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HONG KONG.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AND GENERAL STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS.
Strategic Conditions.
THE Committee consider it unnecessary to discuss the political and strategic position of Hong Kong further than to refer to the quarters whence an attack on the Colony seems possible.
The probable ports from which an expedition against Hong Kong would imme- diately sail are:-Saigon and Hanoi, respectively 900 and 500 miles; Vladivostock 1,760 miles; Nagasaki 1,067 miles; and the Pescadores, 350 miles distant.
Germany maintains a fleet of one armour-clad battle-ship and four unarmoured cruisers in these waters, but they may be said to refit at Hong Kong.
The fleet of China may for the present be neglected, but her twenty torpedo- boats at Whampoa might possibly, if not probably, be at the service of France or Russia. From the land side, China has been considered the only possible enemy, but, if her torpedo-boats were used as suggested, it is quite possible that a body of European troops might give point to her inept levies.
As long as the British fleet retains the command of the Far Eastern Seas, Hong Kong cannot be attacked in force; the Scheme of Defence is therefore based on the assumption that defence may be required, in the temporary absence of our fleet, against a raid of a few hostile cruisers carrying at the most about 2,000 men available as a landing party.
General Character of Hong Kong.
A glance at the chart will show better than any verbal description the peculiar position of Hong Kong with its harbour and roads, bounded on the north for the greater part by foreign territory, which at Lyemun Pass juts out to about 500 yards from our batteries, and will also show how the sea penetrates deeply its southern shore. A mimic mountain range with peaks rising from 1,400 to 1,500 feet follows the western, northern, and eastern shores while spurs and stcep outlying hills break up the whole surface south of the main ridge.
From this broken and rugged surface arises the difficulty for the defence that there is no point on the island which commands an extended view of the southern shore and the approaches therefrom; in fact, the mountain glens are concealed from view by the neighbouring ridges, and there are few spots in the island from which the eye can detect at one time movements in two neighbouring glens. This consideration, the smallness of the garrison in proportion to the extent of coast-line, and the numerous possible landing places, lead to the conclusion that it is better to hold the garrison in as central a position as possible rather than to break it up into small weak parties watching every possible landing place.
Fogs shroud the higher peaks for more than fifty days in the year, and the eleva- tions about 1,000 feet for about thirty days in the year. The lower one descends the less the frequency of fog, but sometimes a fog so dense exists down to the level of the water that the local pilots run their craft ashore in the day time. It is not thought,
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