28 
LAND & WATER 
December 7, 1916 
official rules or thwarted by departmental obstruction. 
Yet, except for this negative benefit, I see nothing in such 
an official record that is particularly encouraging. 
Disillusions of War 
My own faith in Sir John Jelhcoe's success rests entirely 
upon the belief that two and a half hoiu-s of the reahties 
of war must have made him unlearn the teachings of 
ten years' Admiralty experience. The man who took 
over the Grand Fleet in August. 1914, and lived through 
the time when :]^i».^dVJo base that was proof against 
uilder- water attack, IWra^ncAv enough about peace time 
naval administration /, to 'ipake him proof against 
official shibboleths, ,and deaf; to the importunities 
of self-constitiiled merifors-^hbwever long may be the 
inexperience of war on. which' fheir advice is founded. 
I gather that those who know. Sir John Jellicoe best see 
salvation in the fact that',' till now, \vhen in office, he 
has never played any but a subordinate pilrt, and that 
now he takes the principal "place,', after a grinding ex- 
perience of responsi'bility, and. iinparalleled opportunities 
for knowing the Navy's mind.' It is this, combination 
that invests his present tenure of the highest post operi to 
a British seaman with such momentous bonsequence. 
He has a free choice of colleagues. 
He has, while standing aside from the animosities 
and proscriptions to which they give 'rise, seen .the: 
evils of party divisions in the navy : and" he can "be 
trusted to found no party of his own. The Board, the 
war staff, the civil chief — all these have no doubt been — ■ 
or will be — made to represent the service and the Govern- 
ment, and from them we have the right to expect a clear 
vision of the objects the navy should achieve. 
Miracles Impossible 
On two points we must be prepared. The actual 
changes in the naval command, coinciding as they do with 
impending changes in the Government, have taken place 
just when a large section of the public have been victims 
of a fit of nervous excitement. . I believe it ,to be the 
steady opinion of the Navy that the changes made 
so far are all for the good, and could quite >\visely have 
been made long ago.'. But we shall only prepare our- 
selves for a worse attack of nerves if we suppose that 
the new men can find [instant solutions for our difficulties. 
We must still pay the penalty for the administrative 
blunders made in the early stages of the war. There 
is no way of converting the scores of useless monitors 
into three times their number of . submarine-hunting 
destroyers. There .is no \^fay of. turning any superfluous 
super battle cruisers • into ten times thSir number, of 
Arelhusas. The fallacies ^that prevailed 'in peace con- 
tinued, in our building "policy, long after war liad been 
declared. It is certain,, then, that Sir John ". Jellicoe 
capnqt instantly create the material necessary for tackling 
the enemy, submarines with effect. All he can do — and 
this'-nodp^jbt he will do — is- to reorganise -the craft, the 
experience,' and the energies already employed. To- pro- 
vide, new material takes ti'me, and submarine hunters'^re 
far from being the only- forinof provision that is necessary. 
if.is a-vital affair, that merchant shipping should' be 
replaced. Equally vitiail that . the shipping we have 
should be .more expeditiously, used. This last is a matter 
which illustrates the necessity of unity- of 'war' purpose. 
It must- be one of the, Admiralty's first duties, undei* the 
new regime, to rid' the "War Office and Board of Trade 
of any ill iisions' under which '-they may be- suffering- as 
to the- continuance of "submarine 'depredations. And it 
is devoutly to be hoped that the' new Admiralty will have 
the courage to allow the public to know the truth about 
these depredations. Nine-tenths of the present nervous- 
ness might, I believe, have been avoided, had the plain 
facts been communicated to the people as they orrurred. 
For, unquestionably, we must prepare for drastic ornnomies 
and to spring decisions of this kind on the world without 
warning, is not the way to ensure calm thinking, steady 
judgment, and an equable temper in the people. 
Warning from History 
The misfortune is that unless these elements are con- 
lidered, it is the seamen themselves who will be made to 
suffer. Wken, on the actual eve of the victory of Quibercn 
Bay, the news came to London that many days before 
Sir Edward Hawke had had to withdraw his fleet from 
the blockade of Admiral Conflans, " the alarm and terror 
of the populace." as Burrows tells us, " were such that, 
on the very day of victory, a mob was burning him in 
effigy as a traitor and coward for letting the French get 
out of Brest." " The burden of this responsibility," 
adds the liistorian, himself a seaman, " every officer en- 
trusted with the decision of great issues expects to 
bear . . . And it may here be remarked that 
there is not a single case of a great naval officer, however 
passionately favoured by the people, having escaped at 
some perilous moment of his career the violent and often 
brutal denunciations of its lower ranks. . . . Nor 
should the conduct which is the effect of impulsive 
ignorance and terror be too much condemned. In the 
last resort a people's instinct tells them that they must 
make themselves felt ; a free country cannot afford to 
choke such impulses ; a really great administrator or 
warrior does not do his duty the worse for the feeling that 
he has a rope round his neck." 
These may not be gracious, but I am not at all sure 
in view of the public temper, that they are not appropriate 
. words with which to welcome the two distinguished 
seamen who have just taken up, the one the greatest 
responsibility, and the other the greatest burden of the 
:. war. May heaven speed them. 
Postscript 
I have just learned that Sir Cecil Burney and Captain 
'J Lionel Halsey 'succeed Sir Somerset Gough-Calthorp 
jand Commodore Lambert as second and Fourth Sea 
ords respectively. iTl5£ ,Third Sea Lord, Rear-Admiral 
udor, remains J[qr^ffi'CT|M'eSeiit. Sir John Jellicoe has 
irought with'him to the Board, then, his late second in 
;ommand and' his Captain of the Fleet. They are well 
^known to'.be men of the highest ability and wide and 
"diverse " experience, and the selection is of excellent 
Augury, if only because the First Sea Lord will have as 
^^oUeagues men with whom he' is already accustomed to 
\\'ork. There is, of course, a great difference between the 
■ielations of a Commander-in-Chief at ' sea, and a sub- 
ordinate, and those that prevail between fellow members 
■ of the Board. In council all are equal. On the quarter 
deck there is no appeal from seniority. In practice this 
distinction may not really be very important. It is 
perhaps more significant that neither of the new Lords 
ha^ ever served as an official at the Admiralty before. 
In' this respect their selection indicates a welcome de- 
parture from peace traditions. Admiral Burney has 
had two years in the Grand Fleet after a varied and 
■ sUefcessful ' career. Commodore Halsey has taken part 
in.,:^ll the North Sea engagements. It was his singular 
fortune to be on successive occasions in the flagship of 
tlie' Admiral -who succeeded Sir David Beatty in control 
- ■ of tthe operations which Sir David had begun. In the 
affair of the Dogger- Bank- Commodore Halsey was Sir 
Archibald Moore's Flag Captain, at Jutland Captain of 
tlie Fleet on board the. /row Duke. ■ 
: No announcement has yet been made as to the changes 
. ' iri5.the commands afloat; arid it is natural that there should 
. b«i a very great curiosity on the subject. That they 
-..mjist be extensive is obvious. Sir David Beatty, even 
with the seniority given to him by the Order in Council 
of the 3rd August, 1914, is nearly a year junior to Sir 
Thomas Jerram and eight months junior to Sir Doveton 
. Stui^e ; and' the ..Order in Council put him over the 
1 heads^of eight of the 'Vice-Admirals now on the list. All 
difficulties of seniority can, of course, be overcome by a 
fresh Order in Council, and indeed it is certain that the 
Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet should be given 
the rank of Admiral while he holds that post. 
Nothing has been said about those who have ceased 
to bo members of the Board. Both Sir Henry Jackson 
and Commodore Lambert have given long and "faithful 
service to the Navy. If ever the history of naval 
adrninistration in the last three years comes to be written 
their work may be seen in its true light and their services 
appreciated. The navy and the country owe them a 
heavy debt and both possess in a rare degree the respect, 
the confidence, and the affection of their brother officers. 
Arthur Pollen 
A 
