TOPICS OF THE DAY.
1.11E1 RISK OF INVASION.
IN a peculiar and unexpected form the Admiralty has issued its opinions on the risk of invasion, and it is obvious that no statement more important in itself, or more likely to have a wide influence on the manner in which Englishmen apply themselves to problems of national defence, has been issued since Mr. Balfour's famous dictum in 1905. In that year Mr. Balfour laughed away the risk of invasion. Such a thing, he said, was practically impossible. The result of this assurance, which was very far, to our thinking, beyond all possible justification, was most unfortunate, and was traceable for a long time in the bearing of the youth of the nation towards the duties of guarding the country from attack. " If there is no risk of invasion," it was said, " why should we worry ? There is admittedly no urgent call upon us to qualify ourselves for foreign service. If it were shown that our homes were in any danger, that would no doubt be a different matter, and we might feel bound to do what we could to fit ourselves to defend them. But it seems that there is no risk of invasion whatever. So we are absolved from responsibility." To encourage men to speak to themselves like that is to unman the nation. In war it is generally the unexpected which happens. Strategists even when they are making out a case for their own schemes of defence do not in the last resort dismiss from their minds the possibility of surprise, yet it is only natural that they should appear to have shut out the possibility of it by their forethought. A strategist who did. not believe in his plans would be a bad person indeed to trust. Yet history teaches us that there is no certainty in war—that no plan can be implicitly trusted—and it should be the part of the nation to have enough sense to insist that small as well as great risks should be excluded. That being so, we fear that unless it is read in the proper spirit the opinion of the Admiralty on the risk of invasion may do a good deal of harm.
The opinion appears in the shape of a short appendix to the second edition of Sir Ian Hamilton's book on " Com- pulsory Service." We reviewed that book fully not long ago, and need not restate our reasons for dissenting from its conclusions. Mr. Haldane associated. himself with it by writing an introduction. No harm perhaps was done by the Minister for War in co-operating with an ex-Adjutant- General in an unofficial essay; but there is distinctly some- thing to be said against the First Sea Lord using the same unofficial means of expression for a highly official opinion. The notes by Sir Arthur Wilson were provided originally for the use of the War Office in a debate which was to have taken place last November in the House of Lords. We assume that they now appear with the sanction of Mr. Haldane. It is one thing for a Depart- ment to use notes drawn up for its guidance in debate; quite another to publish unofficially, but verbatim, the judgments of its expert advisers. Expert opinion is not a card to be laid on the table. Nor do we think it wise for Cabinet Ministers, outside Parliamentary Papers or state- ments, to hawk about, as it were, the opinions of their expert advisers in support of their own views. No one who has any knowledge at all of Sir Arthur Wilson's character and career will doubt the absolute sincerity of the conclusions he has expressed ; but it would be easy for a weak man to " write to order " if he understood that the Secretary of State (who is, after all, his employer) desired to further a particular doctrine. The expert would be in the position of the agent who said to the Parliamentary candidate: "Tell me what you want to prove and I will supply the statistics." Briefly summarised, Sir Arthur Wilson's conclusions are these. The real danger is not invasion, but the interruption or destruction of our trade; the fleet sufficient to prevent the latter is almost necessarily sufficient to prevent the former; a fleet of transports carrying an army of invaders could not escape detection owing to its conspicuousness and to wireless telegraphy ; even if, " by some extraordinary lucky chance," the transports reached our shores, they would be attacked and sunk by submarines, and if the submarines failed there would still be destroyers to tackle them. The notes end with these words ;—
"Is it possible to entice part of our fleet away by any stratagem? Possibly. But even if he succeeds in drawing off half our fleet, the other half, in conjunction with destroyers and submarines, would be quite sufficient to sink the greater part of his transports, even if supported by the strongest fleet he could collect. The fleets would engage each other while the destroyers and sub- marines torpedoed the transports. Finally, even if he reached the coast in safety, he would see that it was quite impossible to guard his transports against the attacks of submarines while ho was landing the troops: and that it was quite certain that a superior force would be brought to attack him before the landing could be completed. Taking all these facts into consideration, he would probably decide as the Admiralty have done, that an invasion on even the moderate scale of 70,000 mon is practically impossible."
Thus the view of the Admiralty is that the pronouncement of Mr. Balfour in 1905 may safely be repeated ; and for our part we can only repeat that the effect is likely to be the same. How does Mr. Haldane expect to fill the ranks of the Territorials if the country is informed that the risk of invasion is a myth ?
We do not of course venture to dispute with Sir Arthur. Wilson on purely technical matters, but it is legitimate to point out that he assumes that our Navy will not suffer a loss of the command of the sea. Even a temporary loss of the command of the sea, however—a loss lasting only a few hours—would be enough for an invading army safely to cross the North Sea or the English Channel. The history of war furnishes examples of expeditionary forces having been landed while the enemy retained possession of the sea ; but these were exceptions, and we want only to consider ordinary risks. Normally an invader would not attempt a raid unless he had defeated such of our ships as were within immediate call. Let us consider only that one possibility. Is there any proof that such a defeat—be it only a partial or temporary defeat—is out of the question ? The Military Correspondent of the Times, expressing his own opinions on Wednesday out of the mouth of an imaginary German critic, says that naval forces more than thirty-six hours distant from the selected point of the landing of invaders would have nothing to say to the success or failure of the attempt. If this be so, the preponderance of the British Navy over the German Navy has obviously not much relation to the problem of comparatively small and rapid raids. Again, it is asked why it should be assumed that wireless telegraphy will reveal to the British Navy the position of the enemy's transports, but that the information of the enemy will be ".vague and unreliable." Has Great Britain a monopoly in wireless telegraphy ? But we need not continue to ask questions, though many occur to us. The point which ought to be made perfectly clear is this. If the Navy alone is to secure us absolutely against invasion, it is essential that its power should be beyond all shadow of suspicion or reproach. By some irony or perversity which we do not profess to understand, certain Radical news- papers have used the Admiralty notes as an argument for reducing our shipbuilding programme. That would be folly in any case ; it is madness if the Admiralty view of the risk of invasion is to control our policy. But we hold that, however strong our Navy aught be, some small risk of invasion would be ineradicable. We can meet that risk with complete confidence—a confidence, be it remembered, which would have a reciprocal effect on the spirit and freedom of action of the Navy—only by the military training of the whole manhood of the nation. When we contemplate the moral as well as the military advantages of such a brief and easy training as is recommended by the National Service League, and the insurance of the nation which it would provide in a cheap form, we confess that the present preference for accepting risks—small, perhaps, but still risks—seems to us almost unintelligible.
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