The Admiralty itself was also in direct contact with the event. It not only exercised administrative control over the Navy and over the whole of the preparations for strengthening and developing the Fleet; it not only determined the strategic distribution of our naval power in every theatre; but from its wireless masts or by cable it issued information often of a vital character to ships in many instances actually in contact with the enemy. It was the only place from which the supreme view of the naval scene could be obtained. It was the intelligence centre where all information was received, where alone it could be digested, and whence it was transmitted wherever required. It moved the fleets, squadrons and flotillas out of harbour when information pointed to enemy’s activities being probable. It specified the minimum forces which should be employed in any operation, while leaving the Commander-in-Chief free to add to them at his discretion. Apart from actual battle or the tactical conduct of particular operations, in which the Admiralty never interfered, it decided every important question arising out of the conduct of the naval war. Robed in the august authority of centuries of naval tradition and armed with the fullest knowledge available, the Board of Admiralty wielded unchallenged power.
As these conditions arose naturally and inevitably and will certainly be reproduced in one form or another should there be a future war, it is of high importance to pierce beneath the corporate responsibility of this organism and lay bare how the machine actually worked. In practice it resolved itself, and could only resolve itself, into the intimate comradeship and co-operation of the First Lord and the First Sea Lord, with the Chief of the Staff, not at this time a member of the Board, standing at their side. By the Letters Patent and Orders in Council constituting his office, the First Lord is responsible to Crown and Parliament for all the business of the Admiralty. In virtue of this he delegates to an eminent sailor the responsibility for its technical and professional conduct. But he cannot thus relieve himself either in theory or in fact. He is held strictly accountable for all that takes place; for every disaster he must bear the blame. The credit of victories rightly goes to the commanders who gain them; the burden of defeat or miscarriage must be shouldered by the Admiralty, and the censures of the nation fall primarily upon its Head.