When war threatens with a maritime power, our navy will be called upon to prepare a plan of campaign. To do this it is not sufficient to know the numerical strength of our opponent's navy, the distribution of his forces and the characteristics of his warships; but we should also know the strategic value of all his ports, harbors and naval bases, and their tactical strength, weakness and resources. We should know the same of all such places belonging to any neighboring country to our opponent or to his outlying possessions, and of all such places lying between us and him; and we should know the same of our own ports and harbors. This knowledge cannot be acquired after war threatens or breaks out; there will be neither time nor opportunity. The barest common sense dictates that it must be obtained, if at all, in time of peace; and a little prudent foresight suggests that it should not alone be obtained, but classified, filed and kept up to date in the most persistent, painstaking and methodical way, so that it shall be but a matter of a minute to lay the Government hand upon any portion needed.
We have had in the aggregate, more than a hundred years unmarked by war, during which our naval vessels have visited nearly every port in the world, and have lain in them weeks and sometimes months at a time. Throughout such periods our officers, educated to the highest pitch of professional mental attainment, have spent much of their time keeping their ships scrubbed and swept, and having bells struck to mark accurately the hours thus intellectually wasted. Their very limited periods of time allowed on shore are naturally and almost necessarily spent in recreating for further arduous misapplication of professional ability on board. There is scarcely an instance in our aggregate hundred and odd years of peace, of an officer being given the opportunity and the instructions to put his specially trained intelligence to work to study the feasibility of capturing or defending the ports visited, and to learn their strategic value in probably maritime wars; yet such study is one of the first natural and essential preparations for war, and it is for war that the officer is trained and the ships are built. There is, to be sure, nowadays, and has been for some few years, an intelligence officer, detailed from among the ship's complement, who is directed to gather information concerning foreign men-of-war, arsenals and dockyards when he falls in with them, and, incidentally, some general information concerning ports. This, however, he must usually do in addition to his other duties, or be regarded with suspicion by his captain and messmates as shirking a watch if he asks for special opportunities. Even when he succeeds in finding time to do his intelligence work, he is furnished with neither outfit nor adequate funds, and his instructions are seldom more than to seek details of armaments and mechanical equipment. These are, of course, important, but even if we learn such details concerning a fortified port, they are of little use to us without that knowledge of its environment which will enable us to make plans for its capture. Such knowledge can only be acquired by reconnaissance.
Reconnaissance may be defined as the process of obtaining information for war purposes. If made in the presence of the enemy it is termed tactical reconnaissance or, when conducted in spite of opposition, reconnaissance in force. It is not of these that this paper will treat, but of the wider branch of preliminary reconnaissance.
All military students and writers agree that the marvelous success of the Prussian army, in 1870, was largely due to the thoroughness of preliminary reconnaissance made during the years of peace following the downfall of Napoleon I. The magnificent demonstration given in 1870, of the decisive results of such work, has led the German and other governments to perfect it as a branch of war preparation. Derricagaix tells us in his work on "Modern War":
"The general staff at Berlin contains three sections specially charged with attentively following all military movements both at home and abroad, for the purpose of keeping themselves informed concerning everything touching organization, recruitment, armament, equipment, the geographical configuration of neighboring countries, the construction and demolition of fortresses, the development of ordinary roads, railroads, canals, etc.
"The countries of Europe are distributed among these three sections and form subjects of special study. This organization has been adopted by all armies since the success of Prussia demonstrated its utility."
Reconnaissance, then, is carried on in time of peace by the military branches of all foreign services as an important, a necessary preparation for war, despite the fact that general military reconnaissance can, to a considerable extent, be carried on after war breaks out. It is vastly more important that preliminary naval reconnaissance should be so conducted, for after war breaks out, all naval reconnaissance is blocked at the shore line; yet it seems that thus far no nation in the world has a thoroughly organized system of naval reconnaissance as a preparation for war. This is due to the fact that, until the publication of Captain Mahan's great work, only a few individuals ever realized the influence, the importance of sea power. As might have been expected, Germany then saw at once that what had so largely contributed to her victories on land, must form part of her preparation to fight battles on the sea, so that her Naval General Staff is now working, just as the Prussian Military Staff did before 1870, at preliminary reconnaissance as part of its preparation for naval war, and several other countries are unquestionably following Germany's example.
Our neglect of naval reconnaissance has not yet resulted seriously, because, until now, we have been an isolated power in the community of nations, content to keep our enemies from our home coasts and to busy ourselves with internal development. Now, that condition has passed away. We have taken a colonial empire from a decadent world power, and on the confines of that empire we find ourselves touching elbows with every nation in the world. Our commercial and political relations with other powers are now so interwoven that war may threaten with any of them when our national interests are divergent from theirs. We should, therefore, hasten to repair the neglect of more than a century, and begin at once, in a comprehensive, systematic way, to learn where and how best to carry war into countries beyond the seas. Colonel G. A. Furse, in his valuable work on "Lines of Communicating in War," says:—
"The disembarkation of an expeditionary force may have to be effected in a country of which we may possibly have a very superficial knowledge. . . . In cases of this kind, it becomes essential to have careful reconnaissance of the coast made by naval and military officers, to whom should be entrusted the selection of a suitable place for landing, which may subsequently be turned into a base of operations, if necessary. . . .
"Sound arrangements at the base of operations are impossible unless we have a correct idea of all the difficulties which we shall have to contend against, for without this it is obvious that we shall never be in a position to devise the most practical means for overcoming them."
Even more pressing to us just now is the necessity for learning how to prepare to defend our new and distant possessions, for these will be jeopardized first, in the event of a maritime war, and they are of vital importance to us in carrying on such a war. Our most exposed, and, strategically, our most important outlying possession today is the Philippine Group of islands. We should select in it, without delay, the tactically strongest locality for a naval base, in the best strategic position. There are scores of excellent harbors among these islands. All should be visited and most of them examined by careful reconnaissance before a selection is made; for if we miss the key by a hasty selection, our opponent will probably seize it when war comes. I have already said that other nations have not neglected reconnaissance as we have. I have seen British, German and Japanese naval officers, many miles from harbors in which their ships were lying, equipped with bicycles, cameras, sketch pads and compasses, busily engaged in studying the characteristics of the country about them, while midshipmen and warrant officers were keeping their ships swept in their absence.
I repeat that in selecting a naval base in the Philippines we must be absolutely certain that tactically and strategically we have selected the best, for when war comes, our opponent in those waters will assuredly make for himself a selection from among the harbors we fail to fortify.
The Aleutian Islands loom up in strategic importance when our eyes turn to the Far East; yet, in spite of the almost countless naval vessels which we have sent from time to time for various purposes into Bering Sea, we know next to nothing of these islands and their harbors. We have been content to leave them shrouded in fog and obscurity; but the big merchant steamers of Great Britain and Japan are sighting them almost daily. They are half way stations on the shortest highway between us and Asia, and must assuredly be used by ourselves or our enemies whenever the Pacific becomes our theater of war. There are probably not half a dozen captains in the United States Navy today, who, if passing the Aleutians with a convoy, would know in which island they could find the best shelter for coaling and refitting.
We still have much to learn of the Hawaiian Islands and of our West Indian possessions, as well as of the harbors of our continental coasts; in fact naval reconnaissance at home and abroad has been, as I have endeavored to show, entirely neglected. How then should we go about this imperatively necessary preparation for war?
Instructions for reconnaissance duty have been prepared at the Naval War College, and each summer the class, in attendance has been sent out for a few weeks at a time to make practical application of them in the vicinity of Newport. Instructions of a similar nature were formulated several years ago in the Office of Naval Intelligence for the guidance of intelligence officers afloat, but their importance has been so little appreciated that they are the least heeded of all intelligence instructions, and now need revision. These two sets of instructions, compared and revised, should be sent by the Navy Department, as confidential matter, to commanders-in-chief and commanding officers of vessels in commission. It should then be ordered, and the order should become a paragraph of the naval regulations, that whenever vessels of the navy are lying in port in time of peace, the senior officer present shall direct that watch officers be, as far as practicable, relieved from watch duty by junior and warrant officers, and shall assign them to a reconnaissance party under the direction of the senior member, which shall draw up and carry out a systematic scheme of naval and military reconnaissance in accordance with the "Instructions for Reconnaissance Duty," and make a report on the same, embodying all sketches and plans formulated for offense and defense; such work, however, not to relieve officers from regular forenoon or special drills, when this can be avoided. The reports should be confidential and in quadruplicate, one copy going to the Navy Department, one to the Naval War College, one to the flagship of the station, and the remaining one to be deposited, under seal, in the safe of the chief official in charge of the maritime interests of our government in the port examined (for example, the U. S. Consul, or the Captain of the Port, according as it is a foreign or a home port), for inspection and revision by the next reconnaissance party visiting that port.
I have said that both a naval and military reconnaissance should be made by these parties, because no representatives of the army are likely to visit foreign ports or even ungarrisoned home ports in an official capacity in time of peace, and the navy may have to convoy and land the army before it can begin operations in time of war. It is, therefore, important that whenever possible a marine officer should be a member of the reconnaissance party.
The intelligence officers should also be members, and such portions of the information obtained as they might select, or perhaps all of it, should go through the usual official channels to the Office of Naval Intelligence.
In a reconnaissance, to be thoroughly successful in execution and valuable in results, the following conditions are necessary:—
(a). Previous careful study of the best charts and maps of the locality.
(b). Distinct orders to all detachments of a party as to what is required.
(c). Thorough equipment.
(d). Some aptitude in free hand sketching.
(e). Ability to ride a horse or a bicycle, or both.
(f). Familiarity with the language of the country.
(g). Tactfulness.
Instead of discussing these questions in the order named I will take up the subject of free hand sketching. Such work done in reconnaissance by one whose intelligence has been tactically trained will prove a saving in time and labor, and the quickest and surest way of conveying much of the information he gathers. Captain E. A. Root, U. S. A., in his work on "Military Topography and Sketching" says, on the subject of reconnaissance:—
"However pressed for time one may be, he should try to convey as much information by a sketch as circumstances will permit."
In a reconnaissance of a harbor, two or three profile sketches from the various directions of approach by sea, and a birdseye sketch from the most commanding height in the harbor's environment would often save many pages of tedious description; but the officer making the sketch must fully understand the purposes for which it is made and the details needed for such purposes. To this end his education in this line should begin at the Naval Academy, and in the Department of Drawing at that institution such works as those of Captain E. A. Root, U. S. A., and Major H. D. Hutchinson, R. A., should be used as text-books, and sections should be taken out frequently along the Severn River and Chesapeake Bay for practical exercise in reconnaissance-sketching and the use of all reconnaissance equipment.
Of course such work can often be much better done with a camera, but a camera is not always available, not always in order and not always convenient to handle. Moreover, it is frequently handicapped by the caprices of the weather, such as cloudiness, rain, haze, the relative direction of the sun or the prevalence of a strong wind. Nevertheless a section at the Naval Academy, while doing practical work in reconnaissance-sketching, should also receive practical instruction in reconnaissance-photography, yhis practical work in the application of the art in the Department of Drawing need not conflict with the teaching of the art by another department, if that is now the case.
Reconnaissance should not be confined to the immediate vicinity of a port, but should extend ten, twenty or a hundred miles around it, if necessary, to develop any important tactical characteristics. Money should be made available, either from the naval contingent or a specially appropriated fund, to equip reconnaissance parties and to pay all their expenses of travel and subsistence. Each member of a properly equipped party should have: 1 bicycle, with cyclometer; 1 sketch pad; 1 note-book; 1 foot rule; 1 pocket compass; 1 pocket aneroid barometer; 1 pair binoculars; 1 pocket camera; 1 road map of the locality; a Passport; and the chief of the party should be authorized to purchase, at government expense, any local maps, plans, charts, guide books, prospectuses or statistical compilations containing information which he thinks valuable.
In time of peace naval reconnaissance can be conducted with more certainty as to the importance of localities than can military reconnaissance; for while it is impossible to foresee what particular spots in a vast area of land will be battlefields in the future, it is not impossible to pick out all probable battlegrounds in a line of coast.
In making up a plan of reconnaissance for a particular port, its strategic importance should first be considered; i. e., its position, its strength and its resources. Questions such as the following should be discussed and settled:
If a foreign port,
Would it lie upon our line of communication in the event of war?
Would it strengthen our enemy's communications?
Would it threaten our commerce by harboring the enemy's destroyers?
Would it protect his commerce?
Would it cover the enemy's capital or important interior strongholds?
Would it form a good base for his naval operations?
Would it form a good base, if seized, for ours?
Are its resources essential to the maintenance of the enemy's fleet?
Would they be of great value to our own?
These questions settled, the purpose and extent of further reconnaissance will be well defined; i. e., it will be with a view to isolation, or to blockade, or to bombardment, or to assault, or assault and capture, or to seizure and improvised or permanent defense.
Most of our wars and expeditions, on account of our isolation by seas, must, if carried on aggressively, begin on the shores of distant lands, and we should be prepared, in the event of war with any nation in the world, to select at once, in the enemy's country, a sea base of operations. Furse says, in regard to such selection:
"What is needed is a port which will satisfy three principal conditions, viz., it must be favorably situated with respect to the direction of the line of operations; it must offer a safe anchorage to a large number of ships; and it must possess great facility for landing troops of all arms, and large quantities of war materials and provisions."
On the other hand, we should know of our own ports; their strategic characteristics making their defense necessary or neglectable and suggesting the character and extent of defense when necessary; and in this connection the navy should not be deterred by false delicacy from pointing out to the army, from a naval standpoint, any inadequacies discovered in the existing defenses of our coasts.
Reconnaissance should be conducted as unostentatiously and cautiously as possible, and with entire courtesy towards all people met, and with due deference to local lawful restrictions. Little will be learned after one is regarded with suspicion or arouses antagonism. Instruments other than those carried by ordinary tourists should be displayed as infrequently as possible. The memory should be trained to carry all memoranda until it can be transferred to a notebook in privacy. Distances can be quite accurately measured unknown to onlookers by counting one's paces, if the average length of pace is obtained in similar ways; such as with the sole of the shoe, the forearm and hand, a pencil or an umbrella. Bearings can be obtained approximately with a watch, if the sun is not too directly overhead.
The best available charts or maps of a port or locality should be studied, and reference books consulted, in drawing up a plan of reconnaissance. In general, the information to be obtained is as follows:
The location of forts and batteries defending the locality; their armaments in detail; their heights above water; their approaches from sea and land; the arcs of train of their guns and the areas controlled by their fire.
The positions of magazines, storehouses and barracks, and heir equipment in material and personnel.
The location or plans of mine fields, operating stations, torpedo batteries and searchlights, and details of their equipment.
The location and characteristics of landing places for an attacking force, and of unfortified points, which, if taken, would command the defenses.
The location and characteristics of defensive positions which would naturally be held by mobile forces.
The location and characteristics of sites for camping grounds and for field hospitals.
The location, equipment and resources of manufacturing, repairing, coaling, watering and lighting plants.
The number, tonnage and speed of local steamers, ferryboats, tugs, yachts and launches, and the number and tonnage of all sailing craft, barges, lighters, etc.; also their draft.
Roads; their directions, nature, width, condition of repair, grades, intersection with other roads; how bordered; where they pass through defiles or cross streams or railroads.
Railroads; their direction; number of tracks, gauge, grades, junctions, stations, cuts, embankments, tunnels and the number and capacity of locomotives and cars.
Bridges; their position, construction, height and width of spans; the load they will bear and their fairway width, and the characteristics and location of positions commanding the bridge heads.
Rivers and streams; their direction, width, depth, fords, rapidity of current, fluctuations in depth (indicated often by driftwood), nature of banks; location and nature of islands in them, heights and cover commanding channels; character of the water (potable or otherwise).
Woods; their situation, extent and timber; whether clear or containing underbrush; location and extent of clearings, ravines, marshes, etc.
Canals; their direction, width and depth; location and length of locks; condition of towpath; location and height of bridge arches over them.
Routes of telegraph and telephone lines; number of wires and location of stations.
Villages; characteristics of their situation and architecture; width of streets and materials of pavements; location and nature of buildings commanding best view of surrounding country, or specially suited for strongholds.
The location and characteristics of defiles, ponds, marshes, springs, valleys, and heights; always noting from the latter what other heights or landmarks are visible.
The nature of cultivation.
Information concerning climate, weather, healthfulness and local food supply.
It is to be kept in mind that most of this information is to facilitate the movement of troops and supplies from a landing place to a field of operations, and to place the troops in possession of the commanding positions on that field. The officers making such reconnaissance must have some knowledge of what troops can do on a march, what inclines they can ascend or descend, what depths they can ford; the extent of obstructions which will bar the way to various kinds of impedimenta. For example, they should know that the limit of fordable depths is laid down as 3 feet for infantry, 4 feet for cavalry and 22 feet for guns; that 3 inches of sound ice is regarded sufficient to bear infantry and field artillery, and 7 inches sufficient for heavy guns; and that slopes up to 15 degrees are practicable for movements of all arms in close order, thence to 30 degrees are traversable only in irregular formations, and thence to 45 degrees can only be climbed singly.
In this connection it is important to note, of villages, if the houses are compactly grouped, or straggling, or strung out, and, if the latter condition prevails, whether the attenuation is along a line of march or at right angles to it. It is important to take note of similar characteristics in woods and marshes. In judging of camp sites it is important to note the drainage, dryness of the ground, etc., for sanitary purposes. All chart data and sailing directions should be verified or corrected and made complete.
My résumé of information to be obtained by reconnaissance is not complete, but serves to show how much is to be sought in a thorough reconnaissance. Some of it seems at first sight to be out of the province of a naval officer, but as he alone, in most cases, has the opportunity to obtain it on foreign shores, he must do it if we are to have such information at all.
As already suggested, our most pressing need for reconnaissance today is to select permanent bases in our new possessions. In considering harbors for this purpose they can be divided into four classes:
1. Single exit harbors.
2. Double or multiple exit harbors.
3. Single basin harbors.
4. Double or multiple basin harbors.
Class No. 4 may be subdivided into—
a. Serial basin harbors.
b. Radial basin harbors.
The following will serve as illustrations:
No. I: San Francisco, Santiago de Cuba, or Subic Bay.
No. 2: New York, Kure, Hong Kong and Ilo Ilo. No. 1 and No. 2 illustrations are also single basin harbors.
No. 4a: Malampaya Sound, Philippines, and Guantanamo, Cuba.
No. 4b: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Sam-Sa Bay, coast of China.
Tactically, the ideally strongest harbor for a permanent naval base would be of the multiple, radial basin kind; the exits being numerous, fortified and debouching far apart; the basins so located as to be masked in the directions of the exits.
If the exits debouch a hundred miles or more apart it would require a force at every exit equal to the force inside, to effectually blockade it, or, in other words, the blockading force would have to be as many times greater than the blockaded force as there are exits. There are very few harbors possessing more than three exits; in fact I cannot call to mind any. Nantucket Sound and Kure are examples of those having three. It is great tactical good fortune to be able to select one having even two. We have but two such localities on our Atlantic coast, Long Island Sound and Nantucket Sound (excepting a small one in Penobscot Bay), and there is but one, Port Orchard, on our Pacific coast, which, after all, is itself enclosed by a single exit harbor. Japan is lavishly blessed with such harbors on her Inland Sea.
If we are forced to select a single exit harbor, it should be one whose inner basin is not open to reconnaissance or bombardment through its exit; one shaped like Pago Pago, for example, which is L shaped, the axis of the inner basin being nearly at right angles to the axis of the exit. The exit must be narrow enough to be controlled by gun fire, and not too deep for mines, and it should rapidly widen beyond the line of fixed defenses, so that a fleet issuing forth could quickly deploy into any line of battle. It should widen just as rapidly into the harbor itself, so that the period of constriction during exit may be the briefest possible.
A serial basin harbor affords natural lines of fixed defenses at every point of constriction between the basins. If only one of these lines can be defended it should be the outer one, unless the next inner one possess such superior characteristics that it can be made much the stronger, and that its defenses make the outer basin untenable to the enemy; for it is imperative that the latter should nowhere find undisputed harbor in the vicinity of his blockade.
A radial basin harbor may possess advantages over a serial basin harbor, if all basin entrances are defended and there are water traverses connecting the rear ends of the basins, for then the blockaded fleet would still possess some mobility after the outer exit had been carried, especially in torpedo boat attack, which might be made upon the enemy from any or all of the basins having connections in their rear.
The first considerations in the selection of a permanent naval base are, of course, strategic.
It should be on or near our lines of communication.
It should be centrally located, with reference to all routes by which the enemy might enter the area under its control.
It should include within its fixed defenses a district of domiciled, skilled labor, and resources for subsistence and repair.
Let us take, for example, the Philippine Islands. Our lines of communications through the group to any theater of operations on the Asiatic coast would run from Guam through the Strait of San Bernadino or Surigao. Thus, we see, they would pass just north and just south of the island of Panay. Looking next for the most central position with reference to all water routes by which an enemy's naval forces could enter the Philippine group, we find it to be the island of Panay. Looking next for the centers of domiciled skilled labor in the islands, we find there are but two; Manila, in Luzon, and Ilo Ilo, in Panay.
All strategic considerations have, then, pointed to the island of Panay. We have next to look for its harbors. It has but one worthy of the name, Ilo Ilo; let us then examine its tactical characteristics.
It is a single basin, double exit harbor; the exits debouching nearly thirty miles apart at the north and south ends of the island of Guimaras. The harbor is completely masked in a semicircular bight of Guimaras, and the exits are suitable for the strongest defenses of all kinds. We might be well content with these characteristics, but, looking a little closer, we find only a narrow strait between the small island of Guimaras and the large island of Negros, and this strait has only 17 feet of water in its deepest part. Ilo Ilo is then, tactically, a harbor enclosed between the islands of Panay and Negros, with exits separated by almost the entire circumference of either of those islands; in other words, its exits debouch three hundred miles apart.
Having by a general reconnaissance selected the strongest strategic and tactical locality for a naval base, further special reconnaissance must be made to select sites for drydocks, repair shops, coal wharves and sheds, reservoirs, barracks, magazines, storehouses, and hospitals. The local hydrographic and topographic conditions must largely govern in this, but there are tactical conditions too, which must not be disregarded.
1. The site should be safe from bombardment by blockading vessels, and should be naturally masked from outside reconnaissance.
2. The establishment should be so laid out that there will be no congestion of vessels along its water front.
3. If there is a choice between an insular and a continental side of the harbor, the former should generally be chosen, especially if the base is in an unfriendly or insurrectionary country. This was found necessary by the British at Hong Kong.
4. The site should be so located that projectiles aimed at its defenses will not place its establishments in jeopardy.
The site having been selected, reconnaissance for its defense is next in order. It may be claimed that this is work for the army engineer, but he will not be on the spot, and may never be sent to the spot until the naval officer there calls attention to its tactical defensive characteristics. Naval reconnaissance must, therefore, select the general locality, leaving to the engineer's technical knowledge the adoption of the exact sites. In selecting a general locality for fixed defenses the following conditions suggest themselves:
(a). The first site to be selected is one which gives axial fire down a channel; such as an island in midchannel or a point of land projecting into it.
(b). The next position should be one whose fire will cross the axial fire of the first, i. e., on one bank or the other of the channel, and it should be close enough to the first to deliver its most effective fire simultaneously with that from it.
(c). The choice between banks being otherwise equal, it is better to place all batteries on one bank only, instead of dividing them between the two, for this will concentrate all fire upon one side of an incoming fleet, and permit it to fight but one broadside in return. It also eliminates the possibility of batteries firing into each other, and facilitates intercommunication and control of fire.
(d). There should be fixed defenses on any salient point causing a sharp bend in a channel.
(e). There should be fixed defenses commanding the offing, especially if it contains anchoring ground.
(f). The height of fixed defenses above water must not be too great for guns at extreme depression to cover the nearer side of the channel.
(g). In selecting heights for fixed defenses, that one should be chosen (if not too high) which commands all others in its neighborhood; otherwise provision must be made to hold the position commanding the selected site with an adequate mobile force.
(h). It should be arranged that the aggregate fire from all batteries in supporting distance of each other in any locality shall be at least superior to the broadside of two standard battleships, especially in lighter caliber guns, which cannot be too numerous.
(i). The caliber of guns in a battery should be in proportion to the range within which the constriction of the channel will compel the enemy to pass.
(j). Sites must be selected for searchlights and mine fields, and for batteries to cover the latter.
Many portions of our new possessions are incompletely or inaccurately surveyed. This is also true of many other parts of the world, especially those waters of Asia which are now near the focus of international speculation. Surveys must be preceded by reconnaissance, and the outcome of the surveys will be charts and sailing directions. On the threshold of such work we should realize, that charts and sailing directions are weapons of strategy and tactics. A hydrographic chart prepared by or for the navy should be as complete a military map as one prepared for a land campaign. Its features should not cease at the shore line, but every characteristic of contour, roadways, streams and bridges, fords, woods, swamps, cultivated fields, villages, telegraph, etc., within the area covered should be shown. The scale and size of charts should be an outcome of strategic study. Sailing directions have an equal military value. Unfortunately, with the decadence of sail power, they have grown briefer and briefer, but it should not be so. Sailing directions should be regarded as supplemental reports of naval reconnaissance and should be prepared accordingly. This emphasizes the fact that hydrographic surveying should be conducted by naval officers, for it is essentially and especially strategic work.
Of all things which contribute to the success of a military undertaking, preparation is most important, and to no country is preparation more important than to ours, with our meager experience, our naturally peaceful pursuits and our new and dangerous propinquity to the great nations of the world. A former president of the War College has given the formation of plans of operations as one of the three principal branches of preparation, and he places the study necessary to the formation of such plans under three heads, historical, statistical and geographical. Von Moltke has declared that geography is three-fourths the science of war, and the only way we can study geography for military and naval purposes is by reconnaissance. The Prussian staff officers devoted themselves to elaborate studies of strategy and geography, not only by means of books, but by travel, and following in person each campaign. Dr. T. Miller Maguire, in his "Outlines of Military Geography" speaking of the rapid triumph of Prussia over France, in 1870, says:
"How was this? Simply because for a generation the leaders of the German race had devoted themselves with constant zeal to profound studies of strategy and military geography in all its bearings, and during the struggle had acted on the knowledge thus acquired. They were ready for war in its most highly developed form; their adversaries were neither as well trained nor as well prepared. There was no other reason." What the Prussians did, the Germans are still doing, and the British and Japanese are learning to do likewise. Can we, who are elbowing all three nations with a jealous fear that they are crowding us, afford to be behind them in any branch of preparation for war?
The United States has led the world in the study of the art of naval warfare, and this study brings out clearly the analogy of methods on sea to those on land. Von Moltke has shown that preliminary reconnaissance is one of the greatest sureties of success in land campaigns. Let us who follow the sea be no longer blind to the lesson which this, by analogy, teaches, but let us get away among the first on the road to preparation in this important field. After a few years of such work if carried on energetically and systematically, there would be, in the cabin of the commander-in-chief or senior officer present on every one of our warship stations such carefully prepared information concerning every locality within the limits of the station that if war came like a thunderbolt from a clear sky his plan of action could be correctly mapped out while getting up anchor.
Never more keenly, perhaps, has the lack of preliminary naval reconnaissance been felt in our service, than by the staff of the commander-in-chief of the naval force on our Asiatic Station when war so suddenly threatened with Spain in the spring of 1898. On February 25 of that year the following telegram was received:
“DEWEY, HONG KONG:
In the event of war with Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in the Philippine Islands.
ROOSEVELT."
Here was a theater of operations outlined with mandatory abruptness. What was known about that theater? Only what could be gleaned from unreliable charts and antique sailing directions. The fortifications of Manila and Cavite had been open to inspection for a decade of peace years, and the characteristics of Manila and Subic Bays, of Ilo Ilo and other ports, could have been studied from the days of Perry, but no American Von Moltke existed in our navy. It was too late to begin naval reconnaissance then; in fact, as we all know, relations between the two countries had been so long strained that it would have been too late a year earlier. There was but one possible way to make up in some degree the lack of knowledge, viz., through the U: S. Consul at Manila, a man naturally in no sense trained for military or naval reconnaissance. Consequently we soon find the following sequence of telegrams:
“WASHINGTON, April 24, 1898.
"DEWEY, HONG KONG:
War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to the Philippine Islands. Commence operations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. You must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors.
LONG."
HONG KONG, April 25, 1898.
"SECRETARY OF NAVY, Washington:
The squadron will leave for Manila, Philippine Islands, immediately upon the arrival of the United States consul from Manila.
DEWEY."
HONG KONG, April 27, 1898.
"SECRETARY OF NAVY, Washington:
Williams, the United States consul from Manila, has arrived. The squadron will sail immediately for the Philippine Islands.
DEWEY."
Extract from Commodore Dewey's report on the Battle of Manila:
"The squadron left Mirs Bay on April 27, immediately on the arrival of Mr. O. F. Williams, United States consul at Manila, who brought important information and who accompanies the squadron."
Here, then, was a commander-in-chief, one of the most energetic, audacious and resourceful our navy has ever produced, fully ready for battle in all other respects, compelled to wait two days after urgent commands to open his campaign, in order to obtain that knowledge of the enemy's country and resources which, had our navy had a system of preliminary reconnaissance, should have been lying all the time in a drawer of his desk. The information finally obtained was as it could not otherwise be, so meager and imperfect that only the inspiration and resolute action of our great leader made our success complete.
The inadequacy, indeed the paucity, of our topographical knowledge of the environment of Santiago de Cuba in the spring of 1898, is well known, and the impossibility of completing such knowledge after war broke out was fully demonstrated. Let us take to heart the lessons thus taught and try to realize how narrowly we escaped the consequences of our neglect, and let us begin at once with the utmost effort to repair that neglect before we are again caught in the predicament of war.
Preliminary reconnaissance is practically at an end when war becomes imminent. Tactical reconnaissance may begin when war breaks out, but there are widely different limits to naval tactical reconnaissance and military tactical reconnaissance. The latter, conducted on land, with many chances of concealment, and in frequent touch with disaffected people in the enemy's country, will generally result in much valuable information, sometimes going far toward making up for the neglect of preliminary reconnaissance, but naval tactical reconnaissance must be confined to the enemy's coast line, with no possibility of concealment and with little intercourse with noncombatants on shore. There may be occasional daring and fruitful exploits like that of Lieutenant Blue at Santiago, and Lieutenant Ward in Porto Rico, but they can only at best be rare. Beyond such, nothing can be done except to draw the fire of the enemy's batteries and fortifications as was done by Admiral Sampson at San Juan, and endeavor in the excitement of action to locate gun positions and estimate the caliber of the projectiles hurled from them. Of the San Juan bombardment Admiral Sampson reports:
"I determined to attack the batteries defending the port, in order to develop their positions and strength, and then turn to the westward."
Twelve hundred and twenty-five projectiles were expended upon San Juan for this purpose, with the result that "all the shore batteries had been developed, and they were more numerous than the information received had led me to suspect" (Admiral Sampson's report). One man had been killed in this reconnaissance, and seven or more wounded, while seven U. S. warships had been for two and a half hours in danger of destruction. Such is the risk and cost of tactical naval reconnaissance, and such are the meager results when it is made to repair the neglect of reconnaissance preliminary to war. Had there existed in our navy a well developed system of preliminary naval reconnaissance, even for but five years previous to 1898, Admiral Sampson might have had the information he sought before the war broke out, and it would have cost less than fifty dollars.
For the navy, tactical reconnaissance can never make up for the neglect of preliminary reconnaissance. The chief value of naval tactical reconnaissance and reconnaissance in force will be to gain information concerning the enemy's fleet and other forces on the seas.
I present this paper in the hope that it may be a seed which will quicken into a system of naval reconnaissance in time of peace unequalled in its scope and completeness by any in the world, for "in nothing more than in war, knowledge is power."