December 19, 1918 
LAND & WATER 
compliments, are being lavished on the Navy, just when we 
are being told that our fighting men afloat have lost roughly 
10 per cent, of their numbers killed since August, 1914. It 
. seems that the men, at any rate, have been risked, if some 
of the ships have not. The total in its way is remarkable. 
The price of victory in gallant lives at sea seems to bear 
a proportion to the total man power at sea that does not 
■differ greatly from th? price of 
victory in life on land. It is 
perhaps in this fact that we shall 
get a clue to the questions we are 
asking. It seems at any rate to 
justify the answer which one 
distinguished Admiral has given. 
Not for the first time it has 
fallen to Sir Reginald Custance 
to recall his countrymen to an 
appreciation of the basic elements 
01 the sea problem. 
" Was there," he asks in a 
letter to the Times, " no shock 
of battle in the Heligoland Bight, 
off the Falkland Islands, on the 
Dogger Bank, in the Jutland 
battle, and in the innumerable 
actions between the light surface 
craft and the submarines ? Each 
of these actions had its effect on 
the armed strength of the German 
Navy in materiel and moral. Any 
lapse of time between them does 
not affect the principle that each 
fight at sea during the war may 
be looked upon as part of one 
great battle at sea. Their collec- 
tive effect, coupled with the 
firm determination of the British 
and Allied Navies from admirals 
to skipp>ers to attack whenever 
opportunity offered, brought 
about the mutiny of the German 
Navy, which saw itself threatened with destruction if it 
issued to fight. ,.^ 
" The same phenomena have be^n seen on land. The 
collective effect of the blows delivered. by the Allied armies 
in the different theatres of action throughout the war and the 
threat of further attacks made the Germans sue for an 
armistice. Your readers will see that the collapse of the 
German armed forces, whether on 
sea or on land, was brought about 
by the fight, or the threat of the 
fight, to which every other form 
of pressure was secondary." 
Here we get back to the root 
of the matter. The Na y after 
all has won, because it has done 
successfully that which it exists 
to do. It exists, that is to say, 
to fight — and for nothing else. 
If this sounds extreme, at least 
it cannot be disputed that, if it 
is not good for fighting, it must 
be good for nothing. For every- 
thing else it does is part of 
the same operation that, when 
conditions exist that makes 
fighting possible, results in 
fighting. So true is this, that I 
am not sure there will not be 
some who will not try to find a 
loophole for their errors even in 
Sir Reginald's dictum : " The 
collapse of Germany's armed 
forces was brought about by the 
fight or the threat to fight, to 
which every other form of pressure 
was secondary." One can imagine 
this phrase being read as con- 
sistent with the theory that there 
are two kinds of action proper to 
a fleet, each distinct from the 
other. The theory might be 
enunciated in some such- way as this 
ADMIRAL SIMS 
REAR ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD TYRWHITT 
fleet has nothing to do but to watch and wait till the challenge 
comes, its cruisers and small craft proceed to exercise that 
pressure on the enemy on which the Admiralty message so 
eloquently dwells." This theory pre-supposes first, the 
existence on our side of a fleet which the main forces of the 
enemy will probably regard as invincible and will therefore 
leave intact and undisturbed, and, secondly, that from this 
intact fleet, by virtue of its 
integral and invincible existence, 
there wUl issue some kind of 
mysterious power, which results 
in sure and silent sea pressure. 
The flaw in the theory is that 
sea pressure is not something 
different from fighting. The 
naval processes that result in 
pressure are essentially the same 
that result in fighting. Whether 
it is fighting or pressure that 
actually results depends, not on 
the character of the operation, 
but uponj^what the enemy does. 
Hence pressure is only distinct 
from fighting when it is derived 
from it — because the enemy, hav- 
ing been defeated once, fears a 
second encounter, and is only al- 
ternative to it, if he avoids the 
encounter altogether, because, 
without any previous beating, he 
is afraid. It is in no sense of the 
word secondary, if that word 
suggests that fighting is a first 
function of the fleet in importance 
and in time, and pressure the 
second in value and in time ; a 
function which, though it may 
follow from the first, is really 
independent of it. The essence 
of the matter is, that when you 
go to war — that is when you put 
your armed sea forces into movement — either fighting or 
pressure, or both fighting and pressure, follow inevitably from 
your doing so. Nor is it difficult further to perceive that 
while pressure, in its material results, is a result of the same 
operation that, if opposed by the enemy, would end in 
fighting, in more important results, viz., its influence on 
the courage and^wora/ of the enemy force, will vary according 
as the fighting is vigorous and 
intense, or fitful, irresolute and 
half-hearted. 
First let a simple illustration 
show how_ either fighting or 
pressure or both follow inevitably 
from the first operation of war, 
namely, by making armed force 
active by putting it into move- 
ment on the sea. 
Suppose a British cruiser at sea 
on August 3rd, 1914, to meet, first, 
a German warship, then a German 
merchant ship.and then a Swedish, 
Dutch, or Spanish merchant ship. 
She will salute them all and pass 
on after offering this conventional 
courtesy. But at midnight on 
August 4th war is declared, and 
on the following day she encoun- 
ters them again. Now the 
German ship is an enemy warship, 
the German merchantman an 
enemy merchantman, and the 
Swedish or Spanish ship a neutral 
merchantman. On viewing the 
enemy armed ship, the British 
captain has no choice but to 
bring her to action without delay, 
to fight hiS' ship until she is 
destroyed or until he has de- 
stroyed the enemy. When he 
meets the enemy merchant ship 
he brings her to, captures her, 
and sends her to a British port. When he meets the neutral 
' It is of course the busi- 
ness of our battle fleet to fight— but only if the enemy's ship he visits her, examines her papers to find if she is at sea 
battle fleet comes out and threatens to do something detri- 
mental to us, and so challenges us to action. And our 
obligation to fight is limited to thwarting him in his detrimental 
plan. When no such action is threatened, we proceed to 
another form of activity against the enemy, which has no 
necessary connection with fighting at all. While the main 
in the enemy's interests. 
she too is captured and sent to port. When he meets the 
enemy armed ship he performs the first function of naval 
force, and that is to fight. When he meets the unarmed ships, 
enemy or neutral, he performs the secondary function of 
pressure. He has deprived the enemy of the wealth, +he 
