As a matter of fact, the harbour facilities are so
bad at Calais as to forbid its use as a base; but let us assume that by some niiraole this defect can be got over, or that a phalanx of Germans can be turned on to dig a new port in the sands when the town is captured. In that cased however, the Germans would soon find that their boasted proximity to Dover had two sides to it, and that if they could throw shells from the shore on to us, we could throw shells on to them from Dover, or, better still, from mid-Channel on moving platforms. The advantage would certainly be on the side of those who not only had the command of the sea, but were not attempting to make a vast sea movement which would offer the greatest target ever known in naval warfare. The naval phalanx, when it cloes,come, should prove very difficult to miss.
