New-York tribune., 1920-05-16
Admiral Sims on Admiral Fiske
Need for Preparedness Emphasized in "The Art
of Fighting"

the honor to be the president. This
college was founded in 1885, Germany
England, France and Japan followed
some years later. The effort of these
war colleges is to direct the studies of
o'hcers to war itself, and especially to
the actual making of plans Of prepara-
ton and operation, so that everything
will be immediately ready for offensive
action the instant the next war
starts. At the present moment on!y a
small fraction of the officers of our
navy have had the advantage Of in
struction at the war college. This is
unfortunate, for had greater number
been able to take advantage Of it there
would have been less difference of
opinion manifested by navy officers in
their testimony before tho Senate ma
val investigating committee.
The Offensive Wins
Admiral Fiske's book gives brief
but clear and entertaining narrative of
the campaigns OF the great kings of
/ Egypt, and of the great commanders
who followed them. 1t shows that in
every case with the solitary exception
of Fabius, who had a special problem>
the fundamental reason for the success
OF each one was an extremely careful
and well-designed preparation, followed
by very energetic and daring offensive
action. In no case was mere careful
preparation not followed by offensive
action, and in no case was there ener-
cept after careful and we'll designed
preparation.
With certain details omitted, such as
names OF places and people, dates,
numbers engaged, etc, 1T would not be
great eXaggeration to say that every
campaign was like every other; that
the expedition Of Thothmes III, was
like any one of the later expeditions
Of Cesar, for instance, or the still later
expedition of Napoleon to Egypt.
And while we see similar careful
| preparation and energetic offensive ac-
ton on the part OF great commanders,
we see similar lack of careful prepara-
ton and energetic offensive action on
the part Of the people whom they over
came. The Persians who went down
before Alexander acted in much the
same way as the British who were de-
feated by Washington or the French
who were defeated by Won Moltke Even
on the sea we read similar narrative
for $hn ppro1'1lf
getic offensive action Of the Roman
fleets far from the shores Of Rome, in
the days of Carthage, was emulated
later by the British when their fleets
lay in wait outside the great French
ports to prevent the French squadrons
from uniting.
War Always a Possibility
1t is difficult in country such as
ours, with so many distracting inter-
| ests and amusements of all kinds, to
make the people realize that war is an
ever present possibility and to see that
1t IS not only foolish to shrink from
looking the fact in the face, but cow
ardly as we'll.
The evils of war cannot be minimized
by shrinking from them or ignoring
them any more than can the evils Of
smallpox and yellow fever. The first
step toward minimizing any evil is to
study it thoroughly and learn all that
there is to learn about it. To mini
mize the evils of war the first step is to
learn the elements of strategy, in order
to see what the evils are and how they
can best be avoided
Admiral Fiske's book enables every
one to do this in very short time, at
small expense, without much effort,
and as an agreeable mental exercise.