CHAPTER XXX
FOR NAVAL OFFICERS

The scope of a naval officer’s professional interests is so broad that the present chapter of this Guide could not, without duplicating other chapters, indicate all the aspects of the Britannica with which he is directly concerned. And he will find that his use of the Britannica is simplified by the subdivisions about to be specified, which virtually present his subjects under four different heads. Of course he may be called upon, in the exercise of his duties, simultaneously to think and to act in all his capacities, to concentrate upon the swift solution of one problem his knowledge of warfare, of shipbuilding, of navigation and of mechanical engineering; but his reading upon these topics naturally divides itself into these four parts.

Three Other Relevant Chapters

Inasmuch as army officers, even when they are at sea, are passengers, and, save in relation to the discipline of their troops, have nothing to do with the ship’s management, it could not be assumed that the present chapter would appeal to them. But naval officers, when co-operating in a land expedition, need to employ every kind of knowledge that is of use to army officers, and as the chapter For Army Officers in this Guide would therefore in any case be read by them, it has seemed convenient to include in it the description of those articles in the Britannica which deal with war in general.

The chapter For Marine Transportation Men in this Guide is also one to which the naval officer should refer, as it deals with ships and navigation in general. The articles Ship and Shipbuilding mentioned in that chapter are (except for the historical section of the former) by Sir Philip Watts, designer of the British “Dreadnoughts” and “Super-Dreadnoughts;” and the article Shipping is by Douglas Owen, of the Royal Naval War College at Portsmouth. Obviously these and many other articles described in that chapter are of the greatest importance to naval officers.

The chapter For Engineers in this Guide describes the articles dealing with steam engines, internal combustion engines, electrical machinery and fuels of all kinds; and it would be a waste of space to repeat in this chapter a summary of the Britannica treatment of these subjects.

All three of the chapters mentioned should therefore be treated as forming constituent parts of the general plan of this present chapter, in which the naval officer will find no repetition of their contents.

The Key Article

The article to which he will naturally first turn is Navy and Navies (Vol. 19, p. 299), by David Hannay, author of A Short History of the Royal Navy. This article is equivalent to 60 pages of this Guide in length. It contains: