Contents

AUTHOR'S NOTE
AN APOLOGY ( Click to see full trascript )
INTRODUCTION

PART I
THE PRICE OF LORD FISHER

I. THE ADVENT OF LORD FISHER
II. THE WAR AT SEA
III. THE TRUE LESSONS OF THE WAR

PART II
POST-WAR NAVAL POLICY : THE NAVY OF TODAY

IV. LESSONS OF THE WAR MISAPPLIED
V. THE NAVAL STAFF AND EXTREME SPECIALISM
VI. TRAINING OF OFFICERS AND MEN
VII. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
VIII. IN BONDAGE TO OIL
IX. A CONCLUSION TO CRITICISM

PART III
A NEW NAVY : THE NAVY OF TOMORROW

X. THE FOUNDATIONS OF STRATEGY -
XI. FUTURE CLASSES OF SHIPS EXAMINED
XII. A FIGHTING FLEET -
XIII. BLOCKADE - - - -
XIV. THE FUTURE OF THE NAVAL AIR ARM
XV. A REDUCED NAVAL STAFF -
XVI. THE TRAINING OF OFFICERS AND MEN
XVII. CONCLUSION - - - -
ADDENDUM : THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS

Post and Packing Charges

AN APOLOGY

In undertaking this book of a critical nature it seems desirable for a comparatively unknown author to preface such a work with some brief account of his qualifications as a critic, and also of his aim, though the value or worthlessness of the criticism should rest on the matter in this book rather than on the prestige of its author.
The Navy, and its efficiency as a national instrument of policy, is of the first concern to every man and woman in this Island Country and in the British Empire, and to such an extent that serious critism directed against it can only be justified if there is genuine ground for such adverse critism. If such ground exists, or is believed honestly and disinterestedly to exist, it is manifestly desirablee that critism should find expression. If it is justified it can do nothing but good, and if, on the other hand, it is unsound or frivolous, it must shatter the reputation of the critic while leaving the Navy unscathed.
Somee naval officers will stoutly deny that a professional crisis exists outside the head of the author, and these officers may regard this bok as mischievous. Ther are many others, however, who will welcome an examination of present naval policy, provided that such an examination is completely free of any personal animus against any single officer.
The author bases his qualifications for undertaking such a work on a wide and diverse experience extending over a period of nearly thirty years, and in no way upon any idea, which would be as offensive as it would be manifestly ridiculous, of any exceptional ability of his own as an executive naval officer. The Navy, mercifully for the country, is rich in officers who greatly excel the author in ability, and he would therefore justify his criticisms solely on the ground of general experience and a certain detachment from the snares of extremely specialised thought, a detachment which grows progressively rarer as the world becomes more highly specialised.
Though the greater part of his service has been in command of submarines before, during, and since the war, he has served in battleships and battle- cruisers, in which latter class of ship he was turret- officer and second control officer in the ill-fated Indefatigable in pursuit of the Goeben, and in the earlier stages of the Dardanelles operations. He was also in charge of the wireless of that ship. He has commanded a destroyer and a small destroyer flotilla engaged upon anti-submarine operations in the postwar years. He was fully and a&ively engaged during three years of the war in the submarine campaign. Added to this long and varied sea-going experience the author can claim four years' service on the Naval Staff at the Admiralty, in which an intimate acquaintance with matters ofpolicy—strategical, material and administrative—was naturally acquired. During these four years his work brought him into the closest relations with scientific research.
This experience, therefore, must be his excuse for the present work, coupled with a certain detachment of outlook which he has sedulously cultivated, rightly or wrongly, from boyhood.
The author's aim is an aim that is common to all naval officers—the real good of that great and noble profession of which he has had the honour and happiness to be a humble and undistinguished member for twenty-nine years.
That the argument set forth in this book will be controverted by Lord Fisher's disciples goes without saying. The author can only hope, and believe, that his opponents will recognise the absence of any personal feeling, especially as it is among his opponents chiefly that his later professional life has been cast, and among whom he is happy to count the majority of his personal friends. It is a system, and a system only, that is criticised; a system which the Board of Admiralty has inherited, and from which, it can hardly be doubted, they experience many and growing embarrasments.
This book represents the author's contribution, at the early close of his career, to that profession in which he has received nothing but kindness and even-handed justice, and to which he is fortunate in being still bound by the closest tie that is possible