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s 28 MARINE REVIEW AND MARINE RECORD. ENGINEERING IN THE NAVY.* By Ira N. Hollis. The importance of engineering to modern navies is no longer a debatable question. Sails have disappeared and a new pro- pelling power has taken their place so completely that soon there will be few officers of our service, or of any other service, who have had any extended experience with ships under sail. Further- more, within a generation there will be hardly any necessity for such experience. This change from one motive power to another, and, in much of the daily work of the ship from man power to electrical or steam power, is certain to modify radically the point of view of the future naval officer. He will regard that part of the navy connected with the organization and management of ships from a different standpoint. An historical parallel between the state of the British navy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the American navy during the past fifty years, offers in this connection much that is instructive to naval officers. Both periods saw the disappearance of an organization not adapted to contemporaneous conditions ; both closed in a struggle with Spain over colonies in America, and both, for similar reasons, disclosed the woeful weakness of Span- ish sea power. The series of books on the British navy published by the Navy Record Society have placed before the general reader much information not hitherto accessible, and among these vol- umes none is more interesting than that by Sir William Monson. He wrote a number of tracts on the state of the navy, and one ot them sheds a light not only on the organization for sailing ves- sels during the Elizabethan period, but it also, by comparison, -ern navies. furnishes food for thought about the future development of mod- That part of the tract which relates to the manning and organization of ships for opposing the Spanish Armada is particularly apt. The history of the decline of Spain's sea power does not seem to have received the consideration it deserved from the point of view of the personnel; and few outside of the navy understand that when the ships of Spain and England met in 1588 it was a meeting between two different systems, one modern, for that period, and the other antiquated. Naval warfare, up to the time of Drake and Hawkins, was conducted on the lines of land warfare, and the ideas of a cam- paign were similar in both cases. 'This followed from the fact that.the men who commanded the ships had been educated to fight on land. Those who bore armor could not man the oars or the sails of the ship, and their- point of view was essentially that of landsmen; hence there was a distinct line of cleavage between tne sailors, who navigated and sailed the ships, and the soldiers, who fought. Naturally the latter commanded and bore with them the traditions of their own service. They were not seamen, and they possessed little knowledge of the sea. The develop- ment of effective fighting ships was consequently slow, and the true elements of sea power were not thought of, much less un- derstood. _ The great voyages of adventure which followed the discov- ery of the new world bred up a race of seamen fitted to command and to take over from the army the fighting as well as the navi- gating of ships, and the English were not slow to grasp the advan- tage to be gained not only from their employment, but from the homogeneity of the crews which would follow when sailors manned the guns as well as the sails. The influence of heavy guns in accelerating this movement was important, but improve- ments were slow, and two centuries were required to work a complete change in the personnel. During the latter part of the sixteenth century England passed through a period of reform, es- pecially in the training of officers. Soldiers who could not learn seamanship were eliminated, and their places were taken by men whose previous education and experience had been with the sea and with sails which formed the propelling power. So far as pos- sible all officers and men were taught to be generally useful on board ship, and there must have been a strong incentive to ac- quire skill in all the details which related to sails and rigging. Sir William Monson's statement of the case is so clear that a few brief paragraphs are well worth quoting, at the risk of repeating to naval officers much that they know already. He says: ° A SIXTEENTH CENTURY TALE. "The experienced valiant sea-soldier and mariner, who knows how to manage a ship and maintain a sea-fight judicially, for de- fence of himself and offence of his enemy, is only fit to be a cap- tain or commander at sea; for without good experience a man otherwise courageous may soon destroy himself and his company. The sea language is not soon learned, much less understood, be- ing only proper to him that has served his apprenticeship. Be- sides that, a boisterous sea and stormy weather will make a man, not bred on it so sick, that it bereaves him of legs, stomach, and courage, so much as to fight with his meat. And in such weather, when he hears the seamen cry starboard or port, or to bide aloof, or flat a sheet, or haul home a cluling, he thinks he hears a barbarous speech, which he conceives not the meaning of. Sup- pose the best and ablest-bred seaman should buckle on armor and mount a courageous great horse, and so undertake the leading of a troop of horse, he would no doubt be accounted very indiscreet and men would judge he could perform but very weak service: neither could his soldiers hope of good security, being under an ignorant captain, that knows not scarce how to rein his horse much less to take advantage for execution or retreat; and yet it is apparent to be far more easy to attain experience for land *Address delivered before the Naval War College. [Aug. 2 service than on the sea. The seaman's desire is to be commanded by those that understand their labor, laws and customs, thereby . expecting reward or punishment according to their deserts. The seamen are stubborn or perverse when they receive their com mand from the ignorant in the discipline of the sea, who cannot speak to them in their own language. That commander who is bred a seaman, and of approved government, by his skill in choice of his company, will save twenty to the hundred, and perform better service than le can possibly do that understands not Der- fectly how to direct the officers under him. "The best ships of war in the known world have been com- manded by captains bred seamen; and merchants put their whole confidence in the fidelity and ability of seamen to carry their Ships and goods through the hazard of pirates, men-of-war, and the danger of rocks and sands, be they of never so much value; which they would never do under the charge, of a gentleman, or an yn- experienced soldier for his valor only. The United Provinces whose safety and wealth depend chiefly upon their sea affairs and who: for some years past have had great employment, and enlarged their dominions much in remote places, use only their expert seamen to go captains and chief commanders in all their ships of war and trade. The Spaniards have more officers in their ships than we. They have a captain in their ship, a captain for their gunners, and as many captains as there are companies of soldiers, and above all, they have a commander in the nature of a colonel above the rest. This breeds a great confusion, and is many times the cause of mutinies among them. They brawl and fght commonly aboard their ships as if they were ashore. Notwith- standing the necessity they have of sailors, there is no nation less respectful of them than the Spaniards, which is the principal cause of their want of them; and till Spain alters this course, let them never think to be well served at sea. I have heard divers sufficient men, as merchants and others that lived in Spain, before the wars with Queen Elizabeth, very much cry down the king of Spain's ships in comparison of ours; as in particular that they were huge and mighty in burthen, weak and ill-fashioned in building, lame and slow in sailing, fitter for merchandise than war; and I remember that old seamen, as Sir John Hawkins and others, have maintained that one of her majesty's ships was able to beat four of them, I confess we may the rather believe it, because the event has showed it; for if we examine the particular loss on both sides, her majesty's ships have devoured divers of the king of Spain's; whereas there was but only one of hers taken, and that merely by the indiscretion of Capt. Sir Richard Greenville; for which one there have been burnt, sunk, and taken twice, as many as the queen has in number, insomuch that if the queen's loss had equalled the king of Spain's, she could hardly have maintained her navy in that flourishing state it is in. But if we should attribute these misfortunes to ships, which are made all of one fort of wood and iron, and after one manner of build- ing, it were great folly; but give Cesar his due, and allow the ships their due, for a ship is but an engine of force, used for offence or defence, and when you speak of the strength of ships you must speak of the sufficiency of men within her; and there- fore, in comparing the Spanish ships with ours I enter into the comparison of men; for if it were in my choice I rather desire a reasonable ship of the king of Spain manned with English- men than a very good ship of her majesty with Spaniards; so much account I make betwixt the one and the other." This tells the whole story of the failure of the Armada. Spain was not up to the times. Her men were not familiar with their ships, and they were pitted against seamen trained to handle well the materials placed in their hands. During the past fifty years history has seemed to repeat itself, and the same change has been taking place in the British navy. It has only recently cul- minated in a complete reorganization of the personnel to fit mod- ern conditions, involving precisely the same kind of a readjust- ment that took place three centuries before. Substitute modern equivalents in engineering for the corresponding technical words in Sir William Monson's paper, and we should have almost a modern essay on the cause of American triumph over Spain. Our change had begun earlier by the introduction of engineering at the naval academy, and in the elimination of subjects unnecessary, as belonging to the past, until we had practically an engineering school. Our ships had been gradually organized to promote the highest efficiency of engineering, so that when we met the Span- ish ships on which the officers seemed either to have a contempt for technical engineering matters or no understanding of them, we achieved exactly the same results that the English had ac- complished 300 years before. We found a navy not up to the times, and the result was inevitable from the first. FUNDAMENTAL NOTE MUST BE ENGINEERING. In the new organization of the English navy, which has moved very much along the lines begun in the American navy twenty-three years ago, we find.that every officer must enter the service upon the same terms and be prepared after seven years tO take a commission in the line, marine corps or the engineer corps. All must learn a large amount of engineering, therefore, before receiving a commission. In the personnel bill which passed congress we have gone further, and have required that all officers shall be engineers as well as deck officers. The fundamental note in both services must inevitably become engineering, as that 0 the past has been seamanship. Yet the latter word cannot be lost so long as men go to sea. : _ It may be useful here to. give the ordinarily accepted defini- tion of both words as a means of making clear their exact rela-