Such automatic and complete co-ordination is desirable not only in preventing the unnatural barrier between the civil and the military authority which exists in some countries such as ours, but in lightening the labors and enlightening the deliberations of the strategists. If, for instance, a bold policy is to be enforced, and a large sum of money allotted for material and personnel, the strategists will be led to recommendations different from those to which they would be led if a cautious policy were to be pursued, and a small sum of money to be allotted.
Germany did not turn her eyes seriously toward the navy until the Emperor William II read Mahan's book, "The Influence of Sea Power upon History." Previous to that epochal event, Germany had relied on her army to protect her interests and enforce her rights, being led thereto by the facts of her history and the shortness of her coast-line. But the strategically trained mind of William grasped at once the situation laid bare by Mahan; and his military training led him to quick decision and prompt action. The necessary machinery was soon set in motion, with the amazing result that in twenty years the German navy became the second in power and perhaps the first in efficiency in the world.
Was this feat accomplished by prodigal expenditures in building vessels and other material of all kinds, and enlisting and commissioning a large number of officers and men? No, the expense was less than that of building our navy, even if a liberal allowance be made for the relative cheapness of things in Germany; and the mere enlisting and commissioning of officers and men was the simplest part of the undertaking.
How was it accomplished? In the simplest way imaginable: by following Moltke's plan of solving hypothetical war problems, and adapting the military war game (Kriegspiel) to naval forces; playing numberless war games, and deciding from those games the naval strategy best adapted to Germany's needs—not only in matters of general principle, not only as to tactics, training, education, co-operation with the army, and the size of fleet required to carry out the policy of the nation—but also as to the composition of the fleet, relative proportions of vessels of the various types, and the characteristics of each type. Nothing was left to chance; nothing was decided by guessing; no one man's dictum was accepted. The whole problem was attacked in its entirety, and a general solution found; and after this, the various divisions and subdivisions of the problem were attacked and solved, in obedience to the same principles, in accordance with the results obtained at Kriegspiel.
If a very large and complicated engine of new pattern is to be built by any engineering company, no casting of the smallest kind is made until general plans have been outlined, detailed plans prepared from these, and then "working plans" made for the workmen. From the working plans, the workmen construct the various parts; sometimes in number several hundred. Finally, the whole intricate machine is put together, and the motive power applied. Then all the parts, great and small, begin their allotted tasks, each part perfectly adapted to its work, not too large and not too small; all working together in apparent confusion, but in obedience to law—fulfilling exactly the will of the designing engineer. So, the vast and new machine of the German navy was designed in the drafting-room of the Kriegspiel; and though it has been gradually strengthened and enlarged since then, each strengthening piece and each addition has been designed in accordance with the original plan, and has therefore harmonized with the original machine. Thus the navy has expanded smoothly, symmetrically, purposefully. No other result was to be expected: the strategy having been correct, the result was correct also.
Perhaps one contributing factor to the success of the German navy has been her staff of officers highly trained in strategy by Kriegspiel, that insures not only sound advice in general, but also insures that at any time, night or day, a body of competent officers shall be ready at the admiralty to decide what action should be taken, whenever any new situation is reported. This factor is most important; because in naval and military operations, even in time of peace, but especially in war, events follow each other so rapidly, and momentous crises develop so suddenly, that the demand for action that shall be both wise and instantaneous is imperative. The chess-player can linger long over his decisions, because his opponent cannot make his next move meanwhile; but in warfare no such rule or condition can exist. In war, time is as vital a factor as any other: and the strategist, who, like Napoleon, can think faster and decide more quickly and accurately than his antagonist is, ceteris paribus, sure to win; and even if ceteris are not quite paribus, his superior quickness and correctness will overcome great handicaps in material and personnel, as the lives of all the great strategists in history, especially Alexander and Napoleon, prove convincingly. To bring a preponderating force to bear at a given point ahead of the enemy—to move the maximum of force with the maximum of celerity—has always been the aim of strategy: and probably it always will be, for the science of strategy rests on principles, and principles never change.
Thus while we see in Great Britain's navy an example of the effect of a strategy continuous and wise, conducted for three hundred years, we see in the Japanese and German navies equally good examples of a strategy equally wise, but of brief duration, which started with the example of the British navy, and took advantage of it.
The German and Japanese navies did not follow the British navy slavishly, however; for the national military character of their people required the introduction and control of more military and precise methods than those of the primarily sailor navy of Great Britain. We see, therefore, a curious similarity between the German and Japanese navies, and very clear evidence in each of the engrafting of purely military ideals on maritime ideas. And we see not only this, we see the reaction on the British navy itself of the ideals of the German and the Japanese, and a decided change during the last ten years from the principles of "the blue-water school"; as evidenced mainly by the institution of a Naval War College, including a war staff, the employment at the admiralty of General Staff methods, though without the name; and the introduction into naval methods, especially naval gunnery, of mathematical procedures.
Previous to the Japanese-Russian War, ten years ago, the strategy of the British navy may be characterized as physical rather than mental, depending on a superior number of ships and men; those ships and men being of a very high grade individually, and bound together by a discipline at once strict and sympathetic. All the personnel from the highest admiral to the humblest sailor prided themselves on being "British seamen," comrades of the sea, on whom their country placed her ultimate reliance. Maneuvers on a large scale were held, target practice was carried on with regularity—and navy ships carried the banner of Saint George over every sea, and displayed it in every port. Tactics and seamanship filled the busy days with drills of many kinds; but strategy, though not quite forgotten, did not command so large a portion of the officers' time and study as it did in Germany and Japan. The rapid success of the Germans and Japanese, however, in building up their navies, as instanced by the evident efficiency of the German fleet almost under the nose of England, and the triumph of the Japanese fleet in Tsushima Strait startled the British navy out of her conservatism, and caused her to proceed at full speed toward the modernization of her strategy. With the quick decision followed by quick action that characterizes the seaman everywhere, the British instituted a series of reforms, and prosecuted their efforts with such wisdom and such vigor, that, in the brief space of ten years, the British navy has been almost revolutionized. As in all such movements, the principal delay was in bringing about the necessary mental changes; the mental changes having been accomplished, the material changes followed automatically.
The change whereby the German and Japanese navies became preceptors to their preceptor is like changes that occur in every-day life, and is one of many illustrations of how a young and vigorous individual or organization, endowed with proper energy and mentality, can appropriate whatever is valuable for its purposes from its elders, and reject whatever those elders have had fastened on them by circumstances or tradition, and develop a superior existence. It is a little like the advantage which a comparatively new city like Washington has over an old city like Boston, in being started after it was planned, instead of being started haphazard, without being planned at all.