Here observe no mention was made of submarines necessitating the action being broken off, nor of an area being reached where dangers from submarines and mines prevented further pursuit. The whole incident is passed by the Vice-Admiral without comment, unless indeed the phrase about the accident to the Lion, in the telegraphic report, is a comment. Did the Vice-Admiral imply that had he remained in command he would have seen to it that his specific orders—viz. that Indomitable should settle Bluecher and the other ships pursue the battle-cruisers—were carried out?
A very unfortunate situation resulted from these reticences and contradictions. Naval writers in America were naturally enough amazed by the statement attributed to Admiral Beatty in the telegraphic report, for, if the presence of submarines could stop pursuit, could not submarines drive the British Fleet off the sea? These authors naturally expressed extreme astonishment that an admiral capable of breaking off action in these conditions, and publicly acknowledging so egregious a blunder, was not at once brought to court-martial. No one in his senses could have supposed that Sir David Beatty, who dealt with submarines without the least concern in the affair of Heligoland and earlier in the day on January 28, could possibly have accepted the dictum that the presence of a German submarine would justify pursuit having been broken off. It was then quite evident that the quotation from the Vice-Admiral’s telegraphic report could not have represented the Vice-Admiral’s opinion on a point of warlike doctrine. What the actual facts of the case were, we do not to this day know. Rear-Admiral Moore did not continue long in Sir David Beatty’s squadron after this, but there was no court-martial nor any public expression of the Admiralty’s opinion by way of approval or disapproval of his proceedings. In a speech made a month after the action in the House of Commons, Mr. Churchill passed over the fact that the action had not been fought out, as if such a thing was of no exceptional importance or interest whatever. Soon afterward it became known that the Rear-Admiral in question had got another and very important command elsewhere, so that it became plain that his conduct had not met with their Lordships’ reprobation.
War in modern conditions undoubtedly makes it exceedingly important to keep the enemy as far as possible in ignorance of a great many things. It imposes too a continuous strain upon practically the whole personnel of the Navy, and these two things taken together have been quoted to explain why the old rule of holding a public court-martial on the captain of every ship that was lost, or on every individual officer whose action in battle gave rise to uncertainty or question, has virtually been abrogated. But it is doubtful whether the Navy has not lost more by the abandonment of this wholesome practice than the enemy could have gained by its Spartan application.
This point came in for a good deal of public discussion at the beginning of 1915, and I venture to quote a contribution to it. Looking back upon this controversy, it is easy enough to see now wherein lay the chief disadvantage of the suppression of courts-martial. There was no general staff at the Admiralty, representative of the best Service opinion, and, deprived of court-martial, the Navy had no means of expressing a corporate judgment on the vital issues as they arose. The doctrine with regard to torpedo risk, which seems to have been acted on at the close of this action, was evidently one which either the Admiralty had laid down, or at least accepted as correct. Could it have been referred to the corporate judgment of the Service and had that judgment not endorsed it, the history of the war might have been altogether different.
Mr. Churchill’s speech in the official reports is entitled ‘British Command of the Sea: Admiralty Organization.’ It would have been as well if this description had been given out before the speech was made, for, as it happened, many thought it was intended as a survey of the first epoch of the war and were disappointed that, in so eloquent and forceful a review, there was hardly a word of tribute to the incomparable services of our officers and men. There was lavish praise of the generosity of the House of Commons; of the foresight of Lord Fisher; of the excellence of the Admiralty’s preparedness at every point; of the amazing scale and success of the provisioning with coal and supplies of a vast fleet always at sea; of the astonishing perfection of the work of the engineering branch. But there was singularly little of the work of the fighting men. The officers were dismissed simply as ‘painstaking.’ No doubt the tribute will be made at another time. Is there any time, however, which is not the right time for acknowledging these services? On Tuesday we learned that between 300 and 400 officers have died for us—and over 6,000 men. Is it gracious to postpone their eulogy? And the absence of eulogy was emphasized by the forceful manner in which the First Lord asked that he and his colleagues should be entrusted with the most absolute and dictatorial powers. Indeed, he excused the departure from the Service custom of holding courts-martial whenever a ship was lost on the ground that modern conditions called for instant action, with which courts-martial were incompatible. But the court-martial, as I have before pointed out, is the palladium of the Navy’s liberties. To abolish it is like suspending the Habeas Corpus. It is so extreme a measure because it ignores the great unwritten law of the Navy, which is that, in spite of the authority of Whitehall over the Navy, of an admiral over a fleet, and of a captain over a ship’s company, being necessarily and in each case absolute, yet there must always be an appeal from authority to the profession itself. If this is necessary for the protection of subordinate officers and men against arbitrary action by a captain, against arbitrary and prejudiced action by an admiral in a fleet, how much more necessary is it as a protection of naval standards and traditions against arbitrary action by the Board? For a captain is at any rate an entirely naval authority; an admiral is certainly an officer of large naval experience, acting generally with at least one other admiral. But the Board is largely a lay body. Indeed, it is now by a majority a lay body. And like all boards, it is liable to be the mouthpiece of its strongest personality. If this, as sometimes happens, is a seaman, he may be a partisan—I say it in no invidious sense—of certain policies and so prejudiced against brother officers who differ. If the stronger character is a layman, he may be ignorant of, or see no danger in waiving, naval traditions that are embodied in no statute or regulation, but are not embodied simply because their cogency has never been questioned. In other words, the autocracy of the Admiralty is a necessity of executive administration, but can only be exercised safely if its enforcement is continuously tested by professional opinion.
How many people, I often wonder, really appreciate how singular a body is that which is made up of admirals, captains, commanders, and lieutenants of the Royal Navy? The accomplishments that make the seaman confuse the landsman by their strangeness and intricacy. Indeed, if one wishes to express the extremity of bewilderment, he does so best by the metaphor which describes the sailor’s normal environment. When we say we are “at sea,” we do so because language expresses no greater helplessness. To master these conditions calls for forms of knowledge and proficiency that are only acquired by a lifetime’s familiarity. But these conditions are not only baffling, they are incredibly dangerous. If steam has done much to lessen the perils of the sea, speed, the product of steam, has added to them. The sailor then, even in times of peace, passes his days, and still more his nights, encompassed by the threat of irreparable disaster. An oversight that may take thirty seconds to commit—and a hundred deaths, a wrecked ship, and a shattered reputation reward thirty years of constant and unblemished devotion to duty. To face a life and responsibilities like these calls for more than great mental and physical skill, though nowhere will you find these in a higher degree or more widely diffused than in the Fleet. It calls for moral and spiritual qualities, for a development of character in patience, unselfishness, and courage which few landsmen have any inducement to cultivate. A life lived daily in the presence of death must be a unique life, and it is not surprising that men bred to these conditions—always as hard and ascetic as they are uncertain and unsafe—grow to be a body quite unlike other men, with standards and traditions of their own, and a corporate spirit and capacity that are unique, wonderful, and to most landsmen incomprehensible.
Their standards and traditions can only be maintained and can only be enforced by themselves. And the great peril that follows from excluding all reference to them of the accidents and failures of war is that, failing this reference, we have no security that naval action will be judged as it should be, solely by the highest naval standard.
Much was said in the House of Commons about the loss of ships. Mr. Churchill assumed that the only motive for asking for courts-martial was to find a scapegoat. Lord Charles Beresford only made clear that a court-martial was as much for clearing the character as for finding criminals. There was a significant phrase in Mr. Churchill’s speech that raises, it seems to me, a point in this connection of far greater importance. The battle of the Dogger Bank, he said, was “not fought out because the enemy made good their escape into waters infested by submarines and mines.” The officer who had to call off a fleet in these circumstances was necessarily faced by a grave and almost terrifying responsibility. To be too bold was to risk everything, to be too cautious was to throw away a victory. Can any tribunal, except the Navy, judge whether this responsibility was rightly exercised? When we remember that in our greatest days hardly a naval battle took place that was not followed by courts-martial, it seems to me a most perilous thing to allow these tremendous issues to go by the board because unless they are adjudicated upon by the profession itself they are not adjudicated upon at all.