Naval Administration and Warfare; Some General Principles, with Other Essays (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... come unprepared. Were, then, his previous study and reflection, for which the time of action had not come, were they not " practical," because they did not result in immediate action? Would they even have been "not practical" if the time for action had never come to him? As the wise man said, "There is a time for everything under the sun," and the time for one thing cannot be used as the time for another. That there is time for action, all concede; few consider duly that there is also a time for preparation. To use the time of preparation for preparation is practical, whatever the method; to postpone preparation to the time for action is not practical. Our new navy is preparing now; it can scarcely be said, as regards its material, to be yet ready. The day of grace is still with us--or with those who shall be the future captains and admirals. There is time yet for study; there is time to imbibe the experience of the past, to become imbued, steeped, in the eternal principles of war, by the study of its history and of the maxims of its masters. But the time of preparation will pass; some day the time of action will come. Can an admiral then sit down and re-enforce his intellectual grasp of the problem before him by a study of history, which is simply a study of past experience? Not so; the time of action is upon him, and he must trust to his horse sense. The mere administration and correspondence of a fleet leaves all too little time. Even with captains, the administration of a single ship of the modern type makes demands that leave little room for the preparation of study. Farragut bewailed this burden; and Napoleon himself in his later days admitted that he never did better work than in his first campaign, to which he brought preparation...