A STUDY OF WAR—By Admiral Sir Reginald Custance, R.N., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., C.V.O. Constable and Company, Ltd. London, Bombay, Sydney. 12s. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York. $3.50.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral C. F. Goodrich, U. S. Navy, Retired
The author of "Naval Policy,” “The 'Ship of the Line in Battle," and "War at Sea" has just given us another product of his fertile brain. It is based on profound research and the skilful use of unquestionably accurate data. The mental grasp is manifest on every page, as is the discarding of nonessentials and the going straight to the root of the problem attacked.
Sir Reginald’s conclusion, which cannot well be challenged, is that in every war, two schools of thought are found—the political and the military—which are so often in opposition as to block each other’s efforts and thus render complete success impossible. The one seeks to secure important concessions or to conquer territory, the other to defeat the enemy’s forces in the field or his fleets on the seas. The latter course is the only one which leads to enduring results. “It cannot be too often stated,” he remarks in his concluding sentence, “that the primary military aim of the navy, army and aery is to destroy or neutralize the enemy armed force in order to obtain the political object, security.”
Too often, one might almost say, invariably, war offices and admiralties put the cart before the horse, sacrificing proper use of military or naval power to what should be secondary—safety. Our Civil War, our war with Spain and our World War furnish many illuminating examples of this mistaken practice on our own part. Victory alone can effect the latter and bring about lasting peace.
To this decision, Sir Reginald is brought by his careful analysis of all the principal wars from the earliest to the latest times. His criticism of the neglect of this fundamental and dominating factor in the World War is especially worth consideration.
To enter into an elaborate review of this brief but pertinent work by an acknowledged authority would spoil the pleasure of its reading. It may be rightly held that all of our officers should study it in order to get a correct view of how our fleets should be employed. This obligation is particularly incumbent on those who, occupying important positions at Washington, may, at any moment, be called upon to aid in formulating a correct policy founded on the teachings of all naval history.
Under the modest title of A Study of War, the author has actually evolved a system of war philosophy of which we all ought to be disciples.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral W. L. Rodgers, U. S. Navy, Retired
This very interesting work points out the relation of a country’s supreme government to its combatant agencies in the prosecution of war. It is worthy of study by the general public, as well as by the navy, for its historical examples are clearly and convincingly narrated, and those familiar with the principles set forth are less likely than others to make undue and unwise demands upon the army and navy for the defense of the country.
In brief, the writer holds that any nation enters a war with some political objective in view which it proposes to attain through some appropriate line of combatant action. He asserts that there is a proper connection between the political objective and the military aim which is unvarying through the centuries and independent of the nature of weapons and of the stage of the arts and sciences. His doctrine is that the military aim should be to destroy the hostile armed forces, and that when the rulers responsible for the conduct of the war attempt, for that goal, to substitute the direct attainment of some political objective, they have no right to expect an early or successful termination of the war. To quote the author’s own words:
To ward off attack is a military aim; to make secure is a political object. The military aim, battle, and the political object, security, are confused together, with the result that the lay mind concentrates on the thing to be defended and loses sight of the enemy armed force which threatens. Hence the tendency to wait attack and to multiply defenses in every conceivable direction. It cannot be too often stated that the primary military aim of the army, navy and aery is to destroy, or to neutralize the enemy armed force in order to obtain the political object, security.
The author says in his preface that he attempts to set forth and illustrate a theory of war. For the German doctrine of the so-called “will to power,” he substitutes the British doctrine of the “will to security.” In form, the German doctrine is aggressive and the British is defensive. The latter is, the one with which we in this country more readily sympathize, for it justifies such a degree of preparation as our legislature chooses to purchase. But, as we proceed further in the book, the difference between the German “will to power” and the British “will to security” seems perhaps to be less than the author supposes. He says:
In every war, the question at issue is some real or imaginary right, varying in importance, upon which the security of each nation or its interests is thought to depend in varying degree. Hence, security may be said in general terms to be the national or political object.
So the German “will to power” seems to be that form of the “will to security” which anticipates possible quarrel by striking down a prospective contestant before the point of rivalry has clearly defined itself to the latter. Both doctrines express the instinctive selfish desires for life and liberty which are the bases of the existence of men and nations; but the German form is more odious in its aspect to on-looking third parties, while the British form is an admitted right of nations.
With much skill, the author sketches the outlines of a number of wars to show that nations with opposing policies, having committed themselves to hostilities to obtain security for threatened political objectives, have then too often allowed their military effort to be turned toward passive defense rather than toward aggressive battle.
Sir Reginald Custance goes on to amplify his doctrine, and while continuing to maintain that successful battle is the decisive act of war from which national security is derived, he admits that a contributive or secondary aim for each of the two contending hosts is to weaken the armed force of its opponent and relatively strengthen its own by operating against the material resources and morale upon which the enemy’s resistance is founded. It is here, perhaps, that ground may be found for dissent from the author’s theory of war. He states very clearly, and illustrates by many convincing examples that complete success for the political objective is not to be attained until the hostile armed forces are no longer capable of resistance: but his conclusion that battle is invariably necessary to defeat the army, he does not make entirely irrefutable.
He undoubtedly demonstrates that frequently the civil heads of government and sometimes the military commanders are too much concerned with security for political objectives and pay insufficient attention to the destruction of the hostile armed forces which menace security. In a word, military leaders should withstand the tendency of the supreme civil head to occupy the combatant forces with problems of defense rather than of attack, but, unfortunately, the former too often adopt the untechnical point of view under pressure of which only the greatest personalities are able to overcome.
On the other hand, it may be disputed whether the author’s classification of battle as the primary means of attack, and operations against resources as the secondary means, should be accepted without some qualification. As an alternative proposition it may be said that in all wars, whether private between individuals, or public between nations, there may be direct attack on the life of the opponent by bloodshed, or an indirect attack thereon by destruction of his means of livelihood. When successful, the first method is quicker than the other, but no more conclusive. An opponent may refuse battle, but a strong attack on his means of subsistence obliges him, in the end, either to accept battle or seek surrender.
When the author takes up the role of navies in war, he dwells particularly on the propriety and advantage of battle to destroy the hostile naval forces in order to command the sea as the reward of victory. It appears to this reviewer that although the author's conclusions are sound, the steps by which he arrives at them are not altogether sequent, and that he assimilates too much the specific missions of armies and of navies. The results of all wars bear their fruits on the land where men live and whence they derive their sustenance. The object of war is, therefore, the control of territory and the subjugation of the in-dwelling population to the will of the victor. At the close of the war, the terms of peace usually arrange the conditions upon which the free will or sovereignty of the defeated nation is restored to it. The occupation of land and the economic control of its population is then the ultimate military aim. This end can be reached by driving back the defending army, either by battle, or by cutting it off from its material and moral resources and supports which are the bases of its active opposition. The German Army in the late war seems to have suffered more from the shortage of the material recources behind it and from loss of aggressive spirit by the people at home than from the formal ability to keep the field. The German Army retreated before the tactical blows of the Allied field armies because the economic attack by the Allied fleets on the German resources was effective. In this case, the military aim, occupation of the Rhine Valley, was accomplished unopposed after the Armistice by success in the economic strife, which was as bitter as that on the fields of Flanders.
It seems incorrect, therefore, to adjudge battle the sole and supreme arbiter of war, for it was not so in the last war. It is the preservation of the aggressive spirit and of the attacking initiative which brings success. However, it cannot be denied that the attack on resources usually forces the enemy to battle, which, if conclusive, forbids further resistance and is the final act of the contest.
It is then passive defense which usually fails a nation, and as Admiral Custance points out with much felicity, it is the untechnical attempt to retain security without aggressive efforts which is too often responsible for miscarriage in war.1
In discussing naval operations it will be seen that their effect on the outcome of the war is different from that of armies. The sea is not the abode of man but merely his highway. The supreme object of naval exertion, therefore, is always the indirect form of attack through stopping the enemy’s transportation and thereby cutting off his resources. With justice, Admiral Custance condemns the defensive naval attitude, concerned only in safeguarding one’s own ocean traffic, and he says truly that successful fleet action is the most certain way of protecting one’s own resources and reducing those of the enemy, but if he means, as apparently he does, that fleet battle is the final aim of naval warfare, his view may properly be contested. The final end of naval warfare is control of seaborne commerce in favor of oneself and in restraint of the enemy. On this point Admiral Custance disputes certain of Mahan’s dicta, but in reading the quotations, it appears to this reviewer that he finds unnecessary fault with Mahan. The latter’s views are not really divergent from those of the former.
1The report of the General Board of the Navy to the Secretary under date of January 17, 1925, and published by H. R. Naval Committee (No. 69) deals with this subject and the employment of navies and is worth comparing with the book here under review.
At the close of the chapter on Strategy, pp. 106-108, the author offers the conceptions of several writers as to the duties of navies in war and then summarizes his whole doctrine as follows:
The military aim is (1) To destroy or neutralize the enemy’s armed forces and thus to protect our own seaborne trade, military transports and supply ships, and (2) To stop enemy seaborne trade, military transports and supply ships.
The whole tendency of the book is to set forth Clausewitz’ dogma that aggression wins and that passive defense as a permanent policy gets nothing; but what the author formally states is that battle is the chief or principal form of contest and that war against resources is secondary.
An interpolation upon the general lines of the book is the chapter on Navy, Army and Aery, which is of present interest here in the United States on account of the current controversy as to the status of the air service and offers a British opinion as to the best organization. The writer holds that:
The separate Air Ministry was created during the war without any regard to the military relations between the navy, army and aery, which were not then understood. Its creation was brought about chiefly by temporary difficulties of supply, which are not matters to govern the organization of an armed force. That Ministry controlled a small independent air force, but acted mainly as a supply department to the navy and army, who used the air force to reinforce their own efforts by sea and land.
It seems to be generally held in England that the entrenched strength of vested interests in the Air Service is the chief obstacle to placing the control of the administration of the combatant branches of the English Air Service entirely in the hands of the Admiralty and War Office, respectively.
It would be a great misfortune if Congress should be misled by the romance of the air to imitate the British mistake.2
This work of Admiral Custance is one whose every part well repays close study by army and navy as well as by civilians interested in problems of government. It is to be hoped that the Navy Department may provide ships’ libraries with copies.
2See above mentioned report of General Board on this point, also.
INTERACTION BETWEEN VESSELS, By R. B. Bodilly, Commander, R. N., BARRISTER at LAW. D. Van Nostrand Co., London and New York. 1924. 132 pages. $3.50.
Reviewed by Rear Admiral D. W. Taylor (CC), U. S. Navy, Ret.
This work comprises 132 pages divided into seven chapters and fifteen figures. The author is both a naval officer and a lawyer—not a usual combination—and his work is largely from the point of view of the lawyer, though it deals with the physical, not the legal, aspects of collisions. About fifty pages are devoted to the Olympic-Hawke collision as brought out in court in 1911. This was the first case before a British court where “suction,” as it is commonly called in the United States, was claimed and the judge having decided that an irresistible hydraulic interaction was present the author naturally devotes much space to the theories and evidence of the various experts and others who testified. In United States courts suction is a much older story. Collisions in the shallow, narrow and crowded channels of our Great Lakes seem to have resulted in a number of important cases in court where suction was claimed by one side or the other.
To the naval officer this book presents a sound theory and description of the phenomena of suction which are of professional interest and value. The mathematical minded might complain that it is frequently attempted to convey by words ideas more simply and adequately expressed by mathematical methods. The practical minded might complain that the author does not specify definitely with metes and bounds the danger area. This, however, is impossible in the present state of knowledge. Too many factors are involved and at present it is necessary to deal qualitatively rather than quantitatively with them. This the author has done in an adequate manner, dealing specifically and in some detail with the four natural classes of cases: namely, vessels meeting and passing in open deep water and in shallow narrow waters.
His three safety rules may be expressed as follows: go slowly; use helm cautiously; keep away the length of the largest vessel when passing. These are sound but the latter cannot always be followed in confined waters.
In his laudable attempt to avoid mathematics the author, while by no means ignoring it, has not laid as much stress as he might upon the basic physical fact to which suction is due. Some hundreds of years ago Bernouilli developed his theorem that in a steady stream of varying area, and hence velocity, the higher the velocity the lower the pressure and vice versa. Thus, in a level pipe of gently varying section flowing full the pressure is least at the smallest section where the velocity is greatest. This does not seem altogether natural but is a fact that has been demonstrated repeatedly by experiment since Bernouilli’s time.
Applied to two ships abreast and close to each other, the channel, if it may be so called, between them is restricted, the water that must flow aft flows faster between them than on the free sides and there is reduction of pressure which, on a given ship, may be concentrated forward or aft according to her relative angle and hence suction may tend to sheer bow or stern in, for comparatively small initial departure from the parallel position. Collisions caused by suction are not due to the bodily pull but to the sometimes violent sheer caused by pull concentrated forward or aft. While Bernouilli’s Theorem is not often demonstrated by collisions of vessels there are plenty of practical illustrations of it.
A recent one is the Flettner sail—a large cylinder something like an exaggerated revolving smokestack—which acts effectively to draw its ships ahead. Roughly, its action is as follows. Suppose the wind is on the starboard beam. The cylinder is revolved counter clockwise looking down on it. This causes the air to divide unequally, more air passing forward of the cylinder than astern of it. The excess air forward must move faster past the cylinder than the air astern. There is a corresponding reduction of pressure forward or a suction drawing the ship ahead.
The curve of a baseball is due to precisely the same action. A baseball pitched with a twist or spin will always curve “following its nose.” Suppose, for instance, that looking down upon it from above the pitcher the twist is about a vertical axis and clockwise. The nose is moving to the right. That causes more air to pass to the right and the baseball curves bodily to the right—an in-curve for a right-handed batsman.
It would seem that “interaction between vessels” is one subject which officers responsible for handling vessels should not learn by practical experience. A little learning thus attained is liable to be a very dangerous thing. Commander Bodilly’s work must be studied to be understood, but careful study may enable its student to avoid some painful, practical experience.
JANE’S FIGHTING SHIPS, 1924. Edited by Oscar Parks, O.B.E., M.B., Ch.B., and Francis E. McMurtrie, A.I.N.A. Published by Sampson Low, Marston and Company, Ltd., London. 424 pages. $12.60.
Jane’s Fighting Ships, 1924, is the latest edition of this excellent publication, which for so many years has been so important a work of reference on the navies of the world. This, the twenty-seventh annual issue, is fully up to the standard of its predecessors, and, like the issue immediately preceding, was gotten out under the joint editorship of Dr. Oscar Parkes and Francis E. McMurtrie.
No radical changes, either in form or arrangement of material, are observable. The present edition is somewhat larger than that of 1923, due in part to new material, including some excellent photographs, and in part to the reinstatement by request of the particulars of Japanese and American harbors, docks and shipbuilding resources, which have been omitted in recent years. The number of ships deleted, either through obsolescence or as a result of the Limitation of Armament Treaty, is necessarily small. The treatment of aircraft carriers has been extended, and in all types of war craft numerous blank spaces have been filled and data heretofore missing have been supplied.
Much interest will attach to the new plans for the 10,000-ton cruisers. Those listed in the present volume are as follows:
British. County class, five ships (no details given).
Japanese. Nachi class, four ships. Twelve 8-inch, 50 caliber guns; 12 tubes; 33.5 knots; radius at 15 knots, 14,000 miles; triple hull; vertical and deck protection over boiler and machinery spaces; carries four sea-planes.
Italian. Trento class, four ships. Eight 8-inch 50 caliber guns; 4 tubes; 34 knots; will carry two scouting sea-planes, equipped for bombing.
French. Tourville class, six ships. Eight 8-inch guns; 6 tubes; 33 knots; radius at 15 knots, 4,500 miles; carries four scouting sea-planes and launching catapults.
Upon these designs the editors of Jane comment as follows:
Amongst the new plans which have not been published previously are those of the new French and Italian 10,000-ton cruisers. It will be seen that the latter mount eight 8-inch guns, and not ten, as has been generally stated, and that in general the two designs present characteristics which in all probability will be common to the British and U. S. A. designs. Tentative designs for the U. S. cruisers showed an armament for twelve 8-inch guns in triple mountings, with corresponding sacrifices elsewhere and a very similar design is reported to have been adopted by Japan, but as it is generally conceded that Italian designers can get as much, or more, out of a ton of displacement than can anyone else, it is possible that too great sacrifices have been in structural strength, fuel and ammunition supply, or other qualities which can be compromised.
Altogether the 1924 Jane reflects much credit upon the editors and publishers. It will be a welcome addition to every naval library.
H. G. S. W.
ROLL AND GO. Songs of American Sailormen. Compiled by Joanna C. Colcord with an Introduction by Lincoln Colcord. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. 130 pages. $5.00.
“In the old days when American sailing ships still ploughed the seas,” says the compiler, “it was the custom of their sailors to enliven both their work and their leisure time with song. . . . These songs of the sea have in every line of their verses and every bar of their music the distinctive flavor of seafaring. . . . Practically all of the shanties to follow in this book (all sung on board ship as late as the ’90’s in some form) can be traced in their origins farther back than 1850.” Roll and Go is a compilation of these “shanties,” or “chanties” of the sea—an almost forgotten relic of the days when the Yankee clipper ship, unmatched in speed or beauty, was the envy and admiration of all who sailed the seas.
The origin of the word '‘shanty” or “chantey” is obscure, both forms being authorized. Whether from the French “chanter” as some maintain, or named after the waterfront “shanties” whence came many of those who originated the songs, it has been adopted in the language of the sea. The compiler throughout sticks to the form “shanty,” not because she prefers it, but that landsmen may not mispronounce the word, thereby sending “a shudder down every seaman’s spine.”
As different types of shanties were suited to different occupations, so the compiler has chosen to classify them along those lines, both words and music being given.
The following are the groups used:
- Short-Drag Shanties.
- Halyard Shanties.
- Windlass or Capstan Shanties.
- Forecastle Songs.
There are perhaps eighty in all. Among the collection will be found such well-known favorites as “High Barbaree,” “Blow a Man Down” (three versions), “Early in the Morning” and “Captain Kidd,” besides many others whose words and whose tunes have long since been forgotten save by a few. The comments on the individual shanties have been arranged in the form of a running text, which is not only readable but entertaining. The book is attractively gotten up, the illustrations being largely reproductions of paintings and engravings of famous old American clippers.
It is well that such a compilation should be made before it is too late, and fortunate that the task could be undertaken by one who has a background of the sea. Descended from five generations of deep water seamen, born at sea in the cabin of a sailing ship, and having spent most of her girlhood, up to the age of eighteen, at sea, on voyages to and from the China coast, on a sailing vessel of which her father was master, the compiler has brought to the task an experience such as few can equal. It is obvious to the reader that the task has been a labor of love.
H. G. S. W.
COMBUSTION IN THE POWER PLANT—By Thomas A. Marsh, M.E. Van Nostrand Company, New York, 1924. Price $2.00.
The scientific burning of coal is practiced by combustion engineers but Mr. Marsh prefers to call them “coal-burners.” This is proper because it addresses the subject to a larger following and at the same time places responsibility upon many of the employees of the power plant, as their common problem is that of low ultimate cost of production.
The book begins with a short historical sketch followed by a classification of the coals in accordance with their geological origin and then by provinces in the United States. This is, unfortunately, followed at this place by a detailed discussion of the coal market, by states. The coal-burner may find it difficult to wade through all of this section without losing interest. I believe it would have been better if the author had taken up some general cases and then referred to the accumulated data at the end of the book.
After he has discussed the United States and the foreign coals, the author lists items influencing selection of coal under the following headings:
- Ability to carry the plant load.
- Reliability of supply.
- Mine equipment.
- Mine preparation.
- Ability of producer to give uniform quality.
- Transportation facilities.
- Adaptability to stoking equipment.
- Service (engineering assistance from coal company).
- Storage properties of coal.
- Boiler capacity obtainable.
- Maintenance costs of furnaces and stokers.
- Fusion temperature of the ash.
- Labor of firing.
- Responsiveness to meet sudden load demands.
- Smokelessness.
- Cost of ash removal.
- Sulphur content.
The relative importance of each item is well brought out.
An unusual treatment of the subject of combustion is given with the omission of the usual chemical equations, so meaningless to the layman.
Proper emphasis of the importance of operation has been made with the use of numerical illustrations. The author states, also, that the physical condition of the plant is a leading factor. He suggests methods for successful operation and gives a motto of “clean and tight.”
Although the book is primarily for shore coal-burners, seagoing coal-burners will find much of interest in the book—not the least of which will be Table XIV in which are tabulated the causes and remedies for various trouble investigations.
C. P. B.
LES'FLOTTES DE COMBAT, 1925; one volume in 16, oblong, limp cloth binding. Société d'Editions Geographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 17, rue Jacob, Paris, France. 25 francs.
The publication of Les Flottes de Combat, by Commandant de Balincourt, which was interrupted in 1917, has been continued again for 1925 by the assistance of the general staff of the French Navy.
This book is the French counterpart of Jane’s Fighting Ships. An agreeable feature is the use of drawings in two colors, in which a steel blue tint is used to show the armored or protective portions of ships’ hulls instead of the usual hatching. The work is very well gotten up in a handy form and at a reasonable price.
Those who knew the earlier editions of this work will welcome its reappearance.