Some Principles Of Maritime Strategy Part 5

CHAPTER TWO

THEORY OF THE MEANS-- THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF FLEETS

In all eras of naval warfare fighting s.h.i.+ps have exhibited a tendency to differentiate into groups in accordance with the primary function each cla.s.s was designed to serve. These groupings or cla.s.sifications are what is meant by the const.i.tution of a fleet. A threefold differentiation into battles.h.i.+ps, cruisers, and flotilla has so long dominated naval thought that we have come to regard it as normal, and even essential. It may be so, but such a cla.s.sification has been by no means constant. Other ideas of fleet const.i.tution have not only existed, but have stood the test of war for long periods, and it is unscientific and unsafe to ignore such facts if we wish to arrive at sound doctrine.

The truth is, that the cla.s.ses of s.h.i.+ps which const.i.tute a fleet are, or ought to be, the expression in material of the strategical and tactical ideas that prevail at any given time, and consequently they have varied not only with the ideas, but also with the material in vogue. It may also be said more broadly that they have varied with the theory of war, by which more or less consciously naval thought was dominated. It is true that few ages have formulated a theory of war, or even been clearly aware of its influence; but nevertheless such theories have always existed, and even in their most nebulous and intangible shapes seem to have exerted an ascertainable influence on the const.i.tution of fleets.

Going back to the dawn of modern times, we note that at the opening of the sixteenth century, when galley warfare reached its culmination, the const.i.tution was threefold, bearing a superficial a.n.a.logy to that which we have come to regard as normal. There were the galea.s.ses and heavy galleys corresponding to our battles.h.i.+ps, light galleys corresponding to our cruisers, while the flotilla was represented by the small "frigates,"

"brigantines," and similar craft, which had no slave gang for propulsion, but were rowed by the fighting crew. Such armed sailing s.h.i.+ps as then existed were regarded as auxiliaries, and formed a category apart, as fires.h.i.+ps and bomb-vessels did in the sailing period, and as mine-layers do now. But the parallel must not be overstrained. The distinction of function between the two cla.s.ses of galleys was not so strongly marked as that between the lighter craft and the galleys; that is to say, the scientific differentiation between battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers had not yet been so firmly developed as it was destined to become in later times, and the smaller galleys habitually took their place in the fighting line.

With the rise of the sailing vessel as the typical s.h.i.+p-of-war an entirely new const.i.tution made its appearance. The dominating cla.s.sification became twofold. It was a cla.s.sification into vessels of subservient movement using sails, and vessels of free movement using oars. It was on these lines that our true Royal Navy was first organised by Henry the Eighth, an expert who, in the science of war, was one of the most advanced masters in Europe. In this const.i.tution there appears even less conception than in that of the galley period of a radical distinction between battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers. As Henry's fleet was originally designed, practically the whole of the battles.h.i.+ps were sailing vessels, though it is true that when the French brought up galleys from the Mediterranean, he gave some of the smartest of them oars. The const.i.tution was in fact one of battles.h.i.+ps and flotilla. Of cruisers there were none as we understand them. Fleet scouting was done by the "Row-barges" and newly introduced "Pinnaces" of the flotilla, while as for commerce protection, merchant vessels had usually to look after themselves, the larger ones being regularly armed for their own defence.

The influence of this twofold const.i.tution continued long after the conditions of its origin had pa.s.sed away. In ever-lessening degree indeed it may be said to have lasted for two hundred years. During the Dutch wars of the seventeenth century, which finally established the dominant status of the sailing wars.h.i.+p, practically all true sailing vessels--that is, vessels that had no auxiliary oar propulsion--took station in the line. The "Frigates" of that time differed not at all from the "Great s.h.i.+p" in their functions, but only in their design. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, the old tendency to a threefold organisation began to rea.s.sert itself, but it was not till the middle of the century that the process of development can be regarded as complete.

Down to the end of the War of the Austrian Succession--a period which is usually deemed to be one of conspicuous depression in the naval art--the cla.s.sification of our larger sailing vessels was purely arbitrary. The "Rates" (which had been introduced during the Dutch wars) bore no relation to any philosophical conception of the complex duties of a fleet. In the first rate were 100-gun s.h.i.+ps; in the second, 90-gun s.h.i.+ps--all three-deckers. So far the system of rating was sound enough, but when we come to the third rate we find it includes 80-gun s.h.i.+ps, which were also of three decks, while the bulk of the rest were 70-gun two-deckers. The fourth rate was also composed of two-decked s.h.i.+ps--weak battle-units of 60 and 50 guns--and this was far the largest cla.s.s. All these four rates were cla.s.sed as s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line. Below them came the fifth rates, which, though they were used as cruisers, had no distinct cla.s.s name. They differed indeed only in degree from the s.h.i.+p-of-the-line, being all cramped two-deckers of 44 and 40 guns, and they must be regarded, in so far as they expressed any logical idea of naval warfare, as the forerunners of the "Intermediate"

cla.s.s, represented in the succeeding epochs by 50-gun s.h.i.+ps, and in our own time by armoured cruisers. The only true cruiser is found in the sixth rate, which comprised small and weakly armed 20-gun s.h.i.+ps, and between them and the "Forties" there was nothing. Below them, but again without any clear differentiation, came the unrated sloops representing the flotilla.

In such a system of rating there is no logical distinction either between large and small battles.h.i.+ps or between battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers, or between cruisers and flotilla. The only marked break in the gradual descent is that between the 40-gun two-deckers and the 20-gun cruisers. As these latter vessels as well as the sloops used sweeps for auxiliary propulsion, we are forced to conclude that the only basis of the cla.s.sification was that adopted by Henry the Eighth, which, sound as it was in his time, had long ceased to have any real relation to the actuality of naval war.

It was not till Anson's memorable administration that a scientific system of rating was re-established and the fleet at last a.s.sumed the logical const.i.tution which it retained up to our own time. In the first two rates appear the fleet flags.h.i.+p cla.s.s, three-deckers of 100 and 90 guns respectively. All smaller three-deckers are eliminated. In the next two rates we have the rank and file of the battle-line, two-deckers of increased size-namely, seventy-fours in the third rate, and sixty-fours in the fourth. Here, however, is a slight break in the perfection of the system, for the fourth rate also included 50-gun s.h.i.+ps of two decks, which, during the progress of the Seven Years' War, ceased to be regarded as s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line. War experience was eliminating small battles.h.i.+ps, and therewith it called for a type intermediate between battles.h.i.+ps and cruisers, with whose functions we shall have to deal directly. In practice these units soon formed a rate by themselves, into which, by the same tendency, 60-gun s.h.i.+ps were destined to sink half a century later.

But most pregnant of all Anson's reforms was the introduction of the true cruiser, no longer a small battles.h.i.+p, but a vessel specialised for its logical functions, and distinct in design both from the battle rates and the flotilla. Both 40-gun and 20-gun types were abolished, and in their place appear two cruiser rates, and the fifth consisting of 32-gun true frigates, and the sixth of 28-gun frigates, both completely divorced from any battle function. Finally, after a very distinct gap, came the unrated sloops and smaller craft, which formed the flotilla for coastwise and insh.o.r.e work, despatch service, and kindred duties.

The reforms of the great First Lord amounted in fact to a clearly apprehended threefold const.i.tution, in which the various groups were frankly specialised in accordance with the functions each was expected to perform. Specialisation, it will be observed, is the note of the process of development. We have no longer an endeavour to adapt the fleet to its multifarious duties by multiplying a comparatively weak nature of fighting-s.h.i.+p, which could act in the line and yet be had in sufficient numbers to protect commerce, but which was not well fitted for either service. Instead we note a definite recognition of the principle that battles.h.i.+ps should be as powerful as possible, and that in order to permit of their due development they must be relieved of their cruising functions by a cla.s.s of vessel specially adapted for the purpose. The question we have to consider is, was this specialisation, which has a.s.serted itself down to our own times, in the true line of development? Was it, in fact, a right expression of the needs which are indicated by the theory of naval war?

By the theory of naval war it must be reiterated we mean nothing but an enunciation of the fundamental principles which underlie all naval war.

Those principles, if we have determined them correctly, should be found giving shape not only to strategy and tactics, but also to material, whatever method and means of naval warfare may be in use at any given time.

Conversely, if we find strategy, tactics, or organisation exhibiting a tendency to reproduce the same forms under widely differing conditions of method and material, we should be able to show that those forms bear a constant and definite relation to the principles which our theory endeavours to express.

In the case of Anson's threefold organisation, the relation is not far to seek, though it has become obscured by two maxims. The one is, that "the command of the sea depends upon battles.h.i.+ps," and the other, that "cruisers are the eyes of the fleet." It is the inherent evil of maxims that they tend to get stretched beyond their original meaning. Both of these express a truth, but neither expresses the whole truth. On no theory of naval warfare can we expect to command the sea with battles.h.i.+ps, nor, on the communication theory, can we regard the primary function of cruisers as being to scout for a battle-fleet. It is perfectly true that the control depends ultimately on the battle-fleet if control is disputed by a hostile battle-fleet, as it usually is. It is also true that, so far as is necessary to enable the battle-fleet to secure the control, we have to furnish it with eyes from our cruiser force. But it does not follow that this is the primary function of cruisers. The truth is, we have to withdraw them from their primary function in order to do work for the battle-fleet which it cannot do for itself.

Well established as is the "Eyes of the fleet" maxim, it would be very difficult to show that scouting was ever regarded as the primary function of cruisers by the highest authorities. In Nelson's practice at least their paramount function was to exercise the control which he was securing with his battle-squadron. Nothing is more familiar in naval history than his incessant cry from the Mediterranean for more cruisers, but the significance of that cry has become obscured. It was not that his cruisers were not numerous in proportion to his battles.h.i.+ps--they were usually nearly double in number--but it was rather that he was so deeply convinced of their true function, that he used them to exercise control to an extent which sometimes reduced his fleet cruisers below the limit of bare necessity. The result on a memorable occasion was the escape of the enemy's battle-fleet, but the further result is equally important. It was that the escape of that fleet did not deprive him of the control which he was charged to maintain. His judgment may have been at fault, but the strategical distribution of his force was consistent throughout the whole period of his Mediterranean command. Judged by his record, no man ever grasped more clearly than Nelson that the object of naval warfare was to control communications, and if he found that he had not a sufficient number of cruisers to exercise that control and to furnish eyes for his battle-fleet as well, it was the battle-fleet that was made to suffer, and surely this is at least the logical view. Had the French been ready to risk settling the question of the control in a fleet action, it would have been different. He would then have been right to sacrifice the exercise of control for the time in order to make sure that the action should take place and end decisively in his favour. But he knew they were not ready to take such a risk, and he refused to permit a purely defensive att.i.tude on the part of the enemy to delude him from the special function with which he had been charged.

If the object of naval warfare is to control communications, then the fundamental requirement is the means of exercising that control. Logically, therefore, if the enemy holds back from battle decision, we must relegate the battle-fleet to a secondary position, for cruisers are the means of exercising control; the battle-fleet is but the means of preventing their being interfered with in their work. Put it to the test of actual practice.

In no case can we exercise control by battles.h.i.+ps alone. Their specialisation has rendered them unfit for the work, and has made them too costly ever to be numerous enough. Even, therefore, if our enemy had no battle-fleet we could not make control effective with battles.h.i.+ps alone. We should still require cruisers specialised for the work and in sufficient numbers to cover the necessary ground. But the converse is not true. We could exercise control with cruisers alone if the enemy had no battle-fleet to interfere with them.

If, then, we seek a formula that will express the practical results of our theory, it would take some such shape as this. On cruisers depends our exercise of control; on the battle-fleet depends the security of control.

That is the logical sequence of ideas, and it shows us that the current maxim is really the conclusion of a logical argument in which the initial steps must not be ignored. The maxim that the command of the sea depends on the battle-fleet is then perfectly sound so long as it is taken to include all the other facts on which it hangs. The true function of the battle-fleet is to protect cruisers and flotilla at their special work. The best means of doing this is of course to destroy the enemy's power of interference. The doctrine of destroying the enemy's armed forces as the paramount object here rea.s.serts itself, and rea.s.serts itself so strongly as to permit for most practical purposes the rough generalisation that the command depends upon the battle-fleet.

Of what practical use then, it may be asked, is all this hairsplitting? Why not leave untainted the conviction that our first and foremost business is to crush the enemy's battle-fleet, and that to this end our whole effort should be concentrated? The answer is to point to Nelson's dilemma. It was a dilemma which, in the golden age of naval warfare, every admiral at sea had had to solve for himself, and it was always one of the most difficult details of every naval war plan. If we seek to ensure the effective action of the battle-fleet by giving it a large proportion of cruisers, by so much do we weaken the actual and continuous exercise of control. If we seek to make that control effective by devoting to the service a large proportion of cruisers, by so much do we prejudice our chance of getting contact with and defeating the enemy's battle-fleet, which is the only means of perfecting control.

The correct solution of the dilemma will of course depend upon the conditions of each case--mainly upon the relative strength and activity of the hostile battle-fleet and our enemy's probable intentions. But no matter how completely we have tabulated all the relevant facts, we can never hope to come to a sound conclusion upon them without a just appreciation of all the elements which go to give command, and without the power of gauging their relative importance. This, and this alone, will ultimately settle the vital question of what proportion of our cruiser force it is right to devote to the battle-fleet.

If the doctrine of cruiser control be correct, then every cruiser attached to the battle-fleet is one withdrawn from its true function. Such withdrawals are inevitable. A squadron of battles.h.i.+ps is an imperfect organism unable to do its work without cruiser a.s.sistance, and since the performance of its work is essential to cruiser freedom, some cruisers must be sacrificed. But in what proportion? If we confine ourselves to the view that command depends on the battle-fleet, then we shall attach to it such a number as its commander may deem necessary to make contact with the enemy absolutely certain and to surround himself with an impenetrable screen. If we knew the enemy was as anxious for a decision as ourselves, such a course might be justified. But the normal condition is that if we desire a decision it is because we have definite hopes of success, and consequently the enemy will probably seek to avoid one on our terms. In practice this means that if we have perfected our arrangements for the destruction of his main fleet he will refuse to expose it till he sees a more favourable opportunity. And what will be the result? He remains on the defensive, and theoretically all the ensuing period of inaction tends to fall into his scale. Without stirring from port his fleet is doing its work. The more closely he induces us to concentrate our cruiser force in face of his battle-fleet, the more he frees the sea for the circulation of his own trade, and the more he exposes ours to cruiser raids.

Experience, then, and theory alike dictate that as a general principle cruisers should be regarded as primarily concerned with the active occupation of communications, and that withdrawals for fleet purposes should be reduced to the furthest margin of reasonable risk. What that margin should be can only be decided on the circ.u.mstances of each case as it arises, and by the personal characteristics of the officers who are responsible. Nelson's practice was to reduce fleet cruisers lower than perhaps any other commander. So small indeed was the margin of efficiency he left, that in the campaign already cited, when his judgment was ripest, one stroke of ill-luck--a chance betrayal of his position by a neutral--availed to deprive him of the decision he sought, and to let the enemy's fleet escape.

We arrive, then, at this general conclusion. The object of naval warfare is to control maritime communications. In order to exercise that control effectively we must have a numerous cla.s.s of vessels specially adapted for pursuit. But their power of exercising control is in proportion to our degree of command, that is, to our power of preventing their operations being interfered with by the enemy. Their own power of resistance is in inverse proportion to their power of exercising control; that is to say, the more numerous and better adapted they are for preying on commerce and transports, the weaker will be their individual fighting power. We cannot give them as a whole the power of resisting disturbance without at the same time reducing their power of exercising control. The accepted solution of the difficulty during the great period of Anson's school was to provide them with a covering force of battle units specially adapted for fighting.

But here arises a correlative difficulty. In so far as we give our battle units fighting power we deny them scouting power, and scouting is essential to their effective operation. The battle-fleet must have eyes. Now, vessels adapted for control of communications are also well adapted for "eyes." It becomes the practice, therefore, to withdraw from control operations a sufficient number of units to enable the battle-fleet to cover effectively the operations of those that remain.

Such were the broad principles on which the inevitable dilemma always had to be solved, and on which Anson's organisation was based. They flow naturally from the communication theory of maritime war, and it was this theory which then dominated naval thought, as is apparent from the technical use of such phrases as "lines of pa.s.sage and communication." The war plans of the great strategists from Anson and Barham can always be resolved into these simple elements, and where we find the Admiralty grip of them loosened, we have the confusion and quite unnecessary failures of the War of American Independence. In that mismanaged contest the cardinal mistake was that we suffered the enemy's battle-fleets to get upon and occupy the vital lines of "pa.s.sage and communication" without first bringing them to action, an error partly due to the unreadiness of a weak administration, and partly to an insufficient allocation of cruisers to secure contact at the right places.

So far, then, the principles on which our naval supremacy was built up are clear. For the enemies with whom we had to deal Anson's system was admirably conceived. Both Spain and France held the communication theory so strongly, that they were content to count as success the power of continually disturbing our control without any real attempt to secure it for themselves. To defeat such a policy Anson's const.i.tution and the strategy it connoted were thoroughly well adapted and easy to work. But it by no means follows that his doctrine is the last word. Even in his own time complications had begun to develop which tended to confuse the precision of his system. By the culminating year of Trafalgar there were indications that it was getting worn out, while the new methods and material used by the Americans in 1812 made a serious rent in it. The disturbances then inaugurated have continued to develop, and it is necessary to consider how seriously they have confused the problem of fleet const.i.tution.

Firstly, there is the general recognition, always patent to ourselves, that by far the most drastic, economical, and effective way of securing control is to destroy the enemy's means of interfering with it. In our own service this "overthrow" idea always tended to a.s.sert itself so strongly, that occasionally the means became for a time more important than the end; that is to say, circ.u.mstances were such that on occasions it was considered advisable to sacrifice the exercise of control for a time in order quickly and permanently to deprive the enemy of all means of interference. When there was reasonable hope of the enemy risking a decision this consideration tended to override all others; but when, as in Nelson's case in the Mediterranean, the hope was small, the exercise of control tended to take the paramount place.

The second complexity arose from the fact that however strong might be our battles.h.i.+p cover, it is impossible for it absolutely to secure cruiser control from disturbance by sporadic attack. Isolated heavy s.h.i.+ps, taking advantage of the chances of the sea, could elude even the strictest blockade, and one such s.h.i.+p, if she succeeded in getting upon a line of communication, might paralyse the operations of a number of weaker units.

They must either run or concentrate, and in either case the control was broken. If it were a squadron of heavy s.h.i.+ps that caused the disturbance, the practice was to detach against it a division of the covering battle-fleet. But it was obviously highly inconvenient and contrary to the whole idea on which the const.i.tution of the fleet was based to allow every slight danger to cruiser control to loosen the cohesion of the main fleet.

It was necessary, then, to give cruiser lines some power of resistance.

This necessity once admitted, there seemed no point at which you could stop increasing the fighting power of your cruisers, and sooner or later, unless some means of checking the process were found, the distinction between cruisers and battles.h.i.+ps would practically disappear. Such a means was found in what may be called the "Intermediate" s.h.i.+p. Frigates did indeed continue to increase in size and fighting power throughout the remainder of the sailing era, but it was not only in this manner that the power of resistance was gained. The evil results of the movement were checked by the introduction of a supporting s.h.i.+p, midway between frigates and true s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line. Sometimes cla.s.sed as a battles.h.i.+p, and taking her place in the line, the 50-gun s.h.i.+p came to be essentially a type for stiffening cruiser squadrons. They most commonly appear as the flags.h.i.+ps of cruiser commodores, or stationed in terminal waters or at focal points where sporadic raids were likely to fall and be most destructive. The strategical effect of the presence of such a vessel in a cruiser line was to give the whole line in some degree the strength of the intermediate s.h.i.+p; for any hostile cruiser endeavouring to disturb the line was liable to have to deal with the supporting s.h.i.+p, while if a frigate and a 50-gun s.h.i.+p got together they were a match even for a small s.h.i.+p-of-the-line.

In sailing days, of course, this power of the supporting s.h.i.+p was weak owing to the imperfection of the means of distant communication between s.h.i.+ps at sea and the non-existence of such means beyond extreme range of vision. But as wireless telegraphy develops it is not unreasonable to expect that the strategic value of the supporting or intermediate s.h.i.+p will be found greater than it ever was in sailing days, and that for dealing with sporadic disturbance the tendency will be for a cruiser line to approximate more and more in power of resistance to that of its strongest unit.

For fleet service a cruiser's power of resistance was hardly less valuable; for though we speak of fleet cruisers as the eyes of the fleet, their purpose is almost equally to blindfold the enemy. Their duty is not only to disclose the movements of the enemy, but also to act as a screen to conceal our own. The point was specially well marked in the blockades, where the old 50-gun s.h.i.+ps are almost always found with the insh.o.r.e cruiser squadron, preventing that squadron being forced by inquisitive frigates. Important as this power of resistance in the screen was in the old days, it is tenfold more important now, and the consequent difficulty of keeping cruisers distinct from battles.h.i.+ps is greater than ever. The reason for this is best considered under the third and most serious cause of complexity.

The third cause is the acquisition by the flotilla of battle power. It is a feature of naval warfare that is entirely new.[10] For all practical purposes it was unknown until the full development of the mobile torpedo.

It is true that the fires.h.i.+p as originally conceived was regarded as having something of the same power. During the Dutch wars--the heyday of its vogue--its a.s.signed power was on some occasions actually realised, as in the burning of Lord Sandwich's flags.h.i.+p at the battle of Solebay, and the destruction of the Spanish-Dutch fleet at Palermo by Duquesne. But as the "nimbleness" of great-s.h.i.+ps increased with the ripening of seamans.h.i.+p and naval architecture, the fires.h.i.+p as a battle weapon became almost negligible, while a fleet at anchor was found to be thoroughly defensible by its own picket-boats. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century indeed the occasions on which the fires.h.i.+p could be used for its special purpose was regarded as highly exceptional, and though the type was retained till the end of the century, its normal functions differed not at all from those of the rest of the flotilla of which it then formed part.

[10] But not without a.n.a.logous precedent. In the later Middle Ages small craft were a.s.signed the function in battle of trying to wedge up the rudders of great s.h.i.+ps or bore holes between wind and water. See Fighting Instructions (Navy Record Society), p. 13.

Those functions, as we have seen, expressed the cruising idea in its purest sense. It was numbers and mobility that determined flotilla types rather than armament or capacity for sea-endurance. Their primary purpose was to control communications in home and colonial waters against weakly armed privateers. The type which these duties determined fitted them adequately for the secondary purpose of insh.o.r.e and despatch work with a fleet. It was, moreover, on the ubiquity which their numbers gave them, and on their power of dealing with unarmed or lightly armed vessels, that we relied for our first line of defence against invasion. These latter duties were of course exceptional, and the Navy List did not carry as a rule sufficient numbers for the purpose. But a special value of the cla.s.s was that it was capable of rapid and almost indefinite expansion from the mercantile marine. Anything that could carry a gun had its use, and during the period of the Napoleonic threat the defence flotilla rose all told to considerably over a thousand units.

Formidable and effective as was a flotilla of this type for the ends it was designed to serve, it obviously in no way affected the security of a battle-fleet. But so soon as the flotilla acquired battle power the whole situation was changed, and the old principles of cruiser design and distribution were torn to shreds. The battle-fleet became a more imperfect organism than ever. Formerly it was only its offensive power that required supplementing. The new condition meant that unaided it could no longer ensure its own defence. It now required screening, not only from observation, but also from flotilla attack. The theoretical weakness of an arrested offensive received a practical and concrete ill.u.s.tration to a degree that war had scarcely ever known. Our most dearly cherished strategical traditions were shaken to the bottom. The "proper place" for our battle-fleet had always been "on the enemy's coasts," and now that was precisely where the enemy would be best pleased to see it. What was to be done? So splendid a tradition could not lightly be laid aside, but the attempt to preserve it involved us still deeper in heresy. The vital, most difficult, and most absorbing problem has become not how to increase the power of a battle-fleet for attack, which is a comparatively simple matter, but how to defend it. As the offensive power of the flotilla developed, the problem pressed with an almost bewildering intensity. With every increase in the speed and sea-keeping power of torpedo craft, the problem of the screen grew more exacting. To keep the hostile flotilla out of night range the screen must be flung out wider and wider, and this meant more and more cruisers withdrawn from their primary function. And not only this. The screen must not only be far flung, but it must be made as far as possible impenetrable. In other words, its own power of resistance must be increased all along the line. Whole squadrons of armoured cruisers had to be attached to battle-fleets to support the weaker members of the screen. The crying need for this type of s.h.i.+p set up a rapid movement for increasing their fighting power, and with it fell with equal rapidity the economic possibility of giving the cruiser cla.s.s its essential attribute of numbers.

As an inevitable result we find ourselves involved in an effort to restore to the flotilla some of its old cruiser capacity, by endowing it with gun armament, higher sea-keeping power, and facilities for distant communication, all at the cost of specialisation and of greater economic strain. Still judged by past experience, some means of increasing numbers in the cruising types is essential, nor is it clear how it is possible to secure that essential in the ranks of the true cruiser. No point has been found at which it was possible to stop the tendency of this cla.s.s of vessel to increase in size and cost, or to recall it to the strategical position it used to occupy. So insecure is the battle-squadron, so imperfect as a self-contained weapon has it become, that its need has overridden the old order of things, and the primary function of the cruising s.h.i.+p inclines to be no longer the exercise of control under cover of the battle-fleet. The battle-fleet now demands protection by the cruising s.h.i.+p, and what the battle-fleet needs is held to be the first necessity.

Judged by the old naval practice, it is an anomalous position to have reached. But the whole naval art has suffered a revolution beyond all previous experience, and it is possible the old practice is no longer a safe guide. Driven by the same necessities, every naval Power is following the same course. It may be right, it may be wrong; no one at least but the ignorant or hasty will venture to pa.s.s categorical judgment. The best we can do is to endeavour to realise the situation to which, in spite of all misgivings, we have been forced, and to determine its relations to the developments of the past.

It is undoubtedly a difficult task. As we have seen, there have prevailed in the const.i.tution of fleets at various times several methods of expressing the necessities of naval war. The present system differs from them all. On the one hand, we have the fact that the latest developments of cruiser power have finally obliterated all logical distinction between cruisers and battles.h.i.+ps, and we thus find ourselves hand in hand with the fleet const.i.tution of the old Dutch wars. On the other, however, we have armoured cruisers organised in squadrons and attached to battle-fleets not only for strategical purposes, but also with as yet undeveloped tactical functions in battle. Here we come close to the latest development of the sailing era, when "Advanced" or "Light" squadrons began to appear in the organisation of battle-fleets.

The system arose towards the end of the eighteenth century in the Mediterranean, where the conditions of control called for so wide a dispersal of cruisers and so great a number of them, that it was almost imperative for a battle-squadron in that sea to do much of its own scouting. It was certainly for this purpose that the fastest and lightest s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line were formed into a separate unit, and the first designation it received was that of "Observation Squadron." It remained for Nelson to endeavour to endow it with a tactical function, but his idea was never realised either by himself or any of his successors.

Side by side with this new element in the organisation of a battle-fleet, which perhaps is best designated as a "Light Division," we have another significant fact. Not only was it not always composed entirely of s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line, especially in the French service, but in 1805, the year of the full development, we have Sir Richard Strachan using the heavy frigates attached to his battle-squadron as a "Light Division," and giving them a definite tactical function. The collapse of the French Navy put a stop to further developments of either idea. Whither they would have led we cannot tell. But it is impossible to shut our eyes to the indication of a growing tendency towards the system that exists at present. It is difficult at least to ignore the fact that both Nelson and Strachan in that culminating year found the actuality of war calling for something for which there was then no provision in the const.i.tution of the fleet, but which it does contain to-day. What Nelson felt for was a battles.h.i.+p of cruiser speed. What Strachan desired was a cruiser fit to take a tactical part in a fleet action. We have them both, but with what result? Anson's specialisation of types has almost disappeared, and our present fleet const.i.tution is scarcely to be distinguished from that of the seventeenth century. We retain the three-fold nomenclature, but the system itself has really gone. Battles.h.i.+ps grade into armoured cruisers, armoured cruisers into protected cruisers. We can scarcely detect any real distinction except a twofold one between vessels whose primary armament is the gun and vessels whose primary armament is the torpedo. But even here the existence of a type of cruiser designed to act with flotillas blurs the outline, while, as we have seen, the larger units of the flotilla are grading up to cruiser level.

We are thus face to face with a situation which has its closest counterpart in the structureless fleets of the seventeenth century. That naval thought should have so nearly retraced its steps in the course of two centuries is curious enough, but it is still more striking when we consider how widely the underlying causes differ in each case. The pressure which has forced the present situation is due most obviously to two causes. One is the excessive development of the "intermediate" s.h.i.+p originally devised for purposes of commerce protection, and dictated by a menace which the experience of the American War had taught us to respect. The other is the introduction of the torpedo, and the consequent vulnerability of battle-squadrons that are not securely screened. Nothing of the kind had any influence on the fleet const.i.tution of the seventeenth century. But if we seek deeper, there is a less obvious consideration which for what it is worth is too striking to be ignored.

It has been suggested above that the const.i.tution of fleets appears to have some more or less recognisable relation to the prevalent theory of war.

Now, amongst all our uncertainty we can a.s.sert with confidence that the theory which holds the field at the present day bears the closest possible resemblance to that which dominated the soldier-admirals of the Dutch war.

It was the "Overthrow" theory, the firm faith in the decisive action as the key of all strategical problems. They carried it to sea with them from the battlefields of the New Model Army, and the Dutch met them squarely. In the first war at least their commerce had to give place to the exigencies of throwing into the battle everything that could affect the issue. It is not of course pretended that this att.i.tude was dictated by any clearly conceived theory of absolute war. It was due rather to the fact that, owing to the relative geographical conditions, all attempts to guard trade communications were useless without the command of the home waters in the North Sea, and the truth received a clinching moral emphasis from the British claim to the actual dominion of the Narrow Seas. It was, in fact, a war which resembled rather the continental conditions of territorial conquest than the naval procedure that characterised our rivalry with France.

Is it then possible, however much we may resist the conclusion in loyalty to the eighteenth-century tradition, that the rise of a new naval Power in the room of Holland must bring us back to the drastic, if crude, methods of the Dutch wars, and force us to tread under foot the nicer ingenuity of Anson's system? Is it this which has tempted us to mistrust any type of vessel which cannot be flung into the battle? The recurrence of a formidable rival in the North Sea was certainly not the first cause of the reaction. It began before that menace arose. Still it has undoubtedly forced the pace, and even if it be not a cause, it may well be a justification.