The British Navy in Battle

that naval force consists and by what processes it fights and wins. All fighting is done by men using weapons. At sea the men and weapons have to be car

edience to certain dynamic laws-the technique, the tactics, and the strategy of war. It may simp

earing ships built for

ight use of the main fighting ships and for the subsidiary

uring the main fleets and cruisers of the enemy, for defending and attacking base

d the62 ships and to direct the operations of

rs the right method of using weapons; that elucidates the tactics that follow from such use; that develops the strategy which the strength and situation of

l force it is clear,

re superior to those which the enemy

g blow, that can reach to longer ranges,

fficiency so as to strike at the enemy-if possible-before the enemy can strike, and will keep them in

er moral, better discip

el, adept in all the craft of fighting, instinct with the

t modern scientific and industrial development place at the disposal of the fighting men, but consciously cultivating what may be63 called a proph

, thirdly, the intellectual, spiritual, and moral activities n

ctive weapon than a new 15-inch that, in spite of a legend range of 20,000 yards, cannot be made to hit in action conditions. And it is from right method that are derived right tactics by which, in turn, the decisive massing of ships in action is obtained. Again, the best of ships' weapons and methods must be absolutely useless unless the discipline, moral, and skill of those who use them are equal to the strain of fighting. Again, it is highly improbable that you will have good discipline and skill unless you have good leaders, for the excellent reason that it is the officers who make the men; certainly, if they exist in spite of there not being good leaders, weak or heartless leadership64 can throw them altogether away. The Revolution robbed the French Navy of ne

is, for example, quite conceivable that you might have a fleet or a flotilla equipped with the best material, its personnel instructed and expert in the best methods, commanded in detail and directed by the chief command according to the soundest principles of tactics and strategy, and yet65 that such a unit might fail in winning its legitimate purpose, simply because of some failure to base its operations on correct data. The omission to provide all the means for obtaining intelligence that science and experience suggest, or, having employed them and got the raw material, an inability to interpret and transmit it rightly and promptly to the officer in command, might send a fleet

no escape from this ideal. For the laws of science are ruthless. Just as "the wages of sin is death," so is failure the fruit of false doctrine. And the cruelty of

to consider Lord Charles Beresford's very grave statements as to the condition of the Navy. This committee never published the evidence by which Lord Charles and his associates tried to establish their case. But in the course of a brief report which was published they said that they had been impressed "with the difference of opinion amongst officers of high rank and professional attainments regarding important principles of naval strategy and tactics, and they look forward with much confidence to the further development of a naval war staff, from which naval members of the Board and flag officers and their staffs at sea may be expected to derive common benefit." Observe,

hen Mr. Churchill took office, then, in the autumn of that year, he had the conclusions of the Beresford Committee to guide him as to the state of strategy and tactics and

ed the root need of naval force with masterly precision. Coming so soon, expressed with such clarity and conviction, it seemed to be not so much a collection of eloquent and thoughtful sentences logically compacted, but a profession of intentions that must definitely turn the current of naval life into the only channe

of all external arrangements and unit efficiency at sea, far more so than on land, is the prime and final factor without which the combinations

uld be afforded, and not only would the points of our incapacity be made clear, but the reasons for that incapacity and the character of the measures needed for the remedy would be automatically shown by the analysis. For the first condition for solving any problem is its accurate, scientific, and exhaustive statement. And, if the statement is sufficiently full, it almost carries the solution with it. Let the problems of the gun, torpedo, mine, and submarine once

eing reflected in every other department of naval activity. In place of uninstructed conjecture, we

riably, because together impartially and impersonally, be discovered. For the particular occasion of the Memorandum was the establishment of a new and extend

superiority which a well-selected committee of experts possesses over even the most brilliant expert working by himself. The Staff was to be a "brain far more comprehensive than of any single man, however gifted, and tireless and unceasing in its action, applied continuously to the scientific study of naval strategy and preparation." Finally, this Staff, carefully selected from the most promising officers, whose work would train them for the highest command, making all history and experience the provin

of fire control and so forth extraneously supplied, this was indeed the navy's chief and overmastering need. Had such a staff existed even sixteen years ago, it is quite inconceivable that we could imperceptibly have drifted into dependence on extraneous methods for the right use of weapons, without the staff responsible for preparation for war, bringing the fact of th

unit efficiency" did most certainly have the air of putting the cart before the horse.71 But to doubt that this machinery would follow seemed too absurd in face of the tremendous emphasis that Mr. Churchill had laid upon its necessity. If, without unit efficiency, "the combinations of strategy and tactics were only the preliminaries of defeat," whereas if it existe

only that it must lead to great results, but that it must be followed-as, of course, it should have been pr

view. It had no connection with the departments administering gunnery, torpedoes, submarines, aircraft, or mines. As to some of these activities, there were as a fact no departments solely charged with their control before the War Staff was instituted. They were not entrusted to the War Staff. And no ne

debate on the Naval Estimates of 1916 a violent attack on Admiralty policy by Mr. Churchill left Mr. Balfour with no alternative but to break the brutal truth to us that, at the outbreak of war, we had not a single submarine-p

ds. The identical guns have been used in this war at 11,000, 12,000, and 13,000 yards. The advance in range owes nothing to improvem

but was still in its infancy. By 1907, when Captain Murray Sueter wrote his well-known work on the subject, it had become obvious th

f action before they can be employed against us. Failing this there is a secondary defensive, viz., to protect ships by armour. Finally, you may keep out of range of the enemy's guns by turning or running away. The adoption of armour calls for no perfection either of tactical organization or technical practice. It is a matter which can be left to the metallurgists, engineers, and constructors. The purely naval policy, then, would have been either to develop the use of guns offensively, which, as we h

ith the most deadly of all weapons. As they gained in speed and radius of action, it became obvious that wherever a fleet might be-whether at sea or in harbour-it must, unless it

stated for it to be clear that the navy could not have expected, except in rare circumstances, to have any targets for its submarines, whereas it was as certain as any future thing could be

at of naval artillery; and if there was one form of defensive not less imperat

n the latter point let the non-provision of a safe anchorage on the Northeast coast stand for the whole. If you pick up a Navy List for any month in any year prior to August, 1914, you will look in vain for any department of Whitehall, any establishment at a principal port, any appointment of flag officer or captain, to

that we owe the abolition of the only officer and department in the navy competent to advise or direct methods of gunnery adequate for war. From 1908 to 1913 the Inspectorship of Target Practice had been effective in giving shape, and to some

of them, thoroughly investigated and the

obvious character of any disaster that happens to any unit of a fleet. Regiments may be thrown away upon land and no one be any the wiser, but to lose a ship is an event about which there can be no dispute. It is regarded as a disaster, and at once somebody, it is assumed, must be to blame. This is hard measure on th

opposition, which in turn provoked greater vigour in those that advocated them. Thus the whole of naval policy had to be commended to popular-and civilian-judgment. And it followed that the advocates of expansion had to employ arguments that civilians could understand. They very soon perceived that success lay along the line of sensationalism. Larger and faster ships, heavier and longer range guns carrying bigger and more devastating shells, faster and more terrifying torpedoes, those new craft of weird mystery, the submarines-all these things in turn and for considerable periods were urged upon the public and the statesmen in terms of awe and wonder. But the Augurs, instead of winking behind the veil, came finally to be hypnotized by their own wonder talk. Who cannot77 remember that

the commercial advantage of their development. It is those who take immediate steps to investigate the limits of their action and the precise scope of their operations who turn new discoveries to account. To talk as if the performance of guns, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were beyond human calculation, was really a confession of incompetence. The application to these things of

and it becomes exceedingly clear what it is that your own fleet must be prepared to do. Had these things been realized at any time between 1911 and 1914, should we have had our own naval bases unprotected against submarine attack? Should we have been without any organization for using