The Crisis of the Naval War in WW1. John Rushworth Jellicoe
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tided us over a period of much difficulty and made provision for many months ahead. Sir Cecil Burney, by reason of his intimate knowledge of the personnel—the result of years of command afloat—was able to settle also many problems relating to personnel which had been the cause of dissatisfaction in the past.
Sir Edward Carson, on leaving the Admiralty, was succeeded by Sir Eric Geddes as First Lord. Sir Eric had been brought into the Admiralty in May, 1917, in circumstances which I will describe later. [1] One of his first steps as First Lord which affected Admiralty organization was the appointment of a Deputy First Sea Lord. This appointment was frankly made more as a matter of expediency than because any real need had been shown for the creation of such an office. It is unnecessary here to enter into the circumstances which led to the appointment to which I saw objections, owing to the difficulty of fitting into the organization an officer bearing the title of Deputy First Sea Lord.
Vice-Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss—who had come to England for the purpose of conferring with the Admiralty before taking up the post of British Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean—was selected by the First Lord as Deputy First Sea Lord.
Shortly after assuming office as First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes expressed a wish for a further consideration of the question of Admiralty organization. To this end he appointed a joint War Office and Admiralty Committee to compare the two organizations.
Having received the report of the Committee, the First Lord and I both formulated ideas for further reorganization. My proposals, so far as they concerned the Naval Staff, were conceived on the general lines of an extension of the organization already adopted since my arrival at the Admiralty, but I also stated that the time had arrived when the whole Admiralty organization should be divided more distinctly into two sides, viz., the Operational side and the Materiél or Administrative side, and indicated that the arrangement existing in the time of the old Navy Board might be largely followed, in order that questions of Operations and Materiél should be quite clearly separated. This, indeed, was the principle of the Staff organization which I had adopted in the Grand Fleet, and I was anxious to extend it to the Admiralty.
This principle was accepted—although the term "Navy Board" was not reinstituted—the Admiralty Board being divided into two Committees, one for Operations and one for Materiél, the whole Board meeting at least once a week, as required, to discuss important questions affecting both sides. Whilst it was necessary that the Maintenance Committee should be kept acquainted with the requirements in the shape of material needed for operations in which the Fleet was engaged—and to the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff was assigned this particular liaison duty—I was not in favour of discussing questions affecting ordinary operations with the whole Board, since, in addition to the delay thereby involved, members of the Maintenance Committee could not keep in sufficiently intimate touch with such matters, and opinions might be formed and conclusions expressed on an incomplete knowledge of facts. Questions of broad policy or of proposed major operations were, of course, in a different category, and the above objections did not apply.
The further alterations in Naval Staff organization were not adopted without considerable discussion and some difference of opinion as to detail, particularly on the subject of the organization of the Operations Division of the Naval Staff, which I considered should embrace the Plans Division as a sub-section in order to avoid overlapping and delay. In my view it was undesirable for a body of officers not working under the authority of those in close touch with the daily operations of the Fleet to put forward plans for operations which necessarily involved the use of the same vessels and material, as such a procedure must inevitably lead to impracticable suggestions and consequent waste of time; the system which I favoured was that in use in the Army, where the Operations Section of the Staff dealt also with the working out of plans.
The Admiralty Staff organization necessarily differed somewhat from that at the War Office, because during the war the Admiralty in a sense combined, so far as Naval operations were concerned, the functions both of the War Office and of General Headquarters in France. This was due primarily to the fact that intelligence was necessarily centred at the Admiralty, and, secondly, because the Admiralty acted in a sense as Commander-in-Chief of all the forces working in the vicinity of the British Isles. It was not possible for the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet to assume this function, since he could not be provided with the necessary knowledge without great delay being caused, and, further, when he was at sea the other commands would be without a head. The Admiralty therefore necessarily assumed the duty, whilst supplying each command with all the information required for operations. The general lines of the Staff organizations at the War Office and at General Headquarters in France are here given for the sake of comparison with the Naval Staff organization.
1.—The British War Office.
The approximate organization is shown as concisely as possible in the following diagram:
CHIEF OF IMPERIAL GENERAL STAFF
Director of Staff Duties.
Staff duties Organization and training.
War Organization of forces.
General questions of training.
Signals and communications.
Director of Military Operations.
Operations on all fronts.
Director of Military Intelligence.
Intelligence.
Espionage.
The Press.
The other important departments of the War Office on the administration side are those of the Adjutant-General and the Quartermaster-General, the former dealing with all questions relating to the personnel of the Army under the various headings of organization, mobilization, pay and discipline, and the latter with all questions of supply and transport.
A Deputy Chief of the Imperial General Staff was attached to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. His main duty was to act as a liaison between the General Staff and the administrative departments of the War Office.
The whole organization of the British War Office is, of course, under the direction and control of the Secretary of State for War.
2.—The Staff Organization at General Headquarters in France.
FIELD MARSHAL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. Chief of the General Staff G.S. (a) (Operations) Plans and Execution Intelligence. G.S. (b) (Staff Duties) War Organizations and Establishments Liason between G.S. (a) and Administrative Services. Adjutant General (Personnel, Discipline, etc.) Quartermaster General (Transport and Supply, etc.) ATTACHED TO GENERAL HEADQUARTERS. (BUT NOT STAFF OFFICERS.) | ---------------------------------------------------- | | | Artillery Adviser Engineer-in-Chief. Inspector of (Advises Chief of Advises as in case of Training. General Stall on Artillery. Artillery matters and operations). | Advises Administrative Departments as necessary. N.B.—The Inspector of Training works in consultation with the Chief of the General Staff.
It will be seen that whilst at the War Office the liaison between the General Staff and the administrative side was maintained by a Deputy Chief of the General Staff, in the organization in the field the same function was performed by the Staff Officer known as G.S. (b).
It will also be seen that neither at General Headquarters nor in the case of an Army command does the Chief of the General Staff exercise control over the administrative side.
After some discussion the Admiralty organizations shown in the Tables A and B on page 20 (below) were adopted, and I guarded as far as possible against the objection to keeping the Plans Division separate from the Operations Division by the issue of detailed orders as to the conduct of the business of the Staff, in which directions were given that the Director of the Plans Division should be in close touch with the Director of the Operations Division before submitting any proposals to the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff or myself.
During the remainder of my service at the Admiralty the organization remained as shown in Tables A and B on p. 20 below. It was not entirely satisfactory, for reasons already mentioned and because I did not obtain all the relief from administrative