Mardi 16, T916. 
LAND AND WATER. 
THE REVOLUTION AT WHITEHALL. 
By Arthur Pollen. 
MR. BALFOUR'S reply to his predecessor weis 
something more than a delightful addition 
to our Hmitcd literature of irony. And it 
has aeliicved something more than assuring 
Mr. Churchill the immortality of preservation in the 
amber of his opponent's wit. It is not Mr. Balfour's 
artistry that is to our purpose to-day, but the light his 
disclosures throw on the changes in naval administration. 
The significance of these seems, on the whole, to have been 
very well understood, so that the impression is general that 
while we have assisted at tlie execution of the man who 
tried to shake our confidence in the Navy, we have also 
attended the public ob.sequics of the effort — call it intrigue 
or agitation or whatever you please — for replacing the 
present Board by Lord Fisher and his friends. 
But to some people. Lord Fisher's lonig ascendancy 
still makes it appt;ar as if, when we deny ourselves his 
services in the highest posts, we arc committing a kind 
of naval /t'/.o de sc. This conviction is passionately held and 
eloquently expres ed by a few journals — and amongst 
them the Manchcatcr (iiiardian and the Observer, wlio 
are not deceived by his being invited, with Sir Arthur 
Wilson and Mr. Hugh O'Byrne, to assist at the War 
Council ; and to them the refusal to put Lord Fisher into 
" absolute command " of something is a simple tragedy. 
As there are some in private life who share these views, 
and have not yet reahsed the real moral of Mr. Balfour's 
castigation of his predecessor, it is worth explaining 
what the First Lord's revelations really reveal. 
Professional Control. 
It is briefly thus : — Until May last the chief com- 
mand of the Navy had, for years, been entirely autocratic, 
and chiefly civilian. It is now as nearly self governed 
as such a service can be, and its guidance is wholly pro- 
fessional. We have learnt that our Argus-eyed Fleet sees 
more than the " far sight and foresight and second sight " 
of even our greatest stay-at-homes, and that an ad- 
ministration who.se chief concern is to focus the war 
knowledge of the Fleet and turn it to account, is not only 
a vastly superior instrument of command to any 
autocracy, but is the only instrument that can handle so 
complex a weapon as the British Navy in the imantici- 
pated and startling conditions of its first war for a hundred 
years. So true is this, that a root fact of the situation is, 
exactly as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux put 
it. The Navy is ])erfcctly content with the existing 
regime and any effort to return to the old one would 
spread consternation tluoughout the Fleet. To many 
it may seem a hard saying that a system which was going 
in full blast — tearing, hustling, pushing and driving — 
about nine months ago, should already be seen to be 
obsolete and dead beyond any possibility of revival. 
But Mr. Balfour liftefl suiticient of the veil to make it not 
only credible, but to those who understand it, inevitable. 
Mr. Churchill left him with no alternative but to 
break the brutal truth to us that at the outbreak of 
war, we had not a single submarine-proof harbour on the 
East coast. Reflect for a minute what this means. In 
the eleven and a half years which have elapsed since 
Lord Fisher came to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, 
two altogether revolutionary changes have been made in 
naval war. Until i()04 the 12-inch guns of our battle- 
ships were weapons that no one would have thought of 
using beyond the range of 4,000 yards. The identical guns 
have been used in tliis war at 11,000, 12,000 and 13,000 
yards. The advance in range owes nothing to improve- 
ments in the gun. It has been brought about by improve- 
ments in sights, in rangelinders, and in the organisation 
called fire control. Again in 1904 the submarine, or 
submersible torpedo carrying boat, had indeed been 
proved to be a practical instrument for war, but was still 
in its infancy. By 11)07, when Captain Murray Sueter 
vvrote his well known work on the subject, it had become 
obvious that the tactics of battle, no less than tiie defence 
Df fleets, stood to be completelv changr-d by its actual 
and probable developments. 
Now every new mgine of war aiul as a long rangi' 
weapon the modern gun is such — creates a double 
problem. There is the art of using it in attack ; there 
is tlie art of countering it when it is in the enemy'^ 
hands. With every new develo])ment then, the Navy 
has to learn a new offensive and a new defensive. In 
the matter of guns, there is but one defensive that can 
be perfectly successful. It is to develop a method of 
using them so rapid so insistent and so accurate that the 
enemy's guns will be out of action before they can be 
employed against us. Failing this there is a secondary 
defensive, viz., to protect ships by armour. Finally 
you may keep out of range of the enemy's guns by 
turning or running away. The adoption of armour calls 
for no perfection either of tactical organisation or technical 
practice. It is a matter which can be left to the metal- 
lurgists, engineers and constructors. The ])urely naval 
policy then should have been to de\elop the use of guns 
either offensively, which as we liave seen will be the best 
defence, or to enjoin the tactic that will avoid risks 
inseparable from coming imder the enemy's fire. To 
the country that was completing nearly two battleships 
to any other country's one, that aspired to command the 
sea, that hoped to be able to blow any enemy fleet out of 
the water if it got the chance, it would seem obvious that 
there could be only one gunnery policy ; to wit, piish 
the offensive to the highest possible extent. This would 
not have been to deny that there might be occasions on 
which defensive tactics would be justified. But they 
would be the exception and not the rule. It certainly 
would not be the manceuvre round which the halo f)f 
ofticial approbation would have been particularly shed. 
Again, the distinguishing feature of submarines 
is their capacity to approach the strongest of vessels 
rmseen and then to strike with the most, deadly of all 
weapons. As they gained in speed and radius of action, 
it became obvious that wherever a fleet might be — whether 
at sea or in harbour— it must be exposed to this insidious 
and — if successful — deadly form of attack, unless it u'cre 
protected by effective passive defences while in harbour, 
and by numerous mobile guards when at sea. The basic 
sup])osition of British naval policy has been to maintain 
a fleet sufficiently powerful to drive all enemy's craft 
within his harbours and defences. The proposition has 
only to be stated for it to be clear that the Navy could 
not have expected, except in rare circumstances, to havo 
any targets for its submarines, whereas it was as certain 
as any future thing could be, that every British ship would 
be a constant target for the enemy's submarines. British 
policy in regard to submarine war should then have been 
mainly, if indeed not wholly, defensive. 
Thus, if there was one form of offensive imperatively 
impo;,ed on us, it was that of naval artillery ; and if 
there was one form of defensive not less imperatively 
incumbent, it was the pro\'ision of adequate protection 
against submarines. 
Reversed Tactics. 
It is now of course common knowledge that it was 
exactly in these two particulars that Admiralty policy 
from igo4 to 1914 was either discontinuous, vacillating 
and self contradictory, or sim])ly non-existent. So far 
as it cultivated anything, it was a defensive tactic for 
the gun : and offensive tactics for the submarine ! On 
the latter point let the non-provision of a safe anchorage 
on the North-Ea.st coast stand for the whole. If you 
pick up a Navy List for any month in any year prior to 
August, 1914, you will look in vain for any department of 
Whitehall, any establishment at a principal port, any 
appointment of flag officer or captain, to prove that 
there was at any time an indi\-idual or a committee 
charged with the vital problem of protecting the British 
I'leet against enemy submarines when war broke out. 
The necessity had indeed been realised. It had been 
urged on the Board of the Admiralty. But no action 
was taken. 
This of course was bad enough. The case of gunnery 
was worse, for if you comj^are the Navy List of August, 
ii)i4, with lliat of Ihe ciirrcspondiiig month of the vear 
ir 
