;^v:. .-a,- CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WiLLARD FiSKE Endowment Date Due -^m- Hs^sm^^ ^^rt^^sir-Wfti rCB l G ^j^ A^>^^^ -IrWt rSAT 4QGi JIj^' MA¥^ 1«8^MN 1961 ^f m^rmf^r o/in 2 ^924 030 750 628 I? B Cornell University S Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030750628 NAVAL ADMINISTRATION AND WARFARE Works by Capt. A. T. Mahan THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY. 1660-1783. THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EM- PIRE. Two volumes. SEA POWER IN ITS RELATION TO THE WAR OF 1812. Two volumes. THE LIFE OF NELSON. Two volumes. THE INTEREST OF AMERICA IN SEA POWER. LESSONS OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN. THE PROBLEM OF ASIA. RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. SOME NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF WAR. NAVAL ADMINISTRATION AND WAR- FARE. TYPES OF NAVAL OFFICERS. Naval Administration and Warfare Some General Principles With Other Essays BY CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN, U. S. N. Author of " The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660- 1783," "The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire," " Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812," etc. BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN. AND COMPANY 1908 lis Cofyright, 1903, 3j» Charles Scritturs' Sons ; Copyright, 1907, by Munit &• Co., Copyright, 1908, by P. Jf. Collier &• Son ; Copyright, 1908, by Alfred T. Mahan. All rights reserved r Published, November, 1908 Blectrotyped and Printed Bt THE COLONIAL PRESS: CH.Simonds C&Co.,BoBton,U.S.A, PREFACE THE somewhat miscellaneous appearance attaching to the collection of articles herein republished requires from the author the remark that he thinks they will be found, by discriminating readers, to possess in common one characteristic, which however is probably not so immediately obvious as to dispense with indication. The attempt in them has been in all cases to omit details to the utmost possible, in order that atten- tion may fasten at once more readily and more certainly upon general principles. The paper on Suhordinatton tn Historical Treatment, for instance, is throughout a plea for consideration towards general readers, who have not the time even to read understandingly the mass of detail -with which historians are prone now to encumber their narrative. Much less can they work out for themselves the leading features, the real deter- minative lines, which become buried under the accumulation of incidents, like the outlines of an ancient city hidden under the ruin of its buildings. vi Preface As the common proverb has it, the wood often can- not be seen for the trees. Few persons, probably, have escaped the de- spairing sense of inability to find on a map some particular place, because of the thicket of names spread over the surface, like the tanglewood of a forest. Fewer still have been happy enough to look at a map intelligently constructed for the special purpose of showing no more than is needed for the understanding of the subject which the map is intended to illustrate ; but those who have had this experience will recognize that the advan- tage is not only that of finding readily a feature, the position of which is approximately known, but also the ease with which can be appreciated the relations of the several parts to one another, and to the whole. The composite effect, when thus obtained for the first time, is illuminative almost to the point of revelation. There is, of course, a class of readers to whom the mastery of details, close knowledge of all in- cidents, is indispensable; but such fall almost entirely under the head of students of history, — or of the particular topic treated, — which is their life work. Because it is their business, their specialty, they must, and they can, find time for minute study; but, in most other subjects than his own, the specialist is himself a member Preface vii of the general public, and therefore he should the more remember that concerning his specialty the general public can learn, and wishes to learn, only those leading features which enable men to bring the various kinds of knowledge into correlation with one another, and with their own individual careers. The matter is one of utility, and not merely of culture ; for the onward move- ment of the whole body of mankind — which we call " the public " — is dependent upon each man's thorough, consummate knowledge of his own business, supplemented by an adequate understanding of the occupations and needs of his neighbors. That this is profoundly true of social questions, strictly so-called, will scarcely be disputed; but in some measure, often in large measure, all questions are social, because they affect the common interest of the body politic. Adequate understanding can be had, if the de- termining features of the particular subject are exposed clear of the complication of details which cling to them, and even in part constitute them ; the knowledge of which is obligatory upon the specialist, but to the outsider impedes ac- quirement. I quote here Sir John Seeley, by specialty an historian, but who in his Expansion of England, and Growth of British Policy, gave to his public outlines of historical periods, rudi- viii Preface mentary almost as a skeleton; and thereby en- abled those not masters of the periods in ques- tion to see clearly the controlling conditions, like the single places on a skeleton map, and to appre- ciate those inter-relations of cause and effect which correspond to the determining features of a geographical area. He says: Public under- standing is necessarily guided by a few large, plain, simple ideas. When great interests are plain, and great maxims of government unmis- takable, public opinion may be able to judge securely even in questions of vast magnitude. The present writer is by specialty a naval officer, who has been led by circumstances to give particu- lar attention to Naval History and to its illustra- tions in Naval Warfare. By professional occupa- tion, and by personal choice, he has been immersed in the details pertaining to naval life on the ad- ministrative and military sides. The principal articles following bear upon matters immediately connected with these topics; and in them he has endeavored to follow Seeley's thought, by fasten- ing attention upon what he conceives to be, or to have been, the chief and determinative features in the particular subjects treated. To such treat- ment the matter of date is indifferent. General principles endure; and the illustrations of them, if judiciously selected, are as effective when taken Preface ix from one era as from another. Indeed, it may be claimed that a certain remoteness is desirable, as contributing to clearness; as one may approach a building too closely to appreciate its propor- tions. The activities, prepossessions, and discus- sions, of a current day constitute in themselves de- tails, often non-pertinent details, which go to swell the mass of considerations that obscure perception. Another remark applicable to military opera- tions, and probably to active life in general. While war is waging, much that happens is unknown, or imperfectly known, outside of a very restricted number of persons. This ignorance, whether total or partial, is an element in all con- temporary appreciation of the operations. Spe- cifically, one of the conditions which enters into the decisions of the commander-in-cTiief of either army is that he commonly must depend upon imperfect information as to the numbers and movements of his opponent. This ignorance of the general is just half that of the outside com- mentator, whom information fails from both sides. It may seem to follow that comment should be postponed; or at all events that, once made, it should be dismissed as obsolete when clearer light is obtained. This, however, is not so; for this imperfect intelligence has been an actual factor in the operations. To know the manner in which X Preface imperfect knowledge, or defective forecast, has affected action is not only necessary to historical accuracy, but serves also to illustrate the value of principles; because a clear eye to principle, a true appreciation of the controlling features of a mili- tary situation, will often correct an inference to which faulty intelligence points, whether the in- ference be that of the responsible general, or of the irresponsible critic. These considerations have justified to the author the reproduction of an article written during the heat of the War between Japan and Russia, without serious alteration by subse- quent knowledge. Substantial additions have been made to the articles, Retrospect on the War between Japan and Russia, and The Significance of the Pacific Cruise of the American Fleet, in igo8. The reasons for these, as illustrative of fundamental principles, it is hoped will appear on perusal. They are be- lieved to merit the very special attention and sober consideration of the American people. From the first of these have been also omitted some con- cluding paragraphs, treating the question of the increasing size of battleships; a tendency which the author has regretted and regrets. Progress in this direction has become so emphasized among all naval states since the article was published, that re-treatment would require a mass of detailed Preface xi explanations, foreign to the general purpose of the collection, as above indicated. A paragraph in the body of the article sufficiently summarizes certain general considerations, which can scarcely fail to assert themselves in an ultimate arrest of progress. The author expresses his thanks to the editors and proprietors of the various periodicals in which these articles first appeared for their kind consent to republication. The name of each peri- odical, and the date of issue, will be found in the Table of Contents. The dates under each chapter heading are approximately those of writing; a matter of no particular consequence in this case, but retained to conform with other similar works of the author, where it had some significance. The author desires also to acknowledge his indebtedness to Lieutenant-Commander Lloyd H. Chandler, Aid to Rear-Admiral Robley D. Evans during the cruise of the Atlantic Fleet to San Fran- cisco, for the trouble taken in supplying particular information bearing upon the practical gains to efficiency from this cruise, which has been the object of much ill-instructed and invidious comment. A. T. Mahan. JiJy, igo8. CONTENTS PAGE The Principles of Naval Administration . . . i National Review, June, 1903 The United States Navy Department .... 49 Scribner's Magazine, May, 1903 Principles Involved in the War Between Japan and Russia 87 National Review, September, 1904 Retrospect Upon the War Between Japan and Russia 131 National Review, May, 1906 Objects of the United States Naval War College . 175 An Address at the Annual Opening, August 6, 1888 The Practical Character of the United States Naval War College 215 An Address at the Annual Opening, September 6, 1892 Subordination in Historical Treatment . . . 243 President's Address at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, December 26, 1902 The Strength of Nelson 273 National Review, November, 1905 xiv Contents PAGE The Value of the Pacific Cruise of the United States Fleet, 1908 307 Prospect: The Scientific American, December 7, 1907 Retrospect: Collier's Weekly, August 29, 1908 The Monroe Doctrine . 355 National Review, February, 1902 MAP Outline Map of Seat of War in Manchuria . . 173 THE PRINCIPLES OF NAVAL ADMINISTRATION, HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED American and British Systems Compared THE NATIONAL REVIEW, JUNE, I9O3 Naval Administration and Warfare THE PRINCIPLES OF NAVAL ADMINIS- TRATION February, I 903 DEFINITION is proverbially difficult, but the effort to frame it tends to elicit fulness and precision of comprehension. What then do we mean by administration in general, and what are the several and diverse conceptions that enter into the particular idea of naval administration ? Considered generally, administration is, I sup- pose, an office committed to an individual, or to a corporate body, by some competent authority, to the end that it may supply a particular want felt. At a point in its historical development a country finds that it needs a navy. To supply the need it institutes an office. For the special purpose it vests so much of its own power as may be necessary in a particular person or persons, and requires that he, or they, supply to it a navy. The original grant of powers carries 3 4 Naval Administration and Warfare the reasonable implication that they will be main- tained and amplified as occasion requires. That is the duty of the State to the administration it has created ; and for that reason the State — ' which in Great Britain and the United States is ultimately the people — requires to understand what is involved in the office, for the existence and working of which it has made itself respon- sible. It is not, indeed, requisite to follow out all the minutiae of action, but it is essential to com- prehend the several great principles which should receive recognition in the completed scheme; which of them should govern, and which should be subordinate in function. If these relations be properly adjusted, the system is sound and may be trusted to work itself, provided continuous care be taken in the choice of persons. The engine will be good ; but the engineers must be good also. Naval administration has another side, and one more commonly familiar. It faces two ways, towards the nation and towards the service. It ministers to the country a navy; but in so doing it embraces numerous functions, and engages in numerous activities, the object of which is the navy itself, in the supply of all that is needed for its healthy existence. It is to these in their en- tirety that the term naval administration is most commonly applied. Thus viewed the subject is Principles of Naval Administration 5 complex and demands a certain amount of analysis; in order that by the recognition of the leading needs and principles involved there may be a clearer understanding of their individual bearings and relative importance. It will be found here, as in most practical callings, that efficiency depends upon a full appreciation of elements which, though essential, are conflicting in tendency, and upon due weight being given to each. Administration being a term of very general application, it will be expected that that of the navy should present close analogies, and even points of identity, with other forms of adminis- tration; for instance, that in it, as elsewhere, efficiency of result will be better secured by individ- ual responsibility than by collective responsibility. But, along with general resemblance, naval ad- ministration is very clearly and sharply diflFeren- tiated by the presence of an element which is foreign to almost all other activities of life in coun- tries like Great Britain and the United States. The military factor is to it not merely incidental, but fundamental; whatever other result may be achieved, naval administration has failed unless it provides to the nation an efficient fighting body, directed by well-trained men, animated by a strong military spirit. On the other hand, many of the operations connected with it diffisr from those 6 Naval Administration and Warfare common to civil life only in a certain particularity of method. This is true in principal measure of the financial management, of the medical establish- ment, and to a considerable though much smaller degree of the manufacturing processes connected with the production of naval material. The busi- ness routine of even the most military department of a naval administration is in itself more akin to civil than to military life: but it by no means follows that those departments would be better administered under men of civil habits of thought than by those of military training. The method exists for the result, and an efficient fighting body is not to be attained by weakening the appreciation of military necessities at the very fountain head of their supply in the administration. This neces- sary appreciation can be the result only of personal experience of good and bad through the formative period of life. We find, therefore, at the very outset of our inquiry two fundamental yet opposing elements, neither of which can be eliminated. Nor can they be reconciled, in the sense of becoming sympa- thetic. In its proper manifestation the jealousy between the civil and military spirits is a healthy symptom. They can be made to work together harmoniously and efficiently; to complement, not to antagonize each other; provided means Principles of Naval Administration 7 are taken to ensure to each its due relative prece- dence and weight in the determination of practical questions. Historically, the institution and development of naval administration has been essentially a civil process, the object of which has been to provide and keep in readiness a national weapon for war. The end is war — fighting ; the instrument is the navy; the means are the various activities which we group under the head of administration. Of these three, the end necessarily conditions the others. The proverb is familiar, " He who wills the end wills the means." Whatever is essential to the spirit and organization of the Navy afloat, to its efficiency for war, must find itself adequately represented in the administration, in order that the exigencies of fighting may be kept well to the front in governmental and national consideration. Since armies and navies have existed as perma- nent national institutions, there has been a con- stant struggle on the part of the military element to keep the end — fighting, or readiness to fight — superior to mere administrative considerations. This is but natural, for all men tend to magnify their office. The military man having to do the fighting, considers that the chief necessity; the administrator equally naturally tends to think the smooth running of the machine the most ad- 8 Naval Administration and Warfare mirable quality. Both are necessary; but the latter cannot obtain under the high pressure of war unless in peace the contingency of war has dictated its system. There is a quaint, well-worn story, which yet may be new to some readers, of an administrator who complained that his office was working admirably until war came and threw everything out of gear. The opposition between civil and miUtary, necessitating their due adjustment, may be said to be original, of the nature of things. It is born with naval administration. Corresponding roughly to these primary factors are the two principal activities in which administration is exerted — organization and execution. These also bear to each other the relation of means to end. Or- ganization is not for itself, but is a means to an ultimate executive action; in the case of a navy, to war or to the prevention of war. It is, therefore, in its end — war — that organization must find the conditions dictating its character. Whatever the system adopted, it must aim above all at per- fect efficiency in mihtary action; and the nearer it approaches to this ideal the better it is. It would seem that this is too obvious for mention. It may be for mention ; but not for reiteration. The long record of naval history on the side of administra- tion shows a constant predominance of other con- Principles of Naval Administration 9 siderations, and the abiding necessity for insisting, in season and out of season, that the one test of naval administration is not the satisfactory or economical working of the office, as such, but the readiness of the navy in all points for war. The one does not exclude the other; but there is between them the relation of greater and less. Both organization and execution are properties alike of the active navy, the instrument for war, and of the naval administration, the means which has been constituted to create and maintain the instrument; but from their respective spheres, and in proportion to their relative nearness to the great final end of war, the one or the other char- acteristic is found predominant. The naval officer on board his ship, face to face with the difficulties of the profession, and in daily contact with the grim implements which remind him of the eventualities of his calling, naturally sees in organization mainly a means to an end. Some indeed fall short. The martinet is a man to whom the organization is more than a means; but he is the exception. Naval administration, on the other hand, in the common acceptation of the term, is mostly office work. It comes into contact with the Navy proper chiefly through official correspondence, less by personal intercourse with the officers concerned; still less by immediate contact with the daily life of 10 Naval Administration and Warfare the profession, which it learns at second hand. It consequently tends to overvalue the orderly routine and observance of the system by which it receives information, transmits orders, checks expenditure, files returns, and, in general, keeps with the service the touch of paper; in short, the organization which has been created for facilitating its own labours. In due measure these are im- peratively necessary; but it is undeniable that the practical tendency is to exaggerate their impor- tance relatively to the executive end proposed. The writer was once visiting a French captain, who in the course of the interview took up wearily a mass of papers from a desk beside him. " I wonder," said he, " whether all this is as bad with you as with us. Look at our Navy Register;" and dividing the pages into two parts, severally about one-sixth and five-sixths of the whole, he continued, "This, the smaller, is the Navy; and that is the Administration." No wonder he had papers galore; administration needs papers, as a mill needs grist. Even in the case of naval officers entering ad- ministrative offices, the influence of prolonged tenure is in the same direction. The habits of a previous lifetime doubtless act as a check, in pro- portion to the strength they have acquired in the individual. They serve as an invaluable leaven. Principles of Naval Administration 11 not only to his own thought but to that of his associates. Nevertheless, the experience is general that permanence in an office essentially civil tends to deaden the intimate appre- ciation of naval exigencies; yet upon this alone can thrive that sympathy betvi^een the administrative and executive functions of the navy which is requisite to efficiency. The habit of the arm-chair easily prevails over that of the quarter-deck; it is more comfortable. For this reason, in the best considered systems, a frequent exchange between the civil and military parts of their profession, between the administrative offices and the army or fleet, is thought expedient for officers who show aptitude for the former. It is better for them personally, better for the adminis- tration, and consequently better for the service at large. It prevails extensively in the United States Navy, where it is frequently the subject of ill- instructed outside criticism on the score of sea- officers being on " shore duty." Without asserting that the exact proportions of service are always accurately observed, it may be confidently affirmed that the interchange between the civil and military occupations tends to facilitate the smooth working of both, by promoting mutual understanding of conditions and difficulties. The subject of this paper is not the navy, al- 12 Naval Administration and Warfare though that as a military organization has neces- sarily its own interior administration. What we have here to consider is an organization essentially civil, although it has naval men as individual members and a military body as the subject of its activities. In the United States the naval adminis- tration has thus been continuously regarded as a civil occupation, under the two principal forms given it since the adoption of the Constitution. In its origin, in 1798, the Secretary of the Navy was the sole functionary and a member of the President's Cabinet. The Board of Naval Com- missioners, which from 1815 to 1842 was charged with all the ministerial duties under the Secretary, was composed of three naval captains ; but when one of them, Captain Charles Morris, was selected for a temporary command at sea, he insisted upon resigning his office of Commissioner, because " I believed that the exercise of the military duties of a captain, whilst holding a district commission of a civil character, would be exceedingly dis- agreeable to the feeUngs of the officers, even if legal." When the Board of Naval Commissioners gave way to the Bureau System which now exists, the same civil character inhered, and incumbents of Bureaus were at times taken directly from civil life. In the British Navy the understanding was the same concerning the civil nature of duties Principles of Naval Administration 13 assumed by naval officers unders the organization which we call Naval Administration. One of the earliest notable incidents of Nelson's life, when a young captain, was a flat refusal to obey the order of an officer much his senior, when holding the local position of a Dockyard Commissioner in the civil administration of the Navy. The administration of the British Navy in this and cognate matters was then in fact distinctly styled " civil." It had a large history, char- acterized through great part of its course by incessant struggle with the military administra- tion, either incorporate in the single person of the Lord High Admiral, or more usually placed in commission as the Board of Admiralty. The latter was nominally superior, but commonly strove in vain to assert its authority against an interest strongly entrenched in a traditional posi- tion. In the United States there never has been such formal duality of functions as was produced by the gradual evolution of the British system, which, like the British Constitution, rather grew than was framed. The effect in the latter, by the exist- ence of the two Boards, was to illustrate and inten- sify an antagonism always sufficiently rooted in the opposition between civil and military. Thence resulted practical evils which finally compelled 14 Naval Administration and Warfare the formal abolition of the Civil Board, and the transfer of its duties to the Board of Admiralty, suitably reinforced for that purpose by a number of subordinate technical experts, not members of the Board, and no longer so associated together as to hold the power of concerted action which attaches to an organic group. There was thus restored, or it should rather be said established, the unity essen- tial to all military administration; the unity in this case of a single, regularly constituted Board. From this, however, the logic of facts has gradu- ally evolved the accepted principle of a supreme in- dividual responsibility, that of the First Lord, who is a member of the Government. He is responsible for all the business of the Admiralty; while each of the other members has his separate functions, for the discharge of which he is responsible to the First Lord, although, as we are informed by a recent high authority, " this responsibility is not easy to define." In Great Britain, therefore, as in the United States, one man is now ultimately responsible; the Secretary of the Navy in the one State, the First Lord in the other. The difference between the two systems is that the United States Secretary, belonging to no Board, has to deal with subordi- nates only, not with associates. The First Lord, as member of the Board, -which assembles fre- Principles of Naval Administration 15 quently, necessarily meets his assistants not merely singly, but together ; thus undergoing an influence much weightier and more complex than that of consulting at convenience single men, each of whom appears before him strong only in his natural strength of character, modified by the military habit of submission. We are told of Sir Robert Walpole that he avoided as much as possible calling Cabinet councils, lest they should furnish the elements of an opposition. The First Lord doubtless may absent himself from the meetings of the Board, if he will, but the spirit of the system would in that case be violated. Like the American Secretary of the Navy, he is, by custom now almost invariable, a civilian. Regarding the expert professional members of the naval admin- istration as subordinate, as they properly are in both systems, it is evident that the British tends to a greater influence of the military element. It is, however, influence, not authority; two powers of very different natures. There appears to be in practice considerable indeterminateness as to the executive functions of the Admiralty Board as a body, an absence of definition charac- teristically English; but the single ultimate re- sponsibility of the First Lord necessarily carries with it single uncontrolled authority. Without that it is idle to speak of responsibility. 16 Naval Administration and War jar e In main outline, both systems consist of a single responsible civil head with a number of professional subordinates, among whom are apportioned the several executive duties of the naval administra- tion. The British provides in addition, by dis- tinct implication and by usual practice, a con- sultative body, which does not exist in the Ameri- can. Although it is, of course, open to any Ameri- can Secretary to call such into being for his own assistance, its opinions would not give him, being its creator, the moral support, nor exert over him the influence, that inheres in one established by statute. This diflPerence tends to emphasize the single responsibility of the United States Secretary of the Navy, and probably has the result of pro- ducing in him a greater sense of accountability. He has no associates; the British First Lord has. It is interesting to note that each method repro- duces the specific political genius of the nation. In the United States the executive power of the general government rests explicitly in one man; so also that of the Navy Department. In Great Britain the executive government rests in a Com- mittee of Parliament, of whom one is Prime Minister; the administration of the navy is also technically " in commission," whatever may be the practical outcome as to responsibility. There is yet another result of the Board system Principles of Naval Administration 17 as compared with ours, in that an officer of experi- ence writing about it can say, " There is no real separation of the duties of the Lords of the Ad- miralty; they are not heads of departments rigidly defined; the operations they superintend are closely inter-related." " The happy constitution of the Board enables it to handle a mass of business now grown to vast complexity, without splitting it up into over-specialized departments, presided over by independent chiefs with duties and offices sharply and precisely defined." The contrast here is pronounced ; for while the duties of the bureau- chiefs, who are the professional subordinates of the American civil head of department, are neces- sarily closely inter-related, because concerning the same common profession, they are nevertheless sharply defined, and their chiefs mutually inde- pendent. This condition emphasizes their indi- vidual responsibility; but it also fosters a separate- ness of interest and of action which by some officers in the United States Navy has been con- sidered to be a fruitful cause of bad adminis- tration. The unifying force is not the consultation and interaction of a Board, but the authority of a single head; and he, being frequently inexpert in naval practical life, is not always best fitted to comprehend the relative value of technical or military points, or to adjust to the best advantage 18 Naval Administration and Warfare of the service the conflicting demands which the bureau-chiefs represent. We are here in presence of a great difiiculty or naval administration; vs^hich is, to attain and pre- serve substantial unity of executive action, while at the same time providing for the distribution among several individuals of a mass of detailed duties, beyond the power of one man to discharge. This need of unity applies not only to high con- siderations of poUcy, or a few larger questions of administration. It enters into every dockyard, and above all into every component unit of the fleet. In the United States seven bureaus have a part and a claim in every ship that is planned. When it is remembered that the necessarily con- tracted capacity of a ship of war has made the disposition of space in every period a difficult problem, it will be understood that in our day, of complicated construction and armament, we have in the various bureau demands the elements of a conflict that may aptly be called intestine. To this must be added, qualifying and, to some extent, contesting the whole result, the military requirements of the navy outside of the admin- istration, which has the combatant duties pressing upon its attention. Nautical quahties, armament and armour, speed, coal capacity, provisions and stores, accommodation of crew, sanitary provision, Principles of Naval Administration 19 all these, with many details attendant on each, have their special representative in the central general administration. Beyond these, but not specifically represented there, is the military body, \vhich demands, or should demand, observance of the pre-eminent consideration that the ship should be in all respects fitted for the special function she is to fulfil in a fleet; that cruisers, for instance, should not only be fast, but in all things contrived for celerity in their actions; that battle- ships, being meant to act together, should not only be individually good, but essentially homogeneous, especially in tactical qualities. In the report of one of the early American Secretaries it was noted, as being to the grave discredit of the Civil Admin- istration of the British Navy, that the existence of " numerous distinct classes of the same rate, as well in their hulls as in masts, sails, and equip- ment, anJ tn a still greater degree in their qualities for combined action, demonstrates the prevalence of caprice and prejudice, instead of science and system." Even the interchange of parts and of stores, between vessels of the same class, upon which he further comments, though perhaps less important to-day, is a consideration not out of date. Over all hovers, not unhealthfully, the consider- ation of expense. A very high official in a navy 20 Naval Administration and Warfare which entrusts to a naval officer the final decisions as to the assemblage of qualities said once to me : " With practically unlimited money, such as your lucky nation can give, one may go to extremes in experiments; but limited as vs^e are in means, and with large establishments, it is necessary to digest ideas, to compromise on size, and to settle on a type." In the support thus given to unity of design, in ensuring a just predominance to military considerations, considerations that think first of the day of battle, of the months of campaign, of the services of the scout, of the evolutions of the fleet, of the need for numbers as well as for individual size, it can be seen that the pressure of economy may be an invaluable ally. The two great oppositions inherent in naval administration — civil versus military, unity of action against multiplicity of activities — are but a reflection of the essential problem of warfare. A saying has been attributed by Thiers to the great Napoleon, that the difficulty of the Art of War consists in concentrating in order to fight, and disseminating in order to subsist. There is no other, he said, aphoristically. The problem is one of embracing opposites. That we have here on the one hand unity of action, and on the other diff"usion of activities, in the harmonious combina- tion of which the problem of war consists, is Principles of Naval Administration 21 probably plain enough; but it may be less obvious how the civil element enters where all is apparently military. Nevertheless it is there in full adminis- trative force. The army concentrated to fight is the army unified in the final action for which it exists; the military element in full vigour and predominance, the question of subsistence reduced for the moment to the barest minimum, yet not even so wholly discarded. The army disseminated to subsist is a force for which unity of action is temporarily subordinated to the exigency that so many men cannot live on the resources of a narrow district, in which it camps or through which it marches, nor conveniently receive even its own daily supplies from a single centre. Given over now chiefly to subsisting, against the next call for action, the administrative bodies, civil in func- tion if military in rank, assume the predominant role. Nevertheless, even here military necessity exercises the prior control ; for the position of the several corps, if stationary, or the lines of march of the several columns, if in movement, must be so disposed that concentration may be effected with a rapidity which shall defy an enemy's at- tempt to strike any division in detail. This mili- tary requirement, though latent, subjects to itself the whole administrative regulation, whatever the inconvenience. 22 Naval Administration and War jar e In operations of actual war the predominance of the miUtary end in view is easily maintained, and is personified in the officer in chief command. The principle is settled that in the field all purely administrative bodies, commonly called staflF" corps, are under his orders. It is less easy in peace to ensure the due balance between the end and the means; between the action, and the activities which underlie action. Administration then be- comes the bigger and more imposing activity, with an increasing tendency to exist for itself rather than for the military purposes which are its sole reason for existence. One of the greatest military administrators afloat that the British Navy has ever known was Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent. Yet, when peace supervened during his tenure of office as First Lord, preoccupation with economies of administration so prevailed with him that, when war broke out again, the material of the Navy in ships and stores was so deteriorated and exhausted as to impair dangerously the effi- ciency of the fleets. It is not that the head has ceased to be military, for in war as in peace the military as well as the administrative head of the navy may be a civil official, as he now is in Great Britain and the United States; but warlike action having ended, the importance of keeping military necessities predominant is gradually sub- Principles of Naval Administration 23 jected to other considerations. Yet in that pre- dominance, in whatever way assured, is to be found the unifying principle of a military ad- ministration. In the due relation and subordi- nation of the two ideas, military and civil, unity of action with distribution of activities too copious for one man's discharge, consists the problem of military and of naval administration. It involves execution, concerning which it is a com- monplace to say that in its greatest efficiency it is the function of one solely responsible; and it involves also organization, which by its very name implies multiplicity, for organization is an assemblage of organs among which functions are apportioned. As usual, history sheds an illuminative ray on this subject by its narrative of progress. Where a naval administrative system is the result of a natural evolution, it will usually be found to begin on a small scale, in the hands of a single person. It has then but one organ, however many the functions. As it progresses in scope and number of activities, its functions differentiate more and more and it is led to evolve organs. In the process the two ideas which we have noted will be found not only to exist, but to conflict perpetually. The subordinate functions embodied in the problem of maintenance, however distributed, tend ever 24 Naval Administration and Warfare to assert their independence of one another and of the end for which they severally and collect- ively exist. The complaint of this tendency is a part of naval history, and finds its natural voice in the military sea-going body, because that is the chief sufferer. The naval administration of Great Britain, originating in a political organization of much lower type than now obtains, and so continuing for centuries, affords the best example of a purely natural evolution, controlled by circumstances, the successive steps of which can be very briefly told. Collated with that of the United States, the contrast illustrates by comparison. In the reign of John is first found a single official, called the Clerk of the Ships. He had from time to time subordinates; but as a matter of organiza- tion he stood alone, charged with all the duties connected with the maintenance of the king's ships. The navy, so far as it existed independ- ently of a temporary assemblage of merchant vessels for a particular purpose, was then re- garded less as national than as the personal prop- erty of the sovereign. This very rudimentary civil administration lasted to the days of Henry Vin., who throughout his life interested himself directly m the development of naval material; partly from political recognition of the value and Principles of Naval Administration 25 scope of a navy for England, partly through personal bent. Mr. Oppenheim, the most search- ing investigator in this field, writes : " For almost thirty-eight years, nearly every year marked some advance in construction or ad- ministration, some plan calculated to make the navy a more effective fighting instrument." This close association would naturally make the ruler aware when the existing administrative sys- tem had become inadequate to the extension it had received. Hence, in the last year of his reign, Henry constituted a board of five officers, civil functionaries, among whom were distributed the various administrative duties. To this, with considerable interruptions under the first Stuarts and the Commonwealth, the care and develop- ment of the material of the navy was intrusted for nearly three centuries. The members were known as the Principal OflScers, and later as the Navy Board, their work being done under the superintendence of the sovereign, directly or through a minister. The head of the navy as a military force was the Lord High Admiral; but in early days that officer was not necessarily expert in naval material, not necessarily a seaman at all, nor the office itself continuous. He was there- fore entirely at a disadvantage in maintaining his side of any technical contention. 26 Naval Administration and Warfare This condition lasted till the Restoration, when the Duke of York, afterwards James II., became Lord High Admiral. He was a seaman of good administrative ability, and with the personal prestige of royal blood. He revived the Navy Board under his own control. When deprived of his position, because a Roman Catholic, the office of Lord High Admiral was placed in com- mission; an Admiralty Board, mihtary in char- acter, succeeded to the authority which the Duke had established. From this time there were the two Boards, the Admiralty and the Navy, the military and the civil. The former was nominally superior; but the latter, which comprised sub- stantially all that we call naval administration, being older and well established, succeeded in maintaining a position which has been character- ized as of more than semi-independence. The result was a divided control, and antagonism between the two which represented respectively the civil and military functions; nor was this lessened by the fact that members of the Navy Board were not infrequently sea officers, who thus passed into a civil occupation, practically abandon- ing their former profession. The fault inhered in the system. Divided control means divided responsibility; and that in turn means no responsibility, or at Principles of Naval Administration 27 least one very hard to fix. The abuses that grew up, especially in the dockyards, the effect of which of course was transmitted to the navy that depended upon them, led to a loud outcry throughout the service towards the end of the eighteenth century; but horses are not swapped when crossing streams, and the exigencies of the great wars which ended in 1815 made it long impossible to attempt the revolutionary change needed. This was carried out in 1832 by the Government which came in with the Reform Bill of 1830. The spirit of the innovation was sum- marized in the expression, " Individual (undi- vided) Responsibility." The Navy Board dis- appeared altogether. The civil functions which in the process of centuries had accumulated in its hands, and had culminated by successive additions into a very numerous and loose aggre- gation of officials, were concentrated into five heads, having separate and independent respon- sibilities; in this resembling the Chiefs of Bureau in the United States Naval Administration. Each of the five was specifically under one of the mem- bers of the Admiralty Board, who thus represented that particular interest of the Navy in the Board regarded as a consultative body. Admiral Sir Vesey Hamilton writes : " This was a consolida- tion of functions and a subordination of the civil 28 Naval Administration and Warfare branches to the Admiralty as a whole . . . under the Board of Admiralty collectively and under the Lords individually." While the First Lord is a civilian, the majority of the other members of the Admiralty are naval officers. Authority, therefore, is in civil hands, while military influence enters strongly. While I highly appreciate the value of this latter factor, particularly as the sea lords do not consequently give up their profession, but remain actively connected with it, it appears to my ob- servation of human nature that the system has some of the disadvantages of a council of war, tend- ing to make responsibility elusive. I question, in short, the entire soundness of a scheme which by its nature, if not by specific provision, inclines to place executive action in the hands of a con- sultative body. It seems to sap individual re- sponsibility; not perhaps in subordinates, but, what is much worse, in the head, in the com- mander-in-chief of the administration, upon whom depend the great determinative lines of provi- sion and of policy. In conception, the Admiralty is primarily a Board, secondarily individual members. For individual responsibility at the head, too much depends upon the personality of the First Lord, too little upon his position. Since these lines were first written, five years ago, Principles of Naval Administration 29 it may fairly be inferred, from the language of the English Press, that very decisive changes of policy have been adopted which are attributed popularly, and even professionally, to the dominating influ- ence of one of the " Sea " Lords. During a brief period in 1827, ^^ ^^° centuries before, an arrange- ment more formally ideal obtained. The Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV., being ap- pointed Lord High Admiral, the Admiralty Board lapsed as a board and became his council. The modification here made in deference to royal blood might well serve as a model for naval ad- ministration; a head with advisers feels respon- sibility more than a head with associates. It should go without saying that in any case the head must be good. In the United States Naval Administration the head is one man, with no division of responsibility. His own superior, the President, may control his action, as may Congress by law; but this, as far as it goes, is simply a transfer of responsibihty in its entirety. It is not a division. The Secretary of the Navy has no associates, but he has sub- ordinates. In them he has capable advisers, so far as he chooses to use them ; but he can transfer to them no responsibility, except that of doing as he tells them. The responsibility of decision is his alone. The law constitutes them subordinate 30 Naval Administration and War jar e executive officers, just as it constitutes a lieutenant in the navy; but it does not constitute them ad- visers, and there is in their position nothing which compels the Secretary to hear their advice, still less to accept it. Each is independent of the others, and there is nothing in law to compel conference between them. The Secretary may assemble them, or any number of them, as a board for consultation, in his presence or otherwise; but there is nothing in the system which obliges him to do so. Unity of action between several naval technical experts, each of whom is repre- sented in the planning and maintenance of every naval vessel, and some in every element of naval military efficiency, depends entirely upon the co-ordinating force of the Secretary, who is a civilian, possibly with only more or less outside knowledge of the subject. The system provides no strictly professional unifying force, such as the Board of Admiralty, which has a numerical preponderance of combatant sea-officers, each of whom has in individual control one or more of the technical administrative departments, and may be supposed therefore to be fully informed of its arguments in any technical matter under discussion. The constitution of the Admiralty Board also ensures that all technical details and their effect upon naval efficiency shall be scruti- Principles of Naval Administration 31 nized from the point of view of the men who shall do the work of war. The American plan fixes the very strictest individual responsibility in the Secretary, and in his principal subordinates, the chiefs of bureau. His duties are universal and supreme, theirs sharply defined and mutually independent. This result appears to me superior to the British, but it has the defects of its qualities; not too much independence in responsibility, but, so far as the system goes, too little co-ordination. As I said of the responsibility of the First Lord, unity of action depends too much on the person- ahty of the Secretary. The naval administration of the United States has also a history; one less of evolution than of successive methods, compressed within a very few years. The evolution has been simply a progressive experience, with results formulated in ordinances. The navy of the War of Inde- pendence disappeared entirely, and with it the several systems upon which Congress had at- tempted to administer it. In the first organiza- tion of the new Government, no provision was made for a navy. When the truce between Portu- gal and Algiers in 1793 took from American ship- ping in the Mediterranean the incidental protec- tion of the Portuguese navy, it was resolved to build six frigates; but as this was to be only a 32 Naval Administration and Warfare temporary force, not to be continued in case a peaceful arrangement with the piratical community could be made, the administrative care of the vessels was attached to the War Department. It was not until the oppression of the French Revolutionary Government upon neutral com- merce culminated in the decree of January, 1798, making any neutral vessel lawful prize if it had on board a single article of English origin, that the United States determined to have a navy. On April 27, 1798, Congress authorized the President to build, or to obtain, twelve vessels of a force not exceeding twenty-two guns each; and on April 30 the office of Secretary of the Navy was established by law. The first Secretary entered on his duties the following June. Until the close of the War of 18 12, the Secretary in person, like the Clerk of the Ships, was the naval admin- istration. He no doubt had assistants and ob- tained assistance, technical and military, from experts of both classes; but function had not yet differentiated into organization, and he not only was responsible, but had to give personal attention to various and trivial details of most diverse char- acter, which overburdened him by their mass, and prevented concentration of attention upon the really great matters of his office. A difficulty such as this of course reached its height under the pressure Principles of Naval Administration 33 of war, and led to the first statutory expansion of the system. The duties of the Secretary, as a later incumbent of the office wrote, arrange them- selves under two distinct heads. First in impor- tance are those connected with the more compre- hensive interests of the State, the general policy of the navy involved in the increase of the fleet, its employment and distribution when created. Subordinate to these are the functions connected with the construction, equipment, and mainte- nance of naval force; the designing, building, arming, and manning of ships. These latter are strictly technical; but the poHcy is not. It there- fore may be adequately grasped by a person with- out antecedent professional requirements, which the Secretary often must be. In this analysis it is easy to recognize the dual functions of the British Admiralty and Navy Board before consolidation. It is correct as far as it goes, and was sufficiently comprehensive for the time, 1842, when it was written. The naval seaman then might, and very shortly before did, receive the ship from the builder a bare shell; he was expected to be able to mast her, rig her, stow her, mount her guns, bend her sails, as well as to take her to sea, handle her, and fight her. The military and technical parts of the profession were so closely entwined in the same men that to 34 Naval Administration and Warfare suggest a distinction between them, however real, would have seemed superfluous. Even in those days of very simple construction and armament, however, the evil effects of valuing the technical above the military was anticipated by some. " Keep them at sea," said Lord St. Vincent, " and they cannot help being seamen ; but care must be taken to ensure efficiency at the guns." In 1812 neglect of this wise maxim showed its results to the British. Since 1842 the immense technical advances in all matters connected with naval construction, propulsion, and armament have tended, by their exaltation of the technical con- tribution to naval power, to depreciate in popular recognition the element of military efficiency. Yet, so long as navies remain they will exist for fighting; the military considerations being the end, they must necessarily continue supreme. Naval administration, to be successful, must in its constitution reflect this condition. A necessary antecedent to doing so is the intellectual apprecia- tion of the relation of civil to military in a service essentially military; and not merely in the internal politics of a nation. Upon this must follow formal provision for the due representation of both in the system. This is doubly requisite, because administration, being essentially civil in Principles of Naval Administration 35 function, will not of itself evolve military energy. This must be injected by design. The American naval captains of 1 8 15 had shown themselves thorough masters in practice of all sides of their profession, technical and military. They had learned in experience the essential underlying principles affecting the nautical quali- ties of ships, as distinguished from the mechanical processes of putting them together by the ship builder. They, therefore, were fitted to oversee the part of administration " connected with the construction of naval force," as well as the " equip- ment and maintenance." To entrust this duty to one of them, or to a board of several, was a recourse so natural that in 1801 it had been recommended by the first Secretary, after two years incumbency. " The business of the Navy De- partment embraces too many objects for the superintendence of one person. The public in- terest has suffered. The estabUshment of a board of three or five experienced navy officers to super- intend such parts of the duties as nautical men are best qualified to understand would be a saving to the public." Such a board, by the authority that attaches to a constituted organ as distinct from the purely personal, unorganized, and un- authorized efforts of single officers, might have saved the country from the gigantic administrative 36 Naval Administration and Warfare mistake, essentially military in its effects on effi- ciency, of building gunboats to the exclusion of seagoing ships ; locking up in a body of two hun- dred vessels, impotent, singly and collectively, officers and men sufficient, by a later Secretary's report, to man thirteen ships-of-the-line. The recommendation of 1801 fell fruitless. There followed eight years of a President who held navies in abhorrence, as at the best barely tolerable evils. The War of 1812, with the vastly increased burden laid upon the Secretary, em- phasized the necessity of relief. By an Act of February 7, 18 15, there was constituted a Board of Navy Commissioners, placed explicitly under the superintendence of the Secretary; to act as his agent, or, to use the terms of the Act, " to discharge all the ministerial duties " of his office, to which further it was expressly " attached." Subordination could scarcely be more distinctly affirmed. Its composition was purely military, three sea-officers of the rank of captain, then the highest in the Navy; but its duties were civil in character, and to define them the Act quoted verbatim the terms of the law of 1798, which created the Secretary's own position : " All matters connected with the naval establishment of the United States." The " establishment " is the entire organization of the navy, dockyards and Principles of Naval Administration 37 ships, material and personnel, from inception to completion, considered apart from its active use for national policy. The use of this com- pleted instrument is a military attribute, and is, of course, in the hands of the constitu- tional Commander-in-Chief, the President, who may exercise his office through the Secretary or such other person as he selects. There was much good in this plan. It preserved the single accountabihty of the Secretary, provided him with the responsible assistance of a compe- tent board of experts, and secured due influence to military considerations in a quarter where they tend to disappear. The grave defect was that the Board's responsibility was collective, not individual; and its action in all matters was joint, not several. There was no division of execu- tive functions. Everything done was the act of all. It needs but little experience of life to know that under such circumstances decision is inevi- tably slow, that action shares the defect, and that the more positive and the firmer the individual members in their convictions, the more dilatory the machine, by the protraction of discussion. Ordinarily, in practice, some corrective is found in the disposition of one or more of any three to submit to the stronger character of another; and one or two will take the most of the work for 38 Naval Administration and Warfare the sake of exercising all the power. But such a result neither removes the evil of a joint responsi- bility, nor attains the beneficial result of dividing the administrative labor. Responsibility, which should be single, was divided among three; and activities beyond the ability of one, instead of being apportioned, remained the charge of all, and therefore of each. Thus examined, the legislation of 1815 is seen to signalize the second step in the process of evolution, which it would seem must characterize the process of a military administration that springs from and follows the natural development of national wants. First the one man, the agent of the government; the seed in which, for the time, are embraced all the potential administrative functions. These in last analysis are reduced to two — the civil and miUtary; all purely technical work falling under the former head. As the office grows, and outstrips the knowledge and power of one man, the next step is to provide him a body of assistants to take upon them severally and col- lectively the distinctively technical work, which the actual incumbent, either through ignorance or pressure of occupation, is unable to discharge. The Principal Officers of Henry VIII. represent the same stage as the Navy Commissioners of the United States. Principles of Naval Administration 39 This first differentiation brings out at once the fact that, whatever the personal status of the chief, whether civil or military, his office is essen- tially military; for in the distribution of functions there is necessarily reserved to his immediate care just those which are essentially military : the direc- tion of the navy, when created. All that relates to the establishment, to the creation and mainte- nance of the fleet and dockyards, is the particular charge of the technical assistants; and this is essen- tially a civil function, even though the officers entrusted with it be military men. This is the essence of the step taken by Henry VIII., when he called into being the Principal Officers, who became the Navy Board. In the then compara- tively simple organization of the state, the sover- eign, who was the actual principal and head of the office, instituted in the place of a single inexpert official a body of technical expert agents, answer- able to himself in person, or to his representative. In the military direction they had no share; it remained in his hands, to be exercised directly or by such person as he might designate. Quite unconsciously, in both the British and American navies, by the simple logic of facts and felt neces- sities, and not as a result of previous analysis, the first expansion comes by aiding the head of the navy in the technical cares of the establishment. 40 Naval Administration and Warfare and leaving to him in their entirety the military attributes of the service. Although the American Secretary is by personal status a civilian, and retains full supervisory control of all technical matters, his immediate duties are comprehen- sively mihtary. They have so remained since the first expansion of his administrative staff. The tree of naval administration in the United States had thus begun to grow. It had put forth a stem in which were latent the branches that were yet to be. The merits and defects of the scheme have been indicated. The lapse of time emphasized shortcomings, and gave rise to com- plaints which increased yearly in volume. The Secretary, however, could maintain a judicial attitude towards the whole controversy, because it involved simply the best means of giving him the technical assistance needed. His official supremacy had been preserved, and was not threatened. In the discussion preceding the Act of 1 8 15, the suggestion that he should be, ex- officio, the president of his board of technical experts, had been advanced by Commodore Decatur, whose distinguished name was supported in this by the equally strong ones of Perry, War- rington, and David Porter. The proposition was renewed in Congress in 1820, but the committee to whom it was referred placed the matter sue- Principles of Naval Administration 41 cinctly on the proper basis. " If the Secretary were a constituted part of the Board," a member among other members, " and at the same time possessed the control and superintendence of its proceedings, the commissioners would be little more than advisory, and in that proportion bereft of responsibility." If, on the contrary, he was simply a presiding officer, with a casting vote, " the benefit derived from the superintendence of one officer over others, under distinct responsibilities, would be entirely lost." The corporate direct responsibility of the Board, under and to the Secretary, had been thus by statute preserved distinct and unimpaired. Later secretaries were therefore able to discuss the ques- tion of modification without sense of personal jealousy, as distinguished from official interest; and the change which constituted the next stage of development was recommended on the ground of well-proved faults in the system, not in individ- uals. " Not only has there been defect of individ- ual responsibility to the public, but a vast accumu- lation of labor; since each member, being an- swerable alike for the action of the whole, became equally involved in an obligation to take personal cognizance of everything that was done. Under these circumstances it has been impossible to go through the great and increasing mass of business 42 Naval Administration and Warfare which inevitably devolved upon them with the decision and promptitude required." As the nation grew the naval administration had ex- panded; and inherent errors of system, tolerable on a small scale, became unendurable on a large. Mr. Paulding, the Secretary, whose words written in 1839 have just been quoted, recom- mended the adoption of measures to ensure in- dividual responsibility, which, it will be recalled, was the watchword of the corresponding change of system in the British administration in 1832. He emphasized also the need of a division of labor, " a classification and distribution of duties," which likewise was a distinct, though not the dominant, note of the British reformation. In this third stage of evolution there continues in the two nations the parallelism of cause and eflFect noted in the second. The action of each, however, was modified by its constitutional tradition, and the American was more radical than the British. The board system disappeared altogether, giving place to that of bureaus, mutually independent. No statutory provision for their co-operation exists, except in the supreme control of the Secre- tary. The essence of the new system was the constitution, under a single head, of several dis- tinct agents, with duties sharply defined, and with individual responsibility. Among these was to Principles of Naval Administration 43 be divided a mass of work, hitherto in charge of a single body, which both in executive action and in responsibility had been collective, not in- dividual. The details of this system, which still obtains, are relatively unimportant; but a brief statement of their historical development throws light upon the general problem of naval administration. Mr. Paulding recommended three bureaus, cor- responding in number to the former commission- ers. To one he assigned the construction, equip- ment, and maintenance of ships of war; to the second the maintenance and development of navy yards, hospitals, magazines, etc.; to the third the purchase, manufacture, and supply of stores of all kinds to the navy. These will be seen to correspond to (i) the naval establishment afloat, (2) to that ashore, and (3) to the furnishing of supplies for both. Over each of the first two he placed a sea-officer, with one technical subordin- ate; this assistant to the first to be a naval con- structor, to the second a civil engineer. For the third bureau there was to be a " chief," — a term evidently chosen to admit a civilian, — and under him three technical subordinates, viz. : a naval captain as inspector of ordnance, a naval captain as hydrographer, and a surgeon to super- intend the provision of medical stores. This 44 Naval Administration and Warfare difFerentiadon of the duties of the Board into three branches represents a minimum of change; while the association of technical subordinates to each of the three heads so much resembles the British Admiralty scheme of 1832 as to suggest ir- resistibly that the Secretary had had this under consideration; as he very properly might. His successor, however, thought that the duties thus distributed would be too much for the several bureaus; and of course individual responsibility, though expressed by statute, ceases to be actual when the load imposed is more than one man can bear. This raises again the question, irrepressible because one of proportion, between unity of action and a distribution of activities, framed to ensure individual responsibility. The more numerous the bureaus, the more numerous the discordant wills and interests that must be made to act to- gether; but if they be too few, and their several charges too weighty, there results for the chiefs, as for the Secretary before 1815, the necessity of devolving work on non-responsible subordinates. Responsibility lapses. The present (1903) Con- gress has had to review the same line of thought, with reference to the proposition of a recent Secre- tary to consolidate three of the bureaus now exist- ing. Consolidation would tend to bring their Principles of Naval Administration 45 several activities into harmony; but on the other hand there is the question whether the whole might not be too much for one man's reasonable responsibility. It is to be remembered that the responsibility of a bureau chief is more precise, more detailed and immediate, than the general responsibility of the Secretary, just because the field allotted to him is restricted. There is the further question, more urgent in public than in private business, as to the amount of power in- volving expenditure to be left in a single hand. After discussion. Congress in 1842 established five bureaus, and in 1862, under the pressure of the War of Secession, increased them to eight, the num- ber which now exists. The history of the consider- ations which governed this further development, though instructive and useful, is not essential. When first instituted, it was stated specifically that the bureaus were not intended to perform any more or different duties than those heretofore entrusted to the Board of Commissioners. As the functions of the latter had been defined, in 1815, in words taken from the Act of 1798, con- stituting the ofiice of Secretary of the Navy, continuity of legislation was preserved through- out; above all in the important matter of not impairing the sole control of the Secretary. The aim was simply to facilitate business by a division 46 Naval Administration and Warfare of labor, ensuring at the same time personal responsibility everywhere. It is to the spirit, and the underlying principles, that I have thought it instructive to direct atten- tion, rather than to the details of their application, in the subdivision of administrative work. It has been wisely observed by Sir John Seeley that " public understanding is necessarily guided by a few large, plain, simple ideas. When great inter- ests are plain, and great maxims of government unmistakable, public opinion may be able to judge securely even in questions of vast magnitude." The United States system of naval administration has progressed successively, and without breach of legislative continuity, from the simple rudi- mentary organ, the one man, in whom all func- tions as well as all responsibility were centred, through the phase of a complex organ with aggre- gate functions and responsibilities, defined, but still undifferentiated, into an organization elabo- rate in form, if not final in development. The process has been from first to last consistent in principle. The sole control and single responsi- bility of the Secretary — the representative of the President — have been preserved throughout, and all other responsibility is, and has been, not only subordmate to him but derivative from him, as a branch derives its being from the root. Moreover, Principles of Naval Administration 47 consistency has also been maintained in restrict- ing the administration thus evolved to the civil function which it essentially is. From the first departure, in the institution of the Board of Com- missioners, to the present time, it has not had mihtary authority properly so called. It has had necessary authority in matters pertaining to a military establishment, but it has had no direction of activities in themselves essentially military; that has remained with the Secretary, and is by him transferred only to officers properly military in function. Finally, the principle of particular responsibility has been strictly followed. Within the limits of the duty assigned, the corporate responsibility of the Board in its day was, and the individual responsibility of each bureau chief now is, as certain and defined as that of the Secretary. The defect of the system is that no means is provided for co-ordinating the action of the bu- reaus, except the single authority of the Secretary. This, in his beginning days of inexperience, to- gether with his preoccupations with the numerous collateral engagements attendant upon all posi- tions of public responsibility, will most usually be inadequate to the task. To indicate a defect is not to prescribe a remedy; and the purpose of this article is to show things as they are, not to advocate particular changes. One of the ablest 48 Naval Administration and Warfare administrative sea-ofEcers, both afloat and ashore, that I have known in my professional career, stated before a Congressional committee that he had " always believed it would be wise to have a board of five officers for the purpose of harmoniz- ing difficulties between bureaus, setthng upon a ship-building policy, and other matters that embarrass the head of the Department on account of a lack of professional knowledge." I do not undertake to pass an opinion upon this particular suggestion, but confine myself to remarking that the fault in the system certainly exists, and that any remedy requires the careful observance of two points: i, that the adviser, one or a board, be wholly clear of administrative activity; and, 2, that he or they be advisers only, pure and simple, with no power to affect the individual responsibility of decision. This must be preserved under what- ever method, as the Secretary's privilege as well as his obligation. THE UNITED STATES NAVY DEPARTMENT THE UNITED STATES NAVY DEPART- MENT February, 1903 IN the United States, the Navy Department is the constituted organ of the government for administering the navy. Naval administra- tion exists for the purpose of providing a nation v?ith an effective navy. Incidentally it also administers — directs — the navy which it has created and maintains. Provision is the object, administration the method; the one is the end, the other the means. It is desirable to keep intel- ligently and continually in mind the distinction between the two; for an invariable experience teaches that the tendency of mankind, and es- pecially of administrators, is to confound them. Not only so, but even to raise the means into the seat of the end; usurpation by gradual revolution. Administration inclines to lose itself in itself, for- getful of the end for which it has been established. It is essential to guard against this error, by keeping the end always in the foreground of consciousness, 51 52 Naval Administration and Warfare as being the standard or test by which administra- tive methods are to be judged. The method of naval administration now in force in the United States is the outcome of a gradual development, into the particulars of which it is unnecessary to enter. We are to deal with the present; with historical antecedents only so far as to throw light on existing conditions. The Navy Department began with the institution of the office of Secretary in 1798, when, also, the first incumbent was appointed; and after various experiences it reached its present constitution in 1842. Since then it has remained fixed in funda- mental principles; but has been subject, necessa- rily, to occasional considerable changes of detail and adjustment, as the navy has grown with the nation's growth, and as naval science has become more complicated in its demands. The gradual advance of the world in the mechanical arts has brought with it a corresponding application of those arts to maritime development in general, and to naval warfare in particular. The general system is as follows : The President being, by the Constitution, commander-in-chief of the army and navy. Congress has created by law the office of Secretary of the Navy, a single person, who relieves the President of the burden of details. These details are of two principal kinds ; U. S. Navy Department 53 namely, those that concern the operations of the fleet all over the world, in peace and in war, which is the military side of naval administration, and those that relate to the creation and preservation of material in its several varieties, — ships, guns, engines, etc., — which is the civil side. As the aggregation of duties under these two heads has been found in practice far too great for any one man to discharge, they have been again sub- divided by law. For this purpose there exist side by side two systems, military and civil, the Secre- tary being at the head of both, as the representative of the President. For the management of the fleet in active service, in peace as in war, the end for which the navy exists, the stream of control descends through admirals, captains, and their subordinate ofiicers. Each of these, in the measure of his particular authority, which is regulated by law, represents the Secretary, as the Secretary does the President. In practice, the extent of ocean in which the United States habitually maintains forces for the benefit of American interests is divided into districts, called stations, mutually independent; that is to say, in each such district there is one oflUcer in supreme command of the whole, usually an admiral, responsible directly and solely to the Secretary. With him the officers in similar 54 Naval Administration and Warfare command of other districts have in general no authority to interfere. If, by particular circum- stances, it becomes necessary for the squadron of one such admiral to go, in whole or in part, into the sphere of another, the rule is that the one senior in rank takes command of the joint forces. The independence of undivided command does not then cease; it is simply transferred. Such excep- tional cases do not invalidate the general state- ment of the independence of each station. If the commander of one, say the Asiatic Station, has incidentally to pass through the district com- manded by a junior, as, for instance, going through the Mediterranean on his way to the East, he may indeed by his temporary presence exercise the authority inherent in his rank; but a serious inter- ference with the arrangements of the regular commander would need justification, and might well entail censure, for the obvious reason that the measures of a permanent incumbent should not lightly be disturbed by an ad interim and purely casual intruder, whose power would lapse entirely as he passed beyond the imaginary lines bounding the station. The military movement of the fleet, the military administration, being co-extensive with a geograph- ical area, that is to say, with the seas of the world which require the presence of the navy, is thus U. S. Navy Department 55 conducted by the Secretary through means of independent geographical districts, each with its individual head. In like manner the field of civil administration, which is concentrated and localized at the Navy Department, for the crea- tion and maintenance of material, the procure- ment and training of officers and seamen, the purchase and distribution of supplies of all kinds needed by the navy, is districted among a number of departments, mutually independent, called bureaus, each having its particular head styled the chief of bureau. Within his particular range of duties, each of these, by specific provision of law, is invested with the authority of the Secretary. Orders from him are to be regarded as issued by the Secretary, just as are the orders of the admiral of a station; and no one of his colleague chiefs of bureaus can there interfere with him. In their totaHty the functions discharged by the bureau chiefs embrace all that is understood by the " es- tabhshment " of a navy; the establishment being the permanent constituted force, — ships and men, together with all the antecedent activities, such as those of the navy yards, by which ships are built and kept ready for service, and seamen gathered and organized into crews. At this point, when fully prepared to act, the strict condition of estabhshment merges into that 56 Naval Administration and Warfare of military operation, and passes under the charge of the military officers — the admirals and their subordinates. It is true, certainly, that as material and supplies require frequent repair and renewal, and crews occasional reinforcement and rehef, the functions of the establishment need in some degree to follow the ships in their career. For this purpose the several bureaus have their repre- sentatives among the official staff of each vessel, the captain being at the head of the whole, as is the Secretary over his bureau chiefs in Washing- ton. In this manner each ship, for the purposes of naval administration, reflects in miniature the Navy Department, with which it is in continual correspondence by regulated channels. In strict- ness of method, as reflecting the ultimate respon- sibility and control of the Secretary in the Depart- ment, and the commander afloat, — admiral or captain, — all such correspondence is addressed through them, and by them distributed at either end of the line. Of course, much of this is purely routine and formal; but forms which represent facts, as in this case unity and concentration of authority are symbolized, are not to be discarded lightly. What is commonly called red tape, the circuition of documents, proceeds not from concentration, but from dispersion and subdivision of responsibility. U. S. Navy Department 57 The term " naval administration," though actu- ally co-extensive with the w^hole range of the Secretary's authority, both in the establishment and in the movements of the fleets, is commonly limited in application to the activities antecedent to mili- tary operations. Thus restricted, it becomes immediately apparent that naval administration is essentially civil in character, conditioned only by the fact that it subserves a military profession. In its methods it is strictly civil ; it is military only in its end, which is to supply a military organiza- tion with the men and implements needed for operations of war. Carpenters use tools which they could not make; which are made for them. In this case the means and the end are both civil; but the distinction is the same as that which obtains between naval administration and naval opera- tions. The tools of the naval seaman, from ad- miral to enlisted man, are ships, guns, engines. With these he does his naval work of every kind, and they are provided for him by the naval ad- ministration. The work is military, the provision civil. For instance, one chief function of naval admin- istration is to design and build ships of war. This is only a particular problem of marine architecture, which is a civil calling; in application to naval needs it becomes conditioned, specialized, but not 58 Naval Administration and War jar e genetically distinct. To make a modern gun for a specific purpose involves ingenuity of conception, as well as delicate metallurgical and mechanical processes, conditioned by particular knowledge of ordnance questions; but there is nothing in this, from design to completion, that demands a military cast of mind, much less a military habit of life. The naval man, the combatant officer, can most adequately decide the kind of work he needs his ship, or his gun, to do; he ought to be, by acquirement and experience in handling, master of the reasons which make such and such qualities best for his use; but it by no means follows that this aptitude to know the thing wanted entails ability to make it. A man does not need to be a tailor or a shoemaker to know what clothes or shoes are best suited for his calling. Military capacity of a very high order may go no further than to say. What is needed in a ship, or a gun, is such and such qualities; but it no less has a right to demand that its opinions on this practical matter should be ascertained and duly heeded. Manufacturers of articles used by the public are compelled to furnish what the public requires; for if they do not they lose their customers. The man who uses the tools is the final judge, and rightly; for he best knows which of several is fittest for his purpose. This is as true of a public military service as of a U. S. Navy Department 59 private civil handicraft. In the latter, however, competition ensures the survival of the fittest, be- cause there is individual freedom of action on the part of the vporkman. In the other, on the con- trary, action is corporate, and there is no com- petitor; except, indeed, the foreign navies, which may become enemies on occasions of great national urgency. The eight bureaus of the Navy Department are by title as follows: Yards and Docks, Construc- tion and Repair, Steam Engineering, Ordnance, Equipment, Supplies and Accounts, Navigation, Medicine and Surgery. They are here arranged in what may be considered the chronological order of their relation to the preparation of a ship of war for sea; the completion of her as a unit in the naval establishment, ready to pass into the military order as part of the fleet in active service. The several navy yards, with their docks, are the scene where goes on much of the work of ship- building and repair, of gun-making, of placing on board the engines. There supplies of all sorts for the various departments are stored, and there are bestowed the final touches of preparation to ships built elsewhere. At a yard the ship receives on board her crew and goes into commission; to it she returns for repairs or to be laid up after a cruise. It underlies and concentrates the local 60 Naval Administration and Warfare activities of the several bureaus. Construction is evidently the first stage in the evolution of the finished ship; the engines probably will be being built coincidently, but cannot be placed until the hull has made a very considerable advance toward completion. Ordnance is a word which speaks for itself; the shipping of the guns is a later stage in the vessel's progress. Equipment is a term of less precise signification, because of more varied and minute detail. It corresponds to fur- nishing a building as a place to live and work in. For instance, there is embraced under this com- prehensive idea the extensive and intricate electric system of lighting and motors, with the needed dynamos. Hence, also, much that appertains to the movable house which a ship is; for example, anchors, charts, compasses, with navigation books and instruments. For this reason, the Naval Observatory and the Hydrographic and Compass Offices, whence most of these appliances proceed, or by which they are tested and corrected, are under the Bureau of Equipment. In the days of sail, Equipment supplied rigging and sails — the motive power; so, in strict derivation, it now provides coal, the motive power of to-day, distributing it both to vessels and to coaling depots on foreign stations. The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts is the U. S. Navy Department 61 purchasing agency of the navy. It buys for other bureaus, subject to their requisition and inspec- tion. The paymaster of each ship in commission is its representative in this matter, under the responsible control of her commander, as the bureau itself is under that of the Secretary. Spe- cifically, it buys and supplies, on its ov?n account, the stores falling under the two great heads of provisions and clothing. It keeps, also, the pay accounts of officers and men, and pays them at stated times. The Bureau of Navigation has, by an historical devolution, of wrhich its name gives no suggestion, inherited the charge of the personnel of the navy, as vpell officers as enlisted men. It regulates their admission, superintends their training, preserves continuous records of their service, and distributes them among the vessels of the fleet. As men are alvpays of more account than their tools, the function of the Bureau of Navigation is the most eminent of all ; but also, in the preparation of a ship for service, it is chron- ologically nearly last, as the crew do not go on board till the ship has been by the other bureaus prepared for their dwelling upon conditions con- sistent with health. This final requirement is the charge of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the importance of which may be measured by considering how far a well man is more useful than an invalid. 62 Naval Administration and Warfare The general nature of the duties of each bureau is sufficiently apparent; to particularize further in this connection would simply involve the reader in a mass of technical details. The essen- tial fact to remark is that each bureau — except Yards and Docks — has a distinct and mutually independent function in each ship built and com- missioned, as well as in the processes which precede completion. This is the essential char- acteristic of the United States Naval Adminis- tration, deliberately adopted in 1842 to ensure efficiency and responsibility, after long trial of a different system. The Secretary's function, in- trinsically one, was then, for administrative effect, divided into five, and subsequently into eight parts; the organic unity of which was found only in their subordination to him, not in their relations one to another. Consistency of action, therefore, depends upon the Secretary's appreciation of the necessities of the service in all the several broad features which the bureaus represent — not only from the side of the bureaus, but also from that of the officers afloat — and upon his power to reconcile the divergences of opinion inevitable be- tween so many parties. Both for the purposes of the establishment which the bureaus sustain, and for the direction of naval operations which admirals and captains execute, the Secretary U. S. Navy Department 63 is the only unifying force. He has further to recognize that the Navy Department, as repre- sented by the bureaus, and the Department as represented by the sea-officers, often look at important matters from divergent points of view. The Secretary frequently comes to his office without previous experience, and is necessarily immensely occupied with numerous calls on the side where the Department touches the country rather than the navy. He is apt to find himself, therefore, not only called upon to decide between several persons advocating different views on matters largely new to him, but to do so under conditions of pre-occupation which impede ade- quate attention. The system provides him neither a formulated policy nor an adviser; for, while the bureau chief can properly give advice and argue his views, it needs little knowledge of human nature to see that he can seldom be free from prepossession. He is, in short, rather an advocate than an adviser. Under this stress of work and of technical inexperience, a secretary will naturally seek advice by instituting boards; committees of qualified men to discuss subjects and report to him con- clusions. Such a board may be constituted, like one the differences in which were recently reported by the press, from the bureau chiefs themselves, 64 Naval Administration and Warfare with perhaps one or two outside men to hold a balance. In the case cited the matter under consideration was the qualities to be realized in a particular class of ships. Or, again, boards may be composed, like the General Board, at the head of which the admiral of the navy now is, mostly of officers external to the administrative system, to discuss questions of broad policy connected with offensive and defensive measures, requisite in case of war with this or that country. Such a board might very properly influence the general direction of administrative action, though not the detailed execution; for the obvious reason that the policy of the Department, as regards number and qualities of ships, should rest upon a clear appreciation of the probable nature of the operations for which they will be wanted. These boards, precisely analogous to committees of Congress, and to commissions frequently insti- tuted by civil authorities for special investigation, are, in the strictest sense, advisory only. They can relieve the Secretary of no responsibility, but can assist him greatly by digestion of facts and summarizing expert opinion upon the arguments pro and con. During the Spanish war an ex tempore board was constituted to give purely military advice upon the strategic movements of the fleet. It had no powers and, therefore, no U. S. Navy Department 65 responsibility, except for expert advice given; all orders w^ere the Secretary's own. It is open to serious question whether in actual war such a recourse is desirable. Responsibility for advice, as well as for action, should then be single, un- divided; but in peace a deliberative board, con- tinuous in existence, may be of the utmost service by the maturity and consecutiveness of the policy evolved. Had there been such in 1898 there would have been no need to create an instrumental- ity specially for that occasion. In the hands of a strong Secretary it would constitute a much needed balance to the necessary, but somewhat exaggerated, independence in action of the bu- reaus ; for it would naturally regard matters from the purely service point of view. The utility of convening bodies of competent men for the discussion of particular subjects is indisputable; all experience testifies to it. The difficulty with the navy is that the Secretary's official competency to combine the action of the several bureaus, in a steady, well digested, and unified progress, demands a policy, and not merely an administrative system tempered by boards summoned by him. The test of a system of naval administration, strictly so called, is its capacity — inherent, not spasmodic — to keep the estab- lishment of the navy abreast of the best professional 66 Naval Administration and Warfare opinion concerning contemporary necessities, both in quality and quantity. It needs not only to know and to have what is best to-day, but to embody an organic provision for watching and forecasting to a reasonable future what will be demanded. This may not be trusted to voluntary action or to individual initiative. There is needed a constituted organ to receive, digest, and then officially to state, in virtue of its recognized office, what the highest instructed professional opinion, the opinion of the sea-officers, holds concerning the needs of the navy at the moment; and for the future as far as present progress indicates. It is not enough that this or that chief of bureau, to use the nomenclature of the United States administration, during his term of office takes such measures as appear to him sufficient to ascertain what is the opinion of the combatant sea-officer, of the naval workman, concerning his tools. Granting entire sufficiency on the part of such bureau chief, it is not to his office, but to himself, that it is due. The system cannot claim the credit; nor can the system be sure, for it makes no pretence to assure, that such enterprise will be shown in other bureaus, or in subsequent incumbents of the same bureau. There is in the naval administration, as consti- tuted by law, no organized provision to do the evolutionary work, the sifting process, by which U. S. Navy Department 67 in civil life the rough fighting test of supply and demand, of competition in open market and free usage, pronounces decisively upon the practical merits of various instruments or methods of manu- facture. The body of sea-officers, the v?orkmen of the navy, receive for use instruments upon vrhich the system provides them no means of expressing the professional opinion as to their adaptability, relatively to service conditions or to other existing instruments. Whatever harm may result from this falls not upon the work- men only, but upon those also for whom the work is done; that is, the nation. Since the above was written, there have ap- peared in the London Times a series of three papers by the late Director of Naval Construction for the British navy, Sir William White, who for eighteen years supervised the designing of all its war-ships. A quotation from these articles defines aptly the just relation between the designation of necessary qualities, by the combatant sea- officers of the navy, and the embodiment of these qualities in the finished design of a naval vessel. Itahcs are mine. Sir William writes : " Ships have to be built for many different services, and each navy has its special requirements. It is inevitable, therefore, that the decision as to the best combination of qualities to be 68 Naval Administration and Warfare embodied in any type must be left to the respon- sible authorities. For the ships of the Royal Navy that decision rests with the First Lord of the Ad- miralty and his colleagues on the Board. The policy of naval construction, the types of ships to be built, and the qualities of offence, defence, speed, coal endurance, and other characteristics to be embodied in each type, are considered in detail and determined by the Lords Commissioners, the Board of Admiralty, acting, with the assist- ance of their technical advisers, as a ' Committee on Designs.' In addition to the large experience of the distinguished officers serving on the Board, there are available reports and suggestions from officers afloat, dealing with the capabilities and performances of existing ships, possible improve- ments, and the introduction of new types. The chief responsibility for the preparation of designs, embodying the decisions of the Board, rests on the Director of Naval Construction," [called in the United States Navy the Chief Constructor] . . . " But for the conditions themselves the First Lord and his colleagues are responsible. They decide the policy of our naval construction, and determine the armament, armour, speed, and coal endurance for each class of ship added to the fleet. . . . My duty and responsibilities have been to design and direct the construction of strong, U. S. Navy Department 69 safe, and seaworthy vessels, having the offensive and defensive powers, speeds, and coal supplies, determined by successive Boards of Admiralty." In a succeeding paper Sir William writes : " In such a complex and difficult question as the selection of armaments, the responsible authority, fully informed and constituted as the Board of Admiralty is, must be more capable of balancing opposing claims, and selecting the most efficient combination, than any individual. The questions involved affect fighting efficiency, and are not pri- marily questions of naval architecture." In Great Britain the Navy Department is itself a board — the Board of Admiralty; not, as with us, an individual. In general principle, and as an administrative system, I prefer our own; but in the particular relation estabhshed between military specification of desired qualities, and the narrower sphere of technical design, by which those qualities are to be realized, I find the method above de- scribed much superior, for the Board of Admiralty embraces an extremely strong element of matured expert professional knowledge, chosen from the commanding officers of the Navy. There is in our administrative system nothing answering to it; and the defect not only is grave, but lies at the very source of the provision for naval wants. As has been said, the present system of inde- 70 Naval Administration and Warfare pendent bureaus has now been in operation for sixty years. This fact in itself affords strong presumption in its favor; and it has many merits. It has also shown very good results, regarded as a machine, which every system more or less is. A machine is an organization, an assemblage of parts, which has great powers of work in certain fixed directions, purely routine. It is the essence of a machine that it moves round and round in an appointed path; but it has within itself neither motive force nor directive impulse. Both these, which are the two factors of active life, come to it from without. As the steam slackens, the engine works feebly; as the hand at the helm is weak, it errs blindly. All the time it is the same machine. Consequently, put on steam in a national impulse, or supply a strong master in a particular Secretary or President, and after a few jars of rusty joints, the renewal possibly of some worn-out coupling, it takes up at once its intended work, doing it steadily, strongly, and efficiently. Such fluctuations of efficiency, dependent upon external conditions, are characteristic of all ma- chines. They are not to be cured radically by the introduction of new parts, adding to the machinery ; for that makes it none the less a machine than before, even though as a machine it may be improved. It may be possible, however, so to U. S. Navy Department 71 contrive the connection between machinery and power, which with us is, in the last analysis^ the popular understanding and will, as to cause energy to be supplied and sustained in reasonable pro- portion to the work required; which work is the maintenance and development of the navy on the lines and scale demanded by the possibilities of war to-day, and of the evident to-morrow. The grave lapses of the past, in this respect, are facts not to be ignored, nor safely to be repeated. Pro- vision against them, to be enduring, as proposed, must be more continuous in operation than a suc- cession of individual administrators can be. At present the President and Secretary, the one by the Constitution, the other by law, are the administrative connecting Hnks between the coun- try and the navy. Broadly considered, in their official relation to the administrative system, the President and Secretary are parts of the machine, liable with the rest to feel the slackening of energy when it relaxes in the nation. The desired stead- fastness of purpose is not to be found in any succes- sion of tenures of office; for with the expiry of each there is a solution of continuity. Only cor- porate Hfe endures, and there is none such in our present system. The experience of the great War of Secession bears abundant evidence to the capacity for work 72 Naval Administration and Warfare of the bureau system, composed as it is of a number of chiefs mutually independent in their respective spheres, and, therefore, individually and solely responsible for the work entrusted to them. Sel- dom, if ever, in the history of the w^orld, has a naval organization had thrown upon it the sudden and immense expansion of work that the Navy Department had then to meet. In 1865 there were employed in active operations of war 7,600 officers and 50,000 seamen, more than five-fold the num- bers prior to the war; and the fleet had increased from 69 vessels to 671, 208 of which had been built or begun while hostilities were going on.' No radical administrative change was made by Con- gress. The number of bureaus was increased from five to eight, with a corresponding subdivision of labor; but each of the eight chiefs was as inde- pendent in his own office as the five had been in theirs. This was the essence of the system ; there was no let or hindrance to any one of them, by the interposition of a recognized authority, — man or board, — between him and the Secretary, or be- tween him and his work. Urgent decision was not fettered by the requirement of consultation; responsibility could not be escaped under cover of colleagues, consenting or opposing. The bonds ' These numbers are taken from Soley's "The Blockade and the Cruisers." XJ. S. Navy Department 73 of power and of accountability lay upon each man, spurring him to the height of his abilities, freeing him from every trammel of interference, and en- couraging him by the sense that credit as well as blame would be his alone. Individual power and individual responsibility are the fundamental merits of the bureau system. Its defect is lack of co-ordination. Happily, this lucky country, which at its first cast got Farragut for the most critical command of the War of Seces- sion, as in 1898 it found Dewey at Manila and Sampson off Santiago, in 1861 unwittingly intro- duced into the naval administration a singularly fit man; an official who filled, without particular definition, the precise place which was needed then, and is equally needed now, in peace as in war, to impart unity of direction and effort to the eight distinct impulses under which naval expansion was advancing. The labors of the chief overseer, the Secretary, under the mandate of the times and the people, plainly demanded personal assistance; and it happened — the word is exact — that there was selected for Assistant Secretary a man whose particular fitness only his subsequent performance could have demonstrated. Mr. Fox had been a naval officer until he reached maturity, and after- wards became an active business man. He there- fore brought to his position a close knowledge 74 Naval Administration and Warfare of naval conditions, which had not advanced materially beyond those of his own career, and at the same time an administrative experience which enabled him to utilize, without impeding, the separate energies of the Department's chief subordinates. There was thus introduced into the heart of the administration, in close contact with and influence upon the bureau system, the special aptitudes of the naval ofiicer for the guid- ance of the war in its military phase, and for adapting to the particular conditions the broad lines of the huge expansion which the then estab- lishment had to undergo. The activities of the estabhshment, of the Navy Department on its civil side, were thus harmonized with the require- ments of the military situation. It would require more than a single article to express in detail the multifold character of the work thus done for and by the establishment; the vessels of various kinds and construction designed and built; the vessels bought and altered for spe- cific purposes; the corresponding developments of armament. All these were governed in concep- tion by the necessity to meet conditions, varying from expeditions up Southern creeks and bayous, including therein the whole vast river system of the Mississippi Valley, to deep-sea cruises extending to the waters of Asia and the Mediterranean. U. S. Navy Department 75 There was involved the creation of armored fleets to contend, some with fortifications in shallow, tortuous inland streams, others with works pro- tecting seacoast harbors. There was to be insti- tuted and maintained the most extensive and grinding blockade ever yet made effective, actually as well as technically. Underlying the whole, however, was the military conception, the exact appreciation of the military necessities. Under the guidance of this were laid down the general lines upon which the bureau administrations were to advance in their activities. This was the cutting out of the work, as distinct from its executive superintendence. From this comprehension of the decisive lines, this military sense, proceeded the unity of effort and of effect wherein consists the excellence of a work of art, which warfare in its highest sense is. The specific character of any particular war creates of itself certain central features upon which attention must fasten; and to which effort must correspond, if success is to be attained. It was peculiarly fortunate that the War of Secession found, placed at the centre of the civil administration of the navy, a person es- pecially qualified, by nature and training, to con- centrate in his own person professional compre- hension, broadened to meet the case by close intercourse with leading officers; and with this 76 Naval Administration and Warfare to combine influence, real if not formal, upon the general direction to be taken by the eight several branches of the civil administration. The very great success of the navy in the War of Secession is universally admitted and needs no insistence; but, though frequently narrated historically, it is doubtful vphether it is yet philo- sophically appreciated, or even understood. For present purposes it is sufficient to note the fact that there was then found within the Navy Depart- ment — not existing there before, but introduced fortuitously for the occasion ^ a means by which the enthusiastic determination of the nation could take shape in intelligent comprehension of the issues and in strongly co-ordinated effort; while to the satisfactory maintenance of the activity thus directed the bureau system was found ade- quate. Adequate, that is, to meet a great emer- gency under the spur of a great impulse, communi- cated through an instrumentality which for the purposes of the war focussed the several separate energies. It is to be borne in mind, however, that there was the emergency with its pressure; that it had its clear, distinctive features, susceptible of recognition ; and that there was present somewhat accidentally the human instrument to recognize them, and to realize in the work of the Depart- ment the means necessary to meet them. All U. S. Navy Department 77 these constituted pressure, steam, directive force. Granted this, the machine showed its efficiency. Emergency is not always with us, though the need of an up-to-date navy is. The preparations of peace have their distinctive features, equally recognizable with those of war, but less clearly visible to intelligence unstartled by alarm at the doors. The bureau system carries no instru- mentality to study and formulate them; to main- tain constant attention upon, not this or that branch of naval progress, but upon the field as a whole; to co-ordinate the various elements of advance in their relative importance; and by such sustained apprehension, communicated to the nation, to maintain a pressure which shall con- stantly ensure a navy abreast of the contemporary situation in quantity and quality. It is possible for any Secretary to create such an instrumentality, and the tendency of recent Secretaries has been in that direction; but it depends upon the will of the particular incumbent; its influence is what he chooses to attribute to his own creature; and he may at any moment discontinue it. It is no part of the bureau system, and its life is always precarious. Of inferior influence to a bureau, in that it has no legal existence, its position is less that of a subordinate than of a dependent. The War of Secession showed the merits of the 78 Naval Administration and Warfare bureau system under favorable forcing conditions. Peace speedily demonstrated its defects; rather, perhaps, the defects of a system constituted wholly of independent departments — the exact opposite of cabinet government. Independent depart- ments — bureaus — through lack of concert to- gether, lose in influence upon their head more than they gain in individual freedom of action; and the loss is national. In 1865 the nation reacted violently from the extreme tension of war, and the effect was manifest inevitably throughout the mihtary branches of the govern- ment, as constituted. The principal work of the Departments of War and Navy became the reduc- duction of the huge establishments, and the dis- position of the quantities of accumulated material now no longer needed. Though the then adminis- tration had nearly four years to run, Mr. Fox retired shortly, leaving no successor in name or in fact. With him disappeared what had been virtually an institution, rather than an individual or an office. His nominal position of Assistant Secretary was not revived till over twenty years later. Retrenchment — a word never to be uttered with disrespect — now became the order of the day; but it was not graduated by any systematic provision for studying the needs of the navy as a U. S. Navy Department 79 whole, watching contemporary progress, and defining to the country the evident necessities of naval policy. There was no sentinel stationed on the watch-tower to take note of danger; and volunteers, who were not wanting, rarely have the authority or perseverance to arouse national attention. The bureaus went on doing their several works, and doubtless very respectably. Excellent boards, constituted by the Department, from time to time made wise reports. Secretary succeeded Secretary in a complacency that the country seemed fully to share. The mihtary branch, of course, was dissatisfied. It realized the peril, concrete before its eyes in foreign ships and its own decadent, obsolete relics of former days; but the military branch was not — and is not — represented in the legalized scheme of naval administration. There is in the Navy De- partment, besides the Secretary, no daysman that lays his hand on civil and mihtary both ; upon the establishment and upon the ships in commission. In the Navy Department, as constituted by law, there are sea-officers at the head of bureaus; but by their office they are bureau chiefs, charged with details of the establishment, not representa- tives of the military necessities. They have no obHgation, and may have no incHnation, to meddle with concerns of the broad naval policy which 80 Naval Administration and Warfare does, or should, determine and co-ordinate the general march of the system as a whole. It would be rash to affirm that there was, for nearly two decades following the war, any formulated determination that could be called a naval policy. In result, doubtless, there was realized a course of action, which might be styled a policy; that of apathetic drift. The system itself provided no instrument for studying the data, or evolving the pohcy, except the Secretary himself; and the successive Secretaries, coming often new to their work, were as chanced by choice of suc- cessive Presidents. The several bureau chiefs were personally no more responsible than any other individual official for the general regress. Each had his bureau; but, if he managed it as well as the Secretary's measures demanded, the rest was not his concern. There was nowhere in the Department any person, or any body, whose business it was to represent to the Secretary the perilous decline which was rapidly verging upon annihilation. There was nobody at fault for not speaking, nor anybody whose office required the intrusion of a scheme of resuscitation. The future depended upon the personality of a Secretary, not upon a provident system. Equally with the details of the War of Secession, it is inexpedient to enter upon the instances which U. S. Navy Department 81 illustrate the decadence of the ensuing period. To patch and repatch into temporary eflEciency vessels, excellent for their day, but which, if still in their prime, would be worthless under the changed conditions ; to build a few, a very few, new ships of substantially the same type as the old, and therefore no more fitted for modern warfare; to mount contentedly on their ancient carriages the old, and in their time most useful, guns which had fought the recent war; to " convert " a few of them, from the large stock left on hand, into makeshift imitations of modern weapons — such was the general course of administration, awaiting the coming of a Secretary who should realize that the first necessity of policy was to sweep away a sham, and bring the country face to face with the fact that it had no navy. The bureaus worked on perfectly respectably, meeting the demands of that day accordingly as they had met the stren- uous period of the War of Secession, and as under a new impulse they were again to meet, and fulfil, the more complicated, if not more onerous, re- quirements of re-creating the establishment. As a machine, in short, the system was good; it adapted itself readily and efficiently to the work before it, be it more or less, and showed conclu- sively that it required only the impulse from with- out, and the necessary supply of grist, a work 82 Naval Administration and Warfare at high speed and high power with correspondent results. In time, though much overdue, the awaited man came, and with him a new impulse. By the accident of a Secretary determined to face the conditions, the just discontent of the active navy found voice and expression in a new and positive policy. It is, however, clearly a great evil that throughout a prolonged period of popular reaction and lethargy, a principal department of the gov- ernment should have contained within itself no principle of continuous efficiency, and have re- mained dependent upon the chances of a series of individuals, bound to no sequence of interest or of action, and very possibly, as in instances ex- perience has shown, incapable of realizing a policy or imparting an impulse. Most branches of the executive government find themselves natu- rally represented in the continuous interests of civil life, which constitute for them an abiding impulse, directive as well as motive, to keep abreast of the time. The navy and army lack this ; the navy conspicuously so. It is therefore not suffi- cient that each has a Secretary, as have the De- partments of the Treasury, the Interior, and others. They need within their administrative constitution something which shall answer to the continuous interest of the people in civil details; U. S. Navy Department 83 something which, while wholly subordinate to every Secretary, shall embody a conservative and progressive service idea, and in so doing shall touch both the public, from whose sense of national needs impulse comes, and the administration, ashore and afloat, upon whose response to impulse efficiency depends. That a Secretary can do this has been abundantly shown; the dangerous possi- bility, also amply demonstrated, is that several in sequence may lack either will, or power, or pro- fessional understanding. Though the office lives, the Secretary dies every four years, and who shall guarantee the succession .? The value of the office will not be diminished by such a some- thing as here advocated, without executive author- ity, consultative only and advisory; responsible not for action taken — for it should have no power to act — but for opinion expressed ; above all, continuous in its activity, which implies corporate life, maintaining sound tradition by its consecu- tiveness, yet preserved from stagnation by changes of membership, periodical but not simultaneous. Executive authority, like executive responsibility, must be undivided, single. No qualification is admissible upon the powers of the Secretary, as the President's representative. The bureaus, mutually independent, are wholly dependent on him when he sees fit directly to interpose. Where 84 Naval Administration and Warfare they clash, as at times they do, he holds the bal- ance, and his say is final. These conditions no instructed man of affairs would wish to modify. Yet it remains that in these various matters Secre- taries have often to act upon personal judgment, with limited personal knowledge. Under such conditions one man may easily vacillate in a hne of policy ; how much more a series of men differing in personal traits and acquired information. The utility of a steadying factor, of a body of digested professional knowledge, continuously applied to the problems of naval advance, is evident. It is demonstrated also by the increasing disposition of Secretaries to assemble standing boards of officers for the consideration of professional prob- lems, the conclusions of whom constitute for him expert advice, without any infringement upon his official action. Useful though these may be, they have, nevertheless, no place in the administrative system. Creatures of the Secretary's will, there is no assurance of their permanency; yet, the essence of their utility will consist in their em- bodying a policy, which they can only do by per- manence. Such policy, like the action of a bureau chief, will ever be subject to the Secretary's alter- ation; his personal characteristics will modify it; but there can be no more doubt of the utility of such an embodied policy than there can be U. S. Navy Department 85 of a settled national tradition like those about entangling alliances, or against European inter- ference in this hemisphere. It is in the lack of permanent tenure by the Secre- tary himself that is to be seen the most cogent argument for such a continuous institution, inte- rior to the legalized system of administration. A steady incumbent, personally competent, would in time become like the president of a great railroad, or other business corporation; himself an embodied policy, the consistency of which on certain general lines is a recognized advantage. With unlimited time a Secretary should acquire that personal knowledge of details, and acquaintance with the characteristics of his subordinates, which are es- sential to the successful administrator. No such incumbency is to be expected under our general system of executive government. To supply the defect inherent in temporary tenure and period- ical change, there is required for the Navy Depart- ment a tradition of policy; analogous in fact to the principles of a political party, which are con- tinuous in tradition, though progressive in modifi- cation. These run side by side with the policy of particular administrations; not affecting their constituted powers, but guiding general lines of action by an influence, the benefit of which, through the assurance of continuity, is universally admitted. PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE WAR BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA Written during the War PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE WAR BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA August, 1904 A NOTICEABLE feature of the current war between Japan and Russia is the singu- lar defect and inaccuracy of details furnished concerning the successive military and naval situa- tions and movements. Doubtless, a similar im- perfection of information is encountered, and must be expected, in all sequences of current events. Contemporaries seldom know the exact truth concerning that which passes around them, and only after long and patient study does the chroni- cler of a later day even approach a full and correct statement of occurrences, in their relation of cause and effect. The complete and balanced narrative, which the modern historian rightly sets before himself as an ideal standard, is, however, a very different thing from the substantially accurate information which is demanded by the man of affairs, civil or military, called upon to keep abreast of the professional movement of his day, to 89 90 Naval Administration and Warfare be prepared himself to act in the Hght of the fullest accessible knowledge, but content also to accept, as an inevitable condition of all practical life, some degree of obscurity, of doubt, attaching to the problem he has to solve. The " Faites moi savoir " of Napoleon is checked always by his equally imperative dictum that war cannot be made with- out running risks. No midway position between these two maxims is tenable; reconcilement is to be found only in the frank and cordial em- bracing of both. It is indispensable to get the fullest data that can be had, by the exercise of every means at command; but it is no less indispensable then to go forward, working from the basis of what has been learned, however imperfectly, and advancing tentatively, but firmly, towards the solution of the difficulty immediately in hand. The man who waits for absolute certainty, before moving, will with rare exceptions reach his decisions too late. So far as these reflections are just, they apply not only to the general officer commanding in actual war, whether by land or sea, but to all others who belong to the military professions, even though their nation at the moment be in the happy enjoyment of peace. The application is not merely to those especially charged with the collec- tion of intelligence, and the digestion from it of a Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 91 formulated military policy; whether such policy be strategic, or tactical, or involve a serious modi- fication of weapons and organization, of army or fleet, in view of novel experiences. Men thus situated, at the headquarters of information or control, are undoubtedly favored with peculiar opportunity for learning and judging; but the greater precision and certainty thus afforded to the few, in virtue of their momentary duties, by no means absolves from similar effort those who, at a distance and engaged in more secular routine, possess only the fragmentary data to be gathered or inferred from the daily reports of the press. Indeed, as a mere matter of exercising mihtary intelligence, the man who thus employs his reason, upon the partial and often contradictory rumors of the flying hours, occupies more nearly the posi- tion of a responsible commander in war, whose estimate of the situations confronting him depends upon tidings coming through a dozen channels, continually flowing in from divergent quarters, all partial, mostly colored with error, and often at variance with each other. The advantage of accustoming the mind to such valuations is very great. Natural or acquired, the faculty, like every other, grows in the using, and tends ever to be most ready when most wanted. In the sphere of reflection it corresponds to the 92 Naval Administration and Warfare trained military " judgment of ground " by the physical eye, an aptitude of the highest and most universally recognized importance. I was im- mensely gratified, as well as interested, to receive a few days ago from a young officer of our Ameri- can navy just such an analysis and criticism of the respective movements of the Japanese and Russian fleets on June 23, when the latter as- tonished the world by bringing into the open the ducks long supposed to be not only lame but hopelessly crippled. The facts were those given in Admiral Togo's despatch, communicated to the world in ample detail in the Times (weekly edition) of July I ; but, abortive as the proceeding proved, the attention of the officer in question was arrested, and he supplied an interpretation and inferences which by their justness of appreciation gave evi- dence, to my mind, of one who had contem- plated the possibilities open to fleets situated as these were, and was consequently prepared at once to understand and value the several move- ments. None will question that such an one is, pro tanto, more ready to act intelligently and instantly, should occasion arise for him. Situations will not be unfamiliar; just as the eye trained to judge ground quickly detects essential identity amid superficial divergences, or at least finds the recurrence of certain features, the bearing of Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 93 which upon the field of action is at once appar- ent. An apt, and somewhat comical, illustration of the general darkness, with occasional rays of light, amid which the outside observer of the present war gropes, is to be found in the unintelligible names, variously spelled, of the unfamiliar locali- ties, which encumber without elucidating the des- patches of generals and the accounts of corre- spondents. The same feature prevails in the maps, between which and the texts there is that fre- quent discrepancy which the officer in the field finds in the reports of spies or deserters. I have just (August 5) been damaging my eyes, and keep- ing my temper, holding in one hand a map and in the other a narrative; the general result being that, with the exception of certain points of major interest, the reader must be content to find any particular name in one and not expect the luxury of seeing it in both. Nevertheless, even with these disadvantages, and the imperfect knowledge of the face of the country, which I apprehend em- barrasses most inquirers — except, perhaps, the general staflFs of the contending armies — here and there a clue emerges which seems to justify some inferences as to the strategic plan of the Japanese, to whom constantly superior numbers permit the advantage of initiative. Such inferences, so far 94 Naval Administration and Warfare as correct, and after all allowance for their merely partial accuracy, possess a distinct advantage. They involve, as before said, a habit of mind which tends always to improve. Nor is this practice useful to military men only, but to laymen as well ; because in these days, although military questions in their details are a specialty, the welfare of the nation, above all in representative governments, is furthered by a wide interest and appreciation of military necessities among citizens of average intelligence. To affirm this is to say no more than all recognize with reference to social and econom- ical questions, the solution of which depends upon general interest and understanding of the broader bearings, although minute detailed knowledge is the prerogative of specialists. Again, and more notably, the very imperfection of current information to a certain extent promotes comprehension, by preventing the intelligence from losing itself amid a mass of details — a very com- mon infirmity. This uncertainty forces attention to fasten on the broad general lines of action, which constitute the determinative features of mihtary situations; whether these are limited to a narrow area, or are of world-wide geographical extension, as are the military interests of the British Empire. For the specialist, even, these are the most im- portant; while for the outsider, they are at once Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 95 the most easy and the only ones to be securely grasped. They resemble essentially general prin- ciples, which undoubtedly in the first instance are formulated only by the observation and colla- tion of innumerable details; but which, once established, far exceed in illuminative and directive value, as guides to opinion and action, any un- digested accumulation of the details on which they are based. A principle in warfare, like a generali- zation in science, is a result; but, when firmly grounded, the details by which it was reached may be disregarded by the average man, who for his own guidance needs to know only the result, not the method of its attainment. The case of weapons is precisely analogous. What a given ship, or gun, or submarine boat will do, what the result reached in it, this the military man, or the interested citizen, needs to know; but this ascer- tained, the details of construction or manipulation, which issue in the result, are not necessary to all, but only to those specially concerned in manu- facture or handling. It is this general line of thought that I propose to follow in this paper, basing my examination of the salient facts, commonly if not quite precisely known, upon the broad general principles which seem to me applicable to the particular case, and neglecting details; not as being in themselves 96 Naval Administration and Warfare immaterial, but still secondary and in a measure confusing. Imperfect and contradictory state- ments, being among the inevitable conditions of the problem, I accept in such degree as judgment may assign to them, in developing or modifying conclusions not depending primarily upon them, but otherwise reached. In this Russo-Japanese war, as in others, much that is instructive to the specialist, and ultimately must be sifted and ap- preciated by him, may safely be passed over for the moment even by the military professions themselves in general, and yet more by the lay observer. These are of the nature of details, of methods, and correspond essentially to the various processes of manufacture by which the result of a finished implement is produced; or, more nearly still, to the several stages of progress, of alternate failure, perplexity, and success, through which the conceiver of some great design advances to the full development and materialization of his idea. The particularities of tactics, the special difficulties or advantages presented by the ground over which the armies are fighting, the efficacy of the several weapons employed in the different branches of the two services, the problem of trans- portation involved, are all of this character of detail. They minister to the fulfilment of the great design of the war, and are to it indispensable Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 97 factors ; but they are means, not ends. Whether well or ill managed, they are without effect upon the general principles which should dictate the direction to be given to military effort. It is not said, nor will for a moment be maintained, that the capacity or incapacity displayed in the direction of these matters will not affect very seriously the outcome of the operations involved. The worth of the best modelled ship would be seriously vitiated by bad materials used in building, or bad workmanship; but the designing of the model is after all the loftiest, as it is the most determina- tive element of efficiency, and the model of the ship, having reference to the work for which she is intended, corresponds with great precision to the plan of a campaign by land or sea, to compass the objects of a war. That plan, carried out, is the grand result to which all the minor details are the ministers. They may for the time very well remain invisible to the observer who wishes to appreciate the conduct of the war; just as the vast array of calculations, which underlie the dis- positions of weights in a finished ship, are not necessary in order fully to comprehend a state- ment of her powers or weaknesses as a weapon of war, or to criticize the manner of her handling in particular circumstances. When carried to successful conclusion, a plan 98 Naval Administration and Warfare of campaign stands revealed as a result; but while in execution, on lines known only to the few persons responsible, there is seen only a military process, a sequence of action, the study of which from day to day, by the stimulus it imparts to reasoned speculation, to forecast, is profoundly educative to military men. It is also illuminative to others, who will be at the trouble to furnish their intellects with the few chief ascertained principles of warfare. In the case before us, owing to the secluded character of the scene of war, to the care taken by both parties to conceal the essential facts of their numbers and conditions, and, it must be added, to the strong national bias color- ing the reports of many individual correspondents, and others, there is an imperfection of detailed in- formation, which gives the additional zest of diffi- culty to the problem, and of enjoyment to progress made in its solution. It is in this condition that the subject is, at this moment of writing; but a stage of development has been reached which permits, with some degree of certainty, an expres- sion of opinion on leading questions of principle. Prominent among these doubtless is that of the retention of Port Arthur by the Russians, during the moments when evacuation was possible. They did not abandon it; and, if I correctly remember, this determination was widely and severely cen- Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 99 sured as a concession to national pride, to political considerations of humiliation involved, but in contradiction to sound military principle. The question has additional interest, because analo- gous to the still recent instance of Ladysmith, in the South African War, with which possibly may be conjoined the less defensible tenure of Glencoe and Dundee. In matters of detail the two cases present large differences; but how is it as to the principle involved .? I should imagine that there must now (August, 1904) be much less doubt of the propriety of the Russian resolu- tion than there was three months ago; just as I cannot but think that, as time leaves farther behind the period of the Boer War, there will be an increasing conviction that the occupation of Ladysmith was neither an error in the beginning nor a misfortune to the future of the war. Why ? Because, in the first place, it arrested the Boer invasion of Natal, by threatening their line of communications; and, secondly, it detained before the besieged place a body of enemies which in the later part of the hostilities would have been more formidable elsewhere. I apprehend that Port Arthur has fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, the same function towards the Japanese, though it seems much more evident now than at first. The gradual development of operations makes it 100 Naval Administration and Warfare to my mind increasingly clear that the number of Russians there, plus their artificial advantages of fortification, — which evacuation would have surrendered, — are much more useful to the general plan of campaign than they would be if with Kuropatkin. To carry Port Arthur, or even to maintain an investment, the Japanese must be more numerous than the garrison; therefore, had the place been abandoned, the aggregate of troops transferred to Kuroki would have exceeded de- cisively those added to his opponent. But the Japanese might have given Port Arthur the go-by. Scarcely; no more than the Boers could have invaded Natal in force, leaving Lady- smith in their rear. It is not disputed, I believe, that the control of the sea is fundamental to Japan. Abandonment of the place by Russia meant destruction to the fleet within; and that destruction meant the release of Togo's ships from a wearing and injurious blockade, with freedom to concentrate effort in protection of the general communications of his country, as well commercial as military. The recent exploits of the Vladivostok squadron would have been much curtailed, if not absolutely prohibited, had Togo been able to leave the neighborhood of Port Arthur. Apparently, if Port Arthur holds out, it will be impossible to check the Vladivostok ships Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 101 seriously before ice forms; and the derange- ment of Japanese communication with the outer world, particularly in the matter of warlike sup- plies, may prove, probably will prove, a very serious matter to a nation still relatively unde- veloped, and carrying a heavy financial burden. The Japanese Natal has been invaded, and the timidity of neutral commerce, being under no strong bonds of necessity to seek Japan, will indirectly second the direct action of the Russian commerce destroyers. It is not necessary to deny the illegality of the Russian action, in sinking an uncondemned neutral, in order to recognize the importance of the Vladivostok squadron's freedom to act as a belligerent factor. Several prizes have reached Vladivostok, and with proper provision of supernumerary crews it should be possible frequently to carry in vessels as long as Port Arthur stands. Recapture by Japanese cruisers, unless distinctly rather the rule than the exception, will not detract from the moral effect upon in- tending shippers, nor from its material result in rarer supply and enhanced cost to the custo- mer. Since this was written, a letter of a Times corre- spondent, dated July lo (Times of August 1 6) reveals, what was perhaps before known but had escaped my own attention, that the effect of the 102 Naval Administration and Warfare first exploits of the Vladivostok squadron had been to transfer Kamimura's division from before the port itself to the Straits of Tsu Shima ; a strategic position vital to occupy, in defence of the Japanese transports maintaining the military communica- tions with Manchuria and Korea. " Kamimura's squadron is not povs^erful enough to blockade the two entrances to Vladivostok. It has been com- pelled to adopt the minor role of sealing the Tsu Shima Straits, so as to cover the line of communi- cation southward of that point. The naval people pray daily for freedom to wipe out the score Vla- divostok has run up against them." It is obvious, of course, that if Port Arthur had been aban- doned, this desired freedom would be had; if it falls, Kamimura can be reinforced, Vladivostok adequately blockaded, and the whole naval situa- tion reversed. This is only another way of saying that the retention of Port Arthur has caused all this embarrassment to the Japanese, including the serious possible effects to their communications with the external world. The effect over a month ago, the date of the letter quoted, is graphically portrayed by the writer: " The three big cruisers stationed in Vladivos- tok, and their accompanying swarm of torpedo craft, are so many thorns in the side of Japan. It irks her grievously that, while winning signal Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 103 successes on the principal stage, there should be a by-play of unpunished raids against her own merchantmen, transports, and peaceful settlers; that the sea which goes by her name should be an open field for her enemy's enterprises; that her shores should be exposed to attack by a com- paratively petty force; and that, while she has swept the main body of the Russians out of Western Korea, marauding bands of Cossacks should defy her along the northwestern shore of the peninsula. It is difficult to remedy this flagrant fault in the situation, until the fleet can be freed from its all-absorbing duties at Port Arthur." With all this should be coupled the fact that after the sinking of the Petropavlovsk, April 14, Togo had detached several ships to reinforce Kamimura. It would seem probable that he had to recall them, after the Russian ships had been repaired within the port. No wonder, then, in view of all that has been quoted, and may reason- ably be inferred, that the same correspondent notes that, while a concentration in the north might be wisest from a purely military point of view, " it is commonly rumored in Tokio that the naval authorities advocate the reduction of Port Arthur at the earliest possible moment, and without any reference to developments north- ward of the peninsula. . . . After October the 104 Naval Administration and Warfare northern parts of the Sea of Japan pass under the protection of winter." Whatever criticisms may justly be passed on the details of Russian management, the Japanese themselves thus testify to the correctness of the decision to retain the port. It is to be hoped that the evidence of the value of commerce destroying, given by the Vladivostok squadron, as a hostile measure most important, though secondary, may receive timely recognition before the great naval states are induced hastily to sign away any part of their control over the com- munications of the world, on an ill-considered idea that private property, so called, is more en- titled to immunity than is human life in the persons of their citizens. After all, the life of a warrior is as really a private life as the goods of the trader are private property; and is no less entitled to respect because risked for the public welfare, in- stead of for individual gain. The whole subject has been regarded, in my opinion, in the false Ught of a supposed humanitarianism, rather than from the true point of view of its weight as an un- questionably effective belligerent measure. The question is not, as commonly posed, whether in- dividual property in transit for commercial pur- poses is private, in the same sense as a man's house, or clothes, or furniture. Even so, the two kinds differ essentially, regarded as contributory to Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 105 national military power, which is the point at issue. Accurately stated, the question runs thus: Is the suppression of an enemy's external commerce a means powerfully conducive to exhausting his strength, and so shortening the war ? If so — and the answer can be little doubtful — the query follows. Is it not then perfectly proper to forbid it, and to punish, by forfeiture of goods involved, belligerent citizens who disregard the prohibition, exactly as the neutral who disregards a blockade is punished by confiscation of vessel and cargo ? I admit that, logically, the neutral who carries the belligerent goods which the belligerent no longer can, also violates the lawful command of the other party to the war; and so Charles James Fox, an eminent and most liberal authority, said that " Free ships, free goods," was neither good law nor good sense. The principle, hovv^ever, has been adopted by consent of the great naval states; but the making of one mistaken concession is no reason for another. The true standard of civilized warfare is the least injury consistent with the end in view; but the end should not be lost to sight in glittering generalities. Russia herself may now see cause to regret that she thus lost sight of, or could not anticipate, what in an hour of need would be the result of her ancient zeal, and consequent treaties, which now deny her 106 Naval Administration and Warfare the old belligerent right to capture enemies' goods in neutral ships. It is yet to appear whether the Russian retention of Port Arthur will prove as distinctive and deter- minative a factor in the general campaign as Lady- smith did in the Transvaal. In the present war, there is not between the opponents the same dis- parity of ultimate strength as in the earlier; and the approach to equality is still closer because of the evident great superiority in organization of the one weaker in material power, which possesses also the immense advantage of nearness to the scene, with consequent shortness and facility of communications. Yet, while the final outcome — the result, — to which the parties are working, remains unknown while these words are writing, the process which we are watching tends more and more to confirm the forecast that the tenure of the port may prove, and still more might have proved, the turning-point of final success for the one which lost the first and very important moves of the game, through being inexcusably unpre- pared, and still more inexcusably oflF her guard, at a most perilous moment. Port Arthur has meant, and still means, delay, the great need of all defence, but especially of that particular defensive which requires time to organize resources incontestably superior. Whether it avails finally has yet to be Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 107 shown in the result; but in the process its influence is steadily visible, with a clearness to which even success can scarcely add demonstration. It im- posed upon the Japanese at once two objectives; two points of the utmost importance, between which they must choose, whether to concentrate upon one or divide between the two; and at a moment of general numerical inferiority, it re- tained, in the fortifications of the place, a passive strength, which is always equivalent to a certain number of men; the number, namely, by which besiegers must always outnumber the besieged. These divergent objects were Port Arthur and the discomfiture of the northern Russian army, nec- essary to assure the Japanese the control of Korea and the release of Manchuria, the professed motives of the war. That the Japanese leaders realized and gravely appreciated the dilemma may be confidently in- ferred from their action, immediately after their first prompt and judicious steps had secured for them the control of the sea, in degree sufficient for military transportation. The frequent des- perate attempts to seal the mouth of the harbor were meant in effect to destroy the military value of the place; for it has none other than that of a seaport containing an effective squadron. Closed to ingress or egress, there would have remained 108 Naval Administration and Warfare for the Japanese army but one position to assume; that is, a concentration between the two hostile corps. Having failed in their efforts, and unable decisively to injure the Russian fleet as an efficient entity, the port remains essentially untouched. It either must be taken, or, if neglected, remains a naval potentiality, of evil omen to their cause. It can be neutralized only by a naval blockade, a temporary measure, which accident, or weather, or some fortuitous unexpected disaster — such as the sinking of the Haisuse — may cripple or remove. Doubt, amounting to derision, has been expressed as to the Baltic fleet going to the Far East. I have been myself too far away from sources of informa- tion to know how far it was possible for that fleet to start, or in what force; but I have always be- lieved that, if properly equipped to start, it was perfectly feasible for it — so far as coaling was involved — to proceed to the scene during the summer weather, and this season has been pecul- iarly propitious. Had it so done, and the Port Arthur fleet been as far restored as it has given demonstration of being, its enemy would have found on the sea, as on land, two divergent ob- jects, two mobile opponents, unitedly very superior to himself, co-operation between which, or even junction, would have been difficult to prevent. These various possibilities, some of which have Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 109 been realized already in the sequel, were to my mind ample justification for the Russian deter- mination to hold the place, quite apart from the secondary, but not therefore unimportant, consid- erations of general policy. Of more interest than my personal opinion, however, is the divergence of views witnessed in military observers; some condemning the Russian course, while others find fault with the Japanese for being by it lured to a division of their forces, which apparently is making itself felt in a certain dilatoriness in pushing their otherwise very correct strategic dispositions and movements, in the advance toward Liao-Yang, or Mukden — whichever be their ultimate goal. This dilatoriness, which begins to affect the tone of critics hitherto favor- able even to the verge of partiality, may be the result of caution, due or undue; or it may reflect an actual deficiency of strength, attributable to the corps detached for the siege of Port Arthur. The army confronting Kuropatkin is evidently nu- merically superior to his; but is this superiority as great as is needed to carry on the flanking move- ments, and the assaults upon the successive posi- tions, presumably well selected and reasonably strengthened, which it is the privilege of a well- conducted defence to oppose to the advance of heavier numbers .? To outflank means to overlap, 110 Naval Administration and Warfare so threatening doubly, from front and side, the flank involved, and by its defeat or disorder men- acing the rear of the army and its communications. To effect this, however, requires largely superior numbers, or else a weakening of some other part of the line attempting it; thereby offering the enemy an opportunity for a severe counter-stroke, as was the case at Austerlitz. Despite the difficulty of following the reported movements, owing to the confusion of names, it seems clear that the Japanese from the first have been continuously massing and extending beyond Kuropatkin's left (east) flank; and his recent incidental mention of their apparent intention to operate along the right (north) bank of the Tai-tse-ho, which runs westward through Liao- Yang, indicates distinctly a purpose to crush that flank, and thereby either intercept his retreat, or throw him westward, off the railroad which is his main line of communication. Success in either would mean to the Russians utter material dis- aster, irrespective of moral effect; but that a scheme so well conceived should be executed with so little apparent impetuosity inevitably elicits comment. Is there here traceable just that inadequate superiority which means caution rather than vigor of attack .? And is this attributable to the Port Arthur siege ? Data for positive reply Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 111 are wanting ; but, as before remarked, the transfer of both the opposing forces at the port to their respective main bodies would redound much more to the advantage of the Japanese than of the Rus- sians, and in every event the influence of the port upon the course of the campaign is conspicuous. Nor can the final result, whichever way it turn, impair the significance of this renewed illustration of the determining efi^ect of well-placed fortresses upon military operations — and upon naval also. And here I may well quote an incidental, but very significant, expression from the Times corre- spondent already quoted, whose letter had not been published when I was writing hitherto : " The Japanese undoubtedly intended to send forward the correspondents, and undoubtedly expected that the military situation would speedily enable them to do so. But events did not shape them- selves to order, and every one has been disap- pointed." On the naval side, the tenure of the fortress not only has constrained the presence before it of the main Japanese navy, which is the strategic effect, but also has afforded in some measure lessons, tactical in character, as to the probable dispositions and operations of blockading and blockaded fleets under modern conditions. The most important and decisive novel factor is the torpedo, and es- 112 Naval Administration and Warfare pecially the automobile torpedo, which it is scarcely too much to say now makes its first ap- pearance in actual war. The distinguishing feature of the torpedo of course is that it directs its attack against the ship's bottom. This is the part most difficult to reach; but, like the heel of Achilles, it is likewise the least protected, and therefore both most vulnerable and most fatal, if attained. The stationary torpedo, more accu- rately styled a submarine mine, is deadly, if struck, as was shown full forty years ago, in the American War of Secession, by several appalling disasters; but under ordinary conditions it could be avoided, and at all events it did not entail the same continual anticipation of a stab in the dark, from behind, nor the sustained anxiety, necessarily occasioned by the automobile, capable of projection from a long distance. The moral strain, and consequent physical exhaustion, as well as the material danger, from this cause has been recognized to be among the very disturbing factors in future attempted blockades; and the question how best to deal with such a condition has weighed heavily upon the naval mind. No solution can be said to have received uni- versal acceptance. In default of experience it was plausible to argue, a priori, and upon gen- eral principles, that whatever may be said of Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 113 torpedoes launched from one battleship against another, which is a separate problem, the attack by torpedo vessels upon a blockading fleet is simply a particular form of the general question of surprises, and must be met by precautions anal- ogous to those used by all great armed masses, which cover their front and flanks with a system of advanced detachments, diminishing in numerical strength until the outermost of all, called the picket line, is reached. By these means is ensured, to a greater or less degree, that timely alarm will be given, and also a certain amount of resistance opposed, all tending to prolong the period during which the main body will be preparing to meet the attack, thus reduced from a surprise to the normal conditions of warfare. This is the simply defensive resource by which an investing body, military or naval, protects itself against attack unawares from within or without, whether by sortie in force, or by some special enterprise on a minor scale in- tended to inflict a particular injury; such as dis- abling a battery approaching completion, inter- cepting a train of supplies, etc. The ofi^ensive purpose, whether it be siege or blockade, demands further dispositions; but, whatever these may be, there is always necessity to guard against offensive returns, by surprise, from the opponent within. It appears to me, from the numerous though 114 Naval Administration and Warfare often very brief and partial accounts which reach us, that Admiral Togo's measures have reflected these conditions. Since the discontinuance of the bombardments by the fleet, and of the efforts to close the harbor's mouth, the conspicuous feature of the naval operations, as reported, has been the recurrent encounters between small ves- sels, singly or in groups. These have been mainly of the torpedo class, or unarmored cruisers, evi- dently engaged in outpost work, for which their size particularly designates them. The Japanese battle fleet has presumably maintained a position where its commander believed that, under all ordinary circumstances, by its system of lookouts, it would receive timely notice of an attempt on the part of the enemy to come out in force. In offensive purpose we know that on more than one occasion, conspicuously on June 23, these precautions were adequate, for the fleet came up in accordance with signals ; while on the defensive side we also know that no successful attack has been made by a torpedo vessel on the Japanese main blockading fleet, the Hatsuse having been sunk by a station- ary mine. I have been told, by a person in a posi- tion to speak with assurance, that the inactivity of the Russians, with the very respectable torpedo flotilla at their command, is attributed in part to the personal characteristics of their naval Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 1 15 commander-in-chief; to his excess of caution or lack of enterprise. To this correspond expres- sions attributed by a correspondent of the Times (June 1 8) to Captain Arima, the Japanese naval officer who commanded in the first two attempts to block the entrance. " The one thing essential to Russia above all others was to prevent Japan from securing undisturbed use of the waterways to the continental seat of war. It was for her to assume and to hold the offensive. Her passivity has been astonishing. It may be doubted whether she yet knows where the Japanese have their naval base. When Makaroff had reorganized his fleet, we expected to find his destroyers and torpedo boats scouting through an arc of a hundred miles radius. We expected to find him taking active steps to discover what route our vessels habitually followed in approaching Port Arthur. Even if, having tracked us to our base, he found it in un- surveyed waters, knowledge of our course must have afforded him many opportunities. But he did nothing. His vessels lay tamely awaiting our attacks." If these criticisms be just, — and it is not easy to contest them, — they qualify by so far the natu- ral inference from the present operations; which, with that exception, have been confirmatory of the opinion, already held by some, that torpedo vessels 116 Naval Administration and Warfare would find it exceedingly difficult to get within range — at night even within sight — of a hostile battle fleet, well picketed by lookouts close in with the harbor mouth, and itself occupying a position unknown to the would-be assailants. Judging from reports at this moment of writing (August 13), the annual manoeuvre period of the British fleet points to the same conclusion. There is also a statement, made upon good authority, that in one of the sorties of the Vladivostok squadron, it was sighted by Kamimura's division and kept in view till nightfall, the pursuing torpedo vessels reaching within two or three miles; but upon the Russian lights being extinguished all trace was lost. Like- wise it is familiar to students of naval history that a chased vessel, the exact position of which at dusk was visible, frequently escaped by the simple trick of showing no lights, or false lights, and changing her course. This expedient was effective even against intent eyes looking towards a point already discerned, and from a comparatively lofty deck. Owing to the lowness of torpedo craft, vision is much more restricted in range; and through their unsteadiness, it is more difficult to retain. That " frigates are eyes of the fleet " is a saying probably older than Nelson, by whom it is known to have been adopted. In his day, however, the eyes were almost wholly for offensive purposes; Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 117 to ascertain the whereabouts of the enemy, in order to guide one's own movements of attack. The ancient line-of-battle ships were not Hable to sur- prise, in the strict sense of the word, although the unexpected doubtless often occurred. Now, however, the seaman is reduced to the full level of the exposure which in this respect has long dogged the soldier, and the eyes of Argus scarcely would exceed the demand for defensive outlook. If the unusually smooth weather, which has marked the recent British manoeuvres, enlarged in consequence the range of action and effect of the submarine, as is thought, it suggests also that many steamboats of the outside fleet, not capable of meeting heavy seas, could be utilized for de- fence in such circumstances. It will remain a question for some time how near a harbor's mouth a blockading battle-force will venture to lie. If its object be merely to support a commercial blockade, maintained chiefly by lighter and swifter cruisers, this end may be se- cured without very close approach; but, if charged with preventing the escape of a division within, distance will be a matter of importance. The latter has been the condition of Admiral Togo's block- ade, and the escape of the Russians, to which every motive should prompt them, has so far been thwarted. We do not know what his proceeding 118 Naval Administration and Warfare has been, but we do know that his battle fleet is frequently out of sight; and yet, on the un- expected appearance of the enemy with his re- paired ships, on June 23, Togo was promptly on hand. Under the particular conditions of Port Arthur, which made the issue of a fleet onerous and protracted, the vessels having to come out one by one, ample time is allowed for conveying warning to a distance. The difficulty would be far greater where egress was easy, and could be effected independently of tide conditions. Under such circumstances, to sustain its offensive role, the outside battle fleet must take a position which will greatly increase its danger, and impose further strain upon its defensive powers. By day the range of modern ordnance, and by both night and day the establishment of outside mine fields to the extreme limit of the belligerent's waters, suffice to prevent very close approach by ar- mored vessels, the draft of which is unavoidably heavy. These factors, however, are stationary, and can readily be allowed for. It is, as always, the mobile foes, in this case the division wishing to escape, the enemy's defensive body, with the torpedo flotilla as its off"ensive covering arm, which constitute the diflSculty. The problem is probably no more troublesome, nor more unequal between the two contestants, than those which our Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 119 predecessors encountered; but the particular danger of unexpected sudden assault, directed at a peculiarly vital spot, by assailants not readily visible, is nevr, and we have not yet the experi- mental data necessary for even an approximate answer as to its degree, or as to the facility of counteraction. One thing we know; risks must be run by those who would make war. Admiral Sampson well said in one of his general orders, the escape of the Spanish squadron is so serious a matter that the risk of the torpedo must be accepted. Yet how far may not such a sound general maxim be qualified by conditions of political urgency, or of ultimate military success, as con- trasted with immediate victory. There is such a thing as the " sterile glory " of fighting battles, and still more of running risks, the object of which is not worth the possible loss. The best victories, said Tourville, are those which cost least in blood, hemp, and iron. It has been noted of Nelson, truly, I think, that he was more cautious about his top-gallant masts in bad weather than about his whole fleet in battle. It has seemed to me all along very much of a question whether Admiral Togo would be well advised to court action with his battleships, provided he could prevent the enemy's escape without it. It would be better 120 Naval Administratiofi and Warfare to throw the weight of the destruction of the enemy's squadron upon his torpedo vessels and upon the army. His conditions are not those of Sampson, though even in that case obvious poHt- ical considerations precluded all needless hazard of battleships. Japan has abundance of men, but she has not superabundance of ships. For an adequate object she can afford to risk much, and under some conditions must risk everything, if necessary ; but, after all, the winning of victories is worth while only to the one supreme decisive object of her naval operations — the control of the sea ; and if that can be attained equally well by other means, the battle fleet should be pre- served as both a political and military factor of the first importance. There did not seem to me eagerness to engage in his operations of June 23 ; although here again information, still imperfect, prevents positiveness of judgment. Opinion con- cerning his motives must repose rather upon apparent expediency, conjoined with such indica- tions as the reports contain. Again, what force has he had recently before Port Arthur ? Has he not drawn thither the greater part of the armored cruisers which once appeared to be with Kami- mura before Vladivostok ? This measure, if rec- ognized by the Russians, would deter them from desperate attempts to leave, and, should they try Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 121 it, would ensure comparative immunity for his own fleet by an overwhelming superiority of force, thus shortening the time of engagement, and lessening, as well as distributing, the amount of injury which the enemy could effect. It would account also for the apparent inefficiency of the Japanese Vladivostok squadron, which has so far failed to bring to book the audacious enemy within. After writing these words, rummaging through some cuttings relative to the war, which I had put aside, I turned out, among other things, the report of Captain Arima's remarks, before forgotten, from which I have already introduced one quotation. He further confirms, and was doubtless in a position to speak knowingly, that the necessity for care of the battleships was clearly recognized, and was a dominant motive in Japan- ese councils: " Our general strategy has been largely guided by the consideration that our navy is not elastic. Whatever resources we take into the fight must suffice us until the finish. Our first thought, therefore, was to expose our squadrons to a mini- mum of danger, so long as their destructive po- tency was not thereby impaired. We have not courted conflicts at close ranges. We have avoided them, preferring to utilize to the full the immense 122 Naval Administration and War jar e potentialities of modern cannon. Hence our fre- quent employment of high angle fire, which it is not our experience is specially severe on a gun. Besides, we have no lack of guns. . . . Our attempts to seal Port Arthur were inspired pri- marily by these same economical considerations. Whatever we could do to paralyze the enemy's squadron without hurting our own ships, that we had to do." The reasoning, I think, is conclusive, and justi- fies Arima's further remark: " The same considerations that dictated for us a programme as economical as possible should have impelled our enemy to assume the offensive with all the destructive force he could command. Russia had reserves to draw on; and she has building yards on an incomparably larger scale than those of Japan. The loss of a few ships could not have mattered for her, could she have crippled or destroyed an equal number of Jap- anese vessels. With regard to MakarofF's strategy, and the Russian naval strategy in general, it appears to us that they have erred seriously throughout." In these words I infer a very evident reference to the Baltic fleet; for in Far Eastern waters Russia certainly had neither original equality, nor re- serves, nor dockyard capacity to vie with Japan. Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 123 Apparently, Japanese naval authorities reckoned the coming of a Baltic squadron as among very possible contingencies. The nautical difficulties of every kind confronting it were in no wise insuperable; in fact, wrere very moderate; and its failure to appear can be attributed only to a very serious lack of appreciation of naval conditions, or to the general unpreparedness vphich made a timely start impracticable. The process of re- pairing, which finally on June 23 enabled the Russian fleet to put into line the two battleships, Cesarevitch and Retvizan, would have justified Makaroff in delaying action until he could bring his whole force against an enemy so decidedly superior; but that accomplished, — and its period would be known antecedently at St. Petersburg, — the despatch of the Baltic fleet, coincident in purpose, if not in time, with a determined attack upon the Japanese fleet by the Port Arthur division, would be a combination not only feasible but highly promising of decisive effect. Port Arthur has held out to a time apparently far exceeding Japanese anticipations at the date (May 14) when Arima uttered the words reported; for, speaking of certain attempts that might be made by the Russian fleet within, he concluded his remarks by saying, " We believe that, unless our estimate of our army be erroneous, there will not remain to 124 Naval Administration and Warfare Port Arthur much time for such enterprises." The garrison has endured beyond the expectation of many ; but where is the relieving force ? This article was begun, and mostly written, before the sortie of the Russian fleet from Port Arthur, August lo; but it has been concluded — and revised — under the full impression produced by its failure. Precision of details as to what actually occurred, of the successive stages of the combat which led up to the final result, are still wanting; but the material outcome is sufficiently evident for all practical purposes, for forming a workable estimate of the situation as it now is, and of the probabilities of the immediate future. As the matter of the engagement of August lo now (August 19) stands, there could scarcely be asked an apter illustration of that aspect of the subject of warfare — and of all practical action — upon which I dwelt at the beginning. There can be little doubt that when the details are known, and have been collated, studied, and weighed, by men of special aptitudes, there will be found much that will throw needed experimental light upon the conditions of modern warfare, and much room for criticism, favorable or adverse, upon the conduct of the respective fleets. But important as all this is in its place and time, and conducive as it may prove, when well digested, to the formu- Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 125 lation of professional opinion upon questions still in dispute, it is not immediately imperative; nay, it is necessarily a matter of time and delibera- tion. Those who have tried to balance opposing statements of eye-witnesses, to reconcile official reports, to supplement defective testimony, know how troublesome it is to reconstruct the course of a naval battle. At present the one feature which engages my own attention, standing out from the fog of unexplained details, is the apparent continued care of Togo to preserve his battleships. It is incredible that after the experience of June 23 he should not have been in superior force, and certainly he had the best of the fighting; his fleet remains on the field, and his enemy dispersed. But why did he not push home his advantage ? Why was the Cesarevitch permitted to escape, and the other battleships to return ? He can scarcely expect, if the place falls, that they will be given up "alive;" or have felt about battering them, as Nelson about using shell against an enemy, that it would be burning " our own " ships. To surmise that there may remain more life in the place than appears may cover me with confusion, ere the words appear in print; but under the most natural conclusion, that Japan does not feel even yet that she has any margin of sea power to spare, what a comment on Russian naval management, 126 Naval Administration and Warfare and what a justification of the tenure of Port Arthur, and the consequent harassment of the enemy's httle navy ! This battle in fact is part of the process, of the method, of the detail, appertaining to the drama of war passing before our eyes; and it is not so much the particulars of its own action which is important, but the part which it itself, as a whole, bears to the final result. Due consideration of this part demands reference not only to that which is to come, intervening between the present and the anticipated future, but also to the irrecoverable past. Properly to value it, we should work back- ward as well as forward, and regard the broad aspect of the general contest not only with eyes enlightened by recognition of fundamental prin- ciples of war, but also with attention undistracted by multiplication of irrelevant detail. Whatever the cause, and wherever the fault, Russia, though much the greater in ultimate resources, permitted herself to drift into war unprepared, and gravely inferior in force upon the decisive scene of con- flict. This was especially the case upon the sea; the control of which was, and has continued, so absolutely essential to Japan, that apart from it she would be helpless for the offensive action she had to take. Under these circumstances two things were nee- Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 127 essary to Russia — delay, in order to gather her resources, and promptitude in repairing the neglect of the past. Herein appears the importance of Port Arthur in the past; it has obtained delay. The time occupied in the siege has been ample for a government, which recognized that the whole Jap- anese movement turned upon the control of the sea, to have despatched a fleet that by this time could have reached the scene, and very well might have turned the scale — allowing only for the fortune of war. Before this writing, the aggregate of Russian naval force in the East might have been made very decidedly superior to that of Japan; and the prob- lem of bringing the separated sections into co- operation against a concentrated enemy, though difficult, would be by no means hopeless. Success would have ended the war. The Japanese, having this danger staring them in the face, have, I think, seen it more clearly than many of their critics. As shown by the course of the war, by their action, they have recognized that Port Arthur was the key, not only to the naval war but to the whole campaign, land and sea. It would have been to them an immeasurable calamity had the naval season, already approach- ing its close, ended with Port Arthur in the hands of the enemy. Amid all the uncertainty in which we are as to the respective numbers of the oppos- 128 Naval Administration and Warfare ing armies, one thing seems clear, — that Kuro- patkin up to the present has profited, and con- tinues to profit, by the siege of Port Arthur; and that to a degree which still renders inconclusive the whole Japanese movement against him. They gain ground, undoubtedly; but the Russian army continually escapes them. It is not to be believed that leaders with the high order of military intelligence shown by them would permit this had they the power to prevent it. Each successful retreat leaves the Russian army still an organized force, still "in being;" draws it nearer to its resources, and lengthens its enemy's communica- tions. A naval base is an element of sea-power. It may be no less determinative of a naval issue than the fleet itself, because it is essential to its existence. The tenure of Port Arthur, equally with the control of the Far Eastern waters, has contributed to the demonstration of the influence of sea-power. It has modified the whole rfenor of the land operations, and who shall say that even the delay so far procured may not sensibly aflPect the outcome of the war, even though the place itself shortly fall ? The defence of Port Arthur must not be looked upon as an isolated considera- tion dependent upon its particular merits, but as part of a general plan of operations. Every day it holds out is a gain ; not perhaps for itself but for Principles Involved in Japan-Russia War 129 Russia. No principle of warfare is more funda- mental than that no one position stands, or falls, for itself alone, but for the general good. The ques- tion is not, Can Kuropatkin bring the Japanese to a stand as yet .? Probably he cannot, if the besieg- ing force is released. It is, Can he continue a suc- cessful retreat, until the season brings theoperations to a close ? " Though our military position was im- posing," wrote Bonaparte to the Directory in 1797, " it must not be thought that we had everything in our hands. Had the enemy awaited me, I should have beaten him; but had he continued to fall back, continually augmenting his resources, the situation might have become embarrassing." Whether Port Arthur has, or has not, obtained for Kuropatkin all the time needed to organize a campaign of this character, remains to be seen; but I think the verdict of history must be that such was the tendency of its resistance, and that failure, if it- comes, must be attributed to insufficiency of means, not to error in strategic conception. The time it has held out justifies the risk taken in the original calculation. Lake Lucerne, August 19, 1904. RETROSPECT UPON THE WAR BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA RETROSPECT UPON THE WAR BE- TWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA March, 1906 MEASURED by the external and obvious incidents of its progress, time certainly flies in these days. Momentous events come swiftly into view, shoot rapidly by, and with equal speed disappear into the past, crowded out of sight and mind by the successors which tread upon their heels. Nor is this due only to the immediate- ness with which intelligence is transmitted to the four quarters of the globe. The facility of physical movement, and for the communication of facts and interchange of thought, between persons or nations co-operating to a common end, the be- quests to us of the last century, have accentuated perceptibly the pace of mankind, the making of history. The still recent war between Japan and Russia is a conspicuous instance. Not merely the first thunderbolt blow of Admiral Togo upon the Russian fleet exposed before Port Arthur, but the final maturing of the quarrel, and the progress 133 134 Naval Administration and Warfare of the war itself, were marked by a quick decisive- ness unattainable under similar conditions a century ago. Among similar conditions I include, of course, the capacity of the leaders, as well as the circumstances under which they are called to act; the difference between a Napoleon and lesser men would be as great to-day as it was in his own time, and likewise as great under one set of external conditions as under another. Again, when the fighting in Manchuria had reached what proved to be its end, the peace itself, owing to the ease with which the plenipotentiaries and their governments could exchange ideas and mes- sages, was concluded with a suddenness which took by surprise a doubting world ; while no sooner is the war over than it is forgotten in public inter- est. Here and there a professional writer gives forth his views, to which some brief comment is accorded; but that the war itself, and its lessons, have ceased to engage general attention, is at- tested alike by the columns of journals and the lists of articles in the reviews. Underlying the external and obvious character- istics, that thus pass out of sight and mind, there are in every period factors more permanent in operation and longer in development, which for these reasons demand closer scrutiny and more sustained attention. For instance, the recent Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 135 elections (1906) in Great Britain have probably corresponded in kind, in general outcome, to general expectation, as did also the issue of the war between Japan and Russia; but in degree each has taken the world — at least the outside world — by surprise. The events are obvious; but, in the one case as in the other, what account is to be given ? Does the magnitude of the imme- diate result indicate in either case a final deter- mination of the current of history, definitive direc- tions to be henceforth maintained by three mighty nations ? or is there reason to suppose that, like a river forced to adapt its course to the country through which it flows, we see only a mo- mentary deflection, or a momentary persistence, beyond which may be discerned already condi- tions which must substantially change what may now appear an irreversible decision ? Has the war itself revolutionized, or seriously modified, ante- cedent teachings of military and naval history ? In military matters, so far as they can be sepa- rated from political, the obvious and external be- long chiefly to the field of tactics, as distinguished from strategy. The relative significance of these two terms may be assumed familiar to the public through the discussions of the past score of years. Great battles, great surrenders, the startling mile- stones of a campaign or a war, remain vividly 136 Naval Administration and Warfare impressed upon minds that may never have ap- preciated or suspected the underlying stream of causes which from time to time emerges in these conspicuous results. And as such popular recog- nition is essentially narrow in scope, so the matters to which it relates are the most narrowly technical, and consequently those which in fact the general pubhc can least accurately weigh. A broad out- come — victory or defeat — is within its compre- hension ; the fitness or the errors of the militaty means employed are much less so, except in very general statement. Politicians, doubtless, find the same in their campaigns. Great considerations of policy, appreciation of conditions, especially those of the future, which correspond to the strate- gic diagnosis of the warrior, are much less effect- ive at the moment than some telling phrase, or suggestion of immediate interest, which can be quickly fashioned into a campaign cry that hal- loes down reasonable opposition. Such victories, however, are fruitless in war or in politics. Unless the position won is strategically decisive, by its correspondence to the conditions of the war or of the nation, the battle might as well, or better, never have been fought. In military affairs the choice of action, being in the hands of one man, may by him be determined, for good or ill, with- out regard to his followers; and in the analogous Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 137 position of a despotic ruler, if an able man, a for- tunate solution may be reached independent of popular will. Happily for those who love freedom, this case is rare. In popular government the fore- sight of the statesman must wait upon the con- version of the people, often extorted only by the hard logic of experience. The good of national conviction and support must be purchased at the expense of national suffering, consequent upon the slowness with which nations comprehend condi- tions not at once apparent. Yet in the end it is the country ahead, not that behind, which will control the future course of the river. Justly appreciated, rhilitary affairs are one side of the politics of a nation, and therefore con- cern each individual who has an interest in the government of the state. They form part of a closely related whole; and, putting aside the purely professional details, which relate mostly to the actual clash of arms, — the province of tactics, — military preparations should be deter- mined chiefly by those broad political considera- tions which affect the relations of states one to another, or of the several parts of the same state to the common defence. Defence, let it be said parenthetically to the non-military reader, implies not merely what shall be done to repel attack, but what is necessary to do in order that attack may 138 Naval Administration and Warfare not be attempted, or, if undertaken, may be resisted elsewhere than at the national frontier, be that land or sea. From thi s point of view, which is strictly accurate, defence rnay~BeTfcfiRed- broadly as provision tor national well^eing by ,__^rftii3ogr^fflf^wr*'*Trwar°3^ or, more correctly, the primary error of Russia, that by neglect of this provision her statesmen placed her in such a condition that, upon the out- break of the recent war, she was forced at once into a position of pure defence; the scene of which was her land and sea frontiers, as constituted through her several measures of acquisition or aggression during the preceding years of peace. From what has been said, it will appear that such considerations as may naturally arise from the naval point of view, through reflection upon the still recent war, will divide into two classes: those that concern the direction of national policies, and those which affect the construction, armament, and management of fleets, which, in the last analy- sis, are simply instruments of national poHcy. The question, for instance, of the possession, fortification, and development of Port Arthur, as a naval station, as was done by Russia, is one of broad national policy; one upon which every naval state has to reach decisions in reference to the ports available for naval purposes, which it Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 139 may control in various quarters of the world; one also concerning which there obtain, in both military and naval circles, differences of opinions that have to be weighed by governments. On the other hand, the question whether Port Arthur, developed as it had been by Russia, and under the other existing conditions, should have been abandoned at the beginning, as some contend, or retained and obstinately defended, as it actually was, is more closely military in scope; although, belonging as it does to the province of strategy, the arguments pro and con can be more easily and quickly apprehended by the non-professional mind. Conversely, it is open to argument whether Japan was well advised to attach as much im- portance as her course of action indicated to the downfall of the fortress, to its actual capture, as distinguished from neutralizing its military effect by a simple corps of observation, sufficient to pre- vent evacuation by the garrison to reinforce the Russian field army, or to stop the entrance of reinforcements or supplies from without, which might prolong resistance. This question also is military in character; and strategical, not tactical. It affects the conduct of the war, and by no means necessarily the wisdom of the decision of the Rus- sian government to establish an adequate naval base at that point. Whatever opinion may be held 140 Naval Administration and Warfare as to the proper line of action in the particular in- stance, after war had begun, it is quite conceivable that a government may be perfectly justified, by considerations of general policy, in establishing a military or naval base for the support of one of its frontiers at some particular point; and yet that, by conditions of a subsequent moment, the com- mander-in-chief on the spot, or his superiors at home, may properly decide that the exigencies of the immediate situation dictate its abandonment. These immediate conditions may be imputable as a fault to either the government or its general ; they may arise from inadequate preparation by the one or mistaken management by the other; but they do not therefore necessarily impeach the wisdom of the original decision, which rested upon quite other grounds. It is precisely the same in other incidents of statesmanship. One administration may secure a national advantage of far-reaching importance, which a successor may forfeit by carelessness in improvement, or by some mis- managed negotiation; by prolonged neglect, or by a single mistake. Neither outcome would con- demn the original measure, which rests on its own merits; recognizing the possibilities, and presupposing — quite legitimately — a consistent furtherance of the steps first taken. Such considerations are so obvious that the Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 141 statement of them at length may probably seem tedious. Yet I am confident that it is the failure thus explicitly to analyze to oneself the several lights in which a complex problem may be re- garded, the tendency to view them too exclusively together, as a composite single result, that leads to much confusion of thought, with the probable consequence of erroneous determination. Take, for instance, the question of the speed of battle- ships. No one will deny for an instant that, other things being equal, additional speed — the high- est — is desirable. This, however, is not the question. It is the question mixed up with the assumption that other things are equal, that you are getting your additional speed for nothing; or, to express it otherwise, there is the momentary forgetfulness that something else in the way of efficiency must be sacrificed, and that, when a certain speed has been attained, a small increment must be purchased at a very great sacrifice. What shall the sacrifice be ? Gun power ? Then your vessel, when she has overtaken her otherwise equal enemy, will be inferior in offensive power. Ar- mor ? Then she will be more vulnerable. Some- thing of the coal she would carry ? But the ex- penditure of coal in ever increasing ratio is a vital factor in your cherished speed. If you can give up none of these things, and it is demon- 142 Naval Administration and Warfare strable that without some sacrifice you cannot get the speed, will you then — and this is what all navies are now doing — increase the size of the ship ? Yes, you say, by all means. Well, then, where will you stop ? Or, the same question in other words, what will you sacrifice in order to get your greater dimensions ? Will you have fewer ships; smaller numbers with larger in- dividual power ? You will sacrifice numbers ? Then you sacrifice so far that power of com- bination which is essential to military dispositions, whether they relate to the distribution of the fleet in peace, with reference to possible war, or to the exigencies of the campaign, or to the battlefield. But, if the final decision be we will have numbers as well, then the reply is you must sacrifice money; which, starting from the question of speed, brings us face to face with one of the great present prob- lems of national policy among all naval nations, the size of the budget. For the line of reasoning which applies to the 18,000 or 20,000 ton ship will hold good when you have reached 30,000, and your neighbor " goes one better," by laying down one of 32,000. No matter how big your ship may be, a bigger can be built. The skill of the naval architect and engineer is equal to producing it, and the open sea at least will be able to float it. Whether it can enter harbors is another question; Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 143 some at least will be deep enough. But it must be borne in mind that this progression is endless; the same problems recur with each increase. Those who remember the geometry of their boy- hood will recall that similar triangles remain similar, be the sides ten feet, or ten yards, or ten miles. The determining angles remain the same, and in this matter the above considerations are the constant angles. This question of speed, thus developed, may be illustrated perfectly aptly from that of Port Arthur. In the case of that port, the question, fully stated, was not simply, " Is the position in itself one good for Russia to keep, or for Japan to capture .? " It was, " Is the place worth the sacrifice which must be made to hold or to win it ? " If Russia wished to keep it, she must sacrifice from Kuro- patkin's too small army some forty or fifty thou- sand men. If Japan was bent on taking, she must withdraw from her field army to the siege opera- tions, from first to last, from seventy-five to one hundred thousand; and, if she was in a hurry, she must be prepared for the further sacrifice, otherwise unnecessary, of many thousands of lives, in the desperate assaults made to hasten the end.' It is to be supposed that each party meas- ' The Japanese losses at the siege have been estimated at 59,000. " Journal of the Royal Artillery," October, 1 905, 322. 144 Naval Administration and Warfare ured adequately the sacrifice either way, and took the alternative adopted in full view of the cost; yet it is by no means sure that this was the case. It is at least very possible that to each Port Arthur derived its importance from attention fixed upon it to the exclusion of qualifying considerations; as may be supposed the case with speed, from the extravagant demands now made for it in ships, the chief function of which should be to give and to take hard knocks, and that not severally, but in conjunction with others of their like, which we style a fleet. The question of Port Arthur, indeed, was one so important in the general campaign up to the moment of its fall, and afterwards by the effect of the delay caused by the siege upon subsequent operations, that among military critics it has given rise to very diverse opinions, affecting more or less the question of national policy in establish- ing such bases. There is found on the one side the unqualified assertion of a cardinal mistake by the Russians in not at once evacuating a posi- tion which could not be ultimately held, and con- centrating with Kuropatkin every available sol- dier. On the other there is an equally sharp criti- cism by soldiers — not by seamen — of Japan, for having diverted so many troops from Oyama as seriously to affect the vigor and conclusiveness Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 145 of his operations, thereby enabhng the enemy con- tinually to escape. It is clear that the argument is not wholly one-sided. If the Japanese were compelled, or induced, it matters little which, to devote to the siege a number of men who in the early part of the war might have been used de- cisively against Kuropatkin's relatively feeble army, it follows that the leaving the place garri- soned had an effect favorable to the Russians at a very critical moment. That the Japanese felt compelled, and really were compelled, to their course can scarcely be doubted, unless one views the land and sea campaigns as wholly separate operations. For purposes of discussion they may be so severed, but actually they were one whole; and ultimate conclusions cannot be accurately reached without bearing in mind their inter-rela- tion. It was essential to the Russians to protract the land campaign, to gain time to develop their naval strength; it was essential to the Japanese to destroy the fleet in Port Arthur before such development, in order to secure the sea communica- tions upon which their land campaign depended. To ensure this end it was imperative to gain con- trol of the port. That the Russians actually made no adequate use of the chance obtained for them by its prolonged resistance is nothing to the purpose. It is difficult to find an adjective 146 Naval Administration and Warfare fitted to characterize the delays in despatching the Baltic fleet. The fact remains that they had their chance through the protraction of the siege. My own opinion from the first has been, and now continues, that regarded in itself alone, and with reference to the land campaign only, the retention by Russia was correct; and that, had her naval campaign in its entirety been managed with any- thing like the ability shown by Kuropatkin, the event of the war in Manchuria might have been different. That to naval success a long tenure of Port Arthur was absolutely essential is too obvious for comment; but imagine the effect upon nego- tiations, had the conditions on shore, including the fall of Port Arthur, been precisely as they were when peace was signed, but that a timely previous co-operation between the Port Arthur and Baltic divisions had left the Russians in sure control of the sea. That the view here outlined was held by the Japanese, rightly or wrongly, is clear from the persistence of Admiral Togo in his attempts to block the port, and to injure the fleet within by long range firing; and afterwards from the sustained vigorous character of the prolonged siege operations. We now know that in the Russian naval sorties of June 23 and August 10 the Japanese had but four battleships to the Russian's six on the spot. Togo, doubtless, could Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 147 not have anticipated so cruel a stroke of fate as that which, on May 15, 1904, deprived him of two battleships in one day by submarine mines. Yet, whatever the value of his fleet in its largest numbers, it was quite evident that the Russian fleet, " in being " in Port Arthur, by itself alone constituted a perpetual menace to the sea communications of Japan, the absolutely determining factor of the war; while taken in connection with the Russian Baltic fleet, still in existence, the possibilities of fatal disaster to the Japanese depended wholly upon the skill with which the Russians managed the naval resources remaining to them after the first torpedo attack of February 8, and upon the time they were able to obtain for that object by the resistance of Port Arthur. Whether that resistance was protracted as long as it could be is beyond my competency to say; but it certainly continued long enough to afford Russia oppor- tunity to bring into play all her naval means, if her schemes for imperial defence, in its broadest sense, had corresponded to the necessities of the situation. In fact, on land, Port Arthur bore to this war much the relationship that Ladysmith did to that in South Africa. Whether Sir George White should have retreated towards Durban, to concen- trate with other British forces to be expected; 148 Naval Administration and Warfare whether the Boers should have settled down to a siege protracted by their indolence, as that of Port Arthur was by the inherent and developed strength of the position, are questions which will be differently answered. What admits of little doubt is that the effect produced upon the Japanese action in the later instance was the same as that upon the Boers in the earlier, and with greater reason; for, while the menace of Port Arthur was in kind the same as that of Ladysmith, it was far greater in degree. The characteristics may be more convincingly illustrated by recalling the effect of Mantua upon Bonaparte's operations of 1796. The parallelism is here confined to the land operations, reserving the very direct influence of Port Arthur upon naval operations for further discussion. The entire distance advanced by the Japanese from Chemulpo to Mukden, and by the French from Savona to Leoben, where the pre- liminaries were dictated by Bonaparte, is about 350 miles in each case. Two months after leaving Savona the French reached Mantua, 120 miles. There they were delayed eight months, June 4 to February 2, during which period Bonaparte fought several battles, or rather made several cam- paigns, to defeat the attempts of the Austrians to relieve the place ; but he could make no advance, for he had no disposable force beyond that needed Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 149 for the blockade. The Japanese were more for- tunate, through their previous preparations and their full control of the sea. Nevertheless, from the victory of Liao-Yang, August 30, to the battle of Mukden, February 24, they advanced but thirty-five miles. The siege of Port Arthur lasted from May 27 to January i, seven months; upon its fall followed a period of preparation, corre- sponding to that passed by Bonaparte after the surrender of Mantua in securing his rear against possible enemies. Then advance in each case was resumed, with forces thenceforth liberated from the fear as to their communications, which was the detaining effect exerted in their several days by Mantua, Ladysmith, and Port Arthur. The conduct of the Japanese with relation to Port Arthur, prior to its surrender, and even to its serious investment, cannot but exert a salutary in- fluence upon the celebrated theory of the " fleet in being," to which has been freely attributed a determining influence that has always to me appeared exaggerated. From the argument de- veloped above, it must appear that I appreciate vividly the bearing of the fleet in Port Arthur upon the war. It is not too much to say that, in the strategic sense, the fleet was the Port, which with- out it possessed no value and would never have been fortified nor acquired. The naval possibili- 150 Naval Administration and Warfare ties involved were the strongest inducement to the acquisition of the Liao-tung Peninsula; and the fact that the Japanese main communications were by sea constitutes the analogy of the position to Mantua. The signal of Admiral Togo to his fleet off Tsu-shima may be invoked to show that the Japanese thus regarded the Port, purely as harboring the fleet. If the fate of the Empire depended upon the results of that day, when only the Baltic division was in face, how much more serious the situation so long as the Port Arthur ships remained a valid force, before they had supinely allowed their throats to be cut like stalled cattle. Yet, while recognizing by their acts all the menace of that " fleet in being," the Japanese did not hesitate to adventure the fortunes of a war essential to national progress upon an over- sea expedition, which not only was to make a passage once for all across a belt of water, but must there be maintained until a settled peace restored freedom of transit. Even before knowing the issue of the first torpedo attack, of February 8, 12,000 troops put to sea to land at Chemulpo, like the advanced detachment hazarded to seize the opposite bank of a river, and hold there a position at which the remainder of the army can disembark. The instance is the more impressive because of the immensity of the stake, when it is remembered Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 151 what defeat would have meant to Japan in this infancy of her progress, economical and pohtical, in the new world of modern civilization. It may certainly be replied, and justly, that the very greatness of the emergency demanded the hazard, upon the sound principle that desperate conditions require desperate remedies. It is Hkely enough that to attempts important, yet secondary, where the danger incurred by failure exceeds the advantage to be gained by success, a " fleet in be- ing " may prove a sufficient deterrent. This was the case with Louis XIV's projected landing in England in 1690, which elicited Admiral Tor- rington's historic phrase, " fleet in being." In expeditions of similar secondary importance, how- ever, Great Britain continually adventured bodies of troops during the Napoleonic wars ; not to men- tion Wellington's army in the Peninsula, rein- forcements and supplies to which were certainly to some extent endangered, and occasionally molested, by the cruisers or naval divisions of an inferior enemy. But, after attributing the utmost effect upon the councils of an enemy produced by the presence of a " fleet in being," at a point favorable for acting upon communications, the fact remains that in this very crucial instance the Japanese have practically defined its actual powers. They met the threat to them, not by 152 Naval Administration and Warfare submitting to inaction until the enemy's fleet was destroyed, but by doing just what a general on shore does, when he cannot at once capture a fortress menacing his line of advance. Port Arthur was masked by the Japanese fleet, stationed at a fitting position, and kept informed of the enemy's movements by a well-developed scouting system. To these measures for repelling a sortie in force was committed the safety of the army to be transported in the rear; and the undoubted possibilities of occasional, even serious, injury to a body of transports was accepted, secure that the " fleet in being," being essentially inferior to the Japanese navy as a whole, could not perma- nently interrupt the forward flow which consti- tutes communications. If, as I have understood the advocates of the " fleet in being " theory, the mere existence of a powerful, though inferior, body of ships should deter an enemy from committing himself to over-sea operations, the Japanese have certainly demonstrated a contrary possibility. Were they therein wrong ? Though successful, has their success been achieved in defiance of a clear rule of warfare, or has it rather been in observance of a well-established practice, with its necessary precautions ? The example is the more provocative of inquiry, and of reconsideration of accepted maxims, in that. Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 153 as a matter of fact, the Japanese sea communica- tions, though maintained substantially secure, did not escape harassment, and yet more serious threat. Here and there a transport, here and there a merchant vessel, was captured by the not too excessive activity of the Vladivostok squad- ron, the operations of which might have been increased in scope and frequency had the Port Arthur division, taking its life in its hands, flung itself desperately upon Togo's fleet, determined to effect the utmost injury at whatever cost. The irresolute sortie of August lo produced results sufficient to show that the consequence of such a move might be so far to weaken Togo as to com- pel him to draw upon Kamimura's squadron to reinforce the watch over Port Arthur; a step which would by so much facilitate the move- ment of the Vladivostok ships. Such increase of activity, with consequent Japanese necessary precaution, would not only have illustrated further the pros and cons of the " fleet in being " theory. It would have thrown desirable light also upon the question of the influence which the molestation of commerce, whether by direct capture or by the paralysis induced by menace and apprehension, can exert upon the economical conditions of a state, and through them upon military efficiency. The contemporary files of papers published in 154 Naval Administration and Warfare Japan bear witness to the immediate effect pro- duced; but the danger passed too rapidly to demonstrate the possible reaction from this dis- play of the proverbial timidity of capital, whether invested in shipping or otherwise. Such result as was open to the Vladivostok squadron to produce was further limited by the fact that it was composed of armored cruisers, a compromise double-faced type of vessel, the ad- visability of which has long been questioned by respectable professional opinion, and now more and more loudly than ever. The decision is one of national policy, by no means purely of technical character; the considerations on which it must turn are perfectly easy of comprehension. If, instead of being ships built with one eye on fighting and one on speed, the Vladivostok ships had been fairly and frankly cruisers, pure and simple, un- armored, and gunned only so as to meet their Hke, and if the tonange thus economized had been devoted to speed and coal endurance, their fitness for the work of molesting commerce and trans- portation would have been distinctly increased. The same aggregate tonnage might have given two or three additional swift ships of the type suggested. But the armored cruiser is a fighting ship, though grievously marred as such by the lack of the single eye, of unity of design, of Na- Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 155 poleon's " exclusiveness of purpose." Those in Vladivostok constituted a respectable portion of the total Russian battle fleet in the far East, and therefore could not be freely hazarded as ordinary cruisers might. It is very probable that their pres- ence in Vladivostok induced the merely tentative character of the sortie of August lo from Port Arthur; that the desire to concentrate the whole fleet dictated an attempt to escape, instead of the pitched naval battle which the exigencies of the Russian general situation then demanded. It is to this, rather than to the effect of a fortified port upon the navy using it, that I should be in- clined to ascribe the failure of the Port Arthur division to improve its opportunities with military intelligence and energy. Having kept the Jap- anese at a distance, and obtained for Russia the opportunity to restore her fleet after the torpedo attack of February 8, the fortifications can scarcely be held responsible for the failure to use the ad- vantage thus gained. There are indications, however, in a forthcoming book by Captain Klado, of the Russian Navy, advance sheets of which I have been permitted to see, that there is prevalent in high military circles in Russia a radically erroneous conception of the relations of a fleet to coast operations, and especially to coast defence. This conception is held so strongly as 156 Naval Administration and Warfare to take form in the phrase " fortress-fleet," under which misguiding title the movement of the fleet is restricted to the neighborhood of the port, is made subordinate to the defence of the position, and to the orders of the fortress commander. By this school of thought it is considered a positive calamity, almost a catastrophe, that the fleet should launch out in wide independent action, leaving the fortress to its own resources. It de- mands the dispersion of force, among several for- tresses, as opposed to concentration in a single port. Such conclusions are diflficult to under- stand, especially when we recall the signal histori- cal example of the siege of Gibraltar, which so conspicuously illustrated the relative functions of fleet and fortress. Although these views are vigorously contested and refuted by Captain Klado, it would seem probable, from the opinions in support of them quoted by him, that they may have dictated the futile and abortive management of the Port Arthur division; and that this did not represent the professional judgment of its own officers, but the burden of a command laid upon them by higher and non-naval authority. Cer- tainly Klado's own opinion, formulated and set down before the final Catastrophe, shows con- clusively that in intelligent naval circles there obtained much juster and more comprehensive Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 157 recognition of the part to be played by a fleet, even regarded from a distinctly defensive standpoint of national policy. " The only rational defence of the shores is a strong fleet, and in this case the chief hope must be placed in it, and not in the army. The fortress is subsidiary." Incidentally to the discussion he makes also a remark relative to the Chinese fleet in 1894, which not only illus- trates his general argument but may throw light upon the purposes of the Port Arthur division in its last sortie of August 10. " In abandoning Port Arthur the Chinese fleet, under the given circum- stances, acted quite rightly, since that port was so situated that it could be taken from the land ; and, if this had happened, the fleet would have found itself in an inland roadstead, and would not have been able to take part in repelling the land attack. Had it remained in Port Arthur, it would have been taken alive when the fortress fell. Instead of this, by going over to Wei-hai-wei, it forced the Japanese to a most difficult winter expedition in order to gain this last port. If only the Chinese had had a fleet capable of vanquishing that of their enemies, they would have been victorious in the end despite the sad condition of their army." For " Chinese " read " Russian," and for " Wei-hai- wei " " Vladivostok," and we may have in this comment on the past the explanation of the Rus- 158 Naval Administration and Warfare sian attempt, as we certainly have a prophecy of the necessary outcome of the war. In the general deplorable result, something must be attributed to the lack of initiative, so general as to appear almost a national quality, that was shown in the Russian operations; but original faults of distribution at least tended to increase the paralysis which in every direction characterized their action. By the tenure of two ports, remote from one another, they in the begin- ning possessed the advantage which a two-fold source of danger imposes on an enemy's disposi- tions. Under most conditions of coast conforma- tion, two ports, so far separated, would have much increased the perplexity of Admiral Togo, had the Baltic fleet been despatched so as to reach the scene while the defence of Port Arthur was still hopeful. Even minimized as the difficulty would have been by the projection of Korea, giving him at its southern end a central position, well adapted for moving towards either port, he would still have been obhged somewhat to uncover Port Arthur, in order to be on hand to meet Rozhest- vensky, because ignorant of which destination he would seek. Such conditions, which were as evident the first month of the war as they are now, rightly determined the Japanese to reduce Port Arthur at the earliest possible moment, and equally Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 159 rightly determined the Russians to hold it. What- ever may be considered the effect of the place upon the land operations, it threatened the Jap- anese communications by sea so long as it held out effectively, and it kept open to the Baltic fleet two ports of entry to distract Togo's attention, and to move him, rightly or wrongly, to divide his fleet between them. Such considerations, if valid, afford matter for reflection to all govern- ments and people, as to the constitution and de- fence of naval bases in regions where their interests may induce naval operations. As soon as Port Arthur fell, the Japanese admiral knew that there was but one port open to his opponent; that, turn or twist as he might, there he must at last turn up. But, while the embarrassment to an enemy of such a double objective is clear and proverbial, it is not in itself sufficient, unless improved by proper dispositions. It is not enough to fortify the ports. For the offensive purposes which alone constitute danger to the enemy, they are helpless, almost as turtles on their backs, unless they con- tain forces, adequate to issue with intent and power to inflict injury. The Russians being at the outset locally inferior in battleship strength, estimating therein the armored cruisers of both parties, every ship of that description should have been con- centrated in one of the two ports; the other 160 Naval Administration and Warfare should have been utilized for commerce destroy- ing, and such other desultory operations as are open to cruisers. Instead of this, the same nonchalance — essentially consistent with the lack of initiative already noted — that exposed the vv^hole division, improperly picketed, before Port Arthur, and left the Varyag and Korieits a helpless prey at Che- mulpo, retained also at Vladivostok three powerful armored cruisers, the proper place of which, being in the line of battle, was wherever the main fleet was. It would be interesting to know, if know- able, how far the appellative " cruiser " was re- sponsible for this error. This much at least can be said; that in treating them as cruisers, not as battle-vessels, the Russian officer responsible was at least consistent with the original idea of armor- ing cruisers, the efficiency of which should depend primarily upon speed and coal endurance, not upon armour; and to which fighting — except with equals — is not committed, and should rarely be indulged. To this same double eye to two sets of functions, radically distinct, is to be attributed the undue stress upon extreme speed for battleships, with the consequent reckless progress in the size of these vessels. They, by the accepted spirit of the day, are not only to fight but also to run; between which two stools a fall may be looked for. Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 161 That Vladivostok, at least during the open season, was the proper rendezvous for cruisers is evident for two reasons. First, being easier to leave and to enter than Port Arthur, it is so far favorable to vessels whose mission is evasion ; and, secondly, it could not be the position for the battle- fleet, because that, when frozen in, became to the enemy a fleet non-existent. At this port should have been the protected — unarmored — cruisers, which were, on the contrary, congregated at Port Arthur, and thence accompanied the fleet in its futile attempt to get away to Vladivostok. From this centre, itself possessing two exits, and leading equally to the Japan Sea and to the east coast of the islands by way of Tsugaru Straits, the field to commerce destroyers was as clear as conditions often allow. In the particular kind of vessel needed for this, the Japanese had largely superior numbers; but as the mission of the Russian cruisers would be to escape detection, while that of the Japanese was to find, it is plain that the latter needed to be much the more numerous. Also, as the respective objects, the destruction and protection of commerce, required that the Rus- sians should run and the Japanese fight, the former could act singly while the latter must con- gregate in squadrons. Uncertainty whether the enemy were acting severally or in groups would 162 Naval Administration and Warfare compel concentration to some extent, to avoid being surprised by a superior force, and so would decrease the dispersion of the look-outs, while in- creasing their strength. I will not deny my belief that, despite all this, in the long run the Russian cruisers would one by one have been picked up — that is the necessary penalty of inferior numbers; but if their design provided both speed and coal endurance, as it should, the time should have been protracted sufficiently to demonstrate to some de- gree what influence such operations may in this day exert upon the general war-power of a nation, thus assailed in its financial resources which de- pend upon the freedom of commerce. As it is, the indications are clear, though slight. In the Japan Times of July 23, 1905, it is stated that up to that time the Vladivostok squadron had captured only twenty-two Japanese vessels, of which nine were steamers. Such paucity of results shows most probably that the armored cruisers were too valuable to be freely exposed to capture by Kamimura's superior division, and that their enterprise was fettered by this consideration, which would not have applied to unarmored ships of half their tonnage. The result, such as it is, is merely direct; and it is the indirect effect upon commercial movement which most weighs when the attack is well concerted and vigorous. During Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 163 the cruise of the Vladivostok squadron on the east coast of Japan, which lasted but little over a week at the end of July, 1904, although only four steamers were captured by it, sailings from the ports of Japan were generally stopped. At a meet- ing of the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, held but two days before the battle off Tsu-shima, May 27, 1905, the report stated that in consequence of the Govern- ment's requisitions for transports the Company's business had been carried on by hiring foreign steamers. At the beginning of the war the charter rate was extremely high, but had lately depre- ciated owing to the secure retention of the control of the sea by the navy. This, it will be observed, was nine months after the Russian naval disasters of August, 1904, at which time the Port Arthur and Vladivostok divisions attempted to unite. The report continued, that in the current fiscal term the presence of the Russian Baltic fleet in Far Eastern seas would affect the shipping trade to some extent, but the Company was determined to endure to the end. The same paper states that, a Russian transport having entered Shanghai, May 26, the local underwriters were refusing to insure. June 17, it is announced that the steam- ship services to China and Korea, which had been suspended by Rozhestvensky's approach, would now be resumed; and mention is made of the 164 Naval Administration and Warfare fall of freights in the coastwise coal trade, in con- sequence of the victory, as well as an easier coal market. It appears also that in India even, insurance on cotton for Japan, which Russia was reported to have declared contraband, rose threefold upon a report of Russian cruisers in the Indian Ocean. Considering the complete control of the sea, in a military sense, held by the Japanese, and the lethargy of the Russian naval conduct in general, the results have a meaning which will be recog- nized immediately by any one who has had even casual opportunity to note the effect of apprehen- sion, and of fluctuations in trade, upon the welfare of a community, which in turn affects the income of the state. The significance is increased in the present instance by the unfavorable situation of the Russian ports, in point of distance from the Japanese main lines of sea communication, mili- tary and commercial. Had control been reversed, by a Russian naval victory, the Japanese army in Manchuria would have been isolated; but a glance at the map will show that Russian communi- cations by ships to Port Arthur would have been much more easily molested, through the nearness of Japanese ports to the waters through which vessels must pass. As Cuba lies across the ap- proaches to the Mississippi, and Ireland across Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 165 those to Great Britain, so does Japan to the communications of Manchuria and Vladivostok with the outer world. There seems to be a general professional consent that the experience of this war has confirmed the supremacy of the battleship relative to the control of the sea, which is the great object of naval war- fare. The torpedo vessel has achieved less than was expected — at least outside of naval circles — and what it has accomplished has been almost exactly that which was anticipated twenty years ago by naval men. It has come in at the end of the battle, to complete the disaster of the defeated. I have not seen attention called to the diffi- culty experienced by vessels of this class in find- ing the object of their attack, when once lost to them in the dark, their own most suitable moment for action. In measure, of course, all vessels feel this; but especially these, which from lying low in the water have a limited hori- zon, and from their small size and consequent liveliness have particular trouble in catching and holding sight of an object. Admiral Togo's report states that during the night succeeding the battle his torpedo flotillas were searching in every direction for their flying enemy, but with little or no success until 5.20 A. M., when returning daylight showed smoke. It will doubt- 166 Naval Administration and Warfare less be found in the future that these vessels, and submarines, seeking to harass a blockading fleet, will be gravely hampered by these draw- backs, when ignorant of the whereabouts of the enemy's main force; an ignorance easily imposed by the latter shifting its position after nightfall. The value of the cruiser class, as scouts and equipped with modern facilities, was abundantly established by the certainty with which Togo, though invisible beforehand, appeared betimes at each attempted sortie from Port Arthur; and yet more notably by the in- formation of Rozhestvensky's appearance when the Baltic division was still over a hundred miles distant from his anchorage. He was thus en- abled not merely to choose his field of action, and anticipate the enemy there, but to plan his battle with full knowledge of his opponent's order; a result facilitated by Rozhestvensky's failure, or inability, to advance his scouting line so far as to drive in that of his antagonist, thereby concealing his own motions and probable in- tentions. Comparatively little attention has been given to this singular advantage, although Togo himself in his report dwells upon it at large, and with the reiteration of satisfaction. The possible contribution of cruisers to the ends of war by endangering an enemy's commerce has Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 167 not received adequate elicitation, owing to the reasons already mentioned. But among the most important lessons of this war — perhaps the most important, as also one easily understood and which exemplifies a prin- ciple of warfare of ageless application — is the inexpediency, the terrible danger, of dividing the battle-fleet, even in times of peace, into frac- tions individually smaller than those of a pos- sible enemy. The Russian divisions at Port Arthur, at Vladivostok, and in the European ports of Russia, if united, would in 1904 have outweighed decisively the navy of Japan, which moreover could receive no increase during hos- tilities. It would have been comparatively im- material, as regards effect upon the local field of operations, whether the ships were assembled in the Baltic, in Vladivostok or in Port Arthur. Present together, the fleet thus constituted could not have been disregarded by Japan without a risk transcending beyond comparison that caused by the Port Arthur division alone, which the Japanese deliberately put out of court. For, while they undertook, and successfully carried out, measures which during a period of four months disabled it as a body menacing their sea communications, they none the less before the 168 Naval Administration and Warfare torpedo attack of February 8 had begun the movement of their army to the continent. It is most improbable that they would have dared the same had the available Russian navy been united. It vs^ould have mattered nothing that it was frozen in in Vladivostok. The case of Japan would not have been better, but worse, for having utilized the winter to cross her troops to the mainland, if, when summer came, the enemy appeared in overwhelming naval force. If Togo, in face of Rozhestvensky's division alone, could signal his fleet, " The salvation or the fall of the Empire depends upon the result of this engage- ment," how much more serious the situation had there been with it the Port Arthur ships, which had handled his vessels somewhat roughly the preceding August. To an instructed, thoughtful, naval mind in the United States, there is no contingency affecting the country, as interested in the navy, so men- acing as the fear of popular clamor influencing an irresolute, or militarily ignorant, adminis- tration to divide the battle-ship force into two divisions, the Atlantic and the Pacific. A de- termined President, instructed in military matters, doubtless will not yield, but will endeavor by explanation to appease apprehension and quiet outcry. Nevertheless, the danger exists; and Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 169 always will exist in proportion as the people do not understand the simple principle that an efficient military body depends for its effect in war — and in peace — less upon its position than upon its concentrated force. This does not ig- nore position, and its value. On the contrary, it is written with a clear immediate recollection of Napoleon's pregnant saying, " War is a business of positions." But the great captain, in the letter in which the phrase occurs, goes on directly to instruct the marshal to whom he is writing so to station the divisions of his corps, for purposes of supply, around a common centre, that they can unite rapidly; and can meet the enemy in mass before he can attack any one of them, or move far from his present position against an- other important French interest. Concentration indeed, in last analysis, may be correctly defined as being itself a choice of position; viz. : that the various corps, or ships, shall not be some in one place, and some in others, but all in one place. We Americans have luckily had an object lesson, not at our own expense, but at that of an old friend. There is commonly be- lieved to have been little effective public opinion in Russia at the time the war with Japan was at hand; such as did manifest itself, in the use of dynamite against officials, seems not to have 170 Naval Administration and Warfare taken into consideration international relations, military or other. But in the councils of the Em- pire, however constituted, and whatever the weight of the military element, there was shown in act an absolute disregard of principles so simple, so obvious, and so continually enforced by pre- cept and experience, that the fact would be incomprehensible, had not we all seen, in civil as in military life, that the soundest principles, perfectly well known, fail, more frequently than not, to sustain conduct against preposses- sion or inclination. That communications dom- inate strategy, and that the communications of Japan in a continental war would be by sea, were clear as daylight. That the whole navy of Russia, united on the scene, would be sufficient, and half of it probably insufficient, certainly hazardous, was equally plain. Yet, ship by ship, half was assembled in the far East, until Japan saw that this process of division had been carried as far as suited her interests and declared war; after which of course no Russian battle-ship could go forward alone. From the military point of view the absurdity of the procedure is clear; but for national safety it has to be equally clear to statesmen and to people. An outside observer, with some little acquired knowledge of the workings of men's Retrospect tipon Japan-Russia War 171 minds, needs small imagination to hear the argu- ments at the Russian council board. " Things are looking squally in the East," says one; " the fleet ought to be increased." " Increased," says another, " you may say so. All the ships we have ought to be sent, and together, the instant they can be got ready." " Oh but," rejoins a third, " consider how exposed our Baltic shores would be, in case of war against us should be declared by Great Britain, which already has an under- standing with Japan." The obvious reply, that, in case Great Britain did declare war, the only thing to be done with the Baltic fleet would be to snuggle it close inside of the guns of Cronstadt, would probably be made; if it was, it was not heeded. In a representative government would doubtless have been heard the further remark, " The feeling in our coast towns, at seeing no ship left for their protection, would be so strong, that I doubt if the party could carry the next election." Against this there is no provision, except popular understanding; operative per- haps in the interior, where there is no occasion for fright. The most instructive feature of this Russian mistake, inexcusable in a government not brow- beaten by political turmoil, is that it was made in time of peace, in the face of conditions threat- 172 Naval Administration and Warfare ening war. In fact, as is often the case, when war came it was already too late to remedy ade- quately the blunders or neglects of peace. More than twenty years ago the present writer had occasion to quote emphatically the words of a French author, " Naval Strategy" — naval stra- tegic considerations — " is as necessary in peace as in war." In 1904, nearly a decade had elapsed since Japan had been despoiled of much of her gains in her war with China. Since then Russia had been pursuing a course of steady aggression, in furtherance of her own aims, and contrary to what Japan considered her " vital interests and national honor." It is not necessary to pronounce between the views of the two parties to see that the action of Russia was militarily preposterous, unless her fleet grew in proportion to that of Japan, and of her own purposes, and was kept in hand; that is, kept concentrated. It would have mattered little whether, being united, the outbreak of war found it in the Baltic, or in Vladivostok. That it could come, as did Ro- zhestvensky, but in double his force, would have been a fact no less emphatic when in the Baltic than in the farther East. It is precisely the same, in application as well as in principle, with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Both are exposed. ^ 120 I2S 130 I3S 140 OUTLINE MAP OF SEAT OF WAR IN MANCHURIA. 145 Retrospect upon Japan-Russia War 173 Neither need be more exposed than the other; for, in virtue of our geographical position rel- atively to the other great Powers of the world, it is not the momentary location of the fleet, but its simple existence, adequate in numbers and efli- ciency, and concentrated in force, which pro- tects both coasts. Any invader from the one side or the other must depend upon sea com- munications to support his army throughout the war; not merely for the three months needed to bring the United States fleet from one side to the other. But, if the war begin with the fleet divided between the two oceans, one half may be overmatched and destroyed, as was that of Port Arthur; and the second on coming prove unequal to restore the situation, as befell Ro- zhestvensky. That is to say. Concentration protects both coasts. Division exposes both. It is or vital consequence to the nation of the United States, that its people, contemplating the Russo-Japanese naval war, substitute therein, in their apprehension, Atlantic for Baltic, and Pa- cific FOR Port Arthur. So they will comprehend as well as apprehend. OBJECTS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE OBJECTS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE AN ADDRESS August, 1888 GENTLEMEN of the Navy: — It has been the custom, during the very few years in which the NavalWar College has been in existence, to begin each session by an opening address, in- tended mainly to describe the objects and methods of the institution, concerning which there has been and still continues a certain amount of misappre- hension. In the natural course of things, this custom must at last come to an end with the rea- son that has occasioned it; but it is perhaps too much to assume that the need has as yet altogether passed away for a few words of explanation, par- taking partly of the character of defence, by showing the necessity for this undertaking, and partly of the character of limitations, defining what is not proposed, as well as what is. Before entering upon this duty of explanation, 177 178 Naval Administration and Warfare mention may properly be made of the growing favor of the College in the mind of the Navy at large, as testified by the words and actions of many officers; as well as of certain difficulties and dis- couragements through which it, in common with most human enterprises, has had to pass — is still passing. Last year, as is generally known. Con- gress refused to make any appropriation for it, and the work has been pursued during the last twelvemonth and more under the apprehension that similar action would be taken in the present session, and so compel the abandonment of the work. This fear has happily been removed; and that it has, is to be ascribed chiefly to the change of sentiment in the Navy itself, as the objects of the College have come to be really understood; as the officers who have attended the course have gone back to their duties and to their brother officers with a report which has compelled ap- proval, and changed an attitude of doubt, or even opposition, into one of conviction and sup- port. Such professional opinion cannot but be felt, however insensible the method of its action. It will be an evil day for the country when it ceases to have weight; for such impotence could proceed only from degeneracy of officers them- selves, or from an unwillingness on the part of the outside public to listen to those most com- Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 179 petent to appreciate the wants of the Navy; both contingencies fatal to the efficiency of the service. Besides the doubt as to the action of Congress, involving the whole question as to whether our really arduous work would be wholly thrown away, there have been other drawbacks and disappointments which, as they affect the course, must be mentioned. The explanation is due to those who attend it, that they may understand why they receive less than m.ight justly be ex- pected; and it is due to the College that it should not suffer in reputation from such disappointment, from a failure to appreciate the obstacles which have been met, and which could neither be avoided nor wholly overcome. Chief among these has been the difficulty in finding officers at once willing and free to devote their abihties to the service of the College and to the development of the course which has to be built up. Few realize, until they are forced to do so, to what an extent the brains and energies of the service are mortgaged in advance by the numerous activities and specialties that have developed of late years. In consequence of these, it has been found that not only are officers otherwise desirable already employed on other shore duty, but those actually at sea, and who may be expected to 180 Naval Administration and Warfare return in one, two, or three years, have engaged themselves for duty at other stations. Doubtless the War College will by degrees gather to itself the small body of instructors which will be needed, and who will readily seek a duty that I venture to predict will be found both interesting and pleasant, as well as most valuable profession- ally; but as yet it has not had time to do so. The search of its president has been met with a general result of " already engaged," and dependence has had to be upon the voluntary assistance of officers on other duty who have consented to aid the College by treating one and another of the topics that fall within its scope. I cannot too heartily thank those who have thus, at much trouble to themselves, undertaken tasks which could bring no reward, beyond the satisfaction which good work always carries in itself and the appreciation of their small audience here. The assistance thus given has been invaluable, and the results most important; but it is easy to see that when other duties have the first claim upon the attention of the individual, it will not be possible to realize as much as when the College course has no rival, and that a man will often find himself prevented from accomplishing even as much as he expected. Several instances of such involuntary and unblamable shortcoming have occurred within Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 181 the past year; and to these was added a mis- fortune, which at the time of its happening was wholly unexpected, in the sudden detachment of Lieut. Bliss ' of the Army. This accomplished officer, who to very considerable acquirements added a facility for teaching and a lucidity in explanation, which, combined with untiring readi- ness to undertake any amount of labor, made him an admirable lecturer on Military Science, had not been quite three years at the College. I was therefore confident, despite occasional misgivings, that he would remain through the next term; and his detachment, wholly without warning, was a painful surprise. The uncertainty of the future did not permit an application for an officer to take his place in time to lecture during the present session. Finally, it was hoped that this opening address would have been given either by the Admiral of the Navy, or by General Sher- man, both of whom were requested to do so; but these distinguished officers, who have extended their cordial approval and sympathy to the College and its objects, did not feel able to under- take the task. Hindrances and disappointments are, however, only incidents in the infancy and life of any undertaking, and are from the first destined to ' Now Brigadier-General Tasker H. Bliss. 182 Naval Administration and Warfare be overcome if the institution has its origin in a felt necessity, and has been wisely planned. It remains, therefore, to show that the War College has sprung from and represents a real need of the service and the country, and that the general lines upon which it has so far been conducted are such as promise to fulfil the actual want, without duplicating work adequately provided for else- where in the Navy. In making this explanation I shall be traversing ground very familiar to myself, and shall have to use arguments thread- bare, to me, from frequent use. To some extent they have appeared in print; but while, on the one hand, I cannot hope that they have attracted the attention of all this audience, so, on the other, the opportunity cannot be foregone of bringing them before you, now that by coming here you have put yourselves at the mercy of the speaker. It will probably clear away embarrassing mis- apprehensions to state first, to some extent, what the College does not propose to do. The term " post-graduate," which has been frequently and not unnaturally applied, which was indeed used by the original board that recommended the establishment of the College, has been unfor- tunate; suggesting as it does the continuance here, on a higher and broader scale, of the studies pur- sued by the graduates of Annapolis while cadets Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 183 at the Academy. If the course here is really post-graduate, it must be in direct sequence of the course at the only institution from which all naval officers are graduated; and the inference naturally follows that the professors and instructors there, who have so long and ably directed the student before graduation, are best fitted to con- tinue his guidance in the higher developments of which also they are masters. To this undoubtedly was due, and not improperly, a certain amount of opposition that was at one time manifested from the Naval Academy. It was perfectly true that at that place were both the men and the plant by which could best be furthered a strictly " post- graduate " course, and to carry such elsewhere was to waste government money, and cast an undeserved slight upon the well-proved teachers of an admirable institution. But if, on the contrary, the line of professional study proposed here was in no strict sense a sequence of any one branch, or any number of branches, followed at Annapolis; if it demanded neither the specialties nor the appliances to be found there ; if it were " post " — after — only in the sense of subsequent time, and not of consecu- tive development, the objection falls to the ground. When we pass from the negative explanation of what the College is not, to the positive statement 184 Naval Administration and Warfare of what it is, it will, I think, be granted that this course is " post-graduate " only in the same sense that the special professional training of a man fol- lows after and presupposes the instruction of the home, of the school, and of the college, where youths having widely different futures pursue for a time common studies. In a way the term " post- graduate " has its uses; it is understood, or, what is much the same thing, people think they under- stand it; it appeals to the mania for increase of teaching which pervades our time, and so attracts support; but it was most unfortunate for the in- fancy of the War College, when submitted to clear- headed men more concerned for the honor of their own alma-mater than to foster a new and pos- sibly rival institution. " Post-graduate ! a further development of the Annapolis course ! where can this be better done than at Annapolis ^. " The cry went through the service; and if the premise were conceded, it was difficult to resist the conclusion. I pass now to another negative qualification, in making which considerable care is needed, on the part of both speaker and hearers, to avoid misunderstanding. It is important that, in ex- cluding from the purposes of the College any pro- fessional interest, there should not be a seeming disposition to undervalue it. It is to be said, Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 185 then, that the War College does not propose to devote its energies to the question of the material and mechanical development of the Navy, except in a secondary and incidental manner; except, that is, so far as may be necessary for the further- ance of its main objects. These objects by them- selves will require all the time for which officers can be spared by the Department from other professional demands. Methods of construction designed to increase the speed, strength, manoeu- vring power, stability, invulnerabihty of ships; methods of gun-building, by which the power and accuracy of the gun is developed, or the strains upon the gun decreased ; improvements in engines, by which increase of speed and economy of fuel and space are hoped to be effected; the details of advance made in explosives, or in torpedoes, — with none of these are we concerned immediately and chiefly, but only incidentally; and that if for but one reason, which will be recognized as soon as stated, namely, that all these matters are already in the hands of a sufficient number of accomplished officers. They — ships, guns, en- gines, explosives — are now receiving all the attention that the government owes them. Let me not, however, be misunderstood ; the concern of the College with all these matters is nevertheless very close, but it is with the results ob- 186 Naval Administration and Warfare tained, not with the methods followed. How fast a ship will go and for how long; within what space she will turn and how quickly; what resistance she presents to injuries, and what effect certain injuries will have on her safety, speed, or handi- ness ; in regard to guns and torpedoes, their range, accuracy, the rapidity with which they can be fired and the injury they can produce; with engines, the important considerations of speed and coal endurance — such are the factors that are needed for the investigations of the College, and you will notice that they denote the accomplished results, they characterize the finished weapons which are put into the hands of the military sea- man to go forth to battle, to wage war. If his ship will make a certain speed, she may, for all he cares, be driven by a tallow-candle; if his gun will do so much work, it may, so far as he is con- cerned, be made of paste-board. The strategic and tactical capabilities in which the labors of the designer and builder have resulted, are those with which the admiral and captain, in their properest sphere, are alone concerned; and the antecedent methods by which those results are reached are of secondary importance to the artist in war. Doubtless this argument may be pushed to extreme by an unbalanced mind; the proverbial difficulty of drawing the line will be Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 187 felt at times, and the line perhaps drawn too much on one side or the other by this or that person responsible for the direction of the College course ; but, speaking broadly, it may be said that the true aim is to promote, not the creation of naval material, but the knowledge how to use that material to the best advantage in the conduct of war. A very strong argument for thus withdrawing, and, so to speak, protecting, the study of the art of war from too close contact with that mechani- cal and material advance upon which its modifica- tions depend, is to be found in the spirit of our age, and the effect of that spirit upon our naval officers. For, is not the study of material phenom- ena, and the bending of the forces of nature to the service and comfort of man, one of the leading interests of our generation 1 And is not this tendency reflected in the Navy by the almost exclusive attention paid by administrations and officers to the development of the material of the service .? Who, and how many, are studying how best to use that material when war has broken out ^ If you ask for authorities on guns, on powder, on steel, on questions connected vwth navigation, on steam, on mathematics, almost any one of us can name them ; but who are our authorities on the art of war .? Look at the Navy 188 Naval Administration and Warfare Register; how many are the officers who are working at the art of war ? Consult the index of the publications of our Naval Institute; what proportion do articles on waging war bear to those on mechanical or physical progress in naval material ? Is there then no reason for separating and nursing the study of this art for a while from too close contact with the related subjects ? I will venture to say that if questions of develop- ment of material be admitted to an equal share of the College's attention in its early years, it will be but a short time before the art of war will be swamped by them and disappear from the course. And what wonder then, gentlemen of the Navy, that we find our noble calling undervalued in this day ? Have we not ourselves much to blame for it in this exclusive devotion to mechanical matters ? Do we not hear, within and without, the scornful disparaging cry, that everything is done by machinery in these days, and that we are waxing old and decaying, ready to vanish away ? Everything done by machinery ! as if the subtlest and most comprehensive mind that ever wrought on this planet could devise a machine to meet the innumerable incidents of the sea and of naval war. The blind forces that work on ever in the same routine, in storm or calm, buried deep in the bowels of the ship, that would drive her with Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 189 equal serenity against friend or foe, through the open sea or against a rock-bound coast, do every- thing! The watchful eye, the trained courage, the ready skill which watch storm and foe through the countless phases of the sea and of battle, which plan, which execute, do nothing! The steed is all ; the rider naught ! Machinery revolves the turret, disposes the heavy gun to receive its charge, brings the charge from below, enters it into the gun, brings the gun into action — there- fore machinery does everything ! The quick eye that seizes the fleeting moment, the calm mind that prepares and watches its opportunity, the cool temper, instinct with life in the face of death, that can suffer and knows its danger, yet is master alike of itself and of the unconscious force it guides, does nothing ! Have we not all heard these sayings, with unpleasant deductions from them ? But let us ask, are not we ourselves to blame for them ? Have not we, by too exclusive attention to mechani- cal advance, and too scanty attention to the noble art of war, which is the chief business of those to whom the military movements of the Navy are entrusted, contributed to the reproach which has overtaken both us and it ? Having laid down these negative lines of limita- tion, the need of which has been shown by the history of the College in its early struggle for exist- 190 Naval Administration and Warfare ence, we now come to such definition of its position and aims, and demonstration of its necessity at the present time, as a decent regard to the endur- ance of an audience will allow. The general reply to the question, " What is the object of the War College ? " will have been anticipated by you from what has already been said. It is the study and development, in a systematic, orderly manner, of the art of war as applied to the sea, or such parts of the land as can be reached from ships. Taking the ships and weapons supplied by the science of our age, and formulating their powers and limitations as developed by experience, we have the means placed in naval hands by which to compass the great ends of war. How best to adapt these means to the end under the various circumstances and in the various fields where ships and fleets are called to act, is the problem proposed. Could we find a perfect solution, we should have a perfect theory of the way to wage war; and, it may be added, the art of war would be a far simpler matter, and its successful conduct a much less noble achievement of man's faculties, than they actually are. Could the course of the warrior, given certain circumstances, be reduced to a rigorous demonstration, to a mathematical cer- tainty, it would approach more closely to the Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 191 mechanical, unvarying action of those blind forces of nature, in harnessing which our age is fain to see its greatest glory; but in so approaching, it would part with those rarer qualities — intuition, sagacity, judgment, daring, inspiration — which place great captains among creators, and war itself among the fine arts ; and the warrior himself would descend from the artist to the mechanic. If, however, absolute certainty in this field is not attainable by thought; if the conduct of war is controlled, not by cast-iron lules of invariable application, immutable as the laws of nature, but by general principles, in adapting which to ever-shifting circumstances the skill of the warrior is shown — are study and reflection therefore use- less ? Must we trust our decision in every case to the inspiration of the moment, unguided by any precedents, uninformed by any experience ? The great Napoleon, himself a close student of war before he became one of its greatest masters, summarized the reply in one of those epigrams of which his genius was prolific : On the field of action the happiest inspiration is often only a recollection. No two, perhaps, of the myriad battles of history have been exactly alike, either in the ground contested or in their tactical com- binations ; no theatre of war, great or small, on land or sea, is without features that differentiate 192 Naval Administration and Warfare it from every other, in the apprehension of the strategist; but still among them all are marked resemblances, common general characteristics, which admit of statement and classification, and which, when recognized and familiar to the mind, develop that aptitude, that quickness to seize the decisive features of a situation and to apply at once the proper remedy, which the French call coup d'ceil, a phrase for which I know no English equivalent. This faculty may be, probably is, inborn; but none is more susceptible of de- velopment by training, either in the school of actual war, or, when that experience cannot be had, by study and well-considered practice. Thus, a French naval author says : " The infinite num- ber of conditions which go to make up all the possible positions in which a fleet, a squadron, or single ships may be found, causes that an officer will very rarely find himself in a position precisely similar to any one of those he has tried to foresee. Whence it follows that all suppositions as to the movements of fleets should be conformed to cer- tain general principles, fruitful in consequences, the apphcation of which to all possible positions should train the mind and fix the ideas of officers, in order that they may be early accustomed to seek out and combine all those movements, famil- iarity with which is absolutely necessary to them." Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 193 There have long been two conflicting opinions as to the best way to fit naval officers, and indeed all men called to active pursuits, for the discharge of their duties. The one, of the so-called practical man, would find in early beginning and constant remaining afloat all that is requisite; the other will find the best result in study, in elaborate mental preparation. I have no hesitation in avowing that personally I think that the United States Navy is erring on the latter side; but, be that as it may, there seems little doubt that the mental activity which exists so widely is not directed toward the management of ships in battle, to the planning of naval campaigns, to the study of strategic and tactical problems, nor even to the secondary matters connected with the main- tenance of warlike operations at sea. Now we have had the results of the two opinions as to the training of naval officers pretty well tested by the experience of two great maritime nations, France and England, each of which, not so much by formulated purpose as by national bias, com- mitted itself unduly to the one or the other. The results were manifested in our War of Indepen- dence, which gave rise to the only well-contested, wide-spread maritime war between nearly equal forces that modern history records. There remains in my own mind no doubt, after reading the naval 194 Naval Administration and Warfare history on both sides, that the EngUsh brought to this struggle much superior seamanship, learned by the constant practice of shipboard ; while the French officers, most of whom had been debarred from similar experience by the decadence of their navy in the middle of the century, had devoted themselves to the careful study of their profession. In short, what are commonly called the practical and the theoretical man were pitted against each other, and the result showed how mischievous is any plan which neglects either theory or practice, or which ignores the fact that correct theoretical ideas are essential to successful practical work. The practical seamanship and experience of the English were continually foiled by the want of correct tactical conceptions on the part of their own chiefs, and the superior science of the French, acquired mainly by study. It is true that the latter were guided by a false policy on the part of their government and a false professional tradition. The navy, by its mobility, is pre- eminently fitted for offensive war, and the French deliberately and constantly subordinated it to defensive action. But, though the system was faulty, they had a system; they had ideas; they had plans familiar to their officers, while the English usually had none — and a poor system is better than none at all. Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 195 This decisive advantage, gained by scientific military theory over mere practical ship-handling, is the more remarkable because the French art of naval v?ar was itself then of slender proportions, and but little diffused throughout their navy. It prevailed, because the English had none until Rodney appeared. Thus, La Serre, an officer of that War, wrote : " We have several works which treat of the manoeuvres of ships and the evolutions of squadrons, but we have none treating the attack and defence of fleets. It is possible that the circumstances in which two squadrons may meet are so varied that a regular treatise upon them cannot be made. This reason would render more interesting a work which should contain detailed and critical accounts of sea-fights which have actually occurred. Theory has already done much to teach the seaman the art of com- bating the elements, and every day it is adding to this sort of knowledge, but there is too great neglect to consider ships when engaged in battle. The infinite number of incidents which can occur during an action should not be a reason for putting aside this study. By it only can we successfully estimate what will be the effect of movements which we contemplate, and what must be done to counteract the designs of the enemy. So long as these ideas are not familiar to officers, 196 Naval Administration and Warfare the fear of compromising themselves by manoeuvres will lead them to limit naval actions to simple cannonades, vs^hich will end by leaving the rival squadrons in the same respective conditions in which they were before fighting." We are not to understand from this that the knowledge of the art of war was absolutely non- existent, but that, not having yet been written down, it existed only in the minds of a few choice spirits. Thus, Ramatuelle, another officer of that day, wrote (about 1802): "The art of war is carried to a great degree of perfection on land, but is far from being so at sea. It is the object of all naval tactics; but it is scarcely known among us, except as a tradition. Many authors have written on the subject of naval tactics, but they have confined themselves to the manner of forming orders or passing from one order to another; they have entirely neglected to establish the principles for regulating conduct in the face of the enemy; for attacking or refusing action; for pursuit and retreat; according to position, i.e., to windward or to leeward; or according to the relative strength of the opposing forces." In a word, the management of ships in battle was a matter dependent upon oral tradition, not upon recognized authority; upon the zeal of the individual officer for profes- Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 197 sional improvement, not upon governmental instruction. These two independent witnesses — for, though brought up in the same service, one went into exile with the royalists while the other dedicated his work to Bonaparte — agree also as to the necessity of governmental action to promote general professional improvement. Thus, La Serre says : " The instruction of a corps of officers should be directed by the government, for if it should be abandoned to itself in this matter, some individual members might become accom- plished, but the mass would remain ignorant; and the reverse happens when the government interests itself in the matter." And Ramatuelle says : " The naval art has made, in the century which is just finished, progress which requires from officers deep and serious study. No one more than myself pays sincere homage to the knowledge and talents of those who have shed lustre upon the French navy — above all, in the war of 1778; but instruction relative to grand manoeuvres was concentrated in far too few men; it was propagated only by tradition. This means was often wanting to the officer who might have been most capable of profiting, if chance had only brought him in contact with able men. It may be remarked that Du Pavilion, 198 Naval Administration and Warfare who had been chief of staff to Admiral D'Orvilliers, who showed superior talents in all circumstances, who is considered to have brought naval tactics out of chaos, belonged to the department of Rochefort; and that Buord, Vaugiraud, Leguille, who had exercised with the utmost distinction the post of chief of staff in the principal squadrons, belonged to the same department. It is to be presumed that the other departments would also have furnished a proportionate contingent, if they had had a Du Pavilion who might have constantly communicated to them his ideas and his knowledge." To provide for the study and dissemination of knowledge on these very matters is the object of the War College. To return now to the positive definition of the objects of the College : The heads under which this study of the art of war may be subdivided and grouped are numerous; and there are also certain collateral subjects, which will appear in the programme of the course, the immediate bearing of which upon the effective conduct of war will not be at once apparent, and will therefore require some words of explanation in their turn. I propose, however, first to speak of those divisions the importance of which is obvious and will be at once recognized, but concerning which there are Objects 0} the U. S. Naval War College 199 some remarks to be made in the nature of closer definition, and also enlargement beyond the scope usually associated with them. The two principal heads of division are of course Strategy and Grand Tactics. The meanings of each of these two terms may be assumed to be apprehended, with some accuracy and clearness, by such an audience as the present. There is, however, a certain radical distinction in the con- ditions by which each of these divisions of the great subject are modified, which I wish to enforce. " Strategy," says Jomini, speaking of the art of war on land, " is the art of making war upon the map, and comprehends the whole theatre of warlike operations. Grand tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battle-field, accord- ing to the accidents of the ground; of bringing them into action ; and the art of fighting upon the ground in contradistinction to planning upon a map. Its operations may extend over a field of ten or twelve miles in extent. Strategy decides where to act. Grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of troops," when, by the combinations of strategy, they have been assembled at the point of action. If these definitions are accurate, it follows that strategy, having to do with a class of military 200 Naval Administration and Warfare movements executed beyond the reach of the adversary's weapons, does not depend in its main principles upon the character of the vpeapons at any particular age. When the weapons begin to enter as a factor, and blows are about to be exchanged, strategy gives place to grand tactics. Hence it follows, with easy clearness, that " in great strategic operations, victory will now, as ever, result from the application of the principles which have led to the success of great generals in all ages, of Alexander and Caesar, as well as of Frederick and Napoleon." The greatest master of the art of war, the first Napoleon, has in like manner laid down the principle that, to become a great commander, the soldier must study the cam- paigns of Hannibal, Caesar, and Alexander, as well as those of Turenne, Prince Eugene, Fred- erick, and other great modern leaders. In short, the great warrior must study history. I have wished to bring out this point clearly, if briefly, for there is a very natural, though also very superficial, disposition in the Navy, at present, to look upon past naval history as a blank book so far as present usefulness is concerned. Yet few, if any, will maintain that the introduction of firearms did not differentiate the wars of Frederick and Napoleon from those of Hannibal and Caesar, fully as much as our modern inventions Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 201 have changed the character of naval warfare. Take some of the points upon which strategy is called to decide, and see how independent they are of the particular weapons, which must be assumed as not very unequal between the two enemies ; or, if they are unequal, that very neglect on the part of the one is a good historical lesson. Such points are: the selection of the theatre of war; the discussion of its decisive points, of its principal lines of communication; of the fortresses, or, in case of the sea, the military ports, regarded as a refuge for ships, or as obstacles to progress; the combinations that can be made, considering these features of the strategic field; the all- important point of the choice of the objective; the determination of the line to be followed in reaching the objective, and the maintenance of that line practically undisturbed by an enemy; such, and many other kindred matters, fall within the province of strategy, and receive illustration from history. This illustration will be fullest and most satisfactory when there is an approach to equality between the belligerents; but most valuable lessons may be derived also from the study of those wars, more numerous by far, in which the naval preponderance of one nation has exercised an immense and decisive effect upon the issues of great contests both by land and sea ; 202 Naval Administration and Warfare in whicli, if I may so say, the Navy has been a most, perhaps the most, important single strategic factor in the whole wide field of a war. It is obviously impossible, in an address the chief merit of which should be brevity, to follow far this line of thought; but I wish to throw whatever weight my personal opinion may carry against that easy assumption that we have nothing to learri from the naval past. During the three years that I have been attached to the College, my reading and thought have been chiefly, though not exclusively, devoted to Naval History, with an ever growing conviction of the value and the wide scope of the lessons to be drawn therefrom ; and I will sound again the note of warning against that plausible cry of the day which finds all prog- ress in material advance, disregarding that noblest sphere in which the mind and heart of man, in which all that is god-like in man, reign supreme; and against that temper which looks not to the man, but to his armor. And indeed, gentlemen of the Navy, if you be called upon some day to do battle, it will be for the country to see that your weapons are fit and your force respectable; but upon your own selves, under God, must you rely to do the best with the means committed to your charge. For that discharge you will be responsible, not to the country only, Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 203 but to your own conscience ; which will condemn you if, in the eager curiosity to know how your weapons are manufactured, you have neglected to prepare yourself for their use in war. To pass now from Strategy to Tactics. I wish first to impress upon you that the word tactics has, unfortunately, a double application. It means in one case those movements, more or less simple, by which military units pass from one formation to another, e. g., from line to column, etc. As you know, there are various systems of evolutions by which these transfor- mations are made. While the discussion of the merits of such systems is a proper subject for this College, the authoritative adoption of any system must rest with the government. The second application of the word tactics has, for the sake of distinction, received the qualifying epithet of " grand " tactics. It relates to combinations upon the battle-field, or in its immediate neighborhood; when strategy, having done or failed to do its work, gives place to the clash of arms. Since the weapons of the day enter here as great and decisive factors, it is evident that the method of applying the principles of war on the battle-field will differ from age to age. " Naval tactics," says Morogues, a French tactician of the eighteenth century, " is not a 204 Naval Administration and Warfare science founded upon principles absolutely in- variable; it is based upon conditions, the chief causes of which, namely, the arms, may change; which in turn causes a change in the construction of ships, the manner of handling them, and so finally in the disposition and handling of fleets." Is then the study of the grand tactics of the past, of history, useless ? To answer this ques- tion let us consider what is the object of education, of study ? Is it only to accumulate facts of im- mediate visible use ? or does mental training count for much ? Do not instructors at our naval and military academies recognize often that the trouble with this or that lad is not deficiency of brain, but lack of the habit of application ? Is there not attributed to the study of mathematics and of the classics a value for mental training quite inde- pendent of that utilitarian value which the Ameri- can mind tends to regard exclusively ? If so, the study of past tactics must have a value. For what is strategy, and what tactics, but the adaptation of means to ends .'' Such an end, so much force to achieve it, so many difliculties in the way — these are the elements of every problem of war in any age; while the adaptation of the means to the end by various leaders, whether accurate or faulty ; the fertility of combination or of resources dis- played by them; are so many studies, which, Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 205 though they may cease to have use as precedents, nevertheless exercise, train and strengthen the mind which seeks to ehcit from them the princi- ples of war. And herein also is the great justification of the study of land warfare as established at this institution. When we consider only the great difference existing between the tactical units of a modern army and of a modern fleet, or between the diversified difficulties of a land theatre of war as contrasted with the comparatively plain surface of the ocean, we may be tempted to think that the study of war, as apphed to one, can throw no light upon the other. But, even if history had not shown that the principles of strategy have held good under circumstances so many and so various that they may be justly assumed of uni- versal application, to sea as well as to land, there would still remain the fine mental training afforded by the successive modifications that have been introduced into the art of war by great generals. They Indicate the means adopted by brilliant men, either to meet the new exigencies of their own day, or by some new and unexpected com- bination to obtain advantages while retaining old weapons. In short, they are lessons in the use of means to attain ends in war; they bring into play and strengthen those muscles 206 Naval Administration and Warfare of the mind which do the work of conducting war. Between Strategy and Grand Tactics comes logically Logistics. Strategy decides where to act; Logistics is the art of moving armies; it brings the troops to the point of action and con- trols questions of supply; Grand Tactics decides the methods of giving battle. There are obvious differences of condition be- tween armies and fleets that must modify the scope of the word logistics, which it yet may be convenient to retain.' Fleets, to a great extent, carry their communications with them, in the holds of the ships ; while details analogous to marching and quartering troops, and in great degree to main- tenance of supplies, are not to be found with navies. Nevertheless, in a distant operation the question of supplies will assume importance. We have at least two great needs now, over and above those of sailing ships — coal and more frequent renewal of ammunition. These introduce the question of lines of supply and their protection. If, for instance, it were necessary for us to maintain military possession of a point on the Isthmus, or to conduct any great operation there, there must be a line of communication thereto. How ' The recent (1908) cruise of the Atlantic Fleet to Magda- lena Bay, in the Pacific, among other bearings, has been an experimental study in Logistics. Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 207 shall it be protected ? What is the best means of guarding and distributing supply vessels ? Would a line of communications be best safe-guarded by sending out a large body of colliers and supply ships, convoyed by a heavy detachment of men- of-war; or by patrolling the routes by scattered cruisers always on the wing ? We shall have for this at least one historical instance in our course. Again, the coal supply of commerce-destroyers is a very important question which nobody seems to care to face. It would be amusing, were it not painful, to see our eagerness to have fast ships, and our indifference to supplying them with coal. What neutral power will sell us coal when engaged in war with a more powerful maritime State ? and what is a commerce-destroyer without coal ? ' ' The following quotation from the well-known French writer on naval matters. Admiral Jurien de la Gravifere, has interest for those who look to commerce-destroying as the main reliance in an offensive war. Speaking of the early years of this century, he says : " The period of disasters was about to succeed the period of captures — inevitable issue of our commerce-destroying campaigns. How could it have been otherwise? All our ports were blockaded; even before Tra- falgar, English fleets covered the seas. What unrelenting pur- suit had not our frigates to expect, when once our great fleets were annihilated ? It would be much worse at the present day. It would not be long before our coal-depots would be taken from us, and we would go about from neutral port to neutral port, seeking in vain the fuel which would be everywhere denied us." {Revue des Deux Mondes, October, 1887). 208 Naval Administration and War jar e Such are the leading features of our study upon which I care to enlarge to-day. Of less conspicuous subjects I will hastily explain their presence in the course. Hygiene, besides being by law a necessary part of instruction in every Government institution, has such bearing upon the efficiency of armed forces that its place in warfare cannot be denied. As to its usefulness to line ofl&cers, I will venture to quote words of my own : " The responsibility for the health of crews rests ultimately with the commanding officers; who, however they be guided ordinarily by the opinion of the surgeon, must be able on occasion to overrule intelligently the professional bias of the latter." A doctor's business is to save life; the admiral's or captain's to risk it, when necessary and possible to attain a given end. The importance of the efficiency of the units of a fleet to the efficiency of the whole, indicates the point where naval construction touches the art of war. A crippled ship affects all the tactical combinations of a fleet; a collision between two ships has ere now led to a great battle, and the results of the battle have modified the issue of a war. With the delicately calculated constructions of the present day, a single great injury to a ship's hull may affect her tactical qualities, her speed, handling, stability, to a disastrous degree. In what Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 209 way and to what extent particular local injuries may thus affect her, and how they may be partially remedied in battle, are so obviously tactical questions as to need no further comment. In accordance with what has before been said, the effort has been to direct the teaching in construc- tion toward tactical effects, rather than to con- structional methods pure and simple. The eminent ability of Mr. Gatewood, who possesses not only great knowledge, but a readiness and lucidity of explanation that I have rarely heard equalled, gives me hope, if his services are continued, that we shall reach very valuable results in the tactical management of ships and remedying of injuries. In the matter of Coast Defence and Attack, I will only say that it is intended always to have the subject treated by both an army and naval officer, in order to bring out both sides of a large and intricate question. Very different views are held on either side ; those of extremists seem at times mutually destructive. If precise agreement cannot be reached, much may be hoped from dispas- sionate discussion, in getting rid of all differences that are due only to misapprehension. And where differences are fundamental, we shall learn at least to understand one another's meaning and reasons, to argue at least to the other man's point; not beating the air, nor laboriously over- 210 Naval Administration and Warfare throwing men of straw. I beg of you all not to consider a difference of opinion, however radical, to be an injury or an insult. The caution may seem unnecessary, but I swear by my experience that it is not. And now, gentlemen, I must apologize, after the manner of speakers, for having detained you so long. If the fault has been somewhat deliberate, I hope the pardon will not be refused. It remains only to thank you for your patience, and to welcome cordially, on the part of the College, the officers who are about to follow the course. We are here as fellow- students. The art of naval war may have a big future, but it is yet in its babyhood. I, at least, know not where its authorities are to be found. Let us take, as indicating our aim, these words of Bismarck in a very recent speech : " It must not be said," urged he, " that other nations can do what we can. That is just what they cannot do. We have the material, not only for forming an enormous army, but for furnishing it with officers. We have a corps of officers such as no other Power has." The higher we head, the higher we shall fetch. Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 211 Intended Programme of Naval War College for Session of 1888, beginning August 6 Naval History considered with reference to the effect of Naval power upon general history; indicating the strategic bearing of naval power as a particular factor in general wars, and dis- cussing the strategic and tactical use of the naval forces on their own element, as illustrative of the principles of war. — Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. The true naval conditions during the War of 1812, at home and abroad, on the sea and on the lakes; and their bearing upon the course of the war, on both frontiers and on the ocean. — Theodore Roosevelt, Esq. Naval Gunnery: the practical use of the gun at sea, and the tactical power and limitations of the weapon. — Lieutenant J. F. Meigs, U. S. N. Present condition of commerce and commercial sea routes between the Atlantic and Pacific, with an estimate of the effect produced upon them by a trans-isthmian canal, including a view of the military and political conditions of the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and the Carib- bean Sea. — Lieut.-Com. C. H. Stockton, U. S. N. Naval Strategy. — Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. 212 Naval Administration and Warfare Strategic features of the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Coast of the United States. — Lieut.-Com. C. H. Stockton, U. S. N. Strategic features of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. — Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. Strategic Study of the Lake Frontier of the United States. — Lieut. C. C. Rogers, U. S. N. Strategic Study (outline) of the Sea-coast of the United States from Portland, Maine, to and including Chesapeake Bay. — Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. Coast Defence and Attack. — Lieut. Duncan Kennedy, U. S. N. Defence of the Sea-coast of the United States. — General H. L. Abbot, U. S. Engineers. Military History, Strategy, and Tactics. — Lieut. J. P. Wisser, U. S. Artillery. Tactics of the Gun. — Lieut. J. F. Meigs, U. S. N. Tactics of the Torpedo. — Lieut. Duncan Ken- nedy, U. S. N. Tactics of the Ram. — Commander P. F. Harrington, U. S. N. Fleet Battle Tactics. — Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. Naval War Game. — Lieut. McCarty Little, U. S. N. Naval Reserves, and the recruiting and training Objects of the U. S. Naval War College 213 of men for the Navy. — Lieut. S. A. Staunton, U. S. N. Naval Logistics ; maintenance of coal, ammuni- tion and other supphes to a fleet acting at a distance; estabhshment of depots and chains of seaports. — Lieut. C. C. Rogers, U, S. N. General Staff; Intelligence Branch. Foreign War Colleges and Staff Academies; their relation to the General Staff. Intelligence Systems of Foreign Armies. General Consideration of Naval Intelligence Departments at home and abroad. Meaning of Naval Intelhgence in detail. Strategic value of Trade Routes; their defence and attack in war. Reconnaissances. Reasons for General Staff. Essence of Intelligence work is prepara- tion for war. — Lieut. C. C. Rogers, U. S. N. Preservation and Care of Iron Ships and injuries to which they are Hable. The Ship considered as a Gun Platform. — Naval Constructor R. Gatewood, U. S. N. Naval Hygiene. — Medical Director R. C. Dean, U. S. N. International Law, treated with special refer- ence to questions wdth which naval officers may have to do. — Professor J. R. Soley, U. S. N. THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF THE UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COL- LEGE. AN ADDRESS September, 1892 GENTLEMEN of the Navy: — It hzAhetn my hope, and I may say my expectation, that upon this occasion when, after a prolonged and to some extent disastrous interruption of its career of usefulness, the War College is about to resume its course under new auspices and with better hopes, the opening ceremonies would have been signalized by a formal address from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Mr. James Russell Soley. To him, under the Secretary himself, is mainly due that a start this year has been made at all. He has been in past years, and from the very origin of the College, closely connected with it; both generally, by sympathy with its ideas, and, especially, as a most able lecturer upon international law. It is probable that some of those now among my hearers may have 218 Naval Administration and Warfare been so fortunate as to hear, at former sessions, his admirable exposition of the principles of that law, with particular reference to the circum- stances of naval officers, and the perplexities which they may encounter. This association of the past, together with his present official position, combined to indicate him pointedly as the most proper person to deliver this opening address; for, in addition to the strong personal reasons I have mentioned, his presence would have been the manifest token of the cordial interest now extended by the Navy Department, the want of which was keenly felt in the first strong and, I may boldly say, not unsuccessful effort here to develop the art of naval war. The premature blight that fell upon our early endeavors did not wholly obliterate the recognition of the decisive advance made during our brief and checkered existence. Of this I have had the assurance, both directly by word and indirectly by action, from so many who attended the former courses, that no fond self-deception can account for the con- viction I now express, of the results obtained by those of whom I was for most of the time the nominal head. To my urgent and repeated requests the As- sistant Secretary gave no more than a conditional promise; and I owe only to myself that I so far Character of the Naval War College 219 depended upon it as to have deferred to the last three days such hurried preparations as I have made, personally, to meet this audience, and, so far as in me lies, to replace the loss which we have to regret. To the embarrassment of scanty time, for which I have to blame my want of pre- vision, is added in my case the fact that I have already, on a former opening, delivered an address in which I explained at some length the objects and aims of the College from my own point of view; which I may add was that of my then immediate superior, the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, who to-day is with us as the com- mander of the Squadron of Evolution. Had that address gone no further than the ears of its auditors, it might now, after the lapse of four years, have been resurrected like the sermon from the proverbial barrel and done duty again; but having incautiously been allowed to pass into print, and somewhat widely distributed within the service, this resource is not now open to me. Like all new departures, however, the College has to encounter not merely constructional diffi- culties, the friction which inevitably attends every effort to do something which has not been done before, and which formed the subject of my former address. It has to encounter the more formidable, because more discouraging, obstacles 220 Naval Administration and Warfare of direct objection, based often on reasonable grounds; more often, perhaps, on unconsidered prejudice. Of the former, the reasonable criticism, I shall now only say that I trust there will always be found in the College representatives an open and dispassionate mind, ready to receive, consider, and profit by suggestions; from whomsoever coming. I propose to-day to devote my remarks only to those objections which, while superficially plausible, are, I am convinced, due to lack of reflection and to the tendency we all have to be influenced by words or phrases, without pausing to reflect that, in their true and commonly re- ceived meaning, they are not really applicable to the thing to which, for the moment, they are applied. Take, for instance, the word " obsolete." I doubt if there is any one word in the language that did so much harm to the United States Navy as this little one in its misapplied, yet common, use, during a period of years with which I and many of my hearers have been contemporary. The ship built to-day, it has been freely said, will be " obsolete " ten years hence ; nay, we were fortunate if we escaped the stronger yet equally positive assertion that the ship laid down to-day will be " obsolete " by the time she can be launched. What was the result of this seemingly Character of the Naval War College 221 slight and harmless exaggeration of talk ? Why, simply this: That with all the valuable services and prestige of the navy during the War of Seces- sion, with the popular favor still green, with Farragut scarcely yet in his grave, everything like naval advance was stopped because of the threat of obsolescence. " Of what use," asked the unprofessional citizen, safe in an immense professional backing in the use of this word and its ideas, " of what use to build ships which are so soon to be obsolete ? Let us wait until we have reached something that will not become obsolete." So we waited, with our hands and energies ironed by the little word " obsolete," until, less than ten years ago, the material of the American navy was the derision of the world and the mortification of our officers; and even now, despite the judicious and untiring efforts of recent secretaries, we have not, and for some years to come will not have, a navy commen- surate with our national importance, or fitted to fulfil our fast growing sense of our proper sphere and influence in the world outside our borders. Within two years ' I have seen the American navy styled a phantom fleet by an English news- paper of the first rank. How ready, all this time, the country really ' Written in 1892. 222 Naval Administration and Warfare was to respond to an intelligent presentation of the necessities of a navy, has been shown by the liberal appropriations, and yet more by the liberal expressions of men of all parties and shades of opinion; despite this being a time in which, until very lately, party divisions turned more on tradition than on living issues. What stopped advance was not the unwillingness of the country, but the cry of " obsolete." Yet in what other practical walk of Ufe is advance thus conditioned ? What technical calling refuses to make a step for- ward, because the ground it reaches to-day will be abandoned to-morrow ? Who would say that iron rails are obsolete, in the sense that they are of no use at all, because steel rails are found to be better .? And finally, before quitting the subject, what is the last, and, in my judgment, most rational, expression of foreign professional opinion concerning these so-called " obsolete " ships .'' Simply, yet most significantly, this : That the nation which, in the later stages of a war, be it long or short, when the newest ships have received their wear and undergone their hammering, the nation which then can put for- ward the largest reserve of ships of the older types, will win the struggle. So much for " obsolete." Before passing, how- ever, to the word upon the erroneous application Character of the Naval War College 223 of which I desire chiefly to fix your attention, I want to-day to allude to an idea closely akin to " obsolete," which, though widely spread and accepted, has not, so far as I know, been formu- lated into a phrase with which to pass current. I allude to the view that naval history, in which is embodied the naval experience of past ages, has no present utility to us. When I was first ordered to the College, before even I had begun to develop the subjects intrusted to me, an officer, con- siderably my senior in rank, asked what I was going to undertake. On my naming naval history, he rejoined, " Well, you won't have much to say about that." The words, I fear, voiced a very general feeling, an impression of that vague and untested character which is ever to be deprecated when it is allowed to become a potent factor in determining action. It struck, I am free to con- fess, a chord in my own breast. Nay, I am glad to avow that it did so; for whatever small value my own opinion may possess can lose nothing, but rather gain, by the admission that study and reflection have resulted in displacing that most powerful of resistant forces, an unintelligent prejudice. I am, however, happy to be able to support my own conclusions, which rest upon no proofs of personal capacity for the manage- ment of modern naval fleets, by that of one of 224 Naval Administration and Warfare the foremost admirals now living, belonging to the largest navy in the world. The name and repute of Admiral Sir Geoffrey Phipps-Hornby is known, I presume, to all naval officers; certainly in his own service, where he has commanded the most modern fleets with distinction, his opinions are quoted with respect not far removed from rever- ence. In a letter he was kind enough to write me on a published work of mine, which embodied the results of my lectures at this College, he said : " I am glad to see that, like the German army, you base your conclusions upon the history of the profession." I come now to the matter upon which I wish more particularly to speak; and here again I will illustrate by one of those casual conversa- tions, which, Uke straws, often show more clearly than deliberate utterances how the wind of pro- fessional prejudice is blowing. I was in Washing- ton a few months ago and, coming out of one of the clubs, I met on the door step a couple of naval officers. We stopped to talk, and one asked me : " Do you expect a session of the College this year .'' " I replied that I hoped so. " Well," he said, " are you going to do anything practical ? " I recognized my enemy at once in the noble word " practical," which has been dropped like an angel of light out of its proper sphere Character 0} the Naval War College 225 and significance, and made to do duty against its best friends; as a man's foes are often those of his own household. I endeavored to get out of the scrape, which would involve an extempore discussion of the true scope and meaning of the word practical, by resorting to the Socratic method, liberally practised by the modern Irish, which would throw the burden of explanation upon my questioner. " What do you mean by practical ? " I said. The reply was a little hesitating, as is apt to be the case to a categorical question, and after a moment's pause he said : " Well, torpedo- boats and launches and that sort of thing." Of course, I knew in a general way what was coming, when I asked my question; nor did I in the least contest the application of the word practical to torpedo-boats or launches. Con- cerning the latter, in fact, it was a recommendation of my first report as president of the College, that such should be provided for practice in the delicate and difficult management of the ram in action — a problem with which, I am bold to say, the naval mind has not begun to deal. But, while willing to concede this positive meaning, given to the word practical, I do most decidedly object to the implied negative limitation, which confines it to the tangible utilitarian results, to that which can be touched, weighed, measured. 226 Naval Administration and Warfare handled, and refuses to concede the honor of " practical " to those antecedent processes of thought and reflection, upon which the results of rational human eflFort always depend, and without which they cannot be reached — unless, indeed, by the bungling, tedious and painful method which is called " butt end foremost." It is to this view of the matter, and to the full legitimate force of the word " practical," that I wish to-day to direct your attention; for the limitation so frequently imposed on it, and so generally ac- cepted by thoughtless prejudice, is the great stumbling block in the way of the College, just as I have tried to show that the word " obsolete " so long held the United States Navy in a state of suspended animation. In discussing the word " practical," I do not of course propose to go into its etymology, for the sake of making a barren argument as to what it ought to mean. I intend to accept it in its common significance, as familiar to us in cur- rent speech; and I propose to maintain that, in that sense, it is just as applicable to the processes of thought which precede action as it is to the action which follows thought and reflection; the only difi^erence being that, taking the whole process of thought and action together, the thought which dictates the action is more practical. Character of the Naval War College 227 is of a higher order of practicalness than the resultant action itself Of this the old and com- mon proverb " Look before you leap " is a vig- orous presentment. The word " practical," how- ever, has become so warped — not in its meaning, but in its application — that the practical man is he who disdains the theoretical process of looking; that is, who will have no study, no forethought, no reflection, but simply leaps — that is, acts. Of course, when you reach a reductio ad ahsur- dum — if you do — the victim cries out : He never meant any such thing. Neither does the man who leaps without looking mean to reach the possibly uncomfortable berth in which he lands. But let it be observed, it is not man's nature to leap without looking; the irrational brute does not do that. Men leap without looking, because they have failed to prepare, because they have neglected the previous processes of thought and reflection, and so, when the sudden call for action comes, it is " leap at all hazards ; " and so, to quote Holy Writ, while they are saying " peace and safety," sudden destruction comes upon them like travail upon a woman with child, and they cannot escape." How often have we — I speak at least to men of my own time — been told that presence of mind consists largely, for the average man mainly, in preparation of mind. When 228 Naval Administration and Warfare you take the deck, think what you will do in any emergency likely to arise — a man falls over- board, a collision threatens from this or that quarter, land or reef may be unexpectedly sighted. Good. But is the thought, which is simply study without books, less practical than the resultant action ? Is it less practical, even if no call for action arises ? Let us, for illustration, draw upon an art which has supplied many useful analogies to describe processes of gradual development — that of the architect. Before erecting a building, be it one of simple design and unpretentious appearance, like that in which we are now seated, or be it one of the complicated and elaborate designs which decorate the cliffs of Newport — what careful study, plotting and planning goes on in the offices of the architect ! What calculations to ensure convenience, to economize space, to please the eye. It is pure student's work, beyond which he, not merely the experience of the architect, but also years of patient study, devoted to mastering the principles of his art as embodied in the ex- perience of his predecessors. Before a brick is laid, perhaps before the sod is turned, the com- plete design — the future house — exists upon paper. Is all this prior labor of the architect in his Character oj the Naval War College 229 office, and all the varied study that has enabled him to perform it not " practical ? " and does the " practical " work begin only when the carpenter and the bricklayer put their hands to it ? If you think so, gather your mechanics and your hod carriers, provide your material of bricks and mortar, and then, setting to work without your designs and calculations, rejoice in the evidence of practical efficiency you have dis- played to the world ! All the world knows, gentlemen, that we are building a new navy; the process has begun, is going on, and its long continuance is an avowed purpose. We are to have a navy adequate to the sense of our needs; and that sense is bound to expand as our people appreciate more and more, and as they are beginning to realize more and more, that a country's power and influence must depend upon her hold upon regions without her own borders, and to which the sea leads. The influence of the little British islands gives a lesson our people will surely learn. Well, when we get our navy, what are we going to do with it ? Shall we, like the careless officer-of-the-deck, wait for the emergency to arise ? If we do, we shall pretty surely leap without much looking. Or do you think that when the time of war comes you will find a vade mecum, a handy pocket manual, the 230 Naval Administration and Warfare result of other men's labors, which will tell you just what to do; much like one of those old sea- manship problems: Riding to a single anchor and ebb tide, with the wind on the starboard bow and a shoal on the port quarter, get under- way and stand out to sea. A remark to that effect was made by an officer, a commander now afloat, who I think is regarded by all as one of our most intelligent, as he certainly is one of our most advanced men. " I thought," he said, in dis- cussing some naval problems of the kind with which the College proposes to grapple, " that, the case arising, I could turn to some work where the dispositions of a fleet, of a convoy, and other various questions connected with maritime expe- ditions would be treated and their solution stated; but I find there is none, and I myself do not know." At present the matter is perhaps of little conse- quence; but will it not be unfortunate for the responsible officers to be in like plight, when the call for action arises .? It is a singular comment upon the line in which naval thought has long been running, that the reproach to the French navy, though it was then a very accomplished service, near a hundred years ago, by one of its most thoughtful members, is equally applicable, perhaps even more applicable to the naval profession of all countries in our Character of the Naval War College 231 own day. " The art of war," said the writer, " is carried to a great degree of perfection on land, but it is far from being so at sea. It is the object of all naval tactics, but it is scarcely known among us except as a tradition. Many authors have written on the subject of naval tactics, but they have confined themselves to the manner of forming orders or passing from one order to another. They have entirely neglected to establish the principles for regulating conduct in the face of an enemy, for attacking or refusing action, for pursuit or retreat, according to position or according to the relative strength of the opposing forces." This is painfully the case now. Not only during the time I was actually resident here, but in the four years which have since then elapsed, I have made a practice of sending for the catalogues of the leading military and naval booksellers, at home and abroad, and carefully scanning their lists. Whatever could be found bearing in any way on the Art of Naval War I have had ordered for the College library; with the result that a single one of the short book shelves you can see downstairs contains all that we have to show on the subject of naval tactics; and of that space nearly one-half is occupied with elaborate treatises upon the tactics of sailing ships, from Paul Hoste 232 Naval Administration and Warfare to Chopart. Of the remainder, none can be quoted as an authority; and it may be questioned if any rises to the dignity of a systematic, well- digested system. They are simple, short essays, more or less suggestive; but that they possess no great weight is evident from the fact that the authors' names suggest nothing to the hearer. The significance of this fact, however, does not lie in the mere absence of treatises. Did such exist, had we the vade mecums, the pocket manuals, with their rules and standards, the work of some one or two masters in the art, their usefulness to the profession would be very doubtful if they did not provoke others to search for themselves — ■ to devote time and thought to mastering the facts, and the principles upon which the sup- posed masters had based their own conclusions. War cannot be made a rule of thumb ; and any attempt to make it so will result in disaster, grave in proportion to the gravity with which the issues of war are ever clothed. No; the lamentable fact indicated by this meagre result is that the professional mind is not busying itself with the considerations and prin- ciples bearing upon the Conduct, or Art, of War. There is no demand, and therefore there is no supply. There is little or no interest, and con- sequently there are no results. In what other Character of the Naval War College 233 department of contemporary life is a lively pro- fessional interest unaccompanied by publication ? Does a total neglect of the great medium of print, by which men communicate their thoughts to others, indicate an active gathering and dis- semination of results ? In other branches of our own profession — in gun construction, in ship construction, in engine building, in navigation — there are treatises in plenty, indicating that interest is there, that there is life; but when we come to the waging of war there is silence, because there we meet sleep, if not death. It was said to me by some one : " If you want to attract officers to the College, give them something that will help them pass their next examination." But the test of war, when it comes, will be found a more searching trial of what is in a man than the verdict of several amiable gentlemen, disposed to give the benefit of every doubt. Then you will en- counter men straining every faculty and every means to injure you. Shall we then, who prepare so anxiously for an examination, view as a " practi- cal " proceeding, worthy of " practical " men, the postponing to the very moment of imperative action the consideration of how to act, how to do our fighting, either in the broader domain of strategy, or in the more limited field of tactics, whether of the single ship or of the fleet ? Navies 234 Naval Administration and Warfare exist for war; and the question presses for an answer : " Is this neglect to master the experience of the past, to eHcit, formulate and absorb its principles, is it practical?" Is it "practical" to wait till the squall strikes you before shortening sail ? If the object and aim of the College is to promote such study, to facilitate such results, to foster and disseminate such ideas, can it be reproached that its purpose is not " practical," even though at first its methods be tentative and its results imperfect ? The word " practical " has suffered and been debased by a misapprehension of that other word " theoretical," to which it is accurately and logically opposed. Theory is properly defined as a scheme of things which terminates in specu- lation, or contemplation, without a view to practice. The idea was amusingly expressed in the toast, said to have been drunk at a meeting of mathe- maticians, " Eternal perdition to the man who would degrade pure mathematics by applying it to any useful purpose." The word " theoretical," therefore, is applied rightly and legitimately only to mental processes that end in themselves, that have no result in action; but by a natural, yet most unfortunate, confusion of thought, it has come to be applied to all mental processes what- soever, whether fruitful or not, and has trans- Character of the Naval War College 235 ferred its stigma to them, while " practical " has walked off with all the honors of a utilitarian age. If therefore the line of thought, study and reflection, which the War College seeks to pro- mote, is really liable to the reproach that it leads to no useful end, can result in no effective action, it falls justly under the condemnation of being not " practical." But it must be said frankly and fearlessly that the man who is prepared to apply this stigma to the line of the College effort must also be prepared to class as not " practical " men like Napoleon, like his distinguished opponent, the Austrian Archduke Charles, and like Jomini, the profuse writer on military art and military history, whose works, if somewhat supplanted by newer digests, have lost little or none of their prestige as a profound study and exposition of the principles of warfare. Jomini was not merely a military theorist, who saw war from the outside ; he was a distinguished and thoughtful soldier, in the prime of life during the Napoleonic wars, and of a contemporary reputation such that, when he deserted the cause of the emperor, he was taken at once into a high position as a confidential adviser of the allied sovereigns. Yet what does he say of strategy ? Strategy is to him the queen of military sciences ; it underlies the fortunes of every campaign. As 236 Naval Administration and Warfare in a building, which, however fair and beautiful the superstructure, is radically marred and im- perfect if the foundation be insecure — so, if the strategy be wrong, the skill of the general on the battlefield, the valor of the soldier, the brilliancy of victory, however otherwise decisive, fail of their effect. Yet how does he define strategy, the effects of which, if thus far-reaching, must surely be es- teemed " practical ? " " Strategy," he said," is the art of making war upon the map. It precedes the operations of the campaign, the clash of arms on the field. It is done in the cabinet, it is the work of the student, with his dividers in his hand and his information lying beside him." In other words, it originates in a mental process, but it does not end there; therefore it is practical. Most of us have heard an anecdote of the great Napoleon, which is nevertheless so apt to my purpose that I must risk the repetition. Having had no time to verify my reference, I must quote from memory, but of substantial accuracy I am sure. A few weeks before one of his early and most decisive campaigns, his secretary, Bourrienne, entered the office and found the First Consul, as he then was, stretched on the floor with a large map before him. Pricked over the map, in what to Bourrienne was confusion, were a number of red and black pins. After a short Character of the Naval War College 237 silence the secretary, who was an old friend of school days, asked him what it all meant. The Consul laughed goodnaturedly, called him a fool, and said : " This set of pins represents the Austri- ans and this the French. On such a day I shall leave Paris. My troops will then be in such posi- tions. On a certain day," naming it, " I shall be here," pointing, " and my troops will have moved there. At such a time I shall cross the mountains, a few days later my army will be here, the Aus- trians will have done thus and so; and at a certain date I will beat them here," placing a pin. Bour- rienne said nothing, perhaps he may have thought the matter not " practical; " but a few weeks later, after the battle (Marengo, I think) had been fought, he was seated with the general in his military travelling carriage. The programme had been carried out, and he recalled the incident to Bonaparte's mind. The latter himself smiled at the singular accuracy of his predictions in the particular instance. In the light of such an incident, the question I would like to pose will receive of course but one answer. Was the work on which the general was engaged in his private office, this work of a student, was it " practical .? " Or can it by any reasonable method be so divorced from what followed, that the word " practical " only appHes farther on. 238 Naval Administration and Warfare Did he only begin to be practical when he got into his carriage to drive from the Tuileries, or did the practical begin when he joined the army, or when the first gun of the campaign was fired ? Or, on the other hand, if he had passed that time, given to studying the campaign, in arranging for a new development of the material of war, and so had gone with his plans undeveloped, would he not have done a thing very far from " practical ? " But we must push our inquiry a little farther back to get the full significance of Bourrienne's story. Whence came the facility and precision with which Bonaparte planned the great cam- paign of Marengo ? Partly, unquestionably, from a native genius rarely parallelled ; partly, but not by any means wholly. Hear his own prescription : " If any man will be a great general, let him study." Study what .'' " Study history. Study the cam- paigns of the great generals — Alexander, Hanni- bal, Caesar " (who never smelt gun-powder, nor dreamed of ironclads) " as well as those of Tu- renne, Frederick, and myself. Napoleon." Had Bonaparte entered his cabinet to plan the cam- paign of Marengo, with no other preparation than his genius, without the mental equipment and the ripened experience that came from knowledge of the past, acquired by study, he would have Character of the Naval War College 239 come unprepared. Were, then, his previous study and reflection, for which the time of action had not come, were they not " practical," because they did not result in immediate action ? Would they even have been " not practical " if the time for action had never come to him ? As the wise man said, " There is a time for everything under the sun," and the time for one thing cannot be used as the time for another. That there is time for action, all concede; few consider duly that there is also a time for prep- aration. To use the time of preparation for preparation is practical, whatever the method; to postpone preparation to the time for action is not practical. Our new navy is preparing now; it can scarcely be said, as regards its material, to be yet ready. The day of grace is still with us — or with those who shall be the future cap- tains and admirals. There is time yet for study; there is time to imbibe the experience of the past, to become imbued, steeped, in the eternal prin- ciples of war, by the study of its history and of the maxims of its masters. But the time of preparation will pass; some day the time of action will come. Can an admiral then sit down and re-enforce his intellectual grasp of the prob- lem before him by a study of history, which is simply a study of past experience .'' Not so ; the 240 Naval Administration and Warfare time of action is upon him, and he must trust to his horse sense. The mere administration and correspondence of a fleet leaves all too little time. Even with captains, the administration of a single ship of the modern type makes demands that leave little room for the preparation of study. Farragut bewailed this burden; and Napoleon himself in his later days admitted that he never did better work than in his first campaign, to which he brought preparation indeed, but the preparation rather of the student than that which is commonly called " practical." The explanation he gave was this: That in the first, though inexperienced, he had more time for thought, more time maturely to consider and apply the knowledge he possessed, and which he then owed, not to what is called " practical work," but to the habits of study. Ten years later he had had much more practice, but he did not excel the early work, for which his chief preparation lay in a course of action that is now commonly damned as " theoretical." At the later day the burden of administration lay too heavy, but he had so used his time of preparation that, though he did not improve, he was able to bear it. Bonapartes, doubtless, are rare; for which very reason, perhaps, that which he found neces- Character of the Naval War College 241 sary cannot be inexpedient for lesser men. Even below the rank of great genius few can expect to attain the highest degree of excellence; but we all look forward to command, in one way or another, and command in our profession means liability to be called on for action, of a rare and exceptional type, for which preparation by previous action may not have been afforded; probably will not. To each and all of us that test may come, and according to our previous preparation it may be opportunity, or it may prove to be ruin. Let us not deceive ourselves by the un- questionable excellence which our service has attained in the common and peaceful line of its daily duties. That it has so done has been due to two causes: first, the admirable preparatory study of the Naval Academy ; second, the oppor- tunity for putting in practice what is there learned. But neither in study previous, nor in practice, is due provision being made for the stern test of war; nor do the occupations of peace provide other than a part, and that the smaller part, of the equipment there needed. The College has been founded with a view to supply the prepara- tion; by antecedent study, and by formulation of the principles and methods by which war may be carried on to the best advantage. That this purpose is " practical," seems scarcely open to 242 Naval Administration and Warfare question. That success may be attained only after many mistakes and long effort, is merely to say that it shares the lot of all human undertak- ings. SUBORDINATION IN HISTORICAL TREATMENT SUBORDINATION IN HISTORICAL TREATMENT' October, 1902 MEMBERS of the American Historical As- sociation, ladies and gentlemen: The distinguished office with which you have honored me, of being your president for a civil year, involves the duty of making an address upon the occasion of our annual meeting. As time passes, and call succeeds call in an in- creasing series, the difficulty of contributing any- thing new to the thought of our fellow-workers becomes ever more apparent. One can only hope that by searching into his personal experi- ence, by a process of self-examination, seeking to know and to formulate that which has perhaps been undergone rather than achieved, passively received rather than actively accomplished, there may emerge from consciousness something which has become one's own; that there may be recog- ' President's address before the American Historical Asso- ciation, December 26, 1902. 246 Naval Administration and Warfare nized, as never before, precisely what has been the guidance, the leading tendency, which has characterized intentions framed, and shaped con- clusions reached. One of the most distinguished of our recent predecessors in the walks of history, the late Bishop of London, Mandell Creighton, has said with much force: There is only one thing we can give to another, and that is the principles which animate our own life. Is not that the case in private life ? Is not that the case in your relationship with those with whom you come in contact ? Do you not feel increasingly that the one thing you can give your brother is a knowledge of the principles upon which your own life rests ? It is assuredly the most precious possession that you have. It is assuredly the one that is the most easily com- municated. Although by him urged with immediate refer- ence to considerations of moral or religious effect, these sentences have in my apprehension their application to influence of every kind. That which you are in yourself, that you will be to others. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth in the long run speaketh ; and if you have received the gift of utterance, more or less, you will utter most profitably that which is your own Suhordination in Historical Treatment 247 by birthright, or which has been made your own by effort and reflection. To communicate to others that which one's self has acquired, be it much or little, be it money or any other form of human possession, is not only a power but a duty, now so commonly recognized, so much a note of to-day's philosophy of Hfe — if somewhat less of to-day's practice — as to need no insistence here. If it be in any measure a reproach to a man to die rich, as has been some- what emphatically affirmed, it is still more a reproach to depart with accumulations of knowl- edge or experience willingly locked up in one's own breast. For the wealth of money remains, to receive such utilization as others may give it; the man can not carry it away with him ; but his thoughts and his treasures of knowledge perish with him, if he has not had the unselfish pains to communicate them to others before he dies. Thus only do they become part of the common stock of mankind; like the labors, for example, of the great captains of industry, whose works, even when conceived and executed in the spirit of selfishness, remain for the benefit of posterity. Under the pressure of the emergency to make an address, which my momentary office requires, such a line of thought is peculiarly forced upon me; for it must be obvious, to all who in a general 248 Naval Administration and Warfare way know my past profession, that the study of history has been to me incidental and late in life, which is much the same as to say that it has been necessarily superficial and limited. It is not possible, under my conditions, to claim breadth and depth of historical research. I can not be expected to illustrate in my own person the protracted energy, the extensive delving into materials hitherto inaccessible, the vast accumula- tion of facts, which have been so forcibly de- scribed by the late Lord Acton, in his inaugural lecture on the Study of History, as the necessary equipment of the ideal historian to-day. Had I attempted this, beginning when I did, I must have died before I lifted pen to put to paper; and in necessary consequence it follows that upon this, as upon topics closely related to it, I am as unfit to address you as Lord Acton was most eminently qualified by his immense stores of acquirement, the most part of which he un- fortunately took away with him. I am therefore forced to introspection, if I am to say anything the least worthy of the recog- nition which you have too generously accorded me by your election. I have to do for myself that which but for this call I probably never should have attempted; namely, to analyze and formulate to my own consciousness the various Subordination in Historical Treatment 249 impressions — the " unconscious cerebration," to use a current phrase sufficiently vague for my purpose — which have formed my mental experi- ence as a writer of history, and have probably been reflected in my treatment of materials. Do not, however, fear that I propose to inflict upon you a mental autobiography. What I have so far said has been explanatory of shortcomings, and apologetic, — at least in intention ; I trust, also, in impression. Being now finally delivered of it, I hope to get outside and clear of myself from this time forth, and to clothe such thought as I may give you in the impersonal terms which befit an attempted contribution to a perennial discussion, concerning the spirit which should inform the methods of historical writing. There are certain fundamental factors upon which I shall not insist, because they need only to be named for acceptance. They are sum- marized in thoroughness and accuracy of knowl- edge; intimate acquaintance with facts in their multitudinous ramifications; mastery of the various sources of evidence, of the statements, usually conflicting, and often irreconcilable, of the numerous witnesses who have left their testimony. The critical faculty, so justly prized, is simply an incident to this ascertainment of facts. It plays the part of judge and jury in a 250 Naval Administration and Warfare trial; not establishing the facts, but pronouncing upon the evidence. It needs not therefore to be separately classified, as something apart, but is truly embraced under the general expression of " knowledge," exact and comprehensive. In like manner the diligence and patience required for exhaustive examination of witnesses, though proper to name, form no separate class. They are, let us say, the lav?yers, the advocates, whose business is to bring fully out the testimony by which the verdict shall be decided; but, like the critical equipment, they simply subserve the one bottom purpose of clear and demonstrated knowledge. Knowledge thus established is, I apprehend, the material with which the historian has to deal; out of which he has to build up the artistic creation, the temple of truth, which a worthy history should aim to be. Like the material of the architect it will be found often refractory; not because truth is frequently unpleasant to be heard, especially by prepossessed ears, but because the multiplicity of details, often contradictory, not merely in appearance but in reahty, do not readily lend themselves to unity of treatment. It becomes thus exceedingly difficult to present numerous related truths in such manner as to convey an impression which shall be the truth. Not only Subordination in Historical Treatment 251 may the formless mass of ill-arranged particulars affect the mind with the sense of confusion, like that produced by a room crowded with inhar- monious furniture; not only may it be difficult to see the wood for the trees; but there may be such failure in grouping that the uninstructed reader may receive quite erroneous impressions as to the relative importance of the several inci- dents. As I have had occasion to say, in reviewing a military history, fidelity of presentation does not consist merely in giving every fact and omitting none. For the casual reader emphasis is essential to due comprehension: and in artistic work emphasis consists less in exaggeration of color than in the disposition of details, in regard to foreground and background, and the grouping of accessories in due subordination to a central idea. Of the difficulty here existing history bears sufficient proof. Not merely the discovery of new evidence, but different modes of presenting the same facts, give contradictory impressions of the same series of events. One or the other is not true; neither perhaps is even closely true. With- out impeaching the integrity of the historian, we are then forced to impeach his presentment, and to recognize by direct logical inference that the function of history is not merely to accumulate facts, at once in entirety and in accuracy, but to 252 Naval Administration and Warfare present them in such wise that the wayfaring man, whom we now call " the man in the street," shall not err therein. Failing here, by less or more, the historian, however exhaustive his knowledge, by so far shares the fault of him who dies with his treasures of knowledge locked in his own brain. He has not perfectly communicated his gifts and acquirements to his brethren. This communication is not a mere matter of simple narrative, nor even of narrative vivid and eloquent. All of us know histories which by the amplitude of their details and the chronological sequence of occurrences produce in the end much the same vague generality of impression that is received from watching a street movement from a window. Here and there an incident out ot the common, yet often of the most trivial in itself, catches the attention, perhaps sticks in the memory; but of the entirety nothing remains but a succession of images substantially identical, to which there is neither beginning nor end. Such may be a valid enough conception of the life of a city street, or of the general external aspect of an historic generation. Such to me is the interest of Froissart. Having the gift of pictorial utterance, he passes before you a succes- sion of vivid scenes, concerning any one of which it is quite immaterial whether it be directly true Subordination in Historical Treatment 253 to history. It is true to nature. You have realized on the outside one dominant aspect of the life of that bustling, seemingly inconsequent genera- tion, through true portrayal and frequent itera- tion; but there is neither beginning, middle, nor end, only surface ebullition. Take the incidents of the same period selected and grouped by Stubbs in his Constitutional History, and you see order emerging from chaos, the continuous thread of life which was before Froissart, which underran his time — though it does not appear in his narrative — and which flows on to our own day. In this interrelation of incidents, successive or simultaneous, history has a continuity in which consists its utility as a teaching power, resting upon experience. To detect these relations in their consecutiveness, and so to digest the mass of materials as to evolve in one's own mind the grouping, the presentation, which shall stamp the meaning of a period upon the minds of readers, with all the simple dignity of truth and harmony, answers to the antecedent conception by the architect of the building, into which he will put his stones and mortar. Facts, however exhaustive and laboriously acquired, are but the bricks and mortar of the historian; fundamental, indis- pensable, and most highly respectable, but in their raw state they are the unutilized possession 254 Naval Administration and Warfare of the one, or at most of the few. It is not till they have undergone the mental processes of the artist, by the due selection and grouping of the materials at his disposal, that there is evolved a picture comprehensible by the mass of men. Then only are they in any adequate sense com- municated, made part of the general stock. Work thus done may be justly called a creation; for while the several facts are irreversibly independent of the master's fabrication or manipulation, the whole truth, to which they unitedly correspond, is an arduous conception. To attain to it, and to realize it in words, requires an effort of analysis, of insight, and of imagination. There is required also a gift of expression, as often baffled as is the attempt of the painter to convey to others his conception of an historic scene, which, indeed, he may find difficulty in clearly realizing to his own mental vision. This process, however, does not create history; it realizes it, brings out what is in it. Of such artistic presentation it is of course a commonplace to say that essential unity is the primary requirement. It must be remembered, however, that such unity is not that of the simple, solitary, unrelated unit. It is organic. Like the human body, it finds its oneness in the due rela- tion and proportion of many members. Unity Subordination in Historical Treatment 255 is not the exclusion of all save one. The very composition of the word — unity — implies multi- plicity; but a multiplicity in which all the many that enter into it are subordinated to the one dominant thought or purpose of the designer, whose skill it is to make each and all enhance the dignity and harmony of the central idea. So in history, unity of treatment consists not in exclusion of interest in all save one feature of an epoch, however greatly predominant, but in the due presentation of all; satisfied that, the more exactly the relations and proportions of each are observed, the more emphatic and lasting will be the impression produced by the one which is supreme. For instance, as it is now trite to observe, amid all the abundance of action in the Iliad, the singleness, the unity, of the poet's conception and purpose causes the mighty deeds of the several heroes, Greek or Trojan, to converge ever upon and to exalt the supreme glory of Achilles. It would have been quite possible, to most men only too easy, to narrate the same incidents and to leave upon the mind nothing more than a vague general impression of a peculiar state of society, in which certain rather interesting events and remarkable characters had passed under observation — Froissart, in short. I speak rather from the result of my reflections 256 Naval Administration and Warfare than from any conscious attempt on my own part to realize my theories in an historic work; but I conceive that it would minister essentially to the intrinsic completeness of the historian's equipment, and yet more be important to his usefulness to others — his usefulness as a teacher — if, after accumulating his facts, he would devote a considerable period to his pre- liminary work as an artist. I mean to the mental effort which I presume an artist must make, and an historian certainly can, to analyze his subject, to separate the several parts, to recognize their interrelations and relative proportions of interest and importance. Thence would be formed a general plan, a rough model; in which at least there should appear distinctly to himself what is the central figure of the whole, the predominance of which before teacher and reader must be preserved throughout. That central figure may indeed be the conflict of two opposites, as in the long struggle between freedom and slavery, union and disunion, in our own land; but the unity nevertheless exists. It is not to be found in freedom, nor yet in slavery, but in their conflict it is. Around it group in subordination the many events, and the warriors of the political arena, whose names are household words among us to this day. All form part of the great progress Subordination in Historical Treatment 257 as it moves onward to its consummation; all minister to its effectiveness as an epic; all en- hance — some more, some less — the majesty, not merely of the several stages, but of the entire history up to that dire catastrophe — that fall of Troy — which posterity can now see impend- ing from the first. This, in true history, is present throughout the whole; though the eyes of many of the chief actors could neither foresee it in their day nor lived to behold. The moral of fate accomplished is there for us to read ; but it belongs not to the end only but to the whole course, and in such light should the historian see and maintain it. Can it be said with truth that the figure of Lady Hamilton throws no backward shadow, no gloom of destiny, over the unspotted days of Nelson's early career ? A critic impatiently observed of my life of the admiral that this effect was produced. I confess that upon reading this I thought I had unwittingly achieved an artistic success. It should scarcely be necessary to observe that artistic insistence upon a motive does not consist in reiteration of it in direct words, in continual pointing of the moral which the tale carries. That true art conceals its artfulness is a cheap quotation. It is not by incessantly brandishing Achilles before our eyes, or never suffering him 258 Naval Administration and Warfare to leave the stage, that his preeminent place is assured in the minds of the audience. Neverthe- less, the poet's sense of his own motive must be ever present to him, conscious or subconscious, if his theme is not to degenerate from an epic to a procession of incidents; and this is just the danger of the historian, regarded not as a mere accumulator of facts, but as an instructor of men. In a reviev^r of a recent biography occurs the follow- ing criticism : " The character and attainments of the man himself " — who surely is the appointed centre in biography — " are somewhat obscured by the mass of detail. This is indeed the worst danger incurred by the modern historian. Where his predecessor divined, he knows, and too often is unable to manage his knowledge. To consult State papers is not difficult; to subordinate them to the subject they illustrate is a task of exceeding delicacy, and one not often successfully accom- plished. The old-fashioned historian thought it a point of honor to write in a style at once lucid and picturesque. The modern is too generally content to throw his material into an unshapely mass; " content, in short, with teUing all he knows. As in war not every good general of division can handle a hundred thousand men, so in history it is more easy duly to range a hundred facts than a thousand. It appears to me that these obser- Subordination in Historical Treatment 259 vations, of the validity of which I am persuaded, are especially necessary at the present day. The accuracy of the historian, unquestionably his right arm of service, seems now in danger of fettering itself, not to say the historian's energies also, by being cumbered with over-much serving, to for- getfulness of the one thing needed. May not some facts, the exact truth about some matters, be not only beyond probable ascertainment, but not really worth the evident trouble by which alone they can be ascertained ? I once heard of a seaman who, when navigating a ship, pleased himself in carrying out the cal- culated definement of her position to the hundredth part of a mile. This, together with other refine- ments of accuracy, was perhaps a harmless amuse- ment, only wasteful of time; but when he pro- ceeded to speak of navigation as an exact science, he betrayed to my mind a fallacy of appreciation, symptomatic of mental defect. I speak with the utmost diffidence, because of my already con- fessed deficiency in breadth and minuteness of acquirement; but I own it seems to me that some current discussions not merely demonstrate their own improbability of solution, but suggest also the thought that, were they solved, it really would not matter. May we not often confound the interest of curiosity with the interest of importance. 260 Naval Administration and Warfare Curiosity is well enough, as a matter of mental recreation; truth is always worth having; but in many cases it may be like the Giant's Cause- way to Dr. Johnson — worth seeing, but not worth going to see. It is troublesome enough to handle a multitude of details so as to produce clearness of impression ; but to add to that diffi- culty a too fastidious scrupulosity as to exhausting every possible source of error, by the accumulation of every imaginable detail, is to repeat the naviga- tor's error by seeking to define an historical posi- tion within a hundredth of a mile. Neither in history nor in navigation do the observations, and what is called the personal equation, justify the expectation of success; and even could it be attained, the question remains whether it is worth the trouble of attaining. Lord Acton's " Study of History " is in this respect a kind of epic, dominated throughout in its self-revelation by the question why so learned a man produced so little. May not the answer be suggested by the vast store of appended quotations lavished upon the several thoughts of that one brief essay ? It appears to me sometimes that the elaboration of research predicated by some enthusiastic dev- otees of historical accuracy, who preach accuracy apparently for its own sake, is not unlike that of the mathematicians who launched a malediction Subordination in Historical Treatment 261 against those who would degrade pure mathe- matics by applying it to any practical purpose. Mathematics for mathematics alone, accuracy only to be accurate, are conceptions that need to be qualified. An uneasy sense of this is already in the air. Since writing these words I find an- other reviewer complaining thus : " The author is content simply to tell facts in their right order, with the utmost pains as to accuracy, but with hardly any comment on their significance. Of enthusiasm there is only that which specialists are apt to feel for any fact, in spite of its value." There is a higher accuracy than the weighing of scruples ; the fine dust of the balance rarely turns the scale. Unquestionably, generalization is unsafe where not based upon a multitude of instances; conclusion needs a wide sweep of research; but unless some limit is accepted as to the number and extent of recorded facts necessary to infer- ence, if not to decision, observation heaped upon observation remains useless to men at large. They are incapable of interpreting their meaning. The significance of the whole must be brought out by careful arrangement and exposition, which must not be made to wait too long upon unlimited scrutiny. The passion for certainty may lapse into incapacity for decision; a vice recognized in mili- tary life, and which needs recognition elsewhere. 262 Naval Administration and Warfare I have likened to the labor of the artist the constructive v?ork of the historian, the work by which he converts the raw material, the discon- nected facts, of his own acquirement to the use of men ; and upon that have rested the theory of historical composition, as it appears to my own mind. The standard is high, perhaps ideal; for it presupposes faculties, natural gifts, which we are prone to class under the term of inspiration, in order to express our sense of their rarity and lofty quality. This doubtless may be so; there may be as few historians born of the highest order as there are artists. But it is worse than useless to fix standards lower than the best one can frame to one's self; for, like boats crossing a current, men rarely reach as high even as the mark at which they point. Moreover, so far as my con- ception is correct and its development before you sound, it involves primarily an intellectual process within the reach of most, even though the fire of genius, of inspiration, may be wanting. That informing spirit which is indispensable to the highest success is the inestimable privilege of nature's favored few. But to study the facts analytically, to detect the broad leading features, to assign to them their respective importance, to recognize their mutual relations, and upon these data to frame a scheme of logical presenta- Subordination in Historical Treatment 263 tion — all this is within the scope of many whom we should hesitate to call artists, and who yet are certainly capable of being more than chroniclers, or even than narrators. In fact, to do this much may be no more than to be dryly logical. It is in the execution of the scheme thus evolved that the difficulty becomes marked ; like that of the artist who falls short of reproducing to the eyes of others the vision revealed to himself. Nevertheless, simply by logical presentation the keenest intellectual grati- fication may be afforded — the gratification of comprehending what one sees but has not hitherto understood. From this proceeds the delineation of the chain of cause and effect; the classification of incidents, at first sight disconnected, by a successful generalization which reveals their es- sential unity; the exposition of a leading general tendency, which is the predominant characteristic of an epoch. These processes do not, however, end in mere gratification; they convey instruc- tion, the more certain and enduring because of their fascinating interest. To conceive thus the work of the historian is perhaps natural to my profession. Certainly, from this same point of view, of artistic grouping of subordinate details around a central idea, I have learned to seek not only the solution of the 264 Naval Administration and Warfare problems of warfare, but the method of its history ; whether as it concerns the conduct of campaigns, which we call strategy, or in the direction of battles, which we define tactics, or in the design of the individual ship of war. Unity of purpose — exclusiveness of purpose, to use Napoleon's phrase — is the secret of great military successes. In employing this word "exclusiveness," which re- duces unity to a unit. Napoleon was not weighing scrupulously the accuracy of his terms. He was simply censuring the particular aberration of the officer addressed, who was so concerned for a field of operations not immediately involved as to allow his mind to wander from the one pre- dominant interest then at stake. But, though exaggerated, the term is not otherwise incorrect, and the exaggeration is rather that of emphasis than of hyperbole. Other matters may need to be considered, because of their evident relations to the central feature; they therefore may not be excluded in a strict sense, but equally they are not to usurp the preeminence due to it alone. In so far its claim is " exclusive," and their own exists only as ministering to it. The military historian who is instructed in the principles of the art of war finds, as it were im- posed upon him, the necessity of so constructing his narrative as to present a substantial unity in Subordination in Historical Treatment 265 effect. Such familiar phrase as the " key of the situation," the decisive point for which he has been taught to look, upon the tenure of which depends more or less the fortune of war, sustains continually before his mind the idea, to which his treatment must correspond, of a central feature round which all else groups; not only subordinate, but contributive. Here is no vague collocation of words, but the concrete, pithy ex- pression of a trained habit of mind which domi- nates writing necessarily, even though uncon- sciously to the writer. So the word " combina- tion," than which none finds more frequent use in military literature, and which you will recall means to make of two one, reminds him, if he needs to think, that no mere narrative of separate incidents, however vivid as word painting, fulfils his task. He must also show how all lead up to, and find their several meanings in, a common result, of purpose or of achievement, which unifies their action. So again " concentration," the watchword of military action, and the final end of all combination, reminds him that facts must be massed as well as troops, if they are to prevail against the passive resistance of indolent mentality; if they are to penetrate and shatter the forces of ignorance or prejudgment, which conservative impression has arrayed against them. 266 Naval Administration and Warfare It is not in the coloring, but in the grouping, that the true excellence of the mlhtary historian is found; just as the battle is won, not by the picturesqueness of the scene, but by the disposi- tion of the forces. Both the logical faculty and the imagination contribute to his success, but the former much exceeds the latter in effect. A cam- paign, or a battle, skilfully designed, is a work of art, and duly to describe it requires something of the appreciation and combinative faculty of an artist; but where there is no appeal over the imagination, to the intellect, impressions are apt to lack distinctness. While there is a certain exaltation in sharing, through vivid narrative, the emotions of those who have borne a part in some deed of conspicuous daring, the fascination does not equal that wrought upon the mind as it traces the sequence by which successive occurrences are seen to issue in their necessary results, or causes apparently remote to converge upon a common end. Then understanding succeeds to the sense of bewilderment too commonly pro- duced by military events, as often narrated. Failing such comprehension, there may be fairly discerned that " it was a famous victory; " and yet the modest confession have to follow that " what they fought each other for " — what the meaning of it all is — "I can not well make out." Subordination in Historical Treatment 267 No appointed end is seen to justify the bloody means. This difficulty is not confined to military his- tory. It exists in all narrative of events, which even in the ablest hands tends to degenerate into a brilliant pageant, and in those of less capable colorists into a simple procession of passers-by; a more or less commonplace street scene to recur to a simile I have already used. It is the privilege simply of the mihtary historian that, if he himself has real understanding of the matters he treats, they themselves supply the steadying centre of observation; for the actions are those of men who had an immediate recognized purpose, which dictated their conduct. To be faithful to them he must not merely tell their deeds, but expound also their plan. The plan of Providence, which in its fulfilment we call history, is of wider range and more com- plicated detail than the tactics of a battle, or the strategy of a campaign, or even than the policy of a war. Each of these in its own sphere is an incident of history, possessing an intrinsic unity of its own. Each, therefore, may be treated after the fashion and under the limitations I have sug- gested; as a work or art, which has a central feature, around which details are to be grouped but kept ever subordinate to its due development. 268 Naval Administration and Warfare So, and so only, shall the unity of the picture be successfully preserved; but when this has been done, each particular incident, and group of incidents, becomes as it were a fully wrought and fashioned piece, prepared for adjustment in its place in the great mosaic, which the history of the race is gradually fashioning under the Divine overruling. I apprehend that the analogy between military history and history in its other aspects - — political, economical, social, and so on — is in this respect closer than most would be willing at first to concede. There is perhaps in miUtary history more pronounced definiteness of human plan, more clearly marked finality of conclusion, and withal a certain vividness of action, all of which tend to enforce the outlines and emphasize the unity of the particular subject. A declaration of war, a treaty of peace, a decisive victory, if not quite epoch-making events, are at least prominent milestones, which mark and define the passage of time. It is scarcely necessary to observe, how- ever, that all these have their very definite ana- logues in that which we call civil history. The Declaration of Independence marks the consum- mation of a series of civil acts; the surrender of Cornwallis terminates a military record. The Peace of Westphalia and the British Reform Subordination in Historical Treatment 269 Bill of 1832 are alike conspicuous indications of the passing of the old and the advent of the new. But yet more, may we not say that all history is the aggressive advance of the future upon the past, the field of collision being the present. That no blood be shed does not make the sapping of the old foundations less real, nor the overthrow of the old conditions less decisive. Offence and defence, the opposing sides in war, reproduce themselves all over the historic field. The con- servative, of that which now is, holds the successive positions against the progressive, who seeks change ; the resultant of each conflict, as in most wars, is a modification of conditions, not an immediate reversal. Total overthrow is rare; and happily so, for thus the continuity of con- ditions is preserved. Neither revolution, nor yet stagnation, but still advance, graduated and moderate, which retains the one indispensable salt of national well-being. Faith; faith in an established order, in fundamental principles, in regulated progress. Looking, then, upon the field of history thus widened — from the single particular of military events, which I have taken for illustration — to embrace all the various activities of mankind during a given epoch, we find necessarily a vast multiplication of incident, with a corresponding 270 Naval Administration and Warfare complication of the threads to which they severally belong. Thus not only the task is much bigger, but the analysis is more laborious; while as this underlies unity of treatment, the attainment of that becomes far more difficult. Nevertheless the attempt must be made; that particular feature which gives special character to the period under consideration must be selected, and the relations of the others to it discerned, in order that in the preeminence of the one and the contributory subordination of the others artistic unity of con- struction may be attained. Thus only can the mass of readers receive that correct impression of the general character and trend of a period which far surpasses in instructive quality any volume of details, however accurate, the signif- icance of which is not apprehended. An example of the thought which I am trying to express is to be found in the brief summaries of tendencies which Ranke, in his History of England in the seventeenth century, interposes from time to time in breaks of the narrative. This is not, I fancy, the most artistic method. It resembles rather those novels in which the motives and characters of the actors are explained currently instead of being made to transpire for themselves. Nevertheless the line of light thus thrown serves to elucidate the whole preceding and succeeding Subordination in Historical Treatment 271 narrative. The separate events, the course and character of the several actors, receive a meaning and a value which apart from such a clew they do not possess. I conceive that such a method is applicable to all the work of history from the least to the greatest; from the single stones, if we may so say, the particular limited researches, the mono- graphs, up to the great edifice, which we may imagine though we may never see, in which all the periods of universal history shall have their several places and due proportion. So coor- dinated, they will present a majestic ideal unity corresponding to the thought of the Divine Archi- tect, realized to His creatures. To a consum- mation so noble we may be permitted to aspire, and individually to take pride, not in our own selves nor in our own work, but rather in that toward which we minister and in which we beheve. Faith, the evidence of things not seen as yet, and the needful motive force of every truly great achievement, may cheer us to feel that in the perfection of our particular work we forward the ultimate perfection of the whole, which in its entirety can be the work of no one hand. It may be, indeed, that to some one favored mind will be committed the final great synthesis ; but he would be powerless save for the patient labors of the 272 Naval Administration and Warfare innumerable army which, stone by stone and section by section, have wrought to perfection the several parts; while in combining these in the ultimate unity he must be guided by the same principles and governed by the same methods that have controlled them in their humbler tasks. He will in fact be, as each one of us is, an in- strument. To him will be intrusted, on a larger and final scale, to accomplish the realization of that toward which generations of predecessors have labored; comprehending but in part, and obscurely, the end toward which they were tend- ing, but yet building better than they knew because they built faithfully. THE STRENGTH OF NELSON THE STRENGTH OF NELSON' August, 1905 WITH a temperament versatile as that of Nelson, illustrated in a career full of varied action, it is not easy to know how to regard its subject, in brief, so as to receive a clear and accurate impression; one which shall preserve justice of proportion, while at the same time giving due emphasis and predominance to the decisive characteristics. Multiplicity of traits, lending itself to multiplicity of expression, increases the difficulty of selection, and of reproducing that combination which really constitutes the effective force and portrait of the man. The problem is that of the artist, dealing with a physical exterior. We can all recall instances of persons, celebrated historically or socially, in whom the prominence of a particular feature, or a certain pervading expression, causes all portraits to possess a recognizable stamp of likeness. As soon as ' This paper was read on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1905, before the Victorian Club, of Boston, U. S. A. 276 Naval Administration and Warfare the pictured face is seen we identify the original without hesitation. There are others in whom the mobility of countenance, the variations de- pending upon feehng and expression, quite over- power in impression the essential sameness pre- sented by features in repose. Great indeed must be the difficulties of the artist, or the writer, who has to portray the man capable, within a half-hour, of such diverse moods as Wellington witnessed in his one only inter- view with Nelson. The anecdote is too familiar for reproduction here. Less well known, probably, or less remembered, is a similar testimony borne by two officers. Captains Layman and Sir Alex- ander Ball, who served with him under varying circumstances. One day, after tea in the drawing-room at Merton, Lord Nelson was earnestly engaged in conversation with Sir Samuel Hood. Mr. Layman observed to Sir Alexander that Lord Nelson was at work, by his countenance and mouth; that he was a most extraordinary man, possessing opposite points of character — little in little things, but by far the greatest man in great things he ever saw; that he had seen him petulant in trifles, and as cool and collected as a philosopher when sur- rounded by dangers in which men of common minds with clouded countenance would say, " Ah ! what is to be done ? " It was a treat to see his animated and collected countenance in the heat of action. Sir Alexander remarked this seeming inconsistency, and mentioned that after the Battle of the Nile The Strength of Nelson 277 the captains of the squadron were desirous to have a good likeness of their heroic chief taken, and for that purpose employed one of the most eminent painters in Italy. The plan was to ask the painter to breakfast, and get him to begin immediately after. Breakfast being over, and no preparation being made by the painter, Sir Alexander was selected by the other captains to ask him when he intended to begin ; to which the answer was, " Never." Sir Alexander said he stared, and they all stared, but the artist continued : " There is such a mixture of humility with ambition in Lord Nelson's coun- tenance that I dare not risk the attempt 1 " Contrast with such an one the usual equable composure of Washington or Wellington, and the difficulty of a truthful rendering is seen; but reflection reveals therein likewise the intensely natural, spontaneous, impulsive character, which takes hold of our loves, and abides in affectionate remembrance. In such cases how can there but be marked diversities of appearance in the attempted repro- ductions by this or that man, painter or writer .'' Not only will the truthfulness of the figured face depend upon the fleeting mood of the sitter; the aptitude of the artist to receive, and to penetrate through the mask of the instant, is an even greater factor. Both the one and the other will enter into the composition of the resultant portrait; for as, on the one hand, the man shows himself as he 278 Naval Administration and War jar e ■ for the moment is, so, on the other, the power to see and to express that which is shown depends upon the revelation to the artist; a revelation due as much to his own insight as to the visible thing before him. The miracle of Pentecost lay not only in the gifts of speech bestowed upon the Apostles, but in the power of every man to hear in that tongue, and in that tongue only, to which he is born; to see with the spiritual vision which he has received, or to which he may have grown. In this respect portrayal by pen will not differ from portrayal by pencil or by brush. The man who attempts to depict in words a character so diverse in manifestation as that of Nelson will reflect from what he sees before him that aspect of the man with which he himself is most in touch. The writer of military sympathies will — must — give predominance to the military quali- ties. Despite his eff"orts to the contrary, they will make the deepest impress, and will be most certainly and conspicuously reproduced. And to a degree this will accord with the truth; for above all, undoubtedly, Nelson was a warrior. But he was also much more, and in virtue of that something else he survives, and is transmitted to us as — what shall I say ? — as Nelson ; there is no other word. He is not a type; still less does he belong to a class. He is simply himself — the The Strength of Nelson 279 man Nelson; a man so distinct in his individuality, that he has thus imposed himself on the con- sciousness and recollection of a great nation. He rests there, simply himself, and no other; and no other is he, nor stands near him. I say not that he is higher or lower, greater or less, than any other. I do not, at least now, analyze his qualities, nor seek to present such an assembly of them as shall show why the impress of in- dividuality is thus unique. I only draw attention to the fact that this is so; that Nelson now lives, and is immortal in the memory of his kind, not chiefly because of what he did, but because in the doing and in the telling, then and now, first and last, men have felt themselves in the presence of a personality so strong that it has broken through the barriers of convention and reserve which separate us one from another, and has placed itself in direct contact with the inner selves, not of contemporaries only, but of us who never saw him in the body. We have not only heard of him and his deeds. We know him as we do one with whom we are in constant inter- course. This is of itself an extraordinary trait. Thus to make a man known, to reveal a personality, is what Boswell did for Johnson; but he accom- plished this literary marvel of portraiture by the 280 Naval Administration and Warfare most careful and minute record of doings and sayings. His is a built-up literary prodigy, re- sembling some of those striking Flemish portraits, which not only impress by their ensemble, but stand inspection under a magnifying glass. But what Boswell did for Johnson, Nelson has done for himself, and in quite other fashion. He is revealed to us, not by such accumulation of detail, but by some quality, elusive, perhaps not to be detected, by reason of which the man him- self insensibly transpires to our knowledge in his strength and in his weakness. We know him, not by what his deeds or his words signify; but through his deeds and words the inner spirit of the man continually pierces, and, while we read, envelops us in an atmosphere which may be called Nelsonic. Such certainly seemed to me the effect upon myself in a year given to his letters, to his deeds, and to his recorded words. I found myself in a special environment, stimu- lating, exalting, touching; and while we confess that there are morbid symptoms attendant upon the writing of biography, tending to distort vision, and to confuse the sense of proportion, faults which the reader must appreciate — the writer cannot — there can be no mistake about the moral effect produced, and the outburst of this Trafalgar Day proves it to be not limited to the The Strength of Nelson 281 biographer. The reserve which for the most of us cloaks each man's secret being from the knowl- edge of those nearest him among his contem- poraries, casts no such impenetrable veil over the personality of this man whom we never saw — who died just one hundred years ago this day. We have with him an acquaintance, we feel from him an influence, which we have not with, nor from, one in a score of those whom we meet daily. Many Lives of Nelson have been written, but no one of them marked with the artistic skill and untiring diligence which Boswell brought to his task. A singular proof of the latter's combined genius and care, which I do not think is always appreciated, is to be found in the fact that the portrait of Johnson is surrounded by a gallery of minor portraits, as real and living as his own, though duly subordinated in impression to the central figure of the group. This is indeed the triumph of the great artist. He has, so to say, succeeded beyond himself, and beyond his intentions, simply because he is great. In the way of portraiture he touches nothing that he does not quicken and adorn. The same certainly cannot be said for those who have transmitted to us the companions of Nelson, in their relations to their chief. Yet we know Nelson as well as 282 Naval Administration and Warfare we know Johnson, and more usefully, despite every disadvantage in his limners. The spell of his personality has compelled them to reproduce him; and its power — its magic, I might say — is to be found in that influence exerted upon them. In Boswell's Johnson we have the vivid repro- duction of a man of the past; a study complete, interesting, instructive, but not to a reader of to-day influential beyond the common teachings of biography. In Nelson, who died but twenty years later, we have a living inspiration. He presents a great heroic standard, a pattern. We set ourselves at once to copy him; not because, in the record of his acts, we have received an ordinary suggestion or warning, but because heart answers to heart. The innate nobility of theman's ideals, which transpired even through, and in, the lamentable episode which sullied his career, uplifts us in spite of ourselves, and of all that was amiss in him. The jewel shines, even amid defilement. It certainly cannot be claimed that Nelson's un- flinching professional tenacity is nobler than John- son's brave struggle against his mental depression and numerous bodily infirmities; his life unstained, though without Puritanic afi"ectation. But, as a present force, Johnson is dead, Nelson is alive. Nelson is no mere man of the past. Not his name only, but he himself lives to us; still speaks, The Strength of Nelson 283 because there was in him that to which man can never die, while he remains partaker of the Divine nature. It is but a few days since that I received a letter from a junior officer of the British Navy, expressing the wish that all young officers might be ordered to master the career of Nelson, because of the upHfting power which he himself had found in the ideals and actions of the hero. What is the secret of this strange fascination, which has given Nelson his peculiar place, by which it may be said of him, as of some few other worthies of the past : " He being dead yet speaketh." It certainly is not merely in the standards which he professed, even although his devotion to them continually was manifested, not in word only, but in deed; yea, and in the hour of death. The noblest of all, the dying words, " Thank God I have done my duty," is no monopoly of Nelson's. You may count by scores the men of English-speaking tradition, in Great Britain and America, who have brought as single-minded a purpose to the service of the " stern daughter of the voice of God," and have followed her as unflinchingly through good and ill. But how many of them who have departed exercise a conscious influence upon the minds of the men of to-day ? Their deeds and examples doubtless have gone to swell that sum total of 284 Naval Administration and Warfare things, by which the world of our generation is the better for the Uves of the myriads who have lived unknown and are forgotten; but their influence, their present, direct, personal, uplifting force on men now alive, in how many instances can you point to it ? And to what one other, among the heroes of Great Britain, from whom it is so generally distributed that it may fitly be called national ? Despite the Nile and Trafalgar, there may be several who have more radically and permanently affected the destinies of the Empire. We are not here concerned with such analytic computations, or with estimates of indirect consequences which the doer of the deeds could by no possibility have foreseen. If such there be, what one among them evokes to-day the emulative affection and admiration which is the prerogative of Nelson .? Whence comes this ? Grant even the cumulative dramatic force, the immense effectiveness of the double utterances, so closely following each other, " England expects every man to do his duty," and " Thank God, I have done my duty," you have advanced but a step towards the solution of the question. Why is Nelson still alive, while so many other sons of duty are dead ? What prophetic power, power to speak for God and for man, was in this man, that such enduring speech should come forth The Strength of Nelson 285 from his life; that he, being dead, is still speak- ing? It is not permitted to man so to search the heart of his fellow as to give a conclusive reply to such a question ; yet it is allowable and appropriate to seek so far to appreciate one like Nelson as at least to approach somewhat nearer towards understanding the secret of his character and of its power. The homage to duty as the supreme motive in life, and the strong conviction that there are objects worthier of effort than money- getting and ease, were characteristics possessed in common with many others by Nelson. But, while I speak with diffidence, I feel strongly that the mode of tenure was somewhat different in him and in them. The recognition of duty, and of its high obligation, is impressed upon most of us from without. We have been taught it, have received it by the hearing of the ear, from others to whom in like manner it has been imparted by those who went before them. It is, so to say, a transmitted inheritance — "in the air;" perhaps not to quite such an extent as might be desired. We render it a tribute which is perfectly sincere, but still somewhat conventional. This condition is not to be despised. The compelling power of accepted conventions is enormous; but, hke much religious faith, such attention to duty is 286 Naval Administration and Warfare not founded on the individual bottom, but depends largely on association, for which reason it will be found more highly developed in some professions, because it is the tone of the profession. Un- questionably, in many individuals the thought is so thoroughly assimilated as to become the man's very own, as hard to depart from as any ingrained acquired habit; and to this we owe the frequency of its manifestations in nations where the word itself has received a dignity of recognition which sets it apart from the common vocabulary — deifies it, so to say. All this is very fine. It is superb to see human nature, in man or in people, lifting itself up above itself by sheer force of adhesion to a great ideal; to mark those who have received the conception elevated, not through their own efforts, but by force of association, like the tonic effect of an invigorating atmosphere. But our hard-won victories over ourselves cannot by themselves alone make us that which by nature we are not. Nature has been suppressed in its evil, and upon its restless revolt good enthroned; but the evil lives still and rebels. The palace is kept and held by a strong man armed ; but ever in danger that a stronger than he, whom we call Nature, shall return in force and retrieve his past defeat. It was finely said of Washington, by one who The Strength of Nelson 287 knew him intimately — Gouverneur Morris — " Control his passions ! Yes ; and few men have had stronger to control. But many men have controlled their passions, so as not to do that to which they were impelled. But where have you known one who, like him, always, under whatever conditions, could do, and did, what the duty of the moment required, despite fatigue, or distaste, or natural repulsion." The writer who made this comparison had moved amid all the scenes of dire distress and anxiety that marked the American War of Independence, and had personal acquaintance with the chief actors. This is the innate positive quality, not the acquired negative self-control, battling with self. I doubt if most of us stop to realize the full force of the word " innate," which slips glibly enough from our tongues without apprecia- tion of its signiiicance. Inborn; this is not nature controlled, but nature controlling; not the tiger, or the ape, or the sloth, held by the throat, but the man himself in the fulness of his powers exercising his natural supremacy over himself. Such was duty to Nelson; a mistress, not that compelled obedience, but that attracted the devotion of a nature which intuitively recog- nised her loveliness, and worshipped. Like the hearers at Pentecost, he recognized in her voice 288 Naval Administration and Warfare the tongue to which he was born; he saw her — yes, despite his one great fall, we may say it — he saw her fairer than the daughters of men. Stern Lawgiver! Thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face. A natural character, we have all felt the at- tractiveness of such, the attractiveness of truth and beauty; but when, to such a nature, is added nobility as well, we have one of the rare com- binations which compels homage. Nelson was eminently natural, affectionate, impulsive, ex- pansive; but it is this singular gift, this peculiar recognition of duty, with another I shall mention, which has set him upon his pedestal, given him the niche which only he can fill. In the spirits of his people he has found a nobler Westminster Abbey than that of which he dreamed. But, you may ask, how do you demonstrate that he had this gift ? Alas, I am not a Boswell ; I wish I were, and that there survived the records of conversations with which I, or another, could reconstruct his image, as Boswell drew Johnson. Yet when a career opens and closes upon the same keynote, we may be sure of the harmonious whole The Strength of Nelson 289 — of which, indeed, traces enough remain to confirm our assurances. You know the two stories of childhood handed down to us. The brothers starting for school after Christmas holidays, driven back by the weather, and started again with the father's mandate, " You may return if it is necessary; but I leave it to your honor not to do so unless it is really dangerous to pro- ceed." It seemed dangerous, and one was for returning; but the Nelson said, " No, it was left to our honor." Not the word "duty," no; but the essence of duty, the look out from self, the recognition of the something external and higher than the calls of the body. In one so young — he was but twelve when he went to sea some time after this — it is Nature which speaks, not an acquired standard. In later years, in terms somewhat fantastic, he said he beheld ever a radiant orb beckoning him onward. Honor he called it, the twin sister — rather let us say the express image — in which duty, regarding as in a glass, sees herself reflected. Then, again, there is the story of stealing the fruit from the schoolmaster's pear-tree — a trivial enough school- boy prank, risking the penalties of detection which his comrades dared not face. Neither duty nor honor goes to such a feat in its nakedness; but the refusal to eat the fruit, the proud avowal that 290 Naval Administration and Warfare he went only because the others feared, bears witness to the same disregard of personal advan- tage, the same determination of action by con- siderations external to self, the same eye to the approval of the consciousness — of the conscience — which spoke in the signal at Trafalgar, and soothed the dying moments by the high testimony within : not, " I have won renown ; " not " I have achieved success;" but, "I have done my duty." He was not indifferent to success; he was far from indifferent to renown. " If it be a sin to covet glory," he once quoted, " then am I the most offending soul alive." But the solemn hour which gives the validity of an oath to the statement of the dying, assuredly avouches to us that then the man, as once the child, spoke out the true secret of his being — the tongue into which he was born. And in this also is the secret, not only of his own devotion to duty, but of the influence of his personality upon others; both in the infancy of his professional career, and now in the maturity of his immortal renown. What he thus possessed he possessed naturally, positively, aggressively, and therefore contagiously. He had root in himself, to use a familiar expression; and the life which was thus no mere offshoot of conven- tion, but his very own, gave itself out abundantly The Strength of Nelson 291 to others, multiplying himself. He gave out by example; he gave out by words, uttered, indeed, expressly, yet so casually that the impression resembles the fleeting glimpse of an interior, caught through the momentary tossing aside of a curtain; he gave out through the heroic atmos- phere of self-devotion which he bore about him; he gave out by cordial recognition of excellence in others. Any other man who did his duty, whether comrade or subordinate, was to him a fellow worshipper at the shrine ; his heart went out to him, whether in failure or in success, if only the will was there. No testimony is clearer or more universal than that to his generosity in appreciation of others ; and it was seen, not only in recognition of achievement already accom- plished, but in the confident expectation of achievement yet to be effected. The original form of the Trafalgar signal, spoken by himself, " Nel- son confides that every man will do his duty," was no mere casual utterance. It summed up the conviction and habit of a lifetime. As the words, "Thank God, I have done my duty," were his dying words personally, so those just quoted may be said to have been his last words professionally. Indeed, he himself said as much, for when they had been communicated to the fleet he remarked, " Now I can do no more. We 292 Naval Administration and Warfare must trust (confide) to the great Disposer of all events." His great career ended when that signal had been read and acknowledged. Because in himself so trustworthy, he trusted abundantly; and all of us know the stimulus of feeling ourselves trusted, of looking forward with certainty to just appreciation of good work done. " I am well aware," wrote one of his younger captains, " of the good construction which your Lordship has ever been in the habit of putting on circumstances, although wearing the most unfavorable appearances. Your Lordship's good opinion constitutes the summit of my ambition and the most effective spur to my endeavors." " I am pleased," writes another, " that an op- portunity is offered for showing my gratitude in a small degree for his almost fatherly kindness." In a letter of instructions to a captain about to encounter some perplexing and critical conditions, after prescribing for several circumstances that may arise, he concludes, in the case of the unfore- seen, " You must then act as your judgment may direct you, and / am sure that will be very proper." If delinquency actually occurred, as he conceived it had in the case of Sir Sidney Smith, his wrath had all the fierceness of trust betrayed, for he was a man impatient and of strong passions ^ but otherwise doubts of another's doing his duty did The Strength of Nelson 293 not occur to him. His confidence in himself, in his own self-devotion and capacity, made him trustful of others, and inspired them with devotion to the service and to the country, for his sake, and because they saw it in him. A captain who met him for the first time just before Trafalgar, and who fell in the battle, wrote home, " I have been very lucky with most of my admirals, but I really think the present the pleasantest I have met with. He is so good and pleasant that we all wish to do what he likes, without any kind of orders." This was the clear reflection of his own spirit, begot of his own confidence in others, because he met them and trusted them as himself. Dutiful, probably, in any event, as imitators of him they were more so. He expected in others what he felt in himself, and diffused around him the atmosphere of energy, zeal, and happiness in endeavor, which was native to himself. " He had in a great degree," wrote a contemporary who had known him from boyhood, " the valuable but rare quality of conciliating the most opposite tempers, and forwarding the public service with unanimity, among men not of themselves disposed to accord." Yes; but the unanimity was not that of accordant opinion, but of a common devotion to a common object, before which differences subsided; to duty, seeing in others a 294 Naval Administration and Warfare like devotion, a like purpose to do their best. This spirit Nelson shed about him; with this he inspired others in his day, and still does in our own. It was the contagion of his personality, continuous in action, and ever watchful against offence, and even against misunderstanding. " My dear Keats," he wrote to a captain whose worn- out ship was incorrigibly slow when speed was most desirable, " I am fearful you may think that the Superb does not go as fast as I could wish. I would have you to be assured that I know and feel that the Superb does all which is possible for a ship to accomplish; and I desire that you will not fret." " My dear CoUingwood, I shall come out and make you a visit; not, my dear friend, to take your command from you, but to consult how we may best serve our country by detaching a part of this large force." St. Vincent's testimony here is invaluable: "The delicacy you have always shown to senior officers is a sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give umbrage." He wrote himself, " If ever I feel great, it is in never having, in thought, word, or deed, robbed any man of his fair fame." Instances of this delicate consideration for the feelings of others, dictated often by appreciation of their temperaments as well as of their circum- stances, could be multiplied. But we read them The Strength of Nelson 295 imperfectly, missing their significance, if we see in them mere kindliness of temper; for, though kindly. Nelson was irritable, nervously sensitive to exasperating incidents, at times impatient to petulance, often unreasonable in complaint. Open expression of these feelings, evidences of tempera- ment, flit often across his countenance, traversing the unity of the artist's vision and embarrassing his conception. Nelson was not faultless; but he was great. It is not, indeed, unprecedented to find such foibles in connection with much kindliness; they are easy concomitants in a warm temper. But this appreciation and consideration were with him no mere kindliness of temper, though that entered into them. They were the reflection outward of that which he knew and experienced within. In his followers he saw himself. To use the quaint expression of Sweden- borg, he projected around him his own sphere. Because duty, zeal, energy inspired him, he saw them quickening others also; and the homage he intuitively paid to those qualities themselves he gave to their possessors whom he saw around him. Each man, unless proved recreant, thus stood transfigured in the light which came from Nelson's self This spontaneous recognition took form in an avowed scheme of life and action, which rested, consciously or unconsciously, upon 296 Naval Administration and Warfare the presumption in others of that same devotion to duty, that same zeal to perform it, and, in proportion to the individual's capacity, the same certainty of achievement which he found in himself. " Choose them yourself," he replied to the First Lord of the Admiralty, when asked to name his officers. " You cannot go amiss. The same spirit actuates the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong." The man to whose lips such words rise spontaneous simply attributes to others what he finds within, and what by experience he has found himself able to transfer. Out of the abundance of the heart he speaks, and by his words he is justified. Closely connected with this characteristic, as is warp with woof, interwoven manifestation indeed of a quality essentially one and the same, is a trait in Nelson upon which I myself have been inclined to lay an emphasis which I do not find in other writers. So far as analysis can draw lines between the essential features of a particular character, the one to which I now allude is pecul- iarly military in its effectiveness; whereas devotion to duty, and confidence in others, may rather be called personal. At least they are not to be attributed exclusively to the military professions, much as these undoubtedly have gained from the insistence, approaching monopoly, with which The Strength of Nelson 297 in them the idea of duty has been enforced, as supreme among the incentives of the soldier. To the Happy Warrior, Duty does not bar devotion to other virtues, except in rivalry with herself. Courage, obedience, fortitude, Duty recognizes them all and admits them; but not as equals. They are but parts of herself; the children, not the mother. Differing one from another, in her they find that vehich unites and consecrates them all. But w^hile from all Duty exacts much, there are gifts which she cannot confer; and among them is one found in few, but conspicuous in Nelson. In my own attempt to deal with his career, I spoke of this as Faith; and the word was criticized as inadequate and misleading, apparently because I was thought to use it in a narrowly religious sense. Now, I do not think that Nelson would have rejected religious trust in God as a prime motive in his professional action; but certainly, to my mind, if Jesus Christ spoke with only the authority of a man, he expressed a profound philosophy when He placed faith at the foundation of all lofty and successful action, religious or other. But while faith has a recognized technical meaning in theology, it has a much wider practical application; and when called confidence, or conviction, it is more easy to under- 298 Naval Administration and Warfare stand its value in the perplexities, the doubtful circumstances, which go to make all life, but especially the life of the mihtary leader, responsible for great issues, such as fell to Nelson's determina- tion. Then conviction, when possessed, becomes indeed the solid substance of things which the man cannot see with his eyes, nor know by ordinary knowledge. It is the bed-rock upon which action rears its building, and stands four square against all the winds that blow. It is not so much a possession as that the man is possessed by it, and goes forward; not knowing whither he goes, but sure that, wherever the path leads, he does right to follow. As Nelson trusted his fellows, so he trusted the voice within, and for the same reason; in both he recognized the speech to which he was born. Most of us know what it is to be tossed to and fro by hesitations, and thereby too often deterred from action, or weakened in it. Can any one who has felt this inward anguish, and the feebleness of suspense, and at last has arrived at a working certainty, doubt the value and power of a faculty which reaches such certainty, reaches conviction, by processes which, indeed, are not irrational, but yet in their influence transcend reason .? How clearly does reason sometimes lead us step by step to a conclusion so probable as to be worthy The Strength of Nelson 299 of being called a practical certainty, and there leave to our unaided selves the one further step to acceptance; the step across the chasm which yawns between conviction and knowledge, between faith and sight. This we have not the nerve to take because of the remaining doubt. Here reason, the goddess of to-day, halts and fails. The leap to acceptance, which faith takes, and wins, reason cannot make, nor is it within her gift to man. The consequent weakness and failure are more conspicuous in military life than in any other, because of the greatness of the hazards, the instancy and gravity of the result, should acceptance bring disaster. The track of military history is strewn with the dead reputa- tions and the shattered schemes which have failed to receive the quickening element of con- viction. Of all inborn qualities, this is one of the strongest, as it is the rarest; for, let it be marked, such conviction consists, not in the particular conclusion reached, but in the dominating power with which it is held. This puts out of court all other considerations before entertained, — but now cast aside, — and acts ; acts as though no other conclusion were possible, or ever had been. This to me has always invested with the force of a most profound allegory the celebrated incident 300 Naval Administration and Warfare of Nelson putting the glass to his blind eye, when looking at the signal which contravened his conviction. The time for hesitations had passed; there had" been a time for discussion, but there remained now but one road to success. Conviction shuts its eyes to all else; the man who admits doubts at such an instant is lost. It is again single-mindedness, the single eye, the undoubting, revealed amid new surroundings. Conviction is one; doubts many. At the moment of this subhme exhibition, the words of the by- stander depict Nelson as one breathing inspira- tion : " Though the fire of the enemy had slack- ened, the result had certainly not declared in favor on either side. Nelson was sometimes animated, and at others heroically fine in his observations. ' It is warm work, and this day may be the last for any of us at a moment; but mark you, I would not be elsewhere for thou- sands.' " " Leave off action ! D me if I do." The man was possessed, in the noble sense of the word. With less dramatic force, but no less telling and decisive effect, the same power of conviction mani- fested itself in a peculiarly critical moment of his career, near the close of his hfe. In May, 1805, he left his station in the Mediterranean to pursue an allied fleet to the West Indies. He had The Strength of Nelson 301 done this without other authority than his own inferences from the data before him; yielding, to quote a French admirer, to one of the finest inspirations of his genius. The West Indies reached, he failed to get touch of the enemy, owing to misinformation given him; and they started back to Europe, leaving no certain trace of where they were gone. Opinions and rumors clamored and clattered around him; certainty could not be had. He has recorded the situation himself in words which convey, more forcibly than my pen can, what is the power of conviction. " So far from being infallible, like the Pope, I believe my opinions to be very fallible, and therefore I may be mistaken that the enemy's fleet has gone to Europe; but I cannot bring myself to think otherwise, notwithstanding the variety of opin- ions which different people of good judgment form." " My opinion is firm as a rock, that some cause has made them resolve to proceed direct for Europe." Can conviction use stronger words ? And what is conviction but trust; trust in the unseen ? Trust not irrational, not causeless, not unable to give some account of itself; but still short of knowledge, ignorant in part, deriving its power, not from what it sees, but from an unseen source within. To deny the existence and strength 302 Naval Administration and Warfare of such a faculty in some favored men is to shut one's eyes to the experience of history, and of daily life around us; a blindness, or a perversity, quite as real as it would be to ignore the shilly- shally vacillations of the multitude of clever men, who never find in themselves the power to act upon their opinions, if action involves risk, because opinion receives not that inward light which we called conviction, confidence, trust, faith. In Nelson this confidence, like his devotion to duty, and his trust in others, envelops his record, like an atmosphere which one insensibly feels, but the power of which is realized only by stopping to reflect. Lord Minto, who had known him inti- mately from the very beginnings of his greatness, and who knew the navy too, wrote after his death : "The navy is certainly full of the bravest men; but there was a sort of heroic cast about Nelson that I never saw in any other man, and which seems wanting to the achievement of impossible things, which became easy to him." Not that he had not to encounter perplexities and doubts in plenty. There is little singularity in con- viction where there is nothing to shake it. None of us have trouble in admitting that two and two make four. But as Nelson's actions are followed, whatever the obscurity of the conditions, one finds oneself always in presence of a spirit as settled in The Strength of Nelson 303 Its course, when once decided, as though doubt were not possible. Our quest has been the strength of Nelson. I find It In the inborn natural power to trust; to trust himself and others; to confide, to use his own word. Whether it is the assurance within, which we call conviction, or the assurance without, which we call confidence, in others or In one's own action, this is the basic principle and motive force of his career, as Duty was its guiding light and controlling standard. I make less of his clear perceptions, his sound judgment, of the general rational processes which illuminated his course, as I also do of the courage, fortitude, zeal, which illustrated his deeds. All these things, valuable as they are, he shared with others. He possessed them, possibly, in an unusual degree, but still in common with many to whom they could never bring success, because unas- soclated with that indefinable something, which, like a yet undiscovered element In nature, or an undetected planet, we recognize by its workings, and may to it even attribute a name, though unable as yet adequately to describe. Genius, we not Infrequently say; a word which, not yet defined, stands a mute confession of our ignorance wherein It consists. As I conceive it, there is no genius greater than faith; though it may well be 304 Naval Administration and Warfare that in so saying we have but given another name v^^ith no nearer approach to a definition. In a celebrated funeral oration, vv^hich we all know, the speaker says : " I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." It is for no such purpose that men observe this day; for the man, the memory of whom now moves his people, is not one to be buried, but to be praised and kept in everlasting remembrance. True, he needs not our praises, but we need to praise him for our own sakes. The Majesty on high is exalted far above all praise, yet it is good to praise Him ; for the essence of praise is not the homage of the lips, but the recognition of excellence; and recognition, when real, elevates, ennobles. It fosters an ideal which tends to induce imitation, and to uplift by sheer force of appreciation and association. And as with the Creator, so with the excellent among his creatures. We need not ignore their failings, or their sins, although an occasion like the present is not one for dwelling upon these; but as we recognize in them men of like frailities with ourselves, we yet perceive that, despite all, they have not only done the great works, but have been the great men whom we may justly reverence. That they in their weakness have had so much in common with us gives hope that we may yet have something in common with them in their The Strength of Nelson 305 strength. It is the high grace and privilege of a man like Nelson that he provokes emulation rather than rivalry, imitation rather than com- petition. To extol him uphfts ourselves. As it was when he lived on earth, so it is now. His life is an inheritance to children's children; of his own people first, but after them of all the nations of the earth. THE VALUE OF THE PACIFIC CRUISE OF THE UNITED STATES FLEET, 1908 Prospect and Retrospect Prospect: The Scientific American, December 7, 1907. Retrospect: Collier's Weekly, August 29, 1908. THE VALUE OF THE PACIFIC CRUISE OF THE UNITED STATES FLEET, 1908. Prospect THE projected movement of an American fleet of sixteen battleships, with attendant smaller vessels, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of the United States is an event not only important, both from the professional and national point of vievs^, but striking to the imagination. It carries in itself certain elements of grandeur. It is therefore not surprising that it should have attracted particular notice from the press; but the effect upon the imagination of several journals has been such as to approach the border line of insanity. A measure designed upon its face to reach a practical solution of one of the most urgent naval problems that can confront a nation having two seaboards, extremely remote the one from the other, has been persistently represented as a menace to a friendly power — Japan; and so effectively has this campaign of misrepresenta- tion been carried on, so successfully has an ob- 310 Naval Administration and Warfare vious and perfectly sufficient reason for this cruise been ignored in favor of one less probable, and, so far as knowledge went, non-existent, that certain of the press of Japan, we are told, have echoed the cry. Not only so, but European journals, notably some in Great Britain, among them certain which are incessant in their warnings against Germany, and conscious that the whole distribution of the British fleet has of late been modified, with the object of increasing the battleship force quickly available for the North Sea, where their only enemy is Germany, nevertheless affect to depre- cate the dispatch of a United States fleet from its Atlantic to its Pacific coast, where it will be four thousand miles from Japan, against the two or three hundred which separate England and Germany. A new British naval base has been established on the North Sea. The naval ma- noeuvres of this autumn (1907), in which have taken part twenty-six battleships and fifteen to twenty armored cruisers, that is, over forty ar- mored vessels, with other cruisers and torpedo boats in numbers, have been in the North Sea; one coast only of which is British as our Pacific coast is ours. The Naval Annual for this year, a publication conservative in tone as well as high in authority, discusses the strategy of the Cruise 0} U. S. Atlantic Fleet 311 North Sea with unhesitating reference to Germany. I take from it the statement that by May, 1908, 86 per cent, of the British battleship strength will be concentrated in or near home waters. Yet, in the face of all this, the rulers of Great Britain and Germany, at this very moment of my writing, find no difficulty in exchanging peaceful assur- ances, the sincerity of which we have no good reason to doubt. Have we also forgotten that, upon the Emperor William's famous telegram to Kruger, a British special squadron was ordered into commission, ready for instant move- ment ? Whether a retort or a menace, even so overt a measure, in home waters, gave rise to no further known diplomatic action. We Ameri- cans are attributing to other people a thinness of skin, suggestive of an over-sensitiveness in ourselves which it was hoped we had outgrown. Let it be said at once, definitely and definitively, that there is in international law, or in inter- national comity, absolutely no ground of offence to any state, should another state, neighbor or remote, see fit to move its navy about its own coasts in such manner as it pleases. Whatever Germany may think of the new distribution of the British navy, she says nothing, but will silently govern her own measures accordingly. The statesmen of Japan, who understand perfectly 312 Naval Administration and Warfare the proprieties of international relations, know this well, and doubtless retain their composure; but the result of the action of certain of the Amer- ican press has been to stir up popular feeling in both countries, by the imputation to the United States government of motives and purposes which cannot be known, and which prima facte are less probable than the object officially avowed. Whether this endeavour to rouse ill blood has been intentional or not, is of course known only to the editors; but grave ground for suspecting even so unworthy a motive as to injure the national administration is fairly to be inferred from such a paragraph as I shall here quote, from a New York journal of October 6. My chief object in quoting, however, is not to impugn motives, however reasonable such construction, but to emphasize the essential characteristic of the coming movement of our fleet: " Suppose that soon after the New Orleans riots, when relations between the United States and Italy were ' strained,' the American fleet had been sent on a practice cruise to the Mediterranean. " Suppose that soon after the Venezuela mes- sage, Mr. Cleveland had ordered the whole Amer- can fighting naval strength to take a practice cruise off Nova Scotia or Jamaica." Such action, in either supposed case, would have Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 313 been wantonly insolent and aggressive, calculated to provoke hostilities, and such as no statesman vrould take, unless he had already determined to force war, or saw it looming large on the horizon; as when the British fleet was sent to Besika Bay in 1878. The insolence, aggression, and provo- cation, however, would have been the demon- stration off the coast of the nation with whom diplomatic difficulty existed. Occurring when these innuendoes did, in the midst of the virulent campaign of imputation of warlike purposes against the Administration, the inference is irre- sistible that there was deliberate intention to parallel the sending of our fleet from our one coast to our other to a measure as offensive as those named. The distinguishing characteristic of the movement now proiected, rrom " the in ^ ternational point or view, is that it is not in the nature ot a demonstration, peaceful or hostile, oir the coast of any other state, mucnless~mt that bi one witli whom our relations are asserted by the press to be delicate. Not every man in the "?ffiet,"'however7''ttJtrfd'"- detect the fallacy. It is a maxim of law that intention can only be inferred from action. So wild an insinuation, in the columns of a journal distinguished for in- telligence, can, so far as the action shows, be attributed only to a willingness to mislead, or to a loss of head. 314 Naval Administration and Warfare In pursuing the next aspect of this cruise to which I purpose to devote attention, I am led again to quote the same journal: " We are asked to believe that this expedition to the Pacific is a mere ' practice cruise.' He must be a miracle of innocent credulity who be- lieves it. What observant men perceive in this dangerous situation is a cataclysm trained and bridled for Theodore Roosevelt to bestride and run amuck." The last sentence is not necessary to my pur- pose; but I preserve it, partly for that gem of metaphor, " a cataclysm trained and bridled," and partly for the directness of the charge against the President of preparing conditions that must issue in war. For the rest, if to believe in the obvious and adequate motive of practice for the fleet is to be a " miracle of innocent credulity," such I must ad- mit myself to be; and I do so heartily. I am not in the councils of either the government or the Navy Department. I have neither talked with nor heard from any person who from official position could communicate to me any knowl- edge of the facts. My own information has been confined throughout to the newspapers. Shortly after the purpose to send the fleet became known, and counter agitation to be made, I had occasion Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 315 to write to a British naval friend; and I said to him then that, while I had no clue to the motives of the Administration, it seemed to me that a perfectly sufficient reason was the experience to be gained by the fleet in making a long voyage, which otherwise might have to be made for the first time under the pressure of war, and the dis- advantage of not having experienced at least once the huge administrative difficulties connected with so distant an expedition by a large body of vessels dependent upon their own resources. By " own resources " must be understood, not that which each vessel carries in herself, but self-dependence as distinguished from dependence on near navy yards — the great snare of peace times. The renewal of stores and coal on the voyage is a big problem, whether the supply vessels accompany the fleet or are directed to join from point to point. It is a problem of combination, and of subsistence; a distinctly mil- itary problem. To grapple with such a question is as really practical as is fleet tactics or target practice. To this opinion I now adhere, after having viewed the matter in the light of such historical and professional thought and training as I can bring to it. Other reasons may have concurred; of this I know nothing. The one reason, practice, 316 Naval Administration and Warfare is sufficient. It is not only adequate, but impera- tive. The experiment — for such it is until it has become experience — should have been made sooner rather than be now postponed. That it was not sooner attempted has been, probably, because the growth of the navy has only now reached the numbers, sufficiently homogeneous, to make the movement exhaustively instructive. The word practice covers legitimately many features of naval activity, which differ markedly and even radically from one another, though all conducive to the common end — proficiency. I may perhaps illustrate advantageously by a re- mark I have had occasion to make elsewhere, upon two theories concerning the summer practice cruises of the Naval Academy. There were — probably still are — those who advocated spend- ing most of the allotted time in quiet, contracted, waters, following a prearranged routine of prac- tical drills of various descriptions, which would thus be as little as possible disturbed by weather or similar impediment. Others favored the practice vessels putting out at once to sea for a voyage of length, amounting often to five or six thousand miles, in which must necessarily be experienced many kinds of weather and other incidents, reproducing the real life of the sea, and enforcing such practical action as the variable Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 317 ocean continually exacts. It is evident that these conceptions, though opposite, are not con- trary to each other, but complementary; and a moment's thought shows that under another phase they reappear in every fleet, if its active life is thoughtfully ordered with a view to full efficiency. It is imperative that a fleet, for a large proportion of the year, seek retired waters and relatively equable weather, for the purposes of drill with the guns; from the slow graduated instruction of the gunners, the deliberate firing at a stationary target, and from a ship either at rest or slowly moving, up through successive ac- cretions of speed of ship, and of discharges, until the extreme test is reached of fast steaming, and firing with the utmost quickness with which the guns can be handled. In like manner the ma- noeuvring of a body of several ships in rapid movement, changing from one formation to another, for the ultimate purposes of battle, must progress gradually, in order that com- manding officers and their under-studies may gain, not only ability, but confidence, based upon habit; upon knowledge of what their own ships can do, and what they may expect from the other vessels about them. Ships in battle order must keep at distances which, relatively to the speed maintained, are short; dangerously short, 318 Naval Administration and Warfare except where compensated by the sureness of handling based on long practice. It is clear also that alterations in the personnel of a fleet, which are of frequent occurrence, make constant tacti- cal drills additionally necessary. But when all this — and more not here specified — has been accomplished, whether at the Naval Academy or for the fleet, what has been done but lay the necessary foundation upon which to rear the superstructure of the real life of the profession ? There remains still to fulfil the object — very different from mere practice, though dependent upon it — which alone justifies the existence of a navy. The pupil of the Naval Academy passes naturally and imperceptibly into the routine of life of the service by the simple incident of being ordered to a sea-going ship; the single ship, the cruiser, gains her sufficient experi- ence by the mere fact of staying at sea ; but a fleet tied to its home ports, or to the drill ground, does not undergo, and therefore does not possess, the fulness of fleet life. Not only are the in- terruptions numerous and injurious; not only does the easily reached navy yard sap the habit of self-reliance; but out in the deep, dependent upon itself alone and for a long period, there await a fleet on a distant voyage problems so different in degree from those of a vessel alone Cruise oj U. S. Atlantic Fleet 319 as practically to be different in kind. Multiply any kind of difficulty by sixteen, and you have passed from one order of administration to another. The movement of the United States battle fleet from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast is in the highest sense practical, because it is pre- cisely the kind of movement which the fleet of any nation may, and usually will, be required to make in war. It is further practical, because the United States has a Pacific as well as an Atlantic coast, and has not a navy large enough to be divided safely between them. The question is at least debatable, whether for the near future the Pacific is not the greater centre of world interest; as it certainly, with regard to our own military necessities, is one of greater exposure than the Atlantic. Like France, with her Mediter- ranean and Atlantic shores, the United States is in the painful military dilemma of being liable to attack on one side while the fleet is on the other; but our distance to be covered is so much greater than that of France, that the position is vastly more embarrassing. A fleet of battleships leaving Toulon, full coaled and victualed, may reach Brest or Cherbourg without renewing the fuel and stores in its holds; but a fleet leaving New York or Norfolk for San Francisco has upon its hands a most serious administrative 320 Naval Administration and Warfare problem, and one which no accuracy of gun- fire, no skill in tactics, can meet. It is in fact the problem of Rozhestvensky, to use an illustra- tion particularly apt, because recent. Can our navy in such case expect from the weak states of South America the facility for recoaling, etc., which was liberally extended to the Russian admiral, to the somewhat amazement of the naval profession, and to the just indignation of Japan ? It is an old saying that an army, like a snake, moves on its belly. This is little less true of a navy. In the foremost naval man of modern times, in Nelson, we, according to our several prepos- sessions, see the great strategist, or the great tactician, or the great fighting man; but the careful student of his letters realizes that, under- lying all, is the great administrator, who never lost sight or forethought for the belly on which his fleet moved. The unremitting solicitude for the food essential to the health of his crews; the perpetual alertness to seize opportunity, in- dicated by such casual note, at sea : " Finished discharging storeship No. — ; " the slipping into Tetuan to fill with water, because little progress toward Gibraltar could be made against the current and temporary head wind; the strong self-control, holding down his constitutional im- petuosity to move, till sure that all has been done Cruise 0} U. S. Atlantic Fleet 321 to make movement far reaching, as well as ac- curate in direction; the whole culminating at the end of his life in a wide sweeping movement across the Atlantic, back to Gibraltar, and thence to Brest, a period of three months — about equiv- alent to that required for our projected transfer — during which he was never embarrassed about stores because always forehanded; that is the way — speed, not haste — in which wars are won. It was, and was recognized at the time to be, a magnificent instance of the mobility which is the great characteristic of navies as fighting bodies ; not the mobility which consists in getting an extra half-knot on a speed trial with picked coal and firemen, but that which loses no time because it never misses opportunity. At the end, when he came off Brest, out of the dozen ships with him, all but two were turned over to the admiral there commanding, ready for any call; to blockade or to fight. Of the two, one, worn out structurally, he had retained from the first chiefly because of her value as a fighting unit, due to an exceptional captain; the other, his own flagship, had been over two years from a home port, yet within a month of arrival sailed again for his last battle. Compared to these its antece- dents, Trafalgar is relatively a small matter. The example is for all time. Incidental con- 322 Naval Administration and Warfare ditions have changed since then, but the essential problem remains. Steamers may not find in a calm, or in an unprofitable head wind, the pro- pitious moment for clearing a storeship, or run- ning into a near port to fill with water; but the commander-in-chief may find imposed upon him the consideration : Where should we fill with coal, and to what extent beyond the bunker capacity, in order to make the successive coalings, and the necessary stretches from point to point, most easy and most rapid ? What distribution of these operations will make the total voyage shortest and surest ? What anchorages may be available outside neutral limits, should neutral states con- sider coal renewal and other refreshment an operation of war not to be permitted within their jurisdiction ? What choice is there among these anchorages, for facility due to weather ? If driven to coal at sea, where will conditions be most pro- pitious ? For concrete instances: How much of the wide and shoal estuary of the La Plata is within neutral jurisdiction ? Is the well-known quietness of the Pacific between Valparaiso and the equator such that colliers can lie alongside while the ships hold their course ? If so, at what speed can they move ? Then the mere operation of transferring the coal, or other stores, under any of these circumstances is done more rapidly Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 323 the second time than the first; and the third than the second. At what points of the voyage should additional colliers join, having reference, not only to the considerations above mentioned, but also to the ports whence they sail, that the utmost of their cargo may go into the fleet and the least be expended for their own steaming ? It is always well to consider the worst difficulties that may be met. From the north tropic on the one side to the same latitude on the other, the whole voyage of an American fleet will be in foreign waters, except when on the ocean common. Upon what hospitality can It count in war ? I hold it to be impossible that a fleet under a competent commander-in-chief and competent captains — not to mention the admirable junior official staffs of our navy, of highly trained officers in the prime of life — can make the proposed voyage once, even with the advantages of peace, without being better fitted to repeat the operation in war. No amount of careful pre-arrangement in an office takes the place of doing the thing itself. It is surely a safe generalization, that no complicated scheme of action, no invention, was ever yet started without giving rise to difficulties which anxious care had failed to foresee. If challenged to point out the most useful lesson the fleet may gain, it may be not unsafe to say: 324 Naval Administration and Warfare its surprises, the unexpected. If we can trust press reports, surprise has already begun in the home water. The fleet apparently has not been able to get ready as soon as contemplated. If so, it will be no small gain to the government to know the several hitches; each small, but cumulative. In my estimation, therefore, the matter stands thus : In the opinion of Sir Charles Dilke — than whom I know no sounder authority, because while non-professional he has been for a generation a most accurate observer and appreciative student of military and naval matters — the United States navy now stands second in power only to that of Great Britain; but it is not strong enough to be divided between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Both are part of a common country; both therefore equally entitled to defence. It follows inevitably that the fleet should be always ready, not only in formulated plan, but by acquired ex- perience, to proceed with the utmost rapidity — according to the definition of mobility before suggested — from one coast to the other, as needed. That facility obtained, both coasts are defended in a military sense. By this I do not mean that an enemy may not do some flying injury — serious injury — but that no large oper- ation against the coasts of the United States Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 325 can prosper unless the enemy command the sea; and that he cannot do, to any effect, if within three months a superior United States force can appear. Rozhestvensky took longer; but could he have smashed Togo, as Togo did him, what would have been the situation of Japan, for all the successes of the preceding fourteen months ? Evidently, however, the shorter the transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic, the greater will be the power of the fleet for good; just as it would have been better if Rozhestvensky — assuming his success — had come before Port Arthur fell, or better still before its fleet was destroyed. Such mobility can be acquired only by a familiarity with the ground, and with the methods to be followed, such as Nelson by personal experience had of the Mediterranean and of the West Indies; of the facilities they oflFered, and the obstacles they presented. Such knowledge is experimental, gained only by practice. It is demonstrable, there- fore, that the proposed voyage is in the highest degree practical; not only advisable, but im- perative. Nor should it be a single spasm of action, but a recurrent procedure; for admirals and captains go and come, and their individual experience with them. Why not annual .? The Pacific is as good a drill ground as the At- lantic. 326 Naval Administration and Warfare Retrospect Since the preceding words were written, the cruise of the fleet as then contemplated has taken place; and on this day of present writing the journey has just been resumed by its second de- parture from a Pacific home port, San Francisco, for Honolulu. Sufficient experience has already been gathered to permit a certain amount of retrospective estimate of the results of the experi- ment. There are two fundamental factors in military efficiency: the moral and the material. Under these two heads all details of effectiveness can be ranged. Neither is without the other; but in order of precedence the moral — for which not without advantage we have borrowed a foreign distinctive name, morale — comes easily first. The great Napoleon has said : " In war, morale always prevails." It is in this, particularly, that the benefit of this experiment was realized up to the time that the crews, in whom morale or the reverse soonest shows itself, came again in touch with home ports and the influences which attach to them. To put the matter in modern terms, the cruise from Hampton Roads to Magdalena Bay, and thence to our Pacific ports, affected the ships' companies by a change of environment, Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 327 and of occupations. The utility of such change was testified by Nelson during his weary two years' blockade of Toulon. " The great thing in all military service is health " (moral as well as physical). " It is easier to keep men healthy than to cure them. Situated as this fleet has been without a friendly port, I have [secured health] by changing the cruising ground, not allowing the sameness of prospect to satiate the mind; sometimes by looking at Toulon, Villefranche, Barcelona, and Rosas; then running round Mi- norca, Majorca, Sardinia, and Corsica; and two or three times anchoring for a few days." In consequence of the precautions, of which this was one, the physician to the fleet, who joined after eighteen months' blockade work — no friendly port — wrote that, out of the flagship's 840 men, only one was in bed for illness, and that the other ten vessels were in equal condi- tion. To the crews of our Atlantic fleet, however, the great beneficial element, the moral alterative, was not chiefly in the foreign ports; they con- tributed merely, and somewhat in excess, that element of recreation, of amusement, which is recognized in the proverb about " All work and no play." The moral malady was not confine- ment to their ships. The gain in morale, to officers 328 Naval Administration and Warfare and to men, was in the surroundings which in common Hfe show themselves as " home," and as " self-dependence." The regularized life of the sea on a long passage, the enforced, and therefore contented, confinement to the family for happiness and comradeship, the steady, placid fulfilment of the round of small duties, all having their evident use and meaning, correspond to the normal conditions which for the large majority of men fill up the void of mental un- easiness consequent upon lack of occupation, or upon restless aimlessness of pursuit. Nothing so settles as does an observed routine, the details of which justify themselves to a man's under- standing. Such a life may become monotonous, and require, a break; but I hazard little in sub- mitting to the mass of mankind that, upon the whole, fixed employment and the presence of constant associates, family, friends, acquaintance, give the solid ground upon which usefulness and happiness are built. This is the steady, healthy diet of life; promotive of cheerfulness, efficiency, and reasonable self-esteem. Considerations such as these have always made the home stations distasteful, professionally, to naval officers. I say professionally; because, doubtless, personally there is something attractive in being on a coast where a short leave to visit Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 329 one's family may be periodically obtained, or where the family may come where the ship is without too heavy expense of travel. But it is, perhaps, rather by perpetual experience than by formal consideration that the responsible officers come to realize that this agreeable feature means to their subordinates — and to themselves — a double service, of the ship and of the family, which invariably lessens usefulness to both by friction between the two. Let neither be denied, but rather both be insured by allotting to each the appointed occasion, the time which belong to all things under the sun, and upon which the other may not trespass. The Pacific cruise eliminated a rivalry, the inevitable tendency of which is hate toward one and love toward the other; needless to say which draws more strongly. When they are in compe- tition, an element of perfunctoriness drags on the skirts of duty, which is not neglected; but its conditions become less beloved. The morale is lowered. This result is exasperated and exag- gerated by the navy yard; recourse to which becomes easy, at the sacrifice of the self-depend- ence which ought to be the pride of ship as of man, and which has been and has continued the laudable boast of the Atlantic fleet through its late Pacific cruise. Not only is work which a self- 330 Naval Administration and Warfare respecting ship should do for itself thrown upon the yard, but the presence of the yard mechanics, scattered hither and yon, driving, tinkering, and hammering, reproduce exactly in kind, and to a distracting degree, what we experience in house- cleaning, or in the case of somewhat extensive house repairs. The comfort which home means, the ordered life which makes the household both efficient and happy, disappear for the time. Such things have to be — occasionally; but to be, say half the year, becomes unendurable and destructive. " Sameness of prospect," such as this, soon " satiates " — and vitiates. How much worse if to discomfort be added the interruption of the pursuits upon which the maintenance of the family efficiency depends. While repairs are going on drills are interrupted; drills of some kinds can not be held at all; everything is dis- arranged; routine lies in broken fragments; and while such confusion impedes the ordinary ac- tivities of the ship the question naturally arises: Why can not I, and I, and I, be spared to this or that outside purpose ? The ship doesn't need me. This does not tend to serenity, nor promote happiness; and certainly does not add to effi- ciency. Restlessness and unsettlement pre- vail. This outline of conditions, and the suggested Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 331 analogies, may serve to facilitate appreciation of that effect of the cruise which took the ships out of the country for four consecutive months. These general considerations underlie an un- derstanding of the specific results. No usual amount of external ceremonial intercourse with the authorities of foreign ports, no disturbance depending upon such " functions," or other shore association, compares with the internal disorganization attendant upon navy yard re- pairs. One reason for the difference is patent. Repairs done by the ship's own men, under the ship's own officers, are susceptible of an adjust- ment which takes into account the other needs of the vessel. There is unity of direction. In consequence, at sea during this cruise, there was magnificent opportunity to perfect the ships* companies in all ship drills essential for battle. All hands were on board for long spells of time ; during which, whatever repairs might be going on, there were continual drills in handling guns, supplying ammunition, loading, sighting, fire control, and all the details pertaining to efficiency in action; the results of which would also be visible in the subsequent target practice in Mag- dalena Bay, and in battle, should such need un- happily arise. At a navy yard the repairs, when authorized, are done under the officers of the 332 Naval Administration and Warfare yard, who, in arranging the manner and rate of progress, have to consider matters not pertaining to the particular vessel; such as the requirements of other ships, the total force of mechanics at their disposal, the necessity of utilizing the ex- pensive skilled labor throughout all the working hours, which are drill hours as well. There is duahty of management. The yard predominates; and, in the interests of the country, must pre- dominate, necessarily. The ships having been thrown upon them- selves alone, under unified control, the concen- tration of minds and hearts upon the vessels and the fleet, and the long deliverance from distracting and disturbing alien elements within, have pro- moted self-dependence and enabled the organic life of the ships' companies to gain vigor; by constituting within itself those grouping of kin- dred interests and associations which reproduce home and social life, and add distinctly to the vitality of the whole. That this has been so is known from high official testimony on board the fleet; it is, however, also a commonplace of naval observation at all times and periods. " To being so long at sea," wrote Nelson, " do we attribute our being so healthy." Further evidence to this is borne by the statement in the daily papers that upon leaving San Francisco, July 7, Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 333 out of the 13,000 men who arrived only 129 ' — one per cent — were absent from roll-call; of whom it was believed by the naval officials not more than one-fourth were intentional desertions. This is a testimony to improved morale. Also, as all naval experience past and present testifies, the movement of many ships together works in the same direction. Proximity and competition maintain the natural emulation between vessels, stimulated often, and in this instance conspicu- ously, by contests instituted by the Commander- in-Chief, whose supervision was continued, despite bodily illness. He thus utilized the universal human disposition to rivalry, as a powerful lever for raising the standards of efficiency and per- formance. This intensifying of ship life corresponds exactly to the expansion of individual powers, when health succeeds illness, when success follows upon failure, when congenial surroundings of climate or of fortune take the place of enervating atmosphere or cramped resources. This is the greatest result, because it lies at the bottom; it is as the foundation to a house, still more as the root to a plant. The consequences of improved ' When the fleet left Hampton Roads, the exact numbers carried were: officers, 654; seamen, 12,891; marines, 1,237. I do not understand the latter to be included in the statement as to desertions. 334 Naval Administration and Warfare morale so enter into the material advances made as to be not perfectly distinguishable in effect. A quantitative analysis is impossible ; yet concrete visible gains, parallelling the desertion record, can be stated. Despite previous tactical drills, the sixteen vessels at the outset were novi^ going ahead, now stopping, now backing, at irregular time intervals, in order to regain position lost by their own fault, or that of their neighbors. Within a month they were holding their steady way, 250 yards from the stern of one to the bow of its follower, in four columns abreast each other, with an evenness of progress that suggested their being tied together. This was the difference between the drill-ground and the steady habit of the march ; between the lecture room and the practice of a profession. It manifests not merely the developed capacity of each captain or deck officer, but the confidence gained by experience of how the man in the other ship will act; the con- trast between school and life. It is the touch of the elbow, which in times past symbolized the mutual reliance of trained soldiers, as compared with the lack of that quality which has been responsible for the disasters of militia. Consider, too, how much this regularity will conduce to the movements of the battlefield; necessarily simple, but with equal necessity to Cruise oj U. S. Atlantic Fleet 335 be mutual — not common only — and dependable. In the particular voyage little time could be spared for formal tactical drills, because the itin- erary left no sufficient margin for the purpose. This was a loss, which in repetition could be obviated by a greater allowance of time from start to finish, carrying the double advantage of more time at sea, with its quiet, fixed routine. The first voyage also was accompanied inevitably by hospitalities that would naturally not ob- tain to any like extent on the second and third; which would thus become more distinctly mili- tary, without sacrificing the enjoyment of foreign ports. Nevertheless the manoeuvres incidental to the march, and the very regularity of the forma- tion, contribute greatly to develop the tactical faculty, and in these there was much experience. In formal manoeuvres, handling is apt to be done by one or two principal officers; on the march every deck officer has a chance. Consider further what cooperation elsewhere is needed, and there- fore was obtained, to support the skill of the deck officer. All the motive power must act with a precision to which constant watchfulness and a certain degree of foresight are requisite. Upon all the parties concerned in obtaining these re- sults presses the public opinion of the ship ; like the pride of a regiment in its colors, or of a college 336 Naval Administration and Warfare in its team. An avoidable break, or an avoidable hot journal, is not the fault of all on board ; but it is the mortification of all, for it involves the reputation of " the ship." Besides, the whole fleet is waiting, looking on, perhaps with swear words at detention. Any one who has found him- self a centre of observation under mortifying cir- cumstances can recall how painfully slow the moments while struggling for extrication. Conditions not so immediately visible as these can be judiciously brought under the same moral pressure of the shipmates. Fuel consumption, for instance, may not be, will not be, of itself a matter of much concern to the private seaman; but in- stitute, as was instituted, competition in economy, with published results, and at once emulation is aroused. Whatever is achieved is to the credit of the ship; every man has an inch added to his heels, as really as though he himself had saved the coal. Such is the moral factor, not to be estimated in decimal terms of proportion; a source of un- told energy upon demand. For material result, the saving of coal during the last 8,2io miles was such that, had it been obtained also in the first 5,227, the economy would have been 2,390 tons; or over 2 1-2 per cent, on the total consumption, had the first rate of expenditure been maintained. This is an achievement far from contemptible Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 337 in these days of low interest. Doubtless it also may be improved upon ; but, even as it stands, it shows the eflFect of moral influences upon stoking. Economy even which ends in itself is commend- able, if it be a real economy ; we all know the dear- ness of a cheap, inferior article. It is a good habit; and at the least means force, or means, saved for other purposes. In naval coal saved, while main- taining the same speed — without which you have merely acquired an inferior article — it means either ability to go farther, or to go an equal distance at a more rapid rate; economy of space or economy of time -.— convertible terms. The strategic value of both is readily understood. When to this cheering achievement is added that the vessels showing it reached port after a voyage of over 13,000 miles in as good condition as re- gards efficiency of engines as when they started, or better, the double event is more than encour- aging. It is a revelation. Few believed that it could be done. Prophecies of vessels disabled abounded; and to the no small surprise of the instructed — which all of us can be — are again renewed in prospect of a similar voyage. Thus we learn from one of the journals which most persistently harped on the imagined hostile purpose of the original despatch of the fleet, that " the months required for the next journey 338 Naval Administration and Warfare will take the best of the life and efficiency out of our fine ships of war. When they get back to Hampton Roads every one of them will have to be repaired at great cost and at once. The boilers and other machinery in nearly every ship will have to be torn to pieces. This means that for months after the fleet has returned to the Atlantic the country will continue to be deprived of the possible services of these ships in an international emergency. The cost will be tre- mendous, but the grave feature is the helplessness of the country meanwhile, and the opportunity of a foreign nation to strike." Why this should be said, unless in hope to injure the Adminis- tration, is hard to understand. One is reminded somewhat pathetically of the words of Admiral Villeneuve to his captains, within a year before he lost Trafalgar. " We have no reason to fear the sight of the English squadron. Their seventy- fours have not five hundred men on board; they are worn out by long cruising." In this he echoed his master, Napoleon, and it was so far true that Nelson himself was then writing of his " crazy ships;" "not a storeship a week would keep them in repair." A month later Villeneuve wrote again : " The squadron appeared very fine in port, crews drilling well; but as soon as a storm came all was changed. They were not Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 339 drilled in storms." " These gentlemen," com- mented Nelson, " are not used to the hurricanes, which we have braved twenty-one months without losing mast or yard." There lies before me a letter to the New York " Herald " from Lieutenant-Commander Lloyd H. Chandler,' principal aid to Admiral Evans, and who commanded a squadron of torpedo- boat destroyers sent from our Atlantic Coast to Manila some years ago. He writes from Mag- dalena Bay: " As for readiness for further travel, it may be stated that there is not a ship in the fleet whose machinery is not in much better condition than when she left Hampton Roads. Many little matters which lacked adjustment, as machinery does after dockyard overhauUng, have been corrected, and now every ship is run- ning as smoothly as can be desired, and is ready for any duty which may he assigned her." This, again, is sea efficiency against the port, or merely drill, habit. The improvement in the steaming and efficiency of the torpedo flotilla seems to have been even more decisive than in those of the battle- ships. " They improved steadily in the condition of ' New York " Herald," March 29, 1908. I have quoted much from the letter of Lieutenant-Commander Chandler, using at times his own words. I would recommend any person interested in the subject, and having access to a file of the " Herald," to read the whole letter. 340 Naval Administration and Warfare their machinery during the period of their hardest service." The fleet on arrival in Magdalena Bay was ready to proceed at once to target practice, so far as motive power was concerned; to use the characteristically graphic expression of the Commander-in-Chief, they were prepared equally " for a fight or a frolic." The targets were placed at once, but the doing this with the precision of modern methods requires time. If this were the case after 13,437 miles, without prolonged stops for repair, why not rather hope that the two months' rest at our Pacific ports may have sent the fleet out with no greater draw- backs than the need again to adjust the dockyard work .f' Of course, machinery does suffer wear and tear; but it also may suffer rust. What is worse, the engine-room force may grow rusty. There is no reason to apprehend for the fleet more than the dangers of the sea, which ships are meant to meet. Short of total disablement, which there is no cause to expect, the gain in the morale of men not suffered to rust will outweigh, as in the case of Nelson and Villeneuve, the loss by wear and tear to ships or engines. Unless the ships can not steam at all, they will manoeuvre and fight better. A very interesting feature of this extremely satisfactory result in the machinery is that the run, Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 341 one of the longest, if not the very longest, made by a fleet of battleships, has been accomplished under the new system, instituted by law in 1899, by which the two corps of the line and engineer officers were merged into one. The substantial effect of this change was to restore the conditions obtaining in the days of sail, when the seamen who fought the ship were also in charge of the motive power. Grave fears were felt and ex- pressed in many quarters that the same class of officers could not perform both duties efficiently; that the engines especially would suffer from being in charge of men who had not been trained exclusively to take care of machinery. What the results to machinery were from this long voyage has just been stated. Of the sixteen battleships participating, Lieutenant-Commander Chandler tells us that the steam departments of four only were in charge of the old engineer corps. The remaining twelve had had no connection with it, nor had received any engineering education other than that which by the new system is given to every officer of " the line " — the name now common to the officers of the bridge, the gun, and the engine. In the torpedo flotilla there was but one officer of the former " engineer corps," Lieut. -Commander Hutch L Cone, and he had military command of the whole body; the men 342 Naval Administration and Warfare in charge of the several engines were products of the new system. The conclusions reached from this very practical test may be accounted among the gains of the cruise. The questions of supply — of fuel, of provisions, and of other stores — have been met in part by the occasional prearranged meetings with colliers; in part by accompanying colliers, by the presence of two general supply vessels, and of one equipped for making repairs more extensive than the or- dinary resources of a ship permit; a kind of floating navy-yard, with the advantage of being under the same control as the fleet itself. These methods of administration were planned before the sailing of the fleet; its progress has contributed forcibly to further elucidation, both by the successes and the shortcomings of the arrange- ments made. " The work has been done in the most satisfactory manner; nevertheless, we see several ways in which we could improve." Much useful experience was gained in the details of organization for transferring from the storeships to the sixteen vessels of the fleet. It was found also that the repair ship would be bettered by having some classes of mechanics, not allowed, nor necessary, to a ship in ordinary commission. This is but another case of our common ex- perience that doing things reveals difficulties and Cruise 0} U. S. Atlantic Fleet 343 perfects methods. A fleet on voyage is an army on the march, an army in campaign; where the problems are essentially different from those of an army in garrison, or on the battlefield, but equally vital to efficiency. In no other way than voyaging can these problems of subsistence be solved by practical tests. It is correctly remarked by Lieutenant-Commander Chandler that " ex- perience in moving a fleet from one scene of operation to another is the first gain." It is first in importance as well as in order. Not only questions of supply, but the strategic questions of steaming radius at several speeds, upon which depends the rapidity with which a fleet can be transferred; what the rate of coal expenditure which will give the longest distance and attendant speed without recoaling. The present writer would have liked to see also tested the question of transferring coal and stores under the possible conditions of war ; of neutral ports refusing their shelter for such operations. While this was not tried, we are told that satisfactory results were attained in rapidity of coaling in port. In conclusion, it may safely be believed that in the increased home life so promoted, in the pride felt for the ship, and in the fleet, have been realized elements of moral force which will assert them- selves in a greater attachment to the navy as a 344 Naval Administration and War jar e profession — what the French call esprit de corps — in a consequent greater willingness to enlist and to remain in the service, and in a more effective attainment of results in matters of tactics and target practice; due to exactly that moral stimulus which confidence in one's self and one's companions, the pride of achievement and glow of competition, induce everywhere and in all men. In Magdalena Bay the crews came to target practice, and such other practical work as the conditions admitted, with ship pride in- tensified, with greater " fitness to win." Their progress round the world, being a condition of almost incessant movement, has promoted well- being of body and mind by the influence which variety of interest and change of scene has always been seen to exert; but, in all this broadening of the mind and engaging of the attention, the one constant factor has been the Fleet. Its own excellence, its daily improvement, the welcome accorded it in all parts, have been the immediate cause of a healthy pride which actually is that of patriotism ; seeing the nation behind its repre- sentative force. Finally, no notice of efl^ects in the fleet would be adequate which failed to recognize explicitly the indebtedness of the nation to the Commander- in-Chief, Admiral Evans. Despite the bodily Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 345 sickness of which the newspapers kept us in- formed, and which prevented his personal share in honors and welcomes extended to his command, to him has been due the perfect work of organi- zation, by which the great body under his com- mand has been enabled to move, day by day, and from port to port, fulfiUing all its duties without a hitch. The happy result entitles him to the first place in the credit won by the fleet — not only in his own country, but everywhere by men capable of appreciating naval results. Reverting to the threatening international as- pect which certain of our newspapers sought to attribute to this movement, it may be permitted to observe that their action was peculiarly incon- siderate and ill-timed, not to say unpatriotic; because, whether designedly or not, it conduced to perilous international exasperation at the moment when a very delicate international question could be seen to be pending. It is vain to ignore that the entire English speaking Pacific seaboard — British Columbia, our own States of Wash- ington, Oregon, and California, the Common- wealths of Australasia — is set as one man against Asiatic immigration. Directed a gainst the as yet formless mass of Chinese population, this teel- ing might not threaten immediate danger; but 346 Naval Administration and Warfare in the Japanese it confronts a highly organized government, a people substantially homogeneous, of chivalrous military spirit, conscious of recent great achievement, and naturally resentful of an exclusion, which, because confined to Asiatics, may easily be imagined invidious in temper, as it is in act, and may readily take on an appearance of asserted superiority of race. Such conditions are like sensitive explosives; to approach which by stirring up national feeling, imputing to one government hostile purpose in exercising its unquestionable and inoffensive right to move its navy where it will, either in its own waters or on the international common, the sea, is to imi- tate the man who enters a magazine with a lighted torch. Doubtless, statesmen on either side will understand law and comity, will appreciate con- ditions accurately, and will keep their heads; but peoples under manipulated excitement some- times escape control and force the hands of their rulers. The American newspapers which thus acted, whether of malice prepense towards the govern- ment in power, or through mere wanton pro- fessional stirring up a subject for public interest, or perhaps through sheer ignorance in matters on which they professed to teach, may enjoy the knowledge that the agitation originating Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 347 with them served to point the pen of European periodicists, daily and other, to the discredit of their country. Doubtless, these reflected impu- tations upon the American people and their magistrates were accepted by readers; why not, since Americans themselves gave them vogue ? I subjoin some extracts from a magazine sent me by an English friend. If somewhat entertaining, from the ingenuity of the misrepresentations, they may serve to reveal to Americans generally what we owe to the perverse coloring given to national action by American journalists. " About the period when these lines appear in print the civilized world in both hemispheres will, according to the American Press, be following with palpitating interest the prog- ress made by the gigantic fleet which, in obedience to the orders of President Roosevelt, is now slowly working its way from the mouth of the Chesapeake to the far distant waters of Japan. . . . When we ask, ' What is the object of this enor- mous outlay, and how is it calculated to impress any naval nation with terror .'' ' we ask in vain. . . . " If ever America should attempt to carry on a war with any powerful nation abroad, she would be hopelessly handicapped. This inferiority would be due to the hard fact that the United States has hitherto proved incapable of keeping up a formi- dable navy in time of peace. ... In consequence of the non- descript character of the rank and file in American regiments and American men of war, discipline can only be maintained by excessive and often brutal severity. . . . Under these cir- 348 Naval Administration and Warfare cumstances," (of unwillingness of men to enter the services), " the United States is not in a position to send a fleet abroad to conduct a serious campaign against Japan or any foreign first class power, such as Japan has shown herself to be. " The policy of bluff is a recognized device of American statesmanship. . . . The first idea, therefore, which would suggest itself to American statesmanship would be to bluff, by sending to Japanese waters an enormous fleet, not intended to fight, but designed to overawe the Japanese by the mere fact of its presence. If a policy of bluff should prove successful in cowing the Japanese, the President's fellow countrymen will exult in his triumph." " When the Roosevelt armada reaches the shores of Japan there will be only two courses for the American Government to pursue. Either it must present some form of ultimatum to the Mikado, to be accompanied by a covert threat of hostile action in the event of its refusal, or the fleet must return to America, after having made a futile demonstration.'' Like its American models, this English peri- odical overlooks the obvious in order to present a fancy picture. In view of these illuminating comments, let it be hoped that hereafter a more rational tone may be adopted by our press; or, if not, that the public will accurately value journal- istic hysteria. It is not by the unpatriotic course of abandoning national rights as to our navy that the notorious causes of international differ- ence then existing can be amended; but rather Cruise oj U. S. Atlantic Fleet 349 by directing attention to the obvious fact that the distinction between ourselves and the great peoples of Japan and China is not primarily one of race, or color, much less one of asserted superiority on our part, but of divergent develop- ment through thousands of years. What we call our civilization, — that is, the spiritual, intellectual and political development of the countries of Europe, America, and in some degree of Western Asia, — derives from Palestine, Greece and Rome. The immigrants whom we are apt to think most undesirable, the Slavic Jew and the Southern Italian, inherit from these sources in their measure, as really as our wisest and our best. There is a radical oneness of origin and develop- ment which favors assimilation. During ages, that waste tract of Central Asia known as the Roof of the World shut oiF China, Japan, and the adjoining countries from communication with Europe. Until the last century this seclu- sion was welcomed and enforced by themselves; thereby also evincing a spirit radically and es- sentially different from that which spread the Teutons over the Roman Empire, and has brought America, Africa, and India under European civilization and rule. The Farther East grew up, and evolved its own splendid civilizations in isolation, as far as Europe is concerned. 350 Naval Administration and Warfare Unless prepared to deny the influence of pro- longed continuous environment, of concentrated heredity, — of in-breeding, so to say, — it can not but be admitted that such different streams of derivation must issue in dissemblance, spir- itual, intellectual and political, unfavorable to present assimilation. Nor can this result of three thousand years be seriously modified in a single century, even by the marvellous aptitude with vphich Japan has adopted Western methods; a matter very different from Western sentiment, tradition and ideals, the true moulders of popular character. After four centuries of intercourse, two of which in very close contact, India still remains Indian in thought and manners; inspirit substan- tially unchanged by the West. Such profound essential divergences prevent the community of outlook essential to a common citizenship, or to a common domicile ; contact, if extensive and close, particularly when between the less reflective classes, will not promote harmony, but intensify discord. This truth unhappily is too evident for insistence. It is no new thing, but is seen where- ever the Asiatic and the European are thrown together; not in the accidental amenities of per- sonal intercourse, but on any scale large enough to be called social. They do not blend socially. The difference in color doubtless serves in some degree Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 351 to obtrude and emphasize the difference of ante- cedents ; but it is actually slight when contrasted with the East Indians, whose achievements in thought and in art, like those of the Saracens, have evidenced their equality with Europeans in mental and spiritual endowments. In view of such facts, assumptions of superiority, based on color only, are preposterous. On the other hand, where the difference of color is most marked, in the African negro, the presence of whom and his descendants in the United States constitutes so great a problem, the difficulty of political in- corporation, though great, is less. Color is there the chief factor, because at the moment of contact between the two races it accompanied and em- phasized a racial inferiority of development, intellectual, social and political. This condition was prolonged up to a half-century ago, by slavery; and the time which has since elapsed has not sufficed to annul it. To whatever causes that original inferiority be attributed, the negro could not, and cannot, oppose to the influence of the white any such barrier of subtle and elaborate philosophies of life as prevail in the East. These, incarnated in long standing highly organized communities, constitute the backbone of resistance to the intrusion of European ideals on the part of the ancient religious and social systems of 352 Naval Administration and Warfare China, India and Japan; and, by their effect on the individual members of those commun- ities, through generations of inheritance, ren- der them as a rule inapt to political assimilation with us. It is a matter for reasonable appre- hension that unrestricted immigration, accom- panied with naturalization, would result in Asiatic immigrants voting substantially together, in mass; and the United States already has too much experience of such solidarities, dependent upon other considerations than those of public good, or of private interests, which tend to counterbalance. On the other hand, immigration with citizenship denied would not only be a state of things foreign to the spirit of our institutions, but would pro- voke greater discontent than exclusion; a dis- content, too, to which it would be less easy to make a rational reply. If these things be so, let thinking men, whether they belong to the one race or to the other, habit- uate their minds to the reconciling fact that pref- erence for the predominance, within their na- tional borders, of the civilization to which they are accustomed, need not, and should not, imply any offensive claim of superiority. This, realized by the thoughtful, may spread throughout the mass. It is an essential preliminary to under- standing; and, possibly, in the remote end to Cruise of U. S. Atlantic Fleet 353 a community of standards, to a common out- look. Since writing the above, the cable reports the fleet's arrival at Manila, after a voyage from San Francisco closely approaching in length that from Hampton Roads to Magdalena. Admiral Sperry, successor to Admiral Evans, is quoted as saying that since the warships had been thrown on their own resources, without the convenience and support of a navy yard, their efficiency had been greatly increased. This, he added, was par- ticularly true of the engineering department. Upon this depends mobility, the particular char- acteristic of navies, regarded as a fighting force; and the maintenance of such efiiciency is perhaps the severest requirement of this prolonged ex- perience. The remarks attributed here to Admiral Sperry accord with those of Lieut.-Commander Chandler, — before quoted. The ships arrived at Manila a day late, owing to failure of colliers to join on time at Albany. This postponed departure by sixty hours; that much of this was made up adds to the evidence of efficiency. The incident touches the question of supply, vital to such operations. In war, it might have been disastrous ; occurring in peace, it prompts remedial precautions. THE MONROE DOCTRINE: A CON- SISTENT DEVELOPMENT THE MONROE DOCTRINE THE formulation of the Monroe Doctrine, as distinguished from its origin, resulted, as is universally understood, from the political con- ditions caused by the revolt of the Spanish colonies in America. Up to that time, and for centuries previous, the name Spain had signified to Europe in general not merely the mother country, but a huge colonial system, with its special economical and commercial regulation; the latter being de- termined through its colonial relations, upon the narrowest construction of colonial policy then known, which was saying a great deal. Spain stood for the Spanish Empire, divisible primarily into two chief components, Spain and Greater Spain; the mother country and the colonies. The passage of time had been gradually reversing the relative importance of the two in the appre- hension of other European states. In Sir Robert Walpole's day it was believed by many besides himself that Great Britain could not make head against France and Spain combined. The naval power of Spain, and consequently her political 857 358 Naval Administration and Warfare weight, still received awed consideration; a relic of former fears. This continued, though in a di- minished degree, through the War of American Independence; but by the end of the century, while it may be too much to affirm that such apprehension had wholly disappeared, — that no account was taken of the unwieldy numbers of ill-manned and often ill-officered ships that made up the Spanish navy, — it is true that a Spanish war bore to British seamen an aspect rather financial than military. It meant much more of prize money than of danger; and that it did so was due principally to the wealth of the colonies. This wealth was potential as well as actual, and in both aspects it appealed to Europe. To break in upon the monopoly enjoyed by Spain, and consecrated in international usage both by accepted ideas and long prescription, was an object of policy to the principal European mar- itime states. It was so conspicuously to Great Britain, on account of the pre-eminence which commercial considerations always had in her councils. In the days of William III., the pros- pective failure of the Spanish royal house brought up the question of what other family should succeed, and to whom should be transferred the great inheritance won by Columbus, Cortez and The Monroe Doctrine 359 Pizarro. Thenceforth the thought of dividing this spoil of a decadent empire — the sick man of that day — remained in men's memory as a possible contingency of the future, even though momentarily out of the range of practical politics. The waning of Spain's political and military prestige was accompanied by an increasing under- standing of the value of the commercial system appended to her in her colonies. The future disposition of these extensive regions, and the fruition of their wealth, developed and unde- veloped, were conceived as questions of universal European policy. In the general apprehension of European rulers, these were regarded as affect- ing the European balance of power. It was as the opponent of this conception, the perfectly natural outcome of previous circum- stances and history, that the Monroe Doctrine entered the field; a newcomer in form, yet having its own history and antecedent conditions as really as the conflicting European view. Far more than South America, which had seen little contested occupation, the Northern continent had known what it was to be the scene of antagonistic European ambitions and exploitation. There had been within her territory a balance of Eu- ropean power, in idea, if not in achievement, quite as real as any that had existed or been fought 360 Naval Administration and Warfare for in Europe. Canada in the hands of France, and the mouth of the Mississippi in ahen control, were matters of personal memory to many, and of very recent tradition to all Americans in active Hfe in 1810. Florida then was still Spanish, with unsettled boundary questions and attendant evils. Not reason only, but feeling, based upon experi- ence of actual inconvenience, suffering, and loss, — loss of life and loss of wealth, political anxiety and commercial disturbance, — conspired to in- tensify opposition to any avoidable renewal of similar conditions. To quote the words of a distinguished American Secretary of State — for Foreign Affairs — speaking twenty years ago, " This sentiment is properly called a Doctrine, for it has no prescribed sanction, and its assertion is left to the exigency which may invoke it." This accurate statement places it upon the surest political foundation, much firmer than precise legal enactment or international convention, that of popular conviction. The sentiment had existed beforehand; the first exigency which invoked its formulated expression, in 1823, was the an- nounced intention of several great Powers to perpetuate by force the European system, whether of colonial tenure, or balance of power, or monar- chical forms, in the Spanish colonies; they being then actually in revolt against the mother country, The Monroe Doctrine 361 and seeking, not other political relations to Europe, but simply their own independence. This political question of independence, how- ever, involved also necessarily that of commer- cial relations; and both were interesting to out- side states. So far as then appeared, renewed dependence meant the perpetuation of com- mercial exclusion against foreign nations. This characterized all colonial regulation at that time, and continued in Spanish practice, in Cuba and other dependencies, until the final downfall of Spain's diminished empire in 1898. It must be recognized, therefore, that all outside parties to the controversy, all parties other than Spain and her colonies, which had special incitements of their own, were influenced by two classes of motives, — political and commercial. These are logically separable, although in practice inter- twined. The incentive of the continental Powers — Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with the sub- sequent accession of France — was primarily political. Their object was to perpetuate in South America political conditions connected with the European system, by breaking down popular revolt against absolutist government, and maintaining the condition of dependence upon Spain. Whither this might lead in case of armed intervention, which was contemplated, 362 Naval Administration and Warfare was a question probably of the division of spoil; for in the end Spain could hardly pay the bill otherwise than by colonial cessions. But whether the movement of the Holy Alliance, as it was self-styled, issued merely in the suppression of popular liberties, or introduced further a European balance of power with its rivalries and conflicts, its wars and rumors of wars, both results were polit- ically abhorrent to American feelings and disturb- ing to American peace. They gave rise to distinctly political objections by the people and statesmen of the United States. In consequence of these sentiments, the exigency of the moment called out the first reasoned official expression of the national conviction and purpose, now known as the Monroe Doctrine. Subsidiary to this political motive, but clearly recognized and avowed, was the legitimate inducement of commercial interest, benefited by the rejection of European rule, and to be injured by its restoration. It will not be expected that a British Tory administration, before the Reform Bill of 1832 and with the protective system and Navigation Act in full force, should have shared the particular political prepossessions of the American States. These were closely concerned geographically, had been lately themselves colonies, and were but very recently emerged from a prolonged con- The Monroe Doctrine 363 flict with British commercial regulations, based upon the ancient conception of colonial adminis- tration. Still, Great Britain also, in addition to commercial ambitions and interests greater then than those of the United States, the outcome of a century of effort against Spanish monopoly, did have a distinct political leaning in the matter. There ran through both political parties a real and deep sympathy with communities struggling for freedom. The iniquity of suppressing such efforts by the external force of third parties, not immediately concerned, was strongly felt. There was accepted also among British statesmen a clearly defined rule of conduct, which had been conspicuously illustrated in the early days of the French Revolution, still a matter of recent memory in 1820, that interference in the intestine struggles of a foreign country, such as those then afflicting both the Spanish kingdom and colonies, was neither right in principle nor expedient in policy. Basing its action firmly on these convictions, the British Ministry, under the influence of Can- ning, intimated clearly that, while neutral towards the intervention of the Holy Alliance in Spain itself, to restore there the old order of things, it would not permit the transport of armies to South America for a like purpose. The course of the Alliance in Spain was viewed with disapproval ; 364 Naval Administration and Warfare but it did not immediately concern Great Britain to an extent demanding armed resistance. The case of the colonies was different. Intervention there would be prejudicial to British mercantile enterprise, already heavily engaged in their trade and economical development; while politically, the occupation of the Peninsula by French armies would be offset by the detachment of the colonies from their previous dependence. To the effect of this British attitude the position of the United States government, defined by President Monroe in his Message of December, 1823, constituted a powerful support, and the news of it caused general satisfaction in England. However mo- tived, the two English-speaking countries, without formal concert, still less in alliance, occupied the same ground and announced the same purpose. Spain might conquer her colonies unaided, if she could; neither would interfere; but the at- tempt of other Powers to give her armed assist- ance would be regarded by each as unfriendly to itself. From this momentary identity of position exaggerated inferences have been drawn as to the identity of impulses and community of sentiment which had brought either state to it. So far was this from being true, that on December 31, 1823, only four weeks after Monroe's celebrated Mes- The Monroe Doctrine 365 sage, probably then received in England, Canning wrote to the British minister to Spain : "Monarchy in Mexico and monarchy in Brazil would cure the evils of universal democracy and prevent the drawing of the line of demarcation which I most dread — America versus Europe. The United States naturally enough aim at this division." ' The opposition of ideas is plain. It was a case of two paths converging; not thenceforth to unite, but to cross, and continue each in its former general direction, diverging rather than approxi- mating. Though crumbling before the rising stream of progress, the ideas appropriate to the eighteenth century had not yet wholly disappeared from British conceptions; still less had the prac- tice and policy of the state conformed them- selves to the changed point of view, which in the middle of the nineteenth century began to characterize British statesmanship with reference to colonies. The battles of reformed pohtical representation and of free trade were yet to fight and win; old opinions continued as to the com- mercial relationship of colonies to the mother country, although modification in details was being introduced. The West Indies were still the most important group in the British colonial ' Stapleton's " Canning and his Times." Quoted in Moore's International Law Digest, Vol. VI. p. 410. 366 Naval Administration and Warfare system, and one of the latest acts of Canning, who died in 1827, ^^^ to renew there commercial discrimination against the United States; a meas- ure which, however prompted, could scarcely be said to reflect the image of the Monroe Doc- trine. For a generation then to come, British states- men remained under the domination of habits of thought which had governed the course of the two Pitts; and they failed, as men usually fail, to discern betimes changes of condition which modify, if not the essentials, at least the appli- cation even of a policy sound in general principle. In 1823, not ten years had elapsed since the British government had contemplated exacting from the United States, as the result of our pros- tration at the close of the War of 18 12, territorial cessions and concessions which might make an American of to-day, ignorant of the extremes to which his country was then reduced, gasp with amazement. How then could it be that Great Britain, which for centuries had been acquiring territory, and to whom the Americas were still the most immediate commercial interest, should heartily accept the full scope of the Monroe Doctrine, as applicable to the extension of her own dominion, by conquest or otherwise, to any part of the American continents where she did The Monroe Doctrine 367 not at that moment have clear title ? As a matter of fact she did not in any wise accept this. The American declaration against " the extension of the system of the Allied Powers to any portion of this hemisphere " was welcomed as supporting the attitude of Great Britain; for the phrase, in itself ambiguous, was understood to apply, not to the Quintuple Alliance for the preservation of existing territorial arrangements in Europe, to which Great Britain was a party, but to the Holy Alliance, the avowed purpose of which was to suppress by external force revolutionary move- ments within any state — a course into which she had refused to be drawn. But the complementary declaration in the President's Message, that " the American continents are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power," was characterized in the Annual Register for 1823 ^^ " scarcely less extravagant than that of the Russian ukase by which it was elicited," which forbade any foreign vessel from approaching within a hundred miles of the Russian possession now known as Alaska. The British government took the same view; and in the protocol to a Conference held in 1827 expressly repudiated this American claim. There was therefore between the two countries at this moment a clear opposition of principle, 368 Naval Administration and Warfare and agreement only as to a particular line of conduct in a special case. With regard to the in- terventions of the Holy Alliance in Europe, Great Britain, while reserving her independence of action, stood neutral for the time; but through motives of her own policy showed unmistakably that she would resist like action in Spanish Amer- ica. The United States, impelled by an entirely different conception of national policy, now first officially enunciated, intimated in diplomatic phrase a similar disposition. The two supported one another in the particular contingency, and doubtless frustrated whatever intention any mem- bers of the Holy Alliance may have entertained of projecting to the other side of the Atlantic their " union for the government of the world." In America, as in Europe, Great Britain deprecated the intrusion of external force to settle internal convulsions of foreign countries; but she did not commit herself, as the United States did, to the position that purchase or war should never entail a cession of territory by an American to a European state; a transaction which would be in so far colonization. In resisting any transfer of Spanish American territory to a European Power, Great Britain was not advancing a general principle, but maintaining an immediate interest. Her motive, in short, had nothing in common The Monroe Doctrine 369 with the Monroe Doctrine. Such principles as were involved had been formulated long before, and had controlled her action in Europe as in America. The United States dogma, on the contrary, planted itself squarely on the separate system and interests of America. This is distinctly shown by the comments of the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, in a despatch to the American minister in London, dated only two days before Monroe's Message. Alluding to Canning's most decisive phrase in a recent despatch, he wrote: Great Britain could not see any part of the colonies trans- ferred to any other Power with indifference. We certainly do concur with her in this position ; but the principles of that aversion, so far as they are common to both parties, resting only upon a casual coincidence of interests, in a national point of view selfish ' on both sides, would be liable to dissolution by every change of phase in the aspects of European politics. So that Great Britain, negotiating at once with the European Alliance and with us concerning America, without being bound by any permanent community of principle, would still be free to accommodate her policy to any of those distributions of power, and partitions of territory, which for the last half-century have been the ultima ratio of all European political arrange- ments. For this reason Adams considered that recog- nition of the independence of the revolted colonies, ' Adams' italics. 370 Naval Administration and Warfare already made by the United States, in March, 1822, must be given by Great Britain also, in order to place the two States on equal terms of co-operation. From motives of European policy, from which Great Britain could not dissociate herself, she delayed this recognition until 1825; and then Mr. Canning defined his general course towards the Spanish colonies in the famous words, " I called the New World into existence to re- dress the balance of the Old. I resolved that, if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies." His coincidence with the policy of the United States is thus seen to be based, and properly, upon British interests as involved in the European system; but that, so far from being the Monroe Doctrine, is almost the opposite of it. Nor was it only in direction that the impulses of the two States differed. They were unequal in inherent vital strength. The motive force of the one was bound to accumulate, and that of the other to relax, by the operation of purely natural conditions. An old order was beginning to yield to a new. After three centuries of tutelage Amer- ica was slipping out of European control. She was reaching her majority and claiming her own. Within her sphere she felt the future to be hers. Of this sense the Monroe Doctrine was an utter- The Monroe Doctrine 371 ance. It was a declaration of independence; not for a single nation only, but for a continent of nations, and it carried implicitly the assertion of all that logically follows from such independence. Foremost among the conditions ensuring its vitality was propinquity, with its close effect upon interest. Policy, as well as war, is a business of positions. This maxim is perennial; a gen- eration later it was emphasized in application by the peopling of the Pacific coast, the incidental discovery of gold in California, and the conse- quent enhanced importance of the Isthmus of Panama to the poHtical strategy of nations. All this advanced the Monroe Doctrine on the path of development, giving broader sweep to the corollaries involved in the original proposi- tion; but the transcendent positional interest of the United States no more needed demonstra- tion in 1823 than in 1850, when the Clayton- Bulwer treaty was made, or than now, when not the Pacific coast only, but the Pacific Ocean and the farther East, lend increased consequence to the Isthmian communications. The case of the United States is now stronger, but it is not clearer. Correlatively, the admission of its force by others has been progressive; gradual and practical, not at once or formal. Its formu- lation in the Monroe Doctrine has not obtained 372 Naval Administration and Warfare the full legislative sanction even of the country of its origin; and its present development there rests upon successive utterances of persons offi- cially competent to define, but not of full authority to commit the nation to their particular expres- sions. So, too, international acquiescence in the position now taken has been a work of time, nor can there be asserted for it the final ratification of international agreement. The Monroe Doc- trine remains a policy, not a law, either munic- ipal or international; but it has advanced in scope and in acceptance. The one progress as the other has been the result of growing strength ; strength of numbers and of resources. Taken with position, these factors constitute national powers as they do military advantage, which in the last analysis may always be resolved into two elements, force and position. In the conjunction of these two factors is to be found the birth of the Monroe Doctrine and its development up to the present time. It is a product of national interest, involved in position, and of national power dependent upon population and resources. These are the permanent factors of the Monroe Doctrine; and it can not be too strongly realized by Americans that the perma- nence of the Doctrine itself, as a matter of inter- national consideration, depends upon the main- The Monroe Doctrine 373 tenance of both factors. To this serious truth record is borne by History, the potent mother of national warning and national encouragement. That the Doctrine at its first enunciation should not at once have obtained either assent or in- fluence, even in its most limited expression, vsras entirely natural. Although not without an an- tecedent history of conception and occasional utterance by American statesmen, its moment of birth was the announcement by Alonroe; and it had then all the weakness of the new born, consequent upon a national inadequacy to the display of organized strength which had been pathetically manifested but ten years before. After the destruction of the rule of Spain in her colonies, except in Cuba and Porto Rico, Great Britain remained the one great nation besides the United States possessed of extensive territory in America. She also was the one state that had had experience of us as an enemy, and known the weakness of our military system for offensive action. What more natural than that she should have welcomed the first promulgation of the Doctrine, in its original scope directed apparehtly merely against a combination of Continental Powers, the purposes of which were offensive to herself, and yet fail to heed a root principle which in progress of time should find its appli- 374 Naval Administration and Warfare cation to herself, contesting the expansion of her own influence in the hemisphere, as being part of the European system and therefore faUing under the same condemnation ? Yet even had she see this, and fully appreciated the promise of strength to come, it was to be expected that she should for the mean time pursue her own policy, irrespective of the still distant future. It may be advantageous to retard that which ultimately must prevail; and at all events men who head the movements of nations are not able at once to abandon the traditions of the past, and conform their action to new ideas as yet unassimilated by their people. There is then this distinguishing feature of the Monroe Doctrine, which classifies it among principles of policy that are essentially permanent. From its correspondence to the nature of things, to its environment, it possessed from the first a vitality which ensured growth and development. Under such conditions it could not remain in application at the end of a half-century just what it had been in terms at the beginning. Appre- hended in leading features by American states- men, and by them embraced with a conviction which the people shared, — though probably not fully understanding, — it received from time to time, as successive exigencies arose to provoke The Monroe Doctrine 375 assertion, definitions which enlarged its scope; sometimes consistently with its true spirit, some- times apparently in excess of evident limitations, more rarely in defect of them. But from the fact of Great Britain's existing territorial pos- sessions in America, and from her commercial pre-eminence and ambitions, to which territorial acquisition is often desirable, it was also in the nature of things that with her successive conten- tions should arise. If not a balance of power, such as had distracted Europe, at least opposing scales had existed from the first; connected, not per- haps with the European system as a whole, but certainly with a most important component of that system. Moreover, the strength of Great Britain in America, relatively to the United States, was not American strength, but European strength. It was therefore unavoidably invidious to the sentiment breathed in the Monroe Doc- trine, and much more so when the United States was weak than when she became strong. From these circumstances, it has been through discussion with Great Britain chiefly that the Doctrine, marking the advance of the sentiment, has progressed from definition to definition, no one of which is final in an authoritative sense, because in no case clothed with full legislative sanction; but possessing, nevertheless, the weight 376 Naval Administration and Warfare which attaches to the utterances of those who both by personal ability and official position are recognized as competent interpreters. Such enun- ciations, ex cathedra, have the force of judicial decisions, accepted as precedents to a degree dependent upon the particular person, or upon subsequent general acceptance. Not in every case have the positions of American administra- tions in this matter been endorsed by their suc- cessors or the public. It is vain, therefore, to argue narrowly concern- ing what the Monroe Doctrine is, from the pre- cise application made of it to any one particular emergency. Nor can there be finality of definition, antecedent to some national announcement, for- mally complete, which it is to be hoped will never be framed ; but which, if it were, would doubtless remain liable to contrary interpretations, sharing therein a fate from which neither the enactments of legislatures nor the Bull of a Pope can claim exemption. The virtue of the Monroe Doctrine, without which it would die deservedly, is that, through its correspondence with the national necessities of the United States, it possesses an in- herent principle of life, which adapts itself with the flexibility of a growing plant to the successive conditions it encounters. One of these conditions of course is the growing strength of the nation The Monroe Doctrine 377 itself. As Doctor Johnson ungraciously said of taxing Americans for the first time, " We do not put a calf to the plough; we wait till he is an ox." The Monroe Doctrine, without breach of its spirit, can be made to bear a burden to which the nation a hundred years ago was un- equal; but also, as our present Chief Magistrate has wisely warned us, if we now propose to assume a load, we must see to it that the national strength is organized to endure it. That also is a matter of national poUcy, quite as important as the Doc- trine itself. For these reasons it is more instructive, as to the present and future of the Monroe Doctrine, to consider its development by successive exhibitions in the past than to strive to cage its free spirit within the bars of a definition attempted at any one moment. Such an attempt the present writer certainly will not make. The international force of the proposition lies in its evolution, sub- stantially consistent, broadening down from prec- edent to precedent; not in an alleged finality. The aversion manifested by the American government of the War of Independence towards any attempted restoration of French dominion in Canada, may be justly considered a premo- nition of the Monroe Doctrine, anticipatory of the ground taken by both Monroe and Canning 378 Naval Administration and Warfare against a transfer of Spanish colonies to any other European Power. At the earlier period no remonstrance was raised against such trans- fers of West India islands, which occurred fre- quently during both that war and those of the French Revolution and Napoleonic period. The cession of Louisiana by Spain to France, in 1801, excited the keenest susceptibilities. It is bootless to surmise how far resistance might have been carried; the inoperativeness of the transaction did not permit the full consequences to develop. Objection, however, appears to have turned upon the more immediate and special motive of the substitution of a strong Power for a weak one, in control of an artery of trade essential to our people, rather than upon the formulated dogma that American territory was not matter for political exchange between European states. Moreover, it needed no broad maxim, wide-reaching in ap- plication, to arouse popular feeling, and guide national action, in a matter of such close and evident importance. Repulsion was a matter of instinct, of feeling, which did not need to give account of itself to reason. The Louisiana ques- tion laid its hand upon the heart of the nation. It concerned the country, not the hemisphere; and in principle did not lead out beyond itself, pointing to further action. It had finality. The Monroe Doctrine 379 The real stepping-stone by which national in- terest advanced to hemispheric considerations was Cuba. From every circumstance this island was eminently fitted to point the way of the future; to be the medium, and to mark the transition from a strictly continental policy to one that embraced the hemisphere. Cuba is larger by one third than Ireland, and lies across the approach to the Gulf coast of the United States as Ireland does those to Great Britain from the Atlantic. It possessed in a very high degree the elements of power, from its position, size, and resources, which involved immense possibility for development of strength. Its in- trinsic value was therefore very great; but further, while it had relations to our continental territory only less important than the lower course of the Mississippi, it nevertheless did not belong to the continent, to which the Jeffersonian school of thought, in power from 1801 to 1825, would strictly confine national expansion. The point where a powerful navy would be needed to main- tain the integrity of the national possessions marked the limit of advance in the theory of Jefferson. Nevertheless, to him also, minimizing possibly the need of a fleet to ensure access over so narrow a strip of sea, " the addition of Cuba to our confederacy is certainly exactly what is 380 Naval Administration and Warfare wanted to round our power as a nation to the point of its utmost interest." To prevent its falling as yet into the hands of any other European Power, he expressed to Monroe in 1823 his ap- proval of entering with Great Britain into a joint guarantee to preserve the island to Spain; for this, he argued, would bind the most dangerous and most suspected Power. On subsequent information, however, that Great Britain had stated positively that she would not acquire for herself any Spanish colony under the present distress of Spain, he retracted this opinion; for why, said he, by engaging in joint guarantee, concede to her an interest which she does not otherwise possess .? Before this, however. Great Britain had offered to assure the island by her own sole action, oa condition of Spain acknowl- edging the independence of her Continental colonies; thus constituting for herself an interest from which Jefferson would have debarred the consent of the United States. To such a point anxiety for American ends, and consciousness of American lack of organized strength, would then carry a practical statesman of keen American instincts. To join with a European state in guaranteeing an American in- terest was not yet an anachronism. A like anxiety and a like consciousness were responsible for The Monroe Doctrine 381 the Clayton- Bulwer Treaty, which proved so fertile a source of diplomatic contention and national ill-will in later days. Monroe's Secre- tary of State, John Quincy Adams, the con- temporary and survivor of Jefferson, had clearer views and stronger purpose. Recognizing in Cuba an importance to the United States scarcely inferior to any part of the then existing Union, he held that there were still numerous and for- midable objections to territorial dominion beyond sea. The aim of his policy therefore was that Spain should retain Cuba; but when he suc- ceeded Monroe in the Presidency, in 1825, having received the suggestion of a joint guarantee by Great Britain, France, and the United States, upon the condition of Spain acknowledging the inde- pendence of the Spanish-speaking continent, he replied merely that the matter would be held under advisement, and followed this in 1826 by an express refusal : " We can enter into no stipu- lations by treaty to guarantee the islands." At the same time it was clearly stated that " the United States would not consent to the occupation of Cuba and Porto Rico by any other European Power than Spain, under any contingency what- ever." Persistence and advance on this line are indicated by the words of Webster, when Secretary of State in 1843. "The Spanish Gov- 382 Naval Administration and Warfare ernment has been repeatedly told that the United States would never permit the occupation of Cuba by British agents or forces upon any pretext; and that, in the event of any attempt to wrest it from her, she might rely upon the whole mili- tary and naval resources of the nation to aid in preserving or recovering it." In 1851 a farther advance in definition is marked. An intimation was received that Great Britain and France would give orders to their squadrons in the West Indies to protect the coasts of Cuba from fili- bustering expeditions, fitted out in the United States. Such an action, it was replied, " could not but be regarded by the United States with grave disapproval, as involving on the part of European sovereigns combined action of protect- orship over American waters." By this time the discovery of gold in California, and the developing interest of the Pacific, had con- stituted the Isthmus a second stepping-stone, as Cuba had been the first, leading the United States to recognize an external territorial interest; not indeed extra-continental, but much more severed from her approach by natural and military ob- stacles than ever Cuba could be. The Clayton- Bulwer Treaty, framed in 1850, was the outward sign of a far-reaching interest, that embraced with the Isthmus all the Caribbean regions through The Monroe Doctrine 383 which lay the road to it. Of this an indication was given by a renewed proposal, made in concert by Great Britain and France, that they with the United States should enter into a joint disclaimer of all intent, now or hereafter, to obtain posses- sion of Cuba. The reply to this, given in De- cember, 1852, was that to enter into such a com- pact " would be inconsistent with the princi- ples, the tradition, and the policy of the United States." The proposition involved in fact an alliance, similar in principle to that by which the great Powers of Europe guaranteed the settle- ment of Vienna; and its being made implied a sense of a balance of power and interests in the American hemisphere, in which European gov- ernments would form a preponderant constituent. The administration of that day had no desire to get Cuba, for it apprehended from it serious peril to the Union of the States, which had just passed with difficulty through one of those crises that presaged the great war of 1861 to 1865. In 1853 the opposite party came into power, identi- fied with the policy of strengthening the institution of slavery. To that end the acquisition of Cuba became a prominent object; not with the simple view, held by Jefferson and Adams, of rounding off and securing the national domain, but to hold and control a slave region, the present con- 384 Naval Administration and Warfare ditions and future promise of which were believed to imperil the system in the Southern States. The nation was already entered upon the rapids which swept it down to sectional war and revolu- tion. Nevertheless, during this period was suc- cessfully fought out the diplomatic battle with Great Britain concerning the Mosquito Coast and the Honduras Bay islands. That the Clay- ton-Bulwer Treaty secured to Nicaragua and Honduras the surrender of these, the British title to which was disputed, had been the belief of the United States. This was the quid pro quo for her departure from traditional policy, by entering into a joint guarantee of an Ameri- can canal, and of territory belonging to an Amer- ican State. She was already, by treaty with Colombia, sole guarantor of transit across the Isthmus of Panama, and would have preferred to be such in the case of the Nicaraguan Canal; but the claim of Great Britain to the Mosquito Coast, though denied by the United States, in- volved the Atlantic terminus — San Juan, or Greytown. It was a question of fight or com- promise; and the United States, though power- ful for many reasons as a weight in international balances, was not yet strong enough to go to war over a disputed title. The concession which she understood herself to have made was that The Monroe Doctrine 385 of accepting a joint guarantee with a European Power for an American interest and enterprise; the concession she was to receive was the aban- donment of British political control over the regions mentioned. To her surprise she found that the British understanding was not that they would abandon what they had, but that they would not press their tenure beyond that actually enjoyed. The controversy terminated in the prev- alence of the United States contention; so that in i860 the President was able to report to Con- gress a settlement perfectly satisfactory to him. In this prolonged discussion the influence of the Monroe Doctrine was not only evident, but predominant. Alike in what it knowingly sur- rendered, — the privilege of sole guarantee, — and in what it obtained — the relinquishment of a doubtful title to American territory — the spirit of the Doctrine was consciously and con- tinuously in the minds of the American statesmen and people; and there can be little doubt that the general principle, as distinguished from sensitiveness over particular incidents, gained decisively both in definiteness and depth of im- pression. There was advance from theory to action, even if action had been hmited to verbal insistence; and the outcome was positive, if not wholly satisfactory on the score of our own 386 Naval Administration and Warfare concessions. The subsequent intervention of Louis Napoleon in Mexico came most aptly to confirm this result. Nothing could have been more opportune. The principle became concrete in a striking instance. The interference of a European ruler with the internal affairs of an American state had gone to the point of over- throwing its government, and establishing a monarchy in its place ; and this not only happened just across the border, but coincided with the immense organization of force left by the War of Secession. Action here was yet more positive and convincing. Again the United States ob- tained by pressure the restitution of American control over American territory, asking no com- pensation beyond the satisfaction of principle vindicated. The realization of power, forced upon national consciousness by the prodigious exertions of the War of Secession, could not but be felt in sub- sequent external policy. Of this the Monroe Doctrine was a leading element. From its enun- ciation in 1823 it had grown slowly to 1850, the year of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. The accept- ance in this instrument of a joint guarantee with a European State over American territory was felt to be in violation of its general spirit, and was substantially an admission of national weak- The Monroe Doctrine 387 ness, of which the compromise measures of the same year were an internal indication. The foundations of the Union were shaking. At nearly the same moment, 1850-51, the United States co-operated with France and Great Britain to compel peace between Haiti and Santo Do- mingo. These steps, scarcely consistent with the tradition, were under the same political adminis- tration, although the death of President Taylor involved a change in head and members. Shortly before its close in 1853, the Secretary of State, in a paper that commanded wide approval, used words which have value as indicating the point so far reached by national vision: It has been a steady rule of our policy to avoid as far as possible all disturbance of existing political relations of the West Indies. We have felt that any attempts on the part of any of the great maritime powers to obtain exclusive advantages in any one of the islands would be apt to be followed by others, and to end in converting the archipelago into a theatre of national competition. This was a policy of marking time, the de- parture from which at the present day is evident, — if the United States is to be reckoned among maritime powers. An advance in position was indeed close at hand. The exigency of the Isth- mus, already felt, was about to invoke a fresh 388 Naval Administration and Warfare assertion of the predominant political interest of the nation against European influence there; both in general, as American territory, and in particular, as the line of communication between our Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Point was given to this, and its importance emphasized to the national consciousness during this decade, by the prolonged discussion over the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which centred attention upon the re- lations of the Isthmus to the Monroe Doctrine. If one administration in 1856 suggested a joint guarantee for the neutrality of the transit zone, its successor in 1857 hastened to afl&rm that such a procedure, in common with other Powers, was inconsistent with the policy of the United States; and the President in successive messages strongly urged the purchase of Cuba. Despite occasional inconsistencies, the general tendency is manifest throughout. The period 1 850-1 860 was one of suspended action, but of rapid progress in the realm of idea. Opinion was expanding, and hardening into conviction; but the anxieties and uncertainties attending incipient civil convulsion are unfavorable to external effectiveness. The return to quiet was not merely to former conditions, but to vastly enlarged conception of national interests and strength. The constraint upon Napoleon III. The Monroe Doctrine 389 to leave Mexico, in 1867, was the act of the ad- ministration that directed the War of Secession. To it succeeded the Presidency of General Grant, among whose first utterances is found, in 1869, that American " dependencies of European Powers are no longer regarded as subjects of transfer from one European Power to another." Upon this advance in position the Secretary of State, Mr. Fish, a year later commented thus: This is not a policy of aggression, but it opposes the creation of European dominion on American soil, and its transfer to other European Powers; and it looks hopefully to the time when, by the voluntary departure of European governments from this continent and the adjacent islands, America shall be wholly American. It does not contemplate forcible intervention in any legitimate contest; but it protests against permitting any such contest to result in increase of European power or influence.^ This hope of a voluntary departure was not infrequently expressed by the same Secretary to the British Minister, 1869-71, during the dis- cussions antecedent to the Treaty of Washington; and it was grounded in part at least upon the well-known disposition then of many British states- men to foster the detachment of the colonies from the mother country. On American lips I My italics. 390 Naval Administration and Warfare the words were scarcely more than a pious as- piration, towards conditions which would remove still further the chance of European entangle- ments. Though congruous in spirit, they form no part of the Monroe Doctrine, which in origin was, and in scope still is, essentially conservative, not revolutionary; expressly disclaiming, indeed, all purpose to infringe existing conditions. The national consciousness of a peculiar and critical relation to the Central American isthmus is reflected in another utterance of Secretary Fish: No attack upon the sovereignty of New Granada has taken place since the [guarantee] treaty of 1846, though this Depart- ment has reason to believe that one has been on several occasions threatened, but has been averted by a warning from this Gov- ernment as to its obligations under the treaty. The position thus indicated was maintained by following administrations, which laid especial stress upon the isthmian conditions. These had become the focus, upon which converged all the national feelings and policy which united to elicit the Monroe Doctrine. Particular indis- position was expressed to any joint guarantee: The President (1881) is constrained to say that the United States cannot take part in extending an invitation for a joint The Monroe Doctrine 391 guarantee, and to state with entire frankness that the United States would look with disfavor at an attempt at concert or political action by other Powers in that direction. It was joint guarantee, together with joint disclaimer of acquiring future tenure over any part of Central America in order to control the canal, that brought the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty into conspicuous disfavor; probably as seeming to imply equality of political interest between the United States and the other guaranteeing and self-denying Power. The equality does not exist, and apparent admission by ourselves was even more distasteful than its suggestion by others. It was, as has been said, " a consent to violate the traditional and time-honored policy of the country." Increasing discontent in the United States, and the logic of events affecting the re- lations of nations, led to the supersession of this treaty by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, rati- fied by the United States Senate, December i6, 1901. By this the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was " superseded " by name ; the construction, regu- lation and management of the Canal was left in the hands of the United States, solely and entirely, with the reservation of its neutralization upon terms already applying to the Suez Canal; and the responsibility of safe-guarding the Canal and enforcing neutrality was to her alone intrusted. 392 Naval Administration and Warfare Though necessarily traced only in outline, the Monroe Doctrine is seen to be a policy sub- stantially consistent throughout, manifesting ad- vance in expression and expansion in application; both proofs of essential vitality. Yet, neglecting the occasional fluctuations to which all progress is Hable, it may fairly be said that the entire history is contained, as in a seed, in a definition of Monroe's, rarely quoted, of the year (1824) follov^ing the one so v^idely known : The deep interest we take in their [the Spanish colonies] in- dependence, which we have acknowledged, and in their enjoy- ment of all the rights incident thereto, especially in the very important one of instituting their own governments, has been declared. ... It is impossible for European governments to interfere in their concerns, especially in those alluded to, with- out affecting us; indeed the motive which might induce such interference in the present state of the war would appear to be equally applicable to us. This does not indeed explicitly state every several proposition of subsequent administrations; but of those which have remained, endorsed by the general consent of the nation, all are to be found in germ, though not in development, in the above words. Though firm as well as clear, they bear the impress of national immaturity and conse- quent weakness. The fear, known to have been entertained by some of Monroe's Cabinet, that The Monroe Doctrine 393 the motives impelling the Holy Alliance to in- tervene in South America might entail similar steps towards the United States, would doubtless be scouted now; but the wary attitude of to-day, with its increased scope of assertion, simply reproduces what in the earlier period was appre- hension. It is considered by the United States essential to her interests and peace to withstand the be- ginnings of action which might lead to European intervention in the internal concerns of an Amer- ican state, or render it contributive in any way to the European system, a makeweight in the balance of power, a pawn in the game of Euro- pean international politics; for such a condition, if realized, brings any European contest to this side of the Atlantic; and the neighborhood of disputes, as of fire, is perilous. A rumor of the transfer of a West India island, or such an occurrence as the difficulty between Venez- uela, Germany, and Great Britain, engages instant and sensitive attention. This does not imply doubt of the wisdom and firmness of the government, but indicates an instinctive political apprehension, not elicited by greater and immediate interests in quarters external to the continents. It is remembered that intervention was contemplated in our own deadly intestine 394 Naval Administration and Warfare struggle, because of its effect upon European interests, although only economic; for we were embarrassed by no political dependence or re- lation to Europe. Public sentiment intends that such a danger to the American continents, the recurrence of which can only be obviated by the predominant force and purpose of this country, shall not be indefinitely increased by acquies- cing in European governments acquiring re- lations which may serve as occasions for inter- ference, trenching upon the independence of action of American states, or upon the integrity of their territory. It is evident that for a nation to owe money to a foreign government, directly or by guarantee, is a very different political condition to that of indebtedness contracted in open market to in- dividuals. It is evident that a disputed boundary is a perennial source of danger; and of implicit threat where there is a great difference of strength. Such an ember might kindle into a flame at a moment otherwise unpropitious for the United States to assert its traditional policy; just as the long-standing Transvaal trouble might very con- ceivably have been precipitated into war at a moment most inconvenient to Great Britain. As it was, her course in other qukrters is believed to have been embarrassed by the South African The Monroe Doctrine 395 War. It is the part of wisdom, and substantially of justice, to exclude such occasions of offence, or to insist upon time ly settlement where they exist. Granting the military effect of the Isthmus and Cuba upon the United States, it is clear that for them to contract relations of dependence upon a European Power would involve the United States and the same Power at once in a net of secondary relations, potential of very serious result. Why acquiesce in such ? But the funda- mental relations of international law, essential to the intercourse of nations, are not hereby contradicted. National rights, which are summed up in the word independence, have as their cor- relative national responsibility. Not to invade the rights of an American state is to the United States an obligation with the force of law; to permit no European State to infringe them is a matter of policy; but as she will not acquiesce in any assault upon their independence or terri- torial integrity, so she will not countenance by her support any shirking of their international responsibility. Neither will she undertake to compel them to observe their international obli- gations to others than herself. To do so, which has been by some argued a necessary corollary of the Monroe Doctrine, would encroach on the 396 Naval Administration and Warfare very independence which that poHtical dogma defends; for to assume the responsibility which derives from independence, and can only be transferred by its surrender, would be to assert a quasi suzerainty. The United States is inevitably the preponderant American Power; but she does not aspire to be paramount. She does not find the true complement of the Monroe Doctrine in an undefined control over American States, exercised by her and denied to Europe. Its correlative, as forcibly urged by John Quincy Adams at the time of formulation, and since explicitly adopted by the national consciousness, is abstention from interference in questions ter- ritorially European. These I conceive embrace not only Europe proper, but regions also in which propinquity and continuity, or long recog- nized occupancy, give Europe a priority of interest and influence, resembling that which the Monroe policy asserts for America in the American con- tinents and islands. In my apprehension Europe, construed by the Doctrine, would include Africa, with the Levant and India, and the coun- tries between them. It would not include Japan, China, nor the Pacific generally. The United States might for very excellent reasons abstain from action in any of these last named quarters, in any particular instance; but the deterrent The Monroe Doctrine 397 cause would not be the Monroe Doctrine in legiti- mate deduction. When this article first appeared, (February, 1903), the English Review in which it was printed made the comment that " Americans on their side must recognize that their attitude has made the relations between European Powers and South American states — many of which are no creditable protiges — peculiarly difficult, if not impossible. . . . Surely, as time goes on, and as the great Republic increases its strength and re- sources, the Monroe Doctrine must ultimately develop the present American ' preponderance' into an American * paramountcy ' over South American states. Then power and responsi- bility will be united, instead of being divided as they are at present." I fancy that few American statesmen, of the Northern continent or of the Southern, would be willing to admit an approach towards para- mountcy. Preponderance asserts only a concrete evident fact : of weight attaching to greater num- bers, wealth, and consequent immediate resources. Paramountcy carries an invidious political im- plication. It is, however, true that within the last five years development, consecutive hitherto. 398 Naval Administration and Warfare has progressed in one direction suggested, a species of divergement, like that of a new branch thrown out by a tree: the admission that a twofold responsibility follows, logically and ac- tually, upon the avowal of purpose to use national force in case specified conditions should occur. The Monroe Doctrine has reached the point of denying to European Powers the international right of acquiring territory as the result of hos- tilities, if these be with an American common- wealth. A dilemma is thus confronted. A common international right is contested on the ground of national policy. National policy, it is true, is as strictly an international right as is the acquisition of territory by war; but to the one and the other it is increasingly necessary that they justify themselves to reason. As the American Declaration of Independence runs, " A decent respect to the opinions of mankind " must enter into determinations. The colonies had a right to revolt, responsible to themselves only; yet, to justify their course to the world was not only politic, but educative to their own consciences. Five years ago there was pending between Venezuela and her creditors a contention, which by the armed demonstration of Germany, Great Britain, and Italy, resulted in a convention, in- stituting a commission, that sat at Caracas, to The Monroe Doctrine 399 adjudicate all the claims against Venezuela. The question of priority of payment — and that alone — was referred to the Hague Tribunal, which decided in favor of the three demon- strating Powers; much ta the disgust of many Americans. The interesting point in this trans- action, as touching the Monroe Doctrine, was that one of the three nations which took the action named, Germany, was at pains antece- dently to express to the American government that " we consider it of importance to let first of all the government of the United States know about our purposes, so that we can prove that we have nothing else in view than to help those of our citizens who have suffered damages. . . . We declare especially that under no circum- stances do we consider in our proceedings the acquisition or the permanent occupation of Vene- zuelan territory." ... If other measures " do not seem efficient, we would have to consider the temporary occupation on our part of different Venezuelan harbor places, and the levying of duties in those places." ' President Roosevelt in reply accepted the as- surance thus given. In his Message to Congress a week before he had said, with apparent reference 'John Bassett Moore's International Law Digest, Vol. VI. p. 588. My italics. 400 Naval Administration and Warfare to the Venezuelan situation, " The Monroe Doctrine has nothing to do with the commercial relations of any American Power. . . . We do not guarantee any state against punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment does not take the form of the acquisition of territory by any non-American Power." ' There can be little doubt, however, that American sen- sitiveness to proceedings of this character was increasing; not merely in the government, but more especially in the government as reflecting the mind of the people. To the British am- bassador regret was expressed that " European Powers should use force against Central and South American countries, though the United States could not object to steps taken for redress of injuries, provided that no acquisition of territory was contemplated. " " The Venezuelan incident elicited also the presentation to the United States government, by that of the Argentine Republic, of a proposed " Doctrine," which has been called by the name of Calvo, the Argentine publicist who formu- lated it; and likewise by that of Drago, the minister who presented it. The principle ad- vocated by this doctrine was " that the public ' Moore, Vol. VI. p. 590. " Ibid. p. 592. The Monroe Doctrine 401 debt cannot occasion armed intervention, or even the actual occupation [temporary or permanent] of the territory of American nations by a European Power." Drago's letter invited a declaration to that effect, with the authority and prestige of the United States. ' Such a pronouncement would have been a very serious addition to the Monroe Doctrine; for it would have committed the United States, upon its sole responsibility, to the forbiddal of measures heretofore sanctioned by international law, and purposed, if necessary, in the Venezuelan case. No alternative means of reparation was suggested, except patience on the part of creditors. Close upon the Venezuelan incident has fol- lowed the interposition of the United States in the financial affairs of the Dominican Republic; consequent, it is true, upon the request, and therefore upon the formal initiative of the Domin- ican government itself. The action of the United States has thus been one of friendly offices, in their most inoffensive nature. The case is somewhat unique in its distinguishing features; for, owing to the frequency of revolutions, unequalled even in Spanish American countries, a Dominican government had been often little more than the ^ Moore, Vol. VI. pp. 592-593. The several propositions of M. Drago are there summarized. 402 Naval Administration and Warfare temporarily successful revolutionist. Still, by in- ternational law the government recognized is the government internationally. Political anarchy had led to financial anarchy; and by reciprocal action financial anarchy promoted political, for a government to be strong must command money. A revolution, successful or not, depended for momentary maintenance upon the possession of a sea port and levying there the import dues, which the regular government thus lost. By the successive — or simultaneous — mismanage- ments of governments, regular and revolutionary, the debts of the republic had reached a figure which, whether as to interest or principal, could be discharged only by an administration which should be secure as well as skilful. Both American and European creditors were clamoring for pay- ment. The only means to insure this was a settled possession of the ports of entry, to which no Dominican Government was adequate. Such general possession by another State would be political intervention, and occupancy; which, while temporary in name, must from the amount of debt to be discharged be so prolonged as to suggest permanency. We have before us the example of occupancy drifting into permanency in Egypt; where the wish of one party in England certainly was to terminate quickly the occupa- The Monroe Doctrine 403 tion which to this day still exists, with no prospect of speedy conclusion. Such intervention in Asiatic or African com- munities has both precedent and necessity in its favor. It has been just in principle, righteous in act, and expedient in issue. In America, and by a non-American State, it runs up against the Monroe Doctrine, except where occupancy is avowedly and evidently temporary. The United States in the case of Venezuela had regretted, but not objected to, a step concerning which assur- ances had been given, and a probable end was discernible. No such near probability existed in Santo Domingo, where at the same time con- ditions were unbearable and insoluble. The question loomed on the horizon, — and above it, — Could the United States refuse to permit an indefinite occupancy of ports, in order to receive the duties, and do no more than refuse ? or would she by such refusal incur a responsi- bility that must be faced ? In fact, though no threat of war was heard, or made, refusal would give just cause for a foreign action, which ulti- mately might necessitate armed resistance; that is. War. President Roosevelt in a message to the Senate of February 15, 1905, transmitting the protocol concluded with the Dominican Republic, said. 404 Naval Administration and Warfare " In view of our past experience and our knowl- edge of the actual situation of the Republic, a definite refusal by the United States Govern- ment to take any effective action looking to the relief of the Dominican Republic, and to the discharge of its own duty under the Monroe Doc- trine, can only be considered as an acquiescence in some such action by another government." If, under the Monroe Doctrine, no duty rests of establishing political or financial order in an Ameri- can State, the words italicized seem none the less to assert the duty of opposition to European intervention; and this is again intimated in the same message. The proposed measures " se- cure the Dominican Republic against over-seas aggression. This in reality entails no new obli- gation upon us; for the Monroe Doctrine means precisely such a guarantee on our part." ' Under the circumstances, and by the request of the Dominican government, the custom houses of the republic have been placed under the admin- istration of the United States; with stipulations as to the distribution of the revenues between the Dominican government and its creditors, European and American. A near precedent for this step existed in an analogous agreement made a short time before with the United ' Moore, Vol. VI, pp. 526, 527. The Monroe Doctrine 405 States, by which the custom houses at two ports had been placed in charge of an American fiscal agent, to insure payment of specific dues to American creditors, as fixed by a committee of arbitrators. The present arrangement went into operation, substantially, March 31, 1905, when the President of the Dominican Republic appointed an American citizen General Receiver of customs, with specified powers and obligations. The treaty, which for the time of its duration makes the United States the financial agent for the Republic in the receipt and management of customs dues, was not ratified until May, 1907. Under its terms the President of the United States has appointed the Receiver. The political result has been to promote internal quiet, by disabling would-be revolutionists from supplying themselves with money through the customs. The financial results have been a cessation in the increase of the public debt; the promotion of necessary public improvements; and the accumulation in the Re- public's treasury of a fund of over three million dollars. An end, however beneficent, does not neces- sarily justify the means; but, independent of the fact that the action of the United States was by request, the extremity of the occasion, which is the justification of the remedy, is sufficiently 406 Naval Administration and Warfare shown by the reluctance and refusal of the United States to interfere, on one side or the other, with previous forcible reclamations of debt from American communities by European govern- ments. It neither withstood the reclamation, nor undertook to interfere with the debtor nation's management of its internal affairs, in order to increase its ability to pay, and by such means to remove the cause for European action. On the one hand it decHned to associate itself with such action, on the other to acquiesce in payment by cession of territory under any form threatening permanency; both in the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. With this reservation, the United States hitherto had simply stood aside, leav- ing the parties to reach an arrangement, because such an issue seemed probable. No other action, nor pre-determination, was called for before a case presented itself where no promise of satisfactory solution within the limits of the Monroe Doctrine could be seen. Such a case arose at last in Santo Domingo. The species of development marked by the Santo Domingo incident is evident, logical, and irresistible. The stage reached may reasonably be deplored, as may every increase of national responsibility, however unavoidable; but in the instinctive aversion of the American people to The Monroe Doctrine 407 international meddling, and in their profound, and indeed exaggerated, belief in the capacity of all peoples in general to manage adequately their own affairs, will be found a sound coun- teractive to precipitate or unconciliatory action. The request of the Dominican Government in the particular instance was but the repetition of similar advances made before; action there- fore was neither hasty nor coercive; but it is impossible reasonably to gainsay the state- ment which appears in the opening paragraphs of President Roosevelt's Message: " It has for some time been obvious that those who profit by the Monroe Doctrine must accept certain responsibilities along with the rights which it confers; and that the same state- ment appHes to those who uphold the Doctrine. ... It is in- compatible with international equity for the United States to refuse to allow other Powers to take the only means at their disposal of satisfying the claims of their creditors, and yet to refuse, itself, to take any such steps." ' There is in the treatment of the Dominican incident continuity of principle, but there is also more than simple progress. Monroe's as- sertion, that the American continents were not thereafter to be considered subjects for European colonization, for instance, develops not only ' Moore, VI. p. 519. 408 Naval Administration and Warfare successively but obviously. In the hands of President Grant (1870) it has become that an existing colony may not be transferred to another European state; with President Cleveland, that an existing colony may not be extended at the expense of a neighbor; with President Roose- velt that territory may not be acquired as the result of hostilities. The interposition in Santo Domingo is not so much a corollary of the original proposition, — an obvious consequence, — as it is a turn in a river, or a divergence, resembling that of a new branch put forth by a tree. That a policy framed to assure the independence of certain states should lead irresistibly to interfer- ence in functions attendant upon independence is something of a paradox; but paradoxes are not amusing only, but instructive. In objecting to " the extension of the European system to any portion of the American hemisphere," the Monroe Doctrine had in view several dangers; one of which was the interference of stronger states with weaker, as in Europe. ' In " European system " the noun as well as the adjective had importance. But from this beginning the logic of events has inevitably developed the necessity of interference by American Powers — not nec- ' See Dana's Wheaton, Summary of Monroe Doctrine. Moore VI. p. 597. Also pp. 402, 403; Monroe's Message. The Monroe Doctrine 400 essarily the United States — with one another, and in one another's affairs, in cases which it may reasonably be beheved will always be very exceptional and extreme, but are not impossible of occurrence. And this is not the logic of events only, but of principles. The Doctrine has not been merely the sport of circumstances; for its essential principle was to insure American safety and peace by excluding European intervention. Consequently, conditions which tend towards such intervention, and would justify it, morally and internationally, must by the American nations be remedied; if not by the state responsible, then by others. This end was involved in the beginnings, though it was not then obvious. If this paradox then be a legitimate develop- ment, the objection that the Monroe Doctrine is not now the Doctrine of Monroe has no standing ground in fact or principle. To state the qualities of an apple and of an apple tree is to formulate a series of paradoxes; but all the same the apple is the fruit of the tree. The name Monroe Doctrine is therefore accurate, as well as serviceable. It is not only convenient, as a heading under which to group a series of national attitudes. It is exact, because it expresses a continuity which is that of life ; of a vital principle, fruitful in consequences just because it is alive. WORK S BY CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY. 1660-1783. With twenty-five charts illustrative of great naval battles. 8vo. |4.00. Masterful in construction and scholarly in execution. — The CrUic. THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE. With 13 maps and battle plans. 2 vols. 8vo. $6.00. A book whicli may be regarded as founding a new school of naval historical writing. — Political Science Quarterly, SEA POWER IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE WAR OF 1812. With mapsj battle plans, and 25 full-page plates. 2 vols. 8vo. $8.00. Captain Mataan^s latest contribution on the subject of " The Influence of Sea Power upon History." THE INTEREST OF AMERICA IN SEA POWER, PRES- ENT AND FUTURE. With 2 maps. Crown 8vo. $2.00. 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