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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0192.PDF
SHU although it has not the advantage of the " single inspiration." Naturally, we do not assume that it would of necessity be a worse thing if the Navy had that advantage. On the contrary, even naval demobilisation might have gone more smoothly had the three Services been grouped under a single head. The argument is a purely academic one, and we should not have referred to this aspect of the case were it not that we do not think it well to accept in its entirety the point of view enunciated by The Times. On the contrary, we still view the dual control with very serious suspicion and misgiving, even while agreeing that, as a purely temporary measure in the circumstances of the present, it may have its good points. The Times thinks that as a temporary meas ure it has been of real service, but it does not appear to be quite as certain of grouped administration as a permanency. Theoretically, it says, all the depart ments of defence—naval, military and aerial—should be one and under a civilian head, for under any other this union would make our constitutional system lop sided. But, however strong the theoretical argu ments are, it would require years of patient, slow preparation before they could be applied safely. With which we entirely agree. Indeed, we said as much when writing a few weeks ago on the proposal to unify all three fighting Services under a Ministry of Defence. The All the theories are in favour of the Objections SronPe<^ Ministry of Defence, but most of the practical considerations are in conflict with theory. As we pointed out in the previous article referred to, the grouping of all defence measures under a single head works out very well in the case of small Powers and our own self-governing Dominions, where the forces concerned are small and where, in particular, there is no necessity to be prepared for instant war on a relatively large scale. But in the case of a Great Power in which the fighting Services are of huge proportions, and which may be confronted at any time with exceedingly diversified problems of war, it is not at all so certain that the grouping of all under one head would work as welt If we take the case of Great Britain as typical—and that is the one with which we are solely concerned— we have a Navy of preponderant strength, which must always be "kept at high-water mark of instant readiness for war. This connotes one set of problems, some of which are intimately related to those of the other fighting departments, but most of which are really domestic so far as the Navy is concerned. The latter is a force which is capable of waging war independently of the Army and even of the aerial arm as an arm pure and simple. In any naval war, aircraft must find their uses, but it need not connote the employment of an air force as a decisive fighting factor. The Army depends upon the Navy for conveyance overseas and for the guarding of its sea communica tions. When those tasks have been adequately provided for, the Army conducts war " on its own." The Great War has afforded the greatest example in history of the proper relationship between sea and land power. We see at once that the war by land sets up a completely distinct set of problems for solution, problems which, as in the case of those affecting the sea war, are entirely peculiar to itself and require specialist training for that solution and a system of administration that is highly technical. FEBRUARY 13, 1919 We come now to the consideration of air power, and again we see that the conditions are dissimilar to those of either of the other Services. Not only has air power to come to the assistance of sea and land power, as represented in the navies and armies, in order to increase their range of vision and striking power, but it is capable of carrying on war by itself and without the help of either. True, it cannot, as at present we are able to visualise it, carry on decisive war, but it is not at all certain that in the years to come decisions in war will not come from air power alone. It comes to this, that while the strategic aims of war whether waged by sea, land or air, are identical the methods of attaining them are quite dissimilar and call for a different scheme of organisation and administration in each separate case. If we attempt to co-ordinate all three under a single administration it is easy to see that the task may be comparatively simple when the size of the separate Services is small. The proposition then becomes a workable one. When, however, they are each great Services like our own it is not at all so simple. As The Times itself points out, three such departments as these exceed the span of one man's mind, however gifted the individual. To be equal to such a task he would require the assistance of a General Staff composed of representatives of all three Services ; and this staff would need a tradition behind it, and would have to acquire the habit of working in unison and seeing our strategical problems as a whole. This equipment is not made in a day and we must be content to advance slowly towards the ideal. If, The Times says, this is the ultimate goal, there is real usefulness in temporary associations and in any machinery which may break down the isolation of departments without, of course, impairing their internal independence. There is an important qualification contained in this last sentence, and we need hardly say we agree with it. We can see how much good can come of such associations between the Air Ministry and the Admiralty and War Office, if these associations can be achieved without the impairment of the internal independence of the Air Ministry. It is just that which we fear—that the placing of the control of the youngest of the Services in the hands of the War Minister, subject as he must be to the influences by which he is surrounded at the War Office, will lead to the Air Ministry being placed in leading strings. If that can be avoided—though even now we doubt it—we are willing to admit that close association may have its advantages. • • • While most of the Cabinet are in Paris, Whither indulging in idealist discussion about We Drifting ? wholly Utopian Leagues of Nations, we seem here to be drifting fast towards anarchy and chaos. Industrial unrest, mostly born of Bolshevist propaganda, is rife all over the country, and the deliberate attempt is being made to substitute for government by the democracy the rule of the mob-minority. The strikes in Belfast and Glasgow, and now that of the electric railwaymen in London, are all a part of the plot to defeat and destroy civilisa tion and to put in its place the form of anarchy which has reduced Russia to chaos and ruin. The Bolshe vists, headed by the man MacLean and his confreres, have frankly declared war on the Government, the community and the trade unions, with the avowed 192
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