/I2 
LAND' & WATER 
April 19, 1917 
must either be an indixidual of such genius as to make no 
errors, or there must be a Board or a Staff so closely in touch 
with the best instructed naval thought, as, at any rate, to 
rertect the soundest judgment that is obtainable. 
I believe the real reason why the Admiralty has broken 
down in this war is, first, that we liavc jumbled all the 
functions, civilian and militaiy, together, and shoVed them 
on to a single Board and, next, that we have taken no steps 
to ensure that a single ni;'niber of the Board shall be guided 
by the impersonal and concerted opinion of the naval service. 
It is less, therefore, the inadequacy of the men than the 
impossibility of their task that has brought failure upon us. 
We have changed the pjrsonnel of the Admiralty more than 
once, we have not yet touched the system. In the result wc 
may have a continuation of failure and the demand may 
aris'j for further changes of personnel on the part of the public, 
because the public duL's not realise that Ixid methods and 
wrong organisiition have brought failure on men who never 
bad a chance of success. Arthur Pollen. 
]l'c append some qnulalions from Ihc articles contributed, 
by Mr. I'ollcn to L.\xi) & W.\ti;k throughout the past year, 
which indiealf titat he foresaw accurately the danger of 
rcnexvcd submarine activity, and urged upon the authorities 
the overwhelming importance of acceJerating the construction 
of merchant shipping. 
On February 24th, lyiO, Mr. Pollen wrote : 
" Is the new GeiTnan submarine campaign inevitable ? 
It seefningly is. The first campaign has failed to lift the 
blockade- its professed object. Our losses in merchant 
shipping have been heavy. Between 500 and 600 out of 
8, 000 in nineteen months of war. But our shortage of ton- 
nage to-day does not arise primarily from the toll which the 
enemy has taken. The requirements of the fleet, the 
still greater requirements of our military expeditions 
over sea, Iravc taxed the merchant navy four or five times 
more greatly than the enemy. 
On ^farch c>th, iQif' : 
" When every European nation is mobilising at the present 
time ten per cent, of its population to fight, and bringing 
all these into the field within two years instead of within 
twenty, the intensity with whicli economic forces affect the 
situation must grow with a corrcsjionding cojicentration. 
The Germans, therefore, are gauging the situation quite 
rorrectlv in supposing that if they can cut off the overseas 
supplies of France, England and Russia they will be doing 
more towards determining the war in their favour than 
by any success that the most sanguine Him can think 
possible on land. The destruction of ships, if carried 
far enough, nmst be vital, because it is on ships that this 
war is primarily based. Notwithstanding the comparative 
failure of the lirst submarine campaign, and even if its 
sequel is no more successful, the event may still prove that 
the supreme direction has been gravely at fault in ignoring 
the danger from this quarter. There has been a neglect 
to continue the construction of merchant shipping, which in 
icar is a -Atal national necessity. Secondly there has been 
no adequate effort to see that such shipping, as is available 
is employed solely for those supplies that are necessary 
for the sustenance of the people and llie successful carrying 
on of the war." , 
On April 27tli, 1916 : 
• If Germany refuses to yield to America, the first result 
must be that the attack on liners will become as ruthless 
as has been tin- attack on freighters. This no doubt is a 
situation which the Admiralty has anticipated, aiid it is 
difiRcult to suppo.se that there Is any form of defensive 
that is not being pushed to develoi)ment at the maxinunn 
pressure. But other departments of Governhient must 
realise that this new situation, if it should arise, will re- 
quire special measures. The building of new merchant 
shipping must be made to rank as equal rn national im- 
portance -with the making of munitions or the supply of the 
Royal Navy" 
And on May 4th : 
" Nor would it be more than a passing embarrassment, if 
it were not for a change in naval conditions, that few, if 
any, realised before the war broke out. In previous wars 
the protection of commerce imposed extraordmary burdens 
upon the fighting navy. To-day it is the fighting navy 
that has imposed extraordinary burdens upon commerce. 
It is the British merchant fleet that has been comix-lled 
to find transports for our armies, and an almost endless 
tale of supply ships, both for the navy itself and for the 
maintenance of its forces employed in so many places 
o\crscas. Compared with the tonnage that naval and 
military requirements have withdrawn from civil uses, 
fhe tonnage lost by enemy action is almost trivial, and it is 
this fact which lends point to what I urged last week— 
namely, that, the building vf merchant ships must be put on 
the same basis as naval shipbuilding vr the making of 
munitions." 
Preparation and the French Command 
By Charles Dawbarn 
PREPARATION is not only the soul of war, it is its 
secret of success. To it is clue the pre-eminence of the 
French staff as also the recent achievements of the 
I'Vench army. It is the keynote to the careers of 
leading French Officers. With scarcely any exception, the 
men who are at the top to-day, have carefully and deliberately 
trained themselves for their posts. The opportunity only was 
lacking to display their, qualities. General Nivelle, the 
present Commander-in-Chief, has prepared more assiduously 
perhap.-i than any of his contemporaries. As his biographers 
have told us, he was a Lieutennnt-Colonel at the outbreak of 
war, hving in the penumbra of his daily service. 'If, some 
expected him to emerge from routine and do brilliant things 
they were the exception — discerning Chiefs who had detected 
the latent genius in the man. Pctain, his superior y&stprday 
and his subordinate to-day, enjoyed on the other hand, 
great prestige in military circles. His lectures in tJie; War 
Schools wei"(; renowned. 
Both Nivelle and Petain are examples of the intellectual 
training which goes to the formation of the army (Mite. • Both 
owe to the Pijlyteclmique, that famous school, their training 
in mathematics whereby they have won distinctiod in the 
intricate arts of war. There is a common saying in'lTance 
" No fool like a Poiytcchnician." It represents the oj^inion 
of the man-in-thc-cafe, that theory has run mad and rtjduced 
the students to impractical dreamers. The school seeras in- 
deed cither to turn out men of prodigious capacity and clever- 
ness or inventors on pajK-r who construct aeroplanes whicii 
will not fly and submaiines which will not plunge. 
Joffrc and his princijwl coadjutors arc Polytcchniciiaris ; 
indeed from this ceiitre have come the best otticers. The 
training they receive fits them for any scientific career. 
Usually they enter the Army or become civil engineers according 
to their grade on leaving school. Some who disdain science 
aud think tiiat an officer is formed on the battlefield quote 
Najx)lcon in support of empirical methods. Many of the 
great Corsican's generals rose from the ranks, it is true ; but 
he took them where he could find them, and it was natural 
tiiat in those strenuous times they should be revealed by the 
lurid glare and smoke of battle rather than by the pale gleams 
of the student's lamp. None the less, he realized the im- 
portance of intellectual training for the officer, and said that 
the best leaders came from tlie schools. 
Part of the -new Commander-in-Chief's capacity is derived 
from his command of all arms. He is by training and vo- 
cation an artilleryman, but he knows how to handle cavalry 
and has learned the business'of infantry as well. His all-round 
competence is a great help to him, but he is primarily the 
gunner. That fact, more than any other, has contributed 
to his advancement, unequalled for rapidity since the days 
of the Convention. The splendid victories of Verdun were 
due to his mastery of the guns. The daily chronicles have 
already told us of his famous charge with artillery at the battle 
of the Ourcq. Since then, he has proved that if the infantry 
still remains, as Napoleon said, " the queen of battles," 
the guns, are the dominating factor. 
Verdun proved particularly the success of a new system 
whereby the infantry advances under the canopy of screaming 
shells until it falls unexpectedly ujion the Germans. The 
adjustment is so j^erfect that the infantry masses move pro- 
gressively from the first to the second and third trenches 
always under the protection of the barrage fire, which lift? 
at cajch stage io tlie tremendous journey. The new Chief of 
the FVcnch armies believes in the efficiency of gun-fire to 
such an extent that he is sure not only of effecting a breach 
ill the opposing wall, but of positively throwing it down in its 
length and breadth and then passing over it his triumphant 
infantry. Such certainty is the substance of mathematics. 
Mathematics lay at tlie base of Joffrc's calculations at the 
Marne and later enabled him to hold the enemy until the 
