Show STRATEG OARD CRIICISEO II A BRITISE NAVAL EBTS VIEWS ON TBD W A Points Out the Blunder Committed By American strategists But Amec Were Terribly Earnest London March 8Ylce Admiral Philip Howard Colomb retired lecture this afternoon on the lessons of the SpanishAmerican war befote the members mem-bers of the United Service Institute After dealing with the impossibility of secrecy In warfare hereafter owing to the vigilance f the preEs and th necessity for protecting cables In sbal low ater he said he thought that if Spain had showed real comprehension of strategy the United Stat s would not have been so successful The sure way for the United States would have been for her to send a sufcent force to the Coast of SpaIn to balance the forces known to have been in Spanish ports and to send a squadron to the Cape Verde Islands the moment i was known a Spanish fotia was asemb ling there H he added the island of Minorca had been seized as a base nothing offensive on the other side of the Atlantic would have bach attempted attempt-ed by Span The lesson to be deduced was according ac-cording to the lecturer that the Amen can strategy was hazardqu in so far as it i departed from the tereotyped rlesof naval warfare Admiral Cer vers ships ere lost sight of causing caus-ing anxiety on the American coasts and obliging the Americans to keep eon siderble squadrons wholly in a defensive de-fensive attitude instead of maintaining command ofthe sea It was clear he a1 aaaea tnaL II tnere nan Deen coal supplies sup-plies at Santiago de Cubt and if Ad mir Ceneas squadron had been reasonably rea-sonably efcient instead of a miserable miser-able abortion al I could have nun I pose to effect by entering Santiago I might have been eflected without any Interference upon the part of the United I States navy I From the actions between the SpanIsh Span-Ish forts and American ships the I speaker deduced the idea that very inefficient I in-efficient batteries were able to keep ships at a distance I Regarding the purely tactical ques tons involved the admiral sad it was plan Admiral Dewey took advantage of the superiority of his guns and gunners gun-ners and placed himself In so distat a position that neither the Spanish I ships nor the Spanish batteries were able to adequately reply to his fire The whole thing continued the lecturer was terribly businesslike on the AmerIcan Amer-Ican side with a pathetic parade of Quixotic gallantry on the other In conclusion Admiral Colomb corn mented on the fact that all orders to the American shIps were sent from Washington which he considered was a I momentous change In naval warfare I |