Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: The Education of a Navy
| Date | 01 September 1966 |
| Published date | 01 September 1966 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206602100318 |
| Author | Robin Higham |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
381
ample
of
analysis and
comment
of
the
highest
order.
It
would
be
helpful
if
Professor
Verzijl
and
his
publishers
could
be
persuaded
to
issue
supplements
every
two
or
three
years
to keep
this
valuable work
as
up
to
date
as
it
is.
University
of
Alberta, Edmonton
L.
C.
GREEN
Military
and
Scientific
Affairs
THE
EDUCATION
OF
A
NAVY.
The
Development
of
British Naval
Strategic
Thought,
1867-1914.
By
D.
M.
Schurman.
1965.
(London:
Cassell.
Toronto: Longmans.
213pp.
$6.75)
The
sub-title
of
this
much-needed
work
is
The
Development
of
British
Naval
Strategic
Thought,
1867-1914.
Here
we
have
presented
the
notable British
naval historical
and
intellectual
writers
of
the
late
Victorian age. There
are
the brothers Captain
Sir
John
and
Vice-
Admiral
Philip
Colomb,
the
American
Admiral
Alfred
Thayer
Mahan,
Sir
John
Laughton,
Vice-Admiral
Sir Herbert
Richmond,
and
lastly
Sir
Julian
Corbett.
As
the
Associate
Professor
of
Naval
History
at
the
Royal
Military
College,
Kingston, ably
shows,
these
were
a
mixed
bag
with
various backgrounds
and
successes.
Their
problems
were
that
they wrote
in
an
age
of
transition.
For
during this
period
not
only
was
the
Royal
Navy passing
from
sail
to
steam,
from
vessels of
nearly
unlimited
range
to
those
with
a
sharp
dependency upon coaling
stations,
but
also
through
a revolutionary
age
in
terms
of
the
invention
of
the
internal
combustion
engine,
aeroplanes,
wireless, submarines, and
effec-
tive automotive
torpedos.
At
the
same
time
the
Royal
Navy
had
the
misfortune
to
spend
a
great
deal
of
time in
social,
diplomatic
cruising,
and
virtually
none
in
action.
Thus
there
were
no
wars
which seemed
to supply
applicable lessons,
at
least
so
far
as
the regular
officer
was
concerned.
And
if
any
military
service
has
been
anti-intellectual,
it
has
been
the
Navy
Thus
the
materalists
got
the
upper hand
and
held
it
till
after
they had
defeated
Richmond
and
caused
his
retirement
from
the
service
without
an
appointment
as
First
Sea
Lord.
Schurman's
book
joins
Luvaas's
Education
of
an Army
(1964)
in
providing
studies
of
British
military
scholarship
which
have
for
too
long
been
lacking.
Of
the
men studied,
this
reviewer
is
most
familiar
with
Richmond's
work
in
the
inter-war
years
and reaches
somewhat
different
conclusions,
but
this
is
because
he
has
studied
him
not
as
an
historian
but
as
a
strategist
in
his
own
times.
Because
Schurman
stops
at
1914,
he
does
not
deal
in
depth
with
Richmond's
most
highly
regarded
work,
Statesmen
and
Sea
Power
(1946),
written
when
Sir
Herbert
was
seventy-five.
Nevertheless,
it
must
be
said
that
for
all
their
study
Rich-
mond
and
his
colleagues,
perhaps
misled by
Mahan,
failed
to
see
the
importance
of
convoy
to
British
maritime
strategy
and
strength.
And,
despite
the
lessons
of
the
First
World
War,
Richmond
still
failed
to
see
this
in
the inter-war years,
when
he
deluded
the
Admiralty
in
1939
into
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