8 
LAND & WATER 
April 26, 1917 
would make naval guns effective at such ranges. The long 
delays in getting hits in action have' been "the subject of 
constant comment. 
(3) In the days when the British Navy understood the 
vital importance of offence, it always strove to compel the 
enemy to fight by imposing siege and blockade upon liim witli 
the most relentless stringency. If in August 191 4 our Ad- 
miralty believed victory to be unnecessary, it would naturally 
have no anxiety to comjjel the Gcrmams to seek battle. Does 
this explain why it was quite unprepared with any blockade 
policy ? It was not until the enemy threatened to blockade 
these islands tliat any counter-measures were taken. 
(4) Was it because we were convinced that the mere pos- 
session of the largest fleet of the largest ships must suffice 
for our ])urpc>se in war, regardless whether they could, or 
should, tight, that \vc made no real provision for the other 
forms of naval war — such as mines-nthat modern invention 
had brought into being ? 
(5) .Similarly, we seem to have supjiosed that no German 
submarines could dream of attacking <mt main fleets at their 
bases, for not a single one of these, as Mr. Balfour explained, 
was effectively closed against undeir-water assault. 
(6) And, just as we took no steps to begin the war with an 
effective stopping of the enemy's sea supplies, so, thougli 
repeatedly warned, we were not adequately prepared — to 
defend our own sea supplies against U boat attacks.' 
(7) I'rom file beginning of hostilities the Admiralty has 
almost monopolised the shipbuilding facihties of the couutrv. 
But for the first year or more these were employed without 
relerencc to war experience or to the study of how weapons 
could be used. Accordingly, we built a variety of monitors 
and super-battle cruisers of very doubtful value in offence 
or in defence, and it looks as if our shipbuilding resources 
devoted to them might have been better employed in other 
directions. 
(8) Finally, we made an insi^fflcient effort to replace the 
merchant shipping we were unable to ])rotect. 
This is the indictment your correspondent has brought 
against the military direction of the Navy. Parliament 
and the public have failed to apiueciate its gravity because, 
in spite of this array of blunders, your correspondent's en- 
thusiasm for, and belief in, the Navj' is so great and so 
infectious that he seems to pcrsuad(,s, Jiis readers that, in spite 
of all these things, our seamen /^c .unconquerable. He has 
not written to create public distrust or imeasiness, but to 
try and persuade Whitehall intp yiser and sounder courses. 
But here he has failed, and li'is.viailure may partly be 
explained by his inability to use- his strongest argument. 
It is simply this. 'Wnir readers know Mr. Pollen only as a 
lucid and brilliant writer on naval theory. Seamen know 
him as a creative and original thinker on naval war, whose 
Work, had it been judged by military principle alone, should 
have been of very great value to u^ during this war. 
Seventeen years ago, when few naval officers dreamed of 
iiaval guns being used at greater ranges than a mile or two, 
Mr. Pollen, struck by the contrast between the performances 
of the naval guns in the South African war and the practice 
with them on board ship, began. a,^eries of investigations into 
the subject of hre control whicli has revolutionised the art 
of naval fighting the world over, and should ha /e revolutionised 
it altogether in our favour. From the first he f(Mesaw that 
the development of long rangeiiirQ was inev'itable, and that 
unless means could be devised for overcoming the two master 
problems which great distance must create, tlie naval engage- 
ments of the future would be^jjfplonged, inconclusive and 
futile. These two problems (L^Nj?, & \\ .\ ter, January 4th 
and nth) arc first, the difficulty of providing means of instru- 
mental vision, that would be effective in the bad and shifting 
visibility to be expected in northern latitudes, and ne.xt, that 
of keeping the range accurately while opposing ships arc 
manoeuvring, either voluntarily or under the compulsion of 
torpedo attack. 
What he has not chosen -to tell your readers is that 
when, after devoting twelve years to the study of these 
])roblems, he found what many exjx'rts believed to be not 
only the best, but the only possible solution of both, the British 
Admiralty refused even to try the perfected system when 
produced. 
This was the more unfortunate because from 1906 to 1910 or 
1911, Mr. Pollen, though outside the Navy, had, by his mastery 
of this subject, forced himself into the position of chief of the 
only constructive staff the Britiali Navy possessed for the study 
and evolution of fire control. It is no disparagement of his 
originality to say that, without these si.x- j'ears' co-operation 
w itli the best brains in the Navy, without the experiments at sea 
carried out in naval ships and under the directii>n and with the 
litip of many of the most brilliant of our captains and gunnery 
ofticers.without the very large grants made by the.\dniiralty and 
the huge expense — far exceeding the cost of the instruments— 
incurred in devoting battleships and first class cruisers to these 
experiments, the production of the Pollen fire control system 
would have been impossible. 
Now, whj' was tins system, produced in these circumstances, 
and endorsed by such authority, left untried both before and 
during the war ? 
The explanation is to be found in the circumstances to which 
Mr. Pollen drew attention in his article of last week. Whitehall 
has never Jeamt to distinguish between the mihtary aspect of 
its functions and their civil aspect. Before the war every- 
thing to do with naval armament as well as everything to do 
with naval gunnery was under a single official, the Director 
of Naval Ordnance. During the most critical j)eriod of the 
development of our fleet from 1907 to 1912, neither of the 
officers who held this post were acknowledged exj)erts 
in fire control. Not being specialists, they naturally 
leaned towards any advice that would save ^hem asking for 
money, and in the pursuit of economy, not only refused any 
indeix'iijieiit enquiry into the theory of the Pollen system, 
but even forbade a demonstration of what it could do when, 
in spite of official discouragement, it was pt^^fected. Such a 
policy sounds inexplicable, but it is a ])crfoctly natural result 
of handing over to the same man responsibility for the military 
objective, namely a system of gunnery best suited to action, 
and the civil objective, the supply of the largest amount of 
\varhke material at the lowest cost. Had the military 
requirements of gunnery been considered (juite independently 
of financial questions, this decision would never ha\e been 
made. 
It refiiains to point the moral of this experience. If we 
wish our sea forces put to their proper use, it is an indispens- 
able first step to arrange that the chief command shall be 
organised on scientific principles. This is impossible without 
recognising two axioms. First, we must distinguish ab- 
solutely between the authority responsible for the military 
handling of the Navy, and the authority responsible for its 
material supply. Unless this is done it is hopeless to think 
that the fighting instinct of the Navy can be given its full 
expression or scope. Next, in arranging for its military 
direction, we must recognise w hat the \visd(3m of our ancestors 
discovered, to wit, that the employment of -sea force is sur- 
rounded by so many and such subtle problems that the supreme 
control cannot be entrusted to a single individual, but must 
be carried on by a board, the chief i>rofcssional member of 
which, though the chief, is t)nly primus inhr\f»ares. 
The apphcation of these principles to i)resent circumstances 
would necessitate the partition of the work of the Admiralty 
l>etwcen two bodies — one a Board of Admilatty, the other a 
Board T)f- Supply. - '■ - ! 
The Board of Admiralty should consist, ds formerly, of the 
four Sea Lords and of its civilian members with the Sea 
Lords working daily, almost constantly, together as a military 
committee. The First Sea Lord should be charged speciaUy 
with the chief duties of conunand ; the Second with the protec- 
tion of trade ; the Third with the distribution of the fleet and 
blocktule ; the Fourth with ensuring that all the weapons 
of the fleet arc employed according to. the best methods. 
This would entail a War Staff to assist the First Sea Lord ; an 
anti-submarine organisation to assist the Second ; a portion of 
the present war staff to assist the Third ; new staffs for fire 
control and gunnery, mines, torpedoes and aircraft to assist 
the Fourth. 
ThC'Roard of Supplies would exist to.seejto the provision 
of the material which the policy of the Board of AdnuraUy 
made necessary. The building, equipment and repairing of 
warships, the special functions of the present Third Sea Lord, 
would go to one member ; the supply of gunsrand ammunition, 
part of the province of the iJresent Director of Naval Ordnance, 
to another ; the provision of stores, coal, etc., now under the 
FourthiSea Lord to the third ; the supply of aircraft, now under 
a new^Fifth Sea Lord, to another ; torpedoes and mines to the 
fifth, and the building of merchant ships to the sixth. This 
Supply 6oard should also control all tiuestions of personnel, 
other than promotions and commands. /'»■ ■ 
You would then have the whole province of mihtary* con- 
trol entirely divorced from all extianeous considerations. 
It would be especially the business of the First "Sea Lord 
and his Staff to keep' in touch with the commands at sea, 
and to advise the First Lord, and the Board as a whole, in the 
choice of those. to be put into sea commands. But the essence 
of the matter would be that the F'our Sea Lords and the Board 
should confer daily and several limes daily, so that the executive 
action that they took should reflect not only on the wisdom 
but i)articularly the exjjerience of the Navy as a whole. Only 
so is there the remotest chance-, of o»ir naval policy reflecting 
our enormous naval knowledge, exiJerience, and in particular, 
the Navy's high lighting spirit ; only so can our naval forc,e-i 
be ijut to their best use — and this should be of course decisiM; 
-^only so can naval counsel become of equal authority with 
military counsel in determining a joint strategy of the war.. 
I'tAG OlU'ICER, 
