First Honorable Mention, 1913.
Motto: "Non Omnia Possums Omnes."*
*We cannot all of us do everything.
In the preparation of this paper, the following books and papers have been read and freely quoted wherever they seem to throw light on the subject under study:
Naval Administration Sir Vesey Hamilton.
Naval Administration Rear-Admiral S. B. Luce.
Naval Annuals, 1911, 1912 Lord Brassey.
Duties of the German General Staff Von Schellendorf.
Ocean Empire Fiennes.
Military Policy Upton.
Naval Administration and Warfare Mahan.
London Times—Organization Various Articles.
Naval Administrations Briggs.
Naval Efficiency Hurd.
The Admiralty of the Atlantic Hislam.
United States Economy and Efficiency Board's Report.
Reorganization of British Army Lord Esher.
Papers on Faults of Department Organization
Admiral Luce.
Captain W. S. Sims.
Captain W. L. Rodgers.
Various Books and Articles touching the subject Admiral Darrieus.
The Brain of the Navy Wilkinson.
The Brain of the Army Wilkinson.
Military Transport Furse.
Provisioning Armies in the Field Furse.
Lines of Communication Furse.
Mobilization of an Army Corps Furse.
Gideon Welles' Diary Wells.
Business Organizations Professor Person.
INTRODUCTORY.
A navy is created for a definite purpose. The philosophy of war points out that the army and navy are the visible manifestation in the determination of a nation to continue its existence along the natural paths dictated by its reasoned decisions. These decisions may become national policies.
The statesmen of a government conceive the intention of definite action in the event of a definite contingency. This intention for national action becomes a policy when it awakens response in the community behind the statesmen. When this policy gains the support of the whole nation, it attains the dignity of a national doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine is such a policy. The army and navy are the visible manifestation of the nation's de termination to enforce that doctrine, which is, therefore, a warning to all nations that may wish to challenge it.
The statesman at the helm of government employs, in his diplomatic intercourse with other nations, means which vary with the situation. These means may be termed instruments. These instruments are for the purpose of enforcing the national will. War is the most potent instrument and is used only when all other means have failed; it is to the statesman the ultimate instrument of his diplomacy.
It, therefore, is the duty of the statesman to foresee and prepare his armed forces against the rise of a nation that may vigorously challenge his nation's doctrines, even to the ultimate—war.
A doctrine challenged cannot exist unless there is sufficient force behind it to maintain it.-
Policy, therefore, must be everywhere co-ordinated with the nation's force.
The nation's force is its army and navy. "In peace they are the potential arguments of diplomacy; in war the dynamic power of the State for the realization of its policies."
The effectiveness of the navy depends upon its size, its character and its efficiency for battle. Its size is controlled by the legislature. Its character and efficiency for battle are in the keeping of naval administration. The statesman and naval administration must stand as advisers to the legislature upon the size of the naval force required.
Co-ordination between the statesman and the naval administration is beyond the power of the navy to control, but the conception of a plan of organization for naval administration, one that can give free effect to each of its vital efforts, is the task of the naval officer.
DEFINITIONS.
"Organization is the process of arranging or systematizing; specifically the process of combining parts into a co-ordinate whole."—Century Dictionary.
"Socially as well as individually, organization is indispensable to growth. Beyond a certain point there cannot be further growth without further organization."—Herbert Spencer.
Channing has written: "The body is a healthful and beautiful organization only when the principle of life acts generously through all its parts."
"The man whose moral organization is under due control never acts on mere feeling; but invariably submits it to reflection."—Spencer.
The organization of an art or business is purely a mechanical act and success cannot rightly be credited to the perfection of such arrangements alone, there must in addition be present a "principle of life" acting generously through all its parts. This mysterious something which must be fused with the completed structure makes the task more elusive. Organization is then seen to be no longer constructed solely upon the foundation of fundamental principles, mere clay to the hand of the potter; it must, at last, be struck by a magic wand and the principle of life created within before it can become an effective instrument to a definite end.
The "principle of life" may be said to be full co-ordination under a plan. The structure of organization provides channels through which must pass all effort. Each effort must add full measure to the accomplishment of the plan, else full co-ordination has not been achieved.
An organization may be perfect in structure, providing channels for each necessary effort, and yet, if there is no plan, no aim, upon which effort can focus, co-ordination cannot exist.
On the other hand, if an organization is imperfect—if some of the necessary channels of effort are clogged or too shallow to pass the full stream; if some channels have not been cut—then even the existence of a plan will not give that full co-ordination of effort so vital to success.
Upon this assumption a study of the material required in building the structure of naval organization appears to be logically the initial task. Organization is a science. In every science there exist immutable laws. These laws or principles must serve as unerring guides in the building of the structure.
To seek out and recognize these principles will be the first step of this paper.
Through the channels of naval administration, naval business is conducted. Organization for naval business is, therefore, organization for naval administration.
Administration is, then, but another name for business, and a study of its principles cannot fail to help in the task of constructing an organization for naval administration.
FORMS OF ORGANIZATION FOR BUSINESS.
Economics and accounting are sciences well understood. Administration and management, especially for public service, are fields of investigation as yet only partially explored.
There are two forms of management known to business men: (1) The hierarchical form and (2) the functional form.
By the hierarchical form the general manager has entire charge of the business. Immediately under the general manager is a second manager. To the latter all business is delegated except a certain portion reserved by the former. Under the second manager a third manager may be created who controls all business except a portion reserved to the second, and so on.
Under this form of organization there exist no co-ordinate subsidiary managers. Control where delegated is on a personal basis. Delegation of authority does not follow any natural division of the functions of the business. Any of the managers may be thus responsible for a vast variety of functions, some wholly unrelated.
The organization on the functional basis, the one followed in business of this day, involves a division of business along lines in which activities are closely related. Group managers are coordinate and equal, and further responsible only to the general manager.
It is the functional form of organization which is described on the following page.
A STUDY OF BUSINESS ORGANIZATION.
The simplest form of organization is one for business purposes. The aim of business is to produce revenue. Reduced to simple terms it will be seen to consist of three branches under a manager.
(1) The internal branch, which spends money for labor and material.
(2) The external branch, which obtains money by delivery of the work of the internal branch.
(3) The inspection branch, which keeps the manager informed as to the efficiency of the internal and external branches.
As the object of business is revenue, it is self-evident that the internal branch will conduct its work in accordance with the plans of the external branch, as formulated by the latter in order to satisfy the customers.
Information that comes to the manager as to the success of the business must be trustworthy, and to be so it should come from those independent of the branches engaged in executing the work, and for which they are responsible. This is a fundamental principle of inspection. An elementary diagram of business organization is shown in Diagram 1.
The process of business is to convert the money in its treasury into labor and material and finally to reconvert these back into money. The balance sheet measures the profit obtained and the degree of success of the business.
In business, as we ascend the hierarchy, the individuals are in responsible charge of more than they are able personally to superintend.. They therefore divide the work and apportion it out among their subordinates. Each subhead has an inspection staff to keep him informed of progress. Inspections should not be made by those dealing with the. article to be inspected, whose interests lie naturally in suppressing the knowledge of faults or defects.
In a broad sense the external branch finds business and suits the customers; the internal branch works under the direction of the manager upon information supplied to him by the external branch. In this way the external branch is virtually inspector of the work of the internal branch; not as to the methods of work, which are quite beyond its province, but as to the final product and its suitability for the market.
The work of the external branch itself is inspected and influenced (in its work) by the public (the customer), which makes its demands felt in the sale of the article or articles for which the. external branch is responsible.
COMPARISON OF GOVERNMENT BUSINESS WITH PRIVATE BUSINESS.
The first point discovered in such comparison is that government business is not carried on for financial profit. An organization for naval administration must have its internal or spending branch and its external or revenue branch, yet the income of naval business cannot be shown upon a balance sheet in money.
The success of naval administration can be judged only by the known readiness of the naval forces for war. Those armed forces are the fleet, for the support of which, both in peace and in war, naval administration owes its creation.
This difference makes it a difficult task to diagnose the faults in a naval organization for administration—so difficult in fact that all solutions to the difficulty move upon quick-sandy soil. The best we can hope to accomplish is to base our organization upon fundamental laws, and trust that in providing an organization which in its architecture does not violate any great law of nature or otherwise, the personnel of the naval establishment, through its patriotism and loyalty, will bring that full co-ordination under a plan—the "principle of life"—without which the organization can be at best only a lifeless and cumbersome structure, incapable of providing the fleet and preparing it to fight a winning battle.
The object for which a navy exists is, in the ultimate, war. And war, to be waged successfully, must be planned and carried on by men trained for such special and scientific work; therefore, it may be written as a fundamental law that in any naval or military organization for administration, superiority or precedence must be conferred upon that Side which plans and directs the war (external branch) in preference to the side that provides the means necessary to support the war (internal branch).
This should be considered one of the most important laws of naval organization, and one which will be violated at the country's peril.
To follow the analogy between private business organization and naval administrative organization, Diagram 2 has been made. Here the command branch is -shown to be given preference over, the other advisers, but otherwise on an equality of footing, which we shall see later cannot achieve success under a manager unfamiliar with either branch of the business.
The mission of Navy Department administrative organization is the preparation of an, instrument for the purpose of war.
The command or military ranch of the naval organization, upon whose shoulders falls the conduct of war, should be responsible for the preparation of the navy for war, and as a necessary consequence must direct all other branches.
The administration or civil branch should be responsible for the materiel supplied to the command branch with which it will work in peace to prepare for war and in war to win the decision in battle.
The inspection branch, directed by the class to which belongs the conduct of war, should inspect the work of both the command branch and the civil branch.
In Diagram 2, if the naval chief is a naval officer or a military Emperor, then the preference to the command branch has already been given; the naval chief representing in his person the superiority of command over administration. If on the other hand the naval chief is a civilian, such superiority of those who will fight the ships over those whose duty is to provide the means within the money allowance given by Congress must be clearly drawn and enforced.
In a military organization the requirement that the class of officers to which belongs the conduct of war shall inspect the quality and quantity of the output of the civil branch, its suitability to the conditions of war, and further be assured that the moneys given by the legislature are expended in order to give full effect to the preparedness of the fleet for war, flows directly from the axiom that "the knowledge of suitability of the output for war is a military responsibility and must not be reposed in the civil branch of the organization."
It might be here stated, although the fact appears self-evident, in drawing our analogy between ordinary business and governmental administration, that ordinary business is in constant practice, and from its daily experience new standards of work are established. As war is infrequent, and as the fleet must always be held ready to exert its maximum service instantly, it becomes the duty of the military branch of the naval organization to make research into history for principles of the art of war and keep itself constantly informed upon the practices of foreign armies and navies and its own military resources. From these studies is derived the knowledge required to inspect the output of the civil branch in quality and quantity and to be assured that this output is suitable for war.
DISTINCTION BETWEEN COMMAND AND ADMINISTRATION.
Farrow's Military Dictionary thus makes the distinction between command and administration:
Administration and command are distinct. Administration is controlled by the head of an executive department of the government under the orders of the President, by means of legally appointed administrative agents with or without rank; while command, or the military discipline, control and direction of military service of officers and soldiers (sailors), can be legally exercised only by the military hierarchy at the head of which is the constitutional Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy and Militia, followed by the commanders of the army and navy and other military grades created by Congress.
By a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Secretary of War has been declared the commander of the army, in his person representing the military command authority, as it were, of the President. Under the analogy, therefore, our Secretary must be at the head of both the command branch and the administration branch, and responsible for the preparedness of the fleet for war in peace, and the military direction of the fleet in war.
Administration defined from Farrow's Dictionary, changed to define naval administration:
Administration is controlled by the heads of the executive departments of the government, under the orders of the President of the United States, by means of legally appointed administrative agents. . . . . Administration of government consists in establishing the ways and means of public receipts and expenditures; in watching over such employments, in the collection, care and distribution of material and moneys; and in rendering and auditing accounts of such employment.
THE ORGANIZATION FOR NAVAL ADMINISTRATION EXISTING BY LAW.
The naval organization, in so far as it is created by Acts of Congress, is shown in Diagram 3.
At the head of the organization is the Secretary of the Navy, a civilian, member of the President's Cabinet to advise him in all matters pertaining to the naval arm of national defense, and by decision of courts, commander of the naval forces. Under the Secretary, for the administration of the navy are eight co-equal bureaus, whose authority within the jurisdiction of each is that of the secretary himself. Farrow's Military Dictionary says:
These branches (bureaus) constitute the supply military service of a navy, the operation of which should be so regulated that the Secretary of the Navy will be always informed of the condition of each and will be able to exercise, subordinate to law, a complete financial control over each.
By law, the secretary apportions the duties to the bureaus. These duties are administrative. The chiefs of bureaus are "legally appointed administrative agents in the Department of the Navy," and are financially responsible for the disposition of the money appropriated their bureaus by Congress.
This organization for administration of the navy thus gives effect only to the labors of what has been termed the civil branch. Its duties may be said to consist of those necessary to provide for the wants of the fleet and for all the foreseen demands of a state of war, including labor and the supplies of naval bases. Such duties embrace subsistence of men; coal, oil, ammunition, and supplies in general; warships of all types required, naval transports, and auxiliaries of all kinds needed with the fleet or for the care and supply of the fleet; supply of officers and men, and transportation of men and supplies; administrative duties in dockyards and bases at home and abroad; ordnance, torpedo and mine construction; estimating, accountability, payments, recruiting; and in general the receipt and proper application of money.
Six of the bureaus—Ordnance, Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Yards and Docks, Supplies and Accounts, Equipment (abolished by last Congress)—deal entirely with materiel. Their duties are to convert the monies allotted them into labor and material and to reconvert these back into revenue to the country. Revenue to the country should be readiness for war.
The inanimate fleet and its bases are the concrete productions of the labors of the materiel bureaus. The Bureau of Navigation provides the officers and men to inhabit them, but that branch which must wield the whole as a weapon of war is by law nonexistent within the organization for administration.
The Bureau of Navigation is also an administrative bureau of the Navy Department. The administration and direction of the personnel are its principal functions. But Congress having failed to provide a branch for command duties, there grew up before the Meyer reorganization the custom of entrusting the military duties of the Department of the Navy to this bureau, "in addition to its other duties." Yet, by law it has not been given precedence over the other bureaus. Such precedence has been, however, acquired by reason of its directive duties. The seven materiel bureaus (the civil branch) that supply the needs of the military branch did not always feel in duty bound to conform to the standards set them by the Bureau of Navigation. And further, the Bureau of Navigation, deeply involved in routine matters of administration, did not fully appreciate that if it was to efficiently perform the duties of the command branch of the organization for administration a plan must be evolved to which the civil branches must be co-ordinated, if preparedness for war was to be achieved.
If the Secretaries of the Navy had been military men, they must have long since understood the grave dangers of this faulty organization, and being responsible to the country for the preparedness of the naval force, would have striven to correct these inconsistencies.
If the officers of the navy to whom belong the conduct of war had all thoroughly realized the illogical form of the organization and applied themselves to an exhaustive study, of their profession, the art of war, such a hopeless condition could not have so long endured. There was one naval officer, however, who as early as 1888 began to write, in the Service Institute, appeals to the navy for reform in the naval organization. It was Admiral Stephen B. Luce, founder and first president of the Naval War College. He said on this particular matter:
By far the most striking feature of our naval government is its deficiency in the military branch…The civilian Secretary of the Navy is left entirely alone to wrestle with that division of his labors as best he may. Numerous technical questions come up for his consideration which cannot properly be referred to any one of the eight bureaus—questions which belong to the Secretary's office alone, and which should be decided in his office. He turns to one bureau chief and gets one opinion; to another and gets another opinion. Consulted independently, each regards the question from his own standpoint, mostly, and quite naturally, from the standpoint of his own bureau, which is not always that of the other bureaus or of the general service. Moreover these questions are often foreign to the duties of the 'bureau chiefs, and may refer to subjects to which they have given little attention. This is far from encouraging to a Secretary new to office, and he will look in vain for that portion of the organization of his department to which he can properly refer the great mass of technical details which now absorbs so much of his time, to the exclusion of the civil affairs peculiar to his office. In short a Secretary of the Navy is, from the very moment of his entering upon the duties of his office, placed in an utterly false position.
It is thus seen that the Department of the Navy is by law organized only for the civil duties and without the necessary military direction. That branch which should prepare the fleet for war and plan for the prosecution of war has been left to be formed on the outbreak of hostilities. Our history furnishes proof that for both the army and the navy this has ever been the grave fault in the past.
EFFORTS FOR REFORM.
A fundamental law of organization is that there must exist "authority down and corresponding responsibility up." The eight bureaus each have equal authority down, but the responsibility for the efficiency of the fleet for war is individual only with the Secretary himself, and since he is a civilian, to hold him to such a responsibility is seen to be a weak convention.
The Secretary is by law a civilian, and it is well that it is so. It is, therefore, logical and necessary to give to the civilian Secretary a military branch in the organization in which he can repose the most absolute confidence, to advise him and be responsible for the advice in the matter of standards to which the civil branch must conform to produce efficiency -for war.
Admiral Luce in 1888 laid down what he considered the principles of naval organization. This was twenty-five years ago. Diagram 4, shows diagrammatically the form of an organization in Admiral Luce's 'mind, as constructed from his declaration of principles.
In 1909 a board composed of some of our ablest men, of ,which Ex-Secretary Moody was the presiding officer, handed to the President certain principles which they believed should form the foundation for reorganization of the Department of the Navy, together with their report. A sketch of a proposed organization was also submitted and is produced here in Diagram 5.
Diagram 6 shows diagrammatically the reorganization of the Department of the Navy as put into effect by Secretary Meyer. This Secretary, soon after he came to the office, was aware that Congress had so far failed to provide him the means of properly coordinating the interdependent bureaus. Means were at hand only to furnish the weapons and maintain them. .Being a civilian, and therefore unversed in military affairs, he was powerless under the old order to intelligently control the many conflicting and semi independent interests. Mr. Meyer appreciated at once that there must be a military branch of the naval organization, and that without it there could be no unity of action to give the organization efficient and economical progress in accomplishing its mission--preparation of the fleet for war. His was the responsibility not alone for the efficient administration, but also for the accomplishment of the mission of the organization. Such a grave responsibility without that military assistance which by all the laws of common sense was his right, caused him to act at once to better these unmilitary conditions. The reorganization shown in Diagram 6 was the outcome of the deliberations of a board known as the Swift Board.
The Meyer plan places the command branch in partial control of the military direction of the navy; but as it has not the force of law, under a new Secretary the organization may lapse back to the basis of the statute, where the civil branch is given full power to work without consulting the command branch, which must bring the revenue to the country—Victory in battle.
Captain W. L. Rodgers, in a paper on Naval Administration, states this principle:
The requirements of the fleet in commission, as formulated by the office controlling it, are demands which it is the duty of the spending bureaus to meet.
England's war in South Africa made army reform imperative.
For this purpose a committee was appointed in 1904, headed by Lord Esher. This committee studied exhaustively the broad questions of military administration. It pointed out dispassionately, but none the less forcefully, the faults in the army system of administration. It shed new light upon the immutable laws which, although possibly recognized, were being consistently violated. Further, it constructed an organization for the command and administration of the British Army that has dragged it from the mire of ignorant conservatism and placed it upon firm soil. (Diagram 7.)
The Esher report shows such a clear grasp of principles that it must form the groundwork of any study for administrative reform.
In 1909, the Moody Board submitted its report.
If we are to further pursue the elusive laws of organization for administration, nothing can profit us more than a comparison of these two reports.
For this purpose the method of the deadly parallel has been invoked. What each has to say upon identical questions is here bet down.
MOODY BOARD, UNITED STATES. I. The office of the Secretary of the Navy being executive in character, nothing should be admitted into an organization of the Department which would qualify his authority or diminish his ultimate responsibility. He must under our form of government be a civilian. He is the representative of the President, the constitutional Commander-in-Chief, under whose direction his authority is exercised. | ESHER COMMITTEE, GREAT BRITAIN. We consider that as a first step in the reconstruction of the War Office, the position of the Secretary of State for War should be placed on precisely the same footing as that of the First Lord of the Admiralty, and that all submissions to the Crown in regard to. Military questions should be made by him alone. The complete responsibility to Parliament and the country, of the Secretary of State, for the discipline as well as for the administration of the army, must now be accepted as definitely established. |
Both committees appear to agree on this principle of the responsibility of the civil head of the Executive Department to the State.
2. The duties in charge of the Secretary divide under two principal heads, closely related, but generally distinct: military and civil. The civil duties embrace the provision or preparation of all material of war. This is the function of the present bureaus. The military duties concern the use of that material, whether in war or in such exercises as conduce to fitness for operations of war. For the direction of these military duties, no subordinate provision corresponding to the bureaus on the civil side exists in the present organization established by statute. | The War office, as was pointed out by the Hartington Commission, has no thinking department, and the branches concerned with preparations for a campaign, and with the collection of necessary information, are weak, and not sufficiently in touch with the Secretary of State for War. At the same time, the duties and the responsibilities of the military heads are ill-defined, and their relations to each other and to the Secretary of State are not such as effective administration demands. No distinction between policy and routine work exists, and the military heads, absorbed in work with which they ought to have nothing to do, have no time for the proper consideration of questions of real importance, or for exercising foresight and initiative. |
Both the Moody Board and the Esher Committee appreciated the need of a body to plan for war.
3. The discharge of both these classes of duty involves a multitude of activities, quite beyond the immediate personal knowledge and supervision of a single man. This necessitates a subdivision of the duties, by which means the supervision of the Secretary is exerted through the medium of responsible subordinates. In this subdivision the principle of undivided responsibility within the appointed field of subordinate supervision should obtain as it does in the superior office of the Secretary. Independent authority with undivided responsibility, as now established in our bureau system, though seeming correct in principle, suffers historically from intrinsic inability to co-operate Where a number of such independent units are present. The Marshals of Napoleon in Spain, in the absence of the Emperor, offer a familiar illustration. The bureau system constituted by law contains no remedy for this inherent defect. 4. Due to lack of technical knowledge of the Secretary, there should be an advisory body, com- posed of several persons equipped not with advice merely, but with reasons. In order to avoid the interruption of continuity attending each new administration, entailing the recurrent temporary unfamiliarity of each new Secretary, the body should be composed of several persons; but while this provision would insure the continuity which inheres in a corporate body, continuity of knowledge and progress, the principle of undivided responsibility would dictate that one only of them should be responsible for the advice given to the common superior, the Secretary. 5. As regards the composition of the advisory body, the principles to be regarded are two: (A) The end dictates the means. (B) The responsibility must be individual, in advice as well as in executive action. (A) The end is efficiency in war. The agents in war are the military naval officers. Their profession qualifies them best to pronounce upon the character of the preparations for war, of every kind. What the Secretary needs, specifically and above all, is a clear understanding and firm grasp of leading military considerations. Possessed of these he may without great difficulty weigh the recommendations of his technical assistants, decide for himself and depend upon them for technical execution of that which he approves. However constituted in detail, the advisory body should be taken entirely from the class to which belongs the conduct of war, and upon them will fall in war the responsibility for the use of the instruments and for the results of the measures which they recommend. (B) The officer selected to command the fleet in war to be head of advisory board. An essential principle in the constitution of such an advisory body is that the majority of the members should be on the active list and should go afloat at no infrequent intervals; and specifically the head of the body should take command of the fleet when concentrated for maneuvers, etc., to sustain his familiarity with administrative routine and other practical matters. 6. No scheme of naval organization can possibly be effective which does not recognize that the requirement of war is the true standard of efficiency in an administrative military system. That success in war and victory in battle can be assured only by that constant preparedness and that superior fighting efficiency which logically result from placing the control and responsibility in time of Peace upon the same individuals and the same agencies that must control in time of war. There should be no check or change of method in expanding from a state of peace to a state of War. This is simply a business proposition to give the people proper investment for their money. | The next step is the constitution of a board, or as we prefer to call it an Army Council, following the general principles which obtain at the Admiralty. The Council should consist of seven members, four military and three civil, with the Permanent Under-Secretary as Secretary. We attach great importance to a scientific grouping of the duties of the members of the Council. Attempts to combine the administrative and executive functions of the army have led to confusion, to reduplication of work, to dual control and to divided responsibility.
His Majesty's Government having approved of the establishment of an Army Council, we consider it advisable to explain in general terms their duties and responsibilities. One of the principal objects is to prevent the crystallization in the War Office of narrow habits of thought or of obsolete methods. This can be achieved by a constant infusion of new blood into the administrative branches of the office. Four years should be the maximum period during which an officer can hold the position of a military member of the Council He should then return to active employment on the staff or in command. Members of the Council will act as colleagues of the Secretary of State at the Council table and as superintendents of the several branches into which the business of the War Office is divided. The responsibility of the Secretary of State will be shared by the members of the Council. The executive orders will be issued in the name of the Council as a whole. The main duties of members as superintendents of branches will be: (a) To take any action entailed by Council's decisions. (b) To give decisions not requiring Council's authority. (c) To bring before Council important questions which may arise in connection with the work of their branches and may require decision by superior authority. Members of the Council will be responsible for the efficient working of their branches, and in order that responsibility may not be divorced from power, they will have full control over the personnel acting under their orders. It is essential to prevent the members of the Council from becoming immersed in detailed administration. They cannot be experts in the entire work of their branches, and should superintend rather than directly administer. The main administrative work of the military branches will be carried out by directors acting under members of Council. Broadly speaking, questions of policy will be decided by the Council, while administration will devolve upon the directors. The object is to secure such a grouping of duties as can be administered by directors or heads of sections possessing expert knowledge. Communication between the Secretary of State and the military, members of Council, and between the latter, will be mainly personal. For the first time in the long annals of War Office reform its intricate problems have, we believe, been approached from the point of view of war rather than from that of peace. The scheme we have laid before you is based upon the consideration that the preparation for war is the primary object of a war office, and that no military organization can be sound in time of peace unless it is applicable to the necessities of war. In appointing the members of the Army Council no consideration except that of special fitness for the duties involved should arise. Military rank to remain unchanged. Independent inspection is the corollary of effective decentralization. The constitution of an Army Council as the supreme administering body of the military forces, and the measures of decentralization which are a necessary consequence, will render effective inspection absolutely imperative. The Army Council is to administer and not command the army. Executive command being vested in generals outside the War Office, who will be responsible for the training and efficiency of all troops within their districts, an independent Inspection Department must be provided for the information and protection of the Council. An Inspector-General of the Forces should be appointed for a period of five years, who should command and direct the various inspectors. The main object sought is to provide the Secretary of State and Council with eyes and ears other than those of the administrative heads of the War Office, who cannot have time or opportunity for inspection. The duties of the Inspector-General should be those of review and of report upon the practical results of the policy of the Army Council within the financial limits laid down by the Cabinet. His sole functions would be to report upon actual facts without expressing opinions upon policy. |
It should be here noted that the Esher Committee was directed that the Admiralty organization must be considered the correct form upon which the army reorganization should be based. Without these instructions, it is likely that the Esher and Moody Boards would have agreed upon the principle of the one responsible adviser.
ANALYSIS OF THE TWO REPORTS.
The Esher Committee recommended for the army, a Council, which was to be one and indivisible. The Secretary of State for War was to be a member of this Council. The higher administration of the army was to be the duty of this Council. Its direction was stated to be administrative only and it was not to command the army. As the eyes and ears of the Council, an Inspector-General of the Forces was recommended. (Diagram 7.)
The Moody Board recommended that an advisory body be established, composed of "the class to which belongs the conduct of war," and that "one only of them should be responsible for the advice given to the common superior, the Secretary." The members of this advisory body were for the purpose of giving advice with reasons to the Secretary upon technical questions.
Under the Esher plan the army is administered by a council and the work of the Inspector-General will measure the success of the administration.
The army is divided into corps, each under the military command of a lieutenant-general. The corps are based upon administrative districts under a major-general.
The major-general is in the military sense the subordinate of the lieutenant-general, but the latter is thus freed from cares of administration and has only to train his corps for its ultimate service.
Under the Moody plan the administration of the navy would be directed by the Secretary, with the military assistance of the one principal adviser. The other advisers on technical matters must come to the principal adviser with their advice, with reasons, and not to the civilian Secretary. If the navy was found to be unprepared for its mission, war, the one principal adviser must shoulder the full military responsibility.
Under the Esher plan, the responsibility being with a Council, unless the public ate alive to the urgent need of a navy prepared for war, administration might cast the deciding vote and the command branch, upon whom must rest the responsibility in war, would find itself thus out-voted by the spending branches represented in Council.
In England, where a national menace exists and is understood by the "man on the street," the Army Chief of the General Staff, corresponding to the Navy First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, works with but scant interference for the preparation of the service for war. "It would be difficult for an under lord of the Admiralty to hold his seat if he found himself opposed to the war policy of the First Sea Lord."
The Moody Board contained the following men known nationwide: W. H. Moody, Paul Morton, Stephen B. Luce, A. T. Mahan, and A. G. Dayton, a member for many years of Congress and of the Naval Committee. The board's report was made in 1909, five years after the Esher report in England.
The letter accompanying the Moody report is here reproduced to show how clearly this board understood the faults in our Navy Departmental organization as constituted by statute.
The commission on naval reorganization convened . . . . has the honor to submit the following broad embodiment of the principles of naval reorganization…
It is conceded that the present organization of the Navy Department. . . has performed the business of the Navy Department adequately. Its shortcomings have not been due to any deficiency in skill or want of business capacity in administration, but rather because the organization has lacked the principle of responsible military advice to the Secretary.
The object and ultimate end of the Navy Department are to build, arm, equip and man the fleet in order to prepare it for war. It is conceivable that in a highly developed industrial community like our own the business of the Navy Department might under its Secretary be restricted to its military duties only, the supplies of every nature, including the vessels themselves and their entire war outfit, being obtained by purchase, as has been illustrated in certain foreign countries. The predominant character and importance of efficient military counsel will thus be appreciated.
We, therefore, beg to submit an outlined plan of reorganization in illustration of the "principles" of the report of the commission dated February 20, 1909, in which an endeavor has been made to supply the deficiencies to which attention has been directed. We however, desire to emphasize the expression that this is merely an illustration of the principles and not a digested plan.
The Bureau system in its entirety has been retained, but with additional personnel. Its powers, but not its duties, have not been curtailed and it is believed that these last have been usefully co-ordinated.
The necessity for the increase in the superior personnel of the Navy Department will be obvious. It is illustrated in the growth of every industrial development. The additional cost will be nothing when compared to the savings in administration.
In so far as concerns the fundamental principles laid down in both the Moody and Esher reports no exceptions are possible. That there exist principles of administration deduced by Lord Esher which have been given no place in the Moody report will be taken up later.
These two reports bring the study of organization to a point behind which it would be of small value to explore.
Lord Esher states:
New measures demand new men and we therefore attach special importance to the immediate appointment of military members who have not hitherto been closely connected with existing methods and are therefore not likely to be embarrassed by the traditions of a system which is to be radically changed.
Regarding this in the substance rather than in the form, a question for decision arises as to the advisability of abolishing the bureaus. This has been advocated by writers on the subject of naval administrative reorganization. It may, however, be stated emphatically that as long as the very large money appropriations are divided among the bureaus, the real power will remain where are the purse strings. If Congress. will permit the Secretary of the Navy, through his auditor, to allocate the money appropriated where it will give the greatest efficiency, and further take away the executive power of the bureaus, then the retention of the bureaus will add to efficiency, rather than otherwise, for we shall then be able to continue interdependent organizations fully manned. All that is now required is co-ordination under a plan, and for this the initiative must come from the military branch of the organization, upon whom rests the responsibility of the preparation of the fleet for war.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION.
It will now be advisable to pause awhile and dissect what has been written in the foregoing pages. Principles have risen to view, but doubtless in the mind of the reader have not arranged themselves in orderly sequence to be firmly grasped. An endeavor to accomplish this will, therefore, be attempted.
First, before further progress in this study can be made, the object or mission of naval organization for administration must be accepted. It is couched in the phraseology of the Moody Board's report.
Mission.—The mission of naval organization for administration is to provide a means for success in war and victory in battle. No scheme can possibly be effective which does not recognize that the requirement of war is the true standard of efficiency in an administrative military system. Success in war and victory in battle can be assured only by that constant preparedness and that superior fighting efficiency which logically result from placing the control and responsibility in time- of peace upon the same individuals and the same agencies that must control it in time of war. There can be no check or change of method in expanding from a state of peace to one of war.
Forethought.—There must be a thinking section, and the branches concerned with preparation of plans for a campaign and with collection of necessary military information must be sufficiently in touch with the responsible head of the organization.
Precedence.—The military branches in the organization for administration must be given precedence over the civil branches that supply their needs. In the concrete case of the navy this means that the requirements of the fleet in commission as formulated by the office controlling it, are demands which it is the duty of the offices of the spending bureaus to meet.
Responsibility.—The responsibility of the head of the organization to Congress and the country must be clear and absolute. Within the organization there must be provided adequate authority down with corresponding responsibility up.
Administration.—The administration and command functions Should not be combined. Administrative chiefs ,should not command the navy, but should administer to the needs of the fleet in accordance with the reasoned plan.
Inspection.—A report upon facts by one not concerned with administrative work must carry more weight than the conflicting demands and statements of those engaged in the art of persuading financial authorities to increase the total of the estimates.
Grouping.—Kindred subjects should be grouped together under a single management, so that divisional heads of offices have charge of related matters in an ascending series of increasing complexity, with an unbroken chain of responsibility existing from the lowest to the highest official. No activity shown necessary for war must be omitted.
Centralization.—The centralization of a vast number of incongruous functions in a head of an organization will result in the neglect of work of primary importance. (This is now strikingly exemplified in our department organization. The necessary peace activities are performed; the potential activities for war are left undone.)
Selection For Administration.—Men should be chosen for their fitness and no question of rank- should be allowed to arise. Men of exceptional ability can obtain fair results from a bad system, but under a good system of organization personal shortcomings produce the minimum of disadvantage, and can be more readily detected. It is of the essence of a bad system of organization that mediocrity or worse is effectively shielded.
Decentralization.—Decentralization should be sought in an organization in order that the central office may not be burdened with more duties that it can properly discharge, and on the other hand that officers may be trained to exercise initiative and to accept responsibility.
And now the essence of good organization must be added:
Co-ordination.—Co-ordination among the subheads of an organization must have its roots in a doctrine and a common knowledge of the other duties and line of progress. There must be no divided authority. Authority in every case must carry with it the responsibility for the act. The greatest strength of an organization can be exerted only through perfect co-ordination. In order that there may be co-ordination there must be a known mission or aim toward which all efforts can be directed. Theoretically, the mission may be expressed as "the preparation of the fleet for war," but this mere phrase is insufficient to arouse all to a proper performance of duty to attain the end.
If we are to have military efficiency in our naval organization, we must go farther than the mere construction of the form which principles tell us the organization should take. We must be assured that within the organization there will flow the principle of life, This task can be accomplished only through the full awakening of the American people, as represented by the President and Congress, to the realization that questions of national defense are of more importance than any other issues, and that these questions must be given the fullest consideration by men Specially trained and possessing the knowledge necessary to answer them in accordance with the underlying principles involved, and not by opinions formed hastily and without sufficient thought or study.
Once a Council for National Defense is formed to consider the broad questions of the nation's military (including naval) policy, from that will flow naturally a naval building program, a program based upon the mature consideration of all conditions
A definite building program for the navy will give to every individual in the naval service a definite "arrival point" toward which he can bend every effort. A definite building program will call forth the administrative plans to place the fleet upon an efficient peace and war footing. It will furnish the full data upon which logistic and strategical plans for war can be based. A further study of this national need will be found later, in this paper.
A STUDY OF FOREIGN NAVAL ORGANIZATIONS FOR ADMINISTRATION.
Organization for naval administration must naturally be made to conform to the form of government of a nation, and, therefore, in a study of foreign organizations this requirement must be always kept in view. Our desire is to discover how we may adopt measures that have been elsewhere successful, provided other conditions over which there can be no control can be satisfied. Our one aim is to produce an organization for administration of the navy which will efficiently support the fleet in the preparation for war and in the conduct of war, if such a contingency should arise.
The diagrams are self explanatory. They show how exhaustively other nations have considered and treated such detail of administration. Activities are seen recorded there for which our administrative organization has not provided a channel.
In the discussion of each organization no attempt, therefore, will be made to describe the detail material of the structure. The organization will be looked into from a broad view-point. The object will be to examine its structure; to see if it is founded upon sound principles, or otherwise, and then to decide why it has succeeded or failed.
THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY BOARD. (DIAGRAM 8.)
The First Sea Lord represents the military branch of the organization. The second, third, and fourth, the two civil lords, and the Parliamentary Secretary are of the civil supply branch. They supply men and material to the fleet. They execute the business of repairs. They maintain localities for refit. They pay the bills. They audit the accounts, etc.
There is no inspection branch. The board makes its own inspections or else delegates this duty to officers of high rank and standing.
The Admiralty Board is a council presided over by the civil First Lord. Executive departments are assigned to the supervision and co-ordination of members of the Council or Board of Admiralty. Thus the lords of the Admiralty are free from administrative labors and, therefore, able to consider broad questions of policy which our chiefs of bureaus fail to find time to consider.
The Board of Admiralty now exercises the power once vested in the Lord High Admiral of England. In the reign of Henry VIII, the Navy Board was established in addition to the Admiralty. The purpose of this board was to undertake the civil supply administration, while the executive duties of the Lord High Admiral as Commander-in-Chief remained with the Admiralty office.
The Navy Board in course of years became so powerful through its political associations as to get out of harmony with the Admiralty, and in consequence there was much waste, inefficiency and fraud on the part of the Navy Board.
In 1830, it was seen that such an organization was impossible. The Navy Board was controlled by. politicians who refused to be corrected by the Admiralty. The abolishment of the Navy Board and the distribution of its duties among the members of the Board of Admiralty became a necessity.
Sir Vesey Hamilton says in this connection: "By the disposition thus taken the Board of Admiralty and the subsidiary departments acquired the united and flexible character they have today, that character which they possessed before the civil departments had attained their magnitude and semi-independence, and were yet closely in touch with the Admiralty, holding the means—when they exercised them—of controlling and supervising the business for which they were responsible."
The internal branch of the organization had drifted away from the control, direction and inspection of the external branch, upon whom was the responsibility of waging successful war. In putting the internal branch under the Admiralty Board, upon whom this responsibility rested, the organization again became logical and effective.
As with England, whose naval efficiency rests upon the British Parliament, our ultimate efficiency rests upon Congress. The British Navy is strong and efficient because the public of England desires a strong, efficient navy and this desire is reflected in the acts of Parliament. There is a national menace present which has forced the public to turn to the preparedness of,, its army and navy. There exists a definite policy and an arrival point for the naval organization.
This menace has forced both those in the government and those in the naval service to speak freely. In this way Parliament has been furnished with the facts in regard to naval administration.
When public opinion within the service is stifled, the outside public is deprived of the information which is needed if faults in administration are to be corrected.
The First Sea Lord is the principal naval adviser of the First Lord, who is a cabinet officer, and a member of parliament by virtue of his office. Sir Vesey Hamilton, himself once a first Sea Lord, points out that the other lords would find it difficult to hold office if. their views on important matters before the board should diverge seriously from those of the First Sea Lord.
The First Sea Lord is held by the British public to be responsible for the preparation- of the fleet for war. He is the man toward whom all eyes turn. His responsibility is the efficiency of the fleet and the actual employment of the fleet. His opinion exercises great weight as to character and sufficiency of the material as well .as of the personnel. Under the First Sea Lord is the General Staff of the navy. In his person the First Sea Lord combines all the duties of the command branch of the naval organization for administration, and in fact, if not by law, is the one principal naval adviser to the First Lord.
The British public service is one of intellectual attainments much above the average. Policy in relation to war and the navy's place in diplomacy are subjects well and correctly understood by all who call themselves diplomats, legislators or politicians. Besides, there are hosts of educated men in England who are constantly holding before the eyes of the people, through the medium of the public prints, the necessity for a navy and the necessity also for its preparedness for war with an enemy—not a visionary enemy, a long way across the ocean, but one within arm's length; an enemy armed and ready, imbued with the spirit of war, of offensive war. All this has aroused, throughout the British Empire, a well understood reason as to the necessity of a large and efficient navy. With such a menace there are administrative plans for war. Naval administration is founded upon the plans and is efficient and sufficient to carry out the plans.
England has its building plan, and the navy is thus given ,the "arrival point" toward which all administrative effort, as well as fleet effort, is directed.
It should be noted, further, that the naval appropriations are in the form of a budget, and the money is apportioned in lump sums by votes. These total sums can be further allocated by the Admiralty Board as in its judgment it sees fit, provided sanction can be received from the Treasury Department.
The British Cabinet all hold seats in Parliament and are held responsible for the budget of government. If a budget fails to receive Parliamentary sanction, the Ministry falls, and a new party automatically comes into power. Thus there is a decided difference between the British form of government and our own, but this difference is more in form than in fact and at least not so radically different from our own as to prohibit us from following her lead along the lines of the general principles of naval administrative organization.
GERMAN NAVAL ORGANIZATION. (DIAGRAMS 9 AND 10.)
The Emperor is the fife-giving force behind the German organization. The army and navy are his to command and administer as he sees fit, obtaining from the legislature the money required to carry out his aims.
The management of the navy is controlled through three great administrative offices, all directly subordinate to the Emperor, as Commander-in-Chief, and giving effect to his will. They are: The Admiralty Staff, The Imperial Naval Cabinet and The Imperial Naval Office.
The Admiralty Staff directs naval policy in peace, and prepares plans for war and controls the strategic and tactical employment of the fleet.
Through the Imperial Naval Cabinet the Emperor conveys his orders to the various commanders-in-chief, promotes and appoints officers as occasion requires, and maintains the navy in a state of warlike efficiency.
The Cabinet and the Admiralty are the organs of the Emperor for the employment of the fleet, and take their orders directly from him and are answerable to him only.
The Imperial Naval Office, which handles the appropriations and provides the navy, is on a different footing; for in the first place it is a Ministry of State, subordinate directly to the Emperor only in matters of naval organization, but in administrative matters to his Chancellor, who himself is responsible both to the Emperor and the legislature. As the Naval Office draws its appropriations from the legislature, its organization is such as to place it in close relation with the legislature. The State Secretary and certain of his assistants are members of one house, with the right of addressing the other. Thus the legislature is able to keep itself informed as to the administration of the navy.
The Imperial Naval Office is an administrative establishment merely supplying men and material.
The technical work of the navy as a military force is controlled by the Emperor through his Naval Cabinet, whereby he turns the men and material into an efficient combatant force, and through his Admiralty Staff, which uses and directs the navy in accordance with the national policy.
The Emperor's Naval Cabinet directs the navy through the flag officers who are in chief command of the organized fleets and naval bases at home. All the organized combatant strength of the navy is under the control of one or another of these flag-officers, who themselves are responsible for the training and discipline and efficiency of the forces under them.
The two naval stations, North Sea and Baltic, are naval commands entirely distinct from the naval dockyards at the same place (Diagram 11.)
Vessels out of commission are under the Imperial Naval Office; nevertheless they are subject to inspection by the station chiefs, who report to the Emperor as to the condition of such ships.
Also under the station commander is the captain of the port and magazines, torpedoes and fixed defenses, and the management of stores for the fleet.
Under each naval station is a "naval inspection" which maintains certain ships in reserve with reduced complements; organizes the recruits, assigning them to duty; trains the men in barracks in two divisions, the seamen division and the mechanic division; and fills ship complements as necessary.
In regard to detail for duty, all officers not in command are subordinate to the station chiefs who assign them to duty subject to the Emperor's approval.
German naval organization has been summed up as follows by Captain W. L. Rodgers:
The Imperial Naval Office builds a navy and mans the ships; to do so it embraces in its organization a number of highly technical bureaus, but in its relation to the navy as a warlike national instrument at the disposal of the ruler of the State, the Imperial Naval Office itself, as a whole, is an administrative establishment merely supplying men and material. The technical work of the navy as a military force is controlled by the Emperor through his Naval Cabinet, whereby he turns the men and material into an efficient combatant force, and through his Admiralty Staff, which uses and directs the navy in accordance with the national policy.
The two naval station headquarters—of the Baltic and of the North Sea—are administrative organizations established for the purpose of Placing the responsibility for the military efficiency with an authority of Purely military character which is also directly in touch with the force itself, thereby avoiding over-centralization in the Imperial Naval Office, in Berlin, and freeing it from the burden of supervising the details of routine naval administration, for which the naval station has fully provided, in men, material, funds and instructions, sufficient for all ordinary conditions of service.
These station headquarters are, therefore, the local general organs of the Imperial Naval Office, for administering and executing the laws, regulations, and Naval Office instructions; for preparing, equipping, commissioning, manning and officering the active naval force, and subsequently maintaining it, with regular and necessary supplies of men and material; for providing and maintaining in readiness men and material for the reserve naval force; for carrying out all the prescribed preparations for mobilization, and for the execution of all the measures of actual mobilization when declared; for the general military control and supervision over the several subordinate naval organizations on shore; for inspecting reserve ships and other material; and for the general command over all the coast fortifications and shore and fixed defenses of the coast and harbors, so far as they are in the hands of the navy.
The responsibility of the station chiefs is for the efficient utilization of the means placed at their disposal by the Imperial Naval Office; but they are answerable for military efficiency directly and solely to the Emperor.
All officers, men, and ships of the German Navy are assigned to one or the other naval station—Baltic or North Sea. (Excepted, officers at Naval Office and in Admiralty Staff.)
Each station thus forms a general division headquarters for half the naval force, for the general military oversight of which the chief of the naval station, an admiral, is responsible.
The imperial dockyards are subordinate to the naval station headquarters only in disciplinary and general military administration.
We thus see that "the Imperial Naval Office provides and supplies the navy—the internal or spending branch in our business organization. The Imperial Naval Cabinet maintains the fleet ready and trained for war, and the Imperial Admiralty Staff directs and uses the navy in war; and the Naval Office, as the civil branch furnishing material, so far subordinates itself to the military branches as to furnish only such material as the military branches desire and wish to use."
"Under a weak ruler, it is thought such a system might not be efficient, due to the frailty of human nature. An emperor recognizing merit and not friendship has succeeded. Under a monarchy, public opinion, which must be trusted to correct abuses, is usually weak, yet the best informed public opinion cannot produce as great efficiency as a strong and able military branch such as Germany possesses."
The German military authorities seem to have drawn a distinct line between military and civil duties. The military direction of that branch which uses the ships over the branch that provides them is clear, yet the organization has not permitted the military branch to interfere in the methods of the civil or supply 'branch. In this way Germany has been able to employ its combatant force in planning for war, in training for war and in gathering together the supplies with which to wage war, and further in molding the character of the personnel. At the naval stations depots for men are maintained and their training is constant and rigorous. Germany accepts the dictum that the moral is to the material as three or five to one, and is striving to mold the character of the combatant force to win battles.
FRENCH NAVAL ORGANIZATION. (DIAGRAM 12.)
The French organization, although apparently constructed upon fundamental laws, has not proved successful inasmuch as the efficiency of the fleet for war has not been realized.
Captain Rodgers gives as the reason, that in France there is absent the force outside of the organization desiring and requiring it to be efficient.
France, like the United States, has not a fully matured plan for naval development based upon its foreign policy.
The French Admiral Darrieus says:
Very fortunately there are few who contest the utility or even the necessity of a powerful navy for France. No doubt, in spite of all evidence, there are still to be found sophists, who prefer some vague and fantastic theory to the teachings of history, forgetting that experience—the only guide in such a matter—has long since pronounced its verdict. But they are the exceptions, and it would be useless to attempt to convince them. For the great general public it has been demonstrated that our beloved country has never, at any period of her history, been so greatly in need of a strong navy—a very strong navy—as she is to-day; her very safety is at stake.
But, if I have no fear as to whether France will realize ultimately her naval vocation, I confess that I am a little less assured as to whether she will have the strength of will to respond to it The necessity for adopting energetic remedies is understood; but what are the proper remedies and by whom are they to be initiated? Truly there is no lack of physicians—of those at least who give free advice; I will even go so far as to say that there are too many of them, and the extreme diversity of their prescriptions, most often contradictory, and invariably based upon faulty diagnosis, deprives their advice of all practical value.
Admiral Darrieus claims that a nation's foreign policy determines the size of its fleet. Secretary Meyer has repeatedly told the American people that the Monroe Doctrine is as strong as our navy arid no stronger. Again to quote Darrieus:
The formula, so correct in itself, but so often abused in France in its application, means that the determination of the naval forces necessary to a nation, the principal characteristics of the units composing these forces, and the actual bases of operations from which their action is to be sup- Ported requires previous knowledge, as complete as possible, of what may be termed the "constants" of the international situation.
In England, being given an impetus by the writings of Mahan, the knowledge is widespread that the safety of the Empire hangs Upon the efficiency of the navy for war. There is a national menace before the eyes of the people requiring, demanding ships and men, and making it imperatively necessary for the fleet to be ready for war.
In Germany, shut in on the land as she is, the nation knows that to breathe it must expand by the sea. The land frontiers are safe from attack, thanks to the marvelous and efficient army of citizen soldiers. The national menace must be therefore, by water, and the Emperor has received the unanimous backing of his people in his aim for an outlet, and in the creation of a great over-sea trade that will enrich and increase the world-power of the fatherland. All these factors together, I believe, have formed what Captain Rodgers terms the driving force behind the organization of the German naval establishment.
Turning again to France, the German Army has been its national menace. Upon the sea England has ever overshadowed her. The dream of sea-power for France has never been born. The national mind is centered upon the Grand Army. The inspiring conquests of the first Napoleon are yet cherished.
Public attention in France having been withdrawn for so many years from the navy, the naval heads have not acquired the incentive to have an efficient naval force for war. The principle of life is lacking and co-ordination of the interdependent parts of the organization is impossible without it. All the dangers of a highly concentrated esprit de corps are present, and promotion it ls said depends more upon personal friendship than upon individual efficiency.
The French system in the administration of the Navy Department is by "directions" or bureaus, and under the system of government and without the national peril by sea, those bureaus Which supply the wants of the navy, the civil branch of the organization, have acquired practical independence of their co-ordinating councils.
Captain Rodgers says on this point:
A special body of technical officials manages the affairs of each direction, and the strong esprit de corps natural to such bodies causes a constant striving for independence which has had a large measure of success. The French organization has the faults of organization which the English Navy corrected seventy-five years ago when it abolished the Navy Board.
We must grant in any organization that the individuals are each and every one influenced by the desire to do their best work for the common good; but it is a frailty of human nature that men highly specialized along one branch in a profession are prone to resist interference from outside of their specialty, and more certainly from those less competent in their specialty than themselves.
The military branch of a naval organization for administration should be specialist in naval war, and the instruments of its specialty are battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, torpedoes, mines, etc.
The civil branch is specialist in the manufacture and supply of these instruments for the use of the military branch.
The military branch must direct how the money given by the legislature for naval use is to be expended in order that the greatest war efficiency may be obtained. The civil branch must be free to manage its own specialties, and interference as to the methods of the civil branch is outside of the province of the military branch. Where fraud is known to be present in the administration of the civil branch and in consequence the military branch cannot obtain the true war value of the money legislated, then investigations, instituted and directed by the military branch, are necessary. This is only a law of military administration which is fundamental. The knowledge of fraud, corruption, inaction or inefficiency of the civil branch comes to the head of the organization through the inspection branch, and is a matter readily adjusted if, happily, there exists in the organization a means of exposing such conditions.
Reforms must be urged from outside the service. They may be conceived by officers inside; but unaided, their opinions are quickly throttled by those powerful in the service who honestly or dishonestly can see no virtue in change that disturbs the old and accustomed order. That this is true, the resistance of the Sea Lords of the Admiralty against the introduction of steam in the British Navy, advocated by the civilian First Lord, Sir James Graham, forms a striking example. Another example was the reforms made in French naval organization by Colbert, a civilian, against the opposition of naval men. An example in recent times in our navy was the reforms in gunnery methods, advocated within the service it is true, but backed by a power from the outside, the President of the United States. Without this force the reform would likely have failed and its advocate would have been disciplined.
In the French organization for the administration of the navy there are three branches: The naval branch, headed by the Chief of the General Staff; the general administration or civil branch; and the inspection branch. All three branches are co-ordinated by the Minister of Marine, who is generally a naval officer, but may be a civilian.
The Minister of Marine is by law a member of the legislature; he has a Technical and Administrative Cabinet and also a Civil Cabinet. The administrative functions are administered by "services." The services spend money to provide and maintain the navy in efficiency, and the General Staff uses the navy in peace and war.
The French Navy has not been given a definite, well-matured building program of a fleet based upon the nation's policy. The French Navy has, therefore, no arrival point. Although the organization seems sound in principle, without the desire of the nation to have an efficient fleet for war, the directive force is lacking and the result in the past has not been to give the fleet the best administrative support.
Admiral Darrieus claims that the French nation understands the urgent need of a strong navy, but the direction remedial measures must take seems as yet unknown or at least as yet misunderstood. It seems likely enough that France has been unable to forget her many defeats upon the sea, which naturally causes apathy in the development of the navy, while the glorious traditions of her army spur her on to increased effort in the land defense.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF UNITED STATES NAVAL ORGANIZATION FOR ADMINISTRATION.
From 1815 to 1842 the navy was administered by a Council, but in the latter year Congress repealed the law and created the bureau system of naval administration.
The business of the navy at first was placed in the hands of the following bureaus:
(1) Yards and Docks, (2) Construction, Equipment and Repairs, (3) Provisions and Clothing, (4) Ordnance and Hydrography, (5) Medicine and Surgery. These bureaus were intended as administrative departments of the naval establishment, and in administering the navy, the chiefs of bureaus could issue orders in matters concerning their particular specialties, which orders were to be considered as emanating from the Secretary of the Navy. The distribution of duties to these bureaus was left at the discretion of the Secretary of the Navy. In 1862, three additional bureaus were authorized by Congress: (1) Equipment and Recruiting, (2) Navigation, and (3) Steam Engineering.
The general organization of the Navy Department has not changed materially since the latter date.
To sum up, from the pen of a well known writer:
It is noteworthy that Congress and most Secretaries have always been unable to act on the principle that the navy exists for war. Apparently, Congress has been of the opinion that if money is honestly spent for the navy, the navy must be efficient. Thus Congress always has seemed more or less to resent and resents to-day, serious reference to professional opinion as to the direction in which naval appropriations should be spent. Congress has never grasped the idea that there is a great field of executive action with regard to the navy in which legislative control can only be disastrous, and hence Congress and most secretaries have hitherto always opposed, development in the organization on the military side of the Navy Department.
A strong organization on the military side of the Navy Department is the only way to strengthen professional naval opinion as to the direction in which the navy's moneys should be spent, and must succeed in crystallizing views on military subjects which are now at variance, and concentrate all intelligence upon the known mission.
The navy's mission is to wage war successfully and in times of peace to keep itself "fit" for the task. The mission of naval administration, both in peace and in war, is to make possible the accomplishment of the navy's mission, in efficiently keeping the entire naval establishment prepared for instant war, and to furnish the fleet engaged in war with all the necessities for its task.
Serious reflection must convince even the casual reader that a lack of "scientific management" in our governmental methods lies at the root of unguided administration in our naval affairs. A body to advocate maturely reasoned-out policies for national defense has now no place in the organization of government. The responsibility for the national safety, and the means to preserve it, are not and never have been co-ordinated.
A NATIONAL BOARD FOR DEFENSE.
Lord Esher, in his report upon British Army reorganization, said:
We should, however, fail in our duty were we not clearly to define the urgent and vital importance of providing, in some shape or form, a permanent institution, charged with the duties and responsibilities of calling the attention of the Prime Minister of the day to strategic problems of defense, which are never constant, to the actual condition of our armaments, and to the relation which the latter should bear to the former if the King's dominions are to remain secure.
Again the report says:
At the outset of our inquiry, we are driven to the conclusion that no measure of War Office reform will avail unless it is associated with provision for obtaining and collecting for the use of the Cabinet all the information and the expert advice required for the shaping of national Policy in war, and for determining the necessary preparations in peace. Such information and advice must necessarily embrace not only the sphere of the War Office but those of the Admiralty and of other offices of State.
Lord Esher again states a fundamentally important point in constituting such a committee:
The Defense Committee of the Cabinet, as now reconstituted, is intended to fulfill this imperative requirement; but we are convinced that further development is essential. A committee which contains no permanent nucleus, and which is composed of political and professional members, each preoccupied with administrative duties widely differing, cannot, M our opinion, deal adequately with the complex questions of Imperial Defense. The fact is that there is no one charged with the duty of making a continuous study of these questions, of exercising due foresight in regard to the changing conditions produced by external developments, and of drawing from the several departments of State, and arranging in convenient form for the use of the Cabinet such information as may at any moment be required. Failing the provision of such an equipment, we are convinced that the Government cannot be in a position to arrive at sound conclusions in regard either to the needs of war or to the preparations required in peace. We believe that the result has been, and must be, misdirected effort, involving risk on the one hand and waste on the other.
Where the responsibility for efficiency and sufficiency of preparation for war rests upon Parliament, and, in a special sense upon the Prime Minister, we hold that it is essential to provide the latter with adequate means of discharging his heavy obligations to the Empire…
There are no means for co-ordinating defense problems, for dealing with them as a whole, for defining the proper functions of the various elements, and for ensuring that, on the one hand, peace preparations are carried out upon a consistent plan, and on the other hand, that in time of emergency a definite war policy, based upon solid data, can be formulated. It would be easy to show that unnecessary weakness coupled with inordinate waste of national resources thus results.
The above clearly expressed opinion of Lord Esher brought into existence a Permanent Committee of National Defense.
The report continues:
To the Defense Committee, acting as the co-ordinating head of all the departments concerned in the conduct of and in the preparation for war, we look to fulfill the main functions of a general staff, as they are now understood all over the civilized world by statesmen who have considered the necessities and conditions of empire.
The permanent nucleus of the Defense Committee should consist of:
I. A Permanent Secretary, who should be appointed for five years, renewable at pleasure.
II. Under this official two naval officers, selected by the Admiralty, two military officers chosen by the War Office…These officers should not be of high rank and the duration of their appointment should be limited to two years.
The duties of the permanent nucleus of the Defense Committee would be:
A. To consider all questions of imperial defense from the point of view of the navy, the military forces, India and the colonies.
B. To obtain and collate information from the Admiralty, War Office, Indian Office, Colonial Office and other departments of State.
C. To prepare any documents required by the Prime Minister and the Defense Committee, anticipating their needs as far as possible.
D. To furnish such advice as the committee may ask for in regard to defense questions involving more than one department of State.
E. To keep adequate records for the use of the Prime Minister, Parliament or for the Committee of National Defense itself.
Captain F. K. Hill, in a paper printed in the NAVAL INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS some months ago, advocated a National Board for Defense, to be composed of:
Secretary of State.
Secretary of War.
Secretary of the Navy.
Chairman of Senate and House Military Committees.
Chairman of Senate and House Naval Committees.
Chief of Staff, Army.
President of Army War College.
Naval Aide of Operations.
President 61 Naval War College.
One Permanent Secretary, Civilian under State Department.
If to these are added two naval officers, two army officers and one or two Permanent Secretaries, to be taken from those versed in diplomacy, then we shall have a body fully qualified to give reasoned decisions upon all questions of the nation's military and naval policy.
Captain Hill further says upon the subject of the National Board for Defense:
For the information of this board it is necessary to have as its head the Secretary of State, who knows about the diplomatic relations which may precipitate war; it is necessary to have the legislative members, so that they may decide on the policies to be carried out and the expenditures required to prepare for war; and it is necessary to have the military branches, which will furnish technical information as to preparation for war and from the discussion of the board will understand the policies to be enforced in the prosecution of war, and so draw the strategic plans that the object of the war may most fully be accomplished.
From the deliberation of such a board must flow a building program for the navy and such recommendations to Congress in regard to personnel and materiel as will permit the carrying out undisturbed of the true aims of the nation. This board cannot help succeeding in winning the entire confidence of Congress and the people; and then either the nation will move smoothly and Peacefully along its chosen paths or else it will be armed and prepared to dispute by force its right of healthy, logical development along the lines which its destiny has pointed out.
THE RELATION OF THE STATESMAN TO NAVAL POLICY.
Admiral Darrieus has written: "In this terrible game of naval warfare, where the destinies of the nation constitute the stakes, the 'Pieces' are represented by the various elements of naval force. (Battleships, armored cruisers, scouts, destroyers, submarines, naval bases, etc.) These must be disposed judiciously and used to the greatest possible advantage with reference to those of a Probable enemy. This is naval policy."
Accurate knowledge of possible enemies and the probable entente and alliances is necessary in order to be able to choose judiciously our arrival point, which from the circumstances is ever moving away from us and for which we must be ever reaching to arrive upon the battle-ground at the decisive moment. There must, therefore, be at the helm of State, to give the necessary information, the diplomat at head of government, in whose keeping are the secrets of the international situation, upon which our building program should logically be based. There we have exemplified the duties of the National Board of Defense advocated above.
Close relationship between the statesman, the naval officer and the legislature must be seen to be of vital necessity. The statesman points to the international situation on the political horizon, forecasting the future; the naval officer draws up the required building plan to insure a defeat of the probable enemy, in accordance with the strategy which would be compelled by the conditions. This plan, with the cost, is submitted to the legislature. This body has the privilege of decreasing the allowance as it sees fit, to the extreme of disallowing the entire plan.
If the amount appropriated by Congress is denied or reduced so that the fleet as a weapon of war will become totally inadequate to perform its mission if called upon by the statesman at head of government, or by Congress which wages war; it then becomes the stern duty of the head of the naval organization to emphatically announce to Congress and the statesman that the navy is not strong enough to form a backing to a national policy which may be challenged to the limit of war by certain powers.
If the amount appropriated is smaller than required, yet if there remains a chance for victory against the opponent with a view to whom the country's naval policy and building program are framed, then the aim of every naval officer and man must be to so perfect himself in mind and body, in study and war training, that this material handicap can be overcome.
In the case of a wholly inadequate navy, there can exist no incentive to prepare for a war in which defeat is inevitable; therefore, the entire organization becomes apathetic and is then on the high road to decay, incompetency and inefficiency.
A STRONG NAVAL POLICY AND A BUILDING PROGRAM.
"There is no military institution which is in more urgent need of foresight than the navy, for the difficulties in connection with personnel are coupled with the importance of materiel. Napoleon's strategy was defeated, due to lack in necessities. Cervera sailed without ammunition and guns and without a base to refit. The Russian fleet was totally unprepared.
"Fleets cannot be created upon the eve of war."
A building program, even if it will still give us material inferiority to a probable enemy, an inferiority not too great for the naval mind to accept, will give to the entire naval organization an "arrival point," a possible tangible enemy, and will awaken every naval activity to strive to be ready with a known, definite force of ships, personnel and bases to refit, and to successfully engage the probable enemy in a selected war area. This will give to the organization the principle of life sorely needed, co-ordination under a plan, and our organization can be stirred to life in no other way. A building program must cover a term of years and will involve an initial expense that will surprise our national legislators.
Admiral Darrieus, in writing on French organization, says: "The creation of a fleet, one must never be tired of reiterating, should always be based upon concrete hypothesis." Upon what hypothesis are two battleships a year?' "The choice of our fleet, and of the number and quality of the vessels of which it is to be composed, is decided solely by sentiment and according to the too frequent changing ideas of the moment." This is too true of our own naval policy to be pleasant reading. "From whatever Side the problem is regarded, the insufficiency of our naval effort is obvious. We cannot fulfill our naval obligations . . . . The latest terms of our naval program do not give us from any point of view the 'fleet of our policy.'"
Necessity, public necessity, is the ultimate driving force. Rising like a tidal wave, it will sweep away the strongest opposition, level partisan opinions and sternly bid the government servants seek for fundamental truths. Until this necessity is recognized, the task of awakening responsive action will be hopeless. Nevertheless, the navy's duty in creating a hinterland of reasoned opinion upon the needs of reform is evident. When the day comes for this action, the consciousness of loyal effort will be a sufficient reward.
In this task of creating reasoned opinion, all effort must be focused upon the true requirements of our professional organization—an organization reared upon a foundation of natural laws, inspired with perfect co-ordination under a plan. Such an organization cannot fail to give the maximum force for the minimum expenditure of the nation's money.
CONSTRUCTING A THEORETICAL ORGANIZATION FOR NAVAL ADMINISTRATION.
After considerable investigation and study upon the subject of organization for naval administration, a conclusion has been reached that if we are ever to attain war efficiency, in time of peace, two fundamental changes must be made in our departmental organization. By war efficiency is meant not only the isolated efficiency of fleets and squadrons, but that efficiency combined with efficient supply of war necessities to carry out hostilities. "In time of peace" has been used purposely, because it is quite certain that the exigencies of war will force these necessary changes and, depending upon the comparative war efficiency of our enemy, our own efficiency may ultimately be accomplished.
These requisites are: (1) the appointment of one naval officer of sufficient rank, and with capabilities beyond the average, to shoulder the military responsibility of the preparedness of the fleet for war. (2) The creation of a General Staff.
It is firmly believed that until these two reforms are made no lasting improvement in the preparedness of the navy for war can result, nor will officers be trained in sufficient numbers in the "art of war"—the profession of the military naval officer, so long neglected in this country.
THE PRINCIPAL NAVAL ADVISER.
This officer should be the Principal Naval Adviser to the Secretary of the Navy and should be further the immediate head of the Naval General Staff.
THE NAVAL STAFF.
A Naval Staff or General Staff would be a body of sea-going officers on temporary shore duty, under the immediate supervision of the one Principal Adviser, charged with drawing up and preparing possible plans of operations; with arranging for the strategic concentration of the fleet; with knowing and estimating the strength of possible enemies; with the study of theaters of war; and with the study of and preparation of charts of harbors that may have more or less military value in war.
The Naval Staff would deal also with the study of the art of war, especially military history and the training of officers in the duties of the- Naval Staff. A Naval Staff officer should be familiar with all sides of the naval profession.
The inspection of the war maneuvers of the fleet would be a duty of the Naval Staff. Through these inspections the efficiency for battle of the higher officers of the service will be known and their promotion to responsible positions determined.
The War College should furnish the means by which the entire service—officers of all corps—can be trained in the art of naval war. The Naval Staff must be constantly receiving an infusion of new blood. Two years away from the fleet is a long time in these progressive days and should be the maximum for service on the Naval Staff. The only requirement necessary for the duty on the Naval Staff should be a willingness to become familiar with the great principles of the art of war and the skill to apply those principles to the needs of the naval service.
The following quotations upon the Army General Staff are taken from General Von Schellendorf's "Organization of the German General Staff."
The below remarks of course refer only to those officers trained in General Staff work at the General Staff headquarters and detailed to the staffs of generals in the field.
Apart from the fact that the mental and physical powers of one man, the general-in-chief, are not equal to such a task, the comprehensive supervision of the forces under his command would suffer.
In some armies all the staff belongs to the General Staff. But a necessity has universally been felt of having a distinct portion of the staff entrusted with planning and carrying out the movements of armies in the field, and it is generally distinguished by some special name. This particular branch of the staff of a general holding an important command is known in the German Army as the General Staff.
Officers of the General Staff are vested with no military command; it is only the general who commands and is responsible. The officers of the General Staff must be his devoted and confidential counsellors. This necessitates the general having absolute confidence in his assistants. As a General Staff officer must deny himself the true military instinct of wishing to take command in accordance with his rank a good General Staff officer is, therefore, certainly not asking too much if he claims the complete confidence of his general, and the grant of a certain amount of independence in the details of his duties. Otherwise, he would feel at once that his post might be better tiled by an inferior person and himself more advantageously employed at regimental duty.
A General Staff officer cannot excuse himself of any neglect on his part on the plea that no order on the subject had been given him by the general. He should only consider himself freed from responsibility when his suggestion has been declined by the general. This gives no small measure of responsibility to the General Staff in war, and necessitates untiring energy.
The peace duties of the General Staff should prepare it for its duties in war. General Staff officers with commands have to work out in peace all matters of mobilization, movements, quarters, maneuvers, railways and information.
Careful and painstaking investigations of individuals in special subjects should be looked upon as the common property of all. Everything should work collectively to the attainment of a common result, and this is: to ascertain from the study of the history of war the principles of leading troops both to and during battle, arriving herein at clear and independent conclusions. It is not a means to an end, but the end itself, the knowledge of all that the study of military matters and experience can teach.
The following points constitute the main principles on which the present efficiency of the Prussian General Staff is secured:
1. The independent position in the organization of the army.
2. The appointment to the General Staff is restricted to no clearly defined claims.
3. The absolute freedom of its military scientific training.
4. The compulsory return of its officers from time to time to regimental duties.
The Chief of the Naval Staff of the fleet and his assistants would have the following general duties in war or during maneuvers simulating war:
1. Working out all arrangements for anchoring the fleet in harbor. Security of the fleet in port or sea. The formations for cruising night and day. The general plans for a prospective battle.
2. Communicating the necessary orders either verbally, by radio or in writing, at the right time and place, and in sufficient detail.
3. Obtaining, collecting and compiling in order all information concerning the nature and military character of the theatre of war, providing maps and plans.
4. Collecting and estimating the value of information received concerning the enemy's forces.
5. Watching over the fighting condition of the vessels and keeping himself posted as to their efficiency in every respect.
6. Keeping journals and diaries, drawing up reports on engagements, and collecting important materials for the subsequent history of the war.
7. Special duties, particularly scouting and reconnaissances and estimating the situation as new information of the enemy is received, in order that he may place his well-digested conclusions before his commander-in-chief.
An important duty of the headquarters Naval Staff will be to thoroughly understand the military and naval strength of our own and foreign governments and to exhaustively study types of ships and war implements from the practical experience of the fleet, from the tactical game board and the "chart maneuver."
To those in this country who are constitutionally against the formation of a General Staff it might be well to quote the great Count Von Moltke on this subject: "There are generals," he said, "who need no counsel, who deliberate and resolve in their own minds, those about them having only to carry out their intentions. But such generals," he added, "are stars of the first magnitude who scarcely appear once in a century."
Have we stars of the first magnitude to steer the naval establishment unerringly on its true course?
It would be interesting to further quote the well-known naval writer, Mr. John Leyland, upon our naval methods, for there is not a clearer thinker than he in England upon such matters. It is always refreshing to read what others say about us.
In the United States Navy a Naval War Staff, not fully organized, exists under another name. There is some objection in Congress and elsewhere to the word "staff," and the Army Staff seems to be regarded as standing in opposition to the will of the legislature, and its intended enlargement is opposed. The office of Naval Intelligence was established in 1882; the Naval War College came into existence in 1884, and the General Board was created in 1900. The need of intelligence was brought home to the authorities at the beginning of the new navy by the many deficiencies that became apparent in the naval resources of the country. The institution of the War College was a more important step, for the college is in no ordinary sense a teaching establishment. It is a place for the study and discussion of naval problems of war in all its phases—historical, strategic and tactical—of events which lead up to war, and of the probabilities or possibilities which arise therefrom. Besides carrying on such studies, it prepares and lays before the General Board such schemes as are called for; and in conjunction with the General Board, it prepares plans for all eventualities, and is able to furnish to a commander-in-chief in war complete studies of any theater of war.
The principal business of the Intelligence Office is indicated by its name, and the chief duty of the General Board, which has been regarded as constituting the nucleus of a staff, and of the War College, has been to prepare and perfect war plans, and to train officers to understand and execute them. Although the Naval Board is accustomed to put forward its judgment as to what the shipbuilding programme should be, always therein exceeding the views of Congress and sometimes of the Navy Department, its function was, perhaps, best described by Rear-Admiral H. C. Taylor, U. S. N., in a paper read at the Naval Institute, Annapolis, in 1903, as being to avoid as much as possible questions of material, and "not to say what force we should have, but to prepare for war whatever force Congress should give us."
The remarks of Admiral Taylor are not at this time an expression of the accepted duty of a General Staff. The intervening time since 1903 has been used to profit by those seeking after Principles of naval organization, and the conclusion generally reached is that questions of material cannot be divorced from questions of preparedness for war. To direct such preparation is the responsible duty of a General Staff.
Be this as it may, the General Board was and is without responsibility for carrying out its recommendations. It has had no executive powers, nor has it had any means of co-ordinating its views with those which emanate from the bureaus. When Mr. Meyer instituted the "aides" for his department, it was with the idea of creating a means through which effect might be given to policy. "An operating division of the fleet is a branch that has been lacking in the Navy Department." The Aide for Operations advises the Secretary as to strategic and tactical concerns in conjunction With the General Board, and regarding movements and the disposition of vessels, and he prepares orders for the Secretary's signature covering these matters. There is no executive power, except through the action of the Secretary, and where money is to be expended the consent of Congress is required.
This system is unlike those which exist in the naval administration of Great Britain, Germany, and France. The Aide for Operations is concerned with the work which is analogous to that feeling within the province of the British First Sea Lord, but the latter is a responsible officer, acting in practice as Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, while the Aide for Operations is merely an assistant of the civilian Secretary of the Navy, and in no sense controls the Naval General Board. The same is true of the functions of the other aides, who deal with matters concerning personnel, material works, etc. The Secretary, therefore, has various advisers, and is merely assisted in co-ordinating policy by his aide. When the naval programme of 1911 was under consideration, the Naval General Board advised the laying down of four battleships, sixteen destroyers, and a considerable number of scouts and auxiliaries. The Secretary and the Navy Department did not accept the suggestion. They recommended only two battleships, struck out the destroyers, and most of the auxiliaries, and inserted two submarines. Therefore, the, General Board does not necessarily influence Policy, and there appears to be wanting some organization analogous to the Board of Admiralty in the British service, or the French Superior Council of the Navy.
The new system in the British Navy is the outcome of tradition and experience, and certainly is more efficient, as a salutary means of bringing to bear the influence of mature thought upon all naval problems that may arise, than any of the systems that have been examined. In Germany, everything turns upon the final executive power of the Emperor. In France, the Chief of Staff occupies a position analogous to that of the British First Sea Lord, but he is directly subject to the Minister; his authority and functions are not the same, and the organization of the sections of his department is confused with administrative and executive duties, owing to the want of an organic system for co-ordinating the duties of administration and command. In the United States the existence of a strong bureau system operates against the position and influence of the General Board, and gives the Secretary a great many advisers, in dealing with whose counsel he has sought the assistance of "aides," whose position he is now seeking to establish by legislative enactment.
NAVAL SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.
Scientific management for the navy, in its essence, might be said to consist of a "certain philosophy which results in a combination of the four great underlying principles of management:"
(a) The development of a true science of naval administration.
(b) The scientific selection of men to control the divisions and subdivisions of the organization.
(c) The scientific education and development of all the personnel of the navy.
(d) Co-ordination under a plan between the fleet and the naval administration behind it.
The Naval Staff will form the planning section of the organization for administration of the navy. The primary object, it has been frequently stated in this paper, is the preparation of the fleet for war and its support during the war, but, secondarily, naval administration must endeavor to maintain the navy economically, in order that the limited appropriations of money may give the greatest efficiency to the existing naval force. In short it must endeavor by concerted action to develop progressively the naval arm to be equal to the task of defending the nation's avowed /foreign policies by holding the fleet always ready to take the offensive within the probable theater of war.
To be able to accomplish this task there must be:
1. Detailed strategic and logistic plans for each given theater of war against a particular enemy.
2. Detailed administrative plans to make the strategic and logistic plans possible of execution.
Upon these plans the details within our organization must be based.
In order that (1) and (2) may be put into immediate execution after hostilities are imminent, it will be necessary to fulfill the following:
(a) There must be in readiness a well-balanced fleet, at least equal, within a probable theater of war, to a possible opponent.
(b) No vessel should be classed as available for war against a first-class naval power unless it has on board at least two-thirds of its full complement of officers and men, fully supplied and fully trained for battle. Reserve ships, as understood in this Country with one-third crews, cannot be considered available during the course of a short, decisive naval war.
(c) All officers must be trained in the art of naval war and should be bound together by a common doctrine in the conduct of naval war.
(d) The method of supply and transport must be adequate, or in other words the naval administrative backing must be as efficient as is possible to make it before the war, and be able to continue Without check or change during the continuance of hostilities. Officers holding administrative positions should not be relieved to join the fleet; their importance as links in the chain of administrative organization cannot be too strongly emphasized.
(e) Within the theater of war as well as at home there must be suitable bases for refit—fortified and stocked with provisions and supplies, including ammunition and coal for use of the fleet for a limited period. Advance-base outfits for temporary bases must be supplied complete, with the personnel to operate them.
Our organization for naval administration must be constructed to give free effect to every effort required to provide the fleet with the above vital necessities.
NAVAL APPROPRIATIONS.
The next reform of importance should be to follow, as near as our form of government will permit, the British plan of appropriations for the naval establishment. (See article in NAVAL INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS by Pay Director Hunt.)
The Secretary of the Navy, acting through carefully weighed advice from his technical assistants, should be given discretionary power to spend the money and further to adjust the money balances between different specific "votes." He should be able through Treasury sanction, or through sanction from the Naval Committee of Congress, to use money for purposes other than those for which appropriated, provided to do so would, in the opinion of his trusted principal Adviser, enhance the efficiency of the fleet for war.
Lord Esher has said:
The question of finance lies at the root of War Office administration. Upon the proper adjustment of responsibility between the spending and the accounting branches must depend alike the efficiency of the forces and the safeguarding of the tax-payers' interests.
If the budget system could be adopted and the naval appropriations be divided under general headings instead of being exhaustively itemized, as now obtains (there were two hundred and forty items in our last appropriation bill), much greater efficiency in administration could thereby be effected.
Lord Esher again says:
The theory that military officers of all ranks are, by the fact of wearing uniform, shorn of all business instincts has inevitably tended to produce laxity which it is supposed to prevent. When money is doled out in compartments and no discretion as to allocation is permitted, savings are not likely to accrue.
The British form of appropriation bill would not relieve the executive department of the navy from financial obligations. Every dollar would have to be accounted for and Congress could at any time inspect the accounts of the navy and find where every dollar was spent.
The budget form of naval appropriations was assumed to exist in the organization of the Navy Department here outlined, and this compelled the creation of the Division of Finance.
NAVAL ADVISERS TO THE SECRETARY.
It has been stated as an invariable principle that responsibility must be individual, and that the Secretary of the Navy, being a civilian, and therefore unversed in the technical details of administration, must depend upon his advisers for such technical help as he may require to efficiently administer the naval establishment.
To satisfy this principle the one Principal Adviser must stand between the subordinate advisers and the Secretary as does the executive officer on board a warship to his captain, and be held responsible by the civilian Secretary for the preparedness of the fleet for war.
The number of advisers should be such that the various kindred subjects can be grouped together under one head. To give one adviser many dissimilar duties must lead to the neglect of some.
Kindred subjects should be grouped together under a single management, so that divisional heads of offices have charge of related matters in an ascending series of increasing complexity, with an unbroken chain of responsibility existing from the lowest to the highest official.
In Diagram 13 an attempt has been made to construct an organization for the administration of the navy, based upon principles stated in the preceding pages.
It is offered merely as a study and the opinion of the service upon it is freely invited.
It will be necessary to more exactly define the status of an adviser, an official so frequently spoken of in this paper.
The members of the Cabinet are the President's advisers. They are also executive heads of the various departments of the government. The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia states that the President "requests the opinion of his Cabinet in accordance with custom but not through any provision of the Constitution." In England, the members of the Ministry are advisers to the ruler. Yet in this case the responsibility rests with the Ministry and not with the sovereign.
As used in this paper an adviser has the full power of a manager, as understood in all business organizations. He manages a division of the Department of the Navy. The Principal Adviser is the general manager on the military side of the organization.
Advice without responsibility is one of the fundamental causes of bad business management.
Advisers must not become immersed in routine administrative duties; their principal duty should be to co-ordinate and superintend the sub-chiefs under them, and be free to consider the broad questions of policy that must continually arise among the kindred activities under their subordinates.
Related matters, it has been said, should be placed under a single head with superintendents to carry out the routine duty of the particular specialty, and these heads must have the power to control the personnel under them.
In the diagram of a proposed plan of Navy Department reorganization, an attempt has been made to give in detail each activity required to support the fleet in war. No claim is made, however, to its completeness.
Upon the administration plan to carry on a naval war should be based the details within the organization of the Navy Department to facilitate carrying out the plan.
THE DIVISION OF OPERATIONS.
This is the planning and directing division of the Navy Department.
The Naval Staff, is the consolidation of the Office of Naval Intelligence, General Board and War College.
Military inspections have been placed in the keeping of the Naval Staff. This may appear to violate the rule of inspection. The Naval Staff would seem to be inspecting its own work; initiating war training and inspecting the results of its methods. But upon reflection it will be seen that the organization could not be otherwise. If the military inspections were made independent of the Principal Naval Adviser, under the Secretary alone, no means would be furnished the military manager—the Principal Naval Adviser—of knowing the degree of success of the methods he has put in practice.
The practice of confiding military inspections as above described to the General Staff has been the rule followed by all the military nations.
Military inspections would form an independent section within the Naval Staff, and the personnel composing it should be independent of those whose duties are to initiate war training and plan for war.
To the Naval Staff the Aide for Operations, as the Principal Naval Adviser, responsible for the preparation of the fleet for war, will stand as the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy.
The other sections of the Division of Operations are executive and are charged with the direction of the fleet in- peace and its general direction in war until the commander-in-chief in immediate command of the fleet reports his mobilization or concentration completed; then their duties are to promote efficient administrative support to the fleet's operations, necessary to carry out the strategic plan of campaign.
The Division of Personnel supplies officers and men and regulates the general discipline of the naval service, etc.
The Division of Materiel provides the ships, engines and guns and makes repairs to hull, machinery and ordnance. It forms the materiel planning department, wherein the navy-yards form the workshops.
The Division of Inspections inspects the results of all naval administrative effort, making every inspection except that performed by the military inspection section under the Naval Staff.
These two "inspections" will give the Principal Naval Adviser and the Secretary information as to the state of readiness of the navy for war.
The Division of Stores and Transport furnishes transports and supply vessels, naval stores, coal, rations, uniform and clothing, and pays the personnel of the navy.
These four divisions must be subject to the control of the one Principal Naval Adviser. The remaining divisions deal with the subjects which are within the technical grasp of a civilian and in the diagram are placed under the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The Secretary, himself, must co-ordinate the work of his military and civil assistants for the efficiency of the fleet.
The Division of Civil Works includes the Bureau of Yards and Docks and administers the civilian staff of the naval establishment.
The Division of Contracts makes all contracts for purchase of material of all descriptions.
The Division of Finance controls the payments for material and labor and keeps the accounts of all divisions. It gives advice upon all financial questions. As a further proof of the necessity for the one Principal Naval Adviser, reinforced by a Naval Staff and a strong administrative organization, responsible to the Secretary and the nation for the preparedness of the fleet for war, I desire to invite the reader's attention to a paper written by Lord Charles Beresford after the mobilization of the British fleet in 1885, quoted at length in Sir John H. Briggs' work on Naval Administrations. Space does not permit me to give it here.
The more we go into the question of preparedness for war, as it is understood in this twentieth century, the more convincing becomes the requirement of a General Staff—or a Naval Staff, as it has been called in this paper.
The Naval Staff must comprise the personnel capable of preparing plans for war—the General Board and the Office of Naval Intelligence; and an institution to train officers for Naval Staff duties—the Naval War College. Yet there must be accomplished in addition to amalgamation another fundamental requirement if this new organization is to be capable of performing the functions for which it is to be created. It must be placed under the direction of the Principal Naval Adviser and in close sympathy with him; in other words, he must be the Chief of the Naval Staff. The Naval Staff will form a part of his own brain, as it were; and in this way, through him, will gain the loyal support of the naval service and the Secretary of the Navy. To switch it off into a vest pocket of departmental organization will as effectually stifle the amalgamation as have been stifled since their incipiency, the several bodies which together are capable of giving us plans for war.
DECENTRALIZATION.
Any system of reorganization for naval administration, to be effective, must carry with it the necessary decentralization of duties and responsibilities. Centralization is a peace-time growth and can last only during the continuance of peace. Upon the outbreak of war, officers will have thrust upon them grave responsibilities to accept and act upon, for which they have never been trained. Confusion, indecision and failure can be the only outcome.
In a centralized organization subordinates are denied the right to act. They may recommend only; while those higher up—the Navy Department—act in ignorance of details too numerous and varied ' for them to have an intelligent understanding. The volume of paper work is an indication of the methods of an organization; congestion of paper work indicates a centralized control without a doctrine binding together the subordinates while small paper work shows a decentralized control through subordinates bound together by doctrine.
Centralization at the Navy Department without doubt not only lessens the efficiency of the personnel of the service but also the total efficiency of the navy. The impossibility of obtaining consistent action, in conformity with the Department's policy, from commanders of fleets, captains, commanders and commandants, is said to be the reason for the ever-increasing centralization.
Whenever a fault has been committed, by a subordinate officer, the Department has immediately issued a regulation covering the incident, and the consequence is that there exists a voluminous book of regulations to guide the navy, to be strictly followed to the letter.
The British Army, before reorganization after the Boer War, suffered from a like evil.
The Lord Esher Report says:
The deleterious results of our centralized system of army control are, to destroy initiative; to bring up officers in peace time to refer everything to superior authority, to shun responsibility. The consequence is, to tie organization up in the toils of excessively complex and minute regulations, drawn up without regard to essential requirements of modern war and needing expert Interpretation.
Even though at first it is difficult to obtain consistent action from subordinates, centralization is not the remedy. The causes of inconsistency lie usually in a lack of co-ordinated military education and organization. Administrative faults are censured by the Department, but military faults are passed over unnoticed because there are none to recognize the errors. Co-ordinated organization and education are required before decentralization will show its true value in promoting the efficiency of the whole.
FLEET ORGANIZATION.
This paper is essentially a study of the principles of naval administrative organization. Yet a few words upon fleet organization, or the organization for the command of the naval forces, to invite attention to principles which influence each, cannot be resisted.
It may have been seen that many of the principles stated at length in this paper are applicable to fleet organization. Yet there many other points involved upon which up to the present time no maturely reasoned decision has been made.
Co-ordinate military education and training, doctrine, co-ordination under a Plan, scientific management, decentralization—all these are the highroads to efficiency; each must be fused into the organization of individual intelligences composing the fleet.
In any kind of fleet organization prepared, the following qualities must be carefully examined:
(a) The tactical efficiency resulting.
(b) The administrative efficiency resulting.
(c) The efficiency of the organization for training.
The organization should primarily lend itself to be tactically handled with facility in battle; secondly, be in such form as to allow efficient administration; and thirdly, be in such form as to be easily and smoothly divided for war training.
The following fundamental rules should not be violated:
1. The greatest number of battleships that can be handled by one man in battle should be the smallest tactical unit.
2. Similar types should be grouped together.
3. The peace organization must be the war organization.
Admiral Darrieus has said: "Mobilization should be permanent, a vessel in reserve cannot be created into a living thing before the end of the war." Ships are too complex. The creation of an efficient personnel, the soul of the ship, requires almost half as much time as to build the ship itself.