Britain at Bay

by Spenser Wilkinson

The most decisive victories at sea which are on record were those of Tsusima, of Trafalgar, and of the Nile. At Tsusima the numbers and size of the Japanese Fleet were not such as, before the battle, to give foreign observers grounds for expecting a decisive victory by the Japanese. It was on the superior intellectual and moral qualities of the Japanese that those who expected them to win based their hopes, and this view was justified by the event. At the battle of Trafalgar the British Fleet numbered twenty-seven, the Franco-Spanish Fleet numbered thirty-three; at the battle of the Nile the numbers were equal—thirteen on each side. These figures seem to me sufficiently to prove that superior numbers are not in battle the indispensable condition of victory. They certainly prove that the numerically inferior fleet may very well win.

Writers on the art of war distinguish between tactics, the art of winning a battle, and strategy, the art of designing and conducting the whole of the operations which constitute a campaign, of bringing about battles in conditions favourable to one's own side and of making the best use of such victories as may be won for contributing to the general purpose of the war, which is dictating peace on one's own terms.

The decision of the questions, how many fleets to send out, what is to be the strength and composition of each of them, and what the objectives assigned to their several commanders is a strategical decision. It is a function of the strategist at the Board of Admiralty, but the question how to handle any one of these fleets in the presence of the enemy so as either to avoid or to bring about an action and so as to win the battle, if a battle be desirable, is a question for the admiral commanding the particular fleet.

Evidently the master art, because it dominates the whole war, is that of strategy, and for that reason it must have a seat at the Admiralty Board.

As is well known, a large number of naval officers have for several years past been troubled with doubts as to the strategical competence displayed by the Board or Boards of Admiralty since 1904. The Board of Admiralty has also been criticised for other reasons, into some of which it is not necessary to enter, but it is desirable to state precisely the considerations which tend to show that important decisions made by the Admiralty have not been based upon sound strategical principles, and are, indeed, incompatible with them.

When four or five years ago it was decided to transfer the centre of gravity of the navy, as represented by fleets in commission, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic coasts of Europe, that was a sound decision. But when the principal fleet in commission in home waters was reduced in order to facilitate the creation of a so-called Home Fleet, made up of a number of ships stationed at different ports, and manned for the most part by nucleus crews, the Admiralty announced this measure in a very remarkable circular. The change clearly involved a reduction of the number of men at sea, and also a reduction in the number of ships which would be immediately available under war conditions. It was further evident that the chief result of this measure would be a reduction of expenditure, yet the circular boldly stated that the object of the measure was to increase the power and readiness of the navy for instant war.

In any case, the decision announced revealed an ignorance of one of the fundamental conditions of naval warfare, which differentiates it completely from operations on land. A ship in commission carries on board everything that is necessary for a fight. She can be made ready for battle in a few minutes on the order to clear for action. No other mobilisation is necessary for a fleet in commission, and if a war should break out suddenly, as wars normally always do break out, whichever side is able at once with its fleets already in commission to strike the first blow has the incalculable advantage of the initiative.

A fleet divided between several ports and not fully manned is not a fleet in commission; it is not ready, and its assembly as a fleet depends on a contingency, which there is no means of guaranteeing, that the enemy shall not be able to prevent its assembly by moving a fleet immediately to a point at sea from which it would be able to oppose by force the union of the constituent parts of the divided and unready fleet.

Later official descriptions of the Home Fleet explained that it was part of the Admiralty design that this fleet should offer the first resistance to an enemy. The most careful examination of these descriptions leaves no room for doubt that the idea of the Admiralty was that one of its fleets should, in case of war, form a sort of advance-guard to the rest of the navy. But it is a fundamental truth that in naval war an advance-guard is absurd and impossible. In the operations of armies, an advance-guard is both necessary and useful. Its function is to delay the enemy's army until such time as the commander-in-chief shall have assembled his own forces, which may be, to some extent, scattered on the march. This delay is always possible on land, because the troops can make use of the ground, that is, of the positions which it affords favourable for defence, and because by means of those positions a small force can for a long time hold in check the advance of a very much larger one. But at sea there are no positions except those formed by narrow straits, estuaries, and shoals, where land and sea are more or less mixed up. The open sea is a uniform surface offering no advantage whatever to either side. There is nothing in naval warfare resembling the defence of a position on land, and the whole difference between offence and defence at sea consists in the will of one side to bring on an action and that of the other side to avoid or postpone it.

At sea a small force which endeavours by fighting to delay the movement of a large force exposes itself to destruction without any corresponding gain of time. Accordingly, at sea, there is no analogy to the action of an advance-guard, and the mere fact that such an idea should find its way into the official accounts of the Admiralty's views regarding the opening move of a possible war must discredit the strategy of the Admiralty in the judgment of all who have paid any attention to the nature of naval war.