分不好看。
• Tiles overlap each other.屋瓦相互叠盖。

166 conformity   

n.一致，遵从，顺从

参考例句：

• Was his action in conformity with the law?他的行动是否合法？
• The plan was made in conformity with his views.计划仍按他的意见制定。

167 complement   

n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足

参考例句：

• The two suggestions complement each other.这两条建议相互补充。
• They oppose each other also complement each other.它们相辅相成。

168 tracts   

大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文

参考例句：

• vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
• There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。

169 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。

170 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

171 coalitions   

结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. 历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• All the coalitions in history have disintegrated sooner or later. 历史上任何联盟迟早都垮台了。

172 sporadic   

adj.偶尔发生的 [反]regular；分散的

参考例句：

• The sound of sporadic shooting could still be heard.仍能听见零星的枪声。
• You know this better than I.I received only sporadic news about it.你们比我更清楚，而我听到的只是零星消息。

173 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

174 sloops   

n.单桅纵帆船( sloop的名词复数 )

参考例句：

175 converging   

adj.收敛[缩]的，会聚的，趋同的v.（线条、运动的物体等）会于一点( converge的现在分词 )；（趋于）相似或相同；人或车辆汇集；聚集

参考例句：

• Plants had gradually evolved along diverging and converging pathways. 植物是沿着趋异和趋同两种途径逐渐演化的。 来自辞典例句
• This very slowly converging series was known to Leibniz in 1674. 这个收敛很慢的级数是莱布尼茨在1674年得到的。 来自辞典例句

176 defiance   

n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗

参考例句：

• He climbed the ladder in defiance of the warning.他无视警告爬上了那架梯子。
• He slammed the door in a spirit of defiance.他以挑衅性的态度把门砰地一下关上。

177 repel   

v.击退，抵制，拒绝，排斥

参考例句：

• A country must have the will to repel any invader.一个国家得有决心击退任何入侵者。
• Particles with similar electric charges repel each other.电荷同性的分子互相排斥。

178 supplementary   

adj.补充的，附加的

参考例句：

• There is a supplementary water supply in case the rain supply fails.万一主水源断了，我们另外有供水的地方。
• A supplementary volume has been published containing the index.附有索引的增补卷已经出版。

179 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

180 immunity   

n.优惠；免除；豁免，豁免权

参考例句：

• The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
• He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。

181 apprehension   

n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑

参考例句：

• There were still areas of doubt and her apprehension grew.有些地方仍然存疑，于是她越来越担心。
• She is a girl of weak apprehension.她是一个理解力很差的女孩。

182 lessen   

vt.减少，减轻；缩小

参考例句：

• Regular exercise can help to lessen the pain.经常运动有助于减轻痛感。
• They've made great effort to lessen the noise of planes.他们尽力减小飞机的噪音。

183 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

184 abolition   

n.废除，取消

参考例句：

• They declared for the abolition of slavery.他们声明赞成废除奴隶制度。
• The abolition of the monarchy was part of their price.废除君主制是他们的其中一部分条件。

185 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

186 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

187 detriment   

n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源

参考例句：

• Smoking is a detriment to one's health.吸烟危害健康。
• His lack of education is a serious detriment to his career.他的未受教育对他的事业是一种严重的妨碍。

188 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。

189 repression   

n.镇压，抑制，抑压

参考例句：

• The repression of your true feelings is harmful to your health.压抑你的真实感情有害健康。
• This touched off a new storm against violent repression.这引起了反对暴力镇压的新风暴。

190 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

191 restriction   

n.限制，约束

参考例句：

• The park is open to the public without restriction.这个公园对公众开放，没有任何限制。
• The 30 mph speed restriction applies in all built-up areas.每小时限速30英里适用于所有建筑物聚集区。

192 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

193 repudiation   

n.拒绝；否认；断绝关系；抛弃

参考例句：

• Datas non-repudiation is very important in the secure communication. 在安全数据的通讯中，数据发送和接收的非否认十分重要。 来自互联网
• There are some goals of Certified E-mail Protocol: confidentiality non-repudiation and fairness. 挂号电子邮件协议需要具备保密性、不可否认性及公平性。 来自互联网

194 artery   

n.干线，要道；动脉

参考例句：

• We couldn't feel the changes in the blood pressure within the artery.我们无法感觉到动脉血管内血压的变化。
• The aorta is the largest artery in the body.主动脉是人体中的最大动脉。

195 vitality   

n.活力，生命力，效力

参考例句：

• He came back from his holiday bursting with vitality and good health.他度假归来之后，身强体壮，充满活力。
• He is an ambitious young man full of enthusiasm and vitality.他是个充满热情与活力的有远大抱负的青年。

196 plunder   

vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠

参考例句：

• The thieves hid their plunder in the cave.贼把赃物藏在山洞里。
• Trade should not serve as a means of economic plunder.贸易不应当成为经济掠夺的手段。

197 dictated   

v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• He dictated a letter to his secretary. 他向秘书口授信稿。
• No person of a strong character likes to be dictated to. 没有一个个性强的人愿受人使唤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

198 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

199 unlimited   

adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的

参考例句：

• They flew over the unlimited reaches of the Arctic.他们飞过了茫茫无边的北极上空。
• There is no safety in unlimited technological hubris.在技术方面自以为是会很危险。

200 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

201 precarious   

adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的

参考例句：

• Our financial situation had become precarious.我们的财务状况已变得不稳定了。
• He earned a precarious living as an artist.作为一个艺术家，他过得是朝不保夕的生活。

202 incur   

vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇

参考例句：

• Any costs that you incur will be reimbursed in full.你的所有花费都将全额付还。
• An enterprise has to incur certain costs and expenses in order to stay in business.一个企业为了维持营业,就不得不承担一定的费用和开支。

203 infesting   

v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的现在分词 )；遍布于

参考例句：

• Crime and drugs are infesting the inner cities. 市中心充斥着犯罪与毒品。 来自辞典例句
• They are mainly forest scavengers infesting damp, rotted wood. 它们主要是些森林食腐动物，多侵害潮湿腐朽的木材。 来自辞典例句

204 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。

205 radius   

n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限

参考例句：

• He has visited every shop within a radius of two miles.周围两英里以内的店铺他都去过。
• We are measuring the radius of the circle.我们正在测量圆的半径。

206 lessens   

变少( lessen的第三人称单数 )； 减少（某事物）

参考例句：

• Eating a good diet significantly lessens the risk of heart disease. 良好的饮食习惯能大大减少患心脏病的机率。
• Alcohol lessens resistance to diseases. 含有酒精的饮料会减弱对疾病的抵抗力。

207 adversary   

adj.敌手，对手

参考例句：

• He saw her as his main adversary within the company.他将她视为公司中主要的对手。
• They will do anything to undermine their adversary's reputation.他们会不择手段地去损害对手的名誉。

208 thereby   

adv.因此，从而

参考例句：

• I have never been to that city,,ereby I don't know much about it.我从未去过那座城市，因此对它不怎么熟悉。
• He became a British citizen,thereby gaining the right to vote.他成了英国公民，因而得到了投票权。

209 outweigh   

vt.比...更重，...更重要

参考例句：

• The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
• One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。

210 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。

211 multiplication   

n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法

参考例句：

• Our teacher used to drum our multiplication tables into us.我们老师过去老是让我们反覆背诵乘法表。
• The multiplication of numbers has made our club building too small.会员的增加使得我们的俱乐部拥挤不堪。

212 evading   

逃避( evade的现在分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出

参考例句：

• Segmentation of a project is one means of evading NEPA. 把某一工程进行分割，是回避《国家环境政策法》的一种手段。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Too many companies, she says, are evading the issue. 她说太多公司都在回避这个问题。

213 dispensing   

v.分配( dispense的现在分词 )；施与；配（药）

参考例句：

• A dispensing optician supplies glasses, but doesn't test your eyes. 配镜师为你提供眼镜，但不检查眼睛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The firm has been dispensing ointments. 本公司配制药膏。 来自《简明英汉词典》

214 abortive   

adj.不成功的，发育不全的

参考例句：

• We had to abandon our abortive attempts.我们的尝试没有成功，不得不放弃。
• Somehow the whole abortive affair got into the FBI files.这件早已夭折的案子不知怎么就进了联邦调查局的档案。

215 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

216 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

217 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

218 frigates   

n.快速军舰( frigate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Frigates are a vital part of any balanced sea-going fleet. 护卫舰是任何一个配置均衡的远洋舰队所必需的。 来自互联网
• These ships are based on the Chinese Jiangwei II class frigates. 这些战舰是基于中国的江卫II型护卫舰。 来自互联网

219 capes   

碎谷； 斗篷( cape的名词复数 )； 披肩； 海角； 岬

参考例句：

• It was cool and they were putting on their capes. 夜里阴冷，他们都穿上了披风。
• The pastor smiled to give son's two Capes five cents money. 牧师微笑着给了儿子二角五分钱。

220 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

221 maritime   

adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的

参考例句：

• Many maritime people are fishermen.许多居于海滨的人是渔夫。
• The temperature change in winter is less in maritime areas.冬季沿海的温差较小。

222 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

223 elude   

v.躲避，困惑

参考例句：

• If you chase it,it will elude you.如果你追逐着它， 它会躲避你。
• I had dared and baffled his fury.I must elude his sorrow.我曾经面对过他的愤怒，并且把它挫败了；现在我必须躲避他的悲哀。

224 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

225 expenditure   

n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗

参考例句：

• The entry of all expenditure is necessary.有必要把一切开支入账。
• The monthly expenditure of our family is four hundred dollars altogether.我们一家的开销每月共计四百元。

226 deflecting   

（使）偏斜， （使）偏离， （使）转向( deflect的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• A variety of mechanical surfaces have been employed for deflecting the exhaust jets of solid-propellant rockets. 人们已经用过各种类型的机械控制面来偏转固体推进剂火箭的排气流。
• If she made a leading statement, he was expert deflecting her into more impersonal channels. 只要她一开口，他就会巧妙地把她的话题转到与个人无关的问题上去。

227 plausibly   

似真地

参考例句：

• The case was presented very plausibly. 案情的申述似很可信。
• He argued very plausibly for its acceptance. 他为使之认可辩解得头头是道。

228 irreproachable   

adj.不可指责的，无过失的

参考例句：

• It emerged that his past behavior was far from irreproachable.事实表明，他过去的行为绝非无可非议。
• She welcomed her unexpected visitor with irreproachable politeness.她以无可指责的礼仪接待了不速之客。

229 questionable   

adj.可疑的，有问题的

参考例句：

• There are still a few questionable points in the case.这个案件还有几个疑点。
• Your argument is based on a set of questionable assumptions.你的论证建立在一套有问题的假设上。

230 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

231 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

232 dwindled   

v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Support for the party has dwindled away to nothing. 支持这个党派的人渐渐化为乌有。
• His wealth dwindled to nothingness. 他的钱财化为乌有。 来自《简明英汉词典》

233 positively   

adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实

参考例句：

• She was positively glowing with happiness.她满脸幸福。
• The weather was positively poisonous.这天气着实讨厌。

234 systematically   

adv.有系统地

参考例句：

• This government has systematically run down public services since it took office.这一屆政府自上台以来系统地削减了公共服务。
• The rainforest is being systematically destroyed.雨林正被系统地毀灭。

235 fluctuations   

波动，涨落，起伏( fluctuation的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table. 他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• There were so many unpredictable fluctuations on the Stock Exchange. 股票市场瞬息万变。

236 equilibrium   

n.平衡，均衡，相称，均势，平静

参考例句：

• Change in the world around us disturbs our inner equilibrium.我们周围世界的变化扰乱了我们内心的平静。
• This is best expressed in the form of an equilibrium constant.这最好用平衡常数的形式来表示。

237 overthrown   

adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词

参考例句：

• The president was overthrown in a military coup. 总统在军事政变中被赶下台。
• He has overthrown the basic standards of morality. 他已摒弃了基本的道德标准。

238 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

239 inverse   

adj.相反的，倒转的，反转的；n.相反之物；v.倒转

参考例句：

• Evil is the inverse of good.恶是善的反面。
• When the direct approach failed he tried the inverse.当直接方法失败时，他尝试相反的做法。

240 varied   

adj.多样的，多变化的

参考例句：

• The forms of art are many and varied.艺术的形式是多种多样的。
• The hotel has a varied programme of nightly entertainment.宾馆有各种晚间娱乐活动。

241 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

242 retention   

n.保留，保持，保持力，记忆力

参考例句：

• They advocate the retention of our nuclear power plants.他们主张保留我们的核电厂。
• His retention of energy at this hour is really surprising.人们惊叹他在这个时候还能保持如此旺盛的精力。

243 eastward   

adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部

参考例句：

• The river here tends eastward.这条河从这里向东流。
• The crowd is heading eastward,believing that they can find gold there.人群正在向东移去，他们认为在那里可以找到黄金。

244 appreciable   

adj.明显的，可见的，可估量的，可觉察的

参考例句：

• There is no appreciable distinction between the twins.在这对孪生子之间看不出有什么明显的差别。
• We bought an appreciable piece of property.我们买下的资产有增值的潜力。

245 entailing   

使…成为必要( entail的现在分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需

参考例句：

• Israel will face harsh new trials entailing territorial and functional concessions. 以色列将面临严峻的考验，在领土和能源方面做出让步。
• Taking on China over North Korea option entailing the most strategic risk. 让中国处理朝鲜问题冒有最大的战略风险。

246 formulate   

v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述

参考例句：

• He took care to formulate his reply very clearly.他字斟句酌，清楚地做了回答。
• I was impressed by the way he could formulate his ideas.他陈述观点的方式让我印象深刻。

247 armour   

（=armor）n.盔甲；装甲部队

参考例句：

• His body was encased in shining armour.他全身披着明晃晃的甲胄。
• Bulletproof cars sheathed in armour.防弹车护有装甲。

248 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

249 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

250 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

251 attainable   

a.可达到的，可获得的

参考例句：

• They set the limits of performance attainable. 它们确定着可达到的运行限度。
• If objectives are to be meaningful to people, they must be clear, attainable, actionable, and verifiable. 如果目标对人们是具有意义的，则目标必须是清晰的，能达到的，可以行动的，以及可供检验的。

252 forfeit   

vt.丧失；n.罚金，罚款，没收物

参考例句：

• If you continue to tell lies,you will forfeit the good opinion of everyone.你如果继续撒谎，就会失掉大家对你的好感。
• Please pay for the forfeit before you borrow book.在你借书之前请先付清罚款。

253 abjured   

v.发誓放弃( abjure的过去式和过去分词 )；郑重放弃（意见）；宣布撤回（声明等）；避免

参考例句：

• She abjured her beliefs. 她放弃了她的信仰。 来自互联网
• TAe man abjured his religion. 那个人发誓放弃他的宗教信仰。 来自互联网

254 vigour   

（=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力

参考例句：

• She is full of vigour and enthusiasm.她有热情，有朝气。
• At 40,he was in his prime and full of vigour.他40岁时正年富力强。

255 exacting   

adj.苛求的，要求严格的

参考例句：

• He must remember the letters and symbols with exacting precision.他必须以严格的精度记住每个字母和符号。
• The public has been more exacting in its demands as time has passed.随着时间的推移，公众的要求更趋严格。

256 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。

257 embalmed   

adj.用防腐药物保存（尸体）的v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气

参考例句：

• Many fine sentiments are embalmed in poetry. 许多微妙的情感保存于诗歌中。 来自辞典例句
• In books, are embalmed the greatest thoughts of all ages. 伟大思想古今有，载入书中成不朽。 来自互联网

258 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

259 differentiates   

区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的第三人称单数 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征

参考例句：

• This genus of plants differentiates into many species. 这种植物可分为许多种类。
• Our fax machine differentiates between an incoming fax signal and a voice call. 我们的传真机能区分接收传真信号和语音信号。

260 coastal   

adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的

参考例句：

• The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。
• This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加强沿海地区的防御。

261 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

262 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

263 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

264 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

265 dispensed   

v.分配( dispense的过去式和过去分词 )；施与；配（药）

参考例句：

• Not a single one of these conditions can be dispensed with. 这些条件缺一不可。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage. 他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

266 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

267 paramount   

a.最重要的，最高权力的

参考例句：

• My paramount object is to save the Union and destroy slavery.我的最高目标是拯救美国，摧毁奴隶制度。
• Nitrogen is of paramount importance to life on earth.氮对地球上的生命至关重要。

268 emphasise   

vt.加强...的语气，强调，着重

参考例句：

• What special feature do you think I should emphasise? 你认为我该强调什么呢？
• The exercises heavily emphasise the required readings.练习非常强调必须的阅读。

269 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

270 embodies   

v.表现( embody的第三人称单数 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This document embodies the concern of the government for the deformity. 这个文件体现了政府对残疾人的关怀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

271 precedent   

n.先例，前例；惯例；adj.在前的，在先的

参考例句：

• Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗？
• This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。

272 fortress   

n.堡垒，防御工事

参考例句：

• They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
• The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。

273 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

274 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

275 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

276 culmination   

n.顶点；最高潮

参考例句：

• The space race reached its culmination in the first moon walk.太空竞争以第一次在月球行走而达到顶峰。
• It may truly be regarded as the culmination of classical Greek geometry.这确实可以看成是古典希腊几何的登峰造级之作。

277 differentiated   

区分，区别，辨别( differentiate的过去式和过去分词 )； 区别对待； 表明…间的差别，构成…间差别的特征

参考例句：

• The development of mouse kidney tubules requires two kinds of differentiated cells. 小鼠肾小管的发育需要有两种分化的细胞。
• In this enlargement, barley, alfalfa, and sugar beets can be differentiated. 在这张放大的照片上，大麦，苜蓿和甜菜都能被区分开。

278 merged   

（使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中

参考例句：

• Turf wars are inevitable when two departments are merged. 两个部门合并时总免不了争争权限。
• The small shops were merged into a large market. 那些小商店合并成为一个大商场。

279 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

280 infantry   

n.[总称]步兵(部队)

参考例句：

• The infantry were equipped with flame throwers.步兵都装备有喷火器。
• We have less infantry than the enemy.我们的步兵比敌人少。

281 seamen   

n.海员

参考例句：

• Experienced seamen will advise you about sailing in this weather. 有经验的海员会告诉你在这种天气下的航行情况。
• In the storm, many seamen wished they were on shore. 在暴风雨中，许多海员想，要是他们在陆地上就好了。

282 isolation   

n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离

参考例句：

• The millionaire lived in complete isolation from the outside world.这位富翁过着与世隔绝的生活。
• He retired and lived in relative isolation.他退休后，生活比较孤寂。

283 mingled   

混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系]

参考例句：

• The sounds of laughter and singing mingled in the evening air. 笑声和歌声交织在夜空中。
• The man and the woman mingled as everyone started to relax. 当大家开始放松的时候，这一男一女就开始交往了。

284 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

285 dispersed   

adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的

参考例句：

• The clouds dispersed themselves. 云散了。
• After school the children dispersed to their homes. 放学后，孩子们四散回家了。

286 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

287 attenuated   

v.（使）变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）变薄；（使）变小；减弱

参考例句：

• an attenuated form of the virus 毒性已衰减的病毒
• You're a seraphic suggestion of attenuated thought . 你的思想是轻灵得如同天使一般的。 来自辞典例句

288 seizure   

n.没收；占有；抵押

参考例句：

• The seizure of contraband is made by customs.那些走私品是被海关没收的。
• The courts ordered the seizure of all her property.法院下令查封她所有的财产。

289 engendered   

v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The issue engendered controversy. 这个问题引起了争论。
• The meeting engendered several quarrels. 这次会议发生了几次争吵。 来自《简明英汉词典》

290 incapable   

adj.无能力的，不能做某事的

参考例句：

• He would be incapable of committing such a cruel deed.他不会做出这么残忍的事。
• Computers are incapable of creative thought.计算机不会创造性地思维。

291 endorsed   

vt.& vi.endorse的过去式或过去分词形式v.赞同( endorse的过去式和过去分词 )；在（尤指支票的）背面签字；在（文件的）背面写评论；在广告上说本人使用并赞同某产品

参考例句：

• The committee endorsed an initiative by the chairman to enter discussion about a possible merger. 委员会通过了主席提出的新方案，开始就可能进行的并购进行讨论。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The government has broadly endorsed a research paper proposing new educational targets for 14-year-olds. 政府基本上支持建议对14 岁少年实行新教育目标的研究报告。 来自《简明英汉词典》

292 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

293 memorandum   

n.备忘录，便笺

参考例句：

• The memorandum was dated 23 August,2008.备忘录上注明的日期是2008年8月23日。
• The Secretary notes down the date of the meeting in her memorandum book.秘书把会议日期都写在记事本上。

294 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

295 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

296 schooners   

n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You've already drunk three schooners of sherry. 你已经喝了三大杯雪利酒了。 来自辞典例句
• Might l beg the honour of pouring the privileged schooners myself? 请问我能不能自己倒尊贵的大杯酒？ 来自电影对白

297 antagonistic   

adj.敌对的

参考例句：

• He is always antagonistic towards new ideas.他对新思想总是持反对态度。
• They merely stirred in a nervous and wholly antagonistic way.他们只是神经质地，带着完全敌对情绪地骚动了一下。

298 stoutly   

adv.牢固地，粗壮的

参考例句：

• He stoutly denied his guilt.他断然否认自己有罪。
• Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it.伯杰斯为此受到了责难，但是他自己坚决否认有这回事。

299 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

300 entailed   

使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需

参考例句：

• The castle and the land are entailed on the eldest son. 城堡和土地限定由长子继承。
• The house and estate are entailed on the eldest daughter. 这所房子和地产限定由长女继承。

301 insufficient   

adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的

参考例句：

• There was insufficient evidence to convict him.没有足够证据给他定罪。
• In their day scientific knowledge was insufficient to settle the matter.在他们的时代，科学知识还不能足以解决这些问题。

302 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

303 attained   

（通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况）

参考例句：

• She has attained the degree of Master of Arts. 她已获得文学硕士学位。
• Lu Hsun attained a high position in the republic of letters. 鲁迅在文坛上获得崇高的地位。

304 garrison   

n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防

参考例句：

• The troops came to the relief of the besieged garrison.军队来援救被围的守备军。
• The German was moving to stiffen up the garrison in Sicily.德军正在加强西西里守军之力量。

305 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

306 ascertain   

vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清

参考例句：

• It's difficult to ascertain the coal deposits.煤储量很难探明。
• We must ascertain the responsibility in light of different situtations.我们必须根据不同情况判定责任。

307 precedents   

引用单元； 范例( precedent的名词复数 )； 先前出现的事例； 前例； 先例

参考例句：

• There is no lack of precedents in this connection. 不乏先例。
• He copied after bad precedents. 他仿效恶例。

308 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

309 lessened   

减少的，减弱的

参考例句：

• Listening to the speech through an interpreter lessened its impact somewhat. 演讲辞通过翻译的嘴说出来，多少削弱了演讲的力量。
• The flight to suburbia lessened the number of middle-class families living within the city. 随着迁往郊外的风行，住在城内的中产家庭减少了。

310 incurred   

[医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式

参考例句：

• She had incurred the wrath of her father by marrying without his consent 她未经父亲同意就结婚，使父亲震怒。
• We will reimburse any expenses incurred. 我们将付还所有相关费用。

311 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

312 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

313 amicably   

adv.友善地

参考例句：

• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The couple parted amicably. 这对夫妻客气地分手了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

314 exigencies   

n.急切需要

参考例句：

• Many people are forced by exigencies of circumstance to take some part in them. 许多人由于境况所逼又不得不在某种程度上参与这种活动。
• The people had to accept the harsh exigencies of war. 人们要承受战乱的严酷现实。

315 friction   

n.摩擦，摩擦力

参考例句：

• When Joan returned to work,the friction between them increased.琼回来工作后，他们之间的摩擦加剧了。
• Friction acts on moving bodies and brings them to a stop.摩擦力作用于运动着的物体，并使其停止。

316 unfamiliarity   

参考例句：

• And unfamiliarity with a new electoral system may also deter voters. 而对新的选举体系的不熟悉，也会妨碍一些选民投票。 来自互联网
• Her temporary shyness was due to her unfamiliarity with the environment. 她暂时的害羞是因为对环境不熟悉。 来自互联网

317 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

318 terrain   

n.地面，地形，地图

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• He knows the terrain of this locality like the back of his hand.他对这一带的地形了如指掌。

319 demonstration   

n.表明，示范，论证，示威

参考例句：

• His new book is a demonstration of his patriotism.他写的新书是他的爱国精神的证明。
• He gave a demonstration of the new technique then and there.他当场表演了这种新的操作方法。

320 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

321 defenders   

n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者

参考例句：

• The defenders were outnumbered and had to give in. 抵抗者寡不敌众，只能投降。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After hard fighting,the defenders were still masters of the city. 守军经过奋战仍然控制着城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》

322 echelon   

n.梯队；组织系统中的等级；v.排成梯队

参考例句：

• What kind of friends can be considered the first echelon of the friends?那什么样的朋友才能算第一梯队的朋友？
• These are the first echelon members.这些是我们的第一梯队的队员。

323 conspicuous   

adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的

参考例句：

• It is conspicuous that smoking is harmful to health.很明显，抽烟对健康有害。
• Its colouring makes it highly conspicuous.它的色彩使它非常惹人注目。

324 apprehensive   

adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的

参考例句：

• She was deeply apprehensive about her future.她对未来感到非常担心。
• He was rather apprehensive of failure.他相当害怕失败。

325 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

326 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。