THE NEEDS OF THE NAVY

The doubt which, since the Prime Minister's statement on the
introduction of the Navy Estimates, has disturbed the public mind, is
concerned almost exclusively with the number of modern battleships in
the Royal Navy. The one object which the nation ought to have in view is
victory in the next war, and the question never to be forgotten is, what
is essential to victory? While it is probably true that if the disparity
of numbers be too great a smaller fleet can hardly engage a larger one
with any prospect of success, it is possible to exaggerate the
importance both of numbers and of the size of ships.

The most decisive victories at sea which are on record were those of
Tsusima, of Trafalgar, and of the Nile. At Tsusima the numbers and size
of the Japanese Fleet were not such as, before the battle, to give
foreign observers grounds for expecting a decisive victory by the
Japanese. It was on the superior intellectual and moral qualities of the
Japanese that those who expected them to win based their hopes, and this
view was justified by the event. At the battle of Trafalgar the British
Fleet numbered twenty-seven, the Franco-Spanish Fleet numbered
thirty-three; at the battle of the Nile the numbers were equal--thirteen
on each side. These figures seem to me sufficiently to prove that
superior numbers are not in battle the indispensable condition of
victory. They certainly prove that the numerically inferior fleet may
very well win.

Writers on the art of war distinguish between tactics, the art of
winning a battle, and strategy, the art of designing and conducting the
whole of the operations which constitute a campaign, of bringing about
battles in conditions favourable to one's own side and of making the
best use of such victories as may be won for contributing to the general
purpose of the war, which is dictating peace on one's own terms.

The decision of the questions, how many fleets to send out, what is to
be the strength and composition of each of them, and what the objectives
assigned to their several commanders is a strategical decision. It is a
function of the strategist at the Board of Admiralty, but the question
how to handle any one of these fleets in the presence of the enemy so as
either to avoid or to bring about an action and so as to win the battle,
if a battle be desirable, is a question for the admiral commanding the
particular fleet.

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