Thus the fact of keeping a fleet together does more than merely give opportunity for acquiring skill in handling the fleet itself, and in handling the various ships so that they will work together as parts of the fleet machine; because it shows each of the various smaller units within the ships themselves how to direct its training.

For this reason, the idea so often suggested of keeping the fleet normally broken up into smaller parts, those parts close enough together to unite before an enemy could strike, is most objectionable. It is impossible to keep the fleet together all the time, because of needed repairs, needed relaxation, and the necessity for individual drills that enable a captain or division commander to strengthen his weak points; but nevertheless since the "mission" of training is to attain fighting efficiency in the fleet as a whole, rather than to attain fighting efficiency in the various parts; and since it can be attained only by drilling the fleet as a whole, the decision to keep the fleet united as much as practicable seems inevitably to follow. Besides, the statement cannot be successfully controverted that difficult things are usually not so well done as easy things, that drills of large organizations are more difficult than drills of small organizations, and that in every fleet the drills that are done the worst are the drills of the fleet as a whole. How could anything else be expected, when one considers how much more often, for instance, a turret crew is exercised at loading than the fleet is exercised at the difficult movement of changing the "line of bearing"?

The older officers remember that for many years we carried on drills at what we called "fleet tactics," though we knew they were only tactical drills. They were excellent in the same sense as that in which the drill of the manual of arms was excellent, or the squad exercises given to recruits. They were necessary; but beyond the elementary purpose of training in ship handling in fleet movements, they had no "end in view"; they were planned with a limited horizon, they were planned from the bottom.

General Staff.—In order to direct the drills of a fleet toward some worthy end, that end itself must be clearly seen; and in order that it may be clearly seen, it first must be discovered. The end does not exist as a bright mark in the sky, but as the answer to a difficult problem; it cannot be found by guessing or by speculating or by groping in the dark. Strategy says that the best way in which to find it is by the "estimate of the situation" method.

Owing to the fact that the commander-in-chief and all his personnel are, by the nature of the conditions surrounding them, on executive duty, the working out of the end in view of any extensive drills seems the task of the Navy Department; while the task of attaining it seems to belong to the commander-in-chief. Owing to the present stage of electrical progress, the Navy Department has better means of ascertaining the whole naval situation than has the commander-in-chief, and if officers (General Staff) be stationed at the department to receive and digest all the information received, and decide on the best procedure in each contingency as it arises, the Navy Department can then give the commander-in-chief the information he requires and general instructions how to proceed.

This does not mean that the department would "interfere" with the commander-in-chief, but simply that it would assist him. The area of discretion of the commander-in-chief should not be invaded; for if it be invaded, not only may orders be given without knowledge of certain facts in the commander-in-chief's possession, but the commander-in-chief will have his difficulties increased by the very people who are trying to help him. He may be forced into disobeying orders, a most disturbing thing to have to do; and he will surely be placed in a position of continuous doubt as to what is expected of him.

Of course, it must be realized that the difficulties of co-operating with a commander-in-chief at sea, by means of even the most expert General Staff, are of the highest order. It is hard to imagine any task more difficult. It must be accomplished, however, or else there will be danger all the time that the commander-in-chief will act as he would not act if he had all the information that the department had. This suggests at once that the proper office of the department is merely to give the commander-in-chief information and let him act on his own judgment. True in a measure; but the commander-in-chief must be given some instructions, even if they be general, for the reason that the commander-in-chief is merely an instrument for enforcing a certain policy. Clearly, he must know what the policy is, what the department desires; and the mere statement of the department's desires is of itself an order. If it is admitted that the commander-in-chief is to carry out the orders of the department, it remains merely to decide in how great detail those orders ought to be.

No general answer can be given to the question: "In what detail shall the orders be?" The general statement can be made, however, that the instructions should be confined as closely as practicable to a statement of the department's desires, and that this statement should be as clear as possible. If, for instance, the only desire of the department is that the enemy's fleet shall be defeated, no amplification of this statement is required. But if the department should desire, for reasons best known to itself, that the enemy should be defeated by the use of a certain method, then that should be stated also. Maybe it would not be wise for the department to state the method the employment of which is desired; maybe the commander-in-chief would be the best judge of the method to be employed. But maybe circumstances of governmental policy dictate the employment of a certain method, even if militarily it is not the best; and maybe also the department might prefer that method by reason of information recently received, which it does not have time to communicate in full.

Now, if it is desirable for the department to give the commander-in-chief instructions, running the risk of invading his "area of discretion," and of doing other disadvantageous things, it is obvious that the department should be thoroughly equipped for doing it successfully. This means that the department should be provided not only with the most efficient radio apparatus that can be secured, manned, of course, by the most skilful operators, but also with a body of officers capable of handling that particular part of the Navy Department's work which is the concentrated essence of all its work, the actual handling of the naval forces. The usual name given to such a body of officers is "General Staff."

Such bodies of officers have been developed in navies in recent years, by a desire to take advantage of electrical appliances which greatly increase the accuracy and rapidity of communication over long distances. In days not long ago, before communication by radio was developed, commanders on the spot were in possession of much more information about events in their vicinity, compared with the Navy Department, than they are now; and the difficulties and uncertainties of communication made it necessary to leave much more to their discretion and initiative. The President of the United States can now by telephone talk to the commander-in-chief, when he is in home waters, and every day sees some improvement in this line. This facility of communication carries with it, of course, the danger of "interfering," one of the most frequent causes of trouble in the past, in conducting the operations of both armies and fleets—a danger very real, very insidious, and very important. The very ease with which interference can be made, the trained instinct of the subordinate to follow the wishes of his superior if he can, the temptation to the superior to wield personally some military power and get some military glory, conspire to bring about interference. This is only an illustration, however, of the well-known fact that every power can be used for evil as well as for good, and is not a valid argument against developing to the utmost the communication between the department and the fleet. It is, however, a very valid argument against developing it unless there be developed simultaneously some means like a "safety device" for preventing or at least discouraging its misuse.

The means devised is the General Staff; and in some countries like Germany it seems to work so well that (unless our information is incorrect) the Emperor himself does not interfere. He gives the machine a certain problem to work out, and he accepts the answer as the answer which has a greater probability of being correct than any answer he could get by other means.

Training of the Staff.—Now, if there is to be at the Navy Department a body of men who will work out and recommend what instructions should be given to the commander-in-chief, it seems obvious that that body of men should be thoroughly trained. In the German army the training of men to do this work (General Staff work) is given only to officers specially selected. Certain young officers who promise well are sent to the war college. Those who show aptitude and industry are then put tentatively into the General Staff. Those who show marked fitness in their tentative employment are then put into the General Staff, which is as truly a special corps as is our construction corps. How closely this system is followed with the General Staff in the German navy, the present writer does not know exactly; but his information is that the system in the navy is copied (though with certain modifications) after the system in the army.

How can the General Staff at the Navy Department be trained? In the same way as that in which officers at the war college are trained: by study and by solving war problems by tactical and strategical games. The training would naturally be more extended, as it would be a postgraduate course.

There is a difference to be noted between games like war games in which the mental powers are trained, and games like billiards, in which the nerves and muscles receive practically all the training; and the difference refers mainly to the memory. Games of cards are a little like war games; and many books on games of cards have been written, expounding the principles on which they rest and giving rules to follow. These books may be said to embody a science of card-playing.

No such book on naval strategy has appeared; and the obvious reason is that only a few rules of naval strategy have been formulated. Staff training, therefore, cannot be given wholly by studying books; but possibly the scheme suggested to the department by the writer, when he was Aid for Operations, may be developed into a sort of illustrative literature, which can assist the memory.

By this scheme, a body of officers at the Navy Department would occupy their time wholly in studying war problems by devising and playing strategical and tactical games ashore and afloat. After each problem had been solved to the satisfaction of the staff, each distinctive situation in the approved solution would be photographed in as small a space as practicable, preferably on a moving-picture film. In the solution of problem 99; for instance, there might be 50 situations and therefore 50 photographs. These photographs, shown in appropriate succession, would furnish information analogous to the information imparted to a chess student by the statement of the successive moves in those games of chess that one sees sometimes in books on chess and in newspapers. Now if the film photographs were so arranged that the moves in the approved solution of, say, problem 99 could be thrown on a screen, as slowly and as quickly as desired, and if the film records of a few hundred such games could be conveniently arranged, a very wide range of situations that would probably come up in war would be portrayed; and the moves made in handling those situations would form valuable precedents for action, whenever situations approximating them should come up in war.

It must be borne in mind that in actual life, our only real guide to wise action in any contingency that may arise is a memory, more or less consciously realized, of how a similar contingency has been met, successfully or unsuccessfully, in the past. Perhaps most of us do not realize that it is not so much experience that guides us as our memory of experiences. Therefore in the training of both officers and enlisted men in strategy, tactics, seamanship, gunnery, engineering, and the rest, the memory of how they, or some one else, did this well and that badly (even if the memory be hardly conscious) is the immediate agency for bringing about improvement.

Imagine now a strategical system of training for the navy, in which a body of highly trained officers at the department will continuously regulate the exercises of the fleet, guided by the revelations of the Kriegspiel: the commander-in-chief will direct the activities of the main divisions of the fleet, carrying out the department's scheme; the commander of each division will regulate the activities of the units of his command in accordance with the fleet scheme; the officer in command of each unit of each division will regulate the activities of each unit in his ship, destroyer, submarine, or other craft in accordance with the division scheme; and every suborganization, in every ship, destroyer, or other craft will regulate likewise the activities of its members; so that the navy will resemble a vast and efficient organism, all the parts leagued together by a common understanding and a common purpose; mutually dependent, mutually assisting, sympathetically obedient to the controlling mind that directs them toward the "end in view."

It must be obvious, however, that in order that the navy shall be like an organism, its brain (the General Staff) must not be a thing apart, but must be of it, and bound to every part by ties of sympathy and understanding. It would be possible to have a staff excellent in many ways, and yet so out of touch with the fleet and its practical requirements that co-ordination between the two would not exist. Analogous conditions are sometimes seen in people suffering from a certain class of nervous ailments; the mind seems unimpaired, but co-ordination between the brain and certain muscles is almost wholly lacking.

To prevent such a condition, therefore, the staff must be kept in touch with the fleet; and it must also permit the fleet to keep in touch with the staff, by arranging that, accompanying the system of training, there shall be a system of education which will insure that the general plan will be understood throughout the fleet; and that the means undertaken to execute it will be made sufficiently clear to enable each person to receive the assistance of his own intelligence. No man can do his best work in the dark. Darkness is of itself depressing; while light, if not too intense, stimulates the activities of every living thing.

This does not mean that every mess attendant in the fleet should be put into possession of the war plans of the commander-in-chief, that he should be given any more information than he can assimilate and digest, or than he needs, to do his work the best. Just how much information to impart, and just how much to withhold are quantitative questions, which can be decided wisely by only those persons who know what their quantitative values are. This is an important matter, and should be dealt with as such by the staff itself. To get the maximum work out of every man is the aim of training; to get the maximum work that shall be effective in attaining the end in view, training must be directed by strategy, because strategy alone has a clear knowledge of what is the end in view.

Stimuli.—Some men are so slothful that exertion of any kind is abhorrent to them; but these men are few, and are very few indeed among a lot of healthy and normal men such as fill a navy. An office boy, lazy beyond belief in the work he is engaged to do, will go through the most violent exertions at a baseball game; and a darky who prefers a soft resting-place in the shade of an umbrageous tree to laboring in the fields will be stirred to wild enthusiasm by a game of "craps."

Now why are the office boy and the darky stimulated by these games? By the elements of competition, chance, and possible danger they bring out and the excitement thereby engendered. Training, therefore introduces these elements into drills as much as it can. Competition alone does not suffice, otherwise all men would play chess; competition and chance combined are not enough, or gentlemen would not need the danger of losing money to make card games interesting; but any game that brings in all three elements will rouse the utmost interest and activity of which a man is capable. Games involving these three elements are known by many names; one name is "poker," another name is "business," and another name is "politics." There are many other games besides, but the greatest of all is strategy.

Now in the endeavor to prepare a fleet by training, no lack of means for exciting interest will be found; in fact no other training offers so many and so great a variety of means for introducing the elements of competition, chance, and danger. The problem is how best to employ them.

To do this successfully, it must be realized, of course, that the greatest single factor in exciting interest is the personal factor, since comparatively few men can get much interested in a matter that is impersonal; a boy is more interested in watching a baseball game in which he knows some of the players than in watching a game between teams neither of which he has ever seen; and the men in any ship are more interested in the competition between their ship and some other than between any other two; feeling that esprit de corps by reason of which every individual in every organization personifies the organization as a living thing of which he himself is part.

Strategic Problems.—The training of the fleet, then, can best be done under the direction of a trained staff, that staff generously employing all the resources of competition, chance, and danger. The obvious way to do this is to give out to the fleet for solution a continual succession of strategic problems, which the entire fleet will be engaged in solving, and which will be the starting-point for all the drills of the fleet and in the fleet. (Some officers prefer the word "maneuver" to "problem.")

The arranging of a continual series of war problems, or maneuvers to be worked out in the fleet by "games," will call for an amount of strategical skill second only to the skill needed for operations in war, will deal with similar factors and be founded on similar principles.

Naturally, the war problems, before being sent to the fleet for solving, would be solved first by the staff, using strategical and tactical games, and other appropriate means; and inasmuch as the scheme of education and training is for the benefit of the staff itself, as well as for the benefit of the fleet, certain members of the staff would go out with the fleet to note in what ways, each problem sent down was defective, in what ways good—and in what ways it could be modified with benefit. The successive situations and solutions, made first by the staff and subsequently by the fleet, can then be photographed and made part of the history of war problems, for the library of the staff.

In laying out the war problems, the staff will be guided naturally by the ends in view—first to work out solutions of strategic, logistic, and tactical situations in future wars, and second to give opportunity to the various divisions, ships, turret crews, engineers' forces, etc., for drills that will train them to meet probable contingencies in future wars.

This double end will not be so difficult of attainment as might at first sight seem, for the reason that the solution of any problem which represents a situation actually probable will automatically provide all the minor situations necessary to drill the various bodies; and the more inherently probable a situation is, the more probable will be the situations in which the various flag-officers, captains, quartermasters, engineers' forces, turret crews, etc., will find themselves.

Of course, the prime difficulty in devising realistic problems is the fact that in war our whole fleet would be employed together against an enemy fleet; and as the staff cannot supply an enemy fleet, it must either imagine an enemy fleet, divert a small part of our fleet to represent an enemy fleet, or else divide our fleet into two approximately equal parts, one "red," and one "blue."

First Scheme.—The first scheme has its usefulness in working out the actual handling of the fleet as a whole; and considering the purposes of strategy only, is the most important, though, of course, "contacts" with the enemy cannot be simulated. From the standpoint of fleet tactical drill, and the standpoint of that part of strategy which arranges for handling large tactical situations with success, it is useful, since it provides for the tactical handling of the entire fleet. This certainly is important; for if the personnel are to be so trained that the actual fleet shall be handled with maximum effectiveness in battle, training in handling that actual fleet must frequently be had; the fleet is a machine, and no machine is complete if any of its parts is lacking.

It may be objected that it is not necessary for the staff at the department to devise such training, because drills of the entire fleet can be devised and carried out by the commander-in-chief; in fact that that is what he is for. This, of course, is partly true; and it is not the idea of the author that the staff in the department should interfere with any scheme of drills that the commander-in-chief desires to devise and carry out; but it is his idea that the staff should arrange problems to be worked out by the fleet, in which the tactical handling of the fleet should be subordinate to, and carried out for, a strategic purpose.

A very simple drill would be the mere transfer of the fleet to a distant point, when in supposititious danger from an enemy, employing by day and night the scouting and screening operations that such a trip would demand. Another drill would be the massing of previously separated forces at a given place and time; still another would be the despatching of certain parts of the fleet to certain points at certain times. The problems need not be quite so simple as these, however; for they can include all the operations of a fleet under its commander-in-chief up to actual contact; the commander-in-chief being given only such information as the approximate position, speed, and course of the enemy at a given time, with orders to intercept him with his whole force; or he may be given information that the enemy has divided his force, that certain parts were at certain places going in certain directions at certain speeds at certain times, and he may be directed to intercept those supposititious parts; that is, to get such parts of his fleet as he may think best to certain places at certain times.

Of the strategic value to the staff of the practical solutions of this class of problems by the fleet, there can be little question; and the records made if kept up to date, would give data in future wars for future staffs, of what the whole fleet, and parts of it acting with the fleet, can reasonably be expected to accomplish, especially from the standpoint of logistics. And it has the advantage of dealing with only one thing; the actual handling of the actual fleet, uncomplicated by other matters, such as interference by an enemy. For the reason, however, that it leaves out of consideration the effects of scouting and of contacts with the enemy, it is incomplete.

Second Scheme.—To remedy this incompleteness, resort may be had to the device of detaching a few vessels from the fleet and making each represent a force of the enemy; one destroyer, for instance, to represent a division, four destroyers four divisions, etc. This scheme has the advantage that all the capital ships can be handled together, and that, say three-quarters of the destroyers can be handled without much artificiality on the assumption that four-fourths are so handled; while for merely strategic purposes four destroyers, properly separated, can represent four divisions of destroyers very truthfully. This scheme is useful not only strategically but tactically; for the reasons that the contacts made are actual and visible, and that all the personnel on each side are put to doing things much like those they would do in war. The scheme is extremely flexible besides; for the number of ways in which the fleet can be divided is very great, and the number of operations that can be simulated with considerable accuracy is therefore very great also. The training given to the personnel of the fleet is obviously more varied, interesting, and valuable, than in the first scheme; and the records of the solutions (games played) will form instructive documents in the offices of the staff, concerning situations which the first scheme could not bring out. These records, naturally, will not be so simple as those under the first scheme, because many factors will enter in, some of which will bring up debatable points. For when actual contact occurs, but only "constructive" hits by torpedo and gun are made, much room for difference of opinion will occur, and many decisions will be disputed.

To decide disputed questions must, of course, rest with the staff; but those questions must be decided, and if correct deductions from the games are to be made, the decisions must be correct. To achieve correctness in decision the members of the staff must be highly trained. To devise and develop a good scheme of staff training, several years may be required.

Third Scheme.—The third kind of game is that in which the fleet is divided into two parts, fairly equal in each of the various elements, battleships, battle cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft, etc. This scheme gives opportunity for more realistic situations than the other two, since each side operates and sees vessels and formations similar to those that it would operate and see in war; and it gives opportunity for games which combine both strategical and tactical operations and situations to a greater degree than do the other two schemes. Its only weakness is the fact that the entire fleet is not operated as a unit; not even a large fraction, but only about one-half. Like each of the other two schemes, however, it has its distinctive field of usefulness.

Its main advantage is its realism—the fact that two powerful naval forces, each composed of all the elements of a naval force, seek each other out; or else one evades and the other seeks; and then finally they fight a fairly realistic battle; or else one successfully evades the other; or else minor actions occur between detachments, and no major result occurs; just as happens in war.

Strategically, this scheme is less valuable than the other two; tactically, more so. For the experience and the records of the staff this scheme is less valuable than the other two, but for the training of the fleet it is more so.

Of course, the division of games for staff and fleet training into three general schemes is arbitrary, and not wholly correct; for no such division really exists, and in practice it would not be observed. The thought of the writer is merely to point out that, in a general way, the schemes may be divided into three classes, and to show the convenience of doing so—or at least of recognizing that there are three general kinds of games, and that each kind has its advantages and likewise its disadvantages.

In our navy, only three strategic problems or maneuvers, devised at the department, have been worked out at sea—one in May, and one in October, 1915, and one in August, 1916: all belonged in the second category. They were devised by the General Board and the War College, as we had no staff. The solving of the problems by the commander-in-chief aroused the greatest interest not only in the fleet, but in the Navy Department, in fact, throughout the entire navy, and to a surprising degree throughout the country, especially among the people on the Atlantic coast. Discussions of the utmost value were aroused and carried on, and a degree of co-operation between the department, the War College, and the fleet, never attained before, was realized. If a routine could be devised whereby such problems could be solved by practical games, say once a month, and the results analyzed and recorded in moving-picture form by the staff in Washington, we could see our way in a few years' time to a degree of efficiency in strategy which now we cannot even picture. It would automatically indoctrinate the navy and produce a sympathetic understanding and a common aim, which would permeate the personnel and make the navy a veritable organism. It would attain the utmost attainable by any method now known.

Attention is respectfully invited to the fact that at the present time naval strategy is mainly an art; that it will probably continue so for many years; that whether a science of naval strategy will ever be formulated need not now concern us deeply, and that the art of naval strategy, like every other art, needs practice for its successful use. Naval strategy is so vague a term that most of us have got to looking on it as some mystic art, requiring a peculiar and unusual quality of mind to master; but there are many things to indicate that a high degree of skill in it can be attained by the same means as can a high degree of skill in playing—say golf: by hard work; and not only by hard work, but by doing the same thing—or similar things—repeatedly. Now most of us realize that any largely manual art, such as the technic of the piano, needs frequent repetition of muscular actions, in order to train the muscles; but few of us realize how fully this is true of mental arts, such as working arithmetical or strategical problems, though we know how easy it is to "get rusty" in navigation. Our mental muscles and whatever nerves co-ordinate them with our minds seem to need fully as much practice for their skilful use as do our physical muscles; and so to attain skill in strategy, we must practise at it. This means that all hands must practise at it—not only the staff in their secret sanctuary, not only the commander-in-chief, not only the division commanders, but, in their respective parts, the captains, the lieutenants, the ensigns, the warrant officers, the petty officers, and the youngest recruits. To get this practice, the department, through the staff, must furnish the ideas, and the commander-in-chief the tools. Then, day after day, month after month, and year after year, in port and at sea, by night and by day, the ideas assisted by the tools will be supplying a continuous stimulus to the minds of all. This stimulus, properly directed through the appropriate channels and devoted to wise purposes, will reach the mess attendant, the coal-passer, and the recruit, as well as those in positions more responsible (though not more honorable); and as the harmony of operation of the whole increases, as skill in each task increases, and as a perception of the strategic why for the performance of each task increases, the knowledge will be borne in on all that in useful occupation is to be found the truest happiness; that only uninterested work at any task is drudgery; that interest in work brings skill, that skill brings pleasure in exerting it; and that the greater the number of men engaged together, and the more wise the system under which they work, the greater will be the happiness of each man, and the higher the efficiency of the whole.



CHAPTER X

RESERVES AND SHORE STATIONS

In the preceding chapter it was pointed out that the work of preparing the naval machine for use could be divided into two parts: preparing the existing fleet and preparing the rest of the navy.

The "rest of the navy" consists of the Navy Department itself, the naval stations, the reserve ships and men, and also the ships and men that must be brought in from civil life. As the department is the agency for preparing the naval stations, the reserves, and the men and ships brought in from civil life, it is clear that the work of preparing the department will automatically prepare the others. The work of preparing any Navy Department necessitates the preparation and execution of plans, whereby the department itself and all the rest of the navy will be able to pass instantly from a peace footing to a war footing; will be able to pass instantly from a status of leisurely handling and supplying the existing fleet by means of the offices, bureaus, and naval stations, to the status of handling with the greatest possible despatch a force which will be not only much larger, but also much less disciplined and coherent.

In time of peace a Navy Department which is properly administered for times of peace, as most Navy Departments are, can, by means of its bureaus, naval stations, offices, etc., handle the existing fleet, and also these bureaus, naval stations, offices, etc., by labors which for the most part are matters of routine. The department opens for business at a certain time in the morning and closes at a certain time in the afternoon. During office hours the various officials and their clerks fill a few busy hours with not very strenuous labor, and then depart, leaving their cares behind them. The naval stations are conducted on similar principles; and even the doings of the fleet become in a measure matters of routine. All the ordinary business of life tends to routine, in order that men may so arrange their time, that they may have regular hours for work, recreation, and sleep, and be able to make engagements for the future.

But when war breaks out, all routine is instantly abolished. The element of surprise, which each side strives to interject into its operations, is inherently a foe to routine. In a routine life, expected things occur—it is the office of routine to arrange that expected things shall occur, and at expected times; in a routine life one is always prepared to see a certain thing happen at a certain time. Surprise breaks in on all this, and makes unexpected things occur, and therefore finds men unprepared. It is the office of surprise to catch men unprepared.

Appreciating this, and appreciating the value of starting a war by achieving some great success, and of preventing the enemy from so doing, military countries in recent years have advanced more and more their preparations for war, even in time of the profoundest peace, in order that, when war breaks out, they may be prepared either to take the offensive at once, or to repel an offensive at once. With whatever forces a nation expects or desires to fight in a war, no matter whether it will begin on the offensive or begin on the defensive, the value to the nation of those forces will depend on how soon they are gotten ready. In a navy, the active fleet may be considered always ready; but the personnel and the craft of various kinds that must be added to it cannot be added to it as quickly as is desirable—because it is desirable that they should be added immediately, which is impossible.

It is not in the nature of things that they should get ready as quickly as a fleet that has been kept ready always; but it is essential that the handicap to the operations of the active fleet, due to the tardiness of its additions, should be kept as small as possible. In other words, whatever additions are to be made to the active fleet should be made as quickly as possible.

When the additions are made to the fleet (reserve ships and men, ships and men from civil life, etc.) it is clear that those ships and men should at that time be ready for effective work. If the ships are not in condition for effective work by reason of being out of order, or by reason of the ships from civil life not having been altered to suit their new requirements, or by reason of the men not being thoroughly drilled for their new tasks, considerable time will have to be lost by the necessity of getting the ships and the men into proper condition—or else warlike operations will have to be entered into while unprepared, and the classic Chesapeake-Shannon tragedy re-enacted.

Therefore, the endeavor must be strongly made to have ready always all the ships and men that are to be added to the fleet; the ships equipped for their duties in the fleet, and the men drilled for their future tasks.

The matter of getting ready the navy ships that are in reserve is largely a matter of getting the men to man them, as the ships themselves are kept in repair, and so in a state of readiness, materially speaking. At least this is the theory; and the successful application of the theory, when tested in practice, depends greatly on how large a proportion of the full complements has been kept on board, and on the amount and nature of the cruising which the vessels in reserve have done. The ideal conditions cannot be reached, unless the full complements have been kept on board, and the ships required to make frequent cruises. Of course, such a condition is never met in reserve ships; there would be no reason for putting ships in reserve if they were to be so handled. The more closely, however, a ship is kept in that condition of readiness, the more quickly she can be made absolutely ready in her material condition.

Unless one realizes how and why ships deteriorate in material, it is surprising to see how many faults develop, when ships in reserve, that are apparently in good condition, are put into active service. Trouble is not found, of course, with the stationary parts, like the bottoms, and sides, and decks, so much as with the moving parts, especially the parts that have to move and be steam and gas tight at the same time—the parts found mainly in the steam engineering and ordnance departments. Defects in the moving parts, especially in the joints, are not apt to be found out until they are moved, and often not until they are moved under the pressure and with the speeds required in service.

Now "in service" usually means in service in time of peace; but the service for which those ships are kept in reserve is war service, and the requirements of war service are much more rigorous than those of peace service. Objection may be made to this statement by remarking that engines turn around and guns are fired just the same in war as in peace, and that therefore the requirements are identical. True in a measure; but vessels and guns are apt to be forced more in war than in peace; and even if they were not, vessels in time of peace are gotten ready with a considerable degree of deliberation, are manned by well-trained men, and are sent to sea under circumstances which permit of gradually working up to full service requirements. But when reserve vessels are mobilized and sent into service for war, everything is done with the utmost haste; and the men, being hurriedly put on board, cannot possibly be as well trained and as ready to do skilful work as men sent on board in peace time; and when reserve vessels get to sea they may be required immediately to perform the most exacting service.

For all these reasons, it is highly desirable—it is essential to adequate preparation—that vessels should be kept in a state of material readiness that is practically perfect. Every vessel on board of which defects in material develop after she shall have been put into service, when war breaks out, will be a liability instead of an asset. She will be able to render no effective service, and she will require the expenditure of energy by officers and men, and possibly the assistance of other vessels, when their services are needed for other work.

But the problem of how to keep reserve vessels in a state of material readiness is easier than the problem of how to keep the reserve men in a state of personnel readiness, which will insure their reporting on board of the reserve ships quickly enough and with adequate training. This problem is so difficult, and its solution is so important, that in Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and doubtless other navies, men are compelled to go into the reserves, and to remain in for several years after completing their periods of service in the regular navy. In this way, no breaking away from the navy occurs until after reserve service has been completed, and every man who enlists remains in the navy and is subject to its discipline until his reserve period has been passed. Thus the question of the reserve is a question that has been answered in those countries, and is therefore no longer a question in them. If battleship A in any of those countries is to be mobilized, the government knows just who are to go on board and when; and knows that every man has recently served in the regular navy, has been kept in training ever since he left it, and that he is competent to perform the duties of his allotted station in battleship A.

The problem of getting into service the ships that are to be gotten from the merchant service is more difficult, and is perhaps of more importance; that is, it is more important to get into the service some vessels from the merchant service than some reserve ships; more important, for instance, to get colliers to serve the fleet with coal than to commission some antiquated cruisers. Naturally, the number and kinds of ships that need to be provided will depend on the nature of the war—whether, for instance, a very large force is to be sent to the other side of the world, to meet a powerful fleet there, or whether a sudden attack on our Atlantic coast is to be repelled. The difference, however, is largely numerical; so that if the plans provide for a sufficient number to take part in the distant expedition, it will be easy to get the appropriate number to meet a coast attack.

To receive an attack upon the coast, however, provision must be made for vessels and men not needed on an expedition across the seas—that is, for vessels and men that will defend the coast itself from raids and similar expeditions.

The work of preparing all that part of the naval machine which in time of peace is separate from the active fleet is purely one of logistics; it is that part of the preparation which calculates what ways and means are needed, and then supplies those ways and means. Logistics, having been told by strategy what strategy plans to do, calculates how many and what kinds of vessels, men, guns, torpedoes, fuel, food, hospital service, ammunition, etc., are needed to make possible the fulfilling of those plans; and then proceeds to provide what it has calculated must be provided.

This does not mean that strategy should hold itself aloof from logistics and make arbitrary demands upon it; for such a procedure would result in making demands that logistics could not supply; or, through an underestimate of what logistics can supply, in refraining from demanding as much as could be supplied. Logistics, of course, does provide what strategy wants, in so far as it can; but in order that satisfactory results may be obtained, the fullest co-operation between strategy and logistics is essential; and to this end frequent conferences are required between the officers representing both.

The logistic work of expanding the naval forces to a war basis may evidently be divided into two parts: the adding of vessels and other craft appropriately equipped and manned to the active fleet, and the establishment of a coast-defense force, which will be distributed along the coast and divided among the most important commercial and strategic centres.

Adding to the Fleet.—Naturally, the additions to the fleet will depend on the service for which the fleet is intended; that is, on the plans of strategy. If the navy were to be gotten ready for a definite undertaking, then the additions to carry out that undertaking could be calculated and prepared; and of course this condition does come up immediately before any war occurs. But in addition to these preparations which are to be made at the last moment (many of which cannot be made until the last moment), the staff must prepare in the leisure of profound peace for several different contingencies. Inasmuch as many of the additions will be needed, no matter with what country the war may come; and inasmuch as the same general kind of additions will be made, it is clear that there must underlie all the various plans one general plan, to which modifications must be made to adapt it to special conditions. And as, no matter whether we are to take the offensive or the defensive, no matter whether the fleet is to go far away or stay near our coast, the matter of additions to it is mainly a matter of degree (whether for instance ten extra colliers are needed or a hundred), it seems clear that the general plan should be the one demanding the greatest additions, so that the modifications to adapt it to special cases would consist merely in making subtractions from it. To carry out this plan, strategy must make a sufficiently grave estimate of the situation; and logistics must make calculations to supply the most difficult demands that the estimate of the situation indicates as reasonable, and then arrange the means to provide what the calculations show. If one has provided a little more than is necessary, it is much easier to leave out something later than it is to add more, if one has not provided enough; and one's natural indolence then acts on the side of safety, since it tends to persuade one not to leave off too much; whereas in the opposite case, it tends to assure him that it is not really necessary to take the trouble to provide what it might be hard to get.

The Estimate of the Situation.—In no field of strategical work is an accurate estimate of the situation more clearly necessary than when it is to form the basis for the precise calculations of logistics. General strategical plans require a vividness of imagination and a boldness of conception that find no field for exercise in logistics; and tactics requires a quickness of decision and a forcefulness of execution that neither strategy nor logistics need; but neither strategy nor tactics calls for the mathematical exactness that logistics must have, or be of no avail. Yet there will be no use in working out the mathematically correct means to produce certain result, if the real nature of the desired result is underrated; there will be no use in working out laboriously how many ships and tons of coal and oil are needed, if the estimate of the situation, to meet which those ships and coal and oil are needed, is inadequate.

The first step, therefore, in providing for the expansion of the navy for war, is to estimate the situation correctly. The greatest difficulty in doing this arises from a species of moral cowardice, which tempts a man to underestimate its dangers, and therefore the means required to meet them. Probably no single cause of defeat in war has been so pregnant with disaster as this failure to make a sufficiently grave estimate of the situation. Sometimes the failure seems due more to carelessness than to cowardice; Napoleon's disastrous underestimate of the difficulties of his projected Russian campaign seems more due to carelessness than to cowardice; but this may be due to a difficulty of associating cowardice with Napoleon. But is it not equally difficult to associate carelessness with Napoleon? What professional calculator, what lawyer's clerk was ever more careful than Napoleon was, when dealing with problems of war? Who was ever more attentive to details, who more industrious, who more untiring? And yet Napoleon's plans for his Russian campaign were inadequate to an amazing degree, and the inadequacy was the cause of his disaster. But whether the cause was carelessness or moral cowardice on his part, the fact remains that he did not estimate the situation with sufficient care, and make due plans to meet it.

This unwillingness to look a difficult situation in the face one can see frequently in daily life. Great difficulties seem to appall some people. They hate so much to believe a disaster possible, they fear so much to let themselves or others realize that a danger is impending, they are so afraid that other people will think them "nervous," and they shrink so from recommending measures that would cause great exertions or great expenditures, that they are very prone to believe and say that there is no especial danger, and that whatever danger there may be, can be obviated by measures that are easy and cheap to carry out.

If we yield to this feeling, we are guilty of moral cowardice, and we vitiate all the results of all our labors. We must make a correct estimate of the situation—or rather we must estimate the situation to be as grave as it is—or our preparations will be of no avail. If we estimate the situation too gravely, we may spend more money and time on our preparations than is quite needed, and our preparations may be more than adequate. It may be that the preparations which Prussia made before 1870 for war with France were more than adequate. In fact, it looks as if they were, in view of the extreme quickness with which she conquered France. But does any military writer condemn Prussia for having made assurance too sure?

The Value of Superadequate Preparation.—No, on the contrary. The very reasons that make adequate preparation valuable make superadequate preparation even more valuable. The reason is very clear, as is shown by the table on page 284 illustrating the progressive wasting of fighting forces, which the writer published in the U. S. Naval Institute in an essay called "American Naval Policy," in April, 1905.[*]

[Footnote *: I have recently been informed that Lieutenant (now Commander) J. V. Chase, U. S. N., arrived at practically the same results in 1902 by an application of the calculus; and that he submitted them to the U. S. Naval War College in a paper headed, "Sea Fights: A Mathematical Investigation of the Effect of Superiority of Force in."—B. A. F.]

TABLE I Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. Col. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Value of offensive power A 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 at beginning B 1000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 Damage done in 1st A 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 period B 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Value of offensive power A 900 910 920 930 940 950 960 970 980 990 at end of 1st period B 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 Damage done in 2nd A 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 period B 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Value of offensive power A 810 830 850 870 890 910 930 950 970 at end of 2nd period B 810 709 608 507 406 305 204 103 2 Damage done in 3rd A 81 83 85 87 89 91 93 95 period B 81 71 61 51 41 31 20 10 Value of offensive power A 729 759 789 819 849 879 910 940 at end of 3rd period B 729 626 523 420 317 214 111 8 Damage done in 4th A 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 period B 73 63 52 42 32 21 11 Value of offensive power A 656 696 737 777 817 858 899 at end of 4th period B 656 550 444 338 232 126 20 Damage done in 5th A 65 70 74 78 82 86 period B 65 55 44 34 23 13 Value of offensive power A 591 641 693 743 794 845 at end of 5th period B 591 480 370 260 150 40 Damage done in 6th A 59 64 69 74 79 85 period B 59 48 37 26 15 4 Value of offensive power A 532 593 656 717 779 at end of 6th period B 532 416 301 186 71 Damage done in 7th A 53 59 66 72 78 period B 53 42 30 19 7 Value of offensive power A 479 551 626 698 772 at end of 7th period B 479 357 235 114 0 Damage done in 8th A 48 55 63 70 period B 48 36 24 11 Value of offensive power A 431 515 602 687 at end of 8th period B 431 302 172 44 Damage done in 9th A 43 52 60 69 period B 43 30 17 4 Value of offensive power A 388 485 585 683 at end of 9th period B 388 250 112 0 Damage done in 10th A 39 49 59 period B 39 25 11 Value of offensive power A 349 460 574 at end of 10th period B 349 201 53 Damage done in 11th A 35 46 57 period B 35 20 5 Value of offensive power A 314 440 569 at end of 11th period B 314 155 0 Damage done in 12th A 31 44 period B 31 16 Value of offensive power A 283 426 at end of 12th period B 283 111 etc. Total damage done by A 717 789 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 B 717 574 431 317 228 159 101 60 30 10

These tables grew out of an attempt to ascertain how the values of two contending forces change as the fight goes on. The offensive power of the stronger force is placed in the beginning at 1,000 in each case, and the offensive power of the weaker force at 900, 800, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 200, and 100. These values are, of course, wholly arbitrary, and some may say imaginary; but, as they are intended merely to show the comparative strength of the two forces, they are a logical measure, because numerical; there is always some numerical factor that expresses the comparative value of two contending forces, even though we never know what that numerical factor is. Two forces with offensive powers of 1,000 and 900 respectively may mean 1,000 men opposed to 900 men of equal average individual fighting value, commanded by officers of equal fighting ability; or it may mean 10 ships opposed to 9 like ships, manned by officers and men of equal numbers and ability; or it may mean two forces of equal strength, as regards number of men, ships, and guns, but commanded by officers whose relative ability is as 1,000 to 900. It may be objected here that it is ridiculous so to compare officers, because the ability of officers cannot be so mathematically tabulated. This, of course, is true; but the fact that we are unable so to compare officers is no reason for supposing that the abilities of officers, especially officers of high position, do not affect quantitatively the fighting value of the forces they command; and the intention in mentioning this factor is simply to show that the relative values of the forces, as indicated in these tables, are supposed to include all the factors that go to make them up.

Another convention, made in these tables, is that every fighting force is able to inflict a damage in a given time that is proportional to the force itself; that a force of 1,000, for instance, can do twice as much damage in a given time as a force of 500 can; also that a force can do an amount of damage under given conditions that is proportional to the time in which it is at work; that it can do twice as much damage in two hours, for instance, as in one hour, provided the conditions for doing damage remain the same. Another convention follows from these two conventions, and it is that there is a period of time in which a given force can destroy a force equal, say, to one-tenth of itself under certain conditions; that there is some period of time, for instance, in which, under given conditions, 1,000 men can disable 100 men, or 10 ships disable 1 ship, or 10 guns silence 1 gun. In the conflicts supposed to be indicated in these tables, this period is the one used. It will be plain that it is not necessary to know how long this period is, and also that it depends upon the conditions of the fight.

In Table I, it is supposed that the chance of hitting and the penetrability are the same to each contestant. In other words, it is assumed that the effective targets presented by the two forces are alike in the sense that, if the two targets are hit at the same instant by like projectiles, equal injuries will be done. In other words, if each contestant at a given instant fires, say a 12-inch shell, the injury done to one will be the same as that done to the other; not proportionately but quantitatively. For instance, if one force has 10 ships and the other has 9 like ships, all the ships being so far apart that a shot aimed at one ship will probably not hit another, the conditions supposed in Table I, column 2, are satisfied; the chances of hitting are identical for both contestants, and so is the damage done at every hit. Table I supposes that the chance of hitting and damaging does not change until the target is destroyed.

As the desire of the author is now to show the advantage of having a superadequate force, the following table has been calculated to show the effect of forces of different size in fighting an enemy of known and therefore constant size:

TABLE II - Col. 1 Col. 2 Col. 3 Value of offensive power at beginning. A 1100 1500 2000 B 1000 1000 1000 Damage done in 1st period by A 110 150 200 B 100 100 100 Value of offensive power at end of 1st period A 1000 1400 1900 B 890 850 800 Damage done in 2nd period by A 100 140 190 B 89 85 80 Value of offensive power at end of 2nd period A 911 1315 1820 B 790 710 610 Damage done in 3rd period by A 91 131 182 B 79 71 61 Value of offensive power at end of 3rd period A 832 1244 1759 B 699 579 422 Damage done in 4th period by A 83 124 176 B 70 58 43 Value of offensive power at end of 4th period A 762 1186 1716 B 616 455 252 Damage done in 5th period by A 76 119 172 B 62 46 25 Value of offensive power at end of 5th period A 700 1140 1691 B 540 336 80 Damage done in 6th period by A 70 114 169 B 54 34 8 Value of offensive power at end of 6th period A 646 1106 1683 B 470 222 0 Damage done in 7th period by A 65 110 B 47 22 Value of offensive power at end of 7th period A 599 1084 B 405 112 Damage done in 8th period by A 60 108 B 41 11 Value of offensive power at end of 8th period A 558 1073 B 345 4 Damage done in 9th period by A 56 4 B 35 0 Value of offensive power at end of 9th period A 523 1073 B 289 0 Damage done in 10th period by A 53 B 29 Value of offensive power at end of 10th period A 494 B 236 Damage done in 11th period by A 49 B 24 Value of offensive power at end of 11th period A 470 B 187 Value of offensive power at end of 16th period A 422 B 0 -

It will be noted that if our force is superior to the enemy's in the ratio of 1,100 to 1,000, the fight will last longer than if it is superior in the ratio of 1,500 to 1,000, in the proportion of 16 to 9; and that if it is superior in the ratio of 1,100 to 1,000 the fight will last longer than if it is superior in the ratio of 2 to 1, in the proportion of 16 to 6. We also see that we should, after reducing the enemy to 0, have forces represented by 422, 1,073, and 1,683, respectively, and suffer losses represented by 678, 427, and 317, respectively.

Now the difference in fighting forces cannot be measured in units of material and personnel only, though they furnish the most accurate general guide. Two other factors of great importance enter, the factors of skill and morale. Skill is perhaps more of an active agent, and morale is perhaps more of a passive agent, like the endurance of man or the strength of material; and yet in some battles morale has been a more important factor in attaining victory than even skill. It is not vital to this discussion which is the more important; but it is vital to realize clearly that skill and morale are not to be forgotten, when we calculate how many and what kinds of material and personnel units we must provide for a war; and inasmuch as we cannot weigh morale and skill, or even be sure in most cases as to which side will possess them in the superior degree, we are forced in prudence to assume that the enemy may possess them in a superior degree, and that therefore we should secure superadequacy in units of personnel and material; not so much to win victory with the minimum of loss to ourselves, as simply to avert disaster.

The present war shows us that the factors of skill and morale, while independent of each other, are closely linked together, and react upon each other. Nothing establishes a good morale more than does the knowledge of exceeding skill; and nothing promotes skill more than does an enthusiastic and firm morale.

But superadequateness of preparation has a value greater than in merely insuring victory with minimum loss to ourselves, in case war comes, because it exerts the most potent of all influences in preventing war, since it warns an enemy against attacking. At the present day, the laws of victory and defeat are so well understood, and the miseries resulting from defeat are so thoroughly realized, that no civilized country will voluntarily go to war, except for extraneous reasons, if it realizes that the chances of success are small. And as the cumulative consequences of defeats are also realized, and as no country is apt to assume that the morale and skill of its forces are measurably greater than those of a probable antagonist, no country and no alliance is apt to provoke war with a nation whose armed forces are superior in number of units of personnel and material; unless, of course, the nation is markedly inferior in morale and skill, as the Persians were to the legions of Alexander.

It is often insisted that superadequacy in armed force tends to war instead of peace, by inducing a country to make war itself; that the very principles which deter a weak country from attacking a strong country tend to make a strong country attack a weak one. There is some truth in this, of course, and history shows many cases of strong countries deliberately attacking weak ones for the purpose of conquest.

Analysis of wars, however, in which strong countries have done this, shows that as a rule, the "strong" country was one which was strong in a military sense only; and that the "weak" country was a country which was weak only militarily, but which was potentially strong in that it was possessed of wealth in land and goods. Most of the great conquests of history were made by such "strong" over such "weak" countries. Such were notably those wars by which Persia, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Spain gained their pre-eminence; and such were the wars by which they later fell. Such were the wars of Ghenghis Khan, Tamerlane, Mahomet, and Napoleon; such were the wars by which most tribes grew to be great nations, and by which as nations they subsequently fell. No greater cause of war has ever existed than a disproportion between countries or tribes of such a character that one was rich and weak, while the other was strong and poor. Nations are much like individuals—and not very good individuals. Highwaymen who are poor and strong organize and drill for the purpose of attacking people who are rich and weak; and while one would shrink from declaring that nations which are poor and strong do the same, it may nevertheless be stated that they have often been accused of doing so, and that some wars are explainable on that ground and on none other.

The wars of Caesar in Gaul and Britain do not seem to fall in this category, and yet they really do; for Rome was poor in Julius Caesar's day; and while Gaul and Britain were not rich in goods, they were rich in land, and Rome craved land.

Of course, there have been wars which were not due to deliberate attacks by poor and strong countries on rich and weak countries; wars like our wars of the Revolution, and with Mexico, our War of the Rebellion, and our Spanish War, and many others in which various nations have engaged. The causes of many wars have been so numerous and so complex that the true cause is hard to state; but it may be stated in general that wars in which countries that were both rich and strong, as Great Britain and France are now, have deliberately initiated an aggressive war are few and far apart. The reason seems to be that countries which are rich tend to become not militaristic and aggressive, but effeminate and pacific. The access of luxury, the refinements of living that the useful and the delightful arts produce, and the influence of women, tend to wean men from the hardships of military life, and to engender a distaste for the confusion, bloodshed, and "horrors" of war. For this reason, the rich countries have shown little tendency to aggression, but a very considerable tendency to invite aggression. Physical fighting among nations bears some resemblance to physical fighting among men, in that rich nations and rich men are apt to abstain from it, unless they are attacked; or unless they think they are attacked, or will be. The fact of being rich has the double influence of removing a great inducement to go to war, and of causing a distaste for it.

For all of the reasons given above, it would seem advisable when making an "estimate of the situation," in preparation for war, to estimate it as gravely as reasonable probability will permit. The tendency of human nature is to estimate it too lightly; but in matters of possible war, "madness lies that way."

This seems to mean that in preparing plans for additions to the fleet for war, we should estimate for the worst condition that is reasonably probable. In the United States, this means that we should estimate for a sudden attack by a powerful fleet on our Atlantic coast; and, as such an attack would occasion a tremendous temptation to any foe in Asia to make a simultaneous attack in the Pacific, we must estimate also for sending a large fleet at the same time on a cruise across the Pacific Ocean.

This clearly means that our estimate must include putting into the Atlantic and Pacific all the naval vessels that we have, fully manned with fully drilled crews; and adding besides all the vessels from civil life that will be needed. The vessels taken from civil life will be mostly from the merchant service, and will be for such auxiliary duties as those of hospital ships, supply ships, fuel ships, and ammunition ships, with some to do duty as scouts.

For the purposes of the United States, therefore, the office of naval strategy in planning additions to our fleet for war, is to make a grave estimate of the naval requirements in both the Atlantic and the Pacific; to divide the total actual and prospective naval force between the Atlantic and the Pacific in such a way as shall seem the wisest; to assign duties in general to each force; and then to turn over to logistics the task of making the quantitative calculations, and of performing the various acts, which will be necessary to carry out the decisions made.

Objection may be made to the phrase just used—"to divide the total force," because it is an axiom with some that one must never divide his total force; and the idea of dividing our fleet, by assigning part to the Atlantic and part to the Pacific, has been condemned by many officers, the present writer among them.

This is an illustration of how frequently phrases are used to express briefly ideas which could not be expressed fully without careful qualifications and explanations that would necessitate many words; and it shows how carefully one must be on his guard, lest he put technical phrases to unintended uses, and attach incorrect meanings to them. As a brief technical statement, we may say, "never divide your force"; but when we say this, we make a condensed statement of a principle, and expect it to be regarded as such, and not as a full statement. The full statement would be: "In the presence of an active enemy, do not so divide your force that the enemy could attack each division in detail with a superior force." Napoleon was a past master in the art of overwhelming separate portions of an enemy's force, and he understood better than any one else of his time the value of concentration. And yet a favorite plan of his was to detach a small part of his force, to hold a superior force of the enemy in check for—say a day—while he whipped another force of the enemy with his main body. He then turned and chastised the part which had been held in check by the small detachment, and prevented from coming to the relief of the force that he attacked first.

When we say, then, that strategy directs how our naval force should be divided between the Atlantic and the Pacific, this does not mean that strategy should so divide it that both divisions would be confronted with forces larger than themselves. It may mean, however, that strategy, in order that the force in one ocean shall be sufficient, may be compelled to reduce the force in the other ocean almost to zero.

Some may say that, unless we are sure that our force—say in the Atlantic—is superadequate, we ought to reduce the force in the Pacific to actual zero. Maybe contingencies might arise for which such a division would be the wisest; but usually such a condition exists that one force is so large that the addition to it of certain small units would increase the force only microscopically; whereas those small units would be of material value elsewhere—say in protecting harbors from the raids of small cruisers. Practically speaking, therefore, strategy would divide our naval force into Atlantic and Pacific fleets, but those fleets might be very unequal in size, owing to the vastly greater commercial and national interests on our Atlantic coast, and the greater remoteness of probable enemies on our Pacific coast.

In estimating the work to be done by the U. S. Atlantic fleet, three general objects suggest themselves:

1. To repel an attack made directly on our Atlantic continental coast.

2. To repel an expedition striving to establish a base in the Caribbean, preliminary to an attack on our Atlantic continental coast or on the Panama Canal.

3. To make an expedition to a distant point, to prevent the occupation of territory by a foreign government in the south Atlantic or the Pacific.

First Object.—To repel an attack made directly on the Atlantic coast, the plan must provide for getting the needed additions to the fleet with the utmost despatch. Owing to the keen appreciation by European nations of the value of secrecy and despatch, any attack contemplated by one of them on our Atlantic coast would be prepared behind the curtain, and nothing about its preparation would be allowed to be reported to the outside world until after the attacking force had actually sailed. For the force to reach our shores, not more than two weeks would be needed, even if the fleet stopped at mid-Atlantic islands to lay in fuel. It is very doubtful if the fact of stopping there would be allowed to be reported, as the commander-in-chief could easily take steps to prevent it. It is possible that merchant steamers might meet the fleet, and report the fact by radio, but it is not at all certain. A great proportion of the steamers met would willingly obey an order not to report it, or even to have their radio apparatus deranged; either because of national sympathy, or because the captain was "insulted with a very considerable bribe." The probability, therefore, would be that we should hear of the departure of the fleet from Europe, and then hear nothing more about it until it was met by our scouts.

This reasoning shows that to carry out the plans of strategy, logistics would have to provide plans and means to execute those plans, whereby our existing fleet, plus all the additions which strategy demanded, would be waiting at whatever points on the ocean strategy might indicate, before the coming enemy would reach those points. In other words, logistics must make and execute such plans that all the fleet which strategy demands will be at the selected points in less than two weeks from the time the enemy leaves the shores of Europe.

Of course, the conditions will not necessarily be such that strategy will demand that all our reserve ships, especially the oldest ships, shall go out to sea with the active fleet, ready to engage in battle. Maybe some of them will be found to be so slow and equipped with such short-range guns, that they would be an embarrassment to the commander-in-chief, instead of an assistance. Unless it is clear, however, that any ship, especially a battleship, would be an embarrassment, her place is clearly with the fighting fleet. The issue of the battle cannot be known in advance; and as everything will depend upon that issue, no effort and no instrument should be spared that can assist in gaining victory. And even if the older ships might not be of material assistance in the early stages of a battle, they would do no harm because they could be kept out of the way, if need be. In case either side gains a conclusive victory at once, the older ships will do neither good nor harm; but in case a decisive result is not at once attained, and both sides are severely damaged, the old ships, held in reserve, may then come in fresh and whole, like the reserve in land engagements, and add a fighting force which at that time will be most important and may be decisive.

Probably some of the ships will be too old, however, to fill places of any value in the active fleet. These should be fully manned and equipped, however, for there will be many fields of usefulness for them. One field will be in assisting the land defenses, in protecting the mouths of harbors and mine-fields, in defending submarine bases, and acting as station ships in the coast-defense system.

Second Object.—To repel an enemy expedition, striving to establish a base in the Caribbean, preparation would have to be made for as prompt a mobilization as possible; for although the threat of invasion of our coast would not carry with it the idea of such early execution as would a direct attack on New York, yet the actual establishment of a base so near our shores would give such advantages to a hostile nation for a future invasion, that measures to prevent it should be undertaken with the utmost possible thoroughness and despatch; because the operation of establishing a base involves many elements of difficulty that an active defender can hinder by aeroplane attacks, etc.; whereas, after a base has once been established and equipped with appropriate defenses, attacks upon it are much less productive of results.

The endeavor to establish a base and the opposing effort to prevent it, will offer many opportunities for excellent work on both sides. Practically all the elements of naval force will be engaged, and events on the largest possible scale may be expected. The operations will naturally be more extended both in time and distance than in the case of a direct attack upon our coast, and therefore the task of logistics will be greater. Actual battle between large forces; minor engagements among aircraft, scouts, submarines, and destroyers; attacks on the train of the invader—even conflicts on shore—will be among the probabilities.

Third Object.—To send a large expedition to carry out naval operations in far distant waters—in the south Atlantic, for instance, to prevent the extension of a monarchical government in South America, or in the western Pacific to defend our possessions there—calls for plans involving more logistical calculation and execution, but permitting a more leisurely procedure. The distances to be traversed are so great, the lack of bases is so distinct and so difficult to remedy, and the impossibility of arriving in time to prevent the seizing of land by any hostile expedition is so evident, that they combine to necessitate great thoroughness of preparation and only such a measure of despatch as can be secured without endangering thoroughness. Whether the projected expedition shall include troops, the conditions at the time must dictate. Troops with their transports will much complicate and increase the difficulties of the problem, and they may or may not be needed. The critical results can be accomplished by naval operations only; since nothing can be accomplished if the naval part of the expedition fails to secure the command of the sea; and the troops cannot be landed until it has been secured, unless the fact of securing it can safely be relied on in advance. For these reasons, the troops may be held back until the command of the sea has been secured, and then sent out as an independent enterprise. This would seem the more prudent procedure in most cases, since one successful night attack on a group of transports by an active enemy might destroy it altogether.

But whether a military expedition should accompany the fleet, or follow a few hundred miles behind, or delay starting until command of the sea has been achieved, it is obvious that the logistic calculations and executive measures for sending a modern fleet to a very distant place, and sustaining it there for an indefinite period, must be of the highest order of difficulty. The difficulty will be reduced in cases where there is a great probability of being able to secure a base which would be able to receive large numbers of deep-draft ships in protected waters, to repair ships of all classes that might be wounded in battle, and to store and supply great quantities of ammunition, food, and fuel.

No expedition of such magnitude has ever yet been made—though some of the expeditions of ancient times, such as the naval expedition of Persia against Greece, B. C. 480, and the despatch of the Spanish Armada in more recent days, may have been as difficult, considering the meagreness of the material and engineering resources of those epochs.

But even if no military force accompanies the expedition, the enormous quantities of fuel, supplies, ammunition, medical stores, etc., that will be required, especially fuel; the world-wide interest that will be centred on the expedition; the international importance attaching to it; and the unspeakable necessity that the plans shall underestimate no difficulty and overlook no factor, point with a long and steady finger at the necessity of attacking this problem promptly and very seriously, and of detailing the officers and constructing the administrative machinery needed to make the calculations and to execute the measures that the calculations show to be required.

Static Defense of the Coast.—But besides the mobile fleet which is a nation's principal concern, strategy requires that for certain points on the coast, where large national and commercial interests are centred, arrangements shall be made for what may be termed a "static defense," by vessels, mine-fields, submarines, aircraft, etc., assigned as permanent parts of the defense of these points, analogous to forts on the land. The naval activities of this species of defense will centre on the mine-fields which it is a great part of their duty to defend. To guard these, and to get timely information of the coming of any hostile force or raiding expedition, strategy says we must get our eyes and ears well out from the land. To do this, water craft and aircraft of various kinds are needed; and they must be not only sufficiently numerous over each area to scout the waters thoroughly, but they must be adapted to their purpose, manned by adequate and skilful crews, and organized so as to act effectively together.

The work of this patrol system is not to be restricted, however, to getting and transmitting information. Certain of the craft must be armed sufficiently to drive off hostile craft, trying to drag or countermine the defensive mine-fields; some must be able to add to the defensive mine-fields by planting mines, and some must be able to pilot friendly ships through the defensive mine-fields; others still must be able to countermine, drag, and sweep for any offensive mines that the enemy may plant.

Vessels for this patrol work do not have to be very large; in fact, for much of the work in the mine-fields, it were better if they were small, by reason of the ability of small vessels to turn in restricted spaces.

It would seem that for the patrol service, the vessels of the Revenue Marine and Lighthouse Service (coast guard) are ideally adapted; but, of course, there are only a few in total. These would have to be supplemented by small craft of many kinds, such as tugs, fast motor-boats, fishing-boats, and trawlers. To find men competent to man such vessels and do the kind of work required would not be so difficult as to get men competent to man the more distinctive fighting ships. Good merchant sailors, fishermen, and tugboat men would fit into the work with considerable ease, and in quite a short time. Strategy declares, however, that a coast guard may be needed a very short time after war breaks out; and that the vessels and the men, with all the necessary equipment and all the necessary organization and training, should be put into actual operation beforehand.

Not only the fleet, however, but all the bureaus and offices of the Navy Department, all the navy-yards, and an the radio stations, recruiting stations, hydrographic offices, training stations, and agencies for securing information from foreign countries, will have to pass instantly from a peace basis to a war basis. To do these things quickly and correctly many preliminaries must be arranged; but if the General Staff prepares good plans beforehand, arranges measures which will insure that the plans shall be promptly carried out, and holds a few mobilization drills to test them, the various bureaus and offices in the department can do the rest. If the fires have all been lighted, the engine gotten ready, and the boilers filled in time, the engineer may open the throttle confidently, when the critical time arrives, for the engine will surely do its part.

But if the proper plans have not been made and executed, the sudden outbreak of war, in which any country becomes involved with a powerful naval country, will create confusion on a scale larger than any that the world has ever seen, and compared with which pandemonium would be a Quaker meeting. A realization of facts will come to that country, and especially to the naval authorities, that will overwhelm them with the consciousness of their inability to meet the crisis marching toward them with swift but unhurried tread—confident, determined, unescapable. Fear of national danger and the sense of shame, hopelessness and helplessness will combine to produce psychological effects so keen that even panic will be possible. Officers in high places at sea and on shore will send telegrams of inquiry and suggestion; civilians in public and private station will do the same. No fitting answers can be given, because there will be no time for reflection and deliberation. The fact that it would be impossible to get the various additions to the fleet and the patrol services ready in time, and the consciousness that it would be useless to do any less, will tend to bring on a desperate resolve to accept the situation and let the enemy do his worst. The actual result, however, will probably be like the result of similar situations in the past; that is, some course of action will be hastily decided on, not in the reasoned-out belief that it can accomplish much, but with the feeling that action of any kind will relieve the nervous tension of the public by giving an outlet for mental and physical exertion and will, besides, lend itself to self-encouragement, and create a feeling that proper and effective measures are being taken.

Such conditions, though on a much smaller scale, are familiar to naval officers and are suggested by the supposititious order "somebody do something"; and we frequently see people placed in situations in which they do not know what to do, and so they do—not nothing, but anything; though it would often be wiser to do nothing than to do the thing they do do. Many of the inane remarks that people make are due to their finding themselves in situations in which they do not know what to say, but in which they feel impelled to say "something."

Now what kind of "something" would be done under the stimulus of the outbreak of a war for which a country had not laid its plans? Can any worse situation be imagined—except the situation that would follow when the enemy arrived? The parable of the wise and foolish virgins suggests the situation, both in the foolishness of the unpreparedness and in the despair when the consequent disaster is seen approaching.

In nearly all navies and armies, until the recent enormous increase in all kinds of material took place, the work of getting a navy ready for war in personnel and material was comparatively simple. This does not mean that it was easier then than now; because the facilities for construction, transportation, communication, and accounting were much less than now; but it does mean that the actual number of articles to be handled was much less, and the number of kinds of articles was also much less; and it also means that the various mechanical improvements, while they have facilitated construction, transportation, communication, and accounting, have done so for every nation; so that none of the competing navies have had their labors expedited or made less. On the contrary, the very means devised and developed for expediting work is of the nature of an instrument; and in order to use that instrument successfully, one has to study it and practise with it; so that the necessity for studying and practising with the instrument has added a new and difficult procedure to those before existing.

Fifty years ago the various mechanisms of naval warfare were few, and those few simple. In our Navy Department the work of supplying those mechanisms was divided among several bureaus, and each bureau was given the duty and the accompanying power of supplying its particular quota. The rapid multiplication, during the past fifty years, of new mechanisms, and new kinds of mechanisms; the increased expense of those mechanisms compared with that of former mechanisms; the increased size and power of vessels, guns, and engines; the increased size and complexity of the utilities in navy-yards for handling them; the necessity for providing and using means and methods for despatching the resulting "business" speedily, and for guarding against mistakes in handling the multiplicity of details—the increase, in brief, in the number, size, and kinds of things that have to be done in preparation, has brought about not only more labor in doing those things by the various bureaus assigned to do them, but has brought about even more imperiously the demand for means whereby the central authority shall be assured that each bureau is doing its work. And it has brought about more imperiously still a demand that a clear conception shall be formed first of what must be done, and second of the maximum time that can be allowed for doing it.

Clearly, the forming of a correct conception should not be expected of men not trained to form it; clearly, for instance, mere knowledge of electricity and mere skill in using electrical instruments cannot enable a man to devise radio apparatus for naval use; a certain amount of knowledge of purely naval and nautical matters is needed in addition. Clearly, the concept as to the kind of performance to be required of radio apparatus is not to be expected of a mere technician, but is to be expected of a strategist—and equally the ability to design, construct, and supply the apparatus is not to be expected of a strategist, but it is to be expected of a technician.

A like remark may be made concerning any mechanism—say a gun, a torpedo, or an instrument, or a vessel of any kind. The strategist, by studying the requirements of probable war, concludes that a certain kind of thing is needed; and the technician supplies it, or does so to the best of his ability.

The statement thus far made indicates a division of work into two sharply defined departments; and, theoretically, such a division does exist. This does not mean, however, that the strategist and the technician should work independently of each other. Such a procedure would result in the strategist demanding things the technician could not supply, and in the technician supplying things the strategist did not want, under a mistaken impression as to what the strategist wanted. The fullest and most intimate understanding and co-operation must exist between the strategist and the technician, as it must equally between the architect and the builder of a house.

From an appreciation of such facts as these, every great Navy Department, except that of the United States, has developed a General Staff, which studies what should be done to prepare for passing from a state of peace to a state of war; which informs the minister at the head of the department what things should be done, and is given power to provide that the various bureaus and offices shall be able to do them when war breaks. This is the scheme which all the navy departments, except the American, have devised, to meet the sudden and violent shock of the outbreak of a modern war. No other means has yet been devised, and no other means is even forecasted.

The means is extremely simple in principle, but complex beyond the reach of an ordinary imagination in detail. It consists simply in writing down a digest of all the various things that are to be done, dividing the task of doing them among the various bureaus and offices that are authorized by law to do them, and then seeing that the bureaus shall be able to do them in the time allowed.

The best way of ascertaining if the bureaus are able to do them is to mobilize—to put into commission and send out to sea all the craft that will be needed, fully equipped with a trained personnel and with a well-conditioned material; and then direct the commander-in-chief to solve a definite strategic problem—say to defend the coast against a hypothetical enemy fleet—the solution including tactical games by day and night.

Before attempting the solution of a strategic problem by an entire naval force, however, it is usual to hold mobilization exercises of a character less complete, in the same way that any course of training begins with drills that are easy and progresses to drills that are difficult. The simplest of all the preparative drills—if drills they correctly can be called—is the periodical reporting, once a month, or once a quarter, by each bureau and office, of its state of readiness; the report to be in such detail as experience shows to be the best.

In the days when each bureau's preparation consisted of comparatively few things to do, the chief of that bureau could be relied on to do the things required to be done by his bureau; and his oral assurance to the secretary that—say all the ships had enough ammunition, or that adequate provision had been made for coal, or that there were enough enlisted men—would fulfil all requirements. But in the past fifty years, the requirements have increased a hundredfold, while the human mind has remained just as it was. So it has seemed necessary to institute a system of periodical preparation reports, to examine them carefully, and to use all possible vigilance, lest any item be forgotten or any work done by two bureaus that ought to be done by only one.

Who should examine the reports? Naturally the same persons as decide what should be done. The same studies and deliberations that fit a person to decide what is needed, fit him to inspect the product that is offered to supply the need; not only to see if it comes up to the specifications, but also to decide whether or not any observed omission is really important; to decide whether, in view of certain practical difficulties, the specifications may be modified; and also to decide whether certain improvements suggested by any bureau should or should not be adopted.

This procedure may seem to put the strategy officers "over" the technical officers, to put a lieutenant-commander on the General Staff "over" a rear admiral who is chief of bureau; but such an idea seems hardly justified. In any well-designed organization relative degrees of official superiority are functions of rank, and of nothing else; superiority in rank must, of course, be recognized, for the reason that when on duty together the junior must obey the senior. But even this superiority is purely official; it is a matter of position, and not a matter of honor. All the honor that is connected with any position is not by reason of the position itself, but by reason of the honorable service which a man must have rendered in order to attain it, and which he must continue to render in order to maintain it. So, in a Navy Department, the General Staff officers cannot be "over" the bureau officers, unless by law or regulation certain of the staff are made to rank over certain bureau officers. A procedure like this would seem to be unnecessary, except in the case of the chief of staff himself, who might, for the purpose of prompt administration, be placed by law over the bureau chiefs.