Fear God and Dread Nought

Got some books for Christmas gifts. When people ask me what do you want for Christmas? I say books. That way I make sure to get books for gifts.

Mostly I get secondhand books. I collect used volumes of works by a few authors, mostly P.G. Wodehouse. I like Wodehouse because he writes about aunties and because the world he writes about never changes.

I like secondhand books because they're cheap, they're broke in, and you come across some real treasures. I've found first editions at jumbles and yard sales. I've got a 1907 first edition Not George Washington someone found for me at a used book store in Eau Claire WI and a 1930 first edition Very Good Jeeves from a Buhhdist rummage sale in Telluride.

Mostly I like secondhand books cause I'm a sucker for anachronisms. I'm curious about relics; I'm fascinated by vestigial objects and sentiments and survivals.

I also got a secondhand copy of Castles of Steel, a naval history of World War One with emphasis on North Sea campaigns of the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet of the Kriegsmarine.

I haven't finished the whole thing yet but its pretty interesting. It appeals to me because, in large part, its about the survival of anachronisms and the disastrous consequences of mistaking sentimental attachments for realistic adaptations.


In the period preceding the 1914-1918 War, the major naval powers (England, Germany, France) and the minor naval powers (USA, Italy, Japan, Russia), underwent a revolution in the theory of sea power. Unfortunately, for their strategic aims, they missed it even while they were engaged in it. Which is usually the case with revolutions.

Or, more precisely, they were confused about which revolution they were in. Developments in communication, locomotion, aviation, and submersible naval craft had opened all sorts of opportunities for what we now call asymmetric warfare; the use of unconventional means and tactics by a nominally weaker power to offset the conventional advantages of the nominally stronger power.

Initially, the great powers did not recognize this revolutionary development. Because so much national wealth had been poured into the construction of battleships and battle cruisers, innovations in technology and tactics were valued only insofar as they augmented the power of the big gun squadrons. Instead of thinking how can we beat the enemy, they were thinking, how can we protect our investment.

Which makes sense, of course, until revolutionary developments render your investments null and void.

In fact, the whole notion of protecting their investment paralyzed the operations of the German and English North Sea fleets. Churchill, on-again, off-again First Lord of the Admiralty said of Grand Fleet commander Jellicoe that he was the only man who could lose the war in an afternoon.

The Germans left no such masterful quotes but thought pretty much along the same lines. The purpose of the High Seas fleet was to hynotize the Grand Fleet. The purpose of the Grand Fleet was to cork up the High Seas Fleet. Preservation of each fleet rather than the destruction of the enemy was the highest priority of both navies.

Not that a lot of fencing didn't go on between the two fleets. Each sought to lure the other into a tactical disposition where the enemy could be attacked and defeated in detail a la Trafalgar.

The High Seas Fleet feinted and head-faked all over the place in an effort to draw light elements of the Grand Fleet within range of heavy units of the High Seas Fleet. The idea was to attrit the Grand Fleet divisions in preparation for a decisive fleet action.

The Grand Fleet launched shake-and-bake operations to seduce the High Seas Fleet into voyaging far out into the North Sea . The plan was to interpose themselves between the High Seas Fleet and its protected bases to force a decisive fleet action.

And that was their conceptual problem. Each commander sought an 18th century showdown with 20th century instruments, not understanding the very decision they desired had been made obsolete by innovations of the intervening years.

For example, the speed, firepower, and extent of the two fleets had increased in quantum terms over the fleets deployed by Nelson and Villeneuve but the means of communication and detection had not. Although radio communications were available to each commander, they distrusted wireless signals and, instead, relied on visual sightings by picket ships and hoists of signal flags, just as had been done at Trafalgar.

At the climactic moment of the Battle of Jutland, the English commander, sensing the destruction of the German Fleet was within his grasp, desired his ships to close with the enemy and finish them off. He ordered his Flag Lieutenant to raise Nelson's signal hoist 16, Engage the enemy more closely.

The Royal Navy had retired that hoist from its signal book. The Flag Lieutenant improvised something along the lines of give em hell lads which was then repeated by hoists across the hundred miles of the Grand Fleet's dispostion.

By the time it reached the last ship in line the signal had been obscured by smoke and spray and was corrupted in the way messages passed along in the telephone game are corrupted. Intervening captains each interpreted the signal according to their immediate situation. Concerted action was impossible and the High Seas Fleet made good its escape by charging right through the mass of the English fleet.

So what's the point? Where am I going with all this?

I'm not sure, to be honest. Its a commonplace, of course that generals always fight the last war. Admirals too, evidently.

There could be a lesson for the current political situation here, too. The GOP is determined to fight it out along the old lines of race and religion and gay baiting and red-baiting. Democratic voters want to capitalize on the social developments of the last twenty years. Certain relics are retained (hello Rick Warren) for the purpose of confounding the enemy but carry the risk of confounding friendly forces as well.

But I guess, really, what I want to say is that its amusing, even comforting, to hang on to the certainties and conventions of the past but there's also risks to that. I guess I'm thinking about it because the year is coming to an end.

I guess I'm telling it to you because I'm trying to tell it to myself.