|
|
A.C.N.S.
|
------------------------------------------------
| | | |
Director of Director of Director of Director of
Mercantile Trade Anti-Sub- Mine-Sweeping
Movements Division. marine Division.
Division. (Captain R.N.) Division. (Captain R.N.)
(Captain R.N.) | (Captain R.N.) |
| Staff. | Staff.
-------------- Staff.
| |
Convoy Movements
Section. Section.
The portion of the organization under the A.C.N.S. comprised the
following numbers in December, 1917:
Mercantile Movements Division, 36 Officers, with a clerical staff.
Trade Division, 43 Officers, with a clerical staff of 10 civilians.
Anti-Submarine Division, 26 Officers, with a clerical staff.
Mine-Sweeping Division, 8 Officers, with a clerical staff.
Of this number practically the whole of the Mercantile Movements and
Anti-Submarine Divisions were added during the year 1917, whilst large
additions were also made to the Trade Division, owing to the great
increase of work.
During the first half of the year 1917 the Operations Division of the
Naval Staff received a much needed increase of strength by the
appointment of additional officers, charged, under the Director of the
Operations Division, with the detailed preparation of plans for
operations. Further additions to this branch of the Staff were made in
the latter half of the year.
Matters were in this position with the reorganization of the Naval Staff
in hand and working towards a definite conclusion when, to the intense
regret of those who had been privileged to work with him, Sir Edward
Carson left the Admiralty to become a member of the War Cabinet.
Before leaving the subject of work at the Admiralty during Sir Edward
Carson's administration, mention should be made of the progress made in
the difficult task of providing officers for the rapidly expanding
Fleet. The large programme of small craft started in the early part of
1917 involved the eventual provision of a great number of additional
officers. Admiral Sir Cecil Burney, the Second Sea Lord, took this
matter in hand with conspicuous success, and the measures which he
introduced tided us over a period of much difficulty and made provision
for many months ahead. Sir Cecil Burney, by reason of his intimate
knowledge of the personnel--the result of years of command afloat--was
able to settle also many problems relating to personnel which had been
the cause of dissatisfaction in the past.
Sir Edward Carson, on leaving the Admiralty, was succeeded by Sir Eric
Geddes as First Lord. Sir Eric had been brought into the Admiralty in
May, 1917, in circumstances which I will describe later. (_Vide_ Chapter
X.) One of his first steps as First Lord which affected Admiralty
organization was the appointment of a Deputy First Sea Lord. This
appointment was frankly made more as a matter of expediency than because
any real need had been shown for the creation of such an office. It is
unnecessary here to enter into the circumstances which led to the
appointment to which I saw objections, owing to the difficulty of
fitting into the organization an officer bearing the title of Deputy
First Sea Lord.
Vice-Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss--who had come to England for the purpose
of conferring with the Admiralty before taking up the post of British
Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean--was selected by the First Lord
as Deputy First Sea Lord.
Shortly after assuming office as First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes expressed a
wish for a further consideration of the question of Admiralty
organization. To this end he appointed a joint War Office and Admiralty
Committee to compare the two organizations.
Having received the report of the Committee, the First Lord and I both
formulated ideas for further reorganization. My proposals, so far as
they concerned the Naval Staff, were conceived on the general lines of
an extension of the organization already adopted since my arrival at the
Admiralty, but I also stated that the time had arrived when the whole
Admiralty organization should be divided more distinctly into two sides,
viz., the Operational side and the _Materiél_ or Administrative side,
and indicated that the arrangement existing in the time of the old Navy
Board might be largely followed, in order that questions of Operations
and _Materiél_ should be quite clearly separated. This, indeed, was the
principle of the Staff organization which I had adopted in the Grand
Fleet, and I was anxious to extend it to the Admiralty.
This principle was accepted--although the term "Navy Board" was not
reinstituted--the Admiralty Board being divided into two Committees, one
for _Operations_ and one for _Materiél_, the whole Board meeting at
least once a week, as required, to discuss important questions affecting
both sides. Whilst it was necessary that the Maintenance Committee
should be kept acquainted with the requirements in the shape of material
needed for operations in which the Fleet was engaged--and to the Deputy
Chief of Naval Staff was assigned this particular liaison duty--I was
not in favour of _discussing_ questions affecting ordinary operations
with the whole Board, since, in addition to the delay thereby involved,
members of the Maintenance Committee could not keep in sufficiently
intimate touch with such matters, and opinions might be formed and
conclusions expressed on an incomplete knowledge of facts. Questions of
broad policy or of proposed major operations were, of course, in a
different category, and the above objections did not apply.
The further alterations in Naval Staff organization were not adopted
without considerable discussion and some difference of opinion as to
detail, particularly on the subject of the organization of the
Operations Division of the Naval Staff, which I considered should
embrace the Plans Division as a sub-section in order to avoid
overlapping and delay. In my view it was undesirable for a body of
officers not working under the authority of those in close touch with
the daily operations of the Fleet to put forward plans for operations
which necessarily involved the use of the same vessels and material, as
such a procedure must inevitably lead to impracticable suggestions and
consequent waste of time; the system which I favoured was that in use in
the Army, where the Operations Section of the Staff dealt also with the
working out of plans.
The Admiralty Staff organization necessarily differed somewhat from that
at the War Office, because during the war the Admiralty in a sense
combined, so far as Naval operations were concerned, the functions both
of the War Office and of General Headquarters in France. This was due
primarily to the fact that intelligence was necessarily centred at the
Admiralty, and, secondly, because the Admiralty acted in a sense as
Commander-in-Chief of all the forces working in the vicinity of the
British Isles. It was not possible for the Commander-in-Chief of the
Grand Fleet to assume this function, since he could not be provided with
the necessary knowledge without great delay being caused, and, further,
when he was at sea the other commands would be without a head. The
Admiralty therefore necessarily assumed the duty, whilst supplying each
command with all the information required for operations. The general
lines of the Staff organizations at the War Office and at General
Headquarters in France are here given for the sake of comparison with
the Naval Staff organization.
1.--_The British War Office._
The approximate organization is shown as concisely as possible in the
following diagram:
CHIEF OF IMPERIAL GENERAL STAFF
Director of Staff Duties.
Staff duties Organization and training.
War Organization of forces.
General questions of training.
Signals and communications.
Director of Military Operations.
Operations on all fronts.
Director of Military Intelligence.
Intelligence.
Espionage.
The Press.
The other important departments of the War Office on the administration
side are those of the Adjutant-General and the Quartermaster-General,
the former dealing with all questions relating to the personnel of the
Army under the various headings of organization, mobilization, pay and
discipline, and the latter with all questions of supply and transport.
A Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff was attached to the Chief
of the Imperial General Staff. His main duty was to act as a liaison
between the General Staff and the administrative departments of the War
Office.
The whole organization of the British War Office is, of course, under
the direction and control of the Secretary of State for War.
2.--_The Staff Organization at General Headquarters in France._
FIELD MARSHAL
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
Chief of the General Staff
G.S. (a) (Operations) Plans and Execution Intelligence.
G.S. (b) (Staff Duties) War Organizations and
Establishments Liason between G.S. (a) and
Administrative Services.
Adjutant General (Personnel, Discipline, etc.)
Quartermaster General (Transport and Supply, etc.)
ATTACHED TO GENERAL HEADQUARTERS.
(BUT NOT STAFF OFFICERS.)
|
----------------------------------------------------
| | |
Artillery Adviser Engineer-in-Chief. Inspector of
(Advises Chief of Advises as in case of Training.
General Stall on Artillery.
Artillery matters
and operations).
|
Advises Administrative
Departments as
necessary.
N.B.--The Inspector of Training works in consultation with the Chief of
the General Staff.
It will be seen that whilst at the War Office the liaison between the
General Staff and the administrative side was maintained by a Deputy
Chief of the General Staff, in the organization in the field the same
function was performed by the Staff Officer known as G.S. (b).
It will also be seen that neither at General Headquarters nor in the
case of an Army command does the Chief of the General Staff exercise
control over the administrative side.
After some discussion the Admiralty organizations shown in the Tables A
and B on page 20 (below) were adopted, and I guarded as far as possible
against the objection to keeping the Plans Division separate from the
Operations Division by the issue of detailed orders as to the conduct of
the business of the Staff, in which directions were given that the
Director of the Plans Division should be in close touch with the
Director of the Operations Division before submitting any proposals to
the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff or myself.
During the remainder of my service at the Admiralty the organization
remained as shown in Tables A and B on p. 20 below. It was not entirely
satisfactory, for reasons already mentioned and because I did not obtain
all the relief from administrative work which was so desirable.
TABLE A
First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff.
Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
Director of Intelligence Division.
Director of Signals Division.
Director of Operations Division.
Deputy-Director of Operations
Operations at home.
Assistant Director Operations Division and Staff.
Operations abroad.
Director of Plans Division.
Preparation of Plans for operations at home and abroad.
Consideration of and proposals for use of new
weapons and material. Building programmes to
carry out approved policy.
Deputy First Sea Lord.
Director of Training and Staff Duties.
Assistant Chief of Naval Staff.
Director of Trade Division.
Director of Mercantile Movements.
Director of Mine-sweeping.
Director of Anti-Submarine Division.
TABLE B
Board of Admiralty.
Operations Committee.
Naval Staff.
Maintenance Committee.
Shipbuilding and Armaments.
Stores.
Air.
Finance.
Personnel and Discipline, etc.
Works.
Early in 1918, after my departure from the Admiralty, the following
announcement appeared in the Press:
The _Secretary of the Admiralty makes the following announcement_:--
The Letters Patent for the new Board of Admiralty having now been
issued, it may be desirable to summarize the changes in the personnel of
the Board and to indicate briefly the alterations in organization that
have been decided upon.
Acting Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Oliver now brings to a close his long
period of valuable service on the Naval Staff and will take up a
sea-going command, being succeeded as D.C.N.S. by Rear-Admiral Sydney
Fremantle. Rear-Admiral George P.W. Hope has been selected for the
appointment of Deputy First Sea Lord, formerly held by Admiral Wemyss,
but with changed functions. Commodore Paine, Fifth Sea Lord and Chief of
Naval Air Service, leaves the Board of Admiralty in consequence of the
recent creation of the Air Council, of which he is now a member, and
formal effect is now given to the appointment of Mr. A.F. Pease as
Second Civil Lord, which was announced on Thursday last.
In view of the formal recognition now accorded, as explained by the
First Lord in his statement in the House of Commons on the 1st November,
to the principle of the division of the work of the Board under the two
heads of Operations and Maintenance, the Members of the new Board (other
than the First Lord) may be grouped as follows:--
OPERATIONS. MAINTENANCE.
First Sea Lord Second Sea Lord.
and (Vice-Admiral Sir H.L. Heath.)
Chief of Naval Staff.
(Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss.)
Deputy Chief of Naval Staff. Third Sea Lord.
(Rear-Admiral S.R. Fremantle.) (Rear-Admiral L. Halsey.)
Assistant Chief of Naval Staff. Fourth Sea Lord.
(Rear-Admiral A.L. Duff.) (Rear-Admiral H.H.D.
Tothill.)
Deputy First Sea Lord. Civil Lord.
(Rear-Admiral G.P.W. Hope.) (Right Hon. E.G. Pretyman,
M.P.)
Controller.
(Sir A.G. Anderson.)
Second Civil Lord.
(Mr. A.F. Pease.)
Financial Secretary.
(Right Hon. T.J. Macnamara, M.P.)
Permanent Secretary.
(Sir O. Murray.)
The principle of isolating the work of planning and directing naval war
operations from all other work, in order that it may receive the entire
attention of the Officers selected for its performance, is now being
carried a stage further and applied systematically to the organization
of the Operations side of the Board and that of the Naval Staff.
In future the general distribution of duties between the Members of the
Board belonging to the Naval Staff will be as follows:--
FIRST SEA LORD AND CHIEF Naval policy and general direction
OF NAVAL STAFF of operations.
DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL War operations in Home
STAFF Waters.
ASSISTANT CHIEF OF NAVAL Trade Protection and
STAFF anti-submarine operations.
DEPUTY FIRST SEA LORD General policy questions and
operations outside Home
Waters.
The detailed arrangements have been carefully worked out so as to
relieve the first three of these officers of the necessity of dealing
with any questions not directly connected with the main operations of
the war, and the great mass of important paper work and administrative
detail which is inseparably and necessarily connected with Staff work,
but which has hitherto tended to compete for attention with Operations
work generally will under the new organization be diverted to the Deputy
First Sea Lord.
The grouping of the Directors of the Naval Staff Divisions will be
governed by the same principle.
The only two Directors that will work immediately under the First Sea
Lord will be the Director of Intelligence Division (Rear-Admiral Sir
Reginald Hall) and the Director of Training and Staff Duties
(Rear-Admiral J. C. Ley), whose functions obviously affect all the other
Staff Divisions alike.
Under the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff will be grouped three Directors
whose duties will relate entirely to the planning and direction of
operations in the main sphere of naval activity, viz.:--
Director of Operations Division Captain A.D.P. Pound.
(Home)
Director of Plans Division Captain C.T.M. Fuller,
C.M.G., D.S.O.
Director of Air Division Wing Captain F.R. Scarlett,
D.S.O.
together with the Director of Signals Division, Acting-Captain R.L.
Nicholson, D.S.O., whose duties relate to the system of Fleet
communications.
Under the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff will be grouped four Directors,
whose duties relate to Trade Protection and Anti-Submarine Operations,
viz:--
Director of Anti-Submarine Captain W.W. Fisher, C.B.
Division
Director of Mine-sweeping Captain L.G. Preston, C.B.
Division
Director of Mercantile Movements Captain F.A. Whitehead.
Division
Director of Trade Division Captain A.G. Hotham.
Under the Deputy First Sea Lord there will be one _Director of
Operations Division (Foreign)_--Captain C.P.R. Coode, D.S.O.
The chief change on the Maintenance side of the Board relates to the
distribution of duties amongst the Civil Members. The continuance of the
war has caused a steady increase in the number of cases in which
necessary developments of Admiralty policy due to the war, or experience
resulting from war conditions give rise to administrative problems of
great importance and complexity, of which a solution will have to be
forthcoming either immediately upon or very soon after the conclusion of
the war. The difficulty of concentrating attention on these problems of
the future in the midst of current administrative work of great urgency
may easily be appreciated, and the Civil Lord has consented to take
charge of this important matter, with suitable naval and other
assistance. He will, therefore, be relieved by the Second Civil Lord of
the administration of the programme of Naval Works, including the
questions of priority of labour and material requirements arising
therefrom and the superintendence of the Director of Works Department.
It has further been decided that the exceptional labour and other
difficulties now attending upon the execution of the very large
programme of urgent naval works in progress have so greatly transformed
the functions of the Director of Works Department of the Admiralty that
it is desirable, whilst these abnormal conditions last, to place that
Department under the charge of an expert in the rapid execution of large
engineering works.
The Army Council have consented, at the request of the First Lord of the
Admiralty, to lend for this purpose the services of Colonel Alexander
Gibb, K.B.E., C.B., R.E., Chief Engineer, Port Construction, British
Armies in France. Colonel Gibb (of the Firm of Easton, Gibb, Son and
Company, which built Rosyth Naval Base) will have the title of Civil
Engineer-in-Chief, and will be assisted by the Director of Works, who
retains his status as such, and the existing Staff of the Department,
which will be strengthened as necessary.
Another important change has reference to the organization of the
Admiralty Board of Invention and Research, and has the object at once of
securing greater concentration of effort in connection with scientific
research and experiment, and ensuring that the distinguished scientists
who are giving their assistance to the Admiralty are more constantly in
and amongst the problems upon which they are advising.
Mr. Charles H. Merz, M.Inst.C.E., the well-known Electrical Consulting
Engineer, who has been associated with the Board of Invention and
Research (B.I.R.) since its inception, has consented to serve as
Director of Experiments and Research (unpaid) at the Admiralty to direct
and supervise all the executive arrangements in connection with the
organization of scientific Research and Experiments. Mr. Merz will also
be a member of the Central Committee of the B.I.R. under the presidency
of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher. The functions of the Central
Committee will, as hitherto, be to initiate, investigate, develop and
advise generally upon proposals in respect to the application of Science
and Engineering to Naval Warfare, but the distinguished scientific
experts at present giving their services will in future work more much
closely with the Technical Departments of the Admiralty immediately
concerned with the production and use of apparatus required for specific
purposes.
The general arrangements in regard to the organization of scientific
research and experiment will in future come under the direct supervision
of the First Lord.
Possibly by reason of the manner in which the announcement was made, the
Press appeared to assume that the whole of this Admiralty organization
was new. Such was not the case. Apart from the changes in the personnel
of the Board itself and a slight rearrangement of their duties and those
due to the establishment of an Air Ministry (which had been arranged by
the Cabinet before December, 1917), there were but slight alterations in
the organization shown in Table A [above], as will be seen by comparing
it with Table C on p. 27 [below], which indicates graphically the
organization given in the Admiralty communique.
TABLE C
FIRST SEA LORD AND CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF.
Deputy Chief of Naval Staff.
Director of Signals Division.
Director of Operations Division (Home).
Director of Plans Division.
Director of Air Division.
Deputy First Sea Lord.
Director of Operations Division (Foreign) and
Administrative detail work.
Director of Intelligence Division.
Director of Training and Staff Duties.
Assistant Chief of Naval Staff.
Director of Trade Division.
Director of Mercantile Movements.
Director of Mine-sweeping.
Director of Anti-Submarine Division.
It will be seen that the alterations in Naval Staff organization were as
follows:
(a) The new Deputy First Sea Lord--Rear-Admiral Hope--who since the
spring of 1917 had been Director of the Operations Division, was given
the responsibility for operations in foreign waters, with a Director of
Operations (foreign) under him, and was also definitely charged with the
administrative detail involving technical matters. The special gifts,
experience and aptitude of this particular officer for such work enabled
him, no doubt, to relieve the pressure on the First Sea Lord for
administrative detail very materially.
(b) The Operations Division was separated into two parts (home and
foreign), with a Director for each, instead of there being a Deputy
Director for home and an Assistant Director for foreign work, both
working under the Director. This was a change in name only, as the same
officer continued the foreign work under the new arrangement.
(c) The Director of the Intelligence Division and the Director of
Training and Staff Duties were shown as working immediately under the
First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff.
(d) A Director of the Air Division was introduced as a result of the
Naval Air Service having been separated from the Admiralty and placed
under the Air Ministry. A larger Admiralty Staff organization for aerial
matters thus became necessary, since the Staff could no longer refer to
the Naval Air Service.
There were no other changes in the Staff organization. As regards the
general Admiralty organization, there was no change except that caused
by the disappearance of the separate Naval Air Service, the addition of
a Second Civil Lord, and some reorganization of the Board of Invention
and Research which had been under discussion for some months previously.
It is probable that in 1918 the Chief of the Naval Staff had more time
at his disposal than was the case in 1917, owing to the changes in
organization initiated in the later year having reached some finality
and to the fact that the numerous anti-submarine measures put in hand in
1917 had become effective in 1918.
The future Admiralty Naval Staff organization, which was in my mind at
the end of 1917, was a development of that shown in Table A, p. 20,
subject to the following remarks:
In the organization then adopted the personality and experience during
the war of many of the officers in high positions were of necessity
considered, and the organization to that extent adapted to
circumstances. This resulted in somewhat overloading the staff at the
head, and the principle on which the Board of Admiralty works, i.e.,
that its members are colleagues one of another, and seniority in rank
does not, theoretically, give greater weight in council, was not
altogether followed. Thus the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, the
Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, and the Deputy First Sea Lord were,
by the nature of their duties, subordinate to the Chief of the Naval
Staff and yet were members of the Board. The well-known loyalty of naval
officers to one another tended to minimize any difficulties that might
have arisen from this anomaly, but the arrangement might conceivably
give rise to difficulty, and is best avoided if the Board system is to
remain.
The situation would be clearer if two of the three officers concerned
were removed altogether from the Board, viz., the Deputy First Sea Lord
and the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, leaving only the Deputy
Chief of the Naval Staff as a member of the Board to act in the absence
of the Chief of the Naval Staff and to relieve him of the administrative
and technical work not immediately connected with operations.
The work of the two officers thus removed should, under these
conditions, be undertaken by officers who should preferably be Flag
Officers, with experience in command at sea, having the titles of
Directors of Operations, whose emoluments should be commensurate with
their position and responsibilities.
I did not consider it advisable to carry out this alteration during the
war, and it was also difficult under the hour to hour stress of war to
rearrange all the duties of the Naval Staff in the manner most
convenient to the conduct of Staff business, although its desirability
was recognized during 1917.
It may be as well to close this chapter by a few remarks on Staff work
generally in the Navy. In the first place it is necessary in the Navy to
give much weight to the opinions of specialist officers, and for this
reason it is desirable that they should be included in the Staff
organization, and not "attached" to it as was the case with our Army in
pre-war days. The reason for this is that in the Army there is, except
in regard to artillery, little "specialization." The training received
by an officer of any of the fighting branches of the Army at the Staff
College may fit him to assist in the planning and execution of
operations, provided due regard is paid to questions of supply,
transport, housing, etc.
This is not so in a navy. A ship and all that she contains is the
weapon, and very intimate knowledge of the different factors that go to
make a ship an efficient weapon is necessary if the ship is to be used
effectively and if operations in which the ship takes so prominent a
part are to be successfully planned and executed, or if a sound opinion
is to be expressed on the training necessary to produce and maintain her
as an efficient weapon.
The particular points in which this specially intimate knowledge is
required are:
(a) The science of navigation and of handling ships of all types and
classes.
(b) Gunnery.
(c) Torpedoes and mines.
It is the case at present (and the conditions are not likely to alter)
that each one of these subjects is a matter for specialist training.
Every executive officer has a general knowledge of each subject, but it
is not possible for any one officer to possess the knowledge of all
three which is gained by the specialist, and if attempts are made to
plan operations without the assistance of the specialists grave errors
may be made, and, indeed, such errors were made during the late war,
perhaps from this cause.
In my view, therefore, it is desirable that specialist officers should
be included in a Naval Staff organization and not be merely "attached"
to it. It may be said that a Staff can take the advice of specialist
officers who are _attached_ to it for that purpose. But there is a
danger that the specialist advice may never reach the heads of the
Staff. Human nature being what it is, the safest procedure is to place
the specialist officer where his voice must be heard, i.e. to give him a
position on the Staff, for one must legislate for the _average_
individual and for normal conditions of work.
The Chief of a Staff _might_ have specialist knowledge himself, or he
_might_ assure himself that due weight had been given to the opinions of
specialists attached to a Staff; but, on the other hand, it is possible
that he might not have that knowledge and that he might ignore the
opinions of the specialists. The procedure suggested is at least as
necessary when considering the question of training as it is in the case
of operations.
In passing from this point I may say that I have heard the opinion
expressed by military Staff officers that the war has shown that
artillery is so all important that it would be desirable to place the
Major-General of the Royal Artillery, now _attached_ to General
Headquarters, on the Staff for operational matters.
Finally, great care should be exercised to prevent the Staff becoming
larger than is necessary, and there is some danger that the ignorant may
gauge the value of the Staff by its size.
Von Schellendorff says on this subject:
"The principle strictly followed throughout the German Service of
reducing all Staffs to the smallest possible dimensions is moreover
vindicated by restricting every Staff to what is absolutely necessary,
and by not attaching to every Army, Army Corps and Divisional Staff
representatives of all the various branches and departments according to
any fixed rule.
"There cannot be the slightest doubt that the addition of every
individual not absolutely required on a Staff is in itself an evil. In
the first place, it unnecessarily weakens the strength of the regiment
from which an officer is taken. Again it increases the difficulty of
providing the Staff with quarters, which affects the troops that may
happen to be quartered in the same place; and these are quite ready
enough, as it is, occasionally to look with a certain amount of
dislike--though in most cases it is entirely uncalled for--on the
personnel of the higher Staffs. Finally, it should be remembered--and
this is the most weighty argument against the proceeding--that _idleness
is at the root of all mischief_. When there are too many officers on a
Staff they cannot always find the work and occupation essential for
their mental and physical welfare, and their superfluous energies soon
make themselves felt in all sorts of objectionable ways. Experience
shows that whenever a Staff is unnecessarily numerous the ambitious
before long take to intrigue, the litigious soon produce general
friction, and the vain are never satisfied. These failings, so common to
human nature, even if all present, are to a great extent counteracted if
those concerned have plenty of hard and constant work. Besides, the
numbers of a Staff being few, there is all the greater choice in the
selection of the men who are to fill posts on it. In forming a Staff for
war the qualifications required include not only great professional
knowledge and acquaintance with service routine, but above all things
character, self-denial, energy, tact and discretion."
CHAPTER II
THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1917
The struggle against the depredations of the enemy submarines during the
|
