"LIONS LED BY ASSES."

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3374, 31 December 1919, Page 5

"LIONS LED BY ASSES."

LORD FISHER STOOD ALONE.

“A MAN OF COURAGE AND IMAGINATION. ”

(From Otago Daily Times ' Correspondent.) LONDON, Dec. 23. Lord Fisher ’s thesis is ‘that England is an island, andnin his “Memoirs” he says that he was determined on pursuing‘ a martime policy in the war——— which meant that he would have landed a nfilitary force on Grermam

Baltic shores, striking ‘at the’ very heart of Prussia and Prussianism. With that end in-View he prepared a programme of 612 new ships. He objected. to the Dardanelles operations from the first, because. the scheme was unsound, and because it endangered his great project; but he was anxious to remain in the Admiralty in lorder to push through his pro-' gramme. He backed up Mr Churchill until he resigned. “He had courage and imagination; he was a warmhanl” In opposing the attack on the Dardanelles Lord Fisher tells us that he stood alone, among Ministers as well as among experts. He urges that the expert is the adviser, and not the dietator; the ultimate responsibility in peace as in war, rests‘ with the Ministers in accordance with.th-e.~prineiples of constitutional Government. Atany. rate, he was one against many. When on May 14, 1915, Mr Church-ill drafted orders for further tnaval reinforcements, for the Dardanelles, ra. course. to which the First Sea Lord would not assent, Lord Fisher left the Admiralty. He had ‘threatened to resign‘ before; now he did resign, and dramatically, as is his wont. _ I

~ THE YEIL LIFTED. Why did Lord Fisher resign his position as First Sea Lord? What part did he have in the inception and prosecution‘ of the Dardavnelles campaign? In the course of what he ‘describes as his “peripatetic dictation,” he lifts Ihe veil from this great ladvanture, referring in parenthesis to Zeebrugge: g “Now, if anyone thinks that in this chapter ‘they are going to see sport, and that I am going to trounce Mr Winston Churchill and abuse Mr Asquith, and put it all on poor Kitchener they are woefully mistaken. It was B. nliasn_la like the invisible, scentless, poisonous—deadly 'poisonous——gas with which my dear friend Brock, of imperishablle memory} [and Victoria C‘ross bravery, wickedly massacred at Zeabrngge, was -going (in unison with the plan I had) to polish ofi, «not alone every human soul in Heligoland land its surrounding fleet, sheltered under its guns from the Grand Fleet but every rabbit. Brock was lost to us in the massacre of Zeebrugge——lo-st us»elessly,3 for no such folly was ever devised by fools as .~'llCll an operation ‘was that of Z;?Cbl‘Ugf_;"‘.‘, divorced from military cooperation on land. . V

I “What were the brav-est of the yibrax-‘e massacred for‘? Was it glory? " Is the British Navy a young navy re- } quiring glory? When 25 per cent of our ;ofl’icers were killed a few days since, 9 sinking two Bolslievik battleships, etc., iancl heroic in their own "element, the 3sea, we all thank God, as We should do, that Nelson looking down on us in Trafalgar Square, feels his spirit is still with us. But for sailors to go on shore and attack forts, which Nelson said no sailor but a lunatic would do, without those on shore of the military persuasion to keep what you have stormed, is not only silly, but it’s murder, and it’s criminal. “Also, by the time Zeebrugge was attacked, the German submarine had got far beyond a fighting radius that ‘required this base near the English coast. As Dean Inge says: “We must hope that in the paradis-e«of brave men the knowledge is mercifully hid from them that they died in vain.” Again, this is a digression, but such must be the nature of this book when speaking ore rotundo and from the fullness of a. disgusted heart, that such lions should be led by such asses.” STAFFS ‘AND WAR PLANS. Lord Fisher has sometime been criticised because he opposed the development of a great War fitlafif at the Admiralty. “Lord Haldanne, with his “art of clear thinking.” he tells us, “elaborated ‘the Imperial War Stafi to its present magnificent dimensions,” and he adds that “if any man wants a thing advertised, let him take it over_ to» the -Secret Department.” He confesses that “only Sir Arthur Wilson and myself, when I was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, knew the naval plan of War.” '

He then discusses current ideas with reference Ito la. Naval War Staif.

“The vulgar error of Lord Hé.l‘d:an'e and others who are always atalking about ‘clear thinking’ -and suc'h‘like twadale, is that they ‘do not realise that the Army is so absolutely different from the Nuny-. Every condition in them both is diiferent. The Navy is always at War, because it is always fighting wind and waves and fog‘. The Navy is ready for an instant blow; gic lines of railwzaysuraht-henl'ta'tl'froa it’ has nothing to do with s'tl-ategie railways, lines of éommunication, or. biidgin_ng rivers, «ore crossing mountains‘ oij thetime oft ‘l7}il-(-3~‘Ms‘7'Ci;t;:{‘;>_l;’_Sjll“el‘3.“~thQe~Bfll;

kans may be snoWed‘un‘der and moanltain passes may be 11npassable . No; the ocean» is limitless and unobstructed; and the Fleet, each ship manned, ‘gunned, provisioned, -and‘ fuelled, ready to fight withi-n -five minutes. The ariny not only has to mobolise}: but-—thank God! this -being an island ——it has to be carried somewhere by the Navy, no matter where it a¢ts.’? NELSON SLIGHTED. - g In Lord Fisher ‘S »opinion,°“the mis~ chief to the Navy is.‘ that-' our very’ lablcst naval ofiicers, both "old and Fyoung, get attracted by the“ brainy, work and by the shore-going’ appoint-v imc-at,” and he adds, “the land is a i_shock_ing' bad training ground for the isea.” His View is that “So far as _the Navy is concerned, the tendency 'of these "thinking establishm-ents’ on shore is to convert splenflid’ sea om}: cers into very iudifierent clerks.” ’

Later 0-11 in ¢he book Lord Fisher ’s mind switches back to Nelson, and he agrees with Lord Rosebery that “Nelson being slighted has ‘leg! to hisgreafer a.pprec'iation.” é