5. Every merchant ship converted into a warship is bound to observe in its operations the laws and customs of war.

6. A belligerent who converts a merchant ship into a warship must, as soon as possible, announce such conversion in the list of its warships.

This Convention has been accepted and ratified by all the great maritime Powers. It is true that it gives the converted merchant ship what may be called the dog's privilege of taking a first bite with impunity, but it makes it very difficult for any second bite to be taken. Such a vessel may as a merchant ship have obtained coal and other supplies in a neutral port before conversion, but she cannot after conversion return to the same or another neutral port and repeat the process; nor can she easily play the game which some have attributed to her of being a merchant ship one day, a warship the next, and a merchant ship again on the third. Further, as a weapon to be employed against England in particular, the method of conversion here prescribed would seem to be largely discounted by the fact that this country could, if it were so disposed, convert as many merchant ships into warships in this way as all the rest of the world put together.

It will be argued, perhaps, that a belligerent when hard pressed will not respect the provisions of a mere paper Convention, but will, if it suits him, treat them as non-existent. In that case it is not easy to see why he should ever have accepted and ratified them. The preamble of this very Convention recites that "whereas the contracting Powers have been unable to come to an agreement on the question whether the conversion of a merchant ship into a warship may take place upon the high seas, it is understood that the question of the place where such conversion is effected remains outside the scope of this agreement, and is in no way affected by the following rules." In other words some of the very Powers which have ratified the Convention as it stands categorically declined to add to it a provision forbidding altogether the conversion of a merchant ship into a warship on the high seas. If this does not mean that, while reserving their freedom of action in this respect, they are prepared to abide by the provisions of a Convention which they have not less categorically accepted and ratified we are driven to the absurd conclusion that all International Law is a nullity.

Secondly, the practical disappearance of the sailing ship from the seas has profoundly modified all the pre-existing conditions affecting the attack and defence of commerce afloat. In the days of sailing, all vessels were compelled to sail according to the wind, that is, to take devious courses whenever the wind was adverse, so that some of them might at all times be found scattered over very wide areas of the seas connecting the ports of departure with those of arrival. Accordingly the sporadic attack on commerce by isolated warships cruising at large within the limits of trade routes, which might be hundreds of miles in width, was often productive of very appreciable results. There were few blank coverts on the seas to be drawn. Nowadays a steamer can always take the most direct course to her destination. As a consequence, trade routes have now been narrowed down to what may more fittingly be called lines of communication, and these lines possess the true characteristic of all lines, namely, that they have practically no breadth. Thus the areas bounded by these lines are nowadays all blank coverts. Any one who happens to cross the Atlantic, as I have crossed it more than once, by one of the less frequented routes, will know that the number of vessels sighted in a voyage quite as long as any warship could take without coaling may often be counted on the fingers of one hand. Another characteristic of these lines is that though their points of departure and destination are fixed, yet the lines joining these points may be varied if necessary to such an extent that any warship hovering about their ordinary direction would be thrown entirely off the scent. On the other hand their ports of departure and destination being fixed, the lines of communication must inevitably converge as they approach these points. There are other points also more in the open at which several lines of communication may intersect. At these "terminal and focal points," as Mr Corbett has aptly called them, the belligerent, being by hypothesis inferior to his adversary, must needs endeavour to concentrate his attack on his enemy's commerce, because at any other points the game would not be worth the candle. But it is precisely at these points that the superior adversary will concentrate his defence, and being superior, will take care to do so in force sufficient for the purpose. So far as the remaining portions of the lines of communication need any direct defence at all this can be afforded, if and when necessary, by collecting the merchant ships about to traverse them into convoys and giving them an escort sufficiently powerful to deal effectually with attacks which from the nature of the case can only be sporadic and intermittent. Be it remembered that the last thing a warship bent on commerce destruction wants is to encounter an enemy in superior or even in equal force. The moment she does so her game is up.

Thirdly, the subst.i.tution of steam for sails has very largely reduced the enduring mobility of the commerce-destroying warship. In time of war no warship will ever go further from the nearest available supply of coal than is represented by considerably less than half of the distance that she can steam at full speed with her bunkers full. If she does so she runs the risk, if chased, of burning her last pound of coal before she has reached shelter. Coaling at sea is only possible in exceptional circ.u.mstances, and is in any case a very tedious operation. A warship which attempts it will be taken at a great disadvantage if an enemy catches her in the process. Colliers, moreover, are exposed to capture while proceeding to the appointed rendezvous, and if they fail to reach it the warship awaiting them will be placed in extreme danger. All these difficulties and dangers may be surmounted once and again, but they must needs put a tremendous handicap in the long run on the commerce-destroying efforts of a belligerent who is not superior to his adversary at sea.

Of course if he is superior at sea the enemy's commerce will be at his mercy, and nothing can prevent its destruction or at least its total suppression. But that is not the hypothesis we are considering.

Fourthly, the power of the modern warship to send her prizes into court for adjudication, or to destroy them off-hand on capture is much more limited than was that of her sailing predecessor. If she sends them into port she must either put a prize crew on board or escort them herself.

In the former case the prizes, and in the latter case both prizes and their captors are liable to recapture, a liability which becomes the greater in proportion as the enemy is superior at sea. As to the former alternative, moreover, the crew of a modern man-of-war is highly specialized, and in particular its engine-room complement, which must furnish a portion of every prize crew, is at the outset no greater than is required for the full fighting efficiency of the ship. It is probable, therefore, that the captor would in nearly all cases adopt the alternative of destroying his prizes at sea. In that case there will be no prize money for any one concerned, but that is perhaps a minor consideration. A far more important consideration is that before destroying the prize the captor must take its crew on board and provide food and accommodation for them. Any other course would be sheer piracy and would inevitably lead to drastic reprisals. Now, before the captor had destroyed many prizes in this fashion--especially if even one of them happened to be a pa.s.senger steamer well filled with pa.s.sengers--she would find herself gravely embarra.s.sed by the number of her prisoners, and the need of providing for them even in the roughest fashion. A captain having to fight his ship even with a few hundreds of prisoners on board would be in no very enviable position.

The foregoing are the leading considerations which appear to me to govern the problem of the attack and defence of maritime commerce in modern conditions of naval warfare. I have discussed the question in greater detail in a work ent.i.tled _Nelson and Other Naval Studies_, and as I have seen no reason to abandon or substantially to modify the conclusions there formulated, I reproduce them here for the sake of completeness:--

1. All experience shows that commerce-destroying never has been, and never can be, a primary object of naval war.

2. There is nothing in the changes which modern times have witnessed in the methods and appliances of naval warfare to suggest that the experience of former wars is no longer applicable.

3. Such experience as there is of modern war points to the same conclusion and enforces it.

4. The case of the "Alabama," rightly understood, does not disallow this conclusion but rather confirms it.

5. Though the volume of maritime commerce has vastly increased, the number of units of naval force capable of a.s.sailing it has decreased in far greater proportion.

6. Privateering is, and remains abolished, not merely by the fiat of International Law, but by changes in the methods and appliances of navigation and naval warfare which have rendered the privateer entirely obsolete.

7. Maritime commerce is much less a.s.sailable than in former times, because the introduction of steam has confined its course to definite trade routes of extremely narrow width, and has almost denuded the sea of commerce outside these limits.

8. The modern commerce destroyer is confined to a comparatively narrow radius of action by the inexorable limits of her coal supply. If she destroys her prizes she must forgo the prize money and find accommodation for the crews and pa.s.sengers of the ships destroyed. If she sends them into port she must deplete her engine-room complement and thereby gravely impair her own efficiency.

9. Torpedo craft are of little or no use for commerce destruction except in certain well-defined areas where special measures can be taken for checking their depredations.

Of course all this depends on the one fundamental a.s.sumption that the commerce to be defended belongs to a Power which can, and does, command the sea. On no other condition can maritime commerce be defended at all.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DIFFERENTIATION OF NAVAL FORCE

A warship, considered in the abstract, may be defined as a vessel employed, and generally constructed, for the purpose of conveying across the seas to the place of conflict, the weapons that are to be used in conflict, the men who are to use them, and all such stores, whether of food or other supplies, as will give to the vessel as large a measure of enduring mobility as is compatible with her displacement. If we confine our attention to the period posterior to the employment of the gun on shipboard as the princ.i.p.al weapon of offence, and if we regard the torpedo as a particular kind of projectile, and the tube from which it is discharged as a particular kind of gun, we may condense this definition into the modern formula that a warship is a floating gun-carriage. With the methods and implements of sea warfare anterior to the introduction of the gun we need not concern ourselves. They belong to the archaeology of the subject. It suffices to point out that in all periods of naval warfare the nature of the princ.i.p.al weapon employed, and to some extent that of the motive power available, have not only governed the structure of the ship and determined the practicable limit of its displacement, but have also exercised a dominant influence over the ordering of fleets and their disposition in action. Sea tactics have never been more elaborate than they were in the last days of the galley period which came to an end with the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, less than a score of years before the defeat of the Armada in 1588. But the subst.i.tution of sails for oars as the motive power of the warship and the more general employment of the gun as the princ.i.p.al weapon of offence necessarily entailed radical changes in the tactical methods which had been slowly evolved during the galley period. At first all was confusion and a sea-fight was reduced for a time to a very disorderly and tumultuous affair. "We went down in no order," wrote an officer who was present at Trafalgar, "but every man to take his bird." This is a very inaccurate and even more unintelligent account of the tactics pursued at Trafalgar; but it might very well stand for a picturesque summary of the tactical confusion which prevailed at the period of the Armada and for half a century afterwards.

Gradually, however, order was again evolved out of the prevailing chaos.

But it was not the old order. It was a new order based on the predominance of the gun and its disposition on board the ship. To go down in no order and for each man to take his bird would mean that each ship, whether large or small, would be free as far as circ.u.mstances permitted to select an adversary not disproportioned in strength to herself, so that there was no very pressing need for the fleet to consist of h.o.m.ogeneous units, nor for the elimination of comparatively small craft from a general engagement. But in the course of the Dutch Wars the practice was slowly evolved of fighting in a compact or close-hauled line, the ships being ranged in a line ahead--that is, each succeeding ship following in the wake of her next ahead--in order to give free play to the guns disposed mainly on the broadside, and being, for purposes of mutual support, disposed as closely to each other as was compatible with individual freedom of evolution and manoeuvre. This disposition necessarily involved the exclusion from the line of battle of all vessels below a certain average or standard of fighting strength, since it was no longer possible for "every man to take his bird" and a weak ship might find herself in conflict with an adversary of overpowering strength in the enemy's line. Hence the main fighting forces of naval belligerents came in time to be composed entirely of "ships fit to lie in a line," as Torrington phrased it, of "capital ships," as they were frequently called in former days, of "line of battle ships" or "ships of the line," as afterwards they were more commonly called, or of "battleships" as is nowadays the accepted appellation. Other elements of naval force not "fit to lie in a line"

were also required, as I am about to show, and took different forms at different times, but the root of the whole evolution lies in the elimination of the non-capital ship from the main fighting line. In a very instructive chapter of his _Naval Warfare_, Admiral Colomb has traced the whole course of this gradual "Differentiation of Naval Force." But for my purpose it suffices to cite the briefer exposition of a French writer quoted by Admiral Mahan in his _Influence of Sea Power upon History_:--

"With the increase of the power of the ship of war, and with the perfecting of its sea and warlike qualities, there has come an equal progress in the art of utilizing them.... As naval evolutions become more skilful, their importance grows from day to day. To these evolutions there is needed a base, a point from which they depart and to which they return. A fleet of warships must always be ready to meet an enemy; logically, therefore, this point of departure for naval evolutions must be the order of battle. Now since the disappearance of galleys, almost all the artillery is found upon the sides of a ship of war. Hence it is the beam that must necessarily and always be turned toward the enemy. On the other hand it is necessary that the sight of the latter must never be interrupted by a friendly ship. Only one formation allows the ships of the same fleet to satisfy fully these conditions. That formation is the line ahead. The line, therefore, is imposed as the only order of battle, and consequently as the basis of all fleet tactics. In order that this line of battle, this long thin line of guns, may not be injured or broken at some point weaker than the rest, there is at the same time felt to be the necessity of putting in it only ships which, if not of equal force, have at least equally strong sides. Logically it follows, at the same moment in which the line ahead became definitely the order for battle, there was established the distinction between the 'ships of the line' alone destined for a place therein, and the lighter ships meant for other uses."

But the need for other and lighter ships "meant for other uses" and not "fit to lie in a line," is equally demonstrable. The function of battleships is to act in concert. They must therefore be concentrated in fleets sufficiently strong to give a good account of the enemy's fleets opposed to them. This does not necessarily mean that all the fleets of a belligerent must be concentrated in a single position. But it does mean that if disposed in accordance with the dispositions of the enemy they must be so disposed and connected, that, moving on interior lines, they can always bring a superior force to the point of contact with the enemy. Subject to this paramount condition, that of being able to concentrate more rapidly than the enemy can, dispersal of naval force--not of units but of organized fighting fleets--is generally a better disposition than extreme concentration. But it is a fatal error in strategy so to disperse your fleets as to expose them to the risk of being overpowered by the enemy in detail.

The fleets of capital ships thus organized, and disposed as occasion may require and sound strategy dictate, are not, however, by any means to be regarded as autonomous and self-sufficing organisms. They are rather to be regarded as the moving base of a much larger organization, much more widely dispersed, consisting of lighter vessels not fit to lie in a line, but specially adapted to discharge functions which capital ships cannot as such discharge, yet which are indispensable either to the full efficiency of the latter or to the maintenance of an effective command of the sea. The first of these functions is the collection and rapid transmission of intelligence as to the enemy's dispositions and movements over as wide an area of the waters in dispute as is compatible with communication rapid enough to allow of counter-movements being made before it is too late. The development of wireless telegraphy has largely extended this area, but it is not without limits in practice, and those limits are already narrower than the extreme range of a single transmission by wireless telegraphy. For example, a warship in the Levant might, if the conditions were exceptionally favourable, communicate by direct wireless with another warship in the Orkneys. But the information thus transmitted would hardly be likely directly to influence the movements and dispositions of the latter. If it did it would probably not be through the immediate initiative of the Admiral commanding in the North Sea, but through the supreme control of all the naval forces of the belligerent affected, exercised through the General Staff of the Navy at the seat of Government. It may here be remarked in pa.s.sing that the development of wireless telegraphy will probably be found in war to strengthen this supreme control and to weaken to that extent the independent and isolated initiative of individual Commanders-in-Chief. But that is not necessarily a disadvantage, and even so far as it is disadvantage at all it is more than balanced by the immense corresponding advantage of keeping the War Staff at all times in direct touch with every part of the field of naval operations, and thereby making it the focus of all available information, and the directing authority for all the larger strategy of the campaign. Except in degree, moreover, there is nothing new in this. When Nelson was returning across the Atlantic, after chasing Villeneuve out of the West Indies, his only way of informing the Admiralty of the nature of the situation was to send on Bettesworth in the brig "Curieux" with his news. Nowadays a modern "Curieux" would be able to send on the news as soon as she came within fifteen hundred or possibly two thousand miles from the British Isles, and Nelson at the same distance might have received his orders direct from the Admiralty. But the special point to note is that as soon as Bettesworth's information was received at the Admiralty, Barham, the First Lord of the Admiralty, instantly issued orders which profoundly modified the dispositions of the fleets engaged in blockading the French ports and led directly to Calder's action off Finisterre, and in the sequel to the abandonment by Napoleon of all his projects of invasion and the destruction of the allied fleets at Trafalgar. There were giants in those days both afloat and ash.o.r.e. But the giants afloat did not resent the interference of the giants ash.o.r.e, and, as Mr Corbett has shown, the Trafalgar campaign was conducted with consummate sagacity by Barham, who embodied in himself the War Staff of the time.

Such is the transcendent importance of intelligence, and of its collection, transmission, collation, interpretation, and translation into supreme executive orders. Its collection and transmission is mainly the function of cruising ships disposed either individually or in small groups for the purpose, and at such a distance from the main body of battleships as is not incompatible with the movements of the latter being controlled and directed, either by their immediate commanders, or by the War Staff at the centre, according to the information received from the outlying cruisers. Such cruising vessels may vary in size and strength from the modern battle-cruiser, so heavily armed and armoured as to be not incapable of taking a place, on occasion, in the line of battle, down to the smallest torpedo craft which is endowed with sufficient enduring mobility to enable her to keep the sea and to cruise as near as may be to the enemy's ports. I have already indicated the other collateral functions which will have to be discharged by torpedo craft in case of a blockade and pointed out the vital distinction which differentiates them from the small craft of the past in that in certain circ.u.mstances they are capable of taking a formidable part in a fleet action even as against the most powerful battleships. But we are here considering them solely from the point of view of their cruising functions, whether as guarding their own sh.o.r.es or watching those of the enemy with a view to fighting on occasion and to observation at all times. Their supports will be cruisers of larger size, disposed at suitable distances in the rear, and themselves supported in like manner by successive cordons or patrols of cruisers increasing in size and power, until we come to the battle fleet as the concentrated nucleus of the whole organization. This is merely an abstract or diagrammatic exposition of such an organization, and it is of course liable to almost infinite variation in the infinite variety of warlike operations at sea, but it serves to exhibit the _rationale_ of the differentiation of naval force into battleships, cruisers, and small craft.

It has sometimes been argued that, inasmuch as the torpedo craft is, or may be, in certain conditions, more than a match for even the biggest battleship, battleships together with all intermediate ships between the battleship and the torpedo vessel, are not unlikely to be some day regarded as superfluous and in consequence to be discarded altogether from the naval armament of even a first-cla.s.s maritime Power. It is true that the range and accuracy of the torpedo have latterly undergone an immense development, so that a range of even ten thousand yards or five sea-miles is no longer beyond its powers. It is true that the development of the submarine vessel has vastly intensified the menace of the torpedo and it may soon be true that the development of aircraft will add a new and very formidable menace to the supremacy of the battleship. But except for this last consideration, which is at present exceedingly speculative, a little reflection will disclose the underlying fallacy of arguments of this kind. The enduring mobility of the torpedo craft is necessarily limited. It is incapable of that wide range of action which is required of warships if they are to establish and maintain any effective command of the sea. It is exceedingly vulnerable to ships of a larger size, and of more ample enduring mobility. These again will be vulnerable in their turn to ships of a still larger size and thus the logic of the situation brings us back to the battleship once more with its characteristic functions. It may perhaps be urged that this chain of argument takes too little account of the submarine vessel which is at present singularly invulnerable because for the most part invisible to any vessels, whether big or little, which operate only on the surface and even if discovered betimes by the latter, is not very readily a.s.sailable by them. But of two things one.

Either the submarine vessel will remain small and therefore weak, and lacking in enduring mobility, in which case it can never establish and maintain an effective command of the sea. Or it will grow indefinitely in size, in which case it will fall under the inexorable stress of the logic which brings us back once more to the battleship. It may be that the battleship of the still distant future will be a submersible battleship. But many exceedingly complex problems of construction and stability will have to be solved before that consummation is reached.

Lastly, the specific function of the so-called battle-cruiser would seem to need some further elucidation. At first sight this hybrid type of vessel might seem to be an anomalous intrusion into the time-honoured hierarchy of battleship, cruiser, and small craft, which the ripe experience of many wars, battles, and campaigns had finally established in the last golden days of the sailing ship period. It is indeed held by some high authorities that the battle-cruiser is in very truth a hybrid and an anomaly, and that no adequate reason for its existence can be given. In face of these opinions I cannot presume to dogmatize on the subject. But some not wholly irrelevant considerations may be advanced.

The battle-cruiser is, as its name implies, a vessel not only fitted by the nature of its armour and armament "to lie in a line," whenever occasion may require, but also exceedingly well qualified by its armour and armament, and still more by its speed, to discharge many of the functions of a cruiser either alone or in company with other cruisers.

In this latter capacity, it can overhaul nearly every merchant ship afloat, it can scout far and wide, it can push home a vital reconnaissance in cases where a weaker and slower cruiser would have to run away if she could, it can serve as a rallying point to a squadron of smaller cruisers engaged in the defence of this or that vital line of communication, and alone or in company with a consort of the same type it can hold the terminal and focal points of any such line against almost any number of hostile cruisers inferior in defensive and offensive powers to itself. Such are its powers and capacities when acting as a cruiser proper. But it may be thought that in the stress of conflict it will have very little opportunity of displaying these very exceptional powers because an admiral in command of a fighting fleet will never, when antic.i.p.ating an engagement with the enemy, consent to weaken his fighting line by detaching so powerful a unit for scouting or other cruising purposes. That is as it may be. It will depend on many circ.u.mstances of the moment not to be clearly antic.i.p.ated or defined beforehand; on the strength of the enemy's force, on the personality, sagacity, and fort.i.tude of the admiral--whether he is or is not a man of the mettle and temper ascribed to Nelson by Admiral Mahan in a pa.s.sage already quoted--on the comparative need as determined by the circ.u.mstances of the moment of scouting for information, of cruising for the defence of trade, or of strengthening the battle line for a decisive conflict to the uttermost extent of the nation's resources. It is unbecoming to a.s.sume that in the crisis of his country's fate an admiral will act either as a fool or as a poltroon. It is the country's fault if a man capable of so acting is placed in supreme command, and for that there is no remedy. But it is sounder to a.s.sume that the admiral selected for command is a man not incapable of disposing his force to the best advantage. "We must," said Lord Goschen, on one occasion, "put our trust in Providence and a good admiral." If a nation cannot find a good admiral in its need it is idle to trust in Providence.

It remains to consider the function of the battle-cruiser in the line of battle. The lines of battle in former times were often composed of ships of varying size and power. There was a legitimate prejudice against ships of excessive size, although their superior power in action was recognized--we have the unimpeachable testimony on that point of Nelson's Hardy, a man of unrivalled fighting experience to whom Nelson himself attributed "an intuitive right judgment"--because they were unhandy in manoeuvre and slow in sailing as compared with ships of more moderate dimensions. But except for difficulties of docking--a very serious consideration from the financial point of view--hardly any limit can be a.s.signed to the size of the modern warship on these particular grounds. Quite the contrary. Other things being equal, the bigger the ship the higher the speed, and it is well known that ships of the Dreadnought type are as handy to steer as a torpedo boat. For tactical reasons, moreover, it is not expedient to lengthen the line of battle unduly. Hence there is a manifest advantage in concentrating offensive power, as far as may be, in single units. On the other hand, the experience and practice of the eighteenth century showed conclusively that there was also a distinct advantage in having in the line of battle a certain number of ships which, being smaller than their consorts, were more handy and faster sailing than the latter. The enemy might not want to fight. Very often he did not, and by crowding all possible sail he did his best to get away. In this case the only way to bring him to action was for the pursuing admiral to order "a general chase"--that is, to direct his ships, disregarding the precise line of battle, to hurry on with all possible sail after the enemy so that the fastest ships of the pursuing fleet might bring individually to action the laggards of the retreating fleet and hold them until the main body of the pursuing fleet came up. In this case the retreating admiral must either return to the succour of his ships astern and thereby accept the general action which he sought to avoid, or abandon his overtaken ships to the enemy without attempting to rescue them. Hawke's action in Quiberon Bay and Duncan's action off Camperdown are two of the most memorable examples of this particular mode of attack, and their brilliant results are a striking testimony to its efficacy. If ever in the naval battles of the future it becomes expedient for an admiral to order a general chase, it stands to reason that ships of the battle-cruiser type will be invaluable for the purpose. Their speed will enable them to hold the tail of the enemy's line, and their power will enable them to crush it unless the retreating admiral who seeks to avoid a decisive action turns back to succour such of his ships as are a.s.sailed and thereby renders a decisive action inevitable.

There is, moreover, another function to be a.s.signed to the battle-cruiser in a general action, and that is a function which was defined once for all by Nelson himself in the immortal memorandum in which he explained to his captains the mode of attack he proposed to carry out at Trafalgar. "I have," wrote Nelson, "made up my mind to keep the fleet in that position of sailing ... that the order of sailing is to be the order of battle, placing the fleet in two lines of sixteen ships each, with an advanced squadron of eight _of the fastest sailing two-decked ships_ which will always make, if wanted, a line of twenty-four sail, on whichever line the Commander-in-Chief may direct."

Owing to the lack of ships this disposition was not adopted on the day of Trafalgar, but the principle involved is not affected by that circ.u.mstance. That principle is that a squadron of the fastest sailing ships in the fleet was to be detached from the two fighting lines entrusted with the initial attack, and reserved or "refused" until the development of the main attack had disclosed to the Commander-in-Chief the point at which the impact of this "advanced squadron" would by superior concentration on that point secure that the enemy should there be decisively overpowered. The essence of the matter is that the ships so employed should by virtue of their superior speed be endowed with a tactical mobility sufficient to enable them to discharge the function a.s.signed to them. I need hardly insist on the close a.n.a.logy which subsists between Nelson's "advanced squadron" and a modern squadron of battle-cruisers similarly employed, and although the conflict of modern warships must needs differ in many essential respects from the conflicts of sailing ships in Nelson's days, yet I think a clear and authoritative exposition of one at least of the uses and functions of the battle-cruiser in a fleet action may still be found in what I have called elsewhere "the last tactical word of the greatest master of sea tactics the world has ever known, the final and flawless disposition of sailing ships marshalled for combat."

CHAPTER IX

THE DISTRIBUTION AND SUPPLY OF NAVAL FORCE

The measure of naval strength required by any State is determined mainly by the naval strength of its possible adversaries in the event of war, and only in a secondary degree by the volume of the maritime interests which it has to defend. Paradoxical as the latter half of this proposition may seem at first sight, it can easily be shown to be sound.

The maritime interests, territorial and commercial, of the British Empire are beyond all comparison greater than those of any other State in the world; but if no other State possessed a naval force strong enough to a.s.sail them seriously, it is manifest that the naval force required to defend them need be no greater than is sufficient to overcome the a.s.sailant, and would not therefore be determined in any degree by the volume of the interests to be defended. Each State determines for itself the measure of naval strength which it judges to be necessary to its security. No State expects to have to encounter the whole world in arms or makes its provision in view of any such chimerical contingency. The utmost that any State can do is to adjust its naval policy to a rational estimate of all the reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict, due regard being had to the extent of its financial resources and to such other requirements of national defence as circ.u.mstances impose on it. Germany, for example, has proclaimed to all the world in the preamble to the Navy Law of 1900 that--

"In order to protect German trade and commerce under existing conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Germany must possess a battle fleet of such strength that even for the most powerful naval adversary a war would involve such risks as to make that Power's own supremacy doubtful. For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the German fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval Power, for, as a rule, a great naval Power will not be in a position to concentrate all its forces against us."

I am not concerned in any way with the political aspects of this memorable declaration. But its bearing on the naval policy of the British Empire is manifest and direct. England is beyond all question "the greatest naval Power" in the world. The declaration of Germany thus lays upon England the indefeasible obligation of taking care that by no efforts of any other Power shall her "own supremacy"--that is her capacity to secure and maintain the command of the sea in all reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict--be rendered doubtful.

There is no State in the world on which decisive defeat at sea would inflict such irretrievable disaster as it would on England and her Empire. These islands would be open to invasion--and if to invasion to conquest and subjugation--the commerce of the whole Empire would be annihilated, and the Empire itself would be dismembered. I need not attempt to determine what measure of naval strength is required to avert this unspeakable calamity. It suffices to say that whatever the measure may be it must be provided and maintained at all hazards. That is merely the axiomatic expression of the things that belong to our peace.

It will be observed that the German declaration a.s.sumes that "a great naval Power will not, as a rule, be in a position to concentrate all its forces against" a single adversary. This raises at once the question of the distribution of naval force, or of what has been called the peace strategy of position. I shall endeavour to discuss the problem with as little reference as may be to an actual state of war between any two individual and specific naval Powers. I shall merely a.s.sume that of two possible belligerents one is so far stronger than the other as to look with confidence to being able in the event of war to secure and maintain its own command of the sea; and in order not to complicate the problem unduly I shall include in the term "belligerent" not merely a single Power but an alliance of one or more separate Powers, while still adhering to the a.s.sumption that the relative strength of the two belligerents is as defined above. If England is one of the Powers affected it is manifest from what has already been said that this a.s.sumption is a legitimate one.

In such a situation it stands to reason that the concentration of the whole force of the stronger belligerent against the whole force equally concentrated of the weaker belligerent would not be necessary and would very rarely be expedient. The stronger belligerent would of course seek, in time of war, so to dispose his forces as to make it impossible for the weaker fleets of his adversary to take the sea without being brought to a decisive action, and he would so order his peace strategy of position as to further that paramount purpose. But it does not follow that being superior in the measure above defined he would need to concentrate all his available forces for that purpose. He would concentrate so much of his forces as would ensure victory in the encounters antic.i.p.ated--so far as mere numbers apart from fighting efficiency can ensure victory--and the residue would be available for other and subsidiary purposes. If there were no residue, then the required superiority would not have been attained, and the belligerent who has neglected to attain it must take the consequences. One of these consequences would certainly be that the other and subsidiary purposes above mentioned would have to be neglected until the main issue was decided, and if these purposes were of any moment he would have so far to pay the penalty of his neglect. Nothing is more fatal in warfare than to attempt to be equally strong everywhere. If you cannot do everything you desire at once you must concentrate all your energies on doing the most important and the most vital things first. When the tree is cut down the branches will fall of themselves. The history of the War of American Independence is full of ill.u.s.trations of the neglect of this paramount principle. England was worsted much more by faulty distribution than by insufficiency of force.

At the same time it must be observed that the outlying and subsidiary purposes of the conflict cannot be of vital moment so long as the superior belligerent is at firm grips with the central forces of his adversary. We are dealing with the a.s.sumption that of two belligerents one is so far superior to the other that he may entertain a reasonable confidence of being able to deny the command of the sea to his adversary and in the end to secure it for himself. It is an essential part of this a.s.sumption that the forces of the superior belligerent will be so disposed as to make it exceedingly difficult and, subject to the fortune of war, practically impossible for any considerable portion of the enemy's forces to act on a vigorous offensive without being speedily brought to book by a superior force of his adversary, and that the peace strategy of the latter will have been ordered to that end. So long as this is the case the virtual command of the sea will be in the hands of the superior belligerent, even though his forces may be so concentrated, in accordance with the dispositions of the enemy, as to leave many regions of the sea apparently unguarded. They are adequately guarded by the fact that the enemy is _ex hypothesi_ unable to reach them--or if by a successful evasion of his adversary's guard he manages to send a detachment, large or small, to aim at some outlying objective, the initial superiority of force possessed by his adversary will always enable the latter to send a superior force in pursuit of the fugitive.

Much harm may be done before the fugitive is brought to book, but no State, however strong, need ever expect to go to war without running risks and suffering occasional and partial reverses.

It is thus a pure delusion to a.s.sume, as loose thinkers on the subject too often a.s.sume, that the command of the sea must be either surrendered or imperilled by a superior belligerent who, apparently neglecting those regions of the sea which are not immediately a.s.sailed or threatened, concentrates his forces in the positions best calculated to enable him to get the better of his adversary, or who in time of peace so orders his strategy of position as to secure that advantage at once should war unhappily break out. Not long ago the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons used the following words:--"Ten years ago we not only had the command of the sea, but we had the command of every sea. We have the command of no sea in the world except the North Sea at this moment." Those who have followed and a.s.similated the exposition of the true meaning of the command of the sea given in these pages will readily discern how mischievous a travesty of that meaning is contained in these words. There is, as I have shown, no such thing as a command of the sea in time of peace. The phrase is merely a definition of the paramount objective of naval warfare as such. Ten years ago we had no command of any sea because we were not at war with any naval Power. The concentration of a large portion of our naval forces in the North Sea is no surrender of our command of the sea in any part of the world, because that command does not exist, never has existed in time of peace, and never can exist even in time of war until we have fought for it and secured it. The concentration in question is, together with the simultaneous disposition of the residue of our naval forces in different parts of the world, merely the expression of that peace strategy of position which, in the judgment of those who are responsible for it, is best calculated in the more probable, yet possibly quite remote, contingencies of international conflict, to enable our fleets to get the better of our enemies and thereby ultimately to secure the command of the sea in any and every part of the world in which we have maritime interests to defend. There are, it is true, some disadvantages involved in a close and sustained concentration of naval forces, especially in home waters. Naval officers lose in breadth and variety of experience and in the self-reliance which comes of independent command, while the prestige of the flag is in some measure diminished by the infrequency of its appearance in distant seas. But these, after all, are subsidiary considerations which must be subordinated to the paramount needs of a sound strategy, whether offensive or defensive.

It follows from the foregoing exposition of the principles which govern the strategic distribution of naval force in peace and war that a great naval Power must often maintain fleets of considerable strength in distant seas. England has for many generations maintained such a fleet in the Mediterranean, and it is hard to see how any reasonably probable change in the international situation could absolve her from that obligation. There are other and more distant stations on which she has maintained and still does maintain squadrons in a strength which has varied greatly from time to time in accordance with the changing phases of international relations and of strategic requirements as affected thereby. The measure of these requirements is determined from time to time by the known strength of the hostile forces which would have to be encountered in any reasonably probable contingencies of international conflict. But there is one antecedent requirement which is common to all considerable detachments of naval force in distant waters. In order to maintain their efficiency and mobility they must have a naval base conveniently situated within the limits of their station to which they may resort from time to time for repair, refit, and supply. The need for supply at the base is less paramount than that for refit and repair, because it is manifest that the control of maritime communications which has enabled the requisite stores to reach the base will also enable them to reach the ships themselves, wherever they may be at the moment. But for all refit and repair which cannot be effected by the ships'

companies themselves, with the aid of an attached repair ship, the ships must go to the base, and that base must be furnished with docks capable of receiving them.