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History

ADM Fisher: Strategy from the “Fish pond”

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This article is part of our Forgotten Naval Strategists Week.

Great Britain’s Royal Navy (RN) that went to war in August 1914 was very much the product of a concerted effort of technological, operational, and personnel change executed over the period from 1904-1914. The RN went from a relatively older, coal-fired, slower, and dispersed force primarily concerned with showing the flag and handling colonial warfare to a modern force of high speed, oil-fired, combatants, seaplane carriers and submarines in the space of little more than a decade. While this was by no means a smooth process, it produced the one European military arm perhaps ready for war in 1914. One man above all others was responsible for executing this strategic sea change. Admiral Sir John Arbuthnot “Jackie” Fisher spent nearly half of his naval career in an effort to drag the Royal Navy from the sleepy 19th century into the violent melee of the 20th. Fisher certainly made many mistakes along the way, and his departure from the Admiralty in 1910 also allowed more traditional leaders in the Royal Navy to limit or discard some of his revolutionary principles. Although a forgotten strategist (and some of his chroniclers even refuse him that title), his strategic concepts have been resurrected through the scholarly work of historians from Arthur Marder in the 1960’s through John Sumida, Angus Ross and Nicholas Lambert (among many) in recent years.

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Fisher as a Captain

Fisher would have been a colorful character in any age. In office as First Sea Lord (rough equivalent of the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations) from 1904-1910, Fisher became a legend for his unpredictable behavior. He stalked the halls of the Admiralty with signs hanging around his neck that stated “Bring me something to Sign” and “I have no work to do!” He ended his correspondence with vibrant closing such as “yours until charcoal sprouts” and “yours until hell freezes over.” He is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary as the first person to use the phrase “OMG” (Oh my God!” in written English. His quotes include such phrases as “moderation in war is imbecility” and “any fool can obey orders”. His style certainly had an effect on young Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty who brought Fisher out of retirement to again serve as First Sea Lord in 1912 and delighted in the Admiral’s colorful verbiage.

Fisher was an engineer by training and much of his efforts entailed advancing technological change. He is known as the foremost advocate of the all-big gun battleship, the first of which he named HMS Dreadnought. He also was a strong supporter of gunnery directors, submarines, naval aircraft, and torpedoes and mines as primary weapons of war. Fisher rejected large quantities of armor in warships preferring tactical speed, operational range, and striking power in all classes of warship. Most importantly, Fisher was the driving force behind the scheme to re-balance the Royal Navy from 19th century naval enforcer to 20th century total warrior. British political leadership decreed the need for change, but Fisher was recognized as the only officer able to implement the sweeping alteration of Royal Navy to suit the emerging 20th century security environment. During his administration of the Admiralty he ruthlessly removed over 130 overage, slow vessels that would be ill-suited for combat in the modern age. He advocated fast ships that could deploy rapidly across great distances in support of British global interests. His efforts were successful in that he reduced the overall size of the Royal Navy over the first 5 years of his office, improved the overall quality and accuracy of its firepower and kept the overall naval budget at 1904 levels until 1909. Fisher also moved to improve the conditions of Royal Navy officer training. He merged engineer and line officer cadet training to improve overall officer technological knowledge, and introduced a longer four year instruction program to ensure officers were well grounded in technical subjects. He added additional physical fitness requirements to naval training. He also changed the officer entrance program from one of pure academic examination to one that included practical as well as pedagogical knowledge.

Corbett
Sir Julian Corbett

Many historians and strategists like to quote the works of British strategic thinker Sir Julian Corbett when they seek to explain the relationship between war at sea and on land. It is useful to remember however that the writings of Julian Corbett might never have reached the influence they hold today without his close association with John Fisher. Corbett did not begin his active career as a naval strategist until 1896.  Fisher had already head the position of Second Sea Lord by the this time and was in the process of thinking through his ideas for high-speed heavily armed cruisers that he believed would replace battleships as the principle shield of the British Empire. The two  met in 1902 and frequently exchanged correspondence on their respective naval ideas. The cross-pollination between the two men expanded both of their intellectual horizons. Thankfully Corbett, unlike Fisher, chose to write down the summation of this relationship in his 1911 Some Principles of Naval Strategy. While Corbett’s work is his own, and his influence on both naval strategy and history significant, one wonders how much influence he would have had in his own time had he not been an intimate member of the “fish pond” (Fisher’s circle of confidants”.

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Young Churchill and Fisher

Fisher was far from perfect in many ways. His performance as an operational leader did not measure up to his strengths as a reformer or inspired engineer. He advocated the creation of a Naval General Staff, but failed to institute this body when given the opportunity as First Sea Lord. He vacillated in his support for Winston Churchill’s Gallipoli campaign and eventually opposed it, but still clung to an even more fantastic plan to move shallow-draft heavy warships through the much more heavily-defended Baltic to conduct an amphibious landing on Germany’s Pomeranian coast. His capital ship designs became more fantastic and his personality more irascible as he aged. He frequently clashed with Churchill; not so much over differences but rather over whose radical scheme was more feasible. He finally resigned in May 1915 and eventually died of cancer aged 79 in July 1920. Fisher’s credibility with the service and politicians remained reasonably high even after his resignation. Winston Churchill said “Fisher was right at least nine tenths of the time”.

The Royal Navy’s performance during the First World War was far from perfect. Its big gun battleships did not deliver the Trafalgar-like victory so many Britons expected. It could not force the Dardanelles alone without ground support. It did not take action against the German submarine offensive until it was almost too late. Despite these shortcomings later in the fight, the Royal Navy performed much as its leaders anticipated it would before 1914. The RN protected troop and supply movements across the English Channel. It swept both German merchant ships and commerce raiders from the seas. It continued to experiment with new technologies throughout the war and did its best to put them into operational use. It did not charge headlong into German torpedoes and generally showed concern for overly risking its ships and men unlike its Army counterpart that killed millions in meat-grinding trench warfare operations. These positive attributes were the fruits of Fisher’s labors in the gardens of naval strategy and technology. Alone among the armed forces of the European powers, the British Grand Fleet was reasonably well prepared for war in 1914. That fleet could indeed be characterized as British Admiral William Jameson called it in 1962 book as “the fleet that Jack (John Fisher) built.

the fleet that jack built
Cover of Jameson’s book

The U.S Navy should remember John Fisher as it seeks to fundamentally change itself to fight 21st century “hybrid wars” and data-centric conflicts. While Fisher had an inordinate amount of power and influence in his Navy that is difficult, if not impossible to replicate in the present, his example shows the power of one senior officer with a vision. That vision, if logically well articulated can be translated into significant action. Famous British General and early World War 1 War Minister Sir Herbert Kitchener consoled Winston Churchill on his dismissal from the Admiralty by saying, “the fleet was ready; they can’t take that away from you.” He might as well have been speaking to Fisher who created the fleet Britain took to war one hundred years ago last month.

History, Seamanship and Leadership

Lessons From History: Themistocles Builds a Navy

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This article is part of CIMSEC’s “Forgotten Naval Strategists Week.”

“I never learned how to tune a harp or play upon a lute but I know how to raise a small and obscure city to glory and greatness where to all kindred of the Earth will pilgrim.”

Thus spoke the great warrior politician Themistocles in the 5th Century B.C. Themistocles is famous for a lot of things: his heroic actions at the Battle of Salamis, his secret plot to rebuild Athens’ walls after the Second Persian War, and his six-pack abs in “300: Rise of an Empire” (author’s note: thoroughly underwhelmed by that movie). But his biggest impact on history was his fateful advocacy early in his career for Athens to build a first-rate navy. Themistocles should be recognized as one of the earliest naval theorists because he successfully promulgated a sea-view of the world and brought Athens onto the sea.

Themistocles

Portrait of a naval theorist.

Athens has gone down in history as a naval powerhouse but that was not always the case. The city of Athens is actually a few miles away from the sea, could only offer up fifty ships during the First Persian War, and did not even have a defensible port until Themistocles’ rise to prominence. Athens was a continental city-state and a poor one at that; it had little to offer in terms of natural resources. The striking of silver in the mines of Laurium in 483 B.C. changed this. Athens was faced with a choice of how to divide up the windfall. The prevailing idea was to take the money and divide it equally among the population. Themistocles, apparently alone, proposed to use the funds to finance construction of a 200 ship fleet and managed to win over the population. The rationale behind his advocacy is controversial to this day: he claimed that the navy’s purpose was to challenge Athens’ island rival, Aegina, but others have attributed to him the base motivations of wanting to secure power or the foresight to see the invasion of Xerxes coming three years later.

Regardless of Themistocles’ true motivations, though the high-minded ones seem more plausible, his success is remarkable because it achieved a full reorientation of Athens’ politico-military focus from land to sea. This was all the more surprising because ancient Greek culture gave primacy to the strength and heroism of land combat. Even Plato complained that Themistocles’ actions transformed the army “from steady soldiers… into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea… [Themistocles] took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar.”

History proved Themistocles right. The 200 Athenian ships, combined with his deft admiralship, were instrumental in defeating the Persians at the Battle of Salamis and, far more than the Battle of Thermopylae, turned the tide of the war in Greece’s favor. Moreover, once the Persians retreated across the Aegean Sea, Athens used its fleet to liberate the occupied islands and Ionian cities in modern Turkey. The new Athenian dependencies evolved into the Athenian Empire whose domination of trade in the Aegean launched Athens’ golden age. Their art and architecture are still the standard by which we judge all others classics. It is difficult to say whether Themistocles foresaw all of these circumstances playing out when he first advocated for the fleet but his strategic argument for the Athenians to take to the sea reflects an appreciation for what dominating the sea could achieve.

Athenian_empire_atheight_450_shepherd1923

The Athenian Empire at its height. If not for Themistocles, they would have had to swim to build it.

Lessons Learned

1) It is never too late to become a sea power.

 History is full of examples of continental powers who failed to embrace the sea to their detriment: the Persians, Ming China, and the Ottomans are but a few. Themistocles’ success demonstrates that states, with proper planning and political determination, can alter policy and project their presence onto the water.

2) States should maintain a military force that augments their commercial interests.

For those following politics in the United States, the parable of the silver mines of Laurium might lead one to assume that Themistocles’ argument supports military spending at the expense of social programs. That is not entirely the case. Blanket military spending does not mean financial stability; the Habsburgs are a great cautionary tale for military spending becoming a money pit. The true reason why the Athenian navy was such a boon to the state was not just its military value but the commercial value in trade that it fostered after the Persian Wars ended. We conclude that the United States should be careful about making budget cuts to military forces that make the global trade system work. In particular, one needs to tread lightly around investments that are meant to counter maritime piracy; it is no accident that shipping insurance rates soar in places where the United States Navy does not patrol.

Matthew Merighi is a Masters Degree candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

History

Father Fernando Oliveira: A Pioneer of Naval Strategy

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By CDR Luis Nuno Sardinha Monteiro, Portuguese Navy, for our Forgotten Naval Strategists Week

“Good war makes good peace”
In “Art of War at Sea” (Part I, Chapter 1)

Introduction

The Discoveries Era, a period of expansive exploration initiated by Portuguese navigators, prompted the emergence of a structured naval thinking in the 16th century. This originated mainly in the Mediterranean countries (specifically France, Italy, Portugal and Spain). Among the works produced at that time stands out a treatise written in 1555 by Portuguese Priest Fernando Oliveira, entitled “Arte da Guerra do Mar” (“Art of War at Sea”). It addresses, in a truly comprehensive and integrated way, a wide range of nautical and naval warfare issues, but it goes beyond a mere tactical and operational perspective, revealing a strategic vision with regard to the engagement of navies at the service of national interests, as well as other innovative strategic insights.

Life

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Fernando Oliveira was born circa 1507 and at the age of 10 entered a Dominican Convent, where he acquired the humanist values manifested in his writings. In 1536, he published a grammar of the Portuguese language. This was his first book and also the first Portuguese grammar ever published.

Oliveira was a venturesome man, with a profound love of seafaring. Therefore, he took every opportunity to get underway, be the ships Portuguese, French, English or Spanish. Sometimes Oliveira volunteered as chaplain, but most of the time he was hired as pilot, due to his extensive knowledge and experience of nautical sciences. Every now and then these ships engaged in naval combat and he was even taken prisoner on several occasions.

Oliveira parlayed his vast experience at sea to produce seminal treatises on nautical and naval warfare issues. Besides the already mentioned treatise “Art of War at Sea” (published in 1555), he also wrote:

  • An encyclopedic treatise dated circa 1570 and entitled “Ars Nautica” (“Art of Navigation”). This work was written in Latin and has three parts: one about navigation, another about naval construction (the first known scientific work on this topic), and a third addressing generic navies’ logistical and administrative matters;
  • A companion work on naval construction, written around 1580 in Portuguese and entitled “Livro da Fábrica das Naus” (“Book on the Building of Ships”);
  • A book entitled “História de Portugal” (“History of Portugal”), written probably in 1581.

With regard to naval strategy, Oliveira’s keystone work is “Art of War at Sea”, which is therefore the main subject of this text and from which all citations contained in this article have been taken.

“Art of War at Sea”

cover“Art of War at Sea” has one prologue and two parts, each of them containing fifteen chapters. It addresses a broad array of topics, such as naval construction, ship’s commissioning, navigation, seamanship, meteorology, oceanography, logistics, recruitment, training, education, command skills, maritime ceremonial and intelligence.

To illustrate his ideas, Oliveira often recalls warfare episodes from the Classical Era (ancient Greece and Rome) and from the Discoveries Era (with a focus on episodes of the Portuguese history).

In Chapter 14 of Part II, Oliveira lists 39 “general rules of war” that summarize and synthetize most of the issues covered in the book. These are very simple aphorisms, such as “better order than multitude” (stressing the value of military organization) and “war requires fairness and deceit, truth and lie, cruelty and pity, preserving and destroying” (noting the contradictory nature of war).

There is only one copy of the original treatise, which is at the National Library of Portugal, in Lisbon. However, the book has been republished four times: in 1937, 1969, 1983 and 2008. The most recent editions include a facsimile of the original 1555 edition.

Influences in “Art of War at Sea”

Oliveira was an erudite and cultivated person, who was inspired by the classical authors, as was characteristic in the Renaissance. His main reference for “Art of War at Sea” was the Roman writer of the 4th century Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, commonly referred to simply as Vegetius. Vegetius wrote “De Re Militari” (“Concerning Military Matters”), a treatise about warfare and military principles, which explained methods and practices used during the Roman Empire. In “Art of War at Sea”, Oliveira mentions Vegetius twenty eight times, and one of his most well-known maxims (“If you search peace, study war”) seems directly derived from Vegetius’ dictum “Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum” (“He who desires peace, prepare for war”).

The other main influence in “Art of War at Sea” is St. Augustine, who lived in the 4th and 5th centuries. St. Augustine was a notable theologian and philosopher, who – among other seminal contributions to western Christianity and philosophy – helped crafting the “just war” theory. According to St. Augustine, Christians should be, by the very nature of their faith, against war. However, he considered that the pursuit of peace should always include the option of going to war (a “just war”) if that was the only option to prevent a grave wrong. Oliveira, as a man of the Catholic Church, also believed firmly in “just wars” and dedicated a whole chapter to this issue. Invoking St. Augustine, he defines “just war” as “the one that defends a people from those who want to offend it without reason or the war that punishes the offenses to God” (Chapter 4, Part I). He also considered that “the war of Christians that fear God is not bad, it is full of virtues, because it is done with a desire for peace, without greediness nor cruelty, as a punishment to the bad and relief of the good” (Prologue).

Strategic Thinking

“Art of War at Sea” reveals a reflection upon the importance of naval power as the key to maintaining a mighty empire, such as the Portuguese, with territories and possessions in all five continents.

In the 16th century, the concept of “naval power” had not been introduced. Nevertheless, a careful reading of “Art of War at Sea” shows that Oliveira used the expression “war at sea” with a meaning that encompasses all the aspects of military organization for sea warfare, including construction, commissioning, training and operation of warships, i.e. very similar to what would later be defined as “naval power”.

In the prologue, Oliveira emphasizes the importance of “war at sea” (i.e. “naval power”):

“In particular for this land’s men, that now use the sea more than any others, thus acquiring high profit and honor. (…) Nurturing this war [i.e. this power], Portuguese people have gained lots of wealth & prosperity (…) & have gained honor in a short period of time, as no other nation in longer periods” (Prologue).

In the 3rd chapter, Oliveira returns to this idea that nations must defend their interests at sea through the use of naval power. He emphasizes that maritime security must not be taken for granted, reiterating the importance of naval power to preserve political and economic interests:

“Because the sea is very licentious (sic) and men cannot avoid using it to trade, to fish and to other purposes, taking supply and profit from it, it is essential to safeguard it, through fear or severe punishment. (….) Due to all these reasons, it is necessary to have navies at sea, that safe keep our coasts and passages and that protect from the surprises that can storm from the sea, which are much more sudden than the ones coming from land” (Chapter 3, Part I).

In addition, I would like to briefly present some of the perennial strategic principles than can be found in Oliveira’s work and illustrate each of them with a citation from “Art of War at Sea”.

  • Importance of readiness at sea: “Promptitude gives victory to the diligent and negligence defeats the careless”.
  • Importance of the surprise factor: “Sudden attacks terrify the enemies, but expected encounters do not frighten them”.
  • Time as a fundamental element of strategy: “There is a time to engage in battle, when we have an opportunity or when the advantage is on our side”.
  • Space as a fundamental element of strategy: “The location is often worthier than the force”.
  • Importance of deception: “Let us dissimulate as much as we can, so that we will be taken as liars”.
  • Importance of intelligence: “As important as covering our intentions, is trying to know the opponent’s”.
  • Importance of unity of command: “It is necessary that man of war have a head (…) and one that commands over everyone”.

Finally, another characteristic of Oliveira’s thinking was his backing of the use of naval power for spreading Christianity. In fact, he praised the Portuguese Discoveries as to “allow multiplying the God’s faith & the salvation of men” (Prologue).

Conclusion

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Although written more than 450 years ago, Oliveira’s “Art of War at Sea” is a very comprehensive work, addressing the various elements related to the building up, organization and employment of naval power. Oliveira sought inspiration in the doctrines of Classical authors and in the philosophy of Church thinkers, innovating in the conceptualization of the use of naval power as an instrument to serve the political goals and the economic interests of his country. He was a man ahead of his time, establishing some of the basis of modern naval strategy.

Father Fernando Oliveira anticipated notable strategists such as Alfred Thayer Mahan, who (350 years later) brilliantly theorized about the influence of sea power upon history and its importance, to enhance nations’ wealth and prestige. It is interesting to note two other similarities between Oliveira and Mahan: (1) both resorted extensively to history, choosing specific episodes to illustrate their ideas; (2) both were very religious Christians (although Oliveira was Catholic and Mahan Protestant), having views consistent with the theories of “just war” and advocating the use of naval / sea power to disseminate Christianity.

Unfortunately, “Art of War at Sea” did not have the international projection it deserved and Oliveira remains an obscurity. That can be partially explained because his treatise was written in ancient Portuguese and was never translated to another language. Hopefully, that shortfall is about to be overcome, since my countryman Tiago Maurício is currently translating Father Fernando Oliveira´s “Art of War at Sea” to English. This may allow that treatise getting the attention it deserves, due to its historical value, to the broad range of issues addressed and to its strategic insights – much of which are still valid in the 21st century.

Luís Nuno Sardinha Monteiro is a Commander of the Portuguese Navy. He was Commanding Officer of the fast patrol craft “Dragão” (1992-1994) and of the Portuguese sail training ship “Sagres” (2011-2013). He holds a MSc and a PhD in Navigation Technology, both from the University of Nottingham (UK). He published several books and papers on navigation and naval / maritime strategy. He is currently serving at NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, in Norfolfk (USA).

 

 

History, Strategic Outlook

Lessons from History: Carthage & Transport Supremacy

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The role of the United States in contingency operations is changing. In all of the large-scale international interventions of the past few years, namely Libya, Mali, and the Central African Republic, the United States’ contributions consisted primarily of transport capacity in both the seas and the skies to bring foreign ground forces to the conflict. This trend appears unprecedented for a global power to pursue its interests but, as the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun. The ancient maritime power of Carthage utilized the same strategy effectively in the fourth century B.C

For those who are unfamiliar, Carthage was a preeminent maritime power for hundreds of years in the Mediterranean. Pre-saging Alfred Thayer Mahan and 19th century European colonial powers, Carthage embraced an empire not built by massive land holdings but by a disparate collection of trading spheres, ranging from Spain to Sicily, connected by the era’s most powerful navy. There were very few powers that could challenge them on the open seas, making the Western Mediterranean a Carthaginian lake by which it could generate wealth.

Most people know the Carthaginians as the enemies of Rome in the era of Hannibal but that was not always the case. Up until their first dramatic clash in the thirdcentury B.C., the Romans and Carthaginians were allies were allies of convenience. The Carthaginians faced consistent incursions from Numidians in North Africa and colonial wars with the Greeks in Sicily while the Romans had to contend with Greek colonies and restive Samnites to their south. This culminated in the early fourth century B.C. when the Carthaginians used their navy to transport Roman legions to the south to fight their common Greek enemies. Carthage did not have to sacrifice any men to achieve their foreign policy objectives and the Romans, without naval lift, would have spent a much longer time marching their army south through dangerous territory. The Carthaginians were thus able to find manpower to handle operations they could not undertake and the Romans gained rapid mobility. Both sides profited from the arrangement.
  
The United States is in a similar position in the modern as Carthage was in the ancient world. The United States has unmatched transport capacity in both the maritime and air domains, evidenced in all possible measures: numbers of sea/air transport vehicles, total cargo capacity, and experience in deployment logistics. Many other nations have tactical transports but very few others have either the numbers of strategic-level transports or the financial resources necessary to support long deployments. This situation gives the United States a unique position to influence global deployment of forces; it offers a quasi-veto to undesirable deployments and a force-multiplier for operations that it wants to see conducted.
 
While the United States has unmatched transport capacity, there are a host of reasons why the United States cannot project its power simultaneously to tackle every global crisis: ongoing operations in Afghanistan, a lack of popular support for committing troops overseas, and tightening budgets restrict the United States. Carthage had similar limitations, due primarily to budgets and the mercenary make-up of their armed forces, which they circumvented in their wars against the Greeks by leveraging Roman manpower. The United States is already doing the same for France in Mali and the United Nations in the Central African Republic.
 
The story of transport supremacy did not end well for Carthage. In the First Punic War, fought a scant few years after the common war against the Greeks, the Romans raised a substantial navy and challenged Carthage’s dominance on the seas. Defeat in that war, combined with the defeats in the Second and Third Punic wars, would spell the end of Carthage’s empire. While the Carthaginians ushered in their doom by providing transport supremacy to their eventual conquerors, the United States is in no such risk of the same, allowing it to leverage the policy without stoking an existential threat to its existence.
 
The future looks bright for those with transport supremacy.
 
Matthew Merighi is a civilian employee with the United States Air Force. His views do not reflect those of the United States Government, Department of Defense, or Air Force.