14 
LAND & W A T E R 
June 29, 1916 
the ascendancy of such a fleet in face of an enemy- In other 
words the primitive state of naval warfare in which ships 
containing armed men were employed by piratical bands or 
by nations at war, eaclj to harass the others commerce and 
sea connnunications, early led, as lof;ically it must, to the 
conception of fleets ecpiipped for lighting and destroying 
the enemy's armed vessels ; in other words in place of 
the first duty of the fighting ship being its primary func- 
tion of controlling and destroying the enemy's commerce 
the first duty of the fighting ship became the execution 
of its secondary function of grappling \\ith the fighting 
ships of the enemy. To-day the domination of sea power 
in this sense is assured to (ireat Britain by the supremacy 
of our battle fleet. We have the apotheosis of sea power 
in the Dreadnought and super-Dreadnought battleship 
which constitutes the back-bone of a modern Battle Fleet. 
A Modern Navy 
I have stated that ninety per cent, of the work of a 
modern navy lies in the performance of its duties of in- 
direct military value. This has not always been the case. 
In the earliest exercise of sea power a very much greater 
importance attached to the direct attack on coast towns, 
etc., in fact in its origin the fighting ship combined at once 
the functions of fighting ship and transport. The men 
who fought at sea in due course fought on land ; the 
weapons which served them at sea were the weapons 
which served them also on land. Thus in early times the 
function of the warship or fighting vessel lay in its 
power of direct military aggression ; its secondary func- 
tion, however, just as at the present day, consisted of acts 
of aggression against its own kind, the fighting sliips of 
the enemy ; thus in the early history of naval warfare 
there was far less to differentiate the duties of the forces 
ashore and afloat than there is to-day. 
It may seem to many strange to consider a battle fleet 
action of capital importance such as Trafalgar and 
such as we have just witnessed in the battle of the North 
Sea (Jutland) as the performance of the secondary func- 
tion of an arm or of a Service whose primary function 
even lies mainly in the conduct of operations of but in- 
direct military value. We know from history and ex- 
perience (and perhaps we are Hn a sense overawed by the 
fact) that the winning of such a naval battle is an event 
of decisive importance : we scarcely realise by how many 
stages are cause and effect removed. When a victory is 
won on land the victor enters forthwith into possession of 
the territory and spoils of the enemy. If the victory is 
decisive he may have the enemy nation at his feet, he 
may have the whole of liis territory at his disposition, he 
may impose his will in enemy territory to any extent he 
may wish. The winning of a decisive victory at sea 
however, means nothing of the kind ; it implies that sea 
power passes into the hands of the victor, that he can 
do many acts of indirect military value, such as stifle his 
enemy's commerce, prevent the free movement of his 
troops, can isolate and deal in detail with his outlying 
possessions ; its decisive value as a factor in warfare 
depends upon the ultimate consequence of these facts. It 
depends to a comparatively unimportant degree on the 
fact that he can commit direct acts of aggression, in the 
support of the Army in the field by bombardment, as 
recently at Gallipoli and on the Belgian coast. So far 
as we know also the winning of an air battle would not 
immediately result in conclusive victory, or give possession 
to the victor of enemy territory ; it would, however, clear 
the way to the b'etter employment of aircraft in the 
carrying out of operations of direct military value. It 
is thus debatable whether we are to regard an organised 
air battle as of direct or indirect military value. In 
truth, counterpart to this, it is equally uncertain whether 
the organising of air fleets for battle purposes is rightly 
work for an Independent Service or not. Probably if an 
Indejx'ndent Air Service were established, the equipment 
and maintenance of battle air fleets would become one of 
its recognised duties and the present Services would be 
relieved of that responsibility. 
The importance of sea power, owing to its very indirect- 
ness, has taken centuries to establish, and were it not for 
the teaching of history it is doubtful whether any mi]itar\' 
man or statesman, liowever astute, would have fully 
appreciated all that is meant by the command of the 
sea. Sea power in this respect is comparable to one of 
those apparently purjwscless moves in the game of chess. 
the value and power of whichjias only been demonstrated 
by centuries of analysis. It is tnie that the conquering 
fleet may directly impose the will of its commander on 
the coastal regions of enemy territory', but unless sup- 
ported by a military organisation such action against a 
great power can never be in the least dtgree decisive. It 
has been truly said that one gun on land can face a whole 
battle-ship armament at sea. There are to-day methods 
of defence by which the direct application of sea power 
is entirely nullified except when used in an ancillary 
capacity to military operations on a sufficient scale. We 
have had a recent example of this fact in the abortive 
attack on the Dardanelles, first by the fleet alone and 
later by the fleet supporting an inadequate military 
expedition. 
The whole of the foregoing argument bears directly 
and definitely on the problem of the future of air war- 
fare. The present day separate control of the Army and 
Navy as two Serv^ices has arisen from the inexorable logic 
of facts — the facts as above set forth. In brief the 
Navy is a force whose duties are to-day almost entirely 
of indirect military value. At the time in history wheii 
this was not the case the naval and military forces were 
under one effective military- command. As the circum- 
stances changed (due largely to the increase in world 
commerce and in the building up of the over-seas domin- 
ions of the great powers, etc.) and the present state of 
things came gradually to be recognised, consciously or 
unconsciously the logic of the position was reflected in 
the disposition made by the king's advisers, and the 
Naval forces which were destined to carry out these 
multifarious duties of indirect value _were ultimately 
placed, rightly and necessarily, under a separate control 
headed by a specially appointed Minister, the First Lord 
of the Admiralty. 
Future Air Warfare 
The question which is to-day before us is whether there 
is any real analogy between the naval history of the past 
and the air service history of the future, or whether 
in brief there are conditions which render the treatment of 
the one necessarily right as the treatment of the crther. 
Expressed in other words, are we to consider aircraft as a 
new Arm or are we to consider our air forces in the light 
of a new Service ? 
In a previous article I have dwelt somewhat on this 
theme and have pointed out how hollow is the cry of 
" One Element one Service." It is scarcely necessary for 
me to repeat the previous warning against such clap- 
trap fallacy. It is an unfortunate fact that for every 
one man who will follow a reasoned argument, there are 
a hundred who will subscribe to a plausible slogan. I feel 
therefore that no apology is needed for having returned to 
the subject. 
In the work of the Air Board of the future the ultimate 
decision as to the development of a separate Air Service 
will be determined not by the opinion of this or that 
authority, neither will it depend upon the ingenuity with 
which Parliamentary speakers string words in sequence 
in futile debate, nor yet will it come about as a result of the 
coining of cunningly worded epigrammatic phrases. The 
future of air warfare and the work of the Air Board will 
be guided by the logic of facts, just as has been the de- 
velopment of the existing Arms and of our Services in the 
past. If the operations of indirect military value ulti- 
rhately prove to be of sufficient importance to demand 
a special Service, an Air Service with its own Minister 
and adminis]trative paraphernalia will assuredly come into 
being. If these duties do not become relatively of suffi- 
cient importance, no artificially created Air Ministry is 
likely to prove other than a cumbrous and costly failure. 
Space does not permit an adequate review of Mr. Eden 
Phillpotts' The Human Boy and the War (Methuen 6s.). 
but we should do our readers an injury if their attention 
were not drawn to this volume. The stories are full of the 
most delightful and wholesome laughter; they are an 
excellent tonic for depression and worry. All the boys are a 
joy, even that little Judas, Mitchell. The kinks in their 
mental attitude appeal to the sympathy, and their general 
outlook is pre-eminently brave and sane. Mr. Phillpotts has 
done a reallv eood work in giving us this book at this time. 
