Royal Naval Reserve

“ The Russian naval reserve force is somewhat similarly derived, but contains a greater proportion of untrained men unfamiliar with nautical life. The British naval reserve force is made up of the Royal naval reserve, the Royal fleet reserve and pensioners. The United States has no national naval reserve force, but has what is called a Naval Militia, which in a way answers the same purpose. There have been frequent efforts to secure the necessary legislation for the establishment of a regular naval reserve, and the Naval Militia is the chief result of these efforts. ”

“ It is not peaceful work, either, in these days of promiscuous mine-laying and enemy submarines armed with guns and torpedoes ready to sink without warning.
The important work of the yachts, pleasure steamers, trawlers, and drifters used for mine-sweeping, patrol work, and other naval purposes need not be entered into here; but the Mercantile Marine proper, what, for want of a better term, we may call "the deep sea service," has supplied the Royal Navy with many thousands of splendid officers and men who are now serving their country in fighting ships as members of the Royal Naval Reserve. ”

“ Naval defence in any case remained primarily a question for the Imperial navy, and by agreement (1903, for ten years) between the British government and the governments of the Commonwealth (contributing an annual subsidy of £200,000) and of New Zealand (£40,000) , an efficient fleet patrolled the Australasian waters, Sydney, its headquarters, being ranked as a first-class naval station. Under the agreement a royal naval reserve was maintained, three of the Imperial vessels provided being utilized as drill ships for crews recruited from the Australian states. ”

“ Perhaps it is not to be expected that we shore-dwellers should have more than a languid appreciation of hardships and labours indescribable and should read tales of the [32] sea rather for pleasure than edification, but if ever a people had masters in the school of nobility we are fortunate in our teachers of to-day. Already over 3,000 men and officers of the Royal Naval Reserve have fallen in their country's service, and of Merchant Sailors pursuing their ordinary calling not fewer. ”

“ Here, ready to hand, were some hundreds of thousands of persons using the sea, or following vocations merging into the sea in the capacity of colliers, bargemen, boatmen, longshoremen, fishermen and deep-sea sailors or merchantmen, who constituted the natural Naval Reserve of an Island Kingdom—a reserve ample, if judiciously drawn upon, to meet, and more than meet, the Navy's every need. ”

“ Naval Reserve. In all the more important countries, in addition to the regular naval forces serving continuously with the fleet, there are others who are drilled and instructed in order to be able to supplement the regular naval forces in time of war. In times of peace these men are largely employed in the merchant marine, yachts, auxiliary government service, or are pensioners. ”

“ Perhaps the first of the flashes as of lightning by which we have seen the drama of the past 365 days is that which shows us the part played by the British Navy. What a part it has been! Do we even yet recognize its importance? Have our faithful and loyal Allies a full sense of its tremendous effect on the fortunes of the campaign? On Sunday, August 2, two days before the dispatch of Great Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, we saw thousands of our naval reserve flying off by special boats and trains to their ships on our east and south coasts. ”

“ In order to man in time of war these vessels in reserve, and insure a sufficient personnel in the active fleet, a "naval reserve" is organized in each country, composed of officers and men who have had experience in the regular navy. They are compelled to undergo a specific amount of training each year, to keep themselves in readiness at all times to answer the call for active service on short notice, and to maintain such communication with the government as will make it easy to locate any man at any moment. ”

“ To protect her commercial stations and her merchant ships from unfair dealings in time of peace, and from capture in time of war, and to threaten all rivals with defeat should they resort to war, Great Britain has built up the greatest navy in the world. And as this navy pervades the world, and as her merchant ships dot every sea and display Great Britain's ensign in every port, Great Britain has not failed to provide for their safety and support a series of naval stations that belt the globe. ”

“ But while it takes all sorts to make the world, and very many different sorts to make and keep our British Empire of the Free, it is quite as true to say that all our other sorts together could not have made, and cannot keep, our Empire, unless the Royal Navy had kept, and keeps today, true watch and ward over all the British highways of the sea. ”

“ British sea-power has always been on the side of freedom; and every time a tyrant has tried to fight his way to world-dominion the Royal Navy has been the backbone of all the forces that have laid him low. ”

“ In the sixteenth century there was no hard-and-fast distinction between naval and all other craft. The sovereign had his own fighting vessels; and in the course of the seventeenth century these gradually evolved into a Royal Navy maintained entirely by the country as a whole and devoted solely to the national defence. But in earlier days this modern system was difficult everywhere and impossible in England. The English monarch, for all his power, had no means of keeping up a great army and navy without the help of Parliament and the general consent of the people. ”

“ It is the unrivalled advantage of their position. They lie between the Old World and the New, with free access to the great ocean, surrounded by seas, which, though stormy, are not unmanageable. Their coasts are never blocked by ice. No long intervals of calm varied by mere puffs of wind reduce sailing ships to immobility, and limit their size by imposing on them the necessity of relying on the oar. Steam has freed maritime war and commerce from dependence on the wind, but the naval power of England was created during the ages of the sailing ship. ”

“ From the merchant marine the personnel of the navy in war must come, and it is a fallacy to believe that by a small addition to our ordinary naval resources we would be able to cope with the navies of other maritime powers, or that in a long war an efficient and numerous reserve is not of greater importance than a few more seamen permanently maintained in the navy during peace. ”

“ Our naval officers have never made any determined effort to create a reserve, either because they have not fully grasped the correlation and interdependence of the navy and the merchant marine, or because they have doubted the wisdom of spending upon an outside issue appropriations which, given to the navy, would produce a more immediate and tangible result. ”

“ The Naval Militia forces are State organizations, and are trained for coast service, and in event of war they will constitute the inner line of defence. [584] They should receive hearty encouragement from the General Government.
But in addition we should at once provide for a National Naval Reserve, organized and trained under the direction of the Navy Department, and subject to the call of the Chief Executive whenever war becomes imminent. It should be a real auxiliary to the naval seagoing peace establishment, and offer material to be drawn on at once for manning our ships in time of war. ”

“ In the Royal Navy, especially, the instances of living worth are hardly less numerous than of those gone by. How many are there, upon whom the approbation of the nation has been bestowed, and to whom Great Britain looks with as much expectation against the hour of her need for future services, as she regards them with gratitude for their past! ”

“ Inasmuch as the war is world-wide, and we have powerful Allies, we should have expected naval influence and pressure to be manifested in the oceans, in the Mediterranean, and, indeed, wherever the enemy is and the seas are. Finally, we should have expected the Navy to be to the British Empire what it has always been to the Empire’s heart—its safeguard from injury and disruption, and the bond that holds it together. ”

“ Fleet Naval Reserve, made up of those who had received naval training and had volunteered for four years. Naval Auxiliary Reserve, made up of seafaring men who had had experience on merchant ships. Naval Coast Defense Reserve, made up of citizens of the United States whose technical and practical education made them fitted for navy-yard work, patrol, and the like. Volunteer Naval Reserve, made up of men who had volunteered, bringing into service their own boats. ”

“ The Sovereign of the Seas had a distinguished career. When cut down a deck she proved to be an exceptionally serviceable unit, taking part in all the great actions of the Dutch wars and crowning her work at La Hogue, where she engaged, crippled, and forced to fly for shallow water the great Soleil Royal, 104, the French flagship. At length, when laid up at Chatham in 1696 in order to be rebuilt, she was set on fire by negligence and destroyed. ”

“ The Navy has an authorized complement of 104 officers and 812 men, a large majority serving under 7 year enlistments. In addition certain specialists are loaned from the British Royal Navy. The Reserve consists of from 70 to 113 officers and from 430 to 1026 men recruited from sea-faring personnel. ”

“ Now that the last and most formidable of our enemies has acknowledged the triumph of the Allied arms on behalf of right and justice, I wish to express my praise and thankfulness to the officers, men, and women of the Royal Navy and Marines, with their comrades of the Fleet Auxiliaries and the Mercantile Marine, who, for more than four years have kept open the seas, protected our shores, and given us safety. ”

“ It is seldom that we find it acting alone, and never when a great display of power was required. Yet the Royal Navy was the steel of the lance, the model of discipline and warlike efficiency. The city of London, or so great a subject as the Earl of Cumberland, might show a few ships not inferior to the queen's, but that was quite the exception. ”

“ Nothing, then, remains as a certainty but to turn towards the naval reserve as the best means of manning our fleet. In time of war not only would the men enrolled come forward willingly and be immediately available, but deserters would have the machinery of the law put in motion for their apprehension, and popular feeling would be as earnest in support of their arrest as it would be opposed to all attempts which enforced the arbitrary powers of draft or impressment.
No system exists abroad entirely suited to our necessities and our national instincts ”

“ King Henry VIII, in his efforts to possess fighting ships superior to those of Spain, France and Scotland, raised not only artillery but ships themselves to a different rôle. As he personally urged the manufacture of ordnance in this country by the subsidizing of foreign talent, so he sought to improve the design of his ships by inviting Italian shipwrights to come to England and apply their knowledge to the royal vessels. Dockyards were founded at Woolwich, Deptford, and Portsmouth. ”

“ The multiplication of smaller craft would have been a far less effective means for achieving the desired end. The Royal Navy, a creation of the century, was not supposed to constitute the naval defences of the country. It occupied a position among the marine fighting force analogous to that of our white troops in India to-day; who form only one-third of the army there while reckoned and intended to be its mainstay. ”

“ The British navy, having very diversified services to perform during both peace and war, requires ships of various kinds and sizes. Its first and greatest requirement of all is that of line-of-battle ships in sufficient numbers to enable England to stand up successfully against any European naval force or forces that may threaten her or her empire. ”

“ Since that time Great Britain's naval defense, committed to her navy, has increased steadily in effectiveness and power, keeping pace with the increase in the national interests it defended, and utilizing all the growing resources of wealth and science which the world afforded. Until the present crisis, Great Britain's naval defense did its most important work during Napoleon's time, when Great Britain's standing, like the standing of every other European nation, was subjected to a strain that it could hardly bear. ”

“ Thus thousands of young men who had enlisted for coast-patrol duty, were sent aboard transports, submarine-chasers, and war-ships generally, for service in the European war zones.
And with this constant outflow of trained men from the various naval training-stations of the country, the influx of newly enlisted reserves into these schools gives assurance that the Navy Department will never be embarrassed for lack of material wherewith to man its boats. ”

“ I must not be thought, however, to admit, for one single instant, that our navy should give us no anxiety. As long as France remains at peace, and spends upon her navy such enormous sums as she has been spending during the last few years, she will be sufficiently near to us in naval power to make our position somewhat doubtful; make it depend, that is, upon how the different new inventions may turn out in time of war. ”

“ As the British Parliament is the mother of all popular representative institutions, so the British Navy is the mother of navies. If the records of most [Pg 83] of the great fleets of the world are searched, it will be found that in greater or less degree they owe their birth to the more or less direct assistance of British naval officers, oft times acting with the direct authority of the British Admiralty; while in almost every fleet in the world even to-day may be found ships designed by British brains and constructed of British material by the skilled craftsmen of these islands. ”