Now, these war plans could not, of course, be of such a kind that they would foresee every contingency and prescribe the conduct to be followed, so that a commander in the field could turn to page 221 of volume 755, and get directions as to what he ought to do; nor could they furnish the chief of staff, Von Moltke, with printed recommendations which he should offer to the King.  In other words, the war plans could be only plans and, like all plans for future action, could be only tentative, and capable of being modified by events as they should come to pass.  They were only plans of preparation, not plans of operation.

Yet there were plans of preparation for operations; plans prepared in accordance with the principles of strategy, and based on information as to the enemy’s resources, skill, point of view, and probable intentions.  They formed the general guide for future operations.

Since 1870, the invention and practical development of the wireless telegraph, and especially its development for use over very great distances, has modified the relations of commanders on the spot to home headquarters, and especially of naval commanders to their navy departments.  The wireless telegraph, under circumstances in which it operates successfully, annihilates distance so far as communication is concerned, though it does not annihilate distance so far as transportation is concerned.  It improves the sending and receiving of news and instructions, both for the commander at sea and for his department at home; but it does it more effectively for the department than for the man at sea, because of the superior facilities for large and numerous apparatus that shore stations have, and their greater freedom from interruptions of all kinds.

This condition tends to place the strategical handling of all the naval machine, including the active fleet itself, more in the hands of the department or admiralty, and less in the hands of the commander-in-chief:  and this tendency is confirmed by the superior means for discussion and reflection, and for trial by war games, that exist in admiralties, compared with those that exist in ships.

The general result is to limit the commander-in-chief more and more in strategical matters:  to confine his work more and more to tactics.

Such a condition seems reasonable in many ways.  The government decides on a policy, and tells the Navy Department to carry it out, employing the executive offices and bureaus to that end, under the guidance of strategy.  Strategy devotes itself during peace to designing and preparing the naval machine, and in war to operating it, utilizing both in war and peace the bureaus and offices and the fleet itself.  And in the same way as that in which the bureaus and offices perform the calculations and executive functions of logistics, for furnishing the necessary material of all kinds, the fleet performs those of tactics.  From this point of view, strategy plans and guides all the acts of navies, delegating one part of the practical work needed to carry out those plans to logistics, and the other part to tactics.