LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] THE TRUE DOCTRINE OF NAVAL WARFARE. (To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
have just read in the Spectator of December 7th an article entitled " The True Doctrine of Naval Warfare." Surely the reason why it is vital for Great Britain to be supreme on the sea is that otherwise her communications with the rest of the world would be endangered in war time, and she would be liable to sudden invasion at any point on her long coastline before land forces could be concentrated at that point. Whether this supre- macy is maintained by destroying the enemy fleet or by confining it in harbour seems a matter of secondary consideration. It is, of course, preferable, if possible, to destroy the enemy fleet, because then the British Fleet has greater liberty of action. But there does not seem the slightest sign that British naval doctrine has iu any way altered since the days of Nelson. Nelson never tried to enter Toulon or Brest in order to engage the French ships lying there, but contented himself with preventing them from interfering with our communications. After Trafalgar the French Battle Fleet remained in harbour, blockaded by the British Battle Fleet. I think only one attempt was made to destroy the French Battle Fleet while it was in harbour, and that attempt failed. Meanwhile, light French craft carried on a destructive campaign against British commerce, and the convoy system was used to pro- tect British commerce. At the beginning of the Great War with Germany, the British anti-submarine policy consisted of employ- ing anti-submarine craft to seek out and destroy enemy sub- marines. Afterwards these anti-submarine craft were employed in convoying. This looks as if the lesson of the war was the necessity of preserving sea communications by every possible means, and that the best way of destroying the enemy was to attack him whenever he tried to interfere with communications.
With regard to Jutland, the writer of the article writes lightly of " losing several ships by mines and torpedoes." But supposing that the several ships lost by mines and torpedoes composed the strongest part of the Grand Fleet, and that the High Seas Fleet had sunk the rest by gunfire on the following day, what would have happened to the world P But if the High Seas Fleet had been destroyed, would the war have ended sooner than it did ? To have taken capital ships at night-time into the vicinity of a large force of highly efficient enemy destroyers would have been to trust to luck in every sense of the word. Might it not have been as use- lessly rash to expose the Grand Fleet to a night attack by German destroyers ae Nelson evidently thought it would have been for him to take his ships within range of the Toulon forts ? Although the writer of the article states that ghastly risks were taken in France and Flanders during 1915, he appears to think that no risks too ghastly could be taken with the Grand Fleet, although the latter could not possibly have been replaced in time to save the
[We did not suggest that our Grand Fleet could go and fight actions in harbours or small bays. Navarinos are impossible to- day. The enemy, in our view, could have been compelled earlier either to accept very serious damage, say, along the Belgian coast, or to try to end the nuisance by coming out in strength. Nelson waited for the sole purpose of destroying his enemy—that is how we read the history of his deeds. We think we are not wrong in saying that some dozen years ago a doctrine that the enemy might just as well be contained as destroyed became fashionable in high quarters in the Navy. That, at least, was not a Nelsonian doctrine.—En. Spectator.]
Previous page
