Sir W.
Robertson when he became C.I.G.S. Should there ever be any doubt about
the matter--well, remember the start of the Tanks!

One morning in January or February 1915, Lord K. sent for me to his
room. It appeared that Lord Fisher had in mind a project of
constructing a flotilla of lighters of special type, to be driven by
motor power and designed for the express purpose of landing large
bodies of troops rapidly on an enemy's coast. The First Sea Lord was
anxious to discuss details with somebody from our side of Whitehall,
and the Chief wished me to take the thing up, the whole business being
of a most secret character. Lord Fisher, I gathered, contemplated
descents upon German shores; Lord K. did not appear to take these very
seriously, but he did foresee that a flotilla of the nature proposed
might prove extremely useful in connection with possible future
operations on the Flanders littoral. In any case, seeing that the
Admiralty were prepared to undertake a construction job of this kind
more or less in the interests of us soldiers, we ought to give the
plan every encouragement.

Vague suggestions had reached me from across the road shortly
before--I do not recollect exactly how they came to hand--to the
effect that one ought to examine into the possibilities offered by
military operations based on the German Baltic coast and against the
Frisian Islands. Attacks upon these islands presented concrete
problems; the question in their case had been already gone into
carefully by other hands before the war, and schemes of this
particular kind had not been found to offer much attraction when their
details came to be considered. As for the Baltic coast, one was given
nothing whatever to go upon--was groping in the dark. You wondered how
it was proposed to obtain command of these protected waters, bearing
in mind the nature of the approaches through defiles which happened to
be in the main in neutral hands, but you realized that this was a
naval question and therefore somebody else's job. Still, even given
this command, what then? Investigations of the subject, based upon
uncertain premises, did not lead to the conclusion that, beyond
"containing" hostile forces which otherwise might be available for
warfare in some other quarter, a landing in large force on these
shores was likely to prove an effective operation of war; and it was
bound to be an extremely hazardous one.

It has since transpired from Lord Fisher's volca