influence, lay first and foremost in his having by intellectual effort
solved the tactical problem set to commanders by the conditions of the
naval weapon of his day, the fleet of line-of-battle ships; and
secondly, in his being possessed and inspired by the true strategical
doctrine that the prime object of naval warfare is the destruction of
the enemy's fleet, and therefore that the decisive point in the theatre
of war is the point where the enemy's fleet can be found. It was the
conviction with which he held this principle that enabled him in
circumstances of the greatest difficulty to divine where to go to find
the enemy's fleet; which in 1798 led him persistently up and down the
Mediterranean till he had discovered the French squadron anchored at
Aboukir; which in 1805 took him from the Mediterranean to the West
Indies, and from the West Indies back to the Channel.
So much for Nelson's share of the work. But Nelson could neither have
educated himself nor made full use of his education if the navy of his
day had not been inspired with the will to fight and to conquer, with
the discipline that springs from that will, and had not obtained through
long experience of war the high degree of skill in seamanship and in
gunnery which made it the instrument its great commander required. These
conditions of the navy in turn were products of the national spirit and
of the will of the Government and people of Great Britain to devote to
the navy as much money, as many men, and as vigorous support as might be
necessary to realise the national purpose.
The efforts of this nature made by the country were neither perfect nor
complete. The Governments made mistakes, the Admiralty left much to be
desired both in organisation and in personnel. But the will was there.
The best proof of the national determination is to be found in the best
hated of all the institutions of that time, the press-gang, a brutal and
narrow-minded form of asserting the principle that a citizen's duty is
to fight for his country. That the principle should take such a shape
is decisive evidence no doubt that society was badly organised, and that
education, intellectual and moral, was on a low level, but also, and
this is the vital matter, that the nation well understood the nature of
the struggle in which it was engaged and was firmly resolved not only to
fight but to conquer.
The causes of the success of the French armies in the period between
1792 and 1809 were precisely analogous to those which have been analysed
in the case of the British navy. The basis was the national will,
expressed in the volunteers and the levy _en masse_. Upon this was
superimposed the skill acquired by the army in several years of
incessant war, and the formal cause of the victories was Napoleon's
insight into the art of command. The research of recent years has
revealed the origin of Napoleon's mastery of the method of directing an
army. He became an officer in 1785, at the age of sixteen. In 1793, as a
young captain of artillery, he directed with remarkable insight and
determination the operations by which the allied fleet was driven from
Toulon. In 1794 he inspired and conducted, though still a subordinate, a
series of successful operations in the Maritime Alps. In 1796, as
commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy, he astonished Europe by the
most brilliant campaign on record. For these achievements he had
prepared himself by assiduous study. As a young officer of artillery he
received the best professional training then to be had in Europe, while
at the same time, by wide and careful reading, he gave himself a general
education. At some period before 1796, probably before 1794, he had read
and thoroughly digested the remarkable treatise on the principles of
mountain war which had been left in manuscript by General Bourcet, an
officer who during the campaigns of half a century had assisted as
Quartermaster-General a number of the best Generals of France.
Napoleon's phenomenal power of concentration had enabled him to
assimilate Bourcet's doctrine, which in his clear and vigorous mind took
new and more perfect shape, so that from the beginning his operations
are conducted on a system which may be described as that of Bourcet
raised to a higher power.
The "Nelson touch" was acquired by the Admiral through years of effort
to think out, to its last conclusion, a problem the nature of which had
never been adequately grasped by his professional predecessors and
comrades, though it seems probable that he owed to Clerk the hint which
led him to the solution which he found. Napoleon was more fortunate in
inheriting a strategical doctrine which he had but to appreciate to
expand and to apply. The success of both men is due to the habit of mind
which clings tenaciously to the subject under investigation until it is
completely cleared up. Each of them became, as a result of his thinking,
the embodiment of a theory or system of the employment of force, the one
on sea and the other on land; and such an embodiment is absolutely
necessary for a nation in pursuit of victory.
It seems natural to say that if England wants victory on sea or land,
she must provide herself with a Nelson or a Napoleon. The statement is
quite true, but it requires to be rightly interpreted. If it means that
a nation must always choose a great man to command its navy or its army
it is an impossible maxim, because a great man cannot be recognised
until his power has been revealed in some kind of work. Moreover, to say
that Nelson and Napoleon won victories because they were great men is to
invert the order of nature and of truth. They are recognised as great
men because of the mastery of their business which they manifested in
action. That mastery was due primarily to knowledge. Wordsworth hit the
mark when, in answer to the question "Who is the Happy Warrior?" he
replied that it was he--
"Who with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn."
The quality that made them both so valuable was that they knew the best
that was known and thought in regard to the art of war. This is the
quality which a nation must secure in those whom it entrusts with the
design and the conduct of the operations of its fleets and its armies.
There is a method for securing this, not by any means a new one, and not
originally, as is commonly supposed, a German invention. It consists in
providing the army and the navy with a General Staff or Department for
the study, design, and direction of operations. In such a department
Bourcet, Napoleon's master, spent the best years of his life. In such a
department Moltke was trained; over such a department he presided. Its
characteristic is that it has one function, that of the study, design,
and direction of the movements in fighting of a fleet or an army, and
that it has nothing whatever to do with the maintenance of an army, or
with its recruiting, discipline, or peace administration. Its functions
in peace are intellectual and educational, and in war it becomes the
channel of executive power. Bourcet described the head of such a
department as "the soul of an army." The British navy is without such a
department. The army has borrowed the name, but has not maintained the
speciality of function which is essential. In armies other than the
British, the Chief of the General Staff is occupied solely with tactics
and strategy, with the work of intellectual research by which Nelson
and Napoleon prepared their great achievements. His business is to be
designing campaigns, to make up his mind at what point or points, in
case of war, he will assemble his fleets or his armies for the first
move, and what the nature of that move shall be. The second move it is
impossible for him to pre-arrange because it depends upon the result of
the first. He will determine the second move when the time comes. In
order that his work should be as well done as possible, care is taken
that the Chief of the Staff shall have nothing else to do. Not he but
another officer superintends the raising, organising, and disciplining
of the forces. Thus he becomes the embodiment of a theory or system of
operations, and with that theory or system he inspires as far as
possible all the admirals or generals and other officers who will have
to carry out his designs.
In the British system the Chief of the General Staff is the principal
military member of the Board which administers the army. Accordingly,
only a fraction of his time can be given to thinking out the problems of
strategy and tactics. At the Admiralty the principal naval member of the
Board is made responsible not only for the distribution and movements of
ships--a definition which includes the whole domain of strategy and
tactics--but also for the fighting and sea-going efficiency of the
fleet, its organisation and mobilisation, a definition so wide that it
includes the greater part of the administration of the navy, especially
as the same officer is held responsible for advice on all large
questions of naval policy and maritime warfare, as well as for the
control of the naval ordnance department. Thus in each case the very
constitution of the office entrusted with the design of operations
prevents the officer at its head from concentrating himself upon that
vital duty. The result is that the intellectual life both of the army
and of the navy lags far behind that of their German rivals, and
therefore that there is every chance of both of them being beaten, not
for lack of courage or hard work, but by being opposed to an adversary
whose thinking has been better done by reason of the greater
concentration of energy devoted to it.
The first reform needed, at any rate in the navy, is a definition of the
functions of the First Sea Lord which will confine his sphere to the
distribution and movement of ships and the strategical and tactical
training of officers, so as to compel him to become the embodiment or
personification of the best possible theory or system of naval warfare.
That definition adopted and enforced, there is no need to lay down
regulations giving the strategist control over his colleagues who
administer _matériel_ and _personnel_; they will of themselves always be
anxious to hear his views as to the methods of fighting, and will be
only too glad to build ships with a view to their being used in
accordance with his design of victory. But until there is at the
Admiralty department devoted to designing victory and to nothing else,
what possible guarantee can there be that ships will be built, or the
navy administered and organised in accordance with any design likely to
lead to victory?
XIV.
THE NEEDS OF THE NAVY
The doubt which, since the Prime Minister's statement on the
introduction of the Navy Estimates, has disturbed the public mind, is
concerned almost exclusively with the number of modern battleships in
the Royal Navy. The one object which the nation ought to have in view is
victory in the next war, and the question never to be forgotten is, what
is essential to victory? While it is probably true that if the disparity
of numbers be too great a smaller fleet can hardly engage a larger one
with any prospect of success, it is possible to exaggerate the
importance both of numbers and of the size of ships.
The most decisive victories at sea which are on record were those of
Tsusima, of Trafalgar, and of the Nile. At Tsusima the numbers and size
of the Japanese Fleet were not such as, before the battle, to give
foreign observers grounds for expecting a decisive victory by the
Japanese. It was on the superior intellectual and moral qualities of the
Japanese that those who expected them to win based their hopes, and this
view was justified by the event. At the battle of Trafalgar the British
Fleet numbered twenty-seven, the Franco-Spanish Fleet numbered
thirty-three; at the battle of the Nile the numbers were equal--thirteen
on each side. These figures seem to me sufficiently to prove that
superior numbers are not in battle the indispensable condition of
victory. They certainly prove that the numerically inferior fleet may
very well win.
Writers on the art of war distinguish between tactics, the art of
winning a battle, and strategy, the art of designing and conducting the
whole of the operations which constitute a campaign, of bringing about
battles in conditions favourable to one's own side and of making the
best use of such victories as may be won for contributing to the general
purpose of the war, which is dictating peace on one's own terms.
The decision of the questions, how many fleets to send out, what is to
be the strength and composition of each of them, and what the objectives
assigned to their several commanders is a strategical decision. It is a
function of the strategist at the Board of Admiralty, but the question
how to handle any one of these fleets in the presence of the enemy so as
either to avoid or to bring about an action and so as to win the battle,
if a battle be desirable, is a question for the admiral commanding the
particular fleet.
Evidently the master art, because it dominates the whole war, is that
of strategy, and for that reason it must have a seat at the Admiralty
Board.
As is well known, a large number of naval officers have for several
years past been troubled with doubts as to the strategical competence
displayed by the Board or Boards of Admiralty since 1904. The Board of
Admiralty has also been criticised for other reasons, into some of which
it is not necessary to enter, but it is desirable to state precisely the
considerations which tend to show that important decisions made by the
Admiralty have not been based upon sound strategical principles, and
are, indeed, incompatible with them.
When four or five years ago it was decided to transfer the centre of
gravity of the navy, as represented by fleets in commission, from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic coasts of Europe, that was a sound
decision. But when the principal fleet in commission in home waters was
reduced in order to facilitate the creation of a so-called Home Fleet,
made up of a number of ships stationed at different ports, and manned
for the most part by nucleus crews, the Admiralty announced this measure
in a very remarkable circular. The change clearly involved a reduction
of the number of men at sea, and also a reduction in the number of ships
which would be immediately available under war conditions. It was
further evident that the chief result of this measure would be a
reduction of expenditure, yet the circular boldly stated that the object
of the measure was to increase the power and readiness of the navy for
instant war.
In any case, the decision announced revealed an ignorance of one of the
fundamental conditions of naval warfare, which differentiates it
completely from operations on land. A ship in commission carries on
board everything that is necessary for a fight. She can be made ready
for battle in a few minutes on the order to clear for action. No other
mobilisation is necessary for a fleet in commission, and if a war should
break out suddenly, as wars normally always do break out, whichever side
is able at once with its fleets already in commission to strike the
first blow has the incalculable advantage of the initiative.
A fleet divided between several ports and not fully manned is not a
fleet in commission; it is not ready, and its assembly as a fleet
depends on a contingency, which there is no means of guaranteeing, that
the enemy shall not be able to prevent its assembly by moving a fleet
immediately to a point at sea from which it would be able to oppose by
force the union of the constituent parts of the divided and unready
fleet.
Later official descriptions of the Home Fleet explained that it was part
of the Admiralty design that this fleet should offer the first
resistance to an enemy. The most careful examination of these
descriptions leaves no room for doubt that the idea of the Admiralty was
that one of its fleets should, in case of war, form a sort of
advance-guard to the rest of the navy. But it is a fundamental truth
that in naval war an advance-guard is absurd and impossible. In the
operations of armies, an advance-guard is both necessary and useful. Its
function is to delay the enemy's army until such time as the
commander-in-chief shall have assembled his own forces, which may be, to
some extent, scattered on the march. This delay is always possible on
land, because the troops can make use of the ground, that is, of the
positions which it affords favourable for defence, and because by means
of those positions a small force can for a long time hold in check the
advance of a very much larger one. But at sea there are no positions
except those formed by narrow straits, estuaries, and shoals, where land
and sea are more or less mixed up. The open sea is a uniform surface
offering no advantage whatever to either side. There is nothing in naval
warfare resembling the defence of a position on land, and the whole
difference between offence and defence at sea consists in the will of
one side to bring on an action and that of the other side to avoid or
postpone it.
At sea a small force which endeavours by fighting to delay the movement
of a large force exposes itself to destruction without any corresponding
gain of time. Accordingly, at sea, there is no analogy to the action of
an advance-guard, and the mere fact that such an idea should find its
way into the official accounts of the Admiralty's views regarding the
opening move of a possible war must discredit the strategy of the
Admiralty in the judgment of all who have paid any attention to the
nature of naval war.
The second requisite for victory, that is, for winning a battle against
a hostile fleet, is tactical superiority, or, as Nelson put it: "The
skill of our admirals and the activity and spirit of our officers and
seamen." The only way to obtain this is through the perpetual practice
of the admirals commanding fleets. An admiral, in order to make himself
a first-rate tactician, must not merely have deeply studied and pondered
the subject, but must spend as much time as possible in exercising, as a
whole, the fleet which he commands, in order not only by experimental
manoeuvres thoroughly to satisfy himself as to the formation and mode of
attack which will be best suited to any conceivable circumstance in
which he may find himself, but also to inculcate his ideas into his
subordinates; to inspire them with his own knowledge, and to give them
that training in working together which, in all those kinds of
activities which require large numbers of men to work together, whether
on the cricket field, at football, in an army, or in a navy, constitutes
the advantage of a practised over a scratch team.
If the practice is to make the fleet ready for war, it must be carried
out with the fleet in its war composition. All the different elements,
battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, and the rest, must be fully
represented, otherwise the admiral would be practising in peace with a
different instrument from that with which he would need to operate in
war.
The importance of this perpetual training ought to be self-evident. It
may be well to remind the reader that it has also been historically
proved. The great advantage which the British possessed over the French
navy in the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire was that the British
fleets were always at sea, whereas the French fleets, for years
blockaded in their ports, were deficient in that practice which, in the
naval as in all other professions, makes perfect. One of the complaints
against the present Board of Admiralty is that it has not encouraged the
training and exercise of fleets as complete units.
Another point, in regard to which the recent practice of the Admiralty
is regarded with very grave doubts, not only by many naval officers,
but also by many of those who, without being naval officers, take a
serious interest in the navy, is that of naval construction. For several
years the Admiralty neglected to build torpedo craft of the quality and
in the quantity necessary for the most probable contingencies of war,
while, at the same time, large sums of money were spent in building
armoured cruisers, vessels of a fighting power so great that an admiral
would hesitate to detach them from his fleet, lest he should be
needlessly weakened on the day of battle, yet not strong enough safely
to replace the battleships in the fighting line. The result has been
that the admirals in command of fleets have for some time been anxiously
asking to be better supplied with scouts or vessels of great speed, but
not of such fighting power that they could not be spared at a distance
from the fleet even on the eve of an action. These two defects in the
shipbuilding policy of the Admiralty make it probable that for some
years past the navy has not been constructed in accord with any fully
thought-out design of operations; in other words, that the great object
"victory" has been forgotten by the supreme authority.
The doubt whether victory has been borne in mind is confirmed by what is
known of the design of the original _Dreadnought_. A battleship ought to
be constructed for battle, that is, for the purpose of destroying the
enemy's fleet, for which purpose it will never be used alone, but in
conjunction with a number of ships like itself forming the weapon of an
admiral in command. A battleship requires three qualities, in the
following order of importance:--
First, offensive power. A fleet exists in order to destroy the enemy,
but it has no prospect of performing that function if its power of
destruction is less than its enemy's. The chief weapon to-day, as in the
past, is artillery. Accordingly the first requisite of a fleet, as
regards its material qualities, those produced by the constructor, is
the capacity to pour on to the enemy's fleet a heavier rain of
projectiles than he can return.
The second quality is the power of movement. The advantage of superior
speed in a fleet--for the superior speed of an individual ship is of
little importance--is that so long as it is preserved it enables the
admiral, within limits, to accept or decline battle according to his own
judgment. This is a great strategical advantage. It may in some
conditions enable an inferior fleet to postpone an action which might be
disastrous until it has effected a junction with another fleet belonging
to its own side.
The third quality is that the ships of a fleet should be strong enough
to offer to the enemy's projectiles a sufficient resistance to make it
improbable that they can be sunk before having inflicted their fair
share of damage on the adversary.
There is always a difficulty in combining these qualities in a given
ship, because as a ship weighs the quantity of water which she
displaces, a ship of any given size has its weight given, and the
designer cannot exceed that limit of weight. He must divide it between
guns with their ammunition, engines with their coal, and armour. Every
ton given to armour diminishes the tonnage possible for guns and
engines, and, given a minimum for armour, every extra ton given to
engines and coal reduces the possible weight of guns and ammunition. In
the _Dreadnought_ a very great effort was made to obtain a considerable
extra speed over that of all other battleships. This extra speed was
defended on the ground that it would enable a fleet of _Dreadnoughts_ to
fight a battle at long range, and with a view to such battle the
_Dreadnought_ was provided only with guns of the heaviest calibre and
deprived of those guns of medium calibre with which earlier battleships
were well provided. The theories thus embodied in the new class of ships
were both of them doubtful, and even dangerous. In the first place, it
is in the highest degree injurious to the spirit and courage of the crew
to have a ship which they know will be at a disadvantage if brought into
close proximity with the enemy. Their great object ought to be to get as
near to the enemy as possible. The hypothesis that more damage will be
done by an armament exclusively of the largest guns is in the opinion
of many of the best judges likely to be refuted. There is some reason to
believe that a given tonnage, if devoted to guns of medium calibre,
would yield a very much greater total damage to an enemy's ship than if
devoted to a smaller number of guns of heavy calibre and firing much
less rapidly.