The Crisis of the Naval War

by John Rushworth Jellicoe

Of this number practically the whole of the Mercantile Movements and Anti-Submarine Divisions were added during the year 1917, whilst large additions were also made to the Trade Division, owing to the great increase of work.

During the first half of the year 1917 the Operations Division of the Naval Staff received a much needed increase of strength by the appointment of additional officers, charged, under the Director of the Operations Division, with the detailed preparation of plans for operations. Further additions to this branch of the Staff were made in the latter half of the year.

Matters were in this position with the reorganization of the Naval Staff in hand and working towards a definite conclusion when, to the intense regret of those who had been privileged to work with him, Sir Edward Carson left the Admiralty to become a member of the War Cabinet.

Before leaving the subject of work at the Admiralty during Sir Edward Carson's administration, mention should be made of the progress made in the difficult task of providing officers for the rapidly expanding Fleet. The large programme of small craft started in the early part of 1917 involved the eventual provision of a great number of additional officers. Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, the Second Sea Lord, took this matter in hand with conspicuous success, and the measures which he introduced tided us over a period of much difficulty and made provision for many months ahead. Sir Cecil Burney, by reason of his intimate knowledge of the personnel—the result of years of command afloat—was able to settle also many problems relating to personnel which had been the cause of dissatisfaction in the past.

Sir Edward Carson, on leaving the Admiralty, was succeeded by Sir Eric Geddes as First Lord. Sir Eric had been brought into the Admiralty in May, 1917, in circumstances which I will describe later. ([Vide Chapter X.]) One of his first steps as First Lord which affected Admiralty organization was the appointment of a Deputy First Sea Lord. This appointment was frankly made more as a matter of expediency than because any real need had been shown for the creation of such an office. It is unnecessary here to enter into the circumstances which led to the appointment to which I saw objections, owing to the difficulty of fitting into the organization an officer bearing the title of Deputy First Sea Lord.

Vice-Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss—who had come to England for the purpose of conferring with the Admiralty before taking up the post of British Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean—was selected by the First Lord as Deputy First Sea Lord.

Shortly after assuming office as First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes expressed a wish for a further consideration of the question of Admiralty organization. To this end he appointed a joint War Office and Admiralty Committee to compare the two organizations.

Having received the report of the Committee, the First Lord and I both formulated ideas for further reorganization. My proposals, so far as they concerned the Naval Staff, were conceived on the general lines of an extension of the organization already adopted since my arrival at the Admiralty, but I also stated that the time had arrived when the whole Admiralty organization should be divided more distinctly into two sides, viz., the Operational side and the Materiél or Administrative side, and indicated that the arrangement existing in the time of the old Navy Board might be largely followed, in order that questions of Operations and Materiél should be quite clearly separated. This, indeed, was the principle of the Staff organization which I had adopted in the Grand Fleet, and I was anxious to extend it to the Admiralty.

This principle was accepted—although the term "Navy Board" was not reinstituted—the Admiralty Board being divided into two Committees, one for Operations and one for Materiél, the whole Board meeting at least once a week, as required, to discuss important questions affecting both sides. Whilst it was necessary that the Maintenance Committee should be kept acquainted with the requirements in the shape of material needed for operations in which the Fleet was engaged—and to the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff was assigned this particular liaison duty—I was not in favour of discussing questions affecting ordinary operations with the whole Board, since, in addition to the delay thereby involved, members of the Maintenance Committee could not keep in sufficiently intimate touch with such matters, and opinions might be formed and conclusions expressed on an incomplete knowledge of facts. Questions of broad policy or of proposed major operations were, of course, in a different category, and the above objections did not apply.

The further alterations in Naval Staff organization were not adopted without considerable discussion and some difference of opinion as to detail, particularly on the subject of the organization of the Operations Division of the Naval Staff, which I considered should embrace the Plans Division as a sub-section in order to avoid overlapping and delay. In my view it was undesirable for a body of officers not working under the authority of those in close touch with the daily operations of the Fleet to put forward plans for operations which necessarily involved the use of the same vessels and material, as such a procedure must inevitably lead to impracticable suggestions and consequent waste of time; the system which I favoured was that in use in the Army, where the Operations Section of the Staff dealt also with the working out of plans.