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hour came in 1911. The secret safe was opened and found to contain a military campaign of which General Staff had never heard. According to com report it included a landing on the Frisian Islands long, low sandy group of islands fringing the Gern coast. The General Staff protested against it as conceivable. What was the army going to do wher had landed on the Frisian Islands? Their argume were irrefutable, and the broken shards of the p drifted away, carrying much wreckage with them. new Board was then created and a War Staff institut Unfortunately it had no commanding intellect like L Haldane's to watch over its cradle. Mr Wins Churchill supplied enthusiasm and energy, but he never made a deep study of staff organisation, and task was a difficult one. In spite of difficulties, howev he accomplished a great deal, and established the beg nings of a staff system. The term 'Staff' was introduc and a Chief of the War Staff was appointed to co-ordin the work of the three divisions of Intelligence, Operatio and Mobilisation, which were usually as intent on war with one another as with the enemy. A syst of training staff officers and a Staff Course were ins tuted, and had been in existence for two years when war broke out; but the number of trained Staff offic were still insufficient, and this insufficiency was most acutely in the Admiralty. All the compet officers were snowed under with work. There was little time for the present, less for the future, and no for the past.

From the very first day of the war the War St proved entirely insufficient in numbers to cope with t work to be done. The method of conducting the busin had not been studied. On the first day of war a numb of sections were bundled into a large room called t War Room, with the idea that they should be as close possible to one another. The scene there, according a trustworthy report from an eyewitness, may be co pared with the state of things in the Grand Quartier Metz in 1870, as described by General Fay:

'Never shall I forget the disorder and confusion whi reigned in that room, its doors constantly opening to gi passage to our chief, and strangers seeking the most fut

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formation. Orders and counter-orders literally collided with one another; the smallest telegraph despatch gave rise to feverish excitement entirely incompatible with that absolute calm which is one of the first essentials of a good staff.' Admiralty experience and Mr Winston Churchill came to the rescue, and the War Registry was evolved. But there was still no division charged with the preparation and investigation of large plans. The Operations Division dealt with current work, but it was not possible for a Division loaded with the actual conduct of current operations to spend more than a very limited proportion of its time in the preparation and examination of schemes which might require three months' work to reduce merely to terms of time and supply. Committees are inefficient instruments for the purpose, for they rarely possess the capital of experience and information which a permanent Division accumulates.* Again, plans for the future must be kept in close touch with the present on to which they must be grafted; and those working at them must be in close touch with the Operations Division of the Staff.t

The result was painfully evident in the first year of the war, when the pressure of work in the Operations Division did not permit of an intensive investigation of big strategical questions lying beyond the horizon of immediate current work. The Dardanelles operations afford a conspicuous example of the possibility that, in an imperfect staff system, an energetic mind will override staff opinion, and of the inability of a 'division' absorbed in current work to cope with big questions requiring an immediate and decisive answer. Here an immense strategical effort was set on foot, based on a purely hypothetical and vastly exaggerated estimate of the bombarding capabilities of the Queen Elizabeth's' guns, an estimate unsupported by a single naval artillerist of repute. With no Plans Division to check it, the effort gathered way till it covered half the strategical

A committee, if it fulfils a necessary and permanent function, tends to become a 'division,' as in the case of the Foreign Intelligence Committee of 1883, which became the Intelligence Department, and the Signal Committee of 1912, which became the Signal Section and later the Signal Division.

Compare Lord Jellicoe's 'Crisis of the Naval War,' p. 16.

horizon and vied in importance with the Grand B itself.

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In 1916, when the menace of unrestricted subma warfare hung darkly over our naval position, I Jellicoe came to the Admiralty. He diagnosed corre the deficiencies of the staff system then in force; the changes made by him in 1917 were of primary portance. First of all, the office of Chief of the N Staff was merged with that of First Sea Lord. was apparently a very simple measure, but it was of great import, for it not only gave the Naval Sta definite position on the Board but attached it to principal naval member. The addition of a Deputy C and an Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, with seats the Board, meant a great acceleration of business, they could act with Board authority and were able relieve the C.N.S. of an immense amount of wo The Anti-Submarine Division, instituted under Re Admiral A. L. Duff, was generically merely a bela Plans Division directed towards a special objecti Under Rear-Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall Intelligence Division greatly extended its activities; & its chief did much to introduce closer co-operation w the other divisions of the Staff.

It is important to remember that this system w introduced by Lord Jellicoe during war and was for on us by the exigencies of war. It was not a questi of this or that theory but a question of urgent press necessity and of minutes loaded with fate. There wa time in 1917 when one could almost see the sands r ning out, and could only hope that the moment of fi exhaustion would never arrive. It never did. sands ran out for Germany while we still had so grains in hand; and one of the factors which contribu to this result was the development of the staff syst which took place both at the Admiralty and in t commands at sea between 1916 and 1918. Let endeavour to formulate briefly in a general form principles of the system adopted in 1917, which was its main outline that of Moltke and Lord Halda adapted to naval needs.

*The term 'Naval Staff' was substituted for the term 'War Staff.' † See Lord Jellicoe's 'Crisis of the Naval War,' cap. i.

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The principal aspects of the command fall under three categories-Operations, Administration, and Technical,corresponding to three lines of practical cleavage. The first enshrines the main purpose and policy of a business; the second is responsible for its maintenance and equipment in an efficient state; the third deals with the scientific aspect of various applied sciences associated with it. Operations' is the premier function; and its special task is to appreciate the situation continuously, to assist the Command in the consideration and definition of requirements and with the preparation and conduct of operations, and to convert the intentions, policy, and decisions of the Command into orders and instructions. It has further to keep a record of the positions, strength, and movements of its own forces, to visualise the situation clearly for all other divisions of the Staff on charts of the situation,† and to furnish timely information of all requirements to the administrative services.

The principal divisions of a Naval Staff are Plans, Operations, Intelligence, and the Staff Secretariat. The Trade Division, which deals with the question of maritime trade and acts as a link between the Admiralty and Mercantile Marine, is generically an aspect of Operations. The same may be said of the Mercantile Movements Division (now extinct), which dealt with the important task of controlling all movements of convoys and sea-borne trade. The Anti-Submarine Division (now also extinct) belonged generically to the Plans aspect of 'Operations.' The function of the Intelligence Division is implied in its name. Its business is to collect, sift, and distribute information as to the position, movements, and strength of the enemy, and to assist 'Operations' and 'Plans' to appreciate the situation. All information in the Operations Division ought to be

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The Secretariat and Financial aspects are omitted as being essentials of every organisation. In a big business or industry, operations become financial, for the main purpose is usually to supply some commodity with a certain degree of profit.

Until the Anti-Submarine Division was created, there was no operations chart in which a staff officer could see, clearly visualised, the positions of enemy submarines so far as they were known. Such charts had been started at the beginning of the war, but 'pink' (i.e. secret) telegrams were not allowed to be inserted on them-a defect which rendered the charts worse than useless, for practically all information of importance was 'pink.'

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open to it, but it ought to abstain religiously fro any attempt to conduct operations or to frame plan Any tendency to do so means a drift towards a amalgamation of the three functions, which must be kep distinct in any large business if they are to be properl performed. Any tendency towards fusion inevitabl means confusion, for each sphere of work requires a organisation and environment of its own.

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'Administration' and Technical' connote all th great services of maintenance and supply; and it is thei business to ensure that personnel and matériel are read and fit to perform the work required of them by th Command. These include Personnel, Fuel, Victualling and Stores. Personnel includes a number of importan headings such as entry, recruitment, training, discipline pay, pensions, leave, recreation, welfare, victualling, and clothing. It should also include a permanent and independent Court of Investigation for all complaints and an investigatory section to deal with questions of welfare. The principal technical services are hydro graphy, navigation, engineering, naval construction gunnery, torpedoes,† electricity, signals, and wireless.

It is a principle of staff work that each service is responsible for its own internal efficiency and methods of business; and the Chief of the Staff is responsible only for the general co-ordination of them all. All these phases of work offer ample field for energy and talent. Even in the Administrative branches, which are generally regarded as less interesting, there is wide scope for study in principles of discipline, improvements in recreation and welfare, systems of accountancy, canteen management, and the conditions of naval pay and service. No one branch is to be regarded as more important than another; like the brain, heart, and lungs, they cannot be compared in terms of importance, for each of the three is complementary to the other two. If there are

* This was one of the deficiencies of staff work at the Admiralty during the latter part of the war. Operations did not always keep Intelligence acquainted with its plans and movements.

This includes electrical work, which might well be attached to engi neering. Seamanship might be added, but it is rather an application of other applied sciences to their use at sea. Medicine is a technical service attached to personnel.

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