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October 30 - November 5, 2017
History, Andrew Gordon maintains, offers us not so much ‘lessons’ but rather ‘approximate precedents
Heavy armour would be mere deadweight burden: all future capital ships, it seemed, would be “eggshells armed with hammers” (to borrow a later description of battlecruisers) whether they had armour or not.
they were
The amiable and mild-mannered son of a Welsh landowner, he was descended on his mother’s side from the Richard Pearson who is remembered by the Americans for surrendering HMS Serapis to John Paul Jones after a bloody fight at Flamborough Head in 1779, and who was honoured by George III for keeping Jones’s squadron busy while the convoy he was escorting dispersed
His paternal
certainly not raise the speed by even half a knot.34 In this
their way
fishing
time they returned to Warspite they had a new shipmate: Midshipman Richard Fairthorne, transferred from the
Many notorious military blunders have been set up by poor personal relationships (if not wilful taciturnity) between key participants, the need for whose informal collaboration seems, in retrospect, to have been blindingly obvious.
dealt with in due course) makes the ‘wide’ allegation that “
Horns
The Arthurian ‘Band of Brothers’ theme, which Nelson borrowed from Shakespeare’s Henry V, referred originally to the ‘crocodiles’ of the Nile campaign, and gives a misleadingly select impression of the men who ultimately enjoyed his confidence. In 1805 Lord Barham “handed [him] a Navy List and invited him to choose his own officers. Nelson handed it back. ‘Choose yourself, my Lord. The same spirit actuates the whole profession. You cannot choose wrong.’”6 But he, above all, made clear, through meeting and talking and infusing, what he expected of his juniors in terms of their own pro-active
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In the generations following Trafalgar, the attention of popular mythology was captured by the aura which Nelson cast over his fleet and over his countrymen. Thus was obscured the fact that his most essential contribution to British naval mastery was as a trainer of Collingwoods, Blackwoods and Hardys: his greatest gift of leadership was to raise his juniors above the need of supervision.
‘holystone’ the decks on hands and knees with blocks of sandstone.
sub-divisions,
Signal Books.
Milne and his carefully tended herbaceous border of royalty.
take
The one lesson to be learned is the necessity for every officer to cultivate belief in his own judgment, so as not to be afraid of acting correctly when the day of trial comes. This incident has provided the Navy with a lesson of the duty owed by juniors towards senior officers that it is well for officers to ponder over and digest. 105
General-at-Sea George Monck,
Professor Arthur Davis’s proposition that “the effectiveness of military leaders tends to vary inversely with their exposure to a routinized military career”,
Maurice Janowitz’s that the most decisive officers are “characterized by pronounced unconventionality in their career lines”,85
Thomas Dunckerley,
“the essence of war is VIOLENCE; moderation in war is IMBECILITY!!”
“ANY DAMN FOOL can obey orders!!”,
The second half of Victoria’s reign had been the glorious age of the genteman amateur. Professionally qualified technicians were few, and the esteem in which they were held was tempered by the stigma of ‘trade’. Every branch of science was still (considered to be) within the grasp of ordinarily educated men – unlike today, when most people are reconciled to huge areas of non-comprehension. Dilettantism and trial-and-error were the vehicles of progress.
Most ‘experts’ seek to hold society hostage in a trap of technicalities and jargon, and then proffer the key in exchange for status and respect (one has only to think of lawyers). That way prosperity lies, at least for them.
the middle ground of strategic insight, exploitation of enemy weaknesses, calculated risk-taking, common sense, flexibility, and occasional bluff – which professional war-fighters should inhabit. The self-advertised ‘historical school’ of the Edwardian Navy partly comprised officers who merely sought to dignify their discomfiture at technical change.34 But there are footprints in the sand.
other than a set ritual, which, while not without value, certainly did little to prepare us for our wartime activities. The point to be made, and the lesson to be learned, is that, because of this lack of adequate preparation for our senior officers, we lost a large number of ships and men that under different circumstances might have made all the difference
were delighted: “Jellicoe has fallen,” Richmond wrote. “One obstacle to a successful war is now out of the way.”127
