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The conditions of sea-battles of the future contain one element that land battles cannot have, the extreme rapidity with which encounters and changes of order can take place.
The Spaniards proved ignorant of marine evolutions, and the English sailed around them with a velocity which none of their ships could equal, and proved so much better marksmen that nearly every shot told, while the Spanish gunners fired high and wasted their balls in the air. The fight with the Armada seemed a prototype of the much later sea-battles at Manila and Santiago de Cuba.
She won her successes at first because her seat was on the sea, and the war was naval, and sea-battles were won not by fighting but by seamanship. If Carthage had won, they say; but Carthage could not have won, because the cycles were for Rome. You will note how that North African rim is tossed between European and West Asian control, according to which is in the ascendant.
How few sea-battles have the French ever won! But more: how few ships have they ever carried by the board that true criterion of naval courage! But not a word against French bravery there is plenty of it; but not of the right sort. A Yankee's, or an Englishman's, is the downright Waterloo "game."
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