August 8, 1918 
Land & Water 
II 
campaign went on till it spent itself in October and revived 
again in the following March, when it was stopped by the 
threat of American intervention. The enemy, thwarted in 
the only form of sea activity that promised him great results, 
found himself suddenly threatened on land and humiliated 
at sea,/ ahd to restore his waning prestige, ventured out with 
his forces, was brought to battle — and escaped practically 
unhurt. 
The controversies to which the battle of Jutland gave rise 
will be in every one's recoDection. Another of the many 
indecisive battles with which history is full had been fought, 
and the critics estabhshed themselves in two camps. One 
side was for facing risks and sinking the enemy at any cost. 
The other would have it that so long as the British Fleet 
was unconquered it was invincible, and that the distinction 
between '/invincible" and "victorious" could be neglected. 
After all, as Mr. Churchill told us, while our fleet was crushing 
the life breath out of Germany, the German Navy could carry 
on no corresponding attack on us ; and when the other 
^ camp denounced this doctrine of tame defence, he retorted 
that victory was not only unnecessary but that the torpedo 
had made it impossible. 
The Third Crisis 
Yet, within two months of the battle of Jutland, the sub- 
marine campaign had begun again, and, at the time of Mr. 
Churchill's rejoinder, the world was losing shipping at the 
rate of three million tons a year ! As there never had been 
the least dispute that to mine the submarine into German 
harbours was the best, if not the only, antidote, never the 
least doubt that it was only the German Fleet that prevented 
this operation from being carried out, it seemed strange that 
an ex-First Lord of the Admiralty should be telling the world 
first, that the German Fleet in its home bases delivered no 
attack on us, and, therefore, need not be defeated ! And, 
secondly, as if to clinch the matter, and silence any doubts as 
to the cogency of his argument, we were to make the best 
of it because victory was impossible. 
This utter confusion of mind was typical of the public 
attitude. If a man who had been First Lord at the most 
critical period of our history had understood events so little, 
could the man in the street know any better ? 
Once more the root principles of war were urged on public 
notice. But it was already too late. Jutland, whether a victory, 
or something far less than a victory, had at any rate left the 
public in the comfortable assurance that the ability of the 
British Fleet was virtually unimpaired to preserve the flow of 
provisions, raw material and manufactures into Allied harbours 
and to maintain our military communications. But soon 
after the third year of the war began, a change came over the 
scene. The highest level that the submarine campaign had 
reached in the past was regained, and then surpassed month 
by month. Gradually it came to be seen that the thing 
might become critical — and this though the campaign was 
not ruthless. Yet it was carried out on a larger scale and 
with bolder methods which the possession of a larger fleet 
of submarines made possible. The elerpent of .surprise in the 
thing was not that the Germans had renewed the attempt — 
for it was clear from the terms of surrender to America that 
they would renew it at their own time. The surprise was 
in its success. The public, still trusting to the attitude of 
mind induced by the critics and by the authorities in 1915, 
had taken it for granted .that the two previous campaigns 
had stopped in December, 1915, and in March, 1916, because 
of the efficiency of our counter-measures. The revelation 
of the autumn of 1916 was that these counter-measures had 
failed. 
It was this that brought about the third naval crisis of the 
war. Once more the old wrong remedy was tried. The 
Government and the public had learned nothing from the 
revelation that we had gone to war on the doctrine that the 
Fleet need not, and ought not to fight the enemy, and were 
apparently unconcerned at discovering ,that it could not fight 
with success. And so, still not realising the root cause of 
all our trouble, once more a remedy was sought by changing 
the chief naval adviser to the Government. 
But on this occasion it was not only the chief that was 
replaced, as had happened when Lord Fisher succeeded 
Prince Louis of Battenberg, aijd when Sir Henry Jackson 
succeeded Lord Fisher. When Admiral Jellicoe came to 
Whitehall several colleagues accompapied him from the 
Grand Fleet. There was nothing approaching to a complete 
change of personnel, but the infusion of new blood was con- 
siderable. But this notwithstanding, the menace from the 
submarine grew, when ruthlessness was adopted as a method, 
until the rate of loss by April had doubled, trebled, and quad- 
rupled that of the previous year. All the world then saw 
that, with shipping vanishing at the rate of mor^ than a 
million tons a month, the period during which the Allies 
could maintain the fight against the Central Powers must be 
strictly limited. 
Thus, without having lost a battle at sea — but because 
we had failed to win one — a complete reverse in the naval 
situation was brought about. Instead of enjoying the 
complete command Mr. Churchill had spoken of, we 
were counting the months before surrender might be inevit- 
able. During the ten weeks leading up to the culminating 
losses of April, a final effort was made to make the 
public and the Government realise that failure of the 
Admiralty to protect the sea-borne commerce of a sea- 
girt people was due less to the Government's reliance on 
advisers ill-equipped for their task, than that the task itself 
was beyond human performance, so long as the Higher 
Command of the Navy was wrongly constituted for its task. 
It was, of course, an old warning vainly urged on successive 
Governments year after year in peace time, and month after 
month during the war. Evidences of inadequate preparation, 
of imperfect plans, of a wrong theory of command, of action 
founded on wrong doctrine but endorsed by authority, had 
all been numerous during the previous two and a half years. 
The Fourth Crisis 
But where reason and argument had been 1 owerless to 
prevail, the kigic of facts gained the victory. At last, in the 
fourth naval crisis of the war, it was realised that changes in 
personnel at Whitehall were not sufficient, that changes of 
system were necessary. Before the end of May the machinery 
of administration was reorganised and a new Higher Command 
developed, largely on the long resisted staff principle. 
Thus, after repeated ' failures — not of the Fleet but of 
its directing minds in London — a copiplete revolution was 
effected in the command of the most important of all 
the fighting forces in the war, viz., the British Navy. 
It was actually brought about because criticism had 
shown that the old regime had first failed to ' anticipate 
and then to thwart a new kind of attack on sea com- 
munications — ^just as it had failed to anticipate the con- 
ditions of surface war. It was at last realised that two 
kinds of naval war could go on together, one almost indepen- 
dent of the other. A Power might command the surface of 
the sea against th'e surface force of an enemy, and do so 
more absolutely than had ever happened before, and yet 
see that command brought, for its maih purposes, almost to 
nothing by a new naval force, from which, though naval 
ships could defend themselves, they seemingly could not 
defend the carrying and travelling ships, upon which the life 
of the nation' and the continuance of its military effort on 
land depended. The revolution of May saved the situation. 
At last ,the principle of convoy, vainly urged on the old 
r6gilne, was adopted, and within $ix months the rate at which 
ships were being lost was practically halved. In twelve 
months it had been reduced, by sixty per cent. 
But the departure made in the summer of 1917, though 
radical as to principle, was less than half-hearted as to persons. 
Many of the men identified with all our previous failures 
and responsible for the methods and plans that have led 
to them, were retained in full authority. The mere adoption 
of the staff principle did indeed bring about an effect so 
singular and striking as completely to transform all Alhed 
prospects. In April, defeat seemed to be a matter of a few 
months only. By October it had become clear that the 
submarine could not .by itself assure a German victory. If 
such extraordinary consequences could follow — exactly as it 
was predicted they must — from a change in system which 
all experience of war had proved to be essential, why, it may 
be asked, was the adoption of the staff principle so bitterly 
opposed ? Partly, no doubt, because of the natural con- 
servatism of men who have grown old and attained to high 
rank in a service to which they have given their lives in all 
devotion and sincerity. The singularity of the sailor's train- 
ing and experience tends to make the naval profession both 
isolated and exclusive. And that its daily life is based upon 
the strictest discipline, that gives absolute power to the 
captain of a ship because it is necessary to hold him absolutely 
responsible, inevitably grafts upon this exclusiveness a respect 
for seniority which gives to its action in every field the 
indisputable finahty bred of the quarter deck habit. Thus, 
there was no place in Admiralty organisation for the inde- 
pendent and expert work of junior men, because no authority 
could attach to their counsel. It is of the essence of the staff 
principle that special knowledge, sound, impartial, trained 
judgment, grasp of principle and proved powers of construc- 
tive imagination, are higher titles to dictatorship in policy, 
than the character and experience called for in the discharge 
