June 29, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
The Sea and the Air 
The Future of the Air Board : A Lesson from Naval History 
By F. W. Lanchester 
IN the preceding article the case for and against an 
Air Ministry was briefly discussed. It was pointed 
out that the history of our Navy is of vahie as shedding 
light on the problerns which arise in the development 
of an independent service, and in illustrating clearly the 
circumstances under which a special service with an 
independent Ministerial head is desirable. 
Whether we go so far back as to Saxon times or whether 
we take for our starting point the later period after the 
Norman Conquest we find at the outset the King in 
person at the head of both Army and Navy, that is to 
say, the two formed part of a single defensive and offen- 
sive organisation or service. We have to pass in fact to 
comparatively modern times before a complete separation 
between the services came to be established. Nominally, 
of course, the King is still the head of both Services, 
just as in the days of King Alfred ; this is, however, a 
point of mere academic interest. The truth is that the 
British Constitution has entirely changed in character 
without any real break of continuity. 
It is undoubtedly one of the diificulties of the present 
subject that this gradual change in the constitution was 
taking place concurrently with the development of the 
Navy, and so it is not always easy to decide, in respect of 
any change in the relationship between the State and 
the Services, ih6 part played by external or broadly 
political conditions as against that played by internal 
or domestic changes 
Protection against Piracy 
In the earliest records of British " Sea power " we have 
accounts of combination of merchants and shipowners 
acting in protection of their common interests. In 
Saxon times the main purpose of the British Fleet was 
the protection of trading ships and the coast regions 
from enemy (or piratical) aggression. Later, in early 
Norman times, it would appear that the British Fleet 
was more generally employed as an instrument of de- 
fence and for the convoying of troops, etc., rather than 
for avowedly aggressive action. The first expedition 
of conquest on record took place in the reign of 
Richard I ; we may therefore consider that British sea 
power as we to-day understand the term, dates from 
that period. 
At the time m question there were Admirals ap- 
pointed to the Fleet just as in the Army there were 
Commanders, but whereas the Commanders on land were 
commonly Royal personages — (frequently the King him- 
self being in supreme command) — our Naval Commanders 
were rarely so chosen. The style " Admiral " is re- 
corded to have been first used in 1297. We are com- 
pelled from a modern standpoint to regard the King in 
the 13th century as acting both as Minister of War (at 
times also as Commander in Chief) and as First Lord of 
the Admiralty, hence at that date both Navy and Army 
were parts of a single Service — the service of the King. 
Moreover in these early times the fighting man on land 
was equally the fighting man at sea. 
We talk freely enough of a Separate Service, but when 
it comes down to precise definition it is not so easy to say 
in what such a term in its essence consists — it may be 
-said that there is every gradation represented in the 
historical evolution of our two Services as they exist to- 
day. 
if it be deemed an essential that the heads of the two 
services are distinct, then nominally the services (Army 
and Navy) are not distinct or separate to-day, for their 
titular head is still the King. It is thus legitimate to 
regard the separation of the services as due to the con- 
stitutional change, i.e., the delegation of the Royal power 
to the Ministry, and from this point of view it will be 
useless to search for evidences of a separation in the records 
and history of the Services themselves.* 
• The changes effected in the administration of the Navy at different 
times are on record, vide "The Royal Navy" ; Wm. Laird Clowes 
(Sampson Lovv and Comoanv). 
But there are other factors which if not decisive on 
the point are at least contributory. So long as the 
weapons used at sea were identical with the weapons 
used on land the [soldier would be employed for naval 
warfare and land warfare indiscriminately, and he would 
sometimes be required to change his role more than once 
in the course of a campaign. Such a state of things 
certainly existed prior to, and even for some time after, 
the introduction of gunpowder, the real differentiation 
probably did not take place till the fifteenth century. 
In Mediaeval Times 
It is also a feature in the situation that the sailor 
normally occupied in the duties of navigation had, in 
early and medi;eval times, also to be available as a fighting 
man, for at that time the " navy " was largely composed 
cj " commandeered " merchantmen, and as merchant- 
men such vessels had to be prepared to put up a fight to 
resist piracy, even in periods nominally of peace. 
The evolution of more recent times, leading up to the 
present day position, has been controlled by the fact that 
fighting at sea has become specialised — it is comparatively 
rare to-day that soldiers are called upon to man a war 
vessel.* 
Likewise every branch of the service, whether it be 
the seaman skilled in the handling of the sailing ship of the 
last century, or the engineering staff of the modern war- 
ship, the Service has to be manned by specially trained 
men^-from the stoker upwards. All this specialisation 
with its necessary lengthy training has tended towards 
the differentiation of the Navy as an independent Service, 
but even with this the essential factor is not to be sought 
here. The Army also has its own specialised branches,— 
Cavalry, Artillery, Royal Engineers, etc. ; one or two 
branches more or less would not have presented insuper- 
able diificulty. 
If we would search for the fact of accomplishment in 
the separation of the Services, it lies clearly and broadly 
in the circumstance that when and as the Royal power 
and responsibility passed into the hands of a Ministry, the 
two services as we know them to-day were ultimately' 
given into the hands of two independent Ministers. 
It is true that history recounts many changes and steps 
forward and back, but the above is the one salient per- 
tinent fact. 
If we would search for the underlying reason and logic 
which led to the said division of executive and responsi- 
bility it must be sought in the preceding 200 or 300 
years of naval experience ; the duties of the Navy had 
resolved themselves ' mainly into operations of indirect 
military value. This is the essential fact. 
Thus the value of sea power as permitting our military 
forces to be moved freely on the high seas, likewise the 
pressure brought to bear against enemy transactions and 
commerce by means of blockade and by the declaration 
of contraband and the right of search or capture on the 
high seas, also the isolation of the enemy's outlying 
possessions by the* exercise of sea power, all these may 
be classified as operations of indirect military value, and 
experience has proved that these constitute nine-tenths 
of the work of a modern Navy. In air warfare, on the 
contrary, the duties of aircraft have in the main been 
associated definitely with other military operations, and 
thus have been direct in the sense of the present article. 
The importance of operations of the character stated 
has for many centuries been increasingly recognised, and 
the whole is to-day summed up in the two words " Sea 
Power." Quite early in the development of Sea Power it 
inevitably became recognised that its exercise by any 
nation must depend upon the creation and efficiency 
of a fleet of fighting ships, and in definitely establishing 
• A notable recent occasion was the case of the Triumph at the 
outbreak of the present war. Commissioned at Hong Kong on August 
5th. 1914, a deficiency in her complement was made good by loo 
volunteers from the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry then forming 
part of the Hong Kong garrison. 
