XIII

THE EFFECT OF THE NATIONALISATION OF WAR UPON LEADERSHIP

The argument of the preceding chapters points to the conclusion that if Great Britain is to maintain her position as a great Power, probably even if she is to maintain her independence, and certainly if she is to retain the administration of India and the leadership of the nations that have grown out of her colonies, her statesmen and her people must combine to do three things:—

1. To adopt a policy having due relation to the condition and needs of the European Continent.

2. To make the British navy the best possible instrument of naval warfare.

3. To make the British army strong enough to be able to turn the scales in a continental war.

What are for the navy and for the army the essentials of victory? If there had never been any wars, no one would know what was essential to victory. People would have their notions, no doubt, but these notions would be guesses and could not be verified until the advent of a war, which might bring with it a good deal of disappointment to the people who had guessed wrong. But there have already been wars enough to afford ample material for deductions as to the causes and conditions of success. I propose to take the two best examples that can be found, one for war at sea and the other for war on land, in order to show exactly the way in which victory is attained.

By victory, of course, I mean crushing the enemy. In a battle in which neither side is crippled, and after which the fleets part to renew the struggle after a short interval, one side or the other may consider that it has had the honours of the day. It may have lost fewer ships than the enemy, or have taken more. It may have been able and willing to continue the fight, though the enemy drew off, and its commander may be promoted or decorated for having maintained the credit of his country or of the service to which he belongs. But such a battle is not victory either in a political or a strategical sense. It does not lead to the accomplishment of the purpose of the war, which is to dictate conditions of peace. That result can be obtained only by crushing the enemy's force and so making him powerless to renew the contest.

A general view of the wars of the eighteenth century between Great Britain and France shows that, broadly speaking, there was no decision until the end of the period. The nearest approach to it was when Hawke destroyed the French fleet in Quiberon Bay. But this was hardly a stand-up fight. The French fleet was running away, and Hawke's achievement was that, in spite of the difficulties of weather on an extremely dangerous coast, he was able to consummate its destruction. The real decision was the work of Nelson, and its principal cause was Nelson himself.

The British navy had discovered in its conflicts with the Dutch during the seventeenth century that the object of naval warfare was the command of the sea, which must be won by breaking the enemy's force in battle. This was also perfectly understood by the Dutch admirals, and in those wars was begun the development of the art of fighting battles with sailing vessels. A formation, the line of battle, in which one ship sails in the track of the ship before her, was found to be appropriate to the weapon used, the broadside of artillery; and a type of ship suitable to this formation, the line-of-battle ship, established itself. These were the elements with which the British and French navies entered into their long eighteenth century struggle. The French, however, had not grasped the principle that the object of naval warfare was to obtain the command of the sea. They did not consciously and primarily aim, as did their British rivals, at the destruction of the enemy's fleet. They were more concerned with the preservation of their own fleet than with the destruction of the enemy's, and were ready rather to accept battle than to bring it about. The British admirals were eager for battle, but had a difficulty in finding out how a decisive blow could be struck. The orthodox and accepted doctrine of the British navy was that the British fleet should be brought alongside the enemy's fleet, the two lines of battleships being parallel to one another, so that each ship in the British fleet should engage a corresponding ship in the French fleet. It was a manoeuvre difficult of execution, because, in order to approach the French, the British must in the first place turn each of their ships at right angles to the line or obliquely to it, and then, when they were near enough to fire, must turn again to the left (or right) in order to restore the line formation. And during this period of approach and turning they must be exposed to the broadsides of the French without being able to make full use of their own broadsides. Moreover, it was next to impossible in this way to bring up the whole line together. Besides being difficult, the manoeuvre had no promise of success. For if two fleets of equal numbers are in this way matched ship against ship, neither side has any advantage except what may be derived from the superior skill of its gunners. So long as these conditions prevailed, no great decisive victory of the kind for which we are seeking was gained. It was during this period that Nelson received such training as the navy could give him, and added to it the necessary finishing touch by never-ceasing effort to find out for himself the way in which he could strike a decisive blow. His daring was always deliberate, never rash, and this is the right frame of mind for a commander. "You may be assured," he writes to Lord Hood, March 11, 1794, "I shall undertake nothing but what I have moral certainty of succeeding in."

His fierce determination to get at the ultimate secrets of his trade led him to use every means that would help him to think out his problem, and among these means was reading. In 1780 appeared Clerk's "Essay on Naval Tactics." Clerk pointed out the weakness of the method of fighting in two parallel lines and suggested and discussed a number of plans by which one fleet with the bulk of its force could attack and destroy a portion of the other. This was the problem to which Nelson gave his mind—how to attack a part with the whole. On the 19th of August 1796 he writes to the Duke of Clarence:—

"We are now 22 sail of the line, the combined fleet will be above 35 sail of the line.... I will venture my life Sir John Jervis defeats them; I do not mean by a regular battle but by the skill of our Admiral, and the activity and spirit of our officers and seamen. This country is the most favourable possible for skill with an inferior fleet; for the winds are so variable that some one time in the 24 hours you must be able to attack a part of a large fleet, and the other will be becalmed, or have a contrary wind."

His opportunity came in 1798, when in the battle of the Nile he crushed the French Mediterranean Fleet. In a letter to Lord Howe, written January 8, 1799, he described his plan in a sentence:—

"By attacking the enemy's van and centre, the wind blowing directly along their line, I was enabled to throw what force I pleased on a few ships."

We know that Nelson's method of fighting had for months before the battle been his constant preoccupation, and that he had lost no opportunity of explaining his ideas to his captains. Here are the words of Captain Berry's narrative:—

"It had been his practice during the whole of the cruise, whenever the weather and circumstances would permit, to have his captains on board the Vanguard, where he would fully develop to them his own ideas of the different and best modes of attack, and such plans as he proposed to execute upon falling in with the enemy, whatever their position or situation might be, by day or by night. There was no possible position in which they might be found that he did not take into his calculation, and for the most advantageous attack on which he had not digested and arranged the best possible disposition of the force which he commanded."

The great final victory of Trafalgar was prepared in the same way, and the various memoranda written in the period before the battle have revealed to recent investigation the unwearying care which Nelson devoted to finding out how best to concentrate his force upon that portion of the enemy's fleet which it would be most difficult for the enemy to support with the remainder.

Nelson's great merit, his personal contribution to his country's 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 levyen 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 discernWhat 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 administermatirielandpersonnel; 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?

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 originalDreadnought. 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 theDreadnoughta 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 ofDreadnoughtsto fight a battle at long range, and with a view to such battle theDreadnoughtwas 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.

There is, moreover, a widespread belief among naval officers of the highest repute, among whom may be named the author of the "Influence of Sea Power upon History," than whom no one has thought more profoundly on the subject of naval war, that it is bad economy to concentrate in a few very large ships the power which might be more conveniently and effectively employed if distributed in a great number of ships of more moderate size.

Surely, so long as naval opinion is divided about the tactical and strategical wisdom of a new type of battleship, it is rash to continue building battleships exclusively of that type, and it would be more reasonable to make an attempt to have naval opinion sifted and clarified, and thus to have a secure basis for a shipbuilding programme, than to hurry on an enormous expenditure upon what may after all prove to have been a series of doubtful experiments.

All the questions above discussed seem to me to be more important than that of mere numbers of ships. Numbers are, however, of great importance in their proper place and for the proper reasons. The policy adopted and carried out by the British navy, at any rate during the latter half of the war against the French Empire, was based on a known superiority of force. The British fleet set out by blockading all the French fleets, that is, by taking stations near to the great French harbours and there observing those harbours, so that no French fleet should escape without being attacked. If this is to be the policy of the British navy in future it will require a preponderance of force of every kind over that of the enemy, and that preponderant force will have to be fully employed from the very first day of the war. In other words, it must be kept in commission during peace. But, in addition, it is always desirable to have a reserve of strength to meet the possibility that the opening of a war or one of its early subsequent stages may bring into action some additional unexpected adversary. There are thus two reasons that make for a fleet of great numerical strength. The first, that only great superiority renders possible the strategy known as blockade, or, as I have ventured to call it, of "shadowing" the whole of the enemy's forces. The second, that only great numerical strength renders it possible to provide a reserve against unexpected contingencies.

ENGLAND'S MILITARY PROBLEM

After the close of the South African war, two Royal Commissions were appointed. One of them, known as the War Commission, was in a general way to inquire into and report upon the lessons of the war. This mission it could fulfil only very imperfectly, because its members felt precluded from discussing the policy in which the war had its origin and incapable of reviewing the military conduct of the operations. This was very like reviewing the play of "Hamlet" without reference to the characters and actions either of Hamlet or of the King, for the mainsprings which determine the course, character, and issue of any war are the policy out of which it arises and the conduct of the military operations. The main fact which impressed itself on the members of the War Commission was that the forces employed on the British side had been very much larger than had been expected at the beginning of the war, and the moral which they drew was contained in the one sentence of their report which has remained in the public mind, to the effect that the Government ought to make provision for the expansion of the army beyond the limit of the regular forces of the Crown.

About the same time another Commission, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Norfolk, was appointed to inquire and report whether any, and, if any, what changes were required in order to secure that the Militia and Volunteer forces should be maintained in a condition of military efficiency and at an adequate strength. The Norfolk Commission recommended certain changes which it thought would lead to a great improvement in the efficiency of both forces, while permitting them to maintain the requisite numerical strength. With regard to the Volunteer force, the report said:—

"The governing condition is that the Volunteer, whether an officer, non-commissioned officer, or private, earns his own living, and that if demands are made upon him which are inconsistent with his doing so he must cease to be a Volunteer. No regulations can be carried out which are incompatible with the civil employment of the Volunteers, who are for the most part in permanent situations. Moreover, whatever may be the goodwill and patriotism of employers, they cannot allow the Volunteers they may employ more than a certain period of absence. Their power to permit their workmen to attend camp or other exercises is controlled by the competition which exists in their trade. Those who permit Volunteers in their service to take holidays longer than are customary in their trade and district, are making in the public interest a sacrifice which some of them think excessive."

The report further laid stress on the cardinal principle that no Volunteer, whatever his rank, should be put to expense on account of his service. Subject to this governing condition and to this cardinal principle, the Commission made recommendations from which it expected a marked improvement and the gradual attainment of a standard much in advance of anything which until then had been reached.

Most of these recommendations have been adopted, with modifications, in the arrangements which have since been made for the Volunteers under the new name "The Territorial Force."

The Norfolk Commission felt no great confidence in the instructions given it by the Government on the subject of the standard of efficiency and of numerical strength. Accordingly the Commission added to its report the statement:—

"We cannot assert that, even if the measuresrecommended were fully carried out, these forceswould be equal to the task of defeating a moderncontinental army in the United Kingdom."

The Commission's chief doubt was whether, under the conditions inseparable at any rate from the volunteer system, any scheme of training would give to forces officered largely by men who are not professional soldiers the cohesion of armies that exact a progressive two-years' course from their soldiers and rely, except for expanding the subaltern ranks on mobilisation, upon professional leaders. The Commission then considered "Measures which may provide a Home Defence Army equal to the task of defeating an invader." They were unable to recommend the adoption of the Swiss system, partly because the initial training was not, in their judgment, sufficient for the purpose, and partly because they held that the modern method of extending the training to all classes, while shortening its duration, involves the employment of instructors of the highest possible qualifications. The Commission concluded by reporting that a Home Defence Army capable, in the absence of the whole or the greater portion of the regular forces, of protecting this country against invasion can be raised and maintained only on the principle that it is the duty of every citizen of military age and sound physique to be trained for the national defence and to take part in it should emergency arise.

The Norfolk Commission gave expression to two different views without attempting to reconcile them. On the one hand it laid down the main lines along which the improvement of the militia and volunteers was to be sought, and on the other hand it pointed out the advantages of the principle that it is the citizen's duty to be trained as a soldier and to fight in case of need. To go beyond this and to attempt either to reconcile the two currents of thought or to decide between them, was impossible for a Commission appointed to deal with only a fraction of the problem of national defence. The two sets of views, however, continue to exist side by side, and the nation yet has to do what the Norfolk Commission by its nature was debarred from doing. The Government, represented in this matter by Mr. Haldane, is still in the position of relying upon an improved militia and volunteer force. The National Service League, on the other hand, advocates the principle of the citizen's duty, though it couples with it a specific programme borrowed from the Swiss system, the adoption of which was deprecated in the Commission's Report. The public is somewhat puzzled by the appearance of opposition between what are thought of as two schools, and indeed Mr. Haldane in his speech introducing the Army Estimates on March 4, 1909, described the territorial force as a safeguard against universal service.

The time has perhaps come when the attempt should be made to find a point of view from which the two schools of thought can be seen in due perspective, and from which, therefore, a definite solution of the military problem may be reached.

By what principle must our choice between the two systems be determined? By the purpose in hand. The sole ultimate use of an army is to win the nation's battles, and if one system promises to fulfil that purpose while the other system does not, we cannot hesitate.

Great Britain requires an army as one of the instruments of success in a modern British war, and we have therefore to ascertain, in general, the nature of a modern war, and in particular the character of such wars as Great Britain may have to wage.

The distinguishing feature of the conflict between two modern great States is that it is a struggle for existence, or, at any rate, a wrestle to a fall. The mark of the modern State is that it is identified with the population which it comprises, and to such a State the name "nation" properly belongs. The French Revolution nationalised the State and in consequence nationalised war, and every modern continental State has so organized itself with a view to war that its army is equivalent to the nation in arms.

The peculiar character of a British war is due to the insular character of the British State. A conflict with a great continental Power must begin with a naval struggle, which will be carried on with the utmost energy until one side or the other has established its predominance on the sea. If in this struggle the British navy is successful, the effect which can be produced on a continental State by the victorious navy will not be sufficient to cause the enemy to accept peace upon British conditions. For that purpose, it will be necessary to invade the enemy's territory and to put upon him the constraint of military defeat, and Great Britain therefore requires an army strong enough either to effect this operation or to encourage continental allies to join with it in making the attempt.

In any British war, therefore, which is to be waged with prospect of success, Great Britain's battles must be fought and won on the enemy's territory and against an army raised and maintained on the modern national principle.

This is the decisive consideration affecting British military policy.

In case of the defeat of the British navy a continental enemy would, undoubtedly, attempt the invasion and at least the temporary conquest of Great Britain. The army required to defeat him in the United Kingdom would need to have the same strength and the same qualities as would be required to defeat him in his own territory, though, if the invasion had been preceded by naval defeat, it is very doubtful whether any military success in the United Kingdom would enable Great Britain to continue her resistance with much hope of ultimate success.

For these reasons I cannot believe that Great Britain's needs are met by the possession of any force the employment of which is, by the conditions of its service, limited to fighting in the United Kingdom. A British army, to be of any use, must be ready to go and win its country's battles in the theatre of war in which its country requires victories. That theatre of war will never be the United Kingdom unless and until the navy has failed to perform its task, in which case it will probably be too late to win battles in time to avert the national overthrow which must be the enemy's aim.

There are, however, certain subsidiary services for which any British military system must make provision.

These are:—

(1) Sufficient garrisons must be maintained during peace in India, in Egypt, for some time to come in South Africa, and in certain naval stations beyond the seas, viz., Gibraltar, Malta, Ceylon, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mauritius, West Africa, Bermuda, and Jamaica. It is generally agreed that the principle of compulsory service cannot be applied for the maintenance of these garrisons, which must be composed of professional paid soldiers.

(2) Experience shows that a widespread Empire, like the British, requires from time to time expeditions for the maintenance of order on its borders against half civilised or savage tribes. This function was described in an essay on "Imperial Defence," published by Sir Charles Dilke and the present writer in 1892 as "Imperial Police."

It would not be fair, for the purpose of one of these small expeditions, arbitrarily to call upon a fraction of a force maintained on the principle of compulsion. Accordingly any system must provide a special paid reserve for the purpose of furnishing the men required for such an expedition.

An army able to strike a serious blow against a continental enemy in his own territory would evidently be equally able to defeat an invading army if the necessity should arise. Accordingly the military question for Great Britain resolves itself into the provision of an army able to carry on serious operations against a European enemy, together with the maintenance of such professional forces as are indispensable for the garrisons of India, Egypt, and the over-sea stations enumerated above and for small wars.

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