PRESIDENT WILSON AS A STRATEGIST
SPEAKING TO OFFICERS OF THE FLEET AT YORKTOWN, HE ADVOCATED NEW AND
BOLD METHODS--"WHY NOT SHUT UP THE HORNETS IN THEIR NESTS?"--"LEAVE
OUT OF YOUR VOCABULARY THE WORD 'PRUDENT'; DO THE THING THAT IS
AUDACIOUS TO THE UTMOST POINT OF RISK AND DARING."
The world knows President Wilson as a scholar, teacher and historian;
as executive and statesman. But it does not know him, as we did, as a
master of military strategy.
His grasp of the whole situation, his clear conception of Army and
Navy policies and operations, his rare judgment were demonstrated in
important decisions, and his personal interest and influence had a
marked effect on the conduct of the war.
Always interested in the Navy, he kept up with all that was being done
and planned, and his suggestions and directions proved of the utmost
value to officers and officials.
"We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas," he said not long
after the beginning of the European war. In his address at St. Louis,
early in 1916, he declared that ours should be "the most adequate navy
in the world." At the next cabinet meeting a member expressed surprise
at the President's advocacy of so vigorous a naval policy, and asked if
he had been correctly quoted in the newspapers.
"Yes," replied the President, "and it is one thing I said in my swing
around the circle that I absolutely believe."
He strongly urged the big construction program presented several months
before, and exercised a potent influence in putting through Congress
the "three year program" which authorized building 157 naval vessels.
Long before we entered the war, when the Allied navies seemed impotent
before the onslaughts of the submarines, President Wilson pointed to
the vigorous policies which later proved so successful.
"Daniels, why don't the British convoy their merchant ships and thus
protect them from submarines?" he asked me early in the war. As
sinkings increased, he pointed out that their practice of sailing
ships separately had proved a failure, and asked, "Why now, with their
distressing experiences, do they hesitate about adopting the convoy
system?"
He could not comprehend why the British, as soon as Germany declared
war, had not mined the English Channel so that no submarine could pass
through it. As a matter of fact, strange as it seems, the channel from
Dover to Calais never was a complete barrier to submarines, though the
Dover Patrol did brilliant service, and the United States Navy insisted
that closing this channel was one of the first steps toward defeating
the U-boats.
"Why don't the British shut up the hornets in their nests?" he asked
me just before we entered the war, and after we were embarked upon it
he declared that we must insist upon some plan that would prevent the
egress of the U-boats from their bases. "When our Bureau of Ordnance
proposed, in April, 1917, the construction of a mine barrage across the
North Sea, he was deeply interested in the plan and heartily approved
it. That carried out the idea he believed the Allies should have put
into effect earlier in the war. As that plan was debated and delayed,
and characterized in London as "impracticable," he grew impatient
of the long delay in adopting this or some other vigorous offensive
against the submarines.
[Illustration: THE TRANSPORT WHICH CARRIED PRESIDENT WILSON TO THE
PEACE CONFERENCE
An aerial view of the George Washington. This ship carried to France
more soldiers than any other transport except the Leviathan.]
On July 4, 1917, he sent the following cablegram to London:
"Strictly confidential." From the President for Admiral Sims.
From the beginning of the war, I have been greatly surprised at the
failure of the British Admiralty to use Great Britain's great naval
superiority in an effective way. In the presence of the present
submarine emergency they are helpless to the point of panic. Every
plan we suggest they reject for some reason of prudence. In my view
this is not a time for prudence but for boldness, even at the cost
of great losses.
In most of your dispatches you have quite properly advised us of
the sort of aid and coöperation desired from us by the Admiralty.
The trouble is that their plans and methods do not seem to us
efficacious. I would be very much obliged to you if you would
report to me, confidentially, of course, exactly what the Admiralty
has been doing, and what they have accomplished, and, added to the
report, your own comments and suggestions, based upon independent
thought of the whole situation, without regard to the judgment of
any one on that side of the water.
The Admiralty was very slow to adopt the protection of convoy
and it is not now, I judge, protecting convoys on adequate scale
within the danger zone, seeming to keep small craft with the Grand
Fleet. The absence of craft for convoy is even more apparent on the
French coast than on the English coast and in the Channel. I do
not see how the necessary military supplies and supplies of food
and fuel oil are to be delivered at British ports in any other way
within the next few months than under adequate convoy. There will
presently not be ships or tankers enough and our shipbuilding plans
may not begin to yield important results in less than eighteen
months.
I believe that you will keep these instructions absolutely and
entirely to yourself, and that you will give me such advice as you
would give if you were handling the situation yourself, and if you
were running a Navy of your own.
WOODROW WILSON.
[Illustration: ALLIED NAVAL COUNCIL IN SESSION AT PARIS
Admiral Sims at the extreme left, Admiral Benson third from left
end. In the center Sir Eric Geddes (bareheaded), First Lord of the
Admiralty, and M. Legues, French Minister of Marine. At the left of M.
Legues is Admiral Beatty, and back of him, to his right, Admiral Long.]
Admiral Sims made an extended and detailed reply to this cablegram, but
it evidently did not satisfy the President, as was shown a month later,
in his address to the Fleet.
That visit to the Fleet, August 11, 1917, was a notable occasion. It
was the first time, I believe, that a President has, in the midst of
war, gone to the chief naval rendezvous and gathered the officers
about him for a heart-to-heart talk. Standing on the quarter deck of
the _Pennsylvania_, surrounded by admirals, captains, commanders and
other ranks, he could see all around him the dreadnaughts which are the
embodiment of national strength and naval power. In the background was
Yorktown, where Cornwallis' surrender marked the culminating victory of
the Revolution. And in this historic spot American forces were again
making history.
The President had slipped away so quietly from Washington that few knew
he was gone. Not only the speech he made, but the very fact of his
visit was long kept secret. But that address, informal and confidential
as it was, deserves a place in naval history.
Disclaiming any idea that he had come "with malice prepense to make
a speech," he told the officers that he had come to have a look at
them and say some things that might be best said intimately and in
confidence. "One of the deprivations which any man in authority
experiences," he exclaimed, "is that he cannot come into constant and
intimate touch with the men with whom he is associated and necessarily
associated in action." "The whole circumstance of the modern time," is
extraordinary, calling for extraordinary action, he pointed out and
said:
Now, the point that is constantly in my mind, gentlemen, is this:
This is an unprecedented war and, therefore, it is a war in one
sense for amateurs. Nobody ever before conducted a war like this
and therefore nobody can pretend to be a professional in a war
like this. Here are two great navies, not to speak of the others
associated with us, our own and the British, outnumbering by a
very great margin the navy to which we are opposed and yet casting
about for a way in which to use our superiority and our strength,
because of the novelty of the instruments used, because of the
unprecedented character of the war; because, as I said just now,
nobody ever before fought a war like this, in the way that this
is being fought at sea, or on land either, for that matter. The
experienced soldier,--experienced in previous wars,--is a back
number so far as his experience is concerned; not so far as his
intelligence is concerned. His experience does not count, because
he never fought a war as this is being fought, and therefore he
is an amateur along with the rest of us. Now, somebody has got to
think this war out. Somebody has got to think out the way not only
to fight the submarine, but to do something different from what we
are doing.
We are hunting hornets all over the farm and letting the nest
alone. None of us knows how to go to the nest and crush it, and
yet I despair of hunting for hornets all over the sea when I know
where the nest is and know that the nest is breeding hornets as
fast as I can find them. I am willing for my part, and I know you
are willing, because I know the stuff you are made of--I am willing
to sacrifice half the navy, Great Britain and we together have to
crush that nest, because if we crush it, the war is won. I have
come here to say that I do not care where it comes from, I do not
care whether it comes from the youngest officer or the oldest, but
I want the officers of this Navy to have the distinction of saying
how this war is going to be won.
The Secretary of the Navy and I have just been talking over plans
for putting the planning machinery of the Navy at the disposal
of the brains of the Navy and not stopping to ask what rank that
brains has, because, as I have said before and want to repeat, so
far as experience in this kind of war is concerned we are all of
the same rank. I am not saying that I do not expect the admirals
to tell us what to do, but I am saying that I want the youngest and
most modest youngster in the service to tell us what we ought to do
if he knows what it is. Now I am willing to make any sacrifice for
that. I mean any sacrifice of time or anything else. I am ready to
put myself at the disposal of any officer in the Navy who thinks he
knows how to run this war. I will not undertake to tell you whether
he does or not, because I know I cannot, but I will undertake to
put him in communication with those who can find out whether his
idea will work or not. I have the authority to do that and I will
do it with the greatest pleasure. The idea that is in my mind all
the time is that we are comrades in this thing."
"I wish that I could think and had the brains to think in the terms of
marine warfare," he remarked, "because I would feel then that I was
figuring out the future history of the political freedom of mankind."
"We have got to throw tradition to the winds," he exclaimed, and went
on to say:
Now, as I have said, gentlemen, I take it for granted that nothing
that I say here will be repeated and therefore I am going to
say this: Every time we have suggested anything to the British
Admiralty the reply has come back that virtually amounted to this,
that it had never been done that way, and I felt like saying,
"Well, nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being
done now." Therefore, I should like to see something unusual
happen, something that was never done before; and inasmuch as the
things that are being done to you were never done before, don't you
think it is worth while to try something that was never done before
against those who are doing them to you? There is no other way to
win, and the whole principle of this war is the kind of thing that
ought to hearten and stimulate America.
America has always boasted that she could find men to do anything.
She is the prize amateur nation of the world. Germany is the prize
professional nation of the world. Now, when it comes to doing new
things and doing them well, I will back the amateur against the
professional every time, because the professional does it out of
the book and the amateur does it with his eyes open upon a new
world and with a new set of circumstances. He knows so little about
it that he is fool enough to try the right thing. The men that do
not know the danger are the rashest men, and I have several times
ventured to make this suggestion to the men about me in both arms
of the service: Please leave out of your vocabulary altogether the
word "prudent." Do not stop to think about what is prudent for a
moment. Do the thing that is audacious to the utmost point of risk
and daring, because that is exactly the thing that the other side
does not understand, and you will win by the audacity of method
when you cannot win by circumspection and prudence.
I think that there are willing ears to hear this in the American
Navy and the American Army, because that is the kind of folks we
are. We get tired of the old ways and covet the new ones.
So, gentlemen, besides coming down here to give you my personal
greeting and to say how absolutely I rely on you and believe in
you, I have come down here to say also that I depend on you, depend
on you for brains as well as training and courage and discipline.
You are doing your job admirably, the job that you have been
taught to do; now let us do something that we were never taught
to do and do it just as well as we are doing the older and more
habitual things, and do not let anybody ever put one thought of
discouragement into your minds. I do not know what is the matter
with the newspapers of the United States. I suppose they have to
vary the tune from time to time just to relieve their minds, but
every now and then a wave of the most absurd discouragement and
pessimism goes through the country and we hear nothing except of
the unusual advantages and equipment and sagacity and preparation
and all the other wonderful things of the German Army and Navy.
My comment is always the very familiar comment, "Rats!" They are
working under infinite disadvantages. They not only have no more
brains than we have, but they have a different and less serviceable
kind of brains than we have, if we will use the brains we have got.
I am not discouraged for a moment, particularly because we have not
even begun and, without saying anything in disparagement of those
with whom we are associated in the war, I do expect things to begin
when we begin. If they do not, American history will have changed
its course; the American Army and Navy will have changed their
character. There will have to come a new tradition into a service
which does not do new and audacious and successful things.
A short time after the President made this declaration on his flagship,
Admiral Mayo was dispatched to Europe, where he pressed upon the
British Admiralty the necessity of constructing the North Sea barrage.
Finally in October, six months after the plan had been presented, this
great project, in line with President Wilson's idea of bold and new
things in naval warfare, was undertaken.
From many quarters tips came to the President of possible surprise
action and not a few orders to Naval Intelligence to send out secret
service men to run down a clue were the result of suggestions emanating
from the President. Sometimes, unannounced and unheralded, during the
war, he would drop in at the Navy Department, and quite as often at the
War Department, and he never came merely to visit, agreeable as social
intercourse would have been. He had an idea every time, a practical
suggestion, or a desire to be informed of progress in some particular
undertaking which he was following with deep interest.
Sometimes when he dropped in unexpectedly to make a suggestion--(he
had a habit of calling directions "suggestions" when speaking to a
Cabinet member)--I sometimes wondered if he was not as much influenced
in making his personal calls to give encouragement and support, and the
helpful personal touch, as to discuss strategy or tactics or policy.
Certainly these visits heartened and strengthened those of us who in
trying times were charged with heavy responsibility. He knew, too, what
was going on. He often surprised me by his knowledge of the comparative
qualities of men he had never seen--how accurate was his appraisement,
how his questioning of them showed the military leadership which few
people thought the college professor possessed. He never left my
office, and I never left the White House, after a conference during the
war, without the reflection that the world had lost a great military
leader when it gained a great educator and executive.
When we were transporting soldiers through the infested zones he was
anxious, intensely interested, and read every cablegram concerning the
troop-ships. When he did not come in person, in crucial days, there
would come from the White House frequent memoranda written by himself
on his little typewriter, asking for some information or making an
illuminating suggestion, signed " W. W." Those " W. W." notes never
had a spare word, and they showed the same clearness and vision which
John Hay tells us Lincoln had when he would go over to see Stanton, or
Gideon Welles in the dark days of Civil War.
There is a feeling among many military men that civilians "butt in"
when they give their views on strategy. It is notorious how some of the
generals in the War between the States resented the suggestions of Mr.
Lincoln, suggestions which as a rule displayed sounder judgment of the
way to win battles than the military experts had shown.
I recall one admiral during the war, who, upon receiving, through the
diplomatic representatives of our Government, President Wilson's
strong opinion that a certain important offensive should be adopted,
asked: "What does the President want to butt in for? What does he know
about it?" As to that particular matter the President, from long study
and reflection, found that it was necessary to "butt in," because some
naval leaders of more than one nation lacked the vision to do the bold
and the new thing to win.
President Wilson took no perfunctory interest in the Navy. In fact,
he had the keenest naval instinct. People, you know, are born with
a passion for some one thing, or in their youth it comes to them.
When Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a boy--(he had not then dropped the
Thomas)--he picked out for himself a naval career. What a jolly good
captain he would have made of the "_Virginia_" or the "_New Jersey_!"
Living as a boy on a river, he loved boating next to books, or even
before books. He had a penchant for sailing and loved sea stories, and
his ambition was to follow Jones and Farragut.
When the opportunity was within reach to go to the Naval Academy at
Annapolis, his father, a scholarly Presbyterian preacher of the old
school, who knew his son's real mission in life better than Thomas
Woodrow, said, in substance, "No; you are not meant for the sea;
letters, literature, books, statesmanship for you." I do not know
whether the future President accepted the parental dictum with the
nautically cheerful "Aye, aye, sir," but he accepted it, and the Navy
lost an officer who would probably have destroyed many precedents and
won many victories, when the father snatched him from the topsail and
sent him down below to the drudgery of learning languages and political
economy.
I do not know a civilian who employs more naval terms. The call to
the sea is in his blood. His father kept him out of the Navy, but he
could not keep the Navy out of him, or the Navy lore and lingo, any
more than you can keep the Quaker out of a Quaker by turning him out
of meeting. At sea President Wilson loved to wear whites or blues,
as near regulation as a civilian can, to don a cap, to watch the
heaving of the lead and the weighing of the anchor, and listen to the
"shiver-my-timbers" talk that one overhears from the older sailors on
duty.