way into the official accounts of the Admiralty's views regarding the
opening move of a possible war must discredit the strategy of the
Admiralty in the judgment of all who have paid any attention to the
nature of naval war.

The second requisite for victory, that is, for winning a battle against
a hostile fleet, is tactical superiority, or, as Nelson put it: "The
skill of our admirals and the activity and spirit of our officers and
seamen." The only way to obtain this is through the perpetual practice
of the admirals commanding fleets. An admiral, in order to make himself
a first-rate tactician, must not merely have deeply studied and pondered
the subject, but must spend as much time as possible in exercising, as a
whole, the fleet which he commands, in order not only by experimental
manoeuvres thoroughly to satisfy himself as to the formation and mode of
attack which will be best suited to any conceivable circumstance in
which he may find himself, but also to inculcate his ideas into his
subordinates; to inspire them with his own knowledge, and to give them
that training in working together which, in all those kinds of
activities which require large numbers of men to work together, whether
on the cricket field, at football, in an army, or in a navy, constitutes
the advantage of a practised over a scratch team.

If the practice is to make the fleet ready for war, it must be carried
out with the fleet in its war composition. All the different elements,
battleships, cruisers, torpedo craft, and the rest, must be fully
represented, otherwise the admiral would be practising in peace with a
different instrument from that with which he would need to operate in
war.

The importance of this perpetual training ought to be self-evident. It