Therefore the most we could do in the days before the war was to attempt to measure and forecast what would happen to England on the outbreak and in the first few weeks of a war with Germany. To look farther was beyond the power of man. To try to do so was to complicate the task beyond mental endurance. The paths of thought bifurcated too rapidly. Would there be a great sea battle or not? What would happen then? Who would win the great land battle? No one could tell. Obviously the first thing was to be ready; not to be taken unawares: to be concentrated; not to be caught divided: to have the strongest Fleet possible in the best station under the best conditions in good time, and then if the battle came one could await its result with a steady heart. Everything, therefore, to guard against surprise; everything, therefore, to guard against division; everything, therefore, to increase the strength of the forces available for the supreme sea battle.
But suppose the enemy did not fight a battle at sea. And suppose the battle on land was indeterminate in its results. And suppose the war went on not for weeks or months, but for years. Well, then it would be far easier to judge those matters at the time, and far easier then, when everybody was alarmed and awake and active, to secure the taking of the necessary steps; and there would be time to take them. No stage would be so difficult or so dangerous as the first stage. The problems of the second year of war must be dealt with by the experience of the first year of war. The problems of the third year of war must be met by results observed and understood in the second, and so on.
I repulse, therefore, on behalf of the Boards of Admiralty over which I presided down to the end of May, 1915, all reproaches directed to what occurred in 1917 and 1918. I cannot be stultified by any lessons arising out of those years. It is vain to tell me that if the Germans had built in the three years before the war, the submarines they built in the three years after it had begun, Britain would have been undone; or that if England had had in August, 1914, the army which we possessed a year later, there would have been no war. Every set of circumstances involved every other set of circumstances. Would Germany in profound peace have been allowed by Great Britain to build an enormous fleet of submarines which could have no other object than the starvation and ruin of this island through the sinking of unarmed merchant ships? Would Germany have waited to attack France while England raised a powerful conscript army to go to her aid?
Every event must be judged in fair relation to the circumstances of the time, and only in such relation.
In examining the questions with which this chapter has been concerned, I was accustomed to dwell upon the dangers and the darker side of things. I did this to some extent intentionally, in order to create anxiety which would lead to timely precautions. Every danger set forth we tried to meet. Many we met. More never matured, either because they were prevented by proper measures, or because the Germans were less enterprising than I thought it prudent to assume. I will end on a more robust note.
The following letter was written by me on November 1, 1913, to a friend—a high naval authority—who had delivered a pessimistic lecture at the War College.
Do you not think you are looking at the problem from a weak and one-sided point of view which sees only the dangers which menace us and is blind to all the far greater dangers which surround the weaker fleet?
Taking your hypothesis that the German Fleet come out to fight with every unit they can bring into line, why should it be supposed that we should not be able to defeat them? A study of the comparative fleet strength in the line of battle will be found reassuring.
Why are our Second Fleet ships, which do not require a single reservist, to be considered less ready than German ships dependent on mobilised men?
Why should it be supposed that a British Fleet is bound to fight the German Fleet at the exact time and place the German Fleet desires?