14 
LAND ec WW T E R 
May 4, T016 
could scarcely have been Ijetter chosen ; all that is needed 
is the support and help of equal ability in those directions 
in which admitted weakness lies. The second objection is 
that withoiit an Air Minister there would be nojannual " air 
vote," and unless there is a Cabinet Minister directly 
responsible for screwing the necessary funds out of the 
Treasury, the job will be scamped, There are two 
answers to this, firstly the Army and the Navy might 
draw their air department requirements on a separate 
vote so that the public may see what the expenditure 
is, for what that check may be worth ! Secondly, as 
suRpestcd in my " Aircraft in \\arfare," if the require- 
ments of the Ser\ices were supported by the Boird, vvhose 
civilian members were pledged to resign if what the Board 
considered an adequate pro\ision were denied, wc should 
probably have a far more powerful check on the adequacy 
of our Air Service than could be secured either by the 
jnere publication of ligures or by the complacence of a 
specially appointed Minister. 
I-et it not be understood that I am individually hostile 
to an Air Ministry or to an independent Air Service ; I 
realise fully that a time may come when the solution of 
the problem of the adequate control of our air forces may 
involve some such step. I have myself drafted in great 
detail a Echeme of control based on an independent 
Air Service and an Air Ministry with full provisions for 
the complete independence of the air departments of the 
existing Services.* I^roadly stated, I believe this scheme 
to be feasible and workable ; 1 have, however, failed to 
satisfy myself that there is an immediate call for anything 
so comprehensive, or that it is possible to inaugurate any 
such scheme successfully during the progress of hos- 
tilities ; or at least under existing conditions. 
Eyes on the Boat 
When the nation is occupied in the conduct of a great 
war the coxswain's old adage " Eyes on the Boat " is 
singularly to the point. All the talk we hear of destroying 
Germany by bombing expeditions, by a widespread 
attack from the air, etc. ; all the plausible rubbish 
which is spoken — to the effect that owing to the deadlock 
on land and the deadlock of another kind at sea, the war 
will fave to be settled from the air ; that the day of 
the infantry on land and the surface vessel at sea is over, 
and that the future lies \vith the aeroplane and the sub- 
marine ; all this may be counted picturesque, but as 
doctrine it is certainly not as picturesque as it is dangerous. 
Perhaps I shall be counted wanting in imagination for 
ridiculing such talk ; to me one must veritably lack 
imagination to be blind to its fallacy. We have heard the 
same kind of stories before ; we have been told that the 
bayonet cannot be of any possible value in the face of 
the improvement in small arms. Nevertheless, the 
bayonet is the arbiter of battles to-daj'. We have been 
told before that the submarine has rendered all other 
vessels obsolete, but submarine cannot hunt submarine, 
and the position of the submarine is that of a perpetual 
fugitive from the high-speed surface craft of an enemy, 
also the first preparatory step to countering the 
enemy submarine is the withdrawal of one's own from 
the field of operations. When everything is taken into 
account these new innovations, whether they be torpedoes, 
submarines, aeroplanes or air !5hips, or small arms or 
artillery of greater range or speed of fire, result in modifica- 
tions only of what has gone before, a change perhaps in 
relative values, corresponding modifications in design, 
the substitution of one type of surface \essel for another, 
the supplementing of ordinary field artillery with guns 
which command a range of fire from the zenith to the 
horizon, the supplementing of the bayonet with the hand 
grenade, the substitution for the steel armour of the 
middle ages, and for the earth works of yesterdav, of 
the deep trenches and protection of mother earth to-day : 
in brief an enrichment of means and a wider range of 
technique, but man remains an earth dweller, his home 
and possessions are on and in the soil, and the underlying 
principles of strategy and tactical method are eternal. 
• This exaggeration or exaltation of the importance of 
operations of indirect military value to the extent of 
suggesting that such will eventually replace ordinary 
military operations in the conduct of a war can only be 
described as chimerical. Such ideas are fit only for 
• Submitted loriUiscussion to the Committee of the Navy Leaeiie 
discussion by writers of fiction of the Jules Verne type, 
let us say for the destruction of " castles in the air." 
The real fact is that the moment the operation of aircraft 
is taken as something apart from, and unconnected with, 
a scheme of naval or militar}' aggression, it is shorn of 
more than half its potential value. Even though our air 
forces were immeasurably more numerous and jjowerful 
than to-day, and if under the agis of an Air Minister we 
were to institute a wholesale campaign of bombing on 
enemy centres of (io\ernment and production without 
any immediate relation to the operations of our Army or 
Navy, the result would be incomparably less than were 
similar forces to be used in concerted oix-rations, acting in 
conjunction with the other arms of the Services. 
Indirect Operations 
The value of indirect operations will largely depend 
upon whether an enemy can by such means be reduced 
to impotence apart from and independently of the ordinary 
naval and military pressure which is being applied. 
Clearly the effectiveness of such operations is a relati\'e 
question, one of degree; also, a very important point, 
it is dependent upon the future relative power or balance 
as between air attack and air defence. It may be recalled 
that up to the present the air defences of this coimtry 
ha\e been as successful as our naval defences, since, as 
demonstrated in a previous article (March 30th), the 
German airship raids have only been successful in so far 
that they have outraged international convention. The 
fact that no German airship has violated British territory 
during daylight or during the period of full moon is an 
absolute reply to those \yho talk glibly of our air muddle 
and lack of preparation. I have before stated that the 
responsibility for our deficiencies in this respect must 
rest with the humanitarian as typified in the frock-coated 
" Peace Confercncer," and with the World Illusion of the 
last fifty years. In the future it may be laid down that 
defensive organisation must meet hostile airship or aero- 
plane by night as by day, and up to a certain point this 
can undoubtedly be done. The reason for raising this 
matter again here is to point out that in assuming the 
case for an Independent Air Service as based on wide- 
spread operations of aggression, we are assuming that 
effective air defence against such aggression is predestined 
to failure. 
My opinion to-day is strongly that attack from the air 
is too volatile — if it may be so expressed— to be of effect 
without the immediate support of other military and 
naval measures of aggression, and that with a ivell organised 
defence and appropriate precautions such independent 
action is destined to play a comparatively modest role in 
the warfare of the future. 
A Summary 
In concluding the present article I will therefore 
summarise the position that the " greater scheme " in 
which is contemplated an Air. Minister and an Air Ministry 
forms a better subject for academic discussion (a di.s- 
cussion which might at any time become of real jiractical 
interest) than of immediate pohtics. From the lattci 
point of view it fails on several different counts : — 
(a) As an organisation for defence it is doubtfully work- 
able in conjunction with the existing Services, and appears 
to involve a serious division of authority with attendant 
" evaporation " of responsibility. 
(b) As an organisation for offence an Air Ministry is 
open to criticism on the ground that operations of indirect 
military value violate broadly the principle of strategy 
of concentration 0/ purpose ; it is based on an assumed 
future for independent and direct air attack which has 
not been proved, and of which we have no clear assurance 
or expectation. 
(c) Its powers cannot be extended to include operations 
of direct military value without clashing with the plenary 
responsibility of our naval and military commands. 
(d) To whatever extent a case may be otherwise sus- 
tained for an Independent Air Service, there remains the 
condition that naval and miHtary demands, either for 
material or personnel have first claim, and thus, if the 
case for an Air Service be made good on other counts, 
no scheme can be carried into execution during a con- 
tinuance of the present condition of shortage. 
