A Retrospect (July, 1906).
The most striking fact to an outsider is the astonishing confidence and loyalty of the Navy in its rulers which has been exhibited during the last two years of relentless reorganisation.
Naval Officers, as a class, are conservative and dislike change, and as a rule are prepared to resist it. The manner in which the recent changes have been received, root and branch and sweeping as they were, shows, as nothing else can, the necessity for reforms. Compare the insignificant agitation (which has, however, now entirely collapsed), in the Navy over the vast and drastic reforms of the last two years with the agitation in the Army over the trifling matter of getting rid of two battalions of Guards!
So let us be grateful—adequately grateful—to the officers and men of the Navy for their splendid loyalty during the introduction of reforms, some of which have hit them very hard, notably the sudden bringing home and paying off of the large number of vessels that were wiped out of the Navy as not being up to the required standard of fighting efficiency. And there was also the redistribution of the Fleet, which deprived many officers of advantageous appointments and seriously disturbed domestic arrangements.
But the fact is that the Navy sees the fighting advantages we have gained, and so has loyally responded to the demands on its sense of duty.
As an excellent writer in the “North American Review” for June so aptly expresses it, the Navy saw that it was steam-manship that was wanted, and so, as a body, they welcomed the new scheme of training both of officers and men. They saw also that to have every vessel of the Navy, large and small, mobilised and efficient to fight within three hours in the dead of night, as practically exemplified in the recent Grand Manœuvres, is a result which justifies all the drastic measures of the Board of Admiralty.
The Navy also recognises the incomparable fighting advantages of the new era in giving us an unparalleled gunnery efficiency, as exemplified in the fact that before that new era there were 2,000 more misses than hits in the annual gunlayers’ competition, while in the year after there were 2,000 more hits than misses! In the new order the best ship is the one that can catch the enemy soonest, and hit him hardest and oftenest; under the old system these considerations were certainly not the primary ones.
The Navy sees also that, while the fighting efficiency of the British Fleet and its instant readiness for war has become a household word amongst the Admiralties of the world, at the same time vast economies—to be reckoned in many millions—have been effected; for instance, our harbours, docks, and basins are ridded of obsolete vessels and thus made adequate for the accommodation of our fighting fleet, for which there was no room previously, and no less a sum than 13 millions sterling was at one time contemplated as necessary to give the required accommodation. The whole of that 13 millions in proposed works has been cancelled.
Nor have the officers and men been forgotten. The men have had a quarter of a million sterling practically added to their pay; one item alone is £75,000 a year for increase of pensions to petty officers, and another £47,000 a year in giving them their food allowance when on leave, and other similar and just concessions make up the balance. Further improvements in the position of the lower deck are now under consideration and will shortly be ready for announcement, i.e., Ratings Committee.
The officers, again, no longer pay for the bands out of their own pockets, and the system of Nucleus Crews gives them an amount of Home Service combined with sea-time, with all its domestic advantages, beyond anything ever before obtaining in the Navy.
Again, it is recognised by all but a few misguided misanthropes that the new shipbuilding policy is a magnificent departure in fighting policy. We ask the officers who are going to fight, what they want, and we build thereto. Formerly vessels were simply belated improvements on their predecessors. Admirals had to make the best use they could of the heterogeneous assemblage of vessels which the idiosyncrasies of talented designers and Controllers of the Navy had saddled us with, to the embarrassment of those whose business it was to use them in battle, and to the bitter bewilderment of types in the brain of the Board of Admiralty! Theory was entirely divorced from practice, with the lamentable result that when the two were recently brought together, and the “Dreadnought” was evolved, it was found that the whole Navy had practically become obsolete!
“First catch your hare” is the recipe in Mrs. Glasse’s Cookery Book for “jugged hare,” and so speed has been put in the forefront in every class of vessel from battleship to submarine, and as it’s no use having the speed without the wherewithal to demolish the enemy, the armament of our new ships, as so fully exemplified in the “Dreadnought,” has received such a development that that vessel is equal to any two and a half battleships at present existing.
The efficacy of the Nucleus Crew system has also been obvious to the whole Fleet in the unprecedented exemptions from machinery defects, and the unexampled gunnery efficiency, coupled with a saving of about 50 per cent. in repairs of ships, which incidentally has led in a large measure to the reduction of 6,000 Dockyard workmen. And it must never be forgotten that every penny not spent in a fighting ship or on a fighting man is a penny taken away from the day of battle!
The management of the Royal Dockyards has now been placed on a much sounder footing, more akin to the organisation in similar commercial establishments, where any undue extravagance or unnecessary executive machinery means loss of money to the shareholders, and is visited by pains and penalties on the officials directly responsible. At the same time the desirable possibilities of ready expansion in war time to suit the varying requirements of a purely naval repairing and building establishment have been maintained.
The Navy also sees the great strategic advantages of our Fleets exercising where they are likely to fight. As Nelson said, “The battle ground should be the drill ground.”
The placid waters and lovely weather of the Mediterranean do not fit our seamen for the fogs and gales of the North Sea, or accustom them to the rigours of a northern winter, when the icicles hang down over the bed or the hammock of the Torpedo Boat Commander and his men, as in the North Sea last winter when we sent 147 Torpedo Craft suddenly to exercise at sea; and though sent on a full power trial of many hours, on first being mobilised, not a single defect or breakdown was experienced. Since that date the arrangements for the Torpedo Craft have been still further perfected, and now the Destroyers are all organised according to the strategic requirements of the situation of the moment, and are definitely detailed in flotillas and divisions, with their store and repair ships and reserves, according to the approved modern methods of torpedo warfare as exemplified in the Russo-Japanese War.
The Navy also sees and welcomes the untold advantage given by the Nucleus Crew system of instant war readiness, as exemplified when last July all our vessels, large and small, in reserve went to sea unnoticed by the Press and engaged in fighting Manœuvres in the Channel with 200 pendants under the chief command of the Admiral of the Channel Fleet.
No calling out of Reserves or such disorganisation as was incidental to the old system, when the crews of ships in commission had to be broken up to leaven the ships of the Reserve that then had no crews at all.
CHAPTER X
NAVAL EDUCATION
I.—Common Entry.
(Written in 1905).
On the 25th of December, 1902, the new system of entry and training of officers for the Navy was inaugurated.
The fundamental principles of this great reform are:—
(a) The common entry and training of officers of the three principal branches of the Service, viz., Combatant or Executive, Engineer, and Marine.
(b) The practical amalgamation of these three branches of officers.
(c) The recognition of the fact that the existence of the Navy depends on machinery, and that, therefore, all combatant officers must be Engineers.
(d) The adoption of the principle that the general education and training of all these officers must be completed before they go to sea, instead of, as heretofore, dragging on in a perfunctory manner during their service as midshipmen, to be finally completed by a short “cram” at Greenwich and Portsmouth.
When the details of the new scheme were published, it was stated that at about the age of 20 these officers, who up till then had all received an identical training, would be appropriated by selection to the three branches, viz., Executive, Marine, or Engineer; however, this is unlikely to be carried out in its entirety, and when the time comes, the march of progress will have prepared us to recognise that differentiation to this extent is unnecessary, and that the Fleet will be officered by the combatant officer, who will be equally an Executive, Marine, or Engineer Officer.
Let us assume this to be true. In spite of the great revolution that has been brought about since Christmas, 1902, in the Navy, and the consequent awakening and development of the minds of all officers, there is not one in one hundred who realises fully what the effects of this great reform will be.
The Cadets who are at present at Osborne College are being educated primarily as Mechanical Engineers concurrently with the special training necessary to make them good seamen, good navigators, and good commanders. The most important training they have to receive is undoubtedly that of the Mechanical Engineer, which will ultimately make them capable of dealing with and handling ANYTHING of a mechanical nature. In process of learning this they acquire a mathematical training of a very high order, and, as pure mathematics are the same all the world over, the various other subjects which the Naval Officer of the future will be required to be proficient in only necessitate a little training in the special application of the mathematics of which they possess a firm grasp. Navigation and nautical astronomy are simplicity exemplified once the student has learned trigonometry and algebra. Gunnery, torpedo, and electricity are simply special cases of mechanical problems. Modern seamanship is practically nothing else but a practical application of simple mechanical “chestnuts.”
What, therefore, is the meaning of it all?
It means that the Naval Officer of the future will regard machinery, mechanical work, and mechanical problems as his “bread and butter.” He will think no more of handling machinery of any sort than the ordinary mortal does of riding a bicycle; guns, gun-mountings, torpedoes, and electrical instruments and machines he will regard as special types, but differing no whit in principle from the primitive stock. Mystery will disappear. At present it is an unfortunate thing that departmental jealousy leads the members of each and every department of the Service to make a mystery of their particular speciality. The Gunnery Lieutenant, Torpedo Lieutenant, Engineer, and Marine Officer each resent discussion by “outsiders” of any point in connection with their speciality, as a piece of unwarrantable presumption, with the result that each knows all about his own job, and pursues it diligently, taking care not to poach on anybody else’s preserves, but without any regard as to whether the Service might not gain in efficiency by a little more co-operation and collaboration.
From one point of view they are right in being exclusive, because they know that no one else knows anything about their work, and therefore discussion with “outsiders” is mere waste of breath, but in future all this will be changed. Specialities will disappear; the Naval Officer of the future will see no greater difference between a gun-mounting and a torpedo, than an Engineer sees between the main engines and the feed pump.
However, although specialities will disappear, it will always be necessary to have “experts” in each department. We shall still require our Lieutenants G., T., and E.; but as at the present time when a Lieutenant G. is promoted to Commander he drops the G., so also it seems logical to conclude that the future Lieutenant E. on promotion to Commander should drop the E.
It is absolutely safe to predict that the Naval Officer of 50 years hence will smile when he reads that his forefathers had to have an officer of Commander’s rank appointed to a ship solely for charge of the main engines. Foreigners gasp when they hear that Lieutenants of two or three years standing command our destroyers; in other navies destroyers are usually commanded by Captains de Corvette; and then we smile when we remember youngsters like Lieutenant Rombulow-Pearse of the “Sturgeon,” who rescued the crew of the sinking “Decoy” in a gale of wind, with only his small whaler to help him, and with the loss of only one man, who disappeared nobody knows how.
The ideal complement of officers of the future therefore will be: 1 Captain, 1 Commander, 1 Lieutenant G., 1 Lieutenant E., 1 Lieutenant T., 1 Lieutenant M., 1 Lieutenant N., 1 Lieutenant P., and as many other watchkeepers as necessary.
Enough has been said in the meantime to show how completely the new system of entry and training of officers has remodelled the British Navy, and it is with the object of using the case of the officers as an argument in considering the case of the men, that it has been dilated on at such length.