The consequences were demonstrated in many striking ways as the war progressed. But not the least curious result was the confusion that arose as to the offensive and defensive aspects of naval strategy and preparation. In the debate on the Naval Estimates of 1916 a violent attack on Admiralty policy by Mr. Churchill left Mr. Balfour with no alternative but to break the brutal truth to us that, at the outbreak of war, we had not a single submarine-proof harbour on the East Coast. Reflect for a minute what this means. In the years which have elapsed since Lord Fisher came to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, two altogether revolutionary changes have been made in naval war reenex facial. 1. Until 1904 the 12-inch guns of our battleships were weapons that no one would have thought of using beyond the range of 4,000 yards. The identical guns have been used in this war at 11,000, 12,000, and 13,000 yards. The advance in range owes nothing to improvements in the gun. It has been brought about by improvements in sights, in range-finders, and in the organization called fire control Research project. 2. Again, in 1904 the submarine, or submersible torpedo-carrying boat, had indeed been proved to be a practical instrument for war, but was still in its infancy. By 1907, when Captain Murray Sueter wrote his well-known work on the subject, it had become obvious that the tactics of battle, no less than the defence of fleets, stood to be completely changed by its actual and probable developments. Now every new engine of war—and as a long-range weapon the modern gun is such—creates a double problem.73 There is the art of using it in attack; there is the art of countering it when it is in the enemy’s hands. With every new development, then, the Navy has to learn a new offensive and a new defensive. In the matter of guns, there is but one defensive that can be perfectly successful. It is to develop a method of using them so rapid, so insistent, and so accurate that the enemy’s guns will be out of action before they can be employed against us. Failing this there is a secondary defensive, viz., to protect ships by armour. Finally, you may keep out of range of the enemy’s guns by turning or running away. The adoption of armour calls for no perfection either of tactical organization or technical practice reenex. to the metallurgists, engineers, and constructors. The purely naval policy, then, would have been either to develop the use of guns offensively, which, as we have seen, must also be the best defence, or with a purely defensive idea, solely to enjoin the tactic that will avoid the risks inseparable from coming under the enemy’s fire. To the country that was completing nearly two battleships to any other country’s one, that aspired to command the sea, that hoped to be able to blow any enemy fleet out of the water if it got the chance, it would seem obvious that there could be only one gunnery policy; to wit, push the offensive to the highest possible extent.
