NELSON, AND OTHER NAVAL STUDIES.*
• THITASFIELD'S new volume will be welcomed by all serious
students of naval affairs. It resumes and systematises the teaching on Great Britain's naval problems which for a great many years he has been expounding in the fleeting columns of a daily paper, or in the scarcely more lasting pages of our multitudinous magazines, and allows us to see the principles and reasons of his naval faith. His authority to speak is unquestionable. It is true, as he more than once notes with becoming modesty, he is not a trained sailor ; but his scholarly study of naval history, and his long practical experience in following manceuvres and the developments of naval malgriel and strategy, make him a peculiarly sane and illuminating writer on naval problems. It is, for example, especially useful in a discussion on the order of attack at Trafalgar for a writer to be able to draw on his own experience as an eyewitness at manceuvres as a touchstone of the value of contemporary evidence in the way Mr. Thursfield is able to do. Many other such personal touches in this book show the author's intimate acquaintance with the actual working of a fleet and his com- merce with naval officers, which enable him to speak with a rare sureness of touch on the past and present problems of naval strategy.
What, then, is the naval faith which we can gather from this volume F In seeking it, it would be a mistake to look solely to the preface and the four essays specifically concerned with modern questions, for although the four essays on Nelson and those on Duncan and Paul Jones deal with a period of sailing-ships now gone for ever, the fundamental principles enunciated by the author remain the same throughout. Broadly speaking, the great truth which Mr. Thursfield has to tell his countrymen is that the only conceivable policy for any naval operations which this country may have to under- take, whether to resist invasion or to protect our commerce, is to seek out the enemy's fleet and destroy it at the earliest possible moment, and even at the cost of losing the fleet which attempts that operation. This may seem a truism, as it is to all who have studied history, but it is a truism con- stantly forgotten by those who would divert the attention of the nation from the one necessity of having a commanding fleet. Invasion of these islands, as he points out, would no doubt be physically practicable even if our fleets were not destroyed, just as Napoleon's invasion of Egypt was practicable in similar circumstances; but it would be just as ineffective as Napoleon's experiment for exactly the Barns reasons. If, however, our fleets were destroyed, he illustrates by the happy analogy of the siege of Paris that it would probably
• Nelson. and °Mar Naval Stadia. By Isms B. Thuraflold, M.A. London; John Murray. [lb. nat.] be at least as efficient a method of crushing Great Britain to invest these islands by a maritime blockade as to reduce them by invasion. Again, as he illustrates by Nelson's wars, by the American War of Independence, the Japanese War, and recent manoeuvres of our own Fleet, although in the early stages of a war our commerce might to some extent suffer from the enemy's cruisers, that danger would very soon pass if we once mastered the enemy's fleet, as we must do at any cost to preserve our national existence. From these principles Mr. Thursfield in his highly important essay on "The Strategy of Position" gives the most lucid and the most able defence that we have yet seen of the recent changes in the disposition of our Fleet. It is, indeed, hardly necessary for us to state that we have not been able in all respects to see eye to eye with the present Board of Admiralty in their naval policy ; but at any rate we have always felt that in grasping the essential principles of naval defence, and in boldly discarding antiquated dispositions in view of the altered state of naval preparations abroad, they have done work of enduring benefit. To have the Fleet always ready to pounce on an enemy's fleet as soon as war is declared, and destroy or blockade it at once, instead of leaving our ships dissipated in small detachments, useless against any foe, is the idea, so admirably and clearly explained by Mr. Thurafield, which underlies recent changes. We are still, of course, a maritime nation, but it is doubtful whether we think as much about the sea or understand the Navy as well as we did in former centuries of our history. This is partly perhaps due to the more complicated mechanism of our ships and their methods of propulsion, partly also to the fact that for a century we have not been engaged in any naval war. But whatever the cause may be, it is essential for the well-being of the Navy itself that the people of this country should fully understand the broad principles governing its use. For this purpose Mr. Thursfield has done us a great service by so clearly explaining the continuity of history and showing the deep-laid foundations of the best naval strategy.
Apart from this, there is much to praise in this volume. We do not feel qualified to discuss some of the deeply con- troversial questions which Mr. Thursfield introduces into his essays on Nelson, as to the exact bearing of the Nelson memorandum, as to whether it was actually followed at Trafalgar, and as to the order of battle. We should be sorry to differ from so accomplished a scholar on the subject; but even if his views are not altogether borne out by the facts, his statement of the problems in themselves is valuable in calling renewed attention to our most winning national hero, and we confess that we naturally sympathise with Mr. Thursfield's attitude in ranking himself "on the side of the angels." If, as we believe, Mr. Thursfield is right in his enthusiastic judgment of Nelson's greatness, that alone would be a very potent argument for his contention that greatness is to be found in the crowning action of his career, and not inconsiderate rashness or pettiness. The only previously unpublished essay in the volume, on Paul Jones, is particu- larly interesting for Mr. Thursfield's discovery of an account of this naval commander by Disraeli. It also gives a reasoned and very persuasive defence of Paul Jones against the usual belief that he was a mere roystering buccaneer. Certainly the paper quoted by Mr. Thursfield giving Paul Jones's scheme for the education of naval officers at West Point is in itself almost sufficient proof that such a belief is unwarranted. Again, we are constantly finding pregnant remarks on warfare, which lead to disquieting and salutary revisions of commonplace opinions. Most people, for example, have a vague idea that modern battleships are in every way more effective than the old sailing-ships; but, as Mr. Thu rsfield points out when discussing the 'Alabama' and commerce destroyers, the dependence on coal only for progression has very much limited the range of fighting-ships, and a sea- Power without frequent coaling-stations all over the globe is far more restricted in its action than in the past. The same is also true of land forces, a point not forgotten by the author in illustrating one of his arguments from Caesar's campaigns. The chief fault that we have to find with this volume is that it shows some signs of its journalistic origin, notably in a habit of repeating the same phrases, or even the same arguments. This is often necessary in journalism to keep the careless and discursive reader to the matter in hand. In a more deliberate volume of the high level attained in this one it should not be so necessary, and is annoying.
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