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Bible Encyclopedias
Admiralty Administration (Addition)
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or ]ADMIRALTY ADMINISTRATION (I.195). - The history of the British Admiralty during the World War of 1914-8 is the history of the evolution of the naval staff and of a great expansion of the technical and administrative departments. All departments expanded during the war, but the evolution of the naval staff was more than mere expansion, for it represented the adoption of definite principles of staff work which were intended to prevent those responsible for the conduct of naval operations being crushed under a load of administrative business.
This was, indeed, no new trouble. It had been experienced ashore and afloat in peace and war. Kempenfelt and Tryon had commented strongly on it. "We are every day," wrote the former to Middleton in 1770, "plagued and puzzled with minutiae from morning to night whilst essentials are neglected." "It cannot be right," wrote Tryon in 1890, "that the Commander-in-Chief should find himself devoting his time to coaling and watering, provisioning, storing and repairing." They were seeking after a solution of the difficulty which lay in a clear distinction between fighting and supply, between the use of the weapon, and its supply and maintenance in an efficient state. This principle had been introduced into the British army by Lord Haldane, and is equally applicable to naval work. It is a principle vital to war, for on the outbreak of war the whole rhythm of work changes. Work expands tenfold in extent and an hundredfold in urgency, and without some clear distinction of this sort it is impossible to give to the conduct of operations the attention it deserves.
The principle was not to be found in the British Admiralty at the beginning of the war. The First Sea Lord was just as interested in the design of ships as in operations, and the War Staff lacked some of the most important elements of staff work. The important distinction between fighting and supply was not to be found; the Chief of the War Staff had no seat on the Board, and the methods of conducting the work of a large staff had not been studied. Up to 1909 the Intelligence Department had to some extent filled the place of a staff. It had gradually grown from the Foreign Intelligence Branch or Committee instituted in 1883, and had developed into the Naval Intelligence Department, consisting of four divisions - foreign, trade, mobilization and war - of which the two latter were evidently tentative efforts towards an Operations Division. In Sept. 1909 it split into two separate departments, intelligence and mobilization, of which the latter was clearly the beginning of an Operations Division, but was killed by its name, for it soon became immersed in the task of manning and mobilization, which belongs wholly to the sphere of supply. The Intelligence Department sank more and more into the position of a mere handmaid for the collection of data and translations from the foreign press. Its development was hampered by the intense suspicion with which most flag officers regarded anything that seemed to trespass on their prerogative of command. The idea of a staff was held in great disfavour. The word was anathema at the Admiralty and not allowed to be used in War College publications, and it is no secret that the most distinguished flag officers were opposed to the institution of a staff in 1912.
The naval staff really dates from the Memorandum of Jan. 1912 issued by Mr. Churchill, after the breakdown of the old system at the Agadir crisis, but it had not had sufficient time to develop before the World War broke on it and broke it up. It consisted of three small divisions - operations, intelligence and mobilization. Its deficiencies may be briefly summarized: Firstly, the Chief of the War Staff was not a member of the Board, and could not act with Board authority; his function was merely advisory. Secondly, there was a great insufficiency of trained staff officers, and the War Staff proved quite inadequate in numbers and training to deal with the business of war. Thirdly, the principles of staff work had not been studied, and the vital distinction between fighting and supply was not to be found. Fourthly, the system found little support either at Whitehall or in the fleet at sea. There was no clear conception of conducting the work of a staff, or of grafting it on to the business system of the Admiralty. On the first day of war a number of sections were bundled into one big room in order to be as close as possible to one another to the serious dislocation of their work. The Operations Division was divided on the basis of types of ships rather than of areas. It soon became absorbed in current work, and had no time for the examination of large plans, which might require three months' work merely to reduce to terms of time and supply. The enormous importance to a staff of an operations chart clearly and continuously visualizing the situation was not appreciated. An operations chart was started, but gradually over-centralization and the obsession of secrecy came down on it like a thick fog and turned it into a fiasco. The movements of transports were kept a profound secret, and news of them was withheld. Secret telegrams (pink telegrams) were started about Nov. 1914 but were not passed to the War Room to be plotted on the chart, which degenerated into a paltry record of reports of mines sighted round the coast. Up to 1917 there was no chart to which a staff officer could go and see at a glance the actual situation at the moment in any and every area.
The work which ought to have been done by the staff was done by a small group of two or three flag officers acting in an advisory capacity to the Board, and the system seemed to be designed for the special purpose of making it as difficult as possible to obtain information. The Intelligence Division was expanding and developing under Capt. (later Adml. Sir) William R. Hall, but its sections had to fight hard to obtain information as to British movements. The flag officers worked for the Board, not for the staff, and no one quite knew what they did or where they did it.
Let us consider the constitution of the Admiralty Board when the war broke out. Under a patent of Dec. I 1913 it consisted of the First Lord, Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill (since Oct. 24 1911), Adml. Prince Louis of Battenberg (1st S.L., since Dec. 9 1912), Vice-Adml. Sir Frederick Hamilton (2nd S.L.), who had succeeded Vice-Adml. Sir John Jellicoe (July 30 1914), Rear-Adml. Archibald G. H. Moore (3rd S.L., since May 29 1912), Capt. Cecil F. Lambert (4th S.L., since Dec. I 1913), Mr. George Lambert, M.P. (Civil Lord, since Dec. 21 1905), Sir Francis J. S. Hopwood (Parliamentary and Financial Secretary since Jan. 18 1912, later created Lord Southborough), with Sir Graham Greene as Permanent Secretary. Its business was governed by an Order in Council of Aug. 10 1904, which made the First Lord responsible to His Majesty and Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty, and from time to time with his sanction various memoranda were issued regulating the distribution of business. The distribution of business had remained materially the same for many years, though the memorandum actually in force at the outbreak of war was dated Jan. 1914.
The First Sea Lord was responsible for advising on preparations for war, for the fighting and sea-going efficiency of the fleet, and for the superintendence of the War Staff. The 2nd Sea Lord was responsible for personnel; the 3rd Sea Lord for materials; the 4th Sea Lord for transport and stores, full and half pay, salvage and collisions. No one was specially responsible for the conduct of all operations of war, and though this presumably rested with the Chief of the War Staff he was not a member of the Board, and at least two flag officers senior to him were acting in an advisory capacity to the Board. The First Sea Lord was responsible for the "fighting efficiency of the fleet," a phrase covering an immense technical scope and opening out an endless vista of all sorts of considerations. It is interesting to observe that the distinction between fighting and supply, which lies at the basis of modern staff organization, existed in a simpler form in the organization of Henry VIII., which continued in force in the British navy down to 1832. In this organization the Lord High Admiral or Commissioners of the Admiralty exercised the function of general control and was responsible for the conduct of a war, while the actual supply services were performed by four principal officers, namely, the Treasurer, Comptroller, Surveyor and Clerk of the Acts, responsible respectively for finance, supervision of accounts, building and upkeep of ships, and record of business. These officials came to be known as the Navy Board, and the organization of the Admiralty from 1546 to 1832 was roughly as follows: Lord High Admiral or Commissioners for executing his office Appointments Supply Policy Operations of and Officers Navy Board Movements Pay, Stores (other than Ordnance and Victualling) Manning, Shipbuilding, Dockyards Here the work of supply is kept distinct from the business of fighting, and it was under this dual organization, in which the Navy Board was responsible for the multifarious requirements of war, that the earlier wars were fought.
Unfortunately, the supply system was often bad and in sufficient and corrupt, though its defects were due just as much to limitations of the time as to the system. The work was not closely coordinated, with the result that Sir James Graham in 1832 merged the functions of the Navy Board and the Admiralty, an amalgamation which was regarded as a master stroke at the time and had distinct advantages, but unfortunately neglected to retain the principle of distinction between the Admiralty and supply, with the result that it was not the Admiralty that swallowed the Navy Board but the Navy Board that swallowed the Admiralty. The general constitution of the Board, though it varied from time to time, may be represented as follows: - Board of Admiralty First Lord 2nd Sea 3rd Sea 4th Sea Civil Lord: Lord: Lord: Lord: Personnel Material Transport Works and Stores Permanent Secretary Financial Secretary Note. - According to the Order in Council of Aug. 1904 the First Lord is practically supreme as being responsible to the King and Parliament, but according to the terms of the Patent "two or any more of you" can exercise the office.
In 1860 commenced that, vast multiplication and development of technical crafts and branches which began with the steam engine (the last sailing ship of the time, the Ganges, was paid off in 1861), and exercised an enormous influence on the navy and naval thought. The result in conjunction with Sir James Graham's amalgamation was inevitable. Between 1860 and 1900 the study of strategy and of staff work, which is the business side of war, was practically ignored. All the talent and brains of the navy flowed to the great technical schools. The whole trend of thought for forty years was exclusively technical. It was supposed that war and the conduct of war was quite a simple matter for any flag officer and needed no study. This simple creed received a rude shock at the time of the Agadir crisis when the Admiralty plans for war were torn to shreds by the General Staff. A War Staff was then instituted. But the War Staff had hardly been weaned and had not yet found its First Sea Lord: Preparation for war, fighting efficiency Victualling Board Sick and Hurt Board feet when the World War broke out. It laboured under a further handicap: practically all senior officers were opposed to it. They were wedded to centralization. Centralization had become engrained in their bones from boyhood, and their whole outlook was necessarily opposed to a staff. The deficiencies of the system could be seen in the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign. It is clear that there was no machinery for the intensive investigation of a big strategical question. The First Lord was impressed with an exaggerated estimate of the Queen Elizabeth's guns, and the War Staff could neither supply a sufficiently trenchant criticism of the project nor could they grip the problem and transform it into a workable proposition by segregating a force and training it as the Zeebrugge force was afterwards trained.
Enough has been said to show that the war staff lacked the staff spirit, and a knowledge of the principles of staff organization and of the conduct of staff work. One bright spot, however, shone in it. While the operations side became more and more narrowly centralized, the intelligence side, under Sir William Hall, summoned a vast reserve of civilian talent to its aid. Very early in the war a system of special intelligence based on wireless directionals had begun to develop, and though cramped and restricted by the obsession of secrecy had proved of great value. In Dec. 1916, when Adml. Sir John Jellicoe came to the Admiralty, he instituted an anti-submarine division, which was no more than a belated plans division directed to a special purpose, but it was not till 1917 that the staff was thoroughly reorganized and really began to function as a staff. In Dec. 1916 it was organized as follows: Chief of War Staff Operations Intelligence Signal Section Mobilization Division Apr. 1916 Trade Division Anti-submarine Aug. 23 1914 Division Dec. 1916 Sir Eric Geddes gave an immense impetus to the system, which was forced upon the Government by the exigencies of war, and in its main outlines was merely the system of Moltke, Lord Haldane, and every modern army, adapted to naval needs. These can be briefly summarized as follows. The work of a staff follows three lines of practical cleavage: (a) operations (or direction), ( b ) administration, and (c) technical. Operations (or direction) enshrines the main purpose of a business; administration is responsible for its maintenance and equipment in an efficient state; technical control deals with the scientific aspect of applied sciences associated with the business. Finance and the Secretariat interpenetrate the whole. Operations (or direction) is the premier function, and splits into two main divisions, operations (minor) and intelligence. It is the special task of operations to appreciate the situation continuously, to assist the Command in the consideration 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 is its business to visualize the situation continuously on an operations chart and to furnish all branches and technical services with timely information of all requirements. The function of intelligence is to collect, sift and distribute information of the enemy, and by the cumulative intelligence arising out of its work to help operations to appreciate the situation. Administration and technical comprise all the great services of supply and technical work, including personnel, pay, victualling, stores, transport, and the crafts of hydrography and surveying, navigation, marine engineering, naval construction, gunnery, torpedoes, mine-laying, mine-sweeping and signals. Each service is responsible for its internal efficiency, and the Chief of the Staff is responsible for the coordination of all, while to assist him in this a training and staff division is required which acts as the trustee of staff principle and organization and is also responsible for staff training, principles of training, staff history and manuals of war. No one of the three great branches is more important than another. Like the brain, heart and lungs, all are complementary to each other. If there are no ships there can be no operations; if the operations are badly conducted, the best ships will be useless; a new technical invention may revolutionize operations, and the whole service must rest on a basis of good discipline and sound financial administration.
The first step towards these principles was really taken in May 1917, when the term "War Staff" was altered to "Naval Staff" and the office of Chief of the Naval Staff was merged in the First Sea Lord (Admiral Jellicoe), while a Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff (Vice-Admiral Oliver) and an Assistant Chief (Rear-Admiral Duff) were appointed with seats on the Board. This gave the naval staff direct representation on the Board, and the presence of three members ensured the necessary authority to carry through any operation of war. The D.C.N.S. directed all operations and movements of the fleet, while the A.C.N.S. was responsible for mercantile movements and anti-submarine operations.
The office of Controller was revived, and Sir Eric Geddes appointed to fill it, with the rank of Honorary Vice-Admiral, all questions of supply being thus practically merged in his hands; but he had barely filled the office two months when he took Sir Edward Carson's place as First Lord July 20 1917. On Sept. 6 1917 a Deputy First Sea Lord, Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, was added to the Board to control operations abroad and questions of foreign policy. Sir Oswyn Murray too had succeeded Sir Graham Greene as Permanent Secretary in Aug. 1917.
In Oct. 1917 the development of the staff was carried one step further by the formation on Oct. 19 of two Committees of the Board - the Operations Committee and the Maintenance Committee. The First Lord was chairman of both, and the former consisted of the First Sea Lord and C.N.S., the Deputy 1 st S.L., D.C.N.S., A.C.N.S., and 5th Sea Lord. The latter consisted of the Deputy 1st S.L. (representing the operations committee), 2nd S.L. (personnel), 3rd S.L. (material), 4th S.L. (transport and stores), Civil Lord, Controller and Financial Secretary.
The direction of operations was finally handed over to the C.N.S. by an order in Council of Oct. 1917, under which he became responsible for the issue of orders affecting war operations to the fleet. It empowered such orders to be issued in his own name as C.N.S., and not as previously by the secretary in the name of the Board.
These measures were accompanied by the institution of further divisions of the staff, including a plans division, and by Oct. 1917 the Board and naval staff had assumed the following form: - Board of Admiralty 1st L.
(Deputy 1st S.L.) 2nd S.L. 3rd S.L.
4th S.L. Civil L.
1 ist S.L. D.C.N.S. A.C.N.S. 5th S.L. Deputy 1st S.L.
| Duff) | 1 D.C.N.S. (Acting V.A. Oliver) | A.C.N.S. (R.A. | Operations | Plans | Anti-Submarine | Mine-Sweeping | (R.A. Hope) | Oct. 8 1917 | Dec. 16 1916 (Capt. | May 23 1917 (Capt. | Signals (R.A. Roger Keyes) | W. W. Fisher) | Lionel Preston) | Aug. 18 1917 (Comm. R. L. | Trade | (Capt. | Mercantile Movements | Nicholson) | Alan G. Hothan) | Oct. 1 1917 (Capt. | Fred Whitehead) |
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Controller Part. and Finance Secretary Maintenance Committee Operations Committee Permanent Secretary C.N.S. and 1st S.L. (Adml. Jellicoe) Intelligence (R.A. Wm. Hall) One of the most important divisions of the naval staff was the mercantile movements division, which had been started as a convoy section, under the management of Paymaster Capt.
H. W. Manisty. It was here in May 1917 that an operations chart came into use for the direction of convoys, on which the movements of submarines derived from wireless directionals and other reports were plotted, day and night. Operations divisions, troubled like Martha over many things, had never been able to deal in big plans, and this work was undertaken by the plans division which drew up plans for the mining of the Bight, the Great Northern Barrage (in conjunction with the U.S. navy), the Dover Barrage, the Otranto Barrage and numerous smaller operations.
The ease with which the distinction between operations and administration can be applied is illustrated in the submarine and auxiliary patrol services. In both these services the administrative work (such as regulations, conditions of entry, stores, personnel) was dealt with by a centre which had very little or nothing whatever to do with operations (Commodore (S) in the one case and the Auxiliary Patrol Office in the other), and the system worked very successfully from first to last. The reorganization of staff work was not limited to the Admiralty. It extended to every command, and in April 1918 the First Lord and Rear-Adml. Sir W. R. Hall proceeded to Malta and made arrangements for the entire reorganization of the C.-in-C.'s staff, leading to a great reduction in shipping losses in the Mediterranean.
With the advent of peace the naval staff was greatly reduced, and some divisions naturally disappeared. A change of some importance has taken place in the function of the A.C.N.S., who has become responsible for all staff questions relating to technical branches and crafts such as gunnery, torpedoes and mining. Gunnery and torpedo divisions have been introduced into the staff to deal with questions of the tactical use of these weapons and the training of personnel. The plea for this lies in the close connexion between the use of the weapon and operations. There can be no doubt that training and the tactical aspects of weapons constitute a sphere common to the naval staff, the great technical departments and the fleet, but though they certainly require to be in close touch with the naval staff it still remains a moot point whether all technical crafts with the training that belongs to them should not be segregated from the naval staff.
The distribution of the naval staff in 1921 was as follows: - nal organization and general direction of the work of the naval staff and cooperation of the naval staff with the material side of the Admiralty.
D.C.N.S. - Operations and movements, naval intelligence, strategy, policy and plans. Sea-borne trade and international law.
A.C.N.S. - Methods of fighting at sea. Design in relation to policy and tactics. Staff questions of research. Air development in relation to naval warfare.
Little has been said here of the civil side of the Admiralty because it runs through and interpenetrates every branch. The more essentially civilian branches, such as naval stores and victualling, were among the most efficient of the war. There is sometimes a tendency to talk of the Admiralty as a place where, through civilian agency, the best naval plans "gang aft agley." This is a complete fallacy. Admirals have played a great part in the Admiralty and in its history, past and present, and cannot dissociate themselves from its work. If the Admiralty in the war made mistakes, the navy and its admirals must share the blame, and in the final victory a portion of the laurels belong to the Admiralty and the civil servants of the King.
The strength of the naval staff divisions and departments in the British Admiralty is shown, as for the crucial dates under the war reorganization, in the table on p. li p. (A. C. D).
United States. - After 1909 various measures providing for a reorganization of the U.S. Navy Department were brought forward, but for several years Congress failed to take any action, though certain proposals, notably the recommendations of the board appointed by President Taft in 1909, were strongly urged. The organization of the Department as then constituted had been the subject of criticism by a number of secretaries of the navy as well as by others; the chief defect was the lack of some agency to perform the functions of a general staff in the conduct of naval operations. It is true that since 1900 the secretary had had the deliberations and reports of the general board to guide him, but this board had no executive powers, and in the last analysis the responsibility for coordinating the activities of some eight different bureaus rested solely on the secretary of the navy. In default of legislation, Secretary Meyer made an effort in 1913 to remedy this condition by the issuance of regulations providing for the appointment of an aid for operations, an aid for personnel, an aid for material, and an aid for inspections, who were to be officers of the navy on the active list not below the grade of captain and who were to constitute an advisory council charged with the duty of 1st S.L. and C.N.S.
D.C.N.S.
A.C.N.S.
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