The Burden of Trafalgar

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This paper is written as part of a book-length study, currently in progress, of the origins and development of naval offensive thinking during the five decades or so leading up to the First World War. Its particular focus is the idea of the "decisive battle," i.e., the belief that dominated naval thinking in the Victorian and Edwardian periods that the goals of war at sea could...(展開全部) This paper is written as part of a book-length study, currently in progress, of the origins and development of naval offensive thinking during the five decades or so leading up to the First World War. Its particular focus is the idea of the "decisive battle," i.e., the belief that dominated naval thinking in the Victorian and Edwardian periods that the goals of war at sea could, would, and ought to be settled by a single, all-destructive clash between massed battle fleets. The Great War would demonstrate, of course, that "real" war was a far cry from the "ideal" that had been promoted by the "pens behind the fleet." When the "second Trafalgar" failed to take place, apologists were quick to propose that this was only to be expected and that the "uneducated hopes" were disappointed because they had failed to grasp the distinction between what modem students of strategy call declaratory and action war planning. The implication was that the professional naval strategist did know the difference and had prepared all along to enjoy, as Churchill put it after the Battle of Jutland, "all the fruits of victory" without the need for the British to seek the battle at all. The distinction between declaratory and action policy, i.e., between what one says will be done and what is planned in fact, may be an obvious one in principle; in practice it is not, not even for the professional military planner. An important reason is that only declaratory strategy receives public exposure at home and abroad, and only it is read, discussed, absorbed, and liable to be acted upon. Declarator

The Burden of Trafalgar

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