Seeking explanation : applet-to-servlet communication...

Hi All.
Can someone please explain some basic JAVA concepts to me.
At the moment I manage to get Apache collaborating with Tomcat. I also managed to write servlets to access Oracle via the app-server, which queries the db-server, and display the resultsets on IE or Netscape.
Now I want do this over the internet rather than just the intranet (localhost:8080/SERVLET/etc).
I want to get my webpage to the point where people can click on an item and send http request to the apache-server, which will start up a servlet on the app-server (where Tomcat lives) to query a database and send the result nicely formatted back to the browser over the www half a world away.
I was told I cannot simply use the html <FORM...> tag. I was told I need to use a "tunnelling" technique.
Fine. What is that ??? Do I need pick and shovel now or what ???
SIGNED:
simplicius simplicissimus in JAVA-land

Hi Again.
I have got the static html/java pages on he apache web server and the servlets on the tomcat server.
Soo I think the question should be : how do I get the static page to access tomcat servlets if I don;t use the <FORM...> tag ?

Moving this to...
Eenie Meanie Minee Mo...
The Servlets Forum...

Further to the discussion aout abstract classes :
does JAVA recognise _<methodName> as abstract methods because of the underscore ???
Example : if I have _getOutputStream() and _flush(), then, does JAVA know that these are abstract methods which the base clients will be extending in order to create an output stream and flush the data ???

Hi again.
And why may I ask do I need an "ordinal value" to invoke a remote method , whatever that may be ???
The plot thickens ...