simply be collated from the Times and service Press, so th it is open to any one who lists to check our statements. Let begin by saying that the famous Cawdor Memorandum of 19 insisted that the strategic distribution in peace of ships must that adapted for war. The same document emphasised t necessity of taking timely precautions before the moment strained relations which "may occur at the shortest notice How far, then, did the Admiralty in 1911 act up to the excelle doctrines which it had itself laid down?

At the moment of extreme danger, which came in mid-Augus when difficulties occurred in the "conversations " between Fran and Germany and when a general railway strike was immine in England, the effective British naval force in home waters w split up into detachments and scattered. On August 14, t Dreadnoughts of the First Division of the Home fleet left Portla for Cromarty. They had been preceded by some days by t First Destroyer flotilla, which, however, was not up to its f strength of twenty-four boats. At Queensferry on the Forth w stationed another destroyer flotilla which mustered twenty-fo destroyers and torpedo-boats. This was the entire organis naval force present in the North Sea in August, with the excepti of another Dreadnought (the Invincible) which proceede separate from the main body of the First Division, to Cromart On August 14, the German High Sea fleet disappeared. It le the Norwegian coast, was joined by heavy reinforcements in t shape of the Reserve squadron, and with a strength of at lea five Dreadnoughts (possibly more), twenty-four other armour ships, eight or ten cruisers and seventy destroyers, steamed o into the North Sea and carried out manoeuvres, in the cour of which its advanced scouts and destroyers closed within fif or eighty miles of the British coast, according to the Frankfur Zeitung, which is not a sensational or alarmist journal. If w had broken out, or if the German Government had determin to strike, it was admirably placed to intercept the ten Dreadnough of the Home fleet and bring them to battle. It could have de such a blow as the Japanese destroyers inflicted at Port Arth on February 8, 1904. However highly we estimate the fighti qualities of the Dreadnought class, the British division was poorly supported by cruisers and torpedo craft and so enormou

outnumbered, that its defeat would have been the probable result of an encounter. The strategy which places a British naval force in such a situation in the hour of strained relations can only be described as extraordinary. It may indeed be said that no toward result did actually happen. But if a fire brigade turns out late with half its engines its mistake is not excused because the alarm was only given for purpose of exercise.

These facts at least show that the Admiralty never imagined that war was possible and that therefore it was not plotting any treacherous attack. After this perilous movement of a detachent in the face of a massed force, the eleven Dreadnoughts were aft at Cromarty, some hundreds of miles away from effective pport, in a defenceless anchorage, though towards the middle and end of August four more German Dreadnoughts were fully manned and undergoing their trials.* The Second Division of the Home fleet remained in the south till September 8, when it as suddenly ordered to the Forth. It mustered only one Dreadbght, four other battleships and four armoured cruisers. Two ther battleships belonging to the division proceeded to the me destination apart from the main body. On September 9 occurred a panic on the Berlin Bourse. Thus a second time weak British detachment was exposed to the attack of a centrated German force, and no adequate support was within ach. The First Division at Cromarty was seven hundred miles ay when the movement began, and even when it had been mpleted the two main fighting sections of our fleet were one dred and eighty-five miles apart, one of them in an open our, and the other in the Forth, the defences of which could | little resistance to modern battleships. Either might have

attacked before the other could come up. Thus twice in a h a naval Colenso was risked. Yet the German Govern, like the wolf in the fable, accuses the Admiralty lamb of litating the destruction of the German fleet.”

These dispositions abundantly illustrate Lord Charles Beresd's warning that an efficient War Staff, able to secure attention br its demands, is the first requisite of our safety, and that,

⚫ The Third Division of the Home fleet had meantime been assembled at Lambah on the west coast of Scotland with its ships half manned and lacking al and oil.

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without such a Staff, we can never be certain that similar mistake will not be made and similar risks taken by overworked an distracted officials. And let us note Lord Charles's opinion the as at present constituted the new War Staff is not placed i direct communication with the Board." The Director o Operations frames his plan; the Chief of the Staff may rejec it, or may decide to lay it before the First Sea Lord; the Firs Sea Lord may reject it or decide to ask the Cabinet for the men an money which it requires; and finally the Cabinet may reject i With all these steps, all these go-betweens, responsibility ma be destroyed and energetic action paralysed. Far better is th German system. The Admiral Staff is responsible to the Kaise and the Kaiser alone; it is absolutely distinct from the Germa Admiralty, on which it acts as a check and control. Here is one the points in which a democratic government is inferior to th German military autocracy.

We have now to turn to a fresh piece of evidence that no re war plans existed in 1911, two years after the Cabinet Committe of Inquiry, which considered Lord Charles Beresford's letter t the Prime Minister, and returned against the then Admiralty verdict of" not guilty, but don't do it again." It is admitted the when the Army Staff approached the Admiralty at the height the Morocco crisis to arrange for the transfer of the British lar forces to the Continent, under the pledges given to France, th Admiralty declared itself unable to protect the transfer. A cording to all the official apologists the British fleet was to th German as two to one. Further, in the event of such a movemen the British Admiralty would have had the support of the enti French naval force in the North of Europe, while the extent sea to be protected was only twenty-two miles. Yet we are tol by the Naval and Military Record, the Army and Navy Gazett and the Times, that the reason why the Admiralty declined hesitated was the famous "fleet in being" theory. strategists are agreed," says the Naval and Military Record," the the Admiralty could not and would not ignore so strong a flee in being' as the German Navy." We may fairly ask, "Wh proposed that they should ignore the German Navy? Ha they not on their own showing two ships to one; and, if not, wh had they rested content with the meagre programmes of 191

"Navi

and 1911? Either the British Navy was inadequate to mask or Nockade the German fleet, and thus cover the passage of the transports many miles to its rear; or it was paralysed by a totally false theory of naval war. In either case there could have been zo satisfactory plan of campaign.

What is this "fleet in being" theory?

theory? It is clearly of transdent importance from the effect attributed to it at a critical . It is to the effect that an inferior fleet or even a defeated det. provided the defeat has not been decisive, can prevent y movement of troops by sea and paralyse the action of its perior antagonist. This is the supreme doctrine of the Blue Water School, and, as a little thinking will show, it would condone the strange distribution of force, and the scattering of our fleets 1911. But is it true, and does it rest on any historical foundaton? Lord Charles Beresford does not refer to it, but, from vigorous attack on the Admiralty Memorandum concerning invasion, it is clear that he does not accept it. Admiral Mahan perfectly outspoken in condemnation of it:

I have for years contended against this view as unsound; as shown to be so tray. Such a "fleet in being," inferior, should not be accepted by an tery as a sufficient deterrent under ordinary circumstances. It has not been the past, and the Japanese did not so accept it. The Russian “fleet in being" P.rt Arthur did not stop their transportation (of troops); although they wgnised danger from it and consistently took every step in their power to Astralise it.

He points out further that Nelson never allowed himself to be erred from vigorous action by "making pictures" of the gers run from a "fleet in being," or enslaving himself to untested theory. His question was, "Is the honour and ⚫t to our country worth the risk? If so, in God's name let azt to work." We had drifted almost as far from Nelson's as of strategy and war, when we set up this doctrine as our **zen calf in 1911, as the French army from Napoleon's, when it

ed the passive defensive in 1870. With this mass of evidence -mist regard Lord Charles Beresford's charge that satisfactory plans did not exist, as proved. And further confirmation of conclusion is given by the recent changes at the Admiralty. On two other points, the scrapping of ships and the failure Dcrease the personnel, a grave mistake was made by the past

FUL. LIX

5

Admiralty. The real reason why the old ships were throw away is, as Lord Charles Beresford insists, that officers and me were not provided in time for the new ships. While the personn of every important foreign navy without exception was augmente between 1904 and 1909 that of the British Navy was cut dow While the number of workmen in foreign dockyards steadily ros the men employed in the Admiralty yards were reduced fro 35,340 in 1904 to 27,055 in 1906. Nine thousand men have sin been added, so that most of the mischief has been undone at grea cost. But because the dockyard workers and the seamen we reduced in 1907, it was impossible to keep the older ships satisfactory order or to man them. A large number of vesse capable of valuable service in the second line were literal thrown away, though in the Japanese Navy, during the war wi Russia, such vessels had rendered the most precious servic In the German Navy the old ships have never been premature broken up. While their names disappear from the effecti list and from tables of strength, and while the units themselv are replaced, they are held in reserve. Thus the Siegfried and t Beowulf are still retained for subsidiary purposes, though t Helgoland and Thüringen, built to replace them, are now servi in the High Sea fleet. As the result of the British Admiralty plan of destroying old ships without building vessels to ta their place, the British Navy has been left perilously short small cruisers for work with the fleet and protection of the trac routes; which as Lord Charles shows are left unguarded. the Coronation Review, he points out, there were only nine sm cruisers present to fifty-seven armoured ships. Admiral Mah is not less hostile to the too hasty "scrapping" of ships than Lo Charles Beresford. He holds that the old ships may turn t balance: "In the later stages of a war, when the newest shi have undergone their wear and received their hammering, t nation which then can put forward the largest reserve of ships the older types will win."

It is alleged that the personnel will now receive attention, a not before it was time, as Germany is known to be contemplati an addition of 15,000 men to the total on her active list. E couraging inferences have been drawn from the recent spee at Glasgow of the First Lord of the Admiralty as to the expansi