相思夢裏

It would appear, then, that our pre-war naval policy did not contemplate that immediate and stringent sea pressure that would compel the enemy to action, nor yet the closest and most vigilant kind of watch that would have brought him to action in the promptest and most fatal manner when circumstances compelled him to come out. Nor is it difficult to see why this was so. To profess the communication theory of sea war without realizing that the control of communications is the result of victory, that is, setting up a consequence as an aim while ignoring its cause, inevitably led to the inverted error, an unwillingness so to employ the control of communications, when60 the enemy ceded them without victory, as to force the enemy into battle as the only hope of escaping an intolerable condition. Not having contemplated and prepared for battle as the first aim of naval policy, they left an instinctive disinclination to force on an affair which they suddenly realized would be as critical as it was certainly unanticipated. It is this which explains possibly the greatest paradox in history, viz., that Germany proclaimed a strict blockade of Great Britain before Great Britain proclaimed such .

Having established the truth that the primary purpose of a navy is to fight and its immediate object victory, we must next pass on to ask of what it is that naval force consists and by what processes it fights and wins. All fighting is done by men using weapons. At sea the men and weapons have to be carried in ships. The ships and weapons have to be designed and selected, and the men have to be converted from ignorance into accomplished fighting units. Finally, the ships and the weapons must be employed in accordance with certain methods and in obedience to certain dynamic laws—the technique, the tactics, and the strategy of war. It may simplify the subject to summarize the elements of naval force as follows. It may be said to consist The same problem confronted me that confronts the great majority.:

1. Of the main weapon-bearing ships built for fighting fleet actions.

2. Of smaller armed ships of many kinds necessary for the right use of the main fighting ships and for the subsidiary operations leading up to, or following from, fleet actions.

3. Of means other than ships—aircraft, mines, and the like—for entrapping and injuring the main fleets and cruisers of the enemy, for defending and attacking bases, and for making certain sea areas dangerous or impassable to the enemy’s forces.

4. Of the personnel to man, fight, and command the62 ships and to direct the operations of the separate squadrons and fleets at sea; and

5. Of that higher central command on shore that, by designing and selecting the material, by training the officers and men, creates sea force; that discovers the right method of using weapons; that elucidates the tactics that follow from such use; that develops the strategy which the strength and situation of rival forces makes best; that as a preparation for war, keeps the whole force ready in all particulars; that in war, directs it to the greatest advantage.