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turn his attention to the comprehensive treatment of ' operations of war' on broader lines than those adopted by Sir Edward Hamley in his standard work of that name, or by Clausewitz in the notes On War' which were published by his widow, and never revised by himself. Both these works dealt almost exclusively with armies. In Whitehall we now have a section of the Committee of Imperial Defence charged with co-ordinating the work of the writers of 'official' records of naval, military, and of air force operations. In the academic world, we can note a new development at Oxford, where the scope of the work of the occupant of the Chichele Professorship of Military History has recently been widened in order to cover both sea and land operations.

As examples of the modern tendency * to pay attention to the influence of naval and military operations upon each other, we can quote Captain Sheppard's recent summary of the achievements of the British army, which brings out clearly the potency of armies based upon sea power, and used in close conjunction therewith, and Prof. Callender's 'Naval Side of British History,' which treats of naval achievements, together with their influence upon those of the British army, and upon British history in general. Both of these are short histories, published at prices suiting the general reader, and both are of value to teachers and to students of elementary British history, either in outline, or intensively by periods. Both accentuate, as their outstanding lesson, the difficulty experienced by civilian statesmen in making the best use of the navies and armies over which they exercise control, and here we can trace some of the reasons for this difficulty. One of these is easy to discover. It lies in the reluctance displayed in this country, both by those who conduct education and by those who submit themselves to their guidance, to study the nature and the conduct of warfare. Maybe there has been a reaction from what has been called the Kings, battles, and dates' method of teaching history, against which strong objections have been raised. We find this reaction voiced in the preface to Green's History of the English People' in this passage:

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* A similar attitude was adopted in 'Conjunct Expeditions,' a book published in 1759.

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'It is a reproach of historians that they have too often turned history into a mere history of the butchery of men by their fellow-men. But war plays a small part in the real story of the European nations, and in that of England its part is smaller than in any. The only war which profoundly affected English society and English government is the hundred years' war with France (1336 to 1451).'

In the year immediately preceding the last Great War,' an international historical congress was held in London. Sir Charles Oman then took occasion to quote the above passage to the delegates at that congress. He expressed his opinion that a general knowledge of military history was as important as that of social, economic, and political history, and he attributed the depreciation of this form of history to a tendency to regard history as being purely evolutionary and not cataclysmic (like war), and to ignore the influence exercised upon events by individuals and by personalities.* Another clue to the depreciation of war history may be found in the quotation from the writings of Prof. A. F. Pollard, which I have placed at the beginning of this article. Naval and military history are certainly, from the point of view of the non-technical teacher or student, two aspects of the same subject, especially for those who wish to study the history of war from a British standpoint. An eminent military historian, the late Colonel Henderson, wrote early in the present century † that there was no standard work on war in the English language. He explained his meaning by adding that there was no volume of permanent value 'which deals with the organisation, maintenance, and employment of armies from the point of view of the statesman and citizen.' Here, again, we find preponderance given to the purely military aspect of war. The need for study from a wider point of view is, however, illustrated in a succeeding passage:

'History, as taught in the present day, includes an immense variety of subjects, but there is one subject which it has sedulously shunned, and that subject is the defence of empires. Hardly any well-known political writer, except

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Cambridge Naval and Military Essays, 1914.

† Encyclopædia Britannica,' 1902. Article on 'War.'

Spenser Wilkinson, appears to have the least inkling that such knowledge should be part of the intellectual equipment of every educated man, and no great teaching body has yet endeavoured to supply the deficiency.'

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Sir Ernest Swinton, who has succeeded Prof. Spenser Wilkinson at Oxford in the Chichele chair of military history (now placed on a wider basis), took note in his Finaugural lecture of the above extracts, and of the apathy towards war subjects, attributing it, in the present day, to 'reaction, disappointment, disgust born of first-hand experience,' and to other causes. Some small modicum of attention has been devoted of late to the same question in educational journals, from one of I which I take the following: t

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In some text-books, no doubt, war has occupied a disproportionate space, but such exaggeration is not the special danger of the moment. What is to be feared is rather that teachers will drive war so much in the background that young people will fail to realise through what struggles and strivings, at the cost of what blood and tears, humanity has got so far on its journey, and that, if we lay excessive emphasis on the increasing will to peace of the civilised world, they may think that the world will never have to face blood and tears again.'

It will be seen from the above that the ignorance displayed by British statesmen in directing the operations of the sea and land forces under their control can be attributed to several causes, amongst which we I must include, in normal times, the apathy of teachers, research workers, and students, and the lack of standard historical writings, also, at the present moment, to a reluctance, resulting from satiety, to face the realities of war conditions. Reluctance due to this cause will doubtless pass away, but there will remain the ignorance and the apathy which are still due, in part, to the paucity of literature, including books suited to the earlier stages of historical study. For such purposes short histories of war operations, treated with intelligence and knowledge of the nature and limitations of fighting forces,

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'The Study of War.' Clarendon Press, 1926.

Journal of Education.' Article by G. F. Bridge (March 1926).

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are of considerable value. Captain Sheppard's story of the army's achievements, and Prof. Callender's of those of the navy, both come within this category. General Callwell's Effect of Maritime Command upon Land Campaigns since Waterloo' is of similar value to British students of 19th-century campaigns, treated more intensively than they can be by outlines covering longer periods.*

Let us take a definite example of the value of such writings. From the point of view of the civilian, who is supreme in 'democratic' countries over the national armaments, and responsible for co-ordinating their operations to the best effect, the subject of past warfare is not lacking in fascination. Take, for instance, the problem of establishing sea power through the medium of a great sea fight Such decisive battles are rare. They can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand, the reason being that the weaker side usually endeavours to avoid decisive action. This lesson, taught by history, had been forgotten both by our leaders and by the nation when the war broke out with Germany in 1914, and ignorance of precedents was accentuated in the ephemeral journalistic comments which followed the battle of Jutland in 1916. There appeared to be a widespread belief that naval warfare consisted of a succession of battles as decisive as Trafalgar, and here it is interesting to study the reason why Villeneuve, with a fleet numerically stronger but weaker in moral, put to sea from Cadiz to meet his fate at the hands of Nelson. Sir Julian Corbett, in his Campaign of Trafalgar,' furnishes convincing evidence that Villeneuve did so under direct orders from Napoleon, and that those orders had their origin in Napoleon's view of the menace offered to his military plans by Craig's expeditionary force, destined for the Mediterranean. On this point Prof. Callender writes that Nelson had resort to every conceivable device for coaxing Villeneuve into the open, but it is doubtful whether the combined fleet would ever have stirred if it had not been for the Emperor's express injunction.' No special mention is made of Craig, but the

The writer's 'Letters on Amphibious Wars' and 'Sea, Land, and Air Strategy' (John Murray) were written with the same purpose in view.

point is added that Napoleon was well advanced in his war with Austria, and required his own fleet's co-operation in the Mediterranean. Captain Sheppard, on the other hand, does mention Craig :—

'A force of 7000 under Craig was sent to South Italy to cooperate with a Russian force and the Neapolitan army, with the ultimate purpose of assisting the Austrians in their struggle with the French in Northern Italy. Here, again, the same fiasco was repeated; the Allies took up a position on the northern frontier of Naples, where they remained until Austria was defeated and compelled to sue for terms.

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It would seem, then, that an oversea military expedition, although unsuccessful in its main military mission, led to an event of supreme importance at sea, the battle of Trafalgar. Numerous similar examples could be furnished of the interest added to the study of war history if naval and military operations were considered, not in isolation, but in their relationship to each other. The influence of armies upon sea warfare was not confined to Trafalgar. It is to be found in nearly every subsequent sea war. The decision of Cervera in 1898 to leave the harbour of Santiago in Cuba can be traced directly to the effect produced by Shafter's expeditionary force and its advance towards that place; and the Japanese army, both against the Chinese in 1894-95 and against the Russians in 1904-5, shared, equally with the fleet, in the destruction of hostile sea forces.

Passing from the influence of armies upon sea warfare to the influence of navies upon military operations, we again find that examples of the value of co-ordinating naval and military history are abundant. In that connexion it is necessary to emphasise the need for all students of military operations to be equipped with a working knowledge of the conditions affecting the movement of armies in different circumstances; more especially of their dependence, varying with the resources of the country passed over, upon 'lines of communication.' Sir Edward Hamley* rightly emphasised the

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Operations of War.' Seventh Edition, p. 44 (Blackwood).

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