All Officers without exception should be unceasingly occupied in considering the various solutions of these problems, as who can tell who will be in command after the first five minutes of a close engagement, whether in an individual ship or in command of the whole Fleet! Otherwise we may have a stampede like that of riderless horses! The Captain or Admiral is hors de combat, and the next Officer, and, perhaps, the next, and the next don’t know what to do when moments mean victory or defeat!
“The man who hesitates is lost!” and so it will be with the Fleet if decision is wanting!
“Time, Twiss, time is everything!” said Nelson (speaking to General Twiss when he was chasing the French Fleet under Villeneuve to the West Indies); “a quarter of an hour may mean the difference between Victory and Defeat!”
This was in sailing days. Now it will be quarters of a minute, not quarters of an hour!
It is said to have been stated by one of the most eminent of living men, that sudden war becomes daily more probable because public opinion is becoming greater in power, and that popular emotion, once fairly aroused, sweeps away the barriers of calm deliberation, and is deaf to the voice of reason.
Besides cultivating the faculty of Quick Decision and consequent rapid action, we must cultivate Rashness.
Napoleon was asked the secret of victory. He replied, “L’audace, l’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”
There is a rashness which in Peace is Folly, but which in War is Prudence, and there are risks that must be undertaken in War which are Obligatory, but which in peace would be Criminal!
As in War, so in the preparation for War, Rashness must have its place. We must also reflect how apt we are to suppose that the enemy will fit himself into our plans!
The first successful blow on either side will probably determine the final issue in sea-fighting. Sustained physical energy will be the required great attribute at that time for those in command as well as those who administer. Collingwood wrote two years before Trafalgar, when blockading Rochefort—and Nelson then off Toulon, Pellew off Ferrol, and Cornwallis off Brest—that “Admirals needed to be made of iron!” The pressure then will test the endurance of the strongest, and the rank of Admiral confers no immunity from the operation of the natural law of Anno Domini! Nelson was 39 years old at the Battle of the Nile, and died at 47. What is our average age of those actively responsible for the control, mobilisation, and command of our Fleets? As age increases, audacity leaks out and caution comes in.