Mr. Churchill became First Lord in circumstances which were very unexpected, and his first public announcement raised hope to the highest point. For, over the date of New Year’s Day, 1912, there was published by the First Lord a Memorandum which contained a passage on which every optimist fastened. This document defined the root need of naval force with masterly precision. Coming so soon, expressed with such clarity and conviction, it seemed to be not so much a collection of eloquent and thoughtful sentences logically compacted, but a profession of intentions that must definitely turn the current of naval life into the only channel that could assure right progress. Mr. Churchill, in short, had quite evidently grasped the fundamental truth that the whole structure of naval war was based upon the mastery of weapons and, as evidently, intended the pursuit of this mastery to be the watchword of his administration. His actual words were as follows:
“Unit efficiency--that is to say, the individual fighting power of each vessel--is in the sea service for considerable periods entirely independent of all external arrangements and unit efficiency at sea, far more so than on land, is the prime and final factor _without which the combinations of strategy and tactics_ are only the _preliminaries of defeat_, but with which even faulty dispositions can be swiftly and decisively retrieved.”
At last, then, the man and the moment had come together. To the new First Lord had been given the vision that the moment called for. At last, the consistent, concerted, co-ordinated effort would be made which, proceeding by investigation, analysis, reason, and experiment, would lead us to the root truths of one weapon after another. When the conditions of action were analyzed and the problems they propounded isolated, a measure of our capacity to deal with them would be afforded, and not only would the points of our incapacity be made clear, but the reasons for that incapacity and the character of the measures needed for the remedy would be automatically shown by the analysis. For the first condition for solving any problem is its accurate, scientific, and exhaustive statement. And, if the statement is sufficiently full, it almost carries the solution with it. Let the problems of the gun, torpedo, mine, and submarine once be set out in full, and the principles on which we should proceed to get the utmost out of them in attack, and the utmost against similar efforts by the enemy in defence, would become very clear indeed. In short, when all available knowledge was put before those capable of appreciating it, weighing it, and drawing from it right deductions, progress in a right direction would be assured because, for the first time, it would be established on a scientific foundation.