THE NEEDS OF OUR NAVY
"Look at the accomplished rise of Japan; think of the possible
national awakening of China; and then judge of the vast
problems of the Pacific. Only those Powers who have great
navies will be listened to with respect when the future of the
Pacific comes to be solved."
_Kaiser Wilhelm II._
A famous English philosopher once took his son to the House of
Parliament, and said to him, "Now, my boy, I want you to witness with
what ignorance and irrationality we are governed."
Were that same philosopher and his son to witness some of our American
legislative proceedings, he would find still greater ignorance and
inconsistency for the edification of his son.
The fathers of our country thought it necessary to the security of our
government that all naval and military authority should be subordinate
to the civil authority. Congress is able absolutely to dominate the Army
and Navy. The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy are
generally civilian politicians. It certainly does seem inconsistent to
take a man out of civil life, who, very likely, may be wholly ignorant
of naval and military matters, and, through preconceived prejudice,
unalterably opposed to actual naval and military needs, and place him in
a position seriously to interfere with the work of the officers who have
been educated at government expense at West Point and Annapolis.
The Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Navy ought not to be
changed, regardless of merit, or the lack of it, every time we change a
President. Those important offices should be lifted out of politics. A
man's political qualifications for an office usually depend not a whit
upon his being suited to the office by his ability to perform the duties
of the office, but simply upon what he has done for the party to earn
the appointment.
There is a huge difference between political merit and official merit.
Political merit relates entirely to party service, and may constitute
demerit when squared with the generally accepted moral code and standard
of human behavior. A Secretary of the Army or a Secretary of the Navy
may, by previous training, ignorance, effeminacy, or, even worse, by
pacific bias, be entirely unsuited to such a position and entirely
incapable of broadly perceiving militant duty.
Such changing of our war and naval secretaries is as harmful as it would
be to change the head of a hospital every month, with the same disregard
of qualifications derived from previous education, training, and
experience. Evidently, it would be disastrous to place in supreme
command of a hospital first an allopath, then change him a month later
for a homeopath, replace the homeopath with an osteopath, followed by a
Christian Science healer, then a spiritualistic clairvoyant, finally a
Hindoo swami. Such a rotation of hospital heads would hit the patients
pretty hard.
When, however, we get a Secretary of the Navy of the caliber of Theodore
Roosevelt, or of ex-Secretary Meyer, then the Navy profits by having a
civilian for its head, because such men as these, who are natural judges
and masters of men, are able to make use of the greater knowledge and
experience of those under them, and they have the additional advantage
of being _en rapport_ with the civilian's point of view, while from the
fact that they are civilians, they escape the unreasoning prejudice of
the anti-militarists, who believe that all naval and military men are
actuated by ulterior motives and self-interest when trying to get
Congressional support for the Army and Navy.
A man who, through study and experience, has become a specialist in a
certain line of work, is better qualified to do work in that line and to
know its needs than is a person who has had no such knowledge and no
such experience. In legal matters, we go to a lawyer to get advice, and
we generally take it, and pay for it. There is an old saw that he who
acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.
The American Congress is composed almost entirely of civilians, who are
qualified neither by study nor experience to pass judgment on the needs
of our Army and Navy. They are as unable correctly to diagnose the
condition of our Navy and to prescribe rational remedies as a pastry
cook would be to diagnose and operate for appendicitis, or to prescribe
for the treatment of pneumonia.
It is hard to understand how there could be any one in the country
unable to perceive this patent truth--that a person educated and trained
to a thing all his life ought to know more about that thing than a
person who has had no such training and no such experience.
Yet the officers of the Army and Navy are not permitted to give public
expression to their views on naval and military needs.
I quote from the New York _Times_ the following remarks on a significant
incident:
* * * * *
"_Washington, Feb. 17, 1915.--Secretary Garrison to-day instructed
Brigadier-General Scott, chief of staff of the army, to call upon
Captain William Mitchell, of the general staff, to explain published
remarks attributed to him on the unpreparedness of the United States for
war._
"_Captain Mitchell was quoted as having said that 'it would take the
United States about three years to put an army of one million trained
men in the field, and in that time an enemy could take and hold our
American seaboards.'_
"_Secretary Garrison said he considered such utterances, if made in
public at present, injudicious and improper._"
* * * * *
When a hunter goes out with a gun after game, he does not consider it
good sport to shoot a four-footed beast or flying fowl without first
giving the victim a chance for its life, and an opportunity to give the
alarm to its fellows; yet our army and navy men, under the present gag
rule, are not given a sportsman's chance to escape being shot, through
our national unpreparedness, or even to give a cry of warning to their
fellows. Even the murderer is given a chance to present his case before
being executed, but the American soldier is not afforded any such
opportunity.
Our Congress allows itself to be dominated by impossible pacific ideas,
and consequently neglects to take the necessary sane precautions to
safeguard the country against war, or even to avert disaster in case of
war, and yet, when there arises a _casus belli_, Congress feels no moral
compunction against declaring war and sending its ill-equipped,
thin-ranked, ill-provided Army to the front to face inescapable death.
If the troops run out of ammunition on the firing-line, they cannot
retire, but must keep their line unbroken, even though they are all
killed.
At the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, in the Civil War, the
regiment in which my brother Leander served was caught in exactly this
position. They had been drawn up to defend a baggage train. They held
their places, and loaded and fired until their ammunition was exhausted;
and still they held their places under a rain of bullets from the enemy,
until reenforcements came. Of that company, which went into the fight a
hundred strong, eighty-four were killed, among them my brother.
In war, the lives of a few hundred, or even a few thousand soldiers,
count for nothing, if the position they are holding has a greater
strategic value than their lives. When food runs short, it sometimes
becomes strategically a good bargain to sacrifice the lives of a
thousand men in a forage raid to bring in a thousand sheep. In such a
case, a sheep is worth more than a man, because the sheep can be eaten,
and the man cannot.
There are some things in this world that we are able to know are
absolutely wrong. Of these, nothing is surer than that it is wrong to
forbid our army and navy officers the public expression of their
opinions, which would give the country the benefit of their knowledge
and experience. Not only this, but it is a great injustice to the
officers of the Army and the Navy, for, if war comes, it is they who
will have to stand on the firing-line--not the individuals of civilian
officialdom.
When, in the near future, our fleet is sent to intercept the on-coming
superior fleet of an enemy, those officers who must stand on the bridge
and at their posts on the decks--and go down with their ships--are the
very men now gagged by civilian red tape.
If they could speak, and tell you and me and all of us the truth and the
naked truth, then very likely their lives could be saved, and the
sacrifice of their ships and their crews avoided.
If the actual truth about our defenselessness were generally
appreciated, our whole people, as Antony said of the stones of Rome,
"would rise and mutiny" against the legislative and bureaucratic
officialdom and the fanatical peace propaganda that are teaching the
people ignorance and folly while muting the tongues of those who should
speak.
A nation is but a composite individual. Just as the male head of the
family, being the natural protector of the family, has, in all ages,
needed strong arms for the defense of the family, so, in all ages, have
nations needed strong arms for national defense. These are the army and
the navy. When army and navy are weak, then the nation, regardless of
other elements of prowess, is correspondingly weak, and, more than that,
the nation that is not safeguarded by a strong army and a strong navy
is a poor nation, regardless of its resources and visible wealth. For
the value of wealth and resources is very largely dependent upon their
security--upon the power of the army and navy to defend or guarantee the
title to them.
That man is not a rich man, the title to whose property is questionable
and likely at any time successfully to be disputed. The value of wealth
depends entirely upon the ability of its possessor to control and
utilize it, which includes the ability to defend his title to it.
The same thing holds true with a nation. The value of its wealth depends
entirely upon its ability to control and utilize it, subject absolutely
to ability to defend it.
You and I, reader, may count ourselves worth a certain sum. But if our
property is not so safeguarded as to ensure our continued possession and
benefit of it, and to ensure to our children and our children's children
the possession and benefit of it, then we are by no means so rich as we
should be were our title guaranteed by adequate national defenses.
We are at once the richest country in the world, and, in proportion to
our wealth, the poorest; for, in proportion to our wealth, we are the
most defenseless. By consequence, we are without guaranty of title to
our property, and we may at any time be robbed of it.
An adequate army and an adequate navy are the only possible means by
which American titles to property can be guaranteed.
Just as it is worth all it costs, and more, for owners of real estate to
have the title to their property guaranteed by a title-guarantee
company, and just as the property is by such guaranty enhanced in value
more than the cost of the guaranty, so the guaranty of title to American
property dependent upon an adequate army and navy is worth far more than
the entire cost of them, by virtue of enhanced values.
When a nation, like the United States, has become a World Power, with
outlying possessions in distant seas and within the spheres of influence
of other powerful nations, it assumes obligations just in proportion to
the hazards involved in the maintenance of title. Also, when a nation,
like the United States, has a world-compassing commerce, its obligations
are just as large as its commerce, and its need of a navy adequate to
defend its commerce is, for that purpose alone, exactly as great as its
need of the commerce. But, in addition to this great need, there is the
still greater need of a navy of such magnitude and potentiality as
effectually to safeguard the country against invasion.
Although we should have an army of sufficient size and possessed of so
efficient equipment as ultimately to repel invasion, still the cost in
life and treasure for repulsion and expulsion would exceed many times
the cost of the warships and naval equipment necessary to prevent
invasion.
The American people are not all agreed that we should have a navy. There
is a very large percentage of the population who believe that we ought
not to have any at all. But there is one ground, I think, for common
agreement: Admiral Austin M. Knight, President of the Naval War College,
one of the best-informed and ablest officers in the Navy, as well as one
of the most scholarly men in the country, says:
* * * * *
"_If we are to have a navy it should be as efficient as it can possibly
be made. And everybody who knows anything about the Navy knows that this
is not its present condition._"
* * * * *
I shall quote further from a recent speech of Admiral Knight:
* * * * *
"_There is much about the Navy which is splendidly efficient. But as a
whole it is far less efficient than it can and ought to be. Our ships
are fine. Our officers are capable, industrious, and ambitious. Our
enlisted men are the equals of those in other navies. But efficient
ships and officers and men do not alone make an efficient navy. They
must be welded into an efficient whole by a unity of organization and
administration and purpose which cooerdinates their capabilities and
directs their efforts towards a common end, wisely selected and very
clearly seen. Here is the first point at which we are lacking. We are
lacking also in that harmonious composition of the fleet which is needed
to give to every element of it the support that it needs from other
elements, to make up a symmetrical and well-balanced whole. And we are
lacking to a marked degree in absolutely essential facilities for the
care and preservation of our ships, especially in the matter of
dry-docks._
[Illustration]
"_Finally, we are lacking in efficient organization of the personnel.
Here, so far as officers are concerned, the conditions are altogether
deplorable. In a service like the Navy, where spirit is everything,
where enthusiasm must be the driving power back of every activity, I ask
you to picture the effect of a condition where a young officer,
graduating from the Naval Academy full of spirit and enthusiasm, finds
himself confronted with a prospect of promotion to the grade of
Lieutenant at the age of 52 years._
"_If you ask me who is responsible for these conditions, I can only reply
that the responsibility comes home to nearly all of us. Some of it, I am
sure, rests with me;--much of it, I believe, with you. Certainly it
cannot be attributed in excessive measure to any one administration of
the Navy Department, for it has existed for half a century at least.
So let us not cloud the issue by assuming that it is a new condition,
and that all administrations up to some recent date have been models of
wisdom and efficiency, or that Naval Officers themselves have always
been ready with good advice. Speaking as the representative of Naval
Officers as a body, I frankly admit that we have not always seen clearly
what was needed, and have not always worked together even for ends which
we did see clearly. As for the Secretaries of the Navy, it is not
surprising that many of them have failed to realize that their first
duty was to strive, in season and out of season, to promote the War
efficiency of the Navy as a whole. Many of them have not remained in
office long enough to learn this. Some, perhaps, have realized it more
or less clearly but have not found at hand an organization through which
they could produce results. A few have made material contributions
toward improved conditions...._
"_A large part of the responsibility, especially that connected with the
small size and the unbalanced composition of the Fleet and the lack of
dry-docks, rests with Congress, which has always approached naval
legislation from the wrong side so far as efficiency is
concerned;--asking, not what do we need for efficiency? but what can we
afford to spend for efficiency? Behind the responsibility of Congress
lies the responsibility of the Country,--and you, gentlemen, represent
the Country--because it has not insisted upon having what was needed,
without reference to cost. It may be that this attitude of both Congress
and the Country is necessary and even inevitable. But I am one of those
who believe that this great Country of ours can afford to have anything
in the way of national defense which it needs, and I assume that all
present here to-night agree that we need a navy, and if a navy, then an
efficient one, and that whatever efficiency costs is the measure of what
we can afford to spend._
"_What constitutes an adequate Navy for the United States? The answer
will depend, of course, upon the purpose for which we assume that the
Navy is to be used. We are all agreed, I presume, that it is not to be
used for aggression. Is it, then, to be used solely for defense? If we
answer 'yes,' we ought to do so with a full recognition of what we are
to defend and also of the elementary maxim that the best defense is a
vigorous offense. In other words, no matter how resolute we may be to
use our Navy only for repelling aggression, it does not follow that we
should plan for meeting the aggressor only at our gates. Even if we had
no interests outside our borders and no responsibilities for the defense
of our outlying possessions and dependencies, we should still, as
reasonable beings not wholly ignorant of history, prepare to project our
battle line toward the enemy's coasts and to assume a course which
would throw upon him the burden of replying to our initiative. In this
sense, then, we need a navy for offense; that is to say, for offensive
action with a defensive purpose. In shaping our plans along these lines,
we should not overlook the fact that the policy which dictates the
measure of our defense must take full note of the larger national policy
which it is to enforce;--in relation, for example, to the Monroe
Doctrine, the Panama Canal, the Philippines, and other matters which are
at once of national and of international significance."_
* * * * *
If the United States does not need a navy, then we should dispose of the
fighting ships we have and disband the personnel. If, on the other hand,
we do need a navy, there is one consideration, and one consideration
alone, that can rightfully determine the size and power of that
navy--namely, its adequacy to serve the purpose for which it is
intended.
A fighting ship is built, equipped with armament, manned, and coaled for
one sole purpose--that of adequacy in a fight. Its success or
failure--in short, its usefulness or uselessness--depends entirely upon
its fighting adequacy against a possible opponent. An ocean-liner is
built, manned, and coaled to fight tempestuous seas, and safely make the
voyage; but unless the ship is built sufficiently staunch, has
sufficiently powerful engines, is well manned, and has coal enough for
the trip, it is in no sense a success, or useful; on the contrary, it is
an utter failure and worse than useless.
The same thing holds true of a navy: Unless it can defeat the fleet of
an enemy, and return from the voyage, it is a failure, and worse than
useless.
A naval disaster in our present condition would be likely to be an
irreparable calamity, while a naval victory might likely win the war. It
is for this big difference that we need a navy. Consequently, the entire
use of a navy may be summed up in the one word, _superiority_ over a
possible enemy.
When two men run for a municipal office all the votes cast for the loser
are of no value to the loser, and all campaign funds spent in getting
them have been wasted; the only votes that are of value to the winner
are those that constitute his majority. Similarly, in a naval battle, it
is the majority of votes cast by the winning guns that secures the
victory, for all of the other votes cast by the guns are balanced by an
equal number of votes cast by the guns of the enemy.
The total value of a navy may be summed up in the value of one
battleship, which gives a conquering preponderance in gun-fire.
Admiral Knight recently said:
* * * * *
"_The War College considers that every effort of the Fleet, and every
effort of the Department in connection with the Fleet, should have for
its sole aim the war efficiency of the Fleet. Every effort which does
not directly contribute to this end is in itself a wasteful expenditure
of energy, and so far as it is a diversion from this end, is distinctly
harmful._"
* * * * *
Among all those who have occupied positions of trust and power, and
whose business it has been to recognize and provide for our naval and
military needs, it is remarkable how few have had the necessary breadth
of view to grasp the strategic situation, and perceive its requirements
without making silly and costly mistakes, like that of the construction
of our first three battleships, the _Oregon_, the _Massachusetts_, and
the _Indiana_, merely for coast-defense purposes. None of these ships
was qualified for service in distant waters. Then, when the war with
Spain came, we held our breath while the _Oregon_ rounded the Horn.
Think of the United States of America being in such straits for fighting
ships as actually to hang national hope on the old _Oregon_. A single
shell from one of the huge guns of an up-to-date British
super-dreadnought has a striking force equal to the energy required to
lift the old battleship _Oregon_ bodily to a height of more than six
feet.
There is no middle course for the United States. We must play the game
as a World Power, and as other nations are playing the game. To get fair
play we must provide ourselves with the weapons with which they are
providing themselves. If we do not, we shall be brushed aside with a
ruthless hand, and shall find our commerce circumscribed on every side
by inimical spheres of influence--dead lines over which we shall not
dare to pass.
It is necessary for us not only to fortify the Panama Canal, but also to
maintain a navy of sufficient prowess to enable us to reach that Canal
at all times, and under all conditions, for it is indispensable that we
maintain communication with our defenses there.
Should we become involved in war with England or Germany, the navy of
either being more powerful than ours, we should be immediately isolated
from the Panama Canal zone. Similarly, Japan could successfully blockade
the Pacific approaches to the Canal.
We have, at enormous expense, cut a great waterway through the Isthmus,
and established a short route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The
Canal is our property. Other nations of the world may use it. We
generously built it for the world's welfare. It will, however, be
valuable in time of war for the passage of our warships; in fact, it
will be a vital necessity to us. But our ability to use it for that
purpose will be entirely dependent upon the ability of our Navy to keep
the sea clear of an enemy's ships at either end.
The war with Spain was very useful, because it brought the truth home to
us that the command of the American seas is absolutely vital to us.
Immediately following the Spanish War, we rapidly built up our Navy,
until it became second only to that of England. But we have, of late
years, been slipping back, until now our Navy occupies third place, with
a likelihood of soon dropping down to fifth place.
In 1905, England evolved the great modern dreadnought, which was as much
of a revolution over existing types of fighting ships as was Ericsson's
_Monitor_ over the fighting ships of its time. The dreadnought relegated
all existing battleships to the second line.
The dreadnought was so much superior in size, in speed, in gun-fire, and
in all defensive and offensive qualities, that it took its place at once
as the indispensable first-line battleship. England, Germany, France,
Japan, each recognizing the tremendous superiority of the dreadnought,
enlarged their naval appropriations, and built dreadnoughts.
The American Congress, however, failed to recognize the serious
character of the crisis. It failed to appreciate the fact that the
dreadnought meant a revolution in battleship construction. Instead of
naval appropriations being increased according to our needs, they were
decreased. As a result, there are now two nations at least that could
whip us off the seas, while the navies both of France and Japan are
likely very soon to rank above us.
All our illusions about our splendid isolation would vanish with the
destruction of our fleet. A European Power could, in less than two
weeks, land upon our shores an army of from 100,000 to 200,000 men.
Here, the question naturally arises: How would they be able to get past
our coast fortifications? We have spent about $160,000,000 on our coast
fortifications, but they were never intended for the protection of our
entire coast line. They were intended only to defend our important
cities and harbors and naval bases. They actually protect but a very
small fraction of our many thousand miles of shore.
As the _Scientific American_ has justly stated, our coast fortifications
should not be so named; instead, they should be designated as
city-and-harbor fortifications.
It would be quite impracticable adequately to defend our long stretch of
seaboard by means of coast fortifications. The only coast fortifications
that can effectually serve us are battleships. It is absolutely
indispensable to our integrity as a nation that we have a fleet
sufficiently powerful to defend our whole coast against invasion.
These questions present themselves: How are we to ascertain what our
naval needs are? How shall we prepare to meet them? Of whom shall we
seek guidance?
Several years ago the Navy Department organized the General Board of the
Navy, headed by Admiral Dewey. This Board studied our needs with great
diligence and care, and Congress was advised accordingly.
All the leading navies of the world have a technical body corresponding
to our General Board, but in other countries that body speaks with
authority, while our General Board may only advise. Congress pays but
little attention to these advisers. It is a principle of our government
that the voice of the greatest number shall rule, and the people of this
country have come to believe that the majority is more likely to be
right than the minority. Many falsely believe that in the matter of
wisdom there is safety in mere numbers; that the opinion of a hundred
men is of more value than the opinion of a single man.
Multiplying the number of individuals possessing a limited amount of
knowledge and an unlimited amount of ignorance does not raise the
high-water mark of their united wisdom. Wisdom means intellectual
height. Some men are seven feet high intellectually, while others are
not more than a foot high.
The average of conscientiousness is much higher than the average of
intelligence. A man's sincerity cannot be used as a yard-stick for
measuring his intellectual height. Sincerity and conscientiousness are
sister entities, and are largely a measure of intellectual bias, whose
other name is prejudice.
[Illustration: Strategic Spheres of Vital Importance in the Pacific]
We may compare the intellectual height of men with one another in a
manner similar to comparing their physical height, only there is a much
greater disparity in the intellectual than there is in the physical. If
we take a man six feet high, and stand another man beside him of equal
or less height, the height of the two men is no greater than that of the
first man. If we add a hundred men of average height, we shall find that
the average height of the whole line is considerably less than that of
the six-footer with whom we started.
The same thing holds true with the intellectual height of men. We may
put a man in each chair in the House of Representatives and in the
Senate, and the total height of the voting wisdom of the majority will
be only the average height of that majority, and it will be less than
that of one man who might be selected for his wisdom from their number.
Any one member of the General Board of the United States Navy is likely
to know much more about the needs of the Navy and what Congress should
do for the Navy than is known by all members of the House and Senate put
together.
Representative Gardner very possibly knows more about our naval and
military needs and what Congress ought to do for the Army and Navy than
is known by all the other members in Congress. In fact, he may likely
know more about the subject and be able to advise the country with
greater wisdom upon our needs for national defense than a line of
average Congressmen standing shoulder to shoulder in a string that would
girdle the earth.
Napoleon said, "He goes fast who goes alone." Always, the great national
issues that make history have been decided in each case by one man, and
all great national crises have depended upon the decisive action of one
man. In recognition of this principle, Rome, in times of great peril,
chose a dictator.
The Medo-Persian empire was the architecture of one man, Cyrus the
Great. The Persian empire was conquered and destroyed by the genius of
one man, Alexander the Great. Rome was brought to her knees by one man,
Hannibal. He ultimately failed, and Carthage was destroyed, because of
one man, an eloquent enemy of Hannibal, Hanno, at home in Carthage, who
was a peace-advocate. Rome was saved from destruction at the hands of
the Teutons and Cimbri solely by the military genius of Marius. Caesar
walked alone through Gaul, solitary in his height above his whole army;
by comparison, all men of his age were pygmies. Charles Martel alone
saved Europe from the Moors. Peter the Great, the amazing architect of
Russia, was impatient of advice and brooked no interference with his
purpose. Cromwell alone was the governing brain of England. Frederick
the Great was great because he played the game of war lone-handed.
Napoleon Bonaparte was so intellectually tall that he towered over
Europe like a colossus, and he played kings like pawns in the game of
war. Bismarck played a lone hand in the creation of the German empire.
During the entire Civil War, Abraham Lincoln parried with wit the advice
of friends. To his enemies, he masked with mirth an inscrutable purpose,
while he sat solemn and solitary at the helm.
So, always and always, it has been. Great national games have been games
of solitaire.
We need a national leader who shall have such size and quality of brain,
and be possessed of such soul, courage, and wisdom as shall qualify him
to use the power of his high office to the full to help save this
country from the dire calamity that is impending.
Although the General Board knows a thousand times more about our needs
and what we ought to do to provide for them than is known to the entire
American Congress, still Congress, dominated by the pride of ignorance,
believes that it knows best, oblivious to the fact that the voiced
ignorance of a thousand men may have less truth in it than the voiced
wisdom of a single man.
Members of Congress assume the responsibility of deciding what the
strength of the Navy shall be, and what shall be its composition.
Congress, not the General Board, decides how many battleships, cruisers,
destroyers, and submarines we shall have; how many officers and men they
shall carry. The result is disastrous, for our Navy is inefficient and
ill-balanced. It is dangerously weak where it should be strongest.
During the administration of Lord Haldane (then Mr. Haldane) the British
Admiralty Board resigned because four battleships had been cut from the
estimates for new construction, which were set at the minimum of
national requirements; and it is due to forcing the matter by this
action that the British have the four big battle-cruisers, of the _Queen
Elizabeth_ type, carrying 15-inch guns, which throw a shell weighing
1,925 pounds, and which out-range all other guns on ships.
Robert Blatchford, whom Mr. Winston Churchill dubbed a "ridiculous
Jingo," said, in a remarkable series of articles written before the
outbreak of the present war for _The Daily Mail_ in the hope of arousing
the British public to their danger:
* * * * *
"_But the British people do not believe it. The British people take
little interest in foreign affairs, and less in military matters. The
British people do not want to bother, they do not want to pay, they do
not want to fight, and they regard as cranks or nuisances all who try
to warn them of their danger._
"_The danger is very great, and is very near. It is greater and nearer
than it was when I began to give warning of it, more than five years
ago...._
"_The people are conceited, self-indulgent, decadent, and greedy. They
want to keep the Empire without sacrifice or service. They will shout
for the Empire, but they will not pay for the Empire or fight for it.
Germany knows this. The world knows it. The Cabinet Ministers know it.
But no Minister dares to say it. We are in sore need of a man...._
"_While the articles have been appearing in The Daily Mail I have
received letters of strong approval from Lord Roberts and Lord Charles
Beresford, and from many officers of the Army and the Navy._
"_Are all these men ignorant and stupid, and are political wisdom and
military knowledge confined in these islands to the lawyer who runs our
Army, the lawyer who runs our Navy, and the simpering nonentities who
edit the Nonconformist organs?_
"_The Liberal Government made a fatal blunder when they hesitated to lay
down the four extra dreadnoughts. They were trying to economize. They
were hoping for a cheaper way out of the difficulty. They were waiting
for something to turn up. The Germans knew this, and made a tremendous
effort to get ahead of us. It is not safe to trust the tradition of
Micawber against the tradition of blood and iron._
"_Had the British Government, instead of trying to save a few millions,
asked the nation boldly for the full amount required, and set about the
necessary work in earnest, the Pan-Germans might have had an unpleasant
time with the German taxpayer._
"_It is time our Government and people recognized the facts. Germany has
challenged us. If we show weakness we are lost. We cannot bluff our
enemy. We cannot evade him. We cannot buy safety for an old song. We can
only hold our own against so powerful and resolute an antagonist by
showing an equal power and resolution._
"_In the crisis to which I have just referred we took the weak course
when we ought to have taken the strong one. Economy at such a time is
the most profligate extravagance._
"_When the Government held the four dreadnoughts back, they should have
been pushing a dozen dreadnoughts forward; when they tried to save a few
millions they should have laid out fifty millions. Instead of reducing
the artillery and pottering about with a handful of Territorials they
should have demanded an Army._
"_But the Cabinet were afraid. We want a_ man....
"_I do not want war; I want peace. I am not an enemy of the Germans, but
a friend. I like Germany; but I love England, as a man loves his mother,
or his wife, or his comrade, or his home._
"_And the Empire is in danger; and we are unready; and we need a_
man....
"_If only we can get the British people to understand in time._"
* * * * *
Now, reader, carefully weigh this wonderfully prophetic language, spoken
by an Englishman to the English people, before the great war came, which
is now wringing millions upon millions of pounds sterling from the
English purse, and wringing blood from the veins of thousands upon
thousands of young men gathered from the length and breadth of the whole
empire, and wringing tears from millions of mourning eyes; let us take
this powerful appeal of Blatchford to the English people and conceive it
to be my own appeal now, to you and the whole American people. We are in
the same danger that England was, and unless we prepare as England did
not prepare we shall be wrung even more than England is wrung.
Our naval officers, who, more than all others, know what we should have
in kinds of ships, in numbers of ships, and in personnel, are ignored.
It is a case of the blind leading those who see clearly.
After the most careful and thorough, investigation and weighing of our
Navy's actual needs, the General Board of the Navy figures closely, as
near to the danger point as they dare, in order that their
recommendations may stand a better chance of approval by Congress. But
Congress assumes that, being naval men, they have an ax to grind and are
naturally strongly biased in the direction of extravagance, and the
Board's wise recommendations are accordingly discounted.
We have only 33 battleships less than twenty years old, eleven of which
belong to the second line, with four building and authorized, which will
make 37 in all. The General Board thinks that we should have 48
battleships less than twenty years old.
We have but 68 destroyers, while the General Board thinks that we should
have 192 destroyers.
The General Board thinks that we could squeeze along with a minimum of
71,000 men to man our present fleet, without taking into account
additional trained men needed for signal and tactical work on board
auxiliary vessels, and without any provision for warships now building.
As a bare fact, we have only 52,300 men. Thus we are short 18,000 of the
men needed to man the fleet we have. In addition to this, there is a
shortage in sight of 4,000 men required to man the fighting ships that
will go into commission in 1915 and 1916.
Our naval experts tell Congress that we shall need 50,000 more men for
the Navy as soon as they can be enlisted and drilled; but the ears of
Congress are deaf to the appeal. Yet a whisper for a new post-office can
be heard by a Congressman from his home district a thousand miles away.
[Illustration: Battle Ship Strength of the Nations]
We have only 7,700 men in our naval militia. We have no naval reserve.
Congressman Gardner informs us, as a result of his investigations, that
it would take five years to get a reserve of 25,000 sailors.
Our best-informed naval officers recommend for coast defense the
immediate construction of a hundred submarines of the latest and most
successful type. As a matter of fact, this number is far too few. We now
have but 58 submarines, including those built, building, and authorized
to be built. Many of those we have are obsolete and absolutely
worthless.
The following is an extract from a report by the General Board of the
Navy in 1913, which is very enlightening:
* * * * *
"_The absence of any definite naval policy on our part, except in the
General Board, and the failure of the people, Congress, and the
executive government to recognize the necessity for such a policy, has
already placed us in a position of inferiority which may lead to war;
and this inferiority is progressive and will continue to increase until
the necessity for a definite policy is recognized and that policy put
into operation._"
* * * * *
A fleet, to be effective, must be so constituted, organized, and trained
as to benefit in the highest degree from team work. It must be able,
like a baseball team, to act with the precision of a machine.
In addition to battleships, a fleet must have an appropriate number of
battle-cruisers, smaller cruisers, transports, scouts, destroyers,
submarines, colliers, tank-ships, supply ships, repair ships,
mine-laying ships, tenders, and gunboats. Hospital ships should not be
forgotten.
Admiral Fiske says:
* * * * *
"_We have only one mine-layer. We need five additional mine-layers. On
board that one mine-layer are only 336 mines. Germany had 20,000 mines
when the war started_."
* * * * *
A fleet without fuel-ships is like a fleet without stokers. A fleet
without scouts is blind. It cannot see the enemy's movements, while its
own movements lie under the eyes of the enemy. The videttes are called
the eyes of an army. Similarly, the scouts of a fleet are the eyes of
the fleet. A fleet without these eyes, when hunted by a fleet that has
them, is in the same position as a hunted ostrich with its head hidden
in the sand. Of these fast scouts, with minimum speed of 25-30 knots an
hour, we have only three; Germany has 14, and Great Britain has 31.
Two fleets maneuvering for attack--one provided with scouts and the
other without them--are relatively in the position of two men, armed
with revolvers, fighting in a room, one blindfolded and the other with
eyes uncovered.
As Admiral Knight has observed, battleships alone do not make a fleet,
much less a navy. Our fleet is greatly weakened by our lack of
destroyers. A fleet should always be accompanied by a large number of
these vessels to support the scouts, and also to do scout duty
themselves. They stiffen the screen about the battleships, and, when an
opening is present, they are ready to dash against the enemy.
In the Civil War and in the Spanish War we were able largely to employ
improvised merchant vessels for fuel-ships and scouts; for the sole
reason that our enemies were even more miserably unprepared than
ourselves. Had we, at the time of the Spanish War, been called upon to
fight a really first-class Power, we should have been swept off the
seas.
Fuel-ships and scouts cannot be improvised under modern conditions. They
must be ready before war comes. It is just as fallacious to imagine that
we can strengthen our Navy with improvised ships and personnel after war
is declared, and get it in trim to meet a modern fleet in the pink of
condition of preparedness, as it would be for an invalid cripple to
imagine that he could train and get into condition for a victorious
fight with a John L. Sullivan after entering the ring.
Of all arts and sciences, that of war is the most highly specialized.
The greatest intelligence and skill are called into play to produce
special tools, and to render their use highly efficient.
The armies and navies of the European nations and of Japan are trained,
just as college athletes are trained for boat-racing, baseball,
football, and competitive contests of the gymnasium. The personnel is
kept in the pink of condition for prompt and decisive individual effort
and also for supreme collective effort in team work.
A pugilist finds it necessary to train with the most complete
thoroughness to get himself into prime condition for a fight, while his
opponent is training in the same manner. When they meet, it is not the
strength, skill, and endurance of the normal man that counts in the
fight, but it is the supernormal manhood that has been added to the
normal man. An ordinary untrained citizen, although he may possess
undeveloped resources equal to those of the trained pugilist, would have
no chance whatever in a fight with him.
Similarly, such an army and a navy as we should be able to improvise in
time of war would have no more chance of success against an army and
fleet of a European nation or of Japan than the average citizen would
have with a skilled, toughened, and hardened pugilist.
There is one source of our naval weakness that of itself alone may bring
disaster. It is incomprehensible that such a condition should be allowed
to exist. When a fleet goes into distant waters, it should have a nearby
base. We have neither the coaling stations nor the dry-docks and harbors
of refuge that are absolutely indispensable to the fleet of a country
with world pretensions.
It is absolutely vital that we should be able to defend the Panama
Canal, but we have no dry-docks or efficient repair-shops there, and we
have none within a thousand miles of there.
A couple of million dollars well spent to remedy this defect might,
Admiral Knight declares, very conceivably double the efficiency of the
fleet in a critical emergency by making it possible for every ship to go
out in perfect condition.
We have capable naval bureaus of Ordnance, Construction, and Repair, and
for the direction of personnel; but these bureaus are not responsible
for the readiness of the fleet for war. Admiral Knight suggests a
remedy. He says:
* * * * *
"_This is the last and great defect in the efficiency of the Navy. How
shall it be remedied? The answer is, I think, by the creation in the
Navy Department of a 'Division of Strategy and Operations' preferably
not co-equal with the present Bureaus but superior to them and standing
between them and the Secretary. This arrangement would be a
recognition of the fact that all the activities of the present Bureaus
should lead up to the Secretary through a channel which cooerdinates them
all and directs them toward war efficiency._
"_The title proposed for the new office:_ DIVISION OF STRATEGY AND
OPERATIONS, _covers very completely the ground that I have in mind. As
standing for Strategy this Division would plan what to do; and as
standing for Operations, it would direct the execution of its plans. It
would correspond more or less closely with the General Staff of the Army
and the First Sea Lord of the British Admiralty, whose duties are thus
defined:_
"1._ Preparation for war: All large questions of naval policy and
maritime warfare--to advise._ 2. _Fighting and seagoing efficiency of the
fleet, its organization and mobilization, including complements of
ships as affecting total numbers, system of gunnery and torpedo
exercises of the fleet, and tactical employment of air-craft, and all
military questions connected with the foregoing; distribution and
movements of all ships in commission and in reserve._ 3. _Superintendence
of the War Staff and the Hydrographic Department._"
* * * * *
HOW MONEY APPROPRIATED FOR THE NAVY IS WASTED
George von Lengerke Meyer, former Secretary of the Navy, has many times
in recent years called attention to the fact that a large proportion of
the money appropriated for the upbuilding and up-keep of our Navy has
been misapplied to the building and up-keep of useless navy yards.
During the first fifteen years of the present century, we spent
$1,656,000,000 on our Navy, while during the same period Germany spent
$1,137,000,000.
Notwithstanding the fact that during this period Germany spent 31 per
cent. less money on her navy than we did on ours, she has a more
powerful navy than we have. This difference represents a sum of more
than half a billion of dollars. With that amount of money we could have
built two super-dreadnoughts a year, for the past fifteen years, costing
$15,000,000 each, with $60,000,000 to spare for battle-cruisers,
destroyers, and submarines. In short, had we spent our naval
appropriations as economically as have the Germans during the past
fifteen years, we might have had thirty more battleships than we now
have, all super-dreadnoughts of the _Queen Elizabeth_ type, the latest
and most powerful pattern. This number of up-to-date super-dreadnoughts
would have far more than doubled the battle strength of our Navy. We
should have out-classed England in battleship strength.
The following facts are so pregnant and so important and so ably
expressed that I can do no better than to give them in Mr. Meyer's own
words:
* * * * *
"_Until within a few years no naval appropriation could pass the Senate
which did not meet the sanction of both a Northern and Southern Senator,
each of whom was a member of the Committee on Naval Affairs. It is
interesting, in consequence, to analyze some of the appropriations
between 1895 and 1910._
"_In 1899 a site was purchased in Frenchman's Bay, Maine, at a cost of
$24,650--far above the assessed valuation--and later an additional
amount of $600,000 was expended to obtain there an absolutely
unnecessary coaling-station, which has since been dismantled, as it was
practically unused._
"_At the Portsmouth Navy Yard, so called, in Kittery, Maine, a dock was
built at an expense of $1,122,800, and later it was found necessary to
blast away rock in the channel in order to reach the dock, at an
additional expense of $745,300._
"_Between 1895 and 1910 improvements, machinery, repairs, and
maintenance in the yard amounted to $10,857,693, although there was a
large navy-yard within seventy miles._
"_On the other hand, at Port Royal, South Carolina, a dock was built at
the insistence of the Southern Senator, at a cost of $450,000, which
proved useless, and, although the original cost of the site was but
$5,000, it was not abandoned as a naval base until $2,275,000 had been
expended._
"_Not the least daunted by this extravagant waste, the same Senator
determined to have a share of the naval melon for his State, so, with
the assistance of the Northern Senator, he obtained the establishment of
another naval station at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1901. There was
no strategic value thus accomplished, nor was it necessary, with the
Norfolk Navy-Yard located at Hampton Roads. The $5,000,000 which has
been squandered at Charleston includes a dry-dock built for battleships,
costing $1,250,000, but which experience shows can only be used by
torpedo-boat destroyers and gunboats. The $5,000,000 could have been
employed to great advantage at the Norfolk Navy-Yard, where the
battleship fleet generally assembles. A portion even could have been
used wisely at Key West, Florida, a supplementary base of real strategic
value for torpedoes and submarines--a protection to the Gulf of Mexico
and the mouth of the Mississippi River, and on account of its
geographical situation, Key West would serve as a base of supplies to
the fleet in the Caribbean Sea._
"_The purpose of the navy-yards is to keep the fleet in efficient
condition. Their location should be determined by strategic conditions,
their number by the actual needs of the fleet. The maintenance of
navy-yards which do not contribute to battle efficiency is a great
source of waste._
"_The United States has over twice as many first-class navy-yards as
Great Britain, with a navy more than double the size of ours, and more
than three times as many as Germany, whose navy is larger than that of
the United States._
"_The total cost of navy-yards up to June 30th, 1910, with land, public
works, improvements, machinery, and maintenance, including repairs,
amounts to $320,600,000._
"_Overburdened with a superfluous number of navy-yards distributed along
the Atlantic coast from Maine to Louisiana, in 1910 I recommended that
Congress give up and dispose of naval stations at New Orleans,
Pensacola, San Juan, Port Royal, New London, Sackett's Harbor (New
York), Culebra, and Cavite, none of which was a first-class station. The
average yearly cost of maintaining these stations between 1905 and 1910
was $1,672,675, and very little useful work had been performed at any of
them. Later, I practically closed them, but could not abolish or dispose
of them, no action having been taken by Congress. Pensacola and New
Orleans have since been reopened by my successor._
"_The interests of the country and the interests of the Navy would be
best served by one first-class naval base with sufficient anchorage for
the entire fleet, north of the Delaware, equipped for docking,
repairing, etc., and another station of equal capacity at Norfolk, in
Chesapeake Bay, with Guantanamo, Cuba, to serve as the winter-station
rendezvous._
"_On the Pacific coast we are fortunate in having only two naval
stations, one at Bremerton, on Puget Sound, established in 1891, with
ample depth of water, costing to date about $9,000,000; and the other at
Mare Island, established in 1850, some thirty miles from the harbor of
San Francisco, with inadequate depth and width of water along its
water-front. The total costs, with maintenance and repairs, have
amounted to $35,000,000, and, on account of insufficient depth of water,
none of the battleships built in the last eight years could have been
berthed there...._
"_Building battleships without an adequate force of men is equal to
wasting money; only ten ships of the first line and eleven of the
second, according to the Navy Department, can be placed in full
commission for service, due to a shortage of men and officers._
"_To provide a proper complement for all vessels of the Navy which could
still be made useful would require an additional force of 18,556 men and
933 line officers, according to the testimony of Admiral Badger before
the Naval Committee, December 8, 1914._
"_That we have not been getting proper return for money expended in the
Navy is not known to the majority of our people, nor is it realized to
what extent political influences have misdirected the appropriations
during the past twenty-five years. The remedy will only come from
absolute publicity._
"_Let a special committee be appointed to investigate the conditions in
the Navy._
"_Let a special committee of military experts from the Army and Navy be
appointed to recommend what naval stations shall be abolished and sold
and if any shall be established to take their places._
"_Let Congress inaugurate a national council of defense made up of
members of the Cabinet, Senate, and House, with the chiefs of staff from
the Army and Navy, that more efficient co-operation may be obtained
between the executive and legislative branches of the Government in
respect to military requirements._
"_Let Congress establish a general staff in the Navy._"
* * * * *