the narrow material standards they were able to understand, overwhelmingly powerful, they assumed that the enemy would be afraid-just as they themselves were unprepared-to attack. Accordingly they did not protect the fleet bases nor prepare for thwarting the under-water war which, had their plan been right, was the only form of war in which the enemy could engage. And, having misconceived the whole nature of war, they could not, of course, select men for the chief command on any proof of their fitness for it, nor could they train or prepare them to engage in it. When war broke out, a member of this group, whose singular personal charm, firmness of character, grasp of detail, and talent for organization, had made him by much the most effective and influential, was sent to command the fleet which was in all essentials his own creation, and to carry out the plans of which he was so largely the author.

The Testing of a Theory.-The test of the whole work of this group naturally, and inevitably, came when the chief fighting forces of the opposed sides met at the Battle of Jutland. And those who thought this group mistaken in its aims and methods, pointed out that the commanderin-chief on that occasion was true to type. They asserted that he did not bring his fleet into action as would a man who was determined to win a decisive victory as rapidly as possible; that, on the contrary, he left the fast division of the fleet unsupported at the most critical moment; that, when circumstances enabled him to retrieve the situation, rather than allow his fleet to face the risk of a torpedo attack, he turned his ships incontinently away, and so allowed Admiral Scheer to escape. On the morrow-they went on to say-no effort was made to redeem the failure of the day before.

This, briefly, is the indictment that has been brought against the Material School and Lord Jellicoe. When, therefore, it was announced that he was about to publish a volume on his command of the Grand Fleet and the Battle of Jutland, it was natural people should expect a reasoned reply to the case that had been brought against him. The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916 (Cassell, 31s. 6d. net), shows that this expectation was founded on a complete misjudgment of Lord Jellicoe as a man, and consequently upon a complete misconception of his object in writing.

The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916, is not a reply to the case I have set out above, nor is it a defence of the author's policy, nor, in the narrower sense of the word, is it an apology. Take the charge that the navy was unprepared. Lord Jellicoe, so far from attempting to justify either himself or those with whom he was so closely associated both in pre-war days and after, carries the indictment to lengths that no critic of the Admiralty has ever thought of in his dreams. The policy of adopting dreadnoughts had indeed been questioned; but no one had ever suspected that every single ship of this type had been built on a hopelessly wrong constructional principle, and so built to the knowledge of those who ordered the construction. We knew that the wrong place had been chosen for the fleet base, and that it was undefended against submarines and mines. But we had no conception that no provision of any kind had been made for putting it into defence for war, and that it was without the means of fitting or supplying a single ship, or of providing the most elementary facilities for the most vital of the fleet's activities, namely, gunnery practice. The degree to which we were under-supplied with light craft as compared with the enemy was almost incredible. We had a bare quarter of their provision! We were without the means of making or thwarting under-water war generally, and in a host of crucial matters-range-finders, fire control, armor-piercing shells, searchlights, and substitutes for searchlights-we were at a disadvantage that is inconceivable. The curious thing is that as to every one, almost, of these points, controversy had been active before the war, and almost everything which experience showed to be necessary had been urged, but without success, on the boards of which Lord Jellicoe

was a member. The gallant officer's category of defects is a stupefying arraignment.

The Battle of Jutland.-When we come to Jutland, the thing is more extraordinary still. He meets the charge of unwillingness to fight at decisive ranges by explaining, with almost painful precision, why it was he feared the Grand Fleet could not survive-in sufficient strength to safeguard Allied interests-if, even for a moment, it were brought into close action with the enemy. He then goes on to show how, between 6 and 6.14, he had the choice of two modes of deployment only, and, by exquisitely careful plans, he proves to demonstration that by neither method could he either bring the fleet into action or come to the support of Sir David Beatty's squadron. Then, when at last his fleet was in action, he tells us with meticulous accuracy why at 7.23-though he knew that a German Fleet in being was the worst possible thing for us "-he turned his ships away from the enemy the moment the first of the two great torpedo attacks was made, and then how it was just this turn, and nothing else, that enabled Scheer to break off the action and escape. And finally, with the same sustained candor, he tells us how on the morning of June 1st he expected the enemy to be at a certain place and at a certain hour, how he knew the enemy's ships had been battered and damaged, and how, nevertheless, with 25 undamaged battleships against the enemy's 20 cripples, he did not attempt to intercept them and retrieve the misfortunes of the day before.

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Lord Jellicoe's Attitude.-Now, if the book is not a defence, what is it? It clearly has no parallel in literature save, perhaps, amongst the arresting records bequeathed to us by the simplicity of certain singular saints and the cynicism of a few exceptional sinners. Lord Jellicoe has, in short, set himself to the extremely difficult task of self-revelation; and he has succeeded to a very extraordinary degree. He has succeeded because he is calmly conscious that he has done his duty as he understood it, and, being perfectly confident of this, he is above consideration of fear or caution in telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. His is an act of faith in the sense of justice of his countrymen: the work of a man too proud to fight for a reputation which he knows to be completely unindictable on any ground of morals or of honor. He is too singleminded and too simple-minded to conceal a single motive or to misrepresent a single action. He seems to say to his readers-"I give you the story as it happened: I show you my mind at work. If I am wrong, it is because I acted on wrong principles; but I am not conscious of it. I leave my character in your keeping."

It is, then, impossible to close this book without an intense sense of the magnanimity and generosity of the writer. If there is a case against him, he has given it away quite hopelessly. It is precisely because of his conviction that there is no case that makes it so hard to insist that there is. But the obligations of intellectual integrity remain, even when it would seem that there is nothing left to fight for, and nobody to fight with, for Lord Jellicoe has disconcerted his critics by the strangely effective device of disarming himself. These obligations bind, however, because while Lord Jellicoe's book shows his motives from first to last to be of the highest, and his character to be above and beyond the least possibility of disparagement, the effect of his appeal to the public must be considered. Judging from the reviews, the book is taken to justify not only the writerwhich it should-but the policy and the theory of war which he represents, which it should not. It is possible that this may be only a passing mood— the natural reaction of the confiding candor of this appeal. But whether this is so or not it seems obligatory to say that if national interests are to be served a true and not a false impression must be deduced from these pages.

The paradox of the position, of course, is that Lord Jellicoe tells the same story as his critics-with a wealth of proof to which none of them

could pretend-and, at the end of it, is still serenely confident that he did the right thing. The paradox is to be explained, it seems to me, by one thing only. He is the victim of better, perhaps, the martyr to-the basic fallacy of the materialists' creed. He simply never realized what fighting meant and, therefore, what a fleet was for. This, I think, can be illustrated by three matters on which he dwells with some insistence.

When the battle-cruiser fleet came into sight at Jutland at six o'clock, the commander-in-chief had at once to consider how to deploy his ships. The considerations that weighed with him are set out in full on pages 343 to 351. The salient point is that he felt he could not deploy at all until he knew exactly where the German Battle Fleet was. He got his first indications of the bearing of the German Battle Fleet at 6.14 and deployed at 6.16. But Lion had been seen at 6 o'clock by Marlborough, and at 6.6 by Iron Duke, and she and her consorts were clearly engaged with the enemy. Should it or should it not have been elementary that here was the clue to his doubts? Could he possibly have been wrong in preparing at once to deploy in support of friends who were fighting?

Fire Control at Jutland.-The second matter is this. In the diagram describing a proposed starboard deployment, Lord Jellicoe explains that this would have involved putting on large helm, which, because his fire control was unable to get data for hits in such conditions would have put all his guns out of action. Yet when he finally got into action after changing course to south at 6.50, he ordered helm six times in the 36 minutes between 7.5 and 7.41. His experience of action certainly was then that it was impossible for an admiral to keep a fleet on a steady course for even half an hour-leave alone the consequential helm involved in station keeping after each fleet order had been given. Add to this that during this half-hour a great number of individual ships in the rear of the line had had to manœuvre freely on their own to avoid the torpedoes, over 20 in number, that passed through the line, and every turn silenced his guns! If ever a man had the practical proof of a technical requirement of fire control in action, surely it was Lord Jellicoe on May 31. Yet he takes great pains to tell us that he was perfectly content with the instruments he had, and that after the action he neither ordered substitutes for the range-finders which had failed him, nor improved instruments for finding and keeping the rate under helm!

Third, we have seen that Lord Jellicoe represents that there were but two methods of deployment open to him, and he has proved that neither could have achieved any useful purpose. But he does not enumerate amongst the lessons of his experience any revision of his tactical theory. Yet, it is a matter of plain fact that methods of fire control, designed to meet the conditions which arose at Jutland, were submitted to the Admiralty in 1912, when Lord Jellicoe was Second Sea Lord; and a method of deployment, differing from either of those to which Lord Jellicoe considered himself limited, was worked out and practiced by the Battle Fleet in one of those rare intervals when officers not of the dominant school were in command. But writing two years after the action, Lord Jellicoe still seemed to think that he could not be blamed for having no tactical resources but those which he used or rejected, and the lessons of the battle left him without any desire for a more efficient system of gunnery.

It is strange enough that he should have forgotten that there was no reason whatever why the fleet's gunnery should ever have been paralyzed in this way, except the not too creditable reason that the Admiralty in 1912 declined to spend a trifling sum per ship to remove this inability for ever. For it was in that year proved, and in a vessel afterwards under Lord Jellicoe's command at Jutland, that a ship going full speed could fire under full helm and make a succession of hits, just as if on a steady course. The reason the wiseacres of Whitehall, while fully admitting that the instruments had done all that was claimed for them and that no other

instruments had ever even aimed at surmounting these difficulties, declined to adopt them, was that they did not think any such problem as this could arise in action!

The phenomenon with which we have to deal then is not a mind that could not foresee what war would require, nor one that could not recognize those requirements when convincingly anticipated and demonstrated. It is a something much more wonderful still, a mind unable to recognize after victory in a fleet action had been thrown away, that, had an admitted defect been met by an admitted cure, the result must have been different.

The secret of our naval failure is, then, now a secret no longer. It is explained by the mental atrophy that followed from the obsession of wrong principles and too long a retention of irresponsible because uncriticized, power. Lord Jellicoe, by a magnificent gesture and with quite simple-minded courage, impelled by some power of destiny perhaps beyond his control, has told the truth about himself and his colleagues, and has ended the dynasty for ever. The Grand Fleet, 1914-1916, is then not only the swan song of the Materialist School, it is its suicide. Like the blind prophet of old, Lord Jellicoe has brought down the temple and all within it. One feels inclined to add that it is his friends and not his enemies whom he has slain. But this singular man has never made an enemy.

Some of us, who recognized the things described in this book for what they were, while they were being done, and even before they were done, have wearied the public and caused incredible pain to old friends in the naval service-to whom criticism of their leaders seemed almost a blasphemy. If we attacked, it was from no personal animosity, but from sheer dread of the inevitable consequences that must follow from this devastating creed in action. Lord Jellicoe's book justifies our efforts, as surely as it ends them. Henceforth, the debate on naval policy need concern itself no longer with the persons, but with principle only.-Land and Water, 20/2.

JAPAN

JAPANESE STRENGTH GIVEN.-A report showing the strength of the Japanese Navy was submitted by the Secretary to fill out the reports of the comparative strength of the navies of the six other large powers which he gave recently. It shows thirteen battleships and four building or projected; seven battle cruisers, ten cruisers, sixteen light cruisers and seven more building or projected, five armored coast defence vessels, sixty-six destroyers and twenty-three building or projected, sixteen first-class torpedo-boats, eight second-class torpedo-boats, fifteen submarines and twenty-seven building and projected and two airships and sixty-three miscellaneous vessels.-Naval Monthly, February.

JAPAN'S MERCHANT FLEET.-According to the Japanese Department of Communications Japan had, at the end of October, a mercantile marine consisting of 2546 steamships and 11,997 sailing boats. Of the steamships, 588 were ocean-going ships above 1000 tons. The total gross tonnage of these ocean-going boats was 1,801,242, their registered tonnage being 1,135,094. Of the sailing craft, ocean-going ships above 1000 tons were only two, their gross tonnage being 3438, while their registered tonnage amounted to 2233.

Steamships above 10,000 tons numbered seven, their gross tonnage being 71,899, while their registered tonnage was 38,551. The vessels between 9000 tons and 10,000 tons numbered eight, their gross tonnage being 76,043, while their registered tonnage was 48,498. There was only one vessel above 8,000 tons, its gross tonnage being 8150. The boats between 7000 and 8000 tons numbered fourteen, their gross tonnage being 105,415. Those

between 6000 and 7000 tons were 22, their gross tonnage being 140, 102. Those between 5000 and 6000 tons were 45, their gross tonnage being 256,635. Those between 4000 and 5000 tons numbered 38, their gross tonnage being 171,254.-Nautical Gazette, 2/15.

This map shows the geographical relations of the Pacific Islands to Australasia and Japan. All the islands formerly German have been occupied, either by Australasian or Japanese forces. The Japanese hold the former German islands in the Ladrones, Marshalls, and Carolines.London Times, 1/31.

UNITED STATES

REPAIR SHIP AND TRANSPORT TO BE BUILT.-Secretary Daniels has signed plans for Repair Ship No. I and Transport No. 2, included in the 3-year program of August 29, 1916, and directed to be begun prior to July 1, 1919. The vessels represent a modern floating plant capable of taking care of all the ordinary repairs of the vessels of the fleet, including battleships and battle cruisers. The repair plant consists of a machine shop, brass and iron