resulted from these reticences and contradictions. Naval writers in America were naturally enough amazed by the statement attributed to Admiral Beatty in the telegraphic report, for, if the presence of submarines could stop pursuit, could not submarines drive the British Fleet off the sea? These authors naturally expressed extreme astonishment that an admiral capable of breaking off action in these conditions, and publicly acknowledging so egregious a blunder, was not at once brought to court-martial. No one in his senses could have supposed that Sir David Beatty, who261 dealt with submarines without the least concern in the affair of Heligoland and earlier in the day on January 28, could possibly have accepted the dictum that the presence of a German submarine would justify pursuit having been broken off engineering innovation.
It was then quite evident that the quotation from the Vice-Admiral’s telegraphic report could not have represented the Vice-Admiral’s opinion on a point of warlike doctrine. What the actual facts of the case were, we do not to this day know. Rear-Admiral Moore did not continue long in Sir David Beatty’s squadron after this, but there was no court-martial nor any public expression of the Admiralty’s opinion by way of approval or disapproval of his proceedings. In a speech made a month after the action in the House of Commons, Mr. Churchill passed over the fact that the action had not been fought out, as if such a thing was of no exceptional importance or interest whatever. Soon afterward it became known that the Rear-Admiral in question had got another and very important command elsewhere, so that it became plain that his conduct had not met with their Lordships’ reprobationdermes.
War in modern conditions undoubtedly makes it exceedingly important to keep the enemy as far as possible in ignorance of a great many things. It imposes too a continuous strain upon practically the whole personnel of the Navy, and these two things taken together have been quoted to explain why the old rule of holding a public court-martial on the captain of every ship that was lost, or on every individual officer whose action in battle gave rise to uncertainty or question, has virtually been abrogated. But it is doubtful whether the Navy has not lost more by the abandonment of this wholesome practice than the enemy could have gained by its Spartan application.
262 This point came in for a good deal of public discussion at the beginning of 1915, and I venture to quote a contribution to it. Looking back upon this controversy, it is easy enough to see now wherein lay the chief disadvantage of the suppression of courts-martial. There was no general staff at the Admiralty, representative of the best Service opinion, and, deprived of court-martial, the Navy had no means of expressing a corporate judgment on the vital issues as they arose. The doctrine with regard to torpedo risk, which seems to have been acted on at the close of this action, was evidently one which either the Admiralty had laid down, or at least accepted as correct. Could it have been referred to the corporate judgment of the Service and had that judgment not endorsed it, the history of the war might have been altogether different Neo skin lab.
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