Chapter IX: Part I: Naval Principles (4)

... The Caribbean Sea and the Isthmus of Panama furnish the student of naval strategy with a very marked illustration of the necessity of such cohesion and mutual support between military positions assumed; as well as between those positions and the army in the field,—that is, the navy. It affords therefore a subject of the first importance for such a student to master, and that in fuller detail than is expedient for a series of lectures, the object of which should be to suggest lines of thought, rather than to attempt exhaustive treatment. For an American naval officer, the intimate relation of the Isthmus and its coming canal to the mutual support of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts renders the subject doubly interesting. This interest is yet farther increased by the consideration that the general international importance to commerce of such a point as the Canal can scarcely fail to make the conditions of its tenure and use a source of international difference and negotiation, which often are war under another form; that is, the solution depends upon military power, even though held in the background. There are questions other than commercial dependent upon the tenure of the Isthmus, of which I will not here speak explicitly. To appreciate them fully there must be constant reading and reflection upon the general topics of the day.

One thing is sure: in the Caribbean Sea is the strategic key to the two great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, our own chief maritime frontiers.

12. PRINCIPLES OF NAVAL ADMINISTRATION

_Opposing Elements_[34]

Administration being a term of very general application, it will be expected that that of the navy should present close analogies, and even points of identity, with other forms of administration; for instance, that in it, as elsewhere, efficiency of result will be better secured by individual responsibility than by collective responsibility. But, along with general resemblance, naval administration is very clearly and sharply differentiated by the presence of an element which is foreign to almost all other activities of life in countries like Great Britain and the United States. The military factor is to it not merely incidental, but fundamental; whatever other result may be achieved, naval administration has failed unless it provides to the nation an efficient fighting body, directed by well-trained men, animated by a strong military spirit. On the other hand, many of the operations connected with it differ from those common to civil life only in a certain particularity of method. This is true in principal measure of the financial management, of the medical establishment, and to a considerable though much smaller degree of the manufacturing processes connected with the production of naval material. The business routine of even the most military department of a naval administration is in itself more akin to civil than to military life: but it by no means follows that those departments would be better administered under men of civil habits of thought than by those of military training. The method exists for the result, and an efficient fighting body is not to be attained by weakening the appreciation of military necessities at the very fountain head of their supply in the administration. This necessary appreciation can be the result only of personal experience of good and bad through the formative period of life.

We find, therefore, at the very outset of our inquiry two fundamental yet opposing elements, neither of which can be eliminated. Nor can they be reconciled, in the sense of becoming sympathetic. In its proper manifestation the jealousy between the civil and military spirits is a healthy symptom. They can be made to work together harmoniously and efficiently; to complement, not to antagonize each other; provided means are taken to ensure to each its due relative precedence and weight in the determination of practical questions.

Historically, the institution and development of naval administration has been essentially a civil process, the object of which has been to provide and keep in readiness a national weapon for war. The end is war—fighting; the instrument is the navy; the means are the various activities which we group under the head of administration. Of these three, the end necessarily conditions the others. The proverb is familiar, “He who wills the end wills the means.” Whatever is essential to the spirit and organization of the navy afloat, to its efficiency for war, must find itself adequately represented in the administration, in order that the exigencies of fighting may be kept well to the front in governmental and national consideration. Since armies and navies have existed as permanent national institutions, there has been a constant struggle on the part of the military element to keep the end—fighting, or readiness to fight—superior to mere administrative considerations. This is but natural, for all men tend to magnify their office. The military man having to do the fighting, considers that the chief necessity; the administrator equally naturally tends to think the smooth running of the machine the most admirable quality. Both are necessary; but the latter cannot obtain under the high pressure of war unless in peace the contingency of war has dictated its system. There is a quaint, well-worn story, which yet may be new to some readers, of an administrator who complained that his office was working admirably until war came and threw everything out of gear.

The opposition between civil and military, necessitating their due adjustment, may be said to be original, of the nature of things. It is born with naval administration. Corresponding roughly to these primary factors are the two principal activities in which administration is exerted—organization and execution. These also bear to each other the relation of means to end. Organization is not for itself, but is a means to an ultimate executive action; in the case of a navy, to war or to the prevention of war. It is, therefore, in its end—war—that organization must find the conditions dictating its character. Whatever the system adopted, it must aim above all at perfect efficiency in military action; and the nearer it approaches to this ideal the better it is. It would seem that this is too obvious for mention. It may be for mention; but not for reiteration. The long record of naval history on the side of administration shows a constant predominance of other considerations, and the abiding necessity for insisting, in season and out of season, that the one test of naval administration is not the satisfactory or economical working of the office, as such, but the readiness of the navy in all points for war. The one does not exclude the other; but there is between them the relation of greater and less.

Both organization and execution are properties alike of the active navy, the instrument for war, and of the naval administration, the means which has been constituted to create and maintain the instrument; but from their respective spheres, and in proportion to their relative nearness to the great final end of war, the one or the other characteristic is found predominant. The naval officer on board his ship, face to face with the difficulties of the profession, and in daily contact with the grim implements which remind him of the eventualities of his calling, naturally sees in organization mainly a means to an end. Some indeed fall short. The martinet is a man to whom the organization is more than a means; but he is the exception. Naval administration, on the other hand, in the common acceptation of the term, is mostly office work. It comes into contact with the navy proper chiefly through official correspondence, less by personal intercourse with the officers concerned; still less by immediate contact with the daily life of the profession, which it learns at second hand. It consequently tends to overvalue the orderly routine and observance of the system by which it receives information, transmits orders, checks expenditure, files returns, and, in general, keeps with the service the touch of paper; in short, the organization which has been created for facilitating its own labors. In due measure these are imperatively necessary; but it is undeniable that the practical tendency is to exaggerate their importance relatively to the executive end proposed. The writer was once visiting a French captain, who in the course of the interview took up wearily a mass of papers from a desk beside him. “I wonder,” said he, “whether all this is as bad with you as with us. Look at our Navy Register;” and dividing the pages into two parts, severally about one-sixth and five-sixths of the whole, he continued, “This, the smaller, is the Navy; and that is the Administration.” No wonder he had papers galore; administration needs papers, as a mill needs grist.

Even in the case of naval officers entering administrative offices, the influence of prolonged tenure is in the same direction. The habits of a previous lifetime doubtless act as a check, in proportion to the strength they have acquired in the individual. They serve as an invaluable leaven, not only to his own thought but to that of his associates. Nevertheless, the experience is general that permanence in an office essentially civil tends to deaden the intimate appreciation of naval exigencies; yet upon this alone can thrive that sympathy between the administrative and executive functions of the navy which is requisite to efficiency. The habit of the arm-chair easily prevails over that of the quarterdeck; it is more comfortable. For this reason, in the best-considered systems, a frequent exchange between the civil and military parts of their profession, between the administrative offices and the army or fleet, is thought expedient for officers who show aptitude for the former. It is better for them personally, better for the administration, and consequently better for the service at large. It prevails extensively in the United States Navy, where it is frequently the subject of ill-instructed outside criticism on the score of sea-officers being on “shore duty.” Without asserting that the exact proportions of service are always accurately observed, it may be confidently affirmed that the interchange between the civil and military occupations tends to facilitate the smooth working of both, by promoting mutual understanding of conditions and difficulties.

_The British System_[35]

[From 1660 to 1832, British naval administration was divided between a civilian “Navy Board” and a military “Board of Admiralty.”—EDITOR.]

Divided control means divided responsibility; and that in turn means no responsibility, or at least one very hard to fix. The abuses that grew up, especially in the dockyards, the effect of which of course was transmitted to the navy that depended upon them, led to a loud outcry throughout the service towards the end of the eighteenth century; but horses are not swapped when crossing streams, and the exigencies of the great wars which ended in 1815 made it long impossible to attempt the revolutionary change needed. This was carried out in 1832 by the Government which came in with the Reform Bill of 1830. The spirit of the innovation was summarized in the expression, “Individual (undivided) Responsibility.” The Navy Board disappeared altogether. The civil functions which in the process of centuries had accumulated in its hands, and had culminated by successive additions into a very numerous and loose aggregation of officials, were concentrated into five heads, having separate and independent responsibilities; in this resembling the chiefs of bureau in the United States Naval Administration. Each of the five was specifically under one of the members of the Admiralty Board, who thus represented that particular interest of the Navy in the Board regarded as a consultative body. Admiral Sir Vesey Hamilton writes: “This was a consolidation of functions and a subordination of the civil branches to the Admiralty as a whole ... under the Board of Admiralty collectively and under the Lords individually.” While the First Lord is a civilian, the majority of the other members of the Admiralty are naval officers. Authority, therefore, is in civil hands, while military influence enters strongly.

While I highly appreciate the value of this latter factor, particularly as the sea lords do not consequently give up their profession, but remain actively connected with it, it appears to my observation of human nature that the system has some of the disadvantages of a council of war, tending to make responsibility elusive. I question, in short, the entire soundness of a scheme which by its nature, if not by specific provision, inclines to place executive action in the hands of a consultative body. It seems to sap individual responsibility; not perhaps in subordinates, but, what is much worse, in the head, in the commander-in-chief of the administration, upon whom depend the great determinative lines of provision and of policy. In conception, the Admiralty is primarily a Board, secondarily individual members. For individual responsibility at the head, too much depends upon the personality of the First Lord, too little upon his position. Since these lines were first written, five years ago, it may fairly be inferred, from the language of the English Press, that very decisive changes of policy have been adopted which are attributed popularly, and even professionally, to the dominating influence of one of the “Sea” Lords. During a brief period in 1827, as two centuries before, an arrangement more formally ideal obtained. The Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV, being appointed Lord High Admiral, the Admiralty Board lapsed as a board and became his council. The modification here made in deference to royal blood might well serve as a model for naval administration; a head with advisers feels responsibility more than a head with associates. It should go without saying that in any case the head must be good.

In the United States Naval Administration the head is one man, with no division of responsibility. His own superior, the President, may control his action, as may Congress by law; but this, as far as it goes, is simply a transfer of responsibility in its entirety. It is not a division. The Secretary of the Navy has no associates, but he has subordinates. In them he has capable advisers, so far as he chooses to use them; but he can transfer to them no responsibility, except that of doing as he tells them. The responsibility of decision is his alone. The law constitutes them subordinate executive officers, just as it constitutes a lieutenant in the navy; but it does not constitute them advisers, and there is in their position nothing which compels the Secretary to hear their advice, still less to accept it. Each is independent of the others, and there is nothing in law to compel conference between them. The Secretary may assemble them, or any number of them, as a board for consultation, in his presence or otherwise; but there is nothing in the system which obliges him to do so. Unity of action between several naval technical experts, each of whom is represented in the planning and maintenance of every naval vessel, and some in every element of naval military efficiency, depends entirely upon the co-ordinating force of the Secretary, who is a civilian, possibly with only more or less outside knowledge of the subject. The system provides no strictly professional unifying force, such as the Board of Admiralty, which has a numerical preponderance of combatant sea-officers, each of whom has in individual control one or more of the technical administrative departments, and may be supposed therefore to be fully informed of its arguments in any technical matter under discussion. The constitution of the Admiralty Board also ensures that all technical details and their effect upon naval efficiency shall be scrutinized from the point of view of the men who shall do the work of war. The American plan fixes the very strictest individual responsibility in the Secretary, and in his principal subordinates, the chiefs of bureau. His duties are universal and supreme, theirs sharply defined and mutually independent. This result appears to me superior to the British, but it has the defects of its qualities; not too much independence in responsibility, but, so far as the system goes, too little co-ordination. As I said of the responsibility of the First Lord, unity of action depends too much on the personality of the Secretary.

_The United States System_[36]

The United States system of naval administration has progressed successively, and without breach of legislative continuity, from the simple rudimentary organ, the one man, in whom all functions as well as all responsibility were centered, through the phase of a complex organ with aggregate functions and responsibilities, defined, but still undifferentiated, into an organization elaborate in form, if not final in development. The process has been from first to last consistent in principle. The sole control and single responsibility of the Secretary—the representative of the President—have been preserved throughout, and all other responsibility is, and has been, not only subordinate to him but derivative from him, as a branch derives its being from the root. Moreover, consistency has also been maintained in restricting the administration thus evolved to the civil function which it essentially is. From the first departure, in the institution of the Board of Commissioners, to the present time, it has not had military authority properly so-called. It has had necessary authority in matters pertaining to a military establishment, but it has had no direction of activities in themselves essentially military; that has remained with the Secretary, and is by him transferred only to officers properly military in function. Finally, the principle of particular responsibility has been strictly followed. Within the limits of the duty assigned, the corporate responsibility of the Board in its day was, and the individual responsibility of each bureau chief now is, as certain and defined as that of the Secretary.

The defect of the system is that no means is provided for co-ordinating the action of the bureaus,[37] except the single authority of the Secretary. This, in his beginning days of inexperience, together with his preoccupations with the numerous collateral engagements attendant upon all positions of public responsibility, will most usually be inadequate to the task. To indicate a defect is not to prescribe a remedy; and the purpose of this article is to show things as they are, not to advocate particular changes. One of the ablest administrative sea-officers, both afloat and ashore, that I have known in my professional career, stated before a Congressional committee that he had “always believed it would be wise to have a board of five officers for the purpose of harmonizing difficulties between bureaus, settling upon a ship-building policy, and other matters that embarrass the head of the Department on account of a lack of professional knowledge.” I do not undertake to pass an opinion upon this particular suggestion, but confine myself to remarking that the fault in the system certainly exists, and that any remedy requires the careful observance of two points: 1, that the adviser, one or a board, be wholly clear of administrative activity; and, 2, that he or they be advisers only, pure and simple, with no power to affect the individual responsibility of decision. This must be preserved under whatever method, as the Secretary’s privilege as well as his obligation.

13. THE MILITARY RULE OF OBEDIENCE[38]

It may be asserted, as perhaps the most tenable general definition of the principle upon which the rule of obedience rests, that the spirit of obedience, as distinguished from its letter, consists in faithfully forwarding the general object to which the officer’s particular command is contributing. This finds expression in the well-known directive maxim, “March to the sound of the guns.” In doubtful cases, however,—and by doubtful I mean cases where action other than that prescribed in the orders seems expedient,—liberty of judgment is conditioned by the officer’s acquaintance with the plans of his superior. If his knowledge is imperfect, or altogether lacking, the doing that which at the moment seems wise to himself may be to defeat a much more important object, or to dissolve the bonds of a combined movement to which his co-operation is essential. If, under such circumstances of ignorance, resting only upon his own sagacity or surmises, he errs either in his reading of his commander’s general purpose, or in his decision as to his own action, and through such error disobeys, he cannot complain if he receive censure or punishment. He has violated a recognized rule without adequate reason. The rectitude of his intentions may clear him of moral blame, though not necessarily even so; for the duty of obedience is not merely military, but moral. It is not an arbitrary rule, but one essential and fundamental; the expression of a principle without which military organization would go to pieces, and military success be impossible. Consequently, even where the individual purpose may be demonstrably honest, not willful, blame adheres and punishment may follow, according to the measure of the delinquency, though that be due to nothing worse than personal incompetency....

No man wrestled with the question more vigorously than Nelson; none found greater exasperation than he did in the too often successful opposition of the letter to the demands of his impetuous spirit for co-operation, addressed to men over whom he had not immediate control; none was more generous in his attitude to subordinates who overrode or overpassed his own orders, provided he saw in their acts the intelligent and honest will to forward his purposes. Obedience he certainly required; but he recognized that, given a capable and zealous man, better work would usually be had by permitting a certain elasticity of initiative, provided it was accompanied by accurate knowledge of his general wishes. These he was always most careful to impart; in nothing was he more precise or particular. If he allowed large liberty in the letter, he expected close observance of, nay, rather, participation in, the spirit of his ideas. He was not tolerant of incapacity, nor would he for a moment bear willful disregard of his plans. When considerations of high policy entertained by himself were crossed by Sidney Smith, his language became peremptory. “_As this is in strict opposition to my opinion_, which is _never to suffer any one individual Frenchman to quit Egypt, I strictly charge and command you_ never to give any French ship or man leave to quit Egypt.” The italics are his own; and he adds again, as though distrustful still: “You are to put my orders in force, not on any pretense to permit a single Frenchman to leave Egypt.” The severity of the tone sufficiently proves his disposition to enforce the strictest rule, where necessary to control individuals; but a more liberal reliance upon principle, in preference to rule, was his habit. None, it may be added, illustrated more copiously than he, when a junior, the obedience of the spirit and the disobedience of the letter. His practice was in this consistent in all stages of his career. Unfortunately, the example may tempt smaller men to follow where their heads are not steady enough to keep their feet.

Of course, thinking and feeling thus, he gave frequent expression to his views, and these, coming from a man of his military genius, are often very illuminative. There is one such that is singularly applicable to our present purpose, of searching for the underlying principle which governs the duty and observance of obedience, and determines its absolute necessity to all military action. “I find few think as I do, but to obey orders is all perfection. What would my superiors direct, did they know what is passing under my nose? To serve my King and to destroy the French I consider as the great order of all, from which little ones spring, and if one of these little ones militate against it, I go back to obey the great order.”

14. PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR[39]

Preparation for war, rightly understood, A falls under two heads,—preparation and preparedness. The one is a question mainly of material, and is constant in its action. The second involves an idea of completeness. When, at a particular moment, preparations are completed, one is prepared—not otherwise. There may have been made a great deal of very necessary preparation for war without being prepared. Every constituent of preparation may be behindhand, or some elements may be perfectly ready, while others are not. In neither case can a state be said to be prepared.

In the matter of preparation for war, one clear idea should be absorbed first by every one who, recognizing that war is still a possibility, desires to see his country ready. This idea is that, however defensive in origin or in political character a war may be, the assumption of a simple defensive in war is ruin. War, once declared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must not be fended off, but smitten down. You may then spare him every exaction, relinquish every gain; but till down he must be struck incessantly and remorselessly.

Preparation, like most other things, is a question both of kind and of degree, of quality and of quantity. As regards degree, the general lines upon which it is determined have been indicated broadly in the preceding part of this article. The measure of degree is the estimated force which the strongest probable enemy can bring against you, allowance being made for clear drawbacks upon his total force, imposed by his own embarrassments and responsibilities in other parts of the world. The calculation is partly military, partly political, the latter, however, being the dominant factor in the premises.

In kind, preparation is twofold,—defensive and offensive. The former exists chiefly for the sake of the latter, in order that offense, the determining factor in war, may put forth its full power, unhampered by concern for the protection of the national interests or for its own resources. In naval war, coast defense is the defensive factor, the navy the offensive. Coast defense, when adequate, assures the naval commander-in-chief that his base of operations—the dockyards and coal depots—is secure. It also relieves him and his government, by the protection afforded to the chief commercial centers, from the necessity of considering them, and so leaves the offensive arm perfectly free.

Coast defense implies coast attack. To what attacks are coast liable? Two, principally,—blockade and bombardment. The latter, being the more difficult, includes the former, as the greater does the lesser. A fleet that can bombard can still more easily blockade. Against bombardment the necessary precaution is gun-fire, of such power and range that a fleet cannot lie within bombarding distance. This condition is obtained, where surroundings permit, by advancing the line of guns so far from the city involved that bombarding distance can be reached only by coming under their fire. But it has been demonstrated, and is accepted, that, owing to their rapidity of movement,—like a flock of birds on the wing,—a fleet of ships can, without disabling loss, pass by guns before which they could not lie. Hence arises the necessity of arresting or delaying their progress by blocking channels, which in modern practice is done by lines of torpedoes. The mere moral effect of the latter is a deterrent to a dash past,—by which, if successful, a fleet reaches the rear of the defenses, and appears immediately before the city, which then lies at its mercy.

Coast defense, then, implies gun power and torpedo lines placed as described. Be it said in passing that only places of decisive importance, commercially or militarily, need such defenses. Modern fleets cannot afford to waste ammunition in bombarding unimportant towns,—at least when so far from their own base as they would be on our coast. It is not so much a question of money as of frittering their fighting strength. It would not pay.

Even coast defense, however, although essentially passive, should have an element of offensive force, local in character, distinct from the offensive navy, of which nevertheless it forms a part. To take the offensive against a floating force it must itself be afloat—naval. This offensive element of coast defense is to be found in the torpedo-boat, in its various developments. It must be kept distinct in idea from the sea-going fleet, although it is, of course, possible that the two may act in concert. The war very well may take such a turn that the sea-going navy will find, its best preparation for initiating an offensive movement to be by concentrating in a principal seaport. Failing such a contingency, however, and in and for coast defense in its narrower sense, there should be a local flotilla of small torpedo-vessels, which by their activity should make life a burden to an outside enemy. A distinguished British admiral, now dead, has said that he believed half the captains of a blockading fleet would break down—“go crazy” were the words repeated to me—under the strain of modern conditions. The expression, of course, was intended simply to convey a sense of the immensity of suspense to be endured. In such a flotilla, owing to the smallness of its components, and to the simplicity of their organization and functions, is to be found the best sphere for naval volunteers; the duties could be learned with comparative ease, and the whole system is susceptible of rapid development. Be it remembered, however, that it is essentially defensive, only incidentally offensive, in character.

Such are the main elements of coast defense—guns, lines of torpedoes, torpedo-boats. Of these none can be extemporized, with the possible exception of the last, and that would be only a makeshift. To go into details would exceed the limits of an article,—require a brief treatise. Suffice it to say, without the first two, coast cities are open to bombardment; without the last, they can be blockaded freely, unless relieved by the sea-going navy. Bombardment and blockade are recognized modes of warfare, subject only to reasonable notification,—a concession rather to humanity and equity than to strict law.[40] Bombardment and blockade directed against great national centers, in the close and complicated network of national and commercial interests as they exist in modern times, strike not only the point affected, but every corner of the land.

The offensive in naval war, as has been said, is the function of the sea-going navy—of the battleships, and of the cruisers of various sizes and purposes, including sea-going torpedo-vessels capable of accompanying a fleet, without impeding its movements by their loss of speed or unseaworthiness. Seaworthiness, and reasonable speed under all weather conditions, are qualities necessary to every constituent of a fleet; but, over and above these, the backbone and real power of any navy are the vessels which, by due proportion of defensive and offensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks. All others are but subservient to these, and exist only for them.

What is that strength to be? Ships answering to this description are the _kind_ which make naval strength; what is to be its _degree_? What their number? The answer—a broad formula—is that it must be great enough to take the sea, and to fight, with reasonable chances of success, the largest force likely to be brought against it, as shown by calculations which have been indicated previously. Being, as we claim, and as our past history justifies us in claiming, a nation indisposed to aggression, unwilling to extend our possessions or our interests by war, the measure of strength we set ourselves depends, necessarily, not upon our projects of aggrandizement, but upon the disposition of others to thwart what we consider our reasonable policy, which they may not so consider. When they resist, what force can they bring against us? That force must be naval; we have no exposed point upon which land operations, decisive in character, can be directed. This is the kind of the hostile force to be apprehended. What may its size be? There is the measure of our needed strength. The calculation may be intricate, the conclusion only approximate and probable, but it is the nearest reply we can reach. So many ships of such and such sizes, so many guns, so much ammunition—in short, so much naval material.

In the material provisions that have been summarized under the two chief heads of defense and offense—in coast defense under its three principal requirements, guns, lines of stationary torpedoes, and torpedo-boats, and in a navy able to keep the sea in the presence of a probable enemy—consist what may be called most accurately preparations for war. In so far as the United States is short in them, she is at the mercy of an enemy whose naval strength is greater than that of her own available navy. If her navy cannot keep the enemy off the coast, blockade at least is possible. If, in addition, there are no harbor torpedo-boats, blockade is easy. If, further, guns and torpedo lines are deficient, bombardment comes within the range of possibility, and may reach even the point of entire feasibility. There will be no time for preparation after war begins.

[The remainder of the essay considers the vital problem of supplying the navy with trained men, both in active service and in reserve. It is pointed out that, of the two systems, compulsory enlistments for short service and voluntary enlistments for long service, the second system, which is the one employed by the United States, produces fewer though better trained reserves; and it therefore necessitates a larger standing force.—EDITOR.]