While we hold that the Government are thoroughly justified in
undertaking the attack on the Dardanelles, even though it may Illeall the deflection of a certain amount of naval and military energy from other places. we do not fail to recognize the need for concentration which the able Military Correspondent of the Times is con- stantly putting before his readers. Though he admits the necessity of the Dardanelles venture, he is perpetually warn- ing us against the spectacular but in truth futile policy of minor diversions. He insists that we must keep onr eye upon the main object and beat the enemy in the principal theatre of war—that is, in the West. But though in the abstract, and also in the concrete, we agree with his dislike of the policy of petits paquets which is so strongly condemned by the best school of French strategists, the anti-petits paquets policy can, like all good things, be overdone. We can under. stand a Generalissimo who holds it very firmly finding it wise in special circumstances to depart from it. By "special circumstances" we do not mean political circumstances, but military circumstances. Even in strategy the wise man will be a hit of a Whig. Ho will not push things too far, He will trim the boat of war as he would trim the boat of civil life against too violent inclinations, He will remember that in human affairs, military as well as moral and political, nothing absolute can be affirmed.
