^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 m
 
 yL)C\\f•^^^hl 
 
 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 3 57 ^
 
 THE BRAIN OF THE 
 
 NAVY 
 - — ^ 
 
 SPENSER WILKINSON 
 
 AI'THOR OF "the COMMAND OF THE SEA " 
 
 WESTMINSTER 
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY 
 
 14 PARLIAMENT STREET SW 
 
 1895
 
 LONDON 
 
 PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER 
 
 76 LONG ACRE, W.C
 
 VA 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Introduction 7 
 
 I The Cabinet and the Navy ... 15 
 
 [ II A General Staff 31 
 
 III The Board of Admiralty ... 43 
 
 IV Lord Hartington's Comhissicn . . 67 
 
 V Persons and Principles .... 75 
 
 VI Naval Discipline and Administration ; 
 
 Cooperation with the Army . . 95 
 
 V^II The Navy, the Army and the National 
 
 Policy -110 
 
 All the Chapters, except the Introduction, have appeared 
 as Papers on " National Defence " in the Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 4 

 
 INTKODUCTION 
 
 Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
 
 And we shall shock them ; naught shall make us rue , 
 
 If England to itself do rest but true. 
 
 This volume, like its predecessor, entitled 
 " The Command of the Sea," is the out- 
 come of a burning desire that the England 
 which we love, the nation which for three 
 hundred years has been the world's exemplar, 
 may be prepared to meet threatening dangers. 
 There are many who do not see or who 
 ignore these dangers ; who fancy that wc 
 can go on indefinitely making concessions, 
 in matters where we believe the right to be 
 on our side, to France, to Russia, and to
 
 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Germany, and yet retain our trade, preserve 
 our Empire, and remain the men we were. 
 A false political doctrine has given a sickly 
 cast even to the word hmnanity. To my 
 mind humanity is a very different thing from 
 sentimentality. The mawkish introspection 
 and theoretical benevolence of Rousseau led 
 a people saturated with his feelings into the 
 cruelties and the despotism of the Jacobins. 
 The plain manliness of another school pro- 
 duced Nelson's signal at Trafalgar, and the 
 practical response given by the officers and 
 men of his fleet. To my thinking Nelson is 
 a finer man than Rousseau, and represents a 
 higher type of humanity, and England would 
 do more good to the world to-day by uphold- 
 ing what she knows to be right, even if she 
 had to fight for it, than by giving away her 
 self-respect and smothering her spirit for the 
 sake of i)eace. Sooner or later the reaction 
 will come. We shall have a Ministry forced
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 — against its will if it resembles any Ministry 
 we have had for tlio last ten years — to say 
 No to a foreign Power. Then will be laid 
 bare the issue, to which hitherto our leaders 
 have been blind : Which nation is to lead the 
 world ? For two centuries, at least, this pri- 
 macy among the nations has been England's, 
 and it has rested upon her navy. For 
 ninety years it has been unchallenged, and 
 we have had the benefit of it, though we 
 may truly and proudly say that so long as 
 the British flag has floated supreme over the 
 ocean all nations have been free of its waters 
 and its shores. Our position is now assailed. 
 Hitherto the method has been diplomatic. 
 The experiment is tried of meddling in 
 regions where our interests are paramount, 
 but w^hich we have not formally annexed. 
 In this way our temper is gauged. If we 
 showed plainly that we were not to be trifled 
 w^ith we should receive an apology and
 
 lU INTRODUCTION 
 
 reparation. But we have let it be clearly 
 seen that we are afraid. A war would be 
 a calamity, say our statesmen. Do they 
 imagine that the other Power is eager to 
 bring upon itself the calamity of defeat ? 
 The fact is, our statesmen know that the 
 navy and the army are not ready for a life- 
 and-death struggle ; they half perceive that 
 every nation in Europe has organized itself 
 so as to be able to throw into a light the 
 whole of its manhood, and the whole of its 
 wealth. From a conflict demanding such 
 sacrifices they shrink in alarm. Accord- 
 ingly they speak with reserve about our 
 foreign relations ; they make little of the 
 opposition which they experience from other 
 Powers ; they represent as trifles the conces- 
 sions which are extorted from them, conceal- 
 ing as well as they can from their countrymen 
 the fact that they have yielded, and the impor- 
 tance of the interests or the rights they have
 
 INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 abandoned. The leaders, of both parties, 
 make speeches to their followers, from which 
 it might be inferred that England has only 
 one enemy, the party to which the speaker 
 does not belong, and only one help, the party 
 which he represents. Yet neither the 
 speakers nor their hearers quite believe this. 
 The truth is, that there is a theatrical 
 element about party meetings ; the speakers 
 are partly actors, and they are tempted to 
 play to the gallery. But the judicious are 
 not deceived. Mr. Balfour and Mr. Morley 
 respect each other as patriots and as gentle- 
 men ; but it is part of the game that they 
 should abuse one another's views. We all, in 
 our hearts, are in favour of any man who 
 will uplift England, and we care little to 
 which party he belongs. When we enter 
 Westminster Abbey we leave faction behind. 
 We read on Chatham's monument how 
 during his administration " Divine provi-
 
 12 INTEODUCTION 
 
 dence exalted Great Britain," and we forget 
 which party he led. The pnhlic, which half 
 sees through the party comedy, is wiser than 
 either side. Thus the efforts made of late 
 years to strengthen the navy have come, not 
 from party, but from the nation ; the parties 
 have but followed the national instinct. 
 Yet to administer at the bidding of popular 
 agitation is bad administration, and it is in 
 every way desirable that governments should 
 not follow but lead in regard to their 
 executive action. 
 
 The question of the day, which every one 
 sees to be above the region of party, is how 
 the navy is to be made ready for use. In the 
 following pages I have endeavoured to con- 
 tribute towards the answer to this question. 
 I have made a definite but not by any means 
 an exhaustive proposal ; that is, I have tried 
 to explain the nature of a reform which I 
 believe to be necessary, whether other
 
 INTEODUCTION 13 
 
 changes are required or not. Avoiding all 
 technical matters, I have considered merely 
 the nature of the arrangements without 
 which the good management of a war and 
 suitable preparation for war during peace are 
 alike impossible. There must be, if I may 
 use the phrase, a " forethought department," 
 and from it the guidance must come. To 
 repeat a well-worn metaphor, there must be 
 a Brain of the Navy, and it must not be kept 
 in a secondary of&ce, to be consulted or not 
 at the caprice of some other authority, but 
 must itself be the directing power. I believe 
 the reform at the Admiralty, required to 
 create this office and to put it into its right 
 place in the system, is not so sweeping as 
 might appear at first sight, and that little or 
 no destruction is needed.* But there form is 
 
 * The system -which I describe as existing is that 
 set forth in the appendices to the report of Lord 
 Hartington's Commission. I suspect, without having
 
 14 INTEODUCTION 
 
 none the less urgent because it is compara- 
 tively simple. No act of Parliament is 
 required. The First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 with the consent of his colleagues in the 
 Cabinet, could introduce the principal neces- 
 sary changes between breakfast and dinner 
 time. For this reason, in the absence of 
 action on his part, I think the right mode of 
 proceeding is by a resolution in Parliament, 
 and I have begun my exposition with an 
 indication of the general nature of its terms. 
 
 the raeans of knowing, that since that report was 
 published slight modifications in the direction which I 
 advocate have been introduced.
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 
 
 By the resolution wliicli I contemplate 
 the House of Commons would ask for the 
 name of the officer upon whose judgment 
 the Government relies for the guidance of 
 the navy in war, and for his opinion upon 
 the preparations for which the Navy Esti- 
 mates make provision, to be submitted to 
 it at the same time as the estimates, this 
 opinion, in case its publication is not thought 
 prudent, to be communicated to a Select 
 Committee of the House, pledged to secrecy, 
 and empowered to examine the officer and 
 to call for all papers relevant to the matter. 
 The exact wordino- will best be settled by
 
 16 THE BRAm OF THE NAVY 
 
 those Members of Parliament who are in- 
 terested. The object is to secm*e that the 
 navy estimates — and the army estimates too, 
 for a similar resolution is needed in regard 
 to the army — shall be framed with a view 
 to the next war, and not merely in pious 
 memory of Nelson and Wellington. . 
 
 I foresee certain objections which will be 
 raised against these proposals, and I will 
 try to meet them by explaining how the 
 resolution if carried would work. 
 
 The Cabinet System. 
 
 First of all we shall be told that we are 
 going to lay hands upon the ark of the 
 covenant — the Cabinet system. Perhaps it 
 would be wise to modify even the Cabinet 
 system in order to make the nation and the 
 Empire safe, and Mr. Balfour actuahy pro- 
 poses sucn a modiiicauon. Buo lu wouia
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY IT 
 
 be rash to disturb the existing system of 
 government, at any rate until everything 
 else has been tried. Let us see exactly 
 what the Cabinet system is. The most 
 authoritative accounts are contained in an 
 essay publisbed many years ago by Mr. 
 Gladstone, and in the seventh chapter of 
 lh\ Morley's " Walpole." These are judicial 
 statements of the theory and practice as it 
 is, and having been accepted without quali- 
 fication may be taken as absolutely safe 
 guides. 
 
 The Cabinet is a committee of politicians, 
 all belonging to one party, chosen by the 
 Prime Minister, and assigned by him to 
 their respective offices. In that committee 
 is vested the whole executive power. The 
 Cabinet is a despot, and can do as it pleases, 
 subject to one check — it can be deposed by 
 a vote of the House of Commons. So long 
 as it satisfies the majority of the House of
 
 18 THE BRAIN OP THE NAVY 
 
 Commons the Cabinet is supreme. When 
 we say the Cabinet is responsible we mean 
 that a vote in the House of Commons can 
 upset it, and we mean nothing else. There 
 is no other responsibility. No individual 
 Minister is responsible for anything, because 
 the v/hole Cabinet stands or falls together. 
 " The first mark of the Cabinet," says Mr. 
 Morley, "is united and indivisible responsi- 
 bihty." The First Lord of the Admiralty 
 and the Secretary of State for War repre- 
 sent towards the navy and the army the 
 authority of the Cabinet, because they are 
 the fingers with which the Cabinet plays on 
 these two particular keys of the adminis- 
 trative piano. But the House of Commons 
 cannot bring either of them to book. If it 
 censures either of them, out goes tlie 
 whole Cabinet. Thus the Ministers who are 
 nominally responsible for the navy and the 
 army are, in fact, not responsible at all,
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 19 
 
 except to their consciences and their col- 
 leagues in the Cabinet. 
 
 This is the system, which secures perfectly 
 the object for which it was devised, the abso- 
 lute power of the Cabinet, so long as it is not 
 turned out. The essence of government is a 
 single strong authority, and the object of 
 representative government is to put that 
 authority into the hands of a body which has 
 the confidence of the majority. Below the 
 Cabinet there are in each office a number 
 of specialists, men whose whole life is given 
 to the business of that office, and who 
 know the subject with which they have to 
 deal. The Cabinet, of which all the members 
 are amateurs, can over-rule the judgment of 
 any of these professionals. That is quite 
 right. The Cabinet has to answer to the 
 House of Commons for what it decides, 
 and therefore it must decide according to 
 
 the judgment of its own members. But on 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 all professional matters it needs professional 
 advice, to be taken or left as its members 
 think best, but to be heard. 
 
 At present, however, it cannot possibly 
 get professional advice about the next war, 
 or, if yon prefer the phrase, about plans of 
 campaign. ^Vliat is the essence of pro- 
 fessional advice ? That the man who gives 
 it devotes his life to the subject on which 
 he advises. A physician's opinion on disease, 
 a surgeon's on an injury, a conveyancer's on 
 title, or a criminal lawyer's on a defence — 
 these are professional opinions. But a 
 physician will not give you a professional 
 opinion on a surgical case, nor a criminal 
 lawyer upon title ; he will not take your fee 
 for it, but will tell you it is not his branch, 
 and he does not do amateur work. 
 
 Now there is not at the War Office or at 
 the Admiralty any man in authority whose 
 duty it is to study the next war and make
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 21 
 
 plans of campaign. There are admirals at 
 the one and generals at the other, and they 
 arc all busy men, eacli with his work cut 
 out for him. They haven't time if they 
 wanted to study the next war, and their 
 opinion, if they gave it, would bo guarded. 
 They would have some idea on the subject. 
 But if you asked one of them to write down 
 on paper his views of the next war and to 
 put his name to it and stake his reputation 
 upon it he w^ould ask for time to study the 
 subject. My proposal is simply to make at 
 the Admiralty and at the War Office a depart- 
 ment for plans of campaign, with an officer 
 at the head of it charged with plans 
 of campaign, and with nothing else that 
 would interfere with his preparing them. 
 He would, of course, annex to his depart- 
 ment the existing intelligence branch which 
 collects the materials out of wdiich such 
 plans are made. This will not interfere v^ilh
 
 22 THE BEAIN OF TEE IfAVT 
 
 the Cabinet. It will give them the Yery in- 
 foimatioii they want in discussing the esti- 
 mates. They will reject any suggestions thai 
 do not seem sensible and accept all those 
 that accord with common sense. There is 
 nothing in this to conceal from the House of 
 Commons. If the estimates are large the 
 Cabinet will be glad to be able to call upon 
 its adviser to show why they must be so 
 large ; if they are small they will be equally 
 glad to have a first-rate opinion to show that 
 the nation will stiU be safe. The House of 
 Commons, it must be remembered, always 
 has a majority in favour of the Cabiaet. 
 
 Compare this proposal with one that was 
 made by Air. Balfour. He suggested that 
 the estimates should be considered by a 
 committee of the Cabiuet, of which the 
 Prime IVIinister should be chairman. That 
 would very greatly modify the Cabiuet 
 system; for, while it would increase th
 
 THE CABINET AXD THE NAVY 23 
 
 authority of the Prime Minister (who wonld 
 have a committee of his own maJdiig, for he 
 always, in the formation of the Cabinet, selects 
 his coUeagiies and assigns to them their 
 offices), it would undermine the collective 
 responsibility of the Cabinet ; for in the long 
 rim the members not on the committee could 
 not share the responsibihty for measures 
 over which they had no share of the control. 
 It is a tempting scheme to a leader like ilr. 
 Baliom-, who may fairly expect to be Prime 
 Minister : but how in the world does it briner 
 the Cabinet face to face with the conditions 
 of the next war ? The proposal shows that 
 Mr. Balfour, in his thoughts of naval and 
 military refoiTU, has, hte all the other 
 pohticians upon both front benches, an eye 
 to everything that can be considered, save 
 and except war. But the one thing to be 
 principally considered is war.
 
 24 THE BEAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 A Professional x\dviser. 
 
 WheneYer there is a war the Cabinet will 
 have to manage it. You cannot alter that, 
 do what you will, and it would be a mis- 
 fortune if you could. The most dreadful 
 perversion of government is that which 
 places the supreme power in the State in the 
 hands of a military authority. It becomes 
 necessary when the civil supreme power 
 breaks down by inability to conduct a war ; 
 for the nation has to be defended, and rather 
 than submit to conquest it must submit to 
 a military despotism. Every lover of good 
 government must therefore wish to see the 
 Cabinet put into a position to conduct a war 
 properly. Now there is only one known way 
 in which this can be done. 
 
 You must give the Cabinet a professional 
 adviser on the subject of war. As regards 
 war, the Cabinet is a committee, not of
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 25 
 
 amateurs, but of mere outsiders. An amateur 
 is a man who studies something, not for his 
 Hving, but for his pleasure. He may be 
 very ^ycll up in his subject. But there is 
 not in the Cabinet a single man who could 
 stake his reputation on commanding an iron- 
 clad or a brigade in a battle, or whose name 
 would secure consideration among competent 
 judges for his opinion on a point of strategy. 
 The Cabinet has something higher and 
 harder to do than the strategist. It has 
 to take upon itself the immeasurable respon- 
 sibility (immeasurable in a moral sense, 
 though in practice strictly limited to the 
 chance of being turned out) for the great 
 decisions in peace and war upon which the 
 nation's fate depends. It is the real and 
 only commander-in-chief of the army and 
 the navy. And it is impossible for the 
 Cabinet to escape from this position. It 
 cannot delegate its responsibility to any one.
 
 28 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 Your committee may resign, but you will 
 have to find another to take up its authority 
 and its responsibihty. Now what does a 
 commander-in-chief do, if he is a wise man, 
 when he knows that he is not himself a great 
 general, even though he may be, what the 
 Cabinet never is, a very good amateur ? 
 Let us hear upon this point what the com- 
 petent man has to say. Here is what Moltke 
 wrote on the subject in 1859 : — • 
 
 There are generals who need no counsel, who delib- 
 erate and resolve in their ovv^n minds, those about 
 them having only to carry out their intentions. But 
 such generals are stars of the first magnitude who 
 scarcely appear once in a century. In the great 
 majority of cases the director of an army will not be 
 willing to dispense with advice. The suggestions 
 made may very well be the result of the deliberations 
 of a smaller or greater^ number of men specially 
 qualified by training and experience to form a correct 
 judgment. But even among them only one opinion 
 ought to assert itself. The organization of the mili- 
 tary hierarchy should promote subordination even in 
 thought. This one opinion only should be submitted
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 27 
 
 for the consideration of the commaudor-iu-elnef by the 
 one person to whom this particniLar service is assigned. 
 Him let the general choose, not according to rank or 
 seniority, but in accordance with his own personal 
 confidence. Though the advice given may not always 
 be unconditionally the best, yet, if the action taken be 
 consistent and the leading idea once adopted be stead- 
 fastly followed, the affair may alw^ays be brought to a 
 satisfactory issue. The commander-in-chief retains as 
 against his adviser the infinitely weightier merit of 
 taking upon himself the responsibility for all that is 
 done. But surround a commander with a number of 
 independent men — the more numerous, the more dis- 
 tinguished, the abler they are, and the worse it will 
 \)Q — let him hear the advice now of one, now of 
 another ; let him carry out up to a certain point a 
 measure judicious in itself, then adopt a still more 
 judicious but different jilan, and then be convinced by 
 the thoroughly sound objections of a third adviser and 
 the remedial suggestions of a fourth — it is a hundred 
 to one that, though for each of his measures excellent 
 reasons can be given, he will lose the campaign. 
 
 This is the best exposition ever written of 
 the right way for an authority not in itself 
 possessed of tlie specific insight required for 
 the management of war. Now for the
 
 28 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 practice. King William I. of Prussia was 
 such an authority. He knew more about 
 war than any Cabinet, for he was, if not a 
 professional, at least a first-class amateur. 
 But he chose the best adviser he could find 
 and invariably backed him, even against his 
 own judgment. Here again we must take 
 Moltke's account. It is contained in a con- 
 versation reported by Count Bethusy-Huc 
 (Moltke, Gesammelte Schriften, V. 298-9), 
 which I had better translate : — 
 
 At that time (about 1885) a legend was in circula- 
 tion, not only in society talk, but in be press, which, 
 though apparently to the Field-Marshal's credit, was 
 really distasteful to him. The story was that on the 
 evening of the battle of Gravelotte King William 
 asked his Chief of the Staff what was to be done if 
 the enemy still held his position next morning. Moltke 
 was said to have answered, " Attack him again, your 
 Majesty," and when the King replied that after the 
 heavy losses he could not bring himself to agree to 
 that, Moltke was said to have added, " In that case I 
 should beg leave to resign." I was rightly in doubt.
 
 THE CABINET AND THE NAVY 29 
 
 says Count Bethusy-Huc, about tiie genuineuess of this 
 legend, and when in confidence I asked the Field- 
 Marshal about it he declared it from beginning to end 
 an invention, without the slightest justification in auy- 
 tliiug that took place on that evening. He added : 
 •'I should never have left my King in the lurch like 
 that, least of all during war, in face of the enemy. 
 It would be contrary both to discipline and to military 
 honour. But such legends might have arisen, by mis- 
 imderstanding, from something that did happen more 
 than once in both wars. The King, who, as you know, 
 thoroughly studied all my plans before they were 
 carried out, had. a very sharp eye, far keener than 
 either the public or the army knew, for any weak 
 points in them, and sometimes insisted very strongly 
 that they should be modified to meet his objections, 
 which in themselves were justified. That was not 
 always possible, at least, not for me. There are in 
 war many situations in which it is quite impossible to 
 make a plan without a weak point, and in which you 
 must necessarily rely to some extent upon good luck 
 and the bravery of your troops. On such occasions, 
 when the King could not be induced to let fall his 
 theoretical objections, I more than once had to say, 
 ' Then your Majesty must be so gracious as to give 
 your own orders. My wisdom is at an end; I can 
 suggest no other course.' This declaration invai'iably 
 led to the approval of my plan."
 
 30 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 These quotations will speak for themselves. 
 What we have to do is to provide the 
 Cabinet, or make it provide itself, with a 
 naval Moltke.
 
 II 
 
 A GENEEAL STAFF 
 
 What we have to do is to provide the 
 Cabinet, or to make it provide itself, with a 
 naval Moltkc. In order to see precisely 
 what this means we must find out the exact 
 nature of Moltkc 's work. An army has to 
 be recruited, clothed, fed, armed, paid, 
 and kept in order. To do all this is a 
 great business, as difficult and as compli- 
 cated as the management of the North- 
 western Railway. In war the movements 
 against the enemy need to be directed by 
 some one who understands the art of 
 winning victories ; but all the time the
 
 32 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 whole mass of men must be kept supplied 
 with clothes, boots, food, arms, ammmiitiou, 
 and money. 
 
 The two functions of directing the move- 
 ments so as to secin-e victories, and of 
 managing the great business concern have 
 little in common. A man may be good at 
 the one without being equally good at the 
 other ; and to perform either task is quite 
 enough for one man. The Prussian system 
 is based on this distinction. They long ago 
 made a special department in the army for 
 directing movements against an enemy, and 
 this department has its branches all through 
 the army. A general commanding an army 
 corps, for example, has to superintend the 
 management of his corps in business 
 matters, as well as to direct its movements 
 in the field. He must to some extent work 
 in both departments. But his assistants are 
 distinctly classified ; he has one office for
 
 A GENERAL STAFF 33 
 
 business pure and simple ; another for 
 military routine ; and a special office called 
 his ''general staff," for movements against 
 the enemy, or, as it might be described, for 
 tactics and strategy. 
 
 At the headquarters of the Prussian army 
 there are two great departments, one for 
 business and military routine, presided over 
 by a general, called the "Minister of War," 
 and another for tactics and strategy, the 
 management of battles and campaigns, 
 called the Great General Staff. Moltke was 
 at the head of this latter office. His prin- 
 cipal work was during peace always to study 
 the next war and be ready with his arrange- 
 ments for directing the armies, and during 
 war to carry out these arrangements. A 
 second task which he never neglected was 
 the training and testing of the members of 
 his department. He was the teacher of 
 generalship for the army, and, while the
 
 34 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 annual manoeuvres were the practical ex- 
 aminations for the generals commanding 
 divisions and army corps, the Great 
 General Staff at Berlin was a sort of 
 imiversity where Moltke taught the ele- 
 ments of generalship and more than the 
 elements to a class of picked young officers. 
 
 We must be very careful not to be misled 
 by Moltke's official title, ''Chief of the 
 General Staff of the Army." It looks at 
 first sight as though he were merely the 
 assistant of a higher general, just as the 
 chief of the staff of an army corps is the 
 assistant or private secretary for strategy 
 and tactics, or marches and battles, of the 
 general commanding the army corps. But 
 Moltke was the head of the battles and 
 campaigns department ; he was the head 
 general, with no one above him but the 
 King, and the King, as I showed in my last 
 article, invariably backed him up. There 
 
 I
 
 A GENERAL STAFF 35 
 
 was no one between Moltke and the King, 
 who in both his great wars always approved 
 of the orders which Moltke gave for the 
 movement and action of the armies, and, 
 so far as we know, never even consulted 
 any one else on the subject. 
 
 What we want for the defence of Great 
 Britain is in each of the two services, the 
 navy and the army, a department for cam- 
 paigns and battles, for preparing, as Moltke 
 prepared, for the next war, for directing it 
 when it comes, and all the time for training 
 and testing admirals or generals. As the 
 heads of these two departments we want the 
 best naval strategist and the best military 
 strategist in the service; and we want no 
 one whatever to stand between either of 
 these men and the Cabinet. Of course, 
 when I say the Cabinet, I mean for this 
 purpose the First Lord of the Admiralty and 
 the Secretary of State for War. Each of
 
 36 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 these Ministers is the Cabinet to the service 
 over which he presides; when he says 
 "yea" and "nay" it is the Cabinet that 
 speaks through him. If you have a first-rate 
 strategist, with an office of picked and 
 trained officers as assistants, to work out 
 the arrangements for a possible war, it 
 would evidently be absurd to put another 
 man as a buffer or a telephone between him 
 and the Cabinet which needs his advice. 
 
 The Expekts Agreed. 
 
 As far as I know, all the experts are 
 unanimous in holding that w^e must have 
 for each service an officer entrusted with the 
 functions I have described. There are 
 differences of opinion between experts as to 
 what else the officer should do. But there 
 is entire agreement that there must be a 
 strategical adviser, a battles and campaigns
 
 A GENERAL STAFF 37 
 
 adviser, or a next war adviser for the 
 Cabinet, and that his duty must be to advise 
 the Cabinet, not to advise somebody else to 
 advise the Cabinet. The disputed points are 
 all really of minor importance. They turn 
 on how certain other duties should be per- 
 formed. There is, for example, what I have 
 called the business management of the army 
 — that is, its maintenance and supplying 
 with necessaries. The prevalent opinion, I 
 think I may say the better opinion, would 
 assign this not to the strategical adviser but 
 to a general selected as a military adminis- 
 trator. Then there is the promotion and 
 appointment of officers. Various views are 
 taken of the best way of performing these 
 delicate but important tasks. We need not 
 go into these differences. You cannot pull 
 to pieces and put together again all of a 
 sudden great offices like the War Office and 
 the Admiralty. But we can say, here is a
 
 38 THE BEATN OF THE NAVY 
 
 plain and palpable gap. There is no great 
 head of a strategical department to advise 
 the Cabinet, and nnder its authority to direct 
 in war the movements of fleets or armies. 
 We can reasonably urge the appointment of 
 such advisers, and let the other questions be 
 settled later; they will be better settled 
 when the strategists are there to be heard 
 on the subject of the requirements of war. 
 
 An Adviser at Work. 
 
 Suppose now we go back to Moltke and 
 look a little at how he worked. In 1862 
 Moltke had been five years in his post. 
 There was a quarrel brewing with Denmark, 
 which early in 1864 became a war. Towards 
 the close of 1862 Moltke received a note 
 from his colleague, Eoon (the military 
 business man or administrator), asking 
 whether he had considered the case of a
 
 A GENERAL STAFF 39 
 
 war with Denmark. Certainly, replies 
 Moltkc, that eventuality has been kept in 
 view in this office ; and then he explains the 
 war in a remarkable letter, which is too long 
 to reproduce in full, but of which the gist 
 may be given : — 
 
 As Prussia has not the sea power which would 
 enable us to go to Copenhagen and dictate a peace 
 there, the war will not be easy to end. The best way 
 is to begin by bagging the Danish army ; you mustn't 
 beat it and let it run away, but induce it to stop and 
 be captured. Failing that you will have to occupy 
 the whole Danish mainland — best done when the 
 waters are frozen. Here is the exact account of the 
 Danish army. In order to deal with it you will re- 
 quire 62,000 men, 192 field guns, and two or three 
 dozen siege guns. Enclosed is the programme for the 
 first act. 
 
 Here, then, we see the administrator told 
 by the strategist more than a year in 
 advance exactly what his administration 
 will have to expect. It is well known that
 
 40 THE BRAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 the memorandum upon which the opening 
 moves of the Germans in the war of 1870 
 were based had been drawn up by Moltke 
 two years beforehand, and that it was an 
 estimate of the French army, wiiich proved 
 remarkably accurate, and an analysis of the 
 various moves open to the French com- 
 mander, followed by the outline of the best 
 positions in which the German armies could 
 be put at the start in order to deal with any 
 of the possible French moves. We do not 
 yet know fully the previous history of the 
 war of 1866, but the way in which Moltke 
 played his game on that occasion proved 
 that he had analyzed it more perfectly be- 
 fore it began than most of the critics have 
 been able to do until this day. He had to 
 fight Austria and nearly all the States of 
 Germany, and he had calculated to a nicety 
 what troops each of them would put into 
 the field ; and told off his own forces so as
 
 A GENEEAL STAFF 41 
 
 to be ready to hit hardest the biggest of his 
 foes. Ill three weeks from the declaration 
 of war the hostile armies were all either 
 running away or captured. 
 
 These accurate estimates of the enemies' 
 forces w^ere rendered possible by the working 
 of a thoroughly organized intelligence de- 
 partment. The wise forecasts of what the 
 enemies would do with their forces and the 
 judicious moves which Moltke arranged 
 against them were all his own. They were 
 possible to him because he had worked all 
 his life at strategy and tactics ; he had been 
 a quarter of a centmy in the department 
 before he became its head, and he w^as 
 chosen for that post not for seniority (he was 
 a junior major-general at the time), but 
 because his great ability as a strategist was 
 recognized by those who had the choice. In 
 each of the English services we have an 
 intelligence branch, but there is no strategy
 
 42 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 department to make use of the data thus 
 suppHed, no head strategist to train younger 
 ones in his department., and no set of 
 officers of five-and-twenty years' record in 
 such a department to pick from. We 
 cannot, in these circumstances, expect to 
 get such a brilhant speciahst as Moltke; 
 but if we can induce the Cabinet to select 
 the best strategist it can find, and to give 
 him his work, he will begin to specialize 
 himself and to train others ; and then in a 
 few years we shall have at least the begin- 
 nings of a school of generals and a school 
 of admirals. When the first pair of 
 strategical advisers have finished their 
 careers there will be a number of men 
 among those who have worked under them 
 better prepared than they were to take up 
 the work.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 
 
 The Board of Admiralty is a legal fiction. 
 When there is a change of Government half 
 a dozen gentlemen are appointed mider the 
 Queen's patent to be " Commissioners for 
 Executing the Office of High Admiral." 
 Four of them are naval officers, and of the 
 other two, who are civilians, one is a member 
 of the Cabinet, and the other a gentleman 
 chosen for his mechanical and engineering 
 knowledge and experience. These six 
 gentlemen are the Lords of the Admiralty, 
 and, as they meet together once a week, may
 
 44 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 perhaps be said to form a board. But the 
 Board does not administer the navy. The 
 navy is managed under Orders in Comicil, 
 v^hich vest the whole authority in the 
 Cabinet Minister called the First Lord. The 
 Board decides nothing ; no vote is ever taken 
 at its meetings; the First Lord decides 
 everything. The other lords are his subor- 
 dinates, and the business of the na^7 is 
 divided between them, nominally at the dis- 
 cretion of the First Lord, but really accord- 
 ing to a traditional distribution. The first, 
 second, and fourth sea lords are supposed 
 between them to have charge oHhe personnel , 
 and the third sea lord (called the Controller) 
 of the materiel of the navy ; but beyond this 
 rough rule the distribution of business 
 appears to be based upon no system. Appoint- 
 ments of admirals and captains are made by 
 the civilian First Lord ; those of commanders 
 by the first sea lord ; those of lieutenants
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 45 
 
 and midshipmen by the second sea lord, and 
 those of medical officers, paymasters, and 
 clerks by the fom'th sea lord. This is a 
 sample of the system. Each lord has under 
 his charge some dozen items selected almost 
 at random, the important matters going to 
 the senior and those less attractive to the 
 juniors. In short, there is not, except as 
 regards the rough distinction between 
 personnel and materiel, any departmental 
 organization, any principle of classification 
 of authority and responsibility according to 
 subjects. Indeed, it would seem that each 
 sea lord, according to his rank, has a share 
 in each subject. Moreover, opinions are 
 divided upon the duties inherent in the posi- 
 tion of a naval lord, some holding that each 
 naval lord has a duty to say whether he 
 thinks the navy strong enough, while others 
 declare that a naval lord has no such duty. 
 Some of the admirals cling to the name of
 
 46 THE BEMN OF THE NAYY 
 
 the Board, and maintain that all the lords, 
 being commissioners, are " co-equal," but 
 the practice of many years hardly bears out 
 this view. 
 
 The fact is that since the Lord High 
 Admiral was cut up into several lords the 
 authority of the Cabinet has been consoli- 
 dated, and the navy is now as absolutely 
 governed by a Cabinet Minister as the Post 
 Office or the Treasury. But while for sixty 
 years the First Lord has been mainly 
 occupied in acquiring this absolute power, 
 and in merging in his "Board" the minor 
 boards which once attended to the materiel of 
 the navy, the sea lords have clung to the 
 tradition that they are fragments of a High 
 Admiral and have shrunk from becoming 
 heads of departments.
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 47 
 
 Development not Revolution. 
 
 No one but a dreamer will think of wishing 
 to go back upon the development of genera- 
 tions. The Cabinet is now the corner-stone 
 of oin- system of government, and therefore 
 we must accept as the starting-point of any 
 method of naval administration the omnipo- 
 tent Cabinet Minister. The board of equals 
 is dead and should be buried, and a depart- 
 mental organization is inevitable. The only 
 question really open to discussion concerns 
 the principles upon which the work is to 
 be divided. To elaborate the division in 
 detail must be the work of experts. The 
 public can only insist that a rational intelli- 
 gible principle of classification shall be 
 adopted. 
 
 My object has been to set forth such a 
 principle, to dwell upon the distinction
 
 48 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 between the function of a commander or 
 director of movements in war and all the 
 various functions of supply. Without going 
 into the details of other possible departments, 
 it is easy to see that the chief department of 
 any fighting organization must be that which 
 designs and directs the fight. I therefore 
 suggest that the duties of military design 
 and direction, with all that properly belongs 
 to them, ought to be grouped into one depart- 
 ment, at the head of which should be placed 
 an admiral selected for his strategical power ; 
 that is, for his capacity as a war commander 
 and director for the whole navy. This 
 admiral would be responsible in peace and 
 war for the composition and distribution 
 of fleets, for the military orders given to 
 their commanders, and for the selection of 
 strategical points for naval bases and coaling 
 stations. These are the constituent parts of 
 any plan of campaign, and the admiral-
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 49 
 
 commander would therefore keep under his 
 own supervision the office that watches the 
 navies of foreign Powers and studies the 
 progress of the art of naval war — the existing 
 Intelligence Branch, strengthened and en- 
 larged. 
 
 It seems to me reasonable for the public 
 to insist upon a rational distribution of the 
 business done at the Admiralty, and to 
 demand that in this distribution the purpose 
 of the w^iole organization, victory in war, 
 shall be kept in view. This will be secured 
 if a department for the military direction of 
 the navy be constituted and its formation 
 made the starting-point of the new develop- 
 ment of the Admiralty. The creation of one 
 department implies the creation of another 
 or of others, for you can hardly begin 
 sorting the business upon a sound principle 
 without carrying the process through. But 
 we need not follow out the arrangement,
 
 60 THE BKAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 nor attempt to prescribe for the other 
 departments, because the principle here 
 adopted carries with it a rational view of 
 the whole work. If we dwell on the one 
 essential we may succeed in carrying it, 
 but if we go into minor details we shall 
 only be liable to lose sight of the main 
 point. 
 
 A Strong Case for Eeform. 
 
 Before going further it may be well to 
 show that my proposal has behind it the 
 greatest possible weight of authority. In 
 1888 a Eoyal Commission was appointed to 
 inquire into the civil and professional adminis- 
 tration of the navy and the army, and their 
 relation to each other and to the Treasury. 
 This body, knovm as the Hartington Com- 
 mission, reported in 1889 upon the adminis- 
 tration of the navy, and recommended —
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 51 
 
 1. That the supreme authority of the First Lord 
 (the Cabiuet Minister) slioukl be accepted as the basis 
 of the whole system. 
 
 2. That the First Sea Lord should be the consti- 
 tuted adviser of the Cabinet in " all great questions of 
 naval policy." 
 
 3. A departmental grouj)ing of the business. 
 
 4. That the heads of departments should, from time 
 to time, meet for consultation under the presidency of 
 the Cabinet Minister. 
 
 I have given these suggestions in my own 
 words because in the report phrases are used 
 which involve controversial points of consti- 
 tutional law, to which I shall revert later, 
 but with which I do not wish now to cinnber 
 my exposition. The only ambiguity of 
 immediate importance is contained in the 
 words " all great questions of naval policy." 
 But in the body of the report these questions 
 arc defined and set forth. They are : 
 " Such questions as the distribution of the 
 fleet in time of peace or war; the relative 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE BEAIN OF THE NAT^ 
 
 strength of our own and foreign navies ; the 
 duties required of the navy in the defence of 
 our conunerce and possessions ; the number, 
 class and type of ships of war to be main- 
 tained or provided ; the regulation with the 
 War Department of all questions in which 
 joint action or a definite understanding is 
 required." The report from which I am 
 quoting was signed by the Duke of Devon- 
 shire (then Lord Hartington), Lord Randolph 
 Churchill, Lord Revelstohe, the late Mr. W. 
 II. Smith, Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, Sir 
 Richard Temple, Admiral Sir Frederick 
 Richards, General Brackenbury, and Mr. 
 Ismay. With the passage I have quoted 
 they all agreed, for though several of them 
 dissented from points in the report, their 
 differences did not touch this point. Sir 
 Richard Temple objected to a particular use 
 of the term chief of the staff; Sir Frederick 
 Richards, who clung to the old theory of
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 53 
 
 coequal lords at the Board, held that every 
 sea lord should be required as a duty to 
 record his opinion as to what the strength of 
 the fleet should be. General Brackenbury 
 and Mr. Ismay dissented in matters not con- 
 nected with my present subject; and Lord 
 Randolph Churchill had a complete scheme 
 of his own, which he would have preferred 
 to that of the majority of the Commission. 
 Thus, then, I am entitled to quote the 
 Hartington Commission in support of the 
 redistribution of business upon departmental 
 lines, and of the constitution of the First 
 Sea Lord's office into that of a strategy 
 department or war-directing department, or 
 department for advising the Cabinet in 
 regard to the conduct of war when it 
 comes, and the preparations for it during 
 peace. 
 
 It should be noted that a departmental 
 organization is inconsistent with the practice
 
 64 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 of changing the Lords of the AdmirpJty at 
 every change of Government, and the 
 Hartington Commission recommended " that 
 the naval lords should be appointed for a 
 definite period." There is, I believe, almost 
 entire mianimity among all who have 
 thought about naval administration upon 
 this point. 
 
 If, as the official reports declare, the dis- 
 tribution of business rests with the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, and if there is really 
 no dou1)t among the experts that such a 
 redistribution as I have described is the 
 fundamental reform required, the question 
 arises. Why has this reform not been already 
 carried out ? The report of Lord Hartington's 
 Commission was issued early in 1890. Lord 
 George Hamilton and Lord Spencer are pre- 
 sumably both familiar wdth it. But, so far 
 as we know, it remains a dead letter. This 
 fact alone is full and complete justification of
 
 THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY 55 
 
 the suggestion which I ventured to make for 
 an organization of voters and of the Navy 
 League which has since been formed. 
 
 The reason why successive First Lords 
 have slirunk from performing their most 
 obvious and urgent duty is probably to be 
 found in the dual nature of the report of the 
 Hartington Commission. That body dis- 
 cussed not only the navy Init the army, and 
 its proposals for the army, in themselves not 
 based upon sound principles, were opposed, 
 not only by many of those who have the 
 efficiency of the army at heart, but also by 
 the powerful interests which resist any reform 
 whatever in the army. To escape collision 
 with this obstructive force and to avoid being 
 committed to the very dubious theories of 
 the Hartington Commission in regard to 
 army management it is desirable that those 
 who are determined to secure the safety of 
 the Empire should concentrate their atten-
 
 66 THE BRAIN OP THE NAVY 
 
 tion upon the management of the navy until 
 such time as they shall have attained their 
 object, the maintenance of our naval forces 
 according to a rational design founded upon 
 a consideration of the duties it must perform 
 in war.
 
 IV 
 
 LOED HAETINGTON'S COMMISSION 
 
 I HAVE quoted the Hartington Commission 
 ill support of my main contention, the need 
 of the Cabinet for competent advice about 
 the next war. But I am far from endorsing 
 the Commission's report as a whole. It is 
 vahiable as a rough and imperfect reflection 
 of the wishes and judgments of the naval 
 and military experts. But it is made up of 
 compromises, and on some matters of vital 
 moment it manages to conceal the truth. 
 These are, as a rule, the marks of the report 
 of a Parliamentary Committee in which a 
 body composed of laymen take the evidence
 
 68 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 of a number of experts. The laymen never 
 have the grasp of the subject which would 
 enable them to ask questions rightly, and 
 the experts rarely have the chance of putting 
 in their own way what they consider the 
 essential point. The consequence usually is 
 that the report is little more than a rough 
 approximation to the truth. A better plan 
 would be in most cases for the Cabinet to 
 select the best expert and to empower him to 
 drav/ up a report, after consultation with as 
 many other experts as he thought desira])le. 
 His report might then with advantage be put 
 before a committee of laymen to decide 
 whether its suggestions were or were not in 
 accordance with reason and common sense. 
 
 A Commission of Politicians. 
 
 In the Hartington Commission the prin- 
 cipal members were politicians of Cabinet
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION 59 
 
 rank, and iliougli an admiral and a general 
 were associated with them, the report is 
 written from the point of view of the 
 ordinary Cabinet politician. Tlie great 
 preoccupation is to find out liow to make the 
 department w^ork smoothly, so that the 
 Cabinet Minister at its head shall have an 
 easy berth. The relations between the 
 Admiralty and the War Office, and between 
 the First Lord and the Sea Lords, are freely 
 discussed ; but the relation between the navy 
 and war is hardly mentioned. None of the 
 distinguished politicians seems to have quite 
 realized that reforms at the Admiralty are 
 mere rubbish unless their object is to get the 
 Admiralty and the navy ready for war. But 
 they were all keenly alive to the wisdom, 
 from their own point of \ie\v, of putting more 
 power into the hands of a Cabinet Minister. 
 In attempting this, however, they used very 
 strange language — language which cannot be
 
 60 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 reconciled with the elementary known facts. 
 The first recommendation of the report, in 
 its own words, is : " Full recognition of the 
 complete and individual responsibility to 
 Parliament and the country of the Cabinet 
 Minister at the head of that Department for 
 all matters connected with your Majesty's 
 navy." There is a flat]contradiction between 
 these words and what the authors of the 
 report intended to convey by them. 
 
 What Did They Mean? 
 
 The Commission wanted to establish the 
 absolute, unquestioned authority of the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty over every part of 
 the management of the navy, and to make 
 an end once for all of the fiction of a board of 
 equals. As I have already said, I share this 
 desire. But the words used in the report 
 mean something quite different. They mean
 
 LORD HAETINGTON'S COMMISSION CA 
 
 nothing less than the abohtion of the 
 Cabinet. The foundation of Cabinet govern- 
 ment is collective responsibility. If the 
 IToiise of Commons objects to anything that 
 has been clone in any department it must 
 turn out the whole Cabinet, and it lias no 
 other remedy. To establish the " individual 
 responsibility " of a Cabinet Minister for his 
 acts would be to upset this system, and to 
 invite the House of Commons to turn out a 
 single Minister w^hile leaving the rest of the 
 Cabinet untouched. It is obvious that this 
 is not what the Commission proposed. 
 
 Again, they talk of " responsibility to 
 Parliament and the country." But there is 
 no way in which the country can call a 
 Cabinet to account except through Parlia- 
 ment, and the distinction between responsi- 
 bility to Parliament and responsibility to the 
 country is fictitious. The Cabinet is respon- 
 sible to the Queen and to Parliament. I
 
 62 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 have in a previous chapter dwelt upon these 
 points and reminded my readers of the fact 
 that no individual Minister has any actual 
 responsibility for anything ; he cannot be 
 called to account at all. If therefore the 
 Commission had been accurate they would 
 have asked for the recognition of the " com- 
 plete irresponsibility " of the Cabinet 
 Minister. The truth is, and it cannot be 
 too plainly and forcibly put, that our public 
 men have grown into tlie dangerous habit of 
 misusing words. A Minister who takes upon 
 himself to do an arbitrary act is prone to 
 declare that he makes himself "responsible " 
 for it. But what ho means is that he has 
 authority to do it. He knows perfectly well 
 that he is safe, because Parliament will not 
 go to the inconvenience, over a departmental 
 detail, of turning out the Government and 
 bringing on a dissolution. It is one of the 
 tricks of the political trade to say " respon-
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION GL! 
 
 sibility " when you mean " power " or 
 "authority," and the report of the Hartmg- 
 ton Commission is brimful of jugghng with 
 " responsibihty. ' 
 
 Professional Kesponsibility. 
 
 Thus, in discussing the army, the report 
 lays down a general principle applicable to 
 both services. It says : " The responsibility 
 which devolves on the parliamentary head of 
 the department " (namely, the First Lord of 
 the Admiralty, or the Secretary of State 
 for War) "is so vast, that it becomes 
 specially important that the holder should be 
 able to count upon the best professional 
 advice available, tendered under conditions 
 of the greatest responsibility possible." In 
 this sentence there are two " responsibili- 
 ties." The " vast responsibility " of the 
 parliamentary chief, or Cabinet Minister, is, 
 as has been shown, a mere fiction. In this
 
 64 THE BEAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 case the appropriate word is "authority," 
 and it might be well that we should realize 
 how great is the authority entrusted to a 
 Cabinet Minister, and how difficult it is in 
 ordinary times to enforce upon him anything 
 that can be called responsibility for its 
 exercise. But when the Commission speaks 
 of professional advice " tendered under con- 
 ditions of the greatest responsibility pos- 
 sible," I venture to doubt whether they 
 themselves attached any meaning whatever 
 to their formula. 
 
 It is sometimes a temptation, especially if 
 you are in a difficulty, to use words that 
 sound well. On one occasion, when I was 
 in the hands of the Austrian authorities in 
 Galicia — who, as I afterwards learned, 
 imagined me to be a Eussian officer — I 
 dictated at the close of the protocol record- 
 ing my examination some German words 
 conveying a demand to be treated as became
 
 LOED HAETINGTON'S COMMISSION 65 
 
 my rank. I had no idea what the demand 
 involved, and was disagreeably surprised 
 wdien it led to an offer to liberate me on 
 parole — that is, to let me loose upon a popu- 
 lace which had been informed that I was a 
 
 spy- 
 Lord Hartington's Commission was not 
 under arrest and had not to face the politely 
 but firmly expressed promise of execution at 
 an early date, but they yielded to the tempta- 
 tions of a phrase. The " conditions of 
 responsibility " under which advice can be 
 tendered must be that the adviser is respon- 
 sible either for the advice which he gives or 
 for something else. Every man who gives 
 advice is responsible for it, unless he con- 
 veys it in an anonymous letter or article, and 
 his responsibility consists in the fact that he 
 stakes his reputation upon it. You cannot 
 punish an adviser as such, least of all a 
 professional adviser. A doctor does the best
 
 66 THE BRAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 he can for your sick relative, but if the 
 patient dies yon cannot attack the doctor, 
 except, of course, in case of gross and 
 culpable negligence, which need not now 
 concern us. You take counsel's opinion on 
 your case, but if, when it comes into court, 
 the judgment is an opinion diametrically 
 opposite to that for which you paid your fee, 
 you have no remedy, and for a good reason. 
 If you could punish a barrister or a doctor 
 for his advice there would be no barristers 
 and n physicians. The real safeguard is 
 that a barrister who gives bad opinions or a 
 physician who mistakes his cases ends with 
 losing his reputation and his practice, if he 
 ever had any. And this risk is enough. It 
 suffices to keep at the highest pitch the 
 standard of professional opinions. The 
 barrister and the physician are exceedingly 
 careful and accurate because they value, 
 above all things, their professional standing.
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION (^1 
 
 In short, the "condition of the greatest 
 responsibiUty possible" for advice upon a 
 professional subject is simply that the 
 opinion shall be signed with the writer's 
 name, and shall be liable to publication. 
 
 There is, however, a different condition 
 affecting, not the possibility of punishing the 
 adviser, but the actual value of his advice. 
 The judgment of a professional man derives 
 its value, to a great extent, from his practice. 
 You do not when your child is ill or your 
 firm is threatened with an action consult a 
 physician who has no patients or a counsel 
 without briefs. Such an unemployed expert 
 may indeed be the profoundest master of the 
 theory of his art or science, but his judgment 
 on the conduct of a particular case would be 
 accepted with reserve. - * 
 
 Knowledge alone is not of itself sufficient 
 for the conduct of practical affairs. Success- 
 ful action, and especially successful manage- 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 ment or direction, requires the exercise of a 
 faculty not necessarily acquired from theoret- 
 ical study, the faculty of seeing what is the 
 right thing to do in complicated circum- 
 stances. Indispensable as the professional 
 knowledge and the command of science or 
 theory certainly are, yet in action the master 
 quality is more akin to common sense than 
 to science. It involves a cool, clear head, 
 and the power of taking in a situation, and 
 the man whose judgment is to be trusted 
 in an emergency requires balance. This 
 quality, so far as it can be acquired at all, is 
 acquired not in the study but in action ; it 
 is developed by responsibility in the true 
 sense of the word — that is, by the obligation 
 to decide important practical issues, coupled 
 with the certainty of being called to account 
 for failure. The man who has been trained 
 to such responsibility and who lives in it is 
 the man whose advice carries weight — at
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION 69 
 
 least, in regard to the kind of business for 
 which he has been and is thus responsible. 
 
 A Desk-Geneeal. 
 
 It is clear, then, tliat "advice tendered 
 under conditions of the greatest responsibility 
 possible " must in the first place not be 
 anonymous, but must involve the reputation 
 of its giver ; and, secondly, that its intrinsic 
 value depends on the degree in which the 
 adviser is accustomed to wield authority and 
 to answer for its proper exercise in that 
 department of life in regard to which he is 
 consulted. 
 
 Lord Hartington's Commission quite 
 forgot the second, and by far the more 
 vital, element of these conditions. They 
 seriously proposed to appoint a "military 
 adviser " who should have nothing in the 
 w^orld to do but give advice. They wanted
 
 70 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 *' a special clei^artment of the Chief of the 
 Staff, freed from all executive functions " 
 (that is, in English, with nothing to do), and 
 " charged with the responsible duty " (that 
 is, I sui^pose, the important duty) " of 
 preparing plans for military operations, 
 collecting and co-ordinating information of 
 all kinds, and generally tendering advice 
 upon all matters of organization and the 
 preparation of the army for war." The 
 officer to whom these duties were to be 
 entrusted was to have nothing whatever to 
 do with commanding, inspecting, or training 
 the army, nor with the maintenance of its 
 discipline. But he was to plan its cam- 
 paigns and to advise the Secretary of State 
 at every turn. 
 
 To the creation of an office like this, and 
 to the appointment of an adviser under these 
 conditions, there are two insurmountable 
 objections. First of all, by shutting your
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION 71 
 
 general up at Lis desk, and separating him 
 from the army, you cut him off from the 
 exercise of the very powers in virtue of 
 which you vahie his judgment ; you want a 
 director of armies to assist you with his 
 judgment, and at the same time that you 
 are going to rely on his faculties you forbid 
 him to exercise them. A more absurd con- 
 trivance it would be impossible to devise. 
 Secondly, the whole scheme is based upon 
 excluding the idea of war. The Commission 
 proposed to create two commanders of the 
 army, one for discipline, training, and 
 education, and the other for executive com- 
 mand and inspection ; neither of them was 
 to have a word to say about plans of cam- 
 paign, which were to be entirely in the 
 hands of the desk-general. It does not 
 seem to have occurred to them that this 
 division must break down as soon as war 
 comes in sight, for then there must be a
 
 72 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 war director with authority. Which of the 
 three did the Commission mean to put in 
 command for war ? The desk-general who 
 has lost the liahit of command while 
 studying his plans, the inspecting-general 
 who is not thought good enough either to 
 make plans or to train the army, or the 
 training general who looks after discipline, 
 though he is allowed neither to make plans 
 nor to command troops ? 
 
 The Common Sense of the Na\^. 
 
 I think, then, that in regard to the army 
 Lord Hartington's Commission departed 
 from common sense, and need not be 
 followed. But in regard to the navy it 
 was preserved from these vagaries. After 
 enumerating the points which together 
 make up the design or standard of prepara- 
 tion for w^ar, and upon which the civilian
 
 LORD HARTINGTON'S COMMISSION 73 
 
 Minister needs competent advice, the com- 
 missioners say that they would have been 
 disposed to think these " consultative duties " 
 quite enough for one man without any 
 executive work, but they reluctantly bow to 
 the unanimous opinion of the naval officers 
 that the consultative duties '' could not, with 
 advantage, be separated from some at least 
 of the administrative duties which now 
 devolve upon the First Naval Lord, which 
 keep him in constant communication with 
 the officers of the navy, and secure that he is 
 fully informed of the opinions, requirements, 
 and condition of the service." They there- 
 fore recommended, not that the First Naval 
 Lord should be without practical duties, but 
 that he should be relieved of all detail that 
 could be equally well performed by one of 
 the other Naval Lords. 
 
 Thus, in regard to the navy, the Com- 
 mission was, though with difficulty, kept
 
 74 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 within the bounds of sanity, and its recom- 
 mendations, embodying just what all the 
 leading spirits in the navy are agreed in 
 thinking necessary, exactly mark the indis- 
 pensable minimum of reform at the 
 Admiralty upon which the public may 
 safely insist.
 
 PEESONS AND PEINCIPLES 
 
 In discussing the guarantees which the 
 puhHc ought to demand for the strength and 
 readiness of the na\y, I have hitherto con- 
 fined myself to the subject of the system to 
 be adopted, and have urged the selection of 
 a competent naval strategist, as war director 
 of the navy, to submit to the Cabinet his 
 plans for the composition, the distribution, 
 and the movements of fleets in peace and 
 in war, and to direct, under the authority 
 of the Cabinet, the execution of these plans. 
 I have tried to show that in the depart- 
 mental organization which has l)ecome
 
 76 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 inevitable at the Admiralty the principal 
 department must needs be that of the 
 strategist or war director, and have given 
 reasons for my belief that if that officer's 
 view of the requirements of war be formally 
 laid before the Cabinet from time to time, 
 those requirements will be met in the 
 Estimates. As an additional guarantee, or 
 rather as a means of enforcing the responsi- 
 bility of the Cabinet, I have pointed out that 
 the opinion of the Naval War Director 
 might in some suitable form be rendered 
 accessible to the House of Commons, and 
 that in this way reality might be given to 
 the constitutional doctrine that the Cabinet 
 as a whole must answer to Parliament for 
 the use it has made of its power. 
 
 The recent judgment of Mr. Justice 
 Vaughan Williams on the liability of direc- 
 tors is not without bearing upon the duties 
 of Cabinet Ministers. If the director of a
 
 PERSONS AND PSINCIPLES 11 
 
 company is j^ecuniarily as well as morally 
 responsible for helping, by his negligent 
 acquiescence in a misleading statement, to 
 gain the confidence of the shareholders for 
 that statement, can it be held tliat a Cabinet 
 Minister has fiihilled his trust if without 
 thorough examination, such as any man 
 would give to his own affairs, he acquiesces 
 in the promulgation of Navy Estimates 
 which will not leave the navy either strong 
 enoudi or readv for a Avar ? 
 
 The Personal Element in Administration. 
 
 Though I believe the system must be 
 improved, I am not prepared to pin my faith 
 merely to a system, however good. Govern- 
 ment and administration depend largely 
 upon the character and the personal quali- 
 ties of the men charged with them. One of 
 my correspondents, commenting on my
 
 78 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 statement that " what we want is a naval 
 Moltke," very pertmently asked, "Where 
 will you get your Moltke ? " 
 
 The answer is not that by any known 
 machinery yon can turn out and select a 
 genius, but that the first duty of the Govern- 
 ment is to select for every great post in the 
 public service the man who, of all those 
 available, is the best qualified for it, or, at 
 least, -to make sure that the officer appointed 
 has the special attainments required. 
 
 No man can spend his life in the army or 
 the navy and become a general or an admiral 
 without his comrades becoming perfectly 
 acquainted with his powers. If he is a very 
 great man, but has had no great opportuni- 
 ties, his full strength may not be known ; 
 but there will never be any doubt about his 
 general classification. He will be recognized 
 as a man of first-rate capacity or as falling 
 below^ that standard, and the specific bent of
 
 PERSONS AND PRINCIPLES 79 
 
 liis powers will in general be fairly appreci- 
 ated. A man's comrades and superiors 
 cannot always be sure that they know all 
 that a particular man known to be able can 
 do, but they seldom fail to know very well 
 what a particular man not specially able 
 cannot do. The duty of a Government is 
 not so much to loolv for genius, which is a 
 most delicate matter, as to prevent the selec- 
 tion for any post of a man knov\'n to be 
 incapable of properly performing its func- 
 tions. 
 
 Good government is seen less in the 
 occasional selection of a brilliant officer than 
 in the entire absence of incapable men from 
 important posts. Of six men whose rank 
 renders them eligible for an appointment it 
 may be difficult to decide which of three is 
 the best ; it is usually quite certain that one 
 or two out of the other three is without 
 the talents required. If, tlicn, one of the
 
 80 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 two incapablcs is put in to the exclusion of 
 the three competent men, some one has been 
 dishonest and some one has been weak ; and 
 when such wrong appointments are common 
 it is a sure sign of a slackness in the sense 
 of duty of the Ministers in authority. It is 
 necessary, therefore, to bear in mind that 
 mere changes in system will not suffice, and 
 that honesty in the choice of persons is 
 always indispensable. At the same time we 
 must not on that account refuse to amend 
 the system, for the bettor the system the 
 greater will be the scope for the rightly- 
 chosen men. 
 
 The Training and Selection of 
 Commanders. 
 
 The question of persons leads me to what 
 is one of the most important features of a 
 proper organization and one of the strongest
 
 PERSONS AND rJRINClPLES 81 
 
 arguments for the particular reform which I 
 advocate. It is probable that the admiral- 
 commander's office would be the one office 
 in the whole navy where a promising 
 younger officer would be most likely to 
 have his view of the nature of naval war 
 enlarged and corrected, and therefore a good 
 system would provide for passing through 
 this office, in the intervals between their 
 periods of sea service, the best of the 
 younger men. 
 
 In this way not only would their training 
 be facilitated, but the admiral-commander 
 would in a few years have been able to 
 spread his own ideas of the methods of war 
 throughout the service. The future admirals 
 in command of fleets would be familiar, 
 from their occasional turns of duty at head- 
 quarters, with the principles upon which a 
 war was to be fought. Each of the best of 
 the younger officers would have his turn of
 
 82 THE BRAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 duty in the private office of an admiral- 
 commander, and in this way not only would 
 the very able men have very special training, 
 but the war director would have the oppor- 
 tunity of gauging the powers of each one of 
 them in regard to the more difficult problems 
 of naval war. Thus the office of the admiral- 
 commander would be the great school for 
 the higher education of a picked group of 
 naval officers. In short, the appointment of 
 an admiral-commander is the shortest and 
 surest way to secure that future Cabinets 
 shall have a larger field for the selection of 
 his successors than is open to a Cabinet at 
 the present moment. 
 
 A Plan of Campaign Office. 
 
 It is, perhaps, desirable to make clear that 
 the changes I have proposed, though they 
 are indispensable for the purpose of securing
 
 PEESONS AND PRINCIPLES 83 
 
 the management of the navy with due regard 
 on the one hand to the needs of a war, and 
 on the other to the control which Parhament 
 should exercise over expenditure, are yet not 
 in any sense sweeping or destructive ; they 
 merely carry out principles all of which are 
 already admitted, though imperfectly worked 
 out, in the Admiralty. 
 
 The foundation-stone is the elementary 
 truth that a lighting organization must be 
 framed with reference to the fighting for 
 which it is intended, and that the Navy 
 must therefore be administered in accord- 
 ance with the conditions of the next war so 
 far as they can be foreseen. This gives the 
 primacy in the whole system to a Plan of 
 Campaign office, and installs its director in 
 the principal compartment of the central 
 authority. In 1887, thanks to the action of 
 Lord Charles Beresford, then Junior Naval 
 Lord, an Litelligence Department was 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 created, under the direction of a captain. Its 
 functions were to be " p^'^i'^^J advisory." It 
 was to study foreign navies, and keep 
 strategical and statistical information ready 
 to hand. " When directed " it w'as to pre- 
 pare plans of campaign for the consideration 
 of the Board, but it was never, unless asked, 
 to make any suggestion as to strategical or 
 administrative policy. This arrangement is 
 a compromise of the worst kind. It involves 
 the reluctant admission of a principle of 
 wiiich the necessary consequences are at the 
 same time evaded. 
 
 A plan of campaign is not serious unless 
 it is meant to be the basis of preparation 
 and of action. To create an office which 
 may or may not be called upon for a plan 
 of campaign implies that you have not made 
 up your mind whether you will make your 
 preparations with a view to war or with a 
 view to something else, w^hether they are to
 
 PEESONS AND PRINCIPLES 85 
 
 be systematic or accidental. To forbid the 
 office to suggest a policy is plainly to declare 
 that though you may find it interesting to 
 read a theoretical plan of campaign you 
 have no intention of being guided by it ; it 
 is to be mere solemn trifling. To frame a 
 plan of this sort a captain will do, with the 
 assistance of a few officers junior to himself. 
 I suppose Lord George Hamilton, who will 
 pardon me if I describe him as the irre- 
 sponsible authority who made this arrange- 
 ment, has the dishke so common among 
 Englishmen for thinking anything out to the 
 end, and that therefore he did not attach any 
 definite meaning to the words "plan of 
 campaign." Perhaps, too, he was thinking 
 of the House of Commons and not of 
 war. 
 
 Suppose that Lord George Hamilton, 
 instead of being forced to do something in 
 order to postpone Lord Charles Beresford's
 
 86 THE BRAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 resignation and the possible consequences of 
 that officer's telhng the pubhc what he had 
 told the Government, had had an emergency 
 to face. Suppose that Lord Salisbury had 
 told him " I expect a war with a great Power 
 in a few weeks ; make your preparations." 
 Does any one imagine that Lord George 
 Hamilton would have sent for a captain in 
 the navy and asked him for a plan of cam- 
 paign ? He would have gone to his First 
 Sea Lord, or to any admiral whom he 
 thought a better man, and having heard 
 his views, would have taken him to the 
 Cabinet and obtained for him full authority 
 to carry them out at once. The admiral 
 thus chosen would have gone at once to the 
 Director of Naval Intelligence for precise 
 information about the state and distribution 
 of the expected enemy's naval forces. It is 
 evident that if Lord George Hamilton had 
 been in earnest he would in 1887 have put
 
 PERSONS AND PEINCIPLES 87 
 
 this method into permanent working order, 
 and have then arranged at leisure for all 
 time that which the advent of war may 
 some day compel one of his successors to 
 arrange in haste. He would have selected 
 an admiral as war commander, and have 
 instructed the other admirals at his board 
 to work to that admiral's design. 
 
 Another corner-stone is the principle — 
 which flows from the elementary truth just 
 discussed — that the officer who directs the 
 movements of the fleet in peace should 
 direct them in war, and should, therefore, be 
 the sole constituted adviser of the Cabinet 
 upon that subject — that is, upon the conduct 
 of the naval defence of the Empire. With 
 Lord Hartington's Commission in view, the 
 Admiralty (that is, I believe, Lord George 
 Hamilton) became aware that there was a 
 doubt whether there was a constituted 
 adviser on this subject. Nothing seemed
 
 88 THE BEAIiq- OF THE NAYT 
 
 to Lord George Hamilton easier than to 
 remedy the defect. He had merely to take 
 the paper recording the distribution of 
 business at the Admiralty, to turn to the 
 page enumerating the twenty duties assigned 
 to the First Sea Lord, and write upon it 
 as a twenty-first, " Maritime defence and 
 strategical questions — to advise," and to 
 his mind the thing was done. Here is the 
 list of the First Naval Lord's duties after 
 Lord George Hamilton's improvements in 
 1888 :— 
 
 1. Ships in Coimnission. 
 
 2. Distribution and Organization of the Fleet. 
 
 8. Maritime Defence and Strategical Questions — to 
 
 advise. 
 4. Royal Marines and Eoyal Marine Artillery. 
 6. Appointments of Commanders under Captains. 
 
 6. General Supervision of Intelligence Department 
 
 and of Mobilization of Fleet. 
 
 7. Complements of Ships. 
 
 8. Discipline. 
 
 9. Courts-Martial and Courts of luquiry.
 
 PERSONS AND PEINCIPLES 89 
 
 10. Punislimont Ecturns, 
 
 11. Protection to Trade and Fisheries, 
 
 12. Hydi-ographical Department and Pilotage. 
 
 13. Signals. 
 
 14. Collisions. 
 
 15. Slave Trade. 
 
 16. Gunnery and Torpedoes — as relates to personnel 
 
 and Ships in Commission. 
 
 17. Prize Questions. 
 
 18. Deserters, Rewards for apprehension of ; Re- 
 
 movals of R. 
 
 19. Leave to Officers and Men in Ships in Com- 
 
 mission, 
 
 20. Naval Attaches, movements of and Orders to. 
 
 21. Uniform Regulations. 
 
 This is a terribly promiscuous list of 
 duties for the officer upon whom rests the 
 strategical direction of the navy in peace and 
 war. It is based upon no classification. It 
 docs not correspond in any way with the 
 division of business among the departments. 
 There w^ere at the same date twelve depart- 
 ments. The First Sea Lord was apparently 
 at the head of none of them. The head of
 
 90 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 the Naval Intelligence Department was, 
 indeed, his subordinate ; but war operations, 
 blockades, and defences were assigned to the 
 Secretary, in the military branch of his 
 office, which had twenty-two duties, some of 
 which would and others would not be referred 
 to the First Sea Lord. 
 
 It seems to me that if Lord George 
 Hamilton had seriously intended to enable 
 the First Sea Lord to direct the action of the 
 navy in a war, under the authority of the 
 Cabinet, he would have done more than add 
 a fresh line to the list of twenty hetero- 
 geneous duties. I do not intend to make 
 any detailed proposals, l)ut as an illustra- 
 tion of the kind of reform I think a serious 
 administrator would have introduced in 1888 
 I will give a rough sketch of what I think a 
 naval commander's office or department 
 might be : —
 
 PEESONS AND PRINCIPLES 91 
 
 The Naval Commander's Office 
 
 1. Private Secrctcm/s Office. — 
 
 Correspondence with other depart- 
 ments of the Admiralty and with naval 
 attaches of Foreign Powers. Personnel 
 of the Naval Commander's depart- 
 ment. 
 
 2. Chief of the Staff s Office. 
 
 Section I. Preparation of all orders 
 to commanders of squadrons or of ships, 
 to officer commanding Koyal Marines, 
 and to officers commanding naval bases 
 (if mider Admiralty). Communication 
 with War Office and with Mercantile 
 Marine. Manoeuvres. (This is the 
 section for design of operations — A, 
 against enemy's fighting fleets ; B, for 
 protection of commerce ; C, for protec- 
 tion of harbours.)
 
 92 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 Section II. Mobilization (worked out 
 in communication with other depart- 
 ments). 
 
 Section III. Director of IntelHgence. 
 
 A. Foreign navies ; British naval 
 
 attaches. 
 
 B. Progress of (1) shipbuilding, (2) 
 
 armament, (3) tactics. 
 
 3. Naval Recorder s Office. — 
 
 Naval history (records of all opera- 
 tions). Library. Communications with 
 hydrographer's office. 
 
 It will be seen that this is a considerable 
 office, involving a large staff of specially 
 qualified naval officers. The commander 
 himself has nothing to do except sign the 
 orders and the memoranda of design for 
 operations, for all of which he, and he alone, 
 is responsible. They are his special duty,
 
 TERSONS AND PRINCIPLES 93 
 
 and the whole great bureau is an extension 
 of his person to enable him the better to 
 perform it. Being thus able to concentrate 
 himself he will be free, as the First Sea 
 Lord of 1888 could never be, for the con- 
 sideration of any question of principle as to 
 which the head of any other department may 
 wish to consult him. Take, for instance, a 
 duty not enumerated in Lord George 
 Hamilton's table, though it certainly 
 devolved upon his First Sea Lord, that of 
 recommending the speed and armament to 
 be required from a ship about to be con- 
 structed. The commander's Intelligence 
 Department (B) will be for this purpose a 
 compartment of his mind. He will be 
 familiar with the observations that have been 
 made and the conclusions which have been 
 drawn from them on this subject. When- 
 ever a question comes to him from the head 
 of any department (such questions wdll
 
 94 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 always take the form, How will the proposed 
 action of this department be related to the 
 operations of war which you have in view ?) 
 he will have in his mind the data upon 
 which to frame his reply. 
 
 Now this is meant only as an illustration. 
 Other groupings of the work are possible, 
 and I do not know how far the distribution 
 of 1888 has since then been amended. But 
 I do not gather that there has been any 
 change in its spirit. The First Sea Lord is 
 still responsible for a variety of unrelated 
 subjects, and so far from being, as I believe 
 he ought to be, the head of a great strategy 
 department, he is a Jack-of-all-trades.
 
 VI 
 
 NAVAL DISCIPLINE AND ADMINIS- 
 TEATION — COOPEKATION WITH 
 THE AEMY. 
 
 Discipline. 
 
 I HAVE dwelt upon the function of an 
 Admiral Commander to direct the movements 
 of fleets or the operations of naval war, 
 because this is the great determining func- 
 tion upon which success or failure depends. 
 Soldiers or sailors have occasionally won a 
 battle by sheer manliness in spite of an 
 incapable commander. But no war was ever 
 brought to a successful issue in this way. In 
 the long run, and on a large scale, victory is 
 with the higher intelligence, that is under
 
 96 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 intelligence. The chaotic arrangement of 
 the Board of Admiralty as revealed in the 
 distribution of business of 1888 means 
 DEFEAT. In order to reach an organization a 
 beginning must be made somewhere, and 
 there can be no doubt that the right end to 
 begin at is the design of war operations. 
 But the Admiral Commander ought scarcely 
 to shut himself up to this sole duty. He 
 should have charge of the discipline of the 
 fleet. 
 
 Discipline in the true sense consists of 
 putting the best man to lead, of which the 
 result is that the others obey willingly, for 
 healthy men love to be led by a man whom 
 they feel to be their superior. In a narrower 
 sense discipline is maintained by routine. 
 There is a code of regulations to which all 
 must conform. The danger is that wxak 
 persons in authority are apt to confuse the 
 form with the substance, and to take the
 
 DISCIPLINE 97 
 
 modern conditions the better organized 
 code of regulations for the essence of dis- 
 ciphne, mistaking the means for the end and 
 the letter for the spirit. A man devoid of 
 judgment may so misuse lawful authority 
 that without violating the letter of a military 
 code he may arouse the spirit of disobedience 
 among his subordinates. Discipline is then 
 at war with itself, and the results are dis- 
 astrous. But a man of fine judgment and 
 high character may fulfil the spirit of an 
 order by disobeying its forms. Nelson at St. 
 Vincent rendered his Admiral the greatest 
 possible service by a movement inconsistent 
 with the terms of the Admiral's orders. 
 
 The perfection of discipline is seen in 
 Nelson's fleet at the battle of the Nile, 
 and what it consisted in cannot be better 
 explained that in Nelson's own words. 
 In his despatch to Lord St. Vincent he 
 says ; —
 
 98 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 "^Nothing could withstand the squadron 
 3'onr Lordship did me the honour to place 
 under my command. Their high state of 
 discipline is well known to you, and with the 
 judgment of the captains, together icith their 
 valour, and thcit of the officers and men of 
 every description, it was absolutely irresisti- 
 ble." 
 
 Again, in a letter to Lord Howe, Nelson 
 writes : — 
 
 " I had the happiness to command a band 
 
 of brothers Each knew his 
 
 duty I was enabled to throw 
 
 what force I pleased on a few ships. This 
 plan mg friends readily conceived hg the 
 signals.'' 
 
 Those who think that iselson did not 
 mean all that is implied in these words know 
 little of great men. Assuredly he expressed 
 his deep convictions when, in the passages
 
 DISCIPLINE 99 
 
 which I have put in itahcs, he laid stress 
 on the judgment of his captains and their 
 readiness to grasp the purport of his own 
 designs. But the perfect harmony between 
 a number of ofi&cers which is here described 
 was rendered possible only by the character 
 and attainments of Nelson himself. He was 
 obeyed in the spirit as well as in the letter, 
 because he had inspired all those about him 
 with unlimited confidence in his own judg- 
 ment. 
 
 It seems to me then that the Admiral 
 Commander, selected by the Cabinet on the 
 basis of their confidence in his character and 
 his judgment, will be the proper person both 
 to advise the Cabinet as to the scope of naval 
 preparations for war and to maintain the 
 discipline of the na^7 of which he directs 
 the movements. He will endeavour to form 
 the flag officers of the na\7 into just such a 
 
 band of brothers as Nelson had in his 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 squadron in the Mediterranean. The confi- 
 dence of his comrades at sea will be obtained 
 by the judgment revealed in his orders, 
 emanating from the staff office, concerning 
 the movements of fleets and ships. In 
 regard to the maintenance of discipline in 
 the lower sense, the framing of regulations 
 and the supervision of their observance, the 
 Admiral Commander will be assisted by a 
 second bureau or office, of which the head, 
 subordinate to the Admiral Commander, will 
 relieve him of all decisions but those of great 
 wcicfht and moment. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The process of classification and sub- 
 division of duties, by which I conceive that 
 the First Sea Lord should be transformed or 
 developed into an Admiral Commander, with 
 two or three Admirals, his juniors, as his
 
 ADMINISTEATION 101 
 
 subordinates at the head of the branches mto 
 which his duties will have been grouped, 
 would lead also to the development of the 
 office of Controller of the Navy (now held by 
 the Third Sea Lord) into that of an Admiral 
 Administrator, whose function will be to 
 produce and maintain the navy which his 
 colleague commands and directs. This office 
 too would be organized into a few great 
 branches with responsible heads. 
 
 The preparation and audit of accounts 
 would be conducted in a third principal 
 department under the supervision, as at 
 present, of the Parliamentary Secretary. 
 
 It may be well to repeat that this sketch 
 of a reorganized Admiralty is not meant as 
 an absolute pattern, but merely as an illus- 
 tration of principles.
 
 102 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 Co-operation between Army and Navy. 
 
 The acceptance of true principles in the 
 arrangement of the business of the Admiralty 
 will not, however, of itself suffice to secure 
 the complete efficiency either of the navy or 
 of the national defences. It is no doubt the 
 matter of greatest urgency at the present 
 time. But we shall do well always to bear 
 in mind that defensive preparations are pre- 
 parations for v/ar, and in thinking of the 
 navy we must always have an eye to the 
 conditions of war. 
 
 The British Empire cannot be defended 
 without the most perfect co-operation 
 between the navy and the army. Military 
 forces must help in the defence of the 
 secondary naval bases beyond the sea. 
 Military forces at home must by their readi- 
 ness offer a reply to the threat of invasion, 
 so hat the conduct of naval operations will
 
 THE NAVY AND THE ARMY 103 
 
 not be unnecessarily hampered by fear of a 
 sudden landing in the United Kingdom. 
 When the navy has won its battles there 
 may be scope for military operations outside 
 the borders of British territory, but any 
 operations required outside Great Britain 
 from the military forces, before the superior- 
 ity of the British fleets has been established, 
 will be carried on under the disadvantage of 
 precarious communications by sea. The 
 work of Abercrombie, of Moore, and of 
 Wellington, was founded on the success of 
 Nelson and his comrades, and this must in 
 the nature of the case ever be the true 
 character of the relation between the British 
 army and the British navy. 
 
 Co-operation implies division and distribu- 
 tion of work. It means that the different 
 tasks of a war have been classified into those 
 for which naval force and those for which 
 military force are best suited, and that navy
 
 104 THE BKAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 and army have been prepared each for the 
 services which tliey can best render. The 
 task of the navy, assisted by mihtary forces 
 at its bases of operations, is to keep open 
 the sea communications. If this is not 
 accomphshed the mihtary forces of the 
 Empire are so many isolated bodies destined 
 to attempt, with the chances against them, 
 the defence of a nmnber of places far 
 distant from one another, and unable to help 
 one another. But if the sea commnniccations 
 are secm-o all the military forces of the 
 Empire are available for action at any point 
 in the whole theatre of war. 
 
 The British Empire maintains in the five 
 continents military forces of various kinds, 
 which, added together, have a total number 
 of 950,000 men. With a beaten navy, and 
 with even a navy which, though not beaten, 
 fails to defeat the enemy's navy, these 
 numerous forces are so many scattered
 
 THE NAVY AND THE AKMY , 105 
 
 garrisons, none of wliicli can be of more 
 than local and temporary service to the 
 Empire. But with a victorious navy these 
 numbers are a reservoir sufficient to supply 
 the military needs of any war that is in the 
 least degree likely. They are, however, 
 taken together, far more costly than the 
 navy, and most of them can never be called 
 upon to fight except in case of naval 
 defeat. From an Imperial point of view it 
 is perhaps not the best economy to maintain 
 this very large military force, at least so 
 long as there is a doubt whether the navy 
 is strong enough to insure the communica- 
 tions between all parts of the Empire. The 
 cause of this waste of resources lies in the 
 lack of proper arrangements at headquarters 
 for the due consideration of w^ar, as some- 
 thing involving the joint action of both naval 
 and military force. 
 
 How, then, can this general view of the
 
 106 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 defence of the Empire be obtained, or rather, 
 how can the nation secure a guarantee that 
 its defensive preparations are based upon 
 such a comprehensive survey of the probable 
 requirements, and not upon accident or 
 caprice ? 
 
 In the previous chapters the attempt has 
 been made to show how this guarantee is to 
 be had with regard to the naval requirements 
 of a war. The same principles apply to the 
 war duties of the army. A general Com- 
 mander or Commander-in-Chief selected for 
 war, and at his post during peace, assisted 
 by a general staff, and responsible for com- 
 mand and discipline, for the design and 
 execution of military operations, but not for 
 the raising, maintenance and equipment of 
 the army, would be the proper adviser of the 
 Cabinet upon the military needs of the 
 Empire.* 
 
 * I do not here enlarge upon the reform needed at
 
 THE NAVY AND THE ARMY 107 
 
 An Authority Needed to Secure Co-opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Who, then, is to hold the balance between 
 the Naval and the Military Commander ? 
 This is the question that lies at the root of the 
 whole matter, for the right conduct of a war 
 involves the correct employment in relation 
 to one another of both navy and army, so 
 that the real conductor and manager of the 
 war is the authority who controls both the 
 naval and the military commander. It may 
 be well, before discussing the question, to 
 satisfy ourselves that some such authority is 
 essential. Upon this point we may note the 
 differences of opinion which actually exist 
 between the naval and the military schools of 
 
 the War Office, because it lias been fully explained, 
 and the principles here set forth applied in detail to 
 the management of the army by Sir Charles Dilke and 
 myself in the 6th Chapter of our essay on Imperial 
 Defence.
 
 108 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 thought. They are almost absokitely at 
 issue in regard to the use of fortification as 
 a protection to the great naval bases at home. 
 Military men have induced governments to 
 spend large sums upon fortresses Vv^hich 
 naval men declare can never be of use so 
 long as there is a fleet able to fight. One 
 school of military teachers goes so far as to 
 assert that the navy cannot be relied upon 
 for defence, because the progress of inven- 
 tion makes it impossible to foresee what may 
 happen in naval war. I do not think this 
 view will bear close examination ; but it has 
 been expressed by officers of high rank in 
 the army, and proves conclusively that the 
 difficulty exists of bringing naval and 
 military views into harmony. 
 
 There is, perhaps, no need to do more, in 
 proof of the need for an authority to control 
 both services, than quote from the report of 
 Lord Harfcincrton's Commission : —
 
 COOPERATION REQUIRED 109 
 
 " The first point which strikes us in the cousidcra- 
 tiou of the organization of these two great depart- 
 ments " (i.e., the JSTavj and the Army) " is, that while 
 in action they must be to a large extent dependent on 
 each other, and while in some of the arrangements 
 necessary as a pi*eparation for war they are absolutely 
 dependent on the assistance of each other, little or no 
 attempt has ever been made to establish settled and 
 regular inter-communication or relations between 
 them, or to secure that the establishments of one 
 service should be determined with any reference to the 
 requirements of the other. ... It has been stated 
 in evidence before us that no combined plan of opera- 
 tions for the defence of the Empire in any given 
 contingency has ever been worked out or decided upon 
 by the two departments."
 
 VII 
 
 THE NAVY, THE ARMY, AND THE 
 NATIONAL POLICY. 
 
 The Function of Goveenment in regaed 
 TO Defence. 
 
 The supreme executive power alone can 
 decide between the naval and the military 
 commanders. In other words, it is for the 
 Cabinet to hold the balance between its 
 two advisers upon the conduct of war. Try 
 how you will you cannot devise any method 
 by which the Cabinet can be relieved of this 
 responsibility. Mr. Balfour indeed would 
 give it to a Committee of the Cabinet, but 
 that is only another vvay of saying that he
 
 THE FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT 111 
 
 thinks the Cabmet nnsnitcd for its worli, 
 and would give its power to a smaller body. 
 He proposes a mild revolution, by which the 
 large committee now called the Cabinet shall 
 be superseded by a smaller one without a 
 distinctive name. Call it by what name 
 you will, the power that decides between the 
 naval and military commanders, and thereby 
 settles the nature of a war, is the govern- 
 ment of the country. The objection to Mr. 
 Balfour's scheme is that it would divorce 
 authority from responsibility ; the large 
 Cabinet without power would be responsible 
 to Parliament for the acts of the small 
 committee. Under any practicable plan the 
 great decisions will always rest with a com- 
 mittee of politicians of which the Prime 
 Minister will be the Chairman, exercising 
 a preponderant influence. This is an 
 arrangement we need not criticize ; wo must 
 take it as we find it, unless we are to re-
 
 112 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 build the Constitution, which would be hardly 
 the right way to secure what we want, the 
 speedy efficiency of the defences of the 
 Empire. Indeed, an arrangement better 
 for our purpose than that of the supremacy 
 of the Cabinet would be hard to invent, for 
 between two professional men, each selected 
 as the best in his own branch, it is impos- 
 sible to get a third professional man to 
 decide ; the judgment must lie with in- 
 structed common sense, of which the 
 Cabinet, advised by the most competent 
 admiral and general, may be reasonably 
 taken as the type. 
 
 Its too Long Neglect. 
 
 Unfortunately the Cabinet does not do its 
 work. It is the first duty of the Cabinet 
 to provide for the defence of Great Britain 
 and the Empire. I am ashamed to repeat
 
 ITS NEGLECT 113 
 
 SO elementary and incontrovertible a state- 
 ment, but it is absolutely necessary to do so 
 in order to appreciate the fact stated by Lord 
 Hartington's Commission, that " No com- 
 bined plan of operations for the defence of 
 the Empire in any given contingency had 
 ever been worked out by the two depart- 
 ments." Does it not follow that during the 
 period covered by this report no Government 
 had ever considered the defence of the 
 Empire ; no Cabinet ever inquired what were 
 the arrangements contemplated for the event 
 of a war ? In a word, does not the report 
 prove that for many years every Cabinet, 
 without exception, had neglected its first 
 duty to the nation ? 
 
 My purpose in writing these chapters is 
 simply to induce my countrymen to compel 
 the Cabinet to do its duty. With this object 
 I suggest first of all that the Cabinet shall 
 be provided with the best professional advice,
 
 114 THE BEAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 naval and military ; and that it shall be re- 
 quired to consider this advice before sub- 
 mitting estimates for the army and navy to 
 the House of Commons. These two results 
 will be secured if the House of Commons 
 calls for the names of the two advisers, and 
 for the substance of their opinions to be laid 
 before it along with the estimates. I do not 
 for a moment suppose that a Cabinet w^ith a 
 competent professional opinion before it will 
 ignore or over-rule that opinion. On the 
 contrary, once obliged to consider the ques- 
 tion of defence in all its breadth the 
 Cabinet will come to a sound conclusion, 
 which it will confidently submit to the 
 judgment of Parliament. The professional 
 advisers will derive the greatest advantage 
 from the discussions of the Cabinet, and will 
 find means, as they have not yet done, of 
 coming to an understanding with each other 
 as to the scope of the services which they
 
 THE CONSEQUENCE 115 
 
 severally represent. The House of Commons 
 will vote the estunates with its eyes open, 
 and the country will he free from the 
 alarms and agitations that have arisen 
 with such disagreeahle frequency in recent 
 5^ears. 
 
 Even this, however, is only the smaller 
 part of the consequences to be expected 
 from a rational organization. The Cabinet 
 cannot sit down to consider the real con- 
 ditions of possible wars, and the indis- 
 pensable requirements of national and 
 imperial defence, without its members being 
 led to reflect a little upon the meaning of 
 war and its relation to the rest of their 
 functions. 
 
 The Consequence — A AVeak DirLOMACY. 
 
 The facts I have already stated prove that 
 at no time within the knowledge of Lord 
 
 Hartington's Commission has the country 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 been ready for war. That is the sufficient 
 explanation of the helplessness of British 
 diplomacy for the last twelve years, and of 
 the weakness of what has been miscalled the 
 foreign policy of the last six administrations. 
 On almost every occasion when a Ministry 
 has declared its will in regard to any matter 
 at issue with a great Pow^r it has ended 
 with submission to the will of the other 
 Power. 
 
 Having informed Germany that we would 
 not tolerate the settlement of another Euro- 
 pean Power on the West Coast, north of the 
 Cape, we apologised and withdrew as soon 
 as the German flag was hoisted in the area 
 in question. We allowed Germany to elbow 
 us out of Zanzibar, and then, in order par- 
 tially to recover our position there, we gave 
 Germany Heligoland and abandoned our 
 friends and proteges, the Malagasy, to the 
 French. We allowed the Germans, in spite
 
 A WEAK DIPLOMACY 117 
 
 of a formal agreement, to annex a piece of 
 New Guinea to which they had no claim 
 beyond the wish to have it, thereby offend- 
 ing our own Australian Colonists. We have 
 permitted the French to push us down the 
 Niger and to take the "backland" of our 
 colonies in North-West Africa ; to attack our 
 troops in our own recognized sphere of in- 
 fluence ; to annex a portion of Siam ; to 
 raise endless questions which we all believe 
 to be absolutely unfounded in right, with 
 regard to the Newfoundland shores; and 
 to cavil at our continuance in the occu- 
 pation of Egypt, while they remain and 
 intend to remain in occupation of Tunis. 
 We have allowed Russia to move her frontier 
 up to the border of Afghanistan, to invade 
 Afghan territory and to push back the 
 Ameer's frontier. We are even said to have 
 come to an agreement with Russia in regard 
 to the dispute between China and Japan,
 
 118 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 although it was our obvious interest to side 
 with Japan in resisting any advance of the 
 Eussian frontier in Manchuria or towards 
 Korea. 
 
 The explanation of all these retreats is 
 quite plain. Each Cabinet in succession has 
 been afraid to say No, either to Germany, to 
 France, or to Russia, merely because they 
 thought that to say no might have led to a 
 war. Each of the three foreign Govern- 
 ments has perceived that the British Govern- 
 ment was afraid, and each of them has made 
 the most of that knowledge. Our Govern- 
 ments are bullied because they are evidently 
 in terror of a quarrel. This process will go 
 on so long as Cabinets are allowed to neglect 
 the nation's affairs and to devote themselves 
 solely to the retention of office and the glorifi- 
 cation of their own party. Is it any wonder 
 that trade has been depressed all these years, 
 when every year has seen a market closed
 
 NATIONAL POLICY 119 
 
 to US by tliG process of hoisting a foreign 
 flag over the heads of our traders ? 
 
 A British Policy. 
 
 The question of the future is not whether 
 this abject conduct of the national policy 
 shall cease. Assuredly it will cease as soon 
 as the nation perceives its real nature. The 
 question is whether it is to be stopped by the 
 national feeling suddenly refusing to endorse 
 some further humiliating diplomatic sur- 
 render — which would precipitate a war 
 whether w-e were ready or not — or by 
 Cabinets giving their attention to defence, 
 setting the navy and the army in order, and 
 then, realizing that Great Britain is still the 
 first of the great Powers, acquiring the 
 courage to conduct their diplomacy accord- 
 ing to good sense, to concede without con- 
 troversy unimportant trifles, and boldly to
 
 120 THE BEAIN OF THE NAYY 
 
 refuse to discuss the surrender of undoubted 
 rights or established interests. 
 
 A consistent fearless policy, accompanied 
 by or rather based upon effective naval and 
 military preparation, will be the best course 
 for the preservation not only of the Empire 
 but of peace. For Great Britain wisely led, 
 and therefore supported by her colonies, is 
 yet the strongest Power in Europe, perhaps 
 in the world. If she is united and deter- 
 mined, and her defences are ready, no Power 
 v/ill lightly pick a quarrel with her, and a 
 judicious diplomacy will find her allies. I 
 am no believer in treaties of alliance. 
 Nations go to war not because of treaties and 
 paper promises, but in pursuance of their 
 own ends. The ally upon whom you can 
 rely is the nation which in its own interests 
 and for its own purposes must needs be 
 opposed to the enemies who confront you, 
 and which may hope to win with your co-
 
 NATIONAL POLICY 121 
 
 operation, but not without it. In such a 
 case no treaty is necessary. If you act the 
 other Power will join you, and the enemy 
 knowing this will be slow to quarrel with 
 either of you. 
 
 Nations do not conduct their affairs upon 
 sentimental, but upon business lines, and 
 there can be no greater delusion than that 
 of too many humanitarian politicians, who 
 imagine that alliances can be built upon 
 sympathy or upon community of political 
 creed. I have watched for years, during 
 which I have paid repeated visits to France 
 and Germany, the growth of French and 
 German hostility to this country. But for 
 years I have been reviled by my Liberal 
 friends as a Tory, because I have urged them 
 to observe the hostile feeling in France, 
 incredible to them because inconsistent with 
 their dreams, and by my Unionist friends as 
 a Radical, ])ecause I have pointed out that
 
 122 THE BRAIN OF THE NAVY 
 
 the German Government, with which they 
 would Hke this comitry to be alhed, carries 
 on among its own people a systematic pro- 
 paganda of hatred to England. Would it 
 not be well for the country and for our 
 political life if for a time we could all of us 
 forget that we are, or were a few years ago, 
 Liberals and Conservatives, and could re- 
 member, what after all is more important, 
 that we are fellow-citizens of the same nation, 
 and partners in the same Empire ? 
 
 We should then, perhaps, more fully realize 
 that the greatness of England — of Great 
 and Greater Britain — rests in the last resort 
 upon the manliness of her people, and that 
 the charter of our national liberties as well 
 as the foundation of our Empire is the power 
 of the British navy to assert and to retain 
 the command of the sea. 
 
 Wood fall & Kinder, Printers, 70 to 76, Long Acre, V/.C.
 
 Crozun 8vo, 2s, 6d. 
 
 THE BRAIN OF AN ARMY. 
 
 h Popular Account of the German General Staff. 
 
 By Spenser Wilkinson, Author of "Citizen Soldiers." 
 
 T//i; A THEN^CJM.—" The best m.-iniu-il tli.it exists of the functions of a 
 General Staff." 
 
 THE PALL MALL GAZETTE. — "A model of clearness in exposition. 
 There is not a dull page in the book." 
 
 THE DEUTSCHE RUNDSCHA 6^.-" Not only a popular but a thorough 
 account of the nature of the German General Staff. ... Its author has entered 
 into the spirit of the German army in a manner we should have hardly believed to 
 be possible for a foreigner." 
 
 THE KOLNISCHE ZEITUNG.—" It is very interesting for us Germans to 
 see how a foreigner has penetrated the spirit of our military institutions, and mas- 
 tered the by no means simple department of the General Staff. There are plenty 
 of books written by foreigners that are in general correct, and take a sound view of 
 our General Staff, but they usually contain mistakes in detail that at once betray the 
 foreigner. Still more common are misunderstandings caused by the foreign point of 
 view. No fault can be found with Wilkinson's book under either of these heads, 
 which proves that he has not only mastered all his materials by careful study, but 
 has acquired such a living knowledge of his subject as a foreigner rarely attains." 
 
 INTERNA TIONALE REVUE UBER DIE GESAMMTEN ARMEEN 
 UND FLOTTEN. — "The author of 'Citizen Soldiers' ventures into a field that 
 might seem foreign to him, when as an Englishman, and, we may add, not a soldier 
 by profession, he subjects the organization of the German General Staff to a serious 
 examination. But that he most perfectly commands his subject is shown by the 
 opening pages, and the light which he throws upon the German General Staff (which 
 he calls ' The Brain of an Army') loses none of its strength until he has successfully 
 accomplished in brief and convincing style the task which he has undertaken." 
 
 JAHRBUCHER FUR DIE DEUTSCHE ARMEE UND MARINE.— 
 " A book full of thought. . . . The author shows that he is very intimate with 
 our military institutions as regards the training of the aimy to be a manageable 
 instrument of war, and the education of officers for the higher commands." 
 
 THE RI VISTA MI LIT ARE ITALIANA.—" A. full and profound 
 analysis. . . . Reveals in the author a deep knowledge of his subject, which he 
 has treated so philosophically and at the same time so incisively that his work 
 deserves to be made known to our military public, and commended to its medita- 
 tion." 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON.
 
 THE 
 
 COMMAND OF THE SEA. 
 
 By SPENSER WILKINSON. 
 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo, Coloured Wrapper^ is, 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Sea Power and Land Power. 
 National Policy. 
 The Mediterranean. 
 Defence by a Navy. 
 
 The Secret of Success. 
 Readiness in the Right Place. 
 The Actual Situation. 
 A Specific Proposal. 
 
 " What is Unionism to an Empire shaken, or Home Rule to four 
 impoverished nations, or an eight hours' day to working classes 
 thrown out of employment, or Socialism to a people fighting for its 
 life? .... There are still some thousands of Englishmen to whom 
 the security of the Empire is dearer than the most highly advertized 
 party nostrums." 
 
 T//jB times. — Mr. Wilkinson expounds with great force and 
 felicity of illustration the true meaning of the strategical expression 
 " The Command of the Sea." 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL UNITED SERVICE 
 INSTII'UTION. — Mr. Wilkinson treats the subject with a clearness 
 and grasp almost above praise ; within loo brief pages he condenses all 
 that the average citizen requires to enable him to form a reasonable 
 judgment on the needs of our navy to maintain that command of the 
 sea on which, as he clearly shows, our very existence now depends. More 
 than this, he comes forward with a distinct and practical suggestion, 
 which, if adopted by the nation, will ensure the provision of a fleet and 
 army competent to fulfil the duties for which they exist. 
 
 THE UNITED SERVICE GAZETTE.— \ery able essays, 
 
 THE HEALM.— Good sense at last. 
 
 A. CONSTABLE & CO., WESTMINSTER.
 
 IMPERIAL DEFENCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 The Right Hon. Sir CHARLES W. DILKE, Bart., 
 
 Author of "Greater Britain" and "Problems 
 
 of Greater Britain," 
 
 AND 
 
 SPENSER WILKINSON, Author of " Citizen 
 Soldiers" and "The Brain of an Army." 
 
 Crown 8vo, js. 6d. 
 
 TIMES. — "The volume is a serious and reasoned exposition of a 
 defensive policy, adapted to the conditions and needs of the British Empire, 
 and starting from a view of national duty, interest, and responsibility, 
 which holds neither war nor peace to be an end in itself, but regards both 
 as subordinate to the supreme and paramount ends of national security, 
 
 individuality, honour, and self-respect The exposition given of the 
 
 true meaning of the command of the sea, and its relation to the defensive 
 
 policy of the British Empire, is singularly clear and forcible On the 
 
 whole, however, the book is a contribution to the higher policy of defence 
 which invites serious study, and will reward it even if the attitude of the 
 reader towards the writer is often one of dissent." 
 
 DAILY CHRONICLE. — "No two men in this country outside the 
 highest ranks of professional soldiers, and not many even among them, 
 have paid more attention to the question of the defence of Great and 
 Greater Britain than the two civilians whose names are on the title of this 
 
 most notable volume An excellent, a readable, and a very suggestive 
 
 book." 
 
 SPECTATOR. — " In particular, we notice that the account of the 
 problems attending the North-West Frontier of India, illustrated by four 
 sketch maps, is especially clear and instructive." 
 
 OBSER VER. — " It is a model of clearness. Its facts are as intelligible 
 as its conclusions ; and both facts and conclusions indicate that in the 
 event of war this country might find itself in a fortnight in a desperate 
 condition. And yet it is written in a thoughtful and statesmanlike manner." 
 
 GUARDIAN.—" It is a reasoned exposition of the broad principles of 
 Imperial defence in their military as well as in their naval aspect, and it is 
 prefaced by an introductory chapter in which tlie abstract duty of National 
 defence is inculcated in a manner at once reasonable in itself and instinct 
 with a sound and even elevated ethical purpose." 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON.
 
 THE NAVY LEAGUE, 
 
 A STRICTLY NON-PARTY ORGANIZATION 
 TO URGE UPON GOVERNMENT AND THE 
 ELECTORATE THE PARAMOUNT IMPOR- 
 TANCE OF AN ADEQUATE NAVY AS THE 
 BEST GUARANTEE OF PEACE. 
 
 Among the Subscribers are the followiug : — 
 
 Ainslie, W. L., Esq. 
 Barry, F. T., Esq., M.P. 
 Bayley, Sir Stewart C, K. C.S.I. 
 Bell, C. W., Esq. 
 Beeton, H. R., Esq. 
 Boulnois, Edmund, E'^q , M.P. 
 Bradford, Robert, Esq. 
 Brownlow, The Right Hon. Earl, 
 
 P.C. 
 Cantelupe, The Viscount 
 Close, Admiral 
 Cust, Plenry C, Esq., M.P. 
 Davis, Alderman 
 Degacher, Major-General 
 Dimsdale, Alderman J. C. 
 Evans, Alderman Sir David, 
 
 K.C.M.G. 
 Finch-IIatton, The Hon. Harold 
 Gib, General 
 
 Gibbs, Alban G. H., Esq., M.P. 
 Gibbs, H. Ilucks, Esq. 
 Goldie, G. H. D., Esq. 
 Grenfell, W. H., Esq. 
 Hanson, Sir Reginald, Bart., M.P. 
 Heron-Maxwell, Sir John, Bart. 
 Hornby, Admiral of the Elect, 
 
 Sir G. Phipps 
 Hozier, Col. H. M. 
 
 Jackson, John J., Esq. 
 
 Knill, Alderman Sir Stuart, Bart. 
 
 Lawson, Sir Charles A. 
 
 Le Fanu, W. R., Esq. 
 
 L ijhon, Sir Fredeiick, Bart., 
 
 i'.W.A. 
 Maple, Sir John Blundell, M.P. 
 Marston, R. B. , Esq. 
 Maxse, Admiral 
 Milburn, V/illiam, Esq. 
 Payne, Sir Charles, Bart., R.N. 
 Peek, Sir Henry, Bart. 
 Price, H. Rokeby, Esq. 
 Puleston, Sir John 
 Ritchie, Alderman J. T. 
 Scoble, Sir Andrew R., K.C.S.I., 
 
 M.P. 
 Sharpe, Montagu, Esq. 
 Simon, Henry, Esq. 
 Smith, The Hon. W. F. D., M.P. 
 Straight, Sir Douglas 
 Stuart, Major-General 
 Treloar, Alderman 
 Tyler, Alderman Sir G. R., Bart. 
 Vernon, The Hon. William Warren 
 Wigan, Sir Frederick 
 Wilkin, Sir W. H. 
 
 Hon. Treasurer. 
 
 Trower, H. Seymour, Esq. 
 
 Hon. Seci-etarics. 
 
 Cox, R. HippisLEY, Esq. 
 
 Allen, C. P., Esq. 
 
 Bankers. 
 
 Messrs. Cox & Co.
 
 THE object of the League is to cause the National 
 Policy to be directed to the maintenance of the 
 naval supremacy of the United Kingdom as the best 
 guarantee of peace. Its action is intended to strengthen 
 the hands of the Government, of whatever party, for that 
 purpose. 
 
 The League will endeavour to spread the best literature 
 expounding the importance of the Navy to the United 
 Kingdom and to the Empire. A better informed public 
 will more readily support any measures which may be 
 necessary for naval defence. 
 
 It is proposed to urge upon the consideration of the 
 Government and of Parliament the desirability of a better 
 organization of the iVdmiralty, with a view to the more 
 exact definition of responsibility and to greater publicity 
 being given to the professional opinion upon which the 
 action of the Government is based. It is believed that in 
 this way the House of Commons will be better able to 
 satisfy itself that the money voted on the estimates is 
 necessary, sufficient, and used to the best advantage. 
 
 Further details, and a full account of tlie views held by 
 the Executive Committee of the League, can be had on 
 application to the Secretary. 
 
 Subscribers of One Guinea a year become Members. 
 Those contributing less than One Guinea are Associates. 
 Subscribers of Five Pounds or more annually are Honorary 
 Vice-Presidents, and donors of Twenty-five Pounds or more 
 are Honorary Vice-Presidents for life. 
 
 All comiiiunicatious should be addressed to 
 
 THE SECRETARY, THE NAVY LEAGUE, 
 13, VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W.
 
 Bv SPENSER WILKINSON. 
 
 THE GREAT ALTERNATIVE: 
 
 A PLEA FOR A NATIONAL POLICY. 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. Price 7s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 Introduction :— I. National Paralysis. II. The Remedy. 
 
 I. The Eastern Question. 
 II. The Union of Germany. 
 
 III. ThePartitionofTurkey 
 
 and the Triple Alli- 
 ance. 
 
 IV, The Use of Armies. 
 
 V. The Secret of the Sea. 
 VI. Egypt. 
 
 VII. A Warning from Ger- 
 many. 
 
 VIII. The Expansion of 
 France. 
 
 IX. India. 
 
 X. The Great Alterna- 
 tive. 
 
 XI. The Revival of Duty. 
 
 Of the various essays comprised in this book, that on " The Secret 
 of the Sea " is especially commended to the reader's attention. — Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 Able, earnest, thoughtful, suggestive and patriotic, this book 
 commends itself to every political student and to every thinking 
 citizen. The author does not attempt to propound a programme, 
 but merely to illustrate the abiding aims of the British nation. — 
 Glasgow Herald. 
 
 "The Use of Armies " and " The Secret of the Sea," two chapters 
 of very great interest, written with brilliant clearness. — Manchester 
 Guardiati. 
 
 One need not accept either Mr. 'Wilkinson's view of our statesmen, 
 or his general conclusions, to feel that his book is a valuable one. . . . 
 What the country appears to us to need is a serious and deliberate reali- 
 zation of the extent and nature of our Imperial interests and responsi- 
 bilities. Those interests and responsibilities must be faced as a 
 whole, if at all, and a book like " The Great Alternative " is helpful 
 as bringing home to the reader what politics on a large scale really 
 mean. — Literary World, 
 
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