The capital work done by the German cruisers in the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans shows how much can be accomplished in the way of hurting and damaging an enemy by even the weaker power if it possesses fine ships, well handled, able to operate thousands of miles from their own base. We must not fail to recognize this. Neither must we fail heartily and fully to recognize the capital importance of submarines as well as air-ships, torpedo-boat destroyers, and mines, as proved by the events of the last three months. But nothing that has yet occurred warrants us in feeling that we can afford to ease up in our programme of building battle-ships and cruisers, especially the former. The German submarines have done wonderfully in this war; their cruisers have done gallantly. But so far as Great Britain is concerned the vital and essential feature has been the fact that her great battle fleet has kept the German fleet immured in its own home ports, has protected Britain from invasion, and has enabled her land strength to be used to its utmost capacity beside the armies of France and Belgium. If the men who for years have clamored against Britain’s being prepared had had their way, if Britain during the last quarter of a century had failed to continue the upbuilding of her navy, if the English statesmen corresponding to President Wilson and Mr. Bryan had seen their ideas triumph, England would now be off the map as a great power and the British Empire would have dissolved, while London, Liverpool, and Birmingham would be in the condition of Antwerp and Brussels.
The efficiency of the German personnel at sea has been no less remarkable than the efficiency of the German personnel on land. This is due partly to the spirit of the nation and partly to what is itself a consequence of that spirit, the careful training of the navy during peace under the conditions of actual service. When, early in 1909, our battle fleet returned from its sixteen months’ voyage around the world there was no navy in the world which, size for size, ship for ship, and squadron for squadron, stood at a higher pitch of efficiency. We blind ourselves to the truth if we believe that the same is true now. During the last twenty months, ever since Secretary Meyer left the Navy Department, there has been in our navy a great falling off relatively to other nations. It was quite impossible to avoid this while our national affairs were handled as they have recently been handled. The President who intrusts the Departments of State and the Navy to gentlemen like Messrs. Bryan and Daniels deliberately invites disaster, in the event of serious complications with a formidable foreign opponent. On the whole, there is no class of our citizens, big or small, who so emphatically deserve well of the country as the officers and the enlisted men of the army and navy. No navy in the world has such fine stuff out of which to make man-of-war’s men. But they must be heartily backed up, heartily supported, and sedulously trained. They must be treated well, and, above all, they must be treated so as to encourage the best among them by sharply discriminating against the worst. The utmost possible efficiency should be demanded of them. They are emphatically and in every sense of the word men; and real men resent with impatient contempt a policy under which less than their best is demanded. The finest material is utterly worthless without the best personnel. In such a highly specialized service as the navy constant training of a purely military type is an absolute necessity. At present our navy is lamentably short in many different material directions. There is actually but one torpedo for each torpedo tube. It seems incredible that such can be the case; yet it is the case. We are many thousands of men short in our enlistments. We are lamentably short in certain types of vessel. There is grave doubt as to the efficiency of many of our submarines and destroyers. But the shortcomings in our training are even more lamentable. To keep the navy cruising near Vera Cruz and in Mexican waters, without manœuvring, invites rapid deterioration. For nearly two years there has been no fleet manœuvring; and this fact by itself probably means a twenty-five per cent loss of efficiency. During the same periods most of the ships have not even had division gun practice. Not only should our navy be as large as our position and interest demand but it should be kept continually at the highest point of efficiency and should never be used save for its own appropriate military purposes. Of this elementary fact the present administration seems to be completely ignorant.
President Wilson and Secretary Daniels assert that our navy is in efficient shape. Admiral Fiske’s testimony is conclusive to the contrary, although it was very cautiously given, as is but natural when a naval officer, if he tells the whole truth, must state what is unpleasant for his superiors to hear. Other naval officers have pointed out our deficiencies, and the newspapers state that some of them have been reprimanded for so doing. But there is no need for their testimony. There is one admitted fact which is absolutely conclusive in the matter. There has been no fleet manœuvring during the past twenty-two months. In spite of fleet manœuvring the navy may be unprepared. But it is an absolute certainty that without fleet manœuvring it cannot possibly be prepared. In the unimportant domain of sport there is not a man who goes to see the annual football game between Harvard and Yale who would not promptly cancel his ticket if either university should propose to put into the field a team which, no matter how good the players were individually, had not been practised as a team during the preceding sixty days. If in such event the president of either university or the coach of the team should announce that in spite of never having had any team practice the team was nevertheless in first-class condition, there is literally no intelligent follower of the game who would regard the utterance as serious. Why should President Wilson and Secretary Daniels expect the American public to show less intelligence as regards the vital matter of our navy than they do as regards a mere sport, a mere play? For twenty-two months there has been no fleet manœuvring. Since in the daily press, early in November, I, with emphasis, called attention to this fact Mr. Daniels has announced that shortly manœuvring will take place; and of course the failure to manœuvre for nearly two years has been due less to Mr. Daniels than to President Wilson’s futile and mischievous Mexican policy and his entire ignorance of the needs of the navy. I am glad that the administration has tardily waked up to the necessity of taking some steps to make the navy efficient, and if the President and the Secretary of the Navy bring forth fruits meet for repentance, I will most heartily acknowledge the fact—just as it has given me the utmost pleasure to praise and support President Wilson’s Secretary of War, Mr. Garrison. But misstatements as to actual conditions make but a poor preparation for the work of remedying these conditions, and President Wilson and Secretary Daniels try to conceal from the people our ominous naval shortcomings. The shortcomings are far-reaching, alike in material, organization, and practical training. The navy is absolutely unprepared; its efficiency has been terribly reduced under and because of the action of President Wilson and Secretary Daniels. Let them realize this fact and do all they can to remedy the wrong they have committed. Let Congress realize its own shortcomings. Far-reaching and thoroughgoing treatment, continued for a period of at least two and in all probability three years, is needed if the navy is to be placed on an equality, unit for unit, no less than in the mass, with the navies of England, Germany, and Japan. In the present war the deeds of the Emden, of the German submarines, of Von Spee’s squadron, have shown not merely efficiency but heroism; and the navies of Great Britain and Japan have been handled in masterly manner. Have the countrymen of Farragut, of Cushing, Buchanan, Winslow, and Semmes, of Decatur, Hull, Perry, and MacDonough, lost their address and courage, and are they willing to sink below the standard set by their forefathers?
It has been said that the United States never learns by experience but only by disaster. Such method of education may at times prove costly. The slothful or short-sighted citizens who are now misled by the cries of the ultrapacificists would do well to remember events connected with the outbreak of the war with Spain. I was then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. At one bound our people passed from a condition of smug confidence that war never could occur (a smug confidence just as great as any we feel at present) to a condition of utterly unreasoning panic over what might be done to us by a very weak antagonist. One governor of a seaboard State announced that none of the National Guard regiments would be allowed to respond to the call of the President because they would be needed to prevent a Spanish invasion of that State—the Spaniards being about as likely to make such an invasion as we were to invade Timbuctoo or Turkestan. One congressman besought me to send a battle-ship to protect Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. Another congressman asked me to send a battle-ship to protect a summer colony which centred around a large Atlantic-coast hotel in Connecticut. In my own neighborhood on Long Island clauses were gravely inserted into the leases of property to the effect that if the Spaniards destroyed the property the leases should terminate. Chambers of commerce, boards of trade, municipal authorities, leading business men, from one end of the country to the other, hysterically demanded, each of them, that a ship should be stationed to defend some particular locality; the theory being that our navy should be strung along both seacoasts, each ship by itself, in a purely defensive attitude—thereby making certain that even the Spanish navy could pick them all up in detail. One railway president came to protest to me against the choice of Tampa as a point of embarkation for our troops, on the ground that his railway was entitled to its share of the profit of transporting troops and munitions of war and that his railway went to New Orleans. The very senators and congressmen who had done everything in their power to prevent the building up and the efficient training of the navy screamed and shrieked loudest to have the navy diverted from its proper purpose and used to protect unimportant seaports. Surely our congressmen and, above all, our people need to learn that in time of crisis peace treaties are worthless, and the ultrapacificists of both sexes merely a burden on and a detriment to the country as a whole; that the only permanently useful defensive is the offensive, and that the navy is properly the offensive weapon of the nation.
The navy of the United States is the right arm of the United States and is emphatically the peacemaker. Woe to our country if we permit that right arm to become palsied or even to become flabby and inefficient!
CHAPTER X
PREPAREDNESS AGAINST WAR
Military preparedness meets two needs. In the first place, it is a partial insurance against war. In the next place, it is a partial guarantee that if war comes the country will certainly escape dishonor and will probably escape material loss.
The question of preparedness cannot be considered at all until we get certain things clearly in our minds. Right thinking, wholesome thinking, is essential as a preliminary to sound national action. Until our people understand the folly of certain of the arguments advanced against the action this nation needs, it is, of course, impossible to expect them to take such action.